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liaromancewriter · 1 month

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I Thee Wed…

Premise: Ethan and Cassie are ready to say, ‘I do,’ but they forget one important step.

Book: Open Heart (post series) Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Cassie Valentine) Rating/Category: Teen. Fluff. Words: 1,560

A/N: So, I first did Ethan and Cassie's wedding in June 2021. In all that time, I've never written their wedding vows. Maxenna's vows were easier to write. Well, I finally cracked this nut! Yay, me 🎉

Submission for @choicesaugustchallenge prompt "summer wedding"

Cassie Valentine updated the patient chart and mentally crossed off another item from her seemingly endless to-do list. In just nine days, she would stand in the garden of her family home and marry her soulmate.

She couldn’t contain a small, excited scream, a dreamy smile spreading across her face as she imagined Ethan’s awestruck expression when she glided toward him at the floral-decked altar. But, she thought with a smirk, she couldn’t wait to knock him over on their wedding night with what she had on beneath the layers of tulle.

All in good time, Cassie reasoned, turning her attention back to work.

“Marlene?” she called to one of the regular nurses on her floor, handing over the tablet with the patient record. “Keep an eye on potassium levels for Mr. Dubois in 504. Page me if there’s any change in his condition.”

“Will do, Dr. Valentine,” Marlene nodded, scanning the chart quickly to confirm the orders.

She flashed Cassie a friendly smile. “Are you excited about the wedding? You and Dr. Ramsey make such a beautiful couple.”

“I’m counting the minutes,” Cassie grinned. “I have a final fitting for the dress next week, but otherwise, we’re all set.”

“Summer weddings are the best,” another nurse piped in. “Flowers are my favorite part.”

“I love hearing the couple’s vows,” Marlene said. “Are you and Dr. Ramsey writing your own?”

Cassie nodded in response, keeping her expression smooth even as alarm bells blared inside her head. Crap, crap, crap!

Between work, packing up her things at the apartment for the move to Ethan’s and coordinating with Sienna and her mom on the wedding, she had forgotten entirely about the vows.

She and Ethan had negotiated a hybrid ceremony, honoring her Episcopalian beliefs and his agnostic ones. He had agreed to have a priest officiate and receive a spiritual blessing in exchange for non-religious but personal vows, no Communion, hymns or readings.

Writing their own vows had sounded so simple before. A few words of promise, a declaration of their love, exchange rings and you-may-kiss-the-bride. End scene.

But now she realized it was anything but easy. Worse, she had no idea what she would say on the most important day of her life!

The pen dug into the paper, leaving dark, jagged lines on the legal pad as Ethan scratched out yet another sentence. His handwriting, usually neat and precise despite the doctor-like scrawl, had turned into a chaotic mess of crossed-out words and half-formed thoughts. Frustration simmered in his chest, his mind spinning as he tried to wrestle his emotions into something coherent.

He sighed, leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his temple. Sitting through a room full of demanding board members was a walk in the park compared to this. How was he supposed to find the words powerful enough to capture the depth of what he felt for Cassie?

Each attempt felt clumsy and inadequate, the words slipping away from him no matter how hard he tried. Irritated with himself, he muttered a curse under his breath, tearing the paper from the pad and crumpling it into a tight ball. It joined the other pieces of crumpled paper balls scattered around him.

Why had he insisted on their own vows? Should’ve just taken a template and been done with it.

He had been working on them all week and was no closer to the finish line. He had tried writing at home, in his office with the door closed and on a bench in the serenity garden at Edenbrook. Eventually, he retreated to Derry’s Coffee Shop in the hope that a place special to them both would inspire him.

The wedding was a week away, and he did not relish the idea of standing at the altar with nothing more to say than “I do” while Cassie no doubt recited something meaningful about him being her soulmate.

“Tough case?”

Startled, Ethan looked up to find Cassie standing above him.

He had been so absorbed in his frustrated scribbling that he hadn’t even noticed her enter the coffee shop, place her order and walk over to him.

“You could say that,” he hedged, hoping she wouldn’t press for more.

“Maybe I can help,” she suggested, sliding into the seat across from him.

Before he could stop her, she reached for the pad, and he blurted out, “No!” even as she read the words out loud.

“Cassie, my love for you is like an unspecified virus that I couldn’t shake….”

Ethan saw the look of shock on Cassie’s face. Her eyes widened, and her mouth opened slightly. For a moment, they just stared at each other in stunned silence.

“Wait, are these your wedding vows? And did you just compare me to a virus?”

Ethan quickly tried to recover, realizing how the words sounded when said aloud. “I—I didn’t mean it like that. What I’m trying to say is that my love for you is something I never expected, something that took hold of me and changed everything.”

Cassie blinked, and then, to his relief, a smile tugged at the corners of her lips. “Babe, I appreciate the on-brand medical analogy, especially since I diagnosed Naveen’s bacteriophage, but maybe we can find a less…clinical way to describe it? This is our wedding, after all, not a keynote at the AMA annual symposium.”

“A keynote at the AMA would be easier than these damn vows,” Ethan muttered, running an exasperated hand through his hair.

He picked up his coffee and looked at her over the rim. “I suppose you’ve already written a masterpiece?”

To his surprise, Cassie blushed and looked away. “Not exactly. If you must know, I kind of forgot about them.”

She waved one hand dismissively. “Anyway, this isn’t about me. If you’re struggling, just focus on us, our relationship—what makes me the one for you? How you see our life together. Things like that.”

Ethan narrowed his eyes. “That’s some solid advice.” He reached for his phone, unlocking the screen. “In fact, it’s almost identical to the advice I got from another Valentine just a couple of hours ago. Ah, here it is.” He turned the screen to show her the text from Max.

Cassie’s eyes widened in disbelief. “That cheat!” She snatched the phone from Ethan’s hand, scrolling up to check the time stamp. It was from earlier in the day before she’d texted her brother. “He totally copy-pasted his response to me!”

Ethan chuckled, leaning back in his chair. “Looks like great minds think alike…or at least steal from each other. When did you speak to him?”

Cassie gave him a sheepish look. “Maybe half an hour ago. ”

“Isn’t it the middle of the night where he is?”

She rolled her eyes and made a face. “I know. Max wasn’t thrilled, which is probably why I ended up with recycled advice.”

She straightened in her chair, a hint of frustration in her voice. “I can’t seem to find the right words for our vows. At least you managed to compare me to a virus—I’ve got a completely blank page.”

Ethan chuckled softly, reaching across the table to squeeze her hand gently. “How about we work on them together? We always did our best work figuring out diagnostic differentials as a team. Why should wedding vows be any different?”

Cassie’s smile widened. “Just promise you won’t tell my mother this is how we wrote our vows, or I’ll have to call you a big, fat liar!”

“Deal.”

Nine days later…

Ethan faced Cassie, a deep contentment settling over him, unlike anything he’d ever felt before. As he held her hands in his, the words that once eluded him now flowed as naturally as breathing.

“Cassie, when I first met you, I had no idea we’d end up here, but from that moment on, you’ve captivated me in ways I never imagined. You’ve challenged me, frustrated me and inspired me to be a better person. And I've fallen in love with you again and again, even though I didn’t believe love or family were in the cards for me. You opened my heart to more. I promise to support and encourage you, embrace the unexpected with you, and always work on being the best version of myself for you. I vow to hold your hand and cherish your heart, loving you always and forever.”

Cassie flashed a mischievous grin, her eyes sparkling with amusement as she held Ethan’s gaze, recalling the day they wrote these vows. Her voice was light and playful as she began, making it clear she was savoring every moment.

“Ethan, from the moment you walked into my life—full of arrogance, calling me an amateur—everything changed in ways I never could have predicted. I told you then I was your biggest fan, but that barely scratched the surface of my feelings for you. I can’t imagine a single day without you, and I hope I never do. I promise to stand by your side, to love you fiercely—even when you’re driving me a little crazy—and to choose you every day, no matter what. You are my partner, my soulmate and my greatest adventure. I vow to cherish your heart with all that I am, always and forever.”

And then they lived happily ever after…

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All Fics & Edits: @bluebelle08 @coffeeheartaddict2 @crazy-loca-blog @jerzwriter @lady-calypso

@mainstreetreader @peonierose @potionsprefect @queencarb @quixoticdreamer16

@justyourusualash @tessa-liam @liaficreplies @trappedinfanfiction

Submissions: @choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Ethan & Cassie only: @cariantha @custaroonie @youlookappropriate

#open heart #choices open heart #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #open heart fanfic #open heart fanfiction #choices fanfic #choices fanfiction #choices fic writers creations #cfwc fics of the week #ethan x mc #ethan ramsey x cassie valentine

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sunshinereddie · 1 year

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credit to @gloomy-prince for indulging in this hc with me but im imagining a little while after famous comedian richie tozier randomly went MIA for a few weeks, then returned to social media with an announcement of his new boyfriend, that richie begins doing livestreams on instagram.

he mostly starts doing it to promote his new show and upcoming tour, he'll answer questions and tell stories- and it's during these livestreams that his fans begin to learn more and more about eddie kaspbrak, richie's new boyfriend.

the first time eddie made an appearance was accidental- richie was in the middle of talking about his long day on set, when the door behind him opened and a man walked into the room, looking down at his phone as he asked, "richie, have you seen my-" before the man looked up and noticed that richie was streaming. he begins to apologize, and starts backing out of the room, but richie stops him, wheeling back in his chair and grabbing the man's arm, pulling him close to the camera and announcing to his followers, "everyone say hi to my boyfriend!!!"

after that, eddie starts to make regular appearances on richie's livestreams. sometimes eddie will just pop his head in to say hello, sometimes he'll sit with richie and answer a few questions, sometimes he'll just be in the background of the video doing his own thing. but there is one thing that is consistent with every livestream- and it's that richie's fans adore eddie. richie gets hundreds of dms asking him to livestream with eddie again, eddie's instagram account goes from having 17 followers to 20k, and whenever eddie makes an appearance on the livestreams, the viewer count always seems to go up.

but it doesn't stop there. now that eddie has a small following of his own (for a reason that eddie cannot fathom), his followers start asking him, "hey we love you on richie's livestreams, you should also do livestreams!!" and of course eddie is confused he's like "guys, i appreciate the support, but what on earth would i livestream about. my life is not that exciting." but his fans don't care. and so, that's when eddie kaspbrak does his first livestream: a 3 hour stream of him sitting at the desk in his home office, typing away at his computer and drinking coffee, in complete silence other than the sounds of his keyboard. he doesn't interact with the chat, he doesn't even look at the camera the entire time....... but his followers seem to love it.

and so, eddie continues. he mostly does streams of him working- now that he's working from home while recovering from his derry 2.0 injury, he spends most of his days at his desk, typing away on his computer. but sometimes he'll stream other things, like when he's putting away dishes or cleaning the house....... and that's how eddie kaspbrak accidentally becomes an asmr/relaxing video livestreamer.

all of his fans love this for him. and while he started off with a majority of his followers being richie's fans, it's not long before eddie gains some followers of his own, who are following him solely for his content. he even has some fans of his own who love his boyfriend, and get excited every time richie makes an appearance on stream.

and now that both richie and eddie have their own little niche followings on the internet, it's quite amusing for the both of them to watch their followers' reaction every time they post about each other on social media. you've got eddie's fans who are surprised to learn that this random asmr livestreamer is dating celebrity comedian richie tozier, and on the other hand you've got richie's fans who are surprised to learn that richie tozier is dating that popular asmr youtuber.

#reddie as internet personalities is so fun to me lololol #especially eddie ACCIDENTAL internet personality #plus i just already love it when richie's fans love eddie #because who wouldnt love eddie....#richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #reddie #reddie hc #reddie headcanon #it #it au #it hc #it 2017 #it 2019

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emilykaldwen · 5 months

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The Maiden and the Drowning Boy | Aegon x OC | Chapter Sixteen

Rating: Explicit

Ships: Aegon II Targaryen x Abrogail Strong (Lyonel Strong's Daughter), Jacaerys Velaryon x Helaena Targaryen

Summary: As the kingdom teeters on the edge of chaos, Alicent Hightower swaps the pieces on the board: Aegon will marry Abrogail Strong, Larys’ younger sister and heir to Harrenhal. Caught in the web of intrigue and political machinations, the pair must figure out where their loyalties lie, and what they mean to one another.

Tropes: Childhood Sweethearts/Friends to Lovers, Generational Trauma and Cycles of Abuse, It's All About the Character Development, Unreliable Narrators, Multi-POV, Canon Divergent, Bisexual Aegon II Targaryen, Book/Show Mash Up, Fix-It Of Sorts, Stopping the Cycle of Abuse before it gets us all killed, Team Neutral, fairy tale vibes meets victorian medievalism meets grrm

No tag list. please follow @emkald-fic and turn on post notifications for updates or subscribe on AO3

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Author's Note: And we're back! Thank you all for being so patient with me as I took some time away. I'm honestly glad I did. TL;DR (or read the update in the previous chapter) I lost my job, things were rough. I'm feeling a lot better now and here we are with the final Aegon birthday chapter! As I stated as well, we'll be moving to something closer to a three week posting schedule for the last few chapters of this fic and continue on that posting schedule for the sequel.

PLEASE PLEASE subscribe to the series page or my author page so you get updates when we start the next story! You're not going to want to miss it. (And follow @emkald-fic on tumblr if you read here!)

All my eternal love to @vampire-exgirlfriend, whose been my rock. I love you. Please go join her as she finishes up her Aemond fic, They Say I Killed You (Haunt Me Then)!

Warnings: Larys Strong Jumpscare, and MURDER!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Flew Like a Moth to You

Aegon's birthday hunt includes some fantastic girl action and some murder! OH! And Some Jacelaena biting. You love to see it.

Floris Baratheon could not sit still, clutching her bow and quiver, peering out the carriage window as they approached the Kingswood. “A-hunting we shall go, a-hunting we shall go-”

“Hi-Ho the derry-o, a-hunting we shall go,” Abby sang in turn, the song a familiar one from childhood. The Baratheon girl had been quite annoyed that she could not ride a horse the way the other men did, but with the promise that she would not have to sit with her sister in a carriage, she had been content enough.

Abby sat beside Lythene Ryger, who had been quite speechless at the invite to the carriage. Wylla would have normally been with them, but with her soon to be good-sister, Alys Bracken, coming along, she was off playing chaperone and overly curious and mischievous younger sister to Alys and Harrion. Abby was glad she had the opportunity to do so, for her dear friend was giving up much to stay in the south as her Mistress of Keys instead of returning home to the Karhold.

On the other side of Helaena, Margaery Crane of Red Lake sat. Her lush, light brown hair was braided in a crown around her head, and her face was square with large, unnervingly green eyes. Her head was bent towards Helaena’s, threads of evergreen and butter yellow woven in her fingers as she taught the princess how to finger knit. It was an easier pastime during the long carriage ride to the camp than Helaena’s embroidery. Her twin sister, Desmara, sat on Abby’s other side. The only difference between the pair was her dark, chestnut hair and the scar across her full mouth.

“I’m sure if you ask Daeron when he goes out with the party, he’ll retrieve the stag antlers for you,” Helaena said, her eyes focused on the thread between her fingers. “He’ll love the opportunity to prove himself.” Floris rolled her eyes in only the way a girl of one and ten could, her black braid wrapped around her head with stubborn tendrils escaping. She tugged on the ties of her raven black cloak.

“Nay, Your Grace,” she said primly. “I would show my own mettle, and face the stag myself.” Her cheeks were pink all the same. Abby bit her lip to hold back her chuckle, not wanting to tease the girl. She caught Desmara’s own amused look, the scar across her mouth pulling at her own smile.

“Well, I don’t think they’ll let you go hunting the stag, Lady Floris,” she said. Floris looked pleased at the kind address from the elder girl. “But we’ll be going hawking and the spoils are certainly yours. That’s how I obtained the rabbit fur for my gloves.”

“That’s true,” Abby chimed in. “And you are a child of Nightsong, are you not? I’m sure falconry is in your blood.” Floris’ mother was a Caron, with a lineage of fierce warriors nestled in the Dornish Marches. Lady Ellyn Caron had songs sung of her, and how she, in part with other lords of the Stormlands, defeated the Vulture King. It was exactly the kind of family lineage Abby could see Floris idolizing.

Floris nodded seriously, running her fingers along her bow. “This is true. I suppose I should practice.”

“Practice until you come back dragging the stag behind you,” Helaena continued. “My elder sister is said to have taken down a boar with her own hands, only a dagger as a weapon. I think you have that same mettle in you.”

Floris preened, leaning into Helaena’s side to watch the magical weaving of the yarn. Abby’s heart ached with fondness for the girl, pleased that she had been taken on as Helaena’s ward. The girl was not meant to be stuck behind her three eldest sisters. The Smallest Storm would blossom, she hoped, beneath Helaena’s care and attention. It did not go past Abby’s notice of Cassandra’s harsh attentions to her sister. It reminded her of her own sister’s lack of understanding; always critical, always focused on some perception that her behavior would reflect poorly upon her. Floris was exuberant and curious, but she was not into reckless mischief or excessive rudeness.

She’d be good for Helaena. More importantly, had been good for Helaena, who had taken on Margaery Crane as one of her new ladies, and Abby would take Desmara. The Crane twins had endeared themselves quickly, Margaery introducing herself by way of teaching Helaena a new fiber art, and Desmara had gifted Abby a book on Asshai, a knowing wink in her verdant green eyes.

As the carriage pulled into the camp, cheers had already started from the other gathered lords and ladies. “With all that noise, they’re sure to scare away all their quarry,” Abby laughed, peering out the window to look on ahead.

The boys had ridden on horseback, Aegon in the lead on Kostōba, Aemond, Daeron, and Jace on their own horses beside him, with their own small retinue. Their cousin, Lyonel Hightower, was with them, as were a few other lordlings that Abby was unfamiliar with. She spied Alyn Hull’s silver braids from where he was on his own horse, smiling at the sight of the brash young man there within Aegon’s retinue. He had been a true friend to the prince over the years and it was good to see him brought into the fold officially.

Alyn would serve as steward when they departed for Harrenhal, taking on the household duties from Uncle Simon and learning under him. Aegon had been pleased that he’d agreed to the offer, brushing off his mother’s gape mouthed indignation about it. “He’s the reason I still live, Mother,” Aegon had said, unusually mild in the face of Alicent Hightower’s anger that morning as they broke their fast. He’d brushed a kiss against her forehead, and Abby wondered if he had found strength in the security they were building between them, that not even his mother could shake.

Seeing Aegon’s confidence was intoxicating, so rarely did he come off so sure of himself, and she craved to see more of it. Her teeth scraped her lower lip, belly rolling with heat.

“Good tidings to Prince Aegon, second of his name!” came the booming voice of his Uncle Hobart, leading the call of cheers. “Good tidings to him on his nameday!”

“Good tidings!” came the call of the gathered crowd. “Prince Aegon!”

As Abby settled back in her seat to wait for the footmen, she caught Helaena’s gaze. Anxiety crackled between them, mixed with the joy and love there for Aegon’s nameday. After the hunt, Abby was certain Helaena would cocoon in her chambers, barring the door should anyone try to get her into another crowd. Abby didn’t blame her, and in fact, might even join her for a bit.

