#I just need to get over this next chapter 83 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

parkerslatte · 1 year

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Songbird || TWENTY-FOUR

Eddie Roundtree x Fem!Reader

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2.2k

Part Summary: Twenty years after the infamous Chicago show, the band reveal what they did after they split.

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TRACK TWENTY—FOUR;

LOOK AT US NOW

…

ROD REYES: Next morning, we were waiting on the bus.

KAREN SIRKO: I remember thinking it would be okay. We’d been through hell, but we were the other side of it now.

ROD REYES: I mean, I’m trying to figure out how to tell everybody Daisy��s leaving. And then I see Eddie.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: Y/N left the night before and I knew I had to let her leave and it was the hardest thing for me to do. I left the next morning, I couldn’t get back on that bus if she wasn’t there.

ROD REYES: The irony is, the chosen ones never know they are chosen.

KAREN SIRKO: I wanted to be a rock and roll star. To travel the world and play music for strangers. And that’s what I did, it’s what I still do.

GRAHAM DUNNE: I moved back home to Hazelwood. I fell in love and started a family. I have a wife and kids now who are my whole world. I’ve got Karen to thank for that. I’d probably still be pining after her if she hadn’t been brutally honest with me that night.

KAREN SIRKO: I mean, I told him what he needed to hear. But I wasn’t being honest with him.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: I went and formed my own band, we weren’t bad, just, you know.

WARREN ROJAS: I’ve been a session drummer for years now. I mean, I’ve been on some…some records, you know? Classics. I married Lisa back in ‘82, still can’t believe she said yes. No one asks me to sign their tits anymore but, that’s okay….Actually, that’s not true, Lisa sometimes, she’ll, you know, just to be nice.

SIMONE JACKSON: Bernie and I, we opened this club. It’s ours and we play it all, whatever gets you up and moving. Sometimes I even get up there myself. Still brings the house down.

ROD REYES: I quit the business once and for all after that. I was heartbroken when they fell apart. More than I’d been with any other band, I just… didn’t think I could take another blow, you know? Get your heart broken enough times, you stop falling in love. Except, no, you don’t. But that’s a story for another time.

Y/N L/N: My album In The Morning, finally came out in ‘78 and it was the number one album of the year. My two singles were on it along with a shit ton of new songs I had written. I went on tour, got married, got divorced, had another relationship, broke up. A lot of stuff happened in those years.

BILLY DUNNE: Teddy died in ‘83. They found him hunched over a sound board after another all-nighter. He died doing what he loved, just like he said he would.

DAISY JONES: Everything that I have and everything that I have done, my music, my sobriety, my daughter, is all because I left that night.

Y/N L/N: I was happy with Eddie, that part is true, but when I left, I found myself. I found my music, I found a life outside of that band, I found a life where my life didn’t revolve around Eddie Roundtree.

INTERVIEWER: How did you feel when Y/N left?

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: I was heartbroken but I knew she was going to. Y/N completed me like no one else, she loved me like no one else. But she needed to work on herself without me, without any of us. She needed to heal.

Y/N L/N: I loved Eddie so much that leaving physically pained me. I felt it in my heart, in my lungs, in my whole body. I’ve never loved someone as much as I loved Eddie.

INTERVIEWER: What about your first husband?

Y/N L/N: When I married my first husband, we both knew that we didn’t love each other as much as we should. We married out of convenience and feeling like we had to to please other people. I loved him but I wasn’t in love with him. Five months after we married we separated, it wasn’t working out. It was never going to work out.

INTERVIEWER: Did you have any other relationships after Y/N?

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: A few but none of them lasted long. None of them were Y/N, no one would ever hold a flame to her.

Y/N L/N: Did you know that Y/N L/N is now only my stage name?

INTERVIEWER: I had heard about that, would you care to explain?

Y/N L/N: L/N is only a part of my stage name now, it’s what most people know me by. It’s like a brand, you can’t change it once people know who you are. My albums have the name Y/N L/N plastered across them, posters and banners all read that name. I’m bound by the name Y/N L/N. I mean I love it, it’s a badass name…but I think I prefer Y/N Roundtree a little better.

:: THE CAMERA PANS OUT AND EDDIE ROUNDTREE TAKES A SEAT NEXT TO Y/N L/N ::

Y/N looked at her husband and took his hand in hers, pressing a kiss to it. The two smiled at each other with pure love and adoration in their eyes.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: I proposed to Y/N in March 1983, we hadn’t seen each other since that night in Chicago but I knew immediately when she showed up on my doorstep that I needed to do it then or I never would.

Y/N ROUNDTREE: We got married in December 1983, small ceremony with only close family and friends in attendance. Though obviously the tabloids got wind of it.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: We started making music together and have three albums out that are very successful. We started our record label, Mockingbird Records, in ‘87 and we’ve produced some big records.

Y/N ROUNDTREE: We had our kids in ‘84 and ‘86 and I didn’t think my heart could be big enough for them. I never thought I would be a mother, but those two are my whole world.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: Our kids mean everything to me, I mean if you told me that at the age of twenty-four that in ten years I’d have my first kid, I wouldn’t have believed anyone. I never saw myself having kids, but as soon as our son was born I couldn’t help but fall in love. And when our daughter was born, that love only intensified.

INTERVIEWER: Would you mind talking about Camila?

Y/N closed her eyes, her eyes already filling with tears at the mention of her name. Eddie held his wife’s hand tightly as tears sprung to his eyes also.

“Julia,” Y/N began, “I don’t know if…”

“Please, Aunt Y/N.” Julia says.

Blinking away her tears, Y/N nodded.

Y/N ROUNDTREE: Camila Dunne was the most amazing woman I ever met. She understood me, she always made sure I was okay when I felt down. She was always there for me. I miss her more than you could ever imagine, she was my best friend.

KAREN SIRKO: I mean she was the reason I joined the band. She was the reason I stayed.

DAISY JONES: She saw a future for me that I couldn’t see for myself, and she was right.

GRAHAM DUNNE: I can’t.

WARREN ROJAS: What’s crazy is that anyone even remembers The Six.

EDDIE ROUNDTREE: When Aurora was released on CD, we sold another, what, two million copies, three million?

Y/N ROUNDTREE: What’s strange about it is that people no longer know me from the band, and when they see me on the cover they get confused, [chuckles] It is quite funny.

GRAHAM DUNNE: You know, it came on in the car the other day. The, uh, classic rock station. I thought that was crazy.

BILLY DUNNE: It’s fun to think you did something, you know? Left your mark on the world.

JULIA DUNNE: Would you ever want to do it again?

DAISY JONES: Do what, honey?

JULIA DUNNE: You know.

DAISY JONES: I don’t know how your mother would have felt about that.

JULIA DUNNE: I do.

***

The camera was switched off and Y/N let out a sigh of relief. She slumped back against Eddie as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders.

“Thank you both for doing this.” Julia says.

“Thank you for doing this Julia,” Y/N says, “Now I’ll get the press off my back from asking me questions about it.”

Julia laughs as she packs away her camera.

Y/N turned to Eddie and pressed a kiss to his lips. They had been married fourteen years but she felt young whenever she kissed him. As she pulled away she smiled at him. He looked the same as he did when they were in their twenties and completely oblivious, except with the addition of some facial hair, a few more wrinkles and some grey hair coming in.

“I love you.” Eddie says.

Y/N smiles and it is the same smile Eddie fell in love with years ago, “I love you too.”

Once Julia was packed away and bid goodbye to Y/N and Eddie, the two retreated into their house just as the sun began to set. Their two children sat together watching television, their son, August, a lot more invested than their daughter, Dahlia.

“Have you finished now?” Dahlia asked, perking up once she saw her parents walk through the door.

“Yes honey, we’re finished.” Y/N says, sitting on the couch next to her daughter.

“Finally,” August says, “Can I go and play outside now?”

“Not now, it’s nearly dinner time,” Eddie says, “You can play outside tomorrow.”

August groaned, “But I need to practise for the game on Friday and I haven’t been able to do it all week.”

Y/N and Eddie share a look and Eddie sighs, “Look, you can practise for an hour outside after dinner.”

August slumped against the couch, “What are we having for dinner anyways? Whatever we have won’t be ready for over an hour, why can’t I go and practice now.”

Y/N sighs and shakes her head before smiling, “Why don’t we order pizza? And we can help you practise.”

August perked up, “Really?”

“Really,” Y/N says and Eddie nods, “It’s the least we can do from banishing you from the garden all week.”

August suddenly got up from his seat on the sofa, “I’m going to get my shoes on, hurry up!”

Dahlia didn’t move from the couch, “Why can’t we do something I want to do?”

“We can tomorrow,” Y/N says, “Don’t tell your brother but we’re taking you somewhere you’ve always wanted to go.”

“Disneyland?” Dahlia questioned.

“Maybe,” Y/N smiled, “But don’t tell your brother.”

“I won’t.” Dahlia says before standing up and walking out of the living room following her brother.

“Fifty bucks she tells him.” Y/N says.

“You’re on.” Eddie says as the two shook on it.

Not even ten seconds later, August comes rushing back into the room, “You’re taking Dahlia to Disneyland, that’s not fair.”

“We have to play your stupid game.” Dahlia argued, beginning to walk out of the room.

“It’s not stupid Dahlia, it’s a way of life.” August says while following Dahlia.

“A way of life?” Dahlia says, “You sound stupid.”

“Well you sound stupid.”

Y/N laughs, “Whose idea was it to have kids again?”

“I don’t think either of them were planned.” Eddie chuckles.

Y/N laughs, and wraps her arms around his neck, pulling him close. Eddie’s arms wrapped around her waist pulling her close to him. Their lips only centimetres apart. Moments like this were few and far between, the two constantly being interrupted by one of their children.

“You know what?” Eddie says.

“What?” Y/N asks.

“I feel a lot better now that I’ve gotten everything off my chest.” Eddie says, “I don’t need to hide anything anymore, it’s all going to be public knowledge soon.”

“Me too,” Y/N sighed, “We will hopefully stop getting asked about it in interviews soon.”

“Or maybe it’ll increase,” Eddie says.

“Don’t even joke about that, Mr Roundtree.” Y/N says.

“Whatever you say Mrs Roundtree.”

Y/N smiled, despite being married for over a decade, hearing her name always brought a smile to her face. Y/N pressed a kiss to Eddie’s lips and her fingers tangled in his hair. Eddie’s hands held firmly onto her hips, pressing her body fully against his. Their lips moved in sync with each other as Y/N sighed happily. Eddie smiled against Y/N’s lips.

“Mom!” A voice sounded throughout the house, “Tell August to stop being mean to me.”

Y/N and Eddie broke apart and sighed, “You know one of these days we will be able to finish something without getting interrupted.”

“Probably when they are both at college, but knowing them two, they’ll still find a way to interrupt,” Y/N jokes, “I’ll see what they want and you order pizza?”

“Sounds perfect.” Eddie says, pecking her lips.

“Mom!” Dahlia shouted.

Y/N sighed, “Coming!”

Y/N stepped away from Eddie and walked to the living room door not before turning around and blowing him a kiss, “I love you, Eddie Roundtree.”

“I love you too, Y/N L/N, more than you could ever know.”

Y/N smirked, “I think I know by now.”

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annaphoenix1994 · 1 year

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Ch.83 - No Such Thing as Quick

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^ GIF is self-explanatory; Simon and Kiera engage in much-anticipated sex.

A/N: I got carried away with this smut chapter and I'm not sorry about it. Please enjoy because I know I did.

Simon lay on the couch with Evie on his chest, a pacifier between her lips as she slept soundly, her right hand clasped around the chain of Simon's dog tags, leaving them exposed as he knew they always sparked curiosity in her, using them to his advantage as Evie was still restless after returning home.

His lids became heavy as the steady heat from the fireplace kept his skin warm, listening to the light clatter of pots and pans colliding in the kitchen nearby as Kiera was preparing for dinner, keeping the baby monitor on the counter to listen for signs of Jacob waking up from his nap, satisfied that he was rather hungry after his appointment, assuring his mother that a long nap would follow, giving her plenty of time to get things done around the house while she had the advantage.

As Simon's eyes were about to shut for a nap himself, they shot open at Kiera's hushed scolding, knowing immediately that the cat had gotten up to mischief. "Church! You motherfucker! Stop trying to knock the glasses off of the counter!" She scolded, picking up the cat and setting him on the floor, hating how he was always entitled to jump up on the counter as he was always nosy when Kiera tried to cook.

He breathed a chuckle at her slight aggravation, moving slowly to stretch his arm above his head to cradle the crown of his skull in the crook of his elbow, sighing through his nose while his eyes looked down to Evie, suckling calmly on the pacifier and her eyes relaxed closed. His free hand rested on Evie's back, keeping her secure against his chest just in case she tried to roll over in her sleep while the remote to the television rested on his hip, purposely putting on a show Kiera liked as she had a habit of trying to watch the television while the oven pre-heated or when she was cutting vegetables, Simon putting on a show that matched her mood.

When she was in a loving mood, he put on This Is Us.

When she was in a funny mood, he put on Reba, Jackass or Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory

When she was in a frustrated mood, he put on 90 Day Fiancé. Which he understood, because when he'd watch it with her, he became frustrated too. Especially with how ignorant and oblivious to how some of the people were. Love is definitely blind, he would think. But my eyes are wide open with Kiera. I see no flaws.

On this particular day, he put on Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory, smirking at the sound of Kiera's distant giggles every time something happened, finding the show just as amusing as he wished he could have that much fun in his younger years.

"Do you need any help, love?" He asked, looking up at her as she sat on the edge of the couch, her eyes locked on the commotion within the television show as her free hand rubbed circles along his sleeved arm.

"I'm alright, babe. Just passing the time while I'm waiting for the water to boil." She assured him, moving her hand up his arm to rest on his shoulder, slowly moving its way to his hair, pushing it back away from his face, his eyes growing heavy with every delicate stroke of her fingers.

"What're you making tonight?"

"Steak tips, macaroni and cheese, baked potatoes, creamed corn, and sweet peas." She smiled.

"What's the occasion?" He chuckled, moving his head to kiss her palm as it cupped his cheek.

"Remember? You invited Price over for dinner tonight since he didn't want to participate in the festivities the wranglers are hosting tonight."

He shrugged, "What festivities?"

"Teeter put it together."

"Bloody hell," He scoffed. "I can understand why he doesn't want to participate."

"Teeter was explaining to Gaz and Rudy that she can team rope while being plastered. They didn't believe it, so she and the wranglers talked them into trying and if they fall off, they have to play Cowboy Poker."

"Christ," He grumbled. "Please tell me they're not using a horned bull."

"You should know better than that, babe," She giggled. "For the first round they won't."

"Remind me to go down there and check on them."

"They'll be fine, Simon. We'll go down there after dinner and when I put the kids to bed."

"Okay, love. What time is Price supposed to be up here?"

"Around seven. Him and Alejandro went into town to pick up some tequila. Alejandro was wanting to have a "Mexican Welcome" of his own by grilling at the barn for the wranglers."

"I grow more worried the more you tell me what their plans are." He chuckled.

"Trust me, I am too, especially if it was Teeter's idea, but I'm going to assume that no news is good news and that they really don't fuck with a bull."

"I hope so," He sighed, his eyes wandering over her, pupils dilated at the sight of her in his military sweatshirt - a sweatshirt that he wasn't able to fit in anymore due to his muscle gain. "I hope you plan on changing before Price gets here."

She giggled, "I will. I know it's not appropriate to wear just your shirt without anything underneath."

She watched his breath hitch at the thought of the new information, Simon assuming she had been wearing a pair of shorts under his shirt instead of just panties. "Don't tell me that." He sighed, his heartrate quickening.

"And why not?"

"Starting something you can't finish, love." He arched his brow.

His index finger couldn't help but twitch as she bit her bottom lip playfully, "Oh, I'm not going to start anything unless you have a condom. Can't risk getting pregnant again so soon." She teased.

"Give me a half hour to go into town and back, then." He smirked.

"By the time you get back, we won't have much time before Price gets here," She shook her head with a giggle. "But I'd consider it knowing you can make it quick."

She knew it was a lie, but fuck if she didn't enjoy teasing him about it.

Mainly knowing that he always made it a point to last just ten minutes longer when she was overstimulated and begging for a release.

He scoffed, "Then I'll pull out."

"We both know that's a lie, babe."

"You're right. Can't help it." He chuckled playfully. He knew he could if it came down to it, but he enjoyed teasing her.

"My point exactly," She giggled, leaning down to press a kiss to his lips. "Until you can control yourself or get a condom, I'm going to continue making dinner for us and our guest."

He huffed at her answer, licking his lips as he took a glance at her rear as she got up, knowing exactly what was underneath that sweatshirt.

He waited until she got back into the kitchen, looking down to see Evie sleeping soundly against his chest, holding the same position except her grip on his dog tags had loosened, letting him know that she was fully asleep. He got up quietly, seeing that Kiera hadn't noticed him stand up to take Evie into the nursery, laying her down in her crip and swaddling her with the handmade blanket Eva had made for her, Jacob having one to match except he was growing to not being a fan of being swaddled in the evening, seeming to want more room for his arms as his habit was stretching his arms to the side as he slept.

Ensuring Evie wasn't disturbed when he ensured she was comfortable in her crib, he refrained from closing the door completely by leaving a slight crack in the doorframe before proceeding on the mission that Kiera had started.

The couple had refrained from being intimate due to Kiera's healing journey which Simon respected, having no problem waiting to have sex until she was ready, although many conversations occurred during the predicted abstinence trial after having her C-Section.

His steps were silent as he approached her from behind, his gaze targeting her as she had her back facing him while she had been washing the potatoes in the sink, his senses going mad at the sight of her hair in a messy bun to keep her hair from her eyes as she worked.

Steadily, his hands found their place on her waist, Kiera gasping at his sudden appearance from behind her. "You like teasing me, yeah?" He whispered, nuzzling his face against her bare neck, placing a kiss where he felt her pulse quicken with excitement. He knew she was getting aroused, imagining how wet she was getting just by his touch alone. She may deny it was a playful remark, but he knew her body like the back of his hand just as much as he imagined his palm was her on occasion.

By instinct, she arched her back against him, her head lulling to the side to give him better access to her neck. "I gain enjoyment out of it." She hummed, inviting him further by her body language, pressing her thighs together subtly, feeling an enticing throb from between her legs, imagining how he could bend her over the counter effortlessly.

"Just like I gain enjoyment out of watching you try to hide your arousal from me, love," He whispered against her neck, using his left arm to reach in front of her to turn off the water flow on the sink before grasping the sink basin where it met the counter, his veins protruding with arousal.

"Is that right?" She giggled, feeling him hum against her neck before placing another kiss there.

"I can almost hear your heartbeat," He whispered. "Just like your thighs are pressing together."

She bit her lip as she turned around in his arms, caged between him and the counter as he pressed his lips to her forehead while her arms snaked around his shoulders. "We just have to be careful, babe."

He nodded, placing another kiss to her forehead before stepping aside to reach to turn off the stove before quickly and tenderly picking her up, her legs instinctively wrapping around his waist, holding her securely against him with one arm while the other grasped the baby monitor to take with him. She giggled as she placed kisses along his jaw and cheek while he closed the bedroom door with his foot. "What're we going to do if Price comes over early?"

"He'll understand." He grumbled, using his knee to brace himself as he easily lowered her onto their made bed, careful not to lay his entire weight on her to refrain from putting pressure on the healing scar from her C-Section.

His kisses were gentle and passionate, letting her hands explore his body while his made a trail of their own, one arm propping himself up next to her head while the other trailed down her side and towards the inside of her thighs, cupping her through her underwear, feeling the soaked pad of her underwear. "Fuck, love." He grumbled into her mouth.

"What is it?"

"You're so wet, I'm afraid you won't be able to feel me." He rasped, his heartrate increasing at his discovery.

"Only one way to find out, baby." She panted, her fingers splayed through his hair. His fingers curled around the pad of her underwear, the top of his fingers already soaked before he could even get her underwear off completely. He tossed them to the floor, his lips starting at the inside of her knee, his lips leaving one kiss along their trail until they reached her core, an immensely sweet taste engulfing his tongue, Simon unable to restrain the satisfied groan that left his lips, the vibration around her clit making her gasp in pleasure, her thighs nearly caging his head in place.

His tongue made slow, sensual strokes between her folds, his free hand coming up to line up the tip of his index finger with her entrance, watching it slowly disappear within her and making his cock twitch almost painfully. He didn't care about his pleasure when it came to their time in the bedroom, his sole purpose but pleasing her before himself. And tonight, it was about her pleasure.

"Best be quiet, love," He said against her core, a sharp reminder of their reason to be quiet, the vibrations from his mouth causing her to tremble. "Don't want to wake them too early."

"I'm never quiet when I'm like this," She giggled. "Guess you'll just have to make me."

He huffed a chuckle against her, pressing a kiss to her inner thigh before standing to his feet to walk around the bed, removing his shirt and tossing it onto the bed, sitting on his knees to look down at her, bringing his shirt into her view, Kiera unintentionally giving him the ultimate siren eyes that drove him wild, begging him. "Open that pretty mouth, love."

She smirked, doing as she was told, watching him fold one of his sleeves before placing it between her teeth, using the remaining fabric to cover her eyes while he used the other sleeve to wrap around her head and tying it off upon itself. "Good girl," He praised. "If you get uncomfortable, just tap on my arm."

She nodded, her breathing quickened as she felt his presence move throughout the room, hearing him open up the drawer from her nightstand, knowing that he was getting an ally. Oh, fuck, I have two toys in there! She wondered. Which one is he going to use?!

He chose the butterfly dildo and vibrator, smirking as it nowhere near resembled his size, thinking it was cute how she could still satisfy herself with such a smaller toy. He turned it on, pressing the tip of it to the outside of her hip, tracing it along her bare skin and to the inside of her thighs, feeling her tense of nervousness as she sensed the light turning on, growing immediately insecure that he was seeing her core in direct light again, forcing herself to remember that he never would judge her. She felt him lay between her thighs, putting the vibrator on its lowest setting before testing it against her clit, hearing a muffled gasp leave her lips before he pressed the tip to her entrance, teasingly pushing it in, watching how she contracted her muscles unintentionally as if she were trying to suck it in herself.

His cock couldn't help but twitch as he thought about how he felt it when he would slide himself inside of her. Fuckin' amazing, he mused. His eyes kept their gaze on her as the tip disappeared within her, feeling slight resistance from how tight she was, leaving a glare on the silicone with every slow thrust, his eyes glancing up at her as she arched her back, muffling another moan once she felt the vibrations against her G-Spot.

After a few thrusts, he used his thumb to turn on the butterfly of the vibrator, sheathing it fully inside of her before the butterfly could make contact with her clit, hearing a wince and a moan leave her lips as her hands trailed down to find his free hand, letting her dig her nails into the skin between his thumb and index finger. She felt weightless as he continued to use the toy on her, wondering how he knew to use it better than her own when she would use it, but she didn't care as she always knew that he knew exactly what he was doing.

