#I haven’t seen anyone else mention it either

[imonlyhereforcrem]

Remembering when my bf finished The Sunlit Man and fully told me “I think Hoid is on the Night Brigade’s ship.” When I asked what he meant, he asked what’s the name of the character we see on the ship (referring to Truth Is Watching) and what those initials are. At first I was like, no way. There’s no way?! But then he asked “what was Hoid wearing when he appeared to Nomad?”

He’s wearing a black military uniform.

[withercat1]

Some observations about Mouthwashing

Spoilers ahead!

Ok so this game has got me so hyperfixated that I’m using Tumblr for the first time in like a year just to keep a tab with the Mouthwashing hashtag open so I can refresh it throughout the day and see what people are posting. That and my tab full of Danny AOD gifs. Anyway.

So I wanted to share some things I’ve noticed because I haven’t seen anyone else mention them and I want to seem smart and observant.

First off is the name Curly. Like it’s kind of a weird name. It’s unclear whether this is his first or last name because the writing on his id card is so burned and so cursive. It is worth noting that Curly is an actual name, meaning “strong man” or “great strength”. What stands out to me though, is that Laika, the dog who was sent into space, was actually named Kudrayavka originally, which means “Little Curly” (and a little fun fact, Laika means “barker”). Thematically, both of these make sense. I don’t know which one was intentional, if either. It’s entirely possible Curly as a name is a reference, or just a name the devs liked.

Secondly, Anya’s design is based off of Shelley Duvall in The Shining, most recognizable to most people for the scene where she’s hiding in the bathroom while Johnny breaks down the door. That being her most iconic scene really reminds me of Anya’s deal with doors, being unable to lock the door to her quarters, and then locking herself in medical while the others try to get her out.

Thirdly, and the one I find most interesting, is one of the videos that plays on the tv after the storage room is opened. It’s about atoms, and states that atoms make up everything, like shoes, and ships, and sealing wax, and cabbages, and kings. I don’t know if this video was chosen by the devs specifically for this quote, but for the purposes of my rambling I’m going to assume it was. This quote is a direct reference to The Walrus and the Carpenter, a poem by Lewis Carroll.

The poem is hyperlinked above (hopefully, Idrk how to use Tumblr), but I just want to post the segment that the quote from the video comes from.

“The time has come,' the Walrus said,

      To talk of many things:

Of shoes — and ships — and sealing-wax —

      Of cabbages — and kings —

And why the sea is boiling hot —

      And whether pigs have wings.'”

To briefly summarize the whole poem, though I highly recommend reading it for yourself as well because it’s really good, the Walrus and the Carpenter come across a group of oysters and ask them to join them for a walk. The oysters do, and the Walrus and the Carpenter walk with then a bit, before finally stopping, where the lines above happen. Right after this, the oysters ask to take a break, and the Walrus and the Carpenter agree to let them have the break - because they plan on eating the oysters. “And why the sea is boiling hot,” I believe, refers to the oysters being boiled in order to prepare them for consumption.

The Walrus says he pities the oysters, and wipes his tears away, while actively partaking in the consumption of the oysters. The poem ends with a statement that all of the oysters have been devoured.

So! Let’s focus on the Walrus here. Someone who leads innocents astray, boils/cooks them, and then eats them, all the while crying about how awful it is while doing nothing to abstain from eating them. Sound familiar? Sound like that guy we all hate? Little bit! I don’t know if it was an intentional bit of symbolism or not, but it’s super big brained if it was.

That’s all for now but I’m sure I’ll think of some more things later. I love this game. If u made it this far I really appreciate it, feel free to comment and let me know what you think

Also let me know how to tag a post as spoilers properly, I seriously do not use this site

[feyburner]

I loved LOVED a word, a look, will be enough. I’m obsessed with the way you write jason and tim. No pressure to answer this at all, but I was curious if you have a headcanon about how the missing spleen reveal eventually goes

Jay »

Good afternoon Timothy.

« tim

uh oh

Jay »

I just had a fascinating conversation with Doc thompson

Care to hazard a guess about what?

« tim

pollen season

Jay »

No.

« tim

bird flu

Jay »

Is there a reason you havent told anyone in your life that you dont have a fucking spleen?

« tim

okay first of all

i’m not sure why doc thompson felt the need to tell you my private medical information

pretty sure they have a rule about that

Jay »

It’s not her fault.

I mentioned that you got whammied with that stupid germ bomb from Typhoid Tony or whatever the fuck his name was

« tim

vik vyral

Jay »

And she got all serious and told me I should get you into the clinic asap, and I was like no he’s fine now, it was basically a 24 hour bug, and she was like no, theres no such thing as a 24 hour bug for him, he needs to come get his blood tested yesterday

And then she clearly realized I had no fucking clue what she was talking about and clammed up. Wouldn’t say a thing. Told me to ask you myself.

Jay »

The look she gave me when I said you slept it off and went back to work. Like I should know better. like I was letting you be careless and shit bc thats just how I am or something.

« tim

“letting” me?

Jay »

yeah. Letting you. I know you know what I mean

« tim

i’m not sure i do.

Jay »

When youre with someone you take care of them.

I dont pretend to know much about this shit but I know that.

I’m not talking about handcuffing you to the radiator. Im talking about knowing whats going on with you and knowing that sometimes you let shit slide that I wouldn’t. When it comes to you

You do that for me and the others all the time. Thats how it works.

« tim

doc thompson doesn’t know you’re “with” me

Jay »

If you think everyone doesn’t know exactly what’s going on then your detective skills need work

Jay »

Also, Jesus, Tim.

« tim

ok sorry, i didn’t mean the scare quotes part

but did you pause to consider maybe there’s a reason i haven’t told everyone other than whatever shortsighted masochistic bs you’re assuming

Jay »

I dont need you to tell everyone. I’m not asking you to write a report on it.

Just like. if there’s any other major medical shit can you maybe tell me

Before you fucking die of a sinus infection or whatever bc the asshole who lives with you didn’t know your immune system has the horsepower of a bicycle

« tim

did you know you curse more when you’re fronting like you’re not worried about me

Jay »

I’m actually not fronting! in this moment!

« tim

okay

well. i am sorry

that sounded sarcastic bc of who i am as a person

but it’s not. i mean it.

Jay »

Sorry for yelling at you

« tim

i dont wanna go into it over text but i’ll tell you tonight. okay?

about what happened.

also there’s nothing else. it’s just the spleen thing

ok?

Jay »

Okay.

« tim

well and the mango allergy

well. and i’m double jointed specifically bc i have joint-hypermobility syndrome

which is why im so flexible :)

but also why i dislocate things a lot :(

um and im mildly allergic to carrots, bananas, pineapples, and most legumes, but it’s fine they just make my tongue itch

i think that’s all

Jay »

Tim can you be honest with me for a second

« tim

yeah…

Jay »

Are you inbred

« tim

NSJDN/&2&jdj?!_£_??

Jay »

Like are you that type of rich person

You can tell me. We are not going to procreate so I dont mind either way

« tim

just scared the living shit out of an intern who had never seen me laugh before. i think she thought i was choking

jesus CHRIST

i will see you at home.

Jay »

You

didn’t answer the question….

[lovebugism]

I positively adore steeb and shy!reader 🥹 can I please request steve comforting shy!reader after her first experience with the upside down? he just vows to take care of her?

ty for requesting!! — steve takes care of you when you won't let anyone touch you after fighting vecna (shy!fem!r, hurt/comfort, friends in love, cw for mentions of bruises/injuries, 0.9k)

Hawkins Memorial Hospital smells overwhelmingly of bleach and very faintly of copper. You think the last bit might just be you, though. The scent of metallic blood and alternate-dimension muck hasn’t quite left you — even though you’ve scrubbed yourself raw in the shower, three times over.

You sit in Max’s vacant room while she’s out for surgery. Everyone else is either sleeping off the grief or getting themselves checked out. You can’t do either — too plagued by nightmares and too frightened at what the doctors might find if they look at you too close.

Steve finds you in the dim room, lit only by natural sunlight, standing in front of the small square mirror against the wall. You get lost in the splotchy bruises on your face until he knocks gently on the cracked open door. 

“Hey…” he greets, gently to keep from startling you.

You swallow down the fleeting panic. “Oh. Hi.”

��I, uh, I brought you some ice,” he tells you and steps further into the room, waving a plastic bag of chipped ice in his hand. “I saw you flinch when you wrapped up Dustin’s ankle. I figured your shoulder was bothering you…”

He’s visibly shy, but you’re impossibly shier. The deafening quiet and the proximity of your bodies are equally suffocating. You cower beneath the weight of it, wringing your clammy, cut-up hands together. “I’m— I’m fine. Thanks…”

Steve flashes you a wavering smile, lopsided and perfectly pink. He forces a laugh through an aching chest because you haven’t talked about what happened since you got back. He figured it was normal at first — that you were still grappling with the whole fighting monsters thing, but you haven’t let anyone touch you in days. The doctors have been begging to look you over since you got here.

“I just… I wanna help,” he confesses.

A pleading look swims in the deep honey of his eyes. It becomes impossible to turn him down. You’d have an easier time fighting Vecna, you think.

You swallow hard. “It’s… It’s my back,” you shrug, then grimace when the movement makes you ache.

You’d fallen through the decrepit floor of the Creel house and landed hard in the basement. The vines slithering there broke your fall. For the most part, anyway. The damn things would have swallowed you whole if Steve hadn’t been brave enough to jump in after you. 

“Can I see?” he wonders.

You hesitate for a moment. “I haven’t really— looked at it yet,” you murmur with a pained look twisting your features. You turn around when Steve approaches you. You feel his warm fingers along your back, knuckles skimming over your skin as he lifts your shirt with a slow and gentle touch — giving you ample time to stop him if you wanted.

When you don’t, he raises the fabric to the middle of your spine. The entire canvas of your back is darkened with a hardly healing bruise. The sight of it makes him grimace. “Jeez…” he mumbles before he means to.

Your brows pinch. “Is it bad?”

“We’re gonna need a lot more ice,” he answers with a forced laugh.

You giggle at his half-joke. The pretty sound makes him smile.

“You should probably see a doctor—”

“No,” you interject with a firm shake of your head, sterner than he’s ever seen you.

“But it’s— It’s kinda gnarly—”

“I’m fine,” you insist, despite the bruises darkening your skin. You turn back around to face him and avert your gaze at the pitiful look he gives you. You cross your arms over your chest and bite back a wince. “I’m okay, Steve. There’s other people to worry about right now.”

Max, for one. And all the rest of the kids for another. And the rest of the town who lost something in the earthquakes. You got off pretty lucky, all things considered — just a couple of bruises. And a cut or two. And some pretty gnarly nightmares. But that’s it.

Steve’s lip quirks in a sympathetic smile. “Here. C’mon. Sit down.”

He urges you to the made-up hospital bed with a hand hovering over your lower back. Your perch on the side of it, one leg curled beneath you, as Steve slides in behind you. He raises the hem of your shirt and presses the icepack against your shoulder blade, where the bruises seem darkest. His touch is gentle and feather-light, almost comically so. The bag of ice just barely grazes you.

“Is this okay?” he asks.

You nod. “Yeah… Thanks.”

His hand grows heavier when his touch becomes more confident. The stinging of the cold soothes the deep ache in your shoulder.

“No problem,” he says before swallowing down the nerves crawling up his throat. “I’m always here, you know? If you ever need anything.”

You exhale a sharp laugh through your nose. “I feel like you have better things to do than take care of me,” you murmur, wringing your hands into a knot in your lap.

“Well, I don’t.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“What?” he scoffs. “That I’d rather dote on you than do anything else?”

“Yeah,” you laugh and shoot him a playful look over your shoulder. You smile when you find him already grinning at you.

“Well, believe it, alright? ‘Cause you’re stuck with me now.”

“Am I?”

“Yep,” he answers, popping the p.

“We fought monsters together, and now we’re bonded for life?”

“Exactly.”

You flash him another glance, eyes glittering as you bite back a beaming grin. “Sounds miserable,” you tease.

Steve nods with a crooked smile. “Absolutely horrible.” 

[lyculuscaelus]

So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of posts asking people to stop trying to make Odysseus look nice in their works cuz he’s a “messed-up person in the mythology”. Your opinion is valid however I have but one thing to point out:

You want to know who started all this? Who started to “make Odysseus look nice” in the first place?

It’s Homer. It’s nobody else but Homer himself.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would try to murder people out of his own interests. He’d murder Palamedes without remorse (and we’d be cheering over this but it’s a murder after all), he’d attempt to murder Diomedes just to get the Palladium himself, he’d volunteer to kill Astyanax…meanwhile you wouldn’t find any mention of either Palamedes or Nauplius in Homer’s poems, neither did he mention anything abt the Palladium heist (and Diomedes necessity did not happen until Conon’s version), the death of Astyanax, the distribution of war prizes, etc. And all the details in the Odyssey seemed to deny the existence of Nauplius’s vengeance at all, so Odysseus would not take any of the blame.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be depicted as “cruel, treacherous”, meanwhile in book 10 of the Iliad Odysseus was not mentioned to have killed anyone during the marauding, neither did he promise Dolan anything at all. The negative interpretations are denied by these details subtly put by Homer.

A non-Homeric Odysseus would be widely known as a “coward” for only shooting arrows from afar. But Homer gave him a spear and had him absolutely slaying in both the Iliad and the Odyssey. That part of Ajax’s speech was invalid already.

Most importantly—a non-Homeric Odysseus would be having kids everywhere else, and the loyalty to his own wife as seen in the Odyssey is no where to be found. Meanwhile his lineage was a single-son line made by Zeus in the Odyssey, and his love for Penelope was one of his main drives, especially seen in book 5 of the Odyssey. He loved his family as a loving parent—something you don’t get to see in most of the non-Homeric writings—for most of the time they followed a different tradition indeed, in which Odysseus wasn’t half as nice as in the Odyssey.

TL;DR: in case you haven’t noticed, the characterization of the Homeric Odysseus was quite different from a non-Homeric version of Odysseus. It’s not that Homer didn’t know of the existence of other versions—he knew them too well, which is why in his version of the story, you don’t get to see any mention of them.

[mc-i-r]

Disposable Heroes

Part one, Part two, Part three, Part four AO3 link

A/N: hi yes so sorry for how late this is, it turned into a huge monster of a fic that I’m still working on but I figured posting the first part wouldn’t hurt. This is based on this post by @liightsnow, @acowardinmordor, and @00biscuit while back and I decided to expand that concept a bit and here we are. I'll be tagging anyone that seemed interested in the concept at the end of the fic! Warnings are below but I just wanna say that Steve is struggling with his sexuality in this one so most of it comes from that. This will absolutely have a happy ending, just not right now. Enjoy the angst!

Tw: internalized homophobia, homophobic language, mentions of canon violence, dissociation, panic attacks

———

It’s a Sunday afternoon when he realizes it. Steve is sitting on his couch, eating a shitty frozen meal and watching a random movie on TV when it hits him. The kids haven’t asked him for a ride in two weeks. Two Saturdays have passed and there was not one call— either on the phone or over the walkie— from any of the kids. Not even Dustin, who has seemed to make it his life’s mission in the past couple years to annoy Steve into an early grave.

It’s not like he hasn’t seen them at all. He still practices basketball with Lucas on Thursdays, even though the season is long over. His weekly dinners with Claudia and Dustin are still going strong every Wednesday. Joyce seems to invite him over for dinners every couple weeks. From the outside, everything seems fine. And maybe it is, but Steve’s noticed things.

See, he’s not as stupid as people think he is. He may not be academically smart but he can read. However, instead of books, it’s people. He can read their micro-expressions, notice little signs in their body language that help him understand the person. He can tell when people are nervous when they avoid eye contact, can tell how anxious they are when they distract themselves by picking at their fingers. It’s how he’s so good with the kids. They’re in the stubborn stage of their teenage years, the time in which the only answer you’ll get is ‘I’m fine. Leave me alone’. But he can tell if there’s something on their minds, if there’s something eating away at them.

He can tell that Mike’s anger and pointed barbs are directed towards himself, how he’s struggling with something he can’t quite admit to himself yet. How Max is frustrated with her body, with accepting help, because she’s always had to rely on herself and putting that much trust in someone else has never been an option for her until now. How Lucas is trying to find joy in doing something he loves again, because his love for basketball has been ruined by Carver and his trusty band of assholes. How Dustin is trying to deal with almost losing Eddie, how he’s processing the feelings of almost losing a brotherly figure along with one of his friends. How Will is hiding part of himself, struggling to accept it in the same way Mike is. How El is trying so hard to find her new normal, to adjust to getting her life— her father— back.

There’s another thing he’s noticed, however. It’s that the kids are obsessed with Eddie. Steve from a couple years ago would feel jealous of Eddie, and would try to hold it against him. Now, though, Steve just feels… sad. The kids constantly talk about how cool and badass Eddie is for still being himself despite all the shit Hawkins has thrown at him. They talk about how Eddie takes them places, gets them little trinkets for their nerd game, and takes them fun places. Eddie does all these little things for the kids, lets them just be kids, and really, Steve can’t be mad at him for it. He tries to let them have fun, but his constant worrying overwhelms them. It brings them down. Eddie doesn’t do that. He joins right in with them, basking in the fun and letting himself go. Steve… can’t. Not with all the shit he’s seen. Letting his guard down is something he can’t afford to do anymore.

He sighs down at his meal, chucking it on the coffee table as he loses his appetite. His glasses land next to the disposable plastic tray, sliding across the finished wood surface from the force of his throw. He rubs harshly over his face, hands digging into his eyes until he sees stars.

Steve knows he’s not perfect. Hell, it took an interdimensional monster trying to kill him in order for him to realize that he could be a better person. That the only person truly able to change his life is himself. He used to think he had no choice in his life— whether it was his parents' high expectations of him or his friends trying to mold him into their perfect little plaything— but he knows better now. He knows that he shouldn’t have become King Steve, that he shouldn’t have hurled all his hate and anger towards other people who didn’t deserve it. He knows he shouldn’t have called people names or slurs, that he shouldn’t have spray painted lockers or ripped up books or shoved people against hard asphalt. He knows that, but knowing it was wrong doesn’t erase the fact that it happened. That Steve did those things and hurt people.

Part of him knows that his past is what made the kids turn towards Eddie. Why wouldn’t they? Steve was a bully, thought he was hot shit in school and made it everyone’s problem. Eddie was simply himself. His unabashed, unashamed self. He stood on cafeteria tables, made dramatic speeches, and shared his opinions to anyone and everyone who would listen. He’s so genuine and so, so much better for the kids. He teaches them how to be themselves, how to shove off the hate and embrace their weird side. He’s perfect for them, and Steve knows deep down that this is good for them. The kids need a good role model, one they can rely on, and Eddie has his herd of little sheep to teach and protect. It’s perfect. They’re perfect.

Steve remembers the time last week at the Byers-Hopper house when their little obsession truly became real. They were waiting for the bread to finish baking in the oven, and Steve saw that Will was seated alone in the living room. Joyce and Hopper were in the kitchen, talking and keeping a lookout so the bread wouldn’t burn. Jonathan and El were listening to music in his room, the synth and guitars echoing down the hallway. So, Steve decided to finally talk to Will. It’s not like they don’t talk ever, just… not much. Will is quiet, blends into the background, and Steve never felt like the kid would be comfortable with him trying to get in his business. However, he needed to ask the question that had been on his mind for a while.

Steve sat down on the couch next to him, keeping a fair amount of distance between them, and rested his elbows on his knees. Will was reading a comic, the cover full of bright colors and words, not paying attention. Steve sighed, pushed his glasses up, and ran a hand through his own hair.

“Hey, um… can we talk for a sec?”

Will startled a little, like he didn’t realize Steve was there, and closed his comic. He nodded, and Steve tried not to feel bad about the hesitation in his eyes.

“Is there something going on that I don’t know about? Like with the others?” Will’s eyebrows furrowed, a confused expression taking over his face.

“Um.. what do you mean?”

“Just… have I done anything to them to make them mad? I just… I don’t know, I feel like I’ve done something but I don’t know what,” Steve confessed. He must have looked as distraught as he felt, because Will seemed to soften at his explanation a bit.

“Why do you think that, Steve?” Will asked softly, and Steve had a moment of realization that Will seemed years older than he looked. Steve sighed, and explained that the kids haven’t really been hanging around him much and instead like to spend time with Eddie. He’s quick to clarify that he doesn’t mean anything bad by it, just wants to know what happened. It was Will’s turn to sigh, and he looked at Steve with something akin to sympathy.

“Steve, I don’t say this to be mean but… Eddie just relates to us more, you know? He shares more interests with us, and he seems to get us better,” Will expressed. His eyes widened and he hastily added, “it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you! Just… it’s nice to have somewhere else to go, you know?”

The rest of the evening was spent with Steve silently eating his dinner, Will’s words echoing through his head as he munched on half-burnt bread.

Steve decides then, TV dinner half-eaten and work vest still on his shoulders, that he’s going to make this better.

The next day, Eddie comes into Family Video to pick up some movies, definitely for a movie night judging by the titles— he seriously doubts a metalhead would willingly watch The Goonies, The Dark Crystal, and Ghostbusters by himself on a Saturday night. Eddie bounds up to the register, movies in hand, and does a dramatic bow as he presents them to Steve.

“I wish to borrow these, my liege,” Eddie declares, his voice deep and in a horrible mockery of an English accent. Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes, unable to hide the small grin on his face at the other man's theatrics.

