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#someone who can draw please find this
somnimagus · 1 year
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My page for @kairizine. It was such a huge honor to be part of this wonderful book with everyone, I had so much fun!
[id in alt!]
#kingdom hearts#kh#kh kairi#kh xion#kh namine#i don't really feel proud of my own stuff usually but#i really think this is the drawing i'm most proud of from this past year!! it made me think 'oh maybe i can draw' haha#i'm still kinda bad with colors but something clicked with this one. and i feel like i got the sentimental feeling i wanted!#ooh but this project's about flower symbolism so ramble incoming:#protea symbolizes resilience transformation and diversity; hollyhock means 'please remember me.'#so my general theme was finding a sense of self.#these 3 have struggled with finding their own identity; they tend to get left behind both in-universe and in general plotwise#and naminé and xion both resemble kairi and were overshadowed by her memory. but i feel like all 3 have transformed into their own people#xion and naminé have their faces covered partially by hollyhock to show their wish to be remembered for who they are-#instead of the parts that they share with someone else#and the protea bouquets show how they each held on and resiliently grew into their own person despite it all#i put a little swervy path on the hill behind kairi to give that hopeful sense of growth and moving forward. it's a little hard to see#hopefully that makes sense! i really love symbolism but i think in visuals so i'm really bad with words#but gosh working with everyone on this project was so fun. it was like impossible not to get swept up by the team's hype for this zine#i need to hunt down everybody's work and rb it#ohh and everybody's flowers are so crisply drawn it's insane!! i think if i lined all these flowers and leaves i'd die haha#fan art#my art#project stuff
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lovecoredeity · 4 months
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fun scene idea that I’ll probably never get around to drawing: someone grabbing a wanted poster from a board or wall only to reveal a missing persons poster featuring the same person as on the wanted poster underneath it (also the reward for them as a wanted person is higher than the reward for returning them when they were missing)
#basically this is something fun I imagine for my oc cashmere#as of right now she’s simply missing (presumed to be kidnapped at least that’s what the family she is from told people)#as of rn in her story she isn’t wanted for anything but that can change I’ll probably have her (attempt to) commit treason against her#own family or something#I think it would be fun that her family is willing to spend less when she’s missing than when they’re mad at him and want him back to be#punished for angering them#I have attempted to draw this out before but was like#it would be better as like an animation tbh but#I can’t animate I’m not going to animate my tablet does not even have the storage for me to animate#maybe a quick animatic if anything but like#idk#it’s more of a fun idea than anything#I imagine what leads to cashmere committing treason is that upon being back in the hands of their family they begin to realize that they#can’t lie to theirself anymore their family is terrible and the reason they died in the first place and snaps#i feel like they found themselves in a situation where they attacked someone out of fear and rage and blah blah that is seen as treason#it would probably be his dad that gets attack im ngl conquest deserves it#or they accidentally hurt them out of fear#I am unsure#*shrug emoji* I’m just making up shit for cashmere as I see fit and per what I find most interesting and fun <3#also cashmere is my only oc rn who would have both a missing and a wanted poster#sure most of my ocs would find themselves wanted for one reason or another or targeted by others#but some cashmere is useful as a tool to their family and having a runaway child is bad for their reputation they’d ofc want her back to#keep her quiet and keep people from finding out that she ran away#they also still think she’s sickly and wouldn’t want anyone to find out who she is that she’s sickly and for word to spread#basically they want cashmere back so their reputation isn’t damaged and so they can go back to using her as they please#I put a lot of suffering into this character#and I will continue to do so because as my favourite this is what happens#sorry I’m babbling
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random-weirdo · 10 months
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Hello people,
I went to the Taylor Swift Era’s Tour Movie with a very good friend today, as a surprise for him, and while we were watching the reputation era, I couldn’t help but notice how stunning Taylor’s outfit was for it. Especially with the red snakes all around the body suit.
So, I am proposing an idea to the artists that see this.
I present to you: Crowley wearing the Reputation Era Outfit.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk, I do hope that the lovely artists of Tumblr who scroll upon this post think this is a good idea.
(And if it’s been done before somebody please tell me where I can find it it’s the only thing I’ve been able to think about.)
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stunfiskz · 10 months
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actually i think the deltarune theory that makes me most upset is when someone tries to argue that anyone aside from mettaton is the lightner that swatch helped create the neo body
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darkandstormydolls · 5 months
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PSA to all historical fiction/fantasy writers:
A SEAMSTRESS, in a historical sense, is someone whose job is sewing. Just sewing. The main skill involved here is going to be putting the needle into an out of the fabric. They’re usually considered unskilled workers, because everyone can sew, right? (Note: yes, just about everyone could sew historically. And I mean everyone.) They’re usually going to be making either clothes that aren’t fitted (like shirts or shifts or petticoats) or things more along the lines of linens (bedsheets, handkerchiefs, napkins, ect.). Now, a decent number of people would make these things at home, especially in more rural areas, since they don’t take a ton of practice, but they’re also often available ready-made so it’s not an uncommon job. Nowadays it just means someone whose job is to sew things in general, but this was not the case historically. Calling a dressmaker a seamstress would be like asking a portrait painter to paint your house
A DRESSMAKER (or mantua maker before the early 1800s) makes clothing though the skill of draping (which is when you don’t use as many patterns and more drape the fabric over the person’s body to fit it and pin from there (although they did start using more patterns in the early 19th century). They’re usually going to work exclusively for women, since menswear is rarely made through this method (could be different in a fantasy world though). Sometimes you also see them called “gown makers”, especially if they were men (like tailors advertising that that could do both. Mantua-maker was a very feminized term, like seamstress. You wouldn’t really call a man that historically). This is a pretty new trade; it only really sprung up in the later 1600s, when the mantua dress came into fashion (hence the name).
TAILORS make clothing by using the method of patterning: they take measurements and use those measurements to draw out a 2D pattern that is then sewed up into the 3D item of clothing (unlike the dressmakers, who drape the item as a 3D piece of clothing originally). They usually did menswear, but also plenty of pieces of womenswear, especially things made similarly to menswear: riding habits, overcoats, the like. Before the dressmaking trade split off (for very interesting reason I suggest looking into. Basically new fashion required new methods that tailors thought were beneath them), tailors made everyone’s clothes. And also it was not uncommon for them to alter clothes (dressmakers did this too). Staymakers are a sort of subsect of tailors that made corsets or stays (which are made with tailoring methods but most of the time in urban areas a staymaker could find enough work so just do stays, although most tailors could and would make them).
Tailors and dressmakers are both skilled workers. Those aren’t skills that most people could do at home. Fitted things like dresses and jackets and things would probably be made professionally and for the wearer even by the working class (with some exceptions of course). Making all clothes at home didn’t really become a thing until the mid Victorian era.
And then of course there are other trades that involve the skill of sewing, such as millinery (not just hats, historically they did all kinds of women’s accessories), trimming for hatmaking (putting on the hat and and binding and things), glovemaking (self explanatory) and such.
TLDR: seamstress, dressmaker, and tailor are three very different jobs with different skills and levels of prestige. Don’t use them interchangeably and for the love of all that is holy please don’t call someone a seamstress when they’re a dressmaker
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booasaur · 5 months
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I've watched the people boosting this gofundme become more and more desperate as the Rafah invasion draws near:
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This baby was born during this genocide and has only ever known this genocide. If you can donate to help her family evacuate, please do.
If you were thinking about donating to any evacuation, now is the time. They don't have much left.
Edited (2024-05-01):
The target has been reached so I've gone ahead and locked this post
I really do want to express my thanks to everyone who donated and boosted:
Edited (2024-05-03):
I've unlocked this post because I guess not only do Gazans have to deal with needing to crowdfund to leave their home to escape bombs and bullets and starvation, not only do sites like gofundme and PayPal not support them and arbitrarily lock or cancel accounts unless you find someone abroad you can trust or you get scammed, NOT ONLY do you then have to successfully complete a campaign which relies on popularity, marketing ability, timing, grasp of English, access to tech (what's going to happen to all the people who simply can't manage all this?), BUT you also get charged an exorbitant fee to then be able to withdraw the money so you can pay to cross into Egypt.
The gofundme is open again with the target raised 15,000 to account for the fee, a little less than 1,800 needed at the moment:
Edited (2024-05-04):
Thank you so much, everyone, we reached this secondary target as well! I'll leave this post unlocked for a while since every bit of additional money will go to their life in Egypt.
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hashem1979 · 26 days
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🚨🛑Stop for a moment and don't skip it !!
Hello, I am Hashem and I am reaching out to you with a heavy heart on behalf of my family of six who are trapped in the devastating situation in Gaza. They are urgently seeking evacuation to Egypt after enduring more than 300 days of displacement and hardship.
I am seeking to help them urgently and provide them with the minimum requirements. I was displaced and managed to escape the horrors of war to Rafah and then we returned again to Khan Younis and were displaced more than 11 times inside Khan Younis until we reached the beach, and during our displacement I was injured in the palm of my hand and underwent surgery and had platinum inserted in it and is in dire need of another operation.
Today I find myself in a situation I never expected. The conflict in Gaza has left my family in dire need of assistance.
This war has taken our livelihoods and our factories and now we are struggling to survive. I had a carpentry shop for making furniture, which was my source of income to support my family and was a source of security for my life, but now it has been destroyed and all the hard work of the years was lost in a short moment.
I had a home to shelter my family and children, and the occupation also destroyed our only shelter, and the streets became a bed for my children.
Each of my children had a dream to fulfill. My eldest daughter Dima dreamed of becoming a doctor to treat children, but now I don't know if I will be able to fulfill her dream. My second son Aboud dreamed of becoming an architect to build the country and what the wars destroyed. The third dreams of becoming a mechanical engineer, and the fourth dreams of becoming a painter to color our lives with the most beautiful drawings. These were all our dreams before the war, but the war destroyed everything.
I feel ashamed to ask you to help me save my family's lives. If someone donates $5, it will make a difference for us and help us because we need more. I don't want to lose my family, you are my only hope, you are our hope always and forever.
I’m so embarrassed but I’ve rubbed salt in my wounds and I have no one else to save them but you. My family is calling you and asking for your help. They are in desperate need of rescue and safety.
Your generosity will directly help save my family from death and rebuild our lives. Every donation, no matter how small, makes a huge difference.
Reach out and make a meaningful impact for us because we need you. Donate on GoFundMe Every contribution, no matter how big or small, will directly help save my family’s life and help those still trapped in the Gaza Strip. ✓ Share this post and spread the word ⩥ Please share this campaign with your friends, family, and colleagues to help us reach our goal.
Your support means everything to me, and I am so grateful for any help you can offer during this difficult time.
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bi-writes · 1 month
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ghost doesn't think he hears you correctly, not at first. there's a ringing that's still in his ears from the bullet he nearly ate earlier. (cw: dubcon, 18+)
"wot?"
"can you please please please--pretend to be my boyfriend--just for one minute--!"
"heyyy, sunshine," a nasty little voice sings. you spin around, cowering by the bar, just as someone a little too drunk and a little too big comes into your space. you scoot away from him, but he's coming closer, leaning over you, and ghost tilts his head to the side as he watches the way you flinch at the stink of his breath.
ghost fits into the space at your back quite easily. your back arches a little as his big hand finds the bend of your waist, and you squeak a little when he forces you back, pressing your ass against his pelvis as he tucks you into his shadow.
"who's this fuckin' nitwit?" ghost mutters, clicking his tongue under his mask. you swallow, blinking up at the man, shrugging as you try and press yourself a little closer against his heat.
"i-i dunno," you whisper, and it's shaky, afraid. "h-he won't stop...following me."
"tha' right?" ghost hums, and you're so afraid of the man in front of you that you don't really register the way ghost's big hand is slipping lower, over the curve of your denim jeans and squeezing the fat of your ass that fills the palm of his hand all too nicely. "ya botherin' 'er?"
the man swallows a little, hiccuping. he stands up straighter, a little more sober, and he just shrugs as he takes another swig of his beer.
"just...she's so pretty, ya know--agh!"
ghost reaches over and grips him by the fat of his neck. he squeezes hard, drawing him closer, would be spitting in his face if he wasn't wearing the balaclava over his head.
"'f i see ya around 'er again, i'll paint the fuckin' walls with y'r teeth, mate, yeah? now get outta my fuckin' sight before i do it just for fun."
when ghost lets him go, he struggles to breathe, holding onto the bar and coughing as he scrambles to put distance between you. you shake a little, turning towards the bar, picking up what you assume is his drink and sipping it slowly to try and calm the nerves. you close your eyes gently, shaking your head.
"thank you," you say softly. "i-i couldn't shake him off, he was following me everywhere, i..." you turn your head and meet his eyes, smiling up at him. "that was really nice of you. i'm...sorry if i caused you any trouble."
ghost tilts his head to the side, fitting himself back behind you. he reaches over, putting both arms on either side of you and leaning over one shoulder, breathing hot against your neck.
"wot you mean?" he murmurs, and you blink, not understanding.
"for pretending to..." you laugh a little, looking into his eyes. "just...it was nice of you to do that. to pretend like that, i--"
"dunno wot y'r talkin' about," ghost chuckles, and you seize when he reaches down between you, cupping you between the legs as he palms at your pussy over your jeans. you keen a little, leaning into his touch, nasty brute pressing two fingers against where you're most sensitive and forcing your ass back against him, where he's hard, chubbed up since he first saw you, leaking into his cargos.
"i-i--" your eyes are wide, but you don't pull away, don't push him back--why am i not running? why can't i leave? what's happening to me--
"i wasn't pretending. were you?"
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screampied · 11 months
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✩ here’s the masterlist! — this features published works from 11/11/23 ‘till 04/30/24. 18+ only. for more current & recent works, here’s the second masterlist.
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ೀ⋆ MULTI HEADCANONS.
how they brat tame you.
being a brat ‘n spitting their load out.
no nut november.
hit it from the back.
too sweet. (cw aphrodisiacs)
slippery when wet. (cw squirting)
hiding your moans in bed.
she’s a super freak.
gimme gimme more.
three’s a crowd.
ride it like you own it.
but that dick was a 10/10.
just the tip girl.
ride the dick like a carnival.
scream no bologna.
talkin bodyyy.
slut stretch me out.
fuck me like u want me.
getting a screampie.
freak like me.
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ೀ⋆ ONESHOTS/FICS.
💭 SATORU GOJO.
fantasize: you screw your fwb to get over your shitty ex. was it worth it though? probably…not.
sweet tooth: two culinary chefs compete on who can make you cream the most. get it?
fifteen seconds of fame: popstar!gojo needs help on warming up his vocal chords. his solution? right between your legs.
bad romance: you get sandwiched between popstar!gojo & his best friend of a bassist, suguru geto.
poker face: instead of receiving his fifth grammy for the night, popstar!gojo gets a…boner.
alejandro: arguing with the famous popstar leads for him to fire you. what happens when you see him with another assistant the next day?
it’s a match! last friday night: you end up ‘accidentally’ matching on tinder with your best friend—then you hook up with him, then the L word gets thrown around. damn!
💭 FUSHIGURO TOJI.
mission failed: nut ruined: you’re hired to kill a famous assassin but instead you end up in his bed.
love me, love me [ not ]: you get arranged to marriage toji. how does a single kiss make you weak so easily?
think i need someone older: fucking your dad's best friend was so wrong but felt so right.
darlin can i be your favorite: you fuck your dad’s two best friends and one of them is you ex-boyfriend (shiu kong)
one of his girlssss: your dad’s best friend finds out about your side hustle of being a camgirl. oops!
knock(her)out: you get shared between two boxers before their big match.
that girl is mine: you meet up with your dad’s best friend one more time, although instead of telling him those three words, you tell him something else.
💭 SUGURU GETO.
sweet tooth: two culinary chefs compete on who can make you cream the most. get it?
jailbreak: you’re a correctional officer for one of your inmates. sleeping with him? not your brightest idea.
bad romance: you get sandwiched between popstar!gojo & his best friend of a bassist, suguru geto.
💭 SUKUNA RYŌMEN.
knock(her)out: you get shared between two boxers before their big match.
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ೀ⋆ THIRSTS.
💭 SATORU GOJO.
throat goat.
that’s what i thought.
thats what i thought boy.
lip gloss poppin.
super soaker.
suck a what.
💭 FUSHIGURO TOJI.
jealousy jealousy.
want you back.
thinkin’ bout you.
tease me please me.
talk you through.
want a taste.
hate me fuck me.
talk to me nice.
soft with you.
💭 SUGURU GETO.
no talking.
just a brat.
wear my hoodie.
my pretty girl.
💭 CHOSO KAMO.
my love mine all mine.
draw me, do me.
that’s a good girl.
want your taste.
get humbled.
vampire choso.
sharing is caring
good boy.
missed you.
stuck in the middle.
edge me baby.
can’t take it.
💭 SUKUNA RYŌMEN.
said it’s her first time.
remember your safe word.
give me one more.
twos better than one.
tease me please me.
stretch me baby.
kinda kinky.
wanna please you.
lick me up.
💭 NANAMI KENTO.
can’t live without you.
do i pass?
test me.
give me more.
my messy girl.
💭 HIGURUMA HIROMI.
on call.
nose rider.
love me harder.
relax for me.
my girl.
💭 YUKI TSUKUMO.
let me be your woman.
sharing is caring.
stuck in the middle.
💭 HAKARI KENJI.
fill me up.
too flexible.
slip n slide.
💭 SHIU KONG.
on the hood.
💭 SHOKO IEIRI.
down on me.
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© 2023-2024 SCREAMPIED. please do not copy, modify, or translate my work. all rights are rightfully reserved to me.
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kiwi-bitchez · 7 months
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The Girlfriend Experience
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Eddie Munson x Reader
Summary: Eddie doesn’t think he’s cut out for dating. Self-resigned to a life of one and done hookups, you’re determined to make him see that he has the capacity to be a worthy companion… for when the right girl comes around. Fake Dating AU, classic corny fic for a fav corny troupe, Stranger Things canon divergent ofc, 18+ smut (see warnings below), big dick energy but also slightly emotionally unavailable!Eddie, yada yada yada, you know the drill. 
