#i've never written one of these before

[jadewritesficshere]

Thinking about Eddie Munson who was complaining to the rest of the band about his shoulders and neck hurting post show. One of them convinces him to go for a massage.

Eddie shows up day of and is told to strip to level of comfort and get under the sheets laying on his back, his masseuse will knock before coming in. Eddie has not an ounce of care or shame, strips completely naked. Scars and tattoos on full display. He climbs between the sheets and waits. After knocking and hearing a "come in", his masseuse enters and-

The most handsome man he's ever seen walks in. A bit of stubble on his defined jaw, soft pale lips Eddie wants to kiss, big brown eyes Eddie wants to get lost in, slutty little waist and an ass Eddie could-

He introduces himself as Steve. Verifies where Eddie had said his tension was on the form he hastily filled out. Then it starts.

And maybe, maybe, Eddie is a bit touch starved. He could have anyone he wants, but they don't want him just his fame. Pushes them all away. Only gets close to his band, but they all are busy and have their own people outside of work.

And Steve is just touching him. Rubbing smooth circles into his temple, down his cheekbones towards his jaw. Pressing on parts of Eddie's face he didn't even realize were tense. It's relaxing.

And Eddie regrets not leaving at least his boxers on to help hide that he's becoming hard. Kind of embarrassing, which makes his dick harder- which, that's a lot to unpack right now-

"Hey, relax man," Steve says, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. Eddie can see Steve's eyes dart towards the obvious situation," It's natural. Happens to the best of us." "Does it happen to you?" Eddie blurts out. Eddie wants to shove his face in one of these soft plush pillows and scream, but Steve just snorts a laugh and shakes his head at him. Doesn't even respond as he continues the massage.

Eddie tries to hold back his groans as Steve turns his head to the side and rubs his neck into his shoulders. He can feel the tension leave his body slowly. Feel the knots in his muscles release.

Eddie can't, however, hold back the noise he makes when Steve grabs a hold of his hair and tugs it. Eddie's eyes pop open and he stares into Steve's face, who has started blushing. Steve just clears his throat and let's Eddie's hair go before continuing the massage.

[unfinishedslurs]

gay bar (steddie)

“Well, well, well,” says a voice from behind. “Steeeeeeve Harrington. I must be dreaming.”

Steve turns around to see a guy, dressed in black and chains. Rings decorating his fingers, studs in his ears, curly hair pulled back in a ponytail. He’s hot, yeah, but something about him has Steve squinting, trying to figure out why he looks so familiar. 

“I know you from somewhere,” he says, pointing out the obvious. The guy knows his name.

The not-a-stranger snorts. “Of course you don’t remember me. Why would the likes of King Steve stoop to—“

As soon as the nickname leaves his mouth, Steve’s brain lights up. “Munson!” He exclaims, snapping his fingers. “You used to climb on the lunch tables to give speeches.”

It was so obnoxious, too. The kind of thing that had him and Robin reminiscing late at night, celebrating some of the weirder shit about Hawkins that didn’t come from monsters, or Russians, or government conspiracy. Remember that one asshole? Yeah, he stepped on my lunch one time!

Condolences to Robin’s pb&j. She never sat at that table again.

Munson’s whole face turns pink. “Seriously? That’s what you remember?”

“It was pretty fucking memorable, dude. Like, gross, doesn’t this guy know not to put his feet where people eat? Dustin thought you were so cool for it too. I had to nip that in the bud before he started imitating you or some shit.”

“Oh,” he says, voice gone flat. “Because God forbid some poor kid try to immolate the freak.”

Steve gives him his bitchiest, most deadpan stare. “Feet,” he says slowly. “Nasty, fifteen year old boy feet. On my kitchen table. He almost slipped and cracked his skull, and I would have sent you the hospital bill.”

He had to get creative to make him stop, too. Stood there, hands on his hips, and made Dustin tell him exactly how many germs he thought were on his shoes. Then when he tried to do it barefoot, decided the only course of action was to stuff Dustin’s abandoned sock in his mouth and ask if he wanted that shit with every meal. Erica still has the photos. 

Munson has the decency to look embarrassed, face flooding an even brighter red that wouldn’t be out of place in a tomato patch. “What are you even doing here, Harrington?”

What does he think Steve’s doing here? It’s a fucking gay bar, it’s pretty self explanatory. “My friend is here somewhere,” he says, waving out at the crowd of people. “She’s going through a dry spell, so…”

“Right,” Munson says. Steve squints at him. Does he look disappointed?

Eh. Doesn’t matter. 

“You gave my kids the best freshman year of their nerdy little lives,” he tells him, because he knows Dustin would want him to. Plus, the guy was Mike’s gay awakening. He should probably get some credit. “So thanks for that.”

He lights up. “Yeah! How was Hellfire in my absence?”

“I had to hear them bitch and moan for months about how it ‘wasn’t the same,’ but it’s doing pretty all right. Erica Sinclair is running it now.”

“Erica Sinclair…” Munson mutters, snapping his fingers. “Lucas Sinclair’s little sister? Lady Applejack?” He beams when Steve nods. “She kicked ass. Best finish to a campaign my entire high school career. How’s Lucas, anyway? And the rest of the runts.”

“He’s doing great,” Steve says. “College basketball at Yale. Pretty sure he’s dying under the workload, but that’s what you get for majoring in physics. Dustin’s at MIT, and Mike’s taking a gap year.”

He whistles lowly. “Yeesh, I don’t blame him. How about Byers?”

“Which one?”

“Zombie boy.” Steve’s hackles raise, but Munson just grins. “God, that nickname was badass.”

“How do you even know about that?”

Munson taps the side of his nose. “A magician never reveals his secrets. Besides, all it took for you to remember me was calling you by your high school nickname.”

“That wasn’t my nickname.��� Steve rolls his eyes. “Literally three people ever actually called me that, and you were one of them.”

He has a feeling it was Tommy who started it, bitter and vicious. Told himself Steve was self possessed, high and mighty, above it all. That’s why he left his old friends behind. Not because he was in love, or because he wanted to be better. No, King Steve just sits alone in his castle, looking down on the peasants with contempt. 

Billy must have taken his angry ramblings and run with them. After all, what better way to get a start in a new town than declaring yourself royalty? Never mind that Steve hadn’t cared about anything like that for almost a year by then. 

Munson had just been a drama-loving asshole. 

“That can’t be right.”

“I stopped being popular in junior year. Why the hell would anyone call a sophomore King?” Steve points out. 

“You were Prom King.”

“Again, in junior year. Pickings were slim. Who else would it have been? Tommy?” He has to laugh. 

Luckily, Munson takes the hint and swerves the conversation into new territory. “You know, I always figured you’d be homophobic.”

Steve snorts. “What, and get kicked out for nothing?”

Munson stares at him, and Steve furrows his brow, looking into his glass like it will have the answer to why the hell he said that to this guy he barely knows. He just decided he wasn’t going to spill all his daddy issues to a near-stranger in a dingy bar, dammit. Is he already on his fifth drink?

Actually, this might be his sixth. That tracks. 

“What?”

“My dad caught me kissing a boy,” he says. If he’s going to give Munson his life story, he might as well commit. “Can you believe that boy ruined my life in three different ways? Two of them didn’t even have anything to do with the gay thing.” 

Maybe four ways, if you accounted for the way he broke his goddamn heart, but everyone and their mother saw that coming a mile away. Even Steve. Especially Steve. 

No offense to Jonathan. None of those things were really his fault. Or actually life ruining, but it sure fucking felt like it at the time. 

He should give him a call soon, actually, see how he and Argyle are doing. He misses the guy. Maybe he and Robin should save up for a visit to Cali. Get Nancy on it. They could see San Francisco while they were there, that’d be cool. Apparently it was the queer capital of the country. 

He’s thinking about asking the bartender for a napkin and a pen to write down the plans he’s forming when Munson speaks up again. Steve honestly forgot he was here. 

“I thought you said you were here for a friend.”

What?” Steve blinks, confused, and then catches on. “Yeah, to get her laid. I’m not in the mood right now.”

Munson cocks an eyebrow. “Wearing that? Could’ve fooled me.”

Steve looks down at his Springsteen T-Shirt that Robin cropped, and picks at the frayed hem of his shorts. Okay, yeah, they’re on the skimpy side, but in his defense it’s summer and even if he’s not cruising Steve likes being looked at. “Yeah, yeah. What about you? Here for anything in particular?”

“Just to talk to some pretty boys,” Munson says, leaning on the bar to flag down the bartender. Steve smirks, reaching out a hand to tug at the hanky in his back pocket. Pinned, damn. 

Munson whirls around, a flush starting to crawl onto his ears. 

“Wearing that?” Steve echos snarkily. “Could’ve fooled me.”

He swears that for a minute Munson’s eyes darken. 

He’s almost tempted to follow through, high school reputation be damned, when someone crashes into his side and nearly sends him careening. 

“Steeeeeve,” Robin yells happily into his ear. “This is Bernie, she’s gonna take me home, see you la—oh, hi!” She says, noticing Munson. “I know you from somewhere.”

“Eddie Munson,” Munson greets. “Steve and I went to high school together.”

“Munson! That’s it, you climbed on tables and had shit music. I’m Robin. Okay, I’ll call the apartment and leave a message when we get there. Bernie’s waiting on me, it’s-nice-to-meet-you-bye!” Just like that, she’s gone. 

Munson’s mouth has dropped open. “You told her I had shit music?” He demands. “Wait, you talked about me?”

“She went to school with us, dumbass,” he says, as if he can talk. He still barely remembers her as more than a vague, glowering figure in his peripheral. “It’s not my fault you blasted your screamy music for everyone in the parking lot. Such a fucking headache, God.”

Munson turns his nose up. “Sorry for having offended your jock sensibilities.”

“Oh, I don’t play anymore,” he says, and knocks on his head. “Concussions, yanno. Apparently brain damage will fuck you up. Who knew?”

“What, like the fight you had with Byers? He did you that bad?”

“He did me just fine,” Steve blurts out, before he can stop himself. Munson chokes. “Shit, sorry, I’m kind of a horny drunk.” Weird thing to say, Steve. “Also, I cannot stress enough how much I needed to be punched in the face. It was a monumental moment for me, you know. Started me on the path for changing my entire worldview. Plus, he was my first guy crush.” He swirls his empty glass, lost in thought, before brightening up. “I should call him!”

Munson is staring at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish. 

“What?”

“You’re drunk.”

“Well, yeah. Duh.”

“I should probably stop you from booty-calling the guy who punched you in the face.”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “It wouldn’t be a booty-call,” he says. “He and Argyle are happy together, man. I’m not gonna ruin that.”

“Oh, so you’d call him because…”

“I call him all the time,” Steve says, confused as to why this is such a big deal. “We’re friends.”

“Jonathan!” He yells happily into the pay phone. Munson is standing to the side, looking on in annoyance. Whatever, it’s not like Steve asked him to do this. “Jonathan, man, how are you?”

“…Steve?”

“Yeah!”

“It’s like…” he hears something clatter in the background, like Jonathan is looking for something, “two in the morning there. You okay?”

“I’m doing great!” He exclaims. “How about you? It’s been ages, man, I miss you.”

“This is so fucking weird,” Munson whispers behind him. Steve ignores him. 

“Are you drunk?”

“No,” he says. “Well, maybe a little. Do you not miss me too?” He pouts, and Jonathan sighs loud enough he hears it over the phone. 

“I just talked to you yesterday.”

Steve frowns. “Yesterday? That can’t be right, it’s been, like, forever. Oh, hey, have you heard from Nance lately? How’s your mom? I love your mom, she’s so fucking cool. Does she know I think she’s cool? How’s Will? It’s been so long, is he taller than me yet? How’s Argyle doing with his degree? I miss you guys.”

“We miss you too, Steve.”

“Awww, Byers, getting soppy on me? Gross, man.”

“You literally just—yeah, okay. Are you alone?”

“Nah, I’ve got this guy with me, he’s walking me home. Oh! Dude, do you remember Munson?”

“Munson?”

“Yeah, Eddie Munson! From high school! The one who used to climb on tables and shit, remember him?”

“Jesus Christ,” Munson groans. “Please let that die.”

“No one is dying,” Steve informs him seriously, and turns back to the phone. Munson sighs. 

“Wasn’t he a drug dealer?”

“Yes! Yeah, drug dealer Munson! Did you ever buy from him?” He turns to where Munson is looking around furtively. “Did Jonathan ever buy from you?”

“How about we not talk about this here,” Munson says through gritted teeth. Steve sighs and turns back to the phone. 

“Never mind, he says he doesn’t want to talk about that. Not like we can judge him, but whatever. Maybe the guy’s turned into a prude—“

“Okay, give me that.” Munson wrestles the phone out of his hand, and Steve whines at him. “Hey, Byers,” Munson says. “Yeah, it’s Eddie. Or Munson. Whatever. Listen, I’m getting kind of sick of standing here watching Harrington slobber all over the receiver, can he call you tomorrow? What? No, I don’t sell anymore—yeah, total bummer, whatever. Listen, I’ll get him home safe—no, I’m not going to serial murder him. He’s gonna be fine, he’ll call you tomorrow—Nancy Wheeler? Like that girl he dated? Didn’t you—shoot me? Jesus, okay! I’m not gonna kill the guy, Christ. He’s gonna be fine, oh my God. He’ll call you tomorrow. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. Bye.” He slams the phone into its holder with more than a little contempt. 

“Hey!” Steve protests. “You didn’t let me say bye.”

“You can call him tomorrow and apologize,” Munson says. “Now c’mon, Harrington. I’ve been tasked with getting you home safe, and if I fail, apparently Nancy fucking Wheeler is going to shoot me in the balls.”

“Oh, yeah, she’s really hot when she does that,” Steve says fondly, and Munson splutters. 

“What, does Wheeler just go around shooting people? Does she even have a gun?”

“Of course Nancy has a gun.” Steve frowns. It was one of the sure things in the universe at this point. The sky is blue, Hawkins is fucked up, and Nancy Wheeler has a gun. “And she doesn’t shoot people, stupid. Well, she shot at Billy, but he deserved it.”

“Billy?” Munson mutters, starting to usher Steve in the direction of home. “Who the fuck is Billy?”

“He was trying to kill her first!” Steve defends. “I hit him with a car before he could, so she was okay.”

“Okay, yeah, sure. Why wouldn’t you hit some guy with a car? 

