#I don't understand why I don't see more content about this on here

[ubeb0nes]

Sevika x fem!bar owner!reader

Pt. 2

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a/n: sorry this took so long lmao. I completely scrapped the first version i wrote of this because it just got too damn long

regardless, we're here now and i hope you enjoy!!

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"So… what is it exactly that you do?"

You'd asked her the question on yet another night where she'd stayed extra late, long after the last patrons had bid you a good night (or very early morning) and all the chairs had gone up.

(Sevika had put them up, even after you'd distinctly told her not to before you went into the kitchen. Your fault, really)

She ponders the question, wondering if you're playing at something more or really just asking. She knows you're smart. It's why she likes you. But she just doesn't know how smart.

"I hurt people, usually," she said casually. If the answer offended you, you displayed the opposite of it.

Your glasses clinking was the only sound to clash with the jukebox, ringing in a gentle sense of understanding on your part.

"A lucrative business here," you say.

"In the long-term. Better be, at least."

For someone who's known as The Lioness of the Lanes, it's a while before you ever see her lion'ing about or whatnot.

She's never violent in your establishment. But you know bad people, you know how to pick up someone's capacity for violence. Sevika has a huge one.

But you understand quickly that there's a reason she's called 'Lioness' and not 'hyena', or something. Her violence is never undue. If she bares her teeth, it's to protect.

Physical altercations aren't at all uncommon in your bar. It's the Undercity after all, these things happen but people always move on from it quickly.

You've noticed that people always seem to... "act right" whenever Sevika's at your bar that night. The meanest-looking men in your bar straighten their posture when she walks by their table, others greeting her with a nod of respect (or submission).

"Wow. I'm glad you like me, at least," you say as she sits down, right in front of you like always.

"Says who?" And she always gives that smug little smile when you laugh in response.

While she's watched/admired you put more than one customer on their ass for trying to cause a scene in your establishment, it's always with a protective posture.

She goes into guard dog mode the moment you cross out from behind the protection of your bar to tell a drunkard off. Her poker buddies poke fun at her for it.

She intervenes before you even get the chance to one time. Perhaps it's because the man keeps drunkenly bumping into her shoulder, or because his boisterous voice keeps causing her head to snap over to him.

You're busy laughing at her expense when the man turns his antics on you. You're perfectly content to brush off whatever rudeness he spouts at you, but Sevika clearly isn't when her hand shoots out and grabs the back of his neck.

He'd called you a dumbass or something of the sort in a more distasteful manner when you'd cut him off. Sevika's eyes had flared with a personal, wrathful anger before she'd grabbed him by the scruff.

"You know better," she snaps. It would be as if she were lecturing a child if it weren't for the man's face pressed against the bar. She's pressing him into the surface with nothing but the strength of her human arm, her large body looming over his as he slurs out an apology.

God, you wished she would grab you like that- who said that??

The next time she comes in, you insist her whiskey's on the house.

"Consider it compensation for dealing with that guy last night." She rolls her eyes at you as she lights her cigarillo on the lighter you offer, and throws a few bills on the bartop anyway (hot).

You throw them back at her with a playful glare, and subsequently earn yourself a real one. You feel a shiver run down your spine that's for any reason but fear.

"Don't play this game with me, you'll lose." To you, that really didn't sound all that bad.

Before you can even think, she's leaning forward and tucking the bills into the pocket of your apron in the middle of your sternum. The look she wears is challenging as she sits back, almost expectant of a reaction.

You don't disappoint, reaching out with two fingers to pluck the cigarillo from her lips and taking your own drag. Your eyes never leave hers, watching her shamelessly stare at that damn cigarillo with a burning jealousy.

"Hm. I picked a good brand, didn't I?" "Yeah, yeah, hand it back before you choke, princess."

You try not to let it get to your head (and heart) how it makes you feel when she calls you that, or any other name like 'baby', 'sweetheart', or 'beautiful'.

And you try not to let it get to your head how you seem to be the only one here who she calls those things.

Neither of you had any idea how hopelessly hers you already were.

While Sevika's "occupation" slowly becomes clearer to you, the amount of energy she puts into protecting you is completely out of sight and mind.

She tries to convince herself that her reasoning for continually lying in Silco's face is purely pragmatic; you're good for the community, providing a warm reprieve for the kids in the city against the harsh reality of Silco's slow revolution. As far as she's concerned, Zaun profits more from your continued thriving than any amount of money she could intimidate out of you.

The idea of ever coming into your bar for collections makes her a little sick, if she's honest. Never you. It's far too late for that now.

So when Silco sends her to do exactly that (because you're just that savvy at running your business), she feels her heart churn. She can only say no to Silco so many times and in so many ways. There's no way around this one without raising his suspicions, and she doesn't have the backing to combat that yet.

Your unfailing smile when you see her comes in makes her want to punch her own face in. She hates that she's fond of you.

"Hey good-lookin', you're late! What kept y-" "I'm here on business this time." "O..oh...?"

She explains Silco's tax with a coldness you've grown unfamiliar with from her. You take it like you would a slap to the face, growing angry before you can risk feeling sad.

"Sevika, what the hell is this? I've minded my damn business ever since I opened, the hell did I do to piss him off?" "It isn't personal, princess. You asked me what I do. I don't think I ever gave you the impression it was pretty." "If I knew petty extortion was what freedom-fighting meant to you, then I would've kept those cigs for myself."

You don't give her much more room to say anything after that before you're throwing a bag of coins at her and telling her to get the fuck out. She expected as much. You were hardy and quick to adapt, just like Zaun.

Sevika's done plenty of things in the name of a better future that she isn't proud of. But your money seemed to burn a hole through her hand, and the sting didn't fade even after she'd dropped it on Silco's desk.

"Good work," he said flippantly, as if she didn't always do good work. Go to hell.

She imagines it's your hand holding her lighter when she smokes through nearly half a pack later that night.

The soft voice of a shelved version of her whispers that maybe just this once, she should fight for something only she wants.

She tries to push away the thought and reason that it was always going to end up this way anyways, while you close down the bar for the night alone.

[defire]

As an abuse survivor, you are just fetishizing child abuse. Plain and simple. Call it a coping mechanism or a power take-back all you want, but it's just an excuse to write porn about child abuse. I pity people like you, truly, I do. I can only pray that you eventually see a therapist about your internalized pedo behavior.

Cw: RANCID ask ⬆️

I'm so glad you brought this up because I don't like to speak for people like you--I'd rather combat these opinions directly.

Since you're praying, I'll feel free to make biblical allusions. (Tw)

First, the word "fetish". My opinion: I don't find fetishes or porn too helpful for processing trauma--it's more like exposure therapy. At some point you do need to actually grieve and process what happened. I don't judge those who do that (you're not hurting anybody♥️), but that's not what Survivor Fiction is for.

When you're judging whether something is bad or good, you can use the "tree by its fruits" concept. Basically, if a tree produces good fruit, it's a good tree. If it produces bad fruit, it's a diseased/bad tree.

So let's look at what Survivor Fiction does for survivors specifically.

It brings healing. I (a new author!) have already received five testimonies that have said how much my writing helped them move through some of their trauma and see things in a different, calmer way.

Survivor Fiction brings peace. A surprising amount of the community--90.5% in a poll involving 1,543 voters--use whump stories to go to sleep at night. (Many trauma survivors have difficulty sleeping from flashbacks. Fiction along the same lines can offer an appropriate sense of distance from the fear.)

It helps disabled people. It appears that a strong majority of our community is autistic. Part of the diagnosis is emotional dysregulation. We need to be walked through how to do things in great detail. Survivor Fiction often walks the reader through the process of trauma, reaction, ptsd, and recovery.

It spreads awareness. Survivor fiction is often more accurate to real-life abusive situations instead of glossing it over--in other words, LYING--about what goes on. This can bring a 3rd party perspective to a current victim too, giving them the understanding that they are being abused and need to escape if possible.

For a more thorough explanation of why fiction about survivors is good and necessary, see this post.

Okay, so would "bad fruit" look like? Do you see any of the following from our community? ↙️

Doing these things in real life

Being generally hurtful of others

Hurting children in real life

Harming emotions by pushing unwanted content to people who would be triggered by it? (Quite the opposite, we tend to post exhaustive content warnings before the content.)

Something else that's actually wrong and not just a thought crime?

And here's the fruit of your words, which I'm sure we all heard the jist of many times before:

You encourage covering up evil. Trying to hide fiction that more accurately describes pain, abuse, and PTSD means hiding the truth. Stifling the exposure of just how evil it is to abuse someone like this. The righteous walk in the light, but the wicked hide their deeds in the darkness.

Your words are shaming. Shame causes pain to fester and act out in harmful ways, such as repeating abuse cycles, self-harm, and dangerous overreactions. Christian ideology here--shame is what caused Adam and Eve to hide from God.

You are lying. You implied that we harm people in real life without any reason to think so. And also implied that we want to be in the aggressor's position. Generally speaking we identify most with the victim.

Referencing Christianity here, if you're christian--Your words condemn the Bible. The bible is full of stories much darker than most of what is written here. You'll read about rape, and the cannibalism of one's own children in Lamentations, among other things.

You're hurting yourself. You will be judged with the measure you judge others with. This is because if you judge others harshly for their thoughts, you'll instinctively judge yourself just as harshly. You end up hurting yourself and others over something that wasn't even doing any harm in the first place.

Causing confusion. What you said was illogical. If it's fiction where the damage occurs, we should be blaming the fictional aggressor--not the writer reporting it. If it's reality where the damage occurs, we should be blaming real criminals--not the journalist. The truth is that writing about survivors isn't generally harmful.

In short, you're creating a lot of problems and not helping. Did this ask come from a loving place?

This answer I'm giving, does.

[skaifayaheda]

The Handmaid's Tale S03e01: Night

[alexiroflife]

how jjk men would react if they found out you sh…

Warning(s): cw//self harm, graphic depictions, mentions of depression, anxiety, sensitive content, angst/comfort

-> if you or anyone you know is struggling with self-harm, suicidal thoughts, depression, etc., know that you aren’t alone. as someone who used to struggle with these things myself, i understand how difficult it can be, but know that you are strong and you are loved. and thank you for the ask, this is a very important topic and i appreciate the vulnerability of the request. sending all the possible love in the world to all of you.

gojo, geto, nanami, toji, choso, sukuna

satoru gojo: satoru has an incredible sense of sight, thanks to his gift of the six eyes, as well as very keen observation skills. he picks up on little habits you harbor very quickly during the beginning of your relationship. you always choose to wear long-sleeved clothing, even when it’s warm, and you tug at your sleeves as though you are desperately trying to conceal a certain part of yourself from the outside world, from him. he doesn’t understand why at first. the thought crosses his mind that you just aren’t comfortable in sleeveless clothing, but you’ve shown him pictures of yourself from a decade ago when you’d wear variations of different tank tops, short sleeves, and more. he doesn’t understand what changed somewhere along the line. perhaps your sense of style has shifted? maybe you don't like your arms? (he can't understand how because he finds them to be the most gorgeous arms he's ever seen).

but no, something is nagging at him in the back of his head, churning the contents of his gut as though there is something he needs to know, to see that you were hiding, and when the moment unveiled itself, he instantly saw. 

you’re in your kitchen while satoru watches you from the other side of the island, leaning over and gazing at your movements with a soft smile. his blue eyes scattered across your body, admiring you while simultaneously searching for any clue, any answer to his hovering questions.

“where’d i put the containers,” you murmur to yourself in the midst of making lunch for the week, moving about your space rather slowly. 

satoru offers his own help, pointing a slender finger over to the space above your head. “did you check that cabinet?” he asks.

you turn over your shoulder and quirk your brow. “oh, do you live here now? suddenly know where everything is?” you ask playfully, a small smile rising to your lips as satoru chuckles. 

“not yet,” he winks. “but i sure am working on it, though. you know i have to make myself familiar with the space in case we share it someday.”

“is that so?”

“or, of that doesn't work out you could always live with me. i’d love to have you.”

“we’ve been together for three weeks, satoru.”

“yeah, but what does that matter when it comes to loveeee,” he pouts and you giggle, shaking your head as you turn back to reach for the cabinet. you stand on your tiptoes and reach out, sleeve of your sweet draping down to your elbow.

satoru is quick to his feet to help you, though you’re more than capable, when he catches the sight of what looks like a scar streaking over the inside of your wrist. his face falls and his brows angle, marching over to you quickly with a look of urgency on his face.

you don’t register how fast he is moving until you feel him behind you. you turn and look up, caught off guard by the way his eyes had hardened and his pupils shrank. your hand stalls on the cabinet handle, the scars on your arm completely slipping your mind momentarily.

“satoru? you okay?”

he doesn’t answer, grasping your wrist in his hand gently and pulling it down from above you. your eyes flicker up to the movement, and when you realize what is happening, your heart sinks. your eyes go wide and you try to tug your arm away, but satoru’s grip tightens slightly, extending your arm by your wrist to display the inside of your forearm before him. 

he thinks his vision is blurring over, his heart ringing in his ears, his breaths quickening as his eyes detail over the row of rigid scars lining from your inner elbow up to your wrist. his world collapses around him, lips stretching into a disbelieving grimace as his wild eyes survey the damage. some of those scars look newer than others, scabbing over with specs of purple, while the others are far older. 

you panic, trying to tug away again, but satoru’s grip on you is too secure. a lump forms in your throat as you search for things to say, anything to say that could take your boyfriend’s attention away, that could excuse the sight before him as something else. “s-satoru, wait-” you stammer, your voice weaker than you had intended it to be. 

satoru looks like he can’t hear you, nose flaring as he stares, and stares, and stares, and suddenly, your vulnerability is bare naked before him, on display for him to judge, to belittle, to curl his brows at and determine as pathetic and weak. you can feel yourself about to cry already, shaken by this sudden attention.

“satoru,” you whisper, arm trembling within his grasp.

“what is this?” he breathes out so quietly, his voice betraying himself and hardly reaching over a brush through the wind. when you do not answer, those pained eyes are on you, tormented by the sight he has just witnessed. “(y/n), what is this?”

you feel small, avoiding his eyes and looking all over the floor. “i- it’s nothing,” you murmur.

“nothing?” he repeats, as though he has been burned by your response. the white haired man quickly seeks out your other wrist, reaching down to your other side as you try to turn away, but he, of course, manages to seize it and extend it like your other arm and roll up that sleeve. the same row of scars litter your beautiful skin.

satoru’s a mess, frightened, confused, devastated. this is what you had been hiding from him all this time? “this isn’t fucking nothing, (y/n), they’re all over you! what did you do?”

you still can’t respond, you can’t muster up an excuse, you can’t do anything. satoru’s concern is far too overbearing, his gaze too intense, and his hold on you too secure. it feels like he has you laid out on a slab before him, stripped of your clothes as he examines your body with contempt.

he’s disgusted. he’s ashamed, you think. 

amid his grief, he catches the terrified look in your eye, your lips tugged downward as if to prevent yourself from crying. you look so scared.

how could he have not seen this sooner, that you’re hurting? that you’re hurting yourself? 

“baby, what did you do?” he repeats, softer this time as he leans down to look at you, your body trembling in his hold. his thumbs graze your inflamed skin, hesitant to touch you for fear that you may break.

“please don’t,” you breathe out in a huff, voice wobbling as you scrunch your eyes closed. “please, don’t look. just forget you saw it, please.”

“forget i-?” satoru has to stop himself from lashing out poorly, from allowing his emotions to overcome him in what he understands is clearly your moment of need. “how could you ask me to do something like that? (y/n), your arms, baby!”

“satoru, please-” you shake your head. you want to shrink away, to hide, to vanish into thin air. “i don’t wanna talk about it. please.”

“(y/n),” he exhales, closing his eyes to gather himself. “(y/n),” he repeats softly, hands releasing your wrists slowly and sliding up your arms to delicately hold your shoulders. “we can’t not talk about this. you have to tell me what’s been going on. you have to, baby, you have to understand how scared I am right now. help me understand. let me help you, let me take on whatever burden you’re carrying, please, I’ll do anything as long as it means you’re not hurting yourself.”

his hands move to your neck, cupping over the skin as he ducks his head down to look at you more clearly. 

“i can’t stand the thought that you’ve been- and i haven’t-” satoru was stumbling now, throat straining as the urge to cry rose. “why didn’t you come to me? i’m right here for you, (y/n), i always have been. why didn’t you tell me?”

“...it’s embarrassing,” you manage to say, your voice fragile, on the verge of breaking. you can feel your boyfriend’s eyes peering into you even with your own eyes closed. “didn’t want you to see… I didn’t wanna be a burden.”

satoru’s heart is breaking for you, hurt that you could even think of yourself as a burden to him. “have i- have i done or said anything to you to make you feel that way?” he asks genuinely, and you cringe, turning your head to the side to open your eyes.

“no, of course not.”

“then why would you think that, baby?”

you shrug helplessly, tears welling into your eyes. satoru sees you, all of you, his heart thrumming to capture the pain you feel and to lift it from your chest, to help you breathe even just a little bit. he releases a weighted sigh, one of sadness, of love, of heartache for you, and he’s pulling you into him as your arms dangle limply at your sides. 

you scrunch your eyes and immediately break down into him, sobbing into his shirt as his warm hands wash over your frame and cradle your head to him, the muscles in his face tight with anguish. he holds onto you like he’s horrified that you will fade away within his arms. 

“i’m just so tired, toru,” you cry into his chest, dampening the fabric of his shirt. “i’m sorry.”

satoru doesn’t respond, afraid that if he speaks, he’ll end up crying too. you’re his girl, his beautiful, loving girl, and the fact that you have done such harm to yourself is incomprehensible to him. if you love him so, how can you hate yourself enough to have done this?

“how long?” is all he can ask you, breath heaving into your hair and ear. you hesitate, for he already seems so wounded by his discovery. “tell me.”

“...two years…”

he’s crushed. how did he not see sooner? how could he have been so blind after having bragged about being able to see everything so clearly? how could he have left you like this?

he holds you tighter, digging his head into the crook of your neck and hunching over, your eyes now seeing over the curve of his broad shoulder. 

“i’m sorry, baby,” he apologizes to you in turn, fingers curling into your hair as he holds your scalp. “i'm sorry I wasn’t paying attention.”

you’re confused as to why he’s apologizing to you since the entire thing is your fault. satoru has a tendency to take on your emotions, piling them onto his own weight of carrying the title of the strongest. you never understood why he did so naturally and willingly, and why even now as you stood limply in his arms, he’s crying for the things you did to yourself.

he pulls away with shiny red eyes, gazing down into your shiny red eyes and tear stained cheeks. you’re so beautiful, he thinks. he hates that such beauty has been suffering in so much silence.

“(y/n), I love you more than anything in this goddamn world. please don’t- don’t keep doing this to yourself. if you’re hurting, come to me. hurt me if you have to lash out, but don’t hurt yourself beautiful.”

“i would never even think of hurting you, satoru.”

“then don’t think of doing it to yourself,” he says firmly, and you press your lips together. 

“…i-i don’t know how to… to stop,” you mumble, and he’s taking your hands in his and kissing them gently.

“i’ll help you. we can get you help, baby, I promise. just promise me, please,” he begs you, holding your hands close to his heart. “you come to me when you feel like doing that, okay? you come to me. and I’ll do whatever I can. let me help you. let me be there for you. i won’t let you push me out, (y/n).”

you're crying again, tears streaking over your face as satoru’s love captures you within his words, within his warmth as he forces you to understand that you are not alone, and never will be. 

satoru kisses your hands again. his lips reach your cheek, and his hand comes to tuck your head into his shoulder again, holding you and telling you that you have him to go to when your world grows dark.

geto suguru: if suguru could sum you up into one word, he would say that you're his universe.

everything in his life he does for the sake of you and his girls, for the sake of keeping you safe and making you happy. your happiness and your comfortability are the only things that suguru prioritizes above all else, making them his very goal to serve each and every day.

suguru's not the most stable, you know that and he knows that himself. he has his off days, where he falls quiet and the world around him numbs itself and the noise becomes a muffle in his ears until you step into view, giving him a smile and wrapping his big frame up in your small arms, your voice whispering to him and breaking through the fog. you're his sanctuary. you're his safe place, and he loves you so much. he owes his entire life to you, therefore ensuring that you feel just as loved as you make him feel is very important to him.

so when he catches sight of the scars on your stomach one day by accident, when you lift up mimiko to sit on your shoulder as nanako jumps up for you to pick her up to, and her shoe kicks up your shirt from your waist momentarily, suguru freezes.

are you hurt? did someone do this to you? did you do this to yourself?

countless thoughts are racing through suguru's mind as he stares at you in a daze, watching you laugh so joyfully along with the girls as though no trouble plagues you.

but there is. you've just been hiding it. hiding it far too well.

his mind is elsewhere for the rest of the day, unsure of if he had been imagining things or not. he knows you so well, or at least he thinks he does. how have you been hiding those marks littering your lower abdomen? how had he missed them?

he thinks back to the moments you two were intimate and recalls that you never wanted to remove the tanktop you wore or let him kiss further than your ribs. he recalls the days you all went to the beach and you kept a white shirt over your swimsuit or elected to wear a onepiece. he recalls how quickly you change when he's with you, your back turned to him as you rush to throw something on over your upper body.

the signs... they're all there. you've been hiding yourself from him, but why? what have you been doing? have you truly been harming yourself, or is that thought a trick of suguru's worst fears?

he tries to keep himself calm around you and the girls for the remainder of the day until they are put to sleep and the two of you are alone again.

you sit on the edge of your shared bed, rubbing lotion over your arms with your back facing suguru again. he watches you carefully, back resting against the headboards and hazel eyes trained on your figure as though you aren't real.

he waits for the proper moment, waiting for you to crawl up and curl under his side, his arm subconsciously wrapping over your waist as your head lays on his chest. he stares at the ceiling for a moment, thinking as weighty silence overcomes you, then he's cautiously speaking.

"(y/n)?"

the soft call of your name brings your head up to peer at him curiously, blinking innocently. he turns down to look at your face and his heart clenches. while he knows that he knows what he saw, he doesn't want to believe it. he doesn't want to think that you, such a selfless and caring person for him, would hurt yourself.

you hum up at him, wondering what he has called you for. you see the pensive look in his face, the subtle knit in his brow as he stares at you, gears in his head turning. "yeah sugu?" you say gently.

he doesn't want to ask, but he has to. he doesn't want the confirmation, but he needs to know.

"i want to ask you a question..." he says, and you grow slightly befuddled.

"...okay?" you start. "is it serious?"

"yeah, it is," he admits, and you suddenly grow nervous, immediately catching an idea of what this could be about. you don't like the look on his face, the way he appears so serious.

"...alright," you mumble, suddenly meek.

the black haired man stares for a few more moments, just looking at you, taking in your the features he feel so deeply in love with, the features that bring him comfort and peace. "i saw something earlier, when you were holding mimiko," he begins softly, thumb caressing your back to ease you into the conversation.

you feel your heart jolt anxiously, trying to keep a straight face so as to not give your nerves away, but knowing suguru, he could likely already tell that you're getting antsy.

you lift your head to look at him, hand resting over his chest, and his eyes follow you smoothly. his eyes are focused, lips in a firm line.

"your shirt lifted, and i saw your stomach. i saw some marks. a lot of them, actually," he says, and you still completely, like a deer caught in headlights. his hand presses gently into your back, trying to keep you present with him as his concerns grow worse when he sees you stiffen against him. he frowns, denial still taking hold of him. "(y/n), please tell me those aren't what i think they are," he sighs heavily.

you feel caught.

you knew that suguru would find out at some point or another, but that didn't make this moment any less horrifying for you. it's so quiet in your room, so isolating, no background noise of the girls giggling or the distant buzz of the tv to help weaken the intensity of this point in time. you feel like a spotlight is shining overhead, an audience awaiting eagerly for you to reveal your secrets to the crowd.

suguru sits up slightly, his calmness gradually shifting into terrified incredulity. your eyes are on his face but your gaze is elsewhere, far off. you look uncomfortable, stuck, and no explanation hits suguru's ears.

"(y/n)," he says your name again, looking desperately down at you. "tell me i'm wrong."

you wish you could, you really do, but you can't lie to suguru. he knows you too well, he loves you too much, and to lie to him would be like denying his understanding of who you are.

you feel your skin flush with shame and anxiety, heartbeat likely loud enough for your boyfriend to hear.

you worry. you worry about your boyfriend's judgment, for his reaction. is he going to be angry with you?

"hey," he snaps you out of your daze with the drag of your chin, forcing you to meet his eyes as he stares at you helplessly. you look at him and frown, ashamed that you are the reason he looks so pained. "what's going on?"

the question comes out so delicately, it makes your heart break. a whisp of understanding blends into his tone with empathy, yet a crushing sense of sadness and guilt that overpowers the aforementioned emotions. you struggle to look him in his kind eyes, dreading his consolation that you feel you don't deserve.

"talk to me, (y/n)."

you chew angrily on the inside of your lip, looking down at your finger as you pick at his shirt. he watches your brows furl, an array of different feelings capturing your features. "i was gonna tell you about it..." you murmur, and suguru is floored.

"what?" he breathes out as though he has no more air. you wince, lowering your head. "you-" he pauses, mind jumping from one place to another. "you did that to yourself?"

"i'm sorry, i-" you can feel your throat growing tight. "i've been trying to-"

"to stop?" he tries to finish for you, grasping for any kind of explanation. he's devastated, not only because you've been harming yourself, but because you've been so busy looking after him and the girls that he hasn't noticed. you're the one who always comforts him, but while you've been doing that, you've been aching on the inside and trying to hide it.

you nod meekly when he concludes for you. "i just- i thought the feelings would go away, so i didn't say anything, but they're just getting worse and i don't know what to do anymore and i only feel better after i..."

"(y/n)," he stops you gently, his heart shattering upon listening to you ramble, spilling out the things you have been holding onto for what he assumes to have been so long. "you've been dealing with this all this time?"

"...it's on and off," you confess. "some days are better than others, but..."

suguru finds your words familiar, for he often finds himself in the exact same mindset; feeling functional and confident some days, and others, not so much, but you're the reason why he's able to handle his bad days, yet he hasn't been the same for you for as long as the two of you have been together.

he feels almost sick. he loves you to death. you're his everything, but you've been in pain, and he hasn't seen it.

the way he's looking at you now makes you feel guilty, remorseful, embarrassed. you know you should have told him, but you could never find the strength to. you had always been too scared. and the longer you self-harm, the less you are willing to admit to yourself and to your boyfriend that you have a problem.

you're shocked, though, when suguru's hands tighten over you and his face grows bitter, not with you but with himself. "how could i have been so stupid?" he grumbles, distraught. "and so selfish? all this time, you-"

"no, suguru, please, it's not your fault," you try to tell him.

"i should have seen, baby, i should have noticed something sooner. and all this time, instead you've been looking after me when i should have been looking after you."

"don't say that, suguru," you shift, looking sadly into his eyes. "it's my fault. i'm the one who did this, i'm the one who's to blame. i'm the stupid and selfish one, not you."

suguru's frown deepens, sad eyes looking over your face. you blame and belittle yourself just as easily as suguru does, and he can't stand it. he can't stand to see you like this, to be so aware of hurt before him. he wants, no, he needs to take all that pain away from you. he needs to exorcize it, rid your body of it, cast it away so that you can be happy from now until the rest of time. he needs you to be okay.

"i swear on my life, (y/n)," he begins firmly, eyes boring straight into yours, holding your cheek. "i will do everything in my power to get you through this. whatever it takes, no matter how long it takes, i will be here for you. you're not alone, you understand? you don't need to pretend for me. the girls love you- god i love you so fucking much, and i can't stomach to think of the times you've suffered in silence for my sake. i'm no good if you're no good, baby. i need to know these things, i need to be able to help you."

your nose twitches and your jaw clenches as you look into him, breathing growing unstable. suguru has always been so generous and so loving. he has a way with his words and how safe they make you feel even during your worst moments.

"but what if i can't do it, sugu?" you whisper, his thumb catching the tear that leaks from the corner of your eye. "what if i'm not strong enough to get better?"

"you are strong enough," he affirms confidently. "more than strong enough. and when you feel weak, lean on me. but you have to promise me something."

you nod slowly, mutely, keeping his gaze as he stares at you lovingly, wistfully.

"promise me you won't do it," his words come out as a quick, hasty breath. his brows curl further upward, his desperation plain on his pretty face. "promise me you'll let me know as soon as you want to, but don't hurt yourself again, (y/n). don't do it. i'm begging you. you don't deserve that pain."

though you are unsure if you can even make that promise to yourself, you force yourself to try. for suguru's sake. "okay," you mumble, and he sighs, kissing you softly and pulling you to his chest to whisper sweet nothings as his hands soothe over your stomach and your back.

nanami kento: you twist your fingers around each other as you sit in the living room while kento cooks in the kitchen. you're nervous, more nervous than you have been about anything in your entire life, but you know that you need to rip off this bandaid to approach your boyfriend about such a serious matter.

recently, you find yourself returning to the old habit that you believed to have been relinquished. you thought that you had gotten better, that the urge to self harm had completely gone away after having spent so much time in therapy trying to heal, but recently, you've been feeling down again, useless, angry with yourself. you didn't want to tell nanami at first because you didn't think that your current mood would go beyond feeling depressed, but now that you've started scratching away at your thighs and your arms again, you know that you need to let him know what's going on. you know that you can't go on like this anymore.

but you have no idea what to say.

nanami has been nothing but doting toward you, bringing you flowers every morning, making your meals, ensuring that you remember to schedule doctor's appointments or to keep yourself warm when it's cold out- the man's life revolves around your comfortability, and while you know he would be far more offended if you keep this to yourself, you're horrified to see his reaction when you tell him that you relapsed.

nanami is well aware of your past difficulties with your mental health, and he always tells you that if you are ever in a dark space again, he needs to know. even so, he hasn't been with you when you're like this. the two of you got together after the multiple therapy visits that helped you to shift mindsets, so now that you feel this way again, and while in a relationship with nanami no less, you feel petrified.

you don't even notice when he rounds the kitchen counter to make his way over to the dining table, setting down two plates of food. he looks over and catches the way you stare ahead blankly, lost in thought. you've been doing a lot of that lately and he wonders if something is wrong.

nevertheless, he knows that if something is bothering you, you'll tell him. "sweetheart, dinner's ready," he calls out, and you snap your head over to him, his voice bringing you out of your daze.

you stand wordlessly, movements somewhat robotic, as you slowly make your way over to the table. "thanks, ken," you say softly, lacking your usual energy, and at this point, your partner knows for certain that something is off.

he watches you carefully as you sit down, pushing in your seat for you and pecking your forehead before sitting down next to you. "tell me how your day was," he starts, brushing off his hands and reaching one out to rest one on your knee as he always did at the table. he's prying, you can tell, trying to learn if something that happened throughout the day affected your mood.

your heart is hammering loudly, your eyes stuck to the plate and unable to look up at him. "it was okay," you respond.

"just okay?" he questions and you nod slowly. "did something happen?"

you flicker your eyes up to his brown ones suddenly, caught off guard by the question. he sees the questioning in your eyes and replies accordingly.

"you seem to be a little off, this evening, that's all."

you hum, unsure of how to respond to his observation. you look away again, contemplating. just say it, you think. just tell him, just get it over with.

as you struggle against yourself, nanami only grows more concerned. you don't confirm or deny his comment, and the way you turn away has him wondering if he's done something to hurt you.

"did i do something wrong, darling?" he asks.

you furrow your brows and quickly shut down the idea. "no, no. not at all, ken. it's nothing you did."

"then... there is something troubling you?"

you stall a bit more now that you're on the spot, cursing the fact that kento is always so quick to pick up on the smallest changes in your demeanor.

"(y/n)?" he calls you when you don't answer.

"i have to tell you something," you say abruptly. you see nanami's brows raise ever so slightly, soft brown eyes looking over your face in an attempt to read the situation before you tell him anything. "it's... a lot. so i need you to just... bear with me. and please don't be mad."

nanami's brow twitches slightly as he looks at you, head tilting. he grabs the bottom of his chair and shuffles it closer to you, leaning over slightly and running his hand over where it resides on your knee.

"i could never be mad at you," he tells you earnestly, as though it's the most honest thing he's said in the world. "what's the matter, my love?"

god, he's so sweet to you it makes you physically ill that you have to break this news to him.

"...do you remember when we talked about... um..." your voice fades off, nanami's concentrated gaze only making you more nervous for what his reaction will be.

"take your time," he encourages you, and you only feel worse.

you return to chewing on the inside of your lip anxiously, picking at your shirt under the table. the blonde man beside you is ever so patient, allowing you to gather your thoughts before you verbalize them.

"...um...it's.... about what we talked about a while ago..."

"...and that would be regarding?"

"my... past."

nanami furrows his brows, still not quite understanding. "i apologize, honey, what about your past?"

just rip the bandaid. just rip the bandaid.

"my past with self-harming," you rush out, and the weighty silence that follows is enough to make you want to sink into the floor and let it swallow you whole.

you can feel his eyes burning into you, processing what you just told him, and all you can hear is the pound of your heart in your ears as his hand stills upon your knee.

nanami, on the other hand, is completely shocked by your revelation. while he understands that your relapsing has always been a very realistic possibility, he never wanted to entertain the idea that it could very much so happen- at least, not while he's around.

a sense of fear grips him. are you going to tell him that you relapsed? have you already hurt yourself? has he failed to be there when it happened??

"did you-" he doesn't know what he wants to ask, or how. he hates that he is already jumping to conclusions, but the way you are structuring this conversation with him only leads him to believe the worst. "what happened?"

your head hangs low and your fingers taut on your shirt, lips tightening as they press together. you can hear the disbelief in his voice already, and it breaks you.

"i relapsed."

the brown-eyed man clenches his jaw, falling completely silent once more to not react in a way that may worsen your state. you feel his hand tighten into a fist over top of your leg as he lowers his head, rubbing his eyes with his fingers and inhaling sharply. you feel like a child who is awaiting punishment as you look at his hunched state, a million questions of what he will do next running through your mind.

you hate to do this to him. nanami already has so much on his plate, you know this is the last thing he needs to be stressing over. you wish you could be okay for him. it's not his fault that your mind takes you to these places, and you don't want him to bear responsibility as though it is his doing. even so, you already know that he will because that's the type of man kento is. that's the type of boyfriend kento is.

you wait a few more moments in unbearable muteness. after what feels like forever, kento lifts his head again and rests his chin on his fist, elbow propped on his knee. he's looking to the side, deep in anguished thought. he no longer looks surprised, but rather guilty and frustrated. "when?" is the first thing he asks.

"yesterday," you answer dejectedly, and he almost jerks, his body twitching in reaction. "...are you mad?"

nanami looks at you and his hardened expression immediately softens into something melancholy. "no- no, of course not, (y/n), no," he shakes his head as if the notion is unfathomable, releasing his fist to cup your knee again more securely. "i will never be angry with you for what you're going through. never. no, i'm not mad."

you nod quickly, a meek sense of relief and sorrow taking over you, a weight heaving from your chest upon letting it out. "okay," you whimper.

"come here, my darling," he coaxes you softly, opening and grabbing your hand from under the table delicately to lead you to stand over him. his hand guides over the small of you're back once you're up, leading you to sit on his lap with your back pressed against the table and your legs dangling over one side of his chair.

he holds your forearms gently, looking up at you with sad, understanding eyes. "are you comfortable showing me?" he murmurs so intimately, easing you into his warm consolation.

you don't nod or answer him verbally. instead, you wordlessly roll up the sleeve of your sweater to reveal angry red scratch lines running up your inner forearm. nanami's lips curl in pain as though he can feel the sting of your scars, holding your arm gently for him to look over it.

the sight kills him, though he tries to keep his cool. this isn't about him, it's about you, but goodness, the image of the scars on your beautiful skin makes him hurt like no other pain he's experienced.

"is this all of it?" he asks you, and you shake your head.

"there's some on my thighs," you mutter, looking down.

he nods. "alright," he sighs. "alright."

"...i know you have so much on your plate already... i just-"

"don't. don't even," he stops you, eyes still roaming over your irritated skin. nanami usually commends himself for remaining collected in times of crisis, but he's desperately fighting a part of him that wants to yell out and cry for the sake of you.

he imagines you struggling with this on your own, long before he came into your life, and the thought makes him cringe to picture just how far this must have gotten. these scratches he is surveying now already look bad enough. were the other ones worse?

"(y/n), you know this isn't okay," he looks up at your face and sees how you are avoiding his eyes. you look so small compared to how you usually carry yourself, and it kills him. "to harm yourself like this... you can't treat yourself this way, darling, you know you can't."

"i know," you mumble. "i just had a moment, and now i'm scared that- that i'll go back to how things were."

"as long as i'm with you, you won't. i promise you that," nanami swears. "it was just this one time since you last?"

you nod. "yeah..."

"okay," he nods once more, convincing himself that this is something he can help stop before it gets any more out of hand. "why'd you do it this time, my love? what were you thinking that led you here? is there something i can do differently? is it work? is it a combination of things?"

"i wish it were that easy to explain, kento," you frown, glancing up at him helplessly. "but it's just... it's just a feeling i can't put into words. i can't pinpoint the source. i just... one minute i felt like i couldn't breathe, and the next i was..."

"okay," he repeats, letting you know that you no longer need to say anything more. you don't have to revisit it. he understands. he will take care of it. he'll help you. "okay, darling. how about this. i call off of work tomorrow and we can sit and talk about seeing a new therapist. then we can go out and do whatever you want. just for fun. does that sound okay with you?"

your nose flares and your lips tug to the side as you nod, truly not comprehending how you managed to find a man so patient with you. "yeah, that's good," you say softly, and nanami is at least relieved that you are willing to take further steps into a better direction.

"good," he whispers, rolling the sleeve of your sweater back down so that you no longer feel exposed or feel like you have to think any more about the things you did to yourself when you felt alone. "it's alright, my love. we'll get through it. you'll get past this just like you did last time," he encourages you, moving to caress your shoulder lovingly as you hold his gaze. "it's okay," he tells you again, and you nod weakly, leaning over to plop your head against his shoulder.

nanami holds you to him and exhales, food completely forgotten. his only priority now is to be there for you in the ways he could not before the two of you met.