Eddie looks so effortlessly pretty, his hair tied back in a ponytail and his tattoos exposed through the large arm holes in his homemade tank top. Steve shakes his head to get rid of those thoughts and takes the movies to check them out, ignoring the late fee balance on Eddie's account. A glance at the man in front of him, who is bouncing on his toes and looking around the store, gives Steve an idea.

“Hey, is Hellfire still going on?”

Eddie snaps his attention back to Steve, looking a little startled to be asked such a thing.

“Uh… yeah, it's still going on. We have to play in Gareth’s hot ass garage since school is out but we’re making it work. Why d’you ask?”

“Oh, uh… the kids complained awhile back that they didn’t have a good spot to play anymore and I was just wondering,” Steve explains. Eddie raises an eyebrow at him, and Steve can feel him staring. Can feel him looking at him closely. Too closely. He clears his throat and looks back down at the counter, pushing his gold, wire-framed glasses further up his nose. “I uh… I actually wanted to offer up my place? My parents aren’t home much”— more like never— “and I’ve got plenty of space for the gremlins and the other guys. Plus, my A/C works and I’ve got a shit ton of snacks. I’ll stay out of your hair and-“

“Actually uh…” Eddie cuts him off with a strained voice. Steve looks up to find his face contorted like he ate something sour, and he knows what his response is going to be before he opens his mouth. Eddie wipes a hand over his mouth before shoving it in his pocket. “Yeah, the other guys just… really wouldn’t want to be there.”

Steve nods— tries not to let the denial sting— and looks down at the movies in his hands. Ignoring how they shake, he sets them on the counter and slides them towards Eddie.

“That’s okay man, I get it. I need a break from the little horrors anyway,” he huffs out, the words digging their way into the pit in his stomach. He puts on his best customer service smile and looks up at Eddie, finding him looking a little wary. Eddie hesitates, as if debating with himself on whether or not to say anything, before rapping his knuckles on the counter in a little rhythm and picking up his movies. An awkward smile finds its way to his face, and Steve thinks it strange and out of place. It’s so.. un-Eddie-like. The pit grows deeper.

Walking backwards towards the entrance, Eddie throws a little salute his way before turning and swinging out the door. A belated “see ya, Harrington” drifts through the closing door in his wake.

Steve slumps over the counter when he’s gone, holding his head in his hands and feeling the childish urge to cry make its way up to his eyes. Even after everything— after walking through hell together, dragging his lifeless body out of the Upside Down as his blood dripped down his back and soaked through his clothes, standing vigil at his side until he woke up two weeks later— Eddie still seems to hate him.

But Steve… he feels the opposite. He has this overwhelming desire to be with Eddie. To hang out with him in the back of his van, drinking sodas and eating snacks as they look out over Lover’s Lake while the sun sets. To talk to him until the early hours of the morning until there’s nothing left to say. To go for drives late at night and listen to his loud music on the radio while holding hands over the center console. He has feelings for Eddie he’s never had before. Not for any past romantic conquests nor any girl. Hell, not even for Nancy. He’s never felt this intense need to be near someone before, and it scares him. It truly terrifies him.

He’s not homophobic— his platonic soulmate is a lesbian, for Christ's sake— but the fact that he feels this way is just… wrong to him. How is Steve Harrington, ladies’ man and charmer extraordinaire, into dudes? What is he, like, half gay? It just doesn’t make sense, doesn’t seem right, for him to feel like this. He sighs into his hands, digging his palms into his eyes until he sees stars. He can’t be thinking about this now, he can’t be thinking about this at all. He needs to shove it in the box in the back of his head where all the hard feelings go, waiting and festering to be dealt with later. He needs to, but he doesn’t know if he can.

Fuck, he needs to talk to Robin. Shit- can he though? What if what he’s feeling is a fluke or something? What if it’s just in his head because he’s desperate? What if Robin thinks he’s making fun of her and won’t take him seriously? It’s not fair of him to throw all his problems on her, even if he thinks she could help. It’s not her job to look after him, to take care of him. He can do that himself. He can figure this out himself.

Distantly, the words of Richard Harrington play in his ears. About how being gay is wrong, how it’s a disease. How it’s a sickness that slowly takes over until there’s nothing left. How it’s a disgrace.

He remembers sitting in the living room with his parents on a rare occasion in which they were home, watching the news channel as it talked about an epidemic spreading through young men. His father scoffed at the screen when they started talking about potential cures.

“Cures? They should just let those fags die. They brought this on themselves, you know. Typical of them to complain about the fucking consequences,” Richard had spat out at the block TV, standing to refill his bourbon. Steve had clenched his fists at his side, his already stiff posture straightening still. He felt angry at his fathers words, something pure and burning in his gut.

He didn’t know what it was at the time, but maybe he should’ve known. Maybe him being queer shouldn’t be as much of a surprise as it feels. Maybe he’s always known and just couldn’t bring himself to admit it. Maybe that anger he felt at his father’s words was partly on behalf of himself, too.

A wince shudders through him as he remembers how that night ended.

Steve had stood up from the couch, watching the dark liquid flow into the crystal glass in his father’s hand.

“What’s so wrong with being gay? I don’t understand how you could just.. hate people like that. Hate them for just existing,” Steve countered. His father had frozen at his words, slowly setting down the decanter with a solid ‘thunk’ against the metal tray where it belonged and turned to face him. His face was slowly gaining a reddish hue, a sign of the anger rising within him.

“What did you just say?” He demanded, voice scarily calm but laced with an icy rage. Steve swallowed.

“What… What's wrong with being gay, sir?” Steve hesitated, voice failing him. Richard had downed the glass of bourbon before throwing it at Steve, the crystal shattering on the mantelpiece behind him and sending shards flying.

“What’s wrong, Steven, is that you think it’s okay. No son of mine will think like that, not on my watch,” his father boomed, taking long strides towards him. Steve didn’t dare move, only watched his fist grow nearer as he punched him high on his cheek. He fell to the floor, arms trying to protect his head but it was no use. Richard had ripped his arms away, gripping the front of his shirt and making Steve hover above the ground.

“I didn’t raise a fucking fairy, Steven,” he spat. “A faggot.” Steve recoiled, physically feeling the vitriol his father aimed at his face. Richard had sneered, pulled him close and whispered, “Never forget that, Steven,” before shoving him harshly onto the ground and walking away. Black had clouded the edges of his vision, and he laid on the plush rug until it cleared up. He looked over, found his mother silently watching the TV and sipping her wine, and begged with his eyes for her to help him. To say something. Anything. She didn’t, and Steve had to haul himself off the floor, grasping the couch when his vision swam, and stumbled his way to his room.

The rest of that weekend was spent in his room, gingerly cleaning his face and the couple places where glass had cut him on his arms with a wet washcloth and soap. It was the first time he had ever gotten a concussion. He was fifteen.

He remembers replaying the fight over and over again, feeling like those barbs were directed towards him, too. In hindsight, maybe they were. Maybe his father just knew. Knew he was queer long before Steve ever did. Maybe that’s why he’s always so angry with him, so… disappointed. A groan escapes him and he runs a hand through his hair. He’s been thinking way too damn much for it to be this early in the day.

God, he really wishes Robin was here. He knows he can’t talk to her, but it would be nice just to have someone here to keep him from spiraling and drowning in his thoughts. He pushes himself off the counter and goes over to the cart where the returns sit, hoping that busying himself will occupy his thoughts. He sets a few on the shelves when what Eddie said earlier barrels into him full-force.

“Yeah, the other guys just… really wouldn’t want to be there.”

Jesus fucking Christ, he’s stupid. Of course the other Hellfire guys wouldn’t want to be at his house, they probably still see him as King Steve. Most people do, nowadays. Only the ones he went through hell with know he’s different now, that he’s changed. So really, he can’t fault them for being against the idea of Hellfire at his house. He wouldn’t believe it either if he was in their shoes.

Then again, wouldn’t Eddie or the kids try to convince them he’s different? That he’s not a dick? Shit, he’s been through four apocalypses, three concussions, and survived Russian torture— surely they would give him the benefit of the doubt, right? He’s dropped the bad influences out of his life, found better friends, better family— or can he even say that anymore?— to be with. Wouldn’t they try to stick up for him? Or... is he just not worth it?

Steve clenches his eyes shut, willing his bubbling emotions back down, and grips the movie in his hands so hard the plastic begins to creak. The little voice in his head, one that sounds suspiciously like Robin, tells him to breathe. He does. Deep inhale, hold, long exhale. Over and over and over again until he’s calm, until his head is clear.

He knows what he needs to do now: apologize. If it's one thing Steve Harrington knows, it’s how to apologize. Hell, he’s done it more times than he can count. He knows how to repair burnt bridges and how to get past the tough exterior of a person to pull at their heartstrings for sympathy. He knows the key; he just has to make himself useful. If he can provide things for the kids, for Eddie and the Hellfire crew, then they’ll want him around. That’s how it’s always been. That’s how it is with his parents, with school, with his past friends, and now his current ones. He vaguely recalls his junior year art teacher saying that, "once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, but thrice is a pattern." Which means this, this is something he has to make right.

With a plan solidified in his mind, he goes back to work refilling the shelves with movies, brainstorming ideas to get his family back.

Over the next week, Steve becomes a one man show. He offers up more rides, more movie nights, more free reign of his house and his pool and his car and his money and himself just to make the kids happy. He picks up extra shifts at work just to get extra spending money for them, knowing that they go through twenty bucks in no time.

But… it doesn’t work. Because bit by bit, ride by ride, movie marathon by family dinner by game night by post-nightmare phone call, it becomes painfully clear. Everyone puts on a mask around him. One that says they’re happy to see him, that they’re glad he’s here, but he knows it’s a lie. This, really, shouldn’t be much of a surprise. People don’t stick around him much, so why did he think this was any different?

Maybe it’s because he was finally himself around them, he finally opened up and showed a bit of his true self, and was still rejected. Still pushed away. He wasn’t cowering behind a mask this time, he was just Steve. But it wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t good enough.

To their credit, it starts off slow. Casual comments that are cut off quickly, kicks under dinner tables and pointed throat clearing. It’s one instance during game night where it all clicks.

The Monopoly board is spread out before them in the Byers-Hopper living room. Steve, of course, is losing. He’s not good with investments and savings and he keeps landing on the goddamn ‘jail’ space but he doesn’t really care, not when he’s finally having fun with the kids. He groans when the dice make him land on one of Mike’s properties, shuffling his fake cash to pull out the tax money.

“C’mon this game is totally rigged. How the hell am I losing to a bunch of teens?” He grumbles as Mike proudly snatches the money from his hand. Max snickers from her place beside him, her pale blue eyes rolling as she looks at him.

“You know, if you actually used your brain then maybe you wouldn’t be losing. Ever think of that?” She quips, and Steve huffs. Leave it to him to be called out by a fifteen year old.

“I’m surprised there’s even a brain in there to begin with,” Dustin states. He’s seated across from Steve. “I mean, why else would he have-“

His comment is cut off by Lucas smacking his arm. Dustin looks at him like he’s about to protest when Lucas raises his eyebrows, looking pointedly from Dustin to Steve and back again. Steve can’t hear from his position so far away, but he swears Dustin mutters “shit” before crossing his arms and looking down at the board. Steve looks around at the rest of the group, noticing how none of them seem to want to look at him, choosing to focus rather intently on the cardboard before them.

The rest of the game is filled with awkward silences. Steve can feel them looking at him when he’s occupied, and it makes him feel like shit inside.

It’s on the drive home when it hits him. He is the one that doesn’t fit into their group, into their family. They’re slowly but surely removing him and replacing him with Eddie. With someone who fits. With someone better. It hits him so hard, so fully, that he has to pull over on a quiet street to sob in his empty car.

The first time it's fully solidified in his mind is at a barbecue at the Byers-Hoppers house. Robin can’t come, her aunt from up north is visiting for the weekend and she has to stay home. Steve walks through the house, planning on saying hello to Joyce before joining the party outside. He finds Joyce talking low to Eddie in the kitchen and he pauses in the doorway, watches how Joyce laughs at something Eddie says. How she places her hand on his arm as her eyes crinkle with the weight of her laugh. Eddie is smiling, open and wide, with a flush high on his cheeks that stains his skin pink. His dimples are on full display and it takes pure willpower for Steve not to go and poke at them, to settle his thumb in the divot of his skin.

Joyce leans close to Eddie and says something under her breath, making him blush purely red now and shush her, causing another wave of laughter to ripple through the both of them. The kitchen is filled with warmth, the afternoon sunlight streaming in through the sheer cream-colored curtains that line the two windows as laughter fills the room. It’s light, it’s happiness, it’s love. It’s something Steve hasn’t felt in years.

Steve knocks on the doorframe, waggling his fingers in greeting. They both turn to look at him, and all that warmth from before flees the room. If he hadn’t just seen the thin rays with his own two eyes, he could have sworn even the sun went down as well. He feels a stab of pain in his heart, so sharp it makes his breath stutter. He fights to put a smile on his face, briefly clearing his throat and praying his voice doesn’t sound as faint as he feels.

“Hey, Ms. Byers. Eddie,” he greets. Steve runs a hand through his hair, just to give himself something to do. “Just wanted to say hi before I go outside.”

Eddie’s face has gone completely slack, the only thing convincing Steve he didn’t hallucinate the entire exchange earlier is the flush that had yet to leave his cheeks. In fact, Eddie looks even more red now that he’s made his presence known. Joyce, to her credit, has a small polite smile on her face.

“Thank you, Steve, that's very kind of you,” she replies. She casts a glance at Eddie out of the corner of her eye, something Steve has noticed a lot of people do to each other when he’s around. “You go on outside now, okay? I’m sure the kids are missing you.”

Steve holds back his remark of “yeah, I actually doubt that” and nods, leaving the two of them in the kitchen as he continues down the hallway. He tries hard not to let the harshness of their quick whispers dig further into his already injured heart.

Once outside, he’s greeted by no one. Dustin and Lucas are discussing something rapidly to one another, Dustin gesturing wildly with his hands as Lucas nods along and adds details. Max and El are sitting on a lawn chair together, Max seemingly teaching El how to braid her hair. Mike and Will are sitting in the grass a bit away from the group, shoulders touching and heads bowed together as they talk quietly to one another. Steve smiles softly at them, knowing.

He makes his way over to Hopper, who is manning the grill with a beer in one hand and a spatula in the other. Steve waves and gives him an awkward little smile, and Hopper nods his head, pointing towards a cooler with his beer. Steve grabs one, popping it open and taking an, admittedly, big first swig. Hopper doesn’t notice, or at least doesn’t comment, and Steve looks out over the people he still considers his family. He catches Dustin’s eyes, hoping to have someone to talk to, but the kid only looks away and continues his conversation.

So now Steve is here by himself, slowly nursing a beer, and trying to keep his emotions in check.

It’s just that… he doesn’t know what he did. Was he too overbearing or did he not care enough? Was he too pushy or too distant? Was he just annoying them? Was he just an inconvenience? Did they ever really like him or did they just put up with them out of necessity? Or because they felt bad?

He takes another sip of beer, hating the way it tastes on his tongue but it’s better than the bile slowly rising in his throat. All he wants is for someone to see him, to see who he truly is and like it. To stick around. To stay.

And it’s true, he does have Robin, but sometimes she can’t give him what he needs. Call him a romantic but Steve wants that love, that connection, that intense feeling you get with a partner. He craves it more than anything. He wants to touch, to taste, to feel someone else.

Eddie. He wants Eddie.

A voice interrupts his thoughts.

“Kid, will you go get me a plate for the burgers?” Hopper asks, his gruff voice shoving all of his mushy thoughts aside. Steve nods, sets his beer on top of the cooler, and makes his way inside. He silently dreads ever walking in that room again, dreads having to feel the chill from before. However, the scene in the kitchen is drastically different this time. Joyce is by herself, Eddie nowhere to be seen, and is mixing together slaw in a big tupperware bowl.

Steve knocks on the frame again and is met with a small smile from the older woman. It’s infinitely more warm than the one he was met with when he got there, and he thinks it’s partly due to the lack of a certain metalhead in the room. Joyce sets down her spoon, wiping her hands on a nearby towel, and holds her arms out.

“C’mere, honey,” she murmurs, and Steve tries not to let her soft tone get to him. The last thing he needs is to cry in front of everyone. He walks forwards into her hug, leaning down a little to wrap his arms around her properly, and sighs when she rubs her hands up and down his back. Steve clenches his eyes shut, taking in stuttering breaths that he knows she can hear but thanks every god out there that she doesn’t comment on it. She taps her hands twice on his back and pulls away, reaching up to push some of his hair off his forehead and Steve wills himself to not lean into the touch too much.

“Sorry for not saying a proper hello earlier, I was a bit preoccupied. Eddie- well, that’s not my thing to tell but he needed some help with something and… well, you get it,” she smiles, laughs a little, and Steve smiles back.

This. This is what he wishes he could have with his parents. This lightness, this love. He never will, he knows that, but the little moments like this with Joyce, the way she hugs him and cares for him, are ones he treasures. Ones he wishes he could have everyday. Joyce is a wonderful mother, and part of him wishes he could have her as his own. Hell, she’s been more of a mother to him in the four years he’s known her than his mother ever has. But he knows that isn’t fair. It isn’t fair of him to put his parental issues on her or anyone else. So he doesn’t, and shoves his hands in his pockets instead.

“It’s okay, Ms. Byers, I get it. Sorry to interrupt you two, though,” he apologizes. She waves her hands in a shooing motion.

“Oh don’t apologize for that, honey, it’s okay,” she smiles, then hesitates. “I do want you to promise me something, okay?” Steve nods, and Joyce places her hands on either side of his face. “Promise me you’ll be careful with people, be gentle. Not everyone can be treated the same, some people… they’re special.

“Sometimes, it’s better to listen. Promise me, Steve, that you’ll always listen, okay?” She asks, and Steve has to swallow before he responds.

“I promise, Ms. Byers,” he replies, and she pats his cheek. Her smile has grown, and her eyes have softened.

“I love you, Steve, you know that, right?” Joyce asks, and it’s like the world has stopped moving. He didn’t know that, not really. Sure, he knew she liked him but he didn’t know she…

He doesn’t realize he’s tearing up until Joyce coos at him, wiping away a few stray tears that have escaped with her thumbs.

“I-I didn’t know you- I’m sorry, I don’t-“ Steve stutters out, but Joyce shushes him.

“You don’t have to apologize, Steve, it’s alright,” she insists. Her thin arms pull him into another hug and he buries his face in her shoulder. The angle is a little awkward, but it’s a comfort Steve hasn’t had in ages so he stays. “It’s gonna be alright.”

Her small hands rub up and down his back as he holds back tears. He regulates his breathing, taking in deep breaths and letting them out slowly, until he’s sure he won’t cry. He pulls back from the hug and wipes at his eyes, sure that they're red-rimmed and a little puffy, but Joyce only smiles that warm smile and pats his cheek again. Steve smiles at her, the first genuine smile he thinks he’s had in awhile, and it feels good. To smile and know it's real.

Joyce turns to the counter behind her and picks up a plate, handing it to Steve. His brows furrow, and he hesitantly takes the offered crockery.

“How did you-“

“I had a feeling,” she interrupts him with a wink. “Now go on before Hop burns the yard down.”

Steve smiles and goes back outside, handing the plate to Hop and ignoring his grumble of “took ya long enough”, before picking his beer back up and taking a much needed swig. A few minutes later, they’re all eating. Eddie has joined Dustin and Lucas in their rambling, all three of them loudly talking over one another. Steve watches them; wishing, wanting, yearning. Joyce bumps her shoulder into his, making him swivel his head to look down at her. She smiles, almost knowingly, and Steve blushes. He clears his throat and looks away, focusing on fixing his burger rather than whatever the fuck that was.

He sits alone away from the group, catching occasional glances from Joyce, Dustin, and Hopper. Joyce is concerned, he can tell that much, and part of her almost looks sad. Dustin looks conflicted, like he can’t decide if he wants to be mad from a distance or just come right up to Steve and say it to his face. Steve wouldn’t be surprised if he did the latter. Hopper, to Steve’s complete unsurprise, looks uninterested and, frankly, fed up with this whole situation. Steve doesn’t blame him, he is too.

After the food is gone, and dessert is served, Steve heads inside to help clean up. He washes dishes quietly with Joyce, while she dries them and puts them away. As he finishes up the last plate, Will comes into the kitchen.

“Hey, Mom? The party wanted to play some board games, is that okay?” He requests, and Steve can feel Joyce soften beside him. She smiles.

“Of course, honey. Make sure you ask the girls what they want to play, too, okay?” Will rolls his eyes and smiles, a mannerism Steve notes he definitely got from Mike.

“Got it, Mom,” he replies, and runs off. Steve turns back to the sink, realizing he’s been scrubbing the plate well past the point of clean, and rinses it off.

“I um.. I think I’m going to head out, Ms. Byers,” he begins. He hands the plate to her. “I’ve got a shift tomorrow and uh… I don’t want to intrude or anything.”

He doesn’t mention that he doesn’t want to repeat the last game night, where everyone kept glancing at him like he was a bomb set to explode at any moment. He doesn’t say that he can’t handle their stares for any longer than he already has.

“Oh, are you sure? You’re welcome to stay here as long as you want to,” Joyce offers, but Steve shakes his head.

“I really should be going, sorry.”

“Alright, dear. Let me walk you out,” she insists, moving to take off her apron.

“I’ll walk him out, Joyce, don’t worry about it,” Hopper's gruff voice interrupts from the doorway. Steve swallows and nods, drying his hands off on a towel. He looks at Joyce, seeing her share a glance and a smile with Hopper before looking back at him. He smiles, finally beginning to think that maybe… maybe things will be okay.

