#Jesus Christ I hate my goddamn brain

[jocelynships]

Me: I have motivation to draw!

My hand: Yeah we’re not going to cooperate with you

Me: :/

[ravenpureforever]

So guess who finally watched JJK

[thegempage]

eeeuuuuggghhh i'm gonna bitch in the tags a bit bcus this isn't like. serious enough to put more effort into it than that but i also don't want it to sit in my brain.

[runraerun]

Steddie Amnesia Fic: 1/3

-> Part 2 | Part 3 | AO3

cw: lots of head trauma/brain injury/recovery stuff.

Steve wakes up in the hospital with someone snoring loudly on his leg, mouth open, drool getting soaked up into the scratchy hospital blanket over him.

Steve just stares.

It’s… Freddie? No, that’s not right... Eddie! Eddie ‘the freak’ Munson, known delinquent and drug dealer… resting his head on Steve’s lap.

What the hell…?

Steve reaches up with a wobbly, IV-ridden hand to clumsily pat along his head, but instead of meeting messy hair, he meets a thick wad of bandages. He flinches when he hits an especially tender spot.

It’s not much but it’s enough to wake Eddie Munson up with a jolt, and a random jumble of words that sounded something like, “the dice have spoken!”, but Steve can’t be sure. Not with the sharp ringing still going off inside his skull.

“Steve? Steve! Oh thank fuck, Jesus H. Christ, you scared the ever loving shit out of me.” Eddie stood and grabbed at one of Steve’s shoulders, shaking him enough to elicit another wince.

“Oh, damn, sorry. I’m like a fucking bull in a china shop here, man. There’s way too much expensive, breakable shit here. I’m not used to it. I accidentally ripped your IV out the other day... Fuck. The nurses hate my guts.” Eddie chuckles, eyes wide and solely on Steve, talking like they were old friends or something.

But that can’t be right. Steve doesn’t remember saying more than two words to Eddie Munson during the entire time he knew he even existed, and even then it was just to discuss weed prices.

“For real though, talk to me Harrington, how you feelin’, hm? Loopy? Gonna yak again? Apparently they got you on the good stuff,” Eddie flicks a liquid filled bag hanging above Steve and shakes his head, “but they keep cutting you back. Dicks.”

Steve’s eyes try and follow Eddie’s erratic movements but his eyes ache the more he moves them. He blinks against the harsh fluorescents and tries to open his mouth. And thank God, Eddie Munson seems to take this as a sign and shut up.

“What happened?” Steve finally croaks.

One of Eddie’s brows jumps. “You don’t remember?”

Steve gives his head a small shake. Did Eddie hit him with his car or something? Is that why he’s sleeping at his bedside and talking to him like they’re buddies?

“You fell, Stevie.” Eddie makes a whistling noise and mimicks something falling with his hands, then makes a crashing sound when his hand lands on Steve’s bandaged head. “Like a coconut out of a tree. Landed right on that big ol’ melon of yours. There was blood everywhere. It scared the shit out of me and the kids. Especially when you wouldn’t wake up.”

Steve’s throat feels like sandpaper, but he manages to swallow, his throat clicking as he did, and gets out, “The kids?”

Eddie seems to notice, even before Steve can ask, and reaches for a water bottle with a straw already in it, and half chewed. Eddie’s own, no doubt. Against his better judgment, Steve accepts it when Eddie offers it to him. He was just so goddamn thirsty.

“Don’t worry, they’re all fine. They were just shaken up. I’ll radio the little gremlins and give ‘em the good news in a sec.” Eddie’s smile falters a little, seeming lost for words. Like he wants to say something, but can’t quite get it out.

Steve finishes swallowing his few, meager gulps of water before he asks, “What is it?”

“Don’t freak out—“ Eddie begins.

And, okay, that’s exactly the thing you tell someone before they freak the fuck out. Steve’s stomach is subject to a growing, sluggish panic. “What? Dude, tell me—“

“It’s your hair.” Eddie seems genuinely pained at having to deliver this crushing of a blow to Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington.

Steve can hear the beeping from the monitors he’s hooked up to begin to pick up speed as his heart begins racing. “My hair?”

“It’s okay! It’s okay, it’ll grow back! They just had to take a little bit off where the stitches went, you can hardest notice it—well, that’s a fucking lie, you could spot that landing strip from space—but I think if you part it to the other side it won’t look so… y’know.”

“No, dude, I don’t know.” Steve says, eyes wide, brows pinched.

“Like a drunk toddler took a pair of rusty kitchen shears to your mop.” Eddie says, huffing out a nervous sort of laugh.

Steve groans, half due to the bastardization that’s happened to his favorite feature, and half due to the migraine that’s looming on his horizon.

“You’re still pretty, Stevie, don’t worry.” Eddie grins, eyebrows raised, like he’s trying to be cute or something.

That weirdest part is, it’s kind of working.

Steve must have hit his head really, really hard.

The doctors eventually come in and perform all sorts of tests, and he tries his best to comply with them and jump through whatever hoops they make him jump through. He just wants to get the hell out of this hospital bed.

Unfortunately for him, Steve hadn’t exactly aced any of the tests.

