#monthly story features

[thewandererslibrary]

June Features!

For our special Pride Month features,

First, a poem by carolynn w, is "Letter to the Professors (after June Jordan)"

And second, prose by SWEET2OOTH is "New Year"

Please take a look at them! And keep an eye out for our other pride features as well!

[luvjunie]

— headcanons. miles morales (earth1610)

MILES who somehow managed to pick you up with that corny little shoulder touch his Uncle Aaron taught him. Not because it actually worked and left you smitten and head over heels for him—but because in that moment, the dorky boy who stood in front of you had made you laugh so hard you’d nearly peed yourself. There was no way that with a sense of humor like his, he wasn’t getting your number.

MILES who has never missed a good morning or a goodnight text. While often they may not always be at the most ideal times, it’s the fact that he remembered that means the most to you. Even if he’s running late to school, shoes untied, and shirt buttoned unevenly as he bundles out the door of his dorm, he insists he can text and run to class at the same time. And at night, even if his eyelids feel as if they weigh a ton the minute his back finally hits his mattress after webbing the villain of the week to a light pole for the cops, he refuses to fall asleep without telling you he loves you first— though the message may include a few sleepy typos. “Goodnihgt aby i lov youuu” “shitno i meant baby not aby”

MILES who hand draws a card for you when the monthly anniversary of your relationship rolls by. Each one of them is different and creative in their own way and you’re always excited to see what it’ll look like this time. He’ll swiftly swing by your fire escape on his way to patrol, drop a box of chocolates, your favorite candy, or a bouquet of flowers on the steel metal along with the card, then switch arms and thwip another web to the next building in the same breath.

MILES who loves to draw you, especially when the two of you haven’t been able to hang out in a while, just so he can reminisce and pretend like you’re there, in his room with him. His sketchbook is filled with pictures of you, hearts usually adorning whatever space is left blank on the paper. He sees you in such a different light than you view yourself in, and he’s able to capture certain aspects of your features that you hadn’t even noticed before. He was so embarrassed the first time you saw his sketchbook laid open on his bed and tried to hide them from you, nervous he’d make you uncomfortable in any way. But you were nothing short of flattered, and reassured him of such by smattering kisses onto the expanse his flushed face and telling him how much of a sweetheart he was.

MILES who falls asleep in the span of two seconds. Usually when you can’t come over, you settle for long facetime calls so you can tell each other about your days, or watch a movie together. But he’s just so comfortable around you, and your voice is so calming, like a lullaby, so much so that he can’t help it when he falls asleep halfway into your rundown of events. After five minutes of silence, which is unheard of for a kid like Miles who is always filled with endless quips and jokes, you’ll scoop your phone off your bed only to see his ivory-colored ceiling instead of his face.

“Milesss!” You whine, the sudden sound of shuffling from the other end of the line erupting through your speakers as he frantically scoops his phone back up from his pillow, his sleepy face shifting back into view.

“Huh?” He mumbles, clearing his throat as he blinks the sleep from his eyes.

“You fell asleep in the middle of my story again.” You accuse.

“Nuh uh! I’ve been awake this whole time. I’m just a really, really good listener, m-hm. I am a wonderful and completely-awake, professional listener.” He nods, gifting you his signature goofy smile that‘s always a reminder that you can never be mad at him for long.

MILES who loves taking you to the new places he’s able to go around the city now that he’s Spiderman.

When you found out your boyfriend was Spiderman, you were in such disbelief that you immediately asked for proof, for him to show you anything that proved he was spiderman other than a suit and a mask. And proof you got, if the powerful gusts of wind in your face as he swung the two of you with web after web over the skyline of the city were anything to go by.

You were terrified the first time, legs glued around his waist and arms clamped so tightly around his neck that there was no way you’d fall. He would never in a million years let you slip from his grasp anyways, but if you did, you were damn sure taking him with you. He kept one arm around your waist for support and laughed at how you hollered almost the entire way to the clock tower, and whether they were screams of excitement or terror, he didn’t know.

It was beyond exhilarating, seeing the city from above with him, standing on the roofs of buildings you never imagined you’d reach. It had your heart pumping faster than you thought it ever could and your trust in him solidifying even further, and soon you found yourself asking him take you again, and again. And Miles would take you anywhere you wanted to go; open to doing anything just to see a smile on your face and to have you holding onto him like that again.

- please do not plagiarize, copy, or repost my works to any other platforms

likes, comments, and reblogs are very appreciated 💗

[helen-with-an-a]

Badger

Hi. So this is a little thought I've had in my head for a while based on the fact that none of the English commentators can pronounce Ona's name properly.

Ona Batlle x reader

Description: You're convinced Ona doesn't like your nickname for her

Word Count: 4.2k

It had been a gruelling game, the ball rolling end to end creating little respite for any player. Goals were flying in left and right from both sides. It was a draw in the final minute of overtime and both teams were desperate not to share points. A spectacular tackle from Ona had prevented Hemp from scoring, allowing the ball to be collected and fed all the way back up the pitch. It had ricocheted around the City box before falling to your feet. It was instinctual, not thought or planning behind it, yet as the ball sailed pasted Roebuck’s fingers – it was like it was destiny. It was by no means your first goal for United, nor your first goal of the game. But it felt like it. The crowd erupted, the music drowned out by the noise and the rush of blood in your head.

The Blues had no time to score an equaliser. You watched as the seconds ticked down – City trying to press again, although the fight had clearly been lost in them. Finally, finally, the Ref blew the whistle. Old Trafford erupted. It had been an exciting game for the fans – lots of goals, tough tackles, harsh words, decent referring. As a player it had been exhausting but you wouldn’t have it any other way.

Ona was the first one to you, somehow making the distance in record time despite being further down the pitch.

“Mi hermosa superestrella!” She shouted as she threw herself onto your back. You stumbled slightly, your legs feeling like jelly as the adrenaline disappeared from your veins. “Mi maravillosa, hermosa, fantástica, increíble, magnífica, bella goleadora.” She littered each word with an array of kisses to your head, her arms wrapping around your neck as she made herself comfortable – clearly showing you she wasn’t getting down any time soon.

“Stop,” you whined, getting shy under her compliments.

“Nope, never.” She laughed again, squeezing her legs tighter around your waist in a hug. You discretely pinched the underneath of her thigh, close to the hem of her shorts. “Aye,” she squealed. “Can’t a girl compliment her amor de su vida after she had an incredible game?” She pressed a sneaky kiss to your jaw as you made your way towards the fans.

You knew the fans would be going crazy over your behaviour; you had never made your relationship a secret. Ona often featured in your monthly photo dumps, your Instagram stories showing carefully selected insights into your life. Her Instagram was the same, filled with private moments that neither of you minded sharing with fans. Videos of you after matches were all over the internet – hugs that lasted too long to be just friendly, kisses pressed into sweaty hairlines and shiny foreheads, your body being wrapped around her smaller frame as the final whistle went, neither of you leaving each other sides until you were sure they were fine after a tackle gone wrong.

You were walking you way around the stadium, laughing along to Mary and Tooney’s jokes as you fell into step with them. It was as you were passing Alex and Fara that you heard your name be called out. Instinctively, you turned – naturally bringing Ona with you as she was still securely wrapped around you. Alex was beckoning you over – a microphone outstretched and an expectant smile. You tilted your head back to look at Ona, expecting her to have loosened her legs by now. Yet her grip held firm, nodding in the direction of the TV cameras. You shrugged, readjusted her on your hips and came to join the women.

“And here we have Y/F/N Y/S/N and Ona Badger,” Alex said, laughing at the way you stood. Had she really just said that?

“Hi, sorry about this one,” you gestured with your head. “She always says her legs don’t work after matches.” You teased, the three of you laughing at Ona’s indignant squawk, yet she made no move to get down. Fara offered you a microphone, watching on as you looked around a little – struggling to figure out how you were going to do the interview with Ona on your back. Ona solved that solution easily enough, taking the mic and holding it where you need it. You squeezed her calf appreciatively.

“What a match, hey? How are you feeling?”

“Yeh, it’s insane. Derby’s are always hard, and we knew it was going be a fight today, but that was something else.” You chuckled, blowing a stray piece of hair from your face – thanking Ona absentmindedly as she delicately moved it away for you. “We all knew we had jobs to do out there and we just went ahead and did it. Not much more I can say really. I have absolute faith in these girls, and I think it showed today.” You hoped it was a reasonable response. You weren’t the biggest fan of the media side of football. Pre-recorded videos and challenges you could do no issue, but the live stuff - you hated it.

“And what about you, Ona? You were up and down that pitch today like a Yo-Yo.” Fara asked. You moved your head to the side, allowing Ona the space to talk.

“Sí. Again, I just did my job. It was this one that was putting them into the back of the net.” You blushed ferociously, thanking the lucky stars that you were already quite red from the match.

You continued the interview as quickly as possible – conscious that this was being streamed live to the BBC. You skin becoming redder with every passing compliment Ona threw you way. Of course, you gave them back just as often, but she wasn’t as embarrassed by stuff like that. Eventually, the interview came to a natural end.

“Thank you so much, girls, I’ll let you get back. Ladies and Gentlemen, Y/F/N Y/S/N and Ona Badger,” you heard Alex say as you turned away. You heard Ona groan in your ear as you carried on walking.

“Come on then, Señorita Badger.” You couldn’t contain your cackle as you helped her down to sit in your cubby.

“Detener,” she whined – her arms coming to cross over her chest. “They can never say it properly. It’s so annoying.” She moaned, burying her face in your clothed stomach as you moved to untie her braid.

“My love, they are atrocious at pronouncing non-English names, you know this.” You soothed her, allowing your fingers to card through her now-loose hair. “It doesn’t make it right, but it’s not personal.”

“It’s every game though. Every interview and time someone says my name its always ‘Battle’ or ‘Badger’. I can’t decide which is worse.” She complained, moving away from your body to look at you, pouting. You matched her pout; one had coming to cup her jaw and the other to lightly trace over the crease in between her eyebrow.

“I’m sorry, my lovely. I don’t know what to say,” you admitted. “But if it makes you feel any better, they’re always saying good things.” You tried a weak smile. “You’re our best defender.” You said honestly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. This time, she really did blush.

“Deja de mentir,” she sighed.

“I’m not lying. You are an incredibly, wonderfully, amazingly talented defender.” You laughed as her cheeks darkened yet again. “And all mine.” You finished off, placing a gentle kiss to her soft lips. “I love you.” You basked in the silence between you to a little longer before adding, “my little Badger.” Her eyes snapped open, scoffing as her mouth dropping open as you laughed loudly, scurrying away to the showers before she could retaliate.

You had been calling her Badger for so long now, that you had never considered what it might look like to others, or to her. After that day in the locker room, it had slowly become more and more integrated into your daily vocabulary. It started as a nickname you used to tease her, loving how riled up she became. But then you started using it in training, shouting it out when she did something particularly impressive. Eventually, it became like any other loving nickname. You were her mi amor, and she was your Badger.

It was something you hadn’t considered when you both made the move over to Spain. It was so normal at this point. Surely, she would have said something if she didn’t like the name? You used it all the time. You wanted her to pass you the salt and pepper? You felt sad and needed a hug? She was injured and needed comfort? You were pressed up against her in the Club dancing the night away? She had done something great in training? She was irritating the crap out of you? You were annoying her and being an all-round brat? She was always Badger.

It had never crossed you mind until Alexia brought it up after training one day.

You were walking out to the car, Ona tugging on your hand to hurry you up.

“Vamos, mi amor. Apresúrate,” she pulled you harder, taking your hand in both of hers.

“Badger, you go ahead.” You laughed as she pouted. “You’re the one going on a ‘La Masia day’. In case you’ve forgotten, I wasn’t raised here.” You teased, using your strength to pulled her back to your side. “I was told in no uncertain terms by Aita that this was a Catalan only event And that she loved me, but I needed to get lost for the afternoon. You need time with your people, and I am totally ok with that, Badger.” You smiled softly at her, melting as her arms wove around your waist.

“Ona, deixa d'estar tan enamorat i afanya't.” Aitana’s loud voice drifted from across the car park.

“A la merda, Aita. Que no tinguis núvia no vol dir que hagis de ser dolent.” Ona responded. You had no idea what she was saying but even with your limited Catalan, you recognised ‘núvia’ and guessed it was something to do with you.

“Go on, Badger. Go enjoy yourself, I’ll see you at home.” You cupped her cheek with your hand, giving her a gentle goodbye kiss. She squeezed you once more before running off after Aitana– shoving her as she climbed into the backseat.

“Do you want to come for a quick coffee with us?” A voice next to you made you jump.

“Fucking hell.” You turned to see Alexia, Mapi and Ingrid standing behind you. “Jesus, warn a girl next time.” You placed a hand over your heart and took calming breaths, glaring at Mapi as she chuckled at your reaction.

“We said your name like 10 times, chica.” Alexia smiled, taking your arm, and pulling you towards her car.

“Sorry, I was just … sorry.” You stared at the pavement, a bright blush rushing to your cheeks.

“Ella está enamorada” Mapi cheered, coming up to pinch your cheeks.

“You two are way worse,” you said, gesturing between Ingrid and Mapi. “Oh, mi vida, jugaste muy bien hoy.” You dramatically threw yourself at Ingrid, laughing with her at Mapi’s incensed expression.

“No sueno asi”

“Yes, you do.” You said at the same time as Ingrid. Mapi’s shocked face made you laugh even harder as Alexia unlocked the car.

“Maps, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call her Ingrid. Even when you aren’t talking to her it’s always ‘mi vida’ or ‘mi princessa’ or ‘mi Tesoro’. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you call her Ingrid. It can be quite nauseating.” You goaded her as you took your seat in the passenger side. She gasped, jokingly offended.

“Al menos no llamo a mi novia por un animalito raro.” She clicked her teeth at you.

You eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Animal? You didn’t call Ona an animal, did you? Sometimes you joked she was a koala after the matches as she clambered her way into a customary piggyback – you often made teasing remarks that you didn’t need to see one during your time in Australia because you had one at home with you. But nothing repeatedly.

“Yeh, where did Badger come from?” Alexia asked. Ohhhhh. It clicked for you - sometimes, you could be quite oblivious.

“It’s not after the animal. English commentators and interviewers can never say her name. You must’ve realised that.” The Spanish girls nodded solemnly – often being a victim themselves of mispronounced names. “Well, it started off as a joke really, Alex Scott called her Ona Badger once and it kinda went from there really.” You explained, your attention drifting to looking outside the window

“Ona’s a better woman than me.” Alexia shook her head slightly. You turned back around, looking at her side profile as she drove you towards the coffee shop.

“How-What do you mean?” You asked, confused as to what she was getting at.

“If Olga called me Patella instead of Putellas, I’d go crazy.” Alexia laughed.

“Oh. She doesn’t seem to mind it. I … don’t think?” Did she mind it? She had never said anything to you about it.

“I never said anything when Olga called me Lex for a while. But it really got on my nerves.” She added, making you feel even worse about the situation. Does she really feel like that? Do you irritate her? It must do. What you had thought was just a joke and then an eventual nickname was based on the fact that someone couldn’t pronounce her name right. That would annoy anyone, right?

The rest of the afternoon passed in a daze, the coffee trip and drive back to the training ground carpark was all a blur. Your drive home and daily routine done on autopilot as your actions and behaviours played on repeat in your head. Did Ona hate being called Badger? She must do, right? Not many people in England had struggled to pronounce your name, and you had yet to encounter someone in Spain that couldn’t do it. Your thoughts rattled in your head – leading you to the conclusion that yes, Ona must not like being called Badger. You vowed to stop making her uncomfortable.

“Hola, mi amor.” Ona called as she walked through the door. You could hear the tiredness in her voice.

“Hey, Badg-baby.” You cleared your throat, hoping to cover up your mistake. “Hey, baby.” You kicked yourself mentally for your slip up. With all your internal worry, you missed Ona’s eyebrows scrunching in confusion. You seemed ok in yourself, a little distracted maybe, but nothing noticeable. You were standing at the open fridge, trying to figure out what to make for dinner – so it must be that, Ona decided. You must be distracted by what to make. She came up behind you, wrapping her arms around you and kissing your shoulder. You melted against her, like you always did. This helped calm Ona’s worries a little, beyond not calling her Badger, you were acting normal.

“What do you fancy for tea?” You asked, looking back at her.

“No m'importa, el que sigui més fàcil per a tu,” she said in Catalan. Her voice muffled by the fabric of your jumper.

“What was that, Bad-babe?” You asked her gently, recognising how tired she must be. You twisted around in her grip, closing the fridge door behind you. She looked up at you, a look of displeasure on her face. You chalked it up to her being tired from her afternoon out with the girls; she was actually annoyed that you had, once again, not called her badger.

“El que sigui més fàcil.” She repeated, still speaking in Catalan.

“The only word I recognised was fàcil, so I’m going to assume that mean quick and easy?” She smiled, as you let a finger trace over her freckles on her cheeks, something you always did when she was tired.

“Podríem fer la comanda?” She was still speaking in Catalan. Her tiredness often led to you trying to decipher Catalan – a language you were still trying to get to grips with. But you understood where she was coming from. If you were tired and then forced to speak your third language in your own home, it would not go very well. You really wracked your brains, trying to work out what she was saying.

“I’m sorry, B-honey. What was that?” You asked her, scanning your eyes cross her face.

“Order.” She said grumpily. You sighed, misunderstanding her mood again.

“Ok, my love,” mentally cheering as you didn’t slip up this time. “Let’s go to the sofa and we’ll order something.” You unwound her arms from your waist and pulled them over your shoulders, lifting her up as her legs wrapped securely around your hips. “My koala,” you teased, pressing a kiss to her cheek before she buried her head in your neck.

You hoped that Ona’s uncharacteristic mood was purely down to her tiredness. But after a full night’s sleep where she had refused to leave your arms – something that usually made her sleep like a baby – she still had an attitude with you. She had been fine when you woke up, a soft, sleep-filled smile gracing her beautiful face.

“Bon dia, mi amor.” She had croaked out, a gentle hum coming from her as you scratched at her head.

“Good morning, bad-baby.” Fuck, you had done it again. She pulled back from her beloved location (her face pressed against your neck, you giving her gentle scratches to gradually wake her up). With sleep still in her eyes, her hair a mess and that adorable pout, you couldn’t help but smile – you had, yet again, misattributed her pout for tiredness rather than the anger, and slight hurt, that she felt when you failed to call her Badger. She tried to think back to yesterday. You had very willingly let her go out with the girls yesterday after training, so that couldn’t have been it. Training had gone really well – you always had worked brilliantly as a pair. You had mentioned that you went out to coffee with Alexia, Ingrid and Mapi, maybe something had happened then? But you would have said something though, right? You were the one that was more open and in-touch with your feelings. You always communicated well with everyone around you, especially Ona. Yet, you were refusing to call her Badger. That name had originally been a joke, but eventually it had come to mean so much to her – it was something so unique to your relationship. Other couples could call each other baby, or love, or honey, or babe, or any of the Spanish equivalents. But only she got to be your Badger.

You were still behaving normally which is what threw her off the most. You made her the perfect cup of coffee – like every morning – giving it to her with a kiss to the top of her head as she sat at the table, trying to wake herself up. You held your hand out to her as you walked into the training centre, allowing her warm hand to intertwine with yours. You insisted she tie your hair back, humming quietly as she raked her delicate fingers across your scalp. You made her a plate of all her favourite foods at lunch. You let her rest her body into yours as you sat down, your arm coming around her shoulder as you talked to Lucy and Keira. You drove home with you hand on her thigh and the music blasting loudly. Yet you still hadn’t called her Badger. It was adding considerably to her strange mood – she wasn’t quite angry, but she wasn’t her usual bubbly self … grumpy … that was the only way to describe Ona today. Even Alexia and Patri had picked up on it, asking you if Ona was alright. You tried your best to assure them, telling them that she just hadn’t slept very well (a total lie – it was you that had lied awake staring at the ceiling as Ona’s breath puffed steadily onto your collarbone).

She led you into your house, scowling at you as you tried to make your way into the kitchen.

“Sentarse,” she growled at you, pointing at the sofa. You did as you were told – still very confused as to her behaviour today.

You looked at her, deeply puzzled, as she climbed onto your lap, her legs straddling your thighs. Her behaviour was not what you expected of someone that was angry with you. You pulled out every stop you could think of to help her relax; one hand on her waist, dipping under her shirt to rub at the smooth skin; the other came to cup her jaw, you thumb running repetitive strokes across her cheekbones. It worked, for the most part. She leaned into your hand, her breathing was less harsh, the crinkle in her brow disappeared.

“Oni, my darling girl, mi corazón, mi hermosa, el amor de mi vida. What is up with you today?”

“What is up with me? What is up with you?” She almost shouted, incredulous at the accusation that she had done something wrong.

“You’ve had a scowl on your face the whole day.” You explained, a finger coming to flick at her protruding bottom lip as exhibit A.

“Because of you!” You threw her arms up in exacerbation.

“Me? What have I done?” You tried to think of what you could have done to annoy her. You had stopped calling her Badger, you had let her choose what to eat for tea last night – not even complaining when she chose the place with the not-as-nice-but-just-as-expensive-Sushi – you had done everything as normal today, going so far to drag her away for a steamy makeout session in the bathrooms before practice. Was that what she was upset over?

“No m'has trucat, Badger” she whispered so quietly you could barely hear her.

“Oni, I’m sorry, but I didn’t hear you.” You explained “What did you say?”

“You haven’t called me Badger all day. And last night. Did I do something? Have I annoyed you? You always call me Badger unless you’re angry at me. So ... What. Did. I. Do?” She exploded at you, a lone tear streaking down her cheeks. She rushed to wipe it away, but you got there first, kissing her cheek at the same time.

“No, mi vida. You did nothing wrong.” You looked down at her hands in her lap, fingers fiddling nervously together.

“Then what is it? Cos you haven’t called me Badger in over 24 hours now. Something is wrong.” She implored at you.

“I know you don’t like it, so I thought it would just be easier if you didn’t have to tell me and it be all awkward.” She waited a moment, hoping you would meet her eyes. When that was apparently not going to happen, she lifted your chin up with a finger.

“Who told you I don’t like being called Badger?” She asked sternly. Just like the rest of the day, you misunderstood her emotions – thinking she was angry at you for figuring out her secret.

“N-no one.” You croaked out, trying desperately not to cry.

“Mi amor, who told you I don’t like being called Badger?” She asked again, this time her voice a lot calmer.

“It was something that Alexia had said yesterday. She said that Olga called her Lex a few times and it really got on her nerves, but it took her a while for her to say something. And she also said that if someone called her Patella as a nickname, she’d go insane. And it just got me thinking that what if you don’t like being called Badger, ‘cos it’s a nickname based on someone saying your name wrong, but you didn’t want to say anything and I-” you were cut off by soft lips pressing against yours. You hummed throatily as Ona’s hands twisted into your hair, you grip on her waist tightening, pulling her closer to you.

“Don’t think ever again.” She said as you parted, her breath fanning across your face, drowning you in her scent. You must have looked confused, even with your eyes shut. “You said all of this was because you starting thinking. So, don’t ever think again.” You chuckled, pulling her back to you, your lips moulding together perfectly. “You are mi amor. And I am your Badger,” she mumbled between kisses.

“My Badger.” You agreed, shifting yourself underneath her.

“Recuérdame mañana que mate a Alexia por plantar esa estúpida idea en tu cabeza.” She grumbled as you pulled on top of you again.

“Whatever you say,” you started to suck a hicky into her neck. You pulled back slightly so you could see her face. “Badger.” Her kilowatt smile was all the confirmation you needed that Ona really did like being called Badger.

I hope you enjoyed it <3<3<3<3

[boltonbritreads]

🗣️Eddie Munson Fic Recs

This is gonna have a sappy start before I get into the fic rec portion: but I just wanted to say that at the end of May 2022, I was finishing up my first year of law school. It was rough, challenging, lonely, and basically everything you’d expect and I was in a bad place and the fandom I’d been in was slowing down just naturally. I truly wish I could remember how I even became aware of Eddie Munson because stranger things wasn’t really on my radar anymore and whoever I followed at the time that started to veer off into Eddie-mania, thank you. In the two years since then, I’ve graduated and become the worlds babiest lawyer and I genuinely owe a lot to this fandom and community on here for giving me a fun, usually safe, creative place to escape to when it got rough.

I’m just hoping to maybe remind people that there are already an incredible, incredible amount of existing stories to read and talk about that deserve your attention and love if you’re looking to read some Eddie stories. Some of these will be fics I’ve recommended before but I’m going to try my best to pull together writers and fics that I love and think everyone should read in the hopes that someone like me who still scrolls through eddie tags looking for my nightly bedtime story can find something new to them to read! ✨

Previous Fic Rec list here!! some overlap but there’s no such thing as too much hype for these writers

@munson-blurbs I hope it’s ok but I’m linking Bug’s full masterlist here because I have genuinely loved everything she has written. There are blurbs, series, and special events which are all incredible and worth a read! Bug is currently still writing the “Living after Midnight” series which is my current obsession and features rockstar!eddie x motelheiress!reader and it’s angst and lust galore

@corroded-hellfire also sharing the Eddie Masterlist here because there’s so many fics to read!! As You Wish, Big Brown Eyes, Where the Heart Is are all incredible but truly there’s so much here to enjoy

@upsidedownwithsteve SIMMER!! jk I’m actually linking the Eddie Masterlist here too because I love them all but “I Want You To Want Me” and “Simmer” are out of this world

@pinkrelish The Yes Policy I love it, you love it, we all love it and if you haven’t caught up yet oh my god I wish I was you and could read these chapters for the first time again

@ghost-proofbaby I’ve previously told people to go read 24 Hours, and you should, that’s an order; but Maroon is ongoing! and it’s actually infiltrating my every thought so go on over and get caught up bc I think it’s safe to say things are getting amped up

@trashmouth-richie I have also previously recommended Honey, I’m Home because it’s a work of art but Ziggy has a new mini series “Crash + Fall” that I’m completely obsessed with the concept for and I’ve loved every piece so far!

