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princesssmars · 7 days ago

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winter wonders.

some abby anderson thoughts tied to holly jolly!

wc : 2.342

contains : fluff. wlw relationship. some nsfw i mean its me. oral sex r!receiving. mentions of past abby and owen. college hockey abby and skier reader again.

a/n : this scenario has infested my brain i wont move on! and its embarrassing how i started this in febuary but its december again soooo a+ procrastination?

palestine : tlou2 + palestine , how to help <3 enjoy!

abby is such a lover girl and she shows it constantly. i showed it in the full fic but one of the sweetest ways she shows affection is feeding people and taking care of their wellbeing.

text her that you're exhausted after class? she's making a quick meal and giving you cuddles on the couch. if anything is bothering you she is doing whatever she can to make it better.

and as much as abs loveees to take care of you, to the point where you think it's ingrained into her very being, she also loves to be babied and taken care of! the first time you sew her a stocking for christmas when you were snowed in at the dorms she cried for an hour.

i just know she loves it when you're physically affectionate as well. she finds it so charming and silly how when she tries to press a sloppy kiss to your cheek in a cafe you'll jerk back like you've been burned, not wanting to be seen as a sap, but behind closed doors you're alll over her.

pressing gentle kisses to her fingertips when you're both reading before bed. gently massaging her thighs after she went too hard at practice or in the rink. once you two had been invited to a movie night with the crew, and after she volunteered to make the popcorn she came into the living room to see no spots left. she was prepared to take her spot on the floor, but you had gotten one of the three couches to yourself because of your own leg injury on the slopes. before she could even crouch you tugged her over to you, her waist between your legs as you held her from behind. jordan was probably calling her whipped for how she melted into you, eyes fluttering as you brushed your fingers through her hair. she didn't really care. for now.

feel like she tries so hard to maintain good communication in all of her relationships. she's had friendships crack and break because of rumors and miscommunication and she wants to keep everyone she's close to around for a long time. she tells you once she learned it because of family therapy she did when her dad adopted her siblings yara and lev, who you sadly missed during your shared thanksgiving. you think it's adorable how she shows so much love for her family, constantly talking in her family group chat and sharing stories about her day with her little sister and brother.

didn't delve too much into it but being abby's new years eve kiss... she takes it very seriously. if you have to use the bathroom you better hold it because she is gonna bring in this new chapter of her life and she wants you to be there as long and as closely as you can be <3333

and you just know she is so so so good on valentines. yes she does get your flowers delivered while you're out and about during class or at your part-time. probably has a corny little card attached saying 'snow secret ice crazy about you'. almost so cute it makes you want to vomit. in a cute way!

if you want to go all out? say no more. she is booking you an entire day of romantic activities and spoiling you to your heart's content. but all i can imagine is having a nice and intimate dinner in a cozy little restaurant. cuddled up inside the booth as she admires you like you're an angel that's come into her life.

get her some chocolate-covered strawberries and she will swoon. but get both of you custom engraved bracelets with your initials? you aren't leaving the house for a week. have fun.

so not being original here but i def feel like abby is studying medicine. maybe not neuroscience like her dad, her hands aren't the best after so many hits and falls on the ice. but i love the headcanon of her going into the subfields of muscles or sports medicine. maybe even pediatrics because we all know she'd be the best with kids. she wants to pursue hockey full time, but she won't let it get in the way of her academics.

speaking of kids...

abby always says she's known since your first date she was gonna marry you. you would always roll your eyes and tell her to shush with a barely contained smile, but you both know a part of her isn't joking. there aren't words i can think of to say how in love she is with you, someone so similar but so different that she gets excited just at the thought of growing older together with.

she doesn't think there will ever be a dull day when she sees you. she'd take every mood swing, every petty fight, and every bit of insecurity if it meant she could just wake up and see you every morning. but she knows it's early, you're both still young and haven't ever started your careers yet. on your birthday, after taking you to a beautifully planned surprise party, she stands you in front of your mirror and presents you with your gift. its a necklace, simple yet intricate with two interloping hearts. you don't say anything, and she doesn't say anything, but your hearts swell and she hugs you tightly from behind.

once she makes sure you're okay with holiday activities trust she will keep the two of you busy all of december. she runs over her and mannys christmas decorations like a soldier, trust she will be up to date on any new trending decor items that pop up in the nearest hobby lobby or home goods store. she would absolutely love to go to a winter market and buy some gifts for her family and friends, picking up and admiring any little vintage trinket she can find.

and i just now she’s a christmas movie fanatic. dedicates a whole weekend in december for the two of you (or the whole group!) to get some hot chocolate, bundle up under the covers and watch holiday themed movies until you can’t take it anymore.

(feel like she’d be such a traditionalist about it though. it takes a heap of convincing from you and manny to let her put die hard in the movie rotation.)

but abby can be such a chill (haha) person. when you first met her you thought she was a cocky piece of shit, but over time she showed you how understanding and calm she could be. she doesn't like getting angry at people during the day, preferring to let out her anger during hockey games. but trust if someone is being a dick to one of her friends or you, she will put them in their place.

after

she is really good at ice skating. which sounds silly because duh, she plays hockey. but one day you watch a youtube video about figure skaters switching places with hockey players and you ask her to see if she could do some of the moves. she's a big girl but also insanely quick, and when she does a lutz on the first try you're more than shocked.

but also not! because abby is nothing but persistent. which is why when she asked you to teach her how to ski you thought any higher power up there was laughing at and testing you. at that point it had been months since you restarted your training with your father. it was hard, balancing your life with working out and spending hours every week practicing on the local fake slopes, but it was thrilling to be doing it because you wanted to do it. and thankfully your injury was basically gone.

(although sometimes you would fake like it was paining you so abby would set you on the bed and massage and take care of you. but who wouldn't do that?)

but when abby asked you to teach her you were nervous. not because you doubt your ability, hell no, just the opposite. nora had come along to one of your sessions, and when a young fan came up to you to ask for tips, all a tired and overworked you could say was "just be good at it." ever since she had teased you, throwing the worst joke you'd ever heard and saying you were going to turn into your dad. you didn’t talk to her for four days after that.

but you decide to give your girlfriend a chance. you warn her ahead of time that because of your dads teaching style growing up, you wouldn’t be too perceptive, and her size might make her momentum gain too quickly. but again, your girl was nothing if not persistent, listening to your words and placing a kiss on your cheek with an “i got this.”

she did not. she did at first, easing down the short slope with the caution of a giant baby deer, and doing a victory pump the first time she made it down the bunny slope while nearly tripping. things were good!

until jordan, sweet, stupid jordan made some bet that abby couldn’t ski down the intermediate slope for a video to send to her teammates. and like a moth to a flame, she got up the slope as fast as she could and tried her very best, before falling on her face halfway through. she wasn’t too badly hurt, laughing at the way you fussed over the small cut on her cheek.

this wasn’t the first time you witnessed some of abby's athletic determination. you wouldn't lie and say it hadn't afflicted you sometimes, able to recall the multiple times you and your girlfriend had made bets about who could do the most reps in the gym or run up the stairs quicker. it was all sunshine and rainbows until one misplaced pencil on some stairs led to you tripping into her and the both of you landing in a heap of limbs at the bottom of the stairs. you are more than glad that no one else was in the hall at that time.

not to say her over-achieving nature was all bad. there were definitely quite a few times that her aggressive behavior on the ice when her teammates showed premature defeat for an opposing team made you a little hot and bothered in your seat, eyes tracked on her body as she pushed past opponents like a bullet train.

and it is more than helpful in bed. one weekend you’d returned to your own apartment in a shitty mood from classes and skiing problems, ready to just eat some junk and rest in bed for two days straight. but of course, as soon as you texted your plans to your girlfriend she was over at your place in not even fifteen minutes. she had plenty of snacks and your favorite sweatshirt of hers to wear. but she could tell after a while into watching a movie you were still in a pissy mood, so she decided to help you relax in another way.

unfortunately, your sour mood was too strong as you’d yet to reach your peak after twenty minutes with abby in between your legs. it really was a shame, she looked so pretty when she was concentrated down there. you gently push at her forehead and lament that it’s no use, you're somehow too aggravated to have an orgasm.

your palm gently pushes at her forehead until she’s hovering over your cunt, a slight tingle running up your body when you see her blissed-out face and slick-covered mouth.

“abs, it’s just not gonna happen tonight. I'm way too stressed out.”

her eyes scan your face before her brows do that thing - the furrow she does when she gets an idea in her head that she just has to see through.

“just let me try for a little while longer, okay baby?”

and god, you couldn't say no to her when she looked like that and you were so pent up. you give her a small nod and watch as she rushes off the bed to the bottom of your bedstand to grab an old vibrator deep in one of the drawers.

“how’d you know where i hid that?” your voice is breathless as you watch her resettle back between your legs, turning on the vibe with a small smile on her face.

“because i know you. besides, need to know where to get things in case of emergency.”

you were going to laugh but then she’s immediately attaching the vibrator to your clit at the highest setting, a strong hand holding down your hips that buck up into the sensation and gripping your waist when you try to run from it.

let's just say when the night ends you are officially destressed.

uhhh back to. winter!

really think she’s in her element during this season. she’s in the huddle of her hockey season, gets to wear all of her favorite sweatshirts and hoodies and take long walks through the city as the snow ghosts over her face.

and just like i said earlier once she realizes you’re okay with the festive stuff? get ready for winter-themed dates.

one of your new favorite memories with her is definitely sitting on a plush blanket on the floor near her balcony door, the gentle downpour of snow a backdrop to your mini picnic date as you make s’mores and treats with an electric tabletop and share stories and kisses with wine-stained lips <3

abrupt ending but im trying to finish off things just lying in my drafts lolll uhh happy holidays yippee!

#abby anderson x reader #abby anderson #abby #tlou #abby x reader #hockey!abby #skier!reader #hockey!abby x reader

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fuckyeahdindjarin · 1 year ago

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Seams drabble: Patch

{ Part IV: Notch | Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist }

Rating: None

Summary: Ellie finds a Pride-themed sew on patch that leads to revelations.

Warnings: Pure fluff and love for this girl, some angst, coming out, total disregard of canon because I don't know how it goes in the game.

Word count: 1.3k

Notes: This idea struck me out of the blue many months ago, and I was waiting for 'the right place' in the series, until I mentioned it to a dear friend in passing conversation and then I just started writing it. Very lightly edited. Set at unspecified time frame after Part IV.

Ellie hums to herself from her spot in a cosy corner of the Outfitters, one watchful eye on the door. It’s an uncharacteristically slow Saturday, but she’s not complaining - she has her hands full.

A big canvas sack lies empty on the floor, its contents strewn haphazardly all over the wooden floor. The mess drives you up the wall, but you know better than to question her (very questionable) methods, so you’re ensconced in the safety of your studio while she sorts through the clothes and odds and ends that the patrollers brought back from their most recent outing.

Though infrequent - most settlements around Jackson have been painstakingly pilfered for anything useful over the years - it’s her favourite duty at the shop. Lucy is looser with the rules, but sometimes, you let Ellie keep little knick knacks that won’t sell.

The teenager goes through the pile thoroughly. Shirts go in one stack, jeans in another, followed by shoes, hats and scarves. Turning to the heap of smaller loose trinkets, she separates mismatched buttons, safety pins, shoelaces and zippers (as Maria always says, every little help), when something colourful piques her attention.

Plucking the piece of fabric out of the jumble, Ellie recognises it as a decorative patch that she’s seen sewn onto bags and shirts. It’s the size of her palm, cut in the shape of a rainbow, the colours still bright. Over the arches, bold white text outlined in black spells out NYC PRIDE 2003.

Tucking it into her pocket for now, she quickly finishes the rest of the sorting. Clothes go into the bin to be collected by the laundry, shoes for the cobbler’s, and accessories into a box to be priced and shelved.

Ambling into the back of the shop where you’re busy hemming a pair of jeans, Ellie plops into one of the rolling chairs, straddling the back of it, and the wheels screech as she careens across the floor to your sewing station.

Your lips quirk as you look up briefly at her. ‘Find anything interesting?’

‘Just this,’ she replies, flashing you the patch and reading aloud, ‘NYC Pride 2003. What does that mean?’

‘There used to be a big pride parade for the LGBT community every year in New York City,’ you explain. ‘They used to close down the streets and everything for it, it was a huge event.’

Ellie blinks, your answer taking her by surprise. She clears her throat, a distant buzzing at the back of her head as she turns the patch over pensively in her hand. ‘What - do you know what it was like?’

‘I’ve never been to one, but it always looked incredible. People used to line the streets in support, and everyone dressed up. There’d be rainbow flags everywhere, floats, dancing, music, and of course, it was an important way for the community to highlight and push for LGBT rights.’

‘You mean -’ she pauses, the unfamiliar feeling of stumbling over her words making her hands sweat. ‘You mean, people would just be out in public, like, being themselves?’

‘More than that - they were celebrating themselves.’

Ellie doesn’t realise she’s fallen quiet until you speak, ‘You can keep it if you want.’

Her head snaps up, disoriented. ‘Keep what?’

‘That.’ You nod towards the patch she’s clinging onto so tightly that her knuckles have gone white.

Panic prickles the back of her neck, an embarrassed heat suddenly making her want to pull at the collar of her flannel. But then you shrug and say, almost flippantly, ‘It’s pretty.’

‘Yes,’ she blurts out in hasty agreement, letting out a breath she’s been unconsciously holding. ‘It’s very pretty.’

Ellie is relieved when you turn back to the sewing machine, leaving her to retrace her steps to the front of the shop. The patch sits on the counter, where she leaves it, as she goes about her business for the rest of her shift.

Her eyes travel to the rainbow, and she thinks of how she wasn’t like the other girls at school, who fawned over dogeared photos of singers and actors long dead. She thinks of how she’s always known she’s different, but didn’t have the vocabulary to express it.

She thinks of Riley.

Riley.

For Riley.

When half three rolls around, you spot the teenager lingering by the studio doorway out of the corner of your eye, her backpack dangling from her fingers. Any other Saturday, you’d be lucky to catch the blurry shape of her shadow when she gallops out of the shop, throwing a see ya over her shoulder.

Thrown by her silence, you prompt, ‘Yes, Ellie?’

Scruffing the tips of her well-worn sneakers on the floorboards, she bites her lip in an atypical display of hesitance. ‘Pin, could you help me sew the patch onto my backpack? Please?’

You smile, eyes soft. ‘I’d love to. C’mon.’

‘You don’t have to do it now,’ she protests, feigning nonchalance, but her twitchy hands give her away. ‘Like, whatever, it’s no big deal.’

Wanting to put her at ease, you shrug. ‘No time like the present. Where do you want it?’

Putting her bag on your work surface, she points. ‘Guess right here under the wings.’

‘Perfect. Can you unzip the bag for me?’

You have Ellie hold the rainbow exactly where she wants it while you thread the needle, and you start sewing it in by hand, stitch by tidy stitch. It barely takes a couple of minutes, but time is of the essence - you haven’t heard the girl take a single breath of air since the anchor stitch.

Snipping off the thread with a flourish and giving it a once over, you grin. ‘There, all done.’

Ellie ducks her head, quiet as she takes the bag from your hands, running a thumb over the arches of the rainbow. Without a word, she suddenly throws her arms around you, hugging you tight.

‘Thanks, Pin,’ she mumbles into your hair.

Your heart swells, and you squeeze her back even tighter. ‘Anything for you, kiddo.’

On Monday morning, Ellie hovers in the hallway outside the kitchen, observing.

Joel is at the table, oblivious with his back to the door, her breakfast of two fried eggs over and easy and toast waiting at her usual spot at the table. Taking a deep breath, she bites the bullet and walks in, backpack in her hand.

‘Mornin’,’ grunts Joel, almost done with his own eggs, sunny side up.

‘Morning,’ she parrots back as she makes herself comfortable.

She usually just dumps her bag on the floor, but today, she pulls out the chair next to her and drops it into the seat. The unusual movement catches Joel’s eye, and he takes a good long look at the backpack.

Eventually, he points vaguely in what she assumes is the direction of the rainbow patch, and says, ‘That looks new.’

‘Yup, Pin helped me sew it on.’

He purses his lips, asking around a mouthful of egg. ‘You know what Pride is?’

She swallows thickly, and it takes a beat to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth. ‘Yeah, Pin told me.’

He nods, then turns his attention back to his plate with no fanfare.

Not entirely sure if he caught the nuance but her mind too in knots to care, Ellie picks up her fork and doesn’t think twice when he gets up to put his dish in the sink.

She nearly chokes on eggs when strong arms close around her shoulders in a vice-like grip, scratchy beard on her temple, Joel’s voice so thick that it makes her think if she turns around, she’ll see tears in his eyes.

