#I HOPE THIS IS WHAT YOU WANTED ;.;

[little-pup-pip]

Wanted to know if you could make a colored theme sort of moodboard? The colors I was thinking of would be: Some sort of soft light green, Lightish brown, and beige?

Also gender neutral with a paci (Deco or no deco is fine!) other than those colors anything else is good with me! ^^ /nf

Here you go!!

[backjustforberena]

EVE BEST + maternal (assorted roles, requested by anon) Life In Squares and Maryland footage courtesy of @evebestonline

[wonderful-emoji]

im trying to collect emojis for a theme of 'romance is dead'

like

macabre + romantic

got any ideas?

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

for @twig-tea

[didderd]

Freebie drawing: draw something/ anything you want (or if you can't decide a favorite character as your favorite animal)

OMG IS THAT SAns.. under...tale......??

[an-internet-introvert]

HOME SLICE I HAVE A BIG ASK OF YOU! do you have a gif of Dan saying “I’d rather ghost.” from the phan cards against humanity video. i feel it would really help our community. (i need to use it as a reaction gif)

I got options my dude, I have the text staying and the text ghosting:

Edit: Also as a Square with just Dan

[alraz]

ivan from bungou stray dogs is aesthetically drinking ramune requested by @suru1990 !

[wrathofrats]

Hey Wrath!! Saw your Swussy post and I wanna feed that.

You know those grinding toys?? The ones with the texture for grinding against?? Yeah he definitely has a bunch of those that he humps when the others are busy, he also totally has a bunch of different toys that remind him of his pack mates.

Swussy thoughts for you,enjoy!!

-🐾

Sighs in knowing I’m about to do hours of research on grinders to make a comprehensive list of the grinders he has for each ghoul

Anyways list below with pictures and links included because of who I am as a person. Yes these are fantasy sex toy pictures this is your warning.

Mountain:

Ecthir

Dew:

Darien the Merchant

Rain:

The Tentacle Grinder II

Aether:

Beaus chest

Phantom:

Hemlock Medium 00-50

Cirrus:

The Synstyl Grinder

Cumulus:

C4TFQ64 Calypso Large NC 0031 CS

Aurora:

Lilium anther

Sunshine:

Zayn (Smooth), Medium 00-50 Firmness

[dragonwolf3416]

Fuck it. RT candle

[liquidluckandstuff]

Kissing on a swing! Kissing on a swing!!

The afternoon sun was just starting to set.

He was the last one left at the park as usual. Every other teenager or group had left long ago for dinner and cool air conditioning.

Harry didn't want to return to the Dursleys. Even though his stomach was growling something fierce, it wouldn't have mattered. They wouldn't give him enough food to help the ache in his stomach so for now, he was happier being away from them instead of easing his ever-present hunger. 

He sat on the swing and watched the cars as they passed on the road far away on the other side of the field. There was nothing else to do other than that. Dumbledore had forbidden him from leaving the safety of the Dursleys in case Voldemort or his death eaters tried to attack.

"Yeah, right," He thought. "The only thing I am safe of is a full meal."

A few moments later, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as a presence came up from behind him. Before he could turn his head, he felt two hands grab the chains next to his head, pull back and then let go as the same hands pushed him forward.

"Hey-" was all Harry said as he started swinging. The same hands appeared on his back again as he swung backward to push him.

He started to turn his head around when a familiar voice he had not heard in several years said "Don't look. It's the only way I can speak to you."

Harry did not know what to do. It felt too surreal: Tom Riddle pushing him on a swing in the middle of the summer in a muggle neighborhood. At least he thought it was Tom Riddle. He didn’t sound as high-pitched and… horrible as Voldemort. What would he look like if he turned around? Would he see a handsome youthful face or one of a deformed snake-human hybrid that haunts his nightmares? 

“Don’t overthink it,” Tom said after a moment of silence. “You’ll just stress yourself out.”

“Okay, make it simple then. How are you here?” 

“You.” So simple an answer that explained nothing. 

“Me? I don’t want you here. Go away.” Harry dug his feet into the ground to stop the swing. 

Strong and strangely wet hands grabbed his head preventing him from turning around. “If you look I’ll leave.”

“Yeah, that is the whole point,” Harry snarled. 

“Who would talk to you then?” Tom pointed out. “Your relatives? Your neighbors? They all hate you.”

“You hate me.”

“No, I don’t. He hates you.” The hands became gentle as Harry stopped trying to turn around.

“Lord Voldemort is my past present and future,” Harry quoted.  “You two are one and the same.”

