#in fact i quite like his other stuff. its just they happened to pick the most boring of his imaginable

[become-a-robot]

What is your favorite album with the worst album cover and why is it BOOK They Might Be Giants

[nyx-is-missing]

hello! Can you write a Clarisse La Rue x reader where they met before Clarisse got sent to camp halfblood when they were little and were best friends then Clarisse left for camp with no explanation then years later reader goes to camp and sees Clarisse for the first time in years and it’s kinda awkward but cute

thanks :)

This is kinda long sooorrry, to help, the part where she gets to camp (kinda) will be in green

Girls on film 📷

Clarrise la rue x fem!reader

Warnings and explanations: bad words (take the kids out of the living room she swears) gender is specified cause it was written as wlw, but it doenst actually makes a diference, fluff, like two sentences, there is a kiss in the picture but they dont actually kiss sorry.

Unspecified parent gender for both sides so yall can pick wichever

Trying not to kill myself.

That was what i was doing 15 hours ago, just as any normal teenagers living (or as i prefer saying fighting for the soul to stay on the body) during finals week.

In my room there was nothing but piles and piles of normal work, piles for extra credit, piles of old quizzes to try to get me prepared for the new ones and a dumb incomplete project for photography class that was due tomorrow.

Okay ill admit, i had a month to make that, and all i needed to do was shoot pictures, but that was the problem, i prefer taking pictures of people, their emotions, whatever they might be, just never ceases to amaze me.

And my dumb project made take pictures of....landscapes.

Not too bad, if i had any actual real talent for that type of photography, but i dont, every picture gets ruined somehow, its the lightning, the lack of it, my camera falls, gets full of dirt and i get so mad that i just give up.

That whole speach was necessary for me to explain what i was doing 14 hours ago, and that would explain what i was doing 5 minutes ago.

14 hours ago i decided to shoot the photos, i could try many times before it got dark, and if o was lucky enough i wouldnt go insane before the golden hour, and could actually get some nice pictures.

I grabbed my totte bag taking with me only the necessary, camera stuff, the camera, some snacks and my notebook to upload the pictures before i went mad.

13 hours ago i was running to save my life.

And do you know that moment went you go through so much your mind decides to erase it?

That happened, now, what i do remember, i was sitting in a bench by a calm road not too far from the town, i had got some actually good pictures, some of me, some of the trees, some of a butterfly, maybe three cars had passed by since i was there, driving slowly, always saying hi and doing a thumbs up, normal, friendly people from the town.

And then i heard a noise that shook the trees.

I remember seeing something, but never what, i remember running to home as fast as i could, feeling my heartbeats in my neck, i remember the noise, but the people in the streets looked at me like there was nothing behind me and i went crazy

I remember getting home, having a desperate talk with my parent while they got my suiticase ready, and i dont remember a single word.

I remember a funny looking guy my age that got to my house, with goat legs and a more desperate look, and i remember one last hug before i left.

And thats all, aside from a hell of a lot of running nobody cares.

Aparently i passed out from shock or exaustion because i woke up in a unknown place, at night, in a hospital bed, with no actual doctors other than 15 year olds teenagers.

And a horseman standing in the corner, with quite a intelectual look actually.

And let me tell you guys that after the talk we had, if somebody told me i would marry queen Elizabeth within 4 days, i would just belived it.

Because nothing ever in my life would ACTUALLY beat up the level of crazyness of finding out i DO have another parent, they are just, A FUCKING GOD. GREEK. GODS. AH.

Then, after telling me my whole life was in fact, a big fat lie, the horseman... left.

Telling me i should sleep in the infirmary this night for precaution and that he was going to get me to a cabin tomorrow.

Like that was the most normal thing to ever happen to a human, he said goodnight and left.

While i sat there just trying to...basically form a sentence that wasnt "for fucks sake what the fuck was that"

I would have loved to say that i did slept that night, dreaming about glory and greek myths but that did not happened, at all.

I walked around the infirmary for hours, opening every cabinet and trying to make my mind to something, i searched for my stuff, and thankfully found my camera, with some pictures i hadnt noticed i had taken, one specific had a blurred thing in the forest.

When the first rays of sunlight appeared i got dressed, and decided that, in order to prove to myself (and probably to the mental hospital afterwards) i was not insane, i needed proof that i was actually living, actually there, being a demigodess, thats what they called.

Very few people were up already, and i did received some weird looks, it was clear nobody knew me, that was fine, i didnt knew anybody either.

I walked around taking some pictures, sometimes getting lost, but everything amazed me, the forest, the cabins, the stables, i found the entrance to a beach too, and then i got to the training area, aparently, i stayed far away, god forbid i woke up from this nightmare with a spear in my head, oh no, that would be bad.

Openning my camera i zoomed in the people, my speciality, it was sweet, seeing them trully smile, and not pretend for the picture, it was a genuine feeling the camera would keep forever, i zoomed around other peoples faces, but my camera focused on a face i could never forget, and she looked back at me, and realized i was there, but not that i was me, because she came towards me with a angry look.

Ill admit, the look scared me as hell, so much i tried to pretend i was never taking pictures of her, i slightly changed the angle and kept my face hidden behind the camera.

Do i need to say that did not fucking worked? No? Thank you.

"Who the fuck do you think you are taking random pictures of pe-"

She yanked my camera off of me mid sentence and stopped completely, looking like she had seen a ghost for some seconds.

"(Y/n)?"

"Clari?"

"How- what are you doing here!?"

She asked, with a worried look, still kind of confused, she did this look since we were little girls, and for a moment i had a big deja vu.

Two little girls running around, playing all day, telling each other secrets and stories, running to hug each other eveytime they were close, i still saw that girl in her eyes, but by her previous look, she did not.

"What am i doing here? What are YOU doing here? One day you dissapear without a trace, and your family said you went to a new school even though it was the summer, and now i find you sparring with a spear? You are that too? A demigoddes, i mean?"

I spoke fast, nervous, as if my time in the world with her would end just as it did once.

Instead of responding me right away, clarisse did something that maybe would scare every single soul she knew in the past years.

She hugged me. Hard.

Breathing me in, and not letting me go exactly as you would expect of someone who hasnt seen me in years.

"I couldnt tell you anything... it wouldnt be safe...im sorry, i missed my friend... i missed you."

I just looked at her for some seconds, and then hugged her again, this time i was the one making it extra tight, i was the one going insane by the reconforting smell of her shampoo, praying that she couldnt feel my heartbeats against her chest, and how strong they were.

"Just.. dont leave me again okay? And ill forgive you, i promisse"

[juuuulez]

Hiii, I hope I'm doing this right! I never made a request before.

I saw your Steve post, so what about Steve with a bit of a shy girl or like a blackcat girl. They are like pining for each other and she just shows it by baking him stuff.

If you don't like it no worries! I love your works <3 I hope you have a great day!!

SO CUTE!!! this has been rotting in my drafts but i think about it all the time…

like steve is a total idiot so he’s pulling out all the regular moves: he’s brought flowers to your doorstep four friday’s in a row, and each time all he gets is an awkward little thank you.

because he’s not gonna fuck this up, right? steve doesn’t want to be a total jackass like he has in the past, so he’s attempting to be a gentleman in order to woo you.

but it just doesn’t seem to be working. not that you seem uninterested, per se, just… not really picking up his hints. not biting the bait.

it’s cute how your face goes all red, and steve would love to tease you about it, for not the fact that you promptly retreat after every interaction.

and maybe he’s starting to give up a little :( to realise that you might not be that into him, that maybe he’s coming across as creepy and should save all this energy.

he’ll be complaining about it to dustin while in family video, munching absentmindedly on some cookies that are hiding under the counter. and dustin’s like, where the fuck did you get those?

“(y/n) made them.” steve would say, blunt and honest, not quite seeing the deeper meaning. “she drops them off when she returns a tape.”

“dude, are you serious?” dustin would be completely mind blown at this relevant of how fucking dense steve actually is.

“what? she bakes a lot, probably just has extra,” he’ll dismiss with a shrug. “it’s happened, like, five times now.”

after some long deliberation, a plan is constructed. yet, after all this time, steve is a little reluctant to believe dustin in thinking you’ve been dropping hints. but he’ll take it, anyway, because it’s the only hope he’s got.

two days later, steve is at your doorstep again. you open it with pursed lips, a nervous expression, ready to accept whatever little stupid gesture he has and completely embarrass yourself at the inability to say anything nice.

that’s why you’ve tried to show your appreciation, with cookies and cupcakes and brownies and blondies and shortbread. not that steve seems to be getting it.

but this time, instead of some colourful bouquet of roses (or whatever he could find in the neighbours front yard), steve puts his hands out to reveal:

a bag of flour.

“um,” he stammers, trying to accept the sheer stupidity of the gesture. “for your baking. you must.. go through a lot of it.”

the blush is all the same, a vision he’s accustomed to now, but the sparkle in your eye is different. this little grin overtakes your face, unable to keep it inside, shuffling awkwardly on the porch to pull the door open a little wider.

as usual, you step out to take the gift, feeling its weight in your hands.

steve half expects you to run away again, like usual, but this time the words bubble up your throat before your anxiety can squash them.

“do you want to come in?” you finally offer. “i can make you something fresh.”

[fiveht]

Proof of life (Adore pt 3)

Hello my sweet angel babies ♥️

I'm not going to be able to adequately express my gratitude for the steady stream of love (and concern, sorry) I've been receiving over the past couple of months. I'm so sorry I've been AWOL, it will definitely happen again. Because see, for me, I usually have to make a choice between social and creative fandom participation. My battery is small, and takes a long time to charge.

Thank you to everyone who's left comments and asks and DMs since I've been gone. I don't think I can respond to all of it, but rest assured those messages ping my cold, dead heart every time I see them.

So I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I did this same thing months and months ago, when I was working on Head Over Feet, and let me be clear: posting even a single word of a WIP goes against my every instinct and principle as an author. I am someone who likes to finish an entire story before I post any of it, and on top of that, I am NOT a fast writer, so the expectations that I'm setting up here might not be advisable. But I did it before and managed to finish the thing, and I want to give you guys something in exchange for being so unbelievably awesome, so here I am again.

This will probably be the only time I mention this story in public until it's finished and posted, and inquiries about my progress are unlikely to help with the writing process, I'm just saying. I reserve the right to change every last word of this before the final draft, and I also reserve the right to fall off the face of the planet and simply never finish it, as much as I will strive to prevent that from happening. Please be patient with me.

Anyway, here is my paltry offering to say thanks for the love: the (VERY rough) first ~1300 words of the third instalment of The Adventures of Soft Daddy and Danger Twink.

Sirius secures his handheld shower head to its holder at the edge of his clawfoot tub, and steps out carefully onto the bathmat. He shivers in the cool air outside the shower curtain; it's about twenty degrees below zero outside, so even if he could afford to run his ancient radiator at full blast, it probably wouldn't help much.

He dries himself off and checks his reflection in the mirror, turning his face this way and that as he tugs his hair out of the bun he'd piled it into to keep it dry during his shower. There's no need for makeup tonight, not when he's not even planning to put on clothes.

It's incrementally warmer when he steps out into the main room of his apartment. He gathers an array of splayed text books and notes from his bed and dumps them carelessly onto the couch, then closes his new laptop and places it delicately on the coffee table. It's the most expensive thing he owns, save for the Gucci backpack currently sitting in his wardrobe with a three-inch berth around it like his shoes and other bags might somehow contaminate it. It's weird owning rich-people stuff when you are still, objectively, broke as fuck.

He perches on the edge of his bed and sets his phone to charge, because his battery doesn't even last a day anymore, and he's going to need it this evening. He tucks it in next to his pillow and picks up his new toy.

The plug isn't much larger than the one he already has. A little longer, which is appealing, but no wider, so it shouldn't be a challenge to get it in comfortably. He disconnects it from its charger and hefts it in his hand, feeling the added weight from the electronics inside.

He picks up his phone, and hesitates when he sees the notification waiting for him.

Rieka: let's go out tomorrow

Rieka: the fact that we haven't been drunk since the term started is criminal

Rieka: we've had two chem labs and zero drinks

Sirius purses his lips, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. There's a fine line here, and he hasn't quite found it yet.

Me: got plans

Me: raincheck?

So complete avoidance is the best strategy, right?

Rieka: booooo 👎

He sighs, but at least she's not asking for an explanation. He opens a different conversation then, pushing all thoughts of Rieka Lupin into a tidy, sealed compartment, not to be opened during certain activities with a certain relative of hers.

Me: i'm ready

Me: are you in your office?

Daddy: Yup, I've got a few minutes

Daddy: Want me to call?

Instead of answering, Sirius hits the call button himself.

"Hey baby," Remus answers. His voice is already smooth and honey-sweet, and just from that, Sirius knows he's planning to lay it on thick tonight.

"Hi daddy," Sirius says with a smile. "Should I put it in now?"

There's a low chuckle over the line. "Are we feeling eager?"

"Always," Sirius says, laying back on his bed.

"Use the good lube I got you, it's gonna be in there a while."

He switches the call to speaker, and snags the bottle from his nightstand. "I threw out the old stuff, you've got me ruined for cheap lube."

"Only the best for that ass," Remus says, and Sirius can hear his smirk.

He gives the plug a liberal coating, running his fingers along its shape, his dick twitching just at the feel of the silky-smooth silicone, at the anticipation of what's about to happen. He spreads his legs wide, drawing one knee up to give himself easier access.

"Take it slow," Remus says, succinctly heading off Sirius' impulse to just shove the thing inside himself in one go. "Rub the tip against yourself, so you're nice and wet."

Sirius shuts his eyes as he obeys, sliding the slick end of the toy over his entrance. "Okay."

"Are you going to be a good boy for daddy tonight?"

"Uh-huh," Sirius says, teasing the very tip of the plug in and out of his hole.

"Tell me how."

"I'm not gonna touch."

"You're not gonna touch, and you're not gonna come."

"Yeah," Sirius says. His cock is starting to harden as his body tries to draw the plug inside. "Can I put it in, daddy?"

"Slow," Remus reminds him, "Slide it in nice and slow for me, baby."