‘Proud of you, baby girl.’

Later that afternoon, Joel finds you alone in the shop, restocking the women’s outerwear rack.

You toss him a smile over your shoulder. ‘Hey, what are you doing here?’

‘Lucy ‘round?’ he asks.

‘When is she ever?’ you quip with no bite.

Three steps and he’s spun you around by the waist, soft lips latching onto yours in a sweet kiss with just a hint of heated aftertaste that has you swaying on your feet when he pulls back.

A breathless laugh bubbles in your throat as you palm his whiskered jawline. ‘Why, thank you for that, Mr. Miller.’

The corners of his eyes crinkle, and he brushes his nose tenderly against your cheek. ‘No, thank you, sweetheart.’

Notes: I hope I wrote Ellie's coming out as sensitively as I hoped to. As I mentioned, I have no idea how or if she comes out in the game, but despite being such a chatty teenager, I think she'd find it difficult to broach the subject with Joel in conversation. For me, this was a fun way of weaving in her part-time job at the Outfitters and Pin into her coming out story that stays true to Ellie's character. I hope you enjoyed this - comments and reblogs appreciated as always!

P.S. I am not 'back' back, so I don't know when I will next update Seams. Thank you for your patience while I try to navigate my way back to some semblence of writing regularly, whenever that may be.

Thank you @firefly-graphics for the dividers ❤️

#fuckyeahseams #seams drabble #the last of us fanfiction #ellie william fanfiction #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader

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wrtingsoftheunknown · 10 months ago

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Vincent Sinclair HC

Vincent Sinclair hc SFW and NSFW

I’ve haven’t been seeing my boy get repped recently so I have to do it myself. My first time writing something on here or towards this character ,I promise I will get better y'al,l I made this super quickly not proofread oops.

SFW

-While he can be insecure about his face he definitely has an ego from being the favorite child and having perfected his craft.

Lester drags him out to go for a ride around town or force him to come to his place for some quality brother time (Bo joins every now and then but wants peace and quiet dammit )

‘I know a lot of people have him learn sign language but I think he either writes what he wants to say, speaks as best as he can, or gestures, ( he was born in the south to parents that I don't think cared about communicating with him too much but he could have picked it up later in life maybe in his teen years or middle school era)

More sadistic than Bo when it comes to killing, he doesn't care if they are dead or alive when working on them and takes satisfaction in the result of his work

He prefers to work in silence but you can catch him humming now and then some country song or a guilty pleasure pop song from the 80’s( I see you Vince)

I think he partakes in multiple forms of art besides wax work.We see he’s able to paint, draw, but he also takes pictures, , sews, writes, makes videos, anything artistic he’s learning and keeping up with new techniques.

Since he takes video of the killings at times I think they sell them as snuff films to make extra cash on top of stealing and selling victims stuff. (At least that’s what I thought when I first watched the film anyone else or just me)

Rarely happens but will keep victims that interest him like Bo ,but dispose of them when they get boring or no longer match up the ideal version of them in his head.

-Does want a lifelong partner, the white wedding and picket fence, kids, but knows it might be difficult with the line of work he does.

- He can talk but only does when it’s important or to emphasize something. He does have a southern draw like Bo and I imagine his voice to sound similar but raspier, maybe deeper/ quieter from not using it as much.

-like I said earlier you have to really catch his attention and be able to hold it for more than a week, if that happens then he’s obsessed and protective maybe a little too over protective.

Does indeed have a hair care routine I believe this full throttle and no one can can tell me otherwise I'm not listening.

NSFW

I don't know if he’s a virgin, I don't think he is something is telling me he isn't, but i’m not sure

He has no problem with nudity, bodies are seen as art, there's not as much of a sexual connotation with them as with Bo and Lester .

He wants to be in love with the person he is intimate with, he wants to be worship and worship his muse.

Drawings of his partner naked as well as in the midst of a passionate night, he might tease them all night to make sure the sketch is as life like and accurate as possible

Good size and thick that's all I gotta say

Praise kink hard core, hearing his partner call him a good boy or how he makes them feel so good he will crumble

He starts slow and sensual, enjoys the control he has and having someone at his power.

I think he will edge you and leave you high and dry when you act out but he always caves by the end of the day and gives you what you need.

Can last a long time surprisingly

Mainly a giver but someone please for the love of god give this man the nastiest had he’s ever received will make the prettiest noises

Is down to try anything new and more open about sex than you would think.

When he’s horny he comes up behind his partner and starts caressing every inch he can reach, while resting his chin on their shoulder acting as innocent as he can.

#vincent sinclair #house of wax #vincent sinclair x reader #headcanon #horror #masked men #country man #bo sinclair #lester sinclair #x reader

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carriedawatermelon · 2 months ago

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Ronance Kinktober, chapter four. Idk when it stops being a ficlet, but this is nearly 6k words soooo. In which Nancy has a surprisingly good afternoon (and Robin does, too). Did I look up Indianapolis museum exhibits in 1986-87 for this? Yes, yes I did.

Prompt: Multiple Orgasms

The spare key is in a fake rock by the garage, and Nancy grabs it before she goes back to her car for the casserole dish, balancing it on her hip as she pushes open the front door.

She rolls her eyes at the fact that every single light in the house is on, despite the fact that Steve’s at work, and makes her way to the kitchen, sitting the casserole on the counter as she opens the fridge to make sure there’s room.

It’s a little strange, to be moving milk and leftovers she doesn’t let herself think too hard about in Steve’s fridge, but it’s nice, too, to be comfortable enough to do this again. They’re friends. Really friends. Steve hangs out at the house, with Robin and Dustin and Erica, somehow, and Vickie now, sometimes too, who is…nice. Fine. They’re friends, all of them. Things are still a little weird with Jon, but she imagines, hopes, that they’ll get there, too.

Her mom is pleased, winks at Nancy like she knows something when Steve comes around, giving a deeply annoying nod of her head at Nancy’s repeated and emphatic assertions that they are friends, that they are not getting back together. “Sure, honey. Of course.”

Nancy tries not to let it grate too much. It doesn’t matter, really, except that they are friends and they’re not getting back together. They had talked, after Vecna, after the second round of Vecna, bruises yellowing on their skin. Nancy had spoken to Jonathan the day before, and she wanted to get it all over with, let herself hurt all at once if she had to.

It had hurt. Both of the conversations had hurt, but they had hurt the same way it did when she buckled her seatbelt in those days after the upside-down, the strip of fabric pressing into a body that was still healing. A reminder that she was actually healing, the pain a sign that she didn’t want to hurt again.

She wasn’t what he wanted, couldn’t be, not that she had any desire to try. He understood, a level of self-awareness that was welcome and unexpected. For her part, it hadn’t hurt her when he’d admitted he had been scared and grasping, that Nancy had been there to hold on to.

They had taken a few days, less time than she expected, and then he’d called and said, “Come watch a movie with us. It’s her night, and Robin says you can pick.” She had gone to watch a movie with them, and there had been ten minutes of weirdness, the two of them in the kitchen with the soda and pretzels Nancy brought, and then they’d both smiled and it had been fine. It’s been fine for months, better than fine, and Nancy had hoped the year she decided to take before starting college would be good for her, but she couldn’t have anticipated that it would be this good, full of genuinely easy time with her friends. She’s happy that she’ll be staying closer, happy about Northwestern.

Now, she’s here, wrinkling her nose at a pizza box taking up way too much space on the second shelf. She’s sighing and taking it out and risking a look because her mom has sent her with a casserole, chicken spaghetti, which Steve loves. Maybe she thinks Steve will look at it and look at Nancy and be a little closer to reaching for his class ring, just until he can get something better.

Nancy can’t care too much. She and Steve understand each other, and it’s good, anyway. Steve gets a home-cooked meal, which he needs, and just as often that means Robin gets one, too.

Robin, who’s over at her house more than Steve, charming her mother by asking genuine questions about the book she’s reading or the sewing projects she’s started doing again since half of Hawkins fell into a hole. Robin, who treats Holly like she’s a middle-aged friend with a desk job, asking about her day at the office and her coworkers. The bit’s been going for at least six months now, and it still makes Holly giggle the way a seven year old should. Robin, who has Mike’s respect since they went back in, since she stood in front of them with a spiked baseball bat and a line of Molotovs and has the scars to show how much she meant it.

Her dad even grunts in recognition when she gets to the house. He doesn’t typically care for people or noise or anything at all, his unflappably kind youngest daughter a notable exception, and he has noticed the way that Holly laughs when Robin’s around. It hadn’t hurt that Robin had seen his Pacers socks, a Christmas gift from Holly, and had a twenty minute conversation with him about odds and drafts and players. Twenty minutes. At Nancy’s obvious gape, Robin had said, stealing a cookie, “I’ve got a little cousin who doesn’t talk at all, but he’ll talk about the Pacers, so I learned about the Pacers.”

Nancy’s come to terms with the fact that she’s got feelings for her that go well beyond platonic with a capital P. It’s not what she expected but if she ignored things or pretended they weren’t real just because they were unexpected, she’d be no better than most of the adults in Hawkins. She’d also probably be dead. Ignoring a demogorgon is not an effective method of defense.

Ignoring the way her stomach flips around Robin, the way she wants to smooth her perpetually wrinkled work shirt just to see her blush, the way she wants to hold her hands and play with her rings and the astonishing amount of time she’s spent thinking about the fingers on which those rings sit—well, Nancy’s not interested in a method of defense, anyway. She’s interested in Robin, in the the things that she says and the way that she thinks and the places she wants to go. She’s interested in the blue of her eyes and the freckles that cover her skin and the rasp of her voice.

It feels good, to be interested. It feels good to sit close to her at movie night, to lift Robin’s arm and tuck herself underneath it and feel her chin on her head. It feels great, to make Robin laugh. It feels amazing, to wake up with Robin’s arm around her, her breath against her neck, the length of her body wrapped around Nancy’s warm and safe. Better, to turn carefully and brush her hair back from her face, watch blue eyes blink open at her and a smile spread slowly and the blush that still covers her cheeks when she realizes how close they are. She doesn’t pull away, not any longer, not since Nancy made it clear, kept making it clear, that she didn’t want her to.

By the time Robin told her, Nancy had already seen her with Vickie at the volunteer center. She’d watched and watched as they made sandwiches and sorted clothes and then something had clicked into place. Nancy’s from Hawkins but she’s never wanted her world to be that small. She knows about homosexuals. Her mom’s got a cousin in Chicago who lives with his best friend, and she’s known Will Byers his whole life, was ready to stand with Jonathan between him and anyone who had a thing to say about it.

She’d felt silly, for a minute, that she thought Robin and Steve were together. And then she’d felt something else entirely. She pushed that away, when Robin brought her a milkshake and asked if they could take a walk, made herself soft as Robin stuttered and stumbled and landed, finally, so visibly nervous it made Nancy ache. “I like…I like women. Girls. In a…in a romantic way. I’m a lesbian.”

Leaning over, the chains of the swingset creaking, she put her hand on Robin’s. “Thank you for telling me.” Robin’s tears of relief had broken her heart.

She’d told Nancy about Vickie a few days later, cheeks red and fingers picking at her bottom lip. And Nancy had smiled and acted the way a friend should, asking questions and encouraging her. Two weeks later, Robin had shrugged it off with a little too much nonchalance, said they were too similar and Vickie wasn’t sure she was finished with her ex anyway and they were better off as friends. The better parts of Nancy hugged Robin and made cookies with her and Holly and made a fool of herself dancing and singing to David Bowie and Heart. The worse parts of her managed to develop a vicious grudge against Vickie while also celebrating that she could do something about the fact that someone had been dumb enough to let Robin go. Vickie’s loss.

She tries to see the Nancy’s gain part of that equation, too, because she thinks, maybe, it is her gain. Or it will be soon. She sees the way Robin looks back at her, the way she has started lifting her own arm for Nancy at movie nights, the way her grin turns crooked when Nancy laughs. So Nancy’s gain, as soon as she can bridge that last little gap. And Vickie really is nice enough. She and Robin really are friends. Still, Robin once mentioned Vickie’s order at the drive-thru, and now Nancy never brings Sprite to movie nights if she’s there.

She’s thrown out half the leftovers in the fridge. She can’t help herself. It’s unsanitary and she spends too much time here to let the place where she finds food and drink become a Petri dish. She’s washing her hands when she hears footsteps on the stairs and then movement at the door of the kitchen.

“Did you forget the tapes? I put them by the front door, I thought.”

It’s Robin, long legs hanging out of white and green checked boxers, an oversized blue t-shirt exposing her collarbone and part of one shoulder. She’s got on some of Steve’s basketball socks, and her hair is mussed like she just climbed out of bed. Nancy wants to shove her right back in.

“Nance,” she says, smiling big. “What’re you doing here?”

“My mom made chicken spaghetti,” she says, gesturing lamely at the fridge, and she knows she sounds strange, disaffected maybe, but she can’t focus on anything but Robin.

She doesn’t know why. She sees Robin in her sleep clothes often, wakes up with their legs tangled and has regularly scratched gently at her back under one of those big t-shirts. But there’s something different about this, about seeing Robin here, at 2:00 in the afternoon, sunlight streaming through Steve’s kitchen window and highlighting the patches of freckles on her thighs, the golden hair that covers her legs. Sleepy and vulnerable and soft and Nancy wants her.

She’s moving, and Robin’s eyebrows scrunch in confusion. “Nance?” And then Nancy’s on her, hands bunched in the fabric of her shirt, mouth pressed hot against Robin’s. “Oh, fuck,” Robin whispers into the space she makes to breathe, but her eyes go dark and she’s got Nancy pressed against the counter, her hands on her hips and then lower, cupping her thighs. Nancy takes the hint, puts her own arms behind her on the counter and pushes as Robin lifts, mouth never leaving Nancy’s neck.

“Fuck,” she says again, teeth grazing Nancy’s skin, and Nancy’s head hits the upper cabinets with a thud. It’s loud enough that Robin pulls back to check on her. “Okay?” Nancy’s not sure she sees the nod, but her hand tugging Robin back to kiss her is answer enough, probably, or her tongue pressing against Robin’s with purpose.

Hands move across her body, over her back and shoulders, cupping her neck, running through her hair. Eventually, they work at the buttons of her shirt, but they’re distracted, a little shaky and Nancy bats them away gently, undoes the buttons herself as Robin splays her palms over her thighs. Robin’s nosing at her temple, pressing kisses to her jaw and licking at her neck, hot and gentle and everything Nancy wants. When she finally gets the buttons undone, she shrugs the shirt off and brings Robin’s hands up to her chest, sighs out as she feels them cup her over her bra.

“Jesus, Nancy. You’re so beautiful.” It’s reverent, disbelieving, and Nancy blinks open her eyes to find Robin, breathing hard but looking at her with a kind of awe that makes her blush. Robin Buckley, melting her. It’s not a surprise. Nancy needs her, badly, so she presses her chest out as shamelessly as she can, and Robin groans. “Fucking perfect. Oh my god. Am I still napping? Is this real?”

“You’re not napping,” Nancy says with affection and enough tease to make Robin duck her head. She misses Nancy’s hands moving behind her back, undoing her navy blue bra. She does not miss the way the bra loosens, head snapping back up and hands moving to tug at the straps, eyes fixed on Nancy’s chest. “This is real,” Nancy says, proud of the way her voice is steady as Robin begins to thumb at her nipples. “If you want it to be.”

Hands move around her back at that, Robin pressed to the counter between her knees as she kisses Nancy hard and filthy, holding her close. “Yeah, I fuckin’ want it,” she rasps as she moves back to bite at Nancy’s collarbone, and Nancy’s wetter than she’s ever been in her life. “Lemme show you, okay? Wanna show you.”

“Yeah, Robbie. Show me, baby.”

Robin pauses, places a gentle kiss to tender skin, and Nancy runs a hand through her hair. “You like that?”

It’s almost shy, the nod into her neck, and Nancy’s reminded of the fact that Robin’s never done this, not just the sex, because Nancy’s never done it quite like this either, is astounded by Robin’s confidence, frankly, but the affection, the closeness. The relationship. That’s what Nancy wants, and that’s what she wants to give Robin.

She tucks her index finger under Robin’s chin and brings Robin back up, leans forward to kiss her softly, a short, sure press of her lips. “Baby,” she says again, and this kind of softness is new for her, too, but it doesn’t feel dangerous. Robin bites her lower lip, her hands running up Nancy’s thighs to come rest on her waist.

“Hi,” she says, still shy, and Nancy’s in danger of falling apart.

Instead, she traces Robin’s left eyebrow. “Hi,” she echoes. “I’m sorry I threw myself at you without saying hello first.”

