#which is that you can max it without monster parts

[rentumblsstuff]

Hypothetically…. NPMD Monster High AU……….

Pete: A poltergeist. Peter Geist just wants to be invisible but he’s constantly getting into mischief with his friends that draws too much attention to himself!

Steph: Mummy cause she’s gotta keep family secrets UNDER WRAPS ;) and in MH the DeNiles are also a powerful family so having the Lauters be mummies is just so…

Richie: Freshwater monster!! He wishes he was a Ningen from the western Pacific but actually he’s just from Lake Michigan lol he loves swimming and sushi and you can tell when he’s dehydrated when the blue on his hair starts to turn brown!

Ruth: Frankenstein’s monster. Kinda a given with FrankenRuth. I imagine she’s constantly altering her body parts to try to be as attractive to others as possible. The bolts are on her temples and her headgear attaches to it

Grace: Vampire. It’s funny because she doesn’t get to touch a cross AND Angela is Italian so no garlic for Grace :(

Max: A Jekyll and Hyde type creature. I imagine his Jekyll side is the Max we see in the Waylon place, and The Jägerman persona is the Hyde, and the Hyde half is easily triggered when he’s overwhelmed or intimidated and is hard to control. Not necessarily kept at bay without music like Jackson and Holt, but hey what are you gonna do, amiright?

Brenda and Stacy are definitely werecats that roll in the same pack, Jason is a fellow vampire, and Kyle is a werewolf which is part of the reason Max wouldn’t let him date Brenda

Talk about being a literal monster lmao

[its-in-the-woods]

Coyote Head - Part 7 - Bloodied Kiss

master list

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Pairing: Cooper Howard x Lucy Maclean 

Includes many other characters from Fallout

Synopsis: The nightmares are finally catching up to Lucy.

MINOR GET OUT. Rating/Warning:  Animal/people death, Blood, Gore, Body Horror,Violence, Nightmares, Monsters, Alternative Universe, Slow Burn, Death, Aging, Family Feuding, Older Man/Younger Woman

Note: that I will not be spoiling any of the reading. So you have been warned. I will keep my tags relevant without spoiling what is happening in the story.

*Mind the tags

*This had been clawing at my mind for dayssssss I needed to post it early or I was going to explode

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

As the dust of the car faded, Lucy felt her shoulders drop, it was barely past mid-day and she was already feeling worn out. She was proud of herself, for not backing down and holding her ground. Max had been the first boy she’d really fallen for, and it sucked it had ended the way it did. It was time for her to move forward, to let that part of her life go. Move onto what was coming next for her, hopefully, something that won’t end as tragic.

Lucy turned to her two companions as they started to move, happy that they had stood at her back despite having no idea what was going on. She gave a weak smile at the two, trying to shake off the lingering feeling of dread.  

“Ya’doing okay?” Cooper asks as he moves towards her, the way the afternoon sun shone on his skin making her heart speed up. Her eyes unabashedly went over his body, the man was well-toned. The day-to-day work is evident on the hard lines of his muscles covering him; a crooked grin on his face when Lucy finally catches her eyes. 

Lucy glances away, as Dane grins at her, “Yeah, just, wasn’t expecting him to show up. Ever.”

“Well, shirtless. Could I get a hand movin’ some stuff around to get the mower.” Dane chuckles, Cooper smirking at the comment, the tips of his ears going pink. Lucy smiling at the two ribbing each other.

“Yeah, I can help the greasemonkey,” Cooper throws back, with raised eyebrows. “Shirt got wet. But pipes should be fine.” He said just loud enough for them to hear.

“Sure it did,” Dane rolls their eyes as turning to head to the other shed. Cooper gives them a sideways glance before following, a smile on his lips as he looks back at Lucy.

“I will go turn the water back on for the house,” Lucy chirps, her face was going to be stained beet red at this point. She was feeling happy that she had friends like these.

***

Lucy is once again sitting on the counter, the pipes are now running without leaks. Cooper had actually laid in water, which had given Lucy an excuse to toss his shirt into the dryer. She’d take any excuse to see the man move around her home and property shirtless. Dane had teased him endlessly about it much to Lucy’s amusement. Dane had taken off about an hour ago with the promise to come back on Monday to continue the work. Lucy had half a mind to figure out how to keep them on a more permanent basis. Something she’d run by Harris, see if it was worth doing, and if Dane wanted to stay of course. 

Cooper walks in, putting the caulking gun down beside the sink. He’d decide after finishing the pipe to fix up several issues around the sink. Lucy was positive she could have figured it out but Cooper was insistent. Really who was she to refuse the offer from a shirtless cowboy in her kitchen. She hands him a beer, he pops the top off with a ring on his middle finger. Lucy adds that to the list of things she found way too hot. 

“I can make up some dinner?” Lucy offers, she was pretty sure she could find something worth eating in the freezer. She also needed to make sure that she got Cooper some tallow too.

Cooper leans against the counter right beside her, taking a sip of the beer. Lucy can’t help but watch how he drinks it. “If ya don’t mind. Grandparents are taking the kidlets to d’pool and pizza after. Figured, we’re going to have a long day. ”

Lucy couldn’t help the smile that crosses her face, liking the idea of the two of them having an evening just for them. “Were you planning something, Cooper?”

Cooper’s sliding over so that he was leaning against Lucy, “Well, I was goin’ to ask ya out Ms. MacLean, but ya kinda jumped me.”

Lucy's head tipping back in a laugh, taking another sip of her beer. The two of them looked the other over, her eyes trying to memorize the way he looked out of his shirt.  “I don’t seem to remember you complaining,”

The man puts his beer down shifting so he is standing in front of Lucy, she swallows under his gaze. He leans forward putting a bare arm on either side of her, eyes wandering up her body, their face just inches from each other. Lucy’s breath catches in her chest as his hazel eyes stare into hers. 

“M’no, I certainly didn’t.” Cooper hushes, leaning forward to kiss her again. Lucy can’t help the little whine that escapes as she pushes back against him. Her hands ran up his arms, feeling his muscles twitch under the attention. He tastes so good, their tongues finding the other as they pull each other closer.

Her hands come up to cup his face, his hands resting on her thighs, fingers gripping against the flesh there. Lucy lets her legs open so that Cooper can move closer to her. He breaks the kiss, moving down along her jaw, small kisses down her neck. Lucy whimpers as he licks down her neck, his large hands rucking up her shirt. The callous on his fingers makes her body vibrate as he touches over her skin. 

“Cooper,” Lucy whimpers, her hands running up into his hair, as his hands cup her breast through her bra. “M’maybe we should-” His head ducks down, mouth going along her stomach. It feels so good, but it’s so fast. “Cooper, we shouldn’t-”

His teeth sink into her flesh, “Fuck- Ow- Cooper-” Lucy tries to pull him away but he bites in deeper, Lucy can feel her skin tearing. The sound of teeth in flesh, the wet sticky pop, her face twisting in a grimace. 

Lucy is scrambling, a scream finally leaving her throat at the pain, trying to get him off of her. “Stop. Stop-p it.” Lucy cries out, her hands finally pushing him off of her. The skin is not skin anymore, but rough and lizard-like under her hands. Cutting into her palm as she does her best to get it off of her. 

It’s not Cooper. Looking up at her, with blood painting its chin like a crimson river, is something that looks like Max. Its features are the same, but eyes instead of brown glow like orange flames, skin darker than shadows. Skin Covered in layers and layers of never-ending shifting scales that move in the light. A bloody grin spreads across its face. There are too many teeth, so sharp, in neverending rows, the pink spit glistening as it grinned up at her. Stomach oozing blood over her pants and dripping on the floor. 

“Just wanted a taste.” It growls at her, suddenly lunging forward to latch onto her neck.

Lucy is howling and fighting to get it off her struggling, as she falls to the floor. Her body protested as she hit the ground with a thud, the whole room going dark. She is pushing and struggling, but it’s soft now. Her hands are not grabbing at scales but material, eyes adjusting to the new surroundings. She was on the floor of her bedroom; chest heaving as she tries to make sense of where she was, and how she got there. 

Pushing the blanket off of her, she takes in the room around her. Her bedroom, she had fallen off the bed and landed on the floor. Lucy flips on the light and looks down, pulling up her shirt to look at her stomach. Hands running over where there should be torn tissue, before going up to her neck. Nothing. 

It had felt real, she could still feel the way it’s teeth had dug into her, the pain that had shot through her body. Looking at the bed Lucy expected to see blood, expected to see something. Throwing off the sheets there was nothing but sweat stains. 

Lucy collapsed onto the floor, her body trembling at the memory. It looked so much like Max, but it was all wrong. His face had been too round, eyes too far apart, hair too spiky, so many teeth. The eyes, orange fire-filled eyes, glowing like embers burning into her soul like hot ash on ice. Her hands scramble to the side of her table gabbing for her phone. 

For the first time, she doesn’t hesitate, hitting Cooper’s number. Pressing the phone to her ear, she hadn’t even looked at the time.

***

Cooper was there in a matter of minutes, Lucy opening the door for him, still in a state of shock. He had immediately gathered her up into his arms, hugging her tight against his chest, refusing to let her go until he got her over to the couch. He had her sit, covering her with several blankets, before moving into the kitchen. A hot cup of coffee with hot chocolate was put in front of her, along with some toast. He slid in beside her, bundling her up and tucking Lucy into his side. Her hands wrapping around him as she shivers, her whole body felt like it was frozen.

“You doing okay, sweetheart,” Cooper murmurs, his voice rumbling against the side of her head. Lucy could feel herself melting into his side, wanting to find some way to stay there forever.

Lucy swallows, nodding, “Just-” She wasn’t even sure how to put it all into words. It wasn’t exactly normal to have eighties horror movie dreams every night. “Nightmares have been really bad.” 

Cooper rubs his hand down her arm, Lucy lets her eyes close for a moment and enjoy the comfort.“How often have you been having them?”

Lucy snuggled in closer, reaching for the coffee mug and taking a sip. The warm caffeine and chocolate drink heating her insides. “Since the house got ransacked, it’s been nightly.”

Cooper’s chest grumbles at the words, arms somehow pulling her closer to him. “What was it about?”

“I don’t, I-” Lucy takes a sip of more coffee, before telling him what she’d dreamt about. Not skipping any details, the warmth of the coffee and his body made it easier to get it off her chest. 

Cooper hums, he takes his hat off, setting it beside him on the couch, hand running into his hair. He scratches at the stubble for a second. “Well, that wasn’t the dreams I’d hope you’d have of me.”

Lucy smacks his stomach at the joke, a small smile passing on her lips at the jest, “You think I like this? I’d much prefer no dreams, or well other dreams.”

Cooper grins, Lucy pouting a little, as he chuckles, “No, I don’t think that, I do worry about the nightmares. Can’t ‘member the last time I had a night-terror. Why you’re tired all the time?”

She nods, her eyelids weighing heavy despite the coffee and mind-bending visions.“I feel like I am losing my mind, Cooper.” 

“You’re not goin’ crazy, I think ya need sleep. Maybe some time away.” Cooper mumbles into her ear, pushing hair out of her face. “Why don’t ya let me take ya to my home.”

Lucy’s brows furrow, she didn’t want him to leave, but she also felt like she should stay. Why did she want to stay? The nightmares never stopped her, the shadows, the taping, the knocking? Yet the thought of leaving made her stomach turn, but when Lucy left she felt lighter. 

“You promise you don’t think I am going crazy?” Lucy whispers, wondering how much he would believe. How much did she even believe? None of this made sense, not really. 

He shifts so he can look right at her, eyebrows making his forehead wrinkle.“I promise I don’t think’ya’re goin’ crazy. Anymore than am goin’ crazy.”

“I feel like I am supposed to be here, even with all the nightmares, the shadows, the house being tossed. I keep comin’ back.” Lucy states, her fingers fiddling with the edge of the blanket. Saying it out loud made it seem even more ridiculous than it had in the confines of her mind.

Cooper nods, placing the mug on the coffee table, hand running up and down her arm more. “It’s not surprisin’, this place is your home. It’s where ya grew up.”

“It’s not just that,” Lucy said, sitting up a bit, clutching at the mug, trying to hold onto some shred of reality. “It’s like something is pulling me here. Like I can’t leave.”

“So, leavin’ would probably be wise,” Cooper replies, his hand finding hers. “You’re sleep-deprived, runnin’ on fumes, Lucy. We have a spare room ya can stay in. Until ya can catch up on sleep, have a better view on thin’s with a clear head.”

Lucy sat back, the thought of being off the farm made her stomach twist, but she also needed sleep. Actual sleep sounded amazing, to not feel like she was burning at both ends. 

She nods her head finally. “Yeah, maybe I do need to leave.” 

***

Lucy was sitting at her family's dinner table, watching the kids outside to play on the deck. She had slept most of the day away, her exhaustion not feeling nearly as pressing as it usually did. The spring air was warm today, the hints of summer shifting in the air. She’d slept most of the day, Cooper had brought her to his place at about three am, the two tiptoeing upstairs. Initially, he’d offered her the spare bedroom, but after opening the door and seeing a pile of laundry, his room was the next best. Cooper had insisted on sleeping downstairs, despite Lucy’s best attempt to get him to stay. Traumatizing the children wasn’t high on her list. She was a little peeved he hadn’t woken her up, but she was also grateful for the extended rest. 

Stephanie sat down across from her, glancing out at the kids. They were running back and forth across the deck, possibly paying tag. “How’s it going, Lucy.”

“I am doing okay,” Lucy lies, there was no reason anyone needed to know any more about her problems. “Did you ever talk to Betty?”

“Oh! Yes, Betty.” Stephanie smiled, digging through her phone. “I sent her the photos.” She lets out a sigh, “Unfortunately no dice. Seems like it’s still a mystery.”

“Dang was hopin’ we’d get somethin’ more,” Cooper said, sitting beside Lucy. She desperately wants to crawl onto his lap and fall asleep, but instead, she shuffles a little closer. Steph watching the two of them closely, one eyebrow up. 

“Yeah. probably something diggin’ like you said.” Steph says, shutting her phone off and leaning back into her chair. “Had any more weird stuff happen?” 

Lucy shook her head, not wanting to get into the details, “Nope, hoping it stays that way really.” 

Bert sat down beside Steph leaning in to give her a quick kiss, “Y’all heard about the Roths.”

Cooper and Lucy looking at each other, shaking their heads. It wasn’t like they had had a free moment lately.

“Last night something came and killed two calves. Did some damage to some of the cows too.” Bert sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “Like we needed more loss this year.”

Lucy's mind ran over the property map. The Roth's had a section leased from her that was back half on parkland and half onto her farm. There was also the nightmare last night.

“Which section was it?” Lucy asks, already knowing the answer.

“The section southwest of your place, actually,” Reg's brows furrowing. “Weird huh.”

“Do you know what time?” Cooper asks, his hands taping at the table.

Lucy realizing that Cooper was also putting two and two together. 

“Not sure, I know it was overnight.” Reg replied, “Why? Something happened with you guys too?”

Lucy swallowed, her hands going to cover her stomach. The feeling of her flesh ripping out, the haunting image of its eyes, the sound of its voice. 

“Nothing of note, we did have a mummified calf. But Barry figures it was just a bad pregnancy.” Cooper shrugs, the action supposed to be of disinterest, but his shoulders stay tight. Lucy is happy that he didn't bring up her nightmares until she got some more sleep it wasn’t worth mentioning. Right? 

“Maybe it's the weird spring. Warming up too fast. Animals reacting to it,” Steph adds, her hand covering Reg's. Her eyes looking between the two of them. 

Cooper is up and moving as the sliding door opens, Mathias holding a frog in his hand. The little boy had a grin from ear to ear as he holds it up to show his Dad the little critter he'd found.

“Can't bring it in here, buddy. Why don't we go take it to the pond,” Cooper tells him with a smile, petting the little creature his son held up. Lucy smiling as the two wander out of sight.

“So how long you two-” Steph raises an eyebrow, with a cheshire smile,

“Been a thing?” 

Lucy’s cheeks burn at the words, not realizing how obvious she had been. “No. Well. Yes. But not that long. Didn’t realize I was that transparent..” 

The couple chuckle, Steph smiling at her cousin, as she squeezes Reg’s hand. Free hand waving at Lucy as if it was nothing.

“You both need a little light in your lives,” Reg states smiling at Lucy, before looking at his wife. 

“Keeping things quiet for now. Haven't really talked about it much.” Lusy confesses, Marge coming over to sit at the table.

“Keeping what quiet hon?” Marge questions, holding a cup of tea in her hands. Cooper comes back in through the sliding door, walking over and kissing Lucy on the cheek. Marge chuckles and makes an ahh sound, Lucy doing her damndest not to slide under the table. 

“As long as you're both happy,” Harris says, patting Lucy on the shoulder. Lucy having a hard time keeping her cool, it wasn’t as if they’d put a label on things. They’d kissed once for crying out loud.

“Could I speak to you for a moment, Lucy?” Harris asks, kissing Marge on the top of her head before moving towards the hallway.

“Absolutely,” Lucy smiles, looking back at Coope who nods before following her Uncle into the big house. 

Down past the bedrooms a door leads into a well-lit office, the far wall has three large windows that face out into the backyard and forest line. A large old desk sat in the middle, along with several large filing cabinets and bookshelves. The room was bright against the dark wood, space big enough for two large overstuffed chairs beside the bookcases. On a well-worn stool were three faded bankers' boxes. Lucy recognizes her Grandpa's handwriting on the front. Harris puts a big hand on top of one rotating so he is facing Lucy.

“Me and Margie have,” He pauses looking out the large windows towards the forest. “Debated about whether we should give you these. Tim asked me to burn them. But it didn't feel right.”

Lucy crossed her arms, hugging herself a little as she looked at her Uncle. His usual nonchalant demeanor now scrunched together in tight lines across his face. Pacing back and forth in front of the window as he spoke. 

“These are Tim’s journals. Going back to a month after your Dad and Uncle went missing.” Harris replies, Lucy, feels a wave of dread wash over her as he moves over to his filing cabinet.

“They didn't go missing- '' Lucy goes to reply, Harris placing a newspaper in front of her. Headline read Two men killed in farm accident. “Yeah, this is what Tim showed me.”

“Flip to page four,” Harris said, Lucy did as he asked, unable to get a read on his emotions. Page four has a smaller blurb, Search for brothers ends. Lucy reads through the blurb, a cold pool of dread weighing in her guts. 

“They went missing in the forest. In the forest around my house.” Lucy whispers, her hands shaking as she rereads the words. “They never found the bodies.”

Harris meets her eyes as she looks up at him, “What is going on?” Lucy demands dropping the paper on top of the boxes. “Why? Why? Did no one tell me?”

“Tim made us promise,” Harris said, placing his big bear paw-sized hands on her shoulder, it felt like the weight of the news pressing down on her. “He didn’t want you or Norm to know. He figured that if you thought they were dead you could move on. In ways he never let himself move on.” 

Lucy moves away from Harris, a deep sense of betrayal washing over her. “You’re telling me he didn’t think they were dead? It’s been decades since they went missing.”

Harris had sat himself down in one of the overstuffed chairs. “We searched and searched for weeks. Even after search and rescue stopped, stuf-,” He rubs one of his big mitts across a day's worth of stubble. “Stuff happened during the search. Stuff that doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

Lucy sighs, flopping into the chair beside her Uncle, “Could we not be vague, please? I can handle whatever happened then.”

“While we were searching, people heard things.” Harris’s face went pale.

“They kept hearing Hank call out, or Shaun. It sounded like they were close, but we could never find them. It would go quiet for days, then Me and Tim would go out and hear them again.”

Lucy swallows, “Like it was calling you there.”

Harris looks at her, a knowing look passing over his face. “It scared some of the volunteers. Hearing them, but never finding them. Then a week before your Mom checked out it stopped. These journals are the first time I even had any idea that it had continued after you both got there.” 

“We spent our entire childhood in and out of those woods.” Lucy’s voice was raised, her heart thudding in her chest. “Why would he let us in there if he thought it was dangerous?”

Harris looking older than his year. “Lucy. If I thought you were in any danger I would have taken you and Norm out of there.” Lucy stands there staring at him, anger subsiding at the honesty in his words. “No one. Not one of us. Thought you were in any danger there.”

Lucy swallows, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. “Once you kids arrived, Tim didn’t share anything. I thought. I thought he was dealing with the loss of his sons. In his own way, never finding the bodies made him want to hold on to hope. So I let him. Then when he got the cancer diagnosis he brought me these boxes. Telling me to burn them once he was dead. That it would all be over, I didn’t know what he meant. But it was like a weight had finally been lifted off of him. ” Lucy shifts in her chair, unsure how to feel. “When your place got tossed I pulled them out, I read a few.” Harris shifts in his chair, staring at the boxes. “I don’t know what I was expecting but you should read them.”

“What is in them?” Lucy pushes, feeling like she is waiting for a bomb to go off. Her hold on the world was sliding, and she wasn’t sure if she would make it.

“Memories, stuff about your childhood. But also. Other stuff. Stuff I don’t know if I can believe.” Harris’s voice going soft. “I should have told you a long time ago and I am sorry for that. But maybe this will help, maybe put things to rest finally.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

PART EIGHT

Tag list: @toogaytofunctiondangit , @hiddlebatchedloki , @whatsorceressisthis @dichromaniac @autumncryptids

*I am gonna say we are onto act 2... it's only gonna get darker from here < 3

**As always likes, comments, shares are soooo appreciated, you can find me Ao3 as well

** Want to be on the tag list let me know

[half-oz-eddie]

Abuse, violence tw

Steve was in his living room enjoying a quiet, uneventful night.