Content warnings: AFAB reader with she/her pronouns, use of y/n, alcohol, smoking the devil’s lettuce, mention of panty stealing, food consumption, semi-public sex, fingering, PIV, Dom-ish!Eddie, oral (m and f receiving), pierced dick Eddie because I said so!, unprotected PIV sex, hair pulling, mild angst but nothing too angsty just like one heated conversation and Eddie feeling a little worthless but happy ending I promise
Word Count: 20k ahhhhhh!!!
A/N: Thanks to all those who comment and reblog! Your feedback and engagement makes my heart soar and keeps me motivated to write this filth! Sorry for the gargantuan length, in very-me fashion I always ending up writing one behemoth fic every so often rather than just separating it out into chapters. Also, realizing after the fact that I use the brand name ‘Goodwill’ a lot in this fic, which maybe not everyone might know is a thrift store, not sure if that’s just an American thing or not but figured it was worth noting. 
“I guess I’m just not boyfriend material, ya know?” Eddie shrugs.
“Don’t say that, Eds,” your eyebrows pinched together, “different qualities are important to different people. Not everyone is looking to date a Steve, or a Brian, or a whoever. I’m sure someone is out there looking for an Eddie.”
“It’s not that,” he shot a look towards Steve, who, despite your analogy, was unfortunately everyone’s type and the textbook definition of boyfriend material.
“I just don’t think I’d be very good at gooey romance stuff, or even like, passable boyfriend behavior. I mean, look at me, I hardly take care of myself, I’m loud, I have no money, I’m basically every dad’s worst nightmare, do I need to keep going?”
“The nightmare thing can actually be a bonus,” Steve chimes in, “the whole bad boy persona can be a huge draw for most girls.”
“Sure Steve,” Eddie’s voice grows exasperated, “I’m the mysterious bad boy until they realize I’m a huge loser who runs not one but two dungeons and dragons groups. Real fuckin’ attractive I’m sure that is.”
“Shows you’re committed to something…” you trail off when his eyes tell you to stop coming up with a positive spin for every excuse he gives. 
This whole discussion had started because of something that happened at the bar last night. A small group of you decided to meet up for drinks, your usual group of pals. It was a Thursday, so the bar wasn’t too busy. Your friends all squished into a booth in the corner, chatting and catching up over a plate of shared nachos, when Robin started making frantic gesture at you and Steve.
“Please just say what you’re trying to say instead of this elaborate charade,” Steve makes a few mocking hand signals back at her.
“Okay, one at a time, and keep it subtle,” her voice lowered to a whisper, for some reason, “over at the bar, some girl is totally flirting with Eddie.”
You and Steve both turn around. “I said not at the same time!” She whisper yells. 
There was, in fact, a pretty girl with shiny hair and glossy lips doing a half fake laugh and pressing her manicured hand to Eddie’s bicep. You whip back around to find Robin with her mouth hanging open in a “can you believe this is happening” way. 
“Good for him,” Steve swivels back around too, “She’s pretty hot.”
You return to your nachos, pretending there wasn’t a ping of jealousy in you. Eddie was your friend, that had been made abundantly clear.
When Robin introduced you to all her friends from high school, you had easily gotten along with all of them. You especially got along with Eddie. He was funny, authentic, abrasive at times, but a truly good person at his core, creative, protective, you could go on.
After getting to know him a bit, and developing a budding crush, you had made a few passes at him. Nothing too forward, just small compliments here and there, open ended offers to hang out that never lead anywhere.
It’s not like he flat out rejected you, but any feelers you were putting out to see if there was potential there were met with him looking past your flirtatious intent and just being his goofy, friendly self. He treated you exactly the same way he treated everyone else, which was awesome, except for when it wasn’t. 
“Oh no,” Robin’s gaze was not subtly fixed on the unfolding scene at the bar, you and Steve watched her face drastically shift from confused, to a cringe, to an eye roll.
Still half whispering, as if Eddie could even hear your corner of the bar, “He’s totally blowing it. DON’T both turn around at the same time again.” 
“Okay, so,” she starts before either of you can even confirm that you want to know, “she was totally laying it on thick, like you could see it from all the way back here. And he must have said something off putting, cuz all of a sudden she like went cold on him and pranced away. Shhhhh, okay okay, he’s coming back.”
She was acting as if she wasn’t the only one gossiping. You and Steve were innocent bystanders in all this. 
“WHAT was that?” She immediately blurts out when Eddie returns to his seat, fresh drink in hand. 
You and Steve share a side glance to sigh at Robin’s inability to be subtle, god bless her. Eddie shifts around awkwardly and lets out a forced dry laugh, taking a long sip from his drink before facing the wrath of a curious Robin. 
“Oh, that,” he gestures to the bar as if she could be asking about anything else, “some girl. Not sure.”
“Not sure? Eddie she was FLIRTING with you,” Robin all but yelled, causing Steve to scan the bar to see if the girl in question had landed somewhere within earshot. 
“I know that,” he hisses, “She just… wasn’t my type…”
“Okay sure, hot girl in a tube top and no bra isn’t your type, riiiiight,” Steve rolls his eyes.
“It’s just,” Eddie was so over this inquisition, “she asked if I wanted to get coffee.”
You, Steve, and Robin all give him a blank stare, trying to decipher what he could possibly have against getting coffee with a hot girl. 
“That’s like,” he gets defensive, detecting the wall of confusion facing him, “something people do on a date. Coffee is serious, and I’m not a very serious guy.”
“What do you mean ‘coffee is serious,’ coffee is like, as casual as you can possibly be?” Steve’s tone now emulated Robin’s from earlier, half whispering, half yelling, all scolding towards his friend. 
“That’s just not really my speed. Coffee dates and flowers and hand holding and all that,” he was avoiding eye contact with all three of you, “Yeah, she was hot, sure, and maybe if she had been like ‘hey lets go fool around in the bathroom’ then I wouldn’t be here having this lame ass conversation with you three. But I don’t do coffee dates, so I’m not gonna waste her time and pretend like I’m that sort of guy when I’m just not.” 
“Well good on you for not leading her on, cuz I’m sure you could have agreed to the coffee date and still gotten lucky in the bathroom,” Steve mumbles, and you smack the back of his head lightly to scold him. 
“So you only date girls who’ll fuck you in a bar bathroom the first time you meet?” You redirect your now equally scolding energy to Eddie.
“No!” He runs his hands through his hair, “I don’t date. Anyone, really. At all. Ever.”
“Oh,” you think for a minute, realizing in your few years of friendship you never had seen him with anyone, or heard him mention a romantic interest of any sort. 
Leading you to your present conversation, you and Steve continuing to question Eddie on his decision to reject the hot tube-top girl at the bar and why he felt like coffee was such a scary commitment. 
“You guys know me,” he continued to defend his stance, “If I took that girl out for coffee she probably would have picked some fancy hoity toity place and I wouldn’t know what anything on the menu meant, I’d probably spill something or like, get crumbs everywhere, and the bill would be way more than two coffees should be. It would have been a waste of both our time.”
He was staunchly refusing eye contact with the two of you, knowing he’d be met with something along the lines of pity. 
“Fine, we’ll drop the subject,” you shoot a look to Steve, “but I just need to make sure you understand that not every girl likes expensive coffee, or flowers and handholding, or whatever your expectation of girls and dating is. There’s plenty of girls who have similar interests to you, who feel the same way about PDA and mushy romance stuff that you do. You do know that, right?”
“Of course I do, y/n,” you could practically feel his eyes rolling at you, “but girls like that sure as fuck aren’t here in Nowhere, Indiana. Even if she was, I’m sure I’d still find a way to fuck it up given that I’ve had exactly zero serious girlfriends and the closest thing to a date I’ve ever been on is when you me and Steve pooled our ski ball tickets to win that ugly stuffed turtle.”
The memory of what you had all agreed to be the world’s ugliest stuffed animal caused all of you to crack a smile. Steve had silently agreed to change the subject, not wanting to dig Eddie any deeper into his pit of self despair. 
Steve’s mouth was half open, about to suggest that the three of you have a smoke and watch one of the rental movies he brought over, the words just about to escape him when you harshly cut off any chance at ending the pity-party.
“Date me!” You exclaim, without much thought. The shocked look from both boys caused you to rapidly back pedal , “You can date me, as practice!” You said it as if it was the simplest concept in the world. 
When met with gaping mouths and confused stares you continue on, “You and I can be fake boyfriend-girlfriend for like, a month, and I’ll tell you everything you do wrong, and like generic do’s and don’t’s, so that way the next time some hot girl hits on you, you can be all like ‘Coffee isn’t really my thing pretty lady, but I’d be down to get drinks sometime’,” you did a silly impression of Eddie’s voice, and then switched to a high pitched one to impersonate what you assumed the girl at the bar sounded like, “and then she’d be all like, ‘Oh yeah that sounds greaaaaat, getting coffee is just like, a generic catch-all thing that most people say when they want to get to know someone better, but you can buy me a drink’ and then the two of you will ride off into the sunset and it’ll be great.”
Still no reply.
“It won’t be all romantic and gooey, I promise I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. It’d be a way for you to get some honest feedback and catch up with the stuff most people have to learn the hard way.” 
“I suppose you are the most brutally honest person I know,” Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. 
Steve just looked between the two of you with eyebrows raised, not knowing if giving his opinion on the matter would be appreciated or not. “I guess I would’ve appreciated someone telling me that most girls don’t want to be asked out with a pickup line from a John Hughes movie, would have saved me a few dozen rejections.”
“I’m pretty sure Robin did tell you that…”
“I don’t know y/n,” Eddie scratches his head. 
“It’ll be easy. Ask me out.”
“Huh?”
“Ask me out, for practice, ask me out on a date like I’m a pretty girl you met at some metal show or a DnD convention or something like that,” you stand in front of him with your hands out as if to prompt him to say something. 
“Will you go out with me?” He sounds more like he’s asking himself if he even wants to be asking the question.
“No.”
“What the hell!” He throws his hands up.
“I said no because that wasn’t a very good effort. Go out where? To do what? You’re asking me, a pretend stranger, out on a date Eddie, not if I want to go have a smoke with you.”
“Ughhhh,” he spun around and tried to get some sympathy for Steve, who unfortunately was on your side with this one. 
“A compliment or two doesn’t hurt as well,” Steve added, deepening Eddie’s groan. 
“Hey pretty stranger lady,” his voice was laced with sarcasm, but at least it wasn’t disdain, “you seem really…” he hesitated to find his words, “cool? Would you like to come see my band play this weekend at The Hideout? We-“
“No,” you cut him off.
“WHA-“
“Eddie, you can’t ask a girl to watch Corroded Coffin play for your first date with her, that’s like date four or five material, no girl wants to go sit by herself at a bar to watch some guy she just met play an hour of heavy metal. She would have to know you a little bit more for that to feel organic. Pick something more generic, like coffee.”
“I think you seem cool, would you like to get coffee with me?” it all came out as one monotone mumble from him. 
“Sure,” you wait for him to lift his head up to make eye contact with you, “But coffee isn’t really my thing, maybe we can go out for drinks?”
“Oh fuck off,” he flopped back onto the couch next to Steve. 
“See, now we have our first fake date, and then you can ask me to be your fake girlfriend, and then you’ll be so comfortable with emotional vulnerability that you can find a real girlfriend to take on real dates.”
“Yeah, I suppose it could be beneficial,” Eddie was slowly coming around to the idea. He knew that he was oddly charismatic at times, but he was just always too self conscious to follow through with the whole romance thing.
This maybe wasn’t a bad idea, because he knew you weren’t the kind of person who would make fun of his hobbies, or put him down if he slipped up, the sorts of things he was always afraid of girls doing. Sure, he’ll agree to the girlfriend experience. 
After a night of movies and pizza with Steve fake-third-wheeling, you made sure Eddie knew that the fake-date was actually happening, that the two of you would go out for drinks this weekend as your first official practice date. 
After giving it a bit of thought, you realized that you and Eddie had never hung out alone. In your feeble attempts at flirting with him all those months ago you had invited him to have movie nights or grab a bite to eat, but he always showed up with Steve and or Robin in tow.
As the night of the fake-date rolled around, you’d be embarrassed to admit it to him, or Steve, who didn’t care to hide how skeptical he was about this whole idea, that you went through your normal pre-date routine. You took some extra time on your hair and makeup, exfoliated in the shower, chose an outfit you felt confident in, added a few spritz of perfume for good measure too. 
Eddie rolled up in his van, only a few minutes late, but a few minutes was very impressive compared to his typical chronic tardiness. The two of you agreed to just grab some food and drinks at your usual spot, considering you and Steve openly agreed that it would be a good first date spot in theory. 
“Hey,” he reaches across the center console to pop the door open for you, “you look nice.”
It took you a second to register as you settled into the passenger seat, and then whip around with your arm outstretched to give him a high five. He scrunches his face at you.
“High five me Eddie, that was really good! I know you usually open the door for me anyways, but the compliment right away, A+,” you flop your hand down to gently slap his, still gripping the steering wheel. 
“Don’t patronize me, y/n,” deep down he knew you weren’t trying to talk down to him, and deep down he hadn’t even given complimenting you a second thought, he really did think you looked great in your date get-up. 
On the ride over to the bar, the two of you discuss some logistics. Considering all of this is just practice dating, you don’t expect Eddie to pay for you, but you explain that in theory if he had been the one to ask you out then he should be the one to pay for the first date. 
“To me it’s less of a gender thing and more of a who asked out who thing, but I know some people would abide to the stereotypical ‘the man always pays’ standard, which is why you’d just have to be honest on date like two or three about what you enjoy doing and what sorts of things are in your budget. You can still have fun and be thoughtful without spending a lot of money.”
He asked a few questions, like if he should have gotten you flowers for a first date, or what he should do if someone asks to go to a fancy restaurant that he surely couldn’t afford. You tried your best to give solid advice, but always reminded him that every person is different and every relationship is different, so all he can do is be honest. 
You take up a spot at the bar and both order for yourselves, splitting some fries and slipping into some easy conversation. 
“Am I supposed to, like, beat someone up if a guy tries hitting on you in front of me or something like that?” you nearly choke on your drink at his question. 
“Eddie, no,” you answer, also questioning, “why the hell would you ask me that?”
“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “My buddy Jeff was with his girlfriend at this punk show before they were even together, and some guy made a creepy comment to Amanda and Jeff just decked the guy in the face. He say’s that’s what made her want to date him, cuz he defended her honor or whatever.”
“I guess that’s sort of circumstantial, but I prefer my dates to not engage in any sort of violence,” you sip your drink, “even if it’s for my honor. I’d like your face a lot less if you were all bruised up.”
“Well I never said I would get hit,” the two of you were laughing a bit now.
Over a few cocktails you went over some first date etiquette with him. PDA and being touchy, how to follow her lead and gauge if she’s the type who wants everyone at the bar to know you’re together, or keep it strictly platonic to start. How far of a grip on the leg is too far up, that sort of thing.  
“So if she does something like this,” you fake laugh a bit too loud and, lean into his personal space, and then run your hand from his slender down his arm, “that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to fuck you, but it’s pretty close. You’ve at least got a green flag to get a little closer to her, tell her she looks nice, maybe offer to buy her a drink.”
“I know how to tell if someone finds me attractive, y/n, I’m not stupid,” he said casually, “obviously that girl the other night was hitting on me, I’m not blind. I wasn’t going to ask to buy her a drink or try and get lucky in the bathroom because I was out with my friends. I can find a quick fuck in a bar on my own time. I was having fun with you guys, I wasn’t going to abandon all of you to talk to some stranger, even if she was hot.”  
“Oh,” you processed his comment, “Steve would be happy to know he ranks above tube-top girl.”
“Steve would be happy to be above tube-top girl in any context,” he jokes. 
“You really just find random girls in bars to fuck?” You question, not in any sort of judgmental way, just curious. 
“Not specifically, I guess I did make myself sound like some serial bar-bathroom type of guy. I never really had girls interested in me when I was in high school, at least the first four years of it. Then when we started playing regular gigs at The Hideout it was a little easier to find girls who were interested, but it was always that they were more into fucking some guy who could play guitar and was in a band, so it usually just always happened on-site, probably cuz they had an actual boyfriend or husband to go home to. Girls think I’m fun. Which isn’t untrue, I do enjoy a romp in the Hideout bathroom, or the back of my van, or wherever we end up.”
“So that’s what all those blankets are back there for,” you say with a fake scowl, referring to his van set-up. 
“Not exclusively! They make a cozy nest for smoking blunts and listening to tapes too!” 
You return to your drink, trying not to think too hard about the girls that Eddie brings to bar bathrooms or his van or wherever. 
“I just find the energy of those situations very different from like, talking and getting to know someone. Fucking is easy. I’m not interested in ruining that by adding emotions and the looming feeling like sex is contingent on me acting a certain way or checking a certain number of boxes for someone.” 
He shrugged, and you could understand where he was coming from, sometimes a quick fuck or hookup could be cathartic and easy. But it also saddened you to think that Eddie believed he had to get in and out before the person on the other end got the chance to know him. 
Moving away from the subject of his inability to be emotionally vulnerable, the two of you practice some cheesy ‘first date’ questions as you had called them. As your drinks started to settle into your system you were having more fun being silly with him, pretending to be a stranger on a first date. 
“When’s your birthday?” You ask, twirling your drink straw with your finger and making some fake flirty eyes at him to accentuate the facade of asking him a bunch of questions you mostly knew the answers to. 
“August 9th,” he flips his hair over his shoulder, joining in on your fake ostentatious flirting. 
“Oh my gosh, a Leo! This will never work out, cuz I’m an asparagus…”
The two of you nearly fall out of your bar stools laughing, realizing you meant to say Sagittarius. 
“Okay, let’s get you home Asparagus,” he helped you up, having kept his drinking to a minimum so he could drive you home. 
“Wait, wait,” you grabbed his arm as the two of you exited the bar, “can we go back to your trailer?”
He raised an eyebrow at you, “that’s a little presumptuous for a first date missy.”
“No, no, this isn’t girlfriend y/n asking, just regular friend y/n, who thinks it would be a lot of fun to smoke and watch a movie without Steve there spewing all his annoying fun facts, like, we get it, you read the little insert inside the tape while you were bored at work!”