Robin’s eyebrow twitches under her finger as she grins. “Literally the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Please do that whenever you want.”

“I think I’ll probably generally say hello first.” Robin lights up, so pleased, and Nancy leans forward to kiss her again. “But good to know I have permission to skip it if I need to.”

Need, Robin mouths to herself, and Nancy rolls her eyes.

“I had plans, you know. To ask you out properly and bring you flowers and kiss you good night.”

Robin laughs and Nancy arches an eyebrow. “I am absolutely not kidding.” Robin’s staring at her, wide-eyed, and Nancy puts on her best I know what I’m doing face. “Actually. Robin, are you free Friday night? I’ve been hoping to take you out, if that’s something you’d be interested in.”

There is, almost unbelievably and absolutely embarrassingly, a nervous edge to her voice. Robin’s eyes blink, taking her in, and then she’s hugging Nancy, long arms wrapped tight around her waist as she nods. “Yes. Yeah. I’m free Friday.”

“Good.” Her hand buries itself in Robin’s hair, keeping her close. “I’ll pick you up at 6.”

“Nancy.” Her head shakes lightly. “Sweetheart,” she tries softly, and Nancy closes her eyes as her heart thuds happily, humming her approval. She’d never used pet names, really, hated it, when Steve and Jon used them. She doesn’t hate this at all. Arms loosening, Robin’s hands begin roaming over the exposed skin of Nancy’s back. She shivers, fingers tightening, and Robin whimpers. “You feel so good.”

“I want your hands on me all the time,” she confesses, and is rewarded with the tips of Robin’s fingers digging into her skin, short nails just enough to make her hiss.

“I want my hands on you all the time.” Her voice is back to that low, broken sound, and Nancy lets her free hand run down Robin’s back and over her ribs, resting against her sternum.

“Do you want to keep going?”

It’s a serious question and she asks it seriously, but Robin barely takes a second to answer. “Yes.” She flattens her palms again. “I’m nervous,” she admits. “But I don’t want to stop.”

“You’re doing a great job so far.” Maybe she shouldn’t say it, shouldn’t cant her hips or squeeze her thighs around Robin’s body where it rests between them. She does, though, and Robin doesn’t seem to mind, trying to press further forward into Nancy. Her hands move back around, slow, stopping below her breasts. Robin’s eyes are careful but wanting, her breath growing ragged again, as Nancy leans close, says against her lips, “Touch me.”

That’s all the permission Robin needs, her hands moving with confidence, thumbs catching and pinching her nipples until Nancy’s arching for her, mouth gasping against Robin’s. “Harder,” she says, and Robin groans her approval, pulling with intention and leaving Nancy’s mouth for her jaw, her ear, her neck. Her mouth is greedy, and Nancy’s happy to give her whatever she wants, hands buried in her hair encouragingly.

When her mouth moves lower, taking a nipple into her mouth and moaning happily around it, Nancy reaches down and undoes her jeans herself. Robin notices, stops sucking so she can help, pulling at the fabric while Nancy lifts her hips. She takes her panties, too, at Nancy’s nod, and then her bare ass is on the kitchen counter, her pants bunched at her ankles, which was not in her plan for today, but she could give a shit, really, because Robin’s running a finger through the mess that she’s become, cursing into the air as she watches herself touch Nancy.

“So wet,” she says, fascinated and precious, grazing Nancy’s clit and making her hips jump.

“For you,” Nancy says, because she wants Robin to know, and the look she gets back has her hips moving again.

“What should I…how?” She says, and Nancy kisses her, licks at her bottom lip and sucks it into her mouth. Robin’s finger is still moving, but she looks dazed when Nancy pulls away.

“Inside,” Nancy says. “Want to feel you.”

Tentatively, she slides her middle finger into Nancy, both of their eyes watching, and when she pushes past the second knuckle, Nancy closes her eyes and makes a breathy, broken sound of pleasure, because she feels good, and because it’s Robin.

“Okay?”

“Mmhmm. Yeah. Yes. Good, Robbie. You feel so good.”

“Oh my god,” she says, and then starts a narration that has Nancy shaking. “You’re so wet and so warm and so tight. God. I can’t. You feel so good, Nance. Fuck. Fuck.”

Her finger’s moving slowly, in and out, and then she crooks it, feeling and pressing and Nancy’s eyes fly open. Robin’s so focused, it takes her a second to notice, another second of her touching Nancy exactly the right way, and it must show on her face because Robin gets the look she gets when she wins an argument with Dustin. Smug. Nancy clenches around her.

“More,” she says, and Robin’s sliding a second finger in, the pads moving and pressing as she thrusts.

Her mouth moves to Nancy’s, their kisses deep, and then she kisses down again, biting at Nancy’s left breast and taking a nipple into her mouth. Her tongue moves against it, and Nancy holds her to her chest with one hand while she slips the other between her legs, finding her clit.

“Shit,” Robin says as she pulls away, panting. “Yes. God. Touch yourself for me.”

Moving to do just that, Nancy wonders idly if she and Steve have been taking advantage of the little adult section behind the curtain in the back room at the store. Is there lesbian porn there? Is it any good? She has doubts on both counts. The pictures in the magazines she’d found under Jonathan’s mattress had seemed ridiculous, but the stories had been…okay. Her mind refocuses as she dips her fingers lower to get them wet, bumping Robin’s and causing them both to groan. She’s ready, like a livewire, and as soon as her fingers start moving, she knows it won’t be long.

Maybe Robin knows, too, because she leaves Nancy’s chest to whisper filthy things in her ear. “Wanna feel you come for me. Can feel how close you are, so tight around my fingers already. So hot. You wanna come, Nancy?” She whimpers her response. “Wanna come with me inside you? Promise I won’t stop until you tell me. Come on, baby. Come for me.”

She does, Robin’s fingers crooked perfectly inside her and her middle finger working furiously against herself. Robin keeps her promise and doesn’t stop, keeps fucking into her as Nancy clenches around her, body rocking and shaking as her orgasm rolls through her. Eventually, she takes her own hand away, leaning back against the counter with her palms braced.

Robin follows her, kissing her softly and then letting Nancy tuck her into her neck, warm lips grazing skin and nose running along her jaw.

“Holy shit, you’re gorgeous,” she whispers, and Nancy feels the flush in her cheeks, the honesty of it overwhelming. She’s still inside her, and she’s making no move to leave, and Nancy, Nancy doesn’t want her to. In fact…she rolls her hips in a test, and a cry punches out of her, unexpected.

“Nance?”

Anticipating that Robin might try to pull away, Nancy catches her wrist and holds her still and close, grinding again, moaning loudly.

“Fuck,” Robin says. “Fuck. Gonna give me more, sweetheart?”

Fluttering her eyes open, she meets blue and bites her lip. Normally, she can make herself come more than once in a night, but she needs time. She’s never done it with a partner, rarely ever came at all with Jon or Steve, unless her own hand was involved and her eyes were closed. But right now?

“I want to,” she answers, and Robin looks determined. “I want you,” she adds, tugging at Robin’s earlobe affectionately, like she’s not riding her fingers on Steve’s kitchen counter and begging to get fucked again.

Robin kisses her softly, and then less softly, and then her fingers are moving and she’s saying, like maybe she’s just as wrecked as Nancy, “Can you take another?” And Nancy’s nodding because she can and because she wants it.

Robin’s third finger stretches her open, and it’s so good, the ache of it, the pressure, the way she shifts inside Nancy to keep the friction where she wants it. She slips her second hand down, thumb taking over the job Nancy had been doing a few minutes ago, and she experiments until Nancy says, “Like that, like that,” her hands gripping at Robin’s shoulders over the sleep shirt she should’ve made her take off.

Her breath is heavy near Nancy’s ear, and Nancy’s louder than she’s ever been, little noises and affirmations constant in the air between them, and then she’s tightening, and Robin’s saying, “Yeah, Nancy, good girl, come for me,” and Nancy does, and, miraculously, shaking as she holds herself against Robin’s body, she wants more.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she says breathlessly, disbelievingly, moving a soothing hand to Robin’s hair and explaining when she hears the concerned noise she makes. “I want more.” She laughs at herself, makes a pitchy, wanting sound when Robin flexes, still inside her, at the admission.

“Let me give you more,” she says simply, just as breathless. “Let me…” She pauses and Nancy waits, focuses on her breath and not on the fingers spreading her open. “I want to go down on you.” She can’t help the clench, and Robin’s moan makes her do it again, and holy shit, she’s so close already, so, so close, and she could come like this, again, but Robin’s mouth is on offer.

“Yes.”

“Yeah?” It’s genuine, like maybe she doesn’t know how easily Nancy would beg if she asked her, if that were what she wanted.

“Yes. Please.”

But when Robin kisses her, shifts her arm to get a better angle, get closer, her fingers press just right again, and Nancy’s so full of her and wants to stay that way, needs to stay that way. She clutches Robin to her, and Robin understands, starting steady, slow movements of her fingers. Her other hand comes up between them, teases over her breasts and stops at her neck, cupping carefully, thumb running the faint scar that runs the circumference. Robin has one to match, a thin white line that catches Nancy’s eye when she laughs in the right light, head thrown back. She moves to kiss it now, an impulse she can finally indulge.

Robin’s hand moves, the base of her palm adjusting so that Nancy can grind against it. “Robin,” she sighs against her neck. “Yes.”

It probably wouldn’t be enough, normally, but she’s so sensitive, so ready, that it’s more than enough, her body freezing in pleasure in a way that catches her by surprise. She shakes, again, breathing out against Robin’s collarbone, her hand now holding the back of Nancy’s head, her fingers still slowly moving.

“I want to do that forever.”

It’s an inside thought that escaped, which Nancy knows even before Robin’s body tenses. She kisses her neck in reassurance, her nails digging into the fabric over her shoulder blades.

“Sounds good to me.” It’s quiet but steady, and it makes Robin relax under her, press a kiss to Nancy’s head.

Her brain doesn’t whir over the exchange the way it usually might, something about three orgasms, probably, and about Robin, definitely, giving her space to breathe. They have months before they go to college to figure things out, and they’ll be in the same city when they do eventually go, and so what, anyway. She means it. It does sound good.

Nancy has spent the last few years making herself hard, being what other people needed her to be, and this isn’t that. This is letting herself be nineteen and in love and wanting, maybe for the first time.

With another kiss to Robin’s neck, she leans back on the counter. Deep pink covers Robin’s cheeks and the bit of her chest that’s exposed, and she’s biting her bottom lip, and Nancy smiles at her and then looks down, to where Robin’s still inside her.

“Oh my god,” she laughs, mostly to herself. “This is insane.” When she looks back up, the smug tilt is coming back to Robin’s lips and Nancy’s very into it, but she wants to gain back a little ground, just for the fun of it. “Still interested in going down on me?”

It works, smug replaced by an almost innocent eagerness, a rapid head nod. “Yeah. Yep. Super interested. Please.”

Overcome by fondness, Nancy pulls her close again, kissing her before nodding. “Okay.”

They separate, Robin reluctantly removing herself from Nancy, wincing in sympathy as Nancy does and kissing her soundly, murmuring sweet things to her as she holds her close and then moves to tug her panties and pants up where they’re caught on her sneakers, helps her settle on the floor again.

She links their fingers, bringing Nancy’s hand up to kiss her knuckles and smile shyly, and Nancy’s got butterflies, wants and wants and wants.

Robin’s room, the one she uses at least five nights a week, though she technically still has one at her parents’ house, is next to Steve’s, and she apologizes, hand at the back of her neck, for the mess. It isn’t a surprise. Nancy’s been here before, slept tucked next to Robin in her perpetually unmade bed. She knows how to navigate the piles of books and cassettes and pens and notebooks. She recognizes the drawing pad open on the desk, makes a note to move the two glasses of water that sit beside it, both nearly full, and bring her a fresh one. The clothes Nancy assumes Robin was wearing earlier are tossed over the back of the desk chair while dirty laundry sits in a small hill in the corner. It smells like her, sour candy and leather and lavender. It makes Nancy feel easy in herself. It makes Nancy feel close to her.

She’s still topless, but she bends down to unlace her sneakers and toe them off, kicking them out of the way and then shucking her jeans and underwear unceremoniously. Robin watches her, licks her lips, and then pulls her own shirt over her head, pulls her boxers and the briefs she wore under them down her legs and kicks them into the dirty pile.

“Fair’s fair,” she says with a shrug, but there are nerves in her face and in her posture and Nancy, breath gone at the sight of her, can’t have that.

She’s kissing her, hands tracing paths up new skin, and she presses her back into the bed, climbing over her and straddling her thighs.

“Fuck, Robin. You’re perfect.” She means it, absolutely, her eyes wandering over gorgeous tits and patches of freckles spanning her ribs, the dusting of hair below her belly button and the dark blonde that covers her, just above where Nancy’s settled herself. Robin’s looking up at her, vulnerable, the sharp cut of her jaw and line of her nose familiar and no less striking every single time. Nancy wants so badly to give her everything she can.

“Can I touch you?” Her hands are resting neutrally on her stomach.

“Y-yeah. Please. If-if you want to.”

She stretches her hands and body out at that, smiling sharply. “I want to,” she confirms, and then takes Robin’s nipple into her mouth.

She cries out, a hand holding the back of Nancy’s head, and Nancy sucks harder, pleased, rolling her hips against Robin’s thighs and humming at the relief of it. Her other hand comes up to work her other breast.

She takes a sharp breath, overcome. Nancy has come to understand she’s a homosexual over the last several months, had just had the best sexual experience of her life in an objectively uncomfortable position with her clothes tangled at her ankles because it had been Robin touching her, but the difference in the way she feels when she touches Robin still nearly strikes her dumb. She wants to be everywhere, to touch and taste and hear the sounds she makes.

“Nancy,” Robin says, almost begging. “Nancy, please.”

She pulls herself off and sits up to meet Robin’s eyes. She’s barely touched her, has much more she wants to do, but she takes pity on Robin, writhing as much as she can with Nancy pinning her down.

“I’ve got you, baby.” She bends to kiss her, and then she’s kissing down again, over her sternum and her ribs, nosing at her belly button and then at the hair beneath. “Okay?” She asks, and Robin nods frantically.

“You smell so good,” she observes, as much a happy note for herself as for Robin. Yeah, absolutely a homosexual, she thinks again, desire running through her like fire. She wants to bury herself in Robin, so she does, nose and tongue and then her fingers, gently with another nod from her girl. Her girl, tight around Nancy and letting out perfect moans and little pleading mewling sounds, one hand in the sheets and the other in Nancy’s over her hip.

“Nancy, Nancy. I’m gonna come. Oh my god, I’m gonna-“

She’s so tight, her knees bending up and her thighs clenching around Nancy’s head and then falling to the bed, sprawling and boneless like the rest of her. Nancy grins, wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, and crawls up her body. Their kiss tastes like Robin, whose eyes are dazed, arms wrapping around Nancy and holding her close. Her heart beats quickly against Nancy’s ear. Being skin to skin with her this way is so good Nancy isn’t sure how she’s going to avoid the temptation when Robin stays over.

“You’re so good at that.” The preening is reflexive and she doesn’t try to stop it, not that Robin can see it, except maybe she knows anyway, an amused huff raising Nancy’s head with her chest and her hands scratching at her back.

“I’ll get better with practice.” It’s important to her, being competent. This is an area where she hopes to excel.

She can feel Robin’s laughter, or the tired form of it she can manage. “I mean, you’re at an A+ already, summa cum laude, all of it, but uh, I am definitely here to help with practice. Whenever. Wherever.”

“Why are you here?” It’s a thought she hadn’t bothered with, much, much better things to think about, but Steve had told her the house would be empty, had reminded her of the spare key. “At home, I mean. Today. Steve said nobody would be here.”

“Oh, yeah. I was supposed to be in Indy. There’s an exhibit at Newfields I wanted to see, but the bus didn’t run, so I fucked around at the library for a minute and then came home to nap.”

“Sorry you didn’t get to go.”

Robin snorts, holds her closer. “I’m really, really not.”

Pressing another kiss to her sternum, Nancy says, “Wanna go with me? To the exhibit? I’ve got time tomorrow or, I know I said 6 on Friday but we could go earlier.”

“You wanna drive to Indy to go to a basket and quilting exhibit with me? I’d like you to actually keep dating me, Nance. You really don’t need to do that.”

It’s light, easy, and Nancy tries to keep her response the same, manages, mostly. “I like watching you get excited about things. It’s one of the things that made me want to date you in the first place. Teach me about baskets, Buckley.”

