goatsica

[ashiemochi]

tangerines and oranges - lsk

✠ tangerines and oranges ↳  don't they both taste the same? ➶pairing: ID! Leon S Kennedy x (FEM) Reader ➶genre: angst to fluff ➶Content includes: contemplating suicide, mild mention of sex, super old writing like this shit was written in 2018, some won't make sense and that's okay, might find her/she pronouns instead of you bc my proofreading skills are dogshit <3 ➶WC: 1.9k A/N: short and sweet blurb whilst I work on the smut one!! shouldn't take too long - might post it tomorrow <3

The kettle softly whistled in the background, the sound echoing in the kitchen where you sat. Today was probably one the worst day you had ever gone through. Time itself seemed so slow, stretching ever so widely just to irritate you. It was like nature as a whole was against you just for shits and giggles.  

Even the thought of hiring a hitman to take care of you had crossed your mind; just a quick and silent death. You wouldn’t mind seeing God or burning in Hell if it meant you could leave Earth for a bit. You wondered why you were even breathing in the first place.

You didn’t sign up for this Life thing.  

Your tired eyes blinked lazily at the tiny eight-legged-demon-from-Hell, unfazed as it just used its freaky long legs to walk along the counter. You would’ve screamed bloody murder, packed your bags, ran out of the flat, and burned it down.

But you didn’t.

Tilting your head slightly at it, your dead eyes bore at it.  A question ran through your mind. Was it poisonous, you wondered? 

Finally, your mind seemed to slowly rewind everything that happened today.

Your alarm clock decided to give you the middle finger and not ring like it was supposed to, causing you to miss the train to your job. Your stomach continued making grumbling sounds, incredibly disappointed with the fact that it didn’t get its breakfast nor did you have the money to buy lunch.  

Your clumsy co-worker had tripped over his shoelaces again, causing your papers to get showered with coffee. Your boss almost popped a vein at how the logo you designed looked more like a tangerine than an orange; you didn’t even get the chance to remind him that they both look the same. While printing out a paper, the printer decided to swallow the paper to oblivion with a big fuck you.  

One of your clients was a dick wad of a boomer who has the tendency to remind you each day that technology is killing the environment but then requests another digital painting of his dog.

You lost count of how many times he had requested the same painting of the same dog. Later you learned that he can be forgetful. Hence the constant reminders of how the very evil technology is killing the very innocent generation. 

You had forgotten that you had a presentation today and ended up getting scolded by your uptight boss in front of all of your co-workers. That resulted in extra work and a late-night shift.

You wondered if the clumsy co-worker had cursed you since when you got your cup of coffee, you accidentally hit it, sending it all over your clothes. 

At night, after everyone had left to go to their warm and lovely homes, you had to stay in the office with your boss and his wife.

Even your headphones couldn’t block out the disgusting, lips-smacking, and probably even skin, noises. You could swear that they would repopulate Earth worldwide if they would stop using condoms. 

 

Your sister called you, telling you that your parents aren’t going to be able to attend this year’s Christmas. You had to redesign the logo again and show it to your boss, who was, unfortunately, three inches deep into his wife when you opened the door.

At that moment in your life, you deeply wished that God would bleach out your eyes or miraculously make you blind.  

And God answered your prayer; by making you accidentally set a heavy file on your specs. You cringed visibly at the cracking sound. 

Hoping you’d catch the train before the weather would decide to give you a middle finger; you got caught under the heavy rain that soaked you to the bone, making you look like a street rat.

Curse the weather and its indecisiveness.

By the time you had gotten home, your stomach was beginning to ache for food, almost internally stabbing itself.  

And there you were, sitting on the counter with your damp sweater and messy, wet hair. Blinking once more, the eight-legged monstrosity had vanished. The memory itself of the day made your body’s function slow even more, making you slump slightly.  

Tomorrow was another day and you still had work to do.

Feeling very overwhelmed, your vision blurred with tears behind your cracked specs. Taking in a trembling breath, you brought your hand up to run it through your knotted hair. You winced slightly at a new forming bruise on the back of your head that you had gotten when your head hit the door on your hurried way out of your boss’s office.  

The entire universe was against you at this point.

You let out a shaky sigh, hoping that taking deep breaths would assist you with containing your tears, but even that was failing. Oh, how you wished you could just vanish to the ends of the universe.  

The sound of keys jiggling and the front door opening caused your heart to skip a beat. His deep and loving voice reached your ears in a floating melody.

You wanted to greet him, but feeling your body aching and it might as well be dead; you just sat there on the counter.  

“Y/N, I'm home.” 

The lump in your throat would be a dead giveaway if you even utter a simple letter, but then you heard his footsteps getting closer to the lit kitchen. You barely looked at him when he made his presence known.  

His smile dropped as his eyes scanned you from head to toe.

Your once soft orange-coloured knitted sweater now had a big dark brown stain. Your black skirt had smears and dots of what seemed like a correction pen. Both of your socks were intact and well, but your left sock wasn’t even attached to your inner belt, making it fall and roll beneath your knee while the other was all the way up your thigh.  

Your hair might as well be a birds’ nest and your face was just tired. Not only did that make him worry, but the tears behind your broken specs were now threatening to escape.  

“Y/N?” Leon questioned, getting worried by the second.

You only sniffled, taking a deep breath before letting out a small but tight hi, whilst casting your eyes away. 

His brows furrowed as he walked into the kitchen, making his way to the counter to put the white plastic bag that he was holding. He seemed as if he was quietly waiting for you to speak out but taking notice of how hard you were gripping the edge of the counter to the point your knuckles would resemble the white of the snow, he knew you were holding back.  

“Sweetheart, what happened?”

You could hear the worry oozing from his lips as he moved towards you, trying to take a good look at your face. Your shoulders slightly shrugged as your teeth bit down onto the bottom of your lips, setting your eyes on the kettle.  

You didn’t feel like talking at all, only praying that you would get sniped out of this God-awful day. His hips settled between your legs and your tears were just teasing you at this point when his big hands gently cupped your cheeks, making your eyes meet.  

His azures immediately softened when he saw the broken and exhausted look etched on your face. A frown reached his lips when he noticed the lightening shape of the cracks in your specs and with the tips of his fingers; he gently removed them, giving him a clear look at your eyes.  

You cussed internally when a tear rolled down your cheek, betraying you.

“Honey, did something happen?" Leon asked softly, as if afraid he'd break her, "Why are you crying?”

Your bottom lip trembled as the lump in your throat was getting heavier to swallow. Finally, you looked at him behind the thick walls of your tears and your cheeks flushed red at the close proximity.  

“Today sucked so... Fucking bad...” You uttered weakly, your voice seemed to be tight and squeezed.

Leon blinked at this and you broke down, allowing your tears to run freely down your reddened cheeks. Without even hesitating, his arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you close to his embrace. 

Your cries were weak and small but filled and etched with pain as your fingers gripped the back of his blue suit jacket. Ever so slowly, his fingers tangled your hair between them, lightly pushing you closer to him.  

It seemed like an eternity just being in his arms but you felt incredibly safe and invisible to the world. For once, all your bottled-up emotions for this day were poured through your tears. Even when your tears had stopped, only leaving behind a heaving chest with minor hiccups, you still stayed in his embrace.  

“You ready to talk about it?” The richness in his voice made your body almost melt against his warmth.

Pressing your face into the crook of his neck, you ever so slightly nodded, letting out a small hum. You stayed like this for a good few seconds before pulling away slightly. 

His blueblue orbs were filled with love as he gave you a gentle smile, wiping away your tears with his thumb. He leaned in, pressing a lingering and loving kiss on your forehead.

Suddenly, the kettle began whistling loudly and both of them looked at it. Leon moved away to turn the stove off and he noticed a mug with the chocolate and milk powder jars and a small cup with a teaspoon beside it.   

“Hot chocolate?” He questioned, looking at you from over his shoulders.

You nodded silently, using your sleeves to wipe away the remaining of your tears as you sniffled quietly.

He hummed, opening the cupboard as he asked, “How about you change and I’ll make us hot chocolate?” 

You looked at him, “Aren’t you tired from today’s training?” She asked, already feeling needy.

Leon took out his favourite mug, “Not really,” He shrugged, “And no.”

Leon ended it, sternly before setting his eyes on you, “You’re not a burden to me, Y/N. Never was and never will be.”

It’s like he had read your mind as he returned to the task at hand.

“You had a bad day with your uptight boss, and I’m guessing that coffee stain is by your clumsy co-worker.” 

You looked down at your sweater as if you had just realized it was there before letting out a breathy chuckle.

“Ah, no... It was me this time.” You admitted, softly and he let out a sound of amusement, stirring the hot drink of Heaven as he turned around to look at you.

“Seems like he’s rubbing off on you.”  

“Oh, shut up...” You rolled your eyes but smiled nonetheless.

His chest rumbled a bit with his chuckle as you jumped down to the ground. Wrapping your arms around his slim waist, you gazed up at him with such adoration in your eyes.

“Did I ever tell you how much I love you?” You sighed dreamily and he stared into the distance, pretending to think deeply about your question.  

“Huh, I don’t know, care to remind me?” Leon looked down at you, slightly bumping his nose against yours.

The corners of his eyes crinkled with his grin when you got flustered. Pressing a peck on your lips, Leon gestured to the corridor.

“Go change. I feel like your boss did something incredibly stupid today.” 

You let out an exasperated sigh, “Oh, you don’t even know...” 

[rainset]

D O G XXXV

“What does it mean to be an immortal god? Is it the power one wields? Commanding invisible forces at a mere thought, be it elements or people. Or is it that one can go on, for neigh forever to worry not of survival or what meeting end be like? No matter what circumstances.

It’s thought though, many look to a god by not what it makes but what it destroys.

An idea of a being, singular, and usually personified, can suddenly break away our existence— why, that’s terrifying, isn’t it?

Most would have it be that all of these together make the sum of that concept. They’re just aspects.

But what’s more to this, if none of that was true.

What if an immortal god is the one that possessed no sway, no power in what we could think of, no hold any fear over us.

In fact, we don’t even know that they’re there.

Behind a veil that’s transparent. They look in, we look out. But that difference is, is seeing.

Seeing us and us, looking straight through them.

That they’re closer to a phantom than anything else.

So then— what makes them a god in our eyes?

Suppose that’s a ghost, who can do all the things questioned, and more.

That is never known or expected. A sudden snap.

Lights on and nobody is home.”

A digital pen is lining through a blue hologram with these ideas in speculation.

“It’s centrifugal forces that exist and always have existed before we could think.”

In a line he connects it to a point. Stating the obvious: “-it’d be as if one of these beings stepped out of the veil. Yet they came back, with a giant robot.”

Xi shrugs at the notion.

“We’re much more aware now of what things lived and crawled out of the veil but this is.. “ he shrugs back at her. “.. making something that never existed there be here in our reality. In all regards, it’s impossible, isn’t it?”

He turns around and directs his white pen to a picture of a red eyed man. That is, their phantom. “Perhaps he really is a phantom.”

A hand raises. He points to them. A shadow asks: “Does the Castellum know about this?”

Alder’s lips become a thin line, looking to his pupil. “We don’t know. Only he would.“ he lets out a small sigh. “The man born of a machine.”

…

There’s a table, it’s dark. It’s monolithic and stale within the apartment. Outside city light fade in and it’s a pretty plain place. Some might call it stylish in its minimalistic stylings but, he doesn’t exactly feel anything for it.

Squares are the main idea here- step down ledges, square sliding doors, long square curtains- a square island in the kitchen.

Everywhere around him is a square in disguise. When he draws, they’re near perfect in line work. There’s no sense of error in it, just as in if it was printed out. A machine did it.

Dog doesn’t see a hint of error in it. It’s disturbing and there’s a sinking in his stomach. Using hands that aren’t his, he tries to intentionally make a drawing of a terrible horse. He hasn’t really seen a horse, he’s only heard of them.

But here’s one on white pages. A perfect still, of a horse.

He crumples it up. Tosses it into a pile of crumbled paper in an overfilled trash can—

And cups his forehead.

Everything is wrong and nothing is right.

He feels a crunching in his chest but when he focuses on it, it disappears. Like all sensations, it’s almost like he’s just imagining it. He wants it to be real.. but doesn’t know what is.

He’s sitting there and looking out now from his chair.

These things swirl in silence as he watches out at the city. It’s raining, again. As it has since he’s arrive here one- two-? Months ago.

So he’s just sitting there, watching as each drop pours, into an endless stream, of rain.

Is this living? Or is this ‘afterliving’?

Jeremy is gone, he is Dog. An assimilation of two minds.

But, everything he feels. Thinks. Reacts, it’s the boy who died inside him.

I guess his brother was dead too.

Yet he’s here.

He’s still here. Parts of Dog, watching those drops, makes him almost want to say his name ‘Jeremy’.

But that’s wrong.

Because Shiro never looks at him since then. She’s never said that name in present tense.

And it’s always coldest at their dinners together. Familia that died with the boy.

He’s sitting in his stead. But that is him.. right?

Is he the replacement, or is he that same boy, Jeremy, trapped inside this thing?

This man.

This.. entity.

What is he really? He wishes he could be invisible.

He wishes he could go back to being himself, Jeremy. A nobody in Treas.

But here he is— a young man sitting in a condo in Atlantis City of planet Gaia. Watching puttering rains after being tested- poked- prodded- and trying to decide if he should even be tried for what happened.

For now that tragedy was declared an accident. Like a natural disaster hit. A “should’ve seen it coming”.

There’s somethings you don’t leave in the trash-

A hologram pops up, it’s Rosalina’s icon.

Rosalina: “Hey! You holding up okay..?”

He doesn’t respond.

Rosalina: “Want to come have dinner..? I uh.. I want this time to be different.”

Dog: “…what?”

Rosalina: “Yes, you heard me. Different.”

He senses what’s coming.

Dog: “Different?”

Rosalina: “Talk to Shiro. Please. She needs you.”

He’s frozen solid in his seat. The communications cut off. Trying to get up from his seat-

-he halts because it spews out.

Dog vomits on the table.

——

[bluesignprintahm]

Digital Door Skin Paper Printing Service

The door holder is a realistic material intended for a wide range of inns, places of interest or workplaces.

You can print your door holder in digital printing or balance printing; this relies upon the amount and configuration changes that your association requires. Chart book Printing Press is one of the best printing specialist co-ops on the lookout, they additionally offer offers wide assortments of printing administrations like Digital Door Print, Laminated Door Skin, Digital Door Print. Ensure that your message is seen by the entirety of your visitors with the customized door holders that we can make for you. As with laminate and wood, you can still choose via species or colors etc. Just use our Floor Finder on the left hand side to refine your search and get the best engineered for your home.

On the off chance that you have uncommon estimations for door holder, call us, we can fabricate all estimations. Check with your counsel for conveyance times for unique orders.

The most well-known element is Digital Door Paper Print and this should be possible on various sizes all relying upon what the client wants. pick the number and size of the prints you need and afterward have the photographs printed on excellent Digital Door Skin Paper Print and conveyed directly to your front door, dissimilar to a customary photograph preparing administration you don't need to stand by in lines in occupied high road photograph handling shops.

We are a main broker and provider of Digital Door Skin Papers, Door Paper Print, Membrane Digital Door Print, Decorative Door Skin Paper Print, Digital Lamination Door Paper Print, and Laminated Door Skin Print. Obtained from confided in merchants of the market, these items are planned and made utilizing forefront innovation and prevalent quality fundamental material according to the characterized quality standards. The offered items are known for their tear safe, wonderful examples, amazing completion, smooth surface and waterproof. Besides, customers can benefit the offered items at sensible costs inside submitted time span.

Recognizing the format of the new space is imperative to making certain a utilitarian and achievable kitchen. The customary is an attempted, tried and genuine example empowering for ideal stream, the food arrangement region and furthermore the ice chest, allowing you to move starting with one zone then onto the next energetically and easily. New Decorative Door Print, hardwood floors and ledges will end up being a wise speculation since they are tougher and may have guarantee prospects.

We blue Sign are a main organization in this area occupied with assembling wide scope of best quality Decorative Sunmica Paper Print, God Digital Door Paper Print, Laminated Door Paper Print, Designer Door Skins Print, Interior Designer Door Print, Double Door Paper Print and so forth Offered items are made utilizing great parts. These items are appreciated for their top notch, appealing plan, and lightweight, incomparable completing, and appropriately measured.

[gaiuswrites]

World's Best

Pairing: Frankie Morales x fem!Reader

Summary: Not every day is easy. Frankie makes it better.

Rating: Explicit

Word count: 2.2k~

Warnings/tags: smut, vague-ish descriptions of depression/mental health, hurt/comfort, fluff

Notes: Do y'all ever get into a funk and then attempt to write yourself out of one? Well, this is the v self-indulgent product of said instance heh. I have tagged a random assortment of potentionally interested people but obvi no pressure? idk? :) Sending so much love and well wishes to you guys. x

Masterlist | Read it on Ao3!

A sea of knotted sheets spans between you—as tangled as your legs—too tired, too leaden to unweave. The fan rotates in the corner, blowing stale air your way every few clicks. You dangle a foot off the bed, skin prickling as the weak breeze sweeps over you and a bead of sweat licks from your knee to slope down your calf. Morning sun leaks through the window— the finch perched on the tree just outside it chirping once, twice, before flitting off.

You’ve been reading the Sunday paper for a solid twenty minutes—which, in all honesty, is an overstatement; you started and quickly abandoned the Sudoku after a measly ten, and you’ve been staring at the same sentence in the local section for the other half, blinklessly hovering over the fine print.

You’re not here today. Not all of you.

There’s this sinking feeling, hollowing you out and unmaking you. It’s as if something unseeable is oozing over you - dripping - something treacle, something thick. You’re far away from yourself—far from the cornflower blue walls and the framed photos hanging on them—the happy faces in the pictures smiling back at you— far from the plants basking in the tines of filtered light by the sill, far from the body lying beside you.

You’re not always this way. Not every day drags like an inky smear, your mind meandering sluggishly in circles, holding you hostage in a prison of your own making; but you can’t say it’s foreign to you either. It’s old, familiar—like that sweater in your closet you’ve had for centuries and rarely wear, but can’t bring yourself to get rid of. You know it well, this slog—you have unwillingly memorized it’s sodden intricacies, and today you feel it. You feel every single one of your days—each grey hour— weighing heavy on your very bones.

heavy heavy

heavier, still.

If you’re not careful, you’ll sink straight through the mattress. You’ll nestle deep into the springs and make a home in the down. You’ll sleep there until you become it. Comfortable. Catatonic.

Frankie sips his coffee. He doesn’t look up from the email he’s skimming. “What’s wrong?”

The baritone of your boyfriend’s voice sucks you back to the present—to the tick of the clock marking the seconds, the whir of the fan. The paper crinkles as you lay it to your chest—big eyes feigning ignorance as you blink up at him, chewing your lip. “Hmm?”

“Baby, I know that face.”

“What face?”

“The one you’ve got on,” he replies, “that’s your ‘I’m-upset-and-I’m-trying-to-hide-it’ face.’”

“I-” you frown, “no it’s not.” Gingerly, you pat a hand around your temple, your cheek, as if you could see your expression through touch.

“Uh huh.” Frankie rolls his digit upon the mousepad, clicking and scrolling down the webpage, and your vision glazes over again—ugly thoughts fogging up the panels of your mind—

“You gonna talk to me about it?”

You blink, swallowing, “nothing to talk about.” You flap the paper, ironing out the pleats, and scan for that pesky paragraph you never managed to finish.

“Mhm,” he replies absentmindedly, bringing the mug to his lips and drinking with an all too obvious slurp.

“Really, I’m fine,” you say weakly. You’re not that convincing—you barely convince yourself.

“Sure, sweetheart. If you say so.”

He’s too casual; he’s letting it all go too easily and God, he’s gotten good at this—at coaxing the truth out of you. He doesn’t even have to try any more. He’s so kind and open and sincere, all he has to do is crack the door ajar—tempt you with an inch of space, with only a sliver of leeway—and immediately you want to plunge through it and chase after him, like a dog and a bone.

He makes you want to share; not because of what he says, but by everything he doesn’t—the welcoming gaps he leaves you with, the gaps you’re urged to fill. This happens every time—it’s pretty damn annoying, actually. You’re so miserably predictable. After three and a half years together, sometimes you think Frankie might know you better than you know yourself.

A scary thought—wonderful, too.

“I’m just-” You run a hand over your face, pressing into the bridge of your nose and you grunt, frustrated. Exhausted. “I’m just tired.”

Frankie settles his coffee cup on the hill of his sternum, closing his laptop quietly. He swivels his head to you, hair mussing into the wall.

“Of anything in particular?” he asks, linen soft.

“No, yes—I don’t know,” you heave—an errant thing fluttering around in your chest as you fold the newspaper, letting it float to the floor with a splat. “It’s just-” you worry the inside of your cheek raw, fumbling with the blur of your emotions. You shake your head. “It’s just a bad brain day.” Your voice is small as you slump into him, letting your body go limp.

“I’m sorry I get like this. I’m okay—I’ll be okay,” you mumble, face burrowed into his arm. He smells summered, like sweat and heat and the promise of long days fading into even longer nights, and you take a heady drag, inhaling his scent.

You hear him sigh, stretching as he sets the mug and computer down on the side table. He shifts back to you, snaking an arm under your body as you coil your own around his center, hugging him close.

“You know, it’s alright if you’re not,” Frankie murmurs into your hair, planting a kiss at the crown of your head. “And you know you don’t have to hide from me when you aren’t.” His thumb finds your arm, the chewed nail bed scratching soothing circles along your skin.

Your gut somersaults, flipping and purring, and all you can do is press your lips to the cottoned shoulder of his tee shirt—the one with the holes in the collar and motor oil stain on the hem; all you can do is tighten your grasp, wringing around his cozy waist.

“And you know that nothing you say is gonna scare me away, right? I’m always going to be here for you.” Frankie gives your forearm a reassuring squeeze.

God, this man.

You nuzzle further into his chest—snuggled and swaddled in the safety of his warmth—and you mumble something incoherent, muffled against his relaxed body. His beard catches on your fly-aways as he dips to hear you better. “What was that honey?”

“I said,” you crane your neck, lifting out of his side, “you really are the ‘world’s best uncle’.”

A ripple of confusion twists over his features before you bat your eyes up to meet his, shooting a glance over to that exact phrase wrapping itself around the ceramic cup beside him.

You got stuck with it at some terrible white elephant exchange last Christmas. It’s fucking tacky and aggressively large—not even you - you, in all your caffeine dependency - can chug that much coffee fast enough in one sitting without it going cold— and neither of you have any nieces or nephews to speak of…

Naturally, it’s become your favorite mug.

Frankie barks out a laugh, his stomach flexing against your grasp. “Oh yeah? Is that all I am?” he smirks, a glint of mischievousness reflecting in his irises as he bores down at you.

You quirk an eyebrow, a coy tug blooming across your lips. “I dunno,” you drawl sweetly, “you going to prove me otherwise?”

His face is split into a grin now, wide and aching and unnecessarily endearing. His hair is a mess, wavy tufts jutting out every which way, and his eyelids are still puffy from what little slumber he was lucky enough to get in your hot, cramped apartment.

You really can’t keep putting it off—you need to buy an AC unit.

His focus dances from your eyes to your mouth, breath hitching as he watches you skip your tongue over the plush mound there. “I just might,” he growls playfully, maneuvering you onto your back with one broad swoop, pinning you to the bed.

/

He makes love to you like a man unburdened - untouched - by time. He fucks into you slowly, unhurriedly—at a pace that’s mind numbingly measured and patient. Frankie devastates you, dragging himself through your walls from head to hilt, letting you feel every ridge, every vein of him; filling you up so impossibly well—his thick cock sauntering in and out, and in and out again. Each roll of his hips makes you gasp, his blunt tip brushing against that deep, uncharted chasm within you that tempts you into oblivion. Your legs are locked around him, crossed at the ankles, and the perspiration at the pits of your knees slicks his sides.

Frankie’s palms dimple the fitted sheet as he brackets your head, burying himself into the crook of your neck. He moans—hot breath ghosting over the prickled skin there, babbling disjointed strings of guttural praise into your ear.

Fuck baby—fuck you feel good

How’d I get so lucky, how’d I-

God, you’re a— fuck

You’ve got the perfect pussy—made for me

Made for me, made for me, made for-

You turn your head and capture his mouth with your own, whimpering into him as he nips at your bottom lip and bites. You scrape your fingers through his scalp, pulling at his locks, and Frankie whines a tortured noise—giving an especially hard thrust that pries a yelp from your throat. He rears his head back, catching your gaze, a concerned line creased into his brow. “Y-You okay?”

“No- nono, yes Frankie. Again, right there,” you beg, lashes fluttering.

He darkens—the timbre of his voice made husky and raw as he drinks in the sights and sounds of you mewling for him, splayed and needy. “You like that?” Frankie drives into you again, sharp and searing as he bottoms out, the smattering of curls at the base of him soaked with your gloss. “You need it hard, baby? You want it rough?”

You whimper, clawing desperately at the nape of his neck. “I just—I just want you, all of you,” you pant as you hold his stare—the gorgeous, chestnut gleam of it—and the wordless expression that crests over his features makes you want to cry. The precious indent in his cheek, the stubble littering his jaw, his sculpted nose and clever lips, the sad rings under his eyes—the grooves he thinks you don’t notice, the grooves he tries to mask by always taking care of you, always putting you first, even when he shouldn’t.

Fuck, he’s so beautiful—he’s so beautiful you could weep.

“You have me,” he rasps breathlessly, bowing to meet you in a messy whirl of tongue and teeth before breaking away—forcing himself up off his hands and back onto his shins. He hooks an elbow under your knee, letting the other frame the outside of his hip. “I’m right here—you have me, you have me-”

Frankie’s hips are frantic now, pulsing in short, strong bursts as he grinds into you. He dips a hand to your center, pad of his thumb working erratic, sloppy flicks over the sensitive nub of your swollen clit. Your feet arch, the muscles there constricting as the tension in you mounts.

“Babe.” You’re whining now, vulnerable and shaking and fuck, you’re going to come apart—any moment now, any unbearable second, you’ll snap. “F-Frankie, baby oh god—”

You clamp a hand over your mouth, eyes screwing shut as you shatter. Like a vase crashing onto kitchen tile, you break into a million jagged fragments. Your cunt seizes, legs spasming against him as he fucks you through your orgasm, and it doesn’t take long for the tight contractions of your heat to yank him right off that same ledge. The both of you—tumbling and fracturing into terrible, perfect shards—to be intermingled and scattered among each other’s glass pieces.

Indiscernible. The same.

When you glue yourself back together again, you will find parts of him there - here, within you - filling your jigsawed cracks like golden ore.

Frankie slips out of you with a squelch and a huffed groan, collapsing to the mattress in a panting heap. His cum dribbles from your apex and you shiver at the feeling of it—at the feeling of him, warm and wet and lingering inside you. He rests his cheek on your breast while you both catch your breath—rising, falling. Waxing, waning. Two pitter-pattering hearts beating in time.

The sheets have been sloughed, lazy and forgotten, to a crumpled pile on the wood floor and the steam once rising from the mug on the nightstand has long since disappeared. It’s too muggy for you two to be this entwined—his leg draped over you, a big arm slung across your belly—but neither of you dare move. Neither of you have the energy, never mind the desire.

The clock whispers in the morning quiet.

A new bird claims the branch the finch left—she sings now, roosting there in the birch.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur sleepily, drawing patterns into the valley of his spine, mapping out his freckles and moles and scars. “Thank you,” you say. Thank you for putting up with me, thank you for understanding me, thank you for listening even when I cannot speak. “I love you so much.”

Gently, silently, Frankie tilts his head, bristled hair peppering your flesh as he mattes your skin with his lips; laving along your breasts, across your clavicle and up the plain of your neck—each kiss a response, each kiss a truth.

You don’t have to apologize

You don’t have to thank me

I love you

I love you

I’m right here

I love you

tags:

@pedros-mustache @roxypeanut @frannyzooey @djarinsbeskar @read-and-rec @keeper0fthestars @krissology @greatcircle79

[darwin-xf]

Love is a Verb

His dick knew things.

