#deck the halls (and not your partner)

[bella-rose29]

Deck the Halls (and not your partner) - part 5

Christmas Eve part 2

Word count: 4.1k

Warnings: swearing, family members are mean (are we seeing a pattern?), can you tell that I love lebkuchen from the number of times it got mentioned, they kiss again but for like 2 seconds, then they kiss again later for longer than 2 seconds 👀, reader's grandpa isn't supportive of her job (but it's ok because lockwood saves the day), a pigeon was harmed in the making of this chapter (but it lives!), drinking (alcohol), lockwood talks about his family and the Christmases he spent without them, reader comforts him, there is so much communication but somehow so much miscommunication at the same time??? and I'm annoyed at myself for doing this (but it's necessary), this part does not have a happy ending at all (I'm sorry)

series master list

"Well," Lockwood started, looking around at everyone gathered. "I suppose it started in March."

He paused for a moment, trying to figure out where to go from there. "We were on a job, just the two of us, in Kensington. A couple wanted their house clearing out before they properly moved in, and called us. Everything was going perfectly fine, and then we realised that our clients hadn't told us everything about the property, and we were dealing with three Limbless in an enclosed space." Y/n remembered that job well. It was one of the few cases that she'd actually gone on with just Lockwood, and they had been arguing for most of it about the best way to get rid of a Limbless.

Their argument had attracted the other two that were out in the garden.

"Y/n was brilliant, of course, using her Talent to locate the Sources of the three of them while I covered her, but I got held up in the corridor by some Type Ones that had appeared and she was left on her own. I only just got there in time to throw a salt bomb at the Limbless behind her and give her the extra second that she needed to wrap up the Source, but I don't think I've ever been more scared in my life. I really thought I was too late and that I'd lost her." His voice sounded thick with emotion, and when Y/n met his eyes they were watery. She tried not to frown, since it was strange for her to see him so affected like this. Lockwood cleared his throat, and looked back at the crowd. "Then of course I realised that I couldn't live without her and I asked her on a date. She said no, despite my attempts at baking her favourite cake and all the flowers." He cracked a smile, and people around the room laughed.

"Well you did look rather pathetic, Ant. I sort of wanted to watch you suffer a bit more." That much was true at least, since any time she got to watch him squirm was entertaining to her.

"Well you certainly got your share of that, darling," he huffed, and Y/n bit back a snort at the frustrated look on his face. "I had to ask her about six times after that first one before she finally said yes. We've been dating since the middle of April."

"It was eight, but who's counting?" Something about his story didn't sit right with her, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Maybe it was how close it was to what had actually happened on the job, or maybe it was the dread of all the questions she'd get about her job once people started mingling, wanting to know if she had a backup plan in case this line of work failed, or if she realised how dangerous it was.

Maybe it was the way that Lockwood had looked at her when he was talking about losing her.

~~~

"What are your intentions with Y/n?"

"Don't be stupid," John said, whacking his brother Sam on the arm.

"No, but really, what are your intent- oof!" Sam had been tackled to the floor by John, and Lockwood did his best not to flinch.

He'd been dragged into the library a few minutes ago by Y/n's brothers, and although he was the smallest, Tom was currently the most frightening as he stared Lockwood down from across the room, despite the two eldest brothers currently scrapping on the floor.

"Did... did you want me to answer that, or...?"

"I mean, it would be nice to know," Will piped up, eating straight from a packet of lebkuchen in the armchair opposite. Lockwood didn't think he'd ever seen the man without some sort of food nearby. He sat forward in his chair slightly, trying to come up with a good enough answer that would mean he could go back to the party. John and Sam stopped punching each other to hear his answer.

"I'm mostly just happy that she even gave me a chance, if I'm being honest." That much was true, but Y/n's brothers didn't need to know that he was talking about her acceptance of a position at his company and not the mythical relationship that the two of them had been in for eight months. "I know that I'm incredibly lucky to have her, and I can promise you that I won't do anything to screw that up."

Sam and John seemed happy enough with his answer, and Lockwood started breathing a little more easily. Tom was still staring at him, and Lockwood could have sworn that the boy hadn't blinked the entire time. Will snorted, shaking the bag around to get the last crumbs of lebkuchen out. "Yeah, sure. What's the real answer? No more of that crap, because it's obvious you rehearsed that to make us happy." When Lockwood didn't say anything for a moment Will prodded him again. "Go on."

He clenched his jaw, wondering how he could say anything nice about Y/n when she hadn't said anything nice about him for nearly three years, and looked out the window. A memory flashed up, and despite it having only been that morning, he was surprised at how quickly he'd forgotten the interaction.

Since when had she memorised how he took his tea?

He didn't think that Y/n had ever made him tea before, always making it a deliberate point to make a pot for everyone but him, and yet that morning while they sat in bed she had done it perfectly as though it were second nature. Then his mind drifted back to the night before, and he felt his face warm up at the memory of the mistletoe. He cleared his throat.

"I guess..." Lockwood sighed through his nose and clenched his jaw again. It was starting to ache. "I guess that's true, what I said before-"

"You guess?" Will interjected. Lockwood hadn't thought that he would be under this much scrutiny, but he was starting to sweat uncomfortably. He'd rather be dealing with Barnes right now than be sat here.

"It is true," he amended, making wary eye contact with the man. The packet of lebkuchen was neglected in Will's hand, hanging limply as he sat forward to question his younger sister's boyfriend. "She's incredible - the most incredible girl I've ever met - and I truly am aware of how lucky I am that she chose me. I'm not exactly... easy... to be around sometimes because of my agency, but she deals with me perfectly. She deals with me more than she should, to be honest." He frowned, thinking again about how he needed to figure out how to apologise to her. Nothing he had said was a lie; in fact, he didn't think he'd said anything more true about Y/n the entire time that he had known her. She was incredible, since her Touch was so powerful and unlike anything that he had ever seen before. And he did count himself lucky that she, despite his horrible words, still decided to work for him. And she did deal with him, more than anybody should, and she did it by being just as much of an arse to him as he was to her.

Maybe they were good together after all.

A thud on the window made everyone turn to look at what had made the noise, and Tom finally broke eye contact with Lockwood.

"Pigeon," Sam said, having been closest to the window. "I think it might be- oh no, it's just got up and flown off. Don't tell Mum though, she'll have a fit if she sees the mark it left."

"Alright, I think we're done here. You're free to go, Lover Boy," Will said, waving his hand vaguely at Lockwood and scrunching up the empty lebkuchen packet. Lockwood got up to leave, but upon opening the door a body fell face first into his chest with a small 'oof!'

"... Darling?" Lockwood asked, confusion lacing his voice. The figure looked up and offered a smile.

"Oh, hi! I was just... wondering where you were, Anthony." He tried to not let it show how much it affected him to hear his first name in her mouth, but the slight intake of breath that he took probably gave him away. It didn't help that Y/n was in that dress, since she looked so stunning that he couldn't focus on anything but her.

"You're so obsessed with each other," Lockwood heard Will mutter from behind him, and he realised with a start that they had just been staring at each other and blocking the doorway, penning the others in the library. When they went to move, however, Sam stopped them.

"Mistletoe! You can't break tradition!"

"Ugh, again? Did Mum plant an entire fucking garden of it?" Y/n said, peering up at the sprig that hung over their heads. "They're not gonna let us leave without doing it."

"Alright. Let's get it over with then," he whispered into her mouth, and he couldn't help but feel the exact opposite when she pressed her lips to his.

~~~

"So," Y/n's grandfather Richard started, and internally she groaned. He had used the tone of voice that meant he was about to start asking about work, and she was dreading this conversation. "Being an agent. Are you still sure it's what you want to do with your life, Y/n?"

"Yes, Gramps. I'm sure. I have been doing it for years now."

"But there are so many other things you could be doing! Jobs that you could actually be good at!"

That stung a little, and Y/n sat back slightly in her chair. She loved her Gramps, and most of the time he was one of her favourite family members, but he'd been alive before the Problem had started and didn't understand that things had changed since he was a kid. He believed in her in most other ways, just not when it came to her life as an agent, which was one of the only things she was truly passionate about (other passions included drinking tea and hating Lockwood).

"I don't mean to intrude," a voice piped up, and once again Y/n found herself wondering how the hell Lockwood managed to always turn up at the right time. "But Y/n is one of the best agents in the country, sir. Her Talent is so incredibly unique and that's what makes her so brilliant at her job." He perched on the arm of the chair that she was sat on, and she frowned when she felt the urge to rest her head against his thigh.

"Well how can you possibly know that!"

"Gramps, this is my boyfriend, Anthony? You met him briefly last night?"

"Oh, is it? Right, well I suppose you would know then! Tell me, is she too much of a pain sometimes?!"

Lockwood hesitated slightly, glancing down at where Y/n sat in the chair and frowning a little at her Gramps' question. "If anything I'm the pain. I don't know why she keeps me around to be honest." He sounded so sincere about it that for a moment she forgot that he had ever said anything horrible about her. The rest of their conversation faded into background noise as she remembered what she'd overheard earlier.

It was probably breaking all sorts of moral laws to eavesdrop on her brothers' interrogation of Lockwood, but then again she'd made her boss her fake boyfriend to fool her entire family, so she figured that she was well past being entirely moral about things. And besides, she hadn't been intending on listening in at first, she'd just been walking back from using the loo and happened to hear them. She couldn't get Lockwood's words out of her head, and she'd been replaying them over and over since.

"She's incredible - the most incredible girl I've ever met - and I truly am aware of how lucky I am that she chose me."

What the hell did that mean? Was it a lie that he'd made up to make them happy? But then she'd also heard Will prodding for the truth and his exclamation that whatever Lockwood had said before (which she hadn't heard) was obviously fake, so did he just come up with a better lie?