“Thank you, Ms. Byers. For everything,” he expresses. He leans down to give her a hug, her arms quickly hugging him back.

“It’s alright, dear. You come to me if you ever want to talk, you hear?” Steve pulls away from the hug.

“I will, promise,” he hesitates. Steve looks down at his hands, shaking from where they’re clutching each other, and takes a breath. “I… I love you too.”

He looks up right as Joyce pulls him into another hug. He laughs a little, and she pats his back before pulling away with a “be safe”. Hopper clears his throat from the door and Steve takes a step back, nods to Joyce, and follows the other man outside.

They step out on the front porch together, and Steve is prepared to continue walking to his car when Hop places a hand on his shoulder. He stops, and turns to find the man looking at him seriously.

“Son, I want you to promise me something,” he grumbles, and Steve begins to feel a strange sense of deja vu. While Joyce’s tone was soft, Hopper’s is deep and leaves no room for hesitation. He vaguely has a thought that this is what his father would have been like if things were different. If he were different. Steve nods.

“Promise me you’ll fix our shit, alright? I don’t wanna get in the middle of… whatever the hell this is but promise you’ll be better, okay?” He commands, and all the thoughts Steve had earlier about thinking things would be okay fly out the window.

“Y-yes, sir,” he stutters out. Hop claps his shoulder, mumbles a “get home safe”, before pulling a pack of smokes out his pocket and lighting one up. Steve turns, shoves his shaking hands in his pockets, and walks to his car.

Getting in his car is a blur of unconscious actions. He’s driving down a barely lit backroad when he registers that his eyes are stinging, and something warm and wet is dripping down his cheeks. He pulls over on the side of the road, shifting his car into park, and he sits there. He reaches up with a shaky hand and wipes his cheek, his hand coming back wet and shining in the faint glow of the moon. The sight breaks him, and an ugly sob rips its way out his throat. He chokes on an inhale as tears fight their way out, and he hugs his arms around himself as a sad semblance of comfort. His forehead finds purchase on the steering wheel, and his tears stain the leather before dripping on his lap.

He cries because he knows he’s the problem, that he’s the one fucking up. He cries because everyone thinks so, everyone knows. The kids know. Eddie knows. Joyce knows, but she’s just too kind to say it to his face. Hell, even Hopper knows. He cries because he doesn’t know what he did wrong. He cries because he doesn’t think anyone really wants him to fix it.

It’s the second time on a drive home from the Byers-Hopper house that he has to pull over and cry.

He struggles to inhale a deep breath and sits up, harshly wiping his tears away with his hand, uncaring that it rubs his skin raw and red. Sniffling, he puts his car in drive and goes home. Toeing his shoes off at the door is the only thing he thinks to do before he stumbles his way upstairs and collapses on his bed, snuggling into the thin comforter and falling into a fitful sleep.

After a slow shift at Family Video the next day, Steve returns to the darkness of his home with a plan. He can still be useful. They may not have to know, but he can still do something to help. To try and save them before they need to be saved. He can be a preventative measure for them, can stop them from getting hurt before they even know they’re in danger.

He shrugs off his work vest, throwing it on his desk chair as he searches his closet for an old sweatshirt. He finds one, the front adorned with white block letters that read ‘Tigers Swim Team’ and tugs it on. His nail bat finds purchase in his hand as he tucks a flashlight in his back pocket. The walkie Dustin gave him is hooked in his belt loop, just in case. He leaves all the lights on in the house and shuts the door, skirting around his house to begin his walk in the woods.

After four bouts with the Upside Down, he doubts that they’re in the clear, that it’s finally over. He thought it was the first time, then the second, and by the third he was skeptical. Now, though, he doesn’t know what to think. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a round five, or six, or seven. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if it never stopped. But each and every time, they were unprepared. They were surprised, and it nearly cost them every time. But if Steve could prevent that surprise, give them all a heads up before it becomes a big problem, then maybe— just maybe— it’ll come in handy. He’ll come in handy. He’ll be useful again.

So, he walks the woods of Hawkins. His feet crunch the dead leaves piled underneath trees as he trudges through the woods. The flashlight shines long shadows on the ground in front of him, lighting up the pale gray bark of trees and making the eyes of rodents and raccoons shine amber and red.

A rustle sounds a few feet away and he jumps at the noise. He pauses and stands still, listening for the shrill chittering of demodogs or the heavy, thudding footsteps of a demogorgon. He waits, and his flashlight reveals a small fox walking out from behind a tree. He lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and continues walking.

His feet carry him to Lover’s Lake, the water lapping lazily at the shore with the warm summer breeze. Out here, the lights from town are distant, making the stars shine brightly and reflect in the water. Steve stands there, watches as the artificial light of his flashlight reveals the small ripples on the surface of the water, and waits.

He waits for a lumbering figure to emerge out of the murky depths, to claw its way onto the shore and stalk off into the woods. He waits for chirps muffled by water and splashing to sound in his ears as four-legged creatures swim to the beaches. He waits for the screeches of demonic bats to echo off the trees around him as they fly out of the water and take to the sky. He waits, but it never comes. The lake stays silent.

So he walks.

He follows the road leading to the lake out, letting it take him to the highway that leads out of town. His feet stop as they come across a crack in the road, the crack he took in the other world to get Eddie home safely. The crack that is closed over with black tar, leaving a dark line on the ashen gray asphalt. He remembers clawing his way out of that crack, Eddie’s lifeless body over his shoulders as he slowly bled out.

Nancy had driven her station wagon over, opening the back so he could lay Eddie down as they rode to the hospital. She had asked Steve to drive so she could patch him up, but he refused. He couldn’t leave Eddie, not when he finally got him out. Not when he was barely hanging on. So she threw the first aid kit she had stashed in her car at him and drove to the hospital. Steve had done his best to stop the bleeding, the stark white cloth immediately turning red when he pressed it to Eddie’s skin. They almost lost him. But they didn’t. He’s alive.

Eddie. Eddie.

His head swivels to the forest next to him, the one that leads straight to the trailer park, and he runs. He jumps over fallen trees, feet thudding against the dry earth and leaves as his breath picks up. Orange street lights shine through branches as he draws nearer, and he only slows his pace when he breaks out from the line of trees. His feet swiftly take him to the sight of Eddie’s old trailer, the vacant lot standing out against the fullness of the park. The wooden front steps are still there, partially broken and shifted. The grass has yet to grow in fully, bare spots of dirt showing through the green. His shoes crunch on the gravel as he takes a step closer, inspecting the ground and poking at it with his bat as if it would move. As if the gate would open up just by him being here.

It doesn’t. Steve steps back.

He turns to leave the park, eyes wandering and finding a familiar cream-colored van parked at a trailer a few rows away. Eddie and his Uncle were granted a new trailer for their trouble, really the bare minimum they deserve after all the shit they went through, but they took it in stride. Eddie and Wayne spent the first few weeks after spring break making it into their new home once Eddie was released from the hospital, and Steve had done his best to help them out. But he knew they needed time alone, time to heal, so he let them be. He hasn’t been back there since then.

He kicks a stray piece of gravel, watching as it tumbles a few feet away and disappears into the grass, as he makes his way out of Forest Hills. Houses blur by as he walks the residential streets, only stopping when his own comes into view. Steve sighs, and walks up the concrete driveway, through the large wooden doors, and into the silence of his house. He doesn’t bother taking off his shoes, reveling a little in the dirty footprints he leaves behind on his mothers’ ornate runner that covers the length of the hallway. The analog on the stove tells him it's a little past three in the morning, and he sighs. Grabbing a glass from the cabinet, he fills it up with water before shuffling out of the kitchen. He flops on the couch, sips his water, and waits.

He waits for the sun to peek over the trees in the backyard, casting long shadows on the curtains that cover the windows and glass doors. He waits for the warm rays to shine through the large window in the living room, the one that faces the road, and light up the rug that rests under the coffee table in soft hues of yellow. He sits his empty glass on the table. He waits. And he gets up.

He goes upstairs, changes his shirt, and grabs his vest. Steve slips the walkie off his belt loop and places it on his desk, the flashlight landing right beside it. He props the bat next to his chair, and Steve looks at it, looks at the bent nails sticking haphazardly out of the wood and how it splintered in places from too much force. How some of the nails are covered in dried, blackened goop and dirt. How it's sharp and dangerous, a weapon. How it’s chosen to protect.

At this moment, Steve feels like the bat. The rough wood is his exterior, the splinters through it are the cracks. The holes in his facade. The places where people got too close, where people hurt him. The nails are what makes him strong. They’re the kids, Joyce and Hop, Eddie and Robin. They’re his family. They mold him into a weapon meant to protect, to keep them safe.

But just like Steve, the bat isn’t needed until it’s necessary. Until the world is ending. But until that time comes, the bat is left out of sight. It’s hidden away, moved from place to place just in case, but never used. Never wanted.

Steve walks out the door.

His shift at Family Video passes by like every other day, slow and full of know-it-all customers that never seem to understand that he can’t magically summon movies out of his ass whenever they ask. Robin comes in around lunchtime, and they spend the rest of their joint shift making fun of the ridiculous movie covers that adorn various romcoms. He goes home alone, sheds his vest, and once again walks the town of Hawkins.

He does it again the next night. And the night after that. And the night after that. Until it’s been a week and Steve hasn’t slept for more than a couple hours a night. He doesn’t mind, just means there’s less nightmares to wake him up before sunrise.

Less nights where chittering and the thuds of heavy footsteps strike fear down to his core. Less nights where the chill of fog and night air pierce his skin, warring with his senses against the hot breath hitting the back of his neck from deadly flower-shaped mouths. Less nights where the harsh scraping of monstrous nails against rusted metal and the echoey bangs of heavy, meaty bodies against solid bus walls fill his ears. Less nights where he can feel the thick, choking air of the tunnels, can feel the wispy particles filling his lungs and coating the inside of his mouth.

Less nights filled with muffled Russian echoing in his ears, the harsh texture of rope around his wrists, arms, and chest. Less nights where the sickening crunch of fists against bone and the metallic taste of blood in his mouth linger for hours after he’s awoken, shallowly breathing and pleading to be let go. Less nights where he can feel the blood in his teeth, coating his tongue and dripping down the back of his throat, and he has to run to the bathroom to puke the phantom feeling away.

Less nights he wakes up alone, empty house hollow around him. Less nights he cries to himself in the silence of his room, wishing, hoping, yearning for something. For something to happen, to change. For something to get better. For him to get better.

On the eighth night, he finds his feet have taken him to the edge of Hawkins. The brown road sign reads ‘Leaving Hawkins! Come Again Soon!’, and it stares at him from a few feet away. He looks past the sign at the stretch of road that disappears around a curve, trees following the line of asphalt and distant street lights lighting up their leaves with an orange glow.

He thinks about what it would be like to leave Hawkins, to pack up his clothes in his car and leave town. To follow the road and go around that curve, to not worry about ever coming back. No one needs him here, not anymore, so what’s holding him back?

Maybe this will fix him.

Robin might miss him for a bit, probably curse him and his whole family when she figures it out, but she’ll move on. She’ll find someone better. Hell, she’ll probably go to Eddie too. They already have some sort of secret friendship thing going on between them anyway. Really, he wouldn’t blame her.

Eddie probably wouldn’t care. Shit, he might even throw a party celebrating the fact that he’s gone. Steve snorts at the thought, closing his eyes and taking a breath.

Would it really be so bad if he just disappeared?

But then there’s the kids, left behind with no one to protect them. Sure, Robin and Eddie and Nancy are here, but Nancy is off to Emerson in the fall, Robin surely bound to follow in similar footsteps, and Eddie has made it well-known that he’s getting the hell out of here. If everyone is gone, who will be here to protect them when it comes back?

He rakes a hand harshly through his hair, pulling a bit at the ends and hating how greasy it feels on his fingertips. He can’t think like that, he’ll just worry himself into a panic and that’s the last thing he needs right now; a panic attack on the side of the road. He turns around, walking back towards town as the sky fades into light. He gets home right when sunlight begins burning the tops of the trees and collapses on the couch, sleeping until his noon shift.

He’s exhausted when he gets home, having to close up Family Video after a ten hour shift by himself, but he knows he can’t sleep. Not now. So he does what he usually does now when he gets home and grabs his essentials for his rounds, something that’s become routine for him.

He shrugs off his work clothes, replacing it with what has become his patrol outfit; the old swim team sweatshirt and a faded, ripped pair of light blue jeans. The sweatshirt is filled with holes, the baggy sleeves having caught on briars and branches alike, that allow the white of his shirt to show through. The jeans share a similar fate, the knees scraped up and the denim fraying from the unhemmed edges.

His white Nikes are stained a gray-ish brown from the nightly treks through the woods, small bits of leaves and debris sticking to the laces and in the grooves of the tread. The flashlight finds its place in his back left pocket, an extra pair of batteries landing in his front pocket after an incident a few nights ago where his flashlight died on him out in the middle of nowhere— he was forced to stumble through the woods until the sun began to rise and he was able to find his way back home. He didn’t sleep that night.

The nail bat is crusted with dried bits of mud sticking to the slowly rusting metal, shredded bits of leaves and undergrowth tangled in a green and brown mass. Clumps of dirt litter the floor under the bat, and likely mark a line in the hallway from his room down to the front door. Steve hopes it's still there if his parents come home.

It’s dark outside, only the street light at the end of the driveway illuminates the concrete and stepping stone pathway to the front door. Steve steps out on the front stoop, taking a deep breath of cool summer night air, and starts walking.

He walks out onto the street, uncaring at this point if anyone sees him or not. What does he have to lose? Hopper would probably tell him he’s stupid— something he’s well aware of at this point— and tell him to go inside. Or maybe he would drive him home, take the bat, and leave.

A small, traitorous part of Steve wants Hop to find him. Wants him to ask what the hell he’s doing walking around at night alone in the dark. Wants him to coax him in his old beat up truck and take him back to the Byers’ house. Wants some of Joyce’s hot chocolate as he sits on the couch and explains what he’s been doing, what’s been going on. Ask, desperately, why everyone hates him. Wants them to tell him he’s wrong, that no one hates him. That it’s just a misunderstanding.

But it doesn’t happen. All of that is a lie.

It’s a lie Steve has secretly been telling himself under the cover of darkness alone in his bed, lying awake and exhausted but unable to sleep. It’s a lie he tells himself when he sees any of the kids so he can act normal, act okay. It’s a lie he tells himself when Eddie grins at him, wide and gleaming, eyes sparkling with the afternoon sun beaming in from the storefront windows.

It’s those grins, those looks Eddie gives him sometimes that almost convinces him the lie is fake. Like Eddie is sharing an inside joke with him, only Steve doesn’t know what it is. Eddie doesn’t come around often but when he does… god, it’s like he’s the only one in the room.

Eddie looks at him with his whole body, always focusing on him so wholly and touching in some way. A hand on his bicep, an arm slung around his shoulder, even his arms wrapped around his waist one time. He was friendly, they were friends, until he wasn’t. Until Steve did something stupid that he still can’t figure out and Eddie is avoiding him.

The crunch of gravel under his sole brings him back into his head a little. He looks up, finding the pale orange glow of a lamp through a trailer window, and curses. His feet have brought him to where his mind always seems to go these days: Eddie.

He stands outside of the trailer, watching the way the little bits of weeds around the base shift and sway in the wind. The sky is filled with patches of clouds, light gray ripples standing out against the black sky from the glow of the moon. Steve isn’t completely sure how he got here, only that he started walking and didn’t really… stop.

Wayne’s truck is gone, leaving only Eddie’s cream-colored van among the gravel and grass. Which means Eddie is home and, judging by the light in the window, awake. Steve has a fleeting thought that he should turn around, walk back home, and try to forget he ever came here. Try to forget that he didn’t mean to, that his head and his heart are traitorous beings that have conspired against him to bring his body to the one place— one person— where he isn’t welcome. He tries to move, to will his legs and his feet to catch up with his brain and the urge to run. But they don’t. They stay frozen to the ground, rooted in place as if they belong here. As if he belongs here.

A voice cuts his thoughts off, one that he could pick out in a crowd full of people. His eyes snap to the front door of the trailer, now open and spilling warm light onto the wooden steps that lead down to the gravel drive. A figure grows near, tall and lanky and Steve feels like he’s trapped. His thoughts get louder, yelling and screaming at him to run run ruN RUN RUN-

Hands on his shoulders. Eddie’s face in front of him.

Eddie looks panicked, his dark eyes wide and dancing around as if searching Steve's face for… something. He must not find it, because the two little lines between his brows appear and his mouth starts moving. It’s all muffled, like he’s trying to talk through glass. Steve blinks.

“-ington? Steve,” Eddie’s pleading voice finds his ears as he shakes his shoulders, the fog in his head dissipating as the strained way his name falls from his lips. Steve hums. He blinks again.

“Oh,” he breathes out, voice barely louder than a whisper. Eddie is here. He’s in front of him. He can see him. He’s here and he can see and Steve shouldn’t be here he needs to go-

“Stevie, are you okay?” The fear in Eddie’s voice cuts off his train of thought— something that seems to happen a lot nowadays— and Steve feels every sensation return to his body. The heavy hands on his shoulders, soft and warm and missing their signature rings. The distant chill of the night air on his exposed bits of skin seeping away at the small amount of space between them. The faint puff of air on his face from the man before him. The fact that all of those things are from Eddie.

Steve clears his throat, swallows. Tries to focus his eyes on Eddie’s face.

“I’m fine, Eddie. I um.. sorry,” he trails off. He tries to smile, at least give something to reassure him, to keep him from asking questions. Steve doesn’t think he could answer them.

To his surprise, Eddie lets out a breath of relief, the fear dissipating from his eyes as they clench shut and his head drops. His shoulders move with his lungs as he takes a breath before looking back up at him.

“Jesus H. Christ, you scared the shit outta me, Steve. Thought…” he trails off. His voice wavers. “Thought you were gone. Like… like her.”

Oh. Chrissy. Fuck.

“Shit- sorry, Eds, I didn’t even realize- fuck, I’m so sorry,” Steve pleads. He takes in his surroundings, realizes he’s been standing out here, alone, for who knows how long. He needs to leave. “I-I should go.”

Eddie’s brows furrow, and he tilts his head. “You don’t have to leave, Stevie, it’s fi-“ he cuts himself off.

Steve looks up at that, unsure of when he stopped looking at Eddie, and takes in his pinched expression. The one that’s trained to the ground. The one that’s trained towards-

“What the fuck is this?”

Shit.

“I-it’s not what it looks like, I swear!” He begs, voice sounding unfamiliar even to his own ears. It’s raspy and breaks after a few words. When was the last time he really spoke to anyone today?

“I don’t wanna hurt you, Eds, I really don’t- please, believe me,” he pleads. “It’s just for protection! I don’t-“

“Why are you covered in mud, Steve?” Eddie cuts him off, voice strange and cautious and his hands tighten their grip on his shoulders. Steve knows he doesn’t look the best, knows that his clothes are dirty, but he looks down at himself anyway. His eyes focus on a leaf stuck to his shoelace. He shrugs.

Eddie moves in front of him, a quick thing that Steve suspects is him shaking his head. He mumbles something he can’t hear, voice only a rumble in his throat but Steve knows enough to know that people only talk under their breath when they’re mad. When he’s done something wrong.

He pulls away. Eddie’s hands drop off his shoulders.

“I-I should go. Sorry for bothering you, an-… and keeping you awake,” Steve stutters out, clearing his throat when his voice breaks. He chances a look at him, finding concern written on Eddie’s face. It softens when they make eye contact, and Eddie shakes his head.

“I wasn’t asleep, Stevie. Don’t really, uh.. sleep much, these days. I usually just wait around for Wayne to get home to catch a couple hours. Doesn’t feel safe here by myself, you know?” Eddie confesses, mouth turned upwards in a small, sardonic smile. Steve nods. He does know, he’s never felt safe in his home. With or without people. He’s been going through it for years, long before the events of ‘83. He doesn’t say any of that though, doesn’t think he has the right to.

Eddie steps towards him, closing the bit of distance Steve made between the two, and rests his hand on the arm holding the bat.

“Come inside, Steve,” Eddie requests, voice low and soft. Eddie’s smiling at him. It’s that soft, small, Eddie smile. One that Steve has only seen a handful of times. It’s asking him to say yes, and Steve… he’s weak. So, so weak.

“Okay.”

Eddie’s smile grows.

His hand wraps further around his arm, tugging him towards the open trailer door and Steve feels betrayed that now is when his feet decide to move. He follows Eddie, watching the way he’s glancing at him the entire time. Eddie pauses at the doorway.

“Steve,” he whispers, and Steve looks at him. His hand travels down his arm, causing goosebumps in its wake despite the layer of fabric between their skin. It pauses over the hand still gripping the bat, thumb brushing along his knuckles. “Let it go.”

Steve looks at him, searches those dark brown eyes for fear or hate or anger but finds none. He only finds care. Concern. Love.

It’s terrifying.

He loosens his grip and Eddie takes it from him, the comforting weight of the bat replaced with the warmth of Eddie’s hand. He props it just inside the door to the trailer and leads him over the threshold by the grip on his hand. He’s led over to the couch where a hand on his back urges him to sit down. Steve does, and instantly sinks into the well-worn cushions.