“Not today.” There was a strange tone in Tom’s voice. 

Harry thought Tom was playing some elaborate joke on him, but he was willing to play along for now. “What do you want then?”  

“To help you, for something in return.” 

Again, Harry grew irritated. “Oh no. I know how this goes. You are not doing to me what you did to Ginny.”

To Harry’s annoyance, Tom laughed. “I can’t. Not you, and maybe not anyone ever again. But I can get the next best thing.” Tom's right hand moved so out of the corner of Harry’s eye, he could see it dripping in ink before it brushed the bottom part of his lip. 

“I still have an instinct to take your soul even though I can’t. It’s beyond my reach now. I want instead … is your first kiss.” 

The words made Harry freeze with shock and embarrassment. “My what?” 

“You heard me.” Harry could just hear the grin forming on Tom’s face as he spoke. “ It means something to you, so it’s everything to me. I’ll help you get out of this horrid little town and away from your relatives. No one will be hurt. It will be totally painless, Harry. You might even look back on this moment fondly.”

“You’re joking,” Harry said uncertainly. 

“I’m completely serious, Harry. Or were you saving your lips for someone special? Had anyone in mind?”

“No, it’s just… why?”

“Because it means something to you, and you’ll always remember it was me who took it from you. That is all.” Hands moved so they covered Harry’s eyes. He could feel the ink dripping down his cheeks now. “Aren’t you hungry, Harry? Don’t you want something to eat? Or maybe you are more starved for affection. I can give that to you instead… Just say yes and I will help you.”

Harry was silent for a moment, his stomach and heart aching with hunger. “No one will get hurt?”

“No one will get hurt,” Tom promised. 

“...Okay.”

Tom smiled, “Remember. Keep your pretty eyes closed.” His hands left Harry’s face only for a moment as Tom walked around to face Harry. As promised, Harry kept his eyes closed and when he felt Tom’s hands touch his face again it was gentle as he tilted his face up towards him. 

Ink dripped onto Harry’s face, down his neck, and soaked his shirt. He could feel a cold breath on him before even colder lips pressed against his. They were surprisingly gentle and made Harry’s heart race at the feeling. The kiss was chaste at first, and Harry thought it wasn’t so bad until Tom deepened the kiss and a familiar taste of ink entered his mouth. 

Harry didn’t know what to do. Tom’s tongue was inside him and tasted stranger than what he would imagine a first kiss would be. But Harry kept his hands tight on the swing so he wouldn’t be tempted to fight. 

When it was over, Harry didn’t think he would ever look at a quill the same again without thinking of Tom. When he was brave enough to open his eyes again, he was alone, but the ink remained. 

Walking home was a challenge with how dazed he was, but his relatives did not comment on his appearance when he walked through their doors. It was like they couldn’t see the ink on him at all, and Harry knew his aunt would have something to say about his appearance. 

Before he had a chance to wash it off, Remus and the Order appeared to take him away, but they did not comment about the mess on him either. In just a few hours, he was sitting with his friends and Sirius eating a fabulous dinner made by Mrs. Weasley with Tom’s voice echoing in his head “Because it means something to you, and you’ll always remember it was me who took it from you.”

[love-fireflysong]

as one fellow 'imagining shmoopy gushy shit between fictional characters while trying to fall asleep' enjoyer to another, /i/ for one would LOVE to know about the shmoopy gushy shit your brain comes up with when you're trying to fall asleep 👀 hehehehe

(so sorry about how long it took me to answer this 😭 i'm a sham of a person)

Oh god. I mean, if I've gotta be *real* honest over here, you've likely read pretty much all the shmoopy gooshy stuff I think of at night. Cause that's when I do like the majority of my plotting and scene setting aksdjaklsjdasjd. And unsurprisingly the bits I like to roll over and over and over again is the tender, fluffy/angsty shit 😅

Like the ones I got on repeat are all scenes I'm looking forward to writing the most. The most appropriate for the whole shmoopy gooshy feelings hilariously enough being two scenes from the second chapter of To Have or to Hold (til death do us part) aka outlast au shit. The first of which is just the three of them trying to clean each other up the best they can/refamiliarize themselves with one another in one of the bathrooms (which as you can imagine the whole cleaning part isn't going *great* thanks to the whole sinks being half filled with blood and all but it's fine cause its the touching thats more important to them by far). And the second being the scene with the three of them squeezed together on a single twin bed and finally falling asleep wrapped up in each other's arms after far too long (aka the entire reason this fic even exists LKJSLKDJLAJ).