“It wasn’t some guy,” Steve says. “It was Billy. He was, like, possessed or some shit. Oh, and he beat me up. Total psycho.  And that was before the melted flesh monster.”

Munson stops and stares at him. “You know what, sure. Demonic possession. Yeah, okay. Some guy named Billy kicked your ass—wait, are you talking about Billy Hargrove?”

Steve lights up. “Yeah! You remember that? That’s one of the concussions I was talking about. I gotta wear glasses 'cuza that shit. Man, fuck that guy.”

“Didn’t he die?”

“Oh, yeah,” Steve frowns down at the ground. “Shit, I’m, like, speaking ill of the dead, aren’t I? Max wouldn't like that. Unfuck him, or whatever.”

“You wanna come up?” He asks. “For old times sake?”

Munson stares at him like it’s the craziest thing he’s said all evening. “‘Old times’ was your asshole friends calling me a satan worshiper and pushing me around in hallways, Harrington.”

“I know.” He grins. If he was sober he’d definitely feel worse about that, but as it is he’s pretty single minded. “Don't you kind of want to make me cry about it?”

Deer in headlights isn’t usually a good look, but Munson’s got the eyes to make it work. Or Steve is drunk. Either way, it’s kinda cute. 

“You’re drunk,” he finally says, stumbling over the words a little. If Steve pays close attention and ignores most of reality, it almost sounds like he’s trying to convince both of them. “You’re so incredibly drunk.”

“I’m not that drunk.” He totally is. 

“I just had to supervise you calling Jonathan Byers so you didn’t say something you’d regret in the morning.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Steve asks, offended. “I love Jonathan! I tell him all the time. Just because I said he ruined my life—“

“That was him?”

“Did I not say that? Huh. Whatever. Point is, I’m not that drunk.”

“You’re definitely drunk,” Munson says. “I’m not—yeah, no. I’m not coming up.”

“Damn.” Steve shrugs, not too put out about it. It’s a bummer, sure, but he handles rejection like a champ. Just ask Robin. “Worth a shot. See you ‘round, Munson.”

“Don’t kill me,” Steve says. 

“Oh, god, did you punch him?”

“No, I, uh.” Steve rubs the bridge of his nose. “I think I tried to fuck him.”

He has to hold the phone away from his face so Dustin’s screeching doesn’t break his eardrums. 

“Your exes are weirdly protective of you,” Munson says blandly. “Also, didn’t they date?”

“Yeah,” Steve shrugs, not exactly eager to start spilling his life story again now that he’s sober. Munson doesn’t need to know more about his dating history than he already does. “We’re all a little weird about each other, sorry.”

“Weird about your exes,” he hums. “No wonder you’re single.”

“Oh, fuck you. It’s not like that.”

He raises an eyebrow. “No?”

“Are you always this nosy?” Steve asks, a little waspish. 

“Absolutely,” Munson replies without hesitation. “I’d say sorry, but I’m not. When did you even date him?”

“Dude.”

Munson just cocks an expectant eyebrow, hip resting against the bar. He can’t imagine why someone would be so interested in the romantic lives of their old high school classmates. It’s not like Steve is about to ask what was going on between him and Chrissy Cunningham. 

“Well, Harrington?”

“First grade,” Steve answers, deadpan. He grins when Munson chokes. “Nah, it was actually after he and Nancy broke up. Fall of ‘86.”

Arms squeeze him from behind, and Robin slides into view, leaving one hand wrapped pointedly around Steve’s waist. She gets clingy when she thinks someone is bothering him, or when she’s just on the side of drunk that she gets possessive. She told him, embarrassed and hungover, that it’s because she registers someone he’s getting along with as infringing on “her Steve time.” Steve thinks it’s hilarious and kind of sweet, an obvious lesbian trying to pretend he’s her date. Especially because he gets the same way when he’s tipsy and feels like he doesn’t have enough of her attention, so she can't yell at him for being a cockblock. Cuntblock. Whatever the lesbians call it.

He wonders what category she thinks Eddie is. Of guy, that is. Not block-anything.

He'd actually be pretty damn happy if the guy miraculously changed his mind and decided to sit on his cock instead.

“What’s going on here?” She asks, almost cattily. He loves when Robin gets bitchy. It brings him back to their Scoops days, except he gets to see it turned on someone else. 

“I’m telling Eddie my life story,” Steve says blithely.

“Ugh. Who would want that?”

Eddie grins. “I’m curious about the adventures of a former king.” He dips his head in a bow, waving his hand in a flourish. “I don’t know if you remember me from last time, I’m Eddie—“

“Munson, I know. You stepped on my lunch in junior year.”

Eddie turns beet red in record time. 

“Aww, Robbie,” Steve almost coos. “Leave him alone. I wanted to be the one who made him blush like that.”

“It’s not my fault your boy’s easy.”

“Not my boy, clearly,” he mutters under his breath. “And if he were easy, I’d have gotten fucked by now.”

Eddie’s mouth drops open with a choked little sound. Whoops. Steve forgot volume control again. 

Robin takes one look at Eddie’s face and bursts into cackles. 

“He was asking about,” he waved a hand in the air, “the whole Nancy-Jonathan thing.”

Her eyebrows jut up. “You told him about the threesome?”

“The what?”

Steve sighs. “No, Robin. I did not tell him about the threesome.”

“…oops.”

“When?” Eddie demands. 

Robin gives him the evil eye. “Why are you being weird about this? It’s not gonna make him fuck you.”

Steve wisely keeps his mouth shut. 

Eddie does not. “Your boy here already asked,” he smirks, leaning closer. “I said no.”

Then, as an added punch to his ego, he twirls a strand of Steve’s hair around his finger and tugs slightly. Steve’s too stunned to protest. 

Robin watches the exchange. “Oh, no thank you,” she says. “Nope. I’m out. I don’t want to see whatever this is. Ugh, stop making me hear about your sex life.”

Hypocrite. “We have thin walls, Buckley,” Steve reminds her. He turns to Eddie and stage whispers, “She likes her girls loud.”

“Steve!”

“You do!”

“Oh, because you’re so quiet,” she snaps, smacking him. “How many times have I had to bang on the wall because you couldn’t keep it down? You wanna talk about loud? I know more about you than I ever wanted to.”

His mouth drops open in mortification. “You know it’s rude to be mean to the man who told you how to eat out,” he hisses. 

“I’m not dying without fucking Eddie Munson,” he declares. “I mean, his high school nickname was literally ‘The Freak.’ He’s got to be good in bed, right?”

“I think that was mostly because everyone thought he was communing with the Devil or something.”

“Maybe the Devil gave him sex magic.”

“Of course he thinks I’m cute.”

“I do?”

“Do you not?” Steve turns to him, widening his eyes in the same pout that always has Robin throwing something at his face, or the kids reluctantly agreeing to do what he wants. He’s found it’s useful for guys too, especially if he ducks his head to seem smaller and looks through his eyelashes. Makes them imagine him looking like that on his knees. 

Munson is no exception. He melts faster than Steve can say gotcha. “You’re very cute, Harrington,” he purrs, and Robin snorts into her drink. 

“You’re a weak, weak man, Eddie Munson,” she tells a blushing Eddie. Then she kicks Steve. “Stop bringing out the ‘fuck me’ eyes when I’m around, I’ll gag.”

“You could leave.”

She gasps, affronted, and kicks him harder.

“So you would fuck me if I wasn’t drunk?”

“Uh…” he looks everywhere but Steve’s face, which is just rude. He has a very nice face. He’s been called dreamy before. 

Which made Robin laugh so hard she fell off the couch when he told her, but he’ll take the lesbian’s opinion with a grain of salt. 

He makes his way onto the dance floor. He’s not a particularly good dancer, but he shakes his ass like he means it. Gets up close with a guy, stares at Eddie the whole time. Keeping eye contact as the guy puts his hands on his hips. 

Look, he means to say. This could be you. You could lose your chance if you’re not careful. 

From the burning in Eddie’s eyes, he gets the message. 

The message is a bunch of bullshit. It’s been over four months, he’s in too deep to go fuck off with someone else now. Still, he enjoys the way Eddie’s hands flex on his thighs, like he had to stop himself from reaching out. 

The thing is, Steve’s not an asshole. He can take a hint. No means no, and all that jazz. If Eddie really didn’t want him, he’d fuck right off and find someone who did. He even started to.

Except Eddie pouted up a storm when he flirted with someone else. Got even clingier when Steve tried to back off. At this point, he’s accepted that Eddie does want to fuck him, and maybe even be more (no one flirts with someone as long as they’ve been doing without wanting something like a relationship out of it. At least, he hopes there’s something more on the horizon), but has some weird hang up about Steve being even a little bit buzzed when it happens. Even though they only ever see each other at this fucking bar.

The problem is Steve has no idea when Eddie will be at the bar. He’ll stay sober one night, hoping to see him, and then go home alone only for next time to be when he sees telltale curls and a wide smile. It’s driving him up the wall. 

Robin has been similarly affected.

“It’s been six months,” she growls as Steve looks eagerly around. “Six fucking months of you two dancing around in the worlds most annoying mating ritual. I’m going to kill both of you.”

“We’re not that bad,” he says absently. 

“You don’t even have his phone number. It’s pathetic. I swear to God, if you see him again and don’t get laid I’m reviving the scoops board. I will go out and buy a whiteboard to keep track of all the times you strike out with a man who used to walk on tables. He stepped on my lunch, Steve. Do I need to keep bringing up the fact he stepped on my delicious, nutritious PB&J? I can’t believe that’s the guy you decide to be obsessed with, that’s so fucking embarrassing for you.”

“Embarrassing? You mean like your crush on my ex girlfriend?”

She screeches wordlessly, pulling her keychain off her belt loop and attacking him with it. 

Naturally, that’s how Eddie finds them. 

“I swear you guys get weirder every time I see you.”

Steve grins guilelessly at him, holding a flailing Robin in a headlock. 

“Eddie! Hey! It’s been a minute.” He hasn’t been able to come in a month, and it’s been longer since he’s seen him. It’s honestly one of the deciding factors on whether it’s a passing fancy or a full blown crush. He still went to sleep every night thinking about Eddie. It didn’t even have to be about sex. 

Although maybe not sleeping with anyone else for half a year should have tipped him off sooner. 

“Sure has, big boy. I was starting to think you were getting sick of me.” It’s a joke, but Steve catches an undercurrent of insecurity. 

“That’d make my life easier,” Robin snorts. She finally wiggles her way out of his hold. “I saw Arty somewhere around here, I’m gonna see if I can crash at her place tonight.” She levels Eddie with a look. “He hasn’t had anything to drink. If you don’t put him out of his misery, I will. And it won’t be the good kind. It will be the bad kind. With bad screams. Lots of screaming, and someone will call the pigs, and I’ll be arrested and jailed for life. Do you want me to go to jail, Munson?”

Eddie shakes his head dumbly. 

“Good! Then do something about it.” She slaps Steve’s back, a mocking echo of his jock days. “Go get ‘em, slugger!” 

With that, she’s gone, disappearing into the crowd. 

“She is,” Steve remarks with amusement, “the worst wingman on planet Earth. Mars too, probably.”

“I dunno, I think it might be working.”

“I’m not doing anything without a condom,” he says, eyes narrowed like he’s waiting for an argument. 

“Me neither,” Steve agrees. “Robin has, like, this big fear of diseases. Totally got me with it. She pulled out the library books, those pictures were fucking disgusting. Shit showed up in my dreams, man. Neither of us do anything without protection.”

“I’m going to be totally honest with you, because I haven’t been and it’s starting to eat at me,” Eddie says, hovering above Steve. 

Steve wrinkles his nose. “What is it? Are you a spy or something? Are you Russian? Do you have superpowers? Is your name not actually Eddie?” He pauses. “Oh, God, you’re not even Eddie Munson, are you? I’m just some asshole who’s been calling you by my old classmates name and you were too embarrassed to correct me. Shit, we made so much fun of you for walking on tables too—“

“What?” Eddie covers his mouth, expression hovering between amused and baffled. “What the fuck, why would I go along with that? No, Jesus, I’m Eddie Munson. Moved to Hawkins when I was eleven, took senior year three times, walked on the fucking tables, could you let that go?” He moves the hand covering Steve’s mouth to play with his hair, looking annoyed for a minute before it smoothes to trepidation. “No, I, uh, I just felt like I needed to tell you that I used to have a hate-boner for you in high school. Like, I used to jack it to the thought of kicking your ass and making a mess outta you. In more ways than one.”

Steve stares. 

“Also, that’s kind of why I approached you in the bar in the first place,” Eddie blabbers on. “And then you said you were just there for a friend, and I was disappointed but it’s whatever, yanno? And then then you told me about your dad, and threw my expectations to the fucking wolves, and then you asked me to come up to your apartment except you were drunk and you probably didn’t mean it. But then the next time I saw you, you kept flirting with me, which you were not supposed to do, and I kept pretending that wasn’t the reason I even talked to you in the first place, and, uh, yeah.” He smiles nervously. “Surprise?”

“I mean, not really.”

“You’re such an asshole, fuck off. At least pretend to be shocked.”

“It’s not my fault you stare at my legs all the time,” Steve says, affronted. “I know I didn’t do too good in school, but I’m not dumb enough to miss that. Like, hello, my eyes are up here.”

Eddie lets his arms give out, flopping on top of Steve heavily. Steve wheezes. “Am I really that obvious?” He whines into his shoulder. 

“You got sad and pouty when I even looked at another guy.”

“You could’ve fucked him,” he mumbles. “The guy you were dancing with. It wasn’t any of my business. I’m a big boy, I can deal.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t want to fuck him,” Steve says. “I wanted to fuck you. Can we go back to that please?”

“Thought I was fucking you.”

“Someone’s getting fucked or Robin will kill both of us. I’d like to live tomorrow morning. And not have to deal with any more of her teasing for having no game.”

“You have unfortunate amounts of game,” Eddie sighs, tracing the side of Steve’s neck. It tickles. “It’s kind of embarrassing for me.”

“Yeah, yeah, are we using those condoms or not, Moodkiller?”

“Oh, I’m the mood killer?”

“Yes,” Steve says matter of factly, and pulls him in for a kiss before he can protest.

[wisteriagoesvroom]

For the trope mashup thing whatever: arranged marriage and neighbors 👀 - CX

again not one i would've picked but thank you for prompting it !! this also uh, got longer than i thought.

(from the prompts mash up - still taking submissions)

--------

“What do you mean your visa’s running out?” Lando asks.