It’s true, the shift from annoyed to endeared happening rapid-fire when Nancy realized Robin is, genuinely, just being herself. She likes languages and art and music, has spent her whole life trying to keep herself entertained in a town that does its best to keep the world small. It had been no surprise when she’d gotten into Chicago, eyes alight with possibility once Hopper made clear the government would be footing the bill.

“Okay,” she says quietly. “Yeah. Let’s go look at baskets.” She shifts, and Nancy goes with the movement, ends up on her back with a very naked Robin Buckley boxing her in, a dangerous smile on her face. “But first…”

She’s warm and eager and Nancy tilts her head back and sighs as she works her way down.

#ronance #ronance fic #ronance smut #ronance kinktober

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buckys-little-belle · 4 months ago

Note

Hey, saw you wanted head cannon requests so I am here to give some.

So a little who loves fall! Apples, leaves, smells, cider, halloween, bats, costumes, all of it! I love fall so so much, so I think fall headcanons would be so cute!

I personally like the marauders, but I know you don't write for them all the time, plus I also like others! (And I can't pick lol) so steve/bucky, to steve/eddie, to Marauders, I love them all so much and I love how you write them!

I personally am masc/enby so if your ok with writing the headcanons either masc or enby that'd be great, but if not, fem works, too.

I love your writing either way. Have a nice day! Or night!

-The small Rat Boi

Fall Fan

Marauders (Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, James Potter) x Little!Reader (They/Them Pronouns Used)

Warnings -

Notes -

SFW - Please keep all interactions with this post, and this blog, SFW!

. ☆ . ☾ . ☆ . ☽ . ☆ . ☾ . ☆ . ☽ . ☆ .

The boys, especially Remus, love fall. It's pretty, and it's still nice enough outside to go for walks, but also cool enough that a cup of tea and it's steam helps warm a chilled nose.

The three of them loved it even more after they met you, a true Fall Fan. You loved every aspect of it, the apple orchard, the pumpkin patch, halloween, falling leaves, everything.

So the boys dive head first into fall now that you're stuck by their sides.

They 100% plan group halloween costumes! They'll buy everything they need from the thrift store, and they'll sew things/glue things if need be. You get to pick what the theme is, but you leave the adult stuff like hot glue, sewing needles, and the pain of having to somehow make retractable bat wings to them.

They definitely hand out buckets of candy to the others in the dorm, making sure you get to go trick or treating from room to room. Filling your pillow case with small snacks that are somehow all your favorite things ...

Remus is a amateur photographer, so when fall comes around he makes you, Sirius, and James all pose in different ways for his portfolio. He does his best to capture the movement right when you throw leaves in the air, and he tries his best to get the three of you to do some more serious poses.

James loves going apple picking, he did it as a kid and couldn't wait to take you. All four of you walk around from tree to tree picking different apples to take home, warm apple cider in your hands, well their hands, they won't let you hold the cup since it didn't come with a lid.

Sirius is the perfect companion to carve pumpkins with. He's good at art, and so every time you come up with some crazy idea for a carving he's already rolling up his sleeves and grabbing his sketch pad.

Walks through the castle grounds become your favorite thing. Kicking through leaf piles, or jumping in them. Finding pretty leaves to hang in your dorm room window. Fighting with James over who found the biggest leaf (it was you, but you said he won so he wouldn't be sad)

The boys definitely surprise you with little fall gifts here and there. A pair of black cat socks one day, a mug shaped like a pumpkin on a random Thursday, a bat stuffed animal another day. You cherish them with your whole heart, and jump up and down every time they say they have a surprise.

They take turns making up fall related bedtime stories, Sirius' are always sort of scary, James' are silly every time, and Remus' you swear should become a children's book writer because his are the most well rounded.

All in all fall with the boys is the best time of the year. It's action packed, and full of little adventures, and it's a season stuffed to the brim with fun activities.

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honeybeezgobzzzzz · 1 year ago

Text

🎃 A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Chapter One

A Truth Universally Acknowledged: It has long been established that you don’t like Dream of the Endless, and he doesn’t like you. Unfortunately, fate has decided to stick you both in a glass cage for a century. Who's throat will be torn out first? Yours? Or Dreams.

Warnings: Reader and Morpheus do not get along, Maga is latin for witch.

To Note: Morpheus x WitchFem!Reader.

Prompt: Role Reversal

Word Count: ~7.7k

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Kinktober 2023 Masterlist

It was a truth universally acknowledge that should one mortify a pride, forgiveness would not so easily be obtained. So how were you ever expected to truthfully forgive someone who had not just mortified your pride, but trampled on it until there were permanent stains and tears in it. Nothing would sew your pride back together, and nothing would remove the stain of insult rendered upon your being. The season of 1815 had not just rendered you mortified, it had shattered your pride. It had started out as an average season, as an immortal witch you’d decided to spend that year in London to enjoy the frivolity of the marriage mart.

Now, on all accounts by no means were you looking to be married… what sane mortal would willingly wed a witch? But you did enjoy the social aspects of the English balls and liked to dress up in fancy clothing. You certainly had the fortune to do so after living for so many centuries. So you had gone to the modiste and ordered several dresses for the season, and had even splurged on a few new jewelry pieces for your collection to have as a memoire of this time. You’d lingered at the fringes of the first couple of balls, but were slowly mingling further and further into the ton.

At some point you had made a friend out of one of the bachelors searching for a wife. It had been clear that neither of your were particularly romantically interested (which was better for you int he long term) and had taken to meeting up every ball to gossip and preen over outfit choices and who had committed a faux pax over luncheon. It was pure fun for you and Henry was certainly getting your experience in searching for a new wife. You had pointed out a potential match you thought would suit the young man quite nicely when you caught sight of an omen. Well it was less of an omen and more of an irritant.

The Dream Lord had no reason to be in the Waking Realm, it was your turf, and just like you respected his realm, it was only right the he respected yours. For what reason had he come to London when you were there? Nothing good, that you were sure of. So you headed for the parchment table full of lemonade for surely it wouldn’t be nearly as sour as the conversation you were sure to have with him should your paths cross.

Grasping the skirt of your dress to keep it out of your way, you glided across the room with clear intentions to parch your throat. The train of your silk dress trailed behind you in a soft bed of blue flowers carefully stitched into the tulle overlay. Carefully grabbing a glass of lemonade you took a sip as Lady Camden joined your side.

“Lady Bell,” She greeted you, using your alias. You nodded to her with a dip of your chin in greeting.

“Lady Camden, a pleasure to see you tonight, I noticed the Lord Richards was quite taken with you while you were on the floor. Do I suspect a match in your near future?” You replied with a tease in your voice. Her eyes sparkled and she fanned herself with her gossamer and feather fan.

“I surely hope so,” She softly giggled, her doe-like eyes flittering over to where Lord Richards was speaking with a few other eligible men. Ah to be mortal and in love… what you would give to feel that fleeting emotion once more.

“I am confident he shall do so, for he would be a fool to do otherwise.” You stated, taking another sip of your lemonade. You and Lady Camden made more merry conversation while you blatantly ignored the dark and brooding menace lingering in the fringes of the ballroom. It was only when the band started up music once more that you placed your glass down and looked to the dance floor. The next set of dancers were due and perhaps someone would invite you. Your hand was indeed asked for a dance and you happily accepted.

You danced line with the other woman, exchanging partners a few times and all around enjoyed yourself immensely… but on the next partner change you found yourself spun into his arms. You nearly smacked his hands away from your body when he caught you but managed to safe face purely because you had a good reputation among the ton and planned remaining in England for the next several years. They wouldn’t take well to you smacking the Dream Lord senseless on the dance floor. So you grit your teeth and forced yourself to remain calm.

“My lord,” You greeted, barely covering the tinge of hostility within your voice. “To what do I owe this pleasure of your visit?”

Lightning crackled within his stardust gaze.

“Presumptuous of you to assume that I am in attendance purely for your leisure,” His lip curled just the slightest and your eye twitched in return.

“Then what, pray tell, brings you to such an event as this? I am sure you are far too busy with your duties to indulge in the leisures of man.”

“One could ask you the same, Lady Bell,” Dream rebutted. “Surely such whimsical mortal activities are below the standings of a prominent witch such as yourself.” Oh that was an insult if you ever heard one. You didn’t bother maintaining pleasantries with the Dream Lord any further and cut to the point.

“Why are you here?” You boldly questioned. Suffice to say you didn’t directly ask why he was there being a nuisance to your festivities. You did hold some self-preservation in regards to pushing his temperament. Annoyance flashed through his blue eyes.

“A wayward nightmare, presumptuous of you to assume that I am here for you.” Oh the complete audacity of him to assume that you wished for his presence! You could count on one hand the number of times you willingly sought his presence let alone wanted it. None of those times had been your own desire, but out of necessity.

“The audacity of you to insinuate that I would ever desire your despicable and repugnant presence! I would rather lose my magic than willingly spend time with you, you loathsome cad.” You hissed at him, your eyes flashing with the color of your magic. Morpheus’ hackles rose at your audacity to speak to him as such and immediately fired back at you.

“You dare to speak to me in such tone and disrespect Maga!?” Dream growled at you. The floor beneath your slippers shivered and groaned as the music was interrupted by the argument between you and the Dream Lord. You and he were causing a scene. Jerking back from the menace of the Endless, you glared heavily at him.

“I simply dare to speak my thoughts when you have called for such words as clearly you have infringed upon my life in a way that I do not care for!” A lady should never raise her voice, but your mind was so wrapped up in anger and despite that all call for decorum and manners went out the window. “I have been nothing but respectful towards you, my lord, yet you cannot afford to do the same in return?”

“My respect is offered to those who have earned it and you and your promiscuous ways have far exceeded my limit.” You blanched at his words as gasped echoed within the ballroom. “You are a harlot pretending to be a hare. Sharp tongued and wicked.” Just like a snap of a fan, Dream had just reduced your hard earned reputation to ashes and all for what? Your words of truth?

“You are the most deplorable and depraved being I have ever had the displeasure of meeting, my lord,” You spoke with an even voice despite the trembles that now wracked through your body. “I hope you rot in hell,” Further dramatic gasps went around the room at your harsh words. But at this point you had no care because he had just ruined everything. Grabbing at the skirts of your dress, you gave Dream one last murderous glare and fled the ballroom before the talk could start.

Why did he always have to ruin everything.

Your pride was still very much ruined even after a century had gone by. Oh yes, your pride was ruined and your hatred for the Dream Lord still burned like the great Sirius. You hadn’t crossed paths with the Endless’ since that fateful night in 1815, and you were glad so. You probably would hurl a flaming ball of plasma at his stupid pretty face the moment you caught sight of him. Not even his one act of kindness during the witch trials could stop the burning hatred you felt within your heart. He might have saved you from burning at the stake, but now you held nothing but contempt for him.

You huffed to yourself and shifted where you sat, chains ratting as your arms moved. It was by sheer luck that Roderick Burgess had managed to get his hands on the grimoire that held the spell to bind you. A downright miracle that he had performed the ritual correctly to actually keep you in place. So stuck down in the bowels of Fawny Rig and sapped of your power due to his siphoning, you had plenty of time to contemplate past memories. You had no idea why that particular one of Dream humiliating you and mortifying your pride stuck out.

You hadn’t come face to face with him since that day, and while you did occasionally like to cause disturbances for him (because you were vindictive at times), you hadn’t really thought about in since the turn of the new century. You’d been too busy with new witch magic and the search for ancient grimoires. Now you were locked up in a basement with plenty of time to think about your past.

Roderick Burgess was a greedy man.

It wasn’t enough that he repeatedly stole your magic from you, no, he was taking it all every time you recharged in hopes that he could resurrect his son Randall. Resurrection was not possible. You had told him that straight to his face and earned a backhanded slap from the elder mortal. That had been the last time you reminded him of the truth. It was easier to just repeat the rules of magic and avoid mentioning resurrection all together. Tugging on the shackle around your left wrist, you chewed on your lip as your raw skin ached and burned.

The old metal had cut your skin and then dug in to your broken flesh, leaving behind half broken scabs and trails of dried blood. You had suffered worse during the witch trials, but you disliked the discomfort of your current ailments. You were immortal, not invincible or impervious to death. Speaking of Death she was actually quite a nice friend to have, unlike her brother. Your face soured at the thought of him once more and you crossed your arms over your gathered knees to rest your chin on them.

Repugnant man. His face was cloudy in your mind, hatred had blinded you to him so much you couldn’t exactly remember what it was like to glare into the face of that Endless. Heartless cretian. The iron gates creaked as your captor strode into your confined solitude… but he wasn’t alone this time. No, he was followed by his acolyte all robed and covered. While the acolytes began drawing in the sandy dirt floor with red chalk and light candles, you eyed Burgess.

“What more power do you wish for? Is it not enough that you drain my magic? Are you that desperate for your son?” You questioned the man with a sneer on your lip. “You are grasping at the straws of an empty barrel.”

Rather than take the biting words spilling from your mouth, Burgess lashed out. The back of his hand cracked across your cheek. Pain blinded you for a brief moment as you tumbled to the side, your unwashed and messy hair falling into your face. You spit out a mouthful of blood and touched your throbbing lip. Split. A chuckle passed through your lips.

“Testy today, are we?” You giggled darkly, eyeing the mortal through your curtain of hair. He gave you a look in warning. The next hit would knock you out. So you kept you mouth shut as you maneuvered your body back into a sitting position. Content to see Burgess fail for what seemed to be the thousandth time, you leaned back against the steel column you were chained to. They were still getting ready so you took to nudging the dirt beneath your feet around with your big toe.

It wasn’t particular interesting to watch them until they began drawing sigils you recognized. Straightening up in your seat, you stared at the crimson markings in puzzlement because how could Burgess know of these markings? Your eyes flickered back to him and you saw an old book within his hands. Grimoire. How had he gotten his hands on such a book!? Grimoires were sacred tomes that a witch would die before allowing into the hands of a mere mortal! You wanted to demand him where he had gotten such a book, but knew that you would get no answer from him. You’d get smacks though.

Licking the blood that bloomed from where your lip had split, your eyes turned scrutinous. Just because he was drawing correct sigils, did not necessarily mean he knew what he was doing or was doing it correctly. But the longer you watched, the more concerned you grew, while you didn’t recognize this particular combination of sigils, everything else was frighteningly correct. You could make out a few binding sigils, so he planned on binding something other than yourself (you pitied the being caught by the amateur). But there were also summoning markings.

“Summoning,” You murmured to yourself, brow furrowing as you struggle to figure out who Burgess could possibly want to summon after getting nowhere with you. The mortal didn’t spare you a glance, but he had heard your murmur. Of course you’d recognize what he was doing.

“Yes, since you are so resistant to aiding me in my wants—”

“Which are entirely impossible,” You interjected before earning a glare from him. You raised your eyebrows as if to say ’continue?’.

“—I shall summon and bind another being that will help.” You snorted and rolled your eyes because what creature would ever help such a greedy mortal like him? Desire perhaps? No. You might not have met them, but even they had standards. Roderick Burgess fell far below that line. Far, far, below. So you slumped back and closed your eyes, they were going to have to wait for nightfall for whatever summoning they were going to two as the moon boosted summoning magic. You wanted to be ready for whatever hell Burgess unleashed upon himself.

The gods were punishing you. That was the only explanation. Why else would Burgess’ botched summoning circle summing the one being in all of creation that you despised the most? Punishing or laughing, you were unceremoniously dragged from your seat to be locked up in some fancy globe that was currently being welded shut with you and Dream in it. It was downright laughable! Burger seemed smug enough about it though, he was confident that Dream would give him what he wanted.

He wouldn’t, and the mortal would soon find out. If the stupid, deplorable, loathsome, Endless would just wake up already!!

You didn’t know exactly what kind of magic it took to summon an Endless, but it sure did take a lot out of Dream. He’d been out since arriving and had yet to wake. You also didn’t know how powerful he’d be without his tools. A faux pas on his part you took great glee in knowing. And yet, if he was out of power just like you… how were you going to get out? You’d consider that later, right now you were just concentrated on glaring at the lingering man responsible for your situation.

He had regretted binding you upon learning of your unwillingness to cooperate. He was going to be in for a rude awakening when Dream woke up and gave him his ‘holier-than-thou’ attitude. Leaning back against the thick cold glass, your eyes trailed along the freshly welded seams of the cage. How want Burgess going to siphon your magic with you locked up like this? The mortal in question, almost as if hearing your thoughts, strode up to the hanging cage and stared at you with a glare. Your eyebrow twitched in challenge.

“No need to worry about our little sessions, witch,” He told you, his blue eyed tight and heavy. “I can still take your magic with you in that cage.” You were tempted to mouth off on him since he could smack you around anymore, but between your split lip and mood sullied at your future trapped with him, you chose to remain silent. Crossing your arms against your chest, you leaned your head back and closed your eyes. If there was anything you learned about Burgess, it was that he hated being ignored.

