#I purposely wanted to keep this sketchy

[grand-line-shenanigans]

Yippee!!

[mymp3]

because twt is broken i thought i could share off my doodle compilation to the world. silly doodles new and old that i made into my new header :)

+ bonus doodles

[victorluvsalice]

AU Thursday: Valicer In The Dark -- Duskwall Slang

Since we did a VITD lookbook yesterday, I figured we might as well keep the train going today and talk a little bit about some of the worldbuilding I've done for the Valicer In The Dark version of Duskwall (the main setting of Blades In The Dark). Specifically, I've decided to share the short list of slang that I've come up with for people to use! Because that's always fun, right? :) The first entry on this list is taken from the book itself (page 42, specifically) and adapted a little bit, but all the rest are purely my own invention:

-->“Flashing a/their/your Coin” and variants – making an ostentatious display of wealth, to the disgust of everyone around them (the term "Coin" itself is in fact slang for a large sum of money, taken from the days when the Imperial treasury would actually mint large solid gold coins intended to cover major transactions; most people these days rely on small silver pieces called "slugs"). Example: “You spent all that money on THAT outfit? Really flashing your Coin, huh?”

-->“Moving to Six Towers” – indicates that the person said to be moving was previously rich and important, but has fallen on extremely hard times and is on the verge of ruin (referencing the fact that Six Towers USED to be one of the richest neighborhoods in the city, but has turned into a bit of a slum with most of the nobility previously living there moving into Brightstone). Example: “The Everglots’ leviathan ship hasn’t had a good haul in six months. Think they’ll be moving to Six Towers soon.”

-->“Scavenging in the Lost District” – indicates that the person said to be scavenging is taking an INCREDIBLE risk in the hopes of getting a high reward (due to the Lost District being an abandoned neighborhood outside the lightning barrier keeping the city safe and guarded by the Spirit Wardens...but also having many lost riches within its bounds). Example: “You want to rob Lord Mayor Powerwallet? Talk about scavenging in the Lost District!”

-->“Living Coin to Coin” – living paycheck to paycheck, as the average weekly wage in Duskwall is equivalent to a Coin’s worth of money. Example: “Poor old Tom – what with his sick mother and five children needing feeding, he’s living Coin to Coin.”

-->“Only good for mushrooms” – indicates that the thing being talked about is absolute shit. Example: “Don’t order the ‘special ale’ at the Withered Talon, it’s only good for mushrooms.”

-->“You want to call the crows?” – equivalent of “You want to get us killed?” in response to a risky course of action (referencing the Deathseeker crows that find corpses for the Spirit Wardens). Example: “You want to FIGHT Lord Mayor Powerwallet’s bodyguards? You want to call the crows?!”

-->“Barrowcleft approved” – indicates the item in question is homemade but of very high quality (Barrowcleft being a poor, rural neighborhood with one of the best, and fairest, markets in the city). Example – “You carved this yourself? Why, this is Barrowcleft approved work and no mistake!”

-->“Dust Day fare” – an extremely meager meal made from poor-quality ingredients, referencing the popular nickname for the fifth day of the week from Charhollow, which itself references the fact that poor people’s food stores are the thinnest on this day. Example – “Canal water soup with potato peelings. This is Dust Day fare, all right.”

-->“Crit Six/rolled a crit six” – means that something is exceedingly good, or that something that you have done has succeeded beyond your wildest dreams; references the most popular dice game in Duskwall, where rolling double sixes is an automatic win. Example – “I went to open the safe, and I rolled a crit six – the door practically came off in my hands!”

-->“Welcher” – a term for someone who hires a criminal or crew for a job, and then not only refuses to pay them, but actively tries to murder them (directly or otherwise) to avoid doing so. Only one of the highest leaders of the most well-known crews may declare someone a Welcher, and then only after receiving sufficient proof, as the term is a death sentence – the scoundrels of Duskwall do not take kindly to their clients trying to stiff them, in both senses of the word. Example: “All right, I’ve seen enough – I’m ready to declare that Lord E.A. Bethesda is a Welcher. Hope he’s prepared for every scoundrel in the city coming for his ass...”

Further updates to come if and when I think of more stuff! Which I probably will, as this is fun. :)

[scarletiswailing347]

need to find a fanfic writer bestie or something cause im in the mood (always in the mood) to draw for fanfics but i have a Lot of trouble doing so without being told first (mostly cause i have a lot of trouble reading fanfics period lol)

[koolades-world]

One bed troupe w/ Lucifer

You were out on a tour of the Devildom with Diavolo, Lucifer, Solomon, Luke, and Simeon. Diavolo wanted to promote the exchange program further, and let the Devildom see the faces of the wonderful angels and humans that had come to stay with them. They would be out with the group for about a week in order to tour the entire realm. It really wasn’t necessary for Lucifer to be there. In fact, it would have been better for him to stay behind to keep his brothers in check and run the school, but, he had insisted on coming along. His brothers joked it was to stay with Diavolo, but they were secretly mad that Lucifer got to go and they had to stay, jealous about the quality time he would get with you.

It was day four in the trip, which was about halfway through. The day was finally over, and the group was finally returning to the hotel. They hadn’t been the one to move their luggage into the rooms. The room arrangements were as following: Luke and Simeon, of course, Diavolo and Solomon, and finally you and Lucifer. Simeon didn't want to leave Luke alone, and Diavolo enjoyed sharing a room with someone. Lucifer was definitely torn between who to bunk with. It was clear he wanted to keep both you and Diavolo safe from the sketchy sorcerer, but Diavolo insisted he would be just fine with Solomon, and even saw it as a bonding experience. He was rich enough to avoid this altogether, but found the experience novel and once-in-a-lifetime. It was typical of Diavolo to look at the situation that way, which left you and Lucifer together. Dia and Solomon got along surprisingly well, much to Lucifer's dismay, and on the first night alone they painted each others nails and ordered three hundred grim worth of food.

Once reaching your room, you kicked off your shoes and sat at the small kitchen in the hotel room. Lucifer followed behind them, moving their shoes out of the way of the door. He shut the door behind himself, and took off his own shoes more carefully to set them beside theirs. He saw both sets of luggage propped up beside each other, one set black and one set pink. The cute bag tag that Mc had made him adorned his own, complete with his name and bedazzlement.

“Luci, my feet hurt.” You whined to him. He chuckled at your behavior.

“Go and take a warm shower, or bath if you see fit. That will help. We have a few hours before dinner.” You nodded, agreeing and promise to be quick. He opened his suitcase and began looking for a new outfit to wear the evening. You took your own suitcase and disappeared into the bathroom. He turned around to lay out the outfit on whichever bed he should call his, but to his surprise, there was only one. He stopped for a moment, holding the suit. Did Diavolo do this on purpose? Was this a mistake? He found himself thinking for a good moment. He knew he wouldn’t mind sharing a bed with his beloved Mc, but he didn’t want to make you do anything they didn’t want to. He decided to lay out his outfit on a nearby chair instead, leaving the bed untouched. He busied himself in the kitchen instead, poking around for anything that could be his saving grace. He was only able to find some dishes and dishwasher soap.

You finally emerged from the bathroom, with damp hair and wearing a robe, suitcase in tow. “Luci! The robes at this hotel are so nice. I should get one for home.” The way you were affectionately enamored with every small thing in the Devildom warmed his heart. He would have to buy one for you. In any other situation, he hated that damned nickname, but he could never bring himself to stop you from using it.

“Can we talk for a moment?” He decided to bring this up sooner than later. He was a grown demon and running from his problems would not help.

“Sure thing! What’s up?” You set your suitcase down, right back next to his.

It took him a moment to say what he wanted to. Having you in front of him made it much more difficult then he initially thought. "I believe there has been a mistake. We only have one bed." He studied your face for any negative changes. To his surprise, there wasn't one.

"I thought it was going to be much worse that that with the face you were making. I don't mind if you don't." You smiled at him. He found his face heating up and he glanced away. "No need to be shy! This way, one of us won't be super far from the TV. My favorite part about staying in hotels is watching TV in bed and now I get to do it with my favorite demon. Don’t tell Mammon I said that." You giggled.

Lucifer covered his face with his hand. He got up and turned his back to you. "I'm off to shower. See that you are ready to go in an hour." He blindly tried to walk into the bathroom and instead hit his head on the wall before walking through the doorway. You laughed at how flustered he was. Since he was busy, you decided to snuggle up on the side of the bed with the outlet closest so you could charge their D.D.D. They turned on the TV and watched the Devildom cooking show intently. If anyone asked, it was to "acclimate to Devildom culture" but really it was because they enjoyed watching cooking and yelling at the screen. Solomon called you at some point, so the two of you began amiably chatting about the hotel rooms.

Lucifer emerged from the shower pretty quickly and saw you under the sheets, watching TV and talking to Solomon. He picked up on context clues and quickly asked if he could talk to Diavolo. His mood was slightly soured when you rejected his request because you were having a great conversation about the TV show and because Diavolo would not help him get a different room. He decided to get changed while you talked with his least favorite human. Time passed quickly and before he knew it, dinner was over.

You could tell Lucifer had drank a little more than he usually would and was tipsy. He was much taller than you, yet you were the one dragging him in the right direction. You told him to go get changed, and he came back with his clothes folded. He was in a pair of simple black pajamas. You almost preferred him this way, actually. He didn’t try to hide how he felt or anything, but you still felt guilty about it.

He flopped down on the bed, sprawled out, leaving the bathroom open. The pajamas Mc had were long sleeves and long pants. During the day, the Devildom was scorching. However, at night, it was freezing. It rarely snowed or iced over, and most demons barely noticed it. But you for sure as hell did. You learned there was barely a day where you could wear something light, unless you knew one of the brothers would be in your bed since they made nice heaters. Belphie gifted you a heating pad, which quickly made him your favorite for that week, much to the dismay of his brothers. Once you changed, you entered the main room again. Sitting at the edge of the bed, you pushed at Lucifer’s side until he finally rolled over.

“Luci! You’re laying on the remote.” The TV was going wild. Flickers of your cooking show came and went as Lucifer cycled through the many channels at an extreme speed. He dug around underneath himself until he found it and passed it to you. As you began looking for your channel again, you felt a pair of crimson eyes on you.

“I don’t tell you you’re gorgeous enough.” His words caught you by surprise. “You’re gorgeous.” He would never usually say that. Everything always went unsaid or physically communicated. You stared at him for a moment. His face was half illuminated by the flickering TV screen and was nestled under the sheets, like a bird would. You followed suit soon as the room began to grow colder and colder, indicating nightfall. You began to shiver, pressing your hand against your face for warmth.

You felt hands over yours. They were very warm. You turned and caught Lucifer staring right into your eyes. "Next time, tell me if you're cold." He pulled you close, granting you the well needed warmth. He wrapped himself around you. Usually, he was never this cuddly, but you didn't complain. Without him, you might literally freeze to death. The past few hotels had compensated, and given you warmer sheets, and whatever else they could to make you comfortable. This one had not. Lucifer tucked your head under his chin. Your hands were still half frozen, so to keep them intact, he placed them on Lucifer's hips. With you in his arms, Lucifer passed out pretty quickly. You continued watching their show.

Half asleep, you tried to continue watching the TV, your eyes fluttering shut occasionally. You awoke with a startle every time. Your D.D.D. lit up after a while, to which it took you a moment to register. It was a text from Solomon, which read: "Hope you're having a good night. Thank Diavolo and I later ;)" You definitely had some opinions about this since if it didn't work out, you might have actually frozen to death. They would be getting an earful tomorrow.

You sighed, not upset nor happy. Of course Solomon did this. Oh well. It gave you the opportunity to see the other side of Lucifer and gave you something to tease him about. Plus, he was really cute cuddly and without it they might actually freeze. (Note to self: Lucifer is the best personal heater!)

The next morning, Lucifer seemed embarrassed with himself. Lucifer stirring had waken you up, so you got to see his initial reaction. He didn't say anything, and got up pretty quickly.

"You're very warm. I might need to borrow you during winters." You laughed as he hurried off to the bathroom without a word. You would never get tired of his charming antics.

[hippielittlemetalhead]

Never Took The Time (To Forget) part 4.2: Robin's Boy

A.N: Life is kinda sucky right now with job hunting, surviving at my current job, the strains that come with being a caregiver to a family member while maintaining a long distance relationship and just dealing with mental and emotional self-care. So here's this, super late and not beta-read but at least I wrote it.

As always, feel free to yell at/with me in the comments, tags and/or ask box.

Part 1 (Hop fucks up), Part 2 (Pride and Prejudices: Joyce's Edition), Part 3 (One of Us), Part 4.1 (With a Capital 'P'), Part 5 (Man Of The Hour)

There's not much that surprises Robin Buckley these days. She gets queasy at the sight of ground beef, the big friendly dogs a few doors down at the O'Reilly place make her blood run cold, she can't watch the old Russian movies her dad loves without having nightmares after and she's sleeping with a nightlight for the first time since she was six. But it takes a lot to surprise her.

Seeing the declared dead Chief of Police step out of a sleek black, obviously-secret-government-bullshit car flanked by an agent she recognizes as one of Owens' lackeys from last July when they were making the rounds with Government funded medical care contingent on signing sketchy NDAs? Just par for the course at this point.

Steve's face when Eleven-Jane rushes into the not-dead Chief's arms and it turns into a whole 'Moment'? Said Chief's look of barely interested confusion followed by tired annoyance when Steve drags her in front of him, rambling about Starcourt and new additions to The Party and finally getting to meet 'My Hop'? Yeah, none of that surprises her either. She plays along for Steve, doesn't give Hopper any time to say anything that would take that happy smile off his face or get rid of the way he's practically glowing he's smiling bigger than she's ever seen directed at anyone other than the kids. Tries not to think about the way it makes something in her clench and crouch like a cat getting ready to pounce and bare fangs she didn't realize she had outside of a life and death situation. She introduces herself, maintains eye contact and drags Steve off as fast as she can to do something, anything, that will distract him from trying to catch up like the Byers clan is with the kids and assembled assorted monster fighters.

She's not surprised when she can't stop Steve from stepping up every time Hopper or Joyce or anyone with a badge says they need anything despite his own still healing wounds. She's not surprised when Hop takes it a step too far.

They're at the Hopper Cabin that is steadily becoming the Hopper-Byers Cottage when Hop tells his and Joyce's shared custody bald parasite that Steve is little more than an annoyance he puts up with for the free babysitting service and manual labor and cause he can go up against shit that would give anyone else nightmares while keeping the kids safe and mostly in-check. She's sitting with Eleven-Jane, sewing patches onto one of Hop's old army jackets, (the kid had seen Eddie's battle vest in Steve's car and it had reminded her of her sister Kali and she'd decided she wanted one of her own for the war ahead and then all of the other rugrats had decided they did too so she and Argyle had taken to giving sporadic sewing lessons whenever the kids had the materials to start their own battle attire) when Steve comes round the corner to the back of the property striding with purpose she rarely saw when he was around his kids.