"thank you for telling me."

choso kamo: choso worships the ground you walk on because he can not fathom a world without, nor the fact that you happened to stumble into his life on a whim. to imagine you hurt is the very worst thing that the man can think of, and the notion that you would hurt yourself is beyond his comprehension.

you aren't actively trying to hide any of your scars when he finds them. the scars are old, faded reminders of the pain that you used to endure and how you attempted to cope with it. while you are now six months free of self harming, the scars remain very present.

choso happens to catch sight of your scars when you are getting changed. he's sitting at the edge of your bed, face flushed, as he watches you blissfully change out of your pajamas and into clothes that you feel are best suited for a walk to the ice cream shop that choso has proposed. it's a bright sunday afternoon, and the brunette is eager to take advantage of the weather with the woman he holds close to his heart as well as his baby brother, who the two of you intend to meet at the store.

you're now dressed in nothing but a large white shirt and underwear, your legs bare as you strut around the space freely. choso's jade eyes follow you as you walk, completely obsessed with the way you move. he could watch you do the most mundane things for hours, which he truthfully tends to do anyway.

your back is to him before you round the bed, disappearing into the bathroom momentarily before coming back into the living room. choso's eyes still don't leave you, tracing over your face down your figure and finally to the front of your bare legs.

he falters, and his brows draw together when he catches dark marks littering over your inner thighs, only revealing themselves with the movement of your limbs as you walk.

the pale-skinned man grows confused and slightly concerned. he's never seen those marks on you before, and simultaneously, never on anyone else he knows either. he finds them to be a strange form of battle scars, especially due to the placement, the small size, and the sheer number of them. some of them take different shapes too, blurring together or over each other, while some stand out alone. they almost look like burns, but it's hard for choso to really tell.

you proceed about your business, searching through your drawer to pull out a skirt, when choso speaks up.

"love? what are those?" he asks curiously, perplexed.

you turn over your shoulder, shutting your drawer closed with your foot. "hm? what's what, cho?" you ask him, unsure of what he's referring.

choso, still slightly flustered by the vision of your half exposed body, nods his head into the direction of your lower legs. "those," he says again, and you look down, still lost.

you lift your foot momentarily, checking to see if something is stuck under or on top of it. you then survey the rest of your body, searching for something out of the ordinary. "uhhh," you trail off. "i'm not sure what you mean, baby. you're talking about my legs?"

you are far too desensitized to and familiar with the image of your scars to process that choso has never seen them before. the brunette, however, is unsatisfied, wanting an answer that you have yet to provide.

he leans forward, lifting his hand and pointing his finger directly to a patch of dark spots peeking out from your inner thighs. you follow his gaze, eyes landing on the culprits, and your shoulders drop in realization. "oh," you say shortly, choso retracting his hand.

he looks at you innocently, awaiting a response while you try to figure out how to explain this sight to him.

you don't want to worry him, but knowing choso, if you lead with the fact that these scars are there because you inflicted them onto yourself, he would have a heart attack, failing to find reason to your words.

even so, you know choso only wants to understand you as much as you desire to understand him. he wants to see the ugly parts as well as the beautiful parts of you that he is so drawn to, and if you hide it from him, that would only create a rift in your budding relationship that you aren't entirely too keen on creating.

you want him to know you, all of you, and these scars are as much of a part of you as the bones in your body and the blood pumping through your skin.

they're a sign of what you've been through, what you've overcome, and who you are now. they're important, and choso should know why they are there.

"that's a good question," you sigh, putting your skirt on the bed as you move to sit next to him at the edge of it. choso immediately turns to you, glancing over the marks shamelessly now that he has a better view of them.

"did someone do that to you?" is the first thought that crosses his mind, red drifting into his vision at the mere idea that someone has hurt you in such an intimate way.

"...no," you shake your head, lifting one leg up onto the bed, brushing his own, as the other dangles. "i put them there. a while ago," you explain honestly.

choso scrunches his brows tighter, eyes flickering up to your face then back down to try to identify what exactly the marks are. "what are they?" he repeats.

you exhale, puckering your lips as you prepare yourself for this difficult conversation. "they're burns, cho. from a match," you tell him.

now, the half-curse is incredibly confused. burn marks? on your lovely skin? in a place where only you could reach? put there by yourself?

you burned yourself?

"i don't understand," he frowns, shifting to face you better. "why would you..."

"i used to be in a really bad place, baby," you purse your lips, watching as his face contorts with consternation as he comes to understand that you purposefully harmed yourself.

"what do you mean? bad enough to do this to yourself?" he sounds mortified, his voice growing ragged the moment his tone picks up volume.

his pupils, moments ago blown pools of affection, are now shrunken dots of shock.

"don't look at me like that," you beg him, placing your hand over his own. his eyes snap to the sudden contact, then back to you with concern. "sometimes, when certain people are suffering from depression, or anxiety, or just overall bad thoughts and they feel like they have to... break out, or maybe punish themselves in a sense... they resort to hurting themselves."

choso gulps, lump forming in his throat as he listens to you with shaking eyes. "and that's what you did? you felt like you needed to punish yourself?"

"it's hard to explain to someone on the outside. i know it sounds... crazy, but it was the only way i knew how to cope with everything that i was dealing with."

"why didn't you come to me instead?" he immediately asks and you give him a sad, knowing look.

"because, we didn't know each other then, cho?"

"i don't care," he shakes his head, eyes keeping yours. "you should have found me."

the idea brings a hint of a smile to your lips, choso's sweetness warming your heart. "i didn't know who you were, baby, that would have been like begging a stranger for help."

"so?" he scoffs. "i loved you the moment i met you. it wouldn't have made any difference to me.

you sigh again, bringing your other hand to rest over top of your boyfriend's as you smile softly at him in an attempt to get him to calm down.

the panic is still written all over his face as he takes in your smile, the vision somehow only making him sadder. you're so gorgeous, inside and out, and that smile is only scratching the surface of your unending beauty.

to know now that your radiance was once outweighed by the torment in your mind encouraging you to harm yourself... well, it makes choso want to ball his eyes out. it makes him want to confront the physical manifestation of your past traumas and pummel it into the ground, bashing its head in for all the hurt that it has caused you.

"i ended up just fine, cho," you reassure him.

"why didn't you say anything before? were you trying to keep it from me?"

"no, baby, i just didn't think to tell you. i kinda forgot about them," you say, and that comment alone makes choso soften his features slightly.

"you forgot..." he recites your words. "does that mean you're better now?"

you hum in affirmation, smiling warmly. "it's been a while since i've hurt myself or done anything like that. i got through it. i'm okay now, these scars are just a permanent reminder of the past."

his frame sags slightly with relief, brows lifting as he looks over you with a blank expression. "i think i understand," he mumbles, looking back down at the marks. "i'm sorry you ever had to go through any of that."

"it's not your fault. you weren't there."

"i wish i had been. so i could have helped more. i know you said you're better, but maybe if i had been there i could've stopped you from hurting yourself at all."

"i wouldn't put that responsibility onto yourself, cho. it was my responsibility."

"still," his brows arch slightly. "i would have stuck with you every second of every day to make sure that you never had a second alone to do any of it. i wouldn't have let you, and i won't let you now." a thought seems to pop into his head when he finishes his last sentence. "you wouldn't go back to trying to hurt yourself, (y/n), would you?

you exhale. "i mean, i'd like to think i wouldn't, but sometimes these things aren't linear," you admit. "i just know that for now, i'm okay."

"the second you're not, though, you'd tell me?"

"yes. i would."

"you promise?"

"i promise, baby."

"okay," he sighs. "because i don't think i'd be able to function knowing you're upset."

the brown haired man leans over, carefully holding your thigh as he looks over your marks again, no longer flustered by your bare skin but entirely focused on the severity of your burns. you look down at him, hands slipping from his own as he surveys you closely like he's a doctor.

"they don't hurt anymore, do they?"

"nope. just scarred."

choso looks at you for a bit longer in silence before looking back up at you from his hunched state. "can i kiss them?"

you laugh softly, hand falling into his hair at you gaze at him with your heart aglow. "you want to kiss them?"

he nods. "so they can feel loved."

you coo, thumb smoothing over his temple as his eyes swell with adoration right before you. "of course you can."

toji fushiguro: toji is absolutely no stranger to scars. he's a human man with no cursed energy, having had his fair share of close calls on risky jobs that have left him with slashes over his calves, small pierces in his flesh, and cracked callouses. then, of course, there's the scar on his mouth bestowed upon him by his oh-so-loving family, which will be stuck with for the rest of his life.

scars follow toji like moths follow a flame, and he's numb to it. he believes that they are a part of life, both physically and mentally, especially with the kind of life that he leads. whether the wound is a large one or a small one he can barely see, he accepts scars as a part of who he is-

who he is.

while toji likes to parade around with a hardened exterior decorated with faded, scabbing wounds, that is something he deems fit for him and him only. he doesn't care what other people do with their lives as long as they leave him the hell out of it, but for the love of all the money that he has acquired over the years slaughtering sorcerers, he will be damned if he finds a single, tiny little scratch on your body.

scars are for toji, not for you, his darling little girlfriend and the day he finds out someone has hurt you enough to leave behind a mark is the day he's putting several bullets into the culprit's head.

toji's worst fear, though he hardly discusses it, is losing you and watching you get hurt. god, he practically lives to protect you, and to feel as though he has failed to do so would wound him detrimentally. he's a tough guy, but you make him so soft, and admittedly he wouldn't want to be soft for anyone but you. you're his rock, his little hot head, and he loves you more than life itself.

if you're hurt, he will lose it.

therefore, when he finds out that you're self-harming? oh, he's on the verge of losing his fucking mind.

he does a double-take when you step out of his room and into the kitchen with a towel wrapped around your body, his eyes widening and his brows arching immediately.

now, toji knows your body inside and out. he's explored every inch, he knows every crook, every crevice, every mark, every texture, and he has never once in the six months you have been together seen the red lines over your inner wrist.

he watches you with twisted lips as you grab an orange from the counter before walking back into his direction. you're almost back into the room when toji calls you.

"uh uh," he stops you, and you pause, turning over your shoulder and purposefully moving your left wrist to press into your towel.

"what?"

"come here," he orders and you give him a strange look.

"why?"

"i wanna see somethin'. come here."

you're quick to snap back easily with your own sarcastic retort, clearly in a foul mood over something. "if you want to fuck, can you wait until i'm fully dried off and after i finish this?' you hold up the orange in your other hand, a perturbed look on your face.

"i don't want to fuck, (y/n), i want you to come here."

toji's voice comes out sternly, and on the verge of anger. you survey his posture, his arms leaning over his legs as he cranes to look at you with a suspicious, firm expression. you can tell that he's serious, and a sudden sense of fear overtakes you that you mask with annoyance.

you don't say a word when you slowly walk up to him, crossing your arms over your chest to conceal your wrist, the hand holding the orange tucked under your elbow.

"what is it?"

toji holds out his palm. "give it."

"...my orange?"

"put it in my hand."

you huff, carefully maneuvering your arm around to keep your inner wrist pointed toward your body as you bring forward the orange and plop it aggressively into his hand. toji watches your other arm the entire time, taking clear note of how you refuse to let your wrist show, and you know you're fucked.

the green-eyed man tosses the orange to the side of the couch and holds out his large palm again, eying you intensely. you look down at him with a frustrated frown, shrugging. "i don't have anymore oranges."

"don't be cute, doll."

"what? do you want my hand?"

"you know i want your hand."

you roll your eyes, raising the hand you had held your orange with when he stops you. "not that one. the other one."

your heart pangs, shaking your entire body as he looks to you expectantly. how the fuck had he managed to notice the scar on your wrist so quickly?

the moment you hesitate, he knows that what he saw earlier is something to be concerned about. you normally never hide yourself from toji, and the way you go about hiding your arm now is defensive enough to raise several brows. he knows you're not dumb, too. he knows that you know exactly what he wants to see.

"(y/n)." he cocks a brow, the severity of his demeanor only making you more uneasy.

he can't see. he can't see what you've just done. he'll hate you. he'll look at you like you're crazy.

"what if i don't want to give you my hand?"

"then i'll just grab it for you, and i don't think either of us wants to go there."

you release a trembling, aggravated breath. you can't get away with anything when toji's around, and while you ponder having chosen to get an orange later, you know deep down somewhere you wanted toji to see. you wanted him to help you, which is why you walked out of that bathroom half an hour after having put those scars on your arm.

"hand, now."

you turn your eyes away with a grunt, slapping your wrist into his hand facing downward. toji is quick to whip it upside once he has a grip on you, and his eyes seem to freeze over the sight of three fresh slices on your upper forearm up close.

his jaw clenches, then unclenches, then clenches and unclenches again as his lips twitch and his eyes adjust to the vision. you're hurt. not only are you hurt, but it looks as though you've recently been hurt. you've hurt yourself.

toji has a hard time figuring out what to do. he's not good with things like this, but he knows that seeing you with scars on your arm is quite literally about to set him off. he always imagined having to defend you from others who seek to hurt you, but never having to defend you from yourself.

he can't fathom it. he's struggling, the muscles in his eyes are twitching, and he can't handle it. he can feel his heart begin to race, unsure if he is angry or scared or mortified or devastated.

there are three lines in your arm. bright red. staring right back up at him.

and you put them there?

no way, you put them there.

but you did. clearly you did, or else you wouldn't be looking so guilty right now.

but when did you? how did you? why did you?

he doesn't know what to think. he doesn't know what to say. he swore he'd always protect you, but how does he even begin to try to protect you from yourself?

"are you out of your mind?"

the question leaves him rather calmly, a low inquiry that you are unsure is meant to be directed as an insult or a genuine ask.

you can't look at him. you don't even know what to think yourself. it had all happened so fast while you were in the bathroom, before you got into the shower.

one minute, you were staring angrily in the mirror, cursing your reflection as your wicked thoughts sprouted grubby arms and guided you toward the pair of brow scissors that you kept in your makeup cabinet on the left side of toji's bathroom.

you wanted to feel in control of the disdain you felt lurking within your soul. you wanted to feel something for fear that you would never be able to feel again, and before you knew it, you were dragging the exposed blade over your skin.

"d'you wanna explain why i'm looking at these cuts on your arm, (y/n)?"

and you know, you know that it's a bad sign when toji uses your name instead of the plethora of pet names he normally elects to call you: doll, princess, mama, girl, pretty baby- anything but your actual government name, and when you hear it roll from his tongue under these circumstances, you can only imagine what's going through his head.

you shift on your bare feet, looking down at your toes. "dunno," is all you say, and toji scoffs in disbelief.

"you don't know?" he emphasizes. "that's all you have to say?"

"if you wanna embarrass me, go ahead, toji. seriously, i'm tired."

"what the fuck makes you think i wanna embarrass you? i wanna know why the fuck my girlfriend walked out of the bathroom with cuts on her arm!"

you rip your arm away immediately when he yells, storming back off into his room and slamming the door behind you.

toji jumps up, suddenly frazzled. he doesn't want you alone in there. he doesn't want you out of his sight.

the navy haired man moves quickly to his door and grabs the handle, only to find it locked. he jiggles it harshly and bangs on the door. beginning to panic. "open the door, (y/n)," he shouts, meeting no reply.

little does he know, your back is pressed against the other side as tears crash over your cheeks. you don't know how you expected toji to react, but the look on his face just now and his tone of voice was enough to send you running off.

you feel ashamed, weak. you shouldn't have gone out there at all. you should have waited until you were dressed, discarding the whole idea of letting toji see what you did so that you could suffer in silence without his help, because what help could he truly provide anyway?

toji's a tough man, but he's soft for you. he would stand in front of a moving train for you. he would sacrifice his life for you, so when you don't answer, he imagines the worst.

"open the door," he says again, weaker, tugging desperately at the handle though he knows it won't budge. he knows he could break the door down, and he's prepared to until he hears you sniff amdist his pounding. he immediately stops, face dropping.

fuck.

this is bad.

he knew it was before, but for some reason, it's only now registering how bad this is.

you're in pain. you hurt yourself because you're in pain and you need him, but he doesn't know how to help you. he's never dealt with anything like this before.

his hand slides from the door and to his side, forehead knocking against the door though his other hand remains tight on the handle. he just needs to see you.

"princess," he mutters defeatedly. "don't make me kick this door in."

silence.

"please," he softens even more. "please, (y/n), let me in."

the house falls quiet once more and you give in. you feel so lost, and the only person who can at least comfort you, in his own way, is toji.

you slowly turn to unlock the door and step back as toji opens it swiftly, staring down at you with wide eyes and at least relieved to see that you haven’t done any further harm to your body.

he does, however, see your tears.

his face tightens as he bends down to scoop you up in an instant, your legs and arms tightening around him as you snivel into his shoulder, his large palms sliding over your body. he feels your small body tremble against him as he walks the two of you over to the edge of his bed, sitting down as you cling to him like a koala.

"i dunno what happened," you whimper into him. "i dunno why i did it. i dunno. i dunno."

you say it over and over, your voice as broken as toji feels listening to you.

he wishes he knew what to do. he wishes he was better equipped to handle this, but never in his worst nightmares did he dream that he would find you here, his fiery girl, the love of his life.

he's been so busy trying to protect you from the outside world that he hasn't even thought about the things that could harm you from within.

he stays silent as you babble to him through tears, holding you just like he knew how. he doesn't want to picture those scars on you. he doesn't want to picture what led you to put them there. he just wants to hold you, to at least let you know that he's here and he's not going anywhere. he may not know how to help, but he knows how to love you and he hopes that's enough.

"i'm not letting you out of my sight, y'hear?" he says gruffly into your ear and you nod meekly. "i'm not letting this happen ever again. not as long as i'm alive."

he mentally swears to rid your house and his of any and every sharp object he can find and to throw it all in a safe as you sink into him.

toji knows how to protect and toji knows how to fight. though he's more acclimated with fighting others, if he has to fight to protect yourself from your innermost demons, then hell, he will find a way to do just that.

sukuna ryomen: lord help you and lord help anyone within a fifty-mile radius when the king of curses discovers that you've been harming yourself.

sukuna is not at all very good with his words or his expressions of affirmations. he is a being of action, and he believes that he has proven his love for you enough by simply allowing you to be in his presence longer than anyone else ever has or ever will.

at first, when he sees a scar or two on your leg, he thinks its just an accident or a result of you being clumsy. then, three more pop up, then five, then far more than he's even willing to count, and he decides that this scar pattern is somehow intentional.

he knows no one else has marked them onto you because he is prepared to kill anyone who comes too close, especially if they have ill intentions. if you were in danger at someone else's hand, he would be the first to know and the person meaning you harm would be dead before they could even think about touching you.

therefore, when he sees that the only person normally within your company is him, uraume, and yourself, the process of elimination leads him to you.

he goes about confronting you rather harshly, as well, for he knows no other way to be.

you're out in the garden of his large residence one day, soaking up the sun, when you hear familiar, loud stomps heading your way from behind.

you turn around and squint to peer up at sukuna, who is standing over you with a menacing glare in his crimson eyes. you don't necessarily find this out of the ordinary, so you greet him as usual.

"hi, kuna," you say sweetly. "you good?"

he is not good. not at all, so he gets straight to the point. "come inside, woman."

you quirk a brow. "why? i just got out here?"

"do not question me."

"can it wait, like, fifteen minutes?"

"do you wish to live in the next fifteen minutes?"

you sigh, entirely too used to sukuna's facade of cruelty around you. you know by now that the king of curses would never dare to hurt you.

"i do intend, to live, yes," you smirk.

"then you will come inside as i have demanded."

"no, sukuna. i want to stay out here for a bit. i've been inside all day."

the pink haired man fumes, teeth grinding together in agitation. he doesn't want to delay this conversation any further than it has already been delayed, but of course, you choose to be difficult.

"very well, we will do this out here," he growls and you smile.

"good."

you don't prepare yourself for when sukuna grabs the back of your chair and whips out around to face him with the unpleasant screech of the legs against the cobblestone. you wince, then retract your face when sukuna lowers his to stare at you from mere centimeters away, one of his arms grasping to push up the lose leg of your shorts up to reveal the set of scars littering your skin.

your eyes go wide, his movements too quick for you to process all at once.

"are these your doing?" he hisses and you gulp.

"s-sukuna-"

"i did not ask for you to say my name. i asked if these scars are your doing."

his eyes are piercing, striking directly into yours. "what are you talking about?" you whisper shakily.

"are we going to pretend like you're an idiot now?" he snarls. he's so mean, but he feels it's for good reason. your body has been tainted, and for some reason, you have been doing the tainting. he needs to know why.

you shake your head weakly. "no..."

"then answer me properly. i will not repeat myself a third time."

you bite down on your lower lip, heart ringing in your ears. you didn't even know sukuna paid attention to you enough to catch wind of something like this.

"yes... i did this," you finally tell him, and sukuna is livid.

"and why would you be doing something so foolish? scars are not something you are meant to give yourself, human."

"please don't be a dick, sukuna, not right now."

"i am asking a perfectly reasonable question and i expect you to answer it," he glowers. "now."

"you wouldn't understand if i told you," you frown and he clicks his tongue.

"stop assuming things of me before i lock you inside of my room where you can not escape or even fathom doing something like this to yourself again under my supervision."

you curl your brows, frowning up at your boyfriend. "if i tell you, you'll call me foolish."

"because this is foolish," he grunts. "but i will not if my doing so will get you to fucking explain yourself."

you shake your head, looking down and contemplating before deciding to just get it over with so that he can stop putting you on the spot. "sometimes i just feel shitty," is all you elect to say.

but sukuna is hardly satisfied with this response. "so you choose to inflict pain upon yourself instead of calling upon me?"

"i told you, you wouldn't understand," you say. "it's not something i can easily explain to you either."

sukuna narrows his eyes. "fine."

he lowers himself to grab you legs and throw you over his shoulder. you squeal, grabbing onto his back as he begins to walk you back into his home and toward his room. "sukuna!" you kick your legs around. "put me down!"

"no. you're coming with me, and you're going to sit and talk me through every single thought that has crossed your little mind to make you think that injuring yourself in such a way is tolerable within the walls of my residence. then after that, you'll come with me everywhere i go from this point on."

"what?!" you exclaim from where you hang upside down. "I don't wanna go everywhere you go," you wine.

"too bad. you should have thought of that before you decided to harm yourself."

sukuna is horrible with words, and far more horrible with expressing his concerns, but despite your temporary discomfort with how he goes about approaching the situation, you can still see in the pinch of his brow and the stiffness of his posture, combined with his refusal to let you go without a proper explanation, that he cares very deeply for your wellbeing.

[eddiernunson]

I Can Do It With A Broken Heart | Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader | 18+

Summary: You and Eddie have both had crap luck on dates lately, nothing that can't be fixed with a strawberry milkshake. However, he gets asked out on a date and it goes well...until it turns your life on its head and he forgets how to pick up the phone. You don't even care that he's dating someone else you just want your best friend back.

Warnings: idiots in love, best friends to lovers, ANGST, brief EddiexChrissy, ooc Chrissy, attempted SA, bestfriend!Steve, and needy, desperate smut that makes it all worth it.

Thanks to @forget-you-morelike-fuck-you for editing bestie

I’m astounded at the response to the preview I posted last week. Thank you so much for the love, I hope you enjoy all 40k (20k wtf did my brain go)

-

As you pull up to the little house at the end of the street, you look over to the sweet boy with blonde hair and green eyes nervously, curtaining a strand of hair behind one ear. He shoots you a smirk, white pearly teeth peeking from behind pretty pink lips. The date has gone phenomenally well, the conversation over dinner was easy and your date even easier on the eyes. You smooth your hands over the dress you’re wearing, picking at imaginary lint as you’re entirely unsure of what to say next.

Daniel, your date, leans onto the center console, the scent of his minty breath roping you in. “So, dinner was like, forty dollars.”

Your brows pinch together, the topic of conversation coming from left field.

“And the flowers were about twenty.” He says, his voice hinting at a subtext lost on you.

You think back to the flowers, a cascade of spring colours that drenched you in their floral scent. They sit on your dresser in a vase, waiting eagerly for you to come home.

“Okay…?” You ask, unsure of what he’s getting at.

Daniel sighs, suddenly the frustration you didn’t see before is clear on his face. “Well, I think I deserve some compensation for the princess treatment, don’t you think?”

He’s raising his brow suggestively, and the atmosphere in the car turns thick as you realize what he’s referring to. You feel so stupid. Suddenly the smirk on his face isn’t sweet, it’s sleazy. The cologne he’s wearing isn’t earthy, it’s gross. He’s not a good guy, and you feel foolish for thinking otherwise.

You think fast, lowering your eyelashes in a feigned blush. “Actually, I think it deserves just a little more than that. Be right back, I’m going to grab a condom.” You wink as you get out, the cherry on top.

Daniel lights right up, apparently not expecting his ridiculous method to work. The sound of him undoing his belt makes you nearly gag as you run in the front door.

Your dad, the sweetheart of a single father he is, welcomes you with a kind smile until he sees your crestfallen face. “You okay?”

“No,” you choke back, tears threatening to fall down your cheeks. “He’s demanding I repay him for dinner.”

“Repay?” You tilt your head, inferring what it means. “Oh. Fucking twerp. You need me to–”

“Can I have 60 bucks?” You interrupt him, avoiding his angry eyes.

He melts. “Sure.”

You walk back out the door, head held high right to the little corvette that sits at the end with the cheeky asshole sitting contently, waiting for his treat. The window is still open from earlier in the night, which works right in your favor.

“Here,” you toss the bills at him, allowing a small smile to grace your face at his confusion. “Since you’re so worried about being paid.”

As soon as he understands what you’re telling him, his face curves into a scowl, embarrassed, but too proud to say so. “Like I wanted to do it with Eddie Munson’s slut anyway!”

Halfway back up to the house, you turn back to the car as the engine growls into the night. How does that make sense? you wonder. Why am I being called a slut when I refused to put out?

The front door to your house slams shut again, and your dad receives the message that you would not like to talk about it. “Ed called just now, by the way,” he mentions as you reach the top of the stairs. Your pause in gait tells him you heard him, but you don’t respond because you can hear the smirk he wears, as much as you repeatedly tell him that Eddie is just a friend.

The flowers you thought so fondly of now have a looming presence in your room, like a dark shadow menacingly waiting in the corner. You ignore them as you lift the pastel phone to your ear, dialing the number you know by heart.

He picks up on the first ring. “Hi, sweetheart.” Relief washes over you, instant and comforting.

“Hey, Eds. How was your date?” You and he had the same plans tonight, you just hope it turned out better for him.

“It sucked,” he sighs, sounding like he’s rummaging through his messy chest of drawers. “She didn’t want a date, I guess.”

“Well what did she want?” You ask, going through your own drawers for something comfier to wear.

“Uh, to be shown a good time,” he answers dryly, the sound of rummaging coming to a sudden stop. “Heard the rumors of Munson’s magic fingers and apparently only wanted that.”

Yikes, you think. Eddie’s had many hook ups in the back of his van, but as of late he’s finding himself defeated when they don’t want him, just what he can do for them. Your heart hurt for him last week when he admitted they rarely, if ever, reciprocated.

You didn’t think it’d be an appropriate moment to tell him you would happily reciprocate for him.

“That’s extremely shitty. Guess it’s not all that different from my date though, who expected payback from spending a lousy sixty bucks.”

“Payback?”

“Asked me to suck his dick and pointed to it,” you say, a million times more bluntly than you could to your dad.

“I knew that Daniel guy was an asshole,” he mutters, mostly to himself. “I think our shitty dates deserve each other.”

You laugh, holding the PJs you plan on wearing as you sit cross legged on your bed. “To be honest, I don’t think Daniel would’ve been all that great in bed anyway.”

“I could’ve told you that. He looks like he would call thirty seconds a long time,” Eddie laughs. “Sit tight, princess, I think we’ve earned pancake night at Benny’s.”

“C’mon, I was just about to get comfy!” You whine.

“Nah, wear the pretty dress. It deserves to see a strawberry milkshake, don’t you agree?”

Honestly, a milkshake night with your best friend is exactly what you need. “Sure. See you in twenty?”

“Eh, ten.”

You throw out the flowers, tossing the vase full of water into the kitchen sink, shrugging when your dad gives you an apologetic look. You certainly are already over it, just another asshole in Hawkins, who would’ve thought? When the loud music from Eddie’s stereo pulls up, your dad nods in understanding, telling you to have fun as you leave through the front door.

The date night dress you wear is a summer dress that sits just above your knees, held together by spaghetti straps decorated with pretty blue florals. It's a dress you go to for formal events, and even saw a dance or two back in high school. Of course, you had to dust it off for the cute boy in your Psych class who ended up being a complete dickwad.

The fabric of Eddie’s beat up van is familiar. So familiar that you could argue his passenger seat has a permanent indent from your ass. Eddie has, in fact, pointed it out from one night stoned in the back with him, giggling as you vehemently denied it. At your sudden quiet shut down stature, he patted your ass gently, claiming that he didn’t want any other person’s ass planted on his seat except yours.

That conversation, as hazy as it was, stayed in your mind for days after the fact.

Eddie’s dressed in his own version of a date night outfit, tight jeans exposing his knees with jagged rips under a leather jacket and plain black t-shirt. He’s gorgeous, tauntingly so. It’s not much different from an ordinary outfit, but the faint smell of fresh laundry detergent and his best cologne is the best evidence he’s all dressed up.

The loud music speaks for him, loudly, pulling off before your seatbelt is even clicked into place.

The path from your house to Benny’s is well trekked by you and Eddie on late nights when you should’ve been doing homework but ended up goofing off instead. Martha, a waitress that’s been working there well over twenty years, smiles with smeared red lipstick and too much blue eyeshadow.

You walk in stride with each other, straight to the corner booth as the husk of 20 years of chain smoking barks over the gentle music, “Hey, you two! Eddie, are you finally taking this girl of yours on a date?”

Shut up, you silently beg her, avoiding either of their eyes as you stare at your lap, seemingly fixated on a loose thread at the hem of your dress.

“Oh, I’m not that lucky,” Eddie winks, throwing his arm behind you on the back of the booth. “We’re just recovering after shitty dates.”

“One day, you two,” she muses, tapping her pen rhythmically on her little notepad. It’s never been the same notepad twice, always decorated with a little cartoon sticker on the front. You’re tempted to run to the dollar store and grab her a larger one, but a part of you thinks she thrives on her many little notepads. “Alright, a large strawberry milkshake with two straws, pancakes with extra strawberry sauce and fresh strawberries on top, and waffles loaded with whipped cream and sprinkles. Correct?”

You nod in unison, both aware that she insists you will collectively rot the teeth out from your gums if you insist on overdosing with sugar every damn time you waltz in late at night. She’s given up offering other menu items, having ordered extra strawberries just to make up for your love of the fruit.

Less than five minutes later, following the blissful sound of a blender, the milkshake is wordlessly dropped off at the table, closer to you as even Martha knows you will be drinking 75% of it. The sweet, pinky taste flows easily down your throat, humming softly as you dip into the whipped cream with a finger. “Best milkshake in town,” You assert.

“I wouldn’t know,” Eddie answers, smirking, “you never let us get a milkshake from anywhere else!”

You giggle, licking some of the whipped cream that found a home in the corner of your mouth. “I could never! It would be like cheating! This milkshake would just know,” you drop your voice to a whisper, “it would smell the other milkshakes on me!”

“We couldn’t have that,” Eddie grins, grabbing the large glass to take a sip. “Sorry your date was such a jerk.”

You shrug, already having gotten over it. You’ll just need to sit on the other side of the lecture hall from now on. “He seemed so nice.”

“No offense, sweetheart, but I could’ve told you that Daniel Moore was a shitty person,” Eddie finishes another sip of the milkshake, making a large dip in the glass as the pink slush is pulled up the straw. “He likes to instigate.”

You rest your chin on your elbow, sad the milkshake is already nearly gone. “I had just hoped he would’ve matured by now…”

“In seven months?” Eddie asks you incredulously, raising his brows past his curly bangs. His expression quickly turns curious, tilting his head at you.

“What?”

“So, you’re willing to bet that Daniel Moore has improved just based on personal speculation alone but you’re not willing to believe me when I say Steve Harrington is no longer a douche?”

You roll your eyes. God, you should’ve seen this one coming. “That’s different! I only heard about Daniel. Steve Harrington actually sat back and laughed when Tommy asked–”

“You out as a joke, yeah, I know, I’ve heard it before,” Eddie mumbles, grinning at your shocked expression. “Well, that was like what, three years ago?”

“I still can’t believe you’re friends with Steve Harrington now, of all people! Listen, I know he’s also Dustin’s friend, but I find it hard to believe that you guys even have something in common,” You shrug.

“I still can’t believe you refuse to give him another chance!” Eddie playfully retorts, licking some of the whipped cream that still sits on the rim of the glass. “He’s in your Sociology class, isn’t he?”

Yeah, and he seems to insist on forcing his friendship on you, too, no matter how much you resist it. If you found friendship in Eddie, it seems reasonable to find friendship with Steve, too. Yet, there’s a little part that remembers the cruel laughter, his carelessness with others’ lives, and it ripples down your spine in a violent shudder.

You haven’t gotten rid of the notion of being his friend completely, but it’s just not the right time for you, yet.

You shrug. The topic has too much nuance for a nice dinner with your best friend. Just in time, Martha wordlessly drops off the two plates, the smile that spreads across your face is effortless. Zachary, the night chef must’ve heard about the shitty night and added extra for you, because the mountain of strawberries on the table is huge, even for your standards.

Eddie smirks, reading your mind. “You gonna finish all those?”

“Absolutely!”

-

Eddie sits on one side of the open courtyard, flicking off ashes from his cigarette as he waits for you to get out of class. He mentally reflects on his crazy afternoon, taking another long, much needed drag. The car with the million symptoms was one thing, but the proposition he got right before, he couldn’t wrap his head around it.

It’s been 13 days since Daniel, four awkward classes of avoiding his glare, and you’ve decided to give up on boys completely. The one you want doesn’t want you, and the dates you’re going on don’t seem to do well no matter who you say yes to. The two offers you’ve gotten in the last week were therefore denied, realizing that even if they are cute, you don’t want to lead anyone on when your heart belongs to someone else.

Before the aforementioned date, you were practically begging for someone to ask you out, but for some inexplicable reason, now you’re getting offers left and right. Somehow people just know when you’re playing hard to get.

At least Eddie’s dates seem to be going terribly for him, as well. That’s one thing you can thankfully count on.

The puff of smoke that leaves his lips as you approach him should not be as gorgeous as it is. It’s practically unfair. “Hey, Eds.”

He flicks the filter, killing it on the cement table he sits at as he blows out one more puff. “Hey, sweetheart.”

Just from that particular look in his eye, you can tell something is on his mind. “You okay, there, Munson?”

He smirks, effortlessly standing up. “I suppose. I’m not sure how to react. Or how you’ll react.”

Your brows meet your hairline, watching his mind move at a million miles per hour. “Ok, Eddie, this better be about a new class of creatures in DnD, or something, because you’re scaring me.”

He smiles, nodding his head over to the halls that lead toward the front door of the campus. “Someone asked me out on a date, earlier, today.”

Your brows furrow, biting back the jealousy that eats at your chest. Every little part of you holds back the monster that threatens to claw its way out, to snarl and hiss at every girl that even so much as looks at him wrong. It’s hard to bite it back, to choke on it purposely, but if you must, you will.

It tastes like venom as you swallow it back down. “Oh, who?”

A faint pink spreads across Eddie’s cheeks, much to your dismay. Not once, in your fuck, what, seven, eight years, of friendship have you ever managed to see Eddie blush. (Just once but it was when you nearly walked in on him jerking himself off a few short years ago.) “Who?”

“Um Chrissy. Chrissy Cunningham?”

Your jaw drops, but your gut falls through the floor. You swear you hear it smash through the tiled floors and fall into the depths of hell.

“She asked you out?”

“Hey! Don’t act so surprised! A cheerleader could like me!”

That was the last thing on your mind. Of course a cheerleader could like Eddie, they’d be stupid not to. No. Every other girl that Eddie has either slept with, or gone on a date with brought no worry to your head, competition, per se. But a girl like Chrissy, one with pretty blonde curls, adorable smile and a sweet disposition, it’s like your worst nightmare come true.

Thanks to living in such a small town, you can recall 99% of the names that Eddie had told you, whether they be hookups or a date. Most of them didn’t intimidate you, only because, selfishly, you could nitpick at things you think wouldn’t work out with Eddie. Whether they were too vapid, too shallow, had none of the same interests as him, only shallowly liked him for his looks, or was a bully…you had something to give great comfort to you to prevent that little jealousy monster from clawing its way out.

This time, your brain wracked itself for some sort of answer. Some sort of flaw in the Queen of Hawkins High that could settle this uneasiness that has taken over your mind. Nothing. Nothing.

“I’m not surprised a cheerleader could like you, I’m surprised that Chrissy Cunningham asked you out,” you answer candidly, walking in step with him to where you supposed was his van. “I’m guessing you said yes?”

“I’d be crazy not to!” Eddie answered sheepishly, tugging at the sleeves of his leather jacket. “I’m taking her out on Friday night.”

“Ah, you’ll tell Steve to take Creeper off hold for us, then?” You try to keep your tone nonchalant, but bitter jealousy coats your tongue.

Eddie stops mid stride, faltering, his brows pinched as he gives you those big brown eyes. “Shit. It totally slipped my mind.”

This is also new. Even as his dates would happen, any previously made plans with him were always a priority. You just hope this doesn’t become a new habit of his.

“We’ll do it on Saturday, yeah?”

You nod, giving him the comfort you suddenly find yourself craving. From the pep in his step, the rosiness of his cheeks, the warm glint in his eyes, you can tell that he’s truly excited. As a best friend, you try to be happy for him, however hard it is to make the smile on your face even remotely convincing.

Eddie curls his arm around your shoulder, tugging you along with him for what will probably be another afternoon in his room, clouded by a haze of weed.

You smoke more than usual, if anything to allow his excitement and plans for his big date in two days to buzz into the background, the bong hit rippling through your lungs as a punishment for yourself.

-

A weight on your bed suddenly dips down and you sit up quickly to face Eddie sitting on the corner of your mattress with a small smile on his face. Your headphones, still playing the obnoxiously loud music that drowned out his knocks, fall off your head as you sit up. You press the STOP button, clicking loudly in the silence as you stare at your best friend.

The anxiety of his date has eaten you all night long, the only thing strong enough to distract it being music loud enough to hurt your eardrums. You always feel some sort of anxiety, but tonight was even worse, eating at your brain in fear of how painful it might be to be third wheeling with him after being his #1 for so long.

For once, you can’t tell how it went. A slimy, selfish part of you is hoping he shares bad news. His smile breaks. Into a bigger, much brighter beam. Damn.

“How did it go?” You ask, already knowing the answer.

Eddie slams himself onto the bed next to you, hiding his eyes with his hands with his dimples deep, his pearly whites exposed. “Fuck, it was the best date I’ve ever had.”

Your heart shatters. “That good?”

“God, she’s– much better than I thought she could’ve been,” Eddie answers, peeking out from behind his hands. “It’s fucking crazy.”

Of course Chrissy Cunningham, a known sweetheart, is everything he’s ever dreamed of. Of course she lived up to his expectations. Just your luck. “I’m just jealous of your remarkable turn in luck, I guess.”

Eddie chuckles, turning onto his stomach to face you as he kicks his feet. “You’ll have your turn, baby.”

The pet name stings in the worst way. Instead, you raise your brow at him. “Look at you lookin’ like a schoolgirl with a crush. Pretty boy doesn’t even need makeup with all that blush.”

He rolls his eyes, pinching you on the shin. “You’re such a shithead.”

