#my writing

[dilatorywriting]

Monster Mayhem: Lion's Pride [Part 3]

Gender Neutral Reader x Leona Kingscholar Word Count: 6.2k

Summary: Your new job as a Full Time Royal Therapist does not pay nearly as well as you'd like. Or, Leona is more of a problem child than he would ever admit, but you're surprisingly okay at dealing with that.

[PART 1][PART 2] [PART 3]

Sometimes you felt like you hardly knew what it meant to be a functional person, living a comfortable life on the fringes of society. So in comparison, trying to think of what it meant to be an actual prince, ruling over all of said society was something you literally could not comprehend no matter how hard you tried to wrap your head around it.  

“If you’re a Prince, what were you doing in a hole?” you asked, because you had far too many questions and concerns, and this one at least seemed easy enough to address. And also because you were genuinely pretty curious.  

The newly dubbed ‘Leona’ twitched against your back and you felt the low rumble of his snarl work its way from the depths of his gut all the way up through his chest and out his mouth.

“Holy shit,” Ace wheezed. “Screw this. I’m getting out of here before I wind up implicated as an accessory in your murder.”

And so your trusty friend abandoned you to the wolves lions?—darting away so quickly he always forget his bag, shoes, and everything else in the process.

You waved after him as he departed, knowing full well that he’d wind up stumbling back within the week, maybe two at most. He always did, no matter how much he complained about your Present Company. Plain old ‘murder’ was actually one of his more polite accusations. When he’d run into your Hunter friend the first time, Ace had gone on a wildly incoherent rant about how he was going to find your corpse strung up in a tree like some weird, ritual, sacrifice. And then that had devolved into something-something cannibalism or other. The visiting Hunter had just thrown his head back and laughed, positively enamored with the grisliness of it all. Ace had vanished for almost an entire month after that encounter, but he did come back—glaring up at you with a miserable pout like you were the one who’d gone and fucked off for thirty whole days.

Leona snorted and you felt the puff of breath against the back of your neck.

“Coward,” he grumbled, though he didn’t sound particularly displeased about your friend’s sudden departure.

“Fear lets us be brave,” you responded, wise as a sage. Or maybe an old frog in a puddle.

“Yeah?” he intoned, rolling his eyes. “And when’s that little rat ever been brave?”

“There’s always tomorrow,” you chirped, and that snort turned into something dangerously close to a chuckle. Which—gasp!—how dare such a pleasant sound fall from the lips of someone so obstinately determined to be otherwise! You grinned at the low tones of it, only for the snickering to cut off sharply in his throat once he’d realized what he was doing. And then of course he shoved you forward and out of his lap with a great amount of indignant snarling.

You laid there for a few minutes—face down in the sun-warmed grass and laughing quietly about just how ridiculous this stupid Lion was, before finally sitting up with a pleasant stretch. He could put on airs all he liked, you knew there was kernel of something far less angsty and murderous buried at the heart of him.

“So,” you hummed, lazily making your way back to your feet. “What exactly have I done to draw the realm’s Prince to my doorstep?” You squinted at him suspiciously. “You’re not here about the fairy gate thing, are you? Because that was actually an accident.”

“The what?” he frowned, brow pinched in confusion.

You waved him off. “Ah, nothing, nothing.”

Something in his jaw twitched, like now he was going to push the subject out of principle of you being shifty. But he just sighed and brought a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose.

“I need your help,” he said finally. Just as crabby as the first time he’d asked, if perhaps just a touch less imperious.

You arched a brow. “I think you’ve mentioned that already, yes.”

Silence.

The Lion stared you down with a slowly deepening scowl, and you stared back with a smile as placid and unmoved as the shallow pond you’d nearly drowned Ace in not an hour before.  

“If I apologize, you’ll help me?” he asked after a long moment, the question turning sharp at the end on a bitten of growl.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” you hummed back and he crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he said, with all the pleasantry of someone undergoing a root canal. And all the sincerity of Ace swearing that this was the last time he’d get caught evading the tax man, promise.

You sighed, feeling a bit cheated. But you hadn’t really stipulated anything beyond those two little words leaving his mouth, so if anything, that was on you.

“Alright,” you huffed. “What is it you need help with?”

The Lion glared at you suspiciously for a long moment—glowing eyes narrowed into slits and tail twitching back and forth like he was swatting flies. Finally, he sighed and lifted his hands out in front of him with a pointed flex.  

“It’s not supposed to be like this,” he frowned sourly, wrists twisting to display the pointed claws tipping his fingers. “I’m not supposed to get stuck in between.”

Your eyes traced the fluffy tufts of his round ears, the black-tipped tail swishing irritably at his hind, and allowed yourself a melancholy sort of huff.

“But you look good like this,” you pointed out sadly. Because he really, truly, did. Leona without his squishy lion ears would just be… grumpy. Miserable, and angular, and angry. Nothing soft worth coddling at all.

“That’s not the point!” he snapped, baring his overlarge canines at you. There was a darker cast along his cheekbones that seemed to be making a valiant effort to crawl all the way up into his fringe. “And don’t fucking say that!”

You frowned. One second this stupid dick wanted to be praised to the Heavens and back! Practically swanning about, demanding you bow down and acknowledge his blatant superiority. But, oh no. Apparently your meager half-sentence masquerading as a compliment was too much for his delicate, princely, sensibilities.

“Fine,” you griped. “You’re ugly.”

He growled—low and rumbling—and if he was anymore of a cat you’d say you could see his hackles raising in indignation. But before he could launch into another vicious, verbal, evisceration of your person, you cleared your throat loudly in an attempt to get him back on track.   

“What do you mean by ‘stuck in between?’”

He sneered down at you testily for a moment before reaching up to pinch at the bridge of his nose again and letting out a put-upon sort of sigh that was not at all indicative of the fact that he was the one asking you for help.

“The Shift. When you found me in that pit, I should have been able to Shift between that form and this one without issue,” he frowned, brow tugging down tight with something a bit more disquieted than his usual, flat, annoyance. “The iron was a problem, but once I was out of the trap, it should have been fine. I’ve dealt with cursed snares like this before, and the effects have never lingered as long as this one has.”

You blinked owlishly. That did sound… fairly unpleasant. And honestly, if you were in his position you’d also be at least a little concerned that something else was at play. But, still, all that being said—

“I’m sorry,” you frowned, more or less genuine. Perhaps leaning a bit harder into less.“But I don’t understand how that has anything to do with me.”

“You were down there with me,” he argued. “You dismantled the trap.”

Uh, yeah. By messing with bits that looked breakable until they broke. Not exactly a high-level intellectual pursuit.

You didn’t say that, of course. Because after a few days watching you scuttle about your homestead like a particularly vocal lizard in the dirt, you were sure he already thought you were stupid enough without you outright admitting to it. Nevertheless, the Lion observed your zip-lipped silence with an ever-deepening scowl.

“You took it apart,” he tried again, nearly a growl.

“Yes,” you said with a nod.

“You know how you did it,” he continued, firm. At your lack of affirmative, he pushed again. “You know. I watched you do it!”

You raised your hand nervously and made a little so-so tilting motion.

Anyone less refined would no doubt have had their head in their hands at this point, but Leona just curled his lip at you and looked like he was fighting valiantly not to put your own very silly head through a wall.

“It was charmed,” he spat. “Bound up with talismans, and cursed down to its very moldings. That isn’t something any random farmer could walk up and break.”

“Oh,” you blinked, taken aback, and struggled to recall if there had been anything so obviously enchanted about the trap you’d fiddled into bits. “Was it?”

And head had officially met hands. He ground his clawed fingers into his temples like you were a headache that with enough determination and massaging he may somehow be able to will away.

“Couldn’t you go just home if this is such a big problem?” you asked, still genuinely baffled at it all. “Get help from your family? I mean, you’re a Prin—”

“No,” he interrupted, emerald eyes gone glacier cold.

You frowned, as unimpressed by his prickliness as you usually were. But something in you was hesitant to prod at whatever it was that had managed to tug a feral rage so tightly across his face—like drawing a shade over a window until the entire home was cloaked in shadow, or slipping away behind a carved mask too heavy to ever wear comfortably. It was an expression so sharp and so bitter that if you hadn’t only just yesterday watched this stubborn man lounge about in the sun as your chickens hopped all over him like he was the world’s most carnivorous jungle gym, you wouldn’t ever have known that they could be the same person at all. 

“Alright,” you shrugged, and some of that angry, hunched, defensiveness eased into confusion.

“Hah?” he frowned.

“Alright,” you said again. “We’ll figure it out here.” He glared over at you balefully, and you waved off the obvious retort on the tip of his tongue about something-something-you have no idea what you’re doing-something-something-dangerous risks and lifelong consequences-blablabla. “I have a friend who would know a lot more about those kinds of traps and talismans that I do. He could help, probably.”

“Probably?” he scoffed. Though when he rolled his eyes, they weren’t quite so hate filled—lids hooded with a familiar, begrudging sort of irritation rather than outright malice.

“He’s a bit of an enigma,” you explained—wiggling your fingers in a little, sparkly, dance to emphasize the, well, enigmatic part.

Another huff. But amidst that grumpy bellyaching, you watched those fluffy ears of his slowly perk back up atop his head, and his tail swish leisurely behind him. The Lion certainly didn’t look happy (but did he ever? So was that really a fair comparison?), but he definitely seemed like he’d thawed into something less ‘frigid dead of winter’ and more ‘unpleasantly nippy spring morning.’

“Weirder than you, herbivore?” he sniffed, looking down his nose at you and crossing his arms loosely over his chest. “I find that hard to believe.”

Normally you would too. But, well…

“He’s charming,” you chirped pleasantly, and Leona’s face twisted up like you’d served him a bowl of rancid yogurt.

.

.

That night you composed a letter to your dearest Hunter friend. You thanked him for bringing you the White Moor Stag, elaborated a bit on the new marinade you’d been experimenting with, and then ended the whole thing with a polite plea for his aid in deconstructing the mechanisms of a magical trap you’d encountered. You bribed one of your two carrier pigeons with some snacks and watched it fly off into the unknown with a little, cream-colored envelope tied to its foot. Message talismans were much simpler and far more convenient, but the Hunter always seemed to appreciate the personal touch of postal birds.

Leona glared at you from the window, and made some dramatic swipe at your pigeon like he meant to knock it out of the air. The poor bird tottered about like an overfilled water balloon—jiggling and wriggling in its roundness before eventually righting itself and continuing on into the sky with a warbled coo coo.

“Don’t be rude,” you huffed at him.

“I can’t believe you still won’t let me in,” he sneered from beneath the fluff of that blanket you’d gifted him. “I apologized.”

“Yes, but you actually have to mean it,” you explained, not unkindly, as he prowled just beyond the glass. “But we’re making progress!” you beamed. “That’s something! Maybe you’ll make it in here within the next five years, hmm?”

“Or I could just wipe out the entirety of your ridiculous dirt farm now,” he threatened, a bit of that sandy magic swirling sinisterly along his fingers.

“You certainly could, your highness,” you agreed easily. His lip curled unpleasantly, but that glowing, gritty, arcana faded away and he didn’t move from where he’d tucked himself up under the duvet.

After another solid fifteen minutes of his pissy glowering and barbed insults, you pointedly unclipped the ties on your curtains and let them fall shut so that his ridiculous pouting was hidden away behind the thin, cotton, mess of poorly stitched flowers and herbs.

(You did leave a nice dinner plate on the ledge before that, with extra portions of meat and a neatly frosted cookie for dessert. Because as much as your day had been a bit rough, you had a feeling his melancholy extended far beyond being left out in the dark for another evening.)

.

.

The next morning, your doddering pigeon returned with an elegantly bound scroll—all embellished with golden filagree and tied up in a neat, crimson, bow.

“Why does this freak call you ‘mon cher ami,’” Leona sniffed, tongue curling awkwardly over the unfamiliar words.

You sighed and debated snatching the letter back, but all that would probably culminate in was the paper in tatters and a smug beastman lording his superior letter-wrangling skills over your head like a trophy.

“It’s just one of his little ticks,” you explained with a shrug. “I told you—he’s charming.”

“Ah, yes,” Leona drawled, tracing a claw along the parchment’s edge with a soft shhhhhft. A raised, white, line cut across the paper’s surface like the beginnings of a wound. “Waxing poetic nonsense in a foreign language. Rambling on about all kinds of useless fucking garbage. Charming.”

“You,” you snipped, reaching out to smack at his tightening grip before he could rend the poor correspondence to bits, “are not one to talk about ‘charming.’”

“Oh?” he scoffed. He maneuvered around your tutting to hold the letter over your head. Typical. When you leaned forward to try and wrangle it back, Leona leaned in closer—eyes going hooded and lips curling into a smug little smirk that promised all sorts of trouble. “Haven’t had any complaints about that before. Who’d be saying otherwise?”

“The person you left stranded at the bottom of a pit, you inglorious oaf,” you griped. His ears immediately swiveled to pin flat against the top of his head, and you used the distraction of his indignation to finally snatch back your prize. “Besides,” you huffed, straightening out some of the new wrinkles. “Not very Prince-like, is it? A real prince would have swept in to save the idiot in distress. Sword drawn, banners flying,” you sighed, a bit too besotted with your own imaginings. “Why did you have to be such a dick, huh? Ruined my fantasies for the rest of my life.”

“And what?” Leona snapped. “Some rogue bastard sending you cursive garbage does it for you?”

“Better than being left for dead in a hole after saving their life,” you smiled—perfectly, poisonously, pleasant.

Leona rumbled something indiscernible under his breath and turned to glare petulantly off across your garden.

“Besides,” you hummed, looking over the letter. “There’s more important things. Like this—right here. Do you know what a self-bored stone is? He’s thinking maybe there was a process like that with the iron shackles. Or maybe something to do with seeping the components in herbs… Hmm…”

“Whatever,” Leona scoffed. “I’ll try whatever it takes to fix this shit.”

You clapped him amiably on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit, tête de noeud!”

“The fuck did you just call me?!”

“Poetic nonsense,” you chirped, and Leona looked half ready to drop you back into the hole where he’d found you.

.

.

The first attempt to aid the Lion Prince in his conundrum didn’t go particularly well.

You’d tried to work off of the whole ‘overlap with a self-bored stone’ theory, but all that really amounted to was you gesturing like an over-serious crossing guard for him to walk under every low hanging branch, every arch, beneath the stunted beams of the chicken coop. You dangled rocks from strings and waved around your little creations like slightly more dangerous pompoms.

Penelope clucked irritably when one of the pebbles fell with a plunk into her nest, and Leona frowned up at you from where the wayward chicken had firmly situated herself in his lap.

“How was any of that supposed to help?”

You drew a blank and promised to try something new tomorrow.

The next day you tried herbs. The Hunter had listed off quite a few that were known to cause lingering issues with magical creatures, and you harvested the lot of them from your garden with ease. You held them up to Leona’s face one by one, brow furrowed in concentration, as you waited for… something.

“How is this any better than the rocks?” he complained.

You pushed the bright, butter-yellow, blossoms of some Saint John’s Wort under his nose until he sneezed and shoved you away with a slew of indignant threats to your person.

The following few days were spent perusing your meager library. You carted every book you owned on magic, and binding rituals, and rune smithing out into the yard. Leona looked over at the slowly growing pile of tomes with a truly unimpressed scowl.

“You could have just invited me inside,” he griped, rolling his eyes. He was splayed out in the grass at your side, his head tossed lazily across your lap after he’d complained that he needed at least some leverage to see what you were trying to read.

“Nice try,” you hummed, reaching for your page of hastily scribbled notes. “But you’re not getting off without a genuine apology that easy.”

A week passed in this fashion, with you attempting to string together more and more ludicrous ideas—throwing everything you had at the wall and hoping something, anything, would stick. But Leona’s ears stayed tufted and round. That tail seemed to only grow more twitchy, his claws longer and sharper.

You sent the Hunter another letter and waited anxiously for a reply. When it arrived the next morning, Leona snatched it from your pigeon before you’d even made it out your front door. It was a miserable sort of day—pouring rain and with nothing but the grey cloud cover overhead to color the world.

He read it over once, twice, before dropping it to the ground. You could see the tendons twitching along his jaw, could practically hear his molars grinding in his frustration.

You plucked the note from the grass and looked it over carefully.  

‘Mon ami, while I am loathe to address this, perhaps it is not the make of this trap at all that is causing such a vexation? Is there any chance that rather than this being a lingering malady, that this friend of yours was simply unable to overcome the initial curse in the first place?’

You glanced back up at Leona, who was intermittently clenching his fists at his sides. You could see the harsh indentations from where his claws were digging into the skin of his palms.

‘Sometimes such things just happen, je crains. The flesh may be willing, but often the spirit is weak. You mentioned this Roi du Leon has a powerful family he may turn to for assistance. Certainly one of them may be strong enough to overcome this curse for him, even if he perhaps is not.’

“Of course it’s all because I’m a fuck up,” Leona snarled. Some of that spitting, sandy, magic of his seeped into the air. It bit at the rain like an overeager dog. You could see it dancing along his skin—fighting to pull his features one way or another.

“He didn’t say that,” you pointed out gently. “And even if you were, there’s nothing wrong with needing help sometimes. Your family—"

“—Would rather I keeled over dead and stopped sullying my brother’s perfect fucking reputation!” he snapped. “Heir to the King’s Roar,” he scoffed. “Stupid. I was never going to be a king to begin with. And even if I had been born first, they would have deposed me to put their flawless, favorite, golden boy on the throne anyways.”

That... That was a lot. You stared at the pacing Lion with wide eyes—unsure how to help, unsure if any attempts to do so would only make this worse. This was—this was so above your ‘happy, homey, hermit’ paygrade.

“Of course this is all because of me,” he hissed, that roiling, angry, arcana coiling around him like curdled milk. The pupils in his eyes flickered oddly from round to thin-cut, hard, lines. Beastly. “Of course it was because I wasn’t good enough.”

“Leona,” you tried, as gentle as you could be.

The Prince threw his head back and laughed. And laughed, and laughed.

“I should have known!” he cackled, borderline hysterical. “I should have fucking known!”

“Leona—” you tried again, reaching out a hand.

Only to be immediately knocked on your ass by an explosion of magic.

You’d heard of self-destruction—of implosion. The arcane wonders of the world were a wily and unyielding mistress. While creatures like Leona who were so naturally steeped in ancient magics and sorcery could control that beast more adeptly than some little mortal like you, it didn’t make them any less susceptible to its dangers. If anything, they had it worse. It was like sitting in a shallow stream versus wading out into a roaring ocean. So much more opportunity, such a higher aptitude for greatness, but far too easy to drown beneath the churning tides of it all.

The inky, geometric, swirls along his arms pulsed like a heartbeat. They crawled along his skin and traced black patterns into his veins. Even you could feel the horrible, dark, stickiness of it—as the magic ate him alive. His face twisted back and forth between human and animal, and you watched him contort and snarl under the weight of it before turning on you with a vicious roar.

Uh oh.

The first wave of magic seared the ground, leaving nothing but strange, grey, sand in its wake. The more he snapped and clawed wildly at anything and everything, the more that dusty desert spread. You managed to hop out of the way of most of it—sparing a single, sad, thought for all the poor plants you’d worked so hard to cultivate dying a miserable, grainy, death.

The next arc of magic shot straight from his clawed fingers, and it managed to catch the flesh of your forearm. It was sharper than any dagger or sword that you’d ever had the pleasure of accidentally nicking yourself with, and it tore its way down your arm like a raging beast, leaving an eerie, tacky, bubbling mess in its wake. And ouch did it hurt—like someone was taking a fistful of coarse sand and rubbing it into the open wound. You ground your teeth against the strange, gnawing, sensation and hastily wrapped a bit of torn fabric around the weeping gash to keep it a bit more contained. You waited for the worst of it to pass, for that initial bite to fade into a more manageable throb. But it didn’t. It just got sharper and tighter, hotter and hotter. For a moment it felt like your skin was crackling—like firewood popping and splitting beneath the weight of a blaze. From across the field, Leona made a noise like a hurricane given voice, and you bit back a groan.

‘Oh come on,’ you hissed to yourself. ‘Not now, please.’  

And while you’d been mostly referring to the Lion losing another brick of his sanity fort, your wound seemed to pulse at the command—a sensation not unlike the soft drone of the wards carved deep into the support beams of your dilapidated home, and an impression of words tingling along your nerves without any real shape or form. ‘Alright. Later then.’ Like a breath of wind along your fingertips. That pulsing doubled back, and the wrap you’d hurriedly tied around your forearm hummed low with gentle arcana.   