Sirius catches his lip between his teeth and tries to push the plug in slowly, the way he knows Remus would do if he was here. 

The shower has left him relaxed and more than ready, and it's hard not to take advantage, just press the toy in to its limit because he can. But he's working on his patience -- under Remus' careful tutelage -- so he shuts his eyes and tries to savour it, the tease of the plug's rubber tip at his entrance, the slow stretch as he eases it past the slight resistance before he sighs, and his body eagerly accepts the intrusion.

"Mmmm," Sirius sighs as he settles the base of the plug flush against his entrance, shifting his hips and feeling the constant, dull pressure against his prostate.

"How's it feel?" 

"Good," Sirius says, splaying his legs out and just enjoying the pleasant fullness. It's been almost a week since Remus last fucked him, and that's just way too long. Christmas really spoiled him. He tugs the blankets up around him, because it's going to take some time before his body temperature is high enough to fight against the chill in his apartment.

"Have you tried out the settings at all?" Remus asks him, and Sirius picks up the phone, switching off speaker and holding it to his ear.

"No," he says, grinding his ass down against the bed to test the plug's reach inside him. "I thought you'd rather do the honours."

Remus hums, and Sirius hears the phone shifting in his grip. "I'm gonna turn it on, okay? Lowest setting."

"O--" Sirius stutters as the plug buzzes to life inside him, nestled snug against his prostate and sending little zings of pleasure down his legs. "Fuck that feels good. That's the lowest setting?"

"It is," Remus confirms. "Want to run through them all, see how high it goes? Or would you rather be surprised?"

"Mmmm, surprise me."

"Surprise it is," Remus says, and Sirius hears shuffling papers in the background as he prepares for his night class. Psychology 1001, Thursdays, 7-9:30PM. Two and a half hours of a lecture that Remus swears he's given so many times he could recite it in his sleep, so why not give himself something fun to focus on while he goes through the motions? 

Being privy to all of this brilliant, upstanding man's secret perversions is a privilege Sirius does not take lightly.

"You can turn it off from the app if you need to," Remus is saying, "Or you can call me and I'll switch it off. My phone's on vibrate, so I'll see it right away."

Sirius smiles to himself. "Got it," he says, though this is a rehashing of the rules that Remus had laid out when he'd brought the plug over last weekend. He'd called it a "late Christmas gift", as if he hadn't already given Sirius several thousand dollars worth of presents on Christmas morning.

There's more rustling over the line, the squeak of a chair. 

"Tell me again how you're going to be good tonight."

"I'm not gonna touch myself, and I'm not gonna come." The toy is still buzzing away inside him, making everything a little fuzzy at the edges. 

"Tell me why."

"'Cause daddy's in charge, even when he's not here."

"Good boy."

Sirius squirms with pleasure, his cock smearing a little drop of fluid on his belly as the toy hums insistently at his prostate.

"I have to head out," Remus says. "How do you feel?"

"Good," Sirius says, his abs tensing as he shifts his legs and the angle of the toy changes. "Excited."

"Me too," Remus says softly. "I'll talk to you soon, beautiful. Send me some pictures." With a low beep, the call disconnects.

[ot3]

Hi, I just finished the AA trilogy with my bf and we fell in love with it! I found your blog the other day, and it sometimes feels like you're the only one giving correct takes on these characters' writing and the minutiae of everyone's inner worlds (or the fumbling of, see Godot).

I just got here, but, something that's been bothering me about the fandom's approach to the sequel trilogy is like... the imperialist undertones are glossed over, or swept under the rug. Researching "The Dark Age of the Law" and beyond puts a sour taste in my mouth. And with Khura'in the country vs Kurain the village? It all feels racist at best (the concept of the Divination Seance gives me squick). If you have the time, I'd love to hear your thoughts about AA5 and AA6 in relation to the world of AA as a whole. Thanks again for all of your thoughtful and nuanced takes on this series!

so glad to hear you guys liked the games!! thank you for enjoying my posts, i always appreciate it.

the tl;dr of it is that i do think they are genuinely bad enough additions to the franchise that they have signed mainline ace attorney's death warrant. picking out the dark age of the law stuff and aa5 and the imperialism in aa6 you've pretty much honed right in on my two biggest critiques

however i do want to say that although they're being bundled and sold as a 'second trilogy' that's not quite accurate either experientially when playing the games or from a development perspective. aa4 had scenario design/creative direction by series creator shu takumi, with the art director being kazuya nuri (responsible for character design for rise from the ashes in the series previous to this); aa5+6 was spearheaded by takeshi yamazaki, who had been with the franchise since its first game, with the slightly less tenured takuro fuse on art direction/character design. yamazaki and fuse are not without skill, but i think they're both significantly less skilled than takumi and nuri respectively and. it really shows.

pair that with the fact that aa5 and 6 fundamentally do not follow up on any of ace attorney 4's established characters or plots more than superficially, i don't think it's particularly useful to critique 4-5-6 as if they're a single body of work in the same way the trilogy is. apollo justice isn't a perfect* ace attorney game but it's a good one.

anyway i think buying into the 'dark age of the law' stuff in ace attorney 5 necessitates cheapening all of the events preceding it. the implication that 1. the law wasn't that bad before but it Is Now and 2. a single case was the tipping point for whether or not the entire legal system would be bad just ruins the times when ace attorney has managed to acknowledge corrupt systems as a massive source of problem for the everyman in the past

i think this screenshot from the dark age of the law wiki page says a lot:

For starters, that phoenix quote. He would not fucking say that. I don't think there has ever been a point during or leading up to phoenix's career where he thought the legal system had 'glory' he would then want to restore it to. you seem to get it so im not gonna harp on this too much on this but. jesus christ

then, then there's fact that even by stating the most basic details about the franchise's events undermines the whole premise. like okay notice that the corruption that happens during the trilogy/investigations spinoffs is coming from all of the actual agencies that represent law and order/the system: the prosecutors, the police, and the prosecutorial investigation committee. however in aa5 the thing they choose to paint as responsible for supposedly unprecedented levels of corruption in the legal system is defense attorneys resorting to more drastic means, and the general public; aka not the people who are responsible for upholding the legal system but the people who are victimized by it and in opposition to it.

i don't think this was an intentional choice as much as it's just sloppy, inconsiderate, and contrived writing.

aa6 is just flat out racist. 'imperalist undertones' is i would say the gentlest way you could phrase it. like. japanese characters going to a made up south asian country that needs to be taught how to govern itself to quash its internal rebellion is like. so high on the yikes meter.

making a bunch of fake 'ethnic sounding' nonsense names filled with apostrophes to make them into silly sounding english phrasing was a disastrously tone deaf thing for the localization to do. they're really unforgivable. the worst of it all is probably "Inga Karkhuul Haw'kohd Dis'nahm Bi'ahni Lawga Ormo Pohmpus Da'nit Ar'edi Iz Khura'in III" i'm unsure if the names are quite as offensive in the original japanese because i haven't looked too much into what they actually are and have a really limited knowledge of the language. but. this name in japanese is "インガ・カルクール・ククルーラ・ラルバン・ギジール・ホフダラン・マダラ・ヴィラ・ヤシマ・ジャクティエール・クライン３世" which is written in katakana. katakana is, in contrast to kanji and hiragana which are used for writing japanese, used to phoenetically transcribe foreign languages or to write loan words. so the foreign-ness of this character is being emphasized here in the original text as well.

the supposed cultural inferiority of the khurainese people is baked into the game at pretty much every level, down to the gags. khura'in has the 'plumed punisher' show, which is actively criticized by the characters in game for just being a cheap ripoff of the steel samurai. they don't even get to have their own tv.

i believe the reason the racism is pretty much glossed over a lot in the fandom is for several reasons. for starters, ace attorney fans overall tend to fall into three camps: 1. people like me who fucking hate these games, refuse to acknowledge them, and would retcon them out of existence if possible. 2. people who have found things they like about the game and have a Good Version of the characters and plots that they have constructed in their head and 3. people who view all of the hate on these games as completely overblown

the first camp Does talk about how the game is racist but we're all already in agreement about that so it's kind of preaching to the choir and a bit redundant to keep going on about. the second camp tends to acknowledge the stickier aspects of the game but focuses on making content around the elements they like rather than critique. the third camp is the type to throw the baby out with the bathwater re: critiquing a thing they like. it's all haterism to them. but either way i think its kind of fucked up how many people will be like 'aa6 isnt that bad you guys are just mean' without even acknowledging these complaints.

anyway the khura'in country vs kurain village thing is really weird to me it shows both a lack of imagination and a disregard for the series' own established lore. why would a girl from a village where almost everyone is a spirit medium need to go to a place where only, like, two people are mediums to train.

i will say though that the divination seance is kind of one of the only things i found about aa6 to be an interesting addition. for a franchise with ghost summoning and murder solving, the two have a kind of hilariously low amount of overlap so i found the idea of bringing ghost bullshit into court really fun. mechanically speaking, the divination seances also felt a LOT better to play than the mood matrix segments of aa5.

in general, i think the biggest weakness of the mainline franchise under takeshi yamazaki's stewardship is its misunderstanding of stakes. both aa5 and 6 prioritize more bombastic and impressive on paper material stakes. oh no! the ENTIRE JUSTICE SYSTEM BEING GOOD OR BAD depends on this one case! on no! we have to DEAL WITH REBEL INSURGENTS! complete horseshit when there is not competent and functional enough character writing to get us emotionally invested here. yamazaki seems to think bigger is better, and that just simply isnt true for something like ace attorney

i've pointed this out in the past when critiquing aa5 and 6 but if you look at the actual material stakes on the line in ace attorney, they're at their highest after rise from the ashes. ousting the corrupt chief of police is the most impressive and impactful thing phoenix does with his career (arguably until the jurist system, but definitely in the trilogy.) but that's not the big Finale case for his character arc. his finale case is defending his college girlfriend; a nun who lives in the mountains, whose conviction would have had zero implications on the larger fabric of ace attorney's legal system. because takumi's writing clearly shows that he understands what makes a plot impactful is the emotional stakes the characters have invested in the events.

before taking over the main franchise, takeshi yamazaki was responsible for the miles edgeworth investigations spinoffs. i do enjoy both of those games - aai2 in particular is really strong. yamazaki does a great job with edgeworth's character arc even if i have some specific gripes with the duologys writing. i think theyre solid additions to the franchise. but you can see traces of this sort of misalignment in narrative priorities here as well. for example, the last case in aai1 is notorious for still going on for, like, an entire hour or two past the time when the last remaining plot point we care about has been revealed. because yamazaki seemingly had no understanding that That was the thing the case should have been about, and that should have been the final mic drop of the game. it just keeps going! he didn't know the game was done and he added a bunch more bullshit busywork after it that no one likes!

so yeah. without going into anything even as specific as how individual plotlines or character arcs were mishandled in aa5/6 that's really my overview What Went Wrong of those games.

[beneathsakurashade]

why did my favorite game turn into a dating sim? twst x gen reader (crack fic) CH: 2 me. u. church. in wedding outfits. rn

CH: 1

The two of you sit across from each other on opposite sofas.  Enjoying a pleasant late afternoon meal of tea and various cakes, it felt like a scene from a fluffy fanfic.  “Man, I remember one time I had a birthday party at a cafe or something and we got served lemonade and cookies” you smile, serving yourself another small cake.  “Lemonade and cookies? I haven’t heard about that before, processed sweets and drinks are forbidden in my household” Riddle remarks taking a small sip of tea.  “Damn, that’s crazy, is that why your fave food is strawberry tarts?” You reply.  “Yes, the tarts that Trey makes are my exception to that rule.  In fact, Trey bakes all of the desserts for our dorm.” he explains.   

    “Wait Trey makes these? Like ALL of them? Dang, bro’s a great baker, I’m banned from the kitchen in my household for some reason” you say “Banned from the kitchen? H-how did that happen?” He sighs nervously and you shrug in response “I think it was because of that one time I microwaved a mozzarella stick for like a minute and almost burned down the house.  Or that time I gave my family food poisoning the first time I cooked dinner.  Wait maybe it was that time I cooked a pizza and it fell down to the bottom of the oven from the rack and we had to buy a new oven… Dunno, tbh they're prob just being haters”.  Riddle chokes on his tea and coughs “Uh-I-I see…I suppose then I’ll have to be the one cooking in the relationship”.

“Speaking of this relationship, am I gonna take your last name for a month?  Or are you gonna take mine?” You ask “I thought about this, and while I would like to keep my name.  I don’t mind taking yours, it is only a month after all”. “Hmmm, Y/N Rosehearts or Riddle L/N…” you sigh “Quite the conundrum” “Indeed…”     The door is flung open by two students who you recognize as Ace and Deuce.  You jump in surprise and drop the cookie that you were holding.  “Housewarden Riddle! Is it true that you’re gonna get married?” Ace exclaims and Riddle stiffens “Y-yes that’s correct, but only temporarily! A month at most”.  You pout and pick up the fallen cookie “Rip soldier” you mutter and turn to the two “What have you to say for killing my cookie?” Deuce bows “Our deepest apologies!” Ace groans “No need to be all proper Deuce, its not like they’re a celebrity or something” he smiles “The names Ace Trappola, and this here -he points to Deuce- is Deuce Spade”.  You sigh “Erm actually, I have three hundred and sixty seven followers on hoyolab, so yes, I am a celebrity. Also I know, Riddle complained about how you’re among the worst students that he’s seen in all his twenty years.  Btw I’m Y/N L/N, professional failure and yapper, with rizz”.     “I feel bad for ya’ to be honest.  With all the rules here n’ stuff” Ace sighs and sits down beside Riddle on the couch, much to the other’s chagrin.  You shrug in response “I know, but that’s the price you pay for love I suppose.  I don’t mind it if I can be married to my husband here for a month”.  Riddle turns red and Ace laughs “We better get used to seeing a strawberry red housewarden Deuce!” Deuce responds confused “Okay!” You smile “You two are silly, I like it, but stop harassing my pookie”.  Riddle turns an even darker shade of red if that was possible and collars Ace.  Deuce watches on in confusion, unsure of whether to defend his friend or his Housewarden.  You liked Ace, he reminded you of a childhood friend that you had back home, though said friend always pretended not to know you at school for whatever reason.  That’s probably what drew you to his character in Twisted Wonderland.  Deuce reminded you of yourself, though not the whole middle school gangster thing, your mom would kill you if she ever found out that you used to ditch school and joined a gang.  But the whole working hard and it never being enough, nothing ever sticking in your head no matter how many times it was drilled into you, staying up till ungodly hours in the night to get a good grade to impress her. 

