#I KNOW he was thinking of me specifically when he wrote that scene
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bird-inacage · 3 days ago
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The Heart Killers EP1: Kant & Bison's Desire for Agency
I recently wrote a post around Kant being the vehicle for Bison's freedom, but I'm spotting a bigger theme that these two lovebirds share in common. Both feel stripped of their agency, their ability to dictate their lives freely on their own terms and by their own ideals and desires.
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For that reason, they're respectively struggling with where they are versus where they want to be, as factors beyond their control currently inhibit that from being attainable.
"I've cleared my name of car theft. My hands are so damn clean now." Kant is keen to put his past behind him, however Captain Chris has him cornered under the threat of re-opening his previous felonies and possible jail time, dangling custody of his brother as a bargaining chip. "If you get this done for me, not only will your criminal record be swept away, I'll wipe it clean." "If you go to jail, who'd take care of your brother?" Leaving Kant with no choice but to begrudgingly concede.
Bison feels similarly trapped by a life he didn't choose, clearly eager at any opportunity to 'clock off'. "I do what I have to do. Now I want to do what I want to. Can't I just live a little?" "If being hitmen makes it so hard to live, shouldn't we just quit?" "I don't want to kill people for a living my whole life... I just want to live my life." He just wants to enjoy a normal life - to have fun, to be frivolous, to embrace being an ordinary 24 year old.
TOGETHER WE BREAK FREE
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Their relationship serves as temporary relief or escape from the situations they both find themselves in. Bison finds Kant's company a break from routine and monotony, a welcome distraction in between killing and working at the burger bar (neither of which he chose for himself). Dating Kant is an insight into the joys of life he fears missing out on. 'When I'm with you, I'm not a killer, I'm just a boy'.
By some poetic irony, Kant's mission to instrument Bison's capture would grant him access to the freedom he is seeking - allowing him and his brother to truly start afresh. There will absolutely be more backstory to come as to why Kant wants this so badly, that he’s willing to throw so much in. Dating Bison may begin as a means to an end, but Kant does find himself falling in love - despite his objective.
Once everything is out in the open, I do think they'll aid one another in acquiring the agency they each so desperately desire. No one can better understand how it feels to be trapped than someone who is also fighting against the bars of their own cage.
OVERCOMING YOUR RESTRAINTS
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On their first date, Kant shares the following with Bison: “Would you believe me if I told you that I'm afraid of the ocean? Something happened when I was a kid. I almost drowned. Now I'm still afraid of it." One could argue that we don't know if Kant's admission is true, but I don't see any reason for him to lie about this specifically.
This promptly takes me back to this moment from the trailer, which has prominently stuck in my mind. I still get the impression that they are working together here when Kant jumps in. If Bison was on the offensive, I don't think he'd be as stationary or calm. Maybe he's performing under someone's watchful eye, or his gun is aimed at something out of shot, or they're practicing for a specific stunt.
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Whatever the context, this scene now has considerably more weight. The fact that Kant jumps in whilst his hands are bound, when he has a fear of drowning is an indication of putting his complete trust in Bison (who is adept at swimming), to rescue him if needs be. The implication here being that Bison may quite literally, mentally and symbolically free Kant from his restraints, helping him to overcome what he’s most afraid of.
BDSM: THE PLEASURE OF CONTROL
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Funnily enough, this duo's exploration of BDSM even aligns with their shared desire for agency. From the few snippets we’ve been shown, Bison likes being the one in control. Your partner consents to be at your mercy, affording you the power to enact pleasure and/or pain. And there’s a heady thrill in being handed such control. (It's also worth noting the inherent power play in taking a life, but whether Bison derives any pleasure from this, I'm not 100% sure. Kant also knows Bison is capable of killing, so letting him dominate actually says a tonne). During their one night stand, Bison even quips, "you're not doing this solo, you know," which teases that he's no passive participant. This seems to be Bison's philosophy on life overall (and the root of his dissatisfaction), that he's not one to sit back and watch his life pass him by.
Kant seems happy to indulge Bison in taking the reins. Having his agency taken away during acts of passion, but on his terms is noticeably different to feeling forcibly pushed - because you've chosen how and who you forfeit that agency to. This is partly why I suspect Kant actually gives Bison permission to tie him up in that boat scene (above), for the greater purposes of a mission or task they have agreed to help each other achieve.
You can keep tabs on bird-inacage’s BL meta directory for my other long-form posts around The Heart Killers, which I’ll be updating in real time as the show airs.
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wausbasementslave · 11 days ago
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Salvor Hardin is now on my list of "what if i made him obsessed" list because my yandere lovin ass is weird and cringe. This is directed at nobody; this idea caters to me and only me.
He would be so interesting as a yandere, as in he won't use force. He won't use violence, his core philosophy is stated over and over in the books and shown to work so maybe he does the same with his antics. perhaps using his mayor status as a hook for his darling, maybe giving them a holy relic or two (they don't do anything) Perhaps have them assigned assistant. a role so many people in the galaxy would DIE for. leaving would make them an outcast. he makes them dependent. he impresses them with his intelligence and the miracles of the Galactic Spirit. dazzling them with his abilities to contact forces beyond. (He hid an Alexa somewhere) Eventually they might figure it out and see his deception and predatory actions Even if they reject him, call him disgusting, call him a man misusing religion for his own gain, even if all hope for his darling's affection is lost. Hardin only smiles to himself, it was predictable, but the mind is also predictable and so is love. It was calculated since the moment he saw his darling. it's inevitable as the timeless history before and after.
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lord-squiggletits · 4 days ago
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Wrote a scene for PPAU in which Megatron convinces the DJD to accept a peace treaty with the Autobots (that doesn't constitute rebuilding and then stabbing them in the back). And when I was outlining/brainstorming I was like, "okay Megatron is probably going to have to make an example of some DJD member who lashes out and refuses to accept it. There's gonna be a little fucked up cult violence in here"
Except no, that smooth son of a bitch gave the DJD a speech that so effortlessly tied them up in his new peacetime plans that the most opposition he got was a muttered comment by one single member. My man used the brainwashing of nationalism and patriotism to counteract the cult brainwashing. He made a rhetorical appeal so sound that any member of the DJD who tried to argue against the peace treaty would sound like they were opposed to reclaiming Cybertron, their homeland, and ensuring the well-being of their own loyal soldiers. I was like "MEGATRON THERE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MORE CONFLICT IN THIS SCENE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO CHOKE-LIFT A BITCH OR AT LEAST RIP OFF TARN'S MASK AS A DRAMATIC GESTURE OR SOMETHING" and the Megatron in my brain went "hahaha no" and charmed the DJD so thoroughly that there wasn't even a single raised voice. Charismatic son of a bitch
#wip stuff#i do think megatron's charismatic political side is like one of the coolest sides he has#i feel like with the majority of idw (and idw fanon) either focused on evil villain megatron#or mtmte sad and diminished megatron. ppl forget that this guy raised a whole army#not forgot exactly but like. i feel like i haven't seen much content emphasizing the CHARISMA specifically?#in the sense that this guy is a fucking wordsmith. an orator. he went from just a miner who wrote to a gladiator to a warlord#to like the full on leader of what was (briefly) a whole constellate or w/e of decepticon owned planets#that prowl quote about how his most dangerous weapon is his words was revealed to me akldjlksd#it sounds vain given that he's a fictional character and i'm the one writing him#but like gdi i had something different in mind for this scene i wanted it to be more tense and fraught#but then megatron was like. nah i'm going to defuse my mini group of cultists with a single dramatic speech#bc honestly when i look at my ideas vs how the scene turned out#it does make sense that rather than inviting dissent and having to beat the DJD into submission#megatron would instead spin a web of rhetoric to keep them under his hand and make them feel like this is their idea#or like that he completely changed decepticon ideology to work with the autobots but this isn't a betrayal at all it's just a new direction#w/ ppl that dangerous it fully makes sense that M would opt for a charming and disarming approach you know#anyways fuck this guy he's so fucking smart and charismatic and manipulative and he makes it look easy
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arrowpunk · 1 year ago
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cinnamorollcrybaby · 28 days ago
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Hello love!! How are you doing? 💕
I LOVE your works so much!! You are so amazing and talented!! I wanted to thank you for writing the 𝓕𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 cursed technique Nanami fic, and especially not judging me for it 🫶🏽. I don’t know you but you seem like such a nice and cool person, with that being said… I was thinking about a fic I saw where Saturo Gojo got his wisdom teeth removed and he falls in love with you over again and I thought that would ADORABLE but with Kento 😭 (also I can’t remember who wrote the fic to give credit sorry) So like yeah Nanami would get his wisdom teeth removed and you’d take care of him and he would be such a charming man (he already is) but like just the most fluff thing he’d be like “you’re a very beautiful nurse” “I’m not a nurse but thank you” you feel me? Anyways that was it lol
Much love and take care!! 💗💗
(I don’t know what anon is 😅 is it like your followers cause I see request and people ask if they can be added as anon and I’m like so confused)
You’re my…. my wife?
Tags: Nanami x fem!Reader, established relationship, crack, fluff, suggestive at the end.
An: Hey Anon! Tysm for requesting again. I’m glad you liked the freaky energy fic!! Also, ofc I’ll never judge you for any fic idea (as long as it’s not like straight up deplorable with nasty kinks).
I hope it’s okay, but I changed this fic idea a little because I fear it was a bit too close to the original creator’s idea, and I don’t want to encroach on their idea. However, I hope the vibes are still there that you wanted!!
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Your normally strong, doting, intelligent husband has been reduced to a confused mess. Lying in the bed in the sterile infirmary, Shoko carefully monitors his vitals while Satoru recites exactly how it all happened for the nth time.
Your loving, sweet, charming husband was hit with a very specific cursed technique while he was out on a mission with Gojo. Luckily, he was physically unharmed and mostly mentally unharmed as well… except the cursed technique is one that messes with the memory.
The curse didn’t just want to kill Nanami; it wanted to break him. The curse robbed Nanami of his memory of his most precious moments: the one’s that included you.
His hazel eyes scanned the room, wondering why everyone was making such a big fuss over him. He was fine - really.
You sat beside his hospital bed, wanting to hold his hand, but you didn’t want to overwhelm him. Shoko said that his mind may be a bit fragile after having such a crucial part of his memory tampered with.
When his hazel eyes met yours, Nanami stared at you for a moment before shifting in his bed slightly. He looked to be uncomfortable with your sheer presence, which only broke your heart more.
“Were you hit with the cursed technique too?” He finally speaks, looking over at you with a bit of a confused look. He was really trying to piece together why you were here with him.
“Oh, um… no..” You quietly respond with a forced smile. Your heart longed for your husband, and he was right here but he wasn’t your husband.
“Forgive me… Are you Shoko’s apprentice..?” He tries once again to remember. He’s seen your face before. Maybe in a different lifetime.
Satoru and Shoko are silent as they both witness what’s going on between you and Nanami. Holding their breaths, they’re hopeful that he’ll regain his memory at some point. The curse couldn’t just extract memories. As Shoko explained it, the curse probably just kept the memories hidden from Nanami. Your husband will probably slowly start to remember you over time.
“No… I’m not Shoko’s apprentice.” You politely answer again. As bittersweet as this is, it’s certainly a cute scene to see Kento trying to make conversation with you.
“Hm.” He hums to himself quietly before he gazes at you again. His hand combs through his hair, trying to fix it up from lying in the hospital bed, and Satoru quietly snickers.
“Trying to look good for her, Nanamin?” He teases lightheartedly, earning a death glare from your husband. You softly giggle too, realizing what’s going on. Your poor husband isn’t uncomfortable with your presence. He’s nervous.
“Don’t be crude, Satoru. There’s a lady in the room.” He huffs, shaking his head at Satoru’s audacity.
“Aww, thank you, Nanami.” Shoko grins, subtly playing along with Satoru’s tactic.
“I wasn’t talking about you.” Nanami responds flatly before his eyes shift to you in another “secretive” glance, except everyone notices how he keeps looking at you. Your husband can’t keep his eyes off of you.
“I.. apologize for being a bit forward, but do you think we could…” His eyes flicker down to the wedding band that’s proudly sat upon your finger. His face subtly drops to a disappointed look. “Ah, I see. forget what I was saying.”
Shoko and Satoru are nearly losing it. The irony that Nanami is disappointed that he can’t ask you out because you’re married to him is hilarious. You give them a look, and they both quickly excuse themselves from the room, so they can go laugh together.
Once the two are finally out of the room, you smile softly before placing your hand over your husband’s, using your thumb to gently stroke the back of his hand. He looks at you with an unsure look, but he doesn’t remove his hand. His Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows harshly.
“If you were my wife, I wouldn’t like you touching another man like that…” He mutters quietly, causing you to softly giggle.
“Well, it’s a good thing I am your wife.” You finally reveal to him, unable to keep the secret any longer.
Nanami’s eyes widen, and he looks at you with sparkling eyes but also utter confusion written all over his face. His heart is racing in his chest. The heart monitor starts to beep at a more pressured pace. The pretty woman that has been sitting next to him is his wife…?
“You’re my… my wife?” He asks quietly.
“Mhm.” You hum in agreement before lacing your fingers with his. Your wedding band rubs against his. Both of the gems were cut from the same diamond. His eyes then focus on the joining of your hands, and he notices it too. “We’ve been married for a few years now.” You explain in a calm tone, trying to ease him into the idea of it all.
“I… I’m sorry… I don’t-“ Nanami is rarely off kilter like this, but he’s just trying to wrap his head around it all. You’re his wife… You’re his wife. “I’m sorry- I just can’t seem to remember…”
“It’s okay, Ken. Take your time.” You encourage as you rub on his hand gently.
His eyes fall to his lap, and a small smile curls on his lips. He may not completely comprehend what’s going on, but he knows in his very soul that he’s the luckiest man alive because you’re his wife.
Watching Ken fall in love with you all over again and rediscover all his daily pleasures was a treat. He slowly regained his memory over time: prompted by his senses randomly picking up on familiar sighs, smells, or even tastes.
Ken didn’t only fall in love with you all over again. He fell in love with the life he cultivated with you again. He found himself laughing a bit harder. He squeezed you a bit tighter. He lounged in bed for an extra ten minutes in the morning time to bask in your presence.
Oh, and that’s not to mention the literal tears he cried the first time he felt your cherished cunt after the incident. The way you squeezed around him so intensely… the way it’s so fucking wet — greedily sucking him in… Goddamn, he’s so lucky to have you.
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stevie-petey · 3 months ago
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episode one: the hellfire club
Robin waves her hands in the air as if to get Steve’s voice away from her. “Ew! Gross, don’t say boobies–” “Boobies! It’s not a big deal–” You make a face. “It isn’t the most pleasant word.” “Oh, c’mon. You like boobies, Robin likes boobies, and we all know I love your boobies specifically–ow!”  You hit the back of Steve’s head with annoyance to get him to stop talking about your boobs. While he winces in pain and rubs his tender head, you turn towards Robin. “What my darling boyfriend is trying to say is that everyone likes boobs, and Vickie definitely likes them too.” 
Summary: el writes to you as if youre her husband away at war, you debate the intricate nature of liking boobies with robin and steve, lucas is your beloved while eddie munson is your sworn enemy, steve accidentally exposes your (horribly hidden) daddy issues, dustin is an angsty teen, and jonathan really loves to drop emotional bombshells on you. can you believe this all happens in one day ? lol cheers to senior year !
Rating: general, some swearing
Warnings: swearing, fem!reader, use of y/n, mentions of abuse, allusions to bullying, trauma lol
Words: 13.5k (wrote half of this in one day)
Before you swing in: SHES HERE !!!! SEASON 4 !!! this season terrifies me. i spent so much time outlining and making sure it was perfect. i have some changes i want to do, some ideas, and its scary because we dont have season 5 yet and i hate messing with canon ,,, alas: here she is. my baby. my beloved. quick fun fact: theres a scene in here ive had planned since season 1 so .... enjoy !
March 21st, 1986.
Dear Y/N,
Congratulations on New York University! Joyce tells me that it is a very good college, and everyone was extremely happy when Jonathan told us the news. He even had a smile on his face! It has been a very long time since I have seen him smile, especially without that weird smell on him (am I allowed to tell you about the strange plants that Jonathan seems to like now? He says that you cannot find out about it, but friends don’t lie and he is your bestest friend). 
I asked Will about it, and he says that Jonathan now smells because he misses you. If you ask me, I think that Jonathan smells because he is scared. We are still waiting for his college letter, afterall. I know you want to go to school with him, but so does Nancy. Is it possible to go to two colleges? Anyways, it must be a lot of pressure, even more with all the waiting we have to do, but Joyce told us that sometimes colleges take a long time to respond. 
While I am positive that Jonathan will figure it all out soon, he pretends he does not care. But he is a very bad liar. He was very upset that Nancy could no longer visit us in California. Will was bummed too, but he was more sad that it was not you who was visiting. Joyce says that the Byers boys were born to miss you, and I think she is right. 
I also miss you. I am still bummed I never went to school with you. I bet Mike is over the moon to have you with him for high school, Dustin and Lucas also. How is Max? Is she still sad? I know school has been hard for her. I will admit that it is hard for me, too. While I am good at maths, and my grammar is getting better, I am still unsure when to use conjunctions or why Angela does not like me. Will tells me to ignore her, but I want to be her friend. She is nice to everyone else. It confuses me that she is not nice to me.
A lot about California confuses me. The flowers here are different, and sometimes I forget that I cannot go and visit you. I miss the smell of Bookstrordinary (did I spell it right?) and your cookies. Please send more as soon as you can. Will and I are almost dying to taste them again! Mike says he will try to bring some on the plane, but I am scared he will be told no by those scary airplane people.
Speaking of Mike, he is coming to California this week! I am very excited to see him. It has felt like years, I think I am even going crazy. I have planned everything for his week here. Spring break will be extra special! It will be a fun distraction from Angela and school. This week I can pretend to be someone else, someone cool, and Mike will be very impressed. I know you tell me to always be myself, so I hope that I can make you happy by taking your advice on focusing only on the good. 
To prove I will focus on the good from here on out, here is a good things list: 
Mike is visiting!
Will has almost finished his painting. I am very curious to see what he has made. He is really talented, he shows me the drawings he sends you sometimes. 
You got into NYU! Is this the correct way to abbreviate? I am still working on conjunctions, but I think I am supposed to use the first letter of every word in the school’s name to shorten it. At least, that is what Joyce says. 
Jonathan’s new best friend, Argyle, will give us free pizza to celebrate Mike’s arrival. It is really good pizza. 
Tasting your cookies again. Fingers crossed Mike’s plan succeeds!
I am sure there is more, but I am too excited about this week and my mind is going very fast. I miss you tons, maybe even more than Will and Jonathan do. Please come visit us soon. Like Joyce says, the Byers boys were born to miss you. Although I am not a Byers boy, I am still a part of the Byers family, and I miss you. 
Love, El.
P.S., thank you for the grammar books. I will be sure to become the best writer ever in California. 
Sweet, gentle, El. You can almost hear her voice, reading aloud to you as you used to do when she lived in Hopper’s cabin. She would stumble over the letters, ask you how to sound out particularly difficult words in Spider-Man comics; they helped her learn how to read. Now, almost a year later, she’s writing you letters. 
El has grown up so much within such a short few months, although it doesn’t surprise you.
Laughing softly as you reread the final line she’s written, you wipe your eyes and place El’s letter onto your desk. The piece of paper joins the others, nestled gently with a pile of her other letters that are housed on your desk. El sends you a new letter every week, detailing silly stories about Jonathan and Will or concerned ramblings about Angela.
The letters make you miss El terribly. They make you miss everyone terribly. 
Next to the letters are drawings from Will. He’s become such an artist during his time in California. He sends you beautiful sketches of landscapes in their neighborhood, doodles from class, and incredibly detailed drawings of you and the party. The drawings are Will’s special way to keep in contact with you, and it’s something you cherish so deeply. However, you didn’t know that he was working on a painting, and you’re curious to see what El is talking about. Eventually he’ll reveal his art to you, he always does.  
Skimming a finger over one of the more recent drawings from Will, your hand catches on the walkman that lays next to it. Jonathan’s messy handwriting is scrawled on the mixtape that sits within it.
For bug.
The words, familiar and loved, stare back at you. The mixtape contains songs that Jonathan so carefully chose for you. He spent countless hours selecting songs that he knew you’d love, songs that reminded him of you. It had been his gift for you before he moved away. And now he’s gone, and you miss him so much more than you ever thought you would. More than you ever thought you could miss anyone.  
Jonathan never did end up coming to Hawkins for spring break. 
“Dusty, what’s going on in there?” The sound of your mother pounding on Dustin’s door breaks you from your thoughts. “You’re gonna be late.”
“Don’t come in, I’m naked!” You hear the boy screech back at her, which you roll your eyes at. Steve will be here to pick you guys up any minute. Dustin knows he should be ready by now, the schedule has never changed. 
Throwing on the cardigan Steve got you for Christmas last year, you grab your walkman and storm over to Dustin’s room. At the same time, your mother nearly crashes into you in the hall. Her face is pale, horrified of the idea that she almost saw her son naked, and you pity the woman. Dustin has become relentless lately, even more difficult to deal with. 
“Y/N, my dear,” your mother clutches at her chest and fans her face. “Can you please make sure your brother is ready? I think that boy is trying to give me a heart attack.”
You sigh, figuring you would have to do so anyways. “Yeah, sure. Go finish getting ready, I’ll handle him.”
“This is why you’re my favorite daughter!” Your mother kisses your cheek before running off towards the kitchen to make her morning coffee. 
Once she’s gone, you immediately start banging on Dustin’s door. He knows you hate being late. Plus, it’s the Friday before spring break. You’re getting antsy waiting for this week to end. “Dustin Henderson, you have three seconds before I kick this door down.”
“Not now, Y/N!” Dustin shouts back, frantic and desperate. 
You narrow your eyes. He’s using his suspicious voice, the one he only uses when he’s doing something he absolutely shouldn’t be doing. Glancing down at your watch and noting the early hour, you curse in disbelief. “It’s not even seven yet, what the hell are you up to so early in the morning?”
“Nothing! Just go away, I’ll be out soon–”
“I swear, if you’re trying to sell my limited edition comics again I will hurt you.” You throw your body against the door, causing it to fly open as you stumble inside. Dustin is at his computer and he nearly falls off his chair in his haste to cover the screen from you. He’s remarkably horrible at playing cool. You’re about to tell him this when Suzie’s voice crackles through his radio’s speakers. 
“Yikes, Dusty.”
“Suzie?” You walk over to your brother and shove his hands off the computer screen. He falls to the ground with a loud thud, which pleases you. He may be a teenager now, but you’re still stronger than him. At least for now. “Why are you calling her right now–” Your eyes land on the screen and you recognize Hawkins High’s familiar orange and green school colors. “Is this the student gradebook?”
