#homes for rent wake forest

[thehavenwake]

Benefits Of Luxury Living

Explore the numerous advantages of luxury living in Winston-Salem NC apartments near Wake Forest University, where comfort and convenience seamlessly intertwine!

[miseria-fortes-viros]

what if your best friend was annoying. what if he took every opportunity he had to make fun of you. what if he kept trying to pick off your scabs even when you pushed him away. what if you caught him looking at your bruises for too long. what if he hated your girlfriend. what if your best friend took you to a magical place and spoke to the forest. what if you recognized his messy handwriting scratched into a boulder. what if he drove you home. and again. and again.

what if he lingered in the driveway too long and watched your father’s fist land. what if in the time it took you to fall and smash your head on the railing he was there. what if it took three cops to pull him off of your father. what if he snarled like a dog and the look in his eyes was wild but he still managed to check if you were okay while they shoved him in the back of the cop car. what if you finally told them the truth about your father to keep your best friend out of jail.

what if your best friend could take things out of his head and make them real. what if he almost never slept because he was afraid of what he would wake up with. what if your best friend went to mass every sunday to apologize to god and he told you the nuns had an apartment they would rent to you for cheap. what if it was cold and cramped and bare but for the first time you slept somewhere without fear. what if your best friend knocked on your door most nights and slept on your floor. what if you thought it was because he knew you kept a gun somewhere and you didn’t want to think about what else it might mean.

what if your best friend started hanging out with someone awful. what if he stayed out all night racing and drinking and doing god knows what with this guy. what if you wanted him dead. what if you had a hand in his death. what if you couldn’t bring yourself to feel bad about it because your best friend was safe sleeping on your floor again. what if your best friend asked you for help. what if he took you back to the church and you could just imagine him in there with his family before it broke. what if he closed his eyes and turned ideas tangible in one of the pews and you thought maybe there were two gods in this church. what if he looked at you like he thought there were three. what if the nightmares got him. what if your best friend bled out on the floor while you held him and panicked. what if you watched him take his last breath. what if you looked up and he was watching you cradle his head from where he sat on the altar. what if the scope of his power hit you just then. what if he told you to leave and you did. what if you let him dispose of his own corpse alone. what if you sat on your bed unable to stop thinking about the blood dripping from his mouth.

what if once you started noticing the curve of his lips and the cut of his cheekbones you couldn’t stop. what if you’d never truly felt safe in your life except when he was with you. what if your best friend was tall and strong and sharp and cruel and he made you smile like nobody else could. what if you were quiet and calculating but he made you loud and reckless. what if he radiated danger but you trusted no one else to walk behind you. what if everyone else kept forgetting which ear your father deafened you in but your best friend always remembered.

what if you went up to his childhood bedroom at the house where his father died and looked at all of his old things. what if you sat on his bed and thought about all the times he must have woken up staring death in the face. what if you looked up and he was standing in the doorway. what if he came over and sat beside you. what if there were bad memories here but also good ones. what if when he finally kissed you he did it slowly and carefully like he knew he was devilishly handsome at best and terrifying at worst. what if his big strong hands held you like he thought you might fall apart and you couldn’t remember the last time someone had touched you so softly. what if he left after that because he knew you would have a lot to think about. what if you went back to him that night and kissed him like you were starving for it. what if the second room you slept in without fear was also the second room your best friend had given you.

what if something demonic invaded your body. what if it used your eyes to spy and your hands to manipulate. what if the most important thing in the world was your autonomy. what if the demon knew it and made you sit helplessly as it stole it from you. what if it let you see just enough. what if your hands closed around your best friend’s throat and there was nothing you could do to stop them. what if you begged him to fight back. what if he just kept looking at you even as his lips turned blue. what if his hands still held you with love even while he was dying in yours.

what if the demon released you. what if you couldn’t stand by yourself. what if your best friend kept you up. what if you fell back against his chest and his arms kept you from falling and he whispered in your good ear something meant only for you and you gave in and began to cry. what if the bruises circled his neck for weeks. what if you could see the shape of your thumbs on his throat and couldn’t bear to look at it. what if you wouldn’t blame him if he never wanted you near him again. what if he kissed your fingers instead.

what if you thought you never wanted love or a home or a family. what if your best friend gave you all three. what if you woke up with his arms around you in the house where his father died and he made you breakfast and you laughed over coffee and his little girl gave you sticks and leaves and his bird gave you bottle caps. what if you wanted to go to college but you didn’t want to leave and he wanted you to go but he wanted you to stay. what if nobody had ever wanted you to stay before. what if you never thought you’d have anything worth coming home to. what if you never thought you’d call anywhere home. what if your best friend gave you an apartment. what if he gave you his home. what if he gave you his heart.

[gremlingottoosilly]

Cabin in the woods (yan!slasher!Konig x fem!Reader x yan!slasher!Horangi) part 4

You wake up in the murderer's den. Things can only go downhill from here - especially when one of the killers expresses an unusual interest in you. WARNINGS: Blood, dub-con, threats of intimacy, general slasher-y, a bit of knife play

All things considered, Horangi has won at life. 

He has a boyfriend – an amazing boyfriend, a bit older, a soon-to-be-husband, and his best friend in one tight package. They share hobbies, they share views on the world – practically everything that they can talk about, they share with each other. It’s a perfect relationship, especially considering where they met and how they were at first. 

He has an amazing job in doing private contracts with his boyfriend – some people may call them killers for hire, war criminals, and monsters draped in a uniform, but Horangi likes to call himself a promising immigrant entrepreneur who works for no one but himself and enjoys having most days off. 

He has an amazing, big house in the middle of picture-perfect Austrian wilderness, with every room dedicated to his or his partner’s tastes and hobbies, and that is literally four times as big as any of the apartments he rented previously. 

He has an amazing hobby that allows him to combine hiking, shooting, and socializing – and König shares this hobby with him, actively supporting and engaging with it. 

So, when he drains the blood from his knife – too bad the perfect lil’ victim isn’t here to clean it with her tongue – and starts to look for the remaining group of dumb tourists, deciding to head home just for a minute or two, to see if some of the prey would accidentally found it, he…

Fuck. 

*** You woke up with a throbbing headache. Not surprising, considering you were hit in the back of your head with a force that would be enough to turn your brain into a scramble. You slowly opened your eyes, surprised that you weren’t blindfolded, and gently, slowly tried to move your head around to see the room better. Bright light coming from the doorway immediately made you ill, nauseous. You close your eyes and groan, feeling the pain only intensifying. 

You’re very surprised to feel a cold cloth being slowly put on your burning forehead – you’d expect to be hanging from a meathook and have your buttocks eaten by a pack of wild creatures beyond your comprehension. 

— Tssh, Scatzi, don’t move. Hit you in the head too hard, ja? Good thing you won’t need it anyway. 

You hear the voice – not masked, not changed from multiple layers of different material – clean, unfiltered voice. That familiar boyish tone and deep gruff of a man from the corner shop – the tall one, the most mysterious one, the one that made you paranoid for the whole journey with his remarks. 

God, you feel stupid. 

It’s just like in slashers – the killers are always the weird guys who you meet at the start of the movie or some force from the legends you hear about this place. You feel dumb, you feel weak, you feel like you’re going to throw up because the big man – the one that shot Marty with a fucking crossbow – is gently caressing your forehead with his hands, smearing blood and grime all over your skin. You want to puke. 

— Wh…whatever you’re doing, m…make it quick. 

You can on ly master this, your lips are too dry for something else. You wanted to ask him different questions – where are you, who the fuck are he, what are his goals and mommy issues that made him prey on innocent young adults just having a shitty getaway in the forest, but you remember the other guy’s reaction to dumb questions – you want to die quickly, not slowly and painfully. 

— Ach, Hase. Eager, are you? 

This…isn’t the answer you were hoping for. His hands slowly creep down your face, pinching your cheeks – he touches the softer parts of your mouth, and your nose, tugs on your ears, and does whatever he can to just feel your features in his fingers, which makes everything only creepier. He pushes a finger past your lips – you want to bite it, but he only laughs at your pathetic attempts. 

He tells you something through a laugh that makes your head hurt more. Something about how Horangi was right about you being a kitten – that you bite just like one. You feel embarrassment spreading across the heat of your cheeks, knowing that your best attacks are only an amusement for your captor. 

His hands then move down, slowly. He pushes it under your shirt – and here is where you really start to panic. You’re mostly fine with getting killed, even in a weird and somehow funny, theatrical way, but you don’t…you don’t want to handle this before he eventually strangles you to death. You sob, your face twitches in pain-stricken expressions – tears only make your head hurt more, but you just can’t stop yourself. 

The guy – he still wears a hood, just not the weird thing that makes his voice change – only laughs and plays with your chest, squeezing and touching it with his huge, bear-like hands. He is relentless in not caring about your well-being, and you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of breaking you, but tears just won’t stop flowing, and the heat in your belly, provoked by that unwanted affection, grows more with every second. 

His touches aren’t painful – but you wish they were. He is observing your body, studies it with his hands and you don’t like it one bit. Too rough, too strong for you, he has manners of a forest troll and, to be honest, in that stupid hood of his, he looks just like one. You’d jump from the bed and run to the  nearest exit, but your head is still throbbing, and you still tied up to the bedpost. God, this is embarrassing. 

— You’re trembling like a virgin, Schatz. Are you sure that your friend was a whore and not you? 

König laughs, looking at the perfect display under him. Yes, yes, he knows that Horangi will be pissed with how he sped up the story and decided to keep you in their house, but he is sure he can't convince his pretty boyfriend that it’s all for the best. They need a toy – precious darling, something weak and helpless, something innocent to bite into. You are a good runner, to his surprise, but your fight is as miserable as your expression – you can’t put up a good fight and he fucking lives for each second of that. 

— Stop touching me! — Are you going to stop me? — I…

— I love trembling prey. You look so perfect under me, Hase, I don’t think you’d stand a chance.

Of course, he is a hunk of a man – a wall of muscles, brutal strength, and nothing but raw power, so even if you were an Olympic champion in fistfights, you probably wouldn’t stand a chance against him anyway. He is trained to kill, he is training everyone else to kill – and he needs some snacks for how good the hunt was. Two dumb tourists, killed on the first night in the woods – and with others still having no fucking idea. God, it makes his dick hard. 

König pushes his hand under your shirt and finds where your tits are concealed with a bra – sports one, really nice, he thinks, but you’d look much better in blood-stained lace. He yanks that stupid thing off your chest – your nipples are hardening almost immediately, even under your shirt. Ah, looks like he forgot to turn on the heater. 

Well, you have to get the heat from his body then. 

— S…stop, please. 

— You like it. Why should I stop? 

— I don’t like it! 

His other hand goes to run a finger across your soaked, heated panties. The rough texture of the glove fabric is grazing your labia, and touching your gentle, wet folds makes you squirm and cry even more under him – he knows you hate it, embarrassed to be this aroused for the hands of a killer, but he just can’t fucking resist. He knows your hands are tied firmly to the bedpost, he knows you won’t be able to escape even if he’d leave the room right now – so he slowly removes his hand from your panties, showing you the glistening, wet material of his gloves. 

He licks your wetness from his fingers – and you let go of a half-moan, half-cry, disgust mixed with fear and pouring into delicious feelings of complete devastation. Poor thing, so scared under him – so embarrassed of your arousal, he just fucking knows you aren’t like your friends. You’re still dumb, of course, with how you agreed to go to this forest even after all of his attempts to say that this is dangerous, but you’re also pretty, adorable, and don’t try to either attack or seduce him or Horangi – and he had a fair share of people who were trying to do both, until they’d found out he is a masked killer for real, and not just for the slasher season atmosphere. 

You’re a little rabbit on his slicing board – and the knife appears in his hand too quickly for you to even start panicking. The blade lingers on your skin, slowly removing such silly, useless things like shirts and modesty, closing your skin just enough to burn a little, but not enough to do real damage. He killed more than 100 men with his knife, and skinned alive more than at least a dozen – König knows how to operate, especially when you’re bound and scared into submission. 

— Ko, what the fuck are you doing? 

Ach, Horangi is here. Finally, he just started to worry that those dumb tourists have learned how to fight back and now are trying to fuck with his partner. It would be funny to look at, of course, but he still doesn’t want anything to happen to him – so he sighs with relief when he sees a familiar masked figure in the doorframe. Then he remembers that he wasn’t supposed to take in pets so soon. 

Fuck. 

— I thought we agreed to not take her so quickly. 

Horangi takes a step further, watching as your eyes are pleading with him for help. You’re adorable – praying for help from your tormentor, so sweetly broken already that he can barely contain himself. You’re adorable, but he isn’t in the mood of playing with victims nicely, and he is still a bit pissed off at König for ruining the promise he gave him. Not the best attitude in an honest relationship, especially when you are trying to introduce a new member of those relationships. Honestly, sometimes Hong-jin was thinking about hiring a couple of therapists. And then killing him after extracting every answer. Totally normal behavior. 

— I know, but…she fell into my hands. Couldn’t say no to an opportunity. 

He knows that König is grinning under his hood – his eyes are gleaming with happiness as he just got his new favorite toy on a silver platter. Horangi melts a little bit at seeing him this happy – the latest couple of missions weren’t the best, so this hunt got to be good. And so far, it is. 

— You killed the stoner? 

— Ja, was easy. Surprised he died from a bolt in the head, he didn’t seem like a guy who has much up there. 

God, his sense of humor is fucked up – Horangi laughs for a good few seconds, not even trying to contain his emotions. You are still on the bed, your hands are tied to the post, rough ropes sit too tightly on your wrists, already angry red from all of your struggling. God, you’re looking delicious, covered in the blood of your friends, crying and looking like their own little death goddess. He knows he shouldn’t give up on temptation – and he also knows that he wants to fuck you. 

Laying here, without a top, with a wet stain on your jeans from your own arousal, you don’t even know how delicious you look. How hard it is for both of them, to stop looking at you like a horny dog and just do their thing. Killing thing, that is. Yes, they suppose to kill their victims, not tie them up to the bed and think about burying their cocks deep in your welcoming, wet pussy. 

Fuck, he has to be stronger than this. Killing is okay, torturing is okay, maybe kissing his boyfriend on top of the rotting, dead bodies is okay, but he just knows that he can’t start touching you because he would lose control and they might spend the whole night taking you from one dick to another, instead of doing what they have to. 

Maybe, just a little touch would be okay. Like a gamble, russian roulette in trying to see if he would be able to contain himself. Like Horangi had such great luck at anything that is connected to gambling. 

— We can’t keep her here. 

— Why? I would feed her and walk her once in a while. 

You whine, and König immediately goes to cover your mouth with his hand. You cry even more, feeling the filthy taste of your juices, blood, and dirt enveloping your tongue and making you want to gag. This is digesting, he is disgusting, you hate nature, wilderness, and this fucking country. If you were to get out of this place, you’d beg every oil company in the world to make the biggest fucking gasoline refining factory out of this forest. 

— What about the police? She can call them. 

— No signal. 

— She could scream for help. 

— We can cut off her tongue. 

— She wouldn’t be able to suck our dicks then. 

— Oh. Scheisse. 

— Exactly. We can’t keep her here. 

— But you said that we can…

— Not now, I mean. Having a kitten like ‘er at home makes me want to stay inside and fuck her whole day, not running around after her stupid friends. 

König finally gets it – and Horangi is right, much to his dismay. You are a distracting little thing, getting into the killer’s layer too early. Adorable and weak, keeping you inside would be the best option – but they still need a bit of space to guy your friends in the basement, so keeping you inside would make you…nervous. Scared. Not a pleasurable type of scared, you can go crazy from horror and then turn into a useless, empty sex doll. König would still brush your hair and love you nonetheless, but it would be a waste to keep you like this. 

Then, again, it would make it easier for you three to have sex…

— That’s also true. But I already cut her clothes. 

— We can let her run for a bit. Make her friends panic, fuckin’ civvies aren’t even aware that two of their friends kicked the bucket. 

— Doubt they care about each other that much. 

— Good thing we got involved, right? 

Horangi’s hand gently pats on your head – you wince from pain and he slightly moves the cold cloth on your forehead. The movement is similar to how people are petting cats – you hate it, you feel your legs preparing to kick him in the direction of his dick – but König presses on your ankles before you could do anything. Asshole.

— Need to do something with her shirt tho. 

— She’d look adorable in mine. 

— Yeah. Would cover her too much tho…I miss looking at boobs like this. 

— You have them, no? 

— It’s pecs. if anything, yours are bigger than mine. 

They both laugh – you are munching on König’s hand more actively, trying to get this out of your mouth. They talk like you aren’t even here and your eyes are filled with tears again – from humiliation, from fear, from desire to run away because they don’t even consider you an enemy and you just want to get out, as soon as possible. They look almost normal together – like two loving partners discussing the latest news and hobbies, not a pair of psycho killers who almost made you hot and bothered for their stupid, definitely not attractive, masks. 

You’re topless, barely wearing your jeans and panties – not exactly the best outfit for running through the forest. Would attract attention, of course, but you could also catch a cold, and they can’t exactly fuck a sniffing, coughing darling who is too sick to understand which hole are they using and what type of knife is plunging in her tender, open skin. 

König throws a shirt on you – it’s musky, covered in mysterious stains, smells exactly like him, and a bit of pine tree. It’s such a typical red flannel that it makes you gag from the stereotype – but it covers your boobs and he is even polite enough to slowly untie one of your hands, firmly keeping it in place to get you into the sleeves and…

Once he had two of your hands in his grasp, you bit on his glove especially hard, kicking him in the groin again – this time, not even bothering to hear his moans. You jump to the floor, barely seeing anything as your view is darkening with a throbbing headache. You have to master everything you have to not throw up on their boots – and you ignore their disappointed yelps as you duck under the shorter guy’s hands and run to…you don’t even know where to run, you just know that you are not staying with the people who are treating you like a fucking lure to get the rest of your friends. 

You can’t go to your friends – you already saw just how much they don’t want to listen to you. You can’t call the police and you can’t return to the camp because then the killers would know where all of your stuff and your friends are. The only chance you have is to fight them off – which is already proved itself as a Bad Fucking Idea(™. All right reserves to Amazon, you got your critical thinking skills during an online sale), so you need to find a distraction – or a weapon. 

You’re literally in the house of murderers. If horror movies taught you anything, it’s that those kinds of houses are usually filled with the weapons of crime – or extensively sharp deer antlers. 

