#does them all being nearly/well into their thirties say anything about me? no.

[strawberrysodaslut]

‘ THERE HE IS! THERE’S MY FAVOURITE WHITE BOY(s)! ‘

[ joseph quinn, andrew garfield and joe keery ]

[emma-needs-attention]

I don’t shave every day. It’s not that I don’t “need” to; I have very dark, dense facial hair that grows quickly and remains pretty visible after shaving. When I do shave, I don’t try to cover it with makeup (beyond some powder to reduce redness). In most other ways I present very feminine, but I always have fairly obvious facial hair.

And it makes me feel terrible.

I started electrolysis a couple months ago. It’s excruciatingly painful, expensive, and it takes forever. In an hour-long session, my electrologist is able to remove hair in only a small region (about 1 square inch). A few weeks later, much of that hair comes back. I am told that it will take two to three years of regular treatments to remove it entirely. On top of that, I apparently have a condition called Post Inflammatory Hyperpigmentation, which causes the skin in affected areas to darken after treatment. For nearly two months after completing a single pass over my upper lip, my mustache was more visible than it had ever been, despite having significantly less hair.

And it made me feel terrible.

I know this is the best way for me to permanently remove my facial hair, but I just canceled all of my upcoming sessions and at the moment I have no plans to begin again.

If I could pay to have my facial hair instantly and completely removed I would empty my savings account. I am intensely aware of it any time I go out in public. If it makes me so uncomfortable, why do I not do more to hide it?

I feel incredibly privileged for a trans woman. I have a loving, supportive family. I have a well-paying job. I live in a very accepting area. I have never had a single person say anything negative to me about my gender identity, which was certainly not what I was expecting when I came out. It is important to me that I be visibly queer, and in my privileged position I am able to do that without fear. A year ago I didn’t think I would ever transition; now I want people to know that I’m trans.

I am disappointed with myself for wanting to remove my facial hair, for changing my voice. I am determined not to have to do more work than a cis person does. Cis women don’t have to shave their face every day. Cis men don’t have to shave their face every day. Why should I? This is who I am, what my body does. Shouldn’t I be proud of that? Am I not supposed to love myself the way I am?

But by that logic, why am I even transitioning in the first place?

I am doing more work than a cis person does. Cis people don’t transition, and transitioning takes effort. I know that there are cis people, both men and women, who do shave every day. Am I lying to myself? I’m a trans woman; aren’t I supposed to want to get rid of my facial hair? Shouldn’t I be trying harder? Doesn’t this give me dysphoria? Am I pretending not to have dysphoria so I don’t have to put in the effort? Does the fact that I’m not trying harder make me… I don’t know, less trans? Non-binary? Is it ok for me to call myself a trans woman? Am I lying to myself?

As a woman who was a man until thirty, there are things about my body that I must accept, that I won’t be able to change no matter how much money I dump into my transition. I’m tall, I have broad shoulders, I have large hands. No amount of surgery or hormones will change these things.

But there are many things that I can change, and while none of them are requirements for being a woman, they may still be changes that I want to make. Where do I stop? Am I finished transitioning when I’ve done everything that is physically possible? My goal isn’t to “pass,” at least not in the way that word is generally used. In a time when cis women are being assaulted because people think they’re trans—because they don’t “pass” as women—the idea of what it means to pass becomes blurry. Often when we say that we want to pass, what we really mean is that we want to be conventionally beautiful.

I am a woman. Therefore, I look like a woman. My transition goal is to pass as myself. I’ve spent the last year trying to figure out who I am so I can look like her. I don’t care whether people see me and think “that’s a woman.” I want to be able to look in the mirror and think “that’s me.” But it can be extremely difficult to separate your own image of yourself from society’s idea of what you should look like. Am I self-conscious about the size of my body because it doesn’t feel like me, or because I’ve been told that women should be smaller? There are tall cis women, there are broad-shouldered cis women, there are cis women with large hands. Those traits don’t make them less womanly.

For the aspects of my body that I do have control over, I am stuck wondering whether I am changing things to become myself, or changing them because I have internalized that the way I am is wrong. At the moment, facial feminization surgery is something that I think I might like to do. But how do I know that I want to do it for the right reasons? I don’t hate my face, but when I catch a glimpse of myself from certain angles I can’t help but think that it isn’t feminine enough. What I should be asking is if it’s Emma enough, but how can I know that? How do I know who I’m supposed to be?

I feel like I was supposed to be a cis woman, but… why? Who am I to say that I wasn’t supposed to be trans? That I wasn’t supposed to transition at thirty, to have both a male puberty and a female one? Being trans has made me more self-aware, more open-minded, more empathetic. The totality of my experience is what makes me who I am. Maybe there’s a world in which I was assigned female, maybe there’s a world in which I was put on puberty blockers as a kid. But the girl in those worlds isn’t me.

Loving yourself and wanting to change are two feelings that can coexist. I tend to think of body positivity as simply accepting yourself as you are, but it is more nuanced than that. As a trans person, who I am inside is not the same as who I am outside. Which one am I supposed to love? I do love myself, but I also love who I could be. I’m transitioning so that someday they’ll be the same person.

Over the past year I have become both my biggest supporter and my biggest critic. I constantly tell myself how pretty I am, how brave I am, how fucking cool I am (hey, nobody else is saying it and it’s true). This forced positivity has been fantastic for me. I can confidently say that I truly love myself for the first time in my life. But I sometimes feel guilty that I don’t love myself more.

I can’t help but stare at myself in the mirror all the time now. I actually bought a new mirror so I didn’t have to walk as far to do so. I’ve taken more selfies than I did in my entire pre-transition life. After many months on HRT, I finally see myself in my reflection. But my eyes refuse to focus on my stubble. Sometimes I catch myself thinking “I’m going be so beautiful once I get rid of this facial hair,” and it feels like a betrayal. Fuck you Emma, I’m already gorgeous.

[shanastoryteller]

Happy holidays! Dealers choice?

a continuation of 1

The young Lord de Bois returns with the same uptight lord as before and a young dark skinned man who’s grinning like this is the funniest thing he’s ever seen. They disappear into the blacksmith’s home along with several other men and Mrs. Cole, who’s husband’s been dead for thirty years and who apparently remembers a time two lords past when things were handled differently.

They don’t emerge for the rest of the day, candles bright in the cracks of the shutters to show that they’re working through the night. It’s almost noon the next morning when the village assembles to hear what’s been decided

Merlin still isn’t allowed to look, but he sneaks glances anyway. He wishes he could get a better look at Lord de Bois, but there are several people in his way, almost deliberately keeping him from view. He wonders what his mother promised them to get them to do that.

“My father,” Lord de Bois sighs, “has decided that if I’m old enough to complain about how things are handled then I’m old enough to handle them myself. Ealdor is now under my purview and authority, which means we’re going to have to turn a profit here if it kills me.”

Great. How does he expect to do that here? He might as well just execute people now if he’s planning on starving them slowly. He’d seemed to know better, before, but now that it’s his neck on the line he’s apparently a lot less sympathetic.

“And it might,” says a new voice, probably the dark skinned man Lord de Bois has brought along.

“Shut up, Elyan,” Lord de Bois says, just for a moment reminding Merlin that they’re nearly the same age. “We’ve worked up a new plan for mining for ore and replanting the fields – the soil’s exhausted and it’s all too far from the river. We’re going to have to set up an irrigation system as well.”

They know that. They’ve always known that. It’s just that there’s nothing to be done about when the time lost to start again would mean they lose out on a whole season of crops, since the ground is too cold to do much of anything in the winter and they don’t have the people do any of that and get food in and out of the ground.

There’s stirrings of discontent and it’s Will, of course, who shouts, “Who’s going to be doing all that? We need to eat ourselves, not waste time feeding you too!”

“You little,” hisses the lord from before and there’s again the sound of a sword being drawn.

“Enough, Gregory,” Lord se Bois snaps before addressing them. “Unfortunately, I am now required to put my money where my mouth is. I’ll be covering your taxes this year to the king and providing grain to make up for the lost food while we work out these changes. Your debt now is not to the king, but to me. I’ll be coming back frequently to check on your progress.”

Merlin pinches himself, sure he’s dreaming. Who does this? It’s crazy. It’s ridiculous.

It might actually work.

“You can’t just let them take and get nothing in return,” Gregory says angrily. “Don’t be stupid about this.”

“Too late for that,” Elyan says. “Why don’t you take someone to work at the castle? Their wages can be put to the town’s debt.”

Lord de Bois sighs. “Why would I take someone useful from here when I’m trying to get all this done?”

“Take someone useless, then,” Elyan suggests.

Oh no.

“Alright then. Who here is useless?” he calls out, clearly mocking.

Merlin’s ears burn as he feels the weight of far too many people’s gazes. It’s not his fault! His magic just makes things – complicated.

“Wow,” Lord de Bois says, laughter running through his voice. “Move aside then. Show me this useless person.”

His mother tenses at his side as people shift and then Merlin is staring down at a pair leather boots that are probably worth more than everything he’s ever touched combined.

“Who’re you, then?”

He’s not supposed to move or speak or look at anyone, but surely his mother can’t expect him to ignore a lord. “Merlin.”

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you, Merlin.” He snaps his head up and is immediately caught up in the brightest blue eyes he’s ever seen. “Are you useless?”

His face burns and he shrugs.

“He’s young, my lord,” his mother says carefully, and Merlin can’t help but feel guilty over the way her voice wavers.

Lord de Bois’s face softens. “You’re his mother, then?”

She dips into a curtsy. “Hunith, if it pleases my lord.”

“Hunith,” he says, “don’t worry. He’ll be fine at the castle. Being my servant isn’t that difficult.”

His what?

“Your servant?” Gregory sputters. “Every time your uncle assigns you one, you fire them for incompetence!”

“Well,” Lord de Bois says, “then he’ll at least be in good company.”

Elyan walks over and claps Merlin in the arm hard enough that he stumbles. “Good luck.”

Lord de Bois rolls his eyes and Merlin considers how his he should really be careful what he wishes for.

He’s going to get plenty of chances to look at Lord de Bois, apparently.

~

His mother lectures him over and over again about keeping his magic to himself, about how they’ll try and control him and abuse him and turn it into something terrible and dangerous if they know what he can do. He really can’t do much of anything, but he nods and agrees and lets her kiss his face.

They don’t have a horse to spare, so he rides with Elyan. Gregory takes the lead, angrily muttering to himself the whole time and Elyan leans over and whispers to Lord de Bois, “We could just make him walk back. He might run out of steam by then.”

“We’re not going to get that lucky,” he sighs.

The ride is shorter than Merlin had feared, which is good because he’s not used to riding. They enter the city just after nightfall and they pull the gates open as soon as they catch sigh of them. Several people brighten and wave when they see Elyan and Lord de Bois, although they duck away from Gregory.

There’s an actual castle. Merlin is being taken to a real castle. It feels fake and he’s walking inside one.

“ARTHUR!” a high pitched, childish voice yells out as the sound of small feet come running.

“Excuse me, my lord,” Gregory says, beating a hasty retreat.

“Is he running from a little girl?” Merlin asks, too surprised to keep silent like he’s supposed to.

“She doesn’t put up with him like we do,” Elyan answers.

What?

“Arthur! You’re back!” shouts a girl who can’t be older than six with brown eyes and curly brown hair.

Lord de Bois scoops her up in his arms. “I told you I would be.”

“You lie,” she says promptly, wrapping her arms around his neck. Merlin finds himself pinned by her narrowed eyes and understands Gregory a little better. “Who’s this?”

Lord de Bois – Arthur, apparently, since now there’s more than one Lord de Bois to keep track of – says, “This is Merlin. He’s going to be my servant. Merlin, this is my cousin, Amabel de Bois.”

Before Merlin can figure out how to greet a child lady, she says, “Hi Merlin. I’m a witch.”

Uh.

Arthur rolls his eyes. “Stop telling people that.” Merlin relaxes. “You’re going to be a sorceress, but only if you study very hard and listen to your mother. You don’t think she became a high priestess without listening to her tutors, do you?”

Merlin tries very hard to not make any sort of expression at all.

“Yes,” Amabel says promptly.

 Arthur makes a face. “Well, maybe, I wouldn’t put it past her, but you have to listen. You haven’t even stabbed any of them with a sword, I don’t know why you’re going through so many.”

“She lit the last one on fire,” Elyan says. “Honestly, between the two of you it’s a shock that any of them are willing to step foot in the castle.”

He shrugs. “Well, my aunt and uncle are very scary. Dad’s not, but that’s what he has them for.”

This is so much worse than he’d feared. Keeping his magic a secret among a bunch of nobles was going to be bad enough, but a high priestess? And a kid training to be a sorceress?

Merlin has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.

[shitouttabuck]

hi hi nina!! may i prompt number 20? (absurd terms of endearment)

rae!!! thank you mwah (also requested by an anon & @alliaskisthepossibilityoflove <3)

be there on the next train

buck/eddie | 1.7k | rated t | prompts: absurd terms of endearment | ao3

The day Eddie calls him that for the first time, Buck’s tearing through the hospital at top speed, narrowly avoiding mowing down nurses as he stumbles toward Eddie’s room.

He’s okay, Buck knows he’s okay, he’s just here on concussion watch and because he needed a doctor to reset his shoulder when it was dislocated at the house fire earlier. He’d been talking and coherent when Hen and Chim bundled him into the ambulance, reassuring them all that he felt fine, terribly unconvincing given the grimace, but no cause for major worry either.

Still, Buck couldn’t ride with him to the hospital, having to finish their shift and wash off an inch of soot before hurrying to pick up Chris from school. Even rushing through his shower and haphazardly pulling on his civvies so not to alarm Christopher didn’t feel fast enough, and when Chris had started to kick up a fuss about being dropped at Pepa’s instead of coming with Buck to the hospital, he’d nearly torn his hair out.

He’d placated Chris with the promise that he’d try and get Eddie released this evening, happy as ever to volunteer to spend the night keeping watch at the Diaz house. Thirty minutes and several agonising red lights later, he’s here, barging right into this hospital room before any orderlies can stop him.

Hen blinks at him from her seat beside Eddie’s bed, eyebrows raised.

“You’re loud enough to wake the morgue,” she informs him, sipping her paper cup of coffee. “Bull in a goddamn china shop.”

Buck frowns at her good-naturedly, rounding the bed to Eddie’s other side.

He’s sat up against some pillows, bleary-eyed but smiling at Buck. “You came.”

“Of course I came,” Buck huffs, squeezing his arm gently.

“You always come,” Eddie agrees. His eyes are glassy from the mix of pain and painkillers, voice slurring ever-so-slightly. “Mi patito.”

Hen chokes on her coffee, coughs turning into laughter. “Your what?”

Eddie’s lips turn down at the corners as he looks at her, pouting. “He’s got the little tail, look.”

He gestures at Buck’s ass, and Buck cranes his head back to see what he’s pointing at. His shirt isn’t tucked in properly at the back, sticking out of the waistband of his pants in an upturned fold of fabric.

“Patito,” Eddie says again, nodding. “Little duckling.”

Hen snorts, dissolving into laughter as she doubles over in the tiny plastic chair. Buck shoves the hem of his shirt into his trousers properly, disgruntled by their amusement.

“Duckling, huh?” Hen grins. “I guess he does follow you around enough.”

“He followed me into the house today,” Eddie says, leaning back heavily into his pillows. It’s true—Buck had ignored Bobby’s shouts to stay put and raced back into the burning building after Eddie’s pained grunt had come through the radio, a badly-secured beam glancing off him as it fell. “Stupid as hell, but would’ve had a lot worse than a fucked shoulder if he hadn’t.”

Buck’s not sure if that’s a compliment or an admonishment, but it’s absolutely soaked with affection, so he doesn’t let himself dwell on it, smiling wryly back at Eddie.

Eddie’s studying his face, serious even if the corner of his mouth is tugging up on the right, smile inevitable.

“He’d follow me anywhere,” he says, confident, to Buck or to Hen or just the room at large. “Patito.”

Buck feels a sudden wave of embarrassment, caught out and called out on this thing that was never meant to be a secret but he hadn’t planned on saying out loud anyway, hoping no one would draw attention to the bottomless well of devotion he houses for Eddie. That he’d do anything and everything if only it meant he’d be beside Eddie for it. He’s scraped raw, naked under fluorescent lights for everyone to see.

Hen, perceptive to a fault, stands, ignoring Buck’s flaming cheeks and whatever shame is rolling off him right now.

“M’gonna check with the nurses about when he can be discharged,” she murmurs, leaving the room quietly.

Buck swallows, ducking his head as he sits. He doesn’t look directly at Eddie, instead fiddling with the scratchy blanket on the bed.

“Buck?” Eddie asks. Buck doesn’t look up. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No, ’course not,” Buck says, shaking his head and smoothing out the blanket. “You’re right, I-I do follow you everywhere.”

“Okay,” Eddie says carefully. “Is that bad?”

Buck huffs a laugh. “No, no, it’s not. Just—revealing, I guess.”

Eddie’s silent for long enough that Buck chances a glance at him. His brow is furrowed deeply, and he’s frowning at Buck.

“I would follow you anywhere too, you know,” he says.

Buck’s heart flip-flops. He does know this, and it’s nice to be told, but he thinks all his endless adoration, the entirely unshakable loyalty with which he follows Eddie, comes from a considerably different place than Eddie’s. The roots of his wanting wrap around his heart and clench tight in ways Eddie’ll never be familiar with, steadfast friendship being the only thing he’s ever wanted from Buck.

“I know,” he says anyway, moving one hand to grasp Eddie’s briefly. “I know, Eds.”

A nurse bustles into the room, patient chart in hand.

“Alright,” she says, “hello there. Are you Mr Diaz’s partner? Will you be taking him home today? He needs regular monitoring tonight, but Firefighter Wilson mentioned your line of work, so he should be good to be looked after at home by his significant other.”