In general, thinking with your little head not your big one got a bad rap.

But for him? The opposite seemed to apply.

Of course he’d been mortified when he sprung to life in her hand the night before, with Scully in full on doctor mode, acting so clinical and detached. While he was so very very exposed.

A wave of anger arose in the wake of his humiliation. At her. Which wasn’t fair. She was doing him a favor, after all. Examining him, because they were stuck in a crap motel in the middle of nowhere Florida, the day after a hurricane, flights snafued, roads clogged with debris. And him with a sea monster bite on his neck and an angry itchy red rash on his dick to match. She was caring for him, just like she always did. Even though neither one of them was exactly comfortable about the prospect.

But now, considering what that moment of vulnerability had led to, he was glad it happened. And hardly surprised.

And when his big head has been muddled and confused on a night a few weeks before? His dick had shown the way forward. When a different woman had laid her hands on him, slipped her tongue into his mouth.

He didn’t want her. He felt like a block of wood as she kissed him and touched him. And yet he let it happen. His mind filled with a fuzzy gray static as she whispered to him how she needed him, how she’d never stopped loving him, until she was kneeling on the floor in front of him. She opened his pants and he let her, hungry for something she was offering. He would think a lot about that later.

But then his dick was in her mouth. And she worked it, employed all her little tricks. And still it stayed soft.

Until, giving up, she stood. She crossed the room and poured herself a scotch. He tucked his junk in his pants and zipped up. Not even embarrassed.

“You love her,” Diana said, her back to him.

He nodded. “I do.”

“But Fox,” she said, closing the distance between them, sitting down next to him, “She doesn’t know you like I do. There’s so much I want to give you...”

She launched into the pitch he’d heard from her before. Since she returned, she’d been whispering to him whenever she could get him alone, offering him access. “There are so many things we can accomplish together, Fox. Why would you want to keep toiling in the dark when you can shape the future of the human race? You’ve more than earned your seat at the table. And your voice is needed there...”

Though he never really felt engaged in these conversations, his big head listened to what Diana had to say.

But the little one was more persuasive. Not to mention more persistent. The truth was, Scully had been the only one able to get him off for months. Though of course she hadn’t touched him.

His extensive collection of salacious videotapes these days stayed tucked in their hiding places, moldering in their cases. The magazines delivered to his door each month, Penthouse and Hustler and Escort and Razzle and Club, remained stacked on his entryway table, their spines uncracked, their pages unperused. Most with the black no-see-um wrapper still intact.

A fact Scully discovered while visiting his apartment a few weeks before. She turned up on the late side one evening, work on her mind, files in her hand, her body tucked dutifully away in some dark suit.

“Oh that,” he said when she placed her palm on the towering cache of smut, popped an eyebrow in his direction. She had spent enough time in his space to understand that this was a departure from his usual behavior, where his porn was concerned. Whereby he’d rip the covers off the mags as soon as they arrived and leaf through them, looking for anything particularly good. He’d turn down the corners of memorable pages then leave them piled haphazardly around his place: on end tables, under the fishtank, next to his bed.

The explanation was not something he was prepared to share. So he thought fast, and invented something on the fly that seemed remotely plausible. “Yeah, the boys tell me that those are going to be collector's items soon. Print is dead, Scully. Everyone making the switch from atoms to bits and bytes. Paper’s so pulpy and inefficient. I have a book on it somewhere...” He riffled through his bookshelf, glad to escape her excruciating gaze. He plucked out a book and handed her a copy of Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte. “He’s a smart guy. You should check it out.”

His effort to distract her was in vain. She put the book aside without glancing at the cover and continued to silently cross-examine him. He pretended to be interested in another book he’d pulled at random, but the moment stretched on uncomfortably. "I thought I could get more for them if they remained in pristine condition,” he said as he paged through the book he wasn’t reading. For all he knew he was holding it upside down. “You know how people keep their Star Wars toys in the boxes with the cellophane on?”

She shrugged, unconvinced. But she moved on, willing to let it go. Her stacked heels clacked obnoxiously against his hardwood floors as she slowly made her way into his living room.

He doubted she wanted to know the real reason. Though he was pretty sure he could turn the tables on her if he blurted it out. It would serve her right for the way she roamed around his apartment and let her eyes light on his stuff, storing her little data points in that mind, trying to figure him out. But maybe one day the tea leaves of his pitiable life she seemed so eager to read would finally speak to her. Maybe it would occur to her what was actually going on.

Which was that every time he touched himself, he imagined it was her hand. And he would try to switch things over, open one of his skin mags— his trusty strategy for years when it came to getting his thoughts off his partner and back where they belonged —but it wasn’t working anymore.

He’d listlessly page through the glossies, looking for a promising spread, land on some blowjob scene and eyeball it for a while. But when he got down to business it, was her mouth on him, warm and receptive, her eyes on his face, his hands in her coppery hair. He’d smolder for a while, thinking of her lips, her strong small hands, and always her eyes, then feverishly work himself up. And the magazine, forgotten, would slip away onto the floor.

On the bright side, his inappropriate intrusive fixation on his FBI partner was saving him two hundred bucks a month he used to spend on phone sex. The last time he dialed in he couldn’t even get it up. So he spilled his guts to one of his regular providers, droning on for forty-five minutes about how he had it bad for his partner, all the things she did that made him crazy, the reasons he couldn’t tell her. Realizing even therapy would be cheaper, and feeling like a terrible cliché, he’d quit calling those numbers.

His videos were his last line of defense. Their absorbing input had always been able to capture his attention, so he’d try one of those. It might work for a few minutes, but the real action was behind his eyes. In his mind it was her heels digging in to the small of his back as he plunged into her tight little cunt. She’d be beneath him hot and panting, open her mouth to moan and he’d stuff his fingers in, slide them wetly against her tongue. Soon he’d be picking up the pace... The television would blare fruitlessly in the background, rife with bad dialogue and silicone silo tits and oh babys. The money shot would come and go, unseen by him, and the screen would fade to black.

The reason porn had quit working was simple: in his fantasies, she always comes too. Usually more than once. He’d start slow, imagine he was taking his time kissing his way down her body. That could take a while. Then he’d tease her, rubbing the fat head of his cock up and down her slit. When she begged him to, he’d slip inside her and slam his hips forward. He’d hold there, bottomed out, and kiss her sweet mouth. Then he’d slide it in and out, looking into her eyes, feeling every inch of her.

Soon he’d need to fuck her harder, faster. He’d reach down to tease her clit until she was thrashing and pleading. Then she’d say his name, and her face would change, and she’d come on his dick. He’d watch her ride it out, humming with pleasure as her warm wet circles broke against him and travelled up his body in waves. Till his nuts and his gut and his heart and his throat and his brain were replete with her. Finally he’d come, imagining he was cradled by her hips and rocking, buried deep inside her, spilling his secrets into her ear.

In his dirty busy mind he’d already had her so many places and ways: in showers and motel beds, in cars and elevators, bent over his desk at work, the door unlocked, her skirt bunched around her waist, her drugstore pantyhose dangling from her ankle. Quick or slow or sweet or mean, acrobatic or missionary, rough or tender. Or both. God. Even boring. Just the two of them in his bed, nose to nose under the covers, whispering and giggling and whiling away a Sunday morning.

And the most pathetic and woebegone detail? Sometimes his fantasies contained no sex at all. He wanted to watch a movie with her feet parked in his lap. He wanted to shop for groceries with her and hold her hand on the walk home. To spend a weekend with her on the Vinyard and show her his old high school. He wanted to rub her back when she was sad and play footsie with her under the table during boring budget meetings. He wanted to gather her close and kiss her eyelids and hold her in his arms as she fell asleep. To watch her to rise naked from his bed and pull on his clothes she’d just stripped from his body. On red eye flights he wanted to leave the arm rest up and snuggle with her under those dingy felt blankets. To read to her while she soaked in the tub and find the nooks and hollows of her body where she was ticklish. He wanted to make her giggle, make her laugh, make her cry happy tears. He wanted to make her wet just with his voice. To lay in bed and watch while she got dressed for church. He wanted to kiss her in front of her idiot brother, maybe even slip her a tasteful amount of tongue. To shower with her before work, to soap her up and shampoo her hair. He wanted to stock his fridge with an assortment of her gross non-dairy yogurts.

Scully. Before she’d even descended into his office and introduced herself, he assumed she was a plant. Or a dupe, a patsy. Why else would a promising and talented young agent be conscripted to his lonely, disrespected division? Most likely she’d already agreed to keep tabs on him, to cast his work in a negative light. And even if she hadn’t, he was certain she’d be manipulated, using the lever of her obvious ambition, into doing so. He also suspected, since she’d spent most of her time thus far in the FBI in the lab or the classroom, that she was a house cat. The kind of agent who might hold romantic notions about working in the field, but who would soon balk at the grueling, unpredictable hours, the endless travel, the physical grind. And blanch at the dangers. It’s no kind of life for anybody who wants a life.

By the time their flight touched down in Oregon on that first case, he knew for sure that she was fun to spar with. And all kinds of smart. And even sort of cute. And while it can obviously be helpful to have a partner if things go sideways, he remembers hoping that didn’t happen to them before she washed out and retreated back to the lab. Because he suspected this itty bitty pathologist with zero field experience and impractical footwear? Would be more likely to become a liability than properly cover his flank.

After they’d worked a half dozen cases together, it was fair to say he’d reconsidered the hasty assumptions he’d made about Scully. Which is to say she surprised him at every turn. Except on the couple of occasions when she’d astonished him, leaving him flat-footed and slack-jawed in her wake. Against all odds, he had himself a partner. Which is not to say he fully trusted her. Not yet. And he doubted she’d hang around much longer.

But still. He’d learned that she was game. Skeptical and rational, but up for anything. She never complained about bad food or lumpy beds. And courageous, staring down firearms pushed in her face without blinking. She was fearless and cagy, and could take a punch or dish one out. And in the next moment she could soften, to connect with a suspect or a victim, to care for a child, or for him. She believed deeply in what she was doing. When he bumbled into trouble, which he seemed to have a knack for, she more than had his back. Yet when she’d sided with him and blew off her buddies from the Academy? It wasn’t loyalty to him she was demonstrating, but to the victims. To the truth. Above all, Scully was honest.

In some ways, he knew her so well. Yet all these years later there was there were aspects to her he could only guess at. Scully, he’d come to understand, was a deeply private person. Didn’t give pieces of herself away in idle conversation, like most people do. The fact that he was a trained and skilled profiler didn’t seem to help. In his fevered mind he’d become preoccupied with the things he didn’t know about her. Like how, exactly, does she like to be touched? He thought about that a lot. Is she a morning sex person? (God he hoped so.) Is she loud in bed? Or more quiet and intense? A little repressed, or wild and uninhibited? He could imagine it either way. Is she bossy? Submissive? A little of both? What does she taste like? Does she talk dirty? Will she like it when he does? (Because he definitely does.) How would he tease her? What are her kinks? Does she like it rough? And if he wanted to go down on her for hours, would she be okay with that?

So, yeah. He loved her.

That switch had been flicked for him on a steamy summer evening, a moment when he’d been staring down the real possibility of losing her. She walked away. He followed her, flew out his door like he’d been shot out of a cannon. Stormed up to her where she’d turned to face him in his hallway. Fists clenched, voice raised, he was in full on fighting mode. But he wasn’t fighting her. He was fighting to keep her. So instead of telling her off, as his body language suggested he might, he told her what she meant to him. How he needed her. Things he hadn’t even realized before they came out of his mouth. But all of it the truth.

She’d been girded and resolute, her body rigid and self-contained. But then she broke, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, she softened and stepped into his embrace. He looked in her impossibly blue eyes glinting with tears and realized with dreadful certainty that, Christ, he was going to kiss his partner. More than that, if she let him, he was going to pick her up and carry her back through the door of his apartment and lay her down and fuck her.

That plan had been derailed, but the urge for him remained. And not long after, he gathered his courage and, with all the earnestness he could muster, he’d looked her in the eyes and confessed.

So he’d told her that he loved her. But had he shown her?

That was a thorny question, and it made him uncomfortable to consider it. Because he had to admit that for the most part, he hadn’t.

It was strange, but once his feelings for Scully had shifted, his behavior toward her had become less loving. For one thing, he didn’t let her in on that fact that she’d become the only featured player in his secret late-nite fantasy theatre. But more than that, he found himself especially irritable with her. Dismissive. Self-centered. Sometimes even cold.

When he was looking for an excuse to be angry with her, he told himself a story that she’d rejected him. Because, oh brother. But he’d seen her eyes go wide for an instant, felt her animal panic. She’d pored over his hospital chart and had to know he wasn’t high. So he’d concluded that she didn’t want him. Didn’t love him.

And Fowley’d chosen that inopportune moment to skip back over the pond and make a play for his ass. And though he had no interest in rekindling that relationship, just having her around reminded him of all the reasons it just might be a bad idea to get tangled up sexually with your partner.

More than that, even though he knew that Scully felt insecure because of Diana for several legitimate reasons, he hadn’t bothered to reassure her that she had nothing to worry about. When Diana called him and invited him downstairs for lunch, he’d go. Mostly to be near his files, and to mine the trashcans for cases when her back was turned. But he’d steal away from the bullpen, not tell Scully where he was off to, or why. He let her twist in the wind, wondering who Diana was to him and what her reappearance meant for their partnership.

It would make sense that once you’ve discovered the person you love, the person with whom you want to spend the rest of your days (not even to mention nights), the person who is, quite possibly, it for you? That you would try to make that happen. To lock that down. And yet he seemed to be doing everything but.

Even after she’d been shot by Ritter, and he’d almost lost her again.

And why was that? How to explain this puzzling behavior.

Maybe she didn’t want him, and he was just protecting himself.

The thing was, when he was being honest, he knew that wasn’t true. When he’d been about to kiss her in his hallway, she’d looked confused at first. And then concerned, with real fear flashing in her eyes. But by the time his lips were hovering over hers? They were on the same page. She’d gone molten in his arms, and her mouth awaited his, wet and ready. His body remembered how she’d opened to him, with her sweet breath and her fingers on his neck. He knew in his bones how that encounter would have ended, if not for that stupid fucking bee. Recalled it every chance he got.

As a psychologist, looking at the situation objectively? He’d have to conclude that he was engaging in some epic self-sabotage. Yup.

That night in her apartment when Diana had made her intentions clear, he’d agreed like some kind of docile sheep to join her. To scrum up with the other chosen few at El Rico Air Force Base as Armageddon loomed and save himself at the expense of the rest of humanity. And Scully, even though he wasn’t by her side where he belonged, was still fighting. For him, For them. For the truth. For the future.

And to repay her for her steadfast faith in him and devotion to their work? He was flirting with the one thing that could tear them apart. With inflicting a betrayal that could send her packing for good.

They’d dodged a bullet that night. More than that, they’d gotten their files back, and were free to resume their work. And by any measure he should have felt relieved. But he woke the next morning with a hangover worse than any he’d ever gotten from liquor. He looked in the mirror to shave and realized he couldn’t even meet his own gaze. He was ashamed. And he had to admit that he’d been seduced by Diana after all. Not into bed, but into complacency.

Needing some time and space to think things through, he called Skinner and redeemed a few vacation days. He threw some clothes in a bag and set out driving, not sure of his destination.

On the road, heading north, armed with this new clarity, he mulled things over. How was he going to feel, he wondered, when he succeeded and chased her away? That seemed to be his end game, after all. He knew what he’d do. He’d track her down to wherever she’d absconded to and interrupt her as she attempted to reboot her life. Then, looking desperate and half mad, he’d profess his love.

But it would be too late. She would conclude, quite logically, that he only wanted her when she was leaving. And even if she loved him like he hoped she might, she would not settle for that. Not Scully. And it would be selfish of him to ask her to.

It hit him then, with complete and utter clarity, that he had no idea how to love someone. He’d had bad models and a dearth of life experience in that arena. He knew how he felt. But love is a verb. It’s about what you do. She had taught him that.

He was good with the grand gestures, sure. Tracking her down at the bottom of the world and fishing her out of an enormous alien vessel, for example. Then breathing life back into her and hauling her to the surface while sidestepping rabid lizard monsters who swiped at them with razor-edged claws? Check.

But she needed more. For him to find mundane ways to express his care and concern, perhaps. To show her how much she mattered to him. How much he valued her and all the ways she contributed to their work. To his life. She needed to see that he put her first. She deserved these things. She had earned them. And he knew wouldn’t let him glimpse her secret self, let him know her like he desperately wanted to, until he gave them to her.

He wasn’t sure he could do it. But he knew he had to try.

He decided to start right away. He’d been thinking of her all morning, of course. About celebrating their return by pressing her her against a wall in their office and pushing into her, fucking her breathless and senseless before lunch, to be exact. But he hadn’t thought of her at all, he realized. Not really.

Scully. She’d be there right now, in the basement waiting for him, their first day back where they belonged. Wondering where he could be with half the morning gone. Bewildered as to what might be keeping him from reclaiming his precious turf. Maybe she already talked to Skinner and knew he was taking a few days off. Maybe she’d be worried. Or pissed. Or worse, wondering if he was enjoying a morning lounging in bed with a treacherous leggy brunette.

At the next rest stop, he pulled off and powered up his cell phone. He was relieved to see that he'd missed a call from her. She hadn’t given up on him yet.

Rather than listen to her message, he dialed her back. She answered on the third ring.

“Hey Mulder,” she said.

“Hey Scully,” he said. “Are you in the office?”

“I am,” she said. “Where I thought for sure you would be. Skinner told me you were on vacation. What’s going on?” Her voice was brittle. Defensive.

“I will be, Scully. I’ll meet you there. And soon. But I need to take care of a few things first.”

“Okay,” she said thoughtfully. “What kinds of things?”

“I, ah, I need to get my head straight before coming back. I’ve been mixed up. About some stuff.”

“I see,” she said.

They were both quiet for long seconds.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Me?” The question surprised her. “I’m good. Enjoying the quiet. Working on expense reports. Glad to be out of the bullpen.”

“You sure? You were popular, Scully. I think Agent Kargoll was working up the nerve to ask you out.” Mulder would glare at him as he brought her a donut on a little plate in the mornings. He’d leave it on the corner of the desk if she wasn’t in yet, like an offering to the high priestess.

“Yep,” she said. “I noticed that too. Reassigned in the nick of time...”

“I did my best to scare him off...”

“He was persistent, I’ll give him that.”

“He seemed like a nice enough guy. You could do worse than landing a boyfriend who arrives bearing gifts every morning...”

“I could do better, too.”

“No doubt,” he said. “What would be better than that?”

“Hmm. Why do you ask?”

“Research,” he said.

“Research,” she repeated. “Okay. Let’s see. The bearing gifts is ok. But maybe someone with some sense of what I actually like?”

“Let me jot that down,” he said. She snorted a little laugh. Which warmed him all the way through. “It’s true, Scully, you’re not a big fan of donuts. I benefitted from his crush on you more than you did.”

“I tried to wait until he had his back turned before handing those off to you...”

“You’re very kind,” he said.

Just then a truck blew by on the highway, laying on the booming brake, rocking his car.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I, ah, hit the road this morning. Just to think. Just to drive. But I suppose I’m heading home. To see my mother for a few days.”

“Everything okay?” she asked. He heard the concern in her voice, the fear that she’d be needing to tend to him trepanned and shocky, bail him out of jail. The usual.

“Yeah,” he said. “Or it will be. I really think it will be.”

“Allright Mulder,” she said after a long beat. “I’ll be holding down the fort. Drive safe. And keep in touch.”

“I will. And save me some of that paperwork, Scully.”

She laughed and hung up.

He had, in fact, visited his mother. She was glad to see him, and he stayed a few days, helped her out with some chores around the house. Got on a ladder and plucked the muck and leaves from the gutters, shifted some dusty furniture from the basement to the curb.

And he absorbed the silences of that house, his mother’s sadness, the way every possession, every exchange seemed steeped in a deep, abiding misery.

He remembered his mother different. Laughing, for example. Playing bridge with her friends, toying with her strand of pearls as she leaned in to gossip. Teasing him with a glint of joy in her eyes. Before Samantha had been taken.

It had broken her. Broken all of them. Now she ghosted around her own home, tending to her roses, watching television. Always alone. He lived much the same way. This was all that was left.

All because his father had been unable to protect them from the men he worked with, no matter how noble his intentions. The same men he had been tempted by Fowley to join up with, if he was telling the truth. Now they were reduced to ash. He had no idea what remained, but he knew he and Scully would find out.

By the time he climbed in his car to come home, he was committed to not making his father’s mistake. And to living differently. Less stubbornly solitary. To inviting some goodness into his life, no matter how strange it felt.

And last night, when it was actually happening, when he was wrapped up in bed with Scully in real life, it had been so vivid, so peculiar. As he rolled his naked frame against hers, time slowed down. In his head he heard the seconds ticking away distorted by doppler effect, whomp whomp. Felt his stiff prick slide against her buttery thigh, painfully slow. Pressed his ear to her chest. Imagined the steady squeeze and release of her heart beneath her breastbone. Heard the whoosh of her blood through her veins.

Looked up at her flushed face, this beautiful untamable breakable beast.

And he loved her.

He’d told her so.

Now he needed to show her.

Thanks for reading. Check it out at Ao3 This fic stands alone, but is also chapter 10 of Bedside Manner

[multific]

Plan a Wedding

Chris Evans x Reader

Summary: When you are asked by your best friend to help her plan her wedding, you don't know what to do, you want to help her, but have the biggest crush on the groom's best man, who also helps with the planning.

When your best friend, Kate, asked you to not only be her maid of honor but help her with the planning of her wedding, you of course said yes, without even thinking twice.

It took you about four hours before you realized what that truly meant.

It meant that you will spend a lot more time with Chris. The man you had the biggest crush on since he was introduced to you and the best part, Kate knew exactly how you felt.

So, now here you were in a florist shop, pretending that you were not blushing furiously as you tried to hide behind every bouquet. 

You took a deep breath and focused on Kate instead. She was looking at at least five different bouquets and table decorations when you stepped in to help her.

"Which are the ones you do not like?" you asked.

"Hmm...The yellow ones wouldn't fit with the theme. But I don't want there to be too much white, so they might work."

"Alright, Then how about the pink ones? You want pastel colors, those are too dark. Let's get those off the table then." The florist helped you and now there were only two bouquets and two smaller decorations to chose from. 

"Which ones do you like more?" she asked turning to you.

"It's not my wedding, but the place you rented for the wedding has a dark wood interior. I think the green would make it too cold. But if you use the yellow with the light pink, it could bring that spring feeling you want."

She nodded. You didn't even notice Chris and the groom, Sebastian, arriving at your side.

"I like the one Y/N said." Seb helped and Kate finally picked one. They gave the order to the shop assistant and then you moved on.

The next stop was the bakery. 

Honestly, you weren't sure which couple asked other people regarding their cake, but you didn't mind it, you liked cakes.

And as the slices kept on coming, your eyes kept on shining. You only got out of the trance when Chris laughed a little.

"You really do like cake," he noted when Seb and Kate were too busy.

"I do, yes," you never really talked with him, you were afraid he might think you don't like him or something, but it was the exact opposite.

"Thank you for helping her pick flowers. I thought we will die in that store she kept on looking and going back and forth."

"She has a hard time saying out loud that she doesn't like something. She thinks it rude, but you will see, I bet she will have a harder time here."

You gave Chris a look and he smiled, both of you turned back to see Seb eating cake and Kate thinking rather hard.

"How many layers will it be?" you asked and tried to help.

"Three," Seb answered.

"Alright. I would say the biggest layer should be something like vanilla and chocolate. It's a safe choice and everyone likes it. Then you can have something fancy which tastes nice like the dark forest one. Then you can have something like red velvet or chocolate only," both of them nodded, understanding your point.

"I quite liked the pistachio one." Chris said, "It's light and nice, I think everyone will enjoy it. I agree with the bottom two layers, those are very popular flavors." 

"Then we will have vanilla and chocolate then black forest and finally, pistachio." Both bride and groom agreed and you were out of the shop quicker than you thought. Now the four of you are headed to have some lunch. 

You and Chris sat at a table as Seb and Kate went to use the toilets.

"What are you planning for her bachelorette party?" Chris suddenly asked.

"Oh, yes, so the idea was that we go to a bar, play some small games. I wanted to get a dancer for her, but nothing too wild or anything." 

"Good, I was planning a striptease bar but then I remembered his brother would freak out so most likely we will go to a bar or have some drinks at my place."

"Sounds good to me," you smiled at him and the pair arrived back. You all ate some pizza before heading to the next place.

Your day went on like that. Going from one place to another. You ended up offering to make the invitations yourself since the place wanted to charge a lot more for them than they should have. Chris offered to help

***

Kate sent you a template of what she would like for her invites to look like. You bought everything you will ever need and more.

You made the text itself digitally then printed it out. Now, they needed to be put together, so Chris was coming over to yours to help. 

Just as you finished preparing everything, your doorbell rang.

"Sorry, I'm late, traffic, but I brought the things you asked, I have an amazing scissor that cuts paper like a dream," he said as soon as you opened the door.

"Hi. It's okay, you are just in time,"

You let him in and the tedious procedure of preparing hundred and fifty invitations began. 

You were about halfway done when you felt your back start to hurt.

"I will make some lemonade for myself, would you like to have some?"

"Sounds good thank you, I started to feel like my eyes will melt." he laughed and moved to the kitchen with you. "So, you have a dancer for Kate, does she know?"

"Oh, no it will be a surprise all of the girls know about him, would you believe that her mother was the most excited?" you poured some ice into the cup and moved to the living room to sit on the couch. "Why are you asking?"

"Just interested, I didn't tell it to Seb or anything."

"Good, I'm so happy for them."

"Me too. But they are both can't decide on the simplest things."

"Really? Would you be better?"

"Oh, please I have my whole wedding planned in my head, flowers and all."

"Says the guy who is still single."

He laughed. "I even know who I want to marry."

This almost made you choke on your lemonade. You felt a bit jealous but didn’t ask any questions. 

"I always thought you didn't like me. I know I can be loud and annoying even, I laugh loudly which I know some women don't like. But when you accepted for me to help you today, I thought there is hope."

"I like you, Chris. A lot actually, and I like your laugh. It's loud but it gives me a smile."

You didn't notice how close he got to you only when he lifted your chin up. He waited for you to pull away but you didn't.

"All I could think about last week was you. I pretended it's our wedding you are picking flowers for and our cake you are tasting. Call me a creep, Y/N, but I am in love with you. I have been for a long time now."

"You are not a creep. And I think I am in love with you as we-" he didn't let you finish as his lips met yours in a soft kiss. 

You dreamed of this moment for so long and now that it was here, you felt like you could faint. You couldn't believe this is actually happening, but it was.

***

"So, you finished with the cards, can we send them out?"

"Ooh, we got halfway done with it yesterday. I promise for tomorrow I will have all." 

You and Kate agreed to have breakfast the next morning. She squinted her eyes and looked at you, then as if lightning struck her eyes opened wide.

"Oh My God, Y/N you and Chris had se-"

"Shhh!" you put your hand against her lips, stopping her. "Don't yell, please." "Finally! I was waiting for you to get together for two years now!"

"Yes, so it's not a thing."

"Great! So tell me everything! How it happened, when it happened, and where? Hope not on my invitations!" he lifted her cup to her lips and you just knew this will be a long day.

But you were happy, extremely happy now that you and Chris were together.

As you told Kate the story of last night, your phone notified you that Chris wrote you a text. 

You will never forget the smirk on Kate's face as she made more sexual jokes, she will never let you live this down. 

Part 2

Taglist: imreadinggoaway @fleursirvart v-2bucky ehsebastian crunch-time-sports  @pxstelrainbow ablogbypeteparker liamssmiler smexylemony @greenarrowhead feelingsareharddd @thisismysecrethappyplace @sincerelyfan @theoneanna @aestheticsandmarvel @rororo06 @castellandiangelo @avengers-r-us @destynelseclipsa   @spilledinkindumpster celebsimagine @capsiclesdoll snoopy3000 @firstangeldragonranch @puknow crazzyter  @alwayshave-faith @soleil-dor @alex12948 scream-kiwi79  @lxdyred @imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl

 ~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

 My taglist is open!