    The two of you, yourself and Riddle, head back to his room.  “Did we miss a few chapters?” You tease and Riddle turns to you confused.  “Pardon?” You sigh “Of course you wouldn’t get it…” he still looks confused while opening the door “Guests first” he smiles and you walk in.  “Woooah, aw man, there’s only two beds” you mutter “Is there something wrong?” Riddle inquires. “Nah, just a fanfic reference, iykyk” you shrug and sit down on the twin bed near the wall. “Fanfic?” “Yea, y’know, fanfiction?” You lie down on your back and turn your head to face him. “Fanfiction? Oh, Cater mentioned something about that…” he nods and sits down on his bed “Is your bed comfortable, Mx. Y/N?”. “Its nice, but it would be better if you were here with me” you sigh dramatically.  To which he blushes and sighs in mock annoyance “Y-you’re certainly quick to act like a married couple Mx. Y/N”.  You turn and set your chin on your palm “Call me Y/N, we’re more than a married couple less than lovers correct?” He sighs softly “I suppose that’s a rather accurate description, forgive me for acting incorrectly at all during our time together.  This is the biggest thing that I’ve done without Mother’s permission…besides that one time I got fast food with Cater”.  The teasing look vanishes from your face “Your mom doesn’t let you get fast food??” You gape.  “She considers it extremely unhealthy, saying that fast food is the beginning to a short and poor life.”    You blink and finally say “So…she’s an almond mom?” He looks down “Cater said something like that once…I researched the topic and it isn’t an incorrect description of my mother.  But she’s a good woman! She is a doctor so she knows all about what she is talking about! Mother wouldn’t lie to me…she wouldn’t…”.  You sense the saddening gloom that's starting to settle in the room.  Riddle's mom was a sore subject for him, most of the fandom, (his stans especially) absofuckinglutely hated her guts, you couldn't blame them though, she was a real daughter of a nice lady... “Welp, usually I’d say listen to your parents.  But I have an idea, how about we go to a fast food place for our first date as a couple?  You guys probably have a McDonald’s or something like it here right?”.  He brightens up at your enthusiasm “Are you sure about that? Aren’t first dates usually more classy?”.  You respond smugly “That’s what the tv shows say, but my broke ass says otherwise! Don’t worry pookie, I’ll make our first date the best that you’ve ever seen!”

AN: hiii everyone its me, also random thing but I remember the time I was reading a twst fic on wattpad and there was a comment that I found so goofy and what made it extra memorable for me was that the user of the commenter was theevilfoodeaterbanica or something like that and it made my Evillious Chronicles fangirl heart happy. Anyways hope you all are doing great! (つ≧▽≦)つ⊂(｡･ω･｡⊂)

[freaksstar]

heeseung finds out about your little hobby hc (pt 1)!

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pairing: heeseung x fem!reader

wc: 798

genre: fluff

warnings: silly!!

a/n: i imagine this stuff happening when you guys are just like barely into your relationship lol. but!! im gonna make this a little mini series, and ill do one of these for each member, so expect jay's next!!

first post, enjoy!

↳ m.list for series

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you and heeseung share a pc in your apartment, and take shifts using it, because why wouldn't he let the love of his life use his most prized possession?

anyways, one day he comes back from practice with the boys late at night. and he sees you asleep at his desk with the faint glowing of the pc's screen illuminating your face, wrapped in one of his jackets!! he's like, wow, look, it's my adorable girlfriend!! she looks so angelic!!

so being the loving boyfriend he is he picks you up and puts you to bed with a smile, before running off to the shower to go freshen up.

after, when he comes back to your shared room, he takes a good few seconds to stare at his pc, and decides its a great time to hop on fort (me fr). who cares if its already 2 am?

and so he sits down in his gaming chair and clicks his mouse, the dim light of the pc screen brightening as a reaction to the sudden activity.

he's a bit slow because he's pretty tired, but after processing the black screen that is surely not fortnite's loading screen, rather lines of code, a small little smile of pride makes its way onto his face. he's so proud of you. he always will be.

his darling little dove, writing her own code! you've always been into coding, so he's ecstatic to have been able to come across the project.

now, heeseung is slightly educated in this field. listening to your little rambles about coding did teach him some important things after all. he goes through the code trying to figure out what you could be programming, before he realizes he can just check the project name! he seems to be getting slower by the minute, poor bby :(

and the title? "making a game for hee!"

his heart quite literally melts in that moment. it's an honor to have your hard work dedicated to him. he's always found your little hobby of coding endearing.

and what's even more adorable? the fact the the project dedicated to him is a game. you know he loves gaming, it's what he enjoys doing in the little downtime he gets, aside from doing things with you. even when he games, he finds a way to get you involved, like playing the game with him, or even just having you in his lap, the warmth emitting from you bringing him comfort he wishes he could spend all day feeling.

after a few seconds of falling in love all over again, all while staring at your sleeping figure on the bed, he decides to get some victory royals in, playing as quietly as possible to insure you don't wake up.

the next morning? he doesn't even mention it. the sweetheart realizes you probably want to surprise him with it, but he secretly checks your progress every night when he's sure you're soundly asleep.

and the day you drag him to the chair, tell him to cover his eyes, and surprise him with the game? his surprise is genuine. now heeseung was smart, yes, but he wasn't educated enough on the topic of coding to figure out how to run the program. he was already proud just by seeing your progress, the new lines of code being added to the project every night.

he plays that thing for hours. time for his weekly gaming session? you bet he's hopping on your game instead of fort. he's dedicated, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

once he finishes playing, he'll be begging you for another addition to the "dedicated to hee" series. you're so talented, could you blame the guy for wanting to play your games?

you'd never know how he's secretly so proud of you, how you're his pride and joy. how he brags to his friends, "yeah, my girlfriend codes games in her free time! she works so hard at her job and then makes games for me, she's my hardworking angel!"

if you did find out one day... he'd be shy for a couple of minutes, before stepping up and owning it. "well yeah, what'd you expect baby? you think your amazing skills would go unnoticed by my sharp eyesight?"

this is where you remind him that he actually wears glasses (he's amazingly attractive in them).

"they just help make my vision even better. that's how i found you... this!!" and he just pulls out the pastries you've been craving for months ever since your vacation to france.

and you're just like. baby??? where'd you get these??? i thought we could only find these in france??? and he's just like, told you, my vision's great.

you'll never find out where he got them from <3

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ty so much for reading!! mwah, love you guys <33

requests are open if you'd like to request hehe

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[wlwinry]

do you have anymore thistlecaster headcanons 👀

its been a thousand years since i got this ask im so sorry irl and writing stuff has just been a nightmare. but to answer your question, yes, i do!

gorgug games. for fun. fabian, as a guy raised on the celestine sea who only got to solace at like age 14-16 (i refuse to believe he was adventuring for two years and was still at level one), does not. gorgug decides he's gonna show fabian how

this leads to the thistlecaster purrmon (pokemon) spiritsteel (soulsilver) playthrough

fabian meanwhile is perfectly content to watch gorgug play but he's so genuinely touched by how much gorgug wants to share this hobby with him that he's immediately all in

he's got the controls but he spends most of his time leaning against gorgug's chest holding the fantasy ds and asking for advice

they pick a starter together. it's named hang and the next two purrmon are van and man

when they're eventually full adults doing full adult things they like to surprise each other with sweet meaningful gestures

gorgug will drop by fabian's studio during late rehearsals with coffee (for caffeine) and dinner (for sustenance). all of fabian's fellow dancers adore this guy btw. theyre constantly bemoaning the fact that fabian is hot and rich and has a cute boyfriend who treats him wonderfully and fabian is just like >:) yes i am and yes i do

(he frequently is brought to tears by this though. no one believes he takes gorgug for granted bc theyve caught him tearing up over the notes gorgug puts in his dinner bag)

similarly fabian will stop by when gorgug is in class (getting a teaching degree bc he does not care what aguefort says he's getting a degree before he starts meddling in the lives of kids. also double-majoring in arcane engineering) to whisk him away for lunch

if gorgug has an exam coming up he is all in on making sure gorgug gets as much study time as he needs

he will also show up before the exam starts and quite firmly kiss gorgug and tell him that no matter what happens he will always be the most wonderful person and the greatest wizard of this age

all gorgug's classmates are confused but it gets gorgug to laugh and not be so stressed going into the exam

and after every exam fabian brings gorgug flowers

also in combat they're so. scary

i can't emphasize this enough

it's like fighting people who can read each other's minds. as the main martial and melee combatants for their party (and i think the bad kids still do adventure, they just limit it to once per year for a while) theyre really used to fighting as a team

they know each other's body language so well and they balance each other perfectly. gorgug's strength and endurance and fabian's dexterity and speed. theyre scary

they adore each other so very much. and tease each other a lot but still

theyre everything to me

[fiveraccoonsinatrenchcoat]

Quiet My Fears (With The Touch Of Your Hand) Ch. 3

Steve Harrington x f!reader

Description: Dramatic reveals are revealed, dramatically (or, you and Steve tell the gang about Baby Harrington and it does not go well).

Warnings: language, food mentions, everyone is angry all of the time

Word Count: 7965

Previous Chapter! - Next Chapter!

My Masterlist! - Series Masterlist!

Notes: I'm so sorry this took as long as it did! I've been going through it lately but through the power of boygenius I was actually able to finish this bit the other day! Please enjoy and also no one is allowed to be mad at me lol

Steve Harrington was going to be a dad.

The funny thing that came along with that was that Steve was actually going to have to tell people.

He imagined that there were many couples who would be very excited about this prospect. There were lots of young men out there who had mothers begging them for grandchildren. His hadn’t quite gotten there yet.

You had told him that you wanted to put off telling people for as long as you could. He entirely understood why; times had changed quite a bit since his mother’s day, but still, being an unwed mother in Smalltown, USA was relatively frowned upon. Honestly, considering just how gossipy the population of Hawkins tended to be, Steve was surprised the front desk ladies at your doctor’s office hadn’t already spread the news like wildfire, HIPAA be damned; golden boy Steve Harrington and his childhood best friend, having a baby out of wedlock? That was some front page stuff, right there. 

Married or not, though, it was going to have to happen sooner rather than later. In a few weeks time, it was going to start getting very difficult to hide. You were going to begin showing any moment now, and as Spring started to settle in, it brought its warmer temperatures with it. You could only hide behind your winter coat and thick sweaters for so long. 

And not just your bump; your friends were beginning to pick up on the fact that there was something going on.

“Steve!” Robin barked before tossing a wadded up ball of old receipts at him. It hit him square between the eyebrows. “Stop moping and do your job, please?”

“I’m not moping,” Steve defended (he absolutely was), before turning back to the pile of returns he was supposed to be sorting through.

“Fuck off, yeah you are,” Eddie very helpfully added.

“See, this is why I don’t like it when you hang around here,” Steve said, pointing a pen toward Eddie. “You two always gang up on me!”

“Why do you think I’m here at all?” Eddie quipped back with a smirk. 

“Because you don’t have anywhere better to go?” Robin supplied.

“That, too.”

“Either way, I’m not moping,” Steve assured. “I’m fine.”

“That’s a fucking lie if I’ve ever heard one,” Eddie said over the click of the markdown gun, as he emptied its bright orange stickers down that back of his arm. Steve couldn’t help but notice that he had set the price to ‘WAS $4.20, NOW $0.69’.

“Stop that,” Robin huffed as she whipped the tool out of Eddie’s hands. “Steve, I can practically see the rain cloud floating over your head.”

“Oh, my god!” Steve didn’t really want to snap at his friends, but he did it anyway. “Nothing is wrong! I am fine, everything is fine!”

Eddie and Robin just stared at Steve like a pair of deer in headlights from across the counter. They both knew how easily frustrated Steve could become, and they’d be the first to admit that sometimes they can poke at him a bit too hard, but an outburst this quickly had been unexpected. Neither said anything, and Steve just sighed.

After a moment of awkward silence, Eddie spoke up once again. 

“Lady problems?”

“Get out!” both Steve and Robin exclaimed, in unison.

“I thought you guys liked me.” Eddie feigned offense.

“You do not work here!” Robin said as she grabbed onto his shoulders and shoved him toward the door. “And Keith’ll get pissed if he finds out you were here and didn’t spend any money, so go home.”

“Fine,” Eddie relented from the entryway. “Hey, I’ll see you guys on Saturday, right?”

“Of course!”

“Probably not.”

“You claim nothing is wrong,” Eddie said, pointing to Steve. “And yet, in the same breath, turn down free beer?”

“Leave!”

“I love you both!”

The bell above the door rang as Eddie walked out, and Steve was left in Robin’s concerned gaze. 

“Y’know, Eddie does kind of have a point,” Robin said after a moment. Nine times out of ten, Robin was able to coax Steve out of his quiet and get him to talk about whatever it was that was eating at him, a fact that Steve was highly aware of. 

“No, he doesn’t,” Steve barked back. If this conversation didn’t end in the next two minutes, he would jump off the roof. 

“You haven’t hung out with any of us in weeks!” Robin exclaimed “Weeks, Steve!”

“I’ve been busy,” Steve lied.

“Busy with what?” she inquired. “Do you have another job I don’t know about, or something?”

“I’m allowed to do things without you around. You know that, right?” It was meaner than he needed to be.

“Oh, god, this isn’t about your lover, is it?” Robin drawled with a scowl.

“You know her name, and you don’t have to say it like that,” Steve responded.

“You two got back together, didn’t you?”

She hadn’t quite gotten it head on, but it was probably as close as she was going to get.

“I knew it!” Robin looked like she was going to explode. “I fucking knew it!”

“Please don’t turn this into a thing,” Steve pleaded.