She heard him groan as well as the sounds the vibrator made once he pulled it out before pushing it back in, unaware that Simon was groaning at the sight of a faint white ring pooling at the base of the vibrator, answering his assumption of how wet she truly was. "Fuuuuckkin' hell, love. Not even a half-hour in and you're already making a mess on this fake knob," He teased, his heart pounding against his chest. "Makes me think you prefer this over mine."

His head was pressing against her inner thigh, fascinated with how he was able to pleasure her with the toy without the use of his cock, but immensely excited at the sight, knowing that he did even better with his own, only using toys on her to intensify her pleasure, although he could admit that the feeling of a vibrator against his cock as he thrust himself inside of her was equally as pleasurable. He smirked as he watched her shake her head in disagreement with his statement, rewarding her with a kiss to the inside of her thigh as he continued his enjoyment of using the toy on her, knowing that a lot of her pleasure came from clitoral stimulation instead of vaginal, conquering this theory by also grabbing the regular vibrator from the drawer when he retrieved the other toy, knowing he'd be using it on her when he buried himself within her.

"S-Simon," She panted, using her hand to remove the shirt from her mouth. "Need you inside of me."

"Is that a command, love?" He replied, a smirk against her thigh.

"I can make it one."

"Let's hear it."

She bit her lip, "Inside of me. Now."

"I like when you get assertive with me, sweetheart." He replied, pressing a kiss to the inside of her knee before moving to sit on his knees, pleased to see the toy still inside of her without his grasp on it while he slid down his sweatpants, pumping himself once before using his right hand to slowly slide the toy from her, turning it off before setting it aside and using the same hand to turn his dog tags around his neck, the tags resting between his shoulder blades before he lined himself up with her entrance after sliding his length through her folds to lubricate himself, watching himself slide in without having to use his hand, nearly whimpering at the sensation he missed so much. He propped himself on his elbow with his left arm, bringing his right hand up to reveal her eyes, able to see the pleasure he was bringing to her.

Her legs moved to wrap around his waist, moaning into his mouth as his thrusts were gentle, yet assertive, their tongues dancing with each other as if it were the last time. "Oh, Simon-" She panted, her hands splaying across the built muscle of his back, feeling them tense with every thrust, his entire torso nearly twice the size of hers, fully hiding her beneath him.

"What is it, love?" He whispered into her jaw.

"You-You're so...big."

He chuckled at her remark, unable to resist the seemingly harsh thrust while he rolled his hips, feeling the skin of his hips making contact with hers, an almost-sticky sensation residing in its wake as he withdrew.

"I like to think I am."

"You should know." She whimpered, digging her nails into his back, opening her eyes briefly to make contact with his.

"Better make sure you leave scratches if you're going to dig those pretty fingers in my back."

She hummed in amusement at his filthy talk, biting her lip as she began to do as she was told, making it a personal mission to leave several scratches along his back from his tailbone all the way up to his shoulders. "Is that why you always insist for me to get my nails done?"

"I wouldn't say I insist since you like having your nails done, but keep in mind that I always want you to get them done so you can leave scratches on me later." He teased, his right hand leaving her hip to feel for the single vibrator, using his thumb and index finger to grasp it as he turned it on, his mouth filling with her moan once it made contact with her clit, turning it upwards to find the perfect spot that wouldn't overstimulate her too quickly, finding the perfect rhythm to follow with every deep thrust, purposely rolling his hips as he did to hit her G-Spot every time.

"Just like you're giving me your last name so I can scream your first?" She hummed, legs tightening around his waist.

"Oh, how I like the sound of that. Fuckin' clever girl."

They lay in immense passion, Simon whimpering every time he felt the spongy material with the tip of his cock every time it hit her G-Spot, his right hand nearly soaked in her natural stimulation, her nails digging crescents and leaving long welts along the thick muscle of his back, their lips dancing with each other, their teeth nearly making contact with every other deep kiss, a thin sheet of sweat appearing on them as the time went on...

Only to be interrupted by the ringing of Simon's phone from the nightstand, his head shooting up to fix his gaze on the screen, wondering who was calling. He stilled, sighing at the feeling of Kiera tightening around him as he reached for his phone, a mischievous grin appearing on his lips when he recognized it was Price calling him. Seeing that it was five minutes past seven o'clock, he pressed his hips tightly against her, pinning the vibrator between him and her clit, slowly rolling his hips to continue giving her pleasure, "Let's see how quiet you can be, yeah?" He whispered, watching her bite her bottom lip at the challenge ahead, watching him use his thumb to slide across the screen, putting it on speaker before laying it on the bed to resume using his right hand to dive between their hips, placing the vibrator back against her clit as his thrusts resumed to a devilishly and teasingly slow pace.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, mate, I wanted to let you know I was here. I didn't want to knock and risk the dog barking and waking up the kids." Price answered.

He saw that Kiera was about to release another moan, shooting her a playfully threatening glare before she covered her own mouth and turning her head to the side just in case one slipped through her fingers, her other hand digging into his tattooed forearm.

"Thanks," He answered, no evidence in his tone that he had been interrupted. "I'm coming."

"Alright, Simon. I'll be right outside."

"I'll be just a few minutes," He stated, feeling Kiera's thighs starting to tremble, letting him know that her orgasm was on the tide. "Just got out of the shower and need to change."

"Take your time, mate. Is Kiera home from town?"

Yeah, she's right under me, Simon chuckled to himself. "She is. She's feeding Jacob right now. I'll be there in a minute."

"Okay."

He refrained from hanging up first, not wanting to risk Kiera losing sight of her orgasm. Instead, he held his own breath as he waited for Price to hang up first, letting his phone fall asleep before Kiera removed her hand from her mouth. "That was close." She panted.

"Poor bloke was completely oblivious that I was railing you throughout the entire conversation," He chuckled, "But I know you're close."

She nodded, moaning into his mouth once his lips returned. "Let it go, love."

He felt her contract around him, her walls fluttering with the intense stimulation. "There you fuckin' go," He nearly whined, coaxing her through her much-needed orgasm. "Come all over it."

She sighed, her eyes nearly rolling into the back of her head as she chased her high, Simon continuing his pace, nearly losing himself inside of her before he rapidly reminded himself to not release, knowing it would put her at risk.

He felt how sensitive she was, removing the vibrator from her clit to continue thrusting so that he could withdraw and shower her stomach with his spend. That was, until she intrigued him with a request. "Come in my mouth, Simon."

"Dessert before dinner, yeah?" He smirked.

"Always."

He withdrew, watching her move to where her head dangled over the edge of the bed, willingly opening her mouth and flattening her tongue as her hands clasped around the back of his thighs. She had never done this before, but it aroused him all the same as he imagined viewing the bulge of his cock in her throat. Bloody fuckin' hell.

She took him willingly, managing to twirl her tongue around him as he filled her mouth, Simon feeling her throat constrict as he pressed further with her guiding hands, releasing a slight gag at the semi-burning sensation, but he continued when she pulled him further. His mental image coming true, he saw the bulge of his cock within her throat, making him groan at the sight, watching her breasts recoil under his shirt with every slow thrust until he began to pick up a pace, that familiar flame in his loin growing hotter and hotter, his hands cupping her jaw as he continued to climb the mountain of ecstasy.

After a few more thrusts, he stilled, filling her throat full of his spend, watching her willingly swallow him down as she sucked on him lightly as he slowly withdrew, a string of saliva connecting them as he began to grow flaccid. She hummed as she watched him enter the bathroom, returning with a damp cloth to rid the sticky sensation from between her thighs before he cleaned himself off, offering his hand to help her to her shaky legs, smirking at how her mascara pooled at the corners of her eyes. "Better go get that door, babe."

He smirked, leaning down to press a kiss to her lips before readjusting his dog tags around his neck, scanning the floor and the bed for his clothes while Kiera dismissed herself to the bathroom to rid any evidence of sex, taking the two toys he had used on her to clean them and put them away.

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kasha-formerlydrabbletastic · 2 years

Text

Much Ado and Many Hugs

First in the planned series “Just Married”.

Part 2 / Part 3 / Bonus / Part 4 / Part 5

Steve Harrington x Wife!Reader

Word count: 1.8k

Summary: The Reader and her husband, Steve, are about to embark on their two-week long honeymoon road trip. The Party has come to see them off.

Warnings: Swearing, references to sex, a very much alive and very much bisexual Eddie Munson, a bit o’ fluff.

A/N: I had originally intended for this series to be super fluffy with maybe one smut piece, but seeing how this particular chapter went definitely switched my planning up. There will be smut galore. Also, that horrible excuse for a graphic was done on my phone and I apologize from the deepest parts of my soul for how just... awful it is.

"Hold still, Y/N," Robin says. "Both of you, smile!"

You haven't stopped smiling, though; from the moment you said "I do", your cheeks have been permanently plump with joy, almost sore with how your smile refuses to quit. The same could be said for Steve, who stands with his arms wrapped around your waist, his chest pressed to your back as the two of you pose for the picture you insisted on having to document the very beginning of your honeymoon.

Robin presses the button and the camera spits out a Polaroid picture. It's dark at first, but the picture soon develops; you and Steve, ready to face this road trip of a honeymoon head on, stand in front of your recently purchased second-hand camper, before being surrounded by the kids (if you could even call these college-aged adults “kids” anymore) who came to see you off.

"Now one with all of us," Dustin insists, planting himself next to Steve as he beckons the whole Party forward.

Max and Lucas snuggle in next to you while El, Mike, Will, Nancy, and Jonathan fill out the back row. Eddie gets in front, laying on the ground and making the usual flamboyant show of himself.

"Come on, Robin," you say.

"Who's gonna take the picture?"

Conveniently, yours and Steve's neighbor passes by the small crowd, and you point at her. Robin catches her eye and politely asks if she would do the honors. Your neighbor smiles, nodding and taking the camera in hand.

"Say cheese!" she says as soon as Robin joins in.

"Cheeeeeeeese!" the party sings as your neighbor hits the button.

The camera spits out another photo, and your neighbor hands them back to Robin, who thanks her and shakes her hand.

"Look at this," Robin says, and the group gathers around to see the photo.

There are smiles all around, each and every one showing teeth, but there's one smile in particular you're searching for; Steve didn't even look at the camera, his big brown eyes set on you and his lips curled into the softest of expressions. His arm is around your shoulders, holding you close. Next to him, your eyes are closed from laughter and your cheeks puffed with a smile. Laced throughout the Party is joy, happiness, laughter, something you've all been needing since '83. It's like your wedding photos all over again.

"God, can we retake this?" Dustin says with a huff. "Steve's just looking at Y/N."

"Ever the romantic, Dustin," Max teases, rolling her eyes playfully. "It's actually really cute."

You glance up at Steve, catching him watching you before you pluck the picture from Robin's hands.

"It's perfect," you say.

"I'd say so," Steve replies.

"How long are you two love birds gonna be gone again?" Eddie asks, brushing himself off.

"Two weeks," Steve answers. "We're not touring the whole country, but we're gonna get started on it."

"A road trip for a honeymoon, though," Jonathan says, putting his arm around Nancy. "That's definitely an original idea."

You glance at Steve with a gleaming smile, remembering the conversation you had with him in the early days of your relationship; the pair of you had to be on the same page for the future, of course, especially in regards to your ideals and desires for the future. There were a few details to iron out between you, but for the most part, marriage and parenthood had always been something you both agreed on. The way he described wanting to hop in a camper with his six ("Six?!" you had exclaimed) little nuggets and see the country put his soul on display, lighting him up from the inside out. That day you knew deep down in your bones that you were going to marry Steve Harrington.

Your decision on a road trip for a honeymoon is basically family planning, an opportunity to scout out the best sites to take however many kids the pair of you end up having.

"It was her idea," Steve says, with a smile.

"The road trip was your idea, actually," you reply. "It was just my idea to do it for a honeymoon."

You watch as Dustin lugs your suitcase to the camper, grinning from ear to ear as the rest of the kids follow him inside.

“Sounds like fun,” Eddie says. He looks at the two of you, mischief in his eyes. “So, how much of this road trip are you actually gonna spend seeing things and how much are you gonna spend, you know, bumping uglies?”

“Eddie!” Robin chastises, whacking one of his shoulders while Nancy whacks the other.

You, however, take the joke in stride.

“I don’t know, Eddie,” you laugh, waggling the camera at him. “But if you’re really that interested, we could take pictures and send them back to you.”

Eddie’s jaw drops, his eyes going wide with excitement. “You’d do that?”

“In your fucking dreams, Munson,” Steve says; there's little malice left in his voice anymore toward Eddie, especially in his post-nuptial phase. He gives him a good-natured shove, chuckling.

Eddie pauses for a moment as the rest of you start to meander toward the camper.

“What?” he says defensively. “You’re both hot, what do you want from me?”

Climbing in, you see that the Party have already made themselves comfortable on the furniture; El, Mike, and Will occupy the small couch while Lucas and Dustin bicker over who gets to try the bed out first. Max peeks into the cabinets and into the fridge before she looks up to see the elder members of the Party.

"Alright," Steve shouts over the noise, successfully getting a hold of everyone's attentions. "Look, we really appreciate you guys coming to see us off, but you gotta get your asses out of our RV, okay? We're already behind schedule."

"Okay, Dad," Dustin teases as he and Lucas rejoin everyone in the small space.

"Call me that again, Henderson, and see what happens."

"No," Eddie says, planting his hand on Dustin's shoulder. "He's not a dad yet. Although," he continues with a grin, "I do believe that by the time they come back, they might have changed that."

Eddie breaks into laughter as Dustin glances between you and Steve in confusion. It takes a moment for the remark to set in before his face contorts.

"Ew," he says, pushing past the group as Steve rolls his eyes and you giggle.

"Why are you so obsessed with our sex life?" Steve asks Eddie.

"Probably because he's not getting any right now," Robin jokes.

She and Nancy approach you with a small wrapped box you hadn't seen before, and they press it into your hands.

"Open this when you get on the road," Nancy says.

"What is it?" you ask, your fingers already itching to tear the wrapping paper off.

"It's just a little something to get his blood flowing," Robin says with a wink.

You snort. "Do you know how easy it is to get his blood flowing?"

Nancy tries to suppress a grin that Jonathan apparently doesn't notice, and Robin chuckles.

"Yeah," Robin concedes. "He is a horny little dude."

"Okay!" Steve shouts one more time. "Everybody out! It's almost ten o'clock, and we're already late! Let's go!"

He ushers the group back out into the summer sun. You leave the present on the passenger seat before you follow them out, eager for last-minute hugs and well-wishes. El and Max grab you first, pulling you in for a hug, before Dustin and Eddie steal you from them.

"Have fun, you guys," Eddie says before he shoves Dustin away. He puts his arms around you and Steve, pulling the two of you close. "Have a lot of fun. I'll be waiting on the news that I'm gonna be an uncle, just so you know."

"Don't worry," you say as Steve rolls his eyes yet again. "I'll write you a postcard with all the details of how we conceived."

Eddie seems to contemplate your offer.

"Are you fucking with me again? Because I think you know I'd love that."

"Sure thing, Eddie," Steve says sarcastically, shoving him away with a laugh.

After much ado and many hugs, you and Steve board the camper, closing the door behind you. Steve hops into the driver's seat and you take up the passenger seat with Nancy and Robin's present in hand. The camper roars to life and Steve puts it into gear. Outside the window, the Party waves and shouts as Steve backs into the road. A few of the kids chase after the camper as the journey starts, only stopping when you reach a speed they can't keep up with. You keep a fond eye on the Party in the rear view mirror until they shrink, and Steve turns a corner.

"It's just us now, babe," he says, grabbing your hand and kissing the back of it.

"Hell yeah it is," you answer. "Which reminds me..."

You gently take your hand back and focus on the present; your fingers excitedly tear the paper off, showing you a blank white box. You scoot the top off and gasp at the contents.

"Oh, Steve," you say as he slows for a stop sign. "Look."

You pull a lacy pair of black panties from the box with one hand, the matching bra with the other, as you smile wide at your husband.

He turns, his jaw dropping immediately as his eyes grow cloudy.

"I'm gonna need you to put those on right now," he says.

You giggle, spotting a note in the bottom of the box as you put the garments away.

"Happy Honeymoon, Y/N and Steve," you read aloud. "We hope you have fun seeing the sights, but we hope you have more fun when Steve sees this sight. Enjoy! Love, Robin and Nancy."

Steve shifts in his seat, moving his hand to the crotch of his jeans to adjust himself.

"Babe, I -"

The sound of a horn blaring behind you cuts him off before the two of you remember you're at a stop sign. Steve presses the accelerator, moving the camper forward once more.

You can't help but giggle.

"Don't worry, baby," you say, reaching over to grab his thigh. "We'll have plenty of time for that."

"But I want it noooowwww," he whines adorably, glancing at you every few seconds as he drives.

"Patience, Mr. Harrington."

"Not when it comes to my sexy as fuck wife, Mrs. Harrington," he retorts.

You smile, tossing the present into the living space behind you. The warmth of the moment settles throughout your body and you relax into the seat, lacing your fingers with Steve's as you journey on into marriage.

This, you think, is going to be so fun.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fanfic #stranger things #stranger things fanfic #steve harrington series

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smolwritingchick · 7 months

Text

The Bangtan Gal Chapter 83- I Need You On This

Chapter Summary: BTS rent out a movie theater to watch Captain America Civil War. Jennie's dream which she had been talking about for years finally comes true. Jen has the honor to film with Yoon Mirae for the first episode of Celebrity Womance. Jennie and Jungkook spend time with his family. Jennie supports AGUST D's mixtape

Words: 9,000+

Author's Note: Bon Voyage Season 1 is next after this chapter! Also, don't panic, things will be fine :)

-------

The following morning, Jen received a phone call from one of her sisters while she was gaming with Jungkook.

"Awesome! Thank you, we'll be there! I'll make sure of it! I have been waiting to see this movie!" Jennie happily got off the phone and turned to Jungkook excitedly as he chilled on the bed. "Oppa, let's watch Civil War, today! My sister's friend hooked us all up for a rented movie theater to watch the movie, today! We'll be alone with no one to bother us!"

Jungkook's ears perked up and he quickly turned to her, Jungshooked.

She finally said it...

Jennie realized what she had just said as her entire face flushed. It just slipped out, she meant to say his name but it just flowed naturally to call him that despite her not being a fan of saying the word often.

"Did you..." he trailed off as a huge smile came across his face. He stood up and walked over to her. "Did you say what I think you just said?"

Smiling softly, she nodded. "Yes, I did."

"Can you say it, again?"

"Oppa, let's watch civil war, today."

Jungkook immediately wrapped his arms around her and gently lifted her off her feet as she laughed. "Okay, Jagi. Let's watch Civil War, today!"

"I'll tell the others," she said after getting set down.

"Am I the first guy you said oppa to?"

She pondered for a moment. "As a matter of fact...yes, you are the first guy."

Jungkook smiled triumphantly, already planning to brag to his hyungs. "Good."

At the theatre, JenKook wore Marvel shirts for the special occasion and sat in the back while the rest of Bangtan sat further down, scattered around. Her sisters sat near the members.

"I hope y'all won't be doing anything dirty back there!" Vienna teased the couple.

"Hush and watch the movie!" Alani replied.

"Would y'all be quiet!?" Jen shouted as the previews finished.

As they watched Captain America Civil War, JenKook freaked out and spoke during the movie which amused the members.

"Look at this, look at this! Look at this perfection! Iron Man wishes he could do this!" Jen said as Captain America was shown fighting at the beginning of the movie.

During the scene where Tony gives the students a grant, Jungkook goes on to brag about Iron Man, "Captain America wishes he could give students a grant like Tony,"

"Oh shut up," she rolled her eyes.

"Be jealous~!" he teased.

The rest of the members laughed at the debate JenKook had rows behind them including her laughing at Tony getting beaten up and hit by cars.

"That wasn't funny!" Jungkook huffed.

"Yes, it was,"

The scene with Steve and Bucky talking about whether Bucky was worth it made Jennie tear up.

"You see the mess he made!? All of them are in cells! Captain America is better." Jen debated with him later on in the movie.

"They brought this on themselves,"

"How!?"

"Would you guys be quiet!?" Jin shouted.

"We knew this was going to happen," Namjoon laughed.

During the plot twist of Bucky being the one to kill Tony's parents, Jennie and Jungkook were shooked.

"No..." she covered her mouth.

"I hate him, I hope he dies," Jungkook furiously stared at the scene.

"No! I don't want Bucky to die-"

"He killed Iron Man's parents!"

"He was brainwashed! It wasn't him!"

"I don't care!"

"Well, I care!"

The final fight scene between Bucky and Captain America going after Tony got them hyped as they both cheered on their favorite superheroes.

A scream left Jen's lips when Bucky's arm was destroyed by Tony.

"NO! WHY!?" she yelled.

"NO!" Jungkook yelled in horror when Cap hit his shield in Tony's heart.

Jen covered her mouth again and started tearing up at the defeated Iron Man. He really got hit in the arc reactor.

"Jungkook..." she murmured, not knowing what to say.

"Do you see the destruction your Captain America has done!? He ruined everything!" he angrily said.

"Hey! Don't blame him! He was protecting his friend!" she snapped at him.

"People are hurt! He almost killed Tony! That's unforgivable!"

"Tony tried to kill Bucky! He blew out his arm!"

"He deserved it!"

"No, the hell he didn't! He's a changed man!"

"A-are they actually angry with each other? Are they really fighting?" Jin asked with concern.

"Nah, they do this all the time when they watch Marvel movies," Taehyung answered, calmly.

"Yeah, they're just bonding, no need to worry," Jimin reassured with a chuckle.

Near the end, Jennie laughed at Stan Lee's cameo, calling Tony, Tony Stank.

"Ha! I told you it was true! Tony Stank for the win!" she laughed.

"At least Tony is richer than everyone," Jungkook quipped.

"Oh ho ho...no the hell he ain't! Black Panther is richer! Um, hello he is a whole prince. He has almost 100 trillion! Don't get me started on my brothers,"

"Blah, blah, blah,"

After the movie finished, Jennie sighed in contentment. "Gosh, I hope they have a Black Panther movie soon! Like that'll be so lit. I can only imagine how awesome it'll be. What I wouldn't give to be a part of a Marvel movie. That would be a dream. Even if it's just a song or something or a small role, I don't even care,"

------

After the movie, Bangtan went shopping at the mall. When splitting up into groups at the mall, the members found their way back to each other after shopping at Forever 21. Everyone but Jennie had bought some things because all she was looking for was a certain brand of perfume that she could not find anywhere. That was until she finally spotted Victoria's Secret.

"Oh my gosh, finally! I gotta get something real quick!" she eagerly rushed in, surprising the guys with her enthusiasm. "Man, oh man, I hope they have it."

"Jennie...what are you planning on getting from here?" Jin's heart dropped as he walked into the store with fear, quickly following her.