“I’m Australian. Not a magician. Commonwealth only gets you so far.” 

“I thought you were here on a scholarship.”

“Well. Yeah. But scholarships stop. Once you graduate.” 

Lando toes the doorway rug. It feels weird to be talking about this in the middle of the hallway, though the only other person who would be listening might be Mrs. Kapoor, and half the time it’s only because she sticks her head out to ask if Lando or Oscar would take one of her mystery vegan curries. Lando is neither a huge fan of vegan food nor curry, and he trusts Oscar’s word for it that it’s good because they eat it while playing Gran Turismo at Lando’s place. But Lando always accepts the curries nonetheless, because his parents raised him to be polite, and he wasn’t raised in a barn. (Even if he technically grew up in converted farmhouse in the countryside, but that was besides the point.)  Either way, this is slipping away from him much quicker than he’d anticipated. Late night hangouts, dropping mail and post-it notes, text messages about the community garden. The most inane smalltalk about things big and small from the origins of moths to whether aliens were out there or just chose to ignore the +44 area code. Oscar always laughing in the right places when Lando regales him about tales of his terrible online dating stories, Oscar always picking the pickles out of the roast beef bagels before he passes one to Lando. The corner of Lando’s sofa that Lando has started to think of as Oscar’s because he’s there so often, reading one of his books or trying to speedread a JSTOR article about the lifecycle of urban pathogens while Lando worked on artwork for his upcoming store launch. 

Lando’s synapses are firing too fast. His brain did that most days, and that was what made him exceedingly good at his job, and today in particular - it doesn’t feel like there’s any logical way out. 

Lando remembers that movie they watched once though. As a joke. The one they both pretended not to enjoy, with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in Alaska. The one they watched when Oscar sat next to Lando on the sofa, and they both pretended the entire night that their knees weren’t touching. 

His therapist said he had a tendency to get ahead of himself when under stress. But it’s a joke, it’s not serious, there’s no way—

“We could just like, get married.”

Lando shoves his hands in his pockets. That came out way more calm and cooler than he thought it actually would.  And to his credit, Oscar doesn’t drop his mug of tea. Lando knows that’s his favourite one, because Lando got it for him, and it says Science is my superpower. Oscar does, however, slightly shift his grip on the mug.

“I feel like it’d be complicated to explain to my mum why I randomly married my upstairs neighbour?” 

“But it’s not a no.”

Oscar tilts his head. There’s a glimmer of something focused, maybe even hungry in his eyes. Oscar gets like that when his mind turns, when he’s working on an especially difficult thesis, when the pieces are forming and he can lock into the crucial details.

Lando is a little alarmed at how much he already recognises it, and how much more often he’d like to draw that reaction out. 

“If the facts don’t fit the theory, then reexamine the facts. Right?” Oscar says.

And Lando is there, in the doorway. Conscious that Mrs Kapoor might’ve heard everything, but all the more conscious that there’s a hammering in his heart that he can’t tell is nervousness, or anticipation. 

What’s the stress limit for a joke you’re probably already pushing too far? Lando thinks.

He isn’t sure.

But maybe it’s a thesis worth testing out.  

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

(and ok maybe i cheated a little on arranged marriage but i think this is the closest i could get with the contemporary context. thank you @cx-boxbox for the prompt <3)

[cerise-on-top]

hi! how would Valeria and Kate react if their wife’s got hurt because of their work, both of them working highly jobs and it ended up catching up to their s/o. hoe you are doing well and drink plenty of water! thank you!

-🍒

Hello! Both of them would be absolutely distraught, but would go about it in different ways!

Valeria’s and Laswell’s Wife Gets Hurt Because of their Job

Valeria: Whoever hurt you will wind up tortured and eventually, once she thinks they’ve had enough of their miserable life, will wind up dead. Naturally, the first thing she does is check up on you, see if you’re alright and well, that’s her priority. You’re the love of her life, there’s no one else in this world she wants to see do well. You’ll be admitted to the best hospital nearby and will only get the finest treatment. Once you’re stabilized, that’s when the hunt begins. Whoever hurt you won’t get too far since that bastard’s life will be on the line. Regardless of where they might be hiding, Valeria will find them and show them that death is actually a kind of mercy. She has pretty much everything at her disposal, everything money can buy, this sucker won’t know what hit them. If it’s revenge they want, then revenge they’ll get. Valeria promises you that their head will be on a silver plate. She’s not very good with words when it comes to comforting someone, but she will have that person killed in the most cruel ways she can imagine. In fact, she’ll take the pleasure of torturing them upon herself. Once she’s done, she’ll take some days off, which is surprising since she usually can’t afford that at all. You’ll be under her direct care for those days. Anything you want you’ll get. Afterwards there will be a slight shift in her demeanor, Valeria becomes more protective over you. Sometimes she might even assign some trusted people of hers to watch over you since she can’t afford something like that happening again. While she can’t always take some days off, she’ll try to be closer to you anyway. Always texting you, finding excuses to come home for a day maybe. She just really needs to make sure you’re okay, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself if you died.

Laswell: Laswell will try to be a bit more diplomatic about it at first, trying to coax whoever hurt you out of hiding. This person will be held accountable for their crimes against her world. Naturally, she rescues you first, gets you to the nearest hospital and won’t leave your side until you’re stable again. If it takes you a while to wake up again, she’ll leave to find the fucker and make sure they swim with the fishes. She has a pretty large, efficient network and will find out who it was fairly easily. Once she knows who they are, she won’t hesitate to find out all their past crimes as well, if they hurt you then they must have done some other awful things as well. Once that phase is over, she’ll go to their home herself and have them arrested, put in the worst prison imaginable where the inmates are treated especially badly. She won’t kill them, but she wouldn’t be surprised if they wind up dead anyway. Laswell usually isn’t an evil person, but she does hope that person dies during their time. Their sentence will be as long as possible so there’s no chance of them ever seeing the sunlight again either. Once all of this is over, she, too, would take some days off to spend with you. You’re a priority above all else, so Laswell will want to be there for you, no matter the cost. While she usually isn’t, depending on how severely you got hurt she might become a bit overbearing, a bit overprotective. That overprotectiveness will last for a few months, afterwards she’ll try to give you some space again. However, she’ll always be keeping a closer eye on you, always texting or calling you every once in a while to make sure you’re okay. If she needs to, she’ll put you under her protection officially, but the situation needs to be dire for that to happen. Either way, she’ll be keeping you safe.

[firbolgfriend]

waiting for approval :[

[kneelingshadowsalome]

Suddenly I’m a sheep baa

You have such a way with words!!! I love the image of konig sitting down, cooing at his flock, while reader stands to the side, watching… does he even know? Does he know the effect he has on you? Would he even care, if he knew that you’re completely ruined over watching him work… (would he treat you the same, one hand gripping your legs and hands out of his way, tucked up against his chest as his other hand wanders down your chest and against your cunt,,,)

Ahem

Baa.

Baa!!! YEAH I can see it happening in bed as soon as he gets his freak on. It's purely subconscious too! But then I was also thinking how König must be a total softie with all animals... Treating everyone gently and lovingly while reader is pouting & looking from the sidewalks like a third wheel :( Time to pull out the big guns!

CW: Pet play (attempted), dom/sub undertones (implied)

You see him feeding apples to horses, watch how they burrow their muzzles under his arm, he’s always gentle with each and every individual as long as they’re animal and not human... Even the old farm cat gets more love and attention than you :(

He nearly trips on it one morning because it’s purring and meowing at his feet – if a human were to do that they would get slurs and yelling and spit landing on their face... This furry little beast only earns a soft rumble and a low, affectionate “You naughty little devil,” as thanks for showing this bitter cruel man some love.

You even see him pet the cat absentmindedly when he’s doing some paperwork in his office, the loud purrs of the animal making you absurdly jealous. Hearing the roaring content of this cat as a broad, sturdy hand softly pets it from head to tail stirs emotions in you that are wildly inappropriate. You would kill to get this man to pet you, these animals don’t even know how lucky they are...

And maybe he doesn’t even know what he’s missing, seeing only men and animals here at the farm. The only woman, namely, you, is always walking around in rubber boots and dirty oversized overalls. He avoids you like the plague, and treats you more harshly than the young rascals sent here by the state... Men are visual creatures, so perhaps it’s no wonder that he takes no interest in you, some weak miss farmhand who always looks like she came from feeding the pigs... Which is your job here, actually, because König never allows you near his precious horses, let alone the delicate sheep.

So one day, you sneak inside his office and climb on his desk in nothing but your black sheen underwear, now with the addition of a black cat’s tail attached to the bum, with your make up done and wearing a pair of cute little cat ears. This must be the silliest thing I’ve ever done, you think as you push your tits invitingly together while propping yourself on the table like a spoiled house cat would, with your “paws” prettily together and your butt ready to lift from some good petting you fervently wish you’re about to get.

Heavy boots echo in the hall like doom just as you start to shiver from cold. Your heart nearly shoots out of your chest and your tits threaten to spill out of your too small bra, your rival is nowhere to be seen and all the sheep have been sheared so you hope you’ll finally spark this man’s interest in some intimate fun with an actual woman...

He walks in, comes to an instant halt on the door when he sees you, and from the looks of it, the poor man suffers a silent heart attack from seeing a half naked woman on his desk. He freezes right there on the spot, draws air so sharply you can hear it all the way to where you're sitting – all over his papers, innocently like a naughty feline would.

He looks both shocked and furious, but not a word of warning comes out – and how could he be mad at a pretty little thing like you? Donning your silly outfit consisting of black underwear, black cat tail and black cat ears, you even drew yourself some thin whiskers with your black eyeliner...

Your eyes are shy but accusing, they simply ask, why haven't you paid attention to me? Why haven't you played with me, turned me around in your lap any way you like? Where are the soft gazes and shushed praises that belong to me?

And while you were invisible to this man before, you now have his full attention.

His eyes fly to your tits first, then to your tail, they caress the dip and swell of your waist, rise to adore your rib cage and the fluttering pulse at the hollow of your throat, they steal a peek at your cute little ears... There's an endearing flash on softness in his eyes, and when he meets your stare again, he swallows so arduously that the sound of it is audible and thick. A chill runs down your spine as you realize this might not only be the first time in a while that he's seen a half naked woman... This might be the first time he's seen a half naked woman ever.

You give him your most demure gaze, bat your lashes slowly like cats tend to do when they see someone they appreciate and trust, and whisper:

“...Meow?”

[javierpena-inatacvest]

What if I told you I was ovulating like a horny monster and wrote a one shot breeding kink for Joel Miller and will probably be done with it today WHAT THEN HMMMMMMM?!!??!

[salarymanwaka]

Jamais Vu : Life on Mars Astronaut Yoo Joonghyuk (38) washes up on the shore of an unknown planet where he meets an unknown lifeform impersonating his dead lover.

script (sample) twitter art/lore compilation

cover picture for a sci-fi romance manga I've been working on!

[painted-bees]

[cw: explicit content🔞]

March 18th 2009

  The top floor balcony of the humble recording studio overlooked a small backroad. It was just high enough to grant a view over the roofs of surrounding buildings, out towards the mountains, across the harbour. But thick cloud cover and the darkness of night collaborated to hide the Rockies from sight this evening. Instead, Raf’s gaze washed impassively over the array of city lights that extended across the harbour and disappeared into the distant North Vancouver neighbourhoods. He took a sip from the bottle of water in his hand and invited the evening chill to sober him up. 

  Behind him, the din of party revelry outcompeted the exterior ambiance of late-night city traffic. Hi-Note wasn’t usually so lively this close to midnight. Its business hours only ran until 8pm at the latest, and, save for the evenings when he used to jam here with Magritte, Raf usually had the place vacated and locked up within that same hour.

  Today was a special occasion. It was the junior technician, Herbie’s, birthday. Since he had little where else to celebrate, Nels had hosted a surprise party for him in the studio. It wasn’t the first birthday Herb had celebrated in Vancouver, but it was the first birthday following a rather heartbreaking split with his once-steady girlfriend. The usually jovial lad had been, understandably, a lot more quietly introspective over the past few months. Once Nels had gained the knowledge that Herb had no big, exciting birthday plans this year, the rest was inevitable.

  Raf had driven to work, and wholly planned to drive back home. Towards that end, he enjoyed his drink and smoke early, cut himself off early, and was now finally feeling clear minded enough to collect Margie and call it a night. Intending to do exactly that, Raf turned towards the sliding door of the balcony, downing his last gulp of water. And–discovered that Margie had found him first.

  A smug grin and a playful wave preceded her sliding open the door. She stepped out onto the balcony, pulling the door shut behind her. “Ey, nice hiding spot, Ephrem!” She rubbed her hands together, watching her breath hang in the chilly air as she approached him. 

  Raf relented to leaning back against the balcony railing as Magritte dropped her elbows on it, beside him. “I was just about to go in and get you.”

  She sighed and looked out across the harbour. “Past your bedtime?”

  “Nah, the party’s winding down anyway. But I kinda wish I found you out here sooner. This view is really nice.” She sighed wistfully. “Glittery.”

  He provided a self-depreciating smirk. You could set your watch to Raf’s night time routine and, typically, if he wasn’t in bed between eleven and eleven-thirty, he’d be grumpy if there wasn’t a good reason for it. A birthday, he supposed, was as good a reason as any.

  “If you’re not ready to head home yet…” He allowed his easy capitulation to hang unspoken in the space between them.

  Raf made no motion to herd her back inside. Instead, he placed his empty water bottle down by his feet and then settled further against the railing. He wasn’t worried about waiting much longer out here. Magritte had a low tolerance for cold, and the chilly March breeze would chase her back inside within a reasonable amount of time. Still, he didn’t want to give her the sense he was in any kind of hurry. Genuinely, he wasn’t. 

  “Yanno, this is the weirdest place I’ve ever worked at.” Magritte furrowed her brow thoughtfully. “Just a bunch of guys being pals, but also…not weird about it. And stuff gets done. And I–” She turned to look at him, “I help with that. Like, actually!” She turned her back to the landscape, electing to mirror Raf’s posture. “Okay, this sounds stupid but like…I’ve never felt good at a job before. Not just that, I’ve been proactive? I get to do stuff before someone has to ask me to do it? And, I do it properly? Wild. Nels even likes me!” She beamed up at him. “He called me ‘Supergirl’ today after hearing the vocal mixing I did for Cybele Fray.”