“I’ll be right back, okay? Just gonna get you some water,” Eddie informs him, squeezing his hand briefly before releasing his grip and turning the corner to venture into the kitchen. Steve watches him go, the way the baggy and worn band shirt hangs off his frame. The way his sweatpants are bunched up at the ankle as if they’re too big for him. The way his hair is pulled into a messy bun at the back of his head that swings a little when he walks away. Even now, he’s beautiful.

Shit. He’s so gone for this man.

Eddie returns with a glass of water and flops down on the couch beside him, pressing the cool surface of the cup into his palm. He takes it with a shaky hand, his other joining it to help stabilize the glass. It doesn’t work.

He takes a small sip of water, the liquid feeling like heaven against his dry throat. They sit in silence until Steve finishes half the glass. Then, Eddie speaks.

“Why were you outside at two in the morning, Stevie?” His voice is gentle, and it makes Steve want to cry. He swallows.

“I- I don’t know,” he deflects, lies. Anything to not talk about it.

The harsh sound of a mock game show buzzer startles him, and he turns to find Eddie with his hands cupped around his mouth. Steve grins and lets his head drop, and Eddie nudges his shoulder. He takes a deep breath, focusing on the surface of the water in his hands.

“I have to keep them safe, Eddie,” he confesses. Eddie stays silent, hand gently rubbing his forearm. “It’s what I need to do. What I have to do.”

Silence stretches between them, then, “who, Steve? Who do you have to keep safe?”

‘You,’ he wants to say. ‘You almost died. It’s never been that close before, not in the four years this shit has been going on. You and Max almost died, and I wasn’t there to protect you. I wasn’t with you and Dustin to keep you both safe, to help fight off the bats and urge you through the gate. I wasn’t with Max and Lucas and Erica, wasn’t there to fight off Carver and save Max just a little bit earlier. I wasn’t there, but I should have been. Carver should have beat me to pieces, not Lucas. It should have been me the bats got to, not you. It should have been me, it should have been me, it should have been me.’

Hands fall over his as Eddie takes the glass from him. He didn’t realize his hands were shaking that bad in his revere, causing the water to spill over the sides and onto the brown carpet below them. The glass thunks on the coffee table before Eddie rests his hands over Steve’s, stills their shaking.

“Hey, talk to me, Stevie,” he practically begs. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Steve looks at him, sees the worry in his eyes, and wets his lips with his tongue. Doesn’t miss the way Eddie’s eyes flicker down at the movement. He clenches his fists.

“Please don’t tell Robin,” he pleads. If she found out about this, if she knew, he wouldn’t be allowed outside alone ever again. She would worry about him, keep him under lock and key to make sure he wouldn’t do anything stupid. She would stay with him during the night, insert herself firmly by his side until she was sure he was okay. She would make him sleep in his own bed, trapped between his own walls. Trapped in his own house. He can’t stand that place, can’t handle the echoey walls and empty rooms. Can’t stand not being able to do anything for anyone. Can’t stand to be useless.

He’s just wasting time right now. He shouldn’t be here, talking to Eddie, when he could be checking the gates. He should be out there trying to save people, not himself. He should be trying to save his family. He could already be too late. It might have already come back while he was distracted and they could all be gone. It could have been waiting until he was occupied, waiting for an opening to strike. They could be in danger right now. They could be dead.

“Alright, I can do that. I won’t tell her but… Steve, why-“ Steve cuts him off by standing up on shaky legs, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “Steve?”

“I need to go, Eddie, I need to- they could- I need to go,” the words tumble out of his mouth, words he isn’t quite sure even make sense but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out.

Steve walks over to the door, eyes locking on the bat propped there, before he hears Eddie stand up behind him. He turns to find Eddie holding his hands out in front of him like he’s trying to placate a wild animal and, at this moment, he kinda feels like one. His heart is beating too fast and he can feel his breathing quicken. His throat closes up as panic claws its way upwards and clouds his vision, muffling his hearing. Eddie’s mouth moves but Steve can’t hear it through the cotton in his ears. He backs towards the door, hating the fear in Eddie’s eyes as he does so.

His back hits the wall next to the door and he turns, hand finding the rough wood of the bat almost instantly, before he runs out the door. The small “sorry” he lets out is an afterthought, thrown over his shoulder right before the trailer door slams shut behind him and his feet crunch on gravel as he runs towards town.

His blind panic takes him to Dustin’s house first, finding all the lights turned off save for the faint glow of the hall night light through sheer curtains. He stays there for a minute or two, waiting for the sign of flickering lights. Nothing comes.

A couple streets over, he stops in front of Lucas’s house, finds the same thing. Dark. He stands there and waits. No flickering. He runs.

The Wheelers. Dark. He waits, no flickering. He runs.

The Byers-Hoppers. Dark. Waits. No flickering. Runs.

Max. Dark. Waits. Dark. Runs.

Robin. Dark. Waits. Dark. Runs.

His house. Light.

They’re safe. He collapses.

He sits heavily on the front stoop, bat falling to the ground and knocking against the concrete with a thud. His knees come up to his chest and his arms wrap tightly around them as he rasps for breath, the air coming in short, quick bursts. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of his calves, hard enough to leave bruises. His forehead rests heavily on his knees and his eyes sting, welling with tears as the fear slowly fades away.

He sits outside, struggling for breath until the sun begins to rise, and waits. When the sun finds its way over the trees, he makes his way inside to get ready for his opening shift.

The bat finds a new home in his trunk.

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[sugudoe]

❛ 𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 | 愛 𓈒ㅤׂㅤ 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝘂𝗴𝘂𝗿𝘂

✶ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: never one to trust old men in high positions, you decide to follow your guts and track down your best friend to question him on the rumors. what you didn’t expected was to be forced to sit in a small chair and play tea party with two little girls.

✶ 𝐚. 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: it took me two days to write this, i’m super sick, but i love geto. i also really need to make a masterlist, but i don’t know how to make the link with the name, pls help sos. also reader’s domain name is embarrassing pls ignore it, i’m not good with names. english is not my first language. 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐗𝐓: reader’s cursed technique is basically ‘enhanced’, anything they do is 100x more, and it’s heavenly influenced by their emotions, mostly anger and another one very special.

✶ 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭: friends to lovers, mostly fluff but has a bit of angst, mentions of murder, blood, violence, reader has no gender specified except one part where they are called ‘Queen’ but you can read as you please. reader is a special grade sorcerer. suggestive theme at the end. happy ending.

✶ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4.8k

You know the Higher Ups can sense the aggressiveness in your aura. Even behind their so called protection nothing could stop you from slicing them with your bare hands, the thought of that ignites your energy. Behind you, someone gasp.

“I’m going to be gentle and kindly suppose this energy you are emitting comes from your anger towards the criminal Geto Suguru.” A male old voice makes itself present.

“If you want to believe that, then be my guest.” You answer in a heartbeat. Principal Yaga is by your side, that was supposed to be his reunion, but when you heard the talk would be about your best friend, Geto Suguru, you barged in the room before Masamichi.

“You are not supposed to be here, insolent girl.” Another voice, still old and male, speaks to you. You roll your eyes and snicker at it.

“You are talking about an important Special Grade Sorcerer, and I know this talk will reach me eventually. If it is true what you say, is either me or Gojo Satoru you will be sending to try to kill him.” Yaga sighs at your answer, but does not stop you.

“What we say? Haven’t you know? Haven’t you seen the pictures?” The first person ask, voice shaking in anger. “Geto Suguru is a monster who needs to be exterminated, he annihilated a whole village and we have prove to believe his own parents as well.”

“We will not send you, L/n Y/n, for your insolence.” A third leader speaks, much calm and colder than the others. “There will be no such thing as try to kill him, Geto Suguru is certain to die. You and Gojo Satoru may be special graders as well, but your loyalty is stained with the blood of those innocents. Someone else will do the job.”

Principal Yaga’s hand reached your back, you turned to him hesitant, you see his head pointing to the doors outside telling you your time here was over.

You moved faster than anyone could see, leaving the school grounds in mere seconds, you reached the forest and let your anger dissipate in the form of a scream, so loud and so yourself, a barrier was created leaving your throat and splitting the trees in front of you.

“Your cursed technique never fails to amaze me, Y/n.” Gojo appeared behind you, his hands falling from his ears. “Unconditionally, huh? Everything you do, you do majestically. Run, scream, jump, punch…”

“Shut up, Satoru.” The tall boy laughed at that.

“I wonder if it works for all your emotions, don’t you?” Gojo circled you, much like a predator ready to strike. “Your anger is your strong point, am I right?” He doesn’t wait for your answer. “Whenever you are angry, you could break Tokyo with just one punch to the floor.”

“Where are you trying to get with that, Gojo?” It had been too long since the last time you addressed your friend as that, your squeezed your eyes at him, but the boy was unfazed.

“Don’t you think the oldest, most powerful emotion in humanity could change you? Transform you into something more dangerous?” He stops in front of you.

“What could possibly be more strong than anger?”

“It’s, obviously, love. I can feel it in your aura the amount of love you have for Suguru.” Gojo says nonchalant, making you question if you heard right.

“What…”

“He is my best friend as well, Y/n.” The white haired interrupts you. “And I love him enough to want to go after him, but for some reason I can’t. I’m afraid I’ll see something terrible, sense the reality, and try to kill him.” Gojo takes your hand in his. “I don’t think I can kill him, but the thought of trying scares me. I can’t lose him, and neither can you.”

“What do you mean by all that, Satoru?” Your whisper barely reached Gojo.

“If it comes to meeting him, you should do it. Your love for him could be either his salvation or we lose you to him, but I don’t think you would mind that, would you?”

“You think he did it?”

“I don’t want to think.”

A week after that weird conversation, Gojo, Shoko and you had been meeting more than normal in private spaces. For the unknown eye, the three of you are just friends catching up after the loss of the fourth party. But in the reality of your room, Shoko has been using her secret weapon to make Gojo’s plan work — her messages with Geto Suguru about you, cute and overly sweet.

“I don’t like this. I don’t get this!” You mumble on your cat plush, a gift Geto gave you. Your whole face is pink and your lips are numb for the amount of time you have bitten it.

“I don’t get it either. She already loves him too much, no need for this torture.” Shoko laughs at your embarrassed state, when she turns to Gojo, the girl scrunches her eyebrows. “What is it, weirdo?”

You turn to look at Gojo and he is intensely staring at you, which makes you feel uncomfortable, and a little scared.

“You can’t feel it?” He simply ask.

“Feel what?” Taking the pillow from under you, you hug it tight to your chest.

“Feel Geto.” Gojo whisper. “Can’t you sense where he is?”

“How on earth would she be able to do that, Satoru?” Shoko mumbles before grabbing her cigarette and moving towards the window. Unfortunately Ieiri is in Gojo’s presence, and the boy follows her quickly to complain about the smell.

You turn your face down to meet the fluffy cat under you, it’s quite ugly but lovely behind its weird black shaggy tissue. Geto had given it to you after one of your first missions together, he took you to a fair and got you the little fella you kindly named ‘Catoru’.

In your heart you could sense the connection to the ugly thing, linking a string that connected your core to its own, and if you turned down the sound of Shoko and Gojo’s bickering, you could feel a third presence in it. You wondered silently if Satoru was right and your so called love for Geto could create this bridge between the two of you, enough that you could sense him anywhere he was. Could Suguru feel you too?

You tried to focus on that silver string that laced both your heart and the plush, closing your eyes you scanned the deepest part of your soul, of your technique, that you had never been knowledgeable about. It was only in what seemed hours later, you opened your eyes with goosebumps all over you.

You turned back, seeing Gojo and Shoko still arguing — it had only been a few seconds. Maybe you were stronger when it came to fondness, love.

You took some days practicing this new technique and also to make sure Geto was still in the same place, not moving around like the criminal everyone thought of him. If he was still that meant he was innocent, right? It had to be.

Gojo barged into your room on the fourth day, his breath unhinged. You jump out of the bed in a second.

“They already send someone!” You stared at your friend with confusion all over your face. “This Grade One from Russia, they said he will become a Special Grade if he kills Geto. He is strong, I could feel him all across the campus.”

Gojo didn’t stop you when you moved to your bathroom and returned with your uniform. You turned to him, who was now sitting on your bed and hugged his shoulders.

“If this is the last time, you need to know you are my best friend as well. And we may fight a lot, but I would burn this world for you.” You let Gojo go and move towards your door, he stays petrified at the ideia of losing you and Geto. “Tell Shoko I love her as well.”

You leave so quickly, lifting dust from the floor and creating a warm breeze that kisses Satoru’s cheeks and tears.

It takes your half an hour to reach the other string — the location Suguru is. And you find him almost instantly, in the garden of the temple he has settled, he uses traditional clothes and his hair is half up and down. You are taken back by his new look, but mostly by the fact he is fighting the russian sorcerer, and he does seems to be nearly losing.

One of Suguru’s curses launches at the unknown male, and that’s the moment your friend notices you. By the look of his face, he was normal, but his hands instantly trembled in your presence. You start to walk towards him, but the foreigner appears again, his sword nearly slashing Geto’s arm off.

You can feel fear creeping your veins, and it’s not good — Fear makes you weak, but how to avoid it when the man you hold so dearly is fighting a life and death battle?

“I wouldn’t oppose to a little help, sweetheart.” Geto’s voice snapped not only you, but the russian, he punches Suguru, who falls, and turns to you.

“They warned me about you.” He says with a thick accent, pointing his sword in your direction. “They gave me the green light to kill you if you come here. So be patient, love. I’m right at you, gotta end this one first.”

You are disgusted by him, but the way he says “Love” reminds you of your mission, and so you look at Geto, who is already staring at you. He simply smiles, and that turns into fuel for your next movements.

It’s like sliding through water, in a quick second you are behind the foreigner. He turns to you startled, and Geto uses the opportunity to move inside the temple. Before the man can do anything, you punch him in his face, and during his dazed state you move your hands, making your signal.

“Domain expension, Unconditional Disaster.”

It’s not long before you come inside the temple, blood drips from your head to your toes, but you are unharmed. Geto knows this, but he can’t help himself and lunges at you, holding your wet face and searching for any bruises, as if him himself isn’t scattered with some.

“My savior.” Geto laughs quietly, and you can’t help but mimic him. He takes you by your shoulder, tainting his robes, he moves with you to somewhere you don’t care to know. You are in his arms and that’s the place you were meant to be. You wonder if Gojo was right, would you trade anything for Suguru?

Inside an ancient decorated room, Geto grabs a pair of clothes you could only guess belongs to him, he takes your hand and you follow him into the bathroom. He doesn’t say anything when he turns the water to cold, as you have always enjoyed.

During the shower, you can’t help but wonder what is going to happen now. Would another sorcerer be sent to kill you and Geto? Would it be Gojo? He wouldn’t do it, you knew that. A part of you was growing accepting your place besides Suguru, maybe Satoru and Shoko, even Nanami, could come as well, you all would be happy.

You left the bathroom already dressed with Geto’s black sweater and pants, while drying your hair you notice Suguru is not there, and also the eerie feeling the whole building has, with that you hold the towel with a bit of strength, before returning it back to the bathroom. You move towards the door, needing to find Suguru like your life depended on this, but before you reach the door pain shoots through your feet.

“Argh! What the hell…?!”

You turn to look down, and what you would expect to be a knife, turns into a mini lego castle, now dismembered. You scrunch your eyebrows, turning your attention from the toy to the room, you start to notice how Suguru’s room is splattered with a couple of children’s plaything. On the wall next to you there is a mini wooden kitchen, with an equally small dinning table. To your other side, near the bed, a fortress made with blankets, massive pillows and fairy lights, there is also an immense amount of animal plushies. Was Suguru trying to heal his inner child or something?

“Getou-sama!” A high pitched voice comes from behind the door, you jump frightened and for the second time, you land on the lego, now breaking it, a few swear words scape your mouth. “What was that? It’s that his girlfriend, Mimiko?” You don’t hear an answer to that. “Hey lady, can we go inside, pretty pretty prettyyyyyy please?”

“Nanako! Getou-sama told us to let her alone.” The second voice, much more calmer interrupts the first girl.

You bite your lips trying to contain a laugh, especially when you notice the doorknob being shaken. If you could guess, the little girl is trying to open but her height doesn’t help. You sigh, grabbing the broken toy near your feet, dropping in a box near the door and with a slow movement, you open it.

“Oh, you are prettier than Getou-sama described.” The blond girl says as soon as she sees you.

She doesn’t wait for your reaction, quickly grabbing the other’s hand and moving both of them inside the room. You turn to her, but keep still at the door, waiting for maybe Suguru to come in and address what is this.

“Come on, please. I want to have tea with you.” You can guess by her voice and direct personality that she is Nanako. She lefts her friend by the small kitchen and comes to you, closing the door behind and grabbing your hands, she moves both of you towards the dinning table, where she makes you sit. You don’t tell her you are uncomfortable sitting on the extremely small chair, but you can bet she wouldn’t care.

While you are fidgeting in your seat, both Mimiko and Nanako are playing pretend with the fake food in the kitchen. You take the opportunity to stare silently at them. Nanako is, obviously stated before by herself, the extroverted one. The girl keeps glancing at you from time to time, giving you either cute smiles or funny faces, to which you start to return back and she laughs sweetly. Mimiko, you could tell since the beginning, is more shy. The dark haired keeps her head down, she steals some glances at you, but when she notices you are looking, she goes back to her play with crimson cheeks.

“What pie do you want?” Mimiko asks with a slight tremble in her voice. The child comes to you with a plate decorated with wooden pies, you pretend to be inspecting each-one.

“What is your favorite?” Your question takes her by surprise. The plate starts to shake a bit but in her lips a small smile is forming.

“The blueberry one.” Mimiko whispers, pointing with her small finger the one of her choice.

“Then I want that one.”

The girl goes back to the kitchen, putting your ‘desert’ on a pink plate. Nanako turns to you with an also pink teacup.

“Then can you have my favorite tea?” Her pretty brown eyes stare at you like a sad puppy, you know she is trying to make you fall for her, and you do within a second, nodding your head.

When your tea and pie is in front of you, the girls fix their own plates and take a seat on the chairs by either side of you, Nanako specially moving hers closer to you.

“Gerou-sama talks about you a lot.” Nanako says while pretending to eat her raspberry pie, she ‘cleans’ the side of her mouth before looking at you. “Mimiko and I have been begging to meet you. He told us you needed to rest, but I think a tea party is the best way to rest.”

“I agree with you, honey.” The girl smiles at you. “And where is Geto?”

“We waited ‘till he was in the shower.” Mimiko answers you, less shy now. You can’t help but laugh with how sneaky both of them are.

“What does Geto talks about me?” You grab your teacup, raising your little finger like Nanako told you to, and pretend to sip on it.

“He talks about how strong you are, stronger than anyone he had ever met.” Is Nanako who answers you, and Mimiko nods. “Getou-sama also says you are his best friend in the whole world… Well, now he says we are his best friends as well. That’s why we wanted to meet you, the four of us can be good friends, right?”

“Yeah, we are going to be the bestest of friends.” Nanako smiles at that.

“He…” Mimiko starts but pause when you turn to her, you smile encouraging. “He also says he likes you a lot.” The little girl whisper, with her small hands on her mouth. “Do you also like Getou-sama?”

Before you can answer, there is a knock on the door and soon it’s opened by none other than Suguru. Long gone is his traditional clothing, now he wears something identical to you, a large pastel pink sweater with sweatpants. His hair is in his famous bun with his charming bang decorating his pretty face. Suguru’s eyes find you instantly, before catching two little girls who are running out of their seats to try to hide behind you, giggling loud.

“Hm.” Geto simple hums, before closing the door and moving toward you, and you bite your lips to avoid laughing. “You know, Y/n, I was going to introduce you to two little sisters I met a while ago, but I couldn’t find them. You haven’t seen them around, have you?”

“Oh, I haven’t, I’m just here by myself having an one person tea party.” You hear two small laughs after your answer.

“Then why is there two extra plates?” Geto sits in the chair in front of you, in his lips is a large smile you haven’t seen in a long time. You are wonderstruck for a moment, before blinking your eyes and staring at the girl’s plates.

“I was very hungry.” At that, Mimiko and Nanako can’t help but laugh louder, coming out of their hidden spot and tackling Suguru with hugs. He closes his eyes and hold the girls in both his arms. Staring at them, you feel your chest warming with a good feeling, he was still your charming Geto.

For some time, the four of you spend the tea play pretending to delight in the fake food, laughing at Suguru’s imitation of a monarch and addressing both Nanako and Mimiko as princess.

“If Getou-sama is the King, then that means Y/n-sama is his Queen?” Mimiko asks after some time, taking you by surprise.

“Hm, I don’t know. Why would that be?” Suguru turns to the little girl who shrugs her shoulders.

“Well, of course, Mimi!” Nanako answers her sister. “Can’t you see?”

“See what, Nanako?” You catch yourself asking.

“You guys are best friends who love each-other, it’s clear as crystal.” The girl get up from her chair and sits on your lap. You pat her little head and stares at her, avoiding Suguru’s eyes, but you can sense he is focusing on you.

“I think it’s time to go to sleep, girls.” Suguru gets up slowly, when you look at him he is picking Mimiko in his arms. “Don’t even try to give me your puppy eyes, Nanako. I’m avoiding them.”

“But…” Pouting, the girl shifts in your lap, hugging your body and staring at you. Damn, she does have puppy eyes that make you want to give her anything. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’m not going anywhere, sweetie. I’ll be here in the morning.” You shouldn’t have said that, what if Suguru is only opening his house for you for today. You look at him worried, but sighs when see his beautiful contempt smile. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”

Nanako smiles triumphantly, before getting off your lap with a quick kiss to your cheeks, you get up as well and move towards Geto, before you can do anything, Mimiko also kisses your cheek, hers again burning pink.