The cheers had begun to die down by the time Daeron’s smiling face helped them out of the carriage. Windswept, dark blonde hair fell across his forehead as he bowed. “Allow me, my sister, ladies.”

As he helped Floris from the carriage, their eyes met, both faces going pink at the cheeks, and Abby saw her future good-brother’s hand tighten slightly around the girl’s fingers for the briefest of moments before her feet met the ground and she pulled away, her eyes on her shoes. It was not often that Floris fell quiet and blushed so red, and it did not appear that anyone else had noticed. Daeron clenched his hands to himself and his eyes met hers, his own flush deepening before he quickly hurried away.

The king had stayed behind in the Keep, as did several lords and their families. Lord Grover’s health had also kept him behind. Lord Otto had stayed to facilitate court, leaving the festivities that day in Aegon and the queen’s hands.

Her hands, Abby knew, as young ladies of the noble houses began to approach her and the princess, a few mothers in tow.

“Baela’s a Targaryen too,” Helaena muttered. “Why can’t they flock to her?”

The lady in question had rode on horseback, her red leather jerkin fitted against her lithe form over a gray tunic and black breeches tucked into black polished boots. The rings in her hair glinted in the late morning sun, sparkling as she turned her head with a laugh and dismounted her mare by Jace. Abby shook her head.

“Because they’re afraid she’ll be a bad influence, I’m sure. How are they supposed to get husbands if they dress comfortably?” Abby posited, smoothing her hands over her riding jacket. It was a warm evergreen color, deep azure and crimson soutache snaking over her shoulders like the red and blue forks of the riverlands. The crimson lined wool jacket fell just past her knees, and she wore a pair of warm trousers tucked into polished black boots. Helaena was dressed similarly, her jacket the same shade of deep azure as Abby’s decoration, embroidered with silver dragons with black beaded buttons carved in the shape of dragon head clasps running down the front.

“Hasn’t Mother decided that you should remain here to entertain all those ladies?” Helaena asked, their arms linked as they headed to the main tent. Ahead of them, Alicent Hightower was resplendent in a warm cloak of the deepest verdant green lined in black fur, her gown not one for riding or hunting, but far more comfortable for the outdoors. It lacked excessive ornamentation, the black and green skirts swirling around the tops of her own boots. Her hair was much like Helaena’s, wound in a braided crown about her head. Lady Fossoway was a half step behind her with Ser Criston as they always were, with the rest of the ladies trailing after like a gaggle of geese.

“We’re doing the receiving line,” Abby said, the fingers of her free hand fidgeting against the fall of her jacket. “Aegon’s receiving his gifts and then we’ll have congratulations on the betrothal.” She flexed her fingers, the soft leather of her gloves creaking slightly with the movement. They were lined with soft fur, luxurious, indulgent, and while she was certainly never dressed in rags before, it was rare to accept and let herself have new things when they often felt so unnecessary.

It was a new feeling to be excited about the new clothes that she had, more sumptuous than what would normally be allowed at her station.

Wylla joined them as they passed into the pavilion, warm from the braziers placed strategically about the place, each guarded by a cage of decorative wrought iron to prevent unfortunate accidents. On one end of the great tent, a small dias with a simple, dark wood throne, crested with a dragon, wings spread in welcome.

It was the King’s chair, but the king was not here.

“Are we to accompany you while you receive them?” Wylla asked. Her long hair was bound tightly back and wrapped in a coiling knot along the back of her head. Her padded black jerkin clung to her over a long tunic of gray, black riding trousers tucked into a pair of matching boots. Like Baela, she was dressed for a day in the wilderness without the cumbersome dealing with skirts.

“You look nice,” Abby told her with a small smile. “Not quite the Wildling I heard rumor of,” she teased and Wylla snorted.

“It’s a hunt and the opportunity to ride and get the fresh air. We’ll be going hawking while the men go to shove their pricky things into…” She trailed off with a twist of her mouth, the small scar along her top lip pulling at it. “Men waving around their big pointy things.”

“In a far more acceptable manner than what it implies,” Abby added on, giggling at the silly implications of it all. “And yes, I think you should. We’re receiving gifts, so you best take Desmara and Lythene with you to Lady Fossoway for instruction.”

“And then we’ll go hawking,” Wylla said with a nod.

“I have to stay here,” Abby corrected with a shake of her head. “It is my duty to entertain with her Grace.”

The northerner’s brow furrowed and both of them looked in the direction of the queen, her cloak handed off to a servant while she spoke with Lady Johanna. Wylla shifted beside her and Abby could feel the questions and arguments flitting beneath her friend’s skin. She rested a gloved hand on her shoulder, giving her a squeeze. “As I told Aegon, these are some of our new duties, no matter how dull they seem to be. Hopefully there’ll be time for me to go exploring later.” Hopefully. Abby loved exploring the Kingswood, and she’d been looking forward to going hawking, even if she did not particularly hawk herself. However, fun and indulgence could not be had in favor of duty and responsibility.

No matter how much she craved the freedom of it.

Wylla gave her a long look, teeth biting at her lip before she nodded and getured for Lythene and Desmara to follow her. Helaena had already left with Margaery and Floris and Abby was left standing alone, for the moment, amidst the steady flow of nobility pouring in for refreshment and talk. Alone, Abby was relatively unnoticed. Just a small girl in the midst of a crowd, no crown on her head to shout out who she was.

“Abrogail.”

Larys was taller than most people realized, for he did everything he could to make himself small. Few knew that Larys was as tall as Harwin had been, for her elder brother preferred to have such a small cane, to shrink himself into spaces where he could slip in. It was strange, Abby realized, that she had never noticed that it was a trait she shared with him. No desire to be the center of attention, no desire to be noticed, both for their own reasons.

The smile he gave her was an awkward twitch, but Abby noticed that it did reach his eyes, which was a rare thing, and she found herself returning it. Small and shy, perhaps, as if she were still the somewhat muddy little girl she’d been who he’d look at curiously across the breakfast table in the family solar.

He was subdued in a quilted doublet of the same deep azure and brown leather, his cloak a dark green-blue to match, clasped at the shoulder with a firefly broach. She slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow of his free arm, languidly walking toward a clutch of plump seating not far from the currently empty dais. The smell of cooking food caught on the woodsmoke in the air, and Abby’s stomach rumbled with hunger. They’d only had some fresh bread and cheese on the ride over, and the idea of warm, spiced pumpkin soup and a turkey leg the size of her own face was rather appealing.

“You’ve conducted yourself quite admirably under all the attention as of late, little sister,” Larys complimented, taking a seat on one of the padded benches. She perched beside him, smiling her thanks at the servant who came by with mugs of hot, mulled wine. She inhaled the scent of orange and lemon, the warmth of cinnamon before taking a sip. “Even with your, shall I say, antics at the tourney, they were quite well received.”

“Antics?” she asked lightly, feeling the curl of heat spread across her chest. There was no way for Larys to know what sort of other antics they’d gotten up to. The bite Aegon had left along her shoulder had turned bruised and tender, the imprint of his teeth still deep in her soft flesh. That mark was quite well hidden beneath her jacket and shirt beneath.

Larys only hummed and took a sip of his drink. “The other lords have expressed concern at my choice of husband for you, but I have assured them there is no reason to fret. I simply wanted my sister to be cared for and happy.” He gave her a sidelong look, placid expression barely shifting, his dark eyes large and innocent in his expression. “And everyone can clearly see how happy you two make one another. The queen…” he trailed off with a sigh, “has not quite been pleased but…”

Abby looked down at the deep purple-red wine swirling in the silver goblet. Anxiety prickled through her, confusion at her brother’s attempt, it seemed, to try to bond with her on something more personal. “Her Grace has been very indulgent,” she said softly, mouth twitching into an awkward smile that her brother returned. He inclined his head towards her only just.

“We both understand how passionate the queen’s frustrations can run, little sister,” he said softly, the scent of him cold and clean, like a tomb. Abby blinked, the awkward smile falling from her face. Her throat bobbed, the sting of bile in the back of her throat was almost painful. Had the queen told him what had occurred? Or had Larys, with his strange talents, found out what happened himself. “You will not be her ward for much longer. I imagine, like any mother, she is feeling the maternal ache over the loss of her son to his wife, and the loss of you, who is like a daughter to her.”

“Perhaps,” she allowed, busying herself with another sip of wine so she might find the words. They were receiving glances from the bustling court as they found their places, platters and great soup tureens being set out along the tables. Her stomach growled again. “She was quite concerned about… the dishonor I would bring upon the royal family.” Her voice was little more than a shamed whisper and the insinuation was as painful as the day she’d been accused when coupled with Ser Edmund’s harsh words in the gardens. She straightened her shoulders, trying to push past the hurt and shame that lingered still, tilting her chin up, refusing to be cowed. “Apparently some of the other lords are quite concerned about your heir marrying into House Targaryen.” She smiled at the passing servant, plucking a small apple tart off the platter he held. “I have made my own assurances that our children will be raised in the customs of our people, that regardless of dragon blood, we are the Riverlands.” Whether or not Edmund Vance believed her, if he mocked her to those he could find for such statements, well, she could do nothing about that. She could only mind herself.

“It will be a hard road, Abrogail, given that they do not see you as one of them. Lo, they barely see me as one of them, what with all my work here,” Larys said with a nod, looking at the cake he’d plucked for himself. “What matters is that you greatly impressed Lord Tully, and his son has been amenable and welcoming-”

“I may not have grown up in the Riverlands but even I know there’s only so much influence they have,” Abby cut in, chewing her lip after the words tumbled from her, her voice a soft, biting thing. Larys said nothing to that while he chewed on a bite of cake, and she shifted slightly in her seat and took another sip of wine. “It will not be a smooth transition, not for all. A prince? Becoming vassal to a mere lord?”

“Prince Daemon was Lord of Runestone through the dear, late Lady Rhea,” he reminded her after swallowing. “I don’t recall any such problems between him and the Lady Arryn.”

“Jeyne Arryn was kin to his goodsister,” she retorted. She had spent countless hours in the library with Aemond, taking meticulous notes of the lessons the boys had that her and Helaena did not. Part of that involved wiling away a week of stormy, frigid weather, tracing out the family trees of the Great Houses. The Targaryens rarely married out, even before King Jaehaerys, but there had been Aemon and Daella to houses Baratheon and Arryn, and Queen Aemma’s siblings and half-siblings. She’d even traced her own tree: Harwin’s mother, Lysa, had been Lord Elmo’s sister. Larys and Corynna’s mother had been a Frey. Abby’s mother had been a Westerlander, already outside, already suspicious of the clannish houses of her homeland. “And if all the mutterings and murmurings are true, he cared as little and less for them as they did for him.”

She’d heard the rumors of Daemon being responsible for his first wife’s death, and the occasional muttering that he was responsible for Laena Velaryon as well, but in the past few days being with the mercurial Baela, she did not think that was the case. Abby looked back at her brother again, briefly, before smiling in greeting as Lady Redwyne and her sister settled nearby. The queen had sat on the opposite end of the circle of seating, the corral of it split evenly between the pair of them. Her shoulders slumped minutely and she kept her genial smile as the older women settled in.

Laughter caught her attention, Helaena and Baela both with shaking shoulders near the pavilion entrance as other girls joined them. They would be going hawking soon. The sun caught upon Helaena and Baela’s silver heads, giving them a golden shine. A sigh caught in her throat. How nice it would be to join them, to frolic in the lack of responsibility.

Larys shifted, still sitting at her right hand as the rest of the guests filtered in, and her attention drew back to him. “Ah, yes, the princesses and the other ladies are going hawking. Did your grandfather not gift you a new hawk for your engagement?”

Lord Rodrik had indeed. Abby had hawked some when she was a little girl at one of the hunts for Princess Rhaenyra’s nameday, but had never had a one of her own. But Lord Rodrik and her Reyne family were prodigious hawkers and the beautiful Peregrine she’d named Caelus was a little wonder. He’d been trained by her cousin, Emrik, who had fancied himself a falconer, and had sent a kind letter that she was quick to return. Letters had been rare over the years, but there’d always been well wishes and tidings on her nameday.

“He did, and I know we brought him. The queen…” Abby trailed off, her eyes darting to the other side of the tent where Queen Alicent was smiling at the younger Lady Redwyne. “She said that it was our duty to host while Aegon goes hunting. That it’s my duty. To make friends, to comport myself as the future princess.”

“Oh, did she?” Larys asked mildly, cocking his head to the side and leaning on his cane. “Yes, I can see what she would want that. It was, after all, what has been expected of her when she was your age, already with two children. She had far more in common with the matrons of the court at that point. You are here when others who should be are not.”

Rhaenyra should be here. She was the King’s eldest, his heir. Discomfort prickled along Abby’s spine, a latent spike of anger at the woman who had put her family in danger, hurt at how quickly Rhaenyra had moved to Daemon Targaryen after what happened to Harwin. Her fingers curled against her knees before she forced them to relax and stretch. The Crown Princess had always been kind to her, but could Abby even trust that? After what happened at Driftmark, and what happened to her family?

Alone now, save for Larys.

‘Not alone anymore’, she immediately reminded herself, because Aegon was with her now; Helaena and Aemond cared for her too. They too were her family. Not alone, for she had her grandfather and he loved her truly. Yet, she had felt this loneliness for so long. Rhaenyra was not responsible for her loneliness, but in many ways she felt it keenly. It felt as if everything changed because of her.

This marriage, Alicent’s desire for control, Lord Otto’s keen and watchful eye were because of Rhaenyra. Aegon’s pain was because of Rhaenyra.

Her father and brother were dead and gone because of Rhaenyra.

“I am here when others are not,” she said softly, eyes watching those who watched her, her smile flashing as she murmured her greetings as the ladies began to gossip. Larys was murmuring his own greetings to Lord Piper’s wife, complimenting her on the recent betrothal for her son. Abby’s gaze darted towards the front of the tent, where the girls were still gathered as they prepared to go off for their own little adventures.

Alicent Hightower made sure she was there. She made sure that people saw her as queen, someone to be trusted and counted on, someone that could be reached. She was here, as Abby was here.

“If the Targaryens mean to exercise power in our realm, they will be in for a rude awakening.”

Abby was not queen. She wasn’t certain what that future held, but she did know, with certainty, that she was the future Lady of Harrenhal, and that Lythene Ryger, Melony Piper, even Sarra Frey who was lingering nervously with a goblet in hand, they too would be future ladies of houses that she needed to be friends with. Abby could not just rely on the fact that she held the title, not when she did not grow up in her home, not when people like Edmund Vance were so eager to tell her that it didn’t matter, they would see what they wished.

“Lady Sarra,” Abby called, rising with a smile and handing over her goblet. She could feel Alicent’s eyes on her, and that over the other ladies. “I did not have the opportunity to speak with you at the feast last night. Pray, will you join me and the others out hawking?”

Sarra Frey was a tall girl, broad shouldered with high cheekbones and dark hair bound in a twist of three braids down her back. She wore a simple but lovely jacket of deep blue and silver, the colors of her house. At being addressed, she straightened up, green eyes wide with surprise at being noticed. They narrowed slightly, mouth parting before closing. A flush crept across her cheeks.

“I don’t have a hawk with me, Lady Abrogail,” she said softly. At her full height, she was as tall as Aemond, more softly spoken than her severe expression might have said. Abby smiled.

“That is quite fine, there are plenty to go around.” Sarra nodded, handing off her goblet to one of the passing servants and Abby looped her arms through hers and tugged her towards the others. “My legs are exhausted from that carriage ride, shall we go?”

Even Baela’s mask of judgment faded as they walked towards the edge of camp where the Master of the Mews was minding the hawks and preparing to move out further from camp. She was stuck between Helaena and Wylla, the princess’ silver head shining beneath the sun. Lythene was laughing with the Crane twins and even Sarra was pulled into conversation with Zara Celitgar, who was eyeing the tall Frey girl appreciatively.

“Are we not taking a carriage?” Margaery Crane asked as Helaena led the way past the line of them set aside for their later return.

“It is not a far walk,” Abby assured her. “And it’s nice to stretch our legs after all that sitting.” She nodded towards the Master of the Mews and his apprentices carting the hawks ahead of them. Margaery hummed in agreement, confusion placated, and Abby was set to continue onto another subject when there was a commotion from behind them. She looked over her shoulder to see Cassandra Baratheon striding behind them.

“You all left so quickly!” she announced, censure and jovial all rolled into her crisp tone. A slight smirk crossed her sharp features as they approached. Among the three ladies that accompanied her, Lady Elinor kept close at her side. Cassandra’s dark eyes swept over Abby as they drew closer, and she felt picked apart by the gaze, something sharp stabbing between her ribs at the continued haughtiness of the eldest Storm. Abby straightened, offering her own wan smile. Like hell would Cassandra set foot into Harrenhal, but this?

This she needed to be easy with; this she could allow.

“Of course, Lady Cassandra,” she said. “We would be happy to have you.” Helaena made a soft sound that Abby ignored but felt deeply. Her eyes flitted to Lady Elinor at Cassandra’s shoulder, giving her a warmer look. It was her family’s strawberry wine that had been highly spoken about over the course of the festivities, and Elinor’s responding smile was kinder.

“Congratulations are in order, Lady Abrogail,” Lady Elinor murmured. Cassandra’s eyes tightened, her smile frozen on her face.

“Yes, congratulations on your coming nuptials,” she parroted, smoothing her kidskin gloves over the fall of her woolen hunting jacket. “How comforting it must be to wed one’s childhood playmate. No surprises or excitement to worry about.”

The words were harmless enough, but the barb beneath them was clear. Abby tilted her head slightly, her own smile still on her face. She opened her mouth to speak, but it was Baela who spoke, angling her head between Wylla and Helaena to peer at her cousin.

“Not to mention wedding a childhood playmate means there’s no barrier to intimacy, and no secrets kept,” she said, then bit into the apple she had in hand. “Now let’s fucking move before I start hunting with my bare hands.”

Helaena was meant to be in bed but sleep eluded her. She waved away the maids and headed out into the night toward the great bonfire in the center of camp. There was no danger here, much like there was no need to fear in the Holdfast. Her slippers grew wet after only moments, the night dew soaking into the soft fabric and chilling her toes.

She wanted to dance around the fire, stare into the flames like she heard the Red Priestesses did, and wonder to herself if her dreams would make more sense then. Aemond said she was touched as Daenys was, a gift precious to their Targaryen line. It helped ease the fearful strangeness to know that her strange dreams were not simply the ‘odd workings of an overactive imagination.’ That they did mean something, but what? Helaena was never certain. Sometimes she never knew the outcome, other times they became starkly clear.

‘He’ll have to lose an eye’.

“Would you care for some company?” came a low, curious voice, a slight crack on the last word. She looked over to see Jace lingering at the edge of the firelight, his jerkin long discarded with just his gray linen shirt and trousers, a dark blue cape wrapped around him. The bright flames danced in his lavender eyes, giving them a shade of deep purple-red she found curious indeed. Did her own look the same?

“You’re not gallivanting with the boys?” Helaena asked, not meaning anything by it until the words hung in the air, and Jace’s gaze glanced to what he held in his hands. The only ‘boys’ for him to gallivant with were her brothers. Of course there were other lordlings about, but given that Jace was lingering around the bonfire caused her to wonder if he too liked the quiet.

Or if he were lonely.

