#maybe because she only smells of polyester and god knows what else

[oatmilk-vampire]

Third of December || Steddie

Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson

Steve Harrington x OC (minor)

Summary:

Steve gave Eddie his sweater one cold December day. Then he gave it to Heather.

Inspired by the song Heather by Conan Gray!

Word count: 2.2 of pining and love confessions!

~~~

Eddie Munson has been called a lot of things.

Smart was not one of them.

Because if he was smart he would have confessed his true feelings a long time ago, or he wouldn’t have fallen in love at all.

He would have lived a single existence, the only friends being those in Hellfire or Corroded Coffin. Well, besides Steve of course. But he’s a different story. Different story, same problem.

You see, Eddie never intended to fall for the one popular boy but here he was. The freak falling in love with the former king of Hawkins High. That’s good enough to be a movie.

It’s the third of December. Hawkins has finally recovered from Vecna’s wrath and his name has been cleared. He was a free man, except for the cage he kept himself in.

Because with December came a much colder Hawkins, and with a colder Hawkins came Eddie’s refusal to dress properly for the inclement weather in favor of keeping his normal aesthetic, and with that comes the predicament Eddie Munson currently finds himself in.

Because this man can face high school three times. This man can witness his middle school friend be supernaturally murdered, then be framed for it. This man can survive Demobats. But he couldn’t survive his feelings and he sure as hell couldn’t survive Steve Harrington’s yellow sweater.

“Huh. Looks better on you than it does me, Munson.” Steve had told him with that smile like he doesn’t know what he’s doing to him.

If only Steve knew how much Eddie liked him.

Maybe then he wouldn’t openly check out their former classmate who wandered in to rent Pretty in Pink, and boy, did she look the part.

He couldn’t even fault Steve. She was a sight for sore eyes, her own brighter than the blue sky.

She’s got Steve mesmerized while Eddie dies just a little more inside.

Why would Steve ever kiss me? I'm not even half as pretty.

Eddie tries not to watch as they oggle each other.

Now Eddie has learned his lesson. He wears winter coats, gloves, and a God forsaken beanie on his head. He doesn't need to borrow anymore of Steve's sweaters, even if he secretly loved it and felt much warmer in the flimsy fabric smelling of Steve's cologne than he ever did in his own winter gear.

But because of this, he now suffers a different fate entirely.

You see, Steve gave her his sweater. It’s just polyester, but Eddie can tell by the way Steve’s eyes light up as she flits across the room in the oversized garment– he likes her better.

He watches as she stands, holding Steve's hand. As Steve puts his arm around her shoulder, Eddie can't help but feel colder.

I wish I was Heather.

But how could I hate her? She's such an angel. But then again, kinda wish she were dead.

Eddie distances himself from Steve after that. It's not healthy for him to pretend like he's fine only to shoot daggers at her when their backs are turned. He begins avoiding any group hangouts, knowing Steve will be present with her. At first he still attended, and looked forward to it. It was his opportunity to spend as much time with Steve as possible, using the excuse to get way too close to him. But then Steve started bringing her around and Eddie felt like an outcast yet again as they all fawned over how perfect she is.

At least he still had Hellfire Club. As friendly as Steve was, he still hadn't warmed up to the idea of playing any of Eddie's campaigns; and if any of the kids dared to break character to talk about Steve's new girlfriend, he pulled rank over them and quickly shut them up, allowing DND to be his safespace once more.

His heart aches as he hears the phone ringing, knowing it's got to be the very one he's avoiding. No one else was really close enough to be calling him, except for maybe Dustin.

“Hello?” His voice reflects his mood, down and unwilling to socialize. It wasn’t a Hellfire night, so there’s no reason for him to leave his and Uncle Wayne’s trailer.

“Eds! Hey, man. Wanted to see if you were up for a movie night?”

“Who all’s going to be there?” He already knows the answer.

“Oh, just…” He begins rattling off their mutual friends’ names. Usually Eddie tunes him out after the first name – Heather – but Eddie didn’t hear the trigger word yet.

“Um,” He starts, not wanting to remind him to invite his girlfriend if by some miracle he had forgotten, but Eddie didn’t want to go and get stuck there with her even more.

“Um?” Steve prompts when Eddie forgets to speak.

“Oh, um, is Heather going to be there?”

The line is silent and for a second Eddie has the irrational thought that Steve hung up on him for asking such a stupid question. Of course she’s going to be there.

“No, she’s not. I don’t think she’ll be around for any other movie nights either. Or any hangouts for that matter.”

Oh shit. Oh shit. Is she dead?

“Oh my God. Steve, what happened? I’m so sorry.” He rushes out, imagining metal wrapped around a tree or even worse– another entity from the Upside Down.

“Nothing happened, we just sorta broke up. It was pretty mutual. I don’t really wanna go into it right now, if that’s okay?”

Oh shit. Oh shit. He didn’t have to feel regret! She isn’t dead, so Eddie doesn’t have to feel bad about feeling so happy…

Who was he kidding? Of course he should feel bad. His good friend, and possible love of his life, is hurting and probably doesn’t want to be alone right now, hence the impromptu movie night with all of his friends.

Shame on him for being relieved at Steve being very freshly single.

“Oh, okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you or anything, Stevie. Yeah, I’ll be right over.”

“Great, thanks, Eddie. Can’t wait to see you.”

Steve can’t wait to see me.

Eddie’s heart picks up speed.

“I can’t wait to see you either.”

The movie of the night is Stand by Me, followed by Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for those who wanted to stick it out and hang out longer.

Only Dustin and Eddie wanted to stay, and understandably so. Their shared best friend was hurting, even if he wouldn’t admit it out loud.

When the movie was over and the three collectively realized it was indeed a weeknight which meant school for Dustin and Eddie –unfortunately he was held back yet another year thanks to the mess Vecna brought– and work for Steve. Eddie offered to give Dustin the ride home, allowing him to chuck his bike into the back of his van.

He watches in silence as Dustin forgeos his and Steve’s usual handshake, instead going in for a solid hug. Eddie follows suit as soon as Dustin clears out and takes his keys to wait in the van.

“You gonna be okay, Stevie?”

“Yeah, man. I’m good. Thanks for coming. It means a lot.” Eddie doesn’t miss the way Steve tries to maintain eye contact but fails miserably as his eyes look anywhere but Eddie’s.

“Of course. If you need anything please let me know. We can hangout again soon, yeah?”

“Yeah.” he agrees more cheerfully than he sounded just a moment ago.

He had kept a cheerful and joking attitude about him pretty much all night but Eddie saw it slip more than once when it was just the two of them in conversation.

They exchange one more smile before Eddie turns away to take the younger teen home.

He barely gets out of Dustin’s neighborhood before he’s racing back to Steve’s.

Despite breaking a few speed limits, the drive to Steve’s felt longer than usual, like Eddie was moving in slow motion.

He only got hurled back into the present when he stepped up to the grand door.

He takes a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

He knocks on the door quickly and without rhythm, only realizing how harshly he was banging on it when Steve yanks the door open with a bewildered expression.

He must think I’m a crazy person. Maybe I am.

“Eddie? What’s wrong? Are you okay? Jesus, I thought you were the cops. Is everything okay?” His eyes rake over his body, then peer behind him to check for imaginary threats.

“Why would I be the cops? I'm okay, I think, but I really need to talk to you.”

“Okay, um, come in.” Steve ushers him in and locks the door behind them. “Jeez, when you said hangout again soon I didn’t think you meant in thirty minutes!”

When Steve’s joke doesn’t land he switches back to his infamous protector mode. “Are you okay? You’re kind of scaring me.”

“I don’t know. I feel like I’ve made a horrible mistake– Wait, no. No. Not a mistake, just… I waited too long. My timing is terrible.

“Oh.” Steve rubs the back of his neck, “Um, okay, well no time better than the present, right?”

“Maybe. It completely depends on how you feel in about two minutes.”

“How I feel? Eds, come on. Talk to me.”

Eddie sighs and scrubs a hand down in frustration for himself. Just spit it out, Munson!

“It’s just– I completely misunderstood you. I was so stuck on the image I had of you. That you were just some guy–”

“I am just some guy.” He interjects, confusion clouding his voice.

“No. That’s not what I mean. I mean I thought you were just King Steve. Some womanizer-type guy. You’re not just some guy. You’re special. You’re one of a kind. I thought I hated you for so many reasons but I realized it’s not that at all.”

“Eds, we’ve had this talk before, remember?” He almost giggles at him and Eddie feels like he’s going to combust.

“Not this talk, Stevie. I’ve never had this talk and I doubt you have too.”

“And what talk is that?” Steve holds his breath.

“I thought I hated you because I thought I was jealous of you, but I realized it wasn’t that at all.” He takes a rasping breath as he steps closer to Steve who was staring into his dark, watery eyes. “I realized I don’t want to be you. I want to be with you.”

He takes one more step closer, their lips just a breath away.

“I realized I love you.”

Eddie is thoroughly surprised when Steve kisses him first. My God, were his lips soft.

Steve Harrington is kissing me. Oh my God! Steve is kissing me! Played on loop in his head for the whole duration. His lips tasted of root beer and cigarettes, Steve must’ve had one while Eddie was away.

“I’m so glad you feel this way too.” Steve breathes across his lips as he pulls away.

“Yeah, man. I’ve pretty much felt like this since we got roped into trying to save the world together, at least that’s when I realized my actual feelings about you.”

“Same. I was always just too scared to act on it.” Steve admits with a blush staining his cheeks and Eddie thinks he’s never looked more gorgeous.

“Well I’m glad you finally did. But, Stevie, I don’t want this to be some rebound for you or anything. So if you need time or space, we can pick up on this at a later date.” He offers sincerely.

Steve doesn’t hesitate to shake his head. “No way, we’ve waited long enough. You’re not a rebound. You could never be a rebound.”

“But you and Heather literally just broke up.” Eddie insists, “Her side of the bed isn’t even cold yet, Steve.”

Eddie tries to ignore how Steve flinches.

“You’re why we broke up, though, Eds. She knew I wasn’t perfectly straight, and I knew she wasn’t you. It would have never worked out even if we wanted it to. Plus she was a little homophobic and that’s not cool.”

“Ew. Glad she’s out of the picture then.”

“Me too.” Steve’s eyes sparkled as he very obviously looked back to Eddie’s lips, licking his own.

“Down boy.” Eddie jokes despite being just as eager to kiss Steve again, to do a lot more with Steve.

Steve huffs. “I just had my first gay kiss, let me live a little.”

Laughter bubbles out of Eddie and Steve follows suit.

“God, why did it take us so long to figure out our feelings?” Eddie questions as Steve goes in for a proper hug that Eddie happily responds to.

“Beats me. I’m just glad we finally did.”

Eddie pulls back just enough to make Steve look him in his eyes.

“Okay, serious question.”

“Yes?”

“Can I have your sweater back now?”

Steve shakes with the force of his laughter.

“You can have all of my sweaters, Eds.”

[vanderwoodlings]

yeah. that’s the moment. a nate/vanessa playlist (x)

Text version of the tracklist (and commentary!) under the cut:

1. “So Alright, Cool, Whatever,” The Happy Fits. How could I ever be so dumb/To believe I’d be the one that you would adore?/I wanna be with you, I wanna be with you/I wanna be barely hanging on! I love the energy of not necessarily being willing to admit how deep you’re in for natessa, especially in the sense of, like, it’s been a day and a half and yet—

1. “So Alright, Cool, Whatever,” The Happy Fits. How could I ever be so dumb/To believe I’d be the one that you would adore?/I wanna be with you, I wanna be with you/I wanna be barely hanging on! I love the energy of not necessarily being willing to admit how deep you’re in for natessa, especially in the sense of, like, it’s been a day and a half and yet—

2. “Cardiac Arrest,” Bad Suns. I'll try my best, how much do I invest?/Like cardiac arrest, high voltage in her lips. Wow I’m so into you where are you at: pt 2

3. “She’s Electric,” Oasis. It’s an extended metaphor! No but like i mean She's electric/She's in a family full of eccentrics/…She is electric, can I be electric too?

4. “Out of My League,” Fitz and The Tantrums. You were out of my league/Got my heartbeat racing/If I die don't wake me/'Cause you are more than just a dream

5. “Wake Me,” Bleachers. Is this the extended imagery playlist? Maybe! But this is also our first definite Vanessa POV song, for when Nate keeps. Leaving. Because he’s got Baggage TM. And I'd rather be sad with you/Than anywhere away from you

6. “Outer Space,” John Grant. I think you must be extraterrestrial/‘Cause you can open up the heavens for me/With just one smile, just one smile, just one smile. When you’re trying something with someone you didn’t grow up with for the first time. Also, ofc, it’s soft!

7. “Wildflowers,” Tom Petty. You belong among the wildflowers/You belong in a boat out at sea/Sail away, kill off the hours/You belong somewhere you feel free. It mentioned sailing and I couldn’t not. But also that idea of ‘I want good things for you, things that you want and no one else’ is such a natessa vibe

8. “Counting Blue Cars (Tell Me Your Thoughts On God,” Dishwalla.

9. “Falling Is Like This,” Ani DiFranco. Like you're trying to fight gravity/On a planet that insists/That love is like falling/And falling is like this. Something about the social pressures and about Nate’s fucked up relationships and about Vanessa being the outsider who no one approves of

10. “I Know Where The Summer Goes,” Belle and Sebastian. There’s just… a vibe to this one? Like, idk, I know where the summer dwells/When your underarm smells/And your kitchen looks like hell just has this kind of very ordinary place that feels so very Them and the way that they were really allowed to be kids around each other

11. “Boy Who Has Everything,” Annika Bennett. I just wish there was something he needs/Some beautiful thing I could be/To keep him from seeing the worst in me. Sad insecure hours… we have entered the breakup zone

12. “Polyester Bride,” Liz Phair. And I asked Henry, my bartending friend/If I should bother dating unfamous men/And Henry said, "You're lucky to even know me/You're lucky to be alive” you know. That Nate vibe

13. “I’m Nothing Without You,” Dylan Gardner. We're barely hanging on a thread, yeah/I'd never go away/To say that it's the only way/‘Cause now I'm here to stay/I could have never felt this way

14. “What Are You Waiting For,” Tantric. Waiting for the world to change/And it's your life and you are/So what are you waiting for?/Do you want me here for you? I’ve always heard the more aggressive and relationship-focused ‘do you want me here or not’ but it generally comes back to this back-and-forth of who are you going to be do you want to be it with me that was so defining to n/v as a ship—and that Nate ended up on the wrong side of :/

15. “You Don’t Owe Me Anything,” Tonight Alive. This is an ‘I fucked up’ song! It’s pretty straight up about it, and it feels very… right, as an n/v goodbye

16. “Peace Sign,” The Front Bottoms. So next time that she sees him/It'll be peace sign, middle finger

17. “Do I Ever Cross Your Mind,” Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris. Well, first of all, the entire Trio album is a masterpiece and you should listen to that and not this. Second of all… it’s a softer post-breakup song, for when they’re starting to move back together

18. “Missing You,” Tina Turner. I hear your name in certain circles/And it always makes me smile/I spend my time thinking about you/And it's almost driving me wild

19. “So Far Away,” Carole King. I think we all know about my obsession with nomadic adult Nate, at this point, and I see this one also as a point of really bridging that space between them. Long ago I reached for you and there you stood/Holding you again could only do me good/How I wish I could/But you're so far away

20. “When You’re Gone,” The Cranberries. Everything's stinking/Stinking without you

21. “The Tower,” Vienna Teng. I need not to need/Or else a love with intuition/Someone who reaches out to my weakness/And won't let go. Like, I wouldn’t necessarily say either Nate or Vanessa is ‘the one who survives by making the lives of others worthwhile’ as written in this song, but it’s an element that’s very there in both of them

22. “Bruce Wayne,” Memorecks, Jenna Pemkowski. I stopped comparing Nate to Superman long enough to compare him to Batman. This is Vanessa’s ‘unfortunately the stupid white boy is hot’ song

23. “Two People,” Tina Turner. Two people got to stick together/And love one another, save it for a rainy day/Some people got to stay whatever/And give one another shelter on a rainy day. They’re being protective of one another! In a more mutual and healthy way because they’re more grown up now!

24. “Exit Music (For A Film),” Radiohead. This is the ‘fuck you dad’ section, except both their moms suck as bad if not worse

25. “dear parents,” sundial. I'm scared to love like you do/The only way I know how to/I'm scared to love like you do/‘Cause I don't wanna lose him too. Like, it’s really very important to me that it’s such a bonding point between them, and also that it’s what breaks them up—Nate choosing to go with the van der Bilt way of life—and I just. See it remaining relevant

26. “Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes),” Dinah Washington, Brook Benton. Genuinely just schmoopy songs time. Just sheer warmth. Ooh, it takes a lot of lovin' to make my life complete/Mmm, and it takes a lot of woman to knock me off my feet/And baby, you've got what it takes

27. “Savannah,” Relient K. Yet I know you'll be there/‘Cause you'll know I'll want you to be there/And we'll say hello as you're smiling in love

28. “Heaven,” Brandi Carlile. This one’s one of my favorites from this playlist, because the sense of, like… safety it creates is just so right. Now nothin' can take you away from me/We've been down that road before/But that's over now/…/Baby you're all that I want/When you're lyin' here in my arms

29. “Power Of Two,” Indigo Girls. Baby, I'm here to stop your crying/Chase all the ghosts from your head/I'm stronger than the monster beneath your bed/Smarter than the tricks played on your heart/We'll look at them together then we'll take 'em apart/Adding up the total of a love that's true. Tfw you’re traumatized but also super in love

30. “Home to Me,” Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Okay so I put this one last on the one hand because I couldn’t find a non-live version and I personally Do Not Like when that interrupts the transitions between songs but on the other because of the brilliantly militant refrain of That may be, but you're walking home to me because of the way it says I choose this, no matter if things are fucked, and that’s like. My thesis statement here

Bonus track (unfortunately too shouty to find a proper place in the mix): “Art School Girl,” Stone Temple Pilots. She wears the leather/I wear the makeup. Because they’re bi n gnc together <3

[jakemyboy]

Who's that doggie in Blu's window? Maxxine took his spot! If he wants it back he's gonna have a tussle on his hands. The polyester is gonna be flying!

[pleasantanathema]

Reiner Braun | Instinctual Invitations

Pairing: Reiner Braun x Fem!Reader

Rating: Explicit (18+ Only)

Warnings: ABO Dynamics (Alpha Reiner x Omega Reader), Breeding, Marking, Mating, Knotting, Heats, Ruts, Frenemies to Lovers

Word Count: 5k

A/N: Part of my Nine Muses Event to celebrate 9k! Follow the link to read other fanfics I’m writing to celebrate. This was definitely a labor of love. I’ve fallen back into my appreciation for ABO dynamics, and Reiner just screams “perfect mate” to me. 💜

          No one made suppressants stronger than Hange. They never divulged just what was in their special concoction, but all you knew was that it was damn near impossible for someone to discern that you were an Omega.

           You’d even fooled that naive, arrogant, hubristic Alpha partner of yours for years. There was a particular disdain you held for Reiner. You could never really name it, but all you knew was that working with the giant man made your instincts sour. He seemed so good on the outside, all prideful charm and heavy pats on the shoulders of his peers, but when the two of you worked cases alone, his charisma always had a bite to it.

           Maybe it was because he could tell there was something equally off about his “Beta” partner, maybe it was because he had some pent up rage inside him he only let seep out around you. You didn’t know, you didn’t care. You were patiently waiting for him to be re-assigned to the Behavioral Science Unit like he’d requested last month, but Erwin’s dawdling with the request had you worried he wasn’t about to separate his most successful Scout partners, even if they didn’t get along.

           “Is my bow tie straight?”

          Reiner asked you to hold his drink while he fiddled with the offending cloth.

           “Yeah.”

           “You didn’t even look.”

           The whiskey from his glass was expensive, sliding down smooth when you took a drink. Rei let out a very frustrated noise, so loud and huffy it had the guests of the award ceremony glancing toward him. The hotel ballroom was crowded, filled with elites from Military Police, Scouts, even the fucking Garrison. There were too many people here to watch you and Reiner stumble over the acceptance speech; there were too many people here to judge that Scouts were being awarded this time around.

           “Now your fucking lipstick is all over it.”

           “Oh please, it tastes like cherries, you’ll get over it.”

           Both of you were nervous, flattered but timid about being given a Meritorious Achievement Award for all your fieldwork done killing and documenting titans around the outer-wilds of the city. Fighting for survival in the trees was less stressful than trying to make a good impression on the brass as you received one of the highest honors.

           You took another gulp of his drink before passing it back, trying to stave off the very worrisome nerves twisting in your gut. Sweat was forming at the nape of your neck, staining your palms. You shifted uncomfortably in your heels, feet feeling heavy.

           It made you feel some better that the usually proud Alpha next to you was just as worried about giving a speech in front of Dhalis Zachary. The Premier was known for being strict, for demanding that military appearance be of the highest standard in front of donors.

          Reiner was still fucking with his tie, angry muscles about to rip the threads of his tuxedo.

          “You look fine,” you sighed, toning back the bitterness. You moved away from the balcony railing, wrapping your fingers around the black polyester ribbon and tightening it into sitting straight under his square jaw. But for some reason, you couldn’t let go, nails gripping into the fabric.

          “Are you okay? You looked scared to shit,” Reiner plucked your hands off his tie, holding a wrist in each burning hand, “I can do all the talking, you know. You can just stand there and look pretty.”

          “Y-yeah, I’m fine.” You weren’t. You knew this feeling, it was old and familiar, a churning pain laced with need slowly brewing in your belly, making you sick.

          But your suppressants would take care of the issue, surely it was just your nerves that were making those heats you’d forsaken start to claw at you.

          You hadn’t gone through a heat cycle in three years. Hange had suggested you take time off once a year to let your body go through it’s natural process, but you’d been so damn busy that you’d neglected to do so. Besides, you never had any issues, just a few flare ups when a particularly good looking Alpha close to their rut got near you.

          This time was different, though, you could feel it. This flame wasn’t going to be extinguished once it got started—you’d have to go home after the gala and curl up, stop taking the suppressants in the morning so your heat could come to life in the next few days.

          God you dreaded that feeling, cunt always quivering and squeezing around nothing, sweating in a blanket nest that only carried your scent and maybe a lingering, nameless male scent from a one-night stand.

          “Hey,” Rei moved his hands to rest on your shoulders, shaking you, “get your shit together. We’ll be awarded in a few hours and then we can go the fuck home. Tired of being around your bitchy ass anyways.”

          His hands were too hot. They were sweaty like yours, making you feel dizzy.

          “I’m gonna be sick.”

          You could feel it. Reiner could smell it.

          “What the fuck is wrong with y—”

          He dropped the last syllable, golden eyes turning into molten amber the moment your scent hit him full force. You thought he’d take his hands off, that he’d give you some space, but those instincts to protect must have taken over because he was pulling you closer like that would help.

          “You’re a Beta, you don’t go into—”

          “Omega, Rei. I’m a fucking Omega and I don’t need you telling anyone about it.”

          You whispered your confession, eyes going glassy as you looked around the room, saw faces turning in your direction. Most of the old men here were mated, but that didn’t mean the building brew of the heat of an unmarked Omega wouldn’t catch their attention. Your neck throbbed, scent glands betraying you and pumping beneath your skin.

          You felt like clawing at Reiner’s chest, digging your fingers into the perfectly pressed designer shirt and burying your face into it to be overwhelmed by Alpha presence. You thought you could stave this off, but the nerves, this proximity to an Alpha...you needed to get the fuck out of here.

          “You’re going to have to take the award for-for both of us,” oh now you were stuttering, you were losing it, Reiner’s deeply masculine scent making you feel like a puddle. You hated these instincts, hated how it made you feel weak, hated how he smelled like the most inviting bakery and familiarity and how it made you want to fall to your knees and beg for the aching hole between your legs to be stuffed.

          “You can’t get home on your own, do you know how many Alphas would kill for—”

          You were pulling away from him, grabbing your purse so you could scrounge for those emergency suppressants to hopefully curtail this heat.

          The pills were absent, your resolve fading as you felt like crumpling into the floor and clutching your stomach. You knew people were starting to notice, noses in the air to find out where the overly sweet smell of an Omega was coming from.