She leaves her unfinished project on the stump she'd been using as a stool and chases after him. She shooes off curious and worried kids, promising to stick with him, keep the walkie close and on, make sure he was safe and didn't run afoul of any demo-beasts or trigger-happy government goons as he made his way to his car and then wherever else he was marching his happy ass.

She hates the fact that when they're both finally back at the little apartment that Owens' yes-men had acquired for Steve when Harrington Sr. decided to be an opportunist prick and kick Steve out for 'not taking care of the house' in the middle of the 'earthquake', that Steve hasn't shed a single tear. She hates that she's not surprised.

He doesn't say anything as he kicks off his Nikes and shuffles over to the 'second-hand' couch they'd gotten from Mrs. Henderson (Steve and Robin were both fully aware she'd just gotten it shortly before Spring break and was in no way in need of a new one so soon, but they both also knew better than to call her out on her kindness). He doesn't look up at her from his spot curled in amongst the throw pillows and blankets they'd been gifted by parents of various members of the party after Hopper and Owens' story that the two of them had saved the kids again from some freak incident like last year with Starcourt. She pulls out the thick quilt they had found in the latest donations bins when Hawkin's government supervised relief force started outsourcing for supplies and basic comforts. He stares at the wall where they'd hung an oversized corkboard dedicated to polaroids and photo booth strips and even some properly printed pictures of the little monster fighting family they'd put together.

She can't pull him out of this, no matter how much she may want to. There's some places his mind goes only Eleven-Jane would be able to reach and neither of them were going to put more on that girl's plate. So she puts on a Bruce Springsteen record she used to hate and curls up as close as she can to him through the quilt and pillows. Every now and then she gets up to get them both water, to grab some crackers to try and coax him into eating and to switch over to a new record or just flip the one on the player but she always comes back to her spot next to her Steve.

"Whatever he said to you, you know it's not true. Right? You're worth more than a dozen undead cops on a power trip." That gets an amused huff.

"Seriously Stevie, the kids adore you, I swear all the moms in Hawkins think you're the best thing since sliced bread and I don't know what I'd do without my personal chump. We're soulmates, remember? One of these days we're gonna mind meld like Spock and McCoy and we'll be unstoppable. I can't make it without my McCoy, Bones."

"I can't make it without you either, you hobgoblin. Thanks Bobby."

The next day is better. Steve is still a little quiet, a little droopy. But he's present and there's a simmering anger underneath his smile that Robin is proud to see him acknowledging but makes her worry about him as he ushers her into his car to drop her off on her rare lone shift at Family Video before he heads out to a quick 'consultation patrol' with some military special operatives to check out something weird by one of the new cracks.

No one had told any of the kids yet, about the cracks starting to spread out in smaller fissures like a slowly spreading infection. Hadn't thought it necessary with Steve and Nancy (both now legal adults and wasn't the government taking full advantage of that) there as a first line of communication while Joyce wrangled a restless Hop as he settles back in and heals and spars with Owens over payouts and government aide for the town and what the growing military presence was and wasn't allowed to do. With the parents occupied the kids had come together tighter than ever, focusing on their injured and recovering from the nightmare fuel that was their spring break. No one noticed.

She can't help the rant she falls into as they drive through checkpoints and past regular civilians being escorted through areas a little too close to a Gate for comfort. She goes on about how half of the soldiers act like Steve is just one of them and the other half treat him with the same cautious curiosity they do Eleven-Jane whenever she makes her way to the 'front lines' these days. She wants to get the weird boy-speak head nods too! Even Nancy gets them, especially when she's walking around with her sawed-off strapped to a jerry-rigged hip-holster. Robin has used Darlin' before, she's speed poured Molotov Cocktails to hand to soldier boys trying not to piss their pants as Steve and Nancy barked orders as they tried to down a demogorgon fresh from the Upside-Down. Where's her battlefield camaraderie?

It makes him laugh and shake his head fondly as he calls her crazy and weird with that soft smile on his face that makes her chest feel warm and fuzzy like her parents' hugs used to when she was 10 and crawled into their bed after having a nightmare. She doesn't tell him to be careful as they turn down onto Main street or to make sure he comes back in one piece as he rolls to a stop in front of the dark storefront. She starts on another tangent about him abandoning her to the drudgery of Capitalism as he gets to frolic in the woods with a bunch of burly men with their toys before he laughingly reaches over her to open her door to start pushing her out of the car. He smiles big and dopey as she practically spills onto the asphalt, still rambling away about neglectful soulmates and abuses of driving power with smatterings of claims that she'll take over his apartment if he dies and use his ashes as fertilizer for the plants he's taken to keeping on the fire-escape outside the living room window if he dares to leave her alone to babysit his hellions.

He shoots back a final, "Love you too Bobby!" before taking off towards where he's meeting the scientists and soldiers he's supposed to lead through Upside Down infected woods. As he leaves her standing on the sidewalk he doesn't make any sort of promise to be safe, to let the government goons just do their job, to make it back to her alive or in one piece. Not even to make it back to her. She plays with the locket she's taken to wearing that holds a curled up braid of hair shades darker than hers or anyone's in her family.

She doesn't watch his car to the end of the street like she might have before Spring Break, after their Starcourt 'adventure', instead she takes a deep breath and unlocks the dumb video store in this dumb town full of dumb people who don't know when to call it quits and just get the hell out of Dodge. She boots up the computer leaving it to warm up while she starts sorting through whatever mess the new shmucks Steve insisted they hire to cover what times the two of them couldn't because of the Arcade (which they had also gone and hired more staff for now that people weren't one tremor away from rioting in the streets) and Upside Down/ government related shenanigans they ended up getting dragged into.

The bell above the door jingles and she has to bite back a groan. "Welcome to Family Video, I literally just got here so you're gonna have to give me a minute before I can help you."

"Afraid we've only got movies round here, officer. You want any other medium of entertainment I'd suggest the arcade or the distribution yard." She won't turn to face him, not sure she can keep her cool if she does right now. Her hands move on muscle memory, shuffling papers into their proper piles and flipping open VHS cases to check if they need to be rewound. "Sorry, guess we'll have to catch up another time."

"I'm uh, I'm not here for a movie." She may have only heard his voice a couple of times and in passing but she didn't call her ears little geniuses for nothing. She forces her body to relax, lowering her shoulders the way Steve taught her to and keeping her voice light like Eddie walked her through, calling on his Theatre Kid skill set to teach the Party how to convincingly lie improvise when being questioned by people who really did not need to know just what was going on in good old Hawkins.

She can hear him sigh and can't help but picture his hand running over the fuzz on his head the way Steve runs his hands through his coif more and more nowadays in a way he never did before Nancy, before he got pulled into this bullshit and Hopper was rumored to be the one signing his paperwork and taking responsibility for him when his parents didn't show up after an almost week long stay at the hospital. "Look, I know you don't like me. And it has been brought to my attention just how much I fucking earned that. But I- I need your help here. To fix it."

There's not much that surprises Robin Buckley these days. She gets queasy at the sight of ground beef and meatloaf covered in ketchup, the big friendly dogs a few doors down at the O'Reilly place she used to pet and give snacks to on her way to and from school make her blood run cold, she can't watch the old Russian movies she and her dad used to stay up late watching together without having nightmares after and she's sleeping with a nightlight by her bed for the first time since she was six. But it takes a lot to surprise her. Jim Hopper might have just done it.

She doesn't stop moving, doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of throwing her off. She fiddles with the sharp little knife she has tucked up her shirt sleeve in the little sheath she and Steve put together between shuffling papers, taps at the button on her vest hiding the mic attached to the walkie talkie that never leaves her pocket these days. When she finally turns to look at him she's not surprised by the thinness of his frame or the way his eyes and cheeks still look a little sunken in. She sees the tired father worried for his kids and his people and his town, angry at the government for their involvment and their stupidity that she had come to expect. She is not expecting the remorse, the fear, she sees looking back at her. She wonders for a moment what he sees when he looks at her, at any of the teens and kids and young adults he's fought alongside trying to stop the end of the world.

"Fine. He'll be back from his patrol-" He looks mildly confused for a moment, meaning Joyce hadn't been passing along even the minimal information Nancy and Steve had been giving her to relay to Hop and the rest of the Party. That would have to be it's own discussion at some point probably. "-in about twenty minutes. You have fifteen. Now why should I help you?"

"You care about Harringt- Steve. You're close, the two of you have been basically Siamese Twins since Starcourt from what I hear. I- I realize that I made a mistake dumb enough shitting Mike Wheeler is making more sense than me, that I fucked up in a way I don't fucking know how to fix. And I am asking. Politely. For your help."

Honestly she's not sure she believes him. Honestly he's surprised her more times in the last five minutes than most anything or anyone else has in the last year. The man has a lot to unpack and the situation with Steve is just a drop in the man's pile of shit he's managed to bury himself under but maybe there's some hope yet.

She checks the watch on her wrist (an obscenely expensive piece Steve got from one of his parents' rich friends at a holiday party he was too young to remember on a leather band that he had outgrown and never got around to replacing) and looks back at Hop. Ten more minutes. "Why are you here?"

Hop groans in that growly sort of way that makes her think of her grandpa Dale, a great bear of a man who had given the best hugs with shoulders to put Jim Hopper to shame. The no-longer-chief runs his hand over his fuzz again, one hand propped on his hip as he shifts his weight to one side and she tamps down the flicker of biting anger at another example of the ways Steve had shaped himself after a man who never gave him the respect or care he deserved.

"I don't know how to fix what I fucked up. Steve's a good kid, I can admit that now. And he didn't deserve my bullshit just cause I couldn't get past old highschool biases. I wasn't there for him like I should have been- like I told him I would be when I signed those papers. But he's not the kid I thought he was, he's nothing like his folks or the other trust fund brats who think they run this shithole town. I don't know what I'm doing. I just know that kid deserves better than I've been doing."

She hums like she's mulling over his little speech to hide the way she's freaking out a little over what to say to all that. Even she doesn't know how she and Steve got to where they are beyond being tortured by Russians for information they didn't have then being drugged out of their minds while fighting inter-dimensional flesh monsters. But she doesn't think that would help Hop much in this situation.

But she thinks she believes him. At least for now.

"Alright, I'll help you with Steve." Hop sighs, his shoulders dropping as he seems to unclench slightly. Seriously, that much tension cannot be good for him after being in a Russian gulag for almost a year. "But not because I think you deserve it. You were right, Steve deserves better, but he wants you and Joyce and the kids to be in his life. Be a part of it. That is the only reason I will help you. He deserves a better dad than the one he's had and for some reason he thinks you're like super-dad."

"I- How the fuck did I not- What the hell?"

Robin shrugs, "The human brain is good at weeding out what it doesn't want to see. You didn't want to see Steve until you had to and that realization brought you to me. So. Ignorance is bliss and all that."

"So what do I do?"

She checks her watch again. "He'll be running late, especially if the fissure he's checking out is as bad as we think it is. So you have time to run back home, get Joyce to make extra of whatever monstrosity of a casserole she's trying to make this week and you get your rugrats to figure out a way to be the last drop off after Steve takes the brats to the arcade later instead of sleeping off whatever knocks he gets on patrol today. Then instead of letting him head home you make him come inside for dinner. Use the excuse of finding out he's been doing patrols if you have to. But you make him go inside and sit his ass down and eat something and you let him just- let him just be, Hop." She's running out of time but there is just so much she wants to get through to him. "Just make him feel like you see him."

"I- I'll try."

"Yeah, sure. Just-" She bites back the vitriol she wants to projectile vomit in his direction. "Just don't hurt him again. He's more than just a babysitter or front lines muscle. And I will make you wish you were back with the Russians if you make him forget that."

"I believe you."

"Good." The bell over the door jingles again and she looks past Hop to see a group of teenagers making their way to the comedies. "Now I have to get to work and you need to not be here by the time Steve comes to check on me. So talk to you later, Chief."

"Right. Thanks for your help, kid."

She shrugs him off as he turns to head out. The teens are watching him not-so-discreetly as they try to act like they're looking through the latest releases. She forgets that the man is as much a mystery as the heavy-duty military forces that have taken over their small town.

"Alright, folks. What are we looking for today?" She still technically has a job to do even if the kids keep their distance from her like they do the rest of the Party who at this point have all been seen either spending time with said heavy-duty military forces or chasing something into the dark of the forest wielding weapons smeared in monster blood, or both. It's going to be a long day.

Tag list (I think this is everyone?)(if your tag didn't work let me know cause they don't always work for me Idk why):

@thelittleclare @jackiemonroe5512 @0body0disphoria0 @strangersteddierthings @lingeringmirth @dead-cherry-bitch @irethsune @ink777 @the-daydreamer-in-the-corner @ledleaf @pansexuality-activated @paintsplatteredandimperfect @kinryuuki @yikes-a-bee @altocumulustranslucidus @ohimamarigold @samsoble @sensationalsunburst @xxbottlecapx @y4r3luv @swimmingbirdrunningrock @flustratedcas @rootbeerandmusic @vinteraltus @wonderland-girl143-blog @failedstarsandgoldenclouds @steddie-as-they-go @steveshairspray86 @youdrewstarsxaroundmyscars @i-amthepizzaman @wormapothacary @croatoan-like-its-hot @maya-custodios-dionach @ineffable-monster-romancer @asquareinverona @ellietheasexylibrarian @pukner @bookworm0690 @nightmareglitter @joekeerysmoles @salchica @lawrencebshoggoth @iheartjennaaa @child-of-cthulhu @anaibis @rocochen20 @katdeerly @samcoxramblings

[baddiewiththebook]

Over the Years | e.m x reader | p. 8

-> The origin story of Eddie Munson, and how he fell in love with the worst person he possibly could - his best friend.

-> eddie munson x you (she/her)

-> friends to lovers, slow burn, angst

-> warnings - strong language, suggestive themes, smut [18+]

a/n I'm so sorry for the hiatus. My mental health isn't where it should be, and my brain isn't in writing mode. I finally got this written down, and I left it alone for a while until I felt a bit more creative again. Hopefully, this chapter is good enough. Love you all!

-> <-

June 1983 . . . again

It’s so silly to be upset about something as ridiculous as a birthday. Big deal! You’ve had plenty of those in the past.

This morning you crumpled up a piece of paper taped to your fridge into a tight enough ball that your fingers began to pierce the flesh of your hands. Then, you toss the stupid note into the trash. Your mom left again. This time she and Brad are going to his vacation house.