And then the cracking stopped. Just like that. Like it’d given up on eating you alive and decided to head home early for the day.

Huh, you though a bit dazedly, before hurriedly ducking out of the way of another swipe.

You clutched your still smarting but at least now functional arm to your chest, and Leona turned on you and your ethereal booboo with a raging snarl. But then that glowing glare caught on the blood trailing down towards your wrist in too dark, too thick, rivulets and his eyes went wide. It wasn’t much, but the strange bought of shock rocketing through him gave you a handful of seconds of ceasefire. You reached into your pocket with your uninjured hand and pulled out a thick bit of cardstock. This was supposed to be for emergencies, goddamn it! And you’d spent so much money on this stupid little thing! And—

You shook off the mildly delusional complaints bogging down your brain and unfolded the paper between your fingers. The sigils inked into it hummed against your skin, and the rain sluffed off its face like the cold and the damp were no bother at all.

“Fucking—” you flung the talisman at your ridiculous, rampaging, guest. It fluttered like the beat of a hawk’s wings and dove towards him with just as much vicious precision. “GO TO SLEEP!”

The enchantment smacked into his face with an echoing THUNK and you watched those too-bright eyes of his roll up into his head as he collapsed to the ground in a heap.

With the main source of all the Magical Warfare knocked unconscious, most of the miasma began to disperse—like dust caught up in a gale. The rain washed away the rest. It slid into the mud and seeped back into the earth. The plants and animals seemed to give a collective sigh, and some of your more courageous chickens even started to venture in close to peck at the leftover destruction.

You approached the felled Prince hesitantly. The talisman had been meant for subduing an enemy with a more human constitution, so you doubted it would keep him down for very long.

“Hey,” you grouched, poking his side. He twitched a bit but didn’t move otherwise. “Hey, asshole,” you tried again. Still, nothing. Uh oh.

You reached down to wedge an arm under him and hoist him upright. The singed skin of your forearm brushed along his jaw as you attempted to maneuver his bulk, and his nose twitched sharply at whatever scent was trapped in the dark, cracking, gash there. His brow scrunched up like you’d just doused him in spoiled milk, so naturally you went about waving your wounded flesh beneath his nostrils like the world’s strangest smelling salts.

After a moment he blinked back awake, face twisted up into the most properly disgruntled mien of distaste that you’d ever seen on a person who’d only just barely managed to claw their way back into the world of the living.

“Herbivore,” he rumbled, still looking more than a bit dazed.

Good enough.

You manhandled him back onto his feet as best you could—turning yourself into an impromptu crutch to try and get him mobile again. The sand shifted and sank beneath your heels, making dragging his ridiculous, dramatic, ass even more of a challenge. As you hauled him towards your cottage, you complained to him in earnest. Every little irritation under the sun. Half because you’d probably never have another opportunity to bitch at him so thoroughly without getting your own earful of grievances in return, half to keep him conscious—keep him focused on staying here. With you. And not… Wherever it was he’d gone in those moments of delirium.  

“I still don’t get why you call me that,” you griped, readjusting your grip on him when he’d started to slide down to the point his nose had buried itself against your collarbone. “Herbivore. I’ve cooked so much meat for you since you decided to crash here. Talked about how I prepare it, and the flavors I experiment with—I literally gave you some from my own sandwich when we first met! That I ate the rest of! In front of you!—”

When you finally herded him over the threshold and into your little cottage, the wards and their protection slipped around him like the soft current of a stream. You hardly even noticed the way the old magics ruffled his hair—and that was only because you were actively looking, half convinced the house was still about to toss up an invisible barrier and send him sprawling back into the dirt.

Leona wobbled on his feet, and his eyes were still too far away and grey.

You grabbed him by the ear and maneuvered his too-tall self into one of your rickety kitchen chairs. The wood groaned under the sudden press of his dead weight, but it didn’t collapse beneath him so it wasn’t worth fussing over. Once you were certain he wasn’t about to fold over sideways and crumple to the ground (or at least, that he was angled enough over a rug that he wasn’t going to crack his head on the stone floor), you rushed off to your bookcases and shelves and began hurriedly rumaging through your collection of nonsense.

The charms, the charms. Where were your emergency charms?! You’d thought you left them right there on the—Ah! There we go.

You pulled the raggedy binder from its place on the shelf, blew away the coating of dust that had settled over the top of it, and returned to your patient.

You flipped open the worn leather hooks and began sorting through the dozens upon dozens of sheets of enchanted parchment within. They were unimpressive—just small, rectangular, bits of faded paper inlaid with the softest kinds of magic. Not meant for much more than coaxing warmth into chilly limbs or placing a soft kiss over a scraped knee. But medicines were medicines—whether arcane in origin or otherwise. If you—if you just doused him in the things, that would probably work. Right? Of course it would. That made perfect sense.

So you slapped the first talisman square in the middle of his forehead. Leona swayed at the wet SMACK of the paper gluing itself to his soaked-through skin, but aside from the faintest, startled, widening of his eyes, he didn’t do anything else to complain. So you stuck the next charm to his cheek, and then another on the opposite one too.

“Magic overuse is dangerous,” you chastised as you went about layering a veritable novel’s worth of pasty, paper, enchantments up his arms. The soft spells worked their way into his skin, and you watched those twisting, black, shapes skitter back up towards where they’d once sat peacefully curled around his bicep. “Are you trying to kill yourself, hah?!”

Instead of snapping back at you like normal, he just sort of… sat there. Accepting your angry accusations in frosty silence. He absolutely looked like a cat that you’d fished out of a bag in the river. Pathetic, and sad, and droopy. And… quiet. So, very, quiet. You frowned, because as much as you didn’t particularly enjoy being insulted every minute of the day, the Lion’s biting little remarks had become… familiar, at the very least. Even if they weren’t entirely pleasant. Even if he was far from pleasant.

The dampness on his skin was starting to curl the edges of your talismans, and you reached forward with a huff to at least pull the freezing, soaked-through, vest off his shoulders. The leather jacket landed with a wet plap on the stone floor, a cold puddle already pooling around all its stupidly intricate, embroidered, edges. Something fluttered out of one of the open pockets—small, and off white, and crinkled. You stepped over the whole mess to retrieve a pile of towels and didn’t give it a second thought.

“Make a mess of my home, why don’t you,” you complained, dropping one of the towels over the entirety of his head before reaching forward to start drying him off with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. “Drip all over the floors I just mopped, why don’t you. Be emotionally constipated and almost turn my whole yard into a sand pit, why don’t you—”

A hand reached out to snag your wrist, and you let him pull you away from your attempts to rub all that stupidly thick hair straight off his head.

From beneath the curtain of the cotton towel, you could see Leona glaring at the long, dark, scratch curling along your forearm. It certainly wasn’t… nice to look at. The gymnastics of getting him into your cottage had managed to displace the impromptu bandage, so the whole of it was just there. Bruised, and dark, and odd looking. But ugly or not, it was hardly bleeding or anything anymore! And he was the one who had almost just self-destructed in your front yard!

‘Think of the accusations!’ you wanted to wail. ‘Can you imagine the garbage I would have to deal with if I wound up with a dead royal fertilizing my garden?! No thank you!’

But before you could complain about his fussing, his claws flexed against the soft skin of your palm and you saw the muscles along his forearm tense—like he was fighting to keep still.

“You should be dead,” he muttered, terse.

You huffed. “Look, I know you think humans are all sorts of pathetic, but I’m not that—”

“You should be dead,” he repeated, sounding as if the words had to tear their way out of his throat—scraping like shards of glass all the way up.

You stared at his dark eyes and dripping bangs—the shadows playing across his cheeks and the strange, hollow, wrongness that had settled over all of him. With a heavy sigh you plopped yourself down into the chair across from his and dragged a handful of the leftover charms your way. Pointedly, you took one and slapped it over the wound. And then another.  

“See?” you said, flexing your wrist in his grip to put the creeping, black, cut on display. The talismans glowed softly against your skin and the lingering whisps of darkness licking at the the injury began to fade. “All better. Not something a dead person would say at all.”

Leona frowned, but at least it looked a bit more annoyed than outright bleak. And besides, frowns were better than whatever that stoic, expressionless, numbness had been.

“Though I appreciate your concern,” you grinned, pointedly sharp and prodding. Like a toddler standing by with a stick, hoping to poke out a reaction. “Truly, whatever would I do without the Great Lord Lion there to fret over me?”

But instead of the acidic ‘I wasn’t fucking worried,’ that you were expecting, or even a more muted grumble of dissent, Leona’s brow just pinched in displeasure and your awkward attempts at teasing faded into terse silence.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, almost too quiet to hear—his head low and eyes lower.

You sighed and twisted your wrist around to pat at his hand. There was the faintest tremor in his fingers and you tangled your own between them to give him something to squeeze, something to hide the shiver of lingering malaise that he would no doubt deny with his dying breath. You observed the stern, tight, expression warping his otherwise handsome face—the miserable, puckered, angle of his mouth and the way the emerald of his eyes was cut through with a shadow of genuine remorse. You reached out with your other hand to pet at his soft, round ears. They squished flat beneath your palm and your lips twitched up into a fond, little smile. Leona tipped his chin just enough to glower at you from beneath his bangs with no real heat, and you sighed and gave him one more pat for good measure.

“You’re forgiven.”

.

.

.

TAG LIST [CLOSED]

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[bruciemilf]

:(( Early Adoption AUs where Dick and Jason kidnap baby Tim is such, such a good trope.

It all started when they were playing in the yard.

They miss Bruce everytime he leaves for a dumb meeting, and if they have to wait outside for him until it darkens, that's what they'll do.

They're having fun. Alfred even allowed them to turn the sprinklers on and get the bathtub toys out. It's not everyday Gotham allows sunshine showers, after all.

Jason spots Tim first.

A mess of dark locks creeping through his pink binoculars. Tim is a small kid. Jason notices the chair behind him. He also notices the inside of his house is fairly empty.

They don't agree on much, not on anything, really.

But they KNOW a baby isn't supposed to look that sad.

Bruce comes home a couple hours later, sighing in relief as moonlight shadows cool down his skin. He practically melts under the sun. Alfred jokes (or at least, Bruce hopes he is) its the vampire genes in him.

Still. He rarely, if ever, sees Alfred nervous.

" Don't you want to tell me about patrol?"

Bruce frowns, " You don't like hearing about it. I have to shower. I can't play with Dickie and Jay if I reek of blood."

" Just go to the other bathroom."

Now, he's suspicious. " In the bathroom you never let me use? Because the boys used it like a water park? The bathroom you've explicitly told me you'll make me an orphan again over?"

Alfred shrugs, " It's a nice bathroom."

There's giggles streaming through his bedroom door and Bruce pauses. He knows exactly how his babies sound when they're happy.

He knows the tell-tale mischief in Dick's bright snickers and Jason's ear popping shriek is Bruce's favorite sound.

But there's another one, smaller and thinner, yet joyful.

He gives Alfred one last look before entering, and the sight freezes him in his tracks.

Right there, there's his boys, drowning in his work suit jackets, with glitter markers smeared all over their eyelids. The bright reds and greens pop around Bruce's eyeliner.

And in the middle of them there's tiny, itty bitty Tim Drake, also smudge-eyed but GLOWING with a toothy grin.

"B!" Dick's eyes are wide, " Uh...So you're probably wondering...About this."

"Hn."

Then, Tim surprises them all when he points a finger at him, " Batman."

Oh, boy.

[pinkanonwrites]

I’ll Take Care Of You

“It’s rotten work.”

“Not to me. Not if it’s you.”

My Vash/Reader sickfic that I’ve been promising! I’ve been dinking around trying to get it to a place I like and I like it now, so time to post! Read on AO3 here!

Vash/Reader, 3,700+ words, GN!Reader, sickfic, sick reader, comfort, worried vash, non-sexual nudity, cuddling, sharing warmth, emeto/vomit warning

It's strange, when you're feeling unwell, how easy it is for the tiniest things to set you off.

There are plenty of day to day irritants in life, especially living on a desolate sand ball like No Man's Land. For the most part you'd learned to take many of them in stride, laughing when you could, letting the emotions roll over you like a wave when you couldn't until they receded softly back into the recesses of your mind and you could once again roll over and face the day ahead. It helped to have good company, and despite the crowded dune-crawler and the constant driving it entailed, you usually found somewhere amidst the chaos to enjoy yourself.

Not today.

You already hadn't felt well leaving the previous town, head and stomach swimming too much to risk eating more than some dry crackers and lukewarm canteen water, and even that made your innards pitch and roil dangerously. The car was constantly shifting, massive tires ping-ponging the entire chassis back and forth whenever you climbed over a particularly rocky bit of terrain and doing absolutely nothing to soothe the vertigo pooling in the bottom of your brain. It was too hot, too cramped, and worst of all?

Too. Damn. Loud.

Wedged between Wolfwood and Vash in the backseat, you had no escape from the blond's excessive snoring on your left and Nicholas leaning up over the center console to pester Meryl about her driving. Of course she was snapping back with equal levels of vitriol, voices rising slowly with each back and forth. In the passenger seat Milly was giggling along to their vicious banter, occasionally peppering in comments or fiddling with the radio dial, weather reports and religious sermons screeching through the fuzz.

The static of the radio crackled, Meryl's window-mounted fan clicked sharply with each rotation, Vash's head made a soft thunk as it connected with the glass of his window and Wolfwood kept hitting you with his elbow as he reached over the console and Milly was laughing and Meryl was yelling and Wolfwood was yelling back and-

"Hic…"

Your wet, little gasp silenced the car's occupants like a gunshot, your own hands too slow to stifle it from coming out. You could feel everyone's attention turn to you, even Vash beginning to stir to your left, and you couldn't tell if the heat flushing to your head was humiliation, sickness, heatstroke, or some miserable combination of the three. But you do know that said heat and said gazes made you curl up in the middle seat, covering your face with your long sleeves as you let out another miserable little sob.

"Are you alright back there?"

"Oh no, please don't cry! Do you feel carsick?"

"H-Hey, it's gonna be alright. Is this cause I kept hittin' ya with my elbow? Cause I said I was sorry."

You sobbed again, tears and snot and sweat running down your face and wetting your shirt sleeves as you pulled your knees up, curling as small as you could get. "'M sorry, 'm sorry, I'm fine."

"You're not fine! Did something happen?" Meryl couldn't look away from the road, but Milly had all but fully turned around in her seat to check on you.

"Do you need some water? I still have some if you're all out."

"C'mon, birdie, don't go all silent on us."

You wanted to shrivel up and dissolve into sand in the middle seat, curling in upon your own body as if it may actually make you disappear. This didn't help, it wasn't helping, it was just more noise and more worry and more hot tears running down your cheeks and you just wanted it all to stop.

"Hey, what's going on?"

Pulling your head up from your knees, you were met by Vash's hand gently brushing your forehead. His palm rested there, warm and steady, as he looked you over with a soft concern.

"You feel pretty warm. Is everything alright?" As he pulled away he brought his thumb down to swipe a stray tear from your cheek. You wanted to bawl, to clamber into his arms and let him cover you with his coat, shielding you from the heat and the noise and the (brightbrightwaytoobright) sun. But when you opened your mouth to speak, tongue dry and unsteady, you instead croaked out four, painfully small words.

"I'm gonna throw up."

"...Eh? EH?!? H-HANG ON!" You were jostled back by the force of Vash diving forward, clapping both hands over your mouth with a low groan. Your stomach pitched wildly, thick saliva pooling in the back of your throat as Vash jammed himself over the center console. "PULL OVER!"

"Wh-What? Why?" Meryl yelped when Vash exploded into her line of sight.

"JUST DO IT! PLEASE?!?"

She hardly needed to 'pull over' in the stretches of open desert, but the dune-crawler rumbled and bumped to a jerky halt that only served to make your stomach sickness worse. Not even waiting for Vash to unbuckle his seatbelt, you clambered over his lap and opened the door, collapsing to the ground just in time to empty the meager contents of your stomach into the hot sand. There was hardly anything to hack up, everything you'd eaten over the course of the day splattering out with a few shivering gags. But your body continued to retch out of your control, fresh tears dripping off your cheeks and into the puddle as you helplessly dry heaved on your hands and knees.

"Hey, hey, you're alright. Deep breaths, okay? I've got you." There was a cool hand brushing your hair back from your sticky forehead, and another rubbing the small space between your shoulder blades.

Finally, when your stomach had finished cramping and the last thick glob of saliva had drooled from your open mouth onto the sand, your body pitched forward dangerously, elbows collapsing from exhaustion. You would have face-planted straight into your own mess if Vash wasn't there to catch you, hauling you backwards so you could slump weakly against his chest as he sat with you in the sand. You could hear shuffling around you, footsteps, but your eyes were still blurry with moisture as you squinted weakly in the afternoon sun.

"Thanks, Milly. Here, drink this." You felt the rim of a canteen press to your lips, and let Vash tip your head back to take a swig of water.

"Don't drink too fast now, or you might get sick again!" One of Milly's large hands gently caressed the top of your head. "We've got plenty of time to get to the next town, so take as long as you need!"

"I'm sorry." You whimpered again, feeling twice as pathetic in the face of everyone's kindness. You could hear Meryl click her tongue somewhere off to your right.

"You don't have to apologize! Everybody gets sick sometimes, it's just a thing that happens."

"Yer lucky we're planning on a hotel tonight, way better than sleeping in the sand-OW! HEY!"

"Quit being a jerk! They already don't feel good and you're not helping!""How am I not helping?" Wolfwood hissed. "I'm reminding them they don't have to sleep in the back of a dingy car all night!"

"Dingy!?"

"Ooh, boy. There they go again." Vash sighed out a chuckle, hand never pausing as he carefully rubbed your upper arm. "Whenever you feel up for it, we can get going. Okay?"

As Meryl and Wolfwood continued to bicker quietly in the background, you let yourself melt fully into Vash's chest. His prosthetic arm came around your waist to keep you from slipping too far down, and you lolled your head back against his collarbone as your eyelids fluttered. "I'm sorry…" You slurred again, even though by this point you knew the apology was not necessary. "Jus' don't feel good…"

"You get a little silly when you're sick, don't you?" There was a teasing tone to Vash's voice, one that made you feel all warm and cozy in your chest. "You're being very polite right now."

"'M tired, Vash." You whined, rolling to your side a bit to nuzzle your cheek against his chest.

"I know." He said, so soft and so fond. "When we get back in the car, you can lay on me, alright? Then you can sleep the whole ride there. I promise."

"Mmh, yes please…"

You couldn't remember exactly how long you spent on the ground, just the vague feelings of Vash helping you to your feet, buckling your seatbelt for you after you clambered weakly back to your spot. As soon as he was seated he twisted his body towards you, leaning back against the car door so you could sprawl yourself out across his chest. And sprawl you did, fingers clutching absently at his coat as you tucked your face into the crook of his neck with a content little sigh. The dune-crawler rocked slightly as your other friends climbed into their respective seats, but with your cheek pressed to Vash's chest it didn't make you feel so dangerously nauseous anymore.

"Try getting some rest. We'll wake you up in the next town." His metal hand found the small of your hip and rested there, keeping you curled safely against his chest as the engine rumbled back to life. Eyelids dipping heavily, you mumbled out a few clumsy words of appreciation before blackness overtook your vision.

"Thank you… Vash…"

You didn't jostle blearily awake again until Meryl had already paid for your respective hotel rooms, letting you rest slumped against Vash in the backseat while she chatted with the man at the desk. Given the size of the town itself, it made sense that there would only be a few rooms available. Fortunately Meryl was able to book two doubles and a single, leaving you with your own space to recuperate while the rest of the group split the two double rooms between themselves.

"We'll be right across the street, okay?" Vash gave you a gentle pat on the shoulder as he pointed out the window of your hotel room to the nearby diner. "Try and get a little more rest, and I'll bring you back something for dinner!"

“Mhm… I will.” You mumbled. You'd let your travel bag thunk loudly to the floor next to your bed as you collapsed into the mattress. Some of the vertigo had subsided after your extended nap, but you hardly wanted to push your luck by trying to go out to dinner with everyone else.

"There's even a bath if you want to take one, might help you feel better." Vash gave a final, soothing rub to the space between your shoulder blades before you could hear him stepping away, boots thudding softly on the wood floor. "I'll be back before you know it. Sleep well."