  “Yeah…” Magritte pressed her palms against her cheeks and smooshed her face in a pensive gesture that wasn’t intended to look as silly as it did. “I’m worried I’ll lose interest and pitter out eventually. But until then, I’ll just enjoy feeling useful. And smart.”

  Raf favoured her with a smirk, and wrinkled his brow in substitute for a shewed shrug. “Nels loved you the minute he saw you. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the first job you feel competent at is the first job that has you working with audio and such. You’re doing what you like doing.”

And, Raf thought, employed by someone who actually knows how to manage you.

It’s true that Hi-Note made excellent use of Margie’s savant-like skills, but not all of it had been absolutely enthralling to her. A bored Margie was difficult to keep on task, but somehow Nels had managed to navigate her ‘on again, off again’ pattern of productivity. Largely, Raf noticed that Nels cycled her off monotonous tasks before they had a chance to bore her–no matter their state of completion. And then, he’d put her back on it as soon as she looked ready to smooth her brain on something simple and repetitive again. Raf had taken that observation–and applied it at home. Very quickly, he helped her build a habit of taking just one dish out of the sink, washing it, and putting it away, any time she found herself in the kitchen during a moment of aimless roving. Not always, mind you…but often enough. One thing at a time, and the order of it doesn’t matter.

  Raf considered whether or not he ought to affirm to her for the umpteenth time that she was one of the most brilliant people he had ever met. But the window of opportunity closed when she continued talking. 

  “Life’s been really…easy this year, so far. Like, the easiest it’s ever been. I like it. A lot.” She turned her eyes up to him with an unspoken question that he couldn’t quite read.

  “Same.”

  “Really?” Her questioning gaze pressed further.

  Raf measured her for a moment.

  Yet–there she was.

  Until she showed up, he had been living alone in a two bedroom, downtown apartment; a feat of luxury by Vancouver standards. He’d have described it as a relatively ‘small’ space; each room was big enough to fit a bed, a dresser, a night stand, and little else. But, two bedrooms were still two bedrooms. Near Yaletown, no less. Truth be told, the income he was making at Hi-Note would not have been enough to afford it, if he had to rely on it alone. But he had been rather uncompromising about having a spare room for guests–until Magritte moved in. Now, that room was hers; guests be damned.

  It was a bit strange to think about. Generally, Raf preferred being alone. He found that living with anyone else always came with more stress than it was worth; whether it was with a steady romantic partner, or a family member. He was fairly certain that he’d never lend himself to the horrors of rooming with a friend who barely knew him. The very idea had felt like a violation against the sanctity of his home–the one place he could withdraw and hide into when he needed the peace and quiet to sort himself out. He didn’t trust family nor lovers to respect his space when he most needed it. A roommate as impersonal as a friend would have been much worse, and for absolutely nothing.

  He had first invited Magritte to crash at his place on an impulse. Though he feared the precedent it may have set, she didn’t overstay her welcome. In fact, she had barely stayed at all. That hadn’t surprised him nearly as much as his resulting disappointment had. And so, he invited her again. And again. And again. And each time, he confirmed for himself that she was simply…good company. He slept easier on the nights she occupied the guest room. His mood each morning felt buoyed by her presence, even before she emerged to greet him in the kitchen. He just liked talking to her. The baseline of her mood seemed to always be several levels more pleasant than his own, and the way she carried her joviality made it infectious, not grating. Even on the mornings when she had shuffled into the kitchen muttering a preemptive apology for her irritable mood, she had been sweet about it.

  Magritte did something to his brain chemicals that medications just couldn’t compete with. But what that was exactly, he had no god damn clue. The only other thing he could think of that would come close to eliciting the same kind of response from him–might have been something like…having a box of fluffy kittens gently dumped on him. Maybe that’s what she was to him; a box of sweet, soft, wobbly kittens–personified. It would certainly explain the cuteness-aggression she often provoked; that overwhelming desire to just scrunch her up into a little ball and tear her apart with his teeth…affectionately.

  Oftenly, so did she.

  Now she had her own key to the apartment and, over the winter, the guest bedroom had slowly been transformed into her disorderly, war-torn little nest. A true nightmare to behold for all the clutter and chaos; clothing haphazardly strewn across every inch of floor, and a plethora of dirty cups and plates on–and around–the nightstand by her bed.

  Strangely, it didn’t bother him. She had warned him of her negligent cleanliness habits well in advance. In fact, she had initially cited it as her reason for not wanting to overstay at his place. In response, he had given her the room to do with as she pleased–on the sole condition that she kept the door closed and ensured her mess never breached containment. If he didn’t like it, he simply didn’t have to look at it. Aside from leaving dishes in the sink (and occasionally on the living room coffee table), Magritte had been pretty good at maintaining her end of the bargain. By and large, her messes stayed confined to her room.

  When it came to the matter of Raf coveting his peace and quiet, Magritte had proven to be no trouble at all. That was remarkable, considering how loud she was in almost everything she did. But, most evenings after work, she straight up ignored him. She spent her time holed up in her bedroom, playing music and browsing the internet. Raf had once expressed appreciation for Margie’s unobtrusiveness–and was met with a mixture of disbelief and tremendous relief from her. Apparently, most others hadn’t found the same kind of comfort he did in a roommate that happily kept to themselves. She had grown accustomed to worrying that her ‘shut-in’ behaviour was excessive and inconsiderate, because if someone didn’t come and pull her away from her hobbies, she was liable to get lost in her solitary activities for hours. For Raf’s part, he was just content knowing she was there if he felt in need of company, but rarely did he feel compelled to call upon her for it. He liked her little routine of being present in the mornings, joining him for lunch, winding down with him for an hour after work, and then emerging once more for dinner before they both disappeared to their respective corners of the apartment for the rest of the evening–until bedtime.

  While Magritte spent the days in her room, she developed a habit of spending most of her nights in his bed. He accepted the blame for that. Generally preferring to sleep in cooler temperatures, he neglected to consider that his love for a brisk chill wasn’t universally shared. To his quiet horror, he learned one morning that Margie’s feet were often corpse cold. The nail beds on her toes would turn purple from poor circulation, she’d get sensitive little blisters under the skin, and the ache of being chilled through the bone would keep her awake at night. Genuinely, the bones in her feet were colder than the ambient temperature. He wouldn’t have thought it possible if he hadn’t felt the impossible iciness of her skin with his own hands.

  She had laughed, telling him that this was just how things always were for her during the winter months. It’s why she so greatly preferred the sweltering heat of summer. And that’s when Raf offered to let her cosy up in his bed. He always felt too warm at night, and she had literal ice blocks for feet. The solution seemed pretty obvious to him.

  And so, she had spent most of the winter nights with her feet pressed against his back, tucked behind his knees, or sandwiched between his legs. That same arrangement led Raf to discover that sleep came easy when he had something–or someone–to curl his arms around at night. And just like that, over the course of three short months, Magritte had nearly extinguished his reluctant dependence on sleeping medication. 

  As far as roommates were concerned, Magritte was…an unusual one. If he had tried to explain any of the peculiar details about their mutual arrangements to literally anyone else, he knew what it all sounded like. He had considered that maybe he was attracted to Margie; head-over heels in love with her. The problem was, he had been in love before. It made him stupid. And it made him unmanageably paranoid. Weird elation tangled with exhausting, antagonising suspicion; the highest highs and lowest lows. Margie didn’t make him stupid nor particularly paranoid. In fact, he had been able to navigate her with a level of clear-minded ease that was somewhat unusual to him. Perhaps it was in the way she spoke plainly and honestly with him. Despite how hard he looked for it, there was never any hidden nuance to the things Magritte said, wanted, or felt.

  Paranoia still sunk its hooks into him the same way he had grown to expect it–but a different part of him, a voice of reason that he had been working hard to cultivate, granted him a very small, very rare sense of satisfaction when he turned it to Margie’s defence. So he cared for her, at the very least. But she didn’t burden him with the dizzying gauntlet of infatuation. He wasn’t in love with her.

  But she was easy to be with. And, under her influence, life had felt much kinder.

  “Yeah, really.”

  Raf watched relief wash over Margie’s features, and she let out a little chuckle. “Oh, good. ‘Cus, yanno…usually, if I’m having a good time, it’s ‘cus someone else is running themselves ragged for it. And I don’t want you to–”

  “I promised I’d tell you if things ever started feeling off,” Raf cut in. “It’s been weird, but not off-putting. I’ve liked it, so far.”

  Her eyes held him with an expression he couldn’t quite identify, something close to tearful. But there was a delighted, grateful reverence in her gaze that wounded him in a peculiar way. He felt compelled to soothe it.

 “Hey.” Impassively, he pushed himself off the balcony railing to stand and turn towards her. “Can I try something?”

  Her mouth twitched upward in a quizzical smirk. “What?” Raf tilted his head to one side, and leaned in just enough to spur a response from her, “Oh-! Yeah? Yeah!? Ok, yes!”

  He kissed her. 

  If he liked it? If it made him uneasy? If it did anything for him, at all?

  It was a soft, gentle, fleeting little gesture; he didn’t hold it for more than a second. It was just a taste, to see–

 To see what?

  He lingered as he considered it, and just barely had time to register the broad grin on Magritte’s face before he felt her warm hands cup his jaw. She pulled him into another, far more impassioned kiss of her own–and he met her lips with the energy to match.

  As her fingers snaked around the back of his neck, he felt his hair raise beneath her touch. He leaned into her more bodily, bracing against the railing with a firm, steadying grasp. He hadn’t intended anything more than a chaste little peck, but he felt Margie’s soft lips part to invite his tongue, and was loath to leave her wanting. Her fingers ran up the back of his head, combing through his hair, and then curled back down to tenderly caress behind his ears.

  A thrill of warmth originating from her hands shivered through his body–to his groin. It coaxed a surprised purr out of his throat, and he caught it in his mouth before turning into a snort through his nose. He broke the kiss, pulling away from Magritte’s grasp to drop his forearms onto the cold balcony railing beside her, curling over himself to rest his forehead atop them.

  There was a moment of silence as Raf found himself more thankful than ever for the chill evening breeze. And then Margie’s tentative voice met his ear.

  “S-sorry. I got…I got a little carried away.”

  Raf reluctantly lifted his head to shoot her a self-deprecating smile. “Not just you.” 

  He watched her brow furrow with concerned bewilderment for a brief moment before the combination of details clicked in her mind.

  “Oh-!” Her eyes grew wide with mischievous delight, “I gave you a boner!” The exclamation came as hushed as she could manage, but her triumphant grin spoke volumes. 

  He shut his eyes in a beleaguered wince. “Don’t sound so pleased.” He opened them again when he felt her lean against his arm.

  She tilted her head to catch his gaze, and wore a cheeky smile. “We can go home and do something about it, if you want.”

  Hold on, now. “Nnn…”

  Well, maybe?

  He cast her an incredulous look. 

  “Or not!” She pulled back with an exaggerated shrug. “I know people get weird about that kinda thing–or–maybe I’m weird about it. I dunno, I’ve never been bothered by, uh…” The sentence dissolved into a weak chuckle, and her cheeks flushed pink under the faint, warm lighting that emanated from within the studio.

  Raf had never been one for casual flings. Some manner of romantic attachment had always been prerequisite before the idea of sex could carry any appeal to him at all. But then again, he never had a friend as openly straightforward as Margie before. She was as uncomplicated as they came, and Raf recklessly wondered if that would at all be compromised by taking up the offer she had just presented to him. It felt irresponsible to even consider it, but…

  Your stupid fingers in my hair got me feeling some kind of way.

  Embarrassing, how easily he had been turned on. But then again, it had been a fair few years since anyone had touched him like that and, woe betide him, a man was still a man after all.

  It was wrong about Margie. And if it wasn’t, well.

  And then there was the matter of Margie’s confidence. He liked the kiss–he obviously liked the kiss. Her ensuing proposition wasn’t a wholly unwelcome one, either. But, for someone who claimed she wasn't able to read between the lines with people, she was an expert adept at reading far too much into anything that could be perceived as a rejection. She had escalated things, but he had started it–and he didn’t want her to feel shame for reciprocating the way she had. The awful, feral part of his brain that he loathed screamed like a banshee; the usual chorus about ulterior motives and emotional manipulation. It was wrong, of course. It was always wrong.

  Except for when it wasn’t.

  If I die, I die. Fuck.

  “Sure, let's try it on.” 

  Margie stared up at him with those wide, blue eyes, but her brow was tense with uncertainty. “Really?”

  He provided a small shrug. “We already share a bed. This’ll just be another weird thing we do in our growing list of weird things. Maybe we’ll change our mind on the way home. But at the very least, I wouldn’t mind another kiss or few.” To illustrate his point, he leaned in and pressed his lips sweetly against her forehead. 

  When he pulled away, Margie stood up straight and bounced on her heels, holding her face in her hands. “Okay, okay! Yeah!” She darted towards the door and slid it open. “I’ll go get my coat, and–!”

  She stopped short of scurrying inside, and turned to ensnare him in a tight little hug. Raf didn’t have time to close his arms around her in response before she broke away from him again to scamper down the hall. He stared after her for a bewildered moment as she disappeared around the corner, towards the stairs.

  By the time he caught up with her again, she was already downstairs saying her farewells to the Hi-Note crew. She wrapped Herb up in an energetic hug that he happily reciprocated. 

  A large hand clapped Raf on the back before a familiar voice behind him asked, “Everything good?”

  He turned to see Nels favouring him with a warm smile. 

  “Yeah, I was just…” He pointed a loose finger towards the ceiling, “taking a moment.”

  Of everyone in the room, Nels was the only person who knew about Raf’s disorders. He was the first glimpse Raf ever had of what a ‘proper’ father was supposed to look like. The man was raising three daughters at home and brought that same air of patient, fatherly responsibility into the office with him each day. Raf, in particular, had been adopted by him as a kind of nephew. Nels was a best friend to his Uncle Bill, and Bill trusted him to help Raf settle into a good circle of friends and acquaintances. Raf had been reluctant to grow familiar with anyone who wasn’t his Uncle, but with a significant amount of encouragement from both his Uncle and his therapist, Raf stuck it out with Hi-Note through the several occasions he had been tempted to quit on a bad vibe, misinterpreted comment, or fearful hunch. So far, it had been working out favourably for him. The pay wasn’t great, but Raf didn’t need the income of a steady job. Rather, his therapist had been right to say that getting out of the house and expanding his ‘library of positive experiences’ was much better for his health than isolating himself at home, rotting under the grimey weight of his paranoid assumptions and suspicions.