“Thank you for coming back to Getou-sama.” The girl quietly says, and you pat her head while she hides her shy face in Suguru’s chest. Nanako grabs the man hands and the three of them leave the room, with the girls waving you goodbye.

You turn to the toys around the room and start to clean the dinning table and fix the little mess, trying to occupy your mind from the persistent question: would Geto come back? You hoped so, you wanted to question him on the rumors, but could you possibly do it? You moved towards the bed and sat on it, looking at your hands and remembering the amount of blood you had in it just a couple hours ago — did the same happened to Suguru? Would you still be by his side if it was true?

The door opens a moment later and Geto moves your way so quick, like both of you are magnets. He sits by your side and takes one of your hand in his, his breathing is calm but a part of you can sense the turmoil of his heart.

“How did you knew where I was?” It’s the first thing he says you, his eyes are focused on your tangled hands. “That I needed you? The moment I started to lose that fight, can you believe I prayed for you? And you came.”

“I’ll always come to you, Suguru.” You whisper back, catching his face with your other hand and making he look at you, there is a yellow bruise on his cheek that has your heart breaking. “I knew where you were for some time. Gojo helped me with this… Honestly, I don’t know what it is, there is a connection between you and me, and I followed it to you.”

Geto uses his free hand to caress the one you have on his face, he closes his eyes as if he was finally in peace.

“You want to know the truth, right?” You nod, he doesn’t open his eyes but you know he can sense you do. “I did it.” It’s a quiet confession that has your core shaking. “I went to that village, killed the curse and had to swallow it, the same thing over and over. The monkeys… The non-sorceress took me with them to an abandoned house, leading me to a makeshift cell where there were two sisters, little girls, so beaten their eyes were closed and bruised, their whole body was covered in bruises.” You gasp when you realize Suguru is talking about Mimiko and Nanako. “They have cursed energy, but they didn’t do it, I killed what was tormenting that village and still they were blaming the girls. How could they be so cruel and terrible to defenseless creatures?”

Geto catch his breath before letting go of your hand on his cheeks, he sighs when you remove your hand and his eyes open, moving to the ceiling. You know he wants to cry, that he is frustrate and sad.

“They told me, demanded me, to kill the girls. I couldn’t do it, Y/n, it’s not in my nature, y’know that.” You nod, squeezing his hand. You wouldn’t have killed the girls if you were in his place, but would you have killed the humans? “So, I took the non-sorceress outside and told them everything was fine, the girls were innocent. I begged to take them with me, the assholes wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore. And guess what? They denied me of it, although the girls are orphans, they wanted them for themselves. I was going to open that prison with my bare hands and take Mimiko and Nanako whether they wanted or not. But when I turned back to the house, a man said he would kill the girls himself, and the others agreed.”

You closed your eyes, already knowing how the story ended. Catching your breath, you move your head towards Geto’s chest, and he hugs you instantly.

“What…” You voice is trembling. “What about your parents?”

“I explained to them what happened, but they are non-sorceress, they didn’t understood. Humans are selfish and only trust themselves, they believed the villagers, even when they saw the girls covered in bruised, limpering. I sometimes regret it, but I was so angry, I snapped.”

Suguru’s arms hold you tighter, you could sense the fear he was having right now. After all, he had dropped all his cards at the table, the truth of his murderer nature in front of you, bleeding honesty and terror. You raised your face from his chest and stared at him, the tears shinning his purple eyes fixated on you, only you.

“You can go, if you want.” He says after some time, pain evident in his voice. “Go back to the school, tell them what happened. You can even give them my head if you want.” It hurts your heart that he thinks that of you. But should you do it? Leave Geto, go back to the High Ups and a world of fighting battles against curses, to be killed and replaced by a younger version who will follow your steps, dying as well.

“I want to stay.” You say minutes later. “I want to stay with you, with Nanako and Mimiko. If you would have me.”

Geto’s hands move to your face, staring at your eyes in search for uncertain, for maybe a lie, you can’t tell. You stare at him back with love, after all Gojo was right, you love Suguru more than anything, and have always loved him. From the first day you met each-other, especially right now, where the reality of this cruel life shifted everything you knew. There was no questioning if this decision you made was right, you couldn’t go back to the school after this, your place was by Geto’s side, had always been.

Suguru caress your cheeks, a beaming smile forming on his perfect lips, he touches your forehead with his and the two of you close your eyes. In that moment, you feel his lips on yours, and you don’t take a second to answer his movements, letting his tongue slips in your mouth and his hands fall into your tights, bringing you to his lap. Geto Suguru kisses like a starving man, starving for your love and affection you grant to him so easily, he whimpers under you.

You let his kisses fall to your neck and chest, goosebumps sure to follow, you let Geto be devoted to you like the a deity he worships. He holds you so close, afraid you might disappear somehow, slipping through his fingers. But you don’t, you bring Suguru to your embrace with the same strength he shows you.

That night you know your life changed forever, and maybe the old men with unknown faces and strong powers might send a thousand soldiers to try and kill you, but with Suguru by your side no one could touch you. After all, the ancient and strongest feeling on earth, Love, was the fuel for your powers. And love was with you, in the bed and tangling sheets, love was also in the room next door, sleeping with teddy bears. It was at the other side of Tokyo, white hair and cigarettes, in the future exchanging secrets letters and secret hangouts, even playdates with two more little loves.

You were surrounded by it, emerged in the pure essence. No High Up could come near you or your family, you would make sure of that.

⠀© packsvlog, 2024, 01 june.

[foldedchip]

Things in Lackadaisy that I haven’t seen anyone talk about (starting with fun facts and ending with more serious topics)

Rocky was an escape artist for a traveling circus when he was a teenager. This is why he was able to escape the train tracks at the beginning of the story.

Horatio likes to sing, but only when no one is around.

Freckle is the only character to have a middle name in his character bio (Allen). Do the other characters have middle names?

Nicodeme used to be (or possibly still is) a wrestler known as the “Cajun Gator”.

Rocky speaks at least some French; the Savoys speak a mix of English, Creole, and French; Mordecai speaks English, Hebrew, and some German; Nina speaks English and Irish Gaelic; Viktor speaks Slovak and English; Mrs. Bapka speaks Slovak and some English.

Serafine likes practical jokes. The only one we’ve seen her play is the “hatchetman” thing with Mordecai, where she told him to kill a man with a hatchet and he actually did it. Has she played other practical jokes on him?

Ivy’s classmates know that she’s friends with gangsters, because they ask if Rocky is one of her “gangster friends” when she sneaks him into their dorm building. Ivy seems to like the attention.

Nicodeme doesn’t know his exact birthday, and he and Serafine don’t know their exact relation to each other. They could be half-siblings or cousins, or maybe not related at all.

Rocky is very knowledgeable about myths and folklore, and he’s also very well read. Considering he didn’t finish his primary education, he must have either picked this up from his mother, the McMurrays, or he developed an interest later in his life.

Rocky has frightened elderly people before, though he got along well with Mrs. Bapka.

Ivy’s father, Reuben Pepper, wasn’t just friends with Atlas— he owned a train station and helped him smuggle alcohol into the city. He must not do business with the Lackadaisy anymore, either because of Atlas’s death or for another reason. He was business partners with Atlas, but not Mitzi.

The name of Mordecai’s late baby sister, Hannah, is the combination to the safe he writes about in “Posthaste”.

Rocky doesn’t drink due to “past experience”. Did he drink before and then quit, or he see someone else drink and decide never to do it?

Mordecai shows a lot of the signs of autism. He comes across as very cold and unemotional, even with his own family members and closest friend. He doesn’t seem to feel empathy for people he doesn’t care about (often, autistic people will either feel far more empathy than is considered appropriate, or not nearly enough of it to be considered appropriate.) He has difficulty with social relationships and interaction, whether it’s casual flirting, working with others, negotiating with his boss, or developing and maintaining personal friendships. He is physically sensitive and can barely tolerate physical touch, crowded environments, or getting dirty or wet. He is very particular about the way he eats and dresses, to the point where other people point it out. He has an intense and unusual interest in geometry that confuses other people when he talks about it, but it seems to bring him comfort and excitement. (For the record, Rocky is the only one who rolls with it and asks him to tell him more.)

Both Elsa and Viktor have trauma from the war and show signs of PTSD. Viktor also used to stay at the Arbogast house to help keep them safe. When Ivy and Rocky arrive at her house, Elsa asks about Viktor and talks about him later on. This probably means that they were friends.

Corporal punishment was the standard for raising children in the early 20th century, especially in Ireland. Nina slaps Rocky and pushes him down the stairs in two different scenes. Rocky even mentions Nina caning (beating someone with a walking cane) him if he got mud on Freckle’s clothes— which might have been a joke, but it had to come from some truth. Rocky was shown to get into all kinds of trouble as a child, though we don’t see the consequences for it. At the time, “physical punishments” were considered normal, but there is now extensive, undeniable research that shows what kind of psychological damage it causes later in the child’s life. You’ve read the comic, and you know that Rocky is not mentally healthy.

[bbytamaki]

more random obey me headcanons >:)

content: sfw headcanons, scars mentioned (from piercings), belphie has depression, all family love <3, not proofread >:((

note: i haven’t done any dateable hcs yet :(( might do some soon

— lucifer can’t stand bananas. it’s just a thing. even the smell will have him pressing his handkerchief over his mouth like a sick victorian man. does satan use this to his advantage? possibly.

— has very feminine hands. he covers them with gloves so he doesn’t have to hear asmo’s jealous whining. if anyone brings it up he’s not above strangling them with his dainty, girlish fingers.

— flexible. like shockingly. it doesn’t really come to light that often but every once in a while lucifer follows single mom yoga videos on the weekends.

— mammon has the prettiest facial features ever. like his eyes and lips look so good in candid photos. his magazine covers are the bane of asmo’s existence.

— bird tendencies. like i mean squawking and jumping like 3 feet in the air when startled. in his demon form he’s just a big parrot. he does the head tilt thing when he’s confused.

— if anyone stands in front of him for longer than a minute he’s picking lint out of their hair and fixing their clothes. his brothers have gotten more than used to his “preening” and either avoid standing around him for too long or just take it. lucifer does this too and sometimes they’ll just stand and fix each other’s clothes for like 5 minutes straight while everyone else is like “???”

— levi is tall. very tall. he’s just so scrawny and lanky and his posture is awful so you wouldn’t even notice until he actually straightens up to his full height. this rarely ever happens unless he’s in his demon form. when it does he is scary.

— cosplays online. his cosplay friends are some of his favorite people. he already sews his own costumes (as we’ve seen), and he’s really good at makeup. one of his future plans is to meet up in the human world to go to a con with his friends.

— screams like a little girl. one time mammon accidentally walked into the bathroom when levi was showering and he shrieked. lucifer ran to see what the commotion was because “how did a human child find their way into the devildom??” levi has never felt more embarrassed.

— satan watches trashy reality tv in his private time. bad girls club, keeping up with the kardashians, you name it.

— can sing the whole periodic table song by tom lehrer forward and backward. i think satan is actual really good at science and it would be his best and favorite subject.

— he just likes animals in general. he has a thing for bunnies after visiting a human world petting zoo.

— asmo has an abnormally long tongue, like surpassing attractive and approaching freakish. he usually keeps it in his mouth but once every so often decides to creep solomon out just for fun.

— has soooo many stripper friends. if you’re wondering how his hair and makeup stay in place the whole day, he learned from the best.

— he definitely designed an entire line of lingerie but only made one of each design. they’re ultra rare collectibles in the devildom and worth more than you could imagine.

— beel can french braid and make friendship bracelets like he’s going to a girl scout camp. nobody can tell me he didn’t hand make the necklaces he wears.

— speaking of martha stewart beel, he can crochet and makes blankets and cute plushies for belphie all the time.

— luke is actually his little brother and no one can convince him otherwise lol they go back and forth over nothing all the time and stop talking to each other until one of them says “what do you want for dinner”

— belphie is the king of doing his own piercings at home because why pay $50 for something he already knows how to do? he ends up taking some of them out before they heal because he gets tired of them and ends up with a bunch of scars on his face and body.

— you and beel are his dream journal. he texts the attic club gc after every nap to tell you guys what his latest dream was about. (you’re the two people that show up in his dreams the most.)

— goes absolutely dormant during depressive episodes. the complete opposite of his twin brother (beel has to keep busy at all times to stay distracted). asmo carries him to his private bathroom and lets belphie pick his favorite soaps and lotions (he likes the ones that smell like sandalwood, they remind him of taking naps in his brothers’ rooms).

[mamayan]

YANDERE! FEITAN PORTER X DARLING!

TOUCH

⚠️ This is a work of fiction with content I do not condone in reality. This is not meant to encourage or represent any type or sort of conduct. This is merely just fantasy ⚠️

MDNI•18+

Trigger warnings!

This work contains: Yandere content/intentions•NSFW•Kidnapping•Holding against will (darling)•Cursing•Mentions of abuse/torture•Stockholm Syndrome•General depravity•Obsessive tendencies•Sexual acts (consensual but darling is psychologically not sound of mind to be consenting, so somewhat dubcon)•Oral•fem darling•Somnophilia

You have been properly warned and notified of what this work contains. If anything above offends or triggers you, please do not continue reading. Don’t make me waste my time writing all this out only for someone to read and get offended when all the warning literally tell them what is in this. You reading this confirms you are 18+ years of age, meaning a consenting adult agreeing to proceed and consume this content, do not come after me or report me because you aren’t capable of managing yourself.

I appreciate support and love from anyone viewing and enjoying my content. Thank you♥️ I freakin’ love this 1999 anime artwork of Feitan!

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･*:.｡. .｡.:*

Time suddenly seemed to become irrelevant.

The days passed in a mundane blur, and at some point, everything seemed worthless.

He mentioned in passing that it was November now, though you’d stopped asking the date a few months after your imprisonment. You stopped talking nearly all together these last few months. You couldn’t be entirely sure the last you’d spoken more than a word or two in response to his questions. His own speech minimal, though occasionally you’d catch a glimpse of his chattier side. Even that still couldn’t be considered talkative, more of a normal amount of speech when in a conversation. You haven’t seen that in a while either, maybe it disappeared when you’d stopped your own blubbering and whining. You didn’t ask questions at all anymore. It was pointless and had little meaning.

He sat in his usual spot.

Perched in the corner of the room, eyes sharply trained on your form as always.

His eyes used to unnerve you, riddle you with anxiety and fear of what he was planning. What he might do. What he will do.

It mattered hardly at all at this point.

You’d senselessly begged once, for it all to stop and for him to just kill you already. That’s what he must’ve had planned in the end, for what else did he want with you? An object to admire?

It seemed mad in it’s own way, that thought. Your questions of something or anything personal went unanswered and occasionally punished with weeks of isolation. It was better not to pry.

Asking for mercy and a faster death only brought a wrath you didn’t know lay inside him down upon you.

It was the first time he became physical with you, touched you more than was the bare minimum of necessity. He was surprisingly warm. Except his touch at that time was anything but the usual gentleness you now realized he used with you. His unforgiving grip on your face as he dragged you to your knees, the absolute agony of having your jaw fractured. The pain was unbearable, and even now left phantom pains radiating down your body. He’d dragged you out the front door, for the first time in what seemed to be forever.

Outside was duller than your mind remembered.

You’d been thrown into a vehicle and taken somewhere new.

You’d never wished to take back words more than you did that day. He’d dragged you to some sort of… torture facility. Chained you in a corner and left you there for hours on end. Nervous and frightened, you waited and waited. When he did return, it wasn’t alone. Someone you’d never met was dragged in, strapped down to a table.

Feitan had never really demonstrated anything so frightening before. He’d been somewhat volatile and brash, but the sadistic side never revealed itself like it did that day.

A day turned into several, and for nearly a week you were made to watch his sessions as he called them. Where he’d laugh like a maniac as he turned living humans into creatures you pitied more than yourself. He’d wipe their blood on you, smile as you trembled and begged for it to stop.

When he finally heeded your pleas, he asked a question that left you numb.

“Still want to die?”

You didn’t want to die anymore, at least not by his hand. He knew no mercy. He had no grievance tearing someone apart and from the inside out. The events that followed spanned longer than you bothered to keep track of anymore. He brought you back to your “home” where you were kept locked away. You had a bed, blankets and pillows, clothes and food, clean water and hygiene products. You’d never appreciated a bed like you did that first night back before. The softness and warmth you felt made tears roll down your cheeks and you had thanked him for returning you. It was the first genuine gratitude you’d ever shown to him.

You glanced up from the TV running a show you barely processed to catch his gaze. Those grey orbs holding emotion you couldn’t name or had never seen. He was always so still, and his porcelain features gave him the feel of a doll. For a moment, you merely held his gaze, feeling oddly calm and panicked all at once. Why you felt panicked didn’t make sense, nor why you’d feel calm in the presence of what seemed to be the Grim Reaper himself. The only movement he made to acknowledge your attention was a slight quirk to his brow. His usually ignored but always open book in his hand closing. His face mostly covered left you little to go off to how he felt. You’d gotten somewhat good at interpreting even the tiniest hint of emotion from him, but currently with your own frazzled feelings, figuring out his wasn’t working.

Your legs were pulled to your chest, arms wrapped around them as you settled into a protected fleshy ball. The blanket on your shoulders helping ground you slightly.

Only a little.

“What?” His voice was raspy, his own lack of use evident.

It didn’t sound annoyed, though you could just be misinterpreting this entire interaction.

It felt odd to speak, your mouth slightly cottony and dry, but the urge in your chest felt strangely compelled to say his name.

“Fei” You’d judged his voice, but your own was just as bad.

His eyes widened slightly, though aside from somewhat visible surprise, you were in the dark on how he’d feel about a nickname. You’d given your captor a nickname long ago, though never voiced it aloud. Feitan… Fei felt less threatening.

Feitan is darkness and fear. Feitan tore your life away from you, terrorized you, imprisoned and controlled nearly every little aspect of your life down to your very diet. Feitan is the infamous torturer of the Phantom Troupe.

Fei… well, in your own mind, Fei had become a fictional sort of character. Fei was gentle, Fei listened when you spoke or rambled, and in your dreams Fei would touch you. You hadn’t felt much of any contact in so long, and the last time had left a physically and psychologically painful memory behind. In your dreams, Fei would hold you, touch and caress, Fei was quiet but powerful. You knew it wasn’t healthy, but nothing happening to you or around you was healthy. The mental sickness and insanity most certainly was tickling around your mind.

You’d tested boundaries early with Feitan.

Screaming, kicking, fighting, escape attempts, refusal to eat or comply… were all met with isolation and revoking of privileges. Asking for death was met with nightmares and aching pain that still bothered you when it was too cold.

You’d tried manipulation and coercion, neither you excelled in though. Feitan may be quiet, and occasionally his grammar is less than exemplary, but he is no fool. All attempts ended in… nothing. He did absolutely nothing. He was like a stone wall, impenetrable. Even now, you knew nothing of his intentions. Your only guess at this point, as out of place and ridiculous as it may sound, is companionship. He likely saw you as a pet of sorts, like one might “rescue” a cat off the street. The treatment you receive is rather similar too. In his eyes, maybe you were just like a cat to him. A weak kitty he plucked off the cold streets and gave a warm home. It used to be a thought which invoked fury, but now…

You wished he’d commit to all acts of a pet owner. This included giving affection. You craved it. Missed it. Needed it. Something. A weird and warbled voice in your mind said you’d even accept the negative attention if it meant he’d put his hands on you again. It’s a suicidal thought, but even as his gaze narrowed, you couldn’t stop your body.

He’s silent as always, as you uncurl from your position you’d taken as your usual way to cope. Holding yourself helped, but it’s be better if someone else did it. He didn’t make any indication your nickname offended him.

Shaking, you stood on weak legs and began a pursuit of something you’d never thought you’d even entertain. He was across the room, and while he was by no means a big man, his presence could be suffocating when up close. Gracelessly and with little tact in your actions, you approached until you could smell him. He always smelled like mint and something metallic. For once, the thought of the underlying scent being blood didn’t bother you. He smelled nice, and while his entire body language was closed off and reserved, he still hadn’t even twitched.

He just kept observing you.

Even as you sank down to your knees in front of where he sat.

Those sharp eyes followed you the entire way. When the realization of what you wanted to do came, you weren’t bombarded with the expected humiliation or shame. There wasn’t guilt or disgust like you used to feel when these feelings would arise.

Maybe it signaled you were too far gone to save anymore.

“Fei” his name left your lips again, and for the first time, his rapt attention felt good. It felt good to have him so focused on you. You watched as his head tilted slightly, his face hidden but you could somewhat fantasize about a soft smile playing on his lips behind the fabric of his collar. His favorite jacket always a staple in his clothing collection.

“What?” The way he asked proved he wasn’t revolted at your proximity. He didn’t seem to be asking what you were doing, but rather why you called his name.

“Touch me?” Though you’d phrased it like a question, it bordered precariously on being a demand. You probably looked ridiculous, kneeling at his feet and staring up at him like a sick puppy looking for even the smallest amount of attention. You should be avoiding him, trying to get away, doing anything but this. The only thing you felt though was fear of rejection. That he’d cackle like he does on the phone occasionally, with someone named Shalnark or Phinks, or like he did when he removed the hands of an artist and found humor in the irony. He didn’t answer immediately like he normally would with a direct question. This couldn’t possibly be considered a personal question that he enjoys avoiding, it has only to do with you.