“Me turn it into a thing?!” She was mad now. “You two are the ones turning it into a thing! You cannot keep sneaking around like this, it cannot possibly be healthy!”

“We’re-” Steve huffed out a breath. This tightrope he was walking across seemed to be growing more and more thin. “Working on it.”

“Can you work on it a little bit faster, please?” Robin asked as she punched out. “You two are so fucking weird about each other. Split, or make it official, just do something, because I hate having to keep this secret for you, it’s exhausting!”

“We sort of already did. I think,” Steve confided. Partial truth is better than no truth, right?

“Split?”

“Make it official.”

“Oh, thank god,” Robin sighed, tossing herself across the counter, all dramatics. “I can finally quit having to cover for you.”

“Don’t say anything yet.” Steve was quick with his damage control. “We, uh, we wanna do it. Ourselves. Figure it’ll probably go over a little bit smoother that way, y’know?”

“Fine, but if you don’t tell everyone soon, I’m going to,” Robin said. “Don’t think I’m the only one who’s noticed something off with you lately.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“Everyone is worried about you, Steve,  it’s not just me,” she explained. “Dustin was about two seconds away from showing up at your house after you bailed on us last week.”

Steve didn’t know that. It sent a lightning bolt of regret through his chest.

“The faster you two can get your shit together, the better. I’ve been happily cleaning up this mess for you, but I’m starting to get fucking tired of it, Steve.” Robin looked at her watch. “I was off ten minutes ago.”

She was out the door before Steve could even think up an apology.

Steve and Robin didn’t get into fights often, but he absolutely hated it every time they did. Even silly little arguments left him wracked with guilt sometimes, but proper, go-for-the-throat type fights made feel sick. 

Pair that with the fact that he was making Dustin worry, and Steve felt about ready to hurl. 

God, this was difficult. Stupidly difficult. Maybe, if he asked nicely, you’d agree to just run away with him so he didn’t have to deal with any of it. 

If he could just pluck up the courage to tell his parents, that would at least be a start. They were the difficult ones, the conversation he was dreading more than any of them, and the wild anxiety ate away at him for the rest of his shift. By the time seven o’clock rolled around and he was finally able to go home, it was entirely all-encompassing.

Fuck it. It had to get done either way, right?

The drive from Family Video to his parents house, no longer than ten minutes, felt as though it stretched across half an eternity. The vicious anxiety ate away at his stomach as he drove, and with each turn, each mile crossed, it only increased. Maybe he should just turn around. Maybe he should go home to you, and his parents could just figure it out on their own. He was sure his dad would love that.

Steve pulled into the driveway and was very close to losing what little nerve he had. He turned off the ignition, this is a bad idea. He got out of the car, this is a bad idea. He walked up to the front door and let himself in, this is a bad idea.  

He could hear the commotion of his mother making dinner in the kitchen. Something was sizzling; popping and crackling with the smell of onions and garlic, of bell peppers and roasting meat. 

Steve had lots of reasons to be jealous of other peoples’ parents, but at least his knew how to cook.

“Steve!” his mother exclaimed once he walked into her view. One hand was occupied by a wooden spoon stirring a pan of vegetables, the other holding a frosty glass of white wine. “I didn’t know whether or not to expect you.”

“You barely even live here anymore,” his father chided from where he was sitting at the counter. His suit coat was off and he had a matching wine glass sitting on the table in front of him. Nine times out of ten, Steve’s parents were able to be amicable with one another. At this point, they acted more like roommates than husband and wife, but at least they were roommates that were able to stand being in the same room as one another. Usually. “Didn’t think I’d get to see you before I left.”

“Sit down! Have a drink,” his mother insisted. She pulled another wine glass out of the cabinet and the bottle out of the fridge. 

“Oh, no, I’m alright,” Steve said as he sat down. His mother poured him the glass anyway.

He was about to ruin a perfectly good dinner, Steve thought to himself. His mother probably poured over it all day. The roast that just got pulled out of the oven was probably expensive. 

“So, what’s been going on with Steve these days?” his father asked him. 

Now or never.

“I actually wanted to, uh,” Steve stuttered out. “I wanted to talk to you guys.”

“You didn’t crash your car, did you?” his father said, only half joking.

“No, the car’s fine.”

“Is this about that girl?” his mother asked as she turned the stove down to low, mischief painting her voice.

“Girl? What girl?” His father pointed his gaze over to Meredith. 

“He met a girl,” she responded. She seemed almost giddy with excitement.

“Finally,” his father said. He said it like it was a joke, though it didn’t feel all that well meaning to Steve. 

“Oh, tell me it’s Giada’s daughter from down the street,” his mother said. “Have you seen their kitchen? I’d never have to host another Thanksgiving ever again.”

“No, it’s not- no.” Steve wasn’t even sure he knew who Giada was, let alone her daughter. 

“Well, at least give us a name, Steve,” his mother said. “Is she cute?”

When Steve said your name, he felt almost like he was condemning you. Like just uttering it strapped you to him, so now you’d both be falling from grace. 

“The one who grew up across the street?” his father asked, as if you hadn’t known him your whole life.

“Oh, that’s just too sweet!,” his mother exclaimed. “It’s like a movie, ugh! I’ll have to give her mother a call, she’s going to be thrilled!”

Good luck with that, Steve thought to himself. She won’t even answer the calls from her own daughter.  

“Took you long enough,” his father said, leaning back in his barstool, lackadaisical. 

“What?” Steve responded. He was wildly unimpressed by his father’s haughty attitude.

“You two have been making googly eyes at each other since you were eight,” he explained. “Frankly, I didn’t think you had the balls to do anything about it.”

“Ron,” his mother chastised at the choice of words.

“What? Obviously, I was wrong.” Ron pointed his gaze back to his son. “Y’know, I think she could be a good influence on you. Steady job, good work ethic. She’s a bit of an oddball, though, but I guess with a father like her’s, could you really blame her?”

Leave it to Ronald Harrington to judge other peoples’ parenting skills while simultaneously insulting his son’s girlfriend. 

“Don’t be rude,” Meredith said. Her back was now turned to the two men, arms elbow deep in the sink. “Such a shame her parents moved away, though. I couldn’t imagine going that far without bringing your daughter with you. Is she still living on the south side?”

“Yep.”

“That’s not the safest area in town,” she commented. “Did you hear about that house fire down that way? The woman on the news said that it might have been arson. Arson!” 

“It’s alright,” he placated. “Not as bad as it used to be, at least.” 

“I still don’t know if I like the idea of a girl like her living all by herself in an area like that,” she said. 

“You’ll have to invite her over for dinner once I get back,” his father said, entirely oblivious to the topic of conversation between his wife and son.

There was a moment of silence between the three of them. His mom took a sip of her wine and stuck the meat with a cooking thermometer, his dad refilled his own glass, and Steve felt his stomach do a backflip. This was going poorly.

“If there’s something else you have to tell us, you might as well just rip the bandaid off quick.” His father hit the nail on the head, that was for sure. He paused for a moment before making the kind of poorly timed, borderline insulting joke only someone like his father could. 

“God, she’s not pregnant, is she?”

Steve went rigid, and he kept his gaze trained on the swirls in the marble countertop. He didn’t say anything, he couldn’t bring himself to, so he just left his parents to piece his silence together on their own.

“Steve,” his mother demanded. She had a carving fork gripped tight in her white knuckled fist, planted hard against the edge of the countertop. Steve was pretty sure she was about to stab him with it. He couldn’t look either of them in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” he managed to squeak out. He could feel tears beginning to well up in his eyes. 

“Goddamn it, Steven!” his father exclaimed, slamming his hand onto the counter. It made the glasses rattle. “This has to be some kind of joke!”

“I’m sorry!” Steve said, louder this time. “Fuck, I didn’t-”

“Didn’t what?” his father asked. “You didn’t mean to? You didn’t think it would actually happen?”

“I don’t know,” Steve responded. He suddenly felt very small, confronted by his father’s booming voice.

His mother stood silent in her spot on the opposite side of the kitchen island, but there were definitely tears running down her cheeks, and anger radiating off of her in horrible waves that Steve wasn’t used to. 

“No, you don’t, because you weren’t thinking at all, were you?�� His father fumed. He was standing now, towering over Steve despite the fact that the two of them were almost the same in height. “For Christ’s sake, Steven!”

“I’m sorry.”

“You’ll have to marry her-”

“We already talked about that. She said she wants to wait,” Steve explained quickly.

“No. No, this is not a question of want, Steven. I don’t care about what you want, you’ve forfeited that right! You both have!” his father spat back. 

“I’m not gonna force her to marry me against her will, dad, I’m not evil!” He shouldn’t have said it that way, he knew that. But god, he was mad, and a low blow like that was just as satisfying as he thought it would be. 

At least this hadn’t happened when he was 16. He would have been well and truly fucked if this had happened when he was 16. 

“You know what? Maybe this is just the thing you need,” his father snapped.

“What?” Steve asked, confused.

“A big mistake for you to finally learn a thing or two.”

Steve wasn’t particularly fond of his father’s use of the word ‘mistake’.

“I leave for Santa Monica tomorrow morning. I’ll be back in a week,” his father stated. “I want you out of my house before then.”

“Ronald,” Meredith broke her silence, exclaiming from behind the tears. Steve knew she wouldn’t explode the way his father was doing, but she really looked like she wanted to.

“No! We have been defending him and making excuses for years, Meredith. Years! If he wants to go play house with his little girlfriend, that’s fine by me, but he’s not gonna do it under my roof.” He doubled down and turned his gaze back to where Steve was sitting. “I think it's a damn good time for him to learn that his actions come with consequences.”

The older man turned away at that and pulled his keys off of the hook on the wall.

“Where are you going?” Meredith called after him. He didn’t bother with an answer, only walked out and slammed the door behind him. 

Steve was left alone with his mother, which was simultaneously much better and far worse. 

“We were already planning for me to move in with her,” Steve said. If his father had stuck around for a minute longer, he would have been able to explain that to him, too. “She needed a roommate anyway.”

His mother scoffed and shook her head.

“Look, I know that-”

“You make it incredibly difficult for me to be on your side sometimes, Steven,” his mother interrupted.

“I know,” Steve agreed. He did know. 

“I wish I could say that I thought your father was being irrational, but I don’t know if I can,” she sighed. “For once, I think he and I might be on the same page.”

“You are?” Steve asked. His father’s vitriolic anger hadn’t come as a surprise, he’d been expecting it, but he thought his mother would be at least a little bit understanding. She always had been before. Steve guessed that this was different, though. 

“You’re not going to be able to live in that apartment forever, Steven,” she said.

“I know that.”

“And you’ll definitely need a better job. I highly doubt your father’s previous offer still stands, by the way.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” she asked him. Her voice had a bite to it that he had never been on the receiving end of before. “You’ve been saying ‘I know’ for years now, Steve. You know you need to grow up, you know you’ll have to move out someday, you know you have to do something with your life, yet you have never made any actual effort to do anything about it!”

“Mom, that’s not true-”

“If you want to start making big, adult choices like this, you’re going to have to start acting like one. Clearly, you’re not a child anymore.” 

His mother untied her apron and tossed it onto the counter before leaving the kitchen, heels clicking on the tile.

Steve’s whole family had been waiting for that thing; that final, fatal event that would break the Hawkins Harringtons for good. Aunts, uncles, cousins, all piecing together whatever bits of gossip they could, knew that the string that tied Steve to his parents was being pulled thinner and thinner and thinner. His mother could only do so much mending for him, and everyone had spent the last few years waiting with bated breath for that string to snap, for Steve to lose his footing. Once it did, he would plummet.

Steve was now standing alone in his childhood home, scissors in hand. 

Steve didn’t know what to do, so he stood up and turned off the stove. He pulled out a tupperware container and boxed up the vegetables. He wrapped the meat in foil and left it out on the counter, because it needed to cool before it could be put away, or else it would screw with the temperature inside the refrigerator. He found a stopper and closed the bottle of wine, placing it in the fridge before gathering the three glasses. His was still full, and he wanted to chug it, but thought better of it and poured it down the drain. He cleaned all of the dishes, dried them, and put them away. He turned off the oven, and wiped down all of the countertops, and neatly hung the towel to dry. He turned off the lights, making sure to leave the one above the stove on as a nightlight. 

Truly, there wasn’t much left of his personal belongings that he really cared about that he hadn’t already taken to your apartment. Most of what he needed was already there. He could grab the rest of it when his mother wasn’t home; the rest of his clothes, important documents, that kind of thing. What all do you even need to bring with you when you're being forced out of your childhood home, anyway? 

Later. This was something he could deal with later.

So he left. Unsurprisingly, his father’s car was nowhere to be seen. He wanted to keep talking to his mom, to explain himself, to apologize, to say anything, but he knew it would just make it worse than it already was, so he just got into his car and pulled away instead.

He did need a better job. He’d been needing a better job for a while now, actually, but he definitely needed a better job now. And his mother was right, there was no way he would be able to work for his dad after that. 

He wished he was able to explain to his parents that hey, funny story, due to atrocities he won’t be explaining right now, the government actually gave him a frankly absurd amount of money a few years ago, and he’d be alright for a while. It wouldn’t last forever, but it was enough to keep the pair of you afloat, especially with yours, too. You had used a bit of it on rent right after your parents had left, but Steve’s money sat mostly untouched in a bank account his family didn’t know he had. 

See, the thing about government hush money is that you can’t just go out and spend it on something wild, because then people are going to ask where it came from. Believe him, if he had been able to go out and buy some fancy sports car or a bunch of designer clothes, he would have. His father would have told him to buy a nice watch and invest the rest of it (Steve wasn’t entirely sure what that actually meant, or how to even go about doing it). He was just grateful to have it right now.

He could put a down payment on a house for you and him. That seemed like something a responsible adult would do with it, right?

Steve pulled up to your building and was shocked with how well he’d held it together up until this point, because he felt like he was going to explode. When he got to your floor and walked into your apartment, you were sitting on the floor between the sofa and the coffee table, textbooks and paper spread before you. The sound of him walking in pulled you away from your schoolwork and when you turned to look at Steve, you were clearly upset.