  “You got a piece of cake, right?” Nels fished for an excuse to keep Raf around. 

  “Nah, Margie scarfed down enough for both of us.”

  Reeling back with a dissatisfied but good humoured growl, Nels insisted, “Oh, you gotta try this one. The icing is–”

  “Too sweet,” Raf cut in with a defusing laugh. “I had a bite. It’s good, but a taste was plenty.” 

  “It’s already midnight,” Margie’s voice interjected, “If Raf had it his way, he’d have been in bed an hour ago. Cake ain’t gonna fix that.” 

  “Bah!” Nels waved them both off, defeated. “Fine, go. Get out of my building, you kids don’t know how to have fun anymore.” 

  “Fun? In this economy?” Margie clutched imaginary pearls before her expression of mock dismay dissolved into a grin and she opened her arms for a parting hug.

  Nels swooped down to envelop her, and for a moment his broad body fully eclipsed her from Raf’s view. “Drive safe, be good. See you on Monday.” He pulled away from Margie, turning his gaze to make sure the sentiment landed with Raf as well.

  Raf provided a lopsided smirk and a gesture that was something between a wave and a salute. A chorus of goodbyes followed him and Margie out the front doors of Hi-Note studio, and Margie waved back over Raf’s shoulder until the doors closed behind them.

  “I like them,” she said with a happy sigh.

  “Yeah.” Raf led the way to his little, dark blue sedan parked against the street curb and watched her shuffle gleefully towards the passenger side. “They like you, too.”

  Hard not to.

  He got into the car and turned on the engine.

–

  The ride home was tricky for Magritte as she tried hard to temper her expectations. Raf was a skittish person by nature, and she had to be very careful about not overwhelming him or applying too much pressure with her eager enthusiasm. Any time he felt like he had put himself into a corner by overpromising or obligating himself too irrevocably to something, his instinct was to escape it–no matter what ‘it’ was. But there was nothing irrevocable nor obligatory about her offer to sleep with him tonight. Not ‘sleep’ in the literal sense of the word, for once. No, if he let her, she was going to suck his spirit out through his dick and fuck him into the ground. Good god, she had been wanting this for months.

  But Raf, being Raf, was liable to change his mind at the very last minute. And if he did, she wasn’t going to take it personally. She wasn’t. Nor would she be upset, nor disappointed, nor in any way disparaging about it. The most she could do was make sure not to push the topic too eagerly on the way home, and to avoid offering up any obstacles that might serve to dissuade him. 

  …Which made it very difficult for her to bring up one particular topic of concern before they had passed by the last 7/11 and it was too late.

  “I guess, um…Should we pick up condoms? I can run in and get them.”

  She held her breath as she watched him consider the question for a moment.

   Funnily enough, it wasn’t a matter of protecting against diseases. They both had a clean bill of health, and came to know that about each other when she experienced a rare episode of anxiety regarding the last guy she had stayed with. In her weird panic, she greatly overshared a plethora of details to Raf. He had been remarkably cool about it, and walked her through the entire process of getting tested–something he was no recent stranger to.

  Rather, she didn’t want to tempt fate on getting knocked-up; not when life was just starting to become enjoyable again. The idea of pregnancy was a lovecraftian horror to her, and the stress of dealing with something like that to any extent just wasn’t worth the gamble. She was on the pill, yes…but even that wasn’t guaranteed protection. And, with how often she forgot to take it, she wasn’t sure it protected her at all. 

  “I mean…” Raf began, hesitantly.

  Magritte spared him the trouble. “Or not, if it’s a pain in the ass.” She shrugged with a disarming little laugh. “It’s a bit out of the–”

  Raf cut her off. “No, it’s fine, we absolutely can. It’s just that I’m–” Without taking his eyes off the road he produced a scissor-snipping motion with his fingers.

  Margie stared for a bewildered moment before her brain picked it up. “Wait, what? Really? Why?” She had leaned towards him with that last question before realising it was probably a shitty thing to ask.

  But, if it bothered Raf, he showed no sign of it. “I don’t want kids, and I had…an unpredictable ex.” 

  “Oh!” Margie had the good sense not to press him further, and leaned back into her seat. She couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Well, lucky me.”

  She delighted in the humoured snort she coaxed from him. His easy smile and relaxed posture assured her that he wasn’t grappling with any second thoughts.

  That won a sidelong glance from him. “So..?”

  “Straight home, garçon!” She chopped one hand into the palm of the other with mock urgency. “The minutes are precious!”

  And indeed, though he had kept his hands to himself for much of the ride home, and in the elevator up to his apartment, Magritte found herself pressed between his body and the door to his flat as he warmed her with a voraciously weighty kiss. She received it gratefully. The heat of him, the molten softness of his lips, the scruffy, tickling hairs of his chin–

  She hadn’t realised that his free hand–the one not curled amorously around her body–had been busy unlocking the door. She’d have staggered backwards when it opened, had Raf not preemptively braced her with the arm that held her.

  He broke the kiss in order to assure that their half-stumble into the apartment didn’t devolve into a full stumble. But still, he kept a steadying arm around her, and she rewarded the preservation of closeness by pressing a string of kisses down his neck and towards his collarbone. Her hands had found their way beneath both his jacket and t-shirt, the flesh of his torso hot against her forearms and fingertips.

  She heard the door close shut behind them, and the familiar sound of the keys dropping onto the counter before the hand that had been holding them cupped the side of her head. She felt his lips press against the opposite temple.

  She had been able to kick off her shabby, loose-fitting boots without pause, but she reluctantly peeled herself away from Raf in case he wanted to take his sneakers off with a little more care. And, perhaps…to give him some space to think. Taking the opportunity to remove her jacket, she chucked it haphazardly across the couch.

  Raf was measuring her with a gaze when she turned back towards him.

  “Second thoughts?” Her smirk carried a cheeky confidence that worked hard to cover the self-conscious tone in her voice. 

  “No.” His bewildered inflection and raised eyebrows explained plenty; he had expected to turn against the idea by now.

  “It’s a bit impulsive,” Magritte conceded.

  Raf provided a slow nod, “It is…”

  “I’d really like it, though.”

  “I want you to.” He seemed to chew on that for a moment, as though it had answered something for him.

  There was an awkward standoff while neither of them moved, and in that brief moment, Magritte deeply regretted putting the space between them. Finally, Raf approached her and placed a kiss onto her forehead while his hands gently teased the elastic tie out of her nest of auburn curls. She wrapped her palms around the back of his neck as she felt her hair fall loose from the messy bun it had been wrangled into.

  “Promise me this won’t fuck anything up.” His voice was low and quiet in her ear. The pleading tone was only amplified by the lingering manner in which his cheek rested against the side of her head. His warm breath against her slightly chilled skin inspired goosebumps.

  She pulled back to look him squarely in the eyes. This was far from being her first tryst with a friend, and she knew herself well in this regard. “I promise it won’t! Not for me, but…” She offered an apologetic half-smile. “I can’t promise it won’t change things for you; I don’t control how you react. So, really. Really, really, really–if you’re not sure, then I’d rather…not. I like things the way they are. I like doing things with you. To me, this is just another thing I like doing that I think would be really fun to do with you. Not at the expense of anything else, though.”

  He searched her features with a scrutinising stare, and she didn’t shy away from it.

  “Nothing changes,” He asserted, “we’re just friends.”

  “Good friends,” she offered back with an impudent grin.

  He mirrored her expression with a scoff and a lopsided smirk of his own. “The friendsiest friends.”

  “But, friends just the same.”

 Her conviction was rewarded with another kiss, his lips melting against hers as she felt the tension in his muscles evaporate through a sigh. Her hands glided up his arms, over his shoulders, and around to the back of his neck. As she gently combed her fingernails through his hair, she remembered that delightful little noise she had coaxed out of him on the balcony. What had done it? Was it the kiss? Or…

  Her fingers traced the contours of his scalp and, as she curled them towards her palm, they lightly caressed the back of his ears. Her thumbs smoothed over the muscles of his jaw, but before she completed the gesture, he broke away from her.

“Alright, friend.” He curled his upper lip to flash teeth at her in a playful snarl. “Get your lily white ass into the bedroom before the last brain cell navigating my good manners is starved of oxygen.” He turned her toward the hall, and a pat of his hand against her butt provided her with all the motivation she needed to oblige his request. 

  She whisked herself down the hall into his room, and left the door just slightly ajar for him. She knew he wasn’t going to follow her right away. He had his evening habits to tend to; checking the door, setting the thermostat, turning out the lights, and taking his meds with a tall glass of water. It would have been silly of her to think that the promise of tits and ass would throw him off routine.

  Magritte took the opportunity to shed her clothes, throwing off her shirt and wiggling out of her tight tank top–a personal compromise for her disdain for bras. She shimmied out of her denim shorts and leggings both in the same gesture. Her underwear, though, was of a cute, boyish design and she decided she’d give Raf the satisfaction of peeling them off her, if he so wished to.

  Wait, just the underwear? Is that weird? She considered putting the tank top back on, and failed to gather the motivation for it. And so, she settled upon a better idea. Grabbing one of his t-shirts out of the second drawer of his dresser, she pulled it on, over her head. Hell yeah, guys love this shit.

  No sooner had she put on his shirt than he walked in to see her wearing it. She turned to him with a sheepish grin, tugging the bottom hem over her thighs. 

  Taking a sip from the glass of water in his hand, Raf clocked the shirt and favoured her with a humoured hum. “Comfy?”

  She provided a coy nod, and, before she could do much else, he abandoned his glass on the top of the dresser to close the distance between them. His arms caught her up into more of a ‘scrunch’ than a proper hug, and he came down on her with a frustrated growl, burying his entire face into the side of her neck with the sound of exaggerated chomping. The combination of lightly grazing teeth and his rough chin against her skin elicited a startled yelp from her before sending her into a fit of uncontrolled giggles as she was effortlessly bowled over onto the bed.

  “I changed my mind.” He snarled, “I’m gonna eat you, instead. Hungry, horny, it’s all the same.”

  “It’s not, though!” Her words were barely intelligible, warbling with laughter. 

  As she struggled in vain to wedge a hand between the soft flesh of her throat and his coarse goatee, his mock gnashing softened into playful kisses. Regaining her composure and chasing away her giggles by clearing her throat, she snaked her hands beneath his shirt.

  “I’m worth more to you undevoured, I promise.”

  “Remains to be seen,” Raf muttered into the hollow beneath her ear.

  “Well…let's see.”

  Her thumbs smoothed over the trail of body hair from belt line to belly button, before her palms passed broadly over the front of his stomach, around his sides, and up his back. Digging her fingers into his shoulder blades, she tilted her chin back and drew in a long breath as his lips travelled down her neck, towards her collar bone.

  Distracted by the pleasant textures of his mouth, Magritte’s attention hadn’t followed his travelling hands–until she felt the heel of his palm press broadly against her clit through the fabric of her underwear. Instinctively, her thighs tightened around him, and her hands abandoned their near-completed task of unbuttoning his jeans; grasping the waistline instead. She coiled into his touch as his palm lifted away to drag his fingertips lightly up, towards the top hem of her panties. From there, they slipped easily under the close-hugging fabric to sink into the warm folds between her legs.

  Raf’s firm, steadying grasp around her ribcage slid up to appreciate the soft, pliable curves  of her breasts hidden beneath the fabric of her shirt. His fingers teased the hardened nipples while she manoeuvred her lower body beneath him. She freed her legs out from under his lap so that her thighs hugged around his hips and, in swift order, she ghosted her hands down to find his belt. As she worked to unbuckle it, his mouth caught hers. His tongue teased her lips apart and she welcomed it with her own.

  His kisses had a soft, buttery quality reminiscent of a girl she once loved, and it was a feeling she treasured. His lips, smooth and warm, melted against the tense contours of hers in a sensasion she could only describe as ‘creamy and comforting’.

  She felt his fingers tease her apart, and they traced the contours of her sex with gentle confidence, exploring her geography. Though his mouth worked fervently against her lips, throat, and collar bone, his touch between her legs was restrained and methodical. She had expected him to plunge knuckle deep into the first hole he found–as men in her experience were typically inclined to. But his fingers only teased her entrance before gliding back up her moistened crease to find–

  “Oh-!” Margie flinched as a shock jolted her body. Not painfully, but in a manner comparable to having an icecube suddenly pressed against her, unexpected.

  Raf stilled the moment she had tensed.

  “Sensitive.” His observation was murmured into the crook of her neck before he purred more audibly into her ear, “Sorry, love.”

  She paused. His fingers had begun to work firm, broad circles around her clit in a way that, at first, didn’t feel like it was doing anything special for her. But quickly, she felt a building pressure begin to heat her core.

  Sensitive?

  She wasn’t, though. In the past, complaints had been made that she took too long to get off. Her previous fling had joked that only a jackhammer could provide the adequate stimulation she needed. When it came to sex, she knew herself as a veritable puzzle box of distractibility and dulled senses. It meant excellent stamina and fun sensations, but a proper orgasm delivered in a timely manner required her own effort more than the effort of her partner.

  “No, no,” she began placatingly, “you didn’t–”

  That same heat rose up to prickle her chest and cheeks. Margie pressed her mouth against the top of his shoulder to muffle a reverent, “Motherfucker.” 

  That was not the appropriate choice of words to praise him with, but that’s what forced its way out of her throat. He had found that sweet spot almost as easily as she might have found it herself, which led her to the realisation that she had been robbed–robbed–by previous lovers. What the everloving fuck.

  She couldn’t help but let out a confounded little chuckle into the fabric of his shirt, and he responded with an amused little “Mmh.”

  Without even meaning to, she had tensed her grip around him. Her arms held him tight, with handfuls of his shirt balled into her fists. Her legs had constricted around his waist and the leverage they provided allowed for the needy manner in which her hips writhed to meet his firm and steady touch. It was a greedy moment while she abandoned her attempts at reciprocation, intent on appreciating the way Raf kneaded her between his fingers. Her long drawn sighs of pleasure slowly devolved into a breathy panting–which fell into near perfect synchrony with his purposeful, hastening strokes between her thighs. 

  If she had been paying attention to her breathing, if she had noticed when her voice began releasing a single, ragged note every few breaths, she might have asked for pause. But, she hadn’t been paying attention to anything other than the growing warmth between her legs and the tense swell of pressure gathering in the very pit of her stomach. And it grew, hotter and hotter, with each purposeful, dexterous stroke of his fingers. Oh–she was sensitive, now. Between her thighs, she could feel every small vibration that met her. The way his fingers worked pleased not just her clit, but the rest of her aroused sex as well. Every small movement he pressed into her, she felt across the entire organ. Her thighs closed around his waist as she lifted her hips to find her pleasure against his fingertips. She felt the muscles of her stomach draw tight.