...And that's where this would have ended. If not for a couple of days ago where my sleepy little brain decided to give me a new tender image all together. Namely, Ashley doing her best to comfort Chris in the safe room in the period of time between Sam leaving to catch up to Mike and whenever they got chased out. And it's got all my little fav tender moments. Hands cupping faces as the other person can't help but lean in near desperation to the touch. Foreheads touching, noses bumping as they're so close that they're basically breathing the same air. Kissing the forehead in both a promise that they're not leaving and to see how hot/cold the skin may be. The hugs so tight that they can't help but tuck heads into the other's neck in an effort to be even closer.

Ashley doing everything in her power to help comfort an injured Chris who is just starting to fall into shock as the events of the past few hours finally hit now that things have seemingly started to quiet down. Even as she fights against the realization of not only how close she was to losing him, but also how close she was to watching it happen.

So yeah. That last one's been REALLY taking over my thoughts at night to the point that I've been having trouble falling asleep if it wasn't obvious SKDKJSLJD Haven't written a single word down for it cause I'm still not sure if I wanna write it yet, but I get the feeling that this is gonna be like baby it's cold outside all over again. AKA, an idea that drives me crazy until I finally can't take it anymore so I just roll out of my bed to grab my computer and start writing the first like five pages at 3am 🙃

[little-pup-pip]

Could I request a Celestia and Luna (mlp g4) moodboard? Fem leaning and deco paci please. Thank you! ^^

Sure!!

[void-draws]

Dude. I just only got a mental image of TFA Starscream pinning his prey to the wall with his hand while glaring down at them mischievously

Sounds good? Should I treat this like a trope that i am supposed to write more about? If so then here are some possible options:

-Starscream could verbally tease the prey

-Throw the prey into the air, only to catch the prey in his mouth

-Shove the prey straight into his mouth

-Or maybe try to scare them

[azurelyy]

Headcanons for sasuke as a father (I don't trust canon, I think we can all agree canon sasuke is ooc and it's absolute trash fdssdkfjsdhf sry if I sound aggressive). But I wanna see you're take on how sasuke would treat his s/o and child (son/daughter, that's you're preference).

LOL. You don't sound aggressive at all, don't worry. I haven't seen any of Boruto just because it seems like it is... not great, haha. I think Sasuke would be a good father and I definitely have some ideas about how I'd think he'd be!

I am going to write about a daughter just because I love the idea of Sasuke being a #girldad lmao. Idk why. His life partner in this will be gn.

Sasuke Father Headcanons (Daughter Edition!)

Sasuke had always known he wanted a family, but he never really understood what that meant until he met his partner. They taught him how to love again, and finally helped him understand unconditional love.

With them around, he knew he was ready to have a family. He wanted to build a life with them from the ground up - one filled with love and warmth, something that he was robbed of.

The day his daughter came home was, without a doubt, the happiest day of his life.

His whole life, he only knew misery and pain. He didn't want the same to be true for his daughter, so he makes sure to give her all the love and attention she needs.

He is very attentive to her and remembers all the little things from who her best friends are to which teen pop idol she has a crush on at the moment.

He is her number one cheerleader. He attends every single Academy-Sponsored event, even the ones that she says "don't matter". To him, they matter, so he will make sure he is there - even if he's the only one on the sidelines.

When she was younger, Sasuke let her put make-up on him, or paint his toes, or put flowers in his hair. Her soft giggles made his heart soar higher than he knew it could, and bringing her joy was his Number One Priority - even if it meant dealing with bright pink toenails for a week.

Sasuke loves hugging his daughter and does it whenever he can, even through her teenage years and grumblings. He loved it when she would fall asleep on the couch during a movie or on the way home from a long car ride, knowing he could carry her to bed and make sure she was tucked in tightly, placing a gentle kiss to her forehead before silently shutting the door.

Sasuke isn't too strict when his daughter inevitably starts bringing crushes home, keeping his distance so as to not embarrass her too badly. But he does tease them. A lot.

"It's nice to finally meet you," Sasuke said the moment they walked through the front door. "We've heard a lot about you."

"DAD!" She moaned, shoving her crush in the direction of her bedroom. "Stop."

"You can close the door if you want, but just know my Sharingan is way stronger than yours and I can see everything that goes on in there." Sasuke smirks and lets his midnight eyes wander over to her crush. "And I mean everything."

They usually hang out at her crushes' place after that.

Sasuke is definitely a sap when it comes to his daughter. He never cries in front of her, but the first time he had to let her go off to school, he broke down the moment he got to work.