You run to the second floor, dropping something behind your back – trying to get as much distance between you and them as possible, you crawl on the stairs, holding your head in poor attempts of soothing the pain. Their house is…normal. 

Posters, paintings, some weird fucking shit like anime girls with cat ears staring at you with their bigass eyes and even bigger boobs – one of them had a knife plunging right into her chest, kinda making you feel it was more like target practice than fap material. You drop a big Lego set behind you, and the guy – bigger one, you still don’t have their names and you don’t want to know them – is yelling something about 12 hours put into that thing. Good. You can at least do psychological damage. 

The house is as normal as a killer’s den can be – no weapons lying around, no knives just kinda lying there, much to your disappointment. Inflation is real, even serial killers can’t afford to just have their guns lying around like they used to. Fuck, this used to be a proper country. Fuck, you used to spend your days at home, not running away from masked killers who are keeping their houses cozy and tidy and honestly kinda clean even if this has sort of man cave vibe, which is totally understandable and adorable if…

Shit, you got distracted. Dead people, dead people, dead people, you can’t allow your natural drive to strong partners and masks to make you forget about the…death of very annoying and honestly plain mean people who were making your life worse actively every day and who had it coming anyway, but they still didn’t deserve such horrible death without even letting their parents know where their remains lie and…

Before your brain could master more annoying thoughts, you pushed to an open door. There has to be something you can use – pills, knives, guns, remains of the previous victims that can be sharpened and used against them so you can let them how it is to be violently penetrated for once! Come to think of it, judging by how cozy they were with each other, they probably already get penetrated a lot…ah, diversity wins, your murderers are bisexual and fine with polyamory. 

 You open the door, pushing it with all of your body weight – and you fall, only barely able to protect your face with your trembling, shaky hands. God, you’re miserable. 

— Shatzen found a way into our bedroom. You sure we can’t keep her, Tigeren? 

— It would be boring, no? 

— We can use her for a bit and then let go. Make her show us where her friends are.

König sits right next to you, patting your head. 

— Braves Mädchen, so smart. Didn’t know such smart girls were going on such dumb field trips. 

— Can she be the smart one in the group then? 

— Well, she did go to the woods alone. So smart. 

They both laugh again – you grit your teeth, saving every bit of strength you still have in your body, to just push from the ground and get on your legs again. You can do this, you can still run away, you just need to try and push further, a little bit, just a few steps more, just…

König slaps your ass, hard enough to send you on the floor again. You groan, both from pain and humiliation. 

— Dumb girl. Do you really think you can be this adorable and expect us to just contain ourselves? 

— I…I…

— What is that, kitten? You want to apologize for running away? Want to beg us to save your friends? 

— I…f-fuck you. Both of you. 

Another harsh slap – the other guy gets his hand in your hair, tugging it just enough to make you groan from the headache again. 

— Oh, this is exactly what you are going to do. 

A noise from outside of the house startled you both. You hear Max’s voice – annoying as always, that know-it-all tone that usually makes your blood boil, but what sends happy shivers down your spine. You were found! Finally, at least one of the group is smart enough to find you and distract the killers so you can both run away and…

Oh god, Max is outside and yelling, he is definitely alone and they both are muscular, big gues with a bunch of weapons and you as a hostage and…shit. 

— Go on, Katzen. Scream for him, ja? Lure the mouse in. 

You grit your teeth, yelling out the best “Get the fuck out of here, it’s not safe” as you can. 

They laugh. 

The world finally turns to black with another season of silly girl falling conscious in the best plot moments. 

[fancyfeathers]

Yandere Kaveh/Alhaitham & Yandere Cyno/Tighnari (Normalized AU)

Imagine you and your best friend came to Sumeru to become scholars. You two have worked so hard to get here and you finally have made it, you two became friends with the other scholars there. You lived together in a small house in the city, leaving every so often for trips to visit ruins or other sites and meetings, and of course these do not go unnoticed

During one of your trip to study ancient architecture you meet an architect, Kaveh. He became friends with you quickly and after that trip you two went out on friend dates, lunches to discuss your latest projects, and afterward he would go home and talk the ear off of his roommate, Alhaitham. Alhaitham would get so annoyed at some point about hearing Kaveh go on and on about you. Then one day he meets you, you’re returning blueprints Kaveh left at your home when he visited and finally Alhaitham understood what Kaveh saw in you, sensible, kind, funny…

Meanwhile your friend went off to study Sumeru’s wildlife to compare it to your homeland’s nature. But while she was taking a photo with the camera from Fontaine she got, her foot slips on the branch she was standing on and the last thing she remembers is falling from the tall tree branch. She wakes up with someone bandaging her wounds from the fall. Cyno had found her unconscious on the forest floor when he was tracking down a rogue scholar so he brought her to the nearest person who could tend to her wounds, Tighnari. She had broken quite a few bones in the fall, so she wouldn’t be going anywhere for the time being. Tighnari would nurse her back to health and Cyno would visit her as she recovered but they never told her roommate and when she writes a letter later on and gives it to Cyno give to her friend he never actually told her he would deliver it…

After weeks of your friend going missing and not having her half of the rent you don’t know what to do, that’s when Kaveh comes to your rescue, you can stay with him and Alhaitham since your roommate shows no sign of returning. You had been avoiding them recently since uncomfortable topics and behavior have come up with them, being rude to your friends, Kaveh’s hugs being to tight and lasting to long, Alhaitham not letting you go off on research trips on your own saying that you could get hurt. But now you aren’t in a position to refuse so you accept and move in, but when the lock clicks in place after Kaveh closes the door is when you sealed your fate.

Meanwhile your friend had recovered and was ready to go back to the city, but when she arrived she saw your shared house abandoned, all your belongings thrown to the curb by your landlord with them saying you left weeks ago and no one has seen you since. Her heart breaks as she tries to gather the broken scraps of her belongings, tears streaming down her face. She has no where else to go, but hey Cyno and Tighnari are here to listen, and keep her safe, keeping her safe in a forest she doesn’t know how to navigate out of. She safe, loved, and the perfect darling, just like you to the sweet Kaveh and the strict Alhaitham

[goddess-aelin]

Stuck In Love

For day 3 of Rowaelin Month- idiots in love @rowaelinscourt

Masterlist

Word count:

Warnings: language

Another day, another sticky note. It had become the commonality of each day, the thing she could absolutely, without a doubt, count on. She would wake up each morning, have a small breakfast bar, feed and let her dog out for a potty break, and be on her way to work 10 minutes later than she should have been. And each day as she stepped outside her door, a new neon colored sticky note would be stuck on her front door.

Today’s read, “Clean up your dog’s shit or you’ll find it in your mailbox.” Aelin breathed in a sharp breath of the crisp, autumn air. There was nothing like the sweet scent of neighborly annoyance on the breeze. Because, oh yes, she absolutely knew who this note was from: 13B, her neighbor to the east. Aelin’s apartment was 13A so naturally, she not only shared a wall but also a small portion of yard, a driveway, and a porch with 13B on the small half-house she rented. And 13B was a true, verified, pain in her ass.

Rowan was the man’s name. She couldn’t deny he was beautiful. She had thought so from the first moment she laid eyes on him. And then he opened his big, fat mouth, berating her poor, precious dog. It was war from then on.

Looking back down at the note, she scoffed. She always cleaned up Fleetfoot’s shit. Always. Her neighbor could suck it up if the one time she accidentally missed a single log of poop was when it was torrentially raining and, in her opinion, freezing fucking cold outside. She, of course, did her best to clean everything up, but she was human.

While annoyed, there was still a small part of Aelin that was internally smug with the fact that her neighbor deigned to take time out of his very busy day to write a note to her. Gods, she was as bad as a school girl with a crush.

Taking out the pen she kept in her purse that was absolutely under no circumstances for this purpose specifically, she began writing her dear neighbor back. Her handwriting would have been elegant and understated, a penmanship that would certainly put 13B into a tizzy. That was, if she had written anything. Instead, a vulgar gesture just happened to draw itself onto the neon pink sticky notes she whipped out of her bag. She had nothing to do with it. In fact, she was not responsible for her reaction to anything her neighbor said or did. He deserved every bit of ire she threw his way.

She decided the drawing conveyed just the right amount of irritation and judgment, crossed the porch, stuck it in her usual spot- her neighbor’s forest green door, and went on her merry way. She knew that when she got home there would be another new sticky waiting for her. She couldn’t wait.

Only when she got home later that day, there was no sticky on her door. Her day hadn’t been bad, per se, but she was definitely looking for the small, insignificant fight the sticky note war gave her. It was her one constant, something she knew she would come home to. Hmm, he must just be running late coming home from work. That was all.

Sighing, she went through her nightly routine- unlocking her door, dealing with her overly energetic dog, taking her out for her afternoon stroll, and laying on her couch until her take-out order got delivered. Today’s order was a heaping bag of tacos and she was so ready for the yummy greasiness.

A doorbell rang, signaling that her order was there. She waited until the delivery person left and opened her door to pick up the bag of goodies. Before closing the door, she made sure to check for any sticky-notes she might have missed but to her chagrin, there was nothing there.

This was very unusual for Rowan. Typically he had a note waiting for her by 4:30pm at the latest. Aelin checked her watch for the time. 6:55pm. Should she check on him? No, no. She was sure he was fine. Maybe her drawing of the middle finger got her point across a little too well. Maybe Rowan took that as a sign that she hated him. Good.

Nevermind that a pit was slowly forming in her stomach at the thought. She went to open her bag of food but hesitated. Mala screw her guilty conscience.

Heaving a dramatic sigh, Aelin trudged over to her door, ripping it open and stomping the 10 feet it took to get to 13B. She didn’t care about her neighbor. She didn’t. But for some reason, she also couldn’t live with herself if Rowan thought the worst of her.

She knocked three times on his forest green door, thinking how the color suited Rowan and his moods. He reminded her of the pine forests back home, cool yet comforting. After waiting a minute, she knocked again, slightly harder this time.

Within a few seconds, she heard footsteps and a muffled “yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” ring out from inside.

With a whoosh of air, her silver-haired neighbor opened the door, scowling slightly. Aelin’s defenses were up, ready for a verbal sparring based on the way he opened the door. Yet when she really took a moment to take Rowan in, she noticed other little tells. His nose was red, as if he was constantly blowing it, he had dark shadows under his eyes, and his hair was a mussed mess. She also didn’t let herself think about the fact that he was shirtless. That was completely irrelevant.

Because these things set a warning bell off in her head, what came out of her mouth instead was, “Gods, are you okay?” Smooth, Aelin. Real smooth.

Rowan sniffled. Or at least tried to. He flinched as soon as the air reached his nostrils, pinching his nose and rubbing his sinuses. “I’m fine.”

Aelin raised her eyebrows in return. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yes. Do you need something?”

“I came over to check on you since there was no passive aggressive note on my door, actually.” She shrugged. “Thought it was weird that you didn’t have a response to my note.”

Rowan squinted slightly, looking at the front of his door. To Aelin’s horror, she missed the bright pink sticky note that was pasted there from earlier. Gods, she was an idiot. He hadn’t even seen the note and here she was making a mess for herself.

“I must have missed this when I came home earlier.” Rowan snatched the note, looking at it quickly and setting it down on a side table behind the door that she couldn’t see. This was very unusual for him. There was no bite behind his words, no fight to be found.

“Rowan, are you sure you’re ok? You don’t look so good.” To her alarm, Rowan actually stumbled forward a step.

“Fuck.” He muttered it so softly she wasn’t sure she heard it at first. “I’m fine.”

When he stumbled again, Aelin caught his forearm, helping him to stand upright. Slowly, as not to scare him, she brought her wrist up to his forehead, feeling the burn of his skin. “Shit, Rowan! You’re hot!”

“Thanks, but now really isn’t the time.”

She rolled her eyes, ignoring the quip. “No, I mean you’re burning up. Have you taken any medicine to help with your fever?” A shake of his head seemed to be all he could manage. “Why don’t you go lay down and I’ll bring you some soup and medicine?”

She let go of his forearm and gently pushed him back inside the house. Quickly shutting his door, she rushed back to her house, rustling through her cabinets until she found a can of chicken noodle soup. Aelin was no chef but she could heat up this little bit of soup without ruining it for him. Hopefully.

A tub of soup and some advil in tow, Aelin quickly made her way back over to Rowan’s house. By her luck, the front door was still unlocked and she pushed her way into his house. She had never been inside before but wasn’t overly surprised by what she found. Rowan had a tidy space, furniture that looked comfy yet practical, a few pieces of art that matched the room well, and no overabundance of knick-knacks or personal pictures. She was surprised, however, when she came into the living room and found floor to ceiling shelves around three of the four walls. This room was her dream.

She found Rowan laying on the grey couch, a blanket thrown haphazardly over him. He looked so peaceful in the moment that she needed to take a second to just look at him. He looked younger in his sleepy state, more peaceful, and sweet. She found she was endeared by this new picture of Rowan that she had never seen before.

Shaking his shoulder slightly, Aelin roused him from the half-sleep he was in. Groggily, he rose and took the warm soup from her, not knowing what to do with her kindness.

“Let me just get you some water too, hang on.” She blindly opened cabinets to find his glasses and brought him the filled water, a few advil, and a spoon to eat his soup with. He took the medicine without any fuss and hesitated at the soup, staring a hole into it with skepticism.

“This isn’t poisoned is it?”

Aelin scoffed. “Of course not!”

Rowan shrugged and dug in. “How would I know considering you drew me a middle finger to start my day.”

“That was only after you said that you’d shove dog shit into my mailbox. And besides-” Aelin cut herself off at Rowan’s sleepy smirk. “You asshole.” Rowan just chuckled as he slurped another spoonful of soup.

While he ate, Aelin decided to browse his incredible shelving. “Where did you get all these books?”

“I love to read so most of them are mine but some also came from my parents when they died.” Aelin said nothing but gave him a look that she hoped expressed what she felt- that she knew and understood his pain, however long ago it may have been. “I needed more shelving so I built the living room into a veritable library.”

“Do you loan books out? Do I need to sign up for a library ID card?”

“You can borrow whichever books you’d like, Aelin.” The softness in his tone took her aback. She’d never heard him speak so…genuinely and kind. Though, she shouldn’t have been surprised since she also hadn’t spoken to him much at all apart from their daily sticky-note battles.

She ran her fingers over the spines of the books until she met the end of the shelf nearest the door. What she hadn’t noticed on her way in was the small end table beside the door where Rowan had presumably laid her note. Except it wasn’t just one pink sticky note that made it’s home on that table, it was many. Most likely all of the ones she had ever written to him.

She could feel his stare on her as she made her way to the table. “You saved them?” Her voice sounded so small, even to herself.

Rowan let out a huff of breath. “I did.”

“Why?”

He shrugged, “first to fuel my rage at having such a disorderly neighbor.” Despite his words, she could tell he was joking. “And then because those sticky notes started to become one of my favorite parts of the day.”

Aelin didn’t respond. Couldn’t. It was as if she took those sticky notes and shoved each one down her throat. So instead, she left the table, coming back to Rowan’s bed on the couch and his half empty tub of soup.

Finally, she asked the one question that had managed to bubble its way up her throat. “I thought you hated me?”

“Hate you?” He said the words with so much more conviction than he seemed to have the energy for. “No, I never hated you, Aelin.” He looked at her as if this was the silliest thing anyone had ever said to him.

Aelin was again at a loss for words. Things were feeling too…intimate for Rowan’s current state. He was sick and here she was, feeling things for her neighbor. She stood from her place on the edge of the couch, taking the bowl from him and setting it on the floor. Reaching out, she felt his head once more, which was feeling slightly cooler than the flames it held earlier. Gently, she brushed his short hair out of his face and dropped her hand. “Get some sleep Rowan.” Her voice was just above a whisper as her words lingered and she walked toward the door.

- - - - -

The next morning, Aelin went through her normal routine with the exception of her expectation for a sticky-note being posted on her door. She knew Rowan was likely still out of commission and made a mental note to check on him later that day. She ate her breakfast, took Fleetfoot out for a potty break, and left 10 minutes after she should have for her job.

When she stepped out onto the porch, she almost tripped over something laying in front of her door. It was the bowl she put the soup for Rowan in last night. And attached to it was a bright green sticky note.

Thank you.

Dinner friday?

-R

Aelin couldn’t help the smile that made its way across her face. Yes, she thought. Dinner sounds fantastic.

A/N: the sticky note prompt was sitting in my drafts from LAST years rowaelin month… do with that what you will

Tagging:

@cretaceous-therapod @morganofthewildfire @tomtenadia @live-the-fangirl-life @charlizeed @violet-mermaid7 @euphoric-melancholyy @kritical24 @rubyriveraqueen @dealfea @wellofnothing @ayaashryver @moonknight-spector @leiawritesstories @whoever-you-choose-to-love @holdthefrickup @heirofflowers @thecrispypotatochip @shanias-world @rowanaelinn @bruiseonthefaceofhumanity @hanging-from-a-cliff @fantacysoup @swankii-art-teacher @thegreyj @fromthelibraryofemilyj @westofmoon @lovely-dove-zee @books4eva04 @cookiemonsterwholovesbooks @mariaofdoranelle @dreamer-133 @elentiyawhitethorn @writtenonreceipts @shyvioletcat @aelinchocolatelover @captain-of-the-gwynriel-ship @athena127 @tothestarsandwhateverend @highqueenofelfhame

[mrsshabana]

Anonymous asked:

"Okay okay I had this thought while driving home from visiting family for the holidays but I feel like it's a neat little concept-

I re-read the incubus Gyutaro one-shot you made a while back a few days ago and had a thought occur to me, what if the roles where reversed? Like a Succubus/Incubus reader paired with a human Gyutaro.

Just felt like sharing this little concept sense I've been having BAD gyutaro brain rot recently. (/=w=")/ <3"

Gyutaro x Succubus!Reader

♥CW: 18+ MDNI, dubcon, somnophilia, smut, creampie, vaginal sex, dark content

♥AN: First I wanna say, I am so sorry this took me so long! But I hope that the result is satisfactory. You had such a good idea, I wanted to make sure it was perfect (✿◡‿◡)

♥WC: 2,220

This kind of weather is usually Gyutaro's favorite, but it’s not ideal when he’s moving into his new place. It’s raining and a thick layer of fog covers the forest surrounding his new home. It’s a small place, but very beautiful and secluded. He’s shocked that he was able to find a place like this for such a cheap price.