Yes, uneventful. His favorite sort of night, these days. Exactly 3 months ago, the nightmare which was the Mind Flayer had plagued the city, taking dozens of people's lives along with it.

Steve still had a terrible ringing in his ears, neglecting the probably needed medical attention as usual.

As he enjoyed some nightly news and KFC, he heard a thump coming from upstairs.

He was home alone, as he was most nights.

Steve turned down the TV, startled when he'd heard the thumping again.

He didn't know what to expect. In a town like Hawkins, a town with monsters and alternate dimensions, that sound could be anything.

Steve grabbed one of his dad's golf clubs and slowly ascended the steps. He heard the sound of his window slowly sliding shut as he reached the top of the steps.

He crept to his room and swung the door open, gasping at the sight, nearly swinging his golf club.

"Wait wait wait!" A familiar voice exclaimed in the darkness.

Steve slowly lowered the club. "...Hargrove?" He shook his head. "No way, we watched you die."

"I didn't die. I woke up in the morgue and some...guys and a lady in suits came right away and—and they sedated me and brought me to some lab to...study me. They kept running all these tests on me and shocking me until I would flatline."

"So...what you can't die?"

"I dunno, maybe I can. But I don't wanna die."

"I just..." Steve shook his head in disbelief. "I don't get it. I-I watched you...take a tentacle through the chest. How are you alive?"

"Because whatever that...dark shadow thing did to me...it changed my body. My...organs can like...regenerate."

"That's...uh...that's...pretty cool."

"I dunno, whatever, I guess. Look, I'm sorry about before. About everything. The fight, being an asshole, trying to kill everyone—"

"The last part wasn't your fault, but I'll forgive you for everything else." Steve finally disarmed himself and set the golf club on his bed.

"So, uh..."

There was a loud urgent banging on the door. They looked at one another with wide eyes.

"Do they have a tracker on you?"

"I ditched it before I came here."

"Why exactly did you come here?"

"Because no one would expect me to come here."

The banging could be heard once more.

"Please, Harrington. Please don't tell anyone I'm here. I'm begging you."

Steve left his room without another word, descending the steps.

"Alright, alright, I'm comin'!" He shouted before swinging the door open. "Can I help you?"

"Hello again, Mr. Harrington. Do you remember me?"

"Yeah, sure. How can I help you, agents?"

"A...subject escaped from our lab. He may or may not have disguised himself as Billy Hargrove, the young man who was under the influe—"

"I know who he is. So there's some...thing shapeshifting as Billy?"

"That's correct. If you have any information about the subject's whereabouts, we need you to tell us."

"Did you check Max's house?"

"Of course."

If there was anything Steve learned from all this, it was not to trust the government, especially after how they tried to cover up Will's disappearance.

"Well, you're at the wrong place. Billy and I hated each other. There's no way he, or something disguised as him would think I'd even let him in the door."

The agent nodded. "Understandable. But if you do encounter the subject, do not engage." He held out a card. "Call us immediately."

"Yeah, sure thing. G'night." He waited until the agents piled into their cars and drove away before making his way to the steps, stopping mid-step.

What if what they said was true?

He shook the thought away. As if he'd trust those agents.

But, that didn't stop him from wondering about it. What if this shapeshifter knew Billy hated Steve and saw him as an easy mark to kill?

Maybe he was overthinking it.

He returned upstairs, finding Billy cowering beneath his desk.

"You can come out now."

Billy slowly crawled out. "Are they gone?"

"Yep. I told them they came to the wrong place because you'd never come here."

"That's exactly why I'm here. I'm so glad I was able to trust you."

"But can I trust you?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"If you're the real Billy, do you remember what you said to me in the shower at school that one time?"

"When I told you there're plenty of bitches in the sea and I'd be—"

"Sure to leave me some, yeah." Steve chuckled. "You really got under my skin."

"That was kinda the point."

"So uh...what are you gonna do now?"

"Can I stay here?'

Steve's eyes widened. "Here?!"

"Just for tonight. I swear I'll be gone before sunrise."

Steve reached over and flipped his light switch.

"Jesus..." He whispered to himself in disbelief.

In the bedroom lighting, he was able to see the marks that covered Billy's shirtless body, and the oversized collar around his neck. He couldn't understand how he was able to make it to his house in the cold in only a pair of shorts, with that big contraption around his neck.

"What...is that thing?" Steve asked, slowly approaching.

"It's a shock collar. Like they put on fucking animals. I guess they saw me as an animal too."

"Can you take it off?"

"No, it's...screwed on."

"I—stay here. I'll take it off you."

Steve raced to his garage and grabbed the tool kit. He approached Billy with a screwdriver in hand, pitying him as he backed further into the corner.

"It's alright, man. I'm not gonna hurt you. I just wanna get that contraption off of you."

Billy stepped out of the corner, allowing Steve to slowly unscrew the collar, revealing a neck covered in nicks and burns.

"You...want a shower? Maybe some food?"

"Please. I haven't eaten in months."

"What?"

"I've just been sustained with a fucking IV." He showed Steve the bruising from the ripped out IV.

"Go. Use the shower. I'll bring something upstairs for you."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, go ahead. It's down the hall to the left."

"Thanks."

Steve watched as Billy disappeared down the hall and into the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind him.

He went back downstairs, grabbed the rest of his food and split it into 2 plates, before deciding maybe Billy should have it all and he can have a bowl of cereal if he got hungry again.

Steve brought the plate upstairs and grabbed some clothes from his dresser, then knocked on the bathroom door.

"It's just me." He called out. "Got some clothes here for you."

Billy turned the shower off and opened the door, gently grasping the clothes.

"Food's in my room when you're ready."

Billy nodded, gently closing the door.

Steve sat at his desk, sighing to himself. He loudly groaned when he heard his phone ringing downstairs.

"How many times am I gonna have to walk up and down these goddamn stairs?" He mumbled to himself.

"Hello?"

"Steve? Dude, did you hear?!" Dustin exclaimed.

"Yeah, I heard."

"Is it really a shapeshifter? Or is it actually Billy?"

"I dunno, Dustin, but I don't think we should talk about this over the phone. Maybe we can meet up tomorrow after school."

"Yeah—okay, yeah! Can you pick me up from school?"

Steve sighed. "Sure thing, buddy."

"Cool, later Steve!"

Steve hung up the phone, sighing to himself before returning upstairs to find Billy wolfing down the food, spilling crumbs all over his bed.

"Oh, sorry...did you want some?"

"No, I uh...I already ate."

Billy proceeded to wolf down his food, and Steve just sat there, with so many questions in his mind.

"That was good. Thanks, pretty boy. Want me to wash my dish—"

"No. It-it's fine. You should probably stay up here. I'll go sleep on the couch—"

"No! I-I mean...I don't wanna put you out. I should—I should sleep on the floor."

"In your condition? I can't let you do that." Steve shook his head in contest.

"I just..." Billy sighed. "I don't want to be alone."

Steve looked into Billy's frightened eyes. "They really hurt you in that lab, huh?"

Billy nodded.

This wasn't the Billy steve once knew, but he wasn't a shapeshifter, or a clone, or whatever bullshit the government agents tried to feed him. This was the real Billy. A scared young guy who had been abused relentlessly.

"I'll stay with you tonight. We can listen to the radio until we fall asleep, yeah?"

"You don't think they'll come back, do you?"

"Those agents? No..." Steve paused. "Probably not."

Billy disappointedly sighed.

"I could...stay awake. If it'll help you sleep easier." Steve suggsted.

"I don't want you to do that either. Let's just...sleep. However much we can."

Billy huddled close to the wall while Steve turned on the radio on low volume then crawled into the bed. He placed a pillow between himself and Billy.

This is so weird. Steve thought as he stared at Billy. He watched the pitiful mess sleep peacefully on the left side of his bed.

When Billy rolled over and draped his arm over Steve's shoulder, he initially thought to move it, but, he chose not to. Instead, he reached over and caressed his cheek, a tender moment shared between Billy and the only person who knew he was still alive.

[nellasbookplanet]

Book recs: Queer science fiction, part 2

There is a lot of queer sf out there, and I read a lot of sf. When I started working on this list, I quickly realized it was impossible to include all that I’ve read and enjoyed in one single rec post. Thus, this is my second queer sci-fi book rec post. For queer sci-fi part 1, click here!

A note: queer here does not necessarily mean “guarantee of an f/f or m/m ship with a happy ending”, but rather simply a significant presence of queerness. Some of the books feature no romance but has a same gender attracted/trans/a-spectrum lead, or features an m/f relationship with bisexual, trans or aro/ace characters, or simply features a world-building which is heavily queer inclusive in ways that don’t always compare to our own ideas of sexuality and gender. I have however disqualified works where the only queer presence is along the lines of “gay best friend”, word of god, and a blink and you’ll miss it confirmation that never comes up again.

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

Empress of Forever by Max Gladstone

Vivian Liao is a highly successful innovator, but she may have bitten off more than she can chew and fears the government may be coming for her. As she goes into hiding, she attempts to pull off one last stunt that could fix everything - but something goes wrong, and suddenly Vivian finds herself waking up in the far future, under attack by an army of robots in space. Hoping to find her way back home, Vivian must assemble a crew of dangerous outlaws to help her hunt down the Empress of Forever, the all-powerful entity who pulled her into the future. Lesbian main character.

The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older

Novella. On the outpost of a human colony by Jupiter, a man has gone missing. On the case to find him - and figure out why he disappeared in the first place - is enigmatic investigator Mossa. Her search leads her to the colony's university, and with it, her ex-girlfriend Pleiti, expert on Earth's pre-collapse ecosystem. Together they come to realize that the case is much larger than just a missing man, and could decide the outcome of humanity's very future. Sapphic.

My Heart is Human by Reese Hogan

Nine years ago, all complex technology was made illegal. This complicates life for Joel, young transgender single father, as a bionic just uploaded itself into his brain without consent. Scared of losing his daughter, Joel tries to keep the bionic secret while using it to fix his life, but things quickly get more complicated as the bionic gains more and more control of his body. A bit simplistic in writing style but makes a lot of cool parallels of bodily autonomy to Joel’s experiences as a transman. M/M romance.

The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez*

A strange child lands on an isolated planet, scaring its inhabitants into handing him over into the hands of Nia Amani. As captain of a transport ship, Nia is not only the planet's only contact with the outside world, she is also a woman out of time, years compressing into months as she travels through space at high speeds. Now responsible for a child who doesn't speak and in a galaxy that wishes them ill, she must rethink exactly what she wants to do with her life, and what she's prepared to give up. Features multiple major queer characters.

The Abyss Surrounds Us (The Abyss Surrounds Us duology) by Emily Skrutskie

Young Adult. Tumblr classic back in the day! Cassandra Leung's family are keepers of sea monsters, genetically engineered and trained to protect ships from pirates. On her first solo mission, Cas finds herself kidnapped by pirates seeking to obtain their own monster. Now they need her help to train it. As Cas seeks to regain her freedom, she must also reckon with unfortunate growing feelings for one of the pirates keeping her under guard. Sapphic.

Ancestral Night (White space series) by Elizabeth Bear

Haimey Dz is part of a three-man salvage crew in space (one of the crew being the sentient spaceship himself). When the small crew comes across a derelict ship that proves the scene of a horrible crime, they must go on the run as they seek to uncover a conspiracy that involves both ancient secrets older than humanity itself, and Haimey's own hidden past. On their tail is a dangerous space pirate, convinced that Haimey is the key to it all. Lesbian main character.

Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch) by Ann Leckie*

A space opera in which sentient spaceships can walk the ground in stolen human bodies, so called ancillaries. One of these ancillaries, the sole survivor after the complete destruction of her ship and crew, is one the hunt for revenge against the most powerful woman in the empire. This series does very cool things with gender!

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Five New Yorkers find themselves experiencing strangness as the city itself begins to wake up. They are its soul, its avatars and its protectors, and now they must keep it safe as it wakes as something alien and monstrous attempts to kill it before it's even fully alive. Mix of sci-fi, supernatural, and lovecraftian horror. Multiple pov characters of varying queer identities.

Gideon the Ninth (The Locked Tomb series) by Tamsyn Muir*

Gideon, raised as a swordswoman by unfriendly nuns, would rather run away and make her own life, but her services are needed. The Reverend Daughter, Gideon's childhood nemesis, has been invited to a trial to win a place as an immortal by the Emperor's side, and she's in need of a bodyguard. Listen, if you’re on tumblr I probably don’t need to explain this book to you. Trust me when I say it’s exactly as good as people claim. Humorous and spooky but also absolutely gut wrenching and clever with a lot of political commentary. There are also, indeed, lesbian necromancers in space.

A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (Salvagers trilogy) by Alechia Dow

In a universe run on science and magic working hand in hand, Boots Elsworth makes a living selling fake treasure maps and Nilah Brio is a racer. When one of Boots' maps turns out to be more real than expected and Nilah has to go on the run after having been framed for a murder, the two find themselves on the same spaceship, working with Boots' old captain to find the rumored treasure and reveal the conspiracy its hiding before the people hunting them catch up. Features a main f/f relationship.

The Company of Death by Elisa Hansen*

A wild mix of genres, where a zombie apocalypse has struck and vampires gather up humans to keep their food source from going extinct, a robot travels across America with a young man she’s tasked to keep safe, and former-vampire-hunter-recent-zombie Emily teams up with Death himself to stop the apocalypse. Features bi and ace characters! Bonus rec: the author also runs the youtube channel Maven of the Eventide, where she talks about various vampire media. Check it out!

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Shizuka Satomi is a violin master who made a deal with a devil, and who must now save her soul by delivering the souls of her students in place of her own. Lan Tran is a mother and a refugee of an alien war, hiding on Earth with her children in a donut shop. Katrina Nguyen is a trangender runaway and violin player, in the need of a mentor. As their paths cross, their lives change forever. I would categorize this as cozy, however it does also deal with some pretty heavy themes.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson*

Young adult. Young artist June Costa lives in Palmares Tres, a beautiful, matriarchal city relying heavily on tradition, one of which is the Summer King. The most recent Summer King is Enki, a bold boy and fellow artist. With him at her side, June seeks to finally find fame and recognition through her art, breaking through the generational divide of her home. But growing close to Enki is dangerous, because he, like all Summer Kings, is destined to die. While the main relationship is m/f, it features a worldbuilding where bisexuality is the norm, which is portrayed in its major characters.

The Gilded Abyss by Rebecca Thorne

Nix Marr is a soldier and damned good at it, but that doesn't prepare her for her next mission: bodyguard for Subarch Kessandra, beloved royal and Nix's bitter ex, as she ventures into the underwater city of Fall to seek the cause of a bloody murder spree and a possible deadly contagion. But Kessandra has enemies, the answers she seeks marking her as a possible threat for the nation's rulers. On their way in an isolated and enclosed underwater ship toward Fall, the contagion catches up, and Nix will have to put her hurt feelings aside if the two are to arrive alive. Sci-fi with flavors of horror and the supernatural.

Adaptation (Adaptation duology) by Malinda Lo

Young adult. Strangeness is afoot: all over America, birds are hurling themselves against airplanes and causing crashes. As flights are canceled and travelers stranded, Reese and her debate partner and longtime crush David are forced to head home by car. Accident strikes, and the two wake in a military hospital with no memory of the last month. Returning home, strangeness follows the two, especially as Reese encounters the mysterious and beautiful Amber Gray, who may know more than she lets on. Features a bisexual love triangle.

Lizard Radio by Pat Schmatz

Young adult. Fifteen-year-old Kivali, abandoned at birth and adopted by the nonconformist artist Sheila, has as a girl in boys clothes never fit in with the other kids. Sheila has always been supportive, until she one day sends Kivali off to CropCamp. While Kivali chafes at the strict rules of the camp, she also finds herself making friends, and maybe more, for the first time. Strange coming of age story, featuring exploration of gender and sexuality in a dystopian setting.

Isle of Broken Years by Jane Fletcher

Young spanish noblewoman Catalina thinks she’s done for when the ship she’s traveling on is attacked by pirates and she’s captured. Things gets worse when the entire crew is stranded on an inhospitable island where time works strangely, dangerous monsters terrorize the woods and something alien stops them from leaving. Strong Lost vibes. Lesbian romance. Admittedly quite indulgent but very fun and creative.

All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries) by Marta Wells*

After having hacked its own governor module, SecUnit uses its small amount of new freedom to secretly download and watch as much media as it can between doing its job guarding humans. But when the scientists it’s been charged with keeping safe come under attack, it must make a choice about whether to continue keeping its freedom secret or risk it all to save them. The series features both novellas and full length novels, and balances humor with scathing critique of capitalism. While it can be debated whether SecUnit counts as agender, asexual and aromantic, as it is a robot (I leave this up to individual judgmenet), however the series also has a diverse cast overall.

The Quiet at the End of the World by Lauren James*

Young adult. After the spread of a global virus causing infertility, teenagers Lowrie and Shen are now the youngest humans alive as the adults around them race to find a cure. As they investigate the ruins of the world, the two come across records from the past, of how grief stricken people turned to raising artificial children in apps and how these 'children’ developed, and through these records the two learn of their history. Bisexual main character.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah*

In a near future America, inmates on death row or with life sentences in private prisons can choose to participate in death matches for entertainment. If they survive long enough - a rare case indeed - they regain their freedom. Among these prisoners are Loretta Thurwar and Hamara “Hurricane Staxxx” Stacker, partners behind the scenes and close to the deadline of a possible release - if only they can survive for long enough. As the game continues to be stacked against them and protests mount outside, two women fight for love, freedom, and their own humanity. Chain-Gang All-Stars is bleak and unflinching as well as genuinely hopeful in its portrayal of a dark but all to real possible future. Sapphic.

The Disasters by M.K. England

A decade ago, the massive ship House of Wisdom was abandoned in orbit after its entire crew was killed in an outbreak in a matter of hours. Now, Zahra and her people hope to claim the ship as their own by kidnapping the sole survivor to gain access to its systems. But the danger of the House of Wisdom is far from gone. Horror, no major romance but has a major gay character.

Nax Hall may be a hotshot pilot, but that doesn't stop him from being expelled from the prestigious Ellis Station Academy in less than 24 hours. But as he's to be transported back to Earth alongside other failed students, the school is viciously attacked. Nax and the three other students only barely escape, and are left as the only witnesses - and the perfect scapegoats. Now they must go on the run together and find a way to clear their names. Bisexual main character.

Dust (Jacob's Ladder series) by Elizabeth Bear

In a dying spaceship, orbiting an equally dying sun, noblewoman Perceval waits for her own gruesome death. Having been captured by an opposing house, her wings severed and life forfeit, Perceval’s execution is imminent - until a young servant charged with her care proves to be Perceval’s long lost sister. To stop a war between houses likely to doom them all, the two flee together across a crumbling, dangerous spaceship. At its core waits Jacob Dust, god and angel, all that remains of what the ship once was. And he wants Perceval. Sapphic and asexual characters, however be prepared for kinda fucked up relationships.

Under Fortunate Stars by Ren Hutchings

Two ships have gotten stuck in a rift in space, isolated outside of time. One of them is the Jonah, a ship dodging a generations long war against an alien species, carrying a small crew of smugglers, an unintended passenger, and a hijacker. The other ship is the Gallion, which arrived from 150 years in the future carrying an alien ambassador - and whose crew is awestruck at meeting the heroes of the Jonah, known to have ended the war. As the two crews struggle to understand each other's timelines, they must also work together to leave the rift before they're stranded forever. Multiple queer characters, however the main romance plotlines are m/f.

One Last Stop by Casey McQiston*

Twenty-three-year-old August has a lot to deal with. She just moved to New York, got new job at a pancake diner, and acquired several slightly chaotic roommates. So what if she likes to flirt with the pretty girl on her subway commute? But Jane turns out to be more than just a charming stranger: she's lost in time, displaced from the 70s, and unable to leave the subway. Romance with a dash of timetravel sci-fi, One Last Stop is a delightful story of love and queer community.

The Women Could Fly by Megan Giddings*

In an alternate version of our present, the witch hunt never ended. Women are constantly watched and expected to marry young so their husbands can keep an eye on them. When she was fourteen, Josephine’s mother disappeared, leveling suspicions at both mother and daughter of possible witchcraft. Now, nearly a decade and a half later, Jo, in trying to finally accept her missing mother as dead, decides to follow up on a set of seemingly nonsensical instructions left in her will. Features a bisexual lead!

Salvation Day by Kali Wallace

A decade ago, the massive ship House of Wisdom was abandoned in orbit after its entire crew was killed in an outbreak in a matter of hours. Now, Zahra and her people hope to claim the ship as their own by kidnapping the sole survivor to gain access. But the danger of the House of Wisdom is far from gone. Horror, no major romance but has a major gay character.

Alien: Echo by Mira Grant

Young adult. Twin sisters Olivia and Viola's parents are both xenobiologists, bringing them all over the galaxy. Most recently they’ve settled on a new colony world to study its life, but it proves more dangerous than they could’ve ever imagined. Under attack from alien monsters, the sisters must keep each pther alive while also coming to terms with a dark family secret. Sapphic horror. Part of the Alien franchise but stands well on its own.