"Have fuuuun." You sighed out, door clicking shut behind him and leaving you in silence. As tired as you were, there was a tacky sweatiness to your skin, sickness and desert heat making you feel distinctly gross to the touch. Maybe a bath would be a good idea after all…

Reluctantly, you slumped into a seated position before getting back to your feet. The bathroom was larger than you'd expected for the size of the inn, and your vision swam slightly as you reached over to fiddle with the knobs and start the sudden rush of water. It was even warm; how much did this place cost? Distantly you felt a little prickle of guilt, Meryl was probably spending extra just to make sure you could rest in a vague semblance of comfort. You'd have to be sure to thank her profusely, when you could actually think straight. You clumsily shed your clothes, letting them fall to the tiled floor as you slipped into the warm water and toed the knob back off again with your foot.

It felt good at first, dunking your head under the water and coming up again with a soft huff as rivulets ran from your hair. But you were far too tired to even wash yourself properly, and though the water barely bordered on warm, something about the heat made your dizziness spike all over again. You couldn't even bring yourself to stand back up to get out, slumping against the side of the tub and resting your cheek on the cool ceramic edge. All you needed was to close your eyes for a moment, and once the spiraling in your head stopped you'd be fine to climb back out again. You'd just get a little more rest in the meantime…

"Heyyy, are you feeling any better? I brought you some soup! We just need to bring the bowl back tomorrow morning."

Vash knocked twice on your door, but received no response. Man, you must be really exhausted. Your bedroom light was visible from the street, so when he saw it on he'd assumed you were still awake. He tried the handle, finding your door to still be unlocked.

"I'm coming in, okay?" He twisted the handle, hesitating just a moment before adding. "...Don't be naked!"

He shouldered the door open, one hand holding your lidded bowl of soup and the other covering his eyes. Kicking the door shut behind him, Vash hesitated a moment before peeking through his spread fingers. Your room was empty, bed still made, bag exactly where you'd dropped it just before he left. Vash's stomach sank, quickly setting the bowl on the table as he called out your name. You wouldn't have gone somewhere, would you? Did someone see him bringing you into the hotel, maybe peg you as a sidekick of The Humanoid Typhoon? There weren't any signs of a struggle, though. Maybe you were sicker than he thought, and he'd left you all alone when you were at your most vulnerable. His gaze flickered around the room, grasping for any sign of where you may have gone or what might have happened.

Finally, it landed on the bathroom door. It wasn't open when he left, and a slim trail of light was glinting from the gap between it and the doorframe. There was silence beyond it, a blistering, agonizing silence. He took two hesitant steps forwards, knocking shakily on the doorframe, before finally nudging it open and letting himself inside.

His heart twisted and stammered in his chest when his gaze finally landed on you, rabbiting up into a thundering panic when you didn't even acknowledge his entrance. You were slumped in the bathtub, one arm hanging over the edge and your cheek lolled against the rim of the basin, eyelids shut but fluttering weakly. There was a sickly pallor to your skin, and even from a distance Vash could see the goosebumps that had broken out across every stretch of it currently visible to him. You were even shivering, hard.

"H-Hey!" He didn't have time to be flustered at your state of complete undress, too busy stumbling forward to lift your limp and unmoving body from the bath. The water was cool, almost cold as he dunked his arms in, soaking the sleeves of his shirt and jacket as he hooked you under the armpits and pulled you into his arms. Letting himself sink to his knees so you could rest in his lap, he let go of you with one arm for just a moment, just long enough to grasp blindly at a towel on the counter to bundle you in. Your head thunked limply against his chest as soon as he had you wrapped in the towel and back in his arms. "Hey, can you hear me? I've got you now, it's gonna be okay."

It didn't feel like it was going to be okay, not to Vash at least. His stomach was swimming with guilt as he carried you back out to your bed, bundling you in the sheets and using the towel to dry the tips of your hair that were still damp. You were still shaking, thin blankets doing far too little to bring the warmth back to your body. Of course there wouldn't be any more stored in the hotel room either; it wasn't like anyone needed them most of the time anyway. He could dip back down the hallway and grab the blankets from his own bed, but that meant leaving you alone again, even for just another few moments. The thought made Vash feel vaguely sick himself.

Only one thing he could do then.

Vash shucked off his coat and tossed it over the back of a chair, hesitating for a moment before doing the same with his turtleneck. Waterlogged sleeves clung to his arms as he wrestled the damp thing off, dropping it unceremoniously onto the floor before moving back to your bedside. He tugged back the top blanket, leaving you swaddled in the sheet as he clambered in next to you and pulled the blanket back up to his chin. You let out a soft sigh through your nose as you curled instinctively into his warmth, tucking your face into the crook of his neck. Oh so hesitantly, like you were made of fine china, Vash draped an arm around your bundled form and splayed his hand out wide along the small of your back.

"I'm sorry…" He murmured, clutching your shuddering body like you would dissolve away between his fingertips if he relaxed, even for a moment. "I'm so sorry. I should have stayed. I won't leave again. I'm sorry."

"Mmmrh… Vash?"

He jolted, cupping your face with a hesitant call of your name as you blinked miserably awake. Head thumping and body aching, you squinted until Vash's face phased into clarity, all quivering lip and furrowed brow and stinging, glassy eyes. Weakly, you wrestled a hand free from the sheet, wiping at the corner of his eye with your thumb. He choked on a sob, melting into your palm with a relieved gasp.

"You're okay."

"Mmh… Head hurts a lot. What time is it?" You grumbled. The last thing your remembered was stooping down to run yourself a bath, then the rest of it faded into a hazy blur. Vash sniffled, pressing a kiss to your palm.

"Evening. Probably around 8? You passed out in the bath… It was really cold."

Fragmented memories began to click back into place, and you gripped the sheets close to your body with your free hand as you suddenly processed your own nudity. A spike of humiliation shot through you, as dulled as it was by your swimming senses.

"God, I'm sorry. I didn't scare you too bad, did I?"

Vash didn't respond, but the look on his face gave you all the answer you needed.

"Oh, honey." The sheets were tucked close up enough to your chest that you didn't hesitate to free your other hand to cup his face as well. His gaze trailed off to the corner of his eye, unable to keep contact with yours. "I'm so sorry, you must have been so worried."

"I-It's alright! It's not a big deal, really. I'm just glad you're okay."

You didn't relent, not yet, instead leaning in and pressing a kiss to the center of his forehead. "It _is _a big deal. I scared you, didn't I?"

"Not on purpose or anything."

"That doesn't mean it didn't feel real. Oh, Vash." His breath hitched when you murmured his name, another fresh tear or two slipping down his cheeks. "I'm okay. You found me and I'm gonna be alright, alright? I'm right here."

A tiny, pained whimper escaped him as he bundled you into his arms, hiding his teary face in the crook of your neck. Both flesh and metal hands fisted the fabric draped across your back as he pressed a kiss to the soft space in between your neck and your shoulder. "I shouldn't have left. I should have made sure you were okay. I shouldn't have told you to take a bath."

"Hey, hey, hold on. You didn't make me do anything, I chose to take a bath. None of this is your fault, Vash. Things happen sometimes." Your cradled the back of his head in one hand, and rubbed soothing circles across his broad back with the other. "You came to check on me, and you found me, and you got me warm. You're so good, Vash. My wonderful boy."

He sniffled against your neck again, but you could feel the faintest hint of a smile pressed against your skin. "...I brought you some soup. Are you hungry?"

You hummed, trailing your fingertips up and down the jut of his shoulder blade. "In a little bit. Can you warm me up a bit more first? You're like a living space heater."

Finally, you could feel some of the nervous tension begin to eke out of Vash's muscles as he began to melt into your arms. He tugged you forward, just enough that your fronts were pressed together from the chest all the way down to where your legs intertwined, thin fabric sheet separating your bare chests.

"Good? Not too warm?" His heartbeat was thundering loud enough for you to feel, his hands so gentle where they rested upon your exhausted body. "Let me know if you get too warm, okay?"

"I will. But this is perfect." You nuzzled your forehead against his shoulder, making him stifle a soft chuckle. "I could fall asleep again."

"Not yet! You've got to at least eat something first, okay? After you eat, then you can sleep."

"Always looking after me.~" You cooed. "I will, okay? In just a few minutes."

Your answer seemed to placate him for now as he pressed another kiss to your neck, light and chaste. He nosed along your jawbone, breath light and ticklish as he murmured. "Can I stay here tonight? I know I have my own room, and you need to rest, and I don't want to be a bother, but-"

"Yes." You replied, before he could talk himself out of it. "Yes, please stay with me. I want you to."

There was a palpable relief in the sigh he let out at your response. "Good. Cause I probably just would have camped out in the hallway if you said no. Might get in trouble with the owners for that."

"Well we can't have that happen, now can we?"

"No we cannot.~"

You chuckled, body feeling light for the first time that day as you let Vash cradle you in his steady arms.

[thefatedthoughtofyou]

Eddie lives.

Just barely.

Steve and Nancy carry him out of the upside down, with the help of a sobbing Robin and a screaming Dustin. They get him out. They get him safe. They get him to the hospital.

The government clears his name. They clean up Hawkins as best they can. All while Eddie is in a coma. The doctors don't know if he'll ever wake up. Steve sits next to Wayne everyday. Waiting. They talk. Get close.

And almost 3 months later. Eddie wakes up. He smiles at Wayne, reaches for his hand with tears in his eyes. And once they're done hugging, his eyes land on steve. Full of confusion, his hands gripping Wayne's shirt tightly, his head shaking.

He doesn't remember.

Anything.

He remembers meeting Chrissy after school, taking her back to the trailer. And then nothing. Steve feels his chest ache, feels tears coming. He excuses himself quickly, and then he runs.

~°~

He hears about Eddie, through Dustin. He helps Eddie around school now, helps with his classes too. Eddie is different now. Quieter. Dustin tells him this. Tells him he really only seems like old Eddie when they meet for hellfire.

But Dustin also tells him that he's pretty sure Eddie thinks maybe he did kill Chrissy. Because people talk. The town talks. And no amount of hush money can make people less vindictive and awful. Can't make the way they call him a freak with more venom now than they ever did before, go away.

But the thing is. Eddie still sees so much. About people. About how they're feeling. If they're upset, and sometimes why they are. He's observant in a way that Steve has never been able to get used too.

And Dustin drags Steve and Robin and Nancy back into Eddie's orbit. Willing their closeness to bring their Eddie back. He gets closer with Dustin and Lucas than before. Even apologizes to Lucas unprompted, about how harsh he was about hellfire that day. Asks for his sports schedule to make sure they don't overlap again.

And Steve's chest keeps aching. Because Eddie has learned from the things he can't even fucking remember.

Dustin drags Eddie around them all. And Steve can't help the way he looks at him. Can't help the way he watches him. But every now and then. He finds Eddie watching him back. Both of them startling and looking away.

But Steve always glances back at Eddie, has to keep his eyes on him. He'd spent so much time in that hospital room, watching Eddie sleep, and not move, and be still and silent. And he'd hated it.

So he watches him. Watches him move. Watches him smile. Watches him hold up a move case to Dustin, a funny voice floating from behind it. It makes Dustin laugh and Steve smile. And Eddie sees it. Looks up and locks eyes with Steve as he watches them goof around the store, and he doesn't look away.

But steve does. He has too. Because there's no recognition behind Eddie's eyes. Not the way Steve wants there to be.

~°~

Three months later Lucas and Dustin show up at his door, looking worried. It's late friday night. Steve had to work so he couldn't pick them up from hellfire, but they were both still clutching their dnd manuals to their chests.

Steve doesn't even have time to open his mouth before dustin says,

"He's remembering." And Steve's heart flutters but he stays as calm as possible, lets the boys in.

"What do you mean he's remembering?" Steve asks, all of them falling into chairs and couches in his living room.

"The new campaign. It's got.... things. The bats. The vines. It's even got a creepy house." Lucas says, slowly, like he's afraid to tell Steve. Steve frowns, nods.

"There's other stuff too. There's a few characters, npcs, they're a lot like you and Robin. There's one that could be Nancy, with a stretch. But your's is... playing a big part." Dustin grimaces when he says it, and Steve's cheeks burn, maybe Dustin sees more than he lets on.

"What? What kinda part? And does he know? That it's me? That it's...that it's real?" Steve asks, his hands rubbing over his jeans roughly, his palms damp as he presses them against his thigh.

"We don't think so. Not really. But he gets this look in his eyes sometimes. When certain things happen. He'll look at us, me and Dustin, and it's like..." Lucas shakes his head, like he doesn't know how to describe it.

"It's like he's challenging us. To say something. To like- confirm the things he's saying? Like he knows that we know something. That we know it's real." Dustin swallows, hard.

"And then it passes. And he's back to normal DM Eddie. Just, doing his normal shit. It's- it's weird. There's something there. And we thought... maybe..." Lucas trails off, glances at Steve. His stomach drops.

"You thought what?" He asks, but he knows.

"We thought maybe you could talk to him." Dustin says, a cringy smile on his face.

"Why me?" Steve asks, but he's already thinking about what he'll say to Eddie. How he's supposed to talk about this.

Lucas shrugs,

"Because he seems fixated on you. Not in a weird way. Just... you're in the campaign. A lot. And he asked Dustin about you last week." Lucas says, looking to Dustin so he can be out of Steve's attention.

"He what?" Steve asks, eyes locking on Dustin, who glares at Lucas.

"It was nothing bad!!!" Dustin screeches, holds his hands up.

"He just... asked if you and Nancy were still dating. Had this confused look on his face, like he was trying to peice something together." Dustin shrugs, like it's nothing. Like his words didn't just completely shift Steve's world.

"I'll do it."

~°~

He goes to Eddie's the next day. Knows he'll be home. Wayne's been taking weekends off to spend time with him.

Wayne opens the door, smiles softly when he sees it's steve.

"Hey kid. Was startin to wonder if I'd be seeing you again." He says, his voice soft, but happy. Not accusing like Steve had been worried he might be. Steve sighs, smiles back.

"Hey Wayne. I uh... I was wondering if I could talk to Eddie? If he's around?" He shrugs, pretends they both don't know that Eddie doesn't leave the house much anymore. Wayne looks at him for a moment, really looks at him, and then he's smiling again and motioning for Steve to come inside.

"He's in his room. I'm gonna go for a walk. I won't be far. Holler if you need me." Wayne says, and steps through the door. Leaving Steve standing alone. He takes a deep breath and walks down the hall.

Eddie's sitting in bed, scribbling in a notebook in his lap. Steve clears his throat and Eddie's head snaps up. He sees Steve and shuts the notebook quickly, rearranges himself, sits up a bit straighter. But there's no look of confusion this time. Steve raises his hand, wiggles his fingers, hovering in the doorway to the bedroom.

"Hey. Can I come in?" He asks, and he's nearly whispering, not sure why.

"Hey." Eddie says, nods and waves for Steve to come into his room. He does. And then he stands awkwardly in the middle of Eddie's room, not sure what to do or where to go from here. Eddie snorts, and Steve's eyes jump to his face, find him smirking, just a little, his eyes full of amusement.

"You can sit if you want." Eddie taps his foot against the bed twice before pulling his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on them and watching Steve as he sits across from him after kicking his shoes off. He sits cross legged, looking at Eddie look at him.

"So Dustin wanted me to talk to you." He says, apropos of nothing. Good start Steve. Eddie's eyebrows jump on his head.

"Dustin..." Eddie trails off, watching Steve. Steve nods, slowly. Can't seem to gage whether Eddie is fucking with him, or waiting to see just how much Steve will divulge without being prompted.

"About the new campaign. And some of the... stuff. You've been putting in it." He frowns, but Eddie's eyes flash dark for a moment, and Steve's sure this is the look the boys had mentioned. And like they said, it's gone in a flash.

"What about it?" Eddie asks, his voice a touch higher. Steve sighs, rubs at his face. He really should have brought Robin, or Nancy. He shouldn't be the one doing this. He pushes his hands through his hair and then finds Eddie staring at him.

"Can I ask you a question?" Eddie asks, his voice quiet. Steve blinks at him.

"It's a weird question. And I don't" he pauses, his face scrunching, like he's in pain.

"You can ask me. Whatever it is. It's okay." Steve assures him, has to curl his fingers into his pants to keep from reaching out to Eddie, wanting to sooth him. Eddie frowns, is silent for a moment before he looks at Steve.

"Were we-" he stops, shakes his head, his fingers pressing into his comforter by his foot.

"Were we... something?" He's frowning again, his head shaking gently as his eyes jump around and then land on Steve, he looks like he might be about to cry.

"Uhh... what do you mean by something?" Steve asks slowly. Eddie wraps his arms around his knees again, tucks his feet closer, presses his lips to his knee before he takes a breath.

"I keep having these dreams." He says, eyes on the bed between them.

"And you're in them. And it just feels..." he shakes his head again, sniffs, and Steve can't help it. He moves forward, curls his fingers around Eddie's ankle. Eddie sucks in a shakey breath, his eyes snapping to Steve.

"Feels like what?" Steve asks, softly. Eddie stares, his eyes watery.

"It feels so real. And then I see you. Here. With Dustin. Or at family video. And it just..." he shakes his head again,

"It just feels like I'm missing something. Until I see you. And then it feels... like I've found it. But.... not? Because we aren't. I mean we weren't.... were we?" He's frowning now, tears falling, and he looks so confused, and hurt. Steve licks his lips, shakes his head, slowly, and almost crumbles when Eddie nods, quickly, and looks away, pulls his ankle away from Steve.

"Yeah. No I figured. Sorry. I shouldn't have said anything." Eddie looks so small, curls around himself, not looking at Steve.

"Eddie it's-" he doesn't know what to say, or how to say it. So he bites his lip, remembers the way Eddie smiled up at him in that fucking RV and decides to tell him the truth.

"We weren't. No. But I- I wanted to be. I just realized it too late." Steve watches as Eddie turns to him, slowly, his eyes wide. Steve shrugs, give him a sad smile.

"You- you wanted- with me?" Eddie's voice is high, disbelieving. Steve nods.

"Yeah. But I didn't make it back in time. And then you were dying. And then you didn't remember and I-" his voice breaks, tears blurring his vision, burning his throat, he clears it, tries again.

"I just thought it would be better to let you go. Get back to normal. I didn't wanna... push you. You needed to heal. So I just..." Steve moves his hand in front of him, gesturing to nothing, hoping Eddie understands.

"You stayed away." And of course Eddie does, get it. Steve smiles, huffs, shakes his head and wipes at his face. And then he sees Eddie's notebook pushed into view. Eddie holding it out to him.

"I didn't forget. Not really." Eddie says, nodding to the notebook, holding it until Steve takes it. He moves to open it, checks with Eddie first, looking at him, Eddie nods.

Steve flips the first page open and his breath catches. A tornado of demo bats fills the page. It's followed by pages of vines. Pages of Chrissy. Pages of Dustin, and Nancy, and Robin, Max and Erica.

All of them. Some of them in the RV. Some of them riding bikes. All of them littered with drawings of Steve. Steve in the boathouse, Steve being strangled by bats, Steve with blood in his mouth from killing said bats. Steve wrapped in bandages, and Steve wearing Eddie's vest. Pages and pages and pages of Steve.

He looks back, sees Eddie watching him.

"I've been dreaming about you. I dreamed about you in the hospital too. And as good as my imagination is, it's never been this good." He smiles a little.

"It just seemed so unreal. I mean... Steve Harrington? It didn't make sense." He almost laughs then, a breathy little sound as he shakes his head again. Steve snorts.

"Yeah. Trust me. I was just as surprised as you. Eddie Munson wasn't really something I was prepared for." Steve admits, smiles at Eddie.

"So you... what you like me?" Eddie asks, nose scrunching, rolling his eyes a bit.

"Yeah. Little bit. I just didn't get the chance to see if you liked me back." Steve shrugs. Eddie laughs then, and it sounds maniacal.

"What?" Steve huffs, his chest feeling lighter already, just the sound of Eddie's laugh after so long making him wanna smile.

"Dude. I've had an unfortunate crush on you since freshman year." Eddie sighs, rolls his eyes. Steve bites his lips, feeling himself going red.

"Really?" Steve asks, his hand inching back toward Eddie's ankle.

"Yeah. Never thought I'd get to even be on your radar. But then these dreams..." he picks up the notebook and drops it again. Steve laughs.

"You were on my radar. We had classes together." Steve mumbles, his ears feeling hot.

"Was I? Really? You seemed pretty wrapped around any girl who smiled at you." Eddie says, teasing, shoving his toes at Steve, pushing them under his thigh. Steve grabs his ankle again, squeezes.

"You were. I just... didn't know it... back then. Didn't know what I was feeling." He shakes his head, frowning. They sit in silence for awhile, and then Eddie taps the notebook again.