Eddie did agree that the idea of packing a bowl and watching a few movies with you didn’t sound too different from what his plans would have been otherwise, so he agreed, as long as you promised not to give him any dating advice while hanging out as friend y/n and not girlfriend y/n. 
Although you promised to try your best, you immediately started lecturing him on t-shirt borrowing and the potential weight that could hold in a relationship when he offered to give you some more comfy clothes to change into. 
“It’s important to know!” You emerged from the bathroom in one of his oversized shirts and a pair of boxers, “Some girls are very touchy about it. Any shirt you lend her to sleep in, you have to be willing to sacrifice for life.”
“For life?!” Eddie finishes making a bowl of popcorn for the two of you, swallowing his words when he sees you in his clothes, an unidentifiable emotion rising in him at the sight of you so cozy and integrated into his space. 
“Well maybe not life,” you plop down onto the couch, “but do NOT ask for it back. Most girls will give it back once it stops smelling like you.”
“If she gets my shirt, can I have her underwear?” He asked without thinking, the weed he had just smoked with you hitting him a bit too hard in that moment. 
“Oh my god,” you squeal and bury your face into a pillow, “la la la la, pretending like I didn’t hear that!”
“I’m just saying!” He laughs at you, now curled up into a ball, “fair is fair, right?”
“I guess it depends on the girl,” you mumble. 
“So I’m guessing not you, by your reaction.”
“Eddie!” You smack him with a pillow, “I don’t know, no one’s ever asked!”
“If my girlfriend isn’t going to ask before stealing my shirt for an indefinite amount of time, I think that gives me panty privilege.”
“Wow Eddie, if I had known you were such a perv I would’ve reconsidered being your fake girlfriend,” you say sarcastically, with no real judgement behind it. The idea of him wanting to steal your underwear dampens them ever so slightly. 
“Don’t worry babe, I won’t do anything pervy to you unless you ask nicely,” he shoots a wink at you, which you meet with an eye roll and a turn away to hopefully hide the heat rising in your cheeks. 
The two of you carry out your platonic movie night as planned. You suppressed any urge to note on his actions from a romantic lens, and he ignored the itching desire to sling his arm around your shoulder or pull your legs into his lap to get more comfy on the couch. 
“Can I sleep here Eddie,” you ask after movie two, “too sleepy to move.”
“Sure, I can take the couch and you can have my bed. It’s been a minute since I washed the sheets but it shouldn’t be too bad…”
“Nonono,” you mumble, “Your legs will totally hang right off the end of this thing. I’m conked out anyways, I can crash right here I promise.”
“Ignoring that you’re my fake girlfriend, I’m not letting you sleep out here on this lumpy thing. You’re taking the bed, no arguments.”
He helps you up from the couch, letting you keep the blanket that’s wrapped around you, snaking his arm underneath it and pulling you from the couch by your lower back. You were slightly taken aback by his assistance, body still limp from your relaxed state, your torso easily arching into his. Your arms fly up to grab his shoulders, steadying yourself with an awkward giggle. 
“In the real world, a time like this would be good for a first kiss,” you make note of your closeness, the way he swept you up off the couch and held you steadily as you made your way to your feet. 
“I know that, y/n,” his face was closer to yours than it had ever been, making your words hitch in your throat. 
“Well, I’m just saying,” you turn your head to avoid the tension, “I’m sure the way you kiss your bar-hookups isn’t the way most girls who’re looking to date you long term want to be kissed for the first time.”
‘Oh yeah? And how do you presume that goes?” He kept his hand planted on your lower back.
You pretend to act wildly drunk, throwing yourself at him and letting your limbs go a bit heavier than they already were. “Ohmygod guitar man, I’ve had like, six dirty Shirleys, please finger bang me in the bathroom,” you slur your words and let your tongue loll out the side of your mouth as if to lean in for the world’s sloppiest and most uncoordinated kiss.
“First of all,” his voice was very serious, “I don’t hook up with girls who are too inebriated to stand, let’s get that straight. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even have our first fake kiss like this on account of the drinking and smoking, gotta make sure you’re in the right headspace. Secondly,” 
He spins you around and quickly backs you up against the wall that stood a few feet behind the couch. His hand sliding up in between your shoulder blades, blanket now slumped around your waist, his other hand suavely cupping the side of your cheek, His hips angled into yours, pinning you back against the vinyl, almost collapsing back into it. 
He pressed against you, not aggressively, but enough to let you know that if you were to try and squirm away he had the capacity to keep you right where he wanted you. He accomplished this all in one elegant motion, leaving you a bit dazed.
As you started to snap into reality, he moves his hand from your cheek down to grab your chin in between his thumb and the knuckle of his pointer, angling your face directly up at him. 
“If you were some girl in a bar, it would be like this.”
The moment before your brain turned to absolute mush, you silently cringed at the thought of what you must look like, mouth hanging open, eyes glassed over, body instinctively sinking into his touch. Pathetic, you were sure of it. 
Sure, Eddie did think you looked a little helpless, but he also thought you looked perfect. Exactly as he had imagined you to in this situation. Of course he had thought about you before, like that.
Of course he had felt an immediate spark with you when you had first met. But he never flirted back, or lead you on, because as much as he was attracted to you and enjoyed your company, he knew that it wouldn’t work out. He wasn’t relationship material, and you were the picture perfect girlfriend that he didn’t deserve. 
He spoke directly into your parted lips, mouth hovering just far enough away to toe the line of ‘holy shit, is he going to?’ But no, as he made very clear, he wouldn’t kiss you under these conditions. He had made his point, and slowly backed off and let you find your footing. 
As soon as he was sure that you were steady, he backed away and started down the hallway. 
“I might have an extra toothbrush stashed away somewhere, let me look…” he ducked into the bathroom, leaving you stunned in the kitchen, head swimming and your stomach traveled up into your throat. 
He was teasing you, he must be. That was his little way of getting back at you for thinking you could give him dating advice. If he was unsure about his capacity for romance, he was going to make sure you knew he was more than capable in other ways. Understood. 
You shook your head, weeding through your inner monologue of how he could possibly look at you like that and then just walk away. Your shock gave him just long enough for you to to not notice him splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom while he “looked for a toothbrush.” 
The two of you decided to ignore the lingering tension from the events in the kitchen, not a peep of fake-girlfriend talk from you for the rest of the night. He did find you that toothbrush, and the two of you moved through a too-easy domestic routine of getting ready for bed. 
You told him that you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you knew he was cramped on that couch, and that you were fine with sharing a bed. You mumbled something about  getting around to bed sharing etiquette at some point anyways, and sleepily pulled him into being your little spoon. 
Eddie lay there, trying not to twitch or fidget, relaxed as best he could into your cuddled form thinking about how horrible of an idea all of this was. He was convinced all it would take is roughly ten more minutes of you burying your face into his hair and making cute little sleepy noises for him to fall irreversibly in love with you. 
But what was he supposed to do? Move and wake you up? Never. 
You rolled around enough in the night to wake up in a less intimate position than when you had fallen asleep. You knew Eddie was a deep sleeper, and took it upon yourself to creep out of bed and back into your day clothes, make a pot of coffee, and watc a bit of TV before he roused and joined you in the living room. 
“Why didn’t you wake me?” He rubbed the crust from his eyes and was pleasantly surprised to see you had brewed a whole pot of coffee to share. 
“You looked so peaceful and cozy,” he shook his head at you, as if that was no excuse for letting him sleep an extra forty minutes.  
After a slow morning, he agrees to drive you home. 
“So this is the part where I say ‘Eddie, I had such a wonderful time on our date. I’d love to do it again sometime.’ And then you agree and tell me when you’re free. It’s best to be super direct and make plans to get together again soon, cuz then it’s not an awkward who’s-gonna-call-who-first sort of thing.”
“Uh-huh…” he stares at you blankly. 
“But for our sake, let’s just agree that I’m in charge of planning our next date. Okay? I’ll do it from the perspective of what I think most girls would enjoy, so you can steal it for the future. I’ll call you later.” 
You hop out of his van before he can agree, and leave him with a “Thanks for letting me stay over!” As you bound away from his view. 
He squeezed his eyes shut the moment he caught himself checking your ass out as you walked away, and let his head rest down on the steering wheel. He was fucked. How the hell was he supposed to tell you that you needed to stop being his fake girlfriend without disrupting the homeostasis of your friendship?
On one hand he could lie and say he doesn’t want your advice, making you think he didn’t enjoy your company, which was entirely untrue. On the other hand he could tell you the truth, and you would never be friends the same way again. 
He drove home with the music too loud, and patiently awaited your call later that evening to iron out the details of your second fake-date. 
Per your instructions, he let you pick him up this time with the argument that you were the one taking him out this time. He didn’t know what you had planned, but let himself fall to the mercy of whatever you had decided was an exemplary date fore him to ‘steal in the future’. 
You picked up two coffees and rolled up to the trailer park, popping a mix-tape he had made you ages ago. 
“Hey, I thought we said no paying for each other with fake-dating,” he objects to the coffee sat in the passenger cupholder, some abomination of mostly cream and sugar, the way you know he likes it. 
“Yes, that’s true, but you smoked me up the other night, and this coffee was like a dollar fifty, so don’t worry about it,” you give him a look that tells him to drink the damn coffee and not sass back, to which he complies, even though he smokes you up expecting nothing in return about every other weekend. 
The two of you sip away and listen to Eddies ‘must-know-to-be-my-friend’ mixtape and arrive shortly at the strip mall across town. This was a regular weekly stop for both of you, the strip of connected stores containing the Goodwill, a pet store, the pharmacy, and grocery. A pretty mundane collection. 
“Okay, what are we doing at Greg’s?” Eddie gestures to the grocery store, the back of his mind running through the grocery list he’s been making for this week anyways.
“What’s the perfect date?” You ask, and answer for him, “a romantic picnic. But gathering supplies is half the fun. Picnic food supplies at Greg’s, some pills to get fucked up at the pharm, some turtles or something to let loose into the wild from the pet store, and then hats, cups, blanket, etcetera from the Goodwill.”
He turns to you with the most bewildered stare, which sends you into a fit of giggles.
“Okay, I’m joking about the pills and the turtles,” you nudge his arm, “but won’t it be sweet to get together some picnic supplies and then drive out to lookout point? We can still swing by the pet store to check out the ferrets though.”
To Eddie, the idea of a date involved him doing something he didn’t want to do, some awkward small talk, and spending money on shit he truly thought was useless. This didn’t sound half bad. You would “work backwards so the food purchases come last” according  to your reasoning, and he followed you in tow without any arguments into the Goodwill.
“So I’m thinking…” you start to wander into the aisles of used clothes and knick knacks, “maybe a blanket? A basket would be sort of corny, but if we find one for cheap I don’t see why not. Surely two glasses for drinking, and maybe some sun hats?”
Swiveling back around to see a half stunned Eddie, who was still processing how in the hell this was your idea of a romantic date, you grab his hand and pull him to the bric-a-brac section. 
After it got through his thick skull that the same place he had uncomfortably tried on new pants throughout his growth spurt, and picked up his daily-worn leather jacket, had the same potential to provide some silly, cheap, used items to add some flair to this picnic. 
Silly and cheap was right up Eddie’s alley. The two of you picked out mismatched champagne glasses, one with the engraved name of a couple who got married in 1943 and the other a flashy rose color with baby angel carvings dancing around the sides. 
You luckily find an on sale beach blanket, and the two of you pick out some very goofy sun hats. A floppy farmers hat for you, and a bedazzled trucker hat spelling ‘hot mama’ for Eddie.
Through the midst of your giggles and debate on whether you should buy a wooden bench to bring out to your picnic destination, Eddie found himself having a really good time with you. 
As promised, you visited the pet store and checked out the ferrets and fish and geckos. 
“If you could have any pet, what would you want?” You asked him, noses pressed against the chinchilla enclosure. 
“Jaguar,” he said, a little too quickly.
“For real, dummy,” you knock your hip into his.
“I don’t know, we never had enough space or extra money for pets growing up, so maybe someday if I had enough room for it to run around I’d like a dog or something,” he tells. Eyes still transfixed on the chinchilla behind the glass. 
“I can see that,” you imagine Eddie with some mutt from the shelter, wrestling around and giving it lots of scratches behind the ears. 
Skipping the pharmacy, you pop into the grocery store and assemble what may be the world’s most eclectic picnic. 
“That’s the definition of a picnic, I’m pretty sure,” you explain after Eddie insinuated that the gingersnap cookies you grabbed, along with grapes and a block of cheese, wasn’t exactly a meal, “you know, just a smorgasbord of whatever we want!”
Admittedly, Eddie had considered a handful of pretzels and a beer to be dinner on more than one occasion, so he couldn’t argue with you. Quickly catching your drift, the two of you picked out an assortment of snacks and some ingredients for pb&j sandwiches. 
“I thought picnics were supposed to be classy?” Eddie holds up the Wonder bread and bag of potato chips with a look that suggested his question was rhetorical.
Your response was simply to raise the, admittedly cheap, bottle of champagne you grabbed to accompany with your meal, more for the irony of drinking the bubbly liquid out of your new used glasses with your sticky sandwiches than anything else. 
You pack your supplies into a tote bag, not having found a suitable basket at the thrift store, and drive across town to a dirt paved road that leads to a nice lookout point with a view of the lake. 
“Let’s walk down the path a little bit, but not too far,” you grab the blanket and tote bag from your trunk, motioning for Eddie to put on his ‘hot mama’ hat and carry your other auxiliary supplies, “I do not fuck with bugs.”
“I’ll protect you,” Eddie puffs out his chest, making you both giggle.
“From bugs?”
“Yeah, I’ll punch a mosquito right in the face, to defend your honor and all that.”
“I know I told you not to do that, but a mosquito might be the exception to the rule.”
You found a nice little clearing not far from the car, a spot that still had a nice view but was a bit more secluded. Eddie sat pressed right up next to you, making your sandwich ‘to be a proper gentleman’ but simultaneously spilling a glob of jelly onto your leg.
“Shit,” he doesn’t think twice before leaning down and slurping the grape flavored blob off of your bare knee, tongue poking out and licking the spilt jelly from your skin.
“Eddie!” You squirm away, barking out a surprised laugh. 
“What! Your knee is clean, wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good preserves, or a napkin.”
You feel your skin tingle where his lips had touched you, for only a moment, but you still felt it. He was so confident and casual in his movements, not having any hesitation to grab your hand or brush your hair out of your face. It wasn’t under the guise of fake romance, he had always been like that. Not touchy, per se, just sure of himself. You’d never seen Eddie do anything half assed, that’s for certain.
After the conversation you shared the other night, you were unable to stop your mind from wandering to thoughts of what Eddie does with those girls in bars, if he touched him with the same confidence and sureness he put into everything else he did. 
It was wrong to let your mind go to such dirty places about someone you considered a friend, but you couldn’t manage to feel any guilt. He had offered that information freely, so who were you to punish yourself for staring a little longer at his fingers, conjuring up the context in which he’d bury them inside you against some grimy bar bathroom. 
The date was all peanut butter smiles and bubbly laughter that floated up into the trees. Silly, yes, but neither of you could deny there was something sweet, maybe even romantic about it. A cheap meal in the woods shared between two friends in ill-fitting fifty cent hats, but an undeniable touch of romance lingered nonetheless. 
Eddie started to realize that maybe the whole dating thing wasn’t as uptight and scary as he had initially thought. It could be easy and fun, with the right person. And fuck, if he could even imagine doing this with anyone but you. 
Like most things Eddie did, he did not consider any potential consequences before acting. You looked so pretty sitting there in the sunshine, sipping from your cheap ‘Martha & Dave ’43’ glass, a few sandwich crumbs dotting the corner of your mouth.
What else was he supposed to do other than lean over and wipe them away with his thumb, stroking your soft cheek and feel the warmth of your skin beneath his palm. 
“You had some,” he uses his other hand to motion at his own mouth, “and I suppose this is the sort of moment where I’d ask if I can kiss you.” 
You find yourself a bit dumbfounded, his big stupid hand on your cheek and those big stupid puppy dog eyes unrelenting in making everything he says seem so genuine.
“Are you?” You find your voice, only half embarrassed at how shy it comes out.
“Am I what?”
“Are you asking me?”
“Yeah,” his answer comes out in a way that insinuates that he never meant anything other than that, that he was always asking to kiss you, he wasn’t asking in theory, in another universe, in the context of advice. 
“Okay,” you found yourself behaving like Eddie, not really thinking of consequences before your words and actions spoke on behalf of your instincts.
Everything so far had been so easy. Your fake first date at the bar, curling up next to him in a haze, making up stories about what sort of people donated the fake palm tree or the Garfield mug at the Goodwill, imagining Eddie running around a yard with a puppy, lounging in the grass and eating your assorted picnic snacks. It was all effortless.
Suddenly, being kissed by Eddie sucked the ease from your lungs and sent your mind spiraling into a cacophony of bells and whistles and giant swirling red flags. If this is how he kissed you, casually across some half eaten peanut butter sandwiches, you’d spend the rest of your days yearning to know how he kissed someone with true intention. 
Of course, his intentions were all there, but the lingering knowledge that all of this was happening under the umbrella of “you giving him advice” or “helping practice for the next girl” poisoned any true feeling he poured into it. He cupped your cheek, soft, let his lips press into yours delicately for a moment before he felt your breath hitch, opening his mouth just enough to deepen the kiss and capture your lower lip fully. 
He was more careful, gentle, methodic with his movements and so receptive to every little signal your body gave him, it was unlike any first-kiss, heat-of-the-moment-kiss, in-the-throws-of-passion-kiss, any of it. Like hell you’d ever tell him that, inflate that big ego that fuels his snippy comebacks at you, but Jesus, was it remarkable. 
While at war with yourself internally, your heart was on the precipice of exploding in your chest from the way he snaked his hand into your hair and pressed his forehead against yours to catch a breath. You suck in a sharp breath and feel that stupid cocky smirk creep up onto that pretty mouth of his.
“’S that sufficient for a first kiss?”