[mysteriousbp]

So if Chujin 's element is ice and Ceroba's is fire what is Kanako's? I already theorized before that Ceroba's bullet patterns after she put on the mask are actually hers, which would suggest fire along with artificial motifs (lanterns, masks and bells). How would Clover's soul influence her bullet patterns? I imagine guns that shoot fireballs and, taking a page from @howlonomy; clover storms and a big rifle that shoots the giant justice laser. Given the power she has I can even imagine her pulling a similar stunt as Yellow (right before she died) in "The Six who Fell Before You" (part 41).

For that matter, how does she, Clover and everyone else react to the fact that, being a boss monster with an awakened* human soul she is now on track to become the most powerful being in the world?

By awakened I mean Clover is able to enter "justice mode" and use human specific soul magic (pewpew lasers, teleport dash and memory reading)

Kanako's has both of her parents elements of fire and ice. And she can use the same patterns has her parents with her original pattern being the lattern. (Yes she can do all the crazy attacks that geno Ceroba can do. So decreasing max HP thing.And Chujin patterns being just simple snowflakes and icicles because he was more brains than brawn. And she only has the lanterns has her original pattern because it just feels weird giving her the mask attacks without the mask itself.)

So in short she isn't short of natural attacks that she can do. She will kick your butt.

(Side note: Ceroba can do the bell attack in her normal form. But by researching Ceroba attacks I found out that she only uses fire attacks when she uses the mask... Meaning that she can't use fire normally... Yet everyone makes fire her normal attack in fan works...)

Clover's soul doesn't change her attacks. She just gains new ones. Being the ones of the Omega Flowey boss fight.

Being the giant gun and healing magic. Who needs items when you can heal yourself! (She tripped and fell)

But yes Kanako can use the soul big shot and dash. She can also do the mind reading thing but she can't decide when it happens. It just does. Clover and her still don't understand how that one works.

But the biggest stund that she can pull is when she’s determined enough to enact Justice, but doesn’t have enough power to do so, then her Determination will give her the power to do that. (aka the thing that Clover does in geno.)

But about Kanako being a boss monster fused with a human soul... She's actually just stronger that the average boss monster.

She isn't god like power level because of her condition when fused.

If she was normal when fused she would have turn into a god like power level being. But because she was a amalgamate most of the magic and soul power that would go to her powers and magic is being use to keep her body together. So she is still more power than a boss monster but not by a lot.

And the fact that she's probably the most powerfull thing alive isn't brought up a lot because monsters and humans are still getting used to live together again. So if things went south Kanako would problaby be the biggest target to get eliminated if another war happened. So it isn't talked a lot for that reason.

[hermit-house]

I got bored and asked ChatGPT to describe the possible plot of Season 5 and wrap up the character arcs as if the Duffers were doing it. And to pay special attention to Mike and Will's "friendship".

And, holy shit, you have to read this! I laughed and screamed 👏😎

ChatGPT 👇

Creating the fifth season of Stranger Things is a challenging task, given the rich characters and plot lines accumulated over four seasons. Here's a possible plan that could logically conclude the main character arcs, in the style of the Duffer Brothers.

Main Concept of the Season:

Theme: The consequences of growing up, accepting one's identity, saying goodbye to the past, and the final battle for Hawkins.

Storylines and Character Arcs:

Will’s Return and Revelation of His True Nature:

At the end of Season 4, we see that Will still feels a connection to the Upside Down and Vecna. In Season 5, this connection becomes more intense, and Will starts seeing events occurring in the Upside Down, leading to troubling visions of an impending cataclysm.

Will realizes that his connection to the Upside Down is the key to defeating Vecna, but to do so, he must fully embrace this connection. This leads to an inner conflict: he fears becoming a puppet of the monster again but understands that without his involvement, they cannot win.

In the process, Will also continues to struggle with the realization of his sexual orientation and his feelings for Mike. These feelings cause him anxiety, especially considering that Mike is still connected to Eleven.

Gradually, through conversations with other characters, like Robin, Will finds the courage to confess his feelings to Mike, though he fears it might ruin their friendship.

Mike and the Conflict of Growing Up:

Mike faces the conflict between his childhood and the need to grow up. He feels that they are all drifting apart and tries to keep the group together.

His relationship with Eleven goes through trials. Ultimately, Mike realizes that his love for Eleven was an important part of his life, but their relationship can no longer remain the same. While he deeply cares for her, he begins to understand that their bond is more sibling-like than romantic.

At the same time, through a series of conversations and shared experiences, Mike starts to notice that his feelings for Will are more complicated than he thought. He realizes that Will has always been more important to him than he admitted, and that their friendship was always based on a deep emotional connection.

Mike becomes a pillar for Will, realizing that his role in this story is to be the one who unites the team and supports those in need.

Eleven and the Final Showdown:

Eleven continues to develop her powers, realizing that the key to defeating Vecna lies in uniting all her memories and experiences. She finds a way to use her pain and trauma to strengthen her abilities.

Eleven also helps Will confront his fears, and together they find a way to use his connection to the Upside Down as a weapon against Vecna.

In the final episode, Eleven and Vecna face off in a decisive battle, in which all the main characters participate. At the moment when victory seems impossible, Will and Eleven combine their powers to deliver the final blow.

Max, Lucas, and Saving Hawkins:

Max remains in a coma after the events of Season 4, but her consciousness is trapped in the Upside Down. Lucas and the other friends search for a way to bring her back, seeking help from new allies and old enemies.

Eventually, they find a way to enter the Upside Down and free Max, which becomes an important step toward defeating Vecna.

The Final Battle and Aftermath:

The final battle takes place in Hawkins itself, where the worlds of reality and the Upside Down begin to merge, threatening to destroy the town.

Each of the heroes contributes to the victory: Dustin, Lucas, Nancy, Jonathan, Robin, and others find their own ways to help in the fight. Each character's role will highlight the importance of their individual qualities and their unity as a team.

The finale shows that they can defeat Vecna, but it requires sacrifices. Perhaps one of the key characters (like Hopper or Joyce) sacrifices themselves to save the others.

Epilogue and Closing of the Arcs:

After the victory, Hawkins returns to normal life, but the heroes realize that their childhood is definitively over.

Will and Mike begin to explore their new relationship. They decide to take it slow, understanding that their journey is just beginning and that they need time to sort out their feelings.

Eleven and the other heroes begin a new life, leaving the past behind but with the assurance that their friendship and shared experiences will always stay with them.

At the end of the season, the audience sees the heroes going their separate ways but remaining close friends despite all the changes.

Conclusion:

Season 5 will be the culmination of the entire story that began in a small town and turned into an epic battle for the world. The heroes will face the consequences of their actions, complete their internal arcs, and take on new roles in life, leaving behind their childhood and past fears.

[brbsoulnomming]

Tell Me Sweet Little Lies Part 6

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | AO3

The next time that Eddie sees Steve Harrington, the entire world has gone to shit. He has a broken bottle pressed against his neck and God, he's fucking terrified, half convinced he's going crazy and half convinced that some invisible thing is going to break him into pieces if he so much as closes his eyes and half convinced that Harrington is here to beat the shit out of him for Chrissy's murder and fuck, he doesn't want to die, he just wants all this to stop -

But they believe him.

Impossibly, they believe him, and they all act like this is old hat. This group that has no reason to be friends - the D&D nerd, the skater, the band geek, the jock, Jesus, add in Eddie as the criminal and they're a knock off Breakfast Club - they look at each other with world weary eyes and resignation, and then they all gear up and say let's go.

Easy as that. Just, the world is shit, the monsters in the dark are real, and the four of them sigh and unite together without question.

And then - yeah, they're on his side, and the food situation is a lot better than it was a day ago, and he's pretty sure he's not crazy, but aside from sporadic check ins, he's still very, very alone out here in the boathouse.

He can't sleep, he can't do anything to help himself - just like he couldn't do anything to help Chrissy - he's just a fucking wreck -

And then Jason Carver and his merry gang of freak hunters find him, and he's about ninety percent sure he's going to die out here on Lover's Lake.

But he doesn't.

Patrick McKinney does, floating above Lover's Lake just like Chrissy had in his bedroom, and this time when he hears the crunch of bones snapping it seems to echo even louder, all across the lake.

He shoots terrified eyes towards Carver, and for one stupid second he - he's almost relieved. It wasn't just him this time, bearing witness to something so horrifying. Someone else was here with him, someone else saw it too, and for an even stupider second he thinks maybe Carver will get it now, maybe he'll pull a Harrington and they can unite together against the monster doing this.

But Carver turns on him, clearly needing to blame it on someone he can see, and Eddie - well. Eddie's always been good at being the freak.

Good at running, too, and that's what he does again.

He spends a truly horrific night in the woods, terrified and alone and convinced every sound is Jason Carver or that thing coming to get him, more sure than ever that this is it, this is how he dies.

But he doesn't.

He reunites with the party, and tries not to let it show how fucking relieved he is - makes his dramatic entrance, all boisterous bluster, hoping none of them can see the fear in his eyes behind his wide smile.

The trudge back through the woods is as miserable as Eddie expected, but it's still worlds better than last night. At least now he's not soaking wet and cold and losing stretches of time to sheer terror.

At least now he's not alone, and he can distract himself by people watching.

Max and Lucas are walking together, clearly having some kind of serious discussion. Not quite an argument, he'd guess, though he can't hear what they're saying - a little lovers' quarrel, maybe? Probably, he concludes, when they separate, Lucas hanging back looking dejected and Max stomping off ahead.

He sees Harrington look between them, brow crinkled just a little bit in thought.

It isn't cute, Eddie reminds himself, and turns to watch Max instead. She's staring right at Harrington with a very clear fuck off vibe, and Eddie, drama magnet that he is, has to slow back a step or two so he can see them both.

Harrington turns his entire upper body towards her, walking without looking where he's going, which feels like a fucking recipe for disaster, but it just makes Max roll her eyes at him. Her eyebrows shoot up, and she pointedly flicks her gaze back in Lucas's direction. Harrington tilts his head, the bitchy are you for real expression that Eddie's moderately familiar with slotting easily into place.

Max sighs, her expression fading into something more sincere and shoulders dropping. She shakes her head at him, and this time her gaze lands on Lucas for a long, drawn out moment.

Harrington's already moving by the time she looks back at him, falling back to go join Lucas's side where he's kicking at pinecones as he walks.

For a moment, Eddie considers picking up his pace to go join Max, but she puts her headphones back on and hunches in on herself, clearly needing a few minutes alone. Normally, Eddie wouldn't involve himself in what may or may not be some freshman lovespat, but fuck, he desperately needs a distraction, so he keeps sneaking glances over at Harrington and Lucas. Whatever discussion they're having, it's clearly intense, but it still catches him off guard when Harrington suddenly plants himself in front of Lucas and forces him to stop.

Eddie stumbles to a halt, watching as Harrington cups the back of Lucas's neck and drags him in, leaning down to press their foreheads together. Lucas's shoulders hitch, like he's barely holding himself together, and Harrington gives him a little shake, sets them swaying back and forth for a moment.

Fuck, he shouldn't be watching this. This looks like it goes way beyond whatever on again off again thing Lucas and Max have going.

Of course, the second he has that thought, either something in the wind shifts or Harrington's voice picks up, because he can hear him saying, "This is not on you, you hear me? None of this is on you. And as the king of fuck ups, I'm something of an authority on the matter."

Eddie hurriedly lurches himself forward again, feeling ashamed.

A few minutes later, he sees Lucas walk on ahead, watches him connect with Dustin and Max to form a loose little trio. He expects Harrington to go up even farther, join up with Wheeler and Buckley, but he hangs back, all but falling into step with Eddie.

Huh.

"He okay?" Eddie asks, physically unable to stay quiet anymore.

Harrington sighs next to him, but it sounds sad, not aggravated. "They're just kids," he says, softly. "I keep hoping, you know, this time it'll be done, and they can just worry about the stupid stuff I did when I was their age, but-"

He gestures in a manner that Eddie takes to mean but all of this bullshit.

"I just wish the only thing we had left to talk about was why did you break up and how to get the girl and who didn't support who at what."

Eddie doesn't know what to say to that. The implication that a bunch of nerdy freshmen come to Steve Harrington for that kind of stuff - that he wants to talk to them about that, that he's the one they rely on - it'd been hard enough to hear coming from Dustin, but seeing it in action?

He's already had enough of his world view rocked in the last few days, he really doesn't need this too.

"He knows," Eddie starts, and then stops, unsure if this is so incredibly self centered of him - then pushes forward, because he keeps hearing none of this is on you and he feels like he needs to say it anyway. "He knows I don't blame him for the hunt the freak shit, right? That none of it's his fault?"

There's a flicker of surprise in Harrington's eyes, and then he's looking at Eddie all soft and warm like he did something right, something good, and oh, fuck. It shouldn't be anything, it shouldn't mean anything, but - God, what the fuck has Eddie ever done right in his life? The last few days have been nothing but reminders that he's a screw up, that he runs when people are in danger and leaves them to die, that half the town he grew up in believes he's capable of brutal, sadistic murder.

The last few days, he's been looked at with a never ending cycle of suspicion, anger, disappointment, pity, concern - and here Steve Harrington is, looking at him like he did something worth being proud of. It makes him want to go belly up, spread out and lay in it like a cat lounging in the sun.

Shit shit shit shit.

He does not want his soulmate to be Steve Harrington, he doesn't.

"He should," Steve says. "But he could probably use hearing it from you anyway."

"Right, yeah, of course. I'm just gonna-" Eddie waves up ahead. "Go. Do that."

He launches himself in what he hopes is actually the direction where Lucas is before he can make an even bigger fool of himself - though it's kind of too late for that, considering he trips over a fallen branch and only just manages to catch himself before he ends up face first in the leaves.

Eddie lurches and flings himself around, playing it up and making it look intentional as he slings an arm around Lucas's shoulders and shoots a wild grin at the little trio of freshmen.

"You ladies mind if I borrow Sinclair here for a minute? No? Excellent."

Max rolls her eyes at him and he can hear Dustin going, "ladies?!" as he drags Lucas off, but he ignores both of them. Lucas is so tense under his arm that Eddie drops it away from him once they've gotten a few paces away from the others, and then the kid watches him, eyes sharp and wary and wide.

It's not fear - not of Eddie, at least - but it's something close enough to it that it makes his stomach turn. He hadn't planned on what he was going to say before he just threw himself over here, and for a moment he panics a little.

"What you did was pretty awesome," he finds himself saying.

Lucas looks at him like he's not sure he heard him right. "What?"

"Yeah," Eddie says, gaining momentum now that he knows how he wants to handle this. "Sticking with those guys as long as you did to get info on their plans, using your survival knowledge to lead them off in the wrong direction? Very ranger of you, Sinclair. Guess I owe you one, risking yourself like that."

It's clearly not what Lucas was expecting, and there's a moment where his expression is pretty blank - Eddie's not sure if it's because he's trying to process what Eddie said or because he isn't going to accept what Eddie's doing, offering out this olive branch.

Eddie does what he always does when he's nervous.

He plays it up, raises his voice a little as he crows about having a ranger on your side as you trek through the woods, spinning it into a tale of bravery and throwing in enough exaggeration that Lucas finally laughs, shoving Eddie away and telling him to shut up.

If this was the lunch room, or a session of Hellfire, none of the freshmen would've dared do anything like that. And Eddie'd liked that, liked being respected and revered and leaving everyone with a sense of trepidation, all falling in line at his word - until he knew them well enough to know if they could be trusted, if he could let them in to see the real him underneath all his bravado.

It's just that there's not many that he's ever known well enough for that, and maybe he hasn't let himself really think about that before, but he is now.

It's just he likes this better, he thinks, because having Dustin and Lucas push each other and push him, all three of them trying to simultaneously be quiet enough not to call attention to themselves but loud enough to be heard over the others does a whole hell of a lot more to take his mind off the way Chrissy and Patrick's bones sounded as they snapped right in front of him than just about anything else.

It's just that when he looks over to where Steve and Buckley and Max are walking together, he sees Steve watching them, a soft little smile on his face, and it doesn't fade even when their eyes catch.

He doesn't want his soulmate to be Steve Harrington, he reminds himself.

—

And then they're at the lake, and Steve Harrington is shirtless and diving into the water, and then shirtless and ripping apart a demon bat with his bare hands and teeth, and then shirtless with blood and ichor dripping out of his mouth and down into his chest hair, and then shirtless and putting himself in front of him and Buckley and Wheeler with a look in his eyes like he'd rip apart anything that even tried to come for them, and -

Fuck.

He kind of wants his soulmate to be Steve Harrington.

Taglist (please let me know if I missed you, and always happy to add more!): @vampireinthesun @koibug @estrellami-1 @mentalcyborg @allbimyself26 @questionablequeeries @the-s-is-silent @whimsicalwitchm @a-gae-af-racoon @tinyplanet95 @n0-1-important @velocitytimes2 @swimmingbirdrunningrock @newtstabber @jcmadgirl @roblingoblin285 @lexyvey @paperbackribs @goodolefashionedloverboi @evix-syne666 @raisedbylibrarians @stxrcrossed186 @nightmareglitter @greekgeek24 @starman-jpg @crazyhatlady86 @affablevixen @imfinereallyy @manda-panda-monium @deleataecount @prideandsensibility @chaoticvictorianspirit @maydillydally @disrespectedgoatman @scarlet-malfoy @i-less-than-three-you @hbyrde36 @hallucinatedjosten @dragonsandgayships @arepaconchocolate @g4ys0n @novelnovella @bisexualdisastersworld @ghostofyourvampiregf @scarletyeager @pettrichore @nerd-and-nervous @hiimlevi @queenie-ofthe-void

-----

Part 7

[emblazons]

I said I was gonna so a whole long post about the monologue after my rewatch so: having watched the whole Vecna monologue v Mike monologue that happens in the Piggyback in full for the first time in actual months…god damn. Just.

There is no way to understand what’s happening with El (and her relationship with Mike) during the monologue without looking at Vecna's monologue that comes right before it. There just isn’t, and if you try you’re 100% going to miss critical context for why things happen the way they do both in mlvn’s relationship and on screen.

First off: after what Vecna says to her, El is fully in self-defeat (and self-loathing) mode. She’d just learned that every single attempt of hers to do "right" with the knowledge she had at the time had actually been useful to the person destroying her world—

—and despite trying so hard to overcome her sense of destructiveness about things like scaring Mike and hitting Angela by going to “learn who she is” at Nina, it turned out that even the moments she perceived as her “heroic” ones (like closing the gate and stopping the mindflayer monster in S3) were actually tools useful to Vecna…just like her Piggybacking in to save Max.

El is literally hearing that even her best attempts at being “good” were used for evil, which makes her an accomplice to Vecna even if she didn’t mean to be—

—which we're shown, as El remembers all the moments she thought she was "helping" only to be told each one of those was her having her powers used by Henry/Vecna.

If that wasn't enough, we literally watched as El paralleled herself directly to the person whose powers are now being used to destroy the world, even as we (the audience) know most of what is happening is just Vecna do what he does best by tapping into her deepest core fears.

Vecna adds insult to injury here by making it clear that he once "wanted her by his side" in the first place (aka the powers she's been trying to use for good cannot be divorced from bad things)—

—and from this second onward (in El's perception at least) there is no way for her powers to be used correctly even when she wants to be helpful—which is why she “gives up,” lets the vine loop around her neck in the first place, and stares unmoving and crying at Max.

Basically: What Vecna says steals even the little resolve she gained back at Nina…which is why she stops fighting entirely.

Now, all of this is an extremely fair reason to feel defeated and dejected about trying to fight (on top of traumatizing af for El)—

—the problem is (like everything else wrong in their relationship) Mike once again has no sense of El’s internal state because she doesn’t and has not historically shared it (or can’t in this case), and therefore can only answer what he externally perceives her state to be—which he guesses, based on their last argument, has to do with him not being able to say he loves her.

The disjointedness between what is really happening with El and what Mike wrongly perceives the issue to be is why we see El not only look repeatedly displeased by his confession—

—but why the only thing she can think of in relation to Mike positively is his initial rescue, when he takes her to a space where her powers are neutral / unknown (and not the force for evil even her best attempts at using them just became in her mind).

That dissonance is also why she doesn’t fight until he starts saying she need to get over herself and save someone else…which is why she looks at Max and decides to fight anyway.

In truth, Mike could have glossed over the entirety of the “I love you," "not I'm scared of you but I’m afraid of losing you” part and just said “I believe you can do anything, but right you need to fight” and gotten the same result, given that what needed to be addressed was her self-loathing, not Mike’s (lack of) romantic affections.

Basically: even if they weren’t on the precipice of a breakup, Mike’s love wasn’t going to make up for the fact that El has basically just learned that what Brenner said was true—she wasn’t ready, not even physically, but mentally…because she was not prepared to learn that even her best attempts at saving the world were actually helping Henry build to the end of it.

Combine that with the fact that she ends up losing Max despite trying to fight with Mike's encouragement...on top of the fact that all of her relationship with Mike was rooted in her wanting to feel "normal" (aka what Vecna just shot out the window permanently)?

...no amount of "I love you's" from a boy as insecure as Mike (who she keeps at emotional distance) is was going to help that, especially given that Mike was directly mirroring what Brenner (who she literally cannot stand atp) said to her trying to encourage her.