          “I don’t need your help.”

          “Who else knows?” You didn’t like how the rumble of his voice made your skin tingle, made your panties feel too tight, wet.

          “Hange, Levi, the higher ups. They know, they saw it on my app-application. Said it would be…” you were starting to lose your train of coherent thoughts.

          “...best if no one knew?”

          Omegas were scarce. Omegas were weak. But you’d proven yourself in your training, you were too valuable for Commander Erwin to deny your approval into the Scouts.

          “Just—just tell people I got sick. That the stupid little shrimp hors d'oeuvres... f-fuck me,” you meant to say something else, something like they fucked with me, but all you could think about was how those strong hands felt on your shoulders and how they would feel so good pawing at your hips as he plowed into you to relieve your stress.

          Making a beeline out of the ornate, crowded ballroom, you had to excuse yourself as you bumped into a few backs and sides, stumbling over your feet as the clawing need in your stomach made you lose focus. You just had to get home. Grab a cab. Hope it’s not an Alpha driving, just get home to your nesting pillows and bury your fingers into your—

          Reiner was calling your name. If he was your Alpha you’d be stopping in your tracks to listen to his commands, but he wasn’t. He was your terrible, annoying...strong, capable, definitely had a fat cock…

          You didn’t know what you were thinking about when he finally caught up to you, pushing you outside the front doors. You wished it was winter, but it was a hot summer night, which just made the heat in your body worse, made your scent heavier, floating on the humidity. And there were people around, lobby boys taking in bags and tired families dragging their feet inside. Still the fresh air felt good, or at least it did, until Reiner invaded it with his scent again.

          “I’ll get you home,” he placed his hand on your lower back, palm touching bare, tender skin from the low cut of your dress, and you came undone. You pressed yourself into his thick chest, wrapping your arms around him and fisting them into the back of his shirt. You could hear him grunt at the contact, the two of you never the type of partners to go beyond a pat on the back or a punch to the arm.

          “N-not gonna make it home…”

          “Fucking shit I always knew there was something different about you.”

          He was dragging you back into the hotel, firm hand around your wrist.

          “I can’t help how I was born.”

          “Yeah but you could have fucking told me.”

          You quit your bickering as Reiner paid for a hotel room, you pressed to his side and trying to mask the scent of ripe, ready to fuck Omega underneath simmering Alpha. You snatched the key card on the counter from a very concerned concierge, listening but not really as she explained there were special rates for those in heat.

          “I didn’t want you to know.”

          People were staring now, the smell of Omega becoming so heavy it even bothered you. Rei tucked his arm around your waist, leading you toward the elevators. There was a sour, thirsty taste in your mouth as you listened to your heels clink upon the marbled floor. The scent of arousal was on him, but it wasn’t his fault, just his biology reacting to yours.

          You straightened your shoulders as you saddled up next to him in the elevator, watching the doors slowly close.

          “Reiner—”

          “Shut up.”

          He was on you in an instant, heavy body pressing you into the mirrored wall.

          “I should have known,” his voice was low, like he was divulging a secret, “a little Omega under my nose all long.”

          You gasped as one of his hands skimmed up your thigh, thumb swirling circles upon your skin.

          “D-don’t do this here, I can’t—” you couldn’t take it, you were putty in his hands, already looping a leg around his thigh and fussing with the buttons on his shirt. You needed to feel his skin, needed to drown in the scent of an Alpha.

          You were half way through peeling his shirt off his pectorals, that goddamn bowtie still in place, when your throat began to hurt. Reiner actually laughed at you when you paused your hasty undressing, having to cradle the left side of your neck as your scent glands throbbed, begging for teeth to be sunk into the sensitive skin to be marked, claimed.

          “Don’t you dare think about m-marking me,” god you wouldn’t be able to stop stuttering until you were stuffed with something, until you were able to chase away the aches before they returned again in a few hours.

          “But isn’t that what little Omegas want?” He was toying with you, grin so cocky you felt like sinking your thumbs into his smile and hurting him. His fingers were under your dress, dangerously close to your aching sex. His hand was so hot against your skin, so calloused and strong. You felt like Icarus, like you were flying too close to the sun. The pad of his index finger curled against your panties and you could have sworn you were already burning.

          You lifted your lips to catch his, only to have him turn his cheek as the elevator chimed, signaling your arrival to your floor.

          You followed in his steps, tracing your dress hem from where his giant palm had touched it, your fingers moving it even higher to try to alleviate the warmth stemming from between your legs. The keycard was heavy in your hand, like it was about to open a door to something wicked.

          “I-I can take care of this myself,” your placed your back against the door to your room, “and I’ll pay you back for the fees, just let me—”

          “Just let you what? Go fuck yourself in misery for the next five days?”

          God he looked so tempting, so big. He towered over you, scents of sex and earth and spice, like black cardamum and the bitter burn of peppers. You wanted to sink your fingers into his blonde hair and pull, pull him down to you, into you.

          But you reminded yourself you’d be patiently waiting for him to leave your life. Mating with him could have him sticking around, could have the two of you fucking up and getting attached.

          “Y-you have to accept the award,” you were literally slipping into the floor, gut twisting so badly that it felt like you were being ripped apart, your heat bursting into full bloom after his teasing touches. Reiner caught your upper arms to keep you up, making you whimper, and you knew the last thing you wanted was to be alone, even if it meant ruining yourself on Reiner’s cock.

          “Your scent has made me harder than I’ve ever been in my fucking life. I paid for the room because I’m staying in it, sweetheart.”

          He took the card from your weak fingers and shoved it into the reader, a big, heavy palm pressing against your stomach and pushing you into the open doorway. He kept his fingers on you, twisting his knuckles into the fabric of your dress.

          “Rei, don’t—”

          “I’m so fucking tired of playing games with you.”

          The threads snapped with a twist of his wrist, the delicate front of your dress parting as the heavy hotel door slammed shut. His hands were rough, quick, tearing and pawing at your dress, your bra, and all you could do was moan and kick your heels off to be forgotten on the floor.

          He pulled his crisp black jack off his shoulders, tossing it onto a desk chair, trousers and everything underneath following.

          “I-I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” You were already on him, pressing your naked chest to his and standing on your toes so you could bury your face into his neck. You couldn’t help but to purr, that soothing musk of Alpha encompassing all your senses. Fingers sunk into his body, your tongue hot against his skin as you laid kitten licks to his throat.

          “No wonder I can’t stand you,” Reiner’s hands were gliding down your back, admiring smooth, willing flesh, “why you make me fucking crazy.”

          “Please shut up and fuck me.”

          His tempting hands found your neck, thumb petting at the sore, pounding spot on your throat. It only made your scent stronger, made you keen and practically fall into him.

          “Kiss me first, like you mean it.”

          You didn’t have to be told twice.

          Any fight you had left dissipated when his tongue slipped into your mouth, hands still encased around your neck and keeping you pliant for him to taste. Your nails sunk into his shoulders, toes hurting from strain as you pushed your mouth up into his. God he tasted so good, like the first taste of food after starving, and your body had been starving for years. Unknotted, unmarked, your body was screaming for him, looking for an Alpha to fill you in ways that your measly attempts over the years never could.

          Violence was on the tip of his tongue, you could taste it, feel it in the way he started to squeeze the delicate column of your throat. Rut was kicking in, the overwhelming pheromones of Omega making his body respond, ready to knot, ready to devour.

          Slick was pouring down your thighs as you kissed him, body overly ready for him. Your stomach was twisting in coils, so painful that it made you gasp and pull away from his kiss, ready to fall into the floor if his hands didn’t keep you on your feet.

          “H-hurts, so, so bad,” you whined, trying to focus your breathing.

          Reiner started slowly moving you back toward the bed, thumbs now petting at the apples of your cheeks as tears started to form in your lower lashes.

          “Shh, shh, it’s okay, Alpha will take care of you.”

          Normally, the thought of Rei referring to himself as Alpha would repulse you, make you gag at how arrogant he was, but in this moment it made you so weak, made you moan as he crawled over your body on the bed. You were so little under him, dwarfed by brawn, small prey begging to be snatched and taken.

          His title was on the front of your mouth, ready to fall out, for you to call him what he was to you, but the sliver of sense you had left kept it at bay. You knew calling him Alpha could put you in a heat induced headspace you might not be able to come out of, might have you making lusty, hasty decisions that you’d regret once this god forsaken heat was over.

          “Rei-ner,” it was forced, he could tell, the syllables stuck to your tongue.

          He nuzzled into your neck, purring as he fell into the intoxication of your scent glands. Hands raked over your body, each touch jolting you like electricity, the webs of nerves under your skin coming alive as he toyed with you. Your legs spread instinctively to make room for his hips, but he kept his weight off of you, propping himself on his elbows.

          “So fucking perfect,” he mused, thumb trailing along your swollen lips, smearing the lipstick he’d complained about earlier, “should’ve told me sooner. I would’ve fucked you through every heat.”

          His words made you coo, made your fingers weave into his blonde hair and pull him down for another kiss. You couldn’t get enough of his taste, whiskey and fire and something sickenly sweet, like pure honey over powdered sugar. Reiner was still holding back, you could practically feel growls stuck in his chest when your hands eagerly wandered over his plush pectorals.

          So big. He’d be such a good protector. Such a good mate.

          “Need you, need you, Rei, p-please,” you shifted your hips as you spoke, ready to flip onto your stomach so he could take you from behind. It’s how you got through all the heats you ever had before; face down in pillows, letting some Alpha fuck you senseless like nature intended. But his hands stilled you, pinned you down below him.

          “Wanna watch your face as I take what’s mine.”

          The tips of your ears felt scorched from his words and the blood in your body flushed under your skin.

          His. You wanted to be his, fuck, you wanted your Alpha, needed him, need him to knot you and—

          “Take me, f-fuck, I hurt so bad,” you were crying again, the pain in your womb like a knife sawing through flesh, twisting and turning.

          “Gonna take such good care of you.”

          And you knew he would. That’s the way Reiner was. A protector. A provider. Arrogant to mask the sweetness, prideful to hide the humility.

          Big hands cupped your cheeks as his cockhead brushed through your folds, sending your neck flying back as you screamed just from the relief of feeling him spread your overheated slick.

          “Gonna fill you to the brim with my cum.”

          That broke you. Your last little grip on your sanity was remembering that Hange’s suppressants didn’t mix well with birth control. You hadn’t been on the pill for years, and with how strong this heat was, how repressed your body had felt, you were probably more fertile than you’d ever been.

          “Fuck,” your hands found his face, and when he looked at you, you sailed away in the gold currents of his gaze, “breed me.”

          His massive cock started to sink into your tight hole, the copious amounts of slick gushing from inside of you making his penetration easier. But even still, he was so engorged with blood and hormones ready to knot that his fat cock struggled to breach that first tight ring of muscle. You hissed, not from pain, but from relief, so ready to be full that no amount of stretching would detract from your pleasure.

          Heavy hands were on your hips, pulling you down to take all of him in. He was finally growling, your walls constricting around him and making him go absolutely mad.

          “Gonna breed you, Omega, give you my babies, f-fuck yes, have you dripping with cum.”

          The blinding pleasure was almost devastating, making you feel numb, making you feel like this was all you ever needed in the whole goddamn world—all you needed was Reiner’s cock to bring you rapture, to have you ascending to the holy planes that zealots coveted.

          “Move,” it was a quick plea, your legs curling around his waist in encouragement, “please, please fuck me, breed me.”

          He started a slow pace, but was enough to have you spiraling, eyes fluttering shut as you got lost in him. One of his hands swatted at your cheek, just enough to sting.

          “Eyes open. Watch me, be with me.”

          You tried your best to obey, but the drumming of his cock in your cunt had you seeing dark spots even as your eyes opened again. Reiner kept his hand on your face, locking it around your jaw so you watched him as he fucked you, his beautiful, defined cheekbones tinted pink as he became overwhelmed with his rut.

          How many times had you looked at him before? How many days had you spent working alongside him, doing your best to avoid looking at him? He got under your skin, made you feel weak. Maybe this was why, maybe you were repressing just how much you wanted him. Maybe he was meant to be your—

          “Alpha,” you breathed it out, let it fan over his ears, let it sink into his psyche.

          The word felt like a relief, like a sin. That attachment you feared was already caging you in.

          His pace kicked up to something brutal as you acknowledged not just his biology, but his title to you.

          You screamed so loudly that it hurt, had your throat burning as your moans bled into whines and mewls as he took from your willing cunt.

          A cacophony of sex filled the hotel room, the sound of primal grunts, shrill little screams, of flesh against flesh, balls slapping against your ass, his cock ramming into your squelching, drooling pussy.

          “That’s right, fuck, you’re mine, Omega. Mine.” He repeated the last word a few more times as he bent your legs farther back, straddling your thighs with his muscular legs as he folded you into a mating press. His cock began to stroke that sweet, spongy spot inside of you at the new angle, drilling into you at just the right curve to have you cumming before your body could even enjoy the build up.

          You shattered, cunt clenching and as you were so pleased to orgasm around a thick Alpha cock. You were babbling nonsense, even thanking him for letting you cum. Just a string of pleas and AlphaAlphaAlpha pouring off your tongue and melting into his sweaty skin.

          Your orgasm had your scent fresh in the room, had your neck fucking pounding with the need to be bitten, to be claimed.

          Reiner could smell it, could smell your insatiable need, instincts picking up on words you just couldn’t say.

          “Let me have you,” he demanded it between kisses to your shoulder, lips trailing up and stopping at the saccharine reek of your scent glands just below your jaw.

          He wouldn’t claim you without permission, he wasn’t that kind of man, wasn’t that kind of Alpha.

          You fell into a symphony of moans, neck tilting back in instinctual insinuation, but mouth still unwilling to make that plea. But then his scent overwhelmed you again, like spicy hot peppers and the sweetest sugar flooding over your body. You knew that scent by heart, had smelled it in smaller increments every day for years, had tried to ignore it, but now you couldn’t.

          His cock was swelling inside of you, his ruthless pace and your lingering orgasm edging him closer to release. The hand on your hip had bruised your skin, perfect indent of his palm, his long fingers, etched into your skin. The other was pulling at your neck, pushing your face to the side as he skimmed the bridge of nose along your skin, waiting, wanting.

          “Omega,” he purred, calling you, begging you, “please, yours, mine.”

          He was losing his thoughts too, drowning in instincts and euphoria.

          Your fingers laced in his hair, pulling his mouth closer to what he wanted.

          “Yours, Alpha, f-fuck,” your acceptance was loud and clear, even through the fog and sounds of sex. One bite was all it took, teeth barely sinking into your skin. You cried from how good it felt, that ache finally silenced as his tongue lapped over that patch on your neck that could now only belong to him.

          A bond was tightening, something scientists still couldn’t fully explain—being marked, claimed, it tethered you to someone beyond all comprehension. It was like making a deal with a devil, selling your soul, and for you, it was an admittance to attraction and acceptance of intimacy that you felt with Reiner.

          The act of marking had his cock swelling inside you, knotting you and spilling his seed into your depths to stay. That overbearing fullness had you tumbling over the orgasmic mountain again, had you clinging and screaming, colors you’d never fucking seen before bursting in the corners of your eyes and traveling over your body like fireworks. You shivered in his arms, quaked, fell apart, and he held you. Purring, comforting, like he’d finally brought you home.

          Time didn’t seem to exist, lines between pleasure and pain so blurred that you couldn’t even feel the burn in your legs from being spread open for so long. You stayed in that mating press for what felt like hours. Reiner kept kissing at your neck, letting his scent blend in with yours.

          You’d never smell the same again. You’d always be tainted with him, carry bits of his scent with you forever. The thought didn’t even bother you, just brought you comfort, made you purr as your fingers lazily threaded through his hair.

          Finally, his cock became soft enough for him to pull out of you, lines of cum dripping from your abused pussy as he fell on his back next to you.

          The love hormones kicked in, had you curling around him even as you stretched out weary muscles. You were ready to sleep, ready to rest until the next wave of your heat came in a few hours and had you pleading for him again.

          But a pesky thought plagued your mind, a jealous one, one you’d never had about another Alpha before.

          How many other Omegas had wanted what was yours? How many of them had Reiner denied a claim to before you?

          “Why me?” you murmured into his heaving chest, fingertips drawing aimless circles in his downy chest hair.

          “Could ask you the same thing.”

          You sat up to look at him, to let him cup your cheek as his eyes flickered over your face.

          “How many Alphas have wanted you?”

          There was solace in knowing he had the same questions.

          “Haven’t had a heat since I met you.”

          Concern flashed across his face, that intensity you were used to seeing in his brow coming to life.

          “You won’t do that again.”

          His command made you feel warm, had your belly already pulling and churning and wanting again.

          “I won’t. Because even though you’re a shitty partner, you’re my mate.”

          That realization swept over him hard and fast, a range of emotions painting his features before he settled on a smile.

          His thumb petted your skin, bringing you in for a kiss.

          “You’re the only award I needed tonight.”

[jackrrabbit]

Spoiled Rotten /// Overhaul x f!Reader (18+)

Request: What if Overhaul fucks spoiled rich reader because her dad owes the yakuza money and in exchange Kai takes the daughter as a form of payment using her as his personal stress doll whenever and wherever he wants making her into his perfect little doll

A/N: While I was writing this my roommate asked if I was okay bc cause I kept stopping to fan myself and blush lmaooooo god I’m such a brat. I did change the concept up a bit, hope that’s fine!

This is dedicated not only to the OG requester but also to everyone who read the excerpt I posted a while back and told me they couldn’t wait to see the finished product!! Love you guys ❤️

Tags/warnings: threats, dubcon/coercion, dom/sub, brat taming, degradation, exhibitionism, restraints, mentions of forced prostitution, verbal & physical harassment, kidnapping, kinda breath play?, long

The first thing you notice when you come to are voices. Multiple people talking to each other, speech overlapping in patterns you can’t make out. They’re quiet—not whispering for your sake, but quiet because you’re still half knocked-out and you can barely hear.

The second thing you notice is the pounding in your head and the lingering smell of something sweet spread over your nose and mouth.

The third thing you notice is the fact that when you try to blink your eyes open, your lashes brush against something soft and dark. You’re blindfolded…and gagged, and your hands feel like they’re cuffed behind your back. From what you can sense around you, it seems like you’re hunched in a kneeling position with your cheek flattened against the floor and your bare feet tucked under your backside.

At least you’re still in your nightgown. You can feel the frilly silk of it, a useless barrier between your skin and the cool air, and it reminds you of how you got here in the first place.

A loud noise in the night. Your father’s voice pleading. A heavy thump. The door to your bedroom banging open and a strange man holding you down to your bed…lifting a sweet-smelling rag to your mouth…telling you to “take a deeeeep breath, princess.”

“Hey, I think she’s waking up.”

An invisible hand fists itself in your hair and you whine in pain as your upper body is lifted off the floor. Once you’re properly upright, you hear squeaking, shoes against concrete, and the heat and breath and presence of someone behind you. Something rustles at the back of your head—you’re too scared to move so you stay still—and then the blindfold is being lifted off your face.

Once it’s gone, you have to blink for a moment even despite the low light of the dingy room where you’ve…apparently…been kidnapped. By the freaking yakuza. And for some reason, they’re all wearing bird-beak masks.

You close your eyes, almost wishing they hadn’t taken the blindfold off. You’d prefer to live in blissful ignorance of how decidedly unclean the floor is. How dare they let your face touch it? What happened to honor among thieves?

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Against your will, your eyes flick up to the speaker. He’s the only one sitting, and somehow that gives him a position of power among the others. The leader?

Unsettling golden eyes rest on yours, and you realize he’s waiting for your answer, so you slowly move your head from side to side.

“Didn’t know about daddy’s bad habits, huh?” This time the person speaking is behind you, the one who untied your blindfold, a thin man with lank, greasy blond hair. He’s the one who drugged me, you remember in a surge of panic, and you try to stand up away from him only for him to step on the chain that connects your handcuffs, jerking you back and pinning you—painfully—to the floor.

“Careful, Setsuno. I told you not to leave marks. Let her talk.”

“Got it, boss.” The blond—Setsuno—fumbles at the back of your head and then he’s pulling the gag out of your mouth.

You open and close your mouth a few times to stretch out the stiff muscles. “Oh. My. God. Was that polyester you just took out of my mouth? Do you have any idea how bad synthetics are for sensitive skin? I’m totally going to break out.”

A hush falls over the little room. You could hear a pin drop.

“…Are you complaining about the quality of the fabric we gagged you with?” the leader asks after a second.

“You may be yakuza, but you don’t have to act like savages,” you reply primly, aligning your knees together and sending a proud look off to the side.

“Ohh…little princess deserves better, does she?” Setsuno coos. He edges closer to rub his cheek against yours and laughs when you cringe away from him. “Boss, you shoulda seen her bedroom. All pink and frilly, looked like royalty lived there. Bet they treat you like a real princess at home, huh? No wonder your daddy’s in debt.”

“Daddy isn’t—“

“Your father…took out loans from my gang. My men came last night to collect,” the leader says, drumming his fingers over the armrest of his chair impatiently.

He’s wearing plastic gloves. Why is he wearing plastic gloves? Immediately your mind is spinning, imagining all the different gruesome possibilities of what they’re going to do to you. “That’s ridiculous. My daddy doesn’t need to borrow money—“

“Clearly he does, because it looks like he pissed it all away on his daughter.” The leader’s eyes are cold enough to make you shiver—although maybe that’s just the icy temperature of the floor soaking through your nightgown.

“He had a couple payments overdue, so we stopped by to ask nicely for him to pay up,” Setsuno says, resting his chin on your shoulder. “Didn’t find too many valuables in your house, but then we got our hands on a real treasure.”

“Don’t touch me—“

“You don’t seem to understand the position you’re in,” the leader says. “When I made my contract with your father, he understood that obligations like these are inherited. Since he can’t pay his debt, you’re going to be working it off in his place.”

Working it off? You swallow. Somehow you don’t think he’s talking about your little part-time job as a receptionist at your daddy’s company. “You can’t make me do that.”

“I’m not sure you’re getting the gist, princess,” Setsuno hums. “What we’re gonna do is we’re gonna put you in a room, and then men are gonna give us money, and then we’ll let those men fuck you. All that money’s gonna go toward paying what your daddy borrowed. Sound good?”

For the first time since you can remember, you’re shocked speechless. They’re going to…what? But you’re a quick thinker, and instead of letting these filthy, awful gangters boss you around, you raise your chin haughtily to look directly into the leader’s eyes. “I don’t think so. If Daddy’s the one who got himself in debt, you can make him whore himself out to pay it back. You can’t hold me responsible for something he’s done.”

Another brief silence, and then you hear a whistle echo out from the corner of the room (and you try not to look toward it, reminding yourself that this can only get worse if they know how scared you are). “She’s got a mouth on her, Overhaul,” someone says.

Overhaul. So the leader’s name is Overhaul. How ridiculous; it sounds like a villain’s name.

“Aww, princess,” Setsuno says, and once again his voice is too close for your comfort. “Little spoiled princess doesn’t know how to shut her mouth and suck it up when things don’t go her way? Well…you’ll learn.”

You don’t want to know what he’s talking about, although if you thought about it for more than a second it’d be obvious. You suck in a harsh breath and the cool, damp air stings against your dry throat. “You can’t just make me—“

“Ohh, I think we can. See, if your daddy’s been spending all of the Shie Hassaikai’s money on his precious daughter, don’t you think you owe a little too? Like, this dress—“ you jump as Setsuno’s hand tugs on the thin, floaty silk— “was bought with Overhaul’s money, so it belongs to him, right?”

You keep quiet, not wanting to prompt him to go further, but when his hands stroke up over your waist to grope your breasts in full view of everyone else in the room, you don’t really have to guess.

“And, y’know, your daddy’s been keeping you nice and healthy with Overhaul’s cash, making sure you grow up into such a pretty girl…” Setsuno’s voice is a purr in your ear as his hands squeeze your tits almost lovingly, then pinch your nipples through the fabric. “So hey—if you think about it, this tight little body…belongs to Overhaul too. Isn’t that right, sir?”