Maybe moving somewhere new will help him clear his mind of all the woes that have been plaguing him recently. To his dismay, Gyutaro will be living alone in this new home. His sister is a full time student at the neighboring university. He couldn’t afford for himself to go, so he’s paying for her tuition while he lives alone in a small house in the woods. 

It could be worse though. He could have been living in a shitty apartment in the city that costs three times the rent of his new place. So not everything in his life is terrible. But he does miss his sister. It’ll be hard to adjust to a life where he doesn’t see her everyday, but this was a necessary sacrifice. Gyutaro will be lonely but he doesn’t mind. Maybe now that Ume is gone, he can focus on making a life for himself.

~

The first week in his new home goes pretty well. He didn’t find dead bodies in the basement like he was expecting, so that's a plus. But he does hear noises coming from the basement at night, subtle sounds that he plays off as being due to the home being old. But that’s not the only thing. Gyutaro always feels like he’s being watched. It gets so bad that he’ll wake up in the middle of the night, panting and out of breath. He can feel someone watching but when he looks around, there’s no one to be seen. The faint smell of perfume wafts around his bedroom at these times. It’s strange how the scent always manages to lull him back to sleep.

These occurrences aren’t enough to make him want to move out, but it is enough to make him feel anxious every time he’s in the house at night.

Gyutaro’s mental health starts to decline as Valentine's day approaches. Not because of his strange living situation, but because of the loneliness that consumes him. When he’s at work he always sees happy couples together. He can’t help but scratch at his skin until it bleeds under his uniform. Nothing pisses him off more than having the thing that he wants the most being waved in front of his face. Gyutaro knows that he’s not very attractive, but he still wants love just as much as the next guy. It’s tortuous for him to have to go through this holiday alone. He just wishes that he had someone who would keep him company sometimes. Someone who he could hold late at night… someone who would be willing to accept all of the love that he has to offer… But he knows that he will never get that luxury.

Gyutaro lays in bed, holding a pillow tightly against his chest. Tears rolling down his cheeks, wetting the pillow case. Around this time of year, it’s not uncommon for Gyutaro to fall asleep crying.

But this is the first time that you’ve seen him like this. It breaks your heart to see such a sweet human being in so much pain. It pushes you to finally introduce yourself. 

~

Gyutaro wakes up to an unfamiliar heat accompanied by a comforting softness. One that is quite foreign to him. He can’t move his body, and it takes all of his willpower to open his eyes.

He sees… skin? A soft lump of flesh pressed against his cheek. He can’t fully see what’s going on, but eventually he makes out what it is. A pair of breasts.

If he was able to speak he’d be gasping from a mixture of excitement and nervousness. He’s never been this close to a woman before… let alone this part of a woman. 

Gyutaro tries his best to figure out who this mystery woman is, but the majority of his vision is blocked by your warm chest. All he is able to do is look down, barely able to see a thin, pointed tail swinging behind you.

“Shhh it’s ok sweetheart,” you coo, gently rolling your fingers through his hair. “It’s ok, I’m just here to comfort you…”

His body is limp, completely at your will. You gently move his face to look up at you. Intoxicating glowing eyes stare back at him. He’s fixated on your perfect skin and the two small horns poking out from beneath your hair.

The familiar perfume scent fills his nostrils as he gazes upon your beauty. Sending a rush of emotions through him. A single tear rolls down his cheek as his dick begins to harden.

With a smirk, you trail your long tongue down his cheek, gathering his tears. “Mmm, you even taste good. Though I knew you would…” you smile sweetly at him, showing off your fangs.

This whole situation is freaking Gyutaro out. But he also can’t help but be horny… You are the first woman to show him affection in this way. Not to mention that you are the sexiest woman he’s ever seen, and you don’t seem disgusted by him. This makes him think that this must be a dream… But would he be able to smell such a sweet, intoxicating scent if it were a dream? He isn’t sure, but all he knows is that he doesn’t want this moment to end. He doesn’t want you to leave him like everyone inevitably does. The thought makes his tears flow heavier.

Your sweet little human’s distressed state tugs at your heart strings, “Oh honey don’t cry! I’m here for you,” you hold his face close to your chest, peppering his head with kisses, “It’s ok, I know how to cheer you up…”

With a tender touch, you guide Gyutaro into a loving kiss. He’s not able to reciprocate, but the both of you are enjoying it nonetheless. Your long tongue explores every inch of his mouth, swiping over his crooked teeth, showing love to every imperfection of his.

The only sound that he’s able to make is a soft whimper. It’s a pathetic sound, but it tells you everything that you need to know. Your new human toy wants you just as badly as you want him.

Pulling away from the kiss, you maneuver Gyutaro’s body beneath you so you can straddle him. Your lace panties pressed up against the erection that is held inside his sweatpants.

The sight of him beneath you causes a devious smirk to form across your saliva covered lips. Pushing yourself further against his crotch and leaning forward, you whisper to him, “I’m going to take care of you, Gyutaro.”

His eyes go wide from your statement, and you can feel his cock twitch beneath you. 

You start at his face and go down, kissing all of his birthmarks until you reach the one on his hip. Taking your time there, you kiss and gently nibble at the mark that adorns him where his bones jut out in an unnatural way. You’ve had encounters with humans for hundreds of years, but you’ve never seen one quite like him. No one else has a body so unique. This single fact is what has made him so lonely his whole life, but it is also what attracted you to him. The entire time you’ve been watching him in this house, you’ve felt an undeniable attraction towards him. 

And now you will finally get to do something about it.

Gyutaro’s breath hitches when you pull down his sweatpants to reveal his cock. Even though you’ve seen it plenty of times before, having watched him masturbate to his eroge games, it still surprises you. Seeing it so up close is completely different. Up close you can see all of the veins that decorate his member, as well as the beautiful assortment of birthmarks that travel from his balls, up to his swollen shaft.

There are so many things that you want to do with him, but they will have to wait. You know more than anyone that virgin men can’t handle too much. So a hand and blow job will have to happen later. You want to make sure that you save all of his seed for your cunt.

You take your time removing your bra and panties. Watching as with each passing moment his dick leaks more pre-cum. Whines escape his lips as more tears flood his eyes. Poor thing, he looks so pathetic and needy. It’s adorable, all you want to do is care for him.

“Don’t worry,” you whisper seductively, moving to position his tip at your entrance. “I’m going to make you feel good.”

A tidal wave of pleasure floods Gyutaro’s body as you slowly lower yourself on his cock. Your pussy holding him in a vice grip, your velvety walls massage him as you hesitantly ride him. Making sure to take it slow, keeping in mind that he has never done this before. 

You’re so tight that Gyutaro feels like you are quite literally sucking the soul from his body, through his dick. The sensations of love and pleasure are so overwhelming to him that he feels like he might die. After being refused romantic affection for his entire life, Gyutaro’s body can’t handle this. It’s all too much for him. He isn’t accustomed to being loved… to being taken care of.

The urge to touch you is tortuous for Gyutaro, he wants more than anything to run his calloused fingers over your soft skin. To reach up and palm your breasts, or to even hold your hips and thrust up into you.

Starting slow, you gradually build up speed. Dragging his length out of you, just to push him back in again. The soft sound of skin slapping, and the squelching of your slick coating his dick fills the room.

“Ah… Gyu-Gyutaro,” you moan. Never have you coupled with a human that felt so good. The way his cock fills you to the brim is like your pussy was made just to fit around him.

Hearing you moan his name causes a tingling sensation to form in the pit of his stomach, his balls tighten and he knows he’s about to fill you with his cum. He tries to hold it in, he really doesn’t want this to end. But the sight of your gorgeous body on top of his, your sopping cunt greedily pulling him into you with each bounce of your hips, he can’t take it anymore.

His orgasm is so strong that he is able to break from your spell. Hands going straight to your hips to hold you down, making sure he gets as deep within you as possible. The tip of his cock forcefully pressed against your cervix. It hurts, but it feels so good at the same time. 

Gyutaro leans forward, resting his forehead on your chest as he moans embarrassingly loud, “F-fuck- ah-ah-ah sh-shit!” His orgasm is strong, and he empties more cum into you than he felt was even possible to produce. Cock twitching, muscles spasming, as he shoots thick ropes into you.

You can feel every spurt forcefully splashing against your cervix. God it feels so fucking good. Never in your entire existence have you felt such euphoria from someone else’s orgasm. It’s enough to send you over the edge with him.

“Gyutaro f-fuck… ah baby. P-please, give all of yourself to me,” you moan loudly as you have the most satisfying release of your life. Feeling as though you were struck by lightning.

Arching your back, you grip his hair, keeping him held close to you. Your walls tighten, and Gyutaro whimpers beneath you as your orgasm forces more of his seed to spill out of him. Overfilling you until it has no room but to trickle down his trembling thighs, staining his bedsheets.

Coming down from your high, you feel a rush of satisfaction course through your veins. Never have you been so satisfied by a mere human before, let alone a virgin. There’s something special about him… something that latches onto your cold heart, making it feel warmth for this man.

He desperately clings onto you, holding you as close as possible to make sure you don’t leave him. You can’t leave him. You’re the first woman to ever love him, he doesn’t know what he would do if you were to leave. 

With him still seated deep inside of you, you wrap your arms around him and return his affection. Taking a moment to catch your breath before you realize that he’s crying. 

His tears roll onto the soft flesh of your breasts, as Gyutaro tries to hide from your gaze. You must think he’s so pathetic…

“Sweetheart,” heartbreak clearly heard in your tone, “What’s the matter?” You gently stroke his hair, comforting him until he calms down enough to speak.

“P-please don’t leave…” he says through hiccups and sobs. Looking up at you with puffy eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you smile, wiping his tears away with your thumb, “I promise.”

[foundtherightwords]

Same Streets, New Memories

Pairing: Eddie x Chrissy (No Vecna/No Upside Down AU)

Summary: Sixteen years after he got his diploma and ran like hell out of Hawkins, Eddie is forced to return home. Disappointed and disillusioned, he broods over his past failures, until a chance meeting with a certain former Queen of Hawkins High puts things into perspective for him.

A/N: This is mostly inspired by the song I Finally Love This Town by Tired Pony. Also, I've seen a lot of "rock star Eddie" fics, so I wanted to explore the opposite of that - what if he never made it big at all?

Warnings: angst (quarter-life crisis stuff - they're all in their mid-30s though, is that too late for a quarter-life crisis?), mentions of drug dealing, drug use, and drinking, some violence

Word count: 6.5k

"Hawkins!" the driver called out amidst the hissing of the brakes, jolting Eddie from the stupor he'd sank into since the Greyhound left Indianapolis. He sat up in his seat and rubbed his aching neck, trying to suppress a groan. Sometimes he'd forgotten he could no longer fall asleep in any position and wake up just fine. For one thing, he wasn't nineteen anymore; for another, all those years spent pretzeled up into all sorts of shapes in the van, on the floor, or on the couch of anyone kind enough to let him crash at their place, were catching up with him.

The bus door clunked open, and Eddie stepped off, blinking in the watery spring sun. It took him a while to recognize that Hawkins' Greyhound station was still in the same place—the parking lot of Palace Arcade and Family Video—because Family Video had been taken over by a Blockbuster, while a Starbucks had replaced the Palace.

It had been sixteen years since he left, and he wasn't prepared for the changes. They say you can never go home again. But what if the place had never felt like home in the first place?

He was one of the few that got off the bus. There were no familiar faces among the passengers or those that came to pick them up. All the better. He didn't want to see anyone he knew.

Hoisting his bag over his shoulder and picking up his guitar case, Eddie trudged toward Forest Hills Trailer Park. It was early March, yet the air was already muggy, even more uncomfortably so after the cool dryness of Los Angeles, and he ran an irritable hand through his fizzy hair, again regretting his decision to come home. Well, what were his options? Stay in LA and work some shitty job with shitty pay that couldn't even afford him a shitty apartment, or return to Hawkins and work some shitty job with shitty pay, but at least he could stay with Wayne in their shitty trailer so he could save money on rent? The second one was an obvious choice, even if it made his insides shrivel up in shame every time he paused long enough to think about it. The prodigal freak of Hawkins, slinking home with his tail between his legs... It'll be OK, he told himself without conviction. Humiliation rarely causes death.

As he walked through Hawkins, Eddie noticed all the changes in the landscape and the people, some subtle, some obvious, but changes nonetheless. Compared to the constant flux of LA, Hawkins seemed older, more tired, the people wearing a harsher look on their faces. He wondered how much of the changes came from himself.

At the turnoff, he almost collided with some spotty-faced kids rolling past on their skateboards. "Watch it, old man!" one of them yelled. The word stung. Eddie thought about giving them a piece of his mind, but thought better of it once he got a closer look at them. Jesus, did he ever look that young? He must have. And thirty-six is not old. Yet, watching those kids, with their frosted tips and the hems of their jeans dragging in the dust, he felt ancient, like Rip Van Winkle returning from his twenty-year-long sleep in the mountains.

But that feeling waned, the closer he got to the trailer. In fact, by the time he pushed open the door, it was as if no time had passed at all, and he was ten years old, getting dropped off by Hopper after Al got arrested yet again. By that point, Eddie had gotten used to staying with Wayne whenever his old man got into trouble, and neither of them had noticed when that particular stay had extended from days into weeks into months and finally years.

The trailer was a time capsule. There was the prehistoric TV by the door, the old faded rug on the floor, the cramped, messy kitchen. All the mugs and hats he'd given Wayne for Christmases and birthdays still lined the walls. It had started sort of as a joke one Christmas, when Eddie first started living with Wayne and couldn't think of a present for him. He had found a Garfield mug and bought it with the little money he had. Wayne had laughed upon opening it and given it the place of honor on the shelf over the TV. And so for Wayne's birthday next year, Eddie had bought him another mug, and another for Christmas, occasionally throwing in a hat just to keep Wayne on his toes, until it had become a tradition and Wayne had to put up new shelves around the living room for the mugs.

Eddie still remembered the Christmas he'd given Wayne a "World's Best Dad" mug.

"I'm sorry, they didn't have a 'World's Best Uncle' one," he'd mumbled apologetically. Wayne had said nothing, only clearing his throat and giving Eddie a tight hug.

And there was Wayne himself. Eddie looked at his uncle with sadness. When had Wayne become so worn out? Ever since Eddie knew him, he had seemed to have been born old, always of some undetermined age between forty-five and sixty, yet full of a quiet energy that never went out. Now, slumped in the rocking chair in front of the droning TV, he looked shrunk, a tired old man. Guilt pricked at Eddie's insides. He'd promised himself the first thing he'd do when Corroded Coffin got big was to get Wayne out of the trailer park and into a decent house, and not only had he failed, but he also had to ask Wayne to take him back.

Eddie sighed and gave Wayne's shoulder a gentle shake. The old man opened his eyes, blinking at his nephew.

"You're home," he said, as if Eddie had just left the previous day.

Eddie wondered if he'd ever really felt at home anywhere. Here, in this rundown trailer, with his gruff but kind uncle, was probably the closest he'd ever gotten. "Yeah," he said simply. "I'm home."

***

Eddie got a job as a bartender at the Hideout.

He suspected that Lenny, the owner, gave him the job for old times' sake more than anything, but it suited him just fine. It meant he got to go to work when most of the townspeople were already on their way home, so fewer chances of running into people he knew. Besides, those that knew him and might mock him didn't usually frequent the Hideout.

It didn't pay that well, and Eddie wondered if the idea of raising enough money to self-produce and release the next Corroded Coffin album was even plausible. He briefly considered dealing again. But even back in high school, he had never made much money from it, mostly just enough to buy a new record now and then. And he couldn't risk getting arrested. Plus, even if he wanted to, he wouldn't even know where to begin now.

"I had to get out, man," said Reefer Rick, when Eddie dropped by his house on Lover's Lake one afternoon. "Kids these days, they're so much tougher. Cannier. And they deal with the hard stuff. I couldn't keep up. I had this place. I had a nice bit of money put away. So I got out while I could." Rick was well on his way to middle age now, spending most of the time sitting on the porch drinking or even fishing on the lake, like those bozos they used to make fun of back in the day, and, oddly enough, he seemed content. Eddie envied him that.

Rick was one of the few old friends that Eddie saw. Eddie found his initial fear about running into people he knew laughable now, because there was almost no one left. All his friends from high school had moved away. His bandmates, Jeff and Grant, had gone to LA with him after graduation, but Gareth, who'd graduated a year later, never made it. "Sorry, man, my mom wants me to stay close," he'd said. They had found a replacement for him, but it was never quite the same.

One Sunday, Eddie ran into Gareth at the store. Gareth recognized him first, and no wonder—Gareth's hair was now cropped short, making his cherubic face look tired and much older than his thirty-three years.

"Holy shit, man, when did you get back?" he asked, giving Eddie a bear hug.

"Gareth, language!" hissed the woman holding a baby, standing just behind them at the check-out line.

"Sorry, hun," Gareth muttered and gave Eddie an embarrassed grin.

They caught up at the Hideout that night. Eddie was relieved to be able to unload to Gareth all about the band's struggle, as he knew no one else would understand. Gareth was understanding, but Eddie couldn't help feeling that his old friend was congratulating himself for not following them to LA and subjecting himself to such hardship. A boring life with a boring job and a boring wife in boring Hawkins was preferable to that. And then Gareth's pager beeped and he excused himself to get home because his wife needed help with the baby, and that was that.

The rest of Eddie's Hellfire buddies, all those lost sheep he'd taken under his wings, were gone too. Henderson was in MIT, working on his PhD. He still sent Eddie a Christmas card every year. Byers, the only one who could rival Eddie as a DM, was in California after Mrs. Byers and Hopper got married and moved the whole clan there, but they were in San Bernardino or somewhere, and Eddie never ran into them in LA. Wheeler had also gone to school there—he was dating Hopper's daughter at the time, if Eddie remembered correctly—and stayed. Sinclair, who had turned out better than Eddie had expected, given his association with the jocks, was working in Indianapolis. They had all done well for themselves.

So perhaps it was a good thing that they weren't here to see their fallen leader.

***

But not everyone left Hawkins. Some stayed. And sometimes, those who stayed were the fucking worst.

It was a usual night at the Hideout, with the regular crowd of five drunks. Nobody paid attention to the band, some lame punk cover act. Eddie wanted to feel bad for the band, remembering that Corroded Coffin had once been in their shoes, but he couldn't muster up the sympathy. Looking at their carefully ripped clothes and perfectly coifed hair, he knew this was just a hobby for them, a pastime to make themselves look cool, and could be easily left behind when they went back to the safety of their parents' houses and their cushy little lives. Then he caught himself and shook his head. Jesus, when did he become so bitter?