“You told me you were off more than an hour ago!” you said as you wiggled out from behind the table and stood up. “I was starting to get really worried, Steve, where were you?”

“I, uhm,” Steve started. He felt his voice crack, the sting of tears beginning to well in his eyes. He had to keep his shit together, for your sake.

“Did something happen?” you asked him. You brought your hands up to the sides of his face, and there went any chance of him keeping it together. 

“I told my parents,” he confessed. He was not going to cry in front of you. He wasn’t.

“What?” you questioned. You sounded a little bit hurt that he did it without asking you, but mostly just horribly concerned. “I thought we agreed to wait.”

“We did, but it was eating away at me, and I just couldn’t sit on it anymore, and-” The floodgates broke and Steve’s words were cut off by a strained sob. 

“Oh, Stevie.” You pulled him into a hug and Steve wanted nothing more than for these stupid tears to just dry up, but it felt like weeks and weeks of pent up worry and fear were being pulled to the surface, and he didn’t have it in him to try and stop any of it. He was supposed to be the strong one for you, but Jesus Christ, that was difficult. “It was bad?”

“Well, they kicked me out,” Steve said.

“What?”

“Which, I mean, my dad’s right. I barely even live there anymore, so I guess it doesn’t really even matter,” he rambled out, wiping his nose on his sleeve like a child.

“Yes, it does,” you assured him.

“And I’m pretty sure that this is my mother's worst nightmare, so I don’t know why I didn’t expect her to be pissed.”

“I’m sorry,” you said. You pulled Steve towards the couch and carefully lowered onto the cushions, your grasp on his wrists bringing him down to your side. 

“And Robin and I got into a fight, too.”

“You didn’t tell her, did you?” you questioned.

“No, but I think if I don’t do it soon, she might disown me,” he admits. 

“She’s not going to disown you,” you protested. “She’d never do that.”

“My parents just did,” Steve lamented. “My mother just did. Who’s to say Robin isn’t next, huh?”

Steve would never, ever be able to make his father proud, because his father would never, ever let him even get close. He had known that for a long time, and maybe there was a part of him that was relieved by that. He knew that it was an entirely unattainable goal, so he never really bothered to reach for it. His mother, oh so cruelly, always made sure Steve knew that he could do great things. Why did she have to go and do that? Steve knew his mother held him to a high bar, he just hadn’t ever considered the possibility that he wouldn’t be able to jump high enough.

So maybe that’s why it hurt so badly when you curled into him that night when he finally crawled into bed. Maybe that’s why he called into work the next day, even though he knew it would probably make Robin totally freak out. Maybe that’s why he waited until he saw his mother’s car leave the driveway before going into his - what used to be his- house to box up the last of his things.

Maybe that’s why he missed the Hawkins Police Department truck parked outside of your apartment building when he was bringing groceries inside a handful of days later. 

“I’m back!” he called into your apartment after releasing the wildly heavy grocery bags onto the kitchen counter. Making more than one trip is for suckers. “They didn’t have any pineapple juice, so I just got a pineapple, figured it can’t be too hard to just-”

Steve cut himself off when he looked up from the paper bags to see more than just you sitting in the living room; Joyce was sitting on your left with an arm wrapped protectively over your shoulders, Robin on your right with her legs pulled up underneath her and a tissue box in her lap, and Hopper was propped up on the arm of the couch. You were in the middle of the array, in tears. 

“Hello,” Steve nervously greeted, eyes wide as frisbees and blood running cold.

There was absolutely no universe in which this went well.

Robin’s expression, which had clearly been soft and sympathetic before Steve had interrupted them, quickly changed into anger. She shot up from the couch, earning her a disapproving tut from Joyce and making you wince away from her. It took her three wide stomps to cross the small space and grab onto Steve’s wrist with more strength than he knew she had in her.

“Ow, Robin!” Steve complained as she dragged him out into the hallway. She slammed the door hard behind her and it made Steve jump.

“What the fuck, Steve!” she demanded.

“Robin-”

“I mean, seriously, what the fuck!” Steve could already hear the noise complaints from the neighbors as she chastised him. “You lied to me!”

“I-” didn’t, is what he wanted to say, but he knew better than that. “I’m sorry.”

“How long have you two been back together then?” she questioned. Steve really didn’t want to admit it. “How long?”

“Six months,” he replied, sheepishly.

“Six months?!” Robin shrieked in disbelief. “Jesus Christ, you really did lie to me!”

“Robin,” Steve said, hushed and ashamed and really fucking mad at himself.

“For half a year! You lied to me for half a year!”

“I’m sorry!”

“She had to turn down her job offer from the school,” Robin barked. 

“I know that.”

“The job that she’s been talking about for, oh I don’t know, six months? Probably more than that, actually!”

“I know, Robin, alright?” Steve assured her and crossed his arms across his chest. “You think I don’t? I am highly aware of that!”

“And, I’m sorry, but you’re far from the King of Responsibility!” Robin said. 

“What does that mean?!” Steve questioned, a tint of frustration layered over his words. 

“I’m just saying, you aren’t exactly known for your maturity,” she spat.

“You think we wouldn’t be able to take care of-”

“She can. I know she can.  She’s more than capable of doing whatever the hell she puts her mind to, but you?” Anger and resentment dripped from her mouth with each word. “You, I’m honestly not sure. If you were more willing to lie to my face for six months than you were to just tell me the fucking truth, I’m sorry, but that’s really winning you any responsible adult points, is it?”

Tears pricked behind Steve’s eyes. He wanted to yell, to scream at the top of his lungs that, no, Robin, you’re wrong, I can do this!, but he really wasn’t sure if it was true. If his closest friend, one of the people he trusted most in the whole world, really thought that he wouldn’t be able to do this, then maybe she’s right, right?

The apartment door next to Steve slowly creeped open.

“Everything alright out here?” Hopper asked, carefully planting himself just slightly between Steve and Robin. 

Robin lost her vitriol like a tea kettle after the burner got turned off, leaving her with no more steam to fuel what she needed to say. 

“I’m waiting out in the car,” she muttered as she whizzed past Steve and turned down the stairwell. The two men in the hall listened to her descending footsteps. Once they heard the front door open and slam back shut, Jim broke through the quiet.

“Robin wanted me to check up on you after you called out,” Jim explained. “She was worried you were mad at her, after your fight.”

“Right,” Steve said.

“So, imagine my surprise when your mom answers the door, only to tell me that you don’t live there anymore,” the older man said. “She wouldn’t tell me why, just gave me an address and shut the door.”

“Look, if you’re here to give me another angry dad talk, then you don’t have to bother. Mine did a pretty damn good job all on his own,” Steve asserted. 

“I’m not here to be angry.” Steve could tell that Hopper was choosing his words very, very carefully.

“Oh, that’s unlike you,” Steve commented, arms still crossed and eyes on the floor.

“Don’t be shitty!” Jim snapped. Steve withered.

“Sorry,” he muttered, still not able to look the man in the eyes. Jim just sighed.

“Do you have a plan, Steve?” he asked. 

“Yes. No,” Steve replied. “I don’t know. She seems to have one.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“I’m just not sure if I fit in it,” Steve confessed.

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Jim huffed. “Maybe you do need another angry dad talk!”

“What do you want me to say?” Steve interrogated. “That everything is under control and totally normal? I have no idea what’s going to happen! None! And, honestly? I’m fucking terrified, Hopper!” 

“Steve-”

“I have to be good at this. I have to! Because I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I’m not, but I am so terrified that I won’t be able to, and I’m going to let her down, and I can’t do that!” It all came out as some sort of paranoia fueled stream of consciousness. “I’d rather die than be anything like my dad, but what if it’s just in my blood? Like, I’m just predestined to turn out just as shitty as him!”

“You definitely won’t,” Jim said, as if it were just a simple fact. “I can assure you, there are very few people on this earth as shitty as your father, and you are not one of them.”

Jim wasn’t overly fond of Ronald Harrington; he was an all-around asshole to most people he met.

“Look, as much as I hate to admit it, you two aren’t kids anymore,” Hop said. “You’re grownups, you two are smart. You can make your own choices. If this is the choice you two wanna make, then make it.”

“You’re making it sound so simple,” Steve snarked.  

“It kind of is,” the chief replied. 

“Really? Because this feels like the least simple thing that’s ever happened to me,” Steve said. “You’re really not mad?”

“Well, I’m not thrilled,” Hopper grumbled. “But, like I said. You two are grownups. You can do whatever the hell you want.”

The pair stood in silence for a moment. Steve knew that Hop was more than likely lying about how mad he was, though he had been preparing himself for Jim to completely lose it on him. He probably would have deserved it. 

“Does it ever get less terrifying?” Steve asked, genuinely wanting to know.

“Nope.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“And it’s not just the fun parts,” Jim added.

“I know,” Steve responded.

“It’s more than just tiny socks and decorating the nursery.”

“I know that.” 

“Just makin’ sure.” Jim was far from happy, but he gave Steve a nod and a pat on the back, which was as close to congratulations as he was going to get. “I know the kids give you a hard time, but you’re smart, and so is she. You two know what you’re doing.”

“Thank you.”

“She’s really, really scared, Steve,” Hopper said. There was something in his voice; a silent question of  ‘do you really know what it is you’re getting yourself into?’

“I know,” Steve replied.

“You don’t get to panic now, alright?” Jim told him. “And you don’t get to change your mind.”

“I won’t. I promise,” Steve said; ‘I do know, and I want all of it.’ “I would never do that to her. Never.”

The pair went back inside, and you seemed to be in slightly better spirits now, even if you still had a sea of tears in your eyes. Both you and Joyce turned to face the two men with questions in your eyes, and Jim’s small nod seemed to be enough of an answer for Joyce to shoot off of the couch to envelop Steve in a tight hug. 

“I have lots of baby things I can bring by for you two,” she gushed after pulling away.

“You don’t have to do that,” you said to her, but she was having none of it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Joyce assured. “It’s all just collecting dust anyway.”

Which left Dustin, who in a lot of ways, Steve was the most worried about. He could take the anger from the grownups. Hell, he could take it from Robin, but Dustin, he was less sure about. 

In true Henderson fashion, he found out about Baby Harrington a few days later, entirely by mistake.

“I still don’t understand why they kicked you out in the first place,” Dustin stated from his spot on the living room floor of your (Steve’s!) apartment. He was digging through a pile of old clothes Steve decided he no longer needed. He had a lot of things, he’d realized while moving in, and he really only wanted a few of them, needed even less. He would donate whatever went unclaimed, but Dustin wanted first dibs for himself. 

“Because they’re assholes,” Steve responded. 

“Okay, yeah, fair, but hasn’t Robin been begging you to get a place with her for, like, a year?” 

“It’s not like I was able to really take my time apartment hunting.”

“I still feel like crashing on Robin’s couch for a while would’ve made more sense than moving in here,” Dustin supplied. Steve rolled his eyes.

“I needed an apartment, she needed a roommate, that’s it. Alright?” Steve loved Dustin like a little brother, but good lord, he could be obnoxious sometimes. “Now pick out what you want so I can clean this shit up.”

Dustin finished his haul, though he grumbled about how Steve was rushing him the whole time, and gathered the previously neatly folded clothes into a messy pile.

“I didn’t think of how I was gonna get any of this stuff out to the car.” Dustin, at not- quite- eighteen years old, had finally gotten his drivers license. ‘Thank god,’ Steve had remarked, ‘that I don’t have to be your fucking chauffeur anymore.’ That sentiment only lasted a little while, though, as it quickly became clear that a drivers license meant that Dustin could come and bother Steve whenever he wanted to. And he wanted to all the time. “Will you help me carry it all out?”

“No, I won’t, because there are more trash bags in the cabinet under the sink.” Steve pointed towards the small kitchen. Dustin got up off the floor, going into the kitchen and checking in seemingly every cupboard you had.

“I said under the sink, dude!” Steve heard the squeaky cabinet hinges open and shut, the rustle of the plastic trash bag.

“Steve?” Dustin called after a moment. The apartment was small, and the only real thing separating the kitchen and living room was a few feet of counter and the floor switching from tile to carpet.

“What?” Steve responded, not bothering to look up from the clothes he was shoveling back into their own trash bag. 

“What’s this?” Dustin asked him. When Steve finally looked up at him, he was pointing towards something on the fridge, and it took Steve a second to realize that what Dustin was referring to was the ultrasound pictures that he’d forgotten to take down.

Well, shit.

Steve rocketed towards the fridge to put them away, but Dustin was faster and grabbed them before he could. The damage was already done.

“Dustin, please give me that,” Steve asked. 

“This has her last name on it,” the younger boy observed. 

“Put it down, alright? You weren’t supposed to see it in the first place, so just-”

“Is she fucking pregnant?” Dustin demanded. 

“Dustin, please.” 

“I didn’t think she was dating anyone, though?” the boy thought out loud. “Oh, my god, I wonder if it’s someone we know!”

Oh, it definitely is.

“Dude, c’mon, please just give me the picture.” Remember what Steve said about Dustin being obnoxious?

“Wait, why are you moving in with her if she’s pregnant?” Dustin inquired. “I’m pretty sure that extra bedroom is gonna be pretty occupied in nine months.”

“It’s closer to six, actually,” Steve clarified, and Dustin’s eyes widened. “But that isn’t the point, can you please just-”

“Steve?” the boy asked, tone shifting away from curiosity into something Steve found much more concerning.

“Yeah?” Steve sighed.

“Why did you move in with her?” he asked again, although the way he spoke the words made Steve think Dustin probably already had it figured out. 

“Why do you think?” was all Steve could come up with to say.

“Oh, my god.”

“Dustin-”

“Oh, my god!”

“You cannot tell anyone, okay? This is totally top secret,” Steve begged.

“Did you-? You two-!” Dustin stuttered out. “Oh, my god!”

Dustin was about to start hyperventilating and Steve was doing his best to keep that from happening, pulling the glossy image out of Dustin’s hand as if it were made of precious porcelain, when the sound of keys jingling in the door distracted them. Both boys fell into bitter silence as you opened the door and took in the sight in front of you; a very frazzled Steve and a very distressed Dustin.