You squirm in place as best you can but with the metal cuffs digging into your wrists, there’s nothing you can do to get away from his touch. You’re desperate enough to shoot a terrified glance up at the leader—surely there are rules about treating an innocent girl like this, even for the yakuza—but he looks as unmoved as before. “Get her out of my sight. We’ll give her a rest for the next few days, and then…”

“No!” you yelp, too panicked to keep up the pretense of confidence. “I won’t, I can’t do that, please don’t make me—“

“Shhh. You’ll get used to it, princess. And if you don’t…” Setsuno’s hand combs though your hair and then trails down your neck, tracing the path of your spine between your shoulder blades. “…well, you won’t really have much of a choice, will you?”

And then he’s tugging on your cuffed hands, pulling you to a standing position, but you wriggle away from him and do everything you can to stay planted on the ground so they can’t take you away from here, away from the only man who is capable of stopping this. Overhaul. “Please! I’m— I can work it off another way! I’ll be useful— I’ll—“

Overhaul leans forward a fraction in his chair, and you wonder if you’ve caught his interest. “What, exactly? How do you think you can be useful to me?”

You bite your lip and wrack your brains, not knowing whether the question is rhetorical. What skills do you have that would be valuable to them? Suddenly all the knowledge you’ve gained in your short life seems so meaningless. You’re a decent receptionist (well, decent is a stretch), but if Overhaul wanted someone to answer calls for him you’re pretty sure he would’ve asked.

Why did you spend your life learning such impractical skills? The four-year weekend course you took on horseback riding jumps to mind and you want to hit your head against the wall. Why didn’t you ask your father to sponsor a class in something that would actually matter in the long run? And what would even be useful to these people? Accounting? Bookkeeping? Extortion?

There’s nothing valuable you can offer. You’ve wasted your life, and now you’re going to pay for it. Seriously, the only thing you’re actually good at is keeping your boyfriends (or, rather, the men you cycle through once a month) happy until the novelty wears off and you get bored and move on to the next lovesick target—

—wait. Keeping your boyfriends happy. That’s a skill, isn’t it?

Once, a little bit after you turned eighteen, you’d had a rather illicit conversation with one of your more sexually adventurous friends about being a sugar baby. Your friend had just secured a very generous benefactor, and you’d been so intrigued by all the designer purses and vacations to Cabo that you’d almost considered trying it for yourself. She’d even helped you set up a profile on Seeking Arrangements that listed your physical features and interests, but you’d blanched when it came time to post photos.

“But why do men even like this?” you'd asked your friend after your picture-less profile received its dozenth unsolicited offer. “Rich, successful guys shouldn’t have so much trouble finding girlfriends that they have to resort to paying for sex.”

“It’s a power trip,” she’d replied. “Most men never get the chance to have a woman who’s willing to do and be whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. You’re his ideal girlfriend, his therapist, his wife, and his stress relief all in one.”

At the time, you’d decided against it, deleting your profile and telling your friend you’d rather just keep taking advantage of your real father doting on you than have to fake orgasms for rich men in their 50’s. But back then, you’d had a choice; now that you’ve been kidnapped by a gang who wants you to get fucked by a bevy of strangers to pay off a debt you’ve never even heard of, you no longer have the privilege of a way out. Or, at least, the options are a lot less appealing than before.

You tilt your head back to Overhaul, eyeing him for the first time with real scrutiny instead of prideful disgust. Judging from what you can see of his face under the ornate bird mask (and again, what is with the freaking bird masks?), he’s fairly young, mid-twenties at the oldest. Short, sort of wavy dark hair (you’ve always had a thing for dark hair), a trim suit and tie, and those eyes. Like he can read your mind just looking at you.

He’s…handsome enough, you have to admit to yourself. But it’s not just that. There’s something pristine about him, something untouchable that commands discipline. He’s clean. You and him are probably the only clean things in this hovel of a room.

“Well? I’m waiting,” Overhaul says.

And now that you’ve got the idea in your head, it’s almost too embarrassing to meet his gaze. But you can do this; you have to do this. At least it’ll be your choice, and—you’re hoping—it’ll be better than the alternative.

“I could be yours,” you tell him, taking pride in the fact that your voice isn’t breaking.

His eyes narrow and you think god, his eyelashes are long. It’s not fair. Men never appreciate having long eyelashes. What is he thinking? Is he going to kill you for even suggesting it? But it’s too late now…you have to dig yourself a little deeper if you don’t want to go through with their original plan for debt fulfillment.

You force your muscles to relax, knowing this’ll be impossible to pull off if you’re tense and biting down on the words like they’re going to choke you. If you’re going to make him believe it, you have to make yourself believe it too. “You… This job must be hard. Even for a—a powerful man like you, it has to be stressful, right? Always looking out for the interests of the gang instead of your own…needs.”

Overhaul doesn’t move, but you’re so focused on him it would be impossible for you to miss the way a single muscle in his neck flexes. You’ve hit a nerve.

You take a cautious step toward him, trying to channel the sexually-liberated vixen you consider yourself when you’re not in your nightgown surrounded by men who could murder you with their bare hands and not miss a minute of sleep. “You’re always giving, aren’t you? Looking toward the future of the gang? Doesn’t it get frustrating when—when a pretty thing is in front of you and you don’t even get…a little taste of her?”

Oh god, you can feel the humiliated heat rushing to your cheeks. How can you be saying this? You’ve played the role of seductress plenty of times before, but never in such a risky situation. You just have to keep moving toward him and hope it feels authentic enough to convince him.

“You’ve worked hard. And…like he said, my—my body belongs to you.” Now you’re close enough to Overhaul and he hasn’t stopped you, so you lower yourself onto the floor, knees bumping softly into the cold surface. Kneeling between his legs.

Overhaul stares down at you, gaze as sharp and cold as before—and you’re sick with anxiety, so scared you can feel your hairs raising up on end—but if he wanted you to stop, he would have said something, right? So you shuffle a little closer and nuzzle your cheek over the inside of his clothed thigh like a kitten, then raise your head up to him to give him your best bedroom look, the one that says, I want you. I need you. No one but you. The look no man has ever been able to resist.

“…You deserve something to yourself, sir,” you murmur.

There’s a collective intake of breath as every person in the room simultaneously realizes what you’re offering. Overhaul’s expression doesn’t change, but once again, a tendon jumps out white under the skin of his throat and there’s a creak of latex on leather as his grip on the arm of the chair tightens.

“Damn,” Setsuno says under his breath from behind you. Someone whistles. You’re pretty sure you hear the word ‘slut’ being tossed around, but there’s reverence behind it.

“And what makes you think you’re so valuable?” Overhaul asks.

You close your eyes to ground yourself for a second. He’s interested, you know that much. You’ve never really had to convince someone to want you, but there’s a first time for everything. Besides, you only have to look at him for a second to know he does want you, which isn’t a surprise. Who wouldn’t?

“I’ll do anything you want, be anything you want,” you tell him, echoing your conversation with your friend back then. “Take out your anger on me if that’s what you’re into. When you’re tired of me, you can consider my debt paid and let me go.”

“And?” he prompts.

‘And’? And what? You’re offering yourself to him, your body and your mind—what more can he possibly ask from you? You cast your thoughts around, wondering what else you have to give him. “And…and I’ll do it willingly. You, um—you look like a man who appreciates obedience.”

And that’s it. Your last shred of pride is gone. Not only are you offering yourself up to a man to use as his personal stress doll, you’re saying you’ll be compliant every step of the way. Knowing yourself, you’re pretty sure that’s impossible, but you just need to make him believe it long enough for you to find a way out of here. You can pretend to enjoy getting fucked by a gangster a few times. You’ll live.

But you’re naive. And with the stream of thoughts pushing through your head, you never really consider one thing, one essential thing: how you look pleading up at him in that pale pink nightdress—soft, pure, immaculate against the filth of the underworld, the only clean body that Overhaul’s seen in a long time.

And you’re right. He is a man who appreciates obedience.

“Willingly…so you’d be willing to prove it.”

Your head jerks up and down in response. Yes! He’s taking the bait, now I just have to get him alone and—

“Then demonstrate.”

When a moment passes and you don’t move, Overhaul tips his head to the side, gaze still locked on you, and gestures vaguely at his lap. You blink and then shy back, shrinking under the hungry gazes of the onlookers. “You can’t mean—in front of them?”

“And here I thought you were going to be obedient.” There’s no mercy, no amusement in his voice. No hint of humanity.

So he’s serious. He wants you to give him a blowjob in front of—how many? one, two three, four—four other men!? Your first instinct is to jump back away from him and your next is to slap him for even suggesting it; you can actually hear the jingle of your cuffs as you attempt to raise your hand. You’ve gotten a little kinky before—blindfolds, vibrators, maybe a hand tied to the bedpost with a Hermès scarf once or twice, but this is a whole different level. And the way they’re all looking at you…like they’re itching to see you brought down. How absolutely disgusting.

But Overhaul’s waiting for your answer, and you know full well that you’re not going to deny him.

“O-Of course.” You lean forward over the seat of the chair so your face is just inches from his lap. “Um. My hands...?”

They’re still cuffed behind you, but it seems like they’re going to stay that way when Overhaul gives a curt shake of his head. “Use your mouth.”

Once again, you’re stunned into silence. How are you supposed to—? Without your hands? It doesn’t even seem like he’s going to undo his pants for you. It’s like he wants to humiliate you…oh, wait. As soon as the thought crosses your mind, it’s clear that’s exactly what he’s trying to do.

You give him another doe-eyed glance, bidding him to at least undo his belt, but he remains unmoved. Bastard.

After aiming another glare at him (because as obedient as you’re attempting to be, you’ve never been good at concealing your emotions) you lean deeper in and take the stiff leather of his belt between your teeth, gently easing it out of the buckle and trying to ignore the mixture of earthy and metallic tastes it leaves on your tongue. It takes a few tries, but eventually you’ve got the tail of the belt out of the buckle and you pull your head back to guide the metal down until the belt is hanging open from its loops.

A rush of accomplishment surges through you when you get it open, and then you want to slap yourself. Accomplishment? From doing this with your mouth like an animal—like a dog? You can hear laughter and mocking encouragement from the men watching, but you steel yourself and dip back in to get Overhaul’s pants undone. The button is tricky, especially with your face nudging into the hard muscle of his abdomen through his shirt, but somehow you manage to tug the fabric slit over the button and then—delicately, delicately—clamp the zipper between your teeth and peel it downward.

“Oh, she’s good,” someone says from the background. Setsuno. You look up warily, but Overhaul’s eyes haven’t moved from you.

Now that you’ve got his pants open, you’re face to face (literally) with what you’re going to have to deal with. The outline of his cock is bulging the fabric of his boxers outward, and he’s not even half erect. You snatch a look back up at him—and damn it, you have to stop doing that, because every time you look into those golden eyes and that stupid bird mask you feel like a lamb looking at a bird of prey right before it snatches you from your safe little lamb-house in the meadow and—fuck, you just have to get on with it.

So you dip down and mouth over him through the fabric, spreading the flat of your tongue over the length of his thick cock. Your mouth feels like you’ve been eating cotton (probably because they drugged you earlier) but you force yourself to salivate, letting drool spill over your tongue and dampen his boxers. When you duck and spread your lips down on the place you can feel the tip stretching out, you know the friction must feel good, because despite the lack of even so much of a deep breath from the man above you, his cock is getting harder.

You nudge your mouth over the tent between Overhaul’s legs again, letting the heat of your breath wash over him—but when he doesn’t do anything, you pull back and blink up at his face. Does he expect you to get him off through his underwear? You could, but most of your moves depend on skin-to-skin contact. There’s no way you can get his cock out with your mouth like you undid his pants, so…what? “Are—are you going to take it out?”

Overhaul brings a gloved hand to his face to rub absently at one of the straps on his mask. “…Beg,” he tells you.

Your mouth drops open and you reel back from his lap like he asked you to lick the dirt off the floor. What!? He can’t seriously expect you to—to beg him to put his dick in your mouth when you’re clearly disgusted at the whole situation. When he doesn’t give any indication of retracting the statement, you can’t help the mocking sneer that forms over your face. “Please, sir,” you spit, and a deaf man could hear the spite in your voice.

Now, that gets a reaction. Overhaul’s eyes flash and you take a certain degree of pride back at the anger you’ve clearly inspired in him. But it’s extinguished as soon as you see it, and then he’s reaching down to cup your chin, tilting your head back and rubbing his thumb over your lower lip.

“I think you can do better than that, princess,” he says, and you can hear your own mocking tone reflected back in his voice. “Unless you’d like me to give my men a turn?”

This, more than anything, scares you. He must be able to feel the way your spine goes stiff, adrenaline rushing, your fight-or-flight instinct kicking in at the prospect of what he’s threatening.

“Each of them, one by one. Between the four of them, I think they could cure that smart mouth…although they might just break you in the process,” he continues, and then his thumb is pressing into your lip, into your mouth, and you loosen your jaw to let him in. You can taste the rubbery latex of his gloves and the other men mutter agreement, encouraging their leader to turn you over to them, and you want to cry.

But you hold the tears back. “Please, sir! Please, please may I s-suck your cock sir? Please!” Your voice is more terrified than obedient, but that’s probably what he’s into anyway. When he doesn’t say anything, you babble on, unwilling to let yourself get gangbanged by a group of men who could probably wreck your pussy in a single round. “Please, please, Mr.—Mr. Overhaul, um, boss? M-Master?”

“Sir will do just fine,” Overhaul says, apparently satisfied, and he pulls his hand away from your face to free his cock from his boxers.

You let out a hot sigh of relief and angle yourself back toward his lap so you can zero in on his cock (and, hopefully, do a little to block out how sickeningly degrading all of this is: how easy it is for him to threaten you; how he has all the power and you have none; how the men around you are goading you, taunting you and calling you things that should get their mouths washed out with soap). You can focus on this, and this, at least, you’re good at. You’ve always been good with your mouth.

It’s a nice dick, too, you have to admit to yourself as you stare at it. Perfect length, girth, and a thick, cut head that you know just by looking that you’re going to have to stretch your jaw to get around. All his hair is neatly trimmed and groomed, and he even smells good, clean and fresh like soap. You’ve never been in front of a dick that didn’t smell like day-old ball sweat, so this is a first. It’s got a nice upward curve, too, and there’s a bead of pearly precum oozing out of the tip. The kind of cock that’s made for penetrative orgasms—

No. Fuck. You cannot be thinking this. You cannot allow yourself to lust after a gang leader who thinks of you as little more than an interactive sex doll. A tingle of blood rushes to your cheeks as you feel wetness pool in your panties and you adjust your stance, shuffling your thighs apart under the pretense of getting closer and hoping Overhaul doesn’t notice.

If he notices, he does the merciful thing and keeps quiet (which makes you think he has no idea you’re feeling the way you’re feeling, because he’s probably never chosen to do the merciful thing in his life). He does, however, shift one of his knees farther apart to accommodate you as you crawl close enough to him to get your head all the way between his legs.

So now you’re staring up at that unfairly pretty cock and wondering how the fuck this is supposed to start, but—best just get on with it. Pretend it’s not him, pretend it’s…no, wait, pretend it is him, it is Overhaul, the same bastard who’s looking down at you like you’re trash, except pretend you’re in control. Because no matter how many orders he gives, once you’ve got his cock in his mouth he’ll have to be the weak one. Right?

Lightly, slowly, you trace the tip of your tongue in a wet path up the underside of his cock, sliding up from the hilt to caress every bulging vein with all the delicacy and accuracy of a surgeon. When you reach the tip, you flatten your tongue to curve it around that bulbous head and then slip it off, the suction providing a wet smacking sound as your skin leaves his.

The breath of his barely-heavier exhale ruffles your hair and you relish the knowledge that he’s getting impatient. Yes. The bastard can wait.

You kiss the tip of his cock, barely moving your lips around the slit, only enough to let your tongue flick out against the precum and gather the bitter liquid up in your mouth. And then—right when he’s getting annoyed, when you can tell by the tension in his body that he’s five seconds away from shoving your head down to fuck your face—you duck closer, relax your throat, and swallow.

Like a fucking python. Or so you’ve been told.

The exhale that escapes him isn’t light this time. You can almost hear the barest hint of a groan under his breath, but you’re more focused on holding down your gag reflex as you let that heavy cock hit the back of your throat. Once he’s all the way down (or at least as far as you can get him), you rock yourself back an inch and then take him deeper, forcing yourself to hold still so he can feel the walls of your throat convulse around him, sucking him in, dry-gagging on the mass that’s filling you up.

“Fuuuuck,” you hear someone whine, and it’s not even Overhaul. It’s one of the men watching, and you feel a perverse mixture of hatred and arrogance rise up in you.

Overhaul’s cock is too big for you to properly moan around it, but you give it a go anyway so he can feel the vibration of your voice through his skin. You’re rewarded with a tangible twitch with it sitting on your tongue, and—oh—your mouth is watering out of where you’re clenching down on him at the back of your throat.

Spittle slips out over your lower lip and onto your chin, but you ignore it in favor of jerking your head up and down in fractional strokes, trying your absolute best to get yourself down to his base but knowing that he probably doesn’t give a shit anyway, not with how good your throat feels around what you’re capable of stuffing in.

What were you saying about ‘valuable’, sir? you think, and then you pull your head off his cock, so slow it’s almost cruel, sucking your cheeks in and hollowing out so those wet walls are rubbing up on every millimeter of his skin. When you reach the tip, you savor it, letting your tongue do the dirty work and looking up at him through your lash extensions before you release him with a nasty wet pop.

“Holy fuck, can I have her next?” one of the other men says, but you and Overhaul are too focused on each other to even look and see who’s talking.

His gaze is trained firmly down at you, and—no way, damn it—he looks bored, like he could be waiting in line at the DMV instead of getting sucked off by you, a girl who’s been complimented by every man she’s ever been with (including her first) on her bj technique. You know he’s feeling it—he can fake calm, but he can’t fake the way his cock’s throbbing under your tongue as you lick up the shaft. Still, now that you’ve got it in your head that Overhaul’s not going to make a sound, all you can think about is forcing him to moan. Let him look weak in front of all his little lackeys.

With renewed vigor, you lap up the length of Overhaul’s cock in sloppy dabs, leaving strings of saliva dripping off your mouth and his cock only to slurp them up, audibly, wiggling your tongue over the tip when you reach it. And that, that gets him, because you feel more than see the buck of his hips into your face as he hisses out a curse.

And—oh dear, maybe you shouldn’t have done that—because the next thing you feel is Overhaul looming forward over you, hand gripping the back of your head, and is he going to force you down? You hate that—so you take the initiative, tilting forward to take him into your mouth again, head bobbing up and down so quickly that your hair is falling all over your face, but it’s okay, because he’s got you, he’s got you, got his hands combed through your hair holding it out of your face, pulling so lightly it barely even hurts, but it does hurt, and he’s guiding you up and down on his cock and it’s hitting the back of your throat every time, and—and it hurts.

You really shouldn’t have done that.

“Take it deeper,” Overhaul instructs, almost encouraging, although you’re not given the option to pull off because he’s holding you down, pushing you firmly toward the base of his cock. You sputter around it, gagging, and you’re almost fucking choking, and he won’t let you up.

God, you’re not—not breathing, you can feel your throat choking down on him—“breathe through your nose,” he says, and this man, this villain has no idea what he’s fucking talking about, because you’re trying, eyes stinging and then you can feel tears down your cheeks. You try to squirm back on your knees, but somehow the combined force of every muscle in your body is outmatched by his single hand on the back of your head—and—and—you squeeze your eyes shut, relax, open your throat as much as you can and—

Overhaul forces your mouth down to the hilt.

Fuck, is he going to keep you there? You can’t, you can’t—if you could move, you’d be shaking your head and begging him to let you stop and as it is you’re whimpering around his cock. Your throat is making gagging noises and you’re crying, actually crying, actually fucking crying on a man’s dick. So this is what it feels like to be used?

“Good.” There’s something lower and darker in Overhaul’s voice, a husky undertone from the growl he’s trying to suppress. “Hold still…remember, you asked for this.”

You did. You asked for it. Begged for it. Pleaded.

“Want me to forgive your father’s debt…? You’re going to have to earn it.” He pulls out an inch just to ram himself back in. You make a weak attempt to move your tongue around his shaft and you can feel the shudder all the way through him, his cock twitching where it’s locked in your throat. “Mm…good girl. Just a little—little longer—“

His fingers are tightening in your hair, curling around the strands and tugging instead of just applying pressure to your head. He’s close, you think, and then you struggle back, not wanting him to cum down your throat, what if you choke on it? Like, really choke? You don’t want it, don’t want his cum in your stomach, but then he sighs and tells you again that you’re a good girl, and ohfuckohfuck you must be so scared you’re desperate for praise because you feel heat rush into your cheeks and your cunt when he says it and you try to move your tongue like you did earlier and his hips jerk forward and—he cums. In your mouth.

It’s salty, you think. The next thing you think is that you want to gag, because you’ve never had cum in your mouth before. For all your sexual experimentation, you’ve never let a man cum down your throat like this, always telling them it shoot it on your tits or whatever because you are not a person who should have semen in her mouth, much less ingest it.

But right now, with Overhaul lazily dragging your head up and down for a last couple pumps on his softening dick, your choice isn’t spit or swallow. It’s swallow or choke.

Hot. Thick. The texture is slimy, so viscous you can feel it going down your throat in strings. Part of you wants to throw up. It’s repulsive. Filthy. You hate this.

Part of you has to shift your position again so you don’t have to feel your own wetness slicking up the insides of your thighs.

How. Is. This. Possible. You may have just had to swallow your pride (and not just that), but what about your dignity? You’re a good person…okay, well, even if you’re not a ‘good person’ per se, you don’t hurt anyone with your selfishness. You don’t deserve to be kept as a pet by a sadistic bastard who gets off on watching you almost pass out on his cock, and you certainly don’t deserve the humiliation of finding that you’re turned on by it.

And yet. Here you are. Still held securely in place until Overhaul slides you off him. As soon as your mouth is free you suck in a dizzyingly deep breath, but even that is too much for your battered throat and the breath turns into a cough; you instinctively fold down away from Overhaul so the mixed saliva and cum you’re hacking out spatters in cloudy white flecks across the floor instead of on his clothing.

“Stop that,” Overhaul scolds, hauling you back up by your hair and forcing your mouth closed with a hand on your jaw. “If you make a mess, you’ll be cleaning it up.”

Considering what he just made you do to him, there’s no doubt in your mind that he’s implying you’ll have to lick it off the floor. You clench your jaw, holding back the convulsions of your throat as best you can, and hope he doesn’t press the issue.

Now that you’ve got your coughing under control, you can start to sense things that you had been tuning out before: the men hooting and wolf-whistling and applauding your performance, the traitorously persistent throb of your clit pulsing under your panties, and Overhaul’s hand releasing your chin to pet down your neck. “Now. What do you say when someone gives you a meal?”

Just you wait, bastard. I’m going to tie you to your bed and set fire to it. But you’ve got the sense that that answer won’t go over well, so you take a deep breath and look up at him again, meeting those piercing gold eyes with your own. “Thank you, sir,” you say in a soft whisper because it’s all your abused throat can manage.

“That’s right.” His hands feel colder than the concrete under your legs as he spreads his hand down your neck, only to toy with one of the lacy pink straps of your nightdress. “Stand up.”

You stand shakily, too cowed to even consider stepping back from him. Without warning (much less permission), Overhaul lifts the hem of your stupidly short dress up past your thighs, exposing your panties and lower belly to view.

“Hold this in your mouth,” he says, and after only a few seconds of hesitation you open up and bite down on the fabric so you’re effectively holding up the skirt for him. Overhaul skims gloved hands down the sides of your hips and comes to a rest when he reaches your panties—and why did you have to wear these today? Shiny red satin in the front; the back is just flowers worked in crimson lace. You know exactly how good you look in these panties, and judging by the things Overhaul’s men are saying, they’re more than appreciative of the view.

But Overhaul ignores them in favor of hooking his fingers under the elastic and pulling the panties down until they’re resting stretched between your upper thighs. You don’t have to see them to know there’s a string of slick connecting the lips of your cunt to the fabric, betraying in full technicolor detail how turned on you’ve gotten just from sucking him off. He gazes down at your pussy and then up to you as if waiting for you to admit it, but you stay silent.

“Well, well. What a nicely-trained slut I’ve found myself.” He gracelessly pulls the panties the rest of the way down your legs and lets them fall to the ground. “Do you always get this wet when you let your boyfriends fuck that smart mouth?”

It takes you a second to comprehend that he’s expecting an answer. “N-No, sir,” you reply, voice muffled by the fabric you’re still holding between your teeth.