"All this stuff is real then? The bats, and the vines, and that creepy house? This all happened?" He sounds unsure again. Steve nods slowly, widens his eyes, stares at Eddie's comforter.

"All real." Steve confirms.

"Could you-" Eddie starts, his hand reaching out, fingers curling around Steve's wrist.  Steve blinks at him.

"Would you tell me? Tell me all the stuff I don't remember?" Eddie asks, his fingers squeezing.

"Like a story?" Steve asks, his free hand moving to cover Eddie's. Eddie nods.

"Yeah. I remember a lot I think, I just need... I need you to tell me what order? Or like... how they happened. So I can peice it together." His brow furrows, like he's not sure. Steve smiles, moves his hand up Eddie’s arm, cups his cheek and smiles when Eddie leans into the touch.

"I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything." Steve breathes between them, his thumb soothing over Eddie's cheek. Eddie's eyes flutter, he leans closer, Steve leans forward too, like he's being pulled by a magnet. But he feels like he should have been here months ago, like maybe he's been waiting for this moment his whole life.

"Steve?" Eddie whispers his name between them, Steve can feel his breath on his lips.

"Yeah?" Steve asks, his eyes darting between Eddie's lips and his eyes.

"Have we done this before?" He asks, his voice small. Steve smiles, bumps his nose into Eddie's, his head shaking slightly.

"No. This is new." Steve breathes, his fingers moving into the hair at the nape of Eddie neck.

"Oh. Good. I like it." Eddie laughs, a small thing, he sounds giddy. Steve huffs a laugh too, pulls Eddie just a fraction closer.

"I like it too Ed's." He breathes the words against Eddie's lips and closes the space. Smiling into the kiss when Eddie hums happily, his hands grabbing at Steve's shirt.

~°~

They lay in Eddie's bed for the rest of the day, Steve telling him everything. All about Chrissy, and the upside down, and El and Max, all about Vecna. He tells him everything. All of it. And tries not to make it too much about how Eddie got under his skin. Won him over. Made him fall, hard, for this weird nerdy metal head.

And mostly it works, or Steve thinks so, until the moment he's finished talking. Done answering Eddie's questions, there are several. And Eddie pokes him in the ribs and  teases.

"You've got it bad for me huh?" Wiggling his fingers and making Steve squirm. Steve grabs his hands, rolls them over and presses Eddie into the matress. His hands move up Eddie’s wrists, lace their fingers together as Eddie blinks up at him, owlish eyes locked on him.

"Yeah. I've got it bad Munson. That okay with you?" Eddie's mouth opens and Steve dives in, doesn't wait for his answer.

But he doesn't need too. Eddie's dreams had been full of Steve, just like Steve's had been full of him.

[apuckishwit]

With a Capital P

Saw this post about Stobin having no boundaries, by @grimmfitzz and oops, my hand slipped.

By all rights, there should be some awkwardness. A little lingering strangeness, an adjustment period, if you will. After all, only a few days ago, he fully thought he had feelings for Robin. Well, obviously he does have feelings for her...but he'd thought they were entirely different than the ones he has.

He's maybe a little more concussed than he'd convinced the paramedics he was. To be fair, they had a lot going on.

The point is, he feels like there should be more weirdness. A time period in which he awkwardly shuffles Robin from a box marked 'possible girlfriend?' to the one marked just 'friend'--the one Tommy and Carol used to occupy before things went so sideways (though he's still too afraid to really examine the spaces those two left, too afraid it'll just confirm that he wasted so much time with people who were never his friends at all). Maybe even slot her into the box he's slowly constructing for the kids...something not quite labeled 'friend' and not quite labeled 'family' and quickly coming to take up the biggest chunk of his battered, lonely heart (oh, wow, yeah...definitely more concussed than he let on).

Turns out, though, that being drugged and tortured together, and then launching an assault on a gigantic flesh beast from another dimension with nothing but fireworks and nerve lets you skip over a lot of the beginning phases of a relationship (romantic or otherwise). Also turns out there's a secret, fourth box he didn't even know about. One that's just marked 'Robin' that he has apparently been just waiting for her to come along and fill.

Robin ends up spending most of the rest of the summer at Steve's house, more often than not. He doesn't know what she tells her parents. Doesn't particularly care. He's always had a weird relationship with parental care and authority, so he's not sure he's really in a position to have an opinion about if Robin is lying to her parents about where she is, or if they don't care that she's hanging out at his place so much.

They spend days abusing the central air, or watching movies they swipe from Family Video, or eating snacks out by the pool (he tells her she's welcome to swim, she notes that he never gets in the water himself and doesn't ask questions...but also doesn't move from his side). At first, he makes up a guest room for her when she spends the night, but after the fourth or fifth time one (or both) of them wake up screaming (goddamn, goddamn, goddamn it, he'd just gotten a handle on the nightmares about impossible creatures bursting from the wall, now he gets new material to deal with?) Robin just groans and collapses onto Steve's bed, burrowing under his blankets with him.

"Your room is hideous," she grumbles, grabbing one of his hands and bringing their joined fingers to rest in the small space between their bodies.

"I know," he shrugs. He squeezes her hand. She squeezes back. He listens to her breaths in the dark, feels the warmth radiating off of her. It's comforting. Grounding. He's not alone. Whatever terrors the night brings for them, they'll face it together.

He wakes up hours later, sunlight streaming into his room and the beautiful girl he'd thought he was falling for snuggled right up against his side, the two of them having moved in the night. It should be the stuff of adolescent fantasies but all he feels is a distant sort of confusion that they actually slept so long. Robin's face is smashed into his shoulder and he realizes he's been drooling into her hair, and the first thing she does when she wakes up is shriek about it.

"Ewww, gross! Seriously?!"

"I didn't do it on purpose!"

"Spit, Steve! My hair is covered in your spit!"

"Well I'm pretty sure this giant booger on my shirt isn't mine, Buckley!"

"Are you accusing me of--oh, wow that is big." Robin starts rubbing at her nose as she stalks into the bathroom and the shower starts running a moment later. He opens the door long enough to toss a clean towel onto the sink and then wanders down to the kitchen to start coffee.

She makes fun of his bedhead when she comes down the stairs, he goggles at the amount of milk and sugar she puts in her coffee. And he never makes up the guest room for her again.

*

"I am telling you, Johnson is trying to kill us with his exams! It's barely October and we've already had three!" Robin stabs angrily at the chicken cutlets in the pan with her fork, holding one up so Steve can see how brown it is on one side. At his nod, she starts flipping them over. She ducks her head without looking when he reaches over her to snag the basil out of the spice cabinet, still stirring the tomato sauce with his free hand.

"Yeah, Johnson's a dick. Glad I'm done with his class for good." He dips the spoon out of the sauce and blows on it for a moment before tasting, then holds the spoon out for Robin to lick the rest of it off.

"Mmm, more red pepper. And I know! You're so lucky. How did you even pass? Cheryl Mackey was crying in the band room after she got her test back, and she's like, straight a student all the way." Robin finishes flipping the chicken and goes back to chopping carrots for their salad.

"Oh, Robert O'Connell--the guy that works down at the Snack n' Go?--he saved all his tests from when he had Johnson a few years ago. Johnson never writes new ones. You give Robert 20 bucks, you can get any of the answer keys."

Robin sets the knife down and reaches into Steve's back pocket, pulling his wallet out. "Couldn't have told me this earlier?" she grouses, yanking two tens out and shoving the wallet back in his pocket.

"Hey, that's my gas money for the week!" He grabs the pot with the noodles off the stove and takes it to the colander waiting in the sink, sticking his ass out expectantly.

"You look like a hooker trying to pick up johns."

"Well give me at least half my gas money back so I don't have to sell my body to drive you and Henderson to school this week."

"Ugh, fine." She grabs his wallet again and stuffs one of the tens back into it. Then winds up one of his dish towels and smacks his rear end hard enough that he jumps about a foot in the air.

He dumps the drained noodles back into the pot and turns around to bring it back to the stove only to find that Robin is right behind him with the pot of sauce, apparently having been bringing it over to the sink. They collide, hard, and Robin screams bloody murder as hot spaghetti sauce gets dumped all down her front.

"Hot, hot, hot, fuck, hot!"

"Shit, hold on!" He all but tosses the pot of noodles back into the sink and snatches the sauce pot out of her hands. As soon as he does she's whipping off her shirt and grabbing the dish towel she hit him with, wiping off the smears of sauce that got onto her arms. "Did it burn you?" he asks, searching her torso for blisters, even though he knows at the back of his mind that the sauce was only on a simmer.

"No...no, I think I'm good. Damn, I liked that shirt, though." She straightens, glaring down at the sauce pot he slammed onto the counter.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."

He holds his tongue for approximately zero point three seconds.

"Okay, then can we talk about this whole situation, cause I feel like I just got a major piece of the puzzle of why you don't have a girlfriend, yet. What the hell are you wearing?"

Robin's bra is so faded it's unclear what color it was originally, two large tears right above the elastic band.

Robin looks almost comically offended. "Excuse me? I'm sorry, are you commenting on my very comfortable and perfectly functional underwear?"

"Functional, yeah, if the function is 'never get laid ever'."

Robin crosses over to the doorway that leads to the laundry room. "We can't all exclusively wear Calvin Klein, Harrington!"

"How do you know what underwear I wear?"

"Am I wrong? Also, Jesus Christ do you own any normal shirts?"

"What's wrong with my shirts now? Hey, I'm not taking fashion advice from a girl in a, a grandma bra!"

"Hey!" She steps back out of the laundry room, wearing one of his old basketball team shirts.

They keep bickering back and forth as Steve tries to salvage dinner, eventually ending up just sitting on his kitchen counter dipping pieces of breaded chicken into the remains of the pasta sauce in the pot, having decided they really didn't want to eat spaghetti that had to be fished out of the sink.

"I'm not buying a bunch of frilly, sparkly lace just to wear under my clothes," Robin informs him. "That shit itches."

"Not saying you have to, but at least get something that doesn't look like it came out of the bottom of my gym bag."

"Eww, don't talk about your gym bag while I'm eating!"

*

It is a slow day in Family Video, and Robin has been casting him strangely intense looks since she came on shift. He restocks the shelves, picks through the candy to take home the almost expired shit to give to the kids, and is halfway through the rewinding before it finally gets to him.

"What?!" he demands. Robin blinks at him, immediately shrugging. A little too fast, actually.

"What, what?" she asks. He narrows his eyes at her and she ducks her head, pretending to find her biology textbook extremely interesting. He knows she's pretending because she hates biology. They're making her dissect a frog this quarter. After a few seconds, she slams the book shut and straightens up, determined look settling on her face.

Steve has just enough time to get a little nervous before she says, "How do you do the tongue thing?"

He blinks at her. "Uh...can you be more specific?"

She rolls her eyes. "You know...the thing! The thing with your tongue."

"I promise you, I do not know. What're you talking about?"

She looks around the store, as if some customers that they somehow haven't noticed in the last three hours might suddenly appear. Then she lowers her voice. "Like, sex things. With your tongue." She huffs a frustrated sigh. "They had to combine gym periods today 'cause Mrs. Hornby had to sub for Janson's history class, and Maryanne Greene was talking about how her boyfriend wouldn't go down on her and then Sue Rennet--you remember Sue? Apparently you dated her for, like, two weeks at the end of her Sophomore year--started talking about you and how you used to do that to her and it's the best sex she's ever had."

And oh...okay, he remembers Sue. Nice girl, a little ditzy, but she hadn't wanted to get more serious, and then Nancy had caught his eye. He can't help but puff up a little. Sure, Hawkins isn't exactly a big city overrun with choices, and judging by the talk he remembers from his own locker room days, he's a little bit of an outlier as far as being concerned with making sure his partners are having as good a time as he is...but to be called the best someone has ever had is nice.

"Don't let it go to your head," Robin says, because she can read his mind quite a lot of the time. "Just...tongue thing. You know, in case I ever do get a shot with, literally anyone."

He softens at that, reaches across the counter to ruffle her hair because it annoys her as much as it annoys him when someone does that. "You will," he says softly, and thinks that he would give almost anything, would probably happily trade any shot at happiness for himself if he could make sure Robin had someone to love her the way she deserves to be loved. He grabs one of her school notebooks and tears a sheet out, grabbing a pen out of the cup beside the computer.

"Okay, so, first things first, you can't just dive right in--gotta get the motor warmed up a little first--"

"Please don't talk in car analogies the whole time," Robin says, leaning in as he draws a crude (heh, see what he did there?) sketch of what he's going to be talking about.

"Noted. So what you're gonna do is start with a little massage around this area," he points with the end of the pen, "really take your time, get things nice and slick..."

He talks, Robin listening intently and occasionally asking questions.

"No you don't--flutter your tongue, flutter it. Here, like this..."

"Okay, vibration is good, but you're not, like, trying to blow a raspberry on her clit--"

"I said flutter!"

And that is how Lucas and Dustin find them about forty minutes later: Steve with his mouth held open wide, demonstrating what he means by fluttering his tongue while Robin stares at it like it holds the secrets of the universe, pen in hand as she takes furious notes.

In retrospect, he supposes he should be grateful that Lucas didn't immediately join Dustin on the 'Steve and Robin are totally dating' train.

*

"Shit! Steve! Wake up, it's Wednesday!"

Steve's eyes shoot open and he's vertical before he's fully awake, reaching for the nailbat propped up by his bedside table, but it's not there. It's...his bedside table isn't there either.

What the fuck, where's his bed?

"Steve!" Robin shouts, and he blinks rapidly, his surroundings resolving themselves into his...living room?

"What...Rob, what the hell? You're on winter break! You don't have school today?"

Ugh, why does his mouth taste like something died? He looks around the room, at the piles of dusty boxes that look like they came from...

Oh.

Oh yeah.

He and Robin had spent yesterday dragging the Harrington family Christmas decorations down from the attic because Robin said his house looked like a sad capitalism museum and she refused to spend the holidays in a place that didn't have a single Christmas light up. And then they'd found Steve's grandmother's recipe for homemade eggnog. And he'd maybe experimented a little bit with the liquor ratios...they must have fallen asleep on the couch.

"We don't have school but we both promised Keith we'd open all this week!" Robin shouts.

Oh.

Oh fuck.

They're still dressed in their clothes from yesterday. And they smell like a goddamn distillery. Without thinking about it, he grabs her hand and starts hauling her upstairs. "Shit, shit, shit."

"Fuck, shit, fuck!" she agrees as they rocket into the bathroom. Steve starts the water while Robin yanks clean towels out of the linen closet. "Do you have pants I can wear?" she asks, tossing the towels onto the sink and stripping out of her shirt.

"Yeah, I've got those jeans from, like, three years ago. Those fit you pretty well, right?" He tosses his own jeans and boxers towards the laundry hamper, followed by his shirt, and jumps into the shower, adjusting the temperature hotter than he likes it, because Robin's a weirdo who likes to boil herself in the mornings.

"Good enough!" Robin leaps in after him and they squeeze under the spray just long enough to get hair and body wet before separating somewhat so Robin can start scrubbing herself and he can get started on his hair. "Why didn't you set an alarm?"

"Me? Why didn't you set an alarm? You're the one who wanted to take the shifts!"

"Like you're gonna turn down holiday pay."

"It's Keith! Holiday pay probably means a buy one get one coupon to Pizza World up the highway!" He sticks his head under the water again to rinse his hair out and they switch places.

"Are you saying you wouldn't take a buy one get one coupon to Pizza World?"

"I mean...no?"

They switch places again so that Steve can rinse the soap off his body and then it's a race to get dried off, teeth brushed, dressed, and out to the car so they can get to the store in time. It's only as they are piling out of the BMW in front of Family Video that it seems to occur to them both at the same time what they just did. They both pause, mid-step and turn to each other wide-eyed.

"Huh," Steve says quietly.

"Yeah," Robin answers.

Then they shrug and continue towards the store entrance, making it in with exactly three and a half minutes to spare.

*

"Steve I really think if you're worried about this, you should be talking to a doctor, not me," Robin says, peering at a medical journal she checked out from the library spread out over her lap. "Has it changed color or shape recently?"

"I don't know, maybe? I've got so many moles, it's hard to keep track."

"Any pain or tenderness?" She reaches out and taps his hip so that he turns a little more towards the light cast by her desk lamp.

"No, definitely not. I was just having, you know, private time in the shower and it looked weird to me when I looked down."

Robin hums thoughtfully and pokes at the weird-looking mole on Steve's groin. "I mean, it doesn't look like any of these pictures of bad moles, but if you think it looks different to how it used to, you should probably get it check out regardless."

"Damn it, I was afraid you'd say that," he sighs. She shuts the medical journal and props her chin on one hand as he pulls his pants back up.

"Should I call and make the appointment?"

He huffs and flops back down onto her bed. "Yes please," he grumbles. He never remembers to write down all the appointment details.

"You want me to book something over spring break so I can go with you?"

"Nah, just whatever's available soonest. I'd rather not sit around and stress about it."

It turns out to be nothing to worry about. But three weeks later, Dustin and Max come bursting into Family Video while he and Robin are watching a new report about a brutal murder, and Steve is wishing all he had to stress about was a maybe-weird mole on his dick.

*

It's not like no one was aware that Steve and Robin were...perhaps unusually close friends. It was just never much of an issue (except to Dustin, who was obsessed with the idea of the two of them getting together) before the events of the spring of '86 and after...

Well.

Who cared how weirdly codependent Steve and Robin were when Max and Eddie had nearly died and the Upside Down was bursting up into the real Hawkins? Honestly, if that was the weirdest thing about them after all they've been through, he'd count that pretty lucky.

After everything, though--after they put Vecna/Henry Creel/One/Whatever in the fucking ground, after they do what Steve was beginning to think was impossible and seal the Upside Down away from them forever, after Max is as recovered as she's ever going to be (she's probably never going to be able to get a driver's license even with glasses, and her doctors tell them the leg braces and crutches might have to be permanent, but she's alive...she's alive, she's alive, she's alive), after Robin finally feels safe enough to come out to the group at large, after Steve spends an entire week holed up in his room screaming into his pillow while Robin patted his back consolingly before marching down to Eddie's new (government-funded) trailer and announcing that it turns out he likes both and would Eddie please go on a date with him...

He thinks maybe Eddie didn't quite understand what he was getting into when he agreed almost before Steve was done asking him out.

"Uh...hey guys," Eddie says slowly, taking in the picture he and Robin present in Steve's kitchen. There's a bag of cucumbers, a few eggplants, and several bananas spread out on the island in front of them. Robin has a tape measure and a homemade pamphlet acquired from a very exclusive shop they traveled to Indianapolis to visit last weekend. Steve is holding up two of the cucumbers for comparison. "What's, uh, what's going on here?"

Steve and Robin exchange a look. Then Steve jumps up and snatches the tape measure out of her hands. "Perfect! Here, Eds, lemme measure you." He reaches for Eddie's belt, only to freeze with a look of annoyance when his boyfriend jumps back with a yelp.

"Whoa! Whoa, hey, baby, I have no idea what you're talking about and also Robbie's right there!"

"What? Oh it's fine, Rob and I have seen each other naked plenty of times."

"Ask me about the time we accidentally showered together," Robin pipes up with a grin.

"Wait, no...wait, what? How do you accidentally shower together?" Eddie asks incredulously. Then he shakes his head. "Wait, no! No, not important. Robin has never seen me naked, and I am not whipping my dick out in front of your best friend so you can measure it! And why do you want to measure it?"

"Well I was trying to just guesstimate how big you are," Steve says, gesturing to the array of produce on the island, "but it'll be easier if I can just get the numbers from the source."

"Why do you need exact measurements of my dick?!" Eddie's eyes have gone wide as dinner plates, his voice reaching an octave usually reserved for his female NPC's in his nerd game. Steve huffs.

"Babe, you said you want to fuck me, but like, all these guides say we should work up to it." He jerks a thumb back over his shoulder at the pamphlet that Robin is now helpfully holding up. "So I'm gonna figure out exactly how big you are, and then Rob and I are gonna go up to this shop we found in Indy and get some of these toys. It's supposed to help me get used to things being, you know, up there."

Robin nods seriously.

Eddie looks at him. Looks at Robin. Looks back at him.

Steve has never seen someone look touched and horrified at the same time. Eddie rakes a hand back through his hair and sighs.

"What...what measurements do you need, exactly?"