"I think we all know exactly what she is going to buy from here." Hobi chuckled with Yoongi.

"Hey, hey, Jungkookie, do you think Jennie is going to buy something to wear for you?" Jimin teased, wrapping an arm around him as they walked deeper into the store.

'I-is she going to get some lingerie now? I-in front of the Hyungs? Is she ready for THAT??' Jungkook thought with wonder and astonishment as he began to blush.

Did she want to do THAT already?

His imagination was already beginning to wander...

Did she want him to go crazy?

Why couldn't she do this when they were alone? Not with the rest of the guys around them.

Jungkook's thoughts were interrupted by a large pat on the back by Namjoon. "I'm surprised she would be this bold. Don't you want to help her pick something out? We can wait out here."

Before Jungkook could answer, he peeped Jennie walking past all the underwear.

'Wait...why is she walking past the lingerie? Even the red underwear?? No...no, no, why?' Jungkook thought.

"Finally!" she happily announced and grabbed a few bottles of the perfume she wanted. "I have been trying to find these everywhere!"

Namjoon let out a laugh, looking stunned. "W-wow...perfume. Would you look at that? She came here for perfume."

Jin sighed out of relief. "I'm glad it was just that!"

"Yeah, of course. What did you think I was gonna get in here?" Jen stared at him like it was the most obvious thing she would get in the store.

Meanwhile, disappointment was clearly shown on Jungkook's face while the rest of the members felt salty that what she bought wasn't what they were expecting.

"Darn...I really thought she was going to get a set for Jungkook." Hobi whined.

"Bet the kid is upset, right about now," Yoongi added.

"Aw...tough luck, Jungkookie." Jimin giggled with Taehyung.

Back at the hotel, Jungkook decided to speak up about it and ask her about the stunt she pulled at Victoria's Secret.

"S-so you weren't planning on getting anything else?" he asked.

"Nope, just the perfume. Why?" she watched him as he averted his eyes.

She then realized what he had meant and felt her face heat up. "O-oh." she nervously laughed. "Well...the stuff in that store is not even what I would want to wear for you when I'm ready for that."

That sparked his interest as his ears perked up. "Well, what do you want to wear?"

"I guess you'll have to wait and find out one day." she teased, grabbing the controller to finish her game.

"When can I find out?" he eagerly asked.

"Shh."

"Can I at least know the color?"

"Shh."

"Can it be red?"

"Shh!"

-------

The next morning, all packed and ready to leave America, Jennie met with the rest of the members on the first floor.

"Jen," Diana, her manager called out.

"Yeah?" she turned to face her.

"You won't be going back to Korea just yet,"

That caused Jennie to furrow her brows. What did she mean? She was planning to go back with the members so what could possibly be left on her schedule? It made her nervous but decided to stay positive about it.

"Okaaaay. What else is on my schedule?"

"Last minute meeting Bang PD and I scheduled with some important people that want to meet you. Come on. They're waiting for us,"

Important people? Meeting? That she and Bang PD scheduled? What was going on?

After telling the members she'd be staying a while longer in America and saying her goodbyes, she went to follow Diana in a car that took them to the location of the meeting.

"You keep looking at me. What is going on?" Jen asked after she caught Diana staring at her longer than usual.

"It's nothing. Just relax. The meeting shouldn't take that long, anyway." she replied, trying to change the subject.

"Who am I meeting anyway?"

"You'll see when we get there,"

After arriving at the location, Diana escorted her to a meeting room to see two caucasian people. A man and woman in suits with welcoming smiles.

"Ah, Jennifer Walker. It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person," the man spoke first shaking her hand.

"Hi, nice to meet you as well," she politely replied.

The two introduced themselves and informed her that they were looking for potential musical artists to endorse Macy's. The idea did interest Jen as she thought it would be a good opportunity since she already endorsed Puma with BTS.

"Any brands you enjoy wearing?" she was asked.

"Nike!" she beamed. "That's my all-time favorite brand,"

"Nike? Why that brand?"

"Oh, a lot of things. I have a whole collection of Nike sneakers. I just love everything about it. Their style, their clothes. It makes me feel empowered as weird as it sounds. Let me show you the collection of sneakers I have," she took out her phone, showing them the large collection of shoes.

Diana refrained from laughing while the two others looked impressed and pleased to see her so passionate about a brand like this. The exact passion they want to endorse a brand.

Jennie rambled on and on about Nike as she showed tons of photos and stories about wearing the brand.

"...and these are the sneakers I wore on the night I debuted with BTS," she rambled on.

"If you wanted to create something, what would you want?" she was also asked.

"I'd love to create a whole line of Nike shoes for dance and Nike dance clothes. Sneakers, ballet shoes, everything Nike dance shoe related. Comfortable and cute clothes to dance in for Nike. I strongly believe dancing is a sport and I feel like dancing should have some representation. It would be a dream to create something like that for Nike one day."

"Hm...I see," the lady nodded and looked over at her partner.

The man took out a folder and placed it on the table with a smile, "Well, Nike would love to see this vision come true,"

It took a few seconds for his words to register in her brain as Jen stared at them in astonishment. Her heart dropped and her mouth went dry as words couldn't form in her head.

Did he just say Nike wanted to see her vision come true?

Diana couldn't help but laugh and had to be the one to open the folder to reveal the Nike Endorsement contract waiting to be signed.

"We've had our eye on you for quite a while Miss Walker. Your passion for our brand is infectious. We would love to have you on board and put your vision into action."

"I had to talk to them to try to make something up. I didn't want them to go straight in and say they were from Nike," Diana giggled and turned to Jennie. "Wow, the look on your face. Are you going to say anything? I'm sorry, she's still trying to process all of this,"

"We understand. We've watched all those videos of her talking about Nike. We heard her passion loud and clear," the woman replied with a giggle.

Nothing came out of Jennie but tears as her chest felt heavy. Looking down at her lap, her sight was blurred with tears.

Was this another dream about Nike? It wasn't like the others.

"Y-you want me? To endorse Nike? You really want me?" she managed to speak, looking back up at them after wiping her tears with her sleeved arm.

"We've wanted you for quite a while now. We're pleased we were able to get to you due to your busy schedule. When we heard about Adidas wanting you, we were a bit worried that you would join them." they told her.

Feeling a hand on her shoulder, Jen turned to Diana.

"I already looked over the contract. Bang PD discussed it with me as well. This is what you always wanted, although Puma will have to go away,"

Jen understood about Puma and was prepared for it as she tried to process that a contract from Nike was waiting for her.

"Will you do it?" Jen was asked.

Looking up at the Nike representatives, she smiled happily with tearful eyes, opening up a pen.

"Yes! Heck yeah, I will!" she answered proudly, signing her signature.

Diana could feel herself getting emotional as she watched Jennie sign the contract. She was so proud of her having this moment.

"Great! We will keep in touch, Ms. Walker. We are looking forward to working on this vision of yours,"

"Thank you so much! Thank you! You have no idea how much this means to me! Thank you for giving me a chance! Thank you for noticing me! Thank you for everything!" Jennie rambled on about her gratitude for this blessing.

After they left, Jen hugged Diana as more tears escaped.

"Thank you so much!"

"I got you. Always remember that. You deserve it," Diana beamed.

Pulling away, she took out her phone, still shaking from what just happened, "I-I gotta call my parents," she said, calling her mom up.

"What's wrong? Why are you crying?" her mom asked on the line.

"Are you all right?" her dad asked.

"I'm crying because I'm happy," Jen sniffed.

"What happened?"

"I got it..."

"Got what?" her dad asked.

"An endorsement deal with Nike."

"Aw, baby I'm so proud of you! I told you, prayer is a powerful thing!"

--------

After returning to Seoul from her meeting with Nike, Jennie still felt her body shaking from the news that Nike wanted HER. She was about to endorse the company that she dreamed of endorsing for many years. She couldn't wait to tell the guys.

"I'm finally back!" she announced, shutting the front door.

When she turned around, the lights went on and she was welcomed with loud cheers. She looked around in wonder, genuinely surprised as she saw a large banner that said 'Congrats on the Nike Endorsement' with various balloons and confetti around the room.

There were the boys who were patiently waiting for her arrival as they had bright smiles on their faces.

"No, you didn't," she covered her mouth as a smile grew on her face.

"Congrats Ennie!" V ran up to her, scooping her up in a hug.

"She's finally endorsing Nike!" J-Hope yelled proudly, jumping up and down

"A dream come true~! Jennie and Nike 2K16!" Jungkook shouted happily.

"I knew you were going to get it one of these days! I'm glad you remained patient," Namjoon praised.

"Nike X Jennie! Finally~!" Jimin yelled

"Wow, I feel like a proud father," Jin rambled, "I can't wait to ask my friends, is your daughter cool enough to get an endorsement from Nike? No? Well, my precious Jennie scored one and is going to break barriers with it!"

"We're proud of you smartie," Yoongi praised. "You deserve this. We're glad you went with your heart,"

"I wish we could have seen the look on her face when she found out," Hobi laughed with Namjoon and Jimin at the thought.

After being set down, she walked further into the room to see pizza and plates waiting at the table, along with a large cake that said congrats on the Nike endorsement.

It took her a moment to realize that they all knew that she was going to get it.

"Wait...you guys knew?!" she asked, taken aback. "That I was going to get it!? And you didn't drop any hints!?"

"Of course not! That eliminates the element of surprise," Jungkook giggled.

"Guys..." she said as she looked at them with tears falling down her cheeks.

"Aw, she's crying! I told you she was going to cry!" J-Hope laughed and pulled her in for a hug.

The rest of the guys joined in, saying that it was all right. After pulling herself together, she smiled and thanked them for supporting her.

"Wow, Nike really has you now. How did the meeting go?" Jimin asked.

"I was nervous, I didn't know what I was getting myself into," she said and explained to them what happened.

In response, they teased her for her reaction.

"Finally that company opened their eyes to see a gem they have for an endorsement. They're going to be happy they chose you," Yoongi said confidently.

"If you need us to model for your brand or anything, let us know," V added.

"Free promo," Namjoon grinned

"Thanks, guys. Really. This is just so surreal. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. Frickin' Nike...and Jennie of BTS. Bangtan is moving forward. V and his drama, our comeback we're working on. K-Con headliners, Yoongi's mixtape. I feel like as we progress, we're only going to be chasing more bags and success. Let's keep working hard," she high fived all of them as they cheered.

"That's the energy to have! How soon can you start designing what you want to do?" Jin asked as they all sat at the table.

"For now, they'll be in touch with me," she answered.

"Wait until ARMY finds out. They'll be ecstatic," V said.

"Are you going to tell them soon or wait a bit?" Jungkook asked.

"I want to wait a bit. Let it be a huge surprise when I announce it," she replied.

"Cool. Now dig in!" Jimin laughed and pushed her face into the cake with Jin.

--------

As a few weeks went by, Bangtan was back in America for LA's K-Con. The group went through a series of interviews to promote it. News about Suga's mixtape that he was working on had got out and he expressed his enthusiasm that Armies were excited about it.

"Jennifer has been the biggest supporter out of my journey working on the mixtape," Suga announced proudly as she looked at him in shock. "I would find her trying to peek in my studio to see if I'm working on it. I am happy to have a strong support system for my music. ARMY, I hope you like the finished product,"

She didn't expect him to acknowledge that and it made her feel good. The huge smile on her face did not go unnoticed by viewers and the members as Suga glanced over at her to give her a soft smile.

Fans commented on the YoonJen moment and expressed their excitement for his mixtape:

'Awww YoonJen!'

'Keep in mind Yoongi said, Jennifer. Not smartie. You know he serious af about her being supportive of him! I'm soft!'

'My heart! I can't wait for him to release it!'

After the interview, Jennie went out to roam around K-Con with Sejin and a bodyguard with her. She came across fans performing dance covers of BTS songs. It appeared to be a local dance group and she watched as they performed fire. What took her by surprise was the black male dancer performing her part.

'Wow!' she thought, mesmerized as he nailed her mannerisms. It was like she was looking at herself perform.

"Yasssss!" she shouted, which caught the attention of fans who began to scream. "Y'all killing it!"

A large portion of fans tried to get her attention for photos and autographs but she kindly told them that she wanted to watch the rest of the performance before any interaction. They respected it and watched as she happily danced to the beat of fire, enjoying the performance.

After the group finished, Jennie approached them and clapped.

"That was amazing! You guys killed it!"

"Oh my gosh, thank you! We can't believe you came out here!" one of the dancers said.

"I'm still a K-Pop fan at heart. I just wanted to drop in and say hey. How long have you been in a group? The synchronization was extremely good,"

"That means the world to us coming from you. We wanted to do it justice. We've been performing since 2014!"

"Wow, keep dancing, please! Don't ever stop. All of you are gifted,"

As more fans gathered around, she tried to take as many selfies as she could.

"Jennie! What do you think of NCT?" a fan asked.

"I tweeted about them! They are lit! Sooo many members. Firetruck is a bop," she beamed.

"Do you have a bias?"

"Not yet! Hard to choose,"

"I love you and Alex Reid. Have you met Alex yet?"

This had been a common question. Unfortunately, she still hasn't met the girl but eagerly wants to. Someone to relate to in this industry.

"Sadly no. But I really want to! I hope we can meet up one of these days,"

After going backstage, Jen felt like she could breathe easier since Bangtan wasn't until the end of the show. She spent time with Ailee and watched backstage as she performed. She had some mic trouble but she nailed the performance without music as the queen that she was. Her A cappella was on point and it blew her away.

"Jen!"

Her name was called out and she turned around to see Zico waving and walking over to her with Dean.

"Zico! Long time no see! How are you?" she pulled him in for a hug.

"Doing good. How you been?"

"Everything has just been blessings upon blessings. I got my Nike endorsement!"

"No way, you finally got it?! About time! They have a gem on their hands! I can't wait to see what you create with them!"

"Aw thank you!" she turned to Dean. "Hi! I'm Jennie! It's so nice to finally meet you, Dean! Your music is so dope. I love your sound,"

Dean was pleased to hear how much she praised his music and thanked her.

"Your vocals are like so soothing and I admire your work. I hope you get a ton of awards for your EP," she added.

"Thank you, Jennie. How does it feel headlining K-Con with BTS?" Dean asked with a smile.

"Surreal. I am so grateful,"

After talking with them, she stayed in BTS' dressing room.

"Hello! Is Jennie Unnie here?" a female voice asked.

Jennie turned around, pausing her conversation with Jimin to see the IOI members walking in.

"Ah! There she is!" the voice belonged to Somi.

All the members of IOI had walked in with bright smiles, dressed in their outfits to perform.

"Oh my gosh, hi!" Jennie rushed up to them.

She hadn't seen them in a while but watched closely at the survival show's results and their journey as a group.

Sohye with a cute smile presented the large basket to her. "This is on behalf of us,"

"F-for me? Oh my gosh, thank you," she graciously accepted it and placed it on the table.

"A thank you for supporting us," Pinky added.

When Jennie opened it, she squealed in glee when she saw it was filled with packs of smarties. Her happy sound effect made the girls giggle, proud that she liked the gift. Meanwhile, Bangtan watched with amusement.

'You're becoming a great role model, Jennie,' Namjoon thought as he watched IOI look up at her in admiration.

"My smarties! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she went on to hug all of them. "How does it feel to be a group? Hard work paid off, huh? I see bright futures for all of you,"

"Yeah, we love it. It's so exciting to be here, too," Chungha answered.

"I'm glad. Make the most of everything. And if you need anything, I'm here for you,"

-------

Back in Korea, with the short amount of free time that they had, Jungkook wanted Jennie to join him to eat with his family. He thought it was the perfect time to tell them that they were dating, too. There was no doubt in his mind that they were going to be thrilled.

Once they made it to his parents' house, Jungkook turned to her with a smile.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"Butterflies are increasing as we get closer to the door," she admitted and took a deep breath.

"You'll be fine. I have a strong feeling they're going to be pretty excited to hear the good news," he grinned at her, making her mellow out.

Suddenly the door opened to reveal his mom smiling brightly at them.

"Jungkook! You're here!" she pulled him in for a hug. "Look at you. Are you eating well?" she pulled away.

"Always, Mom,"

"Good," she turned to Jennie as her smile got wider. "Jennie! I'm so happy you can join us!"

"Hi, Mrs. Jeon. Thank you for having me. This is for you and your husband," she presented her with a gift basket she created for them.

"Oh, thank you very much. Come on. Both of you. Your father and brother are in the backyard, Jungkook,"

"Okay," he responded and let Jennie walk in first. He followed her inside and closed the door.

'You okay while I go to the backyard?' he gave her a look, initiating a brief nonverbal conversation.

'Yes, go on ahead.' she nodded and returned the smile that he gave her.

As she watched him leave, Jennie turned her attention to his mom placing the basket on a table.

"I've been so excited to see you again!" she heard his mom say.

She has?

"Really? That means a lot, thank you!"

"Jungkook can never stop talking about you. It made me miss you more than I already have,"

"He talks about me a lot to you?" she chuckled softly, feeling her heart soar as she heard about her missing her.

"Oh, all the time. It was the cutest thing. Since you came along, I have seen a positive difference in his character. I'm not sure what is going on but whatever it is, I hope it continues,"

'Wow, all from us dating?' Jen thought optimistically.

A lot of people have been saying this to her lately. That Jungkook had been more lively and open. Was it really because of her?

"I hope so too," she smiled. "May I assist you?"

His mother looked at her with appreciation as she was preparing to finish up dinner. "Yes, I would love that. Please set up the table,"

"You got it,"

After finishing it up, she helped his mom put the food on the table.

"Jennie is here," she heard Jungkook as he walked inside with his brother and father.

"I'm glad that I finally get to meet her. You talk about her so much, it made me anticipate her arrival even more," his brother, Jung-hyun said to him.

"Hi! It's nice to finally meet you, Jung-hyun," Jennie greeted kindly.

"Likewise. It's nice to meet the 'most precious person' to my brother,"

That made her face heat up while he giggled at her and his brother's flustered reaction. He could easily tell something was going on and was happy his little brother found a significant other. He approved of Jennie right away just from Jungkook chatting about her and showing their photos over their years in Bangtan.

"H-hey! Cut it out!" Jungkook smacked his brother's arm for putting him on blast like that.

His face turned slightly pink as he planned his revenge.

"Jennie! It's good to see you again, how are you doing?" his father asked.

"Very well! I'm happy to be here, Mr. Jeon,"

As they sat down for dinner, Jen sat next to Jungkook while they were across from his parents and brother.

"Jung-hyun, Jungkook showed me some of your art. It's amazing. You know my sister Alani likes to create DIY items,"

"Oh really? Cool. Thank you. I'd like to see them sometime," he grinned.

"She has an Instagram about it. I'll show you later,"

"How many siblings do you have?"

"Just two! Both sisters. Alani and Vienna. Alani is into communications and Vienna is starting to lean more into acting. Lately, she's been wanting to get into Broadway and been auditioning quite a bit,"

After more small talk, Jennie felt comfortable and relaxed further. Jungkook noticed and was happy that his family warmed up to her so easily.

"Are your sisters gamers, too?" his brother asked.

"Not as much as me. I'm more of the gamer out of the three of us,"

"She sucks at Overwatch," Jungkook laughed. "She died as soon as the match began. I wish we recorded it for our channel. It was hilarious,"

'Wooooow. Roasting me in front of your family?' Jennie thought, amused as her nervousness melted away completely.

"Hey, I'm still learning. And you show no mercy in these games. Whenever we play against each other you don't give me a chance to try to hit you," she pointed out.

"Of course not, I want to win," he teased.

"I think you should at least go easy on me so I can learn and then go full out,"

His parents watched them cutely bicker about video games and gave each other knowing looks. She definitely fitted right in. Her genuine smile towards their son was another significant factor. And how she praised him throughout the entire dinner touched their hearts.

"You game as often as Jungkook?" his dad smiled.

"All the time. You should watch our channel sometime. It's really funny," she grinned.

"She gets competitive a lot, Dad," Jungkook laughed. "Just like me. There are games that she's better at and tries to teach me,"

"Well just know that I will be rooting for you, Jennie," his father promised her.

"Dad, you're not going to be cheering me on?" Jungkook looked offended, while his girlfriend and mother giggled.

"It's nice to see you get beat once in a while in games,"

"Jennie, how is your family doing?" his mom asked her.

"Really well. There hasn't been much going on at home. Just working and enjoying summer,"

"One day it would be nice to meet them and have dinner together," his dad suggested.

That made her get butterflies in her stomach as she appeared Jenshooked. Was it obvious that she and Jungkook were dating because throughout this entire meal, they'd been talking a lot about the future and how Jungkook had changed happily because of her.

"Dinner with you and her family?" Jungkook looked Jungshooked for a moment.

"Of course! We're eager to meet your girlfriend's family!" his dad blurted out with a large smile.

"Dad..." Jung-hyun groaned. "We were waiting for them to announce it themselves,"

"Surprise ruined," his mom sighed.

His dad laughed nervously. "Whoops. Sorry. I mean look at them. Adorable. They've been holding hands under the table the entire meal. I had to say something,"

Jungkook and Jennie looked at each other and couldn't help but laugh. Jennie had nothing to worry about. Things were just fine.

"Wow, was it that obvious?" Jungkook smiled bashfully.

"Your body language, little brother," Jung-hyun pointed out. "And your lingering gaze towards her. It's cute,"

"Ah..." Jungkook looked down, feeling his face heat up.

Meanwhile, Jennie felt happier than ever at how excited they were to see them dating.

"How long have you two been together?" his mom asked.

"Since January. He's so good to me," she answered sweetly.

"Ah, beautiful. I for one am very happy to see my son with someone that brings out the best in him. You are a wonderful, sweet girl. I fully support this,"

That made Jennie tear up and blink the happy tears away. Wow. They approved. All of them.

After they finished eating, his mom came out with a small cake. It was mouthwatering as Jen devoured it. After eating a second slice, Jennie asked if she could learn how to make it. The surprised expression on Jungkook's mom's face made her smile as she agreed and asked if Jen could teach her the recipe for the baked goods she baked for them a while back.

"I just wanted to say thank you for welcoming me with open arms and for your hospitality," Jen smiled.

"Of course. I'm so happy it worked out between you two. We are looking forward to having you over again soon when your schedules allow it," his father grinned.

--------

As summer went on for BTS, Jennie, and Jungkook were invited to film a variety show. With Jungkook, he was on Celebrity Bromance and paired up with Shinhwa's Minwoo. They spent the entire day together and even rock climbed as Jungkook began to feel more comfortable and open around him as the day went on.

After the cameras were off them for a brief period, Minwoo asked if there was any special young lady that caught his eye. His question earned an immediate smile from the Golden Maknae as he thought about Jennie.