“No!” Dustin exclaims, but Suzie’s small and soft voice responds, “Yes.”
“Oh my God,” you cannot believe he’s making his girlfriend hack into your school’s database. Sure, she’s a genius, but you also know she’s incredibly religious. “Dustin, this is so illegal and goes against, like, all of Suzie’s religious morals–”
“I will repent later.” Suzie interrupts you, and you raise your eyebrows at what she’s just said. Before you can question her, Dustin’s computer refreshes. 
He leans forward, eyes scanning to see if they’ve succeeded, and he seems to like what he sees. Suddenly Dustin lets out a sudden whoop and fist bumps the air. “God, I love you Suzie.”
Curious, you lean over and read the screen as well. There, where you know Dustin had a D- in Latin not even a day ago, is now an A. There’s no possible way he was able to raise his grade in under twenty-four hours. He sucks at Latin, he hates it, which means… She did it. Suzie changed his grade. All she had to do was press one single button to save Dustin’s GPA. 
You have to admit, it’s impressive. And shamefully genius. 
“Hey, Suzie.” You bring the radio to your lips, shoving Dustin away when he tries to take it from you. “Do you think you could change my grade in calculus? Jonathan was the only reason I passed any of my other math classes.”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Suzie’s voice raises a pitch, she doesn’t want to tell you no. She likes you, she really does, but her God figurine stares down at her with a disappointed look in his eyes. She’s sinned for love, but she doesn’t think she could ever do it again. 
You’re about to plead with Suzie, tell her NYU really prioritizes their student’s grades, but the sound of a car honking outside catches your attention; it’s Steve. Dustin yanks the radio from your hand and shoos you away. “Go, leave without me.”
“What, why? We always drive together.” You frown, feeling like a little kid when you cross your arms. Dustin smiles apologetically, a smile you’ve become familiar with. Your mood darkens, anger rises to your cheeks. You know exactly why Dustin is now skipping out on you. “Don’t tell me it’s that stupid Eddie Munson–”
“He wants me and Mike to work out some campaign details before lunch today!” Dustin scrambles to mediate. He hates that you don’t like Eddie, and you like everyone. It’s unnerving how much disdain you seem to carry for his friend. “Nance is driving us, but I swear I’ll ride with you and Steve after break!”
You scoff at Dustin, not at all believing his promise to you. Ever since September your brother has been at Eddie Muson’s beck-and-call, who dictates everything Dustin says or does. At first it was innocent enough, choosing to sit with the guy instead of you at lunch. Skipping out on a few weekend plans with you and Steve to campaign with Eddie. You’d been happy for Dustin. He was making new friends, no longer your little shadow; he was his own person with his own priorities and interests now.
But ever since getting into NYU last week, Dustin has been pulling away even more from you. You don’t know why, but he’s become even more obsessed with Eddie and his stupid Hellfire club. 
Eddie Munson is the air your brother now breathes, stifling the air Dustin once breathed for you.
And it seems to only be suffocating you, not him.
“Yeah, whatever.” Halfheartedly you ruffle Dustin’s hair, and he leans into the touch. You don’t want him to know his repeated absences are upsetting you. Deep down, you know you’re being irrational. You’re almost eighteen, soon you won’t even be living under the same roof as Dustin. He’s allowed to live his own life. “I guess I’ll see you at the pep rally. Tell Suzie I said bye, please?”
Dustin nods, though you don’t linger in the doorway like you desperately want to. Instead, you shut the door behind you and place a swift kiss to your mother’s cheek as you leave. 
Steve’s car is parked in its usual spot at the end of the driveway. The teen’s arm hangs out the window and his face breaks into a smile when he sees you approaching. Steve’s smile is infectious, it’s always charmed you, and it settles the ache in your chest from your brother’s earlier dismissal. Feeling a smile spread across your own face, you run towards Steve and poke your head through the open window.
“Hi,” you breathe out, nose almost bumping against his cheek.
“Hi, angel.” Steve kisses you, solidifying your morning tradition. Neither one of you really remembers who started it, but sometime during the school year you began to slip your head through Steve’s car window so that he could kiss you slow and sweet. 
And, as tradition follows, Robin starts boos. “Do you have to do that every morning?”
Steve makes a face at her and she punches his arm. He yelps in pain and you roll your eyes at the two of them before running over to the passenger’s side where Robin sits. Her window is rolled down as well and you duck your head inside. “Aw, Robin. If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve just said so!” 
“A kiss–?” Your lips press against Robin’s cheek, smushing against her face while making a dramatic sound. She squeals and pushes you away, wiping her now wet cheek in disgust. “That is not what I wanted.”
You giggle at her and finally get into the car. It’s getting late, you see the assortment of Robin’s limited makeup dumped into her lap haphazardly. She’s been stressing about this morning’s pep rally all week, and clearly she isn’t coping very well. Trying to cheer her up, you flick her shoulder. “I’ll have you know that my cheek kisses are cherished in Hawkins.”
“How many people’s cheeks are you kissing?” Steve turns in his seat to face you, slightly alarmed. Then, noticing that there’s only one Henderson in his car, he frowns. “And where’s little Henderson?”
“Eddie Munson.”
“Woah, wait, you mean Eddie as in where Dustin is, right? Not, like, you’ve been kissing his cheek? I’m right, right? Please tell me I’m right.”
You roll your eyes fondly at Steve while Robin rolls hers in displeasure. “Just drive, Steve.”
It becomes pretty apparent five minutes into the car ride that no one seems to be having a good morning. Robin has spent the majority of the drive applying and reapplying her mascara while messing with her hair. She groans every time she looks in the mirror and her eyes lack their usual brilliance. 
Meanwhile, Steve has been complaining about yet another fight with his dad. Apparently they argued during breakfast, something that has become a common occurrence in the Harrington household. 
“The asshole again reminded me that I’m turning twenty soon. As if I don’t already know that! I mean,” Steve laughs in exasperation. “For weeks now he’s been asking me what my plans are, as if working at Family Video just isn’t good enough for him. As if my dad isn’t the sole reason I had to get a lousy minimum wage job in the first place!” 
“Family Video isn’t a lousy job–”
“Yes it is.” Both Steve and Robin say at the same time, which you sigh at. Can’t really argue with that. 
“Okay, yeah. It’s pretty lousy.”
Steve rubs his eyes tiredly. “And that isn’t even the worst part. There I was, pouring syrup over my pancakes, trying to enjoy the fact that my parents are actually home for once, when my asshole of a father tells me that if I don’t have a respectable job by the time I’m twenty, he’ll kick me out. I mean, can you believe that?” 
You suck in a breath. “Steve…”
Richard Harrington is a cruel, awful man. 
While you understand his frustrations towards Steve, it’s completely unreasonable to expect him to get a reputable job in a few short months without any college education. Steve’s right, it had been Richard’s idea to make him work at Scoops Ahoy in the first place. When the mall burned down, he had no other option but to work at Family Video soon after. 
“I’m sorry, honey.” You intertwine your fingers through Steve’s hair and rub your thumb up and down the nape of his neck in a soothing manner. Steve allows the touch, but he’s still tense. Guessing that he’s uncomfortable feeling so pitied, you try to make light of the situation with humor. “But hey, who knows? Maybe you can come live with me in New York if he ends up kicking you out.”
Steve risks a look at you, taking his eyes off the road for a few moments, and his eyes shine. He’s ecstatic over what you’ve just said. He looks like a little kid on Christmas Eve. “You really mean that?”
“Well, I mean…” It had mostly been a joke, a throwaway comment to try and get him to smile. But Steve’s body finally relaxes under your touch and you can’t tell him no. “Yeah, I guess I did.”
“You hear that, Robin?” Steve preens, wanting to get her attention. However, when he realizes that she hasn’t been listening to the entire conversation, he makes an offended sound. “Robin, are you listening to me?”
“Uh, yes?” Her eyes meet yours in the mirror, startled that she’s been caught. “You were-uh. Talking to Y/N about your dad. We-we hate him! Yeah, we hate the guy. He really… grinds my gears?”
Steve groans. “We all hate my dad, but that wasn’t what I was talking to you about!”
“Cut me some slack, please. Your relationship with your father is one of labyrinthine complexity–”
You poke your head between the two teens. “Actually, it’s not that complicated.”
Robin covers your mouth with her hand and continues with her rant. “It’s seven in the morning, we have the stupid pep rally, and I woke up looking like a total corpse!” 
“I think you look lovely as always, Robin.” You mumble through the girl’s hand, barely coherent.
Steve, however, isn’t as supportive. “You’re worried about a pep rally? You really expect me to believe that?”
“Yeah, so?” Robin removes her hand from your mouth and goes back to doing her makeup. She’s avoiding the conversation now, which only means that Steve is onto something. Why has she been so obsessed about this week’s pep rally? Robin has been in band for years now, she’s done a million pep rallies during her high school career. It can’t be performing that makes her nervous. 
Which means it has to be about someone. 
Locking eyes with Steve, he seems to be thinking what you are. “I think we all know what this is about, okay? Y/N and I aren’t buying that bullshit.”
“This is about Vickie.” You finish for him, a smirk on your face. For weeks now Vickie has been all Robin has talked about. Her hair, how pretty her smile is, how cute her freckles are. Vickie also happens to be in band with Robin. “C’mon, you can’t tell us we’re wrong.”
“I absolutely can tell you you’re wrong.” Robin denies what you and Steve are implying.
Steve shakes his head. “You know we’re right! And you know what else we think?”
“I really don’t care–”
“Y/N and I think that you gotta stop pretending to be someone else when you’re around her, okay? You just gotta be yourself.”
Robin doesn’t want to hear any of this. At least not from you and Steve. “You guys are biased, you do realize that?”
“What do you mean?” You’re practically laying across Steve’s car console in order to be a part of the conversation. “I think we’re objective people.”
“You’re telling me that all I have to do is be myself and Vickie will want to date me?”
You frown. “Yeah? What’s wrong with that?”
Robin throws her head back. “Because it took Steve months to ask you out. Mind you, this was when you were already in love with the guy! And he knew you were in love with him!”
“Okay, hey–” Steve doesn’t at all like what she’s insinuating. He didn’t necessarily know you were already in love with him, he just… had a small hunch. 
“I’m not done,” Robin holds her hand up. “All Steve had to do was man up and admit his feelings for you. He didn’t have to agonize over whether or not it’d blow up in his face. There was no risk, no danger, no world ending consequences. I mean, if you had rejected him then maybe Steve’s ego would’ve been bruised. But if I ask out the wrong girl? Bam! I’m a town pariah.”
“This is true,” you reluctantly agree. While you could never envision a world where you’d ever say no to Steve, you also recognize that the world where you somehow do wouldn’t be the same world as Robin’s. Things are different for her, whether you like it or not. Robin has to live with this knowledge, and her conversation with you about luck and love from last summer echoes in your mind. 
Steve places a hand on his chest, betrayed. “Whose side are you on, Y/N?”
“True love’s side.”
Robin snorts and Steve doesn’t bother to hide his smile. He wants to tease you for being a hopeless romantic, but now isn’t the time. Instead, he continues the previous conversation. “True love aside, we can’t ignore that Vickie is definitely not the wrong girl.”
“Oh, she definitely isn’t straight.” You agree.
“We don’t know that!” Robin quickly sprays some breath freshener in her mouth and gags, which you cringe at. Vickie is one lucky girl if Robin ever manages to become her girlfriend. 
Steve doesn’t let up, he’s convinced he has it all figured out. “She returned Fast Times paused at fifty-three minutes, five seconds.”
“The bikini scene, mind you.” You butt in, and Steve nods eagerly.
“And you know who pauses Fast Times at fifty-three minutes, five seconds? People who like boobies, Robin!” 
Robin waves her hands in the air as if to get Steve’s voice away from her. “Ew! Gross, don’t say boobies–”
“Boobies! It’s not a big deal–”
You make a face. “It isn’t the most pleasant word.”
“Oh, c’mon. You like boobies, Robin likes boobies, and we all know I love your boobies specifically–ow!” 
You hit the back of Steve’s head with annoyance to get him to stop talking about your boobs. While he winces in pain and rubs his tender head, you turn towards Robin. “What my darling boyfriend is trying to say is that everyone likes boobs, and Vickie definitely likes them too.” 
Robin can’t even look at the two of you, appalled by how many times the word “boobies” has been uttered during the duration of the conversation. You can’t blame her, the word has practically lost all meaning for you as well.
Steve, however, can’t seem to get enough of it. “It’s boobies!” He exclaims again to no one in particular.
You and Robin lock eyes, and then, without saying anything, your hand covers Steve’s mouth while Robin flicks his forehead, effectively putting the boob conversation to an end. 
– 
The moment Steve’s BMW slows in front of the school, Robin throws the door open and rushes out with a quick “see you later!” to you as she runs to follow after her bandmates. Steve waves weakly as she goes and sighs in disappointment.
“She’s never talking to Vickie, is she?”
“Not a chance,” you sigh as well, watching as Robin’s figure disappears in the crowd of students. Spring break looms over the student body, everyone buzzes with excitement over their week of freedom and tonight’s basketball game. The pep rally in just a few short minutes only adds to the exhilaration. Leaning forward, your lips graze against Steve’s. “Anyways, see you tonight?”
He bridges the gap between your lips, skin meets skin and warmth floods your stomach. “Of course, angel. I love you.”
“I love you, too, honey.” And with one last kiss, you exit Steve’s car and make your way towards the school. As always, Steve waits until you’re safely on the sidewalk before he pulls away and heads towards Family Video. He’s started picking up morning shifts to fill the time he isn’t with you.
On your way inside, you see Ms. Kelly talking to Max near the buses. The conversation is short, doesn’t last much longer than a few seconds, and when Max turns away you notice Ms. Kelly’s patient smile drop. Clearly Max still isn’t being cooperative when it comes to their sessions. She promised you she would start trying, but Max Mayfield has always been stubborn and you’ve always been slightly overbearing.
Not the best combination, honestly.
With a sigh, you make a mental note to ask Max about what the counselor talked to her about later. There’s too much going on this morning to focus on it, and you’re already pushing Max by having her attend the pep rally anyways. Originally she had wanted to skip it and hide in the stairwell, but after begging her about it, Max finally agreed.
The conversation can wait. For now, at least she’ll be next to you in the bleachers alongside the boys to cheer on Lucas.
The thought was enough to brighten your mood a little, but it quickly became a pain in the ass to corral the party into sitting together. It took you almost fifteen minutes to find Mike and Dustin in the mass of students heading into the gym. You’re not necessarily sure how it took so goddamn long given the fact that Mike towers over half of the students anyways. He’s grown freakishly tall since starting freshman year. It unnerves you. 
While his towering height annoys you, Mike likes that he can finally, literally, look down on you. 
“There you guys are!” You grab the back of Mike’s shirt and he lets out a startled yelp. Dustin stumbles back as well, and an annoyed sophomore glares at the three of you. Ignoring her, you grab your brother’s shirt and start dragging the two boys towards the bleachers. “Thought we agreed on meeting at the water fountain that squirts water in your face?”
“I thought it was the library?” Dustin gives you an odd look. “Wait, is there even a water fountain in the library?”
“You amaze me.” You remark, not even bothering to answer his question. He listens like a bag of rocks. Mike just allows you to pull him, not at all contributing to the conversation.
Max waits for you in the bleachers. She’s saved you seats, something that you feel slight relief over. The simple gesture is small, but it sparks just enough hope within your chest to make you exhale softly. Hope that she’s getting better. Hope that she’s finally trying again.
Thanking Max, you and the others fill the seats as the gym quickly fills with more and more students until it threatens to overflow. The roar of the crowd is nearly deafening. Across from the bleachers resides the marching band. They’re playing the school’s anthem as the cheerleaders start their routine. Chrissy Cunningham leads them, her smile lovely and beautiful, she shines so brightly upon the crowd that you can’t help but fall in love with her.
In the midst of the cheerleaders’ twists and flips, Robin manages to catch your eye from across the room.
You eagerly wave at her and mime playing the trumpet, copying her movements as she actually plays one. Robin laughs, and next to her is a girl with fiery red hair who laughs as well. She’s pretty, you’ve heard countless sonnets about her red hair and dotted freckles. Knowing the girl is Vickie, you point at her as you wink at Robin, who scoffs and goes back to playing the trumpet. 
Next to you, you catch the tail end of some bizarre conversation between Mike and Dustin.
“Look, I’m not saying that my girlfriend is better than yours.” Dustin is clarifying, glaring at you when he hears your sarcastic snort. “It’s just that Suzie’s, like, a certified genius.”
Mike crosses his arms, looking towards you as if somehow this is all your fault. “Your brother realizes that El saved the world twice, right?”
“Admittedly that is hard to beat,” you shrug. “That, and she has cool powers.”
Dustin points a finger at the two of you. “And yet Mike still has a C in Spanish while you’re barely passing calculus.”
Mike rolls his eyes and you shrug again. Your brother isn’t necessarily wrong either. El’s saved the world, Suzie has saved his GPA. Both are nearly impossible feats. “Touchy subject, but touché.”
“And what can your boyfriend do, Y/N?” Mike asks, now bringing the attention to your love life.
“He’s good with a bat.”
Both Dustin and Mike groan, but you shush them when the school’s broadcaster announces the Tigers basketball team. Applause breaks out across the bleachers and you notice Max looking around for Lucas. Though she tries to hide it, you can see the interest and excitement in her eyes. She’s happy for him, but it breaks your heart that she feels that she can’t show it.
Jason Carver, captain of the basketball team and former Scoops Ahoy patron before Steve spilled ice cream all over his pants, runs out first. The crowd goes wild, but you don’t start cheering until you see Lucas. He’s smiling wide, proud to be a part of the team. You scream as loud as you can for him, he’s come so far since confessing to you about wanting to join the team earlier this year. As Jason starts his speech, dramatic as he always is, Lucas sees you in the bleachers and waves shyly, a blush creeping across his face. Then, seeing Max next to you, his confidence seems to grow as he waves more enthusiastically at her. 
The moment is sweet, it makes you smile. 
Except Max doesn’t wave back. She crosses her arms, pretends she hasn’t seen him, and your smile drops alongside Lucas’. 
You know they’ve been having some trouble recently. With Max pulling away more and more each day, Lucas struggled to hold onto the fading girl. Despite his pleas and reassurances, Max still seems to be icing him out. According to Dustin, they broke up almost a month ago now. 
But they’ve always had a tumultuous relationship, long before nightmares and monsters darkened everything. The news hadn’t worried you at first, you thought it was simply another one of their weekly breakups over something small, innocent. Afterall, they were just kids when they first started dating. Their breakups were always childish, though endearing, and always temporary. 
Now, you’re scared that this time it’s permanent. 
You’re not sure what that means for Max. She already has so few people left in her life to tether her. Billy died, her mother works two jobs and is never home anymore, El is in California, and you and Lucas are breaking skin trying to claw onto whatever small hold you have left of the girl.
Another loud cheer from the crowd breaks you from your thoughts. Jason must’ve just said something important, something worthy enough of a roaring reaction. He’s always been popular in Hawkins, Steve used to complain about him to you back when he was still on the team. But when Steve graduated and Billy died, Hawkins High had needed a new King to crown.
Jason Carver was more than happy to ascend the throne. 
“Chrissy, I love you, babe.” Everyone awes and you see Chrissy blow Jason a kiss. It’s sweet, you suppose. They fit together nicely, head cheerleader with the star of the basketball team, and they seem genuinely happy. Chrissy’s shy and kind demeanor balances Jason’s loud and charismatic boldness. They truly are a good match. 
“I think I can speak for all of us when I say it’s been a tough year for Hawkins.” Jason continues his speech, the room is eerily silent as everyone listens with baited breath. “So much loss…” The gym almost exhales simultaneously, remembering all the people who died last summer.
Your own breath exhales, and beside you Max tenses. Billy’s ghost floats through your minds, in through hers and out through yours. Hopper’s own ghost follows after him, only he doesn’t haunt Max the way he haunts you. He lingers over you, his final words to you engraved into your skin. 
You’re the best of them.
“And sometimes I wonder, how much loss can one community take?”
Enough to fill a mall of burning bodies, you think bitterly. 
Jason paces the gym’s floor now, he almost seems to glow before the crowd. He rambles on about needing something to believe in. That everyone should be doing something to honor all the lives lost in July, that playing basketball can absolve all the despair. As if it can bring them back.
Deep below your ribcage, nestled right underneath your scar and just in front of your stomach, rests a pit of anger that always simmers. You were born with it, it has always followed you. It has grown with you, the anger almost possessed your body when your dad left. Now, hearing Jason recite all the names of the ones who died that Fourth of July, the anger’s low simmer heats into a soft boil. 
You try to quell it. Jason means well, he’s only trying to uplift the community in a passionate, albeit uncomfortably pastor-y way. He’s only doing what he knows best; he’s being a leader. In another life, one where Demogorgons never harmed you, you think you would’ve really admired Jason and his resilience. 
“Think of Billy,” Your breath stills, yet your hand instinctively finds Max’s. She turns away from you, but the room is spinning and you can’t remember how to inhale. But Jason keeps going. “Think about our heroic police chief, Jim Hopper.”
Next to you, in your haze of grief and panic, you think you can feel Mike and Dustin shift uncomfortably. Grief sinks her claws into the kids, and you want nothing more than to puncture Jason’s lungs with them. 
This was supposed to be a pep rally for the Tigers, it was supposed to be joyous, an opportunity to bring Max out of her shell. To distract her from the hell that she calls her life. The entire school knows what happened to Billy, they know that he had a little sister named Max Mayfield.
You hate Jason Carver.
But you’re here for Lucas. Today is about him. He’s finally happy, he’s smiling again. The least you can do is swallow down the anger and grief and hope that you don’t end up choking on them later. That they don’t strangle you in your dreams.
“And now tonight, we’re gonna bring home the championship trophy!” Jason screams into the mic, erupting a volcanic roar from the stadium. People throw paper into the air, whistling and jumping up and down at the prospect of Hawkins High finally winning a championship.
“Tonight?” Dustin’s agonized exclamation causes you to jump. He looks at you, bewildered and panicked. “How is that possible?”
Your heart still hasn’t steadied from the surge of fury Jason evoked. Swallowing once again, you clear your throat and shake your head at your brother. “What, you guys didn’t know about the game tonight?”
“They call it a tournament,” Max explains for you, figuring you need some time to clear your head. You squeeze her hand appreciatively. “You win one game, you go on until there’s only one team left.”
Mike and Dustin exchange frightened looks, and you eye them suspiciously. “Did you guys really not know? I thought Steve explained all of this to you already. Why is it such a big deal, anyways? I mean–wait,” the boys won’t meet your gaze. They avoid facing you, Mike stuffs his hands into his pockets and Dustin pretends to read someone’s poster. 