“Fuck offfff,” you were still a little out of breath, smacking his chest and flopping back down onto the picnic blanket, throwing your arms up and rolling your eyes at him, “if you’re so damn confident, maybe we just should fake break up, cuz you don’t seem like you need my advice.”
“Nooooo,”he slumps down next to you, burrowing his head under your arm so he can pop up right next to your face, “I’m learning a lot, I promise! This date was so fun, and cheap! I would have never thought any of this could be remotely romantic. I’m hopeless, y/n, look at me.”
He wriggles around and gives you a big fake pout, “If left to my own devices I would probably do something horribly embarrassing or off-putting, like…” he digs his head into the crook of your neck and blew a fat, wet raspberry right into your skin, making you yelp and squeal, but his position half on top of you pins you down. 
“See!” He pulls up for air, you were in a fit of screaming giggles, “I’d go right in for a kiss and just,” and he does it again, leaving you gasping for air, trying your best to tickle his ribs to get him off of you, but not minding the close contact by any means. 
“Now I’m not so sure,” he pulls back to give you a minute to catch your breath, “it seems like you enjoyed that, so maybe survey says I should pull that move on the ladies.”
Your airy laughter subsided, but he stays half pinning you down to the blanket and the lumpy grass underneath.
“I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I’m not grateful for your help,” he says earnestly, catching your gaze, “it’s just… this isn’t what I need help with.”
As his statement is processing, you find his lips back on yours, his torso pressed flushed with yours and his wild mane of hair coming down to curtain around your head. He doesn’t take it too far, but kisses you as earnestly as he had before, giving your lip a slight drag with his teeth and running his hand up from your hip up the side of your ribcage, leaving you arching slightly into him by pure instinct.
Before your head got too dizzy again, before you could really throw yourself into it and say fuck it and kiss him back the way you secretly wanted to, he pulled back.
“That.” his voice was even, you hated how needy you felt and how even keeled he could be milliseconds after stealing the air from your lungs, “It’s the rest of it,” he threw his hands up and gestured to all the food and knock knacks around you, “it’s this stuff that you make seem so easy, so forgive me if I lay it on a little thick when we get to the parts I’m actually good at.”
“Just,” you sat up a bit, grounding yourself and formulating a response despite your brain looping the past twenty seconds back infinitely, “don’t do that again.”
“Okay,” he sat back and popped a grape into his mouth, “sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” you knocked his knee with yours, struggling to articulate how you felt without showing too much of your hand, deciding to just be candid, “I just- I liked that a little too much if you know what I mean. And this is strictly business, or education, maybe?”
“You liked it when I pinned you against the wall the other night,” he said matter of factly, “I think you liked that a little too much too, and you still took me on this fake educational business date.”
“Yeah, well, you caught me,” you threw your hands up in defense.
“Which one is it though?” He asks and you don’t quite understand, “are you a sweet kiss on the picnic kind of girl, or an up against the wall kind of girl?”
“That’s none of your business, as far as fake-dating is concerned,” you say a little too quickly, “and no you can’t have my panties.”
You say it with a smirk, but he doesn’t press any further. He turns and does that Eddie-thing he’s so good at, just changing the subject and shifting the vibe completely away from what might have been a stale moment or awkward pause. He starts asking if you like green or purple grapes better, going off about how he used to put them in the freezer as a kid. 
The remainder of your date went without a hitch, of course. You picked away at your picnic until the sun started to set, and once the sky started turning purple you made your way back to the car. The drive home consisted only of easy conversation and no further mention of the kiss, well, kisses that had transpired. He hopped out of the passenger seat with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘see ya later alligator.’ 
A scalding hot shower, a restless night of sleep, and too many cups of herbal tea the next morning did nothing to quell the noise in your head that blasted those moments over and over. You couldn’t stop picking apart whether he had thought about it for even a millisecond, and felt embarrassed that you could think of nothing else. 
It was simply an amplified version of what your whole friendship had been up until this point. You silently admiring him and wishing he would look at you the way you looked at him, and settling for friendship over heartbreak. 
Pushing it aside to the best of your ability allowed you to get through your week, but you had the lingering feeling that the next time you saw him would strike you with warm cheeks and a scrambled mental state.
Guilt had started to seep in at the corners of your mind, but you reminded yourself that you shouldn’t punish yourself for having romantic or sexual thoughts about someone you simply found attractive and compelling, it was your actions that would determine the validity of your guilt. 
“Long time no see, loser,” Robin hollered from the pool table across the bar, where she was likely kicking Steve’s ass. 
“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” you shrug off your coat and plop down at their regular booth, knowing her jabs were entirely empty. You notice Eddie’s leather jacket hung up by the wall, and scan the bar to find him ordering a drink. 
There was a silent mutual understanding that you’d keep the fake dating thing to a bare minimum when out with your friends like this. Even though Steve was well aware, and therefore Robin was too, you figured tainting your social time with the performance of romance is the exact reason Eddie turned down the girl at the bar in the first place. 
“For the lady,” Eddie waltzes over and hands you a drink.
“Oh, thanks,” you take it with a confused smile, “you didn’t have to do that.”
“You bought me coffee last weekend,” he sat across the booth from you, “plus I’m trying to get better at buying drinks for pretty girls, right?”
You remind him that he doesn’t have to keep tabs on things like coffee, but you appreciate the gesture regardless. As per the past few times you’d been out with your friends, you expected him to put a pause on the flirting, but it seems to be bubbling over tonight. You weren’t complaining, but admittedly the arm around your shoulder or the noticeable way he checked you out when you got up to refill your drink took you by slight surprise. 
Sneaking in to claim the always occupied dart board for a challenge against Eddie while he uses the restroom, you keep your eyes on the corner of the bar to signal him over once he returns.
“You need a partner?” A man suddenly appears behind you, a little closer than you’d like but the bar was crowded, so you’ll let it slide. 
“Oh, I was just waiting for-“
“Let me fill in until your friend gets here, we can get you warmed up, yeah?” His tone wasn’t too pushy, but you didn’t love the look he gave you when making that comment.
Awkwardly staggering for a second, unsure weather to just agree or tell him to fuck off, “He really should be just a minute-“
“Or maybe less,” Eddie comes up right behind you and pulls you possessively into his side.
Your head whips up to see him with a devilish smile, his hand on your waist and the fire behind his eyes telling his guy to get lost.
“Oh, sorry man,” the guy starts backing away with an apologetic look.
“Yeah, better luck next time, pal,” Eddie snakes around to take the guy’s spot in front of the dart board.
He had his darts in hand and took his stance to start the match, gesturing for you to do the same. 
“What was that,” you ask with a slight joking tone, but seriously curious.
“What?” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead throws the first dart, “I’m not allowed to get fake jealous?”
“You’re allowed to feel any fake emotion you want, I guess,” your tone is somewhere in between a joke and a question. 
“You’d feel fake jealous if I was getting blown in the bathroom by some chick rather than playing darts with you, I bet.”
“Okay,” your tone shifts to defensive, “getting blown is very different than some guy asking to play darts with me.”
“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you,” Eddie turns to face you, having thrown all his darts, “for real.”
A moment lapsed where you didn’t register that your mouth was hanging open in disbelief, the look in your eyes Eddie immediately clocked as lust and bottled up to store away for a later time. 
“I knew the scary dog thing would work,” his ‘i-told-you-so’ tone rubbed you the wrong way, but he wasn’t wrong, “you said girls weren’t into that, but you totally looooove that I defended your honor.”
“Don’t give yourself too much credit, I said girls wouldn’t be into it if you punched him,” you rolled your eyes.
“I don’t know, babe, I think you liked the whole ‘back off of my woman’ act.”
You mumble out a ‘whatever’ and let him have this win, which he was clearly reveling in, trying to focus instead at beating him at darts. 
“Just don’t pull shit like that on a first date, acting too possessive off the bat is a huge red flag for a lot of women.”
“I thought we weren’t doing dating advice tonight?” You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s got that stupid sarcastic smile.
“Yeah I thought so too,” you fail at your attempt to beat him in darts, as well as your attempt to not flirt back with him. 
He insists on collecting all the darts, picking up the ones haphazardly strews across the floor from failed attempts to hit the board. 
“I’m no pro or anything, but I think you’d hit the board a lot more if you fixed your stance.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you flip him the bird and take back your red tipped darts. 
As you steady your arm to aim your first shot he comes up behind you and grabs your hips, causing you to let out an unexpected squeak. He adjusts your stance, not aggressively, but with some force, twisting your hips and using his big combat boot to sweep your foot around so you stood more sideways. 
“You’re standing straight on,” he backs up, allowing you to secretly catch your breath, “and all your shots are veering to the right. If you plant your feet more angled you’ll hit the board.”
You wanted to roll your eyes at him, miss on purpose to show him he’s full of shit. You flippantly toss the dart, not trying particularly hard, and it hits. Not a bulls-eye or anything like that, but a lot closer than your previous attempts had been. 
“Good girl,” he comments, leaning in to breech your personal space just enough to make your blood boil.
You drop the remainder of the darts in your opposite hand onto the floor and whip around to face him, half jokingly smacking him on the shoulder. 
“Oh my god, fuck off!”
You’re met with his trademark shit-eating grin.
Truthfully, Eddie hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off you all night. He’d spent the night after your picnic date with his hand in bis boxers, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering the little gasp you had made when he grabbed your waist, the hum in your throat that bubbled up when he kissed you pinned against the blanket, that night and every night since. 
“Oh, you don’t like that?” that joking tone he uses to cover up what he actually wants to say. 
“Shut up, you know I do,” you didn’t even try to stifle your reaction, knowing it was his intent to get under your skin.
“How would I possibly know that,” he playfully looks up at the ceiling and around the bar, hands clasped behind his back now, rocking back and forth on his heels.
“You better cut that shit out, unless you plan on doing something about it,” you manage the most assertive tone your wobbly insides could muster, a little shocked at yourself for actually saying what you were thinking. 
“I’m not much of a planner,” he gracefully takes a stance next to you and rips all three darts, not great shots, but all hitting the board, “I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, you know that.”
“Well your pants better make up their mind if you’re playing boyfriend tonight or not,” your insinuation was heavy but you had fumbled your hand, and he had already seen all your cards at this point, so there was no reason to bluff.
“The real question is,” he leans in, his imposing figure crowding your space in a way that made your head spin, “do you want me to play boyfriend? Or do you want me to play guy who fucks your brains out in the bar bathroom?”
Your eyebrows pinched together for a millisecond, and before he could decipher your expression you grabbed his hand and started storming through the crowds hoarded by the bar. Why the hell a seedy downtown bar has a single stall family bathroom with a changing table is beyond you, but you drag him inside and slam the lock down behind you. 
“You’re not allowed to treat me any differently after this,” you start to fall into the sinkhole of oh my god what the hell is about to happen, but are cut off by him pressing you against the closed door the exact way he had handled you against his kitchen wall that night weeks ago. 
“Not unless you want me to,” he doesn’t hesitate to get his mouth on yours, immediately pulling your mind from wondering what the vague sticky substance on the door pressing into your back could be. 
“I mean, you’re not allowed to fuck me and then never talk to me again,” you say in between moving lips and tongues, giving him a moment to bury his face in your neck, "Promise me."
“Oh don’t worry about that,” he pulls back, “we can go get coffee tomorrow and you can give me a full performance review. Promise.”
Your annoyed eye roll quickly turns into them fluttering shut as he licks a stripe up to the junction behind your ear that has you melted into a boneless puddle between his pressing hips and the door. He drags his teeth across your lobe while leaning into you with a black denim clad thigh.
“Why don’t we make a deal,” you let out, voice breathy and unfocused. Before he can even pull back to reply you continue, “if you’re half as good at this as you claim to be, and can make me cum in this dingy bathroom, I’ll let you take me back to your trailer and you can do whatever the fuck you want to me.”
He was leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss before he could even process your request, because yes of course, a million times yes he’s taking this deal. Despite the rouse of you playing bar hookup for the night, and despite the idea of bringing you back to his place and finally doing what he’s wanted since the day he met you absolutely terrifying him, he nods and kisses you. 
It’s electrifying. His confidence only spurs you on to kiss him harder, grip his hair a little tighter, say the things you would only imagine in the deepest parts of your mind. The feeling of his grin against your lower lip and his fingers quickly unbuttoning your jeans fuels your fire. 
“You sure you know what you’re getting into,” he mumbles playfully, pulling you away from the wall with a gasp and leading you over to the tiny built in counter against a mirror by the sink. 
“Well I’m certainly not letting you fuck me against any of these sticky surfaces,” you note as you’re lifted onto the counter covered in mystery substance, “and I think you need to earn it.”
Of course it was no surprise to you that Eddie was good with his fingers. You probably could have told anyone that long before this impromptu bathroom hookup. Egging him on and challenging him in a way you were sure he wasn’t used to was well worth abandoning your assumptions. 
“Oh yeah? I think, if you’re lucky, I’ll earn it more times than you can count before the night’s over,” he positioned himself in between your legs, pressing your torso into the mirror behind you as he leaned in for another heated kiss. 
He pulled your ass to the edge of the counter, and looped his thumbs into the waistband of your unbuttoned pants. You were quick to assume that he’d yank the fabric right off your legs, preparing to lift your ass from the counter to assist.
Eddie paused, pulled back and gave you a look that asked ‘you’re sure about this?’ and when a dreamy smile spread across your cheeks he melted into you with a kiss that turned your stomach inside out and made your pussy flutter.
He snakes a hand from its grip on your torso down into your unbuttoned pants. You arched up into his touch, wanting to urge him to get on with it and get your pants and underwear out of the way, but appreciating how much he seemed to be reveling in feeling you for the first time. 
“So fuckin wet,” he mumbled against your lips, his fingers only feeling up your cunt from outside your underwear. He pressed the fabric into your slick center, following the path up to your clit and then teasingly back down to where your panties were soaked through.
“You weren’t lying when you said you liked this a little too much,” he’s rolling his hips ever so slightly against your spread thigh as he rubs your clothed pussy, his teeth sinking into your lower lip as he moves the material aside and sinks two fingers right into your wet cunt with ease.
You were sure that you’d retrospectively have a million quippy compacks that come to mind, but in this moment it was impossible to come up with words when his fingers were buried inside you, still, just letting you squeeze around them, and his hard cock straining against his jeans nestled against the inside of your thigh.
He slowly drags his finger’s up from your hole to your clit, and you let out a whine of desperation as he fully removes his hand from your damp underwear. 
Before you can manage the breath to tell him to please, for the love of god, get on with it, he brings his fingers up to his lips and gives them a long suck, never breaking eye contact with you. 
“Yeah,” he sighs out and presses his forehead against yours, “I might like that a little too much too.”
Protests and urging words catch in your throat as he yanks down your pants and underwear with one quick pull, not even needing you to lift your ass off the counter more than it already was. He was methodical and moved with intention, folding up your pants neatly and shoving your soaked panties into his back pocket, shooting you a wink. 
“Eddie, please,” your overdue complaints are finally bubbling over. You hardly finish your plea before his face is buried in your neck, and his fingers are sliding right back into your needy hole. 
The top of your head rests against the mirror behind you, exposing your neck and arching your back into his touch. He sucks and nips at the soft skin between your collar bone and ear, all while letting his two middle fingers pump slowly into you.
“Mmmm,” he mumbles into the crook of your jaw, “such a good girl for me, perfect pussy squeezing my fingers so tight, can’t fuckin wait to feel you soak my cock.”
Nearly orgasming at his words alone, your eyes flutter shut and you let out a moan of his name as he lets his thumb drag circles across your clit. “Eddie, please, just like that, I-”
“Oh, suddenly she’s not questioning my abilities?” he says with a biting smirk, “What was that about me not being half as good as I think I am?”
“Fuck,” you want to raise an eyebrow and shoot something back, hold out and make him work for it, but after hardly two minutes of his fingers rolling inside you, hooked up to drag along that perfect fucking spot, you had no choice but to feed his ego and let him win. 
“You wanted to make your little deal,” he pumps a little faster, making your head loll to the side and mouth hang half open, “I’ll sweeten it for you, babe. I say we can get this pretty pussy to come twice all over my fingers before anyone even knocks on this door.”
“Yes,” is all you can squeak out, “yes, please.”
If Eddie was being honest, he was a few half-thrusts into your thigh short of coming in his own pants from how hot you looked. Your eyes glassed over, pretty lips parted and gasping his name, perfect cunt sucking his fingers in. 
The hand not occupied by your gushing cunt slid up to cup the side of your cheek, forcing you to look into his fiery eyes. “Feel’s good?” he questions, knowing the answer and not expecting a verbal response.
He drags the pad of his thumb up to your parted lips, running it along your plush bottom lip and dragging it down a bit, relishing in how under his spell you were. His thumb slips into your mouth and you immediately wrap your lips around it and suck. 
“Good girl,” his thumb on your clit is rubbing more focused circles, “suck on that and keep your voice down, don’t want the whole bar knowing what a good little slut you are for me.”
Jackpot. 
A muffled moan around his thumb and the spasming of your inner walls signaled that you were hitting your peak. He drags the spit slicked digit from your lips and quickly replaces it with his lips and tongue, kissing you with fervor as he feels you ride out your orgasm on his hand. 
“Mmmmmmm” you moan, somewhere between a pleading whine and a sigh of satisfaction into his lips as his fingers don’t let up. 
Under different circumstances you would tell him to slow down, give you a minute to catch your breath. Eddie was stubborn, this you knew, and he had already made it abundantly clear that one orgasm wasn’t going to be enough. 
He pulls back from your lips, loving the sharp intake of breath you swallow as your cheeks continue to flush and eyelids keep fluttering. 
“So fucking good, came all over my fingers,” his gaze locks in on where his hand was buried into your cunt. “Gonna give me one more?”
Of course you would, whether it was up to you or not. He did slow up for a second, just enough for you to regain your grip on reality before he started curling them up again. 
“Eddie,” you whine out, eyes nearly crossed and unable to focus your attention on his face, hands, anything other than his boner poking into your inner thigh, “wanna feel you.”
The hand formerly gripped tight onto the edge of the counter snakes forward and pulls his hip into you, a permanent indentation of his stiff cock molding against your skin. 