“Hi?” you greeted. “What’s going-”

“You’re fucking pregant?” Dustin exclaimed.

“What?” you spat out in response. Steve could tell that your mind was working a mile a minute to come up with a way to cover for yourself. “I-I don’t, uhm-”

“I left the sonogram on the fridge by mistake,” Steve confessed. He felt awful. “I’m sorry, it didn’t even cross my mind.”

“Oh,” you replied. You hadn’t moved from your spot in the entryway, hadn’t put down your bag or taken off your coat. You just stayed frozen.

“Oh, I have so many feelings!” Dustin wheezed, leaning forward. “Oh, my god!”

“Yeah, you’ve mentioned him.”

“You’re having a fucking baby?” Dustin asked you.

“Yes,” you timidly responded, slowly placing your work bag onto the side of the couch.

“With Steve?!”

“Yes,” you said again.

“That Steve?” Dustin pointed a thumb over his shoulder to where Steve was hovering behind him. “Steve Harrington? Our Steve?”

You nodded. “That Steve.”

“Holy shit,” the boy breathed out.

“Please don’t be mad,” Steve requested.

“What? Mad, why would I be mad?” he asked. “Who’s mad?”

“Well, so far, everyone,” Steve explained.

“Wait, is this why Robin’s not talking to you?” Dustin asked.

“Robin’s not talking to you?” you piped up, concern dripping from your words. 

Steve hadn’t mentioned that part to you yet. 

Robin had been giving Steve total radio silence ever since she had found out. Even at work, she was refusing to say a single word to him. She went and hid in the bathroom anytime Steve tried to say anything at all, and she had even recruited Keith to be her disinterested, detached middle man and relay VHS-related messages if she really needed to. 

To say the least, she really hadn’t taken it all that well.

“Later?” he said to you, silently begging you to table this conversation for a time when you didn’t have a very upset teenager in your kitchen.

Sticky silence fell over the three of you, sealing to Steve’s skin and filling his lungs up in a way he hated. Dustin was the one who peeled through it first. 

“Are you actually having a baby?” The question was directed to Steve this time. Dustin was wildly expressive, he always had been, and he looked very, very overwhelmed. Steve felt about the same. He just nodded, and it took a second for Dustin to properly process the news.

“Gimme the picture again!” Dustin insisted. 

“No, dude! We only have a few and-”

“Excuse me, it’s my nephew, I think I get to see the picture if I want to!”

The tension dissolved as soon as the words came out of Dustin’s mouth. Steve had been so, so worried that he’d be mad, madder than Robin was. 

“Hah! See, Dustin thinks it’s a boy, too!” Steve exclaimed to you. Reservation made way for excitement. Like Dustin said, it’s his nephew.

“Oh, god, please don’t start with this again,” you said, smiling despite the faux exasperation in your voice.

“You think it’s a girl?” Dustin asked.

“I think,” you say as you shuck off your coat and lean against the counter, across from the boys, “that Steve is going to get his hopes up about it being a boy, and then be disappointed if it isn’t.”

“Not possible,” Steve clarified with a smile. “Besides, you don’t have to worry about it because I’m right, and it’s gonna be a boy.”

Dustin didn’t end up leaving until a good few hours later, when Steve noticed how your eyes kept fluttering shut as you leaned against his shoulder. He had to manhandle the boy out the door; he had a seemingly unending vault of questions (“you guys have been sleeping together this whole time?!”), but you were totally wiped. 

You really just wanted to just go to bed, but Steve insisted you ate something first, and a mug of soup later, you were practically dead on your feet. He cleaned up any dinner mess (canned soup doesn’t really result in any mess, but he’d be damned if you had to put your own dishes into the dishwasher), and sent you off to get ready for an early turn in. 

He’d just put the pot away when you summoned him into the bathroom.

“You alright?” Steve asked, leaning against the doorframe. You were standing in front of the sink in your pajamas. He could smell your mouthwash.

“Come look.”

Steve took a step into the bathroom to sidle up next to you as you pulled the bottom edge of your too-big t-shirt up. Your fingers ever so gently ghosted over your stomach.

“That wasn’t there before,” you asked, tilting your head back against the crook of Steve’s arm to look up at him. “Was it?”

Steve was entranced by your reflection in the mirror, by the way the swell of your tummy absolutely gave you away. 

“I don’t know.” Steve spoke just barely above a whisper, the way he would have if he was standing in a church. You felt like an angel beneath his arm. “I don’t think so.”

“I feel like I would have noticed it if it was,” you said, eyes glued to the mirror just as Steve’s were. 

“Definitely would’ve noticed,” Steve quietly gushed. “You officially have a baby bump.”

Realistically, you still had a couple more weeks before anyone else would actually be able to see it. Still small enough to hide behind your clothes, but absolutely, undoubtedly there. 

You hummed, and Steve noticed the way you were trying to hide your smile.

“You’re allowed to be happy about it, you know,” Steve reminded you. Your eyes caught his again, and your small, shy smile grew just a little bit bigger as you pulled his hand away from your hip and placed it firmly against the slope of your tummy. He felt his breath hitch, like the action of touching you was breaking some sort of cardinal law, but he stroked his thumb up and down, up and down across your skin, and you flattened yourself as deeply into his chest as you possibly could. He pressed a kiss to your temple, lingering in the scent of you for as long as he could allow himself to.

His hand stayed glued to you for the remainder of the evening.

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[that-salty-ghost]

As Above, So Below | Chapter 27: Scary Stories | Viktor [Arcane] // Male Reader | Rating: M Throughout

Word Count: ~4.1k Summary: Opening up is spooky Tags: swearing, sexual tension, flirting, little bit o'fluff, mage-y stuff Last Chpt: A Matter of Time

Check my pinned post for more details/previous chapters/etc.

The initial rush of the towel snafu eventually dies down and you get some new bath water running for Viktor while he gathers up the pajamas he picked up from the night market. Two small knocks draw you back towards the door.

"Are you decent?"

"Never."

A small creak follows an exacerbated sigh as he tentatively cracks the door from the other side—a bag of dry clothes emerges slowly through the narrow opening. The flash of metal catches your attention and you find that he's using his cane to nudge the loungewear through. Likely an attempt to keep a safe distance from the entry point...just in case you were, in fact, indecent.

"Excellent technique." You tease as you kneel down to retrieve the pjs—grateful to have something that isn't saturated with river water to change into for the night. You watch with growing amusement as the bottom part of his cane gradually withdraws from the room again, catching the side of the door to pull it shut. "Although maybe a touch unnecessary—I won't bite."

Your head is rustling into the new shirt when his voice comes just outside the room. It's further muffled by the running water and wooden barrier separating you. But is still just coherent enough for you to think that you heard him say, "That's disappointing."

"OhhhHH?" You half laugh and can hear him chortle on the other side. "I suppose," You start, relying on the limited experience you had at the brothel to coax you through your response and keep your voice steady, "if you ask nicely...I could make an exception."

The pause that follows makes you wonder if you had misheard him. Instinctively you want to fill the silence to lighten the uneasy air you've just created. You inhale before opening your mouth to speak, but thank whatever god is watching this shitshow you kept quiet just a little longer than Viktor did.

"Tempting offer."

His less-than-passive approach to flirting teases the thought into your mind. And although his quip may simply just be that—something to joke with, you can't help but wonder if this was an attempt at testing the waters of hypothetical happenings.

When you open the door, you find Viktor leaning comfortably against the frame. Arms crossed with an easy-going grin; his eyes meet yours fondly before looking on at your new attire. As you move to trade places with the other man, his eyes remain fixed on your form as you pass. Walking makes you realize that the fabric of the shorts tends to pull up a little more than you're used to and you habitually tug at the hem to leave some room for imagination.

It clearly doesn't go unnoticed when you hear Viktor mutter a playful, "Very...tempting." before closing the door behind him.

Once you're back in the living area, you decide that one of the armchairs seems like a good choice to settle your heart rate back down before you collapse or die or both at this rate. The emerald green velvet lays smooth against your palms as you take a seat, warming yourself by the crackling fire that Viktor previously stoked back to life and watching the snow fall just outside the window.

Getting comfortable, you prop your legs up on the footrest and for the first time in ages it hits you.

There is nothing you need to do right now.

Nowhere you need to be. No early shift at the coffeehouse, no late-night trade or hustle tonight. Just...this. It's a rare thing, to have free time. And to be honest, you're not quite sure what to do with it. So, you stay still. Absent-mindedly watching the snow continue its decent from the hazy sky.

Which—you had to admit—is a strange thing for you to do.

You've had a complicated relationship with the cold since you were forced to survive it. Training in the tundra for your father, curling up into nothing more than an alcove to protect yourself from the wind and snow—not exactly your happiest memory.

Still, you can't deny that the sight outside is mesmerizing. Blankets of white layer the rooftops and sidewalks, slithering and serpentine through the streets as the breeze picks up. The wind brings an ache to the old building, forcing a whistle from its walls as the storm builds. The sound makes you instinctively rub a hand over your arm to self-soothe, reminding yourself that you're indoors. You're warm. You're safe.

...But you can't sit idle like this for much longer.

You decide to walk it off by exploring the room, taking in the temporary change of scenery you get to enjoy for the evening. The sound of steady dripping moves your attention to the sopping wet towel that gave Viktor a show not long ago, drawing a light hearted scoff from you before peering at the books in the small reading nook. One in particular catches your eye enough for you to pull it from the shelf.

The cover image of a ghastly lighthouse in the midst of an eerie sea fits the tattered binding and dogeared pages all too well—showing clear signs that it has been thoroughly enjoyed over the years.

"Must be good." You mumble to yourself before taking it with you back to the armchair.

It's been a while...you struggle to remember the last time you used a book for leisure rather than for learning a new skill or trade.

And as if the pages themselves knew that truth, they lure you in effortlessly.

The detailed descriptions of a worn home with haunted happenings in and around it paints vivid images in your mind as you absorb line after line. The cries of cliffs in the story nearly mirrors the whistling winds just outside your own window and before you know it, you're hooked—entirely engulfed in another world until the sights and sounds of your own are all but drowned out.

The cozy room that you're in is quickly exchanged for a weathered house by the sea. A lit cityscape in the undercity traded for a vast ocean of black—illuminated intermittently by the spinning beam of the lighthouse's beacon. Noises of trickling bath water replaced by ruthless crashing waves...and then a creaking door closing just downstairs in the old house—alerting you that someone was inside.

Your heart beats faster as you eagerly turn the page.

Your sight was limited in the dark dwelling, but you had a sinking feeling that you weren't alone. Hearing no footsteps but opening the door to see the fresh, muddy stains of footprints that weren't there before you entered. Someone had walked the halls without you knowing.

Without you seeing.

Something was hiding in the darkness of this house just down the hall from you—stalking silently like a wraith in the night.

...patiently watching

...waiting...

"Reading?"

"FUHHACCKK!" You practically jump out of the chair, startled to your core when Viktor's voice jolts you out of the book that is now tumbling onto the floor. "Ohhh...hell." You breathe out as you rub your eyes, gradually recovering from the fright pounding in your chest.

"Hello to you too." Viktor is laughing quietly, retrieving the fallen novel for you while you try to return your soul back to your body. "I take it you didn't hear me coming?" His voice is maddeningly calm and for the life of you it feels purposeful.

Slack jaw and holding the back of your neck with one hand, your eyes are focused entirely on the ceiling while you try to come back down from the jump. "Now what gave you that idea." While the response is sarcastic it doesn't disturb Viktor's clear entertainment from scaring you in the slightest.

When you finally level your gaze again you find him browsing the first few pages, nodding periodically while he speed-reads to see what you were so engulfed in. As he pages through, a small smile tugs more and more at his lips—quietly deducing that he found the particularly spooky encounter that you must've been reading when he startled you.

But while he's busy with that, your eyes unwittingly start to drift down and over his chest. It's difficult not to admire the small droplets of water falling from his damp hair onto the angular shoulders below. Let alone how the loose-fitting material of his shirt drapes low on his neck, leaving his collarbones and the notch in between them deliciously visible.

The slightest sign of tautness pulling in his shoulder holds your attention again as he turns another page. The motion causing slight tension in the muscle above his clavicle, making the small dip in between even more prominent. A single droplet of water from chestnut locks drips torturously onto it. Taunting you by tracing over his collarbone slowly as it trickles down and all you can do is bite back the urge to lick your lips like a goddamned starved animal.

"You like it?"

His question causes you to cut yourself off before your knee jerk answer of 'absolutely' even graces your lips—a concerted effort to prevent a repeat of misusing that word again. And to ensure you're responding to him with the correct context in tow.

"The book—you mean do I like the book?"

"Yes, the book..." The rising intonation at the end of his sentence turns his statement into a question. His curious mind shows through with a downward tilt of his head, as if a better look at you would help him better decipher what else you could be referring to.

"I do. Fell right into it."

Your words draw a grin out of Viktor as he holds the book out towards you. "So, I noticed." His grip loosens around the novel and you catch an impish quirk in his eyebrow before he turns to work on the fire.

Your eyes follow curiously as he crouches down—his cane resting against the wall as outstretched fingers wrap easily around each piece of firewood. You never thought such simple movements could be so graceful, it catches you up a bit as he speaks again.

"It's endearing, you know."

"What's that?" You wonder as he stokes an iron rod into the smoky chamber. Slowly the cinders are fed the new kindling—becoming a blaze within the stove.

"That you can become so immersed in a piece of literature that way." He smiles to himself as he nurses the flames back to life, a satisfied tone carrying his voice all the while. "There is, ah—" a tired grunt escapes him as he lifts himself off of the floor to stride towards chair across from you. "—a certain amount of passion necessary to elicit that kind of response."

'Or a perpetual game of cat and mouse that is trauma and escapism.' Your intrusive thoughts are doing you no favors, but you keep that to yourself. Choosing instead to enjoy the way Viktor is talking to you—about you.

Choosing instead to get to know the man sitting fireside with you.

"Is there anything that does that for you? Something that takes you miles away?"

"I could...name a few things," He pauses, considering his words as lax fingertips trace directionless patterns into the velvet arm of the chair. "Though I admit, the best one is currently seated quite handsomely in front of me."