“Oh,” Buck says. “Um, yes. And no. Yes, I’m taking him home. No, I’m not his significant other—I’m just his, uh, work partner.”

“Oh! Sorry for the misunderstanding,” the nurse says cheerfully. “Shall we go over the concussion protocol before we get him discharged?”

Buck lets her run him through what to do and what to watch out for, well-versed in this rodeo but nodding in all the right places anyway. When she leaves to sort out the paperwork, he turns back to Eddie, who’s be quiet for this whole exchange.

“Actually, speaking of,” Buck starts, pulling the words out of his throat like barbed wire, “do you want me to call Marisol and, uh, let her know what happened?”

Eddie scowls at him. “Marisol? Why the hell would you call her?”

“Because she’s your actual significant other?” Buck says, frowning at the unreasonable amount of derision Eddie’s throwing his way. “And she might like to know that you were hurt?”

“She is not my significant other,” Eddie says, looking deeply unhappy.

Buck blinks. “What? Since when?”

“Since…” Eddie screws up his face as he thinks, and then screws it up in a different way when the pull of his muscles must aggravate the headache concussions so generously come with. “Since two Thursdays ago. The 14th. The day we had the fighter jet call.”

“Oh,” Buck says.

His heart isn’t sure what to do—glow bright at the thought of Eddie’s relationship crashing and burning, because Buck’s not as good a friend as he wishes he was, or sink even further at the fact that Eddie, even hopped up on heavy-duty drugs, can pinpoint with such precision the exact day they ended things, his unhappy face only further proof that the break-up was probably not his decision, if he’s so cut up about it. Which—

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck asks. “I’m sorry, man.”

Eddie shakes his head. “Don’t be sorry. Why are you sorry? Also, you didn’t tell me when you broke up with Natalia, so…”

“I did,” Buck protests. “I told you that day in the locker room, that day that—”

He cuts himself off, breathless for no reason.

He did tell Eddie in the locker room, the day that they had the fighter jet call. The 14th. Two Thursdays ago.

“Eddie?” he asks.

“I texted her from the station parking lot,” Eddie confesses. “After Chris’s date went home, I, uh. I went over to her place and broke up with her.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Buck asks again, infinitely more hushed.

“’Cause you’d follow me anywhere, patito,” Eddie says softly, and his voice is so brimming with sadness, Buck’s chest aches. “Didn’t—didn’t know if this would be something you’d—actually want, or if you’d try anyway just because I asked.”

“Eddie,” Buck breathes, a quiet and desperate thing. “Eddie, you have to know—”

“I know you love me, Buck. And—whatever way that is, I’ll take it. Okay? I just—I couldn’t pretend that that thing with Marisol was anything more than me trying to—trying to—fill some gap while you were with Natalia. And I was a dick, but—you broke up with Natalia and I’m so tired of pretending. I’d follow you anywhere, patito, but I—I wish you’d follow me home.”

“Okay,” Buck nods, heart whirring with this new revelation and taking upon itself to glow, not in petty vindication, but with sweet, sticky happiness, honey-gold and sun-warm as it spreads from cell to cell, his whole body alive with it. “Okay. I’m following you home.”

“I know you are now,” Eddie frowns. “You have to make sure I don’t die in my sleep.”

“Jesus, Eddie, first of all, dark,” Buck laughs, “and, secondly, no, I mean I’m following you home. I mean I love you in every way. I mean I broke up with Natalia because everything was always about death and I want things to be about life and—that’s you. It’s been you for a long time.”

“Oh,” Eddie says, still frowning. “Does this mean you’re not sleeping on the couch tonight?”

“Do you want me to sleep on the couch tonight?”

Eddie shakes his head. “No, I’ve never wanted you to sleep on the couch. You’re always falling asleep on that damn couch. I want you to fall asleep in my bed.”

Buck laughs again. “I think we can make that happen.”

The nurse comes back in with discharge papers, Hen at her shoulder, and Eddie asks, “Hey, what’s the medical advice about making out with a concussion?”

Hen says, “Oh, for the love of God.”

And, Buck thinks, if you’re hand-in-hand with someone the way the two of them are, who’s following who doesn’t really matter, because they’re getting there together.

[lunarw0rks]

Old Bones | Chapter Five

Summary: After fleeing a toxic relationship, you fear for your safety and hire a bodyguard. He's masked, impassible, and damn good at what he does.

Warning(s): strong language, gore, violence, blood, mentions of guns, depictions of injuries

Word Count: 3.3k

A/N: new hiding spot, or just an excuse for them to cuddle for warmth later?? you tell me ;) also, not proofread so don't mind grammar mistakes pls&lt;3

꒦꒷ MAIN MASTERLIST ꒷꒦ GHOST MASTERLIST // have a request? ♡¸.•*' ⋆ ⚘ 🕊 ˚✧ ₊˚ʚ prev. chapter | next chapter | ao3 ver. | playlist ꒦꒷ O.B MASTERLIST

Metanoia

Simon’s eyes crinkled in defeat. It was a double-edged sword no matter what he said.

“You shouldn’t be out anywhere right now, you realize that?” He remained stiff as if that was going to stop you.

Weeks before, it was him shutting you down; stunning you into silence. The tables turned on that dynamic at about the fourth day—the fourth day of hunkering down in his disarranged apartment. Sure, the place was nice, the couch was cushy, and the view of the stars was quite literally out of this world.

However, the honeymoon phase of limited amenities had faded away, and you were on the verge of ending up in a padded room with a lifetime ticket clenched in your fist.

“Simon, if I don’t see some sunshine, I’m going to strangle you myself.” The sarcastic, jovial grin on your face remained, even after threatening to squeeze the life out of him.

And not to mention, that goddamn tea; seemingly the only beverage he had to drink aside from dodgy tap water. Every morning you’d sit there, sipping on it like you weren’t on the brink of throwing it all out. All while you do it, he’s drinking his own, letting out a ‘hmm’ like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted.

“Sunshine?” He asks rhetorically, eyes now squinting. “Go to the roof, wave your arms around, and absorb it. There’s your sunshine.”

Next thing you know, one of the pencils from his workspace is hurling toward his face. If you can’t get your enrichment time outside, you might as well find it in the little things.

His hand is out in record time, catching the pencil before it touches him. His head cocked downward slightly as if completely bored by your ‘efforts’ already. He tosses the pencil back onto the table, watching as it comes to a stop when it collides with your mug.

The rest of your face remained stoic, except for your lips, which have pursed into a displeased arch.

“Fucking hell…” he repines, this time under his breath.

The usual glare he gives in an attempt to end the argument has fallen void against your stubbornness, causing his posture to drop in defeat.

“One hour, and not a minute more.”

—

For the first time in weeks, you can finally stretch your limbs. Being planted in front of a television is enjoyable until the couch starts to memorize the shape of your hips—then it becomes downright depressing.

You’re pulling at the grass and rubbing the strands between your fingers, savoring the feeling of Earth below you, rather than a foam cushion. This was all you wanted and more. To enjoy the last few sunny days of autumn, before the entire city is covered in blankets of snow.

“You’ve got thirteen minutes left.” He’s either been looking at the ticking watch on his wrist, or around at the surroundings for threats. It’s no wonder he’s so miserable in the heat; he’s in his typical sauna of a black bomber jacket.

You reach for your bag and pull out a few bills, starting toward the vending machines. “Do you want something?”

Simon waves his hand, nearly rolling his eyes. Inside he’s probably cursing himself for saying an hour, instead of thirty minutes. But if he’s anything, he’s a man of his word.

When you return, you slide a can of soda across the top of the bench regardless. The can is swallowed by his large fist and stuffed into one of his bottomless pockets. He’d rather die than let you watch him enjoy the soda he refused.

You, on the other hand, feel like you’re drinking a delicacy; it’s practically by the time the one you bought him reaches his fist. Miles better than hard tap water, or the goddamn tea he buys.

Considering how far you’d wandered from the lot when you arrived, you take him standing as your cue to trek across the park. Instead of staying a few feet behind this time, Simon walks side by side, nearly causing you to walk halfway in the grass. He has no perception of how large he truly is or just doesn’t care to—either way is plausible to you.

Although his instincts told him not to let you come out here, deep inside he was savoring any moment he was not dodging a bullet, or reaching for his pistol.

Once you’ve reached the lot again, you’re peeking at his watch when it comes into view, watching as each second ticks away. He’s holding open the passenger door, leaning his hip against it in impatience.

“I still have two minutes of air.”

This time, the look in his eyes actually causes you to drop any further argument about to come out. Once he’s climbed inside the driver’s seat again, he makes a show of locking the doors right away.

Click.

He shifts the truck into drive, looking down at the gas icon, which is nearing empty. He grumbles something under his breath as if threatening the truck like a hostage who he’s finally fed up with. Simon pulls around and finds the nearest gas station, pulling up to the pump closest to the entrance.

You reach over to the buttons on your side, unlocking the doors when he parks. You’re determined to savor those two minutes you were denied.

He keeps his eyes on you as he begins pumping the gas, watching as you lean against the bed of the truck, nose in the air to spite him.

Once he returns the nozzle to the pump, he shuts the gas cap. “Stay by the truck.”

He’s gone inside to pay, and you’re relishing in the breeze blowing on you. Half of it is annoying him with punctuality, and the other is genuinely minding the freedom. You’re shielding the top of your field of vision as you peer up at the cerulean sky, for a few seconds forgetting about the horror show this endeavor has been.

The crinkle of a paper bag rips the tranquility out of your hands, snapping your vision to the man in front of you. He’s digging through the paper bag, unkempt brows tightened. Your posture straightens, and your hand is already on the revolver tucked in your waistband.

Although, it’s not a gun you’re greeted with, nor a weapon at all for that matter. It’s a box—a small, nicely embellished gift box—now outstretched to you.

“What is it?” You question, hand still resting on the grip of the pistol. His expression is as unsure as yours as if he isn’t privy to the details either.

As soon as you’ve gripped the box with your other hand, the man tosses the bag aside and begins walking back in the direction he came.

Simon noticed the man approach as he was collecting his change. His reflexes allowed him to tuck his wallet away, all while watching the encounter without breaking his glare. He takes the side route, going through the aisles so the clerk doesn’t notice how he’s reaching for his iron.

You’re holding the gift box, and the stranger has walked around the building, now out of Simon’s sight. Every bit of this put a sour taste in his mouth. More so the man he could no longer see, than the gift you were holding.

You’d thrown the box on the floor, scrambling back into the passenger seat. Your face had lost its blood flow from the shock of the gift’s contents, while Simon’s was turning red in agitation.

Instead of stuffed into a trunk, or spurting blood from a bullet wound, it's still you standing there; unscathed, confused, and peeling the lid off the arcane gift box.

Gold tissue paper to match the outside, paired with small sapphire confetti blowing away with the axis of the wind. You took one last look around the side of the building, where the man was still nowhere to be seen, then pulled back the paper.

You felt like you were going to squeeze the life out of the cardboard box at the sight of it. Your fingers felt clammy, and the tremble you’d finally gotten over had returned. It was the ring—the one you’d left behind several towns ago, hundreds of miles ago, and most of all the one you had to fight so hard to finally rid yourself of.

But yet there it was, glimmering in all its glory, tinkering from the sun rays just as it did during the outdoor reception Cal insisted on.

You shook your head visibly as if to physically rid your body of the vivid memories coming back to you, causing the box to tumble to the cement below you. Any semblance of survival instinct you had moments ago—the compulsion to search for any threats, had fizzled away the second you laid eyes on the salient diamond.

You climbed back inside the truck and locked the doors, finding the burner phone in your pocket. Simon had disappeared from the spot in front of the cashier counter, nowhere to be found. The jitter caused a few typos in your text, but you sent it in nonetheless. Your head hit the headrest behind you, as you were now white-knuckling your revolver, searching for any sign of a tail in the neighboring vehicles.

One thing was clear now—you were being surveillance again and probably watched the entirety of your hiding at Simon’s apartment. Cal had stepped up his game.

It was no longer gunmen, nor a petty attempt to corner you at the courthouse—it was mind games. The last play he had, was a futile attempt to break you without breaking the skin.

You could lie to yourself, and hide behind Simon, but once he was inside your head, he was winning the game.

His phone chimed in his pocket—the ringtone he’d picked for your SOS messages only. He wasn’t going to check it and be sure; he was going to find the bastard that brought the gift to you and get his answers. That was the only thing he was sure of right now.

He concealed the hold he had on his pistol with the flap of his jacket, exiting the gas station the way he came in. Simon snuck around his truck first, stuffing the ring into his pocket once he spotted it. Then, kept moving to meet the man around the other side.

Simon noticed the man within seconds; the back profile of him as he made his attempt at stealth. Skittish feet wearing sneakers a few sizes too big, stumbling as he looked over his shoulder constantly.

His hand clamped around the shoulder of the stranger, forcing him to whip around. Simon gave no attempt at a greeting, nor any negotiation. Simon pistol-whipped the captive with only a sliver of his strength, as to stun him, not crack his skull open—yet.

He merely dragged the man into the bathroom of the gas station—the only single stall left unoccupied. A grimy box with a toilet and sink, clearly accumulating the filth from years of no maintenance. To Simon, it was a perfect room for ‘conversation’ with the man—any knocks given, or screams of agony would be drowned out by the constant passing of eighteen-wheelers.

Simon shoved the meek captive against the door once he’d slammed it shut, gripping him by the t-shirt swallowing his wimpish body. He was much younger; youthful clothes, a dingy appearance, and widened eyes spilling over with alarm.

Not a plea in the book could phase Simon, or make him loosen his grip. Whether he was given specifics or not, he gave you something that unnerved you, he put you in harm’s way, even if only mentally.

“Who gave the order?” He spat, only giving the man mere seconds to reply. His mouth quivered, left agape like he was still too disoriented from the blow.

There was no time for negotiations, waiting, or pandering. That got him nowhere before.

Simon held onto the collar of his shirt and plummeted his head into the edge of the sink, each throw given with pure brute force. The impact echoed off the walls of the room—the deep thunk of a metal sink against a brittle skull. His brutish grip was the only sense of balance to the man, now sputtering as the crimson dripped from the exposed flesh on his forehead, all the way down to his neckline.

Patience was wavering as was the man’s ability to enunciate a single word. “Who…” Simon began, blinking away the splatter that found its way to his lashes, “...gave the order?” His tone was more of an inhumane growl.

“No idea,” the stranger’s eyes began to waver shut, as the blood trickling began to stain the whites of his eyes, “—just the money and a picture of her, I swear—”

Simon's umbrage only worsened at the sight of his cluelessness. He gave a few blows, each one causing a more audible snap; one on the cheekbone, then the jaw, and a final one on the bridge of his nose.

He released the now-soaked fabric, letting the man slump to the ground. His face was now nothing but a repulsive bundle of blood and bone. Simon looked down at his knuckles; spots where abrasions had swelled when the man’s bone sliced him, as well as the familiar, chronic stinging of a hairline fracture from his metacarpals down to the heel of his hand.

Rage didn’t blind him, nor did it control—he was solemnly aware of the carnage caused by his own fist. He was the one propelling each knock, every squeeze of the trigger, every trained maneuver.

The man was somehow still conscious after the beating, but unstirring as he croaked pleas for someone, anyone to find him. Simon tossed the ring into his lap, figuring that would be a sufficient message toward Cal—the crook he hired beaten to a pulp, while still clutching the item he failed to deliver.

It seemed like an eternity, how long Simon had disappeared into the back somewhere. And yet, no suspicious cars, no eyes watching you—no one to be suspicious of. The scene around you remained the same; a bustling gas station.

Each time you looked in the rearview mirror, you could see the crumpled box still laying on the pavement where you left it. The holographic diamond would bounce off the shine of a passing car, sometimes projecting the hue of it onto the mirror, like some sick hypnosis to further remind you of the past you thought was left behind.

When he returned, his shoulders were hunched forward in discomfort as he massaged his right fist. You could spot the stains on the pale skin of his eyes, as well as the ones seeping into the fabric of his mask.

You remained as still as the captive, refusing to look at his bloodied fists. He’d just tortured a man for you. Simon wasn’t going to patronize you, nor was he going to bother to hide the taints of what he did.

This was his job; his disquieting, gruesome job—one he carried out with regrettable necessity.

Simon went through his pockets, finding the cold soda you’d bought him, holding it against the bruising skin for a few minutes, until the flesh was iced enough to drive the next several hours.

“We’ll need to keep moving. Today.” You were already familiar with the routine; settle somewhere, bloodbath, keep moving. It was second nature by now. His words were just an attempt to cover a pained groan as his throbbing fingers wrapped around the steering wheel.

—

Straight out of a storybook, that’s how you’d describe the new hiding place.

A spacey cabin somewhere in the mountains, supposedly used by his old Task Force as a hideout at one point. Although, it was less military, and more like an abandoned ski lodge. Rather than the concern of not enough space, it was how much there was—especially when surrounded by acres of seclusion.

The wind got colder, more bitter with each passing day. The only saving grace was the books you’d already read over a few times since leaving home. The amusement would fade soon enough, just like it did when you were cooped up in Simon’s apartment for weeks on end. It was only a matter of time before another ambush, or another problem costing one, or both of you your lives. Cat and Mouse was a game that didn’t go very long; someone always gets caught—always.

Conversations remained cold and simple; a storm rolling in that night, if there was any hot water left, how long the latest ration run would last.

You’d lost sight of the end goal of this fighting.

The night you patched Simon’s wounds, it began to chip away at you slowly. Next, when he showed you that picture of him, there went another piece of your willingness. Then, the first time you began to put things behind you, it ended in more violence—and now you’re here—hiding in the middle of nowhere again, more desolate than any evening with Cal.

Simon is perched on one of the barstools, cleaning his personal arsenal of weapons. Something he seems to do daily now. His right hand is still bandaged—sloppily to put it lightly, since he insisted on doing it himself.