Tonight, she thought. Tonight I'll talk to him.

~~~

When the last guests had stumbled out of the front door, singing loudly and bumping into each other because they had had too much to drink, everybody left in the house let out a sigh of relief.

Y/n mumbled a tired 'good night' to everyone as she pulled herself upstairs, and Lockwood followed after her. He'd been helping her father tidy up a little before turning out the lights, to save some of the food that needed refrigerating and chucking other things in the bin. She had been worried when her dad first started talking to Lockwood, but then she'd heard her father laughing and had decided that they would be perfectly fine together.

Now she collapsed face first onto the bed, not yet worrying about the chill in the room.

"I can see why you were dreading that," Lockwood said, his voice sounding too loud. She'd had to down a few drinks that afternoon to deal with the sheer number of questions and comments from family members and friends, and now her head was aching slightly.

"Can you get me some water?" she asked, but since her face was still buried in the duvet it came out muffled. Lockwood's footsteps shuffled around for a while, and then went silent, and Y/n huffed in annoyance. Of course he'd just get himself ready for bed and not worry about her, that was so typical of him. She pushed herself upright, wincing when the room wobbled a little and the pain increased in her head, then frowned when Lockwood reappeared, something in his hand.

"Here. I couldn't find any painkillers though, so I'll just go and fill that up when you're done so you can try and sober up before bed."

Oh. Maybe he wasn't being so typical after all.

"Thanks," she muttered, taking the glass from him and eyeing it warily.

"It's not poisoned, darling. If I was going to kill you I wouldn't do it in a way that might mean you could come back to haunt me."

"Charming."

He sat down on the bed next to her with a sigh, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. "You know," he said, not looking at her. "This hasn't been... the worst Christmas I've ever had."

"No? You're spending it with me." He gave her a wry smile, finally bringing his gaze up to meet hers.

"Yeah, that's not really that bad."

Oh.

"Really?"

He hummed in answer, nodding slightly, then got up and walked over to the fireplace. They sat in silence while Y/n finished off her water and Lockwood got the fire going, and once she headed over to sit next to where he was crouching she realised how cold she had been before. He sat back, leaning on the chair behind him. Y/n was hunched over her knees, empty glass dangling in her grip. She could have done the same as Lockwood with the armchair behind her, and god knew her head needed something to rest against because despite the water dulling the ache it was still pressing against her temples, but she didn't think she could see Lockwood's face at that moment.

"The first Christmas after Jess passed was the worst."

Her head snapped to look at him where he sat to her left, but he was staring into the fire, eyes transfixed on the flames but looking at something far away. She didn't say anything, instead just letting him go ahead in his own time.

"The ones after my parents died were hard, sure, but at least I had Jess around and we knew what the other was going through. Then she was gone too, and I was nine years old in a big house that was suddenly empty of the family I had spent my life being loved by."

She knew that his family were dead since the absence of any of them was shockingly present in 35 Portland Row, but he had never told her anything. She'd had to learn it all from Lucy, George, and Holly.

"That first one was horrible. I don't think I stopped crying for longer than an hour the entire time, and I couldn't sleep because I kept replaying it over in my head. I could have helped," he whispered, and Y/n could see that his eyes were glistening in the light of the fire. "I could have saved her, if only I hadn't-" he cut himself off, his voice growing too strangled to continue. Quickly she placed her hand on his arm, turning her body to face him.

"Hey, hey," she said quietly, drawing him into her arms. Her glass had been abandoned on the floor, her hands now holding Lockwood's body in her lap instead. His head was resting on her chest while his arm wrapped around her stomach, the other supporting his weight, and Y/n told herself that she was only allowing this to happen because she hadn't yet sobered up.

She wasn't sure how long they were there for, her leaning back at an awkward angle to allow room for Lockwood to lie on top of her and curl into her side while he sniffled, but after a while she found that she didn't mind stroking her fingers through his hair (which was surprisingly soft) or having his weight on her (it was like having a weighted blanket).

"Thank you," he muttered after a while, sitting up and wiping at his face. He paused in his movements when he realised that their faces were much closer together than was normal for two people that didn't like each other. The memory of that morning when she had smoothed out his collar and he had been about to say something came back, and when his gaze flicked between her eyes and her lips she drew in a breath.

"Anthony?"

And then he was surging forward, kissing her with the same passion that he had hated her with while she reached up to grab his shirt, not caring that she was wrinkling the fabric that she herself had smoothed out that very morning. How could she think of anything but him when the two of them had finally crashed together like a tsunami hitting cities?

How could she think of anything but him when he pulled her on top of him?

And how could she think of anything but him when he sighed her name into her mouth and it sounded sweeter than the tea he drank?

And then she was thinking about him entirely, and remembering everything that had happened since they met, and suddenly kissing him was a terrible idea.

"She's not good enough for the company."

She pushed away from him with a start when those words blared in her mind like warning alarms, the memory of what she had overheard in the library around four months after starting to work for Lockwood and Co. She hadn't heard anything before, but the disdain in Lockwood's voice told her it was about her. She had run upstairs to make sure she didn't hear any more of what he thought about her.

"Y/n?" he asked now, voice hoarse from crying and kissing, and his expression was desperate as he watched her press her hand to her lips and take shaky breaths. "Y/n? What is it? Wh-"

"Don't," she snapped, standing up and trying to forget the feeling of his hands on her body. "Don't... just don't, Lockwood." He was getting up too, scrambling after her and reaching out to stop her from slipping away.

"I don't understand-"

"Don't understand what?! We can't- we hate each other, Lockwood!" The venom in her voice made him stumble back a few steps. "You never wanted me at your company and you made sure that I knew that!"

"I-"

"I heard you telling the others that I wasn't ever going to be good enough for you, and then a few hours later after a job you're telling me that my Talent is incredible?! What am I supposed to think?! And then you spend the next however many years being a complete dick to me and complaining about me, so I do the same because clearly being nice didn't work, and now you're here at my fucking family Christmas event pretending to be my boyfriend and kissing me when you don't need to-"

"Of course I need to! I know I was horrible to you-"

"An understatement," she scoffed, crossing her arms.

"-but I'm trying to figure out how to apologise to you because I know that I've fucked up and I need to fix it!"

"So you kissed me?!"

"No! Yes! That wasn't an apology!" He rubbed his hand over his face, clearly frustrated with how it was going. "It was a mistake- no, Y/n, I didn't mean it like that!"

"A mistake?" she whispered, her eyes stinging with fresh tears. "Kissing me was a mistake?"

"No," he said, tone filled with desperation. "No, Y/n, I just meant that I shouldn't have done it before apologising to you because then it would seem like... I don't know! Like I was doing it just to try and trick you into accepting my apology or something!"

"Were you? Doing it to trick me? Because right now I can't tell what the truth is, Lockwood!"

"It wasn't a trick. It was never a trick, and I'm an idiot-"

"Yes, you are."

"Would you just listen to me?!" he shouted, anger seeping in to his body, and Y/n took a step back at the look in his eyes.

"What, like how you listen to me?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Yesterday, on the platform, when I was talking about my family being a lot and how it was hard for me and I'm actually related to most of them, and I couldn't imagine how hard it would be for someone to be introduced to all of that in one go. You just assumed that I meant it would be hard for you because your family is dead, and then when I tried to explain you cut me off and gave me the cold shoulder because you didn't fucking listen, Lockwood. What I meant was it would be a lot for anyone, no matter their own experience. Hell, even George has said that he would rather be blocked from the Archives for life than ever meet my family, and he's got almost as many relatives as me!"

Lockwood didn't say anything for a minute, instead just standing still and staring at her while the fire in his eyes died down, and Y/n shook her head. "This?" She gestured between the two of them. "This will never work. We will never work. Because you never wanted me and no matter how much I want you to like me in the same way that you like the others, you never will. And I will never be good enough for you." That was one more person to add to the list of people that she needed to meet unnecessarily high expectations for in order to be even noticed. She wiped at the tears that had slipped down her face while she was talking, the salt making her cheeks itch.

"You're right," Lockwood finally said. "I won't ever like you in the same way as the others." He stopped there, looking down at the floor. When he went to speak again, however, he lifted his head to an empty room, and the bathroom door shutting him out.

Y/n ignored his attempts to talk to her through the door, shoving the duvet and blankets that she had quickly grabbed into the bathtub and plugging her headphones into her walkman so that she didn't have to hear the rest of his cruel words and excuses.

She had craved something different with him, and it had fucking destroyed her.

And now she had to wake up on Christmas Day and pretend that she was hopelessly in love with the fake boyfriend who had just broken her heart.

part 6

Tag list: @ahead-fullofdreams, @aislinrayne, @anathemaloren, @augustisintheair, @avdiobliss, @aysha4life, @bobbys-not-that-small, @briar-rose23, @curseofhecate, @dangelnleif, @edible-rat-vomit, @el-de-phi, @ell0ra-br3kk3r, @ettadear, @fearlessmoony, @fudosl, @idkbubs, @informedimagining, @karensirkobabes, @locklyebrainrot, @locklyle1kanij, @locknco, @mentallyillsodapop, @mischivana, @mitskiswift99, @mrsklockwood, @mrsyixingunicorn10, @newbooksmell777, @no-morning-glories, @novelizt, @phlooper, @ran23sblog, @simrah1012, @somethingrandomwatzit, @star-of-velaris, @superpositvecloudshipper, @t2sh0, @taygrls, @tournesol77, @whenselenefallsinlove, @wordsarelife

let me know if you want to be added to/removed from the tag list! <3

[tiredofthehumanlife]

Also totally unrelated has nothing to do with anything but I am fucking foaming at the mouth, clawing the wallpaper, climbing up and sticking to the ceiling like spider man, and eating fucking nails (positive) over Deck the halls (not your partner) im losing my mind I'm actually going insane yesterday I thought it was Tuesday so I was like "statistically part 4 should come out tomorrow" and I was so sad I was like "god life is so hard for me waiting a whole day for another part of a fanfic" and then I opened Tumblr TADA right there first post I see is part 4 the scream I screampt it was crazy

[avdiobliss]

Wdym you don’t have all of your mutuals notifications on?! I love seeing @oblivious-idiot reblogging posts and @bella-rose29 talking about DTH(anyp) and @tangledinlove responding to asks/ compliments from their inbox about the luke fic and @neewtmas posting about LW&CO random shit and @novelizt just being freaking amazing

[ma1dita]

bedtime stories

a 'partners in crime' installment - luke castellan x dionysus!reader

words: bitch this was supposed to be a blurb. 2.4k

summary: (pre-established relationship) The one where night shift with him runs late, but you don't mind at all. You won’t admit a lot of things to Luke Castellan, but perhaps he knows something you don’t. Luke Castellan x fem!Dionysus!reader

warnings: none, banter and fluff on a night shift

a/n: Introducing luke castellan x trouble!reader… this is just gonna be ongoing blurbs and one shots of an idea in my head (and my latest hyperfixation) reader is essentially reformed unhinged bitch now camp mom and it’s enemies to friends to lovers. Working through reading the pjo series hehe

(posted 1/16/24, beta’ed by the lovely @ttulipwritezz @mrsaluado & @lixzey thank you bunches)

—

Dragging your feet across the dirt of the forest floor, you sigh to yourself in the quiet night air. It’s gonna be another long night and with the beep on your digital watch, you blearily peer at the time and sigh. Almost 11. Swaying slightly, you whistle a familiar tune as your nimble hands straighten out the deck chairs near the firepit, pick up trash to toss into the receptacle, and turn off the lights in the dining hall. All on the way to check Cabin 7, mind you, and the Apollo kids will undoubtedly loop you into singing a song with them before you shut the lights off and close the curtains.

Gods, your dad is definitely gonna hear about this in the morning.

It’s not like Mr. D ever really cares, or listens, more focused on droning on about missing his wife and playing pinochle even when you rattle off his…your to-do list for the week to keep Camp Half-Blood running and the younger demigods in mostly one piece. Honestly, he should be grateful he has you, and even if he is, he’ll never let you hear it. At least you’re Chiron’s favorite.

A shadow passes your field of view, and before you can rub at your sleepy eyes, strong hands pin you to the side of a tree on the dirt path you were supposed to take across camp.

Sorry, let’s correct that—you’re one of Chiron’s favorites. The other all-star camper stares at you like you’re a three-headed dog under the beam of his flashlight.

“Just me, Castellan,” you grumble, a bit winded as you blink harshly at the bright light. “Still doing checks.”

“You’re losing your touch. You making a habit of going to bed late?” Luke smirks, and it’s actually annoying how he always looks like he knows something you don’t.

“You always pin campers to trees?”

“Just the pretty ones.” His smirk turns into a sly grin that makes you roll your eyes.

“Okay loser, I’ve got cabins to check,” you drone as you push off from the tree. “6 cut into my time after staying there longer than I had to. The little ones kept asking these otherworldly philosophical questions and Annabeth just laughed at me while I tried to not pluck my eyelashes out one by one.”

Your clipboard taps lightly against your hip despite the aggression in your voice and Luke laughs much like his little sister, a burst of sunlight overflowing into the dreary and mundane. Your lips quirk upward before you can stop and remind yourself of who you’re talking to. The tall boy reaches behind him to scratch the nape of his neck and sighs, sucking at his teeth.

“You’re always doing the most, huh?”

“Who else is going to, my dad? He’s probably already out like a light.” Once, you found your dad asleep at his desk after dinner, snoring loudly instead of keeping watch. You started taking more night shifts after that.

“Well, no. You know I’m here to help you, even if you’ll never admit it.” Luke extends a hand to you so it’s easier to navigate the step back onto the dirt-trodden path, but there’s no fun in that, so you hop around him and start walking away. The sound of his footsteps fall and match yours as he follows you, both in tandem like the sound of a steady heartbeat.

“The day you catch me admitting anything about you is the day the Underworld freezes over. You should know that by now.”

“Woooooow, so I don’t get a thank you for singing the Apollo kids to sleep? You should’ve seen the look on their faces when I walked in and not you. They ended the song pretty quickly after I opened my mouth to croak out a chorus,” he says, drawing his bottom lip between his teeth and nudging your side as you both laugh.

He’s a terrible singer, to be honest. Not even the Fates would’ve expected that from someone who otherwise seems like a perfect boy. Sometimes you wonder what he’s done in a past life to have it so easy–to look like he’s been chiseled by Michelangelo, have the athletic prowess of ten Spartan soldiers, and the heart of a hero only legends could get right. He’s probably the closest thing to an actual hero here at camp. You often find yourself looking at him in hopes of finding a crack in the porcelain of his perfection, but any fault of his seems to just build up his endurance in his quest for glory.

Maybe that’s why your dad doesn’t like him, his aspirations for something greater than the camp that’s kept you safe all these years, though the multiple complaints and headaches the both of you have given him as squabbling teenagers must’ve added onto that. Sometimes, though, the way he helps ease your load prods a funny feeling you do your best not to acknowledge in your stomach. Luke walks ahead shining the flashlight onto the dark path so you both don’t trip. It’s there now, at the sight of him offering an arm for you to latch onto to hop over fallen branches.

Mental note: tell the satyrs to move that in the morning.

As you hurdle over the brambles, you let go immediately after you steady your feet, moving his hand that’s holding the flashlight back towards the path with no other words. You are your father’s daughter after all, and he knows this—stubborn and your name have the same face.

Moving further towards your destination, the light reveals a teenage couple entangled within each other’s arms at the base of a tree out there for everyone to see in the moonlight.

“Jeez, guys, alright— pack it up, wrap it up! Could’ve at least found somewhere private… It’s curfew already, if I see you two again it’s a citation.”

The boy blushes and mumbles an apology to you, scurrying back to cabin 7, and you raise an eyebrow at a sheepish son of Hermes who swears they were all in their beds when he was singing to them.

“I don’t wanna go back to my cabin, all the boys are gross…” the girl whines, cheeks flushed from embarrassment as she flutters her eyelashes at you and Luke. You sigh. What has the world come to that young demigods are entrusted to the care of two people who barely consider themselves adults?

“Well, if you’re still in 11 with this one,” you simper, blatantly pointing at Luke, “I can’t blame you. He’s gross. Come by mine tomorrow and I’ll get you privacy curtains, okay? Trust me Yvonne, you don’t think boys are all that gross if you like kissing them.”

She nods, smiling charmingly at the two of you, before brushing past Luke and winking, “See you inside!”

Your head swivels to look at Luke with a coy expression, “There’s no way she’s not an Aphrodite.”

Luke huffs as he clicks his flashlight on and off. His hands are always fidgeting, always searching for something to do. He’s more like his dad than he thinks, carrying the quieter traits of quick fingers and more obvious ones like his constant search for amusement. Talking to you consistently satiates that itch.

“Aphrodite isn’t the only god that attracts attractive people, you know.”

“Oh? Do tell, because if she’s one of you, your cabin’s gonna be extra trouble,” your mouth curves into a smile, and he thinks he likes it more when you’re trying to be mean to him like this because the back and forth between you two is a comfort Luke cherishes. The words have lost their bite over the years, and there are no more cuts and bruises besides an occasional wounded ego, but it’s still entertaining, to say the least. He can’t imagine a day without hearing the teasing lilt of your voice, always easy to prod at and always wanting to have the last word.

“My dad is the god of thieves and messengers. We’re fast, smart, charming, and also good-looking. Do the math.”

“Also apparently the ones with the biggest egos, but okay.” There it is. He shoves you and you trip over your own feet falling fast.

“Hey! Jerk.”

“Definitely a daughter of Dionysus, crazy as always, and clumsy too.” Luke’s nose crinkles at the sight of your crumpled frame.

“Your hand is like the size of my face, what the fuck was I supposed to do with that?”

A fleeting thought in the back of your mind reasons that maybe violence is the answer, but he’s still not finished making fun of you even after he helps you up.

“And vulgar! What a shocker.”

“Ugh. You better hope your dad stops populating because if there’s any more that come here and act like you? I’m quitting.”

Luke watches you gaze at the heavens, probably looking for a fuck to give and he snickers at how easily you give in nowadays. Maybe he’s the one losing his touch—usually you’d put up more of a fight to argue.

“You wouldn’t. You love this job. Camp. S’why you’re not as fun anymore, trouble.”

A noise of agreement leaves you as you glare at him and the stupid nickname back from when you used to wreak havoc just because you could, a direct juxtaposition to the honorary position you hold today. Finally following him up the front steps of Cabin 11, Luke opens the door and beckons you in, pushing at your hip with his knuckles.

Checking this place last has become a habit with Luke helping you out, and all the kids—Hermes’, minor gods’, and unclaimed, love it when you come to stop by before lights out. They especially loved the later bedtime, but hugs and cool stories from you were a close second.

“Everyone good and ready for bed in here? Sorry it took so long guys,” you say, visually scanning the perimeter and matching faces to bunks, seeing them all settled beneath their sheets, all except for one Luke Castellan. He’s still leaning against the doorframe, breath grazing your shoulder as he hands you a copy of his log from the other cabins he kindly relieved you from.

“What, no bedtime story this time?” He says through hooded eyes, and though he won’t admit it, he adores the sound of your voice. Luke does anything he can to get your attention to hear it more. It almost has a calming effect on him, and maybe it’s the fact that your dad can cause and cure madness, anxiety, and all alike, so something in him believes you do the same, powers or not. One look from him has you sputtering out snarky remarks; different strategies, same results—works every time.

“Castellan…” He grins at the look on your face, and tiny voices pop up from around the cabin, all asking for a bedtime story. Chris even starts a chant from his top bunk, making you want to hurl your clipboard at his head. Hypnos is calling your name at this point, and you’d do anything to crawl into your own safe haven in Cabin 12, but your heartstrings pull at the sight of the little ones pouting, hoping for you to tuck them in with a blanket of comforting words and stories of something more than what these walls meagerly provide. Camp Half-Blood only keeps them safe for so long, and not a lot of them make it out of here alive. You and Luke both know that being two of the oldest at camp, and his smug expression as he settles into his bed is confirmation that you’re about to give in.

“Fine. One quick story, and then everyone goes to sleep okay? Who wants to sit on the floor with me?”

You take your place sitting on the ground next to the foot of Luke’s bunk as he lays upside down on the twin-sized mattress, peering at you through one open eye as the younger children, mostly the unclaimed ones—drag their blankets and form a circle in the middle of the room, waiting patiently for you to start enchanting them with something to occupy their tired minds. Acting— that’s the gift your father had to give you; this time you decide to tell the story of Atalanta and the golden apples, how she ran from love and it still found her in the end, and how some stories can have good endings, despite what’s often found in Greek legend. Multiple tired eyes droop closed as you finish the story and carry the ones who’ve fallen into Hypnos’ embrace back into their bunks, tucking them in with kisses on their foreheads and it leaves you with a warm feeling that will help you brave the chill on your walk back.

Admittedly, this next part is your favorite part on nights like these. The overflowing cabin of rowdy pranksters and babbling children is as quiet as the secret you hold close to your heart, tiptoeing back towards Luke’s space and draping his blanket over his muscular frame, exhausted from another day of trying to achieve greatness. Your hand brushes a dark curl away from his forehead, fingertips ghosting his pale skin like a kiss you’d never have the guts to give. With everything you have in you, you summon thoughts of serenity and peace, hoping whatever keeps him up at night lets him rest for even a few hours. You don’t pray often, finding yourself spiting your father instead of honoring him on most days, but in the dim light of Cabin 11, you find yourself making time to do so for a pain in your ass called Luke Castellan.

Perhaps he knows something you don’t after all, the crease in his forehead relaxing as you pull your fingertips away.

“Sweet dreams, angelface.”

Mental note: Put his ass to work tomorrow for falling asleep halfway through the story.

It’ll only give him another excuse to ask you to tell it again a few nights later. You find yourself not minding that, a sliver of a smile pulling at your face as you walk towards the door and shut the lights off, a sleeping son of Hermes illuminated by the gentle shine of the moon.

You’d never admit that, though.

—

“you steady me and stir me

all at once.”

-Tanya Wright

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[sturncrazy]

High School Reunion🔥

Chris Sturniolo x y/n (fem)

warnings: SMUT!! nsfw 18+ (risky location, almost caught, unprotected, language)

authors note: time jump for this one (it takes place 2 years from now but roll w me here ok 🤝) also this one ended up a lil sweeter than i thought it would but hey it’s kinda cutesy

summary: you attend your 5 year high school reunion and end up having an unexpected run in with your old crush Chris Sturniolo 👀

word count: 2,618 w

—————————————————————————

You fussed with your name tag. it felt so stupid, it had only been 5 years since you’d all been classmates. could everyone have forgotten each other that quickly? the thought made you nauseous, because deep down you knew you’d be one of the people forgotten the fastest. you were quiet in high school and never partied. not to mention the fact that puberty decided to wait until college, at least that’s when boys decided to notice you. you adjusted your dress, took a breath, and mustered up the courage to walk into the decked out gymnasium.

The next few hours consisted of semi-awkward life updates, but it was painless. the music was loud and people had enough drinks that everyone was in a friendly festive mood. the main focus of attention was on Sturniolo triplets, who’d actually bothered to show up. Their rise to fame was the schools main bragging point and people were all whispers. but it made the night easy for someone like you. you decided to grab drink and headed for the makeshift bar area, when you slammed into someone.

“Oh i’m sorry” you said before looking up

“No you’re all good m’bad—“ your eyes locked with a pair of massive blue ones.

“hey” said Chris Sturniolo, smiling down at you. Chris was the only one of the triplets you’d ever had a class with. You took biology together and were lab partners once, although you did all the work. At the time you’d had a major crush on him, but so did every other girl in your school. even years later though, your heart still leaped into your throat at the sight of him.

“hi” you said back weakly. his smile grew slightly.

“it’s good to see you it—“

“CHRISTOPHER OWEN STURNIOLO! MY BOY” a voice shouted over you, cutting you off. a big beefy hand grasped Chris’s shoulder, undoubtedly one of his old lacrosse buddies, pulling his attention away from you. you instinctively hurried away.

the evening began to get boring, so you decided to explore your old haunts. you were about 5 minutes into your journey when you heard footsteps jogging behind you.

“hey wait up, y/n” you turned over your shoulder to see Chris coming up to meet you.

“you remember my name?” you blurted in shock

“course i do, y/n don’t be silly.” he said casually. “whatcha up to?”

“oh nothing really, just reliving”

“sounds fun” you continued to stroll on and he followed

“so why’d you leave the group?”

“guess i’d had enough of ‘em…and i wanted to actually say hi to you”

“oh yeah? how’d you know where to find me?” you tried to fight off a smile

“your old locker was over there” he said motioning “figured you might visit it”

“you remember where my locker was?” you said in disbelief

“good memory i guess” your heart jumped. had he noticed you back then too?

“plus nicks was a few over” he continued, immediately squashing the feeling. the two of you strode side by side in a comfortable silence down the empty halls before chris came to a halt. you paused to see what stopped him and he grinned at you pointing.

“‘member that room?” he asked , gesturing towards the old biology classroom

“yeah” you chuckled out “didn’t think you did though.” he threw a hand over his heart and dropped his jaw in fake insult

“hey, we spent quality time playing with frog guts in there”

“what a gross way to put it” you wrinkled your nose at him

“c’mon, betcha it’s unlocked” he said mischievously, reaching for the handle. sure enough the door swung open and chris crept into the dark classroom, holding it open for you. You were hit with the smell of pencil shavings and old memories as you heard the door click shut behind you.

“like we never left, huh?” chris said softly

“Can’t say I wish we hadn’t”

“you don’t ever miss it?”

“what, biology? no not exactly…why? do YOU?” you raised your eyebrows dramatically. he laughed

“well no not biology. No i dunno just life was simple then, you know?”

“yeah maybe for you” your words came out bitchier than you meant and chris looked almost hurt.

“what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Oh no nothing sorry I just— no high school just wasn’t easy for me like it was for you, you know? i wasn’t popular or anything. i mean i’m shocked you even remember me”

“you think so little of me?” he said faking hurt again, what a little drama queen. you laughed in spite of yourself, shaking your head.

“hey, believe me i’m honored to have made an impression on THE chris sturniolo.” you looked down at your feet muttering more to yourself “16 year old me would’ve been psyched”

chris smiled at you sweetly, taking you in with those big blue eyes.

“you made more than an impression on me” he said, sincerely. you stared at him, puzzled which must’ve been obvious because he snorted and continued

“oh cmon, y/n that’s real sweet of you, but it’s okay i know i wasn’t exactly subtle about my crush” your jaw dropped slightly. HIS crush? what was he talking about?

“really? you REALLY had no idea?” you shook your head violently. his faces flushed ever so slightly, the first time you’d seen him not look completely confident.

“oh well then that’s embarrassing that i just admitted that” he laughed, awkwardly. you were frozen in place trying to process. “well, i did”

“why didn’t you say anything”

“scared i wouldn’t stand a chance?”

“with ME? are you kidding?”

“okay i’m sensing a pattern here, y/n. are you unaware of how incredibly hot you are?”

“i sure wasn’t back then” you snickered, hoisting yourself up onto a table.

“i thought so” you paused again staring at his ernest expression

“god i would’ve killed to know that back then i mean i was obsessed with you”

“wait a minute you were?” you nodded vigorously. he crossed the room and leaned next to you against the table you were perched on.

“well no shit” you stayed in silence for a moment before an uncontrollable giggle began to bubbled out of you.

“what?”

“you said i was hot” you snorted at the floor. you felt his eyes on you.

“i said you are hot” you stomach jolted. you turned to look at him. he was so close you could see the delicate freckles across the bridge of his nose. the tension was thick enough to choke on.

“chris sturniolo did you bring me into the biology lab to try to seduce me” you teased.

“why? is it working?” he leaned in closer to you. your noses bumped playfully, enjoying the slight torture of fighting off locking lips.

“mmm maybe”

“maybeee” chris mocked. you took an inhale to calm yourself before closing the rest of the space between you and pressing your lips against his. he froze, apparently caught off guard momentarily, before eagerly kissing you back. your mouths molded perfectly, finding a rhythm together. the kiss rapidly became hot and passionate, as your lips fought for dominance. Chris brought his hands to your waist, grasping you tightly. you parted your legs for him to come closer and wrapped a hand through his hair. he groaned into your mouth as you pulled at his locks, making you suddenly aware of a growing heat between your legs. he ran his hands up your thighs and pushed your dress around your waist making you sigh. he glanced down at your exposed lacey thong and smirked

“do you always wear stuff this sexy?”

“oh shut up chris” you said, slapping his chest playfully. he pressed his forehead to yours

“make me” he rasped out, lighting your lips with hot air. you wrapped one hand around his tie and yanked him back to you, harshly. he stumbled slightly, letting out a rocky breath into your mouth. you hooked your legs behind him, locking him into you. he took your motion as a signal to press himself fully against you. you dragged your hands down his torso, eliciting another groan as his grip traveled to your ass, squeezing at your flesh tightly. you whined and felt him smile against your lips in satisfaction at the sound you made for him.

“god you’re so fucking sexy” he growled out, sending tingles down your skin. your body reacted before your brain did, wanting more. you raised your hips and pushed up against his. he pulled away and smirked at you, raising his eyebrows

“easy there, tiger. this is school property”

“so?” you taunted. Chris’s pupils dilated. he licked his lips and dove back into you, hungrily. he dug his hands into your thighs and yanked you against him as close as he could, your torsos and groins completely flush. a moan tumbled out of your lips and you reached for the buttons of his shirt. he grabbed your wrists, stopping you.

“uh-uh, sweetheart. if we’re gonna do this we have to be careful” he chuckled

“mmm but chrisss i want you” you whined, kissing him again

“oh yeah? how much?” he whispered, leaning in to kiss your neck, sloppily. you enveloped your hand around one of his began to move it down between your bodies. chris pressed his forehead against yours, his eyes tracking your joined hands as you brought his fingertips to your thinly clothed heat. you whimpered at the contact.

“fuck” chris breathed out, his eyes meeting yours, not moving his head. you removed your hand from his and he began to drag his fingers up and down the soaking fabric.

“jesus, you’re so wet” he exhaled, observing you in a trance. you pushed your hips closer to him, trying to intensify his painfully delicate touch. he locked eyes with you again, as he hooked one finger around your thong and pushed it to the side before returning his focus to your now entirely exposed dripping folds.

“shit—stop teasing me, chris” you hissed.

“whatever you say, ma” he grunted as he began to push his index and pointer finger into your throbbing entrance. you moaned loudly, tossing your head back.

“shhhhhh” he sounded, placing his free thumb to your lips and bringing your head up to look at him again. you let out a stifled whine as he began to pump his digits in and out of your core at a mesmerizing pace. you felt your walls tighten as he curved his fingers exactly how you needed them. you gasped, fighting the urge to cry out.

“you look so pretty with my fingers in you like this”

“mmmm—chris” you moaned

“can only imagine how pretty you’d look with my dick inside you, baby” he groaned out. your legs stuttered at his words, begging for him.

“oh—god chris—please” you huffed out

“please what?” he said, continuing to fuck you with his fingers.

“fuck me chris please” you almost begged. his breathing shook at your request and he pulled his fingers back out of you, glancing over his shoulder towards the classroom door.

“think you can be a good girl for me and be quiet if i do?” you nodded your head vigorously

“promise?” he said, reaching to undo his belt. you felt your mouth grow dry.

“i promise, chris”

he kissed you while unzipping his pants.

“good. can’t promise i won’t make you wanna scream though” he said with a smirk against your lips as he lowered his pants just enough to free his hard length. you glanced down and felt your jaw drop and your mouth salivate at the sight of him. he was huge. fear and desire coursed through you, his pink tip glistening with precum. he pumped himself with his hand for a moment, before pushing your legs further apart and lining himself up with your entrance. he pushed his tip into you slowly, hissing. you began to bite your lip fighting the urge to scream by the time he was only half way into you, the stretch and deepness of him already overwhelming. he sunk the rest of the way inside your core, his head collapsing into your shoulder and neck as he bottomed out, groaning.

“fu—fuck—such a tight little pussy, ma” he stuttered, pulling back out of you.

“hhh—so big—chris-“ you gasped into his ear, clawing at the fabric of his shirt

“mmm yeah? you like my big cock, huh?” he growled

“oh god—yes—faster—“

“think you can handle it?” he taunted, still going slow enough to drive you crazy

“mmmhmmm please” you whined. you buried a scream into his taut shoulder as he slammed all the way into your pussy.

“shit—you feel so fucking good y/n” he rasped out, begging to pound into you relentlessly. the room echoed with the squeaks of the table and your stifled moans combine with chris’s heavy breaths as he rammed his long thick member inside you. every inch of him hitting your walls and g spot in the most perfect way imaginable. chris sucked at your neck harshly, undoubtedly leaving marks, never letting up on his steady thrusts. He brought one hand down from his steadying grip on your hips to your folds and began to draw circles against your clit, sending your pleasure to new highs. the sensation was too much and you let out a pornographically loud moan. Chris slapped a hand over your mouth and halted, still deep inside you. you became aware of a sound from out in the hallway and froze. had someone heard the two of you? Chris looked at you wide eyed and raised a finger to his lips, maintaining the other hands cover over your mouth. footsteps approached and you tensed, preparing to be caught, but the sound continued on down the hall. you exhaled against chris’s hand in relief and his shoulders relaxed as he gave you a smile.

“gotta keep that pretty mouth shut, baby” he whispered to you, starting his thrusts again

“can’t have anyone else knowing how perfect you look with my cock stuffed in you” he growled, restarting his rubs against your bundle of nerves. within moments you felt the overwhelming pressure in your stomach forming.

“fuck chris—i’m close—“

“you gonna cum for me, gorgeous?”

“yes-fuck—right there-oh god” your vision began to blur and electricity sparked through your body as you began to unravel

“you look so sexy cumming all over my dick” chris exhaled in encouragement as your walls began to flex uncontrollably around him. the added sensation made his jaw go slack and his eyes roll into the back of his head

“ohhh-oh fuck” he moaned out. his thrusts becoming unsteady and desperate, chasing his release. you moaned lightly, still coming down from your high

“shit—oh fuck, baby- i’m gonna cum hhh”

he slammed into you violently, his brow furrowed.

“OH FUCK” he wailed, pulling out just in time to shoot his hot white load of his release on your thigh. he collapsed his forehead against yours, the two of you desperately trying to regain your breath. he eventually looked up at you and smiled, blushing.

“that was amazing” Chris exhaled, giving you one more kiss before reaching behind to grab a nearby tissue. you took it and cleaned yourself up, then pushed yourself off the table and resituated your dress. Chris inhaled sharply, almost nervously while redoing his belt

“hey how long are you around boston for?”

“oh dunno, bout a week i guess?” you answered, fixing a heel

“well what would you say to dinner?”

“dinner?” you questioned, dumbfounded

“yeah…dinner…like a date?” his voice raised as he scratched the back of his head, scanning your face.

“I’d love that” you smiled

—————————————————————————

GUYS AH IM SUCH A CHRIS GIRL I NEED HIM SO BAD. also why was this giving sorta 2000s rom com vibes (minus the sex obvi)

OK ENJOY!!

kisses💋

[running-with-kn1ves]

Can we get part 3 of CEOx reader? That story is so good‼️‼️

A/N: had a lot of reqs for Edira which really surprised me! Here's a short thang for her <3

CW: Toxic forced relationship, power imbalance, burns via coffee, blackmail and possessive behavior.

Synopsis: your boss-slash-lover-slash-blackmailer returns from a business trip acting more off-putting than usual. Comfort angst ensues.

The humdrum of life can drone on quite monotonously, with the same routine and the same budget and the same people always surrounding you. Lucky for you, the moment you started feeling an inkling of typicality, of normalcy in your stressed and starved life, something swung in through the window and began breaking every peace of solitude and calmness you had established. Fate, or otherwise established as Edira-- you're melogomanic, secretly needy and outwardly aloofly intimidating girlfriend-- snatched away the livelihood you once knew as that of the common fool. 

It was first her schemes in pretending to play “date”, and then her idea to move in together. You, an office worker with the resolve of a clownfish, were now put into close proximity with her 24/7. From a tense and barking boss at work, to a wordless romantic in her luxury minimalist penthouse, the struggle to keep up with the sudden workload of being her assistant and her stress-relief of a partner was almost too much to manage. Coffee, kisses, shoulder massages, copied papers of last month’s expenditures. The work didn’t end, and if it did, something was wrong. 

Today, you had finally gotten a morning alone without the battering Edira suffocating you awake with blonde bed hair and slightly conscious nips at your shoulder. She had been away at a work conference with the heads of smaller company branches. You would have been brought along with, if Edira didn’t fear so much for the collapse of her corporate tower without one of you manding the deck. So you stayed, one night of freedom, one morning of peace. 

You expected her to be gone for the rest of the day, coming back mid-afternoon like she had said, returning to the apartment to unpack her small gatherings. However, your opening of her opaque office door this morning left that reality checked. 

“Edira?” You choked, holding a half-empty cup of coffee. You swallowed down your surprise, hoping she didn’t hear the small disappointment at the end of your tone. 

“Yes?” She sighed, sounding…off. She usually had a wild rant to get off her chest when she was away, every person in the city managing to piss her off or step on her toes. 

“I thought you’d be at the apartment.” You shut the door behind you, taking in the mess of paperwork all over her desk. Yikes, she was going to need more than a drink to de-stress her tonight. “Remember, I told you I had things handled here.”

You walked to her office chairs, ones that were hardly ever used unless for soon-to-be-fired employees. Or in your case, to be straddled, or do the straddling in. 

You were about to sit, putting your coffee mug down. But Edira rose as soon as the glass cup reached her dark cherrywood desk, pushing past her swiveling chair, brushing hair out of her face as she naturally stomped away. Her heels made a certain muffled thump that you had learned to predict, the kind that you could hear from across the hall and gain a spike in your heart from. She opened her office door with a ripping harshness that made you think she'd start chasing someone down. You swiftly followed after her down the hall to the front of the rows of cubicles her underlings made their homes in. 

You were practically jogging to catch up to her, making it all the more startling when she made a sudden stop at where she usually addressed the office team. Your face hit the back of her smooth linen blazer, hot coffee spraying down your arms and onto your chest. Having held your sizzling mug out in front of you to avoid spilling, you didn’t foresee such a violent halt throwing you off balance, the mug falling from your hands to ‘clink clink’ onto the rug. 

“Please don’t break---” You whispered before it had dropped, missing the flying coffee stinging your chest and fingers. Cleaning up glass off the office rug would be an experience of shame you didn't want to face. Your mind worried about another one of Edira’s chastisements for this mistake, now that her sour mood was deepened more than usual. 