Brad is yet another nobody she met after her shift at the strip joint in the sketchy part of town. Rich men flock to escape unhappy marriages, and pray on the poor sad strippers. Your mom keeps having too much hope that one of these men will pay-out and he will buy her a big fancy house. Unfortunately for her, their ruse will always draw her in. She does a few lines with them, and lays on her back for less than she’s worth. How could she even bring herself to this?

Eddie does try to cheer you up when he shows up to your house for the annual birthday celebration and the lights are dim throughout the house, and you’re slumped over your sofa like a deflated balloon. Somehow he coaxes you to get off of that couch. He encourages you to get yourself dressed by handing you shirts and handing you pants until he gets a grunt of approval out of you.

After you put on your clothes, you’re practically carried out to his van. You hesitate. After your mom swore something bad would happen if you get into his van, you’ve been sneaking rides now and again. Eddie’s also been giving you lessons when she’s not around. You frown. Gripping the handle tight, and with purpose, you swing open the passenger side door.

“Yes!” Eddie pats the seat next to him. Your boldened confidence sparks joy in him. That is until you give him the meanest mug known to man. And, you don’t mean to be harsh. You actually don’t realize that Eddie’s heart sinks when you grouch like this.

Rubber hitting gravel tunes out your huffing and puffing. When you hit the pavement, the shocks thud underneath you. Eddie says he’ll fix those eventually. He can’t fix the band equipment rolling in the back though. That’s something that just happens because he’s the only one in the band with a big enough rig to store all of this junk.

“I forgot to ask if you’re hungry,” Eddie says over the gray cloud covering your head.

You thunk your head against the window. It’s nearly eleven in the morning, and you haven’t had anything to eat. You’re not hungry. But, your stomach disagrees letting out the most aggravating groan. Why do bodies do that? The moment that someone mentions food, or when the room gets quiet - your stomach growls. It’s humiliating!

“I could eat,” you hold your stomach.

The way through to you is almost always food, or a brand new book. Eddie doesn’t have the time to drive all the way to Indianapolis to get you books from The Bookshelf, which is your favorite place to receive books from (or so Eddie can guess because he hasn’t gotten you anything you hate yet). So, he instead takes you to the next best place; Benny’s Diner.

It’s a hot spot. That’s mostly because it has been almost the only spot since ‘53. Yes, you’ve heard enough of Wayne’s stories from his younger years. He and his brother, Al, spent enough time downing milkshakes and getting brain freezes there. A part of you wants to ask Eddie more about his father, and if he is truly as bad as this town says he is. Eddie pretends not to recall a lot of his youth that was spent with his father, but behind those big brown eyes he’s got stories he could tell if he wanted too.

You slide your way into a booth across from Eddie after being seated by a snooty waitress with low hanging jowls and no patience for the teenagers, who, arguably, gives Benny’s the most buisness.

Some jock from the basketball team clambers over the back of the booth like a monkey to scoop fries off an innocent girl’s plate. Rightfully so, she swats at him, then aims a bottle of ketchup at his nose.

“Hey Wheeler,” the man dubbed ‘King Steve Harrington’ cups his hands around his mouth like a bird call to get the attention of Nancy Wheeler, who is just a booth and a half away with a thick chapter book between her fingertips.

Nancy meekly looks up without saying a word.

“It’s summer time,” he snorts. “What are you reading for?”

Tommy, another bone-head, clocks Steve in the shoulder with an open palm. This seems to encourage Steve’s prepubescent behavior. And, Steve jogs over to the table to bother Nancy some more.

What more is there to say about Steve? Steve Harrington. The man had enough brain cells to form one thought, and that was usually “party at my house!” Yes, after every basketball game that the Tigers won (which is a lot of games to be fair), you could find almost every member of the student body at his house.

It seems that Steve doesn’t care that his parents are never home. You wonder what they do to live in such a cushy house that’s bigger than most of the houses combined in Hawkins. Maybe you wouldn’t mind living like this if your family was rich too.

“What can I get you?” The waitress holds her pad of paper in one hand, and a sparkling red pen in the other. She puts all of her weight on one hip, so she can tap the other foot on the tile below. Her patience is running thin, and those kids on the other side of the restaurant are really starting to make her angry.

You speed through the menu, “strawberry milkshake and fries.”

Eddie orders a burger that he asks to be left a little bloody. When she glares at him, he moves on to order a vanilla milkshake without a wince when she snatches his menu from his hands.

Usually, Eddie will order some kind of burger that he has to add extra bacon and extra onions on top of. His favorite line is usually “bloody and stinky.”

If you weren’t feeling so bummed about your birthday, you might ask him if he’s on a diet. That always revs him up to push his stomach out and to talk with his belly button. Sometimes Eddie can be so childish - and really, you find him funny.

Today you wanted to be under five feet of dirt. You could finally get some peace and quiet after all that humming and worrying that goes on in between your ears. Your mom should be worried about you - not the other way around.

Eddie watches you become the booth behind you. Someone might as well have thrown water on you, and he wouldn’t be surprised if you started sobbing ‘I’m melting!’ right about now. Not like he’s seen the Wizard of Oz or anything. It’s not important enough to ever be mentioned out loud.

“Happy birthday?” Eddie tries to cheer you up. “Look, I know it’s not a cake and some candles. I don’t know. My dad and I never celebrated my birthday, and look how I turned out.”

You try not to be mean, so you let a sarcastic comment slide off your tongue. “You have tobacco in your teeth.”

The habit Eddie promises himself to quit. It’s just cigarettes, weed and the occasional sip of beer or two (or downing half a case by himself) for him. He’s got to stay healthy if he wants to make it to fifty. That’s high balling his life span. Okay, let’s say Corroded Coffin makes the big leagues in a couple of years, and Eddie at least wants ten good years with them - thirty. Thirty years is well enough for Eddie Munson. Er- that math isn’t right. Is it?

Eddie sucks the tobacco leaves out from his teeth, while you pick at the napkin in front of you. Seeing you so down nearly tears him in two. Having an absent parent himself, he knows the disappointment that’s eating you from the inside out. For years, Eddie would wake up in hopes that his dad would just show up completely sober. If he’s really optimistic that day, then his mom would come too. They’d be a big happy family and live in the suburbs. There would even be space for uncle Wayne.

Eddie knows the fantasy is just that. But, it isn’t about him. Your head is nearly touching the table, and he’s not so sure how to fix this. There isn’t really a way to fix this, is there?

The waitress returns with two shakes that she places down in front of you. A straw emerges from her apron pocket. She leaves you.

Your milkshake is questionably pink, but the real chunks of strawberries pressing against the glass make you forget what you’re about to consume. A glass of whatever the chefs get in those prepackaged containers that come in powdery. With a little mix of some milk, you’ll hardly taste the chemicals. with chunks of strawberries pressing against the glass. A wedge of whipped cream towers atop the shake with a strawberry dipped right on top.

Something that Eddie realized recently is how bright your eyes get when you’re excited. Inflating like a balloon, you sit straight up to stick the straw into the thick shake. Your lips kiss the straw without much thought, as Eddie begins to drift away from the restaurant.

In front of him, Eddie could dive deep into why he’s chosen you as his best friend. Because at first Wayne was just babysitting the neighbor kid and you could have easily been ignored from the next day after. Eddie finds you interesting.

Your lashes flutter away from him to the space behind him. As though in slow motion, his fantasy snaps.

“Jeff!” The sugar has already rushed to your brain in the absence of food, and in a fog you hiccup, “Hi, Gareth!”

Eddie whips around in time, before the two boys get too close to the booth. Their clothes are sticking to their bodies, and a fair amount of sweat graces their foreheads. Aside from being sticky, their mood is pleasant. Jeff tucks a helmet under his arm, as he approaches in a cool step.

Gareth swipes the sweat from his brow because really the hair sticking to him makes him itch, before causing a rash due to him mindlessly scratching his forehead off. He resists the tempting sting.

Meanwhile, Gareth also refuses to admit that the reason he stopped Jeff on their bike ride into town is because you’re sitting at a booth across from Eddie. Despite knowing how close you are as friends, there’s a grumpy troll deep in his belly that’s stomping on his gut that tells him to ‘just make sure.’ He rolls his shoulders back, and begs his face to quit frowning.

“Who knew the circus was in town?” Jason Carver cups his hands around his mouth. “Freaks!”

Chrissy Cunningham whacks him across the chest for being rude. As much as she likes Jason, his attitude towards the nerdy group that they all share the same high school with does really bother her. She puts up with him because she’s already introduced him to her parents, and maybe in a few years he’ll calm down.

While Jeff, Eddie and Gareth are more or less used to the treatment they receive from the goon squad, you can’t help but notice the way Gareth shoots a glare behind himself. This goes ignored by Jason, as one of the girls at the table has a spilled her soda. Surely, Jason would have caught the venomous stare and thrown Gareth halfway across the room. You don’t go looking for that sorry of trouble.

“‘Sup!” Jeff greats Eddie and yourself. “What are you two up too?”

“It’s her birthday,” even though he does like Jeff and Gareth, Eddie wishes the boys could take a hint and scram. Jeff has other intentions and does the polar opposite by plopping down nearly on Eddie’s lap.

“Happy birthday, girl!” Jeff wishes. “Got any big plans for the day?”

You shrug, “my mom is out of town, so I don’t really have anything going on.”

“What’s she out of town for?” The boy scrunches his nose up, and Eddie elbows him in the side. A desperate attempt on his part to get Jeff to shut-the-hell-up. “Business?”

“Sort of,” if only the business your mom conducted brought more money back to the house, instead of drugs.

A tickle lifts inside your throat that you swallow down. Perhaps the glossiness in your eyes could be hidden behind your lashes, and suddenly your drink becomes a lot more interesting. Flicking the condensation on the glass, Jeff leans over to whisper to Eddie about something.

“Gareth,” Jeff turns to the boy standing awkwardly at the head of the table. He hasn’t dared sit next to you, yet. “Can you entertain the birthday girl? I gotta talk to Eddie about something out back.”

Gareth opens his mouth to protest, but the words die flat on his tongue because Jeff and Eddie have already scooted from the booths. Their “business” is a classic exchange. Gareth’s been apart of a few of these dealings. In some ways, Eddie’s a bit of a douche come pricing on his supplies.

Everyone at Hawkins has bitten into the apple per se. It’s only when they need him that Eddie’s treated decent. So, Gareth supposes Eddie has his reasons to up-charge certain clientele.

There’s no word as to why Gareth gets the treatment, but he supposes there’s a reason or two.

Someone loudly clears their throat behind Gareth. It’s the waitress from earlier holding two hot and heavy plates of food. Gareth apologizes to her rolling eyes, before sliding into the booth across from you without much thought. The waitress drops the food off, then without another word she scurries off back to the kitchen.

“Jesus,” Gareth stares at the grease pile in front of him. “What did Eddie order this time?”

“They definitely spat on that,” you question your fries. “You know Eddie.”

“Oh, yeah,” treating society like they treat him, as always.

Gareth pushes the plate to the right where the sun kisses the burger through the window. It doesn’t look any more appealing in the light than the shadows in front of him. The silence between you and he is filled with drumming that comes from Gareth tapping the table.

You offer him your fries just to get him to knock it off. It’s not annoying, but his fidgeting is making you just as anxious. The tension subsides when Gareth pops a fry into his mouth.

“Can I ask?” He swallows, before speaking.

You raise and drop your shoulders unsure you want to answer. But, Gareth takes this as permission.

“Your mom has been out of town for a while?” It slips as more of a question, but the statement is put out there. Your mom is an absent parent. The only one you have.

“She came home for a short time with-,” you don’t know why you’re still defending her. Maybe she’ll come around one day and she’ll realize how great having a child has been. Doubtfully, “her coworkers. Er- but she suddenly had to go out of town. Meetings.”

The coworkers in question are the bums that stay after hours to give her a reason to party. Lately, the parties have bled into the living room. You’re stuck holding out in your room until they sober up enough to slobber out onto the street like a pack of dogs on the loose.

Dogs behave better than them.

“Meetings,” Gareth repeats as a mutual agreement not to press anymore questions, then quickly pops another fry into this mouth. This time he misses the landing, and the fry darts off of his cheek.

It’s hard to remember when the two of you hardly got along. That Gareth had been stubborn enough to decide that you would become a distraction for Eddie and the band would suffer. It now seems that there’s a different storm brewing instead of the one before it.

You cover your mouth, but the sweet melody brushes past your lips. Gareth goes a bit pink in the face, as he covers up the glee that he has at least amused you today.

The diner has quieted by the large group of teenagers getting up, and leaving through the front door. Nancy stays at her table reading a chapter book, and is most certainly grateful they’ve all gone. She won’t admit to keeping Steve Harrington’s phone number, but she will tuck the napkin tight in her pocket.

Music plays overhead that you hadn’t heard when you first came in. It’s fifties. An appropriate theme for how old the diner looks. Bright red booths. Checkered floor. Stainless steel instead of gold metal. It’s classic.

Gareth watches your eye wander away from him, as he decides how he wants to pull your attention back in. If he didn’t know any better, Jeff and Eddie were taking a suspicious amount of time to get back. That’s not to say he’s complaining. Any time getting you away from Eddie is getting Gareth that much closer to becoming bolder about his intentions with you.

Your heart skips inside your chest when Gareth’s knee knock into yours underneath the table. In not so many words, you hear him out and you understand him. A bit of relief settles your belly, but not before another aggravated weight of tension.

Pavlov and his damn dogs! That familiar jingle of the front door has both Gareth and you scooting back in your chairs. The heat from his body fades away from you.

Eddie and Jeff return.

“I told you they wouldn’t kill each other,” Jeff snorts.

Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Actually,” Gareth stands, so Eddie could have his place in the booth again. “We should get going.”

“I got something to do later,” Jeff pats his left pocket at his hip. No one is as amused as he is by his joke, but you pity him a laugh.

Before they can leave, a hand swings out to grab Gareth by the wrist. Eddie’s got wild eyes and a goofy grin. The boy is devilish, but he’s not the devil.

“What?” Gareth raises his brow.

Eddie retracts his grasp, and instead replaces it for an open palm reaching towards Gareth. “You owe me ten.”

“Eddie,” you scold. “He didn’t even touch your burger and he only ate a bite off of my food.”

Over the last couple years, Eddie has gotten better and better at the theatrics. When your at school together, he has this little habit of standing on top of lunch tables. You’ve gotten cautious now, and you’ll move your lunch before he kicks goalie kicks it across the room. Does he practice these monologues? One will never know with him.

“Not for breakfast, sweetheart,” his tone is firm. You’ve never been ‘sweatheart’ before. Sure, you have nicknames for each other. That’s just - weird. “I saw you with Jeff the other day. Ten bucks, big boy.”

Jeff and Gareth smoke sometimes from the stash that Eddie gives Jeff. After upping the charge for Gareth, they have a method that outsmarts Eddie. Or, at least their method used to outsmart him. Despite flunking a few classes, Eddie’s quick as a whip in his street smarts. There’s no getting around him!