"That's the smile of a man in love," Minwoo said with a light chuckle while noticing how his eyes shined brightly. "She must be exceptional,"

"She is. I kind of think of us as soulmates," Jungkook smiled shyly as a blush grew on his cheeks. Taking out his phone, he showed him a photo of them together, "This is my girlfriend. Her name is Jennie,"

"Wow, she's beautiful. You two are in the same group, too. Bangtan is very protective of her, I'm sure?"

"Absolutely. She is very precious to us,"

"Good. I bet she has quite the admirers. How did you two start dating?"

"She does. I wanted her so I was persistent for her to be my girlfriend. I made the first move to express my feelings and kissed her before her flight back home to America. Ah...I felt like my mom because she made the first move and went after my dad," he laughed with him. "She's the best...I'm very happy with her,"

"Treasure every day of your beautiful relationship. And don't let anyone, not even the media ruin what you have,"

"I will treasure it. Every day,"

---------

Meanwhile, when it came to Jennie, she starred in a new show called Celebrity Womance. A spinoff of Celebrity Bromance. Jen was honored to be in the first episode of this new show. She decided to meet the woman she was paired up with at a bubble tea shop, ordering tea for both of them.

"I am excited that they asked me to be a part of the first episode of Celebrity Womance. There's already a bromance version of it so it'll be fun to see who I am going to be paired up with. I have no clue who it might be," Jennie said on camera for a brief interview with the staff of the show.

She then went to sit back at her seat in the café to wait for the woman.

"I'm a little nervous..." she murmured and contemplated chewing a piece of gum to relax.

But then chose to sip on her milk bubble tea instead, chewing on the bubbles that came up through the straw.

'Someone Appeared!'

Jennie turned in the direction of the door opening to see Yoon Mirae walking in with a bright smile.

"Hello!" Yoon Mirae greeted with a wave.

"Holy crap," Jennie blurted out in English under her breath as she stared at her, bewildered.

She covered her mouth and felt embarrassed at the sudden statement while Yoon Mirae giggled.

She stood up and bowed at the highly respected artist, "H-hi! Oh my gosh, it's an honor to meet you! My name is Jennie!"

"Nice to meet you, I'm Yoon Mirae. You can call me Natasha Unnie,"

'Unnie already?! Whoa!' Jennie thought in amazement.

"Wow. I...wow. I was not expecting this. You worked with my leader and now I'm sitting with you today,"

The show showed a montage about Yoon Mirae and said that she is one of the most highly respected artists. To Jennie, it was a dream come true.

"I've been watching you," Yoon Mirae smiled.

"You have?"

"You've caused quite a stir when BTS was announced. A black girl in the group. I bet you had to deal with a lot of negativity,"

"Yes. I don't even know where to start. It was ridiculous,"

"What has it been like for you as a black woman here?"

"When I first started, they tried to make me look paler. The makeup they would use would be lighter. It was embarrassing and so disrespectful because I was like hey, this is not my shade. Why do you have to try to make me look lighter? There is nothing wrong with my skin. I had to start talking with the stylists and educate them. I remember some started reading articles and watching YouTube videos on how to style my hair,"

"Have they stopped making you look pale?"

"Yes, thankfully. It took a little while but now my makeup looks more like it should for my skin. And before that, I started bringing my makeup and gave it to them to use instead. When I first started in BTS they always seemed to prioritize the boys and their make up but when it came to me, not so much. I'm happy to see the growth in my hair and makeup being a priority in BTS. You've been bullied a lot too, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have. Growing up I experienced a lot of racism and bullying. When my dad was in the army, we moved a lot when I was young. People would tell my dad that he was a sell-out because he married a Korean woman, why marry a Korean,"

Jennie frowned at that and shook her head. "I get so frustrated with that. If you love someone, you love someone. Whatever race you are or what you're into. I don't like it when people judge who you're dating, especially if they're biased towards people dating within their race. There is nothing wrong with interracial dating and I'm a full supporter of that,"

The two shared a long conversation about their time living in America and then coming to Korea. Jennie was amazed by her story. The fact that she had to deal with so much as a mixed woman and how traumatizing it was for her devastated Jennie.

When asked about the pressure of being the black girl in BTS, Jen broke down.

"Sorry," she tried to laugh away her pain but the tears were too much to stop as they ran down her face. "I'll admit it's been extremely hard over the years. All those hate comments, it was so hurtful to see them coming from the fans that were supposed to be supporting the group. All members of the group. I thought I would be protected by them, y'know? From all the rest of those hating on me. They would defend the rest of the members from the hate but when it came to me, I was just an afterthought. I'm just as important as the rest of the guys. I work just as hard as them and I love our fans just as much as them,"

Yoon Mirae reached out to hold her hand, listening to her as she expressed herself.

"Sometimes it can be overwhelming. And I used to feel like a burden being the only girl in the group. So many high expectations, being an African American in this country, people wonder if you can keep up with the guys, making sure the company is impressed with your work and doesn't think you're slowing down. It's something that was always on my mind," she went on.

"And you're still here. Still strong and performing," Yoon Mirae smiled. "I was happy to see you in BTS. And I was worried about the negative feedback you would get. But you've overcome a lot and you are still standing. You should be proud of that. And what I've dealt with as a kid made me stronger too,"

"Thank you. It definitely has. Things have been much better now. A lot of positives outweighed the negatives. And your music helped me a lot. I love your song Black Happiness. You are such an inspiration and I do hope I can become a well respected and influential artist. To have people look up to me and be a positive role model as a member of BTS is a big dream of mine,"

"I would say that you already are. Keep doing what you are doing, Jennie. Keep singing and working hard. You're a bigger inspiration to others than you think,"

After drinking bubble tea, the two decided to spend the day roller skating. There were a lot of laughs between them as they got to know each other. Both fell quite a few times and helped each other up. After skating, they ate at a booth by the roller rink.

"Do you have a significant other?" Yoon Mirae asked after the crew took a break from filming.

A bright smile came across Jen's face as she thought about Jungkook.

She nodded happily, "I do! I'm happily dating Jungkook. We've been dating since early January,"

"Ah, your group member? That's cute. Who liked who first?"

"Well, he," she chuckled, "He did. He liked me for a long time and we became best friends. One night he confessed and kissed me hours before my flight back to America,"

"Wow, how bold,"

"Very. But I'm glad he did because it made me realize how strong my feelings were for him. And even if we weren't dating, we would always be best friends. I'll always have love for him. I feel like we're soulmates because I feel such a strong and deep connection with him. He makes me so happy,"

The smile didn't leave Jennie's face as she went on, "I'm still learning about love. I'm still young and experiencing a lot of things. I'm happy it's with him and I wouldn't change anything about it,"

"There's nothing like being with the one you love. That's how I feel about my husband,"

"Right? And I recently met his parents and brother for dinner to announce that we were dating. They were so happy and welcoming. It made me cry that they accepted me so quickly,"

Yoon Mirae smiled at that. She was proud of Jennie. Things were looking up for her and she hoped it continued for this young artist.

"There are days when I watch you and your husband together, being a strong duo in music, it makes me think of Jungkook and I. I want that. To be able to perform with him on stage, and have songs together. I'm not sure when we'll tell our fanbase about our relationship but for now, we are just trying to keep things private and away from Dispatch as much as possible," Jen added.

As the evening progressed, the two sat at the park to enjoy the summer night while eating water ice together.

"Time flew so fast and now our time is about to end," Jen sighed.

She truly enjoyed her day with her. She learned so much and got a lot of advice on performing and life in the industry. The two planned to keep in touch and exchanged contact information.

---------

"Jennifer," a deep voice called out.

Looking up from her phone, she turned her head to see him leaning up against the door of her studio. He appeared nervous as he wondered how he was going to ask her what was on his mind.

"Hey, what's up?" she kindly greeted.

"I want to talk to you...privately. Meet me in my studio when you're ready. I'll be here all night. Take your time," he said and walked away.

His studio...?

"I wonder what he wants to discuss," she murmured as she finished her break.

After she finished her work, she made her way down to his studio and shut the door. She watched gleefully as she noticed that he was working on his mixtape.

"Ah, you're working on it! I'm so happy!" she beamed.

He acknowledged her words with a soft smile and gestured for her to sit next to him.

"Yeah, about time, right? It's almost ready," he said proudly.

He had worked so hard. It was going to be worth the wait.

"I'm glad. I can't wait to hear it. So, what did you need from me?"

"I want you to listen to these two songs," he said and pressed play.

She checked out his computer screen to see that the first track was called The Last. He had played the song near the end as his raw lyrics and intense instrumental had her nodding her head to the beat. He then played So Far Away for her.

"Wow, these are..." she couldn't think of the right words to how powerful his music was.

"It's missing something," he stated.

She turned to him, confused. "Missing something? How? It sounds perfect,"

"Not without you,"

Her heart skipped a beat at his words. "What are you saying?"

"These songs are missing something. And it's you. No matter what I do, I don't feel like they are complete. I want something more on these tracks. And that's why I asked you here today. I want you to play the guitar for these two songs on my mixtape,"

'You want me...? On these?' she thought in astonishment.

"I want..." Yoongi stopped and shook his head, "I need you on this. The way you express your emotions through that instrument, I need that in these two songs. No one else can play the guitar like you. Your sound is what I need for this. Please,"

He gazed at her and held her hand, nervously waiting for her answer.

Many thoughts went through his head. Was he being too forward? She could always decline the offer. But was he prepared for that?

"When do you want to get started?" she spoke, interrupting his thoughts.

His eyes widened slightly at how quick she was to accept his request. "You'll do it?"

"No one has ever asked me to play the guitar like this for their music. It's usually just my voice and a little feature. So, doing something like this for you will mean the world to me. And the fact that I'm the one you thought of for such an important project, how could I say no to you? I'd be honored to play."

"Jennifer...thank you,"

"Always, Yoongi,"

When they got situated, they spent a couple of hours on the songs. Jen was amazed at his story. He is a reserved person and the fact that he was letting all of this out in his mixtape got her emotional.

"H-hey, Jennifer, are you okay?" Yoongi stared at her with worry as he noticed tears running down her face.

"Sorry. The Last is just getting me worked up. What you've gone through I...I'm feeling it. All of it is from your lyrics. I'll play the guitar right and do it justice. Let's record,"

"Are you sure? You want to wait until you pull yourself together first?"

"No. My sound on the guitar is enhanced when I'm feeling the emotion. If I cry, I cry. Replay it from the beginning. And when it's my cue, press record. I don't need to wait,"

Her demeanor turned into work mode as she remained focused and listened to The Last with her guitar in her hands. She listened to every lyric he rapped in song as her fingers twitched in anticipation against her guitar.

Yoongi couldn't help but feel slightly concerned as she waited for her cue.

"Hey, if this is too sad for you or-"

She raised her hand, signaling him to be quiet as she continued to listen.

Deciding to do as she said, he watched her in her work mode. Lately, Jennie had been mirroring the emotion of whatever she played on her guitar on her face. This was a vulnerable song. And she couldn't help but shed tears as she listened, preparing to play.

Once she heard the drums, she began to aggressively strum through the strings as his rap played against her ears. He watched her astounded as it was everything he wanted in this song and more. The way she played sounded perfect against his voice. The powerful chords she played against his voice were going to leave a huge impact on the mixtape for sure. After she was done, she exhaled sharply and set down her guitar.

"Now I need a moment," she said, wiping her tears. "I felt that. All of that,"

"What you just did was amazing. I don't know what happened but it sounded perfect. Thank you," he praised.

"I try," she smiled and he went to check it out on the computer to fit it in the song.

Once he had done some finishing touches to the song, he replayed it for them to listen. Yep, he was right, it did sound perfect. Fully complete.

"Hey, before we work on So Far Away, can you play AGUST D? I've been staring at it and I'm curious about how it sounds," she requested.

"Sure," he clicked on it twice.

"Oh!" she shouted out after the first few beats. "Oh! Oh okay!"

He laughed at her reaction as she danced in her seat while they listened to the song.

They call me new thang

Shinbyeong watda jimeul badeo

"Whew! Okay!" she cheered, nodding her head to the beat.

Oh, this was lit! This song was going harder than she anticipated.

A to the G to the U to the STD

I'm d boy because I'm from D

Nan michinnom biteu wiye runachik

Raebeuro hongkongeul bonaeneun

My tongue technology

Jennie almost fell out of her seat from that lyric. "OH! Tongue technology!?"

Nan bekkineun geol bekkineun nomeul jabadaga

Hubaedeun seonbaedeun jekkineun nom

"Oh shi-okay!" she jumped up and down in her seat during his second verse. He was rapping so damn fast as she stared at him in disbelief. "Yoongi~!"

Hyeongdeure shigi jiltu deoge saenggineun soeum

"OOOOOOOOOOO~!" she shouted, covering her mouth against the side of her fist. "Yo replay that back! You going crazy right now! The delivery! The delivery of that! Replay it back please!"

Yoongi's stomach began to hurt from the amount of laughter he was doing from her reaction. She was adorable. Accepting her request, he scrolled back to the second verse after the chorus.

"Yoongi! Bro! Why are you going off like this? Like damn!"

He grinned bashfully at her praise. "Ah..."

"No, that second verse! How fast you were rapping!? Come on! That's amazing!"

-------

Once his mixtape was finished, Yoongi prepared to film two music videos. Once Jennie found out about it, she made plans to visit him during his AGUST D music video shoot. As soon as he left the dorm, she went to work to bake Agust D themed cookies for him.

"Yo yo yo~!" Jennie walked on the set with a box of cookies in her hands.

'AGUST D gets a visitor!'

Yoongi turned around and saw her smiling at him. A wide grin appeared on his face as he couldn't resist expressing how extremely happy he was to see her. He wasn't expecting anyone to come by during his shoot but the fact that Jennie came made his heart jump for joy.

"Smartie! What are you doing here?"

She laughed, "You know your biggest fan had to be here! You support me, I support you! Here. Your batch of Agust D cookies. It took forever to try to get the boys to not eat them,"

"You made me cookies? Smartie..." his gummy smile appeared on his face as he accepted them. "She baked me cookies. Her cookies are the best. If you get a chance to eat them, you won't regret it,"

"Aw, you flatter me," she smiled bashfully. "How's filming?" she asked as he took a cookie out of the box and ate one.

He sighed in joy at the deliciousness before answering, "Exhausting. This is honestly more tiring than BTS' music videos. But it's going great. I'm almost done and then tomorrow I film the rest of my music video,"

After visiting Yoongi and staying to watch him record, Jen was called to Big Hit's building for an urgent meeting and came back to the dorms visibly upset. It was abrupt that this happened but she was told by the company that she had to go home due to some visa troubles. She honestly thought things were fine with her paperwork and she could continue to do what she does but now she needed to pack and go home until everything got situated.

When Sejin arrived at the dorm with Jennie, the boys sensed something was wrong and immediately asked questions. Once Sejin gave everyone the news, the mood in the room went down and everyone was stunned by the abruptness.

"What!?" Jungkook exclaimed in disbelief as he shook his head in denial.

"You can't go home!" Jimin exclaimed.

"I think they messed up on some documentation or whatever. I don't know but all I know is I need to go home for a little bit until they fix the issue. Maybe it won't be for that long," she tried to stay positive about it.

"No way," Jin shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe this,"

"We need you. We need all 8 of us here. We're working on our comeback. Everything," Rapmon began to ramble.

She frowned. "I know...I'm annoyed. This is so poorly timed. I thought everything was straight with my stuff,"

"When are you leaving?" Yoongi frowned.

"Tonight," she sighed, which did not sit well with any of them as they tried to ask Sejin if there was anything to prevent it.

Meanwhile, Jen went to go pack as she was told while Jungkook accompanied her to her room. He sat on her bed as he watched her take out a suitcase and go through her clothes.

"Stupid visa..." she grumbled.

She tried to keep her emotions in check. She had plans to chill tonight and now had to spend it on a plane. With Jungkook, he was still trying to wrap his head around her leaving soon.

"Jagi, do you really have to leave...?"

Hopelessness and sadness were evident in the Golden Maknae's voice as he helplessly watched her pack.

He knew the inevitable.

She had to go home. And that meant they'd be apart for an unknown amount of time as Big Hit handled her visa situation. Sure there were times when she would go to America and then come back to Korea but from everything he was hearing, it seemed like this was going to take longer than usual.

On top of that, it was comeback season. That meant more stress as she wouldn't be there to be in his arms to cuddle when both of them felt overwhelmed from working on their comeback. She wouldn't be there to massage him whenever he stayed later from dance practice. Or nap with him after a long day. They wouldn't be showered with kisses, tickles, and derp faces from one another if they needed a good laugh to escape the stress. Finding out that she had to leave so abruptly made his heart shatter and frustrated him. Sure it was temporary but it bummed him out that it had to be this circumstance.

Their dog Tony, whimpered sadly, observing his parents. It was hard to watch Jennie pack up as he was lying in the middle of her bed with a sad expression. No special smartie belly rubs for quite some time. No JenKook bathing him like the family they were. This was going to be new to JenKook but perhaps this would make their relationship grow as they adjust to this brief long-distance relationship.

When Jennie turned to face Jungkook, she smiled sadly at his pouting expression. It was going to be difficult to leave him.

"You know I have to," she answered softly.

"I don't...want you to go," he murmured, looking down at his feet.

"I don't want to go either but it's just for a little while. I'll be back before you know it, Kookie,"

"Can I just come with you?" he looked up and asked as the idea popped into his head.

"As much as I would love that, you know you have to stay here,"

He frowned. It was worth a shot at least.

"It's just...I..." he hesitated.

He just wanted her to stay. She always knew how to make him feel at ease during the comeback season for Bangtan. Now that she was about to leave, it just wouldn't be the same.

Sensing him overwhelming himself with negative thoughts, she strolled over to him. Standing in front of him as he continued to sit on the edge of the bed, she cupped his face.

"Hey," she softly called out, looking down at him. "No matter the distance, we'll make it work. We're the Golden Duo after all. This long-distance thing won't make us tap out. We can do it,"

He smiled at her words. "You're right. We will,"

He reached out for her as he pulled her into his lap. Smiling, she leaned down to kiss him slowly, trying to enjoy his lips as much as she could before she had to leave. She'll miss this.

"Don't do that..." he murmured against her lips and pulled back, panting softly.

"What?"

"Kiss me like that when you're about to leave. It'll drive me crazy," he admitted.

ARF! ARF!

Tony's barking caused them to turn in his direction. The dog happily jumped around after watching them. He jumped on them, causing JenKook to laugh at the sudden movement and break apart. She took a seat next to Jungkook instead.

"I think our son is happy to see us trying to think positively about the situation," Jungkook giggled loudly as a bunny smile appeared on his face.

"Very happy. Hey, how about a belly rub before I leave? Would you like that, Tony?" she cooed.

She giggled softly as Tony eagerly barked and she moved to sit in the middle of the bed. The dog rolled around and exposed his tummy for her while she went to work on her affectionate belly rub. He soon began to relax and eventually dozed off.

"It's going to suck when he wakes up and I'm gone," she frowned as she watched Tony sleep with Jungkook.

"We'll Facetime you," Jungkook promised.

"Please do. And make sure to send me memes and funny filter pictures of the guys,"

"I will. And I'll make sure to send you my progress on my song,"

"Good," she gave Tony one final look as she gently petted him and got off the bed to finish packing, "Make sure you don't feed him too many snacks while I'm gone. You know how you like to spoil him,"

"I won't. Our son is in good hands. I got it," he stood up and helped her.

Once she finished packing, she zipped up the suitcase. She was then gently grabbed by Jungkook and pulled in for a tight hug. Jennie sighed in contentment as she held onto him, enjoying his warmth. Their final hug for who knows how long.

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childlikegoblinqueen · 1 year

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Chapter 83 Preview: Grom Stuff and the time Darius stepped up. Literally.

The prospect of Grom was equal parts exciting and nerve wracking for Hunter. Luz had filled him in on the event one late night at the Gravesfield Diner, with Vee, who was getting ready for her own big dance at her school.

Masha had asked Vee to be their date for their senior prom – which was kind of like Grom, but without fighting a fear monster. Unless you considered Krystal Stewart, the Queen Bee cheerleader with yellow hair and signature pink stripe strategically died over her roots, a fear monster.

Maybe it wasn’t such a stretch actually? Hunter first met Krystal during his first few weeks in the human realm. When Luz had first brought Hunter and the others through the portal, on the night that King made a deal with the collector, and the night when Hunter had watched his uncle explode (and somehow not die?) Camila had taken them to the Gravesfield Mall to shop for new clothes.

Hunter had become distracted and was separated from the others only to find himself descended upon by a trio of human girls. The leader of the squad was Krystal who insisted on touching his shoulder and telling him that he was going to take her out for coffee.

Instinct told him to fight his way out, or just flee, but Luz and the others caught up to them and as soon as Krystal realized Hunter was friends with “Luz-er Noceda”, she shifted her attention from what Willow later had explained was attempted courtship, to treating Hunter and the others with whatever courtesy she had extended to Luz, Vee and the rest of Cabin 7.

It should have been practice for Boscha.

Vee was scared enough about going to prom with Masha. Not about the Masha part, you see. She’d never been to a dance before – not exactly something that happened in a basement lab of horrors beneath Belos’ castle.

No matter how much Luz assured her it was “no big”, Vee would be the only other member of the junior class other than Krystal at the event. Krystal had made it clear she was determined to be voted prom queen and likely use her station to make Vee and Masha feel small.

Like Boscha, who had been announced as Grom Queen. A triumph for her after Willow hit her in view of the entire school and she’d been kicked off the Banshees.

“It’s not even the Krystal part of Prom that worries me.” Vee sighed, “I need to learn how to dance.”

“Can’t you just do a montage or something?” Hunter mused. “Gus told me that’s the best way to learn something fast?”

“I’m all for montages,” Luz nodded, “but we need some references!”

The next morning, Hunter came upstairs to see his sisters huddled on the couch, blankets over their heads watching a movie about a kid in tight pants who infiltrated a stiff small town and taught everyone how to dance.

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bratshaws · 2 years

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through the hourglass 102. brb

a/n: HAH yeah, wow im melting it's so HOT here

pairing: plus size!oc x rooster

warnings: personal issues that Rooster chooses to ignore, Bea being a good wife again, <3

goodness gracious (pls read this one to know more what this fic is about!!)

chapter

50/51/52/53/54/55/56/57/58/59/60/61/62/63/64/65/66/67/68/69/70/71/72/73/74/75/76/77/78/79/80/81/82/83/84/85/86/87/88

/89/90/91/92/93/94/95/96/97/98/99/100/101

(pls let me know if you want to be added to the taglist! )

taglist: @mirandastuckinthe80s @roosterschanelslut @wiipes @lcahwriter @shrimping-for-all @gretagerwigsmuse @frenchtoastix

@lizzie-rdj @fanboyluvr @atarmychick007 @comebacktoearthpls

@peachiicherries @mak-32 @lizziespidiepridie @roosterswifey @ollyoxenfrees @piceous21 @sqrlgrl22 @hofficoffi @lexhalstead3 @lorilane33 @legendarydreamersharkparty @luckyladycreator2

@emilybradshaw @j-6o @louisahale @leobabbyyy @kulicny @winter-run @ktjmac @graciereads @bigpoppajes @taytaylala12

@caitsymichelle13 @becks-things @caatheeriinee07 @dhwanishah09 @jesfreedark @katiemcrae @lilmonstrjedi @hobiismyhopeu @teacupsandtopgun @insominac23 @gh0stsgoodgirl @mygyn @chavivaelisheva

His skin felt amazing, he couldn’t help rubbing his face over and over during the night, it was smooth as Nicole’s little hands and that was saying a lot. Speaking of Nicole, she was currently sitting on his lap as he lies on one of the stretchers they had on the patio, staring at the pool wide eyed and mouth parted.