“How’s the hand?” You asked, not caring too much about the answer, you were just out of options. Talking to the wind only kept you entertained for so long, not to mention the bitterness of it whipping your skin the longer you stood out there.

“Fine.” His eyes only flick up once, then they return to the rag in his hands, scrubbing non-existent grime off his pistol. Truth is, he’d rather talk about anything but the hand, or anything to do with that day.

Your eyes carried down his long sleeves to the bandage again, picturing the bruising and gashes underneath, then the face of the man that caused it. “If that man looked like me,” you began, “would you have done that?”

His sore fingers came to a stop mid-scrub, something they’d been begging for him to do all afternoon. “I needed answers, don’t treat me like a barbarian.”

His deflection from the point was an answer in itself—an answer that made your hairs stand.

“Did you get what you needed?” You twisted the knife further, nearly mocking him by now, pressing a palm onto the countertop for support.

Simon could conceal his feelings all he wanted, but his microexpressions played out the story for you. He looked down at his hand again, probably thinking of the meaningless beating he’d given. It did little to nothing to protect you, that was unmistakable.

“I did what I had to do,” he declared, “you of all people should understand that.” Weeks before, those words might’ve eased the conflict brewing inside you. Today, it only added to it.

“Do you really believe that, Simon?” It was blatantly clear he didn’t. He was still stopped in his tracks, attempting to hide the gears turning in his head.

The pistol clattered onto the counter. He’d stopped his chore entirely. “If you’ve got something to say, you should say it.” His eyes roamed up and down again, searching for any semblance of hesitation showing.

The bullets, the stabbing, the bloodshed—the violence caused to stop the violence. How did this make any sense? At first, you believed you fit into this twisted puzzle somewhere, that the jagged edges would find their place and somehow the kinks would work themselves out.

“What the hell is the point of all this? Are we really any better than him?” You finally replied, looking at the fruitless landscape painted out the window.

“If you have to ask that question, you’re already better than him.” You were. Not him. This, he was used to, hell, meant for. But for you, there was still expectancy. That’s truly what Simon believed.

If it weren’t for the guilt swallowing you, you might’ve scoffed at his patronizing.

“I’m not so sure I believe that anymore, Simon.”

TAGLIST: @random-thot-generator @littleobsessionsandlifeslessons @illyanam1011 @stunkbiggu @bi-witch-bxtch @warm-milk-with-honey @xheera (if you're not tagged properly, it's not letting me)

[darkbluekies]

Silas asks #3

Previous one Next one

Concept: I've put multiple asks into one post to avoid too much loose posts on my account! This way, you have more to read too<3

Warnings: a little nswf indication, death, indication of suicide, torture,

— ☁️ SILAS AND HEDWIG...! i also thought of them 😌 yanderes that are ruthless to everyone but has a soft side for their darling >>> silas reminds me of a huge teddy bear tbh 😓 he's probably so touchy if only you allow him to. grrr... the thought of sitting on his lap and snuzzling on his chest 😡

Omg yes he does :(( He's so addicted to you, never keeping his hands to himself. He doesn't care if it's only holding your hand or making you his, he loves to be close. Sitting on his lap and cuddling into his chest would be the death of him. Oh, he'd love it so much :((

— Y'know the urge to draw silas is cat ears is something brewing maybe even adding hedwig and jerry (small chance for dr.kry but its still there) to the list who knows not sure to go with my demons or nah

NO. SHOO. LEAVE. NO KITTY EARS ON SILAS

— How would Silas feel about a motherly type of darling? When he comes home from missions injured she absolutely insists on attending his wounds. And when he's sick, she takes care of him, nursing him back to health. She can't just stand by and watch someone else suffer after all!

He'd love it so much! He'd fall for you so badly. If you had any chance to escape before, now there's none. He'll watch over you like a hawk. He knows he doesn't deserve a kind soul like you, but he's so selfish that he'll keep you for himself.

"Thank you so much, baby, but, ouch, you shouldn't ... shouldn't do this. You shouldn't patch me up. I know you want to take care of me, but that's my job! I should take care of you, baby. Not the other way around. But ... thank you so much ... I love you."

— I just read your peice about attempting to escape Silas, and AHHHH Silas REALLY pisses me off!!!.......... And that's how you know you have a very well written villain!!! I thoroughly enjoyed reading that, and can't wait to read more in the future! Keep up the good work (⁠◠⁠‿⁠・⁠)⁠—⁠☆~🥀

haha thank you so much!! there will be more of Silas stupid behaviour in the future, don't you worry!

— What would happen if reader died or became seriously ill after Silas puts them in the basement for a while?

He'll be so sad and regret everything he's ever done. If you survive, he'll be much, much more careful. He'll never do that again. He nearly lost you! Silas can't imagine a life without you.

But if you died ... he'd break apart.

— Gosh seeing how Silas reacted to darling being sick. But like when it comes to me. I can alread imagine how he would be. Cause my immune system sicks I get sick easily...Then there's the fact that I'm clumsy af, I always have random bruises or cuts and don't notice them until I'm in the bath.

Silas would be in constant stress, my friend. You'd give him a heart attack.

— When Silas says he's gonna torture us as punishment at the end of "You Can't Hide From Me" What kind of torture? Like physical, psychological, etc?

I wanted to leave that up to the readers interpretation, but I thought maybe some kind of psychological. When he says that he'll make them know only him, he'll break them down until they don't remember anything but him. He'll destroy them.

— Oh, I’m going to torture you. Badly. What did Silas do to us?

...next question.

— What is Silas’ body count?

Let's say around ten. He's been out and about, tried different things here and there, but nowadays, he only wants you. And he makes sure you know that with how far beyond he'll take you :]

— How many people has Silas killed?

Maybe around thirty? He does half the dirty work himself and half he sends out his men to do.

[ugh-yoongi]

Can I put in a drabble request for yoongixreader where neither of them are big on Valentine’s Day but yoongi still is romantic on the day bc he’s like the person at the store sold me on the idea for the day? (Idk if that made sense but thank you!!)

hello, you absolutely can put in this request! thank you for sending it. this was fun. <3

pairing: yoongi x reader (no pronouns used)

genre: established relationship au, fluff

warnings: swearing. mentions of alcohol. yoongi being cute in his weird little yoongi ways.

wc: 1k

taking valentine's day drabble requests here ♡

You have a standing nine a.m. meeting on Tuesdays.

Like clockwork, Namjoon appears on camera and talks your ear off for thirty minutes about something or other, and that’s exactly what he does this morning, too. Some distributor in Europe is experiencing shipping delays, so there’s not much to catch up on because nothing’s moving, even though that’s paperwork too, so he just rocks back in his chair and says, “Doing anything fun for Valentine’s Day?”

And you pull a face, just like you always do. “No, we don’t really celebrate it,” you answer, because it’s more socially acceptable than going through your well-rehearsed Valentine’s Day is a capitalist scam bullet points.

Namjoon just hums, says something about chocolate and roses for his partner, maybe wine over a candlelit dinner, and it all sounds dreadfully uninspired.

So that’s how the rest of the day goes. You have another afternoon meeting with Jimin, who pops up on your screen wearing a headband trimmed with feathers and sequined hearts on tiny springs, and Jimin is animated, so they bobble in every direction the more excited he gets. Which—he works in human resources, so what is there to even get excited about?

By five-thirty you’re ready to log off and spend the rest of the evening on the couch. Maybe order some takeaway you’ll have to wait three times as long for and soak in a warm bath until all your skin turns pruney. You pick up your phone, halfway to texting Yoongi to see what he wants to do for dinner, when the lock turns in the front door.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, because there’s Yoongi, cheeks pink as he curses the cold, holding a suspiciously large gift wrapped in metallic red paper. “Hello,” you intone.

He gets caught up trying to toe off his sneakers and nearly brains himself on the console table. “Motherfuck,” comes his response. Then, like he’s just realizing you’d spoken, he says, “Hi, baby,” and sends you a gummy smile.

“What’s that?” you ask, gesturing to the package in his hands. “Looks an awful lot like it might be a Valentine’s Day gift.”

“It is,” he answers simply. “Do you want to open it?”

This is… not how this is supposed to go. Yoongi is arguably more of an anti-capitalist than you are. Your Yoongi would never buy you a Valentine’s Day gift. “Um.”

He takes one look at your expression—half confusion, half exasperation—and laughs. “It’s not gonna bite you.”

“Yeah, but—”

He sighs. Finally gets his sneakers sorted in the rack and waddles over, still wrapped tight in his winter coat. “But nothing. Here, open it.”

With one more questioning glance (that Yoongi promptly ignores), you take the gift from his hands. It’s heavy; feels solid, whatever it is. You pop the seams of the wrapping paper one at a time, still not convinced it’s not going to bite you, until the paper falls away to reveal a matte black box. A foot or so long, not as wide. You hear yourself gasp when you lift the lid.

Inside, there’s a gorgeous cutting board. Oiled maple, with the date of your and Yoongi’s anniversary etched into the corner. Resting on tissue paper with little hearts printed on it, for fuck’s sake. It’s almost sickening, how perfect it is. How thoughtful. How Yoongi it is, because this is his version of romance: something practical, something you’ve grumbled about needing a million times but haven’t gotten around to buying, because every time you mention getting a new cutting board Yoongi always scoffs and says, Why would I spend all that money on a cutting board when I could just make one for cheaper, and you reply, each time without fail, Have you seen the price of wood lately?

And, now, here it is. A cutting board with your anniversary etched into it, Yoongi still in his puffy jacket, looking bashful and a little embarrassed, fidgety as he awaits your reaction. “Do you hate it?” he asks. “I know we don’t really do gifts, but—”

“Min Yoongi, I am going to kick your ass.” You try to sound intimidating and Very Serious, but it comes out all waterlogged.

“Uh,” he responds, “I’m not really sure if that’s a yes or a no. Baby?”

“Of course I don’t hate it. Are you insane? Where did you even do this? When did you do this?”

He laughs, deep deep deep. Scratches at the back of his neck. “Funny story, actually. You know that weird store in the mall? The one with the ceramics and the painting and shit?” You nod; Jimin keeps trying to drag you there to get shitfaced and paint watercolors. “Yeah, well. I stopped by the mall today to buy Slam Dunk on DVD—”

“On DVD? Jesus, Yoongi, what are you, eighty years old?”

“—and some guy was standing outside trying to get people to buy shit, and I wasn’t gonna make you a fuckin’ lumpy mug, was I? So I said no, and he said come on, you look like a romantic guy, and I know he was lying and trying to get a reaction out of me, so I was like, yeah okay, but only if you have cutting boards, because you’ve been talking about getting one and I wasn’t expecting that weird fuckin’ store to have cutting boards, and then he said they did and it… just kind of spiraled.”

You’re a little stunned.

“Oh my god,” you reply. “You’re ridiculous. You’re the best. I love you. I didn’t get you anything, though.”

Yoongi shakes his head, presses a kiss to your forehead. “Don’t worry about it. I got the DVD set so just pay me back for it and we’ll call it even.”

“I can’t do that,” you argue. “You got me this nice, thoughtful gift—”

“Technically, I got you more, but I wanted to make sure you weren’t gonna murder me first.”

“What—” you begin to say, but then the doorbell rings.

There’s the delivery person, bag of takeout in hand from your favorite restaurant. Behind him, another delivery person from the bougie florist across town, holding what looks like a hundred roses.

“Min Yoongi!” you yell, and Yoongi quickly thanks the people at the door and shuts it. “I will sue you!”

[ghoultrifle]

mushy may day six !!!!

prompt: "you're blushing"

character: aurora/cumulus

word count: 700

summary: Rory being very cute but also very incapable of putting on her shoes

notes: the solution to the infantalisation of aeon is to infantalise aurora as well /hj

below the cut or on ao3 :))

She’s the definition of grace, hopping on the spot as she tries, to no avail, to get this goddamn shoe on her foot. Aurora pulls and twists all while nearly toppling over onto every available surface in the den, “Argh! Just. Go. On,” she cries, punctuated by the thud of her still-bare left foot against the floor.

With a hop, skip, and a jump she bounds into the kitchen, met by Swiss and Cumulus idly chatting, perched on the stools beneath the island counter. “Lus! Help me, please!” Aurora pleads, refusing to give up.

Cumulus giggles, the inexperienced ghoulette shuffling like a madman in her pursuit of… she’s not sure. “What are you doing, ‘rora?”

“Hnnf- Saw Aeon could put his shoes on standing up and couldn’t let him win,” she explains. The ghouls at the counter shoot her a confused stare, “You know, the bets?” Aurora is only met with more puzzled looks. “Whoever can master fifty human things first wins?” Swiss and Cumulus look at each other before Swiss pipes up.

“And you decided putting on shoes while standing upright is a trait so human that you’re having a competition over it?” He questions.

“Well, it’s not just that! We’ve also done throwing laundry in the hamper, making small talk, carrying the most amount of drinks without spilling them, loads of stuff!” 

“Don’t forget chugging the drinks too!” A distant voice calls out.

“Hi, Ae,” Cumulus shouts back before turning her attention back to Aurora. “So this is serious stuff, huh?” Aurora nods. “Well, I don’t know about you, Swiss, but I wouldn’t want to interfere with such a strict competition,” she says playfully but with a hint of sarcasm. Swiss nods his head in agreement.

So the multi ghoulette continues in her struggle, bending, stretching, at one point it looks like she’s doing the hokey cokey. “Really?! No help at all?” The others can only smile as they shake their heads. “Ugh, fine, I’m leaving.”

It would be a more poignant bite if she were able to actually direct herself out of the room, instead Aurora is stuck going in circles in an attempt to regain her balance. “Need a hand, sweetheart?” Cumulus jokes. That’s the push Aurora needs to steady herself and return to Aeon, foot still sitting halfway in the shoe.

“I don’t remember us doing anything like that when we were new summons, do you?” Cumulus asks.

“You’re blushing, Lus” Swiss grins.

“What? No?!” She says, flustered. “That’s not what I was talking about anyway. We were nev-”

“You have a crush on the new summon!” He says in a sing-song tone. “Look at you, you’ve gone all red and embarrassed, textbook crush behaviour!”

Cumulus only blushes harder, maybe she does have a thing for Aurora. The younger ghoul is just so playful and energetic; sometimes a bit of a loser but in the most endearing way; she’s sweet as a button but fierce too and- yeah Cumulus is fucked. “Okay, maybe yeah, but what about it? You’re practically welded to Aeon!”

“At least I own it, Lus,” he smiles, nudging her. “You should too.”

Aurora flies back into the kitchen, nearly sliding across the tile straight to the sink. She gathers herself and stands proudly, “Did it!”

“I can see, rorabug, well done!” Cumulus replies, sweetly.

“Uh huh! I’m on thirty eight now,” she grins excitedly. Cumulus has no idea why she’s so charmed by Aurora but she’s not complaining. She gathers some confidence before inviting Aurora over to where she’s sat. The younger ghoul is at the perfect height for Cumulus to place a delicate kiss on her cheek. It’s not much but she’s proud of herself.

“Oh, um, thanks Lus!” She smiles nervously, turning to leave the room.

After a gentle prod in the ribs from Aeon, that means she likes you too, Rory, do it back! She turns her body towards Cumulus and with an assertive stride she gives her a peck on the lips, “Join us?” She asks. Before waiting for an answer she runs away, giggling with Aeon. Those left in the kitchen can hear hushed whispers of celebrations and congratulations at their newfound knowledge of each other’s appreciation.

Swiss shrugs and puts his hands in the air, “I’m not stopping you, go get her!”

[bakugotrashpanda]

Two Truths and a Lie

Chapter 3: Always Second Place

Bakugou x Fem!Reader

◈ Pro Hero, Fake Engagement ◈ Word Count: 2730

◇ Chapter Select

◇ Previous Chapter

Bakugou finds out he’s engaged.

–Previously–

“Well if he’s fucking dating her, then I’m engaged to Dynamight,” you mutter to yourself.

–Earlier that day–

Bakugou pulls out his phone and checks the time again. She’s late. Of all the times he didn’t want her to be late, why did it have to be today. He shifts his weight on the balls of his feet – the need to constantly move and dispel some of his nervous energy is strong.

He checks the time again. Not even thirty seconds has passed from the last time. He runs his hands through his hair and exhales deeply. He needs to calm down. There’s no reason to get all worked up. He’s just going to officially ask her out. No biggie.

A bright bubbly voice calls out his name. “Bakugou!” He nearly gives himself whiplash turning to see her. Ochako waves and walks over to him, weaving between people on the sidewalk. The slight bounce in her step curls his lips into a smile.

She really is fucking adorable.

If Bakugou remembers correctly, and he almost always does, it’s her day off. She showed up in a soft-pink sweater and flowy blue skirt that swishes with every step she takes. Since he’s only on his lunch break, Bakugou changed into all black street clothes. It’d be easy to change back after.

“Hey, Cheeks,” Bakugou grins and takes her hand to pirouette her gently. The bottom of her skirt flares out before swishing against her legs again.

“Have you been waiting long?”

To ask you out? Yeah. Bakugou felt like he was finally at a place in his life where he could afford to have a relationship; he’d made it to the Top 8 heroes, was slotted to start his own agency in the near future, and was financially stable. He could go on dates and spend evenings in without it harming his career. And who else would he want by his side other than Ochako, his high school crush that he put on the back burner.

Bakugou holds the door open for her. “No, got here a couple minutes ago.” A lie. He got there a full ten minutes before he was supposed to. 

The light around them dims and soft jazz can faintly be heard as they step into the swanky restaurant. Bakugou feels underdressed. He’s out of his element, but this is Ochako. She deserves the best.

“This place is so fancy,” Ochako murmurs as they’re shown to a private table.

Bakugou pulls out her chair and pushes her in. The tips of her ears turn a rosy pink to rival her cheeks. He relaxes in his own chair and looks at her – like really looks at her. The place has good food, good atmosphere, and it’s just him and her. Bakugou had his doubts before about being in a relationship, but now? This? He could do this. 