@tiannasfanfic I just reblogged Conviction again but I genuinely am not exaggerating when I say I think about this story and these two monthly and try and find this story all the time to re-read it endlessly. It’s a really lovely story of unplanned pregnancy and two characters not realizing they’ve been smitten for each other the whole time and I love it

@carolmunson I’m sharing another Eddie Masterlist here because I’d be making this post far too long but Carol’s stories are all incredible, complex, and honest. “Let’s go, don’t wait” just got updated and I had to read it like 3 times last night because it was too good to just read one and done

@rebelfell I just discovered Sarah’s blog after reading the most recent “Frenemy” fic and idk what I was doing wrong to not already follow her and not have already read her whole Masterlist but I’m linking the whole thing bc she’s so good!!

@the-au-thor I also only just discovered Elle’s blog and that’s criminal but thank god I found Babysitting Mun because I am a sucker for rockstar!eddie and this series has me on the edge of my seat rn

@storiesbyrhi I’m sharing the Masterlist folks because I have genuinely loved every single story and series and I have read them all now (some several times). So many of Rhi’s stories have a wonderful warm witchy vibe that I crave and I’ve read Siouxsie and the Soulmates, The Cabin in the Woods, Our Patron Saint of the Arts, Vintage Reeboks, and Burning Yarrow (insert screaming fan gif) multiple times now

@heart-eyed-love this fic is the epitome of a soft, cozy, domestic night with Eddie and if you need a hug read this 🥹

@eddieandbird I JUST got caught up on Eddie/Tour Manager series and I’m fully obsessed and desperate to know how they’re gonna navigate this - for folks new to the story, Eddie and his tour manager accidentally drunkenly get married- what could go wrong??

@eiightysixbaby the scream I scrumped when I finished reading Princess Leia, and Other Wishes - look bffs to lovers is already my absolute weakness on this earth but then you had to make it witty and funny and FLUFFY I just can do nothing but re-read and pine

@superblysubpar I’m still obsessed with this addition to The Boy is Mine writing challenge and oh god it’s so good 😩

…and while we’re talking about it - here’s the entire The Boy is Mine masterlist with an INSANE amount of incredible stories to read

@the-unforgivenn !!! tumblr hates me and deleted this bullet (so if you already saw this post, no you didn’t) but And I Need You to Know is a proper novel! I can’t imagine how much time, love, effort, planning, and work went into creating this insane and absolutely incredible world but everyone needs to read this!! and then follow up with She’s So Cold bc I love it and I am so reader

~~ this is not the end nor an exhaustive list! I just wanted to put something out there now that I plan to build on because I know I’m always scrolling and searching for new things to read or old things to revisit ♥️ ~~

[luxurychristmaspudding]

Pickup Truck

summary: frankie hates your boyfriend. in fact, everybody does. but he’s willing to give him a chance. you’re his best friend, after all. until frankie discovers something he can never forgive.

pairing: frankie morales x f!reader

ratings/warnings: 18+. MDNI. this fic contains allusions to, but no descriptions of, domestic abuse. please do not proceed if you know this will upset you.

frankie's pov. no lady and no baby for our boy. drinking, violence (against pos bf), angst, lots of hurt, allusions to dv. comfort, fluff. frankie to the rescue. unprotected p in v (wrap it irl!). oral, f receiving. creampie. bad spanish (again). kings of leon references. happy ending, of course.

wc: 9.8k

an: whew, this was an emotional one to write. but i hope a good love comes to all of you in time, no matter where you are at the moment. and if you already have it, may it always keep you safe. lovely divider from @saradika.

Frankie really doesn’t like your boyfriend.

Scratch that. Nobody does.

Nobody really knows where you found him, either. A sweet, smart girl like you, moved back to your small town from your big city life, and it looks like you picked up the very first guy who sidled up to you in a grimy bar.

Which, if you’re really honest, is exactly what happened. Because he was nice at first. Real nice. He was charming and sweet and interested - he bought you drinks all night and didn’t push to come in when he walked you home. You went for dinner a few times, and sure, he could be a little rude to the waitstaff, but it was only because he was so focused on you. He bought you flowers and took you for rides, and sure, sometimes he’d come home far too drunk after seeing his friends and get a little too close, a little too loud, but he always apologised.

And sure, he sometimes made you cry, but he always made it up to you. Sweet promises, small gifts. And he'd never laid a finger on you.

Not until last week, anyway.

You don’t know what to do. You don’t know who to turn to. The thought of it makes you so sick you have to lock yourself in the bathroom at work. How did this happen? How did it turn so sour?

And how do you get out?

Walk you home to see

Where you're livin' around

And I know this place

Frankie walks you home from the bonfire. He always does.

It’s his favourite moment of the night.

He gets to have you all to himself. Gets to watch your cheeks cool in the night air, watch as the blush from the heat of the fire subsides. Your giddy, wide eyes, your tipsy babbling about stories which had been swapped over the flames, picking out particularly scandalous details for you two to giggle about before doubling over into breathless laughter over something Benny had said. 

He likes to hold your elbow, your hand, as you catch him in your amusement, gripping onto his bicep. He loves to lose himself in this little pocket of time with you.

He loves the sparkle of the stars, the glow of the streetlights as they light your features.

Frankie loves you.

And he’s so glad you’ve moved back from your life in the big city to come and be around your real friends again. So glad that you’ve all found your way back to each other. Tonight has left him with such a mellow tingle in his bones that he finds he can’t stop smiling at you, looking at you, on your walk home.

Bonfire nights have always been your monthly hangout, a time when you can be sure you’ll get the whole gang together. There used to be more of you through highschool, and still a fair few during college. It dipped when the boys joined the forces, when people moved further east and further north. But eventually Frankie, Benny, Santi, and Will had come back. Jessa, your other best friend, had returned too. A few others coming and going - Lily, Marcus, Maggie - also back and forth from their new homes to their old ones. And then eventually folk had just… settled. 

Frankie felt like he was one of the last, like he was maybe the one finding it the hardest, retired to a life of civvy duties. Unable to hold down a girlfriend, struggling to stick at a job, sofa surfing around friends’ places. He was still flying whenever he could, but then this coke allegation happened, and it was like the world was finally swept from under him. 

You were the first person he had called, the first person to talk him down from his panic, that debilitating squeeze around his heart when he thought about the future. The first person who made him feel like it would be okay.

So of course his joy when you had come back had been immeasurable. Maybe this time, he’d thought.

And then you’d met Tanner.

He’s pulled from his thoughts as you drag your hand out of his, skipping a little further up the dark street until you reach a corner. Frankie watches as you spin on the spot in the quiet neighbourhood, gesturing down the pathway before you. 

‘This is me.’ You say.

But you don’t turn to keep walking. You watch him, a small, excited smile on your lips. Like you’re waiting for him to work it out. 

Frankie drags his eyes from you, away from thoughts of your new boyfriend, to look up and down the street you’ve led him to, and for a second he is pulled beneath the ebbing flow of memory, towed with the riptide of things forgotten. 

This is his grandmother’s street. Was his grandmother’s street.

The cracked concrete, the peeling paint of the porches. The weeds, the flowers, the smell.

He breathes your name like you’re the only thing tethering him to the now.

Breathes your name through the bright, sunny flashes of his childhood. His mama bringing him here with his brother, his papa swinging him by his legs in the flower-riddled front garden. Cartoons in the ripe heat of the afternoons, him and his cousins stuffing their faces with Guagitas and Frugele until they’d made themselves sick while the younger siblings napped in the sunbeams of the bedroom next door. Cycling over on his bike after school to sit at her kitchen table to do his homework, letting her fuss over him - his height, his friends, his grades, girls -

A skinnier, younger Frankie stopping by his abuela’s house with you to pick up her up for his nineteenth birthday party, along with her homemade tamales, her chiles rellenos, and specially made pumpkin sopaipillas for later on. The way you had chatted to her, natural, easy going, how you had made her laugh, her eyes sparkle. How, when you had taken some of the plates to the car, his abuela had pinched his cheek. I like her, she’d said, Será tuya algún día, mm, mijo? And Frankie had flushed bright red, batting her arms away as she chuckled at him. He had hidden in the back bedroom when you came in from outside, and listened a little longer to your conversation as he waited for the heat of his face to die down. When he reemerged, you had helped his grandmother into her shoes, her cardigan, and kept ahold of her arm until she got into Frankie’s beat up old car. At the end of the night, his abuela had kissed both your cheeks several times, rocked you back and forth in a hug, and clapped her hands as she said how she looked forward to seeing you again.

When you came home from college every summer, you’d have tea with her in her garden. She always asked Frankie about you, about how you are doing. When he told her you were coming home, she’d been so excited. Quizás este sea el momento? She’d said to him, squeezing his hand. He’d smiled, his heart quietly full of hope. Tal vez, abuela, he’d said.

When he called you two weeks later, his voice weak from crying, to tell you that she’d passed, you had been heartbroken. And it seemed like her wish, the red thread she’d seen between the two of you, had been snipped, too.

Pour yourself on me

And you know I'm the one

That you won't forget

Frankie likes to listen to you talk, because he’s never much been one for talking. 

He supposes you just bring it out of him, though. Because here on this street, in the moonlight, he tells you more about his grandmother. You spend hours walking up and down the pavement as he recounts every story he can remember; him and his brother, his parents, aunts and uncles, cousins. Birthdays, weddings, funerals. The street comes alive with the ghosts of people, the spectres of feelings. You and Frankie talk of growing up. Of falling in love. Of each other. 

Your small, well-loved house is half way down the street, four up from his abuela’s. It does something strange to his heart to have two of his favourite people, who loved each other in their own ways, so close but so far away. 

Your fingers hold his wrist as he shows you a scar on his palm from eating shit on his bike when he was eight, and when he looks up, your eyes are shining under the streetlights. There is a glint of moon in your teeth, and a shocking want so clear on your face, but when he meets your eye there is suddenly hesitation, a realisation, a shuttering. Frankie stops his story. There is a moment, and then it slips away like sand.

You shiver, chilled all of a sudden, and wrap your arms around yourself. Frankie tries not to look too hard at the goose bumps blossoming on your bare skin, tries to fight off the urge to kiss the little raises until you’re warm again under his touch.

‘Cold?’ he asks, and you smile back up at him. God, his heart.

‘As a hole,’ you giggle, and he feels himself smile goofily back at you. ‘We gotta warm up.’ You say, and then freeze.

It takes Frankie a little while longer to hear the inadvertent invitation in your words.

Boyfriend. Boyfriend.

You both stand on the porch, frozen, like some great frost has swept over the land. If Frankie squints, he can imagine the glitter of your eyeshadow, now fallen, dusted on your cheeks, is a collective of tiny constellations of ice. 

Your body is wracked with a shiver again, but when Frankie looks you in the eye, you’re burning up from the inside. He swallows.

If he could only make the steps towards you. If he could only will his heavy feet to move, if he could summon his nerves to do exactly what his brain says, he would already be in front of you. He would have your face in his hands, be able to look into your eyes to see that deep, hidden want again, and kiss you. Again and again and again, and he wouldn’t stop, because things like that shitty boyfriend of yours wouldn’t matter anymore.

No. The whole world would be glitter and stars and constellations of ice crystals.

And then you blink, smile softly, and wish him a goodnight.

When he can finally lift his foot to move, your door is already closed.

And in your denim eyes

I see that something's awry

And I see you’re weak

You don’t see Frankie for a while after that, always finding a way to brush off his attempts to hang out. 

At first he doesn’t worry too much about it. You’ve just moved back - you have a new job, a new place, new friends to get to know. Tanner. 

Frankie finds other things to do. He gets business cards made up for the flying school he’ll be setting up next month. He pilots people across the state, sometimes across the country. He sees the boys for drinks, even sees Jessa for a coffee. He starts to worry when they say their texts have gone mostly unanswered, and they haven’t seen you either.

It must be why he turns up on your front step one day, a six pack in hand. 

You open the door on the second ring of the doorbell, and Frankie finds himself rendered speechless. You look… different.

Tired and wary, a little thinner. And when he gets you chatting, you say you haven’t really been anywhere, done anything. You’ve been settling in, getting used to it. You have two beers each, but you seem on edge, like you’re waiting for a knock on the door. And then Frankie asks about Tanner, and your eyes linger on the entryway a little longer.

‘Yeah,’ you say, ‘He’s okay.’

Frankie’s jaw twitches, his stomach clenching uncomfortably.

‘Just okay?’ He asks. 

Because you should be excited. You should be gushing and giddy and falling in love. But you’re not.

‘Yeah,’ you shrug. ‘He’s good.’

There’s something in your eyes. Something which shrinks away, skitters back. Something drained, something sapped of life, of energy. Hurt, maybe. Fear, perhaps.

When Frankie thinks back now, he knows he should have pressed you harder. Maybe should have taken you to his, made you talk a little more for a little longer. Away from Tanner, the threat of his presence. But he didn’t. He didn’t.

And he hates himself for it.

When he comes around

I see you're fixin' to shine

And my face won't speak

When Frankie next sees you, you’ve had a hair cut, and there are deep, dark bags under your eyes. Both of these things worry him equally. 

Your beautiful hair that you’d been growing out since you were young, hair that you swore you’d never cut shorter than it was in seventh grade, when your mum had to chop it into a bob after you got gum caught in it. And here it is now, much shorter. 

Jessa says she likes it, and you give her a watery smile, a weak thank you. She asks where you had it done, when. She asks if you like it, and you shrug. You say you’re trying something new. You say Tanner likes it.

Over your shoulder, Frankie exchanges a look with Santi.

You’re quiet the whole time you're at the bar. Far too quiet, so far from the bubbly conversation you usually hold, your loud cackle, your bent-double amusement. Your affection for your friends - the hands on knees, arms around shoulders, kisses pressed to cheeks. It’s hardly there. 

Frankie offers to walk you home, but you wave him off kindly. Tanner’s picking me up, you say, he’s probably outside. Jessa frowns at you.

‘Are you sure, babe?’ She says. ‘It’s not even late yet.’

You smile and nod at her, gather your stuff to go. Jessa catches your arm.

‘We’re still on to go shopping Saturday, though - right?’ 

You smile at her, the first warm one you’ve mustered all night.

‘Of course,’ you say, ‘I’m looking forward to it.’ 

When you stand to leave, you hug everybody goodbye. Tightly, for longer than usual. Frankie doesn’t give you an option when he walks you out to Tanner’s car. The smug prick is hanging out the driver’s seat window. He watches Frankie as you walk up, hostile, threatening, arrogant, and somehow still ridiculous. And, Frankie thinks cruelly - ugly.

Frankie pulls you into his arms a few steps away from your boyfriend. He kisses your hair, and you sigh.

‘Have a good time on Saturday,’ he says softly. You twitch a smile at him. 

‘Thank you, Frankie.’ You say before stepping back and walking to open the passenger door. As you climb in, Tanner winks at him. 

‘Gettin’ a new one tomorrow,’ he says, stupid fucking grin on his face. ‘New car. Exciting stuff. Anyway, better get this one back,’ he says, squeezing your knee a little too hard. You don’t look at Frankie, something like humiliation colouring your cheeks. ‘See you around, Frank.’ Tanner says.

Frankie steps back from the car as it glides forwards, and he watches it disappear up the street. 

Deep anger burns in him. And a kind of fear. It crawls over his skin, cooling the sides of his neck. His heart churns uncomfortably in his chest.

He tells your friends about it when he returns to the table. And they form a plan. Jessa texts you a time she’ll pick you up on Saturday. You say you’re excited again, you need some new clothes.

But Frankie knows Jessa won’t take you shopping. 

No, she brings you here, to the beach, to the bonfire. To him, to Santi and Benny and Will. Because they’re worried.

So worried, they tell you.

They sit you down in one of the chairs around the fire, and they explain why they’re worried. They tell you they love you - so much - and they just need to know if you’re okay. Because they can help. They want to help, want you out of this, because he’s not good for you. The silence, the hair, the clothes you were going to buy. They tell you they hate the way he doesn’t let you speak, how he speaks to you. And you are so quiet through all of it, Frankie begins to get more worried. He speaks to you gently over the fire, but you can’t meet his eye. He tells you his worries, their love for you again. He swallows down his own confession, anything to make you see. How they don’t want you pushed closer to him, want you to be pulled closer to them instead.

But your eyes are so vacant, so far away, that Jessa leaves her deckchair next to you to sit on the burned up log closer to you on your other side. She takes your hands, and you finally, finally look at her. You open your mouth, and you say so quietly -

‘You’re right. You’re right.’ 

It feels like the biggest gulp of oxygen Frankie has ever taken. He feels lightheaded from the relief, from the knowledge. They were right, they were right, which is a terrible, terrible thing.

Will clears his throat, and Frankie looks at him to see similar thoughts flicking over his face like film reel. He licks his lips, opens his mouth, and -

Hate to be so emotional

I didn't aim to get physical

But when he pulled in and revved it up

I said, ‘You call that a pickup truck?’

And in the moonlight I throwed him down

Kickin', screamin' and rollin' around

A little piece of a bloody tooth

Just so you know I was thinking of you

Whatever Will is about to say is cut short by the sweep of headlights over the brush near the dunes. 

A beat up old pickup truck bumps up the track and pulls up alongside Will’s Ranger. The driver’s side window slides down, and Tanner’s face emerges from the gloom. He revs the engine loudly, making you and Jessa jump. A sick feeling curls in Frankie’s stomach as he watches him, this piece of shit who’s been so busy crushing you down. 

Tanner leaps out of the truck, and slams the door. Frankie looks over at you, visibly panicked on the other side of the fire. How the fuck did he find you?

‘Hey baby,’ Tanner says, sickly sweet as he strolls towards you, ducking to press a kiss to your unresponsive mouth. He turns to the rest of the group, eyes skating over Will and Ben until they land on Frankie. Tanner steps towards him, offers his hand.

‘Good to see you again, Frank,’ he says, ‘Told you I’d be getting a new ride.’ 

Frankie stares at his hand. He takes a deep swig of his beer, breathing deeply before looking Tanner in the eye, refusing to shake it.

‘I’m surprised to see you.’ He says to the dirty-haired man.

Tanner tries his best to appear unfazed, but there’s a glimmer of something hot behind his eyes.

‘’Course man, wanted to show off the new pickup.’ He says, grinning broadly. He looks around again, eyes falling hungrily on Jessa. She shifts uncomfortably on the log, rearranging her body so there’s less for him to look at. A deep heat begins to rise in Frankie’s chest.

He glances again at the ancient car that Tanner’s driven up in. The front bumper almost hanging off, the red paint aged and scratched, bumps caved in all up the sides, the roof sagging. 

‘You call that a pickup truck?’ Frankie says lightly. Tanner narrows his eyes at him, angry, before he catches the sound of Santi’s laugh.

He whirls around to the other man and spits -

‘Who the fuck are you?’

Frankie almost laughs, too. Almost.

Pope spreads his hands. He looks up at him through his brows, a glint in his eyes that Frankie is violently familiar with. You must notice it, too, because you clear your throat and say -

‘Santi’s one of my friends.’

Tanner doesn’t even look at you. Just keeps staring at Pope. 

The moment seems to last an eternity. Frankie feels like he’s watching everything through sludge, like he’s in someone else’s dream. His whole body is on edge, vibrating, ready to lunge - he’s just not sure at who. He looks between the two men before he catches your eye through the flames. The adrenaline in Frankie’s heart gutters at the look of panic in your eyes.

Please don’t let them do this. Please help me stop it.

Frankie glances back to Pope, and says, so softly only he can hear it -

‘Pope.’ 

And Santi immediately looks away, taking a swig of his beer.

Tanner stands there still, clearly baffled at Santi’s sudden lack of interest. Then he turns to the rest of the group like a petulant child, a toddler who has been ostensibly robbed of its favourite toy.

‘It’s a good truck,’ he says, before turning to you. ‘Ain’t it, baby?’

You hum your agreement as Tanner scoops a beer from the pile by Will’s chair, shucking off the top with his teeth. Jessa looks away, disgusted. He settles himself in the deckchair at your side.

‘Y’aint allowed to touch it, of course, sugar,’ he says to you, before laughing into his bottle. ‘Ruin everything you come into, anyway. Root of all my problems, ain’t ya?’ Tanner takes a pull of his beer. The group is silent around him. Around you. Tanner notices.

‘Boy, fun bunch you are.’ 

You look at him through your eyelashes.

‘Baby, that’s enough.’ You say as softly as possible, and Frankie cringes at the pet name. 

Tanner looks at you sharply. Dark, furious. It’s in the pinch of his jaw, the anger at what you’ve said so obviously rolling around in his skull.

Frankie hates him for it. And he hates that he hates him for it. There are already so many things he hates him for, but he’s so fucking stupid it’s almost funny. Not your equal in any way. In kindness, in conversation or in intellect. And not even willing to try. To learn. For you. Just trying to dumb you down instead, squash you into smaller, more digestible bites to chew on. 

When it comes down to it, Tanner has nothing smart to say back. He just pushes a short breath from his nostrils and mutters out a little -

‘Well, well, well.’

Then he flexes his fingers against the chair, and you flinch. 

You flinch hard, your brows coming together, chin scrunching, waiting for the blow to land. And when it doesn’t, your eyes flicker open slowly. Hollow, bereft, drained and dim. 

Tanner hasn’t noticed, but everyone else has.

The awful unveiling of your last secret.

Frankie forces the bile down his throat. His head swings forward to the ground of its own accord, a faint, resonant ringing in his ears. When he looks at his hands, they aren’t his own. In fact, he recognises no part of his body as the ringing gets louder, as he gently places his beer bottle on the floor. When his eyes leave the dirt, the mix of faces around the fire are all mirror reflections of each other. Horror, disgust, grief. Grief that this is what you hid from them, this is what they have taken too long to pull you from. The burning building splintering around you, your shell of a body immovable in the middle. 

You won’t meet his eye. You won’t meet anyone’s eye as your hand shakes around your bottle. Jessa notices. She stares at your trembling fingers for too long, but she can hardly say anything. None of them can. Her eyes shine like beacons from her seat, wet with tears. Frankie sees her bottom lip quiver, her chin dimple. And then she swallows, swallows again, and reaches for your hand.

You flinch again, softer this time, and Frankie is sure everyone around the fire - everyone in the town, the world, must hear his heart crack. Because he feels it so keenly, so deeply, that it takes the air from his lungs. His breath is caught in his throat, and no matter how hard he tries to draw it, it seems impossible to claw it down. He’s drowning. He’s drowning right here in front of everybody, and it makes it all the worse to know that this is how you must feel. Every damn day.

Come on, he hears Jessa say, Let’s go and get another drink. And through the dark swirling of his mind he watches the two of you stand slowly and disappear towards the back of Frankie’s truck. He waits until Jessa has you hidden from view, her arms around your hunched back as you bring your hands to your face - crying - and that’s when the thread snaps.

Frankie gets to his feet, slowly.

Pope and Will watch him. Benny is still staring at Tanner.

Tanner looks up at him, chin jutted out, smirking as Frankie approaches. 

He’s challenging him. He’s waiting for a war of words, for the shouting to begin, for the insults, the observations to fly.

He expected the wrong war from a soldier.

The first punch sprawls him out of his seat. It makes a satisfying cracking sound, and the first trickle of blood starts to bleed from behind his lip.

Then Frankie kicks him. He kicks him hard in the ribs, making sure he doesn’t have enough time to recover from the punch to deflect Frankie’s boot. 

Tanner clutches at his abdomen, wheezing, gazing up at Frankie with bewildered eyes. Fucking coward.

Frankie grabs him by the front of his shirt, pulls him upwards. He has nothing to say to him, but the fury he feels, this deep, endless, swirling pit of rage, he lets him see. He lets it fill him from the soles of his feet all the way up through his eyes, and he lets it bleed out. He lets the blackness flood the ground. He lets Tanner watch it, lets it petrify him, and then Frankie swings again. Tanner takes it on his chin this time, his jaw snapping closed, and when it goes lax, a couple jagged bits of tooth fall out. Frankie grunts in satisfaction and swings again, again, until blood spouts from Tanner’s eyebrow and his cheek begins to bruise and swell. Frankie breathes deeply, in rhythm, doesn’t even feel it when Tanner manages to land a lucky punch to his eye socket. He plants a knee into the other man’s crotch, lands him an elbow to the back of his head when he keels over, and then shoves him to the ground. Frankie gets on the floor with him, raining blows down on Tanner’s body, his face. He’s methodical about it, a punch to each eye, the crack of the cunt’s nose, one to either side of his mouth, then bloodying up his jaw. He’s aware, somewhere, that Tanner is screaming. Strangled, gargling sounds trying to claw up his throat. And then he’s aware of two pairs of hands around each armpit, dragging him away, pulling him up. Will is saying something in his ear, that’s enough, Frankie, alright now, and Benny is speaking, too, panicked - you’ll kill him, Fish, come on man.

Frankie blinks, really looks at Tanner where he lays bleeding on the dirt. His eyes already swelling, a couple more teeth scattered on the ground next to him. His face different shades of red and purple, a mess of a man, and Frankie is pleased. He could keep going. He wants to see him bleed much, much more. Will and Benny keep their grip on him.

‘Leave,’ Frankie growls, low, without a quiver in his voice. ‘And don’t you ever come back. You ever look at her again, I’ll gouge out your fuckin’ eyes. You ever touch her again, I’ll break every bone in your body. I’ll make sure they don’t find anything left of you.’

Tanner doesn’t say anything, which must be the only smart thing he’s ever done in his life. But he still doesn’t move.

The four men watch him for a moment, the silence heavy, broken only by the crackle of wood and Tanner’s heavy, wet breaths.

Then Benny lets Frankie go, steps forward and picks the man up by his collar, swinging him around to the direction of his truck. He throws him down on the dirt.

‘Move,’ he spits. ‘Get out of here. And if you have the courage on the way, wrap your fucking truck around a telephone pole.’

Tanner finally has the good sense to crawl over to the vehicle. He hauls himself up the scarred body work before creaking open the driver’s door and slipping inside. The truck sputters to life, yellow bulbs flooding the bonfire site again before it quickly backs away, turns, and drives off. Frankie watches its blinking red brake lights until he’s sure the cunt is gone, and then he turns around.

You’re stood with Santi’s arms wrapped around you, back from the fire where Tanner’s blood is drying. Pope strokes your hair, squeezes you tightly as your body shudders. And Frankie can only stare. 