The commotion and noise of your spill stopped Edira in her stomping tracks, turning to look back at you for the first time. She saw your baby blue blouse doused in brown, your fingers shaking as you bent down to pick up the empty mug. 

You started to feel the burning, like ant bites covering everywhere but weren’t able to be rubbed off. You tried to stop the stinging on your fingers by rubbing it against your pants, but your chest was burning hot. 

“What did you do?” Edira asked, the room going silent. Your coworkers winced at the sight of you, the others holding their breaths with wide eyes and wondering what the Queen of Chaos was going to yell at you for now. As if they weren’t all held to ridiculous standards, hers for you were impossibly high, and it showed in more places than just your shared cold penthouse. 

“Just spilled…” You mumbled, wondering how you were ever going to get this dark stain out of the polyester covering the floor. It was already drying, not much stickier than the rest of you. You stayed on the ground, trying to rub it out with your sleeve. It was getting cold and fast; you didn’t have one of those wet vacuums, paper towels wouldn’t soak up all that had been embellished into the rug by now. Were you going to spend another night in the office? Paperwork, coffee-- your only friends, and this spilled disaster the only thing you’d see until the sun. The silent creaks of swivel chairs and a dropped pencil didn’t distract from the eyes on you, Edira still looming over as she watched your sleeves turn a dirty brown. “Won’t come out…”

The tears came before you could stop them, mouth forming a permanent frown as your nose scrunched. ‘Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry--’

“Get up.” Edira was down next to you, a knee and a heel blocking your view as she held her hand out to you. She didn’t sound pissed, like before. Or even more so like you had expected because of this fiasco. 

“But the rug--”

“I’m not going to let you stay huddled on this floor..-- what are you looking at, get back to work!”

You felt her manicured fingers place onto your shoulder, the other hand jabbing a finger at one of her underlings. 

You did as she said, looking at the spill as your knees quaked to get up.

“You’re a mess, look at your neck,” She turned your ashamed head, your eyes never leaving the floor. “This might be worth a hospital trip.” She mumbled, sounding more caring than you had ever heard her once before. 

Man. your first night alone, first morning of peace, and you managed to make a fool of yourself. Edira pulled your elbow, keeping you close as you slowly walked with her back to her office. The trickle of keyboard typing came back as natural as birds singing at dawn, a phone ringing with desperate need as someone came walking by you. 

You kept your eyes down; the burning on your collar and fingers now a buzzing numbness. Edira opened the opaque door with her name in golden, ushering you inside with a firm hand on your back. You dragged your feet coming in, wondering if maybe now you could cry. 

Edira shut the door as soon as you were far enough in, barely missing you by a hair. 

“Guess this is what happens when I'm gone for too long, hm. You turn into jello, unable to hold a cup?” She sighed, having to pull your arm to shove you next to one of the chairs in front of her desk. 

“..Sorry…” You mumbled, but you couldn’t really care less, numbing yourself to the beratement that was only a mere few seconds away.

That feeling to cry subsided, but a heavy weight filled your chest, and now you just wanted the day to be over. But it was only 9:55, an hour not yet having even gone by. How were you going to sit here like this? If Edira had any ounce of the “love” she swore to the media she had for you, or even an inch of sympathy, maybe she’d spare you the echoing shouts your coworkers often heard for mistakes like this. 

But she ignored your sad apology.

“Here, let's get you cleaned up,” She murmured to you, like a wild beast with her hands out in front of her. She slowly placed them on your shoulders, making you sit on the edge of her desk. “Get out of these dirty clothes; at least this is an excuse to see your body after a day of solitude. Only had scruffy faces and wrinkles to look at lately.” She tried to joke, scoffing at her own words as she watched you frown. 

She was more silent than you had expected, angry aura not seeping out of her like when she usually attempted to hide it.

“...Aren’t you gonna get mad?” You fiddled with your dirty shirt hem, your ironed collar falling off to your shoulders as the buttons Edira undid came to an end; with the last piece she unbuttoned, you were practically naked --save for your pants-- in her office. 

The only thing that could make this day worse is if someone walked in.

 “Please don’t wait for my sake, I don't think i’ll be able to take it later.” 

You just wanted to hear her complain, hear her say how much of a fuckup you were and then have her avoid talking to you for the rest of the day. 

“I’m not that mad..” She said, a warm, white washcloth rubbing at your forearm. When did she get that? While you were moping? 

The flesh of your wounds was darker, stinging each time the rough cloth rubbed against it. “It was an accident. Besides, it was probably my fault.”

Wait. Did she really just say that?

You wanted her to say it again, to finish it off even with an “i’m sorry I made your life this way,” but anything of that sort was not even close to being on the table. 

You hesitantly kept your accusatory thoughts at bay. “Why do you say that?”

Edira sighed, turning over your half-clean arms. “Because, I was being a bitch. acting all pissed off and making you walk on your tippy toes around me. If you haven’t figured it out already, the meeting in Portland didn’t go well. At all.”

Wow. Did she really call herself a bitch? You knew today was not going like how you expected, but this was a different kind of a surprise. 

“I don’t feel bad about you not calling me at all last night, though. You know better than that.” 

You felt her lean in close to your ear, breasts pulled tight in her office shirt that was pressed against you. 

“Gonna have to make it up to me tonight….  I missed that pretty little mouth of yours more than I thought I would.”

You looked down at her, Edira’s face lower than yours and dangerously close to your naked, burned chest. Through blonde lashes she looked at you, tongue at the corner of her mouth. 

“Don’t say that, unless you mean it. I’m just a ploy to you.” You said bitterly. 

Her pinkish tongue came to perk between soft lips, devilishly teasing the hot spot on your skin. You winced a tad when she poked it with her tongue, only to run it up the coffee-covered spot to your shoulder. 

“What do I have to do to make you believe it, pet?”

One hand pressed into your thigh with the rag, the other holding your neck as she cleaned you. 

A strong ‘hmph’ left her ajar lips, French tips undoing the top of her blouse. 

“What are you doing?” putting a hand to her collar you looked at her, bewildered. 

“What? We don't have the floor meeting for another hour..” she undid the top buttons despite your hand on her breast, feeling the lacey bra underneath. “Never taken you in my office before.. sounds like fun.”

“But, wait, my--ive got like, first degree burns--” You tried to push your knees together, keeping her at a distance as you sat on the dark desk. It was surprisingly clean, a neat stack of papers on the opposite end with her laptop sitting perfectly on top; this wasn't how it looked when you first got in here. “Don't tell me you were planning this.”

Your boss's hands entrapped your sides, her knee coming up against the desk. She was cornering you, making you scoot farther onto the cherrywood with a vicious look In her eyes. 

“You know me, I'll be as gentle… as I can, sweetling.” Her fine teeth nipped at your ear, running past it to press soft kisses to your hot skin. She ran a hand down your bare back, sending prickled shivers just to set you on edge. 

“Just stay quiet, baby. Can't let them hear you,” she tiptoed delicate fingers down to your navel, past your belly button to your lower abdomen. “unless you want them to.”

You shoved at her for a moment, Scooting directly down the desk to escape her; Edira merely stared back through her dark, deep eyes. With an anticipating lick of her upper lip, she pounced. 

[lewkwoodnco]

Falling For You - Lockwood x Reader

“First person to laugh loses.”

”Not fair! I’m always laughing when you’re around. You’re bloody ridiculous.”

”Fine. First person to…er, feel something, loses. Deal?”

It wasn’t a question as much as it was a challenge. She hesitated. He took a sip from his mug. She let go of the breath she was holding.

“Deal.”

a/n: tfw you almost die in the arms of your future employer :) rip lockwood and co, never an agents first choice be it in canon or fanon ok ill stop now also just to be clear we’re all ignoring how much the title sucks ass okay god only gave out a limited number of brain cells and we can’t ALL be as creative as @bella-rose29 (will make a separate post on this a little later, not enough space here) (but also she was SICKKK for coming up w the title deck the halls (and not your partner) ok didn’t mean to turn this into a belle appreciation post but 👍)

warnings/tropes: fluff fluff FLUFF, this is about as fluffy as it gets from me ashdkd, cringy pick up lines overload, also I declare plagiarism (?) of some rlly popular incorrect quotes, you'll know it when you read them

word count: 2.6k!

TAGLIST | MASTERLIST

She and Lucy were in the kitchen, putting the kettle on and waiting for the boys to reach home. The four of them had split up to get some errands done that morning before breakfast - she and Lucy went to collect the payment for a few jobs, while Lockwood and George dropped off some paperwork at DEPRAC headquarters. Lucy put the kettle on while she refilled their teabag jar, and a minute later the boys walked in.

George was telling Lockwood off for something, who wasn't looking too sorry for whatever it was that he had done, though he clearly cared enough to try to suppress his giggles.

"Those forms took me hours, Lockwood. I wasn't about to let you drop them into some slush."

"I keep telling you, I wasn't going to drop them."

"How would you know when you were too busy making an ass of yourself?"

"I haven't seen a good pickup line in a while, George. You found it funny too."

"Yes, and the threat of you chucking our forms was downright hilarious."

She handed out the mugs of tea.

"What pickup line?"

"It was just a DEPRAC ad. Something like 'Are you a wraith? Because you have me love-locked.' Just a reminder of some quick signs of a visitor presence for Valentine's Day." 

She meandered over to where Lockwood was standing at the kitchen counter, a little too casual. He immediately snapped up whatever he was scribbling. She looked mildly (read: exaggeratedly) injured, but he just gave her one of his winning smiles. Really, she was well within her rights to be suspicious.

"S'that?"

"A bill."

"What bill?"

"Nothing to worry about."

"I'm not worried."

"Good."

"Show me the bill."

"You're adorable."

It was a poor excuse of an attempt at a distraction, as she immediately started trying to snatch it away. Lockwood just held the folded paper above his head, trying to pry his jacket out of her yanking hands. After a minute or so of vehement struggling, the scuffle ended the way all of their scuffles ended - her playing at sour grapes.

"Oh! Go boil-yer-head. I don't even want to see that bill anyway."

He slotted the letter into an envelope smoothly as George cut in.

"Speaking of bills, hopefully, we'll be able to pay more of them off soon. Couples like to go away for Valentine's, so it's the perfect time to get any lingering visitors taken care of. We should put an ad in the paper, like DEPRAC."

That set Lockwood off again, and George groaned. As he got up to get another biscuit, she conspiratorially turned to Lockwood.

"Y'know, for someone who's so tickled by pickup lines, I bet you'd be terrible at them."

"Not more terrible than you."

"I beg to differ!"

"Wanna bet?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

“First person to laugh loses.”

”Not fair! I’m always laughing when you’re around. You’re bloody ridiculous.”

”Fine. First person to…er, feel something, loses. Deal?”

It wasn’t a question as much as it was a challenge. She hesitated. He took a sip from his mug. She let go of the breath she was holding.

“Deal.”

Their bet had taken a back burner in her mind while she was preparing for their case that night, but she was still immediately suspicious when she walked into the kitchen to see Lockwood innocently snacking on a bowl of raisins.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"What are you going to do?"

"Nothing! Can't a guy eat his raisins?" He silently proferred the bowl to her. She narrowed her eyes. 

"No thanks."

"How about a date?"

"When did we get - oh. Ha ha." There was a mischievous crinkle in Lockwood's eye. "Sneaky. I was busy preparing for our case, like a proper agent."

"Hmm, excuses, excuses."

"Fine. If George finds out you haven't read tonight's case file, you're on your own."

"NO no no no please please please -"

She prepped a few pickup lines before they left, just enough to stop Lockwood from becoming completely unbearable.

"Are you a visitor? Because you've been haunting my dreams."

She scrunched up her nose. "Boo. That's terrible."

"You try coming up with a visitor-themed one. They're all so horrible."

She paused for a minute.

"Are you a Lurker? 'Cause you're making my heart race."

"...no one likes a show-off," he grumbled, and she smiled to herself as they continued rooting through boxes, looking for a potential Source.

"Your hand looks heavy. Could I hold it for you?"

"What's it like to be the most gorgeous person in this room?" That one got a good laugh out of him.

"Might be more flattering if my competition wasn't a Raw Bones. You’re pretty and I’m cute. Wanna be pretty cute together?"

"If you and I were socks, we'd make a great pair."

She revelled in the huge smile that lit up his face. She knew he'd get a kick out of that one.

She hadn't expected to have as much fun with their game as she did. They recounted their highlights to Lucy and George on the way home, which made for an entertaining end to the case. As Lucy and George put away their coats, Lockwood lingered behind, looking at her as if there was something he wanted to say, but couldn't quite find the words. She became even more alarmed when he placed a hand on her shoulder, because of how serious he looked.

"Is everything okay?" 

He took a shaky breath and tightened his grip on her shoulder ever so slightly.

"If you let me borrow a kiss, I promise I'll give it right back."

The line itself wasn't particularly outrageous, but in the darkness by the door, with their faces in the shadows and him holding her close, she momentarily forgot how to breathe.

"Good one," she whispered.

He gave her a sloping smile and retreated into the kitchen. She stood there for a moment, thinking about the warmth on her shoulder, as if his hand was still there.

"Did it hurt?"

"When I fell from heaven?"

"When you fell down the stairs. Right in front of us. It's been ten minutes and you haven't even gotten up yet."

With a strangled wheeze, he righted himself, looking more than a little stupid with his affronted expression and hair sticking up in all directions. They were on a case, and Lockwood had been a bit too close to the stairs whilst investigating the death glow on the landing. It had been quite a painful-looking rollercoaster of a fall with many bumps as he flailed for the railings, ending with a muffled scream.

"I was checking for broken bones."

"For ten minutes? Do you even have that many bones?"

He had an oily smirk on his face, though it was mostly nullified by his slightly crossed eyes.

"I've got...so many bones, I could give you a...wait. No. Hey lady, do you want a...bone? If you were a bone, you'd be in my...body...my body has all the bones...hang on. Okay, got it. Bones....fuck."

"...concussion?"

"Nuh-uh."

That was the moment his knees chose to buckle under him, and the three of them hurried to hold him upright. Even though he kept insisting he was fine, he was looking far too pale and woozy, so they flagged down a cab and pushed Lockwood into it. After a quick round of rock paper scissors, she joined him in the cab while George and Lucy got to stay to finish the job.

It had been a bit of a challenge to fumble for the key to the front door with the dead weight that was Lockwood compressing her spine, but she somehow managed. She tried her best to keep track of all of his long limbs after he knocked his head on the side of the door frame, groaning again. She dumped him onto their living room sofa, going down with him in the process, and with some difficulty peeled herself out of his grip. The bump had clearly taken quite a bit out of him, for by the time she returned with a blanket, he had completely passed out.

With some difficulty, she wrestled his rapier off of him and draped the blanket over him. She put away her own gear and rapier and curled up with a book on the armchair opposite the sofa. It was odd to see Lockwood sleeping. And even more odd to see him doing it so peacefully, like all thoughts and worries had been knocked clean out of his head. Much like her thoughts, the first time they met.

It hadn’t even been her goddamn fault. She had been lugging around her uncle’s rapiers since hers had been sent for cleaning and it was starting to make her arm ache. She deserved a little lean, no doubt. Only, what she thought was the door frame had been the door itself, so when her then-future employer had opened the door, she stumbled right into his arms.

And then promptly fell out of them when he let her go by surprise. To his credit, he was superfluously apologetic and sympathetic, and kept asking if her head was alright throughout the interview. It was a little annoying, if she were entirely honest, but she was grateful when that sympathy translated into a job, because all coherent thoughts in her head were lying somewhere on their front door runner.

As much as she tried not to think about the incident since Lockwood showed no sign of doing so himself, it kept her up at night more than she'd like to admit. But it had also been rather liberating, as there was little else she could do that would be any worse.

As if hearing her thoughts, Lockwood began to stir after an hour or so, opening his eyes blearily. She instinctively put her book down and crouched next to the sofa, where she immediately felt awkward. After a moment's hesitation, she placed her hand on his forehead, and they blinked at each other in confusion.

"How're you feeling?"

"Great." He cleared his throat, which barely helped his hoarse voice. "Chipper."

"Are you sure? Feeling chilly?"

"No, I'm fine. Are you a construction worker?"

"...huh?"

"Because you are building."

"What."

"I win."

He turned to his side and buried his face into his cushion with a satisfied look on his face. 

"Oh, Lockwood. I don't think..."

He pulled his head out of the cushion alarmingly fast. That couldn't have been good for his neck. "Ohhh, too good for my pickup lines now, eh?"

"I...what?"

"I get a bump on my head and you don't like my pickup lines no more?"

"Why do you have a Brooklyn accent?"

"You's got a Brooklyn accent."

"Okay, now you're just throwing a tantrum."

He fussed for a few more minutes, muttering out of the corner of his mouth or into the cushion, but eventually calmed down. As his eyes fluttered close, his breathing becoming long and even, she quietly got up to leave.

"Just so you know...I do think you're building."

The Brooklyn accent was gone, and though his low murmur was comfortably familiar, something in it sent a spark running through her brain.

"I think you're building too."

She could have sworn he had a small smile before his mouth relaxed as he drifted off again.

She didn't see much of him after that, given how much rest he needed, and the reprieve from their game was a welcome relief. The pickup lines didn't slide off her tongue as easily when she meant them as much as she did now. Still, she couldn't hide from him forever, and ran into him in the kitchen a few nights later.

"Oh. Hey."

He held up the biscuit tin. "Hello. Catching up on my biscuit rations."

She smiled. "Feeling better?"

"Definitely. A little sick of lying about, but I think I've finally got my head on straight."

He smiled, and the tension between them melted. She smiled back.

"Must have been scary, having your brain go wonky like that." 

"It was...wild. I don't even know how I had the presence of mind to put my rapier away."

Her cheeks burned as she pointedly rummaged through their pantry for a snack while Lockwood brewed tea for the both of them. They sat at the kitchen table in silence, slowly sipping their tea as they ignored the elephant in the room. That is, until Lockwood broached the subject.

“Did it hurt?”

She put her mug down. “Lockwood.”

“Did it hurt?” He pressed, firmly.

“I’ve already heard this one.”

“Just - humour me for a minute, won’t you?”

She looked at the little she could see of his face, given how close they were sitting, and gave a small sigh.

“So. Did it hurt?”

“When I fell from heaven?”

“When you fell into my life.” 

He lightly squeezed her hand, it was only then that she realised that they were holding hands. She choked on her breath in a mildly undignified manner, but with the proximity and the unexpected answer, she was well and truly taken aback. She waited for the embarrassment to kick in. There were a lot of things to be embarrassed about at that moment - how he could probably see every imperfection on her face, how he could probably tell how nervous she was getting from how clammy her palm must be, and of course that he remembered their dreadfully embarrassing first encounter.

But the shame never came. If anything, she felt oddly…touched. There wasn’t anything embarrassing about the memory anymore. It was…as much as it pained her to admit it…slightly romantic. She looked away from his face, shaking her head slightly, staring at their gripping hands. So easy it was to hold onto each other in the shadows, but terrifying in the daylight. Scratch that, it was terrifying to see herself holding his hand just as tightly as he held hers. Maybe he did compel…something in her.

His hand disappeared into his pocket, and a moment later he was pulling out a familiar, weathered envelope. 

"I've never...I've never asked anyone to be my Valentine. Never knew how it worked. Still don't really know how it works. So I tried writing it all down, and..." Lockwood frowned at the loopy yet measured scrawls in front of him. He sighed in defeat, crumpling the letter. "...and I still don't know how it works."

She swallowed through the lump in her throat. "Me neither. But..." she tore her eyes away from the table, looking at his face with his emotions stacked plain as day. "I think we know enough."

She curled her fingers into his. Years ago, she hadn't thought knowing if she was in love would ever be an issue, but for so many years she struggled to find the love they wrote books, songs and poetry about. But sitting here now, in the dim light of the kitchen, with a person whose face she could trace in her sleep, she realised Little Her had had it right all along.

“I always thought you were very nice to me in that interview. A little too nice.”

“You didn’t hear the way you screamed. I thought you were going down with a heart attack.”

TAGLIST: @dangelnleif @elenianag080 @snoopyluver20 @ell0ra-br3kk3r @avdiobliss @mitskiswift99 @ahead-fullofdreams @neewtmas @mischivana @houseoftwistedspirits

[muddyorbsblr]

the right partner

See my full list of works here!

Summary: You had no intentions of joining Stark's party, considering that your ex had just dumped you two days ago and he was already announcing his new relationship. And then along came Loki, offering to be your date for the night…

Pairing: Loki x Reader

Word Count: 4.8k

Warnings: language (yeah no, not sorry, Rogers); little bit of steam at the end; reader w/ insecurities [let me know if i missed anything!]

Things to be aware of: Steve is the ex; Nat & Wanda offering violence to avenge their bestie; borderline dangerous dancing stunts (don't try this at home, kids); coworkers/teammates to lovers

"Babes, stop fussing over the dress. You look hot. It's giving revenge dress if I do say so myself. Everyone covering the event will take one look at you and see without a doubt in their mind that you won this break up. Especially considering how hot your dates are."

Natasha nudged your shoulder playfully, probably in hopes of wiping the scowl off of the reflection staring back at you as you adjusted the strap of your midnight blue mermaid dress, making sure everything was secure and no unflattering angles were even remotely feasible.

Then again you could barely walk properly in the damn thing, so there really wasn't much room for awkward and unflattering, considering that you'd be able to do little more than stand and pose. You'd wanted to trade in the dress for something that gave you a bit more breathing room considering that the man that chose -- well, he'd argue strongly encouraged -- the dress was no longer your date for the night, but your choices would be stiflingly limited with how close you'd have been cutting it if you'd returned it.

Two days to break up, pack up, move your things out of his apartment in the compound, move back into your own apartment, clean up said apartment to make it at least livable once again, cry a bit, and then ready yourself for this charity ball? There wasn't time to return the dress that Steve chose, let alone pick out a new one. Even with the help of both Nat and Wanda.

"Remind me to thank Bucky and Vision for letting me steal you two away tonight?"

"Don't even worry about it. But maybe you could talk to Bucky later and tell him that there isn't even a shred of this that's his fault? He somehow got it into his head that because Steve's his best friend he should have sensed something. Should've told me. Or directly told you. He's been feeling like shit over this whole thing since I came home two days ago and told him I had to help you clean out your stuff from Rogers' apartment and move back into your old one."

Just as you were about to reassure the Russian spy that you would talk to her husband the second you got the chance to when there were no nosy reporters lurking around corners or planting microphones around the event to capture their next juicy story, Wanda walked into the room, her expression colored with a mix of pity and irritation.

"Well he might feel a hell of a lot worse now that he's seeing in real time what his best buddy's been doing since the breakup." Nausea began to swirl in your stomach as they each took one of your hands and the sorceress led you to the conference hall that had been fully decked out for tonight's event. The crowd had gathered around the dance floor, phones out and whispering amongst one another as they looked on the couple in the center.

"Oh you've got to be fucking shitting me," Nat bellowed in outrage, her hand leaving yours and wrapping around your waist to ensure you were still standing straight. "You even asked him point blank about her and he brushed you off--"

"Don't worry about her, Cookie, I'm just making sure she has the best training available to her," you seethed, feeling yourself shaking in your friend's hold as you repeated Steve's words to you just last week. "Babes, I don't think I even wanna go in there. I can already see the fucking headlines. Heartbroken Avenger Y/N Y/L/N seeks the comfort of her girlfriends' company as former lover Captain America debuts his new relationship with SHIELD Agent Ava WhatsHerFace. This isn't worth it. You two go. Be with your husbands. I'm going home."

"Are you sure?" Wanda squeezed your other hand, her free arm already radiating her signature red magic. "I can trip her and make them fall flat on their asses, just say the word."

It took you a great deal to not take her up on her offer, instead opting to just squeeze her hand back before letting go, maneuvering yourself out of their hold. "I'm sure. No tripping anybody, you two. Last thing we need is the internet speculating on which sides the Avengers are taking in what they're gonna try and spin as the breakup that shocked the world, and then making these idiotic theories about how we might cause a reiteration of Germany right here in the Big Apple."

"Okay what if I just poisoned her drink no one would know it was me--"

"Babes, everyone would know it was you," you cut off the spy. "No poison. No tripping. Not even a backhanded compliment. If you really can't stand the sight of her then walk away. Otherwise Pepper will kill us over making a scene over this and I'm not even joining the damn party but she'll drag me in anyway because she's gonna figure out that you two did what you did because of me."

"You're a better woman than that little shit ever deserved," Wanda grumbled, pulling you into a quick embrace. "We'll see you after the party then? Because no way in hell are you sleeping alone tonight."

"After," you confirmed, already walking away from the two as they walked toward the bar to where Bucky and Vision were undoubtedly standing and waiting patiently for them.

You'd walked down a good few feet down the hall when a voice halted you.

"Y/N?" You inwardly groaned at the sound of Loki calling out to you. The absolute last thing you needed was the member of the team who was undoubtedly and objectively the most unfairly breathtakingly beautiful person in all of New York -- hell, in all of the world as far as you were concerned -- seeing you in the dejected state you were in.

You did your best to plaster on a half-smile as you turned to face the god. "Hey, Mischief." You threw him a cursory glance, your heart skipping a good few beats when you registered his bespoke Burnham green tuxedo forming to his sculpted body like a well-worn leather glove. "You look great."

"You're breathtaking," he sighed, walking the rest of the distance and stopping a few steps in front of you. "As you always are." He gave you a curt smile, his fingers visibly twitching in your direction as he kept his hands to his sides. "Are you not joining the gala?"

"Thinking I might sit this one out, actually," you murmured, grimacing at just how miserable you sounded to your own ears. "Considering it doing Pepper a solid and making sure that tonight's all about whatever cause Stark decided to back this time around and not about the untimely demise of me and Rogers. The last thing we need is me becoming the center of attention because the media published headlines calling me the Heartbroken Avenger because I walked in there with my friends while my ex debuts his shiny new toy." You took an awkward step back, giving him an even more inelegant wave his way. "You have fun, though, Mischief."

He took your hand in his as you were turning away from him. "What if I escorted you?" Something with his soft spoken tone, partnered with the way his thumb was stroking the back of your hand, had you struggling to take your next breath. "We could walk in together, and it wouldn't cross anybody's mind to call you heartbroken or lonely or anything of the sort."

You couldn't help but scoff at his offer. "I'm not sure you wanna take on the media vultures who'll write about you getting Captain America's sloppy seconds. Hell, if I walk in there with you they'll think you probably did it out of pity. People already paint me as someone they don't think could have pulled the likes of Steve, but if we walk in there together you'll never hear the end of how charitable you were to--"

"Stop that," he cut you off, his tone sibilant and terse as if he was slicing through your self-pity party for one. "Rogers is an imbecile, he always has been. To have held painite in his uncouth hands and traded it in for mere rubble." He took a step closer to you, making you struggle to hide the shudder than ran through you when you could practically feel the warmth of his body radiating from him. "To walk into that room with you would not be an act of charity, darling. It would be an honor. A privilege."

"Okay come on that's enough--"

"How I wish you could see yourself the way I do," he murmured, his free hand lightly grasping your chin and making it impossible to turn your gaze from him. "Come with me. We'll share a dance and afterward if you still wish to leave then we will."

"Are you insane?" you blurted out, shaking your head at how absurd his offer was. "If you walk in with me and you leave with me, you're gonna find out real quick that people actually can hate me more than they did when I was dating Steve, because now I'm preventing you from getting all the pretty girls' numbers in the party. There are supermodels in there, Mischief. Pretty sure there're some princesses, too. They came here for you."

"Then they will leave disappointed," he answered back, the corner of his mouth pulling in a smirk as he watched your brows knit together in clear confusion. "As for attaining the contact information of, how did you phrase it again? Pretty girls? I already have that of the most beguiling woman who would be in that gala, I truly need no more." He let go of your hand to reach for his phone and tap away at it to call whoever he was referring to.

A few seconds later your little purse began to ring, making you give him a pointed stare. "Smooth." Your phone stopped ringing as soon as he put his away, finding yourself fighting to breathe properly once more when he placed his hand back in yours. "Fine," you huffed. "But we're not dancing, I can barely walk in this stupid thing, the dance floor would turn into a crime scene if I so much as spun wrong."

The soft chuckle that escaped his lips filled you with a weird sense of pride, knowing that even for a few short moment the usually terse god felt comfortable enough around you to seem so unguarded. He released his hold on you to hover his hands by your waist. "May I?"

You took a moment to try figuring out what he meant before answering, "I don't know what you're asking for but alright. I trust you."

His playful demeanor faltered for a moment, eyebrows knitting together and raising slightly before he placed his hands on your waist and gently guiding you to turn and facing the mirrored wall. Your breath hitched in your throat with a squeak as his gaze met yours on the reflection, bringing his face level to yours, his lips hovering just beside your ear. "Beautiful as you are in this dress, darling, you look as if you'd been forced to conform into something you're not. You were made to move freely, as gracefully and as fluidly as you move in the field."

You held your breath as you watched his magic washing over you, your dress melting away from the shoulders down and slowly being replaced with a dark emerald silk gown that stopped just below your ankles, the skirt flaring out from the waist with a slit going up to the middle of your thigh. The feel of your hair cascading down your back had you realizing that you were so caught up in the spectacle of your dress changing before your very eyes that you'd barely felt his fingers deftly taking the pins out of your hair and undoing the tightly knotted bun that borderline violently pulled at your temples.

"Hmmm…much better." You fought against the chill that ran throughout your body at the low tone of his voice reverberating in your ear. "Just one more…tiny flourish." His hand moved from your hair to rest his fingers lightly on the juncture between your neck and shoulder, a slight smile appearing on his face in the reflection when your breathing became audibly staggered as a teardrop emerald pendant hanging off a gold chain materialized around your neck. "Himmelske," he breathed out, the vision of him lightly pressing his lips to the top of your head making your pulse pound in your ears. "Shall we?"

"This is too much…" you sighed, turning around to face him and nearly stumbling over your own feet when you saw how close your faces were to one another.  "I can't possibly--"

"You can, darling." He took your hand in his again and brought it up towards his lips, pressing a soft kiss to your knuckles, all the while his eyes never leaving yours. "You look ethereal, like a goddess walking among mortals." He pressed his lips to your knuckles once more. "Min gudinne." He began to walk backwards towards the party, keeping your hands intertwined as he led you down the hall, typing something away a quick message on his phone as the music from the repurposed conference hall gradually grew louder.

Once you were mere feet away from the doors leading to the conference hall, the old-fashioned music that made you want to retch on the spot screeched to a halt, and Tony's voice boomed through the speakers.

"Alright Cap that's enough, some of us actually don't want to see our dinner a second time tonight." The crowd began to chuckle at his joking barbs toward your ex. "Why don't you and your new babydoll take a breather for a minute. Or a hundred. While I go ahead and play on a special request for…well I'll be damned…Reindeer Games."

The sound of Tony's little nickname for Loki had you growing frigid in the god's hold. "Mischief, what did you do?"

Your question went unanswered, him opting to give you a soft smile as he lifted your joint hands up to place a tender kiss to the back of your hand before leading you to the center of the dance floor, the sound of your friends' claps and cheers -- as well as a round of hearty hollers from both Bucky and Thor -- filling the room and overpowering the piano intro of "Tightrope" by Sara Bareilles playing over the speakers as soon as you came into view.

Glares tinged with thinly veiled envious rage weighed down on you like cinder blocks as the raven-haired Asgardian placed his hand on your lower back, bringing your bodies within mere inches of one another. "Everyone's staring," you wavered, trying to keep your breathing even as he began to lead you in a basic waltz around the dance floor.

"Envious, petulant mortals," he answered with a sneer, giving you a small smirk at the end. "Likely because I have the most beautiful date among them all."

"Do gods wear glasses?" you bit back, scoffing softly at his words. "Because I'm pretty sure Adriana Lima is here and--"

"I can see quite clearly, precious mortal," he cut you off, the gentle tone of his voice not once wavering. "Better than you think." He upped the pace of your steps, the smile on his face growing wider as your steps became less structured and he raised your joint hands to spin you on the spot, your dress twirling fluidly with each step before he pulled you back to him, now chest to chest as he resumed leading you in a large circle around the floor. "You seem surprised, darling."

"I usually would have stepped on your toes by now," you whispered, your breath hitching as every step you took together felt perfectly synced, a part of you heavily dreading stumbling and sending you both into a clumsy heap on the floor. Especially with the even closer proximity of your bodies to one another. "Are you doing this?" He answered you with a slight furrow of his eyebrows. "Did you enchant the dress? The necklace? My shoes?"

"I did nothing of the sort, dear Y/N," he whispered into your ear, the feel of his breath on your skin sending your heart into overdrive. "Perhaps you'd simply been with the wrong partners all your life." You faintly registered the way his hold on you tightened the slightest bit. "I wish to prove it to you. A little flourish both for our benefit and for the entertainment of our audience."

A sequence of movements was projected into your mind, each motion requiring complete trust in your partner as you climbed over his back, held up only by your joint hands and your knee braced on his shoulder as he spun on the spot. And then capped off with a dismount that had you hanging upside down and suspended as such for a few moments before righting yourself on your feet.

"Do you trust me, darling?"

You didn't need to think twice about your answer. "Yes." He flashed a brilliant smile before twirling you away and out of his hold, turning his back to you and giving you a silent signal to execute the move. Within a few short moments you were propped up on his shoulder, held up by your joint hands and feeling as if you were flying as he executed each turn with visible ease.

The faces of the crowd, a mixture of pure shock and awe, said it all. No one on the team had ever placed that much trust in Loki, despite the countless times he'd undoubtedly saved any and all of you throughout your numerous missions together. And here you were giving everyone a blatant display that among all the members of the team, you probably trusted him the most.

There wasn't even the slightest tremble in your movement as you executed the dismount, briefly giving them all a face-splitting grin that nearly mirrored the blond Asgardian watching from the bar as he looked on at the spectacle you and his brother had created before turning back and facing your partner. The next moment he'd gone back to holding you and twirling you both around the dance floor with a slight flourish as you reunited.

"There you are, precious mortal," he breathed out, securing his arm around your waist and lifting you off your feet as he spun you both again, the skirt of your dress billowing from the motion and creating a perfect flourish to your steps, earning you various oohs and aahs from the audience. You assumed that the bitter hmph sounds came from your ex and Miss Ava WhatsHerFace. "I've missed seeing that smile on you. It's been months too long. How I wanted to strike at Rogers' face the moment I saw the light in you wavering."

"You saw that?" You prided yourself in concealing your insecurities and the downward spiral that your mind had taken the moment that the new recruit had been assigned to train for the Avengers, painting on a bright disposition despite the interest that Steve had taken in her and the rapidly dwindling attention he paid to you in turn.

It never occurred to you that people might be looking closer than you intended them to. Or that one of those people would be someone you'd carried feelings for ever since long before you and Rogers ever even went out on the first date. You kept on guilting yourself that you were no better than him, if you were being completely honest.

The only leg up you had over your ex was that at least you did right by him and you never acted on anything. But then again you had no reason to believe that you could; in your eyes, Loki had to reason to see you, let alone return your sentiment.

"I see you, Y/N," he murmured, bringing his hand higher up your back, leaning forward, and tilting you backward in a low dip. "I've always seen you." Your heart caught in your throat as you felt him press a soft kiss to your cheek before bringing you both back up to stand upright, a new sequence of movements projected into your mind.

This time of him lifting you into the air, a hand braced on your lower back, the other wrapped around your ankle, followed by a drop that would land you safely in his arms and have the god carrying you bridal style. You could see the silent question shining in his eyes as the projected image fizzled away, awaiting your answer. "I trust you," you whispered, taking a breath as he turned you to face away from him and lifted you into the air with ease.

There wasn't a single doubt in your mind even in that split second where you were falling through the air. You knew you were safe with him. Physically at least.

Emotionally it felt like he was leading you to the edge of a cliff, and you were all too happy to step off if it meant he'd look at you even remotely like he did throughout any point of tonight.

You landed in his arms with a soft, nearly soundless thud, once again met with appreciative applause from the room of onlookers and Tony's voice once again sounding through the speakers. "Jellybean, I take back every joke I ever made about your dancing. Now I know it wasn't you that made those moves bad and that's all I'm gonna say on that. Give it up for these two one more time, ladies and gentlemen!"

A traitorous squeak from the back of your throat slipped from your lips as the god carrying you briefly touched the tip of his nose to yours and pressed a kiss between your brows before setting you back down on your feet, taking your hand in his and lacing his fingers between yours. He led you through the dance floor that was quickly becoming crowded as a rhythmic thumping beat boomed from the sound system, placing you directly in front of him with his free arm wrapped around your midsection.

Once you'd reached the bar, crossing paths with Nat and Wanda and their respective husbands as they made their way to the dance floor, only Thor remained to greet you as you occupied two seats next to one another. "Brother, elation becomes you." Before he walked toward the buffet, handing his empty plate to one of the cleaning staff, he turned to face you. "Take care of him. Actually, take care of each other."

Your brows knitted together as you watched the blond Asgardian walk away, confusion niggling away at your brain as you turned your gaze back to Loki. "What was that--"

The rest of your sentence died on the tip of your tongue as the raven-haired god cupped your jaw, weaving his fingers through your hair, as he closed the distance between you and captured your lips in a soft kiss. You whimpered against him as he stood from his seat, framing your face with his hands as he stepped closer to you, all the while his lips never leaving yours.

He breathed your name as he pulled away, the way that he seemingly sounded almost as flustered as you were paired with the restraint so evident in his hold on you creating a heady combination that made the room spin. "He never deserved you."

Those words had your eyes snapping open, wondering if you'd heard him right. "Loki what--"