And by "broke down", I of course mean in the most Sasuke way possible, which only consisted of a single tear grazing down his cheek.

He got sappy after every milestone of hers, but the worst was when she drew a picture of them all as a family for the first time. She gave it to Sasuke with a huge grin on her face while pointing at some weird, lopsided stick figure, shouting "Daddy! Daddy!"

He was very glad his partner wasn't home because that was single-handedly the most embarrassing moment of his life: him, curled into a ball in the bathroom floor, holding the picture and actually crying over what was, undoubtedly, the worst drawing he had ever seen.

He still has it up on the fridge to this day, even long after she has moved into her own apartment.

Her smile is his kryptonite and his only saving grace.

He didn't know how fractured he was until she put the pieces of him back together, and for that, Sasuke will give her the world.

[etchina-danjon]

Inside a building was a breeding facility where women both teens and adults are captured and used to birth our babies. Some even have a single partner, some have multiple partners. Sakura is the recent breeder and was given drugs for her and her pussy to be compliant and to let her new master breed her. They have a breeding room where all the other new breeders will watch and learn to please.

Sakura was taken by surprise one evening after training. Making the mistake of being out and alone at that time. Someone came up behind her while she was getting ready to leave and knocked her out.

When she woke up, her arms were chained above her head while she laid on some kind of medical bed. She slowly shook off the grogginess only to realized that she had been stripped completely naked. All save for a collar that blocked her ability to use any kind of chakra, and for anyone to track her. Sakura looked around, noticing there were rows and rows of medical beds like hers. Girls of all different ages were chained to them. Some were pregnant, others were currently becoming pregnant, different men fucking verious girls, and then there were girls already giving birth. Having already been in the facility for months.

Panic gripped her. Sakura was just a young teen herself, she didn’t want to get pregnant! Let alone be used as a breeder to produce as many babies as possible! In front of each girl’s bed was a board that listed the amount of pregnancies each girl has gone through, followed by how many babies they’ve produced. Some have produced multiple babies in one pregnancy. Sakura realized how long some of these girls have been there. All have been drugged to stay fertile and obedient. No longer fighting the men that bred them,

“W-what is this? Let me go!”

Sakura made it known that she was awake by struggling against the cuffs that held her to the bed. Two men in white coats approached her. One of them used a device to scan her body while the other pulled out a syringe full of an odd liquid. He forced her head to the side as she struggled, and pushed the needle through the collar. Sakura felt a pinch as it went into her neck. He pushed in the drug and pulled out the needle. Both men watched her reactions. The drug was fast acting. Spreading through her body makes her feel overly hot. Her cheeks flushed, her slit grew wet, womb became overly fertile. Sakura could feel her body grow limp, the will to fight being pulled out of her. Her mind went blank. 

The man with the scanner, scanned her body again, making sure the drug had set in before they uncuffed her and forced her to her feet. Sakura could barely stand, she was too hot and weak but they forced her to walk. Leading her to a new room in the facility. One with a large bed in the middle. There were large, viewing windows on each side with girls that were forced to watch what was about to happen. 

Sakura was dropped onto the bed, naked and panting. There was no reason to chain her up again at the moment, she was too heavily drugged to try to get away. Plus, the room was sealed with a large metal door. The two men left, leaving her to await for the man that would breed and knock her up in front of everyone.

[hargrove-mayfields]

Since you like hollogrove how bout a fic with autistic heather and golden retriever boyfriend billy?

warnings for: background discussions of emotional and physical child abuse, ableism, and misogyny.

Her mother says he’s trouble, that Billy Hargrove just isn’t the type a sweet little girl like Heather Holloway should be going after, but for starters, she isn’t a little girl anymore, and another thing, Billy is probably nicer than she’d ever been. They’d be surprised if they knew who she really was.

Her mother just doesn’t approve of Billy, because of course she wouldn’t. She prefers to set her daughter up on dates with men she hand picked for her, her excuse being that she didn’t trust the world, that too many scary things happen in the news to let her princess date on her own. That’s just the thing all the mothers like her say to control their daughters. She just wants Heather to marry a rich man twice her age, someone who could take the burden that was a disabled daughter with a bad attitude and whip her into shape.

But Heather never wanted that, she wanted someone who actually cared, not a man to take control of her life and to sign over her rights to just to fill the role of being a housewife, which had never been of any interest to her, and that is where Billy had come into the picture.

They met at a basketball game. Heather was a cheerleader because her best friend Chrissy was, and he was the school's new point guard, which is such a cliché, but was kind of perfect for a girl like Heather. Every other part of her life was already so meticulously planned, so why not this too?