Beatrice’s footsteps came from the door, he turned around just in time to see her approaching, smiling bright and wide. He just opens his arm to show she should sit down next to them, which she does, scooting over to his side and pressing her cheek on his shoulder, all the while holding out her hand for Nikki to hold. When he sighs deeply, Beatrice’s eyes turn upwards, “Everything okay?”

“Everything great.” he replies quietly, “My face feels so soft.”

“And it smells really good.” she adds, “But you always do.”

The brought another smile out of him, followed by a kiss to the top of her head, “Ah…gorgeous. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

With his lips still on her scalp he just murmured, “Thank you for being here for me.” he says, his breathing tickling her head and making the strands move a bit “You don’t have to worry so much but you still do.”

“I’m your wife.”

“But still.”

Beatrice pulls back to look at him, furrowing her brows and gently brushing her thumb on his smooth cheekbone, “I love you a lot,Brad.” she whispers, “And I want you to be okay…” her lower lip disappears into her mouth for a few seconds “Can…can I ask you something?”

“Always, gorgeous.”

“Did you…ever go to therapy? I mean I-I- you never um, told me if you did…”

Bradley inhales softly, giving her an almost guilty smile, “Last time I went I was thirteen…then I just stopped going.”

“Oh…can I ask why?”

His eyes dropped to Nicole’s light ones, kissing his daughter’s forehead, “I guess I couldn’t handle some of the stuff the therapist wanted to talk about. I figured that holding it in made more sense, didn’t hurt so much…plus I…I had a fucked up mindset about mental health back then, I didn’t want my friends to know that I had a therapist.”

Beatrice frowns but understands completely, there was this weird stigma back then about taking care of your mental health and understanding you needed to, “I understand.” she says, “Do you think you’d ever…go to one again?”

“Therapy?” she nods, propping her chin on his shoulder and Rooster has to think about it before responding. He never…really thought about going back to therapy in his adult years, then again he did think everything was fine as long as you pushed it further and further away from the main area of your mind.

And it was obvious it wasn’t working.

At all.

Or else they wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Part of him felt like he should go ahead and think about it, because he wanted to get better and he wanted to feel like he progressed mentally. But the stubborn part of him refused to admit that it’d help, that it’d be easier to let things go if he talked about it with someone else, someone whom he has no familiarity with…but again, would he want to keep venting to Beatrice?

She was a good person and she cared about him, of course she’d always be there, but it wasn’t healthy to let that sort of info on her so often. Just as it wasn’t healthy to hold it in…he groans, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers because he was giving himself a bad headache, “I’m okay,gorgeous.” he says before she even asks because he can feel her head lifting from his shoulder to give him a better look.

“You sure?”

He laughs humorlessly, “I think so.” he groans one last time before dropping his hand to Nicole’s small back, smiling at his daughter’s relaxed pose against his stomach, her tiny fists under her body - just like Beatrice did - and her eyes blinking closed, “I don’t know…honestly. I…I don’t know if therapy would help me.” lies, his own voice answer, all lies and you know it.

“Why not?”

“Didn’t help me back then.”

“Maybe you didn’t have a good therapist.”

True, she was the school’s therapist who’d much rather be out chain smoking than taking care of any child that wandered into her office, “...maybe.” he mutters, “I don’t know, there are some cans of worms I’d rather keep closed.”

“Roos,” she frowns, “That’s not healthy.”

“...yeah,I know.”

She tsked a bit, “You are the sweetest guy I know…you don’t hide your emotions when it comes to me…why are you doing it to yourself?”

Damn. She was good.

He just blinked at Beatrice in pure shock, because those words felt like a punch to the throat and he lost all ability to speak. His wife was so smart and she could read him so well he wondered why he hid stuff from her. “I…I don’t…know.” he frowns, “Maybe a therapist could answer that, huh?” she smiles as she nods, placing her cheek on his shoulder as both look towards the pool, the gentle rippling of waves made by the night breeze.

The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, it never was, thankfully the two could handle the quietness without fidgeting and wanting to fill it with words that wouldn’t add to anything. She hugs his arm, sighing softly as they hear the crickets chirping in the night, their daughter napping peacefully on Rooster’s stomach, “I’m scared.” she blinks when his voice breaks the silence, turning her head towards him, “I’m scared of talking about it.”

“What?”

“I’m scared…of coming to terms with certain things.” he frowns, still looking ahead, “About Mav, my mom, my life…I fear they’ll overweight my progress. My professional progress I mean…I didn’t needed it before and needing it now seems weird. I know it’ll help me but I’m also nervous of what it’ll bring to the surface.”

Beatrice furrows her brows over his explanation, flicking her gaze away briefly to think before looking back at him, “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but it’d really help Brad.”

“I know.”

“And I know it’s scary…it was scary for me too,sometimes still is. Dr.Varma is an intense yet wonderful professional. Therapists can be like that.”

“Yeah…I guess.” he chuckles again, but immediately furrows his brows, “I don’t know Bea.I like…I can talk to you because I trust you and I love you so much, but I don’t want to overwhelm you with what I have.”

“You don’t overwhelm me.”

“You are my wife, not my therapist.” he says gently, cupping her chin between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing alongside her jawline until he reached her plump lips, smiling when she kissed the pad of his thumb, “Ugh,I’m still hesitating.” he drops his hand to Nicole’s back again, adjusting her on his torso so she’d be even more comfortable, “I shouldn’t be.”

“...I have an idea.” he arches his brow in question, “You can have one session with a therapist, doesn’t have to be Dr.Varma if you don’t want to. See how it feels and then…if it works, you continue with it. Does that sound good?”

He thinks about it for a few seconds, licking his lips as he ponders the pros and cons of that suggestion…honestly there were more pros than cons. If it goes well he can continue, maybe he can schedule days when he’s not deployed, he doesn’t want to miss anything with Beatrice and Nikki after all.

“How about this.” Bea speaks again, smiling at him, “Why don’t we wait after the Holidays and after we get back from Virginia?” he blinked at her in surprise, “We’ll be relaxed enough and hopefully you won’t be deployed then,”

“Huh…” he licks his lips, “I like that idea.”

“I thought you might.” she smiles, “I don’t want you to feel pressured,Brad, that’s not what I want,ever, for you…you need to think about it and when you do think about it, you’ll figure out what to do…and I’ll support you no matter what your choice is.” she grins and his heart flutters.

She’s so understanding, she’s so sweet and he’s the luckiest man around.

Both of them however look up when they hear a rumble of thunder, “Again?” He quickly stands to his feet with Nicole clutched to his chest, offering his hand to Beatrice, “It was clear skies minutes ago.”

“Well the weatherman said it’d be rainy this week.” She smiles as she pushes the door open, stepping inside first and Rooster following just behind. Nicole made a noise of complaint in his hold, burying her chubby face into his shirt and only making both of her parents look down at her, “It’s about her bedtime, we better tuck her in.”

Rooster tsked in disappointment, but he agreed with her, closing the door before Beatrice could and then holding her hand as they walked up the stairs. She looked down at their joined palms with her cheeks a soft red, turning her eyes up to see the back of his head and knowing that this meant a lot to him.

This hand holding meant a lot to him, more than he wanted to show.

Beatrice just sighs softly, their soft steps up the stairs mixing with the sound of rain that hit the roof repeatedly signaling that they left their patio just in time for the rain to arrive. Beatrice turns on the light so Rooster can place Nikki in her crib, the little girl stretching her arms and then relaxing once she’s on top of her mattress, breathing in deeply as relaxation took over her tiny body.

Rooster had his arms folded on top of the crib’s railing, chin propped on top and his eyes soft as he looked down at Nicole, his wife silently making her way over to him to peek over his shoulder, “I’ve never seen something more perfect.” he says as Beatrice hugs his torso and places her cheek on his shoulder, the two of them admiring their sleeping infant, “Have you?”

“No,never.”

“And she’s ours.”

“She is.”

He inhales again, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers, feeling Beatrice gently rubbing his bicep to comfort his already stormy thoughts, kissing his cheek quickly, “Come on.” she whispers, “We better go too, we both have to wake up early tomorrow.” she holds his hand again and Rooster lets her guide him away from there, kissing the back of her head as they leave the room, “Rooster!”

He wraps his arms around her waist and walks along with her to their bedroom,well, more like they waddle towards their room. They laugh, muffledly to not wake Nicole up - Eleanor even peeked out of the nursery to give them an ugly look because to the dog, that was more noise than she’d like - with Beatrice leaning against his chest and brushing her hand on his face, “I love you.” he whispered, kissing her cheek, “I love you so much.”

“I love you too Roos.” she whispered, turning on the lights and finally breaking free from her husband’s hold to walk deeper into the room and sit down on the bed. Rooster follows the same steps and plops down next to her and both of them fell back on the mattress in unison, his hand immediately reaching out for hers, brushing his thumb over her knuckles.

“You know.” she turns her head towards him when he speaks, “Maybe the trip to Virginia will be good to ease my mind.” he mutters, “I can think better that way…hopefully I won’t be too worried about it anymore.”

Beatrice turns to lie on her shoulder, bringing their joined hands so she could prop her cheek on top, “As long you are okay.”

“I am okay.” he says softly, “I am much better than before…” and his eyes stop to look at her, those big green eyes with thick lashes that made him weak in the knees, the plump pink lips that always looked ready to be bitten and kissed, the button nose that crinkled whenever he tapped it, “You helped. A lot.”

She gave him a small smile, kissing his knuckles, “I’m glad…sometimes all we need is a skin care routine with your family.” they laugh again, a bit louder this time since they were far from Nicole’s room.

“Yeah.” he touches his extremely soft face again, arching his brows, “My face smells nice, like pomegranates.”

“Those are the best face masks.” she says, adjusting herself so she’s lying on the pillow instead of the mattress, watching as Rooster did the same, sighing softly as the softness surrounded him…and it was hard to keep his eyes open after that, but Beatrice didn’t mind.

She just watches as his chest moves evenly and his eyes finally slip shut, smiling and leaning closer to kiss his forehead, “Good night,Roos.” she whispers on his skin, “Sleep well.”

Luckily, he fell asleep quite quickly after their conversation, in fact he fell asleep too quickly, mid conversation with Beatrice. He had no nightmares, but instead he had a dream…a dream of a house, maybe a ranch? He saw horses, lots of trees, bushes filled with fruits and even a large lake in the distance.

And he saw Nikki,albeit a bit older, maybe around three or five, with a straw hat on her head eating fresh strawberries as she overlooked something on a hill. It didn’t look like it was anywhere he knew though, the mountains in the distance looked different, more…European.

Like the ones he’d see in Italy during their honeymoon.

He groans a bit in his sleep, stretching his body while still in bed only to feel the presence next to him move closer, that delicious smell of lavender entering his nose and making a smile spread over his lips, “Mornin’ gorgeous.” his thick with sleep voice murmured, nuzzling her hair and kissing her scalp, “Did I wake you?”

“Hmhm…” she says sweetly, blinking her eyes open towards him, “But it’s fine. How did you sleep?”

He drops the hand currently moving through the sandy brown strands with a happy sigh, “Honestly? Pretty good.” he smiles, turning to face her and gently rubbing his thumb on the corner of her eyes, seeing there were tiny pieces of hair clinging to them, “I had a dream that we were in a ranch of some sort.”

‘Oh?”

“Yeah, but not here,” he clears his throat to wake it up from the disuse, “It was…maybe Italy, I saw those mountains from Palermo…and Nikki was there too, but older, like three years old. She looked beautiful, she looked a lot like you.” he blinks his eyes a bit, “It was really nice.”

Beatrice smiles as she props her chin on his shoulder, “Well, my great grandparents had a ranch in Italy when my nonna was younger…did I tell you that?”

“I think you did.”

“Maybe you were remembering things and joining them because you liked Italy that much.” she grins, pecking his lips twice before sitting on her knees, “I’m going to take a quick shower and then-” she pulls her hair up in a bun, “I’ll prepare breakfast, sounds good?”

“I can do it.”

“You have work today,Roos.” she says as soon as she’s out of the bed, adjusting the shirt on her body and shuffling to the bathroom after grabbing her clothes from the closet, “You don’t have to worry about that,handsome.”

Bradley huffs a soft laugh, sitting on the bed to watch her move around, “Bea.” he calls before she disappears into their bathroom, “Want some company?”

And her hesitation was the best thing because he could see she was turning the cogs in her head, because of time and because of what they could do…she was considering it, “Well…it is five in the morning.” he’s climbing out of the bed like a big cat ready to pounce, “And…Nikki is still asleep.” he ‘hum’ positively, getting even closer, “And…breakfast won’t take that long.”

“Nope,it won’t.”

“Although,” she presses a hand on his chest when he’s close enough, “We can’t spend too long here, so…um, you know. And-” she squeaks in surprise when he just picks her up and carries her to the bathroom, “Roos!”

#bradley rooster bradshaw #rooster bradshaw #bradley bradshaw x oc #top gun maverick #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw x female reader #bradley bradshaw x named reader #tgm oc #tgm fic #tgm fanfiction

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wangsejabin · 1 year

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Chapter 83

When Su Liangdi got pregnant again, some people couldn't believe it, but followed it with celebration.

This would include Hu Liangdi.

Looking into her heart, she admitted that this emotion was a little too demeaning, as if she had just lost out to that woman, yet she had to admit that the woman was too much in the limelight.

One wonders what had possessed the prince, who used to be so indifferent that it was good if he could come to the backyard for ten days in a month, half of which had to be divided up by the prince's consort, while the others were lucky if they were able to get a day or two.

The so-called we do not fear suffer from the scarcity, but suffer from uneven distribution, all drought is also drought, the Crown Princess can not compete, do not look at Hu Liangdi not being less provocative with the Crown Princess, but she is actually very clear about the degree, Empress Fu can tolerate the extent, the Crown Prince can tolerate the extent. She can't compete with the Crown Princess, but she can be the first one among the others.

At one point, Hu Liangdi was complacent, but then she saw what it meant to have a drought and a waterlogged spot, and she understood what unfairness meant.

But the injustice happened a long time ago, when the Crown Princess and she were both pregnant, if she could do it again, even if she was pregnant and struggling, Hu Liangdi would have gone with her on the southern tour, but unfortunately there was no chance for her to do it over.

One step behind, and she is now reduced to picking up other people's leavings, but she is still complacent. Hu Liangdi was sure she was not the only one who was commiserating, there must have been others, so her emotions were not so serious.

The next day a group of people gathered at the Hall of Virtue.

The Prince Consort was not there and only came out a little later, saying that she had gone to see the Grand Duke and the Second Princess.

Before Hu Liangdi, an senior member of the family, could say anything, Li Liangyuan, who was a high-profile member of the newcomers because she was bold enough to run to the Crown Princess, spoke up.

"Crown Princess, I heard that Su Liangdi is pregnant? Then should the concubine and others go to visit?"

Of the four newcomers this time, two were given the title of Liang Yuan and two were given the lowest rank of Feng Yi, and this Li Liang Yuan was one of the two Liang Yuan.

Her grandmother was the Princess of Changshun, who was raised by the Empress Dowager when she was young, so she was quite distinguished among the ranks of the princesses.

The princess's husband's surname is Li, and Li Liang Yuan is the daughter of the princess's second branch. Since she was given here by the order of the Empress Dowager and was personally requested by the Crown Princess, Li Liang Yuan feels good about herself and feels that she is the Crown Princess's person, so since she joined the Eastern Palace, she has been frequenting the Hall of Virtue, and it does not seem abrupt to ask such questions at this time.

The royal family is not the same as the ordinary people from the small clans. It is clear that Li Liang Yuan did not mean this, but she was given a grand excuse.

The Prince Consort knew in her heart that she was waiting for her to make the decision.

But why should she make the decision for them? It is obvious that the crown prince will not give her a child anytime soon, and she does not want to give Su Pan'er an advantage, so what good will she get if she gives them an opportunity? She might even make enemies for herself.

The Crown Princess was a bit disillusioned when she thought of this.

"If you want to go, you can go. There is no need to talk to me about this. I have to go to Cining Palace to pay my respects, so I won't keep you."

Until the Crown Princess was invisible behind the curtain, the crowd was still a bit disbelieving, but this is the Hall of Virtue, not a place to talk.

When they went outside, Li Liang Yuan thought about it and asked Hu Liang Di, "Sister Hu, what do you think the Crown Princess means by this?

Hu Liangdi's gaze turned, "You are not asking me to say whether you are going or not. I have to go back to see the two princesses, so I won't talk to you sisters anymore." With that, she hurriedly left.

Li Liang Yuan went to pull Xu Liang Yuan again, "Sister Xu ......"

"Sister Li, look I have to go back to see the Eldest County Princess here too, and I can't spare time to talk to you, so I'll talk to you when I have free time." After saying that, Xu Liang Yuan also left.

Li Liang Yuan was looking innocent and bereft, and couldn't help but stomp her feet.

He Liang Yuan puffed out a laugh.

"What are you laughing at?"

He Liang Yuan took back her laugh and went back to her usual cold as ice look and walked away.

But Li Liangyuan was annoyed, stamping her feet and ripping her handkerchief again.

"Sister Li, forget it, let's go too, standing here is too conspicuous." Qian Fengyi, who is small in stature, advised. She was one of the newcomers to the family, and because of her father's low official rank, she had only been given the lowest rank of Feng Yi.

"What's the point of attracting attention? I didn't say anything unpleasant!" Li Liang Yuan scolded, but when she turned her head and saw Zhong Liang Yuan, she stepped forward and said, "Sister Zhong, let's go together and ignore them."

Zhong Liang Yuan looked at Qian Feng Yi, whose face was red with shame, and Qiao Feng Yi, who was standing next to her and did not say anything, and walked away with Li Liang Yuan.

"What do you think, sister Zhong? The Crown Princess doesn't care and no one else wants to get involved, so should we just leave it at that? It's been so long, but the Crown Prince hasn't come to my residence. ......" At the end of the sentence, Li Liang Yuan couldn't go on, she was still a young girl, how could she say such things?

"You should not be anxious, this kind of thing is useless to be anxious about."

"But if we don't act quickly, we'll all become a laughing stock. I don't believe she can still drag the Crown Prince into her house now that she's pregnant."

"What do you want to do?" Zhong Liang Yuan asked coldly.

After all, the Eastern Palace's backyard rules were strict, and they had experienced that for a while now.

Besides, even if they had a solution, they wouldn't tell each other. Although they may appear to be sisterly, they are in fact fighting with each other, so they can talk about the formalities but not the heartfelt words.

At the other end, Qian Feng Yi and Qiao Feng Yi were walking back to their home, where they lived in the same courtyard.

When they reached the courtyard, the two were about to divide their things when Qiao Fengyi suddenly stood still.

"I'm just saying, don't do any unnecessary things, do you really think that people treat you like a sister when they call you sister?"

"You-"

Qian Fengyi's face turned red, the little court lady beside her was no better than her.

But Qian Fengyi knew why Qiao Fengyi said that, she was new to the palace and the two of them lived in the same courtyard, so they were naturally closer, but she was a bit anxious these days, so she wanted to walk away from the others.

She had to go the way of others. The senior members of the Eastern Palace did not care much for these newcomers, so they had to choose between Li and Zhong. Li Liang Yuan was more cordial than Zhong Liang Yuan, so she inevitably got closer to her, and therefore cold-shouldered Qiao Feng Yi.

Who knew that Li Liang Yuan would suddenly turn her back on her in public today?

As she watched Qiao Feng Yi enter the west wing, Qian Feng Yi could only twist her handkerchief and walk back.

The servant girl beside her said, "Don't be angry, Master, let me tell you that Qiao Fengyi is jealous of you and Li Liangyuan's closeness. Li Liang Yuan has just been embarrassed twice in a row, so she must be uncomfortable in her heart, which is why she is angry with you.".

In the end, Li Liang Yuan decided to visit the First Eastern residence.

As she was a younger sister, she had to go to the courtyard to express her congratulations, but also because she had not seen the legendary Su Liangdi since she had entered the house.

For this reason, she went out of her way to bring in Zhong Liangyuan and Qian Fengyi to make up the numbers.

It was still a bit early when she went there, but not too early for those of them who had to go to the Hall of Virtues every day to pay their respects. It was also a bad time for them to come, as Pan'er was vomiting when they arrived.

It seemed to be a sign that Pan'er's pregnancy was not going well, she didn't react at all when she didn't know, but the day after Pan'er's pulse was detected, she began throwing up.

At first, Pan'er felt some nausea, but she thought it was because she had eaten something bad, so she called Dr. Dong to see her once.

The doctor said that there was nothing unusual about her and that vomiting was quite normal for a woman who was pregnant. It was only after this prompting from the doctor that Pan'er made the connection between pangs of nausea and pregnancy sickness.

Since then, she couldn't stop, she didn't like to eat what she used to like, she smelt everything, and the first thing she had to do in the morning was to throw up again, and she wouldn't stop until she had thrown up her overnight meal.

Aunt Qing and the others were all a bit frazzled as they experienced this for the first time.

When he saw her move in the morning, he thought that the sun had risen in the east and that she had finally stopped being angry with him, but this thought did not last long when he saw Pan'er covering her mouth, as if she wanted to say something but could not, and almost fell out of bed.

He hadn't even put on his clothes yet, so he took a big step up and scooped her up from the edge of the bed, and called out in anger, and a crowd of people poured in.

Auntie Qing led Xiang Pu and the others, bringing spittoons and warm water.

Pan'er vomited into the spittoon, so much so that tears came out of her eyes, and finally finished.

She drank the warm water and gasped for breath, while the Prince frowned, his face as black as the bottom of a pot. As for Fulu, he had already gone out to ask someone to call the doctor.

That was when Li Liang Yuan and the girls came.

"I'm really fine, it's just pregnancy vomiting."

After the first two days of experience, Pan'er knew that throwing up in the morning would at least keep her going for a little while longer. When she sat down outside and waited for the meal to be served, she explained to the Prince.

The prince was clearly not convinced, but he couldn't say anything without the doctor coming, but he had a rare gloomy face, and everyone knew he was in a bad mood.

At the door, Bai Zhi hesitated.

It was Pan'er who saw her and asked, "What's wrong? If there is something wrong, come in and talk."

"Master, Li Liangyuan and the girls have come to visit you."