Minutes might have passed. Hours. And Frankie is terrified. Terrified that he’s scared you, broken you, pushed you away. And then you turn your face on Pope’s chest, moving your head from shoulder to shoulder, and you’re looking at him. Eyes red-rimmed and raw, face flushed and damp, and it’s like Frankie’s trance breaks.

Frightened, he takes a step forward. He breathes your name.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and you shake your head. Fuck. What has he done? What has he allowed himself to do? ‘I’m sorry, querida, please - I know, I know -’ but what does he know? He looks to Santi, pleading for help, and the man offers him a small smile as you step out of his arms. 

Through a fog, you come towards him. Your chin wobbles. Your eyes swim. You’re a little wide-eyed, a little shocked. And something else, something beyond his reach. 

You get to him, and your arms make their silken way around his middle as you begin to cry. Hot tears stain the front of his shirt, and he cradles you to him, holding your skull gently, enveloping your abdomen. A loud sob looses from your ribs.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers, ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’ You wrap your arms around him tighter, press your nose into his sternum.

‘I’m not scared of you, Frankie,’ you sob into his chest. He clutches at the back of your head, holds you even closer, strokes your hair. When you speak again your voice is higher, strained with your tears. ‘I could never be scared of you.’

The sting in Frankie’s throat becomes hot, burning. He doesn’t know whether to pull you impossibly closer or to push you away, to run as far as he can from your broken, heaving body in his arms. Because what he’s done should scare you. It should. He’d lost all control. The only thing he’d been able to see, to feel was his all-consuming, depthless fury. And Tanner’s face as it splintered, bloodied, swelled. And he’d wanted to keep going, until there was just pulp. No nerve endings, no teeth, no eyes, no mouth, no body that he could ever hurt you with again. He doesn’t want you to hurt any more.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispers into your hair.

Trembling misery

And as cold as a hole

I hug your bones and skin

Frankie holds your hand the whole way home, the drive passing in a dazed silence.

You still don’t talk when you get to his place, when he unlocks the door, lets you in, and locks it behind him. You take his hand in the quiet cool of the house, lead him upstairs. He follows, slowly, sore, exhausted. Trying to process it all.

When you reach the landing, you turn on the bathroom light, and he trails behind you. He stands propped against the sink as you dig around in his medicine cabinet, finding wipes and bandages and anything else you think might be useful. You take Frankie’s hand again, examine his bruised, bleeding and swollen knuckles with solemn eyes. You are so gentle, twisting his hand in the light, inspecting. You look over it for a while, and Frankie watches you. When you reach for an antiseptic wipe, your hand is shaking.

Frankie winces silently when you start to dab at the blood on his knuckles, cleaning it away with minute swipes. You chase the dried rivulets of blood down his fingers, over his palm. The scar there from when he ate shit riding his bike.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. You ignore him, breathing shallowly as you inspect his hand, holding his wrist, cleaning blood which is no longer there.

‘Might be a hairline fracture or two,’ you say, distant. ‘I won’t bandage it, gonna let it dry out first. But you’ll need to rest it. And we’ll need to ice your eye.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says again, into your hair. You shake your head, and the light catches the different colours in every strand. Frankie’s throat tightens.

‘Please stop apologising.’ You whisper.

A shaky breath pushes itself from between Frankie’s lips.

‘No, querida,’ he says softly, ‘It wasn’t right. Shouldn’t have done it. And I shouldn’t have let you see -’ he swallows thickly, throat bobbing. He looks over your head at the white tiles behind you as your grip on his wrist tightens. You still don't look up at him. ‘But it’s not how you treat someone you love. Not how it should be. Should be protecting them, treating them right, loving them the way you love -’ him. He cuts himself off, because he realises as he says it he’s wrong. So wrong.

Right to be like you in your gentleness. In your care, your touch, your tenderness, your loving. But Tanner deserved none of those things. He didn’t deserve your faith, didn’t deserve your protection or your silence either. None of it. 

He closes his eyes.

An image of you flickers through Frankie’s mind. Your fingers on his wrist as they are now, your eyes shining under the streetlights. The glint of your teeth, and the want so clear on your face, then the hesitation, the fear, the shuttering - 

And if only he had kissed you then. If only you had taken him inside. He could have shown you what it was supposed to feel like. He could have saved you from the hurt, the fear which lay ahead.

There’s a splash of warmth on the pale skin of the underside of his forearm, and he opens his eyes again. You’re still hunched over his hand, but your movements have stilled. Frankie waits, confused, before another warm drop lands on his arm and you hiccup a sob out. He whispers out your name, and you turn your face up to him, devastated.

Frankie’s face crumples, and your grip on his wrist loosens enough for him to lift his hands to your face and cup your cheeks.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. I wasn’t thinking -’

‘You think I love him?’ You croak.

Frankie’s jaw works around his next sentence, his next thoughts. He tries to process what this means. That look in your eyes, your tears, your implication. His lips move, but no sound comes out.

‘I don’t love him, Frankie,’ you choke, ‘I don’t. Christ - I don’t think I ever did, I never could -’ you suck in a deep, stuttered breath. ‘I’ve never - never hated anyone more. I couldn’t stand him, couldn’t have him near me, couldn’t have him touch me -’ Frankie flinches at your words. ‘But I was so scared. And embarrassed. I didn’t know how to leave - I didn’t know how to tell anybody about what was going on. I was terrified of what he’d do. To me, to you guys, if he found out I’d spoken about it. And he made it so hard for me to see you, so hard for me to get away.’ You sob now, panic and relief forcing out your words. ‘I thought - wherever I go, he’ll find me. He’ll track me down, and he’ll bring me back - and somehow - somehow that was worse than if he tracked me down and - and - I don’t know, killed me or something -’

Frankie’s eyes shutter. He can’t even follow your thought, so awful is the image, the gaping emptiness. He pulls you close, he lets you cry. Curled into his chest, your body wracking with tears, shaking, tense and uncontrollable, the sounds you make rooting in his brain. They file themselves away in a box where very few things go. Deployment. Tom. The darkness after his investigation. You break and break in his arms, and it’s all he can do to hold the pieces of you together. To press kisses to your head, breathe in the smell of your hair, rub his hands over your back, cradle you like a child. 

He doesn’t know how long the two of you stand there for. He waits until you stop sobbing, stop crying softly, stop hiccuping, stop sniffing. He waits for a few more minutes in the silence, too. And when he pulls away, he presses a long, sweet kiss to your forehead. 

You blink up at him through red, swollen eyes.

‘You’re safe here.’ He says, and you nod.

‘I know. Thank you. For - everything.’ You say thickly. Frankie swallows, nods. You know it all anyway. Any time, for however long you need.

He pads downstairs to get you a glass of water, and while he’s pouring it, he can hear you blow your nose, wash your face. Somehow, they are the most perfect sounds in the world.

Crackling wood’s gone white

And my eye swole up now

I can see the light

Frankie gives you one of his sleep-stretched t-shirts and an old pair of shorts for you to wear to bed. 

The clothes dwarf you a little, and he can’t wipe the small, thrilled smile from his face, even when he looks away. You look fucking adorable. 

You giggle at him every time you see it, your little what? only making him smile harder. It stretches his mouth until it hurts and his cheeks start to cramp up, squishing his swollen eye. Stop he tries to say, but it comes out as an equally breathless huff of laughter - and that only makes you giggle more. So much so that he sweeps you up into his arms to stash you under the covers, and you laugh even harder as he tucks the sheets in tight around you, just like his mama used to do when she wanted him to stay put. 

He looks down at you from the side of the bed, hands on his hips, and you laugh back at him - eyes shining, mouth open in wide hoots of delight, your hands coming up in a desperate attempt to contain yourself. He points a finger at you.

‘You need to calm down,’ he says, voice tight with bridled amusement. ‘It’s bedtime.’

But you cackle back at him, this glorious puddle of sunshine in his bed, only howls of laughter for a response. Unable to help himself, he returns your joy, turning off the bedside lamps to slip in beside you.

In the darkness, your snorts subside into ragged breaths, and you turn on your side to look at him. You study him as though you never want to forget a single line on his face; such warmth, such affection in your eyes that Frankie’s whole body swells and lifts.

You take his hand beneath the sheets and hold it between your faces, smiling softly at him.

The first and only girl he’s really ever loved. This brilliant, fierce, bright, intelligent woman damped down by the waste of fucking space who had bled by the fire. At the thought of it, Frankie feels his heart fall out of his chest, down through the floorboards, and plummet towards the middle of the earth.

And finally, he begins to cry.

He tries to stop it, he really does. It’s selfish, he thinks, so awful and selfish to cry in front of you when it’s you who should be wrapped in his arms, swept away by emotion again if you needed to be, safe and warm and unworried, never having to fret about anything again.

But he can’t stop it. It comes out in great shuddering breaths - pained, wracked sounds slipping past his lips, and he can’t help it. He tries to gather them in his hands to shove them back in his mouth, tries to scoop them in his arms and press them back into the caving ache of his chest, but he can’t.

When Frankie was a child, he saw his dad cry once. Only once, and exactly like this, after his father’s brother was killed in a car accident. He had seen it through a crack in his parents’ bedroom door, and it had hurt him. It had wounded him, as a child, to see his father break with such grief, such pain, such emptiness, and to know there was nothing he could do about it. And now, he is split into those two people - younger self, older self - as he thinks of you lying next to him on the bed. This person who he loves so much, who is now so full of the knowledge of the worst parts of living, wound up so tight within you that you let it settle, let it unfurl around your bones. He sees your hurt, your grief, your pain refracted around him tenfold, and he hurts with you. He sees you as the boy he once was, this poor creature looking in at a heart breaking, as he has unknowingly watched yours break for months.

And he’s so sorry, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop saying it.

But here you are, still, performing the ultimate act of kindness. Comfort.

He feels the mattress move as you slide closer to him, and then your hand is on his back, swooping in gentle movements. He feels the scrabble of your fingers under the ribs he has pressed into the bed, the pressure of your arm moving under him so you can hold him properly. Frankie sobs harder, but he opens his body to you. You press closer to him, burying your face in his neck, and he breathes you in as he cries. Your scent is here, you are here. And like you heard him, you whisper -

‘It’s okay, Frankie. It’s okay. ’M here. I’m safe.’ And this realisation allows a little more air, but it doesn’t make Frankie’s guilt, his shame any better. But you’re right, he knows it. And somewhere in his crying, this turns his gasps to tears of relief. Softly, you retract your arms from around him.

You take his hands away from his face, and kiss the palms. You kiss each fingertip, each bruised and cracked knuckle. You lean forward and press a kiss to each tear, each trail of saltwater on his face. And you are so beautiful in the moonlight. Soft and wide eyed. Safe. Kind, always kind, and full of understanding. Frankie sees now that you have been crying against him, too, your eyelashes cloyed with tears. Sees his thoughts in your eyes as though you have had each of them zip to you through the air. When you were a child, you saw your dad cry once. Only once, and exactly like this, after…

A smile breaks through your eyes, chasing away the remnants of tears, glazing down, softening your lips. 

And Frankie doesn’t think this time. His feet don’t fail him. He doesn’t think of stars or glitter or constellations of ice crystals. He just kisses you. And kisses you and kisses you and kisses you. And he doesn’t stop, because nothing else matters anymore.

You’re safe. You’re warm. You’re in his bed. 

You’re here.

You tip your head back, deepening the kiss, licking into Frankie’s mouth. He gives in so easily to you he’s almost ashamed. But then your fingers clutch at him, ball at the bottom of his shirt, tangle in the thick of his hair, and all his thoughts are forgotten. He feels you slip a soft, strong leg over his, pulling him forward. You groan against him, and Frankie’s cock twitches. You feel it, you must do, as you pull your body closer to him, tight against him. Frankie is so lightheaded he doesn’t know where his hands are, what they’re doing - and when he concentrates, he finds them skating over your back, squeezing the tension out of the back of your neck, gripping your hip.

He moans against you as you rock your hips over his thigh, as he feels the heat of your sex against his skin. He feels like he’s on fire.

You slip a hand under his sleep shorts and palm him, brushing his silken length with two fingers, feeling him grow harder, thicker against you. You take him in your hand, pump him once, twice with the perfect grip, the perfect speed, like you were made for him. He’s gasping against you, panting as you suck his lower lip into your mouth.

‘Baby,’ he groans, breathless, ‘We don’t have to. We really don’t -’

You look up at him through gorgeous, glazed eyes.

‘I want to,’ you say, ‘Do you?’

Dangerous, dangerous question. 

Frankie tries to shake his head, look away, think of anything but the tight fist of your fingers around his cock.

‘I do,’ he says, ‘I do. But I don’t think - this is the right thing -’

You loosen your grip, draw away from him. His body aches with a shudder.

His eyes flick back to yours again - confused, hurt - fuck, he can’t do that to you, ever -

‘I - I don’t want to take advantage of it - of you,’ he says. Your eyelashes flutter against your cheeks as you look down the sheets towards your toes. His jaw tightens. ‘And - and I don’t want this to mean - different things for us. I don’t want it to ruin what we have.’ Frankie breathes out heavily through his nose. He has to tell you now. He has to. ‘I don’t want it to mean different things, because I love you. I always have. And if we do this, if I have you even just for a night, I - I’ll never recover from it.’ Tears spike in his eyes again. He tries to smile. ‘You’d ruin me. And I don’t think I’d ever forgive you for it.’

Your breath hitches in your throat, and Frankie watches as your eyes flit back up to his. They search his face, the dribble of his barely-shed tears, the slope of his sad smile. You bring a hand up to cup his cheek, running your thumb over his scraps of beard. He closes his eyes.

‘What you said earlier,’ you begin. Frankie swallows. He waits for the blow of rejection. ‘About me - about me loving him.’ He opens his eyes slowly to find yours, bright and clear. Something begs to bubble over in them. Something golden and warm. ‘You were wrong - obviously. And I couldn’t tell you truly why, because I was afraid. So afraid of pushing you away, even though I think that’s all I’ve ever done. I’ve never thought I was worth it, Frankie. I don’t deserve you. And I am terrified of how much I love you.’ You beam at him, eyes bubbling over with that thing - love - ‘I love you,’ you say simply, like it’s not the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard. 

A stunned little laugh ripples up his throat, and you copy it. He grips your face in his hands, and kisses you again, again, again.

‘I love you,’ he says.

‘I love you, too,’ you giggle.

‘And you are,’ he presses to your lips, ‘You are absolutely worth it.’

He rolls over on top of you, and begins to kiss your jaw, nipping at the skin there, before moving down your throat. He kisses you with a hot, open mouth, sucking marks into the sensitive skin at your pulse point. Mine, he groans, and you whimper against him, rubbing your thighs together.

Frankie pushes your shirt up - his shirt - so he can bite at your chest, press kisses to every bit of exposed skin. Every single part of you that deserves to be loved, every single place which has so far been unknown to him. He sucks each nipple into his mouth, delighted when you keen beneath him, panting, please, please Frankie, before he sinks lower down, peeling his shorts away from you to expose your glistening cunt. 

He groans, unable to take his eyes away from it as he leans forward, pressing his body into the mattress to lick a stripe from your asshole to your clit.

‘Frankie -’ you groan down at him as he begins to work at you, sucking and licking, nipping at your thigh before slipping his tongue into your hole, swiping and tasting everything you’re giving to him. He grinds himself into the mattress, hissing at the relief, the uncomfortable weight of his cock dragging below him.

‘Taste so good, baby,’ he tells you, and he doesn’t think he ever wants to taste, wants to smell anything else ever again. All he can do is eat at you, breathe you in, until you’re begging him -

‘Frankie, your fingers - please -’ And he flexes his hand at your hip before brushing a fingertip against your entrance and gasping at the pain. 

You try to bear down towards him, but he rips his hand away, lifting his head towards you.

‘Can’t,’ he gasps, and you mewl, bucking your hips up to his face, desperate. ‘Hand’s fucked,’ he says, and you still your movements before beginning to laugh again. It’s loud and from your belly, and it's bizarre. But Frankie gets it. He gets it, and he giggles too. He doesn’t try to fuck his broken knuckles into you, but he does try to continue lathing you with his tongue. You’re making it pretty fucking difficult, though.

‘Stop laughing,’ he huffs against your clit, ‘I’m trying to make you come.’

‘Okay,’ you say, gasping for air, ‘Okay. I’m sorry. I’m very sorry. You’re doing really well, by the way.’ But this only makes him laugh. He groans, leaning his forehead against your inner thigh. ‘This is impossible.’ He pouts.

‘Nooo,’ you cry, leaning up on your elbows to pout down at him. ‘Please, baby. I’ll be good. I’ll be so good. I won’t laugh anymore.’

‘Promise?’ He says. You hold out your pinky to him.

‘Pinky promise.’ You say.

Frankie stretches his hand out to you and tries to extend his pinky. He winces at the sharp pain which shoots from the movement, and grunts at you, your eyes sparkling with mischief.

‘You bastard,’ he says, trying and failing to hold his smile, ‘You knew I wouldn’t be able to do that.’

‘Just keeping you on your toes,’ you grin, and then before you can make any more smart remarks, Frankie resumes his ministrations, lapping and tonguing at your clit, your hole, mouthing hot, wet kisses to your pussy. He shakes his head from side to side, running your bud in tight, hard little circles until you’re a moaning, whimpering mess beneath him. Your hips buck unconsciously, and Frankie hooks both his arms around your thighs to hold you down, flattening his hands against your belly to keep you firmly in place. He reaches up to twist at your nipples and you gasp. 

‘God, Frankie, tongue feels so fucking good -’ 

He can feel you begin to pulse against his chin as your whines get higher in pitch, and he groans as you twist handfuls of his hair.

‘Come on, baby,’ he says, ‘Give it to me. Wanna see you come, querida. Wanna taste it. Come on my face.’

And you do, the sensation of it arching your back tight like a bow, a strangled moan cutting off into the ceiling.

‘Fuck, Frankie, fuck -’ as he drives you through it, nodding and murmuring against you as you try to wriggle free, squealing in protest until you manage to twist a leg and set a foot against his chest, pushing him off. 

‘Fucking - hell -’ You pant, and Frankie grins down at you, smug.

‘Good?’ He asks, quirking an eyebrow.

‘Oh, fuck you, Morales.’ You laugh, pulling him in for a sloppy kiss, moaning when you taste yourself on him. Your tongue explores every part of his mouth, every crevice behind every tooth, like you can’t get enough of him. Like there'll never be enough of him. ‘Now fuck me.’ You whisper.

And Frankie does not need to be told twice.

He rips his shirt up and off his back, shucks his shorts down his legs, and squeezes himself tight as he can in his left hand. He ruts into his palm, thumb swiping to slick his heavy beads of precum down his length.

‘Ready?’ he asks, looking down to find you staring wide-eyed at his cock. It twitches under your gaze.

‘What?’ He says, and you shake your head in quiet disbelief and amusement. You lift your eyes back to his face, and they are so dark with arousal he almost melts into the mattress.

‘Nothing,’ you shrug. ‘Just somehow never believed Pope and the boys when they said it was like two coke cans put together.’ 

‘Jesus Christ.’ Frankie laughs, his face pulling tight with a grin as he lines himself up at your entrance, swilling the head in your arousal.

‘I mean, what if it doesn’t fit?’ You babble, and he shakes his head.

‘It’ll fit, baby,’ he says. ‘We’ll make it fit.’ Then he sinks the first inch in, and just waits. He waits and watches you, watches as your mouth falls slack, all the smart things coming out your mouth grinding to a halt. He throbs at how tight you are around him, at how you clench already, trying to suck him in further. And fuck, you are so wet.

‘You okay, querida?’ He asks through gritted teeth.

You manage a nod, a broken whine escaping you.

‘Move Frankie, please baby -’ you beg, and he groans as he pushes further inside you, watching the obscene stretch of your pussy around him, the way it pulses, the way it gets wetter and warmer and tighter around him. When he bottoms out, he feels the hot rush of his orgasm leap towards him a little too quickly.

‘Fuck, baby,’ he breathes, closing his eyes just to make sure he doesn’t come right away. You squirm beneath him, canting your hips up, trying to fuck yourself. Frankie grips you, gritting his teeth. ‘Stay still,’ he hisses, flushing a little. ‘God, fuck, please - just for a minute.’ He opens his eyes to find you watching him, your bottom lip caught in your teeth. His eyes glaze down your body - his t-shirt bunched up around your chest, perfect tits, perfect belly, and your sweet, sopping cunt split open on his cock. 

He groans again, slipping out, watching as he retreats, soaked by you, before pushing back in. A high pitched whine leaves your lips, and you twitch your hands up to play with your tits. Frankie doesn’t think he’s ever seen something more sexy in his life.

‘That’s right,’ he says, ‘Keep playing with yourself like that, gorgeous. Look at you.’

So you do, looking up at him with doe-eyes as he fucks into you, soft at first, letting you adjust before quickening his pace, readjusting his angle, feeling you leak around him. His balls slap against your ass loudly, and you keen up at him, eyes wide, begging for something as you tighten like a coil around him, something you can’t quite voice. But Frankie knows.

He swipes his thumb against your clit, and your eyes roll into the back of your head, your back arching again. He groans at the sight, and works the bundle of nerve endings in tight circles, faster and harder, harder and faster, until you’re gripping him so tight he thinks you might push him out.

‘Come baby, come,’ he pants, ‘Please, querida, need to feel you - need to feel you soak me. Need you to come for me, come on this cock, baby, please -’

And he groans, long and loud as you clench and pulse around him, milking him, pulling him impossible deeper - fuck, Frankie, oh my god, feels so fucking good - the delicious pressure at the base of his spine at breaking point as he fucks you through it, as he pants and gasps -

‘Come, Frankie,’ you plead, ‘Please - want you, need you -’ and he spills himself deep inside you, hips stuttering, eyes clamping shut, overwhelmed and short circuited. He’s never known it could feel like this - good to the end of every synapse - and he’s fucking it in with three long thrusts, pulling out slowly just to watch it dribble out of you as he twitches against his thigh. He thumbs your clit just to watch you seize and sigh against him, then sits back on his knees to look at you.

‘You are something else,’ he says in disbelief.

You smile lazily at him.

‘Ain’t so bad yourself, Morales,’ and he laughs, throwing himself down next to you, kissing anywhere he can. I love you, I love you, I love you. Safe.

You lay there for a while afterwards, just feeling each other, calming your ragged breathing. Eventually, Frankie rises from the bed to grab a washcloth, coming back and swiping between your legs tenderly, gently, before collapsing back into bed and pulling you into his chest.

He feels like he’s in space, and he tells you as much. He spills secrets like a child at a sleepover. He tells you about the glitter and the stars and the constellations of ice crystals. You match him with a galaxy of feeling spanning the time he’s known you. And he feels that this is a dream, this love which floats like a nebula within the bed. He tries to keep his eyes open for as long as possible, even as you sleep. And even when he does drift off, he dreams of you. He dreams of you sparkling with stardust, waiting for him with your arms open.

When he wakes the next morning, you’re still there. Safe, soft and warm against him, furled into his ribcage, heart beating against the hand that’s pressed against your chest.

Everything’s okay. That red thread still intact, after all.

When the sun rises, bloody and mild, it’s never been so sweet.

A little piece of a bloody tooth

Just so you know I was thinking of you

[ffishstickks]

Reap and Sow Character Creator

Hi! I know I haven't posted for a while, but it's mainly because I've been traveling a bit, as well as working on Reap and Sow! Figured I could share a fun public update!

The creator is quite a bit different from Courtin' Cowboys, leaving more room for creativity as well as the ability to capture many different kinds of people. I felt the original character creator lacked some stuff, such as custom faces or how having tits was locked to a specific body type. So, I just threw that all out the window and made more work for myself haha! I plan on adding more hairstyles, facial features, and extra with time and a proper beta! Special thanks to @jd4564 for making this possible. He's an amazing dev.

Interested in more? I do monthly updates on my Patreon, and since I'm nearing the "end" of this project each update will probably just get jucier and jucier! All of your support helps, and I hope to be posting more soon! This has taken a lot longer than anticipated, but the work I've been putting in has been high quality so I'm pretty stoked.

I plan on putting out more information about the game, such as main story components as well as character info! I didn't wanna spill too many beans before release, but since we're nearing that corner (within the next month or two) I'm more comfortable in spilling some tea!