“I thought you’d like it,” he grins.

Ochako tucks a loose strand of hair behind an ear and opens a menu. “Yeah, my boyfriend took me here once and I really liked it. They have good mochi.”

She might as well have poured her ice water on him. He doesn’t say anything for a second as he tries to curb the part of him that wants to shout WHAT BOYFRIEND?

“Boyfriend?” Bakugou clears his throat and grabs his own menu. He watches her like a hawk over the top. There’s no missing the way she freezes at this word or the way her cheeks bloom crimson. Her mouth imitates a fish out of water as she flounders for words. “I didn’t know you were seeing anyone.”

He works hard at keeping his voice casual. It’s an innocent question. There’s no need to hunt down a man she may or may not be seeing.

“I- I wasn’t supposed to say anything,” Ochako stammers quickly, “Just forget I said that.”

“Hold up, Cheeks. You can’t say that and then drop the subject.” We’ve been friends for over a decade, why is this the first I’m hearing of her having a boyfriend? “Who is he?”

Ochako bites her bottom lip. His heart squeezes at the action. It’s not for him. She’s thinking of someone else. Ugly jealousy takes root in his heart and stabs outward.

“Well, nothing’s official yet. We’ve been waiting before we announce it to the public,” she scratches her cheek and laughs nervously. “Actually, tonight we’re-”

“You’re not answering the question.”

“Bakugou…” She reaches across the table and rests her hands on Bakugou’s forearm. Before, he would’ve relished the contact, but now the usually comforting warmth sears his skin. “We’ve been friends forever. And you’ve always looked out for me, but I don’t want you to get upset.”

“Me? Upset? It’s not like you’re dating-”

“It’s Izuku.” They both knew how he was going to end that sentence. Ochako just finished it for him.

Are you fucking shitting me? That goddamn loser is dating her?

“Deku.” He can’t even be bothered to keep irritation out of his voice.

“Izuku, yes.”

“How long have you been seeing each other?” How long have I been oblivious?

“A couple months now. We wanted to keep it quiet for as long as possible.” Ochako looks at him with pleading eyes. Is it pity? Hope that he’ll keep their secret? Whatever it is, it twists his stomach into a thousand knots.

Suddenly the quiet jazz is too loud. There’s too many odors of different dishes mixing together and overwhelming his senses. The lights are too bright. He needs out of there. He needs away from her.

“I have to go.” He rises abruptly and searches for the exit.

“Wait, where are you going?” Shit. What can he say? ‘I need to sulk that you got a boyfriend when I was finally ready to ask you out?’

His phone chimes in his pocket. Saved by the bell. “Lunch break’s over. Gotta get back to the agency.”

How could he have not known? The woman he’d been crazy over for years suddenly had a boyfriend and he hadn’t seen any change in her. Or maybe… 

He thinks back to how she seemed to be smiling more. How a lovely blush would tint her cheeks sometimes before she snapped out of it. The dreamy sighs and accidentally floating herself into the ceiling while lost in thought. With all of that, how could he have not known? She might as well have had hearts for eyes, and he still hadn’t noticed.

Fuck everything. The text he got back at the restaurant was actually spam for some delivery place near his apartment. But she didn’t need to know that. He sends an email to his boss. Something about food poisoning. He wouldn’t be back for the day, and he’d pick up a night shift sometime to make up for it. 

Right now he needed air. And maybe a jog. His phone vibrates in his pocket. Ochako. He’d definitely need a jog. But first, he has to ditch his phone.

Jogging back to his apartment as the sun sets, he decides to take the stairs. His legs burn from sprinting and taking the stairs two at a time, but it gives his mind something to focus on.

Outside his apartment he stops. Another night in his apartment. Alone. Wiping sweat from his forehead, he unlocks his front door and tosses his keys and shoes to the side. His phone vibrates on the counter. Probably Ochako wondering what the hell is up with him. He’ll need an excuse… but he can deal with it later, for now, a shower to wash away everything sounds divine.

Steamy water runs over his skin and carries his thoughts with it. Something he learned from his mentor. It’s not easy to shut off his mind, but ironically with enough focus, he can stop his mind from wandering and replaying memories he knows he won’t be forgetting any time soon.

When Bakugou finally does check his phone, he nearly chokes on his own spit.

[Sparky] >> Are you for real engaged?

Engaged? Him? Bakugou’s about to fire off a response telling Kaminari to fuck off and lose his number when another message pops up in his notifications.

[Kirishima] >> bro i didn’t know you were dating anyone??? But congrats on the engagement!

What in the fuck? Bringing up his notification center, he sees responses pile up for his social media accounts. An outpouring of congratulations for ‘the happy couple’, some fangirls lamenting him being off the market, and plenty of people commenting in a way that has his blood boiling.

Haven’t these assholes heard of minding their own business? His fingers pound away on the screen, a scathing message that’ll get him locked out of his accounts and send his PR team into a tizzy. Really it’s their fault; if his PR team hadn’t insisted that he have ‘an online presence’, then this would be a non-issue.

Centimeters from hitting send and informing everyone that he is most certainly not engaged to whoever the hell is claiming it, another text pops up. 

[Deku] >> congratulations on your engagement

Oh hell no.

Fuck him.

Bakugou’s heart hammers into overdrive. This asshole has been secretly dating the woman he’s been pining for for years – and he probably knew about Bakugou’s feelings. And now he not only gets the girl, but also gets to laugh in his face about it? Kick him while he’s down?

Three bubbles pop up. The shithead’s still typing. What more could he have to say? Bakugou opens the Edit Contact section of his phone and types quickly before saving it.

[Asshole Deku] >> tbh i didn’t know you felt that way about her >> i didn’t know you and Verity knew each other

Verity… he knows that name…

Verity…

Right. Pro-Hero Verity. Quirk: Revelations. An underground hero known for getting answers. Didn’t attend UA. Commonly on loan to different agencies and assigned to high tier cases.

Fuck. He sounds like Deku rattling off your information like that. Speaking of Deku… last he heard, you were dating the dumbass on the downlow. Something hush-hush that the bastard let slip a couple times while on joint missions. If he recalls correctly, Deku seemed… fine with you. He wasn’t head over heels, but he wasn’t fucking miserable either.

Searching your hero name, he finds your verified Pro-Hero account and a slew of posts and pictures you’re tagged in. Funny that someone so ‘underground’ has official accounts. Probably something your agent made you do.

The vein in his temple throbs the more he sees. It looks like you started spouting nonsense half an hour ago, and the more he reads, the worse your spelling gets. Indeed, you claim to be engaged to Bakugou, but one thing is glaringly obvious: you’re fucking drunk. 

The most recent picture shows you surrounded by empty shot glasses and beer bottles. Keen eyes scan the background of every single photo you’re tagged in, taking in the pictures on the wall, the faded scratches and a faded handprint on the wood of the bar. Goddamn it he knows exactly where you are. 

Bakugou sighs and rubs his forehead. He can’t in good conscience leave you there, and he definitely can’t leave you alone to keep running your mouth. But fuck, why’d you have to make this a headache for him?

Picking up his shoes, he laces them tightly before throwing a black jacket on over his tank top. His phone vibrates again and he remembers he was mid conversation. The green haired asshole’s message taunts him. Fuck him. Why not have some fun?

[Bakugou] << can’t believe you let her go

Standing in front of the bar, he exhales deeply. Bakugou hasn’t been here in years. None of the times he went were his idea, but his former classmates wanted to hang out and no matter how much he protested, Bakugou always found himself being drug along. 

Cheers meet his ears before he can even push it open. Bakugou can feel his hands sweat – can they see him already? Do they think he’s engaged? This was a mistake. He should’ve just stayed at home and sulked.

But you. You’re the reason he’s here. You were dating fucking Deku. You were supposedly what made him happy. Except apparently you’re not now. And you’re dragging his name through the mud.

He opens the door. There’s no earth-shattering quietness at his arrival. No shouts of his name and congratulations. No one even looks at him. Heads are pushed together at everyone’s respective tables and it reminds him of when he was brought here years before. Everyone is having a good time and a good laugh, but not at his or your expense.

He walks up to the bar with forced nonchalance. You’re slumped over, finger circling the rim of an empty shot glass. You look fucking miserable.

Bakugou places a hand on your shoulder and leans in so his mouth is a whisper away from your ear. “Hi, sweetie,” he says through gritted teeth, “Let’s get you home.”

“Dynamight!” you giggle and slide off your barstool. Your footing isn’t solid though and the first step you take nearly sends you to the floor. Bakugou’s quick on his feet and turns the fall into him sweeping you off your feet and holding you bridal style. Another giggle bubbles up from you. You wrap your arms around his neck and rest your head against his shoulder. 

Turning to the bartender, he eyes the mess you left. He needs you out of there and somewhere more private before you start spouting off more lies. Somehow he finagles a business card out of his pocket while holding you and tosses it on the counter. “If she didn’t leave a card on file then send a bill to me. I’ll take care of it.” And you would reimburse him tenfold. 

Without waiting for a reply, he walks out of there and into the cool night. You curl into him as if you’re cold. Based on the mess you left, there should be enough in your system to keep Kirishima, Sero, and Kaminari warm on the frostiest winter night.

He manages to hail a cab – no easy feat given that he’s carrying you, but the alternative of walking home essentially carrying a body wouldn’t be any better. 

It takes what feels like ages to get you up to his apartment. First you fought him getting out of the cab, sleepily claiming that you could do it on your own. Then he had to keep you in one place in the lobby as you started to wake up and get your second wind as well as the need to explore. And to top it off, you lost all that energy as soon as the elevator started moving so he had to pick you up a second time and unlock his apartment.

For a split second, he contemplates dropping you onto his bed and calling it a night, but a nagging voice in the back of his head that sounds suspiciously like Kirishima says that wouldn’t be the right thing to do. So he lowers you onto the covers and pulls the free end over you. You burrow into the black comforter and sigh. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, but Bakugou swears he can see glistening drops lining your lashes. 

What the fuck is he going to do? Will you even remember this in the morning? He doubts he’ll get any sleep tonight after everything that happened.

Leaning down, he adjusts the covers one last time so your face isn’t covered in case everything you ate and drank decides to make a reappearance. Just as he’s about to leave, your hand reaches up and cups his cheek. Your skin is warm against his. Too warm.

Your eyes open slightly and stare up at him, a small confused frown puckering your lips.

“Ka’suki,” you slur quietly. Your lip quivers, and for a moment panic floods Bakugou that you’re going to hurl all over him. A single tear slides silently down your cheek. “I fucked up.”

Truth: Every time Bakugou replays the moment Ochako says she’s dating Deku, it feels like a slap to the face.

Truth: You’re a complete pain in the ass.

Lie: It doesn’t bother him that Deku is ahead of him. Again.

◇ Next Chapter

Tag List: @thatfanfictionwriter , @loving-katsuki , @dienamights , @katditca , @boosyboo9206 , @alex-sulli , @hypernovaxx , @daddyissxes , @ti-mame , @thekaylahub , @ms0milk , @nerd-nowandforever , @minninugget , @tiny-wooden-robot , @icedemon1314 , @xviternity , @naiomiwinchester , @lovinkiri , @sincerelyyrosemary , @abnormalanimeweeb , @satogg , @liberace2 , @acid-rain27 , @itgetzweird08 , @chaoticorganizedmess , @neurovascular-entrapta , @kiwiified , @bnha-free-writing , @fishbolw , @xxkay15xx , @zombiewarprincess , @izuwumidoriya , @blue-enigma , @mommy-without-milkers , @plaggi , @budibbly , @hiqhkey , @great-goddess-of-sin, @iam-thevillain-of-thisstory, @zyxys1, @doonaandpjs , @chifuyus-slut ,

[lfthinkerwrites]

fireworks - author's choice ❣️

(Went for a different use of the term lol. Hope you enjoy!)

Dr. Arkham sighed. “Harvey, we’ve talked about the language. Before we continue the session, please apologize to Edward for what you said about his mother.”

From his place in the so-called ‘friendship circle’ between Jonathan and Waylon, Edward shrugged, “That’s not necessary, Dr. It’s been nearly thirty years since I’ve seen the woman. For all I know, she could be a syphilitic whore.”

Joker cackled and Pamela made a disgusted noise. Dr. Arkham shook his head. “Edward, please. This group therapy session is meant to foster a positive relationship in Arkham. We don’t want a repeat of what happened in the cafeteria yesterday.”

“We don’t?” Joker asked. “Aren’t we all glad that Jervis stabbed Laszlo with a sharpened spork?”

“You still want us to think Jervis did that?” Jonathan drawled.

“Well he did have the spork in his pocket.” Joker let out an exaggerated gasp. “Wait! Are you trying to imply that he was framed, Spooky? By who?”

“No one’s implying anything Joker.” Personally, Arkham agreed that Jervis didn’t do it, but he didn’t care enough to get the little bastard out of solitary. “Let’s move on. I’d like everyone here to say something positive about someone. Joker, we’ll start with you. Say something positive and keep it appropriate please.”

Joker grinned. “I know something positive! I found out that if you hit Robin in the spleen with a crowbar, he squeaks like a dog’s chew toy!”

Arkham wiped a hand down his face and willed himself not to cry. “I said to keep it appropriate, Joker.” A loud laugh was his only response. Arkham squeezed his eyes shut, internally counted to ten, then turned his gaze to Waylon. “Would you like to say something positive, Waylon?”

Waylon rubbed his chin with a scaly hand. “It can’t be about eating people?”

Arkham resisted the urge to throw his writing pad at Waylon’s face. He had a shock collar on and there were armed guards just outside, but why risk it? “No Waylon, it can’t be about eating people.”

Waylon nodded. “Ok. I have something positive to say about Jervis.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah. I’m happy that he’s in solitary and I don’t have to listen to him whine about Alice!”

Joker cackled again, as did Edward, Pamela, and even Arnold. Arkham took a deep breath. “Fine, Waylon. That’s nice. That’s very nice. Now, does anyone else have anything positive they want to say?” Edward’s hand shot up. “For the love of God, anyone other than Edward?”

Joker clicked his tongue. “Uh, uh, uh, Dr. Arkham. Remember, positivity!”

Arkham was positively sure he was about to storm out of the room, call Belle Reve and have every single one of these degenerates join Harley down south. “Fine. Ok. What do you have to say, Edward?”

Edward lowered his hand and smiled. “I’d just like to say that I really do appreciate my time in Arkham. Whenever I’m here and interact with you all, I’m reassured that I am indeed, the most brilliant criminal mind in all of Gotham.”

Harvey jumped up and threw his chair at Edward, who yelped and jumped into Jonathan’s lap to avoid it. Waylon caught the chair and threw it back, sending it flying over Harvey’s head. It hit the wall with a crash. Joker threw his head back and laughed.

“Get off me!” Jonathan shouted, shoving Edward to the floor.

“Asshole!” Edward shouted back.

“Narcissistic megalomaniac!”

“Inbred hick!”

“High school dropout!”

Edward gasped. “Jon! You promised never to tell anyone about that!”

Pamela laughed. “All that talk about being a genius, and you couldn’t even finish high school? Pathetic.”

Arkham agreed, but he needed to at least attempt to get things under control, or else the guards would come in and…actually, wait. Fuck these people. The guards could brutalize them as much as they wanted. Edward was up on his feet now and screaming in Jonathan’s face, and Jonathan was screaming right back. Waylon, Harvey, Pamela, and Joker seemed content to watch the show, Joker chiming in with his own commentary. Arnold just kept nervously watching the door.

Dr. Arkham really, really hated his job.

[demogordon]

How Soon Is Now?

Pairing: Steve Harrington/GN Reader

Wordcount: 8.2k

Summary: Over the course of eight months, Steve finds himself falling in love.

Category: Fluff

Warnings: language, implied AFAB!Reader, lightly implied nudity, some hurt/comfort, reader gets kissed on a date and isn’t entirely thrilled about it, light Stancy mentions, implied Neurodivergent!Reader

Notes: I’ve been writing this for three weeks now, it’s become much longer than I anticipated. Happy Volume 2 Eve, everyone. 

  ----

Dustin Henderson’s instructions had been very specific. On December 15th, the night of the Snow Ball, Steve was to pick him up at eight-thirty. Not eight-twenty-nine, not eight-thirty-one, eight-thirty. Dustin wanted to arrive fashionably early to a party which started at nine, for which he had nothing in particular to be excited about. 

Steve was to take him to the dance. Not like, take him-take him, like drop him there and then buzz off and make himself scarce until eleven-thirty, when the dance would be over. Then he had to pick Dustin up and deliver him back home in one piece.

It was a bit contrived and over complicated, but Steve knew his scheduled dates and his times all too well, even double checking that this would all take place during the p.m. and not the a.m. Dustin had stared incredulously at him for a full and very silent thirty seconds before blinking once and nodding. 

When he gets Dustin’s frantic call on December 8th and can’t get Dustin to relax for the life of him, Steve nearly descends into cardiac arrest, especially when he can’t get the kid on the other end to calm the fuck down enough to explain a single word. After a solid two minutes of the both of them near hyperventilating, Dustin finally spits out, “I don’t have anything to wear.” 

“What?”

“I said I don’t have anything to wear.”

“No. No, I heard you. I just don’t follow.” 

“I need you to take me to Maureen’s. In downtown. It’s on South Main Street.” Steve knows Maureen’s. It’s practically the only place in Hawkins for formal attire, a tiny boutique run by Maureen Angelos, a shrunken and ancient woman who was, despite a sour appearance, extremely kind and just a hair shy of too helpful. 

Steve had gone there for every single nice article of clothing he ever needed, including his suit for junior prom. He really didn’t want to think about junior prom because he went with Nancy and when he saw her standing there, in a satiny pink dress, huge eyes reflecting the tiny glass lights around the room, he’d decided he was going to marry her. That was all bullshit now. But he doesn’t tell any of that to Dustin. 

Instead he says, “I know Maureen’s. Why do you need me to take you?”