“Yeah, well you still choose to hang out with me anyway, so, that’s on you.” It takes everything in you to ask the following question, “So, tell me about your date, will ya?”

He does. He rattles on and on about how pretty she is, how easy the conversation was, how much she surprised him, how the night ended with a kiss that had Eddie giggling. He lays next to you, leather jacket put aside on the corner chair and boots next to your bunny slippers at the end of your bed. Your small twin mattress has you close in proximity, your side in direct contact with him as he rests his head on his hands.

“She’s such a cool girl, you know?”

You’re half asleep by now, allowing the exhaustion to overwhelm the slight ache in your chest. It zaps through your heart, overwhelms your senses and makes you dizzy. Your eyes flutter shut, but Eddie keeps talking softly next to you.

“Why were you blasting your 8-track, anyway?”

The question harshly yanks you out of the haze, failing to think of something that doesn’t seem completely false. You wish you were a better liar. “Just stressed out about your date.”

He gives you a strange look, eyebrows tilted. “Hmm?”

“We both haven’t had a very good track record, lately, and if things won’t turn around for me, then at least they should do one of us a favor.” Not, not the truth, but definitely an over exaggerated version of it.

“You’re so good to me, you know?” Eddie asks, intertwining his hand with yours. “Wasting your anxiety on me.”

The rings are harsh against your skin, squeezing your fingers tightly. The physical hurt is almost comforting in direct contrast to your emotional hurt.

His scent is comforting, as it lures you like the pied piper into the land of sleep. It’s about another twenty minutes until he realizes there are soft snores coming from you. He doesn’t care to drive all the way home, despite it only being a five minute drive away.

He falls asleep to your comforting breaths, allowing your hand to remain engulfed in his.

-

The loud ringing of your phone jerks you awake, quickly crawling to the side of your bed as you grab it from the dock housed on the floor.

“Hello?” Sleep sits deep in your voice, spelling out clearly to your caller that you just woke up.

It just occurs to you that you could’ve just allowed your dad to answer it.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Eddie’s voice is chipper, alarmingly so since you’re not even awake yet.

“You sound way too awake for someone that didn’t believe in waking up before 1pm,” you quip, rubbing your eyes sleepily.

“Ha,” he deadpans, yet it's clear he’s smiling. “Chris wants to meet you. I mean, I know you’ve already met her, but you know, as my girlfriend?”

Ugh. It’s been a harrowing three weeks. “Yeah, sure. What did you want to do with her?”

“I thought we could introduce her to pancake night,” Eddie sheepishly answers, like he knows you would be hesitant to invite someone into your holy ritual.

Yeah. You don’t want to invite her. But…you asked for patience last month and it seemed that the universe has answered with a lovesick Eddie Munson.

“I don’t see why not,” you lie, finding it rolls off the tongue much easier than it used to.

“You’re the best! I’ll see after you study in the library, yeah?” He knows your schedule. On Thursdays after the morning Sociology class, you opt to crawl up into a small corner and hermit yourself with snacks and a pile of books to get the work that needs to be done finished.

In high school, you could get away with doing minimum work and passing, but with your dad paying and barely able to afford it even with his second job, it sent the need to do your work to the best of your ability for once. You owed him at least that much from all the calls of missed classes for four years straight.

“Sure.”

As you stretch while hanging up the phone, you glance over to the alarm clock to see the time and it lurches you forward in bed to scramble for clothes, textbooks, and scattered papers as your lecture starts in less than twenty minutes. You’re usually already sitting in the seat by then.

On your way out the door, your dad is surprised you’re still home, offering to drive you. You don’t want to burden him even more than you already have, so you insist you can ride your bike and still get there on time. Well, at least you hope you can.

The bike rack is nearly full when you get to the college, six or seven locks messily put around the poles, most bikes already fallen over. You jam your bike in between two of them, hurriedly wrangling the annoying coil of sturdy cable between what you’re sure is entangled in someone else’s lock, too. Whatever, they should’ve been more organized.

The clock on the wall tells you class started three minutes ago and your heart falls to your stomach, knowing the professor is a stickler for punctuality. His words falter as soon as you enter the hall, the heavy door echoing its creak against the walls. He graciously allows you to sit and get situated before he continues. He makes examples of every late student, and you figured you would never be in his laser eyed focus. Well, before your alarm decided not to go off.

The last chair available is the corner chair in the front row, the one spot in class you love to avoid. It’s too close for comfort, a place he often chooses for students to answer his questions even if they don’t raise their hand.

That, and it’s right beside Steve Harrington.

His fingers raise from the desk as a greeting, sharing a sweet smile as you start to collect your textbook and notes. You awkwardly smile back at him, your attention snapped back to the professor as he pointedly talks right at your desk in his lecture. Fuck, this’ll be annoying.

By the time the three hour lecture ends, your hand hurts from the amount of notes you wrote down, one side covered in graphite from smudging the paper. Your stomach grumbles, asking loudly for lunch after neglecting to eat breakfast as usual.

Unbeknownst to you, Steve follows a step behind. “That lecture was brutal,” You hear from behind you. You toss your head over your shoulder to glance back at him before turning back around.

“I guess.” You say awkwardly. Here we go again.

“Out of curiosity, how are Eddie and his new girlfriend doing? Chrissy Cunningham, huh? I cannot say I saw that coming.”

Neither did you. “They’re doing great, from what I hear. Haven’t really met her, yet,” you answer, heading straight to the small cafe that has a home in the heart of the campus. “Listen, Steve, I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Why not? You don’t think he’s happy with her, or something?”

You stop midstep, turning to face him. “It’s not that. I just don’t have the capacity for it, ok?”

“You like him,” Steve accuses, his brows meeting his hairline.

Your jaw drops, stuttering through an empty sentence. “I do not like him!”

“Really?” Steve laughs, crossing his arms as he watches you build a brick wall around yourself. “So you not wanting to talk about his new girlfriend has nothing to do with the way your face fell when I asked about it?”

How the hell did Steve Harrington pick up on it so fast, of all people?

“Even if I did, why the hell would I want to talk about it with someone I don’t even know?” You sigh, looking wistfully over to the cafe. “Besides, I’m not even caffeinated yet.”

Steve rolls his eyes, nodding towards the said cafe. “Here, if I treat you to some coffee will you talk to me about it?”

“If you add a wrap to the deal, then I’ll think about it,” You say dryly, pulling a laugh from him.

The barista, a student who you’ve gotten to know is somehow managing to do pre-law and work part time smiles nicely.

“I’ll get a vanilla latte with nonfat milk and an extra pump of vanilla, please.”

Steve raises his brow at you before making his own order, “I’ll get a medium black coffee with room for creamer, please, and whatever this lady wants from the menu.”

You scan until you reach the egg omelet wrap with mushroom, bell peppers, and tomatoes. “The loaded omelet wrap.”

After Steve pays he meets you on the handout counter. “Why nonfat milk and the extra pump of vanilla?”

“If I get nonfat then I can replace the sugar with the extra vanilla.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how that works.”

You pick up the cup as it lands on the counter, wincing at the temperature on your tongue. “It works.”

Steve grabs his, shaking his head as he makes his way over to pour some creamer in.

The wrap is soon presented as well, steaming in its cardboard sleeve as the scent alone pools on your tongue with saliva. The only thing that got you through that lecture was just the thought of lunch.

Steve meets you at a two-top by the window, setting his own bag down as he sits right across from you.

The omelet, much too hot to eat, sits waiting for you on the chestnut brown table as you sip on the latte. The latte is much too hot as well, but you’ve never had enough patience to wait for that caffeine kick. If you weren’t so afraid of your professor’s wrath you would’ve shown up another ten minutes late with a coffee cup in hand.

Steve allows you and himself a few minutes of quiet before he speaks. “So, why don’t you tell him?”

You cough mid sip, mentally apologizing to your lungs for allowing non-oxygen to make its way in. “I’m sorry?”

“Stop pretending. Eddie was dead on when he said you were a bad liar,” Steve says, grinning with stupid smirk on his face.

“Why have you and Eddie talked about me?” You ask, narrowing your glance towards him.

“Are you kidding? You’re all he talks about,” Steve shrugs, so nonchalant that you have no choice but to believe him. “Kind of annoying, actually.”

“Why?”

“I have to hear about how great of a friend this girl is but also how she can’t stand me.”

You huff in laughter at how distraught he genuinely seems by it, his face contorted into someone who definitely isn’t used to rejection. You cock an eyebrow at him. “Can you exactly blame me?”

“Yes! I can! Everybody loves me!” Steve rolls his eyes playfully, and damn it if you can’t help but find it mildly amusing.

“Hate to break it to you, there, sweetheart, but the people who were picked on by you don’t exactly crave to be around your oh-so-wonderful presence.”

He squints, crossing his arms as he leans forward. “Picked on? I mean that’s a little harsh, considering–”

“Fine, yes, you didn’t exactly jeer, or outright bully even, but you watched and laughed along and sometimes that feels even worse,” you admit, feeling suddenly small under his gaze. “Tommy and Carol said shit, that’s just what they did… But sitting back and watching sometimes is just as bad. You were nice, sometimes, I guess. But the fact that you had that capacity for kindness and chose against it just spoke volumes.”

“I met them in seventh grade. They weren’t as bad back then, mostly just somewhat belligerent. They got worse over time, but we all had terrible home lives, it was like we were the only ones that got what that was like…and somewhere along the way, I forgot that just because we had an excuse didn’t mean they had the right.”

“I guess that makes sense,” you answer, glancing at the omelet, debating taking your first steaming bite. “I mean, I’m not condoning it, but sometimes loyalty can be blinding.”

“I’m not that douche, anymore. I got that knocked out of me when I was seventeen. Literally. Now I spend most of my free time with a high school junior,” he laughs, taking another large sip of his coffee.

“Aah, Dustin,” you hum, thinking of the many instances where he had tried to convince you of what Steve had just told you. What made you so insistent on denying believing in either of your friends seems to dissipate, however, just in the friendliness that Steve radiates alone. Damn his charisma. “Would you believe me if I said he vouched for you many times?”

“The kid loves me, what can I say?” He shrugs, not hiding his laughter. “Now. Back to you. Why not tell him?”

No use in hiding it. If Steve can bare his soul in the middle of the day at a damn cafe just to get you to trust him, you suppose you owed him the same. “‘Cause he doesn’t feel the same,” you answer, starting to peel open the snack from the hunger pang. “Why make it weird when there’s nothing that could come from it?” You shrug, looking down sheepishly as the weight of your words sink into your heart like a stone.

“Doesn’t like you. Are you sure about that?” Steve asks, licking his lips.

You hesitate. “Is this a trick question?”

“Nope. I just wonder if you truly believe it, or if you’re too scared to let yourself have something you’ve wanted for so long.”

“Where do you get off on acting like you’re some sort of expert on this?” You ask, folding your arms across your chest. The question rings out from the mere fact that he is dead on the nose. He couldn’t be any more right. The very idea that Eddie had even an inkling of what you had for him scares you to death. You would rather keep him as a friend and lie in wait than lose him from a great love and not have him at all.

“I’m more observant than most people give me credit for,” he admits, twirling his almost empty coffee cup. “I’ve heard countless hours of Eddie talking about you, yet I haven’t heard him speak once about Chrissy. That says a lot, don’t you think?”

“Well, me neither, and I’m his best friend. Don’t get down on your luck.”

“You are both idiots. Just tell him. Seriously. I’m sick of you both acting like a pair of love sick fools.”

“You seem to be very convinced of something that is not real,” you tell him, garbled from the bite of omelet you’re in the middle of swallowing. “If you keep this energy up when you’re studying, you would probably do pretty well for yourself.”

“Fine. Remain in denial. I don’t care. You can destroy yourself from the inside. Who cares? Just, let me in. I need someone to help me with these assignments. They are mind numbingly dull.” He throws his hands up like he’s admitting defeat.

“You need a study buddy?” You laugh, hiding the food that sits in between bites. “I suppose that could be arranged.”

“Sweet. Now are you gonna treat me to a coffee every now and then, or?”

“I have a single father, not an unlimited credit card from Daddy’s big business, Steve Harrington.” You say matter-of-factly, jabbing your finger towards him accusingly.

“Oh, so I have to provide the newly released movies and buy the coffee, I see how it is.”

“Privilege breeds responsibility, Stevie. I don’t make the rules.” You give him a half smirk. As you look at him, you’re finally seeing the person you thought could see all those years ago behind the mask of his terrible friends. Steve’s ambush would be the best thing to come out of the next few weeks.

Because it turned into hell.

-

As your hair runs wild behind you, there’s a grand attempt to allow yourself to let the wind distract you from the sinking feeling in your gut. It grows bigger and bigger, until it becomes unbearable as you reach the gravel lining the trailer park. You allow your bike to fall heavily on the trailer, taking a moment to collect your courage before knocking on Eddie’s front door.

It feels weird knocking. You can’t even recall the last time you did. But, you refuse to overstep any boundaries that might not be communicated yet. Being on Chrissy’s good side will make your life a lot easier.

Eddie answers the door, out of breath and sweating with wild eyes and even crazier hair. “Hey!”

“Hey,” you greet, stepping in right behind him. You blink, taking in the pristine surroundings. It’s like stepping into an alternate dimension, one where Eddie and Wayne regularly cleaned their trailer and preferred the smell of lavender over stale beer and greasy pizza boxes. The kitchen is spotless, the living room has a lit candle sitting on the coffee table, and the shelves containing the million mugs were dusted. “Who are you and what the hell did you do with my best friend?” You laugh.

He chuckles sheepishly, crossing his arms in front of his chest as protection. “Uh, is it too much?”

“Better warn her now so she doesn’t get used to cleanliness,” you answer, watching as the surfaces around you sparkle and shine.

“Ha, ha. I have to get dressed. I have some snacks on the kitchen counter. You mind starting the popcorn?” Eddie doesn’t bother waiting for you to answer, already walking to his room.

You get a glimpse of his bedroom as he shuts the door behind him, smirking at the clothes still scattered on his floor. At least one part of this little haven of yours remains normal.

The popcorn shakes in your hold as you continually stir it on the stove to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the thin aluminum bottom and burning. Just as the first batch of kernels reach their limit, a knock from the front door hits, each one feeling like a crack in any normalcy you’ve ever had.

Things will never feel the same ever again. Not after tonight. On your way to open the door you try to tell yourself that it can be a good thing.

Right?

The door opens to the once head cheerleader of Hawkins High, wearing a pink dress that fits her tiny frame nicely with blonde curls and bangs that beautifully frame her face. Her hands are folded behind her back, standing meekly in white sneakers and long lashes and blue eyeshadow. It’s hard not to be envious of how pretty she is.

It’s clear she’s not expecting you to open the door. “Hey! Sorry, Eddie’s just in his room. He should be out any minute.”

“Oh. Ok,” she enters as you back up, wringing her hands together, probably out of anxiety. “What movie did he rent?”

“You know, I was so busy making fun of him for cleaning up for once I didn’t bother to ask,” you admit, hoping to make the atmosphere just a little bit lighter.

She looks around the place, seemingly taking it in. “Hmm,” she hums, walking over to the couch. “It’s cute when they try so hard.”

“Sure,” you answer, walking back to the kitchen, hoping the popcorn isn’t irredeemably burnt. “Do you want butter on the popcorn?”

“Yes please!”

You’re in the middle of mentally begging Eddie to come out already while the butter melts in the microwave, the hum of the microwave loud in the silence.

“Okay! I’m ready!” Eddie announces, opening the bedroom door with a flourish. “Sorry for the wait!”

As he gets to the couch behind Chrissy, he wraps her in a big hug and plants kisses all over her neck. “How you doin’, sweetheart?”

You hold back the nausea as you pour the hot butter all over the popcorn in the large plastic bowl. You find it ironic that this is the same bowl you’ve held back Eddie’s hair over as he hurled into it. You just hope Wayne thoroughly cleaned it.

“Popcorn is ready, can y’all help me bring the chips and candy?” You ask, shaking the bowl to coat the butter over each kernel.

“We can do that,” Eddie answers, grabbing Chrissy’s hand as they walk to the kitchen.

“How can I help?” Chrissy asks, arms open as she looks around a kitchen she has no familiarity with.

“Um there’s some soda in the fridge, grab me and Ed a Coke, and you can grab yourself whatever you want,” you answer, pointing to the twenty year old fridge in the corner.

“Hand me some,” you command, holding a single hand for one of the many bags of snacks Eddie juggles.

The popcorn and a couple dozen little bags land on the coffee table in front of a blank tv screen. Chrissy sits with a soft grunt in between the two of you, cradling the cans of coke and sprite in her tiny arms.

She distributes the cans, handing them over to you and him. Eddie squats in front of the TV, pressing play on the tape which he apparently already prepared to watch. His plaid boxers peek out of his jeans, sitting above the studded belt as he adjusts volume and picture.

You share a smile with the blonde, opening your can and wincing at the loud hiss. You keep thinking about the days you and Chrissy will look back on how awkward this was. How the first days of this trio were so weird, and off putting, and how she thought you were a bitch when she met you.

Where she’s a friend.

You have to try.

“What are we watching?”

Eddie turns around slowly, that over exaggerated smile on his face that tells you he’s up to nothing but trouble. “Oh just a little somethin’”

“Oh god,” you wince, knowing that look on his face. You lean into her, whispering, “Hope you like horror.”

Chrissy turns to you with wide eyes and a queasy smile. “Not really.”

“Oh, this one is a classic,” Eddie promises, animatedly using his hands as he crouch-walks back next to her. “If any movie can turn someone into a horror fan, it’s this one.”

As soon as the music starts playing you recognize it. It’s a tune you’ve heard many times in his living room, subjected to it too many times if you had anything to say about it. Of course, you’ll watch it with him every time, regardless.

“Halloween? Seriously? The serial killer stalking the babysitter? You couldn’t think of anything else?” You roll your eyes. He could probably do a whole reenactment of the movie word for word if he tried.

“It’s a classic for a reason, sweetheart,” Eddie tells you, grabbing the bowl straight away. Of course, he will rip through the popcorn, he always does.

You feel Chrissy tense up, not that you can blame her. You suppose a talk about proper pet names will be necessary.

Each bag of snacks is eventually opened because you can’t stick to one bag long enough to finish it even if you tried. You get bored of the same taste too often. You have your favorite few, fuzzy peaches, M&Ms, Reese's Pieces, Swedish fish, and last and most controversially, at least where Eddie’s concerned, salt and vinegar chips.

He always has his own snacks at his disposal from nights of having the munchies, always on a dollar store run for said snacks. At each movie night he restocks, both yours and his alike, and suddenly you realize you will need to remember Chrissy’s too, if you’re going to be cordial.

With each bloody death that splatters the walls on screen, Chrissy grows closer and closer to Eddie. There’s a part of you that has considered using scary movies to cuddle up to him, but you’re just not genuinely scared of them enough to consider it. The ruse would’ve faded eventually. You try not to let the jealousy eat you up from the inside, no matter how much it burns your skin.

His arm wraps around her, petting her shoulder gently as she whimpers at the slash of his knife. “It’s corn syrup. Totally fake. You can tell by the color, it’s way too bright.”

Towards the end, the loud, chirpy, nauseating sound of kissing fills your ears. Your eyes can’t help it, they move towards the noise and immediately regret it. Oh god, they’re kissing. If you can even call that kissing. He’s practically engulfed her mouth.

Surely, with the company they have, they’ll stop, right? Their heads will remember and sheepishly get the fuck off each other? Right?

Two scenes and what feels like forever, later, you realize how wrong you are. “I’m glad you two are crazy for each other, really I am, but can we please wait until I’m gone?” You give an awkward laugh to try to stifle the discomfort coursing through your veins.

Eddie makes a surprised sound, almost like he completely forgot you were there. “Shit–sorry.”

Chrissy doesn’t make any apologies, in fact, you miss the way she rolls her eyes against his chest. She wanted to keep going, hoping you would take her hint to get lost.

Before long, the end of the movie finally arrives, the end credits rolling with that famous piano tune. Chrissy has practically stitched herself to Eddie’s side, her arms wrapped around his waist. The popcorn bowl is nearly full. All that work on it for nothing.

You sigh, about to claim that it’s your cue to leave when–

“I’m thinking we should show Chrissy one of our pancake nights, don’t ya think?”

No. You don’t want that. From the way Chrissy completely tenses up, neither does she. But for his sake, you both reluctantly agree.

Hawkins looks a lot different from Eddie’s backseat.

As the ring of the bell against the glass door announces your arrival, Martha’s head snapping up from the magazine she’s buried her nose in. “Hey you two, I was wondering when I would see you again!”

You and Eddie walk directly to the corner booth, as per usual, Chrissy trailing a half step behind him with her left hand intertwined with his right. Before Martha walks up to the booth, she starts the blender, the sound oddly comforting for how uneasy you feel.

“Well, looks like we got ourselves a little straggler! What’s your name darlin’?” She asks, the notebook she now holds a dark purple instead of the red she had last time.

Chrissy stares blankly at her, curling back into him. You don’t remember her being this shy in High School.

“This is Chrissy,” Eddie introduces her, giving her a fond look. “She’s my girlfriend.”

Martha’s penciled brows raise straight to her ruby red hair, the chewing gum loud in her silence. Her surprise only lasts two seconds, shifting into hospitality for the new member. “Welcome to these two’s many, many nights spent here at Benny’s. In fact, could you make them come a little less often. We’re starting to get annoyed at them.” She jokes, throwing a wink at you.

You laugh with Eddie, taking note of the fact that Chrissy is still silent.

“Alright, well I already know what these two want, did you need a second to look over the menu?”

She nods.

“Alright, well, I’ll be right back with your milkshake.”

“Can you make it one medium, one large with two straws?” You ask Martha, sure it would get more awkward if she brought one for you and Eddie to share.

“Oh, sure,” she answers, her voice unusually soft.

Less than five minutes later she returns with two milkshakes and a menu.

“Oh,” Chrissy comments, looking curiously at the pink ice cream drink in front of her. “I don’t really like strawberry. Can I get vanilla instead?”

Your forehead meets the table, punishing yourself. “Shit. I’m so sorry! I didn’t even think to ask.” Eddie apologizes.

“It’s fine.” Chrissy smiles sweetly at him.

“Oh, you gotta eat breakfast, it’s tradition,” Eddie mutters, switching her page to the all day breakfast menu.

“Hmm,” she responds, pointing to one of the menu options. “I think I’ll get the poached egg with the avocado toast.”

“Alright. Should be out quickly,” Martha answers, grabbing the milkshake from them.

“How often do you guys come here?” Chrissy asks, turning her face to Eddie.

He shrugs nonchalantly. “Probably more often than we should. Like when shit goes sideways, or we need a hit of sugar, or when we just feel like bugging Miss Martha, over there.”

“When did you start coming?”

“My junior year,” you answer, smiling at the memory, “his second attempt at senior year, we both didn’t want to go to the stupid school dance, so we decided to get dressed up and come here, instead.”

“Why didn’t you want to go?”

Eddie shrugs, petting her shoulder with his thumb. “We thought it was dumb. Then, we ened up coming back when both of us failed this one really important bio test. Then, by the third time she remembered our orders and had the blender going by the time we sat down.”

Eddie asks how your day was, so you inform him you managed to have a civilized conversation with Steve Harrington. You have an audience for the conversation, one member animatedly interested, the other politely listening.

Polite is definitely the way to describe it, no spark in her eye. At least, not the one she wears when she listens to her boyfriend speak. In fact, you can practically see them glaze over.

Just as you nearly avoid explaining the main topic of the awkward conversation, Martha comes back over with two plates, one for you, one for Chrissy. It’s only half a moment until she’s back with the new milkshake and third plate.

The mountain of strawberries is bigger than average this time, this larger size becoming something you might get used to if the staff continues to spoil you like this. You take another flick of whipped cream from the top of the milkshake, suddenly realizing you’ve barely taken a sip the entire time. Damn, it’s usually half gone by the time you get your food.

“Do you guys order the same thing everytime?” Chrissy asks, looking at both of your plates.

“Yup!” You exclaim, spreading the strawberry sauce around your plate.

Her blonde brows furrow. “Maybe it’s not good to eat this much sugar every time you guys come here,” she comments, cutting at her squishy green toast. It doesn’t look appetizing to you in the least.

“It’s not like we come here every night,” Eddie laughs, spreading his sprinkled whip around the fluffy waffle. “It’s fine to indulge every now and then, you know?”

“Maybe you guys should try something a little healthier?” Chrissy asks, her voice having what you think is a little bit of a bite in it.

“People don’t exactly come here to eat healthy, Chrissy,” you laugh, thinking of the menu item called Heart Attack Jack, which is a burger doused in American Cheese with layers of bacon and a bucket of grease. It’s not going to be a soccer mom’s number one choice for health.

“You don’t have to bite my head off, it was just a suggestion,” Chrissy mutters, curling into herself.

“I-I didn’t,” you reply, very surprised at her knee jerk reaction. “I’m just saying, if we wanted to go somewhere to eat healthy, we probably wouldn’t pick a greasy diner in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Honestly, I’m not sure anywhere in Hawkins really has the healthiest choice.”

“Chris, what she’s trying to say is that eating a crap load of sugar is just tradition at this point,” Eddie says, intertwining her hand with his. “It’s a part of our ritual. You don’t have to eat like us if you don’t want to, we just thought you’d want to be included.”

“It’s just a lot of sugar, is all.” She’s barely taken a chunk out of her food, resembling a bunny in the very small, very tiny bites she continues to take. “Maybe I won’t join you guys next time. I don’t really understand the point.” She says sheepishly.

In the depths of your soul, you feel at that moment you would probably never get along with her, have given up hope on her completely. It wouldn’t be for a handful of weeks until you acknowledge that you had sound reasoning.

The bill is paid, money hitting the table on your and Eddie’s parts, the vanilla milkshake just barely touched. If you knew she wasn’t gonna drink it you would’ve doubled down on the strawberry, Eddie hates vanilla.

As you walk out to the van, trailing behind them as he wraps his arm around her shoulders, you find yourself at an impasse. “Eddie, can you give me a ride home?” Chrissy asks. She moves on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear, “Maybe I can ride you before you drop me off?”

The pancakes you wolfed down churn back up your throat, threatening to make their second appearance for the night.

Eddie’s cheeks flush, his eyes wide as he tugs her in. Guess that answers that question. “Um, do you need a ride?” He asks you, almost avoiding your eyes.

Chrissy’s death stare is plain as day, silently warning you not to take it. Fine, you didn’t want to sit in the van with these two, anyway.

“No, it’s fine. I can grab my bike from the back.”

Chrissy beams, her curls bouncing as she jogs to the passenger seat. You hope your ass imprint is uncomfortable for her.

Eddie returns with the bike, putting it gently down in front of you. “Hey, Ed?”

“Hmm?”

“Might want to teach your girlfriend how to whisper,” you tell him, grabbing the handles from him. “It’s not considered a whisper when everyone in a ten foot radius can hear!” It comes out harsher than you intend it, but with how horribly tonight has gone, you can’t bring yourself to want to apologize.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie swears, the pink in his cheeks now from embarrassment. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t mention it,” you insist, dismissing it. You had a feeling she said it loud enough for you to hear on purpose, anyway. “Just use protection, ok? We don’t need any more Munsons in this world running around, creating chaos.”

If you got Chrissy pregnant I would actually be sick, is what you mean.

“Shut up,” Eddie laughs, wrapping you in a hug over the bike. “See you next time, slugger.”

That was when you changed from sweetheart to slugger.

-

There’s no whiplash like discovering your best friend is a completely different person when he’s in a relationship. On one hand, phone calls with him are as ordinary as always, teasing and jeering and flush with the familiarity of a best friend.

On the other hand, when you meet with him and his girlfriend, he seems to dampen his wild personality and slice it into ribbons for her sake. It kills you.

Reruns play on the small tv, old cartoons Wayne recorded for a rambunctious little kid in his mix. You’ve watched them enough to know some of them by heart, especially your favorite gags.

Eddie sits in the corner of the couch, curled up with Chrissy on his lap as they talk quietly. They’re low enough you can barely make out what they’re saying, but from the giggles alone, you have no interest in the nausea it would give you.

She was already in his lap when you got there, a sarcastic comment choked back having something to do with maybe getting off, opting to sit on the other end.

“Oh, Ed, the movie is next Friday,” you remind him, taking another sip of the ice cold coke in front of you.

“Remind me what that was?” Eddie asks you, peering his chin over Chrissy’s head.

You narrow your eyes, scoffing in incredulousness. “Uh, hello? I did not wait in line for hours for the Princess Bride just for you to forget!”

“OH, fuck I didn’t realize that was coming up so quickly!” Eddie exclaims, a wild look in his eyes. “Well, shit I’ll make sure to free my oh-so-busy schedule!”

“Sweet.”

“Oh, I totally wanted to see that movie!” Chrissy chirps, sitting up in Eddie’s lap. “Are there any more tickets for the night you guys are going for?”

“It’s been sold out for weeks,” you shrug, chomping on a potato chip. “I stood in line for like six hours that morning.”

“Oh,” she mutters, curling into him.

You wish you could say it doesn’t give you great pleasure to know she won’t be able to crash your movie night.

“You think, uh,” she starts, turning around to face you. “You think I could have your ticket and Eddie could take me?”

You scoff, bewildered that this even crossed her mind. “I beg your pardon?”

“I mean, I really wanted to see it and it doesn’t really make sense for you two to go out for a date, now that he’s dating me…”

“I think you forgot the part where I stood in line for six hours to get these tickets,” you reply, trying to catch Eddie’s eyes. He’s avoiding you.

“And I’m sure we’ll all go next time!” She offers as an almost smug smile plays at her lips.

She can’t be serious. After watching her face, you realize she is fully expecting you to give up your ticket so she can go with him. Guess that Iron Maiden concert coming up this summer is off the table, too, you think, rubbing your eyes tiredly.

You look at him, waiting for him to say something to indicate how ridiculous his girlfriend is being, to stand up for you.

Oh. He’s not going to.

“I really don’t see the big deal.” Chrissy scoffs.

Of course you don’t. “I’m sorry, but I’m not giving you my damn ticket!” you snap. “If you really don’t want Eddie to come with me that badly then I can get Steve to take me.”

Which is ridiculous, Eddie was the one who wanted to see this movie in the first place. It looked like it was about adventure, something Eddie loves in movies. You decided then sure, since his birthday is right after the movie comes out, you’ll stand in line for the tickets then treat him to a fun movie night.

If Chrissy is uncomfortable with that, then that’s her prerogative, but she can choose something else to do with her boyfriend since she wants to so badly. You won’t let her walk all over you.

Chrissy doesn’t answer, but she’s clearly upset by yours. “It’s alright, babe,” Eddie hums, tugging her up against his chest so she curls into him. “I can wait until it comes out. We’ll just rent it, yeah?”

You’re not sure which makes you more nauseous, the fact that he just made a plan with her that won’t come to fruition for six months, or that he had nothing to say in the conversation.

You’ve never felt so unwelcome on his couch. “I’m gonna head home. I’ll see you later.”

Whatever comes out of Eddie’s mouth then falls on deaf ears as you fight the tears that irrationally threaten to spill over your water line. They’re stupid, your emotions are stupid, the movie is stupid.

-

Steve sits on the other side of the light brown table in the library, hunched over some notes as you explain the concept to him once more.

“Ugh, this is ridiculous, I’m going to forget this as soon as we learn it,” Steve whines, rubbing his eyes.

“Well you’re only taking Sociology because you haven’t claimed a major yet and sociology is required in most degrees.”

“That’s true,” he smirks, stretching his arms. “This still is all starting to look like gibberish. I get it, we live in a society in which the rules are not in our favor, why does that have to be studied to this intent?”

You shrug. “It’s fascinating.”

“To who?”

You roll your eyes, wondering how he grew on you like a weed. “Alright, we’ll take a break, then.”

“Any plans upcoming for next Wednesday?”

“Uh, no, at least not that I’m aware of,” you answer, putting your highlighter down. “We were supposed to see the movie for it, but, well you know how that turned out.”

“I’m sure there’s something he’s planning,” Steve assures, tapping his pencil rhythmically. “It’s not like him to not make a spectacle of his birthday.”

That, you agree with.

“Dustin said he hasn’t heard anything about it, either. He almost planned a surprise party for him. You think he’s just taking it easy this year?”

You doubt it, he’s turning 21, after all. Not like hasn’t been going to bars since he was fifteen, but now at least he’d be able to go into a major city with his real ID without getting flagged. Last year he prattled on about plans for this one, how he was gonna have a big rager at Steve’s and drop a whole paycheck on kegs.

You’re sure if he was going to do anything in those next two days, then he would’ve told you by now.

That Wednesday morning, you rise early to the sound of your alarm.

The kitchen counter is already filled with the ingredients you need, preparing for a labor of love. You hook your Walkman to your jeans, listening to the music blaring in your ears as you add one ingredient at a time, watching the batter slowly come to shape.

It’s familiar, your mom’s famous homemade recipe for cake batter. After missing her many cakes and the familiarity of her food, you finally searched for the cards containing her neat print, clearly and concisely telling the reader what her recipes needed.

It became your favorite thing to do when you missed her.

As you pour the batter into each divet in the tray, you recall the first time you thought to make a birthday cupcake for Eddie.

Neither of you cared much for first period, so it was easy to catch him before he woke up. That day you presented a vanilla cupcake with a swirl of black and blue frosting. You learned that morning he hates vanilla.

Every other instance of making him a cupcake has been a litany of flavors, but never vanilla.

As they bake, you whip up the frosting with a hand mixer, hoping the low hum doesn’t wake your father. He works so hard already. Red food coloring turns it from white, the process all too satisfying.

A plastic sandwich bag with the corner cut off is always just enough for you to pipe frosting on, the skilled hand you’ve trained after trial and error working fast.

Your dad always knows on February 19th he will wake up to 11 cupcakes on a big plate.

The pastry sits in a comically large container as you borrow your dads truck, the sun just barely peeking over the horizon as you climb the stairs to the Munson’s front door.

You balance the cupcake in your hand as you head straight down the hall towards Eddie’s room. The sounds filling the trailer take a moment to register, for some reason not realizing how quiet it should be on an early weekday morning. The only sounds should be that of an early bird or newspaper hitting the front door.

Dread finds home in your stomach, as if on a very instinctual level you realize what you’re hearing. Though for some crazy, masochistic reason, those instincts wanted to be sure.

His door, wide open, reveals him hunched over Chrissy with the blanket barely covering his broad shoulders as he’s rocking. He’s rocking…and oh, you can hear her, too.

She’s moaning, whining, clawing her nails up his back like a leech, or worse, a tick, digging itself in and refusing to give up the tight hold they have on their victim.

Your mind goes empty, numb, until you hear her faintly wish him a happy birthday. You blink yourself out of the trance, blindly stumbling back into the fresh air of the living room. The cupcake lands on the kitchen counter on your way out the door, not caring as it slams behind you, definitely alerting Eddie and Chrissy of the third unknown presence in the trailer.

You couldn’t find it in yourself to even care about it, the queasiness deep rooted in your stomach threatening to make itself known on the outside plants.

You have a class in less than an hour, something you need to continue into the second year of your Communications degree, but not something that requires brain power.

The simple question of how you managed to ride your bike all the way to the campus, take notes in your class and blindly walk over to the library will always escape you. You somehow watch yourself go through the motions until you meet Steve at the cafe.

The moment he sees you, he knows something is wrong just by the deadened stare that’s taken over your face.

When you break down into tears, he brings you to his house, letting you finally admit to him what you’ve been afraid to admit to yourself.

You’re in love with your best friend. And while you’re doing your best to be happy for him, your poor heart can’t handle it.

-

The cupcake isn’t mentioned until you call him two days later, still heartbroken, but missing his voice. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, despite the great ache that makes each and every day fuzzy.

Usually, more than half the cupcakes get eaten by him, which is why a dozen are made each year. There’s still more than half left, the very sight of the cupcakes depleting your appetite as his continued absence carves a bigger and bigger hole in you.

He answers on the fifth ring, sounding as if he’s in the middle of rummaging through items in some way, slightly out of breath. “Hey, Chris, sorry I can’t find–”

You swallow the pain. Maybe the lump of pain swallowed in your stomach will finally evict itself like the contents of stomachs should. Yet, the more you throw it up, the more it seems to gather. How does that work? “It’s me.” You say dryly, tiredly.

“Shit,” he breathes, the background noise coming to a sudden halt. “Hey, you.”

“Hey. How was the cupcake?”

“The mysterious appearing pastry was delicious as always, slugger.” Slugger. “What-what time did you drop it off?”

You know that he knows that you heard something. He doesn’t know how much you heard, but he knows the slam of his front door was you.

“I didn’t hear much. Just enough to know you had already received your birthday present for the year,” the attempt at humor doesn’t hit you very well. You’re not sure how it’s received, but Eddie laughs regardless.

“Sorry about that, she slept over the night before unplanned. I should’ve remembered your yearly morning cupcake.”

“Should’ve remembered you have a girlfriend,” you answer, wishing you had that better judgment. “Did you do anything for your birthday?”

“Chris took me out for dinner with her parents.” Honestly, that sounds like it was for her more than it was for him.

“Sounds fun,” you deadpan, earning earnest chuckles from him.

“They’re an acquired taste,” Eddie offers, allowing your slight criticism of his birthday party.

“You sure you still don’t want to go to Indianapolis and bar hop?” You can’t help but ask. It’s like you can hear his reluctance to accept the celebration he got.

“Nah. Besides, we can’t risk your fake ID, after all.” He pauses, an understated sigh passing through his breath. “How has school been?”

Small talk is not often something that passes through a conversation between you two. You’re aware of it, he’s aware of it, and it turns the conversation into something almost jilted.

“I miss you,” you admit, lying back on your bed.

“I miss you,” he parrots, soft and sweet.

“Can we do something? Just you and me?”

He chuckles, low and under his breath. “Sure. Pancake night. Just you, me, and Martha’s perfume.”

…that never happened.

-

The less you see Eddie, the more you end up hanging out with Steve. He seems to want to introduce you to his own best friend, but your admission of not wanting to be a third wheel again gets him to drop it. You can’t help but notice the only times you speak to Eddie are when you call him. He hasn’t called you since asking for Chrissy to join pancake night.

That alone wouldn’t entirely convince you to not call him anymore. The jilted conversations always ending with promises of time with one another never coming to fruition. It’s the equivalent of being skinned alive, one strip at a time.

Steve has watched the circles under your eyes darken, the enthusiasm in class deplete, and the lust for life dissolve before his very eyes. To say he’s pissed at his friend is to understate it, he’s ready to tell you to give up on him and forget he exists.

Yet, Steve knows how unlike Eddie it all is. Dustin has complained he hasn’t been called back for a long time, Gareth reached out to you asking if you’d heard from Eddie lately as they haven’t rehearsed for a while. He garners more concern than anger at times.