[hyunjining]

Stray Kids Hyunjin & His Love of Queer Media 🏳️‍🌈

This is just a little self-indulgent post to show appreciation for Hyunjin’s consistent support for queer artists and their work because it makes my heart happy. If you would like to give this post some love on Twitter too, I would really appreciate it!

~~~

During an interview in 2018, Hyunjin revealed the items in his school bag, one of which was the feminist short story collection Someone Harmless to Me by Choi Eunyoung (title translation may vary), which features a lesbian love story.

Book Description:

Hyunjin also recommended To The Warm Horizon by Choi Jinyoung, a post-apocalyptic novel featuring a love story between two women (May 2024).

Book Summary:

An interview with Choi Jinyoung about the queer/lesbian themes in the book:

In an interview with Bugs, Hyunjin recommended the song “1-800-273-8255” by Logic and its music video, which features a gay man struggling with and then ultimately accepting his sexuality. He remarked that the video was hopeful and could make viewers cry (March 2018).

Music Video Description:

Hyunjin is a fan of Troye Sivan, whose songs (such as “Youth” and “for him.”) he has sung on live and at concerts, as well as during monthly evaluations as a trainee. They met in May 2023 and Hyunjin ended up as a feat. on the remix of “Rush,” a song about gay party culture and intimacy.

Hyunjin is a fan of Frank Ocean, a bisexual man. He has been heard on live whistling “Thinkin’ Bout You,” a song Frank wrote about another man (February 2024).

Hyunjin recommended “Sweet” by Bren Joy, a queer man, and met him after attending his concert soon after (April - August 2024).

About Bren Joy:

When asked what artist he’s been listening to lately (August 2024), Hyunjin replied with a line from Green Day’s song “Bobby Sox,” written by bisexual lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong. The lyrics say both “Do you want to be my girlfriend?” and “Do you want to be my boyfriend?”

About Billie Joe Armstrong and Bobby Sox:

If you got this far, thank you so much for reading!!!

[fine-nephrit]

🥏 Where to find good XF fanfics

👽 On Tumblr

@lilydalexf has an encyclopedic knowledge of fics and continues to be an invaluable resource. You'll find a boatload of themed fic lists, individual rec posts and helpful answers to anon asks.

@txf-fic-chicks-blog seven years of almost daily recs, with well-written blurbs and a lot of fun, run by @kateyes224 and @piecesofscully. Look out for their themed days: "Casefile Monday", "Tumblr Tuesday", "Editor's Pick Wednesday", "Post-Ep/Missing Scene Thursday", "Novel Length Friday", "Smut Sunday", and the very cool "Because You Watched"

@msrlibrary a well-tagged library of MSR fics; each entry includes a short excerpt and a nicely chosen image from the show.

@201daysofxfiles a rewatch blog by fandom veteran @wendelah. Each episode in season 1-7 is paired with its own fic rec post.

@enigmaticxbee an aesthetically pleasing and neatly organized rewatch blog that is packed with great content, including excellent fic rec lists categorized by season, story type, trope, and more. Each episode guide sometimes features related fic recs.

@thatfragilecapricorn30 posts one fic rec every Friday, accompanied by a nice writeup.

@randomfoggytiger curates many fic rec lists sorted by often fun and creative categories.

@cecilysass has a google doc titled "fics I love", which is a fantastic fic list categorized by story type, complete with thoughtful blurbs. She's also shared two episode-related fic rec lists on Tumblr: here and here.

@pookie-mulder writes a monthly fic journal with good recs.

**self-promo plug** I post fic recs on my Tumblr blog @fine-nephrit under #nephrit's fic rec. Plus, I reblog others' fic recs that I come across!

👽 Rec Communities

XF Book Club: the best thing ever, an absolute gem that deserves to be preserved for posterity. During its run, 270 fics were recced and discussed in depth here. The community's intelligent and insightful comments on this blog are sometimes even more enjoyable to read than the fics themselves.

The Fic Filter (xf tag): well-curated selections with short blurbs.

Multifandom Het Recs (xf tag): a major rec site's xf section that offers nice "why this must be read" writeups. @het-reccers

Crack Van (xf tag): another major rec site with a big xf section, featuring endless recs and blurbs

Fancake (xf tag): another major rec community's xf section boasting an extensive thematic tagging system

👽 Personal Blogs

Emily Shore aka Naraht: meta essays, fanvid recs, fic recs—great stuff aplenty

Bad for the Fish aka Scarlet Baldy: fantastic fic list paired with highly enjoyable reviews and analyses of the fics she's read. @badforthefish

Ramblings of a Mind Untamed: reviews of a dozen or so classic fics

xxSKSxx XF Fanfic Recs: still active in 2024! @xxsksxxx

X-Libris: more of a fic library, this is the best place to download nicely-formatted ebooks of pre-AO3 oldies. What I love most is the incredibly detailed and extensive tagging system.

👽 Individual Rec Lists with good writeup

Character Manifesto - Dana Scully: a character analysis and 10 Scully-centric fic recs, categorized by "best of .." selections. Amazing format and choices!

Character Manifesto - Fox Mulder: same format as above for Spooky

bachlava's awesome fic rec essays, covering classic fics and slash fics

ShipRecced blog's classic MSR fics and newer MSR fics recs

luminary's 16-fic rec post

RivkaT recs fics and writers @rivkat

Anna Otto's favorite stories

Syntax6's rec list @syntax6

👽 90s Old School Rec Sites

The Basement Office - Musea: a treasure trove of extensive fic lists with lovely written blurbs, recced by a group of talented writers from back in the day

The Other Side - Fanfic Recs from Beyond the Grave: a large collection of 'scary' or 'spooky' story recs with nice blurbs. Beautiful web design.

the Rookery - Favorite Authors: nice commentary on a list of classic fic writers

X-Files Fanfiction 101: an intro guide to fic categories and what to read for each

The Primal Screamers: a fun site run by a mailing list that hosts fic recs with blurbs, and a 'Coffee Talk' section full of delightful discussions of canon

Idealists Haven - Elemental Fanfic Archive: an archive with rec blurbs

Chronicle X: a large, well-organized archive with blurbs, plus a 'Can We Talk' discussion section of novel-length fics, plus a total of 46 author interviews. Simply incredible!

👽 Special Mention

The X-Files Lost and Found: a fic finder message board that is miraculously still very active today—How wonderful! Its FAQ page hosts a huge collection of well-categorized themed fic lists (not recs), including "Classics (or, Your Fanfic Education is Not Complete Until You've Read ...)".

Where do you find your next read? What did I miss? Reblog and share your favorites!

[encyclopediacr]

Critical Role announces its new monthly horror series using the Illuminated Worlds system, Candela Obscura!

Set in a fictional turn-of-the-century inspired region known as The Faireland, the series features Taliesin Jaffe as the Lightkeeper with Robbie Daymond, Laura Bailey, Anjali Bhimani, and Ashley Johnson and a story led by Matthew Mercer.

The first chapter of Candela Obscura will run for three episodes starting May 25, 2023. A quickstart guide for the setting and its characters will also be released that day, and Darrington Press will release a core rulebook later this year.

For more information, you can check out the announcement.

[carolmunson]

always something there to remind me (s.h.)

summary: ten years after the sealing of the upside-down, you and your fiance steve head to a cookout to unwind during memorial day weekend. with steve on edge after a rough half sleep full of night terrors, you hope the day can be salvaged by seeing the party and just relaxing, but a violent thunderstorm changes those plans for the worse. pairings: steve x reader, lumax, edancy. heavy on the steddie brotp tho.

tw: 18+ as always. this story deals with themes of mental illness and ptsd, it is only intended for mature audiences. descriptions of ptsd flashbacks, internal and external (please be advised they are dramatizations). partner violence (unintentional). drinking/smoking. discussions of mental illness. very moody steve but very soft steve. features some tense arguments. smut, like, very loving and passionate smut. this relationship is not perfect, it's also a depiction of a moment in time in 1997. the emotional load was very much a woman's job and i personally think steve would be 'too proud' to be 'too soft' about his stuff. so there are parts that seem kind of 'eh' but -- that's just how things were sorta. gif by @kingofscoops

His pill case sounded like a rattle when you took it from the medicine cabinet, taking it into the kitchen where he was shrugging on his freshly ironed polo. The ironing board and hot iron still set up by the counter. The black stone contrasted nicely against your cherry wood cabinets that he installed two summers ago. That was when you both thought he might be getting better: the night terrors were less and less frequent, the flashbacks far and few between, he was less tense, less irritable. Seeking you constantly for soft touches and kisses, any kind of affection he could pull from you he'd take willingly. Two years ago was your two year anniversary -- when he finally told you the real story. Why he had all those scars, why he can't sleep, why he wakes up in a cold sweat crying. Why you'd never been able to figure out which health care company was providing him with so much medication and therapy when he was working part time at the hospital -- it's because it was the FBI.

It was two years ago where they took you to an underground office where they told you everything. Steve sat next to you, gripping your hand so tightly you thought it might break. They reassured over and over that nothing was coming back, that everything was over, but that Steve and his friends will likely never recover emotionally and mentally from what they endured. Four years into things now, you were both his fiance and his nurse. You checked in monthly with his caseworking team, but in these last few months, they've had nothing but shaky reports. You wondered if maybe his mind just isn't as sharp as it used to be -- you both just entered your thirties, maybe things get knocked loose quicker when you've been to hell and back. "Here, honey," you say softly, putting his pill case on the table. He looks at them and sighs, amber eyes lingering on the 'Saturday' section of the pill box. "Let me get you some wa--" "You don't need to give me my pills every day," he says -- it's soft and sharp, "I know I have to take them. I've been takin' them for ten years."

You offer him a tight smile, "I know, Stevie..." You trail off. 'It's important that he feels in control of the situation, a lot of his role when he was in this situation was to protect others. Try not to baby him about it, he might be fragile, but he doesn't like to feel like he is.'

"It's just...I don't want a repeat of last year," you quietly remind him. He had gotten too sure of himself when he started to feel better -- missing days, stopping altogether, off and on.

He reaches for the pill case and pops open the Saturday square, tossing the main five pills into his palm and then into his mouth. Pain, anti-depressant, anti-anxiety, migraine, blood thinner. The heavy stuff sat in the cabinet above the fridge: Quaaludes, Oxycontin, Sumatriptan, Clozapine -- among others. Every day was a reminder to him that he didn't come out of this a stronger person. His dad let him know that at every visit, treating him like he had a son made of glass. "Don't," he says after he swallows, "Don't start with me."

Your eyes narrow in on the finger he puts up in warning and travels down to his big hand, a vein popping in his forearm and under the band of his watch. His bicep flexes against his polo, you follow it across the expanse of his chest and down the other arm, landing back on the pill case.

You knew last night what kind of day it would be this morning. Desperate reaches for you while he woke up from another nightmare, his damp chest up against yours while he hid his face in your neck. He hugs you so tightly to him so he doesn't float away, and you match his strength as best you can until he falls back asleep. Sometimes it takes hours of stroking his hair and soothing him before he feels safe enough to even close his eyes. In the years you've been together, he's been more and more embarrassed over these needier nights. 'It's just, baby -- I'm a man. I have to get over all this shit.'

"I'm not starting anyth--" "You are," he warns, eyes narrowing. He clenches his jaw, "Don't."

"M'sorry," you breath out. You take the pill case when he sets it back down and bring it back upstairs to the main bathroom. You refill the case before placing it back in the medicine cabinet with a sigh. When it closes you look at yourself in the mirror, no longer the fresh 26 year old he met at the hospital admin desk when he started his part time job as an assistant in the children's psych floor. Gaining hours towards getting his pediatric therapist licensure to help kids who were like him and his friends -- well, sort of. To some extent. You smooth over your button down dress, his favorite one in your closet -- navy blue with beige flowers littering the fabric. It flounces over you in dips and swoops, falling just under your knee. Another sigh and you grab your purse from the bedroom and slip on your sandals, clip clopping down the stairs where you hear him grab the keys. Another Saturday morning where the group gets together and just hangs out, even though Steve sees Eddie, Rob, and Dustin pretty often throughout the week. They've been doing it for years now, but the outside buzzed with the promise of summer, Memorial Day weekend making everyone feel more at ease. Everyone except Steve.

He slams the car door when he gets in the drivers seat, making you jump in the leather of his Lexus. He runs his hands over his jean clad thighs, having grown in size over the last six years with age and trips to the gym. 'I just wanna be in like, peak physical condition if anything tries to come back. I wanna be more ready than when I was a kid, y'know?' And while the muscle was certainly titilating, it made for a very wary you when things went left. "Don't be like that, Stevie," you say softly, your voice calm and gentle like it is with patients on the floor, "I promise I wasn't trying to get on your case. Do you -- I don't know, do you wanna just stay home?" "No," he snaps, looking ahead toward the road as he starts the car, "I didn't pack a cooler full of all the shit you made for this cook-out just the stay home." "Can you relax?" you ask a little harsher than you planned, "Are you even good to drive?" "I'm good. To drive," he says through gritted teeth, pulling down the street. "Are you sure? 'Cause -- Honey you -- you didn't sleep so good last night and I --" He hits the breaks hard, stopping short at a stop light turning to look at you, tilting his head a bit to glare at you down the slope of his straight nose.

"Drop it," he says, the tenseness in his voice sends a chill up your spine. "Stevie I'm not trying t --" "Drop. It." he warns again, "Don't make me raise my voice at you." "Don't talk to me like that," you say sharply while he pulls the car forward when the light turns green. "Then don't talk to me like I'm a fucking child," he snaps back. "Well maybe if you didn't have an attitude with me like one I wouldn't have to," you cross your arms over your seat belt and huff. He shakes his head slowly, tongue tight between his teeth. He thought he knew better than to fall in love with someone who had a tongue as sharp as his. "You're askin' for an argument when you say shit like that to me," he says lowly, the Lexus crunching over helicopter seeds while he navigates through the neighborhood. You see his shoulders rise and fall while he attempts to steady himself -- fuse lit and ready to blow. "I'm sorry," you follow up, a deep breath filling your chest. You uncross your arms to lean your elbow on the edge of the window, resting your cheek in your hand, "I didn't mean that." "You did," he responds, tight and frustrated, quiet. He hastily reaches into his back pocket with one hand, eyes still on the road. Steve pops a cigarette between his full lips and you sigh at the sound of the lighter flicking. “What’s wrong now, hm?” he asks while the cigarette dangles from the corner of his mouth, “What’s your problem?” “Nothing,” you say – it’s something. He takes a drag and blows the smoke out the open window, “It’s just that you bought that pack yesterday and it’s already half way gone. You always chain smoke when you –” “Give me a fucking break,” he snaps, voice raising with each word, “God, can you let me have fuckin’ anything?” “No Steve, I guess not. God forbid I look out for your heal–” you start sarcastically. “Look out for yourself, baby,” he says sharply into the rearview so you can see his glare, “I’m doin’ just fine without you on my back.” You bicker the rest of the way to Ed and Nancy’s house, he only raises his voice one more time. 

Eddie and Nancy's wedding was one for the ages, something about the mixture of straight laced and all over the place that made sense when they tied the knot. The pair, you were told, seemed unlikely until Eddie was in recovery after being removed from the Upside Down. He was down there for six months, tested on for another six. The Party and the older kids would visit him every day, keeping him updated and fed and hydrated. They'd cheer him on when he made advances in his mobility -- but for the most part he just needed rest. Nancy was working a lot, throwing herself into journalism like she always wanted, so she'd come to the hospital late. She wasn't really one for small talk so instead, she'd just read. She'd read aloud while he was asleep, her voice slow and calm -- stoic. Keeping him lulled like still water, she didn't even know if he knew she was there. One night, she picked up where she left off on the first installment of Lord of the Rings, continuing in her soft stoic voice. She watched him lay there with his eyes closed, breath steady, the beeps of the hospital machines in quiet rhythm with him. She at frist felt silly before she started, but maybe in his dreams he could hear her, and maybe just maybe if she does something fun, he won't have nightmares tonight. So she tries it...she puts on a silly voice for Samwise, and she continues with her silly voices. Gruff and manly for Aragorn, gleeful for Sam, some weird form of Scottish for Gimli. She bites her lip, smiling as she tries each one, shaking her curly head at her ridiculousness and stops. Then she hears it...the low rumbling giggle from Eddie in his hospital bed. "Keep going, it's funny..." he said with a grin, eyes still closed. "You can hear me?" she asked, trying to stifle her giggle. "I can hear you every night," he said, eyes peering open slightly, "It's the best." "Do you want me to keep reading?" she asked with a blush. He nods, a soft grin pulling up on his lips while he eyes closes again, "Only if you do the voices."

When you park in the driveway it's clear that the rest of the group arrived before you, their cars already Tetris'd into their places. Steve lugs the cooler out of the back seat with a grunt, hoisting it to rest on his broad shoulder. You roll your eyes at his machismo, like someone is watching him at all times and he has something to prove. You both walk to the back, the sounds of music and conversation and laughter bubbling louder and louder as you get to the gate of the yard.

A symphony of 'Heeeyyy!' and 'There he is!' and 'Finally!' come from the group as he opens the gate and you follow in toe. Eddie comes over quickly to help with the cooler, his hair still as long as it was when he was 20 – the only real updates being his five o’clock shadow and the ring in his nose. A few more weary tired lines by his eyes. His home made Iron Maiden muscle tee had a small sweat mark by the neckline – they must’ve been out here getting ready all morning. “Hey man,” he grins when the cooler gets set down, pulling Steve in for a tight hug. “Hey,” Steve smiles, patting his back hard, savoring the hold. “You alright?” Eddie asks when he lets go, putting a hand to his face, “You feeling okay?” Steve smiles tightly and nods but Eddie only half buys it, returning his look before turning to you. He comes forward, kissing both your cheeks with his full lips, scruff scratching at your skin, “Hi, sweetheart.” “Hi Ed,” you grin, watching everyone else come up to say their hellos. “Where’s Nance?” Steve asks, but his question is answered when she waddles out of the sliding door of the kitchen with a pitcher of lemonade. From the back, you’d have no idea she was seven months pregnant, but from the side – let’s just say, it was gonna be a real big boy. “Honey, what did I say?” Eddie calls out, walking over to her and taking the pitcher. “It’s not even heavy,” she chides back with an exasperated eye roll. You giggle at their bickering, listening to their sweet back and forth with a gentle ache in your chest. You wonder if Steve will be the same way when you’re pregnant. You wonder if the back and forths will sound so sweet, so innocent, so soft. Your thoughts are interrupted by the sound of the cooler opening, turning to look and grab what you can to put in the fridge inside. Steve takes the meat out to put by the grill and a few appetizers that you put together last nice. You take the icebox cake and chocolate covered strawberries, hurrying with them through the sliding door into the kitchen. “I know, mommy just thinks she can do it all,” Eddie coos, resting his hands on Nancy’s stomach while she slices cheeseburger toppings on the counter, “She just won’t rest, are you gonna be like that too? You gonna run me ragged? You gonna be just like mommy?” Nancy laughs and it’s half airy, half from deep in her belly, “Look, it’s just better if I’m active so that I’m not surprised by it when he’s born.” “I know,” he says, kissing her cheek, “I know. You still love me, Wheeler?” “Love you always,” she grins, blushing when she sees you come in with desserts, “Oh! Oh my goodness, let me help you!” “I got it!” you say, “Just hope there’s room in the fridge!” When everything’s loaded up you give each other a hug, watching as Eddie and Steve have a mildly stern conversation about who is grilling what. ‘It’s my grill.’  ‘And? It’s my meat.’ 

“Do you think they should just kiss?” you ask while you watch them. “Honestly, I feel like they need to at this point," she laughs, "Go on outside, I’ll be out in a few,” Nancy encourages and you make your way back out into the very early summer heat – mugginess starting to soak the air around you. Before you know it, you’re already being pulled over to the picnic table to watch a game of Magic the Gathering between Lucas, Max, Dustin, Mike, and Will. El doesn’t come back to Hawkins very much,so you’ve been told – she’s the only person from the group you haven’t met. “So is this like D&D?” you ask, resting your cheek against your palm while you lean on the table. “Yes and no,” Max explains, looking at her options, “It’s like…” “Like poker but D&D,” Dustin says, making Mike, Will, and Lucas snort. “I think that’s the easiest way to explain it to you,” Mike says. “I trust that,” you laugh with them. You’ve been consistently hopeless with trying to learn the mechanics of Dungeons and Dragons but still enjoy watching, loving it more when Steve decides to join a campaign. He lets loose in ways you’ve never seen when he does, smiling and laughing, free like a child in the summertime. The sun beating on your back suddenly disappears when you hear Steve come up behind you with a hand on your shoulder, “Can I have my glasses, honey?” “They’re in the glove box,” you say, turning around, “Why do you need them?” “Oh, is Erica making you read her thesis outline?” Lucas asks, “Just tell her to buzz off. She already passed it in.” “Sinclair – don’t be an asshole,” Steve gives him a look that can only be described as ‘bitchy’, “She wants some assurance. We need another psychologist in the family, and she’s obviously the only one smart enough to get it done.” “Rude,” Max deadpans, flicking her eyes up at him. “You’re rude, twerp,” he says back, he turns back to you after sucking his teeth, "My glasses?"

“I just said, in the glovebox,” you repeat, a little sharper than you meant to. He lets out a huff through his nose, looking at you like he can’t believe you’d get snippy with him before stomping off toward the gate of the yard. “Is he alright?” Dustin asks quietly, “I saw him on Thursday he just…I don’t know, he seems a little tense.” “He had a bad night,” you explain, toying at a splinter in the wood, “He’ll be okay.” The sun disappears again but not from the expanse of your fiance’s shoulders and chest, but from a thick cloud moving slowly across the sky. The relief from the heat is almost welcomed until you feel the humidity raise a bit in the air – a little too tight, a little too suffocating for your taste. 

The party is in full swing while Meredith Brooks’ ‘Bitch,’ blares from the boom box, Nancy and Max screaming the lyrics with abandon while the boys groan. You smile at how much fun they’re having, the afternoon going smoothly enough that you haven’t had time to notice how cloudy the sky had become. Your eyes linger on Steve, glasses on while looking at Erica’s thesis outline with her on the back porch. He had a pen in one hand and a cigarette in the other, the fifth one in the last hour and a half.  "You got something here," he says to her, tapping his pen while continues reading, "Your argument's really strong -- especially about the rates of homelessness, it's almost always trauma related." "Well -- I am me," she says. He raises his brows and nods in agreement. "Can't spell America without Erica," he teases. You watch him, how gentle he is and how he taps through outline, asking her questions about how she feels about the finished thesis, where she got it bound, if the articles he sent over were helpful. They speak in words you don't understand, but it's okay -- he looks calmer, brows softened while they talk, so encouraging. "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover, I'm a child, I'm a mother, I'm a sinner, I'm a saint, I do not feel ashamed --"

Eddie's rasp pierces the groups singing and conversation as he belts the lyrics next to his wife. Everyone looks up to watch him go, laughing as he does. "We should cover this," he grins, "Me and the guys, we gotta cover this at the next show." "So you can get boo'd off the stage?" Mike laughs. "So I can make sure your ass doesn't get in the bar?" he asks back. Mike scowls while Dustin laughs at him -- it's always smarter to not try it with Eddie, he'd always get you back ten fold. With a jolt, you feel something cold hit your hand, looking down to see a water drop splat against your skin. Then another, and another, and another. After the fourth or fifth, the rain starts to come down -- and then it starts to pour. "Alright!" Nancy calls, "Everyone grab something and head inside." The Party rises, wincing as the rain pellets down on them while everyone grabs a foil tray or covered Pyrex filled with food. You follow suit, hurrying inside with the undressed cheeseburgers and buns, laying them safe on the counter in the kitchen. Everyone else starts to file in, Steve and Eddie turning off the grill while the sky starts to darken significantly. The first rumble of thunder sends everyone's face to a flat line -- you wished Robin wasn't spending the weekend in New York City so that you'd have someone on the front lines with you and Nancy to keep everyone at ease. Nancy and Robin definitely had their moments but had a much tighter grasp on the world around them now.

A few flashes of lightening crack followed by deep rumbles of thunder. Boom, crack! Boom, crack, crack! You notice everyone resettle themselves around the kitchen table -- jittery, quiet. You sit down across from Steve while he looks down, following the woodgrain with his finger. You keep your gaze on his chest, watching for a tell -- he swallows the frustration he feels from having your eyes on him. "It's alright guys, just a storm," Nancy reminds everyone gently while she brings in the last of the food from outside. Eddie gets her seated before opening things back on the counter, the kitchen smelling like barbecue while he opens the foils. The conversations start around you again while you sit across from Steve, the tension sitting like a weighted stone in your chest. Another flash of lightning and that's when you notice it, the twitch of his hand. The thunder rumbles and he reaches up to rub his eyes with his thumb and forefinger under his glasses. Shit. "You okay, honey?" you ask him softly. He swallows, jaw clenching, "Mhm." "Okay," you nod, trying not to bring attention to it just yet, just incase it passes. The thunder booms again and he lets out a breath through his nose, he takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes more agressively. You tap your foot under the table and he can hear it, he can hear everything in the room -- the scrapes of foil on foil. The separate conversations. Eddie's laugh while he talks to Nancy. The clinks of silverware. Ice in cups. The drumming of fingers. Your tap. Tap. Tap. Tapping. Under the fucking table could you just stop tapping your fucking foot -- The next crack of lightening is so intense it shakes the house and everyone gets quiet. 'Just a storm', Nancy reminds, but her voice sounds far away. Thunder rumbles again in the distance and he swears when the lightening flashes through the windows it's red. He rubs his eyes again, a short burst of breath coming through his nose. 'Honey?' he hears you but its like he has cotton in his ears. The thunder rumbles again, the slick squelching of vines starts to creep into the sound of it. Another crack of lighting and the lights in the kitchen flicker. But when they turn back on Steve isn't with the group anymore. He's not even in the kitchen. He's back at the Creel House. 'Baby? Steve?' your voice is distant -- does Vecna have you? Did he find you? Is he taking you away from him? Steve whimpers, getting out of the chair, pulling at the roots of his light brown locks -- desperate to pull himself out of the memory, "Help, please..."

"I'm here, Steve," you say rounding the table while the rest of the group stands back, getting ready to help. Max grabs a boom box and Lucas runs to his car to grab his tapes with everyone's favorite songs on it -- just in case. Dustin approaches him slowly, hands out in front of him while Steve shrinks to the floor, back against the cabinets. "Steve, it's me, it's Dustin," he says calmly and slowly, "You're in Eddie's kitchen, Steve." But Steve only hears Dustin saying his name -- Dustin must be in trouble. "I'm coming," Steve says, eyes shut tight, falling further away. You watch as sweat grows on his hair line and neck, muttering a fuck under you breath. This was gonna be a bad one. "Honey, honey," you continue, kneeling down in front of him to ease his hands off of his hair, "You're okay, you're safe. I'm with you." 'Honey.' He hears your voice in the distance, searching for you in the blue black haze of the Upside Down, the thick particles of dust in his eyes. The slither of vines covers the walls and the floors while he ascends the stairs -- where are Nancy and Robin? Weren't they with him? "Nance?" You watch him call out for Nancy and she goes to get up but Eddie puts his hand delicately on her shoulder. He shakes his head no at her, "Just talk to him," he says to her. 'I'm here, Steve, it's okay!' 'It's okay!' But it's not Nancy's voice, it gets more an more deep, more gravelly, more like him. Steve flinches in front of you, soft 'no, no, no's slipping from his mouth. 'Stevie...' Where are you? Does he have you? 'S̷T̴E̶V̴I̷E̵.'