"Li Liangyuan?" Since when was there a Li Liangyuan in the Eastern Palace?

Bai Zhi immediately reminded, "It's the ones who are new to the house."

Pan'er then went to glance at the Crown Prince.

This time, the prince's face was not dark anymore, and he seemed vaguely embarrassed. He was embarrassed by Pan'er's gaze.

"Then call them in." Pan'er's eyes remained on the Crown Prince as she said so.

"Why are you looking at Lone like that, it's not like I called them here." The Prince coughed.

"It's not because the Crown Prince is here that they came over when they found out, otherwise I would be like this, no, otherwise we wouldn't know each other, and they wouldn't have had to come to me."

"See how you speak in a shady way." The Prince was amused and laughed a little.

Pan'er grunted.

"How unlikeable."

Hearing the Prince's words and softening his tone, Pan'er was a little displeased.

"You don't like me now? Why didn't you? Do you think I'm old and grey ......," she said, pretending to wipe her tears while faking tears.

The prince's eyebrows jumped and he said, "Stop, what kind of books have you been reading lately?"

When she was in Yangzhou, there were many opera companies and bookstores in Yangzhou, so there were many books.

It seems that she is playing the role of a wife who has been abandoned by her husband, Chen Shimei.

At one end, the Prince interrogated Pan'er about what she had read, and at the other end, he was stuck at the door by the few people who had been brought in.

The sound of a woman crying and the reprimand of the Crown Prince could be faintly heard inside.

Is this Su Liang Di who has displeased the Crown Prince?

""The only thing I can do is to tell the truth," said Pan'er, who could not conceal it from the public, but brought back a whole box of books from Jiangnan.

But when she came back, she was about to give birth, so she didn't have time to read them, and she was busy with the baby after she gave birth, so she only recently touched a few books to pass the time.

"You're a strange little girl, you're full of tricks, be careful of teaching Wanyin the wrong things in the future." The prince pinched her cheek and said.

Pan'er secretly sighed, it was better to teach her badly, otherwise she would be too honest to be bullied.

In the previous life, Pan'er did not have daughters, but the Jianping Emperor had daughters, and they were all taught to be ladies of the house, unable to suppress the female officials and mothers of the princess's house, and unable to control their husbands' concubines, so they often came back to the palace to complain.

The emperor did not say anything on the surface, but behind the scenes, he was angry with the princesses, so after she gave birth to her daughter, Pan'er decided that she would teach her daughter to be more spirited, not like the princesses in the palace, so that she would not be bullied when she married.

As the two of them talked, there was movement from the other side of the door. Bai Zhi came in first and stood still before beckoning, and Xiang Pu came in with a group of people.

#mtl #yingchong

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iviarellereads · 11 months

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Exit Strategy, Chapter 7

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which we finally get one of the more obvious jokes done properly.

Murderbot is full of shrapnel, and in a poor mental state, but still at 83% performance reliability on the physical level which isn't bad. It sees Gurathin and Ratthi next to a maintenance panel by the gate, that reads "Manual Release" in many languages.

I didn’t even know they had those in ports. I’m a SecUnit, not an engineer.(1)

MB's knee is somewhat less reliable, so the humans help it to the shuttle, where Mensah ensures that it gets in before she does. MB finds it hard to override its security programming, but obeys, and it becomes clear Pin-Lee was ready on the controls when they take off immediately when Mensah says they're clear of the hatch.

Ratthi helps remove the shrapnel from MB's knee, even without MB explaining that putting it in the company's care again would mean a cubicle, not the MedSystem Ratthi himself would get.(2) Mensah, up with Pin-Lee, becomes furious that an anonymous corporate resident of the station has launched a ship on intercept course with them.

MB decides to stop messing around, and sends the covert keyword to the company ship. It takes a moment, but acknowledges, and MB gives loose detail that bonded clients are in "hazardous retrieval". The shuttle reports the gunship turning toward them, and MB watches the sensors. The gunship accelerates, and as MB wonders if they're communicating with the likely-Palisade ship, powers weapons.

Ratthi asks if MB is okay, to which it says, "Not really". The Palisade ship has slowed and changed course, as the shuttle is swallowed by the gunship as it passes through. Ratthi thinks the not really is physical, but Gurathin(3) cuts to the point: they can't take MB back.

Mensah storms through and gives Gurathin the weapon she'd been carrying. He stashes it in the emergency kit(4) as Mensah goes to stand between MB and the hatch, which opens to reveal an augmented human in power armour. Mensah physically blocks the opening and says this is her "personal security consultant."

A crew member peered out from behind the suit and said, “Dr. Mensah, SecUnits are not allowed aboard armed transports, unless there are special circumstances. It’s … too dangerous.” Mensah said, “These are special circumstances.” Her voice was icy. Nobody moved. The ship’s secured feed activity went frantic for seven minutes that felt like thirty. (And the way I experience time, that’s a lot.) (Yes, I started some media in background.)(5)

Eventually, the ship's combat supervisor comms in, and says they require a bond to guarantee the safety of the ship from the SecUnit, as an unsecured deadly weapon. MB is angry that they're talking about it that way.(6) It tells Mensah in the feed that it can take over the ship and the SecSystem, they don't have to pay the bond. Some of its desire to get vengeance on the company for treating it like a thing for so long leaks through, and Mensah turns, grips the collar of its jacket, and says "No."

Everyone goes quiet. MB realizes it needs to see Mensah's face for itself, so it stops looking through the cameras, and turns its head down to her. She's angry and tired beyond tired, just the way it feels. It tells her in the feed that she has no idea what it is. She responds that she knows it's scared, and hurt, and needs to calm down so they can get through this alive. It says it is calm, and needs to be, to take over a gunship.

Mensah’s eyes narrowed. Security consultants don’t get their clients into unnecessary pitched battles for control of their rescue ship. She added, Because that would be stupid. She wasn’t afraid of me. And it hit me that I didn’t want that to change. She had just been through a traumatic experience, and I was making it worse. Something was overwhelming me, and it wasn’t the familiar wave of not-caring.(7) Fine, I sent. I sounded sulky, because I was sulky.

Aloud, Mensah says good, and asks Pin-Lee if they have the money for the absurd bond. She waves hard currency cards, and says if that's not enough, she can transmit an authorization. Mensah turns around, and the crew, having just watched her face down a rogue SecUnit, in person, stare. Mensah says, since they're bonded clients, can they now come aboard to settle the bill?

There was a hesitation, then the comm said, “Please come aboard, Dr. Mensah.”(8)

Murderbot's first action in the passenger seating area they're led to is to sit on the bench, an action heretofore forbidden to it on company property. The humans don't notice, but it feels good.(9) The ship's crew are outside the compartment. MB confirms it has access to the SecSystem, no matter what the humans believe. It hears one of the ship crew say SecUnits really do look human out of their armour, and MB makes an obscene gesture in their direction. Gurathin makes a choked noise when he sees it.(10)

Mensah finishes looking over the agreement and gives it her okay, then walks over to MB, and says quietly that she's furious with it. Ratthi tries to excuse himself, far more afraid of Mensah's ire than he ever was of MB.

MB, on the other hand, tells Mensah she should sit down and tell the crew she needs "the MedSystem's Retrieved Client Trauma Evaluation protocol", at which point Gurathin interrupts to agree, followed by Ratthi and Pin-Lee. Mensah, however, refuses to be distracted and says MB stayed behind knowing it would be killed. MB protests, they wouldn't let it through, it told PortSec to let Mensah through and it would stay. She asks if that's really why it stayed.

I could have lied. I didn’t want to. “Mostly,” I said. I looked at her with my actual eyes again. “I wanted to win.” Ratthi, Gurathin, and Pin-Lee all watched me. The company crew incompetently pretended not to try to eavesdrop. Dr. Mensah’s expression softened, just around the edges. Ratthi said, “Why did you come through, then, when Gurathin got the barrier open?” “Because that last one was a Combat SecUnit and it was going to tear me apart. That’s not winning.” I wish I knew what winning was.(11) And once I started telling the truth, it was hard to stop. “I don’t want to be here.”

Pin-Lee sits next to Ratthi and says one wormhole jump, then they rendezvous with a Preservation ship and head back. She doesn't like this ship either. MB asks what's next after that. Mensah says they need to talk about that, once they're not being recorded.

Unfortunately, that's as far as she gets before MB's entire attention is drawn by the bot pilot. The hostile ship was still tracking, and the SecSystem just deflected a connection attempt, but… too late, MB realizes they sent an attack on the feed. It tells them, and cuts Mensah's implant and puts a wall on Gurathin's internal augments, as Pin-Lee and Ratthi remove their interfaces from their ears.

MB starts throwing walls over any humans it sees who fall victim to what's going on, since SecSystem is busy fighting it. Palisade must have obtained a set of override codes, like the ones MB used on the drones at Milu and TRH. Once connected, they sent something that makes the ship try to kill the humans aboard.

Switching between them and us pronoun sets,(12) MB describes the events occurring across the ship, figures out how it might help. It takes over the ship, the way Art took over it and the bot pilots at RaviHyral, even though it doesn't have Art's mental capacity.(13) Murderbot becomes the ship, and tries to figure out how to contain it, and further, why GrayCris is doing it this way.

It reactivates its body, and asks Mensah why she thinks GrayCris might be doing this. A crew member suggests MB is taking over, but Mensah tells them to shut up, and tells MB they think it's got the information from Milu, and want it destroyed. MB wonders if it might have to do with the memory clip it stole from Wilken and Gerth, as well, with their records of employment.

MB tells them to go manually disengage the shuttle they came in, and when they agree, it shuts its body down again, and becomes the ship. It didn't make a copy of the data from Milu, but it still has some of it in its compressed memory. Enough, perhaps, to look like a honeypot. It fakes copying the data into the shuttle to make an escape. The attacking code transfers itself to the shuttle.

Three things happened at once: (1) ShuttleSecSystem walled the shuttle’s comm system. (2) Bot pilot deleted its own comm system codes and I overloaded and fused its hardware. (3) My body told Dr. Mensah and Pin-Lee, “Now.”

The humans disengage the shuttle, isolating the attacking code. The gunship's systems start to reassert themselves, and the bot pilot confirms with the captain to fire and destroy the shuttle.

Murderbot pulls its code, its personality, back together and into its body. It feels odd, but manages to tell Mensah and Pin-Lee they're clear. As the humans start celebrating, though…

I felt weird. Very weird. Very bad. Performance reliability at 45 percent and dropping. Catastrophic failure— I felt my body crumple, but I didn’t feel myself hit the deck.

=====

(1) I'm genuinely surprised it took me this long to find so explicit a Star Trek reference. Either I'm off my game, or Wells had far more self-control than I would. (2) I'm not suggesting we should all endeavour to be Ratthi, but I do think we could stand to help first and ask questions later more often as a society, or even as a planetwide species built on community and mutual aid. (Don't make me break out the amateur anthropology or we'll be here all day.) (3) See, I don't think Gurathin would've figured it out if he didn't also care, at least a little, about Murderbot. If nothing else, it might be in the same way MB cares about him: reluctantly, but firmly. They probably have a lot in common. (4) Is that where it came from initially, or just a convenient place to get it out of sight? This is a company shuttle, not a personal one, so it's not like they're likely to come back for it. (5) Never change, friend-shaped robo-pal. (6) MB has finally learned that it is a person, it is allowed to be a person, nobody should ever have prevented it from being a person, and who can blame it for not wanting to go back? For wanting a little revenge? (7) One might even guess that it's entirely the opposite of not caring. Maybe caring almost too much to be able to acknowledge. (8) This line can be read so many different ways. Are they being pleasant? Are they being gruff? Is it a suggestion that they get the bond to cover liability ASAP, or an attempt not to antagonize clients? And how the reader, how you or I interpret this line affects the whole tone of the scene. (9) When small rebellion is all you can get, you take it. (10) See, SEE, nobody else notices, but Gurathin is paying attention, and laughing at MB's… well it's not a joke per se, but its actions that deserve a solidarity chuckle. (11) Sometimes winning is survival, but it's hard to see it that way. (12) At least, that's how I'm reading the sequence. MB not quite able to disengage itself from the "us" of it, either out of habit or out of the empathy it's built since it started learning how to person, or both. (13) This is where I start to Feel Things, knowing the end of the chapter, and the end of the book.

#the murderbot diaries #murderbot diaries #exit strategy #murderbot #secunit #ayda mensah #ratthi #pin-lee #gurathin

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macawritesupdates · 21 days

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Writing Update 8/29/2024

Back to work full-time and off my break so writing updates have become slower! Still going to push onward with big fic updates u_u

Requests are on hold a bit, working at them, but at a rather slow pace as I want to finish up some longer fics and one-shots first <3

STORY UPDATES!

Seven Days to Fall in Love ends tonight! I have it done and working on edits to post it and bring that quick fic to an end. I feel the ending is a touch rushed, but I'm also running out of steam on it, so giving it an ending I feel wraps everything up nicely c: Malevolence of love is 50% done for next chapter. Going to be working on this one to finish it out before the end of September! I have it planned out, just need to get it written. I want to give it some love and bring it to its angsty conclusion 83

Can't Help a Cuddle/Jealous is a Bad Friend BOTH are nearly done and I'm very happy with how they both are coming out! There is some big emotional feels in both that I'm happy with how they played out and just the scenes in general <3 I hope they meet the expectations of all the suggestions given!

Cuddle is a bit harder as I got over twenty suggestions to weave into a coherent narrative, but think I did it justice!

Lessons in Accidental Seduction is nearly done! Finishing up the last scene <3

Spouse Wanted has me possessed and I just write out chapters and edit them in a sitting because I'm giggly over it

Who's a Good Boy is making good progress, as well as Broken in the Ways No One Can See. So should see those maybe next weekish? Depends on how well I write the rest of the week. I've just been on a ROLL for want to write and inspiration! The Yuuji Files has slowed down after writing the silly Toji being forced to look for a job scene....but I think once I get some other long fics cleared, will make it easier to focus on this one <3

Careful What you Joke About is being completely redone for this next arc. I have taken it apart and been redoing the outline for the final two arcs for better flow and to hit the points better. I think it will be a much more solid end when done <3

Mirrored Lives....going to sit down and rehash the ending and figure it out as I think my mental block on it is just dissatisfaction with a few things. MHA ACADAMIA FICS

Jealousy is Not a Good Friend Updates soon and I'm starting to poke at Unsung Heroes again! I SO WANT TO WRITE IT but it is on a backburner for when other things clear up! ONE-SHOTS Pull Me Along if I Can’t Move Forward (MHA: Bakugo/Deku): On a slow boat to getting done haha! But it is still being written! Heatwaves and Curses Don't Mix: A one-shot PWP of Nobara, Yuuji, and Sukuna :b That's it. When You Suddenly Get Another Grandson: The poll idea winner after doing the math.... told from Wasuke's POV of Yuuji suddenly showing up with a moody second twin after eating some mummified finger at school. Desperate Prom Date: Giftfic for an awesome person on twitter who has wanted this story so much.... writing it as thank you for comments and nice art c:

FUTURE FICS TO COME Culturally Insensitive: The sequel to Historically Inaccurate with Yuuji and Sukuna trying to figure things out while meeting with others who have their own possessions going on. Follows along the Culling Game Arc.

Blossoms Born on the Dragon Mountain: The Dragon AU c: Law Meets Disorder: STILL working on it 8I it is a very complicated work to get through. Going to def let some of the big fics finish before it goes out

A Sukuna/Nobara Fic...just feeling the mood to write some more about em :b

#Writing updates #so much is coming soooon!

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secretswiftymarvelfan · 1 year

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The Demigod From Asgard - Steve Rogers x Reader (Part 83)

Summary: Steve, Nat and Scott search for help to build a time machine with varying success

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: Fluff! Angst! Language!

Dividers by @firefly-graphics

Series Masterlist / Masterlist

Chapter 83: A Bigger Brain

For the next couple of days, Steve, Nat and Scott worked on their plan ready to talk to Tony. Steve knew they needed to have their plan more or less sorted before going to Stark, or at least as much as they could with their limited knowledge of quantum physics.

So far their plan was to use the quantum realm to go back in time to retrieve the stones, bring them back to the present day and snap their own fingers to bring everyone else back. It sounded simple enough but Steve knew it was anything but.

As Steve drove to the cabin he kept glancing in the rear-view mirror, watching as JJ and Scott talked animatedly in the back seat. JJ’s giggles echoed in the car as Scott told him an outlandish ant-man story. As he watched his mind instantly went to you, if this plan worked you’d be back, JJ would have a mom again. That alone was enough to convince Steve this was the right idea.

Just before midday, Steve pulled up outside of Tony’s lakeside cabin, as he got out to open JJ’s door he spotted Tony carrying Morgan up to the cabin. He sees Tony’s step falter as he spots Scott and Nat get out of the car. He gives a small nod of greeting before turning and heading inside the house.

“Daddy, can I go?” JJ says looking up at Steve.

“yeah go ahead” Steve nods before calling out to JJ as he ran towards the house “no running!”

Steve let out a sigh as he watched JJ catch up with Tony and Morgan, Tony gently directing the two kids to head inside. Steve slowly walks up the steps to the porch to meet Tony.

“I didn’t realise we had more people joining us for lunch” Tony comments nodding over to Nat and Scott.

“we’re here for more than just PB and Js,” Nat says crossing her arms over her chest.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with this one rising from the dead” Tony comments nodding over to Scott.

“Well, I’ve um not been dead… just trapped” Scott stutters nervously.

“I’m all ears,” Tony says sitting down in one of the deck chairs.

“um well when Thanos happened I was in this thing called the quantum realm, have you heard of the quantum realm?” Scott asks rubbing his hands together nervously.

“of course,” Tony says casually, shrugging his shoulders.

“well my- my team, they were supposed to pull me out but didn’t because they got snapped away so I got stuck in there until a couple of days ago, I don’t know how I got out but I did” Scott continues, Tony just humming along as he nodded his head “but I was only there for like 5 hours, not five years so I like travelled through time”

Tony arches a brow at this before glancing over at Steve and Nat “we were hoping maybe we could use the quantum realm to bring everyone back and reverse the snap” Steve explains.

“yeah- yeah so like we use the realm to go back in time and get the stone and use them to snap everyone back!” Scott exclaims.

Silence falls between the four of them, everyone waiting for Tony’s response. Steve watched as Tony rubbed his chin deep in thought before glancing inside the cabin where he could see Morgan and JJ laughing as they ate their lunch.

“Tony” Steve started slowly.

“I need a drink, you guys want a drink? OJ?” Tony says abruptly standing up from his chair and walking inside.

Steve sighs watching him go before glancing over at Nat who was biting her lip nervously.

“is that a good thing? Like is he gonna help?” Scott stammers trying to watch Tony through the window.

“I don’t know” Steve sighs shaking his head.

Eventually Tony reappears with a tray carrying 4 glasses and a jug of orange juice. Tony not saying a single word made everyone even more nervous.

“sounds pretty impossible” Tony finally says with a sigh as he grabs the jug of juice.

“no, we know what it sounds like” Scott stutters, his nerves getting the better of him.

“Tony after everything you’ve seen, is anything really impossible?” Steve asks.

“quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck scale,” Tony says interrupting Steve “which then triggers the Deutsch proposition, can we agree on that?” he asks passing Steve a glass of juice.

“thank you” Steve mutters as he accepts the glass.

“in layman’s terms it means you’re not coming home” Tony sighs turning to Scott.

“I did” Scott argues.

“no, you accidentally survived” Tony sighs “it’s a billion-to-one cosmic fluke, and now you wanna pull a… what do you call it?” he asks looking over at Scott, passing him a glass.

Scott stutters slightly before answering “a time heist?” Scott offers.

Tony scoffs under his breath “yeah a time heist, of course, why didn’t we think of this before?” Tony asks looking over at Steve “oh because it’s laughable because it’s a pipe dream”

Steve sighs deeply “the stones are in the past, we could go back, we could go get them,” Steve says hoping to convince Tony.

“we can snap our own fingers, we can bring everyone back” Nat continues, nodding her head gently.

“or screw it up worse than he already has, right?” Tony rebuts.

“I don’t believe we would,” Steve tells him.

“gotta say it, I sometimes miss that giddy optimism” Tony sighs nodding over to Steve “however high hopes won’t help if there’s no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said time heist” Tony continues sitting down in the deck chair once more “I believe the most likely outcome will be our collective demise”

Scott shakes his head “not if we strictly follow the rules of time travel, all right?” he says moving to sit down next to Tony “it means no talking to our past selves… no betting on sporting events”

“I’m gonna stop you right there Scott,” Tony says holding out his hand to silence him “are you seriously telling me that your plan to save the universe is based on Back to the Future?” Tony asks him leaning forward in his chair “is it?”

Scott nervously scoffs shaking his head “no”

“good you had me worried there. cause that would be horseshit, that’s not how quantum physics works” Tony tells him quietly.

“Tony,” Nat says her voice cracking slightly “we have to take a stand”

“We did stand” Tony states looking up at her “we did stand and yet here we are”

“I know you got a lot on the line,” Scott says nodding towards the house “you got a wife, a daughter, but I lost someone very important to me, a lotta people did,” Scott says glancing over his shoulder at Steve “and now we have a chance to bring her back, to bring everyone back, and you’re telling me that you won’t even-” he says beginning to rant.

“That's right Scott, I won’t even” Tony sighs interrupting him “I can’t”

The door opens and both Morgan and JJ run out, Morgan climbing onto Tony’s lap, JJ running straight for Steve. Steve forces a smile for his son, putting his hands on his shoulders to reassure him.

“mommy told us to come and save you” Morgan explains as she hugs Tony.

“good job I’m saved” Tony sighs rubbing her back before turning his attention back to Scott “I wish you were coming here to ask me something else, anything else” Tony sighs as he stands up from his chair “I’m honestly happy to see you guys I just… oh look the tables set for seven,” he says as he goes to walk past.

Steve puts his hand out to stop him “Tony I get it, and I’m happy for you, I really am but this is a second chance” Steve says quietly, glancing down at JJ.

“we’ve got our second chances right here cap,” Tony says nodding to Morgan and JJ “can’t roll the dice on it”

“if you don’t talk shop you can stay for lunch,” Tony says looking over at everyone.

Steve nods his head, gesturing for the other two to head back to the car. Scott goes to argue but Nat grabs his arm and leads him back to the car.

“Tony-“ Steve starts gently.

“Steve I’m sorry, I really am but I just can’t see a path without serious risks,” Tony says shaking his head.

“I know” Steve sighs.

“and I know it’s not what you wanted to hear so if you need some time, I can watch JJ for the rest of the afternoon” Tony offers nodding down to JJ who looked up at Steve hopefully.

“yeah that would be great, I wouldn’t want to cut the play date short” Steve nods gratefully.

“it's nothing, c’mon buddy I’ve got some cool gadgets to show you,” Tony says smiling down at JJ “I’ll see you later cap”

“see you later” Steve sighs “be good for uncle Tony and Auntie Pep okay?” Steve says looking down at JJ.