Feedback is greatly appreciated. Thank You for reading my story!~

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of Texas relief, @padaleckimeon donated $100 and requested Dean Jr. meeting Sam and Dean in heaven. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts) 

(read on AO3)

When Dad dies, Dean takes a week off. It wasn’t sudden, or a surprise. Dad had been sick for a while, his body starting to fail him. At first Dean had been scared, and then he’d been angry. He was only twenty-four when Dad got the diagnosis and it wasn’t—fair, in some stupid but essential way. He’d barely graduated from college and, yeah, Dad was kind of old, older than a lot of his friends’ parents, but—he thought, somehow, that him dying just wasn't… applicable. Dad was just—there, always. Solid, supportive, kind of boring maybe but also stronger than anyone Dean had ever known, or would ever know, and it wasn’t right that he could just be sitting in his apartment midway through a novel and get a call and kind of sigh, because he was in a good part in the book, and then to sit up straight with his hair standing on end to hear Dad say, quiet, I'm sorry, buddy. We need to talk about something. That’s what he said, first. That he was sorry.

There were treatments, but not many. Dean had flown out and gone to a few of the appointments with the oncologist and Dad had been quiet, listening to the options. He’d researched a lot of this on his own, because Dean had done the same thing, and they’d both been nodding along during the options. Injections, radiation. Chemo. Dad had asked, polite, what the life expectancy was for each option, and Dean had watched the side of his face and not the doctor, and when the answer was given Dad had closed his eyes briefly, and then looked away from both Dean and the doctor, out the window at the snowy day, and Dean had known, then.

Dad made it past Dean’s twenty-fifth birthday. He had a party with his friends, at his girlfriend’s apartment, and they tried to keep his spirits up but it was a pretty shitty party, all told. The next day, his actual birthday, he flew back out to Dad’s house and he was in good spirits—had a mini-cake, even, with a single candle that he made Dean blow out—but he was thin, and his hair was growing back in snow-white and tender-soft, and when Dad fell asleep in front of the crappy old cowboy movie that Dean had picked just because he knew Dad for some reason liked it, Dean went out onto the porch into the nearly-springtime air and he cried, pissed at himself. Pissed at everything. Then just—unbearably sad, because he liked his current girlfriend but he didn’t think he was going to marry her, and that meant that whatever girl he did marry would be one his dad would never meet—if he had kids, they’d never know how his dad concentrated like a motherfucker on crossword puzzles and obsessed over documentaries and knew every single piece of the inside of that behemoth car in the garage and was just the smartest kindest most stubborn person. Just—the best person. They’d listen to Dean’s stories maybe but they wouldn’t know, because Dad would never meet them, and that was just—unbearable, that night. In the morning, Dad made oatmeal and Dean added a bunch of sugar because Dad’s oatmeal was inedible otherwise, and Dad smiled kind of rueful like he always did when Dean did that, and then Dad said, I’m sorry, again, kind of quiet, and Dean reached out and held his hand—thin, and the bones feeling frail—and he said don’t be sorry, Dad, and four months later, Dad was dead.

Dad was always pretty up-front with him about most everything, especially after he and Mom split up. When he was twelve, Dad explained the supernatural very carefully, telling him that he was safe but that other people might not be, and why. When he was thirteen, Dad told Dean that Hell and Heaven were both real and that there was, definitely, confirmed, a God, and maybe it wasn’t the same God that other people knew but that Dad said he was kind, in his own way. The person in charge of Hell, Dad said, was maybe less so, but she wouldn’t hurt Dean, ever. Dad said he knew that for fact, and he said it so certainly, looking Dean in the eye, that Dean believed him. When Dean turned eighteen, a few months from graduating high school, Dad took him to a tattoo parlor and said for maybe the first time in Dean’s life that something was non-negotiable, and Dean hadn’t cared because what other kid in the senior year was going to walk at graduation with a kickass demonic tattoo?

There were other things, though, that they didn’t talk about. Dad said one day a lot when Dean was little but then, when he was older and it was clear that one day would be never, he just said—I can’t, buddy. I wish I could.

After the week off, rattling around the old house, and the cremation with no service that Dad had insisted on, Dean drives out to the lawyer in Sioux Falls. She’s nice. Respectful but not cloying. The Samuel Winchester Estate that Dean is the sole beneficiary of is—a lot of money. A lot more money than he knew Dad had, or that he could have ever earned. Dad has assigned some of the money to go to charities, and to some people Dean doesn’t know—the lawyer doesn’t say who in the specific, but says they’re kids of some of Dad’s old friends. Dean didn’t know Dad had many friends, much less ones who’d get trust funds in inheritance. Aside from the stock options and the accounts and all the money left over, Dean inherits a list of assets. The house, of course. The Chevy in the garage, with the stipulation that he can never sell it. A safety deposit box, from which the lawyer has already retrieved the contents.

She leaves him alone, to go through the box. Neatly organized, like everything else in Dad’s life. File-folders of pictures, printed out all old-fashioned. Some of Dean when he was a baby. Some of when Dad and Mom were still together, leaning against each other, Dean hugged between them. Some—much older, creased and faded, stored in little plastic sleeves so they can't degrade. He recognizes a few from the framed copies Dad always had in the house. Some he hasn't seen. Most of them—almost all of them—are of his Uncle Dean, who died before he was born, and he looks especially at one that just—hits him in the gut, in this awful way where he has to sit there looking at the soothing taupe paint of the conference room wall before he can look at it again. Uncle Dean's facing the camera, sort of, although he's laughing about something and not really looking into the lens, and there's Dad, laughing too. He looks… young. Younger than Dean is now. He flips the picture over. Dad's handwriting, careful: 2006, Bobby's house. Almost fifty years ago. An entire life he didn't know. He thinks again of his imaginary future kids. These lives they have, grandfather to father to son, that overlap like a venn diagram but—not enough. Not close to enough.

*

What's a life? How to summarize, from beginning to faded end, in a way that would make sense to anyone but who it happened to?

Dad left letters, explaining, but he's gone and the context is missing. There are so many questions Dean wants to ask but he can't, of course, anymore. The first letter is attached to the key to the bunker, where he would never take Dean when he was alive, and on winter break from med school Dean flies from Boston to Kansas and rents a car and drives alone through the snowfields.

Dark, inside. He throws the big switch and the lights crackle, hum on, almost reluctant. He has no idea how it's getting power. Dust, but not as much as there could be. A library, a kitchen. Archives upon archives. Dad had explained, but what little he'd said both in life and in the letters didn't come close. It was home, he wrote, for over a decade. The only one we had with four walls, for our whole lives, although we didn't think of it that way. I didn't, at least. Dean doesn't know what that means but he looks into the bedrooms and sees… emptiness, plain bunks and old desks and funny lamps. I just picked a random room, Dad said, and as Dean's looking he really can't tell which was Dad's. Figures. Their house when Dean was growing up didn't change a bit, no matter how terrible that wallpaper was. It's only when Dean pushes open the door to room 11 that there's any personality, and he flicks the light and stands there blinking, surprised. Guns and knives on the wall. Books, piled up. Empty beer bottles crowded on the little table. Dust, but—not as much as there could be. He walks in, cautious, this feeling in his gut like he's in someone's home and they've just walked out, and could return any moment. A food bowl on the floor. A shirt flung over the chair. On the desk: more books and magazines and a folded actually-on-paper newspaper from 2024, and a job application, half filled out. Dean Winchester, it says at the top, in mostly-neat capitals, and Dean rests a hand on the back of the chair and feels… strange. He tries to picture it—the man from the pictures, Dad's brother, filling up this space. Drinking beer and reading pulp westerns and checking out—oh, weird, magazine porn. Dean shakes his head. Impossible.

In the letters, Dad said: Hunting was all we knew how to do. With everything we knew, it was our duty to use the knowledge the best way we could. I went back and forth on it. Your uncle never did, even if I know there were times he wished he—that we both—could be something else. I don't want that for you. I want you to live exactly the life you want for yourself. No expectations, okay? Not from me or anyone else.

There are printed files that go back a hundred years. More than. Paper files, but old SSDs too, with connectors Dean has to find adapters for. Dad: If you want to know what we did, it's digitized. I know I always said I'd tell you one day, but I never knew how to say it. I'm sorry for that. I always thought I'd be one hundred percent honest, if I ever got a kid, because of how we were raised. I didn't know how hard that could be. Stuff that you'd want to say, but when it came time to just open your mouth and say it there weren't any words.

Dad wrote up all the old hunts, it turned out. Simple notes about where/when/how, the kind of monster it was, the number of people who died and the people who were saved. The people they had to explain things to, who knew now about the supernatural underbelly to the universe. He noted, too, if there were injuries, and Dean reads with his hand over his mouth a long, long litany of Dean W. shot, right arm; Sam W. broken bone in hand; Dean W. concussion; Sam W. strangled. On and on. No wonder Dad didn't make a big fuss when Dean broke his leg in the fourth grade.

He sleeps in the bunker overnight, in one of the spare bedrooms that's not room 11. There's a fan on the ceiling, dusty office supplies on the desk. By lamplight he reads the letters, on his back on the stiff terrible mattress, his eyes stinging and past-midnight tired. Our lives weren't the kind of thing anyone would want, Dad wrote. I spent so long trying to get away from it because I thought 'it shouldn't be this way' – and I was right, you know? It shouldn't have been how it was. But it was that way, anyway, and in the end that was something I was okay with. We were making what difference we could. We were happy. A lot of people have it worse.

'We'. Dad hardly writes Uncle Dean's name but he's in every letter. We, we, we. Dad told Dean stories, of course, the dumb stuff they got up to when they were teenagers, or the (sanitized, Dean's sure) adventures they had as adults, but despite the pictures on the wall at home and the pictures in the deposit box and the whole life that's here, Dean can't—see it. Beer bottles on the table in the bedroom, one on either side of the tiny table. The shirt slung over the chair. We were happy, he says, but—how? Dean can't imagine it.

In the last letter Dad wrote, I think I'm writing this when I've got a month or two left. Dr. Hendricks isn't sure. I wish I had more time, to explain how it was. Who we were. I never told you the most embarrassing thing in the world, but I'm old and I'm not going to be around and not much will be able to embarrass me anymore, so screw it. (Fifty years ago I would have gotten really mad at myself for that kind of comment; more things age can fix.) There are books about us. There's a hard drive, in the bunker. It's labelled BURN THIS. (That's your uncle's handwriting.) They're true, more or less. Written by a really crappy, amateur writer, but he was a kind of prophet, and he knew everything there was to know about us, and he wrote books for about five years, based on our life and the real things we did. Some of it is exaggerated and melodramatic. A lot of it is just how it happened. You'll have to decide which is which. I don't come off too well in some of them but I hope you'll understand that the world… I don't know how to describe it. Somehow the world felt different, then. It was just us, trying our best. I hope it gives you some idea of the life we had. No matter what happened, I'm glad that life led me to you.

*

What's a life?

Dean marries. Not the girl from college but a woman, later. Red hair, blue eyes. Absolutely no sense of humor beyond puns. Hates cooking and has strong opinions on movies from the 1980s. They have three kids, a girl and then a boy and then a girl again. All dark-haired, smart. Dean gives the boy the middle name Samuel and his wife holds his hand, says it sounds great.

He's a doctor. He meets hunters. He sets bones for free and prescribes medication when needed and when it will be needed. A woman, last name Novak, calls him and says you know, your dad was one of the greats?, and he meets people—older than him by twenty, thirty years, with scars and dangerous lives and guns hidden in every corner, and he hears stories. Sam Winchester, who saved the world. Dean knows—he's read the books—but there are more years that the books didn't cover, more people who didn't die because of his dad's intervention. "They were the best," one man says, shrugging, and gets no argument, nods and shrugs from every hunter in the room, and Dean goes home that night and kisses his littlest girl where she's already tucked up in bed, and he thinks: what will she know, about who her grandfather was? Who their family is? What could she possibly know?

Dean's wife dies in her eighties. An accident. A broken hip, an infection following. Still happens, even in this new century. The kids are grown, have kids of their own, and the funeral is big, and there are people at his elbow who say to him we're so sorry and who share anecdotes of her life and who support him to his chair, even though at ninety he's perfectly capable of getting to his chair himself. He's a cranky old man, he realizes. She would've laughed at him. He thinks, inevitably, of his own father's death. Silent and unmourned, except by one. What's a life.

He writes letters, for his children. The estate is handled. He calls the oldest girl and explains to her that she's going to be the executor, and that there are things she has to keep. A key. A car. Pictures, so that her boys will know where they came from. "Of course, Dad," she says, placating a little because he's old and clearly starting to lose his grip, but she'll do it. She's a good kid. Dean learned how to raise a kid from the best.

When he dies, he's expecting it. The trip to the hospital. The monitors. He knows the pain meds even if he's retired and his doctor looks like an infant but she gives him the good stuff. It's—easy. A slipping away. He closes his eyes to sleep and there is a moment where he thinks with surprisingly clarity, this is okay, isn't it, and has the feeling of someone's hand laid on his, and then he sleeps, and doesn't wake up again.

*

He opens his eyes in an armchair, in a house that he doesn't recognize but that feels instantly familiar. Music playing, somewhere, and a gold-tinged afternoon spilling through the window, and tone-deaf singing from the kitchen. His mind feels clearer than it has in… Tears come to his eyes but it doesn't hurt. He puts his fingers to his mouth and smiles, breathing in slow, and thinks—well, this is it. Heaven.

Time is no longer time. Space is—immaterial. There's a house, not their house, but it's roomy and it has what he needs and the bed he crawls into with his wife at the end of a day is comfortable, and that's what matters, as he lays his hand on her hip where he used to lay it always, and she sighs against the pillow and squirms and tucks herself into a fetal pretzel, like she always used to. The spill of her hair red against the pillow. Her warmth, plush against his bones. She smells not of honeysuckle or vanilla but just like warm, human skin, the faint bite of salt-sweat at the nape of her neck, the must in the morning in thin bluish light when she turns over and finds him awake, and smiles. Incredible. The weight of her is real, and the spot between her breasts when he kisses her there is real, and he'd always believed in some distant way that what his dad had told him was true—that there was a heaven, that there would be some kind of justice after death—but it was distant, and academic, because of course there was a life to live and patients to care for and children to raise and a wife to bury and a death to get through. What a thing, to come to. This place, with her hair on the pillow, and her smell. He hadn't forgotten it, in the end, after all.

The house sits in some place that feels like South Dakota. Home, or close to it. A lake among trees. A distance between things. He reads, and plays games he barely remembers from being a kid, and he watches the Ghostbusters movies again because his wife insists and they are, he has to admit, still funny, but he makes fun of the weird museum guy anyway, and she kicks him where her feet are tucked in his lap, and he tickles her in retaliation, and then—well, the movie will be there, later, when they're done.

She rides her bike every day. One day she comes back and says she was just visiting her mother, and Dean sits up and says, "What?" But—of course. What's time? What's a space, between this shared slow heaven and another? She shrugs—his mother-in-law says hi—and he sits there on the couch with his game paused, watching her go into the kitchen and shake her sweaty hair back from her face, redoing it into the practical twist at her neck like she always does, and he thinks—okay. Okay, maybe now.

The bookshelf has every book he could want, and seems to know what he needs to read before he does. Raining outside, spattering gentle on the eaves, and his wife made a huge pot of tea and took it to bed upstairs and left him just a cup, and so he sits at the kitchen table with his cup of tea and opens the book—Home, by Carver Edlund—and reads it, lingering, even if he's read it three times before online, his thumb brushing over the cheap too-thin pages of this physical copy. There's a poltergeist, preposterous. The psychic, odd and familiar. The brothers, united, and he reads the next-to-last chapter very slowly, lingering, as they find the box of pictures, as they get into the car together. Drive off, to meet some new dawning day.

He finishes his cup of tea. Puts on a clean shirt, combs his hair. "I'll be back," he says, to his wife, and she blinks at him from her nest of blankets with her own book and then only nods, and Dean goes downstairs and gets into his car and finds the road, beyond the garden gate, and drives.

He doesn't know where he's going but that doesn't matter. He turns on the car radio and it's playing—oldies, but really oldies, the stuff that was old when he was little. What childhood sounded like. Farms appear, melt away. Trees rising, through hills. He sings along, under his breath, remembering: a roadtrip to his grandma's house, Mom sleeping in the passenger seat and Dad driving through the night, and Dad singing very, very badly, as quiet as he could, and Dean thinking even as a kid that this was some private thing, to see, and he had to be silent and not show that he was awake or it would disappear. That feeling, it crept up on him at the oddest times, when he was an adult, and later. That sensation of the armored tank of the car moving through the dark, and the silence around them, and the quiet music inside, and Dad, in a world of his own, entirely separate from the world he shared with Dean.

Another hill. Climbing a mostly-paved road. Not raining anymore but the sun coming in slanted gold through the trees. Distance, and a curve, and then: a house. Old-looking. Older maybe than the one Dean and his wife share. In front of it, a car. The car.

Dean parks. He gets out, and the air smells washed-fresh, a little fecund. Like summer. He puts his hand on the hood of the Impala and it's sun-warm and he tears up, completely unexpected, and has to sit on the hood and hold his hands over his face, his heart—full, in a way he's felt since dying, but not in this particular way, this way of feeling that he thought had mellowed, a lifetime ago.

So much for putting on a good face. He wipes over his mouth and dashes his eyes clear. A porch, with new-carved railings. A door, painted blue. He knocks, his body feeling empty and clean and young, terribly young, and before he's quite ready the door opens, and it's—his uncle, in a purple plaid shirt and paint-spattered jeans and grey socks, frowning at him, saying, "Uh, hi?"

He looks—almost exactly like he looked in the pictures. Maybe forty, lines beside his eyes and heavy stubble on his jaw. The age he was when he died. Dean opens his mouth, can hardly dredge up what to say, and then he hears a voice say, "Dean?" and Dean and his uncle both turn their heads to see—Dad, young too, completely shocked, standing on the far side of the porch in running gear with sweat slicking his hair back from his head, and Dean drags in air and says, "Dad," and Dad grins at him, that big creased dorky-looking dad-smile that Dean only got once in a blue moon, and he steps forward and they're hugging, then, and it's—heaven. That's all he can think. Heaven, Dad's arms tight around him, his shoulders slotting in under Dad's because—Dad was so tall, and this is where Dean fit and never would fit again once Dad was gone. Here, under Dad's arm. Like being a kid again.

Dad's hand on the back of his head. A startled, shaky, deep breath in, and then hands gripping his shoulders, and being shoved reluctantly back to have Dad look down at his face, serious and worried. "How long has it been?" he says. "Are you—you didn't—?"

"I was ninety-seven," he says, and Dad's eyebrows go high and he smiles, big and glad and real, relieved. He touches Dean's face and Dean smiles back, tears rising again for no reason and for so many reasons. "I look good, don't I?"

Dad huffs a laugh. "You look great," he says, and then his eyes lift over Dean's head, and Dean has to turn around because—

What to call him? Uncle Dean. Standing there with his shoulder against the doorframe, his mouth tucked in on one side. Like from right out of one of the pictures, returning Dad's look. His eyes drop after a second to meet Dean's and Dean feels this odd jolt, in his chest. Bizarre, to see. He's real. All Dad's stories, the wall of memories, the books, and here he is, in grey socks, looking all over Dean's face like he's seeing it for the first time. "Guess you got your looks from your mom's side of the family," Uncle Dean says, finally, and Dad says, behind him, "Nice, dude," and Uncle Dean shrugs, unrepentant, but with an unexpected dimple quirking into his cheek, and holds out his hand to shake, and Dean takes it and has another shock at it, warm, callused, firm, real—while Uncle Dean says, wry, "Well, I guess some introductions are in order, huh?"

Uncle Dean and Dad share the house. It's nice, inside. Old fashioned in a way that feels comfortable, as Dean's come to expect. (He wonders, in a few hundred years—will new arrivals to heaven expect old-fashioned arcologies?) Uncle Dean brings beers from the kitchen and Dad takes his without even looking, drinking in Dean's face when Dean's doing the exact same to him. He looks so young. Younger, maybe, than he was even in the few pictures Dean has of him being a baby, held tiny in the crook of Dad's massive arm—some past time, some time Dean doesn't belong to, but Uncle Dean clearly does. Dad shakes his head after a few seconds, huffs again, rueful. "I don't even know where to start," he says.

Uncle Dean rolls his eyes, behind him, and says, "How about you ask the kid how he's doing, genius." Mean, but he squeezes Dad's shoulder too, and Dad bites his lip, looks at Dean, his head tipping. Asking.

It's awkward, but only in the way Dean would expect. To see his dad after so long—and both of them dead—and to explain… what? A life. Being a doctor, meeting a wife. Children. Grandchildren. "Great-grandpa Sammy," Uncle Dean fake-whispers, "told you you were old." Nudging Dad, half-sitting on the arm of his chair. Looking proud enough he could burst, although Dean doesn't know exactly why.

"Are you going to make dinner or are you just here to heckle?" Dad says, looking up, exasperated, and Uncle Dean raises his hands, says, "Oh, I'm here to heckle," but he gets up, too, says, "You get tired of the inquisition, kid, we've got more drinks in the kitchen," and cuffs Dad around the back of the head before he disappears down the blue-painted hall—and music comes on, after a moment. The kind of music that was on Dean's radio as he drove. Comfort sounds that go deep into some space beyond his bones.

"He's a lot, sorry," Dad says, after a second.

"I know, I read about it," Dean says, and Dad blinks at him, mouth half-open, before he remembers.

They have dinner. Uncle Dean makes burgers, fries, a spinach salad that Dean and Dad both groan at, and he looks at them across the table with his burger in his hands and shakes his head. No salad on his plate, Dean notices. They talk but about—nothing. Uncle Dean asks if the Broncos ever won the Superbowl again and Dean tries to dredge up an answer. Dad asks what his wife did for a living. Dean wants to ask things and doesn't know how. There's time, he knows, but for now all he can do is—watch. Dad leaning back in his chair with a beer, smiling at him while Uncle Dean tells some probably well-worn story about trying to fix the Impala in a rainstorm, and Dad was pissed for some reason and so kept handing him the wrong tools. "It was too dark to actually read the grip numbers," Dad says, patient like it's the hundredth time, and Uncle Dean says back, immediately, "Who needs the numbers? You can feel the weight in your hand!" Old arguments, well-worn, in the well-worn house. The way they move around each other, washing dishes, putting plates away. The way Dad's eyes will jump across the table, half a second before Uncle Dean's even opening his mouth, a smile already waiting to be pushed back down.

When it's night he says he should get back to his wife. "I'd like to meet her," Dad says, "some day."

"Gotta see who's willing to put up with a Winchester," Uncle Dean says, eyebrows waggling.

Dad sighs but nods, too. Dean gets folded into a hug, there under the tuck of his arm, and then he hugs Uncle Dean, too, impulsive and just—wanting to, feeling like a kid. Uncle Dean startles but hugs him back right away. "You're good, kid," he says, quiet against the side of Dean's head, and Dean nods and says, "Thanks," for more than he can say other than that, right then on this particular day, and then he gets into his car and pulls away from the house and looks back to see Uncle Dean gripping Dad's shoulder again while they watch him move away—and when he's home, after a blurring drive that's long enough for him to settle himself, he comes up the stairs to where his wife's warm in bed and slides in beside her and she says, sleepy, "How was it," and he says against her hair, "Perfect," because—it was. It was perfect.

*

Dean comes alone to their house twice more, on days when he needs it and doesn't see a reason not to. He brings his wife, the third time, and Dad's extremely polite and Uncle Dean asks her about engineering and Dean enjoys it, from the couch, while she gets the same interrogation he did, and they're driving home with her at the wheel, his eyes on the passing trees, before she says, "They're an interesting couple," and it doesn't strike him, for what may be a mile of blurring distance, why that sentence wasn't quite right.

It should be a shock. It isn't. That it isn't should, itself, be a shock, but he sits with it for a few days, the easy rhythm of heaven sliding around them.

He goes to see his mother, finally. She's in a place on a lakeshore. Her first husband, kind but remote, giving them space. She presses his hands between her own and he goes through the list of answers to all her questions, smiling, feeling déjà vu, and then says, cautious, that he's been to see Dad. "Oh!" she says, and doesn't seem upset. "How is he?"

"Good," he says. They never married, his parents—Dad had told him, much later, that it just didn't occur to him to ask—and he knew they didn't resent each other, but there wasn't much closeness there. He didn't realize how little until he was married himself. Still, he's cautious as he says: "He and my uncle have a place. Uncle Dean, you know?"

Mom sits back in her chair. "Well, then," she says, soft. She's youngish, too. Fifty maybe, her hair shot with grey. "That sounds about right."

He doesn't know how to ask but there's no way to do it other than just—to ask. "What do you know about him?"

Mom smiles, slow, and looks out at the lake. "Honey, your dad's a good man, but I think you know as well as I do that he doesn't give a lot away." Dean follows her look. A boat, far out on the water. Not close enough to hail. "He didn't talk about his brother, much. That said more than I think he knew it did. All those pictures. Well, you remember." She shakes her head, looking down at her lap. "I resented him for a while. A dead man. Silly of me. But then I suppose your dad could have resented Luke, if he'd—cared more. Sorry. That sounds like I'm angry, but I'm not. There just wasn't much left in Sam, that's all. He loved you and he loved someone that wasn't here anymore and there just wasn't room for me, or at least not room for what I needed. I wished I could've known him. Dean, I mean. I would've understood your dad a lot more, I think, but then—I don't think I would've ever met him, if Dean were around."

When he gets home he pulls a book off the shelf. Frail, the spine cracked badly. Supernatural, the first book in the whole series. When Dad was at college and the whole thing started. He sits on the floor by the bookshelf and lets the cup of tea his wife brings go cold on the rug, and reads again and again the scene—coming down the stairwell, finding the car in the garage, going through the details of the voice on the tape, on where their dad (Dean's grandfather) could possibly be, and Dad says there's this interview he can't skip. His whole future, on a plate. In the story, it's Dad's point of view, and he looks at Uncle Dean and Uncle Dean smirks, and Dad thinks, This is exactly what I was getting away from. Dean drags his thumb over the page, looks at the shelf. All those books. All the years in them, and the horrors in those. Hell, and apocalypse, and none of it euphemisms or easy metaphor. All the things Dad wanted to get away from—and then all the years, after, where he stayed exactly where he was. And then—a lifetime later—to come back home to a house, with a blue door, and his eyes not bothering to follow his brother as he leaves a room, because he knows without doubt that he'll be back.

In bed, he asks his wife, "When do you think the kids will get here?" and she turns over and stares at him, and says, "Hopefully not for years?"

He shakes his head, folds his arm under his head. "Duh," he says, and gets her to punch his chest lightly. "Ow. I meant… I don't know. What do you think their lives will be? Like… who will they be? I can't even imagine."

She stops trying to lightly beat him and goes thoughtful. Her thumb finds the little scar on her chin and rubs it, as is her habit, and her eyes slip over his shoulder to the distance. "They'll be—them." He raises his eyebrows, and she shrugs, rolling closer. "I mean, what do you want from me? I knew Abbie for fifty-one years and I still think that girl's a mystery. When she's… probably a grandmother herself, now, I guess. Is she still at Notre Dame? Are she and Andre happy? Are the boys healthy and do they like each other, and did she ever get Jacob to stop drawing cartoon dicks on the walls?" Dean laughs—god, he'd forgotten that—and she smiles at him, props her head on one fist. Says, softer, "Did she live the life she wanted to have? I don't know. I guess when she gets here we can ask her, but we'll never…"

No, they'll never. Dean touches the scar on her chin and she focuses on him, instead of some other world they're no longer privy to. "It's a venn diagram," he says, after a moment. "All of us. Abbie, overlapping with you and me, and then us overlapping with our parents, and on and on, all the way back. I guess we don't get to know what's outside the center parts."