The sound of Vecna's voice booms in his ears, the thunder rumbling, the red lighting flashing to light up the house. You were never here -- Vecna tricked him. He breathes hard, looking around while the vines snake around, searching for him. "Okay, okay baby," you say hurriedly, watching him while he starts to hyperventilate. You raise your voice to get through to him, "Honey you gotta take some deep breaths for me, okay? Can you hear me?" Max and Lucas come back, smacking the tape into the radio and fastforwarding until Marc Cohn's Walking In Memphis crackles through the speakers. They both heave breaths while the song plays, leaning over the table to settle down from running. "You hear the song, honey?" you ask, "Can you hear it? Talk to me, Steve." You reach your hands up, sliding slowly up his chest to rest your hands by his jaw in a soothing touch. But for Steve in the Creel House, the vines have found him, slithering up his chest and around his neck, tighter and tighter against the wall. He tenses, big hands coming up and grabbing your wrists with a grip so tight you whimper. "No, shit, shit, shit! Fuck! STOP! NO! I CAN'T!" he panics, gasping for breath while his nails dig into your forearms and drag painfully downward why he tries to pull you away. "Ow, ow baby, hey, you're hurting me," you yelp out. He doesn't stop, eyes switching from tightly closed to open and unfocused while he reaches up to your biceps, clawing at them in defense. You reach out a final time. "Honey, honey, please, it's me," you say, tears balancing on your lower lashes while he rises, taking you with him. He handles you real rough, grabbing you by the shoulders and throwing you to the ground with a loud thud. And god does it hurt.

"HEY!" Eddie's voice booms out, gruff and loud like the rumbles of thunder outside. He gets behind Steve, pulling his arms close to his chest while Steve struggles against him. Erica and Mike hurry toward you to help you slowly up off the floor. You reel at first, wanting to run back to him. "Stay in front of her Wheeler," Ed warns, "You all stay right there." You stand behind Mike with Erica who takes your hand tightly in hers. You feel the pulse of pain in your arms when you look down -- gouges and deep scrapes, the blood shines in the line of the kitchen. You shake your head out of it and watch on as Eddie and Dustin do what they can to help -- the song continues to play in the background. "No, no," Steve whimpers, twisting his wrists in Eddie's grasp to break free, but in this state Eddie is stronger. He pulls him close, Steve back to his chest while they sink back down against the cabinets. "Shh," Eddie soothes, still holding him tight, "We got you, just listen -- you're in my kitchen. You hear the song playing?" Steve grunts, thrashing while Eddie hugs him tighter to him. "Steve, listen, listen to the song," Dustin says, "Focus on me and Eddie's voice, listen." Steve struggles, less intense than before, "Shh, shh, it's okay Harrington," Eddie soothes, rocking him slowly back and forth. "They need me," Steve cries weakly, breaths slowing while he pulls again at Eddie's hold, "Gotta save 'em..." "Steve," Dustin says again, getting closer. He rubs his shoulder slowly, pressing his thumb into the joint, "We're safe, all the kids are safe." "Safe..." he repeats back. Eddie sighs a little in apprehensive relief, letting go of one wrist to run a hand over his head, turning Steve's face into his chest and holding him close. "That's right, Steve," Eddie says softly, "Safe." 'Saw the ghost of Elvis, on Union Avenue, Followed him up to the Gates of Graceland And they watched him walk right through...' Steve can hear the lyrics, warbled and tinny in the Upside Down. 'Safe, safe, safe.' Echoing through the walls -- it gets dimmer. 'Now security they did not see him, They just hovered round his tomb...' Dimmer and dimmer. 'Almost over buddy, I can tell, we're right here. You feel Henderson?' A soft warm rub on his shoulder, the lyrics to the song, Eddie's voice. The sound of vines fade away, he hears the rain, it fades to black. "Walkin' in Memphis..." Steve whispers, half confused, while his eyes open and focus -- squinting in the light of the kitchen. Overwhelmed he looks around while the room tilts on it's axis. He grips Eddie's leg tightly to steady himself, he's breaths picking up again. "It's okay buddy, it's just us," Eddie says again, "You with me?" Steve nods, face cracking while he lets out a broken sob. You can only watch while Eddie flicks his eyes up at you in another warning to not come closer yet. Dustin let's go while Eddie starts to hoist him up, wrapping Steve's arm around his shoulder while he helps him to the guest room down the hall. "C'mon big boy," he says gently, "Let's get you some rest."

Things feel a little quiet after Eddie comes back from the guest room, he's tense -- no longer having fun the way he was before. His eyes are dark while he heads outside into the rain to have a cigarette. Lucas turns off the stereo and The Party sits back down at the kitchen table for a moment to decompress. They silently take out of the Magic the Gathering cards and start to set up again, Erica joins them seamlessly. When things seems a semblance of stable, Nancy gets up and takes your hand and leads you to the bathroom, "Let's check you out, alright?"

You sit on the toilet seat cover while Nancy takes out a first aid kit from under the sink. You listen while she hums the climax of Whitney's 'I Have Nothing' quietly, searching the medicine cabinet for some Bactine for your cuts.

"Are you okay?" she asks, taking both of your hands to outstretch your arms, she turns them to see the damage -- she tries to hide her face of disappointment but it's clear.

"I'll be fine," you say softly while she wipes down the gouges and scrapes, "I can take care of it Nance."

"No, you just -- just let me," she says softly. The Bactine stings -- so does the way she looks at you -- pitifully. You hear Eddie's boots clomp down the hallway before he shows up at the door frame of the bathroom.

"You okay, sweetheart?" he asks -- you wish people would stop asking. They only ask when they see him lose control. You do this all the time, you take care of him all the time.

"I'm okay," you repeat, "A little banged up, but y'know. It's okay."

"Does he do that alot?" Eddie asks, his jaw clenching, "Does he hurt you a lot?"

"This is one of maybe...I don't know -- four times he's gotten physical with me during an episode," you explain, "And you all know about them."

"Does he hurt you when he's here?" Eddie asks, tapping at his temple.

"No, Ed, don't be ridiculous," you sigh, exasperated that he'd even ask.

"Steve's not like that, Eddie," Nancy says, "We've been over this." "Well, here's the thing Nance," he starts, tense, "We're ten years out of this shit and no matter how bad my shit got I've never put a hand on you like that. Ever." "Eddie --" "No, no, listen," he says, "I don't like that, and I especially don't like that happening in my house in front of my pregnant wife." "And what would you like me to do about it, Ed?" you snap, "I can't -- fuck -- I can't fucking fix him for you." "I'm not asking you to fix him," he says back, a pain deep in his chest coming through with his voice, "I'm asking you to be sure that you still want to be a part of this -- your wedding's what -- October? You really wanna be worrying about this?" "For better or for worse, right?" you ask back, choking on the lump in your throat, "That's the promise." Eddie tucks his lips in, his own eyes getting teary while he scans the gouges that Nancy carefully puts bandaids over. "Ice your hip and shoulder for the first couple days," he mutters, biting the edge of his them, "After a fall like that. Then heat." You nod, quietly murmuring a thank you. "S'what my mom used to do," he says under his breath. Eddie scans you slowly one more time, swallowing hard before pushing off the door frame and walking back down the hall. You hear their bedroom door click closed in the distance. "You know how he gets," Nancy says, "Stuff like that y'know -- that's hard for him." "I know." She takes a washcloth, running it under cold water before squeezing it out. Droplets fall on the fabric of her light purple maternity shirt, leaving dark people marks on the top of her belly. She hands it to you. "Here, for his head," she says softly, "In case he's not all the way back yet."

You creep slowly into the guest room, seeing him laying on his stomach with half his face buried in the pillow. His sculpted arms tucked under it to give him something to hold. "Baby?" you ask quietly, "You awake?" He nods with his eyes closed and you look him over -- big hulking man who needs to be held. He hates it but you can't help but love him for knowing he needs it. You put the wet face cloth on the side table, sliding down next to him while he moves over to his side. In one swift motion you've replaced the pillow -- arms wrapping tight around your waist and up your back, one hand molding over your shoulder. He hides his face in your neck and you can feel his tears on his lashes and cheeks. His shoulders shake while he cries for a while, cold sweat damp on his shirt and the back of his neck. You never check how long he cries for – as long as he does. “I’m here,” you say softly, nails grazing his scalp in a steady swipe, “I’m right here.” You adjust a bit in his hold and you feel his grip tighten slightly, a soft whine of desperation leaking from his throat. “Don’t go, please,” he begs softly. “M’not going anywhere big guy,” you soothe, “This wedding’s already put us ten grand in the hole. Where would I even go, now?” You hear a soft ‘tsss’ come out of him, a tug of a smile against the skin of your neck where he hides. 

“Oh, is that funny?” you joke, still coasting your fingers through his hair. He groans, letting his arms let go of you so he can sit up, you can see the tension in his body still. Steve looks down at you with tear stained cheeks and tired eyes, beckoning you forward with his fingers. You sit up for your thank you kiss, his warm palm cupping your cheek while he holds you gently in place. He kisses once slowly, then twice, three times – holding the last so you know he means it. When you break away he rests his forehead against yours, offering a few shallow breaths. You stand up off the bed while he sits off the edge of it, standing between his thighs. 

"Did I hurt you?" he asks softly. He asks after every episode ever since he did hurt you back when you first started dating. A swift smack to the arm that stung for a solid twenty minutes afterward with the amount of power he put into it. It welted. He cried for hours. He wrote you love letters every day for a week. 

You nod, showing him the scratches and bandages on your arms, "I think you thought I was a vine or something. You threw me. Like, to the ground. It was pretty hard."

His lower lip quivers, "No, no, no." “No, Steve,” you assure, trying to calm him, “It’s okay, you didn’t know. It’s alright, I’m alright. It was an accident.” 

His face contorts while the tears start again, his big hands reach out to your waist, pulling you close to him, "It's not okay, it's not alright."

His voice raises an octave while he cries, "I'm sorry, baby."

"It's okay, Stevie, shh," you whisper to him, he pulls you in tighter, body shaking while pressing his nose against your cheek.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he cries, sniffling, "You know I didn't mean it."

"I know you didn't," you say back, your own cry getting caught in your throat. He sniffles again, leaning back to face you, both of his hands cupping your cheeks, his thumbs rubbing the apples.

"I love you," he says with a depth and intensity that makes the lump in your throat give way. You cry with him and it breaks his heart, "I love you so much honey, you know I’d never…"

You nod, trying to calm your cry the way he was able to calm his -- so used to swallowing it up even though you'd beg him not to.

"I – shit – I have to tell you something," he says softly, hands sliding from your cheeks back down to your waist and then your hips. He looks down at the small triangle of mattress between you and the apex of his thighs.

"What's up, Steve?" you ask, running your hands through his hair again soothingly, "What is it?"

He lifts his head up, eyes shutting at the comforting touch, but when he opens them he looks defeated -- guilty, "I haven't been taking my meds at night. I was -- was flushin’ them cause I just -- baby, I don't know. I can't keep depending on this shit."

"Steve."

"I know," he nods, "I know...That's why -- that's why my shit's getting worse."

"You're not just taking this stuff to take it," you say, cupping his cheeks, "It's to keep you here. It's to keep you with me."

"I know," he repeats, voice cracking again, "I'll call my shrink tomorrow I promise. I'll get back on track. Fuck -- I'm sorry -- and I'm -- I'm sorry I was so mean to you this morning."

"It's okay," you nod, pressing a kiss to his forehead. You drop your hands and rub his shoulder, "I think we should go home, alright? We can get on the couch for the night and just rest."

"Okay," he says quietly, nodding. He slowly gets up off the bed, a little dizzy, using you for support. You both slowly walk out of the bedroom, Nancy peeking around the end of the hall.

"Everything good?" she asks.

You smile at her, "Yeah, I think we're gonna head home."

She smiles tightly, heading into the kitchen where the rest of the group still sits, eating and talking. Their heads turn when you both come into view -- soft eyes and smiles.

"I'm okay, guys," Steve nods, barely able to meet their gazes, "It's fine."

Nancy approaches you with a few tupperwares filled with food and dessert, "We'll get the cooler back to you on Tuesday."

"Don't worry about it," you smile, gathering the tupperware in your arms. You watch as the group gets up one by one to give Steve a hug goodbye. Their movements are slow and controlled, warning touches on his shoulders beforehand to remind him ‘It’s just me, it’s just my arms, I’m hugging you’. Soft mumbled words of support, nothing too loud – don’t startle each other. Wraiths of the friendship they all shared earlier. Rehearsed reactions to all of their sensitive needs – if you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen all of theirs. And you had, once or twice. “I’ll get a copy bound for you,” Erica says while she hugs him. “You make me so proud, Sinclair,” he smiles. Nancy walks you both to the door and you turn, “How’s Ed?” “He’ll call later,” she nods, a look behind her eyes that matches yours. You hug goodbye, share quick reminders about food for the baby shower and a few crafty decoration plans before heading to the car with a very tired Steve. The rain patters on the hood of the Lexus while you both sit in the leather interior, this time with you in the driver's seat. He rubs at his temples with his eyes closed while you rifle through your purse for a sandwich baggie of emergency migraine medicine. “Here,” you say, handing him the pill, “Before it starts to get bad.” “Hmm,” he grumbles in agreement, popping it in his dry mouth to suck it down.  “We’ll be home soon, okay?” you say, hand coming down on his thigh reassuringly, “Just close your eyes for now.” 

He takes the tupperwares when you get out of the car, fishing his keys out of his back pocket while he does. His strides are long while you hurry up behind him, following him into the house only to bump into his back while he’s stopped by the thermostat to turn on the air. “Sorry,” you say softly. “S’okay,” he replies back, barely above a whisper. He puts the food in the fridge while you head upstairs to start a shower, a ritual you’ve both come to learn well after days or nights like these. You take out the good soap, the shower oil, all the aroma therapy you can to get him to ease up. Anyone else watching you get things ready would assume it was about to be a very sexy time for you. On the same coin, these showers are probably the most intimate moments you have with each other. He comes in as the room starts to steam and you help him ease off his polo, you start on the buttons of your dress while he takes off his jeans and socks. He helps with your bra, both of you shedding your underwear at the same time before you step in. Steve soothes almost instantly, his muscles relaxing under the hot stream, sighing further while he gets soaped up. You don’t have to be in there with him, but you do. He needs you so close so he doesn’t float away. His favorite part comes near the end, sitting in the flow of the shower together while you wash his hair. His eyes flutter closed while your nails scratch and massage him – he swears his hair is even thicker than it was before with all the blood flow you encourage. You wash his hair twice, then deep condition, holding him to your chest while you wait the five minutes it takes to settle in. He leaves soft kisses on your collar bone, on all the marks he left on you in Nance and Eddie's kitchen. He holds your hand, so you can’t float away. You both end up on the couch afterward, the leather groaning beneath you both while you lay across the deep seat cushions, you lay on your back, he lays on his side against you. The heat of his bare chest warms you through your oversized sleep shirt. His soft sweat pants tangle up with your bare legs. You let whatever’s on TV play – reruns you guess, you’re thinking about too many other things. “How’s your head, baby?” you ask while his eyes shut, leaning on your shoulder. “S’fine, better,” he says, he lifts your hand and kisses your fingers before placing both his and your hand on your chest over your heart. The ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dum lulling him to sleep. You half watch TV for however long until your own eyelids get heavy. You click off the TV and opt to turn the stereo on low, just so he doesn’t get lost while he sleeps.

You wake up to oldies, music your parents would listen to on records in the living room growing up – songs that came out a few years before you were born. Oldies. It's dark outside but you can still hear the rain. Steve’s already awake, just watching you while his hand smooths back and forth over your sternum. “You snored,” he says. “Good,” you reply quietly. You both snort out breathy laughs, feeling the warmth of his lips as they smoosh against your cheek. “How you feeling?” he asks, hand coming up to rest on your cheek, sliding down the side of your neck. “A little banged up,” you say, “Might bruise.” “M’sorry,” he says again, a tinge of guilty pink tinging his ears. “It’s okay,” you repeat for what feels like the thousandth time in the past six hours. “You looked really pretty today,” Steve says gently, almost sheepish, “I should’ve told you.” “You looked really handsome,” you say back, “But you were kind of being an asshole so I didn’t want to tell you.” “You should’ve told me, it probably would’ve cured my PTSD,” he says seriously but sarcastically, “Could’ve saved the entire afternoon if you just said how good I looked. Prob’ly wouldn’t have had an episode.” “You’re such an ass,” you laugh, smiling. He leans in to kiss you and it’s the kind that makes you too weak to stand. That kiss got him a second date, it proved that they said about old King Steve in highschool. On the stereo, Sherry Baby bleeds into Unchained Melody.

His hand reaches up under your neck to tilt you up toward him, tasting your tongue with his, guiding you with his kiss, “Angel…” he murmurs. He breathes through his nose while he keeps his lips pressed to yours, desperate to stay here in this moment, attached to you. “Steve,” you say softly, breaking away, “Stevie…” “Please,” he whispers, nuzzling your nose slowly, “Please.” “Lemme take care of you.” “I…” your thoughts trail off while he kisses your neck, sucking and nibbling gently at the spot just by the hinge of your jaw. He waits for your soft sigh, the tilt of your hips towards him – your allowance. He grins when he hears the air pass your lips, the realignment of your spine beneath him while he settles between your squishy thighs. His hands travel south, pushing up the hem of your big t-shirt to your waist, holding you there for a moment while his kiss takes over your mouth again. He tugs your cotton panties down, breaking the kiss while he sits up on the couch to slide them off your ankles. Steve looks down at you with an expression that makes your breath catch in your chest, serious – with supple lips, needy eyes. He leads himself back down again, big hands sliding down the sides of your thighs over your hips to your waist again. Instinctively, your legs spring up to wrap around him while his hips align with yours, feeling his strained cock in his sweats against you. “Jesus…” he whispers again, eyes fluttering closed. He buries his face in your neck while you rock slowly against him, the pressure and friction against the underside of his erection sending low volts through his body. “Mm-mm,” he grunts, shaking his head ‘no’ while mumbling, “It’s supposed to be about you.” “Well stop dangling it in front of me then,” you giggle quietly, he giggles too. The smile sends you reeling, his pretty teeth, the way his nose scrunches. He leans forward again to kiss, he just can’t stop kissing, can’t stop tasting your lips, feeling you against him. Steve’s hand reaches down to pull himself out of his sweats, pushing the waistband to the tops of his thighs while he uses the other to push one thigh out off the couch. “You ready f’me?” he asks huskily, tip dragging slowly from the pool of slick at your opening up in between your folds. He lets his thumb run in slow circles over your clit while he waits for your answer, your slow nod while you lean your head back on the arm rest gives him the okay. He eases himself in slow, the tip pushing past your opening with some resistance. “Open up a lil’, honey,” he mumbles quietly while he guides the tip in again, “Open up for me.”

Your little gasps float out of you and into the fuzzy part of his brain, gliding down his spine. You angle your hips upward, one thigh up against the couch cushions and the other dangling over the edge, spread as wide as you can. He holds himself above you with one arm, the other aiding in pushing himself further in, the tip finally breaching your core. He keeps guiding, slow back and forths while you ease open for him – taking him in, inch by inch. “Oh yes, mhm,” he groans to himself softly, “Thass–hmm-that’s it, angel.” He let’s go when he’s three fourths in, crowding over you, forearms on each side of your head while he strokes slowly to start – getting you used to him, accommodating his size. “That’s good?” he breathes. “Ye-yeah,” you breathe back to him. His mouth latches to yours again, feeling him guide your hands up beside your head, lacing fingers while he presses you deeper into the couch cushions. He keeps his strokes slow and deliberate, feeling every ridge of you inside, how you suck him in and hug him tight in place – but how he feels isn’t nearly as important. It’s the way your brows contort, the way you bite your lip, your whines into his mouth while he kisses you. Each slow thrust makes you coat him in a new flow of slickness. “C’mere,” he says into your jawline, letting go of one hand to sneak behind you at the waist, pulling you flush to him. The new angle makes you let out a whine while he hits a spot deep inside you, he grunts at the reaction, the feeling of you taking him in. His pace picks up the smallest tick, face centimeters from yours – your noses brush, lips barely touching while his amber eyes keep steady on yours. You let out short huffs, little whimpers every time the head of his cock pushes deeper with every roll of your hips. “S’nice, hm?” he asks, brows slanting, softening. “Mhm,” you squeak back, “S-so good, honey.” Your legs pull in again, socked heels resting on the top of his butt while he sighs at the change in pressure. “Thassperfect, god,” he hisses out, head dropping down to your chest, pressing sloppy kisses above your breasts while he gathers himself. He groans into your neck while wet warmth tightens over him, soft velvet walls coaxing him closer and closer to the edge. 

Steve’s shoulders flex while he balances on his forearms above you again, your forgotten hand taken by his, fingers interlocked. His face inches from yours while he looks at you, the way your eyes flutter, the soft parting of your lips, the high pitched  ‘Uhn, uhn, uhn, uhn,’s coming out of them — you’re so beautiful.

“So pretty,” he says to you, huffing a breath into a smile, “So pretty, baby.” 

You kiss him a thank you. You see him swallow when he breaks away, his eyes getting glassy. 

“S’gonna be okay,” he assures, nodding down at you, nose to nose, “We’re gonna be okay.” Slow thrusts  between statements. 

“Gonna get married,” he says, a groan flowing right down into your mouth while he kisses you, “Gonna be just like Ed and Nance, right?” 

You nod while his thrusts get more passionate, deeper.

“Yeah? That’s nice?” he asks, “Marry you? Take you just like this after the wedding?” 

“Yeah,” you gasp back, “Yes, Stevie.” 

“Give you a baby?” he asks in a low whisper into your skin, lips pressing against your cheek, his strong nose dragging against your cheek bone, “Give you so many babies. You want that?” 

“I want that,” you nod, face pinching while you feel yourself building up and up in a slow churn. 

“You want that?” he asks again, coming back to hover over you — tears in his eyes, “You want that with me?” 

You nod to each other while he embraces you in an old movie kiss, wrapping himself around you, pressing him to his chest while his thrusts get purposeful, controlled. 

“I love you,” he pants into your ear, “I’m yours, m’all yours.”

“I love you, too,” you rasp back, free’d fingers interlocking in his hair. He gets leverage on his knees, the leather of the couch squeaking under him while he repositions. Soft smacks of skin between you echo in the living room against the backdrop of the low stereo.   “Oh my god, Steve,” you moan out, “You’re – oh god you’re so deep.” “So deep, angel, Christ–” he huffs, trying to make a mental note of this position so he can remember it for October – really make it stick. His thought process stifled when your nails drag down his back, making his passionate thrusts quicken – a signature cocky smirk flick across his lips. “Mmm, that feels good honey?” he asks – he knows the answer. Your mouth hangs open in a silent scream, tears glazing over your eyes while he feels you pulse over him. Thank god the couch was leather. Watching you bathe in the afterglow of your orgasm he works you toward the second with ease, chasing his pleasure with each soaking thrust into you – so nice like this, so pliant – his little ragdoll. When he cums it’s deliberate, spilling inside you with your eyes on each other. You give one another breathless kisses, bodies interlocked, sticking to the couch in new found exhaustion. The phone rings. Neither of you get up to answer it. ‘BEEP. You’ve reached the Harrington residence – Did you forget my last name isn’t Harr– If you’re calling before October 1997 then it’s not just the Harrington residence yet but – whatever you know what I mean. Leave a message, we might call ya back.’

“Hey Harrington it’s Munson, um, just making sure you’re okay, man. Sorry I disappeared for a little bit there. Love you, call me back when you can. Bye.” 

thanks for reading. <3

[thewandererslibrary]

July Features!

Both of these features are highly underread, which is why we're bringing them to your attention in case you missed their posting from the first time!

First up we have "Ramblings of Conditional Tie-Dyed Snow" by Stygian Blue, a wonderful, well, ramble about love and the world we live in.

And second is "The Hawk" by Lightf00t, another story about a different sort of love, a more personal one - also a first time author for the site!!!

Your links for today: https://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/ramblings-of-conditional-tie-dyed-snow https://wanderers-library.wikidot.com/the-hawk

[writeblrcafe]

A Comprehensive Guide for Writing Advice

Sometimes, despite enjoying writing so much, something is not working for you. Maybe your well of ideas has run dry. Or your WIP has hit a corner and you can't find your way out to the end of the story. Or you need to go back to your finished draft and see if there are any kinks to clear up.

Fortunately, everyone at Writeblrcafé has experienced such, and to help you out, we have a bunch of links to helpful posts by fellow writers to help you along on your writing journey as well as some helpful links to other websites, resources and software.

General:

WHY IS WRITING IS SO FUCKING HARD? (@writers-hq)

Writer Block First Aid Kit (@isabellestone)

Websites for writers (masterpost @2soulscollide)

Writing advice (masterpost @theliteraryarchitect)

Writing resources (masterpost @stinastar)

One look thesaurus (a reverse dictionary where you can enter words or concepts)

Coming Up with Ideas:

97 Character Motivations (@theplottery)

Character Flaws (@fantasyfillsmysoul)

Character Profile (@mistblossomdesigns)

Characters Unflawed (@emptymanuscript)

Why Theme is More Important than Plot (@theplottery)

Weekly writing prompts on Reedsy

Drafting:

3 of the worst story beginnings (and how to fix them) (@theplottery)

Cheat Sheet for Writing Emotion (@myhoniahaka)

Creative Writing for Writers (@writerscreed)

Describing Physical Things (@wordsnstuff)

How to Craft a Natural Plot (@theplottery)

How to Write a Story? (masterpost @creativepromptsforwriting)

How to write: ethnicity & skin colour (@youneedsomeprompts)

What the F is Show Not Tell (@theplottery)

Writing advice from my uni teachers (@thewritingumbrellas)

First Draft: story outlining template meant to help with planning your next big writing project (@fauxriot)

The wonder/ discovery arc (@evelynmlewis)

How to structure a chapter (@theplottery)

How to pace your storytelling (@charlesoberonn)

How to write and research mental illness (@hayatheauthor)

Seven Blogs You Need To Read As An Author (@hayatheauthor)

Editing/Revising:

Eight steps in making the editing process of your book easier (@joaneunknown)

Kill Your Darlings (@tibodine)

Self editing tips (first pass) (@projecttreehouse)

Publishing:

Chill Subs: biggest database for literary magazines and small presses; track your submissions and get your writing published!

5 steps to get your novel ready to self-publish (by @nanowrimo)

Resources for finishing and publishing your novel (masterpost by @nanowrimo)

For self-publishing: this page gives you the exact pixel count of a book spine based on its page count, and/or a template you can use for the correct width/height ratio.

Software:

Scrivener: one time payment of $60 or 70€ (macOS/windows), $24 (iOS; no Euro listed for iOS); used by professionals, many tools to write and organize your novel

Bibisco: free and "pay what you want" version; multilingual, world building, character profiles, writing goals, story timeline, mind maps, notes and more templates to write a novel.

Manuskript: free open source-tool; outliner, novel assistant, distraction-free mode

Ghostwriter: a free and open alternative which has a decent interface with some interesting features, like Hemingway Mode, which disables one's backspace and delete keys, emulating a typewriter.

NaNoWriMo: an international contest to encourage writers to finish writing their novel with many events, groups for exchange with fellow writers, helpful writing advice and help for self-publishing and publishing traditionally.

Campfire Writing: website, desktop app, and mobile app, with tools built in to help manage characters, magic systems, research, etc. It has a great free option, plus monthly, annual, and lifetime purchase options. It also has built-in NaNoWriMo compatibility and a catalogue of tutorials and writing advice videos (suggestion by @harfblarf)

Websites And Writing Apps Every Author Needs In 2023 (@hayatheauthor)

Let us know in the comments if there are any links we could add to it! Reblog this post to help a fellow writer.

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[night-market-if]

Support Small Authors

I got hit with a pretty big E.R bill for my daughter (thanks healthcare) and my computer after only a year, is already on the fritz. All of this before the holidays and, surprise surprise, my husband is going to be laid off for a bit right after Christmas. Most of you have already bought my game and stories but reblogs would be wonderful.

Welcome to the Night Market. Book 1 in a series. The Night Market is an interactive fiction novel in which you awaken to a lantern filled world with no memory of how you got there. Desperate to get home, you must find the gate that leads back to your world, while navigating a foreign land, rife with political intrigue, arbitrary rules and secrets designed to keep you distracted. Nine barons rule the market , a place so vast that not even they can truly know its scope. But, one baron holds the key to your safe return home. Yet, no one has seen or heard from them in over a decade.