“Come on,” Gareth protests, but reaches around for his wallet. “You can’t share amongst your good friends?”

“There’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t,” Eddie explains, “but, when you’re explicitly smoking from him to snag a free deal - Gareth, I feel duped!”

“Eddie,” you scold with open palms face down on the table. “It’s my birthday, and you can’t torture my friends on my birthday.”

Eddie snorts in disbelief, “it’s Gareth.”

You’re stone cold. That look might just pop Eddie’s head clear off. When did you give a shit about Gareth?

There hasn’t been a time yet that you’ve expressed any concern over Gareth. Jeff - yes. There was the time that Jeff had a paper due, you went through his mistakes in red ink, so that he could make corrections. You’re really good at writing. You should be with all the time you’re stuck in those notebooks writing away, and never letting anyone take a peak. Or, when Jeff needed to learn how to bake cookies for his Home Ec final. You were there too. But Gareth? Were you ill?

Eddie’s expression softens as he releases Gareth.

“Fine,” he sighs, “I’ll let it go.”

Gareth isn’t quite sure if he should thank you in front of Jeff and Eddie. Mostly because Eddie keeps one-eyeing him over his burger. Jeff wants to ask how you learned that trick on Eddie, as he can be quite persistent when he wants something done his own. Meanwhile, you’re snacking on another fry like it was nothing.

Before Eddie wants to start any more trouble, Jeff whisks Gareth away in a flash. They’ll probably smoke together, while digging an even bigger trench that they’re in with Eddie.

You’re left to enjoy a quiet meal with your best friend. Occasionally, you beg him to chew the food in his mouth with his lips shut. You’ll give up sometime when the burger is halfway down and done with.

Eddie won’t let you pay even though he’s practically down to dimes, quarters and dollar bills. It’s your birthday, and you’re going to be treated like the golden princess you are. Anything to let Eddie see your gleaming white smile is a win to him.

You don’t have a chance to spend much time with Eddie because he’s got an unspecified “something” to do today. It’s probably the band. They’re practicing this afternoon.

With that, you hop back into the passenger seat of his van. Eddie takes the long way around to your house, so you can practice your drum solo on his dash board. Slowly, you’ve picked up on a few of Eddie’s favorite songs. One day you might out-drum Gareth, and you could join the band.

Only in Eddie’s fantasies - not that he has a lot of fantasies about you. There’s an occasional rip in his friendship with you, as he likes to put it. A fluke. You’re not a fluke. It’s all him.

Anyway, you’re landing flat foot in the dirt right in front of your abode. Eddie wouldn’t let you walk the few steps across from his trailer. It’s silly how he does that. You wave like he’s going to be leaving for a journey to a far away land, instead of driving a couple feet and parking his van in front of his trailer.

You’ve got plenty of clean-up left to do inside of your home. There’s dirty dishes piled in the sink, the counters are covered in food and you might as well sweep the floor since you’re in there. The bathroom could also use a mop. Oh, but you might as well clean the entire bathroom. Because what’s the point in mopping if the bathroom isn’t clean?

The clock on your mother’s bed stand reads close to four in the afternoon when you finally finish making her bed with freshly washed sheets. It’s taken you hours, but the home is just starting to smell less like dread and a little more like hope - and lavender. You got a deal on room spray from the bargain store in town.

Stretching your arms way above your head, you decide to celebrate with a hot shower. The water running over your aching shoulders would feel good right about now. Plus, the towels are fresh from the wash as well.

Clean.

It’s such a simple, yet rewarding feeling. You don’t get to experience it all that often.

Cigarettes have stained the walls of your home, and buried themselves deep into your carpet fibers. There’s even a few burns here and there from your mother’s habit of falling asleep with a cigarette between her fingers.

You wrap yourself in a towel and forget about that for a moment. It’s just you and a bottle of lotion across your skin.

From your bedroom window, you can see Eddie pulling into his trailer once again. Back from band practice, Eddie skips up the steps to his trailer. You stop in the moment when Gareth jumps out of the passenger side. A dark t-shirt with missing sleeves and a pair of worn down denim shorts differ from this morning’s sweats. You don’t mean to stare, but really is it that awful to look over the menu? You’re not even ordering anything.

Snorting at yourself, you close the curtain for your own privacy to change and to loosen the thoughts bleeding your innocence. You throw a shirt over your head, and suddenly hear a single knock at your front door. It’s loud like a knock anyways.

Dressing yourself decently in a comfortable pair of pajamas (you have no plans to go anywhere), you head straight to the front door to figure out what the noise could be. Maybe your mom had come back, and she drunkenly forgot her keys.

Actually, the knock is a much prettier sight. There’s a bouquet of flowers in bright rich purples. You wonder who remembered your favorite flowers are these little orchards with the white center. There’s a card poking from the center of the bundle with Eddie, Jeff and Gareth’s nearly illegible handwriting. You hate to call their new band-mate ‘Freak,’ but he has signed the card as well. It says ‘Happy Birthday,’ and you coo.

You pick the bouquet off the porch by the glass vase the flowers are displayed in. Inhaling sweet aromas of warm days reading a good book in a field, you could cry.

“Thank you!” You wave to Gareth and Eddie, who are hiding neck deep in the engine of Eddie’s van pretending not to watch your reaction. They don’t really know much about girls, but you are one and so they try to make you feel different than them. They want you to feel special.

Eddie half waves like he’s too cool to admit what he’s done, but Gareth pops his head from the van and spins around to get a good look at you.

You hardly notice Gareth’s lingering gaze, as you’ve already closed the front door of your house with you inside.

It doesn’t take long for the phone to ring.

“Hello?”

“Are you ready?” Robin’s voice comes through clear and bouncing with energy.

You snicker. “Ready for what?”

“My mom is on her way to pick you up, you’re sleeping over at mine tonight,” she says as a matter-of-fact.

“Am I?”

“Eddie called me,” she explains, “Happy birthday by the way - oh! Your mom is a bitch.”

Robin begins rambling about the times your mom has irritated her because that’s what you two do. Among all things, Robin is your sibling by terms of the longevity of your friendship. She’s the only person to get away with calling out your mom directly to you.

“Robin,” you pause her rant. “If you want me over, I need to get an overnight bag ready.”

“Oh, right,” she clears her throat. “Five minutes.”

“Five?!” You exclaim. The line goes dead.

Oh, Robin. How you love her.

-> <-

[to be continued]

tags -> @leelei1980 @sheneedsrocknroll92 @jesuisbuginette @starrywhitenight @meetmeatyourworst @munsonburn3r @5tud10-54r4h @pvdulmol @loveryanax

[oleander-nin]

TMNT: Mutant Mayhem Yandere Headcanons

A/N, not important: Saw the movie the day it came out, then did this before I forgot everything. I'm going to be making both yan and non yan bots of them soon, so yay. Sorry if any of them are OOC, I'm going off of memory. I'll tweak them once I can see the movie again. Any criticism is welcome, constructive or not. This is supposed to be a gender neutral reader, so if I screwed up somewhere, please tell me.

-Ollie

Tw: kidnap mentions, dark themes, yanderes, manipulation, stalking, ai, Mutant Mayhem spoilers

Words: 2246

Summary: Mutant Mayhem Yandere Headcanons

Mikey:

Mikey would be a dependent yandere with protective and manipulative tendencies.

Mikey cares for those around him and bonds quickly, but you, you’re a human. You’re everything he’s ever wanted to be.

You’re human, you’re perfect, and you’re his.

He is constantly worried about you, almost like a mother hen. Once he realizes how the human body is more fragile and weaker than his own, he gets really protective about you.

He doesn’t go about it well though. Mikey wants to hang out with you the way he knows how, and that usually involves some sketchy or dangerous stunts. Despite his worry for your safety, he still drags you into unnecessarily dangerous areas because he wants to show off or play hero. He does get upset when you get hurt, and he tries to save you when something happens, but he doesn't stop bringing you into the situations in the first place.

He wants to impress you and keep you interested in him. He’s still paranoid that everyone might forget the good they’ve done and decide to cast them away, so he is in constant need of approval.

He treats you like royalty, to the best of his ability of course. You’re his first priority when it comes to most things. If anyone tries to harass you, he’s quick to step up and use his influence to shut it down. Or force if needed.

Mikey’s aloof and in constant need of your praise and attention. He just wants to be able to hang out with you, but he does understand you can’t do everything he can. Which is why he takes you along anyway so you can depend on him. He just wants you to see he’s needed. Love him so he can keep loving you.

Needs you around him constantly, his mental health relies on it. You’re everything to him, and he doesn’t even realize as he puts more and more of his burdens onto you. You’re his everything.

Uses the fact he never had much social interaction to brush off anything weird he does. Mind you, he completely knows he’s in the wrong, he just doesn’t care much. He slowly deteriorates your will until you depend on him too, making you think everything is normal. He just wants normal, but he realizes he’ll never truly have that. So, he makes his own.

Mikey also wouldn’t hurt you, or at least, not on purpose. You deserve the world, but sometimes the things he drags you into don’t go as well as he wants. In those cases, Mikey leaves with you in tow, fretting over you the entire time. He never wants to hurt you, he just wants you to be happy with him. He’s gotten really good at bandaging you over the time he’s known you.

Mikey would wait until you’re both older before kidnapping you. He knows it wouldn’t go well, plus he can’t keep you anywhere in the lair. He might try and figure out how to run away with you, but he loves his family too much to try. He’d wait it out with you, loving you to the best of his twisted ability.

In the meantime, he makes sure you’re with him every step of the way. He pulls you in with cheesy pickup lines and jokes, trying to make you forget all the bad that has happened with him. 

Donnie:

Donnie was harder to pinpoint, but I think he’d definitely be a more delusional and stalking yandere. Possibly even an isolating one.

As always, Donnie seems to be the tech nerd, with his little bed fort including all these computers and electronics and such. He’s almost always on his phone, and knows how to navigate the digital world quite well, so he uses that to his advantage in a lot of ways.

He’s always watching you, and has massed hundreds of pictures and videos of you on his phone. He likes to just look at them at night, making edits of you and collages of his favorites. He probably even taught himself how to hack into camera systems so he could find more film of you.

From all the audio clips he’s recorded of you, he developed a scarily accurate AI voice of you that he uses to talk to him. Whether it’s making it say sweet nothings to him, or to just have one way conversation type stuff, he’s hooked to it.

Eventually, he starts to believe the voice, and forgets the audio recordings he saved of the AI isn’t actually something you said. He starts to fully believe you’re just as in love with him as he is with you and that you’re just too shy to confess to him. Donnie gets really upset if anyone tries to break him out of his delusion by reminding him it isn’t real.

Is already convinced you’re both basically dating despite neither of you ever actually talking to each other.

I mean, he saved the world. Who wouldn’t want to date him. He’s obviously the coolest boyfriend you can possibly get.

In the back of Donnie’s mind, he knows what he’s doing isn’t right, but it’s as if he falls into quicksand with his delusion. Every time he tries to remind himself that something is wrong, he sinks deeper into his idea that this is just how your relationship works. You can’t always trust what you see online, after all. The movies and TV shows just aren’t depicting it right.

When he finally does ‘confess’ his feelings for you, it’s less of a confession of love and more of an assumption you already said yes. You barely get a word in before he’s telling the entire world about your relationship with him.

He never gets too violent, but he will push you around sometimes. Anytime you poke a hole in his perfect fantasy of how your relationship is, he freaks out and starts to whine until you give in.

Would one day just bring you home. Since in his mind what he’s doing is perfectly normal, he sees nothing wrong with taking you home and keeping you there. He doesn’t like having to share space with his brothers still, but that’s okay. He can make room for you in his bed area and you can just stay there! Until his dad or the other mutants let you leave of course.

This would devastated Donnie, and would probably be his snapping point for waking up and seeing it wasn’t as perfect as he made it. But, unlucky you, he only snapped out of the ‘everyone else sees this as normal too’ bit.

Next time, he just brings you to a whole new area of the sewer to live. Just you and him, together forever. Just as it was meant to be.

Raph:

Raph would be an overprotective and a threatening kind of yandere.

Raph was always one of the first to suggest they do something and ran in head first into a problem. He was also always one of the first to dip when things started to go south. If someone tries to start something with you, he’s not afraid to remind them why people once considered him a monster.

Directs his need for a physical anger release at your friends/family instead of you. He doesn't want to hurt you, but he needs you to understand how you rejecting him is hurting him. So, he threatens your family and/or friends to get the message across. 

Oh, you don’t love him anymore? Well, guess you better start preparing those savings to pay off some medical bills.

He’s prone to violence and is very loud, but only the verbal side will ever be targeted at you. He’ll shout, cry, mock, or even belittle you if it means you won’t leave him for just one more minute. He’ll comfort you afterwards of course, but he panicked and it just spilled out. It’s your fault, really.

If you have something that makes you insecure, he might randomly bring it up to poke fun or mess with you if you’re being difficult. He tries to 

Would punch someone just for looking at you weird.

Doesn’t tolerate any flack from anyone when it comes to you. You’re his special someone, no ones getting in the way. He’d fight Superfly all over again if it meant you were safe and happy with him.

Loves to show off in front of you. If you ever go to watch one of his wrestling matches, he’s absolutely dominating the mat. And probably getting a lot of points off for illegal moves.

Loves to drag you around and make you do the stuff he wants to do. You’re his partner, you need to support him after all. He gets offended if you have other plans or just don’t want to hang out with him at any given time.

He’ll most likely try to sabotage your plans or make you feel guilty for not hanging out with him.

When it comes to kidnapping, it would definitely be harder for them to pull it off. Not only does he have his dad and brothers to worry about, but now there’s a whole plethora of other mutants living in the same sewer pipe as him. What he’d most likely do is try and find a secluded area in the sewers to keep you in.

He’d fix it up to the best of his ability and make sure it was a safe area to stay in, then he’d just take you and move you in.

He’d be baffled when you get mad at him for bringing you here. He promises to take care of you, he just thinks it’d be better for you to stay here. Where it’s safe. With him. And no one else to bother you.

He, of course, does not stay there, but always knowing where you are makes him happy. To him, it’s the thought that counts.

Leo:

Leo shows signs of being a worshiping or obsessed yandere with hints of dependence.

Like how he did with April, he latches on to you, and he latches on fast.

This man never lets you go. Glued to your hip 24/7, 365. Anything you do, you’re doing it with him by your side.

He just constantly needs to be near you at all times. You are everything to him, and he needs to prove it to you. Have chores? He’s showing up at your house to lend a hand. Need to go somewhere? He can take you there, no problem. You never get a second to breathe from how much he stays near you.

