#but the need to ao3 label them is just…. so dumb….

[mrsbarnesblog]

I feel like when reader gets fed up with Rafe not making a move, she tries to go on a date with someone else and it makes him realize that he has to act if doesn’t want to be left with just “baby daddy” label. loved your story

masterlist ko-fi ao3

requests are open

summary: when you have a baby with your ex-friend with benefits, he realizes that he has to talk about your feelings if doesn't want to lose you (can be read as a standalone, but is part two of this fic)

word count: 1.1k.

warnings: ex fwb, baby daddy Rafe, he's really soft and cutesy (i can't help myself, sorry)

Raising a baby with you felt easy. It felt safe and stable because it seeming like you worked perfectly together, never having serious fights and always easily understanding each other. Rafe adored both of you and he was happier than he ever was, even if he was constantly tired from sleepless nights. 

Every time Rafe looked at you holding your daughter, smiling and particularly shining in your post-pregnancy bliss, he felt his heart flattering. You were his. The mother of his daughter, his friend, his family, his girl. 

Then, when you unexpectedly mentioned to him that someone had asked you out, things went south. 

You both hated every second of what was likely your first serious argument, but you were unable to contain your emotions when the situation deeply hurt both of you. 

“I don’t know what you want from me, Rafe! I don’t know what you expect from me when the only thing that I know for certain is that I am the mother of your child!” You screamed at him, blinking away your tears. 

“Don’t say that. You know what I want from you, and I can’t let you go out on dates with some random dudes, Y/N. Like, you have to be joking. We just had a baby, for fuck’s sake!” His hands flew to his hair as he started walking back and forth in the middle of his living room. 

“As far as I’m aware, I’m single, Rafe.” You said it bitterly, bringing your legs closer to your chest and wrapping your hands around them. You wanted to hide because it felt to heavy to be talking about it, especially when you never desired anything more than to be appreciated and loved by the man in front of you.

“So this means nothing to you?” 

“It was not what I said.”

“You said you’re single.” 

“Am I not?” You whispered. “You were horny and had a baby with me. Just admit it.” 

You were looking at each other with emotions and unsaid feelings on the tips of your tongues. It hurt you to say it; it hurt you to realize how easy it was to end everything here and face the reality that you were no one to each other. Tears flooded your vision and you looked down, defeated. 

“I’m sorry.” Rafe whispered back, as the panic started to settle in him. “I’m so so sorry, Y/N. It has never been my intention to make you feel this way, but I promise that you’re much more for me.” He came closer to you, kneeling in front of your shivering body. “Even if it was casual sex at that time, I would've never signed up for a baby with someone who I felt nothing for.” 

His hands reached for your legs, setting them down on the floor and instead moving closer to you. Rafe touched your face, making you look at him through wet eyelashes and you noticed a longing, almost pleading, look in his eyes. 

“I love you. I love you and our little girl, and I don’t want to live like this anymore. I want you. I need you because you’re my best girl—the prettiest, sexiest, most brilliant woman I’ve ever met. I was too dumb to not do it earlier, but I want to have it all with you. I want you both here all the time, with me. You are my family. ”

He left you completely speechless, making you sob harder and lean into his chest, leaving wet stains all over his shirt. You didn't know how you could live in denial for that long, but you realized how desperately you craved to hear these words. How desperately you tried to convince yourself to stick with what you had when the only thing you ever wanted was him.

“Sh-h, baby…” He soothed your hair, holding you closer and allowing you to let go of your emotions. Rafe hated how oblivious he was to your feeling this whole time. Seeing you break down hurt him more than he could imagine and he knew he would do anything to never see that look in your eyes again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, mama. I love you.”

“I l-love you t-too.” You hiccuped, leaning back and wiping your face. Rafe’s eyes stayed on yours when he slowly traced with his thumb your slightly swollen bottom lip and then moved closer. 

He kissed you slowly, passionately, gently biting your lip, as if he were claiming you again and you felt that familiar sparkle in your body that appeared whenever he was touching you so gently. You brought your hands to his shoulders to feel his body closer to yours and he obliged, slightly hovering over you.

Soft crying from the bassinet interrupted you, and before you could even begin to worry about your daughter, Rafe had already pulled away, but not before giving you that promising look and moving in her direction. 

“Hi, pretty girl.” He cooed, taking her in his arms and lifting her up in the air. She looked so tiny compared to him and you felt another wave of tears coming in. “Sh-h, it’s okay. Are you hungry or did you just want someone to hold you, hm?” Rafe placed her on the crock of his arm and started swaying from side to side. Her cries slowly calmed down, as she was looking up at him with big blue eyes. “That’s what I thought.”

“You’re so natural with her, i’m kind of jealous.” You laughed, wiping the leftovers of your tears. Rafe smiled back at you and sat down near you on the couch, wrapping his free hand around your shoulders to bring you closer. 

“Not as good as you. You’re an amazing mom. We love mommy so much, right, princess?” He tickled your daughter's belly and she giggled, looking between both of you happily. “I meant it when I said it, Y/N. I want you to move in. I want to have you both with me 24/7, because I cannot do it like this anymore.” Rafe almost begged, turning his head in your direction. Your eyes searched for his and the look that you saw there made your heart flutter. 

The thing about Rafe was that he was bad at expressing his feelings, but his eyes always showed you what you wanted to know. And now, when there was nothing but pure love and admiration, you knew that it was true. 

“Okay. I want it too.” You smiled, peacefully resting your head against Rafe’s shoulder, as the worry inside of you finally calmed down.

[5ummit]

So there's this post with a troubling number of notes going around insisting that "dead dove" is not a genre, it doesn't inherently have anything to do with darkfic, and that the tag could be applied to fics that are "100% fluffy where everyone's having a good time" if they happen to contain some abnormal (though entirely non-problematic) content like an unusual kink. The claim is that "dead dove: do not eat" is simply a "courtesy tag" that means "this is a very specific niche, mind the tags." And that's just... wrong.

I wrote up a whole rebuttal to this post since I can't stand misinformation and frankly OP was being kinda rude and judgey on top of their wrongness. But right after I posted my reply, OP turned off reblogs because, and I quote, “some fuckwad added some dumb shit onto this post and it is no longer educational” (the “fuckwad” being me and the “dumb shit” being proof that they were wrong). A couple people have asked me to make a rebloggable version of my response, which I've decided to do because this isn't the first time I've heard similar claims and I want to help set the record straight. However, I'm not linking the original post on the off chance this gains traction because OP did the right thing by turning off reblogs, preventing it from circulating further, and I don't want them to get hate for being unfortunately misinformed.

For those who don't know the history, "dead dove: do not eat" was originally proposed as a catchall "hydra trash party" alternative label for any fandom to warn that the content of a fic may be considered problematic or potentially upsetting and to read the tags carefully so you know what you're getting into and won't complain later. Specifically, DD:DNE was intended to convey that the Bad Things in the fic would likely be reveled in and not explicitly condemned by the narrative, which some people tend to get up in arms about, hence the need for the extra warning in addition to the tags. Don't believe me? Here's the original proposal (note DD:DNE can be found on a handful of fics dated before 2015 but this is when it really took off and became a Thing).

There are currently around 50,000 fics tagged as "dead dove: do not eat" on AO3 and close to 50% of those also include the rape/noncon warning (which of course is not the only type of "dead dove" but is one of the most popular and most consistently tagged). The normal percentage of noncon fics in any given fandom? Around 1-3%. That's a HUGE disparity. So don't tell me that dead dove is just a general "courtesy tag" and doesn't or shouldn't have dark connotations. Even the context of the original joke on Arrested Development has a dark undertone. Micheal Bluth casually finds an animal carcass in a bag in his refrigerator with the label "do not eat", as if eating it would be any sane person's first thought. The whole situation is kinda fucked up. And this fucked up vibe very much carries over into fandom usage too, as was intended.

The claim that dead dove has nothing to do with the content's genre and could just as easily be used to describe a 100% fluffy fic in which everyone's having a good time is straight up Wrong, or at the very least, severely warping the original meaning. Also, when someone these days says that they like/dislike "dead dove" most people in fandom automatically understand what that means because of the consistency of its usage over the years and the way language evolves. Whether you like it or not, "dead dove" IS a genre now and the term does carry a specific connotation. I do agree that DD:DNE should definitely still be used in conjunction with other tags, when applicable, to be explicit about the exact type of fucked up content you may find, but to say that the term is meaningless on its own is patently false and I'm tired of people who don't know what they're talking about pushing this narrative and causing even more confusion.

You want a generic term that also means "mind the tags" and doesn't have any inherently dark connotations? Just use good ol' "what it says on the tin" instead of trying to force dead dove to be something it's not.

[starwrighter]

Dude, get a restraining order

(Masterpost) (Ao3 link) (Previous) (Next)

(As promised Damian falls in love at first sight!)

Minutes ticked by like hours as his English teacher droned on about topics he’d learned years ago. Surface-level information dumbed down to its simplest form. Todd had already given him the assigned book years ago. A classic written sometime in the 1950s. He’d claimed it’d be a book he could relate to. He’d quizzed himself, writing an essay to prove he actually read it when Todd came around again. 

He guessed that’s why when the discussions of symbolism and deeper meanings started, his interest plummeted. He focused on a worksheet, only half listening as the teacher read aloud. Vocabulary and its context, all of it so dull. painfully easy, but still father wouldn’t allow him to skip grades, nor would the school. Something about him having “Poor social skills,”

Tch, lies and slander. It wasn’t his fault his classmates were too cowardly to speak to him face to face. They’d been the ones to label him as intimidating and cold. If not being a spineless pushover made him intolerable, then he didn't want to be friendly. He wouldn’t allow himself to be taken advantage of, and he sure as hell wouldn’t let anyone talk down to him without facing the consequences. 

He didn't need to be social with these hooligans. A waste of time! Plus, he’s certain everyone in class already held a certain distaste for him. It’d be better if he was homeschooled, but father said he needed to be seen by the public so the media wouldn't talk. Journalists and tabloid writers were like vultures they'd squawk regardless if he was in school or not. Father hadn't seen his argument valid so he was stuck with yet another year of this dull nonsense.

A new transfer student from a small town in Illinois should be here today. An outsider spending a whole seven months in Gotham, it should be equal parts entertaining as it’d be inconvenient. The backlash that’d hit them if they let said transfer student die within city borders would be tremendous. He could only hope this Daniel Fenton wasn’t just late and instead backed out like any sensible person would.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case as the teacher stepped outside, coming back with a smile of faux sweetness on their face, waving her hand, signaling someone inside.

A boy with eyes blue like sapphire stones stepped into the classroom. His shoulders lax but the way he fidgeted in place screamed he’d rather be anywhere but here. His features were soft, electrical scaring running down the left side of his face, creeping down the boy’s chin and neck. Hair pitch black with short splotches of white-ish gray framed his face. A small silver necklace shaped like Saturn hung from his neck, a clear dress code violation, but clearly, he hadn’t been accosted for it yet. Their teacher encouraged him to introduce himself.

“Hi, My name’s Danny and I hope I don’t die here,” Daniel joked, his posture jovial despite the morbidity of his words.

“Though, I wouldn’t be shocked if I did,” He finished, earning a quiet chuckle from those who could see the boy’s scars. 

Daniel glanced around the front row, eyes landing on the empty spot beside him. Daniel quickly took this spot without hesitation, ignoring the multiple students who waved him over with a simple gesture to the left side of his face.

With a closer view of Daniel's left eye, he could see the slight milky discoloration of the pupil and iris. He's likely blind in that eye, but the circumstances of him being born with the impairment are unlikely, judging by the damage around his eye socket. It had healed well for what he could only infer was a grievous injury. The scar tissue looked fresh, no older than a year or so, signaling this partial blindness was relatively new.

He seemed relieved that the teacher was reading out loud like nobody had offered him any sort of accommodation for his disability. Considering Daniel came from a small town in Illinois, he doubted any school accommodations were made for him besides maybe a week or so off school when he was recovering. Gotham wasn’t much better, but Father poured a decent amount into the city’s healthcare and educational systems. 

“Tuck your necklace under your shirt,” He whispered to his new seatmate when the teacher turned her back. “It breaks the dress code, you’ll never get it back if a teacher spots it,” A warning deadly serious, a bit stern for something as frivolous as a piece of jewelry, but Daniel looked as if that simple warning had saved his life. Daniel shoved the necklace under his dress shirt with alarming speed, tucking the thin, bronze chain beneath his collar, making the boy’s neck look deceptively bare. 

They both continued their work in silence, mutual respect between the two of them to stay out of each other’s way. When Daniel’s pencil lead broke, Damian offered him a sharpener. When their teacher called on him despite his hand being down, Danny answered instead, giddy that “he” was called on. Giving the English teacher the easy choice of admitting she was targeting students or playing the part of a welcoming teacher eager to have the half-blind kid engage with her class.

Daniel did it on purpose too, that was sure. He made class time more bearable that was certain as well. The way his seatmate engaged the subject in an intelligent manner despite frequent mutters of English not “being his subject,” was admirable.

When brought into discussion, Daniel meshed with his new peers relatively quickly, quick to snap in with a clever quip when the opportunity arose. He was by no means a social butterfly but fell into the rhythm of a conversation with practiced ease. 

Often, when not writing he fidgeted, picking at black and white polish on his nails or twirling a pencil between two fingers. He’d rest his face on his palm and pursed his lips when confused. Though his mannerisms were somewhat awkward, some might call them cute.

It wasn‘t long until class was over, the bell calling all the students to coagulate by the door, slowly filing into the hallway. All except him and Daniel, who stared at a schedule and a map with furrowed brows. They shared their next class too, an idea that filled him with an odd giddiness.

Damian pulled a copy of his own schedule from his bag, tapping Daniels's shoulder and showing him their matching second-hour classes.

“It would be easier if we went together,” 

Daniel smiled, canines sharpened to a point. His heart boomed in his chest, a strange but…Pleasant experience. It was too early to tell, but he thinks he’ll enjoy having Daniel here for the next seven months.

[not-poignant]

Daily excerpt from today's writing, chapter 5 of Constellations (the first chapter launches on AO3 tomorrow!!! - Sunday that is):

Kadek hosted play parties for kink about twice a month these days. He wasn’t slowing down at all now that he was fifty. If anything, he was becoming more immersed, taking it more seriously, and he had something like regular relationships with about five different people now. When Efnisien had brought the word “queerplatonic” almost eight years ago to Kadek to ask him what he thought about it, Kadek had rejected it, and then only twenty-four hours later semi-joked he was in some kind of queerplatonic thruople with Efnisien and Arden and that maybe he wanted to talk to them about it. ‘It’s just a dumb fucking word,’ Kadek exclaimed the next night. ‘What does it even mean?’ ‘Platonic but more-than-platonic,’ Arden said, and Efnisien nodded. ‘Not helpful, babes,’ Kadek said. ‘Nah, you know it is though,’ Arden said. ‘Come on. The thing we all have, you know it’s something.’ ‘I mean…’ Kadek’s expression creased. That had been during a time when Kadek was still firmly off the idea of any relationships at all. And Efnisien had stepped in, not liking the distress he was seeing. ‘It doesn’t change anything,’ Efnisien said, ‘and you don’t have to accept it, and if you don’t, I’ll never bring it up again. I think it’s a good word for describing what we are now to each other – not romantic, really queer, and more than just friends – but I know you don’t love labels, so…you don’t need to have one. It can just be this.’ Kadek looked between them, and his hands did something where they rested on his knees. ‘Yo,’ Kadek said to Arden. ‘What do you think?’ ‘I think it’s a pretty good term for the level of chosen-family-with-kink we’ve got going. I mean come in, Kadek, I know you tie up a lot of your friends, but you’re not having them over for dinner as often as we come over.’ ‘Yeah, but you’re like my brother,’ Kadek said. But then he looked at Efnisien and leaned back heavily in the chair. ‘But you sure are something.’

[emwritesstuff]

DYNAMO | Steve Rogers x Reader | part 5.

HYDRA has made their share of human experiments. You're just one of them. One of the least successful ones. One of the least functional ones. At least your life in the facility gave you a few things: unwavering resilience, cool(ish) superpowers and a great sense of humor. Steve Rogers would strongly disagree with that last one. A single chance encounter with him reluctantly brings you into the Avengers Compound, and you're determined to make his life as miserable as you can. Feeling's mutual.