Book 1 Steam

Book 1 Itch.io

The companion piece to the Night Market with dozens of stories and works of art, all relating to book 1. Find out what each of the RO's was thinking and doing when MC was not around and dive further into the world of the Night Market itself.

Buy on itch.io

Welcome to a Night Market Kristus story. My holiday story for this year. A fully interactive story featuring MC, the RO's, and some new characters that have been introduced in the WIP of book 2. Enjoy this fun romp through a holiday horror show and have a few soft moments with your chosen romance.

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Join my Patreon. Here you will receive monthly lore posts. Short stories each month. Decision making on polls. The occasional development blog. And early access to any of the chapters that are coming out for book 2. Join a high enough tier and I will even write a short story or a lore post for you.

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[honkytonk-hangman]

Flight Risk

Jake 'Hangman' Seresin x Reader

Summary: The sky beyond the baking tarmac is cloudless, and washed with deep reds and oranges, the way it always is by the time Jake lands when the monthly inter-squad training simulation has drawn to a close. Almost always.

Today, the sky had been a bright Carolina blue.

Today, Hangman had been shot down.

Warnings: cussing? jake being soppy. mentions of handsy dates, sexual referencessss

Notes: so this started as an AU for my fic Afterburn, and still technically is, however it can be read totally independently of that story as well.

Jake is perched in a casual lean against his plane, watching as the last jet in the pattern finally lands, continuing to wait patiently as the Super Hornet is guided to its designated area, just a few places down from his own. The sky beyond the baking tarmac is cloudless, and washed with deep reds and oranges, the way it always is by the time Jake lands when the monthly inter-squad training simulation has drawn to a close. Almost always.

Today, the sky had been a bright Carolina blue.

Today, Hangman had been shot down.

Jake takes a small amount of comfort in knowing that the pilot responsible for his simulated demise is also the pilot to win the day, despite that meaning his own squad losing out on the point. It wouldn’t happen again, however. He’d foolishly underestimated you, disregarded the gossip he’d overheard about Samurai squad’s newest member, choosing instead to judge for himself. Jake was a prideful son of a bitch at the best of times, and much worse at most others, but he wasn’t actually incapable of shutting the hell up and accepting his slice of humble pie.

At least, he’d accept it in his own special way, which is exactly why he waits long after the others have filtered off to the locker rooms. They’re already clocked off for the day by the time the ground crew have secured the last jet, and the pilot has climbed down. Jake shifts on his feet and gets a good look as you approach, purposefully giving you a suggestive up and down as you spot him and slow your walk.

“That was some flyin’,” he says, pushing off the side of his own jet and coming to stand before you. You blink at him, but raise an eyebrow as you manoeuvre your helmet to rest against your hip.

“I’m sorry, do we know each other?” you ask, eyes sparkling in amusement. Jake grabs at his chest, like you’ve shot him down again, and winces.

“Aw, c’mon, Kodiak” he starts, before fixing you with a piercing stare. “I don’t give out compliments that often, give it to me easy.”

“Only thing I’ll give you is my afterburner.”

Jake can’t help himself, he grins wide. He knows he should keep up the banter, you were clearly well equipped to spar with him, didn’t seem to take anything too personally so far, but all he can think as he stares at the first pilot to ever shoot him down, sweat slicking your flyaway hairs to your forehead, the sunsetting below the tarmac behind you, your cheeks a little ruddy from your time in the air, is that he’s going to marry you.

Luckily, Jake has the good sense to keep this to himself for now.

He steps forward slightly, and holds out his hand, watching as you eye it suspiciously for a moment.

“I’m Hangman,” he tells you as you relent and shake his hand.

“I know who you are, that's why I went for you first.” you reply with surprisingly little smugness in your voice, just plain truth. Jake lifts an eyebrow at you.

“Using me to raise your profile I see,” he teases. You don’t seem to notice that you’re still shaking his hand, and Jake feels slightly thankful, because he’s memorising the way it feels. You scoff at him.

“And what would you have done?” you challenge. Jake just looks your features over, and decides an evening ceremony will be perfect.

You realise then that you’re still shaking his hand, and you hurriedly pull away, moving to hold your helmet in both hands as if to stop yourself from reaching out again.

“I need to go do my post-flight checks,” you say quickly, sidestepping Jake and moving off toward the hanagar, and probably the showers. Jake turns and watches you go, his smile never faltering.

“Kodiak!” he calls out, waiting for you to stop and turn back to him before going on. “I enjoyed flying with you.” Jake tells you honestly, but musters his most serious expression so that you’ll know that too. He watches your brows furrow suspiciously for a moment, almost like you’re expecting him to laugh like it’s just a prank, but after a couple more seconds, your frown smooths into something more curious, before your face at last completely softens and you give him a small, but genuine smile.

“I enjoyed shooting you down,” you reply, your voice sincere, but your words catching him off guard and making Jake let out a surprised bark of laughter. 

Your smile widens just a little in the corners, like perhaps you had liked making him laugh, but soon enough you’re shifting your helmet in your hands again, and giving him a parting nod before once again you turn your back and walk away.

Jake stands still in place and watches as you shrink before at last disappearing entirely into the hangar. Once sure he’s alone, he places his hands on his hips and lets out a long, low whistle. He feels his heartbeat thump away rapidly in his chest, his adrenaline still spiking from just the thrill of speaking to you properly and in person for the first time, after being forced only to listen to your voice all afternoon on the radios.

It was a very nice voice, he thinks, both in person and on the radios, and it suits your very nice face very nicely. With a last whistle of approval, Jake begins making his own way inside, and even though he’d promised himself earlier that never again would he let you shoot him down, now he can’t help but think anything that brought you enjoyment was worth repeating.

Replaying your conversation over and over as he finally showers, changes, and heads home for the night, the first thing Jake does upon arriving in his apartment is reach for the pad and pen he keeps on the kitchen counter. He scribbles down the date, and writes out the highlights from your conversation as best as he remembers them. Peeling it off the pad, he folds it neatly, before placing it carefully inside the leather bound folder that held such items as his passport and birth certificate, before replacing it again in its hiding spot.

He wouldn’t need the contents of the note for a little while, he thinks, but when it came time to write the speech he’d give at your wedding, Jake wanted to know exactly where he could find it.

“Well, that was pathetic,” Javy nudges Jake in the ribs, and nods in your direction across the bar. Jake, who until now has been trying hard not to look your way, is finally given the perfect reason to do so, and swings his eyes over to you.

You’re sitting near the bar in your civvies, with a man who Jake can’t help but notice is not himself, and who is currently being awfully handsy for his liking. You don’t look completely comfortable either, but he also knows you have no trouble telling men to calm down when you aren’t feeling their advances. Neither reason adds up to exactly why Jake almost immediately chooses to abandon Javy by the pool table.

Part way across the bar, Jake realises that it’s not even a rescue attempt he’s trying for, clearly you were fine, no, this reaction from him is entirely new, spurred on by a good many things, but right now, by the abysmal looking date you were enduring. He slows his pace, and begins to move at a more natural gait, his lack of rush having no active affect on the crowds around him either way. Jake was both tall enough and wide enough that people tend to part for him as he walks regardless of asking.

He feels his chest puff out a little when you notice him coming before he even reaches you, and how even though he positions himself at the bar behind you, you seem to subconsciously turn a little to be able to look over at him anyway. Jake grins to himself when your ‘date’ seems to flounder at your seemingly captured attention, and quickly asks if you’d like another of the little cocktails you’d picked that night.  Jake can’t help but scoff internally. He’d asked you once why you drank beer with the squad, but only ordered fruit drinks when you had a date, to which you’d replied that you thought it appeared more feminine. Jake scoffs again, this time out loud.

“You’ll let this guy take you out, but not me? You don’t even like that, you’re not even drinking it!” he says quietly enough so that only you are able to hear the clipped annoyance in his words. You cock your head at him, and raise your straw to your lips either spitefully or indignantly.

“Still sour about that Jakey?” you tease. Despite the subject matter, and his frustration that these men you went out with seemingly had something Jake did not, he can’t help but feel pride pump through his veins upon seeing the way your face, especially your eyes, have lit up for the first time all night, something which he thinks should be a bare minimum when. If a man couldn’t engage you, then he just wasn’t good enough for you, was he?

Jake shrugs noncommittally in response to your question, both of you knowing full well the answer to that. Instead, he looks away from you briefly as the bartender approaches, but feels your gaze burning the side of his cheek.

“Two beers please,” he says, paying and waiting patiently for the drinks to be deposited on the bar before he looks back at you again. He nudges one in your direction, pretending as though he doesn’t care if you accept it or not, by taking a sip of his own. His faux-apathy is completely blown by the way he doesn’t take his eyes off of you, even as he drinks, waiting to see whether or not you’ll take the beer. You watch him with the barest amount of disapproval that you can muster, before almost shyly collecting up the chilled glass bottle in your hands.

“Are you forgetting something, perhaps? Oh, it’s super important, the name is on the tip of my tongue! What're they called again…?” you purse your lips and frown deeply, making an almost sincere show of recalling the information you’re after.

Jake waits as you seem to get it at last, snapping your finger and pointing it at him. “Fraternisation laws!” you exclaim overly enthusiastic for the topic at hand, contrasting with the way you stare flatly at him. Jake brushes your finger aside as he turns inward to face you fully, and cocks his head curiously down at you.

“You know I’ve already got my half of the paperwork filled out Teddy Bear, I’m just waitin’ on you.” Jake leans in toward you as he speaks, moving in near enough that one might call it risque, but he prefers intimate. For your part, you seem to be trying hard to suppress a smile, which you don’t succeed at, however you still shake your head at him anyway, and pull back, which makes Jake immediately step out of your space a little, returning to an appropriate distance for two officers.

“I bet you say that to all the pilots.” you say quietly, almost to yourself. The line is a worn cliche, he almost writes it off, except that your tone is entirely new, and entirely too put-out for your usual wave offs.

“Only the ones that keep shooting me down,” he replies after a beat watching you, not really certain how else he should reply to this development in your now storied routine of rejecting his interest, even though he knows that you like him very much. Fraternisation had been the last reason, though, nobody really took that seriously enough to not even bother navigating its murky depths of paperwork, but before that you’d listed not being hungry enough for dinner and having to video call with your model-building partner, neither serious excuses, right?

At this point Jake isn’t what one might say is desperate, but is what one might call unwilling to watch you sit through another completely inadequate date, with men who seemed to always be on the worst side of interested in you. That meant they fell somewhere firmly between sleazy and handsy, neither category of which was amongst Jake’s personal favourite reasons for liking you so much, which in no particular order included your excellence as an aviator, your sharp sense of humour, and your unbridled ambition.

Up until now, though, you’ve never once turned him away with something that sounded so much like it might be true. You’ve also never once stared up at him the way you are now, your expression significant, but unreadable to him.

Then, after thinking perhaps he had gotten somewhere real with you tonight, Jake feels a familiar twinge of disappointment as you turn back to your date, moving in closer to talk quietly with the man.

Jake looks down at his beer and lets out a sigh, ready to leave you to your fun, and return to his prior activity of pretending not to watch you from afar. When the man accompanying you noisily  steps back from the bar, the movement catches Jake’s eye, and he turns to see as the man looks briefly between you, before his eyes swing to Jake.

Jake hasn’t even caught on properly yet when your apparent former date turns on his heel and stalks darkly into the crowd, before at last disappearing entirely. Now free of your upsettingly poor choice of date, you swing your chair back around to face him, knees knocking into him with enough force to jolt Jake back to reality, where he discovers things to have played out almost exactly as he’d thought he’d been imagining them.

“Alright Seresin, you’ve got one shot at this,” you tell him, sounding like you don’t really mean it at all. Even so, Jake straightens and fixes you with his best self-assured smirk, but only because he knows you like it when he does.

“One shot is all I need,” he says proudly, before a few seconds pass and he finds himself blinking at the unintentional disclaimer he’s just given. “I mean, I’ll gladly take as many shots as you want, but–”

“Jesus, Jake! Anyone would think you haven't been laid in months!” you cut him off with a bark of laughter, your features in almost complete disbelief at such a thing. Jake pauses, hesitating with how he should respond, but eventually relaxes once more, and leans down on the bar again to fix you with his stare.

“Two months,” he informs you simply. You actually snort this time, which he finds utterly adorable, and you continue to chortle at his apparent joke, until you seem to realise he isn’t joining you. Your face falls then, and you blink at him in surprise, a flash of guilt mixing in with it, before you quickly attempt to play off your astonishment.

“Like, Seriously?” You ask, staring at him. Jake just nods, giving a short shrug, but doesn’t break your eye contact. After several more seconds pass, heavy with your bewilderment, you settle in your spot beside him one more, and let out a small huff. “Saving yourself for somebody special, then?” your eyebrows lift up as you ask, voice lilting with humour, but you don’t fully smile yet, like you’re afraid of still possibly offending him. Jake simply shrugs again, but rolls his eyes lightly. 

He’s well aware of his reputation before you, as is almost all on base who know him, or those who frequent the Navy bars scattered nearby. He thinks maybe he should have gone about distributing the updated information on him, however, because as far as Jake is concerned, he had been off the market for quite some time.

Unofficially, anyway.

“Oh, she’s very special, darlin’. Someone worth saving myself for. I think you’d like her a lot,” Jake does his best not to sound too goofy about it, but he swings almost too far the opposite way, and finds himself hoping to god that the purring quality to his voice as he speaks isn’t too much.

You stare at Jake for several seconds processing his line briefly, before at last scoffing and rolling your eyes as you turn slightly away from him to take a sip of your drink. Despite this reaction likely wounding a lesser man, Jake knows his words have resonated at least a little, because both your scoff or your eye roll half-hearted at best, both also completely undermined by the not-so-tiny smile you clearly can’t repress properly, even if you try to hide it by taking another sip.

“Answer me this, Seresin;” you start when a few minutes have passed, Jake having also taken to sipping his beer, choosing to let the subject settle between you for a bit. “I know about you, and I’m not like, slut-shaming you or anything, but how do I know all of this isn’t just the usual bullshit you parcel out? How do I know I’m not just another in a long line of others?” you ask, your voice surprisingly light for the frankness and seriousness of your words. Jake blinks at you, his brow furrowing this time, and notes the way your gaze flickers to the crease between his brows for half a second.

He places his beer down and blows out a puff of air. He doesn’t answer you right away, can’t really, because on some level he realises telling you that he’s been planning your lives together since the day you’d met won’t go down super well, but he also doesn’t want to misrepresent the level of his feelings toward you.

“Well, you don’t. I mean, you are,” he speaks carefully, already expecting the frown that appears on your face almost immediately, and quickly goes on. “But you’re the last in that line. I can promise you that.” Jake’s voice becomes involuntarily quieter as he finishes speaking, and he hates the uncertain sound the softness gives his words, but knows saying them again will only cheapen them.

You stare at one another for several heart-thumping seconds, and Jake wonders if the rest of the bar has all but disappeared for you too, or if you were still well aware of everything going on around you. For all Jake knew, the bar didn’t even exist right now. And then you move, your eyes bouncing up to blink at him slowly like a cat, before they drop to your feet in an embarrassed sort of way Jake can truthfully say he’d never have imagined of you.

“I asked Javy a few weeks ago if you were sick, or something,” you say, looking back up at him with a laugh in your voice now. “I saw you turn down, like, six different women that night, and I don’t know, I was genuinely concerned for your health.” You tell him, making a small smile pull at the corners of Jake’s lips that you’d been worried about him at all, had watched him long enough to see him turn others away.

“You know what he said? He just rolled his eyes at me and said that, no, actually, you weren’t fine at all, that you were in love with me, and if he’s honest, it wasn’t cute anymore, and had become totally insufferable,” You laugh properly this time as you relay the information, and Jake can’t help but chuckle too.

“And so you thought you’d let me stew for a few more weeks? Have I not been a good boy enough already?” Jake asks with an amused twinkle in his eyes. He knew he was getting to the end of his rope tonight, but in reality, it never mattered to him how many weeks or months you made him wait, any amount of time would have been worth it. You shrug and dip your eyes away from him to dance around the room.

“Not exactly. I mean, I didn’t totally believe Javy, but I figured there might’ve been some truth there. I mean what is this, like, the… fifth time in two months you’ve asked me out?” You question, half to yourself as you do some maths.

“Fifth times the charm,” Jake replies seriously, having no other memory anymore of how the quote is supposed to go and not entirely realising he’s said it wrong at all. You snicker at this glimpse at just how far gone he is, but he doesn’t mind.

“I’m sorry I didn’t give you a real chance before now,” you say quietly, before pulling a conciliatory expression. “But to be fair, if you were any other guy, I’d be totally right about you… I still could be,” you sound as though you’re trying to convince yourself, and trial off after biting your lower lip in a distracted sort of way. Jake nods, understanding your hesitation. You weren’t to know that he cared about you more than anyone he’d met before, more than anyone ever could, but he’s also aware that there was no point to talking the big talk when it came to things like this.

“Well now, excuse me Darlin’! I didn’t work so damned hard on my exceptionally slutty past for you to just sweep it all aside for me! It’s just plain disrespectful,” Jake blusters, playing up his accent as much as he can, but still only coming out sounding half indignant. You blink in surprise at his disapproval, and quickly try to hide the sound of your snort as it escapes through another laugh, clearly taken aback and not expecting this angle from him.

“So this is what's gonna happen instead; you’re gonna make me work just as hard for this, for you, and once you’ve made yourself an honest man outta me, then we can talk about being right or wrong,” Jake states matter-of-factly, like he isn’t simultaneously pleading you for more than this, and begging you to stand your ground at the same time.

Jake’s most frequent and recurring nightmare these past months had been the idea of getting you, then losing you. He isn’t lying about working hard to have his reputation, Jake didn’t do commitment, he didn’t do more than one night, and if he did, it was never because he wanted more. He knows relationships and intimacy are the furthest thing from his forte by choice, so if he was going to get the chance to be with you, he wanted to do it properly, to do it right.

Your laughter turns softer, pulling him from his reverie. He finds you watching him, considering his words as he’d trailed off somewhere in his head while waiting for your response. There's a small twinkle in your eyes that tells him you had no plans to take it easy on him ever, but as if you know he won’t be abated by that alone, you lean in toward him, resting your chin in your palm while blinking up at him coquettishly.

“Well, you’re already on the right track, with this whole ‘saving yourself’ business. I appreciate that, off the bat,” you say, and Jake is kind of relieved, because while it wasn’t necessarily something he had to do, you weren’t an item and had turned him down four times so feelings or no, Jake wouldn’t have been in the wrong if he’d slipped up once or twice, but he’s glad that you acknowledge your approval, at least because now he knows now and feels a gust of pride inflate his chest.

“To be clear, though, I would make you work for it regardless of your past. I know what I’m worth, what I bring to a relationship, and what I want out of one, and I know those things too well just to forget them. Not for anyone.”

Jake nods vehemently, once again in complete agreement.

“Good. That’s real good, sweetheart. I don’t,” he tells you honestly, now feeling a sense of distinctly unearned pride that you were already so intune and aware of your value. He knows that for most people, including himself, that those things are only learned once they’re older. 

Your face flashes with surprise, startled by his admission of what was probably at least some basic emotional intelligence. “I’ve never wanted to know it, it wasn’t important before…” Jake trails off, and feels a sense of hesitation and regret start to poison his tongue. Was that too much? Too callous? You were aware of his colourful sexual past, but plenty of people had those. Jake had been calculated in his endeavours, and he’s suddenly ashamed, and not sure if he wants you to know that.

For a few beats you look at one another, Jake trying his best not to break eye contact, somehow hoping it will tell you all you need to know about his intentions, but after a moment, it’s you who looks away, shifting back into your position resting both arms atop the bar, where you begin fiddling with your drinks coaster.

“You know, you don’t have to be quite that honest, you can try to like, impress me still,” you say after a couple more seconds pass, and Jake lets out a shaky, anxious breath when a sideways, wry smile accompanies your words.

“Rather you be impressed by the truth than anything else,” he responds, mimicking your lean, your arms pressed against one another now, and Jake could be mistaken, but he’s almost certain that you lean some of your weight into him.

“‘M just sayin’ you don’t have to, like, abase yourself just for me to think you’re dealing fair. I already know you’re not exactly a two rodeo pony, but if you’re trying to be, that’s all I ask.” you look up at him and catch his gaze. Jake thinks over what you’ve said, not fully being able to believe it, but he wonders now if this will be just as much about proving his worthiness to himself, just as much as it was to you.

As if  he has little screens in his eyes that relay his every thought like a teleprompter, your expression softens once again, and this time Jake is sure that you’re leaning into his side, your weight falling solidly, but comfortably onto him.

“C’mon Hangman, you’re the best, aren’t you?” you tease, even nudging him playfully. “Who says you aren’t the best at this too?” you go on to ask, raising your eyebrows challengingly. Jake feels both a thrill at the slight taunt to your voice, as well as a deep affection and reverence that you know exactly how to play him already.

He picks up what you’re putting down, and lifts his chin to look down at you, one eyebrow of his own lifting in an almost condescending manner.

“Certainly not you, that's for damn sure, sweetheart.” Jake damn-near gloats, chest puffing out and pride swelling up again substantially at the way you seem to enjoy this display.

“Well then, I can’t wait to find out!” You say, knocking into his side once more with your elbow. Jake’s smile flickers more genuine, and after a moment of brief thought, he uncrosses his arms on the bar and slings his arm casually around your shoulder. You move into him almost like you’ve been waiting for him to do this, like for the past few weeks you’ve been thinking about it and what you might do if he did.

You grin up at him and Jake smiles back, lowering his face down to yours so that when he speaks again, you’re the only one in the room who can hear him

“Just promise me one thing,” Jake asks, serious as ever now. Your features crease a little, but you nod.

“Sure, what is it?”

“Never stop shooting me down. It’s kinda sexy.”

You let out a shocked, joyful laugh, even as your eyes gain a mean little sheen to them, the contrast between your sweet chortle, and the evil look on your face only making his own grin widen. Jake makes a note to bring this up in his wedding speech.

[yamigooops]

good luck charm

synopsis: when you decide to get a little cheeky and put on a cute cowboy’s hat you get a lot more than you bargained for

warnings: strangers to lovers, slight size kink, overstimulation, multiple orgasms, unprotected sex, Katsuki’s a playful bastard (if there are any I’m missing let me know lmao)

length: 9.7k

inspired by an ask submitted to @kingkatsuki by @thecowboykatsuki-anon and featuring art based on the same idea by @jozstanko-art​ we’re all just whipped by this fucker and want to put his hat on and have him fuck us silly

Rodeos weren’t particularly your thing, considering you had grown up in the suburbs your entire life. College had introduced you to people who had grown up with lifestyles contrary to your own, including your best friend Mina, who had grown up in a small rural town. Where she had grown up everyone knew each other, and things like farms and town fairs and rodeos were commonplace among the population.

So, when she invited you to one of said rodeos after your junior year had ended you were intrigued enough to oblige. She had told you about them for the past three years, and you were somewhat curious after all the hype she had placed on them. So about two weeks after the semester ended you found yourself in her hometown. It was a small town, with a main street that consisted of about three blocks of bars and independent shops that provided everything from boutiques to ice cream parlors.

As the day approached dusk on your summer vacation you found yourself at the main fairgrounds for the (apparently monthly) rodeo and trying not to entirely mentally check out. You genuinely had no idea what was going on, despite the fact that Mina had spent the hour and a half drive from your university apartment to her childhood home explaining everything that happened at a rodeo. All you could grasp was that there were three events and which ones her friends competed in. One competed in two, while another competed in the other.

The third friend competed in all three events and was recognized area-wide as exemplary in all of them, and by the way Mina described this man he was incredibly attractive. So, you spent your free time on the drive imagining how this man looked. You only knew he had blonde, spiky hair, red eyes, and a near permanent scowl. However, considering he participated in all three of these events you had to assume he was in peak physical condition. Something about Mina’s description of him made your stomach flutter.

As she pulled into the parking lot of the arena you realized just how popular this event was. It seemed as though every person in town was here, and the parking had spilled over from the actual lot onto the field surrounding it. Once you had parked in the closest possible spot, you and Mina made your way over to the competitors’ area.

Since she knew so many of the participants the two of you were permitted past the gate reading “Competitors and staff only.” She led you through a light crowd of men and women, many of whom were decked out in full cowboy regalia. There was also the occasional horse, bull, or steer being led to their pens to await their turn on the arena floor.

Coming to a pair of young men, Mina bounced on the balls of her feet and tapped a red-haired man on the shoulder. He turned around questioningly before lighting up at the sight of your best friend.

“Well look who finally made it,” boomed the man. He towered over you, absolutely built but attractive in a big puppy kind of way. His smile was infectious, and as he pulled Mina into a bear hug, you found yourself smiling as well.

“Eiji, I missed you so much!” Mina practically jumped onto her friend, her arms clinging around his neck. So, this must have been Kirishima. Now that you heard his name you could recall several stories Mina had shared with you about the red-haired giant. She had also shared with you, in confidence of course, that she’d had the biggest crush on him since middle school, but never worked up the courage to ask him out.

“Missed you too,” he murmured, his face buried in her neck. If you didn’t know any better, it would have looked like the two were already dating. The thought had you chuckling, as it was quite obvious that Kirishima felt the same way about Mina. You supposed it was probably easier to see as an outsider.

“God, get a room, will ya?” came a gruff voice from behind the pair. You shifted your attention from the closeted lovers before you to the man standing just behind them. Sure enough, based on Mina’s description of him, you assumed it was Bakugou Katsuki. Only he was so much more attractive than you had expected. His garnet eyes were piercing as they moved from Kirishima and Mina over to rest on you, and you found yourself blushing and looking away under his intense gaze. “And who are you?”

“Oh, guys this is my best friend and roommate Y/N,” Mina supplied, releasing Kirishima from the chokehold she had him in and moving back to your side to prompt you forward. “She finally agreed to come see you guys compete!”