  A sharp gasp preceded a short, trembling “Ah-!” that escaped with her breath. All that tension, that gathering pressure, broke like a wave through her body. It had built up so quickly that the orgasm took her by complete surprise, and she writhed against Raf’s fingers as she rode it out; her face buried into the crook of his neck, eyes shut tightly.

  She didn’t relax her body nor lift her head as the ripples of pleasure subsided, but she felt Raf’s fingers withdraw from her.

  “Hey.” Raf’s voice crooned in her ear, and his hands on her waist pressed her lightly back, coaxing her to release him from the death-grip she held him in.

  Reluctantly, she unfurled from him, uncoiling her arms, and dropping her knees to hang off his outer thighs. The rough texture of denim against  the back of her calves reminded her that he still had his pants on. She came, and he was still wearing pants.

  She hazarded a sheepish glance up towards his face, and was met with a modestly small smile, made very smug by the upward arch of his eyebrows.

  “That’s what you get for the balcony boner, you little shit.” 

  Raf lifted himself off her, but she grabbed the front of his shirt with flustered defiance. “We’re not done!”

  “You sure?” His incredulity wasn’t the least bit sincere. “Because it seemed to me like you–”

  “No!” She scrambled to sit on her knees atop his bed and jabbed a demanding finger towards his waist. “Take your pants off!”

  He hesitated, and for a moment, Margie genuinely worried he’d say ‘nah’. But instead, he leaned in for another kiss and obliged her command. The sound of his belt clattering outcompeted the sultry feeling of his lips for her attention, and her eager gaze turned automatically to assess what she was working with. 

  She had expected to see an aching erection. Usually, by the time the pants came off, guys had been hard as hell and ready to go. Instead, the man who had just rubbed the easiest orgasm she’d ever experienced out of her appeared lightly fluffed at most. For a brief second, she wondered if her playful brattiness had ruined the mood. And then, she considered…that possibly…she just wasn’t attractive to him. 

  She returned her attention to their kiss as she chewed on that thought a bit. As far as girls went, she was a bit of a gremlin. A goblin, even. She wouldn’t dare call herself a ‘woman’ nor even a ‘lady’--those words gave her gender expression far too much credit. But even so, she was mostly comfortable with her appearance. Regardless of that, sloppy tomboys weren’t everyone’s preferred cup of tea, and it didn’t have to be. She had slept with people she didn’t personally find attractive before and it had been fine and dandy, all things considered.

  You can be ugly and still give killer blowjobs. 

  She smirked to herself, and, as she combed fingers through Raf’s hair with one hand, she allowed the other to travel down his torso until her palm curled around the soft, warm skin of his shaft. Her fingertips coiled along the underside of it, tracing a firm, straight line towards the base of the glans, and she massaged the head against the ball of her thumb with gentle, coaxing strokes. 

  His body responded to her touch; the malleable flesh stiffened in her grasp and filled her hand substantially. In return, her caresses grew more broad and firm; the heel of her palm only abandoning the sensitive tip for the brief intervals when her fingers endeavoured to tease and cradle his sack. 

  She felt Raf’s fingertips trace lightly up her spine, beneath her shirt, in a manner that provoked goosebumps. Once they found the loose curls of her hair, they followed her locks up to the nape of her neck, and brushed passionately over the base of her scalp. He hadn’t pulled his lips away from her, except to nip lightly at her jaw and ear.

  A small “Hmm” escaped him, sounding more contemplative than pleased, and it prompted her to pull her gaze back and assess his features. He only mirrored her measuring glance before bestowing a sweet little kiss on her nose.

  "We good?" She asked as cooly as she could manage.

  "Yeah?" His response warbled on a laugh, and it coaxed a reassured smile out of her. "I'd say so."

  “...Gave you another boner."

  "Oh." He glanced down and said with a sardonic tone, "Shit, thanks for telling me. I'd have never known."

  By the time his gaze returned to her, Margie met it with a stony, straight face.

 His amused expression wavered. "...What?"

Holding his gaze, she pressed down on his erection with a forefinger before turning her eyes to watch it as she let it spring upward in a marvellously undignified display of structural tension. The juvenile mistreatment of his manhood left Raf at a temporary loss for words and Magritte stifled her laugh into a snort. Before he could chide her, she shoved both hands beneath his shirt and lifted it, intent on freeing him of the garment completely. With a muffled exclamation, he complied, lifting his arms and finishing the job of pulling it off, over his head. 

Taking the opportunity to plant kisses across his chest and down his torso, Margie didn’t glance up to see his expression as her mouth dragged hungrily past his belly button and over the strip of body hair that led her down, towards the prize waiting for her between his legs. She rested her cheek against him, atop the unruly patch of honey coloured pubes that crowned his crotch, and closed her hand around the length of him. She was hopeless at measuring the size of anything with just a gaze, but he filled her grasp with a satisfying heft and was certainly longer than her hand. Favouring him with a well-appraising hum and a few loving strokes, she lifted her head to face her challenge. She peeled back the foreskin with a tender downstroke, before kissing the sensitive pink tip. 

  The scent of him was far from unpleasant; a heady musk that excited her senses goaded her to take him into her mouth. Slick moisture met her lips when they pressed against his flesh, and, when they parted to draw him in, her tongue was quick to receive him. She held the head of his cock in her mouth as her tongue swirled and lapped hungrily over its smooth contours. He provided texture more than taste; his scent informed the flavour perhaps more than anything else. Inside her mouth, he was velvety, warm, and gratifying to explore. She pulled her lips back over the gentle curves until they came together to kiss the tip again. Her tongue flicked out to lap the head’s underside before the rest of her mouth followed, and she drew him in deeper than before.

  She repeated that course, cherishing every bit of him with her tongue before pulling back to kiss the tip, and then drawing him into her mouth deeper with each successive round. Her thumbs had run up his inner thighs until they found the silky skin of his sack. She held and massaged it gently, appreciating the supple texture beneath her fingertips.

  Initially, Raf’s fingers had teased and entwined themselves in her nest of curls somewhat languidly. But slowly, his hands grew tense against the back of her head, occasionally clenching into fists around handfuls of her hair. She thought–and hoped–that he’d start pulling, but any time he came close to doing so, he quickly released his grip. She could have lamented that, but she appreciated the same restraint applied to the motions of his hips. As a precaution, Margie placed a steading hand around one side of his waist, but she knew from experience that this was poor defence against an overeager thrust. Under her palm, she could feel his muscles tense and flinch. That, coupled with the slight, uneven rolling of his hips, betrayed his urge to buck against her mouth. For his considerate efforts, she rewarded him by trying to decipher and match the pace that his rigidly subdued movements suggested to her. 

  “...Christ.” His breaths had been coming up deep and steady and the muttered profanity was barely audible to Magritte, but she caught it with a thrill.

  In response, she closed her eyes and pulled him into her throat so that her lips were flush against the hot skin of his lower abdomen. Her throat constricted uncomfortably around the intrusion that had smoothed over her tonsils, and she pulled back before it forced her to gag. Taking a deep, steadying breath through her nose, she allowed herself a precious second before swallowing him again. Her throat was no happier for it, but making a man's dick disappear was her favourite little party trick. Raf’s fingers brushed over her jaw in a gesture that permitted her to release him, but she ignored it in favour of challenging her gag reflex a third time.

  “Margie–!” He cupped her face more firmly, and this time, she obeyed what was clearly a request, not a suggestion.

  She pulled back, hollowing out her cheeks so that he left her mouth with an audible *pop*, and turned a sheepish smile up to him. 

  He met her gaze with a mix of awe and incredulity.“Holy shit, warn me next time.” 

  Providing him with an unrepentant shrug, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Too much?"

  “I mean, not if you’re trying to get this done and over with real quick.”

  To that, Magritte flashed her teeth in an impish grin. “Finish him!”

  Her poor yet unmistakable Mortal Kombat impression caused Raf’s brow to crease quizzically before a bark of laughter escaped him. “No, why are you like this?”

  He flattened his palm against her face, and she let out an ineffective chihuahua-like snarl as he irreverently pushed her backwards so that she laid flat on her bed. She landed with a fit of giggles, and she felt his thumbs hook into the waistband of her panties. He slid them down past her knees and Magritte was able to wriggle the garment down, off her ankles. Kneeling between her legs, Raf grabbed her by the waist and playfully dragged her towards him so that her hips met his.

  As he descended upon her with a flurry of kisses, she felt his erection lay flat across her stomach–the slick coat of moisture it wore from her mouth cooled on her skin. She couldn’t help but writhe eagerly beneath him; one hand in his hair while the other grasped and clawed needily along his lower back. His hands worked much more purposefully. One arm coiled around her shoulders to brace the both of them as the other snaked down her belly, fingertips finding the warm, damp flesh between her legs. He teased apart her lower lips, pressing a firm thumb just above her clit and massaging it gently. His middle and ring fingers skated easily downward to find her opening; tender and wet with her arousal. He pressed a careful finger into her and, when it sunk in with ease, he inserted another. With gentle strokes and twists, he acquainted himself with her; winning pleased hums and a determined roll of her hips as he felt the boundaries of her interior. His breath came up in heavy sighs as he kissed, bit, and sucked the flesh of her neck. She was aware, too, of how his hips rolled against hers with a neediness that mirrored her own. 

  His fingers withdrew from her and, for a moment, so too did his lower body. With keen anticipation, Margie wrapped her legs firmly around him for leverage, sinking her heels into the back of his calves as she lifted her hips up to receive him. He didn’t leave her waiting. She felt his cock press against and part her flesh to make space for itself. Swollen with arousal, her body provided pleasant resistance before surrendering to envelop him. He sank into her with gratifying ease; fitting comfortably between her legs. A delighted gasp escaped her when he drew his hips flush to hers, eliciting a ripple of pleasure that radiated out from her inner flesh, down into her toes. Her muscles clenched around him instinctively, and her knees lifted to hold him as closely to her as possible.

  At the sound of her breathy little mewl, a chuckle rose from Raf’s throat followed by another one of his contemplative hums. This time, though, an unmistakable satisfaction boiled in the low rumble of his tone.

  In Margie’s opinion, this was one of the best parts of sex; the initial feeling of having that aching, hungry gap between her thighs filled the warm, hefty girth of her lover. But there was something uniquely gratifying about hosting Raf in this manner, and the reason wasn’t a mystery to her. Without question, he was the most good looking man to ever find himself between her legs. From the first day she met him in Granville Station, she had been charmed by his lopsided smirk, dorky goatee, and aloof demeanour. His torn jeans and goofy dollar store sunglasses hadn’t been able to outcompete the easy charisma and gentle kindness he carried with him. He had a handsome face, a nice body that he took care of, and a mindful confidence that belied the tumultuous anxieties that plagued him. As she had gotten to know him better, she only adored him more.

  ‘Adored’. Hah, who am I kidding.

  She loved him, no revelation there. He didn’t have to rub an orgasm out of her and stick his dick in for her to realise that. She loved easily, and recklessly, and had known she was pooched after their very first jam session. He had been fun to play with, gave her kind praise and honest feedback, and made her feel like he genuinely enjoyed spending time with her. That and a pretty face was really all it took to win her loyal affections.

  But he was a skittish creature, and she loved him enough to find joy in whatever form their relationship took. Otherwise, she’d have overcrowded and overwhelmed him, and he–like all the others before him–would have grown to resent everything he initially claimed to like about her. She likened herself to salt; best enjoyed sparingly, and never on its own. It’s why she had been so reluctant to move in with him, despite wanting to spend every minute of her time with him. Too much salt. She feared becoming unpalatable. 

  Well, now he’s balls deep in me, purring comfortably in my ear–which means I’ve got no choice but to make him cum so hard, he sees stars.

  She had tried to moderate her behaviour and failed. She failed the very moment she accepted the keys to his apartment. She failed when he sweetly offered to let her snuggle him in bed so that he could help warm her feet. There had been mornings when she woke up to the maddening feeling of his stiffness pressed against the small of her back. She had remained very still and very quiet so as to not let him know that she had been awake before him, but good lord every muscle in her body had wanted to squirm against him. Without fail, the very moment he woke up, he’d carefully–very carefully–untangle his limbs from hers and turn away before getting out of bed to start his day. And without fail, she’d spend the consiquent morning too cumbrained to even see straight. 

  Just like she couldn’t say no to an apartment key and nightly snuggles, she couldn’t say no to a kiss. She couldn’t help but push it to see where it’d go. And now she was here. Remarkably. Unregrettably.

  ‘I couldn’t help myself,’ said the scorpion, ‘it’s in my nature.’

  A bit too late, Margie realised that Raf’s satisfied rumblings in her ear had been forming actual vowels and consonants.

  “Hm-?” She returned to the present moment with a flinch she hoped he didn’t notice.

  “I like your little noises,” he replied.

  “Oh.” Magritte blinked, running fingers through his hair. She used the back of her heel to caress the curve of his butt with irreverent affection. “Well then, giddy up, Mister Ephrem, and I’ll give you a cacophony!”

  She felt him grin against her jawline before grazing it with his teeth and providing an affirmative little growl. 

  His hips withdrew, only to rock forward into her again. His first few strokes were of a careful, measuring pace until he repositioned his knees further apart and closer to her body. Dropping his forehead down onto the mattress, over her shoulder, he grabbed her waist with two firm hands and pulled her up closer to him. He curled his torso to plunge into her more deeply. The angle of his cock struck a pleasing cluster of nerves inside her body, and she inhaled sharply as it retreated over her swollen flesh to slam back in against it in steady rhythm. Each time, his dick slid out of her until she was empty save for the stretch where they met; the lips of her cunt covetously hugging the contours of the cock’s head. And then he’d part her walls again with a forceful, hungry thrust; smoothing the mounds of velvety muscle that constricted around him and resisted his departing strokes.

  Every few thrusts forced a note of pleasure out of Magritte’s throat, carried on ragged huffs of breath. At first, her punctuated little cries only had to compete against the sound of Raf’s deep, steady breathing and the faint creaking of his bed. But, as her thighs became sticky and sodden from her arousal, the percussive sound of flesh on flesh began to drown out her little moans. Like the true musician he was, Raf searched for the right fingering to coax the sound he wanted out of her. His thumb pressed against the flesh right above her clit and rubbed it in quick, small circles as he continued to drive his cock into her. 