"And you should have had someone that treasured you. Worshipped you. That knew with every fiber of his being that he was the most fortunate bastard in the Nine for being the one that you shared the most intimate parts of your life with." Your heart thundered in your ears as he leaned in to kiss you again. "Someone that would proudly show whoever was around to watch that he is equally yours as you are his. Perhaps even more so."

"Are you trying to tell me that that someone is you?" The music had faded away to nothing more than a dull thumping in the background as you looked into his eyes, rife with emotions that you couldn't quite place as his hands traveled down to wrap around your waist, stepping closer to you, and leaning in to press a soft kiss to your temple.

"If you would let me," he murmured against your skin. "He was but a fool to have let you go. But if his foolishness leads to my fortune, then perhaps I could be moved to despise him a little less." He kissed a trail from your temple to your ear, making your breath hitch again as his thumb stroked at your side and tracing the faint lines of your ribcage while he whispered a deliciously tempting offer. "Leave with me. Let me be the fortunate wretch that gets to take you home. That gets to worship you, to pleasure you. Even if only for tonight, let me make you equally mine as I am yours. As I have always been yours."

His offer alone already had you trembling in anticipation for what he could possibly have in store for you the moment you gave him your answer. "I have to find Nat and Wanda," you blurted out, making a motion to step off of your seat.

"Y/N please--"

"They offered to stop by my apartment after the party," you explained, mustering the courage to press a quick kiss to his lips when you watched in disbelief as a touch of desperation colored his features. "They wanted to make sure I wasn't going to sleep alone tonight. I have to tell them I have other plans."

A brilliant smile stretched across his face as he pulled you in for another kiss, both of you moaning into each other's mouths as he pulled you against him, lifting you out of your seat and setting you back down on your feet, holding you in his arms the same way he did a few moments ago as you weaved your way through the crowd.

It didn't take you long to find the two women in question, tapping both of them on their shoulders to call their attention. "Rain check on the sleepover?" you shouted over the music.

Wanda took one look at how Loki was holding you and eyed Nat with a smirk. "You got a better offer, I see. Go, babes. We just wanted to make sure you didn't sleep alone tonight."

"Now we gotta make sure you stay awake at the mission brief in the morning because you won't be sleeping at all," Nat capped off with a raise of her eyebrow. She eyed the god holding you with a pointed glare. "If you hurt her--"

"I wouldn't dream of it, Romanoff," he cut her off. "Unlike some people in our non-immediate company, I have every intention of holding on to painite with every ounce of my strength."

Your brows once again knitted together as your friends began to squeal and giggle while you walked away with the god, the alcohol clearly beginning to get to them. "Okay I have to ask. What exactly is painite? You've…said that twice tonight," you prodded, looking up at him only to be met with a tender smile and an intensity burning in his eyes that nearly made you fall over.

"It is the rarest, most precious gemstone on this planet. Perhaps in all the realms," he answered, turning you in his arms as soon as you stepped foot into the corridor and walking you backwards until your back was flush against the wall. "And despite its crimson hue I would still say undoubtedly the most beautiful." You shuddered under his gaze as he trailed a finger from the center of your neck down your torso until he reached your waist and pulled you to him for a fleeting but heated kiss. "That is how I see you. Rare. Precious. And undoubtedly the most beautiful creature I will ever lay my eyes on."

The next moment your surroundings were awash with a wave of his green magic, and you were inside his apartment, your moans piercing the quiet darkness as his lips latched on to your neck and you felt his hands working to divest you of your dress. His next words, rasped against your skin, already had your legs shaking without him having even begun to touch you yet.

"Mine. Finally mine."

A/N: Omg I've finally finished it 😩 And he's precious your honor 🥹 I've honestly had this idea bouncing around in my head for so many days now that I'm so happy that it's finally out for y'all to read and (hopefully) enjoy.

There is a plan for a part 2 of this but it's literally all smut and it's a long ways away because I have every intention to get into 'relinquish the crown' again and also 'back to you'…and also the requests from the 500 follower celebration so just like 'sworn fealty'…it might happen, it might not happen, and that's that on that.

Translations: Himmelske – Heavenly Min gudinne – My goddess

'everything' taglist: @sailorholly @loopsisloops @unlucky-number-13 @imalovernotahater @coldnique @loz-3 @huntress-artemiss @salempoe @vickie5446 @athalialaufeyson @lokiprompts @sarahscribbles @kats72 @kikster606 @evelyn-kingsley @lokixryss @thomase1 @mischief2sarawr @peaches1958 @lovingchoices14 @goblingirlsarah @iamlokisgloriouspurpose @creationsbyme @maple-seed @mjsthrillernp @ladyofthestayingpower @mygfloki @sititran @glitterylokislut @ozymdias @fictive-sl0th @lovelysizzlingbluebird @lokidbadguy @mochie85 @silverfire475 @joyful-enchantress @dangertoozmanykids101 @elizabethmidnight2017 @lokidokieokie @lunarnights95

Loki taglist:  @calumance @severuslovebot @moonlightreader649 @i-stand-with-loki @nixymarvelkins @infinitystoner @lokisgoodgirl @purplegrrl27 @thedistractedagglomeration

[pxgeturner]

kiss it better - t.m riddle

prequel to “milkshakes & confessions” told through mainly his pov

an. all of my tom writing takes has the golden trio cast in modern day. i like his era friends like rebastan, abraxas, rosier. i just don’t know enough about them to write in that era. And also it just easier to write them in a modern setting as i can sprinkle in some modern muggle things. also i’m kind of tired of tom calling hufflepuff r “badger” in so many fics, so she has a much cuter animal nickname. also.

warnings: tommi is down horrendously for r. also theo is an asshole in this.

m.list

he sits a row behind her, next to his friends, listening to her giggle at something her lab partner said. He thinks they’re roommates.

theo leans toward him, whispering, “y’know, riddle, i was walking through the halls yesterday, and that one fell and scraped her hand,”— theo gestures first to the partner, then her— “and she takes her friend’s hand, kisses it fucking better. like a pathetic child.”

tom tilts his head. “hm.”

she leans forward, presumably to note one of professor snape’s remarks, tom isn't sure. he hasn’t paid attention in weeks since he read ahead in the textbook.

“you shouldn’t be so rude, she’s a nice girl.” pansy shoves theo’s shoulder.

“she’s a hufflepuff.”

“so?”

“she’s probably making chocolates or writing secret admirer letters for tomorrow.”

“no she’s not. she’s going to be studying divination tomorrow in the library. she asked me if I wanted to but blaise is taking me on a date.”

“why would she ask you to study with her?” theo scoffs.

“because i’m her friend you idiot. where do you think i’ve been eating my lunch?”

“you’ve gone completely mental.”

“that’s you, you absolute wanker.”

tom sees a hufflepuff who hangs around her quite often. he watches them. soon she approaches them, embracing excitedly in a hug. she squeals unnecessarily. she does it cutely.

“your friend is over there,” he says to pansy.

as pansy looks over, the cute hufflepuff girl notices the group of slytherins and rushes over. “hey, pans!”

“hey.”

“guess what?” “what?”

“professor sprout gave me extra credit on my paper! she was very impressed that i knew about the roots of the bone thistle plant because it wasn’t something that we studied.” her eyes are bright with excitement and her hands dance around as she talks. sometimes her ‘r’s come out a bit too soft and sound like ‘w’s. she smiles widely and it shows her lovely crooked teeth. the sheer nail polish she put on last week is chipping and fading at the tips. she’s wearing her favorite lipgloss and shoes. they’re the ones she wears most often. the lipgloss is red and the shoes are platform mary janes. he likes red lips and mary janes. he likes girls that have lisps and imperfectly lovely teeth. he likes girls who fidget and have chipped nail polish. he likes girls who do all those things and are her.

by the time tom tunes back in, the subject has changed.

“you should have tom study with you. he doesn’t understand the arcana.”

she turns to tom. “i’ll be in the library tomorrow evening studying for the quiz on monday. you should definitely join if you need any help. if you do come, you should bring the deck you borrowed from professor trelawney.”

tom hopes she can’t hear his heart beating, and nods. she says something more to pansy. he leaves, theo follows.

“oh my fucking god. oh my fucking god, pansy, i hate you.” she giggles.

“all of you slytherins are preying on my downfall.” she glares at pansy, enzo, blaise, and draco.

“we’re trying to help,” blaise snickers.

“by having me make a fool of myself!”

mattheo passes by, and then backtracks. he moves around the sucker in his mouth and chuckles. “this is absolutely rich.” he turns back around, “i’m gonna go talk with my brother.” that didn’t make her feel any better.

...

it’s so romantic to spend valentine’s night hunched over a desk with a tarot deck, pendulum, and a mug of now-mostly-cold tea. of course a notebook is part of the party too. she checks the clock and the surroundings compulsively, worried that tom might not show, but she has no idea what she would do if he did. it got excessive, so she forced herself to stop.

tom finally makes it to the library. he sees her at the table, her supplies sprawled out in front of her. he approaches the table, pulling up a chair and sitting across from her. she doesn’t look up, which is fine; tom has plenty of patience. he watches her flip a card and write something into the notebook, and flip another, write something else, periodically sipping from her mug, for five minutes. as she’s about to flip over another card, he uses two fingers to tap the table twice. she yelps, the card leaving her hand and flicking him in the chest. her eyes are wide, and bright, like a bunny.

“hi,” she whispers.

he returns the card. “i’m sorry for being late. a first year needed homework help.” he doesn’t really like lying this time.

“that’s all right! i’m glad you could make it.”

tom nods.

“what kind of things were you hoping to cover?”

“i don’t quite understand why we must take such a useless class. it’s not even magic.”she looks at the table, suddenly interested in her pendulum.

“something wrong?” he wasn’t expecting that kind of reaction.

“i’m, uh, planning on studying divination in university.” oh. “but i know it’s an acquired taste, no biggie.”

“i didn’t mean to offend you. i suppose i should try to understand it. for the class at least.”

“i think i could help with it. who knows, you might like it.”

tom gives a small smile.

“all right, so in a tarot deck there are five arcana.”

“suits.”

“yeah. there’s the four minor arcana: wands, pentacles, swords, cups. the major arcana are the unique cards, like the empress, magician, devil."

he nods.

...

as the two of them are packing up, her bag’s zipper gets stuck. shepulls at it, trying to unstuck it.

“move.” he’s right behind her. she can feel his shirt rub against hers. she slides to the left to give him room. his long fingers manipulate the back of the zipper, quickly freeing the zipper from its thread prison and zipping the bag up the rest of the way.

“pfft, that’s so obvious, why didn’t i think of that? i swear i can be so dumb.” she takes the bag as he offers it back to her.

“you’re not dumb,” he says. “you’re one of the smartest girls in your year.” if she didn’t have such a brain-melting crush on him, she’d laugh. “but you’re definitely the prettiest.”

her cheeks are hot and she doesn’t know what to do. “wow, thanks.” she wants to slap herself.

“there’s a café in hogsmeade that is still open, do you want to go get a drink?”

he just asked me on a date. it is a date, right? “won’t we get in trouble for being out past curfew? pretty much everyone is back already.”

he leans in close to her, fixing a strand of her hair. “relax, you’re with a prefect. nothing bad is gonna happen.”

“let me drop off my bag first?”

...

the two of them talk about everything-- and nothing-- all at once. he pays; she tells him he shouldn’t’ve. he says, “don’t worry, bunny,” which makes her blush once again. once the order is ready, he is the one who goes to pick it up. when he gets back he places a brown pastry bag on the table with her drink. he sees her eyeing the lemon poppyseed scone. she tells him he shouldn’t have, and he says it wasn’t a problem. she insists they share the pastry.

she talks about her family, he tells her about his. the two of them share stories of his brother being a distraction. both of them recommend books to the other. her hands keep brushing against each other as they pick off pieces of the scone. tom orders another. the barista makes a last call for drinks, and he orders her a decaf lavender latte, because he can’t have his girl sleepless, now, can he? she stays until closing, not wanting to leave the bubble she’s created here, with this sweet boy.

before they head out into the frosted air, he zips up her jacket. as they walk back to the castle, he holds her steady. going uphill, the two of them reach a particularly slippery stretch of sidewalk that wasn’t slick on the way over.

“if i fall, you’re buying me dinner as compensation,” she tries to joke. she feels like she’s two seconds from being flat on her face, but tom isn’t wavering at all.

“oh, of course, and i’ll kiss any bruises better as a bonus.” that makes her quiet real quick.

she survives the hill, slightly disappointed that she didn’t slip. once they’re back in the castle, he even walks her to the hufflepuff dorms. “i’ll see you tomorrow, bunny,” he whispers in her ear. he takes note of the smell of the shampoo she uses.

he returns to his dorm, and theo is still awake. he’s at his desk, finishing an assignment. “you studied divination with her,” theo states.

“yes.” tom starts to change into something more comfortable.

“you took her on a date.” “yes.”

“do you think you could love her?” “yes.”

“i knew it.”

“how?”

“you stare at her. not like how you stare at other people. your expression is fairly neutral, to be fair. but you look slightly peaceful.”

tom makes a soft hum. “then why do you hate her so?"

"i don't"

“you don’t?”

“i wanted to get a reaction out of you, you golem of a man.” tom hums again.

“goodnight, nott.”

“goodnight, riddle.”

as tom is about to turn out his lamp, theo speaks once more. “don’t break her heart, tom. she’s a nice girl.”

and while tom doesn’t answer, he thinks about how he’d try his hardest to never make those beautiful eyes shine with tears.

[lunarw0rks]

tf141 with a hypermobile partner? partner has joint aches and pains and maybe the boys help them on a bad flare-up day? 🥹

A/N: I didn't know much about this, so I had to do some research and write based on what I read. Hope nothing is too inaccurate <3

Summary: How I headcanon they would help their S/O with a joint flare-up.

Warning(s): established relationship, GN!Reader, hurt/comfort, chronic pain/medical problems, fluff, no use of y/n, slightly suggestive w/ Alejandro's

Word Count: 1.8k

꒦꒷ MAIN MASTERLIST ꒷꒦ 141 MASTERLIST // have a request? ⋆ ⚘ 🕊 ˚✧ ₊˚ʚ ao3 ver.

Hypermobility Flare-up | 141 Headcanons (+ Ale)

Price

Years in the service, and just getting older, John has joint problems of his own—he understands how debilitating, downright disabling those aches can be on bad days. With himself, he’s grown so used to it, he can push through the pain. But you, his partner, in such pain? He can’t brush it off.

You had woken up for the day, after him, naturally. It seemed no matter how early you woke, his side of the bed was already empty and tidied. You felt it when your eyes opened, the slight headache forming from the overwhelming ache throughout your body. If there was anything you thought of doing that day, it was scratched off the list. Even rolling over, and moving the placement of the blankets, was sluggish and tiresome.

You could hear his footsteps from down the hall, the faint clearing of his throat. He waltzes inside the shared bedroom casually, as if he only came in to look for something. But, before he says his usual morning greeting, his eyes squint in concern. He’d notice before you do—the stiffness in your movements, the smallest wince in your expression, the sight of you rubbing your temple in frustration.

❝Don’t get up, I’ll get that for you.❞ He often says, grabbing you whatever the item was—even if it’s well within your reach. When he has the time, he’ll lay beside you, massaging the aches and pains after asking you to point out the worst areas. His way of massaging them; both firmly and lovingly, just enough to relieve the bundles of tension in your irritated muscles. Even if it does little to help, the support means more than he could ever know.

Simon

It was a rare sight for you two—out and about, sitting in the park only minutes from his flat. Today was especially perfect because there were few people there. In fact, it was one of the few places Simon is willing to be, but only with you. Whether it be sitting on one of the benches, or taking a walk around the trails.

You’d explained the condition to him before, how some days are better than others. Of course, he did his best to support it, finding himself doing research on the condition. There wasn’t much he could do, though, except be there for you. Though you were having pain that day, you didn’t want to spoil this precious time with him, even though you should’ve. But you weren’t thinking of that when you began walking when your already-sore muscles started to ache.

Simon then noticed; your steps had gotten slower, and it seemed like you had to exert more effort just to keep up with him. In record time, he stopped walking, placing a supporting hand on your shoulder, leaning down to meet your cringing expression. ❝Tell me, scale of one through ten, love.❞ He’d asked that before, in fact, he does every time. He would be concerned with any number larger than zero, so when your answer is remarkably high, you’ve been ushered to the car before you can retort.

He knew better; these flare-ups didn’t just come out of nowhere, not typically. You had to have felt sore prior, probably even this morning while he was getting ready. Had you struggled to get dressed, and he didn’t notice? He drove home faster than the way he came, helping you with each step up the deck, a firm hand on the small of your back. ❝You don’t need to hide your pain from me, especially not to stay in some bloody park longer. You have me all day.❞ It’s more of a scold, but it comes from a place of care. To feel such intense pain in your joints, yet attempting to keep walking at his expense, he felt guilty.

Soap

Soap knew you had been struggling lately, and you’d explained to him a thousand times that it was just something you would have to live with—some days manageable, others like your limbs where lifting a limb was near intolerable. The world couldn’t stop anytime you were in pain, he knew that, but that didn’t reduce the concern he felt.

The day had gone on like any other; out shopping for essentials… as well as the few items he’d decided to spoil you with, or more so anything you look at for more than a few seconds. Only, today the supercenter was packed and bustling. He walked behind you like a guard dog, and you pushed the cart of groceries, lifting each leg or reaching for an item with a little more sluggishness.

Today was especially bad, and you hadn’t felt the true extent of it until you’d been walking shopping aisles for about an hour. In truth, it was damn near unbearable right now, like your whole body had a persistent migraine. Soap’s eyes were peeled, as if waiting for the moment you would need to tap out of this shopping trip. It finally came, when you’d leaned down to reach an item at the bottom, stopping yourself mid-movement and gritting your teeth. His hand found your waist, leading you to one of the unoccupied benches, slowly easing you on it until you could sit.

❝Sit here a minute, I’ll go check out, eh?❞ He patted your knee gently, though instead of going straight to checkout, he found one of the vending machines first, purchasing you a bottled water to sip on. Somehow, even in the chaos of the busy shopping center, he returned in record time, items bagged and ready to be loaded—there wasn’t a chance in hell you were carrying them, though.

He motions his head towards the exit, which is just far enough to make it. ❝Can you walk?❞ he asks in a hushed tone, leaning close to your ear to keep the matter relatively private, so as not to air out your medical problems to the whole store. He walked with your pace, not his usual speedy one, eyes at attention until you reached the passenger side of the car.

Gaz

It took weeks of convincing until you both figured out a routine; him being your workout partner. ❝I’m not going to judge you, babe, it’s my job to be fit—not everyone else’s.❞ He was dead serious; no matter what fitness level you were at compared to him, or whatever limits you had in place for your body, he just wanted another activity to spend his time with you.

It wasn’t the exercise, or the prospect of Kyle judging you that was gnawing at you; it was your illness. Sure, there were stretches you could try to alleviate it, but wouldn’t that drag him down? He wanted to run, do push-ups, do weight training, etc…

Kyle knew you had issues, but didn’t understand the syndrome; the chronic aspect of it. In truth, he wanted to help you, to assist you in the stretches and therapeutic movements that might alleviate it. But there were things you just couldn’t do, not on those bad flare-up days. Though it took him a few seconds to understand when you said you were sitting today out, he dropped the offer the second he did. He knelt beside the bed where you were sitting, rubbing his thumbs over your knuckles. ❝I’m not going to force you, what kind of man would I be? If you need to rest, you rest.❞

One of his hands gripped your ankle, gently shifting the position you were in until you were laying down in the bed. Then, he removed the sneakers you had struggled to put on, setting them aside. Without another word, he returned with an over-the-counter pain med—something, anything was better than watching you laying there aching. ❝I want you right here today, alright? We can try out some stretches tomorrow if you’re up for it.❞

Alejandro

It was no secret how touchy Alejandro could be—downright needy at times. You were the little spoon today, his hand snaked around your waist with a firm grip as he pecked along your neck. With him, it wasn’t always sexual, he’s just handsy. Right now, however, it was. He hadn’t seen you all day, and had he known you were having a flare-up, he would’ve removed his ever-roaming hands. Alejando’s mouth, once tracing along your neck, was removed when he noticed how unresponsive you had been to the intimacy. ❝Mi amor, are you not in the mood tonight?❞

It wasn’t his fault, he was away all day, and the fact that he stopped the second he noticed something was off—that spoke volumes to you. When you rolled over to face him, a small grunt escaping your lips, he reached up and caressed your cheek, nodding slowly.

He understood now, even with your wordlessness. ❝Don’t feel bad, Cariño, it’s not your fault.❞ He reached for your arm, the one you had been struggling to prop yourself up with, laying it beside your head. This way, you were curled up on your side, aching muscles in a state of relaxation—at least, as relaxed as they could be. ❝We’ll stay in bed tonight. Just like this.❞

Compared to before, the hand wrapped around you was near a hover, to not put any pressure on the joints. His adaptability was endearing, and his tenderness made you want to swoon. You probably would, if you weren’t in such discomfort.

Kate

She wasn’t with you often, but when she was, she surely made a show of it. Ordering in, dim and romantic lighting on the patio, light conversation over the greasy takeout—it was priceless. She wasn’t blind to your issues, in fact, it came up quite early in your relationship. But, she was home with you for once, and you were making your best attempt to not let the chronic pain get in the way of it.

The pain meds you’d taken before dinner, they helped some, but that stiff, heavy feeling made you sluggish. ❝That bad today?❞ She lifts her gaze from the plates she was stacking, seeing how you’d been massaging a particularly sore spot. It was merely a part of you she had to learn to deal with, to find a way to at least cheer you up. Sitting down at the outdoor dining table only alleviated the pain briefly, before you felt stiff once more.

Your lack of response, how you only replied with a nod, she tightened her lips into an empathetic frown. The sliding door opened, then the faint clammer of the plates being set in the sink, before she was back out there with you. ❝I have an idea,❞ her hand outstretched, moonlight illuminating her features. You need to get the blood flowing anyway, and you’d never pass up moments like this with her.

Once she had your hand in hers, she let you take all the time you needed, until you were both in the grass. One hand still held yours, the other on the back of your head, resting it on her shoulder as she swayed with you. It was cheesy, sure, but the gesture meant everything. ❝How’s that?❞ She whispers into the air, followed by the chirping insects. The pain hadn’t dissipated entirely, but slow, fluid movements eased up the bundles of tension.

[perpetualcynicism]

1,000 𝖋𝖔𝖑𝖑𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗𝖘 𝖘𝖕𝖊𝖈𝖎𝖆𝖑!

part one (of sorts)

——————————————————————

what i imagine you dancing to:

lyney - prokofiev’s op.87: grand waltz (cinderella suite)

xiao - les sylphides: 7. valse by chopin 

heizou - danse macabre by camille saint-saëns 

——————————————————————

another day, another dance; another three partners to spin through the night with. tonight, much like the last time you came, you have no plans as to whom you will dance with. fate’s hands served you well before, and you trust them to do so again. 

the gathered crowd is a-flutter with excitement as you slip past jewel-lined gowns and silk suits, each face hidden beneath a mask and comforted by a fragile facade of anonymity which allows for troubles, if only for one night, to be forgotten. an underlying hum of tuning strings and woodwinds laces hushed conversation as the orchestra once more prepares for their performance. 

there are only a few minutes left before the dances begin. may your night be a merry one.

——————————————————————

11:57pm.

as a famous magician who would inevitably be called to be an entertainer for this event, lyney stands in the centre of a ring of onlookers, flipping a card from hand to hand with effortless ease. he catches it between his fingers, and gasps sound from around him as he opens his hand to release a fountain of cards from just the one. they flutter elegantly through the air; when he snaps his fingers, they vanish. the audience stares on, amazed. beside him, lynette lifts up her own hat to reveal the full deck of cards lying in its crown.

a generous shower of applause rises from the surrounding crowd, and the twins dip forwards into a deep bow, lyney spinning his hat as he does so; a display which speaks to both his smugness and to his expertise when the audience sees that the cards have now appeared in the bottom of his hat. a smirk pulls on his lip at the astonished murmurs of ‘how did they do it?’ and ‘what a genius trick!’ which ripple through his onlookers.

he does not mind being an entertainer here, he supposes, but it bores him by a touch; this crowd is so very easy to impress.

“thank you, my dear audience,” he smiles, pulling himself upright. his eyes wander the ballroom as he considers who to take as his first partner—certainly none of these unexceptional onlookers, even though he can feel the way they’re itching to ask him for a dance themselves. he needs somebody intriguing. somebody remarkable. “if you wish to see more from teyvat’s greatest magician, please contact…”

he trails off when his eyes settle upon a familiar figure wandering through the hall. he does not need to see what’s under the mask to know it is you.

he throws a glance towards lynette—you take it from here—and breaks from the circle, ignoring the taps on his shoulder and invitations to dance as he goes. 

it seems he has found the remarkable person he was looking for. 

——————

11:58pm.

truth be told, xiao is not entirely sure why he is here in the first place. 

zhongli offered him an invitation, and he took it, for a reason which has since been lost to him and which he now regrets. social gatherings have never been something he is fond of; the noise and the people are stifling, and to him, the whole reason for this event is redundant.

he knows many come here for the chance to hide one’s true self behind a mask and escape to a new identity of whatever one wants, but wearing a mask is nothing unusual for xiao, and neither is it something particularly enjoyable.

and yet here he is, hovering in the corner of a lavish ballroom, not leaving but not knowing why.

or at least, he does not know why until he spots you in the crowd.

it’s like some puzzle piece slots into place in his mind, and at once he sees everything with perfect clarity. the light from the chandeliers is sharper. every gown, every suit, is lined in stunning detail, tailored to perfection, like beauty bleeds through superfluousness wherever you step. 

he is here for you. of course he is.

why else would he have stayed?

——————

11:59pm.

heizou sighs, twirling his mask through his fingers as he leans against a marble pillar. boredom is eating through the initial excitement he held for this event. he reminds himself that he’s primarily here to safeguard the crowd: large gatherings always attract pickpockets, and his job is to blend in with the guests and catch suspicious persons before they have the chance to act. 

nonetheless, he cannot help but sigh wistfully at the thought that he could have been here enjoying himself instead. if only criminals could realise their misgivings and stop inconveniencing everybody so incessantly…

absentmindedly, he allows his eyes to drift around as he laments his pitiful situation. he can tell almost everything about these people on first glance: that woman over there in a red ballgown is hiding an affair under her lover’s nose, judging by the way she keeps glancing across the hall at somebody else. the man with the mask like a crow isn’t confident in his dancing; his fingers are fidgeting, and he keeps looking down at his feet, turning down any requests for a partner. that person over th—

wait a moment.

he pulls his eyes back to the figure, where his gaze lingers for a moment. his lips curl with a smile.

well, this is a pleasant surprise.

a spring in his step, heizou pushes himself off the pillar towards you, thinking, surely he can keep his eye on criminals while he dances, no?

——————————————————————

00:00 - midnight.

the conductor claps their hands: a call for silence. a breath of anticipation is shared through the hall.

the deep notes of a cello signal that the dance is in way. no sooner has the music started that you feel a gloved hand close around yours, and you are pulled into your first dance.

you do not know what you were expecting, but a deck of cards presented before you is certainly not it.

“would you care to pick a card?” lyney asks, tipping a top hat towards you. he seems a touch familiar, in the way that you’re certain you have seen him somewhere before but cannot place it. 

with little reason not to, you oblige and take a card from the fan he holds out to you, though confusion accompanies your action. you turn it over to check what its pattern is, but a hand slipping over yours stops you before you can see it.

“ah-ah, don’t look at it,” he instructs. you frown, fairly certain this is not how card tricks ought to work, but come to the conclusion that out of the two of you, he likely knows what he is doing better than you do. to your further surprise, however, he looks at the card, at which the corner of his lip lifts with a smirk. “a good choice,” he compliments you, though you do not know what for. he snaps his fingers, and the card has vanished.

he must notice you trying to search for it, for lyney chuckles and says, “eyes up here, mon chaton. we still have a dance to attend.” he lowers himself in an extravagant bow. “if you would indulge this poor, lonely magician…?”

(and a magician he must be, for he has charmed your heart in such a way that refusal is unthinkable.)

you incline your head, and behind his mask, a pair of pale blue eyes wrinkle with a knowing smile. lyney places a hand on your shoulder, another upon your waist, and begins to lead you in the steps. 

a long cloak, black-furred and trimmed finely with red thread, hangs around his shoulders, its internal lining crossed with scarlet diamond patterns. two heeled boots are laced up to his knees, topped off with a perfectly tied knot. your attention is drawn to a bow tie hanging at his collarbone, spun from silk the colour of amethysts, which is matched by the magenta ribbon circling the length of his glossy top hat. a dark leather corset, gold-buttoned and decorated with subtle ornamentations, sits snugly over a white shirt boasting bishop sleeves and an elaborate frilled collar woven from lace, somehow both elegant and ostentatious at once.

your eyes drift to his mask, from behind which you see him looking back, mischief dancing in the glimmer of his irises. the mask itself is simple in design, but striking all the same: a smooth porcelain shell of black and white frames half of his face, its eyehole curved to emphasise the shape of the lilac eyes staring across at you, one from the mask and one from behind a sweep of cream hair. the surface catches chandelier light from above, glinting with the contrast of the clear white and ink black shapes spinning across its polished finish. painted on the mask below his right eye is a teardrop, and you cannot help but wonder why.

playful is the way he dances with you; each movement is light, carefree and teasing, as though all he is trying to do is make you smile. below this effortless charisma, however, you cannot shake the notion that each step has been prepared, and that he is taking you through a carefully coordinated choreography designed specifically to steal your heart.

(it must be working, too, for you make no attempt to resist his charm.)

when the first dance draws to a close, lyney sighs, as though disappointed you must part, and raises your knuckles to his lips with a gloved hand, brushing a feather-light kiss onto your knuckles. before he leaves, he winks at you, sending your heart a-flutter, and whispers, “your card, mon chérie.” 

in your hand, where there was nothing a moment ago, you feel the outline of a paper edge. you stare down at the card he has left in your hands. it is not from a deck, and is marked with neither hearts nor diamonds nor clubs nor spades—instead, on its surface is painted a little smiling face, winking a heart at you. lyney has slipped away by the time you look up.

chuckling, you shake your head, and tuck the card away with a smile. 

the night has begun on a high note; you wonder what else it will bring.

——————

the crowd shifts as participants change for the next dance. you find yourself facing a new mask, and a new partner.

this mask is unlike any you have seen before: its eyes are narrowed and its painted brows pulled together in an expression of cold anger. two curved fangs protrude from the top half of a wicked grin over his cheeks, and the mask seems almost cruel; so different to the way xiao hovers hesitant before you, unsure how to approach. the mask is whittled from wood and dyed a green so deep it appears almost black. patterns of gold leaf adorn its smooth surface, curling beneath his eyes and into a bud on his forehead. swirls of turquoise accentuate the fine craftsmanship of its design, such as the delicate horns rising from his forehead and the hooked nose sitting over his own.

the way xiao’s hands twitch at his sides speaks of the conflict of a desire to reach out and one to pull away. as the first note begins to play, you guide his hands to your waist and shoulder respectively in silent reassurance. 

his hands are swathed in satin gloves, one teal, one black, and laced with fine threads of gold around his knuckles. a white hanfu is secured around his middle by a violet belt, from which hang an assortment of pocket watches which knock together gently as he moves. over the hanfu he wears an outer robe of deep indigo, decorated with swirling patterns of gold, green and purple which seem to twist and rise like smoke with each sway of the fabric. a thin necklace of copper beads hangs around his neck, glinting like stars in the gold glow of chandeliers. 

his hair looks windswept and two long strands fall freely to his shoulders, streaked with turquoise. the rest is held up in a high bun, through which a butterfly hairpin is threaded, shaped from brass wire. you can not see much of his face, but below his mask, his jaw is delicate, lips are soft, and eyes are sharp but kind.

xiao dances as though he does not trust himself. not with the actual steps, no; his steps are graceful, and second to no other you have ever danced with—you would not be surprised if he was a professional—but with the way he holds you (or rather, the way he hesitates to). his hands hover over your body, barely touching you at all; almost like he is afraid to, lest something go wrong. 

the waltz you share is beautiful, but distant: it is all fleeting touches and moments you wish could last longer. you yearn for something more than this barely-there touch. you can tell he feels the same. 

your eyes drift again to his face. the mask is undoubtedly elegant, but you think it does not suit him: he is far too gentle a soul to comfortably don its cold facade. it saddens you a little how this poor individual must hide himself from his own love.

when the music draws to a close, his hand lingers upon yours until the very last note.

——————

“hello there, gorgeous.”

this is the voice which brushes past your ear from behind and sends a shiver down your spine. you turn around to face your final partner, who spares no time in lifting your hand to his lips and brushes a kiss to the inside of your wrist. the catch of your breath raises his lips with a smirk.

“dance with me?” heizou asks, and you barely have the time to nod before he whisks you into his arms. 

his hand is warm on yours as he leads you through the dance’s steps. his attire is more casual compared to the others gathered here: buckled leather boots, a dark waistcoat interlaced with gold highlights over a white shirt, and a brown-and-beige overcoat which hangs around his waist, left to sway at his sides. an assortment of belts hang at his waist, as well as a pair of… handcuffs? his hair, flushed a deep wine red in the hall’s light, is pulled back with a black ribbon into a low ponytail and adorned with a silk hairband. a black half-cloak drapes over one shoulder from a metal shoulder pad, oddly reminiscent of old paintings of knights in artworks and tapestries.  

my knight in shining armour, no? you think with an amused smile as he twirls you around.

exhilaration is what you feel when dancing with him: a light-footed joy which tip-toes around your head, sending thrills through your veins each time his lips teasingly brush past your ear as you turn (and you feel the breath of laughter which comes from him when you stiffen in response).

heizou dips you backwards without warning, inciting a gasp of surprise from you when your heart catches in your throat. he stares down at you, and you up at him, for a long, unbroken moment. the tips of his hair tickle your neck as he leans over you, olive eyes scanning yours with a mixture of playfulness and intensity. some seconds later, you begin to wonder when he will bring you back up.

in the meantime, your eyes have wandered across his face, pausing on the intricate clockwork patterns rising from his mask which weave into gold antlers above his head. upon closer inspection, to your astonishment, the cogs are not stationary: they turn within the antlers’ structure like the inner workings of a clock. the mask itself is a delicate frame of white-speckled feathers of colours red and grey and brown, fanning outwards in sleek plumes, which narrows into a pointed beak-like structure above his nose. two little black beads sit beneath each eyehole, glinting with a mischievous light; eyeholes which are carved like slight crescents, so he always seems to be smiling—a thought supported by the upwards quirk of his mouth.

(a mouth which, now that you consider it, is very close to yours indeed.)

you are pulled back to your feet in the next instant, left wishing you had stayed like that a moment longer. 

and it appears that any moment with him is not long enough, for when the dance draws to a close, you do not yet want to leave.

(but this masquerade is not for those who look to find love. with all three you have met today, you had to remind yourself of this fact. this masquerade is meant merely for one to dance the night away with others who will go as quickly as they come under the guise of a carefree life.)

heizou steps from you, and it looks as though he is about to say something: but his eyes catch on something to your side, and a trace of urgency crosses his face. his hand comes to the silver cuffs at his waist, and he has the time only to flash you a stunning grin and a cheeky wink before vanishing into the crowd.

a little deflated, you watch him go, and depart from the ballroom alone. as before, you see none of your partners again on your way out.

——————————————————————

the night air is cold in comparison to the hall. the crowd shivers, their gowns and suits not designed for chill, but the wind’s bite does nothing to quieten the eager discussion of the night’s events.

you slip from the entrance in silence, weaving through circles of masks and disguises gathered at the steps. in your pocket, your hand tightens around a card and the memory of three dances: the one hiding fragility, the one hiding himself, and the one with nothing to conceal.

if only i could meet them again, you sigh, knowing you most likely never will. 

but such is the manner of daydreams; and perhaps, one day, they may just come true.

[bella-rose29]

Deck the Halls (and not your partner) - part 8

from here on out this series is just going to be Lockwood and reader bonding and being annoyingly good together while coming up with steadily more ridiculous ways to piss off the bitchy cousin bc she's trying to get revenge

with that said lockwood does have a brief sad moment :(

Word count: 7.1k

Warnings: swearing, references to sex (both mild and slightly less mild), sleepy lockwood, he can't talk properly when sleepy, the whole morning thing is just what I want to happen in my own life tbh, Steph (the Bitch), lockwood remembers his childhood (might make you sad), brief mentions of murder?? hypothetical murder though (that will make sense I promise), a really intense snowball fight, (can you tell I'm an archaeology student from the way I describe building forts and mud huts?), lockwood gives all the teams in the snowball fight names and they are very basic but I love them

That night when Y/n and Anthony went to bed, they stood staring awkwardly at the bed for five minutes.

"Well that armchair can't be comfortable," Y/n said, glancing sceptically at it. She wasn't sure where Anthony had slept the night before after their argument, or even if he'd slept at all, but she didn't feel right about taking the whole bed for herself anymore now that their situation had changed.

She would do it if he insisted, of course, but there would be a very tiny part of her brain telling her to be the better person. It was unlikely that she'd listen to it.

"I got used to it, and I've slept in worse places. You take the bed again. The bath surely couldn't have been nice to sleep in."

"It was actually a lot more comfortable than you'd think." They kept on looking at the bed, both in their pyjamas (Y/n had stolen one of Anthony's t-shirts already, and when she'd first walked out of the bathroom in it he'd kissed her for a good few minutes in a way that left them both breathless). "Maybe... maybe we could share? I don't know if that's too soon or anything but honestly if we've been supposedly dating since April then I think we're way past that."

"If you're happy with it then I am, darling."

"Alright. I'm having this side though." A couple of minutes later the two of them were under the covers and settled in, and Y/n reached over to turn off her bedside lamp. The room was immediately shrouded in darkness, and suddenly it felt a lot colder than before, despite the fact she was buried under the duvet. "Ant?"

"Yeah?"

"... Can I move a bit closer to you? I'm cold." She didn't get a verbal response, instead receiving the sounds of the sheets crumpling and a body shifting, and a few seconds later Anthony's warmth was surrounding her as he took her into his arms and laid her on top of him. She tangled their legs together and wrapped an arm around his torso, and he brought both of his arms around her to secure her in place.

"Is that better?" he asked, and from where her head was resting on his chest she nodded.

"Much better. Thank you."

Her breathing evened out not long after, and she fell asleep to the slightly faster than usual beating of Anthony's heart.