A group of men burst through the door, their raucous shouts and laughter putting an end to his dark thoughts. Eddie barely glanced at them. He'd seen enough of those, both in the few weeks he'd been working at the bar and back when he was playing here with Corroded Coffin. Suburban dads, most of them, out on their allotted once-per-week guys' night. Bored with the usual, they decided to check out the Hideout as the most underground place Hawkins had to offer. Ha. They wouldn't know underground even if they woke up buried in a six-foot grave.

Silently, he filled their orders and gave them to Trish, the server. She was one of the new hires—just out of school, barely old enough to be working at a bar—so Eddie made it a point to watch out for her when he could. "You'll be OK with those?" he asked, indicating the men sitting in their booth.

"Nothing I haven't seen before," she replied, though her face was grim.

The group stayed for a long time. As the night went on, they became louder, more obnoxious, and the grim set of Trish's mouth started to waver. She tried to act tough, but she was just a kid, really, and she was no match for those men.

After Trish brought the men their third rounds of tequila shots, Eddie heard a yell coming from the booth. "Get your hand off me!" It was Trish. She was grappling with one of the men, who was holding her by the waist, trying to pull her into the booth with him.

Eddie looked around. The band was gone, having finished their sets more than half an hour ago. Lenny wasn't even in. With a sigh, Eddie left the bar and approached the booth.

"Do we have a problem here?" he said.

"Damn right we do," said the man holding Trish. "You'd better teach your staff to be friendlier to the customers!"

"They are friendly. To those who can keep their hands to themselves," Eddie said, taking Trish's hand and pulling her up. She gave him a grateful look and scurried to the back.

The man got unsteadily to his feet. "Watch your fucking mouth," he snarled, giving Eddie a shove.

Eddie seized the man's wrist. "What did I say about keeping your hands to yourself?"

The man winced, and his friends glanced at each other, worried. "Fuck," the man said. Then he took a closer look at Eddie, and his eyes popped. "Holy shit!" he exclaimed. "Munson? Eddie 'The Freak' Munson?"

Eddie's stomach dropped, and his grip on the man's wrist loosened. He stared back at the man. Square jaws, a low forehead, and small, arrogant eyes. Loathing stirred his memories. His mind's eye added a letterman jacket and a baseball hat, and the man's features solidified. One of Jason Carver's cronies from the basketball team. What was his name?

The man's mouth lifted in a mocking smile. "Well, well, well. What happened to 'fuck this town', Munson?"

"I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Eddie said, ignoring the question.

"What are you going to do, kick me out?"

"Yes."

The others exchanged glances again, and Eddie was aware of how he looked in their eyes—a tall, intimidating guy in a leather jacket. Someone you don't want to mess with. One of them put his hand on the square-jawed man's shoulder. "Come on, Andy." Andy. That was it.

Andy jerked his shoulder away. "Don't let this freak scare you. All bark and no bite, aren't you, Munson?" he said, grinning at Eddie. "Just like in high school."

Eddie tried to swallow the hot gust of anger rising to his throat. "My bark is actually worse," he said evenly. "If you refuse to leave, I'm going to call the police."

Andy's friends had had enough. "Let's go, man. It's getting late anyway."

They filed out of the booth, throwing down money as they went. Andy still stared at Eddie, his already small eyes narrowed into angry slits, while his friends dragged him away.

***

After the bar closed, Eddie made sure that Trish was picked up by her boyfriend. It was four in the morning by the time he finished cleaning up and locking the door. As he walked through the parking lot that was still steeped in darkness, a voice called out, "Munson!"

Eddie turned around. It was Andy, standing by a car. What the hell?

"You really humiliated me tonight, you know that?" Andy said. By the slurring of his voice, his drinking hadn't stopped after he left the Hideout.

"You must have a really fragile ego, if that was enough to humiliate you," Eddie said, continuing to walk.

"Don't act all high and mighty with me, freak," Andy growled. "You were nothing in high school, and you're nothing now."

A haze of red came over Eddie's eyes, but he tried to keep it in check as he turned around.

"Hey man, I don't know what your problem is—" he began, but before he could finish, a fist landed on his cheek. Since said fist belonged to a guy who wasn't even standing straight, it didn't hurt much, but the surprise threw Eddie off his balance. Andy used the momentum to grab Eddie's shoulder and yank him down. Eddie's face collided with the car's side-view mirror.

Dazed, Eddie sat on the ground and touched his cheek. It stung where the mirror cut him, and his fingers came away wet with blood.

The haze of red slammed over his eyes again.

He jumped up and lunged at Andy.

What followed was a blur of punches, some connecting, either with flesh or metal, but most didn't. The more he missed, the angrier Eddie got. As if this bastard hadn't made his life miserable enough back in high school, he had to come to his work and attacked him as well. And for what? For ruining his night out with his buddies? As far as Eddie could see, Andy was doing a pretty good job of that himself.

Finally, Eddie had Andy by his neck against the car.

"What the hell's wrong with you?" he roared.

"Fuck you, fucking freak!" Andy spat out.

Suddenly the fight went out of Eddie. What the hell were they doing, two grown men having a pathetic drunken brawl over some imagined animosity nearly twenty years ago? He let go. Andy sank to the ground, and Eddie staggered away.

***

His cheek throbbing, Eddie found his way into the woods surrounding Hawkins. He couldn't let Wayne see him in this state. Better to walk off some steam and come up with some excuse before facing his uncle.

At this hour, the sun was not up yet, but it was no longer pitch dark. The woods lay silent under a cold gray half-light that sapped everything of color and life. The only sound was the squishing of the wet, dead leaves of many winters under his feet, and the only movement, other than his own, was the drip-drip-drip of water, either rain or dew, from the new buds onto his head. Irritated, he reached up to rub the wetness out of his scalp, and winced as he accidentally touched the cut on his face.

He shouldn't have let Andy get to him. The encounter left a sour taste in his mouth and a heavy weight, like a lead ball, in his guts. It wasn't simply anger or shame, or rather, it wasn't his usual shame of being a failure. It was the shame of feeling like he and Andy were similar. He hated the idea that he could have something in common with that jerk, but there it was. It was like they were still teenagers, ready to use their fists at the merest hint of an offense, always trying to prove themselves, trying to be cooler than this or that person. Eddie thought he'd grown out of that high school mentality, but apparently not. It only took coming back to Hawkins, being amongst these people, to bring out that aggressive side of him.

Perhaps coming home was a mistake.

A rustling made him look up. It was light enough now for him to glimpse, through the trees, a figure in a tracksuit, a jogger, a woman, blond hair bobbing along with her steps, running toward him. Shit. He didn't want to run into anyone, especially not right now, skulking through the woods with dry blood down his face and caked on his knuckles. They'd think he was a serial killer or something.

Eddie whirled around, trying to blend into the trees before he and the jogger crossed paths. A branch smacked him in the face, blinding him, making him lose his footing. He took a stumbling step back. The embankment he was standing on, already weak from the endless rain of the past week, gave way, and before he knew it, Eddie was plummeting down a slope, dead branches and rocks scratching at his face and arms as he went.

For a moment, he lay sprawled at the bottom of the slope, blinking up at the green dome above him, too stunned to move.

Then a face appeared in his view. A woman's face, full of concern.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Then the concern on her face slowly dissipated, replaced by surprise and recognition.

"Eddie Munson, as I live and breathe," she said. "I almost didn't recognize you with that beard." When Eddie didn't answer, she gave him a teasing smile. "Don't you remember me?" She extended a hand to help him up.

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could sink into the earth and disappear right there and then. But when the trees remained above him, and the musty earth remained underneath him, he had no choice but to accept the helping hand and get to his feet.

"Hi, Chrissy," he said.

***

Chrissy Cunningham. The last person he'd want to run into, especially in his current state.

Though her hair was shorter and held back with a headband instead of pulled into a ponytail, she still looked exactly as he remembered, as she had in high school, those wide blue eyes, that bright smile showing a hint of her crooked front teeth. Next to her, Eddie felt like a tramp. Probably looked like a tramp too.

"You OK?" she asked, taking in his bedraggled and bloodied appearance.

"Uh, yeah."

"That's a nasty cut right there," she said, pointing to his elbow. It was only then that Eddie felt the searing pain. He must've snatched it on a rock or a broken branch. "You should get that cleaned up, or it'll get infected." Without waiting for an answer, she took his other elbow and guided him up the other side of the slope. "Let me go grab a first-aid kit from school, and I can take care of that for you."

"What school?"

Chrissy stared at him. "Hawkins High, of course."

"Are we that close?"

"Don't you recognize this part of the woods?"

They were up on the opposite side of the slope now, and Eddie saw an old picnic table and bench set, all rusty and weather-beaten, by a tree stump that stood like a sentinel over the place. He immediately recognized it. He must've been too pissed off about his encounter with Andy to realize where he was walking.

"Wait here," Chrissy said. "I'll be back in a minute."

As she jogged off, Eddie thought about running away himself. But that would be ridiculous. She'd already seen him. How embarrassing would it be if she came back and found out he'd ran away like some coward? Besides, the fall had left him too sore to move. He gingerly sat down on one of the benches, afraid it would collapse from his weight, and cast a look around. Back in his schooldays, this had been the hangout for the stoners and the burnouts, and there had always been some empty beer cans and cigarette stubs scattered about. Now add to that some old needles, and he could've sworn he saw a used condom too. Jesus. Even this place had gone to the dogs.

What twist of fate had sent him here, and into the path of Chrissy Cunningham, of all people?

Of all the drug spots in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine...

Before he could contemplate that, Chrissy was back, bringing with her a first-aid kit. "So when did you get back?" she asked, lifting Eddie's elbow and cleaning the wound with practiced hands.

"A few weeks ago," Eddie replied, trying not to hiss at the sting of the rubbing alcohol.

"Are you just visiting? You're some big rock star out on the West Coast now, aren't you?"

Eddie was glad that her face was bent over his elbow, so she couldn't see the half-downcast, half-furtive look on his face. But his honesty won out. "Hardly," he mumbled. "Our albums sold like twenty copies each, and I think Jeff's mom—you know Jeff, right?—I think his mom bought most of them." He chuckled to show that he was joking, and Chrissy smiled back.

"I'd love to have a listen," she said. He knew she was just saying that to be polite, but it didn't stop butterflies from fluttering in his stomach. "I know it's not the same as seeing you guys live..." She lifted her eyes briefly to his face, before looking down again. "I always regret not making it to one of your shows at the Hideout, you know."

Eddie stared at her bent head, not knowing what to say. Being here with her and talking about Corroded Coffin and the Hideout brought back memories of another day in March, sixteen years ago. Back then, he'd felt, if not on top of the world, then at least pretty near it.

And that night... if he hadn't felt on top of the world that afternoon when he made Chrissy Cunningham laugh, then he'd certainly felt it that night.

It felt just like yesterday, the two of them driving back to his trailer after the successful conclusion of his Cult of Vecna campaign, trying the Special K, and then just staying up and talking. He couldn't remember what they'd talked about. All he remembered was a sense of... not happiness, exactly, but contentment, and it wasn't because of the Special K. No, it was because Chrissy had been there and she'd felt safe with him, and he with her.

He had never asked why she'd wanted to try the Special K. Later, as he drove her home, she'd asked him to drop her off a little further away so she could walk to her front door, and he'd guessed the reason, but hadn't pressed her about it.

"Sure, no problem," he'd only said, watching the way she twisted her fingers in her lap and fighting the urge to reach out, to put his hand over hers, and tell her everything would be alright. "I'll stay here and keep watch until you're inside."

She'd said thank and leaned over, perhaps to plant a kiss on his cheek, but at the same time, he'd turned his head to tell her "You're welcome", and the kiss had landed on his mouth instead. They'd both jolted back, embarrassed, only to be drawn back toward each other, inexorably, irresistibly, until her lips had found his again, deliberately this time. He still remembered the softness of her mouth, the taste of her lip gloss, the way she'd melted into his arms as he pulled her close...

He should've known it was too good to be true.

Queens of Hawkins High don't go around kissing freaks.

Chrissy had pulled away from him abruptly, ran out of his van, and disappeared into the night. When they got back to school after spring break, she'd actively avoided him.

Looking back, he realized that had been the first in the long string of disappointments that was to be his life for the following sixteen years.

And now here she was, talking as if nothing had happened.

It still stung, but he tried not to let it show.

"I didn't know you were in town," he said, changing the subject.

"Oh, I moved back a couple of years ago."

That surprised him. After leaving Hawkins, he'd tried hard not to think about Chrissy, but when he did, usually after some heavy drinking or after a late gig, when he felt particularly lonely, he'd imagined that she was leading a perfect life somewhere. Moving back to this shithole didn't seem that perfect.

And if she was here and Jason wasn't, that meant...

Eddie found himself glancing at her hand. No ring.

"My dad's passed, and my mom's had a stroke, so I moved back to help out," she explained. Eddie could feel all the years apart stretching out between them like a gulf. Their lives were so separate, so different.

"Shit. That's rough. I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "Moving back was a relief. I wasn't doing great in Chicago anyway. Divorced, working a dead-end job..."

"Oh. Sorry." Then, because he couldn't help himself: "Jason?"

She actually laughed, but there was no bitterness in it. "No. We broke up right after graduation. Just a few days after you left, in fact. He's married with a couple of kids now, living in Bloomington, I think."

She remembered when he left? Nah, don't be stupid. She only remembered 'cause that was when she broke up with that prick...

"What about you?" Chrissy asked.

"Me?"

"You married?" Was it his imagination, or did her nonchalance seem a little forced?

Eddie smiled ruefully. "Almost did, once."

"What happened?"

"She wised up." After that, it was just a string of fleeting relationships and meaningless hook-ups. More disappointments.

They talked about their classmates for a while—Nancy, Wheeler's sister, Miss Valedictorian, now a journalist in New York, Robin Buckley and Vickie Ryan, who shocked Hawkins when they started dating after graduation and then moved away together, and Billy Hargrove, the bad boy of their class, who was killed in a car accident in '92.

"Shit. Sounds like everybody left Hawkins," he said.

"Some stay. Some even came back," she said, gesturing to him and herself.

"That's only because they have no choice."

"No, I think it's nice to come back to a familiar place. You always know where you are. And if the place's changed... well, you've changed too, so that's even."

He hadn't thought of it like that. Suddenly the whole moving back home thing didn't seem so bad after all.

"You should be a motivational speaker, Cunningham," he said, trying to sound dry. "Have you considered that as a career?"

"I already kind of am, with the cheer squad."

"You're still cheering?"

"No, coaching." She perked up. "Didn't I tell you? I'm the cheer coach at Hawkins High now. Hard to believe, right?"

"No, not at all. You were always good at that." He remembered Chrissy in middle school, how young they'd been, how enthusiastic—how long ago was that, over twenty years? Jesus. No wonder he felt old.

"The only thing I'm good at, you mean."

"No, no," Eddie quickly said. "Well, you're good at this too," he added lamely, indicating the first-aid kit.

"I did study to be an RN." She finished bandaging up the large wound on his elbow and moved on to his other cuts and scrapes.

"So why—"

"Dropped out my third year." There was an awkward silence, but Chrissy didn't seem embarrassed. "I just couldn't cope with the stress, and there was no one to sell me half an ounce of weed at a discount," she said, twinkling at him, and he couldn't help smiling back at her.

That smile disappeared when Chrissy asked, "So, any exciting new project with Corroded Coffin coming soon?" Seeing Eddie's face fall, she sobered up. "I'm sorry, was that—"

"No, it's OK."

Eddie felt like opening up to her. Perhaps they weren't so different after all. Perhaps she'd understand.

"Well"—here Eddie took a deep breath, and the truth he'd been hiding came out in a rush—"there won't be any new stuff. Not for a while anyway. We got dropped by the label. The last album didn't sell that well, so they dropped us."

And there it was. The reason why he had to come home, the reason he felt like a failure. It had taken them years to get signed, and when it was only to an indie label, he and the guys had told themselves it was for the best, it would give them more independence. As it turned out, an indie label was less likely to interfere with their creative process, it was true, but it didn't interfere much with anything else either. They were left floundering, having to do almost everything themselves. Ten years of that would put a strain on anyone.

Without Gareth, they went through a string of replacement drummers, none lasting more than a few years, since they had never been part of Hellfire and didn't share their camaraderie. Then, when the label dropped them, it had been the last straw. They had held on for as long as they could, but eventually, when Grant and Jeff quit, Eddie had no choice but to quit as well. Grant had gone back to Hawkins for a while, then left again, having found a job in Detroit. Jeff, the rock of their group, was the only one who stayed in LA, working as a session musician. He had tried to convince Eddie to stay as well, but Eddie couldn't stand watching some other bands hit it big while he was forced to play someone else's music. To him, it would be a special form of Hell. So he'd gone home, feeling like he'd failed his bandmates, his uncle, and himself.

Chrissy listened to all that in sympathetic silence. No judging, no mocking, no clichéd advice or words of encouragement, just a softening of her eyes and a gentle squeeze of her hand on his arms as she placed Band-Aids on his cuts.

"Do you ever feel like you're a failure?" he asked, by way of a conclusion.

She peered at him for a moment before answering. "Oh just... you know, on a daily basis."

Those words rang a bell in Eddie's mind. He looked up to see Chrissy grinning crookedly at him, but there was some self-deprecation in that grin that made him realize how tactless his question had been.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean—"

"No, it's OK." Her smile got a little brighter. "I don't mind being a failure. Takes a lot of pressure off." When he raised a questioning eyebrow at that, she continued, "When you're already a failure, people don't expect much from you. You're free to live your life how you want, no need to live up to anyone's bullshit standard."

Eddie tilted his head to look at Chrissy more closely and realized his first impression of her had been wrong. She had changed. He could hardly recognize her from the nervous girl who jumped at the mere cracking of a branch when they met at this very bench sixteen years ago. She seemed... not exactly more confident, but rather, she no longer cared what others thought of her. Still, even back then, there had been a wild streak in her, a devil-may-care attitude that had driven her to buy drugs from him and agreed to come back to his trailer with him. Time and experiences had mellowed it, but it was still there. The same wild streak that had drawn him to her in the first place.

Chrissy finished with his arms and stood up so she could clean the cuts on his face.

"Do you remember that night before spring break, back in '86?" she said.