All of this...we haven't even touched on anything happening on Mike's side or how her powers (that he so admires her for) are now officially "evil" in El's mind, never mind every other aspect of their incompatibility? ☠️

—I know I'm gonna move from this post on to how what Brenner said to her about "facing the good and the bad / humans are rarely so simple" is actually how El's arc has to be resolved in the end, but.

For now I'm at 30 images and anything more would get convoluted easy, so I'll just leave us (and my million mile an hour thoughts) here.

[tiredfoxtf]

No, Minecraft haven't gotten "worse" over the years. No, new updates haven't "killed" Minecraft. No, Minecraft itself didn't become "boring".

If it was a case, everyone would be still playing on idk a 1.12.2. But no one does that. With every update it gets more painful to play on old versions. I could never reverse to playing without gorgeous mangrove wood, new beautiful terrain and ever useful elytra. And I am not alone. There's a reason people play on newer versions of the game, why modders continue to update their mods newer versions. There's a reason why people are excited for Trial Chambers and new wolves variants. Minecraft only gotten more fun.

I'm sorry to be the one who breaks it to you, but if you think Minecraft is boring now it's one of the two: 1) You're playing Minecraft wrong or 2) Minecraft is not a game for you.

1.You're playing Minecraft wrong. Which is, admittedly, a pretty hard thing to do in my opinion. Minecraft is a game about getting resources and using them to create your own world. It's a sandbox of which you are the sole player (or not, if you are in multiplayer), where you challenge yourself on what next amazing thing you can create. You can be a builder, making castles and spaceships, you can be a redstoner be it a practical redstone or logic redstone, you can be a modder making your own little elements, adding them to the game in a way you would like (a bit of a more advanced hobby than the others). You can join public servers to play entirely vanilla mini-games. Become a parkour master or pvper on the different public servers. Call your friends and make a private multiplayer world, where you race each other in resources or work together to create something, prank each other, build elaborate traps, escape rooms anything and everything.

The goal of the game is NOT to kill the Ender Dragon. The goal of the game is NOT to get maxed out netherite gear. The goal of the game is NOT to get every achievement even, but achievement hunting CAN be a fun game to play with your friends. Or speedrun all of the achievements/to kill end dragon, trying to optimize your skills.

Otherwise killing the ender dragon, getting a full gear and equipment are just part of the experience. Just like fishing, mining, getting wood. Minecraft is Not an rpg, where you go on quests to finish a main plotline, where you level up and monsters get harder, no. All hard content is Optional. That's the point. Not to say irrelevant when we talk minigames servers. Minecraft is a sandbox, survival is just one of the gamemodes.

2.Minecraft is not a game for you.

And that's OK! Although Minecraft is a beautiful game, it may not be for you. The games that are for everyone, are for no one. Not all games born equal in the eyes of a player. You probably like other games! Like Terraria or Starbound, maybe you enjoy Zelda games, maybe you are a Genshin player. They are very different games, if you bored playing Minecraft, it's time close it and to play something you enjoy.

[suzdin]

Two For One: Ch. 3

Part One | Part Two

Warnings: 18+ MDNI, pre-vampire Max, pre-Equalizer 2 Dave, familial drama and angst, mentions of drug use/abuse, fingering, oral (f receiving), spitting, oral (m receiving), dom!Dave, soft!Dave, dom!Max, unprotected p in v, degradation, choking, voyeurism.

Word Count: 10k+

Notes: I don’t even know. Max is an asshole as usual but also kind of sweet at one point, Dave is his normal creepy self but that’s why we love him. Reader has a magical vagina apparently

——

Dave barely slept without you next to him.

He could still smell you on his sheets, his skin. It was driving him insane, his proximity to you. So close yet so far. There were several times he debated getting out of bed and going to you, but he willed himself to stay. Dave knew he wasn’t a good man—a fucked up man, even—but there were lines even he wouldn’t cross.

Still, dreaming about sneaking into your apartment in the middle of the night to fuck you senseless was making him hard as ever. You made him feel young again.

He settled for fucking his hand to the video he took of you instead, hot tendrils of spend soaking his stomach as he honed in on the faces you made, listening to your pretty noises. It was nowhere near as good as the real you, but it was all he could do to alleviate the ache, the constant yearning he felt.

He wakes early the next day. Before sunrise. He knew you were unlikely to be up at this hour, so he tries to preoccupy himself with packing for the trip, neatly arranging his clothes in a small weekend bag, packing a smaller separate bag for toiletries. Lastly, in its own case, his trusty Beretta M9A1, which he tucks into the larger of the two bags.

He sips on a cup of tea, extra strong, his head fuzzy from only having gotten a couple of hours of consistent sleep at best. He googles the hours of your coffee shop, uncertain if you would even be there, to find it doesn’t open for another hour and a half.

He settles for walking to the 24 hour store on the corner and purchasing a can of Monster, toying with his phone, wondering if he should try messaging you despite how early it is. As he’s rounding the corner back to his building, glancing up at your window which is still dark, he finagles his phone out of his pocket and opens his texts.

There’s already one there from you, a simple “Hey”, when you’d texted him last night so he would have your number. It tugs at his chest seeing the lone message.

Dave: Morning. You up?

He hits send and instantly chastises himself for being so needy. It’s done now, though. Nothing he can do about it. He’ll worry about it later.

He goes back to his apartment and chugs the cocktail of pure sugar and caffeine, tossing the can into the trash, but it does little to curb his exhaustion, only elevating his heart rate. Finished packing, and complete with his intel gathering on Jonathan for the time being, he isn’t sure what else he can do before he needs to leave for Virginia. He can, of course, depart early, leaving nothing to the fate of traffic and other unknowns. But he doesn’t like that idea. He would much rather see you.

He starts to think of last night again, his dick hard again, and he grunts, annoyed with his never ending horniness at this point.

He tries to ignore his slew of persistent thoughts by turning on the TV to watch the early morning news, slumping into his couch and propping his feet up on the coffee table. The weatherman is currently reciting the 10-day forecast. Supposed to be nice weather into next week. That’s good news, Dave thinks.

He leans back and makes himself comfortable, rubbing his ever present erection over his pants, trying to take his mind off of you. He doesn’t want to jerk off again. He wants the next time he cums to be with you. In you.

“Jesus,” he mumbles to himself, wiping his eyes.

He checks his phone even though he’s sure you haven’t responded. Still nothing. He frowns and tosses the offending piece of technology onto the couch and shuts his eyes.

With your face the last image in his mind’s eye, Dave drifts off.

——

He startles himself awake, sleep deprived brain in a panic, concerned that he’s running late, concerned that he missed his window to see you.

He checks his phone for the time, breathing a sigh of relief. It’s only been half an hour, but it feels like he slept for half a century.

There’s also no texts from you. You’re probably still asleep. But part of him also worries that you’re dodging him.

He cards a hand through his hair, groaning in frustration. He needs to shower. And then he needs to eat. Food is the last thing on his mind right now, though. The only sustenance he wants—needs—is you.

It’s just after 5 AM. He could get in another cat nap in, if he wanted, but he’s worried he might not get so lucky a second time. He decides not to risk it, urging himself to get off the sofa and into the shower.

As he strips down to bare skin, stiff cock springing free, he can’t stop thinking about how the wet press of your body would feel against his. How you would feel sandwiched between himself and the shower wall as he drives himself into you over and over until your throat is raw from screaming his name.

He wishes you were here.

——

The edges of consciousness start to blink into existence. You can see sunlight filtering through the flesh of your closed eyelids, hear the distant sounds of the city that drift in through the window by your bed. You hear a dog barking somewhere and the grind of a garbage truck a block down.

And then another noise, foreign to your ears, breaking through the song of the city and the fog of your mind: a loud, aggressive buzzing from somewhere inside your apartment.

What the fuck?

You jerk awake, early morning sun too bright to your sleep-wasted eyes, and the buzzing is bellowing at you again, making your head throb. You grumble in aggravation.

You scramble out of bed, tripping over your comforter as you do so, to locate the source of the invasive sound. It doesn’t take you long to find it, a bronze panel on the wall with a speaker and button by the door that you’ve largely ignored until now, thinking it was defunct when the landlord never took the time to explain it to you.

You go over to it, cautiously depressing the button under your finger, mumbling a sleepy, and slightly irritated, “Hello?”

There’s the faint scratch of static and then a voice, tinny and distorted, but clear enough to understand and recognize: “Hey. Sorry if I woke you. It’s Dave.” His tone is apologetic.

You blink, rubbing your eyes. What time is it? Why is he here?

“It’s okay. Morning, Dave.”

There’s a pause. Then: “I brought you some breakfast. Can I come up for a minute?”

You let go of the button and sigh. You should really say no, but he went through the trouble of getting you something—your people pleasing nature rearing its ugly head once again—even though you were just going to eat the baklava you both forgot about last night for breakfast.

You press the button again. “Yeah, sure. I don’t think I have a way to buzz you in so I’ll be right down…” you say.

“No, no, it’s okay, I see someone coming down now,” Dave responds, followed by more static and what you think is shuffling. “What’s your unit number?”

It’s all a ruse on his part, of course, because he already knows the unit number and no one is actually coming. But he has to make it believable. He has to see you, take care of you—in more ways than one.

Before he left his apartment, he pocketed a piece of technology left over from his CIA days, a small spy camera roughly the size of a golf tee. Part of himself thinks he should feel guilty for even considering what he’s about to do. It was an invasion of privacy, surely, something most often reserved for criminals and terrorists. You were neither—far from it—but he knows he needs to keep you in his sights as often as possible. He’ll go mad if he doesn’t. Especially while he’s gone.

“Be right up,” he replies when you give your unit, tapping in the door code from memory and letting himself into the building.

He clutches the bag with your everything bagel and bottle of orange juice and heads up the stairs. He deliberated on getting you a coffee, but considering where you work, you probably have your own coffee at home, so he settled on orange juice for the vitamin C to cure the undoubted hangover you surely have.

He reaches the landing and finds you already standing in the doorway of your apartment, waiting for him, a cigarette already perched between your fingers, smoke curling to the ceiling.

You’re not exactly dressed to impress in your dark blue camisole, pink plaid pajama bottoms, fuzzy black slippers and sky blue house robe covered in fluffy white clouds. Your hair is a rat’s nest and everything about you screams disheveled and just rolled out of bed, barely having the energy to shower last night and then going to sleep with wet hair, but Dave slows when his gaze lands on you, taking in the full sight of you. Forcing himself to maintain composure.

“Hey,” he says quietly, a warm smile pooling across his face.

“Hey,” you offer back, mirroring his smile. You can’t help it—he looks good—damn good—in his slate gray tee and black sweatpants that don’t leave a lot of room for interpretation.

You blush feverishly and he responds in kind, averting his gaze and rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. The audacity of this man to act bashful after what he did to you. Your stomach flutters full of butterflies.

“Is that Sal’s?” you query, pointing at the bag and diverting your wandering thoughts. “I love them!” You’re pretty sure Sal’s is one of the first places you ever noticed Dave.

“Yeah. Everything bagel with extra cream cheese,” he responds. “I’ve overheard you order it before. I hope that isn’t weird.”

Maybe it is a little weird, but it’s fine. At least he pays attention. Jonathan lived with you for months and still couldn’t remember a damn thing you liked.

“No, I think it’s sweet. Thanks,” you say, taking the bag from him and peeking inside.

“And orange juice for vitamin C and hydration. Good for a hangover,” Dave points out, hooking one corner of his lips into a lopsided grin.

You smile at Dave. You aren’t sure if you should ask him in or what the custom even is for a situation where you just met a guy and he fucked you into another dimension.

Your head adjusts slightly and you meet his gaze. A look is shared between the two of you—Dave giving you the same look he gave you last night, dark eyes and tightly pursed lips—arousal sparking hot between your legs as your mind starts to replay all the events from the previous evening. A blaze licks through you like unchecked wildfire.

Dave takes a tentative step towards you at roughly the same time Mrs. Tobin’s door starts to click open over his shoulder, your eyes going wide as you gather a handful of his shirt and yank him into your apartment, quickly shutting the door behind you before she can see the cigarette still smoldering in your hand, ash slowly flitting to the floor in a rush of movement.

You start to tell Dave that the old bitch has already reported you for smoking in the building, but the words don’t have a moment to leave your mouth, broad hands spanning your waist to walk you backwards, lips crashing into yours as you both share a desperate moan.

You grunt into Dave’s mouth when you feel the kitchen counter collide with your ass, still very much sore from the night before. He plucks the cigarette and bag from your hands, snuffing the carcinogenic stick out in the sink next to you and placing the bag on the counter for you to indulge later.

He undoes the binds of your robe to let it splay open, hands slithering around to your backside to cup both cheeks in his hands, kneading, pulling you apart.

You keen in reverence of his touch. You and Dave are an incendiary mix, fire meeting gasoline, your only time spent together so far a need to be so close your fibers might as well be fused at the seams.

“I missed this ass,” Dave whispers, giving it a small slap. “Couldn’t sleep because of it.” Because of you. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get over being the first to pop your ass cherry and how well you took it.

He kisses you again, tongue dragging the cavern of your mouth, lashing against your own. You don’t even give it much thought as you slip your arm down the front of his pants to find he isn’t wearing anything under his sweats, hips bucking into your clutches as your fingers circle and stroke his shaft.

“Fuck,” he pants into your mouth. “I don’t have much time.” His eyes drill into yours, wild and chaotic, lips parted in a savage, carnal snarl. He should have been on the road fifteen minutes ago, but he couldn’t resist leaving without seeing you. Especially not now.

“We need to be fast, then,” you suggest, and that’s all the confirmation he needs. He removes your robe and lets it fall to the floor, fingers digging into the sensitive meat of your ass as he lifts you up to carry you to the bed.

You link your legs around his waist and hold onto his wide shoulders to steady yourself as he carries you, your back making contact with the mattress a moment later.

He rips your pajama bottoms down your legs, revealing that you, too, are not wearing any underwear.

“Prettiest fucking cunt I’ve ever seen,” he surmises, spreading you open, bending down to spit directly onto your sex. He doesn’t have a lot of time to prepare you, but he needs to give you something, gliding two of his fingers through the mixture of your arousal and his spittle, pressing said thick digits into your opening, pumping.

“Do you remember the safe word?” Dave asks you.

“Yes,” you say quietly. Your tunnel tightens around his fingers, sucking him in, your body already in pursuit of relief.

He lands a sharp smack to the top of your cunt with a growl, your walls squeezing even harder around his fingers. “Say it. And address me as sir.”

“F-foxglove, s-sir,” you reply, your voice wavering. He rewards you by curling his fingers against your sensitive patch of nerves, making you keen.

“Atta girl. Are you ready to take me?”

“Dave—I mean, sir—I have condoms

—“

He stretches an arm over you to slap a breast, this time. The sensitive one that he did a number on last night, causing you to choke on a gasp, your core flooding with arousal at the rush of pain.

“That’s not what I asked, sweetheart. Our rules from last night still stand. You need to trust me.” He deliberately slows his fingers, bringing them nearly to a stop as he looks up at you with not-quite-innocent, expansive brown eyes, awaiting your answer.

“Yes sir. I’m ready to take you, sir,” you acquiesce, rubbing your sensitive breast. He doesn’t reprimand you this time.

He pulls his fingers from you and stands, sliding the sweat pants down his legs and kicking them out of the way, revealing smooth, well muscled thighs; engorged sex flared red and weeping.

He spreads your legs apart and doesn’t give you any additional time to ready yourself, notching himself at your entrance and then shoving himself forward all the way until he bottoms out, exhaling a long breath as he does so, hips shuddering with pleasure.

He fills you in ways you didn’t think were possible, flaying you apart, making you feel every last centimeter of his length and girth, even with the initial shallow gyrations of his hips.

“Shit,” he rumbles, leaning onto his calves so he can watch you swallow him. “So good at taking me, sweet girl.”

He could watch you like this all day, split open and keening on his cock, but time is a mournfully pressing issue. He lifts your legs to rest your calves against the wide breadth of his shoulders, parting you even more as he wastes no time in breaking into an unrelenting sprint.

It sends you spiraling, the small of your back coming off the mattress with a loud cry that vibrates your lungs.

“Touch yourself,” he commands. “Make yourself cum.”

You don’t need to be told twice. Your hand finds your swollen clit just shy of the press of your bodies, gathering some slick on the pads of your fingers, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves.

“Still so sore,” you plead, your fingers flicking lightly between your legs. “Don’t know if I can, sir.”

Dave clicks his tongue. “I don’t care. You will cum for me. Or I’ll flip you over and fuck that sweet ass of yours again if you don’t,” he threatens, causing your asshole to pucker at the mere mention. “Make you leak my cum two days in a row.”

“N-no,” you mumble, your words rising and falling with every hard slam of his hips. “Please don’t.”

“Then cum for me,” he snarls, the bridge of his nose creased in a sneer, bottom lip jutted outward in concentration. He slaps one side of your hip to aggregate his point. “Cum on my cock or I’m filling your ass again.” His dick thrums just at the thought.

Your fingers move faster, circling and strumming at your clit, a definite sting of discomfort ever present but fading gradually as your pleasure begins to build, the tell tale sensation growing deep in your core. You never thought of yourself as a person to enjoy pain, or being so carelessly manhandled, yet here you are.

“Oh, Dave…” you whine, cupping your unmarked breast with your other hand, rolling the nipple between your fingers.

His grueling pace doesn’t falter. Your noises are driving him to the brink and he isn’t sure how much longer he can hold out, but he wants you to cum. Needs you to cum.

He’s poised on his knees, gripping handfuls of your upper thighs, slamming into you as deftly and expeditiously as he can manage at his age, with a back destroyed by years of hard physical labor.

You let out a high pitched moan and he grunts, fingernails digging into your flesh, leaving behind tiny pink crescent moons of himself there. Another stake in his claim to you.

“Alright baby, alright baby. Come on now. Cum for me.” His voice is soft and deep, eyes trained on your face. He can feel your walls tightening around him, and he knows you’re close.

The tight coil in your lower abdomen unfurls and your climax suddenly works its way through you, a cry rolling from your lips, back arching as you clamp down and strangle him, sucking him deeper. He growls, guttural and worshipping, as you peak.

He rears back to spit on you, a hot globule of saliva landing on your stomach and pooling in the hollow divot of your belly button.

“That’s right, you fucking whore, fuck— sit up and open your mouth,” he snarls in a deep timbre from the depths of his chest.

He doesn’t give you a moment to respond or even comprehend, pulling out of you and yanking you upright to the edge of the bed, digging his fingers into your hair at the base of your skull to pull your mouth onto him, and you part your lips subserviently.

He presses the slick, engorged head to your lips and pushes himself forward into your mouth. He’s so girthy, stretching you beyond what you’re used to, but you let your muscles slacken, everything relaxing to better accept him.

He groans and pushes deeper, a trek through the wet heat of your mouth, holding your head in place as he finds his way.

“That’s it, sweet girl, open up for me—“

He begins to thrust, shallow at first, working you apart centimeter by centimeter. He reaches the back of your throat and it is a struggle not to gag, tears breaking at the rims of your eyes, but you push through it, exhaling through your nostrils as you peer up at him through your lashes.

His hand finds the outer bend of your throat, collaring you, gripping snugly as he begins to rut faster, feeling himself moving in your esophagus in the cradle of his hand. It’s all too much, too much and somehow not enough to diminish his never ending thirst for you, cock twitching and balls pulling tight in his scrotum as he starts to empty himself down your throat with a loud groan, panting your name on his lips.

“Fuck!”

He keeps you there for several moments longer, everything from the waist down shivering and shuddering with exertion, until he starts to grow soft between your lips. His cock slips wet and heavy from your mouth, a thin line of spittle connecting and then breaking as he moves away.

He falls into bed next to you to catch his breath, landing on his back, one large hand settling on your thigh as he shields his eyes from the rays of sunlight with the other. “Thank you,” he says quietly, broad chest rising and falling with every breath.

You tilt your head at him. “No, thank you,” you counter.

You look down at Dave, the sharp cut of his jaw and plush lips peeking out from beneath his hand. An unexpected scorch of anxiety moves through you as it occurs to you that you’re liking Dave a little too much and too quickly, making you feel nothing but unsettled, your stomach doing flip flops. You don’t want a repeat of Jonathan.

“I should, um. Go clean myself up,” you say, pushing yourself off the bed. Dave’s hand slides from your thigh with a heavy thud against the mattress, and he watches you go, disconcerted at your apparent and sudden unease. But knowing this is likely his only chance to plant the camera, he lets you go.

“I’ll join you in a second,” he calls out. As soon as you disappear into the bathroom, he slowly scoots off the bed, quietly as he can to not arouse suspicion. He hears the creak of a faucet being turned and water spilling out.

He rises to his feet and glances around. Your apartment looks as much as he imagined it would, faded blue walls with a few pictures hung of what appears to be family, along with several pieces of art. You seem to like dark and semi-abstract, one of the larger pieces a bloody skull on a black background, daisies placed in the skull’s eye sockets, paint strokes appearing to be scratched together with a palette knife rather than an actual brush.

It stirs something in his soul, if he has one. He is the skull and you are the flowers. He steps closer for further examination but doesn’t see an artist signature anywhere. Did you paint this? Did your ex?

His jaw ticks.