“I didn’t want to…” Jace trailed off, rubbing his thumb over whatever he held in his hand. The motion of it reminded her so strongly of Abby, Helaena didn’t know how she was supposed to process it. The curl of unease and her mother’s frustration and anger coated her insides. Her own frustrations, deeply buried but still there, like the ever smoking fires of the Dragonmont, bubbled and burbled in response. The king who loved Jace more, loved him like he loved Rhaenyra more. The blind man who ignored Aemond’s nameday even though it had just happened, who only thought of Aegon’s day because of everything that happened.

The dead look in Mother’s eyes that was more and more frequent, when she stared out the window of her solar, her hands twisted and knotted into her skirts. The things that Sire-Father had done to her for no reason except his own dragon feelings, Helaena thought. His need for more and more, consuming him the way the anger would consume Aemond, and the drink would consume Aegon.

All of them pinned to boards in the king’s Freehold miniature; all of them frozen and set on display in his own gallery, for him to take down from time to time to play with.

The burst of a log in the fire startled her and Helaena realized, uncomfortably, that she’d been staring, vacantly, at Jacaerys, who was watching her, still as water, quiet as an orb weaver. He watched her, the fire throwing orange and red across his fine features, catching at the warm red in his dark, dark hair. His right eye was a sheen of red from the fire, his left cast in shadow. Half fire.

Her right side was chilled, when her left was so warm, mirrors of each other.

Half fire.

Jace held out his hand, palm open, offering to her the smooth stone that he had been fiddling with. The ridges of the sea creature who died in it caught upon the light, throwing its own little shadow as it was unable to in life, living in the sea as it did. Only now, in his hand, had this creature found warmth and light.

Helaena reached for it, her hot fingers scraping against his as she took it, feeling his own hot skin beneath her touch.

Half fire.

‘But I am full flame,’’ Heleane thought, for she was dragonflame and lighthouse flame. Lighting the way with fire in her wake. Jace was fire, yes, but he was river water, the way it rippled through him. Still and steady, but crashing and flooding with the ferocity of a dragon’s power. ‘Would this be what her nieces and nephews be?’ Is this what a union of fire and water entailed? Deadly and quiet, steady when they were full of heat and flame.

She rubbed her thumb over the fossilized creature and it felt pleasant against her skin. Soothing, tactile. Grounding. “Thank you,” she said softly and Jace smiled at her. “Pity it’s not another marchpane tentacle.” He laughed, a soft sound that sounded like water over stones and they came to sit on the bench. She shoved her feet closer to the flame and watched the steam rise from the fabric from how hot it was. There was a few inches between them, the warmth emanating, and they sat together, no words spoken. These were her favorite moments, ones she missed. It scraped at her insides, like pushing dirt away from the stone so she could find the worms beneath. They were the memories of the gardens in childhood, Jace beside her, mud and damp soaked into his knees, helping her push the rock up to find the pill bugs and the beetles and the centipedes in the dark, damp earth.

“It was nice to dance with you at the feast,” he ventured, and Helaena looked at him, the shadow along his jaw where he’d wake up fuzzy and prickly in the morning. She reached up to rub the back of her fingers against his jaw, looking at the slight pout of his mouth, the dark fan of his eyelashes. Freckles faint against his skin.

“You're a good dancer. I should know, I’m a good dancer myself.” She smiled at him and he shook his head, a flush on his face and she felt her own spread across her cheeks. He scraped the toe of his boot in the dirt and she nudged her foot against his. He was familiar, in the way Aemond was, but he was new in the way Warren had been. Someone she knew, but didn’t. He wasn’t angry, and he wasn’t pushing and probing at her, looking for a bruise to elicit feelings from, or the thrill of a princess. He didn’t look at her like she was odd, or startle at her staring, her distant sight.

Jace was simply patient, and he waited, and did not seek to chatter. It was new, it was old, it was like pressing against the ground and the dirt giving way, a little tunnel inside that one didn’t know was there, and Jace peered in and made his way inside. A dragon roosting in a cave.

His knee bumped against hers and she looked at him, their matching lavender eyes meeting. It was nice, Helaena thought, that they had this piece to share. Like two different butterflies, different colors and different patterns, but the markings were the same. The wings were the same. Simply… different.

“The mint winds and chokes like ivy,” she said, instead of what she meant to say, which was asking him if he would come looking for stag beetles with her the next day. “The children can’t breathe, it’s bursting from their mouths.” She blinked, startled, but the words that she had not known, had not meant to utter, remained heavy between them. “I-.”

He blinked back at her, brow furrowed. “Helaena, are you-”

A horrible scream ripped through camp and for the briefest moment, Helaena thought it might have been a fox shriek. But this was too loud, too close. Another scream, this time two high pitched ones and then a guttural yell. Jace’s hand gripped hers, pulling her to her feet and away from the fire. She tugged at his hold to move towards the commotion, but he tugged her back. “I’m taking you back to your tent, Helaena,” he said firmly. “We don’t know what’s- Ow!”

She had lifted their hands, sinking her teeth into the plump flesh at the back of his thumb so he’d let go and hurried towards the tents without a second glance, knowing that he’d be following her. She gripped her skirts, grateful for the warmth of Jace’s cloak around her shoulders and her heart sank, panic seizing her chest when she realized it was Abrogail’s tent that was the source of the screaming.

Three of the Kingsguard, including Ser Criston, were already there, as were the gold cloaks that had been patrolling around the outskirts of camp. Their cloaks reminded her of Sunfyre’s scales in all the torchlight, and half-dressed nobility coming out of their tents, bleary eyed in confusion.

On the ground lay a servant with a blade in his chest, blood burbling from his mouth. Helaena looked at him, wide-eyed, Jace trying to get her to look away, and her gaze went up to Wylla Karstark. The northerner was shaking, gray eyes wide as dinner plates, her hair bound for bed, her dressing gown haphazard and sprayed with blood from where the man must have coughed it at her.

“He-he came in. He was on Abby so quickly-”

“I don’t know where he came from!” Abby’s trembling frame was right behind her, clutching one of the pokers from the tent brazier in her hands, still ready to strike. Her curls were twisted and wrapped around the crown of her head, shivering in the night air in just her own nightgown, sleep mussed and clearly straight from bed. “I don’t…” She gulped. “I don’t think he meant Wylla to b-be there.” Her free hand was gripping the back of Wylla’s dressing gown, and Ser Criston laid a hand on Abby’s shoulder.

“Give me the poker, Lady Abrogail,” he was saying in a calm, steady voice like he did when Helaena was younger, cowering in a corner and unable to flee the commotion. “There’s a girl.”

Harrion Karstark was shouting his sister’s name, just as Uncle Gwayne was calling hers. Helaena turned her head to see him coming up, half dressed with his sword belt slung over his shoulder. He reached for her shoulder, tugging her back. “What is the meaning of this?” he shouted, and Helaena stumbled back into Jace as the crowd parted.

Then, Aegon’s shout of, “Abby!” came crashing over the gathering crowd, pushing his way through with Aemond at his back. She caught her younger brother’s frantic look, seeing the worry ease somewhat at the sight of her before going over to the girls. Abby surrendered the brazier poker as Aegon reached her, frantic over the state of her, pulling his cloak off to wrap around her, fear and fury warring on his flushed features. “What happened?”

The man on the ground was rasping, wheezing, but it was hard to tell if he was alive or not, or if this was how his body signaled death.

“This man came to attack Lady Abrogail, Your Grace,” Ser Erryk said. “Lady Wylla got him good.” His twin nudged the attacker with the tip of his boot as Aemond looked at the man, then at Wylla. His face was carved in hard lines, but his gaze was softened.

“Did you throw it?” he asked. “Or did you pounce on him?”

Wylla blinked, her brother’s broad hands holding her shoulders. “I stabbed him.” Her voice was faint and she took the blade handle, clutching it to her. “He… I was putting away our dresses and there was a commotion… I thought…” Wylla’s brow furrowed, shaking her head. “He came in through the flap beside the bed and crawled o-on top of her. Abby screamed and I just…”

Harrion’s hands tightened on his sister’s shoulders and the girl fell silent with a soft squeak. Aemond’s mouth pursed and he knelt beside the man. His hair fell in a curtain, the band of his eye-patch not holding it back from the vantage that Helaena had. He reached down, and twisted the blade, a wet crack sounding in the sudden hushed anticipation. The wheezing sounds the man was making tapered off as Aemond pulled the blade from his body.

It squelched, a gout of blood spraying, and a strange, hissing sound like wind through a crack sounded. Aemond jerked back as some of the blood caught on the ends of his hair and he rose slowly, wiping the blade of the dagger. “Well he’s dead now, Lady Wylla. Your bravery and quick thinking is to be commended. House Karstark should be proud to have such a brave daughter.” He handed her the dagger, hilt towards her. “Keep this close, since you can be well trusted to use it.”

Wylla’s brother held her tightly as the gold cloaks hoisted the dead man between the pair of them, dragging him somewhere.

“I was half asleep,” Abby said. Aegon clutched her to his chest as his gaze swept darkly around, hands rubbing her arms. “At first I th-thought it was Wylla…” Helaena watched Abby’s hand clutch Aegon’s arm tighter, her voice falling silent. Her other hand reached towards Wylla again, the girls clinging tightly to one another.

“How the fuck did that bastard manage to sneak into my lady’s tent?” Aegon demanded, his voice not a shout like Uncle Gwayne’s had been, but more of a warning growl, like Sunfyre. “Where were the patrols, Ser Criston?”

Their mother’s protector - and Helaena realized that Mother was not there and that Ser Criston must have commanded her to stay in her own tent - shifted only slightly. “The patrols largely keep around the outside of camp to keep people from getting in, my Prince. The patrol that was walking through the tents had not made it back around yet.”

Aegon’s jaw ticked, assessing what Ser Criston had said and knowing it to be true. Helaena knew that Aegon and the others had been lingering in Aegon and Aemond’s tent for whatever gossip and giggling boys got up to in the middle of the night.

“Lady Abrogail and Lady Wylla will share my tent,” Helaena broke in, for she was the princess, and her mother was not here. “And we will have extra guards stationed around our tents, so that our Kingsguard are not stretched thin.” She straightened her shoulders and closed the distance between her and the girls. “This is enough horrible commotion for this night, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves for staring so,” she said, frowning at the crowd that had gathered. “These ladies have been terrorized, and you gawk at them. To bed, everyone! Let us gather your things and get you cleaned up.” The last was said to Wylla, who needed a fresh gown and the blood cleaned from her face.

And like the princess she was, she did not wait to be obeyed, reaching for Abby’s hand to pull her toward her tent.

Thank you for being here! If you loved this chapter, please give a reblog and I would adore hearing what you thought about the chapter! What did you think about the Larys and Abby convo? Baela Targaryen continues to be a force to be reckoned with. I for one love the ladies that Helaena and Abby have been gathering around them. Man what was UP with that attack at the end? And also, Jace clearly doesn't mind Helaena biting him. Good.

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#hotd fic #hotd oc #aegon ii targaryen #aegon targaryen #aegon ii targaryen x oc #aegon ii targaryen fic #house of the dragon #aegon ii targaryen fanfic #aegon targaryen fanfiction #hotd fanfic #hotd fandom #house targaryen fanfic #jacelaena #my fics #oc: abrogail strong #otp: do not go far from me #aegon x abby #abrogon

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sidekick-hero · 1 year

Text

Will you cleanse me with pleasure?

(steddie | 8.4k | explicit| AO3)

A little something for @steves-strapcollection birthday 💜

Gerry, I already told you how much I appreciate you in our DMs so let me just wish you the happiest birthday here. Please never change because true passion and authenticity are so hard to find and knowing you is a pleasure I wouldn't want to miss.

Summary:

People are always saying that the only way you really get to know your partner is when you move in together.

Steve has always dismissed those people. He already knows Eddie inside and out. He knows Eddie's favorite mug (the Garfield one his Uncle Wayne gave him), what food he eats when he's sad (Mac'n'Cheese because that's been his comfort food since he was a kid), where that little scar on his forehead came from (he fell out of a tree trying to rescue a lost kitten which Steve brings up every chance he gets).

Steve thinks it’s safe to say that he knows everything important about Eddie when they finally decide to move in together.

Everything, it turns out, except that Eddie sneaks out of the house in the middle of the night at least once a week.

CW: Tentacle Sex, Monsterfucking, Tentacle Monster Eddie, despite these tags this is one of the softest things I've written. It's a love story 🥰

Special thanks to @yournowheregirl for feeding me ideas and cheering me on like the amazing friend she is, @scarcrossdlvrs for being so sweet and encouraging me and beta-ing this baby as well as @stobinesque for finding mistakes like Sherlock Holmes

People are always saying that the only way you really get to know your partner is when you move in together.

Steve thinks it’s safe to say that he knows everything important about Eddie when they finally decide to move in together.

Everything, it turns out, except that Eddie sneaks out of the house in the middle of the night at least once a week.

Maybe he doesn’t know Eddie that well after all.

To be fair, he hasn't known Eddie that long either. Even for Steve, the way they fell in love with each other so quickly came as a bit of a surprise.

Part of the surprise is that he fell so hard, so fast, for another man because Steve had never dated one before. Sure, he had definitely thought about it. A lot. He definitely suspected that he wasn't exactly straight, thinking back to all the hand jobs he'd traded with fellow jocks and friends after basketball practice or behind the bleachers. But for most of his adult life he had been in a very committed and, at least in his mind, very loving relationship with a woman.

Until said woman broke his heart.

The breakup had been painful and Steve had just needed to get away from it all. So, in a spur of the moment decision, he packed his shit and moved halfway across the country from Hawkins, Indiana to Derry, Maine. Here he rented a quaint little house on the outskirts of town near the local lake, where he also used the basement for his physical therapy practice.

He was definitely not looking for another relationship at this point.

Of course, within the first month in Derry, Steve met Eddie, who turned Steve's already upside down life around a few times for good measure.

Steve's Beemer was already old when he drove it several hundred miles for the move. But here, with roads that can hardly be called that, it had started to give him real trouble. So he took it to Munson and Son Auto Repair in town.

The shop itself did not look like much, with the paint already peeling in places. The door to the office was locked, but he could hear noises coming from the garage section of the shop, so that was where he went. He expected to be greeted by another one of the gruff, flannel-wearing older men he had come to associate with many of the businesses here in town.

So he wasn't at all prepared for the mouth-watering sight of a man lifting wheels onto a metal track in nothing but work pants and an old, faded gray t-shirt.

The guy was about Steve's height, with shoulder-length curly black hair, broad shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist, and a muscular back that moved under his gray t-shirt as he lifted wheel after wheel. His arms were covered in tattoos, more black than skin, moving over lithe muscles. His legs were long, not exactly thick, but the way they bent and stretched easily with the added weight told Steve they were strong, too. Steve couldn't help but imagine them wrapped around his waist or his head.

Clearing his suddenly very dry throat, Steve got the man's attention, and when he turned around, Steve knew he was screwed.

His face was beautiful. It was long, with high cheekbones, a wide and full mouth, and the prettiest brown doe eyes Steve had ever seen. They'd looked even bigger with how wide they'd gotten as they fell on Steve, clearly surprised by his presence. Steve didn't miss the way they had roamed over his body appraisingly. Nor did he miss the way Eddie had flirted with him outrageously, with no respect for personal space, once he had gotten over his initial surprise.

Twenty minutes later, Steve walked out with an appointment for the next day and Eddie's number.

And even though the appointment was rather depressing, with Eddie telling him that it would be best for Steve to say goodbye to his Beemer because it was only going to get worse, it was still one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Because that very same day, Steve went out on his first date with Eddie to go shopping for a new car. It was the most fun he had in a long time.

The day ended with Steve buying a new Jeep and fucking Eddie in the back seat on the shore of Devilfish Lake. What better way to christen the car, Steve had thought as Eddie rode him to oblivion before there were no more thoughts, just breathless whimpers and moans of their names.

Steve is pretty sure that he was already half in love with Eddie at this point.

The thing is: Steve has never been one to take things slow. It's not in his nature. He's a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy. A trigger-happy heart beats in his chest, and when he falls, he falls hard.

That's why, after barely a year of dating, he asks Eddie to move in with him.

Not that he hadn't wanted to ask earlier. No, Steve had thought about moving in with Eddie the first morning they woke up together. The morning light had streamed in and danced across Eddie's features as he slept peacefully in Steve's bed, his dark hair a wild mess and his cheeks flushed with sleep. Steve knew he wanted to wake up like that every morning.

He’s really proud of himself that he still managed to wait almost 11 months before he couldn't stop himself any longer. By this time they were sleeping at each other's houses all the time. Most nights were spent at Steve's because while Steve was living on his own, Eddie was still living with his Uncle Wayne.

Eddie had told Steve about growing up with his uncle because his parents had died when he was very young. He said he didn't remember them and that Wayne had always been like a father to him. It's a sentiment the old man seems to share, as he once told Steve about naming the shop and that Munson and Nephew never quite sounded right. Wayne decided to call it Munson and Son instead, explaining that as far as he was concerned, Eddie was his son. Eddie tried to hide it, but Steve had seen his eyes shine with emotion when he heard Wayne say those words so casually.

Steve really liked Wayne, and they hit it off after an initial wariness that Steve couldn't quite explain. Eddie told him that his uncle was just very protective of Eddie, who was not exactly popular around town, and that it always took him some time to trust strangers.

Wayne had watched Steve like a hawk for months. That's why Steve had decided to talk to him first about moving in with Eddie.

He had been nervous as he went up to Wayne and told him that he was going to ask Eddie to move in with him. Steve wasn't asking for permission, but he knew how much Wayne cared about Eddie, so Steve assured him that he would do everything in his power to make Eddie happy.

Wayne had put his hand on Steve’s shoulder and told him that he knew Steve cared about his nephew and that Eddie deserved someone who would do that without question. And then Wayne said the same thing Steve had heard too many times already: that the only way to really get to know your partner is to move in together, and that Wayne hoped Steve was ready for that.

When Steve asked Eddie to move in with him a week later, he thought he was ready. Hell, he thought there was nothing he could learn about Eddie that would really surprise him.

As it turned out, he was wrong.

Eddie had been hesitant when Steve asked him to move in. They were lying in bed, both naked, their skin still glistening with drying sweat. Their legs were intertwined and Eddie's head was resting on Steve's chest, his fingers dancing lazily over Steve's skin. There was cum cooling on Steve’s belly and he knew it would start to flake soon, but he was also basking in the afterglow of another mind-blowing orgasm and too content and satiated to move.

So when Eddie sighed wistfully and told Steve they had to clean up because he had to go, his work clothes were at home, and his alarm would go off in 5 hours, Steve didn't even think.

"Move in with me." Steve said, not even a real question. He felt Eddie tense in his arms for a moment before his fingers continued their dance over Steve's ribs and sides.

Marking the passage of time by the frantic beating of his heart and the racing thoughts in his mind, Steve figured it was at least half an eternity before Eddie asked, "Are you serious?”

Steve had tightened his grip on Eddie, his hand reaching for Eddie's and intertwining their fingers. "I've never been more serious. I want you to have your things here so you don't have to leave. I want to wake up next to you every morning and go to sleep with you in my arms every night. Move in with me. Please."

As he heard Eddie's sharp intake of breath at his words, Steve realized that a simple "yes" would have been enough. He didn't regret saying what he did, though.