You know the fearful look on their faces. It’s the same look Dustin gave you this morning when he ditched you to ride with Nancy and Mike. 
Goddamn Eddie Munson. 
“Oh, don’t you guys dare.” They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t fucking dream of missing one of Lucas’ games for a stupid club centered around some guy with enormous ego problems. “I swear to God, if you two skip the game tonight–”
“We won’t! I-I mean… Well. It’s, uh. It’s complicated” Dustin gulps, elbowing his way through the crowd of departing students as the pep rally ends. Mike follows, ready to step in at any moment, while Max slips away before you can stop her. Seeing how contorted your body is from anger, Dustin tries to appease you. “Look, I can’t promise anything, alright? Eddie is… Eddie.”
You’re about to scream some very choice words about that curly haired emo asshole, but Lucas intercepts the group and joins you guys. He looks between you, Mike, and Dustin, sensing some underlying tension. “What about Eddie?”
Mike quickly explains, and the more he talks, the more you want to shove your knives down Eddie’s throat. It’s one night, one goddamn night, and here Mike and Dustin are, almost shitting their pants at the idea of missing one Hellfire meeting to support their friend. While it’s unfortunate that all of this is happening on the same night, and though you recognize how long a campaign can take and how much the game means to the party, for once you can’t bring yourself to understand Dustin’s side. 
A championship game versus one single campaign meeting that can easily be done tomorrow instead.
Seems like a pretty easy decision to you. 
Lucas doesn’t understand why Mike and Dustin are so conflicted either. “I don’t get the big deal.” You’re all outside now, heading towards the main building for your classes. “Just talk to Eddie. Get him to move Hellfire to another night.”
You nod, agreeing with him, and Dustin rolls his eyes. “‘Just talk to Eddie.’”
“You can’t be serious right now,” your shoulder brushes harshly against the boy’s. You’re barely containing your anger right now. “Why does Eddie have such a strong hold over you guys? Hasn’t he repeated senior year twice now?”
“Why does that matter?” Mike looks at you as if you’re the scum of the earth that he just so happened to step on. “Why can’t Lucas just talk to his coach and get him to move the game?”
Dustin quips that he thinks Mike’s idea is a great one, but you shove between them and throw your hands in the air in annoyance. “You can’t possibly think that’s the same thing, right? A nationally organized game being postponed for a board game.”
Mike and Dustin both gasp at you, acting as if you’ve just threatened to kill a baby bunny in front of them, which only annoys you more. Sure, maybe you’re being a little mean right now, but you’re not appreciating how they’re treating Lucas. He’s never done anything to warrant this blatant disrespect from them. They’re refusing to see his side, too lost in their Eddie induced high. 
“DnD isn’t just a board game, Y/N! I’m honestly disappointed that you of all people would even say that. You’ve seen the intricacies of a campaign. You know I’ve spent all month now preparing for the end of Eddie’s campaign!” Dustin waves his hands in front of him, he’s in his own ecstasy of anger and annoyance, something innate in the Henderson bloodline. “A semester of adventuring has led to this moment, and we need Lucas.”
“Yeah, and the Tigers don’t.” Mike looks over at Lucas. “I mean, no offense, but you’ve been on the bench all year–shit!”
You swat the back of Mike’s head, the sound of his yelp satisfying and the sting of the hit soothes you. He looks at you, offended, and you just shake your head at him. “No, that was out of line and you know it.”
“One day I’m gonna be too tall for you to hit me, you know.” Mike scowls at you as he rubs his head. 
“And I’ll mourn the day when that happens,” you respond dryly before pointing at Lucas. “Now, apologize to him before I hit you again.”
Lucas lowers your finger and shakes his head. “It’s fine, Y/N. Me being on the bench isn’t the point, anyways.”
“Please, arrive at the point.” Your brother drops his head back and closes his eyes. He’s tired, he regrets even starting this conversation in the first place. The more the four of you talk, the angrier he can feel you become. Mike’s head may now be sore, but Dustin lives with you. If anyone here is in danger of your lecturing, it’s him.
“If I get in good with these guys, I’ll be in the popular crowd, and then you guys will be too.” Lucas explains, looking between Dustin and Mike as he urges them to understand, but they don’t. Mike claims that they don’t want to be popular, something that Lucas doesn’t believe. “What, you wanna be stuck with the nerds and freaks for three more years?”
“We are nerds and freaks!” Dustin exclaims, causing a few students in the hall to look at you guys. You wave at them awkwardly, you’re starting to regret following the boys. This conversation feels personal, like you shouldn’t be intruding. Though you think Lucas has every right to want a good high school experience, you also think Mike and Dustin deserve to have their own experiences as well. If they don’t want to be popular, then that’s their decision just as much as it’s Lucas’ to want to be. 
You step between the three boys, finally getting their attention. “Guys, no one here is necessarily right or wrong. Lucas has every right to want to be a part of the basketball crowd, and you two,” you raise your eyebrows at Mike and Dustin, “have every right to want to stick with Eddie’s crowd.”
Dustin sighs, “thanks, Y/N–”
“I’m not finished,” you hold a hand up and shush your brother. “What isn’t right, however, is abandoning one another. You guys are friends, and right now Lucas wants you at his game tonight to support him. Tonight is special, everyone will be there, and I want you guys there as well. I know high school is hard, but it’s even harder when you’re alone.”
“Says the girl who is adored by everyone in this shitty town.” Mike huffs, he can’t believe how hypocritical you’re being. “You’ve never had to deal with what we do. No one has ever laughed at you or tried to make you jump off a cliff just because you’re different.”
You clench your jaw. Dustin looks at you wearily, he doesn’t like what Mike is saying, but he also can’t help but agree with his friend. You haven’t ever been bullied. All your life you’ve blended in, stood out only when you were kind to others, admired for your selflessness, but never enough to be invited to parties or dumped behind a dumpster.
“Mike…” Your brother tries to pull him away from you, but you both stand your ground.
“You’re right, Wheeler. I don’t know what it’s like.” You stare up at the boy, and Mike’s expression softens only slightly. He’s just as stubborn as you are, it’s why the two of you admire the other so much. “But you forget that I’m Jonathan’s best friend. The creep, the loser, the psychopath. Kids may not have ever targeted me, but I’ve seen what they do to the people they hate.”
All the times you had to ice Jonathan’s bruised face. The nights you spent in his room holding him as he cried because Lonnie’s fists and Tommy’s cruel words were too much. The sneers, the stares Jonathan received because he was different. Quiet. Being your best friend hadn’t lessened the blows. 
For years you wish you could’ve done more for Jonathan. Now, presented with Lucas’ opportunity to befriend the crowd that once was so cruel to your friend, you refuse to lose it. “That’s why I don’t want Lucas skipping the game tonight.”
It’s silent for a few moments, all three boys don’t know what to say. Taking a deep breath, Lucas stands beside you and breaks the silence. “We came to high school wanting things to be different, right? Now we have that chance. Like Y/N said, if I skip tonight, that’s all out the window. So I’m asking you guys, as a friend, just talk to Eddie. Get him to move Hellfire.”
Lucas pauses, he wets his lips and looks between his friends again. He feels so small, pleading for their attention. “Come to my game. Please.”
The bell rings, ending the conversation, and Lucas spares one last look at Dustin and Mike before mumbling a soft goodbye to you. He leaves you alone with the boys, who in turn mirror conflicted expressions. 
“Shit!” Dustin kicks his foot out and looks at you. “This is all your fault, you know that?”
“What is?”
“Me having empathy. I hate this. Why couldn’t you have raised me to be an asshole?”
You snort at Dustin before pulling him into a weak hug. You only have a few more minutes before you need to get to class, you can’t stay very long, but you also don’t want to leave the boys without some semblance of comfort. “You’re too charming to be an asshole. Just… Come to the game, alright? Both of you. I’ll even make brownies if I have to. I just-I’ve missed you guys. This will be good for all of us.”
Mike ducks his head and Dustin sighs once more. Neither want to say anything else, so you reluctantly release your brother and leave them alone to wallow in their self-created misery. 
They’ll do the right thing. You’re sure of it.
– 
Lunch comes and Alex sits next to you. He started sitting with you at lunch just after winter break, and you’re endlessly grateful for him. You’re no longer alone, and he’s good company. A part of you regrets that it took the two of you three years to grow your friendship outside of Bookstrorindary. 
You’ll miss him when you graduate. 
Max is with Ms. Kelly today, a change in their usual meeting schedule of Tuesdays and Thursdays, meaning you had been right. She did skip their meeting yesterday and the counselor had to corner her this morning to schedule another one. 
“Be honest, how excited are you to move to New York this summer?” Alex asks you, taking a bite out of his carrot stick. You’ve come to learn that he has a weird obsession with the vegetable, always packing at least twelve of them every day. 
You pick at your own lunch, a wilted salad and sandwich your mom left for you this morning. “Honestly? It hasn’t really hit me yet. I mean, I only got in last week. I think my mind is still trying to catch up with reality.”
“Oh, c’mon. You can’t tell me you’re not at least a little excited.”
“Okay, okay,” you laugh and nudge the boy. “I’m a little excited. I just.. Haven’t really had time to think too much about it, you know? Between work, my brother, Steve, the kids, and…”
“Jonathan?” Alex finishes for you. He’s the only one who knows about how distant Jonathan has been. You’ve confided in him about how worried you are, about the phone calls while he’s high and the way Jonathan’s voice no longer sounds like his. 
You shove your lunch away, no longer hungry. “Yeah.”
“You guys call every Friday, right? Maybe tonight will be different!” Alex tries to cut through the tension that now corrodes your demeanor, which you smile at him gratefully for. 
“Yeah, who knows.” A piece of hair falls in your face and you push it behind your ear. Picking up your fork again, you attempt to finish your meal, but a sudden commotion interrupts the low buzz in the lunchroom. 
“As long as you’re into band, or science, or parties.” Eddie Munson sneers from the cafeteria table he’s standing on. He looks around the room as if everyone else is beneath him. Not worth his time just because they enjoy different things. Looking at Alex, you both sigh and prepare for whatever Eddie has to say today. His voice grows louder, shouting across the room towards the basketball team’s table. “Or a game where you toss balls into laundry baskets!”
Jason stands up and a few students whoop and cheer. “You want something, freak?”
Eddie sticks to fingers up behind his head as he creates little devil horns, snarling with his tongue out and hissing. Jason grimaces, you do too. 
“He’s a little much, isn’t he?” You say to Alex, relieved when Eddie starts to step down from the table. 
“He terrifies me.” Alex breathes out, not taking his eyes off Eddie in fear he’ll somehow cast a spell on him.
You laugh at your friend’s unnecessary fear. Eddie is harmless, Hellfire isn’t a demonic cult like some students at Hawkins seem to think. It really is just a club centered around a board game with impressive storytelling and detailed plotlines. From what Dustin has told you, Eddie truly is the best dungeon master in Indiana. 
And while you believe him, you can’t wrap your head around why your brother idolizes Eddie so much. The fascination runs deeper than just DnD. Dustin has spent almost every day of his freshman year wrapped around Eddie’s finger. He spends all his time with the teen now, rarely with you, but you’re not bitter. Of course you’re not. Dustin can have his own friends, you know this, but you also feel so… unneeded. 
Your little brother doesn’t need you anymore, and it’s a hard pill to swallow.
Truthfully, Alex’s question earlier about moving to New York in the summer sparked more than just your usual anxiety over Jonathan. It also reminded you that in only a few short months you’ll be in an entirely new state, a new city, far away from Dustin. 
“Y/N!” Dustin flies into the seat next to you, nearly upending the table itself with how violently he throws himself down.
Alex shrieks and you steady the table before anything can fall. Heart pounding, you clutch at your chest as your nerves settle. “Why must you always be so violent?”
“Because it’s fun,” Dustin responds, not even bothering to acknowledge Alex’s presence. Instead, his eyes are only on you, and there’s a crazed spark in them. He’s breathing heavily, frantic, and you dread where this is going. “Look, I need to ask you a huge favor.”
“Do you realize that this is the first time you’ve sat with me at lunch since the first day?”
He winces. “And I will repent every day for my horrendous sins. I promise, I just–Jesus you’re terrifying when you don’t blink.” Dustin removes his hat to fix his hair, a nervous tick of his. He’s stalling, he should’ve never come here. Gulping, he rips the band aid off. “I need you to sub for Lucas tonight.”
“I’m sorry?” You’re giving him an out, one chance to back down before you strangle him.
Only Dustin tightens the noose even more. “Please, Y/N! Eddie won’t move the campaign. He said something about sheep and-and finding subs because Mike and I are, uh. I guess the future of Hellfire and he needs us and did I mention how important this campaign is? It’s super cool, super gory and totally up your alley and–”
“No.”
“N-no?” Dustin practically deflates in front of you, the light in his eyes dies. 
You shove him away from you, you don’t want to look at his pathetic pouting. You’re so unbelievably hurt right now, so fucking infuriated. “You have spent every goddamn waking hour ass kissing Eddie. You haven’t so much as looked at me during lunch this entire year as if I’m a fucking plague. You’ve canceled plans, you’re hardly ever home, and now you expect me to abandon Lucas, someone who has spent time with me this year, someone who has made this entire year less lonely for me. Something, by the way, that you haven’t even noticed, all because you finally need me?”
Dustin’s mouth opens and closes, he doesn’t know what to say, but for once you don’t care. How could he possibly think you’d miss Lucas’ game tonight? You adore the boys, each and every one of them, and now Dustin expects you to just abandon one of them for the others? 
“You’re only here because it’s convenient for you.” You hiss, venom pouring from your voice. “For Eddie.” 
“Y/N…” Dustin’s voice breaks, he sounds like a little kid again, the baby brother you doted on your entire life. “Please.”
“No!” You scream at him. 
The word echoes throughout the cafeteria. A few students turn to you, some curious, some annoyed. Alex draws into himself, wishing he were anywhere but here right now. Dustin’s eyes widen, his skin pales, and you clamp your hand over your mouth, completely and utterly mortified. 
You’ve never, ever yelled at Dustin like this before. Not with so much malice, vitriol. 
You feel like you’re twelve again, your anger hurting your baby brother. 
Red hot with embarrassment and shame, you quickly get up from the table and flee the cafeteria. Dustin calls after you, but you stumble through the hallway towards the nearest bathroom. Tears burn your eyes, guilt wracks your body in painful thuds. 
By the time you lock yourself in the bathroom’s stall, your sobs have begun to claw their way out of your throat. Pressing your back against the wall, you sink to the ground and pull your knees into your chest as you finally allow yourself to cry.
Abandonment makes you cruel. Your father taught you that.
– 
You don’t see Dustin for the rest of the day. He’s missing Lucas’ game and you’re angry with him for that, but you also feel such an intense guilt over your outburst. You can’t stomach the thought of seeing him. 
School ends and Steve drives you to work. The shift will be a short one due to the championship game, and Steve is staying with you so that you can drive to the game together. However, the moment you get into his car, he notices the dried tears on your face and the redness in your eyes and immediately throws his arms around you. In between shaky breaths and cries, you explain what happened to Steve.
He soothes you, tells you that you can always talk to Dustin after tonight’s game. Right now you and your brother need space from one another, and you hate that Steve’s right. You’ll force Dustin into a code blue, you’re long overdue for one, anyways. He’s been acting weird for weeks now. Someone has to give in, you know this, and if it has to be you then you’ll do anything to get your brother back. 
For now, Steve holds your hand as he guides you through the crowd of people in the bleachers. They all cheer for Hawkins High, the energy in the gym is electric. Faces are painted, cheerleaders wave their pom-poms, and you’re wearing Steve’s old Tigers jersey. You’re not much for school spirit, but Steve almost crashed the car when he realized you were wearing the jersey, and you know Lucas will appreciate it too.
“Y/N, over here.” Steve’s hand falls onto the small of your back as he gently pushes you towards some open seats he’s found. You lean into his touch and sit beside him. With his body against yours, you try to immerse yourself in the joy from the crowd. 
The entire town is here tonight. Everyone is smiling, kids laugh and parents wave posters for their sons. Tonight will be a good night, you’ve decided this to be true. 
The national anthem is announced and everyone rises in their seats. When the broadcaster announces that Tammy Thompson will be singing, you and Steve look at each other incredulously. Laughter rises within you and you cackle when Robin finds the two of you in the crowd. There’s no way this won’t end in disaster. 
Tammy walks out, wearing a horrendous faux cowboy outfit, and almost immediately sings off-key. You cringe, ears stinging from the attack, and try desperately not to let out any laughter as she continues to butcher the song. 
Steve whispers over to Robin, “told you. Muppet.”
“Okay, she does sound like a muppet.” Robin agrees, which only makes it harder to contain your giggles. Tammy is worse than a muppet, she sounds like a goddamn muppet that broke into her dad’s alcohol stash. 
“You sound better, angel.” Steve whispers into your ear, breath warm against your skin. 
You lean back against him and smile sarcastically. “Anyone can sound better than her.”
Steve chuckles and you can’t help but join him. You know it’s rude, that Tammy is honestly not that bad, though definitely not good enough for Nashville, but you can’t help it. You can’t believe Robin ever had such a huge crush on the girl who now drones the national anthem like a dying parrot. 
In between breaths of laughter, you see Lucas looking up at the bleachers. His face is grim, he doesn’t see Mike or Dustin or Max. None of his friends showed up, and you watch him with sympathy. You can’t believe them. 
But then Lucas sees you, and he gives you a weak smile. Your attendance isn’t enough, you know it isn’t, but you hold up the poster you made for him and he laughs despite himself. 
The game starts, and from the moment the whistle is blown, it’s intense. The Tigers are neck and neck with the Falcons. Steve tries to explain what’s happening throughout the game, but it all goes over your head. The energy in the room is intoxicating, though. You lean forward in your seat, you cheer when everyone else does, boo when you think you should.
“Carver just loves hogging the spotlight, doesn’t he?” Steve says with disdain as he watches Jason side sweep his teammates to score. 
You poke his side, you know he’s only saying this because he’s still bitter that Jaosn tried asking you out last summer. “Honey, your jealousy is showing.” 
Steve tries to deny this, but then a player gets injured during a foul from Falcon, causing you and Steve to both spew insults at the player. You have no idea what the foul even is, but you’re enjoying the chaos of the game.
In the midst of your uproar, you almost miss Lucas being sent into the game. You slap Steve’s chest repeatedly to get his attention, you almost don’t believe what you’re seeing. “Steve! Is that–”
“Sinclair!” He whoops, but he quickly scrambles to catch you as you nearly throw yourself off the bleachers in your blind excitement cheering. You’re screaming your head off, hardly even registering Steve’s hands on your waist. You’re incoherent and ecstatic, drunk on adrenaline. 
Lucas is playing.
The game only gets more brutal from there. The points even out, both teams neck and neck. Anxious, you squeeze Steve’s hand with anticipation. Everything happens so fast, Lucas plays so naturally with the others, as if he was born to be there. 
“Go, Tigers!” You jump up and down as Lucas runs after Jason. They’re doing a new play, attempting to score the tie breaker. Jason shoots, the ball hits off the backboard and onto the rim. Your breath catches, there’s only three seconds left on the clock. The ball falls, and there isn’t any time left.
Until Lucas catches the missed shot. He dribbles the ball, you clutch Steve’s hand, neither one of you utters a single word as Lucas makes the final shot. It’s an all or nothing throw, a risk, but he takes it anyways. The ball soars through the air, hits the rim. The buzzer sounds, the game is over, and the ball spins around the rim before finally sinking through the net.
Your chest burns as you violently cheer, Steve flings himself into your arms. You’re both jumping around, screaming together like little kids. “Hey did it!” You scream, and Steve shakes you in his arms with the biggest smile on his face.
“Sinclair did it!”
Down below, Lucas’ face lights up as the crowd goes wild for him. This is the happiest you’ve seen the kid in so long. The entire basketball team swarms Lucas, they lift him into the air and you cheer alongside them.
Steve tells you he’ll go warm the car up and you practically run outside to find Lucas as soon as the game is done. Your body buzzes, you’re still breathless with exhilaration. When you find Lucas, he’s just left the crowd of teenage boys. Wanting to surprise him, you creep up slowly before throwing your arms from behind him. “There’s the star!”
He stumbles from your weight, but he knows it’s you. Laughing, he turns around and you pull him into a bone crushing hug. “You came!”
“Of course I did, you moron!” You giggle, pulling away to straighten his jacket. “I made you a poster and everything.”
Lucas looks down at the poster that hangs by your side. His eyes light up, he remembers seeing it in the stands at the beginning of the game, but he hadn’t been able to read it from so far away. “Can I see it?”
“I’d be offended if you didn’t want to see it.” You unroll the poster and present it with a grand flourish. “Tada!” 
Sin to win, Sinclair!
You’re incredibly proud of the wordplay, and Lucas chuckles. It’s good, he has to admit. You’ve left no white space on the poster, littering with small 8’s for his jersey and millions of small stickers and decorations. The poster was made with love, and Lucas knows you spent hours making it.
“I love it, Y/N.” He does. It will hang on his wall as soon as he gets home.
You beam at him. Then, from behind you, you hear your brother’s own cheers as a door opens. Lucas’ smile fades, hurt creeps upon his face. Frowning, you turn and find Dustin and Mike high fiving their Hellfire friends as they all celebrate the end of their campaign. Erica is with them, cheering with everyone else. 
“Lucas…” Your breath gives out. He doesn’t deserve this. Tonight was supposed to be his night. You turn to him, wracking your brain to try and figure out what you’re even supposed to say at this moment. Fifty feet away Lucas’ close friends are celebrating a night without him, his sister overjoyed as well. They’ve forgotten about him.
For once, you can’t find the right words to say.
“Thanks for the poster, Y/N.” Lucas doesn’t want your sympathy. He leaves, crestfallen, and you’re left standing alone holding the poster he had been praising seconds ago. The late March air chills your bones. 
You’ve never been so disappointed in your brother before.
– 
Steve drives you home and you’re silent the entire time. 
“Dustin isn’t a bad kid, Y/N. You know that.” Steve tries to reason with you, but what your brother has done tonight leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. “I’m sure by tomorrow he’ll realize he was a jerk and apologize. He always does, he’s just being a stupid teen boy right now.”
You face the window, watching the trees fading into the distance. You know Steve is right, you know that Dustin is still growing up, making mistakes. Hell, no one is perfect at fifteen. When you were his age you were falling in love with your best friend as you hunted monsters together. Neither you or Jonathan or Nancy knew what the hell you guys were doing back then.
But this is different. Dustin has never betrayed his friends like this before. He, out of all of them, should understand the pain of being left behind. He spent half the summer upset that the party ditched him, and now he’s ditching Lucas?