Steve’s living room has become a new choice of hang out space, but the unnatural cleanliness of the house, the lack of cologne that both Eddie and Wayne use, the familiarity of eight years of friendship, it gives this unrelenting feeling of emptiness. It’s worth trying to fill it with edibles and weed.

It doesn’t seem to work, but you’ve become more open, more free willing with him as a direct result. He doesn’t favor horror movies like you and Eddie, but you find common ground in action and slapstick comedy, instead. Anything but romcoms, you implore. Anything even close to resembling romance is rejected.

Steve spills the latest he heard from Hawkins’ elite country club group, a bunch of ladies with nothing better to do with their afternoons than spread rumors about the population as a whole and judge them for it. Steve knows for a fact which members of the country club have side women, bringing them in hours after walking in with their own wives.

It’s so nice to be concerned with the lives of others and to not care about yours falling apart at the seams. Well, really it's being ripped apart by Chrissy Cunningham’s greedy little claws.

Ironically enough, you get paired up with Steve for a major assignment in Soc class, one required to analyze social constructs that have been deep dived in class. Another little gift of irony is you were given Social Stratification, which is the hierarchical arrangement of individuals or groups within a society based on various factors such as wealth, power, and prestige.

Being from two very different classes, you and Steve find yourself uniquely qualified to discuss the topic.

It provides opportunities to hang out together, distracted by the collective want to not work at all, but driven by an looming due date. Your mind wanders to Eddie non stop, wondering how he is, if he’s ok, if work is still giving him a hard time, did he finally get the belt he was needing, if Wayne was taking it easier.

Your fingers itch for the phone to call and ask, always haunted by the memory of each phone call, the polite conversation and empty promises. You crave to remember what it was like before.

Steve seems to act as your voice of reason, disencouraging you every time you mention wanting to call him. He sympathizes, of course, but he recalls the last time you called him and the aftermath following it.

When the assignment is finally in the last stages, making final edits to clear up any loss in conciseness, the final second guesses if the point has been made clear, you sit on the floor of Steve’s room cross legged, going cross eyed as you reread it, again.

“I can’t wait for this thing to be handed in,” you groan, throwing your pen at him.

“I think we earned a celebration,” he sighs, throwing the pen back to you. “On Friday, after we finally hand over this paper to this asshole, I am throwing a big ass party in your honor.”

“A party will not make me feel better,” you reprimand, glancing at him under your brows.

“No, but a good excuse to drink the pain away, might,” he grins, leaning forward on his stomach and kicking his legs animatedly. He looks so innocent, as if he doesn’t have his own agenda. You’ve come to know him well enough that he really doesn’t. “C’mon. Let loose with me just for one night!”

You reluctantly agree to it after he pulls out his dumb puppy eyes.

News of Steve’s party spreads fast across campus, and you find yourself curiously excited for it when you usually dread dancing with complete strangers. The strangers at this point make it better, not needing to concern yourself with anything other than how the alcohol burns.

Your dad drives you to the party, the rain heavy on the pavement making it hard to bike in such weather. He’s noticed the way you’ve shut down a little bit as of lately, more than happy to bring you to a party if it means putting some life back into the eyes of his one and only daughter.

When you enter the door with slightly damp hair just from the walk from the truck, the party is already in full swing, music overtly loud, bodies bumping and dancing, empty cups already scattered on dusty surfaces.

As soon as you see Steve, he waves you over, talking to Robin, who he’s introduced you to. She became your friend the same way he became your did; ambush. Turns out, Robin is really cool. She hands you a beer, winking as you tilt your eyebrow out of skepticism.

“Beer, really?” You ask over the music, turning the bottle around in your hand.

“You’re drinking to forget, right?” She asks, an air of wisdom in her scratchy voice. “Then what does it matter what it tastes like?”

Well, you guess she’s right. You grab another from the fridge while you’re at it before they lead you to a couch. It’s surrounded by a crowd of people you mostly have never met before, more than happy to laugh with them at the particularly stupid topics of conversation.

You’re already pretty buzzed less than an hour spent at the party, having asked Steve to get you a third bottle. “Might wanna slow down, sweets.”

“I’m drinking to forget, remember?” You ask him, winking cheekily.

Time starts to meld together as the bottle gets emptier and emptier. Robin grabs you by the hand to dance with her and Steve in a circle, top 40 pop acting as a soundtrack while you forget any goddamn trouble that might have plagued you.

You’re chatting about some mindless gossip when something tells you to turn your head towards the door. The door opens to Eddie and Chrissy, holding hands as they look around the party that got even rowdier since your arrival.

Eddie’s eyes meet yours, frozen in place as the emptiness his absence has left consumes you.

“Oh shit,” Robin mutters right next to you, but you don’t answer it as you stumble your way into the kitchen.

The internal debate on whether you need to drink water or more alcohol is roaring, so you drown it with more alcohol. Maybe you can shut it up. It’s too fucking loud. The ajar door opens and closes, a presence in the kitchen you don’t bother acknowledging. You don’t smell Eddie’s cologne, the momentary disappointment flooding your senses that he saw you and didn’t even bother talking to you.

Another sip. Another gulp. Make it go away.

“I was wondering when I would run into you,” it’s not Eddie, or Steve. Confusion takes over you as you wonder which male voice in your life you’re forgetting, turning to face the culprit.

Daniel.

“Here I am, I guess,” you mutter, taking another swig. “What exactly do you want?”

“Retribution.”

“Huh?”

He laughs, cruel and blunt. “I’m here for what I’m owed, sweetheart. I don’t get told no. Girls don’t say no to me. So, I think I’m owed some payback for the humiliation you put me through.”

What the fuck?

The laughter that leaves your throat is loud and abrupt, clearly not what he’s expecting. “Oh my fucking god, you’re just delusional. Girls don’t owe you shit for buying them dinner! You ask us out for a date, that’s on you, bud!”

“I don’t fucking think so,” he growls, slinking in closer. You can smell his breath, he’s clearly been drinking. “I will get what I want, I always do.”

Panic floods your brain, suddenly realizing he’s being dead serious. “Wait–” you protest as he leans in, the wall and your back colliding harshly. “Wait, no–”

“All you had to do was blow me, baby,” he chides, as if he’s reprimanding a small child. His hand harshly wraps around your waist, preventing you from weaving from between him and the wall. “Now look what you made me do.”

You try to push him off, panic continuing to push up your throat as he proves himself much stronger than you. Oh god, am I about to get raped in Steve’s kitchen?

His hand feels slimy as it pushes past your shirt, sending a jolt of shivers down your body. You’re shaking from fear, one cheek against the wall as you continue to resist him. “Stop– Daniel, please stop–” Your voice is frantic, eyes wide in terror as you try to push his hands away.

The harsh laughter directed at your pleas are cut off, an incredibly familiar voice slicing the air with malice. “She said stop.”

The heat you were surrounded by is thrown off, leaving the cold air behind Daniel to overwhelm you as he’s thrown onto the floor.

Blows of fists on flesh fill the room, watching in horror as Eddie has him pinned, delivering blow after blow to his face. You only see a portion of Eddie, his dark jeans and leather jacket as he hunches over his victim and blindingly delivers one punch after the other. Daniel has stopped fighting back, just a limp set of limbs as it jumps from each hit.

When Eddie has shown no signs of letting up you’re forced to jump into action, stumbling as you run into his line of eyesight. “Eddie, stop! You’re going to kill him!” You plead.

The sounds of brutal fists on soft flesh die immediately, Eddie huffing as he rises to his feet. “You okay?”

You blink as his hands frame your cheeks, petting them softly with his hands. A tear falls, splashing his hand. His concern is comforting, but the direct juxtaposition of his concern from the silence he’s fed you the last few weeks washes over you, confusing every emotion that has been hurting.

Despite the sweet shine in his eyes as they watch you, you back from his hold in a jerk reaction. “Didn’t know you still cared about me.”

He wears the hurt from this statement on his sleeve. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

You wander back over to the fridge, grabbing a beer from the second six pack you’re working through. You pop it open from the mounted bottle opener, taking a handful of sips. “You’re kidding me, right? You haven’t called me in weeks. Weeks.”

He stands there, blankly watching.

“I might be more forgiving if it weren’t for Dustin and Gareth and hell, Steve also saying the same thing. None of them have heard from you. You went from calling at least once a week to radio silence! I wanted to get along with Chrissy. I really did. I started all the conversations, offering snacks, asking questions about her, letting her set her boundaries, but she had something to say about everything we did together!”

Eddie stutters, blinking as he watches you talk. He doesn’t try to talk, doesn’t try to defend himself. You don’t give him the chance.

“She clearly doesn’t respect you, otherwise you would still be my best friend and I would remember the last time we had a normal fucking conversation. I get wanting boundaries, but at this point, I don’t think she even wants you to have friends! Is that what you want? A girl who makes you make yourself smaller for her sake and isolate completely? Really? Because that’s what you have. No horror movies? No more junk food? No heavy metal music? She’s making you shrink yourself so she deems you desirable! Fucking– I can’t watch it anymore.”

“Wait, what do you mean–” he’s interrupted by the door closing, a yelp filling the room as Chrissy runs to him.

“What happened to your fists?” You glance down to them, seeing bruises lining his knuckles.

“Nothing, it’s fine. I’m fine,” he assures her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Alright. Well. I meant exactly what I said. I can’t do this one sided friendship thing with you anymore,” you take another swig, wondering how the bottle was already so light. “I can’t. Call me when you find my best friend, because I haven’t seen him in three months.”

You leave the room, ignoring the calls from his mouth that suffocate you. As you stumble into the living room, you catch Steve’s eye right away, chin trembling. The hot tears that trail down your face have already drenched your cheeks by the time you realize it’s even happening, choking on the emotion that drowns you.

Steve guides you into the guest bathroom, closing the door as he watches you attempt to stop the sobs long enough to tell him what happened.

“I think–” you hiccup, sniffling loudly, “I think I just lost my best friend–” tears rattle through you once again, just saying it out loud feels like lightning in its startling ability to shatter you once more.

By the time the sobs diminish again, you’re sat on the floor by the tub, head sitting in his lap as he pets your hair. You sit up suddenly, mid hiccup as you give Steve an odd look.

He almost asks if you’re okay when you spill over his lap, whimpering between gasps as you know what you’re doing, the toilet only a foot away, but it continues to explode from your stomach.

“I’m so sorry,” you explain, tears falling again, as he sits in shock.

He grins sadly, undoing his belt. “It’s fine, sweetheart.”

He finds someone, Robin, to grab him a second pair of pants, ditching the ruined pair in the bathtub.

The dry heaving seems to stop the tears, now staring blankly with a wet face and lashes that stick together. Steve brings you upstairs, wrapping his arm around your waist as he brings you to his bedroom.

As your head hits his pillow your eyes fall closed, mumbling something about fucking up, about three months ago.

Steve locks his door from any stragglers, walking down each step to find a particular metal head to give him a piece of his mind.

From how your sobs shook your body, he might give him the whole thing.

-

The light cascading through the blinds hurts, like a dagger through your brain as you take in your surroundings. You don’t know how you got into Steve’s room under his blanket.

As soon as you sit up, the pain stabs you, pushing you back down. Ow. You don’t even attempt to get up again until the urge to pee hits you, when it’s too much to ignore. You rub your eye, tip toeing to try to get back under the dark blue comforter decorating Steve’s bed.

On the corner of the bed Steve sits, one foot resting on the other knee as he holds a jade green drink. “How badly does your head hurt?”

You wince at the volume of his voice, placing your hands over your eyes. “Not great.”

He winces sympathetically, offering the smoothie. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Blurry images flash through your mind, the kitchen, Daniel, half of the second case gone. You attempt to remember past that point but it comes up blank. “I remember running into Daniel.”

As you sip on the surprisingly delicious hangover smoothie, Steve watches you, wearing a clear expression of concern.

“Anything after that?”

You can tell he’s egging you on, digging for something with an unprecedented seriousness in his tone. But there’s no memory after that. You gingerly shake your head, which sends more needles of pain through your skull.

“Why?” You ask weakly. Steve pauses, ruffling a hand through his hair as he releases a long sigh.

“You really don’t, huh?” Steve asks, one last attempt. “Maybe it’s good you drank as much as you did, then.”

“Steve, you’re scaring me.” Images of worst case scenarios course through your mind. What did you do?

Steve pats the spot on the bed next to you, double checking you don’t feel the urge to throw up. You don’t.

“Daniel tried to force himself on you.” He’s gentle, compassionate in his admission as he watches your reaction.

Huh. “How far did he–” you stutter, breath hitching as you bite back the sobs that suddenly threaten to rake through your body.

“He was interrupted before he even got that far,” he comforts you, wrapping his arm around your shoulder as he caresses it. “Eddie sort of bashed his face in.”

Now that you think about it, the memory of Eddie hunched over Daniel as he delivered blow after blow to his nose, his cheekbone, his eyebrow. You didn’t see the final result of Eddie’s defense, but the bruised knuckles you vaguely recall spell out how brutal the retaliation was.

Eddie.

“What–” you pause, stuttering through your breaths, “what happened after that?”

“You yelled at Eddie. Berated him. I think you even told him you didn’t want to be his friend anymore. At least, that’s what I gathered from what you told me,” he admits.

Your blood grows cold. From the weeks of silence, the jilted conversations, the slow resentment that bloomed through your stomach for him. The ache already hurt just from the absence of your best friend, but it was good for you. Fuck, this hurt.

“Is that all?”

He laughs, pulling your head into his neck. “Just that you can’t hold back your liquor.”

That’s why your breath tastes like vomit.

From the extra strength tylenol he gives you, the rest of the morning is spent helping Steve tidy up the trash around his house. Only after spending twenty minutes in the kitchen on his hands and knees scrubbing up the red stains does he allow you to help him. You only catch a glimpse of the paper towel soaked in dried blood and bleach when throwing out red solo cups, a small hint of the mess Eddie made of Daniel.

The thought of his name is a self betrayal, and you work faster once it crosses your mind.

Once the place is clean, you allow Steve to drive you home at his insistence, repeatedly asking when he pulls up to your house that you’re sure you’re okay.

Your dad is at work, not there to ask any questions you wanted to avoid from the previous night, namely why your eyes are swollen from tears. The blinds in your room fall with a trill resembling a xylophone, blocking the sun from your intense migraine.

For the first time in weeks, you’re stirred awake from sleep from the ringing of the phone on the floor that has been pushed under the bed. You let it ring.

Just as sleep pulls you back in, you’re abruptly startled as the phone alerts you again. You roll over, ignoring it as you wrap your head in your hands, curling into the pillow. No one has to get a hold of you that badly.

This person does, it seems, as they call you again. You groan, crawling over the edge as you grab the phone from your receiver. “Hello?”

You refuse the want to chew them out, to take your emotions and friendship breakup out on the person who has interrupted your sleep.

“It’s me.”

You lurch forward in your bed, still tethered to the receiver by the tightly coiled wire as it forces the receiver to scuff against the hardwood floor. Eddie.

-

Eddie’s sat on his couch, limply resting his head on the couch arm as the shrill voice of the main character complains over a problem that could be solved if she had just told someone. His hand rests on his eyes, shielding himself from the light to prevent the headache he can feel coming on. He’s given up on suggesting other movies by now, but she somehow seems to only play the movies that get on every last nerve.

He would probably be more willing to watch the romcoms in question if they weren’t the bottom of the pack. Last time Eddie even suggested a romcom he actually doesn’t completely hate he had to hear about it for an agonizing twenty minutes. Fine. She could watch her movie, he can practice on his guitar, right?

You would think.

So he dissociates and focuses on the gentle petting of his calf as he rests his leg on her lap. His mind floats to his best friend, how much he misses the smell of your shampoo, or when you make fun of the cheesier horror movies he loves to watch. If Chrissy wouldn’t make a near temper tantrum every time your name is mentioned in conversation, he would’ve called you weeks ago. He missed your voice.

Chrissy continues to insist that you like him, that you’re trying to steal him from her. It turned into many fights where Eddie felt like he was losing his mind, insisting he just wanted to see his best friend. There is a stubborn, immovable force still holding hope that something will just click one day and realize just how wrong she is. There’s a little nagging part of him, eating at his brain, warning that it probably won’t ever come true.

The possibility is almost too much for him to mentally handle, because when it blows up in his face and you decide not to forgive his radio silence, he doesn’t think he will be able to handle the absence in his life. So he procrastinates the detonation.

“I’m surprised you’re not going to Steve’s party,” Chrissy chirps, interrupting Eddie’s disarray.

Eddie blinks, trying to recall any mention of a party that might’ve slipped his mind. That might’ve been the reason for his ignorance if he could remember the last time he even spoke to Steve. He’s sure Chrissy knows that.

“I didn’t even know he was having one.”

She grabs at the extra material of his jeans, pulling his attention. “Did you want to go?”

He mentally rattles through the mechanics of going to Steve’s stupidly large house, knowing damn well his distance has managed to drive you straight into the arms of someone new, even if it’s only platonic. You’ll be there, the chance much more likely than not.

He wants to see your face, even if it’s in passing. He wonders if Chrissy sees you there if she’ll decide to leave early or just avoid you altogether. But it’s just the chance that drives him to agree.

By the time he gets there, vehicles have already littered the streets surrounding his house, some even audaciously blocking his neighbor’s driveways. Chrissy’s hand is in his as he walks in, anxiously looking around the party for you.

He peers into the living room, to the couch containing members of some of Steve’s closer acquaintances and it wasn’t long until he saw you, sitting right next to Robin holding the bottleneck of a beer bottle.

Your eyes are already on his, wide and still as you stare at him. You’re even prettier than he remembered, any polaroid he’s ever had of you does absolutely no justice to your radiant smile or vibrant eyes.

Fine, you’re staring at him like you would rather be anywhere else for the moment, panic flooding your features, but it’s a breath of fresh air for him compared to his last few suffocating weeks. As you stumble to your feet, Eddie tricks himself into believing that you’ve gotten up to talk to him until you pass the front entrance straight into the kitchen.

He supposes he deserves that, fading as Chrissy tugs him to the dance floor. His hands find her hips, allowing himself to get lost in the relentlessly catchy pop tune. He can’t help but allow his eyes to float back over to the couch every now and then, something in him carnally needing making sure that you’re safe.

Alarm bells go off, goosebumps trailing over his skin as something in him screams that you’re in danger. You could very much just be avoiding him, which he wouldn’t blame you for, not for one moment, but he wouldn’t forgive himself if he found out his worry had any footing.

“Babe, I’m gonna grab a drink,” he mutters, blankly kissing her sweet scented blonde hair before his long legs take him to the kitchen.

His stomach drops as your voice fills the kitchen, asking the asshole with wandering hands to stop as he forces himself on you.

The next thing he knows, Daniel is under him, his back slammed on the floor with a face scrunched up in pain as Eddie’s fists are flying. His fists, his jeans, the floor, the whining little shit’s face, it all gets painted with blood.

Eddie doesn’t realize when the pair of arms stop trying to push him off, or when the green eyes no longer stare at him in horror, shut from the trauma of one blunt hit after the other. He just continually bashes his face in for even daring to attempt to force himself on the woman he loves.

Fuck this guy. Fuck him.

Eddie’s blind with rage, but he’s also blind with his own regret.

Your voice cuts through the anger, a warning that seeps in his brain like a sponge. If he keeps hitting him like this he will end up taking his life.

He stands up, facing your trembling form as you seem to be in shock. You melt in his hold, tears spilling over his hands as he caresses you, doing his very best to take care of you. He knows the answer when he asks, but he has to hear it from you.

Finally, the words seem to sober you from wanting his comfort to the hurt that you’ve felt from his silence. You lurch yourself from him, staggering blindly to the fridge as you grab another beer. The scent was harsh on your breath, the sight of you glugging back as much as you can sends jolts through his system.

Then you tell him everything. And he deserves it. He wants so badly to tell you how badly he wanted to call you, but the excuses sound lame even in his own mind.

When you tell him you’re done is when he finally snaps out of his own trance. He knows what you mean, but surely, you don’t really mean it? Before he can ask, Chrissy comes into the picture, doting over his bruised knuckles, ignoring you completely as she asks what happened. He’s fine. He’s not, but he’ll say anything to get back to what you were just saying.

Choked back sobs escape as you tell him with absolute finality that you are done, tripping over your own feet when you leave through the kitchen door.

No, this has gone too far. Eddie hasn’t had a single drop of alcohol but feels as if he’s wasted from stumbling after you, blocked by his girlfriend.

That conversation goes as well as can be expected.

In the hours following, he doesn’t seem to find you anywhere. But without Chrissy trailing after him, he finds himself free to converse with friends he’d missed, meeting their snide remarks of coming back to the land of the living with grace. Eddie stays for hours, half heartedly partaking in any conversation he finds himself witness to just in case you make another appearance.

Steve walks down the stairs after what feels like forever, wearing a grim look on his face. Eddie approaches him. “Hey have you seen–”

“She’s upstairs,” Steve answers, sighing. “Passed out. She’ll wake up tomorrow morning.”

“Is she okay?”

“Didn’t choke on her own vomit, at least,” Steve quips, his voice harsh. “Physically, she’s okay.”

Steve moves to walk around Eddie, seemingly done with the conversation.

“Physically?”

Steve sighs, angry, frustrated. “She just sobbed on the bathroom floor for an hour and a half, Ed. I literally watched her heart break! Safe to say, I don’t think she’s doing so well emotionally.”

“Fuck,” Eddie mutters, feeling hopeless, like he should’ve been there to take care of you instead of being the cause of your suffering. “Steve, I–”

“Listen, Eddie. I just heard a bunch of shit from her that I’m not even sure she knows that she said. Other than her I guess telling you to fuck off, what else happened?”

Eddie gulps, not exactly wrapping his own mind around it, yet. “I found Daniel Moore trying to force himself on her.”

“Jesus,” Steve mutters, passing Eddie straight into the kitchen.

“Steve–” Eddie tries to stop him, or warn him at least, wondering how no one else has seen him, yet. There is almost no reason for most to make their way into the kitchen as the drinks station is in the living room, but usually a straggler or two, especially couples would make their own way in. He’s definitely not up and partying from the blood that seeped through the shirt he was wearing…

Should Eddie have called the ambulance?

“What the fuck–” Steve barks, taking in the crumpled form before him. “Jesus, Eddie, what happened?”

“You listen to your best friend beg someone to stop assaulting them and not beat the shit out of him?” Eddie retaliates, watching as Steve double checks to make sure he’s still breathing.

“Well, now I gotta get him out of here before someone has you fucking arrested,” Steve mutters, wracking his brain through old morally questionable friends of his that would help with no questions asked. Fuck. He has a few favors to call in. “Where’s Chrissy gone?”

“How the fuck should I know?” Eddie spits.

“Considering she has control over who you’re allowed to spend time with, probably somewhere nearby with binoculars,” Steve mutters, a fragment of seriousness in the joke.

“Well, not anymore,” Eddie shrugs, feeling surprisingly pragmatic about it.

“Oh.” Took you long enough, Steve thinks. “I’m gonna get him out of here, but I suggest you do the same.”

“Can I stay? I wanna be here when she wakes up.” His eyes pleading to Steve.

Steve’s brows raise. “Respectfully Eddie, I don’t think she really wants to see you.”

“I haven’t been able to tell her anything for weeks, I’m staying!” he insists, crossing his arms like a petulant child.

Steve shakes his head, leaning on the counter. God, he wished he hadn’t invited a few dozen people to come to his house for the night. “God, you’re an idiot.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re an idiot. You’re both idiots, but, man I think you’re the bigger one.” Steve walks around the kitchen island, getting unreasonably close to him. “I don’t know if you’re blind, or just selectively ignorant. She loves you, dude! She was willing to support you getting a girlfriend, but then you just shut her out. It’s gonna take more than an apology to be back in her good graces. When she wakes up with a killer hangover, I think the last person she’ll want to see is you. God, if one of you just made the jump years ago this never would’ve happened!”

Eddie’s heart drops at Steve’s angry words, refusing to believe any of his feelings for his best friend are reciprocated. “Sure, because three months of friendship tell you everything you need to know about a person.”

Steve chuckles, walking over the snoring asshole as he steps out to the living room. “I would have to be blind not to see it. She talked about you one time about this stupid fucking movie she watched with you and I could tell. Rather than telling your girlfriend that you have a best friend and she has to get over it, you shut her out. For weeks. And left someone else to pick up the pieces.”

“Steve, I know. I know I was being an ass–”

“Then why didn’t you stop? Why didn’t you give her a call? You had to know she wasn’t going to forgive you so easily–”

“Of course I fucking knew that, Steve! Why do you think I put off letting it explode in my face?”

“Because you’re an idiot! She loved you. She loves you! If you can’t see that then I really don’t know what to tell you. Listen, if you call her tomorrow, I’m not all that sure what would happen. It’s gonna be a while before she’s ready to forgive, bud. For now. Maybe you should go.”

-

“Oh,” you sigh, hugging your knees into your chest, feeling small. A war rages in your mind. You were hurt enough by him to break your friendship off with him, but you don’t even remember it. The other side of you just wants to be close to him again, willing to sink into the apologies that he owes you and happily accept them.

But you shouldn’t. And you know you shouldn’t.

“Do you wanna come over for a movie?”

You want to come over and watch a movie so badly, it wraps around you and constricts your airflow. “Will she be there?”

“No. Just me and you. I promise,” Eddie swears, voice low enough that it resembles a whisper. “She won’t be, uh, crashing our movie nights anymore.”

You diminish the pulse of hope that threatens to bloom. “What do you mean?”

Eddie sighs. “I was hoping to tell you in person, but we broke up last night…come over, I’ll tell you more. I just need my best friend…and a horror movie…and junk food, god, I miss junk food.”

You miss him so much it hurts. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

The bike ride sends pulses through your head, worsening the ache of the hangover. If the pain isn’t gone by tomorrow, you might just ask someone to shoot an arrow through your head to put you out of your misery.

It’s been more than long enough since the last time you were on his front door step, nervous as you hesitate to knock. Eddie’s footsteps are rapid and loud as soon as your knuckles hit the door, the opening to him, wide eyes, graphic t-shirt and pair of sweatpants. He appears unlike himself, almost tired. You wonder if you noticed it last night.

Before either one of you says a word, he tugs you in, wrapping his arms around you in an embrace in his scent. Overwhelming emotion takes over, his shirt absorbing the tears that fall. He feels like home, every part of him. His scent, the muscles flexing under your grasp, his steady breaths.

“I missed you,” he mutters, his voice low, choked, even.

Then why didn’t you call me? “Me too–” you whimper, squeezing onto him even tighter. You sniffle, curling your head into his neck.

The hug lasts forever, or at least long enough for your arms to become numb.

Your butt lands on the couch, the spot that was once permanently marked by you now weirdly lumpy from the lack of use. Did Chrissy know she was allowed to sit in her own seat on the odd occasion? On the coffee table, Eddie has already prepared the popcorn and your favorite snacks, only your favorite snacks. Three movies are laid out, all awaiting their turn in the VCR.

“What’s this?” You ask, rubbing your nose from the snot.

“Uh, three movies. Pick one.”

You read the titles, Back to the Future, Friday the 13th, and Labyrinth. “What happened to wanting to watch horror movies?”

“I have a lot of sucking up to do before I get to be picky with our movie night,” Eddie answers, his voice gentle and careful. “Pick one.”

If he says so, then you’ll have to pick your favorite, rather than his favorite. “Alright, then, Labyrinth it is. David Bowie in leather pants, here I come!”

As the movie plays, a teenage girl desperate to find her brother, you sink into the comfort of the ratty old couch. Through Eddie, you found out that the rattiest couches are actually the most comfy. The more tears and rips, the better. Eddie stands up, running to the kitchen to grab fresh cans of soda from the fridge.

He sits back down, handing you a Diet Coke while popping open his own. Two things you notice when he sits. One, he’s remarkably close, his ass nearly planted in between the cushions. Two–

“Since when did you start drinking diet coke?” You ask him, wincing at the aftertaste.

“Since Chrissy was such a stickler for sugar,” he answers casually, grabbing a bite of the popcorn.

His simple tone, emotionless and understated, squeezes your heart. “What happened with her, anyway?”

Chrissy blocked him, staring at him with wide eyes as she held his shoulders. “What–what is going on?”

“I need a minute,” he stuttered, attempting to walk around her.

“Did you do that?” Chrissy asked, pointing to the lifeless piece of shit on the floor.

“Chris, it’s really not a good time, right now. I will tell you later, I promise. I’ll be right back.” Eddie promised.

She blocked him again, hands pushing on his broad shoulders. “You’re not seriously thinking of going after her, are you?”

“Chrissy, she’s my best friend! That creep just tried– I have to go check up on her, make sure she’s okay!”

“You mean the girl who is pathetically in love with you?” Chrissy asked, belligerent and full of sass. “Sure, go and give her more false hope! She was practically all over you at the diner, mooning over you, desperate to take you out on a date, I mean, don’t give her fucking hope!”

Eddie sighed, rubbing his face angrily. “I don’t know how many times I need to fucking tell you, Chris. She is just my friend. She was being nice, trying to include you. I’m so fucking tired of this conversation!”

“So am I!” Chrissy crossed her arms, popping her hip out. It was times like these Eddie was absolutely sure of why Chrissy and Jason dated for so long. “You know what? Fine. Me or her.”

“What?” Eddie was unsure if she was being serious.

“Pick! Me or her? Because when you pick me maybe then she’ll get the fucking hint!”

It was the easiest decision he’s ever made in his life. “Her.”

Eddie finishes explaining it, mostly nixxing the parts where she berated you or talked shit. You just needed to know the part where she practically had a temper tantrum.

“Wow,” you mutter, remembering how you called Chrissy sweet when they first started dating. “And…you, you picked me?”

“Of course I did.” Eddie pops a kernel into his mouth, leaning back into the couch. His body heat is warm, his scent intoxicating. “You’re my best friend.”

“You haven’t called in weeks, Eddie.” It comes out quietly, the hurt overflowing in your body and pouring out your mouth. “I thought you had a new best girl.”

Eddie sighs, grabbing your hand. “If I could take back the last three months, I would. I-I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“I missed you so fucking badly,” you admit, focusing on how your hand feels intertwined with his.

“I missed you. I know– I fucked up, but believe me when I say, I missed you so fucking much.”

On one hand, it’s hard to believe him. It seemed like it was so easy for him to cut you off. On the other, the glint in his eyes, his thumb caressing the back of your hand, gentle and unequivocally vulnerable.

Eddie leans forward, connecting his forehead to yours. “I will make it up to you, I promise.”

“You have a lot of making up to do, mister,” you inform him, pulling away from him to lightly nudge his hair.

“And a million strawberry mountains covered in strawberry sauce,” he answers, kissing your forehead softly.

“You really had me worried,” you admit, taking a good look at his face. “I believe you when you say that you missed me, but Eds, you hurt me. I want to trust you, but–”

His movement is swift as he grabs your face with his hands, pulling you in close. “I know, baby, I know.” The pet name takes your breath away, music to your unsuspecting ears. The name wraps itself around your like a warm hug, melting all those months of worry and panic away. “I’m so fucking sorry, if I could just–”

Maybe it wasn’t the right timing, months of silence, unanswered questions, hurt, but all that just conveniently disappears the moment his lips touch yours. You startle, jerking backwards as you look at him curiously, looking for something that’ll tell you he’s not kissing you out of pity, or obligation.

You’re met with the exact way that he always looks at you, but this time, it’s radiant. How did you miss it this whole time? You smile, wrapping your hand behind his neck as you tug him in, entangling his lips with yours and chasing that emotion that ran through you the first time.

Eddie meets your kiss with enthusiasm, grinning madly as he pulls you in closer, your body flush against his as he pulls you down with him.

It’s maddeningly enchanting, the way you can taste his minty breath and his hums against your lips, buzzing and tickling. His tongue sweeps along your bottom lip, pulling a gasp as you happily meet his with yours. Your skin feels electric as his hand sneaks under your shirt, as if he’s just getting the feel of you.

You sigh, curling your arm around his neck to pull him impossibly closer. His kisses trail along your jawline, down your neck, pressing sweet kisses down your jugular. “You taste like strawberries,” he mutters, audibly smiling. “I should’ve known, all those damn strawberries you eat.”

“Before we go any further,” you gasp, clutching at his t-shirt, “and believe me, I want to, you owe me a proper date.”

“Taking you out for a date, baby?” He places more rapid kisses on your neck, letting himself absorb your laughter. “God, I’m lucky.”

-

You’ve learned one thing for absolute certainty, Eddie Munson knows how to grovel. Between the many kisses you’ve shared that night you tell Eddie with surety that just because he knows how to kiss doesn’t mean he’s suddenly forgiven. Eddie relishes in that, grinning just because you’re kissing him.

The previous night he was losing his mind at his ex-girlfriend’s terrible movie choices, and you, his best friend, the person who has always known him best, you’re finally here kissing him. You could ask him to write a 1000-page apology letter entirely in rhymes or haikus and he would do it heartbeat, but all he’s required to do is prove it?

He’s more than willing.

When the date is proposed, he swears he would love to take you anywhere. He provides a list, with all of the restaurants you know he can’t afford. When you ask him and inquire about such, he shrugs casually. There’s a silent question there, wondering if Chrissy had even considered his wallet size before their date nights.

Instead, you answer with, “Our first date should be the diner, no?”

You’ve never been so nervous before, looking through your small arsenal of date night dresses. He’s seen all of them, whether from a school dance or the aftermath of a date gone sour. One dress catches your attention, at the very back of your closet covered in plastic, just waiting for the right time.

White, with blue flowers hand embroidered on the bodice, a sweetheart neckline and bubble gum pink ribbons tied together as the straps. Periwinkle blue that bleeds into mint green leaves along the hemline, fanned out into a hoopskirt. You’ve stared at this dress when it sat in your mom’s closet, asking when it might be your turn to finally wear it.

The dress fits you like a glove, looking remarkably close to the photo on the easel downstairs, a first date 25 years ago that ended up being one of your favorite bedtime stories.

As you finally make your way down the stairs, hair half up in curls in a ribbon matching the ones on the dress, your dad looks at you with pride and glossy eyes. Whispered words of the resemblance as he hugs you, eyes too tired for a man in his forties from loss and stress, a whiff of gratitude hits you.

It’s a warm spring evening, no need for a coat as the van pulls up with the usual melodies of heavy metal and drumming. You make your way down the sidewalk to his passenger side, butterflies erupting as you open the door.

The volume is turned down to a background noise, the heavy metal feeling oddly out of place at such a low volume. “Hi, sunshine.”

You grab his hand, petting at his calloused skin. “Hi.”

You feel his eyes on you, taking in the dress that is on its first night out in decades. “I don’t know how you show up looking this good and expect me to act normal.”

You grin, pressing a kiss to his shoulder and sniffing at the leather. He can’t say shit like that and expect you to go on like normal. “C’mon. I haven’t had a strawberry milkshake in ages.”

You open the window just a crack, appreciating the scent of fresh grass in the spring. New beginnings, fresh starts, rebirth. It seems oddly poetic.

He pulls up to the diner, bright neon lights against an evening sunset. It looks as if it’s painted, yellow into orange into blue. A lonely diner isolated sitting against a watercolor sky, but one of your favorite places in the world.

The bell ringing feels like an old song you haven’t heard in years, bringing some bittersweet nostalgia.

Martha perks up, the diner even deader than normal with only a lone man sitting on a bar chair holding a milkshake like a beer. The comparison sends a gag reflex through your body, never wanting to even smell another beer in your lifetime. As you sit next to Eddie, in such close proximity that the other side of the booth is useless, Martha appears with a cheeky smile on her face.

“If you two aren’t on a date, I’ll eat my notebook,” she sighs, hands on her hips as if she’s chastising two kids.

You and Eddie glance to one another, debating on fucking with her. It’s all the approval she needs.

“Finally! If you came in my diner again with those puppy dog eyes of yours I would’ve about had it with you two. Now, are you getting your regulars again?”

Eddie’s arm curls around your shoulders, his thumb petting the bare skin of your shoulder. “I’m disappointed you haven’t already brought the milkshake, Martha.”

“Smartasses. The both of you!” She walks off, a brand new pep in her step.

His thumb turns under your chin, pulling your face towards his. “C’mere. I need to make up for the times I just wanted to kiss those pretty lips in this booth of ours.”

“Why didn’t you?” You ask him, breathless as you stare at his eyes.

“I didn’t think the prettiest girl I know would want to kiss a goofball like me,” he chuckles, self deprecating and vulnerable.

You shake your head sadly, sighing happily. “You are so wrong.”

His chuckles are interrupted by your kiss, clutching onto the cotton t-shirt clinging onto his chest. It’s like you to forget how to breathe, taking the moment to take a deep breath before kissing him deeper, harder.

Your tongues meet, wrapping together with his and leaning forward to be as close to him as possible. His hand lands on your thigh, petting it roughly as he teases you. You hated yourself, hated how you told him you wanted to wait, because it’s becoming too much. The need for him sits deep in your stomach and begs you for any resolve from his teasing hands.

His kisses keep you only so satiated, whimpering by the time your make out sessions are done and ready to beg him to touch you already.

The glass of pinky sweetness hits the table, interrupting his electric lips on yours. “If you two do it, at least have the decency to take it to the bathroom like every other patron.”

You yelp, avoiding Martha’s eyes as Eddie tugs you in against his chest, kissing your temple. “Yes ma’am,” Eddie obeys, saluting with two fingers. Two, very distracting fingers.

You take a sip, humming. After weeks, you will proudly proclaim that this is still the best milkshake in town.

Eddie kisses your cheek, pulling you even closer. “If you lick that whipped cream off your finger, so help me god.”

It’s a habit of yours, one you’ve done at least once a visit just to get a taste of it before it sinks into the milkshake. The numerous times you’ve done it sinks in, unknowingly teasing him. “Something wrong with tasting whipped cream, Eds?”

“When you do it with that tongue of yours, yes,” he mutters, nipping on your jawline.

“Why don’t you have a taste,” you hum, taking a scoop with your pinky, licking it up.

Eddie pulls you in, humming as his tongue reaches out for yours to grab a taste of the cream melting fast in your mouth. He pulls back all too soon, eyes fluttering shut as he tuts his tongue. “Mmm. Yum. Thanks, baby.”

The milkshake is nearly gone by the time Martha rolls around again, pancakes and waffles in hand, interrupting soft conversation and sweet nothings.

He finally tries a taste of your pancakes, eating from the fork you offer him. His face winces, screwing up as he chews on it. “That strawberry sauce is sweet, ain’t it?”

“A little sour, I guess, but it’s my favorite. The fresh strawberries are a nice little addition.” You tell him, cutting up the pancakes.

“I’ll stick to my sprinkles,” Eddie mutters, dipping a piece of the big fluffy waffle in the whip. “They are the best.”

“I have a question,” you mutter, relishing in the taste of the sweet strawberry sauce. “How-how long have you liked me? Was it more recent, or have you liked me for years?”