Just as he was about to ask Eddie if everything was all right, if Steve had gone too far, if it was too much, Eddie pressed a kiss to Steve's chest, right over his trembling heart.

"Do you have any plans this weekend? I think I might need some help moving."

The move was a quick one, with Steve's jeep and Eddie's van and Wayne's help, it only took two trips to get Eddie settled into Steve's house. The rest of the day was spent barbecuing with Wayne in Steve's backyard, drinking beer and just talking. And when they said goodbye to Wayne, Eddie had taken his hand and led Steve up to their bedroom and laid Steve out on their sheets and made love to him, even though they hadn't said the words yet.

Steve had never been happier.

That had been two months ago, and for most of that time things had been perfect.

He knows that Eddie had been a little nervous at first that their different temperaments or rhythms would clash, with Eddie being a hyper ball of energy, sometimes unfocused and prone to insomnia and late nights, while Steve enjoyed his quiet times and early morning runs. But they work well together, mindful of each other's habits, needs, and boundaries, and willing to talk things out.

So why would Eddie not talk to him about the fact that once a week he would sneak out of the house in the middle of the night and come back at the crack of dawn smelling like lake water?

Steve waited for Eddie to come to him, vowing to be patient and give Eddie his space. He knows that this is Eddie's first serious relationship and that Eddie is used to doing his own thing without asking permission or telling anyone what he's up to.

But it's been weeks, and while Steve doesn't really think Eddie would cheat on him, he's still worried. It's not normal to leave your house, your bed, your boyfriend in the middle of the night, only to come back hours later without saying a word, is it? It confuses him and leaves him feeling off kilter, because why wouldn't Eddie just talk to him? He even brings it up once, says something off handed about Eddie's insomnia and if he ever goes for a walk or something when he can't sleep.

Eddie said no, lying to Steve’s face.

So when Steve feels Eddie leaving his arms and their bed again one night, he decides to follow him.

Eddie moves so cautiously, careful not to wake Steve. It is a shame for him that Steve has always been such a light sleeper. With his eyes closed and his breathing deliberately even, Steve listens as Eddie gets dressed and gently closes their bedroom door behind him. He smiles to himself as he hears the telltale creak of the loose stair that Eddie never manages to avoid, and the smile grows even fonder as he hears Eddie cursing softly to himself.

Steve follows him as soon as the front door closes, only slipping into his favorite pair of gray sweats and a hoodie he steals from Eddie before dashing after him. On his way out of the house, he notices that Eddie has left his car keys behind.

Slipping out the front door, Steve looks around, trying to decide which way Eddie most likely went. He remembers the smell of lake water on Eddie, so his best guess is Devilfish Lake. It's a short walk from Steve's house, no more than ten, maybe fifteen minutes on foot if you knew the shortcut behind the last house on the road.

And sure enough, there on the dirt road behind Mrs. Benson's house, a few feet in front of him, he sees a dark figure that must be Eddie. His long legs take wide strides, carrying him down the road fast.

For someone who claims to hate running, or any exercise for that matter, Eddie is surprisingly fit and hard to catch.

Which is good, because Steve wants to know what Eddie’s been up to before he talks to him, so Eddie can't know he's here yet.

Steve tries so hard to stay out of Eddie's sight that it takes him a minute to realize that he has actually lost sight of him. One moment he was walking in front of Steve and the next he's gone.

Shit.

Walking faster, he thinks about just calling for Eddie, his plan be damned. It's not exactly cold, but the nights here do get chilly, and in his haste he forgot to put on his shoes before he ran after Eddie. He just wants to go home, preferably with his boyfriend, and curl up in bed. And tomorrow they have to sit down and talk, because -

Before Steve can finish his thought, he hears a loud splash coming from the lake. It sounds like something big hit the water, something like a human body.

Eddie's body.

Eddie, who told him he couldn't swim when Steve asked him to join him for his morning laps in the lake.

It's not even a conscious decision when he starts running toward the pier, his legs pumping as fast as they can.

"Eddie!" He calls, his voice frantic. "Where are you?"

The ground changes beneath his feet, the earthy soil of the path giving way to the wooden planks of the pier, and his bare feet carry him almost all the way to the edge before he stops. His eyes search the lake for any sign of Eddie, but the water is still beneath him. Small waves lick at the wood of the pier, but the surface is flat and unbroken, with no trace of him.

"Eddie!" He shouts again, cupping both hands over his mouth to carry his voice over the lake. Fuckfuckfuck. Every minute he wastes calling for him, Eddie could be sinking deeper and deeper to the bottom, slowly drowning...

His hoodie hits the ground next to him and his sweatpants follow. Steve’s going to go in and the only thing they're going to do is pull him down as they get soaked with water.

He steps closer to the edge of the pier, arms raised above his head, ready to jump in when Eddie's voice stops him.

"No!" Eddie yells. "Steve, stop!"

Startled, Steve does.

Instead of jumping in, he scans the lake with his eyes until he sees Eddie's head above the surface, floating in place, the water around him barely rippling. He must be at least 700 feet away.

"Eddie? What are you doing? Are you hurt?" He asks, his voice lower than before, his tone confused. Eddie doesn't seem hurt, but why would he be in the water if he can't even swim?

Although, with the way he's still floating in place, it looks like he's doing just fine in the water. But why would Eddie lie to him about not being able to swim?

Steve wraps his arms around himself, a shiver running through his body. The air is cold as it whispers across his bare skin.

"I don't know what's going on." He hates how small his voice sounds.

Eddie makes a sound of distress and before Steve can blink, he's so much closer, just a few feet away. Steve didn't even see him move. Above them, the moon is full and bright in the night sky, its light illuminating Eddie's beautiful face. It looks pale in the cold light, his eyes huge and sparkling, somehow seeming even bigger than they usually are.

"Steve." He breathes out, a look of pure heartbreak on his face, and Steve has no idea what it all means, but it scares him. Eddie should never look like this, nervous, almost afraid. But most of all sad. "Please, Stevie, go home. You're shaking."

Steve takes a step toward him, but Eddie puts more distance between them immediately. Again, he moves too fast for Steve's brain to register. He’s now right on the edge, his weight balanced precariously on his heels, and Eddie is looking at him from way too far away for Steve's comfort.

"Not without you." When Eddie doesn't move, Steve adds, "Please. Just...come home with me? We don't even have to talk right now. I just... want to go home with you."

Another shiver runs through his body and he sits down on the edge of the pier, his knees tucked into his chest and his arms wrapped around them. He won't leave without Eddie. Steve doesn't even know why this is so important, but something in him feels that he has to stay, has to go with Eddie, otherwise he will lose him.

This time, as Eddie swims toward him, he's slower than before, almost hesitant, ready to bolt at Steve's first move. It still looks faster, more fluid, than anyone else he's ever seen swim. And Steve has been captain of the swim team for years.

He waits with bated breath for Eddie to approach him, and this time Eddie comes even closer. But he still leaves enough space between them that Steve can only see his head and neck where they stick out of the water. Something tells him that if he jumped in now, Eddie would be across the lake in seconds.

Looking into Eddie’s wide eyes, Steve sees so much emotion in them that his heart aches in his chest. He's also almost certain that the wetness on Eddie's cheeks isn't just lake water.

"Eddie?" Steve tries again when it seems like all Eddie can do is look at him with his hauntingly sad eyes. Steve wants to take him in his arms, run his hand through his hair like he always does when Eddie is having a bad day, and tell him that everything will be all right. They will figure it out, whatever it is.

He wants to tell Eddie he loves him.

"I'm so sorry, Stevie. I... I can't. Please go home, I promise I'll be there soon. But I... You have to go. I can't lose you, so you have to go."

Nothing about this makes sense to Steve, but Eddie sounds like he's in pain, his voice cracking. This time Steve is sure he sees tears on his face. There's also something desperate and wild in his eyes, like he's genuinely afraid of... of Steve.

"You're scaring me, Eddie. I don't know what's going on, but I can help you. I want to help you. Please. Talk to me."

Eddie swims even closer (more like glides) and Steve slowly lowers his legs, unfolding himself until his feet rest in the water beneath him. The water is surprisingly warm, the late summer days still clinging to it.

Steve can see something dark moving in the water beneath him, but he doesn't pay much attention. It's probably a fish or an eel. As far as he knows, nothing dangerous lives in these waters.

"Stevie..." Eddie starts again, his eyes searching Steve's and there is so much naked longing on his face. "I can't. I couldn't survive if you thought I was a freak like the rest of them, that you would be disgusted with me." Eddie's eyes beg him to understand, to not make him do this, to save them both. "You'll hate me. Or worse. You'd be afraid of me.”

"I could never hate you, Eddie. Or be afraid of you. Only ever for you." He takes a deep breath, thinking about finally saying those three little words that have been on his mind for months. He never said them before because he was afraid it would be too much, too fast.

That he would scare Eddie away because he knows Eddie has some baggage, that he can get skittish and overwhelmed at times with their relationship. Steve is still surprised that Eddie agreed to move in with him, if he's being honest.

But maybe it's time to let Eddie see the depth of his devotion to him, even if he can't say it back yet.

"Eddie, I -"

Something touches his leg, stopping him in mid-sentence. Something alive. It's firm, feeling smooth and warm against his skin as it slides from his heel up his calf to his knee, a soft touch, almost like a caress.

"OhmyGod." Steve whimpers as another joins the first, gently exploring his other leg, going as far as his thigh, and he has to force himself to look down. When he does, it's just in time to see two long black vines wrapped around his legs before they disappear as suddenly as they had appeared.

"What the -"

"I'm sorry," Eddie cuts him off, sounding horrified, staring at Steve's legs with an expression somewhere between horror and...shame?

Eddie has put some distance between them again. Steve looks from Eddie's face to his own legs and back to Eddie, slowly beginning to put the pieces together. Eddie's reluctance to come closer, his fear that Steve might hate him or be afraid of him, the black vines that only appeared when Eddie came closer.

"Eddie...what's going on? Were those, those things yours?"

He wishes he could take back the word "things" as soon as he says it, because Eddie pulls back again, his face shuttering, and Steve hates himself for putting that look on Eddie's face.

"It's okay if they were, I promise. I was just... surprised, is all." Steve tries to reassure, his hand reaching out to Eddie, desperate to get him to come back, to get close again. Let Steve touch him.

What he doesn't expect is Eddie's harsh laughter at his words, bursting out of him as if he couldn't help it. It almost sounds like a sob to Steve.

"It's not okay. You don't... you have no idea." Eddie's hands are buried in his hair, his frustration in every line of his beautiful face. His hands look different, Steve notices. Darker, shimmering in the moonlight, and his fingers look longer somehow.

"Steve, I'm a monster." Eddie almost spits out the word monster as if it's something vile. The words sound painful, spilling from him like from a freshly opened festering wound.

A monster. That's just... Steve doesn't even know. Laughable. Because Eddie, his sweet, goofy boyfriend, a monster? The same guy who fell out of a tree trying to save a kitten. Who still spends every Sunday with his Uncle Wayne, even hungover and sleep-deprived the few times he and Steve have gone to the nearest town for a night out. Eddie, who reads to Steve when Steve can't sleep and plays him sappy love songs on his acoustic guitar. The man who holds his hand when they fuck and looks into his eyes with every thrust, who kisses him when he comes, every time. That same guy is supposed to be a monster?

"That's not true." Eddie snorts derisively, but Steve continues. "You're not a monster. You're just Eddie. My Eddie. You always will be." Steve sees Eddie move again, incremental movements that bring him closer to Steve. "Nothing will change who you are."

His expression carefully blank, Eddie comes even closer. But Steve knows him, knows his face and all its many expressions better than his own, and he can tell that there is hope glimmering in his eyes.

"You mean these won't change who I am?" He asks Steve, showing him exactly what touched his legs earlier. They are not vines, but tentacles. Many of them, varying in thickness and length, all black and smooth as they break the surface and hover around Eddie. Steve can't help the sound that slips from his mouth, too surprised to catch it before it falls out and reaches Eddie's waiting ears, confirming all his worst fears.

Eddie laughs again, the sound just as joyless and harsh as the first time. "I knew it. Of course, this changes everything. Who would want to be with someone, something, like me?"

Eddie is so quick to assume the worst, to believe the worst, that Steve can't keep his voice from rising in frustration.

"I do, okay? I fucking do. They just caught me off guard. You gotta let me get my head around this for a second. I wasn't expecting... any of this when I followed you here, and I should be allowed to take a second."

He looks into Eddie's eyes and realizes how much closer he is again. This close, Steve can see more changes: Eddie's canines are longer where they nervously gnaw at his lower lip, his eyes are bigger, darker, than before, and his skin is paler, almost reflecting the moonlight. There's something different about him, but at the same time, he's still Eddie.

"I want to be with you. Tentacles or not, human or not. You're still Eddie. You're still the man I love."

Eddie gasps at Steve's words, obviously not expecting to hear those words from him. Especially now.

"Stevie..." he breathes out, reverently, and once again he moves faster than Steve's eyes can follow. He stops at Steve's shins and his hands touch Steve's ankles tentatively, as if he's still not sure if he's allowed. His tentacles seem to have no such qualms as they slide up Steve's calves again, and Eddie curses as he pulls them back.

Steve somehow misses them already.

He reaches out and sighs in relief when his hand finally touches Eddie, running through his wet curls.

"I love you, Eddie. All of you. Every single appendage." Steve adds the last part with a playful grin, and it elicits a smile, however small, from Eddie.

"Are you...sure?"

Instead of answering, Steve bends down, his hands cupping Eddie's face as he pulls him into a surprisingly sweet kiss. Eddie still tastes the same, his lips soft but firm against his. Eddie's tongue teases along the seams of Steve’s lips and it's warm and wet as it slides into his mouth, exploring it with a single-minded devotion as if it's been months instead of mere hours since their last kiss.

Steve can't help but moan into it and he feels Eddie's fingers digging into the flesh of his thighs in response. More and more tentacles have begun to creep up his legs as Eddie loses himself in their kiss, and Steve feels them teasing along his bare skin. Like Eddie's tongue, they feel warm and wet as they slide along his skin, some kind of fluid on their insides making the glide easier. Still, some of them get stuck to his skin with their suckers and it feels like Eddie is giving him hickeys on his thighs. Steve wonders if they'll leave suction cup shaped bruises.

It feels strange, not like anything Steve's ever felt before, but it's not unpleasant. It's just a lot. They seem to be everywhere and every touch, every caress, every suck sends another thrill through him. Steve is used to Eddie's hands as they map and explore his body until Steve is a withering mess begging to be touched, fucked, anything. Everything.

It feels like that, but more.

One of the tentacles finds its way between his legs, teasing along his shaft where it still rests mostly soft against his thigh, and he gasps into Eddie's eager mouth. The sound makes Eddie pull back, apologies already spilling from his lips, but Steve's hand on the back of Eddie's head keeps him from pulling too far away.

Their faces are still close as Steve whispers in the sacred space between them, "I...like it. Them. They feel good."

Eddie searches his face for any trace of a lie, but he finds none, because Steve is not lying when he says he likes the way they feel on him. He wants to feel Eddie's tentacles on every inch of his body, he wants them to wrap around him and hold him tight. He wants to touch them with his hands and find out how smooth they really are.

"Can I join you in the water, Eddie? Wanna be closer."

Steve presses another kiss to Eddie's stunned lips and that's enough to spur Eddie into action. His tentacles slowly begin to wrap around Steve, surrounding him on all sides as they pull him closer to Eddie. He wraps his own legs around Eddie's hips and feels the base of the tentacles somewhere on Eddie's lower torso. His hand is still on the back of Eddie's head, the other wrapped around Eddie's shoulder.

Their mouths are only inches apart and the world has stopped on its axis, waiting for them to take the final step, to fall somewhere from which they cannot return.

"You sure you want this?" Eddie asks, giving him one last chance to back out, to change his mind.

Steve has never been more sure. "I want you."

The tentacles on his body tighten and Eddie pushes forward into Steve's arms, wrapping his own around Steve and pulling him into the lake.

The water surrounds him on all sides, warm against his cold skin, and he tightens his grip on Eddie, trusting him to bring them both back to the surface. And Eddie does, their heads breaking through the water at the same time. Steve blinks the water out of his eyes and is rewarded when Eddie's face comes back into focus. He's still looking at Steve like he's not sure if this is okay, still worried that Steve will realize at any moment that he's in the arms of a monster.

Steve cups Eddie's face in his palm, his eyes soft as he looks at his boyfriend. "I want you, Eddie. I love you."

Turning his head, Eddie presses a kiss to Steve's palm. He looks back at Steve through his lashes, and Steve can see all the love he feels reflected back at him.

"I love you too. So much, you have no idea. I was so scared of losing you. I hated keeping this from you. I'm sorry, I shoulda trusted you -" Eddie begins to babble, the palpable relief coming off him in waves turning into a nervous energy that Steve is already all too familiar with.

"Shh, it's okay. I know."

A particularly adventurous tentacle wraps around his waist and Steve can't help himself, he has to touch it. His fingers run along the smooth and surprisingly warm flesh and Eddie whimpers softly in his arms.

Oh.

Steve grins at Eddie and he knows his face looks smug as hell as his fingers continue to stroke along the flesh of Eddie's appendage.

"They're, uh... they're sensitive," Eddie stutters, his cheeks gaining some color in the still bright light of the full moon above them. His tentacles really seem to have a life of their own, for while Eddie seems embarrassed by his reaction, his tentacles demand more of Steve's attention.

Another joins the one wrapped around his waist and Steve lets go of Eddie completely, still blindly trusting him to keep them both afloat so he can use both hands to explore their texture. They seem to writhe under his attention, as does Eddie, his hands clutching Steve's back, his nails leaving welts on his skin.

"Fuck," Eddie moans as Steve's finger runs over one of the suckers attached to his stomach. "It feels like you're touching my dick, ohmygod." Steve feels Eddie's hips moving between his legs, subtle thrusts that he can't seem to help.

Steve wants to see how Eddie reacts when he takes one of his tentacles in his mouth.

"Has no one ever touched them before?" Steve can't help but ask, feeling a strange sense of possessiveness over this part of Eddie. Neither of them were virgins the first time they had sex, but this is somehow more intimate. Something that should only belong to Steve.

Eddie bites his lip, trying to hold back his needy sounds and shakes his head.

That won't do.

"I want to hear you say it, baby. Has anyone else had their hands on your tentacles before? Or am I the only one?" Eddie's still biting his lips with those fucking prolonged canines, and Steve wants them on his body, marking it, brandishing him as Eddie's. He thumbs at them, gently prying Eddie's mouth open. " C'mon, lemme hear you."

Another whimper breaks free and with it the thing Steve wanted to hear so badly. "Just you. No one else. Only you."

"Good. They're mine."

Eddie's lips are on his with a hunger he's never felt before. It's like Eddie's trying to crawl inside him, their kiss all teeth and tongue, wet and dirty and so fucking perfect that Steve thinks he could come from that alone.

"I love you so much," Eddie pants into his mouth, unable to stop kissing Steve for more than those few words. Warmth spreads through Steve's body from the way Eddie kisses him, from the sound of those words coming out of Eddie's mouth and from the way he sounds so fucking reverent when he says them.