The warmth of his smile matches the very hearth fire roaring between you. You can't stop the sly grin slowly curling on your lips—his choice of words catching your attention well.

"You think I'm handsome?"

"I think you're incredibly handsome."

He doesn't even hesitate. And despite the vulnerability of his answer, Viktor's voice doesn't falter for a second. He's certain. Confident. Like he needed you to hear this. "I wanted to tell you at R&R's, but there was an...interruption."

You recall the moment—he had started a sentence similar to this, but was cut off by the drunkard outside the bar. 'For what it's worth, [Y/n]...I think you're incredibly ha—'

He did need you to hear him...because you didn't the last time—the first time rather.

"I was wondering what you were going to say."

He leans forward slightly, resting his forearms heavily on his knees as his eyes light up. "What were your theories?"

Who are you to deny his curiosity? You recall the various possibilities of what could've been and report back in no specific order.

"Hm...Harrowing?"

"Couldn't be further from the truth." The abruptness of his response—he doesn't leave room for debate on that and nods his head up towards you to continue. "What else?"

"Hammered."

That one makes him chuckle. "You forget we did successfully climb a flight of stairs—allow us some credit."

"Climb is a bit of a stretch." You reply, amused as you recount the struggle. "Stumbled maybe."

"Semantics." Viktor dismisses your criticism with a fluttered wave, a grin spreading across his face as he fails to hide how much he's enjoying trying (and failing) to cover up just how sloppy you both were. "Anyway. You were saying."

You rest your hand against your temple, getting comfortable again as you answer him with your last hypothesis.

"Hard to read."

"Mm. Incredibly." While you're surprised to hear it, you simultaneously understand. You don't exactly wear your emotions on your sleeve, let alone allow anyone to get too close most of the time. "But, admittingly—it's a trait of yours that I'm quite drawn to."

"Don't like 'em easy, huh?" You joke and watch as he sits back but notice him trying to roll his wrist out again once he moves his cane over. Your eyes narrow to get a better view, brows furrowing when you remember he had done a similar motion after rowing the boat...and after tripping the cutpurse up with his cane.

"Now where's the fun in that?" He chirps back until he catches you eyeing his reaction. With a shake of his head and flex of his fingers, he dismisses the worry that bore into your expression with a quick, "I'm fine."

"You're incredibly fine." Your lips twitch upwards at the corner as you find your own confidence to finally hit on the other man with some fluidity before continuing. "You still have that old salve on you?"

You watch him bite the grin pulling on his lower lip when he hears you flirt, happily taking a pause to soak it in before acknowledging your question. "The one night I forgot it." He mechanically reaches for a pocket that doesn't exist or house the container in question.

"Bringing that backpack throw you off?" You make your way over to the bedside table, Viktor watching closely as you snag the balm you brought.

"Evidently. What are you...?"

His sentence trails off when you hand the small tin of cardamom salve you made over to him. You watch as his thumb ghosts over the triangle crossed with a diagonal line carved cleanly into the lid.

"I see your engraving skills have improved." Viktor teases before he opens it, eyes softening when he recognizes the familiar aroma. "You...carried on your mother's craft?" His eyes meet yours, warm and curious. But you can't tell if he's referring to the alchemy or the arcane.

"In my own way." You pause as you move to lean on the top of his chair. "It's not quite the same as hers. Close, but hers had more uh...oomph—I s'pose." It's tricky to word and you stop yourself before trying to explain yourself better.

From what you gathered he only knew that your mother was a mage. But you still weren't positive if he actually knew that you were as well. You also weren't sure if that was something that would scare him given that you're alone in a hotel room together. Miles from home no less.

He studies you silently until something ignites his thoughts.

"Your own way...?" He tilts his head inquisitively up at you, seeming to stop himself from saying more as well as he hands the salve back. Absent-mindedly he flicks his wrist up with a small 'pop' and now you're positive that he must've hurt it during the scuffle with the cutpurse.

But why wouldn't he admit that?

In that moment you realize that for one reason or another, he was holding something back too. Both of you were. And from the way he hums to himself and shifts his sights to the floor, it looks like he realizes it as well.

"We've got some decent walls up, don't we?"

Seemingly grateful for your speculation, Viktor huffs with raised brows. "It appears that we do." His honeyed eyes catch yours before he speaks again. "Maybe we can chip away at those together."

"Hm." You grin again at his remark, it sounds so nice when he says it. Still, you had to admit the notion was scarier than any ghost story you've picked up.

But you've been running around like this for years. Moving through your life with your guard up and your head down. With a wraith of your own haunting the halls of your mind every step of the way. To keep you quiet—keep you complacent.

So that you move through your days as covert as possible, lest you draw any more attention to yourself. Hardly a second where you're not keeping busy creating something, working for something, working toward something.

Always something.

Anything.

Anything as long as it put some distance between you and the resounding baggage that your family name hogtied you with. As long as it kept your mind busy. Too busy to really think about anything else.

If you were being honest with yourself, it's a tiring way to live.

And also, a lonely one.

There's a good bit of risk in this that can't be denied, but maybe...just maybe Viktor could be someone you didn't have to wear the mask around—didn't have to hide away from. After all, your mother didn't seem to think so...right?

You inhale.

Exhale.

"Alright." You give him the go ahead—your heart pounding hard at the thought of what comes next—unrelentingly so when Viktor takes his first swing.

"If you're sure..." He starts, "When you say 'your own way'—ehh..." You can tell he's trying to be selective with his words even though you know exactly where this is going. "Does that also mean...?" His sentence trails off and it looks like he considers letting his implication speak for itself. But something has him shake that off, choosing to reword his question despite whatever had him pause. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Curious, golden eyes find yours as you move to take a seat on the footrest in front of him. "If you're hurt I could...show you." Viktor cocks a brow as you sit slightly below him now, holding your hand out for him to take. "Can I have a look?" You motion towards his wrist and watch as he pieces together what you're asking.

He nods slowly, quietly admitting to an injury as he lays his hand in yours. It's a small thing, but you recognize it—exposure. That acknowledgement wasn't easy. He's taking a risk trusting you too—letting you chip away at him while he does the very same.

And while this entire exchange has the makings to intimidate you half to death, the warmth and weight that fills your palm once Viktor's hand is in yours is all you need to ease your mind and work the very trade that your mother once taught you.

The muscles around his lean forearms twitch lightly as you press your fingers along the tendons and ligaments lining his carpals. You feel him tense up when you find inflammation near his thumb and visualize how the joints move together as you dip your fingers into the balm.

"Is this okay?" You ask as you rub the salve between the pads of your fingers, feeling small trickles of electricity move through you as you try to channel your abilities.

He nods with a soft smile. "Exceptionally okay."

You recognize those words immediately, it's difficult not to. His direct reference to your peculiar, tongue-tied response to him at The Last Drop gives you pause. Your response to when he had held your hand to deter the creep from hitting on you further. A solution you were all too eager to participate in.

The familiar feeling of comfort laced with excitement begins to stir in you as you recognize how familiar this moment with him is. You wonder if he's picked up on it too—by the way he's watching you, you imagine that he does. A shiver runs up your spine as the tips of your fingers begin to tingle from the arcane coming through for you, making itself comfy in your nerve endings as you adjust to the new sensations it brings.

"You remember that, huh?" You smile crookedly while you relive your awkward reply, secretly enjoying how Viktor says it. The other man only lets his smile grow wider, studying the way you move his arm and examine him.

"I remember how badly I wanted to keep holding your hand..."

That little squeeze that he gave you just before he had let go...you had wondered if the gesture was intentional. Like he had tried to memorize the moment—attempted to capture it in the very palm of his hand...and in yours.

"And now?" You glance up at him, wondering if this small, similar instance was something he found himself clinging onto as well.

Quietly, calmly—Viktor curls his pinky and ring finger over your thumb. He stays that way for only a second until you feel it. The same gentle squeeze that you remember from before. When he relaxes his hand again you can feel new energy surging through your veins, dancing with your adrenaline before you settle the static in your mind and fingers. After a moment you're able to reestablish the concentration he's all but shot dead into the ground and focus on the task in hand...at hand. Fuck.

Whatever, you're just trying not to short circuit and accidentally kill the man at this point.

"I hope that answers your question."

"Just uh...try to stay still for me."

He lets you lay his forearm onto your knee but not without muttering a small "Of course." Or without biting back a snarky grin at your swift deflection.

As you leverage your hand under Viktor's to stabilize you both, he shifts in his seat to get more comfortable. Gradually leaning closer and closer, you force yourself not to think on the proximity for too long.

You're forcing yourself not to think on a lot of things right now.

Like the similarities this moment shares with the start of that vivid dream you had barely two nights ago. You definitely try to forget that.

Try to concentrate on the warmth of the salve melting onto your free hand rather than how Viktor's pulse quickens under your touch. Try to ignore how perfectly his hand seems to fit in yours. Try to zero in on his anatomy rather than your chemistry so you don't fuck this up.

...You're trying.

Viktor remains silent and unmoving but you can feel his gaze burning through you when you start to rub your thumb against your fingertips until they warm up, practically humming with energy now. With a breath in you flick the side of your index finger against your thumb, a similar motion to igniting a lighter...all the way down to taking a couple of tries to get the damn thing to work.

When small flecks of blue and white electric light stutters from them, you mutter a small "Sorry—" before momentarily moving the hand you had under Viktor's out. He watches intently as you roll two fingers up your veins, trying to move any residual magic that might've gotten trapped.

"It's like a high cholesterol for a mage—when we don't practice, shit gets...stuck..." You're half-explaining why you look so weird right now and half-muttering to yourself, but finally you feel like you have a handle on your control. The magic feels a little more erratic than you'd like, but you've made do with worse. If you could get the godsdamned butterflies out of your stomach you're sure you could stabilize it even more.

Easy, right?

Before you start, it finally hits that you just did all of this in front of a live audience. Curiosity kills the cat and you glance up to check the other man's reaction. And relief washes over you when you find that he isn't afraid in the slightest.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

----------

A/N:

Shoutout to @thehistoriangirl for being cool with having The Tides Have Veiled be the book pulled from the shelf that y/n is reading--if you haven't read her fic yet it's incredible, go to it <3 As always thank you for just being the kindest and most patient humans/readers with this, I know updates are lengthy af so please know I just appreciate all of you and am glad this is something folks still enjoy/come back to. 

Also season two is just around the corner! I'm going back and forth on how far into the future this fic should go and that's giving me plot paralysis so hopefully I figure that out soon send prayers. Thank you again for reading and I hope y'all have a great weekend!

-Ghost

[tigirl-and-co]

Specks of Dust in Hallowed Halls

Part 2; Linguistics

Part 1, the introductory chapter, is here!

Now we get into the shippy stuff! And bonus points for anybody who recognizes the book I've chosen here

"Howlsong, who had fallen asleep at the outer edge of the canyon while he waited, led them silently back through the forest. Fritti, full of vague resentment and doom, had no conversation to offer, either. After a long stretch of unspeaking travel, Pouncequick finally broke the stillness.

"Just think, Tailchaser," he said, "we've actually been to see the Queen of Cats!""

You were curled up in a nook that you had unofficially claimed as your own somewhere in the human residence. Made more comfortable by a few blankets and pillows, you had chosen it for its out-of-the-way location and because Metroplex could both see the spot with a camera and use a nearby speaker to talk with you.

In your lap was your phone, currently accessing his personal communication line, which let him hear your voice.

Metroplex loved your voice. It was his favourite sound, the most wonderful melody he'd heard in all his unfathomable eons of existence. Every syllable, every stutter and stumble was permanently caught in his memory circuits, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

And when he learned you had a collection of books back on earth, he had practically begged you to import some to read to him. Not only was he desperate to hear your voice, Metroplex was also curious about you. What you liked to read, what the human culture you hailed from was like, what you thought about things...

So, you found yourself contacting a friend on earth to bring a few books to the supply ship every so often, and spending a bit of extra cash to get them shipped here and back. You didn't mind. It felt nice to be heard. To have your interests acknowledged and considered important.

And, quite honestly, you simply enjoyed hearing him speak. The deep rumble was both soothing and impossible to ignore, and his contemplative nature gave every statement the gravitas of some ancient philosopher comprehending the universe.

"So, Metty, what'd you think of that chapter?" you asked, keeping your own thoughts out of it.

A few moments of pause. "Hm... are human noble courts typically like that?"

You chuckled. Of course that's what he picked out- he'd borne witness to much more sophisticated councils time and time again. In fact, some other part of his processor was probably preoccupied with one now.

"Honestly? Never been. But if I walked in to one and it went like that, I wouldn't be surprised in the least. Fancy people looooooove making overly complex routines and rules and then not actually doing anything to help." You looked up into his camera and beamed at him. "But I get the feeling that sort of behaviour isn't unique to my species."

You felt as much as heard his merriment at that one. "No, it truly is not. Although I've found Cybertronians prefer bureaucracy to bloodlines."

You snuggled back into your nook, still making eye contact with the camera as you got ready for what was certain to be the nerdiest bout of flirting any human had ever partaken in outside of a lab. "Ah, humans most definitely get up to red tape and government nonsense too, but I'm afraid that compared to millions of years of rule-writing, ours would pale in comparison."

You smirked. "Although I'd like to see what would happen if somebody addressed Prime as 'Your Regal Softness.'"

Metroplex desperately wished he had finer control over his internal mechanisms so that he could embrace you right now. But he would have to settle for watching you curl up against his walls. "Knowing that mech, he would assume it was an actual title and wear it with pride."

You burst out laughing at the image, and how it didn't seem all that far-fetched. You both respected Optimus, but that didn't mean you couldn't be irreverent about him in private.

And as you chatted with the titan, book now just conversational fuel, you were struck by how easy it all was. The meandering levity, the way you each made both space and time for each other...

And how easy he was to love.

[sessakag]

Hi! I'm really curious about your writing process because you're writing so many stories simultaneously which i think is really impressive. 💖 Do you already know what's gonna happen in the story such as the ending? Do you outline the plot before starting a story or is the plot decided as the story goes? Do you also forget what happened in the previous chapters so as that you have to reread them before writing the next chapter?