“You know, I used to be a stupid teen boy.” Steve says, trying again to get you to say something. To look at him, at least.
It works, a small smile turns your lips. “I never knew.”
He laughs at the sarcasm in your voice, but he plays along anyways. “Oh, I totally was. I just hid it really well by, you know, making you hate me for a while by being annoying. But hey, look at me now! I’m still annoying, but at least I have it all figured out with you.”
“And what do you have figured out, honey?” You turn your head towards him, watch the street lamps illuminate his face.
Steve smiles. “Us. Our future. Sure, I may not know if I’ll ever get a better job, but I’m sure as shit staying with you, starting a life together so that I can annoy you for all eternity.”
“How romantic,” a giggle falls from your lips. You’ve been with Steve for nearly a year now, but you haven’t really talked about the future yet. At least not so intimately, with so much assurance that in the end it’ll be the two of you. “And where will we live, Romeo?”
“New York, obviously. As soon as you graduate, we’ll find some horrible, run down apartment that’s barely big enough for two people. We’ll move in, but there won’t be any air conditioning so we’ll almost murder each other in the heat. Everyone will hate the place, but we’ll love it.”
As Steve talks, the smile that had once been on your face begins to fade. He rambles on, not noticing the shift. He dreams up the plans, how he’ll stay home while you go to class. How he’ll fix the leaky faucet that will inevitably annoy everyone. Steve envisions himself waiting for you to come home after a long day of classes and falling into his arms. 
“Steve–” But he doesn’t hear you. He’s busy explaining how he’ll probably have to sell his car to afford the apartment, but that he doesn’t care, and you feel sick. It’s too much, he’s giving up too much. He’s willing to give up his entire life for you, drop everything and follow you without any questions asked. 
It’s what your mother did for your father. They met in college, both attending Purdue. Their relationship had been a whirlwind. Love at first sight, married as soon as they graduated, your father convinced your mom to follow him back to Virginia. To abandon her family and move two states over while pregnant with you. She didn’t know anyone in Virginia, her father moved them to a small town where only his name was known. 
The divorce that followed twelve years later ruined your mother’s life. She had been left all alone, no family to support her, no friends, in a state she never grew up in.
And now Steve wants to do the same for you.
Raising your voice slightly, you try to interrupt him again. “Steve!”
“What?” He looks over at you, words finally dying. “Do you want to keep the car?”
“You… you can’t.” 
Steve frowns. “I can’t what?”
Your hands shake. Your heart trembles. Your words die in your throat. There’s so much you want to say, you can feel the pit in your stomach build into a fist. You can’t let Steve do this. He doesn’t understand that he deserves more than this. “You-you can’t come to New York.”
Everything stills. You don’t dare to breathe, to disrupt the silence. Your words come out all wrong, you know they do, but they’re out in the open and Steve doesn’t look at you as he pulls into your driveway. Silent, he turns the car’s engine off.
“Y/N…” Steve still can’t look at you. He places his hands on the steering wheel, as if bracing himself for whatever will unfold tonight. He’s scared, he doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong. His mind flashes, and for a brief second he’s back at the Halloween party and you’re Nancy in his passenger seat. “Do you not see a future with me?”
“I do!” You sit up in your seat, reach over to touch Steve’s thigh. You need to feel him, to ground yourself to him. Everything about this feels wrong. As if you’re hanging over the edge of a chasm with a long, long fall. “God, of course I see a future with you, I just-this isn’t what you really want.”
Steve doesn’t want to move to New York, even if he doesn’t realize it now. What he’s really doing is chasing after a dream that isn’t his. The timing of this is off, he fought with his dad this morning about a future he was unsure of. You know Steve, maybe even better than he knows himself; he’s not doing it for your relationship or out of love. Steve only wants to appease his father, fulfill whatever desire he thinks you have. This isn’t what he wants, and he’s worked too hard to build the life he has now, without you, to simply throw it all away.
But he can’t see that right now.
“Of course this is what I want, Y/N! All I want is you.” Steve finally looks at you, but there’s a hardness in his eyes. He’s detaching himself from you, putting his walls up. “You and me, that’s what I want.”
You grab his hand, you try to keep your voice calm. “Steve, I love you so, so much, but I can’t-I can’t let you give everything up for me. Your life is here, in Hawkins. You have a job, you have your friends and-and your family, and it wouldn’t be fair to either one of us if you abandon it for me. You could-you could resent me for it later, you could realize you hate our life and wish you never followed me and–”
“Y/N, what did you think was going to happen when you were applying to all those colleges?” Steve runs a hand through his hair, he thought you were beside him this whole time. He assumed you’d been carving out the same future he had been. But he was wrong. “Did you really think I’d just stay behind and wait for you to come home every break?”
“I…” Shamefully, you hadn't been considering what would happen between you and Steve. In your mind, he was your future, he was in it, but the details were hazy. You weren’t sure how, or why, or when, but you knew that in the end, Steve was the person you’d spend forever with. 
Steve takes your hesitancy as his answer. “God, I’m such a fucking idiot.”
“Steve–”
“You were just going to leave me.”
He tears his hand from yours and you blink back tears. You’ve never fought with him before, not like this. “I wasn’t just going to leave you! I just-Steve, please just listen!”
“I am, Y/N!” Steve exclaims, voice reverberating the car. You flinch away, and he immediately lowers his voice, apologetic. He hadn’t meant to scare you, he hadn’t meant to make you cry. Ashamed, Steve turns away from you. “I-I’m sorry.” 
He wants to wipe the tears he’s caused, but selfishly he also wants you to hurt like he’s hurting. You don’t see a future with Steve. You were going to leave him just like everyone else does. 
Steve should’ve known all of this was too good to be true. 
“I love you,” your voice is almost inaudible, the three words barely reach the light before they disappear into the dark night. You’re not sure why you say them, the words had built in your chest, the pressure heavy, and you needed to release them. To remind Steve of your oath to him. 
Silence fills the car. Steve doesn’t look at you, his shoulders are drawn together. His jaw clenches and you know he’s trying desperately to bite his tongue, withholding the cruel words that only heartbreak can provoke. 
“Honey,” you beg him to say something, anything. “Steve.”
“I think you should go.”
The dismissal punches your throat, knocks the wind out of you. He’s shutting you out, closing himself off from you, and you don’t understand how the two of you got here. “I… Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Steve’s words are cool, composed. Indifferent, almost. He still doesn’t look at you, his eyes remain focused on something in your driveway. “It’s late, you should get some sleep.”
“Okay,” you don’t want to leave, you know it isn’t good to go to bed angry with the one you love. Anger should never simmer, it should never be left unwatched. But Steve is silently asking you to give him space so that he can hurt, and you aren’t selfish enough to deny his request. And yet you’re selfish enough to press your lips to Steve’s cheek, but he doesn’t lean in like how normally does. Instead, he remains stoic, and you swallow down your tears and open the door to leave. “Drive home safe, honey.”
Steve doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he starts the car as soon as the door is closed and drives away. He doesn't look back, he doesn’t wait to see if you’ve made it inside your house safely. 
Tears spill down your face as you blindly walk towards your front door. Your argument with Steve replays over and over again in your head. You analyze every second, every word, you try to understand when everything fell apart. 
It’s dark in your home, your mother is asleep and Dustin’s door is closed, but right now all you want is your brother. You need to talk to him, cry into his shoulder and smell the shampoo he’s used ever since he was a baby. Your feet carry you to Dustin’s room and you pound on his door, begging him to let you in. You don’t bother masking the tears in your voice, you’re too exhausted to hide them from him. “Dustin, please let me in.”
“Go away!” There’s a thud on the door, he’s thrown something at it to shut you up. He doesn’t want to hear some stupid lecture right now. He knows he was an asshole tonight, he regrets it, but right now all Dustin wants to do is sleep. He’ll deal with you tomorrow. 
“Code blue,” you press your forehead against the door, your tears fall to the ground. “C-code blue.” Your voice hiccups, more tears come, minutes pass, and your brother never answers.
For the first time since you were kids, Dustin rejects your request for a code blue. 
The phone rings. The sound pierces through your ears, cuts through the headache that is starting to form. It’s Friday night. Jonathan is calling. 
Squeezing your eyes shut as you head pounds, you inhale shakily. You have to answer him, otherwise he’ll only call over and over again with concern. You’ve never missed a phone call, not once in the months since Jonathan has moved, but tonight you’re exhausted. 
“Can we call tomorrow?” You’re too tired to greet him and voice cracks, revealing far too much already.
“Bug?” Jonathan’s high, he’s always high. And yet even in his cloudy haze of smoke he can hear the anguish in your voice. “Is everythin’ okay?”
His question only makes you cry more. You’ve always tried your best to put up a front for others, to pretend that everything is okay. You’ve never wanted to worry people, you’ve always pushed aside your own hurt for the sake of others. Now, as anger and grief and despair clasp their hands around your throat, you’re terrified you’ll suffocate. 
You’ve never been able to lie to Jonathan, and tonight you don’t think you can. “I’ve had… the worst night.” You confess to him, wiping away tears.
You tell him everything, your fight with Dustin, how you think he may resent you leaving for college. You tell Jonathan about Lucas, how you were so disappointed in Dustin and Mike. Choking through tears, you explain to Jonathan your fight with Steve. How your words failed you, how hurt he looked, that you can’t explain to him how he only wants his future to align with yours, but not with your relationship. 
Even though you know that Jonathan won’t remember any of this tomorrow, for once you’re grateful that he’s too high to remember anything. It feels good just being able to say it all out loud. 
“‘M sorry, bug.” Jonathan mumbles over the phone once you’ve finished explaining everything. He sounds far away, figuratively and literally. You can’t imagine how much his drugged mind retained, but you’re thankful to have gotten it all off your chest anyways. 
“It’s fine,” you inhale again, you’ve finally stopped crying, though your chest still hurts and your head still pounds. “Steve and I… We’ll figure it out.”
Jonathan pauses, and for a moment you think he’s fallen asleep, but then his voice floats through the telephone line. “Do you.. Do you ever wonder if we’ve made a mistake?”
He strings his words slowly together, says them one by one with a hesitancy, and you frown. You don’t understand what he’s trying to say. What mistakes could you have made together? “What do you mean, bee?”
“I just… everythin’ is so hard. With Nance. Feel like… like ‘m never enough for her. And you, Steve. ‘S hard between you guys.” Jonathan’s words slur, he’s almost too incoherent to understand, and later you will wish that you hadn’t been able to understand him at all. “But you ‘n me? ‘S easy. Always so easy.”
His words toe the line between you, he can’t mean any of it. You don’t want him to mean any of it, because then the fallout would be too catastrophic to contain.
He’s Jonathan. Your oldest, dearest friend. Your best friend. Years ago, you could’ve been something more, you almost were something more, but the time has passed. 
You’re with Steve now, you’re happy and so, so in love with him. Even though everything is tangled between you right now, even though you’re fighting, you know that you and Steve will figure it out. He’s the one. He’s the man you want to marry one day, if he’ll allow you to. 
Jonathan is your past, Steve is your future, and right now you’re terrified that soon you’ll lose them both.
“Jonathan,” you finally say, his name now heavy on your tongue. It feels like you’re betraying someone while saying his name, but you need to end this conversation. Before Jonathan says something he’ll regret in the morning. “You love Nancy, I love Steve, and you need to go to sleep.”
“Love you,” Jonathan’s words slur even more, his voice drifting off. “You, always you…”
You slam the phone done, ending the call, as a chill runs down your spine. Silence encases you, the house is still. The strings and threads from years ago constrict around your throat. You choke on the lines Jonathan has crossed tonight, the tightness in your head stabs against your skull. 
There is no one to hear you, no one there to hear your final words to your best friend. “Goodbye, Jonathan.”
-
⌑ series masterlist
⌑ i am no longer doing a taglist, my apologies ! however, please feel free to like, reblog, and comment instead :)
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beannoss · 2 months ago
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So I've been thinking about them:
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Specifically I was wondering what the moment was (if there even was a specific moment) that cinched it for Twilight developing feelings for Yor.
[Spoiler warning: this post references manga chapters not yet animated]
I think for Yor it's pretty quick. Like, this moment here:
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Not that Yor fell in love with Twilight then (ymmv) or that she's fully aware of her feelings, but it's explicit that she felt connected to him here and attached in meaningful ways.
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But for Twilight, it wasn't so clear. For a while I'd kind of decided that it just came over him slowly (and I think there is something to that) and that there wasn't any singular moment which stood out. But that didn't feel quite right. The more I thought about it, the more I thought there were two stand-out moments, only one of which Twilight actually (semi-)clocks.
The first, which I think passes him by entirely, is this:
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In my view, this laugh is an entirely authentic response. I think he is, despite himself, delighted by this woman who 1. just unexpectedly saved him from being stabbed, and 2. did it by sending the guy flying across an entire alleyway.
This is accentuated in the anime, I think, by the jaunty, puckish music that makes up the first part of their marriage theme song. I am dying for the reappearance of this music in some fashion, btw, it's so fun and cheeky and I'm hoping foreshadows their vibe after various revelations and particularly when they start working together as Agent Twilight and Thorn Princess:
The second moment for Twilight, I think, is more subtle for all it's more impactful. Or at least, the degree of its importance passed me by on initial read/watch, and I think it's deliberately downplayed by Twilight himself. Because he does actually clock it but if he looks more closely at it, well... then he might have to do something about it. And maybe that something won't comport with what the mission needs, and then what?
It happens when Twilight first bugs Yor, and then poses with Franky as SSS agents to test whether she knows Yuri is with the SSS.
It's clear in the lead up that Twilight recognises he has some feelings about/for Yor, and he doesn't want to spy on her; he doesn't want to mistrust her at all. He has to convince himself to take seriously that she may be a potential threat.
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And even then, the convincing only sort of mostly works, because he hesitates again:
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Which is, by the way, bananas. At this point, they've been a fake family for maybe a handful of weeks? Twilight is an experienced, accomplished spy with a finely honed and necessary sense of paranoia. Of course he should be suspicious. Her brother is an SSS agent! Canonically, the SSS are both Twilight- and SSS self-described as Twilight's greatest existential threat. It shouldn't be a question whether or not to verify Yor's knowledge here. And yet.
We all know how the rest plays out. He decides that listening in isn't enough, he needs to confront her insofar as he's able. I wrote previously about Twilight's relationship with Anya and the pivotal moment for him in how his view of his relationship with Anya changes based on Anya's (and Endo's) choices. I think a similar thing happens in this scene with Yor.
See, it would have been enough for Yor to continue to deny, continue to not call on Yuri's help, to prove she didn't know, and to put Twilight's mind at ease.
Endo takes it further.
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Y'all: THIS IS ABSOLUTELY WILD. It borders on levels of impulsive foolhardiness that Twilight should actually take as a negative for the person playing his wife for Operation Strix. Yor even alludes later to the problems this could cause!
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The SSS are indiscriminate; if Yor was facing down actual SSS agents, first assaulting and then threatening them would 100000% land her in custody. Were it not for Yuri, it may even get her disappeared, based on how casually and frequently Yuri references having people executed. It would absolutely put the Forgers at risk, in general and in the implicitly sexist Ostanian society, because if Mrs Forger behaves this way, how does Mr Forger behave? And why can't he control his wife? The Secret Police are not known for their leniency, their modesty, their discerning, their temperateness, their mercy. They are known for the exact opposite of those things. And due to being a spy, Twilight probably knows they're actually much worse than even their public reputation.
And here's Yor saying: you can question me but if you threaten my brother or my husband, I will fucking end you. Bodily.
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Of course, it's entirely in keeping with her character, and it's an entirely revealing moment of who she is. And I think this is the moment for Twilight. He's already been trusting her bit by bit, as he says above, intuitively. I'd suggest that maybe even more than that though, Yor taps into something Twilight deeply wants: backup. Someone and somewhere safe. Maybe we could describe a person fulfilling that role in an adult relationship as a partner...?
It's because he doubts his intuition (his wants, his feelings, things he shouldn't be countenancing) that we get to this point where he (overzealously) tests her.
She blows his test right out of the water.
The SSS are basically the group he fears most; this is reiterated throughout the story. He doesn't trust them specifically because of who he is and also just generally. He doesn't trust their judgment. He doesn't share their values or their priorities. He doesn't like them around. He doesn't like them looking. He doesn't like being anywhere near them. (Also, he's right.)
And here's Yor. Not only standing up to them on his behalf but actually going on active defence on his behalf.
(I pause here to note 'on his behalf' is a bit, mm, tricky, since it's actually technically on Loid's behalf and I have Thoughts and Feelings about Twilight & Identity. But for the sake of the impact of this moment on Twilight, we'll take it as writ that in this moment there's no appreciable difference between Twilight and Loid.)
I think from here on out, it's incredibly difficult for Twilight to ever doubt or distrust Yor. He perceives her as firmly in his corner, that if the chips are down — if his worst enemy and his worst fear come knocking — she'll be on his team, unflinchingly. He may not think there will be much she can do (heh.) or much she can offer given the power of the SSS and her civilian status (I reiterate: heh.), but it matters that he believes that she'll be by his side.
And you know what? He's right. She will be.
That isn't something he's had since he was a little boy. Even WISE doesn't seem to offer that to its agents, given Nightfall's thought here:
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Twilight's had to rely on himself for decades and now here's this astonishing woman who will threaten the Secret Police for his sake. Of course he trusts Yor. Of course this moment widens the cracks in his barriers. And further: of course those cracks start to reach into those walls deep, deep inside that protect his heart. This is all before getting to other moments, like when he reflects on how Yor is creating a better world in ways he (thinks he) can never aspire to do himself. That she loves Anya openly, freely, with such dedication, to the point of sacrificing her own needs. That she just never gives up, she persists and persists and persists, always doing her best. That she reminds him it's okay to accept peace and to rest. That she wants and tries to take care of him... On and on and on.
Of course we get to this point:
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I'm particularly taken with his body language a little later in the scene. He manages to get himself to sitting but he's still sprawled, open, even as he can't wrap his mind around what exactly is happening or why, and he's feeling vulnerable for all that. But at the same time, this is Yor. And she's safe.
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In my view, if the Mole Arc hadn't happened immediately between this moment and the earlier where Yor declares herself unhappy, it would have been clearer how much stress he felt specifically due to Yor's apparent sudden unhappiness with their arrangement. The stress got subsumed (conveniently, ahem, Endo) into the stress and violence of the Mole Arc, but I think it rattled him pretty profoundly. It's also additionally why her warm greeting hit him as hard as it did: relief across multiple lines, such that he had to remind himself not to relax, despite Yor's apparent return to normal.
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And there may be added layers to Twilight's reactions to Yor's bad moods due to his familial history, as pointed out by @unhappy-sometimes in this post; the inverse, of course, is that Yor's general good-naturedness would add layers to Twilight's sense of security with her. And the apparent loss of that, all the more devastating.
Rounding out the original moment though, I think this in many ways demonstrates the point:
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Twilight throws away the bug. That is also wild. It isn't like that bug could only be used on Yor; it wasn't somehow modified to only respond to her person. It was a device that could be used and reused on different targets, on people who actually are worthy of being bugged, etc. But instead of pocketing it for later use, Twilight throws it away.
Actually: he not only throws it away, he crushes it first. Perhaps because he couldn't stand to have that particular device around, the device he used when he doubted Yor?
Seems kind of irrational, Twilight.
Seems kind of telling.
I mentioned my last Twilight meta about his relationship with Anya: in that, I suggest Twilight recognised entering into a compact with Anya, which subtly modifies, for him, the motivations around Strix. I think something like that happens here, too. If Yor is willing to go to such apparent extremes to protect him, he'll do his utmost to protect her.
I've had this meta in my drafts for a while, but I'm chuffed by this panel from the most recent chapter, as it kind of underscores all this by Yor's positioning of herself:
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(Of course the point is there isn't a dichotomy: they'll protect each other, as indicated by Yor's if I had to choose: she won't have to choose.)
Back to Twilight, at this point, he can still justify all this as being within mission parameters. Of course he should protect Yor: she is an innocent civilian and if anything happens to her it would threaten Strix. But if/when this line is tested, if/when there comes a point where protecting Yor is actually the option that may put Strix at risk or put him somehow in opposition to WISE, then we'll see.
And more importantly, Twilight will see, too.
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nina-ya · 3 months ago
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When You Fake It (Law x Reader NSFW)
A/N: Idk what came over me when I wrote this but here yall go! I'm thinking of turning this into a series I already know what I want to do for zoros next Pairing: Law x AFAB!Reader CW: NSFW MINORS DNI Oral, reader receiving WC: ~1.3k
Law’s breath was hot against your skin, leaving trails of kisses along the inside of your thighs as he worked his way to the core of your desire. He settled between your legs, his fingers gently parting your folds as his tongue flicked out to taste you. The sensation sent a jolt of electricity down your spine, and the room soon filled with soft sounds of pleasure and the wet, sinful noise of his mouth at work. Despite the scene unfolding between your legs, your mind was elsewhere, distracted by thousands of little thoughts that refused to be quieted. 
You faked it. An unconvincing performance at best, hoping it would be enough for him to move on without a comment. You moaned loudly, back arching off the bed, thighs tightening around his head, but there was no true conviction behind it. 
As soon as the faux moans escaped your lips, Law’s movements paused. Piercing eyes rose to look up at you, brow furrowed in thought as if he was piecing together a puzzle. 
“Really?” he asked, an eyebrow arching, his voice laden with disbelief.
“What do you mean?” you replied, trying to maintain a facade of breathless satisfaction. You hoped your voice carried the illusion of genuine pleasure, but the edge of your desperation seeped through. 
Law’s contemplative gaze remained on you. “Right there, that little performance of yours sounded like something out of a porno– you’re not fooling me,” he said, his tone almost challenging you to deny him. 
His fingers still lingered between your legs and began to move gently, tracing your body with an almost clinical interest. “Don’t try to sidestep me,” he murmured. “If you’re not feeling it, I want to know. No more pretending.” 
You shifted uncomfortably, embarrassment spreading across your features. “I’m just not really in the mood right now,” you admitted, your voice wavering as you tried to avoid the gaze that bore into you. 
Law’s eyes narrowed, curiosity flashing in his eyes. “Was it something I did?” he asked, genuine concern threading through his voice as he continued, “I need to know so I can fix it.”
You sighed, frustration creeping into your voice as you responded, “Law, I really don’t want to play this game right now. Can we just–”
“No, no,” he interrupted. “We’re getting this right. Trust me.”
He returned to the task at hand with a renewed focus. His tongue lapped at your clit with a hunger that bordered on ravenous, swirling and tracing patterns. It was a delicate assault on your senses, each stroke of his tongue a hot, wet caress that had you twitching and mewling underneath him. Inked fingers dipped between your folds, pressing and probing with an intimate knowledge, the digits on a mission to seek out every sensitive spot inside of you. 