~~~

When morning came (or rather when the sun finally rose over the horizon, since it was just after 8 AM), Y/n woke up and tried to turn over to stretch, but found that her movements were restricted by a weight on her side.

An investigation of what was happening lead to the discovery that Anthony was now lying on top of her instead of the other way around like they had been when they went to sleep, and that was why she couldn't turn over. She went to shift him off of her, but as she went to move him she caught a glimpse of his face and realised that he looked so peaceful asleep she might just let him stay that way. He barely got enough sleep as it was, so why cut it short when he was finally getting some rest? God knew he needed it with how hard he worked to keep the company going, although that had been much easier in the past year as they had gained more popularity among the people of England (their name had been spread far and wide by happy clients).

He wasn't entirely on top of her, more lying on his stomach next to her while he rested his head on her shoulder and spread his arm out over her middle, but the weight was enough that movement was restricted. A light knock sounded from the door, making Y/n look away from her new boyfriend's face to see who it was. For some reason fear gripped her as the handle turned, but when the door opened a few seconds later to reveal her father she let out a sigh of relief. She had been worried that Stephanie was starting her research into how she was going to get her revenge already, but Y/n's cousin was almost certainly still asleep at this hour.

"Just got some tea," he whispered after Y/n put her finger to her lips, pointing down at the still-sleeping Anthony. "Where should I put it? Just here? Alright, there you go. I think we're all just going to lie in bed for as long as we think we can get away with, so don't worry about coming downstairs yet if you don't want to."

"Thanks, Dad." He crept back out the room, wincing slightly when the door hinges protested as he pulled it shut, and then he was padding down the hallway back to his own room. Soft sounds from just below her head made Y/n look down at Anthony, who had apparently been woken by the door closing. He rubbed at his eyes, blinking furiously as he attempted to properly shake himself awake, and pushed himself up a little to sleepily smile down at her.

"Morning, darling," he murmured, dropping his head to press a small kiss to her lips. "D'ya sleep alright?"

"Mmhm. Did you?" Anthony only nodded in response, eyes drifting shut every few seconds as he tried to stay conscious long enough to hold a conversation with her.

"You can go back to sleep if you want, although Dad just brought tea in if you want it."

"Ooh, that would be brilliant. D'ya want me to pour it?" Y/n stifled a giggle at his slightly slurred speech, and starting to move into a sitting position.

"Don't worry, Ant. I've got it." She poured out the water, making sure to add the honey and sugar to his at the right times, then carefully handed over the mug. "Have you got a proper hold on it? Because if you spill tea in bed then I might have to kill you."

"I can't spill tea? But how else are you meant to know that George and Flo have definitely fuc-" he was cut off when Y/n hurriedly reached out to steady his mug, the liquid inside nearly sloshing over the edge as he had been leaning in in a conspiratorial manner, forgetting he was holding a large cup of steaming hot liquid in one hand.

"Anthony! Watch what you're doing!"

"Sorry," he said, faint blush coming on to his cheeks as she scolded him. "Was jus' trying to make a joke. Although what I said about Flo and George wasn't a joke." He made a point to look her in the eyes with as much seriousness he could muster, as though it were of the utmost importance that she knew all about her colleague's sex life.

"Alright, thank you for that," she responded, making sure her tone was gentle, and when he smiled dopily she felt her heart skip a beat or two.

How the hell is he so pretty?

"You're pretty too, darling." His smile had turned smug, and she realised with a start that she'd said her previous thought out loud. Her face started heating up, and Anthony did a good job of hiding his laughter were it not for the amusement dancing in his eyes as he sipped his tea.

"Shut up," she mumbled, wanting to jab him in the side but not trusting his capabilities of holding his tea steady this early in the morning.

~~~

"Good morning, lovebirds!" Will chirped when Y/n and Anthony walked into the kitchen, and he sent a smirk their way from where he stood at the hob frying eggs. "Sleep alright?" He seemed to be asking something else though from the way his eyebrows were moving.

"Is... he okay?" he whispered instead, leaning down slightly to reach Y/n's ear.

"I talked to him in the library yesterday. After... you know."

"Ah. Right." After they had argued and then made up and then made out. "Does that mean he's up to date then?"

"Yep."

So Will knew about all of that. This could be interesting.

"They must have slept fine," Ben started, pulling out the toast that had popped and putting in more slices. "Y/n looked like she'd only just woken up when I went in with tea, and Anthony was fast asleep."

Anthony felt a blush rise up his neck and cover his face at the realisation that Ben had seen him draped over his eldest daughter, but the fond smile that appeared on Y/n's face made it worthwhile. She was wearing one of his jumpers again (she had really leaned into the habits of being his girlfriend already, which meant that many of his t-shirts and jumpers were suspiciously not in the drawers he had originally put them in), and was cosying up to his side as he leaned back against the kitchen island.

Y/n looked like she was about to say something, but at the exact moment she opened her mouth another voice was already filling the room.

"Morning everybody! How are we all today? Isn't the snow just gorgeous?"

Emma grimaced slightly before she turned around, sharing a glance with Anthony before greeting her niece. "It is, Stephanie. I take it you slept alright?"

"Oh yes, thank you!" She was weirdly chipper for somebody who had been acting like a raving lunatic the night before, and Anthony couldn't help but feel unease creep up his spine at her wide grin.

What was she up to?

"Hello, you two! Are you looking forward to going out in the snow later? I shall have to drag you out, Y/n/n, since you hate going outside!" Anthony frowned. Y/n wasn't the biggest fan of the outdoors, but whenever they gained even the slightest amount of snow she was out of the house in a flash, laughing and spinning around the street while it fell. Anthony had always accompanied her, giving the excuse that he wanted to be nearby if she tripped and fell so he could laugh (to which Lucy, George, and Holly had looked at him dubiously).

But really it was because it had been so long since he had seen anyone so carefree.

He had loved the snow as a little kid, running around trying to catch the snowflakes on his tongue, building snowmen, making snow angels, having snowball fights with his family.

Then he had been on his own, and suddenly the snow was no longer a source of warmth for him. He had looked at the roads paved in white and felt as cold as the outside air, good memories being brought up and tainted the longer he stared at it.

He could see where he had set up a fort in defence against his father and sister's attack, crouching behind the wall with his mother while they laughed so hard their sides hurt.

He could see where the four of them had laid down in the thick snow, spreading out their arms and legs and sweeping them back and forth, back and forth. Jess had deliberately laid down close to him so they could hit each other playfully.

He could see where he and Jess had made their snowman (although they called it a snow ghost), carefully picking through the undergrowth to find the perfect stones that were just right for the features.

He could see all of that when he saw snow, and eventually he had stopped looking.

But then Y/n had come along, bright and burning, and when she had experienced her first snowfall at 35 Portland Row she had shrieked with joy. Within moments she had shrugged on her thick coat and boots, hat haphazardly shoved on her head and gloves neglected as she shot out the front door, and the other members of the agency were left behind to wonder what on earth was happening.

The other three were quick to follow, leaving Lockwood inside to watch from behind the glass barrier, and for the first time in years he looked outside and saw the snow.

He also saw Y/n fall on her ass incredibly dramatically, and immediately good memories were being created again.

It took him another year to actually go outside in the snow again, and by this point he was deeply entrenched in the hating game that he had with Y/n that he used his excuse of wanting to see her fall over.

He didn't admit to himself for a while that the real reason he was in the cold with her was to make sure that she didn't fall over too hard, or get knocked over by a car that hadn't realised anyone would be on the road (really, why couldn't she have gone in the back garden?), or even because being outside when she was this happy was making him forget that he couldn't feel various parts of his body due to the biting air.

So hearing Steph say that she was going to have to drag Y/n, the girl who loved snow, outside into the snow, didn't make sense to Anthony. He glanced at Y/n where she was stood at his side and realised that she had told her family she didn't enjoy the snow, because there was nothing on her face that said she was confused like he was.

He really hoped they could leave this place soon, because while Y/n's parents and siblings were wonderful, her aunt (who had been sat in the corner sneering at the couple) and her cousin were not. The constant remarks about Y/n's body, how she acted, how she ate, her job, her life, what she enjoyed doing and what she didn't, it can't have been healthy for her to grow up with those comments, and apparently Y/n had been lying to them about herself to get some of it to stop. Anthony suddenly felt even more awful for the things that he had said over the years, and he dropped his head to meet the top of Y/n's to press a kiss there. She looked up in surprise, a question on her face, and he only shook his head and laced their hands together.

He wasn't going to hurt her again, not now that he had a chance with her. And if anyone else hurt her? Well, he would just have to ask which one of them was picking up the shovel, and who was taking the body bag.

~~~

After breakfast everybody wrapped up as warmly as they could and headed out into the snow. It really was insane how much snow they had had, given it was England and they were unused to the sort of snow they saw described in other parts of the world. Anthony had grabbed Y/n's hand after Stephanie tried to get there first, and when she had tried again to be the one accompanying Y/n outside he pulled her out the front door where John and Sam had started clearing a path.

"Ant, slow down! You're gonna pull my arm out of its socket!"

"You'll be fine. I'll give you CPR."

"Ant, you can't give me CPR to fix my arm not being attached to my body anymore."

"Oh. Well I might as well do it anyway, just in case it does help." He was tugged backwards when Y/n came to a stop behind him, and turning around he realised they had travelled quite far from the house.

"Anthony."

"Yes, my darling?"

"Do you just want to give me CPR because it gives you an excuse to kiss me?" He tried not to blush too hard at how quickly she had figured out his ulterior motive, but recovered just as fast with a smug smile.

"I don't need an excuse, darling. I just need to know you consent." She pushed forward, hand still linked with his, and planted a kiss on his mouth.

"Unless I physically assault you, Anthony, then consider me always consenting to you kissing me."

"Perfect."

He kissed her again, trying not to smile too much since it stopped them from kissing more, and wrapped both arms around her waist. She was smiling too, her cold nose pressing into his, and she let out a joyful shriek when he suddenly bent slightly and picked her up off the ground, twirling her while not ever taking his lips off of hers. When he finally put her down again he sighed in content, resting his forehead against hers and just revelling in the knowledge that they had worked through it all, and he was happy.

Then a snowball hit them square in the face, and he was spluttering while Y/n looked for the source.

"That's enough kissing, love birds! You can do that later!"

"Will." Y/n's eyes narrowed and the smile on her face was downright wolfish, and Anthony desperately hoped that she considered him a team mate or he was going to get pulverised.

"Darling, can I just ask, is it the two of us against your brother?"

"It's the two of us against them all, Ant." He knew she meant all of her family, but he couldn't help but think that she meant that it was the two of them together against the world, too. "Oh! You've never had a snowball fight with us before, have you? Basically instead of a kill-or-be-killed scenario, we combine it with capture the flag. Nana Jean has a collection of items that she gives each team, and you have two hours to build a fort and any defences you want. Then when Nana Jean says go, you've gotta get all the items in your fort, and then get all the way to Nana Jean on the front porch. It's very important that you get all the items in the fort first, because otherwise you get accused of cheating and get disqualified. Ultimately, though, nobody can trust anybody, but everyone always tries to get Steph and Linda because nobody likes them."

"So... if we can't trust anyone...?" He left the rest of his question in the air, but luckily she knew what he meant.

"Don't worry, I'll pair with you. Normally I'm with Olivia, 'cause we're meant to be in pairs, but my brothers never care about that rule. Mum'll throw at anyone, and so will Dad, my grandparents are on the porch watching from their chairs, so they'll get some good photos I imagine, Olivia is far too busy trying to look good all the time, and we need to duck!" She grabbed the front of his coat and yanked him towards the ground just as a large chunk of snow sailed through the air where their heads had just been. "Right. We need to start making some sort of defence, which shouldn't be too difficult because of how much snow there is, and then we need to start making weapons, because Nana Jean has obviously just started the timer for two hours building. Sabotage is also allowed during this time." It was both terrifying and weirdly attractive how quickly she was getting into the spirit of an all-out snow war, and within seconds Anthony found himself being put to work building walls.

He had done a similar thing with his family.