At first glance, she wasn’t all that impressed by this Billy Hargrove character. She noticed the way all the other cheerleaders would swoon and cheer that much louder for their dreamy number six, but she couldn’t be bothered with all that. She did cheer because she learned to like it and because it was the only sport the school would let her do, swimming and volleyball and tennis, the sports she was actually interested in all apparently ‘too competitive’ for her.

Not that she’d ever really spared Billy more than a passing look anyways, mostly because she was too determined not to be another one of those trust fund daddy’s girls chasing after some no good punker with a too sweet smile just to disappoint her parents and break her own heart. Though it was kind of inevitable that with the crossover of their interests, and their place among the highest rungs of the social ladder at Hawkins High, their paths were bound to meet at some point.

At half time at double championship games, Heather was technically supposed to go with the rest of the girls up to the student section but, and she still could never be sure if this was to hide the fact that they have an autistic cheerleader on the squad or to actually be considerate of her sensitivity to loud noises that made going up in the stands next to impossible, but she got the special ‘privilege’ of going to work in the concession stand in the lobby where her mother worked instead.

It's still not the greatest, her, her mother, and at least four other volunteers all crammed into that tiny stand with people on all sides of it shouting out orders, but because she had headphones that matched her uniform they agreed to let her wear them in the stand, so the noise wasn’t too bad. Besides, that was never really the worst part for Heather anyways.

The part she really didn’t like was having to serve all the creepy dads and pimple faced freshman boys who’d been watching her cheer with a little too much focus on her high kick. She sometimes had regulars who would come to the stand just to see her and she had to serve them all with a tight saccharine smile, and that was supposed to be something she enjoyed. And they have the nerve to wonder why she’s such a bitch to them.

But it’s wasn’t something she could even pretend to be okay with, for obvious reasons that was the very last thing she wanted, so just like every other night, she ended up tapping her mother on the shoulder and walking out through the back doors of the school, sulking on a plastic crate behind the building and worrying the stiff fabric of her green and white skirt between her fingertips until they were raw while her mother continued selling overpriced candy bars, glittery t-shirts, and promises of a chance with her beautiful teenage socialite.

All of it was too much, in the grand arch of her life and in the now. Something about tonight just doesn’t feel nice, and this is the closest she’d felt in a while to a meltdown.

Her head was fuzzy and blurry already, on the brink of losing control, and so she sat down without processing what was around her. Just looking up at the blinking street light and taking a few deep breaths in.

That turned out to be a mistake. The wind caught a cloud of cigarette smoke, the strong smell blowing right back in her face and taking all those overwhelming emotions she’d had, shoving them right over the edge. That was her limit.

As it turned out, like the real smart ass he is, number six apparently would use his ten minutes off the court to ruin his lung capacity. Did Heather mention she never thought this Billy kid was the brightest?

But she will give him credit, because he at least caught it when she started to cry.

“Woah, Holloway. What’s bothering you?”

She remembers looking up at him and just crumbling. She hadn’t known Billy yet and she sure as sin didn’t like him, but when she had sobbed in place of her words, her hands curled up into two tight fists that hurt her knuckles and made her palms bleed, his reaction was just enough to persuade her to trust him.

The cigarette was the first thing to go, kicked to the side and crushed to pavement with his boot. The bad boy demeanor was next.

Billy sits on the sidewalk in front of Heather like they’ve known each other forever, a comforting presence. Slowly, carefully, he takes her balled up fists into his hands to hold them still, interrupting a rhythmic attack on her own body she barely even noticed. At first, it feels constraining, but she relaxes into the harmless touch and allows herself to calm slightly.

Billy is so soft when he speaks to her, like they’re so familiar already, and maybe they are since he’s seen her like this. Though he might not realize this emotional overcharge for what it is. A symptom. A flaw.

“Don't cry. You know how hard it is to act tough around a pretty girl bawling her eyes out?”

Heather can’t respond. She’s hearing what he’s saying but it’s not registering fully. To establish communication, she looks at him, making strong eye contact, and tries not to think about the mascara probably smeared all over her face.

Billy seems to get it. He holds the steady connection, the first to be unintimidated by it. Heather thought that would be the part where he cracked and couldn’t deal with her, but it’s she who sobs a little harder as that shock only adds to the flurry of big feelings.

He reacts immediately to the crying, more pressing than before, obviously worried for her, “Hey, hey. You gotta cheer up there, Heather. You know, before you get back out there.”

And then a slow smile spreads across his worry-taught features. Heather doesn’t get it until Billy says, “Cheer up? Get it? And you’re a cheerleader..”