“Not yet baby,” he rolls his hips forward, giving you a delicious feel of how it would be if he was inside you, but instead pushing his fingers a touch deeper and then pulling his hips away, “one more and then I’ll take you home. You’re gonna let me ruin that perfect little cunt, right? That was the deal?”
“Yes,” you gasp out, his other hand moving from your hair down to rub fast tight circles on your clit, the other hand still pumping steadily inside you.
“That’s right, I know this pussy is gonna take me so well. You’re already drooling for my cock, so fucking perfect.”
You feel it building up again, that sacred double orgasm that only ever came during your alone time in the shower or when you were so desperate for release that your hand didn’t stop after the first, but never with another person, never like this. 
His smile nearly touched his ears at this point, pulling back to take in all of you as your eyes screwed shut and thighs threatened to break his wrist at how fast they snapped together. 
Hitting you like a punch to the gut, your abdomen tightened and released rapidly, air sucked from your lungs and his hand working you through it between your clenched thighs. 
Yeah, maybe this was a bad idea. 
If you were in a cartoon, stars and chirping birds would be swirling around your head as you slowly came back to reality. He gave you some space, and begrudgingly gave you pack your panties after you hand out your hand and gave him a stern look.
“I’m gonna go tell the others that you aren’t feeling great and I’m taking you home,” he makes sure you’ve pulled your pants back up before unlocking the door, “Take your time, and I’ll meet you at the van, okay? I’ll grab your stuff.”
“Yeah,” you still feel a little flustered, looking back into the mirror and smoothing down your hair, “thanks.”
He shoots you a wink before slipping out, giving you a moment to collect yourself and splash some cold water on your face. Okay, so you’re doing this. 
Any nagging feelings that this might ruin things or that he’s only teasing you because of your arrangement are quickly squished down into a deeper compartment of your brain, overtaken by the post orgasm bliss and wandering thoughts of what might happen next. 
You peek your head out of the bathroom door, and slink your way to the back door without passing your group table or a stray Steve or Robin. The fresh air equalizes your buzzing thoughts, and you spot Eddie, already in the driver’s seat of his van. 
“You good?” He asks as you hop into the passenger seat. You won’t let him have the upper hand, just because he made you come twice in under ten minutes. 
“Yeah,” you gather as much assertion as your voice will project, “You good?”
“F’course,” he starts backing up, you internally roll your eyes at the way his outstretched arm muscles and curved neck make your stomach flutter, “Just wanted to make sure I passed the test.”
You sit in silence, not wanting to give into the cocky game he clearly wants to play, yet know that he’s entirely correct in his assumption that he’s driven you completely crazy. Once he’s on the main stretch of road, finally rolling to a stop at a red light you let your hand migrate across the center console, dancing its way into his lap. 
As you hoped, his cock was still half hard and apparent underneath his jeans. You let your hand draw circles next to it, loving the little twitch you get when you run your nails against his thigh. 
“Easy there, tiger,” he lets out a huffed laugh, with just an edge to his tone that suggested you were getting yourself into something you’d soon regret. 
“C’mon Eds,” you let your head fall on the corner of the headrest, gaze angled over at his tight grip on the steering wheel while your hand dancing around the bulge in his pants, “you’ve been pushing this thing against my thigh for the past twenty minutes, forgive me for wanting a better feel.”
You put on a pretend pouty face and flash him your best puppy dog eyes to ward off any incoming snippy comments from him. He rolls his pretty eyes at you and silently bites the inside of his cheek as you feel up and down his lap, grazing his growing cock with each pass. 
“Forgiven,” through gritted teeth, he squeezes his eyes shut as your fingers circle around his head, now taking visible form beneath his black jeans. He internally reprimands himself for losing focus on the road, and zeroes his concentration on getting back to his trailer as fast as this van can take him. 
You have your fun watching him wiggle in his seat, feeling his thigh muscles clench under your palm every so often. You weren’t full on jerking him off over his pants, but you were certainly relishing in the feeling of his dick getting harder and harder with each occasional pass of your hand.
He parks diagonally across the lawn in front of his trailer, not giving a shit where the van ends up as long as it’s stopped. He wanted to dash around the vehicle and scoop you out of your seat, throw you over his shoulder and take you inside to continue with whatever this evening had in store for you.
The second his hand stalled on the clutch, shifting the van into park and taking a moment to let his mind wander to what would happen once he got you inside, you were already halfway out the van and skipping up the steps to his front door. 
Entering his trailer, you start taking off your coat and shoes, trying to act as normal as possible. Your facade of keeping it cool entirely shatters when he enters behind you, calmly clicking the door shut and patiently waiting for you to finish unlacing your boots.
You remain crouched down, darting your eyes up at him, deciding against being a brat and undoing your laces as slowly as possible to keep him waiting. Any caution you had was long swept away by the wind, and he’d taken control in your little bathroom tryst, so it was your turn to say fuck it and just do what felt right. 
And in this moment, there was only a few quick movements and about six inches of space between you and Eddie’s semi-hard dick. One shoe was only half off, haphazardly kicked behind you as you pivoted onto your knees and had your hands moving eagerly up his tensing thighs.
“Can I?” Your question was half formed and he was already nodding. 
You’d teased him enough on the ride over, you wanted him, now. Pants quickly unbuttoned and blue checkered boxers pushed down to his knees, and you were about to go feral and just go for it when a silver glimmer adorning his thick cock caught your eye.
Your mouth was already half open, but your jaw nearly unhinged and hit the floor when the pierced head of his dick falls out of his boxers and lands at your eye level. 
Unmoving, mouth agape, you look up to make eye contact, ripping your eyes away from the shock of two silver balls on his cockhead. He knew it was nice, he wouldn’t have bedazzled it if it wasn’t, but the look you were giving him sucked all the unwavering confidence from his body for a split second, suddenly feeling weak in the knees at the sight of you slowly sicking your tongue out, not making any contact but waiting. 
He took the base of his dick in his hand and gave it a few precautionary strokes before angling it down and slapping your wet tongue with the tip a few times. 
You were two and a half seconds away from being entirely fucked out. If he pulled away and asked you to crawl on all fours to him, you’d do it without a second thought.
You let him slide his cock gently against your outstretched tongue a few times before coming to your senses and wrapping your lips around him, moving your hand to replace his and move against the length that your mouth couldn’t yet reach. 
All it took was a few steady bobs of your head, hand twisting and eyes still focused upwards on his face, to have him biting his knuckle and looking up at the ceiling to ground himself to try and not bust on the spot. You love this, of course, seeing him visibly spiral paired with the salty taste of precum already leaking from him. 
The hand not jerking him off comes up to the back of his hip, gently pushing against him in tandem with the movements of your head, encouraging him to shallowly thrust into your mouth.
“Jesus fu-“ he grunts out, not wanting to overestimate your encouragement, but unable to keep his hips from rolling forward slightly with the push of your hands and the bob of your lips. 
After an unexpected snap of his hips that sent his cock sliding into the back of your throat, making you gag slightly, a pang of guilt struck through him for pushing too hard. That was, until you let your head pull back a touch to catch your breath, but a long string of spit connected your lips to his cock, and a wild smile broke across your face that nearly sent him to the moon. 
You dove back in and pushed his cock all the way into the back of your throat, going so far that your nose pressed into the patch of dark curls that sat above his perfect dick. Focusing your breathing through your nose, you make a point to constrict your throat a few times until you feel him twitch inside you.
Pulling off with a gasp for air, you notice his eyebrows pinched together and gaze locked on you. 
“I like how these feel,” you comment, letting your pointed tongue dance around the metal balls on his tip.
He shudders and you clench your thighs at the sight of his stomach muscles tensing up when your tongue makes contact with the underside of his head, right where it meets the shaft. 
“If I let you fuck my mouth until you come, are you still going to be able to give it to me in a bit, or are you a one and done kind of guy?” You ask with a playfully teasing tone, but genuinely want to know if you suck him off to completion if the night will be over or not. 
“Fuck,” he spits out, more blood rushing to his cock at the idea of coming down your throat, “I’d fuck you all night if you’d let me babe.”
Half a second doesn’t pass before his cock is back in your mouth, hips shakily moving forward with your movements, gaining confidence as you flicker your eyes up at him through your lashes, the glimmer in them telling him he can take what he wants. 
“Fuckin’ look at you,” he comments to himself, “takin’ it all.” 
“Mhmmm,” you hum around him letting your tongue roll around his tip each time before he pushes his cock back down your throat. 
“You think you can get away with teasing me like that? That shit you pulled in the van back there, you think it’s cute to try and get me all riled up?”
You nod, tongue out and saliva coating your lips and chin. You could tell he was close by the way his words came out staggered, and his hips started snapping towards you in a new tempo, like his body was chasing it. 
Grunts and moans pulled from his chest fill the space mixed with the hums of satisfaction you let out while you take him deeper and faster. Moving in for the kill, you carefully slip your hand up in between his legs, cupping his balls, trying your best not to startle him. 
“Oh fuck,” it was a pitch of his voice you’d never heard before, a new tone especially reserved for the moments before orgasm, “you’re gonna make me fuckin come, y/n, y/n, I’m…”
The feeling of his balls constricting in your hands cues the warm wash of come sputtering down into your throat.
Getting the feeling he’d appreciate a bit of a show, you continue to jerk him off and pull off his cock slightly, letting the tip balance onto the tip of your tongue and the rest of his load spills out into your open mouth, some landing around the corners and onto your lips. 
“Christ, y/n,” his chest is heaving, his eyes finally pulling from you to squeeze shut for a moment. 
Once you’re sure he’s looking at you again you swallow down the salty white substance and lick the excess off your lips. You take his head back into your mouth, sucking just enough to clean off the tip and lap up any stray drops. He’s sensitive, you can tell, so you stop torturing him and place a final kiss right in between the two metal balls. 
You thought of asking him if the piercing hurt, or maybe make a comment about the two matching tattoos on his hipbones, ink of his you’d never seen until now. Before your brain can jump from swallowing his come to making post-nut chit chat, he’s yanking you up off your feet and wrapping you in a searingly passionate kiss. 
In your past experience most guys wanted you to drink some water or brush your teeth after they came in your mouth, at least before kissing you. Not Eddie. The way his tongue immediately slipped into your mouth, you almost believed he was trying to get a taste for himself. 
“C’mon,” he whispers in between slotting his lips with your, “Bedroom. Now.” 
He takes your hips in his hands and spins you around, causing a surprised yelp to bubble up from you, making him chuckle behind you as he walks you down the hall, keeping his hands on your sides. 
You knew where you were going, there were only so many doors in his tiny trailer, and you’d been here plenty of times before, but you liked the feeling of his hands pushing you forward, guiding your movements and steering you down the hallway into his room. 
Before your knees can hit the bed he spins you back around and captures your lips in another heated kiss. His hands trail up your sides, letting his fingertips slide beneath the hem of your shirt and push it upwards until your ribs were exposed. He pulls away from your face, leaving you leaning back into him, not wanting the kiss to end. 
“Up,” he pinches the sides of your shirt in his hands, and signals with his chin that he wants you to lift your arms, which you comply. 
It slides up and off of you, his hands quickly darting back to unclasp your bra, seemingly without even trying. This makes you roll your eyes, but the realization that you’re bare before him eclipses the thought of making a snippy remark about what a man whore he is. 
Flat palms caress your sides and move up to cup your breasts, his tongue pressing into the side of your neck. 
“These too,” his thumbs dip into your pants, managing to wiggle under the waistband of your panties as well. You’re going to do it yourself, but he gently pushes you back onto the bed, letting you flip back into the unmade blankets. 
“I wanna see you,” he pops your pants button and waits for a nod before sliding your pants and underwear down your legs. 
In between the blowjob and now, he’d tucked himself back into his pants, pulling his boxers and jeans back up, still unbuttoned, but covering him back up as his cock returned to a half hard state, unlikely to stay that way for very long considering how things were going. 
The scene of you now sprawled out onto his bed, naked and needy for him, and him standing above you, basically fully clothed, had a flood of lust traveling south between your thighs.
“So fuckin’ gorgeous,” you burned under his intense gaze, raking down your body and soaking in the image of your skin laid out against his flannel plaid sheets. 
He crawls over you, letting his body melt into yours, the center seam of his jeans pressing against your soaking core, just as it had when he had you pressed up against the door of the bar bathroom.
Rocking gently against you, you feel his cock already starting to harden again. His tongue moves against your neck, hands roaming freely against your skin, arching into his touch. 
His breath was heavy against your lips, he was already starting to lose himself, and he knew he wanted to make you come with his tongue at least once before his dick came back out, but it was already pulsing between his legs, growing rock solid with every little whimper that came past your lips. 
Your fingers intertwined themselves into the tresses of his long, messy hair. You use your new grip to pull his face as close into yours as your bodies will allow, smushing his nose up against your cheek and foreheads plastered together. The weight of his body on yours, and the lovely rocking motion of his hips against yours stopped as he pulled away and hooked his arms under your knees. 
He slides off the side of the bed, feet returning to the carpeted ground and yanking your body to the edge of the mattress. You let out an unexpected giggle, body limp like a rag doll, moving wherever he wanted you. 
He leans back over to give you another deep kiss, teeth dragging against your lower lip and tongue sliding gracefully against yours, before he slides his mouth down, stopping to lap up at your nipples for a moment, not letting any part of your skin go untouched as he takes his time moving down to where you want him most. 
Wiggling around on his mattress, your body is begging him to get on with it, but he loves to make you squirm. He takes his time licking up your hip bones, kissing from the innermost part of your thigh all the way down to your knee, and then back up the other side. He even takes a long moment to suck a dark purple bruise into the meat of your thigh, biting down on the flesh and licking over the skin to soothe it, noticing how your back arched a little when he bit down harder. 
“Please Eddie,” your voice is hardly above a whisper, whimpering and whiny.
“All you had to do was ask nicely,” he has that too-cocky tone again, but it’s long forgotten once his tongue is buried in between your thighs, lapping up the excess of wetness already pooled there.
“Ohhh,” you let out a moan, sucking in a sharp breath and allowing your body to relax under his focused touch. 
His hands push up from your ass to the crooks of your knees, moving your legs back to either side of you, strong palms finding their resting place on the backs of your thighs, keeping your legs spread wide open for him while he buries his face deep in your cunt. 
“You-“ the start of a compliment, or maybe a request, escapes your lips but the sudden harsh suck of your clit into his mouth has you speechless and moaning, “Mhmmmmm, uhhhhhhh.”
The sloppy wet sounds of him making out with your pussy are enough to drive you wild, your hands originally balling his sheets in your fists quickly move to the top of his head, resting atop his mop of messy curls. 
“Y’can give it a tug,” the first half of his statement spoken directly into your pussy, “I don’t mind a little pain.” He shoots you a wink and keeps his eyes locked on you as he lets his tongue lap a fat long lick up your slit, and then leaning back down to encourage you to tangle your hands into his hair. 
Coming to either side of his head you grab two points of purchase, locking your fingers in at the roots and feeling him hum into your cunt when you grabbed it a little tighter. 
Your hips start to quiver, so he brings one hand from your thigh up to your lower stomach, pinning you against the bed, and still keeping you spread open with the other. 
Working a steady rhythm against your slick center with his lips and tongue, he can tell he’s found the spot you like most by your open mouth and tight eyebrows.
“Ohmygod,” your chest starts moving with heavy breaths, you can’t bear to keep yourself up any longer and flop back down flat onto the mattress, eyes screwing shut in pleasure. He lets go of his anchor on your tummy and returns his hands to your thighs, allowing your hips to wiggle and wriggle against his face to chase after your own pleasure. 
“Pleasepleaseplease,” one glimpse of his big brown eyes looking up at you and his nose pressing deliciously into the spot above your clit has your head reeling, “please don’t stop, fuck.”
Rather than reply, he just continues to devour you at that steady pace, your thighs almost snapping shut around his head . 
“Uh huh, right there, oh fuck Eddie I’m gonna-“ 
A strangled moan rips from your throat and your back arches off the mattress, his hands quickly come to wrap around your thighs and keep your center held closely against his face. He’s pulling your hips flush with his face, despite your spasming torso and gushing core. 
As your orgasm peaks, your hips angle themselves to push up deeper into his face, and he uses his leverage against the backs of your thighs to lift your ass, the entire lower half of your body now off the mattress and sliding backwards as he keeps his moving tongue glued to your clit. 
He climbs up onto the mattress as you slide back, the grip he had on your legs was sure to leave a sore memory of him unwilling to let your coming pussy away from his face. 
When he finally pulls away, your hand pushing at his forehead to prevent overstimulation, both of you gasping for air, his knees are propped under your thighs, and your hips are propped up right at perfect level with the bulge in his pants. 
“Fuck me,” you say through catching your breath, not as an expletive but rather a demand, “Eddie, I need you to fuck me,” your voice was whiny and desperate. 
“This okay?” he starts pulling his dick from its constraints in his unbuttoned jeans, not even shoving them halfway down his thighs before he had that pretty pierced dip dragging through your open and ready folds. 
“Yes, inside, please,” you were chasing after his length, while he tossed his shirt off. He teasingly ran it up and down your slit before sinking into you, collapsing down to press your lips into a kiss to swallow your moans as he slid the whole thing in slowly, making sure to take his time and fuck you right. 
He grabbed the back of your neck and pressed his forehead to yours, finally sheathed all the way inside you and stilling for a moment to relish in the feeling. Pulling back so he can watch your face as he pumps his first few thrusts, he knows he’s beyond fucked. 
“So fucking good,” you slur out, eyes almost crossing from how deep his cock was hitting your insides.
“Yeah? This pussy’s god damn perfect, fucking made for me,” he articulates each thought with a snap of his hips, “suckin’ me right in.” 
“Wait, can we,” your voice had a little more weight behind it unlike the airy moans he’d grown obsessed with in the past forty minutes.
He pulls back, and rather than finish your thought you slip him out of you and roll over, shuffling up the bed and positioning yourself face down ass up, knees spread and back arched. 
“You think you can handle it?” he asks jokingly, swatting your ass playfully and then landing a second, harder smack on the flesh when he notices you pussy clench around nothing at the sensation of him spanking you. 