“Please…” you sounded pathetic, even to yourself. The way your bottom lip pouted out and wobbled, the way your eyes watered a little as if you’d cry at any moment, the way you trembled. You didn’t want to grab onto his pant leg, still mindful that a kick from him could easily be your undoing. You’d have to wait till given permission. A pet is what he wants, right?

You could finally be hitting that special point of breaking.

This could be another delusion you’d conjured up and you’re moments away from a lot of pain or isolation again. It’s impossible to tell. No power rested in your hands, and that small realization had tears rolling down your cheeks as you looked at the man who’d reduced you to this mess.

Begging him for measly scraps of what should be your right. Humans needed the physical contact for their health, and while he was clearly the devil, you needed it. Needed him. Needed anything.

“Fei please… I’ll be good, whatever you want, please… I need- hck!” Your sobs were cut short as your body moved faster than your mind could process. You’d nearly bitten into your tongue as you choked for breath, unable to fully comprehend exactly what happened.

The leggings and sweater you wore weren’t warm at all to you. Even blankets seemed to have a chill that seeped through them. Right now though, warmth was creeping through your clothes as mint and copper flooded your senses. He’d pulled you into his lap. The realization was shocking, but the next thought was thrown away when thin strong arms wrapped around your waist and pulled you into his chest.

“Oh” words died on your lips as a sensation you couldn’t name overcame you. You’d never realized how stiff you were until your body began to relax. Fully relax. “Oh…” it came out breathy and nearly excited, as you foolishly wrapped your arms around his neck and buried your face in the crook of it.

This was insanity.

He was all muscle unsurprisingly, but it didn’t deter you from trying to mold yourself to him. Your much softer figure held in his arms so gently it made a new wave of tears threaten to spill for all new reasons. You straddled him, front flush against his own, as you struggled to accept that you were being held right now.

“This?” His voice so close to your ear had a strange tingling sensation move from your neck down your spine. The shiver didn’t go unnoticed, as his hold tightened and pressed you further against him. It wasn’t necessarily the most pleasant way to be held, but it was many times better than nothing. You nodded against him, mumbling out a soft good as you basked in a moment of joy you hadn’t experienced in what seemed like forever. It felt good to be held.

It felt even better when his hand moved and brushed through your hair. His touch light and careful, and you could imagine how he was noting every little detail of your reactions. The shivers and little sighs you released as he continued to just pet, touch, and hold you.

For once, you dreaded him stopping.

Even as your eyes grew heavy and body went limp in his arms, you dreaded when this would end. If you could just figure a way to keep him like this, you could envision your life being bearable.

“Fei” you didn’t make any effort to move.

“Hmm” his chest vibrated a little with his hum.

“Can I sleep with you?” It didn’t take a genius to realize your question caused him to tense. His muscles tightening up and panic seeping into your system as you worry this took it too far. You both slept separately unless absolutely necessary, something you used to be grateful for and now hated. It was always freezing when you slept, no matter how warm it actually was.

You might’ve ruined his grace, overstepped if anything, but you needed to stay close to him physically. It wasn’t a want anymore but a necessity.

“Yes” his word both shocked and elated you, and with a few more gentle pats in his arms, you were asleep.

Your cunt throbbed and ached, your lower belly pulled tight inside like a string about to snap. You tried closing your legs, whining as the hot wet sensation continued despite the light struggle you began to put up. It felt good, whatever dream you were having, even as the scent of mint and soap surrounded you.

Small whimpers and gasps became heavy panting as you felt raw heavy pleasure blossom in your core. Something prodded your entrance, wiggling bit by bit till you were penetrated and stretched on something long and hard. It moved and rubbed inside you. The warm pressure on your clit only pulling you further.

It was heaven, even as a slight burn inside had you back to whining and arching your back as your cunt stretched to allow something else inside. Fingers?

The thought was gone as the pleasure radiated throughout your whole body.

It wouldn’t be the first wet dream you’d had, but it was the most realistic. The hot breath on your sensitive clit and twitching insides felt real, and the pleasure was so crisp. Your hands curled into the sheets, struggling between sleep and the impending orgasm threatening to take you.

Your eyes popped open as you came, body twisting as a sharp moan punctuated the air.

You were awake and finally realizing this wasn’t a delusion or dream. Someone was lapping at your cunt, your thighs held open and pinned by two pale hands. The sensitivity and slight bewilderment of the situation had you struggling to form a coherent thought.

“Fei-Feitan…?” If there was one thing you knew with perfect certainty, it was that he’d never leave you alone long enough for someone to find you and do this. It couldn’t be anyone else. Though the fact he was doing this was even more incomprehensible. He seemed so disgusted by touch, so detached from human emotions, it really never occurred to you that he’d have normal human urges. He was still lapping at your cunt, even as your eyes locked with his own, even darker in the barely lit room you realized was his own. You were in his bed, with his head buried between your legs, and his eyes locked on you.

“Fei!” A weaker orgasm than the first was torn from you as you came again, sensitivity skyrocketing when he still continued to lick and suck on your clit. The room was spinning slightly, and your naked body began to cool a little as you sweat. He’d stripped you. He must’ve, but things weren’t really connecting in your mind as white hot pleasure was turning mildly painful.

“Too much!” You gasped and you had to force your hands to stay tangled in the sheet to not touch him. Your eyes watered and you made a pitiful sight with your darkening cheeks and open panting mouth. As your back arched to avoid his mouth, a sharp slap to your outer thigh had you yelping in pain.

His eyes narrowed, and it wasn’t hard to see he became annoyed with your squirming.

“Shut up.” His tone was low, no room for arguing or protest as you bit your lip to do as you were told. Trembling under him as he raised up to stare down at you between your spread legs. He looked gorgeous, something you hated to admit. His dark hair mildly tussled and pale skin a little flushed, his signature jacket gone. This wasn’t the first you’d seen his naked chest, but it was certainly a rare occasion. His pants were still on but unbuttoned. His lips were the most sinful aspect, still glossy from your release. It was agonizing to be silent.

You should cry and beg for him to stop.

Instead you found your legs spreading just a bit wider as you looked up at him like he was your personal deity.

Debauched.

His slow and condescending smirk only made your breathing harder, chest tightening with anticipation and lust. He snorted, hand moving to spread your cunt open as he spit on it. You were panting now, barely following his order to stay quiet. It was difficult when you wanted to beg, for more, for him, to be touched.

“This what you wanted? Whore.” His crude words didn’t make this any less arousing, especially as he unzipped his pants and pulled his cock free. He was larger than you’d have ever expected, though it hardly mattered as he lined himself up and began pushing into your unused hole. Despite the wetness and prep, it was slightly painful as he filled you. The heaviness inside coupled with the burn was delicious as your hips moved to take more of him, deeper. You couldn’t help the moan, the way your body shook and hands finally moved to touch him.

He was fast in securing both your wrists in one hand to pin above your head, his hips finally kissing the back of your thighs. You felt him twitch inside you, and it drove you wild.

“Please Fei, oh-!” His hand came down on your thigh again, before he pulled his hips back and slammed into you. Your head goes back as you arch into him and moan louder, as he begins a brutal pace that has your chest moving in rhythm with his thrusts. His tip kissing your cervix has you unwinding into a submissive mess of whining and pleas. You didn’t even know what you were begging for.

You either annoyed or aroused him further when he sneered and used his free hand to grip your jaw, thankfully not roughly as it ached nonetheless, forcing you to open wide before spitting into your mouth. He laughed when you clenched down harder, feeling the coil in your stomach tightening again as the pleasure increased.

“Pretty slut likes being my bitch.” He hardly seemed out of breath despite how hard you were panting. You felt a bit unfair at how unfazed he seemed, but similarly proud at how he gazed down at you. Like you made him pleased. His gaze wasn’t sharp, even bordering on warm despite how roughly he was fucking into you. All you could do was moan his name and beg.

Like a good little pet.

You could feel your orgasm coming again, and you’d meant to tell him, but his lips against yours shocked you silly. You didn’t even bother closing your mouth, Feitan easily slipping his tongue inside and kissing you so sensually it had you coming on his cock. You could only whine into his mouth as his speed picked up and you became overwhelmed.

He pulled away as a string of saliva connected you two for a moment before breaking. He licked his lips before focusing on where the two of you were joined. Watching his cock disappear in your sopping wet little cunt. It was filthy and erotic.

“Pathetic” his words were cruel but he looked beyond pleased as he looked at your fucked out expression. Unable to even form words as he continued to bully your poor pussy. It was laughable to him, how sweet you are now, how obedient and submissive you’ve finally become. All that fight and control gone, and in its place you lay now.

He’d never tell you out loud how perfect you are. How absolutely precious he finds your attempts to run away from all the pleasure he’s giving you.

His training has been worth while, making you everything he wants and more. Though he’d hated the power you held over him, having you now, moaning as he drills your cunt and begging for more, takes away the shame. You were his weren’t you? Then anything he wanted to do was fine, it wasn’t shameful to fuck his toy. Especially when she whined and arched her back up to take him in even deeper, when she cried and came again around him.

Feitan saw you as much more than a measly pet. Those were replaceable. No, you were just his, whatever he wants you to be, but still his. That’s why when he wraps his hand around your pretty neck and squeezes, he’s beyond thrilled at how you relax. You throw caution to the wind and give him everything. He’s not cutting off oxygen, but enough blood flow and air to keep you light headed and disoriented.

“Who do you belong to?” He knows you can hardly tell up from down right now. He knows how good he’s fucking you. Reducing you to this beautiful mess of feeling only. He’s still him though, and it brings him only pleasure to add in another few painful smacks to your bruising thighs. “Answer slut” he asks again, being thrown for a power trip as you choke out, “You!” to him.

His balls tightening signal he’s close, and the thought alone is enough to amuse him.

“Going to cum inside.” His words don’t register immediately to you, he can tell, but it seems all reality isn’t gone from you when your eyes widen.

“I-I- pregnant! I’ll get-“ he cuts you off with a chuckle, hand squeezing your throat enough to shut you up as he savors the sounds of wet squelching echoing in tune with his thrusts.

“My personal cock sleeve doesn’t get to talk.” The struggle you put up is worthless, but entertaining as he really does cum inside you, a soft grunt his only indication of release and overwhelming pleasure. Emptying himself inside and filling you with him. Marking you, painting you inside, signally you belong to him in every way now.

You lay exhausted and sore in his bed, cold as the various liquids dry on your skin and Feitan leaves.

Where he goes it doesn’t matter. You let yourself lay for a little longer before deciding it’s best not to anger him by staying in his space. You move to sit up, wincing as your intimate areas ache, but pushing forward nonetheless to get cleaned up and change his sheets and any mess left behind.

You hate the hollow ache in your chest the most. You look at your thighs to see his cum leaking out of you, and a sliver of dread echoes in your mind that you truly could become pregnant. The possibilities too much for you to handle right now, as you shakily slide off the bed to stand on wobbly legs. He could be back any moment, and it’s best you get to work early. You work on removing the sheets, just as the bedroom door opens to reveal a fresh Feitan, his signature jacket in place as he holds a glass of water.

“What are you doing?” His question is asked in a slightly lower tone that usual, and you quickly freeze in place.

“I-I’m cleaning up…?” You don’t mean to sound hesitant, but this situation is new and will require months of careful inquisition to avoid punishment under his hand. You knew better than to continue any task without his go ahead though.

You stand in silence as he observes you with a scrutinizing gaze.

“Come here” his order is curt, and while it terrifies you, you are quick to stumble over to him despite still being naked and filthy. You hate how badly you must look, barely able to walk while he is up and about his usual day as if nothing even happened. To him maybe nothing did happen, this being just the same as making a sandwich, and you wished the thought didn’t hurt. Maybe this would just be a new pain to live with, and the sooner you accepted that, the better your pathetic existence would be.

You stand just before him, fingers twisting around each other as you stay with your head bowed to stare at his feet while you concentrated on staying upright despite how difficult it felt for your hips and legs to support you.

“Not hard enough?” His words confused you, as you peaked up beneath your lashes to look at him curiously.

“I-I don’t understand…”

“Didn’t fuck you hard enough?” You froze in shock and slight fear, because what did that mean? He fucked you too hard in your personal opinion, and your poor slit agreed.

“Y-you did though…?” You were unsure of what was happening, his gaze not giving anything away.

“Get back on the bed. I didn’t say I was done with you.” Your eyes widened, taking a moment too long to register what he said before his foot took a step closer to you and you scrambled back onto the sheet-less bed in a panic. He paused, observing you again, before tilting his head.

“Next time I’m done with you, don’t move” he’s undoing his pants again, and moving towards you.

“I’ll fuck you good this time.” His words menacing and mean, and you’re left with little wiggle room as he closes in.

It’s his job after all to clean you up and piece you back together, and if you can fix yourself when he’s done, he clearly didn’t a good job the first round.

[evanpeterswhoresblog]

Cherry Bomb (pt. 3)

Remus Lupin x f!reader, James Potter x f!reader (mentioned), Sirius Black x f!reader (mentioned)

warnings: smut, p in v, i think it’s protected atp idk, fingering, underage smoking, very dom remus, long af but omg i’m so in love with it

summary: the last part of your plan is far harder to achieve than the first two and it’s far more complicated.

word count: 5k

a/n: ahhh here’s the last part (i think?) anyway sorry it’s long i got carried away but ugh i love remus so much. sorry if my characterization is off, ever since atyd i see him as sarcastic. yeah i love this, hope you guys do too :)

~~~

Out of all the marauders, Remus Lupin was by far the most liked. He was quiet, but not invisible. He was the most sensible out of all the boys and the most polite. Though he did tend to be witty and sarcastic, he was kind at heart. But he was also the hardest one to get close to. Quiet, reserved, beautiful Remus with his nose always stuck in a book. There was always something about him that made girls fall fast. But that was the thing. It was always so easy to fall in love with him. So, if one ever wanted to shag Remus Lupin, they would have to deal with the consequences of loving him. Because he was nothing like his mates. He didn’t shag just anyone. No. He had to choose you. And to be chosen by him was the biggest accomplishment and the biggest curse. Because once you get him, you will never want to let him go.

~~~

Avoiding two of the marauders is nearly impossible. Each corner you turn it seems you run into one of them, or both. And each time their eyes find you they show the same expressions. Confusion. Frustration. Perhaps even a bit of sadness. You debate throwing away the entire plan daily. It’s unfair, the way you’re playing with their minds. But the lingering knowledge that you’re so close to completing the plan entirely keeps you going. Because surely, all your hurt feelings can’t be for nothing.

Right?

You speak to James only once after your shag in the broom closet. It’s a week or two after, he’s been chasing you around, and you’ve been avoiding him. But you decide he deserves some amount of closure. Sweet, lovely, innocent James. You find him alone in the library and take your opportunity. The way he smiles when he sees you approaching makes your heart ache terribly and regret fills your stomach.

“Y/n I’ve been trying to catch you, how are you?” He asks once you’re close enough to hear his quiet tone.

He looks so happy, you feel sick.

“Yeah, I just you know… haven’t been feeling too great,” you lie.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Sit if you’d like, I’ve been attempting to study for the potions test. Aren’t you good with potions? Could you help me possibly?”

You inhale deeply. You could really use a cigarette right now. You’ve broken things off with guys before, but this feels different. In the other cases, you’ve had reasons. For this case though, you have none. James is innocent in all of this. It makes you nauseous.

“Listen, James,” you start, your voice soft. “What happened was great, I enjoyed it a lot, but it was a mistake. I like you, you’re very sweet, but I don’t think we should do anything else.”

Watching his face fall is by far the most horrid sight you’ve ever seen. All the happiness fades fast and leaves behind a bitter frown. He looks down at his papers, toying with his quill.

“I see…” He looks back up, a fake smile on his lips. “That’s alright, it was fun. I’m not really looking for anything serious like that either, so I understand.”

You swallow hard. “I really do like you James, believe me, but it’s just not the right time for this.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s fine.”

“And...” You pause for a second. “You won’t tell anyone?”

He nods. “Not a soul. This will be our little secret.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course.”

“Well then, I’ll let you get back to your potions. Thanks for... everything.” You give him one last smile before turning on your heels and making your way out of the library.

You almost put an end to it right then and there, but then you see the tallest marauder walking down the hall with Peter. His hands are in his pockets, his book bag slung over one of his shoulders. For a split second his eyes meet yours as the two of you pass each other.

He gives you a small awkward smile.

Fuck.

~~~

To catch Remus Lupin alone you must take the risk of losing your house some points. You wait a week before making your move, for safety. After your conversation with James, the only marauder to pay attention to you is Sirius. He’s still set on telling everyone that the two of you shagged, but thankfully, not many people believe him. Not even his best mates.

It’s a very quiet night when you sneak out after curfew. A night you know one particular prefect is doing rounds on his own. You wander through the castle quietly, making sure to avoid the areas in which teachers lurk. Goosebumps form on your skin, you should’ve worn more than a tee-shirt and sweatpants, but you needed to look casual.

As you’re about to turn a corner, you spot Filch. Panic surfaces inside you and you quickly turn around and run as quietly as you can down the hall. You take a few turns and just as you’re about to relax, you hear a voice.

“It’s past curfew, what are you doing out here?”

Your heart stops for a completely different reason.

It’s him.

You turn to face him and shyly smile. You watch his face change as he recognizes you.

“Oh, it’s you.” He narrows his eyes. “Off to shag my mate again, are you?”

“I never shagged him,” you reply, crossing your arms over your chest. “And I’m out for a completely different reason.”

“What reason is that?”

You shrug. “Personal reason.”

“Ah well, hope it was worth losing your dear Ravenclaws ten points. Get back to your dorm before someone else catches you,” he says, turning away from you.

You watch as he walks down the hall, not giving you another thought. You would’ve replied sarcastically if you could speak for that matter. Once he disappears, all you can do is shamefully make your way back to your house's common room, now understanding why James likes being a chaser.

~~~

Some time passes before you get Remus alone. Each time you see him during the day, he’s accompanied by one of the marauders and you can’t sneak out during his rounds again because your fellow Ravenclaws were not pleased. You’re smoking behind the castle when you happen to finally catch him walking alone. You immediately take your chance.

“Lupin!” You call out to him. You get up from the bench you were sitting on and walk to him.

Thankfully, he stops walking and turns back to face you. “Y/l/n. Is there something I can help you with?”

You can tell from the tone of his voice he’s trying to be polite; it makes your insides warm.

“Yeah, actually there is. I was wondering if you could help me with my transfiguration essay. You’re the smartest lad in the year,” you answer, taking a small puff of your cigarette. You hold it up to offer him a hit, he shakes his head.

“Those things will kill you,” he says. “But I suppose I can help a bit. I assume you’re free right now?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Let me take a look.”

A smirk forms on your lips, and you let out a breath of smoke purposely into his face. “Take a girl to dinner first.”

He swats the air, fanning away the smoke. “Are you going to show me or not? I have things to take care of.”

“Sorry.” You hate the way your face burns. “Come see.”

The two of you make your way to the bench and you take out your essay. Truthfully, you are already finished with it, and you think your work is good. But much to your dismay, only a few seconds after he starts reading it, Remus takes out a muggle pen and begins crossing things off.

“What’s wrong?”

“Your spelling is shit, and you’ve contradicted your argument at least twice already and I’m only on the second paragraph,” he answers, his eyes glued to the paper. “Maybe if you spent more time studying than shagging and smoking, you’d have this information down. We reviewed it a few weeks ago.”

You scoff. “I have not been shagging.”

“Sure,” he mumbles, crossing off another sentence.

“I swear, Sirius is mistaken.” You lie.

He turns his head, his green eyes meeting yours. “Who said I was referring to Sirius?”

Your breath catches in your throat, and you cough due to the smoke. Is he talking about James? Your heart rate increases, and anxiety flows throughout your body. Did James tell? You catch your breath, your eyes meeting his again. He looks unamused.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t shagged anyone in months, not that it’s your business,” you say.

“You should really practice more on your lying; you are shit at it.” He hands your essay back to you and stands. “I left a few notes of some things you should change, but my biggest suggestion is that you reread the textbook, and perhaps find some more... enticing quotes. Is that all then? Like I said, I’ve got some other business to tend to.”

For a few seconds, all you can do is stare up at him, your mouth hung open ever so slightly. You previously thought Remus Lupin to be a timid boy who went along with the rest of the marauders because he couldn’t say no. Now though, you realize all those assumptions are wrong. He’s quiet, but not timid.

“What do you know?” You question.

“Quite a lot, thanks for the chat.”

Before you can even think of a response, he’s already walking away. You can’t let him slip away again.

“I’ll get it out of you Remus Lupin if it’s the last thing I do!”

He turns his head over his shoulder and chuckles, the sound sending warmth straight to your core. “We’ll see.”

And just like that, he’s gone, and you’re left flustered with rosy cheeks.