Their eyes met, and he held his breath. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry I ran off like that. I'm sorry I ignored you in school afterward. It was—stupid of me. I cared too much about what other people thought."

So she remembered. And understood.

Eddie let out a breath, not just the one he'd been holding, but also the one that had his chest in a tight grip ever since he moved back home. With that breath, he also let go of all the heartache, guilt, and shame of the past. None of it mattered anymore. If he kept clinging to them, he would be no better than Andy.

He reached for Chrissy's hand, which was resting on his cheek. "You're not the only one," he said.

As she looked into his eyes, he would've given anything to be able to stay like that forever, with Chrissy standing over him, her face bent toward his, their hands intertwined, and the sun shining softly through the trees behind her, turning her gold hair into a perfect halo.

A branch snapped somewhere in the woods, breaking the spell.

Eddie cursed under his breath. His only consolation was that Chrissy was looking slightly flustered and disappointed, while she packed up the first-aid kit.

As she turned to leave, Chrissy blurted out, "Why don't you come to the game this Friday night? It'll be a walk down memory lane—oh, sorry." She winced. "I forgot that you don't care about—what did you call it? A game where you—"

"—where you toss balls into laundry baskets," Eddie said with a rueful smile. "I did say a lot of stupid shit back then. No, you don't have to apologize. It's just that—I have to work Friday night."

"Oh."

"But you're welcome at the Hideout anytime," he said, emboldened by her crestfallen look. "Drinks are on me."

Her face brightened. "I'll hold you to that."

"So... guess I'll see you around then?" he asked.

"Looks like it." She flashed him another crooked smile and walked off, while Eddie remained at the bench, feeling like he was fourteen again.

***

Wayne came out of the bedroom to find his nephew sitting on the fold-out bed. When Eddie first came home, Wayne had tried to give the bedroom back, saying the fold-out had served him well for ten years and would serve him well again, but Eddie had vehemently refused. His reason was that he was the one working nights now, and he didn't want to wake Wayne up when he came home early in the morning. In the end, Wayne had relented. He knew Eddie's guilt about having to move back in with him; no need to make the boy feel worse than he already did.

Eddie's face was bruised and bandaged, but he was looking more content than Wayne had ever seen him since he came home. And he had taken his guitar out of its case and was strumming a soft melody, occasionally stopping to jot something down in a battered old notebook in front of him. Wayne took that as a good sign.

"Mornin'," he said, shuffling toward the kitchen, making no comment on Eddie's late return or injuries. "You want some breakfast?"

"Hmm," Eddie replied distractedly, his attention still on the notebook.

It was his first attempt at writing a song in about eight months. He was a little rusty, but it felt good to pick up the guitar.

They say you can never go home again. But what if you can make the place feel like home? By peopling it with those that you know and love, and those that know you and, perhaps, if not love, then at least like you back?

She'd asked him to a game.

She'd said she'd see him around.

Maybe he could get someone to cover his shift...

"Hey Wayne," Eddie said, looking up from his guitar. "You ever watch a basketball game at Hawkins High?"

Wayne turned away from the pan of sizzling bacon to eye Eddie suspiciously. "Since when did you become interested in high school basketball?"

"Since today."

"Why?"

"No reason." Eddie shrugged, then he grinned, that familiar ear-to-ear grin that Wayne hadn't seen in a long, long time. "Just wondering if I could suffer through it this Friday night."

A/N: OK, I meant for this to be a one-shot, but my brain kept screaming at me to add more, so maybe I will expand on it later… not as a full multi-chaptered fic, but as a series of interconnected one-shots. We'll see.

[missmilkie]

The Ninja From Another Land

Part One

This is a Naruto various x fem!reader fic.

1193 words

As a twenty year old young adult you lived alone. You tried having a roommate that first year you were out on your own, but you decided it wasn’t worth it. You found an apartment with cheap rent that wasn’t too bad. Yeah, you were pretty sure your neighbors did hard drugs, but not all of them. You weren’t going to get mugged or anything, so it was alright.

You didn’t make a ton of money, but you made enough. It funded your anime addiction on top of paying for your necessities. You saved money by making most of your meals at home. You had an anime cookbook that you were trying meals from. One of your favorites was the Ichiraku Ramen.

Your apartment had one bedroom and one bathroom. The living room and kitchen were a decent size as well as your closet. Your furniture wasn’t anything to brag about, but it was simple and comfy.

Your bed was a plush queen size. You spent the extra money on silk sheets and pillowcases and it was definitely worth it.

After doing your skincare, you decided to put something on while you drifted off to sleep. You took a few minutes going through different shows on your streaming service before settling on Naruto. That show was everything to you growing up, and is still one of your favorites to rewatch. The first episode played in the background as you lost consciousness.

“Who is she?”

“What are those clothes is the real question.”

“Quit being so superficial, something bad could have happened to her.”

“Probably just got lost in the woods. It shouldn’t be hard to find her parents when she wakes up.”

“Let’s hope so.”

When your eyes opened, warm sunlight blinded you. You brought your hand up to block it. You thought you left your curtains closed before you went to bed. Grunting in annoyance, you sat up.

Wait a minute. This wasn’t your bed. This wasn’t even your room. How did you get here? Where were you?

“You’re finally awake.” You turned to see a nurse at the door.

“Yes. What happened?” You didn’t feel hurt or ill.

“You were found unconscious in the forest outside of the village.” The nurse explained, “If you’re feeling alright, I’m supposed to send you to see the Hokage.”

“The Hokage?” Your head whipped around to check for cameras. “Are you messing with me?”

“Perhaps we should check you for a concussion…”

“No!” You regained your composure. “Take me to the Hokage.”

“Alright, your escort is on the other side of this door.”

You swung your legs off the bed, your pajamas wrinkled. You had no shoes, so you wore the hospital slippers out.

On the other side of the door was a tall man wearing the Konoha standard uniform. You immediately recognized his silver hair and covered face, only revealing one eye.

“Kakashi Hatake.” You murmured in surprise.

“Hm?” He looked up at me from his book.

Whoever was pranking you was good.

“Oh, um, you’re taking me to see the Hokage?”

“Yes. Follow me.” They got his voice down to a tee!

Kakashi led you out of the hospital and across the village. It looked just like the anime. Maybe this wasn’t a prank, but a dream. People looked at you funny as you made the short walk to the Hokage’s office. Your pajamas made you stick out like a sore thumb, and the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.

When Kakashi stopped, it was at a large wooden door. You weren’t sure which Hokage would be behind it.

“Right through there.”

You nodded before opening the door.

The sight of the Third Hokage made your eyes widen. You knew what point in the story you were at. Orochimaru hadn’t killed Hiruzen Sarutobi yet.

“Hello, Lord Third.” You gave an awkward bow.

“It seems you know where you are and who I am. What is your name, young lady?”

“(Y/n) (L/n).”

“Where are you from?” His drooping eyes held a piercing gaze.

“Not here…I don’t think I could find it on a map.” Your eyes dropped.

“You have nowhere to go then?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you have knowledge of ninjutsu, genjutsu, or taijutsu?” He asked, to your surprise.

“Some, yes.” You looked back up at him.

“If you would like to, you may take a placement test for our ninja academy.”

“I would be honored to be given the chance to be a hidden leaf ninja.”

“Your first test will be on your chakra nature. Focus it onto the paper, and we will deduce your results.” Iruka instructed, looking up at you from his clipboard.

You were given money for clothes, so you wore a cute ninja outfit. Being reverted back to being physically 12 years old meant you had to try things on because you couldn’t remember what size you were. Iruka had gone shopping with you so that you wouldn’t be alone in a new place.

Paper in hand, you closed your eyes and focused to feel your chakra running through your body. The flow was akin to electricity, and you felt more alive when you focused on it. Then you directed it to your hand holding the paper. Chakra pooled at your palm before you let it flow into your fingertips and then the paper.

If your zodiac is:

Aries: Fire and Earth

Taurus: Earth and Water

Gemini: Wind and Earth

Cancer: Water and Fire

Leo: Fire and Lightning

Virgo: Earth and Fire

Libra: Wind and Lightning

Scorpio: Water and Lightning

Sagittarius: Fire and Wind

Capricorn: Earth and Lightning

Aquarius: Wind and Water

Pisces: Water and Earth

“Looks like your chakra nature is both (your first nature) and (your second nature). You’re dual natured.” Iruka gave you an assuring smile. “Now, can you perform a transformation jutsu?”

“I’ve never done it before, but I can try.” You put your hands up in the sign that you recalled from the screen several times.

Chakra surged throughout your entire body. When you heard the poof, you looked at yourself. You resembled Iruka.

“Very good. I think you can be placed in the graduating class. If it’s too hard, you can go down a class. There’s no shame, especially since you’re not from a ninja village.”

Your heart damn near burst out of your chest. You couldn’t believe it. You had caught on to jutsu so quickly. Maybe you would be in the Rookie Nine’s class.

To celebrate your placement, Iruka took you to Ichiraku Ramen. You were finally getting to try the real thing!

“Um, don’t you think she’s a bit young to be your girlfriend, Mr Iruka?” You instantly recognized Naruto’s voice.

“Naruto, you idiot!” Iruka had a vein popping out of his forehead.

“Oh, I’m a new student at the ninja academy, not his date.” You explained.

“A new student? I’m Naruto Uzumaki, and I’m gonna be Hokage!”

“(Y/n) (L/n). I look forward to class.”

The three of you ate delicious ramen. It was even better than the stuff you made back in your world!

Updates every Tuesday

[fatehbaz]

Scientists use a refrain to sum up in the impact of earthworms [...]: “Good in your garden, bad in the forest.” It’s a quip that can sometimes come as a surprise to people used to thinking of earthworms as symptoms of healthy soil.

In Canada’s northern forests, there’s increasing evidence of a worm problem.

According to research from 2013, tiny soil invertebrates, like mites and springtails, decrease in abundance by more than 50 percent when earthworms are present. These minute creatures play an important role in the decomposition and nutrient-cycling of plants, and their decline can likely be attributed to the rapid way earthworms devour leaf litter. [...] And earthworms, it seems, are spreading everywhere. Research on their presence in northern US forests, where invasions are more advanced, suggests that they could have cascading effects including everything from more severe drought to greater human allergies. [...]

[N]early all native species of earthworms in Canada were wiped out over 12,000 years ago, during the last period of glaciation. Earthworms, we now know, have been present in southern Canada for only a few short centuries, the first having hitched a ride with colonizing Europeans [...].

---

Lumbricus terrestris -- the common earthworms people find in their gardens, which are often called dew worms or Canadian nightcrawlers in fishing circles -- are one of the worm species that were transported from Europe and have settled into their new home so successfully that they’ve emerged as a valuable commodity. According to Steckley’s later research on the subject, demand for these worms as fishing bait exploded as recreational fishing became popular in the wake of the Second World War. But earthworms defy attempts at commercial cultivation and have to be plucked from the wild.

In the 1980s, southwestern Ontario, with its rich soil, abundant volume of introduced nightcrawlers, and steady supply of immigrant labour, quickly eclipsed the other worm-producing regions of North America. By the time Steckley drove past the worm pickers,

Ontario had become the epicentre of global nightcrawler production, with an estimated 500 million to 700 million worms picked and shipped across North America every year.

---

Steckley, who is now a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto researching Ontario’s bait-worm industry, says that he was actually right about his initial impression: there were bags of money in that farmer’s field, at least in the figurative sense. Worm pickers usually make around $30 per 1,000 worms, and a picker in the right conditions can scoop up to 20,000 worms a night.

“Farmers who rent their land [for an entire year] can make more from worm pickers than any other crop that they feasibly plant,” says Steckley, who’s heard of rents of up to $1,500 an acre. The industry is worth around $230 million today, Steckley estimates.

Despite the spread, Steckley says there have been few efforts to regulate its downstream environmental effects -- in fact, most people he’s encountered have been unaware that earthworms are invasive. [...]

---

But, in the boreal forest, most of the carbon is stored in organic matter -- that thick layer of fallen leaves, roots, moss, and rotting wood that, under normal conditions, decomposes slowly. But deep-burrowing earthworms feed on this material [...]. Justine Lejoly, who is conducting doctoral work with the University of Alberta and the Canadian Forest Service, found that, in some invaded parts of the Canadian boreal, 96 percent of this layer has disappeared. “Most of the forest floor is gone, so that means a lot of carbon is gone,” she says. This finding, which Lejoly made alongside her supervisor Sylvie Quideau is striking because 28 percent of the boreal forest is found in Canada and as much as one-third of terrestrial carbon is stored in the boreal worldwide. [...]

---

Text by: Moira Donovan. “Revenge of the Earthworms.” The Walrus. With illustration by Joey Ng. 13 June 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

[d0wnb4df0rf1cm3n]

just a kid.

Finnick Odair x F!OC

Summary: Cora Turner is unlucky. Very, very unlucky. At age 13, she is thrown into the horrors of the Hunger Games. Her best friend by her side, and a man she loathes more than anything too, how happy with her Hunger Games be? May the Odds be ever in her Favour.

Word Count: 6.2K

Warnings: Allusion to ED, Blood, Gore, Canon Violence (it's the Hunger Games for crying out loud), Alcoholism

A cold draft blew through my room, brought to the shore by early morning rays. I tugged my blanket tighter around my body, relishing in the last few moments before I had to drag herself out of bed and get going; it was going to be another long day, and there was no use being late. I pulled myself out of the barren cot I called a bed, grabbing a pair of sandy trousers and a long white shirt off the floor and heading into the bathroom. I washed my face and brushed my teeth, being careful not to waste the water. The Capitol only provided a limited supply per month, and it was barely enough, even when I rationed it. I braided my hair quickly – there’s be barely enough time to change before going to the academy, let alone tie my hair. I grabbed my nets and creeped down the stairs just as the sun peaked up over the rooftops, being careful not to wake anyone. Dylan was passed out by the door, shoes barely off his feet, bottle still clutched in his hand. How wonderful. I shifted his leg with my toe, grimacing at the stench of vomit and alcohol that surrounded him and headed down to the docks.

The docks, the home to most of our industry here, were as busy as ever. I walked down to dock G – the furthest from the town centre, bidding the early fishers a good morning as they returned home for the day. They would be here again in the evening, to start fishing again, strategically avoiding the busy and hot afternoons. I came to a small fishing boat, painted white with a stripe of deep forest green through the middle: The Carina. I climbed aboard, setting up for a few hours of trawling. The Carina was an old model, probably first released when my father was a boy, but Mr Trent had kept good care of her – she still worked like a dream. The motor ran smoothly, no loud noises or stuttering. The engine didn’t leak oil like some of the other boats in the Marina. I made a mental reminder to drop some money off by Mr Trent’s house. Mr Trent owned The Carina, but he never came fishing this early, so we struck a deal. In return for early morning use of his boat, I gave him some of the fish I caught and some of the money I earned – a sort of rent.

“Hey, Cora!” I could recognise that voice anywhere. I spun around, deep hazel eyes meeting mine. Kai.

Kai Aguafils was a senior at the academy, and a long-time friend of mine. His mother used to work with my father – both of them repairman at a boat repair shop owned by Christopher Connell – one of the first victors ever. His mother left when she had Kai’s sister – replacing the variety of boat repairs for the solitude of basket weaving. My mother was a basket weaver. They became fast friends, and Kai and I became closer. Now, despite almost everything having changed, we remained fast friends. He took care of me. I couldn’t take that for granted.

Jackson followed from not far behind, throwing his nets in my general direction. I flipped him off, which he laughed at. He gave me a quick side-hug, kissing the top of my head lightly. I smiled. Best brothers anyone could ask for.

Kai pushed The Carina off the beach, where it had been docked, and we set sail. We cruised into the middle of the lake where we were far from alone. We cast out our nets and sat down on the deck, waiting for something to get caught in the nets. We generally finished before going to the academy – we could catch up, clear our minds, before a long gruelling day. It was the last day of the school year; the reaping was tomorrow. We had six weeks off school for the Hunger Games, which we were forced to watch. For most, the holidays were a time for swimming at the beach and playing in the square. But every year, two unlucky children, were forced to go to the Capitol and fight to the death, as a sport. For the Capitol’s enjoyment.

“Excited Cora?” Jackson asked, leaning back. The sunlight glinted of his dark red hair, imitating a bright flame. Jackson was known to be extremely beautiful, especially to all the girls in his year. It didn’t help that he was incredibly strong and good at hand-to-hand combat. He really had model potential. More than those Capitol folks, anyway.

“As I’ll ever be.” I smiled nervously. Kai good-naturedly ruffled my hair. This was my third year going. I was scared and I hated the thought of having to kill 23 other children to go home. Maybe that’s why I loved it so much out here. Here in the middle of the lake, no one could hear us, there were no expectations, no agenda. Just freedom.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Kai said, looking up, “the sunrise.” Jackson and I followed suit. We watched silently as it rose, before getting to work and pulling the fish in. I steered the boat as Kai and Jackson pulled the net in.

“This is your last year, isn’t it Kai?” Kai nodded, pulling one net and Jackson pulled in the other. Kai was 18: this year was his last in the reaping and he was relieved. In our district it was a privilege to represent the district in the Hunger Games. Other Districts thought that District 4, our district, was a Career district, famous for producing winners.

But a fair few of us were poor, myself included. Kai had to take out Tesserae, to feed his entire family and I almost to take out some myself. I generally had to survive on the meals I scrape by, or school meals, but Jackson was not so lucky. Tesserae was a ploy to make the less able more likely to fight in the games. Tesserae was a yearly allowance of grains, rices, and hygiene necessities. The price was that, for every person that you took out a Tesserae for, you had an extra ticket with your name on it put in the ballot. That meant that, at the age of 18, with 4 family members to feed, Kai had his name in the ballot 35 times. His chances of being picked were exponentially higher than mine.

We sailed back to land, before splitting the fish between the three of us. I got the most as I was going to sell. The 3 of us went our separate ways, and I scurried off to market to sell before academy.

First, I went to Dee, a young woman who owned the best soup kitchen in town. She had a soft spot for salmon, a rare delicacy in the market, most being shipped off to the Capitol. I knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” I heard her yell, her voice loud from behind the closed door.

“Just me.” I hear her heels tapping on the floor, and the door opens to show her suspicious face.

“Well, if it isn’t my favourite young fisherwoman in town. What do you have for me today?”

“2 salmon and a few mackerel.” She opens her mouth in shock, before quickly catching herself and shutting her mouth.