“Want you to fuck me hard,” you mumble into his pillow, wiggling your hips a little bit to jiggle the fat of your ass, “I know your cock is gonna feel so fucking good in me this way, wanna feel that fucking piercing back in my throat from the other direction.”
“Jesus Christ, y/n,” he was genuinely a little shocked at your words, slowly learning that your freak side might match his. 
You expected to feel his cock slam into you once his hands came to spread your ass apart, but instead the mattress dipped and he was licking another fat stripe from your clit all the way up past your second hole, running this back a few times until you were moaning into the pillow and thighs were tensed up from the attention he was giving you.
“Sorry babe, just needed another taste,” he pushed the head of his dick into you, and moved the first few inches agonizingly slow into your soaked hole. 
“Eddie please, need it, need you,” he loved that his sheets were balled up in your fists, using the tension of the material to bounce yourself back onto him. You only manage to slide back down about three quarters before he’s tightly gripping your hip and pulling out half way again. 
“Tsk tsk tsk, you need to learn to be patient, pretty girl,” he’d thrust it an inch of so, and then slowly pull back, making you whine and start to feel tears bubble up in the corners of your eyes. 
“Want it so bad,” your cheek laid flat against his pillow, and you could catch a glimpse of him behind you out of the corner of your eye if you craned your neck a bit. You sounded so desperate, but you knew he liked it, liked hearing how badly you craved him. 
He starts moving in and out of you, firm grip on your ass never wavering. Restrained grunts left his mouth as he fucked into you, causing your eyes to practically roll into the back of your head. He leans down to place a soft kiss on your shoulder blade, despite how viciously he's pounding into you. His head cranes down to your shoulder, his hand coming up to brush your hair out of your face. 
As his long fingers move your hair away from your eyes, you push your head back into his hand, not wanting to lose contact. He tentatively runs his hands up into your hair, taking a soft grip on your roots.
“Is this what you want?” he whispers, “you like it rough?”
“Yes,” you manage to squeak out, “fuck, pull my hair, spank me, do whatever the fuck you want to me, please.”
His vision practically goes black with this new unrestricted passion, allowing himself to thrust into you as hard and as deep as his hips would propel him, twisting your hair in his grip and pulling you up from your laid position, quickly letting your hands jump to his headboard to support you as your head was pulled back. 
You tried to bounce back onto his cock, wanting to feel him as deeply and wholly as your bodies would allow, but you could hardly keep up with the pace he had set. 
Your ass bouncing against him and the occasional glance he caught at your fucked out expression spurred him on to fuck you even harder. He had your hair pulled back so tight that your back was pressing flush up with his chest every so often, and he took the opportunity to snake an arm around you and hold your chest up flat, his other hand moving down to rub frantic circles on your clit.
“You’re gonna make me come like this,” you manage to croak out, voice hoarse from the harsh bend in your neck. 
“Nuh uhh, no,” his voice was gruff and commanding, right into your ear and sent a shiver down your spine. 
He pulled out of you fully, and had you flipped around flat on your back again before you could even open your mouth to complain. 
“Need to see that pretty face when you come on my cock,” he lines himself up with you again, pushing into you and making a mental note of how the bulge of his cock looked pressing up from the inner part of your lower stomach. 
And of course, your face screwed up in pleasure, puffy lips and sweaty brow, slack jawed and panting his name would be something Eddie wouldn’t be able to forget even if he tried.
His thumb found its way to your clit to pick up where he had last left you, steadily building to an earth shattering orgasm. Talking you through it, knowing you were close by the vice grip your walls had on his dick, in between grunts he spilled out some “good girl”’s and “right fuckin there, that’s it.” 
When he felt your thighs tense up, and the muscles in your neck strain against the soft skin he’d previously had his lips all over, he knew you were nearing the finish line. 
“So fucking perfect, feel so good wrapped around me,” he managed to sweet talk you without altering the pace of his hips, “That’s it, come on my cock, give it to me.”
With that, your body can’t help but throw itself over the edge of pleasure. A deep grunt rattles in your chest, and you lose all sensation other than the wild pulsing in between your legs. You can’t be bothered to worry about what your face looks like, or if your thighs are squeezing him too hard, you only feel the riptide of an orgasm shattering through you. 
The animalistic noise that Eddie grunts out, his wild gaze locked on your face only makes your body shake with pleasure even harder. He had that instinct that most men lacked, to keep the exact pace and motion when your orgasm hit rather than speed up or slow down, it was a gift, a talent. 
Of course he wasn’t going to change a thing about what he was doing, look at you. You were so fucking perfect, shaking and coming all over him, those sweet noises and the beautiful squelching between your thighs. He’d rather die than change a single thing about this moment. 
He stilled only when you paused to catch your breath, and within seconds was flipped over by the power of your thighs onto his back.
Unexpectedly, you began to ride him, trying to match the pace he had earlier set. The aftershocks of your orgasm still washed through you, but you seized the moment to get him right where you wanted him. This angle was different, deeper and more connected. You roll your hips and bring your hands up to his hair, foreheads pressing together once again. 
“You’re making me feel so fucking good,” you manage to breathe out into his lips, he quickly comes to the realization of what’s happened and shifts the angle of his hips to hit you even deeper. 
“I’d give you everything, if you’d let me,” he doesn’t let a single thought pass in his mind before the words slip out, “always.”
Your lips capture his in a kiss that has far more emotion behind it than two friends play-dating and fucking for fun. His hands come up to grasp your cheeks, your hips continue to roll down into his with purpose. 
“I’m- Where-“ his words are hardly intelligible in between breathless kisses, but you know what he means. 
“Inside, please, need all of you inside me,” you try to keep your voice steady so he hears you loud and clear, wanting to give him the exact attention he had paid to you, “Please Eddie, come inside me.”
His hands travel down and guide your hips to fuck down onto him one, two, three times before he’s groaning in your ear and letting out the prettiest and most vulnerable sounds you’ve ever heard form him. 
The swell of his cock inside you makes you drape your head into his neck, focusing on riding out his orgasm and making sure he was twitching in the aftershocks of his orgasm before you let up. 
When you felt his grip on your hips tighten, signaling that he’d had too much, you sink all the way down one final time and let your body lay limp on his, pulsing cock still filling you up. 
His chest rose and fell harshly with his recovering breaths. You could feel his heartbeat pulsing up through the spot on his neck where your ear laid on his sweaty skin.
Silently awaiting the inevitable tap on the shoulder, the slow pull out and post-sex cleanup process, you try to savor every passing moment. But it doesn’t come. Eddie wraps his arms around your midsection and holds your limp body close to his, letting his cock start to soften inside you. 
You nearly fall asleep like that, all wrapped up in him, until you recognize that you should pee and clean up to avoid a UTI. You slip off of him, and hear a disappointed groan from him. He makes cute grabby hands at you as you cross the room, making you roll your eyes, but something deep inside you flip flops with how sweet he’s being, so caring, so unlike the picture of himself that he had painted for you. 
You give him a wet hand towel to clean up the remnants of your activities, and slip back into bed with him per his insistence. You doze off for a while, until the rising sun peeking through his blinds catches your eye, striking you with the sudden decision to stay and face the music or leave and let it settle. 
You’d already regretted it, but weren’t ready to have the “hey, so I know we had fake boyfriend-girlfriend sex, but I actually really like you so what should we do about that?” conversion with him, so instead you take the cowardly path and tiptoe out of his room in the early morning hours, leaving behind your underwear on his nightside table with a scribbled note saying to call you. Hopefully that was enough of a signal. 
Apparently not,
Days pass, and no call. 
It was all starting to get to your head. While you had gone through the stages of being nervous that you had done something wrong, that he was avoiding you to spare you the rejection, thinking he regretted what had happened and didn’t want to face you, who was so obviously into him it was painful, you’d just now turned a new leaf. Fuck that. If he was too much of a coward to call you, you'd hope he'd at least give you the decency as a friend to tell you the truth, you deserved to be angry, and you deserved a response. 
After stewing in your feelings for longer than felt healthy, you just get in your car and start driving to his trailer. If this all blew up in your face at least you wouldn’t have to keep biting your nails and waiting for the phone to ring. 
Three deep breaths, and a quick moment to gather your thoughts, and suddenly your body acted on instinct, putting the car in park and walking up to pound three concise knocks on his trailer door. 
“Just a second,” he hollered from inside, giving you a few seconds to be stricken with regret for showing up unannounced without a plan on what exactly to say. 
“What do you- oh, y/n,” he was in a pair of plaid pajama pants that hung low on his hips, shirtless and hair still damp from a recent shower, “uh, hey?”
“Oh, hey,” your tone was laced with annoyance, “I left something here last week and I’m here to get it back. If you don’t mind.”
“What- oh,” he’s a second too slow to realize you mean the underwear you had purposefully left behind with that note. The note telling him to call you. Which he never did. 
You were left standing on his porch steps, arms crossed and shooting daggers out of your eyes while he stood there in the doorway, an apparent guilty expression plastered on his face while he rocked back on his heels to buy some time to figure out what to say. 
“You don’t have to invite me inside, if you can just grab them and give them to me, and I’ll be out of your hair,” you say flatly, recognizing if he does as asked then this might be the last time you speak to Eddie Munson. 
“No, no, uh, you should come in,” he steps aside to let you in, “we probably shouldn’t have this conversation on my front steps.”
Avoiding eye contact, feeling an overwhelming mix of anger, confusion, and betrayal, you step inside and don’t make any effort to move into the space. You just stand by the door and give him an expectant look. Either he could go get the underwear, or he could grow a pair and say something to you. 
“I, uh-“ he looked so defeated you started to feel bad for using such a pointed tone, but then you remembered the days and days that passed without hearing from him, “I’m sorry, that I, y’know…”
“Yeah, well I don’t really care if you’re not looking for any post sex recap conversations, because you’re obviously pretty sure of yourself in that department,” the words flew out before your mind could even conjure them up, “but you fucking promised me that you wouldn’t do this, so can I please just have my underwear back and I won’t bother you again.”
He runs a hand through his hair letting out a deep exhale and searching the ceiling for words, “I know, I-“
You cut him off, your thoughts were ripping through you now and you were going to say your piece whether he asked for it or not, “You said you wouldn’t pull this shit with me, but I guess our friendship isn’t substantial enough for you to see me any differently than you do every other girl you throw away after you’ve gotten what you want. You clearly don’t want any more advice and you clearly don’t want to be my friend, so please, just give me my shit so I can go.”
“That’s the fucking thing y/n, of course I don’t want to be your friend,” his gaze still fixed on the ceiling.
At this point you were seconds away from just storming out, letting him keep your underwear as some twisted little trophy for breaking your heart. 
“Yeah, crystal clear Eddie.”
“Being your friend is already hard enough, and I knew this shit was a bad idea, the whole trial-girlfriend thing. But how the fuck was I supposed to say no to that? The girl of my dreams offers to do all this no-strings-attached romantic shit, I’d be the dumbest man alive to turn that down.”
You just give him a blank stare, your scalding anger twisting into a more confused frenzy of bees swarming in the pit of your stomach. Eyebrows pinched together, you just stare at him until he finally makes eye contact with you. 
“And yeah,” he goes on, letting all his words out like a big exhale in the same cadence that you had just hurled all your angry words at his, but his tone was filled with guilt as opposed to rage, “maybe we let it go a little too far, but I would never say no to you, I couldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t know what the fuck to say to you after, but that’s exactly the reason I’m not good enough for you. The more we kept that fake dating shit up the worse it was gonna get, so I’m sorry, but I can’t keep spending time with you like that, because it’s starting to fucking hurt.”
“Hurt,” you say with a dry laugh, which almost scares him, “YOU’RE hurt? Give me a fucking break Eddie. I know you don’t see me that way. So what, you’re too scared to hurt my feelings? You’re doing a wonderful job, keep it up.”
“What the fuck do you mean, not see you like what?”
“Don’t pretend to be dumb Eddie. When we first met I tried so hard to get your attention, asking you to hang out, and you always blew me off. It’s fine that you don’t want to date me or whatever, but at least just tell me that, don’t fuck me like I’m special or something and then toss me aside. I deserve better than that.”
“Yeah, y/n, you do,” his voice was no longer guilt stricken, and was on the same straightforward plane as your last responses, “you deserve so much fucking better than me, that’s why I could never let anything between us happen. I don’t call girls back. I’m rude. I don’t take care of myself, let alone others. I like to smoke, and drink, and get head from girls in bar bathrooms and never learn their names, and that’s not the kind of person that a girl like you dates. I’m a fun quick fuck. You’re the kind of girl that after three dates he’ll already have a ring picked out. You’re everything, and I’m nothing, so forgive me for sparing you of that.”
Your bones are frozen and the beat of silence gives him the opportunity to spin on his heel and start down the hallway, presumably to get your panties. 
Snapping back into it, you let out a louder than expected, “Hey,” and you start following him, not taking long to catch up to him in his bedroom. 
“You,” you point a finger at him, and start to feel the rage bubble up again, “don’t get to decide that you’re unloveable. And you don’t get to tell me what kind of girl I am. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason you’re so lonely and miserable is because you choose to be? You don’t get to decide what I deserve, I do. And I really fucking like you Eddie, so forgive me for acting like it.” 
You snatch your underwear off his bedside table, and give him a look, not fueled by anger or resentment, but empathy. 
“I’m going to leave. And if you don’t want to see me again, that’s fine, but if you do, you can call me. Goodbye Eddie.”
You feel out of your own body, floating above it all and rewinding the conversation over and over, body on autopilot taking you home while your soul stayed behind and relived his words over and over, unsure if you feel better or worse than when you showed up. 
Days pass by again, and you take his silence as more of a response than anything he had said to you during that conversation. You try not to wallow, but you feel scattered and distraught, at both the prospect of losing Eddie and having to deal with your shared friends, would they allow you to dance around each other, or would they flat out choose him and shut you out? Would group nights out bowling suddenly just turn into the occasional one-on-one coffee with Robin? 
Until suddenly, on a random Tuesday afternoon when you've gotten home from work and are relaxing on the couch in your pajamas, three knocks are at your door.
At this point you figured it was over. He hadn't called and he'd made no effort to continue the dialogue. So a thought of Eddie doesn't even cross your mind in between the couch and opening the door.
And there he is.
In a suit, slightly descheveld in Eddie fashion, and holding a slightly wilting bouquet of flowers. Posture straight and brave face, but expecting your brutal edge upon answering the door nonetheless.
"Hey?" you're somewhat at a loss for words answering.
"Hi," he seems like he's running lines of a play in his mind, "I was hoping we could talk."
You reluctantly let him in, and he hands the flowers to you, as if it was a normal occurrence for him to bring you such a gift.
"First off," he starts, hardly breaching your living room entrance before starting his apology, "I regret the way we last left things, and I'm sorry for leaving you waiting for a response."
He flicks those big brown eyes at you and you can't help but give him the benefit of the doubt, he always was so sincere with his words.
"You're amazing. And although I'll remain adamant that I don't deserve someone like you in my life, I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and I'm sorry that tried to tell you how to feel."
You remain stoic at your seat on the couch, watching him shift his weight and bare his soul to you.
"You're perfect. Nice, funny, sexy, brave, all of it. And if you're willing to give me a chance, I don't know why the fuck you would, but if you are, I want to put aside all my bullshit and try this out, if you'll have me."
He stood there for a moment, letting you take in his request, bouquet in hand and suit adorned.
"And I owe you a few dates, for real."
As hard as you want your exterior to be, a smile cracks through.
"Okay, but know I don't fuck until the third date, at best," you jab, breaking his nervous exterior and visibly relieving the tension from his shoulders.
"I'm somewhat of a refined gentleman myself, so that won't be an issue," he bows and extends a hand to you.
You pull him down by the hand onto the couch with you, wrapping him up in a deep kiss. He was worth it, and you both knew it was worth the shot to try.
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spectorgram · 10 months
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the letter
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theodore nott x f! reader summary: you get a letter from a secret admirer who wants to confess. your best friend is none too pleased. notes: jealous! theodore nott >>> word count: 1.4k
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You would think for a magical school, Hogwarts would have better heating or some heating spell, but the Slytherin dorms are frigid as usual as winter creeps up. You fasten your robe clasps and draw it tighter around you, simultaneously trying to tug your skirt down in a futile way to heat yourself up more. Your knee-high socks only do so much and you pretty much give up on the endeavor as you climb up the stairs and head for the Great Hall. 
You’re immediately greeted by the cozy warmth of the hall, spotting your friends, all swathed in green and silver robes and knits. Theo spots you first, sliding over and nearly knocking Blaise off the bench. “Blood hell, mate,” Blaise grumbles as you approach, kicking Theo’s leg lightly. 
You slip into the space created for you, right in between Theo and Enzo. You stifle a yawn and ask, “Can someone pass the eggs and bacon?”
As Enzo reaches for both platters, Theo’s eyes zero in on your legs. “How are you not cold?”
You frown. “I am,” you reply, piling your breakfast onto your plate, “but Pansy’s demon cat apparently thought my winter tights were toys and decided to scratch them all up.”
Pansy sighs, “I’ve ordered you new ones, calm down.” 
Theo drapes his robe over your legs and you smile gratefully at him. He smiles back and your heart flips. You don’t think you’ll ever get over how beautiful he is — all dark caramel curls and long lashes that frame those devastatingly blue eyes. He’s been your best friend since you started Hogwarts and you knew you loved him at first sight. The longer you’ve known him, the more you’ve fallen for him. 
It’s a tale as old as the world itself: you’re hopelessly in love with your best friend but you value your friendship far too much to do anything to jeopardize it.
“Mail’s here,” you hear someone say down the table. You look up to the ceiling, which has been enchanted to look like a sky that’s about to break open and drop snowflakes from its clouds. Owls soar in through the openings at the top of the walls, diving down towards their intended recipients. 
“Maybe your new tights are here,” Enzo says. 
Pansy adds, “I hope so. Then you’ll stop complaining about it.”
You snort, reaching up to grab a letter dropped by your family owl. You feed her a piece of scrambled egg as she takes off back towards the owlery. You tuck your parents’ letter into the inner pocket of your robe just as another owl swoops overhead, dropping a pale blue envelope on your lap. 