London never really had that much snow on the ground at any one time because of all the people and cars that needed to move around, and since agents still had to go out at night the roads and pathways were mostly clear to prevent any unnecessary deaths or accidents. One year, though, there had been too much snow for people to shift enough of it in one day ready for the night, and weather officials had said that temperatures would be rising anyway and the snow would melt in a couple of days. Anthony's parents had woken him early (back when he slept without an issue) and pointed out his window at the snow, and he had been so excited he had gone and jumped on Jess' bed, not caring when she swatted at him with a pillow. The four of them had then spent the day building forts in the back garden and getting their defences ready, and he and his mother had tried planning their walls strategically for the best possible advantage.

"You can't just put it all on top like that, you need to build it a bit like an igloo, or a mud hut. And make sure you've got the proper dense snow, not this superficial flaky stuff. Add some sticks and rocks and things for a bit of integrity, and pack the snow around it. That's it!"

His parents had taken fort building seriously, no matter what the material they were using was. Pillow forts were always complex too, but when finished Anthony had a castle to be king of.

"What are you doing?" Y/n asked, pulling him out of his memories. He'd been crouched down behind a bench that was in their front garden, clumping bits of undergrowth together and starting to build up the walls.

"You need to add sticks and rocks and things for integrity," he said, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

"Oh. That makes sense I guess. Can you-" she stopped herself for a moment to hurl a hastily made snowball at someone, and Anthony made a mental note to get her to teach George how to throw when he heard a yelp from somewhere in the garden and a cheer from Y/n. "Sorry, needed to get John. Can you like, show me what you're doing? Then we can both do it and get these walls up faster. I really think it's unfair that Will, John and Sam always team up because they all play fucking rugby, so their walls are basically done already."

"True, but we fight ghosts, darling. We know better than anyone how to win a fight, because if we lose, we quite literally die. Here, take some of this," he said, placing some of the stones he had found in her outstretched hands. "Stack them up a little bit, like I've done, yeah, that's good. Then take a whole load of snow and pack it around. It makes it a lot stronger."

"Where did you even learn how to do this? You literally never join in when we have snowball fights back home." His hands slipped when he realised that she had called Portland Row home, but he quickly recovered.

"My mother."

"Oh. Ant, I'm-"

"Don't. Don't say you're sorry. It's... it's nice, actually. Remembering her. Sad, because she's gone, but nice." He could feel Y/n watching him and he cleared his throat. "I don't know if you were in London when we had that last big snowstorm, but there was about this much of it. My parents took me and Jess outside all day and we built forts in the back garden, and then had a snowball fight. It was me and Mum against Jess and Dad. We won, of course. Mum had a really good throwing arm and Jess was complaining about the cold." He smiled at the memory of his sister's squeals when he had snuck up behind her and stuck snow down the back of her coat, running away with a gleeful laugh. An idea struck him then, and he sat up a little. "I've just had a brilliant idea on how we can piss off Steph," he said, and Y/n mirrored the shark-like smile he had on his face.

~~~

Around an hour later, pretty much everybody's forts were complete.

Will, John and Sam had taken Tom into their team (to which Y/n had complained further, since it was meant to be a pairs team situation) and their fort was huge, with walls that took up an entire corner of the garden. Steph and Linda had a pathetic looking fort since neither of them wanted cold hands or to touch the snow, but it was good enough to provide a small amount of protection for now. Emma and Ben's fort was surprisingly decent, and they had added a little turret on one side just for fun.

Then there was Anthony and Y/n's.

"What is that meant to be?" Sam shouted at them, his tone mocking. Taunts were always called out at this stage, Y/n had told Anthony, since everybody had made their defences and weapons and now they were just waiting on Nana Jean to say when they could start. "It looks like a mud hut!" John yelled, clearly thinking that they would be an easy target.

"Good," Anthony muttered, smile decorating his face. "Mud huts are weirdly strong if you build them right."

"You are so random," Y/n said, but she was looking at him with stars in her eyes. "George I would have expected this kind of knowledge, but you? Never would have guessed you knew this much about mud huts."

"My parents studied them, Y/n/n. Of course I know this much about mud huts."

"So random," she whispered under her breath, looking back out at the playing field. Each of the four teams had taken a corner (Olivia had chosen to side with her parents after they threatened to take away her tv privileges if she didn't join in), and Anthony and Y/n were in the opposite corner to The Brothers Grim (he had named them that in his head). The Bitches (Steph and Linda) were on their right, and The In-Laws (Emma, Ben, and Olivia) were on their left. That meant that they, The Love Birds, were most likely going to get attacked last. Everybody was going to be aiming for The Brothers Grim or The Bitches, since they were the strongest team and the most horrible team respectively, and Anthony and Y/n had come up with a plan.

"Are the names really necessary though?"

"What do you mean?!" He did his best to look appalled. "Of course the names are necessary, darling! How else are we meant to quickly and effectively communicate which fort we're going for?!"

"You're ridiculous, Anthony Lockwood."

"We've covered this already, Y/n L/n. I'm very aware of how ridiculous I am."

"I mean, what kind of person pretends they're a whale when drinking orange juice?"

"Yeah, but that only works if you have the orange juice with the bits in it, because then you can filter it through your teeth and-" She had cut him off with a kiss again, and while he had been in the middle of a very important explanation, he didn't mind that this was how he was being cut off. "You really need to stop interrupting me like that, darling," he said after she pulled back, but he didn't mean it. She knew that he didn't mean it either, because she was smiling softly up at him in the brief silence that they had before the fight started.

"Go over the plan one more time?" she asked.

"Sure."

~~~

Nana Jean had taken her place on the front steps, wrapped up in about ten blankets as she sat on her chair next to Gramps.

Y/n was tense, a pit of nerves forming in her stomach as she crouched next to Anthony. Their plan was supposedly foolproof, but they only had her knowledge of previous snowball fights with her family to discern what the other teams would try and do, and they could always have new tactics. The one thing they could rely on, however, was everybody attacking Steph and Linda first.

Each team had been randomly allocated an item from Nana Jean's collection, and had placed it in their fort. Their job then was to protect it at all costs, and not let it reach any of the other forts. Once in a fort, provided the thief didn't have all four items, they could be taken back along with any other items in the fort.

The Brothers Grim seemed to have the advantage, what with their huge walls and numbers, but Anthony and Y/n had spent most of their lives fighting far more threatening opponents in far more dire situations, and so this would be a breeze. With her knowledge of how her family fought (extremely dirty) and Anthony's weird knack for planning intricate extractions of items, they were sure to win.

They would even end up with time to spare to get under Steph's skin.

"Ready?" Nana Jean called out, receiving multiple affirmations in reply. "Three!"

Anthony shifted beside her, and she got ready to move.

"Two!"

The pit of nerves was filled to the brim, spilling over and making her limbs shake.

"One!"

Anthony's face was set in determination, and his eyes were flicking over the playing field as he waited. She was sure that she was doing the same.

"GO!"

Immediately action brought the front garden to life, with people running everywhere and snowballs flying to and fro, mostly missing but occasionally finding their marks. Anthony had already shot off while Y/n stayed behind with their item: Nana Jean's scarf that was too old and tattered for her to actually be kept warm by it anymore. She knew that Will would try and sneak around the back, and John would be left at their fort since he had the best aim and strongest throw. Sam would be the decoy, and Tom was just running around hitting everyone. Steph and Linda were getting annihilated, crouching down and shrieking loudly when snowballs from all directions took the top of their fort walls off. They had used the soft flaky snow instead of the proper solid stuff, and as such their fort wasn't much protection. That's what Anthony had said, anyway, and she decided that he knew what he was talking about. Y/n spotted her mother attempting to creep up behind her, and she chucked a snowball right at her face. It missed, hitting her shoulder instead, but it was enough of a threat that her mother backed off for now.

Anthony had disappeared somehow, and while she searched for a while she couldn't spot his skinny beanpole frame anywhere. That was probably a good thing, she thought, because if she couldn't find him, then their first target definitely couldn't.

Olivia made for Y/n then, battle cry piercing the air, but before Y/n could even take aim her sister was taken down by someone else's snowball, quickly followed by a "YES! HA HA!" that told her it was Tom. She looked through the gap in the bench that Anthony had left while building their fort, and saw her youngest brother doing a victory lap of the field, getting hit by snowballs but carrying on anyway.

"Got it," Anthony said, making her jump and nearly hit him. "Woah! It's me!"

She did hit him then, hissing her response. "You scared the shit out of me!"

"Sorry, darling, sorry. Got it though!" He smiled triumphantly, looking very proud of himself as he lifted up the woollen hat that had been the item belonging to The Brothers Grim.

"Excellent!" She planted a kiss on his frozen lips and he grinned even more widely as he put the hat down. "Did they see you?"

"Nope. I told you earlier, I'm like a ghost myself." He had said something to that effect earlier on, but she hadn't really been paying much attention because she was too busy thinking how gorgeous he was when he got excited. He was like a puppy, and she could practically see his tail wagging while he looked at her with those brown eyes.

"Yeah, you certainly look like one right now," she snorted. "I'm pretty sure you're the same colour as the snow."

"Oi, my ghostly complexion is going to win us this thing, alright? Anyway, it's your turn to go out. Here." He handed her the large rock that they had found, and kissed her on the cheek. "Go get 'em," he winked, and then she was off, leaving him to guard their fort while she made for her parents.

Unfortunately they saw her coming immediately, but purely because Tom was still running around like a headless chicken and had screamed "Y/N'S COMING! Y/N'S COMING!"

"Dammit, Tom," she muttered, frown on her face. She had hidden the rock in her coat pocket since it was the right size (She and Anthony had made sure they would fit properly), but she still had to get the large gloves from their fort. The stone didn't matter now, because they had seen her, so all she needed to do was snatch their item and get back without being brought down. Luckily the gloves were tied together, which meant she only needed to grab one and she could be off again. Her parents were already tiring, she could tell, but years of being an agent and building up the stamina needed to run away from Visitors all night meant that Y/n was only just getting started. She dodged the snowballs that were thrown her way, and slid behind The In-Laws' walls, taking part of it with her. "I'll take those, thanks!" she said, picking up the gloves and immediately running off again, trying to ignore the snow she could feel melting down her spine. "Here," she huffed when she got back to her own fort, nearly knocking Anthony over.

"Oh, perfect! You alright to stay here while I get the last one? Or did you wanna pause for a moment? I don't think The Brothers Grim have noticed their item is missing yet, but your parents are definitely going to start making their move on us soon."

"Just gimme a moment to catch my breath, and I'll be good to go." She had collapsed into his side, clutching her stomach and trying to control her breathing, and he wrapped his arms around her briefly.

"As much as I would love to stay like this all day, darling, I do also need to throw snow at your family because they're coming this way."

"Oh, yeah. Go for it," she replied, sitting up again. Anthony picked up a snowball in each hand and chucked them over their walls, and although Y/n couldn't see who it was she did hear an "oof!" a few seconds later. "I've still got the rock from The In-Laws attempt in my pocket, so I can go and get The Bitches' item if you wanna keep throwing? You're better at it than me 'cause I can only use one arm. The other one is shit at throwing."

"You sure?" he asked, picking up another snowball. She nodded. "Alright. You know what you're doing, yeah?"

"Yep. I'll see you in five, Schmoopie."

"Why are you calling me Schmoopie? That's my name for you!" he called after her, playful frown on his face. Her only response was laughter, which she quickly stifled as she hid behind the thick oak tree closest to Steph and Linda's fort. Their item was a snowshoe, although where Nana Jean had even found one of those was a mystery. The rock she had in her pocket wasn't really big enough, but if she covered it in a bit of snow then it would be good enough to fool them. Anthony's intricate extraction plan for getting all the items had been to use decoys after sneaking up on each fort, and so far their first target, The Brothers Grim, hadn't even noticed. They were too busy fighting off Olivia, who had turned slightly feral over the course of the fight, and Tom, who had apparently decided that no team was better than the team he had created for himself, and was throwing snow at everyone including himself. Y/n crept forward slightly to assess how long she had before either her cousin or her aunt turned around, but then snow started hitting their nearly-destroyed fort again and she knew that Anthony was working on the distraction for her. Tom started attacking Steph and Linda again too, and while her Dad had joined Olivia in attempting to break down the walls of The Brothers Grim's fort, their attack was weakening.

She needed to move fast.

Y/n made her move then, bending down to grab some snow in one hand, and readying the rock in her other, and headed in the direction of Steph and Linda's backs. They were too busy trying to remake their walls, which meant they had left their snowshoe unguarded behind them. She dropped the rock in the snow, then picked up the snowshoe, and in the next five seconds had shoved the snow in her other hand down the back of Steph's jacket and sprinted away. Her cousin's screams followed her the short distance back to her fort, and Anthony didn't need to ask how it had gone when he heard them. "All four items, safe and sound. Now we've just got to get to Nana Jean without them getting taken off us."

That was the hardest part, since Nana Jean was sat on the front porch nearly completely opposite them. They would have to cross the entire playing field and pass The Brothers Grim fort to get to her.

"Alright. You take these. You can't put them in your pockets, which is annoying, but otherwise we'll be disqualified for cheating. You ready?" she asked Anthony after loading his arms with the items. He nodded, fiery determination in his eyes.

"I'm ready. Remember the weak spots in their walls, yeah?"

"Yep." She had memorised the points that Anthony had pointed out to her earlier, and thanked his parents for showing him how to build excellent forts.

"Okay. Three, two, one, go!" They stood up from behind their walls and started running, Anthony's long legs carrying him across the field while Y/n periodically stooped to grab more snow and compact it into a good enough shape that she could throw it far. He nearly made it, and then Will appeared out of nowhere to take him down. Anthony twirled out the way (always the fancy one), and Will missed catching him by a hair's breadth, but now there was more of a distance between Anthony and Nana Jean.

"THEY'RE GONNA WIN!!!" Tom shouted, and suddenly all of Y/n's family members were closing in on her and Anthony with snowballs in their hands.

"RUN!" she screamed, begging her legs to respond. They were slightly numb from the cold now.

"WHAT DO YOU THINK I'M DOING?!"

Nana Jean had her arms outstretched from where she sat on the porch, and Y/n was momentarily blinded by the flash of her Gramps' camera just inside the window. She threw what snow she could at both people and forts, picking out the points where Anthony had said were weakest and aiming, and sure enough within moments part of The Brothers Grim's fort had collapsed, and the brothers themselves were crying out in anger.

Time passed slowly and in a blur, and before she knew it Anthony was up the steps and shoving the items into Nana Jean's arms and collapsing at her feet, then letting out a small cry of pain when Y/n landed on top of him. "Did we do it?" she asked, expression wild as she tried to catch her breath. Anthony didn't say anything, his face not revealing anything.

Then he cracked a smile, and it was like the sun had come out. "We did it!"

"You did it, love," Nana Jean said from above them, looking fondly down at her granddaughter where she was lying on the floor.