“You’ve always been a terrible liar,” he murmured against you, the low, gravely vibrations rumbling through you. “I know how you react when you’re close. Your breath catches in this specific way, your thighs start to tremble and shoot out as if you’re possessed, and your voice, that’s not something you can recreate unless you’re really feeling it.”
You struggled to steady you being, anticipation and frustration swirling within you. “I didn’t think you’d notice,” you admitted, your voice a soft, breathless murmur that barely escaped your lips. “You’re being too hard on me.”
“I’m not being hard on you,” he said, stopping his movements to look up at you. “I’m just being honest. Now, let me make this right.”
His fingers continued their movements, pressing and curling inside of you while his mouth was a hot, wet worship of your clit that left no room for pretense. He sucked and nipped, eyes locked on you, watching and studying your reactions to know what he needs to do to get you seeing stars. 
“Tell me what you need,” he whispered against your sensitive skin. “Let me make you feel good.”
His fingers curled and pressed within you, brushing against those more sensitive spots that had you quivering on the precipice of ecstasy. His mouth lavished attention on your clit with an insatiable hunger, tongue tracing lines of devotion over your clit, drawing out sweet, desperate sighs from the depths of your being. A gasp, trembling and desperate, slipped from your lips. “Yes, right there,” you breathed, a plea caught between heaven and earth. 
Law's eyes darkened and gleamed with the satisfaction of a conductor in the throes of his performance. His smirk was nothing short of triumphant, as he continued to sculpt and mold your pleasure.
Your hands were driven by an unrestrained need and wove into his hair, fingers threading through the raven locks, gripping with a desperate longing as you sought to ground yourself. Your body writhed and arched, the torture he imbued onto your body nothing short of exquisite. Every movement he made was spellbinding, each pump of his fingers and each caress of his tongue drawing you inexorably closer to your release. 
The heat that burned between your legs was a consuming fire, a desire that intensified with each passing second. Your moans heightened in pitch, dripping with desperation as the unrestrained evidence of your rapture was pulled from the depths of your soul. 
“Come on,” he murmured. “Surrender to it. Let yourself go for me.”
Your body trembled, his efforts building to a peak that left you gasping for breath, like a crescendo of a symphony instead played on your arousal. Your muscles strained and quivered, contracting with an almost painful intensity as your orgasm began to crash over you. Your sweat slicked thighs clamped around his head, pulling him almost impossibly closer. His fingers inside of you were squeezed by the pulsing of your inner walls, each contraction pulling them somehow deeper than before. 
Choked gasps fell from your lips, each breath ragged and desperate. Your back arched off the surface, each muscle in your body taut and straining, the feeling bordering on discomfort. Your arousal gushed over his face, seeming to drive him mad as his mouth worked to lick and slurp every last drop of your ecstasy. 
As the final tremors of your climax began to subside, an overwhelming exhaustion overtook you, and your body collapsed back onto the bed with a soft, content sigh. Law’s face glistened with the essence of your pleasure, his eyes filled with a joy that he was able to bring you to such a blissful end. His fingers stilled within you, allowing you to come down from your high while his tongue gently lapped at the remnants of your release, savoring every last drop.
Each flick of his tongue against your oversensitive clit left your muscles twitching involuntarily in response to the continued stimulation. You whined out, weakly shoving his head away as you muttered something about being too sensitive. 
He pulled away for a moment, and his fingers emerged from your cunt, the digits still connected to you with a string of your essence before it snapped. He brought them to his lips and licked them clean, savoring every bit of pleasure that he coaxed from you. He smirked at you, expression still filled with a predatory hunger. 
Now that's the reaction I was looking for," he murmured, voice thick with desire. "Let me see it one more time to make sure you got it right
Before you could respond, he was back in between your thighs, his tongue and fingers resuming to their previous song and dance, renewing the growing waves of your ecstasy, making you wonder why you ever had to fake it in the first place. 
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cringefailkralie · 6 months ago
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ridiculously long list of things i’ve noticed about thomas grant and adam wadsworth’s portrayals of albus and scorpius
sorry in advance if this is messy, i wrote this at like 4am
albus flinches away when james steps too close to him!!!
when scorpius asks albus whether he prefers albus or al, he doesn’t have to think about his answer. instead he just looks shocked that someone was actually asking that, like nobody’s ever considered his feelings before. makes me feel like he’d been waiting his entire life for someone to actually ask him that.
tom’s albus doesn’t cry during the fight with harry like i’ve seen a lot of the other actors do. he just stares blankly ahead of him and completely shuts down. i’m head over heels in love with this choice because it really hammers home how hard it is for albus to express his feelings or communicate with anyone.
albus’s reaction to the love potion really really makes me believe that ron intended it to be a mean gay joke. even if ron didn’t intend for it to come across that way, that’s definitely what albus takes it as.
scorpius is just staring vacantly at a wall before he spots albus on the train in their 4th year. not sure if this is a specific acting choice or if i’m just reading into it too much?
they hold hands for a second and stand with their faces an inch away from each other as soon as they duck into their train compartment. their body language in private is so different from their body language in public.
albus squeezes his eyes closed when they hug. he really needed that physical affection but he hates anyone but scorpius being near him.
scorpius puts his hand on albus’s chest when the train starts moving. nothing to say about that its just really gay.
my favorite delivery of “oooo a quiz… WIZZO!!!” i fucking love how he does jazz hands when he says it, especially because it’s the second time he does jazz hands in that scene. he’s so me.
albus does so many little hand gestures in this scene, he’s way more comfortable being expressive around scorpius. he almost mirrors scorpius’s stupid little mannerisms.
bonus- not scorbus related but craig is first seen wearing his beanie on the train during the this sequence (where albus and scorpius decide to run away)!! idk if they don’t do this in other productions or if i just hadn’t ever picked up on it before, but it’s a really cute detail. does anyone know if he canonically got it when he became head boy?
when amos first tells them to leave, scorpius grabs onto albus’s sleeve
not even technically them but the ron and harry actors grab onto each other sooooo much (as albus and scorpius)
in love with how long scorpius hold out his “WIIIIIIIZZZOOOO” and how albus tries to match his energy with the “DOUBLE WIZZO”
delphi steals scorp’s little phrases and his awkward way of speaking and his mannerisms to try and appeal to albus because she knows that he reeeeally likes him- and i hate hate HATEEEE how she makes him feel like a freak for being himself when all the while she’s stealing his personality. scorpius plays with the fabric of his sweater and then fidgets with his hands after she tries to make him feel left out in the forbidden forest and i can FEEL what he’s feeling through the screen.
scorpius is JEALOUS jealous of delphi and when he talks to her his voice is quiet and monotone, which is the most un-scorpius thing ever. i love it. you can feel how much he hates her. i hate her too, this delphi is despicable. (very talented actress!!)
when scorpius tears his eyes away from the beautiful sight in front of them to look at albus and say “you’re my best friend” (which is crazy enough on its own) he talks in a really sweet, low voice before returning really quickly to his normal scorp-voice, as if he was afraid to let albus think about what had just happened
albus jumps up and down with excitement when they announce the triwizard tournament. he starts and then has to stop himself from cheering for hogwarts. funny that a guy who was just saying how much he hates hogwarts would do a thing like that.
everyone around scorpius gets startled when he starts cheering for krum because his screaming is so weird lmao
at the end of the scene where albus tells scorpius they’ll be better off without each other, scorpius just slumps over on the steps and stays there for the ENTIRETY of the next scene until he eventually gets wheeled off with the stairs. it looks like he’s fiddling with something? maybe his wand? maybe just his hands?
obviously the staircase ballet is the staircase ballet, but the way they look at each other is just AAAAUUUUGHHHHHHH
at the end of the ballet scorpius steps towards albus first, but albus is the one who reaches his hand out and slinks down onto the steps
obsessed with that gay little purse scorpius carries the time turner in
delphi gets scorpius to let his guard down during their conversation and scorpius starts talking like himself in front of her again!!!
albus does the little puke-gag-joke-thing in the library to try and make scorpius feel better </3
they’re both fidgeting with their hands throughout their whole conversation :(
ALBUS’S LITTLE GIGGLE WHEN SCORPIUS AGREES TO COME WITH HIM TO FIX TIME
this isn’t specific to this production but scorpius’s shoes are one of my favorite details. in the normal world, he wears big clunky shoes to showcase his awkwardness, whereas in the dark dimension he wears running shoes!! evil scorp is athletic!!!
the second “im fighting for albus” that comes out of scorpius’s mouth is said almost entirely to himself
their little hug in the water :,)
i LOVE LOVE LOVE that scorpius tries to hug draco and he pushes him away and throws his jacket at him in such a cold manner. it makes their hug near the end feel so much more important to their relationship. as soon as we meet scorpius he immediately refers to himself as having daddy issues and we don’t see nearly enough of that in this play.
bonus p2- one of my favorite parts of this show is the in trouble again number!!! i love the background gang and all of their little scenes like this. craig being a little gossip monger is funny as shit!!!! it gives him so much personality and makes his death that much sadder :(
the delivery of “scorpius….. he matters to me…. you know that don’t you?” is INSANE. tom grant delivers all of the coming out adjacent lines so perfectly.
i love how scorpius moves his body. he waves his arms around in the air so often.
scorpius tickled albus lmao they’re so weird
when scorpius talks about hating the other world, albus throws in “apart from polly chapman fancying you” quite bitterly and scorpius almost completely cuts him off. he doesn’t acknowledge what he said in any way shape or form and albus seems to notice that he’s not interested in polly.
scorpius rubs his socks on the floor while he talks :3
the choice to have scorpius move from his bed to albus’s bed and pull albus’s blanket into his lap when he tells him that he changed himself back for him is so AAAUGHHH
AND SCORPIUS DOES THE SAME THING THAT HE DID EARLIER AGAIN!!! he gets all quiet and sweet when he’s sort of admitting his feelings to albus and then all of a sudden he stands up and goes back to his normal loud voice
“MALFOY THE UNANXIOUS IS A PRRRRRETTY GOOD LIIIIAAAR”
delphi mocking scorpius and him immediately tensing up oh he hates her ass so much
scorpius reaches out to try and intercept albus handing delphi the time turner and albus giggles at scorpius because he’s happy she’s not extremely pissed at them
scorpius holds onto the railing right up until he gets his hands bound together because he’s afraid of heights. thought it was cute that adam chose to do this even though his fear of heights isn’t mentioned anywhere in this version.
i LOVE the torture scene in this version. albus is stone faced when delphi is threatening to torture him and then he IMMEDIATELY falls to his knees begging and pleading when she turns toward scorpius.
delphi is quite literally outing albus in this scene. the silence after she says that love is his weakness and points to scorpius is SO long and SO loud omg. it’s quite literally ten whole seconds (i counted) of albus and scorpius just looking at each other. it genuinely feels like she just spilled out what he’s been keeping inside of himself for so long, it’s gutwrenching. i guess they did just watch craig die so they do in fact have bigger problems, but you can see albus’s heart stop beating and its so terrible.
i love how albus turns to scorpius when the stationmaster starts unintelligibly talking to them like “hey, you’re doing the talking rn just so you know”
i’m obsessed with how excited scorpius is to tell albus all about the history of the place they’re in. in love with his little gasps at everything he sees and his jump when he says “SQUEAK!”
albus motioning for scorpius to stop when he’s demonstrating how to scream for help lmaoooo
albus pointing with both hands at scorpius while they try to come up with a plan is so cute. albus believes in him so much.
i love how scorpius keeps hugging draco even as he’s talking
their foreheads are literally brushing against each other my god these bitches gay
albus asks “and thats who you want in your palace?” in an almost panicked way like he’s afraid scorpius doesn’t feel the same way about him.
albus holds onto scorpius’s shoulders while rose tries to reassure them that they didn’t just get walked in on lmao
3rd and final instance of scorpius trying to change the subject- asking immediately about quidditch so albus doesn’t get the chance to say anything related to what just happened
scorpius says “come on” like he’s trying to get albus to come cut a rug with him at a middle school dance
obsessed with their little gagging and puking bit and how they made it a callback to what albus does in the library
maybe my favorite hug moment from any scorbus duo. i love how albus initially reacts with shock but then melts into it and closes his eyes, only pulling away to make sure he’s not reading the situation entirely wrong (he’s not)
my favorite ending scene by far. the coming out hits SO hard. the way albus fiddles with his zipper and scrunches up his sleeve in his hand, you can tell how absolutely terrified he is of saying this to his dad. the line delivery is genuinely fantastic. the more he pauses the longer you have to take it all in- and he pauses a LOT.
okie thanks for reading!!!!!
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fruittt-punchhh · 29 days ago
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(couldn’t find image source anywhere, if u know pls lmk!!)
Synopsis: Choso was one of your closest friends - you spent so much time together, others said you were ‘attached at the hip’. But when his curiosity blooms, you are the only one that can help quench his thirst for knowledge.
Characters: Choso Kamo x reader (about time)
Content: Minors Do Not Interact! smut, fem! reader, virgin! Choso (so virgin that he lives in a world where he has somehow at the age of twenty something never heard about masturbating or sexual intercourse), college au, link to prn audio, suggestiveness, cursing, mentions of female masturbation, male masturbation, maybe a tiiiiiny bit of voyeurism, pet/affectionate names, big (pretty) dick! Choso, just our sweet lovey boy Cho in his full glory tbh.
Word count: A solid 6k
Notes: AHEM! there is some spicy audio from twitter linked in this post as well as an SFW image at the end. you’ll know when you’ve reached that point, and it will be emphasized like this, accentuated with '*'. if that's not something you're down for, you can totally scroll past. if you arrrre down for that, i think you'll need to be logged into twitter beforehand for the audio. if you're on mobile, I'm not sure if you'll be able to hear the audio as you read (unfortunately), but if you can, you're in for a treat bitch.
More Notes: i finally have some of my own choso smut on this blog wtf. he is my guilty pleasure omg i mean literally who doesn't love him, more specifically him when he's an inexperienced desperate crying mess???? i really hope you enjoy this one, i have def enjoyed writing it. (side note - the songs i pick for these fics sometimes fit the vibe of what i wrote, and other times it's a song i can't get out of my head. both are the case for this one - i listened to this nonstop while writing so pls enjoy if that’s cool with u). there will be future parts, and if you want to be tagged in those and you’re not already, let me know!!! SORRY TO YAP ILY BYE
(I wanted to upload this at like 5p my time for engagement purposes but then I thought about all the bitches (me) that may work from home, read smut on the clock regardless (me), or simply don’t work rn, so I had to give you the goodness now)
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“Y/n, c-can I ask you a question? Like.. a personal one?”
You and Choso were seated on the couch, eyes fixated on the rom com on the screen ahead. It was your weekly movie marathon night - the movie you two just finished was an action thriller that was right up Choso’s alley. It was your pick next, and you went with a classic rom com that had a few more spicy scenes than you anticipated. It left the air in the room feeling thick, both of you clearing your throats and glancing throughout the room as if someone’s parents were present.
You and Cho had been close friends for a while, and it helped that you shared a similar schedule this semester. Although he was a cutie, you had no clue if he shared a similar attraction to you. He was so shy, and while the shy emo boy thing has worked on you before, you felt like you’d do nothing but corrupt Choso’s innocent soul if you were to make a move. You let things play out naturally, enjoying the company he brought and your friendship - but if things went in a different direction, you wouldn’t be opposed in the slightest.
“Sure, Cho - what’s up?” You ask, noting the concerned look on his face.
“Have you ever.. done that before?” He asks, motioning to the screen, and your heart aches with how precious he looks. His eyes flick up at you when your hand rests on his shoulder so you can scoot a little closer towards him.
“Well, yeah.. yeah I have. What makes you ask?”
“J-Just the movie, I-I was just curious,” he blurts, trying not to sound as weird as he felt for asking.
“Well, what makes you want to ask me specifically, I mean,” you press, trying to read his expression through his shaggy hair and long lashes.
He blushes, making eye contact with you again before twiddling his thumbs in his lap.
“I just.. I’ve never done any that before, a-and I trust you, ya’ know? I didn’t know if I was weird for not doing that,” he says, his voice becoming shakier by the second.
“Ohmygod, Cho, no of course you’re not weird! Everyone discovers things at their own pace. There’s a whole lot of stuff when it comes to sex, so it can get overwhelming,” you say, rubbing his shoulder with your thumb to help calm his nerves.
Which was really doing the opposite. Your touch was searing hot on his skin and it worried him. He’s been touched plenty of times, even by you - but it felt like you might melt through his skin if you pressed hard enough. It felt that way on his outer thigh, too; your knee resting on his leg accidentally inching closer to the area he felt every blood cell creeping to.
“Y-Yeah, s’overwhelming for sure,” he says, shifting his position slightly further from you.
“I-I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Begin? Do you have someone in mind you want to do stuff with?” You ask, begging he says no. You felt a little weird for hoping, but you would hate for his first experience to be with the wrong person.
More blood rushes to his cheeks when he makes eye contact with you, quickly looking back to the TV when he sees a hopeful look in your eye.
“N-No, definitely not. I just want to learn more, f-for when that time comes,” he says, clearing his throat and hoping you don’t catch on to his half-lie.
Phew.
“Well it’s probably best to start with the basics, yeah? Just the simple stuff, then eventually you kind of.. figure out where to go from there, if that makes sense,” you add, and he responds with a simple nod as he turns to face you again, ready to absorb whatever knowledge you have to share with him.
“So… have you ever touched yourself before?” You ask, trying not to wince at how awkward you felt asking him something so personal. But you had to assess how much he really knew.
He furrows his brows in confusion and lets out a small laugh, “Um, obviously - see?” He asks as he pokes his stomach with his pointer finger, and you remind yourself to keep a straight face. You grab his arm to refocus him and he huffs a breath of half-laughter as he notices how the blood in your fingertips pulse against his wrist.
“No, Cho. I mean like.. down there,” you say, motioning to his crotch area with your finger - he still looks confused.
“You know? To have an orgasm..” you ask, hoping he will pick up on your hints.
“Orgasm?”
You sigh, trying to find the right wording to explain this without sounding belittling.
“So, when I said ‘touching yourself’, I was referring to masturbation. I’m not gonna’ teach you how to do that because a Google search will tell you all you need to know,” and he nods feverishly.
“When you do.. sex stuff - like masturbate, have sex, all of that, usually the goal is to have an orgasm. Not always, but most of the time. I don’t know all the science behind it, but when you repeatedly stimulate the nerves in this area,” you say motioning to your groin, “you can have an orgasm.”
“O-Okay, I understand. Is the orgasm weird? Sounds like it,” he asks and you smile.
“No, no not at all. It feels really good. You know how when you have to sneeze and there’s this big buildup, then bam, you sneeze? And you feel so relieved? It’s kinda’ like that, but a million times better.”
“Better than eating your favorite food? Or watching movies?”
He asks, eager to know more.
And you sigh again, “Well, it’s hard to compare it to stuff like that, but it is really pleasurable. It just makes your body feel good, I guess. It’s hard to explain it through words, but now you know a little more - if you’re interested in that sorta thing.”
“No, I think I understand better now,” he says, thankful for your instruction.
“Oh, and if you do masturbate, when you have an orgasm, some fluid will come out from.. down there. But it’s normal and happens to everyone.”
“Fluid? Even girls?”
“Yes, Cho, even girls. It’s different though for sure. For girls it’s more like clear.. slimey stuff? And for you it’s like a white.. liquid? I’m sorry, I’m so bad at explaining shit,” you laugh, rolling your eyes at how stupid you felt.
“No, y/n you’re doing a great job! I had no clue about any of this stuff. Question.”
“Shoot.”
“What is it called? The fluid,” he says hesitantly, still trying to wrap his mind around how making fluid come out of any body part was a good thing. He feels his crotch grow warmer and, out of embarrassment, shifts his pillow to hide his growing problem.
“Oh, well there’s scientific names for it, but everybody calls it cum,” you say as you will the blush to fade from your cheeks.
“Cum. Like ‘come here’?”
“Y-Yeah, pretty much. Just spelled different.”
“Got it. Another question.”
You nod.
“How do you know when to masturbate?”
You were hoping this was one he wouldn’t ask.
“Well kind of whenever you want to,” and his eyes widen, “Let me rephrase that. It’s kind of like using the restroom, right? Something that you do behind closed doors.”
“Y-Yeah, makes sense. But whenever you want to? How do you know when you want to?”
“Okay,” you start, “you know how people in movies talk about being horny? It basically means you’re.. turned on, you want to have sex, stuff like that. So when you feel that way you could do it if you want. For you it’ll be a little easier to tell.”
“How?”
“You know how when you wake up in the morning and your… area is hard?” You ask and he blushes, turning again to look at the television.
“Yes,” he answers simply.
“Well when it is hard, it doesn’t always mean you’re horny - it can just happen randomly. But whenever you do start to feel that way, usually it’ll get hard. But that doesn’t mean you have to masturbate whenever it is that way, you know? Just if you want to,”
He gulps as he shushes the images in his mind of you waking up in his bed beside him, still trying to understand all the information being thrown at him.
“O-Okay. I-I think that’s good, for now, to start at least. Thank you for telling me all of that,” he says with a smile as he tries to focus his attention to the tv.
“It’s no problem, I promise. You can always ask me questions about anything, you know that right?” You say, wrapping your arm around his shoulders to give him a quick squeeze of reassurance.
“Y-Yeah, of course,” he says, voice cracking as he finishes his statement. There was yet another passionate scene appearing on screen, albeit shrouded by covers and dim lighting. The discussion left him feeling hot all over, and the blood rushing southward had only increased. It didn’t help that you pressed your plush chest into his arm so sweetly when you hugged him. Although he had never seen a woman in that way in person before, he knew that if he had to pick, it’d be you. It always would be.
“Y/n, would you hate me if I had to go home? My tummy hurts for some reason,” he says with a grimace, rubbing his abdomen as he looks at you.
You chuckle, “Oh really? It wouldn’t have anything to do with the three pounds of candy you ate would it?” You ask, pointing to the empty wrappers he had shoved into the plastic sack they came in.
“You’re probably right, hah. I’m sorry, I just feel like I need to lay down,” he admits, wiping the sweat he feels accumulating on the back of his neck.
You shove into his arm, to which he responds with a fake ‘ow’. “Ugh, and right in the middle of my movie? You owe me one, Cho,” you say, sticking your bottom lip out for good measure.
He smiles brightly, crows feet decorating the corners of his eyes. “Duhhhh, we can just reschedule for the weekend. I should be free Saturday night if you wanna’?” He asks.