“You’re gonna know what looks cool! If you don’t go, then it’s gonna be my mom and you know what she’s like!” Claudia Henderson, despite being one of the nicest women in town, was also one of the most dowdy and frilly. She would likely force Dustin into some awful but very fluffy sweater, printed all over with piss-yellow argyles and little pink cats. Steve can actually picture the sweater and he’s pretty sure it’s because he’s seen her wear it around town.

“Yeah, okay. What time?”

“Now’s good.” With an eye roll, Steve affirms, and then hangs up as he rolls off of his bed onto his feet. He’s mostly spent these past few weeks lounging around feeling bad for himself, drinking more alcohol than usual with melancholy fervor, and being harassed by Dustin. He doesn’t actually mind the last one. He really likes Henderson and all of his friends. Most of his friends. 

He can’t look at Mike, he looks so damn much like Nancy that it hurts his chest and then he gets convinced that he’s having dysrhythmia and lays down to die only to discover that what hurts isn’t actually physical enough to kill him. And the bowl cut kid, the one who went missing a year ago, is so gentle that Steve’s hurt when he thinks about Jonathan Byers swallows itself by the tail, so while he does like Will, he doesn’t want to spend much time with him. Steve feels selfish for it but he wants to cling onto his pain. It’s really all he has right now. 

Steve sort of zones out as he drives, passing places he used to haunt when he was really just a vapor of a person, held together by loutish ego and hairspray. Tommy Hagan’s worn down front door, surrounded by overgrown hedge, where the pair of them snuck beers and cigarettes back in the sixth grade. Carol Perkins’s front yard where the trio of them (Steve, Tommy, and Carol) used to practice using their best swear words. The parking lot of the local church, where he and Tommy used to do doughnuts every winter, which somehow never killed them. The park, where he and Tommy and Carol and whoever Steve was having sex with at the time and maybe Tina or Nicole or somebody used to loiter for hours until Chief Hopper would show up, half drunk and half wild and all delirious and yell at them to, “Go the fuck home!”

Dustin is waiting for him on his doorstep, practically vibrating from anticipation. Steve tries to bring himself to be annoyed that he’s been demanded out of his house on a Saturday afternoon when he’s actually maybe still a little hungover from his one-too-many pity beers last night, but he couldn’t possibly. Weirdly enough, Dustin Henderson is the closest thing Steve has to a real friend right now and it makes him happy to see him bounce his way into the car with the fervor of a puppy that’s been let off of its leash. He shuts the door a little too loudly for Steve’s beer-headache and if he notices Steve’s wince, he doesn’t say anything. 

The drive to Maureen’s is chatty. Dustin likes to talk. Steve also likes to talk but when he’s with Dustin, he mostly listens, which he likes. He didn’t ever know he was a good listener until about a month ago, when he started hanging out with Dustin. Steve parallel parks just out front of Maureen’s, which Dustin is excited about, and he’d be lying if he said it didn’t make him feel a little more like his old self. Not the bad one, but the good one, the confident one. 

In the store, Maureen hobbles over and borderline clings to Steve’s arm and rests her whole body weight against him as she hoarsely asks what they need help finding. Steve tells her truthfully that they don’t need any help and pulls Dustin along to look at the dress shirts, of which there are a surprising amount in a whole array of colors. Dustin’s first pick is brown and patterned with abstract purple paisley. When Steve grimaces, Dustin shoves it back. 

Green and yellow is a no. So is the fuschia one. So is the plaid one. And the carmine and cornflower one. Steve eventually starts shifting through the shirts in Dustin’s size himself, finally settling on a turquoise blue one. He produces it and holds it up in front of the kid, who looks at him skeptically. 

“You have blue eyes, yeah? This one will look good.” 

After a few minutes, Dustin steps out of the tiny changing booth to show him. After Steve gives his approval, Dustin averts his eyes sheepishly and asks, “Can you tell me how to tie a tie?” 

Steve pulls two ties off of a nearby rack, to which Dustin starts. “A bow tie.” 

So Steve grabs two bow ties and drapes one over the back of his neck and hands the other to Dustin. Steve shows him, once slowly: cross over, wrap up and over, wrap down and under, loop around, pull out the sides to present a bow. Then he watches Dustin try it several times. He gets it right and then unties it to do it again. 

The bells tied to the door jingle as it opens. Steve can hear Maureen slowly ambling over and in a harsh whisper, asking how she can help. And then, clear as day, the sound of you, laughing and your voice. 

Steve’s stomach drops to his toes. His blood gets cold but his face is unbearably hot and suddenly he’s sweating all over, probably through his shirt, even though it’s December in goddamn Indiana. He glances over at the full length mirror, suddenly wishing he could check up on how he looks, but Dustin is in front of the mirror, retying his tie for the fifth time now. Steve remembers that he has a bow tie tied around his own neck and goes to take it off as fast as he can, but before he can even start—“Hey, Steve!” 

“Hey,” Steve says, trying and failing to act cool. You beam at him and yeah, he gets why they call it that now, because your smile is so bright and warm it makes him want to melt. It actually makes his knees liquefy just a tad, so he shifts a little so you don’t notice how weak his legs have suddenly become. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, and he wishes it hadn’t come out sounding so accusatory and he semi winces, but you only smile wider, which he didn’t think was even possible. 

“I’m getting shoes for the Winter Concert.” At his clear confusion, you add, “For choir. At school. I’m in the show choir.” 

“Oh.” He laughs and it comes out more like letting out a heavy exhale. You look at him expectantly for a second and it doesn’t click until it does. “Oh! Yeah, I’m here with Dustin. Getting stuff for the Snow Ball.” 

“I like your tie,” you say. He glows and he’s sure you can see it on his face, that he’s lit up like a glow worm. 

He’s known you for a while. During that winter of ‘83, you were a force to be reckoned with, fierce and fiery. Only seventeen and a half hours after he watched you beat the shit out of whatever in God’s name that thing was, you showed up on his doorstep with an approximate fuckton of homemade chocolate chip cookies for him and Nance along with a promise that you were always ready to lend an ear and slash or be a friend. Steve hadn’t taken you up on it much and sometimes he regretted that. 

This past month, he’s had his ass handed to him in front of you by Billy goddamn Hargrove, for whom you had many choice words (“He’s so fucking, he’s just, fuck!” So mad you were borderline shaking even hours later as the group bundled up after the gate’s closure). You also smashed several of the gross, weird dog creature things, pinning them down after whacking them with the biggest kitchen knife he had ever seen and stomping on their skulls with your chunky Doc Marten boots. He questioned your method of using a knife as a bludgeon but he couldn’t deny that it had worked. You’d beaten a dog thing half to death after kicking it off of him and then helped him up off his ass with a surprising amount of strength. And to cap it all off, you’d comforted him a bit about Nancy, providing solace for his bruised and beaten heart. 

Because of your far from standard badassery, you know his biggest and worst secret: Steve is not cool. He’s so uncool that it hurts and you’re so fucking cool that he can’t stand it. 

“Uh, when is this Winter Concert?” 

“It’s on the fifteenth at 8:30. It goes until about 9:30 ish.” Your eyes are full of something that Steve can’t quite read. Excitement, maybe? Apprehension? He’s about to confirm that he will absolutely be there, front row, wielding a giant sign with your name and maybe whatever your jersey number is on it, when Dustin pipes up from the mirror. 

“That’s when the Snow Ball is! It starts at 9:00. Steve’s my ride,” he says, almost absently, like he’s just been reminded of the upcoming event. It’s almost imperceptible, but Steve swears he sees your face fall before you remember not to let it. 

“Well, you guys have fun, I’ve got to, uh, shoes. I’ll see you around!” You say, very hurriedly dashing off. Steve lifts his hand in a tiny wave that you don’t see but someone else does. 

“So that’s what acting like you don’t care looks like.” Steve shoots Dustin a sharp look before ruffling the kid’s hair. 

“Come on, smart guy, let’s get your shit and go home.” 

A week later, Steve is exactly punctual. Dustin is not. Steve knocks on the Henderson’s door and is ushered inside where he waits for him next to the front door, with Claudia ambling around just generally trying to make herself seem busy. When Dustin dashes to the door, his hair is Farrah-Fawcett-fluffy and his bow tie is tied neatly at his throat. 

Steve offers parting words of advice to his small child friend and waits to make sure he makes it into the building and catches a glimpse of Nancy. She’s as beautiful as she’s always been, as most people are. Seeing her makes his stomach hurt and that feeling doubles down when he glances at his dashboard clock. 9:01. On a sudden impulse, Steve puts it in reverse and floors it across the way towards Hawkins High. 

9:12. Every goddamn person in town must be at this thing because Steve is struggling to find any open space. When he finally gets himself nestled into a spot that’s probably a hair too small, Steve shuts off his car and leaps out, almost slipping on the tar of the parking lot. He sees the gym doors, glowing light peeking out and races toward them. He opens the door and tiptoes into the building, somehow managing to avoid causing a distraction as the guy who must be the choir teacher yammers into the microphone. Steve isn’t really listening to him as he stands to the side of the bleachers, tucked out of the way. 

You have a dress on. It’s deep green, school colors, and hangs past your knees but he can see the pair of black flats you must have gotten that day at Maureen’s. They're the pretty kind that have ties around your ankles. You fidget your feet uncomfortably like you’re still not used to them. As soon as the director stops speaking, your head snaps up like you’re worried someone caught you not paying attention. Probably nobody even noticed except for Steve. 

When your group’s last song starts, Steve doesn’t recognize it even faintly. But it's pretty. He can’t even hear anybody but you.

----

If you’re under the age of sixteen, you have to be accompanied by someone over the age of sixteen to be allowed to rent roller skates, Max explains to him. That’s why Steve has to come with her and why she can’t just come by herself. Even if her friends were coming, which they’re not, since Fridays are their D&D night (whatever that means), they couldn’t get skates by themselves anyway. Besides, it wasn’t like he really had anything better to do, something that Max made a point to remind him of. 

The new roller rink in Hawkins blares neon at all hours of the day, even after its 11:30 p.m. closing time, but now, at 8:45 on a Friday night in mid April, it’s crowded to its limits. Max bounces ahead of Steve, not waiting up for him as he wobbles his way clumsily towards the floor. He’d thought since he’d always been so athletic—assigned the prestigious role of co-captain of the Hawkins High swim team for two years running and captain of the basketball team, and though they didn’t win their championship, he was their star player—he would never have any trouble with any sort of athletic feat. He has since been proven wrong. 

Steve feels like a confused baby deer, knees buckling and thighs wobbling and he clings to the railing as soon as he reaches it. Max finally spares him a backwards glance and does an obligatory and very Maxish eye roll before she skates back over to him seamlessly. She holds out her hand and the moment Steve takes it, she yanks him along at top speed. He flails wildly, off balance immediately, but she is completely unfazed. Max is not very big. Steve should be far more difficult for her to tow without even really breaking much of a sweat, but she is nonchalant while flinging him around like a ragdoll. . 

With no warning, his left knee crumbles inward and Steve lets go of her hand to catch himself on his palms and his right knee, which jarrs his limbs incredibly painfully. He scrambles up to his feet, slipping and very nearly falling again before hoisting himself up to anchor to the rail. Max pauses. 

“You need to balance your weight fully on the balls of your feet and bend your knees. You push off with your foot and then bring it back to the ground and glide.” She demonstrates, like it’s the easiest thing in the entire world. Steve lets go of the railing and immediately pitches forward again and in his attempt to not smash his face into the ground, he twists and lands harshly on his ass. 

“Fuck!” Steve yelps, barely noticing the word coming out of his mouth as Max is overcome with sudden impish glee. 

“Hey!” She shouts at someone behind him, behind the railing. She waves wildly, before poking Steve with her toe brake. He isn’t really all that enthused to look like an embarrassing doofus in front of one of Max’s kid friends, most of whom he actually knows pretty well. He’ll never hear the end of it from any of those kids, except maybe the little one with the bowlcut. Steve sulks a bit, not wanting to be noticed by whoever it is that Max is so excited to see. Max turns her attention back to him and snaps, “Are you gonna get up, Steve?” 

Steve grabs back onto the safety rail and hauls himself upward and leans back cooly against the rail. Then and only then does he turn to see whoever Max’s friend is. When he realizes it’s you, Steve wants to retreat into himself as hard as he can, like a very embarrassed turtle. He hopes that you didn’t just see him fall and maybe you didn’t because you’re grinning like you're excited to see him and not like you just watched him make a complete and utter fool of himself. He’s about to let out a deep breath he’s been holding when Max pipes up right as you arrive next to him through garish yellow railing. 

“Did you see Steve just eat absolute shit?” 

You laugh as Steve kicks at her with no real force behind it. 

“I did not. Maybe I’ll get an encore performance.” Your eyes are squinty and happy. You’re teasing him and Steve feels fire swallow him up from the pit of his belly to the tips of his ears. Max looks at him very pointedly, as if she’s trying to communicate something extra with just her eyes. 

“Can you promise not to break any bones while I go race with those guys over there?” Steve gives her a thumbs up after assessing Max’s acquaintances and deciding she’ll be perfectly safe. She takes off immediately. Zoomer. 

When he turns, you’re gone and he thinks for a horrible moment that you’ve left and now he’s going to huddle in the corner until he has to peel Max away at closing time. Then he sees you looping through one of the openings in the railing to head over to him and all is right again. Then he realizes you’re probably here with someone and his heart seizes up again. Steve tries to say something to you, but when he opens his mouth, absolutely nothing comes out. He probably looks like a gobsmacked goldfish. He closes his mouth. 

“So you’re here with Max?” He’s glad that you can act like a person when he can’t. 

“Yeah. What about you?” In his mind he crosses his fingers that it isn’t a date, please don’t let it be a date, please, seriously, he won’t ask for anything else if you aren’t on a date. 

“Oh, I’m here with Kevin. You know Kevin, right?” Steve knows Kevin. Steve has known Kevin since the eighth grade, when he watched Kevin cut his gums while biting his toenail on a dare. Steve does not like Kevin and it is actually mostly unrelated to the whole toenail thing. 

Almost as if on cue, Kevin comes hurtling over with one large paper cup full of something and a bag of popcorn. He flings the cup into your hands over the railing. From this angle, Steve can see it’s full of blue Slurpee, but also from his very close proximity, he can smell that there is a lot of alcohol mixed into it, which he assumes Kevin brought from home. You delicately hand it back to him, pointing at the “NO FOOD OR DRINKS PERMITTED ON SKATING FLOOR” sign. He accepts it back fairly graciously, which Steve finds a little surprising. The silence between you, the three of you, is incredibly tense and awkward until a voice booms over the loudspeaker, announcing the hourly couple’s skate. Steve’s eyes meet yours but he looks away before you say anything at all. Instead, Kevin shoves both the popcorn and the drink into Steve’s arms before leaping over the rail and somehow not killing himself in the process. As Kevin takes you to the center of the rink and Foreigner’s gentle love ballad (I Want to Know What Love Is) begins to play, you look back at him and give him the softest smile he’s ever seen. 

Through the entirety of the song, which is maybe the longest four minutes and fifty-one seconds of Steve’s entire life, you keep glancing over at him. Every single time, he knows you find him already looking at you, but he can’t take his eyes off of you, not when he wants to catch your gaze every time. And it’s because he’s looking so insistently that he catches the end of the song, when Kevin pulls you into his chest tightly, caging you in his arms, and kisses you. You push away after only a few seconds and look a bit frazzled, and you skate off of the rink pretty frantically, not looking at him. Steve’s stomach drops like he’s on a roller coaster but in a bad way. Kevin very nonchalantly comes over to take back his contraband.

“What’s their problem?” He punctuates his sentence with a very loud slurp of his cocktail. Steve shakes his head and starts taking slow, careful roller skate steps in your direction, guiding himself with the rail. He can feel Kevin watching him the entire time, a look of incredulousness on his face. Steve doesn’t actually really care all. He’s focused on getting to where you are, now alone at a little table near the west side wall, which is one giant window. He almost makes it. 

Letting go of the railing, he continues slow, small steps, but starts getting anxious to go faster, to get over to you and check on you. Steve hopes you aren’t crying. He doesn’t want you to cry. He’s so focused on hoping that you’re not crying that he missteps. He knows you see this time, as he careens directly into the ground. He hits his forearm pretty hard and his jaw knocks against something, causing his teeth to all clash together. For a second, he’s decided to just stay there forever so he never has to face you again, when he sees your feet, your roller skates, come into his field of vision. You kneel down next to him.

“Are you okay?” You’re genuinely concerned until he nods, and then you start laughing so hard that you’re shaking and then you do his favorite thing in the whole world, which is when you lose control of your giggle fits and you snort, which always makes you giggle even harder. He can’t help but laugh too as you help him shift into a sitting position. You’re laughing and it’s so not mean and you didn't even laugh at all until you made sure he wasn’t really hurt and that makes him laugh, because he’s fine and you’re not even put off by his extreme lack of grace. 

“We have got to get these death traps off of you, Steve,” you say, pinching the toe of his skate and wiggling it. The intimacy of you untying his shoe and sliding it off is not lost on him. As soon as his skates are off, you take yours off too, swatting his hand when he tries to unlace them for you. Your date with Kevin is all but forgotten, but Steve has never been known for his tact, so he immediately brings it up. 

“Are you okay?” You look almost confused for a second.

“I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be?”

“You sort of flew over here, you know, after…” Steve trails off, looking at you expectantly. You shift into a sitting position on the floor next to him, wiggle your feet to get them to wake back up, God, your circulation is awful, and then you scrunch your nose. 

“It wasn’t like, terrible or anything, you know. He just didn’t ask first. And he was holding me too tight, which I really,” you sigh. “You know how I feel about that.” Steve does. You told him one time that when you get hugged too tight, you feel like a teeny tiny little mouse getting suffocated by a boa constrictor, except inside your chest and lungs and around your heart. 