AO3 | Masterlist | Playlist (coming soon!)

notes: The one where you make a bunch of probably very dumb decisions! This one has 18+ bits, marked by red dividers. MDNI. (warnings: mentions of human experimentation, health related stuff, brainwashing, cursing, smut(!!) ) (5.4K words)

5: OF MOMENTUM

Cap is waiting the second you leave the visiting room. He looks angrier than ever. It’s not like you didn’t see this coming – in fact, you’re actually shocked Fury managed to keep him at bay long enough for you to have a full conversation with Dr. Steiner.

“Before you begin your speech—”

“There is no speech. Start explaining why you went to talk to him. Alone.”

“Because, first of all, I don’t need babysitting, and second—” You round him up, now closer to the door than he is. You’re surprised he’s not actually blocking your path. “he wasn’t going to talk with anyone else! Not even Nat could make him open his mouth.”

And when Natasha fails at interrogation, well. Game’s usually lost.

He follows you along the maze of corridors as you try and find the way out.

“You do realize how this looks, don’t you? Going behind our backs and doing whatever you want is not—” As he says it you turn, getting right into his face and jamming a finger into his chest.

“Don’t you dare imply I’m teaming up with that HYDRA scum.” You hiss. “I don’t do that anymore, I told you. You’re just so used to everyone who doesn’t follow your book being labeled the bad guy that—”

“I didn’t say that. Bu you are putting everyone here in danger by—”

“I’m not! And I’m not on this goddamn madman’s side. I fled from the Brutkasten under a rain of bullets and a snowstorm! I chose to be here. Even though I know I’m ending up at the Raft at some point or another.”

There’s an ache in your chest, like a fishing hook pulling your organs down to the pit of your stomach. Steve Rogers would never trust you. You’d always be just another piece of shit he wants to wipe out from the world.

“You’re not—” Before he can make an empty promise, you walk out the main door and into the open air.

“Rogers, listen to me: I’m making the conscious choice to believe I have friends now – not you – even though I know this is all business. I know what I was part of. I know it now, but I didn’t then. They raised me to think that place was salvation.” You let out a shaky breath, crossing the cement pavement towards the helicopter Fury had arranged to bring you here. Cap’s motorcycle parked right next to it.

He’s still following you, looking at you with a heavy frown as you hop inside the transport. “I will not spend the rest of my life atoning for sins I didn’t know I was committing. But if you feel like hating me for it, go ahead. I can’t stop you. You’re Captain-Motherfucking-America, after all.”

You want to laugh at his lack of words. All you needed to get him to stop with his constant nagging was reverse verborrhage and a little oversharing. Who knew.

“But maybe not right now. You’re gonna want to meet me at the conference room when you get back. I got some potentially interesting intel.” You say, finally revealing the SD card between your fingers. “See ya, Cap.”

You slam the helicopter door right into Rogers’ face, slapping the pilot’s seat twice to signal you’re ready for take-off.

You could’ve kept this all under wraps. Could’ve said the conversation with Dr. Steiner was no dice, and opened the contents of the drive alone in your room.

Maybe you should’ve. And yet, something had truly shifted in you. This information had little to no use in your hands, and you’d have to share them with Dr. Banner anyway if you wanted anything to change in regards to your health and your powers.

Which brings you to the conference room, the entire Avengers chorus line sitting around you, waiting expectantly. You’ve already got an empty computer a malware couldn’t get anything from. Plugged the drive in. Entered the password, the obvious one.

7463000195. The same one you have under your sleeve. Easy.

He wants you to see what’s inside.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Fire it up, Sparky.” Tony earns himself a glare, and you’re about to speak when your answer walks in the door. The blonde hair slightly messy from the helmet, but you don’t spare a second glance for further detail.

“Couldn’t have given me a ride on that helicopter?”

“And you’d just leave your bike there?” Rogers shakes his head in defeat, and to celebrate, you do the honors and hit play on the video.

The only content inside the card Steiner had oh so benevolently given you.

It starts with a black screen, a location and a date.

Brutkasten. 24 März 2010.

You’re sitting on a chair inside your bedroom back at the Incubator. Baron Von Strucker is in front of you, watching as doctors and other staff fuss around. You’ve got the classic black HYDRA gear on.

There’s a bed, a small desk and bookcase. Lots of books. An old tube TV. No windows.

The date clicks. “It’s my first solo mission. I was 15 there.”

Fury nods. Steve frowns at you, and Natasha has an empathetic look on her face. You don’t dare notice anyone else.

Namen?

Asset. 7463.

Gut. Mission?

Ziehen.

“Extraction mission. In and out, invade a lab containing a serum for cell regeneration. I never seen it work on anyone when they tested it.” No one’s breathing. All you can see is yours and Strucker’s shapes on the screen now.

Wiederholen: and blood-black nothingness began to spin, a system of cells interlinked within one stem.

15-year-old you repeats dutifully after him. “What’s he doing now?” Sam asks.

You don’t answer. Hands grip your seat tightly. Shocked by the Doctor’s move.

Vernetzt. Vernetzt. Change of momentum with change of time. Noether-Theorem. Hail HYDRA.

Bereit?

You stand in the video, your hands lighting up blue, then your arms and the rest of your body. More power than you can summon now, seemingly without the pain that comes with it. Strucker claps once in satisfaction, and the video ends.

Heads turn in your direction. “That was my programming…Something like Bucky’s—”

You can see the people around shift into a defensive stance, like they’re getting ready for you to explode. You groan. “Not like that. They didn’t need to control me like that.”

It’s true. You did it all willingly. You didn’t know you had other options.

Natasha relaxes, and you could cry of gratitude “What’s it for then? Do you not remember?”

You wish you didn’t remember – but you do. You remember everything, every second, because that’s who you are. You’re sharp; your memory is sharp, your tongue is sharp, the edges of you are all sharp, and they leave you to bleed out whenever you see the numbers branded on your skin.

Covering them feels dishonest. It feels like a lie, so you wear your numbers like you wear everything else: right at the brim of your sleeve and open-faced, bared to the world, and people have to deal with it just as they have to deal with you.

“I do— it’s just… they don’t exactly tell the Assets all the reasons for their methods, you know?”

Fury takes a seat, turning the computer towards himself and playing the video again. “Maybe you could make use of it and find out.”

“No, she’s not doing that.” You sigh, surprisingly thankful fro Rogers, even though his reasons were obviously more about distrust than concern.

“In a controlled environment, of course.”

“Nick.”

You raise a hand when he tries to get Fury to shut the laptop down, getting up and closer to the big screen where the image of you is being mirrored.

It seems so… easy for her. Second-nature, like breathing.

A million questions run through your head, like what went wrong with you after that or why on Earth did Steiner want you to see this. Gave it to you on a silver platter, sure you’d come back to him. How could you harness so much energy at once? And so easily?

Is it the programming?

You access every piece of your memories you can, trying to retrieve an answer. They never told you what the words were for. Always used before missions. A similar ritual after them, during wind down.

During missions you were stellar. Flawless, unlike now. You remember most of it.

The only difference between you two is eight years and the use of the programming. When you fled HYDRA, you decided you were going to keep that part of you locked away forever and never think about it again.

The others behind you are discussing multiple theories when you speak up.

“It’s a fail-safe.” You turn around, hands shaking and bile rising up your throat. “Has to be! They put a fail-safe in me so no one could use my powers but them. The words unlock the rest of my – stuff – and make me function…”

You’re pacing, and Sam gets you to stop by grabbing the back of your t-shirt.

“Perfect, then!” Fury says, tapping his laser pointer on the table. “This solves everything. All of those side effects gone and we get a fully-functioning human taser on our roster.”

“Absolutely not.” Steve is still protesting, but your head is torn between the two choices. You want to stay here and for that you need to be useful. Fully-functioning. You also don’t want to be tied to whatever they put inside you. There’s so much pain interlaced with that.

If you keep using what HYDRA gave you, how are you ever going to be able to say you’re not a part of it anymore?

You don’t want to go back to being an asset. Being dysfunctional gave you character, as ironic as it was, like a chipped vase or a stain over otherwise pristine sheets.

“I’d rather… not do that, yeah.” You swallow, taking a seat again. Picking at your nail beds. Steve nods, and you watch his shoulders sag in slight relief. It’s not as contagious as you wish it would be.

The number of eyes on you makes your skin itch. Fury sends you a message through his one-eyed glaring – S.W.O.R.D will surely have feelings about your refusal to take the quickest route to becoming functional – the price matters too little to them.

Sliding the laptop closer, you remove the SD card after shutting everything down. “I’ll take this to Banner – see if that green brain has any brilliant ideas.” You don’t wait for their permission to leave the room, only halting when Steve calls out your name.

“Training tomorrow. Seven-sharp.” You roll your eyes. Back on schedule. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, seeing that today was a big reminder of how ingrained HYDRA was with your very being. Steve Rogers hates HYDRA. And you, who said with very big words that you weren’t going to be the one to stop him.

You mutually hate Steve Rogers.

Your mood is sourer than the entire sour patch at 7 in the morning. It doesn’t help that Bruce didn’t have any Eureka moments after listening to your theories about your programming. You don’t want to use it and you don’t want to go back to Dr. Steiner, and the feeling of being stuck makes any good spirits you have left in you shrivel and die.

Rogers is sitting at the edge of the fighting rink when you enter the gym, listening to something on his blue iPod. It looks too modern on him, but you have already teased him about carrying a Victrola around last week.

“What’s your soundtrack today? Gregorian chant?” It’s the first genre of music that comes to your head that could be traced back to the middle ages.

“Pink Floyd.” He says, removing the earbuds.

“Wow. Something about Another Brick in The Wall hitting home?”

He scowls and you smirk, but your lips curl back down pretty quickly. “Start warming up, Sparky.”

He hasn’t yet given up on the damn sparring sessions twice a week. You know his game now; he’s trying to get you to submit, so he can mold you into whatever he wants. Into a brick for the Avengers wall.

It’s safe to say you’re more sand and broken glass than you are clay - and today, like most days, you don’t mind the cuts that’ll give to his hands.

You pull a dirty move once you and Rogers have fallen into a rhythm consisting of verbal provocations and physical hits. Asking about his latest TV interview made Cap’s movements stutter. He goes on a lot of them, most go well - his charm and charisma to be credited for that - but some don’t. A lot of people like sharing with Captain America their bullshit opinions on the job only he can do.

You mention the one where he was pressed by the media about Bucky not being locked up and the risks concerning that - if it wasn’t a technical infringement of the Sokovia Accords. When you sense his concentration shift, you kick your heel up to his jaw, a flash of a grin when you hear his teeth clink.

You savor the victory until he catches his breath and gives you a side glance. “If they’re worried about Bucky, imagine what they’ll say when they hear about you.”

You’re hovering over him in an instant, snarling like a feral creature as your fist connects to the same place your heel did then. It’s almost surprising that you land the punch successfully, as if he’d let you. “I’m not a mindless killing machine.”

There’s no meaning behind your words. You never thought of Bucky this way, not after you met him here and he seemed more like a shy forest creature than a highly trained assassin. But in front of Steve Rogers, anything goes.

“I’d still trust the Winter Soldier before I trust you.”

“So being an idiot is also one of your super powers! Was that enhanced with the serum or—” Rogers manages to flip you over on the mat, face down. He presses his full body weight on you, locking one of your arms against your back and the other under you on the mat. His legs tangle with yours, barely allowing you any movement. Your shoulder starts to ache from the position.

“Get off me.” You squirm, huffing the last bit of air that was in your lungs.

“Are you going to calm down?” He gets his answer when you tell him to fuck off, and presses down harder. “I’ve had enough of bad your attitude.”

The way he nearly snarls it against your ear sends a shiver down your spine. The corners of your lips curl up at the aggression, at how he ditches the façade of the perfect, straight-spined soldier only for you. It makes you feel powerful, how you can make the marble crack so you can see the flawed human inside.

“You don’t get to say this crap - that you don’t even mean - just to get a rise out of me. What the hell is wrong with you, huh?” What the hell does he know? You try to kick his legs away, but you’re not even a bit successful. “You’re not like this with anyone else. Why me?”

“‘Cause it’s fun,” You pant, his weight on top of you only getting more overwhelming.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? To see me lose it,” He drawls, his breath tickling your neck. You squirm again, half because you want to get out of his grasp and half because of something else. “Or maybe you just like it rough…”

The heat of his body makes you feel like you’re being burned alive. You’re completely out of air now, panting helplessly under him. “I can’t…breathe,”

It’s unbearable, even after he lowers the pressure on your shoulders and you can take a deep breath in. He’s still holding you, tight, and you squirm but not to get out of it. The lack of air made your thoughts feel fuzzy.

That’s surely the reason.

Not Steve’s big, warm hand on your hip. His fingers grazing the exposed part of your lower abdomen. “Maybe you want my hand because yours alone isn’t enough.”

“Shut up.”

He chuckles. Cocky, over-confident asshole. You remember you can free the arm that’s under you and try to hit him with it, get back at him for saying that. He takes your meek punch on his bicep, then pins the guilty hand with your other.

Traitorous heat pools between your legs. You hate Steve Rogers. You hate the hand that sneaks under your pants and the way you body arches to make his access easier. You hate how he says, “One word and I’ll stop.”, and you hate how you only bite your lips in response.

Until he slips two fingers into your wetness and a moan escapes. “Damn. I knew you got off on this, dirty girl.”

“Rogers—oh,” He moves skillfully, like he’s not an old man from the 1940’s that clutches his pearls every time someone utters a curse.

But you’re not the only one who’s - although somewhat reluctantly - enjoying yourself. You can feel Steve hardening on your behind and his breath become ragged as he buries his head on the crook of your neck. The realization makes your cheeks heat with both pride and shame. “You’re not much better than me,”

It’s torture how slow he is going. His palm presses against your clit, and you bite back a moan, not ready to give in that easily. Steve is already full of himself as it is. “We’ll see about that.”

You roll your hips in response, earning a groan from him. It makes you chuckle and him curl his fingers inside of you. It’s like a fight, balanced at last.

At least that’s what you tell yourself as he plays you like his favorite instrument. The sounds that he gets from you are wet and unholy. You almost want to turn and admire the focused lines of his brow. Lips pursed in a tight line.

Kissing them would be crossing another.

No, you don’t want to get to that point.

“Look at us. This so… innapropriate. So wrong.” Steve says those words but there is no signs that he intends on stopping the sinful act. Who would’ve thought? You grin, a wild flash of teeth cutting through your flushed face.

“What would everyone think, huh, Cap?”

“No one has to know.”

You can’t help but agree - you don’t even want to think about how mortifying it would be if someone caught you. Not only in the middle of the fighting rink, but at the mercy of Steve Rogers. But it’s off your mind when he speeds up his fingers and pleasure coils on your lower belly.

“Fuck, fuck—” You’re breathless, nails digging on anything you can reach, his large hand and wrist mostly. “Steve.”

“You close, hm?” He whispers condescendingly, and your nearly cry from the humiliation as you nod yes, yes, yes. “Ask for it. Then I might let you finish.”

It’s too much. Your eyes shoot open, and you start struggling again. Now he wants you to beg for it, to fold, to submit, and it’s just too much.

Asshole. Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.

“No.”

Steve removes his fingers from you, still keeping his hand there as a veiled promise. Or a threat. You have to bite back a whimper at the emptiness.

“Then no deal.” The way his voice is smooth and calm makes you want to growl. “You didn’t think you’ll have it your way, did you?”

His hand releases yours and you finally turn, cunt still pulsating from being so close to your release and having it so cruelly denied. Then, you spot the volume on his sweatpants and tilt your head.

“Doesn’t seem like you have it all under control, Rogers.”

He smirks. His cheeks are flushed, and the sight would be heavenly if it wasn’t so utterly aggravating.

“I was at war for two years. Frozen for seventy.” He stands up, palming himself but acting like nothing out of ordinary is going on. “I know how to wait, sweetheart.”

Your legs feel like jelly, and there’s not much you can do except watch as Steve walks out of the gym. There’s not even enough strength in you to tell him to shove World War II up his ass.

You really, really hate Steve Rogers.

“Hello? Earth to Sparky?”

“Huh?”

“Peter here has been talking to you for like five minutes now, come on. At least answer the kid.”

You blink. This has been happening for a few days now, you being out of it. You wish it could be blamed solely on your last sparring session with Rogers last week - but your powers had been the main source of frustration in your life lately. The little control you have over them comes paired with raging migraines, fatigue, black spots, the whole package. You’ve tagged along on Nat’s mission two days ago, and it almost went badly. You’re basically useless without your abilities working properly; although your stamina and combat skills have improved greatly since moving into the compound, they stilll can’t compare to everyone else’s - and that include the bad guys you’re supposed to be fighting.