“I’ll have to check my schedule. Don’t leave much room in my calendar for traitors nowadays.” You say with a dramatic roll of your eyes. He giggles and pushes you back, sticking his tongue out before he gathers his things to go.
You reach up so he can give you your usual bye hug before he continues walking to your door.
“I’ll give you double next time, I-I don’t wanna get you sick,” he yells as he scrambles to unlock the door. You start to get up to demand your hug before you hear the door open with a rushed ‘see ya’ later’ as he shuts it.
He rushes out the door, fumbling for his keys before he sits in his car with a huff. He was throbbing now, but you said it was something to do behind closed doors. To be fair, he was scared to try. What if he didn’t do it right?
He wipes his palms on his pants, turning the key in the ignition before he pulls out of the drive. He had so much to think about - there was no time for music. He drives home in silence, replaying the conversation the two of you had as he tries to will his hardon to go away. But each time he thought about it, it would twitch in response to the images of you in his head.
You watch him leave from your kitchen window. He looked okay, maybe a little feverish. With how sudden it came on, you felt like it had more to do with the conversation you two had than the exuberant amount of candy. You did throw a lot of information on him at once though. You want to text him to get to the bottom of things, but he was notorious for texting you back as he was driving, not wanting to leave you waiting for long. You decide to wait until after the shower you so desperately needed.
-
You wrap your hair in a towel and throw on your previously laid out pajamas. You fan your face so your moisturizer can dry as you go to grab your phone off the charger. No texts from Choso, surprisingly. He usually always texted you when he got home.
‘just checking in, how you feeling??🤢’
You can’t even close your phone before a loud ding! echoes in your room.
-
The ride home was excruciating. Now that he knew there was a way to take care of things, he felt helpless not being able to now. At this point, he still didn’t even really understand how to… ‘stimulate the nerves’ - that could mean anything. The knowledge he had now plays on repeat in his mind as he pulls up to his apartment. He checks his phone - it reads a too-bright 9:33.
He goes inside and immediately lays on the couch, not having the energy to go upstairs just yet. He forced himself to sleep. He knew texting you would make him think of the way you smelled earlier, the way you were so suddenly all over him, how your chest pressed into him when you hugged him like you usually do.
It only made matters worse that he dreamed of you - his aching, throbbing problem seemed to be worse now that he refused to take care of it earlier. He rubs his eyes, reaching for his phone to see you texted him about thirty minutes ago.
‘I’m good! Just needed to lay down, sorry I didn’t text you!! I fell asleep when I got back😴🥱’
‘It’s okay bestie!!! Do you feel better now?’
‘Yeah a little bit! Thank you for talking to me earlier’
‘Sorry if it was weird’
‘ohmygooooooddddd dude I told you it wasn’t weird! I’m always down to talk about whatever silly butt’
‘I knowwww🤓I just felt awkward but I didn’t know who else to ask’
‘It’s okay I promise. Do you have any other q’s? Might make you feel less awkward yk’
‘Mayyyybe😟’
‘I’m waiting🙂‍↕️’
Your response made him anxious - he felt like he’d been hard for hours at this point. He knew it had something to do with you, though it was difficult to admit. He had always looked at you fondly, sneaking glances when you weren’t looking, finding reasons to come over, staying up late just to talk on the phone. But he was so new to everything he had no idea on how to take things further, if you even wanted to.
He did want to learn more about you, though - like he always did.
‘do you touch yourself?’
You did not expect him to ask anything like that. He was usually so innocent and coy. It could have been genuine curiosity, although your stomach was telling you something else.
‘ummmmm yes sometimes🤔why’
He did not expect your answer, either. Not that he thought you wouldn’t - you obviously knew enough about it to teach him well. But he also didn’t think you would, maybe he was even hoping you wouldn’t. Knowing that you do made him feel like he could combust.
‘I was just curious!! sorry if that was too far’
He types the message quickly, locking his phone before he headed upstairs. He was determined to learn more - he was so hard at this point it was hurting. He couldn’t keep his mind clear from the lewd depictions of you sprawled out for him so pretty.
He sits into his computer chair quickly, logging onto his desktop before he pulls up an incognito tab. He knew that porn was out there, but he wanted actual educational material.
-
It’s been only fifteen minutes and he feels like he's discovered an entirely new world. He knows even more than he bargained for and he’s seen enough instructional diagrams to last a lifetime. He feels like he has a decent grasp on how to masturbate and even some ways to please others, when that time comes.
He grabs his phone, worried what your response would be to his prying question.
‘no it’s okay! just didn’t expect you to ask but yeah, it can be a great stress reliever!!’
You send the message, hopeful you didn’t sound to forward.
He receives it and the tent in his pant twitches involuntarily. He puts his phone face down on the desk, taking a breath as he attempts to process what you said.
‘also not to change the subject bc we can still talk about whatever, but i really need help on the calc hw🙏😀’
He was too excited at the thought of you so expertly relieving your stress. He imagines you all red faced, panting and falling apart. How sweet you’d sound gasping and whining his name. The thought has him reaching for the waistband of his lose sweats, his long fingers making his abdomen tense when they move further, brushing the trimmed hairs at his base before they just barely wrap around his shaft. He pulls his sweats over his length, gasping at the dry stimulation. His cock springs forward, smacking loudly on his stomach as he winces. He’s been painfully hard for hours now - his angry tip was drooling precum, smearing it underneath his belly button into his happy trail. He grabs himself again, wrapping somewhat firmly around the base of his cock, careful not to squeeze too hard. The diagrams he studied said too much of a grip wasn’t ideal, but too loose wouldn’t provide enough stimulation.
He pulls his hand up slowly, the skin around his tip enveloping the curves of his cock head snugly before releasing it as he moves his hand downwards back to its original position.
‘f-fuck,’ he whines, already overwhelmed by the new sensation. It’s not like he hasn’t felt something similar before - but the new knowledge of what this was, what it led to, left his breath shaky from the anticipation. He moves again, gripping slightly harder as he brings his hand up further than before, almost entirely to the tip as more spurts of his essence leak from his tip to his fingers.
He continues, slowly increasing his pace. Each stroke elicited a noise from him - a gasp or a grunt, and downright pitiful whines that were ripped from the bottom of his lungs. He had never felt so close to nirvana before and he couldn’t help vocalizing* his pleasure as he struggles to keep a steady pace. He tries to stop his mind from drifting, but the snug grip he has on his length as he repeatedly bucks into his hand sends him to a place where every thought is infiltrated with your essence. The way your hands squeeze his shoulder, how the fat of your hips threatened exposure when you wore your favorite pajama shorts, how you were always so warm, how your hair smelled when he hugged you. He reaches his free hand up into his shirt, resting on his heart as he tries to match the erratic beating rhythm with his strokes. He’s nearly crying now, strangled noises leaving his throat so raw and sharp, voice cracking and heaving as he feels an unfamiliar pull in his groin. He’s whining out pitiful cries of your name now in response to the borderline overstimulation of his pretty, weeping cock. Sweat pools on his body as his hips come entirely off the chair to pump messily into his fist, chasing a release he didn’t know he needed.
-
You check your phone again, seeing a message that still read as ‘delivered’. Choso was usually so quick to text you back, almost like he left the screen open to your messages only. You were starting to worry that he may actually be sick with his unusually inconsistent communication. The calculus problem you needed help with was staring back at you on your laptop screen, still waiting to be answered.
You open up your discord to see his status as ‘idle’. However, when you open Skype, you see a little green dot showing he was active in the last hour. Might as well call him here if he didn’t have his phone.
-
Shit. His vision was turning white as he felt every sense in his body ignite before he is lurched back into reality when a familiar chime plays in the background, somehow perceivable over the dull ringing in his ear. The sound is hardly audible behind his pathetic whimpers as he tries to steady his breathing before he answers. He flips his phone over first to see a message from you from a few minutes ago, and he curses a long string of 'fuck, fuck, fuck'.
He answers the call, feeling so stupid for keeping you waiting again. He’s unaware of the state he appears to be in when the webcam turns on, bright desktop light illuminating his red, fucked-out face.
He stutters, still struggling to catch his breath as he wipes the sweat from his brow.
“H- Hi, Hi, y-y/n,” he says, choking out an airy laugh as he puts his head in his hand.
“Were you just -“ you say, putting the pieces together as you take in his image - splotchy, sweat-shined skin, hair stuck slick to his forehead, shaky hands, and bitten, swollen lips. It would explain the inconsistent messaging, the off-kilter questions from earlier, and most importantly, the state he was in now. He was nearly moaning on the call, still too caught up in his obvious state of pleasure.
“I swear, I wasn’t, hah,” he starts, taking a deep breath again as he finds a nearby towel and runs it through his sweaty, disheveled hair, letting out an audible 'fuck' to your surprise - he never cursed in front of you.
“J-Just got back from a run!” He adds with a smile, clearing his throat as he readjusts in his chair.
“I thought you were sick?” You ask, trying to adjust your laptop camera as you sit back into the bed. Choso gasped, barely detected by his webcam mic as your camera twitched downwards in your attempt to reposition. The camera flashed your waist, hugged tightly by your white tank top, which was followed by your full chest, nearly heaving out of the neckline - his breath hitched as he catches a glimpse of your nipples peeking through the thin material. All too quickly the camera is refocused by on your face.
He thought this would make it better for him, having the camera pointed away from your tempting figure. But your clean, soft skin shined so brightly on camera and made him feel like he could melt. He still breathes heavy, trying to find an explanation to your question.
“Yeah, phew - felt like I was getting a fever, wanted to run out the ick, ya’ know?” He says, chuckling nervously after he finishes. He looks down at his gray t shirt, now covered in sweat.
“Gimme’ just a sec’ - gonna change,” he says and you respond with a hesitant ‘okay’. You chose not to tease him although the thought was lingering - he was probably as embarrassed as he’d ever been getting somewhat caught in the act.
He reaches his hand up to his webcam, sliding the privacy shield to your right - only halfway. He doesn’t realize his mistake, his still shaking fingers betraying him. He stands from his desk with a huff, and your hand flies to your mouth as you stifle a gasp. For a brief moment, his pelvis faces the camera before he turns to find a shirt. He’s pulling his sweats up as you’re able to see just a flash of his crotch, light brown hairs decorating his pelvis that come to a head at the end of a sharp, defined ‘v’. In the few seconds, you were able to see a clear outline of his dick pressed firmly into the fabric of his sweats. It looked girthy and he sat so heavy and pretty - the rounded mushroom tip protruding where it rested in the left leg of his pants. There was a darker gray patch near his tip, signaling the problem you’ve suspected him to have since he left your place earlier. He unknowingly continues his show, pulling his ruined shirt over his fluffy hair, flashing his taught abdomen before your very eyes. You could tell he was built under his clothes, and a lot of his time outside of class and hanging out with you was spent in the gym. But the up close viewing on his toned figure was enough to send a heat rushing towards your core as filthy thoughts of him on top of you flash one after the other. He unfortunately turns to find a new shirt, coming back after he finds a white compression tee to smooth over his still damp torso.
He slides the cover left, smiling at the camera with a wave as he announces his return. You clear your throat, trying to refocus your attention to the matter at hand.
“Hey yeah, um - the homework, right. It’s number… 26 on the ‘limits’ assignment,” you explain.
“Read it to me,” he demands, breathing finally stabilized from earlier.
You read the equation, explaining the error you got each time you plugged it into your calculator.
His face lights up, “Oh, yeah! That one was tricky, it’s D though. I’ll explain it in class tomorrow if you want,” he adds, desperate to end the call. While he could look at you eternally, the sensitivity he was experiencing had him nearly ripping the wood from his desk topping with his fingernails.
“Awesome, thank you!” You reply, selecting the correct answer before you minimize the tab, wanting to set the call to full screen for a moment.
“Cho, can I come over tomorrow? I know you said we wouldn’t be able to until Saturday, but I can already tell I’ll be bored tomorrow.”
He’s shocked.
“M-My place? We always go to yours though -,” he answers, glancing around at the state of his room to be met with more of a mess than he remembered.
“Well yeah, but we never go to yours though! Figured it could be fuuunnn,” you add, hoping he doesn’t see right through your real intentions. The intentions you had of ensuring he was taught well, far better than you were able to earlier. You feel as if the dots connected before you - his permanent blushed cheeks he wore so proudly whenever you touched him, the longing look in his eyes as you attempted to explain the basics of self-pleasure, and how frantically he had to leave after said conversation. Even if you were reading into this incorrectly, it would be nothing more than another movie night, which you'd never turn down.
He smiles again, nodding as he says, "You know what? Yeah, yeah that would be fun. Just gotta' tidy up before then," he finishes with a laugh, trying to remind himself that asking you to come over right now might be a step too far.
"Oh you know I don't care Cho, I'll take you however I can get you," you say as you search for the blush you expect to appear - and it does.
"Oh, y/n, he sighs, and the slight desperation in his tone made your stomach drop.
“Um, I know I've already said this today but would you hate me if I got off the call?" He asks, not so subtly seeking your permission. "I need a shower bad, hah," he says, putting emphasis on 'need'.
You give him his sought after permission, waving a quick 'bye' before he does the same, leaving the call with a sigh.
-
You breathe deeply, closing your laptop screen with a huff as you decide to leave the rest of your homework until later. If you had enough sense, you figured Choso was still sat on the other side of his desktop, fingers reaching into his waistband to finish what he had started earlier. You enjoyed the thought, imaging how sweet he'd sound when he found release for the first time.
You knew you had plans to make a move tomorrow, but you didn't want it to fall on deaf ears. If Cho was anything, it was oblivious, you think, remembering the poke of his tummy from earlier when you asked if he had ever touched himself. Bless his heart.
You stand to your dresser, pilfering through the countless pairs of boring underwear and bras to find the stash you usually kept for special occasions. You pulled out a whopping ten pairs of panties, all adorned with different lace patterns, bows, and varying pretty colors. You find two of your favorites - a lacy white pair with a tiny bow on the waistband that's entirely see-through, and a pastel pink thong covered in little hearts. You make sure to grab the matching bras that were thankfully clean. You lay them on the bed behind to you, snapping a quick picture before you return everything to your drawer.
You search through a lower drawer, pulling out two random pairs of shorts and some shirts to match. You quickly throw two outfits together, taking individual pictures of each before you shove everything back into the drawer. You sit back in the bed, snuggling under the covers as you pull up your messages.
‘[Attachment: 1 Image]’
‘[Attachment: 1 Image]’
‘HELLPPP’
‘can’t figure out what to wear for tomorrow❗️’
-
He breathes deeply, steadying himself as he stands to his feet. He still had to finish what he started, and a shower probably wouldn’t hurt with the mess he felt like he might make. He strips his clothes, leaving them in the floor as he makes his way to the bathroom.
He makes sure to bring his phone with him, ringer on and volume fully up. He had missed too many of your messages tonight, and he’d be damned if he missed another. He sits his phone on the nearby shower shelf, double checking the ringer was on.
The hot water quickly fogs the bathroom mirror as he looks down pitifully at his swollen cock, still hard and desperate as it cries for attention. He pictured your sweet face beneath him on your knees, doing the few things he could now imagine clearly. He knew you were the expert between the two of you, and he needed you to be the one to teach him what real pleasure felt like when it was given by your deft hands. He wouldn’t dare think of how sickly sweet it’d feel to rut into your mouth, how earth-shattering it’d be to bully his length deep into the goddess between your legs.
ding!
He’s pulled out of his trance, grabbing his phone with a smile as he sees your contact name shine brightly on the screen. He reads your message, then reads the incoming three, trying not to pick the image with the shorter bottoms - but he truly can’t help himself.
‘ummmmmm lemme think’
‘definitely the second one, the blue is NICE🙂‍↕️’ he responds, trying to sound like a regular person that was not at all interested in how your curves would sneak out of the bottom of your shorts.
He steps into the shower, shoulders dropping at the relaxing warmth. He hasn’t stopped picturing your face since he’s been home, but you so graciously gave him more eye candy to gawk at with the silly slip of your webcam. The low neckline of your top burned bright in his mind as he reaches his hand down again, wrapping his fingers gently around his width, leaving his thumb pressed softly into the prominent vein on the side. He wanted to try to mimic what he thought your touch would feel like - the brief flashes he got of your pretty hands typing away at your keyboard gave him all the information he needed to work with. He started slowly, dragging his large hand up before he thumbed his dripping slit, whining your name immediately at the contact. He pictures you again with your knee sliding up his thigh, hand firm on his shoulder while you whisper what he wishes were sweet nothings. He continues his soft hold as he strokes himself so sweetly, just like how he imagined you would. The pitiful noises he made earlier are now increasing ten-fold, loud whines echoing in the shower as he chases his release. He didn't realize how close he was already from the previous edging session he just brutally experienced. His cockhead was spitting now, the over-abundance of precum falling in stringy lines to the shower floor. He feels the pull in his groin again, so much quicker than he did last time, and it’s like he knew this was it.
It’s almost like you did, too.
‘ding! ding! ding!’
‘[Attachment: 1 Image]’
‘[Attachment: 1 Image]’
‘but you’ve gotta help me pick the full fit Cho🖤’ you send, internally squealing as you put your phone face down on the bed, forcing yourself to not look at the time he reads the message.
-
He stills his movements slightly, maintaining your his soft grip, reaching with his free hand to his phone, careful not to soak it as he brings it into the shower. The screen recognizes his face instantly, giving him a sneak peek of the lewd images you so graciously sent him as he feels his heartbeat in his ears - his heart rate increases so dramatically, he sees each pump of blood in the outskirts of his field of vision. He pauses for a moment, tightening the grip on his cock before he starts pumping furiously, nearly drunk on the pleasure as he whines breathy cries of your name. He opens the message and his jaw falls open, his pathetic cries of ‘please’ ‘more’ and ‘baby’ reverberating off the shower walls. In a fleeting moment, his balls clench tight to his pelvis and the pressure he felt pooling in his groin now snapped as his hips lurch forward, painting the shower floor white all for you as he tries to stabilize himself by holding onto the wall. He looks down through his almost blacked vision, surprised at the sheer volume of fluid he felt was being ripped from him. He kept cumming even after his hand had stilled, sharp jerks of his cock overstimulating him with each searing hot pump of liquid. He finally finishes with heavy breaths that threaten to turn into cries as he remembers the messages you sent him.
In his daze, he finds his phone wet in his hand as he rushes for his towel, wiping the screen quickly. Your messages still waiting to be answered that were sent a whole… 4 minutes ago.
‘y/n’
‘thank gou’
‘um’
‘areyou really asking me topick?,?’
Thank you? Was he drunk?
‘thank you?’
‘and yes dummy I’m asking you to pick :P’
And his heart quickens again.
‘thank you for sending me that’
‘I likeit a lot’
‘sorrymy pgones wett’
‘the pink one. please.’
He responds, making sure to type the last message clear as day.
‘why is your phone wet you nasty??’ you respond, laughing to yourself at his tangible nervousness that was apparent even via text.
‘showerrrrr’
‘and I don’t even get a pic back? wowww’ you respond, trying to see just how far you could take this before you head to bed for the night. You expect him to respond with a message filled with emojis as he skirts the question.
He finishes his shower quickly, unwilling to ruin his phone in an attempt to take a shower selfie. He steps out and dries off in a hurry, finding a nearby pair of jogging pants as he rushes back to his bedroom, hair dripping cold water down his back.
‘[Attachment: 1 Image]’ *
The warmth between your thighs grows as you selfishly save the image to your camera roll. You expected anything but his forward response - compared to the previous dearth of knowledge of how he looked under his clothes, you felt like he had sent you straight-up pornographic material.
‘you really outdid me, Cho’
‘who knew you were hiding all that?’
‘I’ll have to think of a way to repay you tomorrow 🖤 you’re so good to me’ you dote, knowing his affinity for praise.
He blushes, smiling hungrily as he types his response, wincing at the feeling when his half-hard cock jumped in response to your words.
‘i literally can’t wait’
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pt. 2 coming
194 notes · View notes
jeonghantis · 1 year ago
Text
✧ — HEAVEN ANGEL (y.jh)
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PAIRING ⇝ yoon jeonghan x reader.
SUMMARY ⇝
beautiful, everyone had called you. the compliment lost its charm on you, knowing fully well it’s paid only for the surface-level appearance you kept up and nothing else you had to offer. irritating, he had called you. you let him fuck you.
TAGS ⇝ uni!au, fratboy!jeonghan, fwb, smut, a dash of angst (oopsy!).
WARNINGS ⇝ language, fem!reader (she/her), houseparty scene (not exactly detailed), gossip, explicit sexual content (MINORS DNI!), bathroom (mirror) sex, unrequited crush (or is it?), reader has commitment issues, reader is kinda mean, mentions of p*ss and sh*t but not in a sexual manner, just for jokes.
WORD COUNT ⇝ 4.1k words.
note: funnily enough, i had two requests specifically for house party sex with yoon jeonghan. i lost the ask for them both (accidentally deleted while my laptop glitched). i am insane. and before anyone asks, yes there'll be a part two/prequel :) and also this is somewhat connected to my upcoming cheol fic. so i hope you stay tuned! proofread by the star of my life @cheolhub. sar fr put up with every version and my constant anxiety over every paragraph. i couldn't have done it without them. i love u so much. @szakias was also helpful in keeping me sane as i wrote this out 🙇 i love u so bad. loosely based on the song heaven angel by the driver era. don't think it'd go with the fic but you know :)
reblogs & comments are very much appreciated.
explicit tags under the cut.
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EXPLICIT TAGS ⇝ semi-public setting (bathroom sex while there's a party), unprotected sex, dom/sub dynamics, mean dom!jeonghan, sub!reader, dumbification, teasing, petnames (angel), degradation (whore, bitch), dacryphilia, marking, briefest thigh-fucking, clit stimulation, cumming inside, squirting, light overstimulation, (a little) aftercare.
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A strange rumor went around the campus. A rumor of a person whose beauty was so out of this world that it was terrifying. 
Unreal. Everyone had said. You won’t be able to look her in the eyes! 
But beyond that angelic beauty was a personality so sour, no one dared thought to approach her. Those that tried their luck had it beaten right out of them and they came to hate her to hide their broken hearts.
What a bitch, they had said. Does she think she’s all that?
Yoon Jeonghan, for one, thought they were being overly dramatic. It was a strange and interesting phenomenon how gossip can evolve to add in such theatrics. It was like living in one of those regency novels his sister owned which he had perused over on one particularly boring day. Had these people really had nothing better to do with their lives? Were they trying to live in a novel of their own? Jeonghan never understood them, neither cared for these kinds of things. He’d much rather form his opinions. He had better things to do than to dabble in such frivolity. 
What a stuck-up, one would say. What better things could Jeonghan be doing that puts him above everyone else? 
Oh, fucking the subject of the rumors of course. 