He sees no wrong in anything you do. You’re a walking, talking, embodiment of perfection! Of course he’s going to vehemently defend no matter what. If you did it, it was the right thing to do, no matter the situation.

He’s constantly talking about you to anyone who’ll listen. Leatherhead asks him to play some games? He’s talking about your favorite game the whole time and how good you are at playing it. Everything is about you. No one knows how he does it, but he can divert any conversation into a love blind rant about you.

He gets all huffy when you don’t give him as much attention as he wants. You’re his everything, so why can’t you just treat him the same? It’s not like it takes a lot of effort, you just need to pay attention to him instead of whatever else you’re doing.

Guilt trips you A LOT. He doesn’t really mean to, but he definitely plays the ‘poor me, I’m a mutant and people think I’m a monster’ card anytime you show any hesitance with anything he does.

He’s your own personal knight. If you have any trouble, whether you got robbed, are being bullied, etcetera etcetera, he’s there to help. He still loves violence like his brothers, and he would never pass up the chance to fight. Especially if it was in your honor.

Doesn’t hurt you, but can get really frustrated if you resist him. He will play his woe is me routine, but if that doesn’t work, he’ll withdraw from you completely. He’s still watching you of course. He’d never actually leave. But you don’t know that. Just like you don’t know he’s the one who made sure you’d run into trouble the next night and only had Leo to call on. You need him, just as he needs you. He’ll forgive you of course, but he’ll hold it over your head for about a week, just to make sure you won’t try again for a while.

Doesn't kidnap you. He thinks about it a lot of course. Being able to be with you every second of the day, to make sure you’re safe and happy. But he logically knows he can’t. He even tried to convince you to run away with him a couple of times, but that didn’t go over well. Instead, he spends every waking moment by your side. Pushes for sleepovers, hangouts, dates, all the things. There’s never a time when he’s not near you.

And if you do say no or try to make other plans? Well he just ‘happens’ to be in the area and shows up.

He doesn't understand how you could ever be angry or upset and anything he does. After all, it’s all for you. You should be thanking him.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: ก่อนดอกไม้…บาน / 花开有时颓靡无声 / Meet You at the Blossom

Meet You at the Blossom is a 2024 joint Thai/Chinese adaptation of a Chinese danmei novel. Marketing itself as an "uncensored BL," it tells the love story of the world's dumbest boy and the absolute psychopath he has the (mis)fortune to fall for.

Note that "uncensored" doesn't mean you're going to see somebody's little blossom or anything like that. It just means that the love story is textual and canonical. These boys declare their love for one another. They hold hands. They smooch. They have soft, unfocused scenes where one of them climbs on top of the other and then everything fades to black. They are two boys and they are in love ... and sure, one of them thinks the other is a girl for longer than is probably reasonable, but what relationship doesn't have its share of misunderstandings?

This twelve-episode drama is a bodice-ripping melodrama with a bottom-barrel Harlequin novel plot. It is the most soap opera I've seen something that isn't a soap opera be. If you are the kind of person who enjoys this sort of thing, you are absolutely going to enjoy this sort of thing. If you're not ... well, it might still hook you anyway. Here's five reasons I think you should watch it.

1. Perfect toxic yaoi sludge

Do you only consume media about healthy relationships between consenting equals, where people have conversations and are always honest about their feelings? Great. Turn this off immediately.

Meet You at the Blossom is the show for people who yearn for the days of Kizuna. People who still think longingly about Zetsuai 1989. People who will not be convinced that Tokyo Babylon is anything but peak romance. People who have seen Gravitation more than once and of their own volition. People who have looked the trashiest yaoi out there dead in the eye and shouted BRING ME MORE.

I keep using the word "yaoi" because that's what it is. It's a gay relationship begun under false premises, consummated under sketchy circumstances, longed for despite serious reasons to stay broken up, and then all somehow worked out in the end. I have described the main pairing as, what if Wen Kexing fell in love with a labradoodle? Carried out to its logical conclusion, this relationship would be good for neither Wen Kexing nor the labradoodle. But for the purposes of a catastrophically badly paced twelve-episode series, it's all the dramatic fuel you need.

Nothing about their relationship is ever reliably safe, sane, or consensual -- and that's the fun of it! Look, the first time they fuck (in episode two!) is under the influence of sex pollen, and they come out the other side of it awkward but definitely not traumatized. I've seen people say they wish the show had treated the noncon bits with more gravity, which ... look, there's no noncon here. Actual noncon-wanters would be sorely disappointed by what this show offers. There's some impaired judgment and overblown irrational jealousy and aggressively pinning one's very drunk partner to the bed, but it's that kind of perfectly okay force fantasy that works in fiction, because in fiction everyone's okay with it. You know they're okay with it. The writer wrote it so they're okay with it. Everybody is getting exactly what they want.

This is a drama about people having Big Feelings that would be terrifying in real life, but are fun as hell onscreen. So you are promising me right now that if you watch this, you will not overthink it, because overthinking this show is like being that raccoon that failed at washing a piece of cotton candy. Don't try to clean up this delicate sugary mess. Eat it dirty.

2. Some fascinating faces

This is going to sound like such a backhanded compliment, but I swear it's not: There are some really interesting-looking people in this show! I can't swear this is because of the Thai production elements, but I have to assume that the different cultural beauty standards at work at least somewhat influenced the casting choices.

A thing about c-dramas is, the majority of the under-40 male actors look like their base model came off of one of the dozen or so approved production lines at the Pretty Boy Factory. While I enjoy these production lines, combine it with my natural touch of faceblindness, and I've had some hilarious moments where I have been certain two characters were played the same person, when they were in fact very much not.

This show is full of a bunch of actors you'd be hard-pressed to mistake for anyone else. There's like one guy who's conventionally c-drama handsome, while everyone else brings a lot more variety to the table than you tend to find in productions like this.

Li Le, when he's all done up as Zongzheng Huaien, is strikingly beautiful in a way that reminds me of old film starlets who maybe should've stopped about one nose job ago. I've seen pictures of him when he's dressed like a regular modern boy, and he's lovely, sure. But with the hair and the outfits and the constant haughty ice-cold stares he's leveling at people, the final look is stunning. And then he smiles and it's just the cutest goofy grin! Anyway, there's a whole big deal about Huaien's parentage, when the obvious answer is that the fey folk dropped him off and said, good luck with this one.

Meanwhile, Wang Yunkai, who plays Jin Xiaobao, has perfectly plump, kissable lips and a wide, soft nose that together with his giant eyes give him the perfect air of an innocent bisexual dumbass currently in the process of figuring out the whole "bisexual" part. He's so cute and cuddleable that you feel extra-bad when you see him in pain, which works for the show, because he spends a lot of the back half of the series being in both emotional and physical pain, as per conventions of the genre.

As for the rest of the cast, there's...

store-brand Huang Youming!

pouty Thai princess!

slimy kite dude and his terrible 'stache!

these precious dipshits!

...and a couple guys I just straight-up can't find pictures of, even though they're important named characters, because this may be the first thing they've been in? Look, this is not a show of well-known names, nor is it something that's probably to launch any careers to prominence. I'm not even going to say this is a show where everybody looks like everyday average people, because no! They obviously do not! They are very attractive people! They are just attractive according to a set of criteria you do not often see on Chinese television, and I think that's great.

3. You don't have to say NO HOMO every time you touch another dude

Really, truly, the greatest thing about an overtly BL property is how touchy men can be -- and not even the romantic pairings! Loyal servants get to hug their masters! Coworkers get to fall asleep in a two-man puppy pile! Childhood besties get to wrap comforting arms around one another! Brothers in arms get to catch their fallen comrades! Friends get to tearfully bid farewell to one another before leaving on journeys! Cousins get to embrace to the point one of the cousins really wishes they would stop!

Mostly it's that once you've removed the fear that gay shit might get your show censored, you can have your male characters engage in a perfectly regular amount of human physical contact.

Like, one of my favorite funny things about c-dramas is the amount of wrist-gripping that happens, as though dragging someone else along by their wrist is a real-life thing that happens often, or even at all. It's the perfect example of how paranoia about depicting physical intimacy leads to substitutes that are just bizarre. We can't possibly have these two people hold hands! So let's make up another gesture and pretend it's a thing people do voluntarily and (more importantly) heterosexually!

But when you've already outright put the YEP, IT'S GAY sign on your production, that paranoia vanishes. What are the censors going to do, get mad at the part where two friends are sleeping tangled up with one another? Three minutes ago there was a scene where one guy kissed another on the mouth! Let those boys snooze!

Alas that the scenes that are supposed to be sexy come across as mostly awkward -- largely because those two leads don't really seem all that keen on sticking their tongues down each other's throats, which, you know, I get; it'd be weird if I had to kiss my coworkers. But what they are good at is snuggling. I almost wish -- and keep in mind this is me saying this -- they'd cut the scenes that were trying to be horny and leaned more into the tender, playful moments they get together. Those are the ones that made me squeal happily and kick my little feet.

I have to mention this one: There is a little cheek kiss that I absolutely love. (I can't find a screencap of it, and my own attempts at screenshotting it were hilariously unproductive, but it gets played as part of gay flashbacks pretty much once an episode, so you can't miss it.) Huaien is being menacing in an attempt to be offputting, and Xiaobao is stubbornly refusing to be anything but charmed by it, and as soon as Huaien turns his head, Xiaobao takes advantage of the moment and plants a quick little mwah! on Huaien's cheek.

And it's SO GOOD. I said out loud, in that moment, do you know how many shows would be improved if one guy could just give another guy a little kissie on his cheek? It should be like how getting a PG-13 rating allows your movie one "fuck," but instead every c-drama gets one moment where a guy gives another guy a little peck. Not even on the lips! Like how Aragorn gets to give Boromir a farewell forehead kiss. Sometimes a scene just calls for a little kissie! Sometimes everything would be better if a guy could just kiss the homies!

You're thinking now of all the places you'd use your single little kissie in various dramas, aren't you? Yeah, so am I.

4. side pairs side pairs side pairs~

Yeah, main couple, true love, happily ever after, whatever. SIDE PAIRS SIDE PAIRS SIDE PAIRS [banging rhythmically on table]

You know the genre, so you know there's always going to be That One Guy that threatens to steal the pure-hearted one away from the psycho by being handsome, rich, well-intentioned, and generally emotionally stable. You also know it's not going to work, because no matter how much healthier that relationship would be, it's not the tasty toxic flavor we're going for here. Anyway, sorry, Su Yin, but you never left the childhoodbestfriendzone.

That bratty prince wants to fuck his cousin so bad. His cousin is not going to fuck him, not because of cousin status, but because the bratty prince needs to be tossed out the nearest window and not let back in until he can legally drink.

I was ready to ship Jin Xiaobao's two little guard buddies -- but no! The littler of the two guard buddies has his own love interest who shows up later in the show, and I'm so upset that there's not more of these two, because that's an unexpectedly hot setup. I'll say no more; you should enjoy this one as it happens.

Now, do not presume that this is a Kinnporsche deal, where fiction has created a magical world in which every man is at least a Kinsey 2. There are still straight men in this show (and a few men who clearly think they're straight but have not yet gotten the memo) who experience varying degrees of befuddlement about the homo drama happening around them. Most characters are at least casually anti-gay, but in sort of the same way you might expect a big cattle-ranching family to react if their son started dating a vegan -- it's not unthinkable or illegal, but, like, why?

There needs to be a word for a gentler state than homophobia. Something like homobefuddlement, a social condition where falling in love with another guy is about on the level of getting a face tattoo or naming your child Optimus Prime. There's nothing stopping you, but you know somebody's roasting your ass on Ancient Chinese Fantasy Reddit.

5. A budget of three dollars and a ham sandwich

I am firmly on record as being charmed by productions that make do with skimpy resources, and Meet You at the Blossom's resources are skimpy as heck. I highly suspect this is one of those situations where if they'd known it was going get the attention that it has, they might've put more money into it from the start -- but they didn't, so they didn't.

I keep coming back to "soap opera" as a description, because that's about the production level you should be picturing here. If you played this on a TV with motion smoothing enabled, the effect would be complete. Everything is done to the cheapest possible degree. Characters legitimately toss smoke bombs and disappear like they're anime ninjas, probably because renting a fog machine has got to be way less expensive than the rigs for wirework. That's the type of shoestring budget we're talking here.

The greenscreen is Not Good, my friends. I mean, not that you expected it to be, but however far you've lowered your expectations already, lower them more.

They got to borrow a brothel set for like half an hour. It's the most people you see in a single room at the same time, and it represents drunkenness by spraying raspberry soda over all the lights.

If I had a nickel for every time Huaien is in some terrible predicament that seems impossible for him to get out of, and then he shows up somewhere else like two scenes later, and we never find out exactly how he got out of that terrible predicament, I would have multiple nickels in my pocket, is all I'm saying.

You know, if my wigs/beards and wig/beard glue were that bad, I would simply refrain from frequent, intense close-ups of the parts where people's fake hair joins to their faces. And if my actors all had that much foundation caked on them, I would probably refrain from close-ups, period. But that's just me.

Actually, no, there's something else about the wigs: They're styled so badly that it actually wraps around (ha ha) to being charming. I'm used to wig situations where the topknots are combed tight and oiled into place within an inch of their lives. But here, everybody who has an updo has kind of a messy one? Especially little Jinbao, where you can see the ends of his ponytail stick out the back in a scruffy fashion, giving him the vibe of a little ragamuffin who's never learned how to do up his hair quite right.

There's a plot, sort of. It's basically the thinnest possible series of excuses for the action in the show to happen, told in occasional five-minute bursts of exposition given by characters you forgot about between now and the last time they appeared. Don't worry if you can't keep track of which prince is which, or who is whose dad. Man, there's even a "curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" near the end that's played up as some big shock, and I was like, have we met this dude before? I think pretty much every time the grownups started talking, we stopped paying attention. Look, I know this is based on a novel I haven't read, and I'm sure the plot comes off better when it's all packed together in a couple of pages of dialogue you can skip without consequence on your way to the boy-kissing, but in the show it just comes off as perfunctory and clunky. From what I've seen, people who've read the book tend to be way more into the intricacies of the narrative, but I haven't, so I'm not.

(Wait, in the novel, Jin Xiaobao is supposed to be fat? Well, now I feel I've been robbed! ...Eh, it's fine, I'm not sad to skip a sequence where the side benefit of trauma is that you get skinny.)

All this, to me, is charming. If you demand higher production values from your entertainment, this will not be what you want. If cozying up with some low-budget tomfooloery with a big heart feels like comfort food to you, you are among friends here.

And speaking of friends, let me strongly recommend that you watch this with some, if you can, because there are parts that are just begging to get riffed on. I would not have had a tenth as much fun watching it alone as I did goofing my way through it with my wife. It is a show that is only improved by the jokes you make about it along the way. It has no dignity, nor are you obligated to treat it as though it does. Cuddle up with your buddies, grab your favorite snacks, and sharpen your shadiest claws.