“Who’s that from?” asks Pansy. 
You shrug, using your butter knife to open it up. As you do, Draco grumbles at Mattheo: “For the love of Salazar, stop hogging the pastry basket.”
You skim over the letter addressed to you. You tilt your head in confusion and Blaise asks, “What’s it say?”
Enzo peeks over your shoulder and his face breaks into a smirk. “‘Meet me at the Astronomy Tower at midnight tonight. Signed, Your Secret Admirer.’” he reads.
“What?” Theo suddenly snatches the letter from your hand. You watch in confusion as his eyes dart back and forth. His shoulders tense and his mouth purses into a thin, hard line. 
“You doing okay there, Nott?” Matthew asks, shooting a simpering smile at his friend. Theo sends a glare back but doesn’t say anything, the letter’s paper crinkling under his grip. 
Pansy asks, “Are you going to go?”
You hesitate, surreptitiously glancing at Theo, startled to find that he’s gazing at you with an intensity you’ve never experienced. You pluck the letter from him and fold it neatly. “I think so,” you say. “I’m interested to see who it is.”
“Be sure to bring your wand,” Draco says. “Just in case.”
“Obviously,” you deadpan. The conversation shifts into whether anyone was prepared for midterms coming up. 
You fiddle with the letter in your lap. Theo’s silent for the whole conversation. 
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You chew on your bottom lip as you reread the same sentence in your textbook for what feels like the hundredth time. The letter has stuck in your head the whole day. It crosses your mind that it could be a prank or a set-up — it’s not a secret that Slytherin isn’t the most popular House among your classmates — but you know you can handle yourself. You’re more worried about how Theo was acting at breakfast. He didn’t say a word the rest of the meal, not even when Enzo and Mattheo tried looping him into the conversation. He just sat there, sullen and gloomy, and his mood seemed to worsen more when you handed him his robe back and said you had to get to class.
You sigh heavily, trying to play out every possible scenario that could happen between you and the letter writer. You check the clock in the library: 11:45; you need to head over to the Astronomy Tower. 
You groan, gathering your things, sliding them into your bag, and making your way back to the Slytherin common room to drop off your things in your dorm. “Cacophony,” you supply to the portrait, which swings open to let you in.
The common room is blissfully silent when you enter, a welcome contrast to the mess of thoughts in your head. You’re about to head down the hall to your dorm when you collide against someone. You huff an apology but when you feel their hand on your shoulder, you look up to see Theo. He looks intense, eyes wide and glinting with sharp determination and his mouth still set in that frown from earlier. “Sorry, Theo,” you say. “Didn’t see you there. Where are you going at this hour?”
“I was going to find you,” he replies. 
“Oh,” you say. “Well, here I am. Sorry, I’ve got to drop this stuff off and then—”
“Head to the Astronomy Tower,” he finishes for you, “to meet your ‘secret admirer.’” 
You don’t like the way he sneers at the last part of his sentence or the way he uses air quotations. You’re about to respond when he says, “Don’t go.”
“What?”
“Don’t go,” he repeats.
“Why not?”
He pauses before saying, “What if it’s someone just having a laugh?”
You bristle, hurt, and you feel your temper flare. “Is it so damn hard to believe that someone might actually have a crush on me?”
Theo laughs, razor-sharp and incredulous, as if he can’t believe that you’re saying something so outrageous, “No, it’s not.”
“Then why shouldn’t I go?”
“Because I don’t want you to!”
“For Salazar’s sake, Theo, you can’t tell me what to do!”
“I know that!”
“Then are you trying to tell me not to go?”
“Because I bloody like you!”
Your heart stutters to a stop. You can only hear the sounds of both of your labored breathing and you suddenly can’t meet his eyes, trying your best to wrap your head around the fact that your feelings are reciprocated. “How long?’ you ask softly, holding your breath.
“Since first year.”
You blink. “Really?”
He rakes a hand through his hair and sighs heavily, “Mattheo’s right; you’re so oblivious.” There’s another beat of silence and he asks, a little shyly, “How do you feel?”
You can’t stop the smile that spreads across your face. “I like you too, Theo. I’ve liked you since first year as well.”
He echoes your “Really?” and it makes you giggle, “I guess we’re both oblivious.”
He joins your laughter and you let your forehead rest on his chest as your shoulders shake. When it dies down, Theo shifts you off him and lifts your chin with his forefinger, any semblance of coyness gone. You gaze into his ocean blue eyes. Salazar, you could drown in them. He offers a charming smile and he leans close, just a few centimeters away, and says, “Can I kiss you?”
Your eyelashes flutter and your voice comes out barely louder than a whisper, “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
Your lips meet, fervent and desperate, years of yearning releasing like water through a broken dam. Theo hooks his arms around your waist, pulling you as close as possible. You wind your arms around his neck, fingers toying with the hair at his nape. He walks you backward, slipping his tongue into mouth as he crushes you up against the wall. He deepens the kiss and your knees go weak. 
Theo moves your bag off your shoulder and drops it on the floor. The letter that rested at the top of the pile of possessions falls out, laying forgotten on the ground.
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FYI artists and writers: some info regarding tumblr's new "third-party sharing" (aka selling your content to OpenAI and Midjourney)
You may have already seen the post by @staff regarding third-party sharing and how to opt out. You may have also already seen various news articles discussing the matter.
But here's a little further clarity re some questions I had, and you may too. Caveat: Not all of this is on official tumblr pages, so it's possible things may change.
(1) "I heard they already have access to my data and it doesn't really matter if I opt out"
From the 404 article:
A new FAQ section we reviewed is titled “What happens when you opt out?” states “If you opt out from the start, we will block crawlers from accessing your content by adding your site on a disallowed list. If you change your mind later, we also plan to update any partners about people who newly opt-out and ask that their content be removed from past sources and future training.”
So please, go click that opt-out button.
(2) Some future user: "I've been away from tumblr for months, and I just heard about all this. I didn't opt out before, so does it make a difference anymore?"
Another internal document shows that, on February 23, an employee asked in a staff-only thread, “Do we have assurances that if a user opts out of their data being shared with third parties that our existing data partners will be notified of such a change and remove their data?” Andrew Spittle, Automattic’s head of AI replied: “We will notify existing partners on a regular basis about anyone who's opted out since the last time we provided a list. I want this to be an ongoing process where we regularly advocate for past content to be excluded based on current preferences. We will ask that content be deleted and removed from any future training runs. I believe partners will honor this based on our conversations with them to this point. I don't think they gain much overall by retaining it.”
It should make a difference! Go click that button.
(3) "I opted out, but my art posts have been reblogged by so many people, and I don't know if they all opted out. What does that mean for my stuff?"
This answer is actually on the support page for the toggle:
This option will prevent your blog's content, even when reblogged, from being shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models.
And some further clarification by the COO and a product manager:
zingring: A couple people from work have reached out to let me know that yes, it applies to reblogs of "don't scrape" content. If you opt out, your content is opted out, even in reblog form. cyle: yep, for reblogs, we're taking it so far as "if anybody in the reblog trail has opted out, all of the content in that reblog will be opted out", when a reblog could be scraped/shared.
So not only your reblogged posts, but anyone who contributed in a reblog (such as posts where someone has been inspired to draw fanart of the OP) will presumably be protected by your opt-out. (A good reason to opt out even if you yourself are not a creator.)
Furthermore, if you the OP were offline and didn't know about the opt-out, if someone contributed to a reblog and they are opted out, then your original work is also protected. (Which makes it very tempting to contribute "scrapeable content" now whenever I reblog from an abandoned/disused blog...)
(4) "What about deleted blogs? They can't opt out!"
I was told by someone (not official) that he read "deleted blogs are all opted-out by default". However, he didn't recall the source, and I can't find it, so I can't guarantee that info. If I get more details - like if/when tumblr puts up that FAQ as reported in the 404 article - I will add it here as soon as I can.
Edit, tumblr has updated their help page for the option to opt-out of third-party sharing! It now states:
The content which will not be shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models, includes: • Posts and reblogs of posts from blogs who have enabled the "Prevent third-party sharing" option. • Posts and reblogs of posts from deleted blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from password-protected blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from explicit blogs. • Posts and reblogs of posts from suspended/deactivated blogs. • Private posts. • Drafts. • Messages. • Asks and submissions which have not been publicly posted. • Post+ subscriber-only posts. • Explicit posts.
So no need to worry about your old deleted blogs that still have reblogs floating around. *\o/*
But for your existing blogs, please use the opt out option. And a reminder of how to opt out, under the cut:
The opt-out toggle is in Blog Settings, and please note you need to do it for each one of your blogs / sideblogs.
On dashboard, the toggle is at https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/blogname [replace "blogname" as applicable] down by Visibility:
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For mobile, you need the most recent update of the app. (Android version 33.4.1.100, iOs version 33.4.) Then go to your blog tab (the little person icon), and then the gear icon for Settings, then click Visibility.
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Again, if you have a sideblog, go back to the blog tab, switch to it, and go to settings again. Repeat as necessary.
If you do not have access to the newest version of the app for whatever reason, you can also log into tumblr in your mobile browser. Same URL as per desktop above, same location.
Note you do not need to change settings in both desktop and the app, just one is fine.
I hope this helps!
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blaydie · 1 month
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ᥫ᭡ JIAOQIU AS YOUR BOYFRIEND — Sometimes love can be bittersweet. GN reader x Jiaoqiu. SFW & NSFW headcanons.
A/N: In loving honour of him coming home with his light cone (づ ̄ ³ ̄)づ
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SFW:
જ⁀➴ Jiaoqiu is a playful lover. A tease with no malicious intent. While his words and actions may confuse you at times, they’re always worth it when they bring out a radiant smile on your face. The moments when you realise he had you completely fooled, swearing you’ll get him back one day.
જ⁀➴ Smothers you with all of his love and affection. There will not be a moment that passes which makes you believe he doesn’t love you. He will forever adore you with every fibre of his living being. Doing “too much” when it comes down to you turns out to not be enough in his eyes. You deserve the best treatment he could possibly have to offer.
જ⁀➴ Insists on accompanying you on all of your outings. What if you get hurt? Need assistance? He can’t have you going through that alone—there’s too much risk. He has lost far too many people to let another slip through his fingers so easily. Besides, his company should be enough to keep you on your toes. The two of you are a formidable duo.
જ⁀➴ Acts of service is most definitely one of his love languages. Cooking your meals, tending to your wounds, preparing you medicine when you are unwell, etc. If there is any way for him to take a weight from your shoulders, he would do it in a heartbeat. All you have to do is ask when you need more from him.
જ⁀➴ He doesn’t burden you with his negative thoughts or emotions too often. It’s easy for him to handle it by himself—he doesn’t want you worrying when you don’t need to. The perk of being able to wear such a convincing smile all of the time is knowing you don’t suspect when anything is wrong. Though, he doesn’t stray away. He’ll stay by your side the entire time, snuggling up to you to ease some of the mental pain.
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NSFW:
જ⁀➴ His passion knows no bounds. He always has his hands on you, whether it be subtle or not. No matter where you are, it doesn’t matter to him. People should know that you have a partner, shouldn’t they? He has no issue kissing you whenever he pleases, simply suggesting anyone who has an issue with it should go about their day as usual.
જ⁀➴ While Jiaoqiu may be all lovey-dovey with you, he’s quick to drop the sweet demeanour when someone proves to be a problem. Catching glimpse of another person’s gaze lingering on you for too long would cause his expression to falter, his golden eyes widening, brows furrowing. A silent warning not to advance further while he slips an arm around you and holds you close. But he wouldn’t hurt anyone for something so small, would he?
જ���➴ “Accidentally” leaves several love bites on you every time you’re intimate. As he fucks you, his lips will trail down any strip of exposed skin, tongue grazing over your flesh to savour your taste. Being experienced in culinary has given him the ability to appreciate certain scents and flavours, yours just so happens to be one of his favourites. He claims that it’s every part of you which makes him lose control so easily, apologising to you afterwards by placing gentle kisses over parts where his teeth sunk far too deep into you.
જ⁀➴ Enjoys both giving and receiving. If you prefer one more to the other, then he can settle for whatever pleases you most. When receiving head, he glares down at you through half-lidded eyes, a dark smirk plastered onto his harmless face. His hand will remain on top of your head, giving you a few encouraging pushes here and there when he feels it to be necessary. When giving head, he’ll make sure to taunt you in any way he can, drawing out your orgasm to see how much you can take.
જ⁀➴ His pace and force can highly depend on his mood. When faced with stressful workloads and general life, he prefers to take it slow, working out every issue compassionately as he seeks relief from you. Days when he finds himself overly excited or angered is when slow turns to fast, gentle to rough. He needs to fuck all of that excess energy out to find a way to calm himself as quickly as possible. Even in heated moments, he will ensure that you find pleasure and that you get a good time out of it. After all, you are his only true priority now that you have accepted him into your life.
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jennaflare · 3 months
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So Disco Elysium is the only game you've ever really liked
I get it! It's a phenomenal game with superb art and writing, and its themes are consistent and deeply explored. It sets a high bar for video games. But there are other really, really fantastic games out there. This is a list that is 100% my own taste of things that aren't necessarily similar, other than the fact that they're really fucking good. (A lot of these are on sale for the Steam Summer Sale until July 11 2024!)
In Stars and Time
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In Stars and Time is a time loop game where you play as Siffrin, the rogue of a party at the end of their quest to save the day by defeating the King, who is freezing everybody in time! But something is wrong: every time you die, you loop back to the day before you fight the King. You're the only one who remembers the loops, so it's up to you to figure out why it's happening, and how to break out.
In Stars and Time is a heart-wrenching dive into mental health, friendship, and love. It's about feeling alone, and how awful it is when the people who love you don't notice (and how awful it is when they do). It's about falling deeper and deeper into your worst self and your worst tendencies, and how to come back from it.
The creator also did one of my favorite Disco Elysium comics ever, which is only tangentially relevant but worth mentioning.
Roadwarden
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In Roadwarden, you play as the titular Roadwarden for an undeveloped and "wild" part of the kingdom. Monsters roam the forests and roads, and it's your job to keep people safe. On paper, anyway. Your real mission is to find out what is of value in the area, and how to take it from its people. How well you perform this task is up to you. It's an oldschool text-based RPG, and I take a lot of notes by hand when I play.
Roadwarden explores exploitation and industrialization by making you look in the face of your potential victims. You can only learn what your bosses want you to report on by getting close to the residents, after all. There are mysteries to be solved, secrets to be gathered, and hearts to win.
The Longing
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The Longing is an adventure-idle game where you play as the solitary servant of a sleeping king. Your task is to wait for him, for four hundred days. Time in the game passes in realtime (for the most part). There are caves to explore, books to be read, and drawings to make.
The Longing is about loneliness and depression. It's about whether or not you decide to stay in that hole, and if you do, what you do with yourself while you're there. Maybe you'll wander. Maybe you'll stare at a wall. Maybe you'll just sleep until it's all over.
Papers, Please
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Papers, Please casts you as a newly hired customs officer in a country that is rapidly tightening its borders as its fascist government tightens its fist. This game is stressful. Sometimes you intend to help out the revolutionaries when they asked, but then you got so stressed out trying to make your quota so you can feed your family and pay your bills that you didn't notice the name of the person they were hoping to contact while going through their papers. Sometimes someone puts a bomb in front of you and expects you to defuse it. Sometimes someone suggests you steal people's passports so you can get your family out, and with the horror you see daily, the idea tempts you more than you'd like.
Papers, Please is all about hard choices and testing your moral fortitude. Everything you do has consequences. Being a good person in this game is hardly ever rewarded, but not in a way that feels overly cynical. Papers, Please asks you what kind of person you want to be and what you're willing to sacrifice to get there.
The Return of the Obra Dinn
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From the creator of Papers, Please, The Return of the Obra Dinn is a game where you play as an insurance investigator for the East India Trading Company. The ship the Obra Dinn has just floated back into port, its entire crew missing or dead. It's your job to figure out what happened aboard the vessel. For insurance reasons.
I don't know how to go into the themes of this too deeply without giving away too much, but the mechanics of the game itself make the game worth playing. You have a magic stopwatch that allows you to go back to the moment of a person's death, allowing you to try and figure out who (or what) killed them, and how. And the soundtrack is extremely good.
Outer Wilds
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In Outer Wilds you play as an unnamed alien, and it's your first day going to space! Your planet's space program is pretty new still, so there's still lots to explore and discover on the planets within your system. There are ancient ruins from a mysterious race that once lived in your system, long before your species began to record history. Why were they here? Where did they go? How are they connected to the weird thing that keeps happening to you?
The fun of Outer Wilds is in the discovery and answering your own questions. The game never tells you where to go, and it never outright tells you anything. There are clues scattered through the system, and it's up to you to put them together and figure out your next steps. It's about the way that life always goes on, no matter what, even when it seems like the end of everything, forever. I'd recommend NOT reading anything else about this game. Just go play it. Seriously, the less you know, the more fun this is.
If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers
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In If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers, you explore the circumstances of the deaths of four individuals.
This is a short one that took me about two and a half hours to play. If for no other reason, play it for the stunning pixel art. The game explores sexism, racism, and homophobia in the Victorian era and leans heavily into horror themes. Best of all: it's completely free!
Pentiment
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Pentiment takes you to the 16th century, where you take the role of Andreas Maler, a journeyman artist working on his masterwork in the scriptorium of an abbey. When someone is murdered, Andreas takes responsibility for finding the culprit.
The game is set over 20~ years and you get to watch how Andreas' actions affect the village in various ways (who's alive the next time you come by, have people gotten married and had children...). It's an exploration of how the past affects the future, and what parts of that past we choose to keep or discard. It has beautiful art, and fans of both Disco and Pentiment often compare them.