As Eddie loses himself in their kisses, his tentacles become more and more adventurous. They're everywhere, on Steve's thighs, his waist, between his shoulder blades. One is curling across his chest right now, it's suckers on his nipples, sending electric jolts of arousal straight to his achingly hard cock. Another plays with the head of his weeping cock, spreading more of that slippery liquid on it, and it's tip teases his slit, causing Steve to whine into Eddie's open mouth.

Eddie must have noticed the same thing. "Shit, you're bleeding. I didn't mean to..."

Steve is licking over his lip to pick up the red droplets when the tentacle that is still resting around his neck moves again, it's tip prodding at his bleeding lip. The tentacle also brushes Steve's tongue and some of the clear liquid drips onto his tongue. It tastes sweet, almost like honey, and before Steve knows what he's doing, he closes his lips around Eddie's appendage and sucks it into his mouth.

The taste of it explodes over his taste buds and Steve feels his head become light again, almost as if he's floating. He doesn't even realize that he's licking and sucking on the flesh in his mouth until he feels Eddie's hands fall to his ass, grabbing it hard and grinding his thick, hard cock against it as high-pitched moans and whimpers continue to pour out of him.

There must be something in the fluid coming from Eddie's tentacles, some chemical that makes Steve feel drugged, his body lax and his mind hazy with lust.

"SteveSteveSteve," Eddie almost chants, and nothing has ever sounded sweeter to Steve's ears than his desperation. His own cock is trapped between their bodies and he hitches his hips to get some kind of friction, but it's not enough.

"Fuck me, Eddie. Fuck me with them, I need them to fill me up, please." Steve begs around the appendage in his mouth and he feels more fluid squirt out of the suckers, almost like a cock dripping pre-cum. This feels like sucking Eddie's cock, the way the flesh throbs in his mouth, warm and thick, but also different. Heady and addictive.

Steve's hands wrap around the girth, forcing it in and out of his mouth until more of the sweet liquid comes out and fills his mouth. He moans around it, wanting nothing more than to be stuffed full of Eddie's cum.

As if they can hear his thoughts, another tentacle joins the one in his mouth, making his jaw ache as they pry it open so they can both fit inside. Then a third, thinner than the other two, begins thrusting in and out between them. It goes deeper and deeper with each thrust, hitting his soft palate and teasing his throat until it opens for it.

Liquid collecting along the flesh begins to drip down his throat, relaxing his muscles further as he chokes on the thick tentacles filling his mouth. A broken moan gurgles up his throat, the vibration of it enough to reward him with more thick spurts from the tentacles in his mouth.

While his mouth is being stuffed, the rest of Eddie's appendages are not finished with him.

Eddie's hands are still gripping Steve's ass tightly, not moving so much as holding Steve in place as his tentacles continue to explore and worship his body. The one that's been teasing the head of his cock begins to slowly jerk him off, its grip just the right side of too much but the pace maddening. Steve wants to thrust into it, but more tentacles have joined those around his waist and chest, and even more have wrapped around his thighs, effectively tying him down and restricting his movement.

"Fuck, you should see yourself, so beautiful, so perfect. I can't believe we could have done this the whole time." Eddie sounds as out of it as Steve feels, his voice raspy and so low Steve can feel it reverberating through his body.

Steve realizes that the tight coil in his groin is ready to snap, his muscles trying to tense despite the relaxing effect of the tentacle's pre-cum in his system.

Just when he thinks he can't take it anymore, Steve feels another tentacle slide along the sensitive inside of his thighs. It slips between his legs, forgoing his cock to wrap around his balls, squeezing them tightly enough to stave off his impending climax.

He tries to whine around the thick flesh still fucking in and out of his throat, and comes out sounding muffled and desperate.

Eddie shushes him gently. "Shh, sweetheart, I know. I know. But I thought you wanted me to fuck you and I could tell you were already ready to make a mess between us."

Another muffled whimper.

"You still want me to fuck your needy hole, stuff it until your belly bulges with how full you are?"

The groan that fights its way past his mouthful sounds pained, the mental image almost enough to make him come anyway, no matter how much Eddie squeezes his balls.

It's Eddie's turn to look smug. "Thought so. I will be so good to you, sweetheart. You'll get what you want, I promise."

The tentacle that has been squeezing Steve's balls loosens its grip and slips behind his balls to his taint, stroking along it with just enough pressure to slowly drive him crazy. He wants it to go further, to sink into him, his hole clenching around nothing in needy desperation.

It doesn't. Instead, he feels the tip of a thinner one nudge his hole, spreading some of its liquid over it. It's the sweetest kind of torture when the tip dips inside him, stroking his opening, relaxing it and lubing it up at the same time. Preparing him to take more, so much more.

Steve feels Eddie's grip on his hips loosen and the tentacles holding him down follow his lead, allowing Steve to move again. "It's your show, sweetheart. You can play with them however you want."

The tip pushes deeper into him, the flesh inside of him hardening, ready for Steve to fuck himself on it. He pushes down and feels it sink deeper, his muscles giving way easily. He begins to undulate his hips, slowly fucking the appendage in and out of him.

It's maddening, not nearly enough, and he whines unhappily.

Eddie's hand comes up and cups his cheek, thumb stroking along his cheekbone. "Another one?"

Steve nods, his eyes pleading. He wants to tell Eddie to give him two more, he doesn't care, they've taken it slow enough. But his mouth is still full, and he loves the way the tentacles gag him, forcing him to communicate by whimpering and moaning.

Thank God Eddie doesn't need words to know what Steve needs.

He feels another tentacle pushing at his hole, its tip also slipping in with ease. But the further it sinks in, the thicker it gets, stretching him further and further around it. With the added girth it definitely rivals Eddie's thick cock, the feeling of them spearing him open just as good.

Until the tentacles start to take turns fucking him, no set rhythm or rhyme to it, keeping Steve on edge the whole time. The slick squirt from the suckers must be dripping out of him by now and he wishes they were somewhere dry so he could feel it. As it is, all he can feel is the thick flesh going into him like a knife sinking into butter, and before his next whimper has finished crawling up his throat, Eddie is sinking another thick one into him.

There is no teasing this time, just one smooth thrust that causes Steve to throw his head back in ecstasy.

"Oh my God, Steve, you're perfect, so perfect, I love you so much, the way you just take them, driving me crazy, I'm so fucking close," Eddie sounds almost delirious with lust, like Steve really is driving him crazy, making him feel so good he's about to lose it.

The thought makes him clench around the tentacles inside him, desperate to make Eddie feel even better, to make him feel as good as Steve. His tongue begins to rub along the suckers on the underside of the ones in his mouth and he can feel the spurts of pre-cum getting thicker, their taste even sweeter now. He drinks it down greedily, its effect on him not fading.

Steve's hands let go of the appendages in his mouth and instead search blindly for Eddie's hands. When he finds them, he laces their fingers together and grips Eddie's hands tightly, signaling that he's close as well. He brings their joined hands to his stomach, untangles the fingers, and presses Eddie's palms against his skin.

"Fuck, I can feel them." Eddie sounds awed, and when he looks up at Steve, there is an expression of naked hunger on his face. "Think you can take another one?"

For Eddie, Steve would take another ten.

He really wants another one too, the feeling of being stuffed to the brim is intoxicating, the constant pressure against his sweet spot and the way the sensitive nerve endings at his entrance feel overwhelmed again and again with every thrust stretching him wide. He's never been so full, never felt like this, and he already knows they need to do this again.

He nods, his fingers entwining with Eddie's once more, his palms resting on the backs of Eddie's hands. As Eddie slowly enters him with another thick limb, he chokes on the overwhelming sensation. His hole clenches almost painfully around the intrusion, the circumference almost too much, even with the relaxing effect of the tentacle's fluid, and Steve whimpers.

Before the sensation can become unpleasant, the tentacle around his cock quickened its pace, adding to the pleasure and overriding any discomfort Steve might have been feeling.

The tentacles in Steve's mouth pulse and writhe, the pre-cum squirting from them overflowing his mouth, dripping from the corners and running down his chin. He can tell that Eddie is close, too, and Steve knows he's holding back because he needs Steve to come first.

As if reading his mind, Eddie whimpers brokenly. "Steve, fuck, you feel perfect around me. God, I wish you could fuck me right now, your perfect cock inside me as I fuck you with my tentacles, my cock rubbing against your belly bulge."

It's Eddie's words, the picture he paints, that pushes Steve over the edge and he comes in thick spurts between them. His inner muscles clench rhythmically around Eddie, his girth almost too much to handle.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck," Eddie chants, and Steve feels him coming everywhere.

Eddie's hips buck up, forcing his cock between Steve's cheeks and it jerks against him as Eddie comes in thick spurts. They quickly dissolve in the water, but he can feel their warmth.

Even more overwhelming is the feeling of his tentacles squirting thick ropes of cum into his mouth and ass. It's so much that it keeps spilling out of his holes, filling him to the brim with Eddie's release. Their hands are still joined above his stomach and Eddie stares at him in shock as Steve's belly expands even more.

"Stevie, fuck, look at you. So beautiful when you're filled with my cum, your belly feels so big," Eddie sounds like he's having a religious experience and Steve is not far behind. In his mind he can see how his hole will be gaping when Eddie pulls out and he knows he will feel the way they just fucked for hours, if not days. The thought causes another thin rope of cum to spurt from his already softening cock.

Eddie carefully pulls his appendages out of Steve's mouth and ass, mindful of the overstimulated flesh. They slide out easily with the way Steve's whole body is limp after his release.

Once they're out of his body, Steve sinks into Eddie's arms like a puppet whose strings have been cut, letting Eddie hold his weight. Eddie's hand comes up and runs through Steve's hair, his chest rumbling with the soothing sounds he makes against Steve's head.

"That was..." Steve begins, but he doesn't even know how to finish the sentence, feels like there are no words in the English language sufficient to describe how he feels.

"The best thing that ever happened to me," Eddie suggests, and Steve hums in agreement. "You are the best thing that ever happened to me, Steve." Eddie adds, planting a kiss on Steve's ear. "I never thought anyone could want me, love me, knowing what I am."

This causes Steve to leave his comfortable resting place against Eddie's neck and look into Eddie's eyes as he says, "I think I've been in love with you since we christened my Jeep. I wanted to tell you that first morning you made us burnt toast for breakfast. But I was so afraid to tell you because I thought it was too much. That I was too much."

There's sadness in Eddie's eyes, and Steve doesn't know if it's for Eddie or for Steve. Maybe for both of them. They've both been so afraid to show the other who they really are for so long.

Eddie's lips find his in a kiss that is almost painfully soft, just their mouths pressing their love into each other's bodies, their tongues writing their devotion on each other's souls. When Eddie pulls away, his eyes are as soft as his kiss.

"You can never be too much, Steve. The way I want you? It scares me sometimes. No matter how much you want, how much you need, how much you love? I'm meeting you every step of the way."

Tears form in his eyes at Eddie's words, and his heart beats so loudly in his chest that he's sure Eddie must hear it.

"Marry me."

Steve surprises them both with his words, judging by Eddie's eyes, which are as wide as his own must be, but he doesn't take them back. He just adds, "Not today. Or tomorrow. It doesn't even have to be this year or the next, but someday I want you to be my husband."

The way Eddie's arms tighten around him should be answer enough, but his heart still soars as Eddie presses kisses all over his face, each one accompanied by another breathless yesyesyes.

It's only when Steve starts to shiver in his arms that Eddie stops peppering every inch of skin he can reach with kisses.

"You're cold," Eddie says and Steve can't help but laugh.

"Brilliant observation, Sherlock. How come you're not?"

Eddie just shrugs, "No idea. I don't feel the cold as much when I'm like this. It would suck in the winter otherwise."

This makes Steve pause. "You come here in the winter too? But the lake freezes over."

“Don’t I know. Wayne is helping me clear some of it off further down the shore so I can get in easier. I can show you next winter. For now we should get out. "

With that, Eddie swims them closer to the pier and helps Steve up onto it, because Steve's legs still feel like jelly. As Eddie lifts himself out of the water, Steve sees his tentacles in all their glory for a moment before they retract back into Eddie's body. His hands also return to their normal color and shape, and his face loses that otherworldly look.

He's just Eddie again.

Steve can't wait for the next time they can do this. But for now, he just opens his arms and Eddie immediately steps into his warm embrace.

"Let's go home, my love."

#steddie #steddie smut #steddie fanfic #steve x eddie #stranger things fanfiction #my writing #nsft #mind the tags

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hennyjwrites · 1 year

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Peaches and Cream: Chapter 1

Sighing as you pull into the school parking lot you resent your parents for bringing you back to Derry after summer break. You had missed the first month of school so technically this was your first day back. You looked in your mirror and smiled at your new look. Over summer break you changed for the better of yourself. You dabbled in makeup, worked out, got a few piercings, and ate good. You were practically glowing.

Your hair was done with your natural kinks, slightly covering your eyes in a stylish way. Before it was either a mess of a bun, or down in a poofy straight style. The lipgloss you had on gave your plump lips the shine that they needed which brought attention to your white teeth. You traded out your overly baggy outfits, for slightly tighter ones which showed your figure. You look good and you know it.

You made sure to grab your backpack which was filled with your art supply before you stepped out of the car. Your pace was slow as you walked through the double doors. Walking with your head held high, you ignored the looks from some students as they recognized you in your new state. When you made it to your locker you caught the eye of Victor Criss.

He was always your friend even though the rest of the gang didn’t pay you any attention. He always helped you with homework and projects and vice versa. You had never taken him for the bully type until you witnessed him roughing a few kids up with the rest of his little group of friends. You never understood how he got wrapped around Henry’s finger but that wasn’t your business.

Victor excused himself from the group heading towards you. You waited patiently as you opened your locker.

“Hey y/n.” He grinned, excited to see one of his closest friends. He liked that you gave him that sense of niceness that he needed after being a part of the Bowers gang for so long.

You shrugged your jacket off and threw it in the locker before shutting it. “Hey Victor!” You pulled him into a quick hug and he returned it awkwardly.

He quickly looked at you, licking his lips slightly. “You look good, what happened to ya?” He asks. Most would’ve taken offense to the question but you knew what he meant.

“Left town for a few weeks. While I was gone I reinvented myself.” You looked around and saw some of the guys who used to avoid you now staring at you. The hallways were full of kids, and they were obviously avoiding certain people. “And obviously a few people like it:'' you joked.

Before Victor could reply Henry Bowers called his name. “Bring your ass on Vic, you can talk to the whore some other time.” He smirked at you and you could tell he didn’t recognize you. Henry and his little sidekick Patrick practically terrorized you in middle school. Always pulling your curls, knocking you over, just being assholes. Their torture died down slightly when you became friends with Victor. You always assumed he told them to knock it off but you were never completely sure. Vic started inviting you to hang with them sometimes afterwards.

Vic turns back to look at you. “I gotta go, I’ll catch you at lunch alright?” He mostly tells you. You shrug your shoulders as he makes it through the swarm of kids back to Bowers. Before you turned away you caught Patrick’s glance at you. He smirked at you creepily before turning his attention back to the gang. Not knowing why, but a slight shiver ran down your body when he looked at you. You walked to your first class as the bell rang, as everyone scurried out of the hallway.

Walking in the cafeteria, you looked around slightly trying to find a good seat. It was noisy from everyone talking about their summer break but it was bearable. You were about to go sit with your old friend Greta but your arm was grabbed. Ready to push whoever it was off, you roughly turned around until you came face to face Vic.

“Come sit at our table Y/N the gang won’t mind.” He told you, guiding you towards their table. You walked side by side until you finally reached the seats. The two open seats were either sitting between Reggie and Henry or Victor and Patrick. “Cmon sit.” Victor beckoned you. You decided against sitting near Henry and plopped down in between Victor and Patrick. “Guys this is Y/N. '' Victor introduced.

“Hey.”

“Oh Y/N, I ‘member you.” Reggie said smiling. He has a sandwich in his hands which you were sure his momma made for him. “You helped my mama with her garden a few summers ago. You saved me a lot of work with whatever you did.” He informed you.

You smiled at him, showing off your pretty teeth. “Your mama was the sweetest woman Reggie, she still sends my family her special cookies to this day.” You smile.

He returned the smile gently before returning his attention back to his lunch. You were tapped on your shoulder. Who was brave enough to actually walk up to the Bowers table. When you turned around you were met with Jaxon Lane's sweeter than pie smile. He was one of the cutest boys you ever met and one of your long time friends. “Hey Jaxon!” You greeted smiling ear to ear.

Jaxon pulled you up into a hug which you gladly returned. “Long time no see, you look great.” Unknown to you your ass was directly in Patrick’s face. It was so round and looked so soft. Patrick was practically drooling and Henry saw the look in his eye and smirked. “Like what you're seeing Pat? Like having her ass in your face?”

“Fuck. What’s there not to like?” Patrick geowled. Your curves were poking out making your body fill in your clothes. You were one of the good things he created. You smiled slightly at Patrick’s words, not expecting him to compliment you. Patrick turned and looked at Jaxon and smiled creepily. Both him and Henry stared at him for a second. Jaxons face dropped, already preparing for the lunatic to lunge at him. “Scram.” Is all Patrick said before Jaxon turned on his heel and walked away to avoid a beating.

You sat back down in your seat and looked between Patrick and Henry. “You guys are assholes.” You muttered, stealing one of victors chips. Patrick was shamelessly staring at your boobs. Your body was enough to have him practically hypnotized. Now he just wondered what it felt like. Pat dropped his hand on your thigh and you turned to look at him. He smirked at your reaction.

“What Patrick?” You ask, looking across from you at Henry who was close to laughing. Belch and Victor were having their own conversation. He didn’t say anything but he rubbed your thigh feeling how soft you were.

“Quit drooling over the bitch Pats she still looks like the trash she was in grade school.” Henry muttered, eyeing some freshmen to find later. Henry didn’t hate you, he just didn’t find the appeal of you. Or so you thought.

You rolled your eyes. “Everyone else thinks differently, Henry.” You inform him. Patrick leaned into you and sniffed your hair. It kind of creeped you out. “You smell good. You smell like peaches.” He told you. “Makes me wonder, do you taste as good as you smell?” He asks moving his hands closer to the inside of your thigh. You stiffened slightly, grabbing the victor's attention.

He shook his head. “Pat I’m warning you, she isn’t as easy as she looks.” He says, shaking his head. You looked at him confused. How the fuck would he know that? “Tried to fuck her a few times and the girl wouldn’t even spread her legs.” Your mouth dropped. You thought he was your friend. He and everyone else at the table laughed.

Henry laughed at the thought. “Oh I see. You're too bitchy to give it up? Hear that hockstetter, she’s still fresh.” He smirked at the thought of Patrick getting his hands on you. Of course he knows how Patrick is with every girl he’s been with. Henry might not know the details but he took notice of how the girls in this town changed after dealing with Patrick. Maybe if he fucked you up in the head you would get knocked off that high horse you were already on.

If you were lighter you were sure your face would be redder than a tomato right now. Patrick laughed along with everyone else before he leaned down. “Mhm I heard, she's just waiting for someone to make her a woman. You're gonna let me make you one?” He laughed although he was deadly serious. His hand went between your legs and grabbed you. You stood up quickly, slapping him in the process. Even though everyone else was scared of him you refused to be one of those bitches who let him do what he wants.