  The feeling of being kneaded firmly between his fingers and his dick provoked a strangled cry that bubbled out of her mouth before she even registered it. A sharp, quavering breath preceded another ecstatic wail, and then another. She curled her arms tightly around the back of Raf’s neck and attempted to muffle the chorus of her euphoria against his shoulder.

  The mounting tension caused her muscles to clench. The way his dick pushed against the walls of her cunt as it constricted around him only intensified the pressure that welled up inside her.

  “Oh, fuck. Fuck.” They were barely words, carrying the same quaking tone as her blissed-out yowls. 

  In response, Raf reached up to roughly smooth her hair back and cradle her head. He buried his nose into her hair, and pressed clenched teeth against her temple in a gesture that might have initially been intended as a kiss. His thrusts had grown desperate and uneven, but the hand that worked her clit remained fastidious in its efforts, bringing her so, so, so achingly close.

  “Good girl.” His voice was a breathy growl against her skull. “Come on, now…”

  Her legs had been wrapped around him so tightly that her muscles ached. But it provided the leverage she needed to buck against him with fervent need. He drove into her with short, rapid thrusts, barely withdrawing to slam as deeply into her as their bodies would permit; hitting up against her tightening core–until the dam of pressure burst to release a flood of sensation across every part of her. In the seconds leading up to it, Margie had fallen completely silent, drawing in a long breath that she held in her chest until the crashing wave of her orgasm forced it out of her. She felt the pulses of pleasure throb in her lower abdomen, caressing the man inside of her in a way that she never consciously could.

  At some point during her climax, Raf’s hands had both found her waist again, gripping her rapaciously as he chased his own pleasure. His breaths came up in short, uneven bursts, and the undeliberate groans being drawn out of him composed the greatest piece of music she had ever delighted in hearing.

  She writhed her hips to meet him at every feverish thrust. Slowing to longer, powerful strokes, he slammed into her once, twice, and with a quiet growl, he buried himself as deeply as their bodies would allow. His strong grip pressed her hard against him, holding her firmly in place as the force of his orgasm punched the breath out of his lungs. As he came inside of her, his hips strained against her body with the feral desire to empty himself deeper.

  This, too, was one of the best parts of sex, Margie decided. She’d never gone about it without a condom before, and while the thrill was almost certainly a psychological one, the verdict was in; she very enjoyed the feeling of having her insides painted lovingly white. She liked it a lot. With the covetous squeezing of her thighs and abdominal muscles, she made it known to him.

  The two of them remained locked together in a hot, messy, panting heap on the bed for an immeasurable moment before Raf nuzzled his face into the crook of Margie’s neck with a long, bodily sigh. She drew a hand up to affectionately caress his neck and the back of his head.

  “W...we good?” Her voice came up raspy, cracking on the second word, and she couldn’t help but exhale a little laugh at herself.

  “Mmh,” was the most Raf could conjure for a long while before he muttered semi-intelligible, “Magnifique.” He echoed her laugh with one of his own before bringing his arms forward to prop himself up, off of her. 

  As she allowed him to decouple from her, she curled her hands under her chin, reluctant to sit up with him…for reasons relating to gravity and fluids. 

  Sitting on his knees with her legs across his lap, Raf provided a mollifying grin that favoured one side of his face. “I, uh–shit.” He dropped his face into one of his palms with a self-deprecating laugh. “Ejected some of my brain cells there, I think.”

  “A shower might help with that,” Margie offered with a broad smile that flashed her teeth. “I’ll take one with you.” 

–

  It had been as though they spent the evening doing any other typical thing. It could have been a night of board games, for how casually Magritte navigated the aftermath of their activities. Raf had expected some manner of uncomfortable, condolatory discussion that went long into the early hours of morning; how they had liked it, whether or not they’d do it again, what it meant for their relationship, if it meant anything at all. But that conversation never occurred.

  Margie had made her enjoyment known while she shared a shower with him, and bestowed easy praise on his ‘excellent fingering’. In turn, he confessed that he could grow quickly addicted to the adorable little trills, yelps, and moans he had been able to coax out of her. Not to mention the other things she could do with her mouth. Dieu, mon fucking dieu. 

  The rest was clear enough to be obvious without discussion. Sex could just be another thing they did together when the mood struck–if it stuck at all. It hadn’t come with any promises or expectations, not any more than playing music or snuggles in bed had. It was the best Raf could have hoped for.

   Magritte seemed wholly uninterested in applying the pressures of romantic commitment onto him. If there was ever anything she wanted, she could never help but to edge it into conversations one way or another–he knew that much about her. Instead, she seemed entirely set on making sure she didn’t bring up anything even approaching the matter. She said she liked things the way they were, and, while his brain could question the truth in that–or in anything she said–he was of much the same opinion. Perhaps they had both come to the same understanding. Something about love, especially romantic love, brought out the worst in people. It had always seemed like a battle of wills; two people trying to deconstruct and reshape one another to fit the impossible moulds that would ensure the longevity of their relationship. How could anyone endure that kind of transformation without poisoning the relationship with resentment? He’d never know. He didn’t have to find out.

  Laying in bed at three in the morning, showered, satisfied, and cosy, with Magritte purring tiny snores in his arms, he couldn’t have asked for more. Whatever it was that he and Margie were enjoying together–friends with benefits?–suited him, so far. For all it mattered, she could decide to move across the sea next week, and he’d be unharmed by the decision so long as they remained on friendly terms. And that felt safe.

   What they had…it felt safe.

[pookiesatoru]

contains : princess / fem!reader, head knight!gojo, implied secret relationship. this is just... angst i guess with a sprinkle of fluff... overprotective gojo *moans* this is about 1k of brainrot word vomit hhhhhhhhhhhhh :D not proofread cause i'm lazy, pls ignore any mistakes!

time moved by far too slow for satoru. for someone whose day passed in a blink of an eye with all of his responsibilities, today was far too slow. it felt like watching paint dry. it felt like a snail moving across the pavement. it felt like a century had passed before the bright light of the sun finally started to set. dusk slowly turning into night, and as the moon took its place in the night sky, was he able to escape from his duties and finally able to walk to your bedroom, hands held in tight fists by his sides.

"you two may leave. the king wants me to be stationed here for tonight." a lie. but the two guards didn't know any better. why would they ever think their head knight would ever lie to them in the first place.

what they don't know, won't hurt them, was what gojo told himself, watching the two salute him and proceeding to walk down the corridor far away from your bedroom. he waited till they were out of sight first and then listened out for the clunking noises the armour made as they walked down the stairs. when it was finally silent, he opened your door, shutting it behind him quickly.

you almost let out a scream at the sudden intrusion into your space. fear from the attack on your life only a night prior still too fresh in your mind. but the white mop of hair on top of the males head had you sighing in relief, aware that it was not an intruder but in fact satoru. but that relief didn't stay for too long. you were well aware that the king would have placed guards outside your door to keep you safe after what had happened and you could not afford to let your relationship with satoru be revealed just yet.

"satoru, what are you doing here? my father–" your worried whisper was cut short rather abruptly.

"fuck your father." if satoru was in a better mindset than he is now, he never would have spoken of the king, your father, in such a way and he's never been more glad there were no guards standing post outside your bedroom to judge his vulgar use of words towards the monarch either.

"are you hurt? did they touch you?" immediately, he's bombarding you with questions, eyebrows furrowed deeply as his eyes start to dart over your body. inspecting you. "would you let me have a look at you. please?"

you nod slightly, but turn your head to the right side a little, fearing what he'll do when he sees it.

his takes large but quiet strides towards you, hands that shook with fear now reaching out to hold your wrists. he inspects your skin, slowly, letting his hands and eyes travel across your skin, and it all seems fine until he brushes the strands of hair out of your face and finally notices the freshly dried blood on your cheek. it looked deep. no, it was deep. gojo was no stranger to cuts and bruises, even with a simple glance he could tell it was deep. it would leave a scar behind and it would take time to heal.

"i..." he inhales shakily, trying to keep his voice low as he could. an attempt to keep himself calm, to keep himself from lashing out. "i-i should have been there."

"satoru..." you began, only to be cut off again.

"i should have fucking been there." remorse. that's all satoru could feel. remorse for not being by your side like he had promised many moons earlier as you two hid from the maids attempting to prepare you for bed. remorse for not being by your side to keep you from harm. but hidden in that remorse, was also anger. anger that anyone even dared to touch a princess – not just any princess. his princess. the very princess that would become his queen in the future. the very princess that should have everyone in the land bowing to her. the princess he loves and swore to keep out of harms way.

"i should have fucking protected you. shit– i should have been there. i should have been protecting you like i said i would... i'm sor–"

"toru. i'm okay. please look at me." you place a gentle had over his chest, albeit over his armour, you swear you're able to feel how furiously his heart is beating. it doesn't take a genius to see all the emotions swimming in his eyes.

worry. hurt. pain. regret.

"satoru - the strongest knight in the kingdom... my favourite knight - gojo. i am okay. i promise you." the praise earns a brief smile from him before it fades, his thumb brushing the deep cut on your cheek ever so gently but it makes you inhale sharply anyway. it causes gojo to flinch, withdrawing his warm hands immediately but you reach out for his wrist with both hands desperately. "n-no! it... it jus' hurts because it's fresh... please, i just– i just need to feel you, toru. please, don't be afraid to touch me."

it was all gojo needed to hear from you. all he needed was your permission to touch you and he does. he cups your face in his hands, watching as the tension and stress leaves your body, jaw loosening and eyebrows relaxing. he watches as your eyes close for a few seconds before fluttering open. you place a kiss against the palm of his hand. "will you please stay the night with me? i'm... afraid they will come back." gojo watches you tense up at the mention of the men who tried to hurt you last night. his response is immediate.

"of course i will." his thumb finds its way to the wrinkles in the middle of your eyebrows, rubbing the spot a little. "do not frown so much. you will start looking older than you are, princess."

his teasing earns a smile from you, and he's glad when he sees you soften in his hold. the both of you stay silent for a while, finding comfort in the silence and each other. you've always felt safe with satoru, and tonight is no different.

"princess," he begins, pulling you in by your waist ever so slightly, your body pressed up against his armour. "i swear on my life, i will kill any bastard who dares lay so much as a finger on you again. i promise you. i'll execute them myself." you do not bother replying to him, instead sealing the promise he's made by standing on your tippy toes to press your lips against his.

[divorcedfiddleford]

it is friday my dudes (little hearts added by @tazmiilly)

[bowenoke]

sorry I tried to make your boyfriend the protagonist of a timeloop au but- yeah. no, yeah. the horror of the situation and his utter powerlessness got to him. yeah. he's changing as a person but incapable of moving forward. sorry

[onebizarrekai]

I've been going back and forth trying to decide whether I want to make the old ibvs oneshots be available on ao3 but every time I look at them I go into a state of shock at how… absolutely teenager they are

also this

[katethevampire]

Okay so I finished the Book of Bill recently and I've been checking through the tags and I haven't seen anyone talking about this

Like.. I've seen so many interpretations of the twins parents and stuff over the years and we have more info but no one has brought this up???? (At least that I've seen)

[astrobei]

anonymous prompt: “this isn’t byler but do you think you could write some hopper trying to achieve some step-son stepfather bonding time with a reluctant Will?”

As it turns out, in some weird subversion of all of Jim Hopper’s expectations, teenage girls are a hundred times easier to figure out than teenage boys.

El had been a bit of a blank slate at first. She liked Eggo waffles and daytime TV and when Jim put his records on, she didn’t complain. Maybe she just didn’t know that there were other types of music out there, but as far he was concerned, there wasn’t much worth knowing about that wasn’t Jimi Hendrix anyway.

And then things started falling into place a little. El liked Eggo waffles, but she liked them most with the kinds of toppings on top that he wasn’t supposed to technically be eating anymore– whipped cream and candy and enough sugar to induce a heart attack twenty years early.

She liked the daytime TV just fine, but she liked it better when he watched it with her, telling her what all the unfamiliar words meant. Word of the day, he’d said as a joke, when she’d asked what infatuated meant. The irony of that wouldn’t hit him for another year or so.

She liked Jimi Hendrix okay, but he suspects that she actually just liked watching him dance around to the records more than she did any guitar riff, no matter how captivating they might have been. He doesn’t blame her. He’d never claimed to be a good dancer, but he sure could be an entertaining one.

So this is where he stands, currently. Teenage girls are fine. Teenage boys are, actually, a mystery beyond comprehension.

Or maybe it’s just Joyce Byers’ teenage boys that are hard to figure out.

Yeah. That’s probably it.

Jim’s sure he hasn’t been like this when he was younger. He’d been very straightforward about his interests: his dad’s vinyl collection of 50’s rock ‘n roll, the chocolate milkshakes at the local diner, and cutting class to smoke with Joyce Byers under the east wing stairs.

Some of these more so than others, maybe, but they’d been very simple interests all the same. Nicking Marlboros from his dad’s jacket pocket when he wasn’t looking, then slipping them into Joyce’s waiting fingers as she slid into the stairwell next to him. He’s pretty sure his dad knew where the cigarettes had been going, and he’s also pretty sure he didn’t care.

“What are you smiling about?”

Seventeen-year-old Joyce vanishes in a puff of stale smoke, and suddenly, she’s here in front of him again. The real thing this time, not a hazy, memory-worn apparition– faded cotton shirt, plaid flannel pajama pants. Smiling down at him, holding a pan of scrambled eggs in one hand and a spatula in the other.

Jim raises his eyebrows. “Nothing.” He shakes his head as she spoons eggs onto his plate. “I just– I haven’t seen you smoke in a while.”

Joyce huffs out a small laugh as she slides into the chair next to him. It’s early, barely seven in the morning. The kids don’t usually get up until well into the midmorning on summer days like this, so early mornings are for them and them alone. “I’m trying not to. El doesn’t like the smell.”

“Oh. She told you?”

“Will did.”

“Ah.” He takes a careful sip of his coffee. “What about Will? He doesn’t mind it?”

He can’t see Joyce’s mouth behind her mug, but her eyes are definitely smiling. “He doesn’t like it either. He just stopped saying so after a while.”

“Yeah, that sounds like him.”

Joyce laughs again, this time as she squirts a generous dollop of ketchup on her plate. “What, you didn’t kick the habit when you were locked up?”