Heather hiccups through her tears, there are words in her head she wants to say but nothing comes out. She’s at the will of her emotions right now, and she has to ride it out. Deep down, Billy is helping though.

He must see that too, because he keeps talking.

“Aw, come on. No laugh?” He prompts, but she still does nothing. She can’t, and he must be okay with that, because he doesn’t stop trying to get her to laugh, “No, I get it. That was a pretty shitty joke. I can do better, wait.”

Billy sits back and thinks for a moment, calming blue eyes lighting up with something akin to excitement when he gets an idea. That’s the most comforting thing to Heather, to think someone could be so invested in making her feel better, when nobody else has ever gotten to know her like this.

“Here goes; I can tell you’re pretty upset. You’re acting kinda jumpy… ‘Cause cheerleaders do tricks.” Billy tries, and Heather finally smiles for real.

At first she doesn’t even feel it in her own expression, her face a little numb from trying so hard. The pull of her lips is weak and it wobbles a little, but she does smile, flattered and happy and a little bit crushing, just for Billy, and she gets to watch the way he smiles back, brighter than the streetlight above them.

“Oh- Oh! I got a smile! Smiles are good.”

Quieter, like he hadn’t quite meant for her to hear this part, Billy says, “Especially yours.”

Heather could float, blushing like the rest of the girls on the squad when they’d first seen Billy, finally waking up to his charm when it’s only for her. Until she’s weighed down again by reality.

Janet could tell something was wrong when Heather wasn’t back by her side at five ‘til, as they agreed, or as she imposed on her daughter. She comes storming outside to berate her for being a ditz and forgetting again, only to see her daughter in the demonic clutches of that good for nothing Hargrove boy.

Or, better phrased, Billy being the only half decent person in Heather's life.

If there was an award for the most dramatic pearl clutching…

Janet’s scream echoed off of the brick foundation of the school louder than the metal door had slammed open, “Heather Ernestine! Get away from that boy!”

She didn’t have to though, because Janet got between them, tearing their hands apart and scratching them both with sharp nails in the process.

Heather doesn’t remember what happened next. Just that there was arguing she couldn’t block out with her hands over her ears, two voices she assumes in memory were her mother and Billy going back and forth. That made everything so much worse and Heather couldn’t breathe anymore from how hard she was crying, her meltdown started all over again.

Billy would tell her much later on that he would’ve stayed and fought for her if it hadn’t been making her so upset. He thought she didn’t like him, that bitchy mask coming back to bite her in a moment of comfort. But really, her heart softened the moment he tried to comfort her, rather than caring about his reputation. He wasn't like she was supposed to be.

Heather hadn’t even finished the game. She’s at some point taken out to the car and locked in to keep rocking and pulling her hair and doing anything she can to express all the terrible feelings instilled in her tonight while Janet tries to save face for her daughter's absence inside. Heather learns the next time she’s allowed to cheer that the excuse Janet came up with was a lie about a wardrobe malfunction that makes her sound unbelievably shallow.

It’s once they get home that all hell breaks loose though. Heather gets an hour long lecture about boys “like that” and ruining her innocence and what not. After her meltdown turned panic attack back at the school, she can barely listen to it, and she doesn’t care to either. She’s heard this all before. Her parents are taking turns berating her and she’s so emotionally spent she can’t even react.

Be a good girl, Heather. Follow all the rules, Heather. Listen to your mother, Heather.

And normally, she does follow all of her parents' rules to a T. No boys in her room ever, and her door left open at all times, just in case. Even her uniform skirts go below her knees and the neckline of her blouses above her collar bones. She has a curfew of 9:30 that she meets every night unless there’s a game, and she never, ever does anything unladylike, the definition of which is subject to her parents interpretation, and theirs only.

That’s how it has to be, when she can’t move out on her own until she turns eighteen at least, mostly because she can’t get a job while Mr. Tom “respect your place in society” Holloway still has authority over her.

But that night, Billy gave her a taste of what it was like to have someone care about you in that way. Chrissy is her best friend, but she doesn’t know how to help. She’s the friend to go to for a girls night or for hugs, not to deal with the ugly side of her disability. Billy is so different to his core in the way he treats her, she can’t help but shift from having a soft spot just for him, to being madly in love with the thought of him over the next week.

Like, burying her blushing face in her pillows and kicking her feet when she thinks about him in love.