Want to meet this show somewhere?

It's conveniently up in a lot of places! Pick your poison:

GagaOOLala

WeTV

iQIYI

Viki

YouTube

Look, I'm going to say it one more time for the people in the back row: This is not a serious, thoughtful portrayal of healthy relationship dynamics. If you expect it to be, you will be sorely disappointed. It is a tale of a bunch of dudes (and, like, two women) whose emotional volume knobs are stuck at eleven and emotional intelligence doesn't go above a two. Go into it knowing what you're getting into, and you might just have yourself a pretty good time.

Get that little kissie!

[bambisspeckles]

Disasterology {BD!Simon}

Chapter One: Cry, Cry

*pics for aesthetic purposes only!

CW: no simon this part (kinda) (sorry), fem!reader, mentions of p in v sex and oral sex but no actual sex scenes, mentions of blood, urine, and needles but all in medical context, mentions of terminating pregnancies (no actual termination happens), angst, simon got commit issues rn lowk, age gap but it's unspecified so you make it up, reader has anxiety (projecting), probable inaccurate representation of OGBYS/gynos, mildly edited! lmk if i missed something <3

WC: 1.9k (i genuinely didn't mean to make it this long!!)

Summary: You and Simon have a complicated relationship, he's not your boyfriend and he's definitely not just your friend, but what happens when he ends up being the father to your child?

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You like Simon, honestly you do, and you're sure he likes you too. I mean he must to some degree if he's kept you around this long. You're just not sure he wants you. He dances around any conversation pertaining to making thing serious with you, committing to you. It's honestly confusing, he acts like a boyfriend, you go out on dates, he runs errands with you, and he stays over at your place more often than he stays at his. It all feels serious, it all feels like fidelity, but no matter how much you try to bring it up he brushes past the conversation. He'll shut you up with a kiss before dropping to his knees and throwing your legs over his shoulders.

It'd piss you off more if he didn't make you feel so good.

Eventually you stopped bringing it up all together, even though you wanted more with him, to be with him seriously, you were content to continue your arrangement in order to keep him in your life. You told yourself things were fine, and they were, you were with him and he was with you, and as long as you ignored the tugging at your heart then they would continue to be fine.

Unfortunately, for you, things can never be that simple.

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It started when you missed your period.

You didn't think much of it at first, you've missed your period before and both you and Simon have always been very careful to use protection when you had sex, so you didn't really think there was anything to worry about. You just figured your period was a little late this month, not a big deal, it happens.

That was until a few more weeks went by and you were still missing that awful pain in your gut. You kept telling yourself to wait it out a few more days and it'll come but it never did. Eventually you turned to google, looking on different forums and sketchy women's health blogs for answers and advice. Of course, most of the results just told you that you were probably pregnant but you avoided those answers, you and Simon use condoms, you were careful, there is no way you could be having a baby.

You decided that your period had just skipped for the month and it would come back next month. Everything was going to be fine. Days and days went by but nothing you've googled or told yourself was easing your anxieties. Simon noticed the change in your behavior and, in his own strange way, asked if everything was alright. You brushed him off, telling him it was stress from work. Honestly the last thing you needed was to freak him out by telling him you might be pregnant with his baby.

What a fucking mess that would be.

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You're worried. With each passing day you're becoming more and more convinced there's a baby inside you. Every morning you wake up feeling violently ill, you're bloated, weepy, and seemingly every food item on the planet makes you nauseous. All early signs of pregnancy.

Fuck you can't be pregnant, god you hope you're not.

You consider going to some random drug store to pick up some pregnancy tests but you don't think you could stomach doing that on your own, no pun intended, and you definitely don't want to involve Simon yet, especially if you're not pregnant. No point in stressing him out over nothing. What you hope is nothing.

You resolve to make an appointment and get tested through an OBGYN instead of taking an at home test yourself. Their tests are more accurate so you won't have to go through the trouble of possibly dealing with false positives… or false negatives. Your voice shakes throughout the entire phone call, it's not a long call but somehow it feels like the longest conversation you've had in your life. When the call ends and the line goes quiet you find yourself saying a prayer for the first time.

God, please don't let me be pregnant.

When the day of your appointment arrives you're extremely nervous and fidgety, your stomach is churning so much it's making your head spin, and you're worried if your heart beats any faster you'll end up having a heart attack. The whole clinical feel of the waiting room doesn't ease your anxieties any less either. The women at the front desk hands you a clipboard after you check-in and explains that you need to fill some papers out before you see the doctor. It doesn't take long to fill the papers out, just some general health questions and the reasoning behind your visit, though you're sure the doctor will ask the same questions again.

Soon enough, you name is called out by a nurse and you walk towards her with shaky legs. She leads you through a small hallway, making quiet conversation with you all the way to the examination room, though you're not entirely sure if you ever even answered her, you're thoughts to fogged up to conversate. She seems to understand.

"Here we are," She says as the both of you slow in front of a sky blue door. "The doctor will be with you shortly, for now just take a seat on the exam table and try to get comfortable." She gives you a small smile as she pushes open the door.

You thank her, your voice coming out soft, almost meek and she gives a gentle squeeze on your arm as you walk through the door before closing it behind you. You place your things down on a rather uncomfortable looking chair before settling down on the exam table, the paper covering crumpling underneath your thighs. Some time passes, though you're not sure how much, before you hear a knock at the door that jolts you out of your dazed state.

"Hello! may I come in?" The woman's voice comes out muffled behind the door.

"Y-yes," You take a small breath. "Yes, you can come in."

The door opens and a middle aged women walks through, she gives you a kind smile as she settles into the chair in front of a little desk. She goes to turn on the computer and types a few things in before turning back to you.

"I'm Doctor Green, I'll be conducting your exam today. I need to ask you a couple questions before we begin, is that alright?" You nod at her in an impassive away and she pulls a clipboard off her desk.

As you guessed, she asks you the same questions you answered in the waiting room only this time she asks for more details. After an uncomfortable Q&A session she finally begins to explain the actual procedures that are going to be preformed. They all seem pretty straight forward, she'll start with a physical exam that, of course will come with more questions, then a urine sample and blood sample will be taken from you to actually see if you're pregnant.

The physical exam is about what you expected, though she's a bit more thorough in examining certain areas. After that part is over, the urine sample is next. She provides you two cups, one cup is filled with water and the other is a cup you are quite literally supposed to pee in. Doctor Green instructs you to drink the cup of water, wait about fifteen minutes, then take the sample cup to the bathroom to pee in. You cringe a bit at the last part and you see a small smile tug at her lips. You drink the water and she shows you where the bathroom is before leading you back to the exam room once more.

"I'll be back in twenty minutes for your blood sample alright?" You nod at her and she nods back before exiting the room.

Just as Doctor Green predicted, fifteen minutes after drinking the cup of water you had too pee. You grabbed the sample cup and walked towards the bathroom with quivering legs to take care of your business. Once you finished you took the cup back into the exam room and placed it onto a mat.

Doctor Green comes back into the exam room a few minutes later to take your urine sample to the lab for testing before finally collecting your blood sample. It was as unpleasant as you had thought, a strange feeling in your veins as she fills the little syringe with your blood. After she finishes, Doctor Green cleans and patches the needled area up when suddenly her computer chimes.

"Perfect timing, your results must be ready!" Her words quickly have you sputtering as your eyes blow wide.

"My… results? Doesn't that take some time? I thought it would take longer…" You wish it would take longer, you're not ready to hear them yet.

She moves over to the desk to open up your lab results, humming in acknowledgment at your words.

"The blood test is the one that takes time," She explains. "The results of that can take either a few hours or a few days depending on how busy the lab is. The urine results don't take more than a couple minutes though. That's why people use at home tests a lot."

She turns to you, a small smile on her face.

"Are you ready to hear your results?" No, you think.

But, "Yes." Is what you say.

"Congratulations, You're having a baby!"

─── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ──────

You don't remember the rest of the appointment, or the drive home honestly. You weren't really thinking, you didn't know what to think, what to do. When you arrive back to your apartment the only thing you can bring yourself to do is flop onto the couch and throw your head in your hands. What was the logical next step? You can't hide the pregnancy forever, in fact it's probably better to tell Simon sooner rather than later, and you don't think you could bring yourself to terminate the pregnancy either.

Everything feels so fucking hopeless.

You don't know what to do or what you want, you don't know how Simon will react, what he'll want. It's scary, so fucking scary. You can't even get this man to talk about what's going on between the two of you so how are you supposed to tell him you're having his baby? What will he do? What if he runs? He could do that easily given his military connections. He could run from you and leave you to deal with this alone, he could tell you he wants nothing to do with you or this baby and that it's your issue to deal with, alone.

You'd hope he wouldn't do that. You like to think he'd be kinder.

But you don't know, and that's the scariest part about everything. You don't even know if Simon is your boyfriend, how are you supposed to figure out what to do now that you're pregnant? Tears begin to slip down the supple skin of your cheeks as you cry, grabbing onto a pillow and pulling it tight to your chest as you sob so hard it's almost painful.

You're scared, so fucking scared, and the one person who makes everything less scary is the one you're afraid of most right now.

You sob, for hours upon hours until the tears stop falling and your red, puffy eyes fall shut after all the emotional exertion. Even in your sleep that anxious knot in your chest doesn't loosen, if anything it feels like it grows tighter and your subconscious mind thrusts all your biggest worries to the forefront of your mind.

God, what are you going to do?

─── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ────── ⋆⋅𐀔⋅⋆ ──────

AAHHH! dad!simon my beloved… I'm honestly really excited idk where this came from because I was trying to figure out what to write for neighbor!simon but then the thoughts came and now this is not neighbor!simon but an entirely different beast… I hope you guys enjoyed this I will do my best to maintain this and create a little series out of it :3 I know you can hardly call this a chapter but putting part 1 feels like i'm making a tiktok story time LMAOO!! think of em' as short chapters :p Likes and reblogs are appreciated asssss always and ilysm thanks for all the support mwah!! <3

(and yes the series title and all the chapter titles are songs!)

[lambcow]

Ok but imagine young Clark coming into his super-hypnotism powers as a young kid and Martha Kent is not having it because you can only argue with your two-year-old so much if they can sweet talk you into anything they want.

She figures out really fast that it's all in the inhuman eyes - and really, she should've known that gorgeous shade of blue was too good to be true - so when Clark gets in a fit and she just knows he's going to make a demand, she avoids direct eye contact with her sweet little angel. She knows he's not doing it on purpose, he's just a little kid, after all.

But then, he has to go to school, and Martha knows Clark won't do it on purpose, but her little baby is a charmspeaker and is accidentally going to manipulate the entire world around him into whatever he thinks he wants and that's just not going to fly!

So, Martha experiments a little. The next time they go into town for the day, Martha hands Clark a tiny pair of sunglasses to wear all day to see if lenses even make a difference. It's not that he's never worn them before, but she needs to know if he can influence anyone if he's not looking directly into their eyes. After a day of errands and several pleading looks and what are certainly puppy eyes from Clark from behind tinted lenses to no avail, Martha has her answer.

Their last stop of the day is an antique shop on Main. Martha greets the man at the counter like you only can in a small town and asks if he has any supplies of old glasses they can rifle through for Clark, just in the meantime until they can get his eyes checked. Just to limp along. It's a lie, Clark doesn't need a prescription. But in a box of used glasses, there's always the chance Martha will find what she needs.

Gary (that's his name) points her toward a dresser down the room and tells her there's a drawer filled with costume glasses and the like. They find a tiny pair of glasses for Clark and he complains at first that the world "looks funny" but then he blinks twice and looks around again and, with a grin, says "Never mind - I like them, can I keep them?"

And that's how Clark Kent starts wearing glasses.

As he gets older, continuing to grow up and especially while he's still shorter than his ma he'll occasionally glare up at her from over his lenses petulantly as he tries to get his way and it brings a whole new weight to the phrase "Don't give me that look, now, son," because Clark knows that she means not to use his Kryptonian eyes on her to get his way. It's not a secret any more than Clark being an alien is a secret that Clark can get people to do what he wants. But the few times he's done it have resulted in the biggest groundings of his entire life and more chores than he's ever wanted to do. And not just manual labor chores, but the kind of chores ma knows he doesn't like, because a ma always knows how to make a chore a chore.

In high school, for all that Clark is not very popular and has that whole quiet nerd persona going for him, he has that cute kid with the glasses Kryptonian Gaze™ down to a seductive art and he's not even trying. Because. Hello? B-i-o-l-o-g-y. So, yeah. That over-the-glasses glance from across the room? It's a whole thing and lots of girls (and guys?) are super confused by why they suddenly think Clark Kent might be super hot. Then when they look again but it's just Clark sitting there with his normal glasses again? They're not so sure...

He doesn't like to use his super-hypnotism because it feels like cheating, but depending on the circumstance he will. It's not that different than using his other abilities after all, right? If it's for the right reasons, is it?

While he's working at the Daily Planet, he'll use it on occasion to push his advantage for a story for that one extra detail, to get access to a room he might not have otherwise, to sneak into places he might not have, to make people forget his face, his name, their conversation if it was a particularly sketchy place... it's all a simple tilt down of the chin so he can look people straight in the eyes over the rim of his glasses and ask a pointed question or say something or suggest something and then....

As Superman it's different. As Superman, he never wears his glasses. He's all heat vision and x-ray vision, micro and macro vision. As Superman, he does what he needs to to save people. Sometimes that's telling someone to get to safety or go home, call 9-1-1, run, stay here, be quiet.. it's a hundred things as Superman. Sometimes it's asking guards for passcodes or entrance, sometimes it's to turn off surveillance altogether. Superman does what he has to do.

[small-sinclair]

Rings and Keeps

@fluffy-little-demon and @sketchy-rosewitch, I give you, your husband—

Bo Sinclair x reader

“Are you sure you haven’t seen him in the shop?”

“Sorry, y/n,” Lester said over the phone. “Haven’t seen Bo all day. Promise.”

You sighed tiredly and said, “Okay, Les. Call back if you hear from him.” You hung up and looked nervously at the front door again. It’s not like your fiancé to up and leave Ambrose without telling anyone, let alone, not tell you. So, why’d he left? What made him up and leave?

Is he getting milk and cigarettes like my dad did? You thought jokingly to yourself, but that didn’t help you at all.

Still, dinner had to be finished and put away. You didn’t want to eat without him, and you felt too nervous with him gone. So, you started pacing to keep your mind off things. Back and forth in the house you tried to keep your thoughts on something else. Baseball. Football. Weather. Vincent. Lester and his raccoon army (don’t tell the twins). Bo’s ass— but noting. You flopped down on the couch and hugged a throw pillow as you looked at the door.