Y/n immediately pushed herself up (that made Anthony make another "oof" since she had braced her full weight on his chest) and turned around, pointing at all her gathered family members who were stood looking sorry for themselves (apart from Tom, he was still running around and throwing himself in the snow) and shouting "HA! WE WIN, SUCKERS!"

~~~

"Thanks," Y/n said, gladly accepting the mug of tea that Anthony handed her. He smiled down at her, one of those soft secret smiles that he kept for the people he loved, and sat next to her on their loveseat.

She wasn't sure when she'd started calling it their loveseat, but that was what it was, she supposed. Nobody else sat on it apart from them, and now they were cosying up like they always did. She had slung her legs over his and made sure not to spill her tea while he adjusted.

"That's nice and warm," he said, holding it under his face to heat up his frozen features. Y/n hummed her agreement, sipping on her own tea.

Everyone was snacking on random bits of food from the still-extensive collection (despite how much had been eaten at the party), and Anthony had brought over a bowl of bits for the two of them to share. Despite the slight chill that still sat in her bones, she was warm, and as she watched Anthony converse with her Gramps she realised that it was him making her warm.

Not his body heat, although he was surprisingly warm for somebody who had been running around in the snow all day, but rather the feelings he was stirring up in her. He made her feel warm just by interacting with her family, just by allowing her Gramps to tell him jokes that the rest of them had all heard a million times, just by even being here with her. He hadn't needed to come with her, and in fact he had argued against it and compromised, saying if she couldn't find anyone then he would do it and be unhappy, and yet he had done it anyway with a smile on his face. She'd genuinely believed that he wouldn't come with her, or would go back on his word because he thought it would be funny to watch her suffer.

But he was here, cuddled up on a loveseat with her in her family's house, talking to her Gramps about trains or something (she suspected it was more her Gramps was talking at Anthony), and he was hers.

Steph hadn't stopped watching them like a hawk since the snowball fight, but Y/n couldn't find it in her to care because she was with Anthony, and they had achieved a sliver of revenge themselves earlier. Her cousin was rightfully pissed about having a bunch of snow chucked down her back, but then again she had spent her whole life making Y/n miserable so really she deserved it.

He was her home, she realised. Not this house, not even Portland Row, despite the fact that she regularly called it that. No, neither of those places were her home.

Anthony Lockwood was.

part 9

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[swiss-mrs]

EDDIE MUNSON X SINCLAIR!READER

just me rambling on again about how Eddie loves a black woman from infinity to infinityyyy

there's a 'face claim' under the cut because i said so. you've been warned

okay, listen here.

Ever since your family moved to Hawkins, life has been... different

You just turned 13 when your family uprooted to the small town in Indiana. Lucas was 10, and Erica was only 6.

It was a bit easier for your younger siblings to adjust, but you had to start fresh during your last year of middle school, going into high school. That sucked like a bitch.

Transitioning from a larger city with a decent mix of races to a predominantly white town was about as smooth as it sounded, not at all.

Though racism was not terrible, there were plenty of backhanded compliments, passive aggressiveness, and snarky comments.

You were always so "well-spoken", "well-mannered", "presentable".

You didn't "sound black".

You didn't "act black".

You were "pretty for a black girl."

Whatever the fuck that means.

You knew that begging your parents to move elsewhere was not an option, waste of time, so you always knew that the moment you had the chance, you weren't gonna stick around for too long.

Going into high school at the end of '82, just shy of a year after moving into Hawkins, was how yours and Eddie's paths crossed, just barely.

Since you could practically count on one hand how many black families were in Hawkins's population, not knowing one another by name was near impossible.

You know Jeff by proxy.

Your parents knew each other, and you were the same age, so of course you knew each other.

You wouldn't call him a friend per se, but you were friendly enough to exchange quick greetings in passing.

Jeff was with three older kids when you passed him in the hall.

A chubby, curly haired, white boy, a pale brunette girl, and a slim, lanky kid who looked like he was trying to grow out a bad haircut, all of which were decked out in jean and leather.

The polite smile and wave he gave made the lanky boy to turn and see who Jeff was waving at.

As soon as you caught each other's eyes, his curious expression turned into a lovestruck one.

You didn't pay much attention to it, though.

"Who is that?"

"Oh, no one. She's just the daughter of some friends of my parents."

Since you were in separate grades, you didn't regularly cross paths with any of the people you saw with Jeff often, but you did end up having an elective class with the brunette girl.

It was a couple of weeks in when you were partnered up with her for a project.

"Veronica is my government name. Call me Ronnie."

During lunch, Ronnie mentioned to Jeff how adorable you were.

"You got to meet her?!"

Ronnie would then go on about how you were so nice and polite, but you were also extremely smart and sassy.

She got to witness your wit first hand when you made a sneaky comeback at someone who gave one of those stupid 'for a black girl' comments.

"I think Eddie is going to blow a fuse."

"You got to meet HER?!"

The boy was starstruck every time you would unknowingly pass him in the hall or when he saw you from across the cafeteria.

"Would you just go up and talk to her, numbnuts?" Ronnie would say as she smacked the back of his head when she caught him staring a bit too hard.

"I can't just 'go up' to her!"

"The fuck not?"

He'd reply with silence, not really knowing what answer to give.

You were too good for him? He'd have no chance? You'd dismiss him? Reject him? What would he even say?

"I wouldn't know what to say..."

"Maybe try, 'Hello'."

He spent the next four years pining over you from a distance.

Now, in your senior year, you were more excited than anything to get out of this shit hole.

The cute super super senior with the loud mouth, long hair, and less than stellar reputation had always caught your eye, but you both still had yet to actually say anything to each other. Paths never crossing further than beyond the hallway.

You never bothered to make a move on him.

You were convinced that you weren't his type, or anyone's type for that matter, especially not here.

But you're both seniors now.

Much to Eddie's surprise and delight, you now had classes together.

He never once liked being in high school for longer than necessary, but here he was, oddly thankful for being held back.

Your schedules are almost completely aligned, save for the fact that you had a couple honors classes.

For the first few days of your senior year, Eddie was a ball of anxiety every time you were around.

He sat either behind or beside you in the back of all your shared classes.

It wasn't until one fateful Tuesday, in the second week of that school year, that your pen ran out of ink, and you finally said your first words to him.

"Hey, do you have a pen I can barrow?"

You were turned around in your seat to look at him behind you. He was stuck for a few beats before he blinked away his shock.

"Uh, y-yeah. Here." He handed you the very pen he was using to doodle in his notebook instead of actually taking notes.

The small smile and the gentle brush of your fingers against his nearly made his heart stop on the spot.

He was absolutely gone.

It was in that moment that he realized he'd never properly heard your voice before.

He wanted to hear it again.

You even remembered/bothered to give him his pen back at the end of that class.

He spent every single one of his classes for the remainder of that day coming up with a full ass tactical plan to approach you.

Every day that passed, he for some fucking reason just couldn't find the right moment to put his plan in action.

It wasn't until a few weeks later when you threw his plan through a loop.

You showed up to a Hellfire meet just as they were all leaving out the drama room.

He heard your voice coming from outside once some of the freshman members walked out the door.

"Hey, Baby Bro! How'd it go? Have fun?"

Eddie eyes widened, and he stilled for a second before he dropped what he was doing to rush out the door.

He tried to play off his stumbling by leaning against the wall right outside the door.

"Oh, Hey! You're in this club too?"

"This is Eddie. He leads the club." Your little brother's curly haired friend, Dustin, clarified immediately.

Before Eddie could give Dustin a look to 'shut the fuck up before he ruined his shot', you raised your brows with somewhat of an impressed look on your face.

"Oh, so you're Eddie."

The way his name rolls off your tongue makes him want to melt into the floor.

All the false confidence he once had completely depleted, and he was back at a loss for words. Thank God you didn't leave room for him to make a fool of himself.

"The boys talk so highly of you. Thank you for looking after them for a couple hours after school. See you tomorrow!"

He watched, awestruck, as you walked away with your brother and his friends.

"Y-Yeah, no problem!" He'd finally yell after you a you made it to the exit doors.

You turned to wave bye before fully exiting the building to the mostly vacant parking lot.

Eddie waved back weakly.

"See you tomorrow." He says to himself in the empty hallway, still waving even after you couldn't see him anymore.

A cheesy grin would grow on his face as he went back into the drama room to collect his DM stuff.

"Holy shit. You actually exchanged words!" Jeff would say.

"~See you tomorrow~" Gareth mocks, clasping his hands together, resting them on his cheek and batting his eyelashes.

Eddie glares at the younger drummer. "Shut up, asshole."

Early October is when he finally leaned forward to ask you a question.

"Hey, I don't really understand what's going on. Could you help me?"

There it was.

You accepted, falling right into his hands.

His plan was now officially in motion.

You were smart and nice. Of course, you would help tutor him.

Eddie knew that would work.

You were well aware of his academic status, or rather lack thereof.

You couldn't help but let that little 'I can fix him' part of your teenage brain take over.

You really wanted to help him pass and graduate, ESPECIALLY since he reached out to you for help.

You couldn't say no. wtf

You two had spent all of October studying together.

Even though he was distracted by you most of the time and always going off topic to get to know you, he actually was kind of learning something.

A win-win for him.

"Hey, so, uh, you know, Halloween is right around the corner, and, uh, there's a special rescreening of 'Alien' this weekend. Would you, uh, you know, if you're into it, would you like to go see- watch it, like, with me, I mean?"

The question came at the end of your recent study/tutoring session.

Over the last few weeks, you had shown nothing but kindness towards Eddie. You two even had conversations with one another out in the open, outside of the safe privacy of the library.

He finally had the courage to ask you out.

You hesitated.

"Oh, uh..."

Your apprehension was not for the reason he was thinking, but it was enough for his mind to start caving in on itself.

"I mean, I just want to show you my appreciation, you know, for all your help. There's no- no pressure at all. I get it if you don't wanna be seen with me too much. I won't blame you."

His response takes you aback.

"Hold on. That's not what I was trying to get across at all."

Your firm tone made his chest tighten with anxiety. If that wasn't it, what was it? Did you have plans already? Maybe with a boyfriend? Shit, why didn't Eddie make sure to get your current relationship status out of you before asking.

"It's just that, uh, I'm kind of a... wuss... with scary movies. The sci-fi part of it seems intriguing enough, but I heard that it was pretty scary... The Boys snuck the VHS during one of their movie nights a couple years ago. I just remember Lucas being on edge for weeks after watching it." You chuckled nervously.

Eddie chuckles, relieved by your answer.

"Don't worry about it. I'll be there to protect you from all the monsters." The use of his DM voice at the end goes straight to the pit of your stomach like hot coals.

You hold back a girlish giggle, not wanting to show how much that effected you.

"Okay, fine, but if I fail our test due to a lack of sleep, I'm blaming you."

After you agree to go on a date with him, he fully unleashes his inner flirt.

His surprising change in attitude towards you makes butterflies erupt within you.

His overt flirting brings out your sassy side as you two go back and forth.

That movie-dinner date was the first of many.

Eddie wasn't huge on physical PDA.

He was always super respectful and reserved in public, but he almost always made a show of you.

"There she is! The most beautiful woman to ever exist!"

"Look at her. A goddess among us mortals!"

"Here she comes! Make way for the queen!"

You eventually got used to his over the top antics, going from telling his to "shut up" with a shy grin to just embracing your new 'royalty status' with your head held high and a bright smile.

You'd been dating for months.

Your tutoring actually helped raise Eddie's grades, especially after you told him how much you wanted him to graduate with you this year.

Come spring, Lucas is now unsuccessfully splitting his time between Hellfire and basketball.

When Dustin and Mike bring in the third Sinclair into the drama room, Eddie can't help but cave quickly once she shows off her dnd knowledge.

Erica definitely gets her sass from you, though she's a lot more blunt with it.

Eddie can't help but form a huge soft spot for her, even after the game is over.

While Erica, Dustin, and Mike were waiting in your car to leave, Eddie stopped you.

"So, you know, we've been dating for quite a while now-"

"Five months and counting." You beamed.

Eddie grinned happily. So, you were keeping count.

"Yeah, soon enough it'll be six, then seven, then ten, then 12, then-"

"OK, OK" you giggled. Eddie's smile only got bigger.

"So, I was wondering..." That shy boy who could barely ask you on a first date returns, bringing a soft grin to your face. "Do you... Would do... I... Will you be my... my girlfriend?"

"Of course." You smiled without missing a beat.

"Really?!"

As the news sunk deeper and deeper, it became harder and harder for him to physically contain his excitement.

He jumped up and down, grabbing you by the shoulders to pull you into a hug, bouncing up and down with you in his arms.

Your shared laughter filled the empty parking lot of Hawkins High.

From that moment on, the word 'girlfriend' was used in place of your own name for months.

"I'm convinced you've forgotten my name."

"I could never forget such a thing, girlfriend~"

He introduced you to metal music.

You introduced him to leave in conditioner.

You two were high school sweethearts, ones that would last forever.

🥹🥹🥹

[rawrtriesagain]

Hos- Akko and Diana eating fried chicken (for Christmas)

*mariah carey intensifies* we're sponsored by kfc. inspired by me pouring a shit ton of gravy over all of my kfc - chicken, sides, and all - and changing my partners life forever with this great idea

diana: this isnt a biscuit

welcome to decking the halls of shame enjoy your stay

[uramilf]

Day Three - Under the Mistletoe

A/N: Day three already!! This one is slightly mature to build up to smut in later parts, just letting you guys know. Tell me if you’re enjoying these - I’ve loved writing them!!

-------------

Charli lay on her stomach on Y/N’s bed kicking her feet and staring at the sparkling ring on her left hand. “I just can’t believe it! Isn’t it gorgeous?” Y/N dropped the piece of hair she was curling and turned around to look at her friend’s engagement ring once again. “Beautiful,” she grinned. “He did well.”

The girls were getting ready for Y/N’s Christmas party, the one which Matty had been invited to. Both had been busy with their Christmas shopping and the like, so they hadn’t seen each other since their date.

“So when’s your new boyfriend getting here?” Charli smirked. “He is not my new boyfriend.” “You went on a date! You kissed!” “Yes and you’re not allowed to tell anybody about that.” Charli opened her mouth to protests but Y/N cut her off: “No, not even George!”

—————

Matty hadn’t bothered knocking when he arrived to the house, the loud music from inside indicating that he wouldn’t be heard anyway. He looked around the kitchen for any of his friends, clutching a bottle of Y/N’s favourite wine, but only saw a room full of Y/N’s random acquaintances he had maybe met once at one of his shows. From down the hall he heard what was unmistakably George’s laughter, and turned to walk into the living room. Sure enough, George was laughing with his arm around his fiancée. Matty followed his eyes to see what he was laughing at, only to be met by the image of Y/N looking more beautiful than he had ever seen her. She was wearing a knee length, open-backed, red dress and matching heels, decked out in silver jewellery, hair framing her face like an angel’s halo. She noticed him standing there and ran over, practically throwing herself into his arms. “You’re here!” “I’m here, darling. And it sounds like I need to catch up with you; how many have you had?” “Only a couple,” she giggled. Matty pulled the bottle of white wine from behind his back. She gasped and kissed his cheek. “My favourite!” “I know it is. And it was fucking awful having to buy it, you know I hate it,” he draped an arm over her shoulders and kissed the top of her head, leading her back to the kitchen to pour her a glass.

Matty poured himself a glass of red and they stood wrapped up in each other for a few moments, her head on his chest, his arms around her, resting on the exposed skin of her back. They pulled away from each other when they heard Adam and Carly enter the kitchen, not wanting to be caught quite yet.

—————

Almost everyone had left the party by midnight except the band and their respective partners. The sat around in the living room and watched Ross light the large fireplace to keep the house warm through the bitterly cold night, Charli pouring everyone more drinks. Matty and Y/N were next to each other on the sofa, her leaning back so no one could see his arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

“Smoke?” he murmured into her ear. She nodded, standing up and grabbing a pack of cigs and a lighter from the coffee table. “Be back in a minute,” she called, but everyone was wrapped up in their own conversations. They snuck out unnoticed and headed to the back door, Matty grabbing his coat off the end of the stairs and laying it over Y/N’s shoulders.

The second they got outside she was pressed against the wall, Matty’s lips on hers. It was harsher than the kiss on their first date, more desperate. “I’ve missed that,” Matty laughed against her lips, sliding his hands into her hair and pulling her into another kiss. “Me too,” she smiled. “I should probably tell you that Charli knows. She dropped by after our date to grab something and she figured it out pretty much straight away.” “She’s gonna tell George, isn’t she?” Matty laughed. “Eventually, yeah,” Y/N rolled her eyes. “Can you believe they’re engaged?” “I know. You gonna be a bridesmaid?” “Yeah, Charli asked me last night.” “You’re gonna look beautiful,” he murmured, hands circling her waist as she lit up a cigarette. “What about you? Best man?” “Of course,” Matty smirked, plucking the cigarette from her fingers and taking a long drag.

They shared the cigarette until Y/N dropped it and stamped it out with her red high heel. “You wanna go back in?”

Matty nodded, removing his head from its place in the crook of her neck and slipping an arm back around her waist. The pair walked back inside, the sound of their friends in the living room making Y/N smile.

Matty caught her arm as she walked through the kitchen door, pointing up at the small bundle of mistletoe she had hung from the doorway the night before. He pulled her tight into his chest and allowed his arms to snake around her once more. “Kiss me,” he said in a low voice, so low she almost didn’t hear him.

Y/N crashed her lips into his again, allowing herself to be pushed against the doorframe with a slight gasp. She interlocked her hands at the back of his neck, his hands travelling down to grab handfuls of her ass.

“This dress,” he groaned. “You look so fucking beautiful.” Matty’s hips rolled forward slightly, bumping into Y/N’s. A moan escaped her throat and Matty shushed her gently, cupping her cheek and kissing her again. “Is it bad that I can’t wait for everyone to leave?” she grinned. Matty laughed against her lips. “It’s ok, me too.” Their lips moved together again, hands roaming each other’s torsos. Neither of them noticed the quietness that fell in the living room when their friends realised they were gone.

“What the fuck?” George’s laughter sounded throughout the hallway. “What the fuck is going on?” Matty and Y/N jumped away from each other and stared at George wordlessly, watching the blonde’s face break into a smirk. “I knew it. I fucking knew it!” Matty groaned and covered his face with his hands. “Will you shut up?” “Yes George, shut up!” Y/N hissed. “Go away!”

George turned, still pissing himself laughing, and went back down to the living room. Y/N could hear him trying to collect himself and tell the group that they were just getting more drinks. She was thankful he was lying for them, but not thrilled that he was still giggling like a child.

“He’s not very believable, is he?” she sighed. “Nope,” matty shook his head. “They all know.” It was Y/N’s turn to laugh now. “It’s ok. I was getting bored of keeping secrets anyway.” Matty agreed and pulled her into a hug, resting his chin on her head.

“If I asked you to be my girlfriend, would you say yes?” “Depends. Are you asking?” “Yes. I am.” “Then yes. I’ll be your girlfriend.”

It’s safe to say that Matty didn’t go home that night, instead curling up with Y/N all night long, holding her closer than ever as she slept.

[curiositydooropened]

Wildfire • Spark

After a less-than-ideal first week in training with your new partner on the sparring mats and in the swimming pool, it's time to flex your skills on the Scorch course. When Eddie discovers terrifying evidence to the face you saw in the swimming pool, you learn a bit more about what it means to be Flayed. Harrington learns some truths about the day Vickie died. 

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Chapter Wordcount: 9,765

Warnings: enemies/rivals to lovers, second chance romance, slooooowburn, unrequited love, so much pining, blood, gore, character death, best friend!disabled!Eddie Munson, character injuries, trauma, PTSD, hallucinations, drowning, concussion, hurt/comfort, fire

Fic Masterlist • Navigation • Masterlist

Chapter One: Ember • Chapter Three: Ignite

---

NOW

August 1988

Indiana thunderstorms came in soft and slow, the call of wind and blooming, teal clouds. They wet tarmac and corn fields first. A cascade of large drops that melted against windshields and abandoned shopping carts. Then came the downpour, hail and rain that ricocheted off tin roofs, just beyond the safety of underpasses and covered porches. 

Before the world opened up, you delighted in them. You and Vickie, in matching raincoats, would run into the street and spin and spin until the world wet fuzzy and your teeth chattered. You’d laugh and dive into puddles, soaking your canvas shoes and the socks underneath. You’d sing and play until dad warned you about lightning strikes and called you inside. You’d shriek in delight under the warmth of your covers while electricity buzzed the power out. 

And after, you peered beyond the safety of double paned glass and watched, watched for red lightning, for ash, for tell-tale signs that you weren’t right-side up. Your breath fogged the glass in front of you, arms crossed over your chest. The massive cloud, in its slow approach, shadowed the far end of the asphalt, faded yellow parking spots shining wet. 

“Hey,” a voice startled your focus, and you turned to see Eddie, brows furrowed, leaning against the left side of his walker. “I need to show you something.” 

Something urgent in his tone, laced with concern, almost had you forgetting the storm outside, but a voice on the wind called your name and you turned your attention back out the window one last time, watching the cloud loom in teals and greys. A large flash lit up the sky, sheet lightning, blinding white. You startled.

Eddie led you down darkened halls, everyone busying themselves in separate dorms or a rec room somewhere, out and away from the storm outside. He didn’t try to make small talk, or manage any of his signature quips. His silence only perpetuated the static you felt on the back of your neck, the breath that chilled you to your core.

“In here,” he gestured to a doorway marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, and you reached for the handle to push it open. You glanced around the empty hallway, checking for some sort of surveillance, before following him into a room lit only by a single television, it buzzed with that same static. 

“What’s going on?” You asked, pulling up the rolling seat Eddie gestured to before he popped a tape into a deck. 

“Wheeler copied this for me, and erased the original. So if we get caught, we’ve officially tampered with government property.” As if that was an explanation.

“We?” You tried to get comfortable in the chair, suddenly feeling eyes on you from all angles. 

Eddie reached forward and hit play, and the sound of the tape winding preceded the screen going black. Then, slowly, banks of lights were being turned on, and you recognized the pool, however many stories below you now. Harrington took several strides before dumping his rucksack poolside. Then, he busied himself around the room, checking levels and cleaning where he could. 

“Eddie,” you swallowed. “What is this?” 

Eddie responded by hitting fast-forward, and you watched as Harrington stripped from his day clothes and jumped into the pool. He did a few laps, quite a few, before squeezing the chlorine water from his hair and got dressed again. Eddie hit the button once more, and Harrington waited around for quite a while before the doors swung open again, and you arrived. Eddie hit play. 

The video was silent, but you’d seen it all play out, you’d been there. You watched Harrington drop the brick. You watched yourself strip to your underwear. 

“We can fast-forward,” you instructed, clearing your throat as you tried not to dwell on the pudge around your middle, the unflattering angle of the security footage. 

Eddie did as instructed, and you watched yourself go through your trials, Harrington spurring you on. Until Harrington jumped back in, and you knew what you were looking for.

“There, stop.”

Eddie paused. The freeze frame was blurred with static, the edges of the camera blurred with mist and condensation. The ripple of water took up the lower half of the frame. Your head was barely above water, mouth agape to take one final gulp. And there was no one on the tiles. 

“Watch,” Eddie muttered, playing frame-by-frame. His fingertip stretched to the screen, pointing for you to keep your eyes on the steel double doors. And you watched, in horror, as they swung open. Exactly as you remembered.

Only, no one entered. No one walked to the edge of the pool to smile down at you. No one was watching. It was all in your head. 

“So what? A draft?” You prayed. 

“That far underground?” Eddie hit play, and you watched the door swing on its hinges for only a moment. Then, your limp body was being hauled upright, a dark bead in the water must have been the blood from your head (the dull ache hadn’t quite disappeared). Harrington lifted you onto the tile and leapt up after you. 

Your best friend paused the video and turned to face you, half of his face glowing blue in the light, features gaunt, terrified. “Have you heard his voice?” 

You knew who he meant. 

“Have you heard the chime of a clock? Have you been seeing things other than Vickie? Hearing things?” He was frantic now, hands tangled in curls, good knee bouncing. 

You clutched his thigh to stop the movement. “Ed, stop. He’s dead. Eleven killed him. He’s not coming back.” 

“We don’t know that,” he shook his head.

“We do,” you nodded, though you weren’t sure which of you needed to hear it more. “We know that he’s gone, and I’m not hearing voices. I’m not hearing chimes. It’s just her, and it’s just PTSD or whatever bullshit Linda’s telling me, okay?” 

“Then what’s with the door?” He gestured back to the screen. 

You didn’t know, and you didn’t love the pit growing in your stomach, that lingering feeling of being watched. You tried to push it out, force it down, but couldn’t manage to answer Eddie more than a shrug. “Wheeler’s not going to tell Hopper, right?” 

“Nah,” Eddie scrubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “I sold him pot last week. He owed me.” 

You snorted. 

The tape was ejected, static buzzed on the television once more, the screen illuminated in blues and grey. “I’ll keep ahold of this until we show Steve.” 

Your stomach sunk further. You swallowed. “What?” 

Your name left his lips in a scold you haven’t heard since you were in high school. “You have to tell Steve. He’s your partner, and if this shit is the asshole we hope it isn’t, we’re all in danger. He deserves to know.”

You avoided his gaze, running a tired hand down your face. 

“If you don’t tell him, I will.” 

—

The heat was oppressive, humidity that stuck your clothes to your skin and wet the hair at your temples. The plastic mask surrounding your nose and mouth was fogged, and you peeled the suction from your skin, letting it dangle around your throat to rub sweat from your eyes. You winced at the burn and peered ahead at the giant concrete structure before you, bathed in the neon orange rays of the setting sun. 

The Scorch practice building wasn’t much more than concrete and rebar, four levels high with no roof. There were no glass in the windows, just holes shaped into the four sides with views of stairwells and open rooms. It was about as dark and desolate as any structure in the Ether, and just as imposing. 

“20:04,” Harrington spoke beside you, voice muffled by the mask around his face, sweat sticking his hair likewise to his tanned skin. He was looking at the watch around his wrist, and you did the same to yours, clarifying his time as second hand ticked. “Twenty minute run.” 

You nodded and placed the mask back over your features, the elastic too tight around your skull. You adjusted your fuel pack next, a thirty pound tank that slipped against your tank top at the slick of your back. You tightened the shoulder straps and buckled the strap at your chest, constricting your bosom even tighter.

You and Harrington pulled the hoses from their holsters simultaneously and stepped forward into the abandoned building, and it was like stepping back into that world.

The structure had been manufactured for these purposes, faux vines made of rubber tubing stretched across the surfaces, outward and upward, curling like they would in the Ether. You weren’t to step on them, weren’t to let them know of your presence as you made your way through the building looking for bigger things, darker worries, greater enemies. Trainers would rearrange it after each run, a new horror around new corners. 

You had every iteration memorized. Muscle memory kicked in the moment your heavy boot went over the threshold. Finger on the trigger, the sound of your breath in your mask, you curved to the North, around the first corner into a room staged as the kitchen. They like it cold.

No lights, only an island covered in the charred remains of fruit and tin cans, vines melted to fixtures that had been stolen from once-happy homes. From the corner of your eye, Harrington side-stepped to round the refrigerator, but you knew it’d be too obvious. 

“Clear.” He instructed, two fingers saluting to proceed into the formal dining space.

You shook your head and flicked open a blackened corner cabinet. You managed to dodge an egg as it rolled from its perch and onto the countertop. There, you hit the trigger. A surge of energy burst down the length of your arm, bright orange and white hot, like Vickie’s hair and autumn nights and agony, screams and cries of agony and the shatter of your heart and -

“Good job,” Harrington affirmed as he passed you, something unforgiving in his tone, something trepidatious.

You swallowed back the fear crawling up your esophagus and followed.

Harrington discovered a nest in the dining room, two dogs watching television, and another egg sack at the top of the stairs to the next floor. You hadn’t pulled your trigger again, letting him get the kill as you followed on, clearing bedrooms and hallways up to floor three, your heart pounding against the mask, sweat blurring your vision. 

A demogorgon waited, split through the walls of an upper floor bedroom, made of vinyl and something else toxic, and Harrington laid into it, spreading fire across the ceilings and concrete bookshelves, and the fire licked at your cheeks and forehead too hot, too close, too much. 

“Harrington!” You roared over the sound of his machine buzzing, flame thrown from his grasp. 

He took his hand off the trigger and looked back at you with furrowed brows, sweat striping the dirt across his features. 

You shook your head and gestured to the fresh char marks, the fizzle of embers against the stone. “It needs to be more contained. You spread it that much in the Ether, the whole structure’s coming down on you.”

“I’m trying to be thorough,” he argued, rubbing at his own stinging eyes. 

You continued to shake your head. “Thorough doesn’t always mean safe. You wait for it to jump out of the wall, then you scorch it.” 

“If it gets down here, it has a higher chance of killing me,” he propped his hand on his hip. 

You rolled the side of your tank top up to expose a long, spindly scar on your hip bone that you knew continued down your thigh. “Get clawed or get killed. Keep it contained.” 

The words echoed around your own skull, a buzz like nicotine or caffeine, something sharp and spiky that hadn’t left the jitter in your hand since you first pulled the trigger, since you stepped foot in here. Those muscle memories, all those hours training fellow toy soldiers, fuel strapped to their backs, the sickly sweet stench of lighter fluid, the only thing you’d ever felt you were meant to do.

You left Harrington fogging up his mask, back to the wall, feet avoiding the vines on the ground like they were second nature, like you’d always known where they were because you put them there. You turned into a bathroom, pulled open the cabinet under the sink. “Clear,” you shouted before scurrying into the final room. 

A demodog decoy stood on the bed, flower-shaped head bared, legs squat. A hatchet was stuck through his middle. Your finger tugged the trigger, second-nature, the surge of energy a warm, familiar buzz against your forearm, the breath on your tongue metallic. You’d been born for this. Keep it contained.

“The rest of this floor is clear,” Harrington’s gruff tone filled your space again, a jostle of your pack indicating he was too close. If you were fire, Harrington was water, a quench of cold rigidity that doused that which ought to have been fanned within you, that need to burn. 

You followed him for the final climb, these walls cast in pinks and reds and oranges, the twilit sky looming beyond. A breeze trickled in, cooling the sweat that lined your décolletage. You licked salt from your upper lip, burned remnants of paper and cloth crunched beneath your feet.

The hall split in two, doorways littering either side, tattered vines, sun-stained pale grey, bathed in red, trailed up the walls, flapping in the breeze.

“South,” you called out, and Harrington nodded, turning right when you turned left. Your packs knocked against one another. 

Room one was clear. Room two was clear. You heard Harrington call similarly from the hall, and the sound of fire scorching something he had found in his third room. You edged your way around the corner and into the final open space. There, you found five mannequins. 

Stood in perfect formation was a family, two parents and three children. The paleness of their skin had all been blackened around the edges. Some limbs were missing: the smallest one teetering on one leg, the mother missing an arm. Faces were in various stages of melt, dark grimaces on misshapen heads. One of the children remained eerily in tact. Her eyes glowed blue, hair a shock of red, smile twisted in delight, the strap of her blue tank top slipped down a melted shoulder.

“What the fuck is this?” Harrington’s voice was unmuffled, and when he stepped into your periphery, you saw he’d pulled his mask down to hang loosely around his neck.

You swallowed and held your weapon at your side. The red haired girl stared back at you, unblinking. “They’re flayed.” 

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” He scoffed, adjusting his pack, bumping you with his elbow.

You shook your head. You’d been the one to set it up, Vickie’s suggestion, pulling mannequins from the old mall site. Trainees needed to practice. They didn’t know what they’d be up against, or who. You swallowed. “Put your mask back on.” 

“What? No. We aren’t burning them.” 

“We can’t risk contamination.” You thought of the video tape, of the face above the water, of that gnawing on your skull where you impacted the tiles. 

“Contamination? They’re mannequins. Have you lost your mind?” 

Maybe you had. You licked your lips, tried to ignore the shadow looming just beyond the figures, just beyond the girl with the red hair and the smiling face, just beyond the memories of Vickie’s screams, the taste of ash, the smell of flesh. “If you can’t do it in here, how can I trust you to do it out there?” 

“Eddie survived,” Harrington argued, and suddenly the buzz in your skull silenced, a splash of ice cold water to your bones. You were drowning in it, the disdain that dripped from his tongue. 

You turned to face him, pulled your own mask from your face. “You know he’s an exception. We don’t know how he got out.”

“But he did,” Harrington’s jaw was clenched stone-tight, he wasn’t looking at you. “He survived. He was flayed, and we got him out.” Everything that wasn’t said was caught in between words, context oozing with mistrust, with the truth he believed about you, about Her.

“Well, she couldn’t have been saved,” you spat, that vine crawling itself up and out of your chest, like fire and agony and screams. “By the time I found her, she had a hole in her chest the size of my arm. There was black shit spilling out of her mouth. She was -” You couldn’t breathe, eyes blurred with sweat and red hot sunlight, the heat was suffocating, the smell of smoke and ash.