“Really! Well, how much are you offering for?” She asked. This was usual for Dee: she would ask a price, before gambling lower.

“220.”

“Ha!” She laughed. “I’m afraid not, dearie. 22 a fish is too much. How about 100?”

“So little for our efforts? Come on, Dee! We all need to eat.” Dee started to loosen up.

“Fine. What’s your price?”

“200.”

“120.” Dee retorted.

“Last Price: 180.” Dee smiled and handed over the money. I waved her goodbye, and she went back to cooking with 2 salmon and 8 mackerel in hand.

Next stop was Alex.

Alex was an old man, known for being particularly well-endowed in his money. He was the nephew of a victor, and was a member of the district council, meaning he grew up with luxuries and was a fan of expensive foods - he loved lobster. However, lobster was not the easiest to find, especially since most was shipped off to the Capitol. Good thing you didn’t exactly work for the Capitol yet, because Alex would always consider a good price. I guess today was a lucky day.

Alex opened the door, slowly. His back was giving out on him, medicines and treatment too laborious to keep up with, especially since he was alone.

“Hello Cora. How are you today?” He greeted me kindly, as always.

“I’m good, as always. And you?” He smiled.

“Good, good. What do you have for me today?”

“2 lobster.” His eyes widened, before he settled on an indifferent smirk.

“How about 160, eh?” I smiled, just like Alex to set down a price. Always ridiculously low, so low that only a fool would accept.

“You and I both know that is an insult to the lobsters. At least, 280.”

“185.” He asked, patiently. He knew my game but was always willing to play it.

“265.”

“Final Offer: 245.” He said, and I reached out my hand. He handed the money to me and I gave him the lobsters. He smiled and bid me adieu. He closed his back door, muttering to himself about extortion. I laughed. One more place to go.

It had just turned 7 o'clock when I reached the bakery; Olivia and Liam were just opening up when I arrived. “Hey,” I breathed, walking in, the scent of fresh bread making my mouth water with a single whiff. They both turned to look at me, greeting me with a wave as I dropped my nets by the front door. Olivia pulled me into a tight hug, her flour-stained apron smearing my shirt. Liam ruffled my hair, and asked me how my morning had been.

“I have 12 haddock, if you want them.” I said to Liam. He smiled.

“How much are you asking for them?” He asked, a caricatural suspicious look on his face. Olivia and I laughed.

“80.” He looked at me, inquiringly.

“Only?”

“Half free.” I say, “in return for dinner last night.” He smiled. Olivia and Liam had offered me dinner every night since they found out I had been considering taking the Tesserae. They had argued with me then, telling me it wasn’t necessary – that they could provide for me.

“Let us take care of you, Cora. It’s the least we could do,” Olivia ran her fingers through her curly black hair, frustrated. I was sat in their dining room, both of them stood in front of me.

The cold season had hit me hard. With fewer and fewer fish to sell, and more hours being taken up with training for combat exams, there was barely any time, or money, to put food on the table. Liam had caught me sneaking into the town hall, the Tesserae slip in hand. He’d grabbed me by the scruff of my collar and dragged me back to his house, where he had evidently vented his frustrations to Olivia.

“I don’t see why you need to help me. It’s ok, I don’t care.” I whispered, my voice near failing me. I’d never seen them angry before, despite all the time, I’d lived with them after the funeral. I had found a new place – a boarding house near the western marina. It wasn’t much, especially compared to our old cottage, but it would do. It was mine.

“I DO! I CARE!” Olivia yells, her voice breaking with emotion. “I care! I don’t want to see you get hurt. Not again.” I stand up to hug her, melting into her tight embrace. Her heart beats hard against my chest, and I hug her tighter, willing myself not to cry.

“Please Cora. Let us help you.” Liam says, wrapping his arms around both of us. “Don’t take out the Tesserae. Just this one thing. Please.”

I had been swayed and thus this arrangement began. If I couldn’t cook or feed myself, I’d find myself at Liam and Olivia’s house for dinner.

“You are welcome to dinner tonight too,” he said, “if you want to come.” We exchanged our goods, and I bid Liam goodbye, just as the bells began to ring. 7:30. I needed to get going. I quickly gave them both hugs and was out the door in a flash.

I ran back to the boarding house, running up the stairs and fiddling with my keys. Most people were up now, trudging through their days at a tortoise-like pace, where I was scrambling to not be late.

I pulled on my Academy commissioned uniform – a pair of tight navy-blue leggings tucked into polished combat boots, grey socks invisible underneath. A grey tank-top with a dark navy and white coat overtop. There were badges that denote your year group, sortings, and successes, all pinned to the left side of the coat. You wore it with pride – these were the only clothes that you could afford to keep immaculately clean.

I grabbed my school bag, before dashing out the door, remembering to double and triple check the locks. I didn’t want Marcus making his way in through the door again.

The day at the academy was a long one, what with people thinking about the reaping tomorrow; they were excited at the prospect of being reaped. Not me. I knew the true brutality of the games. At lunch, I made my way over to the boys, sitting in the back, as usual. We ate listening to Kai reminisce about the school. After today, Kai would be an adult, no longer worrying about the Hunger Games, instead worrying about taxes, job offers, marriage and his own children. Deep down, I knew that even I would miss this place when I grew up. But as of now, I couldn’t wait to get out.

I walked alone to my last period of the day: hand-to-hand combat. The most boring lesson of them all. I was placed up against a girl named Irene, who wanted more than anything else to be reaped. Irene was a girl of status – her father was the mayor of District 4. He was a tall, slender man, with a taut face that always looked like he was eating one of those lemon candies that Snickity’s sold before they shut down. He was a strict man, having had 2 sons who never got reaped. It was a matter of great shame to him, and Irene wanted nothing more than to impress her father.

Irene took a preparatory stance in front of me, just as coach blew his whistle. Let the fighting commence. Irene looked at me determinedly. Her silky black hair was pulled up into a tight bun, her jacket tossed to the side. She ran towards me, ready to tackle. I took a defensive stance, and we collided. All hour, she made efforts to throw me over her shoulder. They were all unsuccessful. I got in some good defensive practice and some throws. Same old, same old. At the end of the lesson, everyone wished each other luck for the reaping tomorrow. Irene’s excitement was uncontainable; we all wished her extra luck.

I walked home alone: Kai had already left to go out with his friends from the academy before the reaping tomorrow and Jackson had a detention, probably because he was caught snogging the coach’s daughter. Again. I walked through the marketplace – still as busy as it had been this morning – bag slung over my shoulder. I watched as people bartered for their daily necessities, before turning and walking through the city square – where the reaping would be held – all the way to Victor’s Village.

Victor’s Village was an upstate area of District 4 where all the Victors of the Hunger Games lived. District 4’s Victor’s Village was on the opposite side of the academy, overlooking the sea. They built the houses as Victors won, so there were only 5 currently here. Only one of them was empty. I looked at it melancholically, before hurrying on past. I came to the last house, House 70. I knocked on the door of the last house in a pattern. 2, 2. The syllables of my name: Cora Turner. I heard knocking from inside. ‘Come in.’ I opened the door.

The Victors’ Houses were always extravagant. There was moulding on the stairs; the one in this house replicated flapper style from the olden times. There were pearl decorations on the wall, all the architecture within the house was inspired by the Art Deco movement; black, white and gold, intricate architectural gems. I had seen inside many of the Victors’ houses and yet Annie’s always seemed to be my favourite.

Annie, herself was sat on her couch, curled under a blanket, unmoving but awake. I went and sat across from her, before standing up again and picking up all the things scattered around on the floor. There were blankets, pieces of paper, clothes, pillows and even utensils laying around. I put everything away: blankets in the cupboards, paper in the bin, pillows on the sofas, utensils in the kitchen. I went back into the living room; Annie sat still on the sofa; her soft eyes fixated on the waves outside her window.

I stood up to open the windows, allowing the sound of waves crashing on the shore and smell of sea salt to drift into the house. The new sensory input draws Annie out of her catatonic state, and she looks me in the eyes briefly before casting her eyes away. Annie never made eye contact with me for more than a few moments. She grabbed my hand and pointed towards the kitchen, signing for food. She was hungry.

I helped her up, and we walked into the kitchen together. I initiated small talk while pulling out ingredients for her dinner. I began chopping some onions and peppers for the stew as I asked her about her day. Annie’s days hardly varied, but I never wanted her to feel left out. She idly wandered around the kitchen, ignoring my every question. I was used to it.

Annie was a gentle and kind girl before she left – a pacifist. But the games changed her as they do everyone. She couldn’t bear to be in her own head, she couldn’t come to terms with the things she had seen. Knowing what she’d lived through, no one could blame her. So, she shut down, stopped living, and started just surviving. She barely spoke to anyone, never left her house unless she had to, and yet she held out for some reason.

A reason I would never know. But I did not care to press about it.

I made her a pot of stew, a recipe I learnt from my mother. It was one of her favourites, and often I made her some if she had a new shipment of ingredients. Victors’, among other privileges, received the freshest and best produce and finery from all of Panem. A small apology from the Capitol for putting them through hell, I supposed. I set up the table for her as she went to bathe. If there was one thing Annie enjoyed, it was bathing. I had this running theory that she loved the water – it was the one place she felt truly unburdened – as if the water carried the weight that she usually had wrapped like a noose around her neck. I laid one bowl and a glass for her. I served the stew as she came down in a clean dress.

I sat with her as she ate, making sure that she wasn’t starving herself. Annie had gotten into a bad habit after her Victory tour: having no energy to cook or eat, she began to wither away. Annie had been my friend before she had gone into the games, so I took it upon myself to ensure that she got better. Slowly but surely, she would eat in the company of others, and then even alone. I glanced at the clock – anxious to not be late for training. It was almost 5. Annie finished her meal, washing her plate and leaving it to dry, before returning to her position on the couch.

“Bye, Annie. I’ll be back tomorrow, ok?” I waved from the door.

“Bye Cora.” I heard her whisper almost silently. My face broke into a grin as I shut the door. I ran to the training hall, where Kai and Jackson were waiting for me. They smirked when they saw me, Kai shaking his head, almost laughing as he let us in. We began to stretch.

“So, how is Annie?” Both of the boys cared for Annie too, but they had almost no free time on their hands to visit.

“She’s good. She said something today.” Something so trivial, but it was an improvement.

“That’s great!” Jackson exclaimed. Annie’s non-verbal nature didn’t bother anyone but the Capitol, but it was always nice to know she was still comfortable enough to break through from time to time.

Kai turned his business hat on, “Cora, what did you do today in Combat?” The guys liked to help me practise my new skills. I was good at combat and intricate knife work because I was small, but things like long distance and sparring I wasn’t so good at.

“Just recapping.” I pulled my jumper off: the heat in the gym was unbearable.

“What do you want to do, then?” We eventually decided on some hand-to-hand practice. We had made a simple game to practise hand to hand combat. Our first rule was that there should be no blows to the face and if we tapped the other person 2 times, we forfeited the round. Otherwise, 5 minutes was the max time. The scoring system worked as such: 1 point for a draw, 2 points for a win and 0 points for a loss. Jackson and I went first. At 1 minute, Jack and I were in a stalemate, we tapped out simultaneously, meaning we both got 1 point. This went on for half an hour. By the end, Kai had won, beating me by 4 points and Jackson by 6.

We then moved on to combat with weapons. Kai took out his pack of wooden sticks. They were carved to look like swords, daggers, spears, even tridents. I grabbed two small ones, Kai took the spear, and Jackson took the sword. I took a defensive stance. Let’s begin.

I woke up to the sound of waves crashing up against the rocks. My street was up on a cliffside, overlooking the lake that stretched beyond. The only way around it was the Capitol trains, that only Tributes rode. Today was the day, the dreaded day. Today was the day of the reaping. I pulled myself out of bed, thankful that I wasn’t going fishing today.

After training, yesterday, I had dinner with Olivia and Liam. We talked about sales within the district, and I found out that a shipment of their sea bread had been taken to the Capitol, prior to the beginning of this year’s Hunger Games. I told them about the last day of school for this year. We also talked about the shop, and Annie, and fishing, and Mr Trent’s wife, who had just given birth to a son. Before, I knew it, Liam was walking me home and saying goodnight to me at my doorstep.

I pulled on an old knit jumper and some shorts, before deciding to go out to the market. It was a nice sunny day, beautifully masking the horrors that the day would undoubtedly hold. It was very rare that I would go to the market without anything to sell, but today was unusual anyway. The day of the reaping was national holiday, so most of the district was still asleep. It was on days like this that you could really appreciate the beauty of District 4. The sun shining on the beautiful waters, not once revealing the treasures that lied within. Simple swaying grass that covered the dark rocks of the cliffs, each crack telling its own story. The sandy beaches, home to birds and boats alike, each their own person, if you got to know them.

As I got to the market, an eerie feeling drifted through the city centre. None of the shops were open, everyone being given the day off: everyone was asleep, except me. I walked around for a bit, closing my eyes to imagine the sounds of the busy marketplace, the scent of the freshly made food in the morning, the light shining through the windows of the market square. The marketplace was always the liveliest place every other day of the year. But today, they would clear out the marketplace to make space for people to watch the reaping. Those being reaped had to wait in the city centre, but there were far too many people to fit into the city square alone. Instead, they set up screens here and people watched from the comfort of this place.

I walked back to the docks, only to see Kai and Jackson chatting with a girl near the docks. She waved them goodbye and walked away, just as I arrived. I raised my eyebrow, Jackson swatting my shoulder in response. Kai and I laughed as Jackson looked longingly at her. We walked down to the cove and sat down on the rocks.

“So, how are you guys feeling?” Kai looked at us.

“It’s fine, just another year, am I right?” Jackson replied.

I wanted to agree with him, but my upper lip trembled, revealing my fear. I was nervous. This was my third time, but it was still scary. I hoped to all the gods that I wouldn’t be chosen. I was too young to make it back alive. I knew that.

No one my age had ever made it out of the games alive: the youngest was Finnick Odair, the winner of the 65th Hunger Games, who won at the age of 14.

“I’m scared,” I whispered. Kai pulled me in to a tight embrace, and the tears that I had kept stored away, slipped from my eyes and onto Kai’s shirt. Jackson came and joined us. For a few minutes we stayed like that – all of us feeling safe and whole, tightly wrapped in each other’s embrace. We pulled away after a while, still sitting close to one another. The clocktower at the city centre struck 10, and we hurried to get ready for the reaping.

Jackson dragged me back to his house. One of the many things that gave Jackson’s mum joy was dressing me up every reaping. I had been to the ceremony with her many times - over the years though, the dresses got progressively simpler, a fact which I loved. As I walked through their door, I was greeted with the scent of flowers; vases of flowers were scattered all around the room. From the door at the back, bustled a large woman - Jackson’s mum, Marie.

She pulled me into a warm embrace and – talking all the way - ushered me into the bathroom: a tub of warm water was waiting for me. She had laid out a towel and some fancy soaps and creams. She smiled at my confusion, before she shut the door, allowing me some privacy. I washed myself, scrubbing the salt and sand off me. I then wrapped myself in one of the threadbare towels that she had. I walked out into Marie’s bedroom.

“So, what colour do you want to wear?” Marie came out carrying 2 dresses, one was a beautiful cream, the other was duck egg. I fell in love with the duck egg dress immediately. She noticed my eyes light up at the sight of that dress. “The duck egg it is then.” These dresses had once belonged to her, but she never wore them anymore.

I slipped it over my head, and instantly felt like a mermaid. I twirled around to show Marie and she smiled joyously. I was the daughter that she always wanted and didn’t have. Jackson had a sister, but since his parents no longer lived together, Elsie hadn’t been home in years.

Jackson ruffled my hair as soon as I walked out of his mother’s room, earning a high-pitched screech from his mum. We all burst out laughing, before Jackosn and I headed out half an hour later - Marie would soon follow us, as it was mandatory to attend the reaping, but she needed to get ready. We arrived at the city square which had been cleared of all the stalls and rows of tables had been put around the centre. At them, sat Capitol-appointed peacekeepers, waiting to check us in. It was the Capitol’s way of keeping tabs on the children that attended the reaping. There were severe consequences if you didn’t.

I lined up on the girls’ side, behind a tall girl with dark brown hair – the one the boys were talking to earlier. I knew her, she was in Jackson’s class; her name was Amira. She told them her name and then they took a smear of blood from her to check her DNA matched a previous sample. I always wondered what would happen if something went wrong at one of these tables - like, for some reason, if someone pretended to be someone else. Would the peacekeepers shoot them, right there? Publicly flog them? Things like that had never happened in this district before, but I had heard rumours from the academy of it happening in other districts.

A few seconds later, Amira moved to find her spot in the lines of kids waiting to be reaped. I walked up to the desk. A young male peacekeeper sat there, looking bored out of his mind. He acknowledged my presence with a nod, before beginning.

“Name?” The peacekeeper monotonous voice rung in my ears.

“Cora. Cora Turner.” He checked something, before nodding. he turned back to me and grabbed my finger, carelessly pricking it and swatching my blood on the piece of paper. Someone from the back of the line shoved their way forward, pushing me out of the way. I rolled my eyes. The eagerness. I found my place at the front of the crowd with the rest of the girls my age, looking up at the stage.

Thus, the living hell that was this year’s reaping began. I was very close to the front, despite not being in my first year, and could see the victors lining up on stage. The 4 of them walked up solemnly, faces set in stone.

Closest to the edge of the stage was Annie. She had won her games three years ago and had never been the same since. She’d been dressed up at the request of the Capitol, no doubt, her frail figure swaddled in clothing she probably hated. Her face was painted extravagantly – she looked like a mermaid.

Next to her, gripping her hand tightly, was Arnold. Arnold was a man in his early-50s and wasted his days drowning his emotions in alcohol. Most days of the year, if you wanted Arnold, you just had to offer some free alcohol. But not today. Today was one of the only days, Arnold kept sober.

Mags, his mentor, stood next to him. Mags was one of the oldest victors alive, having won the 11th Hunger Games, almost 62 years ago. She was the quiet type though, never overselling herself, never trying to make herself visible, as opposed to the man next to her.

Finnick Odair, front and centre. The Capitol’s sweetheart. Finnick had won his games at 14, and according to many revelled in this fact. He was a peacock showy and vain. He was the only one who dared to crack a grin. I looked at him in disgust, the Capitol’s little plaything. Still got it in his head that these games were glory for the district’s, not just a muse for a Capitol.