“How irritating,” Jeonghan sighed, abruptly ceasing his thrusts inside you to harshly yank you back by your hair. 
You yelp, a deer in the headlights, when your neck is forcibly craned back, made to look up at his looming figure. You looked pathetic from where you were pinned against the wall, exposed breasts pressed flush against the cool tiles and your mini skirt flipped upwards to reveal the swell of your bare ass flattened against his hip bone.
“I said to keep your voice down,” he tuts. “Do you want the whole house to hear you?” 
“I’m s-sorry,” you stammer out, throat raw and chest heaving. 
“Are you?” He mused with a raised brow, mocking and unbelieving. 
You couldn’t meet his gaze, or at least you tried to. Jeonghan liked to make eye contact, he once told you, for he loved to see your sanity visibly ebb away from your eyes, leaving you a mindless, glassy-eyed whore. You had not reached that stage, not yet, not when some semblance of your being remained clear in your gaze, dilated pupils fearfully wavering back and forth between his simpering face and the bathroom door where a rather large, booming frat party laid beyond.
He cocked his head to the side and tightened his grip on your hair, forcing your eyes back on him. He leaned forward until he’s breathing your air, and all you could do is stare up at him pitifully with quivering lips. “Or…” he starts, his lips twisting cruelly. “Do you want them to hear you? Want them hear how good you’re being fucked right now?”
You remain silent, the lump on your throat bobbing as you swallow hard. But your walls tighten around him and Jeonghan couldn’t help the curve of his lips.
“You’re really weird, you know that?” Jeonghan sighed, releasing his hold on you. A lithe finger curls a lock behind your ear, the gesture jarringly affectionate from his prior cruelty, before his mouth moves to hover over it, his warm breath tickling. “You moan loudly when I tell you to shut up. You shut up when I ask you questions. Have I fucked you stupid already? Or have you always been stupid?”
You let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”
“Is that all you know what to say?” Jeonghan laughs. “A renowned bitch, known to reject her admirers without so much of a second thought, now reduced into this pathetic bitch in heat. What would everyone else think, hm?”
His derogatory spats clamored down to your bones, making you shake with emotions that you couldn’t quite place with your hazed mind. At one point, with the last bit of pride you had left, you’re irritated, and it’s shown in the twitch of your eye and narrowed gaze. Then there’s embarrassment, shown by how your face warms and flushes. There was no denying how fucking dazed and desperate you had been, that much was true, and the demeaning tone of his voice did its job of filling you with shame. The twisted part of it all is that you enjoyed every minute of this ridicule thanks to pure, carnal desire. You couldn’t care less about what other people would say about you, what matters now is when the fuck would Jeonghan move his dick inside you. 
But Jeonghan being Jeonghan, he wanted his answers. His last question was rhetoric. You knew. He knew. And yet he looks down at you with cruel expectancy masked in the sweetest, angelic smile that has fooled so many, and had once fooled you. 
“I-I don’t care,” you say, deciding to be honest. “Who the fuck cares what they think?”
“Oh, but I’d like to know,” Jeonghan said. He hums for a moment, looking you over in consideration, before speaking again. “But you’re right. They don’t matter right now, do they?” 
You release a breath you hadn’t known you were holding.
And Jeonghan watched, amused. He wasn’t done speaking. “But I’d at least like to know what you think.”
You blinked. “What?”
Before you could question him some more, Jeonghan pulls out of you, leaving your weeping cunt fluttering around nothing. You cry out, high and broken, from having pleasure ripped away with such cruelty. Jeonghan ignores it and his own throbbing problem as he goes to peel you off the wall with a rough tug on your arm. He has you by over the sink, has you staring at yourself through the vanity mirror. Jeonghan casts a smile at you through the reflection, his gaze weighted as he drinks in the sight of you as well.
Jeonghan had to admit, the rumors weren’t all baseless. You were stunningly beautiful, there was no denying that when anyone with functioning eyes could see it. The way you carried yourself tells him you’re well aware of it too. You held confidence with a raised chin, an allure with your own posture and stance even in this vulnerable position you were forced in, looking as disheveled as you are with tufts of your hair sticking out in every direction, framing your flushed face. Your blouse had been carefully unbuttoned despite how desperately urgent you both had been for each other the moment the bathroom door shut closed, but the rush was evident in how your bralette had been roughly tugged down enough for your perked breasts to spill over. Jeonghan had been anything but kind to your skin, having left angry red splotches blossoming all over your chest; you weren’t either on his, knowing if Jeonghan had craned his neck enough from behind you, they’d find similar markings on his throat, though considerably less in quantity.
Jeonghan also looked considerably less damning. He had not made moves to remove any of his upper clothing and so he remained presentable with his black varsity over a loose white shirt. Even his long hair had not looked loosened from where it’s tied up. But below, away from the mirror’s sight, his dark jeans had been unbuttoned and unzipped for his curved dick to spring out freely, for it now to rub over your ass teasingly.
“So?” Jeonghan asks. “What do you think of yourself?”
You glare at him through the mirror. “Fucking awful.”
“Of course you’d see it that way,” he laughs, resting his chin on your shoulder. “For me, I think this is the most beautiful you’ve ever been.”
It’s your turn to look unbelieving, but your pulse rouses. 
Jeonghan grinned. “Ask me why.”
You reluctantly indulge him, “Why?”
“Because you finally look fucking awful,” Jeonghan said cheerfully. You turn to glower at him but stop when he lifts a hand to trace a line over your chest, mapping out the marks adorning you with a nimble finger. “And because I’m the reason for it.”
“A little vain, don’t you think?” You remark, albeit breathily, your face heated.
“I can be proud of my work,” he quipped, pressing his smile against your skin. He looks you over once more, taking in every detail down to the last freckle, and something deep in him thrums sweetly. “And I had a beautiful canvas to begin with.”
“How charming,” you sighed, derisive, as you threw your head back against his shoulder so you could look at him with batting lashes. “Can you fuck me now?”
“But I mean it,” Jeonghan murmured and relented, reaching around you so he could press a roughened finger over your swollen clit.
 “Mean what?” You ask, but you’re barely listening, not when your focus is narrowed to the deft circles he’s making on your sweet nerves.
Jeonghan guides his length between your thighs, letting it glide languidly right under your weeping and throbbing cunt at a lazy pace. His lips are still curled, his eyes bright when he gazes down at you before he’s responding, “You’re absolutely beautiful.”
Sincerity was not something you’re used to when it came to the ever sarcastic Yoon Jeonghan, and yet here it was, bleeding into his tone in its purest form. Never in the entire three months of sleeping with him had he ever complimented the way he had just now, and if he had uttered any, it was quickly followed with ridicule or said with ridicule.
Good, he called you when you were obedient.
Cute, he called you when you were crying.
Beautiful. It was new. From him at least. 
It was a temporary moment of clarity in your lust-addled head as you blink at him, making sense of what he had said, making sense of the warmth that starts to bloom throughout your chest. And temporary it remained as Jeonghan led his cockhead right back to your entrance, pushing himself in without so much of a warning, and the bare grasp you had on lucidity loosened.
You gasp out loudly, doubling over the bathroom counter as your walls tense and quiver painfully from the sudden breach, but still yield around him nonetheless. Jeonghan was quick to catch you, to force you right back up with his long fingers encircling your throat. 
“Again?” Jeonghan barked out a laugh but it’s hoarse. “You really want everyone to hear you.”
“I c-can’t help it,” you whined, your head resting weakly against his shoulder, warm breath puffing over his marred skin. 
Jeonghan looked unimpressed. “Well, help it.”
“Oh, fuck!” you cry out when he starts driving into you with no sense of leniency, your body thrown fully forward and voice shaking from the repeated impact that clatters your bones.
“You’re horrible at this,” he cackled. He grips at your hips this time, pulling you hard against him, balls slapping heavily against your ass. He's practically pulling and pushing your cunt onto his cock as if you weighed nothing, as if you were nothing but a cocksleeve for him to enjoy. Each decadent slide of his length in your heat draws out breathy grunts from him, his head drunk with pleasure.
You weren’t faring any better. Your head is thrown back to reveal flushed skin stained with tears that drip from closed eyes as you try desperately to hold yourself up with palms flat against the cold marble counter. There was nothing else for you to do but feel it, feel his cock stretch your pussy, its silken insides practically making way for him with each piston that has you crying out more in volume and pitch.
“Open your eyes.” His hot, staggered breath wafted over your ear. His thrusts ease its pace, slowing into something more languorous and teasing. “Open your eyes and look at me.”
You whine but your eyelids flutter open. Glassy, unfocused eyes find Jeonghan.
A devious smile splinters across his face. 
There you are.
“Please,” you whimper, your hand reaching to paw at his nape. 
“What is it, angel?” His tone is sweet but it rolls off his tongue sharply. “I n-need - ”
Jeonghan laughed cruelly. “I don’t think you’re in the position to demand something from me when you can’t even listen to my one demand.”
You grab at the ends of his hair and rock your hips back into him, fucking your cunt right on his dick in a faster, but struggling, rhythm. 
“Hannie,” you mewl. “You feel too good. Please, please, just fuck me. I can’t help it, I just - Please? I’ll b-be good. Just please fuck me, Hannie.”
Jeonghan doesn’t respond right away to your pleas, allowing himself to revel in the broken desperation you display with an amused smile and delighted throbs made inside your velvety walls. Perhaps Jeonghan should be used to this sight now. He’s seen you in much messier and miserable states, ruined you far worse than he had now. And yet he’s plenty invigorated than he’s ever been, pure excitement searing his veins.
What would everyone else think, hm?
Jeonghan thought it was rhetoric. Jeonghan said it didn’t matter. 
It wasn’t. It did. 
“I don’t think you can be good,” he began as a hand inches forward between your legs, “But if you’re going to be loud, then at least use my name. That way, everyone will know who’s fucking you so good.”
“H-Hannie!” You mewl, oh so pitchy, as your frame jerks from the brush of the roughened pads of his fingers on your clit, pleasure flickering up your abdomen so wildly that you could not easily bear through it. 
“There we go,” he crooned, pride gleaming in his eyes. Jeonghan was much too familiar with your body by now, so it’s easy when his hips brings back its pace, fucking at your insides at an angle so the length of him glides over your sweet nerves with each impact. 
“Yes, yes, yes,” you sob out like a mantra, spreading your legs a little wider to accommodate his brutality, your channel tightening around his throbbing girth. “Ngh, Jeonghan, right there! Oh my god - !”
The nectar that leaks out of you coated his shaft with an amazingly significant amount that makes the slides so much easier and louder, the wet noises bouncing off the four walls and meshing with your own cries of his name like he wanted. It was almost enough to drown out the muffled music of the party that seemed many worlds away now.
Jeonghan soon enough joined in this sinful chorus, letting out panted moans of his own. Some were incoherent but when it wasn’t, it was mostly your name, just in case everyone couldn’t tell who was screaming his name like a wailing prayer. How he’s managed to keep himself restrained and sane for this long was a strong feat in itself. Your everything put him in a trance, every touch of you—nails, fingers, and obviously your tight cunt, was a little too much, it was dizzying. 
Even at your seemingly waning state, your hips somehow finds itself moving back against him, undulating with the same force and rhythm. You’re driven by the tightness both in your chest and in your abdomen, white flashing across your vision the more you keep up your pace, your moan becoming more muddled as your thoughts were. And when balance fails you, having you bow back down and lean all your weight on your forearm, Jeonghan inclines with you, his chest pressed right against your back and you could feel his raging heartbeat that very well matched your own.
“How are you holding up, angel?” He chuckled and pressed his face against your neck, his breathing hard and warm on your skin, as his thrusts become more shallow. “Doing okay?”
“I-I’m close,” you whimper. “Please, Hannie - ”
“I’ve got you,” he whispered back as nails dig crescents on your waist, muscles flexing as the intensity of his strokes inside you extends once again and remains at the same tempo. He doesn’t know what came over him the next moment, his senses just completely overtaken and all he could do was be at awe at all this perfect bliss you’re bringing him, and only him. “You’re mine tonight,” he breathed. “I’m going to fucking ruin you for everyone, angel, you understand that? You’re mine.”
There it was again. The clarity. The warmth. It all happened in a single moment.
You turn your head and stare up at him. Jeonghan stared right back at you. A completely indecipherable expression confronts another.  
Where it had been temporary then, it intensified now. Where there had been questions, suspicions took its place. 
Then came fear.
Jeonghan catches a glimpse of it in your eyes and for the very first time, his stomach sank at the sight of it. 
But his facade is flawless. It comes too naturally before he’s fully aware—a sweet curl of lip, the faintest crinkle at the corners of his eyes. He’s fooled too many. He could fool you again. 
Jeonghan takes advantage of your moment of daze to toy once again with your clit, and is relieved at how immediate your body reacts. 
“Ngh, J-Jeonghan!” You keen high as you reach a hand to cup over to where his fingers flicks and pinches at the delicate bud, pressing down on him for added pressure to alleviate your own self. Oh, how embarrassingly easy it was for your thoughts to be completely overwritten by your own lustful desires, but as you have learned, it always prevails, doesn’t it? 
Your thighs seize up from the overwhelming pleasure crawling up your spine; while your rhythm falters from it, Jeonghan’s is relentless even when his own breathing turned ragged and his body strained from the effort. It all becomes so much so fast; the feverish heat spreads under your skin, tightening up coils in your abdomen, but your frame is trembling, as if a chill settled so deeply into your bones. 
“Hannie, Hannie, I’m going to -”
“I know,” Jeonghan grunts as his face falls in the juncture of your neck, lips pressed right over your pulse point. He can feel your walls start to restrict around his twitching girth, and it did little to aid his own self-control. “Let go for me, angel. C’mon. Let me hear you. Let them hear you.”
And you do. With the most shrilling wail, you come, your warm release spilling onto his cock and, much to your surprise, squirting onto themselves, their clothes, and his hand. 
“Holy shit,” Jeonghan marveled under his breath. If he could burn a memory into his brain, this would be fucking it. Just you shivering and quivering around his dick. Your back prettily arched back with tits hardened and perked. The fluids spurting all over yourself and him so shamelessly and so intensely until you're convulsing back down on your front from it all. 
Watching this whole brilliance of you, just reminded Jeonghan of how lucky he truly was to have you like this, to be able to make you this fucked out with crossed eyes, pupils blown wide out of proportion. Hidden concerns were washed away by this single glance, replaced with nothing but gratitude, pride, and true bliss. And with all that and a poorly thrown out warning, he’s thrown over the edge. A moan is punched out of his gut as he’s releasing inside you with one last valiant thrust, his cum white and hot as it spurts and paints your walls.
And poor you having to tolerate this continued abuse of your insides that pushes you close into the sphere of overstimulation. You’re spent, fatigue already ebbing into your consciousness, but you stay still for him, letting him use you for all your worth until the last few twitches of cock, until the last few spews of his cum is fucked back into you.
For the next few moments, only a dulled bass fills the air as two heaving bodies try to steady themselves. When the remnants of carnality wane, Jeonghan finally pulls out of you, your channel left with nothing but their shared release dripping out of you, beading down your legs. There’s a crack of a smile thrown your way through the reflection just as you feel a light tap made over your cunt. You resist the urge to roll your eyes at the gesture. And to rock back into it.
“If I clean you up,” Jeonghan began, eyeing the puddle on the floor, “could you help me with the rest of your mess?”
Now you did roll your eyes. “Ever the gentleman.”
“Hey, I just thought I should ask. It’s a lot.” 
Your face warmed up. “Forget it, I’ll clean myself up. You clean the floor.” You move to lift yourself up from the counter, but catch yourself as your muscles start to strain, limbs shaking. 
Jeonghan raised a brow.
You winced. “Can you help me over to the toilet?”
 “Need to piss it all out again?” He jests and takes a hold of your arm to gently pick you up. 
You sneered. “That wasn’t piss, asshat.”
Jeonghan laughed. “I know it wasn’t. But it was hot as hell.”
“Shut the hell up.”
That only made him laugh again.
Then came a knock, a very aggressive one.
“Yoon Jeonghan, are you done fucking in there?” Said a male voice beyond the door, sounding just as irritated as his knock was. 
“Ah, damn,” Jeonghan muttered quietly to himself, then raised his voice at the door, “There are other bathrooms, Cheol!”
Choi Seungcheol, you now recognized Jeonghan’s fellow frat brother, responded right away. “All occupied! Can you hurry your shit up?”
“No!” said Jeonghan, but he’s quick to guide you over next to the toilet with an arm now encircling your waist; you tell yourself this was just a helpful gesture, but there’s no helping how your skin heats up under his touch. From where you stand leaning against the wall, you watch him rush around the bathroom, first cleaning himself up and shoving his dick back in his jeans before he throws a clean towel down on the floor to soak up your mess.
“I’ll leave first,” Jeonghan explained as he sauntered back to you with soap and another fresh towel in hand, setting them down where it’s within your reach. “I’ll appease Cheol first and buy you some time to clean up.”
“Is he always so impatient?” You asked.
“Always,” he sighed, “but once I explain, he’ll understand. I don’t know why he’s fussier than usual though.” 
“Maybe he needs to shit.”
“Shitting at a party? That’s disgusting of him.”
“He has no respect for the partygoers out there.”
You exchange grins with each other. 
Then another round of knocking came around.
“In a minute!” Jeonghan called back, trying to sound calm but his face was scowling. He lowers his voice when he speaks to you again, “Are you sure you don’t want any help? Now I just want to make him wait.”
“Go,” you tell him and wave him off. “He sounds like he’s about to kick the door open. I’d rather not have that.”
Jeonghan huffed a laugh at that. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Jeonghan turned to leave. Your heart lurched from your chest.
“Jeonghan?” You call out before you could stop yourself.
He looked back. “Hm?”
“Do we…” You didn’t know what to say, how to phrase it. “Should we talk about it?”
It was miniscule, but you caught his wince. “Talk about what?”
“About what you said?”
“Angel, I said a lot of things.”
“Don’t play stupid with me. You said - ”
Another loud knock, quickly followed by Seungcheol yelling. “Jeonghan! Hurry up!”
Jeonghan let out another sigh, a mix of annoyance with a tinge of relief. “We’ll have to talk about it another time.”
You narrowed your eyes. “Jeonghan - ”
“We will talk about it,” he said firmly, his tone spoke of sincerity, but his face said otherwise. “Just not now. Not yet.” 
You gave him a skeptical look. 
He tried for a smile, perfectly saccharine. You saw right through it.
“Fine,” you relented.
Jeonghan gave you a grateful nod of his head and made a move to leave again. You watch again with the strangest restriction in your chest.
“Cheol, you have got to learn patience,” Jeonghan said once he cracked the door open.
“And you have got to learn to be quiet,” the disembodied voice of Seungcheol parried back. “I’m sure the people passing the hallway could hear you both.”
“Well, we were trying to get the whole house to hear us.” Jeonghan spared a quick glance your way and grinned. You wanted to punch his teeth in.
Seungcheol groaned. “Of course you fucking were.”
Jeonghan laughed and finally stepped out of the bathroom. “At least I’m getting my dick wet. You haven’t been with anyone since - Oh, I spoke too soon. Cheol, you sneaky son of a - ”
The door shut closed behind him, leaving you all alone, and you buried your face in your hands.
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© jeonghantis. all rights reserved. do not re-publish, translate, plagiarise, edit any of my work on any other platform.
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williamvapespeare · 2 months ago
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"every day i'm fucking smiling;" a rant (cogent, intellectual character study) about Charles
We all know that Charles Rowland is THE character of all time. Obviously. Undisputedly (except by Netflix) blabla. I, a mixed race bisexual idiot with daddy issues, am about to fucking get into it.
I think there are a lot of ways to get into that end of ep 4 scene – I think we can look from trauma, we can look from model minority syndrome, we can look from a place of people pleasing to the extreme, but I think the best way to get into Charles (for me, personally) is to look at him as a character formed of intersections. Of in-betweens. In literally EVERY way possible, he is between things. He’s mixed race, he’s (probably) bisexual, he’s between life and death, he’s between good and bad, he’s probably sitting somewhere between trauma and healing – like, he’s CONstantly engaging in coping mechanisms and that itself is an in between.
Ok this idea of “I must be liked” very obviously will come from living a life where the opposite of not being liked is always violence, and that definitely can’t be understated. But I think this whole scene and this line in particular really speak to this very specific feeling that comes with inhabiting an identity that is ALWAYS seen as “not enough” in some way. Like, if you sit in a place where you don’t speak one side of your family’s language well enough and simultaneously aren’t white enough (or whatever enough) for the other side, you’re just like fundamentally culture-less and fighting to just be ANYTHING.
(Another GREAT example of this I think is the game Life is Strange 2, which is about two Hispanic American brothers, one of them speaks Spanish and the other one is much younger and doesn’t and there’s a bit where the younger brother doesn’t want to leave the US and says “I don’t even speak Spanish” and the other one is like “don’t worry, everyone likes you.” Like YES being “““Likeable””” is maybe the only way in when you are so fundamentally detached from a thing that you are also fundamentally part of, anyway!!)
Similarly, like all of us bisexual people know we’re constantly getting shit from both sides, from straight people and gay people and probably like, corpses decomposing in the ground who are throwing around terms like “gold star lesbian” or whatever the fuck. People just look at whatever relationship you’re in and they’re like ah yep that’s you!!
Like the whole thing is the most reductive narrow-minded stupidity, but it’s also just THE WAY. It’s the way of stuff. And being like ok, I AM NOT ENOUGH OF ANYTHING THAT I AM. How are you going to deal with that, you’re going to try and be likeable?? Because that’s something you can control!!!
And I’m low key so mad that we can’t see a continuation of this story where we get to see a character slowly come to terms with these in-betweennesses and say like, I’m not actually two halves, I’m two wholes. This is intentional in-betweenness. Like yes, blabla let the boy be bi, but it’s SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. And I trust this show and I trust these writers to get that right and we were robbed of that.
So yeah idk tldr “every day I’m fucking smiling” was like the gut punch of the century. Whoever wrote that I’m omw to haunt your local Denny’s with my extroverted mixed race bisexual energy THANK U
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fluentmoviequoter · 6 months ago
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The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Part 1/3 of my soft Tim miniseries!
Pairing: Tim Bradford x fem!rookie!reader
Summary: Tim Bradford cares more about you, his boot, than he should. You're injured and he shows his care without thinking.
Warnings: fluff, brief insecurity, description of injuries and stitches. r has hair long enough to pull back but no specific qualities!
Word Count. 1.0k+ words
A/N: This is just a little something I wrote last night. A scene of Tim being soft toward you, his favorite rookie. :)
Masterlist | Tim Bradford Masterlist | Request Info/Fandom List
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Tim Bradford can be gruff, pushy, and, at times, downright mean. But he never pushes his trainees more than they can handle, and his relentless tests and trials are for their benefit. By leading them to their potential or letting them fall short of it, he shows himself and them that they do (or in many cases, don’t) have what it takes. So, when people ask you if Tim Bradford is hard to work with or a tough TO, the answer is usually yes. 