So, yes, your head has been heavy with anxiety and your throat tight with some pills you can’t swallow: S.W.O.R.D, HYDRA, and undeniably, Steve Rogers.

“Sorry. What was the question?”

Peter Parker perks up a little. “Oh! No question, Miss Sparkles, I was just saying how cool are the electrical manipulation superpowers, I mean it’s so—”

Sparkles?

“Should see how my brain tries to short-circuit every time I use them. Real cool shit.” You chuckle bitterly, and he blushes and fiddles nervously in his seat. You don’t even need to register Tony pinching the bridge of his nose to feel bad about it. “It’s pretty cool when it works I guess. Fury called me a human taser the other day.”

Tony pauses his tinkering of your suit cuffs and turns around. “Personally I am a fan of Sparky.”

“No way, you need a better name than that!” The mood shifts instantly, like a ray of sun peeking through storm clouds.

“Hey! I’m great with names. And Sparky already stuck so—”

“What do you suggest, Peter?” A second passes while he’s thinking. Then another. “Well?”

“…I’ll think of something.” Peter decides that his time is better spent going back to observing Stark work on your suit, giving some ideas on how to make it better and more functional. Tony completely vetoes giving you access to FRIDAY like they both have, claiming he doesn’t trust you not to change his alarm music to Careless Whisper. It makes you laugh, because that’s actually a great idea.

When they both become focused on their genius thing, you resort to resting your head on your arm and making one of Peter’s dead spider drones move using little sparks from your fingers. You’re almost getting it to turn on when the headache starts.

“Dammit.” You can almost hear Dr. Steiner’s laugh all the way from his cell. It doesn’t help that you accidentally overheard a conversation between Bruce and Tony after they both started researching how to fix you, or at least keep you in one piece. Something about an aneurysm. As if you needed extra confirmation that your brain is trying to explode. They were startled when you walked in, but at least now the whole keep-Sparky-in-the-dark thing is over. It’s why you’re in Tony’s lab, today, why he’s working on giving your suit more precise vital scans, energy measuring and emergency protocols.

A fail-safe of sorts.

You don’t notice as he comes closer and puts a reassuring hand on your shoulder. “We’ll figure it out, Sparks.”

You nod.

Although you can’t help but think that their effort is pointless - and the solution is right in front of you, held by Steiner’s grubby hands and words that resound in Baron Von Strucker’s voice.

It takes you another week and another mission that could’ve gone better for you to make your decision. Although, surprisingly, it’s not one of your bad days that settles it for you - it’s one of Bucky Barnes’.

You’re sulking after the debrief of said subpar mission. For the others, a small success. The hostages were now all being brought into safety and the terrorists neutralized. For you, a power outage that cost precious intel and 20 minutes of Fury’s classic glare on your forehead. It’s not all him, you know that much - he’s got S.W.O.R.D on his tail and your time to prove yourself to them and the United States Goverment seems to be running out.

After the fiasco, you want nothing more than peace and quiet. So when Bucky starts roaring and the sound of furniture being thrown around bursts your little bubble, you let yourself be annoyed for a minute. Then you take the elevator upstairs. Rogers is there, of course - they share the floor, and he’s already got Bucky in a headlock although a bruise seems to be forming on his cheek. You can’t bring yourself to rejoice and you don’t know what to do with yourself, proceeding to hide in a corner after Steve gives you a look and Bruce runs in with a sedative.

You feel bad for Barnes. There weren’t any casualties, except for his own dignity, the aforementioned furniture and a record player - and because you’re not any good with comfort words, you resort to coercing Sam on running to Best Buy for a record player replacement.

There’s no doubt in your mind that if Bucky had a way to switch off the malware HYDRA installed in his mind, he’d be making use of it. You figure you shouldn’t be wasting yours.

When the time for your next mission comes, you already have a game plan ready. Your words have been passed onto a little notepad, but you have the audio of Strucker’s voice at the ready. You took note of whatever you remembered from the old wind down process too, because you’ll need to come off of whatever state you’ll be at by the end.

It’s easy enough. You get into your gear, drag a chair to the center of your bedroom. Your hands are shaking furiously as you put on your earbuds and hit play on the audio. Your heartbeat roars inside your chest as you repeat the words. Until it slows down, all at once, like flicking a switch. You examine your steady hands, the anxiety from a minute ago vanished. In fact, you can’t bring yourself to feel anything, although bewilderment would be precisely what you’d be feeling when you make your hands and arms light up blue, energy flowing through you like a river.

This is good. This is great!

You don’t know why you haven’t done this before. Actually, you know why - you’ve been scared. Scared about what it would do to you, to the last bits of your soul that you’ve been holding on to so tightly ever since you learned what HYDRA wanted to do with the world. Too scared to even imagine the satisfaction on Dr. Steiner’s face. Like he won.

But he didn’t, and you’re not scared.

You’re not happy, either. You’re not… anything.

Not even Steve brings up the feelings he usually does (and that other, new thing). He has one of his eyebrows raised as you walk in and strap yourself down in a single firm motion.

“Good mornin’ to you too, Sparky.”

You know you should be annoyed right now, huffing and puffing. Your eyebrows don’t even pinch at the nickname. “Good morning, Captain.”

Your voice comes out a little too smooth and a little too robotic, but you hope Steve isn’t paying too much attention - even if he is, soon enough Nat and Sam are walking into the Quinjet and his focus on you is diluted.

You don’t feel the need to clap back at his orders and instructions as the jet lands near another HYDRA base. This one isn’t empty, at least of dozen former members have made it into a makeshift HQ. It’s more of a hunting shack than a fortress, and you’re the first to walk down the ramp, fingers already crackling.

Not even the successful mission brings you joy, with secured intel and that same dozen on their way to prison. You took five of them down yourself, only making the lights flicking a little in the process. You don’t feel pride as Fury debriefs your team, a pleased gleam in his eye.

You don’t feel anything at all.

It catches up with you as soon as you sink into an ice bath and repeats your words in reverse order. Now you remember why this process was such a struggle.

You feel like throwing up, like crying, like hitting Steve Rogers square in the jaw; you feel euphoric and proud and terrified. A migraine as a cherry on top. It’s too much.

You try your best to keep quiet.

“Is everything alright, Miss Sparky? Should I call Dr. Banner?”

You’re startled by the disembodied voice. “Fuck, no, FRIDAY. Everything’s… fine, just… go away.”

“I’ve identified sounds of distress. I need a confirmation you are well, please.”

The chattering of your teeth fills the bathroom.

“I’m peachy. Go to your… computer bedroom or whatever. Jesus.”

“Don’t hesitate to call me if you need assistance.”

Blood is roaring in your ears as your heart beats wildly and you breathe in sharp puffs of air. You basically crawl back to your bed, a naked wet mess.

Your bed.

You have a bed for another day. Another week, even.

“Miss Sparky, Tony? Seriously…”

It makes you laugh a little. Then, you cry until you fall asleep.

Two days. Two days of peace. Of wondering if your programming had reset your brain somehow, and you finally evicted Steve Rogers and his hands out of your mind.

Foolish of you think that the repressed feelings all have come and gone that night after the mission.

It hits you like a train, and has you squeezing your thighs together for friction. You try your best to focus on Weekend at Bernie’s for a good 15 minutes, to no avail. It’s like the universe is taking a piss out of you, because everyone else has left the compound for the evening, for a reason or another. Even Bucky. But you know he is home. You’ve seen the bike on the garage, the memory of him on top of it not helping your case. It’s not just because of that fatidical morning that you’re like this - it’s because of the other times, too.

Maybe you want my hand because yours alone isn’t enough.

You let out an irritated groan, kicking the blanket off your legs like a bratty child.

You already know working solo won’t work. You’ve tried. What you need is to get it done, get it - him - out of your system, so you can move on.

Goddamn you, Rogers.

“FRIDAY?” You close your eyes, shaking your head when the AI responds. “Give me Roger’s location. Now.”

“Captain Rogers is currently down at the compound gym. Boxing area.”

Of course he is.

You don’t bother dressing up - the bath robe you’re in will have to do. You don’t even put on shoes, but it doesn’t matter because the way down to the gym is mostly carpet and ceramic.

Do you know what you’re going to do when you get there and face him? No. But you’re fixing this problem here and now. You’re either kicking his ass or… good lord. No matter. You’ve held on long enough, and your torment ends today.

He looks away from the punching bag when you slide the door open, raising his eyebrows as you march up to him.

“Can I help you?”

Yes. You can help by undoing whatever you did to me with those hands, dammit.

He’s panting from his workout, shirt clinging to his body. His eyes roam yours, a bit too exposed now from the knot of your robe loosening up.

“We have… unfinished business.”

Steve smirks. He steps towards you, and he’s so… tall. Overpowering, like looking up at a marble statue in a museum. It takes everything on you not to run away.

No. This ends today. You’re having it your way.

“And what am I supposed to do about that, darlin’?”

Jesus H. Christ.

Get it together.

You’re not sure if you want to punch him in that stupid pretty face or—

“Start by shutting the fuck up, Rogers.”

Or grab him by the collar and slam your lips onto his.

[keiththecat]

Admissible (Part One)

Pairing: Sam Winchester x Female Reader (You)

Summary: You've always hunted alone. That is, until Bobby sends you on a hunt near the Winchester brothers. How will things change when they come to help?

Word Count: 2.5k

Warnings: 18+, series typical violence and monsters, weapons, cursing, groping/ almost sexual assault, self-doubt/ self-esteem issues, character death, injuries, hurt/comfort

Author's Note: Hello friends! This is something I'm working on, but it has gotten long enough that I know I'll have to split it up (and I'm excited and can't wait longer to share it lol). Warnings may update as I keep writing, so please check them! The almost sexual assault is stopped, I promise (and it isn't in this part, but I will be sure to clearly label it when it does happen so you can skip it if this upsets you). Also feel free to message me if you have any questions or concerns about anything. Y/N is your name, and feedback is always welcome. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the love so far! <3

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, or any of the related characters. The Supernatural series is created by Eric Kripke and owned by The CW Network. This work of fan fiction is for entertainment only. I am not making a profit of any kind from this story. All rights of the original Supernatural series belong to The CW Network.

AO3 link here

You have just hit the city limits of Kensington, Kansas when your car decides to call it quits. You manage to pull your car off to the side of the road, the engine spitting and sputtering before stopping altogether. You lay your forehead on the steering wheel and groan, “whyyyyyy?”

You almost pull out your phone to call Bobby back and see if any other hunters are close enough to take the case, but your pride stops you. You’re still a relatively new hunter and feel like you need to prove yourself. You’ve done well for yourself so far, no major injuries and usually finished hunts within two days of arriving, but you don’t want to jinx your progress. Sighing, you get out of the car, grabbing your duffel bag of hunting supplies and your backpack of clothes from the back seat. Squaring your shoulders, you start walking into town. 

After about ten minutes of one foot in front of the other, you find a motel that looks promising: just run down enough for what you need. You walk into the office, finding a big burly bearded man, probably mid-50s, reading a newspaper. He glances up when you enter, his gruff voice mumbles out “how long?”

“Day by day. I’ll let you know early each day if I still need it the next night.”

He eyes you for a moment. “Cash?”

You pull out some cash and count out $100, placing it in front of him on the counter without a word. He takes it, nods at you and places a key on the counter. “Room 11. Farthest one to the left. You’re paid for three nights.”

You pick up the key and leave the office, heading left toward your temporary base of operations. You immediately break into your duffel bag, cleansing the room with a smudge stick, laying out your mats with sigil traps embroidered into them, and applying salt lines to the windows and door. You have the room properly protected within three minutes. You pull out your phone to start researching the deaths that brought you here but you’re greeted by a text message from an unknown number.

[Unknown 11:02AM: Hey, Bobby said you were in our area. We’ll be around if you need any help]

You stare at it for a moment before calling Bobby, who picks up on the second ring, “you make it okay?”

“Yeah, Bobby. My car broke down but I made it. Who did you give my number to?” 

“I’m guessing the boys reached out to ya finally?”

The boys?, you wonder. Considering what you know about Bobby, that could only mean one set of brothers. “You mean you gave my number to the Winchesters? And what do you mean ‘finally?’ Bobby, you know I work better alone. You know, far far away from big of heart but dumb of ass.” 

“Look, Y/N,” you can hear him breaking out his dad voice on you. “I just wanted them to know you were nearby. I gave them your info a while ago, I’m surprised it took them this long to reach out. I want you safe, they’re close by, and they’re good people. You’ll get along.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure they are, Bobby. I just prefer to stay out of the drama that comes with… all that. Their names are practically synonymous with trouble and apocalypse at this point.” You sit on the edge of your bed, picking at a stray thread on your jeans.

“Yeah, and they’ve saved all our asses, yours included, each time,” he reminds you. “Plus, Dean knows his way around cars and could probably get yours fixed up for ya.”

“Okay, Bobby, I get it. I’ll message them back.” You and Bobby say your goodbyes and hang up, leaving you staring once again at the text message.

[Y/N 11:06AM: Which bro do I have the pleasure of speaking with?]

[Unknown 11:06AM: Sam]

[Y/N 11:07AM: Alright, Tweedledee. Bring Tweedledum. I’ll need his car brain. Meet at the diner on Main?]

Without an immediate reply, you start looking into the deaths, looking for any connections between the victims. So far, there have been five mysterious deaths of prominent people in the community and each one has died differently: heart ripped out, throat slit, neck snapped, blood drained, and blunt force to the head. 

[Sam 11:10AM: See you at the diner at 12]

50 minutes. More than enough time for you to grab a quick shower, check your supplies, and walk there. Guess I’m dancing with death this time. You sigh, and get to work.

*

Walking into the diner at 11:50AM, you sit at a booth in the back, facing the door. Front door, back door through the kitchen, windows on three sides, your brain automatically on alert in case of any threats. You’re in your FBI monkey suit, intending to question families after a quick meeting with the Winchesters. Your iron knife is against your right ankle, silver knife is against your left, and pistol is loaded and in a shoulder holster under your jacket, resting under your left arm. You are locked and loaded, ready to get this case over with.

[Y/N 11:51AM: Corner booth by kitchen]

You are pretending to look at the menu for less than two minutes when you hear the rumbling of the infamous Impala. They park out front, both unfolding their legs to get out of the car. Damn, they’re tall and hot, the stories did not do them justice. Dean’s unruly light brown hair is spiking in all directions, green eyes glittering in the sunlight. He’s wearing boots, dark jeans, a black tee, red plaid shirt unbuttoned, and leather jacket. Pistol in his jeans at his waist, he’s right handed. Sam’s soft brown hair blows in the light wind, slight frown creasing his eyebrow above hazel eyes. He’s wearing boots, light wash jeans, blue plaid shirt buttoned, and a grey jacket. Also a pistol at his waist, he’s left handed.

Dean reaches the door first, opening and entering, with Sam close behind. Sam is looking at his phone, looks up at you and points his brother in your direction. 

“Y/N?” Dean asks, standing next to your table.

“That’s what my ID says.” You gesture at the seat across from you, indicating they should join you. Sam slides in first and Dean sits on the outside.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Sam says, offering a handshake which you take. “Bobby speaks very highly of you. I’m Sam, this is Dean.”

Damn he has a nice smile. “Yeah, I know who you are. Pretty sure I knew your names my first day on the job.”

A waitress makes her way over to your table. Probably in her 20s, thin and short with long brown hair, her high pitched voice cuts through the air “Welcome in, what can I get started for you all?” 

The boys order coffee, Dean gets a burger and Sam gets a chicken wrap. You order a coffee and a salad. The waitress writes it all down and walks away, saying she’ll be right back.

“So, Sammy mentioned car troubles?” Dean asks, looking outside. “Which car?”

“It’s not out there. It’s on the side of the road coming into town. Broke down on my way in.”

The boys both look at you in concern. “You’ve been walking around town?” Sam asks.

You shrug, “the exercise keeps me alive. A moving body is a living body. I don’t mind. But I will need it fixed for when I’m done here, if you don’t mind.”

The waitress brings your coffees to your table, you each mutter a thanks. 

“I can take a look at it when we’re done here.” Dean says, then he looks you up and down, eyeing your suit, “unless you have other plans?”

“No, that’d be great. I can go do my thing while you do yours.”

“Perfect,” Dean says, “Sammy can go with you.”

“Whoa-” “Wait-” You and Sam speak at the same time. Sam stops speaking but you continue, “I’m fine alone. I won’t need help.”

“Well, Princess, looks like you do need help since your car is MIA.” Dean says, a smug smile on his face.