“I suppose I can’t leave you like this, not after you took me so nicely.”

Does he mean he’s going to get you off? No freaking way. You drop the hem of your dress, let it flutter down over your thighs, try to scramble back, but his hand on your waist keeps you from moving. “I— It’s okay, I don’t need—“

“No, I think you do. I think I’m going to reward my pet for a job well done.” He leans back, eyeing you without sympathy. “I’d have you touch yourself, but—“

The mere possibility that he might remove the handcuffs has you straining against them again, and the sound of metal against metal rings out from behind you.

“—but, I think it’s best to keep the cuffs on for a few days…until you’ve settled down.”

Days? He can’t leave you in chains for days, helpless and powerless, so easy to take advantage of. “You can’t,” you whimper, and even though you mean for it to be a decisive statement, with your throat ravaged and hoarse it’s downright pathetic. Overhaul doesn’t even bother reprimanding you for talking back.

“My men have been patient,” he muses, and an enthusiastic wave of agreement wells up from the others. “Any of them would be happy to do it.”

You may have been through a lot in the past hour alone, but there is no way you’re going to let those rowdy criminals have their way with you. You send a nervous glance around the room and as predicted, not a single one of them looks like they have the slightest shred of control over themselves.

None of them…except Overhaul.

Still eased back in his chair, he looks just as relaxed and unaffected as he did when he was explaining your father’s debts to you. But there’s something flickering in his eyes, something he isn’t going to say to you, isn’t going to say out loud. A challenge.

Maybe, once again, he’s waiting for you to ask for it yourself. And if it’s a choice between him and one of the grimy ruffians who’ve been looking at you like dogs look at meat, you know what you’d prefer. Well—really, you’d prefer option C: none of the above (your current state might be uncomfortable, but you’re not so wanton that you’d rather cum in front of strangers than keep your legs together). Unfortunately, you’re starting to come to terms with the fact that ‘no’ is no longer an option.

Overhaul’s stare flicks from you to an unseen figure behind you, and you can tell he’s about to summon one of them over so you force yourself to move, lurching forward and climbing into his lap to straddle one of his thighs with all the grace you’re capable of. You feel the stir in the air when he inhales sharply, surprised, and his masked face is so close to your neck that you wonder if he can smell the lotion you put on before you went to bed last night.

It’s one of your favorite scents: vanilla, lilac, orange blossoms. You bought it because it smelled pure.

“Please, sir, I don’t want them,” you breathe next to his ear, injecting every ounce of sexual frustration you’re feeling into the needy tones of your voice. “I’m yours. I belong to you, just you. No one else—please, sir…Overhaul.”

He’s quiet for a long, tense moment, and you think he’s going to hit you, or maybe even kill you for your disobedience. Push you off his lap at least. But just when you’re teetering on the edge of jumping back from him and begging for forgiveness for talking out of turn, you feel it—a low rumble of laughter from deep in his chest.

Big, cold hands wrap around the sides of your ribcage under your breasts and his fingernails dig into you through the layers of latex and fabric. He tilts forward, forcing you to arch away and all you can think about is how horribly weak you are compared to him. Are you trembling? Will he be angry if you feels how afraid you are?

“You know, I guess I’ll keep you after all,” he hums, stroking his fingers through your hair and down your neck. “How does that sound, princess? I think you’d like that very much, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” The response comes all too easily, even if the words taste bitter in your mouth. You’ve never said the word ‘sir’ so much in your life…but as he repositions you on his lap and slides a single hand up the inside of your thigh under your dress, you bite your lip and decide to hold back your protest.

If you’re going to have to learn manners, you’d better do it sooner rather than later. Something tells you Overhaul’s not going to accept any less than your best behavior if you want to pay off your debt.

[gohyuck]

pairing: best friend!mark x reader; some neighbor!jaemin x reader

genre: university!au, angst, slight smut

word count: 4.7k 

warnings: unrequited love ft. oblivious mark, sex that ends in crying, general heartbreak because what else would it be

playlist recs: heather - conan gray, cayendo - frank ocean, i found - amber run, fools - troye sivan, from here - kafka tamura, drive safe - rich brian

I still remember Third of December Me in your sweater You said it looked better On me, than it did you Only if you knew How much I liked you

“I fucking hate frats,” You grumble, dabbing furiously at the front of your shirt with a crumpled napkin. There’s red - remnants of what you think must be jungle juice - scattered across the yellow cloth of your top, and you just know it’ll remain stained for eternity. “This cost, like, ten bucks at Walmart! I don’t have that kind of money to throw away, you know.” 

“That’s just an hour’s worth of wages from the bookstore.” Mark, your best friend, points out, handing you another napkin when you exhaust the one in your hand. There’s mirth in his eyes and the threat of a laugh underlying his tone, but the warning glare you throw at him has him putting his hands up in surrender instead of making fun of you. 

“God,” It’s only when someone pushes past you, opening the door behind you to get inside the cursed party house you’d been so quick to rush out of, that you realize just how cold it is outside. The warmth emanating from the inside of the house you feel against your back is short-lived as the door slams shut, but the damage is done: you’re already hyper-aware of what you don’t have. “God, it’s freezing, what the hell?”

“This is literally an end-of-semester party,” Mark, ever perspicacious, points out, adding insult to your injury without a second thought. “It’s early December. Be glad it isn’t snowing.”

“I’m in a t-shirt,” You only whine in response, ignoring everything your friend has said. The night hasn’t gone your way, and if Mark wasn’t here with you you wouldn’t have come at all. Unluckily for you, Mark Lee is popular amongst fraternity circles on account of being Jaehyun Jung’s hometown neighbor and friend, so you find yourself attending parties intermittently. If you could say no to Mark, maybe you wouldn’t smell vaguely of vodka and artificially flavored fruit punch right now.

“I’m in a t-shirt,” You repeat, ignoring any and all thoughts of your best friend you’re having, as always. “And it’s wet which is making me even colder. I hate it here.” 

Mark only rolls his eyes, though you’re surprised to see him shrug off his windbreaker before pulling his black sweater over his head to reveal a thin white shirt. He hands it to you wordlessly before pulling his jacket back on and zipping it up, and when you only stare at the piece of clothing he’s given you, he has the audacity to laugh. 

“I’m tired of your complaining,” He explains when your gaze meets his, though he jovially knocks his shoulder against yours when your eyes narrow momentarily. “And besides, you always look better in it than I do. Before you ask, I’m not cold anyways, so it’s all good.”

You don’t miss the comment about you looking better in it than he does. For a moment, just a moment before you pull the proverbial wool over your eyes and black polyester over your head, you imagine that he actually means it. He does let you borrow it an awful lot, after all: it’s in your dresser half as often as it’s in his. 

“I wasn’t going to ask,” You huff out a lie, putting an arm through before pulling the rest of the sweater on. You’re immediately met with Mark’s cologne, and you pull his sleeves over your hands into sweater paws on habit. His clothes are always just a little long on you. “You’re like a human furnace.”

“Whatever dude,” Mark rolls his eyes again, though there’s fondness evident in them. “Come on - I’ll walk you back to your place.” He loops his arm through yours in a way you’ve gotten dangerously used to, dragging you away from the Nu Kappa Theta house. 

He keeps his word, leaving you right in front of your door. When you go to take off his sweater, he stops you, telling you that there’s no rush to get it back to him. A quick hug and a short goodbye later, Mark is walking down the hallway, hands shoved into his jeans’ pockets. You watch as he gets to the stairwell, so desperately wanting him to turn back.

He doesn’t. Of course he doesn’t - you aren’t Heather. You fall asleep in his sweater hours later, still drowning in his cologne. Come morning, you fold it neatly and place it in the bottom drawer of your dresser, out of sight and out of mind. 

But I watch your eyes, as she walks by What a sight for sore eyes Brighter than a blue sky She's got you mesmerized While I die

You still remember the first time you’d seen her. It was mundane, really - she’d sat next to you during your first Computing class of the semester, and you’d introduced yourself to her and found her to be a sweet girl, the kind of girl people like being around. There wasn’t anything past that - the two of you went on with your lives, sometimes making idle conversation in class. You hadn’t thought much of your meeting with her until later.

Far more importantly, frankly, you remember the first time Mark had seen her, even if he doesn’t remember it himself. You’d been lounging under a tree, Mark’s back against the bark while you had your head in his lap. He’d been rambling on and on about something Donghyuck had said during their intramural dance team’s practice when he’d stopped speaking mid-sentence, forcing you to turn your head to see where his eyes were leading him. 

Heather, in a pleated skirt and a beige sweater over a pristine white button down. She’d looked positively radiant while standing in the grass and laughing with friends, the sun shining brightly directly behind her. Mark, feeling your eyes looking up at his slack-jawed expression, had unfrozen eventually, raising a hand to scratch at the nape of his neck out of embarrassment. He’d been about to launch back into his story - this time likely punctuated by glances over at the other girl - when you’d interrupted him before he could begin.

“Her name’s Heather,” You’d told him, mentally kicking yourself even as you spoke. Who tells the love of their life the name of someone they’re obviously ogling? You hate the value you place on your friendship with Mark almost as much as you hate the fact that you’re in love with him. “She’s in one of my classes. She’s really nice, if you’re into that.” 

“Of course I am,” Mark had muttered then, ears burning red. “Why wouldn’t I be into nice people?”

“You spend all your time hanging with me and Hyuck.” You’d pointed out, reaching a hand up to poke at his chin. He’d flicked your fingers away from him, though he’d immediately grabbed your hand right after, holding it tight for a moment on impulse and as if to show you he’d never really hurt you. 

You’d wished the constant Mark-inflicted ache you’d felt - feel, still - was physical. 

“You’re nice, dude,” Mark had insisted then, finally looking down at you. You’d felt suddenly insecure then, realizing that the angle you were at wasn’t the most flattering. There was no way you could compete to Heather, not with your disheveled hair and eyes that pierced through Mark like arrows. You’d wrapped your arms around yourself in insecurity and Mark had thought nothing of it, only continuing to speak. “You’re nice enough, at least, when you aren’t kicking my ass. Hyuck is… a thought best left for another day.” 

You’d laughed then, and Mark had responded in kind. The rest of your break between classes had been spent like that: talking and laughing with your favorite person, irreplaceable by all accounts. 

If he hadn’t chanced glances at Heather throughout it, you might’ve been able to consider that he found you irreplaceable in the same way you found him. 

Mark hadn’t been subtle then.

He isn’t subtle now. 

Why would you ever kiss me? I'm not even half, as pretty You gave her your sweater It's just polyester, but you like her better Wish I were Heather

Mark asks for the sweater back the day before you leave for winter break. Your flatmate is staying back - has research to work on through Christmas - so you’re free to visit your parents back home, and although you dread all the questions you’ll be asked, you can’t help but feel the slightest bit excited. 

“I’ll drop by and pick it up before I head out, then,” Mark says, voice still warm as ever even as the phone makes him sound the slightest bit tinny. “What time is good for you?”

“I’ll be at the bus stop by 5,” You respond, phone between your shoulder and your ear and heart between your mouth and your chest as you pull his polyester sweater out of your dryer. “Come by any time before then.”

He drops past your place a little before 4, eyes sparkling when he tells you that Heather only lives about a half an hour away from him, so he’s taking her with him on his drive home. You muster the brightest smile you can when you tell him how wonderful that is, all while handing back the sweater that smells like your own detergent for now but you’re sure will soon smell like Heather’s perfume. 

A week after seeing Heather for the first time, Mark had, by chance, joined your university’s Literature Club, not knowing that the girl who’d stolen his breath was a member. He’d had the same sparkle in his eyes when he’d regaled his first conversation with her to you, talking for ages about her opinions on The Picture of Dorian Gray and Slaughterhouse-Five. They’d clicked immediately, in his words. Two fitting puzzle pieces. 

You’d bawled like a baby into your flatmate’s arms once your best friend had left your apartment that night, feeling entitled to the tears after so many hours of half real (you truly were happy for him) and half fake (you truly were sad for yourself) smiles. 

It’s been three months since then. Heather and Mark aren’t dating just yet, but they’re an inevitability. You remind yourself of that after Mark leaves, sweater in hand and a promise to text you once he gets home sliding off his tongue. 

He messages you a picture - a selfie of him and a smiling Heather - five hours later, a ‘we’re home safe!’ text accompanying it. It isn’t a surprise to you that she’s wearing the black polyester sweater in the photo, but it still stings nonetheless.

Mark had said you look better in the sweater than he does. Heather looks far better in it than you do. 

When you reach your own home, you’re not alarmed to see Jaemin, your next-door neighbor who’s home from his own school for break, sitting at your kitchen counter and eating grapes out of a plastic bowl. His parents and your parents are great friends, and you’ve always gotten along fairly well with him. His hair is dyed a light blue, gelled back slightly to show his forehead, and he smiles the same cheeky smile he’s had since his sophomore year of high school at you. Jaemin’s always been breathtakingly handsome, always been as good looking as he is just good. He’d been a decent friend to you when you’d lived here, close enough to tell secrets to but not so close that he’d reveal them to anyone. 

Jaemin had been your first kiss way back when, had been your first time barely after that, and you allow yourself to see the purely sexual tension that still exists between the two of you. You feel nothing but friendship - maybe just acquaintanceship - for him, and he for you. It’s perfect. 

When both sets of parents go out for dinner, unable to drag the two of you out with them, you pull Jaemin up the stairs to your childhood bedroom to ride him frantically as if you’ll never feel this good again. He coaxes not one but two orgasms from you, cool hands roaming your body and nails raking gently over your thighs. Jaemin fucks up into you when you can’t move any longer, when your thighs shake from overwork, and he doesn’t complain, not once. 

He pulls you down to him, bites your shoulder hard when he cums, spilling into the condom he’d managed to get on in the rush to be inside of you. When you don’t pull off of him afterwards, instead only beginning to sob quietly into his shoulder, he’s kind enough to run his hands over the span of your back to soothe you. 

“That bad, huh?” He jokes, not letting you go. His hands are warm now. You shake your head adamantly even as you know he’s kidding before muttering a ‘it’s not you, it’s Mark’ into his skin. 

“Did you just ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ me?” Jaemin questions, this time more confused than anything. You shake your head again, your tears glistening against his collarbone as you pull away enough to look him in the eyes. 

“Mark. It’s Mark,” You say, swallowing the lump in your throat. You’ve never voiced it aloud before - that it’s Mark. That it might just always be Mark. Jaemin’s okay, though - Jaemin won’t tell. How could he? He doesn’t even know Mark.

Your childhood neighbor stares at you, though not unkindly, for a long moment before nodding slowly in understanding and pulling you into his chest once more for a tight embrace. He doesn’t ask any questions - you assume he just gets it. 

Jaemin manages to finger you to one more climax like that, with you curled up in his lap and your head against his chest. He murmurs sweet nothings that really mean nothing into your ear as he does, and you find that you could get used to this. You won’t, but you could. When you cum again, you only whimper and moan, incapable of forming words. 

Mark’s name is on the tip of your tongue, and even though Jaemin would understand if you say it, you don’t. You can’t tempt yourself with a reality that isn’t available for you. It would be too cruel.

By the time your parents and Jaemin’s parents get back home, you’re wearing a sweatshirt you hadn’t been wearing earlier, mainly to hide Jaemin’s bite mark. You hug your neighbor goodbye, and he whispers a ‘it’ll be okay’ into your neck before pulling away, giving you a soft version of his devilish grin and waving before leaving with his mom and dad. 

Maybe it will be okay someday, but for now, God, how you wish you were Heather. 

You only text Mark back right before you go to bed, a quick ‘damn, guess i’ll have to hire a better hitman next time. for you, not for heather, she’s lovely’ before you rest. Is she at his house, her head against his chest as they talk about books or movies or whatever they talk about? Or is she on her way home right now, wishing for more time with Mark? 

Your sleep is dreamless that night, despite the thoughts of Mark and Heather, Heather and Mark that run through your mind constantly. It’s the one stroke of luck you have. 

Watch as she stands with Her holding your hand Put your arm 'round her shoulder Now I'm getting colder

You sleep with Jaemin intermittently during your break, finding quite quickly that he’s very willing to solely be a receptacle of your pent-up urges catalyzing. It’s hard to have sex with people at school because you’re always aware that Mark could be waiting at your apartment with food when you get back, or that he could be texting you while you’re getting laid. With Jaemin, you can truly push Mark out of your mind, if only just for a moment.

It’s good that you find a momentary respite in your childhood neighbor, because once you’re back on campus, it feels like the universe is purposefully tugging your stars out of their alignments just to torture you. 

The weather still leaves much to desire, and although it isn’t as cold as it had been in December, you still carry a hoodie around with you wherever you go. They’re easy to pull over long-sleeved shirts and sweaters; after all, Heather’s always pulling Mark’s favorite forest green hoodie over the familiar black sweater that she wears. 

Before, it had just been you, Mark, and occasionally Hyuck getting together and hanging out. At restaurants, you and Mark would sit on the same side, sharing appetizers while Hyuck actively guarded his food from your roaming hands. Now, when you go out to eat, you sit beside Donghyuck, Heather right across from you with her perfect smile and kind eyes while Mark sits right beside her, leaning back with his arm thrown over the booth behind her easily. 

She’s genuine: when she asks about your hobbies, your likes, your dislikes, she truly wants to know. It’s good of her: after all, you’re one of the most important people in Mark’s life. You figure she must know that, the closer she gets to your best friend, the closer she should get to you. 

You appreciate it. You also hate it. 

When Heather gets up mid-lunch to go to the bathroom, parting from the three of you for the moment with a dazzling grin and an airy laugh that makes Mark visibly redden, the boy she’s wooing turns to you and your other friend, eyes full of hope. Donghyuck arches an eyebrow even as he knows what the other man is about to say. 

“Man, isn’t she literally the best? There’s something between us, right? I should ask her out?” Mark’s running a hand through his hair as he speaks, a nervous habit he’s had the whole time you’ve known him (freshman year Intro to Film, he’d spilled his cold coffee all over you and panic-offered you his black sweater to wear as a cover-up and, the rest, as they say, is history). 

“She’s on the higher end of the cool spectrum, yes there’s something, and it’s your life, dude, I can’t tell you who to date or not date.” Donghyuck responds before you can, and you catch him darting his eyes over at you in mild concern as he speaks. You haven’t told him about how you feel about Mark, but you’re sure he’s known for some time. He’s nothing if not deductive. 

Mark rolls his eyes, mutters something about Hyuck always being the bare minimum amount of helpful, and then looks you directly in your eyes, waiting for your verdict. In that moment you know that he’ll seriously consider whatever you say, that if you don’t like Heather, he’ll do his best to dislike her too. Friendship above all else.

The word friendship leaves a bitter taste in your mouth, even if you value it so highly. 

“Ask her out,” You finally say, the corners of your mouth quirking up together. The smile you wear doesn’t reach your eyes, but Mark’s too elated to notice. Under the table, Hyuck gently rests a warm hand against your knee for a split second, a show of ‘I’m here’ that you’re grateful for. 

Before you can continue speaking - what would you even say? - Heather is sliding back into her seat, back from the bathroom. You can’t very well talk about her while she’s there, so you close your mouth inconspicuously, watching as Mark puts his arm around her shoulders rather than against the booth this time, pulling her just a little closer to his side. 

You’re wearing two layers of clothing, but the air suddenly feels freezing. Donghyuck casually hands you a fry off his own plate, not keeping his food all to himself for the first time ever. 

You accept it, even though it’s cold by now. Bleakness added upon bleakness changes nothing.

But how could I hate her? She's such an angel But then again, kinda Wish she were dead, as she Walks by What a sight for sore eyes Brighter than a blue sky She's got you mesmerized While I die

He asks Heather out a week later with a bouquet of flowers you help him pick our just hours before his trek to her apartment. Donghyuck comes over the night of your florist trip - your flatmate had left for a trip the night earlier, leaving you a tub of ice cream and a pile of 80s movies as a placeholder for human comfort - and holds you for hours, not saying anything as you sob through The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and Stand & Deliver. 

“I w- I wish she didn’t exist,” You hiccup into your friend’s shirt as he rests his chin on top of your head. “And then I feel awful because she’s just so nice. She’s always so nice. He likes her because she’s so nice.” 

“It hurts worse when they’re nice, especially when you’re also nice,” He murmurs into your hair, pulling you closer into his chest. “Because then you can’t plot ways to get revenge without ending up being the asshole.”

“The jilted ex,” You agree, though it only causes you to cry harder. “Except I’m - I’m not even an ex.” 

“Someday, you’ll be glad that you aren’t one of his exes.” Donghyuck assures you, and you know he’s right so you say nothing else, only wrapping your arms tighter around him. The healing process for your heartbreak starts then, as you stain your friend’s thin shirt with your tears and he rubs soothing circles into your back. Your heart might just sew itself back together. 

The single stitch holding the halves of your heart together rips easily when Mark brings breakfast to your doorstep the next morning, obvious hickies dotting his collarbone once he pulls off his white pullover. The sight alone makes you feel like your lungs are airless and will forever remain so, and you realize that you’ll have to start healing all over again. 

Still, you welcome your best friend into your apartment for breakfast like you do every Sunday morning, right before he goes to Church. Mark’s bought bagels today, from the café at the end of the block, and once he’s prayed like he always does before eating he spreads strawberry cream cheese all over one half of his bagel while talking about how well his ask had gone and thanking you for your floral expertise. 

“I just thought they looked pretty,” You shrug, mentally begging for him to stop relating you to any aspect of his relationship. “No need to thank me.”

“I’ll always thank you, dude,” Mark says with ease, licking cream cheese off of his thumb. “You’re my best friend.” With this, he finishes off his breakfast, stands up from his chair at your breakfast nook, and wears his pullover again. 

“Gotta pick Heather up, she said she wants to come to Church with me,” Mark says, and your heart twinges at how quickly she’s been introduced to the more intimate aspects of his life. You say nothing, only smile and nod, and Mark thinks nothing of it. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“We literally have a class together.” You scoff, doing your best to banter with Mark like you always do. He rolls his eyes at your statement, though his grin never falls from his lips. 

“I’ll see you,” Is all he says, before leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss to your cheek. He’s halfway out your door before he turns back - turns back like you’d always wished for him to - and calls your name. 

“Yes?”

“You really did do me a favor by helping me with the flowers,” Mark says, giving you the most grateful smile you’ve ever witnessed. “She said the bouquet had all her favorites. I don’t know how you do it. You’re a lifesaver. Love you!”

With that, he’s out the door, and you can only watch as it slams shut behind him, trapping in his last two words as they curl around you like currents, pushing you deeper into the water that’s drowning you. It’s platonic, of course it is, it always has been. Still, you believe that if you never hear those two words together again, you might be all the better. 

The bouquet had all of your favorites, too. 

You need to stop wishing you were Heather.

Why would you ever kiss me? I'm not even half, as pretty You gave her your sweater It's just polyester, but you like her better I wish I were Heather Wish I were Heather Wish I were Heather

It’s a little less than three months later when you’re out shopping by yourself at the local mall, in desperate need for some winter clothes before the next year’s winter starts. Everything’s on sale now, and you’re not one to pay extra money for no reason at all. You’re sitting through a rack of jackets when your phone vibrates, and you fish it out of your pocket to find that Mark has texted you four images, accompanied with a message asking ‘which one should I post O.o’. 

They’re all of Heather in that black polyester sweater - the one you used to wear often - at an ice skating rink, and you assume Mark’s just gotten home from a date. She’s grinning brightly at the camera in the first picture while finishing tying up her skates. In the second one, her back is to the camera and her head is turned to the side, her hand holding onto Mark’s as she leads them across the rink. She’s looking right at the camera in the third one as well, eyebrows raised sportingly as she sips hot chocolate from a styrofoam cup.

You tell Mark to go with the fourth one: a candid of her just stepping on to the rink, eyes wide but smile even wider. Her head is turned, though she can’t see that her side profile is being captured. She’s beautiful without effort in a way you refuse to find in the mirror, and you know the fact that Mark has even taken a picture of Heather without her posing means he wants to cherish every memory with her. It’s sweet, and you tell him so. 

You pocket your phone before reading his response, doing your best not to let his earnestness affect you. Mark is a good man, and Heather is a good woman. They’re good for each other, and you’re good for both of them as a friend. 