“Plus, he really didn’t smell very good,” you say, frowning, which makes Steve bark out a laugh. You elbow him gently but pointedly in his side, reminding him to Be Nice. 

“Sorry, sorry! I just wasn’t expecting you to say that,” he says, grinning. It drops a little when he asks, “But seriously. Are you okay? Did that, you know, hurt you?” He wants to kick himself. He knows it didn’t physically hurt you, obviously. But-

“No. I’m okay. I mostly just felt stuck, and that’s why I ran off so fast. Thanks for checking on me, though.” 

“Any time.” Steve really wants to tell you that he thinks you look really pretty and that he thinks that Kevin is an idiot, especially for not listening to you, but he’s cut off by someone else plunking down on his other side. Thankfully, it’s just Max. 

“What’s up?” 

“It’s all just couples making out now. Can we go home?” Steve smiles and gets up on his sock feet. When he holds out his hand to help you up, he sees that you’re gazing off into space. Oh, actually you’re not though, you’ve just noticed that goddamn Kevin has found some other girl to skate with and is not at all bothered by your absence. You look a little bit hurt and he can’t stand seeing that look on your face so Steve nudges your cheek gently with his knuckles and you jump a little before grabbing hold of his hand and letting him help you up.

“Do you need a ride home?” Max asks you. “Steve can take you.” 

And Steve takes you home. And then he takes Max home. If she’d noticed anything about you or your date or about Steve in the past few hours, she doesn’t let on. Once Max is safely inside her front door, Steve drives back through the other side of town, ready to collapse face first into his pillow.

And when he drives past the roller rink again, still neon and bright, he sees Kevin, now outside with that other girl. The two of them are sitting on the curb, sharing his popcorn and looking up at the stars and they’re smiling and some of Steve’s dislike of Kevin fades away a little, but he’s not entirely sure why. He just keeps driving home. 

 ----

The pool has been under construction for months. Steve had been working there over summers since his freshman year of high school but a combination of reasons kept him from coming back for the upcoming months. For one, Hargrove got a job there and he can’t imagine trying to converse with him civilly after he tried to kill Steve and at least two of his young charges. For two, his father wanted him to work in the food service industry, something Richard Harrington considered to be far more demeaning than almost any other job. Steve didn’t particularly agree, but he’s really only one fight with his dad away from an eviction notice so he doesn’t point that out. 

It’s the first Friday after the end of the 1985 school year. Steve’s young friends want him to take them to the pool now that it’s open again. It was the day before Henderson was supposed to go off to summer camp in the middle of nowhere. So Steve has agreed to take them, although he did make sure to mention it more than once to you so that he could make sure that you ended up there at the same time. 

Steve ushers in the whole group, Mike and Will and Max and Lucas and Dustin and is immediately disappointed that the pool is A) incredibly crowded and B) there is absolutely no sign of you anywhere. He’s instantly huffy and mopes all the way over to a miraculously unoccupied pool chair, which he flings himself into with a dramatic sigh. At least from here he can keep an eye on his kids. Steve uncaps his sunscreen and covers his whole torso, his arms and his legs before realizing that he won’t be able to cover his own back. He pouts harder before pulling his t-shirt back on. 

After about a half an hour, Dustin comes over to his chair, dripping with water and the smell of chlorine, and pokes Steve in his belly.

“Why are you so sulky? Is it ‘cause your lady friend isn’t here yet?” Steve shoots up from his theatrical recline (in case you walk in at any minute so you can see him from his best angle) to glare daggers at him. 

“First off, I’m not sulking.” He absolutely is. “And even if I was sulking, which I am not, it wouldn’t be because my lady friend isn’t here.” It absolutely is. “I don’t even know who you’re talking about.” He absolutely does.  

“Whatever, you don’t have to be such a weirdo about it,” Dustin scolds. 

“I’m not,” Steve insists, punctuated with an eye roll. He stretches out, arms overhead, groaning quietly as his spine cracks in several spots. Dustin crinkles his nose at him with a frown. 

“Staring isn’t gonna just make them appear out of nowhere.” 

“You don’t know that,” Steve says, forgetting that he wasn’t supposed to know who Dustin was talking about. Dustin mimes jamming his index finger hard down his throat and exaggerated vomiting. The message is clear. Henderson finds his gooeyness utterly nauseating. Steve does too actually. 

He watches the gate for hours, waiting for you to walk in, lower belly tied in knots and palms sweating profusely. Every passing minute makes it clearer that you aren’t coming this time but he keeps hoping and hoping and hoping. He gets dragged in the water for a bit and tries to turn his mind off and just enjoy himself. It doesn’t entirely work but he does manage to have some fun, even when Mike pushes him over in the deep end in a very clear assassination attempt that sends a fuckton of water up his nose. 

Even as he’s ushering his crowd of kids who are still too wet to get in the car, he’s on his tiptoes craning his neck to search around the parking lot for any trace of you. The kids clamor as he shoves them unceremoniously back into the car, Dustin and Lucas spending a full minute arguing over who gets to ride shotgun until Max gives Lucas a dirty look that sends him scrambling to the backseat with her. 

Steve is moodily quiet as he drives home and drops all of his kids off. He saves Dustin for last. The kid scowls at him as they pull up to his house. 

“Do me a favor, Steve, and get this shit figured out before I come back. You have a month.” He doesn’t have to clarify what shit he’s referring to. Steve swats his friend on his shoulder affectionately, punctuated with an eye roll. Dustin takes the swat with grace, using it to propel himself out of the car door.

“Have fun! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Steve calls out through his unrolled window as Dustin walks toward his front door. Dustin responds with a thumbs up and his typical sugary toothless grin. Steve is really going to miss him, even if he is annoying sometimes and thinks he knows everything despite being fourteen. He’s still thinking about it as he pulls into his driveway which is how he misses you at first. 

You’re sitting on Steve’s front step. Your knees are all tucked up into your chest and you’re picking at your fingernails. As much as Steve had spent the day looking for you everywhere, he had to do a double take to make sure it was really you and not his brain inventing visions of you where you weren’t.

When you hear the car you jolt and look up and when you realize that it is in fact, Steve, and not his parents, you shoot to your feet, fidgeting nervously. Steve rushes to park his car and unclip his seat belt and open the door, tripping over his feet on his way over to meet you. You launch at him, screeching to a halt before making contact sort of like you aren’t sure if you should touch him.

“I’m so sorry, Steve! I wanted to go, I promise I had a good reason not to!” It’s like Steve’s stomach melts all the way onto the sidewalk like bubblegum ice cream and he can’t help but smile at you as he lights up inside like the fourth of July. 

“That’s cool,” Steve says, his voice cracking in the middle of it. “Um, I’m feeling pretty worn out after all the sun today. Did you wanna come grab a bite with me?”

He stumbles over his words, but it doesn't seem to matter because you bounce on your toes excitedly, scrunching your nose as you smile. He opens the passenger side door for you, letting you duck under his arm. When he hops in on his side, he glances at you. He expects to find you staring absently out the window, zoned out in that way you get but he finds you already looking at him. The sunset is practically assaulting your eyes, giving their color an almost orange hue, and you squint a little before pulling down the visor on your side. 

“Where were you thinking?” Steve asks, forgetting briefly that he asked you to get food with him. You chew the inside of your cheek thoughtfully as you consider your options. Hawkins doesn’t have a lot of choices, especially now that Benny’s old place has been forcibly reformed into a party house. Steve’s already making his way toward the only other diner in town when you relax back into your seat. 

“I dunno, probably Hawkins Roadside.” Hawkins Roadside is a reformed train car open 24/7 that offers a menu of the greasiest food in existence with the added bonus of minimal seating. It’s usually decently busy, but it usually gets crowded later in the evening when the party kid’s munchies catch up with them and the high schoolers head out on cheap first dates. It’s 8:00 p.m. or so on May 31 so the sun is descending, which means that the two of you would have at least two hours or so before Roadside gets busy but Steve has a heavy suspicion that their business is about to tank because of the new mall downtown. When he parks, he hops out quickly and does a dorky little half jog around to your side to open the door for you. 

It’s empty except for the two of you. The girl behind the counter, probably just a couple years older than Steve, aggressively chews on her gum while she sizes you up, probably deciding how much trouble the two of you will cause for her. She decides the answer is none. Steve is too focused on reminding himself that this is not a date and this is just a casual friend thing. And you, for your part, are usually pretty disarming. 

You aren’t exactly a picky eater but fatty food really isn’t your thing. You get a cobb salad and turn down Steve’s offer of fries or splitting a milkshake. He does keep sneaking fries onto your plate when you aren’t looking at him, though. He gets that opportunity a lot. You don’t like making eye contact very much and you zone out pretty frequently. During the middle of one of his covert operations, you turn your head back from the window that’s captured your attention and catch him red handed, hand over your plate, french fry in his fingers. At your raised eyebrow, Steve chuckles awkwardly. 

“I didn’t want you to be hungry.” 

“Thank you,” you say, eyes teasing as you duck your head a little to take the fry from him with your teeth. Steve leaves his hand outstretched for way too long afterwards, staring at you owlishly. That was totally normal of you so why does he feel so weird about the way your lips semi grazed his fingers? When he realizes he’s still holding his arm out like an idiot, he jerks it back like he’s been burned. You don’t seem to notice. 

“So what kept you today?” Steve asks, trying to be nonchalant about his disappointment. You immediately make a face that reminds him of a guilty puppy. 

“Sorry. I wanted to go, really. I just didn’t feel all that comfortable going to a public pool. I, uh, I can’t swim.” Steve perks up. 

“I can swim!” You tilt your head to one side. “I mean, I can swim, so I could teach you.” 

“Maybe.” You’re a little bit coy about it. “I don’t know how I feel about going to the public pool, to be completely honest with you.”

“I have a pool. We-we wouldn’t have to go to the public pool.” Steve hasn’t gotten in his pool since November of 1983. The night with Nancy and with Barbara. He hasn’t been able to stomach it, thinking about how selfish he had been at that time and how a girl had fucking died in his backyard while he was busy getting his rocks off with a pretty girl. He’s always blamed himself for what happened to Barbara and it didn’t ever help that Nancy started building a resentment for him over it, truly believing him to be responsible. He’s never said any of this to you. 

Your eyes narrow at him like you know there’s something that he isn’t telling you and you reach out and take his hand in both of yours. You don’t push it though, just hold onto his hand. Steve’s palm starts to sweat and he hopes that you don’t notice. You run your thumbs over the back of his hand.

“Maybe we can do that sometime.” Sometime. 

Sometime doesn’t actually come. Only about a month later, Dustin is bursting into Scoops Ahoy with a secret Russian transmission and a dictionary and then, well, the rest is pretty hazy. Something about getting trapped in an elevator for several hours and truth serum and Alex P. Keaton trying to bang his mom. Shit’s complicated. 

Dustin talks about Steve finding his Suzie and Steve thought that maybe he did, but Robin is not that girl even if he wishes she was, if only because she isn’t as scary as you are. 

Ambulances wail in the parking lot and Steve is half deaf for the sound of car alarms. As the pair of them sit side by side, finally losing the end of their truth serum highs, wrapped in thick shock blankets, Robin smiles softly. Its to herself, sort of like a secret.

“Harrington, you know what you were saying in the bathroom earlier?”

“Yeah.” 

“You don’t need me to be your Suzie. You already have yours.” Robin bumps his shoulder with her own.

You’re across the way in his field of vision, hair plastered with blood and Upside Down critter goop, cuts along your face and arms, bruises swelling the side of your face. You’re still smiling as you talk to Officer Callahan, who seems to be exhausted by the evening. When you catch him staring at you, you wave at him. He waves back and then winces because his entire body feels like it went through a trash compactor. 

“No,” Steve sighs, forgetting not to let his daydreams seep out of his head and into his voice. “I have better.” 

----

Mid August has no right to be as hot as it is. Sweat crawls down Steve’s back even as the sun begins its slow descent over the West. Lucas stands on the opposite end of the outdoor basketball court, hunched over with his hands on his thighs trying to catch his breath. They’ve been playing for hours and the kid is good, absolutely good enough to make the team in a few weeks. Sinclair makes him feel old, like his back is ancient. It doesn’t help that his left eye has only just completely stopped hurting constantly. It woke him up pretty much every night, throbbing violently, for weeks after the Battle of Starcourt, long after the bruise had faded and the hyphema had healed. The concussion had been harder to shake. 

 When Steve tried to shower and scrub the caked-on dry blood a few hours after he got home, he’d had a repeat movie theater bathroom incident, where looking up at the ceiling had made him immediately nauseous and he’d slipped down to his knees as his stomach tried to evacuate its contents. It made him feel pathetic and stupid, having to call you and say, “I can’t take a shower.” He hadn’t even entertained the idea of asking anyone else to help him, even if it felt more embarrassing. 

Steve hadn’t had to explain or ask for your help. You were over less than fifteen minutes later, dimming his bathroom lights and running the faucet, asking him how hot he likes the water. You’d tilted his chin up just enough to help him rinse his hair, creating a barrier between his hairline and his face with your hand to keep soap out of his eyes. And for weeks when he was up all night with violent headaches, you stayed up with him until the pain diminished enough for him to slip out of consciousness. He’d lay across your lap and you’d stroke his hair which would eventually relax him just enough to feel a dull ache. 

Steve actually really hates that because it has to come to an end eventually. He’s kind of been able to trick his brain up until this point into thinking that this was enough for him and that he didn’t endlessly wish for more. That he didn’t endlessly wish that he could curl up asleep in your arms in a non platonic type of way that was because you really wanted to hold him and not because he was sick with pain. 

Steve’s head is starting to hurt and his stomach is starting to swim up into his chest. He hopes that Sinclair calls this shit soon because he can’t admit that he suffers from as much pain as he does. He’s still supposed to be the protector. 

They play a bit longer. Lucas is so excited about tryouts but so nervous that he’s practically vibrating over it. He keeps mentioning Max, like that maybe Max will come see his games and maybe she’ll let him back in. Steve has a suspicion that the second part has nothing to do with the basketball team at all. 

“She’ll come around. She’s been through a hell of a lot. I mean, we all have, but she’s never fully understood the way that people are there for each other,” Sinclair says, dribbling the ball around Steve, heading up for a layup. Max will come around. She just needs to relearn trust and emotional intimacy. 

When Steve gets home, he’s so exhausted that he falls asleep with his jeans still on, collapsing into his bed, ready for an intensive dreamless sleep. He’s wrong though, instead haunted by the fear of what happens the second he stops being alert enough to watch out for the others. His kids, his friends, his you, everyone in danger and nothing he can even do about it. As much as he wishes he could, Steve can’t make the Upside Down go away. 

Steve jolts awake. His head starts throbbing the second he sits up, and he ends up just sort of sliding off of his bed and curling into a sad little ball on his bedroom floor, tucking his head underneath his bed because it's darker there. He’s sweating and hot but also clammy and shaky and he needs someone to come help him or to come and care about him. When he was little, he used to crawl into his mom’s bed and bury himself into the covers, regardless of if she was there but he’s grown out of that habit. Now he wiggles enough to reach the landline next to his bed and dial a number that has become endlessly familiar to him. 

“Hello?” Just the sound of your voice makes him feel better, like he can breathe a little easier and like he has something to focus on other than his now spotty vision. . 

“Hey.” 

“What’s up, Steve? Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine,” he says and there’s a pause at the other end of the line. He pictures you twirling the cord around your finger

“Scale of one to ten?”

“Seven and a half.” 

“I’ll be right there.” It’s only at the disconnected click that Steve checks the clock on the wall and finds that it's 1:34 in the morning. Twelve minutes later, there’s a soft tap on the front door. It's a formality. You know where the spare key is.

“Oh, sweetheart,” you say as you tiptoe into his room. Steve knows he looks a mess, still on the floor, rumpled and sad and scared. You help him off the floor and back into his bed and then reach out and stroke his hair. If it were anyone else, he’d tell them that hair is off limits, but you’re you and that makes you special. You tug on his arms and he lifts them up, allowing you to help him tug his shirt off and then his jeans. And then you go to his drawer and shift through his soft clothes, bringing him a t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. After you help him put them on, you pause to look at his face, cupping his cheeks in your hands.

“Big or little?”

“Little,” Steve says, a little sheepishly, but you tuck him into your arms without complaint or hesitation. He hadn’t known that being the little spoon was an option for him until about a month ago and he now steadfastly refuses to give it up. You’re usually colder than he is but tonight you’re extra warm. His hand finds the back of your arm where it wraps across his waist and he grabs onto it with the tender resolve of a bulldog. 

“What’s up?” 

“Nothing.” 

“Steve.”

“I don’t know, I just wish you wanted me, I guess.” He regrets the words as soon as they’re out of his mouth. 

“What?” 

“Nothing,” Steve backtracks. 

“Who said I don’t want you?” His heart stops. 

“What?”

“I said-”

“I heard what you said,” Steve says as he rolls over. You look apprehensive, incredibly nervous, like you’re worried that he’s pulling your leg.

“I’m sorry, I think I misinterpreted. Or you were thinking about someone different-”

“No. You didn’t.” Steve is staring at you now, headache fading with something else to focus on. 

“Oh.”

“Can you tell me?”

“What?”

“That you want me?”

“Steve, I do want you. I have pretty much since the day I met you. I’m just not very good at showing it, I guess.” Steve wraps his arms around your middle, pulling you in closer to him, crushing you as he squeezes you like a boa constrictor. You squeak and he lets go. 

“Sorry, I forgot-” You put your hand on his cheek, running your thumb along his cheekbone. Steve stares into your eyes as you stare at him, unblinking. 

“I really want to kiss you,” Steve says, mouth dry. 

“Kiss me in the morning,” you say.

“It’s morning now,” Steve says, before closing the gap between you. 

[fuck-customers]

💋God I’m so tired of having to witness the literal worst of human nature. I swear retail brings out the ugliest sides of people.