You stare at him for a moment, eyes squinted, debating if the fight is worth it. “Fine.” You look at Sam, “do you have your suit?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, it’s in the car,” Sam says, shocked that you gave in so easily. The brothers know how stubborn you can be from the stories Bobby has told them. “I can grab it and change after we eat.”

The waitress brings the ordered food to the table, placing it in front of each of you. She checks if you all need anything else, and leaves the bill on the table when you all say no.

Dean speaks with a mouth full of burger, “alright then, it’s a plan.” 

Sam tries to initiate small talk a few times as you all eat, but you keep your answers short, hoping he’ll take the hint. The last thing you need is to form any sort of relationship with the Winchesters. The word around hunters is that being around them guarantees a death sentence, and you’d like to stick around for at least a few years longer. Plus, the less you worry about others, the more you can worry about yourself.

You place cash on the table for the bill, covering all three meals plus tip. You stand and the brothers follow. “Dean, drop us at the Sunrise? Sam can grab you two a room, change and then we can head out on foot from there. A little exercise okay, big man?”

“Uh, yeah, I like exercise. That’ll be fine.” Sam responds.

You ride in the back seat, Dean drives and Sam is in the passenger seat. Metallica plays through the speakers and you hum along, looking out the back window. You can feel Dean periodically glancing at you in the rear view mirror and Sam watching you through the side view. You ignore them, focusing instead on making a plan. 

Dean drops you both at the motel, giving you his phone number while Sam goes into the motel office to book a room, duffel bag over his shoulder. You send Dean a blank text so he has your number, and you give him your car keys along with a description and location. Sam comes back out with a key when Dean pulls away to go find your car. 

“Got it,” Sam says, holding the key up and walking to room 9. “Leave in five?”

“Sure, Sam. See you in five.”

*

With some strong pushing on your part, you and Sam agreed to split up, him starting with the most recently deceased’s family and you with the first, and planning to meet somewhere in the middle. Your visit with the Miller family was abnormally short, the widow very skeptical of you and short with her answers. She certainly wasn’t forthcoming with any information, and you’re sure she knows more than she let on. Maybe she’ll respond better talking to a man. Sam does have kind eyes. You shake that thought away, walking up to the Furgeson house now, hoping that Mister Ferguson will be more willing to answer your questions.

[Y/N 1:38PM: At second house now. No luck with the first. Very distrustful of me.]

[Sam 1:39PM: I’m still with the Taylors. We can circle back to her together later. Be safe.]

You roll your eyes, a smile threatening to form. Damn him and his niceness. You hate to admit it, but you are starting to enjoy working with him. You can feel your heart opening up to the idea of being friendly with the brothers. You are walking up the steps of the sidewalk when a police cruiser pulls up to the curb behind you. Shit. Nowhere to run and I doubt I can lie my way out of this. You send off a quick text to Sam, hoping he’ll read between the lines and understand.

[Y/N 1:39PM: I love you too, sweetie. I was never a big fan of brass, but the silver bracelets look nice.]

“Excuse me, we got a call about an FBI officer in the area,” the cop calls out to you. You turn your phone off and turn around to face him. He’s short, stout, bald, and scowling at you like you are the root of all problems.

“Yes, can I help you?” you answer, still keeping some hope that you can get out of this.

“I spoke with the FBI office this morning, they said they weren’t going to send anyone.” he answers, looking you up and down.

“Well I’m just following orders from higher up.” You reach to pull out your badge, but stop short when you see his hand move to his pistol. “Easy,” you say, “just grabbing my badge.”

“Not interested,” he says, pulling out his pistol and aiming at you, “turn around, get on your knees, put your hands on your head.”

“Okay, okay,” you comply, doing as he asked. He moves forward, grabbing your hands and roughly cuffing you behind your back. He picks you up and leads you toward his car, reading you your rights.

*

Sam is sitting on the living room couch inside the Taylor household, Missus Taylor sitting in a chair across from him. He stares at the message you sent, trying to make sense of the message you sent. Brass… silver bracelets… damn it. “Thank you for your time, Missus Taylor. We’ll reach out if we have any further questions,” he rushes to hand her a business card and practically jogs out the door, dialing Dean.

“Yeah?” Dean answers on the second ring.

“I think something’s wrong. I think Y/N got arrested,” Sam says.

“Well shit.” Sam can hear the clang of tools being dropped through the phone.

Sam knew they shouldn’t have split up. From what he has heard, Y/N is one of the best hunters out there. But Sam is kicking himself, he knew that people around here could be extra suspicious of outsiders and he still let her go off on her own.

“What do you need from me, Sam?” Dean asks.

“I’m not sure. Give me a second.” Sam takes a deep breath. He’s sure he could figure out a way to get Y/N out of jail, but it could take a couple days before the courts decide on her bail amount, and that’s if they do. It’s also been a couple days since the last death, so another person could be targeted any second. “Okay,” he finally says, “I have an idea. But I need you to take over the case for a bit.” Sam fills Dean in on what he knows and who still needs questioned. Dean agrees to pick up where they left off, saying he’ll get right on it. The brothers end their call, and Sam starts his journey toward the police station, making another phone call.

Part Two

[nightlyrequiem]

The Other Side of Paradise

6) Bad Things, Worse Things, Better Things

Cross posted from AO3

Ch.1, Ch.2, Ch.3, Ch.4, Ch.5, Ch.6, Ch.7, Ch.8, Ch.9, Ch.10, Ch.11

You try to make the best of your life working at a small bakery in a city with rising cartel violence. One slower day, a man starts harassing your coworker. Despite the obvious threat, you stand up to him anyway. Unbeknownst to you, Valeria just so happened to be there to witness it.

A/N- All chapters containing smut will be labeled mature. The fic is fully written with the whole thing on AO3 but chapters on Tumblr will be posted one a day.

Tags/Warnings: Fluff, Angst, Dual POV, Happy Ending, Plot with Porn, Graphic Violence, Inappropriate Use of a Knife, Masturbation, WLW

Valeria watches her subordinate with narrowed eyes as he delivers a verbal report. There are British soldiers in town.

"...I saw them myself." He continues. "Riding an armored truck with that colonel." Valeria's lips automatically twitch down. Alejandro. She could kill all of his little vaqueros and he still wouldn't cease being a thorn in her side. She has no doubt that he brought them here to try and take her down. Well, he can try all he wants. It's hard to catch someone without a name or face.

"Do you know their names?" She asks. "Descriptions?" The man shakes his head.

"I only saw them; I don't know their names." He says uncomfortably. "I came to tell you about them straight away. One was a white guy with a dumb haircut but the other one..." He trails off. Valeria clenches her jaw impatiently. The other one what? He needs to finish his sentences faster before she just decides he's more useful without a tongue. "He was wearing some kind of mask... a skull, he had a skull on his face."

Valeria frowns. A skull mask? Her nose wrinkles with annoyance. He sounds like an edgy pre-teen boy. Surely Alejandro has higher standards?

'Are you sure they're soldiers?" She asks. The man hesitates before nodding.

"I'm pretty sure they were. They were dressed like soldiers." She sighs, feeling a headache coming on. This is just what she needs. It's always one problem after another.

"Keep an eye out." Valeria orders. She turns and leaves the room. Walking outside to have a smoke.

She lights one and takes a satisfying hit while she thinks. She's going to have to deal with the soldiers. They can't just waltz into her town, her territory. Soldiers are no trouble for her. Nothing but mere pests, really. Valeria's mind drifts to more pleasant thoughts. It's been a few weeks since you and her had gone out to that bar. Since then, you've been speaking almost daily and she's discovering just how easy to read you are. You practically project your thoughts with every look you give her. She can see how much you want her, and who is she to deny you? She just needs to take care of a few things, free up her schedule. Valeria stubs out her cigarette and walks off to her car. Everything will be fine.

Everything just keeps going wrong. Valeria can feel herself trembling with rage. Not only was Hassan and his escorts attacked, but one of her warehouses was raided, the one holding the missiles she only just managed to obtain. Not all of them, at least. Valeria knows better than to keep all her chickens in the same coop. Still, this is a sizable loss for her. Her men were killed, and some of the missiles were repossessed. Hassan made it out at least. The only issue is, she doesn't know who attacked them. The bodies left over were not wearing British uniforms. Valeria didn't recognize them at all.

She takes a deep breath to calm herself down. She'll have to pay the corporal a visit. He's supposed to be a defense against this kind of thing. It's what she's paying him for. Unless someone offered him more money to betray her. An offence she won't take likely, if that's the case. First and foremost, she needs a break. She decides to pay you a visit. You're the only person not actively irritating her. Like always, you're standing at the counter, just waiting for your shift to be over. You look up from the book you're reading when you hear her come in. The easy smile you flash her calms her down a little.

Maybe she can understand why some people in her line of work get married. Going home to someone completely unconnected to the violence and stress must be nice. A buffer, perhaps. Not that Valeria wants to marry you. Not yet anyway. If you prove yourself to be good enough stress relief, she might consider snatching you off the market for good.

"You look stressed." You remark. She is stressed. How kind of you to notice.

"There's been a few... unexpected surprises at work but I'm dealing." She replies smoothly. That's all she's going to say because that's all you need to know. It would be such a shame if you got too curious and stuck your nose someplace it didn't belong. You seem like a good girl though. Good at minding your business.

You lean down and dig around somewhere before setting down a soft round shape. It's a concha.

"I saved the last one for you, just in case you came in today." You beam at her. "I actually took it out of the display case this morning because if I waited, they would've all been bought." You add on quietly. It's not money, or a solution to all of her problems. The last thing on her mind is baked goods. You did something nice for her though, as small as it is, and she appreciates it.

"Thank you." Valeria says, reaching and grabbing the bread roll. Yes, she thinks, she can definitely see the appeal of having someone to return home to after a long day. She sets her free hand down on the counter. As close to yours as she can get without physically touching.

"It's your weekend tomorrow, yes?" Valeria inquires. You shift your hand subtly and it presses against hers.

"It is." You nod. Looking at her expectantly. Valeria has a lot to do and work out, but she's been doing nothing but work lately. No harm could possibly come from spending one night away from the stress. In fact, the one night away might actually add a few years onto her lifespan.

"We should do something then." She hums. Brushing her thumb against your pinky.

"I'm down for whatever." You murmur.

"I know a good club, I'd love to take you there." Valeria lost the desire to go out clubbing as she entered her thirties, but the club she's thinking of is one she frequented often in her younger years. She's feeling rather nostalgic. That, and it's a good atmosphere to for... physical contact.

You smile.

"Sure, that sounds good." You say. Valeria smiles back. She can't rely on work going her way but at least she can rely on you being so agreeable.

"Great, I'll pick you up tomorrow at eight." She hopes it finally goes somewhere. There's an itch she needs scratching. She could probably find someone else to scratch it in the meantime but even though she doesn't care much for relationships she still prefers to have only one person sharing her bed at a time. A night out with you is exactly what she needs to take her mind off of all her current problems.

[jule1122]

Malex Fic - You know I love you so

Written for the @yearoftheotpevent June challenge of “(accidental) love confessions.”  I wanted to give Michael and Alex some time to enjoy getting back together and to tell people about their new relationship so I added a few days to 3x09 between Kyle being released from Deep Sky and Alex getting sucking into the Lockhart Machine.  This really just some fluff about them telling everyone they are in love.  Their are brief references to past Miluca and Forlex.  As always, this is a Maria friendly fic.

You know I love you so on AO3

Title from “Yellow” by Coldplay

Summary:  There first date is still a few days away.  It's too early for Alex and Michael to say "I love you."  At least to each other. 

Michael sits at the bar, fiddling with his empty beer bottle until Maria comes over.

“Want another,” she asks, already handing him a new bottle.

“Good to see you back in action,” Michael smiles.  “But are you sure it’s not too soon?”

Maria rolls her eyes.  “I wish everyone would stop asking me that.  I’m fine, 100% fine, even certified by both Liz and Kyle.”

“Alright I’ll back off,” Michael holds out his hands in surrender.  “But you can’t blame us for caring about you.”

Maria’s stance softens, and she smiles at Michael.  “I’m lucky I had so many people on my side, I know that.  But what about you?  I heard you and Alex had quite an adventure of your own.”

It’s an opening Michael can’t ignore, but instead of the carefully worded explanation he planned, he blurts out, “ I love him, Alex, I mean.”

“I know,” Maria’s smile gentles.  “He loves you too.”

Michael blushes and ducks his head, but doesn’t deny it.  Alex hasn’t said the words - neither of them have which makes Michael’s confession even more awkward - but Michael feels them.  He feels them in the way Alex kisses him, the way he smiles at Michael’s dumb jokes and the way he holds him in bed, no space between them.

“It doesn’t mean I didn’t love you too,” he says.  And Michael knows that is what he’d really come here to say.  Alex comes before and after - and hopefully forever after - but he doesn’t want Maria to feel like she was just a pit stop along his way back to Alex.  

“I know that,” Maria takes his hand off the bottle where he’d been picking at the label and squeezes it.  “I loved you too.  A relationship doesn’t have to last forever to be important.  We had a good thing together, it was what we both wanted and needed at the time.”

“And now?”  Michael can’t help but ask.

“And now we’re friends.  You’re where you need to be and I,” Maria hesitates for a second.  “I’m figuring it out.”

“We have a date this week,” Michael confesses, a disbelieving thrill of excitement in his chest just from talking about it.  “We wanted to tell you first before you saw us or heard about it from someone else.”

“That’s great,” Maria’s smile is wide and genuine.  “I shouldn’t have said when I did before, but I really do expect an invitation to the wedding.”

Michael knows he should brush it off, but he can’t bring himself to pretend it’s not what he’s always wanted so he draws an “X” over his heart, “Promise you’ll be first on the list.”

“I’d better be.  Now go bother your siblings,” Maria points to where Isobel and Max are sitting, having come in sometime while they were talking, “so I can get some actual work done.”

“Here you go,” Kyle sits next to Alex and sets their drinks on the table.  “Boring beer for you and a Pomegranate Pluto Martini for me.”

Alex makes a face when he sees just how bright Kyle’s drink is.  “So this is why you wanted to meet here instead of the Wild Pony?  Because Maria won’t make you drinks that glow.”

Kyle throws back his head and laughs.  “Just wanted to celebrate my clean bill of health. There’s nothing like Taylor Swift Drag Night to make you feel alive.”

It’s a fairly quiet Tuesday at Planet 7, no drag queens in sight yet, but Alex thinks he understands what Kyle is trying to say.  “I’ll drink to that,” he agrees, tapping his bottle against Kyle’s glass.

“I’ll have you drinking one of these by the end of the night,” Kyle says, quickly downing his drink and signaling one of the bartenders for another.

Alex just shakes his head.  He’s been to Planet 7 a few times with Forrest, but it’s not really his kind of place.  Kyle, on the other hand, seems completely comfortable.  He knows most of the staff by name, has glitter highlighting his cheekbones, and Alex is pretty sure he’s wearing lip gloss.  He doesn’t know what to do with any of that, but tonight is supposed to be about Kyle having a good time so he’s trying not to think too much.

“So tell me what I missed,” Kyle prompts him once his new drink has been delivered.

Michael is the first thing Alex thinks because Michael is all he thinks since their kiss on the patio.  He tries to push away the images of Michael’s smile after they kissed and the way his body looked spread out over Alex’s bed.  “Nothing much,” he answers as casually as he can..

“You got laid,” Kyle’s eyes widen, and he points at Alex.  “Who was it?  Is he here?”

Alex looks around quickly just in case Michael showed up while he wasn’t looking even though he knows Michael is at the Wild Pony with Max and Isobel.  He’d declined Alex’s invitation to join him, sending him off with a kiss and a promise to take pictures if Kyle did anything embarrassing.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, doing his best to stonewall Kyle.

“Don’t lie to me.  I know that look.  It’s the same look you had after you hooked up with Forrest.  Is  it Forrest?  Did he come back because he can’t live without you?   He didn’t convince you to run away with him did he? I just got out of coma, don’t leave town again.”

“What is in that thing?  Alex eyes Kyle’s drink suspiciously.  “You shouldn’t be this drunk after one and half drinks.”

“It’s more like four.  I had few before you got here.  Devon makes a mean martini,” he waves his hand carelessly in the direction of the bar and the bartender winks at him.  “But don’t change the subject.  You definitely got laid, and I want to know if you’re running away with some cute guy and leaving me behind.”

“I’m not running away with anyone,”  Alex admits with a huff.  