As you turn around to inspect another set of for-sale winter clothes, this time on a table rather than a rack, you realize that, over the past few months, you truly have done your best to try and move on. It had been slow at first, yes, but by throwing yourself into your studies, taking time for yourself, and hanging out more with Hyuck and your other friends - though not less with Mark - has done you good. The ache has weakened, the stinging has stopped, for the most part. You’ve killed almost all of your Mark-related hangups or fixations, almost all of them except… 

You rest your palm on top of a light blue sweater - cotton, not polyester - and run your thumb over it, exhaling slowly and blowing air out through your barely-parted lips as you do. It’s pretty, and your size, and you’re in need of one, and the one sweater you used to wear the most isn’t available to you anymore. 

Jaemin’s words from months ago echo in your mind: ‘it’ll be okay’. You grab the sweater and make your way to the cashier’s counter, suddenly not needing to buy anything else anymore. 

The breath of air you take upon leaving the mall, sweater in bag in hand, feels like the first one you’ve taken in a while. As you settle into your car and turn the ignition key, placing your purchase on your passenger’s seat, you’re hit with a realization that you didn’t think you’d ever have. 

It’s all okay...

And you’re starting to no longer wish you were Heather. 

Why would you ever kiss me? I'm not even half, as pretty You gave her your sweater It's just polyester, but you like her better Wish I were.. 

[passivenovember]

Snippets of partially written fics that will never see the light of day, part one!

--

He keeps a battered spiral notebook in the back pocket of his Levi’s like some sort of behavioral scientist. Life Among the Gorillas, Jane Goodall through and through, beginning when the car is parked on Cherry lane. 

Billy considers the slopping roof, the screened in porch, and the cracked pavement that proves the house has never seen a family from the west. 

That’s the first fact in his notebook, the holy grail Billy will share with the world when he journeys back home again; houses in the Midwest are not equipped to care for families that were born near the sea.

Families where children are born with boards nailed to their feet. The surfing and skating kind.

Billy doubts they’ll be doing much of either, here.

“It doesn’t look that much different from home.” Max clutches her regulation board to her chest. The world’s most awkward and uncomfortable teddy bear, wheels poking and prodding skinny arms as she glances over, worrying the skin of her lip. “Do you think it looks different?”

Billy thinks it does. 

He hates it. Everything about it; the brown house, on its brown yard, next to its brown driveway. Pancakes and hash browns. Grass as far as the eye can see. 

Max worries the skin of her lip.

Billy thinks it looks different. Thinks it looks like hell, like wastelands and flood lands and miles of isolation, but. “Nah.” He shakes his head anyway.

“Yeah?”

“Feels different, though.” Billy rolls down the window, plugging his nose dramatically. “Smells different, too.”

Max snorts. “Shut up.”

Small victories.

“It does, it smells like cow shit.” Neil and Susan are still a ways off, pulling the Ford behind the moving van. Billy figures they have time, before. 

Things change. Before boards are exchanged for Nike shoes and wool coats in the fall.

Billy digs around for his lighter. “Wonder what the locals do about the stench.”

“Maybe they plant flowers.”

“Impossible,” He says, taking a pull from his smoke and stretching his legs where they sit. It’s been a long drive, but. He’s not ready.

Not yet.

“Maybe they have massive green houses and everyone buys crates of lilies and sunflowers when they seasons change.” Max fiddles with the wheels on her skateboard. “Maybe their living rooms are full of yellow petals. Maybe they only eat sunflower seeds.”

“Sunflowers don’t smell like anything.”

“Bullshit.”

“They don’t, that’s why the factories cover them in barbecue sauce. To make ‘em smell good.” Billy watches Max filter through a series of expressions before she lands on her favorite. 

Irritation. “Just because you’re my big brother--”

“Jesus, don’t call me that?”

Max blinks. Wide and owlish. Wet. “How come?”

And Billy doesn’t want to start off on the wrong foot. Doesn’t want to start over at all, but. That’s what this is. Endings and beginnings and relationships that crumble and turn to dust before siblings rebuild them out of clay, into.

Something shiny.

And new.

Billy tugs the collar of his jacket up and around his ears, frowning. “Makes me sound old.”

“You are old,” Max says lightly. “You know too much random shit not to be old.”

“Like what?”

“Like,” Max adjusts the skateboard, running her hands across the etched and worn surface. “How to change a tire. Where to find the best hiking boots. How to roast a turkey--”

“‘S not my fault your mom can’t cook for shit.”

“I know that.” Max says. “That’s what old people do. Complain about how their recipe for peach cobbler is better, and the local youths are ruining the duck pond, and like. Brag about shit they know how to do.”

“Oh yeah?” Billy counters. “And what kind of shit is that?”

Max shrugs. “Survival.”

She opens the car door after that, placing the skateboard on the pavement and testing the waters. Billy rolls her window down for better driveway vision.

“You think I know how to survive.” 

It doesn’t seem possible.

“Yeah, you know.” Max gets a little more confident after her feet plant themselves on the board. She maneuvers pretty well over the cracked pavement, a kick flip here, a slash turn there. “ You understand lots of stuff. Maybe everything.”

“Everything, huh?”

Billy watches with glee as she falls on her ass over the fist split in the concrete. Max looks up at him, scowling when he can’t quite swallow the laugh working its way up his throat. 

“The jury’s still out on that one.” She says stiffly.

Billy doesn’t buy it for a second. “Whatever, shithead. I’m your big brother now, and I know everything. Remember that the next time you’re trying to get your way.” 

Max flips him the bird. Billy leans against the hood of the Camaro, eyes tracking the movement as Max tries the turn again. 

If nothing else it feels good to stand on his own two feet.

--

Everyone in the Midwest leaves their clothes out to dry in the afternoon sunlight, and the only reason Billy knows this is because Steve Harrington’s clothes smell like warm sugar and daffodil blossoms. 

Billy thinks it might be the detergent his mother uses. 

Maybe the uber expensive, hyper polyester blend that makes up the polos Steve swaps out for gym clothes at basketball practice, but when he finally works up the courage to do more than sniff, Steve looks at Billy like he’s gone insane.

“You actually have dryers on the west coast?”

Billy frowns. “Of course we do, what is this. Little House on the Prairie?” 

Harrington balls up his gym shorts, tossing them at Billy’s head. “The next time you wash your sheets, hang them outside.”

So Billy does.

And the next time he crawls into bed Billy realizes that sun bleached fabric does more than block out smells it creates a fortress. A barrier. Warm afternoons and the smell of oak leaves wrapped in his own little world.

--

From somewhere, through a haze of smoke and the wafting grasp of day old pizza, a needle tore a hole that felt like a bee sting. Painful in the way his feet would sometimes burn on the Middle School blacktop during summer.

Nancy yanked on the yellow rubber-band, letting it fall back in place. It slapped thickly against the meat of Steve's arm, and.

He was hanging in a butcher shopped. Ripe for sale. Wrapped from head to toe in caution tape, and.

Radioactive.

"Ow." Steve hummed distantly, fingers moving to rub. To soothe.

Nancy slapped his hand away. "Stings if you do it like that."

"Stings now, holy shit."

"You gotta let it heal."

Steve frowned. "I didn't think that was the point."

Which made Nancy giggle. "What, not to let it heal?"

"Yeah, I thought." He licked his lips. Once. Twice. It was like seeing God. "I thought we were supposed to let it bleed."

[isoscele]

Lumberjanes Week Day 1 - First Day of Summer

(This is longer, weirder, and later than I wanted it to be, but isn’t that the spirit of the week?)

                                                        --------- Jo’s last exam is electrical engineering, and she finishes twenty minutes early. Dr. Quispe winks at her as she turns it in, and Jo tries to smile. The constant fog of formulae and diagrams dissipates from her head, replaced by a more all-consuming calculation.

One hour, six minutes to go.

She drops by her room, picks up the single backpack sitting on the bare mattress. On her way out, Gabi pops out of the lounge. “All done?”

Jo’s smile softens, takes on something real. “Yup. You?”

“I still have an essay, but I’ll probably do it at home. Got any big summer plans?”

“Kind of.” She shifts her backpack higher on her shoulders, silently debating how much to say. “I’m going camping with some friends.”

“Oh, cool,” Gabi says. “I wouldn’t’ve pegged you as an outdoorsy type, Jo.”

“Oh, you know.” Something under her skin humming, some outdated circuitry splitting into life. Forty-nine minutes. “In certain circumstances.”

Gabi giggles. As is the case with every one of their sporadic interactions, Jo wonders if they’re flirting. “Have fun! Don’t get eaten by a bear!”

She swans back toward her laptop and empty M&M packet. If she’d looked back for just a moment, she might have wondered what she had said to make Jo look so devastated. 

                                                       ---------

Mal has a pickup truck. It’s disgusting, with a windshield wiper that sounds like a dying macaw and a clutch that, for two heart-stopping seconds at the beginning of each gear shift, refuses to move at all. Mal has always defended it with a vigor previously only saved for her best friends and favorite bands.

Jo slides into the passenger seat. The radio is blasting heavy metal and the interior smells shockingly of mayonnaise; she has to blink hard to hold back her tears. There are some things that are so beautiful, so precious that it’s impossible to look at them head-on. Jo always forgets, when she’s away.

“You’re in the bus lane,” she tells Mal.

Mal obligingly starts the very long process of getting her car to move. “I thought the idea behind going to fancy science school with adults was that bus lanes were no longer necessary. Also, it’s fucking amazing to see you.”

“The buses shuttle students around campus. Also, I’m delighted that you’re here and I want to give you a hug.”

“Motion passed,” Mal says, and they squeeze awkwardly over the two melted Frosties in the cupholders.

The car jolts into first gear hard enough to throw Jo into the seatbelt, and then suddenly she’s laughing so hard she has to hold her sides to keep herself from spilling over. 

“Sorry!” Mal says, “sorry, she’s jumpy around strangers,” which is what she says every summer. It’s a terrible joke laced with an irrefutable affection, and it’s so Mal that it makes Jo laugh even harder.

“We’re not strangers,” Jo says. She pats the center console, feels a little of the polyester flake off on her hand. “Me and this truck go way back.”

“Well, let’s hope you and this truck go way forward, too,” Mal says, “because I’m really not sure the engine’s going to last us to California.”

                                                     ---------

They pull into the trailhead at around six the next morning, and make silent work of the luggage in the back. The sun’s just starting to come up, blinking warily between the table pines. Mal waves her on, and Jo sets off along the winding path.

The first year or two, they mostly stuck to campgrounds and RV parks, warming hot chocolate on the camp stove despite persistent, obnoxious heat. Jo didn’t think much of it at the time, but now she knows that Molly was trying not to inconvenience them, trying to keep them to the shallows of the forests. Trying to keep anyone from going too far, getting too stuck. 

The fact that they were instructed to bring backpacking gear this year doesn’t do much to assuage the constant thread of worry in the back of her mind. This isn’t something they can dip their toes in anymore; the world is always a more dire place than they left it last summer.

The hike is long and treacherous. They go off the trail almost immediately, but neither of them need a map. It sounds cliche to say that they’re following something else, but they are. The anxious chitter of the birds and the sun balking at the edges of the trees and the distant hush of a river form a clear topography in their minds. They walk without discussion, taking each turn as naturally as if they had always lived here. 

Around mile seven, they start to hear voices. Mal breaks into a run, and Jo comes crashing after her. 

They knock straight into April, who catches both of them with practiced ease. For a moment, the air splits with three different calls of incomprehensible joy, and then they’re lowering themselves to the moss as a single, complex organism.

“Holy Felicia Flames, you guys look great!” April hollers.

“I have so much to tell you,” Mal says.

“Are you trying to set the forest on fire?” Jo asks, wandering over to where April has piled an impressive set of branches and old newspaper. She must have packed most of it in herself; the trees around here don’t look like that.

“Might make our job easier,” April says, and then a grim silence falls over the clearing. 

I’m going camping with some friends, Jo had said, as if it was just camping, as if they were just friends. As if Jo’s relationship with these people, the things they had to do together, could be described in such a mundane and immaterial way. As if Jo won’t sit at the fire with them tonight, watching the way the sparks clear the shadows around their eyes, and love them with everything she has in her. As if she won’t hate them, too, for making her come here.

Here they are, in the annual half-second when they don’t know what to say to each other. The moment when the summer teeters, still soft and blameless, on the edge of something sharper. 

But then April asks Mal how the band’s doing, and the moment passes.

“I wish I’d thought to bring pictures,” Mal says. “We played at this amazing venue last January--there was this skylight, and it was pouring rain, and people just kept coming in because it was so miserable outside.”

“Aw, that’s great,” April says. “I’d love to come someday, but y’all sell out so fast!”

Mal scratches the back of her neck, looking embarrassed. “Yeah, sometimes.”

“What are we talking about?” Ripley half-shouts. Jo yelps, and then that turns into more laughter, which turns into an incredible group hug. For someone who carries no fewer than three kazoos on her person at all times, Ripley can be surprisingly stealthy when she wants to. Jo never hears her approaching anymore; first, there’s nothing, and then there’s Ripley.

April hugs Ripley so hard she lifts her off the ground. Ripley immediately starts listing all the weird birds she’s seen this year and asking April to cross-reference them with her encyclopedia of creatures.

And then, of course, there are four.

Jo drifts half a step closer to Mal and extends her hand. Without tearing her gaze from the blot of trees, Mal takes it.

Last year, Molly had been sort of--sick. They’d been camping on a bauld where eagles circled high overhead and the flowers were all this terrible saffron yellow, bent under the shadow of the rocks. Molly had walked with a stick, like the Bear Woman--like Nellie used to use, thick and gnarled. But she said that was temporary, just because of a bad fall, and no one talked about how her freckles had almost overtaken the white of her hands, how her eyes were spotted with yellow and seemed to constantly rove towards the sky.

No one had mentioned much of anything, because the year before that they had buried Nellie in the soft earth beside the lake and they had all tacitly agreed not to talk about it. Maybe that’s what growing up is like--finding more and more things that no one is willing to say. Holding a grief in you that sometimes feels so bright and all-consuming that it can’t possibly be real.

“She’ll be okay,” Jo says, quiet so as not to kill April and Ripley’s buzz. “The forest loves her.”

But that’s a cold comfort, because they have all spent the same six summers learning that the forest’s love can be the most terrifying force in the world.

                                                   ---------

It doesn’t take long at all before a familiar sound comes rolling in from the mountain. It’s a sound like dinosaurs, like goliaths, like the world collapsing in on itself.

It’s a sound that heralds the approach of Bubbles, who these days is about the size of a house. 

I don’t know! Molly had said, laughing, the first time they had seen him again. I guess he was just a baby when we met him. I’ve been feeding him a lot of peanut butter lately, maybe that’s it. 

Bubbles crashes through the trees, chittering so loud that it sounds like the laughter of a god. On his back, perched awkwardly against the scruff of his neck, sits Molly.

She does look okay. Their home hasn’t killed her yet.

There’s a little more white in her hair, a little more curl to her fingernails. But she’s smiling so wide it’s almost like they’re just here to catch up, like just for today they can afford to be a group of friends and nothing else.

Later, of course, will come the campfire, and the birds falling silent, and even the cicadas forgetting to cry, and they will map out another fraction of the world. They’ll find another dozen stone men, sleeping still enough to be dead. They’ll find perhaps hundreds of potential apocalypses, and they’ll spend the month eating little and sleeping less, preventing the end of the world again and again and again until they can’t even remember what they’re saving. 

But right now, Molly slides down Bubbles’ side and yells “Guys!” and the summer bursts into being. 

[bittywitches]

Ask: 6. Accidentally stepping on their heel in a crowded room. w gray ? 🤍

Oops forgot to post a lot of these 😅 (also I just realized this said heel but I didn’t do that exactly I’m sorry)

6. Accidentally stepping on their heel in a crowded room 

(for reference lol)

You honestly didn’t expect to find yourself in this situation, especially on your mother’s wedding day. This was supposed to be the best day of her life, she’d spent months planning this day for hours on end. She wanted it to be completely perfect, and you did all that you could to ensure that it would be. And you loved your Mom’s fiancée, she was literally the sweetest woman you’d ever met (aside from your momma). You already knew her pretty well, but in the weeks leading up to the wedding, you guys became even closer. She literally felt like one of your closest friends (even though she was a few decades older than you). So when the day finally arrived and you found out that you basically had no role to play in it? It hurt a bit.

You were already a bit furious with the fact that your sister was the one who got to be the maid of honour. Sure she was a lot older, and could probably handle the role a lot better, but it didn’t make you any less bitter. And even though you were still a bridesmaid, you were practically locked out of her dressing room for most of the night. And since you guys had gotten to the venue earlier than the wedding was scheduled, you just spent your time moping around the almost finished wedding hall.

It was only about an hour later did you have your phone ringing, a call from your sister. You sighed, picking the phone up reluctantly.

“Finally remembered that I exist?”

“Don’t be an ass. We need you to run an errand.”

“Of course. I knew my own family wouldn’t think of me unless they needed me for something.”

“Would you stop being petty for one second? There’s been an issue with the bouquets. Apparently, nobody remembered to go pick them up.”

“What? Isn’t the wedding supposed to start in-“ your phone away from your ear to look at the time. “Fifteen minutes?”

“Yea, that’s why I need you to GO.”

“Weren’t the bouquets supposed to be your responsibility?”

“Will you please just go get it?”

“What do I get out of this?”

“The satisfaction of giving mom the wedding of her dreams?”

“Mmmmm….”

She sighed over the phone. “I’ll pay you.”

“How much?”

“Twenty dollars.”

“What, do you think I’m twelve? No deal.”

“Dude-”

“Do you want my help?”

“Ugh, fine. Thirty.”

“Fifty or you’re on your own.”

“What? I’m not paying you fifty dollars just to-”

“Alright, good luck with-”

“God, FINE! Fifty!”

“That’s what I like to hear.”

“Fuck you. I’ll text you the address.”

Seconds later your phone vibrated in your hand, the location of the florist popping up in your notifications. You stuffed your phone into your purse and headed for the coatroom.

As you approached the door, you were confronted with  a few dozen faces pouring in through the front doors and drifting into the coatroom, in quite a disorganized fashion. You groaned. You guys were really cutting this close.

You pushed your way through the hectic sea of guests, making it through the coatroom door with a bit of ease, but after that, it was literally as if you were drowning in hairspray and cologne.

“How does my mom know so many people?” You grumbled, throwing out an ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ every half a second, but eventually just trying to push your way through the group of people.

Your eyes landed on your coat, so you began treading towards it, but just before you could grab it, the heel of your pump dug into something that most definitely was not the hardwood floor, causing your ankle to jerk sideways and you stumbled over.

“Woah,” Your shoulder jabbed into the side of a lavender dress shirt, and you definitely would’ve toppled over if it weren’t for the large hands that came up to catch you. You looked up to see who the voice was, and saw the face of a handsome young man staring back down at you.

“Jesus, I’m so sorry.” You fumbled, trying to stand up straight but another elderly woman rammed into your backside as she headed for the door, shoving your right back into the man’s arms.

“At least try to look where you’re going?” You yelled after her, but she only gave you a dirty look before leaving.

You sighed, looking away from her to see that you were still clutching onto the man’s shoulders, his black polyester slipping in your fingertips.

“God, hold on-” You leaned up and behind the man to reach up and grab your coat, your chest flushed against his when you did so, and his arms naturally came to rest on your lower back.

You leaned away, holding your coat in one hand and then grabbing his wrist with the other, yanking him to get him to follow you. You pulled him out of the coatroom, gasping when you finally got to breathe something that didn’t smell like fancy fabric softener.

“Felt like I was gonna drown in there,” You turned around to look at the man with you, colour returning to your face when you noticed his disheveled look.

“God, I’m really sorry,” you walked up to him and adjusted his blazer, straightening out the collar.

“It’s no big deal, really.” He placed his hands on your shoulders to get you to stop.

“No, you look so nice and I just,” You looked down at his black leather dress shoes to see the left one was creased right at the tip, a large cut where your heel had stepped on him.

“Oh my god, no!” You bent down at his feet, wiping at the top to see if it was just a smudge or not, and you blew air out of your nose in annoyance when you confirmed that the cut was there.

“Hey, it’s seriously not a problem.” He bent down to grab you by the shoulders and pull you back up.

“No, I ruined your shoes, and they look really expensive-”

“It’s fine, I promise.”

“Jeez, I’m sorry.” You got up on your toes to fix his ruffle hair, a result of the pandemonium that had occurred within the coat room. “You’d think a place like this would have a bigger place to leave your coats.”

He laughed, and you smiled when he did. You noticed a gem on his canine tooth when he chuckled, almost looking similar to the two shiny studs in his ears. His hand came up to rub his stubble, trailing up his chin. You were right. He looked really nice.

He looked back at you, an eyebrow quirked. “You’re one of the bridesmaids, right? I saw a few girls wearing that dress outside when I came in. Seemed like they were in a rush.”

You sighed. “Yeah, apparently things aren’t going as smoothly as we’d hoped.” You tilted your head. “Well, as smoothly as they’d hoped.”

He scrunched his nose at you in confusion.

You stuck your hand out. “I’m Y/N. Daughter of the bride. Er, well, the bride that proposed.”

He laughed when you said that, and took your hand, giving it a firm shake. “Grayson.”

“My sister is the maid of honour.”

“Oh.... ouch.”

“Yea, pretty much sucks ass. She’s practically planned the whole thing without any of my help. Except now, because things are going off the rails, I’m the one who has to save everyone’s ass.” You blinked. “Speaking of, I should head to the florist’s. Bouquet mishap and whatnot.”

“Oh, okay.” He said, a bit disappointed. “Maybe I’ll see you la-”

“Wait!” You grabbed his arm, startling him a bit. “There’s a small formal wear store that’s literally in the same plaza as the florist! I can make up for ruining your shoes.”

His eyebrows raised. “Y/N, it really isn’t necessary-”

“Nonsense! I’m not going to let my mother have guests wearing improper attire to her own wedding.” You winked at him.

He chuckled. “Alright, we better leave quickly then. The wedding’s gonna start soon.” He held out his arm for you, his elbow jutting out to the side.

“My, what a gentleman.” You smiled, hooking your arm around his and gripping his bicep as you led him out to your car.

・ ・ ・

“So, how do you know Lindsey?” You said as you hopped out of your car, locking it behind you as Grayson followed suit. “I’m assuming you're a guest from her side.”

“Yea. My dad used to work with her, and they were pretty close. Recently drifted apart, but he was very excited to be invited to the wedding. She also used to babysit me.” He held the door to the florist open for you, and you walked inside.

“Hah, I bet you were a cute kid.”

“You think so?” He asked, the door jingling as it fell closed behind him.

“Well I can’t imagine that anyone could be ugly as a kid and then grow up to look like-” You looked over your shoulder at him to see him chewing on his bottom lip, his eyes resting gently on yours.

“What I mean is,” you fumbled, pulling the straps of your dress higher up your shoulder. “Nobody could have that big of a glow up.” You gave him a small smile, turning back to the counter to hide your gradually growing pink face.

“Well, thanks.” You heard his feet pacing behind you, snaking through the rows of beautiful flowers. It was pretty late, so nobody else was in the store except you two and the Clerk.

“Hi, I’m here to pick up an order. Should be under ‘Lindsey and Nia’.”

“Ah, yes. One moment.” The clerk disappeared through a door, and you laid your elbows onto the counter, your face resting on one hand while the other tapped your fingers on the cool marble.

“Hey,” You felt a tap on your shoulder, and you looked around to see Grayson gently holding a beautiful pink peony right in front of your nose.

You breathed in, taking in the wonderful scent, opening your eyes and looking up to meet Grayson’s soft ones.

“It matches your dress,” He said simply, but his sweet tone somehow made it feel like he was serenading you with a love song.

“It does.”

“Kinda looks like you,” He said, gesturing towards your low bun, tiny white flowers peeking out of it. He handed the flower to you, and you took it, holding it gently in your fingertips.

“It’s beautiful.”

“That’s what I said.” Your eyes widened as you looked up at him, a small but playful simper on his lips.

“I-”

“Here you are, miss.” You suddenly turned away from Grayson to look at the vendor, your eyes landed on the two pink plumeria bouquets.

“Oh, they’re gorgeous, thank you.” You took them from him, closing your eyes to inhale their scent.

“Do you plan on buying that, miss?” You looked at where he was pointing, and saw he was talking about the peony in your hand.