Today I heard a kid running behind me as I was ringing someone up, and so I turned and said “slow down please.” Regular and polite. Well apparently that was a grievous mistake bc I immediately hear yelling and it’s the mom right behind me losing her little pea-sized brain over me “telling her child what to do.” Ok bitch well if you were watching him and making him behave I wouldn’t have to say shit in the first place. This woman was literally fucking yelling at me over HER KID acting up like what in the goddamn hell. I keep trying to tell her “ma’am I’m not trying to be rude I just needed him to stop running, it’s a liability and that’s our store policy.” Ofc she’s not hearing any logic bc she’d rather talk over me and go on and on about how I’m disrespectful for talking to her son and not her. Why does it even matter??? Idk. Finally she just walked away, glaring daggers at me the whole time.

Then like ten mins later her husband comes back, and I do have to give him credit bc he was polite, but he basically walks up and goes “look I wanna unpack all that that just happened.” Like ok Dr Phil the gist of it is that your wife is a bitch but sure let’s “talk about it.” I explain to him that not only is it store policy that I ask people not to run inside, but I also was polite in the way I asked. He agreed. But then he tries to explain “well the way we grew up, people don’t talk to other peoples kids.” Ok that’s nice, but that’s not everyone’s upbringing and again, I wouldn’t have had to say anything if YOU were parenting your child. Also think it’s weird bc these ppl were like 40 talking about “in my day we didn’t tell ppls kids what to do.” Like dude if anything it’s the opposite?? Especially down here in the south. I’m not nearly as old as them but if my momma caught me running around acting a fool in a store like that, not only would I get in trouble but she’d GLADLY let someone else scold me for my behavior. This whole thing of “if you even look at my child wrong I will explode” is def not a “back in the day” type shit, it’s new and it’s coming from all these dumbass fucking entitled parents that have no consideration for others in public bc they’re kids are the best kids and everyone else needs to accommodate to THEM, not fhe other way around. Jfc

And then immediately after that happened someone dropped a glass jar of salsa and didn’t even wait for an employee to come to the mess. They just left the salsa and broken glass on the floor, they ain’t even wait thirty seconds before saying “well not my problem” and walking away. I fucking hate people.

Don't give me any of that "back in my day" BS!

I am 49 fucking years old and one of my core memories is being 6 or 7 and just being bored as hell in church and me and my sister were just being kids trying to amuse ourselves and this crusty old man just gets up from his seat at the other end if the room grabs my arm and drags me over to where he was sitting and sits my scared out of my mind ass down and keeps me next to him for the rest of the service. My mom said nothing at the time but when we got home I got a whooping for "embarrassing" her and told me I better behave next time. And for the next few months every sunday this scary old man would grab my arm and sit me next to him.

So I have no idea what alternate timeline your customer came from but it sure as hell wasn't back in the day.

-Rodney

[masterqwertster]

Ashton's talk with Laudna in E49 has battered me with ideas, so here's a short fic that has made me teary eyed, so I'm inflicting it on all of you.

Be perfectly warned that suicide ideation is very much a part of this because of the FCG martyrism, and it's almost definitely not handled well because these people don't really know how to handle it. Including me. I wrote this on vibes and emotions and zero experience in real life.

Enough On AO3

Sometimes you have to break the bone again if it’s to have even a remote chance at healing properly.

Ashton knows this. Their bones don’t break easily, but they’ve done the damage enough, set enough people to rights, to be perfectly aware of it. 

And the thing is, medicine is medicine. Physical or mental, it’s the same sort of principles. Sometimes time and proper treatment will set you right, and sometimes you’ve got to bleed the poison, reset the break by breaking it again.

He’s tried, so fucking hard, to be gentle with Fresh Cut Grass. Hoped, maybe uselessly, that time and proper tending would fix the aeormaton’s broken parts.

And it’s worked in some places. Grass has found the backbone to not let everyone walk all over them (even if they nearly gave him a fucking heart attack first exerting that backbone against fucking Hexum).

But not this one. One of the important ones. And fuck, Ashton’s pretty sure they’ve reached the point where gentle just can’t cut it. This– This is going to hurt.

-------------------------

“Ashton, why aren’t you saying anything?” Imogen demands.

He can’t bring himself to look away from the campfire Bells Hells is gathered around, planning another desperate job. It needs to be done. He’s told himself this since Grass offered up that stupid fucking plan. Again. And he knows, if not now, then when? Will he ever make the point? 

…Sometimes you have to fuck around and find out.

“Why should I? It’s not like Fresh Cut Grass cares how I feel.” 

It’s bitter, so fucking bitter on their tongue, but they need to break so he can mend. And with the words out there, they realize how fucking tired they are of pretending that every time Grass does this it doesn’t hurt them.

“Wha–?! Ashton, that’s not true! I care a lot–”

“You don’t fucking show it!” Ashton cuts them off, growling. “I told you, my one fucking rule for being a part of this crew. One. Do you even remember what that rule is?”

“...W-we don’t… we don’t leave anyone behind?” 

The answer is so fucking hesitant, and Ashton hates it, hates himself a little for pushing it that way. But sometimes to be cruel is to be kind, and Fresh Cut Grass is too fucking stubborn for this to sink in any other way.

“And what the fuck do you think you’re doing every time you offer to go on a suicide run on the off chance we just might have a better chance at success? Huh?”

“Y’all can bring me back–”

“Not if we’re dead too! Not if we can’t find some powerful fucker willing to even fucking try. ” 

Ashton hasn’t forgotten how fucking close they came to not finding help in Whitestone for Laudna. How that fucking asshole lord would have undone all their hard work if that stupid undead bitch haunting Laudna had been present, despite having done nothing to the bastard in thirty fucking years with a Laudna who didn’t have a whole crew to help keep her in check. He thinks the holy baker might try to resurrect Grass if they supplied the materials. But anyone else? He has doubts others would even believe there is a soul to retrieve from death.

“But it’s not about whether we can bring you back from death or not,” Ashton says softly. “Not really. It’s about you, Fresh Cut Grass, fucking choosing to leave us all behind like that.”

“But the Changebringer says–”

“It’s a fucking coin, Letters. You’re the one who comes up with ideas of suicide. There’s no fucking goddess whispering in your ear, ‘Hey, you should fucking kill yourself.’ There’s just you, wanting to die, and that fucking coin you’re using to justify the idea.”

Ashton’s not against them finding religion. Hell, having a divine guide post will probably help. But. The blind and absolute faith in that fucking coin isn’t religion. It’s Grass still avoiding having active control over their own fucking life. And if the fucking Changebringer is actually answering every dumb fucking question Fresh Cut Grass asks that coin, Ashton just might have to find a way to send her to fucking Ruidus.

“I– I–”

“So if you want to fucking die so bad, get it over with. Because you’ve made it pretty fucking clear that us caring and wanting you fucking here, with us, doesn’t matter.”

They’re panting, drawing air through a running nose as tears they refuse to let fall gather in the corners of their eyes.

“I can’t do this anymore, Letters. Not when you’re making it inevitable because we’re not enough. I’m not enough.”

He laughs hollowly, and whispers, “I’m never fucking enough.”

And that was too far. Too vulnerable in front of the whole crew. They’re on their feet and gone from the camp to find something to hit before anyone can say anything. Or if they do say anything, Ashton doesn’t, can’t, hear it.

I’m never fucking enough.

Parents that had more interest in whatever fucking ritual killed at least one of them than being there to raise him into an adult. Friends who were family that wouldn’t risk the consequences of his more-than-near death experience, who couldn’t even be bothered to fucking come back for him years later. 

That was the fucking realization he’d come to after waking up to only Milo. He thought he’d buried it deep enough to never pass his lips, make it real– 

This is why he saved broken conversations for Laudna. The old spook understood without having to say the actual words because she had real fucking similar bullshit. And she bore it with a lot better grace than he did. It was comforting to think he could get there one day, maybe. 

And maybe the Hells were different from whatever the fuck Hishari was, from the Nobodies. They were certainly trying. But Letters was breaking what little was left of their heart by being no different. Grass wanted to martyr himself more than he wanted to be here with Ashton, and the rest of the Hells.

I’m never fucking enough.

Ashton roars and punches the boulder they’d found.

--------------------------------

They stare at the retreating form of their best friend.

They’re panicking. They don’t– they can’t– Dancer is already gone– Not Ashton too–

He’s moving forward after them. He hasn’t got a clue what to say, what to do, it’s so terrifying to have to choose what to do, but there must be something. Why can’t the fucking Changerbringer give him more than a yes or no answer? The coin can’t choose for him like this!

Laudna steps between them, hides Ashton from his sight. Hands from behind halt his forward momentum.

Part of them wants to lash out. That’s Ashton, leaving. Ashton, who found them and cared for them and refused to leave them even though they murdered their associates, tried to do the same to Bells Hells– Why is the line drawn here? It’s the Changebringer making the choice, not them. Ashton didn’t blame them for snapping, didn’t think that was their choice. So why not this? And they’re not being allowed to go after him.

The others must be able to see the rising stress, because the hands loosen, Laudna’s posture softens as she crouches down to be eye level with him (he can’t see Ashton’s silhouette beyond her not again not again).

“Fresh Cut Grass, I know you’re upset, but you can’t go after them right now,” she softly says. 

FCG thinks it’s meant to be soothing, but it just winds the stress a little tighter.

“Ashton loves you, don’t you ever doubt that. They’ve told me themself,” Laudna reassures him. “But, you also worry them, a lot, with your ‘desperate attempts at martyrism.’” He can hear the quotes as Laudna sing-songs the phrase. Of course he’s desperate. Look at all the blood he’s spilled. He has no blood of his own to spill in penance, just a mockery of life to offer in turn. “Honestly, you worry me, and the rest of us, I think, with that. And if you can’t stand by a decision to stop trying to unnecessarily martyr yourself, then any apology you would make to Ashton, any promise to do better, would be empty. And I think you know how Ashton feels about empty words and promises.”

And he does. Ashton hates when others don’t keep their end of a deal. He’s never said anything to Ashton that he doesn’t mean, only ever even lied to help his friends.

“...I-I don’t– I don’t want to give them an empty promise, but I don’t–”

An angered roar echoes back to the camp, one they know well. Ashton.  

Not just anger either. Pain too. And their mind flashes back to the Spire by Fire, that first time Ashton let them and Imogen into his mind in hopes of finding answers about his past. He’s dead, just leave him. The flood of anger and pain that their Calm Emotions couldn’t restrain once it had been released. And Fresh Cut Grass has caused it this time.

“H-how do I fix this? I don’t know how to fix this,” FCG whines. 

He loves to help other people with their problems, but when he’s the problem– Dancer told him to stay away, but he doesn’t want to stay away, can’t stay away. Not from her, not from Ashton. But staying away is the way he was told to fix it, so if he went as far away as possible… 

“It’s not going to be easy, Fresh Cut,” Orym says, gently turning them to look at him. “But the first step is to listen to what Ashton was saying.”

“B-but I was listenin’.”

“And what did you hear?” Orym patiently asks.

FCG opens their mouth to reply, only to be cut off.

“Not their exact words, FCG. How would you say what they were saying?”

They ponder this. It was a lot . And very hurtful. And Ashton was hurting as much as he was hurting them.

It’s not like Fresh Cut Grass cares how I feel.

I’m not enough.

He’s dead, just leave him.

I’m never fucking enough.

“Ashton… feels like I don’t care about them?”

“Why?”

I told you, my one fucking rule for being a part of this crew.

There’s just you, wanting to die, and that fucking coin you’re using to justify the idea.

I can’t do this anymore, Letters. Not when you’re making it inevitable

 It’s about you , Fresh Cut Grass, fucking choosing to leave us all behind like that.

“...Because… because… he thinks I’m makin’ bad choices? But I’m not good at makin’ choices! I don’t know how. ” 

Chetney snorts. “Well you’re not going to get any better with that attitude. Take it from someone who actually remembers the past four centuries, part of living is learning from your mistakes and bad choices. And you’re gonna make a lot of ‘em before you actually get good at anything. But you,” and he points a chisel at Fresh Cut Grass, “are refusing to fucking learn or make new choices. And that’s the real problem. Can’t fix shit, can’t improve it, if you’re not willing to do something different.”

 “...And what should I do different?” they desperately ask.

---------------------------

Ashton’s not sure how much later it is when they hear the creak of Fresh Cut Grass rolling their way, the soft exchange of words between him and Fearne (she’d followed him because Bells Hells didn’t let anyone go off alone if they could help it) before hooves clomp away.

“I’m sorry,” FCG says.

Ashton doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t move from where he’s reclined against the boulder.

“I… didn’t realize how much y’all cared about me bein’ here. How much you cared.”

“I told you before, a while back,” Ashton points out. 

“...I might have thought that had to do with how useful you found me.”

“If it was about useful, I would like money better than you. You can get anything with money if you have enough of it.”

They can hear the creak of Grass nodding his head at that.

“I feel real guilty about the people I’ve killed.”

Ashton cracks an eye open at the admission.

“An’... I guess I thought dyin’ doin’ somethin’ good could make up for that? The others said if I wanted to really make up for murderin’ innocent folks, I ought to live and do as much good as I can for as long as I can.”

A soft grunt of acknowledgement leaves the genasi’s chest. “And are you?”

“I think I need to try. I want to try. And… I don’t want you to leave, like Dancer did. And I don’t want to leave you, like the Nobodies did. So, I’m really, really sorry, Ashton.”

Ashton lets out a big sigh. Then, in a surge of motion, they’ve drawn Fresh Cut Grass close, pressing their forehead to Grass’s faceplate.

“I told you: I want to be happy because you’re making me happy. That it would make me so fucking happy if you’d stop offering yourself up like a piece of meat. If you can do that, Letters, for real, then I’m here. For as long as I’m breathing and as long as you want me, I’m here, buddy.”

“I’m gonna try, Ashton. I promise.”

[wakebymoonsleepbysun]

Another snippet from my Reader x MM fic, tentatively called Cymbal Crash Bar. Figured I'd throw this up in case anyone's curious about why I keep calling him Music instead of Music Man. (Though I did make a post kinda talking about it, figured I could share the actual snippet.)

You let out a heavy sigh, dropping the envelopes in your hand back onto the desk pile. It’s as good a place for them as any in this chaos. There’s no way you’re going to sort through all this alone tonight.

Your gaze lifts to Music Man. Maybe you don’t have to do it entirely alone. Sure, Music Man’s an animatronic--not exactly “company” in the human sense, but he does seem to know some things about how the place was run, despite being just a glorified jukebox.

“Hey Music?” you ask, crouching to at least get the envelopes into an organized pile so you don’t step on them.

He seems startled, his smile faltering for a brief moment. “Hm? What…What did you call me?” he asks, too confused for his usual pompous tone to show through.

You stand up, a bunch of envelopes tucked under your arm, blowing a puff of air upwards to try to get a stray lock of hair out of your eyes. “Music? Isn’t that your name? First name Music, last name Man?”

Music Man tilts his head, a bemused smile on his face, one hand on his hip while the other taps his chin in thought. “You know, I never thought of it like that,” he says, intrigued. “I’ve never been called anything but Music Man.” He smirks, rolling his eyes slightly. Or at least tilting his head as if he had--with his dark eyes it’s hard to see something like an eye roll. “At least nothing I’d care to repeat!” he laughs.

You frown a bit at that, wondering if he’s just making a joke or if he’s actually alluding to being insulted at some point. Then again, he’s worked at a bar for nearly thirty years…he’s probably been called some unflattering things at some point. But he seems to be taking it in stride, so you decide to stay focused on the matter at hand.

“Well, I can call you Music Man if you prefer,” you say easily, tapping the edges of the envelopes against the desk to try to straighten the pile.

“Oh, nono!” he says quickly, waving his hands. “I think being called Music will be…rather refreshing. So please,” he says, gesturing to you in a “go ahead” motion.

“Alright then, Music,” you say, too focused on stacking the envelopes to notice the happy little bounce he does at the new nickname. “I don’t suppose you know where Wyatt keeps the employee contact information?”

[the-heaminator]

@apersonwholikeslotus's admittedly late birthday gift, Have the spy fic, bastard <3

Featuring: Mental breakdowns, attempted dissociation, cuddling and children being children

Morning came....and went, Arthur had set an alarm for 7 in the morning, they didn't have to clock in today so at least they were safe on that frontier, but neither woke up from it, both were simply not present in this current dimension whatsoever, Arthur's face was buried deeply into Ivan's strangely soft chest, and his nose ad nearly nuzzling Arthur's greying hair, but neither woke with the alarm, no matter how loud it rang.

They just slept through it, clearly, their bodies were trying to make up for lost time or something because neither usually slept this deep, or this long, they had both slept sometime past midnight, and now it was two in the afternoon, about 14 hours sleep was not something they were used to, not in one night at least, they'd both gone entire weeks on less sleep than they had gotten that night, and if you add the four hours they slept earlier, that was 18 hours of the past 36 being spent asleep. That was half the bloody time!

Arthur was the one that stirred first, he tried to stretch but was inhibited by Ivan's arm, warm, soft, but also very strong, oh he would not be moving anytime soon, not if sleepy Ivan had anything to say about it, he tried to move, he really did, but just as he had gotten somewhat somewhere, Ivan grabbed him back down and snuggled him like one would do to a teddy bear.

Well, it couldn't be that late could it, he could have a bit of a lie in, goodness knows when was the last time he did that eh? Not 5 minutes later he was back into a deep sleep, 2 and a half more hours, it was four thirty in the fucking afternoon, and only then did Ivan get up, not even wanting to get up, he needed to piss, only then he realised that he was hugging the everliving fuck out of Arthur, and let him go, which did wake him up, albeit slowly, they both squinted in the light, what bloody time was it????

Turns out waking up at four fucking thirty in the afternoon was not something they had even considered the possibility of last night. That just simply was not something they thought they were even capable of doing and had of course not factored it into the schedule, because why would they, Ivan checked the clock, Arthur was sleepy and couldn't see it very clearly at the best of times, he just usually kind of guessed based on what he could see, usually an hour or at least 5 minutes off.