“So it’s not Forrest.  Who is it?  If you don’t tell me I’ll just get Isobel to get it out of you.”

Alex winces because nothing the Air Force taught him would prepare him for being interrogated by Isobel  “It’s Guerin.  Michael,” he corrects.

“Oh, thank God,” Kyle sighs dramatically.  “The sexual tension between you two was getting uncomfortable.”

“There’s no sexual tension,” Alex protests.

“Maybe not now,” Kyle wiggles his eyebrows.  “But the last time we were all out together, and he was playing pool, the things he did with the pool stick to get your attention were very suggestive, educational too, but mostly suggestive.”

Alex blushes, “It’s not like that.”

“It’s not sexual?”  Kyle sounds doubtful.  “Because I know you got laid”

“Ok, yes I got laid,” Alex cuts him off.  “But it’s not just sex.  I love him,” he admits without meaning to.

“Oh,” Kyle’s brow furrows for a second before a bright smile blooms on his face.  “That’s awesome, dude.  I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks, I’m pretty happy about it too,” he admits, finding it easy this time to say just how much Michael means to him.

Michael walks away from his conversation with Maria smiling and wondering if he should text Alex even if it means interrupting his night with Valenti.  When he gets to their booth, Max and Isobel are having a whispered conversation that stops once he sits down.

“What’s up?” he asks when they both turn to look at him.  He really hopes it's not another Jones emergency.  He wants his date with Alex before the next pile of shit hits the fan.

“Nothing,” Isobel says too brightly.

“You and Maria looked like you were having a pretty intense conversation when we got here,” Max says.

“Not really,” Michael shrugs.  Intense seems like too strong of a word, important yes, but it’s not like they were fighting.  “Just wanted to talk to her about something.  And make sure she’s feeling alright.”

“It’s nice that you are so concerned, but we don’t want you to get hurt,” Isobel reaches across the table and takes his hand.

“Ok?”  It’s a question because Michael really has no idea what she’s talking about.  He feels like he walked into the middle of the wrong conversation.

“Michael,” Isobel sighs and sits up straighter, taking her hand away.  “You know Maria is seeing Greg Manes.”

“Greg’s not the Manes I’m in love with so I don’t see why that would be a problem,” Michael shrugs.

“You mean Alex, right?”  Max asks.

Michael rolls his eyes, “I sure as hell wasn’t talking about Flint.”

“Does this mean we can finally talk about your secret, sordid teenage affair with Alex Manes instead of just hinting about it?” Isobel leans forward eagerly.

“No, and it wasn’t,” Michael makes a face and Isobel raises one brow at him, “sordid.”  He’ll give her secret, but there was nothing sordid about how they felt about each other.  Sure, they fucked it up later, but when he fell in love with Alex it made him feel lighter and hopeful.

“Does he know how you feel or are you still waiting for the right time?  You know the weird emo poet guy is gone,” Isobel tells him.

“Oh, he’s very aware,” Michael smirks, thinking of how thoroughly he’d demonstrated his feeling this morning.

“So you’re back together,” Max, ever the romantic, smiles.

“No,” Michael corrects, but he feels bad when Max’s face falls and Isobel rushes to comfort him.

“Maybe he just needs time,” she says.  “He wrote you a love song after all.”

“We are together,” Michael admits.  “Just not back together.  What we had before is over, and we need to start fresh if this is going to work.  Can’t keep looking back.”

Max winces a little, and Michael knows he’s thinking about his own complicated history with Liz.  

“So when did it happen?  Who made the first move?  Was it romantic or one of those fighting until your kissing moments?” Isobel bombards him with questions, most of which he has no intention of answering.

Michael leans back in the booth and sighs.  “It’s still pretty new, and it’s still not sordid,” he makes another face at that word. “Although the sex is,” he trails off and lets out a low whistle.

Max drops his face into his hands, but Isobel claps her hands, “Tell me everything,” she demands.

“Iz, no,” Max looks up and glares at her.

“What, even you can admit they are hot together.”

“And it’s not secret this time,” Michael says, drawing their attention back to him.  “We have a date this week.”

“That’s awesome, man,” Max beams at him.

“When is it?” Isobel asks.  “I’ll need an hour, no two hours, to get you ready.”

“I can dress myself,” Michael objects, looking to Max for support.

Max laughs, “Don’t look at me.  She has a whole section of my closet marked off for date clothes and knows if I don’t use them.  I’m thrilled she has someone else to torture.”

“I wouldn’t have to do that if I could trust you to get changed before you go out,” Isobel scolds Max.

“Hey, I thought women liked a man in uniform.”

“Not that ugly brown uniform you wear.  Now, I remember how Alex looked in his dress blues for the parade,” she smiles dreamily and turns to Michael.  “Does he ever wear that for you?  Because he should.  The role play possibilities are endless.”

It’s Michael’s turn to cover his face with his hands.  “Maybe we should have kept this secret,” he groans, but no one believes him.

After their respective nights out, Alex and Michael went back to their own homes, and while they exchanged texts about how their evenings had gone, they hadn’t seen each other.  Alex was surprised by just how much he missed Michael even after only a few days together, and pleased at how he isn’t afraid to let Michael know it.  So it was no hardship for him to leave early enough to pick up three coffees instead of one and stop by the junkyard on the way to work.

He leaves his own coffee in the car and heads toward the garage with the other two.  As expected it’s Sanders who he sees first.  Alex isn’t sure if he has an alarm system on the driveway entrance or he just spends all his time watching for cars, but he always appears the minute someone gets out of their vehicle.  

“Car trouble?” Sanders asks as he makes his way to Alex.

“No, sir, just stopped by to see Michael.”  Alex lifts the coffee cups a little higher in the air.

“So you’re coming by in the daylight now, out in the open, instead of sneaking around hoping no one sees you?”

Alex feels a flush of shame on his face.  He was never embarrassed to be seen with Michael, just afraid, but he knows how he looks.  “You’ll be seeing a lot of me now.  I’ll do better by him,” he says as confidently as he can.  “I love him,” he adds because Sanders is Michael’s family, and Alex wants him to know he’s serious.

“I could have told you that.  One eye,” he taps his patch, “but I’m not blind.  Don’t know why I have to keep reminding people of that,” he grumbles.  “And you’ll both do better because you’re not a couple of scared kids this time.  You’re not hiding from that no good daddy of yours, and he’s not so used to secrets he wouldn’t know the truth if it slapped him in the face.”

Alex laughs because he’s not wrong, but “No, now we're just dealing with his,” Alex pauses and reconsiders his words because he can’t bring himself to call Jones Michael’s father in front of the man who really should have that title.  “Now we’re dealing with Jones and all my bullshit from a decade in the Air Force.”

“Never gonna be perfect,” Sanders grunts.  “But you’re better together than you are apart.  Start with that.”

“Thanks,” Alex shifts on his feet. He wasn’t expecting to have a heart to heart with Sanders so soon.  It makes his anxious to see Michael, to be reassured he hasn’t fucked things up already.  “Here, this is for you,” he thrusts one of the coffee cups at Sanders.

He sips it cautiously then smiles before narrowing his eye at Alex. “Michael tell you how I take my coffee?”

“Nope, he told me you take it black.”

“Idiot,” Sanders mumbles under his breath.  “Guess coffee runs are your job from now on.”

“I can do that,” Alex agrees easily.  Sanders' approval is worth the hours he spent reviewing the footage he hacked from the coffee shop to find out Sanders preferred coffee is a double espresso latte with half vanilla, half coconut and almond milk.

“Best be on your way before Michael glares a hole in my back waiting for me to let you go.  Guess I know why he’s been smiling like a loon these last few days.  Probably explains the limp, too.”

Sanders walks away leaving Alex choking on air.  But he spots Michael waiting in the doorway of the garage, and his smile is worth the embarrassment.

[nikkiruncks]

Welcome to my blog where I show love for a hundred billion wlw ships, hundred million mlm ships, and eight hundred something het ships haha.

@randomwriter23 is the Eric to my Donna (platonically)

@vintageholls is the Donna to my Jackie

Oh, and I track the #donna pinciotti defense squad tag <3

PSA: This blog is a safe space for everyone. Doesn’t matter if we have some different interests from each other or anything like that. Just as long as everyone is kind and respectful.

Edit 1/6 (OC ask game): here

Character ask game (edited 9/18): here

Edit 9/18: another ask game

(Edit 9/2): https://www.tumblr.com/torturedpoetskywalker/758533880307482624

Current polls (TBD):

Another edit 7/18: list of colors for each ship/dynamic I make edits for

I do take giffing requests, so feel free to send me any ship or character and I’ll make an edit!

Sideblogs: @stebekahappreciationblog (stebekah blog), @bennxttwitch (Bonnie rp), @ao3feed-forwood (forwood ao3 blog), @that90sgifs (gifs and content for t9s), and @sabrinaswifts (Taylor Swift side blog), @creativewritingthings (prompt blog), @tophzulapolls (my Tophzula poll blog)

And if you wanna know more about me: here

Be sure to check out my video edits @nikkisruncks in ig and @itspoorni18 on TikTok (a lot of them can’t fit into tumblr)

Pinterest: @nikkisruncks

Twitter: @nikkisruncks

Upcoming fic list: https://www.tumblr.com/nikkisgwens/755189960254046208/upcoming-fics-edited-7524

T7S/T9S drabble pack masterlist: https://www.tumblr.com/hydesjackiespuddinpop/729013936318529536/ship-drabble-packs-t7s-loud-girl-and-puddin-pop

Psa: if there’s ANYTHING on my blog labeled as mature, please assume it’s tumblr being dumb. I may no longer be a minor, but I’m not comfortable making that kind of content.

Ships: Gwen/Nikki, Jay/Leia, Nate/Nikki (part 3 won me over), Jackie/Eric, Toph/Azula, Nate/Leia, Gwen/Leia, Jay/Nikki, Brooke/Kelso, Kelso/Fez, Eric/Buddy, Jackie/Donna, Eric/Donna (mostly s1-2), JT/Liberty, Peter/Darcy, Sean/Ellie, Sean/Emma (mostly s1-2), Ellie/Jimmy, Jimmy/Trina, Jay/Manny, Holly J/Sav, Spinner/Jane, Chantay/Anya, & Jackie/Hyde, along with many more ships

One last psa: I will be writing my own posts with several of my opinions. If you don’t agree, then just don’t interact and all is good. You’re allowed to have your own opinion and I’m allowed to have mine. So there’s no need or point or state how you disagree with mine and think x. If you want to state your opinion, then I suggest writing your own post instead of going onto mine.

I am accepting gif requests, so feel free to send me any ship, dynamic, character from any fandom and I’ll make a gifset.

My main T7S/T9S opinions if anyone wants to know:

The T7S & T9S (T2S as well) timelines for my verse:

[josiebelladonna]

alright. kinktober prep is officially underway it looks like. after getting a major head start a couple of months ago, my nerves are completely frayed, but the stories will all be written and they’ll all queued up. all the pigs are all lined up, i give you all that you want, take the skin and peel it back-

i’m making this post to preface the event.

by the way, if you’re not into this and don’t wanna see the posts, please blacklist the “kinktober″ and “kinktober 2024” tags, as well as my personalized tag “antarkinktober”—this goes double if you’re under 18: it’s not my job to police you so heed the “mature” labels on all the stories. 

what is kinktober? definition from fanlore: “Kinktober is a multifandom prompt based challenge that encourages the creation of erotic fanworks, mostly fanfiction and fan art, that focus on specific kinks. Taking place during the month of October.” 31 days of smut at its bare bones—although, contrary to popular belief, kink actually need not be sexual.

what prompts are you using? my own, as well as a list from oops-all-kink. i’ve been planning this quite literally since may.

what does X prompt mean? i would recommend going to fetlife or urban dictionary to learn about kinks that sound unfamiliar (especially when Google is basically useless at this point and they feel a need to sanitize results, too)—fanlore also has a full glossary of fanfic terms that, even i’ve never heard of.

how long will they be? at this point, they’re ranging anywhere from 2-6k words: i like to set a stage and tell a story. it’s just more titillating to me, and i always feel like i’m shortchanging myself if i go below a thousand words. i’m not doing it bc i’m horny lol; i do it because… it’s just how i roll. it’s one of the many things that isolate me from the rest of the pack 😒

who are you including? i want to leave that as a little surprise~

why don’t you like the “x reader” trope? short answer: it’s literally every fic in existence right now and literally no one does it right. long answer: that, and what i write is very personal, like i’m writing in my diary. if i bring “you” or “y/n” into it, it removes the heart from it and it ends up looking like nothing. i want to stand out, i guess. and more often than not, it begs the question, “why not just make an original character? you obviously went out of your way to make it applicable to a male reader or a nonbinary reader, why not just make a character?” (it’s a cop out at this point, is what i’m saying)

what time are one shots going to be posted? i have posts scheduled from 9pm and 9:30pm pacific time starting september 30th (the installments of paradise will be posted throughout the day on september 29th, alex’s birthday), so i’d say be on the look out (and maybe turn on my post notifications?). on ao3, i’ll be posting them on the day of the prompt, probably in the morning after my workout (around 8-ish).

isn’t this a bit too much smut? depending on who you ask. my first time was in 2022 and it didn’t feel like too much. i tried it last year and i pulled the plug halfway through because it stopped being fun such that i wanted to kill myself. this year, i’m trying to redeem myself and going all out. some people like doing only a few prompts, like a couple every week.

why are so nervous? i just am. i’m not exaggerating when i say last year was so excruciating that i wanted to slit my own throat. i’m not a sex-positive person (but i’m not sex-negative, though), and just thinking about being sex positive makes me feel somewhat sick to my stomach. i have no confidence… like not at all, and i feel as though everyone just wants to be a dumb, lazy idiot and an antisemite for the rest of their lives. i’m not sexy, and i’m not this confident, voluptuous vixen just eager to share her fantasies with all of you. in fact, i fully expect to get a repeat of last year where everyone gets called hot and sexy and “the one to be” and “the best writer”… except me. i fully expect my kinks to met with utter disgust. there’s a great deal of pride in what i do (i’m portuguese, we’re a proud people), even though it doesn’t seem that way. but if i’m met with apathy, it’s painful, and last year, i was met with reams of apathy. i can get down with a negative remark despite the unspoken rule that you must never say anything negative about a fic to the author; but if no one cares or calls it “fine” or “okay” or whatever, i have my hand on the cable.

if you have any other questions, you may (or not) have noticed that i quietly reopened my ask box. 

please be patient with me when it comes to answering asks, or even posting. this has been the most emotionally trying year for me in 7 years, and anxiety is a real thing with me. depression is a real thing with me. i am scarred by shame and a broken heart. i’m an artist, i have been taking shit day in day out for the last 11, and more so in the last four years. so, i am literally trying my best.

please try and enjoy what i have waiting in the wings. it really does feel like everyone hates me, and this feeling has pervaded since around this time in 2020.

[emeraldthelynx]

Ah, Fandoms

Pet peeves I have with the fandoms of franchises I like:

Sonic: All the ships. Every. Single. One of them. I'm okay if the ship is officially canon in some media, like SonAlly, or Tailsmo, but all the other non-canon ships drive me up the wall. (Especially Sonadow. WHO THOUGHT OF SONADOW!?)

Pokemon: Ash Ketchum actually knowing exactly what he's doing, Ash having ledgendaries, and Ash betrayed. Basically anything that makes Ash not have eager excitement he does in canon. (For a side note, I don't like how dumbed-down Sun and Moon made this, but anything further than what Ash was in Kalos is going too far.) There is a slight exception to this list, because 'Legendarily Popular' on AO3 and FF.net do a wonderful job keeping the charm and absurdity of the anime while still making Ash ridiculously overpowered.

The Legend of Zelda: Sheik and Zelda as separate characters, or making Sheik male. I know that the manga heavily implies that the latter is true, but it could also be interpreted as Sheik wakes up in the mind of a young boy. As for the Sheik and Zelda as different characters, it doesn't make much sense. Zelda is Shiek, and Sheik is Zelda. I'm not saying I haven't found a couple of interesting takes on this idea, but at the same time people seem to forget that Zelda was in her Sheik persona for seven years. That's plenty of time for a person's personality to change, especially that of a young girl.

Mega Man: X/Zero. Can I please, please, read a story with X and Zero being buddies without somebody tainting their relationship by making it romantic? I also get frustrated with Reploids getting the 'just an advanced machine' label getting slapped on. Reploids, while robotic, think and feel like a human! Also anything having to do with existential angst. Zero's the only one who canonically gets this label.