"Even if there's a hundred and four crappily-written books about the other parts," she says, raising her eyebrows, and Dean shrugs, caught. She grins, shaking her head at him, and then squirms in close, tucking in under his chin. Kisses his throat, sighs. "Why not stop at a hundred? Seems random."

"I don't know, maybe the publisher wanted him to stretch it out," Dean says, and she hums, and puts her nose on his collarbone to settle in. He smooths her hair back, away from her shoulder. His favorite book is Swan Song, probably. The final one, as far as most people knew. His dad, the hero, saving humanity and the world, but that wasn't the best part. The best part was the army man, stuck in the door. His dad, looking at that, and meeting his brother's eye, and that being—enough. Just that, and all the life it represented. Enough.

"Venn diagrams," he says, aloud, quietly.

"Yes, you're very brilliant, Dr. Winchester," his wife says, mumbling. "Now go to sleep."

He kisses her hair, and does.

[kpop-cakepops]

hello omg can i request a jun band!au,, as for the plot it can be that op loves the band jun is in but they don't really know the members and only listen to the music so when they happen to cross paths,,, they aren't aware that they're talking to jun if that makes sense,, but honestly any plot would do! do whatever u want w the suggestion <3

also hope u are resting well i saw your prev posts from before !

BYYYYYEEEE This one was soooooo nice to write!!! Imagine "Crow" as a rock ballad?!?!?! BYYYYYYEEEEEE. Also, I referenced "Wildflower" by 5 Seconds of Summer because I love 5 Seconds of Summer lolololol. Hope you like thisss!

Warnings: none

Genre: Fluff

Word Count: 2,003

Let's Write a Song, You and Me// Wen Junhui x Female! Reader

"I heard they're playing at that new bar downtown, we should seriously go see them" your little sister was bouncing on the balls of her feet excitedly.

"You forget you're only 17. You're not going anywhere near a bar" you rolled your eyes and snatched the flyer from her hand where the logo of your most recent (and very secret) obsession was largely printed.

"I am if I'm with you! Pretty please?! You literally only listen to their music, I actually follow their social media and watch all their YouTube videos! Pleaseeeeee Y/N, I never even ask you for any favors. I HAVE to be there"

"No, now please for the love of God, get out of here. This is my workplace and I don't know if you're aware but I need this job." You grabbed her by the shoulders and quickly led her to the exit. "Now gooooo"

"You hate me. I'm convinced you hate me. I'm going to run away! Just you wait! I'm gonna run away and never come back-" your little sister's yelling was drowned out as the door to the small Chinese restaurant you worked at shut closed.

You watched from the window as your sister stomped her right foot on the ground and disappeared, probably on her way to your parents' house. Finally out of sight and giving you enough freedom to rush behind the counter and grab the flyer your sister had brought in. "1 Plus the Moon" was plastered in big bold letters and a date right beside it. They really were going to play at the new bar downtown...

"What are you looking at?"

Startled, you shoved the piece of paper into the pocket of your apron, "Oh! Hi, hey what's up?" You greeted Jun, the son of the restaurant's owners, as you watched him walk up to the counter with a suspicious look in his eyes.

"Nothing, I'm just coming in to cover for my parents," he said.

"Oh yeah? How come? Are they okay?" You blabbered on as you pretended to wipe the counter.

He bit back a laugh and pointed at the digital clock on the wall that showcased the day, date, and time. "Y/N, it's a Tuesday, I'm always here on Tuesdays"

"That's right... sorry. I've been a little off today! Don't mind me, I'll just get to work!" With a small grin, you hurried off to clean the tables again, before rush hour started.

Jun watched you from where he stood. You always seemed to miss the way the tall young man watched you, any time you were around, it was like there was honey dripping from his eyes. Too bad you were more interested in making money and songwriting than in love and men.

"Do you think it will be busy today?" He asked trying anything possible to hold a conversation with you.

"Of course it will. The girls from the high school down the block know your schedule by heart. They'll be here, trust me" You chided and walked over to stand beside him, not realizing the flyer had fallen from the pocket on your apron.

Jun did, though.

"1 Plus The Moon" he read out loud. It wasn't what he had expected to see. The flyer to his band's gig.

With a grimace, you snatched the flyer from his hands. "It's a band," You told him. "They're super lowkey, you wouldn't know them."

Your boss' son had to bite back a smile as he watched you. "Super lowkey? Are they any good?"

"They're awesome! They have some really nice songs."

"Couldn't be that good if they're so lowkey, right?" he teased. Your face scrunched in distaste at his comment.

"Being 'lowkey' doesn't equate to them being no good. They have really good songs. Wait here..." you rushed to the small back room and connected your phone to the sound system, soft rock music playing. The songs Jun knew by heart. Many of which Jun had written about you out of frustration in his inability to tell you that he'd had feelings for you since the moment you walked into his parent's restaurant when you were both only 18.

"Is this them?" he asked once you reappeared.

You nodded sheepishly and avoided his eyes. "I haven't ever seen them, I just really like the lyrics they write. Like this one specifically... 'Wandering alone on the street, Ignoring the public, The world is as black as a crow'" you sang along softly. "Isn't that beautiful?"

Jun was down bad. He could feel it in his chest, the way his heart clenched and unclenched as he heard you sing along to the lyrics he himself had written. As he heard you sing along to his voice.

"Yeah, not bad at all... are you going to go?" he asked.

"Huh?"

He nodded over to the crumpled flyer that rested before you. "To the gig"

"Oh! I want to. I guess I'll just ask for the day off and see if I can... You wanna come with?" you asked not really thinking much of it.

"Me?"

"Yeah. I don't have any friends, and I can't exactly take my 17-year-old sister to a bar." You laughed.

There it was. He had been beating himself up about telling you how he felt for the past few months, but if there was one talent Jun excelled at (aside from playing bass, singing, and songwriting) it was never knowing how to read the room. That's how he found himself missing opportunity upon opportunity to tell you how much he liked you. But this was his sign.

"It hurts a little that you say you have no friends when I'm literally right here-"

"You're my boss"

"Not your boss, but your bestie... Anyways, I'm down to go" he finally said. "I'll meet you there, though. I'm gonna be a bit busy before that..."

****

"A bit busy my ass" you grumbled under your breath as you looked around the crowded bar. 1 Plus The Moon was about to go on stage and you were almost sure Jun had stood you up.

Are you coming at all?

That had been the last text you had sent him, and that had been 20 minutes prior... the little shit had read it too.

"No, I really hate men" you downed a shot to calm the burning rage within you.

The loud screech of a mic turning on made you jump and turn your attention over to the tiny stage set up the bar had prepared for the band. Suddenly being stood up didn't matter as much.

"Are we ready to have a good time?" the owner of the bar asked from the stage. The crowd around you erupting in cheers. You couldn't help but join in.

I'm here

Your phone buzzed on the table alerting you to a new message from Jun. You looked over in direction of the entrance to see if you could wave him over but you couldn't see the tall man anywhere.

where?

"Hey everyone, thank you so much for coming out today"

You snapped your head over to the stage to find that the band was already walking onstage... and so was...

"Jun?!"

He was stood tall, dressed in all black, with an electric bass guitar strung to his top half accompanied by 4 other boys, one of which was droning on introducing the band.

"Jun." You mumbled almost as if answering your own disbelief. His eyes were roaming the crowd until they found yours and he nodded over at you from his spot, causing your heart to do a thing... a weird thing that your heart had never done before.

The man grinned shyly at you and picked his hand up in a small wave, making a few people turn their heads over to see who had caught the handsome bassist's attention. It made you feel a certain kind of way when girls and boys alike whispered in jealousy around you.

"Before we start... I just wanted to let you all know that this one is going to be a really special performance for me, this is the first time I perform in front of the girl that inspired so many of the songs you all love..." Jun was talking now, his eyes trained solely on you as he spoke almost carefully. "Y/N... hi... I like you."

The crowd erupted in cheers at the sudden confession while all you could do was stare at him dumbfounded.

Hi... I like you.

The music drowned out the cheering crowd and you were left to think about all that he had just said. Starting with you having inspired a lot of the songs he had written... did he mean the same song you'd cried yourself to sleep to? The ones you daydreamed to? The ones you had learned by heart in only 3 days?

There were so many thoughts running through your mind that you were left numb in your seat, so numb you didn't even realize when the band had stopped playing and the crowd had stopped singing. Even the ice cubes in your drink had melted leaving your drink to be a watered-down version of what it had originally been.

"Hey, you..."

Your head snapped up to see Junhui standing across from you, hands hidden deep in the pockets of his black jeans. There was nervousness and caution in the air, you could tell from the way he swayed back and forth on his feet.

"Hey" You replied quickly moving your gaze to the ugly drink that rested before you. "You're in a band... that's crazy" you mused.

Jun coughed out a painfully awkward chuckle. You were avoiding his confession and although he thought he was prepared for that, a part of his being was still hurting.

"So which ones are about me?" You asked.

Jun was caught off guard, his pretty eyes widening in surprise. "Sorry?"

You finally built up enough courage to look up at him. "The songs... which ones are about me?"

"I wrote Wildflower about you a few weeks ago" he admitted quickly. "When you wore your hair down for the first time in years"

Once again your heart did the thing it had earlier, the one it had never done before. "I love Wildflower" you confessed.

He couldn't wait any longer, he wanted to know what you thought about his confession, no, he needed to know what you thought of his confession. "Y/N listen-"

"I don't know if I like you like that" you blurted in panic. Junhui felt himself deflate in disappointment. Yet again, he thought he was prepared for the worst, but he obviously wasn't. "But I do know that right now I'm feeling a lot of things I hadn't felt before... I've never really thought of you in that way, but that's not because I don't think you're not handsome or sweet, I just-"

The poor guy's mind was buzzing and his heart was racing. "You don't have to feel pressured... I don't need you to like me right away. I just want you to know how I've been feeling and I really want to do my best this time."

What in the cursed anime plot was going on?! You wanted so badly to run away and hide for a few weeks. Digest all that you'd just been exposed to. ('All' being your apparent romantic awakening and the fact that not only was the first man to ever confess to you insanely handsome, but he was also your favorite musician to exist.)

Instead of digesting as you'd wished for, you asked, "Do you want to write a song together?"

Again, Jun was surprised. "A song?" he asked.

"Yeah, you and me" you continued. "I'm still your fan, and I promised myself that if I met you, I would ask for this."

"Okay then. Let's write a song together. You and me." He agreed with a smile.

The first of many, he secretly hoped.

[isitgintimeyet]

Just a Friend

So I finally started to write another story...

I will try and post weekly, but can’t promise on account of real life and my inability to actually focus on translating what’s in my head onto paper (or screen!)

Getting the courage to post never gets any easier, but here goes. I hope you enjoy this frothy bit of fun. I will also post on AO3.

Thanks to @wickedgoodbooks for being an excellent beta.

Chapter 1: From Airport to Aggravation

Bank holiday crowds, on the whole, are hell.

And this one is rapidly turning into an even deeper level of purgatory. The hottest May for years in Scotland and I’m stuck at Glasgow airport with a dozen women, collectively known as ‘Geillis’s Hen Party Posse’, each displaying varying degrees of inebriation, hangover or general sleep deprivation, and all aiming for the luggage carousel showing the flight from Barcelona. Which apparently is where several hundred other disembarked passengers are also heading.

Eventually, I manage to get a view of the bags and cases slowly making their way around the belt. They’re pretty picked over by this time, apart from the couple of boxes covered in gaffer tape that always seem to be first off a plane—any plane—and last to be collected. They’re always there, on every flight. Why is that?

I pause from my musings to wave frantically at Geillis, who now has a trolley and is clearing a path straight towards me.

“I got us a trolley.” she informs me, stating the obvious. “I thought it’d be easier. Have ye seen ours yet, Claire? I canna see the others. They must have already gone through.”

“No,” I answer, keeping my eyes firmly on the little hatch, willing our bags to appear. All I want is to go home, put my sleep mask on and try and get some sleep. Three days in Barcelona celebrating Geillis’s forthcoming nuptials have worn me out, and, I glance at my watch, I am due in theatre in approximately seventeen hours time.

"It's there, it's there," Geillis points excitedly at the neon pink and green leopard print bag making its way towards us.

She makes a grab for it as I continue to look for my bag. Predictably, it’s one of the last ones on the carousel. I recognise it immediately from the piece of red gift ribbon tied to the handle of the plain black Samsonite. I load it onto the trolley and Geillis and I head through customs to join the rest of the posse.

We say our goodbyes loudly, with much hugging and kisses. A stranger viewing this scene might imagine we won’t be seeing each other again for weeks or even months. In truth, I’ll be seeing most of them in the next week or so at the hospital as our schedules coincide.

“Shall we two get a taxi, then?” Geillis asks me.

I start to answer as my mobile pings — a text from Frank...very nice, very caring, very predictable.

Darling, it’s been a long three days without you. I am ready to collect you from the airport if you would like. If not, might I see you later this evening? xxx

And that is very clearly Frank. Correct grammar and punctuation, even on his texts. I shake my head as if to drive away my inner bitch and pretend I haven’t read it. I will respond, of course, just later when I’m back at home.

So, I smile at Geillis and agree. “Of course, we can go halves.”

***********

As I walk into my flat, the peace and quiet and sheer bloody calm wraps itself around me like a swaddling cloth. It’s blissfully cool too, with all the shutters closed.

It’s not that I didn’t have a good time in Barcelona. It was actually great. But being in the company of others twenty four hours a day is wearing, much as I love them. And we all had to do everything together. No sneaking off for a solitary walk, or escaping to bed for a little siesta.

I deposit my suitcase by the bedroom door, slip off my converse, pour myself a glass of orange juice, settle down on the sofa and figure out how best to tell Frank not tonight without offending him.

Frank, Sorry but tonight isn’t —

I delete and try again.

Thanks for the offer to pick me up. I was already in the taxi when I got it. Can we give tonight a miss? Theatre in the morning and I’m knackered totally exhausted. You know what Geillis is like. Speak tomorrow, I promise. C

Frank knows what Geillis is like. Frank thinks Geillis is a bad influence on me, with her larger than life personality and wild ideas. I think Frank doesn’t really know me at all if he believes I can be influenced like that. I hang out with Geillis and my friends because they’re fun and we laugh… a lot.

Without realising, I feel my shoulder muscles relax as soon as I’ve sent the message. These are not good signs for my relationship with Frank. He’s investing far more into ‘us’ than I am willing to do. But as long as I’m honest with him…

There are advantages to being with Frank, of course. He’s punctual, very organised and a proficient and considerate lover. He always makes sure I come, even if I sometimes...er… exaggerate my reactions to hurry things along. So much for honesty, then.

I finish my orange juice and plan my evening. Four things to do - unpack, grab some food, shower and sleep. Not even going to wash my hair. That would really be too much effort, struggling with my untameable mane, and it’s going to be stuck under a surgical cap for most of tomorrow anyway.

It takes a bit of effort to actually move from the sofa. I could quite happily fall asleep there. But then I’d wake up in the middle of the night—starving hungry and still smelling of sweaty airports. Reluctantly, I haul myself into a vertical position and head for my bedroom picking up my suitcase en route.

Opening the suitcase, I am not greeted with the expected haphazard mass of sun dresses, t shirts and shorts—all with the evocative aroma of Hawaiian Tropic—but a layer of white dress shirts, immaculately folded and the faint scent of a musky cologne.

Shit, shit, shit!! Some else has walked off with my black samsonite with the red ribbon on the handle. My evening plans are rapidly going awry. I delve into my handbag praying that I kept my boarding pass with the sticky bar code luggage receipt. The relief when I find it lurking in the bottom of my bag is immense. Quickly I google the airline lost baggage number and dial.

After a few bars of some god awful plinky plinky hold music, I hear a recorded message. “Your call is important to us, please hold. Your call is important to us, please hold.”

Good to know, then back to the plinky plinky before another message. “The office you are trying to reach is now closed. Please try again during office hours nine am to five thirty. Thank you.”

“If my call is so important to you, why is no one there at six o’clock?” I yell down the phone, but the plinky plinky ignores me and continues its irritating melody.

I sigh. I don’t want to have to wait until tomorrow morning to sort this out. Besides, by nine am tomorrow morning, I will be somewhat unavailable - reshaping the hip bone of a seven year old boy. So, I have no alternative. I will have to have a bit of a dig around this stranger’s suitcase, looking for any clue or contact details.

As I start to have a feel around, it occurs to me that some stranger might, at this very moment, be doing exactly the same thing — having a poke around my suitcase in the hope of finding my details. No doubt judging me based on my choice of holiday attire.  And, I suddenly realise, his judgement may well be coloured by the discovery of some items of a more adult nature.

I say ‘he’, based on the XL white shirts, the pair of battered jeans and faded Scotland rugby shirt, but I could be wrong. I don’t have to dig any further into the case as I spy, in a mesh pocket, a neat rectangle of card with a name — James Fraser — a mobile number and an email address.

Relief sweeps over me. Perhaps we can get this all sorted tonight. Unless this James Fraser lives miles away and was just passing through Glasgow on his way to, say, the Outer Hebrides. That could be a whole other level of problem.

I quickly reach for my phone. Another message from Frank awaits.

Are you sure, darling? I’m looking forward to seeing you. Would tomorrow evening work for you?

I ignore it for the moment. Let me sort my luggage issue out first.

I dial the number on the card and begin to pace around my bedroom as it rings and rings. I am just about to give up when, thankfully, it’s answered.

“Hello?” A female voice asks warily.

I clear my throat and put on my most pleasant phone voice. “Is there a James Fraser there please?”

“Ye’ve the wrong number.”

“Oh, sorry, I must have mis—“ I begin, but find myself apologising to dead air.

I try again, carefully comparing each digit to those written, very neatly, on the card.

“Hello?” The same female voice answers, more than a hint of annoyance in her voice.

“I’m sorry, but this is the number I have for James Fra—“

“And I already told ye, ye’ve the wrong number. Dinna bother again.”

In the days before mobiles, I’m sure this would have been accompanied by a deafening crash as the receiver hit the cradle. Pressing a soft key doesn’t have the same dramatic effect. But I get the message anyway.

So, new plan needed. All I can do is email this James Fraser and hope he actually has written down the correct email address. If not, I’ll have to sort it out with the airline tomorrow afternoon.

My stomach rumbles and I suddenly realise that I’ve not eaten since breakfast, unless you count the slices of fruit in my jug of sangria. I wander into the kitchen and peruse the contents of my cupboards and fridge. I’m not the most gifted cook, but I’m not too bad and can usually rustle up something edible and fairly tasty. The bread feels a bit on the dry side but will be fine toasted, and I know I have eggs.

I put a knob of butter in a pan and text Frank while I’m waiting for it to sizzle.

Think tomoz will be ok. Talk 2morrow. C

I don’t normally use text speak at all,  but something about Frank’s perfectly formed text messages always makes me want to rebel. I can imagine him wincing right now.  He’s a professor at the university and is forever complaining about the standard of literacy amongst his undergraduates. If he thinks he has problems, he should try dealing with junior doctors.

With my scrambled egg on toast all eaten, I focus my attention on the email to James Fraser. I write it quickly, brief and to the point: I have your suitcase and therefore presume you have mine, can we meet to swap them over and here’s my phone number.

The longing for a shower and then bed is now overwhelming. I strip off and bundle all my clothes into the laundry basket, tie my hair up with a scrunchie and step into my shower. This is undoubtedly one of my favourite places on earth and possibly the reason that I bought this flat. Large enough for two, I suppose. Although none have yet been invited to partake in this heavenly experience. Maybe I’m saving that for someone extra special. It has a huge overhead rainfall shower head and a handheld shower head too.

My indulgences are all in here — a selection of expensive shower gels, scrubs and lotions and an assortment of huge fluffy bath towels. I choose a lavender scented gel and scrub all traces of the day from my skin.

Wrapping myself  in one of my pristine white towels, I slather shea butter lotion on my slightly sun-burnt skin, noticing the uneven red patches where the sun cream hadn’t quite reached but at least it’s not sore.

A quick check of my emails shows there’s no word from James Fraser as yet, so I decide to just settle down to sleep and leave luggage worries until the morning. Fortunately, I had changed the sheets before my weekend away, so I simply unwrap my towel, leaving it in a heap on the floor and slide into bed. The feeling of the cool, crisp bedding against my skin is wonderful. I assume a sort of diagonal starfish position, not having to worry about any other occupants. It crosses my mind whether to reach for the tiny vibrator in my bedside drawer, but I’m too comfortable and drowsy for that, so instead I check my alarm and settle down for sleep.

[imjusthereforbatfam]

Never-Ending Encore, ch 7.

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Chapter Summary: Very Drinks Café. That’s the name of the café. I’m literally not even joking. Anyway, would you like a slice of unresolved childhood trauma with that stalker mix-up?

Warnings: minor swearing, extremely minor mention of su*cide (like, you might even miss it), panic attack

Note: Ede is pronounced “EE-d”, like “need” or “greed”, and Edie is pronounced “EE-Dee”, like “needy” or “greedy.”

---

Being a professional actor was a more tiring and time-consuming line of work than Eden had originally thought. She was so accustomed to her old community theater’s three hours of practice three times a week that she’d expected something similar when she arrived in Gotham. Landing her first “real” gig was a wake-up call. Six 8-hour days in a row taught her just how much time and energy professionals put into their craft.

In Gotham’s theater world, Monday was considered the weekend. There were no performances for audiences to view and no practices for cast members to attend, so Sundays were often filled with tired actors excited to go for drinks or eager to sleep in.

This particular Sunday, Eden was brimming with energy. So much so she actually volunteered to take someone’s place on the daily mid-afternoon caffeine run. The director, Daphne, gave Eden a half-amused smile as she put in the usual order on her phone then sent the small group on their way.

“Somebody’s chipper today,” Aaron grumbled, still sour about not being able to convince anyone to take his turn.

Eden ignored his mood. “Yep! A sort-of friend of mine might be coming over tonight and I’m excited to see him.”

Veronica glanced over her huge sunglasses with an approving smirk. “Oooo, yeah?”

Even when it wasn’t her turn on the caffeine run, Veronica, one of the show’s leads, almost always joined the group. She had a very particular drink from a very particular café in the area she adored, and she would always lead the group there before grabbing everyone else’s drinks at Stardunks. She always bought the other runners something for their trouble too, which was probably the politest thing Eden had seen in Gotham.

“Good for you, Edie,” Veronica went on. “I didn’t take you for the friends-with-benefits type.”

“Friends with—?” Her brain froze. It lumbered over itself, trying to comprehend the idea of Red Hood – big, strong, muscles-for-days Red Hood –, the infamous vigilante, being friends with benefits… With her.

Her face exploded with color.

“Ohnononono! I mean, I meant like, meaning we aren’t exactly friends yet, is what I meant! Like we’re almost friends but not exactly, like— I mean— You know— Not— Not that there’s anything wrong with being friends with benefits, of course! Of course not! Who doesn’t like a good benefit— friend— thing?”

Aaron let out a low, dry “Woooow” and Veronica made an unimpressed face, the girl not caring at all for Eden’s fumbling. Knowing this, Eden’s face grew hotter and her words came out higher and faster.

“It’s just that I, you know, I personally— I mean, the guy’s sweet-as-pie and funny-as-heck but I don’t really know him that well and, you know, it just seems like a bit of a personal thing to jump into, and I’m really not all that—”

“Oh my god, it’s fine, Eden!” Veronica finally shouted with a roll of her eyes. “You’re not in Alabama or Indiana or whatever backwater state you’re from—”

Eden nearly lost her footing, her body stumbling as her brain stumbled over the insult. Veronica, now tuned into her phone, didn’t notice.

“—I was just trying to be supportive. No need to be a spaz about it.”

Eden gaped at Veronica, still not quite believing her ears. But disbelief didn’t stop her blood from boiling.

“Excuse—”

“Anyway!” Aaron said quickly, grabbing Veronica’s attention. “Have you seen pictures of the dress they’re putting you in for the ball scenes yet?”

“Have you? Ugh, it looks atrocious. Can you believe they want me to wear that shade of yellow? Like, seriously? I’m supposed to be the most beautiful sister, not the one who looks like she’s covered in mustard!”

Eden glared at Aaron from behind Veronica’s ranting head. He caught it and threw a warning look back, shaking his head minutely. Fuming, Eden sharpened her gaze then turned away, ignoring the both of them as best she could.

Veronica was a bit spoiled. The way she spoke about the vacations across Europe and the galas she and her father attended up and down the Northeastern coastline made it impossible to miss. Even so, Eden usually thought she was nice enough.

She was incredibly friendly for a Gothamite – especially a wealthy one – but she often tossed out carelessly ignorant comments that left Eden balking. It didn’t help that no one in the cast ever really corrected her, either. Even the director, though firm, was careful when critiquing Veronica.

Eden didn’t understand why they did it, but she didn’t care for it at all. It left a burning itch under her skin in desperate need of a scratch. But every time she went to, someone else interrupted her or stole Veronica’s attention away and gave her a warning look. It was infuriating.

As they approached the fancy café, Café Très Boissons written in thin white print across the window, someone’s phone started to buzz.

“I have to take this,” Veronica announced, shoving her purse into Eden’s hands.

Eden, not paying attention, nearly dropped it. “Whoa! Wha—”

“Go in and ask for my usual drink and whatever you two want. Use the pink card, yeah?”

“Huh?”

She put the phone to her ear. “Hi, Daddy, how was your flight?” She made a shooing motion at Eden then turned to focus on her phone call. Eden gaped at her, but she didn’t notice.

Aaron, who didn’t seem offended at all, nudged Eden and headed toward the door. She looked between him, the purse, and the infuriatingly oblivious young woman who’d handed it to her, before shaking her head and following him in.

She’d been to Café Très Boissons once before, about a week ago with Veronica and another cast member when it had officially been her turn on the caffeine run. Letting the door close behind her, she found the place just as unpleasant as the last time.

Everything was too… crisp. Too light and bright and minimalist. It was like stepping out of real-life and into a far-too-expensive décor magazine. The air was stiff, too. Suffocating, even. How anybody was supposed to relax in a place like this, Eden didn’t know.

The other patrons weren’t very welcoming either. They all dressed in smart, sleek clothing and held themselves like incredibly important people, all too busy with incredibly important things to pay anyone else any mind. Those who did happen to notice Eden and Aaron – who looked distinctly “artsy” amongst the ironed slacks and sleek skirts – quickly dismissed them.

The only ones who didn’t match the rest of the crowd – in both attire and actions – was a group of young men tucked into one of the corner booths. Eden could immediately guess which of them had suggested the spot, as he was the only one who roughly fit the dress code and seemed to be enjoying himself. (The pre-teen next to him fit it perfectly, wearing the same fitted attire as everyone else, but he had a distinctly unimpressed frown fixed to his face.)

The other two with him were easily Eden’s favorite people in the place. Amongst all the prim and pomp of everyone and everything else around them, those two were wearing hoodies.

The tired-looking teen in the black Superman hoodie still sat up nicely and gave some regard to where he was, but the one in red did not give into the café’s demands of refinement in the slightest. In fact, the way he was lounging in his seat with his arms crossed and hood drawn up, he almost looked ready to take a nap. His resolve to not give a damn was nothing if not admirable.

“Hi, Veronica!” the barista chirped, startling Eden both with the name and how happy he sounded to see her in this unfriendly place. “I already started your usual but what else can I…” He blinked at her. “Oh, whoops,” his tone, though still professional, dropped. “Sorry, miss, I thought you were somebody else.”

“Uh, that’s alright. I’m actually ordering for a Veronica who comes in here every day, so…”

“Veronica Bradford?”

Eden nodded slowly, then turned to Aaron to be sure.

“Yeah, that’s her,” he confirmed. “And I’ll have the same, but with the blueberry whip and no caramel.”

The barista nodded, writing that down, then turned to Eden, who was awkwardly fishing through Veronica’s big white purse to find the girl’s wallet.

“And you, miss?” he prompted.

“Oh, uh, do you have sweet tea?”

“We have tea and sweeteners we can add? Sugar and sugar-free options.”

“No, that’s— I’m good actually, thank you.”

“Are you sure? We have plenty to choose from.”

“No, that’s alright. Thank you.”

“Just get what we’re getting,” Aaron pressed. “It’s not bad, and you’re not paying for it anyway.”