She never expected for that to be a mutual feeling, as a matter of fact, she thought Billy would actually think he was too good for her, to be held back by a strange bitch of a girlfriend. The fluttery feelings in her chest that have her humming Dion and the Belmonts don’t go away just because she’s scared of acting on them.

Or talking to Billy at all.

Or even looking at him after he saw her in her most vulnerable state, so unlike the haughty aggression she carries herself with usually.

It’s not even the meltdown that has her feeling so self conscious. Those are unavoidable, he was bound to see that eventually. It’s her mother. That night is still blocked out in her mind but she knows Janet pushed the limits. Pushed too far and could’ve hurt Billy with the same vile words she spews at Heather. For some reason, that’s the worst thing she can imagine. The worst thing for her chances with the hottest boy she didn’t even think she liked a week ago at least.

It takes her another week and a remark from Chrissy to catch on to the fact that she’s got it wrong.

Chrissy had come up beside her at school and gently touched her arm, nodding over her shoulder at the gruff blond behind them, “He’s looking at you again, Het. Billy Hargrove doesn’t just look at anyone like that.”

Heather only rolls her eyes. Chrissy is a sweetheart, but she’s clueless about men. Chrissy’s boyfriend isn’t exactly the most charming, or the kindest, or anything other than obsessed with himself. She prefers to get advice on self-expression from her.

But Chrissy is adamant, whispering and looking more strongly back at Billy, very obviously talking about him at this point, “I’m serious! Look at him, he’s staring. Like a lost puppy.”

Heather closes her locker, giving Chrissy a sharp look that says no, absolutely not.

Chrissy’s undeterred.

“Go talk to him, Hetty!” She gives her a little shove forward as motivation, nothing Heather couldn’t have resisted if she wanted to. But she doesn’t. She wants to feel the same way with Billy that she had before things got awkward. Maybe this once, she will take her best friend's advice, and slowly, but confidently as she can manage, cross to the other side of the hall where Billy, now flushed that he’d been caught looking.

She’s lucky she did too, because once she walked over, he never left her side. All he needed was Heather to take the lead and show him it was okay. A smile was all she needed to do just that, the both of them remembering that night and the way Billy tried so hard to make her happy.

And Billy, now that he can, he’ll do anything to make her happy.

Kisses all over her face, borrowed sweatshirts, late night phone calls where she’s free to laugh and him into the line because nobody’s awake to hear them.

He braids her hair before she has to go home so it curls overnight and he paints her nails soft pink and he does everything she could do herself, but he does it for her to make her feel like a princess. When they get to be together anyways.

That’s what she likes most, is just being with him. She doesn’t need him scurrying around her trying to impress her, though it makes her blush and smile. She just likes having him there. A warm presence to ground her and keep her calm.

She’s been doing better since she started dating Billy, having fewer and fewer meltdowns every day, because she has an outlet now. A shoulder to scream into and a firm hand on her back to remind her that she’s okay.

A few months into dating Billy, she’s sure he’d have left by now, but he doesn’t. With every smile he gets out of her, he falls more in love.

If there’s one thing he is, its not what they say about him. It’s strong, it’s tender, it’s consistent.

The sad part is though, he’s like that because he’s just as stuck in life as she is.

Unlike Heather though, Billy has a slight chance to work to make things better. His father is controlling in the opposite way, expecting him to support himself and be responsible for everything just because he’s legally an adult now.

He finally got picked up for a summer job at the community pool. Just the sort of immodest cesspool of peasants Heather would never be allowed near if her parents knew, not without a seamless excuse and a turtleneck sweater anyhow.

But they make it work, somehow. Mostly in that Heather, for all her rule-following, goody two shoes life, has gotten very good at lying to her parents. It used to be little white lies, about her homework not being done before bed or about stealing a snack after she was told she couldn’t have dinner as a punishment for a meltdown.

Now it’s telling them she’s going over to Chrissy’s while she was on the opposite side of town, sneaking down to the pool to see Billy.

Heather doesn’t even own a swimsuit that isn’t a few sizes too small, and she certainly doesn’t have any money to pay the admission to the pool every single time, at least not without getting caught by the ones handing out that allowance, but she tries her damndest whenever she can break away to spend time with him, since Billy's house isn’t really an option either.

They need somewhere to go, and she’s not going to complain about getting to watch Billy up on his lifeguard tower, acting all cool and mean just for him to switch into boyfriend mode the second he notices her.

Every day she comes, she waves at him from the other side of the fence, and he’s already halfway down from the chair to greet her back. Sun warmed and strong arms will wrap around her, just for her, in front of everybody.