“Wow, that’s awesome. Thank you so much, and it’s nice to meet ya,” grinned Kirishima as he held out his hand to shake yours. He was the picture of gentlemanly perfection, and you found yourself instantly drawn toward him.

“Absolutely, I figured I should come see what all the hype is after this one talked it up so much for three years,” you chuckled and gestured toward your pink-haired friend. “She talks about you guys all the time.”

“Better be good things,” grumbled Bakugou, crossing his arms over his chest. The action had his black, green and red plaid shirt pulling tight over his biceps and chest, drawing your attention to the rest of his physique. His thighs were massive, though you supposed that was from years of training to ride bucking animals. His leather chaps had imagery of explosions down the sides, and flared out at the ends along with his dark jeans to accommodate his leather cowboy boots. Atop his head sat a well-loved black cowboy hat, beneath which his spikes of ash blonde hair peeked.

“Oh, only the best. I hear that you guys are some of the best riders around,” you nodded. His slight scowl didn’t budge, and in that moment, you decided you’d make it your goal to get him to smile by the end of the night.

“Aww, thank you Mina,” Kirishima crooned, throwing his arm around the smaller girl.

“Of course, I’d say good things, ya doofus. You guys are my best friends.” Mina’s cheeks were darkening from the proximity to the “love of her life,” as she had put it so many times. 

You chuckled, watching as the childhood friends caught up with one another. There were two more that joined, named Sero and Denki, and as the conversation continued and the crowd shifted, you found yourself shoulder-to-shoulder with Bakugou after a while. You chimed in every once in a while, but mainly let Mina catch up with her friends. Bakugou seemed to have a similar approach to the conversation, watching as Mina and Kirishima cluelessly flirted and teased one another. 

“Are they always this oblivious?” You kept your words quiet as you directed them toward the blonde beside you.

“Those two have been doing this shit for years,” he sighed. “We keep tryin’ to get em together, tell them that they’re into each other, but they’re about as dense as two blocks of concrete.”

You snorted, “Must be exhausting having to watch that for so many years.”

“You ain’t got a clue.” He let out a puff of air through his nose, and when you peeked up at him through your lashes, you realized it was a chuckle. There was a shadow of a smile on his lips, and you felt your chest glow with pride at having gotten even that out of the stoic man.

“You should smile more,” you said teasingly, bumping your shoulder against his, though it was admittedly more against his bicep than anything.

“That a command, little missy?” He turned those burning eyes on you once again, and you felt something tighten deep within you. Feeling a surge of confidence roll through you as you captured his attention, you reached up and plucked his hat off his head before plopping it down on your own. It was warm and smelled like his shampoo, something deep and spicy. His lips slowly slid into a sly grin as you tilted your head back slightly more than before to be able to see him under the brim of it.

“I think it suits you,” you shrugged, grinning playfully up at him. “Makes you look a little less bullish.”

As you held his gaze for a few more moments, you slowly registered that the conversation around you had quieted. Breaking away from the intensifying exchange, you found the rest of the group skeptically watching your exchange.

“What is it?” You asked Mina worriedly, hoping you hadn’t done anything wrong.

“N-Nothing, it’s just that Kats is kinda protective of that hat,” Kirishima supplied after a moment of hesitant silence from Mina. “Doesn’t usually let people wear it. Says it’s lucky or somethin’.”

So, you had messed up.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry! Here you-” You scrambled to take off the hat and hand it back to the man beside you. However, before you could put it back on his head, he grabbed your wrist and held it, drawing your slightly panicked attention.

“No worries,” he drawled, that sly smile still gracing his lips. “You should wear it during my ride. Wouldn’t want to get it dirty, right?”

“Kats, man,” Kirishima started, a cautious tone to his voice.

“I couldn’t, not if it’s lucky… I thought this competition decided if you went to that big championship or whatever,” your voice trailed off as he eased the hat from your fingers, holding it by the top as he slowly placed it back on your head.

“Then you be my good luck charm, ‘kay?” His hand still gripped your wrist, his skin hot and calloused but his hold gentle and strangely… loving?

“Dude, he never even lets us touch that thing, much less wear it,” whispered Denki to Sero off to the side. That tightening in your core grew as you could only nod.

“O-Okay,” you breathed, knowing you probably looked like a deer in headlights right in that moment. He let the hat go with a gentle shake to your head before releasing your wrist as well.

A tense moment of silence passed before a booming voice cut through and announced that the events would be starting soon and that competitors should head to their places. Blinking a few times to try and focus on anything but the blonde cowboy before you, Mina took your hand and told the others to do their best and approximately where the two of you would be sitting. You dazedly wished them all luck before following closely behind Mina to your seats

As the events began, you couldn’t get that moment out of your head. It didn’t help that the outcome of it was literally sitting on top of it the entire time in the form of a black cowboy hat, but when Katsuki came on for the first event you knew you were doomed. He was spectacular. The horse bucked and jumped beneath him, trying its best to eject him from his seat on its bare back. But he held strong, one hand tethering him to the animal while the other waved through the air as he moved back and forth atop the animal.

He lasted the necessary 8 seconds, along with 3 more before the animal was finally subdued by both the team of handlers and Katsuki himself. As he took in the raging crowd, waving out at the people chanting his name and cheering him on, he eventually found you, probably thanks to his hat perched proudly atop your head. You stood there cheering for him, but the heat and weight of his gaze was palpable even though you were across the arena from him.

As the next contestant moved into place, you turned to Mina with a sigh. “Alright, what gives? What’s the deal with the hat?”

Mina glanced at you hesitantly, as if she didn’t want to scare you. “Uh, it’s just a thing we say around here that you probably never knew about. It’s nothing, don’t even worry about it.”

“Well, it’s too late for that,” you groaned over the crowd. “You guys all looked at me like I made some fatal mistake when I put the hat on. Then he put it back on and everyone got all weird. So, what does it mean?”

Mina threw her head back and sighed dramatically, “Fine,” she relented. “There’s a saying that if you put the hat on you get the cowboy. That’s why we all got weird. But you obviously didn’t know about that so you don’t have to worry. Bakugou is respectful, he was probably just taken off guard, that’s all.” Mina grabbed your hand, recapturing your attention which had strayed off as you realized what you’d done. “Seriously, Y/N. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I’ll beat him up myself if he tries anything, got it? Kiri will too.”

You nodded hollowly, trying to comprehend what was happening. You get the cowboy too? Does that mean romantically? Sexually?? Sure, Katsuki was attractive as hell, and you’d been flirting when you put his hat on in the first place anyway. But would he even be interested in you that way? And besides, you’d only just met!

But as the competitions continued, the possibility of getting with Katsuki grew more and more appealing. As you watched him in the steer wrestling event you were made aware of how powerful and fast he was. As he took down the animal in just over 3 seconds, you found yourself squirming in your seat.

Then, later, during the bull riding, he impressed you even further as he held onto the enraged creature. You held your breath the entire time, hoping against hope that nothing bad would happen to him, and couldn’t hold back your sigh of relief as he made it through the event almost completely unscathed. He had only fallen on the ground after the time limit had elapsed, and for a split second you feared the animal would try to trample him. But the team of handlers quickly calmed the bull, and Bakugou made his way over to it to pat it on the head with the brightest grin on his face before they returned to the pen it came from.

It turned out he had done incredibly well in all three events, and would be moving on to the state competition taking place in two weeks’ time along with Kirishima. As you and Mina made your way back down to meet up with them after the events had concluded, you chuckled as your friend made a beeline toward the red-haired giant. This time she really did jump into his arms, congratulating him profusely as he thanked her over and over.

As those two were distracted by one another, Bakugou slowly made his way over to you. That tightness returned to your stomach, and you plastered a weak smile on your face as he stopped before you. Unable to meet his eyes, you looked down at your feet as you congratulated him.

“You were amazing out there.” You tried to raise your voice enough to be heard above the surrounding din. “Congratulations on moving on.”

Two fingers slipped beneath the brim of his hat and tugged it upward, removing the shield between the two of you as he eased it off your head. “What was that? Couldn’t quite hear ya under there.”

You met his gaze as you felt your face heat up. “I said congratulations on moving to the next round,” you huffed. He had probably heard you, but wanted to fluster you.

“Guess you really were a good luck charm, huh?”

“I know what the hat thing means,” you rolled your eyes. “Besides, it had nothing to do with luck. You obviously know what you’re doing out there.”

He let out a bark of a laugh, reaching up to place his hat back on his head. “I beg to differ,” he grinned. “Seein’ you out there in the crowd, wearing this thing, that had everything to do with why I did so well.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. You’d only met this man a few hours ago, but your attraction toward him was already so strong. Was it his looks? His personality? That damned superiority complex? Or was it something else?

“And if you’re so in the know about what wearin’ my hat means, what are you gonna do about it?” He was closer now, his voice lower and the intensity of his gaze heavier. You could feel his breath on your now-exposed face, and had to fight the urge to look away as he tilted his head slightly to the left.

“Not sure yet,” you shrugged, trying with every fiber of your being to stay calm, to sound nonchalant. Inside, however, that desire for him was burning hotter than ever, that tightness in your core growing toward an unbearable pressure. “What should I do?”

He smiled again at that. “You should let me treat ya to a drink and let me get to know ya better.” His proposal was so smooth it had you floundering for purchase as he reached up to tweak your chin between his thumb and the side of his forefinger.

This is really happening, you said to yourself. This god of a man was really asking you out for a drink, and you would be an idiot to decline, especially with that pool of need growing in your stomach.

“Sounds like a plan, cowboy,” you shrugged before reaching up. “I get to wear this though,” you smirked and lifted the hat from his head once more.

“By all means, be my guest.” He seemed to want to devour you as you placed the item on your head again, and that made your inner goddess preen with delight.

“Hey, Mina,” you called, looking over to your friend where she stood chatting with Kirishima. She looked over toward you before an expression of surprise crossed her features at the sight of you and Bakugou. “We’re going out for a drink, that okay?”

She slowly developed a wicked grin as she realized what was happening before she nodded. “Absolutely, have so much fun.”

“Thanks, I will,” you nodded. Bakugou slid his hand into yours and started leading you out of the venue, but not before Kirishima called out after you.

“For the love of god, use protection!”

Your face exploded into flames at his shouted words, as they brought numerous people's attention toward you. It didn’t help that everyone seemed to know that the hat you wore belonged to the man beside you. So, in an attempt to escape their prying eyes, you turned down your head and tried to hide behind the brim of his hat.

“Hey, don’t do that,” Bakugou chided as you neared the exit. “I want ‘em to see how pretty you look in my hat.”

“You’re not helping,” you hissed, wishing people would stop whispering about how they’d never seen you around and how surprised they were to see someone wearing Bakugou’s hat.

He simply chuckled beside you as he led you toward his pickup truck. It was ginormous, and he had to help you up into the passenger’s seat. But once inside and when he had turned the air on, you found it was far comfier than your own car. It looked well-maintained and the interior was surprisingly clean, considering he was a farm hand.

“You really do look good in it,” he remarked as he pulled out of the parking lot. “But please don’t feel pressured to do anything you don’t want to do, alright?” Though his voice was still gruff like it always was, it had a sincere softness to it that had you looking up at him instead of down at your hands. He glanced over at you as he stopped at a red light.

“Okay,” you nodded, and smiled as he reached over to flick the brim.

“I got it when I was twelve,” he stated after a few moments of silence. “Was a present from my ma. It’s by the same maker as the hat my idol wears.”

“And who’s that?” You asked the question even though you knew the name would likely hold no significance to you. It just made you happy to hear him opening up to you.

“Toshinori Yagi. People called him All Might because of how good he was. The guy’s a rodeo legend. Set the world record for most time on bull-back, and the fastest steer takedown. It’s my goal to break those someday.” He looked out on the road ahead of him with a faraway look in his eyes. There was a wistfulness to his voice as well, and you knew that this hat really did mean the world to him.

“I think you can do it,” you said softly, despite your lack of knowledge.

He smirked, looking at you briefly. “Ya barely know the first thing about rodeo. How do you know I can break those records? They were set over twenty years ago, and people have been trying ever since. What makes you think I can do it?”

“You seem like a really tenacious guy,” you shrugged. “Like you fight for what you want and don’t give up till you get it.”

“Well, you aren’t wrong there, I’m definitely tenacious. My friends would probably call it bull-headed, but I like your description better.” He was quiet for a moment before he tentatively reached out to brush his fingers against the back of your hand, like he was asking permission. You looked up at him, only to meet his red gaze, made even redder by the glow of the red light he stopped at.

Taking a breath in through your nose, you eased your hand over and let him thread his fingers through yours. You hadn’t really registered how warm he was when he’d been holding it earlier on the way out, but in the quiet and intimate space of his truck you were honed in on the feeling of his calloused skin against yours. This was his riding hand, the one he used to keep himself from being flung from the backs of enraged animals. It was probably strong enough to break your own smaller hand, but the care with which he held it astounded you.

“I’ve gotta admit, I’ve heard about you from Mina,” he offered as the light switched to green. “Was kinda lookin’ forward to meetin’ ya.”

“Well, I hope I didn’t disappoint,” you laughed nervously. Sure, you’d heard about him, but he had turned out to be so different from what Mina had described. She had told you about a man with anger issues who sucked at making new friends and always wanted to fight others. And while he did seem to be those things, he also apparently had a softer side, one which he only showed to certain people. And you weren’t quite sure how you’d become one of those people, but you couldn’t exactly say you were upset about it.

“Course not,” he grinned. “She told me you were a spitfire, so I was lookin’ forward to having someone to jibe with. Certainly didn’t disappoint in that area.”

“Well good, I’d hate to leave a future record-holder wanting for more,” you giggled softly.

“She showed me pictures of you too,” he added almost hesitantly. “And I must say you aren’t disappointing there either.”

Your cheeks flared up at the compliment, but you fought back the urge to curl up in a ball and insist he was just being nice. “Thank you.” The words were laced with more emotion than you had originally intended, but you found you couldn’t hold it back.

There was a pause in the conversation then, as you both sat blushing in your seats listening to the thrum of the engine. His thumb began stroking the back of your hand in small circles, and you found yourself relaxing into his touch.

“Would you like to come to my place instead of a bar?” He asked somewhat suddenly. He sounded… nervous. Like he had no idea how you might respond despite the fact that you had given every indication of being romantically interested in him as well. “I mean, that way I’d be able to cook you something. You’re probably starving, right? I know I am…” His words were somewhat rushed, and they faded off at the end as he glanced over at you.

The thought of going home with him had your stomach doing flips and your heart singing in your chest. He was so attractive, and seemingly the perfect gentleman when he was interested in someone, which was something you had always wanted in a partner. And Mina had told you so many times how good of a man he was, despite his gruff demeanor…

So you nodded. “Sure, that sounds nice.”

He let out a nearly imperceptible sigh of relief and resumed stroking the back of your hand, which he had stopped while waiting for your answer. “Alright, it’ll be a few more minutes to get out there since it’s on the far side of my property. In the meantime… Tell me about yourself.”

You told him everything you could think of, about your family, what you were studying, what you hoped to do in the future. And he listened intently, making comments here and there or asking clarifying questions when needed. His attention remained on the road, which had lost its street lights back at the edge of town and was now a dark path cutting through fields of crops. They swayed in the light breeze, and you felt the urge to roll down your window and breathe in the fresh air.

And so you did. You put it down all the way and stuck your hand out into the warm night air, letting it flow between your fingers like water. As you leaned toward it, Bakugou’s grip on your other hand tightened subtly.

“You better not let that hat blow away,” he warned, and you simply smiled over at him and unbuckled your seatbelt. Releasing his hand, you held onto the brim of the hat and leaned out the window. The wind battered you and you could hear nothing else, but the way it felt through your hair and rushing over your skin felt positively divine.

You let out a loud cry of joy into the peace of the country night, atop the backing track of crickets and cicadas and beneath the light of the distant stars. Bakugou simply watched from inside the vehicle, his free hand finding purchase on your hip to stabilize you as you flung your arms out, hat clutched between your fingers. You could almost reach the corn leaves on the side of the road as you rushed past them, and you tried not to get disoriented as the world passed upside down.

As you let out a laugh of happiness, you felt the car slowing and looked in the direction you were headed. Bakugou slowed in order to turn onto a driveway, and you took that as a cue to pull yourself back into the truck, only to find him laughing.

“Your hair’s a fuckin’ mess now, idiot,” he choked out through peals of laughter. Upon inspection in the mirror you flipped down you found he was correct. You giggled at your disheveled appearance and simply placed the hat back on your head to hide it.

“There, all better!” You grinned at him as you felt his hand, which had been situated on your hip, make its way to rest on your thigh.

He simply shook his head as his laughter died down and you approached a house you could now see on a small hill. As he pulled to a stop at the top of the driveway he gave your thigh a soft squeeze and a pat before putting the car in park and hopping out. He made his way around the front and opened your door for you, helping you down until your feet met gravel.

“Welcome to my place,” he said as he led you inside. The parlor was cozy as he turned the lights on and you found that the place smelled of spices and something savory. “I’ve got a brisket slow cooking in the kitchen right now, should be just about ready.” He slipped his boots off and set them near the door, and you followed suit before accompanying him to the kitchen.

“Your house is beautiful, Bakugou,” you said softly as you looked around. It was simply decorated, but the things it did contain were all gorgeous. There were wood carvings that looked to be done by hand, and paintings here and there. It was so homey and domestic, and for some reason you hadn’t expected that from a man like him. But seeing him in the space it made complete sense. He fit into it all perfectly.

“Please, call me Katsuki,” he insisted as he retrieved two wine glasses. “Oh, I guess I should ask what you prefer. Are you a wine or beer drinker? I’ve also got some bourbon, whisky, or gin if you’d like any of those instead.”

“Wine is good, though I will say I’m normally a white drinker,” you smiled as you gestured toward the bottle of red he had out on the counter. He got a look of worry on his face, as if he’d committed some sin by bringing out red wine, and you laughed. “I’m kidding, I love a good red,” you assured him, making your way around the island in the middle of the kitchen.

“Good, dumbass, because I ain’t got any white.” He tried to look nonchalant, but there was relief clear on his face. He deftly opened the bottle and poured two glasses before handing you one. “It’s from the local winery, so hopefully you like it. Cause if you don’t then I’ll have to take it up with Sero since he owns the place.”

As you grinned at his lightly playful tone you tilted the glass to take a sip. It was incredible, the flavor spreading over your tongue and reminding you of autumn nights spent with Mina on the couch retelling stories of how your summers went while getting progressively more wine drunk. “It’s delicious,” you nodded, smiling up at him.

“Good, I’ll let him know he’s got another fan. That guy can always use an ego boost,” he chuckled, taking a sip from his own glass. He then placed it down on the dark marble countertop before making his way over to the slow cooker near the oven and peeking inside. “I’d say this has another 20 minutes before it’s perfect,” he said, mostly to himself.

“So what should we do in the meantime?” There was that tightness again at the thought of having time to kill with just the two of you. It only grew as he slowly turned back to you with a gleam in his eyes, and you distracted yourself by taking another sip of wine.

“Well, I suppose that can be up to you. What would you like to do, little missy?” He stepped back toward you and joined you in drinking from his own glass.

“Now why the need for the nickname?” You tried to sound annoyed with it, but in reality it had you clenching at the sound. “I’m not that little.”

“I beg to differ, you barely come up to my shoulder. I’d say that’s pretty little,” he smirked and patted the top of your head.

“Yeah, well I’ve got a big personality,” you defended, trying to look bigger as you rose slightly onto your toes.

“Ya got a big attitude, I’ll give ya that.” Tilting his head back, he finished off his glass of wine, and you followed suit. “Though I’d love to see how tiny you’d look on bull back. Bet you’d hardly last two seconds.” The grin on his face had your stomach fluttering and your breath shortening at the apparent innuendo behind his words.

He obviously wanted you, and you wanted him. So why were you so hesitant? It’s not like you were a virgin, you’d had several partners in the past, and had even had a few one-night stands. Was it just because of how attractive he was? How intimidating his aura was? All you could think about was having his hands and mouth all over you, having him buried inside you to the hilt and riding him like he rode his bulls. But something was holding you back, and you couldn’t for the life of you figure out what it was.

He took a step closer, leaning down to speak right into your ear. “I’d love to see how tiny you look riding me, too,” he murmured, his breath hot against your skin. There was a growl to his voice that hadn’t been there before, a depth that threatened to pull you under and drown you in him. And you found yourself wanting to dive into his depths, to be pulled under and never come back up for air. But you realized in that moment what was holding you back.

Fear.

Fear of losing yourself. Fear of falling in love with this man, only to leave tomorrow and never see him again. He had a magnetism to him which pulled so strongly on you that you found yourself daydreaming of leaving behind everything you’d worked so hard for to settle down with him. To be his little housewife who stayed at home and took care of the children and sacrificed her own dreams to support him and the family you’d have together

But you wanted a life of your own. Wanted to pursue your passions and make your own dreams come true. You didn’t want to settle for a life in some small town where you could never make something of yourself. You didn’t want to only be known as Bakugou Katsuki’s wife and the mother of his children. You were scared that if you let yourself drown in his depths that you really wouldn’t come back up for air, that you’d sink into the murky waters of obscurity and never be seen again.

But as he took hold of your chin again with that thumb and forefinger to tilt your head back and get your eyes to meet his, you felt more seen than you ever had before. There was a fire inside those carmine eyes that said he wanted to fight the world with you by his side. That he wanted to see you succeed in whatever you wanted to pursue, and hoped you felt the same.

So you took a deep breath and plunged in.

“I think I’d like that,” you whisper, before grabbing the collar of his shirt and tugging him down to meet you as you rose once again on your toes. His lips were just as hot as his hands as they met yours tentatively, but they were soft, and more supple than you had expected. They moved slowly against yours before his tongue peeked out and ran over your bottom lip before you granted him access. His hands came to clasp your waist while yours slid behind his neck, using it as an anchor to keep your knees from buckling.

He eventually turned you so your lower back pressed into the countertop. Then, in one swift motion, his hands slid below your ass and hoisted you up onto the counter. You hadn’t even jumped up to help him, making you realize just how strong the man you were ensnared with really was.

With this new height you were slightly above him, no longer having to worry about his hat bumping into his face. Your fingers delved into his hair, and you groaned into his mouth as he kneaded the fat and muscle of your thighs, between which he had wedged himself. He pulled you closer to the edge so your core was pressed up against his belt buckle, and you squirmed at the feeling of him slowly grinding into you.

Breaking off for air, he rested his forehead against yours, eyes closed as he softly panted. “Do I have your permission, little lady?” He spoke in a voice so soft you barely heard it.

“F-for what?” You had never been asked to have sex before, it had always just been implied once the kissing and touching had started. So it took you off guard that he would ask now that things were getting heavier.

“To fuck you, to make love to you, whichever you’d prefer. I just know that I need you, so fucking bad,” his eyes opened to look at you before you nodded, mind in a daze at the courtesy he was portraying. “I need a verbal response, little one. Can’t do with just a nod,” he grinned.

“Oh just fuck me already, you idiot,” you groaned, pulling him back to your lips. He chuckled against them, before slipping his hands back under your thighs.

“Hold on for me, yeah?” He said between kisses. You wrapped your arms and legs securely around his neck and waist, and he slid you off the counter. You assumed he would bring you to the living room where there was a comfortable looking couch. But instead he made his way back through the parlor and up the stairs with you hanging on like a monkey.

“God, so strong,” you murmured against his lips, feeling yourself growing wetter at the idea of his strength.

“Gotta be strong to be a rodeo champion,” he grunted against the skin of your neck. He made his way down a hall and into a bedroom which you assumed was his due to the dark décor and shelves worth of trophies.

He made his way over to the bed and leaned down to lay you atop the comforter. It was soft and you found yourself sighing at the feel of it against your hot skin. He released you with a final kiss, and you let your legs fall from his waist before releasing his neck with one final tug at his blonde locks. He straightened and began to undo his shirt, which had gotten dirt and dust on it from the ring but had remained in good condition. You were glad for that; the colors suited him.

“That the only reason you got strong?” You tried to put a little tease into your tone, but he seemed to see right through it to the need lying beneath as he continued to undo buttons, about two thirds of the way down. You propped yourself up on your elbows, hoping you didn’t look too desperate for hi

“Course not. Got strong so I could help others too,” he replied with a smirk. “I volunteer quite a bit in town and on the local farms when I’m not tending to my own.”

“Uh huh. Any other reasons.”

He undid the final button and pulled the shirt from its place tucked into his jeans. “Are you insinuating that I got strong so I could manhandle you?” A single brow raised sharply as he let the shirt fall from his arms to land in a pile on the ground.

“I’m not not insinuating that…” You were hard pressed to disguise the need bubbling up in your voice as you slowly scooted back up the bed to where the plush pillows lay. “All I’m saying is that it wouldn’t hurt in the bedroom.”

He looked at you questioningly, before unbuttoning his pants and climbing onto the bed above you. “Well then you’re not great at hiding your intentions,” he whispered loudly, as if his words were meant to be a secret, but he wanted to share it with the world.

“Maybe I just don’t want to be good at it. Ever thought about that?” You murmured, even as his fingers brushed against the bare skin of your waist where your shirt had ridden up, sending a shiver through you.

“Then I guess you’d be succeeding.” His voice was a true whisper now as he said the words directly into your ear, before pressing his lips to the soft flesh of your neck. He had situated himself fully between your legs, your knees bent, and feet pressed against the soft material of his comforter.

“Exactly, I’ve got you right where I wanted you.” You tried so valiantly to keep your voice from warbling, but as he kissed down the column of your neck you couldn’t help the sigh that slipped through your open lips.

“Not yet, you don’t,” he tutted against your collarbone. You screwed your brows together and opened your eyes to look down at him as he paused to get your attention. “I’ve got your permission, right little lady?” Something about the tone to his voice had your skin heating up like never before.

“Y-yes,” you stammered, remembering his need for verbal consent.

And with that, he descended.