“I wouldn’t let you fuck me if you were the richest man on earth Patrick. If you touch me like that again, I’ll break your fucking fingers.” You hissed, grabbing your backpack and walking out the cafeteria. Patrick’s face stung in pleasure as he watched you walk out. He smiled and bit his lip as your ass moved with every swag of your hips.

You had spent the rest of the day in the library examining art books to help with your technique. When the bell rang you quickly made your way out the building.

You shook your head as you saw the gang torturing some freshman. You decided against defending them and continued walking to your car. Patrick saw you and excused himself from the gang's activities. He called after you but it fell upon deaf ears as you continued walking at a faster pace. Patrick’s long legs gave him an advantage because he was behind you in seconds. He bit his lip as he brought his hand down, slapping and gripping your ass. Fuck it was so soft and his whole hand still didn’t cover it all.

You froze in your steps and turned to see Patrick who was staring at you with lust in his eyes. His pupils were wide as he looked. “Fuck your ass is soft. You smell and feel like a fresh peach.” He told you.

“Thanks but don’t touch me like that.” You muttered, continuing to walk. Patrick trailed behind you as you walked to your car. You unlocked your doors and hopped in thinking you were leaving Patrick behind. He went to the other side and got in the passenger seat. “What’re you doing?” You asked, throwing your stuff in the backseat. You weren’t nervous or anything, just confused.

“I can’t sit in my girlfriend's car now, peaches?” He teased, letting his arm fall in the armrest. You grimaced at the nickname and started the car.

“Girlfriend?” You questioned turning your body toward him.

He smiled and nodded his head. “You're my girlfriend now, peaches.” He informed you. When you stare at him his smile drops. “Is that a problem?” He growled, hand already twitching. Not gonna lie it scared you how he could just switch like that’s

You pulled off out the parking lot. “Nah not a problem, just stop calling me peaches.” You muttered, hating the name.

#black reader #patrick hocksetter x reader #patrick hocksetter imagine #patrick hockstetter #patrick Hockstetter x black!reader #bowers gang

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atouchofireland · 1 month

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PR Perception & Consequences: Luke Newton

[This analysis is from the perspective of a lover of story with a Masters in Publishing & Writing, with ties to a publicist with 20+ years experience.]

I didn't watch Bridgerton until a while after s2 came out. Partly because I hesitate with new shows and mainly because I hate waiting years between seasons.

I LOVE Derry Girls because it clicks with my mainly Irish family. So, I knew who Nicola was as Clare before watching Bridgerton, but nothing else.

That leads into the LN assumptions.

From what I can tell as a general viewer of the show and Social Media, he came from musical theater and Disney stuff in the UK before landing the Colin role in his mid 20's.

During this time, aka 2019/2020-2023, LN had a gf named Jade for that whole time.

Media reported that they'd broken up some time at the end of filming in June 2023. Then, there is some reports saying he got with his current partner, mere months later in at least 8/23 if not sooner. (Nic is known for keeping her even longterm relationships a secret, but Luke's previous gf would post a few pics and vids here and there.)

This is where PR should've started to protect his image before the first premiere and press tour even happened.

At this point, late 2023, Luke has not posted even a hint of his supposed app gf anywhere. Then he leaves for a 6-month world tour with his friend, of 5 years that he has easy chemistry with, but now they both are not with longtime partners.

LN leaned into the romantic press interviews with his friend because he was comfortable with her and it promoted the show.

Here's where his friends as PR shows dumbass judgment.

I believe I saw something about the app gf attending the 1st premier in London, before the tour, but it wasn't paparazzi-d. Whereas, after the WT, the 1st LN news was pap photos with this girl at the after party 2nd half premier. Basically, PURPOSEFULLY taking the romance illusion away from the couple that the actors built for the months leading up to this.

Bad PR leads off from here: self-described introvert Luke goes to Milan with 'gf',' fair enough it's fashion week. But, THEN he's BACK in Italy on "holiday." Getting paparazzi pics of him they didn't even get on his World Press Tour. Then possibly in Greece, continuing some vacation? So much of this shit makes zero sense both PR-wise and normal person-wise.

For example of good PR capitalizing on lead roles: Nicola is on a movie rn, she's part of A-list representation, she's possibly a future bond girl. Johnny Bailey was shooting a drama, Wicked, and his Bridgerton cameos at the same time. Simone is starring in a motion picture out soon.

The rumors of LN's friend Rory running his socials is horrible because: 1) Rory seems like a douchebag who wants more shirtless pictures of himself on his non-famous account than of his gf. 2) He puts Luke's skinny "similar to his gf" wannabe influencer gf on his instagram without hyping up any on Luke's actual work and projects.

This all gives off the vibe of this friend being resentful, taking advantage of Luke breaking up with his longterm gf and deciding to get more built for the show, and convincing him he needs the "hot rebound" for himself and image. As always, that gross straight man is wrong. All his friends say he's so sweet and quiet and genuine.

How I perceive him from his own press: Had a supportive, longterm gf who was also an aspiring actor as they were both coming up in their early 20's. LN started working out so much to get lean & abs to feel on-par with the other Bridgerton guys. Him and his gf grew apart, maybe even felt resentment, while LN was shooting so long for BS3. Shooting raps.

This is the overall perception that makes me and I think many others so mad: Luke had a sweet, curvy, talented gf for 4 years. And he was a thicker tall guy, not fat, not skinny, not ripped but amazingly curvy in the male way that's rare. He got all built for Bridgerton when Nic refused cuz it isn't necessary for the characters. And after all this real-life and on-screen romance with a mid-size woman, after becoming a "muscly man," he shows up with a stick-figure wanna be dance influencer.

His actions of allowing his pr/friend to paint him as if he gets "hot women" now that he's "desirable" is what makes me fucking sick about the perception of him and I think this is why so many Bridgerton fans in the SM sphere got the ick.

#bridgerton #luke newton #nicola coughlan #polin #'me at 27 dealing with this 'trading up' bs #to be clear Nic can get anyone she wants cuz she's open and secure whilst being private

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yourmamakira · 1 year

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BOYS GON SOFT

Henry Bowers

Henry develops a crush on a very sparky girl, and everyone can see how soft he's gone, but him.

Black!Fem Reader

Tw: assault, violence, bullying, vulgar language

Henry Bowers has always been aggressive & violent. And those who did get into his pants knew he's wasn’t there for, commitment or a meaningful relationship.

He's never cared about that stuff…Well never until he met you.

For weeks he told himself he didn't like you, over and over how could he fall for a loser like you.

But the day you accidentally bumped into Patrick hocksetter and he nearly murdered his best friend. He knew.

He knew he was in deep, deep, deep deepdeepdeep shit.

YOU! (first person)

I Knew I was a freak, a fucking loser. Nothing but a Pusey bag to fuck and a whore to look at. I mean I wouldn't be suprised. And I’m not.

I've been played more times then I have fingers. I've been bullied, degraded, Abused and sexually assaulted for as long as I've been in derry mein. And I've been here my whole life. I don’t really know why I’m treated like this. Maybe it’s because of my skin color, anyone here that’s not 100% Caucasian is considered a slur. Or maybe it’s the roomers Greta Keen Spread About me in the 5th grade, about how I shagged the whole Baseball-team.

Which is absurd for someone who was my age and not even the teachers believed me. And none of the players denied the claims, only making my hatred burn brighter.

It wasn't until Monday. June 2nd, when I was having the shitist day of my entire fucking life, that I realized how much of a fuck up I really was.

I had just gotten into an argument with my so called father about how much of a so called slut I was. When in reality the most I've done is kissed a guy. Not even that. My father had accused me of sneaking out and stealing his liquor, accusing me of getting pregnant and aborting the baby. Telling me I’m the reason my mother left…when in reality he’s the reason bc he’s a two face back stabbing man whore alcoholic fuck up father.

And on top of that, I had just started my period, so I was in immense pain. And on FUCKING TOP OF ALL THAT. I just HAD to be a cluz and bump into the Patrick Hocksetter. Derry's very own Psychic Most likely 98% murderer. But somthing weird happend.

I was left alive and defended by his best friend, Henry fucking bowers.

I don't know what was weirder.

The clown I saw that day, or Being defended by the Henry bowers. Either way. They both caught me off guard.

3rd person pov: Monday, 6.2.81

"Well FUCK YOU DAD"

The girl screamed at her self proclaimed Father. But she liked to call him a wannabe dad behind his back.

"Just fucking wait till you get ho–"

She didn't even let him finish his sentence, she cut him off with the car door, slamming it in his face, gripping her backpack straps closer to her shoulder as she made her way into the school clutching her aching stomach.

She would deal with her father later.

She was not in the mood, she was more bitchy then usual today and on top of her bitch ass father she had to deal with. She had to deal with her period, which caused loads of unnecessary stress and pain.

She walked into the school, avoiding the sweaty teens and horny boys cat calling her everywhere she went. Curse that stupid fucking roomer.

She scoffed as she took out her walkmen she got a few Christmases back and pulled the headphones over her head. She looked down at her walkmen re winding the tape finding her favorite stress relapsing song. Her head stayed down for a few seconds. That was her first mistake.

The song didn't even play for 10 seconds before her headphones were knocked off her head and she was knocked to the floor.

She groned and looked up about to go off but stopped out of fear as she was faced with the back of the Patrick HOCKSTETTER.

His back was slumped and his knives that he always carried around was a skew on the floor.

She scooted back scrambling to her feet as quickly as possible.

She was about to start apologizing when she was Grabbed harshly by the neck. The gasps around them went unnoticed by the captured Girl. His grip grew tighter as he raised his head.

She griped the wrists that held onto her attempting to pull them off.

She raised her head to face Patrick’s seething one, right in-front of hers. His hot breath came in contact with her nostrils and she tried hard not to gag at his horrid breath and his stench taking over her face.

"You got a death wish, Slut?" He spat out lowly, so only she could hear.

She out of pure fear and stun didn't anwser him. Second mistake.

She was like a deer caught in headlights, to afraid to move or speak. She would've snapped back with something snarky, but as much as she hated her life. This was one of the worse ways to die.

He shook the girl, hitting her head on the wall once more. She let out a loud grone. That was definitely going to hurt later.

"Anwser me Whore!" He spoke loudly catching the attention of the other kids in the hall way who stared out of fear FOR the small girl he had got this time.

When she didn't anwser he got upset. He cocked his fist back and started for her face. She clenched her eyes shut and flinched back making an attempt to protect herself. But it was useless.

‘ Patrick hocksetter was going to beat me to death.’ She prepared for the hurt but it never came.

She kept her eyes closed as she was relased and placed gently back on her feet.

She slowly opened her eyes to find Patrick at knife point by his best friend, Henry Bowers.

Through her loud and fidget breaths she couldn't pick up any words they exchanged, all she could hear was the ending of his sentence.

"–ch her again, and You're Dead."

She was stunned.

‘ was he talking about me ? He couldn't be. Of course he was talking about me stupid ! ‘

Henry dropped his best friend and threw the knife to the ground with a huff, he spun around glaring at everyone and anything, they all restored back to what they were doing before, not wanting to risk getting beat to death by bowers.

The girl stayed in her spot, stunned at what just happened. Her life was just saved…by Him?..

She hadn’t noticed he was right in-front of her until he spoke.

“Hey? You okay Doll?”

She snapped out of her trance and gulped fearfully, she quickly spoke up not wanting to anger him. She was in too much of a daze to be in her sparky attitude. She was all together still stunned, her Sas had been put on pause

“Oh Yes..Yes I am..” speaking to him was…much more easier then she imagined..he’s more calm and he’s actually speaking to her without calling her any sorts of derogatory remarks.

He smiled a little bit and Her heart did a back flip. She stared at his smile and couldn’t help but smile back.

He moved closer and out of instinct her smile vanished and she moved backwards. Could he blame her.

His face dropped and she thought she has angered him. She shook in her spot as she let out a shaky sigh. She moved closer to him and stood infront of him.

“I’m sorry if I upset you, I…I just don’t like…I don’t like being close to anyone. Not just you. It’s a social thing…”

She explained carefully. She wasn’t lying to him, and he knew that too. She hated being close to people. She hated contact with anyone and she preferred being 6 feet at all times.

He had no idea why she was being so considerate today, usually when he would hear her and see she was yelling, screaming and beating people up and being her sparky self…maybe she was sick.

He smiled again and chuckled. “It’s alright princess, you ain’t hurt my feelings. I ain’t a sissy.”

Now it was her turn to smirk, “huh, I would’ve never guessed”

‘ there she is ‘ he thought with a grin.

He laughed and got up close to her, this time she didn’t move. He leaned down to her face and smirked, he pushed her a bit and she stumbled back with a laugh.

That very laugh made Henry Stop in his tracks to just admire. Stop to admire. Just stop. To admire Her.

Something he has never in his life ever done before. He had no idea what this feeling was, but in a way he despised it, he hated it with a burning ember. But In another way it was like a drug, an addiction he didn’t want to get rid of, a bug that sound like a fly but looks nothing less then a butterfly.

He scoffed before walking away.

“Hey!” She called after him.

But he didn’t stop to respond, he just held up the bird and went on, still with that giddy Smirk on his face.

She smiled with a laugh and turned around to pick up her walk men. She put it on and switched on her music.

She strutted down the hall way, unaware she had just gained protection from the biggest storm in Derry.

#henry bowers #henry bowers x reader #it 2017 #IT #it au #bowers gang

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lilhoeforevanpeters · 11 months

Text

Haunted

"Give me something that'll haunt me when you're not around"

Stanley Uris x GN!reader angst

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You put your car in park once you reached your destination. Your tragic destination. You grab the bouquet of flowers from the passenger seat beside you. Sitting in your car for a few minutes, you eventually get out, the cool Autumn air hitting you. You shrugged his jacket on you further, stuffing your hands in the pockets. It doesn't smell like him anymore.

There were many other grieving families there, grieving husbands and wives like you, however, it was eerily quiet, no one dared to even mutter a word. You locked the car, walking through the main gates of the dreaded place.

You stared at the gravel path as you walked mindlessly, not needing to look up for directions as you've been to the location so many times. Clutching the fresh flower bouquet in your hands as your heeled boots make a click-clack sound against the pavement.

You took a right, then a left, until you were finally in the shaded area where he was. Your heart felt heavy, as it had for weeks. You took a shaky breath before looking up.

You sat down on the slightly damp grass, not caring if you got your clothing wet. You looked at the headstone in front of you. The headstone of your husband. Your now dead husband.

You set the flowers in your hand down next to the gravestone. "Stanley Uris, July 13 1976- September 5 2016". You looked at it briefly before looking down at the grass you were sitting on. The cold air blew through your hair that was up in a low ponytail, and you tugged on the jacket that was one your husband's further onto your body.

Pressing your lips together in a tight line, eyes watering as you looked up for a split second before letting out a breath, tears falling down your cheeks and onto the ground in front of you. Your gaze falls back down to the headstone. "Loving son and husband".

"Asshole."

One simple word. A word that held a lot of anger and was typically for people who you hate- but you didn't hate Stanley. You couldn't. He is was your husband. But despite still feeling the love you had for him, you couldn't help but feel angry. Not angry- livid. Livid at the world, at the entire town of Derry, at that fucking clown that terrorized him, at yourself for not going up to check on him sooner, at your husband for killing himself.

It wasn't fair. The entire situation wasn't- it wasn't fair that you were angry at him, or that you were now alone, desperately holding onto the small pieces of him that you had left. It wasn't fair how your home that once brought joy and comfort brings nothing but despair and pain. It wasn't fair that the stupid clown scared him so much and he felt like he had no other choice.

You felt empty, like everything had been stripped from you. It had been. You lost the one person you thought you'd never lose. Your best friend. Your husband. Your Stan.

"You left me. And I hate you for it. I hate you. I hate you for leaving me alone, I hate you for not thinking there was a better option. I hate that I still love you. I hate that I expect you to be there at the table every night after I come home from work, doing your stupid puzzles."

Tears streamed down your face as you spoke bitterly to the tomb. Using the sleeve of his jacket, you wiped away the tears, but they were only replaced with new ones. You hated it all. How your bed felt cold and empty. Or how you still expected him to be there. Memories of what once was haunted your house. They haunted your mind.

You glared at the headstone, as if expecting Stan to respond, to tell he was sorry, and he'd be coming home soon. But you knew that wouldn't happen. It was impossible. His body was in the ground, he'd been gone for three months. You couldn't bring him back; no one could.

You wanted your husband back. Your best friend. He was your everything, and now he was gone. You looked away from the dumb piece of stone that really didn't mean anything, yet meant so much to you.

If Stan had died in a car accident, or something else, maybe you'd be able to cope better. It would be hard- maybe as hard as it was now for you, but you couldn't help but feel that this storyline hurt more. It hurt so much, and the impact it left on you was huge.

That night would stick forever in your mind. How could it not? He was so obviously upset over the phone call- but you brushed it off. And you would blame yourself for that for eternity. You didn't think anything of him taking the bath until he wasn't answering and he'd been in there for half an hour. You felt sick when thinking of it. You had knocked on the door, asking if he was okay, but when there was no answer you went in.

Your husband laid dead in the bathtub, his wrists slit, the word "It" written in his own blood. You let out a scream and rushed over to him, pulling him out of the water and holding him in your arms as you cried and called 911. He was declared dead on the scene.

His lifeless face was burned into your mind. When you close your eyes. When you try to sleep. Everywhere you look- his lifeless face is there. That scene is there. His bloody wrists. How you tried to save him, knowing it was hopeless. The door to the now clean bathroom has been closed from the moment he was declared dead. You couldn't go in there. Hell, you could barely go in your bedroom where you two slept every night.

With tears rolling down your cheeks, you close your eyes and pressed a hand to the ground, grasping at the grass lightly where you knew his body was- six feet under, in a casket. You felt pathetic and broken, but you couldn't help it, you had lost your everything. You just wanted him to hold you in his arms and tell you everything would be okay like he normally would've. However, the only thing you got was the cold wind hitting your back, no warm embrace from your now dead husband.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you. I'm so, so sorry. I should've gone up sooner. I should've pressed you harder to talk about it. I shouldn't have let you go upstairs."

You blamed the world and that fucking clown, but mostly, you blamed yourself. Deep down you knew you shouldn't. Deep down you knew he wouldn't want you that.

"I love you. And I always will."

You whispered the words to the tombstone, knowing it was foolish to believe he could hear you, but if he did, if there was a chance he could hear what you were saying, then you wanted him to know that you loved him.

So you sat at the grave for three hours, as you did every weekend since the day he was buried. You didn't speak anymore, instead pressing your forehead against the headstone and closing your eyes, his jacket wrapped around your body. This was the closest you had to him now. And you would take whatever you could.

When the air grew colder and crisper, hours later, you got back into the car, sighing lightly and drove home in silence. Driving up to your house, you parked in the driveway as the feeling of heartache crept over you once more.

You walked into the house you once lived in with your beloved husband, memories of all the times you spent with him there still living rent-free in your mind. Sliding your shoes off, you crept up the stairs, avoiding the pictures on the wall on the way up of him smiling at the camera while holding you, or him as a kid. The bathroom door was still closed, and it would remain that way for possibly many more months, and you averted your eyes- even looking at the door made you sick to your stomach. You walked into the bedroom you once slept in peacefully with Stan, not bothering to take your jeans or his jacket off as you crawled into the bed and laid there underneath the comforter, closing your eyes, but not sleeping, as you did every weekend since he died.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you can't help the hot tears that trail down your face as the feeling of hopelessness crept up on you, swallowing you whole like a black hole.