“Neither are you,” she reminded him.

He shrugged.

“They are really good, miss,” the barista added. “It’s not tea but it is a sweet latte. It’s one of my favorites to recommend.”

“Oh, alright,” she sighed a little. “I guess I’ll take one, too.”

She went back to digging through the purse. When she finally found Veronica’s wallet, she almost blanched at the luxury brand name printed clearly across the front. Carefully, she opened it and delicately handed the barista the pink credit card. Aaron took over from there and left a huge tip that almost made Eden faint.

She stared at the receipt, blindly following him to a table. The three-digit number stared back.

“You’re giving her this,” she said suddenly, shoving the thin paper at him. “I don’t want nothing to do with that.”

“Oh, calm down, Eden. Her daddy dearest is so rich she won’t even bat an eyelash.”

Eden carefully set the purse onto their table, noticed the same brand name in rose gold on its front, and gently pushed it away from her. “I feel like a thief.”

Aaron scoffed, pulling out his phone. “With that bag? You look the part.”

“Ha ha, very funny.”

After a moment, she straightened and lifted herself up to see out the front window. From their high table near the corner, she could just catch the top of Veronica’s head. It moved in such a way that clearly meant she was still on the phone.

“Do I really look like her?” she asked in a small voice, sitting back down. “Like Veronica?”

Even if she wasn’t currently happy with the woman, Eden couldn’t deny she was a little flattered to have been mistaken for her. Veronica was undeniably pretty; beautiful in the way rich folks could easily afford to be. Like every inch of her was perfectly tailored to meet the highest of society’s standards.

“Hmm.” Aaron briefly glanced up from his phone. “I guess I can see it. You could easily be her double for some, like, security reason.”

Eden snorted. “Well if I was, I might just call out sick with the way she was talking to me earlier.”

“Oh, don’t let her get to you,” he said waving a hand. “That wasn’t too bad. She orders everyone around like that every once and a while.”

“That’s not what I was talking about, but that’s definitely rude, too.”

He raised a brow.

“Whatever backwater state I’m from?”

It took him a moment, then, “Oh. Yeah.” He went back to his phone. “Don’t take it personally. She’s just a spoiled little heiress.”

“She basically called me a moron from a state full of morons. How am I not supposed to take that personally? And then she just threw out different states like everyone south of New Jersey is a moron.”

Aaron shrugged, not really caring. “Veronica says things without thinking all the time. She’s nice enough most of the time, right? She’s still buying you a drink.”

“I really don’t give a damn that she’s buying me a drink,” Eden threw back. “She upset me, and she should know it and apologize. Nobody says anything when she does something wrong, and I’m sick of it. I hate how everybody walks on eggshells with her just ‘cause she’s rich.”

“Listen, Eden.” He sounded tired. “You can do whatever the hell you want but I’m trying to give you a heads-up. You’re not from around here and this is, what, your first show with Veronica?”

She nodded.

“Well, the reason nobody says anything,” he said copying her accent (and earning a glare), “isn’t because she’s rich. It’s because if you get on her bad side, you get on her dad’s bad side. And William Bradford pours a lot of money into Gotham’s theater scene. Understand?”

Eden blinked at him. There were a few old, well-to-do families that lived near her hometown who liked to have their fingers in a lot of pies – the Henriksens especially so – so she understood what he was saying perfectly. But still, she couldn’t quite believe her ears.

 Pulling that kind of nonsense in theater? And in Gotham City of all places? Wasn’t there something a little more… underworld-y that Mr. Bradford could focus on?

 “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope,” Aaron said popping the p. “Happened to one of Veronica’s best friends— ex-best friends, Christina. They had a huge falling out and Christina couldn’t get a single call-back for over a year. She ended up moving to New York to try finding work there, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how cut-throat their theater scene is.”

Eden frowned at the table, then looked up at him again. “Well, that’s a best friend she got in a fight with. I’m nobody to her. If I’m polite about what’s bothering me, she won’t have any reason to ask her daddy to do something like that to me.”

“That’s just it though!” he said leaning over the table, lowering his voice. “Veronica didn’t ask her dad to do it. She didn’t have a clue what was happening with Christina! Just like she doesn’t have a clue why she keeps getting a lead role in every show she auditions for!”

“It’s… not because she’s a good actress?”

Aaron gave her an annoyed, unbelieving look. “Would you have cast her as Jane?”

“Well—” Eden sat up straight. “Well, I mean… Maybe not me personally, but— I mean, she is very pretty, and Jane is canonically the prettiest girl in town, and— and she’s certainly not a bad actress, I mean…”

“No, she’s not,” he agreed. “But she’s definitely not lead-role material. Daphne’s lucky she wanted to play Jane and not Elizabeth. Can you imagine her playing Elizabeth?” Aaron made a scandalized face and obnoxiously rolled his eyes at the thought.

Eden, unable to deny how awful Veronica would likely be in the role but also unwilling to say such a thing aloud, stumbled over a response until a barista called out Veronica’s name.

Eager to take the escape, she hopped out of her chair. “I’ll get that and you guard the purse.”

Aaron just hummed and picked up his phone again.

On her way to the counter, Eden spared a glance at the nearby corner booth, the one with the boys in the hoodies. The four of them were having a lively conversation and she enjoyed the small snippets of back and forth she could catch.

The one in the red hoodie no longer looked ready to take a nap but was instead hunched over the table, his jaw resting in his hand as he made small jabs at the people around him. The younger two snapped back quickly, and the smiling, eldest-looking one laughed while still trying to keep the peace.

The way they were digging at each other reminded Eden of her own “brothers”. She couldn’t help but smile. She sighed, unintentionally loud, missing her loveable idiots.

The one in the red hoodie lifted his head toward the sound but, thanks to the hood covering half his face, Eden was able to turn away before he caught her eavesdropping.

The barista waiting with the drinks gave her a wide smile. “Hi, Veronica! We’re still making your last drink but—” She cocked her head suddenly and squinted. “Wait…”

“No, I’m not Veronica,” Eden said with an amused smile. “But I am here for her drinks.”

“Oh.” The girl laughed at herself. “Sorry about that. The last one’s just going to be another minute.”

Eden nodded, picking up the two that were ready. “Thank you.”

As she returned to her and Aaron’s table, she glanced toward the boys again. This time, the smiling eldest was grinning and whispering something towards red hoodie boy, who was looking in the opposite direction and not-so-subtly flipping him off. The teen in the Superman hoodie accidentally locked eyes with her and the both of them quickly looked away.

Eden then noticed a man in the opposite corner of the café watching her. When she looked at him, he jerked his head away and quickly took a sip from his cup. Eden slowed her walk and furrowed her brows, a tightness forming in her gut.

“Yaaasss,” Aaron called, stealing her attention as he reached for his drink. “Give me that Rich Bitch Latte.”

“Is that what you call it?”

He shrugged, taking a sip. “Mine has blueberry whip cream. If that doesn’t scream rich bitch, what does?”

Eden made a slight face. Blueberry whip cream didn't seem all that luxurious to her – it certainly wasn’t hard to make – but even if it was, she couldn't imagine it tasted good with a latte.

“That barista mixed me up for Veronica too,” she said after a moment.

Aaron snorted. “Maybe you should be her double. You’d get paid good money for it, I’m sure.”

Eden hummed. She turned her attention back to the curious man in the opposite corner.

At first glance, he fit the establishment fine. He wore a simple grey suit and a hat and was now totally engrossed with his phone. But the suit was a little too non-descript and untidy, and the hat a bit beat-up. Not to mention, slouching in his seat like he was, he didn’t match the prim, properness of most of the other patrons.

Though… maybe she was being unfair to him. After all, she’d praised the guy in the red hoodie for the same thing, hadn’t she?

She glanced to the booth of boys again. The one in the red hoodie must have been looking at her because his head moved the second hers did. Eden didn’t get a tight, sinking sensation in her stomach when he did, though. Nor had she when she locked eyes with the teenager.

She turned back to the older man, still fidgeting with his phone. What was the difference between them? Maybe it was weirder because he was older. The other guys were closer to her age and therefore… what, safer?

Eden huffed at herself. Age wasn’t an indication of danger, she knew that. The people who came to the farm looking for safety were hiding from men of all ages. (They were almost always hiding from men.) From young men full of piss and vinegar and a sense of superiority; old men with strings to pull and favors they could call in; men of any age with a brutal mean streak that came from years of privilege, or hardship…

So it wasn’t their age. And none of them were dressed “appropriately” for the cafe – though the hoodie boys even less so – so it wasn’t that either. Maybe it was how stiffly and forcibly the man had reacted when Eden noticed him staring. Though that, too, didn’t necessarily mean any—

“Veronica Bradford!” the barista called again, breaking Eden’s thoughts.

On her second trip back to the table, Eden watched the man from the corner of her eye. It seemed like he was looking at her again too, adding to her concern. He moved his hands a bit and then—

Eden stopped. She turned to stare directly at the man, who hurried to shift his torso so his phone was no longer pointing at her. She scowled. She knew exactly what he was now. But what in the world was a scout doing here of all places?

A scout – as Mama always called them – could be anybody. A private investigator or a random person off the street; it didn’t matter. Their job was simple: find their mark and get proof of where and when they were and who they were with.

But… who was this guy’s mark? It couldn’t be Eden. He was taking her picture, sure, but… The only people who might be looking for her were her parents, and neither of them would have recruited someone so… obvious.

Still, she reported it to Aaron as she sat down. “There’s a man taking pictures,” she told him gravely.

He glanced up at her, giving her a weird look. “O…kay? Everyone takes pictures here. It’s a wannabe Snapstagram influencer’s wet dream.”

“I meant,” she said frowning, “he’s taking pictures of me.”

“Huh? Who?” He looked around without a hint of subtlety.

Eden smacked her head with her hand. She could’ve kicked him. Of course, it was her own fault for thinking he would understand. Aaron wasn’t one of her “cousins” or semi-siblings. He was just some guy from Gotham who knew nothing about life on Paradise Farm.

“Would you stop!?” she hissed, trying to hide her face from the scout. “He’s behind you, in the corner booth by the windows. Grey suit, brown hat— Don’t be obvious.”

Aaron, bless him, finally caught on. He turned his head slowly from one end of the café to the other. He stared at the man a few beats too long then turned back to her.

“Are you sure? He just looks like his phone’s giving him trouble.”

Eden shook her head. “I caught him doing it, so now he’s nervous. He was just staring at me the first time I got up, but the second time he had his phone pointed at me and everything.”

He looked over his shoulder at the scout, then back again. “Maybe he’s paparazzi,” he offered. “The baristas all thought you were Veronica. Maybe he does, too.”

Eden blinked at him. She hadn’t thought of that. Despite not being anywhere near the farm, the idea the man could be anything but a scout hadn’t even crossed her mind. But it made some sense… After all, who would he even be scouting? Nobody here was in hiding.

“She has paparazzi?”

“Local heiress constantly landing lead roles who models on the side?” Aaron shrugged.  “She’s not headline news or anything, but she pops up in local shit every once and a while.”

Eden frowned at her drink. She glanced over at the man again, taking a sip of her latte. “And are paparazzi people always so nervous when they get caught?”

“Do I look like I know the answer to that?”

“You’ve been around Veronica longer than I have,” she insisted. “You’d know better than I would.”

“I guess,” he huffed, rolling his eyes. He thought about it a moment. “I don’t know. She doesn’t usually notice them, but I guess some of them get a little embarrassed when other people do. But, like, it’s their job. They can’t exactly be bashful about it or they won’t get paid.”

She nodded thoughtfully and took another sip, reluctant to admit it tasted extremely good.

Her eyes slid over to the man once more. Then she stopped and glared. Loudly, she slammed her cup onto the table — startling Aaron and catching other patrons’ attention as well. Including the man, who’d been pointing his phone at her again.

He scrambled to put it away, stood, and started grabbing his things.

“I think you scared him, Veronica,” Aaron muttered sarcastically.

“Good.” She leaned back in her chair and took a celebratory drink, not taking her eyes off the man. “Paparazzi, huh?”

“Well, what else would he be?” Aaron asked, rolling his eyes again. “A stalker? The guy doesn't exactly scream danger. Anyway, he’s leaving now so it doesn’t—”

Eden jerked up in her seat. “Uh-oh.”

The real Veronica stepped through the door. Looking around, she spotted Aaron and Eden near the back corner, smiled, and started walking toward them. A flabbergasted expression crossed the man’s face when she passed him by.

“Uh-oh.”

The oblivious heiress didn’t notice him stop walking or the way he was watching her. But Eden did. And she knew that look in his eye.

“Oh, no.”

The scout had found his mark.

Eden didn’t think about it. One second she was sitting in her chair – buzzing with wild, nervous energy – the next she was grabbing Veronica’s drink and taking long strides across the café’s shining floors. She grinned playfully at the unsuspecting girl.

Veronica’s smile didn’t fall, but her brows furrowed slightly as Eden approached. “Hey, sorry about that. Daddy always calls me when he gets to a new hotel.”

“Oh, no problem, Eden!” Eden said handing Veronica her drink.

Veronica took it, went to speak, then seemed to short-circuit — suddenly blinking and staring at her in a baffled way. Eden took the moment to link their arms and move her away from the scout, who seemed stuck in place.

“Actually, my daddy does the same,” she said in the same, polished Rich-Girl-Gothamite accent she’d used before. “We’re super close. Oh, and tell me if you like the drink, yeah? It’s my favorite. I get it every day.”

Veronica glanced down at her drink, then up at Eden, totally lost.

As they approached the table, Eden did a quick sweep of their surroundings and was glad they were sitting where they were. Their table was near the side exit and all the nearby tables were empty, save the now silent booth of boys.

Though none of them were looking in her direction, Eden couldn’t help quirking a brow in theirs, wondering what had dulled their lively spirits.

“So… what’s going on exactly?” Veronica asked in a nervous pitch as they reached Aaron.

“Eden thinks she has a stalker,” he explained.

“No,” Eden corrected in her own voice. “I think Veronica has a scout— stalker— whatever thing. And they think Veronica is me.”

“They…” Veronica looked between the two of them, then laughed nervously. “Oh, Edie, that’s… I seriously doubt anyone would think you were me.”

“Two of the baristas thought I was you.”

“Brayden thought she was you,” Aaron confirmed.

Veronica’s mouth fell open. She stared at the guy behind the register in disbelief before turning it on Eden. Eden just grinned and moved her head to the side like she’d heard something funny.

There, in the corner of her eyes, she could see the man inching back to his corner booth. Watching them.

“Oh my god, Edie!” she said loud and clear in her Veronica voice, setting the real Veronica into a seat facing away from the man. “You are just too cute!”

“Wait.” Veronica leaned over, talking low. “Why are you talking like a normal person now?”

A flash of anger broke Eden’s character. “Excuse me?”

“Why are you talking like a normal person now?” she repeated, apparently unaware of her offense. “And why are you calling me Eden?”

Eden took a deep breath, trying to regain her cool. “I’m not talking like a ‘normal person’,” she explained slowly, being sure to sit up straight and hold her head in the proud, haughty way the rest of the patrons did. “I’m talking like you. And I’m calling you Eden so that scout-stalker guy leaves you alone.”

“She’s being your double,” Aaron said with a grin. Eden glared at him. “Am I wrong?”

She looked away. “No,” she grumbled.

He nodded, satisfied.

Veronica looked between the two of them, not getting it, then turned back to Eden. “Why are you doing this exactly? Are you expecting me to pay you for it?”

“What? No! I’m helping you because you're in trouble, obviously.”

The other two stared at her. Somehow that simple concept seemed foreign to them.

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “Don’t you two act like you’ve never helped anybody out before just to be nice. I know this is Gotham but come on now. Not everybody in this city can be that heartless.”

“Oh, you sweet summer child,” Aaron cooed, resting a hand over his heart. Eden glared at him.

Veronica tried to say something, stopped, then tried again. “But… why? It’s not your problem, so…”

“So what? That guy’s trouble.” Eden tilted her head. “Do you… want some scout-stalker taking your picture? Knowing where you’ve been and when you go?”

“No, but… Are you sure he’s trouble?” she asked. “Maybe he’s just, I don’t know, some weirdo who likes taking pictures of pretty girls.”

“Could be.” Eden shrugged. “But I seriously doubt it, the way he’s been acting. It’s just sorta… obvious he’s here for you.”

“Obvious?” She made a face and started looking around the café – thankfully never over her shoulder – trying to find the trouble herself. “I don’t see anyone making it obvious.”

“You’re just not used to it.”

“And you are?”

Eden opened her mouth and shut it. She shuffled in her seat, not really sure how to explain it. Back home, she’d never had to explain it. Everybody just knew. And not just her small town. The whole county knew.

They knew Paradise Farm and its famous little bakery. They knew Mama and Eden and her mismatched group of semi-siblings (or of them, at least). They knew if you needed a place to go, Paradise Farm had its doors open, and “cousins” were always welcome.

Some who came, came for simple reasons. Wandering free spirits who enjoyed earning their stay and living more-or-less off the land, people who needed a little space after an argument, a partygoer looking for a safe place to sober up before heading home; simple things like that.

But sometimes it was more. Sometimes the reasons were complicated. Kids who’d been kicked out of their homes, kids trying to escape their homes, abused spouses who just wanted to disappear, people who couldn’t go to the law because an officer or a judge was a part of the problem; the kinds of folks who had nowhere else to go, no one left to turn to. The kind who needed help.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Aaron lowered his voice and moved closer, his eyes sparkling. “Are you, like… some kind of small-time hero? Is that why you moved to Gotham? To like, meet Batman and become a vigilante?”

Eden recoiled at the notion. “No! No, no, I’m—!” She chomped down on the words trying to fly out of her mouth, trying to control herself. “I’m not— I don’t— Don’t get me wrong, I like helping people and stuff,” she said fiddling with the table’s edge, very aware of Aaron’s eager, penetrating expression. “But I’m not like— I’m not a, a—” she couldn’t even say the word. Not when it was being tied to her.

Still, Aaron just nodded along. Looking for all the world like an unmasked hero was sitting in front of him and begging him to keep their secret. Eden’s hands started to shake. It was like talking to her father all over again.

“Really, Aaron. I’m… I’m not,” she said, trying to be firm. “I couldn’t do the things they do.”

“You could try,” he insisted, sounding just like him.

Eden went numb.

She couldn’t. She really, really couldn’t. She knew because she had tried. She’d tried, and tried, and tried so many times. But no matter how many times she tried, no matter how many times Frank had told her it was her purpose, her destiny, her responsibility, she just plain couldn’t.

When Mama found out, she was furious. Not with Eden. But with Frank. It was too much for a kid to handle, especially one like Eden, she’d said. She never wanted her daughter to endure that kind of sacrifice and pain—

Oh, the pain! Every time – every goddamn time – there was always so much pain!

Not that she had any right to complain, as Frank would remind her. She was a metahuman; her body always healed.

And it did.

It healed, and healed, and healed. Erasing every bullet, every blade, every hand that ever left its mark on her; stealing away every scar she might’ve earned, every wound she might’ve carried. It healed, and healed, and healed. So perfectly, so flawlessly, so unnaturally — and it never stopped.

Even when she died, it didn’t stop. It didn’t matter if someone killed her themselves or if she took on someone else’s death. Even if it was by her own hand, it didn’t stop. She always came back. Her body always healed. The universe always demanded an encore.

It never, ever, ever stopped.

“Are you okay, Ed— I mean, Veronica?” Veronica said obviously, garnering some of Eden’s attention. “You look a little sick.”

“She’s just freaking out ‘cause I figured out she’s not the everyday normal person she pretends to be,” Aaron said smugly.

Eden still couldn’t speak.

Veronica smacked him. “Don’t be an idiot, Aaron. You’re freaking her out because you’re insisting there’s something remarkable about her when there isn’t at all! E— Veronica is completely normal and average in every possible way.”

Eden winced at the unintended insult. Aaron made a slight face too, but, of course, Veronica didn’t notice.

“Anyway, Veronica,” she continued, turning back to her. “You’ve done this sort of thing before, yeah? What do we do now?”

Eden blinked a few times, still pulling herself out of her spiral, then glanced over at the scout. “Well… Normally I’d try to get a picture of the person, but…”

“But?” Aaron asked eagerly.

She froze again. She took a long, deep breath. “Well… since I made such a fuss catching him in the act earlier, I don’t think we’ll see him again.”

He pouted. “Really? You think a stalker’s going to give up just like that?”

“No, he—” Eden huffed and shook her head. “He’s not the real problem. He’s just some guy who’s supposed to be taking Veronica’s pictures. Maybe figuring out her routine or whatever. But he got caught twice, so whoever sent him probably won’t send him again unless they’re desperate. Or stupid, I suppose. Either way, I doubt taking his picture would really help much. Though I guess it could help us figure out who hired him in the first place, but I don’t really know who I’d send it to here—”

She stopped her rambling, noticing the open-mouthed, wide-eyed way her companions were staring at her.

“Oh— I— Uh—" She quickly took a sip of her nearly forgotten latte, trying to hide behind the cup. “Sorry,” she murmured.

Aaron shook himself, almost violently, out of his stupor. “Oh, okay, yeah, you just know all this crap and you’re not a vigilante or something?”

“I’m not,” she grumbled. “My mama taught me what to watch out for, so I do.”

“So your mom’s the vigilante?”

“My—" Eden blinked and shook her head fervently, trying to follow his logic. "What?”

Not that she’d admit it to a pair of acquaintances, but anyone who her mama – like, really knew her, not the role she played – knew Louanne Smith was more likely to be on a most-wanted list than be considered a vigilante. Though Red Hood was probably on a few wanted lists himself, now that she thought about it, and her mama certainly broke the law not turning over certain people to the sheriff, so maybe she would be considered a vigilante?

“Ugh, ignore him, Edi— Veronica,” Veronica said rolling her eyes. “Aaron has a total hard-on for Gotham’s bats. He loves the way they break the law and—"

“What is wrong with breaking the law if it means helping people?” he burst in.

“We have laws for a reason, Aaron,” Veronica insisted. “I can admit Gotham’s vigilantes help the little people here and there—” Eden bristled at her tone “—but in the grand scheme of things—” 

“In the grand scheme of things, they help people. End of story.” Veronica shot him a dirty look, but he made no move to try and placate her. This, apparently, was a hill worth dying on. “End of story,” he said again.

“Oh, yeah right, like you really care. Everyone knows you’re just in love with Red Hood’s thighs.”

“I can care about what the vigilantes do for this city and still appreciate how sexy they are,” Aaron said proudly. “Red Hood’s jacked and has the thighs of a god and I’m not ashamed to admit I would tap that in an instant.”

Eden made an involuntary high-pitched sound. She stared dead at the table, trying not to think about Red Hood as her face grew piping hot and she curled in on herself.

“Besides, you’re one to talk,” Aaron continued, either ignoring or not noticing Eden’s discomfort. “You always go on and on about how hot Nightwing’s ass is!”

“Which it is, but that’s not the point! They might be hot but vigilantes are the reason we have so many crazy supervillains in this city!”

“Those hot vigilantes are the only reason we have any sort of justice in this city!”

Hiding her burning face in her hands, Eden just shook her head, trying to phase out of existence as they went back and forth on their stances of law, order, and whether or not Batman was a dilf.

Eventually, she peeked through her fingers and found the scout watching them with an uncertain look on his face. His phone was still in his hand, however, close to his chest and pointed in her direction, so they weren’t out of the woods yet.

Eden groaned and ran her fingers through her hair as she dropped her head. Then she popped back up, her expression taut, like an heiress who’d been ignored for far too long.

“Ex—cuse—me!” she said clapping her hands, forcing the bickering to finally stop. She gave them a tight smile, speaking lowly in her own voice. “Y’all can have this… discussion some other time – preferably when I’m not here – but right now, we’re in the middle of something.” She stood from her seat. “So I’m gonna need you two to stop. Now.”

The guilty party shared a look then muttered an annoyed agreeance.

“Thank you,” she said with a nod. “Now then.” She grabbed Veronica’s big white purse and confidently slung it over her shoulder. “Are we ready to go?” she asked loud and clear in her Veronica voice, gesturing to the side door. “I’m sure Daphne and the rest of the cast are waiting for us.”

“Sure thing, Veronica,” Aaron said a little louder than usual. “Lead the way.”

Eden smiled and linked arms with the real Veronica, constantly shifting to keep the girl’s face hidden from the scout as much as possible. As they exited the café, she pointed to something down the street, giving Veronica an excuse to keep her head turned.

Eden on the other hand tried to catch a glimpse of the scout from the corner of her eye. Instead, she ended up latching on to the group of boys one last time.

A few of them looked uncomfortable but all four were quiet, each seemingly lost in their own thoughts. But Eden could tell that wasn’t right. Even if they didn’t seem focused on anything in particular, she knew they were. It was almost like she could see that they were… were… She didn’t know what to call it. Ready? On? Something like that. But why? What for?

The guy in the red hoodie shifted back, leaning lazily against the booth cushions. His hood stayed in place despite his head tipping up toward the ceiling. Though unable to see his eyes, Eden had the sudden sense that he was watching her.

Should she be nervous? Had she set too much of her attention on the man on the other side of the café? Should she have been watching these boys as well? She didn’t feel like she needed to worry about them. Had she made a mistake?

She walked arm-in-arm with Veronica until they reached the end of the block and crossed the street. There, she released the girl and spun around, scanning the stream of people for the face of the scout, or perhaps even one of the boys.

She suddenly wished she had snuck a picture. Maybe back home it wouldn’t be such a big deal, but this was Gotham. And Veronica was a high-profile local. As much as Eden preferred giving people the benefit of the doubt, this wasn’t a safe situation to assume anything but the worst.

Not seeing anyone from the café, she sighed and rejoined Veronica and Aaron, who were giving her nervous looks. She smiled at them.

“All good.” She took the purse from her shoulder and handed it back to Veronica. “You might want to consider having someone else get your latte for a while. Maybe an assistant or something? And maybe some kind of security for yourself. Just to be safe.”

Veronica nodded mutely, then muttered out a small thank you before taking Eden’s arm again. She held it tightly, with a concerned look on her face, so Eden didn’t complain. Every few blocks they would stop or slow down and she would check the crowd around them for caution’s sake.

The walk to Stardunks and back to the practice hall was fairly quiet, giving Eden plenty of time to think. Mainly she wondered if she should bring up the day’s events to Red Hood. It wasn’t anything vigilante-worthy, not yet anyway, but Veronica’s status certainly made it a possibility. And Eden stepping in as her double probably counted as doing something stupid, which, even though he'd been joking, he’d asked her not to do.

In fact, when they stepped into the practice hall and Veronica started telling everyone what had happened and how Eden had “saved” her, and Aaron reiterated her “vigilante-like knowledge”, and a number of people started looking at her with a curious sort of twinkle in their eyes, the stuttering, blushing Eden was quite certain she’d done something very, very stupid indeed.

---

Next chapter

[hydrangeasimagination]

Someone You Like

Pairing(s): Izuku X Gender Neutral! Reader

Summary: The same cafe drew him into it, the sweets weren't amazing... Nor were the drinks. After first seeing you once, he can't help but keep coming back. The two of you would always meet eyes just as he came in and that smile you gave him always left him weak at the knees. This time is different... Because this time, he's there first.

Warning(s): Age gap? Except not really? This particular reader is a college student, around 2-3 years older than him.

A/N: Inspired by the song "Someone You Like" by The Girl and The Dreamcatcher. This is connected to my Brother's Three series and about how he starts being with his own s/o; Meiji! Also, Happy early birthday to Izuku!!!

Their quirk is not made mention of.

[Shouto’s Fic: Make A Move]

[Katsuki’s Fic: Unforgettable]

[Toshinori’s Fic: Smoke] 

“I might never be your hero

But I think I'd like to try

And the way you look at me is your reply

You got a lot to learn about me

Maybe you could start tonight

'Cause I think I could be someone you like

Someone you like ♡”

The too bitter taste of tea and the scent of coffee became routine, the dullness on taste buds was nearly cringe worthy. Though there was no reason to be too angry about it, as it could just be dulled by the sugar packets and washed away with the strawberry biscuits.