He eventually left when the glass cage was completed and the workers all trickled out, only two guards remaining behind. To watch you and Dream you suppose… but exactly where were you going to go? Your stomach rumbled and a new worry emerged. Being immortal didn’t mean that you didn’t need to eat. It wouldn’t kill you to starve but you weren’t exactly excited about the idea. The 1500s had been hard enough, you didn’t ever want to get that thin again. You sighed and reminded yourself that you had gotten through tougher times once more.

“Think of all the spells you can curse him with when you get out,” You whispered to yourself, trying to distract yourself from reality. While you were mindlessly flickering through memories of your travels over the centuries, the Endless you were crammed in the cage with began to regain consciousness. He didn’t move, not even a muscle but the minuscule amount of magic you had recharged since your last draining altered you to his alertness.

Narrowing your gaze, you glared at the naked Endless (you were guilty of appreciating his beautiful body for about five seconds before you remembered that you hated him) and waited for his eyes to open. When they did, you cursed him for having such beautiful eyelashes. You, of course, were he first thing he saw and the Endless could have sworn he was hallucinating you after such a long period of not having to deal with you and your annoyances. But then you blinked, scowled deeper at him, and curled your lip.

“Welcome to Fawny Rig.”

Dream hadn’t uttered a single word or sound since waking up in the glass cage with you. Hadn’t answered to Burgess’ demands when the mortal had come to make them. Hadn’t commented when Burgess turned to you and taunted you with freedom, you had just rolled your eyes and looked the other way. Now you were nodding off, so he followed you. You had been on his mind on and off over the last century, the incident in 1815 notwithstanding. Your anger and rage at the Endless was still palpable ever after all these years.

He suppose he deserved your anger, but he believed that nothing he had said that night was wrong. He did see you as promiscuous as you were close with many and at times flirty, and your tongue was sharp and wicked. No one else in all of creation clashed with him like you did, not even his sibling Desire. It was infuriating. Materializing in your dream, Dream was surprised to find himself in a familiar place. The same estate in which you and he had your explosive encounter in 1815. What had caused your consciousness to think of this?

Him, most likely, but the Endless wasn’t smart enough to think of that.

It wasn’t hard for Morpheus to track you down, you were the only one existing other than he within your dreams. So walking the corridors, he happened upon a back balcony where you were standing. Your back was to him and face turned upward, gazing at the luminous full moon overhead.

“Is it not enough that now I must see your face every day?” You grumpily complained, not bothering to look at him. Dream’s eye twitched at your words because was he not Dream of the Endless. It was by his powerthat you had the ability to dream in the first place!

“I see that your tongue is still just as wild as the last night I reluctantly spent in your presence, Maga.” You shot a glare over your shoulder, eyes connecting with thunderous blue.

“And I see that you are still a loathsome creature without an ounce of compassion or dignity!” You hissed at him, eyes flashing. “Or do you take pleasure in ruining a woman’s hard earned reputation in front of an audience?”

“I spoke nothing but the truth,” Dream spoke to you, his chin lifting while his eyes glittered with anger. Insolence and insult from you yet again.

“Yes, the truth of how you see me!” You snapped at him. “But have you considered how your insidious words might affect me in the long term? I had a life in England until you ruined it! You are nothing but a big bully who throws words around when you don’t get your way!”

Now that really made Dream angry, but you didn’t remain in place to experience his blow up. It had been far too long since you had been able to dream like this and you just wanted to rest. He called your name but you just ignored him. Surely he would understand that you just wanted to be left alone. At the very least the irate Endless could indeed feel that you wanted to be left alone… but his curiosity of how you ended up in that decrepit basement. So he followed silently behind you as you made your way to a bedroom in the large estate. Lingering in the doorway, Dream stared at your back in distaste, trying to remember why he disliked you in the first place. He couldn’t remember.

He walked over to the foot of the bed and glared at you further, thinking back to the first time he had met you. Surely something within his memories would trigger the reason for his great dislike for you. He found no immediate memory, just those of your torture at the hands of the witch trials and saving you, the brief visits you had within his realm, and— Dream was distracted by wounds dotting your wrists. Eyes sharpening on the wounds, Dream’s eyes followed the signs of restraint. They were far from new and were in varying stages of healing. Then his eyes found the lingering blood on your chin and lip. Someone had struck you. Who would dare to strike a witch of your caliber and standing? Roderick Burgess no doubt, he had no shortage of gall and greed.

Your guards figured out early on that you and Dream did not like each other. You two squabbled with your eyes and facial expressions, well you mouthed off to him in a one sided conversation for Dream never said a word… but you appeared to understand each and every twitch of facial muscle the Endless made. It was rather impressive and yet, Burgess got nothing he demanded from Dream. He still got his power from you, yes, he never failed to siphon that… but get Dream to obey his demands? Absolutely not.

After your last shouting match you had purposefully squirmed yourself around so you were cramped against the glass with your back to the Endless. You were refusing to look at him and the Endless refused to acknowledge your presence. Gods the Endless annoyed you to the core! Why did you have to be trapped in this stupid cage with him, it was driving you insane!! You growled under your breath and slumped further against Dream’s hard shoulder. Superficial arsehole.

The years had come and go, and after nearly a decade of being trapped with him, your digs at each other had slowly ebbed. Boredom, of course, was on the forefront. But you spent a lot of time with what little magic Burgess left you with maintaining your body so you didn’t waste away to a skeleton. You had already lost a decent amount of weight, your hipbones were pronounced and the vertebrae of your spine were all very prominent. Even Dream found your state uncomfortable to look at, but with you constantly presenting your back in refusal to look at him he had nothing else to look at. You were counting the number of times the guard threw a ball against the side of the stone wall when Roderick came down for his monthly siphoning.

The elderly man, not having aged a day since summoning Dream, strode into the room and settled his eyes on you. You were back to being a sullen and pouting wench, subdued by your current predicament. But he knew that at the drop of a hat you’d turn into a fiery hellcat and spit crude insults at any who dared to gaze upon you. Your wicked side was merely laying in wait, slumbering. Burgess prepared himself for siphoning your magic, muttering the incantation beneath his breath for he had memorized it by now. With the spell activated, he walked to the edge of the summoning circle and stared at you.

Your shoulder jerked a little as the meager amount of magic you had regained flowed out of your body and to the mock wizard. Grunting as the strain of over siphoning made your limbs twitch you hunched in place and struggled to grasp at what magic you could keep for yourself. Not much, regretfully. Your fingers clenched against the skin of your chest, for the pain you felt there was not new to you but still just as uncomfortable as it was the first time he’d stolen your magic.When the last few embers of your magic floated free from your soul and traveled into Burgess’ chest, you let out a strained wheeze and slumped in a weak ball against the glass. How did you have any magic left to give now? Your weakness was making it hard for your body to recuperate the magic lost.

As you lay limp as a rag doll with labored breaths, trembling ever so slightly, Burgess turned his gaze to Dream. He had a deal for the Endless, surely Dream would be happier without you there to snarl and argue with him.

“I have a deal for you, Dream,” He spoke, cold eyes observing the Endless. He was sitting with his ankles crossed and arms hanging over his knees. He hadn’t moved from that spot in decades despite you squirming around next to him. Dream couldn’t help but raise his eyes to the mortal. What would he try to bargain with this time? “I will let the witch go, if you bring back my son.” Dream almost laughed at Burgess’ words. He’d release you if he brought his son back? That wasn’t happening, it would never happen. Even if Dream could bring his son back. A brief look of disgust flickered across Dream’s face and that was all the answer the mortal needed.

The Endless would let you rot next to him rather than do anything to help Burgess.

“You are positively the worst,” Your voice croaked from where you had your forehead pressed against cool glass. “I hope you know that Dream. The. Worst.” He’d take that over you getting a win in any day.

Something in the air had changed. It was a palpable feeling you’d woken up to this morning and it had kept you on edge since. Your boney back had leaned heavily into Dream’s shoulder as you looked upwards at the eaves overhead. Something was off. Something didn’t belong. You just didn’t know what. The dust that floated in the air vibrated with a different frequency, one that wasn’t of this world. If only you weren’t so weak you could have pinpointed out what it was! Despite your uncertainty of what was going on, you decided to voice your thoughts since the guards post was empty.

“Something has changed.” Your words brought Dream out of his internal thoughts. His eyes opened and he stared ahead at the empty guards table. Nothing appeared to be different, but your senses had always been exceptional. Even with you in a weakened state. He said nothing, of course, but silently acknowledged your words. Now on alert, Dream scanned the empty basement slowly. Nothing was out of place. The something fluttering at the gate to the room caught his attention.

Like a beacon of light, Jessamy wormed her way through an opening in the wrought iron and perched on it, heading cocking side to side as she examined her Lord and Master in his glass cage. Of course she also noticed you laying limp next to him, but her concentration was on her master. The raven fluttered into the room and swooped up to the cage, banging herself and beak against thick glass to break it. Hope combined with happiness filled Dream’s face as he rose to his feet. You simply rolled your head to look up at Jessamy, glad that someone knew you were down in this decrepit basement.

Hope was beginning to bloom in your chest, for you hadn’t been this close to freedom since capture. But just as soon as that swelling feeling grew within your bosom it came crashing down. There was a loud crack that shattered Jessamy’s attempts to break the glass and before you knew it black and red was splattered against the cage. You gasped with a stricken sound catching in your throat. Oh gods, Jessamy… Alex Burgess was standing several paces behind with a gun raised. Your eyes burned because while you might have a particular distaste for her master, she was a good acquaintance. Now she was gone.

You watched as Dream slowly lowered himself back to the floor of the cage, unaltered shock plastered on his features. It was like he was still trying to process what had just happened. But his eyes… Oh you could see the tears quickly gathering and something within you cracked. Burgess came bursting into the room in a fit of rage, shouting at his son for potentially breaking the glass that kept you and Dream trapped. But you were entirely focused on Dream. You’d never seen him cry, you didn’t even think it was possible for an Endless to cry. But the devastation on his face wasn’t a fluke or a trick of the light, tears were flooding his lashes and his nose was beginning to run.

Even the great Dream of the Endless was capable of ugly crying? You were moving before you even realized what you were doing.

Boney arms reaching for the Endless, you pulled him to you and tucked his face away from prying eyes. Your fingers absentmindedly found themselves stroking his midnight hair while you began murmuring several death rites for Jessamy. She had been an exceptional companion to Dream and clearly the Endless had cared for her. She hadn’t deserved to be killed in such a way. Mid rites, you felt Dream shift within your arms and thought that he might lash out at you for daring to touch him so intimately… but rather than do as expected he leaned into your embrace in a slump.

You nearly started crying yourself the moment you felt his tears drip onto your skin. He’d never been this vulnerable in front of you before. No, you were sure that he’d never been this vulnerable ever. You ought to be happy to be experiencing something so rare, or even happy that he was hurting after all the social destruction he’d caused you… but all you could feel was pain in your heart because it had only come because of a death. The basement which had always been cold, damp, and dark, was now a tomb marred with blood and death. You found that you hated the way Dream trembled within your arms, and for each tear he shed, your hatred for the Burgess’ grew.

Burgess’ death had ben anticlimactic and incredibly disappointing. You had wanted him to burn for thousands of years for the pain and anguish he had caused Dream, and for his imprisonment of you. He’d gotten off far too easily dying from just a head injury. He deserved so much worse. So much worse. It was your only hope that he had ended up in hell where he belonged. You would have looked on the bright side if Alex hadn’t decided on taking over his fathers job siphoning your magic.

He feared that you’d grow to powerful if left unchecked.

Your lack of magic was beginning to seriously take a toll on your body. Without a steady source of magic to supplement the nutritional intake you’d normally have, your body was taking muscle and fat from you. If Dream thought seeing the vertebrate more pronounced was disturbing, it was nothing compared to your entire spinal column. That’s why you’d gone back to sitting side by side with him, to hide just how depleted your body was becoming after over a decade of imprisonment. You often rested your head on his shoulder when fatigue overtook you and were lucky that t he Endless allowed such a thing. With tiredness ruling within your mind and body, you decided to close your eyes for just a moment to rest them.

The grounds of the witch trials greeted your eyes, and a sharp tingle of fear ran up your spine for but a moment. Even after two centuries had gone by, the memories of your experience at the hands of the crazed people and witch hunters still haunted you. You still had the brand of the christian cross upon your shoulder. The old mark burned in memory and your rubbed your shoulder as it ached. Sometimes when the memories were strong enough you could swear you smelled the scent of your flesh burning as the red hot iron cross was pressed into your flesh. Your eye twitched.

Why were you having this dream? Why were you remembering these horrors now?

Refusing to look at the gallows where the noose swung ominously, you turned in the direction of your old home. After crossing the ocean on a colony ship, you’d taken to assisting the local doctor. Many colonists fell sick after making the voyage and you had faithfully tended to and nursed them back to health. You had given the Salem community nothing but kindness and what had you gotten in return? The witch trials. The people you had come to care for and love, had turned on you in a blink of an eye.

Technically speaking, you were a witch. But never in all your years of living had you ever considered using your magic to do harm. Why would you wish to uproot and ruin the happy life you had? Nonetheless you had been branded a witch (literally), and set to hang with the other ‘guilty’. You were the only witch in Salem.

You found yourself in your small home, everything exactly as you remembered. Your basket of medical supplies sat by the door, the hearth with its pot hanging above waiting to be used for dinner, your bed. You touched the threadbare blanket. It was just as scratchy as you remembered, but it had kept you warm. Your hand went to the rough fabric of the waistcoat you wore. You’d forgotten how hot it was to wear the full outfit. So you began stripping yourself of the thick materials, your waistcoat going first, then your dress. Now just standing in your simple shift, you let your hair down from its tightly pinned position and shook it out.

“Can’t say I enjoyed the rigid customs but life was quite peaceful for a time,” You mused to yourself, exiting your old home and heading to the nearby river. On Saturdays the women of Salem always did the laundry for the week and during the summer months it was nice to cool off in the water. This dream was making you feel hot and a nice cool down with a dip in the river sounded nice. Your feet followed the path to the river on automatic, even after over two hundred years you still knew it like the back of your hand.

The river was cold. It always had been. But it was a nice break from the heat you felt. The ends of your shift were rapidly soaked and pressed against your skin as you sloshed further into the river. It was funny how even the rocks at the bottom of the crystal water still looked exactly the same. Walking until you were waist deep, you shifted a few stone not he river bottom with your foot. It was strange that you were in a dream. Dream had been locked in a subdued and moroseful state that hadn’t changed since Jessamy’s death. You hadn’t had a dream since then, so why were you having one now?

“Best not to question and simply enjoy,” You stated pragmatically before dunking yourself beneath the water. Floating for a few moments beneath the chilly water, you let yourself relax and just stay hunched in place. The current were you were was fairly weak so you didn’t have to use much effort staying in one place. Standing back up, you pushed your hand over your wet hair. While you were observing the fading sun on the horizon, the dream around you shuddered for a moment. Then the sun disappeared and the entire dream darkened to nightmare.

Your head swirled to the land behind you which the disturbance had originated, and you saw a thunderous looking Dream standing behind you. What had gotten his knickers in a twist? This was your dream, what could you possibly dream of that would make him so upset?

“Dream, you’re disturbing the peace,” You quietly announced, attempting a soft pointer given his rather fragile state. His glowing eyes flickered for a few moments, then faded back to starry blue and the dream returned to its normal. As the summer heat returned, you observed the being closer to figure out what had caused him to go all ‘Endless’ on you in a dream. He still looked enraged, barely containing it behind his pretty blue eyes, his jaw locked, even his fists were clenched. “Dream?” You prompted him again, hugging your arms around your body because you were as good as naked in front of him and unlike he, you did care about people seeing your naked body.

His lashes flickered and eyes narrowed.

“You never spoke of bodily harm,” His voice came out rasping and deep, echoing the emotional turmoil you could feel and see. What was he talking about? Your apparent confusion to his words only made the Endless scowl at you. “The mark upon your shoulder, Maga,” He growled darkly, stepping closer to the rivers edge. “You never spoke of them hurting you.”

Your mind went blank as you processed his words. He was… angry that you’d been hurt? Well he wasn’t just angry at this point. He was enraged at the idea. Your face screwed up some and you half turned in place so your neck wasn’t screeching at you for the unnatural strain you were causing it.

“There was no need. You stopped my hanging, what more did you need to know past that?” You questioned, still very confused about why he would be so upset by the mark of an injury that had happened over two hundred years ago. It had long since healed. For some reason Dream got angrier at your words. Once more he took more steps, closing in on the river. “You didn’t even need to stop them from hanging me in the first place. Why would I tell you about them branding me?”