#stanley uris #Stanley Uris #Stanley Uris x reader #Stanley Uris x fem! reader #stan uris #Stan the man #Stanley Uris angst #IT #it #it chapter one #it chapter 2 #it chapter ii #Stanley Uris x male!reader #Stanley Uris x GN!reader #loser club #wyatt oleff

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hesbuckcompton-baby · 2 months

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the ties that bind us -> bernard demarco x susie lamb (wars of the roses au)

au tags - @xxluckystrike @latibvles @p-polaroid @thoughpoppiesblow @derry-rain

word count - 2.4k

An almost uncomfortable silence hung over the hall, pierced only by the occasional clatter of cutlery against pewter plates as the pair ate their breakfast, seated at opposite ends of the lengthy dining table. In the weeks since they had arrived here, they had scarcely spoken more than a few words to one another, each day characterised by pointed quiet and a certain desperation to seek out the company of anyone but each other.

Susannah was frequently visiting and visited by her sisters, and Bernard hosted as many hunts as they could afford, surrounding himself with friends in an attempt to cleanse the sting that came from sharing a house with another whom you could not stand. It seemed this sentiment remained staunchly mutual.

He looked up as a loud whistle echoed through the room, Susannah's lips pursed together as she craned her neck to peer through the doorway behind him. The skittering of claws against stone floor grew louder, until the dog he had gifted her bounded into the room, tongue dangling from his mouth, which hung open in a merry, lopsided fashion. "Here, boy," Susannah called, punctuating the order with another, quieter whistle as she peeled strips of fat from the edges of her bacon. The beast had been bred as a hunting hound, but had never shown any aptitude for the sport - gifting him as a wedding present had been the only way to keep his father from drowning the poor pup. He pushed himself up on his hind legs, chin resting on the arm of Susannah's chair as she hand-fed him her scraps, tail wagging with satisfaction.

"You still haven't named him?" Bernard asked, a hint of amusement in his tone, the sudden words snagging her attention as she looked up from her plate.

"No," She hummed. "Nothing's come to mind."

Susannah had run out of scraps to feed the hound, and he had begun to whine, pushing himself higher up on his hind legs so that he could reach the table, attempting to nip at her plate. She pressed a palm to his nose, uttering her disapproval as she gently shoved him back.

"Bacon." Bernard stated.

She frowned. "Come again?"

"Bacon. For the dog."

"No, I'm not giving him any more of my-"

"No," He shook his head. "Not that. For his name."

The silence resumed as Susannah considered this for a long moment, brow arching as she narrowed her eyes. She had that penetrating stare of hers once more, the one that made him sweat in a way his father would certainly have mocked him for.

"... You want me to name our dog Bacon."

Our dog.

"Well, he'll certainly come when you call."

She laughed then - the sound involuntarily escaping her throat before she could reign it in, before she could recall how much contempt she held for the man sitting opposite her. It came in a short burst, hand raised to her mouth as if to push the sound back down. He'd never made her smile in earnest before - never made her laugh without ridicule. Clearing her throat, Susannah tried to quell the colour blooming in her cheeks as she noticed the way he had begun to smile back at her.

"Bacon it is."

It would have been so much easier if he had been humourless - detestable and dry, easy to loathe. Sometimes he was. When they fought they bore their teeth and screamed words so harsh they sent the house staff running, barring themselves in their separate chambers until their blood stopped boiling. But their mornings were quiet - tired, languid affairs, where one could divulge the day's plans to the other, and any objection was kept to oneself. In the two weeks since their wedding, this had been the way of things, a tedious cycle of bitterness and disinclination.

"The men will be here for the hunt after luncheon," Bernard declared after a period of silence.

"I shall visit my brothers - keep out of your way."

"Gale is bringing his wife," He pressed, an unspoken insistence that she stay. Susannah bit back a jab before it could roll off her tongue, nodding sharply.

"Very well. I'll go this morning."

The house they'd taken as their own was little more than a short walk from the site of her brothers' burials, the Lamb family's sacrifice in aid of the cause of King Henry - a sacrifice that had not gone unrewarded, as much as she often wished it had. If given the choice between restoring her brothers or retaining the family's newfound nobility, she would have rather lived as a vagabond if only they could have stayed with her. It stung to look at her husband - to remember how his family had once ridden for the usurper King Richard, whose army had cut down her own kin as if they meant nothing, as if taking a knife to her very soul had been an easy thing to do. Every hint of tenderness shamed her, every second she forgot who her husband was came as a blight on their memory.

But she did forget - all too frequently for her liking.

Susannah could not leave the house alone - this privilege was not afforded to married women, as much as she detested the fact. Instead, a pair of servants stood huddled together at a respectful distance, talking in hushed voices and pretending to themselves that they weren't watching her as she crouched in the grass beside the two mounds of earth, daisies and buttercups blooming from the dirt.

"I'm grateful that Eleanor won't marry as I have," She confessed to no one but the breeze, rolling the stem of a flower between her thumb and forefinger. "Her betrothed is loyal - his people took no part in the slaughter that took you from me. Not like my husband - it feels wrong to be anything but resentful towards him, but it does grow tiresome. I know the staff are watching me. I don't know if they talk about me to mother or to my father-in-law, and - to be frank - I'm not sure which would be worse. But I think my husband wants me to become friendly with his guests, so... I suppose we'll see how that goes. If either of you could actually hear me, I'm sure you'd be laughing at that."

With a sigh, she pressed her palms into the earth on either side of her, imagining it as an affectionate pat to her brothers' shoulders as she rose to her feet, brushing the dirt away against her skirts.

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Returning to the house, Susannah's brow began to furrow, gravel crunching beneath her feet as she crossed the courtyard towards the open front door. Her husband stood in the entryway, deep in conversation with a combination of both staff and guests for the hunt, only faltering as one pointed over his shoulder in her direction. As he turned to face her, his brow furrowed, marching out to meet her in the square.

"You're late," Bernard whispered, a frown ageing his face.

Susannah shrugged slightly. "Apologies."

She moved to slip past him, but he stepped into her path, his body bumping against her front. "I told you when the guests were arriving - there's no reason for you to be late except to embarrass me."

He was right.

She wouldn't admit that.

"Well, if you Yorkists hadn't murdered my kin in cold blood I would not have needed to leave at all," Susannah hissed, jabbing her chin up at him. Bernard's eyes widened slightly, taking a half-step back. They did not talk about the war - had not so much as hinted at it since the very first time they'd met, the willful omission an unspoken attempt at pacifism. Even when they fought over a dozen other things, they refused to fight about that.

"Go inside, introduce yourself to Marjorie, and speak no more of this," He instructed, voice barely more than a grumble. His gaze flickered to her lips, and she could not ascertain if it was in anticipation of a retort or something else entirely.

"As you say, husband," She nodded, tone patronising in a way that made his jaw clench. Stepping deliberately around him, Susannah continued her path into the house, sweeping past the people gathered in the entryway without so much as a glance.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The two women sat on a pair of chairs out on the lawn, Bacon's head resting in Susannah's lap as Marjorie worked away on her embroidery frame, poking in and out through the linen as images of flowers began to take shape. "Does he not hunt?" Marjorie asked with a curious smile, eyeing the hound.

"He doesn't have the stomach for anything but growing fat and spoiled," Susannah chuckled, scratching behind his ear as his tail wagged contentedly. "He was a wedding gift from my husband."

"Ah," The blonde woman nodded. "He is fond of you."

She let out a titter of laughter, hoping the bitterness in her voice was not too apparent. "I certainly would not say that."

"Why? Whenever he attends our home she speaks very highly of you - always commending your wit and praising your beauty," Marjorie argued, smiling sweetly. She was certainly a beauty herself - and a happy wife, too, something Susannah considered foreign to her.

Shaking her head ever so slightly, Susannah forced herself to ignore the heat rising in her face. "He probably keeps a mistress of some sort - refers to her by my name to avoid suspicion."

Marjorie's eyes briefly narrowed at this, lips pinched in a frown. "If the pair of you truly cannot reconcile, at least you shall have your children someday. I know many women whose strenuous marriages are soothed by motherhood."

She hummed in vague agreement. No one could know that her marriage remained unconsummated - unbound in the eyes of society. Their wedding night had opened an escape that they sought all too often, frequently spending the night together to appease the watchful eyes of their household staff, when in reality they did nothing but sleep silently, backs turned to one another. The longer the arrangement went on, the more tenuous the charade would become - soon enough her blood would come, the maids would know, and it would grow all too clear that no effort to produce a child had been made.

"I'm sure you're right."

"And besides - then we could betroth one of your children to one of mine. Our husbands would certainly approve," Marjorie mused, taking another stab at her embroidery.

Susannah hummed. "I think I would allow my children to choose for themselves - I would not force them into a marriage like I was."

"It's not such a bad thing. Betrothals can result in love - mine certainly did."

The remark had been meant kindly - this she knew - and yet it still stung. Some people got all the luck.

"I want that for my sister. Her husband will be the Earl of Leicester one day, and I always pray that she'll be happy with him - that he'll be good to her."

Marjorie looked up, frowning slightly. "You don't wish it for yourself, too?"

Susannah considered this for a moment. Did she wish it? Would life not be better if she could relinquish her resentment - let herself laugh at her husband's jokes without cursing herself afterwards, speak with him as if she were anything but weary and rancorous? It felt naive even to consider it, although she had to admit, the idea was not without its appeal.

The sound of a horn echoed through the trees as the hunting party appeared at the end of the furthest field, horses galloping as a group as the men made their way back towards the house, boasting the spoils of their trip - rabbits and fowl and a single deer carried aloft by the servants that attended them. Marjorie was on her feet the moment they got close, crossing the lawn to meet her husband, the pair beaming at one another as he dismounted and placed a delicate kiss to her hand.

Bernard was the second to arrive, offering nothing more than a polite nod of acknowledgement as he stepped down, still in conversation with his friends. Susannah had risen from her seat, hands clasped across her front as she stood by, watching on in patient silence as the party made their way inside, Marjorie consumed in conversation with her husband as she too passed her by.

He had been about to walk past her, halfway through relaying a joke to John Egan, the pair laughing along together until Bernard's gaze fell upon Susannah once more. But in that moment, she suddenly struck him as so profoundly lonely that it almost broke his heart, guilt tearing at his insides. He had invited his friends to their home, all of them strangers to her, and vanished for the afternoon, leaving her alone with a woman she'd never known. Worse still, he'd scolded her for her lateness - for visiting the graves of her own brothers, for seeking solace in their memory when she had no one within these walls.

Faltering in his stride, her held out his arm to her. Susannah regarded him for a moment, and he almost thought she would decline, but then her arm slipped around his, the pair joined at the elbow, wordlessly walking side-by-side.

"You were right," She uttered under her breath, so softly that only he could hear.

"About what?" Bernard asked, mirroring her whisper.

"I was late on purpose."

She was utterly infuriating. And yet...

He shrugged. "No matter. Your family is more important than my hunt."

Susannah turned her head to stare at him, brow raised slightly. "...You're serious?"

"Yes, certainly. If they comfort you, you should go. And I plan to invite your family to visit us soon."

She could not quite fathom what to say to this, offering little more than a surprised scoff as they crossed the threshold into the house, the privacy of the moment gone as they entered the enclosed space. She disentangled her arm from his, but the movement was relaxed, gentle, not the jerking withdrawal of someone who did not wish to be noticed at his side.

Maybe not all walls had to remain.

Maybe not all tenderness had to be false.

#helena writes #wars of the roses au #bernard demarco x oc #bernard demarco #oc: susie #demarco x susie #mota oc #mota au #mota #masters of the air

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into-crazy · 2 years

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Derry’s Secret Pt. 1

Pennywise x Female Reader series

Important !! For all my Joker followers !! If you do not wish to come across any of my or reblogged Pennywise content, then please feel free to block the 'penny posted' tag. Thank you♡

This first part of this series will involve a child since we're dealing with a child eating clown, and they are only interactions. The setting takes place in Derry in the year of 2016 and so forth. I've written this from a young woman’s perspective as I’m in my early twenties, so I wrote it accordingly. Though you’re more than welcome to perceive it as your own age and such.

Warnings- mature language, violence, Pennywise attacks a child, dark themes, ages 18+

Future parts can be found RIGHT HERE and through the "Derry's Secret" tag🎈

You have lived in Derry for a little over 6 months. Which was enough time for you to get settled into your current home and job. You also didn't have to worry about being completely alone- as your good friend, Gabby, had already resided here a few months prior to your move. She was the one that persuaded you to move here, since she knew you needed a change in your life. And with a small town like Derry, it was perfect. It's got a timeless feel to it, the weather is usually nice, and it's secluded from the rest of the buzzing world. Though despite the town's bad reputation, you've never seemed to have any issues or problems.

Seated in a local café, you're having a drink with your friend and her boyfriend Brian. Mind drifting deep into various thoughts as you stare down at your beverage. Starting to wonder how your life has changed since you've been here.

"Y/n!" Gabby's voice breaks through your subconscious mind. "Hey, you good?" She waves her hand in front of your face from across the table.

"Huh.. " You blink back into reality. "Oh yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about how stressful it's been at the call center lately." You lightly groan as you rub the right side of your temple.

She laughs. "I could see that. You were really staring down hard there."

"Yeah, I've had a lot of calls this week. And the majority of them involved unhappy customers that weren't very pleasant. It's a little overwhelming, but nothing I couldn't handle."

She shrugs, "it was a tough week. But hey, you got through it. Try not to stress about it too much."

Truth be told you were pretty much used to the busy work time. Working as a customer service representative for a credit card company, it was always teeming with phone calls. Often times with many of these calls you have to deal with rude customers. Luckily the work itself wasn't hard enough to have much of an impact. The work's pretty simple and the pay is good, so there isn't much more for you to complain about.

"I know. Luckily I've got you, and my nice little replenishment right here." You joke taking a sip of your drink.

"Amen to that, uh!" Brian chimes in, kissing his girlfriend on the cheek.

She playfully shoves him away. "Yeah, yeah," she continues, "so hey, about that place you're renting.."

You steadily raise a brow, already knowing where this conversation is heading.

"Oh come on!" She pleads. "You're still welcome to move in with me if you'd like. My place is very spacious and you would pay less rent. Think about all the stuff you could buy with all that extra money."

Shaking your head, you laugh, "not this again. No thanks, Gabby. I'm content with having my own living space."

She pouts at your response, seeing that you've rejected her offer more than a dozen times. "Alright then, fine. I respect your decision and I give up on asking. Just know that you are welcome to at anytime."

Could she really be done trying to persuade you? Well about damn time. If there's one thing Gabby can be, it's stubborn to the max. But you love her for that. Plus, it's not that you would hate to be her roommate. You just need to have your own space because you value your privacy.

Brian sees the opportunity and speaks up, "well, since it's a firm no from her, then maybe we could get a place together hun." He winks at her before laughing with you.

"Oh sure, you'd love that huh?" She tells him with a puckish smile. "I can barely stand you enough as is."

You nearly choke on your drink from laughing at her comment. Their playful banter is always amusing to you.

He puts his arm around her. "Ah, you love me."

"Bet your lucky ass I do." She mocks at him, then refocuses her attention towards you. "Speaking of living spaces, we still having movie night over at your place?"

You nod, "yeah, of course. Bring a horror movie. I'm in the mood for something scary tonight."

She sips her drink and tries to think of a movie. "Something scary.. hm, alright I got a few."

Brian scoffs, "Gabs trying to get you to move out, yet she still wants to stay the night at your place."

"Hey-" she objects, "my place is a mess right now! Plus, my neighbors upstairs are always too loud."

And yet, here she was trying to convince you to move in with her. The last time you stayed the night at her apartment, the couple that live directly above her had gotten into a huge argument. Voices were raised and doors were slammed. Fighting so loud that the whole complex could hear all of the details as they practically advertised their business. Now, it probably wouldn't have been such a big deal had it not been 2 o'clock in the morning..

You check the time on your phone, it's nearly 3 pm. Which means it's time to get a move on your Saturday errands. A little late, that is.

"Alright guys, I'm gonna head out." You stand up gathering your belongings.

"Okay miss scary," Gabby replies as you give her a quick hug. "I'll see you at your place later."

"See you later. Bye Brian." You wave them both before leaving the coffeehouse.

Roughly a couple hours later, you're making your way home. Grocery tote in hand, casually walking on the sidewalk. Most of the houses here are quite worn and spaced farther apart. In fact, most of Derry is still pretty old. Of course, the stores and businesses here are kept up to date when it comes to their products and technology. But as far as the architecture of the buildings, apparently not much has changed. Along with new additions added recently, so the town is a good mix of modern and old-fashioned. It's a taste you could quite appreciate.

Concentrated on your phone, a bold colored object comes into your side view. Looking up, you spy a red balloon floating down the street past you. It's just.. hovering by. Not even ascending up or coming down. Like it's strictly following a horizontal path.

Well that's quite odd.

Suddenly, the balloon bursts with a loud pop at the sound of a sharp scream.

"Shit!" You blurt out clutching your chest.

Quickly, you search in the direction from which the sound came. A few yards off to the left, you spot what looks to be a little girl by a storm drain. Thrown back with her feet to the opening, frantically kicking while calling for help.

Without any hesitation, you dart over in that direction as fast as you could.

"HELP! SOMEONE PLEASE H-HELP!" She pleads trying to get away from the drain, it seems like she's being tugged in. "HELP!"

Nearing her, you drop your tote and bag on the ground. "Hey! Are you oka-" your words of aid are immediately cut off by the view before you. There is a large, clawed arm reaching out of the opening. It's latched onto the child's foot and trying to drag her into the drain. "Oh my god!" You plead, taking ahold of the girl's hand which she reaches out to you.

You manage to keep her from being pulled any further, but the sharp claw won't let her go. Gripped tightly around her ankle, it wasn't like anything you'd ever seen before. Long and beastly. Like something straight from a horror film.

"NO, NO, NOO!" Broken cries pour from her lips as she thrashes her legs.

"Let her go!" You demand the faceless attacker while struggling to break her free. A deep growl came from inside, responding to your presence. "What the hell-" you gasp. That noise, it was so inhuman. Growing desperate, you grab onto the appendage, trying to release it's iron grip. "I SAID LET HER GO!"

Finally it gave, deciding to release her foot. The sudden force sends you flying back with the child. Landing hard on your backside as she buries her face into your shoulder and clings to you. You secure her tightly into your arms and stand, looking back into the opening.

It's completely dark, aside from the piercing red eyes staring right back at you! An angry gaze burning through your own. Your hold on the young girl tightens, eyes widening in horror. Even though you are in a shocked state, you stand your ground and stare right back. Then, a high pitched chuckle vibrates within the drain. Echoing through before fading out along with the fiery orbs. Once it's gone, you try to process what you'd just seen.

"I've got you, there there." You comfort the frightened child, and probably even yourself. "It's okay. I got you."

What the fuck was that thing?

You pace a couple feet away from the sight before attempting to put her down. But she doesn't want to let you go, only hugging you tighter while shaking her head and muttering a bunch a trembling no's. Eventually, with a few comforting pats, her hold eases and you carefully set her down. She's still shaking, the poor girl. "Hey, it's alright. You're safe. It's gone now." You reassure her as you wipe away her tear streams.