It smelled nice at least, perhaps the distaste of coffee and preference of tea spoke his bias of the reviews running through his head.

The music playing over the speakers, some indie American song, he could hear chatter along with the light drum of his pencil.

Emeralds remained alert, drifting from the half-written report to the door.

Today was a little bit of a tough one.

But Midoriya came anyway, being his daily tradition.

His eyes strayed to the door once more, settling into the overstuffed seat, he mulled silently over why he continued coming. The prickling of heat coating his cheeks and the tips of his ears scorching, chewing quietly at his lip.

Through the passage of his time, once coming for shelter from the rain was a chance encounter. Meeting gaze with a stranger that commented on his work book and flustering him terribly when informing him of the mistakes he'd made. Being captivated by the sugary tones of the softest voice he'd ever heard whilst rescuing him from the embarrassment of asking his peers.

It became apparent the by the third time he came to or passed the cafe, they were a regular.

A simple glance through the window and a wave, a smile that made his legs feel like jelly.

... Always the conversation starter if he ever were to pass through again.

Suddenly, it was routine for him to come.

Just to learn more about this soft-faced stranger that always spoke to him.

Days turned into weeks.

His search history flooded with nothing but questions of reading body language and soaking in as much as he could about everything he could about flirting. Midoriya sure as hell has had crushes but it didn't mean he ever mustered up the nerve to speak to them, certainly not someone like...

Like you.

Izuku slapped his hands on the sides of his head, paying no mind to the barista snickering behind the counter.

Checking the time again, the feeling of hope slowly diminishing from inside of him.

It was pretty late.

Where were you?

Had you decided not to come today?

Should he leave?

No!

What if he missed you?

What if you still came through?

Maybe he should -

Mumbles started spilling from his mouth before he could stop them, brain running in circles through all of the possibilities. His brain buried in his worries and too distracted to look from the papers set before him, fingers wrapped tighter around the barrel of his mechanical pencil.

"This seat taken?"

The squeak that leaves his mouth is anything but dignifying, especially when he snapped his head up.

Peering down at him through your specs, the glimmer of amusement was unmistakable. Causing a torrent of butterflies twisting in the pit of his stomach and suddenly feeling rather warm despite the air vent blowing cool air down the back of his neck.

"N - no!" He cringed at how his voice broke and cracked.

Izuku's already scorching skin only became hotter, so much so that he was worried red would stain his skin for the rest of his life. Embarrassed to hear the mellifluous notes of your laugh.

Gosh...

You were way prettier up close.

... Oh, you were almost too close.

"Need help with that report there, Superboy?" The teasing lilt of your voice was not lost on him.

"U - uh -" He couldn't speak.

He ducked his head down as he'd not been sure if he could stare into those pretty eyes of your's without fainting.

"I - it's almost done," Sheepishly, he started rubbing his arm "I just need some more reading to do."

The sound of the chair being pulled out stopped his brain from spiraling into madness again, settling down across from him and setting down the leather sketch book he'd coveted to see just a glance inside of. As you unpacked your things, taking off your beanie, he took his second to admire you as he did every time he saw you.

Amber sunlight from the window set an outline around you, bathing you beautiful reds and oranges. Setting a warmth and softening any hard edges that he'd noticed, lashes casting shadowed crescents on your cheeks with every blink.

God, what a lovely sight.

Absolutely beautiful.

It's amazing how something as simple as the setting made you look almost ethereal.

"Hey, Midori."

He flushed at the nickname, nearly tucking his chin in the collar of his shirt and shrinking away.

Incredibly embarrassed that he was caught staring so hard.

Was he being creepy?

"Change the subject!" His inner thoughts railed.

Swallowing the lump formed in his throat, he asked, "Y - you're kind of late today, did something happen?"

"Oh," Chin rested on your arm, elbow resting on the table, "my design class made me wanna stay behind a bit this time, get a better grasp on our assignment."

Izuku's eyes glittered slightly, admiration washing over him. A habit formed from being around dedicated beings, you were no different.

Though you were interested in the realm of art and fashion than heroism or tech.

"Anyway, hand me the textbook. You're going over the laws of heroics, right? I can quiz you."

"A - ah, thank you."

The flipping of pages, black inked words printed on glossed pages became a little some thing of a routine. Getting lost between the lines of text, soaking in information and trying to keep himself from being distracted.

To keep himself from staring at you.

Your concentrated face was cute.

He resisted the urge to look up when he heard the hums of a tune you liked.

Fingers anxiously drumming on the surface of the table, other hand propping up the textbook he read.

Nervous.

As he always was when he was close to you.

It wasn't enough to describe the utter anxiety he felt when he was in your presence.

A choked noise came from the back of his throat, head jerking up.

Laced through his digits was your own, gently entwining them and wrapping his calloused hands in warm skin. Hands so soft and delicate in comparison to his own, silken under his coarser fingertips

You didn't even look up.

But you were smiling.

His eyes drew spirals.

You.

His crush.

Holding his hand.

Was this a dream?

Certainly one he didn't want to wake up from.

It was like his entire head was on fire but he didn't protest, he'd be a fool to waste this opportunity. Squeezing your hand in his own, he tilted his head back down towards his book.

Lips pursing as the corners of his mouth twitched into a shy smile.

He stroked his thumb over the ring on your's.

This was nice.

It felt like he was floating on air.

Like you two were the only ones there, though he heard the gossip from behind the counter. The chatter of voices around you.

"Midori."

"Y - yes?"

His palms were a wee bit sweaty.

He hoped you didn't pull away because of that.

Silence for a beat, maybe two.

Enough to make him look at you and for his heart rate to climb, the fond smile decorating your features made him feel like jelly.

"I never did ask you for your number, did I?"

[mrs-geuse]

Toys (Hank Anderson x Reader)

Anonymous requested: “Hank x reader where Hank is working on paperwork from home or on a work call at home or something and he catches reader playing with herself? I need something smutty with being stuck indoors. Only if it peaks your interest though!”

Pairing: Hank x fem!reader

Warnings: Language, Smut…this is smut.

           Hank hates bringing work home with him, you know this, but nights like tonight he has to. There is something shady going on at Central Station and he doesn’t know exactly who he can trust. God forbid he walks away from his desk for a minute, leaves paperwork out, asks questions to the wrong coworker…

           Something is going on and someone is covering it up and it maybe involves an android which seems to make Connor feel invested.

           It’s late, really, way later than he wants to be working on this. His eyes burn from reading, and re-reading files he’d printed off before he left work.

           A beer sits on the kitchen table, untouched. You’d popped the top for him before kissing his cheek and leaving him alone.

           “Just a little bit, babe, I just…I gotta figure it out.”

           It is rare seeing him this invested in his work, but you know when not to push so you sit in the living room, quietly petting Sumo and barely watching a movie.

           Hank is way more interesting to you than this movie. He doesn’t even know you’ve been staring but you can’t help it; the focused look on his face, the knitted brow, the way he gnaws on his lower lip in concentration every so often…it’s unlike him and you are invested.

           When Sumo lays down, you flop over on your belly, pulling the couch cushion under your chin as you snake your hand between your hips and the couch. Your fingers maneuver down until you press against your clit and bite your lip at the sensation.

           Is this wrong? Weird? Maybe. But you were very aware that you’re ovulating and your sex drive increased significantly. You just hadn’t had the chance to tell your boyfriend – but a part of you wants to. You debate if you should share this information with the class just yet. On one hand, he’s been working for almost two hours and probably needs to knuckle down, on the other hand you really need him.

           You figure you can last a little longer and you’re sure he is going to make it worth your time, he always does.

           So, you settle for playing with yourself just a little.

           The pressure in this position, with your palm cupped against your pubic bone, your fingers dancing across your clit – is the perfect sensation and always makes you come.

           “Hey, y/n?” Hank’s deep voice startles you and you slip your hand away, pulling it back up to fold calmly under the pillow you’re lying face-down on. Hank glances over at you. “C’mere,” he says it gruff and you’re feeling even more aroused. Slowly, you rise and make your way to him, tentative steps. Had he seen? Is he going to make demands? Punish you?

           “Yes?” you manage.

           He doesn’t even glance at you. “These symbols were at the scene. I snagged a note off their desk and…does the writing look similar to you?”

           The two items are vastly different mediums, and if you squint maybe you can see a similarity.

           “Honestly, Hank, no…”

           “Fuck,” he grumbles, balling the paper in his palm before tossing it toward the kitchen trash.

           “Hey, honey, come to bed…you can look at this in the morning,” you’re kissing at his neck.

           “Mmmm…” Hank’s moan shoots arousal to your core, like he’s aware of what he’s doing to you, like he enjoys it. “You know I’d like that very much,” he hums against your ear. “But m’so close, I can feel it.”

           You try not to let his words bug you; you knew it was going to be longer of a wait and he would take care of you. Why are you rushing?

           Only you can feel the heat pooling between your legs as you stood there and Hank rubs his beard, making that delicious scratching sound. You want his face between your legs but you know the second you said anything he’d be abandoning his work and maybe losing his hot streak of finding clues.

           So, you tell him you’re going to take a shower. You need the space. The water is hot and you’re satisfied enough with his clean, fluffy towels you’d bought him. Not to mention your little friend…

           Your vibrator had been shoved in a drawer in Hank’s room, but you manage to find the one you left at his place. Not your favorite, but it’ll get the job done.

           You assume that this would satiate you for now and the water running would cut down on the hum…maybe Hank won’t hear.

           It was like a little game: he always loved watching you pleasure yourself. You feel the same in regards to him. He’d shared, one drunken night together, that none of his other flames had ever been ‘interested enough’ to watch him wank it (his words, not yours)

           There was something alluring about the whole thing. You love watching him pleasure himself, it gave fuel to your fire, let you see just how he likes to be touched, what speed he wants it, how hard…

           Fighting the moan that threatens to leave your throat, you lean your head back against the wall of the shower. The vibrator is on the lowest setting and the speed is tantalizing. You want it faster, you want Hank.

           “Fuck,” you huff, pressure building as you think of Hank’s fist closed around his cock – stroking – the muscles in his forearms…

           With your free hand, you grasp at your hardened nipples, pinching them between your thumb and forefinger the way that Hank usually did.

           And then…it stops.

           Your eyes shoot open, blinded by the running shower water for a moment as you gaze down at the toy in your hand. The light no longer illuminated, you practically growl  at the realization that you hadn’t charged it last use.

           “God damn it…” you slam it on the shelf by the soap then let your hand fall back between your thighs. The frustration made you lose that edge and you sigh heavily. “Fuck me…”

           You begin to wash your hair, mind drifting to thoughts of Hank taking you in the shower last week. Your arousal was overwhelming and one swift touch to your clit makes you hiss at the sensation.

           By the time you start washing your body, you wonder how long the charge would take…could you use it while it charged?

           And suddenly it hit you: the cock ring. You’d bought it for Hank as sort of a gag gift last Christmas. The two of you had a running joke that he was too girthy for a cock ring. You could remember the boisterous laugh he let out when he opened your gift.

           Of course you tried it, it would have been a waste of money otherwise. But…it was a flop. Hank was, indeed, girthy and it made the thing…uncomfortable he said. Not painful, just not great.

           You, however, enjoyed the vibrating feature on it.

           It isn’t your first choice, but desperate times…it will have to do.

           Quickly, you finish washing yourself. Water shut off, fluffy towel wrapped around yourself, you rush to dry off and make your way into Hank’s room.

           In the kitchen, Hank sighs at the paperwork. His eyes are getting dry, beer warm by now.

           When Hank’s phone rings, he reaches to answer it. Connor. Again. Third time in an hour.

           “Damn it, you’re gonna need to cool it with these calls, Connor.”

           He stands to put the beer in the fridge, phone pressed to his ear. Leaning back against the closed fridge, he listens to Connor ramble on and then pauses, pulling the phone from his ear for a second.

           While he’d been reading, he must not have realized: the sound of the shower shut off. How long ago? Weren’t you going to come by and lay on the couch until he was done?

           His mind trails to you slipping and hurting yourself and he pushes off the fridge to check on you.

           And then he freezes.

           Is that…

           No.

           Can’t be.

           Quietly, Hank steps toward the hallway, listening in.

           His bedroom door is open only a crack, which was odd. Taking a few quiet steps forward, he draws closer to the room and listens.

           Fuck…

           Tentative fingers press against the wood of the door, pushing gently so as not to make himself known.

           Connor’s voice still drones on the phone but Hank is long past the point of paying attention.

           Hungry eyes take in the scene before him: y/n lying on your back, head on his pillow, legs arched, fingers pressing his vibrating cock ring against your clit, a pleasured expression on your face in the dim light.

           The hum of the vibration had alerted him in the kitchen and, fuck, are you in trouble…

           Feeling bold, Hank forces the door open further, a resounding squeak making you jump.

           You look like a sight; mouth an ‘o’ shape, rising to your elbows.

           “Hank!” you gasp.

           The man puts the phone back to his ear. “Connor, gotta go.” And he hangs up, slamming the thing on the wardrobe. “What do you think you’re doin’ in here, sweetheart?” his voice seems kind, even, but you can tell he’s a mix of irritation and arousal right now and you’re hoping to play on that latter half.

           “Hank, I swear…I didn’t want to disturb you. I just…” he draws closer to the bed, looking contemplative, slightly menacing. “The-the shower. I was…in the shower and…an the vibrator it…lost its juice so I thought…” your sentence trailed off.

           “You thought what, exactly?” his deep voice is right beside your ear as he snatches the cock ring from you, feeling your wetness having coated it. “Thought you’d take care of it yourself?”

           “I didn’t want to disturb you,” you admit. “M’sorry, baby, I know how much you like to watch and I just…I couldn’t help myself. You looked so good sitting there, hard at work.”

           He raises a brow at that and you realize for the first time tonight that Hank is extremely aroused, cock pressing harshly against the zip of his pants.

           You watch him insert a digit into his mouth, tasting you from your wetness on the cock ring which still vibes in his hand. A deep moan leaves him, distracting you for a second. You’d been so damn close once again when he caught you and all you wanna do is come.

           Abruptly, Hank presses the vibrating thing to your clit, rubbing deep circles and you fall back on the bed, hand reaching for his arm and clawing at the skin as his pressure is unrelenting.

           “F-fuck, Hank…” you cry out.

           “Now you’re going to continue and I’m going to watch,” he waits a little longer, lets the vibration do its thing, enjoys watching you writhe beneath him. He’s absentmindedly palming himself through his pants and his precum is leaving a wet mark in the jeans.

           Thumb pressed to the toy, he slips a digit inside of you, arching it just the way he knows you like it. You’re practically crying at this point, so grateful to be so close to climax once again.

           And then he’s gone as quickly as he comes and you let out an audible growl.

           He’s across the room, sitting in a chair, fidgeting with his belt without taking his eyes off you. You can see how aroused he is and as his cock springs out of his boxers, he starts stroking himself.

           He’s been kind enough to leave you the vibrating ring and you’re thankful but slightly disappointed. There’s something about Hank’s fingers, the way he can reach that spot inside of you, no problem. Even your fingers don’t do it justice – they’re too tiny whereas Hank’s fingers applying just the right amount of pressure sends you over the edge.

           You’re disappointed too because you know how late it is and you know that after Hank comes all over his stomach or down his hand or – God-willing – on you, he’s going to want to go to sleep. It’s going to take a serious amount of begging to get him to fuck you, you’ve broken one of the few requests he has for you. You’d call it a rule, so would he, but you know he wouldn’t be bold enough to punish too harshly – it’s just not in him with you.

           “What were you thinking about?” the pace his fist is at remains slow, tantalizing for the both of you.

           “This. You, jerking it,” you bite your lip as you speak, aware of how stimulated these sexual, breathy conversations leave Hank. Maybe you’ll be able to get this to work out in your favor. “And…and you fucking me in the shower. And that position with my legs up, thighs against my chest, feet behind your head as you pound into me.”

           That does it, Hank’s fist quickens its pace around his cock and you can see the precum oozing.

           Fuck.

           “Mmm…good. Good, sweetheart…” he grunts. “Why so needy tonight?”

           You were close until he asks this question. “I’m ovulating, Hank.”

           His pace falters just a moment but then he’s quickening his fist around his cock.

           “Oh.”

           Hank loves when you’re ovulating, loves how wet you are, how easily aroused, how desperate you are for him to slip his cock inside of you. He also loves that sometimes you’re too damn wet which makes it hard for him to feel too stimulated and so your romps sometimes last longer than usual.

           And here you go, pleading with him to let you ride him.

           “M’close, I won’t take long, I promise. Hank, please…” the thought of getting to come on his cock turns you on even more, makes you desperate.

           You’re about to shift off the bed and make your way over to him, try to seduce him, but he’s onto your game faster than you expect.

           “Ah, stay there, duchess. No. You come. Now.”

           Nodding, you melt at the controlling tone. “Yes, sir.”

           Fuck, Hank’s faltering at this; at seeing how desperate and eager you are. He can’t keep this façade up much longer. He wants to be in you more than anything right now. But he wants you to think he’s this cruel, wants to play with that edge a little bit more.

           His cock twitches when he sees the normal tells that you’re close to an orgasm finally – he can imagine how frustrated you are. And, being the asshole he is, he wants to add to it.

           Your toes are curling and he’s so fucking aroused right now…but he manages to pull it together before you come undone and rises to his feet, takes two steps toward the bed, startling you.

           You look up at him with your big doe eyes and he almost comes right there on the bed.

           “Lay back,” he instructs softly. You visibly shiver, doing so without hesitation. “Fuck, what a good girl,” he coos as he slowly undresses.

           He doesn’t even mind that you’re still touching yourself as he does this. Awkwardly, he crawls onto the bed, insisting that you scoot over. You gaze at him, needy and desperate and begging for instructions.

           “Ride me.”

           You do as you’re told, easily straddling thick thighs to lower your dripping pussy down onto his hard shaft.

           You both moan together and the feel of him filling you is almost too much, you almost come.

           Shifting forward, you gaze up at him for permission, knowing that your clit just needs a little stimulation from his pubic bone as his cock penetrates you.

           Normally, he’d let you, but this time he’s irked that you played with yourself without even the slightest inkling that you were worked up. And so he chooses to press his hand forward, placing his thumb on your clit. You gasp, grasping his hair and rocking your body onto him. He knows what you want, but you’re not getting it. You’re lucky you’re getting this, he figures.

           Not to mention he needs you to come. Soon. Now.

           He’s close, too close considering you just got started. But the way you’re rocking yourself on him at the current moment, he gave himself a pass. That added with your wetness during ovulation just tips him over the edge.

           “M’close,” you say and it’s almost like a prayer, sounds a lot like ‘Hallelujah’ falling from your lips.

           Hank watches you, wants to see it, that moment where you completely lose yourself and the pleasure overtakes you. That’s why he loves watching you masturbate. He doesn’t want you hiding your face or covering your mouth to quiet the noises. He wants you – all of you – and sometimes he loses that edge when he’s buried inside you.

           “Come on, baby,” he eggs you on, knowing how much you enjoy that. And then, “Fuck, you’re milking my cock right now, honey…”

           At that, you completely lose it, feeling the delicious pulse deep in you. Hank’s thighs are wet, your thighs are wet…

           The feeling of your climax pushes Hank toward release too. He fucking loves the way you can’t seem to stay upright after an orgasm, loves how you snuggle against his chest and pepper kisses and bite and claw at him, loves the gasps and cries of his name…

           Seconds after you’re spent, he’s spilling inside of you, gripping at your hips and moaning softly, head thrown back against the pillow. You love to see the pleasure on his face, to feel his warm release inside of you.

           You’ll try not to get too excited about a baby in the next few weeks, just as you’ve done every month for the past six. Hank is convinced he’s ruined his sperm with his slip into alcoholism before you two started dating, but you assured him you weren’t worried.

           It isn’t a priority right now and clearly you aren’t taking precautions, but…hey, the thought is always exciting. You know he’ll have a drink or several in the next few days, thinking about Cole but you will pick him up as you’ve done every month for the past six.

           “Ah, God, fuck, I love you,” he mumbles as you collapsed next to him, still kissing at his neck and running a hand down his chest.

           “I love you.”

           “You know,” he sighs, watching as you drape your body over him, intertwining with him. He never gets used to the feel of you in bed with him. He’s still convinced it’s a dream. “I would’a stopped working the minute you said you were ovulating.”

           You laugh. “Noted. Next time.”

           “Next time,” he agrees.

[ghoulfriendfam]

Shane Madej X Reader

College Bookshop AU!!

Summary: You are in college and for the past eight months you have been wrapped up reading books from a mysterious recommender that is only identified as “S” in your look bookstore. You have been trying to piece together who “S” is for month to no avail- but when you meet a handsome and helpful sales clerk you think you might have found your man!

Part 1 of 5 ; Part 2 (I will link the updates as they come out!) 

You woke up at the sound of your alarm. It was six am- which wasn’t any cause for excitement- but it was also Friday. Fridays were the best days. Fridays were when a new book would appear on that certain aisle, beyond the landing of the second floor of Calypso’s Bookstore, cradled within the wire holder that said “Recommendations ~ S” in chalk letters.

“S” you always had liked how that letter was turned, not quite cursive but not quite print either. It was crookedly curved and yet- yet at the same time it was perfect.

Imaginative? Artsy? Creative?

It was crazy how easy it was to attach a personality to that “S”- to someone you didn’t even know. You see Calypso’s was a busy place- a community- filled with university professors, students, employees and hipsters. “S” could be anyone of them and you had reluctantly given up long ago trying to seriously figure out who it was. You could ask- that’s true- but then what if they weren’t who you expected- what if it somehow it got awkward and things turned wrong- what would you even say if you met them:  

“I noticed that you were having a crisis back in September?”

Because you had noticed. They usually liked the classics- history too- and every now and again a few excellent thrillers. But in the middle of September the flow changed to “The Myth of Sisyphus,” “On Death and Dying,” and “Notes from the Underground.” No one reads those back to back by choice. Unless, of course, the choice is made for you by some existential panic...

Maybe you were reading too much into it. But there was something fantastic about trying to piece together who they were and what was going on with them. It was like a secret conversation- a private and personal aside with a stranger. And that didn’t just happen every day- well- except on Fridays.

Breakfast that morning was quickly hurried through, as even though the shop didn’t open till ten, you were impatient. Grabbing a stack of your class notes, you shoved them in your bag and wrapped up your in coat and picked up your umbrella. It was nearly summer- but the clouds were still going to have their final say before vacating for the hot month.

The rain was warm and steady as you walked down the campus side street past the Arts buildings and into the coffee shop that was across the street from Calypso’s. As you drank your favorite drink and half read through your assignments, every so often you’d glance through the foggy window of the shop, letting your eyes drift across the street. You could feel yourself hoping- hoping almost beyond your own acknowledgement- to spy movement on the second floor- like a child peeping down the stairs on Christmas Eve. But no movement was seen, to your expected but still irksome disappointment.

Returning, more earnestly to your work, the hours ticked by and soon it was 10:30. Quickly, you packed up your things and waved goodbye to your favorite Barista. In a half-skip half-jog you splashed through the rain and bounded up the curb to the bookstore. Pushing through the weathered door, the bell rang above you, a nice and familiar sound.

Inside the store was already bustling with the regulars- who were already taking up their common haunts. While you were an avid patron, you couldn’t beat the dedication of some of them. The romantic lit professors practically ran their office out of Calypso's and could, without fail, always be found nesting in leather armchairs with stacks of papers and red pens by their side. Near them were the groupie grad students, mimicking every word the professors said and eagerly shuttling coffee back and forth across the street. They were all on the first floor today- as always.

You shuffled your way by them and around the displays of best sellers towards the back, passing the Wiccan Craft Club- they gathered here every Friday too. Today it was Sigil cross stitching. Spooky- but fun. One day you had the notion to join them and see what it was all about. Maybe they could help you find who “S” was you mused.

Taking the steps two at a time, you wound your way up the spiral staircase to the second floor. The worn rugs that lined the upper aisles softly gave way under your steps, as you followed the familiar path. Your eyes lit up.

“The Spy Who Came in from the Cold”

Well, that was an interesting selection. They usually didn’t pick espionage books. Excited, you picked up the book and began reading the summary- even though you knew you were going to buy it anyway. A wry smile formed on your face. It was about East Germany. Two months ago “S” had recommended a nonfiction book “Anatomy of a Dictatorship” that was all about the Soviets involvement in East Germany. You could put some of the pieces together.

Tucking a copy under your arm, you went back downstairs to the checkout. It was 10 till 11:00 and your lecture began at 11:20, so you couldn’t really linger any longer. Placing the book on the counter, you began to shuffle distractedly through your bag for your money.

“Great choice,” Hummed an unfamiliar voice.

Your attention quickly redirected to the register. Leaning over the counter, happily scanning the book, was an unusually tall and lanky guy with bright eyes that shone right through you. You had never seen him before, and you were sure of that because you would have remembered it. As he moved his long unruly swirls of chestnut hair made a bob and you could feel your ears turn red.

“Have you read it?” You managed to say, your mouth suddenly dry.

“Yes, actually, I have read that one- and I venture to think that you’ll enjoy it too,”

He smiled. His face was by no external metric perfect- but it had wonderful sort of charm- a charm that was making your brain go all fuzzy.

“Y’know,” He mused putting the book in a bag, “It is surprisingly hard to actually read when you work in a bookstore.”

“Too many choices?” You laughed- a nervous god awful laugh- but he didn’t seem to notice.

“It’s the agony of my existence!” He exclaimed with comedic air, “Sometimes- y’know- I’d rather walk into the sea then make a decision.”

You giggled, pressing your hand up to your mouth to stop it from running away from yourself.

“That’ll be 13.95,”

“Oh!” You jumped, forgetting that there was an actual transaction going on, and swiped your card. In between the digits of your pin you stole several glances upwards at his name tag.

“Shane,”

Your ears got redder with the realization- Shane! Was “S” for Shane? The anxiety of being around such a cute guy soared- neigh skyrocketed- in an instant.

Taking the bag from him you blurted out a shaky: “Thank-you”

“Don’t mention it-” He beamed, “Come back soon!”

You nodded. There needn’t be any worry. You would be back- and on more days than usual. Ripping your eyes away from him, walked out of the store and into the rain. Putting your umbrella up, you began to walk slowly towards your lecture hall- and for once you were thankful that it was on the other side of campus. The long walk there would give you time to cool off from whatever had just happened.

He might not even be “S” you told yourself. So what- he had read the book- he works in a bookstore- of course he is well read- of course he reads things. On top of that, you had never seen him before today and you had been reading the recommends for almost eight months now. In all likelyhood it wasn’t “S” and to think so was just wishful dreams… dreams…

A smile formed on your mouth. Even if he wasn’t “S” he was still something- you could feel it- definitely- definitely something. As you rounded the sidewalk and strolled up the library lawn, “Come back soon” replayed in your mind and you knew that you wouldn’t hear a word of the lecture. And you didn’t.

[platypanthewriter]

Yuletide Fic 5/5

Part One/Two/Three/Four/Five Read them as I post here, or all at once in Ao3 under peterqpan

What hadn’t occurred to Billy while planning for Santa was how long he and Steve would have to lie silently, waiting for the whispers around them to subside. The kids kept eating the Santa cookies, and then getting up to get more, and Will had the giggles about something. He kept wriggling out of the sleeping bags to put on more Christmas carols.

El kept sitting up at the slightest noise, staring suspiciously out the window, and Max wasn’t helping, all “What was that? Did you hear something?”

Jonathan’s shoulders shook suspiciously over on the couch, but at least he was quiet.

Steve didn’t let Billy throw anything at Max and El, and when Billy started to suggest knocking Dustin and Will out with blunt force trauma instead, Steve cupped his face with both hands, smiling at him in the light of the tree. They were scooted down far enough in the zipped-together sleeping bags that the edge shielded them from sight, their knees touching, and Billy let his eyes close as he leaned into Steve’s warm hands.

“Love you,” Billy whispered, almost inaudibly. “See, it’s romantic now.”

“It’s always romantic,” Steve whispered back, which Billy should have expected, honestly, from the man he’d had to flee earlier because he was professing his love loudly in the grocery store over Billy’s choice in mustard.