You did save the best for last.

~~~

Falling for the third marauder is easier than anything. Almost unconsciously, you begin to fail classes so that he can help you with work, you learn his route around the castle to see him at least once a day, and you sneak around the castle some nights, but he always ends up finding you somehow.

One night, a little over a month after you’ve started your game, something unexpected happens. You’re out after curfew once again, tiptoeing around the castle to see where the tallest prefect is when he appears from behind you. Like usual, he crosses his arms and clears his throat, making you quickly spin on your heels to face him. How does he always sneak up on you?

“How many times am I going to catch you before you start following the rules? I’m sure your fellow Ravenclaws aren’t too pleased with you,” he says. You look up at him, a genuine blush on your face. He narrows his eyes. “You want me to catch you, don’t you?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

You look away nervously. The plan never involved gaining real feelings for any of the marauders, yet here you were. Standing in your sleepwear after curfew with your heart racing in your chest at the mere sight of one of them. Though you try to deny it, you know deep down you’re crushing hard, and you know it will only end badly.

“I uh... I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m just on a little stroll back from a smoke that’s all,” you reply after a few seconds, your hands anxiously fiddling with one another.

He rolls his eyes. “Listen, I don’t know what your objective is or has been, but whatever it is it’s not going to happen.”

“Remus I-”

“Sirius, I understand, he would sleep with the giant squid if it had tits. But James, really? He may be more of an... active person than myself but he has far more feelings than you think.” He takes a step forward; he towers over you. You swear you can’t breathe. “You may have fooled them, but you don’t fool me. I can see right through you y/l/n and you’re sick.”

You move backward; he follows each step. “You... you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?”

Your back hits a wall, panic rises in you. Your eyes fall to his hands, and a bit of relief washes over you when you see he’s not holding his wand. But then another thought takes over. Is he going to hit you? When you look back up, he’s only inches away from you, his hazel eyes piercing down into yours. He places one of his hands on the wall next to your head. You can hear your heartbeat in your ears.

“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble, really. I’m sorry,” you mumble, your words genuine.

“So, what was your goal then? To shag all of us and take your pick of who’s best? Peter would’ve been far easier than James you know,” he replies.

“It was just a stupid idea, I don’t know. It didn’t mean anything deeper I swear.” You’re rambling now, the threat of tears evident in the burning of your eyes. You try your hardest to keep any from falling, you can’t cry in front of Remus.

He sighs. “You’re lucky Sirius is oblivious, and James is trusting. If they knew the truth, you’d have the whole school against you.”

“Wait, they don’t know?”

He rolls his eyes again. “Of course not. If they knew you’d be getting hexed almost all day every day.”

“Then how do you know?”

“I notice a lot more than people think. Did you honestly think no one saw you go up to our dorm with Sirius that night at the party? And did you honestly think none of us would notice James’s change in attitude? You think you know more than you actually do,” he explains.

For a few seconds, the two of you only stare at each other. You don’t know what to think. You should’ve known this would happen. Someone was going to catch on. You wish you had never done it. Any of it. Everything would be so much simpler if you’d simply stayed the quiet Ravenclaw girl who never interacted with the marauders. But you can’t go back, no matter how much you wish you could. You can only make it right moving forward.

“I’m sorry, truly Remus.” There’s so much more you want to say, but you can’t. You can’t fathom the words.

“If you’re truly sorry, stop. I won’t be the next pawn in your game,” he says, his voice slightly lower than before. You watch the way his eyes shift, the way he licks his lips, and moves his head down so he’s almost eye level with you. Your breath catches in your throat. “I suppose I pity you though because you and I both know this has become more than a game to you now.”

You turn your head, but he grabs your chin and forces you to look him in the eye.

“You fancy me.”

“I-”

“Don’t try to deny it. Like I said, I can see right through you.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s over now,” you whisper, a tear nearly escaping one of your eyes.

He inhales deeply and you notice his eyes trail over your body for a moment before meeting your gaze again. “You’re right. It is over now.”

He lets go of you and backs away and for the first time since encountering him tonight, you feel like you can breathe normally. You stay on the wall, silently catching your breath as he walks further down the hall. But just before he’s about to turn a corner, he looks back at you.

“Or perhaps it’s simply my turn to play with you. Oh, and that’s twenty points from Ravenclaw. Goodnight.”

You fall asleep with his words burning in the back of your mind, and an ache between your thighs.

~~~

After that night, everything is different. You try to avoid them all and go back to the way things were before, you really do. You scribble out the page in your journal with their names, you keep your head down in the halls, and you skip the parties they host. It’s Remus who’s begun playing. Somehow, he continues knowing where you are and appears at random times. Whether you’re studying in the library, and he just so happens to need a book from that section, or you’re out by the lake with your friends and he walks by. You know it’s intentional, but it still manages to leave you hot and bothered each time.

“I thought you said the plan was off?” Your friend says one particular day when the two of you are eating lunch.

You look at her, confused. “It is.”

“Then why has Lupin been staring at you this whole meal?”

Instinctively, you look across the Great Hall and immediately catch those all-too-familiar hazel eyes. He doesn’t look away, at least, not for a moment. He stares at you with no shame, and even from the distance you can sense something different from the look in his eyes. Before you can fully figure it out though, he turns his attention back to the other three marauders.

“Did you shag him?” Your friend asks.

“No, I told you what happened,” you answer, focusing your attention back on the food on your plate. “I wish he’d stop.”

Your friend laughs. “Nah, you don’t.”

You hate how she’s right.

~~~

Nearly two months have passed when you finally confront Remus.

You’re sitting in the astronomy tower, a cigarette between your lips, and a scowl on your face. You can’t take it any longer. Wasn’t he the one who told you off? Wasn’t he the one who told you to stop the games? He was. You know it. So, why has he kept it going? He had said that it was his turn, but that was many weeks ago. How long did he plan to keep this going? You let out a cloud of smoke, frustration taking over your body at the thoughts.

“How many points shall I take off tonight? Forty? Fifty?” You feel him sit next to you, but you refuse to look at him. “You haven’t been out after dark in a while though, I’ll give you that.”

“What do you want Lupin?” You ask, annoyed.

He chuckles. “What do any of us want really?”

You look at him with a straight face, hating the way butterflies take over your stomach at the sight of him so close to you. Despite the scars on his face, you find him more beautiful than any boy. More than James, even more than Sirius. There is something so extraordinary about Remus you can’t explain. You wish it would go away.

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” You question after taking another drag from the cigarette.

“I haven’t spoken to you in over a month, I don’t know what-”

“Yes, you know what I mean.” You cut him off. You exhale your last breath of smoke and throw the cigarette off the tower. “I’m trying to leave this all in the past and move on like you said but you’ve made it quite difficult.”

“Seems you don’t like the taste of your medicine love. It’s hard, isn’t it? Trying to avoid someone when they always seem to end up exactly where you are. It gets rather annoying, doesn’t it? Especially when you secretly enjoy it,” he replies.

Your eyes meet again and that familiar trouble to breathe begins. He’s looking at you in a way you don’t know how to feel about. It’s not like Sirius’s drunken stare or James’s needy stare. No. This one, though the same lustful, is far deeper.

“Just tell me what you want Remus,” you eventually say, your voice lower than before. “What do you want?”

“I want you to get out of my head. I want to look at you and feel nothing. I want everything to go back to how it was before you decided to fuck with my friends and me,” he answers.

You swear your heart stops for a few beats. “Then let all of that happen.”

“You think I haven’t tried?”

You stay silent.

“I never wanted this, any of it.”

You look down. “I know.”

“Don’t do that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Merlin, I give up, you win y/n. You bloody win.”

You’re about to ask what he exactly means, but he acts faster. In the blink of an eye, his lips are on yours. You can’t grasp it at first. You’re kissing Remus Lupin; Remus Lupin is kissing you. The boy who unintentionally caught your heart is kissing you. It’s unbelievable, it’s undeniable, and it’s far from underrated. You don’t hesitate to kiss him back, even through your initial shock.

His hands cup your cheeks, his thumbs stroke your skin ever so gently. You wrap your arms around his neck, one of your hands toying with the hair on the back of his head. He’s a good kisser, very good. That’s why when he parts your lips, you protest.

“Why did you-”

“If we’re going to do this, you have to promise me it’s not a game anymore y/n.”

Your head is fuzzy from how intently he’s looking at you. “I promise Remus, that game has been over for a while.”

“You swear it?”

“I do. Do you?”

“Of course.” There are a few seconds of silence before he sighs, one of his fingers now playing with a piece of your hair. “We have to keep it secret.”

“I know,” you say.

He brushes the piece of hair behind your ear, the intimate gesture sending tingles throughout your body. “I don’t want it to be a quick shag either,” he adds.

“What do you want it to be then?”

The smile he gives you makes your stomach flip. “More.”

~~~

More from Remus Lupin is everything.

After that night, the two of you begin something you don’t exactly know how to name. You would call it a secret relationship, but the thought of that gives you a stomachache. The two of you don’t interact during the day, at least not where anyone else can see. He passes you in the hall as if you’re a stranger, but the second he catches you around a corner in an empty hallway he showers you with affection. And at night when the two of you sneak off, he touches you in ways you never thought possible.

He shows you so many new places in the castle you never knew of. Secret passages, secret rooms, all of it. You never question how he knows all of it, you only hold his hand tighter as he guides you. When he suggests a more secluded place to meet, you of course agree. Though, you never expect that place to be the shrieking shack.

“There’s no way you’re serious,” you say. The two of you are outside, near the Whomping Willow. You make sure to stay out of its reach. “The shrieking shack? That place is haunted, the ghosts don’t even go there because of how scary it is.”

“Obviously I’m not Sirius love, you only shagged him once,” he sarcastically replies, rolling his eyes to emphasize his joke.

“Remus.”

“The shrieking shack is not haunted, believe me, that’s only a silly rumor made so that people won’t go to it. Me, James, Sirius, and Peter go all the time. It has a bed, and given our activities I say we utilize that,” he explains.

You bite your lip. “Are you positive?”

He moves a bit closer to you and places a hand on your shoulder, leaning down so he’s at eye level with you. “You know I would never let anything hurt you, you can trust me.”

“Alright, but how are we supposed to get there so late? It’s in Hogsmeade,” you question.

He chuckles. “Haven’t you learned by now the marauders have many secret ways?”

“Yes, but we’re not in the castle right now how are we to- Remus don’t go any closer you’re going to get hurt you-” You pause, your mouth hung open as you watch the whomping willow go completely still. “How did you...”

“Secrets love, now come, it’s getting late,” he says, holding a hand out to you.

You don’t hesitate to take his hand and follow him into the tree, nothing else is said.

Surprisingly, the walk isn’t too long. It’s dark, gloomy, and a bit cold, but it’s not terrible. At the end of the tunnel, there’s a door. Something in Remus’s posture shifts, almost as if he’s anxious. You squeeze his hand to try to reassure him of whatever he needs, he gives you a smile through the dark that makes your cheeks warm.

The shrieking shack isn’t big, not at all. It’s a simple building with a few rooms and a short staircase. Remus brings the two of you to what you presume is the bedroom though the only indicator is a mattress, blanket, and pillow on the floor. There’s a small fireplace in the room as well, shockingly full of wood and some candles placed near the mattress. The entire shack is creaky and dusty, but you don’t mind. As long as there’s no ghosts, it’s perfect. Remus lets go of your hand and moves to start a fire. You sit down on the mattress and light the candles around.

“What do you guys use this place for?” You ask.

“It’s just a place we come to sometimes when we don’t want to be around other people,” he answers. His back is still turned to you, you could stare at it all day. “Sirius was the first one to discover it wasn’t haunted.”

“Oh? How did he find that out?”

“He’s always been the bravest out of us, though I think he just wanted another rule to break.”

You chuckle. “That sounds like him.”

He finally stands and turns to face you, a bright fire burning behind him. “You would know, you shagged him.”

“Oh, shut up,” you say as you slide off your shoes.

He begins to walk to you. “Can I ask you a question?”

“This context doesn’t seem good, but yes you can,” you reply.

“Be completely honest, out of the three of us, who’s the best?”

He’s standing right in front of you now. You look up at him, a coy smile on your lips, and begin to untie his shoelaces. “You are of course.”

“For some reason, I think your answer is biased,” he says with a laugh.

You trail your hands up his legs after he steps out of his sneakers, stopping once you reach his belt buckle. It quickly gets undone. “What would make you say that?”

He laughs again. “Just a hunch I guess.”

Your moment of control is taken fast when he pushes you down on the mattress, his lips attacking yours. It isn’t a lie though; he is the best. Unlike with Sirius and James, you share such deeper feelings for Remus. Each time he touches you, you practically melt into the palm of his hand. He’s caring. He’s gentle, but rough when need be. Though the two of you argue sometimes, it always is resolved with a hug, a kiss, or a shag. So, in the simplest of words, Remus Lupin is the perfect boy in every way.

All your clothes are discarded quickly, his too. He kisses you deeply as he uses his fingers on you. Sometimes you wonder where he’s learned all his skills from, but even thinking about him with another girl has started to make your stomach hurt. Instead, you focus on how good two of his fingers feel inside you. They’re so long, so slender. More than once in class you’ve been completely distracted by the sight of his hands, specifically his fingers, even more specifically when he’s wearing rings on them. They feel just as you imagine, extraordinary.

When you cum, you’re moaning a mess into his mouth, your body shaking. He milks every last bit of your orgasm out of you before stopping. You watch through heavy lids as he sucks his fingers clean of your cum, the sight makes you audibly groan.

“I need you,” you whisper, running one of your hands through his hair.

“Do you?” There’s something in the tone of his voice mixed with the way he’s looking at you that makes your heart ache in your chest.

You nod. “In so many ways Rem.”

“Promise?”

“Always.”

He moves inside you slowly at first, but he finds a decent pace after a few minutes. Because of his height, you weren’t at all surprised at the size of his cock. It’s by far the biggest you’ve ever encountered and the best. Though sometimes it leaves you sore, it always leaves you in a daze of dopamine.

Remus struggles to keep his head at your level as he fucks you. He presses soft kisses to your forehead, one of his hands intertwined with yours. You’ve never felt such intimacy in your life, it almost makes tears form in your eyes.

“Tell me you’re mine,” he says, his voice shaky. “Even if it’s not true.”

“I’m yours, Rem, completely,” you reply. His hips meet yours harder, and you moan. “All yours I’m all yours.”

Neither of you lasts much longer than that.

In the aftermath as the two of you hold each other, he rests his head on your chest. You run your fingers through his hair softly, the sound of his breathing like music to your ears. It’s at this moment you realize just how deeply you care for him. You hate what you did with that silly plan, but you don’t think you’d change it. If ending up in this moment only came from the plan, you’d do it over a million times.

“Is this real?” Remus asks after some time.

You sigh and press a kiss to the top of his head. “Yes. This is real.”

And so, it is.

[girlkisser13]

daylight

"and i can still see it all (in my mind)" "all of you, all of me (intertwined)" "i once believed love would be (black and white)" "but it's golden (golden)"

pairings: addison montgomery x fem!reader

warnings/tags: slight angst but mostly fluff.

summary: addison’s in love with you.

the seattle rain drummed against the hospital windows, a rhythmic backdrop to the chaotic symphony within. addison stood in front of the or board, scanning the names and cases, but her mind was miles away. specifically, it was in the warm, inviting space that you occupied in her heart.

the day had been relentless, filled with back-to-back surgeries and consultations, but none of it compared to the emotional turmoil she felt every time she saw you. the brief moments you stole together were the highlights of her day, yet each encounter was shadowed by the unspoken tension of addison's crumbling marriage to derek and mark's obvious feelings for her.

"addie," a voice pulled her back to reality. she turned to see mark, his usual cocky grin in place. "lunch?"

"not today, mark," she replied, forcing a polite smile. she turned on her heel, heading down the hall towards a quieter part of the hospital where she knew you would be.

she found you in the lounge, sipping coffee and staring out at the rain. her heart ached at the sight of you, making it almost hurt to breathe.

"hey," she said softly, stepping inside. you looked up, your eyes lighting up briefly before dimming with some internal conflict.

"addison," you greeted, your voice steady, though your eyes betrayed the turmoil within. "shouldn't you be with derek?"

she winced at the mention of her estranged husband. "derek and i... it's complicated."

"it always is," you replied, standing up. "but you still have him. and mark... he clearly has feelings for you."

"mark and i are just friends," she insisted, stepping closer. "and derek... derek and i are over. we just haven't figured out the logistics yet."

you shook your head, stepping back. "addison, i can't be the reason you don't go to either of them. i won't do that to you. or to myself."

"y/n," addison's voice broke, a desperate edge to it. "you have to understand. ever since i met you, i haven’t been able to think about anyone else. i haven’t even looked at anyone else since we’ve met. i don't want to think about or look at anyone else now that i’ve seen you. my life used to be in black and white, you brought the color."

tears welled up in your eyes as you looked at her, the sincerity in her words cutting through your defenses. "addison, i..."

"no," she interrupted, taking your hands in her own. "listen to me. i've made mistakes, so many mistakes. but loving you? that's not one of them. you’re the reason i wake up every morning with a smile. you’re the person i want to come home to. please, don't push me away because of derek or mark. they don't matter to me. you do."

you felt the walls you had built around your heart begin to crumble. "addison, this isn't fair to anyone. least of all to you."

"fairness doesn't matter," she whispered, her voice thick with emotion. "love does. and i love you, y/n. more than i've ever loved anyone."

you searched her eyes, finding only truth and vulnerability there. with a trembling breath, you nodded. "i love you too, addison. i always have."

she pulled you into a tight embrace, the weight of your shared feelings lifting as you held each other. in that moment, nothing else mattered. not derek, not mark. just the two of you and the rain outside, washing away the past, making way for a brighter, more colorful future.

you both stood there for what felt like an eternity, the world outside ceasing to exist. when you finally pulled apart, addison gently cupped your face, her thumb brushing away a stray tear.

"what do we do now?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

"we take it one step at a time," she replied, her tone resolute. "i'll talk to derek, make it official. and mark... i'll handle mark. but you and me, we start now. no more hiding. no more pretending."

you nodded, a small smile playing on your lips. "okay. but i need you to promise me something."

"anything," she said, her heart pounding.

"promise me that no matter what happens, we'll face it together. i won’t let you do this alone."

her eyes softened as she pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. "i promise. together, always."

as the two of you left the lounge, hand in hand, the rain continued to fall, but it no longer felt like a barrier. instead, it was a cleansing force, washing away the uncertainties and paving the way for your new beginning.

[www-jungwon]

in which jake has no idea what to get his little sister ( he left it last minute ) and you're the sephora worker who got stuck with the last shift before the holidays ୨୧

tw. swearing, stranger!jake has a younger sister au, christmas mentions, yn is sooo embarrasing wc. 958

out of all the ways you’d planned to spend your friday evening before the holidays, working was not one of them. but eunchae had begged you to cover for her, and she covered your shift before thanksgiving.

you glance at your watch. only 30 minutes before closing, which means you should be able to just scroll on your phone in the back. no customers ever come in–

the click of the glass door interrupts your relief.

your first thought, of course, is fuck. who goes to a sephora 30 minutes before it closes? do they have any human decency? and your second thought is, fuck.

the guy who walks into the store looks to be in his 20s, with soft brown hair that frames his face, adorable eyes, and pink pouty lips.

he looks around, sweeping his hand through his hair–his hand is so hot–before his eyes land on you.

you’re too busy contemplating whether or not you just felt attraction to a stranger’s hand to answer him the first time, only snapping out of your thoughts when he walks closer.

“oh, um, sorry, welcome to sephora, what- i was- your hand- i mean, what were you saying?”

his eyebrows cinch briefly in confusion, but he shakes it off (thank god), “hi.” he has the most attractive australian accent you’ve ever heard. “um, i was, like, wondering if you could recommend me a gift for my little sister? i- well,” he laughs sheepishly, and you almost fall onto the ground, “i haven’t gotten her a gift yet,”

“oh! um,” you pause, still trying to focus, but he must take your silence as a bad thing.

“yeah, i feel awful, but i’m just really busy- you must think i’m a horrible brother, i mean- sorry, you don’t care.”

“no, nonono, i do c- i mean, um, yeah, i can- uh, help you..find..a gift.” your voice trails off into silence at the end of your sentence.

he either doesn’t notice the weirdness or chooses to ignore it, his eyes lighting up. “that’s so great! thank you, so much.”

“ok, um,” you start trying to think of a gift for his younger sister and then realize you’re an idiot. “oh, i kind of- uh, sorry, how old is she?” it took you 20 seconds to ask how old the person you’re recommending a gift for is.

“oh!” he laughs, “sorry,”

“no problem,” you’ve never answered anyone so fast in your entire life.

“she’s 16.”

you blink, because that seems really young for how he looks and is he younger than 20 what the fuck, but then he sees your expression.

“5 years apart.”

“oh, no, i didn’t- you didn’t have to- sorry, um, what kinds of things are you looking for, for her? like, makeup, or perfume, or ma- something else?” you literally almost said makeup twice.

“um,” he laughs, “i’m not really sure. i just know that whenever she comes back from the mall she has a sephora bag every time, so i came here in a panic.”

“ok, well is there anything specific you’d like to get her?”

he hesitates again, “sorry…is there anything you’d, like, recommend? what you’re wearing is kind of pretty- i mean, sorry, i didn’t- mean to say that-”

you breathe out a shocked laugh. “well, i’m not sure if a 16 year old would like any of the things i’m wearing, but maybe the glitter eyeshadow, or, like, the lip gloss.”

“um,” he trails off, “sure.”

“ok! do you want to come look at them, or should i just get the same ones?” your only reflex now is to ramble, in fear of him realizing how flustered he’s made you (although you’re sure he already has).

“just the same ones is fine,”

“ok, wait right here then.”

your heart is beating out of your chest as you grab the items, he called you pretty–him, the prettiest person you’ve ever seen in your life–well, technically he called what you’re wearing pretty, and he only said ‘kind of,’ and you should really calm down. except your heart doesn’t seem to agree.

you arrive back at the desk, pulling a sephora bag from underneath the counter.

“oh, sorry, do you want me to wrap this for you?”