[coldbronzemoon]

Danny Fenton, Totally Mortal Hero Consultant (DPxDC)

Snippet for an AU I'll probably never fully write where Danny takes a job as a consultant for the Justice League to help with ghost and demon bullshit. It's a pretty good cash flow to help him with college, after all, and very flexible hours.

He just claims all his knowledge comes from his parents. Unfortunately, the JL has caught word of the elusive yet active hero Phantom, and want Danny to help them meet and assess him. Whoops.

Over the phone, Tucker sighed. “Good Christ, Danny, why do you keep doing this?”

“I’m not doing anything,” Danny said immediately. He winced at the vague sound of screaming below. Demons sucked. “I didn’t know the JL thing was gonna have me finding Phantom. How would I? They were talking about tracking down powerful ghosts, I was assuming Ancients!”

Tucker sighed again, which was really quite unfair of him. “Mhm. Well, Fenton Catcher?”

“Probably not. They know me pretty well at this point, and unlike what Sam says I can be professional. I’d confuse them with the… uh…”

“Stoner shtick?”

There was more screaming happening, but judging from the pitch it was a demon screaming this time. Danny checked the situation. Yep, demon getting their ass kicked. He didn’t need to get involved with a blaster. Yet.

Instead, he scowled at his phone. “Stop calling it that.”

“You’re gonna tell me flanny Danny wasn’t a pitch-perfect stoner, huh? With the chill vibing and the dopey look?”

“I hate you.”

“Love you too, bud.” 

The sound of a clacking keyboard that had underlined their conversation stopped. “But seriously, Danny, what the hell are you gonna do with this?”

“Uh, lie, probably,” Danny said, because it was very likely.

“Alright, smartass, what are you going to do when that lie backfires on you like literally every other one does?”

“That’s when I start gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing, babe.”

He had a hard time hearing Tucker’s distant groan of “Why am I still your friend?” on account of the sudden explosion. Danny checked again. Hm. Demon dude had a nasty fire thing going on.

Danny switched on his Fenton water gun—holy water included!-- and shot the demon in the face. They let out a cracking hiss of rage, but dropped the fire spell thing. He waited for them to stop looking around wildly for the culprit for a moment. 

He went back to the call. “‘Cause you loooove me, Tuck. From the bottom of your twice-dead heart.”

“Unfortunately,” Tucker deadpanned.

Danny just cackled. It was lost amongst the sound of supernatural bullshit below.

“Anyway, I’m still figuring out my plan A, honestly. Might bring in gray-man?”

“Amorpho’s an asshole, though. He’ll ruin the whole thing by taking the opportunity to shift into a JL member for a bit.”

Hm. True.

“Yeah, but he’s the main guy I know with that power set.”

“Ask after Desiree?” He could hear the immediate distaste in Tucker’s voice. “Ugh, pretend I didn’t say that. That’s worse than Amorpho.”

“It’s awful,” Danny agreed easily. 

Desiree was actually pretty alright nowadays, mostly on account of Danny remembering the last couple minutes of Aladdin and wishing she could refuse wishes she didn’t want to grant. That had made her happy enough to stop actively picking fights. 

Unfortunately, spending the entirety of one’s afterlife twisting the wording of wishes to their worst form made it hard to stop being an asshole. Who knew! So getting Desiree to split him in two for like a week had a 50/50 chance of fucking up his work relationship with the literal league of superheroes irrevocably. And this was his main cash flow right now.

So, no Desiree, no siree.

“Come up with something better then, asshole.”

Danny hummed and, since the heroes below were focused on the demon, lifted up a little and did a thoughtful back flip. What to do, what to do…?

Oh!

“My cousin!” he exclaimed.

“What cous—? Oh, Ellie.”

“Yeah, Ellie, Tuck. Which other cousins do I have?”

Tucker scoffed. “You literally have that whole Nightingale thing going on through your dad?”

Danny couldn’t help the face he made. The remaining Nightingales were worse than his parents somehow. “The Nightingales don’t count.”

“You can’t just say they don’t count.”

“I can say that, actually, and I will. They’re, like, cousins through my great-great-great-grandpa anyway.”

“Isn’t there a fight going on over there? Should you be shooting someone?”

 “Yeah, probably.”

He peaked down through the window once more. The heroes must have gotten the first demon to leave while he was talking, because the horned demon fighting them now was a truly unfortunate shade of yellow-green instead of purple. Or maybe it had transformed for some reason? They had it about as in-hand as the other one, though, so Danny definitely didn’t need to go down there. He shot the maybe-new demon in the face real quick.

“Anyway, Ellie can totally help out, she’s been practicing with changing up her looks. She’s also more, uh, malleable than me, what with her situation and all. Looking fully like Phantom shouldn’t be hard.”

Tucker hummed. “She’d try to embarrass you though.”

“Yeah, that’s a problem.” Danny spun in place. “I could bribe her?”

“With what? Her life doesn’t involve needing much cash.”

“She doesn’t get out to the Zone very much. Not many of the inhabited places, anyway. I can promise her the weird apple things Dora’s been growing with Sam’s help, she loved those.”

“If you think that’ll work…” Tucker trailed off dubiously.

Danny laughed. “She’s annoying sometimes, but she’s not gonna fuck over my job if I ask her not to. I’ll just bribe her extra hard for resisting the temptation to mock me.”

“Fair enough.” The clacking of keys resumed. “I’ve really gotta pay attention now, someone’s trying to stop me from getting into this database. Someone half-decent, actually, did they upgrade? Hm. Make sure no one died, yeah?”

“They’re alive. Bye, Tuck,” Danny said, and ended the call.

He shoved his phone back into his jacket pocket and made his way down the stairs. The fight outside he had been stationed for was basically over—Captain Marvel and Green Lantern (Danny was pretty sure he had accidentally learned the dude’s actual name at some point, but hell if he could remember)—had pulled out the magic restraints one of the other consultants had handed out.

That had probably been Constantine. Ugh. Constantine. Dude could stand to lighten up a little; skulking and smoking all the time wasn’t the base state of someone enjoyable to be around. Then again, Danny knew he annoyed the shit out of some of the league with his own attitude, so he maybe shouldn’t talk. But at least he was annoying with a smile!

Case in point: Danny grinned at the heroes. “Got it handled?”

“Suppose so,” said the Green Lantern, “though a little more help would have been nice.”

Captain Marvel was too busy getting in a minor tussle with the demon to say anything either way.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m like, pretty mortal,” Danny said. “I’m not fucking with demons right where they can hit me. And I did shoot him!”

Green Lantern rolled his eyes, but admitted the point. Danny cheerfully flipped him off anyway.

“I’ll be heading out, then, the hellmouth this guy crawled out of is like three miles away.” Captain Marvel said, hauling the handcuffed demon over his shoulders like a very angry backpack.

“Oh, one more for the road!” 

Danny hit the demon with a final water gun shot. Hissing and scrunching their face like a cat, the demon tried to lunge at him. It wasn’t very successful. Weirdly non-verbal for a demon, who usually had to talk to make deals and steal mortal souls, but Danny wouldn’t judge. Might be a minor demon. A really basic imp? Who knew.

“Stop being a little bitch and you won’t get spray-bottled, asshole,” Danny chided.

With a loud laugh, Captain Marvel sped away.

[amaramizuki666]

Dp x DC crossover

Danny and gang decide to go to a cosplay convention in Gotham for spring break. Tim and the bat brothers also go to the cosplay convention. Danny is cosplaying Red Robin, tim is cosplaying phantom. Let chaos Insue.

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

It took a whole 3 months for sam and tucker to convince Danny to go to the cosplay convention in Gotham. Not because Gotham is scary, or because batman's no powered person rule. No it was because they where going to be cosplaying bat clan members.

And danny would be mortified if he met any of the bat clan, while dressed in a shitty cosplay for one of them. So danny spent 2 months making a hyper realistic Red Robin suit. When on he looked almost exactly like the vigilante so instead of wearing the mask he painted one on.

Either way danny was just being OCD, once his cosplay (pluse sam and tukers) where up to his standers, he let his two freinds drag him to Gotham.

They wondered around the con for a while and some people asked to take pictures with the trio every once and awhile, sam, dressed as black bat, and tucker as nightwing. After awhile they decided to grab something to eat, so they ended up in line at a food stall.

And that's when Danny's gaze caught sight of a very firmilier outfit, "sam is that person dressed as me or am I hallucinating" danny whispered to his freind. Sam peered over to where danny was looking and burst out laughing. "Yep, it looks like you got a fan" sam laughed, "but how do they know about phantom?" Danny pressed.

Tucker smirked "well with the GIW being gone we have access to the world wide web again so all the phantom video, memes, fanfics are all out there now, and your actully kinda popular". Danny's face was bright pink, "fanfiction? Memes?" "Yeah you know, like, 'it's not gay if hes dead" "that's a thing?!" "Yep, you know you where dash's gay awakening right?" "I was!?".

"Hay exuse my I noticed you where staring" the phantom cosplayer snaps at the trio. Danny brought a hand to the back of his neak sheepishly. "Sorry didnt mean to stair, it's just not often I see people out side of amity that knows about phantom, you got his look down, well besides the fact that he glows and his eyes are green, but you got the eye bags down" danny rambles.

Danny let's his gaze drag along the cosplayers body. His jumpsuit was a lot tighter than phantoms, it hugged his curves more like a black cat jump suit would. The cosplayer also laked phantoms glowing freckles and long pointed ears, but you can only get so much detail from the videos and pictures of phantom. Tech and ghosts dont get along.

"Hm well your Red Robin suit looks almost like the real one almost thought you where the real deal, I'm tim by the way" the cosplayer tim says "its ice to meet ya, I'm danny" danny says. "Ice" tim questions "ya cause phantom has ice abilities, I was just trying to be punny" danny defends lightheartedly.

"I didnt know phantom had ice powers" tim says thoughtfully. Danny guesses for people outside of amity it might be hard to get info on phantom. "Well I guess it might not be very known to people who art parkers." Danny laughed and smiled at tim.

Tim smiled right back and handed danny a slip of paper "well in that case give me a call mabey we could chat about phantom among other things" and slowly looked danny up and down in a suggestive manner. He then slipped by the trio and dissapiered into the crowd.

"What just happened?" Danny asked his face bright red. "Dude you just got hit on by a cute guy, who was cosplaying you" tucker says placing his hand on Danny's shoulder. "Danny the cute guy also gave you his number, what ya gonna do?" Sam asked poking his cheek. "Well I guess I'll have to send him a text" "that's our idiot!".

----------

Hay its danny from the convention I was wondering if you would like to meet up for coffee?

Yeah I'm down I know the perfect place! See you there <3

[Location sent]

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

If you want to continue this go ahead or if you just want to use the prompt at the top go for it.

[ladykailitha]

The Eddie Munson Guide to Dating an Oblivious Jock Part 4

I actually got it up today, holy crap. Today has been so wild I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. Also thank you to @chaoticlovingdreamer and @yellowdevilkitten about the cramps. I am feeling better now.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

*

Part Seven: Hand holding

Once you’ve established that he likes you back, the first step is hand holding. You aren’t necessarily dating at this point. Though you could be. For same sex couples this will have to be discreet and sneaky, but for straight couples this can be used as a way to declare your couple status.

“I hate that you can’t hold hands with Steve in public,” Max said. “It’s stupid.”

Eddie cocked his head ruefully. “It is what it is. Some day it won’t be like this, but for now, we do what we can.”

“Still stupid.”

It was movie night sleepover. It was something that all of them did once in a while. And by them it meant all of them. All thirteen of them. Steve’s basement was perfect for it. They could all stretch out and still have tons of space. Not that they did that. They tended to puppy pile in smaller groups.

El, Max, Erica, and Lucas was one pile. Jonathan, Argyle, and Nancy were another. Mike, Dustin, and Will were another. Which left Eddie, Robin, and Steve as the remaining pile.

But that was a problem for future Eddie. Current Eddie was content on the sofa with Steve sitting next to him, their bodies pressed together in a seem from shoulder to knee.

Robin was on the other side of Steve curled up under his arm and Eddie was fine with sharing at the moment.

The hardest part of the night was deciding on a movie they all wanted to watch. There was always someone that didn’t want to watch whatever it was they decided on. So Eddie and Steve came up with the idea of ranked voting. They would grab five movies and everyone would list them in the order they wanted to watch them in and whichever one got the most votes at number one was the one they watched first.

Tonight they were watching The Dark Crystal. When the beetles came on, chittering above the Skekis Robin flinched and buried her head into his shoulder.

“I thought this was a kids’ show!” she whined to Steve.

“Come on,” Dustin said. “They aren’t that scary. They’re just giant bugs.”

Eddie kicked him in the thigh. “Everybody has different things they’re scared of, we don’t mock people for that.”

“I wasn’t mocking,” Dustin defended. “I just don’t think they’re scary.”

Fizgig started wailing and Eddie jumped back. “What the fuck! Why does it have so many teeth?!” Then a warm hand took his and he looked down at the joined hands and back up to Steve.

“Wait a damn minute!” Max cried. “You’re telling me that the first time you guys held hands Steve initiated it?”

Eddie grinned. “I was so proud. Though, he thought he was just being a good friend at the time. Remember this is oblivious jockus. Even though it was pretty clear he liked me back, he wasn’t reading the signs that I liked him.”

“But he still reached out to you?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Steve smiled softly at him and Eddie’s heart just melted. Eddie gave Steve’s hand a squeeze, but instead of letting go like he suspected Steve thought he would do, Eddie held on to it for the rest of the movie.

When the movie ended, Eddie wasn’t the only with sniffles from the sacrifices of Kyra and Fizgig.

“But that won’t work,” Dustin said.

“What won’t work, bud?” Eddie asked as he dried his eyes on his sleeve.

“You can’t rebuild an entire race with just two members,” Dustin complained. “Because otherwise you get inbreeding and trust me when I say that’s gross and not just from moral stand point but a medical one, too.”

Max rolled her eyes. “They aren’t trying to rebuild the species. It’s just a love story.”

Dustin grumbled, “Well, it’s a stupid one.”

Eddie and Steve shared a glance and shook their heads.

Steve dislodged himself from Robin, reluctantly letting go of Eddie’s hand. “All right, gremlins, get your bed stuff and set it up downstairs. You don’t have to go to sleep right away but I want you at least in your sleeping bags.”

There was some grumbling from the younger kids but they all packed up and went downstairs, Jonathan and Nancy going down with them to make sure they didn’t start fighting over spots.

The remaining adults started cleaning up the mess that only thirteen people can make.

Robin got bored about half way through and wandered downstairs to see what was happening there.

Argyle tilted his head. “Does she always do that?”

Eddie and Steve looked at each other and shrugged.

“Not always,” Steve said. “Her mind just goes a million miles an hour and sometimes cleaning fulfills that need and other times not. I guess today was a not.”

Argyle nodded sagely. “Do you think she would benefit from the purple flower?”

By now they were aware that that was a brand of weed Argyle had brought over from California.

“She doesn’t like smoking,” Eddie said with a grimace.

Argyle lit up. “Brownies, bro! I bet she’d love my brownies.”

Steve chuckled. “You are more than welcome to ask. Just know she might still say no.”

Argyle smiled his dopey smile. “Never offended by that.”

They finished cleaning and went back downstairs to find that the usual piles were divided differently.

El, Max, and Nancy were doing each other’s nails. While Argyle, Robin and Jonathan were discussing weed in a corner. Mike and Will were snuggled up together as were Erica, Lucas, and Dustin.

“You know I always wondered about that night,” Eddie said. “Why you and Lucas weren’t snuggled up like you usually were.”

Max scoffed and rolled her eyes. “It’s the whole reason for this little guide I’m forcing myself to sit through.”

“What happened?”

She put her head in her hands. “I thought we were on again and he did not.”

“He is an oblivious jock, though right?” Eddie grimaced.

“Yeah, but I didn’t realize how much until that night,” Max said with a small whine of frustration. “He said that it was great how we had remained friends after Vecna and then asked me if I was dating anyone at the time.”

Eddie rubbed his eye. “Are you serious?”

“As Vecna.”

“Ouch.”

“Looks like it’s just you and me, big boy,” Eddie said looking around the room at all the different groups. When Steve didn’t reply, he backtracked, “Unless you want to hang out with Robin and the stoner boys?”

Steve’s head snapped up. “No, no. She looks like she’s having fun. I’d be happy to be your puppy partner.”

Eddie groaned. “Can you not say it like that?”

“Snuggle buddy?” Steve suggested. “Snug bugs? Puddle pals?”

Eddie shoved him playfully. “Knock it off, man.”

“Oh,” Steve said with a wicked gleam. “I see how it is. Maybe I will join one of the other piles. You think Mike will mind if I join him and Will?”

Eddie laughed. “Only if you want to be murdered in your sleep.”

Steve winked. “So I guess that means you’re stuck with me.”

Eddie bit his lip nervously. “I have an idea!” He walked over to the girls.

“Hello, ladies,” he greeted warmly. “May I inquire if you have any black polish among your bounteous plethora of polishes?”

El lit up. “Yes, I have three kinds in fact.” She went digging for them. “I have glitter midnight, death becomes her, and blackest black.”

She held them up for him to see. He looked at each one carefully and chose blackest black.

“Now, my fairest maiden,” Eddie said. “I need a blue for Stevie.”

Steve, Nancy and Max all stared at him in shock.

“You’re going to paint Steve’s nails?” Max asked.

Eddie nodded. “And he’s going to paint mine.”

El giggled. “That’s sooo cute. I have just the color.” She opened a small drawer in her kit and pulled out a sparkling dark blue.

Eddie kissed her forehead. “It’s perfect Supergirl.”

El blushed. “You’re welcome. Have fun.”

Eddie sat down cross-legged from Steve and set the two bottles down between them.

“Can’t have a sleepover without painting your nails and talking about boys,” Eddie said, grinning from ear to ear.

Steve laughed. “All right, Eds. You got me there.”

“I thought I would paint yours first, so you can watch me do it,” Eddie said. “And then you can do mine.”

Steve nodded and let Eddie take his right hand.

“Judd Nelson or Rob Lowe?” Eddie asked, delicately painting the thumb nail first.

“Ooh,” Steve said. “Going straight for the bad boys. Robert Downey Jr.”

Eddie looked up at him and tsked. “Wasn’t an option, but interesting.”

Steve laughed and Eddie swatted him. “Stop moving.”

“Sorry,” Steve said, but he was grinning unrepentantly.

“And people say I’m a menace,” he mumbled under his breath.

Steve leaned in close. “Oh, you absolutely are. But I’ll let you in on a secret. So am I.”

Eddie blushed.

They continued to banter back and forth about their favorite actors and singers.

“You take that back!” Eddie protested.

Steve tapped the back of his hand. “Don’t move!” Eddie stopped struggling. “And I didn’t say it was a bad thing you look like John Bon Jovi, I was just making an observation.”

“His sound,” Eddie murmured, “I wouldn’t even deign to call it music, is trash Steve. Literal trash.”

Steve laughed. “Well there you go, menace. All done.”

Eddie held his hands up and admired them. “Not bad, Stevie. Not bad at all.”

“Not as good as yours,” Steve said softly, ducking his head.

“True, but since this was your first time, you did one hell of a job.”

El came over. “Can I see?”

Steve handed her back her bottles of nail polish and then showed her his hands.

“Eddie did a wonderful job,” she said with a gentle smile. “It makes your hands very pretty.”

“Thanks, El,” he said kissing her cheek.

Eddie showed her his and she nodded. “A couple of mistakes but an easy fix.” She went back over to her kaboodle and got out another bottle and a Q-tip. She scooted back over to Steve and Eddie.

“Here’s what you can do when you accidentally paint outside the nail,” El said and dipped the Q-tip into the bottle.

It smelled horrible. She picked up Eddie’s hand gingerly brushed the sides of the nail where Steve had missed and then it was gone, looking for all the world like Steve hadn’t fucked it up.

Steve picked up the bottle and read the label. “Polish remover?”

El nodded. “It’s great for touch ups or when you want a new color.”

“You’re the best El,” Eddie said with a dimpled grin.

She smiled shyly and went back to Max and Nancy.

And if that night found Eddie and Steve holding hands in their sleep, no one noticed. Or at least cared enough to mention it.

“You smooth mother fucker!” Max said. “It was all an excuse to get Steve to hold your hand for long periods of time!”

Eddie laughed. “It worked, didn’t it?!”

“There is no way Lucas is going to let me paint his nails to hold hands,” she said bitterly.

He shrugged. “So bake bread or make cookies. Something that requires your hands. Like I keep saying, your jock is going to be different, but you find things that work for you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered darkly. “What happens once he gets use to hand holding?”