Detective Conan: I haven't really delved too deep into the DCMK fandom, but that's because I'm still investigating the canon material. I will say, again, it's the non-canon ships. So far the fandom treats their little detective pretty well, but again, I haven't looked too far into it.

Fullmetal Alchemist: Do I need to say it? Parental Roy Mustang anyone? The funny thing is that there was a fairly canon time that Edward called Mustang dad, but he meant it entirely as a joke, and later a cover story, and when the rumor got back to Mustang, his team accused him of having a secret child. I also don't like stories where the Elric brothers cave in to using a Philosopher's Stone/other people/self-sacrifice to restore what they lost. That just compromises the whole story, and every moral the two have yelled at other people all through the story.

Ecco the Dolphin: There's not much here, but what is here feels like an Erin Hunter story, but Ecco is too fantastical to be shoved into this niche. Also, Ecco is a young hero. Everyone calls him 'little singer,' so he's basically Link. If Link was a dolphin. So yeah, there's not much here, and what is there is usually angsty and doesn't really capture the magical feeling of the series.

In short, my pet peeves are non-canon ships, failure to recognize the traits that make up the character and their world, and ignorance of canon. Shippers, don't come after me. I recognize your ships, it doesn't mean I need to appreciate them. If anyone else has a pet peeve with their franchise's fandom, please leave a comment or a reblog it in the tags.

[edupunkn00b]

It Could Always Be Worse, Ch. 2: It Was a Bright, Cold Day in April

Butterfly universe version of Happily Ever After, Ch. 2: It Was a Bright, Cold Day in April

Prev - It Was a Bright, Cold Day in April - Next - All - [ AO3 ]

WC: 1404 - Rating: T - CW: swearing, self-deprecation, divorce, dogs

"It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." -George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

Logan drove slowly down the winding road, fingers still a little cold while he waited for the heater to finally start in the old minivan. As he passed each mailbox or curbside label, his eyes quickly flicked over, searching for the right house number. He got the end of the street, peering out at the sign on the intersection. He shook his head, muttering to himself in the empty minivan. "No, that's already East 67th. Fuck. I must have passed it."

Sucking in a breath, fighting against that all-too-familiar burning tightness in his chest, Logan carefully made a K-turn at the intersection, biting his lip and wincing as he came close the the curb on the opposite street. Finally, he got his old minivan turned around so he could drive back up the street he'd just come from. Logan put the van in park and pulled up the email from the PTSA treasurer for the fourth time that morning. 5923. He needed 5923. He huffed out a little puff of air, swallowing against the growing lump in his throat. There isn't a 5923.

Logan ripped his glasses off his face, tossing the frames onto the passenger side seat next to him and buried his face in his hands. He let out a long, muffled scream into his palms. He screamed and screamed and screamed. He screamed he felt his eyes might burst. He screamed until he felt glass scraping his throat. He screamed until he was completely empty.

He took another breath and muttered to himself again. "C'mon, you dumb fuck, get yourself together. Google Maps says the house exists. The Treasurer says the house exists. You're just not seeing it. Try. Again." Logan lowered his hands and replaced the frames on his face, taking a couple of deep breaths and ignoring the burning in his eyes and the fire in his throat. He licked his lips, tilted his head from one side to the other, feeling one side crack. He shifted out of park, checked his mirrors and his blind spot, and pulled back onto the road, searching again for the proper house.

After another half-hour, Logan finally spotted tiny white numerals painted on the edge of the curb. "See, it's right fucking there," he muttered to himself. "You must have driven past the place ten times." He carefully parked on the street, turning his steering wheel against the incline of the hill, and engaged the parking break. He gathered his laptop, pen case, phone, and keys, and locked the car, racing up the walkway to the house. The front door was open, the other PTSA parents in the audit sub-committee already sitting around a tastefully decorated dining room table. The hostess waved him in and he carefully toed off his shoes, leaving them just outside the door.

The moment his foot crossed the threshold, two large dogs lunged against a gate covering the hallway next to the front door, barking and snarling at him. Logan jumped backwards then froze, breath caught in his throat. Oh my god, Logan, if you have a fucking panic attack in front of the PTSA moms...

"Oh, sorry, about that, they get so excited when people come over," the hostess called out to him.

Logan nodded, pressing a smile onto his face. He forced his feet to move forward toward the table, keeping a steely grip on his computer, refusing to look toward the dogs. He pushed up the corners of his mouth, trying to brighten his smile. "Hi, Liz, Grace. Bridgett, thank you for hosting this year." He sucked in a breath, "Sorry to be so late."

"Oh, hun, it's fine. We're just glad you're here. Now we can get started."

Grace handed Logan a large, thick three-ring binder filled with paper copies of every check and cash deposit transaction for the PTSA that year. "We had a lot of small teacher grants this year, plus the graduation yard sign sale was a big success. We've got a lot of ground to cover. Bridget and Liz will reconcile the minutes and budget updates. Will you validate that each check for reimbursements and grants matches the requisition form and documentation?"

Logan nodded, "Certainly." Opening the binder, Logan pulled out the four checkbooks-worth of check duplicates and began the audit list.

Grace looked around the table and waved, "I'm not supposed to stay for the audit but you all can call me if you have questions! See y'all later!" She skipped away from the table, petting the dogs as she left.

The three worked in relative silence for a few minutes as Bridgette and Liz finalized the short report for August. Finally, Bridgette cleared her throat, "Oh, did you hear about the Petersons?," asked Liz as they compared reports for September.

"Do you mean that they're moving or that—" Logan could feel Liz' eyes on him. He kept his eyes trained down on the documents in front of him.

Bridgette hummed, leaning closer to Liz, whispering low enough that Logan couldn't make out most of the words and the few that he could hear were easy to tune out. He turned to the next page in the notebook, confirming that the check number, date, signature, and payee all appropriately matched the requisition form.

The audit sub-committee worked this way for a few hours before, finally, Bridgette and Liz had completed their notebooks, signing off on their portions of the audit list. Logan had a few more forms to check and then he could sign off, as well. Bridgette refilled their water glasses, then turned to Logan. "So, Logan, how has Kelly been doing? We haven't seen her around much lately and it's been forever since Pete and I have had the two of you over."

Logan bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to try and stop his jaw from trembling. "Kelly is doing fine, thank you." He nodded absently, eyes fixed on the forms in front of him. He turned to the next check in the book and the next form to validate.

Bridgette sounded surprised. "Oh, well, that's good to hear." He didn't look up, but could hear the little popping sounds of one of the two mouthing something to the other.

"Are you sure she's okay?" Liz pushed. "You know, we had heard that you two had gotten a divorce."

Logan sucked in a breath, staring down at the form in front of him. "Yes, yes that would be accurate."

"Oh, that's such a shame. You had such a beautiful family," Bridgette murmured, taking a sip of her water glass. "You know, Brad and I have definitely been through some rough spots, let me tell you!"

Logan quietly nodded, trying to complete the last few pages in his book without breaking. He could feel the lump in the back of his throat growing, but he was confident that if he could just concentrate on the numbers in front of him, he could get this done and get back in his car before his control slipped completely.

Liz reached out, patting his hand. "So how often do you get to visit the kids?"

Logan grit his teeth, pressing his lips together for a moment before forcibly relaxing his jaw and answering quietly, "We have a shared custody agreement. The boys spend half their time home with me and half their time at Kelly's."

"Oh," Liz said, pulling her hand back. "I'd heard, well, I'm—"

Logan finally turned the last page in the book and snapped it closed. "Well, I believe our work here is done. With the exception of the one reimbursement for more than the request amount on check 7294, everything is perfectly in order here." Logan reached for the audit report sheet and quickly signed it. He looked up at Liz and Bridgette, "It has been a pleasure, as always." He drank the last of the water in his glass, thanked Bridgette for her hospitality and left, flinching as the dogs barked at him in his retreat.

Rushing to get in his car before they could see his face, Logan started the car, carefully backing out and driving home in the waning light. When he had gotten a few blocks away, he pulled over, leaned over the steering wheel and sobbed.

[fandsart]

Where the 20 Chain Links Lead

Also on Ao3

[Chapter 1]  [Chapter 2]  [Chapter 3.1]  [Chapter 3.2]  [Chapter 4]

Chapter 1: The Edification of One Steve Harrington and the Events of 1983

Steve has always known he’s stupid. Sure, he doesn’t remember crawling backwards (of course he wouldn’t, he’s too stupid to remember anything), but his mother just loved to laugh about the story as she told it to her dinner and party guests. They would laugh and express disbelief.

“I understand he was a baby, but I don’t understand how someone can’t figure out how to crawl correctly.”

“Maybe you should have taken him to a child psychologist.”

“Are you sure you’re remembering correctly? As a new mother you must have been sleep deprived.” Not that she was the person who took care of him. At least home video wouldn’t be a thing for several more years. His mother would absolutely have filmed him and put those videos on display for her guests.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Steve’s walking well before he can talk fully, and when he does start talking in full sentences, his parents direct him about everything. They don’t want to be embarrassed during they’re dinner parties, so he needs to learn manners.

He picks up etiquette fairly quickly, but there are other things that are constantly slipping his mind. His parents never chastise him in front of guests, but as soon as they leave, he’s given a list of everything he did wrong. It usually consists of every instance in which someone spoke to him and he didn’t look at them.

This is something that constantly comes up in the Harrington home. With or without guests, they constantly have to direct him where to look. It feels so unnatural to look at someone’s eyes while they’re talking. He usually finds himself looking just past people’s shoulders, but it’s hard to keep himself from looking at their mouths if he’s going to be forced to look at them. It makes it easier to make out the words.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

As it turns out, crawling isn’t the only thing he gets backwards. He can never remember the difference between right and left, and learning to read and write turns out to be quite the challenge, too. The letters seem to jumble and shift in and out of place. Letters like d, b, q, and p became interchangeably processed in his mind.

He’s homeschooled for kindergarten and first grade as his parents attempt to get him to catch up academically and to cement his habit of looking people in the eyes, before the world is made too aware of  his failures. His mother would sit in the room with his tutor, the disappointment of her gaze drilling into the side of his head. She left the room the moment he read the word ‘world’ as ‘morip.’ They tell him he’d understand if he would just pay more attention. He tries, though. He tries so hard.

Eventually he gets pretty good at sifting through the possible words and what works with the context of the sentence before reading it out loud. He’s slow, but his tutor still gave him the pass, telling his parents that these services were no longer required. Steve thinks he only passed him so he won’t have to deal with it. So he’s passed—by a hair—but he can read now. He did it.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He has a hard time paying attention in any of his classes. He asks a lot of questions, which his teachers apparently deem to be stupid enough that there’s not way he’s asking in good faith. He’s labeled a “class clown” by all of his teachers. Steve eventually drifts towards the other “class clowns” of the class. Tommy H and Carol P.

Whenever he asks dumb questions, they’re always the ones to laugh the loudest, and sometimes add to the questions in a way that seems to mock the teachers. Steve almost appreciated it—it made him look less stupid—but it also made it look like he was antagonizing his teachers, and he never got his questions answered. He just got sent to the principal’s office where they called his parents.

The first time it happens, he’s in third grade, and he thinks maybe they don’t think it matters. The principal calls his parents and simply sends him back to class. It confuses him until his mother picks him up at the end of the day, instead of Vanessa, his father’s housekeeper. The ride is tense and silent. His father is waiting at the door as soon as they arrive.

“I hear you’ve been antagonizing your teachers,” he says. Steve doesn’t know what that word means, so he shrugs. He knows what he’s referring to at the very least. The next thing he knows he’s on the ground, his cheek stinging. His father grabs a fistfull of his hair and drags him to a closet. He isn’t let out until Vanessa finishes making dinner. It’s hot and suffocating, squeezed under the lowest shelf, shoved into a few spare blankets.

The next time he messes up the closet is cleaned out and all the shelves are removed. Just for him.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Every time Tommy or Carol disrupt the class they look to the other and to Steve, as if to search for approval for their practical jokes. They clearly don’t realize that he’s genuinely stupid. But it’s nice. He does enjoy their fun most of the time. It’s much more enjoyable than reading the same sentence over and over again. It doesn’t hurt that it gives him the excuse that another student was distracting him. He can pretend that’s why he’s so behind. It’s for that reason he starts joining in.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Steve’s parents leave for business conferences every couple of weeks. The problem with that is that Vanessa is his parents housekeeper, not his. On days they leave he has to find his own food. His parents are, obviously, rich and pretentious, so most of the food in the house is ingredients to actually make things. They have loads of uncooked pasta, eggs, and flour, but Steve doesn’t think there’s ever been a poptart in the house.

He knows how to make scrambled eggs, so he usually eats those for breakfast on days his parents are out. He can barely stand the taste, so he refuses to eat them for his other meals. This leaves him struggling to find anything to keep his stomach from eating itself. He often finds himself chewing on the dry pasta. 

Steve never got any kind of warning when his parents left for business conferences. He would just wake up some days and they’d be gone. They never left for more than two days, and he can always rely on them being back soon. Until one day when he’s in fourth grade.

It’s day three, and he’s starting to get hungry again after the scrambled eggs. He reluctantly resorts to scarfing down the container of spinach in the fridge. It’s almost 5:00 PM when he hears the door open. He reluctantly makes his way down from his room. He knows, coming home so late, they’d have probably already eaten, so they aren’t going to call Vanessa over, but they’ll want to evaluate how much he messed up the house with the housekeeper out.

He’s surprised to come downstairs to find that Vanessa is, in fact, there, but his parents aren’t.

“Come on over here,” she says.

“Where are mother and father,” he asks.

“I was wondering the same thing,” she answers. “So I called the hotel they’re supposed to stay in. Their business trip is scheduled for a week.” Something sparks in her eyes. “Now I’m not getting paid for this, but I swear to god!” She marches over to the kitchen and begins making dinner. It’s spaghetti. Steve wonders if she picked up on the fact it’s his favorite, or if it’s just easiest or the fastest.

“I’m not supposed to go near the stove when you’re cooking,” he says.

“Not anymore. Now, you’re going to need to learn this stuff.” Spaghetti is only the first food she teaches him to make.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

The summer between fifth and sixth grade, Carol asks if they want to go swimming in Lovers’ Lake.

“Ew, Lovers’ Lake?” Tommy asks. “Come on Carol, that’s lame.”

“I want to go swimming,” she stands her ground. “In a lake. I don’t like the smell of chlorine.”

“Well, does it have to be Lovers’ Lake?” Steve tried to find a compromise between them.

“Yes. All of the other lakes are going to have a bunch of old geezers, fishing in them.” She turns directly to Tommy. “And it’s only called that because it’s kind of heart shaped, you know.” Both Tommy and Carol’s arms are crossed in front of them.

“You know what I heard, Tommy?” Steve asked. “There’s a house by the lake with some old kook.” Specifically, his father had called him a ‘degenerate and a maniac’ but Steve couldn’t remember the actual word. “My dad says it’s best to stay away from there.” They all have mirroring grins now.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

They’re all in the bathing suits they arrived in, creeping up near the house. Carol throws the first rock, but Tommy’s the one who actually breaks a window. A man barges out of the house, holding a shotgun. Steve’s eyes immediately widen, and he drops his rock and ducks behind a tree. Tommy grabs his hand, dragging him into the open and towards the lake. Steve chances a look at the man. His gun isn’t raised; he’s just glowering at them.

They all swim across the lake, like that’s the most logical course of action. The lake, while relatively small for a lake, is big and their legs are short, but they have the stamina of the ten–year–olds they are. Even so, they’re about halfway across–and growing exhausted already–when Carol lets out a gargled yell. The boys stop and scramble to try to keep her above water, but she’s thrashing at them too, and none of their feet have been touching the ground in several minutes.

Over his panic, Steve hears a roaring motor sound behind them. He turns to see the man on a boat, steering towards them. He screams.

The man stops the boat when he gets to them, plunging an arm in the water just as Carol’s head bobs under the surface and pulls her up by the bicep.

With a renewed adrenaline, Tommy and Steve start moving to swim away but are quickly scooped up and land in the boat. Tommy and Carol are immediately in each other's grasps and Steve is gripping the bench under him. The man doesn’t turn the boat back around like he expects. He continues to take them to the other side of the lake, where they were headed. The man stops the boat, right at the edge, when the bottom is touching the ground.

“Get out,” he orders. They comply and the man grabs his oar. “Don’t go throwing rocks at people’s houses, ya’ hear?” he says as he uses the oar to turn the boat around. They all nod rapidly. “Good.” He starts the engine back up and moves back to his side of the lake.