Dream’s eye twitched as he furiously questioned in his mind why you hadn’t informed him of what the morals had done to you.

“They hurt you,” He reiterated, stressing out the word hurt like it would explain his reasoning to be upsetto you. It did not, but you didn’t want to pick a fight with him when you had been on such cordial terms with him.

“It was over two centuries ago, Dream,” You answered him, resting your hands against your chest and looking own at your fingers. You remembered how bloody they had been after being beaten by the towns people. “I’ve long since put that in my past.”

It seemed that no matter what you told the Endless, he was still very upset over the fact that you had been hurt in the witch trials... so you decided to shift the conversation because the breeze was making you chilled.

“If you wouldn’t mind, Dream, would you please turn around?” You asked, looking down at your wet body. The white shift was still very much see-through. Dream titled his head to the side, his face telling you that he didn’t understand why you were asking for such a thing. “My shift is wet and very much see though at the moment.”

Dream didn’t understand why you should ever feel the need to be self conscious over your naked body but did as you asked. When his back was to you, you sloshed your way back towards the rivers edge. Once there, you carefully stepped towards the path leading back to your home. However, Dream heard you heading away from him and promptly turned around.

“You asked me to turn around and then design to sneak off?” He questioned, eyes boring into your back and lingering on the branded cross on your shoulder. You froze in step.

“I am in my shift that is currently see through, Dream,” You reminded him stiffly. “I’m not in presentable attire to be speaking with you at the moment. If you wish to continue conversation you are going to have to wait until I am dressed accordingly.”

Dream, while having innumerous patience, simply could not find the ability to be so at the moment and strode up to you, coat in hand. He dropped it around your shoulders and continued walking towards your home.

“We will be finishing this conversation whether or not you believe yourself to be in presentable clothing.” He stated, striding confidently ahead. You stared agape at his back, fingers clutching the star laden coat around your shoulders. Finishing this conversation? You still didn’t understand why he was so upset over a brand you’d gotten two hundred years prior, but followed him nonetheless.

It was nice to just talk with Dream of the Endless, rather than fight.

Holding up a facade of okay health had taken every bit of your concentration. What magic that ran thorough your blood now went entirely to preserving your life the best it could. You stopped counting the years after fifty. It was pointless as Alex was so fearful of what Dream would do should he let the Endless out, that there was zero hope of you getting out of your cage. So you just stuck to developing a non aggressive relationship with Dream, and it was… nice. More than nice actually. You got to see the other side of the Endless you hadn’t seen before.

It had to have been a century by the time Alexander Burgess made his last visit to the decrepit basement of Fawny Rig. He was old, frail, and nothing like the youthful boy who had murdered Jessamy. You knew he’d spent most of his life tormented by the knowledge that you and Dream sat in this cage in the basement of his home. A bitter satisfaction came from that knowledge, and yet, you couldn’t help but pity the man for being so weak. Overshadowed by his older brother to the very end. A fitting ending for the Burgess lineage.

As Alex spoke his last word and sat back down in his wheelchair, Paul began to push him away from the cage. Less than a second went by and you felt a massive ripple of power run through you. You jerked where you sat, holding in the gasp that wanted to crawl from your throat, and looked at Paul. He was looking back at you, and then at the ground. Following his gaze, your eyes widened when you spotted the clear break in the circle binding both you and Dream in place. Gods above. Your eyes didn’t shift back to Paul’s as he wheeled Alex out. A broken circle meant that Dream had a grasp on his power, a broken circle meant that you could use your own magic outside of your body!

A tremble began in your body as you forced yourself to remain calm and silent. Nearly 110 years of captivity and freedom was within your grasp because of Paul? You knew that Dream could also feel the change in your captivity, the muscles you could feel against your body had gone rigid the moment the circle had been broken. He knew he had his chance and without a doubt would be taking it. Hunching in a ball, you began murmuring all the incantations for low level teleportation magic. You didn’t know if you had enough magic to complete even an entry level spell, but you’d take which ever spell got you out of this place.

While you were concentrating, you felt the sands of Endless magic caressing your skin. Then gunshots and yelling, glass shattering, one of your spells activated and your eyes flickered open in triumph. Fingers clasped tightly together, the last you saw of Fawny Rig was unconscious guards and the glowing aura of a seething Endless. You’d never seen him so angry, so enraged. Your fight or flight instincts kicked in and your mind echoed one thought and one thought only: run.

Date Published: 10/5/23

Last Edit: 10/5/23

Masterlist | Next

Kinktober 2023 Masterlist

#kinktober 2023 #kinktober #lazyghoulskinktober2023 #lord morpheus #dream of the endless #morpheus #dream the endless x reader #morpheus x reader #dream of the endless x reader #the sandman #the sandman netflix #dream the endless #sandman x reader

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creations-by-chaosfay · 10 months ago

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Fun fact a doctor shared with me when they learned I'm a quilter: it's a very healthy hobby.

Most of my time is spent standing because I have to press seams. With foundation paper piecing, I use a hand presser (looks like a rolling pin on a stick) because the paper curls and warps under heat. Machine sewing involves a lot of shoulder and arm usage. Cutting fabric uses even more, and I cut a lot more when I use foundation paper piecing. I use a wall in my bedroom as a design wall, and it results in stretching and reaching. Getting up and down from my chair, plus all the standing when pressing and cutting fabric, works out my legs.

When the doctor asked about how my body feels when I'm working on quilts, she also asked if my heart races. It does! I get very excited when working on a quilt, and occasionally frustrated, but my heart is hardly at rest. Just thinking about working on quilts gets it going. They told me it's something they would call light cardio, especially for someone like me. I have moderate to severe asthma, and doing more than light cardio (speed walking for example) results in my asthma acting up. So this? It gives my heart a good workout.

I also exercise my brain, especially with the planning and focus. They mentioned quilting, and the arts in general, have been proven to help delay and even prevent dementia.

Making quilts also helps treat anxiety. Does making something big cause you anxiety? Then go small. Before I started using medication to treat my ADHD, I made a lot of smaller things because Instant Gratification is very nice. Now that I'm on medication, big things are significantly easier to work on because I don't feel the mental itch for NOW NOW NOW.

I also apply everything I learned as a macrame artist, painter, and poet, when I make my quilts. My family can see the influence in the work, especially the other quilters. The doctor explained this helps me retain my memories, and again exercises my brain.

Next time someone has the audacity to tell you making quilts is a lazy hobby, invite them to join you. Have them do as you do. My husband has never once called it lazy because he knows it's not, but someone else did. So I told them to join me for the work. They left with very sore shoulders and feet, and apologized later with a gift of a mini jelly roll (for the uninitiated: it's a precut bundle of fabric that's 2.5 x 42 inches, and a full roll is 40 strips).

I highly recommend getting a couple relief mats if standing for long periods of times causes you pain. I have one because of pain. My feet are so highly arched only about 20% of each foot is on the ground when I'm standing, my lower back has a permanent arch that prevents me from ever touching my toes (I haven't been able to touch my toes since I was about three years old; my dr suspects some of my lower vertebrae are fused, but we need x-rays to verify), and my knees have always been brats. My sewing days are only about 3-5 hours because all the standing has my back screaming at me. Before my relief mat, it was a max of three hours.

Making quilts is hard work, both mentally and physically. It's 100% worth it though!

#words from the artist #mental health #physical health #quilting #sewing

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epitomereally · 1 year ago

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Celestial Navigation by @sabrecmc

18 year old Omega!Tony finds himself Bonded to Captain Steve Rogers. He isn't happy about it until he is.

An absolutely gorgeous story of learning to love yourself, even when you feel like you don't fit in & that you grew up wrong. I'm so happy to have gotten to bind this mammoth work for Sabre & as a gift exchange for @mourningmountainsbindery (who bound me this beautiful copy of Astolat's Let the River Run—JUST LOOK AT THAT COVER!).

Also to anyone who has @ed me lately (looking at u, em @powerful-owl & tacky @tackytigerfic particularly) & I've been derelict in responding, here is WHY.

This has been the longest binding project I've undertaken, both in page count and in time. My original message to Sabre was on March 16th—can't decide if I want to use the laughing or crying emoji here—and the colophon says I made the book in April 2023 (which was when I started typesetting, maybe). I had been randomly perusing dying videos on Youtube in bed on a Saturday morning, as one does, and came across a video showing how to spiral tie-dye. I IMMEDIATELY had a design premonition of the full design for this fic as a two-volume set, planted into my brain wholesale by the binding gods. I learned many new techniques throughout the process (edge painting, edge trimming/sanding, tie-dying/dyepainting, embroidery, typesetting meta from tumblr which copy-pastes with the worst goddamn formatting in the world, kill me now). Overall, alternately extremely painful & wonderful, and I'm extremely proud of this set.

Design-wise, I went whole-hog with the scifi stars theme. Endpapers are recolored versions of the star charts from the Apollo 11 mission:

Title page & chapter titles are both rips in the galaxy:

Epigraphs both star-themed:

Some more glamor shots because I'm so proud 💕

8.6 lbs // 3.8 kgs worth of books (~3000 total pages) 🥰

Celestial Navigation is also INCREDIBLY popular, and Sabre has been incredibly generous answering asks on her tumblr + writing additional one-shots in the universe. There is also a veritable volume of fanart. I was so inspired by seeing @robins-egg-bindery copy of ********, with its appendix of fanart & meta, that I promptly copied them.

fanart redacted because lots of the artists are no longer active on tumblr but just know i am ECSTATIC about the amount of art in these books

Lastly, I love how @clovenhoofbindery includes their 'Illustrator mess' with their bind posts, as a behind-the-scenes look into the wild process of designing these books. I don't actually have an Illustrator mess for this book (the chapter titles & title page pretty much came in one take), but I do have a DYING MESS. It took me sososo many tries to figure out how to get the dye to look how I imagined in my head. I ended up 'dye painting' instead of tie-dying in the end, but my inbox is always open to chat hand-dying/tie-dying/dyepainting (or what I did differently between any of these attempts). Numbers are the dying attempt.

Last process shot: I hand-dyed variegated linen thread to match the colors of the bind, which ends up being incredibly difficult to see on the finished bind, but was super fun while I was sewing!

Materials:

Body font: Kepler

Title font: Compaq 1982

Chapter number font: aliens & cows

Endpapers: recolored versions of the star chart used by Michael Collins during the Apollo 11 mission (archived at The Smithsonian)

Bookcloth: dyed using Dharma Trading Procion Fiber-Reactive Dyes

Title page and chapter headers: designed in Photoshop using the Ultimate Space brush pack by jeffrettalyn on DeviantArt

Metallic embroidery thread: Cosmo Nishikiito thread

I would dye for this embroidery thread. It is LIGHT YEARS better than the classic metallic embroidery thread from DMC: much easier to work with & much more sparkly. Literally so eye-catching; it truly doesn't translate to photos.

Paint for edges: Daniel Smith watercolor tubes in Iridescent Sunstone and Prussian Blue

Note: these are GORGEOUS watercolors. The color is so saturated and strong and beautiful BUT I don't think I'd recommend watercolors for edge painting. They went on very differently depending on the grit of the sandpaper I used for the edges + they sometimes bled into the pages + they had to be set with fixative, which then stuck the pages together.

#blood sweat and TEARS into this bind #and now it is DONE my god #stony #stony fanart #celestial navigation #my fanbinding #posts i actually wrote

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heyidkyay · 1 year ago

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Havin' to be human |

As it's October and Halloween is by far one of my favourite holidays, I thought I'd write something a little different than usual! This is another Matty fic, not sure how long it'll be but if it's well liked I'll post a second part? Happy October, hope you enjoy it:)

Summary: There's a fine line between the living and the dead. I realised that at a very young age and still have yet to escape it- even after forcing myself to move miles away from home. It seems that you can't escape much though in Wilmslow either, not the dead, not overly-involved flatmates, and certainly not the curly haired lad that stands hanging about in cafe's. But when have things ever been easy for me?

“Would you like another biscuit, deary?”

I glance up from my slight daze and draw my eyes away from the staircase sat just outside the living room door to meet the older woman’s weary smile. I’m fine with the six she’s already handed me but I can’t find it in myself to deny her, so I just nod minutely and give her another quiet thank you.

“Sorry about all this, I’m sure he’ll be in any second now.” The woman, Mrs O’Donald, tells me, still fiddling with the biscuit tin. It's one of those metal ones you usually find in old people’s houses, full to the brim with either shortbread or sewing needles. Always one or the other.

“It’s no worry. I don’t mind waiting, I’ve nowhere else to be.” I assure her but she just nods quickly and then starts rearranging the table for the seventh time. I leave her to it, knowing it must bring her some sense of comfort. She seems the type, the many figurines littering the shelves are all in perfect position and the cushions on the sofa look practically untouched.

But while she does that, my gaze ultimately drags its way back over to the doorway, to the bottom step of the staircase where I can still see a tiny hand gripping the banister bar, the rest of the body hidden behind the living room door’s wooden frame. It's eery but I can't keep myself from looking.

I cough lightly after a moment and rest my teacup back on the coffee table, making sure to use one of the many coasters offered, “If you don’t mind me asking, Mrs O’Donald-”

“Rosie, please.”

With a polite smile, I nod. “Rosie.” I correct myself and don’t pay attention to the light tremors in her right hand as she refills my cup once more, I say nothing about it. “I was just going to ask if you had any more children, other than Andrew, of course.”

I’m a little startled then by the way her entire demeanour seems to shift then, as though my question has triggered something deep within her. Gone are the faint tremors and stuttering pleasantries, she’s now sat deathly still, the fidgeting and the strained smile she’s worn since the moment I’d arrived have vanished.

“Just one other.” Mrs O’Donald, or rather Rosie, answers me, her eyes caught on the fireplace mantle now, where a plethora of neatly arranged photo frames crowd together, all of them silver and very detailed.

“Oh,” I reply quietly in return, deciding now to tread with a little caution after having witnessed her previous response, “Are there many years between them?”

The older woman seems to swallow then, her throat bobs and her thin lips tighten, before her eyes dart back to me. I try not to outwardly react, not to still under their sudden scrutiny, their coldness.

“Why? Who told you to ask that?” She immediately quizzes me, hunching further in her armchair now that it takes a great strength in me to keep from cowering back in my own.

“No one.” I hurry to reassure her, and I can hear the tight pitch of my voice, how bewildered I sound. “No one, Mrs O’Donald. I just, I just wanted to know a little more about Andrew. That's all.”

Mrs O’Donald nods then at my lie, but my assurance seems to ebb her sudden worries, which gifts me no reprieve. At all. I’ve often gotten myself into some odd situations, some even more strange than this, but the woman’s reaction to such a simple question is so peculiar that it instantly sets me on edge, not to mention that the little hand on the staircase has vanished now.

Fucking Frankie and all her meddling, I could wring her neck right about now! I think to myself helplessly.

Frankie’s my roommate, you see, we’ve been friends since I’d first moved to town, since I’d left London and got on the first train that had been leaving the platform. I’d seen her ad in the newsagents outside the local train station, all bejewelled and with this ditzy font, and had headed into a nearby cafe to give her a call. She’d been two months behind on rent and had been desperate enough to tack up her spare room on the bulletin board there for a couple hundred quid a month. Then along came me and well, I’d had nowhere else to go.

We’ve been as thick as thieves from the get go though, she’d actually been one to arrange this rather impromptu excursion, having set me up with a lad she knew from secondary that was apparently ‘my exact type’. Not that she really knew what that was, in truth, Frankie knew nothing of actual importance about me, even though we were dead close. She had no idea why I’d even left home, or why I’d come to Wilmslow of all places, and had never once bothered me about it.

My sex life, on the other hand, was something she loved to bug me about to no apparent end. Enough that I’d finally relented and agreed for her to set me up with this mate of hers after having seen a picture of him on Facebook, if only for the reason she’d let this whole thing go. I was perfectly content being on my own, preferred it actually, even when it sometimes grew harder having to keep everything to myself all the time, scared to let people near. But that was just life, wasn’t it, and life was so much easier when everyone around me was none the wiser to my… situation.

Mrs O’Donald appears to have softened a bit now and I try to return the gesture when she gives me a shaky smile. “Sorry, it’s just. It’s hard, even now, to talk about, you know.”

Fuck. I struggle to keep my smile.

“I didn’t mean to pry.” I’m quick to tell her, my chest tightening as I draw in another slow breath. I can see that the small hand is back now, there, just out of the corner of my eye. “We can pretend that I didn’t even ask, hey?”

The woman just shakes her head at me though and for the millionth time today I wish I’d never stepped foot through that fucking door.