Maybe he doesn’t love me? Maybe he up and left to figure out the best way to kill me?

“No, don’t think about that,” you told yourself in a whisper. “Bo’s fine. He might be getting something.”

When 10:30 struck on the clock, Bo’s truck lights lit up the front of the living room, but you were already asleep, cuddling Bo’s sweatshirt, when he walked in the house. He bit his lower lip nervously as his eyes found you sleeping on the sofa. Quietly, he took off his jacket and hung his hat next to a picture him and you, where he’s hugging you from behind and your laughing in the summer’s glow. Vincent took this gem and had it framed next to his hook on purpose, but Bo’s not one for complaining. It just reminds him what his aching arms are for when he comes home to you, to his beloved.

He kneels in front of you and kisses you gently to wake you up. “Sweetheart,” he drawled tiredly. “‘M home.”

He watched your sleepy eyes flutter open as he thumbed your cheek. “Bo? Where have you been?” Your voice is so soft and tired it reminds him of a kitten.

“Was gettin’ somethin’,” he hummed.

“What?”

“Gimme your right hand.”

You do as your told and showed him your hand. He digs into his pocket and pulls out a little black box. Your eyes brighten as he slipped on a simple silver ring with a small white diamond in the center. “It ain’t much,” he started, “but I thought ya need somethin’ better than ‘at paper ring.”

“Bo,” you sigh, getting a better look at it. “You didn’t—“

“Hush,” he said. “I wanna do something right for ya. So, I, well…” he rubbed the back of his neck. “I sold the ‘86 Dodge.”

“But,” you sat up and held his cheeks. He rested into your touch and closed his eyes. “But that’s your baby!”

He shrugs. “I know, y/n, I know, but,” he kissed your palm, “I wanna to do something good for you. Somethin’ right.” He leaned back and took your hands. “I wanna to give ya somethin’ better than Mama’s ring. Shit,” he eyes shines as he looks up to meet your eyes, “when I saw ya looking at that ring the other day, I knew I had to get it for ya because…” his voice trails as his head fell. “I’m afraid to lose you. I have so much blood on my hands, so how? How can you even stand me? Let alone, love me?” You’ve never heard him talk like this before, and this side of trust was so valuable that you felt like he was glass waiting to shatter. “Just wanted to do something right for once.”

Your shoulders fell, and you pulled Bo into your chest, rubbing his back. “That’s why you’ve been nervous lately,” you sighed. “Beauregard, I love you no matter how bloody your hands get.” You curled your fingers through his hair. “And I love this ring because you got it for me.” You lifted his head and kisses his lips. “You never have to worry about me not loving you. I’ll always love you.”

Bo smiles and lays a kiss on your neck. “Even if I lose control?”

“Even if you lose control,” you reassured. Then your face turned serious. “But, promise me one thing?”

“Anything, y/n.”

You looked at him dead in the eye and said, “Don’t sell the T-Bird? I love that car.”

He chuckles and rolls his eyes. “Promise, darlin’. I’m keeping that like I’m keeping you.” He placed a passionate kiss on your lips, rocking into you. “Now, on t’bed, sugar,” his voice rumbled like thunder in his chest, “been missing you all day.” He pulls you up and carries you bridal style. “Lemme make up for leavin’ ya alone like that.”

[sashaisready]

This Must Be The Place: Chapter 9 - Say goodnight

Biker!Bucky x Femme Reader

Back at your beloved late grandmother's home to pack up her house, you have a run-in with the town's biker gang 'The Howling Commandos' and find yourself entangled with the metal armed President.

Series Masterlist

Warnings: Some smut…insecurities in reader

I’m back! I’ve been a bit caught up with work and parenting so things have been a little crazy. Hoping I should have more time coming up to dedicate to this! Apologies in advance…this is a little smut/fluff to warm us up before we get into the angst next chapter (I’m sorry) As always, your reblogs and comments mean the world – it’s lovely to see people engaging with his story!

You slugged him hard on the shoulder, something you seemed to be doing a lot lately.

“Really? That’s all you have to say?” you scolded, still slightly breathless.

Annoyed, you tensed up and began pushing against his chest to prise yourself off him. You saw the slight look of fear on his face as he wrapped his arms around you in what was essentially a bear hug – keeping himself inside of you.

“Hey, whoa! It was a joke. I’m sorry…I guess that was all kinda intense and I didn’t really know what to say,” he admitted, looking a little sheepish. “I meant to lighten the mood, not piss you off, believe it or not. That’s the last thing I want, okay?”

You softened a little as he kissed you again. It was true, despite his charm he was often clumsy with his words and misread the room. He didn’t seem to do it on purpose…so you let it go. This time, anyway.

“Alright…fine,” you relented as your muscles relaxed again. “But you don’t always have to…fill the silence, y’know? Sometimes…you can just be”.

He nodded. “I know, I’m trying,” he said gently as he moved a strand of hair from your face. “But look…that was…amazing. Just…wow”.

He laughed and you laughed too. “Wow is much better,” you giggled. “I can work with wow…”

*

The two of you continued to ‘wow’ one another over the upcoming weeks. Your place. His place. Once or twice in the back office at the bar (dangerously close to being caught when Peter knocked that second time…and Bucky angrily told him he was too busy doing the books when actually you were on your knees in front of him…)

His touch was addictive. You didn’t think you’d ever get enough. Even little things like him subtly brushing a finger over your lower back as he passed, or leaning over and pressing himself into you as he went to grab a drink from the bar, seemed to get you going. He knew exactly what he was doing too, shooting you a little wink or smirk each time. He liked to keep you on edge.

Neither of you had raised if you were going to go ‘public’ with your little arrangement. You didn’t want to bring it up, not wanting to appear needy or to want a ‘what are we?’ type conversation. You did tell Wanda and Vis, there were your only real friends here outside of the MC and you didn’t like the idea of lying to them about how you were spending your evenings. They had been surprised, and Wanda had warned you to be careful – she told you Bucky’s reputation was based on two things – whatever sketchy shit he had going on behind the front of his businesses, and the copious amounts of women he landed. Neither of which was a shock to you, but you were grateful for her cautioning.

If you were honest, the secret nature of your relationship with Bucky was welcomed by you. Part of you felt a little self-conscious – like the MC would all think ‘oh, there goes another one…’ or view you differently because of it. Another silly girl getting entangled with Bucky…What else is new? Keeping things quiet meant you wouldn’t embarrass yourself when it unavoidably started to go wrong…

Plus, you didn’t really want to have to deal with any other women who had him on their radar, particularly Amber…

…Who wasn’t really around as much. Her friends still came by the bar, and she did too sometimes. But less and less so. Bucky hadn’t mentioned her, you weren’t sure if he had spoken to her or if she’d just moved on elsewhere. You didn’t think he would’ve brought you up with her, but maybe she sensed he was either pulling away or spending time with another girl.

You’d hoped she had just met a nice guy and had moved on from the MC…but there was a moment one evening where you were pouring a beer at the bar and Bucky had leaned over under the guise of picking up a box at your feet, only to whisper something salacious in your ear as he passed. You’d giggled and grinned, elbowing him away playfully, and as you looked back up you had locked eyes with Amber from across the room. You’d given her a small smile, but she just stared right back. You felt oddly under fire, as if caught out, despite the fact anyone watching the same interaction most likely wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. It was as if Amber was in tune with Bucky in a way the others weren’t, especially when a rival was concerned, and she saw through your bullshit immediately.

You’d barely seen her since that night, but maybe that was for the best. You weren’t interested in beefing with another woman over a man, especially not that woman. And that man…

Aside from Amber, the only other person you wondered who might not be fooled was Steve. He and Bucky were best friends, after all. More like brothers, as Bucky had explained to you. They had grown up together. Steve had been with Bucky through it all, been dutifully by his side when he recovered from losing his arm, ran the MC with him and stuck with him no matter what.

Even if Bucky hadn’t told Steve about you, he seemed to be more aware than some of the others. His stoic silence often was down to him surveying the scene, taking everything in. A mouse couldn’t fart in the bar without Steve knowing about it. He was the eyes and ears of the MC. He had never said anything directly to you, but there had been a few looks he gave you and Bucky that seemed pointed. His sky blue eyes said much more than he did. But maybe you were just projecting…

Thankfully, everyone else was as oblivious as you needed them to be.

Once, as you sat with a few club members to wind down after closing, Bucky had brazenly dragged his hand over your bare thigh under the table. It had been a warm and stuffy night, so you’d done your shift in a pair of denim shorts and a t-shirt. You’d discreetly raised an eyebrow at him, which quickly evolved into an expression of controlled panic as he trailed his finger across your skin before casually unzipping your fly and making his way in, moving past your underwear. You’d bitten your lip to stay quiet as he found your clit and began working you over, all the while chatting away to Bruce like nothing was happening. You tried to bat him away, but he kept coming back, and you soon caught on that people would notice if you tried any harder and made a scene as a result. You quickly understood he was counting on using your embarrassment to silence you.

And, well, damn him - it did feel good…

He didn’t look over at you once as he continued, but his fingers didn’t let up as you began to feel the familiar heat build within. You hated to admit to yourself how much it excited you. You knew how wet you were, how close you were. He knew it too, based on how he began to adjust his pace and pressure. Your entire body tensed as you realised to your horror, that in spite your discomfort, your body was about to betray you and give you a very public orgasm. As the feeling bloomed and the heat swelled, you took a large sip of your water and glanced downwards in an attempt to cover up any potential facial expressions that might give you away. You choked on the mouthful, spitting a little out down your chin as your climax hit, your shoulders shuddering.

“You okay?” Sam asked from across the table as he looked at you with concern.

You nodded bashfully, “Uh, yeah, sorry,” you croaked – still dazed and a little out of it, “Choked on my water”.

“You gotta go easy, doll,” Bucky chimed in smugly as he withdrew his hand and subtly zipped up your shorts.

You glared at him with an expressionless face, but your eyes told him all he needed to know as he defiantly smirked back at you. He then retained eye contact as he appeared to ‘absent-mindedly’ suck on the tip of his finger and pretended to listen to Nat’s conversation with Sam. You managed to suppress a squeak as you felt the warmth rush to your cheeks.

Later, to pay him back for his little stunt, you angrily rode him back at his place and edged him until he was a whiny mess begging for release. Which you gladly gave him (eventually). Then you were even. It wasn’t often you took charge with him, but you knew he enjoyed it when you did. Just as much as he enjoyed when you were the babbling wreck.

That seemed to be a large part of your dynamic, always trying to one-up each other and ‘win’. It was thrilling, exciting. It probably wasn’t healthy…but you didn’t care. This wasn’t serious anyway. It was just fun. Someone to spend the time with in-between sorting through Granny’s boxes and painting her walls. Someone to make you laugh and give you orgasms and kill time with at your bar job. Someone whose initial rule that you didn’t sleepover had lapsed when you both passed out after a particularly vigorous session. Someone whose arms you awoke in the following morning, who didn’t rag on you for sleeping over but instead kissed your crown and didn’t speak. Someone who laid with you and held you so tenderly that it silenced you, famously a smart mouth, you, too. Someone who you began to sleep with most nights, even when you weren’t working. Whose absence you felt when he wasn’t there, someone who you realised you slept better with alongside. Dreamless, deep sleep that actually felt restorative and restful and allowed you to wake feeling refreshed and ready for the day. Someone who in the early light of day would smile sleepily at you and kiss you, morning breath be damned, and pull you into him like you hadn’t just been sleeping in his arms for all those hours before.

Someone not serious.

Another time, late one night, he took you out on his bike. The feeling of the wind in your hair, the exhilaration of the speed, the warmth of his leather as you wrapped your arms around his waist…it helped you to understand why Bucky loved all of this so much. There was something very freeing about rocketing down the roads at top speeds, not shrouded in a box as you were in a car, just out in the air – free and uninhibited.

He drove you both to a hillside on the edge of town where you could see everything below. You’d sat on the grassy verge together and silently watched the lights of the buildings beneath you, thinking about all those people in their homes…going about their lives. Were they happy? Is this what they imagined their life would be?

Is this how you’d imagined yours?

Maybe.

He moved his hand over your own and kept it there, not speaking. You didn’t really need to speak when it came to Bucky. You did talk, sometimes late into the night – about your past, your passions, your disappointments and fears. He was easy to talk to, he didn’t always say the right thing but he listened intently. He remembered details and brought them up later. Being with him was just…easy. In silence or in noise.

You both sat there, hand in hand, time lost as you watched the lights below and the stars above. One by one the houses would go dark, the residents retiring to their beds as their home slept along with them. Unknowingly watched over by the two of you as you continued your silent observation. You could see Granny’s home in the distance, the porch lights on for your ease when you got home later. You wondered if Granny had ever been up here, if she’d seen her home the way you saw it now.

Bucky turned to you and smiled, leaning in and kissing you softly. Taking his time as his nose brushed against yours and the strands of his hair slipped out from behind his ears. If you’d dropped dead at that second, you knew you would be at peace.

Your stomach curled as you realised what this all meant. The inevitable fact you’d been hiding from yourself for some time.

You were in love with Bucky Barnes.

[icycoldninja]

Do you know how in every Soulsborne games, there is almost always one maiden present in the game

For example in Elden Ring there’s Tarnished (the player) and Melina:

In Bloodborne, it’s The Hunter (the player) and the Plain Doll:

Another example is the Ashen one (the player) and the Firekeeper:

Can you write a maiden reader and the DMC boys following this relationship archetype, basically a knight and a maiden but here’s a catch:

The boys venture to an abandoned castle on Mallet Island to find Mundus and then that’s where they find an awkward young woman, who seems pretty sketchy at first due to how awkward she is (can’t really blame her since she’s been kidnapped and locked away by Mundus ever since she was a young teenager till now so her communication skills are rather f-ed up)

So naturally they keep their guards up around her…and her, although very wary around them, has to do her job as a maiden which is to serve them in every possible way regardless of their offer even if she may feel uncomfortable doing so like trying to offer them help like bringing them warm water, medication, letting them vent to her, bringing them books to cure their boredom, etc…Much to her surprise, even though they do generally accept her care from time to time, they would never force her to do something that genuinely makes her feel uncomfortable a.k.a prostitution which is something a lot of men who came to the castle request her to do it after a certain period of time

Time after time, they gradually grow close with each other, sharing their thoughts and insecurities and in return offers comfort for one and another (usually it’s the reader letting them sleep on her lap and patting their back in a nurturing way). It really is a fresh breathe of air for the reader because for so long she has yet to form such a close bond with someone else that is not in an unhelpful or abusive way (she fell first but he fell harder trope)

When the boys finished their goals, they no longer need to stay on the island and when the news arrive, the reader was scared because they’ll leave her just like many others do when she already so attached to them. Originally, she was tasked by Mundus to pry out any information from them but she can’t bring herself to do it because of how nice they are to her and now she can’t bring herself to confront them abt her original purpose because that would mean they would have more of a reason to hate her and that’s the last thing she wants, to be hated by the only person who have shown you kindness throughout the abuse and manipulation you have undergone your entire life

So she begs them to forgive and at the same time, if they can’t do that then at least dispatch her so that she no longer has to suffer under the hands of Mundus

——————————————————————————————————————-————————————————————————————————————————————

P/S: if you can, pls write a reader with a poor posture and just generally not really attractive like Rya from Elden Ring. I can’t find any good pictures of Rya without her being goonified so I use my oc as an example (It’s not an OC x DMC boys)

Sure, sure. Sorry this took so long to get to.