“no, that’s fine, i usually wrap things myself, like, as a tradit-i mean, sorry, you don’t care.” that’s the cutest thing ever.

he laughs, “really?”

you almost trip over the desk because there’s no fucking way you just said that out loud.

“um,” you look away, the pitch of your voice raising, “your total is 2700 dollars.”

he blinks. “two- two thousand-”

“i mean! i’m so sorry, i meant, 27 dollars…and 95 cents…” you turn away in embarrassment, and he laughs.

his laugh. his laugh is the prettiest sound, lighting up your heart even though you’re so ashamed you can’t even look over.

“sorry, i’m not- i’m not laughing at you.”

you turn back to glare at him. “yes you are.”

he grins, and you almost fall backwards again at how pretty he is.

he pulls out his wallet, and is that a black card?

“ok,” you hand him the bag, “thanks for shopping with sephora, and i hope you enjoy your holidays.”

he grabs the handle, his fingertips brushing your wrist, and you drop the bag, his hand jerking to catch it.

“s-sorry.”

“no problem,” he looks at your nametag, “y/n.”

he looks back up at you, grinning, “my sister will love these.”

“yeah?”

“yeah. i’ll tell her all about the pretty girl who chose them for me, who thinks i’m cute.”

you glitch, you actually glitch for a second, can’t move or think or anything, and then he’s gone, the door shutting.

your phone chimes with a text from eunchae.

thanks sosososso much for covering my shift im rlly sry, merry christmas

merry fucking christmas indeed.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

part of winters of us, an advent calendar : day 006

comment or send an ask to be added to the taglist !

enhypen tl @cutesiepatootsie @sammm5225

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

What are your theories about Skully? I have seen many say that he is dead, others say that he has been trapped by the book for a long time. And recently I saw that they said he is the narrator of the book. Personally I think he's trapped but I can't say for how long yet, but it's strange that Grim found the book in the middle of the street.

I’ll be straight with ya, chief 😶 I haven’t been thinking about Skully theories beyond the ones I’ve seen while scrolling socials. I’d like to wait a little more to see how the story plays out and see if we can glean any more suspicious details from him… Or maybe my brain’s still too scrambled from the high of pulling L*ona on my first 10-pull and it isn’t working properly, who knows—

I think Grim finding the book in the middle of the street is just a convenient plot point to get the story rolling? Sort of like how for the Stitch event everyone was conveniently gathered in the library to look for books. The students for this event were looking around at a used book sale (and Skully even reports being present at the same used book sale prior to being sucked into the book himself), so it was probably part of that. They might explain it later, but I don’t know if anyone intentionally planted it there. Again, it was probably a narrative shortcut.

Since I wouldn’t want to just reply to this ask with that half-baked and boring answer, here is a summary of the prominent theories mentioned in the ask and the points from part 1 that support it. After the key pieces of evidence are introduced, I will give my thoughts and point out some questions I feel still need to be answered in later parts of the event. As they are now, I don’t think any of these theories stand strongly on their own without that missing information being filled in to complete the narrative.

“Skully has been trapped in the book for a long time” theory:

This theory posits that Skully has been trapped in the book for far longer than the NRC boys have. In fact, he’s from the very distant past.

This theory assumes he entered the book intentionally or by accident but stayed because he’s such a Halloween otaku.

We see the NRC students getting sucked into the book from modern day Twisted Wonderland… but we have no guarantee of when Skully was sucked in.

Skully speaks in a very formal way, sometimes even moreso than Jade (I won’t get into the specifics here, but an example would be that he uses honorifics for everyone, even those his own age). He also uses the suspiciously archaic form of I (wagahai), which you rarely see in modern Japan.

Weirdly enough, Skully knows who Jack Skellington is (and Jack is known in the village where he claims to come from), but no one else in Twisted Wonderland does. This could imply that Skully is SO old that Jack Skellington was completely forgotten by history.

Skully comes off as a loner and isn’t comfortable talking about his school life. Under this theory, such behavior could be read as concealing secrets about his past and true origins.

I think the most damning evidence people point to for this theory is that even though Skully knows what magic is, he doesn’t seem to know what a magical pen is, and he doesn’t own one either. From Lilia’s School Uniform vignette, we know that magical pens had different forms over the years based on changing trends, so maybe Skully is used to magestones being different in design or not using magestones at all.

He doesn’t know who THE Malleus Draconia is, which is an oddity.

Variants of this theory sometimes place Skully as an old NRC or RSA student; if Skully is placed in NRC, a further subvariant of the theory assumes he was sorted into Ramshackle before it fell in disrepair.

“Skully is dead” theory:

Similar to the first theory (key carryover being that Skully is from the past), but assumes Skully is dead, either from being killed by something in the book or his spirit lingering in the book somehow after death in the real world due to extreme fanboying over Halloween.

His spirit may feel unfulfilled or have regrets (which is how a ghost forms i Twisted Wonderland), and so remains as a ghost that becomes most tangible on Halloween die to heightened magical energy. The latter piece of lore first stated the first Halloween event, but Malleus suspiciously reminds the audience that Halloween is “the one day a year when ghosts from the other side visit the world of the living” this event.

Some phrases he uses are… odd. For example, he uses “moshi” as a greeting instead of “moshimoshi” (which is much more common). The use of the former is connected to a superstition about ghosts who may spirit you away if you respond to someone calling out a single “moshi”.

He gets excited when the NRC students mention they know Halloween. This detail could be attributed to Skully being a Halloween otaku, but some have suggested that maybe he got excited because he’s from an era in which Halloween has yet to exist, hence his surprise when others already claim to know it.

“Skully is the book’s narrator” theory:

Exactly what the title of the theory says.

I think this one largely comes in part from the opening scene where Skully is in a black void and seems to be speaking to someone as if beginning a story about Halloween.

Him generally being a fan boy about Halloween and the founder of it can also ready like a creator that’s WAY too much into his own creations. He also has kind of the chunibyo energy for this.

If Skully is the narrator, then it makes sense why his promotional artwork shows him by default in the sketchy storybook style + Nightmare Suit (provided by the book). He IS the book, so this would be his “default” look.

A variant of this theory incorporates the previous two. Basically, it assumes Skully became the narrator after being sucked in a long time ago and/or dying and his spirit being infused into the book.

I think these theories make the most sense if like… “stacked” or combined with one another. However, they still leave a lot of questions unanswered, especially if we only consider the first (and what I believe to be the most popular) theory. If Skully has apparently been trapped in the book for much, muuuuuch longer than the NRC students have (again, assuming him being dead is not true), it raises various issues. For example:

… What was he doing this whole time while trapped in the book??? Did he just wander the woods?? It sounds like he never visited Halloween Town and potentially meet his lifelong idols UNTIL the NRC students arrived. He never opened any of the holiday doors even though they’re the one “different” thing in the woods? So Skully was literally being the forest boogeyman for generations and generations???

How does time and aging work in the book versus irl? Because like… why is Skully still so young looking even though he’s supposedly trapped in the book for hundreds of years or even longer than that?

If he were from that long ago, his vocabulary and attitudes would be way more different than what we see right now. For example, there was definitely prejudice towards magic in the past, as well as the usage of derogatory terms like “witch” and “wizard”, yet Skully doesn’t speak like this or express any behaviors to indicate he is used to being scorned for his magic.

Almost 700-year old Lilia clearly remembers magical pen designs over the years as well as the discrimination mages faced. This implies Skully would not only have to be 700+ years old, but even significantly OLDER than that, old enough to the point where literally no one recalls any information from that era. This is hard to imagine given Twisted Wonderland’s modern capabilities (for research), its reverence for historical figures, and… oh yeah, the race that lives for literally hundreds of years at a time that can probably recall those Jack Skellington stories. The only reason I can think of for why Jack was censored and forgotten is… simply not passing down the story through history, similar to how Briar Valley never passed down the stories of what happened to Maleanor, even in history books. This still means a few generations of ALL fae agreeing to not share what is ultimately a harmless story about the founding of Halloween. Why though?? It’s nowhere near as serious as what happened to a prominent political leader.

If Skully was trapped in the book for so long, how does he know about Foothill Town? He specifically mentions it as well as the used book fair going on there (which is how the NRC boys got sucked into the book in the first place). Foothill Town and the concept of used book fairs couldn’t have existed the thousands of years ago as the timing of the theory seems to suggest. Unless he somehow knew about what’s going on outside of the book from within it? But nothing indicates that.

RSA students don’t use magical pens for combat, they are shown to use swords. Likeswise, we see other mages using non-magical pens to attack, like staves. Maybe Skully is just from a country or school that doesn’t use magical pens to channel magic and instead uses another conduit.

I don’t think we should necessarily default to NRC or RSA for Skully’s school. There are many smaller arcane academies out there, such as the unnamed one Vargas went to. It’s possible that Skully attends one of those other schools.

There are also obvious points against the other theories. For the “he’s dead” theories: ghosts supposedly cannot handle physical objects, so how did Skully handle the book, especially outside of Halloween and magic school grounds? Idia also uses archaic terms (something the characters also point out), so it could be an otaku thing rather than indicating Skully’s age. For “he’s the book’s narrator” theory: while the Nightmare film has a narrator, book narrators have not yet been established as “a thing” in this type of event. Furthermore, how is Skully, a resident of the book, able to know what’s going on in the outside world?? The Halloween Town residents are able to glimpse into the human world using a pool of water in the center of their community, but it sounds like Skully has never been to Halloween Town before.

So really 😅 I don’t buy the current theories unless all those points get clarified or resolved first. There’s still too little to go off of, I think…

dbjsbaibqkakw I probably talked for longer than I should have on the topic, but 💦 I hope you found this useful as a summary + my thoughts on those popular theories :DD

[nolanfa-fanart]

Gen (non-romantic) fics recs: DC, the Batfamily has Issues

Gen (Non-romantic) Fic recs for @genuaryficrecs (and anyone else who likes good fic)

Fandom: DC, batfam Focus: The Bat family has Issues This is the place for comically bad at communication!batfam, oh gosh you have so many issues (affectionate), trauma, etc. Please assume that every "Why I love it" summary is prefaced with "This is one of my fave DC fics. First, it's very well-written. Second, ". List under the readmore.

I'm a Good Pretender, by shipNslash ( https://archiveofourown.org/works/45598369 ) 7/7 chapters, 40.416 words G, No Archive Warnings Apply Main characters: Dick mostly, and Bruce

Official Summary: “You’re doing it again,” Bruce says, tone accusatory. “You’re faking.” “It’s not faking,” Dick snaps, a little more aggressive than he means to be. But he doesn’t like that word, doesn’t like the connotations. (Especially when he knows Bruce is lying about something, too.) “Then what is it?” “It’s called being charming and it’s nice.” -_- Dick’s mother raised her son to be a star. Dick’s father raised his son to be an athlete. Bruce's new ward is charming (manipulative), dedicated (obsessive), and way, way too smart for either of their own good.

Why I love it: This is peak Performer Dick. Smart kid Dick who knows how to make people like him. Hyperactive Dick. And Wet Cat Battinson. Who wouldn't want to see them interact?

Excerpts: "Oh. From the- That is, yes. I'm, uh, I'm Richard's case worker." The boy visibly twitches and she redirects her attention. "Hello, Richard. Are you al- um, How are you feeling?" Alfred almost winces but, instead of withdrawing again or lashing out, Richard does something much, much more distressing. Right in front of Alfred, the boy transforms into someone totally different. His posture shifts, from despondent slackness to a sort of tense hunch, making him look far younger and in much more distress. His expression loses the blankness of shock as his bottom lip wobbles and his eyes well up with big, fat tears. "I wanna go home,” he cries out. “Please, I just wanna go home!" - And Dick is glad that this isn’t their first meeting, because Mister Wayne is painfully, intolerably awkward the whole time. He flinches every time someone addresses him, only makes eye contact with the toes of his scuffed converse shoes, and sneaks out the back door halfway through with Mister Pennyworth when he is very obviously losing a battle against an oncoming panic attack. How did this guy survive being famous, Dick wonders, watching him creep back in like he won’t be noticed if he’s quiet enough.

-- By Any Other Name, by ManURonaldo, part of the Like Father Like Sons series https://archiveofourown.org/works/40244490 1/1 chapters, 4.569 words (part of a 55k series) T, Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (brief mention of Jason's mom) Main characters: Jason and Bruce (decent Dick, Steph and Tim presence in the rest of the series)

Official Summary: “Have you seen Bruce recently?” Dick asks one night. “Haven’t seen Bruce since the last time I saw you,” Jason responds. He can feel the weight of Tim’s eyes on him though, and it’s grating. “WHAT, Tim?” “You saw him last night,” Tim responds after a moment, flicking his eyes towards Dick. “Literally last night, man.” “Yeah,” Jason responds without thinking, because he hasn’t slept in 58 hours, “I saw Batman last night. I haven’t seen Bruce in a month.” For a moment, there’s complete silence. And then, in an exasperated whisper, Dick says: “what the fuck, Jay?” OR: Jason picks up a little bit more from Bruce than he means to as Robin. It doesn’t go away, not even when he’s Hood. OR: Jason watches Bruce. Tim watches Jason. Dick watches Tim. They all need therapy.

Why I love it: I love that one. I love the way it features Identity Issues. The first story in the series is about Jason and Bruce, and following ones are also about Jason's relationships with Dick, Tim, Steph, and the way those different relationships interact. The Tim and Jason part (in the following stories) in particular goes way deeper than the usual dynamic of resentment for taking Robin / for past violence, and looks at why, now, they might or might not like / understand each other. Each of the batfam members is fucked up in different ways, which I love.

Excerpts: Jason is six years old and sometimes he feels like his dad is two different people in one body. There’s a person in there that loves him and holds him even though he’s too big to be held and makes him breakfast in the morning. And there’s another person in there, too, who thinks Jason is annoying and spoiled and always in the way and a problem. There are signs, is the thing: Jason can figure out who he’s talking to, if he’s quiet enough. It’s about the way the footsteps in the hallway sound, it’s about the label on the bottle in his dad’s hand. Sometimes when Jason enters a room he makes a noise just to see: if he squeaks his shoe and his dad doesn’t notice, it’s his nice dad. If his dad grimaces or glares, it’s the dad that doesn’t like him, and Jason needs to leave. It’s all about knowing who he’s talking to, Jason learns. If he knows who he’s talking to, he can be better about making mistakes.

-- May Tomorrow Never Come, by @lurkinglurkerwholurks https://archiveofourown.org/works/43606872 1/1 chapters, 3.580 words G, No Archive Warnings Apply Main Characters: Jason and Bruce

Official Summary: Jason clawed his way out of the nightmare like a drowning man.

Why I love it: First, I think it is very good, as a fic specifically. All fics live in the soup of canon and fanon facts we absorbed along the way, and you knowing who the characters are and what happens to them in different iterations informs your understanding of them, but this one does it particularly well. Second. It broke my heart. It talks about trust and intimacy and kid/parent relationships and fear and nostalgy and love and. I love it.

Excerpts: The Manor waited outside the door, exactly like it should be. The hallway was quiet and dark, the darkness tight and full, but not scary. He hadn’t been scared here since those first few months, when this place was only a place. He couldn’t be scared at home, no matter how his head spun and his nerves jumped and jittered.

-- Red Letter Day, by @silverwhittlingknife https://archiveofourown.org/works/28988874 9/? chapters, 41,819 words (technically part of a series but can be read as standalone) - WIP, last updated july 2022 G, Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings (some oblique references to the blockbuster plotline) Main Characters: Dick

Official Summary: Dick Grayson, stressed pseudo-parent to a preteen assassin, tries to solve the case of Damian’s Mysterious Wednesday. He never expected it to help him fix his relationship with Tim, too. (… Though only after everything fell apart first.) Eventual fix-it for Dick & Tim’s Red Robin fight, but other rocky relationships - Dick & Jason, Tim & Damian, Damian & Bruce, Dick & Bruce - wow, this family is dysfunctional - might improve too. Eventually. They just have to, y’know, work through All of Their Issues first. XD

Why I love it: The characterization is delightful. Dick tries to hold the world on his shoulders, scrambling to hold everyone together; he's also very much not perfect, and biaised and petty against specific other people. Jason is an antagonistic asshole but he tries. Tim doesn't understand boundaries but means really really well. They love each other very much but they're afraid and they just talk over / through / just to the left of each other. This is a dumpster fire. Also the end notes of each chapter include interesting tidbits about what is canon (with specific runs/issues) which I personally find super interesting.

Excerpts: This is out-of-character: deliberately unprofessional. And it’s definitely deliberate. Dick doesn’t want to second-guess Tim’s first amicable overture in what feels like years. He catches himself doing it anyway. When Tim was fourteen, the faceplant comment might have been spontaneous - just a wry observation, maybe with a quick grin, sharing the joke. But Tim’s older now, and a lot more serious. So this casual remark is actually calculated. So what is this? An attempt to recapture an old camaraderie? Or is Tim covering up a bad mood with a chipper attitude? Or is this another manifestation of Tim’s concern, a test to gauge Dick’s mood? Argh. Or maybe Tim is just being friendly, Grayson.

[azdoine]

stolen planets

this is a minor point of order, mostly unrelated to the stuff about the River that I'm trying to get to later, but it's an idea I've never seen anyone post about in their consideration of John's empire and agenda.

early on in AYU, while dwelling on her miserable slog through convalescence, Judith mentions overhearing an inscrutable bit of BOE slang:

The stomach pouch was removed on a previous excursion to what they said was an abandoned “steal planet.” I understand that they use the word “steal” for what we would term “shepherd.”

I say slang because why else would you use the present tense verb in place of a past-tense adjective here, if not as colloquialism? however, this slang appears nowhere in NTN, where we spend great chunks of time airing out BOE vernacular.

Reading between the lines a bit, we can easily guess what the BOE troops meant by "steal", because they spend the rest of the short story trying to get Judith connected to one:

The ship was a Gorgon-class vehicle... it was the last time they had tried to design a light craft that still had room for a stele. Blood of Eden must have captured or stolen one intact.

However, this is still an unusual way of speaking; we've never exactly heard of a "stele planet" before, and we know BOE had to get their stele from Mercymorn, as opposed to finding one in the corpse of a flipped planet.

Looking for 'plot holes' and errors in the continuity of a magic system is rarely productive, but if we comb back over HTN, AYU, and NTN, there appear to be some interesting inconsistencies in the presentation of stelae.

In HTN, John describes stele travel as vaguely dependent on obelisk infrastructure, forcing his Lyctors (who can travel freely) to lay down more of them - the reader is encouraged to that stelae are warp drives, and that obelisks define the regions a stele can transit between.

God said, “We came up with the stele instead, and the obelisk, which are less to do with travel than they are to do with transmission. But there will be times in your future when you will have to move unfettered by needing an obelisk, and even times yet to come when you will fulfil the sacred Lyctoral duty of setting obelisks...”

“Where we are going there are no obelisks for a stele to hook on to,” said the Emperor.

Certain asides in AYU and NTN double down on this interpretation, making references to "obelisk anchors", and establishing the need to locate an anchor at one's intended destination before embarking on stele travel:

Someone else said more clearly, How will we know where the anchor is? And the voice said, I’ve given you the blasted co-ordinates, haven’t I? It won’t be in the ship’s stellar registry, so you’ll have to do the input work yourself. And you must follow the route I’ve given you afterward.

“The Ziz isn’t Cohort standard. And it’s not as big on the inside as you think. Look at the windows—see how there’re none on the back end? It’s mostly engine. Not plated either. It’ll get to sublume without many problems … but it definitely doesn’t have room for a stele. Camilla is right. It can’t travel by obelisk anchor.”

However, AYU makes it clear that a stele also has a role to play as an anchor:

Under this duress I told them I understood how the stele worked but had no ability to use it myself... I said one necromancer alone would not be able to use it as an anchor and that it needed to be energised on a thanergenic planet, so it would never be of any use to them.

NTN even seems to flip-flop around, with people locating a stele to anchor onto, and using obelisks like an array of engines rather than to define one end in a point-to-point transition.

"The Warden convinced the Oversight Body, convinced the Sixth House to come with us. We showed them the secret of the installation. We helped them find a stele that would anchor such a big thanergy transition … which means, we helped them move."

"How’d you get it through a stele? With the weight of that thing, you’d never survive River displacement.” “Five hundred and thirty-two obelisks,” said Camilla.

Here's my tinfoil hat for you: if a stele and an obelisk both have similar roles to play in FTL travel - as suggested by their both being named after words for monuments - then the obelisk should have a similar necromantic nature. They may both be similar names for the same thing, or two different versions of the same thing, at least.

If nothing else, given that they're clearly both "anchors" rooted in Fifth House spirit magic, obelisks and stelae must have similar demands for upkeep and maintenance. And how can a Lyctor possibly set up such an obelisk out in space?

We know that each anchor relies on great quantities of freshly oxygenated and thanergy-enriched blood - that is, each anchor is sustained by a thanergenic fluid still flush with thalergy, per Pyrrha's comments to the effect that blood wards are more thalergy-rich than bone wards. Such anchors also have to be charged with power from thanergy-rich planets.

Mercymorn was able to produce an automatic oxygenation unit via the use of flesh magic, but blood cells need external organs to stay alive. For purposes of sustaining a very large anchor with life and death, a simpler option might be to make your runes with very wide chisel cuts or specially treated surfaces, so that they can't be blotted out by debris, and then leave them in a liquid ecosystem. Place them at the bottom of a water basin teeming with microorganisms, and then allow the micro-ecology to start dying off in the same thanergenic background radiation that you're using to charge up the anchor monument.

For example, by carving into the seabed under the salt-water ocean of a dying planet - a stele planet.