Eddie smirks, placing a stand of hair over your shoulder. “Years.” He chokes back the correction of the word like, cause it’s so much more. “The first time I saw you, you were giving one of the football dicks hell for picking on one of the scrawny little freshmen. And I mean, berating him. You’re shy, baby, but not when it comes to others.” He pauses, chewing thoughtfully. “I knew from that moment.”

Oh. It was a handful of months before you found yourself sitting by the hellfire table, shaking your head at their antics. Plus, Gareth was just plain wrong in his opinion, you shook your head disapprovingly as you dug your nose in the book. Eddie caught on to it, demanding you join their group and inform him of how wrong he was. You did. You didn’t realize how charming Eddie was, how welcoming and genuinely kind.

It took your breath away, especially how gorgeous he was. The crush was kindled from then on, only being nurtured as you continued to debate him and his friends on their nerd culture.

Eddie followed up with the same question, asking how long ago for you, too. You tell him that very story, of how he enamored you just from being around him.

“You know, by then I was already head over heels for you,” he admits casually, sipping the last of the milkshake. “Something about sticking it to the man just does that to a guy.”

“Those dimples of yours are a weapon.” You admit in kind, and he laughs. You drop your jaw incredulously. “They’re a weapon! You think your hands are the only things those girls call magic?”

Eddie leans in, hot breath on your ear sending ripples down your neck. “And have you thought about these magic hands of mine, sweetheart?”

You gulp, licking your lips as your heart races in your chest. “Maybe...” You say softly.

He hums, tentatively kissing your skin. He really shouldn’t be doing this in a public space, you think, attempting not to wiggle at the uncomfortable feeling of arousal pooling in your panties. “I can’t wait to show you just how magic they are.”

You hold back a whimper, choking on it as your eyes flutter shut at his tentative kisses.

“Let’s get out of here, shall we?” You nod, watching as he places the right amount of bills with a decent tip for Martha.

On your way out the door, Martha shouts her goodbyes, happily yelling out her congratulations as the glass door slams behind you. Eddie’s lips find a home on the back of your hand, holding it as he kisses loudly, tickling the skin.

The trailer sits alone in the park, all lights off as he pulls up. With the turn of a key, his arm wraps around your waist as you walk in sync. It’s familiar as you help him turn on the lights, domestic, even. His jacket is off, tossed on the couch as he tugs you by the hand towards his room.

You’ve thought about it so many times, whisking away into his room with him to devour him completely. Usually it occurs when you’re mad stoned, happy and horny, but too blizted to make a move.

Your hands curtain the back of his neck, thumbs petting the nape of his neck and tangling themselves in his curls, rubbing in small circles. His lips connect to yours, stumbling over dirty laundry as he guides you to his bed. “Hmm, strawberries.”

He yelps as lands on his back, laughing as you collide with an oof. The playful moment is quickly replaced with intensity, staring down into his brown eyes, darkened by desire. Across the years of being his friend, he’s darkened his eyes in many moments, right before he decides to pin you down and tickle you senseless or when you talk down on yourself.

There were moments when his intense gaze took you aback, mostly when you innocently used too much enthusiasm in eating ice cream or put your hair up in a ponytail.

Or when you wore a sundress that sat a bit too high on your thigh.

All these moments suddenly make sense, filling you with a gust of emotion as you grab at him, tugging him harshly for a kiss much more powerful than you knew you had in you. He gasps into it, deep and desperate against your lips as you pull him closer. One of his hands travels downward, hiking under your skirt and grabbing at your thigh, your knee pulled up against his stomach.

Eddie turns you over on your back, hands grabbing at the skin harshly, his rings pressing at your skin hard enough to create an indent. Your leg wrapped around his waist tugs him down, his chest landing on yours.

“Question, my love,” Eddie mutters, words intertwined with his kisses. “Why the hell haven’t I seen this dress until now, it’s…oh my god.”

You grin against his lips, pushing your hands past his cotton shirt. “Waiting for a special occasion.”

“You telling me I could’ve seen this ages ago, baby?” He gasps, wrapping your tongue against his, delicate but enough to make you mewl into his mouth.

“Probably.”

He nips your lip, a punishment for your cheekiness. “It’ll look better on the floor.”

Your hips grind up, meeting the bulge in his pants just right. “You can’t say stuff like that–” you gasp, arms wrapping around his neck to hold on to him pathetically.

“You have no idea the things I’ve wanted to say to you.” His hand travels further up, passing the waistline of your panties and spreading on the skin of your tummy. “All the things I’ve held back…”

The admission is thrilling and terrifying, giving you almost everything you’ve ever wanted.

Now if you could get that bike you wanted for Christmas when you were twelve…

“Can you tell me now?” you ask, smiling up at his pretty, bewildered face.

“Hmm, patience,” he tuts, using his hand to explore. “Right now I just really want to touch your pussy, please, baby, please.”

It’s your turn for bewilderment. He’s acting like touching you is this great honor, instead of a means to an end like anyone else you’ve slept with. “Uh, yeah, I want that. I really, really want that.”

Eddie sighs, using his traveling hand and dipping it under the waistband of your panties. As his best friend, you’ve gotten so comfortable around him, arguably too much. Late nights in his room with a t-shirt and panties as his room fills with smoke. Eddie is only human, appreciating them too much as as you sat cross legged with the strip just a tad too thin for what it was supposed to cover.

This particular pair is decorated in lace up the front, a sheer lace for the bum, a light blue to match the flowers. His fingers latch to your pussy, delicately moving them up and down the folds.

“Oh my god,” he sighs, playing with the slick and spreading it. “You’re so wet, all this…all this for me?”

He adds more pressure, rubbing small circles and watching you throw your head back and melt in the heat that spreads across your thighs and takes form in a tremble, in a shake. “F-feels good.”

“Yeah?” he asks, placing his thumb on your clit and rotating it in tiny circles. “You like the way I play with your pussy, baby?”

You frantically nod, grinding up against him. “Need..need more. Please? More?”

“What does more mean?” He leans in, decorating your neck with sucks and bites and licks. “You want me to lick it, baby? You need my fingers, you already beggin’ for my cock? C’mon my girl, use your words.”

You might just beg for his cock, but you don’t want it to be over so quickly. “Want–want your fingers, Eds.”

He giggles, planting a nice wet kiss on your lips. “That’s my girl.” He doesn’t wait a second, curling one finger past your entrance and pumping it slowly, building a slow momentum that pulls at your stomach. He sighs, husky and deep, “Fuck, it’s so tight.”

He removes his finger without warning, not commenting on the moan in disappointment that escapes your mouth. He sits up, grabbing at the waistline as he tugs them down your legs, slowly, carefully, savoring in the moment. He lifts up the skirt, exposing the landing strip that sits waiting for his eyes.

“Did you decorate your pussy just for me? It looks so pretty… Thank you, baby girl,” Eddie is borderline emotional in his gratitude, showering you with praises.

Your legs attempt to close back together in embarrassment from his intense stare. He notices it, pushing your legs back down. “Do me a favor, won’t you? Keep these legs open while I eat your pussy.”

You drench your thighs, turned on even from the mere idea of being with him. “Mmkay.”

“You–” he gasps, delicately licking at the mound. “You taste so good. Wanted to bury my face in this little cunt for so long.”

His hands lift your thighs up and over his shoulder. His mouth tells you he knows exactly what he’s doing, listening to the cues you give him through your quivers and whines. The dress is completely covering his face, hiding the man that is eating you out, slowly and carefully, as if wanting to taste every drop of arousal you feed him.

Before long, your legs start shaking in his hold from the pleasure that has your hands tangled in your hair, eyes squeezed tight as he pulls whine after whine from you. One finger slides right back in, facing no resistance, sucking on your clit simultaneously. That arches your back and curls your toes, gasping from his build up, his words, god just from the years of mental torture.

You cum against his lips without warning, for him or yourself, twitching around his fingers and crying out his name.

He coaxes you through it, kissing your pretty pussy lips gently until your legs stop convulsing. Sweat beads on your forehead, spreading on your back and neck and making the thick fabric of the dress too hot. You untie each ribbon, desperately grabbing at the neckline to pull it up and off.

He kisses up your torso, laughing as you get stuck with the dress half off. One heel digs in his back in retaliation, whining as you gesture to him to help you. “I’m sorry, you’re just so cute.” Eddie giggles.

You whine, kicking your legs for him to hurry up. Your hair is stuck in your dress. It lifts over your head, a light bra covering your tits acting as a tease for him. The dress lands on the floor, nice and splayed out as it’s done its purpose.

You roll your eyes, tugging him in for a desperate kiss by the neck, wandering hands moving south to tug at his t-shirt. “Wanna see you, too,” you confess, helping him rid of his shirt. “Show me those tattoos.”

“You like the tatties?” You nod enthusiastically although you know he’s just teasing you. “Oh, I bet ya do. Probably ogled them while I wasn’t lookin’ huh?”

With a chest like his, you don’t imagine he could blame you. You let your eyes speak for you, raking over his covered chest and openly staring. “Wanna suck your cock.” You look up at him with big doe eyes, silently begging.

Eddie’s eyes widen at your admission, groaning as you start to undo his jeans. “Fuck, I don’t know if I’ll last that long…I need to be buried in you, wanna feel that pussy around my cock.”

You gulp, wrapping your legs around his torso so his jeans meet your pussy, probably drenching a wet spot on the front. “Me too…but I remember you said you didn’t really get reciprocated very much.” You inhale, gathering courage. “I remember thinking how I’d love to spend hours with your cock down my throat.”

Eddie keels over you, curling his face in your neck as he whimpers. “You were holding that back from me?” He punches the mattress right next to your head, a mild temper tantrum. “What other depraved thoughts have you been hiding from me?”

“You want me to tell you, or show you?” You’re not sure where this surge of confidence is coming from, but you’re running with it, especially if it means you can hear him make that sound again.

“Sh-show me- want you to show–” he nods, whimpering into your neck and shuddering.

“Mmkay,” you muse, smirking at just how easily the shoe falls on the other foot. “Get on your back.”

He complies promptly, wrapping his arm around the small of your back and turning the two of you over. You straddle him, grabbing at his chest carefully as you plant kisses all the way down his lean torso. You bring teeth into the mix, sucking and biting and marking your territory.

You’ve been itching to do so since he showed up one morning with bruises decorating his neck, claiming his hookup got a little too eager.

I'll show you eager, you begrudgingly think, wishing that all the boys were teasing him from bruises you gave him, instead. God, there was one planted on his collarbone that was excessively large, annoyingly so.

You mark your way down his chest, his stomach, lapping greedily at his treasure trail as he whimpers at your enthusiasm. This is power, you think to yourself, wondering what other noises you could conjure from him. As your mouth moves, so do your hands, undoing his belt slowly, taking your time as you unzip his fly.

The evidence of his arousal is strikingly clear, his boxers bulging out of the open fly and begging for your attention. While your subtle glances downward gave you an inkling of his size, his hardened cock presenting itself to you, even disguised in its plaid wrapping, had you letting out a gasp in unbridled lust.

You wrap your hand around it, gleaming as he hisses, a hushed swear passing through his lips. You watch his face, observing him as you place your lips on the covered shaft, just letting him feel the heat of your breath on it. “Oh, fuck–” Eddie chokes, letting out harsh shudders.

The sight of his face is borderline angelic, all of his walls down as he focuses on you. You can’t help but smile at that, at how you desperately wished for nights like these, only paying attention to one another. You poke your tongue out, drenching the cotton fabric with your spit, working your way down the length.

At his little whines, you finally curl his fingers under his waistband, drooling at the taut cock that pops out, giving you a friendly hello, swaying from the spring. You smile ear to ear, delicately wrapping your hand around the base.

You kiss the tip, lapping at the pearl of precum that gives the clear indication of his arousal, as if his hard on wasn’t enough. “Mmm,” you hum at the salty taste, leaning in to suck every last drop from his flushed tip.

You let the saliva that has pooled on the surface of your tongue drool onto his cock, spreading it down the shaft, absorbing the moan he rewards you with. “Shit, that feels–oh my god.”

You smile with pride, finally taking him into your mouth, enthusiastically bobbing up and down on his length. Your eyes remain on his, watching him as his face melts, committing it to memory.

“Oh, Jesus,” he swears, hips rutting up, clawing further into your mouth. You take him in further, gagging on it as you wrap your tongue around it experimentally, choking loudly and purposely. “Ch-choke on it, yeah, ch-ohmy god, just like that–”

Your hand moves in rhythm with your mouth, slobbery sounds of spit on flesh, his and yours, deliciously wet. He tenses up beneath you, whines growing more desperate, moans huskier, deeper. It’s a marvelous melody, one no composer could make even if they tried their hardest.

“St-st-stop,” he stutters, curling over himself, writhing under you. “Stop–I-I’m gonna cum.”

Reluctantly you listen, lifting your head off him with a pop and cheekily smiling at his heaving chest. You crawl upward, yelping as he wraps his arm around the small of your back and tugs you in for a kiss, more powerful, wrapped in an unnamed emotion you couldn’t possibly let yourself be delusional enough to define as. The one hand crawled up your back undoes the clasp of your bra, tugging it off your arms and flinging it across the room.

“Gimme those tits,” Eddie sighs, kneading them in his hands and toying with the flesh and nips. “Oh, they’re so pretty, baby. I love them, I‘ve wanted to play with them for so long.”

Eddie’s legs move under you, kicking off his jeans while holding you close to his chest. You sit up, tugging him up with you as you hover just over him.

His skin directly on yours, close and toe curling as you straddle his lap, arms wrapped around his neck as you stare into his eyes. There’s a glow in them, eyebrows relaxed as he holds your hips, staring up at you with such enamour. “Want your cock,” it’s only a whisper, but loud in the intimacy between you two. “I want you.”

His brows furrow, only a moment. The thought passes through him quick as a flash, but you see it.

“What was that?”

He smiles, relieved and tender. “I’ve wanted you for so long.” He leans in, pressing kisses on your clavicle, your neck, your shoulder, the swell of your breast. “Not-not just like this. I mean, fuck, I wanted it, so, so bad. But…I’ve wanted you, wanted your late nights and early mornings, to help you when you need to study, wash the dishes…sorry, I’m rambling.”

You pet his cheek, shaking your head. “No. Keep going.”

“I mean, we’ve always sort of had that, you know? It was just torture, not kissing you stupid whenever I wanted…because I wanted to. I wanted to, so much, baby. I love you. So much. You’re my best friend, my person, and I just love you so fucking much.”

A breath of a laugh passes through your lips, attempting to absorb what he had just told you. “Really?”

You smile, holding him tightly as you kiss him, sighing happily as he confirms, nodding frantically. The head brushes against your entrance, pulling a whine from you. “Eds, I-I love you, too.” The kisses get more fierce, Eddie clinging onto you harder and nearly attacking your lips. “But…if you don’t fuck me soon I might actually lose my mind,” You giggle.

He laughs, combing his fingers through your hair, away from your face, from the sweat. He slaps his cock against your clit, teasing you with his head. “Of course, baby, you wanna ride me, hmm? Hop up and down on my big fat cock?”

You nod, biting your bottom lip, hissing when he pushes his head in, watching as your jaw drops. “Oh, look at you, I knew you could take it like a good girl.”

You choke back a whine, swallowing hard as his words have such a strong effect on you. ‘Fuck, f-feels so good.” You stop, mewling as the burn of his girth becomes too much.

“Don’t rush yourself, baby, it’s okay.” He puts his hands on your hips, digging into the soft flesh. “So nice and tight, fuck.” His eyes practically roll to the back of his head.

You sink further, taking him deeper as the burn bleeds into bliss and back to burning again. “Jesus, s’good.”

“Mm, almost there, baby.”

“Move, please. Eds. Need-need you to move.”

Eddie chuckles, large hands holding your back. He lifts his hips, slowly filling you to the hilt and bringing it back out, one hand landing by his side to use it for leverage. You chirp out his name, mewling as he slowly rocks his hips. “Love the way you say my name,” he gasps.

You start rocking, slowly lifting your hips as you assist him. “You gonna make me scream it?”

“If that’s a challenge, then I will happily accept,” Eddie growls, gripping onto your hips harder and pulling you down so the union of where your bodies meet hurts in the best way. “Wonder when those legs will give up, hm?”

“I’ve thought about riding you on the couch too many times to give up easily,” you admit, giggling at his wicked grin.

“Oh, have you now? Been wearing those little panties just so I’d snap and ravish you, hmm?” He asks, hair wild as he watches you bounce on him.

“Maybe,” you admit, though that was mostly just out of comfort and trust of your best friend. “You have stronger will power than I thought you would.”

“Hmm, you think too much of me, baby,” Eddie mutters, framing your face with his hand and pulling you in for a kiss.

Admittedly, your legs are growing tired, but you soldier on, connecting your forehead with his desperately and watching his eyes glaze over. Your head already feels hazy, heat building in your stomach as you rapidly climb towards your climax. “You getting close? About to cum on my cock?”

You nod, startling in your movement as he starts to move you quicker with just the tightening of his grip on your hips. “Eds,” You whimper as he rubs his thumb on your clit, rapid movements as he hurdles you towards your orgasm, your cunt tightening around him as your eyes roll back.

“Lemme feel you squeeze my cock, baby, wanna feel you cum all over it.” Almost as he demands it into existence, you finish with a start, twisting your toes together and hunching over his shoulder while he rolls his hips, gasping and whining and mewling. “Oh, that’s my girl. Here, bet those legs’re gettin’ tired, hmm?”

You nod, giddily giggling as he maneuvers you on your back. “God, I love you. I really really do. I don’t–I don’t know what the fuck I’ve been thinking–”

You slap your hand on his mouth, giggling at his wide eyes. “Sorry, but…shut up. Rail me. Destroy me. We have time for all that later, now quit getting all emotional on me.” You take your hand off his mouth and pat his cheek. “Be a good boy and make me scream your name, won’t you?”

He chuckles deeply, his jaw dropping as he nips on the palm of your hand. “‘Be a good boy,’ hmm? Yes, ma’am.”

Okay, this turns you on too much not to eventually dissect it, but Eddie’s hips start moving, harsh and raw and brutal, just as you asked for. With each collision of his hips comes a whimper from the force, each one louder than the last.

His head curls down into your neck, sinking his teeth into your skin as he sucks and bites and laps his tongue over the pain. “Look at your neck, all marked up. All mine,” He rasps.

“All yours,” you whisper, choking on the emotion that fills your throat.

“My good girl who loves to get fucked hard, hmm?” He chuckles, curling his arms tightly around you. “Oh, listen to those pretty little noises you’re making, so pathetic for me, oh fuck.”

“Ed-keep-oh-oh–” you gasp, whining higher and higher.

“Yeah, just like that. Pathetic little princess.”

Your legs wrap around his waist, pulling him in close, skin to skin, all sticky and sweaty as the smell of sex fills the air.

“You’re moaning like a desperate little slut but you’re not screaming my name, yet. Can’t wait for it. Hmm? Why you makin’ me wait?”

“Maybe you’re not hitting hard enough,” you gasp, a smile spreading across your face.

Eddie’s eyes widen, lifting his body off yours quickly. “Oh yeah? Hands n’ knees. Turn around.” He sends a jolt of fear through you, eyes widening as move into a crawl position. “That’s a girl.”

His hands tighten on your hips, lining himself up and pushing in all within the span of 3 seconds. He’s relentless with it, lurching forward as he grabs a fistful of your hair. “C’mon, I can’t hear you.” He taunts you, pulling deliciously at your scalp.

He starts moving faster and harder, clumsily planting his lips on your back, messily trying to take any claim he can on you. One hand slaps your ass, Eddie hums, appreciating the print of his hand on your skin. Moans pass through your lips, the loud ones that Eddie was asking of you. HIs name is added into the mix, cross eyed and desperate as he somehow increases his force.

“There we are. Where do ya want me to cum, baby, I’m so fuckin’ close.”

“Cum–cum in me, Eds. Fill me up.”

“Fuck-you, y’sure?”

“Fill. Me up.” You say again, getting your point across.

“Oh fuck–” he stutters, jaggedly rutting into you as he bends over you, filling you up with sticky white ropes. “You feel that, baby? Fuck. You feel all full?”

Eddie releases the hold on your hair as you fall forward, breathing heavily as you collect yourself. He pulls himself out, collapsing right next to you. His arms easily wrap around your back, pulling you in against his chest. You curl into him, sighing happily as you listen to his racing heart.

You lay like that for a while, listening to his breathing even out as he pets your hair gently. He plants a kiss on your forehead, humming. “Why did that take us so long to do?” You ask, still trying to regain control over your breathing.

“Hmm?” He pulls away, processing your question. “Oh, I don’t know. We’re idiots.”

You tug him back in, feeling sleepy as you smile against his chest. “Yeah. Big, big idiots. I love you, idiot.”

He hums, pulling you in tighter. “Love you too, ya idiot.”

It’s strange. You thought it would change everything if he were to finally be yours. It doesn’t change anything, banter traded as always, only with a caressing hand that tugs you in for a kiss when he teases you. Hormones go wild, finding resolve in one another as movies are no longer watched, just a nice background noise.

-

Thank you so much for reading, remember replies and reblogs are the best way to support fic writers on tumblr

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[kaijutegu]

Aug ABSOLUTELY deserves the praise, @ryukikit. St. Augustine Alligator Farm is one of my favorite animal facilities, hands down. It's a pretty zoo, doable in an afternoon if you kinda like crocodilians, or an all day affair if you REALLY like crocodilians. Here are my favorite things about it and why I think it's worth supporting.

1. They keep animals in interesting social groups.

Crocodilians are heavily involved parents, but most places that breed them don't have the enclosure space to let the babies stay with the parents. St. Augustine does. One of my favorite groups was their crèche of slender-snouted crocodiles. They had the parents and then a yearling cohort and a new hatchling cohort. This aligns with how these guys live in the wild- the babies stick around longer! They have the space for it, and they are very in tune with the social needs of their animals.

Very, very few zoos can keep their baby crocs with the adults and still perform maintenance and animal health checks safely. This doesn't mean these facilities are bad- it just means that they have different management practices. And frankly, a lot of these species aren't frequently bred elsewhere. Your average zoo doesn't need a setup where you can have a multiyear crèche for slender-snouted crocodiles. Some species have better success when the young are pulled early, and some zoos are better set up to raise out any offspring separately or behind the scenes. Every facility's practices are different, and this just happens to work well at St. Augustine and be really enjoyable to see as a zoo patron.

Crocodilians are exceptional parents and very protective. It's a sign of incredible animal management practices and animals that feel very comfortable with staff that St. Augustine can do this with nearly every species they breed.

2. They understand the social needs of their animals.

Some crocodilians are social. Some are solitary. Some can live happily with a member of the opposite sex but get territorial around members of the same sex. St. Augustine pays incredible attention to their social groupings to ensure that they aren't just meeting the animals' physical health needs but their social needs as well. They do continuous scientific research about social structures in crocodilians, taking blood samples to test stress hormones and observing stress behaviors to see how group dynamics change.

For example, St. Augustine is home to one of the world's largest known living saltwater crocodiles, Maximo. And his comparatively tiny mate, Sydney. During the educational presentations with these two, they point out that even their monster of a croc needs his social group- he won't eat if she's not around and he is calmer during medical checks if he can see her. These animal share a deep and special pair bond, and they make sure to talk about how the social aspect of these animals' lives is integral to their care. It's a unique aspect of the way they talk about these animals, because he IS a spectacle and he IS a sensation, but they don't talk about him like he's a mindless killing machine- they talk about him like he's a big, complex predator with social needs like any other animal. Aug is the only facility I've been to where the emotional and social needs of crocodilians is part of the education they provide guests- and speaking of education...

3. Their demos and presentations are extremely good.

The presentations at St. Augustine are some of the best I've ever seen, and I've seen literally hundreds of animal talks on everything from aardvarks to zebras. But as you... can probably tell from my blog content, I've spent a lot of time learning about and working with reptiles. I really enjoyed all of their presentations because they are very scientific about things and avoid sensationalism. They really want you to be fascinated by these creatures and love them- but more than anything else, they want you to respect them.

Also, they do a really good job handling their ambassadors. I really enjoyed something as simple as watching an educator tell us about snakes. Throughout the whole presentation she made sure that most of the snake's body was looped in her hand. The snake was always supported and was very calm. She gave the snake plenty of head room so that it didn't feel constricted- it was just good handling all around.

But also, the presentations made it clear how much the park cares about the animals' well-being. When they do the feeding and training presentations, they make it very clear that the animals' participation is entirely voluntary. They do things differently for their 9-foot saltie and their 16-foot saltie, because the 16-footer is so large and heavy he actually struggles walking on land sometimes. They adapt their programs and his care to ensure that he's completely comfortable- and he didn't actually participate in the whole feeding when I was watching! At no point did they try to push him into anything uncomfortable; they offered, he didn't engage, and they moved on. It was a clear expression of his boundaries, and I really appreciated how much his caretakers respected that.

4. Ethical Interactions

I've been to... a lot of tourist locations in Florida that have animals you can hold. Almost always against my will! Many of them are pretty terrible, and you don't actually learn much, if anything. But I really found that to not be the case at St. Augustine. Every single animal presentation and interaction opportunity was accompanied by education about the animal's biology, habits, and- crucially- their conservation status.

When I held a baby alligator at St. Augustine, the proctors- there were two, one to ensure I was holding the gator correctly and the other to educate- were very informative about the role alligators play in their ecosystem and their conservation history. The animals were all properly banded, and one of the two proctors was there to ensure that none of the baby alligators were uncomfortable. As soon as they started getting squirmy or tense, they were removed, unbanded, and taken to an off-exhibit area to relax. And when the babies age out of petting size, they just go in the lagoon to live with others of their species. I saw one upset alligator the entire time I was there, and he was clearly upset that his escape attempt was foiled by a keeper during my nursery tour.

Even though he's restrained in this shot, you can see that his full body and tail are supported, and the grip, while firm, is gentle. He's distressed, but after I took this picture, she put him in his enclosure and he calmed down immediately.

Sometimes when you have petting attractions with baby animals, those animals... don't have a happy ending. (See: cub petting.) But St. Augustine's program is fine- the gators are all aged out of wanting to have mom around, there's no declawing/defanging, and they're handled with care. And it's worth it, because people love what they understand. St. Augustine was integral in raising public awareness about alligators back in the 60s when they were endangered, and now they're thriving- largely in part to programs like St. Augustine getting people to care.

And speaking of getting people to care, let's talk about their research.

5. Shared Research Results

St. Augustine is also home to more species of crocodilian than anywhere else in North America- all of them, usually. (They didn't have a Tomistoma when I visited- that may have changed.)

Because of this species diversity, it's an incredible research resource. Having every species means that you can do a lot of work comparing their behaviors, their growth patterns, and more. They've been a major research site for crocodilian biology since the 1970s. Today, they're one of the key sites for studying crocodilian play and social behaviors. They actually maintain a blog where they post copies of papers that were written using their animals, meaning that you can actually see the results of the research your admission helps fund. You can see that right here: https://www.alligatorfarm.com/conservation-research/research-blog/

All of this adds up to a zoo that provides a unique experience, tons of actual education, and transparency about what its research and conservation steps actually are. St. Augustine's come a long way since its opening in 1893, and they really do want you to leave with a new respect for the animals they care for. Ultimately, if you're a fan of reptiles, you can feel good about visiting the St. Augustine Alligator Farm- their care and keeping are top of the line, they do a ton of innovative conservation research and support for conservation organizations, and you can see this animal there:

(Gharial from the front. Nothing is wrong with her that's just what they look like from the front.)

[gloomwitchwrites]

Hey 😊👋 I love your Task Force 141 Imagines and finally had the courage to request one myself:

How would they react to the trend where their partner makes dinner but gives them the bigger portion and gives themselves only a small one with the excuse that "That's all we had left" ?

(I hope you understand what I mean)

I'm about 99.9% sure you're talking about the viral TikTok trend. That's what I interpreted the ask as (which is how I wrote it). Most of the time, those videos are pretty wholesome. Sometimes they aren't. But with regards to 141, they're gonna be wholesome about it. No body shaming. Not dismissive. Just walking green flags who are also done with your shit (because pranking them is just hilarious). Anyway! Enjoy!!!

For the masterlist and how to submit your own request, click HERE

Task Force 141 x Reader (can be read as gn!reader)

Content & Warnings (per the warnings MDNI): established relationship, pranks & practical jokes, humor, fluff, married couple, mild suggestive themes

Word Count: 1k

ao3 // main masterlist // imagines & what if masterlist

John Price

"Love, what is that?"

"That's all we had left."

"That's all we had left?" repeats John.

You shrug nonchalantly. There's plenty of food, enough for each of you and leftovers for tomorrow, but John doesn't need to know that...yet.

"It's fine,” you shrug. “I'm not that hungry so I gave you a bigger portion."

John's concern only worsens. "You did what?"

"I wasn’t hungry so I—"

“I heard what you said,” interrupts John. He points at your plate. “But there’s nothing on it.”

“I’ll be fine.”

"No," he says firmly, waving his hand. "No."

Without asking, he swaps your plates.

"John. Stop."

"I'm not that hungry," he says, repeating your own words back at you. "Ate more than enough at work. I don't need all this. You do."

You reach for the plate but he lifts it off the table, holding it out of reach. Part of you wants to scold him to carry on the rouse, but instead you're giggling.

"Not sure what's funny,” grumbles John.

"There's more,” you laugh, covering your mouth.

"There's—” John glances between you and the kitchen. John rolls his eyes but he's trying to hold back a smile. “You naughty fucking thing."

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick

You place a plate piled high with food in front of Kyle.

“Thanks, babe.” He glances up at you, grinning. His gaze shifts to your plate, smile fading into confusion. You purposely gave yourself less just to see his reaction.

“I forgot forks.” You walk back into the kitchen. “You want a fork, right?”

“Yeah,” replies Kyle slowly, now pointing at your plate. “But…what is that?”

You return to the table. “That’s all we had left.”

Lies. There’s plenty left.

“But why is mine full and yours—” He gestures at your plate.

You feign confusion. “You work really hard. You need it.”

“This,” says Kyle pointing at his own plate. “Is a lot.” He then points at your plate. “That’s not.”

“It’s fine.”

“You’re taking some of mine.”

“Kyle—”

“Don’t argue with me.”

You pick up your fork, intending to eat, but Kyle is quick, snatching your plate right off the table and swapping it with his. He keeps your plate in his hand, shoving you away when you try to reach for it.

“Sit,” he commands.

“Kyle.”

He ignores you, clearing the plate in a couple of bites.

“Kyle,” you scold, but you’re giggling, dropping the guise.

“Why are you laughing?” he asks, glancing around.

Unable to keep control of your composure, you point in the direction of the kitchen. Frowning, Kyle follows your index finger. He takes a few steps into the kitchen and comes to a dead stop.

He slowly spins on his heel, his expression so exasperated that you burst out laughing. With a loud sigh, Kyle returns to the table, swapping the empty plate for the full one.

Dropping into his seat, Kyle shakes his head. “Get yourself a real portion and then come join me.” Then, with a smirk, “You little terror.”

John "Soap" MacTavish

Johnny reclines on the sofa, completely absorbed in the rugby match on the television.

With you, is dinner. Two plates, one for each of you. You’ve loaded Johnny’s plate, but have hardly filled yours. It’s just a prank. A test to see if he notices anything.

He has a knack for not paying attention to the smaller details. Sometimes Johnny is so distracted whenever there is a game on that he's oblivious to everything else around him. One time—just to see—you walked around completely naked. It took nearly a full fifteen minutes for him to realize it.

You casually take a seat next to him, offering Johnny his plate.

"Thank you," he says, taking it without removing his gaze from the television.

You keep your plate in your lap, casually moving the few bites of food around while taking incredibly small bites.

Johnny chews. Watches. Still oblivious to your tiny portion.

You purposefully bang your fork against the side of the plate.

He does a double take. "What’s that?"

"What’s what?"

"That.”

You shrug. "It’s all we had left."

With a growl that’s more groan, Johnny starts pushing his food off his plate and onto yours.

"Johnny. No. That's your food." He tuts, not saying anything. "I'm fine." you insist, trying to push his plate away.

“No, love,” says Johnny. He settles back onto the sofa and gives your cheek a quick peck.

You wait a beat. "There's plenty of food."

Johnny turns. Blinks. "Oh, aye?" He grabs your plate and dumps the food back on his.

"Johnny!"

"You’re having a right laugh.” He gestures toward the kitchen. “Go on.”

As you stand, he gives your ass a light smack. When you turn to swat his hand, you’re greeted with his cheeky grin.

Simon "Ghost" Riley

The plate you set before Simon is nearly overflowing.

"Thank you, love," he murmurs, placing his hand at your back.

You lean in, giving him a quick kiss. He accepts it with a soft smile, lightly squeezing your thigh before you step away to grab your own plate.

Compared to Simon’s portion, your plate is practically empty. It’s really only a few bites, but it’s just for kicks. There is plenty still left in the kitchen. You just want to fuck with Simon.

When you set your plate down and fall into your seat, Simon’s attention immediately focuses in on the lack of sustenance.

He leans forward a bit, staring you down, silent.

“What?” you ask, pretending that this is all perfectly normal.

He keeps staring.

“What is it?” you prompt.

“No.”

No. Just—no.

You blink. "No? No what?”

Simon sucks his fork clean and tosses it onto the table, still shaking his head. You’re losing. It’s hardly started and you’ve lost.

“It’s all that’s left!”

He shakes his finger at you, walking away and into the kitchen. “I know you,” he says over his shoulder. “You’re taking the piss.”

Goddamn it.

Simon sees right through you. Always does.

taglist:

@glitterypirateduck @km-ffluv @tiredmetalenthusiast @miaraei @cherryofdeath

@ferns-fics @tulipsun-flower @miss-mistinguett @ninman82 @eternallyvenus

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@ash-tarte @marispunk @gingergirl06 @certainlygay @greeniegreengreen

[lostingrayrain]

hello hello!! i bought homicipher the day it came out and i'm so in love with it.. but there's no content whatsoever and i'm so sad 😭😭 could you write literally anything for any character.. i just need to see more homicipher content!!! 😭😭💗

I GOT YOU ANON I've clocked in like 20 hours since the release on November 1st omg....

I've been cooking up something for my first Homicipher post.....here's some general thoughts on the relationships/dynamics with the main guys.

Characters: Mr. Crawling, Mr. Silver Hair / Mr. Silvair, Mr. Gap, Mr. Hood, Mr. Machete, Mr. Scarletella

Word Count: 1454

Warnings: sfw, some mentions of canon-typical violence

Mr. Crawling

He loves you!! He loves you so, so, so much!!!

Do you love him?

He asks you that. A lot. He loves to be reassured that you adore him. And he's always vocal about how much he adores you.

He follows you everywhere, like a lost puppy. It's honestly so endearing and sweet. He's constantly on the lookout for you.

He also adores physical touch, once he knows it's fine. Other than the little headpats, he likes to touch your legs, especially your calves. In times of rest he's incredibly cuddly and loves to nuzzle into you.

Pet his hair and he'll melt immediately. It's so relaxing to him.

He's usually with you, but when he's not he's often on the lookout for gifts and trophies to bring to you. He just wants to make you happy, in any way possible. The second there's anything you mention liking or being fond of, it's a priority for him to see if he can scrounge it up.

If you'll let him, he'd love to touch your hair. He will play with it and make silly nonsensical braids and giggle quietly to himself all the while.

He's a bit of a chatterbox. He loves to talk to you. Any time he's been away he likes to give you little reports of what he's done or what he's seen. And he wants to hear all about your day or your dreams, too. There's never a time he won't want to hear what you have to say.

Mr. Silver Hair / Mr. Silvair

You are so very interesting to him! He wants to study you.

But not hurt you. Normally, he probably would have already dismembered you to watch how your body pulls together again, but since you're friends with Mr. Chopped, he's put aside that urge.

Instead it's been replaced by something else, though he doesn't really understand what it is. He's never felt it before. Or maybe he has? Maybe he doesn't remember? Could you help him remember?

Whenever you’re feeling ill, he finds that he wants to make you feel better. He’s trying hard to learn how to keep you together just as you are.

He’ll get you to lie down when it seems you’re feeling faint, and carry you to bed when you collapse in the middle of an errand. Before he realises it, he's massaging your hair. Think nothing of it. Your head hurts, right? So it makes sense to pet you.

He likes to watch you sleep. He can’t put a finger on why. He likes to tell himself he’s doing armchair research when he’s really just….zoning out.

He's extremely perceptive and observant. He's always checking your reactions to things and events to figure out what you like or don't like, or to try to understand how you're feeling in the moment.

He's the type to politely ask if it's okay to touch you before doing so.

He would never hurt you unless your urges became unbearable, in which case it's self-defense, right? He'll make sure you'll turn back to normal and he'll be there for you every step of the way.

Mr. Gap

He's probably...one of the strangest denizens of the otherworld. You're still not sure if he has a body. But he has helped you on multiple occasions. You've found yourself growing fond of him.

You often see him peeking at you from various holes and gaps. Sometimes he tries to get your attention, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he just watches.

When you find a bag in the underworld, you begin carrying it around with you.

He's usually inside, but sometimes not. You have no idea where he goes.

He'll often bring back little gifts like weapons or food, like some bizarre cat. When he finds out you like candy, he tends to focus on that.

He always asks for your heart before he gives you anything, and you always say no, and he always grumbles.

But somehow you'll always find those same things coincidentally in your path or somewhere in the room after you wake up, if you've taken a nap.

He likes to scope out newspapers and magazines too, and show them to you, especially if they feature himself. He's so proud of that.

Over time, his requests for your heart grow less and less frequent. Sometimes, you forget he used to ask you for it at all, until he suddenly pipes up with the query again.

Is his wanting your heart the same thing as wanting your love? Things to ponder.

Mr. Hood

He's quiet and reclusive but he's there for you whenever you need him.

You need or want anything? Just ask. He'll give it to you immediately with hardly a question.

No harm will ever come to you whenever you're with him, and he hardly lets you out of his sight. He's incredibly protective of you.

He loves to carry you in his arms or on his shoulder, whether you're small or not. It's no bother to him. He's more than strong enough.

Hand touches are so pleasant to him -- whether you're touching his hands, or he's touching your face. He's secretly touch-starved. As long as you don't shy away, he'll continue to hold onto you.

He enjoys quizzing you on your knowledge of the otherworld language. When things are slow, he’ll randomly ask you if you know the names of certain things.

Whenever you both encounter something new during your travels, he’s quick to ask you if you know what it is or outright tells you what it’s called.

He seems a bit self-conscious of having minimal form. What is under his robe? If you don't ask he'll be grateful. He doesn't know himself.

But if you're not repulsed by his anomalous form, that's just -- incredibly touching.

He claims to not understand love, but he'll never abandon you.

Maybe he doesn't understand. Maybe he's forgotten.

But there's something about you that comforts him, and makes him feel safe. Quite paradoxical -- he's the one doing the protecting, after all. But your presence soothes him.

Mr. Machete

He's just looking for a way to not be bored. And being with you -- somehow, it's fun.