Sparda boys + V x Maiden!Reader headcannons

¤ Dante ¤

-Dante ended up traveling to some abandoned castle on Mallet Island during his search for Mundus, where they find this...odd young lady.

-See, she wasn't conventionally attractive and had very poor posture, making her appear a bit...lifeless.

-He didn't trust someone as sketchy as you, and kept his guard up even as you followed him around, offering advice about the castle, bringing him water and things, though where these items came from was questionable.

-Time passes, and Dante gets used to you, growing comfortable enough to let you sleep on his lap and such. You might be a bit weird looking, but you're a sweet soul whom he's starting to really bond with.

-When Dante finished his business on Mallet Island, he had to leave, which disheartened you because you were afraid he would abandon you. What made things worse was, you didn't want to reveal your true reasons for befriending him, because if you did, he might be even more inclined to just disappear without a trace, and that was the last thing you wanted.

-Turns out, Dante planned to take you with him all along, and now that you're free from Mallet Island, you don't have to worry about your original mission, though there is the threat of demons coming to look for you.

■ Vergil ■

-Vergil was searching for Mundus to get revenge for all that had happened to him, when he discovered this bizarre woman.

-You were an stooped lady who looked unhealthily pale, carrying an eerie aura and generally seeming like someone who would work with demons--or is a demon.

-This didn't stop you from guiding him through the castle, bringing him food, water, and books when he needed to rest, and keeping him company despite his blatant hatred of human interaction.

-After some time, Vergil felt himself warming up to you, even letting you use his lap as a pillow while he read from the books you brought him. You were an odd looking person, but he liked you.

-When he finished his business and prepared to depart, you started panicking, trying so hard to keep him in the castle that it became extremely suspicious. Vergil asked you why you didn't want him to leave, and you confessed your true intentions, telling him how Mundus wanted to use you as a spy, but you just didn't have the heart to.

-Vergil scoffed at that and told you that if you hated being abandoned, just come with him. He was sure there was an extra room at Devil May Cry anyway.

□ Nero □

-Nero didn't really know what he was doing on Mallet Island, but he saw this big spooky castle and figured that's where the bad guys would be.

-Instead, he found you, this strange, slouched woman with a horrible complexion and a strange, ominous aura.

-He let's you guide him through the castle, telling him about its history, bringing him supplies when he takes breaks, and generally keeping him company.

-Nero thought you were pretty weird, but in a good way. He was really growing to like you, and after a bit, he let you lie on his lap while you talked about your insecurities, your lives, and everything else in between.

-Eventually, he had to leave, and in your panic, you told him everything; how Mundus intended to use you as a spy, and how you just didn't have the heart to.

-Nero was understandably shocked, but got over it quickly. Since you never betrayed him, why should he be mad? Come with him!

● V ●

-V was looking for Mundus at the behest of his fellow devil hunters, and in doing do, stumbled across this odd castle.

-Within this castle lived a very odd woman with horrible posture and a face that screamed potential danger.

-While a tad bit worried about his wellbeing and your intentions, V didn't mind it if you followed him around, acting as his assistant of sorts.

-You guys end up getting closer and closer with each passing day. You liked V because he was kind to you and didn't try to take advantage of you, while V enjoyed your presence because you were endearingly sweet to him.

-Alas, all things must come to an end. V had finished his business and was about to leave, worrying you because the last thing you wanted was to be abandoned again.

-V noticed this and offered you a place at Devil May Cry. You accepted, not telling him of your troubled past, though it seemed to be for the best. Some things are better left unsaid.

[arenabreadandbiscuits]

Vox x Fem! Reader || Caught In Wires 🔪🫂

Word Count: 2,109

Warning: Possessive behavior, abuse of power, Stockholm syndrome signs(?)

Scenario: Stop running for it is foolish. An animal worth keeping alive knows what its purpose in the end is. Requested from my AO3.

(Note for Requests and Commissions. I'm open to taking requests now but only because I'm trying to grow my accounts. Commissions are still needed and preferred but gotta do what you gotta do I guess. If you want to request then you can buy commissions get done quicker and faster. I'll take six commissions and six requests at a time.

Commissions number currently - 1/6

Requests number currently - 0/6)

-

Vox is a powerful man, one of the most powerful and that meant that in most of not all cases he tended to get exactly what he wanted.

You had been working for him for a while now. Some silly girl who needed a job when you fell down here and if you weren't blessed with anything else you had managed to be blessed with your skills in combat.

You were a damn good fighter, one who seemed to hold so much potential. You could tear through flesh like a knife through butter, could bite through metal with how competent your teeth and fangs were, and you spilled blood like you had a knack for it.

To see the least, you managed to reel in attention, a lot of it but imaging your surprise when you found yourself face to face with the TV overlord himself, Vox.

He had stood before you, a charming smirk on his face as you kneeled in front of him and you had huffed.

At first, you had been pissed. The last thing you needed was for some overlord to come knocking around and claiming you and yet… that's exactly what had happened. You had been swarmed, collected and kidnapped, a bag being tossed over your head and your hands being tied behind your back. You had spent so much time ducking and dodging these sketchy people, these sketchy places… and yet he had still managed to track you, chase you, and find you.

Vox was a determined mother fucker.

You could give him that, the two of you had a bit of history. History that made sense as to why he's spent all this time looking for you and the reason simply had been that you knew him.

And he knew you.

There was a story there that only the two of you seemed to know about and basically it was that you had known each other for a while now.

It started with you working under Valentino, the bastard. You had refused to give your body over in the aspects that were expected of you and so you had been tossed out. Though, prior to said time Vox… had often come to you.

Speaking with you, touching you, caressing you and you'd be a liar to say that his touch hadn't been the only touch to actually make you feel something in this hellhole.

Honestly being tossed out had been both a blessing and a curse, the blessing being that you had finally escaped… even for just a little bit and the curse was that though you hated that place if there was one thing you missed it would have been him.

The TV overlord himself.

It was irritating, annoying how much time you spent thinking of him. His hands as they held you close or his voice that always seemed to make you shiver. When you ran away there had been many times where you yourself had contemplated if leaving… had actually been the right idea. The right thing to do. Outside of the ghostly touches that seemed to linger it always felt like you were being watched and even you knew that with the amount of surveillance he had, it was only a matter of time before he truly got back to you.

So as he stood before you after the guards were ordered to leave, you huffed, turning your gaze down for a moment to try and avoid that smug look that you knew was already on his face. As expected he doesn't quite allow that as he squats and gently or as gently as he could manage as excitement ran through him and he took hold of your chin. His nails just lightly sink into your skin as he tilts your head up and defiantly, you bare your teeth and fangs. It doesn't seem to do anything but make him chuckle as the two of your eyes connected. Yours narrowed while his… sparkled like a child after finding their favorite toy.

You had seen that look on his face many times now and still it raised the hairs on your neck and made you shiver.

You snap your snap aside, growling and the second time he reaches out to take hold of your face he's not so nice.

His hold is firmer this time, his thumb and pointer finger squished your cheeks and made you pucker and as annoying as it was you couldn't stop the way your face felt a bit warmer. When you had been working he had done this many times, holding you like this enough that it stuck in your head as something that only he was allowed to do to you.

As you look up again you can see that predatory look in his eyes and even with his hold you know he's being patient. His patience was definitely why you had ran to him when working with Valentino had finally drove you crazy. Valentino would have hit you by now, putting his hand on that pretty face of yours in a not so pretty way.

It truly was a blessing in a curse.

“Oh, look what the cat dragged in.” Vox chuckles as he gently pets you, your bound hands being tied behind your back as he of course feels no reason to rush what he's doing. With the two of you here alone now he could spend hours admiring this face of yours without getting tired.

“They do say that lost items do tend to find their way home after a while of being lost.” He says in that eerily calm voice of his, that tone that he didn't seem to use often except for in this situation. Not just that but his eyes are lidded and you can't help but want to keep your own eyes on them just to watch him because at times Vox had and could be unpredictable. Just because he was being nice didn't mean he had to be such and you had seen his interactions with others to know such. Even if he himself didn't lay his hands on you Vox always had the power to order it to be done even by someone else.

He tend not to treat you like that though. Yes, sure he had stalked you and kidnapped you but if anyone was to lay their hands on you then he would admit that he preferred that someone being him. If they were to kiss you, hold you, fuck you then yes… he'd prefer it to be him and as unclassy as it would be for him to harm you in such ways Vox was never against a good well earned punishment. He could put you in your place if he really wanted to, could make you beg for forgiveness with your eyes full of tears if that what he really craved and he did crave such but he did prefer it when your tears came from mind numbing ecstacy instead of earth shattering pain.

So no matter how many times you ran thinking you could actually get away and how angry you seemed whenever the two of you were together, Vox would be patient with you.

Well, sorta patient.

Even good dogs need correction from time to time.

He looks at you for a moment before moving that hand to slowly trail down your neck and you can't stop your own breath from hitching at the touch. You weren't sure if you were just crazy or maybe he had finally managed to get under your skin a little but the feeling of his grip reminds you of the many nights he's used it on you before. A surge of electricity runs through you when his hand wraps around your throat and it's not tight but definitely a good hold, firm and strong. The nights that you found yourself covered in his kisses, in his caresses and as much as you wanted to hate it you had come to really, really enjoy it.

He was crazy, fucking insane and you couldn't exactly tell if you were secretly lucky or very misfortuned.

You could make a guess.

“Fuck you Vox..” you snarled and you could have imagined it but you could have sworn the mother fucker bit his fucking lip just from hearing you say that and there's so much tension in the air that you felt like you could feel in on you skin, taste it on your tongue as you practically spat out his name and before you could even understand it he leans in and presses close.

Something wet and slurpy slides against your bottom lip and you gasp, shock and heat shooting up your spine, eyes widening and it's not until you feel a wet slide that you calculated it being his tongue.

You accidentally moan.

It's wet and warm and long and when you gasped he slid it inside, keeping his lidded eyes open just to watch your reaction. You remembered his taste after all this time and as his tongue slides against and over yours in the lewdest of ways you can't seem to fight off the many memories he left you with of that tongue and its taste and before you can bother to get your scattered brain together you seem to melt. Falling into his hold like a damsel in distress and he was your knight, the one who was here to save you from your own damnation.

It almost felt right, felt…normal. To be here with him, tied up as the two of your tongues tangle and as angry as you are made you really did miss him and so… you can't help but give in, kissing, smooching, sucking on each other's tongues.

You find that there's nothing more you want to do be to reach those bond hands up to touch him, to hold him, to cling to him because after all this time maybe Vox really was your salvation and really he was just trying to remind you of that.

Remind you of the sins that led you to hell to begin with, or the way Valentino had treated you when you were under his rule even and you were sure if he had a point or if you were actually losing your mind but maybe Vox had another point stacked against you.

Maybe you were nothing but a silly woman who need guidance and Vox was one thing but you had been in hell long enough to know that even with who he was… being with him and by his side was a lot better, safer, than bwjng around and with many others down here.

And maybe, just maybe you were tired of fight, of running from him because Vox had also stated many times that you would never get away from him and you were starting to see it over, and over, and over again now. And unholy hell were you exhausted.

You slowly but sure give into his kisses, returning them out of both anger and desperation and all you want to do is have your hands be free so you could jump on him, cling to him like he was the only thing there in this hell but to your dismay and his pleasure, your still bound, even when he pulled away and left you panting heavily for breath that you previously didn't know you'd been missing.

“It doesn't matter how many times you run, I will always come and find you.” He says with a hum, a low sing songy voice as he caresses your cheeks again, watching as your chest heavily rises and falls and how red your face has grown just from a kiss all on its own. After all, if a kiss could make you blush so easily, imagining your reactions to biting you until you were covered in his marks or to him pounding you pussy open with his cock while you squeeze him only seemed to drive him wild with mad passion and lust.

To put it lightly, you belonged to him and if you needed to be taught such a lesson then he would teach you, over and over again until it finally stuck forever in that precious little head of yours.

“I own you and I'll make sure you know that, my love.” He says with a low and deep chuckle and you feel weak in his hold, useless, discouraged as well as… loved, admired, and adored… interestingly enough.

How were you supposed to make it out of this one?

Even you don't know the right answer right now.

~ ✨

[weirdbookweeb]

Dean Wincester Headcanons

Once again: my inbox is open for heacanon requests for characters of all kinds <3

He is weirdly into wooden tones in houses. If he were to ever settle down permanently, he'd have to just live in a house with a lot of brown. It might be that he's lived in and out of hotels his whole life and just gotten used to it, or maybe it reminds him of the outdoors, or maybe it's just ingrained in him to like wood. But, bye golly, this man likes brown tones.

We all know this boy really likes meat and savory food. All-American, I guess. But he just loves the little caramel candies that you can find in most convenience stores and grocery stores around the country. He keeps them hidden around the car, where Sam can't find 'em, and when Sam is sleeping or just not paying attention he'll just pop one in his mouth and smirk to himself at his little secret.

He has seen way too many 2000s teen dramas to be healthy. And yknow what? He's pretty proud of how many he's been able to watch, considering his occupation and how sketchy internet can be sometimes. Piracy is a weak crime, in comparison.

He has a little notebook filled with all the alias names that he's thought of over the years, and he has stars next to the names that are particularly funny. Some of the funniest? Richard Hertz, Amaya Haywood, Walter Melone. (Some are more funny, but make so much less sense.)

Dean has listened to enough rock n roll that he has accidentally given himself whiplash before. Completely serious. He's confessed it to his s/o before— completely drunkenly and accidentally. He just loves to jam out and goes a little too far sometimes. He has since learned.

He learns how to be in a long term relationship before he confesses to his s/o because he doesn't want to screw things up. He knows how he is and doesn't want to fuck things up. He wants to make things last for this relationship and so he does the best he can to learn how to be in a long-term relationship before he tell you he loves you.

He is a horrible texter. The man cannot respond on time, doesn't know what autocorrect is, and will never ever use the proper emoji for anything. He prefers calling anyways, so you're never entirely sure if it's on purpose or not to get you to call him instead, but regardless he's a horrible texter.