Usually, all the victors tried to hide away from their glory, dressing down and keeping their head low. But on Reaping Day, all the Victors dressed up, showed face, smiled and clapped along with the rest: they needed to have good outward figures because they wanted to remain in a good relationship with members of the Capitol.

The Capitol loved District 4, simply because of our victors. All of them were charming and charismatic, and over time, the Capitol had fallen harder and harder in love. Especially with Finnick.

My heart panged at one missing face. Christopher, one of the kindest Victors, had passed away recently. His face was always a welcome sight on the Reaping stage, even if he was always tucked away into the corner. He had been the oldest victor alive prior to his passing – he had won the 2nd annual Hunger Games, at the age of 17. The entire District had mourned him when he passed away earlier this year.

All around me, the sound of distinct chatter drifted through the air. My eyes were fixed on Finnick, who stood almost in the centre of the stage, Annie to his left. He leaned down to whisper something in her ear quietly. She giggled. Odd. Annie never spoke to anyone, let alone cracked a smile. I smiled involuntarily.

The mayor and other District officials filed in and sat down in their seats at the podium, and the national anthem began to play, eliciting silence across the crowds.

Clip. Clop. Clip. Clop. The sound of clacking heels rang ominously around the city square. Even above the chatter that filled the great space, everyone could hear her steps clearly. The heels of the one and the only, Genevieve Bravador. Genevieve was District 4’s Capitol Escort. A very official job. I hated the sight of her; her powdery white skin and her stupidly dyed hair made her look more of an outsider than anything. She had a distinct Capitol accent when she spoke, something that everyone mocked at every opportunity. Obviously, Genevieve never changed. The only thing that seemed to change was the colour scheme she went with. This year it was baby blue. It looked as if she had frostbite and was on the verge of death. Somehow, she managed to pull it off.

Genevieve stared off into the crowd, hoping to catch their attention. No one gave it to her. I looked back at the tributes. Finnick and Annie were looking at me, but as I soon as I looked back, they turned away. Odd. They were definitely talking about me. I made the decision to ask Annie about it later. Genevieve tapped on the microphone and then cleared her throat into it, gathering everyone’s attention.

“Welcome, welcome.” Her singsong voice filled the empty space, “welcome, welcome. Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favour.” She looks around at us, pausing for effect. “Now, before we begin, we have a special video. Brought to you all the way from the Capitol, the history of Panem."

A video began behind her, talking all about the districts’ rebellion, and how the Capitol overcame them. I tuned out 10 seconds in. I couldn’t care less about the history of the Hunger Games. No one that had lived in the peak of the rebellion was still alive now. We knew the history of our country; yet every reaping they show us the video. As if we are going to forget that easily.

I had watched the video before; everyone had. They showed it to us at the beginning of every school year, meaning I had at least watched it 5 times, forgetting even the number of times I had been to the reaping. On top of that, I had been to so many Capitol-sponsored events, which increased this number even more. At the mere age of 13, I could probably recite it.

It was the same old, same old. The then-13 Districts of Panem rebelled against the Capitol, but the rebellion was unsuccessful, so the Capitol remained in charge. District 13 was obliterated, and the Hunger Games were celebrated every year to remind people never to rebel again.

The video ended to no reaction from the crowd. No one cared about the formalities of the reaping. People wanted to know who to place their bets on, which families were free for another year, and which would hide away and cry for the rest of the evening. Genevieve broke me out of my thought, "Now the time has come to reap our tributes.” She smiled gesturing the girls’ bowl. “Ladies first.” Genevieve reached into the glass globe, her hand swirling around. In my head, all I could hear was my conscience telling me that any one of those pieces of paper could have my name on it. I shook the feeling off; my name was one in thousands. The chances of it being me were as low as possible, but still in my heart of hearts, I had a feeling. Genevieve kept rifling until she picked one.

Slowly, she dragged out the piece of paper, the seconds feeling like years. She ripped open the seal delicately, holding it in front of her face as she leaned into speak: “Cora Turner.”

Pin-drop silence. My heart of hearts was right.

[thehavenwake]

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[chamomileharry]

hi friends! please please please read the tags for the following fics! there’s some disturbing content in many of these so proceed with caution please! 

☹ Getting Broody (1.3k) // Anonymous

“You said you wanted to make a baby,” Louis reminds him. “I’m just giving you what you asked for.”

☹ In My Reflection, I see you (1.4k) // Anonymous

Louis buys the mirror he wanted. Harry watches himself get fucked.

☹ Mystery Man (1.5k) // Anonymous

Harry desperately wants to be taken by surprise. Louis gifts him his wish for his birthday.

☹ More Than Anything (1.5k) // Anonymous

Louis doesn’t think Harry is appreciating his cock enough, and decides to stuff his little hole full of random objects as a lesson.

☹ Summer and Sundresses (1.7k) // Anonymous

Harry wears a sundress and Louis makes him warm his cock under the beer garden table with their friends watching unknowingly.

☹ You up, darling? (1.8k) // Anonymous

Louis attempts to wake Harry up for some morning sex. He's not sure whether Harry's actually asleep or just pretending to be in the hopes Louis will take the hint and leave him be.

Louis doesn't much care either way.

☹ training knot (2.0k) // Anonymous

Harry doesn't think she would like oral sex. Louis shows her how she knows she's wrong.

☹ It’s in the Contract (2.3k) // Anonymous

“I can’t make rent this month,” Harry says.

“Awesome,” says Mitch. Mitch is the house leader. He’s the one leading the house meeting. “Free your schedule on Friday, Phi Sigma Kappa are coming over for game night anyway.

Harry swallows, nodding. “Alright,” he says.

Harris puts a hand on his thigh. “Hey,” he whispers into Harry’s ear. “I’d pay at least thirty for you.”

Harry snorts. “Thanks,” he says. “Good to know I’m an expensive bitch.”

☹ the present (2.4k) // Anonymous

Harry is a hybrid that has been on the run since he was a kitten turned loose from a breeding facility. The catchers finally catch up to him and there is nothing he can do about it. Now he's been declawed and sold to be some rich kid's fuck toy.

☹ interactive hybrid farm (2.4k) // Anonymous

Harry is the farm's only cow hybrid. He's been bred, calved, and now he's put on display to be milked. Any visitor has the chance to milk him or taste it right from the source. When it comes time to be bred again, Harry expected another big dominant bull pushing him around. This time it is very different.

☹ Good Boy (2.5k) // Anonymous

Harry decides to have a little fun with pet play. He’s Louis’ bitch and gets fucked like it.

☹ While Mother’s Away… (2.7k) // Anonymous

Harry witnesses his hybrid gettin' it on with their neighbor's hybrid. Harry wants to try.

☹ Successful breeding (2.8k) // Anonymous

Harry decides he doesn’t want kids yet. Louis is impatient, so he takes matters into his own hands — however it may be.

☹ Never Wander in the Forest *need an ao3 account to read* (2.8k) // Anonymous

Like a voice on repeat inside his head, Harry recalled all the lectures from the elders. Never wander in the forest. Never go out alone. Never let your guard down. Nymphs had so many rules to follow. He rolled his eyes. The forest was perfectly safe for young dryades like him. Plus, there hadn’t even been any satyr sightings in years. He was half-convinced the tales of sinister satyrs prowling the forests were made up by elders to keep young nymphs like him in line.

Harry should have followed the rules.

☹ niall and liam own cats (2.8k) // Anonymous

Niall and Liam own hybrid cats. They decide to breed them.

☹ Deep Under *need an ao3 account* (2.9k) // Anonymous

Harry is a slave to a race of part-men part-snakes. Until the day he's purchased by one man in particular.

☹ thrilled by the still of your hand (3k) // Anonymous

Harry lives alone, but one night as he's watching TV he's visited by some sort of spirit. It doesn't leave.

☹ Taking Home the Stray (3.4k) // Anonymous

All of a sudden, there’s a clamping feeling at the back of his neck, and Harry freezes in place.

He’s paralysed.

Someone has— someone’s scruffed him.

☹ Did You Ever Feel Like A Fire Hydrant (And all your friends were dogs) (3.8k) // Anonymous

Harry is roped into a wet night to remember.

☹ family farm (5k) // Anonymous

it's time for louis to learn the family business, the farm that louis had always had questions about. he is a little shocked at what he finds, but soon he falls into step. after all, harry is the perfect omega specimen for him to look after.

☹ omega resort (5.6k) // Anonymous

It was something that every young omega in respectable society was expected to do. Around the age of presentation, part of summer break was spent at one of the many omega resorts around the world. As a type of finishing school camp, these retreats teach young omegas about their bodies and how to modify their behaviour to be an acceptable part of high society. Being a trophy omega was rarely a walk in the park and learning how to behave in social and professional settings for their high profile alphas were important life skills for privileged omegas.

Harry finds himself as the only male omega at the resort and he is separated from the female omegas for one on one lessons with one of the resort's mentors. He'd never heard anything about hands on training before but Mr. Tomlinson seems to know what he's doing.

☹ Captivity (5.9k) // Anonymous

Mermaid Harry was captured and placed on display in an aquarium where he swims alone until a merman is added to his exhibit for the breeding program. Harry is helpless to stop it.

☹ Boom, boom, don’t you wanna go (6.1k) // Anonymous

It doesn't take much to convince Harry to participate in Lambda Sig's annual ceremony for graduating seniors. She's hooked up with a few of the brothers already anyway, as lackluster as they were. She has to have her legs and bare bottom half on display for the rest of the brothers in the senior class to see, but she's always kind of liked being played with and definitely likes being on display. She's graduating in a few weeks anyway. What's the worst that can happen?

She doesn't expect contestant number fifteen to blow her mind in the first round. He doesn't let up.

☹ there’s always another option (6.3k) // Anonymous  

Harry gets all dressed up to go see his boyfriend with one goal: get railed. He doesn't expect his boyfriend's cousin to be staying in his flat, and he definitely doesn't expect his boyfriend to dip out to go cheat on him. Oh well, just because his boyfriend isn't there doesn't mean he can't still get what he wants.

☹ Prove Your Worth *need an ao3 account* (8.2k) // Anonymous

Harry had always been fascinated by dragons. When he secured a job as a stable hand for Lord Tomlinson, he finally had a chance to work up close with his favorite creatures. But one late night the mysterious lord showed him just how close he could get.

❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃

as always, please read the tags and remember to leave kudos and a nice comment for the author!  if you have any requests, feel free to ask please, I'd love to help in any way! any recommendations you may have are also welcomed! <3 

i'm also on winter break now so if you have any requests or just want to chat, please do leave me a message (: 

❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃ ❃

[snowbellewells]

Self Promo Sunday: “Just As Much As I Do”

Notes: This is another little one shot I originally wrote in the summer after Season 3 of OuaT.  Post Season 3 finale, this one is meant to be the very next day, waking up back in the present, the Wicked Witch defeated,and Pirate and Princess maybe - just maybe - stealing a quiet moment or two in the afterglow. Rated T, though the reasons for that are only implied. Title and song lyrics included are from Snow Patrol's "Crack the Shutters", and of course I don't own that lovely song any more than I do OuaT or its characters. Enjoy – and please leave a review!

Also available on AO3 or ff.net, if that’s more your preference

Summary: The morning after the finale, waking up in his room at Granny's, for Killian Jones, it seems like his wildest dreams have come true magnificently.

“Just As Much As I Do” 

by: @snowbellewells 

Sunlight pours in through sheer white curtains, bathing the small room in golden glow and warming the darkness into hazy morning. As the sun's rays fall across the tangled sheets on the bed and heat the bare skin of a pirate, Killian Jones' eyes ease open, blinking in the sunrise and slowly regaining his bearings.

He rubs a hand over his face and back through his tufted, disheveled hair, confused and disoriented for a moment, not sure how he is once again in his familiar room at Granny's when yesterday he was sitting at a campfire in the Enchanted Forest of his past. Memory filters back to him with the same sort of gilded pleasure as the morning light. 'Emma,' his mind whispers, 'I brought her home.'

Turning from where he sits up in bed, bare to the waist as the sheets pool at his hips, he sees her lying beside him drenched in the wash of gold through the window, that cascade of blond hair lit up as if on fire. She is still fast asleep, splayed out luxuriously on her stomach, pale, flawless back on display for his perusal. As Killian gazes on her, admiration swirling within him, Emma mumbles drowsily and smiles without conscious thought, looking so much more peaceful and satisfied than he believes he has ever seen her while awake. She scoots closer to him, seeking contact in the depths of her slumber.

He reaches out to brush a lock of hair off her shoulder, smoothing it down her back with its fellows and letting his fingertips trail along the graceful path of her spine. That he can touch her at last, after so long – after so much wanting and denial – seems almost a dream. Killian's breath catches for a moment as he wonders whether he is awake at all.

Smiling to himself, he cannot help snuggling back into the mattress, studying every relaxed, glorious inch of Emma Swan while she is still unaware, knowing she would be blushing and trying to hide from such frank adoration, ducking her head self-consciously to avoid his gaze, if she were awake. Somehow he has earned his place beside his golden goddess – and no one or nothing, not even the sun itself gilding her in splendor before his very eyes, can worship her as much as he does.

Crack the shutters, open wide

I wanna bathe you in the light of day

And just watch you as the rays

tangle up around your face and body

I could sit for hours

finding new ways to be awed each minute

'Cause the daylight seems to want you

just as much as I do

The peaceful quiet of morning's first light is broken before he wishes as Emma's cell phone rings from the nightstand of his rented room and stirs her from her slumber. Her hand shoots out blindly to snag the offending object, and she mumbles "Hello?" blearily.

Emma sits up as she listens to the voice on the other end, bringing the sheet to wrap around her body as she does. Killian can tell already that it is someone needing something from either the Sheriff or the Savior, but she doesn't seem to mind the duty settling back onto her shoulders as she has in the past. Instead, she seems pleased, as if she finally knows that this is not a curse or a burden so much as her calling, part of belonging to people and a place of her own at last. She glances at him over her shoulder, a sly smile on her lips and a sparkle in her eyes; even as she nods and goes back to assuring the person on the line that she will be right there.

Once she has hung up, she glances at him sheepishly. "Back to work," she says with a shrug and that quirk of a smile at the corner of her mouth.

"Aye, Darling, so it would seem," he replies, reaching out to run his fingers through her hair and pull her in for a quick kiss.

To his surprise, she nuzzles into his touch, eyes closing for a few precious moments, savoring the warm expanding feeling rising in her chest. He half expected her to pull away – push him back and shut him out once again – when she woke this morning. It would seem instead that his Swan has bested him one more time, and his devotion to her only grows.

"No rest for the wicked, as they say," she murmurs affectionately, pulling back with reluctance to stand and begin redressing in the clothes they had shed in such haste the night before.

"And just which one of us are you calling wicked, Lass?" he questions, brow arching and grinning at her in a way that he hopes will sorely try her resolve not to crawl back across the bed and let the dwarves deal with their stolen trash bins on their own.

"Oh, I meant both of us," she teases back, mischief in her expression, "but those lips and that hand of yours leave no doubt where you're concerned."

He laughs, taken so by surprise that he tips his head back with it, a full-bodied, strong chortle. "Oi, Swan, what would you have had me do, you vixen? You were practically begging me!"

She actually giggles, looking so happy and completely pleased with herself that he wishes to keep that expression on her face forever. The flush that colors her cheeks and spreads down her neck to disappear in her shirt is so fetching that Killian is hard pressed not to haul her back into his arms and refuse to let her go.

"Shall I accompany you, Swan?" he offers, moving to get up as well and already scanning for where she had flung his shirt and vest.

"No, you stay put," she says with a hungry glint in her eye. "Go downstairs and have breakfast or something. It shouldn't be long before I can get back here."

"Oh," he smirks, looking terribly proud of himself, "I see. Am I under house arrest because you cannot get your fill of me, Sheriff?"

"More or less," she grins evilly.

"Insatiable minx," he returns, tongue peeking out to brush across his lower lip in a way that sends sparks along her veins and graphic images flashing behind her eyes.

"You've got no one but yourself to blame, Pirate," she throws out, giving him one last playful look before she slips out the door. Inside, her heart is swelling while she marvels at the absence of panic, at the fact that she truly wants to stay in the perfect little cocoon the two of them have created, and yearns to be back with him as soon as possible.

It's been minutes, it's been days

It's been all I will remember

Happy lost in your hair

and the cool side of the pillow

Your hills and valleys

are mapped by my intrepid fingers

And in a naked slumber

I dream all this again…

The next morning dawns in much the same way, and Killian's eyes crack open with the sunrise once more; years ever-alert from life on the high sea never failing to pull him into early wakefulness. He is stunned all over again by his good fortune: Emma is with him still. This time, instead of a sprawl, she is curled up into his chest, head tucked under his chin.

Still reverent as he touches her, almost afraid to shatter the illusion, he lets his fingers ghost over the apples of her cheeks, along the line of her nose, and twine themselves in her hair, cradling the back of her head, his handless arm tucking her even more securely into the shelter of his body, stump gently caressing her lower back. Her sleep seems calm and dreamless, which she had confided in him is new and rare, and Killian dares to believe that he has helped to make it possible. Her presence is soothing to him as well, banishing haunted nightmares he never thought to lose. There are no creases of worry marring her forehead, and the tiniest smile rests on her senseless lips, tilting them upwards in a captivating, if unknowing, manner.

Killian places the softest of kisses to her smooth brow, loving her just as he has ever since she stared deep into his soul in the diner when Storybrooke faced oblivion and offered him a second chance – a way to belong to something, to someone…to her. He had seen it then, desired it so ardently that it has fueled every action he has taken since. The intensity of this love, now that Emma recognizes and even welcomes the power she holds over him, and is even trying to give herself to him in return, is overwhelming in its power.

He simply rests here, ignoring the sun's rays spreading across the covers and attempting to rouse him from the most peaceful moment he has ever known. He has traveled a dark, harrowing road to reach this place and moment in time, searched lifetimes for the feeling of completeness in someone who loves him, who will fight for him as fiercely as he fights for her. He can see the warm wash of light over Emma's skin and appreciation for her steals his breath anew. A vision forms of each new day beginning like this one: the pattern of their future together.

Allowing his eyes to drift closed, Killian gladly disregards the dawning day for staying beside his love a little longer. He does not need the sun's help to adore the sight of Emma in his arms; she is branded on the back of his eyelids and in the depths of his soul, every detail of her safeguarded in his heart.