Maybe because he's usually alone, so he doesn't often have anyone else to talk to. It's...fun to banter with you, even if sometimes your words confuse him.

It's unquestionable that he's the brawn, you're the brain of this duo. Maybe the beauty and the beast, too?

He's always, secretly, been a little bit of a coward. The second things don't look like they'll turn out well for him, he ditches and flees.

But, oddly, you give him the courage to stand against things or monsters he would have thought were impossible to defeat.

Sometimes, you die -- whether by accident or because something else got to you before he could. But he always sighs and waits for you to wake up again. If you're mad, it's a little funny. You were just too slow that time.

He likes sparring with you. You have to get faster, right? Your weapon is pretty funny, too. So small and yet somehow you manage to not get overwhelmed by him. He's not holding back. He never would. Right?

He likes to pick you up and sling you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Likes to hug you like a teddy bear, too. You're soft and warm. You feel nice against him.

He's not the type to ask, but if you made any indication of not liking anything, he'd stop. He doesn't want to break you.

Mr. Scarletella

You are his queen. He literally worships the ground you walk on.

You are so fascinating to him. He just can't believe he's found someone as perfect as you. Someone who likes to destroy and kill people, just like him? Immaculate.

You haven't and never will give him your name. That's fine. He can live with that, as long as you're with him.

You've likely given him something else to call you. It's not quite your name -- maybe it's not your full name, and he knows it, because he can't quite grasp your essence. But it's enough to be able to give a sound to the person -- thing -- he likes most in this world.

He likes to say that not-quite name, and he says it often, just to get your attention.

He's fascinated by everything about you -- including how small you are in comparison to him. He loves that he can easily dwarf your form and loom over you. It's exhilarating in a completely different way from mindless violence.

Speaking of which, his favourite thing is without a doubt to commit violence with you. There's a new urban legend steadily growing in the human world, of a pair of murderers characterised by their red and white umbrellas. You're the perfect perfectly awful duo, truly.

Even when he's not with you, he's always somehow got an eye on you. Most of the otherworld residents know by now who you belong to, and they'd never lay hand on the one cherished by the red umbrella man.

[deathbxnny]

Loved your writing of arcane characters saying things they regret during an argument. Would you be willing to do a version with Jayce, Viktor and Silco? I apologize if you don't prefer to write about these characters, you can ignore this

Arcane men saying things they'll regret during an argument. | Viktor, Jayce, Silco x Gn!Reader

Oh, I absolutely am willing to do that, Anon!! These are going to be pretty irredeemable, though, so there is not going to be a part two to this... anyways, enjoy!!<3

Content: Season 2 spoilers!!, heavy angst, hurt/no comfort, break ups, swearing, gaslighting, toxic behavior, sfw

Reader has no mentioned pronouns.

((Not proofread))

》VIKTOR

"This... isn't you anymore, Viktor. A-And I refuse to keep lying to myself like this either!" You hissed out one night, unable to keep it in any longer. You were losing your mind in this compound of his, unable to understand how seemingly no one was able to recognize how wrong everything was. People who were "healed" by him weren't the same after. They turned into robotic and uncanny husks of their old selves.

A terrifying sight that unnerved you deeply. And only you here.

The nail in the coffin was perhaps the skeptical appearance of Councilor Salo. Never in your life had you ever seen him give a damn about anyone but himself. He lived a life of riches and materialism, far from the selfless and minimalistic lifestyle found here. But after your boyfriend healed him of his inability to walk, he suddenly preached the same ideals that everyone else did.

Peace, love, and community.

Those were the important pillars of this idyllic place Viktor had created, and yet you couldn't see past the clear red flags that weaved themselves in their white attire. You were never much of a genius like he was, but it didn't take much brainpower to understand that this was not a great place to be in. No matter how hard he attempted to convince you of that.

"... I'm sorry you feel that way. But I'm afraid I can not follow your reasoning for this claim. I am myself... just someone greater. More meaningful. Isn't that beautiful?" His voice was so gentle and patient in comparison to yours. Something that wasn't unusual to him. But the way he used that tone now made you sick. "Terrifying is a better word, actually... Why can't you see that this is just wrong? You're not healing anyone-" "-But I am. Look around you. Is that not enough for you to finally believe me, my love? I want to create a better world... one in which we can live freely together." Your mind spun, his words ringing in your head dangerously. And you hated every second of it.

This isn't the man you loved anymore. He must have died that fateful day when the sky fell from above, and he covered you with his body to save you. His last act of kindness as your boyfriend and lover before he perished and left behind whoever he was. And you'd be damned if the last good memory got tainted too.

"No. I will not let you play with my mind anymore. I've had enough." You pushed past him, wanting to finally escape this borderline cult. Originally, you had only followed after him because you couldn't bear being without him. Jayce was right, though. He really was different now.

"Hm... it seems like I was right about you after all." You stopped in your tracks yet didn't dare face him. "You truly are not worth saving... you can't grasp the beauty of what I have made. I suppose everyone's claims for your low intelligence were, unfortunately, right. What a shame." How could a devil have such a soothing, loving voice? Why did the monster that now lurked in your shadow have to have your lovers face? The cruelty was too much to bear.

Who would have thought that you'd finally leave him for good after all the years you've taken care of him? This moment felt so surreal and yet ironically freeing as well. The end was near. "Did you... ever even love me?" You asked aimlessly, but didn't wait to hear his answer.

Perhaps if you had, however, you would've seen that sudden spark of surprise in his eyes, as you slipped out of his fingers for good at last.

》JAYCE

You had looked everywhere for him. And after also asking everyone under the sun if they had seen your boyfriend, you had eventually determined that he must've somehow gone missing. Worried sick, it pained you knowing that there wasn't much you could do either, considering that everyone was too busy getting ready for a borderline war and Caitlyn became unreachable as a result. Yet just as you began to lose hope, your dear lover finally returned... but he wasn't the same.

He didn't look the same, nor did he act the same, in fact. He looked so different that it even visibly startled you when you found him rummaging through his once shared laboratory. You had just returned from another wrap around the building in hopes of finding it, and whilst you'd consider yourself lucky this time around, all you now felt was genuine dread.

"Jayce...? What happened to you? I looked for you everywhere and-" You stilled at the intense look he gave you, his face flinching for a moment, as though his mind couldn't comprehend your image. Glancing over at his peculiar weapon of choice, you felt unnerved at how even that looked uncanny. The entire situation was unnerving you deeply, to say the least. "You... You shouldn't be here." He finally muttered, his voice deeper and colder than it ever was. Jayce always had such a fun and warm voice. If you didn't know any better, you would've questioned who he was a while ago.

"Hey... tell me where you were, okay?" You said, trying a more gentle approach as you neared him, eyes focused on his clearly injured leg. Had he been kidnapped? You doubted it. So what made him end up like this? Nothing you could come with explained his appearance. His hair and beard were way longer than they should have gotten in the short span of time he was gone, too.

Reaching down carefully, you tried to inspect his leg, but he seemed less receptive to the idea. Or so you assumed, after he shoved you away roughly and held the hammer to your face at impressive speed. His eyes were glossy, as though he wasn't entirely all there. He was reliving a terrifying moment in his mind, unaware of the horror you were going through. Never could you have ever thought of ending up in this position with him. "Jayce! What the hell are you doing-?" "-Get away! I know what you are... you've been sent by him too, weren't you?" You let out a shriek when he swung the hammer at you, only giving you a fraction of a second to jump out of the way.

Falling onto your behind, you quickly crawled backward and away from him, tears welling up in your eyes. Your scream seemed to at least wake him up, though, as he finally lowered his weapon and blinked at you in surprise. "Fucks sake! What is wrong with you?" You yelled out, yet as fast as his face softened, it hardened again. "... Sorry... I need to leave." Quickly making his way past you, he only barely escaped your presence before you grabbed onto the fabric of his pants. "Why? Where are you going? Why can't you tell me anything?"

The look in his eyes made you shrink away. This wasn't your Jayce anymore. "... The future of everyone in Piltover hinges on me being there on time. Now, make yourself useful for once and get out of my way." Shaking you off harshly, he left you crying on the cold floor of the once lively laboratory, not once looking back.

》SILCO

When you first met Silco, you were both still leading simple lives in the last drop with his brother and all of your other friends in Zaun. The lanes were harsh and, at times, cruel, yet you fought through the agony of it all together. Years down the line later, you find yourself still reminiscing on those heavenly days, particularly those of your lover who had turned for the worst in the time being. And the question of why you didn't listen to Vander's warnings came to mind again then. Perhaps you were just too used to excusing everything his brother did, especially after he had attempted to drown him so horrifically, which left him permanently injured.

But even so... why didn't you just listen? Why did it take so many years for you to finally throw the towel and leave for good? Finally realise that the man you loved was a monster? A disgusting and evil monster who was willing to use the plight of others for his own gain. And for what? Money? Fame? Power? It was all an ego trip you had far more than enough of. Zaun was his playground, and an escape was impossible. You'd be, however damned if you didn't at least try to anyways. Even if just in Vander's honor as a long-awaited apology.

Pushing past the crowd in the stuffy, full Last drop, you finally reached his office upstairs. Not caring about formalities anymore, you knocked and opened the door without awaiting a reply. If death met you behind it, then so be it. "Ah, darling, in a hurry today, aren't you?" "We need to talk. Alone." Short and straight to the point. Raising a brow, he shared a look with Jinx, who was just done giving him his daily "medicine". Oh, how you hated your lover's dearest creation. Shimmer. The exact thing that had ruined your lives for good. But you pushed away your disdain for the task at hand.

Giving Jinx a dismissive wave of his hand, you waited for her to be gone for good before taking a breath to speak. But Silco beat you to it. Always so painfully perceptive. "The answer is no, if you're here asking to leave. I refuse to let you go, dear. You have no one else but me after all. You wouldn't survive on your own." He always underestimated you, so this wasn't an all to surprising response. And if you were just a couple of months younger, you would have maybe agreed and backed off. But you were sick of his games.

"I didn't come here to ask for permission, Silco. I'm here to say goodbye." The slightest, softest crack at the last word gave you away horribly. You certainly didn't expect your feelings for the man to betray you, but even that won't stop you now. Said man just hummed in response as he stood up to face the window. His hands calmly lit a cigar, very much unbothered. But you knew that your sentence had gotten to him anyway with how his hand shook ever so slightly. Out of anger, most likely.

"So you think you can do whatever you want? Leave after you've spent so many years at my side? Your hands aren't as clean as you think they are, darling. Even yours are a bright violet." A reference to the shimmer vials on his desk. He knew how much you hated it, so this felt like a jab. A jab at the deep guilt you felt every day for enabling the death of all of your friends indirectly. If only you had stopped him from the start... then maybe you wouldn't have to feel the dread that ruined you from the inside anymore.

"I've accepted my flaws and sins a long time ago. I may not be better than you... but sometimes, in order to end the cycle, you have to walk away and leave some things behind." You suddenly felt so content, his cold and terrible words not reaching you anymore. You were so close to leaving. So close to leaving Zaun and Piltover like you've always dreamed. But Silco just scoffed in disbelief.

"Hah, don't give me that self-righteous shit... I've been there for you for so many years, dear. I've taken care of you, fed you, and loved you to my best ability for so long. The least you could do is be grateful for my kindness." "So you think I'm a burden?" The silence was deafening, but it was enough to confirm your long-standing suspicions. He had lost his love for you a long time ago. Perhaps the side that loved you so purely drowned in the river with him.

"... Goodbye. I hope one day you can walk away too." You turned and began walking out then, suddenly realising that it's finally over. Shoving your hands into the pocket of your coat, you felt the ticket for the skyship you had to take. "Don't you dare leave. Don't you dare it-" All bark and no bite as usual. There was no stopping you now, and he knew it. He was letting you go after all. You could just hope that one day he'd listen to your words and end the cycle, too.

What a shame that you won't be there at his side to see it, however... maybe in another life then.

[taylor-titmouse]

hey i want to talk about how you should be promoting your work as an erotic author/illustrator

i'm writing this up because the marketing aspect of my work as an erotic author/illustrator is a science to me, and also because i'm the guy who gets unreasonably annoyed when i see other creators not properly advertising their work. you presumably want to make money off your work. this post will be written under the assumption you want to make money off your work but are doing a bad job at it. it will be very confrontational. if you read this and feel attacked you're right and i am attacking you.

this is geared toward selling erotic comics/writing/books/art as products. i will probably write more than one post about this subject so if i didn't touch on something you want to know more about, comment/send me an ask and i'll keep it in mind for the next one.

i will start with my first and least specific but most important point:

DON'T GET FUCKING CUTE

hi are you paying attention. i'm gripping you by the sides of your face. do not get fucking cute with what you are trying to sell. you are not a big enough property to get cute, nobody LIKES it when big properties get cute, and you are selling porn. you have to own this. you have to be up front about this. don't be tongue in cheek, don't be all teehee i wonder what this could be~, don't be secretive. you are selling a product. you have to fucking act like it. you are an adult selling pornography to other adults. i am GRIPPING your HEAD you NEED to understand this.

and to be clear when i say 'cute' i mean coy. i don't mean cutesy, as in the aesthetic. you can be as hello kitty pastel ten emojis a post uwu as you like when you're building your audience and generating hype. but when you start trying to sell, don't be vague, don't be sarcastic, don't mislabel your work as a joke and assume everyone is on it. because they're not.

you must always assume 75% of the people seeing the thing you are advertising have no fucking idea who you are. and that includes a huge chunk of the people who already follow you. they do not know who you are or what you've been working on for two months or why they should care about it. they just got here. somebody just reposted it. they are seeing it for the first time. most people are only looking at social media for a tiny chunk of their day. they are not keeping up with you. you cannot get cute about what you are trying to sell because nobody knows what it is until you tell them.

okay are you still with me. we are going to talk about clarity now.

YOU GOTTA TELL ME WHAT IT IS

good lord the amount of times i have gone to buy somebody's comic or book and had no idea what's actually in it or what it's about. who are the characters? why should i care about them? what do they do in it? what is the premise of this thing you want me to spend $5 on? why would you not tell me? i'm shaking you again. please i have to know what i'm buying i only have so much money to spend on porn.

porn, arguably more than any other genre, relies on knowing exactly what is in it. you do not want to surprise your readers with a kink they were unaware of! and on the flip side, you do not want to miss out on your target audience! if your book contains a hot spider babe laying eggs in an elf, you have to say so. not just so people who don't want to read about eggs know it isn't for them, but so the people who are egg crazy can see that and go "oh fuck YES i love EGGS here is my $5 and an extra $2 tip for catering to me specifically". a contents/features list is as much an advertisement as it is a warning!

as for re: who the characters are and why should i care, i'm sorry but you need to learn how to write sales copy. you have to write blurbs. you have to get good at the shit that goes on the back of a book. we all hate it but we have to do it. i want to know who the characters are and what the context is. i, personally, am not interested in contemporary stories as much as fantasy and historical. please tell me what genre this porn exists in so i know if it aesthetically appeals to me. pull some books off your shelves and see how they do it. hell man go look at mine.

while you're there, note that every single book of mine has a sample of what's in it. this feels like such a no-brainer to me but again! the amount of times i have gone to buy somebody's work and they don't show me what their work looks like! you gotta give me the first page or two! just enough that i know if i like the way your writing sounds, or the way you draw your comics! i don't know you! i am not going to trust that you're good at what you do just based on a cover. the cover is to get me to this step, it is not the only step. you have to show me that you're worth spending my money on!

to put it less cynically, you want to catch my interest. you want me to go 'oh i want to see more of this', you want me to go 'ahh i want to know where this goes!' you need to get me invested and craving more. earn my $5!!!

YOU HAVE TO MAKE IT EASY TO GIVE YOU MONEY

hey go look at your bio right now. go look at your pinned post. do you have a link to your patreon there? do you have a link to your itchio/gumroad/whatever? do i have to click more than once to get to the places you want me to go to give you money? why? why are you making me click twice? have we learned nothing from every website making you click an extra time when they make some stupid UI update and how much it pisses us off? i have already given up, i have forgotten you, i am not giving you my $5 today. put your links in the easiest places to get to them.

god literally as i was writing this post i went to go find somebody's itchio to see how they described their work and it was not anywhere on their profile. grabbing you and shaking you PUT THE LINK WHERE I CAN FIND IT. don't make it hard! make it easy! i am a dickhead sitting on the toilet scrolling, saw your post, and was interested enough to read further. but you made me go to your bio to find your linktree and oops i have already gone back to my timeline to look at the boobies in the next post. stop wasting precious bio space on DNIs and put your fuckin links there!!!

this is more for the twitter people, but: just put the link in the damn post. just say the word commission. just say it's for patreon. "wuh wuh the algorithm" it is not the damn algorithm it's that everybody hates advertising and nobody wants to retweet ads. putting slashes in the words doesn't do anything and you look like a fool. i have posted so much art that says it's 'a commission for ___" and it did exactly as good as any other art despite having the word commission in it. and by doing the slashes you just made it impossible for anybody to search your account for your commission information (which should be at the VERY LEAST in a post under your pinned tweet if you're not actively posting about them being open).

okay that went on a tangent i'm going to back to the point of putting the link in the tweet. put it in the first post. not in the first reply. don't tell them to go to your bio. put it in the post people are actually going to share. it's fine to put more information in the thread but people are only ever going to share the first post. so put the link there. you have to make it easy. putting links in tweets can hurt you algorithmically, even in the replies. so you're better off having it in the post that actually gets seen and shared. i don't want to open the tweet and scroll to get to your sales page where i ASSUME you will have put all the information anyway. put it in the tweet that just got retweeted by itself onto my dash!

also you have to share it a ton of times. i repost my shit every few hours when i'm trying to push a new product. as i said before people are not 24/7 looking at their timelines. they missed it the first time. they missed it the second time. they didn't get paid yet that week but they were after the eighth time and you reminded them again so they finally bought it. that i will still get sales every time i repost a book ad weeks after release says there are always people who missed it, or who only just showed up.

abandon your pride and shill. shills pay their bills. anyone who gets annoyed about it isn't giving you money in the first place. don't worry about looking like a sell out. don't apologize for plugging your own work. post about it often, post about it in different ways. post about it. post about it. you are not going to make money if people don't know you have something to sell them. if you want to make a career out of it, you need to act like it.

I DON'T HAVE A FOURTH POINT

kisses your forehead. i'm sorry for yelling at you. i've been making and publishing and selling adult art for the past two-three years and have got myself to the point where it pays my rent, and i got there by paying attention to what does and does not work.

please do your best to make money. i want you to make money.

as i said above i plan to write more posts on this subject, such as cover design, how to actually write sales copy, and best practices with running a patreon, but if there's things you would want to hear more about leave a comment or send an ask! i will probably be less aggressive on future topics. these are just things that have grinded my gears for a grip.

[endursent]

My Partner Turned Into A Cat And I Don't Know How To Fix It (4)

【 content; established relationship , fluff , humour , slight shenanigans , gn!reader 】

【 characters; alhaitham , arataki itto , baizhu , cyno , dainsleif , diluc , kaedehara kazuha , kaeya , kamisato ayato , kaveh , neuvillette , tartaglia , thoma , venti , wanderer , wriothesley , xiao , zhongli 】

【 premise; " You have been struck with a curse of some sort which has turned you into a cat, your partner has no idea how to fix it nor how long it might take. Yet he also cannot help but be rather amused by the situation despite the uncertainty…" 】

【 note; im sorry. this is so long... lol. 】

【 word count; 11.150 | read on ao3 | hsr reader ver | gi his ver | hsr his ver 】

Alhaitham;

He usually wouldn’t allow pets in the house… not because he dislikes them—Alhaitham simply wouldn’t want to have to clean up the hairs that fall off you after moving between every spot you lie down in. 

  Nevertheless… here he is, with a brush in hand as he tries to get it out of the sheets. You sit next to him apologetically (getting more hairs into the same sheet where you’re currently sitting, of course) and watch as he scoops it into a small bag. Alhaitham sets the bag aside and picks you up easily with one hand, his large palm lifting under your tummy and plopping you back down on his lap as he turns back to brushing your hairs away. 

  Feeling eyes on himself, Alhaitham looks down to see your large, round cat-eyes looking up at him, tail swaying. 

  He put you in his lap—doesn’t that mean it’s petting time?

 Where’s your damn attention?

  Slightly exasperated, Alhaitham tries to multitask and pet you while he's scooping your hair—but more keeps tossing around with every upstroke of your thick fur… why did you have to turn into a hairball? Couldn’t you have been a hairless cat? He’s almost tempted to just put you in the bag. 

  He’s a respectable “pet owner”, but does lack in one aspect that’s quite important to you, at least… perhaps not all cats

  No kisses?? 

  You’d at least like some on your head—he doesn’t have to kiss your nose or anything. Though you shouldn’t be surprised, Alhaitham isn’t very forthcoming with his affections and most of your casual kisses are by your initiation and his response to it.

  So now you have to effectively smush your furry little head into his face to communicate that you want kisses. 

  It takes him a few tries to understand what you need, but thankfully he got it rather easily, smart lad. 

  Kaveh sometimes catnaps (kidnaps) you for… cat naps. He says it’s nicer than hugging his own pillow—and you don’t particularly mind, but Alhaitham does. Once he can’t find you after a general sweep of the house he figures Kaveh took you again and like a seasoned thief, swaps you out with a pillow while the architect is asleep. 

  “Hmph… he should get his own cat,” Alhaitham says to himself after shutting the door quietly, holding you like a baby in his arms, your paws in the air. He looks down, grey hair tilting over his eyes as he smiles only slightly. “What? You are my cat. Perhaps I should call you kitty from now on, even after you’ve changed back.”

  You tried to climb onto the back of the chain in the study when Alhaitham was doing some studies once, but quicker than you could react—even with these new cat reflexes—he grabs you by the scruff of your neck and hoists you off. “You’re scratching the furniture,” he moves you from the back of the chair and plops you down on his lap. “Do refrain from doing that.”

  Hmph. You wanted to bite his hair a bit… it smells nice. But fine. Lap it is, you can settle for that.

  It takes you about two and a half minutes not to be satisfied with that, and lounge over his book instead, hoping he’ll stop and pay attention to you instead. You have a feeling he would do the same if he were in your position. 

  Alhaitham seems annoyed for a few seconds, but he only needs to stare into your big, cute cat-eyes for a few seconds to fold. What can he do? It doesn’t take much for you already to rope him into whatever shenanigans the day brings, and especially not like this.

Arataki Itto;

You just wanted a nice, cool nap. 

  It’s hot as balls in Inazuma, and you found an excellent spot under a slanted roof. You got comfortable and were half asleep already when you’re suddenly dragged off the crate and raised in the air like a divine heir. 

  Flailing in protest, your screaming of; “PUT ME DOWN YOU OAF” isn’t translated very well into frantic meows and hisses. 

  And of course, Itto has no idea what you’re trying to communicate—in fact, he thinks you’re just a bit surprised yet happy to see him. He sets you on his shoulder and you hold on for dear life. He’s broad, but broad muscles are also rather round and his outfit isn’t easy to grab onto—you just thank feline evolution that you have good balance and can hold yourself somewhat steady. 

  He sometimes just parades you around on his head like a strange hat, he doesn’t even seem to mind the death grip you have on his scalp. 

  Best naps, laying out in the grass on a warm summer’s day as the bright rays of the sun shine down on you. It’s comfortably warm, your fur keeps you cool enough that you don’t get lightheaded—despite popular belief, Itto is not a snorer, but he is a hugger. 

  You’re caged against his broad chest and there’s little escape or ways to wake him without scratching, biting or wailing like you’re trapped under a boulder. 

  Itto is a seasoned pet owner, he has multiple beetles that he takes good care of and thus he’s surprisingly adept at handling you. He doesn’t toss you around (except to put you on his shoulders or head) and doesn’t lock you out of the house or forget to feed you. In fact, you’d say he’s a top-notch owner, though you might be slightly biased. 

  The summer days are warm in Inazuma, and sometimes one just needs to do something to keep their mind off of the heat. Even with your coat protecting you from most of it, even you are starting to get dazed by the sharp, overbearing heat of the sun. And Itto is also very good at filling empty time. 

  He takes you out to the beach, though it wasn’t the best idea—he thought it was genius, the ocean is cool enough, there are not many around on the eastern beaches because of the awkward positioning and further distance from the city… but he didn’t take it into account that you absolutely refuse to get in the water, and there’s no shade. So that idea gets abandoned quickly. 

  For some reason he loves to touch your nose; poke it, kiss it, rub it… anything. And every time he does, you have to wet it again—it almost becomes a funny game to him to touch your nose and watch as your tongue darts out to wet it again. 

  Being unable to communicate with you isn’t a problem, he’s a yapper and can talk enough for the two of you. You try to meow along in response to show that you’re listening, but even if there was no brain behind your eyes, he’d still talk your ears off. 

  He creates a makeshift cat-bed for you out of some blankets and cushions, Itto was rather proud of himself for the craft that went into making it as soft as it is…

  It still always ends up with you on his chest or legs at the end of the night. Without exception.

Baizhu;

He really scratches his head over this situation, how did this happen to you? You had gone out to deliver some medicine to those who aren’t well enough or mobile to come fetch it themselves, and had stayed out far longer than usual—Baizhu had started to worry and nearly had gone to look for you… when a cat with your eyes and mannerisms stumbles into the pharmacy meowing up a storm trying to explain itself. 

  Distressed, confused and much smaller than you’re used to being, Baizhu quickly scoops you up into his arms to calm you down. “Do not worry, I recognise you,” he assures—he feels a little silly saying this to a cat, and has a twinge in the back of his mind that he might be wrong. But the way you’re waving your paw is strangely… human, though muddled by the restrictions of your cat-joints. 

  Changsheng however, finds this HILARIOUS. She unwinds a bit from Baizhu’s shoulders and nearly bumps snouts with you as she wonders whether you were even fully aware of yourself, and after some arguing—in the form of loud yowling and meowing—they concluded that yes, your mind is well. 

  Baizhu tries everything he can think of, but he’s never really encountered a situation like this before and he has to use a lot of his attention to theory-crafting and tests. 

  The only thing that made a difference, was that one concoction he crafted made your ears twice larger… but it didn’t change you back. So now you just have unnaturally large ears for a cat. 

  He smiles sheepishly as he examines you to make sure nothing else is affected. “Ah… apologies, my dear. I don’t mean to laugh… but the ears,” he tries his best not to smile too widely, or give a soft laugh. But it’s difficult, you look so disproportionate it’s just adorable.

  Despite your grievance over your proportions, Baizhu can’t help but rub your ears and scratch behind them. He gives you some good treats as an apology. You reluctantly accept. 

  Unfortunately, Baizhu has a job to do and can’t just close the pharmacy off from his assistance to tend to you. He multitasks as much as he can, but there are scheduled appointments to be present for.

  But he has a good idea of how to utilise you, after all, you’re the usual deliverer—customers likely won’t mind if you’re cat-sized.

  Thus, he gets some help from contacts and a day later you have a fancy harness with a delivery box on your back. Baizhu sets some medicine in it and fastens it properly so it won’t slip off and you don’t feel too constrained… and sets you on your way. 

  You were getting bored lounging around in the pharmacy anyway, so you revel in getting to stretch your legs a bit. You make the deliveries in record time, able to get through tiny crevices you weren’t able to before and hope through shortcuts you didn’t even know about.

  As you return to the pharmacy after the final run, Baizhu smiles and kneels down in front of you, removing the harness and scratching where the lines of it had pressed against your fur. The nice feeling of being pet brings a rumbling purr from your chest and your tail sways happily as he gives you some water to drink and attention. 

  “Good work today,” he strokes between your large ears and rubs his thumb on your cheek. “It’s almost time to close up, let’s go upstairs and continue trying to figure out how to turn you back.”

  The soft ambient light of the room and the sound of Baizhu’s brush stroking against the paper of a scroll makes you much more tired than you expected. You lay curled up on the desk against the wall where he sits and writes formulas and theories, Changsheng slithers up next to you and bundles herself on your back—it’s not particularly comfortable, but you’re too lazy to move, and it’s kind of cute. 

  Baizhu hums to himself and looks at you, his gaze lingers for only a short time before returning to the scroll in front of him.

Cyno;

He stares at the cat in Tighnari’s hands, his eyes look up to the man holding you and then back down. “What.”

  The ranger deadpans and plops you into his arms. “I’ve been scouring the library for days while you were in the desert, I don’t know what happened, but it’s just how they are right now.”

  Cyno lifts you up by holding your torso under your front legs, he peers at your face as you dangle like an idiot but have no way to really wriggle away. “Blink twice if it’s really you.”

  You blink twice.

  “Huh,” he just makes a sound of affirmation, then tucks you under his arm. “Thank you, I’ll take it from here.”

  Tighnari stares at him, unimpressed by his lack of reaction to the fact that his partner is currently a small, furry cat. “You're not going to ask where I found them, how I know it’s them or how my progress is going when it comes to turning them back?”

  Cyno is silent for a beat before he speaks again. “I know it’s them, I know their eyes.”

  Somehow, the duty of getting you back to normal remained on Tighnari’s back, and Cyno sets you down on the dining table in your shared home. He folds his arms over his chest and analyses you, it’s a little awkward—you’re not sure why he’s staring so intensely at you. 

  “This is… quite the cat-astrophe—”

  Oh no. 

  You have no way to stop him, and though you usually let him get it out of his system once he feels the need… you could also stop him once it gets out of hand. In this form, you’re effectively defenceless and unable to protest in any meaningful ways. 

  Thankfully, he does stop after you dive under your bed and hide for ten minutes in hopes he won’t drag you back and perform stand-up for you for the rest of the night. 

  Once Cyno is assured this strange transformation isn’t dangerous nor necessarily permanent, he’s rather laid back about it. He finds it quite funny (evidently) and there’s no way around it, you’re cute like this. Not that he didn’t consider you cute before, but it’s especially unavoidable now. 

  There’s no real way to stop him from making jokes or puns about this situation, it’s in his soul—and though you wouldn’t trade his soul for the world, you get moments of temptation when his brain hyperfocuses on one thing to centre his jokes around. 

  They get a bit tired.

  You follow him around everywhere, it’s not like you’ve got better places to be. He thinks it’s rather adorable to see you trotting around at his heels as he walks through the city, though he tells you to remain home when he has work to do—it can turn dangerous sometimes, depending on the day, and he recognises that your body is smaller and more fragile than it used to be. 

  He does always come back right away, he wraps up any follow-ups and paperwork as quickly as he can—if only for the moments of arrival. Of opening the front door and being greeted by you sitting at the entrance of your home, staring up at him with a swaying tail. Waiting excitedly. 

 Dainsleif;

You’ve never seen this expression on his face, in the moments after you touched a strange-looking artefact, there’s a poof—and your body shifts to that of a small cat. It wasn’t painful, nor do you feel as if you were cursed in any way. 

  “... meow?” 

  Dainsleif stares at you, lips parted slightly, he’s positioned with one foot forward as he had been in the process of rushing towards you to hopefully stop you from touching what you shouldn’t… but he was a tad late. 

  He straightens and takes a breath. Okay… from one mystery to another. 

  He approaches you and picks you up—a bit awkwardly, as if he doesn’t know how to hold a cat—and you’re too confused and disoriented as to what just happened to process you being turned back towards the round artefact. Dainsleif takes your front right paw and makes you touch the artefact again.

  Nothing. No glow, no poofing. 

  There goes his only idea. 

  The following days were confusing and mildly frustrating. It’s been a while since Dainsleif traveled alone, and though he isn’t technically alone—you’re still there, it doesn’t feel the same. He’s quite struck with the confrontation that he’s become very accustomed to your presence and how much he’s come to rely on it. 

  He’s a bit quiet and distant from you for a few days, while it makes you sad—if anything, you should be the one who needs comforting—you do try to slowly approach, you know that he can run the danger of isolation. 

  After starting a flame one evening in the alcove of a cave beneath a bright starry sky, Dainsleif sits down to rest for the night. You walk over with slow steps, careful and quiet, before sitting down next to him. 

  Far enough that you’re not touching, not even your tail… but close enough to be present. 

  His eyes slide towards you, and his head follows. “... what is it?”

  “Meow.”

  His eyelids squint, unsure what to make of your reply. Your answers always make sense to him… but what can he decipher from your feline face? The only familiar part of you is your eyes, shining under the light from the flames. “I see.”

  You doubt he deciphered any meaning from your meows, but he’s engaging with you now. Progress. 

  Trying your luck, you move closer. He stays as he is, watching you closely.

  You move closer yet, your tail touches his coat. 

  Dainsleif sighs. 

  You stop. 

  He can’t particularly feel your presence, not yours—but there is a presence next to him. It is yours, despite the fact he can’t sense it… and perhaps one day, were he to outlive you as if likely, he will have to find your presence in something you’re not. 

  And though you are this weird-looking cat, somewhere between a sentient human being and a feline animal, you’re still you. 

  The same, those same eyes, the very same gaze and mind. 

  He reaches out and sets his palm onto your furry head. Dainsleif pets your head slowly, and you nuzzle into his hand. You sit in silence before the swaying flames.

Diluc;

He can’t help but think that you might’ve done this on purpose. 

  Diluc has been very busy the last weeks he’s been coming back home to the winery late, leaving early—getting up in the middle of the night and waking you up when he goes out for his Darknight hero duties—and though you rescheduled it for next week, missed a dinner in the city that had been booked in advance. 

  He does feel bad, Diluc wants to spend all the time he can with you, all his free time and more—but with the winter months drifting by, business in the winery booms as people stock up on wine for the holidays. Businesses buy in bulk for holiday menu changes, and such. 

  And now, after hurrying back home when he was contacted that “something had happened” to you… he’s standing in front of a cat. 

  He thought you might’ve been hurt, or sick—he had run so fast his hair was loosening from his usual tail. 

  And while you’re not hurt or sick, you are… different. Something definitely happened. 

  He sits down and you climb onto his lap, sitting down and pawing at his chest, small meows leaving your small mouth. Diluc strokes your back and ruffles your fur with both hands. “How did this happen?” he knows you can’t answer him, but he can’t help but ask anyway. 

  You rise up on your hind legs, front paws on his chest as you lick and wet his cheeks. Diluc’s eyes close and his face scrunches up. “H-hey, stop that,” he puts his hands around your torso and holds you away from his face, your little tongue bleping down out of your mouth. 

  A smile tugs on his lips at the cute expression. 

  He still has to attend to his job, but while he usually handles most things himself, Diluc does accept help from his staff now that you’re… like this. So now he has more time for you, which isn’t exactly how he intended to spend that free time—searching for ways to turn you back, and having you loafing on his lap and being unable to stand up and fetch his coffee. 

  He’s not going to move while you’re so comfortable… he wouldn’t do that even if you weren’t a cat. 

  Not the biggest fan of the hair you leave around you, he needs to wipe his clothes thoroughly after you’ve so much as looked in his direction.

  You get so much attention around the winery it’s not even funny, every employee pets you, gives you treats and treat you like you’re more of a royal cat than just a normal person turned into one. 

  Diluc came home one evening to see you loafing on the sofa, a shiny bow tied around your neck and a bowl of treats next to you… in reach for whenever you wanted it. 

  He had a conversation with the staff about making sure you don’t eat so much that your stomach will hurt… and that maybe not make you get too comfortable like this, he wants to turn you back to normal after all. 

Kaedehara Kazhua; 

He thinks it’s adorable, Kazuha is a rather laid-back person overall, and he’s certain you’ll be okay—so why not have fun while you’re like this? 

  It started all fun and games when on land, Inazuma is filled to the brim with foods that cats would love, every shop has some form of fish or vegetables that Kazuha can share with you…

  But as soon as you go out on the open ocean, it’s over. 

  Kazuha has never seen you so violently unhappy on the ship, every rock of it makes you yowl and dig your claws into whatever you’re standing on, be it a crate, table, bed or Kazuha’s clothes (you ruined two pants, but he doesn’t particularly mind). 

  You have an irrational (or very rational) fear that you might be tossed off the ship and into the ocean at the slightest dip of the deck. Kazuha does his best to calm you and comfort you, he even offers to make a harness and leash for you so that he can yoink you back if you happen to fall overboard. 

  You don’t find his idea as funny as Beidou does.

  Thankfully, you don’t get tossed overboard you don’t spontaneously die or have any other terrible event happen to you—and you’re so thankful to touch land that you hop off the side of the ship and to the harbour the ship docked by before it can even properly be tied down by the dockworkers. 

  Kazuha leans over the railing of the ship and calls your name, a bit worried—he hopes you don’t get lost before he can catch up to you. 

  It takes a while for the ship to dock and open up for people to leave, Kazuha convinces another person on the ship to take his duties for a while as he rushes out to find you. He’s not worried you might get yourself in trouble—you’re rather good at keeping out of it, but he doesn’t want you to get lost or have to spend all day looking for you.

  Even though that’s kind of what he’s starting to do right now…

  Kazuha shoulders past the crowd in the busy markets of Port Ormos, it’s early noon and it’s starting to fill up. The Crux has stocked up here often before and thus the both of you are quite familiar with it, but the winding streets and large crowds filling the markets can make it disorienting for even seasoned visitors. 

  After looking around for longer than he cared for, Kazuha finally spots your tail disappearing behind a corner.

  Kazuha picks up his pace and somehow manages to catch up to you, perhaps the soft breeze is on his side, as he swoops up next to you and scoops you up into his arms.

  He smiles, ducking out of the crowds and into a small alley where some crates are stored for the market stalls. “No need to run away, you’re safe on land now,” he holds you like a baby, your paws in the air as his arm holds your back steadily. “Though you are also very safe on the ship, I won’t let you fall overboard.”

  You meow gently, Kazuha isn’t sure if you’re thanking him or expressing concerns… but the way you look up at him in this position is pretty cute. “Let’s find some good food, hm?”

Kaeya;

Funniest shit he’s seen all year. 

  Kaeya tries not to look like he’s very happy this happened—so long as he knows it’s not dangerous or permanent—or that watching you lick yourself to clean your fur isn’t very amusing. 

  He brings you everywhere, lets you follow him around and even holds you and lets passersby pet you…

  Kaeya is just straight-up treating you like a real cat.

  At this realisation, that he was acting like you were a pet, and not his very real (though cat-like for now) partner and previous human… you got angry! you wriggled in his grasp, surprising him and causing Kaeya to almost drop you—he righted his hold and blinked at you with a confused expression. “What is it? Did I hold you wrong?”

  A series of angry meows and swats of your paw later, Kaeya was none the wiser. 

  He tried to bait you to “forgive” him with some nicely cut fish… and it kind of worked, that was some good fish. 

  Kaeya sits by the table you’re on as you gobble down the fish he bought you, he leans on his fist with a smile and watches as you lick your muzzle after getting fishy-oil on it and shake yourself when you accidentally dip your whiskers into the water next to the plate. 

  The sun almost makes it seem like your fur shines and sparkles under it and as you sit down, belly full and satisfied, Kaeya reaches out and scratches behind your ears. “Did you take behavioural classes before this? To behave like a real cat? You’re really nailing it.”