“Loser,” Billy sighed, squirming closer, and biting back a laugh at the feeling of Steve kissing his forehead, and his ears, and across his cheeks to his eyelids, and down his nose. Billy reached out and grabbed his boyfriend by the back of the neck, pulling him into a real kiss, but soft, so the kids couldn’t hear. “Merry goddamn Christmas,” he whispered, under the annoying, tinny tones of Marie and Donnie Osmond, apparently taped from the TV special. Steve snorted a laugh against his lips, and Billy could feel him grinning.

“Thanks,” Steve whispered, and Billy stroked his thumb over the base of Steve’s skull, and the shell of his ear, feeling the muscles move as he smiled.

“All I did was get out of your way,” Billy whispered. “But I get you tomorrow night, Harrington.”

“No, you—you did all this,” Steve whispered back. “I wouldn’t’ve thought of inviting the Byers. Or the tree. You invited Dustin.”

“Dustin invited himself,” Billy pointed out, and Steve nodded, squirming closer.

“You said it was okay,” he whispered. “I’d be...this’d be every other Christmas,” he laughed, a little catch in his voice, and pressed in for another kiss, murmuring against Billy’s lips, “Except for you. Love you. Babe. Billy Hargrove.”

“...I haven’t even killed you a reindeer yet,” Billy told him, his face so hot he could feel the blood pounding in his ears. “Jesus.”

“I love you anyway,” Steve whispered, kissing his face again. “I’m generous that way. Y’know. Even to losers who can’t even bring me a reindeer.”

Thank god, Billy thought, turning his head to kiss deeper, tasting frosting, and feeling Steve tremble against him, panting for breath. Thank god he shut up about loving me. Thank god he loves a loser who doesn’t bring him reindeer. He slid his hand up inside Steve’s shirt, under his sweater, and felt his breath hitch. Steve slid a socked foot over, hooking Billy’s leg by the ankle to sandwich their knees together, so their bodies were close enough to feel warm.

“Let’s sing carols,” Dustin said loudly, and Steve scrambled away, sat up in the zipped-together sleeping bags, and beaned him with a pillow he yanked off the couch, which had the fortunate side effect of dumping Jonathan Byers' ass on the floor. He yelled.

Billy should have expected the thankfully brief pillow fight, in which Will got the giggles so bad he fell over, Dustin took a three-pointer in the face from Max, and Jonathan Byers threw pillows at Steve, missing every time.

El smacked everyone indiscriminately, and Steve tried to be some kind of stealth ninja slithering around on sleeping bags while Billy called out plays like a sports announcer, but after they all flopped horizontal again, panting, the kid’s giggles finally petered off, and then there was silence.

It was time.

“How come I didn’t get a home run,” Steve whispered as they retrieved El’s bike from where Hopper’d slid it under the table, as Jonathan tiptoed off for the stockings.

“Didn’t hit the ceiling beam,” Billy whispered back, making it up as he went along. “Gotta hit the ceiling beam before it drops on somebody.”

“I should have got a penalty shot when they all ganged up on me,” Steve huffed, sitting out Dustin’s Commodore 64 games, and Will’s new markers. There was a photography book for Jonathan, and Billy waited until Steve wandered off to stick the two albums he’d bought him kinda behind it— Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and The Police: Synchronicity. Steve used one of his dad’s ski boots to make an ash print by the stove, before helping Jonathan prop stockings up not-too-near the fireplace, so the chocolate inside wouldn’t melt by morning.

Max had new walkie-talkies too, and Billy sat them out with mixed feelings, wondering who the second one would go to—her mom?! He hailed Steve over to have him write a note, too—Dear Max, it said, I have given your step-brother Billy a little Christmas spirit, so he’ll drive you to get a skateboard repair kit.

“Why am I writing it,” Steve hissed.

“She knows my handwriting, dingus,” said Billy, knowing she didn’t believe in Santa, but also buying in, a little, to the illusion.

Steve looked at him for a long second, and then yanked him in for a kiss.

They’d barely climbed back in their sleeping bags when Billy heard bells, and thought really, Hopper? Fuck you. Really?!

El sprang up, stumbling sleepily over Dustin and Will to the window, and from their grunts and muttered expletives, possibly doing internal damage. “Bells,” El mumbled, squinting outside just as they all jumped at the loud thud, and scraping noise, and El turned to stare at Max and yell “It’s his sleigh! It’s his sleigh!” before peeling off to run out the back door to stare up at the sky as Max fixed a sleepy, but extremely suspicious, glower on Billy.

“The fuck was that,” she hissed, and Steve said “Santa!”

“Go away, Santa, too early,” Dustin mumbled, and Billy’s liking for the kid grew three sizes that moment.

“It’s not even two in the morning,” Steve whispered, laughing, and pointing to the digital clock on the VCR, but Mrs. Henderson, Joyce, and Susan all stumbled downstairs, shivering and blinking sleepily, followed by Hopper.

He hummed as he put the kettle on, rubbing his hands together as his kid froze outside like The Little Match Girl, looking for Santa in her pajamas, and Billy finally went to the door with Dustin and yelled “El! Get in here, you’ll freeze!”

She yelled something back, but it got lost in the arctic wind, until she ran back, shivering, and held out a half-eaten carrot like she’d found the Holy Grail. “They dropped this!” she whispered, and Billy dropped a blanket on her head, and walked away to stand by the fire as Dustin pulled her inside, and Will saw his Santa-given markers and yelled.

Steve came up and threw his arms around Billy, either out of joy, or the realization he needed to stop his boyfriend from murdering the sheriff.

The kids all milled around the tree, Dustin’s fingers actually twitching towards the games, but they all noticed the time, and stared warily at their parents—except El, who was wrapped up in a blanket in the arms of the main offender, her snowflake-patterned socks sticking out as she yelled something muffled about Santa.

“Guess we’re opening presents now!” said Joyce Byers, grinning as she watched Jonathan catch sight of the photography book, and Will sitting, cross legged in front of his markers, his eyes wide and fixed on their target. El found her bike and yelled, snatching the note, and Max frowned at the handwriting over her shoulder, then fixed a startled frown on Billy, who shrugged. Max's eyes narrowed as El ran to show Hopper the note, and Billy looked away, watching Dustin rub his face briskly and trundle over to sit under the tree.

Dustin passed his mom a package, grinning up at her, and she crouched to hug his head.

“You’re all insane,” Billy whispered, warming to the idea of Christmas, a bit, as El passed him more hot chocolate, even though Jonathan immediately ruined everything by putting the Rudolph Christmas special on the VCR.

“Euuuugh,” Billy groaned, leaning his head against Steve’s.

In the ensuing melee, Billy ducked around flung Star Wars toys, Legos, what looked like a camping tent, a Ghostbusters baseball cap, and a rainbow of hats and scarves from Mrs. Henderson, who’d apparently made some for everyone there.

“How’d you have time,” Joyce breathed, running her fingers over a pattern in brown and green, and Claudia Henderson shrugged.

“Dustin’s cousins never send thank you cards anyway,” she said, grinning and handing packages to Billy, Steve, and Hopper.

Billy squeezed his, blinking at her, and she patted his shoulder. If Claudia Henderson could brave the wrapping-paper explosion, so could he, he figured, so he edged around to grab Steve’s stocking, and handed it over. “I’m giving this to you on one knee,” he whispered, and Steve blinked at him, then stared down at the stocking.

Instead of pulling out orange after orange, as Billy’d anticipated, Steve dumped it over his lap in a shower of fruit and walnuts, and burst out laughing at the ring-pop Billy’d stuck in the bottom. He yanked the wrapper open and put it on his finger, admiring the huge cherry candy gem, and leaned to whisper “I do.”

Billy flushed and scrambled away to find his actual presents for his boyfriend, rather than watch Steve stare into his eyes, swirling his tongue around his ring-pop, his mouth already red from the food coloring. Billy scrambled half under the tree and yanked out the first aid kit, and the cold-weather kit with handwarmers and foil blankets, and passed them up to Steve, who looked startled unwrapping them, then fond.

“I’ll be ready for anything,” he said, and Billy snorted.

“Can you be ready for anything in Hawkins?” Billy shot back, and Steve beamed at him.

Billy’s Santa presents for Steve, the albums, had been snatched up by Will and Jonathan, he realized after crawling around. They surrendered them after arranging some copies in trade, and Billy handed them over to their proper recipient while Steve stared at the pile of presents growing around him, and agreed to give one of his new walkie-talkies to Dustin.

Which made sense, Billy thought, it wasn't like Billy even knew how to use the damn thing. He didn't even know if he lived close enough to Steve for the damn thing to work, and it was probably more important to Steve that the kids could find him when they found monsters.

Steve was wearing one of his new mittens on the hand without the ring-pop, and the matching burgundy scarf, and Billy sat and watched him as he opened the note from Joyce, inviting him for New Years, and grinned at her.

Billy forgot he was in the middle of the whole Christmas mess until Max punched him in the shoulder, and shoved the note Steve had written in front of his face. “This true?” she asked, scowling. “You’re gonna take me to buy a skate kit.”

“Yeah,” he said, shrugging, and she stared.

“Santa is real,” she muttered, crawling back over to where El was trying on her new bike helmet.

Steve pushed his haul aside, pausing to blink at a wrapped package from Susan, and waved Billy over as he slowly ripped it open. Two packaged Hot Wheels cars spilled out into his lap—a BMW and a Camaro, and Steve looked delighted. "They're our cars," he whispered, grinning at Billy, his eyes sparkling in the lights from the tree as he ripped the cardboard off the backs, and touched their front bumpers gently together.

Billy shoved them down, hissing, "Don't make our cars kiss."

"But they're in love," Steve whispered back, bumping them together again, and Billy leaned his face in his hand and groaned.

He glanced over at Susan, sitting next to Max and El as El told his stepmom about things you could put in bike wheels to make noise. He couldn't picture Susan Hargrove going through the toy aisle, finding their cars, and he wondered for a wild moment if Max had, but that was even harder to picture. Steve kissed the cars bumpers together again, making a smoochy noise, and Billy elbowed him. He couldn't figure out what the cars had even been for—she wouldn't have given them to him—so the remaining option was Susan had shopped for Steve, intending the whole time to give him little toy cars in a mismatched pair.

Steve put both cars in his hand, their undercarriages pressed together, and rolled their tires together with a sly grin, and Billy smacked his hand again, reddening. “Okay, so,” Steve said finally, “—I didn’t know you’d want to come.”

“It’s fine,” Billy laughed, but Steve shook him gently by the shoulders.

“No, it’s not, but I gotta find you something better than what Bradley's Big Buy had, okay. All I got you was this—” he pushed a squishy package into Billy’s hands, and Billy ripped it open to find a soft sweater, clingier than the horse blanket Steve had pulled over his head earlier. “It’s the color of your—no, it’s not,” Steve said, squinting into his face, and Billy started snickering as Steve grabbed him by both arms and pushed him closer to the tree, then pulled him back, then walked him through the all the sprawled kids and around the other side. “There,” Steve said proudly. “It’s the color of your eyes.”

“I can’t see them,” Billy reminded him, grinning, and Steve stared at his mouth, licking his own lips, then groaned quietly in the back of his throat and stalked back to the couch, sucking on the ring-pop.

“Billy,” said Susan, holding out two rectangular department-store boxes with fancy bows, and Billy bit his lips together and sat down right where he was, lifting the lid on the top one. It was a button-down like he liked, the same brand he was wearing, in a deep oceany blue, and he bit his lips together, frowning into the box.

“Neil was busy, so I told him he didn't need to...supervise the shopping,” she said. “It should be the right size.”

Billy nodded, putting the lid back on, and opened the other, bigger box to see a wool coat, thick but tailored. He narrowed his eyes and put it on, and Steve whistled like a goddamn train. Billy ignored him, tugging at it and zipping up the front, and for once, dressed for the outdoors, didn’t feel like he was wearing an entire mattress tied to his chest. “...thanks,” he said, feeling his face heat, and avoiding looking up at her face by testing the size of the pockets.

“Don’t freeze to death,” Susan told him, sighing, and handed him his stocking. He pulled out Mr. T’s Candy Cups, and Nerds, and some oranges, and Starburst, and then felt something thick. He thought this better not be a fucking bag of coal, after she said she didn’t even think it was funny.

It was a pair of socks, warm and soft, and he considered them for a second before placing them in his lap, and reaching in to find a cassette of David Bowie’s Let’s Dance. He was just pulling out some Twix bars when Max dropped next to him, and he pulled his candy back towards him, narrowing his eyes at her.

“I got my own candy, dipshit,” she said, rolling her eyes, and fiddling with her new, shiny walkie-talkies. "The hat's warm."

Billy grimaced. "We'll get you the board repair kit."

"...he told you not to buy it, didn't he," she said heavily, and Billy winced, opening his mouth.

“Everybody done?” Joyce yelled, and Max opened her mouth and closed it again, gripping the walkie-talkie, but Joyce walked by and patted her shoulder, calling out, “Everybody done with presents? Okay! Go the hell to bed.” Max scuttled away to her sleeping bag, and Joyce prodded Hopper in the side, which he ignored. She cupped her hands around her mouth, shouting up at him. “Bedtime!”

“It’s morning,” Dustin said, snickering, but he covered a yawn, and Will walked over to his side of their shared sleeping bags, his arms filled with loot, and collapsed in a smiling pile.

“Fine, fine,” Hopper said, clapping his hands. “Everybody back to bed! G’night!”

Max opened her mouth, frowning at him, then sighed, and lurched tiredly to her feet, stumbling away. Steve came over and sat in her spot, throwing his arm around Billy, and sucking his ring-pop, and they sat and stared at the tree as the kids crawled back into their sleeping bags, Rudolph’s dad was terrible on the TV, and the adults all shuffled back upstairs.

“Love you,” Steve whispered.

“I heard those were invented to stop kids sucking their thumbs,” Billy whispered back, flicking Steve's hand with the ring-pop.

“It’s definitely been handy when I wanted to suck on things,” Steve said agreeably, and Billy choked, coughing, as Steve slurped away at his cherry ring-pop, looking smug.

Billy woke the next day alone in the sleeping bag, and tender where he’d rolled on his belt, and where the seams of his jeans had sanded his legs. He groaned into the soft blue-green sweater he was using as a pillow, and smelled food .

Nancy’d shown up, he found out, when he sat up like a groundhog blinking at the sun. She was on the couch with Jonathan, flipping through a different photo book in black and white. They both blinked at Billy, and then waved silently, and he waved back, looking around for Steve, and hoping Steve’s ex and her new beau didn’t try to include Billy in their conversation.

Steve was running back and forth from the kitchen, carrying plates and wearing an intent grin, and Billy watched him for a few minutes before clambering out of the sleeping bag. The others were rolled up, he noticed, and tried to zip his apart. He caught the ties in the zipper, somehow, and was trying to figure out whether he could just roll them together when Will dropped to sit next to him, eager to leverage his sleeping-bag-taming knowledge for copies of all Billy’s music.

Billy considered, aware of Nancy and Jonathan trying not to watch him repeatedly lose his battle with a squishy inanimate object, and finally agreed. “You figure this shit out and I’ll copy you the new Def Leppard,” he whispered, and Will hugged him, which was just—weird, so he waited until it was over, and walked away, trying to fix his hair by feel.

Lucas and Max showed up that afternoon, Mike was there, Billy registered vaguely, giving all the appropriate compliments to El about her bike, and Billy dozed on Steve’s shoulder in a turkey coma and let the Christmas carols float over him.

Just after he thought they’d left again, the floor pounded as Max stalked up to him and slapped the new walkie-talkie in his hand. “Everybody else has one,” she said, glaring at it, turning on her heel, and stalking off. Billy stared after her, wondering whether she honestly couldn't find someone to give it to. He'd seen Lucas', and it was twice the size.

“Ooo, I have one!” Steve said excitedly. “We can talk when you can’t get to the phone!”

Billy glanced up at him, and back down, imagining being able to call Steve when his door was padlocked from the outside, and bit his lips together. He nodded, and cleared his throat. “I, uh, yeah. I’ll...get some batteries.”

“I’ve got some,” Steve said, squirming away, then dropping beside him again to hand over an eight-pack of Energizers. “Dustin gave me some for mine.”

“...might use this thing a lot,” Billy said warningly, flicking the buttons, and Steve laughed.

“Good, I don’t wanna feel needy.”

Before everyone left, Billy got hugs from Joyce and Mrs. Henderson—he couldn’t think of her as Claudia, not when she was wearing an apron and reminded him so much of Mrs. Claus—a companionable shoulder-squeeze from Hopper, and a tense smile from Susan. El asked whether they could come back next year, explaining how Santa got lost sometimes without woodstoves, and Steve nodded seriously, agreeing to everything she said.

Jonathan shook Billy's hand like an awkward nerd, while Will tried to convince them to hang out and listen to music together, until El started questioning them all about music, and Hopper drug her away. As Jonathan, Will, El, and Hopper stumbled off in a hand-holding chain like Billy's paper-doll garland, Billy felt a tap on the shoulder, and turned to see Joyce Byers again.

"Jonathan and Will showed me the car," she said. "It looks really nice."

"They vacuumed it," Steve said, laughing and waving his hands, and Billy rolled his eyes.

"Steve fixed it so your battery will charge right, and changed your oil," he reported, and Steve laughed, grinning, then went wide-eyed as Joyce hugged them both around the necks, yanking them down even though she stood on her tiptoes.

"Thanks so much, you two," she said, sounding a little choked. "You're such good kids. You're such good kids."

Steve made a weird noise in his throat, and Billy's eyes skipped the stinging and went straight to blurry with tears, so he pulled away, clearing his throat, and made a show of lighting a cigarette.

"A-anytime," Steve said, laughing a little unnaturally. He folded his arms, unfolded them, and bit his lips, and Joyce squeezed his shoulder.

"Thank you," she said earnestly, and he nodded.

Billy threw an arm around him as Joyce walked away. Dustin glanced between Billy and Steve and saluted, laughing and shaking his head, and Nancy waved again from the car window. Steve waved back.

“We look like the parents in a Christmas special,” Billy said, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Steve, and waving at departing cars. "Like a sitcom." Steve snorted a laugh, wiping his eyes.

After they’d all gone, Billy leaned in the doorway between the kitchen and the front room, watching Steve pick up a couple pieces of wrapping paper, and sigh. He sat under the tree, holding a piece of Mrs. Henderson’s ugliest wrapping paper, covered in brown and orange angels that looked like a hollow-eyed Strawberry Shortcake. Steve stretched it flat, and bit his lips together, before crumpling it, his shoulders a little bowed.

“...you don’t think Chriatmas is over, do you?” Billy asked, wandering closer.

“What?” Steve laughed, his eyes lowered. “I mean, it’s still the 25th. I guess. Christmas until midnight.”

“Yeah, that too,” Billy agreed, coming up behind him to reach around with both arms and take the sad crumpled Christmas paper away. He tossed it behind the tree, and Steve snorted a laugh, leaning back into his arms. “But we haven’t even gotten our best present yet,” he whispered, letting his breath tickle Steve’s ear, so he shivered. “This is the part I’ve been waiting for.” Steve opened his mouth, shrugging, and Billy yanked him around so they were nose to nose. “I got the biggest present under the tree,” Billy hissed, “—and I’ve been so patient, don’t you dare tell me Christmas is over now.”

Steve grinned at him, wide and delighted, and Billy squished his face with both hands, making his grin kissable.

Having had plenty of time to plan, Billy grabbed one of the sleeping bags, unrolled it, and tossed it under the tree, towards the fire. Steve pulled him over for a deeper kiss this time, soft and exploratory, as though he didn’t know every hitch of Billy’s breath, and the way he trembled when Steve bit gently at his lower lip, and let it pull through his teeth. “Jesus god of reindeer,” Billy whispered muzzily, and Steve burst out laughing.

“What,” he said. “What?”

“You,” Billy said hoarsely, and cleared his throat, trying to remember his script. “You wanna put on, like, your Christmas songs. Or—or movies. Or something.”

“...you wanna fuck me to Rudolph?” Steve asked, looking a little weirded out, and Billy gritted his teeth, and committed, for the sake of love.

“You want your Christmas shit playing when you get presents, right.”

“...jesus,” Steve whispered, head cocked like Billy was crazy, but beaming all the same. “Uh.” He flushed, biting his lips as he narrowed his eyes at the TV and VCR, and then the tape player. “Uh, just music, maybe.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about Rudolph,” Billy grimaced, imagining the little reindeer’s nasal tones, and the nitwit misfit song. “I mean, if you want to, but I’m gonna...good thing I already know how fucking weird you are—”

“I didn’t come up with—with this Rudolph sex orgy idea,” Steve hissed back, poking him in the chest.

Billy shrugged, rubbing it. “I really don’t know what’s weirder about that than listening to, like, The Carpenters, or John Denver and the Muppets,” he said, waiting while Steve blew the dust off the record player, and frowned between The Jackson 5 Christmas Album and A Partridge Family Christmas Card. “Or those,” Billy said, making a face at little Michael Jackson, and sitting on the sleeping bag, waiting while his dick strained against the inside of his jeans.

“Just don’t think too much about it,” Steve muttered, crouching down to put on A Partridge Family with pink cheeks, and Billy waited until the speakers crackled and Mr. Partridge started singing to grab Steve around the waist.

Billy pulled his boyfriend's butt half into his lap, where he could slide his hands up Steve’s sides, lifting his sweater and shirt, and kissing the skin between his shoulder blades. Steve laughed, and leaned his head back against Billy’s shoulder for a kiss. Billy gave him one—then two—then stared at Steve’s startled grin, and sighed, brushing their lips together as the magnetic pull hauled him back in, and Steve gave a muffled laugh and a contented noise deep in his throat, closing his eyes. He tasted sweet, like the cookies he’d been eating, even sweeter than usual, and Billy groaned and shoved Steve forward again in order to push his sweater and shirt up over his shoulders, white from winter, and scattered with birthmarks. Billy kissed a few of them.

“Better keep me warm,” Steve whispered, curling up in his arms, and Billy pulled him in as tight as he could, burying his probably goofy-looking grin in Steve’s hair.

“Oh, I’ll warm you up,” he whispered, and Steve snickered, relaxed against him as Billy slid his hands around Steve's waist, and down to undo his boyfriend’s jeans. Steve groaned, shivering as Billy pulled his cock out—it was already satisfyingly hard in his hand, and Billy rubbed the edge of his thumb across it, so Steve grunted and squirmed in his lap. “...guess the Partridge Family really does it for you,” Billy whispered.

“Shut your face,” Steve mumbled, panting. “You do it for me, we could be—we could be listening to like. Bird calls, I don’t give a fuck—”

“You saying Tweety Bird gets your motor running,” Billy whispered back, and Steve elbowed him, mostly hitting sweater.

“Fuck you,” he hissed, his hips jerking so his dick bumped against Billy’s thumb again, into his hand, and Billy squeezed it, the wetness letting his thumb slide easily over the tip. “Oh jesus,” Steve whispered. “God…”

“Lay down,” Billy said, biting his shoulder gently, and Steve arched against him, groaning. “Come on, your majesty, I’m not even done unwrapping you yet.”

“...nerd,” Steve snorted, panting, but he let himself be pressed back onto the sleeping bag, his cock sliding against Billy’s hand as Billy held him down, gently, by the lower belly, tugging his jeans off. Steve bent his legs up to let Billy yank the legs off without having to move, and Billy laughed as he tugged Steve’s socks off, and tossed them away. Steve grinned up at him, his face lit by the lights on the tree, making him look a little starry.

“There,” Billy said, rubbing his free hand up Steve’s thigh. He leaned in to kiss his boyfriend’s naked dick, and Steve yelped, moaning in the back of his throat.

“What—about you,” he grunted, his voice a little rough. “You gonna raw me in your jeans?”

He sounded hungry at the thought, and Billy filed that away for later. “Nah,” he whispered, swinging a leg over so he was sitting across his boyfriend’s thighs. “Thought I’d make you watch me, for a bit,” he said, sliding two fingers in his mouth, and sucking on them.

Steve muttered “Oh, shit,” and propped himself up on his elbows.

“Now you got me in this damn...Mr. Rogers sweater,” Billy said, keeping his voice low as he drug his fingers down it, Steve’s gaze fixed on them as his dick leaked.

“Don’t talk about Mr. Rogers, gross,” he whispered, and Billy grinned, swinging his hips a little from side to side so Steve's naked thighs could feel the warmth of his ass through jeans. “Jesus,” Steve muttered, clenching his fists as Billy slid both hands around his own waist just under the edge of the sweater, lifting them up underneath against his sides, and Steve laughed a little unevenly, his eyes widening.

Billy lifted the sweater a little more, running his fingers lightly over his abs, and then his pecs as they flexed with his arms up in the damn sweater, and Steve swallowed visibly. Billy pulled the sweater off his shoulders and head, shaking his hair back, and flexed his arms as he pulled the sweater sleeves off.

Steve threw his head back laughing. “Love you,” he said, always picking the weirdest times.

“We’re boning to the Partridge Family,” Billy hissed, instantly irritated. “If this fuckery isn’t love I don’t know what is.”

“I know,” Steve said, his smile soft even as his cock dripped on his belly. “Thanks for boning me to the Partridge Family.”

“Shut the hell up, I’m stripping,” Billy growled, and Steve started laughing again, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, and Billy swore and leaned in to kiss him, flattening him to the ground, and wiping the wetness away from his boyfriend’s eyes with his knuckles. “The fuck is wrong with you,” he muttered, and Steve snickered, sniffling. “You want me to hurry up?”

“No,” Steve laughed, swallowing a suspicious gulping sound, and Billy frowned harder. “I just like this,” Steve whispered, laughing, his eyes welling up again. “I like this Christmas.”

“Are you gonna do this every year?” Billy asked in horror, imagining his boyfriend crying through sex while puppets wailed in the background, and Steve laughed harder, wiping his face.

“You saying you’re gonna bone me under the tree every year?” he asked, and Billy felt his face heat. Steve grinned, reaching up to tuck Billy’s curls out of his face, behind his ear. “In sickness and in health?”

“Why are you so weird,” Billy groaned, rocking his hips, so Steve grunted, closing his eyes. “Yes. Yeah. Next year we’ll fuck to Frosty, can I get back to stripping now?”

“Yeah,” Steve laughed, sniffling. “I love you. Yeah.”

“Christ,” Billy muttered, wiping his boyfriend’s eyes and cheeks again, his own eyes stinging a little—probably with embarrassment, he thought, fairly sure he was gonna get a half-chub every time he heard the Partridge Family playing, for the rest of his life.

Steve was still hard, at least—which was more disconcerting than anything—so Billy sighed, and rolled his hips again, as a reset. Every time he did, his fly brushed the bottom of Steve’s dick, and he groaned, rocking his head back against the sleeping bag. He was starting to sweat, and the light of the tree made him glisten.

“Look at me,” Billy told him, and Steve folded his arms behind his head to see. Billy ran his fingers up his new blue shirt—cupping his sides like his hands were Steve’s, and then running his hands up along the buttons to undo the first one.

“Never seen you with your shirt all the way on before,” Steve whispered, his eyes fond, and Billy snorted.

“Can’t let up on the advertising campaign,” he said. “Gotta show you the goods.”

“No, you don’t,” Steve reached down to squeeze Billy’s thigh through his jeans. Billy undid another button, parting the fabric over his collarbones, and running his hands down his neck, and Steve leaned his head on one shoulder, smiling up. “I’m not gonna...forget, jesus,” he whispered. “Never gonna forget what you look like, babe.”

Billy grabbed the sweater and leaned in to lift Steve’s head into a kiss, tucking the sweater behind it as a pillow.

“God,” Steve whispered against his mouth, running his hands over Billy’s half-unbuttoned shirt.

Billy sat back upright again, while Steve groaned and grabbed at his shirt as he pulled away. Billy undid another button, letting his nails scrape along his skin as he scooped his pendant into his mouth, swaying his hips. He slid his fingers down over the remaining buttons to brush over the edge of his belt, raising his eyebrows at Steve, who laughed, panting.