You have a few plants in the window sill, some of them thriving and some not. The apartment is cluttered and unkempt but not trashy. You aren’t as fastidious as Dave, but he likes that about you. It compliments him, balances him out. He notices a few empty bottles of alcohol in the trash bin next to the kitchen.

He dips to grab his pants where the camera is stowed, reaching into the pocket to grab it as he continues to look for an optimal location. And then he finds one: a bent slat in the vent by your window, which directly faces the bed. The gap is just wide enough to slip the camera in between.

He moves to the vent and tucks the camera inside, between the slats, the lens pointed directly at your headboard. He maneuvers it into place until he’s satisfied with its placement, hoping it will stay put. He’ll be able to control it from both his phone and his computer.

As he turns to join you in the bathroom, he notices your own laptop propped precariously on a folding table in the corner, screen open to what appears to be a word document, cursor still visibly flashing. A work in progress of sorts. Curiosity gets the better of him and he moves over to the screen, bending to read the words written there:

Raye found herself in what appeared to be a pasture, grass as high as her chest, which was bathed in a gentle pouring of pale golden moonlight. Her shirt clung to her sweat-damp skin and her chest heaved with effort, legs pumping as quickly as she could move them, propelling her forward into the tall grass.

She was alone as far as she could tell. No cows or horses that she could discern, nothing that could act as possible interference for the creature in pursuit. No buildings in sight. Only a line of trees in the nearby distance, and swarms of june bugs that smacked into her face and body as she ran.

She knew there must be a road somewhere beyond the trees. She had gotten lost after running out of gas in the middle of her road trip down south, turning down the wrong kind of country road in the middle of Louisiana at night, which had landed her smack dab in the middle of the woods, her bearings and sense of direction scrambled, the thing chasing her still snapping at her heels. She had only glimpsed the massive animal for a split second before she bolted, her instincts telling her to run.

And then the inevitable happened. Her foot found a well in the soil, her momentum so great that she tumbled ass over teakettle into the dirt and grass, a cry of pain escaping her lungs as her shoulder made contact with the hard packed earth.

She only had a moment to look up before she saw it, the massive wolf-like monster’s jaws descending on her, fangs flashing silver in the glow of moonlight. Patchy tendrils of black fur streaking out of its dark, greasy skin.

It ends there and he hums to himself. You hadn’t talked about writing before, and he’d found no evidence of it otherwise. It’s good. Really good. You continue to intrigue him.

He makes it to the bathroom and you’re just starting to towel off, smiling at him with your eyes. There’s a damp rag on the edge of the sink. He reaches for it.

“May I?” he asks, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiles.

The audacity of this man.

“By all means,” you reply, taking a step back, stumbling on a pile of dirty laundry. You watch and blush as Dave runs the moist towel over himself. Even soft, his size is impressive.

“So, what are you going to Virginia for?” you query, making conversation. His eyes meet yours and his expression grows somber.

“To see my two girls,” he answers honestly. “My ex and I… well, I get to see them twice a month. It… it’s a fucked up situation.” He doesn’t elaborate. This man is a fucking enigma.

You aren’t sure how to process this new snippet of information. Two girls? Ex? You must be making a face because he reaches for your hand.

“I’m sorry. I meant to tell you last night—it just wasn’t the right time.”

“It’s okay,” you offer weakly. “I mean, kind of a shock, but it’s fine.”

He brushes his fingers over the back of his neck, regretful that he didn’t tell you sooner, so consumed in his desire of you he didn’t want to send you running for the hills. “Yeah, I get it. It’s a lot.”

You cross your arms. “What are their names and how old are they?” you inquire.

“Mollie is six and Alice is four,” he replies.

You nod. “It is a lot,” you confirm, a vicious knot twisting its way around your stomach. You weren’t a big fan of kids. Maybe this could actually be what prevents you from falling for Dave, a fact you couldn’t help to admit you were a little grateful for. “But it’s okay. I understand.”

His countenance darkens into a sad smile, those dark brown eyes gazing at you, shiny and big and apologetic. God, why does he have to look at you like that?

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and pulls you into his chest, arms circling your back, hands finding the swell of your ass and softly squeezing. He bends to kiss you, and in spite of yourself, you let him. It’s a tender kiss, delicate and gentle, reminding you once again that Dave is a man of many faces.

He breaks the kiss a moment later, staring into your eyes, brushing your hair back from your face. “I really don’t want to, but I need to be going. Will you walk me to my car?”

——

You walk Dave down. You don’t bother putting on real clothes, wearing exactly what you had on when you woke up. The only difference is you briefly ran a brush through your hair.

He walks with his arm linked around your shoulders. He’s proud to show you off even in your current state. You try not to think about it. You don’t need more reasons to get attached. You need less.

“This is me,” he says, pointing to a sensible black Elantra, which you’ve definitely seen around before.

“I hope you have a nice trip. Have fun with your girls,” you say.

“Always do.” That was a lie. As much as he appreciated spending time with them, it was always full of undue stress and bone numbing exhaustion, two weeks worth of anxiety crammed into a single weekend. If only he could take you with him to ease some of the suffering.

“We’ll have to go out again sometime when I get back,” he suggests. “I’ll call you.”

“Yeah, sounds good.”

He smiles. Kisses you, again, more passionate than the last, but not at all salacious. You break the kiss, this time.

“You’re beautiful,” Dave says, his hand resting against the column of your neck. “So beautiful.” His thumb traces your pulse point.

You playfully shove at his chest. He doesn’t budge an inch because he’s an immovable wall of flesh. “Stop it. I look like shit. And you need to go.”

“You don’t look like shit. But I do need to go.”

He goes to kiss you one final time, cradling your jaw. The last for who knows how long, depending on how long the hit takes.

A sound registers at your six. And then barking, loud and shrill, a familiar voice attempting—and failing—to calm the offending dog.

“Good mornin’, dear,” Mrs. Tobin says in a thick Irish accent, and you turn to find her coming back from her early morning walk with her Yorkie, Jack.

“Morning, Mrs. Tobin.” Your hand goes to your neck, doing your best to hide the dark marks on your skin.

“Morning,” Dave offers. He pretends not to be bothered by the interruption.

“Come now, Jackie boy, it’s just our neighbor and her friend,” she says to the small dog with a knowing wink, still trying to settle him. Her eyes track where your hand is. “Or maybe more’na friend. You don’t have to hide those from me, dear. I was young once too, yeh know,” she says with a short laugh.

You blush. Dave blushes, too. God. This man.

“Well, hope yeh have a nice mornin’. Let’s go, Jackie boy, give ‘em some privacy,” she says, tugging at the leash.

“You too,” you reply with a touch of annoyance. Dave lifts his hand in a wave. As soon as she’s a reasonable distance away, he finally gets to kiss you. Again. And it’s nice. Too nice.

Okay, maybe you are falling for him.

——

After hastily shoving the bagel down your throat, you end up going back to bed for a few hours. No work, no responsibilities. You put your phone on Do Not Disturb. If there’s a work emergency, they can call Maury or they’ll just have to figure it out themselves. You can’t always hold their hands for them. You’re going to take advantage of the opportunity to get some rest.

You wake later in the day to several missed texts and four missed calls from your mom. And one from Dave, from before he showed up at your door.

You groan and hesitantly open the texts from your mother. You let out a sigh of exasperation when you read what’s got her so spooked, deciding it isn’t worth it to call her back right away. At least not before you have some coffee to lift the haze from your mind. She’s waited this long; she can wait longer.

Mom: Ur brother is back in jail. Call me when u get a chanse ok?

Of fucking course he is. You toss the phone down with a roll of your eyes. Garrett has had so many run ins with the law since you were a kid, you’ve lost count at this point.

You brew yourself some coffee. One of the perks of managing a coffee shop is free bags of coffee, and this one is good—pumpkin pecan, one of the new seasonal flavors. You were as basic as they come when it came to anything pumpkin flavored.

You scarf down the baklava as you inhale your coffee, which you suppose is your lunch. You feel a little bad that you forgot to offer Dave half of it, but he got what he showed up for, so you don’t dwell on it.

Your mom calls again. You answer, this time, sighing as you place the phone against your ear. You don’t even bother with a hello.

“I already saw. Sorry to hear that, mom.” You really aren’t.

“Where the hell have you been? I was worried sick!” your mom chides. “Your brother’s in jail an’ you’re MIA?”

“Yeah, mom, I’m a grown woman with my own life in a different city. I was resting. I don’t have to be at your every beck and call, especially when it isn’t even that import—“

“The hell it ain’t! How’m I supposed to get him out of there? I don’t have bail money!”

You light one of your cigarettes and take a long drag before responding. “I’m not sending you money to bail him out,” you state firmly. “First of all, I don’t have it right now. And secondly, he’ll never learn if—“

“Then what’re we supposed to do?” she snorts.

“I don’t know. Leave him in there, or get a bail bondsman. Not my problem,” you say, your tone flat and apathetic. You’ve been numb to this issue since you were a teen. Since all the empty promises he made to you of coming clean.

“You’ve got to be fuckin’ kidding me!”

“No, I’m not. I’ll send you money for grandma’s medical bills, or groceries or rent, but I’m not sending money for this.”

“So, that’s it, huh? You just don’t give a shit about us?”

You roll your eyes so hard you’re surprised she doesn’t hear it through the phone.

“How’s grandma?” you question, notably changing the subject.

The line goes dead. You stare at the phone. She hung up on you.

Figures.

You don’t bother calling her back. There’s no point. You’ll never come to an agreement on the issue, anyway, and it will only stress you out more than necessary.

Garrett has always been your mother’s favorite. It used to bother you. As expensive as Boston is, and as much as you miss Texas and your grandma, you’re happy to be well removed from that life right now. Studio apartments are more your jam than living in trailer parks.

You decide that your anger with the issue is a good enough motivator to help you clean, which you’ve been sorely neglecting doing for far too long. You turn on your angriest playlist—Korn, Deftones, Slipknot, et cetera—and spend most of the day deep cleaning everything. The Deftones’ ‘My Own Summer’ comes on and you scream along to the lyrics. “Shove it, shove it, shove it!”

Not that it matters anymore. Two men have already seen your home in its state of disrepair, but it gives you something to focus on and decompress for a few hours, which is what you wanted.

You ponder texting Dave. Needing to vent to him or anyone since you don’t really have any friends that you talk to anymore. After some consideration, however, you change your mind. You don’t need to burden him with your bullshit. Least of all while he’s visiting his kids.

You settle on googling how to get rid of a hickey instead.

——

Max has never really dated anyone.

Not that he wants to date you.

He had tried to convince himself you were a one time thing. A quick and impermanent release of tension and little else. A means to put you in your place for publicly embarrassing him. So why can’t he get you out of his mind? Why have you been the first and last thing he’s thought about all day? He’s been fighting with his dick, trying not to think about yesterday, and failing miserably. He holed himself up in his office most of the work day.

It wasn’t just about the sex. It was more than that. But Max doesn’t date. He fucks and moves on. Simple as that.

But if that’s the case, why is he at The Beanery again, asking metal-face kid what your favorite drink is?

Vincent shrugs. “I dunno. She likes…cold drinks, I think?” he answers unhelpfully. Max isn’t a patient man. Or a nice one. But he’s trying, for you. He really is.

“You don’t know what she orders?” Max presses. His already paper thin patience is waning by the second.

“Not really,” Vincent responds. “Sorry.”

Max rubs his eyes with the pads of his fingers. He doesn’t want to show up at your door empty handed, although he isn’t really sure why it matters, or why he cares this much. He’s never wooed a woman in his entire life.

Flowers would be too romantic. He isn’t quite there yet. Not that he’ll ever be. But he needs to bring you…something, to make it less weird.

He’s fully aware he has no fucking clue what he’s doing.

“She likes the pumpkin fall latte. Iced,” another voice pipes up. A tall woman with brown hair that Max recognizes as the assistant manager steps out from behind a wall with a clipboard in her hands. Probably taking inventory, Max thinks. She doesn’t like Max—no one does, except Maury—but she wants to get him out of here ASAP.

“Thank you,” Max responds with a sigh of relief. “Thank you,” he says again, canting his brows in annoyance towards Vincent.

“I’ll take one. Large. And my usual.” He purses his lips, taking in a breath through his nose. “Please,” he adds, still trying his best, adding his signature crooked smile.

Sarah and Vincent don’t question why Max is asking after you or buying your favorite drink. They don’t care enough to know.

He runs the yellow tie around his neck through his fingers as he waits as patiently as he can manage, still struggling and failing to keep his dick on a leash. God, what the fuck is he doing?

——

God, what the fuck are YOU doing?

Max is at your door. And he brought you a gift.

He shoulders past you into your apartment without asking, causing your jaw to clench in frustration. He’s always doing that. Doing whatever the fuck he wants. It pisses you off to no end.

“You can’t just storm into my home, Max—“

“Here.” He hands you your drink which is partially melted due to the walk over, offering you his most flattering grin. He just wants to see you. He isn’t going to give up so easily.

You begrudgingly accept and take a heavy sip. It’s a nice reprieve from the rest of your day. You’ve been in a bad mood since the conversation with your mom, so sugar and caffeine are a welcome distraction right now.

You poured the time after you were done cleaning into your writing. Letting your anger guide your hand as you described the werewolf in your story tearing into Raye’s abdomen and slurping her entrails like meat spaghetti.

That isn’t where the story was going or what you had intended to write, but it helped to take some of the edge off. Until now, at least. You’ll change it later.

What’s more, you couldn’t find a good solution to your hickey problem, and you really hope they’ll be gone by tomorrow morning. You’re doing opening shift again. You wish Dave wouldn’t have left them in such an obvious, visible place.

Yeah, you really weren’t in the mood. Even if Max did somehow find out what your favorite drink is and bring it to you. What is it with men today, bringing you your favorite things…completely unprompted?

It’s baffling.

“Thanks, Max, for the drink,” you begin evenly. “I appreciate it, I do. But you need to go. I’ve had a weird day and—“

“What is that?” His eyes flash. He smirks, but it’s lacking mirth or humor. You don’t need to track their movement; you know exactly what he’s talking about.

“What do you mean?” you ask innocently, your hand involuntarily moving to your neck.

He grabs your arm to pull your hand away, stepping so close you can smell his cologne. His nostrils flare in anger. “Who did this to you?” he asks shortly, examining your neck.

The crass, cocky, self-important Max is gone. Now he’s just pissed.

“You did this to me yesterday, remember?” you retort.

“I didn’t do that. I did…this,” he explains, curving the back of his index finger against the vaguely incisor-shaped bruises on your neck. “But these? These aren’t my style.”

You step away from Max with a frown, taking another sip of your drink with your back turned. You aren’t beholden to Max. Or even Dave, for that matter.

“Did you fuck someone else?” Max accuses, stepping closer to you. “Who?”

“It doesn’t matter, Max. It really doesn’t.”

“It does matter.” He places his hands on his hips and stares you down.

“No, it doesn’t, unless it’s you, it’s none of your business who I fuck. And I’m not fucking you again, so get out,” you snap back.

Max isn’t going down without a fight. His lips twist into a grin, and he moves into your space, crowding you against the small table by your kitchen which you mostly use as a catch-all. It rattles as a result of impact.

“It was your white knight at the coffee shop. Wasn’t it?” he presses. He plucks your drink from your hand and puts it down on the table.

“No.” Your lips tremble. You’re a bad liar.

He raises his eyebrows in victory. He has you exactly where he wants you.

He isn’t sure why he cares. Or why he’s feeling so possessive over you. He barely paid attention to you before yesterday.

He cages you in with his hands planted on either side of your body on the edge of the table, nose bent to yours, looking down into your eyes. Brow wrinkled in disapproval.

“How does he fuck?” Max asks. Eyes burning holes through you, dick twitching in his slacks.

“Better than you,” you spit.

“Ouch, baby.” Max grabs the underside of your jaw, angling your head back, aquiline nose pressed firmly against your cheek. “Guess we’ll have to make a comparison then, hmm?”

Without warning, Max picks you up effortlessly and tosses you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. You squeak in surprise, your legs thrashing against his torso.

“Max, put me the fuck down!” you yell. He doesn’t listen, his hand firmly rooted in the small of your back until you reach the bed, dropping you face down on top of your bedding and pillows.

He mounts you from behind before you have a chance to wriggle away, his full weight pressed into you, erection dragging your ass. You can’t help it—you moan.

“How many times did he make you cum, sweetheart?”

“Max, that really isn’t any—“

“How many?” he growls into your ear, snapping his hips against the soreness of your ass.

“Five,” you admit in defeat. “Five. Can you let me up now?”

His lips pull back in snarl. “Mmm. I don’t know. It sounds like I have some catching up to do.”

You huff out a breath as he rises, flipping you onto your back and sliding your pants down your legs. You’d actually changed into something other than pajamas, for once, but you’re still devoid of undergarments. He eyes you hungrily, licking his lips.

“Did he fuck you rough or soft?” Max asks, undoing the cuff links on his jacket so he can shuck it off. He takes it off carefully, draping it over the back of your couch, and begins rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.

“Rough,” you answer, swallowing, watching him undress.

Max nods, eyes darkening with lust. He crouches in front of you, hands spreading your thighs apart. “That’s right. Whores always like it rough, don’t they?” You can feel his breath ghosting your inner thigh.

Fresh arousal seeps out of you, which doesn’t go unnoticed by Max. He grins up at you, visage remaining hard. “Looking real tasty for me, sweetheart.”

“Max…” you attempt to protest, but there’s little point. You’re fucked up as they come because you’re enjoying being used like this. Just a series of holes for both of them. One man didn’t want you, and now two men want you, at the same time.

It sure as hell made you feel a lot better about the entire situation. Empowered, even.

Your core throbs with more arousal as you imagine how it would feel to take them simultaneously; Dave pressed to your back with Max beneath you. Or Max fucking into you from behind as Dave spears into your mouth.

“Mmm. Such a good little whore,” Max coos, dragging two fingers through your slick. “Let’s start with the first of five, shall we?”

His fingers find your opening and he presses them inside, languidly rolling them inward, shallow to start and then traversing deeper. His fingers are already drenched in you by the time the meat of his palm reaches your entrance.

“She’s weeping for me,” Max muses, twisting his fingers to stretch you out more. “Isn’t she?”

“Mmhmm,” you moan, your hips mirroring the movements of his hand. “You feel so good.”

“Damn right I do.”

He opens you up further as he bends to lick a wide, slow stripe up your seam, a precursory taste, pausing at your clit to slowly circle it with the ball of his tongue. You’re impervious to stop your back from coming off the bed at the shock of it, Max’s arm sliding up to bar across your stomach to keep you pressed against the mattress.

“Don’t move,” he growls.

His mouth dips lower, hawkish nose grazing your clit as he does and you moan, writhing beneath him. His arm clamps harder.

His mouth finds your entrance and he begins fucking into you with his tongue. Your fingers dip into his dark, neatly groomed hair, twisting it, just to have something to grip onto while he works his magic between your legs.

Max finds himself grinding against the edge of the bed for some relief. He’s having a hard time not resigning himself to just saying ‘fuck it’ and sinking into your wet heat.

His lips move back up, tongue parting your seam, circling your clit again as he uses his other hand to slip three fingers into you.

Max hums as his lips close around your clit, the sound vibrating your bundle of nerves. You moan. “Oh god…”

Your fingers tighten in his hair. A simple action but one that spurs him on nonetheless, curling his fingers to fuck into you, lips suckling at your clit. It’s a struggle for Max to keep you against the bed.

He’s barely just started and you’re already about to lose it.

Max smirks between your legs. He briefly removes his arm from your stomach to free himself from his pants for some much needed relief, his cock swollen and aching as it springs free. He pumps himself a couple of times before moving his arm back to your torso, pinning you in place once more.

Max has always been more of a self-serving lover than anything. He had enough skill to pull at least one orgasm out of his partners, two if he was feeling generous — but five? He would never admit it, or even acknowledge it, but he’s more than a little anxious that he’ll be able to get that many from you.

He’s trying his damndest, though, as he applies more pressure to your clit, increasing the speed and force of his fingers inside of you. He ruts against the bed again, wanting nothing more than to fuck you into next Tuesday, but he can’t do that. Not yet.

There’s just something about you that makes him want to try. There’s also something about envisioning your white knight making you scream that’s driving him even further into a downward spiral of lust and longing.

His fingers curve just right, hitting the cluster of nerves against your cervix just right, lips suctioning just right, and you’re crying out Max’s name, chest heaving as you bear down on his fingers and cum hard.

He pulls his lips away, giving you some relief, riding out your high with his fingers until you whine for him to slow down. He does, but he doesn’t stop entirely.

“That’s one,” he chuckles, “Only four more to go.”

“Hey Max, um—“ you start, grabbing at the arm still barred across your stomach. It doesn’t move. “Before we continue, can we, establish a… safe word?”

Max pauses, lifting his face from between your thighs, to look at you. Really look at you. You’re serious. And it tugs at something in him. Sparks his imagination as to what your limitations could be.

“What did you have in mind?” The face he gives you is ponderous even as his lips still glisten with your slick and cum.

You look around. You don’t want to use ‘foxglove’, feeling that would be a bit convoluted and debased. You glance at the window sill, your eyes landing on the dead, brittle lavender plant you should probably get around to throwing out some day.

“Lavender,” you say. Because it’s dead. And because it’s also a flower, like foxglove.