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Other games you might wanna check out
Night in the Woods, Dredge, Oxenfree, A House of Many Doors, Inscryption, Slay the Princess, Citizen Sleeper, Chants of Sennar, Loop Hero, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood, The Pale Beyond, Where the Water Tastes Like Wine, Elsinore, Her Story, Before Your Eyes, Pathologic (not delved into above because the venn diagram of Pathologic fans and Disco fans is basically a circle)
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lilacstro · 3 months
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how to manifest with your jupiter sign
this post feels long lost due, I had many asks on this so I will make a post on this one <33
support me on ko-fi :)
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Jupiter is a planet of faith, and optimism and abundance. However, you don't really have a planet specifically made for "manifestation", but if you think you had to guess one, I am guessing it would be Jupiter. Even in vedic astrology, people with strong brihaspati or Jupiter are considered lucky. Someone who was reading palms for me and my sister the other day said the first thing we do to see luck through hands is the Jupiter and Venus mount. But Venus is luxury you have in life and Jupiter is the fortune, I hope I am making sense. But otherwise, I have often seen 11th house be associated with manifestation
this post definitely checked my creativity and the methods of manifestations im aware of lmao. I have not taken this from any book but rather its mere observation of the charts I have seen until now, and asked my family to see if it worked for them and it made sense so its again a my theory kinda post lmao. I hope it is able to help y'all too <33 I was refraining from making a post on this one but it had a LOTT of asks so I decided to do it :) Let's gooooooooooo
use a combination of your sign, degree and house to find common grounds<33
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Jupiter in:
Aries/1st house: First of all, be precise and extremely clear about what you want. If you need to put the work or you believe in taking inspired actions, please do! I would also suggest concentrating/condensing your energy in your 3rd eye through meditations. Believe in yourself and also, don't jump 10 places. I have often seen people with Jupiter in 1st house have kind of a scattered energy, to put it correctly, not really laidback, not really fierce, and I think this should be fixed. I would suggest people with this placement to work with their chart ruler and Jupiter along to find a best method that could suit them, the best one I feel like suggesting for everyone, is meditation.
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Taurus/2nd house: I think people with this placement should definitely use affirmation tapes/affirmations. I would suggest methods that make you feel at peace and calm, and relaxing. Use aura meditations/ocean music before bed and calm yourself down and focus. Speak your desire into existence, using affirmations in front of mirror could be one thing you can do. If possible, make a vision board or buy a small manifestation souvenir suggesting your desire is complete. If possible, write your manifestations on a white sheet and bury them under a plant or soil in your garden.
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Gemini/3rd house: Write. Journal your desires, write them down, clearly. If you guys have things like a feng shui crystal turtle, write your desires on a paper and put it under that turtle. I would also suggest using affirmations, to people with this placement, be optimistic and say good things about your manifestation. Use the law of assumption. Listen to subliminals, it may really help as well.
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Cancer/4th house: FEEL your manifestation. Use music that makes you feel as if, evokes such emotions you know. Use the moon cycles for manifestation. Have you guys heard of Moon water manifestation? Basically, in a glass put some water and set intentions of your manifestation and put it under the full moon. Next day, drink that water. If you used a bigger bottle, then drink that water every time you set intentions of your manifestations. Use visualization
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Leo/5th house: Have fun with your manifestation. Enjoy what you are willing to manifest and feel the vibes coming in. Be confident that yes, it is coming and it would happen. Be creative about your manifestation. Try drawing your desires if you guys enjoy arts. Create beautiful DIYs like creative vision boards while blasting music, or pretty photo frames or phone wallpapers that would suggest completion of your desires. I would also suggest using heart chakra meditations, lifting your spirits up.
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Virgo/6th house: Create a manifestation routine. Something that locks you in and also, dont be too fixtated on when will it happen. Create a routine you enjoy and it can be absolutely anything. I however feel like suggesting 369 method, 55X5 method or things like so. One other thing I will say is, don't be afraid of helping someone if your boundaries are not crossed, and you may actually find that you have coincidences that lead you to what you had wanted. I would say, be open minded as well. Release pent up energy in your body time to time. I have often seen people with this placement are already very helping/people like to ask them for help.
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Libra/7th house: I would suggest talking about your manifestation, in a journal, to someone you trust or even to yourself in a positive, loving way! Enjoy talking about what you want, talk about it with love, faith and optimism. I would suggest using a sigil, especially near your mirror or when you are getting ready. Use a pretty paper, and make it super cute and to your aesthetic. If its possible, clean and program the ornaments you wear, or even if its a hair tie you wear daily. By program I mean, meditating on it and setting a vibration/energy that corresponds to your manifestation. pretending as if can help too.
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Scorpio/8th house: Don't talk about your manifestation until its complete, don't tell much people about it until you are close with them. Use sleep meditations (I would suggest Edward Art's sleep meditations) and please, believe in your manifestation but yourself first, that you can attract what you want. Use the law of attraction. Even though I suggest being on high vibrations, I would still say, let yourself feel your emotions, its important to feel yourself. Don't get too attached, fearful or desperate for what you want. Pray to whoever you believe when you're sleeping. Often seen people with this placement/8th house moons or stelliums have some kind of divine intervention with the things they desire. Be open to change in paths, if it is possible.
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Sagittarius/9th house: Be optimistic about your manifestation. Pray if you believe in a higher deity or power. This is a very lucky placement in my opinion and you have the power to achieve whatever you want, just desire it strongly and in a positive way. Use frequency meditations, and if possible. Have faith and patience and don't be in a rush for anything. Use manifestation journals if possible. I feel people with these placements are already quite spiritual or at least aware of such topics. Use affirmations/ religious affirmations if you believe in one.
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Capricorn/10th house: Talk about your manifestation, don't lie about what you want when asked, say it if its not violating your boundaries and if not, just say something neutral. I feel people with this placement, often manifest what they show, even if they are trying to be private or pretentious, its just weird. Act as if, and have some confidence. I feel people with this placement appear lucky to people so I would indeed suggest protecting your energy. This placement should also somehow be ready to accept the challenges that will come along when they ask for what they want, because these people often dream big but this placement again feels brings unpredictable things on your path. So, be open and flexible is a suggestion. But be assured, the rewards often exceed expectations!!
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Aquarius/11th house: USE PINTREST BOARDS IF YOU DOO. Use subliminals, Create a manifestation journal with affirmations and pictures. Use manifestation meditations. Experiment with your manifestations, let it be, and let it go. Don't obsess about what you're manifesting. Have a positive self talk. Your manifestation is actually likely to appear when you least expect it/don't bother about it much. Random but write yourself messages/emails or success stories as if you achieved what you want, this is a very good placements for strong manifestors imo
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Pisces/12th house: Use visualization, SATs coming to me specifically. Sleep in the state of wish fulfilled. Be helathy-delusional, and use crystals if you have one or are willing to use them and even better if you can charge them near ocean. Use water meditation, water-manifestation methods. Have strong faith :)) Use spells and charms. program your crystals and journals.
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EXTRA: Jupiter in air signs or degrees: Watch your thoughts and words, speak your desire in existence Jupiter in water signs or degrees: Watch your feelings, feel as if and don't let your feelings consume you eitherways. Beware of extreme delusion and mark a line on reality Jupiter in fire signs or degrees: Watch your actions and impulses, take inspired actions as needed, feel the excitement but don't get reckless or mindlessly impulsive. Know the line between what you feel like doing because of an intuitive nudge, and where you are being stupid or over faithful/risk taking.
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btw paid readings are open:)
support me on ko-fi :) that's it. I hope I was able to help and this post brought some clarity. I hope you liked this post. All the best :)) i love you all <33
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hotchner-edu · 3 months
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The Bet | Aaron Hotchner
Synopsis: The team bets Aaron that he won't be able to find himself a date for Dave's annual summer barbecue. Little do they know, he's already got his eye on you.
Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x F!BAU!Reader
Warnings: Fluff, Hotch being perfect
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It's half past ten, the smell of paper and brewing coffee permeates through the bullpen, and your eyes were narrowed at the small little circle surrounding Emily's desk.
"Okay, I'll bite. What are we talking about?" You finally lean over to ask, rolling your eyes fondly when Derek flashes a mischievous grin at you. He had been giving you numerous glances over the past ten minutes to try and draw your attention, possessing the giddiness and subtly of a puppy.
"Rossi's barbecue is next week." Emily muses, a bright glint in her eyes.
You nod slowly and cautiously, not sure what you were walking into. "Right..." you drag the word out a bit. "And? What are you planning? You only have that kind of smile when you're up to something, Em."
"Well, Rossi's making plus one's mandatory this year." Derek says with a sly grin, crossing his arms as he leans back against Emily's desk.
You raise your eyebrows and glance to Spencer. "Oh? And we're all in agreement with this new rule?"
"I believe Rossi's exact words were 'you people need to get out more,' so..." Emily laughs softly, shrugging as if his words had become law.
Spencer frowns a little and nods. "He also said that it would be good to bring someone we actually like and know because 'a man who doesn't spend time with his family can never be a real man.'"
"Did Rossi really just quote the fucking Godfather at us." You deadpan and glance over to Emily who raises her hands up and shrugs again. "Okay, fine. Now I'm a bit scared to ask, but why are you guys laughing?"
Derek smiles brightly before answering with an amused tone. "Because this means Hotch has to bring a date too. Rossi's already made a bet with him that he won't be able to find a date, and we're all getting in on the action too. Losers owe a hundred each."
"Wow, Rossi's not wasting any time. So, what did you guys bet on?" You ask with a near unimpressed tone and raise an eyebrow.
Spencer glances between the three of you guys before giving you the Sparknotes version. "Well, the three of us are betting with Rossi. Penelope's still deciding, and we haven't gotten to JJ yet."
"Well, I'll bet you twenty that JJ decides to sit out on this. I mean, guys, please, are you all really convinced that Aaron Hotchner of all people can't score himself a date?" You raise your eyebrows, unimpressed by the wit of your three friends.
You have to refrain from speaking further, knowing it'd turn into a spiel of how attractive you thought your unit chief was. Plus, you weren't trying to deal with them profiling the HR nightmare-sized crush you harbored for Aaron.
"You're going against the grain, sweetheart?" Derek chuckles, lips tugged into an excited grin.
Emily shakes her head and interjects. "Okay, but there's no way he's going to be able to get a date before the party. He was hand delivered like two weeks worth of paperwork this morning."
"It's Hotch. He's full of surprises." You grin, glancing around the bustling bullpen. "And anyway, you guys already have dates?"
Derek clicks his tongue and nods with a pleased smirk. "Yep. You guys remember Savannah, right?"
"Oh yeah, I like her." Emily chimes in before groaning and leaning back in her chair. "Ugh, I don't know if my guy is going to be busy."
You shake your head and smile, teasing her with a sympathetic tone. "Well, if he has any sense, he'll drop whatever he's doing to come with you."
Emily flashes a grin at you, silently telling you that she'd talk to you later about outfit details. Spencer is lost in thought for a second before you see him frowning.
"Spence?" You ask slowly, tilting your head.
He hesitates for a moment before looking at the three of you. "Do you guys think Rossi will let me in without a date?"
"No." Rossi's voice suddenly rings out as he walks by, blowing on his steaming coffee to hide his grin as he beelines to his office.
Derek snickers and claps his hand over Spencer's shoulder. "There's your answer, kid."
Later that day, you're hunched over your desk and nursing your headache with a cup of tea as you read through some reports. Just as you were about to reread the paragraph you zoned out on, you hear your name being called.
Raising your head up and blinking away the blobs swimming across your vision, you see Aaron standing in front of his office door, hands on the railing as he eyes you. "My office."
Standing up slowly, you feel your muscles aching as you stretch a bit. When you've made your way into Aaron's office, you see him leaning back against his desk, arms crossed.
"Yes, sir?" You ask and slowly come to a stop in the middle of his office.
"You've heard about Dave's party next Saturday, yes?" He asks lowly, eyebrows drawn together.
Nodding in confusion, you wait for him to continue.
"And his terms for the night?"
"Uhm, yes, I have. Is this about the bet being made, sir?" You prod gently, wanting to know if he was trying to sleuth out who was betting what.
"Yes." He answers with an unyielding gaze, looking unsure of himself for a moment. "I was wondering if you had someone you were going to bring."
"Oh." You blush a little and smile smally. "No... A lot of us are still trying to find dates."
Aaron huffs in amusement and nods. "Yeah, Dave's really stepping on our necks this year."
"He just wants an excuse to cook more, I'm sure." You chuckle softly.
"It wouldn't be the first time..." He smiles before clearing his throat and straightening up again. "Well, I was wondering if you'd like to accompany me that evening as my plus one." He says, looking at you gently.
It feels like the wind is being knocked out of you as you stare at him owlishly. "Me?" You ask dumbly.
"Yes, it's okay if you would prefer not to though, I know this is very sudden." He reassures you.
Blinking rapidly, you see the slightest bit of pink creeping across his ears. "Oh, no, I would love to be your date for the party." You answer quickly, not wanting to let the opportunity slip through your fingers.
"Really?" He says with a bit of relief, the stress immediately dissipating from his face.
You nod and smile shyly, fiddling with your fingers. "Yes. I'm happy that you thought of me."
Aaron nods back and tries to compose himself a bit. "Of course... and I'm happy that you agreed."
Grinning softly at him, you chuckle a bit. "Well, I'll call you this weekend so we can settle the details, if that's okay..."
"That's perfect." He answers quickly, his eyes warm and filled with an indistinguishable emotion.
"Great! Well, I'll, uh, leave you to it then." You slowly back out of the room, shooting him a reassuring smile and fleeing back to your desk in disbelief.
When the night of Rossi's party finally turns up, you're anxiously pacing around your apartment, checking your outfit for the fifth time. Aaron had insisted on picking you up, ever the gentleman.
Time trickles by slowly, and when you finally hear a gentle knock on your door, you're practically flying toward it. Checking the peephole for a split second, you swing the door open and your eyes immediately dart down to the bouquet of roses in Aaron's hand.
"Oh!" You sputter out in shock, taking a moment to gather yourself. "Wow, they're beautiful. Thank you..." Blushing brightly, you smile as he hands you the bouquet.
"You look beautiful." He speaks gently, but his gaze is intense as he takes you in.
"Thank you. You look amazing..." It's clear that you're a bit flustered as you hurry to quickly put the roses in a vase, eyes continuing to flicker to his figure in your doorway.
He was in a black button up that hugged his arms and torso in ways that had you almost faceplanting with every step.
You're amazed that you manage to make it down to where his car is parked without your knees giving out as his hand ghosts over the small of your back the entire trek there.
He opens the passenger door for you and waits for you to get in before gently closing the door. It was driving you up the wall how gentle and warm he was being, and you almost wanted this to be a real date.
As he drives you both to Rossi's mansion, you speak softly to him, trying to ignore the way he steers with one hand on the wheel.
"Spencer texted me yesterday. He's bringing a girl he met at a coffee shop." You smile softly, meeting Aaron's gaze as he rolls to a stop at a red light.
"Really? That's good." He responds quietly, smiling fondly at the mention of Spencer.
"I know. He was worried about it all week, but I don't think he realizes how many women are attracted to him." You chuckle softly, nodding subtly toward the windshield as the stoplight turns green.
Aaron nods and grows quiet. A few minutes of silence pass before he speaks up, voice laden with nerves. "I'm grateful that Dave made the bet."
"Really?" You respond in surprise, wondering if it was because he was going to be a couple hundred dollars richer by the end of the night.
"Yes because it gave me the push I needed to finally ask you out."
Your lips part a bit at his words, butterflies swinging around your stomach and buzzing to the tips of your fingers. "Aaron?"
"I don't want tonight to continue with the pretense that I only asked you out to win the bet." His voice is mellow and growing more confident by the syllable, eyes occasionally flitting to yours as he drives on the highway. "I've admired you for a long time as an agent and a friend... and it didn't take long for that to turn into something more for me."
"Why are you telling me this now?" You muster up the courage to ask, leaning a bit closer to the center console between your seats.
"Because I realized these feelings were only growing everyday I saw you. Even if it's selfish, I want to be honest with you." He braves another glance at you.
You let out a heavy breath full of relief as you smile brightly at him, the setting sun casting a glowing pool of pinks and oranges across your beaming face. "I like you too, Aaron. I have for a long time as well."
Aaron's free hand reaches for your hand, and you happily let him tangle his fingers with yours. It was clear that nothing more needed to be said between you both, the connection between your hearts growing stronger with every ounce of relief and adrenaline that filled you both.
The feeling of his calloused hand in yours keeps a buzzing warmth coursing through your body for the rest of the drive.
When you pull up to Rossi's opulent house, neither of you notice the curtains of the window by the front door moving as your team take turns peeking outside when they realize Aaron's car has arrived.
Aaron walks with you to the front door with his arm around your waist, a bright glint in his gaze as he's radiating unadulterated joy.
Neither of you even pretend to be sheepish when the door swings open and Penelope's squeals meet your ears, everyone piecing together the puzzle when they see Aaron holding you close.
"We were starting to think you both got lost." Rossi's voice rings out as he chuckles and beckons you both in, looking at Aaron with an impressed smirk.
"Thanks for having us, Dave." Aaron grins, squeezing your waist before loosening his hold to let Penelope tackle you in a hug, Emily and JJ's enthusiastic questions not far behind.
"When did that happen?" Emily gapes, excitedly poking your side and raising her eyebrows.
You hug JJ and answer her from over JJ's shoulder. "The day you all made the bet. I told you guys that Aaron's full of surprises."
"Remind me to never bet against you in the future. Well, someone get Derek over here." Emily shakes her head in disbelief as you all slowly migrate toward the kitchen.
Aaron's hand finds yours again as you triumphantly smile, "Oh right, I hope you all brought your wallets! It's time to pay up."
"My man!" Derek's voice echoes around the house as he emerges from the wine cellar, beaming at Aaron. "Where's your date?" He asks, clearly unaware of the proximity between you and Aaron.
Aaron holds up your joined hands and chuckles. "I think this means I win?"
Morgan nearly drops the bottle of wine in his grip as he swivels his head for a double take at you both.
Rossi leaps toward Morgan, arms extended forward as panic seeps into his eyes. "Careful! That's 1860 Madeira!"
Morgan groans and lets Rossi wrestle the bottle from his grip. "Will you ever let us win at something, man?"
Aaron's chest rumbles with a chuckle as he rubs your knuckles with his thumb and shakes his head in amusement. "Not a chance."
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