My writing process can be summed up in one word: chaos.

Absolute chaos, no joke. I am always all over the place, bouncing from one fic to another, files everywhere, folders everywhere, docs everywhere, like omg, its so disorganized on my side of the fic but its like a disorganization I can navigate quite easily most of the time😅and yes, I write a lot of stories simultaneously, but its on a bigger scale than folks see, lol. I've been working on 8 unpublished stories at once alongside Prey and Butterfly for the last month or so🤔my brain is just always going, and it switches from one thing to other, sometimes within minutes, sometimes days, sometimes hours, and then I get super fixated on whatever has my attention at the moment and the words just come pouring out of my brain😅I do take breaks when my hands and wrist start to ache, though that only makes me think of more stuff to write about.

I usually have a very clear vision for my fics, they're like movies or tv shows that I live through and experience inside my head, but the majority of the decisions on how to get to point A to B are made on the fly and I do not constrain myself if the story takes me somewhere other than the "clear vision" lol. I'm allergic to following guidelines. I just can't write like that, I have to like, feel the story as I write and if I can't experience the feeling of it then I go a different route, planned or not. it's hard to explain it without sounding like a crazy lady😅but yeah, I'm all feels and instinct with my stories, not much deliberate structure, though I have tried that before, and I was bored to tears and started dreading writing. Prey is a prime example of this. I planned on writing it one way, Prey!Naruto told me no🤭

I know how just about every single one of my fics are going to end already. I may not know how I'll get there, or what will happen in between, but I do know for a fact how they will conclude(unless the story demands a different end, but it's not likely to happen I don't think). I've already written the end for Butterfly, Monster, A Cure For Love, Prey, Dirty Little Secret, most of my unpublished fics and partially finished Secrets but I'm iffy on that one since I'm torn in two directions on how to conclude it. Once I get to the sequel I should have a better feel for it. But yeah, the end of these stories are already ready, they're just waiting for me to get there😂probably one of the reasons why I linger so much on fics so much🤔I already know they end and wanna have fun until the party's over🤭

I do forget things sometimes and need to re-read my stories, though for the most part, my fics are like movies I've seen a million times and I remember them just fine. I mostly re-read to pick up the momentum I had before I left, or to "get back in character" with the characters in the fic. Like if I've been writing Prey for an extended period of time, and then want to go to a fic where Naruto is more in line with his canon self, I'll have to re-read the story to put that hat back on, or listen to music that's less idgaf trap rap and more Naruto OST🤭but forgetting what happened in the previous chapters nah, not really. Not unless I'm having an episode or something, lol. Then Idk wtf is going on🤭

Anywho, hope this answered all your questions, but feel free to ask more!

[simpjaes]

Agreed on the continuation. Sunghoon actually dates her and fulfill her needs completely but he too works a lot. So they have to keep fucking around with Heeseung. And its fun tension in their relationship because of it. Hee threatens to tell her sister but Hoon shuts that down real quick. Both couples have a movie night and Hee sees her not looking at him and fully into whats happening with Hoon. Hoon peeks at Hee like yeah thats mine.

i think sunghoon wouldn't necessarily work a lot, he's a gaming loser too and likely would prefer working part time and coasting while living with his roommates or parents etc. i think if anything, though he is far more uh...mature compared to his friends, deep down he's exactly the same.

he would more than likely think he has reader on lock down and loosen the reigns on her, ignore her for games, go far too long without texting back bc he stayed up all night again playing games WITH HEESEUNG LMAO. then he'd have to get a wakeup call realizing that heeseung still is trying to get some of that, and definitely does get some when Sunghoon isn't around.

cue major possessive/jealous stuff with doube dates, blatant possessive intimate moments in front of each other etc. i also know for a fact that hee would not threaten to tell reader's sister a damn thing, bc like, the whole thing is his fault and if he wants to keep his lil unemployed free ride for the next year and a half he'd keep his mouth shut. he ain't that dumb. the difference between the relationships though? Reader would 100% have feelings for hoonie. like i mean she would be madly in love with him, but ofc he wouldn't quite pick up on that and be a lil too nonchalant in the relationship.

reader only wants to fuck heeseung out of spite and/or because she's needy and a whore (just like meeeee). heeseung ofc takes advantage of everyone too, so he would still be hittin' that shit on the side til sunghoon actually starts putting effort into the relationship and threatens him with blackmail LOL

idk im kinda rambling rn. all i know is, canon end game will always be sunghoon, and heeseung will always be pissed about it.

[ohmygraves]

let me share a bit of my self insert details for cod, since i figured out i can write smth while i think about how to continue the other wips i have

with callsign "rookie", a first generation immigrant. they're the youngest between all the 141, and was recommended by laswell. still, their rank is definitely under both soap and gaz. a non-binary person, though don't mind any pronouns.

here's a few sketches of them (i made it to my likeness because, y'know, "self" insert)

the change in haircut is intentional as it should reflect my continuously changing hairstyle since my hair is a dumbass who can't make up its mind in how it should present itself.

i made a "relationship chart" to explain the dynamics of rookie with the other members of 141

gaz ⇄ rookie

gaz and rookie i'd imagine to be some kind of the ride or die best friend, which unfortunately often happened because rookie has the worst kind of luck, but just good enough that they get out of danger somehow in the last second. the kind of best friend that you could understand being so close because you'd known eachother really well. it's probably the case of them being quite similar in age (rookie is still younger though), so he took pity of them at first and happily accompany them everywhere. he knows how anxious it can be to be around something so unfamiliar and scary, and he understands how it feels to be frustrated knowing that you can't save everyone (he hopes that rookie can be more mature but for now he'd gladly sigh at their naivety).

soap ⇄ rookie

maybe because i view soap to be slightly older than gaz i feel like soap and rookie are more like siblings? i feel like if soap became best friends with rookie, he'd be too much for the poor lad. soap as best friend is a good trope but he's a wild card that he could show up at your doorstep either with a bong or a shovel, and i'm not sure if rookie can handle all that. he's a good friend, sure, but one that gaz hope that won't influence rookie too much because what is he going to do with not one but two soap at the barracks?

that being said, i think that soap treats rookie like somewhat of a younger sibling that he gets to pick on from time to time, but in a nice way. like he'd wear their stuff that he found on the laundry, strutting a booty shorts (and killing it) while he makes some coffee for himself as rookie hunts his head for sports since all their clothes get stretched because of him. or the one that tells them that price likes spicy in his sandwich causing rookie to witness price choke on a sub slathered with hot sauce, getting them in trouble. he takes advantage of their naivety in a funny way and he teaches them weird things. definitely gets him in trouble with ghost though because of that.

price ⇄ rookie

now don't come at me for being so overrated, but i see price as a father figure. if activision don't want me to commit fatherless behavior, then they probably shouldn't make him so dad material in the first place. that being said, i like to think that when price sees rookie's files and do a small "interview" with the lad, he feels like he was responsible for a new teammate. like mama hen finding a kitten and taking care of it like a chick.

he understands that rookie is very, very new to everything, and that's saying it lightly. being the youngest of the group, an immigrant, not to mention very naive made him pity the newbie, which of course made him go "dad mode" and teach them things from time to time. he has definitely been called "dad" by accident a few times by rookie, but he didn't seem to mind. didn't seem to enjoy the fact that soap's influencing them to act up too at times.

ghost ⇄ rookie

now ghost is my favorite (obviously), so this might be long. in general, ghost didn't like how inexperienced rookie is. they're in 141, working as an sas soldier, and they're going to fumble on their guns like an idiot?

preposterous, why did laswell let them in the team?

it's not like he has any say in it, and unfortunately he had to mentor them and make sure they're doing a good job (read: babysitting, as he would say), and it didn't make him feel better about it. sometimes i want to see him just grab the poor newbie and just scream at their face like "what do you want!? i can't believe someone is this bloody fucking incompetent, you might as well be a sea cucumber!" like this man would not hesitate to insult the newbie to the point that they're crying.

and he should be. he's not going to put his life in the hands of some dumbass who can't shoot right half the time.

of course, it'll take a long, long time for him to acknowledge their skill, even getting a small "passable" from him is worth celebrating. literal years to be close to him, share the fact that they're both fatherless people who used to live in an abusive household and maybe he'll start to acknowledge them (anything that's beside work ofc). little affirmation that they've gotten this far somehow even after such horrible things happening to them.

i only ever pair rookie with ghost and soap (or both of them together as a throuple) romantically, gaz is more platonic and price is more fatherly.

i know this is a different post from what i normally would post but if you're all interested in getting to know rookie more, feel free to interact. my askbox are open for requests or something a bit more casual, don't be shy. i don't bite.

[lillyspeakz]

hello!!! im wondering if i could get some platonic fluff with Studentbur? (bonus points if the reader is queer and student has mixed feelings about them since he's religious and stuff)

also I'd like to claim a 🐏 emoji if i can :)

Ofc you can love! Welcome to the party!

Also if you see like his/ her- that’s for you to decide depending on your sexuality! Reader is gay. I changed the prompt a bit, but I still hope you like it!

-

Wilbur wasn’t the best person when it came to socialization, always being sheltered by his parents and being told that if people are anything different from them, steer clear. Now Wilbur would have listened if you were so intriguing, always doing random things in class to make others laugh and holding yourself in a way that made others attracted.

Wilbur was one of them.

You and Wil had been partnered up at a lab station together the second semester of chemistry, your smile being the first thing we saw every morning as he made his way over to you. Wil never really talked, letting you do all of it as he listened to your day or random drama that you had. You never minded, knowing he was listening as he looked up at you with wide eyes at a particular part.

But one thing he’s been picking up lately is how much you talk about people the same gender as you. Talking about how pretty they are and how you wished you weren’t placed in this hell hole of a catholic school.

Wilbur never questioned it, letting it slide most times until you ran up to him in class one day, jumping in excitement.

“Wilbur! Wilbur! Guess what?!” You screamed as you grabbed his shoulders and jumped. Wil’s eyes widened as he placed his own hands on your shoulders, calming your body down as you he looked at you.

“What happened?” He asked with a calm tone, a smile forming as you giggled up at him. He loved seeing your smile, hearing your laugh, knowing that something good came out of this school. You were like his sibling, he could go to you for anything he needed and vise versa.

“Guess who got a date with the prettiest person in school?” You said as you squealed afterwards, spinning in circles as Wil laughed at you.

“That’s good love. What’s his / her name?” Wil said as he continued to do his work for classes, falling behind from always hanging out at your house. He never blamed you, yet his parents did, claiming you were bad news. He knew you weren’t, you just didn’t care as much as he did.

You paused as a confused frown made its way at up to your face, tilting your head at him as your mouth opened and closed. “What do you mean Wil? You know I’m gay, right? Right?!” You asked, desperate to know if he thought you were an ounce of anything straight this whole time.

Wilbur’s eyes snot up in shock as he slowly shook his head, making you sigh out and shake your head. “You didn’t pick up on the fact I always talked about people who are the same gender?”

“No I did, I just didn’t quite think about…” Wilbur said as trailed off, eyes hesitantly looking at yours. “So you’re, queer?”

A small scoff left your lips, as you rubbed your face, groaning out at the situation. “Yeah… yeah. You have a problem with that? I know your family…”

Wilbur thought for a second. Did he? He knows his family does, always being told to pray for people who liked the same gender and who strayed away from god, always having some sort of resentment towards gay people. yet he himself has been straying, so who was he to be a hypocrite.

“No, I don’t. Now who is it? I want to know!” Wil quickly said as you pulled out the stool from beside him and excitedly smiled at him, flaring your hands around as you talked on and on about this person.

[gabessquishytum]

big fan of pervy hob, still!! hob and dream are both professors at their university, and they get along fine. it’s obvious they have crushes on each other and the group of students who share their courses love to gossip about how gone they are on each other and how it’s so cute watching them dance around one another til someone makes a move. and when they do get together, it’s great!! their students tease them for a bit, and then they get settled into the relationship and everything smooths itself out.

except that behind closed doors, hob is absolutely wrecking dream. it’s extremely unfair. dream has no idea how hob “just some guy” gadling is able to ruin him so thoroughly— but he’s having some of the best orgasms of his life, so he isn’t complaining.

but it turns out, hob only knows exactly what dream likes because he did some snooping around the dark corners of the internet, and managed to unearth videos and photos of dream from back when he was a camboy to get himself through school. hob watches the videos religiously, they’re the only porn he can even get off on, now, and it’s just one hell of a bonus that now he knows exactly how dream likes his nipples played with, his favorite positions, the way he squirms when he pulls on his cock in a certain way… i mean, hob’s only helping dream, at this point. and if no ones getting hurt, who cares that hob found the videos?

(or at least, until someone accidentally grabs hob’s hard drive instead of their own and plugs it in to find some rather….promiscuous videos of their creative writing professor back in his youth)

yellingscreamingclawingatthewalls

Did Hob pursue Dream because he was already aware of his camboy career? Or did he go looking online to dig up dirt on his new lover and just happen to find some spicy stuff? Maybe Dream mentioned his previous career in passing, assuming that his content would be long buried. He didn't know that Hob would seek it out deliberately. After all, Hob is such a gentleman!

And how does Dream feel when it all comes out in the open and he finds out about Hob’s little habit of watching his old videos? He's pissed off, maybe even breaks up with Hob for a few days... unfortunately his resolve crumbles quite quickly. He's become very used to getting A LOT of very good sex from Hob, and he may be a tiny bit addicted to that dick.

And so, he begrudgingly forgives Hob for his transgressions... refusing to mention that he's becoming increasingly turned on by the fact that Hob went digging for his sexy videos online. More and more often he's getting off on the idea of Hob watching him, creeping on him, perving on him... its turning into quite the kink for Dream.

Which is maybe a good thing, because Hob hasn't exactly stopped. He's not even being careful, and he's picked up a few new habits. Dream’s underwear is disappearing slowly but at a noticeable rate. The camera in Dream’s bathroom isn't exactly "hidden"... Dream is just pretending not to notice.

Turns out the cutest couple on campus are nasty, nasty bastards. Good for them <333