He nods in approval. “Lavender,” he agrees. “If you want me to stop, you say ‘lavender’.”

He doesn’t give you time to process the thought before his head is back between your legs, lips sealing firmly around your clit, sucking hard. You buck your hips reflexively and Max pushes you back down with an irritated grunt, fingers marring your hip.

You resort to moving your legs when you’re unable to move your abdomen, and he pulls away from your cunt with a low snarl of disapproval, pinning your legs beneath his hands.

“Stop fucking moving or I will tie your limbs to the bed,” he threatens. You kind of want him to. And he absolutely would if he had a means to do all of them.

He goes back to lapping at your folds like a man starved, pushing you firmly against the mattress with all his might when your hips reflexively buck upward again.

It isn’t long before you peak a second time, your arms twisting the bedding because it’s all Max will give you the freedom to move.

“Good girl,” he praises, riding out the ebbs of flows of your orgasm. Watching your face, memorizing it.

His dick pulses hard and he can’t waste another minute without you sheathing his cock, all the noises you’re emitting in reverence of him turning him into some kind of feral, unchecked monster. He stands, removing the rest of his attire, no longer worried about being neat, tossing them wherever they happen to land as he rids himself of the hinderance.

He climbs onto the bed next to you, turning you on your side, resuming the same position from yesterday, sans tie. If he weren’t so desperate to cum, to make you cum, he would have taken the extra time. He likes you restrained and maleable.

But his yearning for you has rendered him restless and lacking patience.

If you and Dave are an incendiary mix, you and Max are a noxious one: two elements coming together to create an all consuming cloud of poison that steals your breath and chokes the person you once were right out of you.

He pulls your leg over his hip and slots himself between your thighs, palming himself as he glides the head of his cock through your slippery folds, gathering your slick and then pushing in until he bottoms out in a single thrust.

You are sore. Raw. Used. And you like it.

“Fuck,” he spits against your ear. “So fucking tight.”

He encircles your throat with a broad hand, tilting your head back and against his shoulder as he gives a few precursory slow thrusts, bottoming out and holding every third or fourth one, hips shaking with effort.

His grip tightens. Your vision swims and your core pulses hungrily around his length.

“You ready to get fucked like the little whore you are?”

All you can do is nod, unable to find your voice.

Max jerks your head back harshly. “Words, sweetheart. Fucking words.”

“Yes, I want you to fuck me now, Max. Please.” Your voice is pathetically small.

“Good girl,” Max commends, crooking his arm in the bend of your knee, splaying you open for him as he begins to rail into you with unbridled vigor.

You keen as he angles your head back even further so he can watch your blissed out face. Your mouth is hanging open in the shape of an O, a silent scream etched into your features. To his surprise, he almost finds himself kissing you, barely able to reel himself in from doing so. This is why Max doesn’t do face to face stuff—he doesn’t want his partners getting the wrong idea about him.

But with you he almost breaks.

Each slam of his hips is ludicrously loud. For a few moments you think you actually forget how to breathe.

He lets go of your leg and moves his fingers to where he’s currently cleaving you down the middle, dancing around your clit, flicking with expert precision.

“Yes,” you pant. “God, yes.”

“That’s right, baby. Wanna hear you,” Max praises.

He bites into the rounded hill of your shoulder, incisors bearing down, branding you with yet another mark in the shape of his teeth. At least this one can be hidden.

His pace doesn’t falter. While Max doesn’t share Dave’s calculating focus, he more than makes up for it with his tenacity and grit.

Your hips jolt when he touches a particularly sensitive nerve, your moans filling the air.

“That’s it, sweetheart. C’mon baby. Gimme another.”

You reach your third climax, your muscles briefly seizing under the duress of Max’s spell.

“Good fucking girl. Goddamn little slut, cumming as she’s stuffed full of my cock.” He presses his lips to the shell of your ear, whispering in a deep, dark timbre, “Two more.”

You whimper and shut your eyes. Max’s fingers never hasten their onslaught. Tears ring your eyes, body overwrought from the sting of overstimulation, but the last thing you want is to throw in the towel now.

“What would your white knight do if he were here right now? Do you think he would watch me fuck you?”

Max can feel your throat constricting under his palm as you swallow. “I- I don’t know.”

You already feel another orgasm building on the tail end of the last.

“Did he fuck you here? In your bed?” he presses.

“Yes,” you whimper.

“Mmmm,” he hums lowly. His dick twitches. He wets his lips, eyes trained on your face as he watches you. “Which hole did he fuck, sweetheart?”

“Max, don’t—“ Despite the humiliation you feel, you’re close, so close, to your fourth.

His fingers squeeze your face, digging in to the soft meat of your cheeks. “Answer me,” he tuts, gnashing his teeth.

“All of them,” you answer earnestly, honestly. “All of them… oh, fuck.” Your walls bear down hard, tightening around Max, vision pulling white as you pant his name on your tongue.

“You let him fuck your ass?” he barks into your ear. “You’re even filthier than I thought, you. God. Damn. Whore. Shit—“

Max can’t hold back any longer, scrotum tightening and cock pulsing as he pulls himself from your throbbing snatch in the nick of time, pumping himself in his hand and painting your inner thighs with thick tendrils of his spend. The groan that vibrates the barrel of his chest as he cums is inhuman.

He buries his face in the apex of your neck and shoulder, inhaling your post-coital scent. Savoring it. “Fuck. Fuck, sweetheart.” The edge in his voice is gone. It almost sounds affectionate.

He moves away from you, propping himself up on an elbow to admire the way his semen slides down the skin of your thighs. He swipes two fingers through the thickest part of it, bringing it to your lips. You open without hesitation, accepting him as he pushes into your mouth with a quiet murmur.

“Good girl.”

He grabs your hips, rolling you onto your back as he once again slithers to the lower regions of your body, eyes locked on your face.

“What’re you—“

Max shoots you a slanted grin. “You said five.”

——

It’s late. Too late, after a long road trip, after the stress and drama of picking up his daughters because Carol had insisted he was behind even though he’s sure he wasn’t.

Especially when you’ve been the only thing on his mind all day.

It’s later in the evening before he has a chance to check on you, his daughters already tucked away safely in bed. He sits at the table of his suite’s kitchenette and opens his laptop, dick already painfully hard and straining against his pants at the mere notion of seeing you.

Three clicks and he opens the camera’s live feed. The apartment is dark, and you’re curled up in your bed, watching television. He can’t make out what show it is at this angle, but from what he can hear, it seems to be some kind of reality medical show about weight loss.

He watches you like that for some time, palming himself through his pants, wishing he were there curled up with you.

After a while, when you don’t move, he clicks on the camera’s recorded footage and starts scrolling through.

Though you’re out of shot most of the time, he listens as you have the conversation with your mother, wishing he could pull you through the screen and into his arms. He can’t hear the full conversation, but he gets the gist of it, and it sends a dagger of pain through his chest seeing you so worked up.

He’s glad you’re well removed from that life.

After the phone call, you clean for several hours, before sitting down to write. He scrolls through most of that footage, pausing occasionally if something in particular catches his eye.

He stops scrolling when he notices your head lift toward the door. You get up from your chair, padding barefoot to the door to peek through the peephole. You sigh, shaking your head, reluctantly opening it for whomever is on the other side.

He can only partially see what’s happening, but he can make out enough to instantly recognize the man that steps inside.

Dave’s eyes grow a shade darker and his hand is in his pants before he even realizes what he’s doing.

He fast forwards to where Max already has you on the bed. By all accounts, Dave should be jealous. It doesn’t make sense that he isn’t, considering what Carol did. Considering that he nearly killed the man she was sleeping with with his own bare fists.

Given Dave’s skills and proclivity for killing, the man was lucky he didn’t.

But for some reason, with you, things are different. Everything with you is different.

Dave puts in his headphones as he continues to watch, letting out a quiet moan when Max’s face dips between your legs. The face you make is nothing short of euphoric.

He continues to stroke himself, precum leaking onto his wrist as he watches events unfold right in front of him.

He picks up his phone, thumbing the screen to get to your messages, opening it to type two words and hitting send.

Dave: Hey, you.

Your phone lights up a minute later.

—

Taglist: @ohheypedrito @kateispunk @survivingandenduring @annieispunk @awilderi @chronically-ghosted @onmysluttyknees @oberynslady @kellybelly1978 @sarap-77 @tb-gerschutz @daddy-dins-girl @alwaysmicado @morallyinept @guelyury @heavennumber2 @xxjigglynatxx @yippeeki-meow-motherfoster-blog

If I forgot anyone, please let me know! 🙂

[withlovewriting]

All I Ever Knew, Only You 9: When The Party's Over

Chapter Nine.

I wanna feel something, I wanna feel something, I drink to feel something, I sleep and feel nothing, Maybe that's where you come in, Maybe that's where you and I begin

Summary: Hawkins was your typical quaint, mid-western town where nothing ever happened. People were born here, lived their entire lives within the town limits, and eventually died here, peacefully in their sleep. But one cold November evening in 1983 would change everything.

Despite a child with psychokinetic abilities and ravenous monsters that lacked faces, stranger things had definitely happened in the small town in Indiana. One of them being your reluctant and slightly imposed friendship with Hawkins High’s own King Bee, Steve Harrington.

Characters: Steve Harrington x Non-descriptive F!Reader (eventual)

Words: 5,839

Chapter Warnings: Mentions of menstruation (not really a warning, but here you go), mild Nancy slander, Billy Hargrove getting a little too comfortable, derogatory name calling, strong language, mentions of scars, and insecurities regarding them, heartbroken Steve, reader is wasted, but more bonding.

Season's greetings, babes.

Series Warnings: Strong language, mentions of underage drinking, mentions of drug use, canon-typical violence, mentions of alcohol abuse, mentions of possible mental health disorders, child abuse, slow burn, kinda enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, I like to call it ‘two idiots who begrudgingly befriend each other only to realize… ‘wait a damn minute…’, eventual sexual content, no use of y/n, canon-typical time-period bullshit. 18+. Minors DNI.

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Chapter Nine: When The Party's Over

The exhaustion had finally got to you. That was the only plausible reason you had for entertaining Billy Hargrove for so long without swinging at his annoyingly pretty face.

You’d only approached him that morning to speak to Max as she exited his Camaro, but the boy had leered at you over the roof of the car the entire time as he puffed away on a cigarette. Unfortunately, he seemed to take that as an invitation to pester you for the rest of the day.

“I don’t have time for this right now, Hargrove.”

The sound of his boots hitting the linoleum flooring told you he wasn’t giving up any time soon, “It’s cool, I can walk and talk. I ain’t got nowhere to be.”

“I’m pretty sure you have a class to be in, actually,” you rolled your eyes, continuing your march to your destination.

“You know my schedule already? How sweet. But look, it’ll be my first party here in Hawkins, you gotta make it.”

Scoffing, you pushed onward toward the library. Somewhere you weren’t sure Billy knew existed, “I haven’t gotta do anything. Plus, Hawkins' parties are all lame. I wouldn’t hold your breath for this one to be different.”

“It’ll be a whole lot less lame with me there, sweetheart,” Billy was on your heels, practically trying to mount your back as you finally pushed through the doors, halting a little too quickly as the door hit the wall, which caused the boy to bump into your back as all eyes cast over you as he laid an arm over your shoulder, “Who knows, you might even crack a smile.”

Spinning on your heel and effectively removing yourself from the boy’s grip, you pushed at Billy’s chest — frown deepening when he barely moved an inch — and huffed, “I’m not in the mood, Hargrove. So leave me alone.”

Stomping off, your fingers dug into your bag as you held it against your chest as if it would magically stave off the unwanted attention from the surrounding students. Especially the attention of the boy with the coffee-colored eyes that you could feel boring into you from the moment you barreled into the room.

You hadn’t been actively avoiding Steve, per se. But with the embarrassment you felt last night still running hot under your skin, you didn’t have the willpower to be around him. You’d felt disconcertingly vulnerable under his unwavering gaze last night, and deep down, a part of you still expected to find him in the cafeteria with his old posse of jerks giggling at your expense.

Sure, he hadn’t bothered with Tommy or Carol since last year so your paranoia seemed unjust, but you knew old habits died hard.

“It’s not my fault you’re on the rag or something,” Billy shouted crudely across the library, clearly not trying to be subtle or considerate, before turning on his heels and making his way toward whoever his next victim was, ignoring the annoyed hissed whispers of the librarian.

You’d kept your head down throughout your free period and you could only be grateful that both Nancy and Steve had kept their distance. You had a history project to finish, and truth be told you hadn’t even started yet, and the distraction of Romeo and Juliet wouldn’t be much appreciated.

Once you were settled, you swiftly made your way across the room and toward the small supply office to browse through the encyclopedias, however you skidded to a stop when you pushed open the door only to come face-to-face with the boy you were absolutely not avoiding on purpose, and his girlfriend.

“Jesus, is nowhere in this school sacred to you two? Can’t you just go make out in the back of Harrington’s car like normal teenagers?”

The boy rolled his eyes at you as Nancy stepped out of his grasp, “I think we should tell Barb’s parents-”

With wide eyes, you scrambled into the room and shut the door behind you, already shaking your head, “Are you insane? We can’t tell Barb’s parents. We can’t tell anyone.”

“You were there, you saw what it’s doing to them.” Nancy was clearly in distress and although your heart went out to her parents, you couldn’t even begin to imagine the repercussions you’d all face if you were to open your mouths.

“I get it, Nance. Really, I do. But we can’t tell them anything. God knows what the Lab would do. What the government would do. The Byers and I would have to pay back the hospital fees and-”

“This isn’t about the money,” Nancy huffed, her head shaking as you stared at you with indignation, but you cut her off quickly,

“That’s because you grew up with a silver spoon shoved in your ass, Wheeler. Do you know what it would do to Mrs. Byers? To Will and Jonathan? To me? When you don’t have money, it factors into everything.”

Nancy was on the verge of tears, but you could flip a coin for which one of you was on the verge of hysteria, “We don’t have to tell them everything.”

This time, Steve spoke up, making his way to stand in between you both, “This isn’t some game, Nance. If they found out we told anyone… They could put us in jail, okay? Or worse, they could destroy our families. They could do anything they want, okay? Just think about what you’re saying.”

As Nancy’s bottom lip wobbled, you couldn’t help but feel guilty. But she knew — just as well as both yourself and Steve did — that she couldn’t tell a soul.

“It’s hard, but let’s…” Steve perched himself back on the table, a hand soothingly running up and down Nancy’s arm, “let's just go to Tina’s stupid party, wear our stupid costumes that we’ve been working on for a stupid amount of time, and just pretend like we’re stupid teenagers, okay? Can we just do that, just for tonight?”

Despite Steve’s attempt, Nancy didn’t seem pacified. In fact, she seemed dejected as she agreed to his plan before making her way out of the small room, not bothering to send you a second glance.

Releasing a deep sigh, the boy stood and ran a hand through his hair, leaning against one of the bookshelves as your shoulders sagged, “She’s going to get us all killed.”

“Don’t say that, alright? She’s just… She’s hurting.”

Clenching your jaw, you shook your head at the boy as you looked off to the side. Noting his thoughtlessness, he squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, “Not to say that you’re not too. But Nance just…”

“She feels guilty, Harrington. She feels guilty because she left Barb that night to shack up with you,” lifting a hand, you stopped him from interrupting you, “I’m not blaming her. Like, at all. Okay? I shouldn’t have left, and Nancy shouldn’t have let her leave. But we did, and telling her parents, putting everyone’s life at risk, isn’t going to change that.”

Steve remained quiet, but his eyes softened, and you knew he had to bite back whatever reassurance was sitting on the tip of his tongue. You didn’t want it, and you didn’t need it. It would only fall on deaf ears, anyway.

Instead, Steve’s head fell backward, a quiet thump that barely shook the rickety bookcase behind him.

“I think the party would do you some good, too. The new guy seems pretty insistent that you’re there.”

Scoffing, you moved toward the boy, leaning up to grab at the first encyclopedia your fingers grazed, unbothered by the letter. You watched as Steve’s Adam's apple bobbed, his eyes remained focused on you until you turned, strolling out of the small room, throwing the encyclopedia into your bag before making a hasty exit. The list of people you definitely weren’t purposely avoiding was growing by the minute.

“Hop, hey Hopper!” You called out, chasing down the man as he marched out of the station.

He stopped in front of his car, waiting as you pulled up on your bike, sans helmet. Again.

“Can this wait, Kid? I’m in a hurry-”

“I just… I wanted to double-check about the trick-or-treating thing tonight. I can make sure-”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Jim asked, peering down at his watch.

Chewing your lip for a second, you cleared your throat, “I have a free period.”

Cocking a brow, Hopper watched you silently for just a moment, “So if I called the school, they’d confirm that, right?”

“Confidential, I’m afraid. You’re not my parent or guardian so…” You sent him a haughty smirk, relishing the way his face pinched slightly.

“I’m the damn Chief of police, Kid. I can-”

“Trick-or-treating. Yes, or no.”

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times. No, and that’s final.”

Rolling your eyes, you pushed forward on your bike slightly and lowered your voice, “C’mon, Hop. You can’t treat her like a prisoner of war. You know what happens when you cage a dog?”

“The hell are you talking-”

“They start to bite. And when they finally get out, they start to run.”

Hopper lifted his hat to run a hand over his hair, a long, irritated sigh falling from his lips, and you knew he’d had this argument a million and one times with El, “I said no. End of. Now get back to school.”

“The hell is that smell?” you questioned, nose scrunched up as you tried to breathe through your mouth instead.

Pulling back the cover of Eugene McCorkle’s truck, you found yourself gagging as the awful, pungent smell of decay finally filled your nostrils, “That is why I’m in a hurry. Now if that’s all, I gotta go. And put a damn helmet on.”

Jonathan Byers didn’t cancel on you. In fact, he even offered to pick you up after finally deciding to allow his brother to trick-or-treat alone with his friends.

“She’s evil, I swear.” You told him as you searched through your mother’s chest of drawers, thankful she was out.

“She’s like… ten.” Jonathan laughed, leaning on the door frame, politely refusing to enter your mother’s bedroom.

Rolling your eyes, you continued to dig, “She’s actually nine, but still… Evil. We hit Cherry Street, and she managed to bully Mr. Benson into giving her three full-sized Butterfingers bars.”

Despite not seeing the boy's face, you could almost hear the amused smirk in his tone, “Oh, wow. I better call The Hawkins Post, let them know there’s a new Stalin about town.”

“Shut it, Byers.” Snatching up the yellow button-up shirt that you knew was hidden somewhere with a devilish smirk, you pushed yourself upright and almost skipped back to your room, the door shutting in Jonathan’s face before you began to change.

“You know, you don’t have to dress up, right?”

Jonathan didn’t hear your mumbled response as you pulled your black vest over your head, but a small huff of laughter fell from his lips when you finally opened the door, “Black Christmas?”

“You know that we still have time to ask Bob if you can borrow his Dracula costume, right?”

House keys half-shoved into your back pocket, you clambered into Jonathan’s Ford, already rummaging through his glove compartment to find whichever tape picked your fancy. The boy waited until you settled on a familiar yellow and black cassette.

Waiting until he pulled out of his driveway, and the second verse of Burning Down The House transitioned into the chorus, Jonathan — who had most definitely not asked Bob for his costume — finally asked the question that he had been swallowing down since his arrival at your house,

“Are you okay?”

His troubled glance burned a hole in the side of your face, but you refused to meet his eyes, “I’m fine, Jonathan.”

“This just… doesn’t seem your kind of thing.”

“And what, it’s yours?” You didn’t mean for it to come out so harsh, “Didn’t realize you were such a social butterfly, Byers.”

Sighing, Jonathan’s fingers tapped at the distressed steering wheel as he returned his gaze to the road, “I don’t know why the hell either of us are going. I mean, we’re going to hate at least 90% of the people there, right?”

Unable to hide the stretch of a smile from your lips, you finally chanced a look at the boy, grateful that his eyes remained focused on the road out ahead of him, “90%? Have you made friends that aren’t me?”

The boy shook his head, a small smile tugging at his own mouth as you grabbed the orange paper invitation that was sat on his dash, “And we’re going because we’re gonna be stupid teenagers, doing stupid things, at a stupid Halloween party. Plus, we’re gonna get sheet-faced, Byers.”

The party was in full swing by the time you’d arrived, and since you’d promised Jonathan that you’d be ready to leave by 9pm to pick up Will, you didn’t plan on wasting one second of your time.

Tina’s family home sat on Oak and First, and much like Steve Harrington’s house, it was huge and surrounded by the woods. Whilst it was great to know the chances of any neighbors calling the cops were minimal, one glance at the vast, dark treeline set you off enough to refill your cup. You didn’t know how much you’d had to drink, nor did you have any idea as to what was in the punch, bar Drew practically burping in your face that it was pure fuel. All you knew was that it tasted like grape juice. Grape juice with a lot of Tina’s parent's expensive vodka.

Turns out, Nancy was also on a mission to get absolutely wasted.

A loud cheer came from outside, and the chants of the new boy’s name could be heard even over the shredding of guitars of Motley Crew. You weren’t sure who had jacked Tina’s record player, but you were at least grateful that it was a break from back-to-back Madonna.

Ignoring the way Billy stared at you as he passed, making his way toward Steve and no doubt attempting to start trouble, you wobbled toward Jonathan, a drink in each hand.