I could sit for hours

finding new ways to be awed each minute

'Cause the daylight seems to want you

just as much as I want you…

Tagging a few who might enjoy:  @jennjenn615​ @kmomof4​ @searchingwardrobes​ @jrob64​ @whimsicallyenchantedrose​ @laschatzi​ @apiratewhopines​ @spartanguard​ @therooksshiningknight​ @tiganasummertree​ @optomisticgirl​ @jonesfandomfanatic​ @xarandomdreamx​ @cosette141​ @stahlop​ @sotangledupinit​ @elizabeethan​ @donteattheappleshook​ @the-darkdragonfly​ @gingerchangeling​ @gingerpolyglot​ @xsajx​ @teamhook​ @revanmeetra87​ @winterbaby89​ @hollyethecurious​ @thislassishooked​ @drowned-dreamer​ @wefoundloveunderthelight​ @zaharadessert​ @caught-in-the-filter​ @ineffablecolors​ @let-it-raines​ 

[ihni]

Here we are

For @mungroveweek, day 3. Prompt: "first time" (no sex though, fair warning).

(Read on AO3)

~~~

Eddie never thought he’d end up here; in California of all places. While many of his classmates had often talked about going to live at the sunny coast, he’d never dreamed of going. Had never felt the need to see the ocean or frolic in the sun. Back when he used to plan his campaigns for game night, he always had his head in the clouds, but when it came to real life, he hadn’t ever dreamt that big. Sure, he’d entertained the thought of someday making it; becoming one of the great musicians of his time and get to travel the world … and yes, maybe California had been a part of that, vaguely. But he’d never actually thought he’d make it out of Indiana.

Well, he’s here now. With strict orders to not make a splash, so there goes his dreams of becoming a rock star, he supposes. Which is just as well. There’s too much sun here, and he’s got a pale complexion. Being out in the sun for too long – which in his case means more than half an hour – makes him resemble a boiled lobster, and no one wants to see a rock star who looks like a crustacean.

They’re in San Francisco. It’s busy, and hot, and has too many hills for his liking. But there are upsides to it, too; the most important one is that at least here, he’s not being hunted for sport. The people are nice and welcoming, the sea breeze is always soothing on his sunburnt face, and best of all: everything – the trip here, the little house they share, their car – is paid for by the government. Or the shady organization above the government. Beside the government. Behind the government? Whatever. The agreement is that whoever they are will keep sending their checks, and in return Eddie and Billy will stay under the radar, and simply let the men in black know if they decide to move.

And subject themselves to a bi-monthly check-up, but hey. Free health check. Eddie will take it. It beats being stuck in a nightmare dimension or a lab. Or, you know, being dead.

Another good thing about their new home is the effect this place has on Billy.

Billy. Billy who found Eddie back in Darktown, and brought him back to life. Who kept him alive in there for over three months, despite Eddie’s penchant for finding trouble. Who dug his way out of hell with Eddie by his side as soon as they figured out how, and then continued to keep him safe during the time they spent in the lab.

Eddie’s initial hero-worship for the guy had quickly turned into genuine admiration for his strength and determination, and that admiration had inevitably turned into a crush. And then, instead of fizzling out into friendship (or nothing) like usual, that crush had mutated into something much deeper, which meant that when the doctors finally cleared Eddie for release, he flat-out refused to leave Billy’s side. Figured he’d stay for as long as Billy let him – which proved to be … well. It’s been a year since then, and here they are. Still together.

Honestly, Eddie’s so gone on Billy, it’s ridiculous.

They’ve been to hell and back together, and Eddie has seen every facet of Billy Hargrove (who is now officially Billy Samson, which is fucking hilarious considering the fact that he grew out his hair so it now reaches between his shoulder blades). Eddie has seen Billy in survival mode in Darktown, and he has seen him cry (the first time was when they finally got back to the real world and dug their fingers into the dirt of the forest just outside Hawkins, and the last time was the day before yesterday, when they rented Stand By Me). Eddie has seen Billy angry and defensive and distrustful, and sad and lost and scared. He has seen him hyper-ventilating in a dark corner after waking up from a nightmare, and he has seen him standing stock still with silent tears running down his face, without moving a muscle.

But he has also seen Billy smile, and laugh, and try so hard not to laugh at Eddie’s antics that his whole face scrunches up adorably. He has seen him drowsy and relaxed in the morning when he’s just woken up, and has seen his eyes light up in excitement when he’s heard a new song from one of his favorite bands. And he’s seen the soft looks that he reserves for Eddie and Eddie alone.

Since they moved to San Francisco, there have been more smiles than sadness. More laughs than tears. It’s like this place – the sun and the people and the ocean – has thawed something in Billy that had been iced over up until now. Something that makes it easier for him to let the parts of himself that Eddie knows and loves – the soft, funny, caring parts – out.

For that alone, Eddie loves California.

He’s sharing a space with the man he has grown to love. They’re both alive against all odds, and living their happily ever after. They hang out together, eat together, sleep together.

Sleep together. As in, catching some shut-eye in the same bed, at the same time. Nothing more.

Or, that’s not entirely truthful. They kiss, like, all the time. There has definitely been some intimate touching going on, on both parts. But they haven’t had sex. Yet. And at this point, Eddie’s not entirely sure that they ever will. Because every time they move past making-out territory, Billy tenses up. Sometimes, it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it thing, before he shakes himself out of it and moves to continue. But Eddie’s attuned to him or something by now, and he doesn’t want to force Billy into anything, ever, so he usually goes back to kissing or cuddling, or makes some excuse about needing to do something else. He knows that Billy sees through him, but Billy has also never said anything about it or called him out on it – if anything, there has only ever been hints of relief – which tells Eddie that he’s done the right thing.

It isn’t that he doesn’t want to have sex with his boyfriend (because he’s pretty sure that they’re boyfriends, if they had to put a label on it). He does! At some point. But also, he’s been with Billy for what, a year and a half now? If you count Darktown, which Eddie definitely does. And Eddie hasn’t ever felt the lack of anything in their relationship.

They kiss, they cuddle, they fool around. He makes Billy coffee in the morning just the way he likes it, and Billy remembers to bring sunscreen for Eddie’s skin every time they go outside together. They’re financially stable, have a growing circle of awesome friends in their neighborhood, and a little house that has turned into a home, which is big enough that uncle Wayne and his new girlfriend Linda (and who thought uncle Wayne would get a girlfriend at the ripe age of fifty-nine? Eddie sure didn’t, and doesn’t know if he should be proud or weirded-out about it) can stay with them when they come to visit.

Point is, everything in Eddie’s life is already great. Sex would be a bonus, sure, but it’s not something he needs to survive.

But. Eddie is aware that he might be in the minority with those kind of opinions. And Billy is important to him – arguably the most important person in his life – and the way he tenses up when things gets serious speaks of something. Something that should perhaps be addressed.

It takes a while for him to work up the nerve to bring it up, though. He’s been known to avoid difficult topics in the past, and Billy straight-up shuts down if there’s something he doesn’t feel like talking about. It’s not an optimal combination, in a relationship. But they’re working on it.

So one night when they’re curled up close in their couch, kissing – the TV droning on, volume low, in the background – and Eddie’s hand drifts from its place on Billy’s hip to the hem of his pants, and he feels that now-familiar tension in his boyfriend … he puts both of his hands on Billy’s face and makes sure he’s looking him in the eyes as he says, “You know we don’t ever have to do anything you don’t wanna do, right?”

Billy’s eyes widen, and he opens his mouth to no doubt protest or deny or claim that he can take it, whatever it is – because Eddie’s boyfriend is nothing if not predictable – so Eddie leans in and kisses him again to shut him up, before he even starts talking. It works, in that this time when Eddie leans back, Billy just blinks, thrown off-guard. Eddie sits back in the couch, and stretches his legs out over Billy’s lap so he can’t run from this.

Not that Billy couldn’t run from this, if he wanted. Billy is strong and he could throw Eddie around like a wet dishtowel if he wanted to. Which Eddie might not be entirely opposed to. Not that he’s been thinking about it. Much.

Focus, Eddie.

“I just want to make sure you know that, babe.”

“I … I know that.”

“Do you?” Eddie barges on, and reaches out for Billy’s pants again. Predictably, Billy takes a little breath at the motion, and Eddie raises one eyebrow. He doesn’t even have to say anything, but he does anyway. “Because you tense up like I’m gonna ravage you or something every time we get past a certain point.” It sounds a bit accusatory, which won’t do. “Which I won’t, obviously! Unless you’re into that. But if you’re not into that, I’m not either.” He racks his brain for something to say to smoothen out the wrinkle between Billy’s eyebrows. “And like, I don’t mind? That we’re not having sex. It’s totally okay, you know, if you don’t want to, I totally get it, I –“

“I want to,” Billy blurts, probably mostly to make Eddie stop rambling.

It works. “What?”

“I want to,” Billy repeats, a light blush dusting his cheeks. He’s adorable. Eddie wants to kiss him silly, but in a rare show of situational awareness, he stops himself. Now might not be the time for kissing. Now is the time for listening. And indeed, Billy continues unprompted. Licks his lips and gently places his hands on Eddie’s legs in his lap. “I want to … have sex. With you.”

“Oh,” Eddie says. “Well … good. I want that too. Have sex, I mean.” He adds, for clarification, “With you.” He throws in a pair of fingerguns for emphasis and regrets it deeply for a whole second, before it pulls a smile out of Billy, at which point it starts to feel like an accomplishment instead.

“I just …” Billy starts, and then trails off. Talking about things has never been his strong suit. He’s trying, for Eddie, but –

“Hey,” Eddie says, softer. “I meant what I said. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. That includes explaining. I love you anyway, you know that.”

“I know,” Billy says, and there’s a pause that is just a little too short for Eddie to make a Star Wars joke before he adds, almost shyly, “I love you too.”

It has Eddie grinning, like every time he hears those words. Normally he’d make a show out of blushing and squirming in delight, but there’s something about the way Billy holds himself that makes Eddie think he’s not done talking. So he waits. And it pays off, when Billy takes a deep breath as if steeling himself.

“I … My first time? It wasn’t … good.” Eddie doesn’t say that no one’s first time is good, because he suspects there is more to it than that. “I mean. First time with a girl was …” Billy shrugs. “Not good, not bad. It was just something that had to be done, you know?”

Eddie understands. He lived in Hawkins, too, and knows how stifling – and dangerous – a small town can be if you’re anything but straight as a ruler.

“I’ve done stuff with guys,” Billy continues, and doesn’t look up from where his hands are gently grabbing Eddie’s left shin. “Just. Kissing and, you know. Stuff.” If it’s the same thing that they’re currently doing, then yes, Eddie knows. Billy licks his lips again. “But I’ve only … had sex,” he takes a steadying breath before continuing, “with a guy, one time. And it didn’t – It wasn’t –“ He takes another deep breath. “It sucked. It hurt, and I tried to tell him that, but he didn’t listen. Didn’t s-stop.” He’s not looking at Eddie as he powers on. “And after, he just … left. And never spoke to me again.”

There is something simmering under Eddie’s skin. Like bugs. Thousands of angry bugs, itching to burst out of him and devour whoever hurt Billy before.

“Who?” slips out of him before he can stop it. “Who was it?”

Billy tenses up, but his voice is indifferent – too indifferent – when he says, “Doesn’t matter. You don’t know him.” It sounds forced, and his half-shrug looks anything but natural.

It makes Eddie take a deep breath to calm himself down. Anger is not what Billy needs now, not when he’s been so brave and told Eddie all this. Told him with words, even though he hates talking about shit.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, “that sucks.” Because he can write a ten page exposition monologue for a quest, but he’s not exactly eloquent when it comes to feelings. The biggest words always feel so small when they have to matter.

But Billy huffs out a breath, and there’s a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Eddie doesn’t stop himself this time, and leans forward to press a kiss to that exact spot.

“I’m sorry your first time was with a tool like that.” Another kiss. “Who didn’t appreciate you properly.” Another. “Who didn’t see how goddamn sexy –“ kiss, “– strong –“ kiss, “– compassionate –“ kiss, “– protective –“ kiss, “– and adorable you are.”

Billy’s smiling for real now. And blushing. His ears are tinted pink. It feels like a win. “You’re a dork.”

“Your dork.”

“… my dork.” He pulls Eddie closer and after some scuffling, they situate themselves so that Eddie’s sitting with his back to Billy, between his legs, and with Billy’s arms under his own. Their fingers are lacing together on Eddie’s stomach.

They sit in silence for a while, idly watching the TV, before Eddie says, “This? This is good too. Better than sex.”

“How do you know?” Billy says in a low voice, close to Eddie’s ear.

“Hey, I’ve had sex! … kinda. It was that one time with that girl in eight grade, remember? I told you about that.”

“But with a guy?”

“Well, no.”

Eddie waits, and eventually Billy speaks again. “I want to do it, with you. But I want your first time with a guy … our first time … to be good. And I don’t know … I don’t know how to do that.”

Leaning his head back so it rests on Billy’s shoulder, Eddie turns his head awkwardly so he can press a kiss to the underside of his jaw. “We’ll figure it out,” he says, simply. Because it is that simple, really. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I’ve sort of planned to spend the rest of my life with you.” He ignores Billy’s wet intake of breath, and gets comfortable half-lying on his boyfriend’s chest. “So we have all the time in the world to figure it out together.”

“I,” Billy starts. Swallows when his voice breaks, then tries again. “Yeah. We do.”

[honeygrahambitch]

Hello hi

Can you share this with the Hannibal fandom?

I would like a fic called The Vow.

It's about Will and Hannibal getting married after they ran away ( it doesn't have to be after the 3 seasons just when ever). They would be tell each other their vow. It would be like this

It's starts of with a section of Wills vow

then after it it would tell the story about them planning to run away.

Then another section of his vow

Continuation of the story of them running beginning to run away.

Then concluding of Wills Vow

Then it would be them actually escaping. Into Hannibal's world

Then Hannibal vow would begin

Them settling into their new life honeymoon and fighting but ends with hot passionate sex

Then continuation of vows

Them finding life to be very enjoyable with their new home being beautiful and simple but very expensive. They travel and find people who would be wonderful to have for dinner.

Then end of Hannibal's vows

Then Hannibal brings Will to a secluded place in the woods in Lithuania. There they rent a house for a week or two it's quiet and you can hear all the animals around them. They take a hikes and have sex everywhere they can. They like to wake up early to see all they can and go to bed late to talk about it. One day Hannibal wake up really early and sets a scene for Will. It's a man from a village close by who had been rude to Will when he got off the plane. He had brought him to the forest and opened his ribs took out his heart. Then dragged him to their back yard of the home they stayed there he made the now dead man kneel with a box in his heart cavity.

He goes back inside and washes up and gets ready for Will to experience the devotion of Hannibal.

He gets back in bed and caresses Will face to wake him up and when he does he kisses him. Then he gets out of bed and brews coffee and goes out to the back yard to enjoy it and that's when he sees it. He walks up to the offering. A man knelt with a box for a heart. Will reaches for it be sees what it is. A ring. He turns around and Hannibal is kneeling he didn't hear him and he says some smart articulate words about how Will is the heart of him and then will he marry him. Will says yes. They eat the heart for breakfast with eggs. They throw the man in the woods for nature to eat.

They stare at each other after their vows. It's a sunny morning in Spain they are on a wooden sailboat. The wind whipping wills hair and Hannibal's tie. They rush to each other and kiss.

They have made some friends and colleagues in Spain they celebrate.

There's literally nothing else I can add to this. It's absolutely a masterpiece. The fandom indeed needs to know about it. It's just beautiful.

[piastrinorris]

omg hi lovie— congratulations on 2k! you deserve it so much <3 i would love to take a look around in the hall of mirrors 🪞💕

i’m a bit of a clutz sometimes, pretty lazy to be honest, trying to cut back on all the junk food i love but man it’s hard 😔 but i’m hard at work and thriving towards my goals for this year!

when i’m home i usually just hang out with my dog, watch way too many tiktoks 😭, lovingly gaze at all the plants i’ve gathered over the years that i always forget to water until somebody points it out to me or some leaves go brown.

i love a clean kitchen, so i’m always scrubbing it but all the other rooms in my house can be messy for all i care (though i do love a clean house) but my eye twitches every time there’s a mess in the kitchen, it’s sort of an obsession really.

i love reading books, but i tend to read them in phases. like if i’m in a reading phase, i’ll read multiple books in a couple of weeks, then i might not open any pages in months. i love puzzles too! sometimes i wish i could paint, but i’m horrible at it. my favourite season is summer because i’m sick of the icy wet roads and i’m always cold, my feet are like icycles - you can always find me under a blanket.

my morning routine has been the same for years— i wake up, check my socials, then i go pee, and i can’t start my work before a cup of tea ☕️ forest fruit flavor is my favorite 🥺

i have a huge phobia of snakes (specially big ones, like anacondas n stuff), my favorite holiday is christmas and i think my all time favorite comfort movie is the wedding singer w adam sandler and drew barrymore 🫶🏻

i hope this is enough! ily 💜

okay so i went looking on your blog for more inspo/research and uhh hi?? you're so cute????? anyways:

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗ 2k follower celebration event ongoing! ˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

i think you'd work at a cafe, that way you can get all of the good tea ☺️ but also the good tea 👀 bc everyone frequents your cafe so you hear all the good gossip, which of course, you keep to yourself... until friday night, when you and your besties all get together, get some wine, rent a movie and discuss the week's findings, seeing if you can match anybody's stories together. it's great fun.

usually, the others pick the movie, but on this particular occasion, they've asked you to. as you hand steve your movie of choice, the first thing he notices is how cold your hands are, wrapping both of his around yours. you know he's a serial flirt, and it's always annoyed you a little how he assumes he can charm the pants off of anybody. you're even more annoyed at the fact that it's actually working. you feel butterflies in your stomach while he's holding your hands, and when he's negging you for your choice in movie, you hate how you're even more giggly in your defence.

you hate how you still think about the fact he winked when he finished your transaction throughout the entire following week. you hate how, when your friends are planning this friday's hangout, you're the first one to volunteer picking a movie. you hate how easy it is for you to blurt out why you rent out a movie every friday to steve and robin when they're serving you. you hate that their reaction leads you to inviting them along. you hate how, no matter where you sit that night, even if it's between your friends, steve always finds a way to sit as close to you as he can.

you hate even more that it's working. you absolutely hate the fact that you are falling head over heels for steve harrington. and yet, when he kisses you for the first time that night, there's not a single ounce of hate in your body.