“Oh, no, I was just-”

“Actually, no. But I was.” Grayson stepped up to the counter, taking his wallet out of his pocket. You stepped back to give him some room, looking at him with a bit of wonder in your eyes.

“Five dollars.”

“For ONE flower-” You interjected, but Grayson rested his hand on your arm, and for some reason it silenced you.

Grayson handed the man a five-dollar bill. The vendor asked if he wanted a bag, and Grayson refused, wishing the man a good night after the exchange. He turned to you, handing you the flower then heading for the door.

“You coming?”

It felt like you’d been watching this happen from somewhere out of your body, and had to blink to get yourself to return to Earth. “Yea, coming.”

・ ・ ・

“Y/N, we seriously don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, we do. I owe you for two things now.”

“The shoes were an accident, and the flower was barely anything, you don’t-”

“Just shut up and choose a pair of shoes.” You demanded, and he put his arms up in defeat, walking back up towards the display of shoes on the wall. You sat down on one of the stools, absent-mindedly smelling the beautiful pink flower that Grayson had gifted you.

“These look pretty good, don’t you think?” He gestured towards a pair that had two different shades of brown on it.

“You’re kidding right? Do you think my mom’s wedding theme is ‘the wild west’?”

“Jeez, it was just a suggestion.” He said with an exaggerated tone, and you giggled.

“How about these?” You walked up and picked up a jet black pair, almost resembling the ones he was wearing except for the seams lining the sides.

“They’re basically the same as these.” He wiggled one foot in the air.

“Yea, but these don’t have a cut in them.”

He chuckled, picking up the box that had those shoes, then taking them out to try them on. They fit perfectly.

“Dang, these are nice.” He sat down to slip them off and place them back in the box, but his eyes bulged when he saw the price tag. “No way, these are way too expensive.”

“Lemme see.” You read the label, and you had to chew the inside of your cheek to prevent you from making any sort of remark. “It’s not that bad.”

“Are you serious?”

“It doesn’t matter, I’m paying for it.”

“That’s exactly why it does matter-”

“Grayson come on, I don’t have the time for this!” You took your phone out of your purse to check the time, and instead saw a stream of texts from your sister asking where you were. “I was supposed to be back like ten minutes ago. Just pick a pair of shoes!”

“But I can’t let you buy these! It’s too much!”

“You bought me something too.”

“It was a flower! For five dollars!”

“Okay, time’s up, we’re choosing these ones.” You grabbed them back from him, running for the front of the store as you heard Grayson call behind you.

“Y/N-”

You slammed the shoes down on the counter, startling the cashier. “Is this all, ma’am?”

“Yep.” Grayson stumbled up behind you, slipping on his creased shoe and sighing as the cashier scanned the box.

“At least let me pay for it.”

“What? No! Then I’d still owe you!”

“You don’t owe me anything-”

“Jesus, you’re more annoying than my mom and Lindsey bickering over what centerpiece they want.”

At that he finally dropped it, laughing. “Lindsey is pretty picky about her flowers.”

“Yeah.” You inserted your credit card and put in the pin. “I was surprised they were even able to make a decision on the bouquets. I was so sure they were going to choose different flowers.” You sighed, looking at him. “But Lindsey knew mom would die for these, and that was all she needed to know to make her decision.”

“Guess they really love each other, huh?” Grayson mused as you took your credit card back. The cashier handed you the bag with the shoes as well as a receipt, and you thanked her before walking out with him.

“Yea. They really do.” You remarked, looking down at the single peony still in your hand.

“Hey, your car is that way.” He grabbed your arm, then took the bouquets from you as you laughed at your disorientation.

“Right.”

・ ・ ・

After rushing to the dressing room to find half the exasperated bridesmaids as well as a finally stress-relieved sister, your mother gave you a huge sloppy kiss on the cheek that you squirmed away from, but you were happy all the same that she was able to get her bouquets. One of the other bridesmaids rushed off to give the second bouquet to Lindsey.

Of course you were pushed out a few minutes later, but this time you weren’t as upset. Your mind was lingering on other things… so when your sister pushed you out the door, you were quick to snatch the pink peony that you’d left lying on the dresser.

・ ・ ・

Ceremony over, bouquets thrown, tears wept and first dance completed; After it was all over, you found yourself hovering near the back of the hall, watching as your Mom and Step-mom danced the night away, carefree as ever with the biggest smiles on their faces. You sighed, happy at how this night had turned out. It was perfect, it was gorgeous, it really was everything you’d all dreamed of and more. The love of the two oozed out of their very pores, filling the room with a bubbly feeling that you quite easily caught on to you. You found yourself with eyes roaming the room, looking for a certain someone with a lavender dress shirt, but your shoulders slumped when you couldn’t find it through the haze of pink lights dancing across the room. You looked down, and took another whiff of the flower you still held in your hands, not daring to let go of it after your bridesmaid duties had been accomplished. You looked up again, hoping to find the disheveled hair and shiny studs.

“Looking for me?” A voice caught you from behind, and you looked behind you to see Grayson, his arms casually held behind his back, but a small smirk played on his lips when he noticed the flower in your hands. “Still have that?”

You bit your lip, slowly shifting your way over to him amidst the music and laughter. “It’s too pretty to get rid of.” You looked down to see he’d changed into the new shoes you’d bought him, and it brought a smile to your lips. “They look good.”

“They’re great. You have great taste.” You met his eyes, them dark and wonderful as they glazed over you. “I really wish you didn’t pay for them though.”

“I’m happy I did.”

“But now I owe you.” His fingertips met yours as he took the delicate flower from you, bringing it up to his face to smell it, smiling at the fact that it still had that wonderful scent.

“Maybe you can make it up to me…” Your hands came up to his, your fingers first tracing the petals of the flower, then down the stem, then dragging across his large hands.

He wrinkled an eyebrow. “How so?”

You gestured towards the dance floor, that now had many bodies moving to the music on it.

He smiled, taking a step back from you just so he could lean forward with one hand behind his back, the other holding the peony out for you. “May I have this dance?”

You grinned, taking the flower from him, but letting your fingers linger a little while longer this time. “Of course.”

He chuckled, holding his elbow out for you once more, and you gripped it, leading him towards the dance floor.

[lokilickedme]

Part One of Read By Loki Laufeyson - The Night Manager Chapter 9

By request

Posted originally in 2016 at the Archive of Our Own  (no longer available there)

Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply (rated mature for crude language and lewd sex talk and brief reference to necrophilia.  Damn Loki.)

Category: F/M and some indigenous aquatic predators/Pine’s bunghole

Fandom: Loki - Fandom, The Night Manager - Fandom

Relationship: Jonathan Pine/Yvonne

Character: Loki (narrator), Jonathan Pine, Yvonne

Additional Tags: Explicit Language, Non-Explicit Sex, Loki Does What He Wants, stick to the damn book Loki

Series: Part 1 of Read by Loki Laufeyson

Stats: Originally Published 2016-01-29  Words: 1017 (original version)

Updated with additional text 2019-01-02

 Chapter 9 of The Night Manager, Read By Loki Laufeyson

by lokilickedme 

Summary:  If Loki narrated audiobooks. 

Notes:  

The Night Manager, chapter nine, randomly abridged and read by Loki Laufeyson.  Sorry about the additional narrative, I couldn't stop him. 

See the end of the work for more notes.

 "You're a lie," she said, distractedly kissing him. "You're some kind of lie. You're all truth, but you're a lie. I don't understand you." 

Oh yes, this is a good start, lies lies and more lies - I can get behind this fellow and the compulsive fibbing, but the damn woman talks too much.  You're not meant to understand him sweetheart, he's a fucking secret agent spy assassin and he'd just as soon shank your ass as bang it.  But the lies part I like.

"I'm on the run," he said. "I had a problem in England." 

Doesn't everyone?  I had problems recently in Jotunheim and Midgard, trust me I know how being on the run can jack your mojo but good god man, get busy - the female's already implied she's ready to climb you like a cherry tree just to suck your dangly fruit, stop talking and get after it.  I was on the run when I knocked up the queen of the giants and begat my triplets so I know it’s possible to mix business with pleasure when you’re hotfooting it on the lam from an angry pantheon of Norse gods or whoever it was you doublecrossed this time.  I may be projecting a bit, but you get my drift.  We've got six hours of this nonsense to plow through so let’s get to the good stuff, shall we?

She clambered up his body and put her head beside his. 

Now we're talking! 

"Want to talk about it?" 

Oh god I didn't mean literally.  Stop talking. 

Blah blah blah, boring yammer about a passport, blah blah blah, poking about in graveyards, "What's your real name, who are you who are you"... 

Who writes this tripe?  It isn’t fanfiction, that shit’s good.

All day they lived naked, and when the rain cleared they took the boat out to an island in the center of the lake and swam naked from the shingle beach. 

There are no pictures in this book and at this point I’m thinking the narrative would benefit greatly from pictures.  Why are there no pictures?  And while swimming naked in natural bodies of water is a nice idea in theory, let me tell you that in many areas of this shithole planet there are things living under the water’s surface that you don't want having unrestricted access to your assorted entrances and exits.  This book is not a safe or accurate portrayal of how a romantic escapade should be conducted because I'm here to say there is nothing romantic about having your paramour remove a spiky candiru from your bunghole. 

Every day or night they made love. In the small hours of morning when he came up from the disco... 

Wait, what?  He's hanging out in a disco all night?  I hope he's showering before he comes to bed because this is what, 1974?  I’ve got six words for you:  nylon polyester and leisure suits, people.  Fabrics that hold every smell that wafts within a dozen yards of the wearer.  Sweat and pot and unwashed crevices and who knows what else - he's going to be coming in smelling like New Jersey.  Do women find the odor of stale beer, industrial waste and farts arousing? 

Yvonne would lie awake waiting for his brushing signal against the door. He would tiptoe to her and she would draw him down on her, her last long drink before the desert. 

Well I'll be buggered, apparently they do. 

I've just been informed by a studio tech in an In-N-Out tee shirt that this story is taking place in the 1990's, not the 1970's.  I was confusing it with that other one with the same guy in it, the one about the apartment building full of idiots who don’t realize doors open both ways.  So fortunately there are no polyester leisure suits smelling like sulfur and B.O. to hamper the romantic encounters, which is good because I was starting to wonder about this woman Yvonne's sanity and olfactory kinks.  But I still don't understand what the fellow is doing hanging out in a disco all night while his woman is laying in bed waiting to be scrogged.  This author has obviously never had sex. 

Their lovemaking was almost motionless. 

What??  Why in the name of fucking Yggdrasil - ?  People it requires movement, there's rubbing and friction and thrusting and stuff that happens to the thing inside the thing and...motionless?  Like I said, this author's obviously never had sex, what the hell is he doing writing about it?  This is disturbing.  Only the dead have motionless sex and that’s exclusively during the rigor stage when your dick can literally snap off if you move.  Is this foreshadowing?  Are they going to die the next time they go skinnydipping with the spiky candirus? 

The attic was a drum, and every movement clattered through the house. When she started to call out in pleasure, he laid his hand over her mouth and she bit it, leaving teeth marks in the flesh around his thumb. 

Yes, biting is nice, but I'm still worried about the foreshadowing and the whole motionless sex thing.  It's the spiky candirus, isn't it? 

And now there’s more boring tripe about the passport, which this fellow really seems obsessed with.  His life at this point consists of sex with a woman who apparently likes to pretend she’s dead, doing Travolta impersonations in the disco downstairs when he’s not practicing flexing his penis muscles for the motionless copulation with the freaky Miss Yvonne, and swimming in dangerous waters with a Visitors Welcome sign stapled to his asshole.  And there’s some spouting about in French, and finally more sex. Oh joy.  Did I mention this book could really benefit from pictures?  Because it could really benefit from pictures.

They made love in an empty guest room while her mother was at the supermarket, and in the walk-in airing cupboard. 

Well that doesn't sound at all uncomfortable.  The guest room is a good option so long as mummy’s got a long shopping list and you’re quick about changing the sheets, but I Googled that shit while I was looking up areas that are indigenous to the spiky candiru - aside from being small and cramped as fuck, there's elements from the heating system in these airing cupboard things.  Which I would take to mean that if you go to splashing bodily fluids around in them someone's going to end up with an electrified dick lit up like a christmas tree.  Maybe this is what the foreshadowing was about. 

She had acquired the recklessness of sexual obsession. The risk was a drug for her. Her whole day was spent contriving moments for them to be alone together. "When will you go to the priest?" he asked. 

Yes darling, by all means make an appointment with a holy man to get forgiveness for what we did in the cupboard.  I hear heaven frowns upon the whole legs-over-the-head thing.  Be sure to get absolution for my electrocuted wiener while you're there.  Oh, and isn't there that little issue of you being engaged to someone else? 

Skipping a bit...skipping...oh god, really?  More whining about the passport?  This man is more obsessed with getting a passport than he is with getting pussy.  I'm starting to wonder if he even likes sex and now the whole candiru up the bunghole thing is making sense.

The only crime she had omitted to mention was the theft of her own heart. 

Seriously?  It gets romantic now, in the final sentence?  They've been fucking in dangerous predator-infested lakes and electrical closets with exposed wiring and dusty cramped attics and doing the whole motionless sex thing which, admittedly, might come in handy around that electrical equipment - and now, at the very end of the chapter, there's a line that indicates some depth of emotion that could possibly have redeemed that cringey bit about the disco?  He could have come in smelling like the subway and she'd say "You've stolen my heart" and he'd say "Oh good because someone stole my wallet in that crowded disco so your heart is pretty much all I have now."  A lost opportunity, author.  You're still a virgin, aren't you? 

 End Notes 

Excerpts from The Night Manager by John LeCarre, copyright 1993.  None of the passages in italics belong to me, and if they did I probably wouldn’t admit it.

[brownskinsugarplum76]

Loose and Easy, Part 1

New fanfic. NSFW FYI. Happy holidays! ❤️

At least the concert has gone off without a hitch so far, Joyce thought. Because zealous fans had trashed a concert arena in another town while waiting to buy tickets, she and the other guards were on alert here, but in reality there were just thousands of people enjoying the spectacle of the wildly popular British group, too transfixed to cause mayhem.

The worst part about working this concert has to be it going on for hours. Three hours of lunacy was what the lead singer had promised during a moment of coy banter with the audience.

Joyce’s shift had her standing at the front of the venue, and she couldn’t keep her eyes off of him. She had attended one of their concerts before, but her seat wasn’t this close to the front. I see why these girls are doing anything and everything to get his attention, she thought, thoroughly enjoying the view from her vantage point.

She was halfheartedly scanning for trouble in the crowd but looking at him in earnest. His body, which had transformed from willowy to bigger in all the right places over the course of the band’s existence, glistened with tangible signs of the energy, the heat, that he and his 3 rowdy co-conspirators brought to the night’s events. He effortlessly stalked his patch of the stage, shimmying, hip swiveling, passionately flailing his arms and arching his back when the palpable, electric current of the band’s spirit became too much for him.

So tasty. Her eyes hungrily lapped up the fine details of every inch of him, from curly head to white snakeskin booted toe. It was hard not to stare at him and his orgasmic enthusiasm, despite there being world-class musicians present who also were performing with equal parts skill and abandon, like it was their last concert, like they did every night.

She locked eyes with him on more than one occasion, and he kept his gaze on her for what seemed like an interminable amount of time. Each time she felt flushed and intoxicated. If this is his eye-fucking, what must the real deal be like? She considered that possibility for a minute, eyes still on him. Who am I kidding about surveillance? she caught herself and realized where her priorities really were tonight.

“Hey, Joyce, why don’t you go take your break now?” asked Rich, her boss, tapping her on her shoulder and breaking her concentration.

“Sure, Rich. Thanks.” She slowly wound through the crowd to the series of doorways and the lengthy stretch of hallway that would be a hotbed of excitement and last-ditch hookup attempts for the vast audience in a couple of hours. She hoped there was an once of seduction that the singer could see in her walk and the shape of her body as she made her way out, but she was enrobed in the drab polyester uniform that was required for the guards and did the best she could.

She procured a cigarette and a lighter from her locker in the back and proceeded to smoke in the hall. Moments later, he, the singer, emerged from the stage area. The sound of thunderous drums and his disappearance from the stage meant it was time for “Moby Dick,” which meant he would have a lot of time on his hands.

He recognized Joyce and smiled with satisfaction, striding confidently toward her on long, strong legs that were hugged unmercifully by skin-tight gold pants. “My personal bodyguard!” he said by way of a greeting and flashed his million-dollar smile.

Where do I sign up for tending to that body?  

His fully open rayon shirt trailed behind him as he stalked her way, chest forward, an assured lion of a man with a beautiful, thick mane of hair to round out that leonine image.

She was hypnotized by the louche swing of his hips, which was clearly a show for her,  the strip of waistband on those wonderful pants that was flush to his toned, tanned stomach, and then, of course, that ripe bulge of his that strained the clingy, satiny pants to their limits.

One of those nights for him, I guess. I think I know how that feels right now… I can’t take it, being this close to him…

“I’d kill for one of those.” He gracefully swept his lush curtain of hair from his eyes and looked in Joyce’s direction. She couldn’t tell if his powerful beam of desire was for her, or a cigarette, or both.

“I can’t have you killing anybody when the show must go on,” said Joyce. “I’m not just your bodyguard, you know.” She grinned and passed the cigarette his way.

He leaned against the wall while he smoked. “I’m glad you’ve been enjoying the show,” he said with a wink, back to holding her gaze for an extra long time again, then switching to eyeing her light brown skin and assortment of curves with the look of a hungry man ready to devour the best meal of his life.

If you only knew how much I’ve enjoyed it…

“The ocean of fans seems to be on its best behavior tonight, eh?” he continued.

Joyce returned a smile as her heart started beating faster in her chest. “It’s amazing. Everyone here is so into the music, into the energy of what you all are doing. I’m glad I had the opportunity to cover this concert, although I wish I could just enjoy it like a regular fan. I saw a show on your last tour, and it’s still the best concert I’ve ever seen.”

“The energy does feel good tonight.” He returned the cigarette to her. ”It’s made me feel loose and easy. Join me for a drink?” he asked, jerking his head to the side toward the dressing room.

The spoken request was harmless enough, but between them was the tangible air of where they both hoped things would go.

I’m probably already impaired by all that weed smoke, she thought–the guards were never fast enough to catch the many culprits–so she nodded her yes to a drink and smiled.

She crushed the cigarette, and he led her to the dressing room a few paces away. It was one fairly empty room with a fold-out table lined with bottles of various kinds of beers and spirits for the band. He picked up a vodka bottle and took a swig.

“Here you go.” He moved closer. Under the scent of the recent cigarette she smelled a mix of sweat and sandalwood on him, and it made her even weaker. She took a drink.

He moved behind her and put his large, bejeweled hands on her shoulders. “Bonzo is a little frisky tonight, so I think I have quite a bit of time to spare. Care to keep me company, so I don’t get bored?” he asked, his soft, melodious voice a devilish seduction in her ear that made her dizzy.

I can help you out, for sure.

Some critics called the lengthy jam explorations of his band an excessive indulgence, but Joyce called them a blessing in that moment. She faced him, smiled, and traced a finger down his chest. “I’m sure we could find something interesting to do together.”

She took a healthy swig of the bottle’s contents and then another, fully nervous to abandon her post for him, but in no time she started feeling more relaxed.

He watched, intrigued, as she took off her hat and took her hair out of the bun she wore for work and shook it loose. “That’s more like it.” He ran his fingers through her hair before tracing her full lips with a finger and then following up with an exploratory kiss.

“I hear you’re into blow jobs back here, but in case that might be boring, I’d like to propose something else.” She winked and unbuttoned some buttons on her shirt, and then some more, until her shirt was as open as his.

He took it off of her and promptly unhooked and removed her front-closure bra as well, freeing her full breasts. “I’m not bored at all now,” he said, his open smile taking on a wolfish meaning.

He took one of her nipples into his mouth while he rolled the other in his fingers. “Mmmmm,” she intoned, as she enjoyed the heightening sensations in her body and forgot that her break was ending.

She kissed him some more, entwining her fingers in his hair and gently pushing him forward to better unify their mouths and tongues. Then she pushed his shirt off his shoulders and he took care of the rest.

He stood before her completely naked, truly a “golden god,” with his body a uniform warm bronze tone. But more importantly, in an instant, she could confirm all the rumors whispered in the concert hall about him being breathtakingly well hung.

She peeled off the remainder of her clothes.

“I’d really love to savor this–and maybe we can, after the show?–but I know time is short for both of us. Let’s have a bit of fun now.” He kissed her hard, jolting her further into the mood. She yielded to the fantasy come to life with a contented moan while they both made a quick exploration of each other’s bodies with frantic caresses.

“So hard,” she murmured, grasping his cock. “I need it now.” Partly because I really do, but partly because who knows which band members or crew could show up back here? She walked over to the table with all the bottles, braced her hands on the table, and bent over.

“Great idea, love.” Knowing she was prepared to receive him, he entered her from behind. He was not disappointed. “You weren’t lying about enjoying the show, it seems. So wet.”

She savored a delicious sensation of complete fullness inside that she had never felt before. He gripped her waist tightly, and their insistent thrusting began to rattle the bottles on the table.

They moved with good chemistry. She delighted in the thump and sting of his balls hitting her pussy. “Oh, Robert, don’t stop.”

“Mmm, we will have to meet up again after the concert, ” he sighed. And then he lost his words.

She was worried that his primal screams and grunts would affect what the audience heard from him after the drum solo, but she delighted in this raw performance he was giving for her, an audience of one.

She matched his enthusiasm and desire. A nearly empty bottle toppled over the edge of the table. She lost herself in the wild, breakneck rhythm and the energy swelling and building in her body, and she cried out, too, overwhelmed by the pleasure.

When he skipped a beat, and then another and became noiseless, shaking violently behind her, she knew that their sensual duet was coming to an end. Her body began to sympathetically shudder, as if the current of pleasure he was riding had leapt into her. And then everything exploded inside of her, too.

She stood, closed her eyes, and tried to compose herself. “Wow. Not boring, right?” Rich will be furious about my absence, but it was worth it!

“Not boring one bit, love,” he said, circling his arms around her waist and drawing her close.

She fought the urge to invite Robert to put the world on hold and lie down on the nearby couch. Instead, she settled for a kiss before starting to get dressed. He followed her lead, equally reluctant to have to put more time together on hold.

He sat down on the floor to get his shoes back on. “Can you come out to play with me after you finish here?”

“I’d love that, she said, twisting up her hair in front of a lighted mirror before donning her hat again. “I may have all the time in the world if I don’t get back to my post soon, though. Rich is going to kill me!” What in the world can I use as an excuse? What will Rich believe?

“Let me help you with that,” Robert said, joining her at the mirror to fluff his golden curls. “I must let someone know how brave, how good you were at breaking up that fight backstage. Remember?” He winked. “You have a gift for…diffusing tension that should be rewarded. We’ll go back together, and it will all work out.”

A dirty mind, quick, clever thinking, a dose of compassion, a protective nature… I could get used to this.

They exchanged a smile and, as they left the room, they nearly collided with a man in a 1977 tour shirt running their way. “Oh, good, you’re heading back,” he said to Robert. It’s almost time.”

“I’m on my way. Hey, before I go, can you make sure she can get back here after the show? The name’s Joyce.” He smiled that charming smile at her again. Joyce gave Robert a puzzled expression.

“You got it.”

Joyce and Robert were on the move in the hall. How did he know my name? She was a little embarrassed that she hadn’t introduced herself before their episode. “My badge,” she said out loud, laughing.

“I have many talents–and I’d like to show you more of them–but clairvoyance isn’t on the list, I’m afraid. ” He joined along with her laughter as they continued to walk.

“Joyce, where the hell have you been?” Their connection was broken by Rich’s ire.

Robert quickly assumed a more conciliatory posture and began to weave his tale of Joyce’s valor, sprinkling on the magic dust of his infectious smile in full measure at the end.

Rich was suspicious but eked out a “Good job” for Joyce, in spite of the look on his face.

“One last request, Rich: we had planned a small party, and I’d like to invite Joyce as my guest as thanks for all she’s done tonight. Could I steal her away from you as soon as the concert ends?”