But then there are moments like this. 
As you sit in the emergency room with a bloody wad of paper towels wrapped around your hand and your hair falling in your face, you watch Tim. He’s been on the phone since you arrived, pacing as he explains what happened to Sergeant Grey. You hadn’t seen Tim worried about you like this before today, but the moment he noticed the concerning amount of blood dripping from your hand as you stood your ground against an armed suspect, he showed you a side of himself that you’d never seen before. 
“Let’s get that hand looked at. I’m Dr. Grace Sawyer.”
You nod at Grace as you stand and brace your injured hand against the other. She smiles kindly as you introduce yourself and leads you into a nearby room. 
“Take a seat and I’ll unwrap Officer Bradford’s patch job,” she instructs. 
After you sit and extend your hand toward her, she carefully unwraps the blood-soaked towels and deposits it into a biohazard container behind her. The gash across your palm and over the side of your wrist begins bleeding again without the pressure of Tim’s impromptu wrap job. He yelled at you while he did it, but you know why. 
“How’d this happen?” Grace asks. 
“I, uh… I was supposed to stay out of the way until our backup got there, but a guy ran up behind Officer Bradford, my TO, with a machete. I jumped in before I thought about it," you answer.
“Clearly,” Tim grumbles as he walks in. “How is she?” he asks Grace. 
“I’m going to put in a few stitches. I’ll wrap it so she can get back to work, though. Is this your dominant hand?”
“No,” you answer softly, looking at Tim. 
Tim nods once before he walks to stand behind you. You feel his fingers in your hair before you can ask what he’s doing. Less than an hour ago, someone else had their fingers on your scalp, but you weren’t as accepting of the touch. 
“What are you doing?” you ask as he works your ponytail holder loose. 
“Fixing your hair. This look isn’t exactly department-approved and you can’t do it with stitches in your palm,” Tim answers. 
You turn your attention toward Grace and watch her work instead of focusing on how softly Tim is touching you or how close his chest is to your back. His warmth and care for you threaten to distract you from why you're here and what you're supposed to do when you leave.
“Sorry,” he murmurs when his finger hooks on a tangle. 
“It’s okay,” you reply. “Thank you.”
“Are you okay?” Tim asks. 
“I am. Thanks to you.”
“I’ll be right back. Don’t move that hand,” Grace says.
She winks as she stands, and you wonder if she knows how much trouble you’d get in for making a move on your TO. Not that you haven’t thought about it. Although, it always ends in rejection, even in your daydreams. The downside of knowing Tim so well, you think. 
“I don’t even know how he got my hand and my hair so fast,” you admit. “It was like I felt the slice and then he was yanking me backward.”
“You stood your ground well,” Tim responds. “Not that I’m praising you disobeying me and jumping in, but what you did was well done. Unnecessary, but properly executed.”
“Unnecessary?” you repeat. “I’ll remember that next time a guy is about to use a machete against your back.”
“You know what I mean,” Tim adds quietly. 
He drops his hands to your shoulders briefly, and when he pulls away, you shiver at the loss of warmth. 
“It’s not perfect, or exactly how you had it,” he begins as he rounds the exam table. 
“It’s great. Thank you,” you interject. “I really do appreciate it.”
“Just don’t let it happen again.”
“Trust me, I’ll try. Twelve stitches across my palm was never the goal.”
Tim rolls his eyes and sits in a nearby chair to wait for Grace to finish treating your cut. You watch him, and when you notice his shoulders drop, you push him back for once. 
“You know, I’ve been looking for a new hairstylist for an event next month,” you say. 
“No,” Tim answers. 
He crosses his arms tightly against his chest and tilts his head away from you. That means it’s working. 
“But you did so well! I mean, I haven’t felt this good because of a hairstyle since… I can’t remember.”
“Then learn to do it yourself.”
“But you’re my partner,” you argue with a pout. 
“When I said I’d be with you through the good, the bad, and the ugly, that’s not exactly what I meant.”
“But I’ll be ugly without beautiful hairstyles like this!”
Tim straightens quickly and says, “You’re kidding. Right?”
You shrug and look at the stitches lining your hand. 
“You’re beautiful,” he adds. “No hair-do can change that or make it untrue.”
“Thanks,” you whisper. 
“I’m back,” Grace announces. “Let me wrap this and you’ll be good to go.”
“About time,” Tim sighs. “Way to waste our afternoon, boot.”
You don’t hear a word he says. The only thing worth remembering for the foreseeable future is Tim Bradford saying, ‘You’re beautiful. No hair-do can change that or make it untrue.’ When you climb back into the shop a few minutes later, you realize that life will be hard with one of your hands out of commission. 
“How am I supposed to do anything without bothering this?” you ask. 
“Carefully. You just…” Tim sighs and knocks his knuckles against the steering wheel for a moment. Then he says, “Just call me if you need help.”
It takes you a second to register what he said and believe you heard him correctly, and your questioning sound communicates that. 
“Don’t make me regret it,” he adds. 
“Is this the ugly you meant?” you tease. 
“No,” Tim answers. “This is the good.”
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sulumuns-dootah · 2 months ago
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WHB demons' favorite horror movies
⟡ Masterlist ⟡ 
A/N: Another long post including all our demon boys :D Also thought I'd change up the look of these all-demon big posts so lmk if you like this one ^^
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Satan
You'd expect him to pick some torture-porn, but he actually picks something supernatural
More specifically a movie with vengeful spirits
People hurting each other? meh... Spirits messing with people bc they're pissed? Well, now we're talking
Favorite movie: The Grudge (2004)
Sitri
Rather than something scary, Sitri like watching something cosy
Doesn't want to spill his tea when a jumpscare gets him
The only time he'll watch something like that is with his partner, so he can hear their heart race
Favorite movie: The Shining (1980)
Amy
(We've had Amy just for a little bit so bare with me)
Rebellious boi allert (?)
Pretty boy loves to watch movies about other boys ^^
Favorite movie: Lost boys (1987)
Leraye
In last year's halloween-themed post I wrote that Leraye doesn't care as long as the movie has thunderstorms in it and I still stand by that
Who has the brain capacity to remember movie names when most of your blood is rushing south?
Paimon
Please, please, please introduce Paimon to Hereditary!
Still, despite the movie literally having them in it, Pai prefers more of a "girly" horror
Favorite movie: Jennifer's body (2009)
Belial
Okay, not really a horror movie fan per se, but a horror musical?
With a lot of good music with funny lyrics?
And the type that Jiyu enjoys singing?
You've got Belial's attention
Favorite musical: Sweeney Todd (2007)
Astaroth
We've got a psychological horror fan on our hands!
Oh, and if the movie has the characters speak in unordinary way?
A local accent or different language has Astaroth interested instantly
Favorite movie: The Vvitch (2015)
Zagan
Zagan likes the old classics
Or the old movies where the characters don't speak
Sadly, he doesn't speak up for himself when the nobles are arguing what to watch, so he has to watch a lot of movies from the others
Favorite movie: Frankenstein (1931)
Ppyong
As brave as Ppyong thinks he is, he doesn't like horror movies that much
Usually, someone has to be with him for comfort and safety while watching anything remotely scary
Favorite movie: Any of the Scooby Doo movies
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Mammon
I... don't think Mammon has a preference.
Part of me feels like he doesn't really get the point of watching movies
Like, if you suggest snuggling up and watching something, he'll be all for it, but only bc of the snuggling bit
Favorite movie: Your favorite movie
Bimet
Is anyone surprised that this gold-digger loves any movie that follows wealthy people?
Me neither
Doesn't matter what genre it is, he's The Rich Person Apologist™
Favorite movie: American psycho (2000)
Eligos
Eligos doesn't like scary movies, but(!) horror adjacent movies are his thing
Loves all those teenage witch shows and movies like The Craft
Oh, also Scream Queens ^^
Movie nights with Paimon and Eligos >>>>>>
Favorite movie: Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988)
Valefor
Since Valefor like to know about other people's experiences in bed, why not extend that to the type of media he likes?
Found footage feels right to say that Valefor would enjoy
Also, why do a lot of the found footage movies contain sex scenes? :/
Favorite movie: Ghoul (2015)
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Leviathan
I bet you expected something Lovecraftian, huh?
So did I, but couldn't find any movie in that genre that would scream Levi's name
But you know who fits his aesthetic perfectly? Tim Burton's movies!
It also kinda makes sense since I'd imagine our poor PTSD-having demon would hate anything making him feel on edge
He's had enough of being scared
Favorite movie: Corpse Bride (2005)
Foras
Ooh, another psychological horror fan!
I also imagine that all the Hades nobles like theatre/musicals/ballet, so let's look for somethin in the middle...
Favorite movie: Black Swan (2010)
Barbatos
You can imagine how Barbatos reacts to most scary movies, which usually consist of dark scenes shot at night
Not to say he won't watch anything with you, but he will complain about how pale the actors are :/
Favorite movie: Midsommar (2019)
Glasyalabolas
Okay, we can all see this coming
This fucker (affectionate) loves his torture-porn
I mean, most of us have read his H-scene
Favorite movie: Hostel (2005)
Orias
Our old/young man loves movies with creepy children since he looks like one of them
Some even give him inspiration for acquiring more souls for himself
Favorite movie: Sinister (2012)
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Beelzebub
To capture this idiot's attention, a movie needs to be really interesting to him
Likes his cannibal movies
They, just like to Orias, give him inspo, but this time for recipes
Favorite movie: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Bael
Bael is more grounded with his taste in movies
Still a slasher fan, but more on the realistic side
Imagining him just sitting on a couch/armchair while sipping some tea under a blanket while watching a movie gives me tired single mom vibe idk
Favorite movie: Psycho (1960)
Naberius
An obvious fan of Werewolf movies since he's one technically too
Kinda hopes that he can learn something about controlling his transformation from them
(I don't really like werewolves alltogether so I found this one on google - I hope it's good)
Favorite movie: Wolf (1994)
Stolas
Rebelllious boi 2
If there's guns that shoot, Stolas will watch it bc it goes with his tough guy persona
Favorite movie: The Purge (2013)
Amon
Given that he'll most likely fall asleep during the movie if he's not watching it with Beel or you in the room
Likes 90's movies in general bc they're more chill and more about the vibes
Favorite Movie: Scream (1996)
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Ronove
Another torture-porn enjoyer
Surprise surprise?
Yeah, him and Glasya having a movie night is an experience only for the stongest
Favorite movie: Laid to Rest (2009) or The Collector (2009)
Phenix
Phenix loves any and all movies and they don't need to be scary or anything due to their affliction
Still, I think if they weren't under Asmo's influence, they would enjoy a good succubus/siren movie
Favorite movie: Siren (2016)
Dantalian
Yep, another torture-porn fan, except this time for the opposite reasons
Glasya and Ronove look for fun gore, Danta is looking for hot ways to die
Favorite movie: Audition (1999)
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Belphegor
Okay, not a movie but an anime
What else would you expect from our weeb snoozer?
Favorite anime: Junji Ito Maniac! (2023)
Beleth
Usually, Beleth loves his mafia type of movies
When it comes to horror, he wants to be laughing hard
Bonus points if he can relate in some sort of sense to the main villain
Favorite movie: Beetlejuice (1988)
Gusion
Teacher boy loves his horror villains S-M-A-R-T
Like the calculated, composed type
Favorite movie: Silence of the Lambs (2001)
Bathin
There's nothing scarier to Bathin than being contained to one place without the possibility to escape
It makes him feel claustrophobic no matter how big the place is
Like you could lock him up in a castle full of spacey rooms and he'll be anxious
Favorite movie: Misery (1990)
Andrealphus
Since Andre can't see, I don't really think he's enjoy movies
He does, however love the audio stuff
Audioboooks and horror game OSTs are his go-to's during spooky season
Favorite audiobook: Between two Fires
Favorite game OST: Layers of Fear
Agares
Since Belphie took Niflheim from him, Agares realised he really loves his vengeful spirit movies
'They took from her so she started taking from them'
or how the quote was in his favorite movie
Favorite movie: The Woman in Black (2012)
Vassago
With his love for speeches and such, Vassago finds himself ofhen enjoying the religious horrors
Bonus points if there actually are some speech scenes
Favorite movie: Midnight Mass (2021)
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Lucifer
If there's a movie containing the Antichrist, Luci is interested
He kinda also finds it amusing to see humans fumble with their demon names and stories
Favorite movie: The Omen (1976)
Morax
It might be a bit childish, but Morax likes movies themed around holidays
Bonus points if there is an adorable character
Favorite movie: Trick 'r Treat (2007)
Buer
Buer loves a good mindfuck movie with an unexpected twist
Other psychological horrors are good too, but you know...
There's nothing better than a lore drop that makes you wanna rewatch the movie from beginning and look for the subtle hints
Favorite movie: Orphan (2009)
Marbas
The last member of our gore aficionados
The only struggle for Marbas is to not criticize some anatomy errors of the sfx team
Favorite movie: Terrifier (2016)
Gamigin
It's rare for this babey dragon to watch horrors, but if he's with someone, he will
Once he's watched one already, he's less scared and will watch it again alone
Any movie where he can relate to a character is an instant hyperfixation until another movie comes around
Favorite movie: The Boy (2016)
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waltricia · 6 months ago
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Regardless of whether anyone actually reads this, I need to show appreciation for the writing, blocking, and editing of the last scene of 3x03, “Forces of Nature.”
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Recently, I noticed that the LW line “this author is captivated” was very specifically placed over a shot of Colin and I knew it was intentionally done to convey the double meaning of the narration being about her and him.
Since then, I’ve realized that the same thing is happening throughout that entire LW narration. And it is fucking BRILLIANT.
So, first of all, this is the transcript of the narration:
“This author believes that all of man’s greatest inventions are nothing more than a distraction from what is most natural to us. Our instincts. The innate animal impulse that is inside even the most sophisticated of us. For when all is said and done, our nature will always win out. It seems Lord Debling’s instinct has led this man of nature to the most surprising pick of the season in Miss Penelope Featherington. Suffice it to say, this author is captivated. For in the battle between man and nature, it is quite clear that the battle is in fact between man and himself.”
Now I’m going to break it down with captioned stills so that you can see which words line up with which frames and I’ll explain what I believe it all means.
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“This author” - When it’s first said, it’s on Pen. The second time it’s on Colin. I think there are several meanings here. Firstly, she’s Whistledown and she’s published. He will be, assuming he publishes his travel journals or whatever. Secondly, I think it highlights how they will be united, in the Whistledown storyline along with everything else. There’s a third meaning, but I’m going to get back to it later, once we get to the second use of “this author.”
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This is the Innovations Ball, so on the surface, LW is speaking about man-made technology versus the natural world. But with the introduction of “man,” the shot immediately cuts to Colin, so the second layer of the narration is about him. All of Colin’s invented personality traits are a cover, hiding his true self- his sensitivity and his feelings for Pen. Obviously, this echoes what she wrote about him in 3x01, but it’s different. The context is the same, but this time, she’s not speaking directly about him, and really, she may very well not be thinking about him at all in writing it. After all, she still doesn’t know about his feelings for her. But we know. And the feeling of what she’s saying this time is less jarring; more, fittingly, natural. Because he’s starting to confront all of it as well.
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In this shot, Colin has been walking across the room to get to Pen. There were people on his right, obstructing his view of her, but as LW says “natural,” Colin passes those people and, though we cannot yet see Pen, we can tell from Colin’s face that he finally clearly can. She is what is most natural to him.
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He comes up to her and says that he has a question for her. The narration starts again. But on this shot, it’s only the one word, “our.” Aside from this just being romantic, I think it highlights that the narration is about both of them. But I also think that it’s not just about them. It feels to me as if, metaphorically, it’s written by both of them. Hence, my emphasis on the importance of “this author.”
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We cut to our first close-up of Colin in this particular intimate sequence of close-ups. And we’re really in his perspective now, as he’s struggling to manage his feelings.
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Again, he had been masking, trying to be like the other “sophisticated” gentlemen.
But a shift is occurring within him.
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And this where I really hope there is at least one other person out there paying attention because all of the elements are coming together to tell us something incredible here. We have our beloved Julie Andrews delivering the line with a profound heaviness. We have Kris Bowers’ “Call Me Simon” coming to a close, sounding like a clock striking midnight. And we have the decisive sentiment of the words themselves. I'm convinced that the words “done” and “win out” being said on Pen speak to the finality of Colin’s feelings. If there was uncertainty before, it is gone now and there is no turning back. He is in love with Pen.
But before Colin can say anything else, Debling steps in and takes Pen away to dance.
Side note: Amazingly, I can back up my theory with this shot and another one of my theories:
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I had said, when the trailer came out, that when true red shows up behind Colin, that indicates his love for Pen. This is the first time we see that happen.
But anyway, back to Whistledown…
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Debling is the literal “man of nature,” while Colin is the metaphoric “man of nature.” Both have picked Pen.
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We’ve finally come to the second “this author” and here’s the third thing I wanted to say about it: Possibly my favorite thing about this sequence, is that it acts as a vehicle for the representation of the Polin role reversal. From one end of the Whistledown narration to the other, Pen and Colin literally and metaphorically switch places, seamlessly. They exchange their physical places in the room. She’s the wallflower, then he’s the wallflower. She’s the author, then he’s the author. In a metaphorical sense, they’re both writing this Whistledown piece. This whole sequence serves to show us how Colin and Pen have really been equal this whole time. They’re just star-crossed. It’s like what Luke has been saying in interviews, Colin and Pen keep missing each other. They have brief moments where they eclipse each other and then they slip right past until the next time they orbit around to each other again.
Ok, here’s the final stretch, and it is a fucking fascinating maneuver:
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The battle isn’t between Colin and Debling. In fact, Debling doesn’t signify at all here. I’d say there are actually three other battles being referenced: Colin and himself, Pen and herself, and Colin and Pen. The first “man” of that sentence is said on Colin, while “nature” is said on Pen. So in the battle between Colin and Pen- for there is a battle, as Cressida will mention in 3x04 when she says “Eros and Psyche, battling it out”, and also there will be more blatant battling in part 2- the real battles Colin and Pen are facing are the ones within themselves.
Of course I’ve already written about Colin’s battle with himself.
The reference to Pen’s battle with herself is particularly interesting to me. At first, I didn’t see it and I didn’t understand why that bit of the narration was spoken over the Pen and Debling dance instead of over Colin. Then I realized that the second “man” of that sentence is said directly on top of this shot where, again, it’s not about Debling; it’s her face we’re seeing. Then, Debling spins her and the “himself” is on Pen too. And I know I’m right about this because the shot was in the trailer and I watched it so many times. And I noticed that Sam Phillips is very specifically looking away from the camera in this moment. I figured it was because we had to know that the moment was about her. And I was right.
Pen’s journey is her reconciliation with herself. Colin and Pen really have the same inner battles. They both need to drop their masks. That’s why the mirror scene is going to be so important- it’s about exposing and embracing the bare parts of both of them. They are already equal and united. They just need to see it.
Ok that’s it. I’m done. I got it out. And I literally can’t add any more images to this post. To anyone who will have read this fuckin novel I just wrote, thanks for sticking around. These ballroom sequences are particularly difficult for the cast and crew to do, and there is obviously so much complexity in this one, so I feel like it should all be acknowledged. Someone has to acknowledge it, and if that has to be me, I will gladly continue using up my Friday afternoons to do so.
To the cast and crew, to the captain of the season 3 ship, Jess Brownell, to the director, Andrew Ahn, and writer, Eli Wilson Pelton, to everyone’s favorite choreographer/movement director, Jack Murphy, to Luke, Nic, and Julie fuckin Andrews, I see you and I love you. Please keep doing what you’re doing. It’s all worth it. ♥️
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lulunothulu · 3 months ago
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Rooster x Hangman Headcanon
Things I think Rooster would love/be like:
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SUNDRESSES, specifically the twirly ones. You know the one that you can twirl in and it circles you like a princess.
Obv. KISSES. But I mean that deep and meaningful one. The one where you feel like you’ll never see him again so you gotta kiss him.
DEFINITELY LIKES BEING A DOM. He likes to dominate you in bed BUT he also loves seeing you in control and telling him what you want.
Speaking of sex, he likes to base it off of what happened that day. So if it was a hard one, well… hold on tight buttercup. But if it was a decent one, he’d take his time with you, sugar.
PDA. You cannot tell me that man won’t have his hands all over you. He’d be so affectionate it’ll make everyone gag 😂
When he’s seen you’ve had an especially hard day at work, he’d do anything he can to make you smile. Even if he’s had a shitty day himself.
YOU ARE HIS TOP PRIORITY. If you’re not happy, he’s not happy.
Omg when you guys get engaged, he’d be so involved. He’d hate for you to do everything alone.
Newly married Bradley is a horny mf. I’m talking sex EVERYWHERE on EVERYTHING.
After being together for a while he’d find ways to keep you on your toes. (Fun dates, random water gun fights {yes I wrote that scene}, etc.)
Things I think Hangman would love/do:
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I think he’d also like sundresses (simply bc he knows what you’ve got going on under) BUT I really think he’d like you in sweats. Why? BECAUSE YOU CONDITIONED HIM TO THINK YOU HAVE THE FANCY LINGERIE UNDERNEATH {yes, I’ve written it} 
I feel like he would love it that you call him cute pet names but he’d love it even more if you called him by y’all’s last name bc he knows he’s getting in trouble. Hangman is reserved for special occasions 😏
Which leads me to this: HE LOVES BEING DOMMED. There’s something about seeing you boss him around that makes his heart rate go absolutely crazy.
Sex is always a wildcard with him. Mainly because he likes switching it up from role play, to passionate, to getting into an argument with you just to have make up sex 😂 I also feel like he would like period sex. 
Like Bradley, he LOVES PDA. And I mean LOVES it. If there’s a chance he can touch you, he’s taking it. Kisses? Fuck yeah, on your shoulder, hand, lips… wherever he can get them.
I feel like he would be so observant of you. Just like how Bradley tries to make your day better by helping, Jake would absolutely do the same. You just started your period? “Let me get you all your favorite things and a heating pad.” Stuff like that.
Newly married Jake… horn-dog x5. You wanted some personal space? Too bad he’s gonna be in your bubble. He just wants to be near you 24/7
This man is C L I N G Y. He will not leave your side.
Once you’ve been married for a while I feel like he’d be like Bradley, keeping you on your toes, BUT I feel like Jake would love the “old married couple” vibe you two have going on. Like constant playing around (also play fighting) and you flashing him that “imma kill you” look because he know it means you still love him but also gets him horny af 😂
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