Part 5

Tag List: @spectrum-spectre @estrellami-1 @zerokrox-blog @this-is-mycrisis @swimmingbirdrunningrock @gregre369 @goodolefashionedloverboi @chaoticlovingdreamer @maya-custodios-dionach @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence @plyerice27 @thedragonsaunt @chaoticlovingdreamer @sapphirecobalt-1 @a-little-unsteddie @i-must-potato @danili666 @carlyv @artiststarme @steddie-there @wonderland-girl143-blog @itsall-taken @thebrazilianatheist @rozzieroos @whalesharksart @mightbeasleep @theotalksalot @avacrebs @sassysleeplord @exhibit-no-restraint @sjullay @thesuninyaface @everywherenothere @nerdsconquerall @persephone13 @wrenisflying @lillemilly 

[momotonescreaming]

I've been having Steddie Dads & Surrogate Robin brainworms thanks to this ficlet by @unclewaynemunson so I had to write this quick thing. Hope you like it <3

Eddie knew that there was a lot involved with surrogacy. As soon as it was on the table, a topic of discussion — Steve had dove head first into research, taking Eddie along with him. They’d be curled up in bed together, Steve flipping through a pile of pamphlets and magazine articles, with Eddie re-reading the hobbit next to him until Steve places a pamphlet between the pages of his book. Lazy afternoons spent in their living room, reading up on agencies, clinics, Eddie with his head on Steve’s shoulder so they can read together.

He knew there was going to be money spent, many many appointments made, trips to doctors and lawyers and other very boring, very adult, very important things.

What Eddie didn’t realise, was how much time was going to be spent standing in hallways, waiting for Robin to piss on a stick.

Each time made his heart clench, his hands shake, knowing that one little plus or minus was going to change the trajectory of his life forever. In a good way of course. Always a good way. Steve squeezed his hand, looking over at him with a nervous smile. Eddie squeezed back — the cool metal of his rings pressing into the warmth of Steve’s hand — and he thunked his head onto the wall behind him.

“Quit it!” Robin hollered, voice muffled through the bathroom door. “You’re making me nervous!”

“I thought you said you peed when you’re nervous?” Steve shouted back, tilting his head towards the door.

“Not when I’m nervous about peeing!” Robin replied, voice still raised and edged with anxiety. “So quit slamming the wall Eddie!”

“How’d you know it was me?” Eddie interrupted, brows furrowing. Robin ignored him and continued shouting through the door.

“It reminds me that you’re there, and you’re listening, and I get all nervous and I can’t pee-“ Robin started to ramble, words merging together as her voice sped up. “-because I know you’re there listening which I know is the point of this whole exercise. But there’s a lot riding on this, riding on me, and then I start thinking about how big this is for you guys — and also for me again — and what if my eggs don’t work? Or I’m a bad surrogate? And then I get even more nervous because I really want to do this for you guys! You two deserve to be dads, and you’re going to be so good at it, which we won’t know unless I can pee Goddamnit.”

Her words ran out, and Eddie could picture her taking a deep breath as she leant on her knees, hunched over her body. He smiled faintly, and thumped his head onto Steve’s shoulder — knowing Robin would shout if she could hear him thump the wall again. A part of him was tempted to — to see what she would shout through the door again — but he couldn’t do that to her now. Not when she was doing so much for them. So Eddie took a deep breath, inhaling the comforting scent of Steve’s cologne and their laundry detergent, letting it calm him as he gently starts rubbing his thumb across the back Steve’s hand.

“Deep breaths, Rob,” Steve said, voice warm and comforting. “You’ve got this.” A pause. “Need me to come in?”

“Maybe?” Robin says quietly, unsure, before quickly correcting herself. “No. Wait- no. I got this. I’ll run the tap and pretend you’re not there.”

“Just yell if you need us,” Eddie added, hoping Robin can hear him over the sound of the now running water. He tries not to think about it too much, make himself too nervous, or too aware that he was just standing in a hallway waiting for Robin to piss on a stick. Of course it wasn’t just any stick.

The three of them have done this a few times now, and it still hasn’t stopped feeling any less nerve wracking. So Eddie takes another deep breath, and lets his eyes glaze over the pictures and paintings Robin’s hung on her walls to distract himself.

There are a lot of photos of her and Steve from throughout the years, and Eddie smiles at the sight. Them in their Family Video vests, back in Hawkins. At a family BBQ in the Buckley’s backyard, hung next to a painting of a horse she got in an estate sale. One from their first apartment in Chicago. The pair of them at Robin’s college graduation.

A photo with Erica and Dustin as well — the infamous Scoops Troop — all of them eating ice cream together. A couple with her and Eddie, smiling and pulling faces at Steve behind the camera, next to a painting that Robin got at a thrift store because the Victorian lady in it looked like ‘a funky old lesbian, but in a haunted sort of way’. Steve had just said it looked sort of like his Grandmother, and Robin had snorted soda up her nose.

They had decided to do the test at Robin’s apartment, in a futile attempt to make her more comfortable. Or at the very least — less nervous than last time, where Robin had locked herself in their hall bathroom and made them go watch TV until she was done. It was negative.

Eddie closed his eyes. The waiting was the worst. The absolute fucking worst. Knowing that one mark on a piece of plastic was going to tell him if he and Steve were one step closer to becoming parents. Becoming dads. And all he could do was wait.

He was both eager for and dreading the answer. He wanted to be a dad, to give Steve his six little nuggets, to raise a family with him. But at the same time he was terrified of turning into his father. A no good piece of shit who was never fit to raise a kid. Steve had talked him down, calmed him, the first time he had a panic attack about it.

It was after their first appointment at the clinic, and he had held Eddie’s hand and had admitted that he was scared too. Scared of turning into his father. To sympathise, not to dismiss Eddie’s fears. It had helped, listening to Steve’s steady breathing and soft voice as he talked about how it was a good thing they were both scared. Means they don’t want to be the sort of men their fathers were. Steve didn’t think his father was worried about neglecting him, he just sort of did it y’know? Eddie had snorted, blinked away his tears, and had admitted that Steve was right. Steve said of course he was, because he knew that Eddie won’t turn into his father. He’s going to turn out like Wayne.

Eddie had cried then, and he could feel his eyes starting to go misty now, standing in Robin’s hallways with Steve’s hand in his. He tries to blink away the tears that were threatening to fall, but Eddie doesn’t think he’s that successful. He knows he’s definitely unsuccessful when he feels Steve gently kiss the top of his head, lips pressing against his curls.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when they hear the click of the door opening, Robin stepping out into the hall with her hands behind her back. Eddie can feel his throat tighten, and sort of feels like he’s going to puke. Oh God, this is it. Steve tightens his grip on Eddie’s hand, and they both whip their heads around to look at her. Robin’s face is unreadable as she looks down at her feet, and then up to them.

There’s a glint in her eyes now, a certain twist in the corner of her mouth, and Eddie can hear Steve’s breath hitch. She reaches behind her back, and holds the pregnancy test out in front of them. Their eyes are drawn to it like a magnet, desperate, eager, searching.

Eddie looks for the small screen on the side of the test and finds himself staring at a small, red, plus. His gaze snaps to Robin’s, eyes wide, and she’s biting her lips now, holding back the grin that threatens to take over her face.

He looks over at Steve only to find him looking back, his own eyes now glistening with unshed tears. Neither of them say anything as they look back at Robin. Not yet. It feels like as soon as they say anything, verbalise it, make it real, it’s going to hit Eddie like a truck. So he sits in the quiet of the moment, tearing up, Steve’s hand gripped tightly in his.

Robin’s voice is soft and low as she speaks, breaks the silence. “I’m pregnant.”

“You’re pregnant,” Steve repeats in awe, almost reverential. His eyes shine as a stray tear falls. “Holy shit.”

“I’m pregnant!” She repeats, louder this time, no longer holding back a smile but grinning at them widely. Gripping the pregnancy test in her hands, she starts to jump and rock in place. As if her excitement is an itch under her skin she can’t get out. “It worked!”

Eddie hasn’t said anything, he doesn’t know how to. He know’s he’s standing there looking gormless, doe eyed and teary, mouth agape. It doesn’t seem real. It finally worked. Robin is pregnant and it’s theirs. He whispers. “You’re pregnant.” Then again, louder, as if repeating the words would make it more real. “You’re fucking pregnant!”

“We’re having a baby!” Steve says, words dripping with excitement and awe and almost disbelief. He lets go of Eddie’s hand, but before he can miss it’s presence Steve is throwing his arms around both him and Robin, drawing them in close.

Eddie’s really crying now, tears coming out in a flood and he can’t stop them. Above all else, above the fear and the anxiety and the weight of his father — he’s happy. He’s so fucking happy. Steve’s shirt is dampening with Eddie’s tears, and he can hear Robin sniffling herself. If they’re not careful, they’ll spend the whole evening crying in the hall. He leans over to place a wet smacking kiss on Robin’s cheek, and then turns to Steve to give him the same.

Steve turns at the last second, capturing his lips with his own. And then they’re kissing, and they’re crying, smiling through it all with Robin still trapped in a hug. She doesn’t seem to mind, laughing all the while, clutching the test in her hands like it’s made of gold. Steve pulls back from the kiss with a wet pop, and Robin beams through her own tears as Steve buries his face in her neck.

“Thank you,” Steve whispers, loud enough for them all to hear. “For doing this for us.”

“It’s an honour,” Robin replies, words honey sweet and oh so happy. She smiles at them, sniffling. “But if you think I’m not going to milk this for all it’s worth, you’re wrong.”

Eddie throws his head back and cackles.

[cuubism]

@magnusbae challenged me to write smut using professional email language, and i'm nothing if not a slut for abusing corporate jargon!

-----

>> Saturday, March 26, 8:32pm – Morpheus <morpheus @ dreaming.com> to Office (All):

Subject: TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

I do not appreciate tardiness. Cease your dallying at once come Monday morning. Or there shall be consequences.

>> Saturday, March 26, 8:41pm – Hob <robert @ dreaming.com> to Morpheus:

RE: TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Morpheus, mate, all due respect, what with your being the sole god, ruler, and iron-fisted authoritarian of the place, but do you have nothing at all better to do than send work emails on a Saturday night?

And before you say, "but Hob, you yourself are replying to emails this Saturday," you are so right! I’m currently drinking alone :)

>> 8:42pm – Morpheus to Hob

I should fire you for such insolence.

>> 8:47pm – Hob to Morpheus

Do it then :)

Alternative proposal: we commit several HR violations like we did in the office on Thursday.

>> 8:50pm – Morpheus to Hob

All proposals must be submitted to me in writing.

>> 8:52pm – Hob to Morpheus

You really want a paper trail?

>> 8:56pm – Morpheus to Hob

It has an email trail already, does it not?

>> 9:05pm – Hob to Morpheus

Please find attached my detailed proposal.

attachment: :)_version_1.docx

>> 9:07pm – Morpheus to Hob

This is twelve pages that only say, “I want to suck your dick.”

>> 9:09pm – Hob to Morpheus

What, have you got edits or something?

Do you need more time to review? Wanna circle back on it later? Block some time on my calendar to go over it? ;)

>> 9:15pm – Morpheus to Hob

My redline is attached.

attachment: :)_version_2.docx

>> 9:17pm – Hob to Morpheus

I’m amenable to those changes.

But on second pass I think we can accomplish more in this partnership. I think I’d like to take you apart slowly, have you begging. You’re always demanding, I think it might be good for you to beg for once. It’s not good business to agree without a little negotiation. I wanna see you beg for my cock.

What are your thoughts on this addition?

>> 9:40pm – Hob to Morpheus

Hi Morpheus, I hope this finds you well. Just following up on this question :)

>> 9:50pm – Morpheus to Hob

Perhaps I am considering.

You may wish to consider that I am your boss.

>> 9:53pm – Hob to Morpheus

I think there’s been a miscommunication. You seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that I give a fuck about that.

>> 9:54pm – Morpheus to Hob

I truly should fire you.

>> 9:55pm – Hob to Morpheus

Don’t you think you deserve to cum first?

>> 9:56pm – Morpheus to Hob

After I beg for it, you mean?

>> 9:57pm – Hob to Morpheus

Now you’re getting it.

If I correctly guess that you’re in your bed, that you’ve BEEN in your bed while you’re “considering,” do I get a gold star? Employee of the month?

>> 10:00pm – Morpheus to Hob

There is no possible universe where you win such an award.

However, your supposition may be correct.

>> 10:02pm – Hob to Morpheus

Excellent, so we’re on the same page, then :)

Are you touching yourself? Are you imagining it’s me touching you instead? Because I’m imagining I have you under me and I’m fucking into your tight hole instead of my hand. (And typing emails w/ one hand is not so easy btw).

>> 10:03pm – Morpheus to Hob

I have two fingers inside me. But it is not enough. I would have your cock.

>> 10:04pm – Hob to Morpheus

I think you know what I wanna hear.

>> 10:05pm – Morpheus to Hob

…Please.

>> 10:06pm – Hob to Morpheus

There’s a good boy.

Don’t worry, love, I’ll give you everything you want. You’re taking me so good, I just know it. Going to feel it for days.

>> 10:07pm – Morpheus to Hob

I am.

Yes

I would have you come in me. If you’re amenable.

>> 10:08pm – Hob to Morpheus  

Fuck you make me so hot. Yeah I’m amenable. Will you cum for me first? Can you cum just from the feeling of me inside you?

10:09pm – phone call from <unknown>

“I thought… you would want to hear it.”

“God your voice… did you get this number from the HR directory?”

“What if I did?”

“Kinda stalkery but kinda hot. Are you close?”

“Very. I… I want you. Badly. Please, Hob.”

“I have you, darling. Ah, you beg so pretty. You can come. I want to hear you. Can you do it without touching yourself? Be good.”

“I can’t—”

“I know you can. Go on. Imagine me with you. Holding your hands to the bed so you can’t touch yourself. I can imagine how beautiful you look. I’d kiss you if I was there, wreck your mouth, too.”

“Hob—”

“Go on. For me?”

“Ah—”

“There you go, sweet thing. I wish I could see you.”

“Will you… come for me now? So I can feel you inside me?”

“Fuck—”

“Good. You feel… so good. Worthy of employee of the month, perhaps.”

“Oh, fuck you, Morpheus. You don’t even have awards at this place.”

“Of course I don’t. That would be inane.”

“Are you satisfied with my efforts, at least?”

“I am pleased to say that I am.”

“Still, I think we should probably debrief that meeting. You wanna touch base about it in person? Say… eleven pm? My calendar’s clear.”

“…Yes.”

[floralpascal]

Firsts & First Names

Summary: In a night full of firsts with you, you accidentally slip and say Ghost's real name for the first time. His reaction to it surprises even him.

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!reader (no use of y/n)

Word Count: 2k

Rating: Explicit (18+ only, mdni!)

Warnings: kissing, unprotected p-in-v sex (you know the drill, wrap it y'all), edging, a hand on a throat but not really choking, secret relationship, little hints of agonizing over feelings, fluff

A/N: This was so difficult to write but, man, am I happy with how this turned out.

This series: Illicit Indulgences Series Masterlist

“You can take it, love. Just like that.”

You only moaned in response, your upper body melting farther into the mattress. Ghost had you on all fours as he pounded into you from behind, his hard grip on your hips holding you in place as he ruined you. He had kept you like this for hours now, bringing you to the brink over and over again, but never letting you fall over that precipice to find your release.

“P-please,” you begged, your words so slurred he could barely make out what you were saying. “Let me… let me come, I-”

In all your time together, he had never seen you like this. A sheen of sweat drenched your skin from the exertion, gleaming on the small of your back as you arched your ass back towards him. Your hair was wild from the sweat and hours he had fucked you in all different kinds of positions. Small, high whines escaped you with almost every thrust of his cock into you. Even so, you still reached for him and leaned into his every touch. You were fucked out of your mind, begging for him over and over, begging for him to let you come. You usually were never one to beg like this, to let him fully take the reins. Now you had completely let go.

He would be lying if he said that the sight of you like this wasn’t absolutely maddening. You were the most incredible thing he had ever seen. The trust you had in him, all the noises you couldn’t hold back anymore, and the way you begged for him to give you your release all had him feeling like he was floating in a sea of ecstasy.

“You can take a little more,” he assured, his voice low and breathless as he soothed you again. He fought to stave off his own high, but he had done well so far and still had quite a bit more time to go before he would break.

“Fuck, Simon, please!” You cried desperately, twisting the sheets tighter in your fists.

His lust-clouded mind took an extra second to catch up with what you just said. Suddenly, the air was punched from his lungs as he finally processed it. He froze immediately, his cock still buried deep in your heat.

Simon.

You had never called him Simon before. Ever.

Simon. Simon. Simon. He replayed the way you said it over and over, the sound unlike any he had heard before. You had said it like something good. Like he was someone you needed.

When you called him Ghost and he called you Styx, there was some degree of separation, a barrier between the two of you. You both could pretend this wasn’t anything real. By that logic, he hadn’t wanted to get to the point where you both used your real names because that would mean that this was real. He had wanted to keep this between Ghost and Styx — impersonal and no strings attached. Up to this point, he could pretend that it was impersonal. He could pretend that this wasn’t already something that had long surpassed that point. He had thought he wanted nothing more than to avoid hearing you say that one name.

But now that you had said it, a new heat burned in his stomach. All his previous resistance melted in its wake, his cock aching like never before. There was no logic or reasoning he could muster that could overpower the way his body practically lit on fire the second you said his name, almost like he had been hit by a bolt of lightning.

He liked it. He craved it. Even though he knew somewhere deep down that shouldn’t have, he would do anything to hear you say it again.

You pushed up on your forearms, turning your head so that you could see his almost completely covered face. Although they were still clouded by a thick haze of lust, your eyes were wide and panicked. Another first, he had never seen you this panicked, your demeanor never anything but calm and assured. It wasn’t hard to see that you clearly thought that you had crossed a huge line.

“S-sorry… I didn’t mean to-”

Before you could finish your apology, his rough, callused hands were sliding over your hips, wrapping around your middle, and pulling your top-half up so that your back met his chest, the both of you now in a kneeling position.

Simon took your chin in his fingers, guiding your face to him before he crashed his exposed lips to yours. You moaned into the kiss, clearly caught off-guard by his response. He worked his lips against yours, his fervor increasing with each passing second.

It wasn’t Ghost that kissed you now. That barrier, that persona, had crumbled away the second you said his name. No, it was the man under the mask now. While he still wore the mask over most of his face, he felt truly exposed to you for the first time.

He broke from the kiss, his lips still against yours. His hand slid down to your throat, his grip light. Aching with adrenaline and lust, he pulled his cock almost completely out of your dripping pussy before fucking up into you again with a sharp, pointed thrust that knocked the wind out of you as you cried out. He began to piston in and out again, restarting his pace.

“Say it,” he rasped, more a request than a demand. Now, he felt as if he was pleading with you. “Say it again.”

One of your warm hands wrapped around his tattooed forearm that held a soft grip on your throat, using him as an anchor. You tossed your head back so that it rested on his strong, broad shoulder, your whole body relaxing into him again as you realized that your slip had caused the opposite effect on him than you had first thought. This is how he wanted you, fully blissed out in his affections.

“S-Simon. Simon, please. Yes!”

Heat pooled in his abdomen as his speed increased. The force of his thrusts rocked the both of you, the bed groaning with the impact. He was totally gone now, all thought of edging you long forgotten. Now, he was all fervor and impulse, any rational thought long swept away in the thrum of adrenaline rushing through his veins. He needed you to come and he needed you to take you with him as fast as possible.

Then, without a care for the serious consequences that would follow, Simon moaned your real name for the first time. It rolled off his tongue like honey, like it had always belonged there.

You melted into his strong body, letting him hold the both of you up as you neared your highs. All the while, you continued to moan his name, sometimes a barely comprehensible whine. But it was enough. It was more than enough.

Suddenly, your body went rigid in his hold as you arched into him. Your cunt clenched and pulsed around him as you came, so tight that he moaned himself. He kept fucking you though it, helping you to ride out the aftershocks as he started to chase his own high.

You clawed at his forearm. While you writhed in his hold, you snaked a hand around behind you to lightly grasp at his neck, overstimulated but still holding on. It silently told him that you wanted to feel him when he came.

“Si… Si-” you sputtered.

As he fucked up into you, his hips snapping roughly against your ass, he began to feel the edge of his release. The force of it grew and grew until he couldn’t hold it back anymore, his pace faltering. His hips stuttered as he released his hot, thick cum into your spasming cunt. He buried his covered face in your shoulder as he grinded into you, releasing every last bit he had. Body shuddering, he fought to find his breath again, the orgasm longer and more intense than any he had ever experienced.