“It’s fine. I’m fine.” Mrs O’Donald says, although I’m pretty sure she’s only doing it to reassure herself. “It was a long, long time ago. Gary says it does me no good to linger on the memory. And our Andrew’s the same.”

I have zero fucking idea as to who Gary could possibly be, her husband maybe? But I don’t even ask, just willing myself to pop out of existence then and there. Or for her pink puffy chaise longue to eat me whole.

“Right.” Is all I can bring myself to say, and it’s then that my mind finally relents in its stubbornness and allows my eyes to wander back over towards the staircase again, only I’m not fully prepared for what I see. The hand is still there, only now it’s joined by another, the pair of them bracketing a wan head with unrelenting eyes.

I jump on instinct at the image and send the teacup I’d taken to cradling again soaring through the air. Mrs O’Donald jumps too, though her reaction is solely down to me, and I find myself so surprised that all I can really do is ramble, “I am so sorry. Honestly, I don’t know what came over me. I’m so, so sorry, Mrs O’Donald. Here let me-”

The woman, who appears to be in better shape now that she has something to occupy herself with, is waving my apologies away freely, a tea towel already in hand as she pivots around to wipe up the spilled tea. “Not to worry, dear. I’m the same somedays, just one of those things, I suppose.”

“Yeah,” I breathe out, though my stare is still stuck on the staircase and the tiny little boy staring back at me through its wooden railings. “Just one of those things.” I murmur.

To say I made a clean break for it after that, would’ve been an absolute lie, seeing as how the second I tried to say my goodbyes to Mrs O’Donald, claiming that I suddenly felt a bit under the weather and apologising once again for the spillage, did Andrew walk through the front door.

“Oh Andrew! You’re just in time.” Mrs O’Donald all but beams, a total contrast to the woman who’s been serving me tea and biscuits in her living room for the past twenty minutes. She hurries over to the front door to properly welcome him in whilst I linger in the hallway, only a foot away from the bottom of the staircase, trying incredibly hard not to concentrate on the soundless feet kicking at the skirting-board.

So before Andrew could even utter a word to me, or simply breathe in my direction, I was slipping between the pair of them and out the front door before you could say ‘goodbye’. I practically legged it down their street, even as Andrew called out after me in obvious confusion, and didn’t stop running until I was far too winded and amongst the noise of the high-street in town.

I wasn’t always like this. I swear.

It had started out with whispers, mostly soft and indistinct, but occasionally a single voice would stand out amongst the others. I’d be on the motorway in mum’s car and suddenly hear ‘Look out, oh God, look out!’ in a frenzied voice that would quickly cut off, or ‘Such a fucking slag, knew she’d move right on-’ on the walk home from school, and even ‘Are you sure I locked the front door before we left?’ whenever I bypassed the house at the end of this one street.

They’d drift in and out of oscillation like a poorly tuned radio. Sometimes the voices are fuzzy, almost silent and barely there, whilst other times they can be so real and immediate that they have me spinning around in a circle trying to work out who’s talking.

It quickly grew from there though, the voices went from being carried on a nonexistent wave to falling from faintly drawn lips caught in a blur of movement. I’d see them just out of the corner of my eye, whenever I’d turn a bend or glance over my shoulder. The visions also made me pause abruptly, stop to catch the breath that had left me, they were like trails of smoke caught on the wind, like wisps from a candle freshly blown out. But even after that, with the seeing and the hearing, things still changed. The blurry images adapted, became more evident, more vivid. They went from hazy chance glances to people crowding busy intersections or sitting by a bridge. Had little girls with snapped necks living in my childhood bedroom and the neighbours lost dog sniffing around my ankles.

Even then though they tended to loop, to say the same things, and follow the same path. The little girl back home would often climb the stairs at night and I’d hear her footfalls, never a step mistook, always the same pattern, the same beat. Always repeating, apologising, crying. Enough that it started to drain me, enough so that I could no longer sleep in that house at night. Enough to force me out and away.

Only recently have they started to interact more, see that I truly am there, that I can see them as much as they can see me. They don’t appear to forget as much either. Don’t repeat like they did for so many of the years before. When I ask them questions, they can choose to answer, they differentiate from their previous paths, follow me about with a questioning gaze instead of continuing the same cycle.

That little boy back at the O’Donald’s house, he was one of them. He knew I’d seen him too. From the second I’d sat down. But he’d been reluctant to come any closer than the staircase, why I don’t know, but I chose not to dwell too long on it.

I finally breathe a sigh of relief when I see the front door to our flat, all pretty with the wreath Frankie had adorned it with, not to mention the brightly coloured paint that set it vastly apart from the rest of the street’s. I don’t think I’d ever been more thankful to see it, in fact, not even after that first time when Frankie had invited me inside and let me call it home.

“Oi, and there you are! Honestly, what do you think you’re playing at? I’ve just had Andrew on the phone, ranting away! Said he just got in through the door when you all but bolted your way out of the house to run like a mad man on a mission down the street! I mean, what on Earth were you-” I’ve just slipped into the warmth of our little two bed and Frankie pauses the second she rounds the corner to the hallway, catching the gaunt face I’m sporting. “Oh, shit. You alright?”

I can only chuckle as I struggle to remove the coat I’d thrown on earlier. “Oh me? I’m fine!” I huff sarcastically, all but chucking the leather jacket up onto one of the hangers we have in the hall, “Fucking brill, me!" I add, but I’m still fighting for breath as I slump against the wall slightly to cast her a narrow-eyed glance, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me Andrew had a dead little brother?”

“He what?” Frankie shoots straight back, eyes as wide as bowling balls and bleached eyebrows practically hitting her hairline.

“Andrew. Dead brother.” I repeat, forcing myself back onto steady feet so that I can slip past her and head into the kitchen, “What is there not to get about that?”

“No I definitely got it, just… processing?” She replies in that familiar twang of hers, voice carrying its way through the flat.

“How could you not think to tell me, of all people, that tiny little detail?” I complain in a whiney groan as I set to sticking the kettle on, I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the whole ordeal and sitting honestly feels like the worst thing I could possibly do.

I hear her footfalls follow shortly behind me and when they stop I glance up to find her stood in the doorway, eyes still wide as ever.

“I didn’t know.” Is what Frankie settles on, her arms hanging limply by her sides, “I didn’t know.”

I pause immediately. Her words well and truly hitting me like a truck.

“Oh, oh shit, Fran. God, I’m so sorry.” I hurry to apologise, a hand covering my mouth as she slowly makes her way across the kitchen tiles. “I didn’t even think. I had no idea. Fuck."

A startled laugh escapes her at that, but I know there’s no real humour in it. “Yeah, me either.”

We just stand there staring at each other for a long while, both in obvious shock. Me trying to get over the experience, her coming to terms with the newfound information I'd all but thrown in her face.

It’s the kettle whistling that sets the two of us back into motion. I look over to it and then back at her, we both seem to just move on instinct then, her heading to the fridge for the milk, semi-skimmed for her, almond for me, and I grab two mugs to fill with the usual brand of tea.

A quiet settles after that, until we’re both curled up on the sofa at least, tele on low and a brew in hand. Fran’s taken to sprawling herself across her end whilst I crowd myself up against the sofa’s back, knees touching my chest.

“So, dead little brother?”

I hum lowly at the cut in the silence, watching Fran's expression from over the rim of my cup, steam hazing the view.

“How dead we talking here?”

I roll my eyes but can’t help the breathy laugh that escapes me as I grip my mug a little tighter, mainly just wanting the warmth. There always came an unrelenting cold whenever dealing with the dead, and I was almost always cold these days.

“Pretty dead.” I tell her, pursing my lips when the image of his little face comes to the forefront of my mind, “He had these dark circles around his eyes, big and blue. He looked so,” I draw in a breath, “I don’t know, he just looked so small and bony. Wasting almost.”

“Cheers.” I snap myself out of it and look back over when I hear Frankie’s voice, I wince at the expression she now wears, all pale and pensive, though trying her best to cover it up.

“Sorry.” I mumble, but she merely waves me off, shaking herself out of it before she takes a sip of her milky brew.

“Don’t matter, just, can’t believe I never knew of it.” She exhales heavily, “He was young though, yeah? So like maybe he died back when Andy were a kid or summat.”

My eyes narrow in thought, “I don’t reckon so, when I asked whether she had any other children Mrs O’Donald got all weird about it, she just changed all of a sudden, and then when I wondered the same thing you just did, I questioned how many years were between them- the boys, I mean. She switched up, Fran. Like, gone was the wobbly old woman and there was this massive fuckin’ viper ready to strike me down.”

“Weird.” Frankie comments and she pulls the face she makes whenever something doesn't sit right with her. “Never seen her act like that, was always so skittish whenever we saw her out. Her husband never let her leave the house much though, my mum reckoned they had a bit of a domestic going on.”

I find myself glancing out the living room window, mulling her words over as well as the entire situation. “Maybe. The kid seemed withdrawn too, didn’t move from off the staircase the whole time I was there.”

“They usually move about then?” I hear Fran ask me and I hum as I blink, “These ghosts of yours...”

A small smile graces my lips and I roll my eyes once more before turning back to her, “They’re not my ghosts. And yeah, typically. Sometimes they’re stuck in a loop-”

“What, like reliving their death?” She grimaces at the very notion.

“Yeah,” I admit a little reluctantly, because it always seems to make me feel uneasy whenever I linger too long on it. “But then they sort of become more animate once they know I can see them too.”

“Oh, so you’re sort of like a battery then?”

“Pardon?” I snort, unable to help myself.

“A battery!” Frankie parrots a little livelier this time, smiling over at me as she pushes herself to sit up properly. “You like power them and crap, give them the energy to step off the path, you know?”

I wrinkle my nose, “Never thought of it like that.”

“‘Course not! But that’s why you have me, in’t it?” Fran snipes back, settling her tea down on the coffee table to give me her full focus. “Tell me more about Andrew’s brother then, did he say anything, do anything?”

I sigh whilst shaking my head, saddened by the fact that I now feel as though I have to set my cup down too. Frankie seems to get like this sometimes, where she gets overly excited by the things that intrigue her. When I’d first mentioned all this seeing spirits thing to her- it was only after I’d taken a trip with her to her nan’s house and seen her grandad mowing the grass- I’d still been getting used to the whole change in sight thing and had waved to the old man in the garden as we’d walked by, only realising just after that Frankie's grandad had been dead almost ten years. Fran had been eager to learn more once she’d pestered me enough into coming clean about the whole thing. Not once has she made me regret telling her though.

“He didn’t say anything, just kept looking. Watching.” I tell her truthfully, thinking back to the boy's empty eyes.

“Creepy.”

I chuck a cushion at her for that, which she only narrowly avoids by ducking, it skids across the living room floor and bumps against the tall cabinet we brought home a few weeks ago. “Not creepy, just, he’s dead, Fran. It’s all, well, it's all a little bit creepy but they're still people.”

She just shrugs and gestures for me to continue.

I sigh, “He wouldn’t leave the staircase, even when Andrew came home. Most times ghosts will just carry out their tasks, but sometimes when loved ones are near they’ll deviate and track them instead. This kid just sat there though, watching his mum and brother as he kicked his feet off the skirting-board at the bottom of the stairs."

Frankie hums as she listens, but then pipes up with “Did he die there then, on the staircase maybe?” when I’ve finished and it breaks me from my own train of thought.

“‘Spose so, bit grim to think about though. Could’ve just tripped and fell, hit his head, died instantly.” I reply, chewing on my bottom lip as I fight not to think of any other scenario that could’ve occurred. Fran, on the other hand, is not like that though- meaning, I wouldn’t be surprised if she came home one day and told me she was going to become Wilmslow’s next big detective.

“Could’ve been pushed too, by the dad maybe? He wasn’t much of man, bit too short, too hefty, and had the ugliest mug you'd ever seen- me and mum always wondered how he’d managed to score a pretty thing like Mrs O’Donald.”

I purse my lips and inhale, “Could’ve been any of them if we’re going down that route.”

I feel more than see Frankie still then. “What, you reckon Mrs O’Donald could have done it?”

“Maybe,” I shrug a single shoulder, picking up my mug again. “I mean, she changed so quickly when I was there and I’d only been with her twenty minutes. Never know what could’ve happened behind closed doors.”

“Shit.” Fran murmurs and I almost feel bad when I add, “Could’ve just as easily been Andrew too.” Because her head snaps up so quickly she actually winces.

“What? No. Not Andrew, he’s far too lovely! Even in school he was well liked, everyone wanted to be his mate.” Frankie argues, adamant as she shakes her head. “There’s no way.”

“Okay, didn’t mean to upset you, babe, but I was only mentioning it. Everyone has a story, Fran, have things that they hide, that they don’t want other people to see.”

Frankie shakes her head and releases a heavy breath, sat cross-legged now, “No, I’m not upset. Well I am, but only ‘cause I set you up with him- and what does that say about me if he’s a killer!”

I pause entirely at that, before I can’t help the laugh that bubbles up out of my throat, throwing another cushion that does actually hit her this time. “You’re such a fucking self-obsessed twat.”

“Oi!” She immediately retorts, chucking the pillow straight back at me. “I’m not, but just- could you imagine? I’d have to rethink my entire life!”

I roll my eyes, “You’re such a drama queen.”

“And you, my dear, are in dire need of a good shag. So I apologise that I’m the only one here with their head screwed on straight.” She stretches over the settee to grab at her cup, wrinkling her nose when she finds it to now be cold, though she still drinks it. “But at least we can rule Andy out now, even if he didn’t push his brother down the stairs I don’t think he’ll be wanting to see you again.”

“Oh ta, Fran. I’m a catch, thank you very much.” I snark, all bark and no bite. “But yeah, glad we can put all this shit behind us now.”

“Um, no. That is not what I said. Now it just means that we can move onto the next guy on the list!”

“List?!” I squawk indignantly, Frankie just grins all shark like.

“Huh, I figured you would have worked that out by now. You’ve been here seven months, babe, so that means I’ve had thirty something weeks to work out a catalogue of people who might have yet to catch your eye.”

“Frankie.” I warn.

But she just keeps on grinning, the cow. “You can thank me for it later.”

And she leaves it at that, pushing up off the sofa to stand and make her way back into the kitchen, “Fancy another?” She asks me with her raised mug in hand. I huff but ultimately nod, not looking forward to this charade she’s been apparently been planning in her head for months now.

It’s a couple days later and the dust has barely settled when Fran asks me to meet up with her in this local coffee shop just off the main street in town. It’s her absolute favourite, she used to frequent it all the time up until her ex from college got a job there, but according to the rumour mill he apparently just got the sack after having been caught selling on the side- “coffee and a baggie, please and thanks.” Anyway, Frankie had been over the moon to hear about it and had popped in first chance she got, came home grinning that same afternoon with a latte in hand and a lemon loaf to share in the other.

The loaf was to die for though, so I couldn’t blame her for the ruthlessness and understood why she was so keen to meet up there. I only wished she’d given me a bit more notice, I’d been halfway through researching a little more into the O’Donalds- because I could never seem to let anything go- that I’d barely even had the chance to run a brush through my hair. Still, I managed to make it in time and found myself smiling as I pushed through the door to the shop, a warmth wafting over me.

My eyes scan the crowd first, it’s not busy, only a handful of people litter the open space, but the cafe’s really welcoming, makes it feel like a place you can come to hideaway, what with all the dim lighting and wood furnishing. I step in further but can’t seem to catch sight of Fran just yet, so I pull out my phone to shoot her a text, figuring I can just order while I wait. Only, she’s apparently already beat me to it, texted I mean, telling me that she won’t be able to make it, that something came up, and then practically demanding me to stay and try the place out.

It’s a heavy sigh that I let go of as I send her off a quick reply and tuck my phone back into my pocket, feeling a little miffed about the fact that she’d forced me out of the flat only to bail at the very last second.

“You alright?”

I blink at the sudden voice and instinctively glance up to find its owner, a curly haired male leaning against the shop’s counter looks me over with the beginnings of a smile.

My brows shoot up on their own accord and I glance over my shoulder to make sure that he’s actually talking to me, which seemingly makes him laugh.

“Yeah, I meant you there, Dottie.” He says and when I look back over he’s sporting a proper grin.

I frown at the gifted name and tilt my head down in confusion to peer at the outfit I’d chosen, “What?”

“Your scarf.” He tells me with a jerk of his chin, gesturing towards the silk square I’d used to tie my hair back only half an hour earlier. Instantly I reach up to touch it whilst he merely smirks, sharp eyes still trained on me.

“Oh, um. Yeah I’m alright, why?”

He simply shrugs and it’s with that gesture that I catch sight of the guitar case behind him, it’s a similar colour to that of his eyes but covered in an array of stickers and pins. “Look like you’ve been stood up or something, face is all... sad.”