“Yeah, I’m watching, loverboy.” Steve leaned back on one elbow, smiling smugly, and Billy watched the low golden light on his boyfriend’s face and hair.

Billy ran his fingers over his fly, and down in his pants, tugging his shirt tails out one by one, and swayed his hips in a slow figure-eight as Steve bucked a little under him, grinning.

“Gonna be New Years by the time you’re done, jesus,” Steve said, his gaze riveted to Billy’s hands.

“Can’t keep it up, there, pretty boy?” Billy asked, arching his back as he undid the lowest button, and then parted his shirt like a curtain and undid the one above it to show his taut belly and the trail of hair leading into his jeans.

“Not the problem,” Steve said through gritted teeth, the fingers on his free hand digging into Billy’s thighs.

Billy stopped, looking down to unbutton his cuff and roll it up a couple of times, humming carelessly as Steve squirmed under him, smacking his leg.

“Hurry up, you bastard,” he demanded, and Billy smiled, unbuttoning the other cuff.

“You gonna ask nicely?” he asked, and Steve laughed, shifting under him with a grimace. “You’re leaking like a hose connection with a bad washer.”

“Shut up,” Steve hissed. “Like you aren’t making me.”

“Maybe I should stop,” Billy said, stretching so his shirt lifted.

“Please, please, you dickhead,” Steve broke. “My legs are fucking going to sleep, and my dick’s gonna explode—”

“Thought you loved me,” Billy said, licking his lips, and leaning in so his stomach brushed Steve’s dick. Steve yelped, groaning, and bucking up into the friction. “Isn’t that what you were saying earlier? King Steve, the chosen one?”

“Love you a lot more if you let me touch,” Steve growled, laughing. As Billy sat up, Steve reached out and yanked at his belt, and Billy laughed, smacking Steve’s hand away.

“Thought you didn’t want Christmas to be over,” Billy whispered, and Steve laughed harder, his cock dripping across his stomach.

“Yeah,” he admitted, leaning back with a shaky breath. “Yeah, I don’t. Never want this to be over.” His knuckles went white as his fingers tightened on Billy’s swaying thighs.

The Partridge Family switched to Winter Wonderland, and Billy’s side was warmed by the fire. He knew the light of it gilded his hair and skin as he flexed his bare forearms, sliding a finger under the leather strap of his belt as Steve groaned.

Billy flicked it out of the belt loops, tugging it off the tongue of the buckle and slowly drawing it loose over his fly. Steve twitched under him, swallowing back a noise as Billy’s jeans brushed his cock. “You want me to fuck you?” Billy asked, undoing the buttons of his jeans one-by-one so Steve could see he was going commando, and pressing his thumb and forefinger together in a tight circle over his own dick, so Steve’s bounced untouched on his stomach.

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, looking him over, and Billy grinned.

“Want me to do all the work,” Billy whispered, swaying his hips with the music, “—so all you have to do is lie there?”

“Anything,” Steve said. “Love you, jesus.”

Billy’s hand stuttered, and he leaned forward again, bracing himself over Steve’s chest. “Tell me,” he said. “You want me to ride you? What?”

“I want everything,” Steve said, his eyes wide and soft, and then he grinned. “I mean, we got so many leftovers to get through. Whatever we don’t do now—”

“How can you be such a romantic and such a shithead,” Billy muttered, reaching down to squeeze his boyfriend’s hand.

“Fuck me just like that,” Steve said. “Your party jeans and that shirt. You look like—you’re a wet dream, jesus.” Billy grinned, cocking his head and licking his lips, and Steve laughed shakily. “Yeah, come on, asshole,” he whispered. “Billy.”

“Yeah,” Billy said, scrounging around in the back of the TV cabinet where he’d hidden the lube, and pulling the condom out of his back pocket. He squirted some lube in his hand, and pushed Steve’s legs up to slide his hand between them, watching him squirm against the cold.

“Warm it up, dickhead,” Steve muttered, grabbing his wrist, but as soon as Billy started sliding his fingers up and down, Steve relaxed, going boneless with one leg bent up, the other sprawled to the side. His eyes went half-lidded as he grinned up in the starry rainbow lights.

Billy watched him pant in the light of the Christmas tree, and smiled, holding Steve’s hips flat to the floor with one hand, and bending to slip his mouth over his boyfriend’s cock.

“Jesus christ,” Steve grunted, shifting under Billy’s hands, and Billy hummed along with the song, knowing he could probably shove on in, but taking it slow, swirling his tongue around Steve’s dick as his fingers worked. He rubbed over the edge of Steve’s hole, over and over, until he was squirming, red-cheeked, and biting his lips together, and he finally said “Jesus, fuck me, god—”

Billy lifted his mouth off Steve’s cock with a pop. “His majesty’s getting impatient,” he said, and Steve yelled “Yes, I fucking am.” Billy laughed, leaning his head against Steve’s knee, and then kissed it, before crawling up to kiss Steve’s mouth.

“Fuck you,” Steve muttered, panting, his skin gleaming with sweat in the light of the tree. “God…” he whispered against Billy’s mouth, whining softly, and Billy grabbed the sweater and shoved it under Steve’s back, pushing his legs up so Billy could push slowly in.

“Merry Christmas,” he mumbled, and Steve started snickering, grunting as Billy’s weight pushed the air from his lungs, but pulling him in for a kiss, bent nearly double.

“God, you feel good,” Steve grunted, as Billy narrowed his eyes, checking his boyfriend’s sprawled limbs for tension before thrusting his hips. “God, yes,” Steve moaned, kissing hazily at anything of Billy's he could reach.

It wasn’t so bad, Billy decided, boning Steve Harrington under the Christmas tree, and watching the Christmas lights reflect off his eyes. Even the music wasn’t too awful—he mostly tuned it out—until Billy went too hard, rustling the nearest branch of the tree as Steve writhed beneath him, and a popcorn ball smacked right between his shoulders and bounced off Steve’s knee, and they both had to stop while they laughed themselves breathless.

“Let’s do this every year,” Steve whispered into his shoulder once they’d finished, sweaty and smiling, and Billy snorted a laugh, pulling him closer.

“...yeah, okay,” he whispered back, running his hand around his boyfriend’s ass where it was still a little sticky, and considering Round Two. “You’re worth it.”

“Good,” Steve laughed, squirming closer. “You’re worth it too. This. Anything.”

“...love you too,” Billy whispered, hugging him close.

[fireblaze5555]

The Dress

Got distracted and finished this instead of working on the final chapter of another fic. Oops.

Also on A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24970231

Rated: Explicit

There was a light knock at Frank’s door. Glancing over he sat his coffee down on the island next to the spread out files and strode over to check the peephole. He saw a flash of blonde as expected and swung the door open.

Karen gave him a sweet smile, “Your help has arrived. Did I miss anything good?” She stepped in, kissing him quickly before breezing the rest of the way into the apartment. 

He started to answer but then he noticed the flowy mid-thigh dress she was wearing. It was black with white flowers printed across it and it hugged her breasts and waist perfectly before it flared over her hips, swirling around her thighs as she walked. Frank couldn’t focus long enough to answer her, he was mesmerized by those long pale legs, from her delicate ankles wrapped in strappy wedge heels up to where her smooth thighs disappeared in the flowing skirt. 

Finally tearing his eyes away from her legs, he saw that she was looking at him expectantly. His voice cracked a little when he answered, “Uh...no. New info is on the right there, let me know if that adds up with what you’ve found. You want some coffee?”

She raised an eyebrow at him but turned and strode over to the island to glance at the files. Her voice was distracted as she scanned over everything, “Yeah coffee would be great, thank you.”

Taking another quick second to admire how perfectly that dress fit her and how her long legs looked impossibly more so in those heels, Frank shook his head and stepped over to make her a coffee. You invited her over to work on a case, not fuck her with your eyes. You can mess around later, get your shit together asshole. They had been together for a few months now but he still primarily saw her in office attire, though those pencil skirts were distracting enough on their own, it was a pleasant surprise to see her in a dress. He was racking his brain to remember if she told him what her plans had been today and why she would be dressed up.

Setting her cup down in front of her he cleared his throat, “You look nice, what’s the occasion?”

Karen glanced up distractedly and gave him a small smile as she took the cup. “Foggy and Marci put on a benefit for a local kids charity and asked me to come and put together a little piece on it to run in The Bulletin.” She hummed appreciatively when she took a drink of coffee, “I’m glad you texted though, if I had to talk to one more rich businessman or lawyer talk about how charitable they are and ‘yes I just love helping kids and the less fortunate. Oh by the way, would you like to come see my penthouse, lakehouse, yacht etc, etc.,’ I was going to take my shoe off and beat someone with it.”

Frank let out a low laugh at her incredible imitation of the upper echelon of the city and couldn’t help the swell of pride in his chest. A possessive part of him wished he could have been there to put those assholes in their place but he couldn’t blame the men for trying, she was fucking gorgeous, the dress not withstanding. Add the dress to the mix and you have one devastatingly attractive woman, one that didn’t give a shit about them or their money and left a swanky party to come to be with him in his run down apartment. Why the hell she deigned to be with him is beyond his comprehension but anytime he questioned it she just shook her head, kissed him, and went on about her day. So he wasn’t going to tempt fate by asking again. 

Frank watched her for a moment, clear blue eyes scanned details, silky hair slid over her shoulder and when she shifted it made his eyes drop to the ample cleavage the dress provided as she bent over the island. Suddenly, the case was seeming less and less important.

Fuck it. Stepping around the island, Frank stood right behind Karen and rested his hands on the counter on either side of her hips as his chest pressed into her back. He leaned over her shoulder as though he were looking over the documents as well but didn’t bother trying to take in any details. Instead, he pressed his lips to her shoulder and moved his hands from the counter to her hips.

He smirked against her skin when he heard her quick inhale, though she continued to read, jotting some notes in the margins of one of the pages. Well that just wouldn’t do. Frank squeezed her hips lightly before dragging his hands down, his callouses catching here and there on the soft fabric. Pink was spreading down her neck and across her shoulders and from his vantage point where his lips were still dragging over her shoulder, he could see her chest rising and falling a bit more rapidly now but she still didn’t move her eyes from the documents.

His wandering hands had reached her legs and were bunching the fabric of the skirt up so he could skim his fingers over the smooth skin of her upper thigh. His mouth had reached her neck, teeth dragging lightly and he delighted in the shiver he felt run through her body.

“Frank.” She cleared her throat as he hummed in acknowledgment, “I thought we were working on a case?” Her voice was breathy and the way it caught when he began to drag his hands up her thighs, bringing the skirt with them, had him hardening rapidly.

“We are working on the case. We’ve got the files,” he said, his voice rough as he nipped just below her ear, “the coffee,” a swipe of his tongue, “and you’re even taking notes.” His fingers had reached her hips and skimmed over her pantyline underneath the skirt. Frank had to bite back a groan when her hips tipped back putting her ass flush with his groin.

A breathy laugh escaped her and she pushed more firmly into him, no doubt feeling how hard he was through his jeans. “Well, that sounds like I’m working on the case and you’re slacking off.” 

Frank chuckled darkly as he sucked at the skin where her neck met her shoulder, one hand gripped her hip, holding her firmly against him while the other slid into her underwear. He watched in satisfaction as her own hands stopped to grip the edge of the counter tightly. He practically purred against her skin, “Well, then I think you deserve a reward.”

The purr turned into a growl when he ghosted over her slit and could already feel how wet she was getting. He teased over her lips, reveling in the needy little noises she was making as his fingers continued to dance around their destination. Finally, Frank parted her folds and slid a skillful finger over clit and drew a soft moan from Karen. He had to close his eyes for a moment and just appreciate how good she felt, her firm ass pressed against his dick and her core wet and hot against his fingers. 

“Would you like a reward Karen?” Frank was impressed that his voice was so steady because he felt like he was coming apart at the seams. Every fiber of his being was nearly vibrating with the need to be inside her, his previous mission completely forgotten for this one. He circled over her nub, every little twitch he got from her feeding his need, before he dipped his fingers down to push into her slowly. The sound she made was delicious.

Frank rutted against her in time with the deep thrusts from his fingers and he felt her starting to flutter around his digits. He slowed, “You didn’t answer me Karen, would you like a reward?”

Cursing quietly, Karen tried to push back into him to gain back some of the friction that was lost. When Frank wasn’t caving she growled out, “God, yes, just fuck me already!”

He didn’t have to be told twice. In record time, Frank had shucked off her panties, dropped his pants and rucked that sinful dress up over her hips. His hand returned to stroke over her clit as he pushed into her waiting heat, in a few strokes he was buried to the hilt, his forehead pressed to her neck while Karen was pushing greedily into him.

“This fucking dress.” He growled clenching it in one hand at her waist as he ground into her.

Karen let out a breathy laugh in between moans, “I like this dress so don’t go all caveman on it.” She had tried to sound commanding but it came out airy and quiet.

“I like it too, I think I have a new personal favorite. I just don’t think it will be good for our productivity.” Frank punctuated the statement with a sharp, deep thrust he knew would drive her crazy.

He wasn’t disappointed, Karen arched into him with a cursing moan scrambling for grip on the kitchen island. Frank let out a dark chuckle when he did it again and papers scattered around them at her frantic movements, one hand sliding up her waist and pulling the cup of the dress aside to roll a nipple between his fingers. When Karen couldn’t get good enough purchase on the kitchen island she reached a hand behind her to bury her fingers in Frank’s hair. She couldn’t get a good grip with the military cut he kept but was able to drag her nails across his scalp which turned his deep laugh to a purr. The man did love her hands in his hair. 

Karen continued to arch into him, meeting every thrust with a slow rotation of her hips, all the while making little noises and taking stuttering breaths that had Frank fighting to keep control. The hand torturing her breast slid to the other side, not bothering to pull the dress down this time, simply sliding under the fabric to roughly knead the neglected peak. He could feel the fullness of it in his palm and groaned appreciatively when her hand came up to cover his, encouraging him to continue massaging her flesh. He was overcome for a moment on how one person could be so damn sexy. Her head had fallen back so he could see her swollen, pink bottom lip, one she had no doubt been dragging through her teeth to keep her wonton noises to a minimum. Her graceful neck was arched and he followed the line of it down to where her exposed breast bounced with each hard thrust he gave. Her ass was firm with just the right amount of give when his hips met hers and don’t even get him started on her her toned, mile long legs in those fuck me heels.

“Christ, you’re so damn sexy.” he muttered, his lips brushing the sensitive skin behind her ear, his voice husky and strained. 

“Fr-...Frank, I’m so close.” Karen gasped, the hand over his on her breast clenching and releasing with the waves of her pleasure.

Abruptly, Frank slowed the harsh thrusts to slow, torturous slides causing Karen to whimper in protest, pushing back into him to try and find the tempo he had so suddenly shifted from.

Releasing her breast, Frank dropped his hand back to her waist to hold her in place while he continued the slow push and pull.

He nipped at her ear when she made another impatient noise, “Shh, I’ve got you, you’ve gotta be patient.” His voice was warm whiskey and honey and it sent a delicate shiver through her. The next returning thrust was just as slow but once he was completely buried in her heat, Frank lifted on to the balls of his feet to grind into her, slowly changing the angle as he lifted. He accomplished what he was hoping to because she let out a gasp as his cock seemed to be hitting every spot she needed at once. He repeated the process several times, driving them both towards their breaking point.

His fingers kept an equally slow punishing rhythm on her clit, sliding around the nub as he withdrew nearly completely from her before dragging his thumb over it firmly when he pushed back in, lifting up to grind into her fully.

Frank felt her starting to flutter around him and felt his control slip. He went into a frenzied pace, back to the quick deep thrusts from before, this time the hand at her hip suddenly went to her shoulder, pulling her down into him with each rough stroke.

Karen let out a choking moan as her release hit her, her whole body seizing with the intensity of the pleasure pouring through her veins. He continued to pound into her through her release, using the hand on her shoulder to help ease her down onto the island. She appeared boneless and sated, bent at the waist so her chest was pressed to the counter and her ass was beautifully presented to him, soft moans still escaping her lips.

Frank felt his own orgasm creeping in, pressure building at his lower back and what felt like electricity running through every cell. Both of his large hands went to her waist and he marvelled for a moment at how his scarred,  tanned skin contrasted with the flawless alabaster of hers. Grasping the supple flesh of her hip, Frank pulled her back into each thrust, a growl reverberating in his chest. It was a simple look that threw him over the edge, Karen looking at him over her shoulder, all wide blue eyes, parted full lips and disheveled blonde hair that had him spilling into her with a low growl. He was sure his grip would leave bruises on her delicate skin but he couldn’t seem to let go as he rode out the rest of his release with shallow thrusts. 

Spent, Frank leaned forward, resting his forehead between her shoulder blades and released a ragged breath. He rested there for a moment before he felt her moving under him, a small laugh reverberating through her. Sitting back up slowly, he looked at her profile with curiosity.

Karen looked at him out of the corner of her eye from where her head rested on one of her arms, gesturing with her other hand to the side, amusement evident in her voice, “We spilled my coffee.”

Sure enough, when Frank looked over to where she indicated, her mug had been upended, the contents spilled across several pages before it dripped slowly to the floor.

Giving his own soft laugh, Frank moved the hair from the nape of her neck to place an open mouth kiss there before standing once again and carefully pulling out of her. His male pride preened at her contented sigh and the boneless way she came up to her elbows, the skirt of her dress sliding down to flutter around her thighs once more.

“I guess we will have to get you a fresh cup and reprint some of those documents.” He said, voice low and sated.

He took a half step back, pulling his pants back up but not bothering to fasten everything back in place yet. Karen turned in front of him, leaning in to place a lingering kiss on his lips, a mischievous smile in place when she leaned back.

“So...when I want to distract you from something, this will do the trick, huh?” She gestured to the dress.

Frank clicked his tongue at her, the corner of his mouth ticking up before nudging her away from the counter. “Don’t get any smart ideas, Page.” He turned to grab some paper towels to start cleaning up the spilled coffee. “I’ll clean this up while you clean up and then we can try to look this over again.”

When he turned back, Karen was naked in just her heels, the offending dress in a pile on the floor and the evidence of their previous activity on her thighs as she regarded him with a hand on her hip.

“Or, we could clean up together and see where the afternoon goes from there?” She suggested with a sultry smile before she turned and made her way toward the bathroom.

Frank watched, transfixed as her hips swayed and her perfect ass bounced with each step. Karen gave him one last look before she disappeared into the bathroom, door left wide open.

In an instant, the paper towels had been tossed somewhere, he didn’t bother to look where they landed and he was making his way across the room, slamming the bathroom door behind him.

It was much later that night before they finally got back to the case files.

[reminiscing-writer]

Off The Deep End

-

Warnings: none for this chapter. Starts with fluff, ends with angst. But shits gonna hit the fan lmao

-

-

Spencer pulls up the comforters in an attempt to cover his ears from the horrendous alarm that was enveloping his room.

“Make it stop," he grumbled into an empty bed.

"It's been ringing for a little more than an hour now," he heard his favorite voice from the attached bathroom of their bedroom, "it's about time you woke up, don't you think?" She peeked through the doorway, rolling her eyes with a smile at her sleepy husband.

"I have a better idea," Spencer mumbled sleepily.

“Oh?”

"You come into bed with me." He propped himself onto his elbow, barely managing to pry his open. He glanced over to the digital alarm clock on the bedside table which read 6:15 in bright red luminescent lights.

He inhaled a sharp breath slowly sitting up in bed, stretching his arms widely. The covers fell back onto the bed as he stood up and made his way into the bathroom.

"Excuse me," Amelia looked at her husband from the mirror. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind, resting his head on her shoulder. "Occupied." She giggles as he kisses the nape of her neck.

“Can you join me in the shower?” He asked his wife, looking at her big brown eyes through the mirror.

She turned to face him, smiling sweetly, “I'm already dressed, babe.” She puts on her earrings. “Sorry.” She apologized laughing at his disappointed sigh.

“You don't have to be at work ‘til 8. That's enough time for a second shower.” He rests his forehead against hers. He gives her a look up and down, thanking all the Gods he could think of for giving him an eidetic memory.

Her style was modest and girly. Floral prints and pastel colors. Lots of dresses and skirts (which she loved to twirl and spin in).

She quickly gives him a peck on his stubbly cheek, and squirms her way out his arms. “Get ready quickly. Breakfast will be ready in 20, and I would like to eat with you before I leave for the day.”

-

Pulling the buttons on his cardigan close, he rushed into the kitchen when he heard the bacon sizzle.

“Lia,” he grumbled, quickly stuffing a few raspberries in his mouth before she could stop him, “you spoil me.” He kisses her cheek.

She gives him a toothy, childlike grin.

She loved being appreciated and praised. It made her feel giddy. And, when she felt like that, she gave this adorable smile, which was one of the many things Spencer loved. Her two front teeth, and side canines displayed themself through her smiling lips.

“Should I do the omelette?” Spence offered as he set the table.

“I was thinking of no eggs today.” She answered, pouring pancake batter onto a second pan. When he gave her a questioning look- eggs being her favorite in the mornings- she just shrugged. “The smell has been setting my stomach off for a few days now.”

After he poured the duo Orange juice, the two quickly ate, cleaned, and rushed out the door. Both said their ‘I love you's’ and parted their separate ways.

-

Amelia, being a preschool teacher, had very simple hours. From 8am, until 2 in the afternoon. After that, she was home, and usually waiting for her husband's arrival.

Spencer didn't have such a predictable schedule. Sometimes he would come home around 5 in the afternoon. Other times, if he had paperwork he wanted to wrap up, he would stay late till nearly midnight. And, of course, if a case came up, he could be gone for days.

But, regardless, whatever his schedule may be for the day, he always, always, made sure Amelia was aware of it.

Today was no different. She got home from work at about half past two. She had a feeling in her stomach. One of much excitement. A part of her wanted to wait for Spencer to come home, but a bigger part wanted to find out before him. That way, she could surprise him if she was right. And, if she wasn't- well, at least, that way, he wouldn't be disappointed also.

She tossed her handbag onto the couch of her apartment, and made a beeline for the bathroom.

After a total of three minutes, she's on the bathroom floor, one hand over her mouth, her other hand holding tightly onto a plastic stick and her eyes flowing with tears.

Happy tears.

She couldn't believe her eyes. There it was. The pregnancy stick she had bought nearly four months ago, finally in her hands reading exactly what she was hoping for.

Two solid lines, screaming, that she was going to be a mother. She wanted to call Spence straight away. She wanted to scream it off the rooftops and to the world. She wanted to call her best friend, and her mother and sister-

But first, she obviously had to tell her husband. But, not like this. She couldn't say news like this over the phone. No, she had to surprise him.

So, that's exactly what she planned on doing. Very quickly, and very happily, she got to baking. And whisking, and piping. Soon enough, she had a dozen cupcakes baked and frosted.

Some pink with blue sprinkles, some blue with pink sprinkles. She had a few topped with candles which she planned to light right before Spence came home.

Which reminded her-

Amelia paused the music which was blasting from her cell phone, and dialed her significant other.

One ring, two ring , three r-

“Hello?” She heard his voice answer.

“Hey,” she smiled widely. “Still at work?”

He hummed, “Yeah, just about wrapped up. I should be home soon.”

Amelia's stomach was storming with butterflies and she was scared, thinking, somehow, that her husband would unveil her secret through the phone. “Hurry,” she bit her bottom lip, “I have a surprise for you.”

“Oh?” She heard his voice perk up, “Is this a family friendly surprise? Or, should I just come straight to the bedroom?” She could hear a smirk playing at his lips.

“Why don't you just hurry home, and you can see for yourself.” Amelia teased.

-

Amelia must've fallen asleep watching television, because, one moment, she's watching The Real Housewives reruns at 3 something, and the next, she's waking up feeling lost in sleep at almost midnight.

She feels discombobulated for a moment until she realizes she was waiting for her husband before her unplanned nap. Confused, she looks around her quiet, empty- very dark- apartment.

Sitting up on the coach, she grabs her phone and dials Spencer's phone, simultaneously turning on a nearby lamp.

He said he'd be home soon. She thought to herself. She swallowed hard, her sleep making her mouth dry.

No rings. Straight to voicemail.

Yawning, she goes to her contacts, and dials the next best number she can think of.

After two rings, she hears an all too familiar male voice. “Hey, Amelia.”

“Hey, Derek. Sorry for waking you.” She knew she didn't wake him. She could hear the television in the background.

“Nah, mama, it's cool. What, Boy Genius not letting you sleep?” He laughed. Amelia could hear Savannah asking Morgan who's phone call he was on so late at night.

“Um- actually, that's why I called. Boy Genius isn’t home yet.” Amelia stood from the spot she was in for the past few hours, “I spoke with him earlier, and he said he'd be home around 3-ish.” She fiddled with her fingers, and an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

She could feel the confusion on the other line as Morgan quickly made an excuse, “You know, he probably turned his phone off and didn't realize it. That man is basically a caveman when it comes to technology. You know that.” Amelia started pacing her living room floor, “Don't stress, I'll call him and figure out where he is.”

The worried wife bit her inner cheek, “Thanks, Derek. Again, sorry for bothering you and the missus.” She felt guilty.

“Nothing to apologize about, Kid. I'll figure out where Pretty Boy is, and when I do, I'll eat his ear off for you.” He snickered, making Amelia smile. “Get some sleep. He’ll be home soon.”

Amelia wasn't tight-knit with Spencer's team, but she were fairly close. They were his family after all. So, it felt natural having to call Derek Morgan when Spencer hadn't come home yet. He was basically Spence’s big brother.

Saying another round of ‘thank you’s and ‘sorry’s, Amelia hung up the phone. Turning to face her kitchen counters, she saw the cupcakes she had set out in wait for her husband. Pink and blue sweets littered the countertops.

She had an uneasy feeling stirring within her. Nothing like the one she had before taking the pregnancy test. No, that was excitement. This, what she was feeling now, was all dread. With every fiber within her, she felt a strong fear.

And rightfully so.

-

Spencer was on the nose when he said he was ‘just about wrapped up’. After the call with his wife, he was more excited than usual to get home.

Spence and Amelia had what an outsider would call, puppy love. They were young, and openly affectionate. They were in what seemed to be a never-ending honeymoon phase.

Being together for 5 years, three of those as married, Spencer still looked at Amelia as if she was the reason the sun shone every morning, and she was the one who put the stars in the sky.

This was no ‘puppy love’. This was an ‘old couple sitting on a porch watching the sunset love’.

Spencer quickly packed his satchel, and because he was the last to leave the office, shut off all the lights. Taking the elevator down and quickly jogging to his parked car, he throws his bag in the passenger seat, and just as he's about to get in himself, he hears a voice call for him.

“Um- excuse me?” The curly headed brunette looks up, over his shoulder. He sees a hunched over chubby man, standing at the entrance of the parking lot. The two men lock eyes, and the stranger shows Spence a paper map from the distance. “I was a little lost, and was hoping I could just get some directions.”

The FBI agent licked his lips, and stepped a few feet away from his vehicle. “Where did you need to go?”

The chubby man made a smile which was crooked, “Question seems to be where I am now.” He laughed.

Spencer walked closer to the man who opened up the map. “Well, you're here,” he pointed at a cross section between two streets.

“And, now, where would that leave the Fish Market on Drewry Street?” He asked Spencer.

“Well, on Drewry Street, for starters.” Spence gave half a laugh, locating the street on the map.

As he pointed with his index finger, he looked up and saw the man staring intently at him. A smile took place on his lips, and before Spencer could react, or ask any questions, he felt a blunt force hit the back of his head.

Stumbling back with a grunt, the tall helpful man grabbed the back of his head, feeling warm, what he assumed was blood. “What the- agh! Mmpph!” A hand covered the agent's mouth.

In lighting speed, a windowless van pulls up beside the men. The man behind Spencer pushes him into the back of the new vehicle. The once hunched, and seemingly harmless stranger, now stood taller than Spencer. He shut the door of the van, leaving a half conscious, fully confused Spencer lying in the back. He jumped into the passenger seat of the van, and the car sped off with a screech.

Leaving behind only a skid mark on the road, and Spencer's satchel in the car, the van was long gone before any bystanders could take notice.