After he came back down from his high, he found you completely relaxed in his hold, spent from the hours you had spent taking him.

Simon kissed your neck, then your cheek, and then your lips, moving his hands to better support your midsection. He whispered against your warm skin, his voice gravelly and spent, “Did so fuckin’ good for me.”

Your chest still heaved for air as you leaned into his touch, making a tired, affirming sound.

Bracing his hands on your hips, he slowly and carefully pulled out of you. He held back a hiss as he did, listening instead to your whine. When you were ready, he helped guide you down to lay on the disheveled bed. Then he slid next to you and pulled you close, still left in the afterglow.

You rested your head on his shoulder as you both caught your breath in silence. For the first time, he felt your hand slide over his chest, your thumb lazily and affectionately stroking his skin. This was you. Without the added layer of Styx. The barriers of both of your personas were gone. Now, you were just as bare as he was.

Maybe this development should have scared him. Maybe he should’ve been worried about what this would mean for the two of you. But he didn’t. The worst part was that he didn’t think he would in the morning, either. Not when being with you felt like this. He now had a taste of what it was like and it was nothing short of addicting.

He couldn’t quite comprehend how you always seemed to break through the barriers he put up. No matter what front he used, you had a way of pulling him further and further into this anyways. He always fell deeper no matter what, throwing his previous hesitancy out the window. Whatever this was with you kept growing, kept becoming something more… and he didn’t know if he could stop it now.

More. He always wanted more.

He wanted this, he wanted you. Maybe if it weren’t for the dangerous life you lived and the ranks you held, it would’ve been easier for him to admit that. Maybe then the thought of a real relationship with you wouldn’t have been such a terrifying, weighted thought even now.

“I’m guessing you liked that, then,” you said, finally breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between the two of you.

“I can’t quite deny it, now can I?” he quipped, a hint of amusement lacing his tone.

You laughed a genuine, carefree laugh, burying your face on his muscled and scarred chest. The sound filled his chest with a new warmth, one that was soft. He held back a small smile as he used his free hand to gently pull his mask down over his chin once again. Then, you looked up and said, “Yeah, not really. You really showed your hand on that one, Simon.”

He groaned, his cock twitching. He limply tapped your hip as he warned, “Fuck, don’t say it, I’ll get hard again. And I don’t think you can take another round, love.”

You laid your head on his chest then, completely limp over top of him. “No, I don’t think I could.”

Though he didn’t say it again, he let your name bounce around in his head. Over and over again, he considered it, looking down at you as he did.

Simon’s fingers found your back, running lightly up and down your spine. For the first time, he didn’t let himself ruin the moment. He didn’t think about the fact that he shouldn’t have let this evolve into something this personal. He didn’t think about the potential consequences. That was all for Ghost to reconcile in the morning. Right now, Simon focused on the way your damp skin rested on his, the steady rhythm of your breath, and the sweet glow that encapsulated you both. For now, that was all that mattered.

And for the first time, Simon stayed the night with you.

[wynnyfryd]

(part 1) angst resolution as promised

Steve tugs Eddie from the bench by his wrist and guides him along a dirt path, beyond the treeline into a secluded clearing deeper in the woods. The nature trail he takes his class out to every Friday when the weather’s nice. He lets go of Eddie’s arm and turns to face him, fighting back nausea as he looks at him head on.

“Explain. Please.”

Eddie crumples like paper, bursts into tears and launches himself at Steve, wrapping his arms tight around his middle and spilling hot tears into his shirt. “I don’t wanna break up,” he mumbles pitifully into the damp fabric.

Steve hugs him back, a strong circle around shaking shoulders. Kisses Eddie’s hair. Tuts softly, voice gentle. “Then why the hell are you trying to, baby?”

“I just— you’re so- you’re so good with all the kids in your class, and I see how much you love them, and we’re getting older, and I— and…”

Eddie chokes on another sob, and Steve chews his lip, waits for Eddie to collect himself. Wonders what loving his job or finding his first gray hair have to do with getting dumped.

“I know you want six nuggets, Stevie,” Eddie sniffs when he’s all cried out. “And I can’t give them to you, which just, um. Just makes me really fucking sad all the time lately.”

Oh. “Oh, baby, no, that’s—”

Eddie laughs through his tears, short and sharp and incredulous. “Don’t tell me ‘that’s okay,’ you insufferably selfless bastard.”

He wipes his eyes and shoves lightly at Steve’s chest then reels him right back in, digging his nails into Steve’s back, somber again when he whispers hoarse confessions into the crook of his neck.

“You deserve to have the things you want in life. I hate the thought that you might grow to resent me because I held you back from getting what you wanted.”

“Eddie,” Steve sighs. “Honey, look at me.”

Eddie lifts his head to meet Steve’s gaze, his eyes shining with a fresh wave of tears.

“I have everything I want,” Steve assures him. It’s true. He does want kids — some day, hypothetically, sure. But if it means giving Eddie up?

Eddie looks like he doesn’t believe him. “Sure,” he scoffs and rolls his eyes. “For now.”

Steve cradles Eddie’s face between his hands. “No,” he promises. “Forever.”

[hera-photos-blog]

Perfect 🙂

[bradshawsbitch]

‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ↠ 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 - ⅵ ↞

⁘ bradley bradshaw, the notoriously ill mannered head chef at the small franchise pub down the street, is quite content with his fast paced job. no commitments or obligations outside of his kingdom of sharp knives, pots, pans, prep work and a shot of jäger after a double. that is until a new waitress is hired, and suddenly his strict and rigid rules of no obligations or commitments starts to waver. . .

› pairing; bradley bradshaw x f!reader

word count; ~ 3.4K

× chapter warnings; adult themes minors dni, throwing up, allusions to illness and hospitals, mentions of hungover vibes, food mention, fluff(?), bradley is literate

disclaimer; I am basing most of the chefs/waitresses on people I have worked with/encountered. Most of their traits will be as realistic as possible.

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“I didn’t mean to– … no– please”

Words, softly murmured by unconscious mind, unsettled the sleeping form of the woman curled up against the man whose lips were moving slightly. Blinking, bleary eyes searched for the source of the intrusive noise. A wave of nausea hit out of nowhere, starting somewhere deep in the pit of an unsettled stomach. The time spent looking at Bradley’s pained face was short lived as she stood up to search for any type of sink, stumbling through the dark of the room in haste to find one.  

Luck seemed to be on your side as the first door you tripped into happened to be a bathroom, large and spacious. Not that you had any time to admire the decor before dropping to your knees to empty your stomach of last night's regrets, tears slowly spilling from your eyes, stomach aching from the effort.

Your knees ached from their time on the cold tile floor as you stood up on shaky legs to rinse your mouth. Groaning before rinsing your mouth and spraying some air freshener that you found in a cabinet, you turned to the door. Exiting the room slowly, you let your eyes take in the upper floor of Bradley’s place. It felt surreal even being in here. Surreal that he’d taken you home. Had stayed in bed with you. 

Licking dry lips, you glanced towards the bedroom, soft snores emanating from the door that was slightly ajar. You contemplated your choices for only a short moment before soundlessly slipping down the stairs, not sure your body would allow sleep to settle over you again. 

Large open areas seemed to be the general theme of Rooster’s place. Everything was in warm shades, muted and soft. It sort of surprised you how stylish it was. Clean. It felt very homey, and as you ventured into the living room, you noticed a stack of books on his coffee table that you’d read before. 

An old vinyl player stood in the corner of the room, and a wooden box of records stood beneath it. Curiously, you moved towards the beautiful, old device, running your fingers over the wooden table it was situated on as you approached it. Slowly, you ran your fingers over the covers in the box below, crouching down to read the labels as you flicked through them.

Most of the records were albums you enjoyed and had grown up listening to. Some of them were on your road trip playlist, and some were on your ‘sunny’ playlist that you put on when the stress of life got too bad. Who knew Bradley had such good taste in books and music? Furrowed brows knitted together further when you glanced up from your crouched position, eyes scanning the room. One wall was covered in bookshelves, with a great variety of cook books, novels, and trinkets. Something felt slightly off though. Even though Bradley had managed to create a home that felt soft, inviting and soothing, there was something missing…

Standing up, you yet again let your eyes rake over the room, and the kitchen that was adjacent to it. The walls were a deep shade of soothing phthalo green, and the kitchen just a touch darker in shade. It clicked suddenly. There were no pictures framed anywhere in his space. No art hung on the walls, no pictures of friends or family lining the bookshelves. 

Curious, you made your way over to his refrigerator, where two lonely, faded photographs hung. Squinting, you saw a woman with blonde hair, and a man with a similar mustache to the man you knew, holding a child. A soft smile played on your lips as you took in the picture. Just from the facial features, you could tell this was Bradley’s parents. 

You wondered how his mom was faring nowadays, with her husband gone. Slowly, you took your eyes away from the happy photo - only to feel a dull ache take place in the pit of your stomach as your eyes moved to the other photo.

In the other picture, the same woman was laid in a bed, a soft but mournful smile on her face. A younger looking Bradley, sans mustache, was sitting beside her, his own smile rather forced as he posed for the photo with his mother. You had to take a deep breath, tears stinging in your eyes as you took in the sight of Bradley’s mother’s now gaunt face, her head bare of any hair, and clad in a much too large hospital gown. 

With a heavy heart, you tore your gaze away from the picture. You desperately hoped Bradley’s mom had been able to pull through. That she was still around, calling Bradley and pestering him about visiting her. Just from the photos, she seemed like a fierce woman. A woman you felt would be full of life and vibrance. With a soft sigh, you turned around to further investigate the spaces that Bradley possessed.

Bradley’s kitchen was spotless, and modern, with just a touch of a retro feel that felt so very like him. It felt as if you were seeing a very personal part of Rooster by just being in his home. 

Walking back towards the living room, you saw the entrance hall, which you had no recollection of coming through yesterday whatsoever. On a table lay some papers strewn about, and you couldn’t help but tilt your head to see if he had any other pictures hidden there. What you found though, were papers with breathing exercises. Furrowing your brows you let your curiosity get the better of you, picking one of them up only to reveal what looked to be a very old piece of paper, folded again and again until the middle had become brittle. It looked like instructions for coping strategies, and you abruptly stopped reading. 

Perhaps Bradley’s mother hadn’t made it. The thought made your chest ache for the man that laid upstairs, unaware of your presence amongst his belongings. 

“Find anything interesting?” his deep baritone made you jump, clutching at your chest as you turned around. The sudden movement had your head swimming, and you winced slightly as you squeezed your eyes shut. Suddenly, large hands were at your hips to steady you, and the calming scent of Bradley overwhelmed your senses.

 “I’m sorry, I didn’t see–” breathlessly the words tumbled from your lips, and to your great surprise Bradley chuckled from above you. Looking up, Rooster’s face was quite close to your own, a soft smile partly hidden behind his mustache. 

“No worries, Bambi. I don’t have anything classified in here… right now,” he smirks. Relief washed over you as you took a step back from Bradley’s warm form, a relieved laugh leaving you as Bradley lets his hands fall from their place to rest at his sides as he suddenly walks towards the kitchen.

As he flicks on the soft warm light in the ceiling, you groan, swiftly covering your eyes as nausea once again rolls over you in waves. Bradley’s quick to flick it off again, chuckling softly as you continue holding your hand over your eyes.

“Feelin’ rough today, babe?” his voice sounded closer to you now, and you let him wrap his hand around your elbow to steer you towards a seat by the big island in the middle of the kitchen. Letting your forehead hit the cool surface, you sighed and nodded against the hard top.

It was silent after that, and soon the sound of moving and soft clangs of pots and pans started to fill the air. Lifting your head, you looked up just in time to see Rooster bring out a thick wooden board with a big-ass knife. 

“Is this where you kill me?” you groan, and Rooster again lets out a deep sounding laughter. 

“No, I think this is where I cook breakfast for the girl who looks as if she’s regretting downing a bottle of tequila yesterday. For once I won’t yell at you as I’m doing it either,” Bradley’s soft smile had the butterflies in your stomach engaging again, only now it was hard to tell if it was from nausea, hunger, or Bradley’s domestic look as he moved through the kitchen in sweats and a t-shirt. 

Once again silence settled between you, the only sound heard being the soft thud of Bradley’s knife, the slow crackle of the heat below the pans, and butter browning in one of them. “You allergic to anything, Cookie?” Bradley glanced over his shoulder at you, brows furrowed as if he was disappointed in himself for not thinking to ask sooner. Shaking your head, you just offered him a small, grateful smile. 

It was strange how normal it felt to sit and watch Bradley cook in his own kitchen. It reminded you of your day working a whole shift with him in the kitchens in the restaurant. It felt easy, and comfortable. The two of you had had a lot of fun that day, and as you watched him now, it felt as if the time since then and now was wiped away.

Suddenly, Bradley turned to you, hands braced on the kitchen island, a knowing smirk on his face as brown eyes met yours. 

“I’m betting you’d be down for bacon?” 

Your smile widened as he winked at you before moving towards his refrigerator, gathering more ingredients for what was beginning to look and smell like the finest hungover breakfast you’d ever get. 

In the end, Bradley and you enjoyed breakfast together, sitting next to each other, knees bumping together every so often as you leaned over to try to read the newspaper that Bradley had sprawled over his side. In the beginning he’d grumbled that you could read it just as well after him, but after several exclamations over interesting headlines, he just let you lean across him, chuckling at your nose-scrunches when you read something you didn’t like. 

Bradley hadn’t brought up taking you home, or any other hints that he wanted you to leave, and you hadn’t felt inclined to remind him of that fact. But as morning turned to midday, you were starting to feel uncomfortable in the clothes you’d been wearing for so long now. 

“Thanks for making me breakfast and um… making sure I got home safe,” licking your lips you looked at Rooster “I’m starting to feel a little gross in these clothes though so maybe–”

“You could take a shower here.” Bradley interrupted “I mean, if you want. You could just borrow some of my clothes afterwards,” blinking owlishly at his exclamation, he shrugged as if saying ‘what?’. As if his offer wasn’t the biggest thing that had happened since The Beatles hit the music industry. 

He wasted no time before moving up the stairs, not particularly waiting for you as he took the steps in twos to beat you to the bathroom. As you made it to the top of the stairs, he’d exited the room you’d made sure to spray with air freshener before you left it earlier. 

“Put a nice clean towel for you in there and some clothes.” he smiles awkwardly, raising a hand to the back of his neck, as if he’s unsure if this is alright. As if it’s been a while since he’d had anyone in his space to care for. An assuring smile meets his awkward one, and he lets out a breath. 

“Thank you, Rooster” you murmur as you gather every ounce of courage you have, planting your palm softly against his chest before reaching up to leave the swiftest of kisses to his cheek before promptly rushing into the bathroom and closing the door.

The thud of the door seems to rouse Bradley from the state of paralyzation he’d been in since he felt your soft lips linger against his skin, and a burst of warmth filled his chest and crept up his neck and cheeks. Rushing water could faintly be heard, along with the sound of clothes hitting the floor, and Bradley promptly turned and made his way down the stairs, groaning softly as he did so. 

His palms went up to his face, rubbing softly as he laid down on his sofa, letting one hand slap over the nearest book. He might as well keep occupied. If he didn’t, he feared his mind would wander to the upstairs bathroom.

Bradley distractedly read a chapter of the book in hand before you appeared again in his living room. He sucked in a breath as he saw you dressed in his pajama pants, and a large white t-shirt of his, wet hair draped over one shoulder. In his mind Rooster thought silently that it ought to be prohibited for you to look that good in his clothes. 

“Wuthering Heights?” a half smile tugged on his lips at your excited tone, eyes wide as you moved closer to where he was lounging. 

“Yeah, doing a re-read. I saw an interesting take on it on YouTube and felt I needed to refresh my memory.” at this, your eyes widened, and you were silently waiting for him to go ‘psych!’. 

“I– you.. you like Wuthering Heights?” 

“Yes. My favorite character is Heathcliffe.” Bradley deadpanned, his stare as serious as ever. He could, however, not keep the facade up when your jaw dropped open in the strongest display of indignation he’d ever seen. He let out a loud laugh, that died down to a chuckle as he exclaimed; 

“I’m fuckin’ with you, Bambs. Heathcliffe’s a fucking dick!” 

“You are just the worst!” You moved forward, grabbing the nearest cushion as you beat at his upper body. Bradley tossed the book aside to try to dodge the blows, but as you hit him softly over the head he dodged to the side, his thigh moving so that you lost your balance and fell to your knees on the cushion next to his legs. Giggling, you moved upwards to try to get in some more blows - it felt only right. Letting the cushion you were beating the head chef with fall to the floor, you put on a show of pinning his wrists above his head, laughing evilly as you did so.

“Do you know how easily I could get out of this hold?” Bradley smirked, glancing upwards at the way your fingers barely managed to cover his wrists. Swallowing, you nodded, noticing now that your body was almost entirely stretched out against Bradley. 

“But please, don’t show me, can we pretend I won?” you smile down at him, and he chuckles warmly - you can feel his chest rumbling against yours you’re that close. 

“You won, Cookie.” Bradley’s voice is almost a whisper as his brown eyes meet yours. 

“Why do you hate me, Bradley?” the question you asked yesterday repeated itself without you consciously making the decision to let the soft spoken words slip from your tongue.

Your name falls from his lips after a beat, and it ignites something within you. For months, you’ve only been called your last name, or the various amounts of nicknames you’d accumulated from your co-workers, that the sound of your name was so intimate. Coming from Bradley, it felt even more so. It made your breath stutter slightly as you searched his face. 

“I don’t hate you… I’m scared.” the confession was whispered so silently, it was hard to hear it. Your hands fell from their hold on his wrists, brows furrowed as you let one hand hesitantly touch his cheek. In your mind, you wondered if Bradley had ever been this vulnerable before, as his brown eyes were genuinely filled with something akin to fear. 

“It’s only me,” you whispered back, your nose gently nudging his as his hands rested on your hips. 

Swallowing hard, he let out a shaky breath, eyes filled with a foreign emotion, flickering darkly beneath those long lashes of his. Silence stretched between you, the air static and filled with tension as Bradley’s lips parted slightly, his gaze flickering to the plushness of your own. 

Your lips were now so close to his, caressing, almost touching, almost– Bradley gently closed the distance fully, his lips covering yours in a soft kiss. Letting your body melt into his, your hands moved slowly to tangle into his locks. Bradley’s grip on your hips tightened slightly. His lips were so warm, so soft, so gentle as they moved against yours, it was as if he was letting you set the pace, yielding and pushing as you moved. 

Breaking apart, you drew in a short breath, Bradley chasing your lips softly for a short peck before you pushed down against him again. You let your tongue hesitantly move to part his lips, and his soft groan sends sparks down your spine. Feeling him against your tongue was like nothing you’d ever experienced before. He was all consuming, his taste, his scent, the feel of his thumbs caressing your bared skin over the pants you’d borrowed from him. 

At the feel of your tongue against his, he inhaled sharply, allowing himself to push against your body more eagerly. Your inner thighs settled over one of his own, your upper body splayed across his chest, and your soft noises of content were slowly driving him to insanity.

Tugging softly at the curls of Bradley’s hair, the groan that left him as his thigh raised slightly to push against your core made you gasp. Your own thigh was pressed tightly against him, and you felt him stir in his sweats as the two of you laid entangled on his sofa. 

“Fuck, Bambi…” Bradley’s voice was raspy and deep as he broke away, chest rising and falling rapidly as you placed soft kisses over his cheek, jawline and neck. His grip on your hips has tightened considerably, and his thumbs had slid underneath the fabric of his large shirt to rest on your bare skin. You hummed softly as his hands gently rubbed at your sides, splaying over your waist and back. 

A reassuring smile settles on your face as you once again look down at Bradley, trying to tell him through a look that there’s no need to be scared, no need to feel anxious. It was only you. 

Sinking down, you gently let your body rest on top of Roosters, your chin pressed to his chest and your hands gripping the fabric that’s bunched at his waist. 

“Do you mind if a girl who regrets downing a bottle of tequila yesterday rests here for a moment?” 

That sentence was met by a relieved chuckle, and Bradley nodded, letting his lips kiss at the top of your head before he once again reached for the book he’d tossed aside. Trying to ignore the wild, untamed storm of butterflies that had consumed your whole body, you nuzzled your face into Bradley’s warm chest, trying to focus on how his one hand had found its place rubbing at your back, the other holding Wuthering Heights as he read. 