I can’t help the airy chuckle that escapes me, he’s hit the nail on the head there. “Not sad, more like pissed off.” I shoot back and step closer to the counter to get a better look at what they’ve got to offer. I’m already here, so who would it hurt if I grabbed myself a treat?

“Ah, so you were stood up then!”

I turn my head towards him now that we’re standing more in line with one another, his hip resting against the display case, me facing the chalked boards. “Could say that. Was meant to be meeting my flatmate here, but turns out she couldn’t make it.”

He hums, pursing his lips a tad as he watches me and I just let him, looking back up towards the menu- only, it’d be much easier to see if I was wearing my glasses. Hated the things though, made me look all square, like my head was too big for my shoulders or something. Stupid, I know. But I suppose I was just that vain.

Frankie would laugh about it if she were actually here, I think, already knowing about the blur I’d been met with.

“You work here then?” I quiz the guy, figuring I could either just get a simple breakfast tea or… “Know what’s best to get?”

At my question, he seems to shift so that he’s truly facing me and I note the wooden stirrer he’s holding between his teeth, as well as the way his eyes flitter across my face. “Don’t work here, no. Just waiting for my mate to finish up with his shift, though I am in here enough to know that the honey bee cortado is an actual, honest to God, blessing.”

“That so?”

That smile of his widens, his stare relentless even as a tall, curly haired boy clad in a green apron wanders in from the back.

“G, make this girl one of your specials, will you?” He says to the barista, or ‘G’ rather, who doesn’t even bat an eye at the ask, so I’m guessing that this is a usual thing. “That’s George, by the way,” The stranger beside me states, “And I’m Matty.” Weirdly he extends a hand out to me with that and I feel mostly amused as I reach out to take it, shaking his with a smile that can’t be helped.

“Y/n.” I return.

Matty hisses between clenched teeth, looking as though my name has actually injured him somehow, my hand still cradled in his. “Nah, sorry, can’t get behind that. Don’t suit you.” He flashes a quick glance over his shoulder at the barista or well, said mate George, “Doesn’t suit her does it, G?”

“Don’t suit her.” George answers with a minute shake of his head, fiddling away with the coffee machine. His tone’s gruff, matches his stoney exterior a bit, but I can see the small curve of his mouth as he flicks a lever.

“See?” Matty practically beams, extending the hand not holding mine outwards to further exaggerate his point. “Dottie though, I like that.”

“Makes me sound like an old woman.” I huff, wrinkling my nose enough that my brows crowd towards one another.

“And still, you set my heart racing, darling.” He swoons theatrically and I can’t not roll my eyes at him before glancing downwards once more.

“You gonna gimme my hand back anytime soon, or?” I ask and Matty seems to realise then that he’s still in fact got my hand held in his, but that revelation only has him grinning harder and he moves to swing the joint pair between us both. He’s far too sure of himself, I deem.

“Nah, been chilly all morning, ain’t it? So I reckon I’m doing you a favour by warming you up.”

I raise a single brow- yup, what a cocky little shit. “Could always order yourself a brew if you’re cold.”

He pulls a face at my suggestion, “Wouldn’t feel the same though, would it?”

“Well, it looks as though you’re times up anyway, seems George here has just finished with my drink.” I reply, smiling as I move to step away, but Matty holds strong, leaving his guitar case to lean against the counter alone while he follows after me. I chuckle, shaking my head at him, “You always this needy?”

Matty hums but he’s nothing if not persistent, “Might be. Why, would that put you off?”

I narrow my eyes at him but turn to grab at the mug George has pushed onto the counter. “Might do.” I say, unable to help myself, “But sweaty palms do, and I also need my hand free to pay for this.”

Matty’s chocolate coloured eyes drop down to my mug and then back up to George, who’s stood waiting patiently by the till. “I’ll get it.” He suddenly tells me and then immediately starts riffling through his coat pocket. I blink, look between both him and George, who still appears as though this is nothing to be surprised about, and it’s only when Matty withdraws a crumpled fiver from his back pocket do I find my voice.

“You’re fine! It’s alright, I can get it, honest. But thanks.”

Matty waves me off, awkwardly what with him still holding both my hand and the newly acclaimed five pound note, then rolls his eyes at my rambling, “Nah honestly, I’ve got it. Least I can do for forcing you to put up with G’s crappy coffee.”

George just snorts, snatching the fiver from his mate’s hand, while I purse my lips slightly, “I thought you claimed it to be an honest to a God blessing? If this is shit, I’m holding you accountable.”

“Ignore him, it’s instinctual for him to be a twat.” George sighs as he closes up the till, Matty’s brow furrows.

“Oi firstly, you’re the twat. And secondly, where’s my change?”

“In my tip jar.” George is quick to retort, forcing a pleased grin for his friend before he’s walking his way back through the door he came from, “I’ll be two minutes, yeah? And you’d better be ready to leave ‘cause I’m not dealing with Adam’s bitching again.”

Matty just tuts and I realise that now it’s just him and I in a shop full of people who’ve been watching this entire exchange. “Ignore him,” He tells me, “Well, don’t. Adam will definitely be pissed if we’re late, but a couple minutes for you won’t hurt anybody.”

I just shake my head, hoping to hide my smile as I pick up the recently brewed coffee to take a sip. It turns out that as well as being an arrogant prat, Matty is also a liar, because the drink is heaven sent and I prove it with the soft sigh that falls from my lips. “Fuck, that’s really good.”

When I glance back up I’m only a tad embarrassed by my reaction when I see Matty’s cheeky smirk, even more so when he wets his bottom lip and I have to force myself to look away.

“G’s known for his coffee around here, should see the Yelp reviews from the yummy mummy’s that stop in after dropping their kids off at playgroup- we actually spent an entire night reading through them once, taking shots every time G cringed.” Matty reveals with a conspiratorial grin and he seems to delight in hearing me laugh.

“I can almost imagine it.”

He hums, this low thing that resonates from deep within, “Should join us one time.”

“Us?”

When Matty nods his whole body moves with it, as though the rest of him disdains the thought of being left idle, the thought makes me smile. “Yeah, got this band. Four of us, me and a few mates. Should come see us rehearse, if you’re up for it.”

I squint back at him, not refusing the offer but wondering over it. “We’ve only just met, what if this is all a plan to lure me into your music obsessed cult?”

“Well, if it’s a cult, it’s a fucking small one. But I don’t think we’ll be Britain’s next Manson family so I reckon you’ll be alright.” Matty quips back and I just nod, taking another sip to hide my growing grin.

“You do this a lot, don’t you?” I can’t help but say, and at the tilt of Matty’s questioning head I carry on, “Flirt and hope you can rope some poor girl into bed by saying you’re in a band. Play ‘em a few chords and flash that smile, not that I’d blame them.”

Matty appears to take it in stride though and doesn’t even comment on the assumption, “And why wouldn’t you blame them? Is it the charming smile, or am I just that fit?”

I snort, then cover my mouth to keep myself from spitting out the sip I’d taken, only a little ashamed by the noise I’d just made. “No, think it’s more down to the fact that you’ve still to let go of my hand. Reckon even if I say no, you’ll still find a way to drag me along with you.”

“Ah, how you wound me, darling!” And our connected palms start swaying again, I realise in the next moment, after having looked down, that Matty’s closed the distance between us even further. I startle only slightly when my eyes lock right onto his. “So, how about it then? You coming or staying?”

And just as I’m about to reply, biting back the smile that wants to overwhelm my face, do I see him again. Just out of the corner of my eye. The flicker of a face pressed up against the shop’s window. I still instantly and the cup slips from my hand.

The boy, it’s the O’Donald boy and he's staring right back at me.

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20dollarlolita · 1 year ago

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Can you believe it? 20dollarlolita Pattern School Step 2!

Only took me a year and a half. For people who don't remember a year and a half ago, we've started a project about learning to sew from patterns. The eventual goal is to help people become proficient enough at reading patterns to be able to tell what's going on in a pattern with instructions in another language, taking a pattern that doesn't fit and resizing it so that it does, and taking a pattern that isn't technically lolita and make it work in lolita fashion.

Step 1 was to make a non-fitted item from a commercial pattern. There were two goals of step 1: first to ensure that everyone was familiar with notches, grainlines, and other pattern markings; second was to give people experience with selecting fabric and trims to help give a non-lolita pattern a more lolita feeling.

For step 2, we're modifying a commercial pajama pants pattern into bloomers. In this step, we're going to become familiar with how to prepare a commercial pattern for modification, to compare pattern size to body size and to use your tape measure to judge added fullness, and how to do some basic flat pattern manipulation to add in style ease. Bloomers are a great first manipulation/fitted project due to the loose fit and the fact that, in most lolita applications, the vast majority of it is under your skirt and therefore invisible.

For this specific sample, I'm going to use Gertie's Harlow Pajama Pants pattern for this. I'm doing this because I bought a commercial pattern from Green Store and then promptly lost it, and these pajama pants are a free download. If you are printing the tiled version on your home computer printer, you only need pages 41-52 and 58-71, which will save you about 40 pages of printing.

I highly recommed doing some research and having a good idea of how long the bloomers you want to make should be, as well as how they are decorated. This is my research board.

You can use any pajama pants pattern that has a casing (elastic or drawstring) at the top, and no zipper. In this case, pants with a looser fit are going to be easier to turn into bloomers. If you like wearing your pants at a certain point on your body, I'd check for pajama pants that are at that waistline. The pants that I'm using are designed to sit at your natural waist, which might be too high for some people.

Your first step is to assemble and fortify your pattern. If you're printing this on copy paper, it's going to be strong enough, provided you use enough tape when tiling your pattern. If you're using a tissue paper pattern, like the kind you'd buy at the craft store, it helps to fuse some inexpensive interfacing onto the back of the pattern. We're going to work with these patterns a lot, so it's important to make them a little bit stronger.

Now, you are going to need to go into your pattern instructions and find two important things. The first is your overall seam allowance. In most commercial patterns, this is 5/8 of an inch. Some other patterns might have different seam allowance.

The second is how big your elastic casing at the top will be. In this case, my seam allowance is 5/8" of an inch. Because my hem casing is .25"+1.25" (the amount you turn up plus them amount you turn up the second time), I know that my elastic casing will take up 1.5".

You're now going to mark on your pattern what the stitching line is. Your pattern has seam allowance included. This is very useful for when you cut out the pattern. However, if we take our pattern measurements with seam allowance, we won't have accurate numbers. So we have to clarify where the seam allowance is.

The first thing that I do (not pictured) is to write how much I'm removing along each line. In this case, I write 5/8" along the side and crotch seams, and "1+1/2" at the top where the casing is. Since we're going to drastically shorten these pants, it doesn't matter what the hem allowance is.

Then, I take my ruler, and I mark my stitching line. I do it in pencil, check that I'm correct, and then go back and re-draw it with a red marker. This helps me make sure that I'm following the correct lines.

Make sure you transfer your notches onto your new stitching line. You can see in the picture above how I'm using the ruler to measure where the notch is going to go.

The next step, walking the pattern, is a little tricky to explain. Here's a post that goes into it in great detail.

Basically, you're going to overlap the seam lines, to make sure they line up. The only problem with doing this is that both seam lines are curved. So, instead of lining it all up at once, you're going to go about an inch at a time, letting the pattern rotate so that it stays flat on the table. At any given point, you're only going to have an inch or so of the line overlapping, but that's all you need. If you run into notches that don't line up, cross one out and re-draw it so that it matches the other notch.

If this seems really complicated, you don't really need to do that on this project. It just is a good practice to have.

So you now should have a pattern with all the commercial markings, but where you've drawn the stitching line.

So now, you're going to put your two pieces together along the outseam. Since this is a pretty straight part of a pajama pant, it shouldn't be too difficult to get them to line up. Remember to overlap them on your stitching line, and not on the edge of the pattern.

We're putting them together so that you can measure them both at the same time. it saves us some math.

In bloomers, there are three major measurements to take into consideration. You need to know how big you want the leg to be, how big you want the booty to be, and how long you want the leg of the bloomer to be. In addition, you need to make sure that the waist of your pants will be big enough to fit your waist. In most pajama pants patterns, this isn't a problem, but checking it is good practice.

So, in this picture, you can see that I've measured the cuff of the pants. These two pieces together make up one pant leg, so I just need to measure the two pieces to know how big the pant leg will be.

I then take my tape measure and hold it around my leg at the same size that the pattern is at that point. I just use my eyes and judge if I think that'll be enough room to make my bloomers nice and poofy.

If your pattern doesn't tell you your hip line (mine didn't), it's usually at the point where the two notches on the crotch curve are. One of the reasons why we're doing this on a commercial pattern is that someone did the work for us and put those notches where they should be.

Now, remember, these two pieces are only half of the pant pattern. When we measure the hips of the pattern, we have to multiply this measurement by 2. Half the hip measurement x 2 is the full hip measurement.

Once again, hold this out next to your body and make sure that you like how much fullness you need. Remember that, in addition to having extra fullness because bloomers are poofy, you need room to be able to move and sit down. This measure between the size of my body and the size of the pattern looked pretty good to me. I could definitely have gone a little bit bigger.

The pant leg measurement is okay to be a little bit too long. You can always make it shorter. However, feel free to chop about 18" off the bottom of a full length pant leg. This just makes things a little easier.

Now, we're going to move the two pattern pieces until they're the size we like. If both the hip measurement and the leg measurement are too small, we're going to move both pattern pieces apart. To turn pajama pants into bloomers, this is likely to be the most common adjustment.

If the hip measurement is pretty okay, but the cuff measurement is too small, you're just going to move the bottom part of the pattern apart.

You'll notice that this is still enlarging the hip measurement a little bit. This is fine for bloomers since the style is for a lot of fullness in that area.

And if your cuff is the correct size, but your hip measure is too big, you can keep the cuff size the same and move the hip line apart until it's the size you want.

This technique of lining up the pattern pieces, and then moving them until they're the size you want, is the basics of flat patterning. As long as you follow the philosophy of keeping the measurements you like roughly the same, and moving the areas that you don't like until they measure what you need, you can easily resize a pattern without having to re-draw everything.

If you had to spread your pieces apart, tape some paper underneath the gap. This piece of paper should bridge the gap between the two pieces, turning them into one piece. Really quickly double-check that these pieces measure how you want. Then, mark a line in the middle of the paper bridge. Draw your notches onto the cut line. Cut the two pieces apart on that line. You've now made both pieces bigger. Tape another little piece of paper onto the cut edge of each piece, mark out your seam allowance, and cut that off.

Bonus points: swap the position of the pattern pieces, so that the crotch curve is one continuous line. Measure the length of that. Then, hold your tape measure along where the crotch curve of your pants will fit, and make sure that you have clearance there. I'm not going to photograph that, andi t's not super necessary with most pajama patterns.

Go ahead and cut your pieces out.Even though I'd shortened the pattern, mine were still too long to fit on a 2-yard cut of fabric. Since I knew that my pants were a little long, I just let the end hang off the edge of the fabric.

Here's the really magical part about this. Even though you've resized your pattern, you still have all your seam allowance, notches, grainlines, and your pattern instructions. Since you kept all your pattern markings consistent, you can now follow the instructions that came with your pattern. Go up until it tells you to hem the pants, and then try them on.

In my case, my pants were way too long to be bloomers. I knew that I wanted to do a casing with a heading, which does use s pretty big hem allowance, but even so, I'd need to shorten them.

Check out your bloomer research board to see how long you want them to be. I wanted some long ones that did the old-school bloomer peek, so I made them on the longer side. I also didn't want them to ride up into my butt when sitting in a wheelchair.

So, time to fold up the bottoms, add my elastic, and call the basic construction finished.

I looked up on my research board to try to find a good way to decorate these. One of the nice things about bloomers is that you can wear them with a wide variety of coords. This makes them one of those items where you can add some extra lace, and then use that lace in multiple coords. I feel like, since these bloomers are a good way of adding detail in multiple coords, it's a good excuse to add a little bit extra lace. You can see how much of a difference it makes in this picture. It really turns them from baggy shorts into real bloomers. I really recommend sometimes investing in a couple of big purchases of lace. If you have lots of lace on hand, you're more likely to include it in your projects, which can really help push a meh project into proper lolita fashion territory. I have a rule that I don't spend more than $1.50 a yard on lace unless it's really fantastic, and I manage to find things at that point on Aliexpress and sites like Cheeptrims.

Now go on and let them peek out of your favorite skirt. And remember, definitely don't press that skirt before putting this picture in your tutorial.

#20dollarlolita #dollar chan's pattern school #step 2 #lolita fashion #patternmaking #handmade lolita #lolita bloomers #sewing tutorial #hey guys look i actually made somethign #long post

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