“Sure.” Rich said no more than this tensely delivered word, in a concerted attempt to keep from exploding. “Come on Joyce,” he said, walking back toward the arena.

She mouthed a silent “Thank you” to Robert, and he blew a kiss to her before racing for the door to the stage.

By the time Joyce made her way to the front of the venue, Robert was already on stage, grooving to the end of the song.

“Everyone still good out there?” he addressed the audience when the band stopped playing and received an appreciative roar in return.

“I’d like to thank you all for being on your best behavior tonight, so that my new friend–my bodyguard!–could have a good time.”

The band was used to Robert’s rambling messages for the audience but had to exchange glances as they realized this one must’ve had a double meaning that was tied to his disappearance.

A range of emotions went through Joyce’s mind, but she settled on equal parts annoyance at their interaction being shared, and satisfaction with having taken the risk. She would give him a lesson on manners later. There is a later, she thought, excited that the night wasn’t over yet.

She smiled to herself, monitored the crowd, and enjoyed the show some more.

[lorig11]

Sneak Peek at the new chapter for Sleepless in Seattle, clexa style.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/10689858/chapters/23673075

For all my regulars, reblog!

Lexa woke up. A loud, frustrated groan gurgled up from her throat. Shit. No! She needed to finish that dream. She needed to hear it, she needed to hear Clarke say her name as she came.

She rolled onto her stomach, put the pillow over her head. Mother of god. That was hot.  Well, she asked for a sex dream, she got a sex dream. Fuck, Clarke was steaming hot in that dream. She sighed. Let’s face it, Clarke was just steaming hot, period.

She swallowed to try and erase the fetid taste of stale alcohol that was still in her mouth.  She was hungover, and her head was pounding. The events of the previous evening were still a little fuzzy.  She couldn’t even remember how she got home. Costia had driven her own car because she had to catch a red eye to the east coast last night for work. And she vaguely remembered saying goodbye at one point in the evening, and she remembered that maybe Costia wasn’t too pleased with her.  Hm. Why would that be? What the hell happened? She felt little paws walking on the pillow that was over her head.  She heard voices. God, was she still dreaming? She slowly picked her head up as the two kittens balanced on top of her. Definitely voices. Then a knock on her bedroom door.

“Yo, you getting up anytime soon?” Anya called through door.

“Oooh god. Why are you so loud?” Lexa said in a pillow-muffled voice.

“Somebody had too much to drink last night,” Anya grumbled. “Go get her up.”

Next thing Lexa knew her bedroom door was opening and Luna came strolling in. The kittens scattered.

“Hey sexy, get up, I’m gonna make breakfast.”

“Please leave me alone.”

“Not a chance.” Luna stared down at the lump under the covers, and watched as the as the kittens tentatively crawled back on the bed. “Did you name them yet?” she asked.

“No. I'm not keeping them. I'm a dog person.”

Luna plopped herself down on the bed next to Lexa and picked up the pillow to peek at her. “Here, drink this, take these.”  She handed Lexa a glass of water and some Advil.

“Ah, I’m naked under here,” Lexa said as she struggled to sit up and not flash her friend. She gingerly took the glass and popped the pills in her mouth, drinking it all down.

“Yeah, I know, I put you to bed last night.”

Lexa spit a little water onto the bed. “What?!”

“Oh, please, it’s not like I haven’t seen it before.” She picked up the swatter and gave him a little smooch.

“You haven’t seen me.”

“I have now.”

“But, but I’m naked, did you...did you take...how did you...oh, never fucking mind.”

How Luna still had the power to reduce Lexa to a babbling idiot was beyond her.  And goddamn her thumb was throbbing. She looked at it and suddenly the memory of the kiss in the bathroom came rushing back to her. She thought she had dreamed it. But it actually happened. She kissed Clarke, or Clarke kissed her. Fuck. And she seemed to remember that it totally rocked her world. A few more tidbits of last night started trickling into her consciousness. She remembered coming downstairs after the kiss, remembered pouring another shot of tequila. Remembered how scared she felt because the kiss was so incredible, so mind blowing. Her mind was fucking blown all right.

She was startled by her buzzing phone. She reached out for it. She breathed a sigh of relief, it was Aden texting. Get a hold of yourself, Lexa, it wouldn’t have been Clarke. Jesus.

“Dinner wednesday dude?” he asked.

That’s exactly what she needed, a nice normal evening with the Jordan’s.  

“I’ll be there, with the brownies. :) ,” she answered.

“Cool.”

“Who was that, Clarke?” Luna asked.

“What? Why would it be Clarke?”

“It smells like sex in here, did you have another sex dream?”

Lexa felt the warmth creep into her cheeks, the tips of her ears felt hot.

“Wait, I was just kidding, did you have a sex dream last night?”

“Please go away.”

“Starring Clarke?”

Lexa laid back down and put the pillow over her face. “Where are my dogs?”

“Anya put them outside, and fed them.”

“You’re welcome,” came the call from the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Lexa called back to her.

“So you had a sex dream about Clarke?”

“Who else,” Lexa lamented into her pillow, resigned to the fact that Luna would only pull it out of her in a minute anyway.

“Interesting. So, what were you two doing upstairs for so long last night?”

“She was stitching up my thumb,” and she showed Luna her bandage without coming out of her pillow cave.

“Doesn’t take that long to to put a couple stitches in a thumb.”

“How do you know?”

“I know all.”

“Shut up.”

“Clarke is hot. I’d do her.”

“You practically did,” Lexa mumbled into her polyester blend.

“Hey,” Anya called from the kitchen, “I heard that.”

“If I was single babe, you know that’s what I meant,” Luna replied back to her girlfriend.

“OK.” Anya paused, then added, “She is hot. Jesus, did you see her in that shirt? And when you had her bent over? That was hot, babe.”

Lexa reluctantly flashed back to the scene from last night, as Luna repeatedly thrust into Clarke’s backside. She remembered being captivated and insanely jealous at the same time. Then when Luna reached around and appeared to touch Clarke’s clit, Lexa thought she was going to have an aneurysm. And she wanted her mouth where Luna’s fingers dared to tread.

Lexa rose up a little, took her pillow, and whacked Luna. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”

“What, that little peep show?”

“Yeah.”

Luna started cackling, “You should have seen your face.”

“Yeah, Lex, holy shit, I thought you were gonna start drooling,” Anya called.

“What did you expect, it was like watching a porn show for god’s sake. Everybody there had the same look on their face. It had nothing to do with Clarke. Maybe you missed your calling.”

“Yeah, babe, bet you could do a porn film.”

“Ha! I know I could. So what else happened upstairs?” Luna directed at Lexa.

Lexa was caught off guard by the new line of questioning. “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Well, first Clarke came flying down the steps like she was running away from something. Then you came stumbling down looking like somebody stole your cookie...or your Clarke.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did. You looked dazed. Like you’d been doing something other than first aid up there.”

Lexa got a little defensive, “She had to take out pieces of glass, then she had to stitch me up. We didn’t do anything else.”

“I think you did. Did you have sex up there?”

“What?  No we didn’t have sex up there, that’s ridiculous. I’d like two eggs scrambled please.” Surely, if she placed her breakfast order, Luna would vacate the bedroom and the sexual inquisition would stop. She laid back down, hugging the pillow tightly to her chest for moral support.

“Did I ever tell you I was sorry for giving you that black eye when you were a freshman in high school?” Luna asked.

It was the first time Lexa was on the basketball court with the tall, imposing senior from their arch rival.  They were both centers, but Luna towered over her at the time. Lexa had her back to the basket, her hands up waiting for a pass, and Luna bumped her slightly from behind and whispered, “You’re fucking hot.” Well, fumbly, bumbly freshman that she was, Lexa dropped her hands, stunned and embarrassed, as the heat crept up into her cheeks. Next thing she knew the pass came at her and smacked her right in the face. Luna reached around, elbows flying, connecting with Lexa’s orbital socket, stole the ball and started a fast break the other way.  Lexa’s coach pulled her from the game, sat her down, and gave her an ice bag. She sported a black eye from that elbow for a week afterwards. “No, you never did apologize.”

“Well, I’m sorry. So who kissed who?”

“She kissed me,” Lexa said before she realized what was happening. It slipped out. She didn’t mean for it to. It was an involuntary reaction, like when a doctor tested your reflexes by hitting your knee with that little rubber hammer. Clarke was gonna kill her. Damn it. Luna and her powers of interrogation.

“The kissing part was quite obvious.”   

Damn it, Luna and her powers of observation.

[juggieheadcoopers-blog]

Friends With Benefits (Part 3)

(Part 1) (Part 2)

AU: Jughead never went to Riverdale High and never became friends with Betty and the gang the way they were supposed to. Archie, Jughead, and Betty were close in middle school, but once they parted ways and Jughead followed in his father’s footsteps of becoming a Serpent, their relationship was never the same.

A/N: Okay so I realize that I left off with a lot of angst in the last part, but what I envisioned is that both Betty and Jughead had enough time to think and cool off so that they could realize that the only thing that mattered was being with each other. So after their fight in the Blue and Gold room, they both made their move to fix things in their own way that next afternoon.  

Read on ao3 here if you would prefer!

–

Jughead paced back and forth along the worn sidewalk outside of Archie Andrews’ family home, his mind teeter tottering with the decision to knock on the front door or walk back home to the Southside of town where he belonged and pretend like he hadn’t just shown up at his estranged friend’s house like no time or ill feelings had passed between them at all. 

Just when he had made up his mind to leave well enough alone and turn away from the red-headed boy he hadn’t spoken to in nearly two years, the large red door swung open and Archie stepped out into the fading sunlight of the mid-afternoon autumn day with his lips set in a firm line and eyes dancing with anger . 

“What the hell are you doing here?” Archie’s voice cut through the sleepy neighborhood, booming down the street and disrupting the hushed simplicity of the day like a fog horn on an eerie Sunday morning. 

“We need to talk, Archie,” Jughead told him, taking a cautious step towards the house as he mustered up the courage he had been lacking the past few months to have the conversation he had been dreading for so long. 

“I have nothing to say to you,” Archie spat, pounding down the porch and causing Jughead to scramble backwards onto the sidewalk. “Go home, Jughead.” 

“I’m sorry about your Dad,” Jughead said before Archie could protest. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him and I wish that I could have been there for you the way you were there for me when my father would go on those week long benders when we were kids. I never told you this, but I don’t think I could have gotten through that without you.” 

The stony look on Archie’s face wavered the slightest bit, softening only in the eyes and the way his brows drew together. 

“What happened to us, Arch?” Jughead asked tentatively. “We used to have the kind of friendship authors would write about in children’s books, you know? Pirate adventures in my treehouse-turned-pirate-ship, mud pies in your backyard after an epic rainstorm? How did we get here?”

“Your father was in the same gang that had my father shot and left him for dead,” Archie snapped. “That’s a deal breaker in my book.”

“Our friendship was pretty broken before that and you know it,” Jughead pointed out. “Once I switched schools and joined the Serpents you treated me like I had an extra eye and a giant horn coming out of my forehead.” 

“Maybe I knew you were going to turn out like FP and become king of the Southside,” Archie shot back, although there was a sadness to his voice that gave way to the fact that he was more hurt than angry. “Maybe I didn’t want to be a part of that.” 

“But I haven’t,” Jughead reminded him, not unkindly. “And I think you know that.” 

Archie descended the last step leading down to the sidewalk, shifting his weight on the pavement so that he was eye level with Jughead. They were the picture of polar opposites - the letterman jacket contrasting with the leather in ways than stemmed from much deeper places that just fabric thrown over broad shoulders.   

“I think you know that I had nothing to do with your father’s assault too,” Jughead muttered. “So what’s really going on, Arch?”

Jughead’s words were enough to cause the walls Archie had built over the past few years blocking his memories of his friendship with the dark-haired boy from the other side of town, to fall in one swift motion and crumple to the sidewalk. 

“I always knew where my life was heading,” Archie sighed, lowering himself onto the bottom step and pulling his legs up to his chin. Jughead quickly joined him, turning to Archie with a look of expectant curiosity. "Captain of the football team, student council president, ivy league after we graduate. I didn’t know how to juggle all of that with my friendship with you. I didn’t know how to have both. And I know that sucks, and I know you didn’t deserve the way I treated you but I guess I was just being cautious. You remember the stories about my Dad and FP. You know how their friendship ended. All the secrets and lies and betrayal? I didn’t want that for us, Jug. But mostly, I guess I was just using my father’s assault as an excuse not to make things right because I felt guilty. I knew how selfish I was being. And I knew you didn’t deserve that.” 

I would have forgiven you,” Jughead told him. “If it meant being friends again? I would have forgiven the silence and the judgments in a second.”

"I know,” Archie nodded, glancing up to look at Jughead with downcast eyes. “I think that’s the worst of it - that I’m screwed up enough to ruin our friendship over nothing and you’re willing to forget all of that to save it.”

“We’re all screwed up,” Jughead reminded him, nudging him playfully in the side with his elbow.

“I’m really sorry, Jughead,” Archie told him, and the honesty in his expression gave Jughead the impression that he really meant it. “Do you think we could ever be friends again?”

“Depends on how you react to what I’m about to tell you,” Jughead admitted, nervously rubbing his sweaty palms along the fabric of his jeans.

“Okay, what is it?” Archie asked, raising a questioning eyebrow in his direction.

“It’s about Betty,” Jughead admitted. “Something sort of… happened between us. And I’m not sure how you’re going to feel about it.” 

–

“I’m not giving up the Blue and Gold, Cheryl!”

Betty burst through the gymnasium doors where Cheryl Blossom and her River Vixens were finishing up cheer practice, her red hair whipping around as she turned to glare at Betty with wild eyes. 

“Tell Archie, tell the whole school for all I care. I’m done playing by your rules. I’m done playing by any rules period. It’s not worth it.” 

“Well, well,” Cheryl smirked, swinging her duffel bag over her shoulder and sauntering over to the bleacher to pick up her monogrammed water bottle. “Who knew little miss Stepford Betty had real, earth shatteringly honest feelings in her. Deny it all you want, slicked-back-ponytail, but the motivation you had to come stand up to me like a scene in a 1998 chick flick wasn’t fueled by your desire to run that pathetic newspaper of yours. It was driven by your desire to be in the arms of a certain leather-clad rule breaker who resides on the Southside.”

“This isn’t about, Jughead,” Betty shook her head almost too quickly, her blonde ponytail nearly smacking her in the face from the too-fast motion. 

“Enough already,” Cheryl groaned, rolling her eyes dramatically as she closed her water bottle and stuffed it into her bag. “Can we skip all senseless denial and jump straight to the overdue slow motion moment where you have the big epiphany that clues you in to the fact that it’s been about the broody, yet lovable boy from the wrong side of the river all along? Have your grand, When Harry Met Sally moment so we can all move on with our lives would you?”

“Cheryl, I already have trouble understanding what you babble on about ninety percent of the time, but that monologue of yours just reached Donnie Darko level of confusing so if you could just-” 

 “God, the dim-witted imbeciles in this town, I swear,” Cheryl mumbled, clapping her hands together so that her cherry-red nails clicked together as she pointed them in Betty’s direction. “Let me spell it out for you. You pushed Jughead away because you were too scared to jump into a real relationship with anyone at all, let alone someone as special to you as he is. It was never about protecting your friendship with the Sing-Along Football Star, Archie Andrews. It was about protecting your heart from getting trampled on the way my brother ran over your sister’s with his fancy Italian sports car.” 

“You think I’m not in a real relationship with Jughead because of what Jason did to Polly?” Betty’s brows knitted together in confusion as she tried to comprehend what Cheryl was saying. “I think all that hairspray has gone to your head, Cheryl.” 

“Deny it all you want, blonde and delirious,” Cheryl smirked, tossing her locks behind one shoulder and shrugging. “But you’re in love with Mr. Hells Angels himself so do us all a favor and go tell him before he finds some other Nancy Drew wannabe to whisk away on his revved up Harley. It’s getting old and I grow bored easily.” 

“But-” 

“Why are we all still standing around like a bunch of paralyzed robots,” Cheryl snapped at her squad. “Shoo! Go get changed, I can smell the sweat-soaked polyester from here!” 

Betty watched the girls shuffle out of the gymnasium, her thoughts swimming with Cheryl’s words as she wondered if there was any shred of truth to them. She had spent so much time and energy keeping Jughead at arms length because she thought Archie would have ended their friendship if the truth had gotten out. But maybe it was her fear of letting someone else in that kept her from being with Jughead. And maybe it was time to push past the fear and take a leap of faith.  

–

“You and Betty have been…” Archie trailed off, his eyes going wide as he looked at Jughead for confirmation so that he wouldn’t have to fill in the blanks. 

“Yeah,” Jughead mumbled, biting his bottom lip nervously as he waited to hear what Archie had to say about that. “For the past six months.” 

“And you kept it a secret because…?”

“She didn’t want to upset you,” Jughead explained. “She knew that you and I weren’t exactly best buddies, singing campfire songs together or firing up the Xbox in your room to play some senseless video game, so she was afraid that being with me would destroy her friendship with you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Archie shook his head in confusion, turning to Jughead with concerned eyes. “All I’ve ever wanted is for her to be happy.”

“I know,” Jughead concurred, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans and kicking at a pile of rocks on the edge of the sidewalk. 

“That can’t be the whole story,” Archie mumbled. “There has to be something else going on.”

“Agreed,” Jughead nodded, his chin lifting slightly so that he could tentatively meet Archie’s gaze. “So you’re not mad? That we kept a secret this big hidden from you and all?” 

“Trust me, Jug, I haven’t been worthy of your honesty for a long time,” Archie admitted, smiling up at Jughead apologetically. “I think you get a free pass on this one.” 

“Thanks, Arch,” Jughead nodded, turning to meet his smile with one of his own. 

“So now that it’s out in the open,” Archie wondered. “Are you going to make things official? I know we haven’t been close for a while but I think I’m correct in assuming that friends with benefits isn’t exactly your style.” 

“It’s what she wanted,” Jughead shrugged, standing from his spot on the step and shuffling his feet down the graveled walkway a few steps before turning back to his friend with serious eyes. “And I’d agree to anything if it meant being with her.” 

“You’re in love with her,” Archie guessed, watching the way his expression changed with the slightest mention of their childhood friend with the halo of golden hair and the kindest eyes that either one of them had ever seen. 

“Yeah, I am,” Jughead confessed. “And it’s simultaneously the most terrifying and exciting feeling I’ve ever experienced. But it’s Betty so I don’t remember there ever being a time when I haven’t felt this way.” 

“So what’s the problem?” Archie wanted to know, confused as to why a distant look of uncertainty had clouded his expression that prevented him from reaching the level of giddiness a teenager in love should have been feeling.

“I don’t know,” Jughead sighed. “There was this incident with Cheryl and-”

“Archie!” 

The sound of pounding footsteps came barreling down the pavement as Betty rounded the corner, her blonde ponytail nearly falling out of its elastic as she sped down the road. 

“Archie, I have to tell you something!” 

Betty slid to a halt when she approached the Andrews’ home, her eyes going wide at the unexpected sight of the estranged friends standing next to one another without their fists flying at each other’s faces or their bloody knuckles slamming into their jaws. 

“Jughead,” Betty breathed, her heart beating wildly in her chest at the sight of him. “What are you doing here?” 

“I told him, Betty,” Jughead informed her, nodding his head in Archie’s direction and shrugging at her helplessly. 

“You…” Betty trailed off, her mind putting two and two together and her stomach dropping in complete dread. “Oh.” 

“I think you two have a lot to talk about,” Archie muttered, backing away from the couple and smiling knowingly as he headed up the steps leading into the house. “I’ll be inside if you need me. In the words of Veronica, ‘use your outside voices, it makes it easier for those of us trying to eavesdrop!’” 

Archie hurried up the steps and into the house, shutting the door behind him so that Betty and Jughead were left alone to stare at one another wondering who was going to be the one to speak first. 

“So Archie knows,” Betty muttered, pulling anxiously at the hem over her lemon-colored cardigan and glancing back up at the house with nervous eyes.

“And the world didn’t implode,” Jughead pointed out, gesturing to the neighborhood that had not been blown to bits as a result of Archie’s knowledge of her relationship with Jughead and smirking. “Would you look at that.” 

“I’m sorry, Juggie,” Betty told him, taking a cautious step forward to close some of the distance between them. “I really screwed up. I think I was just afraid of letting myself get too close to someone. I mean look at Polly and Jason and even my parents - it’s like the Cooper girls are cursed in the relationships we form with other people, doomed to get our hearts broken.” 

“But you’re not them,” Jughead reminded her. “And I’m not Jason or your father.” 

Reaching out to place a gentle hand on his smooth cheek, Betty couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t immediately pull away. 

“I know you’re not,” Betty whispered, her eyes dancing with so much love and warmth for the boy who had been the one constant in her life that had made a shred of sense over the past few months. “That’s why I-”

Just as the words that she had been holding in since they had formed their newfound relationship all those months ago were mere seconds from falling from her lips, the sound of motorcycle engines tearing down the road caused them both to pull apart and turn towards the noise in confusion.  

“Jug,” an older man in a torn-up Serpent jacket called to him from his bike, the remainder of the gang stopping closely behind him as they watched the couple with a look of cautious distrust. “We gotta go. It’s your pops.” 

“What about him?” Jughead asked, glancing from the man sitting on the motorcycle in front of him, to the girl who was just moments away from uttering the words he had been longing to hear for weeks. 

“They’re pinning him for the attempted murder of Fred Andrews,” the man explained, nodding to the Andrews’ house sitting in front of them and frowning. “You shouldn’t be here.” 

“But he didn’t do it,” Jughead reminded him, thinking back to the investigation that had been closed a few weeks ago and remembering that they had cleared his father of any serious charges. “He didn’t do it… Right Red?”

“We should go,” Red repeated, starting the ignition and gesturing for Jughead to hop on the back of the seat. 

Jughead was frozen, torn between his life with Betty and the friend he had just now gotten back in his life, and his life with his father and the Serpents and all the uncertainties that came with it. 

“Jug?” Betty muttered, her brows drawn together in concern as she waited with bated breath to hear what his next move was going to be. 

Archie stepped back out onto the porch, taking in the half a dozen men on motorcycles with the same look of distrust that they had given Betty and the Andrews’ house when they had first pulled into the neighborhood. If Jughead got on that bike, his newly rekindled friendship would be damaged yet again, and the repercussions would not have as forgiving an ending as before. And the friends with benefits relationship that he had just barely wriggled his way out of and into something more meaningful with Betty Cooper, would soon turn into absolutely nothing at all. 

Taking a deep breath, Jughead took a step towards his decision and into the fate of the way his life was going to turn out from that point on. 

[demi-dufresne]

Halloween God

Because I’m sentimental and miss Halloween, here, have some red team loving to support my blue team pals. Grimmonns for romance in the @rvbficwars bingo!!!

Have you ever seen Mean Girls? Right. Yeah, come on, who hasn’t seen Mean Girls. Now I want you to picture that scene where Caty goes into a halloween party. Picturing it? She was all dressed up as Frankenstein's Bride, covered in gross, gory zombie makeup while everyone else was in skimpy little bunny outfits. Remember that? Now imagine Caty is an angry drunk who lashes out at everything, tackling potential boyfriends to the floor and eating all of her friends’ Oreos.

Because that’s pretty much Grif’s life right now.

“Hey, glad to see- uh. Grif?” About an hour prior to this shit going down, Tucker had opened the door, staring at the man in front of him. He was covered head to toe in bright orange armor, something that looked straight out of Halo 4. “Is that you in there, buddy?”

“Yeah, what was the giveaway?” Grif gave a grin, not that Tucker could see it.

“You’re the only one I know would show up in fucking- ugh. Whatever, just… come on in, hurry,” Tucker said, shutting the door. He himself had on a football jersey and jeans. Maybe the joke was that he’d never be caught dead in that outfit otherwise, who knows? Grif walked right into Tucker’s living room, a grin on his face.

Twenty steps in and the grin was falling.

Like, okay, he figured his costume would be a little out there. But his mom had ordered it online somewhere, he didn’t want to disappoint, and there was no way in hell he’d make himself a homemade costume. That required, like, effort.

He figured it’d be a little out there, but compared to what these other people were wearing, he was… well, he was…

A goddamn Halloween god.