“Oh shit, Siouxsie Sioux, right?”

The girl, Samantha — with whom you shared art class together — nodded, sending an amused, but tight smile, “Yeah. What are you?”

“Drunk,” Jonathan’s voice was loud next to you, “She’s drunk.”

Rolling your eyes, you purposely gulped down a large mouthful from your solo cup as you offered the other to Jonathan, “And you are sober. Time to catch up, Byers.”

“I’m driving,” shaking his head, Jonathan’s eyes darted around the party, and even in your drunken stupor, you knew who he was looking for.

So instead, you shrugged and took a sip from his cup, “Sucks to be you. Have a good night, Siouxsie.”

Stumbling around the party like Bambi on ice, you almost dropped both of your cups as Drew pushed past, his once rosy, alcohol-flushed cheeks now appeared to be tinged with the slightest shade of green as he rushed out toward the garden,

“Hey, Dipshit!” You halfheartedly yelled after him, eyebrows drawn together as you tried to decipher which one of the two Drews you were currently seeing was the real one, “Watch where you’re going!”

“Jesus, how much have you had to drink?”

Face still pinched, you turned to face the familiar voice, barely holding back the sigh that threatened to fall from you lips, “Oh God, it’s you.”

“Charming,” the boy scoffed, eyes darting around the room to find his girlfriend — who was merrily dancing away, her own drink high above her head — before he returned his attention to you, “Seriously though, you good?”

“I am great.”

Steve was certain it was the first time he’d ever heard you giggle.

Watching you like a hawk, Steve grabbed hold of the half-full red solo cup just before it met your lips, “I think you should slow down a little.”

“I think you should mind your own business, Steven.”

Finally managing to wrangle the cup from your grasp — which really wasn’t that hard considering your state — he placed it on the side, allowing his eyes to dart toward his girlfriend once more, “Is this about the other night? About the nightmares? Because I swear I didn’t-.”

“So you decided to show,” Billy’s smirk was wide, his eyes leering over you despite your outfit being pretty conservative, “You wanna try out the keg? You’re looking at the new King of Hawkins High.”

Your face remained stoic, unsure as to why Billy thought that would impress you, “I’m fine, thanks.”

“You wanna dance then?”

Nodding, you pointed at Billy, “Now that… That is something I wanna do.”

Steve watched as you took a large gulp from the cup he hadn’t seen, allowing Billy to begin to lead you toward the crowd. He called your name once, twice, three times, before you stopped, turning to watch him approach you with concern etched over his features, “C’mon, this isn’t like you.”

Sending the boy a sardonic smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes, you peeled his gentle grip from your elbow, “That’s the thing, Steve. You don’t know me. You don’t know me, at all.”

Even as you turned to walk away again, Steve called after you, his voice full of hurt, but Billy was the one to intervene this time, a condescending smirk tugging at his lips, “You heard the girl, Harrington. Go find your girlfriend.”

Lips pressed tightly together, Steve huffed and decided that if you didn’t want his help, he would in fact go find his girlfriend. Turns out, it wasn’t exactly hard as Nancy was standing by the punch bowl, helping herself to another drink.

The party was fun for a while, you wouldn’t bother to deny that, but it was only so long that you could handle feeling so out of control. The room was spinning, and you couldn’t tell if things were moving too slowly, or a little too fast, and you felt like you didn’t know up from down. The only grounding force you had was the chest pressed against your back as Billy held you against him, hips gyrating a little too promiscuously, not that you were in any state to notice.

The smell of sweat, smoke, and aftershave that was just a little too strong for your liking hit your nostrils before the pungent, overwhelming smell of alcohol covered it, “So who’d you come as?”

“Jess Bradford,” you mumbled, eyes closed and head resting against the boy as you swayed clumsily to Duran Duran, scoffing loudly when Billy questioned who that was, “You know, from Black Christmas? 'The calls are coming from the house.'”

“Why the hell are you dressed as someone from a Christmas film?”

Out of all the times you’d wanted to slap Billy, this might’ve been the one time you would’ve, had your hand-eye coordination been any good.

“I thought you might’ve come as something a little sexier, you know?” Billy’s lips grazed the side of your neck, the hairs from his mustache tickling you in the worst of ways, “Maybe a little pussycat, or a-”

“Why would a cat be sexy?” You slurred, body no longer moving to the music as you tried to clear your bleary vision, completely unaware of the argument that was going on back in the kitchen, “God, you’re so weird-”

The words died from your mouth as your whole body stood still in shock, one hand clutched against Billy’s wandering one as it grazed over your abdomen, hand shoved between your vest and your shirt. Pushing his hand away, you tried to create some kind of distance, but the boy wouldn’t allow for it, turning you in his grip instead,

“Hey, c’mon, don’t be like that.”

“I’m not being like anything, just get off of me. I wanna go home,” when the boy moved closer, a haughty smirk pulling at his lips, you shoved your hand limply to his chest as if to move him back, “Alone. I wanna go home alone.”

His smirk dropped instantly, eyes narrowing as he looked over you, “The hell is wrong with you? One minute you’re all over me, the next you’re acting like a total prude.”

“I wasn’t-” slurring, you wobbled slightly where you stood, expression pinched, “I wasn’t all over you. You… You were all over me.”

“Last I heard, a little bit of alcohol and you turn into the county slut-”

His words stopped abruptly as your hand connected with his cheek. Even though you were wasted and your arms felt like cooked spaghetti, the darkening in both his cheek and his eyes told you it had at least hurt a little,

“You wanna go home, then fine. Go. Nobody here gives a shit.”

Refusing to allow your bottom lip to wobble until you were outside and far enough away, you stumbled out of Tina’s house, refusing to make eye contact with any of the passersby. However much of a dick he was, Billy was right.

Nobody in that party cared. Jonathan was here for one reason, and whilst you couldn’t blame him, you knew you were just along for the ride. The only friend — the only true friend — you’d had, had been dragged into the pits of Hell by some monster. The same monster who’d left a permanent reminder on your body in the form of three large, ugly scars along your abdomen. The same scars that Billy had — albeit, unwittingly — ran his hand over as he tried to feel you up.

Making your way to the end of Tina’s drive, you plopped yourself down on the curb, cursing yourself as you rummaged around in your pockets for a cigarette, only to come up empty-handed.

The first tear fell, but you wiped it away almost viciously, refusing to allow any more to fall. But you were drunk and tired — both emotionally and physically — and you just wanted this night to be over. This year to be over.

A pair of white Nike trainers came into view, stopping directly in front of you and causing you to crane your neck.

There, with bloodshot eyes and flushed cheeks, stood Steve Harrington, his large hand held out in front of him, waiting to assist you up, “C’mon, I’ll drive you home.”

You both remained silent for the most part, your eyes drooping every so often, before shooting open when your head would bump the window, a quiet murmur of ‘sorry’ from the boy next to you.

Groaning, you forced your eyes shut, the image of the passing trees making you feel nauseous, “You’re not gonna hurl, are you?”

“No,” you hiccuped, swallowing down the excessive saliva that was building up in your mouth, “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” the boy said quietly, eyes darting toward you as you curled in on yourself, sending him a half-assed glare.

“Yeah, well… Neither do you.”

A short, humorless laugh fell from his lips before he wiped at his nose, pinching the tip of it, “Yeah well, not everyone had as good of a night as you, I guess.”

“I don’t think having Billy Hargrove grinding against me is my definition of a good night.” Sighing, you ran your hand over your face, ignorant of any makeup you had probably smudged.

“Sure looked like you enjoyed it,” Steve’s eyes darted toward you, squeezing his eyes together for just a second, “I’m sorry. That was… Look, it’s none of my business, alright?”

Folding your arms over your chest, you leaned your head against the window, “You’re right. It’s not.”

Pulling up to your house, you noted your mother’s car gone from the small driveway, and you were willing to thank whatever higher power was out there until you stood patting your dark pants in an attempt to find your keys,

Thankfully, Steve was waiting until you were safely inside the house to pull away, but when you came up empty-handed he sighed and quickly exited his car, following you as you fumbled with the front room window, eventually turning your attention to the overgrown garden, “Just… Just get back in the car.”

“I’m sure I can get in through at least one window-”

Steve’s eyes widened, grabbing hold of your wrist as you lifted your arm, ready to throw a large rock you’d found straight through your bedroom window. Drunken logic, he assumed,

“Look, we don’t need to add breaking and entering to your charge sheet. Just… get back in the car. You can stay at mine.”

“It wouldn’t be breaking and entering if I’m breaking and entering my own property, dumbass,” you scoffed but allowed him to gently pull you toward his car once more, stumbling over your Converse.

Within the blink of an eye — or maybe you’d just had a five-minute nap — you were pulling up to Steve’s familiar house, the bright red door almost taunting you at the one memory you had of this place, and the stark reminder that things would never be the same again.

“My folks are home, so you’ve gotta be quiet, alright?”

Steve cringed as you slammed his car door accidentally, eyes widened as you turned to him, “…Sorry.”

After assessing the top floor windows, thanking his lucky stars that his parents seemingly remained fast asleep, he helped you into the house and up the stairs.

Delicately closing his bedroom door, Steve finally turned to you, rolling his eyes as you fell face first onto his bed, before making his way toward his chest of drawers and pulling out an old shirt, “Here, you can wear this if you want.”

Your head popped up, face pinched in disgust, “When did you last wash your sheets?”

Steve was certain that by this point, he’d seen the back of his eye sockets a million times, “Calm down, they’re clean. Just… change into that, and I’ll be back.”

Eventually pulling yourself upright, you managed to wrestle yourself out of the black vest as you grumbled to yourself the entire time before flopping back down onto the bed, unable to care that sleeping in your slim-fit yellow button-up shirt would be mildly uncomfortable at best. When Steve finally made his way back to the room — a gentle, wary knock before he reentered — he found you tucked under the navy blue comforter, his spare shirt still on the edge of the bed where he’d left it. Steve placed the cold glass of water down on the bedside table, along with the bottle of aspirin he’d brought up. Placing his hands on his hips, Steve let out a long sigh as he looked around his room, unsure of what to do.

It had been a long night, and despite Steve wanting to go to bed, he was somewhat grateful for the distraction you’d given him. He’d been warned a long time ago when he was much smaller, that crying was a weakness, even in the privacy of his own bedroom.

“Steve,” your voice was barely above a whisper, but it made him jump a little anyway, “I’m sorry I was a total bitch earlier.”

A small huff of laughter fell from his lips as he grabbed a pillow from his bed, throwing it to the floor before making his way to the cupboard, grabbing his summer comforter, “After the night I’ve had, it’s nothing.”

Flicking off the light switch and making sure his bedroom door was locked, Steve finally made himself comfortable on the floor beside the bed, his foot knocking against his desk every so often as he shuffled in an attempt to get comfortable. Releasing a sigh, Steve rolled back onto his back, gazing at the moon outside his bedroom window.

He used to have everything.

The popularity, the friends, even the girl. And now, everything was in turmoil, ripped out like a rug from under his feet, and Steve felt like he was forever falling. He was stupid to think that tonight could’ve been the night he finally felt normal again.

Rolling onto your stomach, you peered down at the boy in silence, watching as he became lost in his own thoughts. Despite the remainder of his previous summer's sunkissed skin, the moonlight washed him out, betraying the dark circles that nestled under his red-rimmed eyes. Eyes that appeared much darker.

You wouldn’t pretend that you knew Steve well. In fact, most of the things you knew about Steve could be counted on one hand. One thing you were learning, however, was that when Steve was upset, he’d become pensive. Quiet. Un-Steve like. Watching him like that — in an almost silent trance as his eyes grew dull, losing focus — tugged at your heartstrings in a way you didn’t appreciate.

“Why are you sad?”

Blinking a few times, Steve managed to pull himself out of the never-ending spiral that long, quiet nights alone seemed to inevitably end in, his eyes instead turning toward you as his brows pushed together, “I’m not sad.”

“Tell that to your face,” you didn’t have it in you to roll your eyes, instead remaining laser-focused on the boy, “because you look like a kicked puppy.”

Steve, however, did roll his eyes. Releasing a sigh, he crossed his arms over his chest, wriggling a little to get comfortable, “I’m not sad, I’m just… It's been a long night.”

A long year.

His tone was final, evident that he didn’t intend to divulge you any further into his problems, so you remained silent, still peering at him over the edge of his bed. Eventually, the pinch between his brows settled, eyes gazing back toward you, “Why were you crying?”

“I wasn’t crying,” you grumbled, burrowing yourself into the soft comforter, “I just… Also had a long night.”

“Hargrove?”

Your silence, only interrupted by a long, deep sigh, told the boy that he was correct.

“He’s an asshole.”

A short silence, followed by a slight sniffle and a defeated ‘yeah’ caused the boy to furrow his brow, hand slowly moving toward where yours hung off the bed slightly, fingers grazing your wrist as he tapped it to get your attention back, “He didn’t try anything, did he?”

Your glossy eyes refused to meet his, focusing on the moon that looked like it was about to roll right across the sky, “It’s Hargrove, he’s always trying something.”

Watching as you gnawed your bottom lip, knowing it would be sore by the morning, Steve waited patiently as you tried to rearrange your thoughts.

If you hadn’t drunk so much, you probably wouldn’t have entertained his curiosity, and Steve knew if Nancy hadn’t ripped out his heart in Tina’s bathroom, he wouldn’t have grasped at someone else’ tribulations, needing to do anything to keep his mind from imploding in on itself with questions he didn’t have the answers to.

“Last year,” your voice was as quiet as a mouse. Trepidation and dubiety wound tight on your tongue, burning like acid as you dug through the memories you’d been trying so hard to repress the past 11 months, “when that thing attacked me… Well, let's just say it left a pretty gnarly scar.”

Remaining silent, Steve watched as your throat bobbed, taking in your words even if they were still slightly slurred. Steve had a scar on his left knee from falling off his bike when he was younger, the thin, white line had become nothing more than a passing thought throughout the years, but now, watching your chin wobble slightly as you tried to find the words, it felt like the most important information he had.

“I just… Billy grazed over it, you know? He doesn't even know it's there, but… I see it every morning, and it makes me… It makes me sick. And then I realize that I’m so lucky that all that monster did was leave a scar because, for all we know, it ripped Barb apart. But I… I just hate it, and I hate that fucking Demogorgon, and I hate that I will forever have that reminder on my body. ”

Wiping your eyes with the comforter, you shook your head, “I’m sorry. It’s so fucking stupid.”

“When I was seven, my Dad tried to teach me how to ride a bike,” his words were enough to pull you from your downfall, tear-filled eyes finally connecting with his, “he gave up pretty quickly, didn’t like it when I wasn’t automatically good at something. Every afternoon after school, for like, a whole week, I’d force myself back out on that bike. I knew I had to learn because I had to prove my Dad wrong.”

Your eyes remained on him, feeling comfort from his warm, soft gaze, even if his sudden switch in conversation had thrown you through a loop, “What happened?”

“I fell off, busted my knee on the driveway. Got a pretty badass scar myself-”

“-Harrington-”

“-But, I kept going. Picked myself up, dusted myself off, and carried on. And then one afternoon, I just… I did it. Pushed off and sailed down the street.”

Sniffling a little, you watched him with a furrowed brow, “Does this story have a point, or are you just trying to send me to sleep?”

The shadow of a smirk tugged at the side of his lips, but he did his best to repress it, “What I’m trying to say is… Actually, I don’t really know what I’m trying to say. But I do know that your scar, it might be a reminder of all the shit that went down last year, but it also shows that you survived it, came out the other end, you know? And you shouldn’t… You shouldn’t care about what anything thinks about it, especially not Hargrove.”

Blinking away the tears that had settled along your lash line, you remained silent as you watched the boy watching you. Never in your wildest dreams would you expect Steve Harrington — Hawkins's own knockoff version of Tom Cruise, if you asked him at least — to be the one to comfort you over a deep-rooted insecurity. You’d heard the ways his gaggle of friends would loudly mock other students — yourself included on occasion — everything from their hair to their music taste, the acne on their forehead to the braces that lined their teeth. Like sharks, they were able to smell insecurity from 3 miles away and didn’t hesitate to go in for the kill.

But from your position on the comfortable bed, peering down at the boy who somehow looked much younger and much older all at the same time, you realized that the Steve Harrington you thought you knew was slowly but surely evolving. A caterpillar that had entered the first stage of metamorphosis. And only time would tell if he came out a moth or a butterfly.

[thathomestar]

dragon's dogma 2 thoughts so far, roughly 7 hours in:

out in the field, performance is mostly fine. it dips for me sometimes but it stays around 60 fps for the most part. being in the big city is rough, there's like 150 npcs all walking around doing their own thing and it makes the game chug, on my pc it drags it down to 30 fps average, sometimes 20 fps at the lowest points. they really need to clean that up.

i've just been playing fighter so far, and i'm enjoying the new combat system. it feels a lot looser than dd1, the soft lockon from dd1 is even softer. getting staggered and stunlocked by enemies is a real threat, you take much longer to recover from getting knocked over than you did in dd1. the revamped heavy attack button being more used for dealing decisive high damage hits on staggered or stunned enemies is such a good idea.

they swapped the buttons for block and special sword attacks and that kept throwing me off at first lol. perfect parry timing feels about the same as it did in dd1. you can actually use your heavy attack while mounting a monster without instantly jumping off, it's great. my pawn is an archer and honestly i think she does more dps than me sometimes, she's come in clutch so many times already.

the main kicker i've been feeling is the how they treat your health pool. in dd1 you could just spam consumables to cure your health back to maximum at any time, but they've changed how it works here in dd2. now, whenever you take damage, you lose a tiny bit of your max hp. whether a mage casts a heal or you drink a potion, you can't get all the way back up to full until you rest at an inn or a campsite. so now you play a longer-term game of "do i go find a camp and rest to full or do i go fight this ogre at 50% max hp". i enjoy being stupid so i tend to not rest until i absolutely have to lol.

you can actually preview which vocations have what augments now, which saves a trip opening up a browser and searching for that info. you do have to unlock warrior and sorcerer as well as the other new vocations, but warrior and sorcerer was literally "go to a cave, kill some goblins, get the stolen weapons back, ok you're good to go now". took like 30 mins after reaching the big city.

i have encountered every single microtransaction item within the first 5 hours of playing. they mostly either cost gold or rift crystals, and are relatively cheap. i got a camping kit for free for reaching the first oxcart. i got the harpy lure for free by helping a random person out and about. i've gotten four wakestones already. the microtransactions are stupid and so obviously mandated by some dinosaur executive but you're an even bigger moron if you think any of this stuff is meaningful or locked-off content.

uhh what else. turning your lantern on and off is nice and quick. your pawns actually talk amongst each other now. i don't know how different the inclination system is yet so i don't know if doing the d-pad pawn commands changes them. those commands seem to actually work properly now though. ran away from a fight and told my pawns "to me!" and they actually disengaged the fight and ran with me, so that's nice. don't like the music as much as the first game so far, we'll see how it fares once i actually fight a monster bigger than a cyclops.

[x-liv25-jamieswife]

maxander head canons

@ant-thebooknerd requested this in my comment section so here it is. @hathorneheiress helped with this post. some hcs might suck and i apologize if anything doesn’t make sense cause this isn’t proof read. i haven't gotten any real sleep in 3 days so my hcs making brain juice has almost run out. hope you like it! i will make a part two bc i love them and these were so easy and fun to make.

max gets annoyed sometimes cause she loves reading but hates having to hold the book open, and those contraptions you buy online don't work. xander built her smth just for her.

they're the type of people to kiss each other's feet and bow down to each other as a joke

when they can't sleep, they read smut to each other.

when they’re out in public, xander clings onto her arm like a baby.

although they’re in a relationship, they’re both really shy when it comes to telling the other i love you. either that or they make it a competition like who can go the longest without saying i love you accidently.

they're the type of people to always be on call. it doesn't matter if they're sleeping or at the bathroom, they will NOT hang up.

i can see him asking her to prom with those super cliche embarrassing posters with puns and stuff. max squealed like a seal when he did it.

they do those challenges on tiktok where someone puts the karaoke version of a song on and the other has to guess what song is playing (search it up if you don’t know what im talking about).

speaking of singing, they make the weirdest parodies of songs and sing them during their weekly dinners with the rest of the family.

when xander doesn't want to wake up and get out of bed, max shakes her ass in his face and jumps all over him.

they both love lying down sprawled on the floor quietly, staring at the ceiling, questioning their life decisions together.

they love scaring people when they're in his lab and people are passing by saying stuff like 'harder, xander! ah you’re so big. yes that's it right there". they always succeed. 

they love pretending like they're their favorite historical romance couples like elizabeth and darcy from pride and prejudice. they go around acting out all of the scenes and stuff.

whenever their favorite artists release an album, they have a listening party with popcorn, candy, balloons, confetti, etc. its this huge thing and it basically becomes a holiday for them (which obviously doesn't have a set date bc albums are released randomly)

they post those weird cliche cheesy prank videos like "pregnancy prank on my boyfriend"

when they cuddle in bed, max is the big spoon and xander is the little spoon.

they’re both cuddle addicts. they’ll be at a super important event and they’ll be sitting on the floor in each other’s arms whispering things to each other. alisa gets so mad and thinks its bad for their image.

ever since they started dating, xander doesn't use his pillow anymore, he lies down on max's chest bc he think boobs are better than any pillow.

they love watching crime series and trying to figure out who committed the crime themselves.

max loves making paper flower bouquets for xander.

max wanted to learn how to twerk so she got xander to teach her. she's now an expert (even better than xander)

xander loves picking up her hand and bowing down to kiss it like some historical romance boyfriend saying stuff like "why hello there, mlady"

they are constantly sending each other tiktoks. one will wake up the next morning and see that the other one sent them 20 different tiktoks. they send the other their thoughts on each and everyone of them in a numbered list.

max becomes a literal monster when she’s on her period. she’s constantly screaming at xander to get her chocolate and stuff and xander’s running around trying to get it for her. she also asks for the most unreasonable things ever. she’ll ask xander to get her a book blanket or some shit and xander will sit there, terrified, wondering what he’s supposed to do.

max is always bragging about the fact that she can eat more than xander even though he’s much bigger than she is.

max will only swear for real in front of xander. they make a competition out of it: “who can out swear the other” usually sweet cinnamon roll xander wins surprisingly.

they sneak around hawthorne house together to try to get all of the juicy gossip. i can see them acting like they're in a comedy movie hiding behind cleaning carts and stuff.

they call each other stuff like 'my sexy sweet sugar plum dusted with pepper" and "my hot little apple pie sprinkled with glitter"

they draw stuff on each other's arms with sharpies. they're too scared to get actual tattoos so this is the next best thing.

when max has a bad day, she loves lying down completely on top of xander and placing her head in the crook of his neck. it allows her to decompress and relax.

nose kisses are their favorite type of kisses bc it always makes the other blush and scrunch their nose, and they find it adorable.

they have matching shirts that go like "if lost return to max"/"i am max"

[glngrbred]

Hot take, Elden ring is a really good souls like, but that doesn't mean its actually a good game.

within the subgenre, souls-likes have always had really huge issues with accessibility, and i don't mean for disability alone. Elden ring especially had extremely horrible performance issues at launch, which they did eventually fix. Even then you still have to get a 400 dollar PC. Aside from that there are some strange decisions made with teaching the player, like the tutorial is just a hole that players had to point out to each other, and On my barely stable first 20 minutes, i couldn't even find (my b i guess). Obviously alot of extremely experienced gamers would be able to handle themselves super well in Elden ring even without a tutorial. But there's another issue there with accessibility.