He had your shirt up and over your head in what was probably record time, your bra following shortly after and leaving you both in nothing but your jeans, underwear, and his explosion-studded leather chaps. Everything was a whirl of touch and tongue and teeth, moans and groans replacing any lingering words either of you may have uttered.

His lips wrapped around one pert nipple, while his fingers tweaked the other one. His free hand worked its way to your jeans button, slowly but deftly undoing it. He looked and sounded like he wanted to devour you right then and there but was waiting for something. The feeling of his tongue against your skin had you moaning, and he chuckled into your skin at the sound. The hand at your waist yanked your zipper down in one swift motion, before he eased his fingers beneath the waistband of your now-undone jeans.

“Fuck, you’re soaked,” he groaned, his fingers stroking your sex over your lace panties. He wasn’t wrong, you could feel the fabric cling to your folds with arousal as he made quick work of finding your clit.

“Mnh, m-more,” you huffed, grinding your hips into his hand as you searched for increased pressure.

“Now, is that any way to ask for something?” Bakugou tutted from his spot just above you, but his voice was strained with need as well, something he was decent at masking but not immune to.

“Please,” you whined, “just fuck me already.”

He chuckled darkly. “Right idea, but wrong execution. Now you’re just gonna have to wait longer.” And with that, he was gripping the waistband of your jeans with both hands and yanking downward, drawing a yelp from your lips as he rid you of the cumbersome fabric. You raised your hips to help him, not that he needed it much, before plopping unceremoniously back onto the bed.

He grinned down at you before reattaching his mouth to your heated skin. You groaned at the feeling of his lips dusting against the plane of your stomach as he made his way down your body. When he finally reached your panties, you were nearly gasping for breath. You had delved one hand into his surprisingly soft locks, allowing yourself to stroke them like you wanted to stroke a different part of his body, but you weren’t quite there yet.

He slipped his fingers beneath the lace which barely covered you, pulling it down your legs with what could only be considered reverence before tossing them to the ground somewhere behind him. The way he looked at you when you were completely bare before him had you wanting to cover your face as it burned beneath his gaze.

“What a beauty,” he murmured, before kissing the skin just above your core. “Betcha taste even better than you look.”

Then you were being devoured. His tongue quickly found your clit as his breath was hot against your pussy, making you squeal in pleasure. He varied his technique, switching from flat, languid strokes that had you moaning to pointed, quick circles which had your toes curling. When he slipped a finger inside, you nearly lost it. The combination of stimulation and penetration was driving you closer and closer to the edge, and it was driving you crazy.

“K-Katsuki,” you groaned, fingers tightening in his hair as you felt your stomach tightening.

“I know, sweet girl,” he replied, words muffled as he continued to eat you out. He added another finger to keep up the stimulation as his mouth was partially occupied by his words, though they were muffled by your folds which he kept constant contact with, whether through tongue or lips. “You’re doing so good for me. Just a little longer.”

His constant licking and kissing on your clit, and the curling and scissoring of his fingers deep inside you had your thighs coming up to close around his head as your own was thrown back on the pillow. Katsuki moaned loudly against your core at the pressure, sending a new wave of pleasure rushing through you that almost had you bursting at the seams.

Then he did something you weren’t expecting. He ran his top teeth ever so lightly along your heat, stopping just before your clit as you cried out desperately. At the same time, he curled his fingers right against the gushy spot inside you which so few lovers had found before. Perhaps one or two had managed to hit it, but the combination of sensations had you falling apart within seconds.

“F-fuck! Katsuki,” you nearly screamed, tugging on his hair so hard he groaned at the feeling. You came harder than you ever had from oral sex, and he loved every second of it. He lapped up every drop that escaped before pulling his fingers from the sheath of your body. Directly after those same gooey fingers were slipped into his mouth and sucked clean of your essence.

“Damn, you taste divine Y/N,” he sighed, crawling atop you and pressing his lips gently to yours. You could taste yourself on his tongue as it ran along your teeth, strong and earthy and slightly sweet. He wasn’t wrong.

Your chest heaved as your hands came up to unsteadily undo his belt. They fumbled slightly, and he chuckled before standing again to quickly undo both that and the button of his jeans. Pulling them down, he stood before you, unabashed and glorious in his nakedness. His length and girth had you swallowing thickly as you readjusted on his bed, moving back to lay against the pillows.

“You’re staring,” he chuckled, lifting a knee to free his foot from his pants and briefs to place it on the bed near yours.

“Am I not supposed to appreciate what’s in front of me? When you look like that?” You smiled, trying your best not to let your voice quiver with leftover ecstasy and anticipation. Kicking his other foot to free it from the fabric clinging to him, he made his way up the bed, body lithe and solid between your legs as he came to cage you between his muscular arms.

“Then I guess by that logic I’m allowed to stare as well?” His voice was soft and low as he leaned down to press his lips to yours. He threaded his fingers through your hair, which still held the remnants of the wind-swept knots, and you sighed at the feeling. You tried not to lose yourself in the feeling of his rock-hard length coming to rest on your lower stomach, but your hips reflexively lifted slightly off the bed to grind against it.

“Patience,” he murmured against your mouth, his hand slowly making its way down from your hair along the curves of your naked body to rest on your hip, which he eased back down onto the comforter. “Let me treat you right.”

His words had you tightening once more. The idea that such a gentleman had taken an interest in you, and after so little time together, had you nearly vibrating with need. The hand which held you down gave your hip one more squeeze before coming to grip himself. The low grunt that slipped from his lips had your stomach doing flips before he eased the tip into your folds.

He ground his length through the slick which had gathered there, taking his time to make sure he was fully coated in order to ensure not only his own enjoyment but yours as well. So many of your lovers in the past hadn’t been considerate enough to do that, hadn’t taken into consideration your pleasure and only focusing on their own, that the action made your heart ache with desire.

Once he slipped through your heat with no resistance, he lifted his face from where it rested against your neck to look at you. “Are you ready?”

Your voice caught in your throat as desire and passion threatened to choke you. All you could manage was a nod and a wordless, desperate moan. Thankfully, he was losing himself to desire as well and took that as permission to continue, because you didn’t think you would have been able to form a coherent response in that moment even if he had demanded it.

Nodding, he placed his free hand on your inner thigh to spread your legs slightly farther apart. Looking down at the spot where the two of you met, he guided his cock to your entrance and slowly pushed inside. The sound you released was one of pure ecstasy, and he followed suit with a groan that had your toes curling. He moved carefully, pausing as he was halfway inside to not only give you a moment to adjust, but to give himself a chance to take a deep breath before continuing. The feel of your tight walls constricting around his fat cock and the way you looked and sounded beneath him nearly had him coming undone, and he couldn’t look bad in front of you now.

“Shit, so tight princess,” he muttered through gritted teeth. His brows were drawn together in a look of pleasure so attractive it had your core tightening even further as he resumed his plunge into your core. The breathy moans and soft mewls of pleasure spilling from your lips had him even more eager to really start pounding into you, but he had to fully submerge himself first. Leaning back, he looked at the way you sucked him in, and he used the fingers that were previously wrapped around his cock to come draw tight circles around your clit.

“F-Fuck, Kats,” you moaned sweetly, eyes unable to keep from screwing shut as he bottomed out, pelvis resting soundly against you as you wriggled your hips experimentally against his. The feeling of his pubic hair against your sensitive core, along with his calloused thumb directly against your clit had one of your hands coming to grasp his forearm while the other tangled in the sheets by your head.

“That feel good, little one?” Katsuki’s voice was slightly strained as he pulled out slightly and pushed back in. You couldn’t stop the almost pitiful sound that slipped from your throat as you nodded vigorously. He chuckled shortly, seeming to have a hard time getting out coherent thoughts himself. “Can I move a little more?”

“P-Please,” you begged, needing more: more movement, more stimulation, more friction. More of him.

“Then hold on, ‘kay?” He came to situate himself above you once more, leaning on one elbow as his thumb remained glued to your clit. Your arms wrapped around his neck, fingers threading through his hair, before he began to move.

It was slow at first, almost gentle, as he tested to see how far he could go. Each time he increased the speed or pressure with which he moved, you craved more, cried out louder. It was a gradual increase, but soon his headboard was banging against the wall and your tits were bouncing and the wet slaps of his balls against your ass were accompanied by cries of pleasure that spilled freely from your lips. His teeth sank into the flesh of your neck as he groaned, the sound vibrating through his chest which was pressed against your own.

“Katsuki!” His name fell like a prayer from your lips as you neared your climax once again, and the sound of it had him following suit. But he’d forgotten a condom, forgotten to use protection in the heat of the moment with someone he’d met only that day. So, he’d hold out. He wouldn’t ruin this moment by making you worry. He would make this perfect.

His years of training and fit physique came in handy not only for the rodeo, but, as you’d insinuated, for lovemaking as well. He used those powerful thighs to drill into you, those muscular arms to not only hold himself up but to bring your chest up to his as well, the arch of your back making him hit even deeper than before. Your moans and cries had only grown louder and more explicit as he continued, and soon he had you falling apart beneath him.

“Fuck!” You couldn’t hold back a scream as the coil which had grown so infinitely tight within you snapped, and you came harder than you ever had before. Tears slipped from the corners of your eyes as your vision went white, and your breath stilled in your chest, trapped by your constricted throat as Katsuki fucked you through the best orgasm of your life.

He grew quiet above you, and as your vision returned, you saw he had his eyes trained on you with more focus than ever before, all while his jaw clenched so hard you worried for his teeth. He pulled out, collapsing on his back beside you as his erection stood tall and flushed against his stomach.

“W-What are you doing?” You asked with a shaking voice, trying to catch your breath as you turned onto your side.

“Fuckin’ forgot a condom,” he forced through those tightly gritted teeth, before taking his length in his hand and starting to pump it.

“So?” You raised yourself onto one elbow to look down at him.

“I can’t ruin this by making you worry about that,” he admonished, breath growing even shorter as he closed his eyes forcefully.

“I never said you should stop, Katsuki.”

He froze at that, eyes flying open as he looked at you in surprise. The words had spilled from your lips before you could stop them, taking you off guard as well, but you didn’t make any move to take them back. You eased your fingers around his length, replacing his own calloused ones before shifting above him, thighs coming to straddle his own.

“Y-You said you wanted to see how I’d look riding you, right?” Your voice was soft, but excited. His hands hesitantly came to grip your waist as you lifted yourself to hover over his cock. “Then why don’t I show you.”

With that, you lowered yourself onto him. He slipped inside, aided by your creamy release which still coated your insides and the apex of your thighs. You couldn’t help the sigh that fell from your lips as you came to sit atop his thighs, and the groan that he released had you tightening for the third time that night, much to your surprise. You were lucky to get even one orgasm with your past lovers, much less two. Three? That had never happened before. But you were eager to see if this god of a man could make it happen.

“Dammit, Y/N,” he muttered, his hips thrusting up into yours as his grip on your hips tightened. “Think ya might kill me at this rate.”

“Well, you can’t do that,” you huffed, moving atop him as you placed one hand on his stomach to steady yourself. It was solid, a wall of muscle which had you clenching around him at the feel. “You’ve got a championship to win.”

He chuckled beneath you, the sound choked and breathless as you ground down into him. “And you’ll-” He broke off with a moan that had you grinning above him. “You’ll be there, right? Need my g-good luck charm, after all.”

“You gonna get me front row seats?” Your over sensitive cunt squelched as your chest heaved. This man was really about to get you to cum three times in a fucking row, wasn’t he?

“Darling, I’ll get you pit tickets if you want ‘em. Y-You can watch from the damn sidelines if you’ll just be there.” One of his hands made its way up your side to come and cup your breast, thumb circling your pebbled nipple as the other hand gripped your hip so hard you were almost sure it would leave finger-shaped bruises.

“F-Fuck!” You cried as he thrust particularly hard, nearing his climax as you leaned down to kiss him fervently. Your thighs burned and your breath came in shallow pants as you neared your own end, falling over the edge as he gave one final push upward, hips pressing up off the bed as he came hot and hard in your soft, warm insides. You fell apart moments later, hardly anything left within you but cries of pleasure and a clenching core that had him pumping you full of more release than he’d ever given before. 

It felt right, like you’d found a piece that you hadn’t even known was missing. As you collapsed atop his heaving chest, buried your face in his neck, let your fingers trail over his skin and through his now damp hair, you felt more at peace than you ever had. As his hands soothed over the areas he had gripped so tightly, as his lips pressed feather-light kisses along your hairline, he realized that maybe he really had found his good luck charm.

Maybe that hat was just meant to bring the two of you together all along.

[gabrielleragusi]

For Artists: My Experience with Commission Platforms and Illustration Agencies

Hi there! I’ve been wanting to compile a list of commission platforms that I’ve personally used for the longest time, and I finally did it! I’ve highlighted the still-active commission platforms in bold and struck those that don't exist anymore so you can jump to the sections that interest you without needing to read my entire story.

Let me start by briefly introducing myself.

I’m Gabrielle, a fantasy illustrator. Since 2014, I’ve been working on book covers and illustrations for publishers, authors, and book subscription boxes. Early on, work wasn’t as frequent as it is now. I had to search for opportunities myself, and even small private commissions were important for building my portfolio and earning some money, which I’d spend on materials, books, and online courses. Like many other artists, I started out by trying my luck with the biggest art community available at the time.

DeviantArt

2009-2018

Once upon a time, there was a virtual haven called DeviantArt. To my teenage self, it was a magical place. I signed up in 2009 and thought I’d never leave!

At first, I created an account just to share my work and learn. I didn’t even think about commissions for four or five years. But when that first inquiry finally landed in my inbox, things took off! My mum swears she remembers my excitement when I got my first commission, but for some reason, I’ve completely forgotten about it. I can't remember what it was or how much it paid. It might have been a portrait of a fantasy character.

Commissions on DeviantArt were fairly frequent, especially considering my cheap prices at the time. I used to offer discounts and post my rates in my DeviantArt journal, or in Commission groups that featured artists either monthly or weekly. After checking out my profile, a client could simply send me a private message and from there, we’d discuss payment, deadlines, and other details, and the platform didn’t take any fees, much like how ArtStation works today. Everything happened through private messages or email, with direct contact between artist and client.

The downside of this process was that there was no dispute resolution system on the platform. I had to handle all issues myself, and unfortunately, problems did arise sometimes: there were clients changing their minds about commissions, asking for refunds after work was delivered, refusing to pay, or just ghosting me. These issues didn’t happen because clients were evil, but rather because I was inexperienced and allowed some to take advantage of my naivety.

However, all that frustration helped me develop my commission process through trial and error (mostly error). And despite the challenges, I can say with satisfaction that most of the commissions I received through my DeviantArt profile were positive experiences.

DeviantArt eventually introduced a commission feature for Core (Premium) users, which came with a platform fee, but I didn’t use it much, and I’m not sure if it still exists.

The real beauty of dA, though, was the connections I made. I was able to meet people, both artists and clients, that I’m still in contact with today, and some of whom I still collaborate with.

I closed my account in 2018 or 2019, but by that time, I hadn’t really used it for a couple of years. The new user interface was a bit of a turn-off for me. I had always loved the geeky, and dare I say cozy, look of the old green and grey aesthetic, with its customisable panels that you could move around and personalise with HTML code... But I digress.

Artists and Clients

2013-2016

While taking small commissions on DeviantArt, I discovered Artists & Clients. It was a nice platform for clients to get things like their D&D characters or groups illustrated for relatively cheap. I think my highest price was $50 for a single character portrait, with the platform taking a 15% cut. I used it for about two or three years before the platform started to change.

As more artists with hentai art styles flooded in, the homepage shifted, and so did the clientele. There’s nothing wrong with drawing naked anime girls, of course, but you can understand that if a client is looking for a fantasy, semi-realistic painting of their female orc character, or a realistic portrait of their spouse, it's more than likely that they won't bother sifting through a sea of anime girls to find the style they want, imagining it isn't here. Let's just say that, at the time, the website took a definite direction that wasn't in line with my genre, but this direction didn't make the different, more realistic art styles stand out either.

Soon, commissions slowed down for me, so I closed my account, but by then I was already working elsewhere.

That said, this platform could still be a useful tool if you’re looking to take on smaller commissions.

DreamUp

2014-2015

DreamUp wasn’t an AI generator back then. It was actually a subsidiary of DeviantArt, where clients could post projects and artists could apply. It was a competitive platform that offered well-paid work–very well-paid. I remember seeing jobs posted that ranged from $300 to $1,200. DreamUp was a very professional platform for clients with a mid to high budget.

I believe I landed my very first book cover commission through this website when I was in my last year of high school. I remember getting the job and going to school the next morning, excited to share the news with my classmates. Everyone was super thrilled for me (we were a really close-knit class!), and I felt like I was walking on air.

Unfortunately, as far as I know, that book was never released, but it didn’t matter because I was moving forward, and fast.

I’m not sure when DreamUp was shut down, but I do know that DeviantArt held onto the copyrighted name, assigning it to something so anti-old DreamUp that it still boggles my mind.

ArtCorgi

Now Artistree

2014-2019

When I received an invitation to join ArtCorgi from its founder, I already had a somewhat consistent portfolio. I was painting portraits and fantasy illustrations, and the clients on this platform were looking for both–your typical wedding and pet portraits, as well as book covers, which were what really interested me. To get to the latter, I had to do the former. Over the years, I’ve painted so many realistic portraits that now I have a strict rule for my own sanity not to do them any more. I have great respect for portrait artists, but it’s just not me.

When I first submitted my prices to the person I was in contact with, she kindly suggested that I raise them... a lot. That was a major step forward in my professional career. I went from charging $50 to $100/$200 overnight. And to my surprise, people actually wanted to commission me at those prices!

From 2014 to 2019, I took nearly every commission that came my way. I never spoke directly with the clients; all instructions and feedback went through my point of contact, which helped maintain a level of professionalism, although now that I’m used to working directly with clients, I’m not sure I’d want to go back to having an intermediary.

Sadly, as with all good things, this chapter came to an end. My point of contact eventually left communication in the hands of someone else, and shortly after, the commission fee changed to, I believe, 30%.

Simply put, 30% is an unrealistic cut for a website like this. For an agent that gets you all kinds of big work in the publishing industry, sure, but since this was not the case I had to stop taking commissions. Despite that, my overall experience with ArtCorgi was very positive.

Today, ArtCorgi joined another platform, Artistree. As far as I can tell, Artistree doesn’t take any fees from artists, with clients covering a small cost instead.

Sketchmob (?)

2016-2020

This was probably the platform I used the most. I’ve lost count of how many commissions I received through Sketchmob. Many. Enough to generate a steady income at the time. With reasonable fees and a variety of art styles available, clients contacted me almost daily. Communication was direct between artists and clients, and payments could be split. The review system also worked very well… for a while.

Once I raised my prices, requests became fewer and farther apart. But by then, I was already working with my own clients.

Is this platform still active? Who knows. The website is still up and the chat feature works, but I’ve seen users complain that money available for withdrawal never arrived via PayPal (the only payment method the platform accepted, if I remember correctly). Personally, I wouldn’t risk completing a job through Sketchmob right now, at least not until they release an update.

If you’ve used the platform recently and successfully received payment within the last six months, please let me know, and I’d be happy to update this section!

Upwork

2017-2019

In 2017, I was determined to break into the book publishing industry. After trying out Fiverr and Freelancer.com with no success (the competition was too fierce for someone just starting out), I decided to give Upwork a shot. The platform looked very professional, and while the process sounded a bit complicated, I wanted to land the interesting projects I saw featured in my category. I really wanted to work with a big client… but big clients didn’t seem to want me, despite having the Rising Talent badge.

In two years of bidding for jobs and submitting proposals, I only landed two projects: a small commission from a private client who actually reached out to me, and another project that I bid on.

Don’t get me wrong, I was ecstatic at the time and truly appreciated every opportunity that came my way. But looking back, I can see why Upwork didn’t work out for me. The platform just wasn’t the right fit for my style and niche, which is fantasy illustration. Graphic design, however, was (and still is) in much higher demand.

The commission process on Upwork wasn’t as simple as on other platforms. For instance, at the time, costs were calculated hourly, which was a challenge for someone like me who prefers working with flat fees (having already calculated my average hours spent on an illustration). From what I’ve seen, this has since changed.

One positive aspect of Upwork is its current 10% cut on what artists earn. I don’t recall if this has changed over the years, but 10% is quite reasonable in my experience. Of course, 0% would be even better, but for a platform as large as Upwork, 10% is fair.

Illustration Agency

2019-2021

By 2019, I had built a solid, consistent portfolio thanks to my personal work and commissions. I had a simple website in place, my Instagram following was growing… I was steadily working toward my goal of illustrating covers for big publishers (which didn't happen until two years ago).

So, when an illustration agency reached out to me one day, I was over the moon. I had always heard that artists were the ones who had to approach agencies, not the other way around.

Well, that should have been my first red flag.

I won’t name this agency because, unfortunately, I have nothing positive to say about it. In fact, the word “nothing” perfectly describes my involvement with them. Nothing came of this barely there experience.

The agency invited me to sign up, not on an exclusive basis, but they assured me they’d get me work. That work never came. Once in a while, I’d receive messages saying they were trying to pitch my portfolio to a French publisher or another client, but... nothing.

Please understand that meanwhile I was already working directly with shops and authors, so I don’t believe my portfolio was the problem. The real issue was something I didn’t realise at the time: some agencies do this. They feature talented artists in their catalogue without having actual clients lined up, just to appear more professional and credible to potential clients. Did this strategy work for them? Maybe. I’ll never know.

In 2021, I politely asked them to remove my portfolio from their website, and that was the end of it.

After that, I never actively sought out an agent again. By the time my portfolio was strong enough to approach a serious agency, I just didn’t need representation anymore.

Hireillo

2019-2022

My experience with Hire an Illustrator, or Hireillo, is mixed. At the time, Hireillo was a platform that hosted artists' portfolios, featured artist-submitted news, provided useful articles, resources, and directories of artists and agents. I joined the site hoping to catch the eye of publishers, but I was mostly contacted by authors and one fellow artist for a graphic novel.

Unfortunately, most inquiries didn’t go beyond the first couple of messages due to budget constraints. I did, however, have fun sharing news about my painting process and projects I landed on my own, which were often featured by the website. Additionally, if I had questions about 'complicated' things like copyright, or just needed advice, I could ask the website’s owner and that was incredibly helpful.

Despite these benefits, I didn’t see any real results, which was a little disappointing. The subscription fee was also... odd, for lack of a better word. $5 per week. In the end I just couldn’t justify the cost, so I stopped using the website altogether.

Reedsy

2019-2022

Finally, we come to the turning point.

I remember stumbling upon Reedsy randomly. It wasn’t very well known at the time, and I think it still isn’t. I was nervous when I submitted my portfolio because their catalogue features the best of the best: designers who’ve created covers for bestsellers, THE bestsellers, people who’ve worked on Stephen King covers, or George R.R. Martin's. Designers, editors, and marketers who are veterans. I didn’t have high hopes for my application. So, I was in shock when it got accepted.

I had an introductory Skype call with a representative from Reedsy, who explained how everything worked. Before the call ended, I remember asking if there was a good chance I’d get work through the platform. The rep laughed and said, “Yes.”

A few weeks in, I understood that laugh.

Reedsy has an overwhelming demand for book covers and commercial projects. For every designer there are many more clients. In peak seasons, I was getting requests almost every day. I’m not exaggerating.

Reedsy transformed my portfolio and my pricing structure. Thanks to the income I earned through the platform, I was finally able not to take everything that came my way but be selective and choose only the projects that really interested me.

The commission process is simple: artists pretty much decide how to split payments, what to include in agreements, and the best part, the most beautiful and helpful feature of all, they can request and adjust deadlines. For someone like me who's terrible with deadlines, this feature was a lifesaver. The admins are also very kind and responsive, available via email or chat.

Unfortunately (this is my last 'unfortunately', I promise), my time on Reedsy came to an end for personal reasons. I’ll explain since it’s no secret.

All my images on Reedsy were watermarked with my signature (my full name), which apparently violated the platform’s rules. Why? Because if a client saw my last name, they could contact me directly and bypass Reedsy, which meant the platform lost potential fees. I’ll admit this did happen a few times, but I had the good sense to redirect the client back to Reedsy.

After three years, an admin finally noticed and asked me to remove my full name from the watermark and any text on my profile. It was a simple and reasonable request, but here’s where the problem started. Profiles on Reedsy are public, and images appear in search engines like Google Images, meaning anyone could download my work and use it without permission. Sure, watermarks can be removed, but uploading my work without one in the first place felt like a bad idea. Btw, not only do I use watermarks, but I also use Glaze to protect my illustrations before sharing them online.

Anyway, for this reason, and also because I couldn’t get over the fact that full names were public at the time, something I won’t get into because, believe me, I tried over email, and my reasons went into the void (now, last names are just initialised, like Gabrielle R. Okay. Sure.), I had to close my account–they would have done it anyway because it was already 'flagged'.

Overall, if you’re willing to overlook the last name conundrum, I can’t recommend Reedsy enough. If you have a killer, solid portfolio and a love for books and editorial projects, go for it!

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

I hope you'll find this useful! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask (: Oh, and here's an old article I wrote in 2020, titled:

Tips to freelance illustrators to avoid being screwed over

Who knows, maybe I'll write another 'article' post in four years!

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