He likes to show her off, to all the people who don’t like it when he’s happy if it isn’t with them. Heather gets a little shy then, when he’s cupping her cheeks and kissing her face over and over, but she knows why he does it.

Being with her is the first thing Billy’s ever gotten to choose, and it’s the same for her. Like they were meant to be happy together.

On the off day though, Heather will make her way down to the pool, and Billy will look at her like he doesn’t see her. Like all that enthusiasm that charmed her into genuinely trusting him and his promises was just suddenly gone.

It took Heather a few times to realize that wasn’t anything personal, that she wasn’t about to get dumped as soon as she got past the turnstiles into the pool again. Instead, she expected something usually worse. That there would be a bruise under those sunglasses or a brace under the sleeve of his hooded sweatshirt.

Neil Hargrove had been on his best behavior the one and only time they met, and that still included insulting her character in more ways than one. She knew what was hurting Billy, if not just from the way he’d cower from his fathers voice if it were raised at him, but for the same reason bare his teeth if it were directed at Heather.

She didn’t like that, knowing that because of his own father, Billy was trained to value her more than himself, but she supposes, even if not through physical violence, she was the same way. Her parents and her society taught her to serve the man she loved.

That’s why they don’t mind that she doesn’t talk; a quiet woman is a subservient woman, and a subservient woman makes a damn good wife. Even for broken boys who don’t want that either.

At first he denies her help when he’s like this, either out of rejection of this mold she’s been forced into, or because he doesn’t want to admit he needs help, she isn’t sure. But what Heather does know is that she’s resilient, or else they wouldn’t even be together, and she cares about Billy more than anything.

He might be the one that’s head over heels, but she's his cheerleader. She wants to support him back.

So on those bad days, she likes to show him his affections mirrored back at him. Uncaring about who’s looking, because she’s dealt with being stared at her whole life, she climbs up in the too big chair next to him and squeezes in the tiny space, halfway in his lap and pressed into his side.

It always works to bring a smile to his face, as he drapes an arm across her shoulders to accommodate for the tight space and give them a little more room, “What are you doin’, Hetty?”

Heather kisses his freckled nose as a response, and he nuzzles her back. They’re that kind of couple now.

They’re also getting reckless. They do this more often than they should. Someone could tell Tom and shit would hit the fan. And the papers. Then Neil would know Billy was still dating the girl that “ain’t hooked up right.” Everything would could crashing down.

At there’s barely anyone here today. Mid June has brought miserable weather, and thanks to the overcast that perfectly reflects how Billy is feeling, they don’t have to worry about much. There’s other guards on duty to deal with the few unenergetic kids lazing in the pool.

So Heather kisses Billy. Returning all of the love he gives her on the regular, her turn to cheer him up. He cups her face and lets her lead the kiss, and then another, and then another, until he’s wearing most of her chapstick.

Billy sighs, once they break apart for good, halfway between dreamy and frustrated. This was one of the really bad days. Heather holds him tighter and listens to what he needs to say, hearing his words echo in his chest because of how close she is.

Billy’s voice is always low and even, sometimes Heather finds herself humming in the same pitch when he talks. They’re part of each other now. And good thing, because, something that’s been building up for a while, Billy finally proposes, “Been thinking lots about what we were saying before. ‘Bout running away. Getting married. Sounds pretty damn tempting right about now.”

Heather has never actually spoken out loud to Billy. They just don’t communicate like that. She’s non-verbal whenever it’s safe, and with him she’s always safe. He understands all of her mannerisms and her way of doing things, and if he doesn’t, he’s so in love with her he’ll try to.

But this moment, Billy’s told her about it since day one, that he wants to start a better life somewhere else, where they can be together away from judgemental mothers and abusive parents. Another classic teenage fantasy for the star crossed high school lovers.

But by no means are they the product of the molds they were put into. It took each other for that to be true, but this is another barrier they’re going to break. This isn’t another hopeless dream to end in heartbreak. It can’t be.

Heather needs him to know with one hundred percent certainty how much she wants that too, “I’m ready.”

Billy looks right into her eyes, the way she prefers to communicate, when her words won’t come. He looks surprised now that they did, but those wide are wrinkled with how wide and bright he smiles, “Are you sure? ‘Cause that’s all I need to hear.”

Heather only nods, and that’s all it takes.

Her mother said he was nothing but trouble, but Heather looks at him now, the promises he’s given her and the love, the life he showed her and the one he’s going to give them both, and she knows they were wrong about him. For now, Billy holds her a little tighter and surprises her with more smiley kisses, until they can get their things together and leave it all behind. That’s the only proof she needs.