“I wanna go home,” Steve says.

“Pussy,” Carol says.

“Yeah, Steve,” Tommy laughs. “That’s the most fun I’ve had in my life!”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Despite Tommy and Carol having such an enjoyable time the first time, they don’t attempt to disrupt the man’s property again. They do continue to go to the lake that summer–and would continue to go the following summer–to swim. Steve always has the house in the back of his mind, feeling the urge to check over his shoulders every now and then to make sure the man isn’t watching them. That urge goes away over time.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

By middle school his parents seem to have lost all faith in any academic prospects for him. As long as he passes, they don’t care. He scrapes by on C minuses. He enters middle school and gets As and Bs in Mr Carlk’s class. Mr. Clarke is his favorite teacher. He explains everything in such an investing way, worded in ways that make the facts hard to forget. He gives very little reading material and doesn’t take off points for misspellings. I’m a science teacher, not an English teacher. Enthusiasm and jokes infecting Steve’s mind with the facts of the matter.

Steve’s gotten As and Bs on individual papers before, as rare as he does, but this is the first class he’s gotten as high as a B on his overall report card. He carries the paper home, giddy with pride. Sure the other spaces are filled in with Ds and C minuses, but he got a B and even managed to avoid an F in English.

He puts the paper on the table in front of his mother. She looks down from her wine glass, and analyzes for a few moments. Her eyebrow twitches before she finally looks away again, bringing her wine glass to her mouth again.

“Must have been an easy class,” she says.

Steve feels like his chest is collapsing and he has to force it to expand again to breathe. She’s right though. He’d barely even studied for the class; as opposed to his English classes, which—again—he almost always gets an F in. Maybe Mr. Clarke was a bad teacher. Maybe he wasn’t teaching everything that needed to be taught. Not if he was teaching at Steve’s level.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Tommy and Carol start dating in seventh grade and decide that if there are going to be lovers in Lovers’ Lake that summer, Steve shouldn’t also be there. It’s sort of an inside joke. Mostly it’s just the best place for them to be alone since neither of their houses are ever as empty as Steve’s. Steve gets it. It’s not like they’re always there, but when they decide they want to be doing couple things, that’s where they go, and Steve has to find something to do himself.

One day he’s buying time biking around the street and he runs into a classmate, Rachael.

“Where are your friends?” she asks.

“At Lovers’ Lake.”

“What? Why?”

“You know…” he shrugs non-committedly, “couple stuff.”

“They’re dating?”

“Yeah, they’ve been dating since January.” They’d been each other's New Year's kiss, and decided to go for it. It had worked out for them so they continued.

“Oh,” she says. “Hey, I was on my way to go see a movie. Wanna come?” So he does, because he’s just been biding his time anyway. He doesn’t watch a lot of movies, he realizes upon entering the theater. He remembers why once it’s over. He has a tendency to zone out and stop paying attention. The movies are always over before he knows it.

“You should bike me home,” Rachael tells him.

“Didn’t you bring a bike?”

“Yes. We should bike back to my place together, and talk about the movie. We live pretty close.”

“Yeah, ok.” They don’t talk about the movie; she talks about the movie and he nods like he knows what she’s talking about.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me now?” she asks once they reach her house.

“Why?”

“That’s… what you’re supposed to do after a date,” she says. “At least, in movies they do…”

“Was this a date?” Her face falls. “Just messing with you,” he lies, laughing. He leans in to kiss her. She seems pleased and enters her house. It was his first kiss, and probably the least eventful of any he remembers, but at least he remembers it.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

When he arrives at school the following month, there’s a rumor that Carol and Tommy have been “making love at Lovers’ Lake since January.” Which is an absurd claim, and most people assume it started later than that, but the rumor is still there.

Steve knows that’s not what they’ve been doing, or Tommy would have come to him to brag and tease him about ‘being behind.’ Tommy and Carol insist he does not clear things up. Something about ‘street cred.’

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He hadn’t gone to the Snow Ball dance in seventh grade, but he does in eighth. The gym is really decked out for a middle school dance in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana. There’s tinsel hanging off the walls, and even a curtain of it separating the dance floor from the bleachers. Streamers and string lights are tented on the ceiling and there are giant letters covered in glitter, spelling Snow Ball. Steve’s pretty sure that sign has probably been used every year. Probably all of the decorations have been reused and added to the collection.

Steve’s not entirely sure what he expected to get out of the dance, but Tommy and Carol are enjoying themselves. Steve stays pretty close to the concession stand for the first half of the dance.

“You didn’t get a date for the Snow Ball?” Mrs. Fischer asks, sounding sympathetic. “I’d have thought a nice, handsome boy like you would do numbers.” Steve forces a smile and thanks her because, well, it was a compliment. He doesn’t have a reason to feel so uncomfortable. He heads over to the dance floor, deciding he’d rather hover around all the dancing couples than stay near the stand anymore.

“Steve?” He turns towards the voice next to him.

“Hey, Emily,” he greets.

“You know my name?”

“We have three classes together, just this year. Why wouldn’t I know your name?”

She seems embarrassed and the next thing he knows their lips are pressed together. She holds it for several seconds, and Steve is frozen the whole time. When she finally pulls away she’s a blushing mess, and she runs back to her group of friends who are cheering her on.

It was a dare. She was dared to kiss him, but it wasn’t a bet. Steve could do numbers…

He kisses two other girls that night, before Tommy and Carol drag him back to Lovers’ Lake.

“I thought you said lovers only now,” Steve says.

“Come on Stevie–boy,” Tommy says. “Tonight’s special.”

“Yeah,” Carol laughs. “We’ll let you date us for the night. Maybe we can have a threesome.”

“With you guys?” Steve scoffs. “As if.”

“Aw, no?” Tommy pouts in mock offense, before pulling out a six pack of beers. “Alright. Let’s have some fun.”

They each have two cans and separate to stumble their own ways home. Vanessa greets him at the door, sighing at his pathetic entrance, having barely made it home at almost midnight.

“Do you realize how much beer you spilled on yourself?” she asks. He looks down. He isn’t exactly drenched, but there are small damp spots speckled around, primarily, his top.

“Oh. Yeah, Tommy was waving his cans around whenever he said anything.”

She tsks. “Go get changed and brush your teeth. I’ll make sure to have your suit cleaned by the time your parents get home in the morning.”

When he wakes up the next morning, there’s a trashcan next to his bed. Just in case, the post-it note by his bed says. There’s also an Advil with a glass of water. He doesn’t end up needing the trashcan and he decides that two beers isn’t a lot. He does take the Advil though.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Steve’s parents go on small vacations every year around the holiday season, but Steve’s father recently got a promotion, so their vacation this year takes two weeks. Vanessa comes every day that week and they review every of the recipes he’s learned over the course of the last four and a half years. They have to make several of them twice, since he doesn’t know 42 recipes, but some of them are more complicated than others, so Vanessa has him do those ones for the repeat meals.

Steve has mixed feelings about it, since they take a long time, but the more complex ones always taste the best. He thinks Vanessa is smart enough to know his preferences by the time she starts teaching him, and knows which foods he’d be willing to put more effort into getting results.

They make a cake the last day, and Steve invites Tommy and Carol over to eat it. He hadn’t seen them for the whole of the two weeks. He knew that if he had invited them over, they’d have stayed all day, then made fun of him for cooking. He knows it’s a girl’s activity, but he’s just so glad he doesn’t have to eat raw materials anymore.

“Jeez man, where have you been?” Carol asked, hugging him from the side. He hesitated.

“I was on vacation with my parents,” he lies, he looks at Vanessa, who smiles encouragingly at him as she cuts the cake. “They’re at a conference now, so they’ll be back tomorrow, when school starts up again.”

“Well, god man, you could have called,” Tommy deadpans.

“Yeah, sorry. I got distracted.”

“Alright, who wants the first slice?” Vanessa asks exuberantly.

After Tommy and Carol leave, Vanessa tells him that she’s no longer going to visit with his parents away. That he knows what he’s doing now and she’d never been getting paid enough to compensate. He doesn’t get to sleep that night, dreading the next day when he knows will come the arrival of the ending of the best two weeks of his life. He feels guilty thinking it was the best time of his life when his two best friends have been absent almost the whole time.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Steve’s dad gets a new car just before spring break, and tells Steve that he can have the old one once he gets his license. His keys are given to Vanessa for safe keeping. That’s when Vanessa starts taking him to empty parking lots to practice.

“What happened to not getting paid enough to take care of me when my parents aren’t here.”

“I was never paid enough for it. I still did it. Now you know how to keep yourself alive. But this. This is a milestone. And you can be the first of your friends to drive. You’re already probably the first in your grade to have a car.”

“It’s not mine yet.”

“You’re driving it, aren’t you?”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He goes to the first party of the school year as a freshman. He accepts a few drinks and it’s nice. It’s calming. He regularly goes to parties after that, drinking to let go of the stress of school. He doesn’t get wasted until some party in late September. He remembers trying a keg stand. He needs a second attempt after he almost drowns himself, not expecting what came at him. His second attempt he apparently breaks some record.

He remembers being passed a few more drinks. He woke up at home the next day with a girl in his bed and the newly acquired title King Steve. And he was good at something.

For the next two years this becomes a regular occurrence. Get wasted and wake up with a girl in his bed. Sometimes the bed is empty, but obviously needs washing. Sometimes he wakes up in somebody else’s bed, but that’s a rarity. It helps with the stress, and the hangovers get more manageable.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

A few weeks later, Steve’s father urges him to join the basketball team. He’d spent middle school studying, so he didn’t even really consider the possibility of squeezing fitness into his workload.

“You already have the genes for it,” his father reasons. “You’re going to need something to stand out to colleges. You aren’t getting any smarter.” All his father meant when he said he had the genes for it was that he, himself, had played baseball at a young age, but he turns out to be right.

Steve is naturally good at the game. He’s coordinated, and now that he’s regularly exercising, he gains strength easily. He revels in the positive attention provides; an attention he doesn’t get at home. When the season for competitive swimming comes up, it’s his choice to join. His parents seem pleased by this decision.

Tommy’s the one who suggests joining the swim team. He’s on the team too. They grow closer during training, trying to outperform each other and going out to eat with Carol after. His grades are dipping even below what they were, but his parents don’t seem too bothered, as long as he does well enough in competition.

Him and Tommy make varsity sophomore year. He gets invited to more parties, and he somehow manages to keep his grades fairly steady, still barely passing, albeit on very little sleep.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

“Everyone knows that you’re a good fuck,” Tommy says matter of factly, “but what good does that do if you can’t actually get a girlfriend.”

“I could get a girlfriend if I wanted.”

“Right, but you aren’t even trying to.”

“So?”

“People are gonna start thinking you’re gay.”

“What? That doesn’t even make sense. I have sex with girls.”

“Yeah,” Carol draws out. “Do you really think the queers never try to give themselves alibies? It’s awfully suspicious that you bed and run, Stevie.”

“Look,” Tommy says, “all you’ve got to do is pick someone. Any girl at this school would jump to date you. Unless you aren’t into that, Stevie.” He’s grinning darkly, the same way both Tommy and Carol always do when they call him that. But it’s more intense this time.

“I like Mallory,” Steve admits. Tommy’s face scrunches a bit.

“Mallory Shelmore? Why?”

“I mean, she’s pretty.” He didn’t mention that she had been in his periphery since fifth grade. Not having seen Tommy’s immediate reaction to the suggestion.

“I guess,” Tommy says, dubiously.

“It’s mostly her hair,” Steve backtracks, feeling profoundly judged. If nothing else, the fact that she had angelic hair was pretty undeniable. Cascading curls, the color butter might turn under the perpetual gaze of a sunrise.

“Ok,” Tommy concedes, “but you need to find someone with a matching face.” He snickers.

“And image,” Carol says. “You know in sixth grade she found a lizard during recess and brought it into class?”

“No,” Steve lies. He did know. He thought it was cool. He gets the impression even knowing that she did that and still having suggested her as an option would have given him a lot of shit.

“Just find yourself someone,” Tommy says. “You should probably run it by us first though. You obviously don’t have the eye for this, do you Stevie?”

Steve blinks. “...Right…”

Steve spends the rest of the day on the lookout for—as Tommy described them—candidates. He thinks about the reasons he likes Mallory that aren't related to her appearance or ‘weird’ hobbies. She’s a member of the ten percent of the girls at Hawkin’s High, who both look at him with curiosity and intrigue, while also managing to actually have a conversation with him. A conversation where her voice isn’t overplayed in an attempt to turn him on, in an attempt to coax him into a bed.

He keeps his eyes peeled and can’t believe he’s never noticed a certain Nancy Wheeler. He knows why she’s never been on his radar—being a year below him—but god does she stand out once he notices her.

She’s not just pretty (and at that, pretty in a way he’s distantly judged as something Tommy would deem acceptable) but she has this confidence. She knows what she’s doing, and has probably known what she’ll be doing after high school since before middle school. She’s smart and nice. He tells Tommy and Carol that if he were to ask someone out it would be her.

“Well hurry up then,” Tommy says. “What’s the point in getting all that experience if you aren’t going to use it?”

Tommy’s talking like advancing romantically is the same as advancing sexually, and it’s something Steve can’t imagine is the case. In all honesty, the only reason he even still hooks up is out of boredom. They live in a small town and there’s nothing to do. There’s a reason there are so many parties happening to give him the opportunity in the first place. But when he thinks about approaching someone with the prospect of dating—buying her flowers, picking her up, letting her drag him shopping, cuddling at the top of a ferris wheel, sharing intimate secrets, all that relationship stuff—it makes his hands sweat and his stomach twist.

Getting a girl into bed is easy, but asking one to—what?—go to a diner and sip from the same milkshake. It made him nervous. Especially someone as go getting as he’s noticed Nancy is in the past week. So he knows how to get a girl into bed, but not how to get them to a diner, and he voices these concerns to his friends, to be met with an eyeroll from Tommy and a laugh from Carol.

“That’s the same thing, stupid,” she barks.

“What do you mean?”

“Same approach,” Tommy clarifies. “You draw her in and tease her with the possibility of both, and she’ll come out of her shell for it.”

“So, right now…” Carol pauses, thinking. “You’re like an open box. People go to you and take out the sex.” Tommy snorts and Carol swats him with the back of her hand. “Starting a relationship would mean locking the box and giving her the key.”

“A spare key,” Tommy corrects and Carol scoffs at him.

“So it’s a trust thing?”

“Kind of,” Carol says. “It’s more about showing her she’s special to you. And also not fucking every girl in town. You up for that?” She winks. Absolutely he is.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

He draws her in with some make out sessions. If kisses land somewhere between sexual and romantic intimacy, then he could use his sexual charisma to charm her romantically. At least, that’s what Carol said.

Tommy and her are constantly trying to explain to him that romantic and sexual relationships go hand in hand, and that if you can get someone sexually, you can get them romantically. Steve has a hard time grasping that. It’s never been that way before. Though, to be fair, Steve has never tried to go much further. Not that he really tried to get as far as he has.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

“You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.” The words are harsh, but the tone is playful. It’s their third make out session, and he thinks he’s making progress towards the diner date of his dreams. He almost tries to defend himself, before letting Nancy walk away, towards the bathroom exit.

It wasn’t the first time someone had called him an idiot, but never from someone he liked. Not the way he likes Nancy. The way he wants her to like him back. That made it sting in a way it hadn't in a long time.

She tells him to meet her Dearborn and Maple at 8:00. She later calls to tell him she’s on house arrest, so he meets her where she is. He helps her study; tries to make it fun. She tells him off for it.

“Was this your plan all along,” she asks. Demands. “To… To get in my room and then… get another notch in your belt.”

“No,” he reassures. “Nancy, no.”

“I’m not Laurie, or Amy, or Becky.”

“You mean, you’re not a slut.”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You know, you’re so cute when you lie.”

“Shut up,” she says quickly, offended. That’s fair, he thinks. It was very accusatory of him. He picks up a teddy bear and puts on a voice for it.

“Bad Steve,” he makes the bear say. “Bad. Don’t do that to Miss Nancy.”

“You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington.” He quickly swallows down a lump that formed in his throat, which he didn’t entirely understand why he had.

“You are beautiful, Nancy Wheeler.” He needs to not think about the lump in his throat, so he immediately goes back to reading the flashcards.

Through the whole study date, Nancy barely misses three questions. He wonders if she would still think he was an idiot if she wasn’t a genius. No, he decides. She would. Maybe she wouldn’t say it to his face though. The way his parents tiptoe around it. We want you to do better. He knew what they meant, and why.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

The next time he sees her she’s walking down the hall with her friend, studying again. He doesn’t remember her name. He should.