Okay, so maybe Grif lacked the humility most would have. Who needs to worry if you’re standing out if you’re standing out and looking this awesome? Not even awesome, effortlessly awesome. The only thing better.

Most teens around him were wearing sports uniforms or like, fishnets and short dresses in the cases of girls. Grif was pretty sure Tucker would be having an aneurysm right now. What a loser. Grif, in his Halo Spartan Mark VI Armor was definitely the coolest dude around.

He did spot one guy dressed like Link. The dude was talking animatedly to some other guy dressed like a doctor. Grif waltzed right over to say something. If this night goes bad, at least he could get a new friend to hang with, specifically one who loves Legend of Zelda as much as he does. Becuase hey. He would definitely need to replace Tucker, that asshole. “Hey, uh, Hey!” He struggled to shout over the echoing music. “So I’m guessing you like video games?”

Link turned around, looking him up and down. The guy had bright blonde hair, and patchy scarring across the left side of his face. “I mean, duh. I am Zelda,” he said. Grif took a second.

“You mean Link.”

“Uh, no, I’m pretty sure I mean Zelda. Or Donut. Pleasure to meet you!” The dude stuck his hand out for a handshake, which Grif ignored. He took a deep breath. Why did he continue to go to Tucker’s parties? They were always a fucking disaster anyways, he didn’t know why he thought this one would be any different.

“Right, uh… I’m gonna like… use the bathroom,” Grif said. He trailed away from the guy, not really having to go. He just didn’t want to continue that conversation, thanks. He had a little dignity. And boy, did he need a drink.

Little did he know, at the other end of the house, his situation was basically being met.

“Church! Hi! Uh, why aren’t you wearing a costume?” Simmons was standing at the front door to Tucker’s house, looking Church up and down. The guy was wearing a flannel and a beanie, with a half-emptied Solo cup in his one hand, his cell phone in the other. He was swaying a little. Simmons knew better than to comment on that.

“I’m a lumberjack, dumbass. Or maybe a hipster. Or a cowboy? I still haven’t decided yet. What the fuck are you?”

“Don’t you remember? You, Caboose and Tucker came over to my house last week, right after you and Tex-”

“Don’t say her name. Don’t even,” Church said, taking another long swig from the cup. He might have downed the rest in one sip. Simmons was pretty sure some of it got stuck in his goatee, but again. Didn’t say anything.

“Right. Okay, uh, we played Halo. The video game with the aliens. Remember that?”

“Sure, whatever, man. Come in, I guess,” he said. He opened the door a little wider, the pounding of the bass and the staunch smell of alcohol reaching his nose.

“Wait. What kind of party is this? I thought we were just gonna like, hang and play board games, maybe talk about TV shows…” Simmons trailed.

“You’ve obviously never been to one of Tucker’s parties before. Come on in.” Church opened the door wider, an invitation that he wouldn’t let Simmons decline. Simmons sighed, defeated. This armor weighed a ton. He didn’t know how long he’d be able to take this place.

He stuck out like a sore thumb. God, he was so stupid. Why couldn’t he have just dressed like Church, normally, finding something to say he was later? Then again, Simmons’ wardrobe and Church’s wardrobe were a little different. He didn’t know how he’d feel showing up to this place in a polo and nice slacks, either. Ugh, this whole thing made him want to leave immediately.

The song that was playing wasn’t something he was generally opposed to, thank god. Maybe that was his saving grace- the DJ had a thing for techno renditions of video game OSTs. He lost himself among the dancefloor, bobbing his head along to the beat. Soon enough, bobbing his head devolved into shaking his body, which lead to something that, whatever it was, couldn’t be described as dancing.

“Grif, cut it out!” Tucker said, pulling Simmons by the elbow. “You look like you’re having a fucking heart attack.”

“Who’s Grif?” Simmons said.

“Haha, very funny. Look. I found someone really hot. Some friend of Church’s sister, I don’t know. I don’t want you to make a scene, got it? You’re already a mess in that fuckin’ cosplay, dude. Now like, stand by the wall or, I don’t know, just… stop doing whatever that is. Like, you’ve been to enough parties you’d think you’d know that I’m just here to get laid.”

“What?” Simmons asked. But Tucker had disappeared into the crowd. “He’s probably stoned,” Simmons reasoned to himself. Yeah. That’s probably it. He wouldn’t put it past Tucker, especially at a nutty party like this.

“Hey, Grif, have you seen Wash?” Grif, meanwhile, was standing in the kitchen, looking in Tucker’s pantries for a box of Oreos when Carolina approached him.

“Who?”

“Oh, you know, tall guy, blonde hair on top, super grumpy?” She pulled a face, mocking her friend. Grif took another sip of the drink through a straw into his helmet. It was somewhere near his fourth one. He knew he should probably stop, but that wouldn’t stop him.

“The only super grumpy guy I know here is your bro Church, and I’m pretty sure he’s drinking away his sorrows in the dining room. Sorry,” Grif said.

“Eh, no problem. I’ll just ask your girlfriend,” she said, walking off towards the living room.

“My- my girlfriend? Carolina, what?” Grif said. He followed her, curious. He left the cabinet open, search for the Oreos forgotten.

He staggered after her. Arriving in the living room, he saw her across the dancefloor, talking to someone- wait. Someone in Halo Spartan Mark VI armor… No.

His vision was dancing, and only one thought crossed his mind.

There could only be one.

“Uh, no, I don’t know a Wash. Also, who’s that Grif guy you guys keep talking about? I’m pretty sure I’m not him, and I’m definitely sure I’m not dating him,” Simmons said.

Carolina ignored his last two sentences. “Oh. Huh. You’re a boy. Well, you send Grif my love, tell him congratulations on coming out or whatever. Now I gotta find Wash before Tucker does. See ya,” Carolina sounded off. Simmons shook his head, watching as she faded into the crowd. Maybe this is why he didn’t go to parties.

“You copycat motherfucker!” Simmons could barely register what was going on when he was tackled to the ground. Nevermind. This was why he didn’t go to parties.

“Wh- Wait! Wait, help me!” He called. Some dude was on top of him, punching him in the damn gut. He was wearing- wait. He was wearing Halo Spartan Mark VI Armor.

“Simmons!” Church called. “Simmons, stop punching- yourself? What?” He paused, looking down at the situation.

“Ah-ow-owww,” Simmons whined, curling up with each punch.

“I’m the Halloween god!” Grif cried.

“Grif, stop beating up your boyfriend, that’s domestic abuse!” Carolina called in, wrenching Grif off.

“Copycat motherfucker, I’m the halloween god!” He shouted again.

“What the fuck,” Simmons said. He was suddenly glad he decided to wear this stupid armor. It got him beat up, sure, but it didn’t hurt nearly so bad as when he was only wearing a Polyester-Cotton blend polo and khakis. Trust him. He would know.

“Alright, both of you, out,” Carolina said. “I’m serious. Leave. I still need to find Wash, before- aah, who am I kidding. He’s probably sleeping with Tucker as we speak. I don’t think there’s anyone here who hasn’t slept with Tucker, that asshole.”

Church nodded solemnly.

“Anyway. No more fist fights between you lovebirds, or I’m calling the police. We clear?”

Simmons, having not even drank a single drop, nodded. “Crystal.” He grabbed the other guy- Grif- by the forearm, dragging him after him out the front door.

“Stay here. You probably just need some water, or… something. I’ll be back,” Simmons said. He walked back into the house, closing the door behind him.

Grif was fuming. He was supposed to be the coolest one there, and they kicked him out? It was all the stupid maroon guy’s fault. What was his name again? Stimpson? It’s his damn fault. All Grif’d wanted was some stupid Oreos and now he’s stuck on Tucker’s stupid doorstep while Tucker probably fucks Carolina’s stupid friend. It was all so stupid.

He checked where his pockets would be for some cigarettes, then realized that they’d have to be under his armor. That stuff took ages to take off! Grif groaned, putting his face in his hands. He was too fucking drunk for this.

“Here. Maybe this will sober you up,” Simmons said from behind him. Grif didn’t move his head from his hands. Simmons sat down next to him, offering him the cup of water.

“I’m not thirsty,” Grif muttered.

“I found some cookies to make it better,” Simmons said offhandedly.

“You- you what?” Grif said. He looked over to Simmons, who held up the blue pack of Oreos he’d been looking all over for. “Where did you find those?”

“They were on top of the fridge. It almost seemed like they were trying to hide them from you specifically. Can you even reach the top of the fridge?”

But Grif was ignoring Simmons at that point, too driven to really care. “You know what? I think you’re actually the Halloween god. I take it back, that crown goes to you.”

“Oh really? Thanks,” Simmons said. He was being genuine, too. “You like the costume? It took me hours to make it.”

“Eh, I got mine online for like, twenty bucks,” Grif said.

“What?” Simmons said. He paused, taking off his helmet to get a closer look at Grif’s.

Wow. Grif was pretty impressed. This guy was kinda hot. Not in a conventional way, really, but… something about the (almost latin?) darkness of his skin with the bright red of his hair… It was nice.

“You can see the cracks in yours. Mine’s much better, obviously. I even have the little decals on the shoulder blades, see?” Simmons said. “Red team.”

He was a dick, kinda, but he was still hot.

“Yeah, well. Fuck that. I spent no time at all on this thing. Now who’s the real winner?” Grif plucked his helmet off, reaching for the Oreos.

Simmons wasn’t blind. Nor did he have particularly good taste in dates (that thing with Jenkins… that ended poorly.) But still. The guy who just beat him up? He was undeniably pretty.

“Dude. Would you stop staring at me? I’m trying to eat my Oreos in peace, thank you.” That didn’t mean he wasn’t an asshole.

“Hey, just out of curiosity. Cookie or the cream?” Simmons said. Grif paused eating, chewing thoughtfully.

“If I had to pick, I’d say cream. But then again. What’s the cream without a cookie? They’re a cookie sandwich, Simmons. What’s one without the other?”

“That’s… a pretty good answer,” Simmons said. “I think if I had to pick, I’d go with cookie, though.”

“Of course you would, Simmons,” Grif said, picking another cookie from the box. “Of course you would.”

[raystart]

Knocking Down your Creative Blocks

This is a story about the day I quit writing.

It was 1989. I was 32. For the previous nine months, I’d been researching and reporting the biggest story of my early career. That the assignment had been handed to me on a platter by my editor at Rolling Stone was only the beginning of the pressure.

The central figure was a man named John Holmes. Perhaps the most iconic star of the early days of porn, Holmes had recently died, the first known AIDS casualty in X-rated films.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Holmes performed in nearly three thousand adult films. Besides his astounding natural endowment, he is best remembered for headlining the first series of adult movies that attempted a plot line and character development. Playing a hard-boiled detective named Johnny Wadd, Holmes was a polyester-wearing smoothie with a sparse mustache, a flying collar and lots of buttons undone. He wasn’t threatening. He chewed gum and overacted. He took a lounge singer’s approach to sex: deliberately gentle, ostentatiously artful.  You didn’t know whether to laugh or stare.

As home video players became ubiquitous, Holmes became more famous, breaching the mainstream, commanding larger and larger fees. But with the rise came the inevitable fall—a copious addiction to freebase cocaine, which robbed him of his money, his dignity, and his ability to muster a serviceable erection.

Eventually, Holmes fell in with a club owner and drug dealer named Eddie Nash, and also with a gang of small time criminals who were later dubbed the Wonderland Gang—after the location of their puke-green stucco rental house on Wonderland Avenue, in the leafy environs just north of Hollywood’s Sunset Strip, in Laurel Canyon. Desperate for money and drugs, the gang decided to rob Nash.

After the robbery, one of Nash’s henchmen ran into Holmes in a convenience store. He noticed Holmes wearing his boss’ stolen ring. And shortly thereafter, four of the members of the Wonderland gang were found bludgeoned to death with blunt objects. The crime scene was brutal. The press would dub it the “Four on the Floor Murders.”

***

I spent six weeks in Los Angeles working the story. There was no internet at the time. Reporting was still a craft that required shoe leather and a way with people—you had to look them in the eye. I interviewed nearly 100 sources. I went from house to house knocking on doors. I found court files buried in a repository four stories underground. I visited a half-dozen porn shoots and spoke to a dozen or more porn stars and directors (I know, rough job). I consorted with convicted felons. Most were behind bars. They were constantly calling collect.

My biggest “gets” were Holmes’ first wife, a former UCLA nurse, and another woman who became his mistress when she was only fifteen.

My biggest shock had been answering the knock at my hotel room door and discovering that the two women were now best friends.

We sat at the cheap dinette table in my rent-by-the-week motel suite. For nearly twelve hours they poured out their tale. The room was a haze of cigarette smoke. I remember boiling more water, making more tea. And I remember changing the microcassette tapes, one after the other, trying not to make too big a deal of the process lest I break the spell. Their story—funny and intimate and tragic—would later become the basis for the movie Wonderland, starring Val Kilmer, Lisa Kudrow, and Kate Bosworth. The larger piece would become Boogie Nights. (Alas, I didn’t own the rights to any life stories. I played no part in the making the movies.)

***

In time, my office looked like it had been hit by a blizzard of 20-pound bond. There were piles of paper on every flat surface, and on the floor around me, all of them tagged with colorful Post-it Notes, some of the piles reaching several feet in height—a miniature cityscape at my feet: Transcribed interviews, notes, court documents and legal transcripts of testimony and deposition hearings, newspaper clippings, non-fiction books and research papers on the subjects of AIDS and the Reagan Administration’s war on pornography (a period during which porn consumption by the public rose exponentially, I would learn). Not to mention my collection of  VHS films—black plastic rectangles, clad in colorful cardboard slip covers, stacked in rickety piles like so many skyscrapers populating my urban jungle of research materials.

Finally, I was done reporting and was ready to write. I sat down I sat in my expensive ergonomic office chair, at my father’s old desk in the bay window on the third floor of a townhouse just off the Washington DC’s notorious 14th Street Strip. One mile from the White House, the trade in prostitutes and crack cocaine was brisk 24/7. The newspaper liked to call it “an outdoor bazaar.”

Inside, on my computer screen, things were not so lively. Even though I knew where I wanted to start the story—with the Wonderland gang planning the heist—I couldn’t start. There was just too much information. Too many moving parts. Too many notes. Too many proper nouns.

I started the first sentence again and again. And again. And again.

Deep in Laurel Canyon… Deep in Laurel Canyon…  something.

By the second day, I was becoming more and more agitated. More desperate. And then depressed. And then really depressed. Holy shit, I thought, I’m Jack Nicholson in The Shining.  

Deep in Laurel Canyon… Deep in Laurel Canyon…  something.

Finally I wrote this: They gave me a story about a guy with  a 14-inch penis. How did I fuck this up?

I imagined myself dead in my fancy Aeron chair, my carcass desiccated and covered with cobwebs, rats chewing through the cityscape of pulp and plastic that occupied my hundred-year-old wood plank floor.

Finally, by late afternoon on the third day, I’d had enough. I said it out loud to myself and anyone else within earshot, though there was no one else:

“I quit.”

Writing was too fucking hard. And it wasn’t worth it. I’d worked for nine months on this fucker. I was due to collect $2,250 for this story. I had borrowed money to renovate my house, but was spending it on the mortgage and food and electricity. All for a chance at what…getting my name in Rolling Stone?  

Maybe I need to find a new line of work, I suggested to myself. Maybe I’ll go back to law school—I wasn’t too old for a change: Plenty of people switched jobs in their early thirties, did they not?

I shut the door behind me on my way out of that room.

***

I took off walking.

Dusk was gathering and the earlybird hookers were just hitting the streets for the evening rush of homebound commuters. There was the usual tang of want, need and expectation swirling in the air, along with the smells of car exhaust and fireplace woodsmoke.  

It was the media who’d labeled this area the 14th Street Strip; the pimps and hoes called it the “Track.” The flashier women were posted up beneath the street lamps along 14th Street NW, which was lined with storefronts, laundromats, auto shops, Chinese carryouts, and a number of liquor stores. One block over, 13th Street served as the back stretch. Darker and more residential, lined with overhanging trees, it was the provenance of welfare mothers, drug dealers and thieves. The johns from Virginia approached from the south, from the north came the men from Maryland. They circled round and round.

As I walked thought this usual evening tableau, I felt my mind begin to clear, and I kept moving at a swift pace. Soon, I left the strip altogether and reached the National Mall, hung a right, and walked on the grass toward the Lincoln Memorial. Climbing the steps, I paid my usual respects to Honest Abe, then turned around and grabbed a seat.

Spread before me was the familiar landscape—the Reflecting pool, the Washington Monument, the great dome of the Capitol, as thrilling as ever in the gathering loam, the lights beginning to twinkle.

And suddenly it hit me.

 Deep in Laurel Canyon, the Wonderland Gang was planning its last heist.

***

I learned that day that writer’s block had nothing to do with writing.

No matter how many sources I consult, how much information I collect, how many e-stacks of paper I build, or search windows I open,  my story is not going to be found in my notes.

And neither is it lurking somewhere in the shadows of my blank screen. (If only we could rub with a quarter and have our work revealed?)

Don’t expect your best stuff to suddenly appear by magic. You can noodle the germ of an idea into something concrete—you can fiddle and try things and edit and throw stuff up against the wall until somehow the fairy dust of your creative gift is released by the gods and floats down over all.

But before any of that can happen, you need to figure out what you’re trying to say.

For me that usually happens outside my office. Walking up a hill or chopping vegetables or taking a shower. Driving places. Staring out the window.

And yes, the people who are close me take notice of the times I’m not really there, the many times I’m not really there, the days or evenings when I’m walking around distracted or I forget that I had plans.  But hell, I’m an artist. I’m making something beautiful in my head. I’m not supposed to be a norm. Maybe that’s why there aren’t a lot of people in my life day to day? No matter. It suits me to be lost in my thoughts. Because that means the next time I’m at my keyboard, I’m going to take a crack at making something sing.

No matter what your genre, it’s probably the same. When you sit down to create something out of nothing, it’s best to have an idea of where you’re going: What, exactly, are you trying to create? Can you see it in your mind’s eye? Can you hear it playing like a song? Flickering like a movie? Can you smell and taste and feel?

Only then can you make it real.

[saturatethe-written-whitewa-blog]

sherlock fandom appreciation day!

here is a link to the original post! a little late, yes :P

i’d gotten introduced to sherlock bbc long before i actually began watching it, for time constraint reasons. i love the show, for how clever and intelligent it paints sherlock to be and how sherlock isn’t the do-good heroic protagonist i expected him to be, but rather this flawed, brainy bastard (”I’m a high-functioning sociopath.”) the change in things is lovely and the show was so god damn interesting and i just love it and sherlock but don’t we all 

enough talking, have around 1000 words of fanfic, hope you enjoy :)

pairing: sherlock holmes & irene adler

alternate universe wherein sherlock isn't the brainy bastard that he is, and irene enjoys nighttime mellows more than bringing people to their knees. (sherlock works at a meek diner, and irene's is a face he's sure to remember.)

The night was cold, as far as the woman in black was concerned (Which was not very far, for she welcomed the polyester embrace of her coat and she looked at the sidewalk as if carcasses danced on broken times, turned-up nose and eyes batted all taken-aback like.)

Perhaps there really were twirling carcasses, slack-jawed and empty-minded and the woman in black had simply passed them by, breathing through her painted lips and trying to burrow, unsuccessfully, into her coat.

Her coat was dark. The night was darker, clouds pulled together in a sky the woman in black dared not to peer up at, afraid of the first rain to shoot at one of her eyes, leaving her groaning and cursing and looking one-and-three-fourths mad as she tapped her heels in the darkness.

She had been released from her work early, maybe because the traffic had whimpered and waned to the darkening sky, seeing clouds tumble over each other outside a clear glass window as early as two hours after her lunch, spent mostly laughing and suspending forks and other things in the air (With her fellow male employees, she liked to fill in the gaps, playfully, and imagine an intimacy between them that was more than ‘Good morning’ and ‘What's that you've got there?’ Ultimately, they're still fantasies, and she plans to keep them where they're safeguarded in her head.)

She worked at an office, computers and websites and prodding the age of technology into further evolution (Often, she felt isolated when she walks past and sees children laughing at something on a screen she can’t see. She was once a child. She spent her days, through spring, summer, autumn, fall, watching the sun change the colors of the sky. Like magic,) tucked away in a building she often looked up at when she clambers out of the cab, squinted from harsh sunlight more often. The area she worked in was plaid white: white walls, white glass, white lights, white lies; water dispensers and windows that only make her yearn for the outside where the potted plants weren’t fake and the leaves felt more than plastic and ornamental distress.

(If people could not even remember to breathe sometimes, how would she have expected them to remember to water a plant with arches for leaves? Of course they were fake, all eight of them.)

Her workplace was the natural habitat of suits and dress shirts and the damned crucible where things go wrong. Fluorescent shined, guided no matter where the sun positioned itself: whether it reflected from the right side of the screen or behind her, which felt exploitative sometimes. The smell of caffeine is ever-present, like the ghost of yesterday’s past, like it’s what people wear to work instead (Tired smiles are her second favorite thing, because her own mixes and matches with a pinch of empathy and a quart of sympathy and her heads nods something a little like: It'll be alright, buddy.) Her next favorite things are the sounds of keys pressed into themselves, the lost feeling of her fingers moving all over own, talkative printers spitting paper, and the sound of somebody -there’s always going to be somebody- trying to talk above it all.

The woman in black leads herself to a familiar diner before she even knows it. She smiles, tired but still a weak luster of genuineness; she feels herself relax. She enters it without much more effort. The wind sweeps low, picks up the weak: leaves, plastic wrappers smeared with ketchup, forgotten dreams, lost dreams. The wind seems a little bit supernatural, the woman in black was not there to see it, already tied into the warmth of the diner that tickles even the innermost tensions of her bones.

The woman’s name is Irene. Her surname was not of importance, after all, her name-tag had no space for it.

(She looks into her pocket; her dreams are still there, not forgotten, not lost, although they are injured and not the same, they are still there. Irene cherishes them; she pats them gingerly, chooses a seat among dozens.)

A waitress gives her a menu not long after she sits. A semi-regular, she was, but she was not the type to claim a table and a chair for herself and glower at whoever passes by, like it was her own pile of forbidden treasure and everyone else was a pirate with a sinister smile and a missing limb.

Irene doesn’t look at it very long before she decides what she wants to order. Face-down, the menu returns to the table that faintly reeked of whatever soap they’d used to scrub it clean. She crosses her embellished nails over it, five strawberry-ice-cream-colored nails over five others (Ironically, she stuck out her tongue whenever the flavor was offered to her as a child, always asking for the popular chocolate chip instead.)

Briefly, Irene owes a thought to the waitress that gives her a menu before dashing off to do God-knows-what. She remembers hair the color of a duckling, young and unknowing of everything, wiggly-tailed and boisterous-quack, tied into a ponytail that began on her nape; her eyes were bright, frantic, looking at tables everywhere that weren’t Irene’s. Irene did not mind. The young lady deposits a single menu and spins around, fluttering her apron and murmuring unintelligible murmurs. Irene recognizes the gloss of a name-tag, something that began with ‘E’ (Elizabeth? Ella? Ethel?), something she definitely wasn't going to select if somebody appears at her window and asks what she would change her name to if given the luxury. (Irene goes into much deeper thought about that instead, fond of Veronica, or anything that left the tongue spicy and exotic and wanting.)

Irene is interrupted by a gentle clear of the throat; she blinks, nonplussed, climbing her gaze up until she meets the serious, professional look of a man her age. Powdered, embarrassed blush decorates her cheeks, all up to the rise of her cheekbones, the ones she's always been told were to die for. He was much more different than new Elizabeth (Whatever her name was,) who looked unsettled about a great deal of things in her life in the few moments she saw her.

His hair is a mess of curls atop his head, fluffed by a baker, looking intentional, kept clean from odd contemporaries. His lips were caught on soundless words, chapped and pink, making Irene look at her nails. She reads the name tag, a simple yet bemusing: ‘Sherlock’, without surname and without anything more than boring font and a capital ‘S’.

“What would you like to order?”

Irene smiles, charming. It's the kind that knocks men off of their heels. Sherlock looks at her the same way a dog watches its favorite toy held, dangled in front of it, a hop, skip, and a jump out of reach; all helpless and what-do-I-do?

Irene’s smile grows, one of her strawberry-ice-cream nails roam close to her mouth, little and shy against the hot red that looked perfect, untouched on her pert lips.