"No, no-" she weeps, "he's gonna get me!"

He?

You attempt to calm her. "No one is going to hurt you. They're gone." Gently taking ahold of her trembling hands, you wait for her breathing to slow down. "No one. Understand?"

She sniffles, glancing back towards the drain. "O-okay."

Not convinced with her answer, you turn her back, "you sure?" She nods her head, a little more certain this time. "Good. Now let me take a look at that foot." Leaning down, you examine her ankle. There are scratch marks and some light bruising from where it gripped on. Her sparkly princess sneaker is shredded up, just barley walkable. "Does it hurt?"

"A little bit."

"Would you like me to walk you home?" You offer gathering your items from the ground. Why even ask? After what had just happened, there's no way you'd let her go by herself.

"Yes please," she replies softly.

"Alright, lead the way." She takes ahold of your hand and escorts you along. "So.. what's your name?" You ask walking alongside her.

"Kimberly."

"Nice to meet you Kimberly, my name is y/n. How old are you?"

"Seven. I'm in second grade." She says proudly, holding up two fingers.

"Wow, second grade? Super cool! You know you're very brave." She stays silent, gazing down on the concrete. Whatever that thing was back there scared her really bad. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shakes her head no. She winces, and there’s a slight limp with every step she takes on her injured leg.

"That's okay. You don't have to." You assure, avoid wanting to further upset her. At the same time, you're curious as to what she saw down there. Whatever it was, it could not have been human. Especially with those glowing eyes and monstrous claws. Unless it was a person in a very realistic and convincing costume. But then what about the bizarre sounds they made?

"He was a clown." Kimberly breaks the silence.

"A clown?"

She nods.

"What did he look like?"

"Scary," she thinks, "he was big. Tall and fluffy. I thought he was my f-friend."

"Why did you think he was your friend?"

"Because he wasn't scary at first. He was funny and nice to me. I think his name was.. Very Wise? He said he would give me popcorn and take me to the circus. My mommy tells me not to follow strangers, I told him no."

There wasn't a circus in Derry that you knew of. However telling by the utter confusion in her recollection, and with how she seemed so certain, you realize she must be telling the truth. To her own knowledge, anyway.

Having stopped there, it wasn't hard for you to guess what had happened next. "And then he grabbed you?"

She pouts, "mhm, I-I think he wanted to eat me."

The whole thing made you sick to your stomach. Not even wanting to imagine what would have happened to this poor, sweet girl if you hadn't been walking by. It also was crazy how no one else had heard her cries for help. The commotion was loud enough to draw attention from the nearby houses, and yet it didn't. No one came out to help, heck nobody even came out afterwards to check or see if everything was alright. It made you a little angry, but alas you bit down on your tongue before continuing the conversation with Kimberly.

"Let me tell you, I love clowns. But he doesn't sound like the kind of clown that I would like."

"You wouldn't," she agrees. "You're really nice."

"Well Kimberly, I don't think that Very Wise will be bothering you any time soon." You recite coming up to her house. Moments after knocking, a woman you assumed to be her mother answers the door.

The woman gasps, "Kimberly! What happened!?" She embraces her daughter, looking to you both for an immediate answer.

"She was attacked by something in the drain," you explain. "I'm sorry, I didn't get a good look at what it was before it fled."

"It's true mommy! She helped me get away from the clown I told you about." Kimberly claims, throwing you off guard.

Wait, she's seen it more than once!?

Her mother quickly quiets her down, "Oh, you and your imagination. It looks like you were attacked by an animal. Must have been a dog from the looks of it. But thank goodness you're okay. I told you not to go out and play too far, didn't I?" Kimberly frowns at her mother's words of disbelief. "And thank you for bringing her home safe, dear." The woman praises you before turning back to the her daughter. "Sweetheart, thank the nice young lady and come inside."

"Thank you y/n," the girl smiles giving you a hug.

"No need, I'm just glad you're safe. Good night." You call before they head inside.

You're still puzzled with the idea that Kimberly has previously encountered the clown being before. It's even more strange how she's warned her mother, yet the woman seemed to have brushed it off as nothing! Especially after an apparent attack like such. It doesn't feel right. What kind of a mother would ignore something like that?

Sighing deeply, you're just glad that it is over with. Letting it go as you head home. Have you got an insane story to tell Gabby later.

End of Part 1.

#Derry's Secret #pennywise #pennywise fanfiction #pennywise imagine #pennywise x reader #pennywise x you #pennywise x female reader #penny posted

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thetardisisnotourdivision · 7 months

Text

Been playing Cult of the Lamb for a while. Named it "Maths Is Bad" (my dad handed me the controller after I came out of paper 1 GCSE maths sobbing). My cult was a peaceful place. No sacrifice. No hurt. No illness. No starvation. No dissenters. Just peace and victory over the old gods (who are fucking WACK, btw. Why are they the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Why is my cult the only normal place in this world. I love this game.)

And then the "sins of the flesh" update came out.

Choice between a "lust" ritual and a "wrath" ritual.

My asexual ass immediately chooses Wrath.

"can't be that bad"

Oh good lord what have I done.

Chaos. Tried the ritual. Was terrified. Everyone went NUTS. Started destroying my cult.

SOME FUCKER MURDERS MY SPOUSE IN A FIGHT.

I sacrificed the fucker. I've never done a sacrifice before and it was fucking terrifying but Tyty (small cat-shaped demon thing) deserved it. Sick fuck.

Next doctrine, I'm like "ok just nothing bad. Nothing quite as terrifying as that. Please".

My gay ass picks "pride".

First ritual goes ok.

I need to generate more sin so that I can hatch more followers - first one (I named them Derry after Derry Girls) was super cute and also I have very few followers. And I'm not risking Wrath again.

I try the Pride ritual.

I pick a random guy to pin all the pride to, figuring he'll just barf it all up like the first guy did.

Dude barfs three times.

I'm getting concerned by this point.

DUDE GOES TO ACTUAL MOTHERFUCKING HELL BECAUSE HE HAS TOO MUCH PRIDE

THIS BITCH SWEARS REVENGE

I'M TOO TERRIFIED TO REALISE WHAT'S GOING ON

Shaken, I start a new crusade.

Going well. Calming down.

WHO FUCKING POPS UP.

"THIS PAIN... IT IS UNBEARABLE... IT IS YOUR FAULT!"

THE SPIRIT OF JOHANN TETZEL'S 1517 SERMON COMES BACK TO HAUNT ME

SHAKING

WTF IS THIS BITCH DOING

I SWEAR I DIDN'T FUCKING KNOW

I DIDN'T MEAN TO HURT YOU DUDE I SWEAR

TRY TO FIGHT HIM

DEFEAT HIM (half a heart left)

Shaking but I think he's gone now.

A few days go by.

Trade with the neighbours.

Next crusade. Oh jesus.

The horror that runs through me. The absolute terror that fills me as tHIS FUCKER TURNS UP AGAIN

At this point I'm wondering whether I can like. Exorcise his soul or sm just to keep him away from me.

IT HAPPENS AGAIN

AND AGAIN

MY BROTHER IN LAMB I'M SORRY

PLEASE FUCKING STOP

I DIDN'T MEAN TO IT'S BEEN WEEKS JESUS

LET IT GO MAN

LET IT GO

IT'S BEEN LITERAL WEEKS EVERYONE WHO KNEW YOU HAS DIED OF OLD AGE JUST PLEASE, PLEASE

PLEASE

#cult of the lamb #update #cotl lamb #cult of the lamb update #sins of the flesh #wrath of the righteous #Sinner's pride cotl #Oh my god #How. Do I make him. Stop.

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bit-club · 3 months

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my notes on week three! :p

something fun about stephen king books that that sometimes they’re technically kind of first person. in the very first chapter the narrator tells us:

and then throughout the book we get instances like the beginning of chapter six:

like this feels like narration to me, rather than prose, especially given the collection of newspapers following it, like someone had organized and filed them that way. presumably, mike hanlon is the narrator in these sections, but if that’s true he’s also detailing things he couldn’t have known (the exact details of georgie and eddie corcoran’s deaths). it’s just an interesting thing to me that sometimes a narrator will mention themselves when it’s never explicit who that narrator is. of course it’s could just be king himself, telling us the story (happens in a lot of his other books, like under the dome), but i like to think this one is mike hanlon, especially since it tends to happen in his chapters.

anyways, onto chapter four! i love the newspapers, the day to day lives of the other people in derry, the interviews, the characterization of the corcoran family from just these clippings. the stepfather is especially interesting to me— at this point in the story we know that pennywise and the town are feeding on each other malevolently, that pennywise’s presence does have a negative effect on the mentality of the citizens, but eddie and dorsey’s father doesn’t come off as someone inexplicably violent and having otherworldly influences…. he’s the guy on your local news. he’s the father everyone knows beats his kids. the matter gets brought to the attention of teachers, principals, nothing happens. is this otherworldly influence like mike hanlon suspects? probably, given the wild amount of death and missing children in derry compared to other towns (thank you mike hanlon’s random assistant)…. but is this really out of the ordinary? do you not know at least a few people exactly like eddie corcoran’s stepfather, shown in the news or whispered about locally? what’s scary about this book to me is that pennywise isn’t just feeding on these people, he’s a literal manifestation of the violence and apathy of small town life. it’s a very interesting idea to me especially that this manifestation can take any form but in the end all it wants to do it eat you whole.

anyways, another thing i enjoyed about chapter six was this final section which once again emphasizes the horror of reality and imagination:

and because it’s easier to mention now, i’ll compare this to a section from eddie kaspbrak’s persoective in chapter seven:

the willingness to believe that this thing is real kept eddie kaspbrak alive while eddie corcoran died looking for the costume zipper.

up next we get mike hanlon! i absolutely love the relationship he has with his parents, especially his father who he really looks up to. i like that the reason mike stays in derry, while the others all end up leaving, is because his family has (literal) roots in derry. will hanlon’s farm is important, it’s the culmination of years of hardship for will and jessica. i also like how much his father is invested in derry and its history, and passes that on to his son by way of sending mike on little field trips. one of the parts that popped out to me was this section where they visit the courthouse:

and if you guys remember from chapter two this was the same chair mike wanted to put in the history of derry museum (tragically vetoed). still, i like that the lesson was obviously not lost on mike, and the memory stayed with him into adulthood.

chapter seven!

love eddie driving through boston, it really is like that guys. i also like how the memories are slowly coming back, how eddie feels like they’re ‘poisoning’ him (kinda like how ben feels like his are eating him alive), nearly wishing that he could blame it on some sickness.

this chapter mostly focuses on building up the beginning of the friendships between ben, bill, eddie, stan, and richie, which is really fun. i also liked eddie thinking about how building the dam is a form of power, an idea that will come up again! an especially fun theme, as kids are often without power or agency and are forced to create their own.

this chapter also ends on bill, ben, and eddie sharing their experiences with pennywise, with richie outwardly disbelieving ben and eddie but unwilling to do the same to bill.

#bitclub2024 #week three #bill denbrough #mike hanlon #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #eddie corcoran #typing up the notes for chapter eight now since i went over the image limit again ripppp

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octoberobserver · 2 years

Text

Those Days In Between

“We fucked in a motel bathroom when we were 22.”

“And hello to you too, Edward.”

Eddie shoved past Richie, storming into his living room, throwing his cane onto the armchair, and practically flinging himself down onto the couch.

Richie blinked before slowly closing the door and leaning back against it. Waiting. Trying not to internally freak out and failing miserably.

“And in the backseat of your shitty Sedan at 26.”

Richie took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling.

“Oh, so we are talking about it then,” he nodded vigorously to himself, his veins alight with nerves.

“And in that sketchy apartment in Brooklyn at 28,” Eddie continued as if Richie hadn’t spoken, burying his face in his hands.

Richie cleared his throat before mumbling to the floor.

“And in that lodge in Aspen when we were 31.”

Eddie’s head snapped up, gaping into the air in front of him.

“God, my work retreat,” he gasped, muttering rapidly to himself before getting up and beginning to limp back and forth in front of the TV.

Richie watched him wearily, standing as stiff as a board so as not to spook him.

“And…” Eddie rubbed a hand down his face, “and that last time in San Antonio—”

“When we were 34,” Richie finished, trying and failing to ignore the tantalizing images (memories, fuck) flooding his brain. “Yeah.”

Their eyes locked.

Eddie swallowed roughly in a way that somehow felt both foreign and achingly familiar and had Richie’s already far-too-reminiscent dick twitching in his sweatpants.

“And we...forgot.”

He sounded lost. Aghast. And something else Richie was afraid to name.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Every single time.”

Fuck. Don’t ask him, don’t ask him, don’t ask—

“And, when did you meet Myra?”

Eddie’s dark eyes, (the same ones that had managed to haunt Richie’s dreams for the last twenty-seven years even without him remembering who they belonged to,) bulged at that before darting away.

“When I was 34. We...it was a few weeks after San Antonio, I think.”

Richie hummed, folding his arms across his chest and rationalizing to himself that the spike of possessive jealousy surging through him was both ridiculous and unfair. The green-eyed monster reared its ugly head anyway.

“How…” Eddie ran a hand through his hair, blowing out an exasperated breath, “how did we forget and keep being...drawn back to each other?”

I was always drawn to you.

Richie bit the inside of his cheek to stop those words from tumbling out.

“Don’t know,” he shrugged, “but Ben told me that he and Bev recently remembered they had sat beside one another on a train once. He gave her his newspaper.”

Eddie let out a noise between a scoff and a snort.

“That’s hardly the same as—”

“Surreptitiously fucking each other on and off for twelve years?”

Eddie let out a pained whine at that before sinking slowly down into the armchair, clutching his cane in his hands.

“My divorce was finalized today.”

Richie nodded even though Eddie wasn’t looking at him.

“I saw the group chat blowing up. Uh, congrats, Eds.”

Richie had been in New York for three weeks now, finalizing some stuff of his own. His manager, Steve, had set him up in an impressive penthouse on the Upper East Side that was, (unbeknownst to Richie,) merely a stone’s throw away from where Eddie worked. Accidentally bumping into him yesterday on the street had been...something. Especially considering the last time he had laid eyes on his childhood friend he had been recuperating in a hospital bed after being shiskabobbed by an evil alien space clown in their hometown of Derry, Maine.

Over the last six months, they had fervently talked and texted in the group chat that Bev insisted they set up, much to the fake chagrin of an also recuperating Stanley Uris. They made plans for another Loser Reunion with added Stan the Man and his wife, and sans interdimensional nightmare-fuel and fortune cookies.

But that was still a month away.

In that time in between, they had hardly ever communicated one-on-one apart from some dumb memes and Eddie refusing to acknowledge said memes.

So Richie had been more than a little caught off guard when he suddenly, (while sipping his venti latte and minding his own business,) collided with a short, brunet whirlwind who growled, “Watch it, asshole!” only to realize that same whirlwind was his childhood best friend.

And the love of his life.

And the guy he had unknowingly railed like there was no tomorrow half a dozen times since 1997.

“I started to remember back in the Townhouse.”

That finally got Richie to unglue himself from the door. He unfolded his arms and trudged across the room to sit on the couch, keeping his eyes firmly on a safe spot at Eddie’s shoulder.

“Me too.”

Eddie’s head shot up.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?!”

“Why didn’t you?!” Richie shot back before speaking to the floor.

“Look, I figured you didn’t wanna talk about it. You were married and you know, we had scarier shit goin’ on. But then…” he took a shaky breath, forcing himself not to close his eyes.

“Then you died and we couldn’t talk about it. Then you un-died and we...things were so good, having you—the Losers back in my life, I—I didn’t wanna fuck that up. And now, here you are.”

“Fucking things up.”

Their eyes met.

“No, Eds,” Richie said more sincerely than he could ever remember being, “you’re not fucking things up. I...I don’t regret any of it.”

He finally let his eyes roam over Eddie’s face, which was crumbling, getting wearier and wearier by the second.

Ice trickled down his spine.

“But you know,” he cleared his throat and gave a half-shrug, trying and failing for nonchalant, “it’s okay if you do. Uh, regret it. I mean, I get it. It’s—”

“I don’t regret any of it either.”

Richie’s stomach lurched and shot into his chest, doing the mambo with his heart.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Tozier.

“Oh. Okay. Cool.”

You’re a fuckin’ wordsmith, Trashmouth.

Eddie blinked at Richie’s lackluster response before heaving himself up out of the chair, wincing only a little as he began his frantic pacing again.

“I mean, it’s not like we knew what we were doing. Who...who we really were to each other,” he rambled more so to himself. “So it’s not like a...a breach of friendship or something, right?”

The only thing getting breached was your assho—

“Right,” Richie forced out, even though he knew it was more of a rhetorical question.

He stared at his hands. From the corner of his eye, he saw Eddie halt in his tracks.

“You didn’t mention the first time,” Richie mumbled, a knot tightening in his gut as he felt Eddie’s stare boring down on him.

“That’s because we were 17 and still in Derry,” he sighed. “We remembered each other then. But you couldn’t even look at me after. And that had just been a drunken kiss.”

He let out a humorless laugh.

“And by the time I plucked up the courage to talk to you about it, you were telling me you were moving. Brought me out to The Kissing Bridge of all places and got snot all over my shirt collar from crying so hard. So I let it go. I...let you go.”

He felt rather than saw him take a seat next to him on the couch.

“You were my first and only kiss until I met you again as a stranger at 22.”

His stomach fluttered like a 12 year old girl sitting next to her crush.

You're not that far off, asshole.

“You were the first guy I ever blew,” Richie chuckled softly, “almost threw up in your lap, if I remember correctly.”

He didn’t have to see Eddie’s face to know that the disgusted wrinkle between his eyebrows was there.

“I don’t know what came over me,” he practically whispered, shifting a little and seemingly unbothered by the pressing of their shoulders, “I had never done anything like that. I...a one-night stand isn’t really my thing.”

Richie nodded, the feeling of déjà vu seeping into his veins.

“You said that every time.”

“Fuck, I did, didn’t I?”

They sat with that for a beat.

Two.

Three.

“Nobody has ever blown me like you did. Before or since.”

Richie's treasonous dick twitched again.

"Yeah?"

“Yeah,” Eddie rubbed the back of his neck.

“Cool,” he replied, fighting a full-bodied cringe.

No wonder you needed ghostwriters for years, Tozier. Jesus.

Eddie didn’t seem to notice his complete inability to form full sentences, however, busy tapping a jittery hand on the end of his cane and staring at his shoes.

“But...that’s in the past. We—we can move on from it. It’s not like we’re still into each other in that way and want a repeat performance now or anything. Right?”

“Right.”

Tick, tock. Tick, tock.

Richie hadn't noticed how loud the clock in his living room was until that very moment.

"Wait..." he frowned, something Eddie had said finally settling in the back of his mind. "You said I was your first and only kiss until we met again at 22."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Eddie shift on the couch, deftly avoiding his gaze.

"Eds, does that—does that mean I—did I take your virginity?"

(Continued here)

************************************************************************

(Idk what this is lol. It's been in my drafts for over a year so I decided to post it here. May continue it one day, who knows...)

(More Reddie fics)

#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #it 2019 #it chapter 2 #something a lil different #decided to post it here

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