He pulls the flashcards out of her hands.

“Hey!”

“I don’t know, I think you’ve studied enough Nance,” he says. “I’m telling you, you know, you got this.” He shifts the conversation to invite her to a party he’s planning. Well, she calls it a party, but he doesn’t think she’s been to many. It would just be him, Nancy, Tommy, Carol, and-well-he was inviting Nancy in front of her friend, so he wasn’t going to keep her from coming if she wanted. Nancy doesn’t actually get to decide if she wants to come before Carol points out Jonathan Byers putting a missing poster on one of the school pinboards.

“Oh, that’s depressing,” Steve says, because it is. He didn’t know someone went missing. His family must be devastated. Tommy makes a joke about how Jonathan probably did it, and Steve tells him to shut up—because seriously, what the hell—as Nancy walks up to comfort Jonathan. She’s a better person than Steve is. To be fair, Jonathan’s younger brother and Nancy’s younger brother were best friends.

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Steve tells Vanessa that he’s planning on throwing the party. He wouldn’t dare tell his parents, but she would be cool with it, as long as he was clear that it wouldn’t be massive.

“Four or five people, max,” he tells her.

“Why are you telling me this, Steven,” she asks, not annoyed, just confused. “It’s not like I’m going to be there to disrupt anything. I haven’t been taking care of you in years.”

“Mother and father have really high standards for the state of the house. I can never pass it, even when I’m not throwing a party. I don’t even know how to get rid of the smoke smell in my clothes.”

“Baking soda,” she says flatly. “Honestly Steven, do I need to teach you everything?”

“That’s not- '' He rakes his hand through his hair, debating how he wants to communicate his issue. “Look, I’ll keep the party activities by the pool, and I’ll do the bulk of the cleaning. I just want you to give it a rundown before my parents get back. Please?” She eyes him.

“Theoretically, that’s not something I would have a problem with. But frankly I don’t trust those friends of yours to stay away from each other. I don’t want to be involved with that.”

“Tommy knows how to clean that up by now. I’ll make sure they take care of that if they pull anything. I just need you to make sure the pool area is clean.” Vanessa sighs.

“You’re lucky I have a soft spot for you,” she says. “But you’re paying me twenty bucks for this little favor.”

“You’re the best.”

“I know.”

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Nancy does show up with her friend. Barbara as she told him over the phone, saying she didn’t want to come alone. As soon as the name exited her mouth he scrambles for a piece of paper to write down the name so he could make sure to remember by the time they got to his place. He tries not to be too concerned about whether he spelled it wrong. As long as he could decipher the name it shouldn’t matter, but there’s shame knowing he might have.

It’s a good night. He has a lot of fun. He thinks Nancy does too, despite her friend (Barbara, Barbara, her name is Barbara. Don’t forget.) cutting her hand while trying to shotgun. That cut turns out to be the first link in the wild chain of events that would change Steve’s life. 

↞⬡+¤+⬡↠

Link 1: Barbara cuts her hand.

Link 2: Barbara leaves the party early.

Link 3: Nancy can’t find Barbara the next day.

Link 4: Nicole tells him, Carol, and Tommy that she saw Jonathan Byers developing some photos that he ‘might want to know about.’ He finds out Byers was taking pictures of their party the previous night when he was ‘looking for his brother, who had gone missing. He breaks his camera.

Link 5: The kid is found dead in a lake.

Link 6: Barbara is officially missing. Nancy tells him she went to his house to search and saw some kind of monster. He doesn’t believe her.

Link 7: The cops question everyone at the party. Steve asks Nancy not to mention the beers that were at the party and she doesn’t. Carol does. She can’t resist the allure of being viewed as a rebel.

Steve’s father confronts him about the beers the next time he sees him. It’s the next day and he just woke up and his father is standing in the middle of the hall outside his room. Steve gulps. He knows this stance, the one his father is standing in. He walks up to him, forcing himself to maintain eye contact.

“Beers, huh?”

“Yeah…”

“What was that?”

“Yes sir.” He expects to get knocked around for a bit. He does not expect his father to sigh, disappointed.

“Next time you decide to do something stupid, don’t drag your friends into your bullshit with you.” There’s silence for a moment as Steve shakes off the shock.

“Yes sir.” Steve’s father shoves him into the wall to get by, heading to the bathroom across from Steve’s room.

Link 8: He apologizes to Nancy for being a dick. Acting like his father finding out about the beers was more important than Barbara.

“Did you get in trouble with your parents,” she asks. She’s probably asking about throwing a party in the first place, a party where someone was last seen. As far as he knows, she doesn’t know the cops ever found out there was beer.

“Totally, but… You know, who cares? Screw ‘em.” He wonders if he’d be saying this if he got the reaction he was expecting. “Any news about Barbara?” There hadn’t been. She’s obviously upset about it, so he invites her to the movies. She could use a distraction. She says she’s busy; especially with the fact her brother’s best friend’s funeral was that day.

Link 9: After their last interaction, Steve’s concerned about her. She seemed off. Tommy and Carol tell him he’s being stupid. Stupid for worrying, and stupid for caring about her at all. They’re right.

He climbs up to Nancy’s window, to check on her. Inside is Jonathan Byers, the pervert who stalked them. Who took pictures of Nancy while she was getting dressed. He has his arm wrapped around her.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Link 10: He gets mad and goes too far. Tommy and Carol are the ones to pull him into their scheme of revenge on his behalf, but that shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

Together the three of them spray paint “NANCY THE SLUT WHEELER” on the movie theater sign. Carol comes up with the idea, Tommy writes it out, and Steve holds the latter.

“You don’t want to do the honors?” Tommy asks, as if Steve even trusts himself to spell everything correctly. Not on something so public.

“I can’t believe I was actually worried about you,” he tells her later, once the sun comes up.

He eggs on Jonathan, insulting him and his family. He calls him things he shouldn’t, compares him to his absent father. He unremorsefully sneers about his missing brother and his grieving mother. Steve gets his face beat in, and he deserves every bit of it.

Link 11: He deserves it, but Tommy’s talking about revenge. Tommy’s accusing Jonathon of murdering his brother, and Carol won’t shut up. In a moment of rage he cuts off the friends he’s had for years.

Link 12: He cleans the spray paint off the movie theater sign before heading over to the Byers’ house to apologize to Jonathan. Shit goes down.

He’d jumped to conclusions—he was stupid—and just wants to talk about the situation. Work things out. Nancy’s there, and the house is decked out with Christmas lights, weapons, and the smell of gasoline. As stupid as he is, he’s never been more confused in his life, but before he can really even say anything there’s a gun in his face and he’s even more confused, with much added panic.

Suddenly the lights start blinking like crazy, out of nowhere. Something’s breaking through the ceiling. Jonathan grabs a baseball bat that has giant nails rammed through it, sticking out from every side off the table, and pulls him through the hall. Everything’s happening so fast and he just barely catches the warning to jump over the bear trap in the middle of the walkway.

They lead him into a room where the pace of everything happening slows to a stop. He takes a moment to register what’s happening. Whatever came through the ceiling seems to leave. This is crazy. Nancy tells him it’s going to come back and yells at him to leave. He runs.

He’s at the car, and the door is already open, but he’s looking at the house and the lights are flickering again. He can’t just leave them…

He runs back to the house. When he opens the door there’s a giant humanoid creature with an open flower face willed with spiky teeth. It’s set towards Nancy, who’s shooting the pistol she previously held to Steve’s face. It’s largely unaffected, and Nancy quickly runs out of bullets, continuing to shoot nothing in panic. He pulls himself together just in time to keep the monster from mauling Nancy, picking up the bat with nails running though it that Jonathan had previously been brandishing. He knocks it into the trap Jonathan and Nancy set up, and the former kills it with fire.

Masterlist Chapter 2>>

[corvidcrybaby]

ventpost re: spirituality, jewish identity, blah

the more i think about my upbringing as a lutheran the more upset about it i get, despite knowing there is nothing that can be done about it now.

i'm not so naive as to espouse some sort of grass is always greener bullshit but i really do feel the isolation sometimes of feeling like a spiritual/religious "stray" of sorts. i've been spending passover reflecting on where i stand on this besides trading a quick exchange of texts with my grandfather. i wish i'd had a religious upbringing that i felt i belonged in, and yeah, i do wish it'd been one more in line with the ol' family name. it's hebrew, after all, for fuck's sake. it's hard for me not to feel robbed when i think of how much my experience with christianity just felt plain wrong and incongruent for me from the very jump. even when i was a little kid i was asking questions at sunday school that i could tell were catching supervisors off guard. i was lucky in that they answered my questions of "how do we know this all happened" with "it's a matter of faith - we choose to believe these things because we believe in what they stand for" which while not where I stand now, is far more lenient than the average american church lady might say. prolly woulda gotten smacked if i said that in the wrong place at that age.

but all the same, it feels wrong of me to be carrying the name i carry with so little knowledge of where it comes from. i didn't get a jewish education. i barely know the basics. i can say a couple things in hebrew including my name, which is good i suppose. i remember the pride in my grandfather's voice when he taught me to pronounce the family name in Hebrew and i nailed it on the first try. i can tell how happy it makes him that i've taken so much interest in his side of the family as I've grown older and he's always overjoyed to answer all the questions he can, even though he's elderly to the point he can't quite string together coherent answers anymore. i cherish them nonetheless.

i often want to ask him what made him convert. if it was out of a need for safety and security, if it was out of convenience, or if he really did feel more drawn to christianity. and if so, why. but then, that's awfully personal, isn't it? like, REALLY personal. whose place is it to judge? not mine, that's for damned sure. i can't help but wonder if it was fully his decision, given his happiness about where my religious identity is moving to these days. is he glad one of his descendants feels safe and comfortable enough, or is brave enough to "return" to Judaism? or is that ludicrously naive of me to even entertain the notion of? am i just a dumb child playing at something i don't understand and am in fact insulting?

am i "tainted" by my christian upbringing?

is it even my right to claim the status of "jewish," despite being visually so enough to be called antisemitic slurs over my hair when i was a teenager? does that even count because it was via online or some shit? am i not jewish enough, despite knowing for a FACT i'd have died in the Shoah if i'd been there? despite knowing i had family members who DID die in the Shoah?

am i even "allowed" to be writing the fic i am? or is it all just philosemitic drivel by some culturally christian buffoon stumbling around walking into walls and slapping a "Jewish Characters" AO3 tag on it? is it all just make-believe and pretend?

will i never be "jewish enough" to feel comfortable in my own skin and the identity label?

i'm moving to a more populated area soon and have been eyeing synagogues, if only to see about finding someone who knows more than me to talk to for advice about this. i'm well aware that being a secular jew is perfectly valid, but i don't know if that's all i want out of life.

all i've wanted for as long as i can remember is to belong somewhere - i'm so weary of feeling out-of-step. wandering from social group to social group, never feeling anchored down anywhere. perhaps that's just the diaspora experience. perhaps that's as diaspora jewish as it gets. but it isn't satisfying me anymore. but if i reached out, would i be turned away? would i be laughed at? is all this laughable in and of itself?

idk man. i had my name struck from my old church's records. when i discarded my deadname and chose my new one, i picked it because it was hebrew and spoke to what's important to me. i dedicated myself to studying yiddish theatre in grad school. i've used my fanfiction as a means of deepening my knowledge of jewish spirituality and storytelling. my shelves bear books on yiddish folktales, kabbalah, jewish history divided up by region and country, guidebooks on things like the process of mourning/saying kaddish, and others. i've fucked around with yiddish on duolingo despite being horrid about building that as a routine. i've used art as an excuse to practice hebrew calligraphy. my feed is full of resources on jewish learning and jewish blogs where i drink in as much knowledge as i possibly can every day. i read so much my head hurts. will it ever feel like enough?

will i ever feel like i belong?

am i enough as is?

idk man.

what can i say but oy fucking vey. i just wish i had the answers, or at least someone i could talk to about this. but then i worry about being burdensome, because hashem only knows when given the chance i'll only barrage them with a billion questions a day. who wants to deal with that? fuckin only a select few i'm sure. hahaha.

ah well. i'll figure out the answers to these questions eventually. and if i don't, maybe i'll come to terms with not having them answered. maybe nobody ever really answers these questions during their lifespans. maybe the answer changes every day one spends on earth.

[littlestbookworm]

I've had this typed up for like the last four months and I think I'm prepared to post this. I only have 30 followers and what are they gonna do if they disagree with me? Unfollow me? Fine. I know I'm just a very little fish in the big ocean thatis the Stranger Things fandom, but there are two things that seem to bother me about other people's headcanons. I also know that headcanons are personal and yada yada blah blah, but just give me a moment. I'm posting because I'm just a little sick of it and I want to know if anyone agrees with me on one or the other point.

Here we go:

1. The fact that everyone seems to like giving Eddie the "shovel talk", especially by people like Hopper, Max, Dustin, etc. when Eddie is dating Steve (in fanfics, headcanons, etc.). Eddie has just been wanted by police and chased by all of Hawkins so why would Eddie, Steve, Wayne for that matter be ok with Eddie being threatened? Steve already has a family trying to control him so why would he put up with it from other people? And Steve and Eddie are legally grown adults who might make mistakes when dating. Having people threaten your date is very much like a father defending their daughter's virginity. It's disgusting and no one's business. The first few times you see it, it's like "oh how sweet they really care" but then it just becomes questionable. You never see it happening in fanfics or headcanons with Steve dating Nancy or Nancy dating Robin. Eddie's special because he's sold drugs and that's his only crime? Wow. You know, Steve's probably taken drugs and has definitely gotten into fights before. Saying it's cute doesn't stop that it's awkward and a little dumb. If Hopper (who is usually the one doing the shovel talk) is soooooo gung-ho on Steve and Eddie not dating and needing to save the damsel in distress that is apparently Steve Harrington (who is also not his son and we don't even really know how Steve's real father would react and we just speculate), just let them fuck. Go ahead and no one will care. Write fanfics with Hopper and Steve fucking and Hopper being disgusting about grown adult Steve having other relationships.

And perhaps more controversial:

2. The relationship between Steve and Robin is becoming more than just "platonic soulmates" to people. It's a "phasing out the b from our bromance" type situation. Did you know that when I first thought about posting this, there were 79 fanfics on ao3 pairing them up in a physical romantic relationship? People are posting things that definitely feel more like they want Steve and Robin to be endgame. They hide it under the whole "this is what best friends/platonic soulmates do" and no it's really not. I don't think they'd practice kissing on each other like that. I don't think they'd give up other relationships for each other unless one could give a good reason for the relationship to end. Attend family dinners to avoid outting each other? Yes, sure of course. Move in together to afford housing? That sounds good sign me up. Having a "practice" makeout session? No that's just a little weird. It's not just the fanfics labeled Robin Buckley/Steve Harrington on ao3, it's the Tumblr posts that are labeled platonic soulmates and then talk about how the two would move in together, get married for reasons, make out for reasons, and forego any attempts to date other people. It's getting to be a bit much. If you had a family member tell you to dump dates or just not date at all for them when you don't have a chance in hell at dating them, you'd call them toxic and controlling.

I'm not looking to argue. If you like these headcanons or fanfic tropes, that's your prerogative. If you want to write Steve/Robin and are using the platonic soulmates tag, just write Steve/Robin. A lot of people on ao3 do it already. If you want to have people like Hopper, Joyce, Dustin, and Max threaten a supposed friend and be controlling, I dont know what to tell you but it doesnt make the characters look nice or like protagonists. They look like little assholes with a hardon for Steve. Fanfics and headcanons are our way to escape and add on to our favourite media. I'm just kinda pointing out what I'm noticing and wondering if anyone else feels the same way or has anything else to add to this. I'm only writing this and posting it because it was weird a couple months ago when I saved this to my drafts and it's just getting kinda worst (from my point of view). I've been in toxic fandoms before so none of this really scares me. It just makes me roll my eyes.

Please don't spam me with hatred for voicing my opinion. I don't really read messages on here for fear of being yelled at by strangers on the internet. And I don't really care if you think I'm being a bitch for talking badly about one of your kinks or favourite tropes. I am a bitch but I don't think it's for thinking any of this. That's why I prefaced this the way I did.

Thank you for your time. Hate me all you want I guess...

[vaugarde]

i feel so stuffy whenever i see general fandom takes on why fiction should always be happy by the end and should always be escapism and needs ao3 tags stamped all over it like the “well ACTUALLY” feelings just leap out i cant help myself