You squeezed your eyes shut, tried to will away the images of her begging for help, pleading for you to end it, telling you they knew, they saw, telling you it was time because if you didn’t kill her, they’d know where to find you, all of you. She was a spy. 

When you opened your eyes again, Harrington looked pale, nostrils flared, stone faced, but processing the horrors you let slip. You felt a modicum of triumph at knowing he’d experienced even a sliver of it, a piece of it broken from you and transferred as a weight to his shoulders now too. Consider it a bonding experience. 

You glanced down at the ticking hands of the watch on your wrist and said, “20:25. Twenty-one minutes. Mission failed.” Before you shouldered away from him and back down the stairs, ignoring the lingering itch over your right shoulder, that presence that reared its head all the times you wanted to be left alone.

—

The halls were eerily silent on Scorch days, when the majority of the team had been sent from the building in twos to repel through gates and torch the boundaries of another dimension. You weren’t used to the silence, having spent nearly two years on those vehicles, adrenaline pumping and back aching from the weight of your pack. The past four months had been spent outside the War Room, pacing, waiting for an inch of hope, an eavesdropped morsel of what was going on down there. 

Today was no different, nursing stale coffee from a styrofoam cup, watching blips on a fuzzy radar screen from behind several panes of glass. At one point, you’d made eye contact with Hopper, frown creased between his brows and beneath his mustache, and he shooed you away with his hand. 

You’d memorized the names on the call sheet, muttering silent prayers that they’d all make it back safe, unscathed, untethered. Harrington’s words echoed in your mind, louder and louder as the day progressed and your legs grew weary of propping you against concrete walls and linoleum floors. His insinuation that Vickie could have been saved hung heavy on your shoulders like the straps of a fuel pack.

Eddie sat with large headphones over his ears, scribbling things onto notebook paper, wrapping his eraser against the page in a way that made you wonder if he was listening to radio frequencies or heavy metal music. You knew it calmed him, knew it brought him back from Vecna’s grasp. 

You tried not to think of the song that left your chapped lips, the rough scratch of your vocal chords against the ash and ruin as you tried to bring Vickie back to you, back to the light. 

You rubbed at tired eyes and pulled yourself off the wall and continued to pace. You thought of Harrington again, of the look on his face when you’d shared your truth about Vickie, of the obstinance you received when teaching him how to properly scorch, of the sass he spewed ad nauseam. You rolled your eyes and glared back through the glass at the balding patch on the back of Hopper’s head. 

The scuffle of feet startled you from your thoughts, and you spilled cold coffee down your forearm. You looked up from the splash on the floor to two gangly teens who rounded the corner with hushed whispers and hands in the pockets of their tactical pants. They seemed twice as scared of you as you were of them. 

The Wheeler kid’s eyes went wide like saucers when he recognized you, and the tips of his nose and cheeks flushed a deep red. Remembering the tape he procured for Eddie, you fumbled to speak and ended up sandwiching your tongue sharply between your molars. 

“Hi,” Will Byers attempted to diffuse the tension with the quirk of his smile, and you swallowed back the saliva flooding your mouth. 

“Hi,” you managed to wince through the pain and toss your scrunched styrofoam into a nearby trash can, wiping your forearm on your pant leg.

“Any news?” Wheeler managed, scratching at the back of his neck. The boys approached the glass and peered in. 

“No. Your siblings out there?” You asked, as if you didn’t already know, as if Nancy and Jonathan hadn’t replaced you and Vickie as Scorch team leaders, as if you hadn’t watched Nancy zip her tac vest and tie her laces. 

“Yeah.” Joyce turned from her spot and caught her son’s face outside the glass. Her weary smile showed so imminent danger, and she flexed her fingers in a wave. 

Will waved back, relief relaxing broad shoulders. “No news is good news.” Then, he turned to you. “So, how are you? How’s training with Steve?” 

You swallowed and glanced back at Wheeler. Suddenly, the bean pole found something on the floor very interesting. You sighed and lied through your teeth. You’d done it with Linda, why not the Byers kid too? “Yeah, great. Harrington’s a really hard worker. He’s a good asset for our team.” 

“Jesus, you guys script that?” Wheeler snorted. Will elbowed him in the ribs. 

“We talked to Steve earlier today,” Will explained. “He had similar nice things to say about you. Seems like a good match.” 

You nodded, the words that once would have flipped your stomach now souring the taste in your mouth. Or maybe that was the blood pooling from your tongue. 

“We better get back to El,” Wheeler bounced on the balls of his feet, elbowing Byers back. He offered you a bored nod and started back down the hallway. 

Will pushed off from the window with another understanding smile. He’d nearly followed his friend around the corner before you heard the squeak of his sneakers as he paused and turned around. “Hey, I’m really sorry, by the way. About Vickie.” 

Your stomach lurched, the flash of fire and screams echoed in your mind’s eye. 

“I’m here if you ever you know, need to talk to someone.” 

Eddie survived. Eddie survived and so did Will. Will Byers, Zombie Boy, the original spy, the reason for all of this. You swallowed back the bile surfacing and tried to will your eyes to focus on the features of his face, but your mind was reeling with information. You just nodded and somehow managed to croak out a thank you. 

“See you around,” Will waved and stepped slowly away.

—

Harrington was a wall of meat, the slap of skin to skin, gulps and gasped breaths, heaving chest, sweat trickling down the column of his neck, sticking wild hair to the sides of his face. His jaw was tight, brown eyes black as he watched you down the scar-split bridge of his nose. His fists were clenched, the muscles of his forearms and biceps glistening under the fluorescents.

You huffed, grit your teeth, and swung on him again. You felt the whoosh of air brush your knuckles as he, once again, dodged your throw. You squared your shoulders, pivoted on your back leg, watched for weakness. 

You found it in an open-mouthed exhale, a moment of respite on his end, a wheeze through salvia-slick lips, and you swung on him again, your knuckles cracking against his collar bone. 

He cursed, backed off, rolled his shoulders, massaging the bruising bone.

“Ouch, that had to hurt!” Eddie cheered you on from the sidelines, balanced on a stool just off to the right of the sparring mat.

Harrington didn’t appreciate the commentary. He made that explicitly clear with a side-eye to the audience for every quip. 

You waited for him to square up again, bouncing on the balls of his feet, fists ready. You swung and he dodged, catching you on the backside with a jab to your kidneys. You stumbled, but otherwise felt no pain. You huffed in frustration. 

“Steve, you’re pulling your punches.” Jonathan spoke freely from his spot beside Eddie. He sported a bright red burn mark on his left temple, but otherwise managed to return from the Scorch unscathed.

Harrington’s fists dropped to his side, and he fully turned his attention to the crowd. “Will you two get out of here?” 

You took the pause in momentum to get a drink, quenching your dry throat with a spray of water. You swished it, lukewarm, against your molars before swallowing.

“He’s right. You’re taking it too easy on her.” You flipped Eddie the bird, and he grinned back at you, dimple exposed, hair shaggy in front of mischievous eyes.

“Believe me, I’m not,” Harrington argued, cracking his knuckles beneath un-torn athletic tape. 

“You are, though,” you piped up from your spot, readjusting the torn edges of your own tape. The adhesive had all but slipped from sweat-slick wrists, and had more than cracked from your knuckles on your right side. 

“What?” He snapped, unimpressed, hands to his hips like a mom at a kid’s dance recital.

You shrugged, let your water bottle slip from your hand back to the ground. “I barely felt that last one.” 

“Yeah! A love tap,” Eddie argued for you. “She’s been hit harder than that in the bedroom.” 

“Okay,” you cut him off, feeling the buzz of embarrassment tickle at your chest. You pointed at the grinning idiot on his stool. “Don’t you have somewhere to be? Strategizing to win this war?”

Eddie made a face of mock confusion, though it wasn’t convincing past the grin of delight that he’d gotten under your skin. “No… no, that doesn’t ring a bell.”

“Come on, man,” Byers snorted, patting Eddie’s shoulder as he stood from his own stool. “Let’s leave these two alone. Maybe he has stage fright.” 

“Oh fuck off,” Harrington scoffed, earning bright grins from both of the chuckleheads. 

Byers helped Eddie from his seat and muttered something under his breath. You couldn’t quite hear it from your distance, but you caught something about owing Nancy money.

Eddie caught your eye from over his shoulder, expression suddenly changed to something much more serious. He eyed you and then Harrington, an unspoken question that had your stomach lurch. 

You shook your head and warned him with your eyes. Now wasn’t the place nor the time to tell your new partner about the encounter you’d had in the pool. In fact, you hadn’t seen anything else all week, too preoccupied with intense training hours. You and Harrington had an unspoken truce. Nothing was said. Punches were made, laps were swam, decoys were set ablaze, and not a word had been shared between you. 

Eddie gave you one more warning glance before settling his shoulders and pasting his smile back onto squirrely features. “Well, I’d ask you not to kill each other, but I don’t think Harrington has the balls.” 

Harrington rolled his eyes at the quip, and you waved Eddie off, waiting until he and Jonathan had made significant distance before turning your focus back to your partner. You found yourself glancing over their shoulders at the large steel door, half-expecting it to burst open. 

“What was that about?” He broke the truce. 

“Nothing,” you responded, tight-lipped, peeling the adhesive from your skin for one more adjustment.

“Whatever,” your partner sighed. “We done for tonight?” 

You glanced up at the big clock on the far wall. You’d been at it for just under an hour, the time slipping quickly away. You rolled your shoulders, the joints in your spine cracking. “Fine. Same time tomorrow?” You tugged on the athletic tape instead to unravel it, a bit at the back ripped some hair from your forearm.

“No.”

You sighed. “Why not?” 

“I have psych tomorrow with Robin.” Harrington’s voice was quiet, measured, as he removed the wrap from his own wrists. 

“Oh,” you swallowed, hoping that was the end of it.

“You did good today,” a compliment that should have you preening, instead felt ice cold. 

You rolled your head back to quell the chill that settled there. “Byers is right, you’re pulling your punches.”

“I know, I’ll work on it.” 

A douse of cold. You blinked back at him, but he refused to make eye contact. He just grabbed his water bottle and walked off the mat. 

—

A charcoal sky flashed crimson. Something called in echo, a signal for others of its kind, a signal to the hive. Your throat itched, nostrils burned, eyes stung, ears rang. Your palms, slick with sweat, gripped a railing to pull you upward, knees weak. You weren’t prepared, couldn’t catch your bearings. You didn’t recognize anything, endless trees and vines. You couldn’t make out any landmarks, couldn’t find yourself, couldn’t find anyone. 

Then you heard a voice, felt it really, booming, deep, yet familiar. It chilled you, quelled your thirst. His voice, Steve’s voice. You turned to find him stumbling out of the woods toward you, legs weak beneath him. You caught him, clutched the lapels of his vest, screamed his name. 

“Help me,” he whispered. “He’s got me. You have to help me.” 

You scrambled frantically, called over your busted walkie to receive no response. 

Steve sputtered. Black ichor fell from pink lips, tipped down his chin and stained the front of his shirt. 

You screamed. 

His lips curled upward then, teeth blackened, and he reached for you, hand too large to be his own. 

You pulled the trigger.

—

The load was too large, drum banging against the walls of your spin cycle as your clothes rinsed of ash and grime and blood. You’d woken from your nightmare with a nosebleed, something you’d grown accustomed to in the past few months. You’d shed your sheets, your pillow case, knowing you wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep.

The detergent smelled stale, but the water seemed hot enough to rid your clothes of their stains, and the loud beat of metal was enough to silence the dull thud in your skull. Your eyes blurred on the steady shake of washing machine, and your throat was dry from the screams you’d undoubtedly released in your sleep.

It wasn’t the first night terror, and you knew it wouldn’t be the last, all of them flavored with the same dystopian horror that tainted your waking life. Sometimes Vickie would be herself, you forced to live out the worst moments of your life again and again and again night after night. Sometimes, Vickie would be replaced with your mom, your dad, Robin, Eddie. Harrington made his first cameo the night Hopper announced you’d be partners. 

Sleepless nights were spent up in bed, reading a single page of a book dozens of times, only managing to focus on a sentence or two. You’d take yourself to the track and run into your legs jiggled. You’d tiptoe to the common area and fix yourself a bowl of cereal, Vickie’s favorite, and sob over the first bite. Once, it’d been bad enough that you’d crawled into Eddie’s bed with him. He smelled of old cigarettes and something spicy, but it was the only night you’d managed to fall asleep, knowing he’d be alive when you woke back up.

The buzz of the machine indicated you could switch, and garment by garment, you shoved your items into the wider drum of a stand-up dryer, one of three in the facility. You separated your sheets into another, ensuring everything would dry before the sun came up, and you slipped your coins into the slots before turning the machines on. 

Out of your periphery, the laundry room door opened. A crack at first, just enough for someone to slip in and out, and you backed yourself into the corner, watching and waiting. Maybe you hadn’t woken up, maybe you were still dreaming, maybe this is when you’d see the face smiling back at you. 

Only, Harrington entered, grime free, in fact the cleanest you’d seen him maybe ever. His hair was nicely coiffed, an old grey Member’s Only jacket shoved over broad shoulders. “Oh good,” he said, “you’re awake.”

His eyes trailed your body, scrutinizing the tactical pants you’d shoved over the breadth of your hips, the tank top, the sport’s bra holding you together underneath. That crease formed it’s way between his brows again. “You got any other clothes?” 

“In the dryer,” you gestured to the steady rhythm of the dryers.

“Okay, that’s fine. Let’s go.” He swung the door open, and you heard the stomp of his feet up the tiny staircase. 

You blinked, slow in processing from your lack of sleep, but followed him to the doorway instead. “What part of ‘my clothes are in the dryer’ do you not understand? What’s going on?”

He turned back to you, hands on his hips, and rolled his eyes. “You’re the only one I know who does their laundry in the middle of the night. If anyone steals them, there’s a hundred percent chance of finding them and shaking them down for you belongings. Now, come on.” He gestured like a pestilent child taking their mother down the toy aisle. 

You cursed, debated whether this was worth an all-out brawl, and decided to follow him, closing the door behind you.

He didn’t let you catch up, remaining a handful of steps ahead until he was leading you up, across a darkened gym floor, and out a large steel door. 

The night air coated your skin in gooseflesh. A single flood lamp illuminated the tops of a dozen or so cars in the parking lot, abandoned and unused, aluminum rusting under an ever-present cloud, sun set hours ago. The air smelled somewhat less foul, the sulphur and decay cast away on a cool breeze that brushed between your legs and pebbled your skin. You were unable to hold back a shiver. 

Harrington crossed the lot to a little maroon BMW, waving you over with an impatience only he could exude. “Hurry up, we’re on a time crunch.” 

You scurried after him, boots crunching on gravel, and waited for him to reach over to unlock your door before you opened it and settled in. “What is going on?” You asked through grit teeth, slamming the door. 

The car smelled of him, that cologne you once found intoxicating, and when the engine turned over, the speakers blared Queen’s greatest hits, and you were thrown back against plush seats as he took off, peeling out of the little parking lot and out and away from the facility. You glanced at the compound out the back window, the looming concrete structure you called home fading into the horizon. 

“Where are you taking me? Will you slow down?” You buckled your seatbelt and gripped the door handle while he shifted gears, racing along curves in backroads he’d memorized years ago. 

If he could hear you over the speakers, he acted like he couldn’t, fingers wrapping to Roger Taylor’s beat.

You had half a mind to shut the music off, to pull the emergency brake, to get him to answer you. But something in you felt more settled here than you had been for months, the warmth from the heater fanning your chest, comfortable seats, Freddie’s dulcet tones bringing you back to reality, shielding you from any more horrors. 

—

Roadie’s Roadhouse stunk of spilled beer and fried food, the sweet tang of barbecue that lured you further in and grumbled at a hungry stomach. You followed Harrington’s broad shoulders to two empty seats at the bar, behind which a rotund woman in a jean vest offered a gap-tooth smile. 

You glanced sideways at a group of pool players, balls clacking against one another atop patchy green. Steer horns coated one wall, the wall beside it collaged in autographed photos of celebrities. A blues guitarist sat lonely upon the world’s tiniest stage, picking out a wholesome tune.

Harrington cracked a wry smile, holding two fingers to the woman who was already removing the caps off two beer bottles with her bare hands.

With the chill of wind at the back of your neck from the open door behind you, a few stragglers entered whooping and hollering, slapping hands in greeting with the men playing pool. 

“You lovebirds lookin’ to eat tonight? Kitchen closes in twenty.” The woman whistled, leaning too far into Harrington’s personal bubble. He didn’t seem to mind. Your body wracked with another shudder of disgust.

“Two briskets please.” He offered a smile, sticky sweet glazed. 

“All the fixin’s?” 

He nodded. 

“Comin’ right up, sweetheart.” 

You waited for her to head to the kitchen. “Harrington,” his name fell from your lips drowning in disdain. “What the fuck are we doing here?” 

He sighed and brought the amber bottle to his lips. You watched his Adam’s apple bob as he drank, wiping foam from the corners of his lips when he’d finished. He glanced at you sideways, shrugged his shoulders, and set the glass back on the bar top. “It was Robin’s idea.” 

Another gust of cold air blanketed your shoulders, and you spun in a panic. Bikers exited with raucous laughter. Your heart thundered in your chest, your skull. You weren’t ready to face her, to see the hatred in her blue eyes. Had she brought you out here for payback? Far away from the compound where no one could hear your screams?

“Hop said he wants us closer than the Sinclairs,” Harrington took another swig, eyes rolling into the back of his head. “So Robin suggested I buy you real food and ‘get to know you’.” He put the last phrase in air quotes, head tipping back with another drink.

You took a few steadying breaths to soak in what he was telling you, glanced around the room again for any sign of Robin, any sign of Vickie, any sign that you were still dreaming. “You already know me,” you scoffed, bringing your own beer to your lips. It was cheap ass beer, more water than anything else, but it satisfied that unease in your stomach, gave your hands something to do as you ran your thumbnail over the ridged bumps of the glass at its base.

“Do I?” His voice was almost imperceptible against the glass, but it struck its intended target.

And maybe he was right. You considered through the fizz of alcohol. The woman you were now was certainly different from the girl he’d once held in his arms, scarred over and changed forever. One soft and cocksure, thirsty for adventure, you were now hardened, eroded by the elements, carved into the stone hearted being that sat beside him. 

You chugged the rest of your drink, holding back a burp with the back of your hand as the fizz bubbled up, and you slid the bottle back to the lip of the counter. “What do you want to know?” You breathed. 

Harrington eyed you for a moment, and you waited under his scrutiny, staring at your own reflection in the stained mirror behind shelves of liquor bottles. 

You were nothing like the girl he’d met. Your jaw was sharper, shoulders broader, biceps sculpted and scarred. Your eyes were cold, lifeless, with permanent bags beneath them, grey etched through your hair at the temples. You were tired, ridden hard and left out to dry. 

“Do you remember Dina Lampenelli’s eleventh birthday?” 

Your brain rocketed back in time, doing hurdles over mental math to try to remember one date so many years ago. Dina had been a schoolmate of yours, K through 12, a rich-y with serious self-esteem issues. You’d responded to her bullying with a few bloody noses back in the day, a fist to her precious nostrils for being a homophobic bitch. You were the reason her mommy and daddy shelled out so much for a nose job. 

“At the skating rink?” 

You tried to will any memory to surface. The amount of hours spent at that skating rink, eyes glazed under the disco lights, speeding around and around and around, kissing boys in glow-in-the-dark corners. You swallowed, shook your head. 

“Of course you don’t,” Harrington scoffed, turning his body toward you. “You shoved me over a banister, knocked me on my face. Had to get six stitches.” You glanced to see him jut his chin upward, a thin scar pock-marked the perfect flesh there, where jaw bone met his thumb. “Should’ve known you’d be my living fucking nightmare.” 

You couldn’t hold back the laugh that spilled out, or the ignition of sparks throughout your body as you watched the corners of his mouth upturn. “Always in my way, Harrington,” you tutted, leaning against the bar while he coughed his smile away behind a large hand.

You swallowed back your own, chewed on the inside of your lip and tried to stir up memories you’d had, breezing past late nights and whispered secrets under heavy quilts and heavier intoxication. You bit back another smile, and asked, “Do you remember Samantha Hardy’s sweet sixteen?” 

Harrington’s eyes narrowed in thought, mouth hung agape.

“You hooked up with that girl,” you snapped your fingers. “Was her name Lita?”

“Letty Beaumont?” 

“That’s the one!” You nodded. You could still see the curve of the girl’s ass cheeks in the wide palms of his hands, the connection of their mouths silhouetted in moonlight. 

“We didn’t hook up,” he shook his head, a strand of hair falling into his eyes. “Some psycho tried to run us over with their car.” 

Again, you couldn’t help the aching grin that spread across your face with your nod, and you hid another wry laugh from behind your hand. “That was me.”

“What?” He didn’t look impressed, brow furrowed, mouth hung open like you’d told him you were guilty of feeding his pet hamster to your pet snake. 

You shrugged. “You guys were making out on the hood of my car, and I had a curfew.”

The bartender came back, uncapped two more bottles and slid them your direction. 

You both thanked her, and you took another long swig, all bubbles first, and then ice cold beer. The taste quenched the tingle in your fingers, the tremor of your hands with nerves at what this was, what this could be.

A prolonged silence lingered between you, almost long enough to have you panicking, that your confession would be held against you, that a he’d want to get up and leave, that you’d started another brawl, here in the roadhouse. But instead, he turned back to the bar, arm bumping yours, and asked, “How’d you get that scar on your thigh?” 

You shifted your legs on your barstool and glanced over at him. He was staring straight ahead, peeling the label from his bottle with absent fingers. 

“Demodog in the back room at Melvald’s. Had to lure it out before I scorched the room down on top of me.” 

He didn’t respond, just offered a curt nod, an unspoken tit-for-tat. He asks, you answer. Your turn. 

“Have you been to your house? On the other side?” You’d often wondered if you were alone in that, you and Vickie splitting from the party at too early a stage, stumbling into her backyard to see how it had changed, to see how the vines had devoured it. 

Harrington’s jaw turned to stone at that, eyes glazed with memory. He blinked back to reality, took a long swig, cleared his throat. “Once, with Nancy. Barbara Holland was dead in my pool.” 

You cursed into your bottle, forgot the details that had drawn them all in.

“Do you like brisket?” He asked, gesturing at the woman coming at you with two heaping plastic baskets lined with newspaper.

—

Stomachs full of brisket and beer, you stumbled past the buzzing neon of Roadie’s and onto the graveled pavement toward Harrington’s car. You waited in the cold breeze, hugging your arms to your front while he leaned over to unlock the door for you, and you hauled yourself in to the promise of heat.

Contrary to earlier’s drive, he’d reached to turn the volume down before thrusting a hand to your headrest to watch over his arm as he reversed from his parking space, slow and steady. You watched burgundy lights bounce off his jaw, the planes of his cheekbones. He caught you watching, that permanent crease in his forehead, and when he pushed the car back into first, he didn’t race himself back to the compound. He took his time. 

You’d compared war stories over sticky sweet barbecue, scar for scar. You’d bonded over the smell of lighter fluid and the acrid tang of demo-bat blood, and you’d cheersed to fallen comrades. It all felt sardonic, engorging yourselves on good times, guitar music in the background, when those you’d loved most were all gone now, burned up and tangled in vines that never went away. 

You’d noticed the dance, too, the unspoken truce, a tiptoe around questions neither of you wanted to touch, feelings you didn’t want hurt or muddled, questions you were terrified for the answer too. But somehow, darkness imposing on the countryside around you, Ether looming in your near future, you felt a little braver. 

“Harrington,” his name caught on your vocal chords, coated in something, ash. 

He hummed, and you found your eyes lulling to the sound, a warmth blanketing your chest and arms, and you remembered why you were in this mess in the first place. 

“You ever have nightmares?” 

He snorted at that, an unfriendly sound, lips curled into a grimace. “You ever have good dreams?”

“Not since,” you admitted. Not since the city split open and the sky rained ash, not since you starting training, not since you murdered your best friend. You squeezed your eyes shut, swallowed the bile that crawled its way up. 

“We have our first trial on Monday.” Harrington said after a long silence, his knuckles still wrapping a rhythm against the steering wheel, volume too low under the rumble of his engine, tires to gravel. 

The trial was your first exam, a monitored test of your teamwork. You were to go through the abandoned streets of Hawkins, Right-side Up, and prove you could work together, could communicate, could be seamless. You hummed in agreement, having no confidence in your abilities as a team. 

“I have to ask you something.” 

That plunge of cold water, the sting in your lungs, the wash, the crack of skull against tiles.

“Did you see any signs before that day? Nightmares, nosebleeds, hallucinations?” His tone remained so calm, so light, and you fought back the panic that tightened in your chest, restricting your air flow. He meant Vickie, he meant were there warning signs in Vickie, but you couldn’t help but equate them to yourself. 

You clawed at the collar of your tank top and leaned forward to turn down the heater, shaking your head, staring straight ahead at the blurring road, the silhouette of trees looming on either side. “No, not at all. If I had known, do you really think I would have let her go down there?” You hated the way your voice wavered, hated the feel of eyes over your shoulder.

“Well then how did it happen?” Again, his tone remained calm, measured. “If it didn’t happen before you left the compound, when did it happen?” He wasn’t watching you, his own eyes on the road, hands wringing the steering wheel, 2 and 10.

You swallowed, tried to stay present, tried to match your energy to his. “I lost her.” A crack. You cleared your throat, forced it back before the spillway opened. 

“What?” A little louder, a little less steady.

“That day, we were sent on a mission near Roane County, farm country. She said she was going to scorch the barn while I did the house, easy procedure. When I cleared the house, I checked the barn and she wasn’t there.” 

You could still see the roof ablaze, desaturated, sepia-toned scarlet that licked and fanned at your skin. You swore you saw her, a shock of orange through the treeline. You followed. You tripped on a root, pack heavy you fell face-first into the dirt. You scraped your knee, the meat of your palms, the soft skin where cheek met jaw. 

“Why did you split up?”

You shrugged, seatbelt suddenly too tight against your chest, air too muggy, suffocating. “We always did. We were team leaders. We got cocky.” The same answers you’d given Owens, Hopper, filing your official report.

“Why didn’t you call for help?”

“I found her quicker than I thought. She’d gone back to her old house, the one on the county line. I saw her pack outside the garage.” You bit back the rest, pressed at the blur in your eyes with the palms of your hands. Keep it contained.

“You should have called for help. You shouldn’t have split up. I don’t understand how you could have lost her? You lost her?” Harrington’s voice sped up, became as frantic as you felt. “How do you lose someone you’re supposed to be accountable for?” 

You grit your teeth. He asked as if you hadn’t been asking yourself the same questions for four months, as if you’d ever make those mistakes again. Minutes ago, he seemed so understanding, so accepting of the truths and overlaps of both of your existences, and now he’d exiled you again. 

You clung to the seatbelt and rested your head on the headrest, and didn’t say another word. You waited for the push of his foot to the gas pedal, for the sanctuary of solitude.

—

“You’re such an asshole,” Eddie scoffed from his chair beside you, shuffling his deck of cards for the twentieth time. “I can’t believe you made me your accomplice.”

You let your feet dangle from your perch on a tabletop and shrugged. “Hopper told me to wait here. You’re just keeping me safe until Harrington finds me.”

Eddie tutted, shaking shaggy hair and pulling an M&M from your outstretched palm. “Speaking of keeping you safe,” he glanced around the now-empty War Room. All higher officers had left for their dinners, leaving you two alone. “Have you told him yet?” 

“How can I tell him if it takes him,” you glanced at your watch, “four hours to do anything?”

You’d been hiding in the War Room almost as long, having managed to bum a ride back to the compound mid-trial. Harrington didn’t understand how it was easy for you to lose your last partner, so you figured you’d give him a taste of his own medicine. Hopper was more than agreeable when you’d shown back up on your own. 

Eddie smacked your thigh with the back of his hand, placing the cards facedown on the table. “I’m serious. Have you seen anything new? Heard anything?”

You sighed, shook your head, “No, I really don’t think it’s anything to be worried about. It was just a draft, a couple of nightmares, it’s fine.” 

He tilted his head to catch your gaze. “What kind of nightmares? Like the one you had? Have you told Linda?” 

You shooed him away with a hand, picked a brown M&M out of the bunch. “Yes, I’ve told Linda. It’s normal. PTSD. Remember? I assume you’ve been having them too.” 

“Not as frequently.” He argued. 

You shot him a look. 

His shoulders relaxed, and he nodded. “Okay, okay. But you promised me.” 

You shifted in your seat, pouring the rest of the candy coated chocolate into his hand. You wiped the melted colors off on a pant leg. “I know. I’ll tell him. I will.” 

The walkie talkie startled you both, the sharp sound of a signal far too close, and the echoed sounds of Dustin Henderson’s frantic calls from somewhere down the hallway. “Eddie, do you copy? Eddie, is she there with you? Incoming. I repeat, INCOMING.” 

You jolted upright to see Harrington approach, Henderson hot on his heels. Eddie rolled himself a few feet away, shielded behind a pane of glass. 

Harrington looked like he’d seen better days. He was positively drenched in sweat, a soft v painting the front of his t-shirt in dark greys. His hair stuck up at odd angles, in desperate need of a cut and a wash. Grime streaked from his sideburns down his throat. Harrington rubbed at bloodshot eyes, and you noticed a tear in each of his knuckles.

“Oh, there you are.” You bit back the smile to match, sickly sweet, ignoring the sink of guilt that made its home in the pit of your stomach. 

“Is everything a fucking joke to you?” 

You swallowed back the panic, flames licking at your chest and throat and cheeks. 

“Hey, man, this was Hopper’s idea.” Eddie defended from his hiding spot. 

“You can fuck off, Munson. I’ve been calling you for hours.” Harrington pointed a finger the other boy’s direction. 

You glanced at the phone on the table from where you sat and placed the handset back on its receiver. 

That must have been the last straw. Harrington let out a strangled huff before storming past Henderson, nearly knocking the boy over, and taking off down the hall. 

Eddie whistled, and you flashed an apologetic half-smile Henderson’s direction before taking off after your new partner. You called out after him once, twice, three times. He didn’t stop, just kept going until he had shoved his way through the double doors at the end of the hall. 

You followed, a burst of humid air hitting you in the face. It was charged, static, the roll of an incoming storm. You could just make out the teal grey of the cloud overhead, just beyond the tree line. 

“Today was bullshit.” He was seething, chest moving up and down with rapid breaths, hands placed on his hips like he was ready to give you a proper talking-to. “You have no idea what I went through.”

You clenched your jaw, crossed your arms over your chest. “I don’t understand how you could lose someone you’re supposed to be accountable for.” You hoped the words had hurt him as much as they’d cut you, rolling over and over in your head for the past day.

Harrington stared you down, jaw clenched, eyes a little glassy, dark. He was inches from you, you could smell the salty sweat, it mixed with the brine in the air, that ozone layer that had your skin crawling. 

Half-hearted applause startled your stand-off, and you were ripped from Harrington’s glare by the voice of your superior. Hopper rounded the corner, pulling a cigarette from the chest pocket of his shirt and placing it beneath that mustache. “Congratulations, you two. You’ve survived trial number one. Hope you learned a thing or two about communication.” 

He pulled a lighter from his pants pocket, and you watched the end burn hot orange. He took a drag and blew a billowed cloud skyward, to mix with the impending storm. “Everything good here?” 

“Yes, sir,” you flashed a smile fake enough to have the older man snort. Harrington didn’t respond.

“Good. I’ll see you two tomorrow.” And with another cloud of smoke, a pat to Harrington’s dejected shoulder, Hopper was strolling inside, whistling a merry tune. 

You both waited until you could no longer hear the squeak of rubber against linoleum, until it seemed like you were finally both alone, and you opened your mouth to snap something, but Harrington beat you to the punch, his voice calm, soft, measured. 

“I promised her I’d keep you safe.”

He wasn’t looking at you. His bloodied hand was itching at the bridge of his nose, covering half his face, and you weren’t honestly positive you’d even heard what he said. 

You leaned forward to catch his eye, instinctively reaching to tug his wrist away. “What?” 

“Vickie,” he said. You watched the bob of his Adam’s apple. “The morning she died, she made me promise I’d keep you safe.” His eyes remained avoidant, finding interest in the blood on his knuckles, the touch of your hand to his forearm. 

“What? When? Why?” You were frantic, gripping his arm harder to get him to look at you, to tell you everything, pleading. Had she known? Had she know this would happen? Why him? Why then? 

He shrugged, eyes finally finding yours, warm honeyed light in the dark, a gasp of fresh air. He shook his head. “I don’t know. We were gearing up, and she pulled me aside.”

“Why -” You swallowed, tried to push back the image of her pleading, asking you to scorch her. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

He huffed a breath then, head shaking, hair falling into his eyes.

“What?” You grounded your heels deeper into the gravel. “You don’t think I deserved to know that about my best friend?” 

“You shut us out, remember?”

A deluge. With his words, a crack of lightning and the downpour started, big, fat, wet drops, illuminated in a stark flash of white. You jumped, suddenly crowded by Harrington’s frame as he hunched over you, doing his job, protecting you from the torrent of rain. You gripped his shirt out of instinct, pulling him into a safe hiding space just beyond the double doors. 

Another crack shuddered through the both of you, the low roll of thunder to follow, the rat-tat-tat of hail against concrete, against parked cars, against the asphalt. 

You tried to steady your breath, tried to see beyond the lightning that had stained your vision, all whites and blues. You could almost hear your name on the wind, could almost see that familiar face just beyond the glass, in the tree line, beckoning. The hand at your side, white-knuckled, rested in the heavy grasp of your partner, bloody knuckles intertwined with your own, thumb tracing calming circles to your wrist as you both stood and watched the storm. 

---

[A/N - Ooooh boy, this chapter was soooo good for me. I learned so many juicy little secrets as I wrote, and I love uncovering this story so so much. Thanks for reading, and as always, come bug me about it PLEASE! xo]

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