2 last things on accessibility. The game's audio is mixed like a movie, (so barely audible or ripping out your eardrums ;-;) witch is another accessibility issue, that you have to put a lot of work in to fix. And the graphics range from maxing out the brightness, to being completely black on bad screens. obviously an issue. I'm not going to go into the issues with explanations and the general tell don't show nature of alot of souls likes, because people have already complained about the text tunnels enough

I do really appreciate the artistry and just beautiful atmosphere Elden ring has, my only issue with the graphics is the performance requirements for them. Also if you never turned the graphics all the way down, it used to cause bit lag spikes just because it wanted to i guess :")

So, my argument is that a game can be a good version of the predecessors it bases itself off of, but if it doesn't actually deliver on playability and accessibility, I really don't think its deserving of the praise it gets. here are examples of games I think are flawless Unraveled/Unraveled 2 Hades Minecraft (Java edition only [cuz bedrock is completely broken somehow???) Never alone (a cool 2 player co op platformer that me and my brother played through when we were 6 and 8 or smthn, it was incredible, and i still think its worth playing as an adult) Spelunky 2 ***Monster Hunter (except for the extremely slow RPG elements) [takes 3 months to get 1 armor set built fully :)]

So i actually have some great news for the difficulty purists, You can actually do a hardcore game well, So long as you make failure quick and readable, Make trying immediate, and Make learning a part of the design. Spelunky is not my cup of tea, i have a bad time with reaction time, but spelunky is really great, in that your goal every attempt is simply to get as far as possible. In elden ring, you have the opposite problem, where instead of completing the objective being extraordinarily hard, getting from point a to point b is tediouse, saving the game takes time, occasionally you can be attacked without knowing why, and you dont get a clear read on what went wrong, ETC. If Elden ring was only the boss fights, I would say its almost a great game. Which is why I included Monster hunter on that list, despite its insufferable grind. Also BTW spelunky 2 has four fun minigames. a requirement for any game to be truly perfect is for there to be appeal for casual gamers, and i don't think adding casual elements makes a game worse, like, ever.

Anyways, last little thing, I really dislike it when People praise games for not catering to the needs of some players. Like everyone has heard dudebros or their friends be like "It doesn't have any difficulty settings! that's so sick!" But, like, Have you ever met someone with a motor function disability, or like, just someone who doesn't play games for 30000 hours every year? Difficulty settings and the ability to control your experience are important. and this isn't about Elden ring, But if you care about being an ally you should want your games to have accessibility features, they only benefit people. and if you're so worked up about about an extra tab being in the settings window, maybe you should like, go to therapy or something.

Also Elden ring's UI is so ass it gave my design teacher a heart attack and they hired a Pe*o as our sub.

[duhragonball]

I like to think that part of the appeal of Dragon Ball is the fact these random martial artists keep on taking on world-ending threats, because they are the only ones strong enough to do it. For that reason, do you think Dragon Ball would have gotten as good as it did if none of it's villains could blow up the world?

No, I don't think that would have affected the quality of Dragon Ball.

To be sure, blowing up the whole world is a cool way to raise the stakes. It's awesome how Vegeta tried to ragequit his invasion of Earth, and Goku had to stand his ground because the entire planet would have been destroyed if he didn't try to repel that world-ending Gallick Gun. It's also awesome that Frieza tried to destroy Namek because it was easier than fighting a Super Saiyan. It's awesome that Cell had a self-destruct feature, and the only way to foil it was to take him to a different planet with a smaller population. And of course, it's awesome that Majin Buu just went ahead and destroyed the Earth, and no one could stop him, and the story just kept on going anyway. Those are all big impressive story beats, and Dragon Ball might be poorer without them.

All that said, I don't think taking them out would make the story worse. The Red Ribbon Army arc was great, and the height of their power was that they could probably conquer the Earth with the right leadership and resources. The King Piccolo stuff was great, and the most he could do was to subjugate the Earth and perhaps wipe out its population.

I think it says a lot how the Piccolo Junior arc was such a classic, and yet the stakes were basically the same as the arc before it. Piccolo is back, and if Goku can't stop him then he'll just repeat what he did before. It works. The only real difference there is that Piccolo Junior was stronger and laser focused on eliminating Goku.

Radditz threatened to kill everyone on Earth and sell the empty planet to the highest bidder, which is cool because it goes beyond even what Piccolo had planned for it, which reinforced the notion of Piccolo and Goku teaming up to stop him.

Now you could stop right there, and continue the story with that same limit on "How bad could it get?" and things still work. Frieza planned to destroy Namek after making his wish, so that no one else could use the Dragon Balls, but he needn't have bothered, since killing Guru and the other Namekians would settle that just as easily. Cell's self-destruct could have just been some sort of biological agent that would kill everyone without damaging the planet itself. Kid Buu could have just fought Goku and Vegeta on Earth, though admittedly that's a tough call. You set this guy up as a planet-destroying monster, so it strains credibility that he's stuck on Earth for two days and never goes through with it.

Still, I think there's more to the story than just blowing up planets. Look at Super Hero, where all the major players are much, much stronger than the "planet busters" of Z, and yet it never comes up. Nobody in the story wants to destroy the Earth, so the fact that they can doesn't come into play. Cell Max seems to be nearly mindless, but he also knows how to fight pretty well, so he must have some rudimentary control over his power, which keeps him from wrecking the earth every time he goes berserk. I assume his self-destruct is designed the same way. It's contained to destroy whatever killed him, but it doesn't blow up the whole world because Dr. Hedo isn't as nihilistic as his grandfather was.

"The whole world might be destroyed!" is just a tool, one of many that Akira Toriyama had in his toolbox. The fact is, once he introduced that level of power, he couldn't really raise the stakes much higher. Villains like Buu or Zamasu could destroy every planet, but it basically amounts to the same thing, so Dragon Ball has been on that same level of stakes ever since Vegeta fought Goku for the first time 35 years ago. And if the stories have been all right over those past 35 years, then there really isn't a need to raise the stakes any higher, is there?

Likewise, if he had kept that notion off the table, and the worst Vegeta could do was to render the Earth uninhabitable or something, then we'd have 35 years of that being the worst anyone could do, and I don't think it would make that much of a difference.

To come at it from a different direction, I don't think "villains who can blow up the world" is what made Dragon Ball good. It was already good well before that came into play. And if Toriyama could tell a great story without that angle, then he's no worse off with or without it.

I was thinking the other day about how irritating it gets when fans argue over whether "O.G. Dragon Ball" is better or worse than "Z". They're the same story, after all. It's like arguing over which half of a movie is better. But it struck me that this is a big part of Toriyama's legacy. Dragon Ball is such a classic that fans talk about it like he made two classics and debate which one is the best. That's pretty damn impressive.

I think it proves that there's not some single "special ingredient" that makes the story work. Way back in the beginning, it was made clear that martial artists have a duty to use their special skills to help people, and that's been the through-line of Dragon Ball. Saving the entire planet from some world-busting menace is taking that idea to the extreme, but the idea still works, even if it's just Goku helping a sea turtle get back home, or tackling the Red Ribbon base to wish Upa's dad back to life.

[reikunrei]

"More than just an ordinary human."

It's that time again! Another Doctor Who episode wahoo!! Let's check out season 3, episode 6:

"The Lazarus Experiment"

So, Lazarus is, obviously, taken from the biblical figure of Lazarus who was brought back from the dead by Jesus. The story of his revival is meant to exemplify the power Jesus has over death itself, but I won't be talking about that in-depth here; the Bible-talk is more James's wheelhouse lol.

As it applies to this Doctor Who episode, it's not so much about coming back from the dead, but rather about cheating death. Professor Richard Lazarus has created an invention, which he calls a "miracle" (the same word used by Patty in reference to "Henry's" powers in tfs), that will essentially de-age anyone who steps inside.

(Peeping the fact that he specifically mentions the moon landing like Mr. Clarke mentions it in st3)

However, there's a catch! He didn't do his proper research! He didn't account for all possible variables! And something in his DNA is trying to change him! (Another tfs word! We love to see it!)

Rejuvenating, you say? Even after the Doctor blows up Lazarus in his monster form and he comes out entirely unscathed? Golly, I wonder who that reminds me of! Anyway.

So basically what happened is Lazarus "changed his own molecular patterns" by "hack[ing] into his own genes" which is SUCH a NINA-ass word to use. Don't even remind me of all the computer stuff that's being pushed in the st5 leaks and updates. This has seemingly activated something in his DNA that's trying to make him change, and that "change" is a giant scorpion-like monster that is absolutely ravenous. Before the Doctor and Martha are looking at his DNA, we see a scene of Dr. Lazarus grabbing a finger-food platter from one of the waitstaff at his invention's unveiling and scarfs it down, saying he's famished, which the Doctor isn't surprised by (it's insinuated that he understands, at least loosely, what's happening because of the Time Lord's ability to regenerate, which always wears them out and makes them very energy-hungry).

In his monster form, Dr. Lazarus drains all the "life-energy" out of several human victims in order to sate his hunger, leaving an empty shell. (Insert Vecna consuming his victims to get stronger, insert "Henry" killing animals in tfs to sate the Shadow and it being much more powerful when "he" finally kills Virginia, insert Max being left an empty body without a soul/life, etc. etc., you get the picture. Not to mention that the Doctor equates it to "squeezing the juice out of an orange" ... I wasn't expecting a little st vr connection, but I'll take it!). He has little to no control over his transformation, and while he can feel it coming on, he can't just snap in and out of it; it simply takes over and he changes. The first time we see him transform, he writhes on the ground in agony and his wife asks if it's "some kind of seizure" (smash cut to "Henry" in tfs seizing).

Later, after some running around, being chased, and doing some thinking, the Doctor explains to Martha that this "thing" (Lazarus) isn't alien, it's "strictly human in origin." This form was becoming "dominant" because the process of de-aging himself likely awoke some dormant genes that "evolution rejected...millions of years ago...forgotten until Lazarus unlocked it by mistake."

A big part of this episode is about hubris. Dr. Lazarus is overconfident in his invention, and he spends ample part of the start of the episode dismissing the Doctor and Martha when they both warn him that something may be wrong/this may be more dangerous than he realizes. On top of Dr. Lazarus seeking out youth/prolonged life, much like the idea that Brenner is looking for some sort of power/immortality of some kind in st (barely even touching on the other weird stuff like Brenner not aging in tfs between 1959-1979), a lot of it made me think of El tearing into Brenner in 4.08, especially her emphasis on him being the monster, on all of this being his fault, all because he couldn't let Henry go. Brenner has constantly been presented to us, throughout all mediums, to be fairly stubborn and determined to get what he wants, even if the results are catastrophic (ie. the number of guards and orderlies who have died helping him with his child dungeon project, all of the children themselves dying in one way or another, even his own ass getting jumped by a demogorgon and then shot to bleed out and "die" in the desert).

Which leads into the other core aspect of this episode: humanity.

Throughout all of Doctor Who, the Doctor makes it clear that he finds humans utterly fascinating, especially in their mundanity. He emphasizes the importance of everyone's individuality and tells everyone they're special and important, even if they don't really "do" anything. Simply being who they are is what makes them matter; they don't need to be useful or supply anything groundbreaking in order to be amazing in his eyes. They exist as humans, and that's all that matters.

In this episode, we see Lazarus talk about how humans, as they are now, are basically inferior. While a large part of his motivations are about the money he'll make off of such an invention, we learn later that he has a distinct and deep fear of death and being defenseless against it. He wants to "change what it means to be human," to give them "a chance...to evolve, to improve" and to make sure he never has to face death like he did as a child: terrified and vulnerable.

We get the two following conversations between the Doctor and Lazarus, one at about the midway point of the episode before shit really hits the fan, and the other is near the very end of the episode after shit has really hit the fan.

This next one is split into several pieces to get in all the lines because they say a lot that jumps out as very important and distinctly Brenner, with some smatterings of One's monologue and some Henry-isms, especially from tfs, and the general presence of many of The Words.

I wanna point out that the Doctor being at the London Blitz is a direct reference to the episodes I talked about in my last dw post. And I find it incredibly interesting that a lot of the original tfs promo was heavily centered around church, like how this final standoff is in a cathedral, even so far as having Mr. Newby originally be listed as Father Newby, etc., despite the final play not being as heavy-handed with the religious imagery. Idk it's just itching something in my brain! I also wanna note that, since it's kinda hard to see here, the camera pans around Lazarus in a counterclockwise circle, following the path of the Doctor as he circles him, and we aaall know how st loves to use circling camera shots like that.

I especially want to touch on the second conversation the Doctor and Lazarus have in the church. The Doctor speaks to him calmly, trying to get him to understand and have compassion for the experience that is being human rather than trying to cheat it, and that living an exceptionally long life really isn't all it's cracked up to be. Even though Lazarus is now a "monster," he's still intensely humanized. He's killed at least four people at this point, but the Doctor doesn't go about simply trying to belittle, dehumanize, or kill him.

When it comes to Brenner, unfortunately, we still don't know much about his past, but we have a lot we can assume or extrapolate, at least based off what tfs has told us and the gaps we can fill in from st itself. We know, at least vaguely, that he and his father had a strained relationship. During the opening sequence of tfs on the USS Eldridge, we hear Captain Brenner talking to his other shipmates about how "it's my kid's birthday today, he told me he hates me."

However, later in the show, Brenner tells "Henry" that his father's return from Dimension X and subsequent death because of it compelled him to join Project Rainbow and devote his life to the cause and figure out what happened. With "Henry's" seeming ability to survive being infected by the Shadow, Brenner tries to tap into that. His main goal in tfs is to make contact with the Shadow and figure out what happened to his father, and since it's then explained that he made more children like "Henry" (specifically the immunity to the Shadow/the shared blood that supposedly gives them that immunity), it's clear he's trying to avoid is father's fate in that way. In short, it very much comes off as an attempt to try and cheat death.

Brenner, throughout the show, often presents what he does as good, both for the children in the lab and for humanity as a whole (though specifically for the US, focused on beating back those nasty commies). Even if he does bad things, it's for the greater good! He has good intentions! That's gotta count for something, right? /s

Both Lazarus and Brenner went into their respective experiments because they thought they could become better than human. Or in Brenner's case, at the very least he could live vicariously through his experiments to feel better than human, which was explicitly touched on in the vr game in clips like this one. As we also see in st4, El tries to call Brenner a monster, but when she relays this thinking to Vecna, he rejects it, and calls Brenner "an ordinary, mediocre man."

Shortly after that first conversation I showed between Lazarus and the Doctor on the rooftop, after Lazarus transforms, there's a sequence where, from inside Lazarus's machine, the Doctor is able to reverse the polarity of the capsule so it reflects energy rather than receive it, and it blasts Lazarus away, turning him back into human form and supposedly killing him.

Right away, with this comment from Martha, Lazarus is equated back to an ordinary human. He's not made to be the "big bad villain" where everyone is glad he's dead, nor is he made out to be this reverent being. He's someone to be pitied. It's decidedly solemn. He was just a man out of his depth who bit off more than he could chew... much like how Brenner is a man out of his depth who bit off more than he could chew.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we learned that Brenner was actively harming himself in his attempt to do… whatever. Much like how Lazarus was harming himself (and others) in order to maintain his new youth, Brenner may be harming himself with his experiments. Whether that be via blood transfusions/consuming blood (see the post I linked from Stav above), or by doing something as drastic as physically combining himself with one of the Henwards, I doubt anything 100% good and rewarding could come from it. Even if he's looking for something like regenerative healing, as we see in Vecna and as hinted by Brenner not being dead despite getting jumped by a demogorgon, what does he have to do to reach that point? What risks are there involved that he may not have accounted for, simply because he would have no idea that they exist in the first place? Just looking at the circumstances of the weird Brenward face combo we get in 4.07… he didn’t exactly wind up in a great spot after combining himself, did he? Plus, while I'm of the mind that Vecna and the guy we see shape the Mind Flayer are two different dudes (James and Em have other posts about this as well), the way it's presented to us implies that Vecna evolved from the MF guy, so there's a sort of compounding that changes in his appearance from mostly-human to mostly-infected-by-the-UD, which... also doesn't seem great.

We can already see how being infected by the Shadow affects people, which is highlighted in Henry not sleeping and barely eating when he's flayed. Hell, Brenner saw what happened to his father after he returned from Dimension X, and he took the lives of several test subjects (many of them children) in his own experiments. He already knows that there are risks and detractions in this work.

At the very end of this dw episode, Lazarus is finally actually killed. Using the organ in the church, the Doctor amplifies its sound using his Sonic Screwdriver to create "hypersonic sound waves" in order to interfere with Lazarus on a molecular level, which is more or less the same thing he did with his machine. Lazarus falls from a high balcony within the church, disoriented by the noise, and turns back into a human upon death. He even reverts back to his "correct" elderly appearance as the Doctor kneels over him and gently shuts his eyes.

We've already seen something similar to this sort of death with Brenner in st4. While I wouldn't say it was a soft moment for him, since El was still clearly rejecting him, she still leaned into his touch, still listened to him, and clearly was grappling with a lot of messy feelings. She, in that moment, wanted to view him as a monster, but she couldn't. Not entirely. That's her Papa! That's someone who, for most of her life, despite every horrible thing he did, took care of her; who said he loved her and held her best interests at heart.

In my mind, this sort of "soft end" is what we should expect for Brenner and Vecna in st5. It could be even softer than what we see in st4, because as much as Brenner deserves to have his shit absolutely rocked, we've been increasingly shown that he is only human. Human's are not monsters, but humans can do monstrous things. That doesn't make them inhuman. And, as people like James and Em have spoken extensively about lately, Brenner is likely but one cog in the machine that is the Cycles in this show, and not necessarily the source of the cycles to begin with. He didn't pop outta the womb wanting to build a child torture dungeon, but something happened to bring him there and cloud his judgement.

And even if the death is something more intense and dramatic like that of Lazarus, it's not necessarily something to celebrate, yknow? Even if the threat is gone (which is a very good thing), it took many horrible, avoidable things to get there in the first place, and that's what's tragic.

B-B-B-Bonus Round: Just Some Extra Shit

vs "Henry" going missing in Nevada for 12 hours per tfs. Martha has been on several trips with the Doctor thus far, so there's the added bit of "the passage of time is messed up" seeing as, for her, it's been several days, but to everyone else it's only been 12 hours.

All of the above is so... yeah lol. Lazarus is repeatedly very weird to the two young women in this episode, Martha and her sister Tish, and he even rejects his elderly wife in one scene when she kisses him and he tells her to "look at [her]self." The sniffing thing even made me think of the demogorgon being given the trait of "smelling blood" so... I see you, Brennergorgon.

I could've probably fit this bit somewhere above, but I'm too lazy, so it's going here instead. Love a good boiler room setting and talking about sacrifices!

"Always the mothers" just like how Brenner say it was always the mothers who came to him convinced their children had abilities or issues, etc. (plus just a little context for Martha's mom's "dangerous" comment: this season has an overarching hidden plot about the Master, who I touched on in another one of my dw posts, wherein he basically holds political power over the city (hiding the fact that he's a Time Lord) and is trying to sabotage the Doctor).