“I will I promise!” JJ nods smiling up at Steve, unaware of the weight on his shoulders.

“good, see you later bean” Steve smiles ruffling his hair up.

As soon as Steve stepped down off the porch Scott and Nat joined him “well he’s scared” Nat says glancing over her shoulder.

“he’s not wrong” Steve admits with a sigh.

“yeah, but I mean what are we gonna do? We need him. What are we gonna stop?” Scott asks jogging slightly to keep up with Steve’s long strides.

Steve stops turning around to face him, spotting JJ inside the cabin with Pepper, a wide smile on his face as he showed her something. Steve felt a painful pang in his chest knowing that could and should be you.

“no I wanna do it right” Steve sighs pursing his lips as he thought, there was only one person with a brain that could rival Tony’s and he was probably more willing to help “we’re gonna need a really big brain,” Steve says looking over at Nat who nods in understanding.

Scott just looks around confused “bigger than his?” he exclaims pointing behind him.

“I know where he likes to have brunch, we can probably get there in time,” Nat says nodding her head as she climbs into the car.

“who? Who are we seeing?” Scott questions as he gets into the car.

“Banner,” Steve says starting the car and pulling away back towards the city.

Walking into the diner Steve instantly spotted Bruce, which ever since his transformation wasn’t hard. Bruce turned smiling when he spotted Steve and the others, waving them over.

“Hey guys nice to see you! I ordered some food! You want coffee? Can we get some coffee over here? Thank you!” Bruce called out as Steve and the others walked over.

“What the hell” Scott muttered under his breath as he followed Steve.

“it’s a long story,” Nat tells him.

“you must be Scott! Nice to meet you” Bruce smiles holding out his hand towards Scott who shook it hesitantly.

“yeah- yeah that’s me” Scott nods his eyes wide in disbelief.

“now I hope you don’t mind me saying, but I thought you were dead,” Bruce says pointing to Scott.

“you wouldn’t be alone” Scott mutters.

“that’s actually why we’re here,” Steve says making Bruce frown slightly.

“sure let's hear it then,” Bruce says gesturing to the booth.

Scott recounted his story from the quantum realm and how he was able to escape, Bruce eating his sausages and eggs as he listened. Steve’s hand wrapped around his glass of water as he studied Bruce trying to gage how he was feeling and how likely he was to help.

“come on, I feel like I’m the only one eating here, try some of that,” Bruce says once Scott was finished, pushing the large bowl of eggs in his direction.

“I’m so confused” Scott admits shaking his head.

“these are confusing times” Bruce chuckles.

“right, no, no that’s not what I meant” Scott stutters.

“Nah, I get it I’m kidding” Bruce laughs “I know it’s crazy! I’m wearing shirts now!” Bruce exclaims gesturing down to his outfit.

“yeah, what? How? Why?” Scott questions.

“five years ago we got our asses beat, except it was worse for me cause I lost twice” Bruce sighs “first hulk lost, then Banner lost and then we all lost”

“no one blamed you Bruce” Nat reminds him.

“I did,” Bruce says with a weak smile “for years I treated the hulk like he’s some kind of disease, something to get rid of,” Bruce says before glancing over at Steve “but then I started looking at him as the cure, 18 months in the gamma lab, I put the brains and the brawn together and now look at me, best of both worlds”

“um excuse me Mr Hulk?” A girl says approaching the table with two other boys.

“yes?” Bruce smiles turning to look at them.

“can we get a photo?” the girl asks hopefully.

“100% little person” Bruce smiles “c’mon set up, do you mind?” he asks passing the phone to Bruce.

“oh yeah yeah” Scott stutters as he takes the phone.

“thanks” Bruce smiles “say green, green!” he grins with the kids.

“do you wanna grab one with me? I’m ant man” Scott offers as he passes back the phone.

The kids look awkwardly at each other “they’re hulk fans, they don’t know ant-man” Scott laughs awkwardly as he tries to pass the phone back.

Bruce tries to convince the kids, while Scott reassures them it was okay the conversation only gets more awkward when one of the boys says “stranger danger”.

“take the goddamn phone” Scott states ending the conversation.

Steve grabs his water taking a couple of sips as he glances out of the window waiting for the kids to leave and the awkward air to vanish. He let out a long sigh as he put his glass down, his patience wearing thin as he tried to get Bruce’s attention.

“Bruce, Bruce!” Steve says finally getting his attention “about what we were saying” he says getting the conversation back on track.

“right” Bruce sighs, nodding his head as he leans back in his chair “the whole time travel do-over? Eh guys it’s outside my area of expertise” he admits.

“well you pulled this off” Nat points out nodding to his Hulk body “I remember a time when they seemed pretty impossible too”

Bruce sighs nodding his head “okay, I’m not saying there won’t be risks, and I can’t promise anything” Bruce says looking over at Steve “but I’ll give it a go, there’s no harm in trying right?”

Steve breaths out a sigh of relief, he knew there was a chance this wouldn’t work and he shouldn’t get his hope up, but they were closer than they were this morning and that’s all that mattered. All Steve needed was that chance no matter how small.

“thank you Bruce, it really means a lot,” Steve tells him gratefully.

“it’s nothing, I’m assuming you still have the van with the gear in?” Bruce asks turning to Scott.

“yeah, it’s at the compound” Scott nods.

“great, well I’ll need to grab a couple of things from my lab and I could use a hand,” Bruce says looking over at Nat and Steve.

“yeah, we can help” Nat nods.

“I can’t I should probably start making my way to go pick up JJ,” Steve says.

“no problem, how is he?” Bruce asks a smile on his face.

Steve smiles gently “bigger, still the same ray of light he’s always been” Steve smiles.

“good I’m glad” Bruce smiles before clapping his hands together “let's get to work!”

When Steve got back to the lakehouse he found Pepper sat outside reading a book “Hey pep, good book?” he asks as he walks up the steps.

“I don’t know only just started it, never realised how little time you have for this sort of stuff once you have kids” Pepper chuckles as he walks over.

“yep, you only really get the evenings and by then you’re too tired” Steve chuckles shaking his head “what’s it about?” he asks.

“composting,” Pepper tells him making his eyebrow rise in amusement.

“sounds thrilling” He smirks.

“oh it really is” Pepper chuckles, and she smiles warmly up at him “you seem like you’re in a much better mood, did Bruce give you the answers you wanted?” she asks him.

“Tony told you?” Steve asks, Pepper nodding her head gently “well he said he’d try, its still a billion to one chance but…” he says before trailing off at the end, looking out at the lake, his mind going to you knowing how much you’d love this view.

“it’s a chance” Pepper finishes for him.

“yeah” Steve whispers looking down at the floor, he then clears his throat “how was JJ?”

“good as gold as always, you’ve raised such a good kid Steve, you should be really proud” Pepper smiles “they’re just in the den, they all fell asleep watching movies, Tony included”

Steve lets out a small huff of a laugh “thanks for watching him” Steve thanked her.

“It's nothing, we love to have him, He and Morgan together are so sweet, I love their friendship,” Pepper says as she stands up, opening the door to lead Steve inside.

“me too, I’m glad he has a friend like Morgan, in a way it reminds me of myself and Bucky but I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not” Steve admits making Pepper laugh.

“well at least we know they’ll have each other’s back” Pepper smiles before gently pushing open the door to the den.

As Steve steps in he spots the three of them fast asleep, Tony sat in between the two kids, head resting back on the back of the small couch, his arms wrapped around the kids as the curled up on either side of him. Steve and Pepper made sure they were quiet as they walked over, Pepper quickly taking a photo before gently waking Tony up.

“hm, what?” Tony snorted as he woke up “oh hey Rogers” he says after blinking a couple of times.

“Hey Tony, thanks for watching JJ, hope he didn’t wear you out too much,” Steve says quietly as he carefully lifts JJ up from the couch, making sure not to wake him.

“tire me out? what are you talking about?” Tony yawns “c’mon let me walk you out,” he says carefully getting up from the couch so he didn’t disturb Morgan.

Steve gives him a small smile of thanks before the pair of them start walking out of the house. The entire walk back to his car was silent and Steve knew it wasn’t just because JJ was still asleep. Tony only spoke up once Steve had put JJ in the car and quietly shut the door.

“look Rogers, I am sorry I couldn’t be more help with this time heist stuff” Tony sighs shaking his head “I know how much you want her back, and if I was in your position I’d be the same but all I can see are risks”

Steve lets out a long sigh nodding his head “its okay Tony” he says quietly.

“it's just that, there’s too much on the line, what if it went wrong and JJ lost you too, as well as everyone else that cares for him” Tony points out “and if it did go right, you can’t undo the past five years” he continues gesturing back to his house “and the world has changed, countries no longer exist, borders have changed, we’ve had new diseases, people have moved on, gotten remarried, had kids and died, bringing half the universe back could cause more problems than it would solve, people are gonna be homeless, alone, with no jobs and no money”

Steve sighs nodding his head “I know, I know it won’t be easy, people are going to need a lot of help to readjust but we have to at least try, I know if I asked my support group if they wanted their loved ones back I know they’d all say yes in a heartbeat” he says.

“I get that” Tony sighs “I would too, I just want you to full think this through, I know you’re pretty good at doing that, but you also used to jump out of jets without a parachute” Tony points out making Steve chuckle gently.

“Y/N put a stop to that,” Steve says smiling to himself “she kept me in line”

“I know, and I’m just trying to do the same in her place,” Tony says gently.

Steve nods his head slightly, glancing back into the car where JJ was still fast asleep, he knew what Tony was saying was right, there were a lot of risks he needed to consider, the most important being what could happen to him and subsequently JJ.

“Thanks Tony” Steve nods before smirking slightly “if only you through Ultron through like this”

Tony groans rolling his eyes “it's been years Rogers, drop it” Tony states pointing at Steve who was still smirking “go on get out, I can’t look at you anymore”

Steve laughs nodding his head “see you around Tony” he smiles opening his car door and climbing inside.

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Series Masterlist / Masterlist

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cambria-writes · 2 years

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ETA 27 Nov 2022: it has taken me literally weeks to realize that this is chapter thirteen, that i posted as chapter twelve, and that there’s a whole almost 4K words missing between this and the chapter i posted before it. i cannot express how much of an utter fucking buffoon i feel like please forgive me oh my god

hello! i think i proofread this, but as i mentioned before I wrote all of this in a trance after a really shit day so. honestly who knows.

i actually. i'm super insecure about this and i really don't. i don't know man. i'm trying not to make reader a mary-sue but i'm also fighting tooth and nail with myself about the fact that it wouldn't matter even if she was. my inner demons are bitches fr. send help

if i'm totally real i might. i might rewrite this and shove a few things into the next chapter. i don't know. i don't know!!

pairing: eddie munson x fem!reader rating: M, each chapter rated individually warnings: swearing, bleading, minor injuries, author was dissociated while writing basically, pacing is off the charts word count: 4,481

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𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕿𝖍𝖎𝖗𝖙𝖊𝖊𝖓: 𝔚𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔬𝔣 ℜ𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔩𝔩

The silence in the RV is practically deafening. Your skin feels too tight and your head feels full of cotton. It’s hard to think past the anxiety of it. For years, now, you’ve had to deal with nightmares, visions and horrifying knowledge that wouldn’t be believed. Years of being made to feel like Cassandra; bringer of prophecy and never believed. You’ve had to watch people die over and over again, without any ability to do anything about it.

You haven’t had much time to stop and think about why you have powers now in the first place. It’s connected to Eleven opening the gate in ‘83, that much you know. Well, you assume. The timing is a little bit too convenient for these things not to be connected.

What you’re not sure about is why all of a sudden you can do things now, instead of just having to spectate. You’re filtering through the events that you remember seeing, but nothing matches up with the timing. Nothing happened right before the night you first plane shifted. Even Chrissy was… even that was after.

A part of you wants to believe it’s just a reactionary thing; maybe some part of you is connected to the Upside Down, maybe it’s just nature providing its new predator with a foil. When you sigh, a hand comes down on your shoulder. You’re sat on the ground between Eddie’s legs; you don’t need to look up to know he’s wanting to ask what’s wrong. You shake your head and wave him off.

You’re overthinking things again.

When Steve hits the brakes on the RV, you slowly get up and follow Lucas, Erica and Sam to the door. You stop on the last step and look out at the house in front of you.

“Well that’s… that looks safe.”

Lucas snorts and Max turns around to look at you.

“Welcome to Creel Manor,” Max says, extending an arm out towards the run down building.

“Wait,” you say, when the three are about to walk off into the house. You reach out to grab Lucas’ hand and put your handgun, grip first, into it. “The safety’s already off, so be careful. Just…” You look from Lucas’ shocked face to the house, behind you to the RV, and back to the boy in front of you. “Anyone show up, aim for the legs, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Lucas agrees, quietly, looking from the gun back to you. “Enough people dead already, right?”

When you give him a pat on the shoulder, the thought comes to you. You run back in to tell Steve to wait for you for just a second, grab one of the soda’s from your designated pack by Eddie’s feet, and run back out, past the kids, straight to the front door.

“Hey, what are you—” Erica starts, but you hiss at the lot of them.

“Shut up, I need to focus.”

You use the corroded knob on the front door to pop open the soda and chug it as fast as you can. It burns the entire way down, and when the bottle is empty you feel like you’re five seconds away from regurgitating it all back up. You take a few deep breaths to steady yourself, and place your hand on the panels covering what you know is a stained glass window underneath.

You have no idea if this is going to work. You know this is at least an eighth level spell, and you have no way of knowing what can or can’t work with you. You’ve used different schools so far—alteration, divination, necromantic—so there’s no real way to know for sure.

Nevertheless, you close your eyes, try your best to develop a mental image of the front porch you’re standing on, and take one last deep breath.

On the exhale, you whisper something low enough that you know that no one else could've possibly heard you.

Immediately, the wooden panel under your hand splits, and you can hear the bushes around the porch rustle. You can hear the three kids calling after you behind you, mostly panicked. When you pull you hand away from the door and look at your palm, there’s a small gash where the splintered wood cut the skin open.

You ball your hand into a fist and wipe the blood from your nose before turning around. You toss the empty bottle into the bushes and ignore Lucas and Erica in favour of walking up to Max.

“Remember what I said at the lake,” you say, sternly, clenching your jaw against the headache pounding behind your eyes. “You’re not responsible for this. It’s not your job to fix this alone.”

“Yeah,” Max breathe, nodding shortly.

You bite your lips and nod once before running back up and in to the RV. Steve speeds off before the door even shuts behind you, and Eddie is right there, grabbing you by the shoulders with a force that startles.

“What the hell was that?”

“Contingency,” you say quietly, slowly reaching up to pull his hands off your shoulders. “I don’t have to think about or do everything, but I can at least give myself a plan B.”

“And what’s your plan B, exactly?” You hear Robin ask. You turn your head to look over your shoulder at Nancy before looking back up at Eddie. You let him reach up to swipe a thumb over your upper lip.

“Evac.”

“Okay,” Nancy starts, pushing herself away from the front seats to look back at the rest of you. “I wanna run through it one more time. Phase one.”

“We meet Erica at the playground,” Robin says, voice calm and low. “She’ll signal Max and Lucas when we’re ready.”

“Phase two.”

“Max baits Vecna,”Steve says, hands on his hips. “He’ll go after her, which’ll put him in his trance.”

Nancy nods. “Phase three?”

“Me and Eddie draw the bats away.”

“And if anything goes wrong?” Nancy prompts, and you raise your hand from behind Eddie.

“I plane shift them back, we take the bikes and meet up with Erica.”

“Four.”

“We head into Vecna’s hopefully newly bat-free lair and… flambé.” Robin says, holding up one of the Molotovs.

“Nobody moves onto the phase phase until we’ve all copied,” Nancy starts, before looking pointedly at you. “Nobody deviates from the plan, no matter what. Got it?”

You just nod while the rest voice their confirmation and swallow thickly. It’s obvious she knows you’ve got a plan no one else is involved in, and she seems adamant in letting you know not to resort to it.

And you can’t make promise like that. Not for this.

When everyone moves for their gear, after you’ve picked up your bag from the floor, you grab Eddie by the arm and hold him back.

“Hey, you trust me, right?” You ask, letting your hand slide down to his once he’s stopped to turn around to face you. He frowns but nods once.

“Yeah,” Eddie says, sounding unsure. “Yeah, of course. Why…”

You take a second to bite your lip. “Word of Recall,” you whisper, tightening your fingers around his hand. “That’s what I used. Just… just in case.”

“Hey, what’s the hold up?” Steve calls out, poking his head in through the door. “We’re on a time crunch here guys.”

“Yeah, sorry,” you apologize quickly, dropping Eddie’s hand and bolting before he can say anything. You pull your bag around to your front and rummage through the contents to grab a switch knife and tuck it into your right front pocket.

Inside the trailer, you move past the gate and head straight for the bathroom.

“Hey, I get that this is really stressful and we probably won’t be able to use the bathroom in a while but,” Robin starts, following you and pausing in the doorway.

Your hand is deep under the sink’s cabinet, reaching for the two cans of hairspray you know are tucked in there.

“Okay now I’m even more confused.”

While you stuff the cans into your bag, you pull out a zippo with your free hand.

“They hate fire,” you explain shortly, tugging harshly on the bag’s ties before getting up on the floor. “I know it’s not part of the Grand Plan or whatever but honestly I’d rather be safe.”

Robin just stands there and looks at you for a second before shrugging her shoulders. “Suit yourself, as long as you don’t blow yourself up.”

Thankfully, going through the gate doesn’t bring or induce anything awful this time. When Nancy and Robin pull you up to your feet after dropping in, you stand to the side just to listen. Your head stays blissfully free of any lich telepathy. You glance quickly over at Nancy, who’s grabbing the weapons Eddie’s throwing up through the gate, and can’t help but wonder.

You shake the thoughts out of your head and, once everyone and everything is through safely, you head out the door, behind Dustin. Eddie’s just put his hand at your lower back when Steve turns around.

“Hey, guys, listen” he calls out, making his way back over to the three of you. He points at you. “If things here start to go south—”

“Abort, take them back,” you finish for him, heaving your back higher up on your shoulder. “We’ve been through that, I know.”

“Right. Just, draw the attention of the bats, keep ‘em busy for a minute or two, and we’ll take care of Vecna. Don’t try to be cute, or, be a hero or something.” You notice how Steve seems to be looking more intently at Dustin, now. “You guys are just—”

“Decoys,” Dustin interrupts. “Don’t worry, you can be the hero, Steve.” You can’T help but snort.

‘Absolutely, I mean,” Eddie continues, and vaguely gestures at the three of you. “Look at us. We are not heroes.”

Steve looks pointedly at you again and you put your hands up.

“Hey, I’m not a hero either man, I’m just the party cleric.”

Steve looks entirely unconvinced, though that might just be the nerves showing. He nods, and moves to walk away, but Eddie takes a step forward and calls out to him. He looks back at Dustin, then over his other shoulder to you, before saying, “Make him pay.”

Red lightning strikes immediately followed by a clap of thunder. You flinch at the sound, immediately followed by yelp when you feel something at your elbow.

“Hey, sorry,” Dustin says, leaning away and putting his hand up. “You alright?”

“Yeah, sure,” you mutter, clearing your throat. “Come on,” you say a little louder, tapping Dustin’s arms and moving towards one of the other trailers. “Time to set up.”

While Eddie and Dustin go through the Munson trailer to get the amp, wires and his beloved Warlock, you busy yourself with getting the ladder. You prop it up against the side of the trailer as best you can so it won’t be too wobbly, and make your way onto the roof. You let your bag drop and give a few thumps with your feet. When you hear Dustin shouting, you smirk and move to grab the length of rope you’d stashed in your bag. You work to loop part of it around your waist and tie it as tightly as you can manage, sit just beyond the ladder, and toss the rest of the rope down.

The front door makes you jump when it slams open, and you sigh when you hear Dustin whooping.

“You ready for the most metal concert ever?!”

“I would’ve rather be at the Hideout to hear Eddie play for the first time but I guess this fuckin’ works,” you return, leaning back on your hands. “Hurry up losers, we’re wasting daylight.”

“Yeah, calm your tits, woman,” Eddie grumbles, hitching the amp higher in his arms. “Isn’t even any daylight in this place anyways.”

When they’re up next to the ladder, Dustin carefully ties the handle of the amp before making his way up the ladder. Slowly, the two of you pull the amp up along the ladder. You scoot back as much as you can while Dustin grabs the thing and heaves it up onto the roof. The larger amps nearly make you slide off the edge of the roof, but after the second one, the other two don’t feel as heavy.

“You’re good!” You call out to Eddie, quickly untying the rope from your waist. You’re about to just toss it to the side, but quickly ball it up and toss it back into your bag.

Eddie tosses the aux cords up first, then the spears. He goes back down to get the makeshift shield and, when he’s high enough up on the ladder, pulls the guitar from his back and passes it over into your waiting hands.

“You find the generator?” You ask, passing the guitar off the Dusting, who carey gingerly leans it up against the amp.

“Yeah, just gimme a minute to get it running,” Eddie says, strained, before letting himself slide back down the ladder. You cross you arms and worry at your lower lip while you start to pace.

“So,” Dustin starts, and when you look over at him he’s got his hands behind his back and is rocking back and forth on his feet. “How long have you and Eddie been a thing?”

Though you do your best impression of a blank stare, you feel your stomach drop and your heart leap into your throat.

“What?” He whines, easing his back and forth swaying and brings his arms in front of his to gesture at you. “Have you seen the two of you?”

“Bullshit,” you spit, leaning down to grab your bag. “He’s like that with everyone. Besides, I haven’t even seen him in like, three years. We barely know each other.”

“Uh huh,” Dustin nods, and you groan when he looks entirely unconvinced and very much like a little shit. “Look, I’m just saying! He doesn’t look at us that way!”

“Look at you in what way, dude? He looks at me with eyes and a face like a normal human.”

“He looks at you,” Dustin starts again, lowering his voice and walking up to you. “Like you’re a ghost he never thought he’d see again.”

You scoff and turn your head away. “Yeah well, he’s not wrong.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means we’re different, kid,” you say quietly, pulling out a hand to inspect your suddenly very interesting nails. “A lot has happened since ‘83. Maybe he’s the same, but I’m not.”

“No, you’re right.” And the shock of his agreement has you looking back at Dusting. “I mean, a lot has happened in three years, sure. And yeah, I mean look at you, you’ve got legit superpowers now.”

“And massive trauma from seeing people die all the time.”

“And massive trauma fr—wait. You saw people die?”

You turn away again and run a hand down your face.

“Yeah. Yeah I did. I saw Nancy’s friend get caught by a demogorgon. Some scientist at the lab. Bob, all the people that got turned into—into goop. Fucking, Billy.” You take in a stuttering breath. Somewhere not too far away you hear Eddie swearing before the sound of a generator starting drowns him out. “Any time someone died because of the Upside Down, I was there. I saw it.”