Ivan stared at the clock for a while "Ivan, what is it?"

He spoke oddly "Arthur, am i going blind or does the clock say 4.35?"

Arthur looked at it, it looked close enough to what Ivan said, and he agreed, albeit mildly "Yes, i do think it is 4.30 in the afternoon."

Neither of them pointed out that they had very much been cuddling not a couple minutes before, that would fuck with the severity of the situation, besides, what could they do, from this point onwards they would be doing this more often, so why not start getting used to it, and oddly enough it was very comfortable for the both of them, neither received much physical touch normally, nor really at all, this was likely the most either had been held earnestly in decades, and neither could bring themselves to hate it right now.

Ivan got up, "I should be heading home, i have already stayed long enough, and you probably have things to do."

Strangely Arthur didn't want him to leave, not just yet at least, don't ask him why, he did not know, "Don't we have a couple more things to sign?"

Ivan groaned and very resolutely said "Fuck paperwork, sincerely with a chainsaw, but i do have to go home, these clothes are not going to last much longer, we need them signed by the end of the week no? You sign the documents you need to, pass me the ones I need to, job agreements you know, and anything that needs both signatures on them, you do first and drop it by whenever."

That was absurdly logical and he couldn't really come up with anything against it, but then remembered "Wait, we can at least do the marriage agreement now can't we?"

Ivan raised his eyebrows, Arthur was acting a little erratic, he was usually a lot more controlled than this, like a lot more, he hadn't eaten anything odd, had he? Ivan was watching whatever he ate, and knowing Arthur it was unlikely that he ate anything before or after that, so what was up? 

Arthur himself didn't frankly know, he was feeling odd himself but had no clue why, he mentally cursed when he saw Ivan looking at him with genuine concern, this wasn't cause for concern probably, he just needed to get the work done, yes, that was it, if there was anything else underlying then it is doubtful that even Arthur would know what it was, so let him have his fun.

"Arthur, you are acting strange, are you hungry?"

That was completely fucking out of the blue, since when did being hungry made him act strange, bullshit this was, yes, why were his thoughts so fast, they weren't usually like this, more controlled, more precise, less erratic, they were jumping around and he couldn't catch head or tail of any of them, what the fuck was going on, he needed his tea, yes that, why was Ivan looking t him like that. why did he want to hit him, rather why didn't he want to hit him, he would hit anyone else that looked at him with, that wasn't pity, that wasn't concern, what the fuck was that?

"Arthur?"

Breathe.

"Yes, Ivan?"

"I asked whether you were hungry, but you didn't respond, are you?"

Was he hungry, probably not, so he answered as much.

Ivan most certainly was hungry, but they may have used all of the food Arthur had in his house for their meal yesterday, so he couldn't even cook anything "Fine, then shall we sign the marriage agreement and then I have to be off."

The agreement was signed, as any little piece of paper would be, this wasn't real of course, this meant nothing, nothing at all, Arthur gave him the papers that only he needed to sign and deal with, and with that Ivan bid his farewell, leaving Arthur alone once more.

It all of a sudden just felt very empty, his house never felt like this, not even when he hadn't slept in his bed for a week or more, or when it was clean to the point of it almost being sterile, it felt many things, but not just plain empty.

He fiddled with his ring, caught himself doing it, and stopped it, Ivan had gotten into his head far too quickly, though a nagging part of his mind insisted that he had always been there, ever since they first met each other thirty-odd years ago, he never left really, and this was just making it worse.

He never wanted to tell his mind to shut up more than he did now, what on earth was even going on in his head right now to be thinking like that, it almost bordered on disgust really, he never acted like this, no wonder Ivan thought him to be acting odd because he was acting fucking odd, maybe he was hungry? Nah screw that, he wasn't, last night's dinner(?) was bigger and better than he was used to eating, he was full.

He just had to get back to his work, yes, and he needed his bloody tea.

As for Ivan, he could've walked home, but chose not to, the buses were running just fine and even after that extremely extended nap they took, he was tired, he was not normally this tired, not at all, he also found himself fiddling with the ring, the blasted thing was just a little too small, that was fucking embarrassing wasn't it, he could still somehow feel Arthur's lingering touch on his hands, kind yet firm, he'd never truly thought about that before, well he had but he was never particularly aware of it when he did think so, maybe just in passing, perhaps?

As you can see neither are particularly in tune with their personal thoughts, not at all, and all of a sudden that was literally the only thing he could think of. 

Something was off, a small sensation never stayed in his mind this long, he could deal with broken limbs easier than he was dealing with this, the all-consuming need for simple touch had taken over and he had no idea why, he should not have slept with Arthur, that was probably what caused this, I mean what else could, he hadn't gotten particularly close to anyone before or since.

This was bullshit, his door was stiff as usual and he had to ram into it a bit, he really needed to clean his house, besides he would be moving out quite soon, he would have to get to work, no matter how much he hated cleaning, he had to do it, and he was good at it quite frankly, he knew exactly how to get many choice stains out of clothing, lemon juice helped with a lot of them, and it wasn't nearly as harsh as using bleach to get blood and shit out of his curtains.

Eh, where was he again?

He needed groceries, yes, that was what he needed, he was hungry as all fuck right now, and he knew for a fact that his fridge was empty, he hadn't the time to go get stuff lately, but first he needed a shower, and new clothes, he was fine sleeping in a shirt and all but it wasn't that comfortable he wouldn't really do it if he had a choice, he did not then, plus it would clear his mind, yes. 

Too much had happened, and all of a sudden everything just sank in, he knew he was meant to be a parent, a husband, he had been many things at many times in his life, spy, killer, arsonist, criminal, saviour. He had been many things. 

A parent and husband, he had done separately, for short periods of time maybe, and even these were getting to be a while ago, they were n longer used for high profile missions often, not as the main at least, they were limited to the dirty work now, because they were good at it. This was not dirty work, this was acting, he was a good actor, but together he had not done. Especially not for a long time.

Hell, he was supposed to be a father, how would he fucking do that? He could barely remember his father, and what he did remember was not particularly good, a lot of shouting, then it was only his sisters, this was a long time ago, what would he do, what would he fucking do, his heart sank like a stone, he didn't want to fuck up the kids, they were bright, bubbly children, every one of them, he didn't want to fuck them up.

Shit, shit, shit this was not good, could he pull out yet?

No, he probably couldn't, Yao was decisive, he wouldn't turn back on a decision unless he fully cocked up the mission, which he would frankly do if the children weren't involved, he had his own reasons, but he had already not much left of his humanity, there wasn't even much, to begin with, but even that was chiselled away over time, but the children still had all of it intact, he couldn't just shatter that because he was being a selfish prick.

Jesus Arthur's vocabulary was wearing off on him, Mother Mary save him because he knows not of what to do otherwise, shower, he was going for a shower before all of this hit him like a bowling ball, yes he could do a shower. 

Picked himself up off the bed and was gone, to wash his worries away as it was, or maybe even just ignore them for a bit, even that would help. He was not an anxious person, but this rush of fear was more than he had experienced in decades, even when his own life was at stake there was less fear, and he had no clue why.

Neither of them did, Arthur was not good with children, he wasn't good with people at all, described to be a weasel in how he could get out of tight corners and could not be trusted, Ivan a bear, brute force and intimidation, neither of these was particularly known to be caring, not to each other and scarcely to anybody else.

So why were they so worried?

Arthur broke out in a sweat, hurried into the bathroom, and hurled his guts into the kitchen sink, why? He wasn't ill, what the fuck was this, he was just fine, and then he proceeded to hurl up more.

His head fucking hurt, he needed to stop, he had already slept enough, and he had eaten enough, so what was up.

He would deal with that later, bent over the sink, he looked at himself in the mirror, a right mess he was, he couldn't focus on himself in the mirror, he didn't look this old, nor this pale normally-wait why was he crying, what the fuck was going on, why was his heart doing this, pounding so hard he could feel it in his ears, what happened, it needed to stop.

Had this happened before? What do you do?

Water on the face, count to four, breathe, and move on. He did not have time for...whatever this was.

This was not normal, he had to get, and keep his shit together, he was good at it normally, he could deal with this, once he figured out what it was, but first, he needed to sit down, fully dizzy he was, blurry and multicoloured, a little lie down would help, yes. He had to be at full capacity tomorrow, he had to get to work on time and get the shit signed.

He couldn't let Yao, or Ivan down, not the kids, and somehow this felt worse than the possibility of losing his own life. What the fuck was going on, he would deal with that later, he wasn't normally this weak, this cold, this forgetful, he needed to stop, breathe, shit it wasn't working, breathe, breathe, breathe, that was the priority.

Ivan walked about his house lost in thought, he wasn't precisely sure what he was doing, like he was looking in third person, he felt woozy, he hadn't had anything to drink, maybe he was just hungry, the fridge was empty, oh dear. He couldn't get the door to open for some reason, not that it was stuck, moreso he couldn't grab the handle, he always misjudged the distance, and it kept moving ever so slightly.

Breathe.

He sat down, he would deal with food later, he needed to get his mind out of the gutter right now, it felt empty, no longer fear, just empty, he couldn't feel it. And so he sat there scarcely moving for longer than he thought, it had started to get dark.

He did not realise.

Eleanor had been quiet today, oddly so, she was not as outward as Alfred or Jack, but she seemed withdrawn, Alfred and Jack had gone somewhere, and she shuffled close to Matthew as she could, he could tell she was worried, he gently spoke, he knew from experience how to deal with each of them when they were in the moods despite not being the oldest, for all his smarts he was frankly worthless at dealing with emotions, and Matthew shouldered the burden for the four of them, and he did so well.

"Eli, what happened."

"Will they take us?" She didn't even sound afraid, she sounded blank, and it broke his heart a little, he knew what she was referring to, just because they were small, they weren't even that small anymore truthfully, they knew they were a drain on the agency and its resources, they had never expected to provide board for 4 children when they first came here, Eleanor was 4 years old, four, they had been here a little over three years, Jack was 6, and he was scared, he and Al weren't too much better off, Alfred had just hit the double digits, Matthew wasn't even there yet.

They all knew they were burdens, but they had grown to love the place, the operatives at the very least had a soft spot for them, a lot of them had definitely not genuinely interacted with a child in years, and it showed, but they were nice to them, they had been educated faster than most children their age, they had a tutor come in to aid them with what they needed, plus each of them liked to hang around some of the classrooms often enough that some of the teachers took it to heart to teach them what was going on when they had the time.

It worked for the most part, all of them could read, all to a higher level than was supposed for their age, Eleanor was scary smart, and while Jack was fidgety if you interested him in something, he would break every single barrier stopping him from learning everything about the topic, Alfred was very similar, he was just a whole lot more nerdy about it.

It may have not been perfect, they were still often ignored and forgotten about by many and knew they weren't even meant to be here, but it was the closest thing they had to home for the past 3 years, they didn't just want to leave it.

He knew letting her down gently would only make this worse, and he sighed, he felt so much older than he was sometimes "Yes, most likely. They seem like nice people no?"

She huffed "Scary, you mean, and I don't think they can look after themselves very well."

He had to admit, she had a point, he had seen them about, and they usually looked quite functional if nothing else, but both seemed a little sick yesterday "They were probably just tired Eli."

She then looked at him, she was painfully good at hard looks for a 7-year-old, "Does that mean we have to go to school? I saw some..." she looked confused while she stammered "For, Agreemen-no, Documents! Documents, I saw some documents, will we go to school?"

Matt hadn't actually thought about that, he had never actually been to school, Father and mother had kept him and Alfred homeschooled, something about not wasting their potential with simpletons. But they were dead now, so maybe "I-i think so actually, I've never actually been to school."

She brightened significantly, "Really! I thought you did."

"Was homeschooled, this is the closest I've ever had to school. I wonder what it would be like?"

She got off the bed and patted down her shirt, one of Jack's old ones, they were fucking sturdy, that's what they were.

She could hear Jack from a mile away, he and Alfred were probably racing to get inside, she better steer clear of the door, Jack always won, he was shorter but had more leg than you think he would have, Alfred had never won, but had gotten very close.

Jack burst in, Alfred huffing along behind, he collapsed on the bed clutching his side"Christ alive Jack!"

Jack grinned stupidly before he saw Matt deep in thought and Eleanor writing something and he faltered "What happened?"

"Jack, we're gonna go to school, you know."

"Yep! I saw the forms, this is going to be so fun."

They clearly had differing views of how school was going to go, and Jack seemed so happy that she didn't want to divulge her fears that it wouldn't go as well.

Alfred rolled over to face Matthew, face still a little red "Mattie, what's up." deep breath "With you?"

"Nothin', you know we will have to go to school you know, when we get... it's not adopted, uh, assigned?"

Alfred sat up "Yea, and, we're smart, we'll be fine no?"

"That's not the problem, for example, you're a fucking weirdo, don't you think people will find you off-putting?"

"Pfft, as if, if they would then that means they just couldn't handle my awesomeness!"

Matt nicked Alfred's glasses, and much to his chagrin, Alfred's vision was proper -6 nearsighted in one eye and -5.25 in the other "Right, anyways its time to sleep now, it's getting late, and tomorrow we were meant to do something weren't we, check out the house or something."

"Oooh, yea, that."

Matt put the glasses on the side table, he put his own down, his were much tamer, -2 and -2.5, Eleanor got into bed after some cajoling, Jack had to be wrestled as usual, yet he was the one who was out like a light the instance he got warm enough.

Ivan finally stirred, he hadn't realised he fell asleep, he had to sign the housing forms, they would be looking at the house tomorrow, Arthur had already signed them last night, his signature was needed, he would sign the rest later, hunger forgotten for the moment, Arthur got no better, he must be ill, no other explanation for it, curled up under his covers shivering like nothing else provided any heat, he stopped trying to calm down, it would pass, it would, he would have it no other way, the fact that he needed to visit the house tomorrow completely escaped his mind, and who would blame him, his alarm was set though, it would pass over the night.

All thoughts of food or work or anything were gone, replaced with what could only be described as jumbled radio tones, Ivan was dealing with static and the floaty feeling you get when you read too much.

The human condition is admittedly a strange one is it not?

[twenty46]

when she’s twelve, her father tells hyein her cowardice is her downfall. well, her cowardice and her misfortune being born a girl rather than a boy.

in any sense, her gutlessness lends to her demise.

she never quite believes him⏤ it’s hard to take anything much of what he says as credence anymore⏤ but when she hears jeongbin’s voice in the forest and her legs take off from underneath her, clumsily leading her through the thicket of trees, all the while tripping every some odd steps scraping her knees and hands on the forest floor in the attempt of a great escape. she’s almost giddy with terror, even though her heart is pounding and her hands grip the steering wheel so tightly she can feel the way the leather burns against freshly cut skin.

park jeongbin has not sat at the front of her mind in years; a sort of defense mechanism on the part of hyein to preserve what little sanity she managed to keep in the aftermath of august 2012 but now he sits at the forefront almost mocking hyein to dare and try and forget about him once again. in the end, thanks in large part to joengbin, it’s autopilot that sees her home.

even then, her hands don’t unclench from the wheel and she listens to the way the motor hums and looks at the way the headlights illuminate the siding of her home, all the while her eyes dart to-and-fro looking for a sign of life in the otherwise bleak backdrop.

surely, jeongbin is still out there somewhere. he was a lot of things, but a quitter was never quite one of them.

hyein however is not like jeongbin, and after an hour of sitting in the car she gives up the ghost and carefully exists her car, still glancing around her as she enters her home on unsteady feet. it’s only when she gets inside does she get a good look at herself, and sees the twig in her hair and the bits of dirt marring her face. her hands too, are coated in earth and blood and she’s sure her knees⏤ though maybe bar the clods of dirt⏤ no doubt look to be in a similar state.

she hasn’t looked quite this bad since that august, nor has she felt this same level of fear since then. but then maybe that’s the appeal of jeongbin, gone but never truly forgotten; a boy capable of always eliciting a reaction.

even still, the tension leaves her somewhat when she gets in the shower and hyein overstays her welcome as burning hot water fades into lukewarm temperatures before finally emptying the water heater until she’s left with nothing but water that feels nearly frozen to wash over her.

her eyes are red-rimmed and nose red, though she refuses to say they’re tears because she’s nearly thirty years old and deluded enough to convince herself that maybe it wasn’t the voice of a dead boy she’s heard but just exhaustion seeping through her body; and at nearly thirty, she’s far too old to be crying over imagined creatures in the night.

she tells herself she’ll make herself a drink after she gets dressed. she’ll make a drink, she’ll go to bed, and she’ll go back to the funeral in the morning and pretend nothing’s off. if someone asks about her hands or her knees she’ll tell them she slipped on a patch of ice because she never went in the woods and she never heard park jeongbin because he’s dead and god and the dead do not speak.

only, when she does get dressed and makes her way into her kitchen she sees park jeongbin standing there in the low-light, body resting against the kitchen island and yang hyein lets out a scream of such terror she’s sure that her father can stepmother can hear her from their home.

she fumbles her way over to the wall, hands haphazardly slapping at it until finally she comes in contact with the light switch. the light is all to bright, but the revelation that it brings sets her mind at some ease. the face before her is thinner than the one she remembers jeongbin having and signs of age are upon it as well⏤ park jeonghwan stands before her with a glass in hand and exhaustion written into his frame.

“jesus, fuck me!” she doesn’t mean to exclaim it especially not at the volume it leaves her throat but hyein’s been through enough in the last two and a half hours to last her a lifetime and she sags against the counter as her heart rate begins to slow again. “jeonghwan what the fuck are you doing here?”

there are nicer ways to express concern, she’s sure, but they all escape her in the moment and fear gives way to irritation as she looks over him, “have you even been home yet? you look like you walked here straight from the forest.”

LA JAVANAISE ft. @dayfires