It felt like the right choice to not talk about what had just happened now, let it settle a little. You were quite certain that Bradley felt conflicted about it, and by now, it felt as if you instinctively knew when to push the man beneath you, and when to let him sit in his emotions and feel them out before questioning them. 

The rest of the day was spent on Bradley’s couch, you dozing off every once in a while as Bradley read or napped with you. He offered to cook you pasta as midday turned to afternoon, and as the sun started to settle beneath the horizon, he offered to drive you home. 

As he approached your building, you could tell he was starting to close off again. It surprised you that it didn’t bother you as it would have when you first started working with Rooster. A small smile played on your lips as you kissed his cheek, thanking him for taking care of you today. His soft, uncomfortable grumble told you all you needed to know. 

“See you at work.” he said before you closed the door, and as you walked towards your door, you almost felt like giggling. Rooster would most likely pull back hard, you realized, and you wouldn’t be surprised if he ignored you during your next shift together. And as you settled in your own apartment, the scent of Bradley’s clothes all the stronger in your own space, you smirked a little - almost hoping to find Jake at the window tomorrow. 

Bambi was about to have some fun.

YEEEEHAW!!! AHHHHH, listen I'm dying okay. How do y'all feel? Too fast? Too slow? Let a girl know! thanks a bunch for reading and for the love I've received on my little baby grumpy chef series 🥹🥹

[justkeepdriiving]

Can you write mafiarry where harry gets really horny and has a breeding kink and so asking the servants to undress her and put her on the bed and they have crazy sex

*Wanted*

Harry took a deep breath as he leaned his head back against the little headrest. He didn't take baths very often but it had been a stressful last few weeks and he finally had some time to himself. The warm water made him relax in a way he hadn't in a good while.

Taking a sip of his beer, Harry put the bottle down before standing up and getting out of the bath. Grabbing his robe, he tied it around himself before he put on his rings. Looking at himself in the mirror he pushed his hair back and took a mental note that he'd have to shave in the morning.

Beer bottle in hand Harry walked out into the bedroom and grabbed the intercom phone as he sat down in one of the lounge chairs. "Tiff" he spoke into the phone. "Yes, Mr. Styles?" Tiffany answered as she hushed the other girls. "Bring her up, I'm going to fuck her. Take some help with you, you're going to get her ready for me" he hung up as he put his legs up on the footstool and sipped his beer.

"Lily, Rose. You're with me. Brat, let's go" Tiffany snapped into action. More than happily putting down the duster, I walked over to her. "Miss, where are we going?" I asked as Lily and Rose joined us. "Mr. Styles wants you" she replied and started walking. I grinned and squealed happily.

By the time we were outside of the bedroom, I was already pretty sure I'd made quite the wet spot in the panties I was wearing from all the thoughts that were running around in my head. I looked down at the maid uniform I'd been made to wear and made sure it looked okay, brushing off some dust that wasn't really there, wanting to be perfect.

Tiffany knocked on the door twice and waited till Harry invited her in. "Blindfold her" Harry said from the chair, not looking up at us as we walked in. Tiffany turned around and untied my apron before quickly rolling it up and tying it around my head. "Undress her. You on the left, what's your name again?" he spoke as he looked over.

"Lily, Sir" Lily spoke up softly, never having spoken to Harry personally before. "Come here" he ordered, waving her over. I whimpered as he asked for her. I was his toy, not her! Tiffany guided me further into the room. "Sir, I can do it! I'll help you! Use me!" I said with a little whine as I could hear the familiar sound of an ass being slapped.

"Tiffany, if you would be so kind" Harry said giving me a glare before pulling Lily close and whispering into her ear. The slap that landed on my cheek, I guess wasn't too unexpected. I was more surprised when I felt a cock gag being pushed into my mouth and fastened around my head.

Sucking on the cock gag, I couldn't do anything but listen to Harry and Lily while Miss. Tiffany and Rose moved me around like a little puppet as they took off my corset, skirt, panties, socks, and my little mary jane shoes. The standard maid uniform Harry had everyone wear. Except for Tiffany, she had a lot more options.

Gentle hands started urging me to move. "Be a good toy now, let Sir fill you up" Rose whispered as she helped me sit down on the bed and get situated in the middle. She brought my hands up and fastened them to the headboard with some leather cuffs. Moaning as the soft hands returned to spread my legs, I wriggled slightly.

Harry made sure that Lily had picked out the right things for him as he looked over the items placed on the nightstand. Finishing up his beer, he stroked a finger on the inside of my thigh. "Leave" he said and Tiffany, Rose, and Lily left without a word.

I tried to mumble around the gag but nothing that came out was understandable. Whining, I lifted up my legs while keeping them spread, hoping that that would speak for itself.

Harry let the robe fall to the floor before he got up on the bed. He leaned over me so he could push my makeshift blindfold off and I bucked my hips up at him as I made eye contact. "I'm going to fill you so full tonight" he said as he opened the gag. Moaning as he fucked my mouth with it, I could feel the spit that hung onto the cock gag as he pulled it away, falling down on my cheek.

We stared into each other's eyes as Harry slowly, way too slowly, pushed his cock in. "Sir" I moaned as he finally was fully in. "Going to keep you tied and spread open on this bed for me. Can come and fill you with my cum whenever I please" he hummed, lifting my legs up so he could angle himself better and go deeper.

"I'll do whatever you want, Sir. Be whatever you want" I told him, clenching my pussy around him. Harry stroked his hands up my stomach, grabbing onto my breasts tightly. "Can't wait to see you pregnant. See your belly growing, knowing that I created the child inside you" he grunted as he gave my breast a slap before he started moving a little faster.

I bit my lip, feeling my heart swell at his words. I couldn't wait for the day I would carry his child. Possibly children even. "I love you so much, Sir" I told him. "I'd be so honored to be able to do that for you, fuck!" I gasped as he slammed in extra hard, making me arch up.

"I know" Harry smirked while grabbing my throat and squeezing. "Such a good little toy aren't you? You'd let me do anything to you" he spat on my face. I did my best to nod as I tried to get some air in. "Pathetic really" he chuckled as he let go of my throat and leaned on his arms, snapping his hips fast.

Coughing, I looked at him before letting out a long moan. "Your toy" I whined. "Do anything you want" I moaned, arching and grunting as he started fucking me hard. "Please fill me with your cum, Sir!" I begged as I looked at him.

Harry panted as he pulled out. I whimpered at the loss and was about to protest when Harry flipped me over. Scrambling up on my knees and spreading my legs again, I let out a happy guttural sound as he quickly pushed himself back in. "Fuck!" I moaned as I dropped my head down.

"Sir!" I called out as he smacked my ass hard before gripping my hips tightly, his fingers digging into my skin. "Fucking take it. 'bout to fill you up" he grunted as he thrust himself in and out as fast as he could. "Please, Sir, want your cum so bad, please fill me up!" I begged, tightening my pussy around him.

He thrust in hard and deep as he shot his load deep inside me. He growled a little as he snapped his hips a few more times. "Don't move" he panted as he pulled out and stretched out his hand to the nightstand. Harry grabbed a vagina plug and shoved it in without any lube, making me gasp.

Harry grabbed one of my chastity belts and started putting it on, making sure it was close up on my pussy to keep the plus inside. He collapsed down next to me, closing his eyes as he tried to even out his breath again. "Lie down and get some rest. You're not leaving this bed for quite some time" he said as he reached out and stroked my stomach after I'd laid down.

"Thank you for using me and filling me with your cum, Sir" I told him, giving him a loving and almost starstruck look. Harry smirked as he pulled the blankets up. "It was my pleasure"

[autisticlancemcclain]

“Damn,” Lance mutters to himself, craning his neck as he takes in the building in front of him. The tall, beautiful building. The expensive building, Lordie. They’ve come a long way since they were bunked up in their piece of shit studio apartment, 19 years old and stressed and completely unsure about what they were doing in life.

Lance snorts. Well. Maybe they haven’t changed that much.

Reminding himself how excited he is to see Hunk’s new place, he heads through the sleek glass doors, nodding at the doorman — an actual doorman, what the fuck — and hauling ass to make the elevator. He rides up to the twentieth floor, which seems to take a thousand years. That probably has less to do with the actual elevator and more to do with the fact that there are six other people in this elevator and five of them are wearing fancy suits, but whatever.

He steps out onto the quiet, carpeted hallway, looking for apartment 2014. He finds it quickly, peeking under the welcome mat like Hunk said, beyond relieved to see the silver key. He slides it through the lock, opening it easily, and pokes his head through the door.

“Dandelion?” he calls softly. He’s expecting the excited howling of Hunk’s big dumb cat, then the sound of his little paws clambering on the floor as he speeds down the hallway, but there’s nothing. Lance shrugs, stepping all the way into the apartment and locking the door behind him. Hunk must have taken Dandelion with him to see Shay.

Humming to himself, Lance heads for the kitchen. He ate before he got on the train, but that was almost two hours ago, and besides — Hunk’s fridge is always stocked. At best there will be leftovers of whatever genius Hunk has cooked up in the past couple days, and at worst there’ll be fifteen dollar exotic strawberries that Lance will steal shamelessly.

Hunk is so lucky to have Lance as a best friend, honestly.

Opening the fridge, however, is a massive disappointment. There’s not a single fancy schmancy ingredient in sight, and certainly no delicious leftovers. In fact the fridge is almost completely barren, only a carton of eggs, random condiments, and a bunch of veggies. The veggies make sense, but the fridge still feels off, somehow. But there are ingredients enough to make a killer sandwich, so Lance helps himself.

Ignoring the countless warnings Hunk has given him over the years to not eat and walk so he doesn’t get crumbs everywhere, Lance decides to give himself a tour of the apartment. It’s leagues better than anything either of them have every lived in before, which is nice. Lance is unbelievably proud of Hunk for his promotion — he deserves it and more. He most definitely deserves the sick view, 20 storeys in the air, the crown moulded ceilings, the general cleanliness. The sparseness of the place is definitely a little odd for Hunk, because he’s more of a knickknack guy, but he’s only been at this place for a couple months. Makes sense that he hasn’t unpacked yet.

Lance perks up at the sound of the key in the lock. It’s a little early, yet, almost a half hour before Hunk said he’d be here, but hey — the earlier the better! Lance has missed living near his best friend.

Quickly scarfing down his sandwich — he was so bullshitting before and if Hunk catches him red handed he’s going to die and he knows it — he sprints to the kitchen, hiding just behind the bend of the wall. He snickers quietly for himself, tense in wait. He’s going to scare the shit out of Hunk, and it’s going to be great.

“— yeah, yeah, I know, but I’ve got shit to do tonight, Shiro. I don’t have time.”

Lance freezes.

That’s not Hunk.

“What? No! I’m not sacrificing Survivor to go to some bar, dude! Why the hell would I trade chilling out with Kosmo on the couch and watching people be fools in the wilderness for dodging drunk people?”

Maybe Hunk brought a friend over, Lance thinks to himself. Hunk’s a friendly guy. It’s possible.

“Yeah, yeah.” The mystery man’s voice goes high pitched, mocking. “I have no friends and need to get out more, blah blah blah. hear you, Shiro.”

Lance’s heart pounds. So much for that theory. He peeks around the corner, expecting some dude in a ski mask and dressed in black, holding a gun and a duffel bag. Instead he sees a guy, dressed in a white t-shirt — a tight white tee, may Lance add — and basketball shorts, maybe a couple inches taller than Lance, sporting what Lance can only call an honest-to-God mullet.

Well, at least Lance got the duffel bag part right.

The man’s voice turns exasperated. “I am taking you seriously, Shiro. Promise. I’ll go — I’ll do something social tomorrow, okay?” The man turns slightly, so Lance has full view of his profile, and the arm holding up his phone.

The, uh, fairly toned arm.

“Yeah. I will. Love you, too.”

Oh no.

This intruder is hot.

The hot intruder hangs up, shoving his phone in his pocket. Then, faster than Lance can react (look, no one prepares you for a burglar that looks like a Greek god, okay? Lance is a little stupefied and he feels that it’s justified. This man’s jawline alone is affecting his heart worse than the fear that he’s gonna get murdered for witnessing a crime), the man turns into the kitchen.

Face to face with Lance.

For a moment neither of them say anything, completely frozen, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. And then the hot intruder blinks, says “Shit!” loudly enough to echo, and reaches for his pocket.

Lance, fearing the worst, screeches at the top of his lungs, and sprints for the bedroom, shoving past the intruder.

“Get out!” he screams, slamming and locking the door behind him. “Get out get out get out!”

“What the — you get out!” the intruder screams back. He slams into the door, banging on it as he juggles the handle. “Why are you here?”

“Dear God, please help me.” Lance isn’t much of a religious person, really, but all those boring years of Easter Mass growing up must have affected him in some way, because he’s halfway ready to start praying for real. Obviously, this man had quietly observed how smart and handsome and awesome Hunk looks, and assumed he’s a rich supergenius, and has now come to rob him blind as he’s out of the house. What this horrible criminal didn’t expect was Lance, here to visit his friend at his new place. And now that Lance has witnessed him, bare-faced and red-handed, he is going to murder Lance — to death — to cover his crime.

“I’m calling the police!” Lance screeches. He doesn’t have a whole lot of faith in the fuckers, but at this point they’re better than nothing. Maybe they’ll bring a forensic team to help solve the crime of Leandro Agustín Nuñez Carmen Esposita-McClain, far too young and beautiful to die, murdered tragically.

There’s a pause from the other side of the door, almost shocked.

“Why the fuck would you be calling the cops?” demands the man, half incredulous. “I’m calling the cops, you trespassing weirdo!”

Something like cold realization begins to build up in Lance’s gut. “I’m calling the cops because you’re trying to rob this apartment and maybe murder me?” he suggests.

“Rob the — murder you?” the man sputters. “This is my fucking apartment!”

Before he can talk himself out of it, Lance unlocks the door and yanks it open, face to face with Mr Tall, Mulleted, and Handsome.

“Do you,” he says nervously, face a little red, “happen to have a neighbour named Hunk Garrett?”

The man blinks at him. “Yeah. He’s across the hall. 2041.”

A long, agonizing moment of silence. Both of them just look at each other in pure bewilderment. (Well, Lance will admit that his bewilderment is not quite so pure. There might be some healthy admiration and lust swimming around there somewhere. This man is very attractive, and Lance has a thing for people who are angry with him. It’s a complex.)

“In my defense,” Lance says eventually, “I’m dyslexic.”

———

Luckily for Lance, Keith — the hot not-intruder — is very understanding of the entire ideal.

By that, Lance means he laughs himself to tears, right there on the hallway floor.

“There’s no way this is happening in real life,” Keith wheezes. “There’s no way you could fuck up this bad.”

Lance scowls. “Oh, piss off. I flipped two measly digits, and you’re the dumbass who keeps your house key under your welcome mat! Who even does that!”

It takes Keith several tries to calm himself down. The first few times he seems like he’s normal, but then he looks at Lance’s grouchy face and loses it all over again. The worst part is that he has a fucking gorgeous laugh, so Lance is having a really hard time staying angry.

“I’m —” Keith takes a deep, shuddering breath — “I’m sorry, dude. Lance. Really. I don’t mean to laugh at you. It’s just — I was just telling my brother that nothing happens here, you know? And then this.”

Lance softens, finally allowing himself a small smile. He offers a hand to Keith, who takes it and pulls himself up. “Yeah, I guess it’s kind of a one-in-a-lifetime thing, huh?”

Keith hums. “Yeah.”

Keith’s hand is calloused, along the heel and flex of his palm. His hand is also very warm, like Lance has his own personal hand-heater. But Lance is, if he’s being entirely honest, paying way more attention to his eyes — they’re the most peculiar shade of indigo, so dark that Lance thought they were black, at first. But no, the darkest shade of blue-purple Lance has ever seen. He has freckles too, though barely. Just a couple spattered on the bridge of his nose. And the —

The sound of the Swedish chef from the Muppets over trap music startles Lance out of his reverie — Hunk’s ringtone. He pulls away from Keith’s hand, from his very close personal space, God, and hurriedly answers.

“Yeah, Hunk?”

His voice cracks seven times. He’s not proud of it.

“Where are you, dude? You were supposed to get here earlier than me but I’ve been here for twenty minutes. Did you get lost?”

Lance looks at his watch, then curses loudly. Has he really been in Keith’s apartment for nearly an hour? Fuck!

“I didn’t get — I just lost track of time — I’m not — I’ll be right there,” he rushes out. “See you in five, okay?”

He hangs up before Hunk has the chance to respond, still cursing endlessly.

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.” He grips his hair with one hand, other clenching his phone. He flicks his eyes back to Keith, who looks way more amused than he has any right to. “I have — I’ve gotta go. Now.”

“To the right apartment this time,” Keith surmises, grinning.

Lance flushes. “That would be correct, yes. I’m meeting my friend for dinner.”

“Hunk Garrett. Chef extraordinaire. You mentioned.”

Like a dumbass and before he can stop himself, Lance blurts: “You should come with me.”

Keith raises an amused eyebrow. “I’m not an expert in social cues or anything, but I don’t think you can invite me over to other people’s houses.” He chuckles. “Although you don’t seem to have a problem showing up to places randomly, huh?”

“Shut up!”Lance checks his watch again, then bites his lip. “I really have to go.” There’s nothing stopping him. He has no reason to stay, really. But for some reason he doesn’t want to go.

“Hey, give me your number,” Keith says after a moment.

“Why?” Lance asks on reflex. Very quickly he wants to smack himself for being a fool.

Keith smiles wryly. “Well, I dunno. Once I emotionally recover from you breaking and entering into my apartment, I might decide I want to press charges. Better get your number just in case.”

Lance laughs. He takes the offered phone, punching in his number and contact, putting a heart after his name after only a beat of hesitation.

“I’ll text you,” Keith says, walking Lance to the door. For the first time since he discovered Lance hiding in his kitchen, he looks slightly nervous. “If, um. If that’s okay.”

“I’d like that,” Lance says softly. Keith’s gentle look makes something hot brew in his belly, butterflies fluttering and making his arms and legs tingle. He’s had crushes before, and he’s absolutely no stranger to finding someone hot, but this feels…different. Almost —

“Lance?” For the second time, Hunk’s voice startles Lance out of making goo-goo eyes at Keith, poking his head out of his actual apartment, right across the door. “I thought I heard you out here — wait.” Hunk’s dark eyes narrow, and he looks Lance up and down. He holds his gaze for a second, then bursts out laughing. “Keith, pal,” he wheezes, “please tell me my dumbass best friend didn’t break into your house.”

Keith grins. “He did!”

“No fuckin’ way! Lance, dude, oh my God —”

“Easy and reasonable mistake! Fuck off!”

———

Hours later, cozy on Hunk’s couch, he gets a text from an unknown number.

from: unknown

i’ve decided i won’t press charges for breaking and entering.

Lance laughs, quickly adding the number to his contacts.

to: keith <3

thank you, oh merciful one.

Lance is left on read for long enough that he’s almost offended, but luckily a text pops in before he can get really mad.

from: keith <3

don’t get too relieved yet, lance.

from: keith <3

there are other charges i’m going to press.

A real stab of fear pierces Lance’s heart.

to: keith <3

u best be joking it was an ACCIDENT

to: keith <3

i have DYSLEXIA

to: keith <3

this is DYSLEXIPHOBIC

Before Lance can really work himself up, though, Keith finishes his thought.

from: keith <3

i have to report you for theft

from: keith <3

cus aside from sandwich ingredients, i think you stole my heart

Lance couldn’t stop his giggle if he tried. It’s besotted and stupid and halfway-drunk, Jesus. Lance is embarrassed for himself.

from: keith <3

oh my god that is the most embarrassing thing i’ve ever typed and sent

from: keith <3

i’m begging you to purge it from your memory

to: keith <3

i’ll make you a deal

Lance takes a deep breath, steeling himself before sending. It feels strange to be on the other end of a pickup line — Lance can’t say he minds.

to: keith <3

you go out with me, and i’ll never mention how embarrassing you are to another soul

from: keith <3

…

from: keith <3

i’ve only known you for a day, and i know you’re lying to me

Lance snorts. That’s a fair assumption. Lance was lying. He’s actually debating waking Hunk up to show him these texts instead of waiting until tomorrow morning, but Keith doesn’t need to know that.

from: keith <3

but, yeah. i’ll go out with you.

from: keith <3

…tomorrow?

Lance grins. He has a good feeling about this.

to: keith <3

see you then, hot not-intruder :)

———

based on this video