“Shit,” Dustin whispers.

“Yeah. Shit.”

The sound of the generator cuts out, and Eddie’s is audible again. You exhale sharply through your nose and turn back to face Dustin.

“Can you promise me something?”

“Uh,” Dustin takes a step back and frowns. “That depends entirely on what the promise is.”

You lick your lips and point at him. “No matter what happens, okay,” you start, pointing down at your bag. “And I don’t give a flying but about Wheeler’s plan. No matter what happens, once we get out of here, I need you to distract Eddie for me.”

“What, why would you—”

“I’m expecting an answer, Henderson, not an interrogation. Will you or won’t you?”

The frown stays on his face a second longer before realization takes over his features. Not a good kind of realization.

“When you were talking about evac,” he starts slowly, first turning to walk away before turning back to point at you. “You were talking about Max.”

“Dustin,” you warn, voice low.

“You were. You’re actually thinking about trying to be a hero.”

“I’m not! I’m just, this is stupid!”

“What’s stupid now?” Eddie calls from the ground, and no sooner you turn around to face the ladder does an extension cord come flying over the edge. You and Dustin both stand by and watch it slowly slide back over the edge. “Seriously guys, hello?”

Dustin moves first to kneel at and look over the edge. You huff and make yourself useful and start plugging up the amps and the guitar. Once Dustin manages to grab the extension cord—after several almost-hilarious failures—it’s a quick fix to get the amps plugged in.

You barely have a second to breathe before the walking crackles to life.

“She’s in, move on to phase three.”

“Fuck,” you mutter, turning to Eddie while Dustin confirms. “Remember, no funny business. THe bats show up, we go in, and we get the fuck out of here.”

“And if shit hits the fan, we’ve got you,” Eddie confirms, surprising you by pulling you to him with a hand behind your neck, and knocking your foreheads together. “Get ready to have your mind blown.”

You almost laugh and slowly take a few steps back when he lets you go. Dustin walks up next to you after turning the amps up as far as they’ll go, and nudges you with an elbow. You smack him upside the head with a scowl in return. Eddie whispers something you don’t quite catch when he rips the guitar pick from around his neck, and starts to play.

Your whispered ‘what the fuck’ is lost in the opening bars of Master of Puppets. Next to you, Dustin seems to appreciate Eddie’s performance, but you can’t help the slack-jawed, shocked look you know is on your face. That song came out barely three weeks ago.

Dustin smacks you in the arm, looking absolutely delighted while bobbing his head to the song. You frown and nod—yeah this is. For a once man show in hell surrounded by murderous everything, this really… this really isn’t that bad.

It’s not too long after, once Dustin’s taken a look through his binoculars, that the countdown starts. You throw your bag over your shoulder and run for the edge of the roof where you know a truck is parked and hop down. You can barely hear Dustin calling out for ten seconds by the time you’ve opened the door beyond the fence. You hear the clatter of the guitar against the roof and usher the two of them in through the fence. By the time you slam the door shut behind you and the three of you are in the trailer, you’re lightheaded from holding your breath.

Slumped against the door, you can help but chuckle when both Dustin and Eddie start jumping up and down like excited kids. Though you’re glad they’re capable of having a good time about this, you really wish adrenaline could have the same effect on you.

You really just feel like vomiting, and the sound of a swarm of shrieking bats outside isn’t making things any easier.

When you hear the tell-tale thump of bats landing on the roof, while Eddie and Dustin move to stand back to back just underneath the gate, you once again move past them to the bathroom. Reach under the sink, and pull… three? Alright, cool, three more cans of hairspray. You drop them onto the mattress when you walk back out, and grab the two from your bag to throw them down too. You pause from where you’re sitting on the mattress, looking up and Eddie and Dustin. Eddie shrugs, just as confused when the trailer goes silent.

“Hey dipshits!” Dustin screams, and you’re shocked at how guttural it sounds. “Give up that easy huh?!”

“Dude shut up!” You whisper harshly, fishing for the lighter in your jacket

“Is that really necessary?” Eddie asks, but before Dustin can say anything else there’s a thump on the roof,

And another. And the thumps are headed in… a specific direction?

Spray in one and and lighter in the other, you slowly follow Eddie and Dustin as they make their ways toward—

“Tell me that’s not a fucking vent,” you whisper, nudging Eddie.

“They can’t come in through there, can they?” Dustin asks. And you’re about to berate him for saying possibly the worst thing he could say in this situation when the plastic cover comes flying off.

You shove post Eddie and Dustin out of the way, flick your lighter and start spraying.

The fire and heat shock you, but clearly not more than it shocked the bat who stuck it’s stupid little head inside.

“Get out of the way!” Eddie shouts behind you, and though you back up a little, you keep the fire going until you realize what he’s.

Eddie hops on the chair he slides over, hops on and jams the shield right into the ceiling. When it’s been quiet for a second, you let out a breathy laugh.

“Would you look at that, the nails didn’t pop out.” You turn when the two high five each other, but frown and wave them down. “Wait hold up.”

“Are there any other vents?” Dustin asks, and Eddie doesn’t even say a word before he takes off for the other end of the trailer.

You stay stock still under the gate, fingers gripping the can and lighter with sore fingers. You give yourself a moment to close your eyes in resignation when you hear a swarm of bats burst in through Eddie’s bedroom.

“Come on!” You scream, motioning wildly at Dustin to get up and through the gate. “Get up there!” He swears the entire way to you, through the gate, and when he finally stands up on the other side, relatively safe and sound. You quickly grab your bag and scoop the hairspray back into it.

“Leave that shit here!” Eddie yells, spear and second shield aimed at the slowly splintering door. “Get up there!”

Tie the bag firmly shut and bring it to your front, pocket your lighter and jump up as high as you can to grip the rope. Just as unpleasant the third time around. You’re rolling off the mattress, clutching your bag for dear life and briefly wondering what the tipping point is for a glass bottle of soda to explode, when you notice Dustin’s shouting getting desperate.

You scramble to your feet and trip over the mattress. When you look up,Eddie’s barely made it halfway up.

And he’s just hanging there.

“Eddie, please,” Dustin pleads, and the look on Eddie’s face makes your blood run cold.

“Eddie,” you whine, grabbing the rope with one hand. “Edward Munson, I swear—”

“On your dad’s Elvis vinyl collection, I know,” he says quietly. But nevertheless, he lets himself drop back down and while Dustin is shrieking, Eddie.

Eddie cuts the god damn fucking rope.

“No,” you growl. “No, no no no, no that lying piece of fuckign shit. Dustin, stop,” you call out, walking over and pulling him away from the table.

“What are you talking about, Eddie’s—”

“Eddie’s lucky he has a fucking plane shifting friend is what he is!” You shout, shoving Dustin toward the trailer door. “Go meet up with Erica, and don’t get caught. I’ll get us both back in one piece.”

“But—”

“Go!”

You’re fuming. Absolutely raging. You let yourself pace for a second before closing your eyes.

Your stomach drops. Your breath gets caught.

And for a wonderful fraction of a second, there’s no sound.

And then it’s right back into the shrieking swarm of bats. And though you’re almost loathe to recognize it, you were right.

None of them come even close to touching you as the few stragglers left in the trailer fly out the door. You run out the door after them just in time to see Eddie pull a bike up off the ground.

“Eddie, you son of a bitch!” You scream, barrelling into him to knock you both down to the ground.

“What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Saving your stupid fucking idiotic traitor ass!” You shout back, awkwardly shimmying the bag off. “They can’t get me but they can get you, god, fuck, why did you do that,” you grind out between grit teeth, looming over Eddie with both hands braced on either side of his head to keep you up.

You feel the brush of sharp wings and serrated tails on your back as the bats swarm around you, until you don’t. A quick glance to either side of you confirms that the bats are, in fact, trying to get to Eddie by crawling on the ground. You don’t even have time to question why the hell they’re so intent on him.

Eddie shoves you off as gently as you figure someone can manage in this kind of situation, and immediately reaches into your bag to grab a can of hairspray. You lunge for the bag on the ground and dump everything. Pull the switchblade out and cut a few inches of rope and unravel it.

Pull out your lighter.

Flick it on. Carefully tie the rope around to keep the switch depressed and release.

Put the lighter down on the ground in front of you and reach for the hairspray.

Tie the rest of the rope down the length of the can to make sure the nozzle keeps spraying.

When you put it next to the lighter, it’s close enough to catch fire.

You stumble back up on your feet and snatch the bottle of soda. By the time you have your free on Eddie’s shoulder to pull him back, he’s got the bats flying back up in the air, a column of fire keeping most of them away.

“Count down to one for me,” you say, popping open the bottle of soda with your teeth. There’s a quick shot of pain before you take another swig, and you know you’ve chipped a tooth. “From five!”

“What the hell am I counting down to?” Eddie asks over his shoulder at you.

“Do you trust me or not?”

You can see Eddie twisting his tongue.

“Five.”

You close your eyes and take another swig of the soda.

“Four.”

Dry bushes, rotten wood, covered stained glass.

“Three, and this better be good cause I’m running out!”

You take a deep breath and think about derelict manors..

“Two!”

“Cut the fire.”

“What?!”

“You were supposed to say one,” you whisper. “Ravenloft.”

𝓣𝓪𝓰𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽

@storiesbyrhi @anothermunsonsimp @doratheignora @alovesongshewrote

#eddie munson #reader #stranger things #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson fic #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #ravenloft #im shaking at this point i swear #im 100% convinced this is garbage #and i'm not even fishing here im just fucking insecure lmao #glitch #glitch warning #gif warning

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berenwrites · 1 year

Text

Beyond the Battle - Chapter 5 - Stranger Things - Steddie

Beyond the Battle: Action & Consequence

Click here for All Posted Chapters

Summary: Steve hits things with a bat or gets hit depending on who you ask. He definitely does not have anything to do with the psychic stuff. That is El’s domain. However, as Vecna is defeated, the rules change.

Pairing: steddie (Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson)

Other Relationships: Steve & Robin, Steve & Dustin, Eddie & Dustin

Rating: Teen

A/N: Multi-chapter story, updated regularly. Honestly not sure how many chapters it will have yet because it's still a bit hand wavy in the middle, but definitely more than 12. Thank you to my beta for find my mistakes and to all those who read/like/reblog.💖 Follow #st:beyond-the-battle for updates.

Also on AO3

Chapter 5. Dreams

Mornings were not usually hard for Steve. He liked to be up early, go for a run, get the day going. However, his second day at home he had to force himself out of bed.

“You look half awake at best,” Robin said when he picked her up. “Are you sure you’re okay to drive?”

“Yep,” he replied, hoping he was telling the truth, “just crashed yesterday. Full on fell asleep on the couch.”

“Like after Starcourt?” Robin asked, belting herself in.

As he had expected, lots of the party were in need of supplies. Robin had her parents list, they were off to pick up Dustin next, and they were meeting some of the others at one of the big stores one town over. It had all been arranged via the walkie the previous evening before Steve had climbed into bed and slept for ten hours.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling out of her driveway. “It always happens. Must be an adrenaline drop or something. Happened after everything in 83, happened after Billy and the demodogs, happened after Starcourt, and now it’s happening after Vecna 2. Usually takes a couple of days to get back to normal.”

“And I reiterate, are you sure you’re okay to drive?” Robin said.

“I’m fine,” he replied and did his best to look awake. “Things need doing, I’ll just crash again once I get home. Could do without the weird ass dreams though.”

“Nightmares?” was the much gentler enquiry from his platonic soulmate.

“Surprisingly no,” he admitted, “but weird. I saw Eddie.”

“Shit,” Robin said. “And how is that not a nightmare?”

“It wasn’t,” he assured her. “I think my subconscious is just trying to deal with losing him. I’ve never lost one of the group I was with before. I mean people have died, Bob died, we thought Hop died, but it wasn’t the same.”

“You didn’t see it,” Robin concluded.

He nodded.

“Didn’t have to coax Dustin away from their bodies either,” he agreed. “Really wish we could have brought him home.”

“Yeah,” Robin said. “So, want to talk about your dream of Eddie?”

He gave it a few moments thought, but shook his head.

“No,” he confirmed out loud, “I think I just want to leave my brain to process. Might need to talk about it later though.”

“Just say the word,” Robin told him. “So how about we decide on a plan of attack for operation re-stock. You know it’s going to be chaos.”

Steve grinned, putting thoughts of Eddie to the back of his mind.

“I can only imagine,” he agreed.

~*~

After making sure everyone had everything they needed, Steve took Robin down to the school so they could volunteer for a while. The place had been abandoned during the evacuation, but it was up and running again now to help those who had come back. Robin was utterly delighted to find Vickie had returned as well.

Steve let her have a couple of hours before they headed out.

When he finally made it home, he finished putting away the groceries that weren’t perishable, he’d already done the rest earlier, grabbed something simple to eat, then went through the same routine as the day before, before collapsing on the couch. He was out before he had a chance to even take as sip of his tea.

When he blinked his eyes open on his dream version of the Void, he realised his subconscious had not finished screwing with him yet.

“You came back,” said a surprised, but very familiar voice.

He turned, much more slowly this time, to find Eddie sitting on what looked like an ordinary kitchen chair. He was just as dirty and ragged as the last time Steve had dreamed about him, but his eyes were alert, and his posture was much straighter.

“You look better,” Steve said.

“I’m feeling better,” Eddie replied. “Not great, but more alive. Whatever you did to me sure as hell worked.”

“How do you know it wasn’t just the feeding?” Steve asked, stepping closer.

“Because I don’t remember a whole lot about being Vecna’s lacky, but I remember feeding a couple of times,” Eddie replied. “It was not like that. You gave me more than blood.”

“I wanted to make you better,” Steve said with a shrug, “and in here I could do that, so I did.”

“You look tired,” was Eddie’s next observation.

“Been a long day,” he replied, “I’m fine.”

Eddie’s gaze flicked over him quickly, as if assessing what he was saying.

“How much do you remember after Vecna brought you back?” he asked before Eddie could dispute his statement.

Eddie frowned at that, eyes going dark for a moment.

“Flashes mostly,” came the eventual response. “Like my mind was mostly asleep, at least my rational thoughts anyway. It’s more feelings and the occasional real memory.”

“We didn’t see you in the final battle,” Steve revealed.

“No,” Eddie replied, “I was for after, for terrifying the town. The demon they failed to put down. I know that much, I remember him, well not telling me, but holding me back and it slipped through. I think he was afraid what might happen if I came face to face with any of you. Our campaign and Max’s strength really rattled him.”

“Wish we’d known that,” Steve said, moving closer still. “Might have made the final confrontation a little less terrifying.”

“Was it bad?” Eddie asked.

“We were prepared thanks to Max and El, but yeah, it was the scariest shit I have ever seen,” he revealed and began to tell Eddie all about it.

The words came easily, especially with Eddie slipping in bits of information he had gleaned from the other side. If felt like such a relief to have someone to talk to, even if it was all a figment of his subconscious. He knew the others were there if he needed to talk, but he didn’t want to burden them. Eddie genuinely seemed to want to know. Of course he did, that’s why Steve had conjured him. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t real. It felt right.

Eventually, however, Steve began to notice Eddie was looking tired.

“You need to feed again, don’t you,” he said as their discussion waned.

“Honestly, Big Boy,” Eddie said, “I have no idea what I need. The only thing that seems real to me right now is you.”

“Your eyes have gone dark,” Steve said, stepping into Eddie’s personal space.

“They do that?” Eddie asked.

Steve nodded.

“When you’re emotional or hungry I think,” he said. “They also glow red around the edges when you’re ready to feed.”

“Good to know,” Eddie said and almost carried off the off-hand tone.

Steve held his wrist out. He didn’t know what games his subconscious mind was playing. All he knew was it felt important to let them continue. Part of him needed this, so he went with it.

Eddie was less desperate this time. He looked at Steve for a long time, searching his face as if looking for something. However, eventually he reached out and took Steve’s wrist.

Steve reacted in exactly the same way to Eddie’s fangs sliding into his flesh. The pain was nothing and he gave Eddie everything he could. It was what he needed to do.

~*~

Steve woke up on his couch with the morning sun already streaming through the windows. He felt rested, much better than he had the previous morning, but incredibly hungry and his nose was bloody again. Making another mental note to talk to Will or El, because he’d completely forgotten the previous day, he went about putting yet another blanket in to soak to get out the blood stains.

Walking into the kitchen once that was done, he set about making himself some toast and eggs, an embarrassingly large helping if he was honest. Not that he was in the mood to argue with his stomach.

Eating made him feel much better. He headed upstairs to get ready for the day feeling accomplished. Possibly his dreams were good for him.

The phone was actually working when he picked it up, at least for local calls, so he called Robin to see if she wanted to go to the school again. She did, so that rather set up his day. He did try and get another call through to his parents, but the number failed, so he gave up.

He saw Eddie’s uncle at the school helping out, which brought his dreams right to the forefront of his mind. The man looked so sad at times, Steve wished he could help him. He felt guilty that his subconscious seemed to be giving him something Wayne clearly didn’t have, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do. Any sort of spiral was, however, averted when Robin distracted him with a PB&J sandwich. By the time he had subdued the monster in his stomach, Wayne had been gone.

When he finally made it home, he refused to fall asleep on the couch again. He made himself dinner, ate it standing in the kitchen, cleaned up and headed upstairs instead. This time he didn’t try and pretend he wasn’t going straight to sleep and went through his nightly routine. With a towel over his pillow, just in case, he let his eyes close, and he slipped into dreamland.

He was not surprised to open them onto his dream Void again.

“Hey, Eddie,” he said, turning to where he instinctively knew the other man would be.

“Hey yourself, Stevie,” Eddie replied.

Eddie was standing this time. He almost looked as he had that last time in the Upside Down, minus the bandana and with added holes in his clothes showing off silvery scars where Vecna had put him back together.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asked, walking over without hesitation.

“Nearly like me,” Eddie replied, “but still weird on the edges. I don’t know what happens when you’re not here, it’s all foggy.”

Steve’s stomach twisted. He couldn’t tell Eddie it was because he was just a dream, it felt too cruel. Which was ridiculous, but it was a dream, logic didn’t really apply.

“The Upside Down never makes any sense,” he said.

“What happens when I am me again, Stevie?” Eddie asked. “Will you come get me?”

“Yeah,” he said, voice cracking around the lump in his throat, “I’ll come get you.”

He wished it was real. Wished he could reach out and bring Eddie home. Nothing else would make him happier. To be able to bring their fallen member back. To see the joy on Dustin’s face when he found out. To feel that loss undone. It would be everything. Only it was just a dream.

“What do you want to talk about tonight?” he asked instead, because he couldn’t wake up and the grief was too much.

“You never explained how Hopper is alive,” Eddie replied, apparently happy to go with his change of subject. “He was one of my best customers for a while, y’know. Man liked his weed.”

Steve did something of a mental recalibration.

“That makes more sense than it should,” he replied. “Well y’know how Hopper supposedly died in the fire at the mall? You remember how we mentioned it was Russians when we gave you the whole Upside Down explanation?”

After Eddie nodded, Steve proceeded to explain everything about Starcourt and the base underneath and Hopper’s supposed sacrifice, as well as the things he had heard about a secret Russian prison and what had been going on there. Once again it was liberating to just talk about all the things he couldn’t usually talk about. Robin was always there for him if he needed an ear, but sometimes talking about it reignited her nightmares and Steve hated to do that.

“So, both you and Hopper got seriously tortured by Russians?” Eddie asked after Steve had spun his tale.

“I guess,” he replied, “but Hop got it much worse. He’s a lean mean fighting machine now. You would not believe it.”

“I don’t think it matters who got it worse, Harrington,” Eddie said surprisingly vehement. “Torture is torture and no one should have to go through it. The more I learn about you, the more amazed I am you’re not batshit crazy.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” he said, trying to make a joke of it, “just ask Robin.”

“I take it back,” Eddie said, “maybe you are a bit batshit after all.”

Which given that was something Steve often wondered about himself, made sense coming from his subconscious.

“If you could, what would you be doing right now?” he asked, because he didn’t want to talk about Russians anymore.

Eddie grinned, his eyes going distant for a moment.

“My uncle bought me a ticket to see Metallica in Indie for my last birthday,” Eddie replied after a moment. “April 8th. Guess I missed it.”

Steve nodded, wondering if his mind was making things up or if he’d maybe overheard Eddie mention the concert to Dustin or something and just not registered it.

“That’s what I’d like to be doing now,” Eddie said wistfully. “Would have liked to see them live before biting the big one.”

A grimace flashed across Eddie’s face as he spoke. Steve saw his eyes darken.

“You need to feed,” he said with certainty.

It was almost as if he could sense it.

“You’ve given me so much already, Steve,” Eddie said, tone completely serious.

“Might as well finish it then,” he replied.

His choice of words caught him by surprise, especially when he realised, he meant them. He wondered if this would be the last time he would see Eddie in his dreams as Eddie’s eyes zeroed in on his throat.

“Take what you need,” he said.

Rather than raising his wrist, he tilted his head to the side. It seemed kind of poetic that if this was the last time, they did it properly, like in the movies.

“You don’t…” Eddie started to say.

“Yes, I do,” he interrupted. “This is for me as much as it is for you.”

He wasn’t sure why. Didn’t understand what his subconscious was doing, but he knew that much.

Eddie hesitated. The other man was clearly torn, but his eyes were black with that little red ring. Steve knew he was going to win this one.

It almost felt like the beginning of a kiss as Eddie stepped up to him. They were nearly the same height and Eddie placed both hands on his chest to brace himself. Steve closed his eyes and waited.

The bite hurt no more or less than on his wrist, but it somehow felt more intimate. His reaction, however, was identical, although he swayed into Eddie’s hold. This time though, it was as if he could sense Eddie more clearly, could feel how close to complete this was. As Eddie drank in his blood and his energy, he felt everything click into place. He couldn’t explain it, he just knew.

“Steve,” he heard Eddie groan. “Steve, something … oh Jesus … Steve. Help…”

Steve sat up in bed, breathing hard. Staring around he almost expected it to be the unending darkness of the void, but it was just his room. He could feel the ghost of Eddie’s fangs on his throat. The touch of Eddie’s lips against his skin.

The clock next to the bed showed 2:57 with its glowing numbers. He’d been asleep for hours, but it had felt like a lot less.

“Steve!”

Eddie’s voice echoed through his mind.

“Please, Steve, help me. I don’t know where I am.” The voice was distant and distorted, almost as if it was travelling through something like water. Scrambling out of bed, he went to the window. His yard and pool were dark since none of the outside lights were on. The only thing that grabbed his attention was the faintest red glow from the water.

End of Chapter 5

Chapter 6

#stranger things fanfiction #steddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #eddie lives #stranger things #st:beyond-the-battle #fanfic #post season 4 #vampire eddie #hurt/comfort #vampire eddie munson #platonic stobin #psychic stuff #steve harrington has powers

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