  You make a huffed sound, but reach your head further into his hand. 

  He tries to get you to play with toys, he buys a stick with a bundle of feathers on the end in hopes that you’ll chase it when he dangles it in front of you… but when he sat down with you on the floor of your shared home and dangled it in front of you…

  You stared at him as if he had just grown three additional heads.

  Kaeya pouts, he wriggles it a bit—and though you follow it around with your head, you still sit where you are and don’t move.

  Not until he lowered the toy and the feathered end touched the floor.

  You pounced onto it.

  Kaeya pauses, blinking at you in surprise. You look up like you got caught with your hand in a cookie jar. 

  And then he just laughs, he wriggles the toy again and you swat at it in frustration for making you leap at it like that, you’re not a real cat!!

Kamisato Ayato;

He doesn’t leave you alone. 

  You’re trotting along the engawa of the estate on your way to find a nice spot to nap—and suddenly, you’re swooped up into his arms. Ayato smiles and strokes your head. “There you are, my dear. I was searching for you,” he hums and turns around to walk into the estate. 

  Ayato spends about half the day—and sometimes more—in his study tending to paperwork of many kinds. Unusually, you would lend a hand and help with the neverending piles on his desk, but you’re little help like this… still, he demands that you “lend your paw” and sit on his lap the entire time. 

  It was nice at first, he’s got a nice lap to lay or loaf on, and he would scratch you in spots you couldn’t reach yourself, or just stroke your back… but after five hours, you really want to stretch your legs.      So, you squeeze out from under his arm and stretch next to him, letting out a big yawn—only to find a finger poking your tongue?!

  The bastard actually stuck his finger in your mouth when you yawned. Ayato smiled, all smug and somehow innocent at the same time. You meowed in disapproval, but it went straight over his head, as if he had any idea as to what you had just said to him, insult or not. 

  He also keeps pinching your toe beans, sometimes making your claws stretch out and then back in—even in the middle of the night, he rubbed your paws and stuck his finger between the beans. What is wrong with this guy. 

  Other than messing with you and pulling your leg, he does provide the best food and treats—as usual, you have the privilege of accessing the clan kitchens and being made food by them on a daily basis and it never fails to make you nearly cry with how good it is.       And even now, as you sit next to his desk and his dinner is brought to him (even though you’ve tried to ask the staff to not bring it to him, and that he has to eat outside of his study or else his ass will get stuck to the floor) you are given your own tray of dishes as well. 

  Gobbling down the freshly made meals tailored to you even in this form, Ayato is happy that you seem to have a good appetite. He had been concerned that this… situation might stress you out and you wouldn’t be able to eat or sleep. 

  Despite his endless workload, Ayato somehow finds the time to pamper and take care of you between his busy schedule. He sits down with you in the gardens and brushes your fur, rubs your cheeks and kisses your nose (and you need to wet it again every time). As if you were a little fur baby for him to take care of. 

  He still talks to you as if you were as you always are, though Ayaka uses a baby-voice like one would use with a cat (she tries not to, but fails), Ayato speaks to you normally. He plucks the seeds out of a small cube of watermelon before feeding it to you as he recounts his day, humming in affirmation as you meow back about your own… he doesn’t understand it, but you need to get it out as well. 

  Your snout is practically pink by the end of the watermelon bowl, and Ayato gives you that smile… oh no. 

  “It’s been a few days now, and you ran around the garden yesterday… and now you’re covered in melon juice. Why don’t I ask Thoma to warm a bath to wash your fur?” he asks innocently, and watches in amusement as you shoot out of his lap and flee into the estate. Not a chance. 

Kaveh;

Kaveh gapes at you. You stare up at him. He blinks. You blink.

  “H-hah???!” he scoops you up—accidentally upside down, but you just flop in his arms, still blinking at him from your angle, you know he won’t drop you. Kaveh rights you and brings you nearly nose-to-nose as he stares into your eyes. “How did this happen? You were just—I was… this…”

  He holds you a few centimetres away so neither of you go cross-eyed. “... Do you understand me?”

  You nod and raise your paw, pressing it onto his cheek.

  Kaveh doesn’t move his face away and lets your paw just press against his skin. “Okay, you’re… uh, aware… how do I fix this?”

  “Meow.”

  “...” right. Maybe this was a stupid question. 

  Kaveh goes a bit overboard, he researches the best ways to take care of a cat, the best foods, beds, toys—everything. And suddenly, he comes home after a short day at work (he has more important things to tend to!) with… so much stuff. 

  You stare, dumbfounded, as Kaveh carves out a cat-space in his and Alhaitham’s house… did he get Alhaitham’s permission to do this? You somehow doubt it. 

  After everything is set up, he stands and sets his hands on his hips with a wide smile. “What do you think?” Kaveh asks, looking down at you sitting by his feet with a swaying tail. “I think it fits very well, the colours compliment our living room—and I tried to arrange it in a way that mostly hugs the wall and doesn’t intercept with the flow of the room—”

  He’s rambling again. You don’t mind when he gets going and his interior design skills ARE good, despite it not being his expertise, it goes hand in hand with architecture. 

  But… did he consult the other half of this house before doing this? 

  You found out quickly, you had just settled in the high cat-bed that hung on the wall, giving you a good view over the living room as well as a height advantage to him (now you get why cats enjoy the high ground)... when the front door opens and a very familiar Scribe enters. 

  Alhaitham wasn’t even aware that you had turned into a cat, to him… he just came home to see a random cat in the living room—and that it was arranged completely differently to give you space. 

  Thankfully Alhaitham has a good few brain cells to rub together between his fingers, and isn’t quick to rise, so he looked to Kaveh and tilted his head towards the kitchen… where they had a lengthy discussion, where Kaveh explained everything to him and asked him if it was okay…

  Which is a tad late when he’s already rearranged the entire living room and gotten you comfortable there… but fine. So long as he takes it all down and makes everything as it should be once you’re back to normal. When asked, Alhaitham said he was too busy to help turn you back and told him to consult the library. 

  Kaveh is a hugger in his sleep, and you’re a victim (you love his hugs). He practically wraps himself around you and holds you to himself the entire night—and don’t you dare try to leave, he’ll wake up and whine about it. He does sometimes squeeze a bit too much—you’re not as durable as you usually are, you’re just a little kitty…

  He gets cuteness aggression when you do anything mildly affectionate. Rub against his legs while he’s at his desk, loaf on his lap and slow blink up at him, lick his hand when he strokes your head… Kaveh tries his best not to squeeze you or shake you like a keychain, he bit into his own hand once to refrain from biting your full cheek of food once. 

  He drew a full sketchbook of you over the span of two weeks, he can’t help it—you’re too adorable and he wants to keep the image of you forever. 

Neuvillette;

Not chill about this, Neuvillette was immediately concerned with how to turn you back and if this curse-spell could have any permanent effects on you. He doesn’t really have many tomes to consult, nor are there many people he could ask for advice as to… how to fix this. 

  After some time, and you rubbing your furry cheek on his arm and leg to try and calm down his nerves, Neuvillette does slow down. He’s usually very calm in the face of the unknown or danger—but he’s never had to deal with direct danger (or not, he hasn’t figured out if it’s dangerous or not yet) when it comes to you. 

  Thankfully, you’re still there with him, just… a bit smaller, and furrier… and you smell a bit weird—still like you, but also with a tinge of something else. Perhaps that part of your scent has always been your humanity. 

  And now you’re a cat. 

  He’s never owned a pet before—and you’re hardly a typical pet, and thus consults the only person he can think of. Furina (though he’s unsure she’s ever owned a pet either?).

  And she loves you, she already likes you well enough—but like this? You’re getting picked up, petted, smooched, pampered and loved. Neuvillette just stands a bit awkwardly as Furina gets it out of her system and you get dangerously close to being fed up with her hugging and smooching… you’re not an actual cat! You just look like one!!

  After being freed from her clutches, Neuvillette holds you with more dignity for a while until you feel safe enough to walk around the ex-Archon’s home (and won’t get swooped up again). When the initial chaos is over, he sits down with Furina and they put their heads together to try and find a solution to this. They write down how it happened, what exactly changed—your mind is the same, your scent as well as your eyes. Though your fur has turned a shimmering white regardless of your head and body hair colour before. 

  You look like a big snowball. 

  There’s no real conclusion to the first session of brainstorming, but they manage to narrow down that though neither was there to see what exactly happened, it was likely a spell, or perhaps an artefact you touched (where would that even happen inside Fontaine?) or something along those lines. 

  Thus, Neuvillette takes you back home for the night. He’s a bit stiff around you, he doesn’t interact much with animals and though he won’t avoid them if a cat approaches him on the street (he’d mostly greet and nod at them) he hasn’t exactly had to care for one before. 

  He has to rely on asking you yes or no questions that you can nod or shake your head to, and makes it through the first few days like that. And while you’re… cute? (He’s not entirely sure how to describe you) Nauvillette does much more prefer you in your normal state, where he can communicate with you, hold your hand and touch your cheek without getting sniffed at by a wet nose.

  Not that Neuvillette doesn’t enjoy petting your fur and scratching under your chin, it’s just not the same. 

  It is very amusing to watch your head move left and right as you sit on the kitchen counter and watch Neuvillette prepare dinner—mostly for himself as you don’t eat typical foods now. He offers a small piece of a carrot and watches as you crunch on it for a good thirty seconds until it’s mushed enough to swallow. 

Tartaglia;

Another situation of; the funniest shit he’s ever seen. 

  He brings you everywhere—Childe has no concept of ‘pet-free zone’ because you’re not his pet? You’re his partner? His beloved? Why is he being shooed out, you’re on a leash and everything (half chewed apart because you refuse to wear it with dignity and do all in your power to get free, how dare he put you on a LEASH).

 Of course, initially, he was confused and rather concerned. He thought you might have been attacked, or targeted and thus had been made into this… cat, maliciously. 

  But you honestly seem pretty undisturbed, so he is as well. Calm cat, calm Childe. 

  He dresses you up before taking you outside—not necessarily for fun, but rather because it’s insanely cold in Snezhnaya in these months, and he doesn’t want you to be a block of ice after a few minutes. So he goes and buys some puffy coats, socks and a warm blanket for your return. You feel like you look like an idiot (you already look like a cat…) in all these clothes, but his cooing and smooching make it less annoying—mostly because now your annoyances are focused on him. 

  His siblings don’t really understand that it’s you, not at the younger range—and Childe just tells them that you’re a cat he and you decided to take care of for a while and that you’re busy elsewhere. Tonia doesn’t seem as convinced when Childe keeps smooching your nose and rubbing his cheek against yours. 

  Embarrassing enough as it is, Childe starts to call you nicknames now—it isn’t entirely unusual, but they’ve always been normal… now he’s calling you “Combat kitten” and “Fuzzy comrade”... worst of all was “General toebeans”

  You wish you could tell him to stop, but all you have are meows and hisses. 

  Snezhnayan homes are made to withstand cold and harsh winds, and thus have excellent central heating systems… also known as a fireplace—and a furnace elsewhere. And curling up on some soft blankets or a plush chair by the furnace as snow gathers on the windowsill and winds brush against the exterior of the house… there are few places more comfortable to take a nap.

  Unfortunately, Childe’s humming and singing from the kitchen disturbs your perfect peace, but you’re just glad he’s having fun. You’ll live. 

  And he brings you some treats, places a small kiss on top of your furry head and sits down in the other chair, dragging the one you’re on to be next to his so that he can stroke your back and belly when you eventually flop on your back for more attention. 

  He’s pulled every string and contact in the Fatui to try and figure how to turn you back (except a select few who will either be last measures or just straight avoidances despite advice they might give) but hasn’t had much luck so far. Thankfully you've only been stuck like this for a week or so, and thus it hasn’t been so long to be concerning. 

  Perhaps it’s just a matter of waiting it out, and Childe is surprisingly patient. 

Thoma;

The Housekeeper stands in surprise as a cat is suddenly plopped into his arms. “Ah… is this… a new house pet…?” the Kamisato estate doesn’t exactly have pets, there are some cats that come around and nap in the gardens every now and then and leave after a while, but this cat is staring at him as if they’ve known him their entire life.

  Ayato only hums as he’s already turned to another task, rushing from one thing to another as the busy days of summer come along. He doesn’t have much time to explain—nor is there much to explain. He had borrowed you for a few minutes to help him with something, he turns around for a moment, and the next you’re a cat.

  Thoma stares at him, silent for a time. He’s not entirely sure if Ayato is messing with him or not—it’s entirely possible, and par for the course for his lord—but as Ayato shakes his head and waves his hand in dismissal, he speaks again. “I already have someone looking into it, take care of them in the meantime. I’ll have someone fetch you if there is news.”

  You’re actually a cat. 

  After leaving Ayato’s study and sitting down outside where the afternoon sun has begun sinking towards the oceans beyond the cliff the estate sits on, Thoma stares at you as if he’s not entirely sure what to do with you. 

  Despite the initial confusion (and the followed concern, but it’s quickly dampened somewhat, Ayato has someone on the case and he trusts him to find a solution) Thoma is a very responsible person. He makes sure you’re not uncomfortable at all despite some estate staff vehemently refusing to let you in specific places… such as the kitchen. Fair enough. But there are also certain rooms and areas that have to be kept very clean and they don’t want cat hairs to get all over the place. 

  Thoma brings you around, he’s got many places to be, and he’s sure you’d like to stretch your legs anyway—it’s always nice to leave the estate for a few hours and run some errands. He had to head down to a nearby village and see whether trade agreements were coming along smoothly, they produce a lot of high quality rice and are often stuck in trade deals with large towns and clans for their rice—and for a well enough reason. Recently, Ayato had struck a deal with them and everything was signed and well along its way, Thoma just had to go and make sure they had everything they needed for transport. 

  It was a good walk, but you kept up easily… somehow having four legs rather than two makes you less tired after walking for some hours…? Or perhaps it’s because your body is so light now, you don’t know much about cat anatomy. 

  The meeting went well and you didn’t linger for long.

  Unfortunately, a heavy downpour began to fall on the two of you as you headed back. Thoma quickly scooped you up and tucked you into his jacket—it’s not much of a jacket, it barely reaches below his ribs, but it was just big enough for him to cover you (and lean a bit to cover you better) and pick up his pace to run back to the Kamisato estate. 

  After making it back inside, the rain was as if a waterfall had opened in the heavens to drop down on the roof. Thoma’s hair is wet and sticks to his cheeks as he sets you down. “Ah, that was close,” he laughs softly. “Are you dry?”

  You shake yourself after being pressed against his chest for so long and sniff around your fur, then give him a nod. 

  “Hah, that’s good, I’ve heard cats don’t like water much,” he smiles. “I need a change of clothes, come with me?”

  You let out a happy meow and follow him along further inside. 

Venti;

Cooes at you and talks to you with a baby-voice, he puts both thumbs on either side of your cheeks and rubs your face like it’s dough… even though it makes his nose red and his eyes puffy—despite the cursed allergy that torments his everyday life (there’s so many cats in Mondstadt) he doesn’t let it stop him from being around you. Pestering some healers for a medicine that could help, he feels… less bad, but it doesn’t really dampen the itch in his eyes and throat well enough.

  He doesn’t take this situation seriously at all, at least not nearly as much as you do—you should probably trust his reactions and instincts, as he’s far more knowledgeable than you (even though he doesn’t act like it at all) and if you were in any danger, he wouldn’t be smooching your cheeks and nuzzling you like HE’S the cat. 

  Thus, you try to calm down, to focus on just getting through the days and not feel embarrassed when you have to clean yourself or relieve yourself as a cat. 

  But Venti also doesn’t make it easy for you, he builds a “throne” for you out of books and pillows for you to have the high ground (he doesn’t want to put holes in the wall for a hanging bed) and gives you “Mondstadt’s finest tuna” that tasted very much like a normal piece of tuna, but you appreciated the gesture nonetheless.

  Sometimes you really wonder if he was the one who cursed you just so he could mess with you and cuddle you without you being able to fend him off. Not that you would be particularly opposed to cuddles in the first place? He could just ask?? Besides, why would he choose the form of a cat out of every other pet considering his consistent sneezing up a storm around them.

It doesn’t add up, you discard your theory.

  You can’t sleep in the same bed anymore, both because Venti moves a lot in his sleep and being a cat does not make it safe, he could crush you! (as if he’s heavy enough to do that) and because he might well and truly pass away if he had to be so close to your furry-ass for such a pronged amount of time… and thus, Venti makes a nice bed for you out of blankets and pillows next to your usual one where you can rest.

  There was a time where these new cat instincts took a bit too much over, and when you were chasing a crystalfly on a walk along the roads outside the city, you had hopped onto a big rock—and after missing your chance to catch the crystalfly, you hopped onto Venti and tried to eat his braids. 

  He yelped in surprise, but laughed once he realised what you were doing. “My hair isn’t for eating, it’s no good for your digestion either!”

  You felt embarrassed about this little incident, and he kept making fun of you for it—though not necessarily maliciously, Venti just thought it was funny that you didn’t go for his hat, but his hair instead.

  Climbing to the top of the Mondstadt cathedral or the statue of himself isn’t your favourite pastime, but it’s surprisingly much easier in this form—and thus when Venti suggests you go to the top to play some songs, you had been hesitant at first.

  Making it to the top, Venti sits down comfortably as if he’s done it a thousand times (you sometimes suspect he climbs it to make you feel better, because you know he can just float up with a gust of wind) and pats his lap for you to sit down. 

  You plop yourself onto his thighs and settle comfortably as the sun sinks below the horizon, Venti takes out his usual lyre and tests a few tunes to ensure it’s properly set. “Let me play you something nice, it’ll help you sleep.”

  And it is nice, your ears flick as his fingers dance along the harp’s strings, he hums along with it but doesn’t sing full words—the vibration of the song calms you and you rest your head on your paws. 

Wanderer;

“You are the ugliest cat I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  He’s being dramatic, you’re not that ugly… but…

  Why did you have to turn into a hairless cat? 

  You feel strange, and perhaps you would also feel the same way if you had a lot of hair, but every single breeze makes you feel you are especially naked—because you are!

  Wanderer isn’t exactly happy to have to take care of you—he will do it, of course, but he will also complain about it. You were perfectly independent and functional as a person before you just had to go and sniff some plant in the wild that poofed you into a cat before his very eyes. 

  He refuses to seek help to find out how to turn you back, not because he doesn’t want anyone to know that you’re a cat, but rather because he’s certain he can handle it himself. 

  You whack at his arm with your paw, meowing up a storm after a few hours of not being fed the day after—he had completely forgotten that he needs to prepare something digestible for you… he’s never had to take care of a creature like you before—what can you even eat?? He clicks his tongue. “Don’t swat at me like that. You’re human, act like it…”

  You’re not human right now!! Give me food!!

  Eventually, he does begin to take proper care of you, even though he keeps telling you that you look like a peeled potato… you don’t have many ways of retaliation except whacking him with your paw or hissing when he lightly pinches a big patch of your skin. 

  Surprisingly, during one strangely cold night when you were curled on the bed and trying to stay warm—even the slightest drop in temperature was very cold to your hairless body… you feel something soft drape over you.     Half-asleep and cold, you squint up and scrunch your nose as your whiskers squish against the blanket, you see Wanderer turn back around after setting it over you. Hah… he’s soft under that hard shell as always, even if he tries to act aloof. 

  After several days of no luck in trying to turn you back, Wanderer does begin to cave to asking for some… advice. Not help. Advice.

  With you in his arms, head reaching towards the market stalls of Sumeru city (literally everything smells good and extremely edible) as he passes by, Wanderer takes you to meet with Nahida who is rather enthusiastic about this mystery. She pets you and smiles, humming as he recounts what happened and describes the particular flower you smelled. 

  “Hm, I have an idea, but it’ll take a while to execute… do you think it’ll be okay for them to remain like this for a few more days?” the archon taps her chin in thought, mind swirling with ideas and possible solutions. 

  Wanderer huffs, not exactly a scoff, and clapped his hand onto your head. “It’s fine.”

  But as soon as you returned back home and he set you down on the living room table, Wanderer points at you. “You better turn back to normal soon…” he folds his arms over his chest, his expression isn’t as tight as it was before. “I don’t want to deal with this forever. Just get back soon.”

  You inch closer to him on the table, reaching your paw out to tug his sleeve closer—only to rub your head into his palm. He clicks his tongue. “Whatever… don’t think this counts as an apology. You’ll have to make up for it properly when you’re you again.”

Wriothesley;

You are, quite possibly, the smallest cat he has ever seen. 

  He holds you in the palm of his hand, it’s adorable. Wriothesley cracks a grin and lifts you to eye-level. “Hm, you’re not nearly as scary like this, no one in this prison will listen to you like this.”

  You want to whack him on his nose, but politely refrain—if only because you don’t want to get dropped. You meow at him, ferocious and upset at this situation, you have a job to tend to! Things to do!

  But Wriothesley has other ideas, he sets you down on his desk and sits down. “Now, how did this happen? I assume this wasn’t intentional?” is he teasing you? Most likely. He knows you can’t just answer his questions, and you assumed he would be slightly more concerned when a guard brought you to his office…

  But no, he instantly recognised you and dismissed the guard. Had it been the eyes? The fur? Is he somehow responsible for this??

  All unanswered questions, and though he sends out word to some people he thinks might be able to help decipher this mystery, he doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to get you back to normal. He sets you in the pocket of his vest (it’s embarrassing that you actually fit) and goes on with his days as normal. 

  Siegwinne was initially very concerned, she seemed much more sensible in her worries that leaving you in this form for too long might be dangerous and that the Fortress isn’t exactly a good place for pets. There are a lot of crevices to get stuck in and things to get hurt on.

  Though you still retain your mind, so you should be alright in that sense… so long as you don’t get overly curious. 

  He is undeniably very warm, and cuddling up to him at night is very comfortable—especially now that you can just lay on his chest and snooze there and not worry about being dragged back into his embrace if you move too much in your sleep. You barely move at all in this form.

  Come morning, Wriothesley was already awake by the time you open your eyes, he strokes your fur and scratches behind your ears. Having a day pass by does make the initially amusing situation a bit more… real. He doesn’t want you to be struck with a permanent curse, or some kind of spell that might harm you in the long run. 

  “Don’t you worry,” he mumbles, voice rough with sleep. “I’ll make sure you’re back to normal soon, just stick close by.”

  And you do, mostly because you couldn’t have been blessed (cursed?) with a normal-sized cat body, but possibly the smallest there could be. You can’t even jump up onto his desk by yourself and have to yowl at him to let you up. 

  He does so happily, surprisingly eager to carry you around and help you with the smallest things. 

  Wriothesley doesn’t even change in mood from amusement when you chase the pen in his hands as it glides across paperwork he signs, you leap onto his arm and try to whack at the pet in either some strange instinctual haze, or an attempt to play—and though you whacking the pen makes it seem like he has the handwriting of a toddler, it’s just rather funny.

  The Fortress doesn’t exactly have a large variety of foods, not in the sense that it can be adjusted for the diet of a cat that isn’t accounted for during inventory fills, and thus Wriothesley sends for specific ingredients that won’t be heavy on your tiny little stomach. 

  And he also… got some cat-related things delivered, like a bed, some string toys and treats. You never used the bed, either preferring his lap to nap on, or just slept in the strangest places he never even imagined you could reach with those stubby legs. 

  But he’s a very responsible caretaker, at least, that’s what he claims as he holds you down to brush your teeth and you wriggle and flail like an eel. 

Xiao; 

Very worried, he didn’t even realise the cat sitting in the clearing of the forest was you at first and searched for you for several minutes before seeming to realise that you had just… shrunk. Into a cat. 

  He stares at you for a good minute, lips parted and eyes large… before your name tentatively leaves his mouth.

  You meow in affirmation, standing and shaking yourself as you try to understand the situation yourself—still a bit disoriented. 

  Xiao approaches you quickly and kneels down in front of you, he lifts you up to your hind legs, puts you down and inspects your ears, your tail and under your paws. You meow in curiosity as to what he is doing, and surprisingly he seems to understand your question. 

  “There might be traces of whatever did this on your body, it will make it easier to track or reverse,” he says and even checks inside your mouth, which you weren’t really happy with. 

  Unfortunately, he doesn’t find any answers, and kneels there rather awkwardly with you in front of him… what now? This situation has stumped him a bit—he’s supposed to be able to keep you safe from all manners of danger and curses like this (perhaps not exactly like this, he never prepared for this exact scenario) and now that he’s not got many leads to fix it, his mind is a bit aimless in where to search for information. 

  He has no idea how to care for you, and while he has vague ideas of the behaviours of animals…they mostly stem from wild animals and their reactions to foreign presences in their territories, or similar scenarios. 

  What does a meow mean? Is there something wrong? What does it mean when you paw at the door? Do you want to go outside? But it’s two in the morning?

  He severely overestimates the portions of food you eat, giving you a full plate of something the Wangshu Inn kitchens prepared on his request (they figured out what happened and have been trying to help him, but Xiao is still trying to be subtle and secretive about the situation) and being confused when you only ate a fourth of it. 

  Are you sick? Was it the wrong kind of food?

  He brings you along with him on his hunts, while he could leave you at the inn… how can he be sure that you won’t get into trouble? The window is high above the ground, what if you tumble out of it? What if you try to climb up on the dresser in the room and get stuck? Or fall down and hurt yourself?

  No, you’re safest with him, even if he has to wield his spear with one hand and hold you with the other. 

  He’s surprisingly good at it too. 

  Desperate after a week of unsuccessful herbs and potions he tried to make, Xiao caves and contacts Liyue Harbour and the adepti that reside there for help.

  It seems his message had gotten into Cloud Retainer’s hands, and instead of any actually helpful advice on how to turn you back… she had sent an entire booklet of cat behaviours, diets and how to take care of them.

  Helpful, sure… but not exactly what he was asking for. 

  One evening as he was out on the usual hunts, he noticed that you were walking slowly by his side, yawning and rather cold so high in the mountains. He didn’t even have to think about what might be wrong or what to do, as he had already scooped you up into his arms and teleported back to the inn, where he sat down with you on the bed. 

  “You should tell me when you’re tired…” he grumbles and tugs one of the covers on the bed to his lap where he wraps it around you as if bundling a baby up. Xiao reaches up and scratches behind your ears as your eyes blink closed in the comfort of being back in the warm room.

  He had only been petting you for s few seconds when he felt you… tremble? There was a strange rumbling sound coming from you, are you uncomfortable? He doesn’t quite understand it… but you continue to rumble as he scratches your head and ears. 

  Ah, was this the ‘purring’ he read about in one of the booklets Ganyu sent him? How… cute.

Zhongli;

“Ah…” Zhongli stares at you, this isn’t quite what he had imagined would happen… he had been crafting a potion in hopes it would help Ganyu sleep better, she had been overworking herself (again) more than usual and was so tired that she couldn’t sleep. It can happen. 

  The combination of herbs and materials required for the potion he had put together wasn’t very suitable for humans, and of course he made sure to let you know so that you wouldn’t drink it… but he hadn’t expected that only being touched by a single drop onto the back of your hand would lead to a poof, and your size being reduced and body turned to that of a cat. 

  You had only wanted to help by handing him ingredients so that he didn’t have to turn around so often… you didn’t anticipate this either!

  He makes sure the potion won’t burn and sets a lid on the pot before turning towards you. “I… had not foreseen that this could have been a danger to you, my apologies,” he kneels down on one knee and holds his hand out for you to sniff. You do so, snout twitching towards his finger before you bump your head into his palm. 

  “Have you retained some sense of consciousness?” he wonders, gloved hand moving to stroke over your small head, your ears flattening under his palm. “I’m sure I can find a way to reverse this.”

  He was sure, at least. But after some research and testing… he wasn’t making any progress—at least, he wasn’t making progress in finding ways to turn you to your normal self without some potential risks or aftereffects. 

  What he did find, was that the herb that you had been touching, and the potion he had halfway crafted was similar to another concoction that he had made before—and the effects of that had only been temporary. 

  It seems you will simply have to wait until the effect wears off. 

  Zhongli had instinctively prepared a delightful meal in the way he knows you would enjoy while you sit in the kitchen counter and watch with interest, your tail swaying happily as you watch him chop some vegetables and set them into the pot… but halfway through the process as he’s setting spices and herbs into the pot, Zhongli realises that more than half of the ingredients in the pot are unsuitable for cats to eat. 

  He finishes the meal and sets it aside, before fetching some fish you had purchased just yesterday that he was going to use for lunch tomorrow and cut it into nicely bite-sized pieces. You tilt your head slightly as you watch—the meal he had just been putting together doesn’t have any fish in it?? What’s it for?

  And honestly, when he plated your food (in a very professional and presentable way) and set it down on the dining table, then set his own on the other side for himself… you felt a bit offended. Raw fish, some rice and a hard boiled egg… next to his delicious smelling beef stew… 

  If you could’ve cried, you would have. And Zhongli felt pretty bad for the rest of the day, he tried to offer you some “safe” treats or make it up to you with some pets and scritches, but you still sulked.

  You had looked forward to this dinner all day…

  Thankfully you got over it rather quickly and Zhongli is glad that he didn’t offend you too badly… it seems having been turned into a cat had made you quite dramatic as well, he doesn’t recall you ever having sulked like this over a meal before.

  Knowing that it was simply a waiting game, Zhongli isn’t very concerned about your state, but he does ensure that you’re comfortable and not afraid—he understands that perceiving the world differently like this can be strange and even scary, but he’s glad when it seems that you’re relatively calm. 

  Your nightly routines are slightly out of whack now—something that Zhongli isn’t very fond of, he quite likes it that after cleaning up after dinner, the two of you settle in the living room for a while. He tends to read and it varies what you get up to, but it’s always a shared time where you sit in silence or chat about your days.

  He does talk about his day to you, sitting on the comfortable seat in the living room with you on his lap, Zhongli recounts his day to you and expresses that he hopes you weren’t too bored alone in the home today, and that perhaps he can convince the director to allow him to bring you for a day. He strokes your back and smiles as a rumbling purr leaves you, he scratches under your chin and touches his forehead to yours as you seem to have fallen asleep on his lap. He reaches for his book and decides to read for a while before taking you to bed. 

  Despite the mishap, he’s glad you’re safe—he will endeavour to be more careful in the future and ensure you won’t be hurt or disturbed by his work. 

[florencemtrash]

Bedsides and Breakfasts

Summary: After Azriel comes home battered and bruised, he refuses to eat the meal you've made him... Why?

Warnings: Angst, character injury, fluff

Author's note: For context, Y/n is Helion's bastard daughter. In an earlier draft of my other (very long) fic, The Shadowsinger and The Inkbird, this was going to be a scene that takes place after Azriel gets hurt during the Battle on the Lake where Y/n figures out Azriel is her mate. I wanted to finish it up and get it out there because I don't want to say goodbye to that story just yet and I wanted to get back into writing so.... here ya go!

The Townhouse sang quietly as it worked. Its melodies lay in the shifting curtains that shook off dust into the wind. Its lyrics in the whistling teakettle. You liked these sounds as you moved about the kitchen, preparing your tea and a crust of bread slathered with butter and jam. 

When the Townhouse was empty, you didn’t need to fear your power — there was no one around for you to touch and steal memories from. Mor had tried to drag you out to Rita’s that evening — “Rhys says you’ve learned to keep your Clairvoyance at bay! Come dancing with us!” — but you couldn’t muster the courage or the energy.

Besides, you were awaiting a certain Shadowsinger’s arrival. 

“Won’t you come back and make me your home? You who’ve stolen my heart as simple as a whisper, calm as a storm,” You hummed to yourself. You swore the Townhouse sighed in contentment. “Do you like my silly little songs then?” You mused. 

The lights shone a little brighter, crackling the air with a flicker of energy. 

You were singing about Azriel — of course you were — and blushing all the while. He’d been the first to truly speak to you — the first to notice you — and the embrace you’d shared in Rhysand’s office had left you breathless for days. You could still feel the ghost of his breath against your neck as you’d buried your face in the hollow of his throat. The cracked leather beneath your fingers and the short hairs at the base of his skull you’d caressed as lovingly as any flower. It was the first time you’d ever been touched like that. Like you were something worth holding onto. 

When he was gone, the Townhouse felt too empty. You felt too empty. Even now, the edges of your patience frayed like a worn shirt without him. 

You spent the evening’s hours combing through every book you’d managed to lug over from the Library. It was quick, but taxing work as every touch against the weathered binding allowed you to absorb its knowledge without you ever having to lay an eye on the page. 

When the candle flickered dangerously close to your books and the dull throbbing behind your eyes had gone on for too long, you blew out the light and could do no more than curl up on the sofa before falling fast asleep. 

The whispers of shadows woke you. You couldn’t understand the words hidden within their overlapping voices, but their panic and relief were heavy in the air. You could almost taste their meaning on your tongue.

“Y/n,” Azriel moaned. He leaned heavily against the open door, forcing it open against the drag of the carpet. His sword clattered to the ground before his knees. “Y/n,” he called out again, more urgently this time. He prayed to the gods you were home. He’d flown through the night, tattered wings struggling to keep him aloft, to make sure he’d see you again… just in case.

Blood and iron burned your nose and your sleep-swollen eyelids split open. “Az—” Your knee slammed against the coffee table in your struggle to escape the blankets. “AZ!” 

Azriel was always greedy for the sight of you, and that familiar tug in his chest tightened as you rounded the corner and sprinted towards him. You tripped where the hardwood ended and the carpet began, throwing his arm around your shoulder. 

He smiled softly at you. Three months ago, you’d been too afraid to touch anyone. Now here you were half-supporting his weight as he staggered to his feet. He stole a few precious seconds to lean his head into the crook of your neck and breathe in your scent. For a moment, he believed it would be enough to heal him.

“How bad is it?” 

“Three arrows in the right wing, two in the left. Fae bane.” 

“Anywhere else?” You both stumbled down the hallway back from where you’d come. 

“I may have been stabbed a few times.” He offered the piece of information casually, like he was complaining about the price of eggs.

“What’s a few?” Your eyes were wide as the moon. Searching, searching, searching for wounds.

“Ten?” 

Your growl tore through the quiet of the night. 

Your hands were slippery with blood, and Azriel almost slid out of your fingertips as you deposited him against the table. You flung your arms out over the hardwood tabletop sending bottles of ink, pens, and sheafs of papers clattering to the floor before rolling Azriel onto the top and forcing him to lay down.

Under the chandelier, Azriel looked ghastly. The warmth was drained from his skin and the hollows of his eyes and the fullness of his lips were tinged purple from cold. His eyes drifted apart from one another.

“I need you to stay awake.” 

“I will.” His words were slippery as soap on porcelain, syllables sliding into one another as he promised you he would be alright and that he had suffered worse before.  

“Stay awake!” You commanded him and his eyes sharpened ever so slightly on your figure as you tore through the cabinets in the corner. 

Where is it? Where is it? Glass bottles clinked and tottered on rounded bottoms. There! 

You snatched one of the pale green bottles lining the back wall and bit off the cork top with a grimace, spitting it out onto the floor. You could taste the medicine inside coat your teeth with an acrid film. 

“Hey, hey, hey.” You slapped Azriel’s cheeks to keep him awake. “Drink this.” 

Azriel’s lips parted immediately and he accepted every bitter drop you forced down his throat. It wasn’t a cure, but it would help stabilize him long enough for help to arrive. In the time it took for you to call out to Rhys and light the candle that would wake Madja and call her to the Townhouse, Azriel’s cheeks had flushed with some more color. 

The sight did little to ease your worries as you worked on unbuckling the straps of his armor. Piece by piece they fell away with a wet thud on the ground. 

He grabbed your wrist before you could run in search of something to cut off the clothes clinging to him like a second skin. Elain had left gardening shears on the back porch. Perhaps the kitchen had scissors?

“Stay.” He begged. “Please stay.”

“Rhys and Madja will be here soon. I just need to get something to help you.” 

“Then stay.” His grip turned desperate, short nails digging into your forearm. “Stay and help me. Don’t leave me.” 

Azriel might have smiled if he wasn’t in so much pain. His hand slid up the curve of your arm to hold your neck, thumb tracing the line of your jaw. 

“I wanted to see you just in case.” His chest rattled with the effort, “Gods, I missed you.” 

He’d been gone weeks on the Continent, scrounging after every whisper of Koschei’s name as far as the eastern mountains. He’d scavenged and raged. Killed and tortured. And he’d missed you all the while. It was what had possessed him to fly all the way to Velaris, when he would have been better off breaking into the Day Court and throwing himself at the mercy of Helion — your father. 

You felt the tears prick at your eyes, angry and hot. “If you say another fucking word like you’re about to die, I will kill you myself.” You were not prone to violence, and Azriel felt some pride that he could elicit such an emotion from you. 

Luckily for you both, Azriel didn’t get a chance to say anything else, and you didn’t get a chance to murder him before Rhysand, Feyre, Cassian, and Madja were bursting through the front door and following the blood-red trail to the dining room. 

Azriel squeezed your hand once more. “Stay with me.”

“Where else would I go, Az?” You whispered, pressing a quick kiss to the palm of his hand before the others crowded close. 

You stayed at the head of the table, one hand always holding onto Azriel’s. He swallowed his pain, the faintest groans slipping from his lips as arrows were pulled out inch by bloody inch. It was no easy thing to endure, not even for Azriel. Wicked barbs lined the arrow shaft and caught onto the delicate membrane of his wings no matter how Madja twisted, pushed, and pulled. 

One particularly harsh wrench had Azriel crying out, his nails digging into your arm and drawing blood. 

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, feeling your skin break beneath his nails. His skin was tinged green now. A sickly sheen covered his face and fell over his eyes. 

“It’s ok. It’s ok. Just look at me.” You grasped the sides of his face. “Look at me.” 

Once again, Azriel was ready to listen to your commands. His eyes never left yours, not once, until the last of the faebane-tipped arrows dropped onto the table with a menacing ring of metal on wood.

Feyre closed his wounds as best she could, but the flesh inside would take longer to heal. For now all they could do was carefully wipe the blood from his body and carry him up to his bedroom. 

You lingered by Azriel’s side long after he fell asleep, fingers twitching with nerves as you counted every slow and steady breath of his. 

“Y/n.” Feyre gently touched your arm. “He’ll be alright.”

You nodded, still watching Azriel sleep. Then, to your mortification, you burst into tears. Your clothes were drying stiff with sweat and blood — none of it yours — and the red handprints Azriel had left along your arms were turning to copper rust. 

She shushed you, softly tugging at your arms. 

“He-He asked me to stay,” you said between gulps of air. 

“He’d want you to be clean and well-rested, Y/n. Don’t let him wake up feeling guilty.” 

If it weren’t for Feyre, you would have remained glued to the floor of Azriel’s room until you became one of the faces trapped in the wooden floors. You let her lead you across the hall to your own room where she filled the tub with warm water and soap. 