“Oh, no,” Jim chuckles. “No way. I thought I would, for a while, but– it’s true, you know, what they say about cigarettes being worth as much as gold in there.”

“Really?”

They don’t talk about Russia much– at least not out here. Not in the morning, not after a good night’s sleep, not in the kitchen, where things are supposed to be happy and warm and filled with light. This isn’t the place for it– for things that are dark and cold and desolate, for monsters or funerals or death.

He clears his throat. “Hey,” he says instead, “listen, I was thinking.”

“Oh, yeah? About what?”

“I was thinking, maybe,” he starts, speaking more into the inside of his mug than to Joyce, now. “Maybe I’ll take Will out for the day. Do something together.”

If Joyce is surprised at all, it doesn’t show. “Yeah? To where?”

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” he admits, and she gives him an amused look. “I wanted to ask you first.”

Now she looks surprised. “What? Why?”

“I don’t know,” Jim shrugs, “he’s your kid! I didn’t want to cross any boundaries, or–” He trails off at the look on her face. “What?”

Joyce ducks her head, smiling softly. “No, that– that’s sweet, Hop. If he’s okay with it, then I’d love for you two to do something together.”

“Really? You think he would?”

“I–” Joyce starts, and then gets a contemplative look on her face. “You know he adores you, right?”

“Please,” Jim snorts, “he’s a sixteen year old boy. He doesn’t adore anybody.”

“Except–”

“We don’t talk about Wheeler before noon, Joyce,” Jim interrupts, and then Joyce is throwing her head back in another laugh. It’s a nice look, Jim thinks, maybe not as privately as he’d like. He’s sure she can tell exactly what’s on his mind.

“Okay! Sorry! But yes, of course. Go have a day out, just the two of you.”

“Okay,” he agrees, then takes a sip of coffee. “Okay. Sounds good.”

—-

The issue here is that given Joyce Byers’ infamous overprotectiveness, he’d thought acquiring her blessing to have a bit of adoptive father-adoptive son bonding would have been the hard part. And now he’s standing in front of Will’s room, hand raised to knock, feeling just about as jittery as he had when he had to give the Wheeler kid the shovel talk. 

Both times.

Now or never, Jim, he thinks, because for all of his bravery fighting monsters and Russians and that time he broke his own ankle and ran through miles of snow on foot, this doesn’t compare. This is Will. This is Joyce’s kid. And he doesn’t know why that makes him so nervous, but it does.

You can do it. It’s just a teenage boy.

He sighs, and raises his fist.

“Yeah?” Will’s voice is faint from behind the door. “Come in.”

“Hey,” Jim says, and then steels himself, gathering every remaining bit of courage in his body to say, “you got a minute to talk?”

Will raises his eyebrows. “Sure,” he says. It’s wary, cautious. He sits up further, from where he’d been reclining back on his pillows. “What’s up?”

It doesn’t take a genius to see that he’s on edge. Jim supposes maybe this is a bit out of the blue, so he tries to relax, tries to make sure his body language reads I come in peace. “What are you reading?” he tries, nodding towards the book in Will’s hands.

“Um.” Will turns it over, looks at the cover like he has to remind himself. “It’s Slaughterhouse Five. Jonathan gave it to me,” he says slowly.

Jim lets out a low whistle. “Damn. That’s impressive, kid. Is it any good?”

Will shrugs. “It’s okay so far. I just started though.”

Jim doesn’t know enough about Slaughterhouse Five to keep this conversation going with any merit, so he figures maybe he should just cut to the chase. “Hey, listen,” he starts, and Will’s eyebrows creep a little farther up his forehead. “I was thinking of spending a day out. Go for a drive, grab some lunch. You want to tag along?”

“Oh,” Will says. “Um.” He holds up his book. “I was thinking of getting ahead on this, actually.”

Jim Hopper has braved Russian prisons, secret labs, an underground dimension, his own faked death, and being stood up by Joyce Byers. This is fine.

“Okay,” he says, “that’s fine. No worries.”

“Sorry,” Will adds for good measure, still half-upright on his bed and looking very much like he does not want to be having this conversation.

“Seriously,” Jim says, already backing out into the hallway. “It’s okay. Have fun with the book, kid.”

—-

“He hates me, Joyce.”

Joyce shoots him a look as she climbs into the passenger seat of the car. “He does not hate you, Hop. Maybe you just caught him off guard.”

Jim groans, putting the car in reverse. “I knocked before I went in!”

“Jim.”

“What?”

Joyce pulls the cigarette out of his mouth and drops it into the ashtray. “Please don’t smoke in the car,” she chides. And then, “Well, what did you say to him?”

“I asked him about his book, and then if he wanted to tag along with me while I–”

“Okay, I’d say that caught him off guard a little.”

“How?” Jim exclaims, and then Joyce laughs.

“I don’t know! Will’s just– he needs a second, okay, Hop? Don’t take it personally. I promise he does not hate you.”

“Okay,” he grumbles, as they turn the corner past the high school. “One more shot, and then I’m accepting the fact that both your kids hate me.”

“Jonathan doesn’t hate you either,” Joyce says, but she looks like she’s fighting back a smile. “He just– he doesn’t show affection like that.”

“They hate me,” he repeats, accelerating down the backroad. “They both hate me.”

—-

Attempt #2 goes better. Somewhat.

“Hey,” Jim says as he walks through the door the next evening. Will is curled up on the couch, sketchbook open on his lap. He looks up as the door opens, startling slightly, then relaxes.

“Oh. Hey, Hop.”

Hey, Hop, he thinks. That’s better than Hello, Chief.

“Is your mom home?”

Will shakes his head and looks back down. “She’s at the Wheelers’. She’s having, um. Wine night. With Mike’s mom.”

“Oh, okay.” Jim pauses. “Hey,” he starts, and Will looks back up. “Listen, I don’t suppose you want to watch a movie or something tonight?”

Will blinks. “A movie?”

You’ve come back from the dead, Jim, he thinks. This is just a sixteen year old boy. He shrugs. “Yeah, you know, everyone’s out for the evening. Thought we could make a night of it, just us two.”

“Um.”

“You can pick,” Jim offers, tossing his hat on the kitchen table. “I won’t judge your taste, I promise.”

Will’s lips twitch upwards at the corners, ever so slightly. “I have good taste,” he protests, and Jim shrugs, like sure! Okay! “But I can’t today. Um. Sorry.”

“Oh. Big plans tonight?”

“Actually,” Will starts, pursing his lips. “Mike and I are grabbing dinner soon.”

Oh. Oh. Okay. It’s a bit of a low blow, getting passed over for the Wheeler kid, but it’s fine. Jim can roll with the punches. “Huh. Anywhere good?”

Will shrugs, but he looks like he’s on the verge of a smile. “Just the diner on Main Street.”

“Oh, the diner,” Jim laughs, pulling out a chair. “I used to go there every day when I was your age, actually. Best milkshakes on this side of Indiana.”

“Yeah?” Will puts his pencil down. “What was your order?”

“Ham and cheese. And a chocolate milkshake,” he answers immediately. He dreamt about those milkshakes, thought about them during long, cold nights behind bars, nothing but prison-grade gruel to fill his stomach. Comfort food. The kind of memory you hold on to longer than you’d expect.

“I get ham and cheese too,” Will says, and then he looks a bit surprised at himself, like this was something he didn’t mean to say. “Except I get, um. I get strawberry instead.”

Jim pretends to think it over. “Strawberry’s good,” he admits, “but not good enough.”

“Hey!” Will says, laughing. “Come on. Chocolate is so boring.”

That feels like a win, even if it’s a small one. He’s smiling before he realizes it. Making light banter over milkshake flavors shouldn’t be this exciting, not for someone like him, not for someone who’s been through what he has, but–

“You need a ride?” Jim holds up his car keys, still clutched in one hand. “I can drop you off.”

The smile fades slightly from Will’s face. “Oh, um. Mike’s picking me up, actually. In, like, ten minutes?”

“Wheeler can drive?”

“He got his license last month,” Will says, picking at a loose thread on the blanket. Jim’s first instinct is to protest– something about that’s not safe, and I don’t know if that’s the best idea, but he bites his tongue.

If Mike Wheeler can kill monsters, he can drive a car just fine. Probably.

“Okay,” he says at last, standing up and grabbing his hat. “Have fun, kid. Tell Wheeler to drive safe. Five under the speed limit. It’s my buddies on patrol tonight, remember.”

Will looks like he simultaneously wants to laugh and groan. “Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Hop. I’ll tell him.”

“Have a milkshake for me,” Jim says, then slinks off to his room.

Okay. That could’ve gone worse.

—-

“Okay, I don’t think he hates me.”

Joyce gives him a look like see? “I told you he doesn’t hate you,” she says, reaching across him for the olive oil. “What did you say this time?”

“Something about watching a movie,” Jim says. “I was– God, okay, Joyce, can you take over the onions for me?”

Joyce laughs, and says, teasing, “Broke your way out of a prison but chopping onions is too much?”

“This is why I don’t cook,” he says, then makes his way over to the record player in the corner of the living room. “I’ll take over music duty.”

“Sure,” Joyce calls. “You don’t cook because of onions.”

Steely Dan crackles to life as he turns around. “Oh, yeah,” he grins, “this is it. This is the good stuff.”

“Jim,” Joyce laughs. “What– are you supposed to be dancing?”

Hey, he’s said it before. He’s not the best dancer, but he’s definitely an entertaining one. “Times are hard,” Jim croons along, and Joyce’s laughter grows. “You’re afraid to pay the fee–”

“You’re awful,” Joyce shakes her head, even as Jim grabs a hold of her hands. “And– Hop, my hands are all onion-y.”

He ignores her. “When you need a little bit of lovin’–”

“Ew,” comes a voice from the hallway, and Jim turns around.

“Hey, hon,” Joyce says absentmindedly, dropping his hands and wiping hers on the towel. Onion, she mouths at him. “What’s going on?”

Will shoots him a bit of a strange look. “Sorry. I was just wondering when dinner was going to be.”

“Twenty minutes?” Jim offers, then grins. “Thirty if your mom tries to put me back on onion duty.”

Will crinkles up his nose and turns in the direction of the living room. “What are you playing?”

“I don’t wanna do your dirty work,” Jim belts out in response. Joyce and Will stare, identical dumbfounded expressions on their faces. “Steely Dan?” Jim offers.

Nothing. Apparently he’s dating into a family with zero taste.

“Sorry,” Joyce shrugs. “It’s cute, though!”

Cute! He squints in Will’s direction. “You too?”

Will mirrors Joyce’s shrug. “Sorry. It’s not really my thing.”

“Oh? What’s your thing, then?”

Will stands up a bit straighter. “I don’t know,” he says. “Um. I like The Cure. Stuff like that.”

“The Cure,” Jim muses. “That band, you got the, uh. You’ve got records of theirs, right?”

“Yeah,” Will smiles, then moves forward to sit down at the table. “Jonathan gave me some of his older ones when he left for college so I started, uh. I started collecting them.”

Okay. Okay, he can work with this.

Over Will’s shoulder, Joyce shoots him an impressed look and a thumbs up. You got this, she mouths, and then, aloud: “Hey, I just remembered, guys, I’ve got to go deal with the laundry. Just a second.”

Will frowns. “The laundry isn’t going right now.”

“Okay, then I’ve got to run a load. Be right back,” Joyce says, and then she flashes him another thumbs up and she’s gone, off down the hall.

There’s a moment of silence. Will looks around the kitchen– at the pasta boiling on the stove, the dishes in the sink, the wooden grain of the table. “Okay,” he says after a moment, “I think I should–”

“Hey,” Jim blurts out, “why don’t you, uh. Why don’t you bring one of your records out? You can have a turn.”

Will stops, halfway out of his seat. When he speaks, it’s quiet, a little pleased. “Yeah?” 

Jim nods, spreads his hands out. “Show me what you got.”

Will comes back a couple minutes later with a record in his hands. “Um,” he starts, “so this is their newest one, they released it a couple months ago.”

The red of the cover looks vaguely familiar. Jim’s sure he’s seen this one around in the record shops, something like that. “Very interesting,” he says, as Will drops the needle carefully onto it. “This is, uh–”

He knows the band, of course. He’s not that out of touch. But Will’s mouth twitches as he says, “The Cure,” and then, “um. This is one of my favorites so far.”

Jim doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t the guitar. Drums, coming in steady and insistent. He lets out a low whistle. “Alright, wow. Didn’t take you for a rock fan, kid.”

To his surprise, Will smiles. A real smile. “Yeah,” he says, standing awkwardly by the record player. “Jonathan got me into them when I was younger. Um. I guess he liked stuff that had loud guitar and drums and stuff so, you know, I also– I like that stuff too.”

“Loud guitar,” Jim snorts. “Yeah, that sounds like your brother.”

“My dad– um,” Will says, hesitantly. “Lonnie. He hated loud music. The drums and the– I think that’s why Jonathan listened to it so much.”

Right, Jim thinks. Lonnie Byers, an infamously giant piece of work. That checks out. And then, another smaller voice pipes up with You’re the chief of police, Jim. You can get away with–

“Oh, kiss me, kiss me, kiss me,” the song croons, “your tongue’s like poison–“

Will’s eyes widen. “Um,” he says, fiddling with the player. “Um, actually, let’s– I like this other song too, so–”

Jim bites back a laugh. “I like it,” he says, which isn’t a lie. It could grow on him. “The guitar. It’s nice.”

“Really?”

“Yeah,” Jim nods, and then, as the second song starts to pick up– “Will.”

“Hm?”

“Is this a love song?” he grins. “Your second favorite is also a love song?”

“I– no,” Will splutters, immediately turning a brilliant scarlet. “‘Just Like Heaven’ is not a–”

“–I kissed her face and kissed her–”

“Lots of kissing in these songs,” he points out, and Will groans.

“Oh my God, it’s not–! The album is literally called Kiss me, Kiss me, Kiss me–”

Jim grins. Teenage boys are complicated, maybe, but you can count on them all getting flustered the same way. “I’m just teasing, kid. Could you go get your mom, please, because this sauce is about to burn and I don’t trust myself with it.”

“I wouldn’t trust her with it either,” Will mutters, even as he peers around the corner into the hall. “Mom?”

If Joyce hears him laughing, then– whatever. Jim gets a pass. It was for a good cause.

[floydsteeth]

My friend just told me to get left and right tattooed on their respective arms because i cant tell them apart

That's bullshit i can tell them apart

Hey thats kinda rude

Why the fuck would i get that tattooed of all things