“Shit,” you mumbled. Your fingers shook so much you couldn’t undo the buttons of your dress. Shadows, loose and long as stalks of grass, wound around your back, plucking the buttons undone without a word. 

“He’ll be alright.” Feyre repeated this phrase many times as you scrubbed off the night’s events and turned the water copper brown. The magic of the Townhouse whisked away the grime almost as quickly as it appeared until you sat in a sudsy bath, milky and clean.

“What happened to him, Fey?”

“From what Rhys and I can tell, Koschei had over a dozen archers lying in wait for when he returned to Prythian. We’ve already warned Helion.” 

You nodded. Your head felt heavy on your neck, like a doll with a snapped neck. 

“He nearly died.” Once the words were out in the open, fragile and pure, you broke down again, knees drawn up to your chest in the tub. 

“But he didn’t.” Feyre smoothed back your dripping hair. “It will take more than arrows and faebane for Death to steal him from us, Y/n.” 

Gods you hoped that was true, or else your heart might give out every time Azriel walked out the door. 

You returned to his side the moment you were clothed, hair still dripping onto his gray bed sheets as you leaned forward from your chair and held his hand. He slept on his stomach, wings flared out and peppered with white gauze like a patchwork quilt. Beneath the drape of his blankets you knew more gauze covered his chest and stomach, dotted with blood like blooming roses. 

You didn’t know when you fell asleep, but you awoke to a deep ache in your back and a faint choir of voices in the air. 

Shadows. 

They kissed your cheeks, cool and soft, urging your eyelids open. Azriel was already awake and sitting up in bed with a grimace. One hand clutched his side and a leg hung over the edge of the bed, like he intended to stand. When he saw you, his hazel eyes widened. First in alarm. Then in guilt. 

“Az?” Your voice felt crusted with smoke and sleep and you did what you could to straighten the crook in your neck and your spine from the odd position you’d fallen asleep in. ““You’re not supposed to be sitting up.” Your bones cracked obnoxiously as you moved for the first time in hours, and the guilt in his gaze deepened. 

You pressed lightly against his chest, feeling the gauze scratch your skin, but he did not budge. 

“Az, you need to lay down. What were you even doing up?” 

Azriel’s eyes flickered off to the side. “I was… I was trying to move you to the bed.” 

You swallowed your yawn and blinked in disbelief. “Azriel, you’ve just been shot and stabbed. You need to lay back down.” 

He grabbed your wrists, tugging you forward until you almost collapsed against his chest. “There’s space on the bed. I want you to be comfortable.” 

“The chair is fine, and you are hurt. Now, please—” He did not move. No matter how you reasoned with him. No matter how you tried to shove him back beneath the covers.

“I will lay back down under one condition.” 

You frowned. He was much more stubborn when he was injured. “What condition?” 

“Sleep on the bed. There’s plenty of room.” 

“Az—” 

“Please.” His hands slipped into yours, fingers pressing against the pulse of your wrists. “Y/n, I will be comforted with you beside me.” He held up his finger before you could sleep. “And not in that gods-awful chair. You’ll wake up crooked.”

“I’m not a stalk in a storm,” you grumbled, because it only seemed appropriate that you should fight him on this. Otherwise, you’d have to admit that the thought of melting into his bed set off fireworks in your stomach, exciting and terrifying at the same time. You’d also have to admit the scent of mountain air embedded in every inch of his room brought you comfort. You could lay your head on his pillows and sleep for an eternity. 

I shouldn’t be here. But you let him tug you closer to him. You slid your legs over his waist, calves catching on the waistband of his pants and dragging in a way that had your heart leaping into your stomach until you were safely on the other side of him. 

Azriel’s bed was massive — over 12 feet across to better accommodate the span of his wings. You moved as far away from him as you could without eliciting offense and stared at the window. 

Your muscles clenched as he shifted closer to you, wings rustling against the silk sheets and whispering as he got comfortable. Every time he so much as shifted, your back prickled, as though you had eyes there that shifted to soak up every inch of him. 

He’s hurt and I’m taking up space and—

He reached out his arm and his fingertips brushed against the curve of your back. You stiffened like you’d been struck by lightning. If Azriel were awake, he would have apologized and wrenched back his hand as if burned. But he was fast asleep and the touch was a natural movement he made in his dreams where he was imagining that you were closer to him. So close that he could breathe down your neck and feel you melt beneath his touch. 

You didn’t sleep, as much as the lull of his breathing threatened to sink you into sweet and comforting dreams. The sky was but a lighter shade of black when you were slipping out of bed with barely a whisper. Miraculously, Azriel did not awaken, and his shadows ghosted over the floors drowsily.

You were no stranger to dawn as you padded down to the kitchens. You hummed to yourself, cracking eggs over a well-greased skillet with onions, tomatoes, and peppers tossed in. They bobbed up and down in a sea of yellow like ducks on water. Potatoes browned to your right, their skins crackling and spitting grease as bacon popped and sizzled beside them. 

You ate as you went, plating the final meal for Azriel, who—if you knew anything about him—would be waking shortly after the first rays of sunlight split his shadows in two. 

You slipped back into his room as quietly as you’d left, and then nearly leapt out of your skin to find a dark mass of shadow covering the bed. 

“You’re awake,” you said blankly. 

Azriel propped himself up onto his elbows, back rippling as he forced his stiff and swollen wounds to stretch until he could sit up in bed. 

“Where did you go?” There was but a faint slur to his words. “You weren’t here when I woke up.” 

“I was making breakfast.” You dragged over the ottoman from the foot of his bed as a makeshift table. “Did you brush your teeth already?” Not that it mattered. A sour mouth wouldn’t keep him from a meal if he was hungry. 

The flash of fear in his eyes was so subtle, so brief, that you missed it. 

“I’m not hungry.” 

“Well that doesn’t really matter. Madja said you should eat first thing. Oh!” You plucked a purple glass bottle from his bedside table. “And she said to drink this with a meal.” You pushed it into his hands, reluctant as they were to take the stoppered bottle from you. 

“I can’t imagine eating right now.” He said, shaking his head. His cheeks puffed out and he swallowed hard. “The smell… it’s… I can’t stomach it.” 

You frowned at that. He liked your cooking. It was only due to circumstance that you hadn’t been able to cook for him in months. 

“Can you please try?” you begged. “Just a bite.”

His skin turned pallid and the dark marks beneath his eyes stood out. He picked up a fork with a trembling hand, stuck it into a potato, then dropped it as if it burned. Suddenly, he regretted asking you to stay the night. Guilt ate away at his stomach, twisting it like spaghetti on a fork. 

You sighed in dejection. “I’ll bring it back downstairs.” You said. You began collecting the silverware from where you’d left them by his side. 

“I’m sorry.” He murmured, catching your wrist in his hand. 

You smiled softly. “Try and get some rest.” 

“Will you be back?” His words caught you by the door. 

“You won’t even realize I was gone.” 

He doubted that very much. Still, he settled back in bed, rolling onto his stomach to keep its rumbling at bay. He was quite hungry. 

You closed the door behind you, carrying the untouched plate of eggs and potatoes. Cassian stopped his whistling as he made his way down the hall, a teasing smile playing at his lips until he caught sight of your dejected expression. 

“What’s got our resident Librarian frowning? Did someone misplace a book in the House?” 

You didn’t rise to Cassian’s jests. You cast a sullen glance back at Azriel’s door like it was personally responsible for everything, and shrugged. “He hasn’t eaten since he’s been back and I’m starting to get worried. I read up on Illyrian anatomy weeks ago and he should be fine enough to eat by now.” 

Cassian leaned down, taking a careful sniff of the plate before grabbing hold of a butter and rosemary roasted potato and plucking it in his mouth. It was cold and the butter had hardened into a greasy slick, but it was still good. He told you as much as he walked with you back to the kitchens, stealing slivers of potato as he went.

“It’s nice to know my cooking’s not at fault.” 

Cassian jerked back in surprise and sudden understanding. “You made him that?”

“Yes. I know the House has its own will, but I like to cook. And it still feels strange having food just appear out of nowhere.”  

Cassian fought with all his might to keep the cheeky grin from his face. 

Poor Azriel, forced to go hungry because he was still too much of a sheepish fool to tell you about the mating bond let alone accept it. 

He clicked his tongue. He loved his brother to the grave and back, but Azriel had a horrible habit of getting trapped in his own mind. Cassian had hoped you would help with that, given you suffered similarly. 

“I wouldn’t take it too personally. Azriel’s a picky eater. Always has been.”

That was a complete and utter lie. Growing up in the Illyrian war camps meant you either starved or ate whatever gray-brown mush you could get your hands on. Rhysand and Azriel had been quicker to move on from the rugged Illyrian lifestyle, and Rhysand especially had used his High Lord privileges to cultivate a refined and expensive taste, but if they were hungry and limited they didn’t give two shits what went in their mouths. 

“I didn’t realize you could afford to be picky in a war camp,” You grumbled. You dropped the plate’s contents onto a skillet, patiently waiting for the House to light a toasty fire. There was no need to let good food go to waste.   

You thought over it, some minor irritation settling in that the Shadowinger had rejected the food you’d worked to make. It really didn’t make sense that Azriel would be so particular about food. Or anything for that matter. He’d always struck you as the practical, bare-bones sort, and you knew him well enough now to know that was true. His very job required it of him. But then again you couldn’t remember the last time he’d accepted any food that you’d offer-

You froze. Oh. Oh.

The first night he’d visited your apartment in the Day Court, he’d refused your tea and cakes before leaving abruptly. You’d agonized over that night for months, trying to figure out what you might have done to scare him off. But he’d been so kind and shy afterwards and then the whole matter of Koschei had arose and you’d never given it much thought because he just seemed so familiar and... Oh. OH-

“BASTARD!” You spat out in shock. The skillet dropped to the stove with a sharp cry that had Cassian blinking. He’d never seen you like this. So…agitated.

Had you always been this dull? A year ago you might have been able to blame it on your naïveté, but you weren’t so socially misinformed now and yet this was a bit much. And… oh you couldn’t wrap your head around your own stupidity to even begin to think about a mating bond with…

A mating bond with Azriel. You… you were his mate. He was yours. And you were his. And suddenly the pieces of it were falling into place so quickly you thought you might be crushed beneath the weight. 

Mate.

Even the thought of the word crashed around your mind incessantly, like an anxious dog trying to settle down to sleep. Yet it all made such perfect sense. The way Azriel always found you when you were in danger or grieving. The awful days when Azriel had been away and you’d felt like a piece of your body had been severed. The way that the world felt right when he was beside you. Maybe it was the bond, maybe it was just something born out of love, or maybe they were one and the same. It was impossible to tell but it didn’t change anything.

Mate.

Cassian glanced sideways at you and said cautiously, “We’re both bastards, Y/n. I don’t think that’s much of an insult coming from your mouth.”

Your eyes snapped to his, suddenly remembering that he was in the kitchen with you. You brandished a fork in your hand like a weapon, pointing the pronged end up at him like he was a piece of meat to be skewered. You were shorter than him, but the sharpness in your eyes made him pause.

“You.” Such a simple word, yet it sounded so threatening. “You knew didn’t you?”

Was he sweating? The room felt warm.

“I don’t know what-“ You snatched his wrist and with your magic, you stole the information from him that you needed. It was as easy as plucking a flower from a field. 

Fuck. Cassian groaned at the same time you did. You knew now. Not that you really needed confirmation from Cassian. Still. It was rather embarrassing to learn you were the last of… well everyone to know, even if it was your fault for not noticing the signs. In your defense you had been preoccupied with other matters…

“Stupid, stupid, stupid.” You muttered, heating up the remaining food with a great deal of force before setting down a fresh tray, plate, utensils, and mug of tea on the countertop.

You keep muttering to yourself, your joy disguised by your embarrassment and no small amount of shock. Cassian watched nervously as you prepped the plate. 

You’d no sooner growled, “Move,” before Cassian leapt to the side and you set off out the door and down the hallway back to Azriel’s room.

She knows. One shadow whispered in his ear. Azriel felt his heart skyrocket and his stomach plunge to the cradle of his hip bones. 

She seems… upset.

Upset was a mild word. You were alight with every emotion possible — fury, fear, anxiety, excitement, love — and Azriel struggled to tease them apart. It was like he’d been hit in the chest by a tangle of snakes, each a writhing, living, ever-changing thing. One moment you seemed nervous, the next angry. 

“You.” Your knuckles were pale as they gripped the tray. Sunlight molded to your form like a crown, and it became all the more apparent that you were Helion’s daughter — his bastard daughter, but daughter nevertheless. 

He scrambled into a seated position just in time for you to drop the tray in his lap with a clatter that sent fork and knife skittering over the dish.

You looked down at the tray, then up at his eyes, wide and molten as amber. “You didn’t tell me.” You didn’t need to elaborate any further. 

“I didn’t think—”

“You’re right. You didn’t.” You blinked, suddenly shy. “Did I not make it clear enough that I liked you? That I loved—love you? Or perhaps you don’t… perhaps you don’t want me.” That was a possibility you hadn’t thought of in your excitement to see him again. 

Oh gods, you hadn’t thought of that possibility had you? You’d just aggressively thrown food at him, expecting that he would—

Azriel gripped your chin, forcing you to look at him again. Your cheeks were warm and painted with color. 

“I always worried I was reading into actions that meant nothing to you. But, never think for a moment that I don’t want you.” He smiled then, a shy, secret smile reserved for you. “I’ve wanted you since the moment I laid eyes on you.” 

Now your cheeks were burning, but Azriel did not mind feeling this kind of heat on his hands. He let go of your chin, twirling a fork with his fingers like it was a knife. It was one of his few nervous ticks whose knowledge was reserved for the people he trusted. For the people he loved. 

“Being with me will put you in more danger than you know.” 

“But I expect it will bring me more happiness than I could have ever imagined.” You raised a hand up to his face, twisting away a stubborn curl of hair that fell over his forehead. “And you forget who my father is,” you reminded him. “Maybe it is I who will put you in danger.” 

“Maybe,” Azriel whispered. His breath fanned over your cheeks, soft and sweet. 

You picked up the fork, lifting it up in between you. 

“Eat.” You commanded him. 

Azriel smiled, plucking it from your fingers and stabbing a potato. He sighed. “I never could deny you anything, and I would never want to,” he said, before chewing carefully. Cautiously. 

You blinked in surprise, instinctively taking a step away when you felt something new and warm begin to burn in your chest, like someone had taken a drop of the molten hazel in Azriel’s eyes and dropped it into your heart. 

“Oh.” You breathed. 

“Yes,” Azriel murmured, “An unusual feeling, I know.” He placed the tray beside him and he’d no sooner opened his arms before you’d buried your face in the crook of his neck. You wanted more of that warmth in your chest. You wanted to slip into Azriel's skin as close as possible to his beating heart. To feel the mating bond wrap around you both like a curtain to block out the rest of the world. 

Azriel groaned in pain, but would not let you leave his embrace. No pain had ever been worth so much. 

You forced him to finish eating, even though all he wanted was the taste of you on his lips. “Later,” you promised him. When he was healed and whole there would be more breathless kisses and urgent touches, but for now he had to content himself with eating his meal and drinking his draught. But he would not be denied the press of your skin against his as you slipped beneath the covers and curled up beside him. This time, you fell asleep quickly and your dreams came over you like water. 

[fairuzfan]

The thing with news sources and deciding what's trustworthy and what's not is that when you see criticism of Aljazeera (which to be clear is not a great news source about anything other than Palestine) is that they completely neglect to mention that each regional section of Al-Jazeera has different people in charge of it, different contributors, different sources.

By all means, analyze your sources and understand what information you're getting but to say outright that ALL of what AlJazeera reports EVER is wrong is inherently meant to discredit Palestinian journalists in a way that no other journalist who is not Palestinian and NOT directly experiencing the war in Gaza has been discredited. Surprisingly (not really but), a lot of Palestinians in Gaza are employed by AlJazeera because it's difficult for them to find employment elsewhere.

And again, I do not love AlJazeera. I think they do plenty of faulty journalism and reporting and I actively avoid them for most news sources. But RIGHT NOW with everything going on in Gaza, they're probably one of the most trustworthy ones because of their first hand accounts and willingness to publish Palestinian voices, which many, MANY news stations refuse to do. I especially encourage the Arabic version of AlJazeera!

Like Haartz has like... 4 Palestinians on their editorial team max, and they have EVEN LESS people on the ground in Gaza whereas we have dozens of reporters from Gaza on Al-Jazeera, many of which have died. The way to fact check your news is you find how many times they link factual evidence (like videos of experiences, primary accounts, primary quotes) and compare it with circumstance of publishing.

Here are some ways to fact check and questions to ask, even when looking at Al Jazeera:

Is this a first hand account? If not, does it name a person who experienced this first hand?

If they cite/name a person who experienced it first hand, are they a trustworthy person? What are their ties to the situation? Why would they report this, have they reported situations like this in the past?

What would the person reporting gain from reporting this? A Palestinian with an Instagram post about their life in Gaza has much less to gain than an Israeli soldier publishing their experience in Gaza, for example.

In the first hand account, are there actions or evidence that is corroborated? IE: There was a video of an Israeli soldier abducting a blonde Palestinian, and there was a Human Rights Org that reported child abductions from evidence gather by an on the ground reporter. There is less of a chance that this is false, therefore.

If you don't see other news sources reporting this (ie, you don't see CNN/NYT/BBC/Fox/any other western-led media outlet) then ask: Why would they not report it? Does that mean it's false? Maybe not. Many Euro-american sources spend MONTHS before they talk about an issue (think: Washington post article "questioning" the evidence of Hamas in Al-Shifaa hospital more than a month after the raid happened)

Defining "Trustworthy":

What is their history on reporting events? Are they someone who is well known in whatever community they represent?

Think: Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a world renowned doctor. When he reports something with his name attached, he is putting his entire reputation on the line. Therefore, it is more likely he is telling the truth.

Are they someone who has any real, structural power over the situation? Maha Hussaini, for example, cannot change her circumstances because a ceasefire relies on other people separate from her, a journalist. Therefore, she has less of a reason to lie about things happening to her.

For the news source: what are their ties to the situation? CNN, for example, has stated they have their content reviewed by the IDF. Wael Al-Dahdouh, before he was evacuated, was providing first hand accounts of situation, meaning its difficult for him to fake anything or misrepresent.

What else has this person/news source reported? What are their political leanings — not just left/right, but what are their general stances on a variety of issues?

How many people who are part of the community impacted are part of reporting on this (IE: How many Palestinian POVs are shared, how many Israeli POVs are shared, what are the POVs of the people shared in general?).

Can someone I personally trust vouch for this person? If not, can I ask someone I trust to look over this person/agency and tell me their opinion?

There's for sure more I'm forgetting but these are some ways I personally check my facts and information as a quick rundown. And I see this issue of not knowing how to fact check happen ALL OVER the place, on both sides. So I really, highly encourage everyone to engage with sources more honestly!

You'll make mistakes, everyone does! I do as well! But try to be vigilant about these things so we can ensure that we're spreading accurate information and try to correct information when possible! There's no 100% unbiased source so I encourage you to compare/contrast information and your understandings of the world to fully comprehend the situation!

Please use these questions when checking ANY news source, even Al-Jazeera!

[mcmansionhell]

pre-recession, post-taste

Hello, everyone. I hope this blog can bring some well-needed laughs in really trying times. That's why I've gone back into the archives of that precipitous year 2007, a year where the McMansion was sleepwalking into being a symbol of the financial calamity to follow. We return to the Chicago suburbs once more because they remain the highest concentration of houses in their original conditions. Thanks to our flipping predilection, these houses become rarer and rarer and I have to admit even I have developed a fondness for them as a result.

Our present house is ostensibly "French Provincial" in style, which is McMansion for "Chateaux designed by Carmela Soprano". It boasts 7 bedrooms, 8.5 bathrooms, and comes in at a completely reasonable 15,000 square feet. It can be yours for an equally reasonable $1.5 million.

Every 2007 McMansion needed two things: a plethora of sitting rooms and those dark wood floors. This house actually has around five or six sitting rooms (depending if you count the tiled sunroom) but for brevity's sake, I'll only provide two of them.

With regards to the second sitting room, I'm really not one to talk statuary here because beside me there is a bust of Dante where the sculptor made him look simultaneously sickly and lowkey hot.

Technically, if we are devising a dichotomy between sitting and not sitting (yes, I know about the song), the dining room also counts as a sitting room. The more chairs in your McMansion dining room, the more people allegedly like you enough to travel 2.5 hours in traffic to see you twice a year.

Here's the thing about nostalgia: the world as we knew it then is never coming back. In some ways this is sad (kitchens are entirely white now and marble countertops will look terrible in about 3 years) but in other ways this is very good (guys in manhattan have switched to private equity instead of betting the farm on credit default swaps made from junk mortgages proffered to America's most vulnerable and exploited populations.) Progress!

Okay I really don't understand the 50 bed pillows thing. Every night my parents tossed their gazillion decorative pillows on the floor just to put them back on the bed the next morning. Like, for WHAT? Who was going in there? The Pope?

Here's a fun one for your liminal spaces moodboards. (Speaking for myself.)

Yes, I know about skibidi toilet. And sticking out your gyatt for the rizzler. I wish I didn't. I wish I couldn't read. Literacy is like a mirror in which I only see the aging contours of my face.

When your kids move out every room becomes a guest room.

Anyway, let's see what the rear of this house has to offer.

The migratory birds will not forgive them for their crimes. But also seriously, not even a garden?

Anyway, that does it for this round of McMansion Hell. Happy Halloween!

If you like this post and want more like it, support McMansion Hell on Patreon for as little as $1/month for access to great bonus content including a discord server, extra posts, and livestreams.

Not into recurring payments? Try the tip jar! Student loans just started back up!

[stvrnioloslvt]

quiet - Chris Sturniolo

fratboy!chris × jealous!reader

(dividers from @animatedglittergraphics-n-more)

disclaimer: the following content is not suitable for an underage audience. please, if you are a minor do not interact in any way or form. thank you. check the trigger warning before reading, enjoy!

t.w: inappropriate language, unprotected sex (don't), a tiny bit of degrading language, jealousy, alcohol, I think nothing more.

a.n: soo...i'm impatient. i had planned to post this story on the 31st, once the poll ended, but i really don't like to wait that much. however, the results are clear: chris smut won with the 52.9%!

when you spot your boyfriend chris flirting with another girl at the Halloween party, you decide to take the matter in your hands and make him jealous thanks to matt. what you don't know, is that chris is keeping a close eye on you.

“i really don’t wanna go to this stupid party, nick.”

“i know, but you know what?” nick put his hands on my shoulders, a gentle yet firm grip. he looked at me in the eyes, then said “at least you look hot as fuck, and that’s all that matters. walk through those doors as if your pussy is made out of gold, and see what happens.”

i smiled at my best friend. with new-found confidence, i walked towards the doors, swaying my hips in my skimpy DCC cheerleaders white shorts that left nothing to the imagination. nick followed right through, adjusting the fake fangs in his mouth. he was one hell of a hot vampire. 

as we entered the halloween-decorated fraternity of our college, we were immediately pulled aside by matt, who was waiting for us right at the entrance. blue and purple lights caressed his face, creating weird shadows all around.

“fuckin’ finally! what took you so long?”

“are your eyes actually open? don’t you see how hot we both look? good things are always the last to arrive.” i chuckled as nick pulled me in a side hug to prove a point to his brother.

i eyed matt up and down one last time. even in the weird colored lights, i noticed that something was off. “wait, why aren’t you dressed up?” 

“cause i’m getting the fuck out of here, i was waiting for you two just because i don’t want to leave chris here under the influence without one of us to check on him.”

“he’s already drunk?”

“yeah, you surprised?”

i looked around, trying to find that dumb-fuck, with no luck. 

“c’mon, let’s get the party started!” nick grabbed my hand, pushing through the crowd of sweaty and dressed up people to get us to the drinks.

“do you want to drink anything?” he screamed loud enough for me to understand him over the blasting music. i shook my head, still trying to find chris. i picked at my skin, worry eating me alive: where the fuck was he? he was drunk, what if he did something stupid, or worse, dangerous?

then, i spotted him: hidden in the corner of the room with some random girl, running his hand through his hair held back by the headband of his basketball player costume. she was talking about something, and i could see clearly the strand of blonde hair that he was playing with twirling in his hand as he leaned on the wall, with the cocky grin of someone who believes that he has the world at his feet.

i felt a wave of nausea hit me, hands shaking by my sides. 

nick followed my gaze, spotting his brother. his hand stopped midway, the red cup never reaching his lips. “no way…” he whispered. weirdly enough, i heard that. 

just as i was ready to leave everything and get the fuck out of there, nick stopped me.

“let me go, nick, i don’t want to spend another second here.”

“absolutely not.”

“nick, please.” tears pricked at my eyes, making it hard for me to keep them back.

“i can bet you a hundred bucks right now that he’s trying to work you up. two can play that stupid game, y/n, and you've got plenty of people who've been eyeing you up and down since we arrived. go out there and get him back."

i took a napkin, drying my tears before they could fall and ruin my makeup.

an idea popped up in my mind. i turned towards the door, spotting matt, ready to leave.

"nick, quick, how mean would it be if i took revenge with matt?"

"honestly? a lot", he begun, pulling out his phone, dialling matt's number. "but you know what? i support women's rights as well as women's wrongs. go do your thing, baby."

we watched as matt picked up the phone, turning towards us. nick told him to come to us before he left, and so he did.

"matt, go and dance with y/n. don't ask questions, we'll explain everything later."

matt looked at me with a puzzled look on his face, but he didn't complain when i pulled him through the crowd, right in the middle of the room.

"i'm sorry, matt, just a little payback to your dumb brother."

i briefly explained to him what happened, what we saw, and nick's idea, so that he knew what was actually happening.

"you know what? i need a tiny bit of alcohol in me, then we can truly give chris payback."

i watched as one of his friends brought him a red cup. he gulped it down, waiting for the alcohol to hit.

and when it did, we had the best night ever: we laughed, danced, twirled together. soon enough, everyone's eyes were on us, some were judging, others having fun with us. at a certain point i might have drunk something too, cause i found myself grinding against matt. and god knows how private we actually are around each other in our daily life.

i felt matt's hands travelling up my sides, pushing his hips against mine, making me feel his erection. i threw my head back against his shoulder as he placed wet kisses down my neck, hands squeezing me closer to him. soft breaths came out of my parted lips, losing myself in the moment: maybe it was the alcohol, or the music, or the knowledge that everyone does some dumb shit during halloween night and then act the next day like nothing happened, but i had a strong urge to grab him and kiss him, to feel his lips dance on mine, our bodies so close one another that they physically couldn't get closer.

just as i turned around, intoxicated enough to actually kiss him, a strong hand pulled me away from my friend.

"wha-" i turned around, welcomed by the sight of a pissed off chris: jaw clenched, eyes fixed on a spot in front of him, dragging me around the room, elbowing whoever dared to step in front of him.

i tried to free myself from his grip, pulling and tugging with all my might, but he didn't even bulge a tiny bit. "where the fuck do you think you are taking me-"

"quiet."

"chris i swear-"

"shut the fuck up," he growled. he dragged me up the stairs, stopping in front of a door. he opened it and pushed me inside.

he locked the door behind me, pushing me against it. his lips immediately found mine, kissing me roughly. it was an angry kiss, a forceful one. it was screaming vendetta, jealousy, hurt.

i tugged at his hair as his tongue made its way in my mouth. his hands gripped my hips, so hard that i was sure they would leave marks. he hooked his hand under my knee, pushing my leg up and around his waist. i tiptoed with the other leg, trying to gain a bit of height.

chris pressed his erection right against my pussy, grinding slightly to tease me.

"chris," i moaned, every little noise swallowed by his lips.

"such a whore," he growled, lifting me up. both my legs wrapped around his waist to steady myself, as my back hit the door behind me. from this new position, i could feel his tip pushing right at my entrance.

"you really had to go all out and fuck my brother, didn't you? such a needy slut."

"the only slut here is you, flirting with that little friend of yours."

he snorted, clearly pissed off at my comeback.

"you really have no idea of what is coming, ma."

chills ran down my spine at that threat, at his dark voice and blown out pupils. he had the look of someone ready to eat you alive, and that was probably his intent.

"how pathetic," he mumbled before ripping apart the tight fabric of my shorts, leaving me completely bare.

i gasped, trying to pull away. "my shorts!"

"oh please," he started, "they were covering nothing. you could walk out there like this and no one would notice the difference."

he pressed me harder against the door as he pulled down his pants, just enough for his dick to spring out.

"hope matt got you wet enough," he chuckled ironically, then pushed himself right in, to the brim.

a chocked out moan left my lips, as chris started thrusting fast and hard inside me.

"oh chris- fuck."

"yeah? feels good? bet matt couldn't fuck you like i do."

i threw my head against the door while i clawed at his back, his jersey stopping me from leaving marks all over his back.

"ngh- so big, chris...please," i whimpered, trying to adjust to his size and rhythm. chris's lips attached to my neck, leaving kisses all around. as his mouth travelled down to my cleavage, he started to bite and nip at my skin, making sure that it would bruise.

"fuck-," he pulled out, quickly putting me down and bending me over the desk right by the door. whose room was that, again?

he pushed himself right in again, gripping my hips. he pounded into me so hard that the desk was banging against the wall with every thrust.

the room filled with the sound of our bodies slapping together, moans and groans as the music resonated faintly.

"such- a whore, fuck!" i felt him shudder; his hand flew quickly at the base of his cock, squeezing slightly to prevent himself from cumming yet.

"you're fuckin'mine, got that? mine."

one hand grabbed my asscheek, slapping it right after. and then again, and again, until i was left trembling and crying, overstimulated from the pleasure and pain that he was inflicting me.

his thrusts grew sloppy and unsteady as he approached his release. "chris, please, please, i wanna cum so bad" i sniffled, gripping the desk until my knuckles turned white to ground myself.

"no."

"please-"

"you can hold it. you're not cumming until i tell you to."

i bit my hand lightly, trying to focus on his orders. but it was just so hard, and he was fucking me just so good, hitting that sweet spot over and over again, that i knew i couldn't last for much longer.

a low guttural moan escaped from chris's lips as my walls clenched around him hard, pushing both of us even closer to our orgasms.

with a particular deep thrust, he tipped over the edge, spilling inside me, filling me with his hot cum. he groaned relieved as he thrusted slow and soft inside me, riding the waves of his climax.

i screamed, unable to contain my orgasm anymore, shaking as i came down from my high. i whimpered, laying down on the desk, the cool wood making me shiver all around.

"good job, ma," he whispered, stroking my back and kissing my shoulder. "such a good girl f'me, hm?"

his arms wrapped around my waist, helping me up. i leaned into him, grabbing his jersey for support.

"was i too rough?" i shook my head, leaning back to look at him in the eyes. a question bursted out, unable to stay put anymore.

"who was that girl?" chris looked taken back by the sudden question, but he had no problem answering. he shrugged, "i have no idea, i just wanted to work you up. you always give your best with angry sex."

i looked at him flabbergasted, ready to actually pick up a fight. "chris i swear-"

"shush mamas, let's get you something to actually cover up, hm? don't wanna go out there covered in marks and with no pants on, right?"

「 ★ ★ ★ 」

𝐃𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐏𝐘 𝐀𝐍𝐃/𝐎𝐑 𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐋 𝐌𝐘 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐊. 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐎 𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐀𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐆𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐃𝐈𝐓

yk what i should fly to the USA just to experience Halloween the American way, that shit seems so much fun i swear.

hope you enjoyed it! happy, spooky Halloween everyone!

love y'all,

-bree🎃🦇

MASTERLIST

[osachiyo]

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 by anonymous user ꒱. . . hello ! I really like your works, could I please request an insecure!reader with chuuya? and him fucking some sense into her? don't feel pressured to do this btw and feel free to ignore :D

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 note ꒱. . . here u go, nonnie ! I really liked this idea and sorry for taking so long on this request 😭 anyway, hope you enjoy ~~

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 c/w ꒱. . . (18+) n/sfw content, mentions of insecurities, body worshipper chuuya, praise, lowercase intended, hints of dumbfication, overstimulation, fingering, mirror sex, cunnilingus, chuuya eats it from the back !! 🗣️🗣️& more + not proofread

summary. . . you've been feeling insecure about your body and started to wonder if you were really good enough for someone like chuuya? but no worries, your lover doesn't mind reminding you how much he loves your body and more importantly, you.

you sighed, staring at your reflection in the fancy full-body mirror in front of you; god, you looked horrendous. you didn't know how chuuya, one of, if not the most beautiful man you've ever met, love someone like.. you.

what you also didn't know, though, was that your beloved chuuya had been standing in the doorway the entire time, slender figure leaning against the doorframe as a dull pain throbbed in his heart while he watched, heard you pick apart your body like it was the ugliest thing you had ever seen. he watched as you ran your fingers up and down the parts you hated the most, a frown tugging at your lips as you muttered something about "not being pretty enough". he didn't understand why you'd say such things about your body− all of those beautiful parts of yours that he cherished wholeheartedly.

you whipped your head around hearing the sound of the once slightly ajar bedroom door shut, your boyfriend entering the room. "hey doll, what're you up to?" chuuya's voice was heavy, laced with something you couldn't exactly put a finger on.

"hey, chuu," you smiled, though the action didn't meet your eyes. and chuuya could tell.

his eyes narrowed, gloved hands found their way around your waist, tugging you closer to him− your back flush against his chest. when did he walk all the way across the room?

"y'know, I heard everything right?" he muttered into your neck, strong arms tightening around your figure as you gulped nervously. "chuuya I−" "you're fuckin' beautiful. so don't say hurtful shit about yourself 'cause it for sure ain't true," he cut you off, now pressing soft kisses on the back of your neck to your shoulders, gloved hands reaching up your shirt to knead and gently caress your soft skin.

a whimper caught in your throat as chuuya's hands found your breasts− pushing your bra up to grope them under your shirt. "i love all parts of your body. fuck, you're so pretty. i'll fuckin' prove it to you if i have to."

"you see that, baby? see the way this pussy sucks my fingers in?" chuuya mused, now bare fingers plunging in and out of your sopping cunt as he had you spread in front of the giant mirror. "mm-! fuck, chuu−!" you were cut off by your own moans, beads of sweat forming on your forehead, making the little strands of your baby hair stick to your skin. "shh, baby. just focus on the way i finger fuck this pretty cunt, yeah?" your lover's voice was muffled by the soft kisses he was busy pressing all over your nape and shoulders, moving your hair out of the way to make it easier.

you could see everything in the mirror, from the way chuuya's slim fingers disappeared inside of your pussy to how much of a mess you've already become− glossy lips parted as loud moans and whines escape from your throat, the way your tits bounce and jiggle with each thrust of his digits. and hell, was it embarrassing. you jolted up when the tips of his appendages rubbed against that one spongey spot inside of your gooey walls− your jaw slacking as your eyes shut. only to receive a gentle but firm slap on your face from chuuya, "nuh-uh, baby. you're gonna watch how I please this beautiful body of yours," he growled lowly in your ear, fingers speeding up their pace as you twitch and whine in response. your vision was blurry− but you could still make out the way your face contorts to one of pure bliss in your reflection.

"yeaah− cum on these fingers, sweetheart," the ginger groaned as you soaked his fingers− your slick running down his wrist and staining the bed sheets underneath, soft curses and his name spewing out of your mouth as his fingers slowed down, aiding you to ride out your orgasm.

you gasped when he abruptly pulled them out of your still sensitive cunt− only to pop them in his mouth as he moaned from the taste of your juices melting on his tongue. "fuck, doll− I gotta taste you, need'a make you cum on my tongue−" he pushed you on your hands and knees before even finishing his sentence− a large hand pressing your back to a perfect arch, face down ass up.

"such a nice fuckin' ass," he groaned, fingers digging into the soft fat and spreading them as you whimper, pitifully clawing at the bed sheets. he playfully bit one of your globes, earning a whine in return which made him chuckle. chuuya's greedy hands ran down from your ass to your thighs, only to go back up to knead at your ass, "and these soft thighs− god, I could kiss 'em for hours."

and as if to prove himself, he started littering kisses all over your inner thighs, hands still kneading your ass before giving it a firm spank, making you jump. "hah, and of course−" he smirked before making his way to your pussy, "this pretty fuckin' pussy− prettiest one I've ever seen," he growled before diving in between your legs− hungry lips wrapping around your clit as you gasp out from the feeling.

"fu−ck! chuuya−!" you babbled, pussy still sensitive from your orgasm from earlier, his nose bumping against your slit as he runs his tongue in a zigzag motion across your clit. his fingers were spreading your ass apart for him, to get easy access to your sweet pussy that he wanted to devour so bad.

shamelessly nasty slurping noises came from between your parted thighs. your slick was already dripping down chuuya's chin as you tried your best to keep your gaze on the mirror, watching yourself getting eaten out from the back. fuck, your hair was a mess− your bare figure covered in bites and bruises that your boyfriend gave you, claiming it was his way of showing you were his. your makeup had been completely ruined; mascara running down your cheek in inky streaks, lipstick smudged− you looked utterly debauched, chuuya's favorite look on you.

a gurgled moan came out of your mouth when two fingers pushed inside of your sloppy pussy, the mafia executive's tongue now writing his name on your clit. a deep groan rumbled in his chest when you tried to run away from the feeling of his tongue and fingers on you− pulling you back before harshly cracking a palm down on your left globe, before curling his fingers further into you. tears were falling freely from your eyes at this point, mouth dropped to an 'o' as you chanted his name like a prayer− "chuu− please, fuck! s'too much−!" you cried out, if it weren't for chuuya's death grip on you, you'd already have fallen face first into the matress.

"you can− fuuck− take it, sweet girl," chuuya moaned into your pussy, the vibrations of the sound making your toes curl and apparently that was the last straw for you− "fuckfuck! 'm cummin'− cummingg−!!" your eyes rolled back into your skull as you squirted all over chuuya's face, his own hips rutting into the mattress as his eyes widen− he wasn't expecting you to do that.

chuuya gave your messy cunt a few more licks before kissing your clit, then pulling away. you looked back to see his face completely drenched− him licking his lips as he gave you a lopsided grin. "holy shit, baby. that was..." he muttered, still dazed as he ran his clean hand through his sweaty orange locks. you were still panting, chest heaving as you tried came down from the euphoric high before looking away in embarrassment, fingers fiddling with the sheets− then suddenly, you got slammed back against the bed. face down, ass up, again.

you heard a metal clink− likely his belt. the sound of expensive leather hitting the floor snapped you back into reality, he must've tossed the belt somewhere. it wasn't long before your thoughts got quickly cut off, chuuya's heavy tip slapping against your clit a few times as you whined, begging him to give you a rest but no− he wasn't gonna stop until he was sure he fucked all those negative thoughts out of your mind− wasn't gonna stop 'till all thoughts but his left that pretty little head of yours. you just had to sit still and take it, like the good girl you were.

©sachiyoh— do not copy, plagiarize and repost my works to any platform, reblogs are very appreciated ♡

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