In fact, he had failed most of them pretty fucking dismally. He couldn’t remember the date, who the president was, where he lived, couldn’t say the alphabet backwards… although, who the fuck can do that? He stands by that failing grade.

A couple of CAT scans later and it’s clear that Steve’s brain got smacked around a little more than they had originally thought.

Among a pile of other stuff, the thing that sticks out the most to Steve is his diagnosis of something called short term amnesia. They explain it like the past 2 to 3 years has just been wiped from his brain. The last clear thing he really remembers is getting the shit beat out of him by Billy, and then it all sort of gets jumbled. Fragmented. The doctors explain that this is pretty typical for head trauma patients.

He’s a head trauma patient, now.

It’s normal for memories of trauma to link, creating spiderwebs throughout your brain.

Which, that’s great. So when he gets beat up again, there’s always a chance his brain will try and erase his easy, happy years and revert back to a trauma default. Really helpful brain, thank you.

And the thing that sucks the most is that his years after the Billy beat down sound pretty great. Traumatizing, sure, but great. Once the Upside Down shit was locked up, with every scary nightmare fuel monster inside of it, life in Hawkins didn’t sound all that terrible.

He lived with Robin, who’s his best friend, (his ‘platonic soulmate’ even, as she explains it), he’s working a retail job, (also with Robin), and coaches the high school basketball team during the evenings. He’d even been talking with Hopper about joining the force.

Well, he was. Now he’s more or less useless, working full time at re-learning his life, along with a couple of fine motor skills that got glitchy after the fall.

And then there’s Eddie.

Eddie, who’s apparently also his best friend, only their soulmate link isn’t platonic at all.

The strange and weirdly exciting reality was that Steve Harrington had woken up from his 3-day medically induced coma with not only a full fledged relationship, but a boyfriend.

It’s a lot to digest, and part of him still doesn’t even know how to process it, but hearing the stories being told around him, seeing how Eddie is practically living in his and Robin’s two-bedroom apartment, and just… the way Eddie looks at him?

It’s with love—Steve can see it. Feel it. Eddie’s practically vibrating with it.

What’s even crazier is that when Steve looks at Eddie, he feels the exact same way.

It’s like looking at the stars. Steve’s heart skips a beat when those dark eyes of hit him, and Steve wants nothing more than to make Eddie smile—no, better than that, to make him laugh, just so he can watch Eddie’s adam’s apple bob up and down and hear that manic, unhinged cackle. It’s downright delightful. Steve loves being in relationships like this, where it’s all consuming.

Steve may not have the memories of falling in love with Eddie, but he has all the feelings.

No one talks about it with Steve, of course. Maybe they think it’s going to be too heavy for him to process that he’s into dudes now, but Steve isn’t a big dumb baby. Sure, he’s got a pretty severe brain injury, and yeah, alright, it takes him a minute to remember people’s names sometimes, and he has a harder time controlling his emotions, but he isn’t a complete invalid. Only a little bit of one. He’s working on it, dammit.

And Eddie is so painfully, frustratingly patient with him. He never pushes. He’s clearly letting Steve retrieve his memories before he makes a move, because despite his whole outward appearance, Eddie Munson is a goddamn gentleman. He never so much as reaches for Steve’s hands, but Steve can tell by the way their pinkies graze when they watch movies late at night that he wants to.

Steve can tell by the way Eddie teases him, the way he’s there with him through his recovery, that he doesn’t ever make Steve feel stupid when he asks the same questions over and over again, when he cries at the drop of a hat or when he gets sort of confused about the lay out of his apartment—he doesn’t care about that of that.

Because he’s in love with Steve. It’s so painfully romantic, it brings a painful lump to Steve’s throat every time he thinks too much about it.

The two of them are driving to one of Steve’s therapy sessions, Eddie in the driver's seat, Steve in the passengers, listening to a low racket of some kind of heavy metal music. Eddie always keeps the volume low now, for Steve.

He’s just been so intensely good about everything that Steve needs to try and do something good for Eddie in return. He needs Eddie to know that there’s a light at the end of this tunnel that they’re both currently lost in.

“I’m sorry about this, y’know.” Steve says when they finally pull up the building that has ‘Brain Injury Recover Center’ written on the front. So all the boys and girls with scrambled eggs for brains know where to converge.

“Don’t worry about it, man. I work the evening shifts, remember? My days are free.” Eddie explains, and Steve wonders if he’s had to be told this bit of information a couple of times now. Sometimes it takes a few times before something sticks to his brain now. His short term memory is still majorly flighty. But no, Steve remembers that Eddie bartends at a local bowling alley most evenings. He’s gone a few times. Not to bowl, of course—too much hand eye coordination involved—but just to hang out with Eddie. He’s pretty decent at Ms. Pac-Man though.

Steve shakes his head. He knows his mind must have wandered because there’s been a lull where no one’s spoken. Eddie never seems to care about that though. “I don’t mean about the drive. I was talking about… y’know.”

“Wha’dy’mean?” Eddie mumbles as he backs into his parking space, hand on the back of Steve’s headrest.

Steve sighs and decides to just come out and say it: “I mean having your boyfriend forget everything about you and your relationship. I just… that must be really tough.”

Everything in Eddie Munson comes to a jarring halt, hand frozen over where he’s turned to ignition off.

It’s sort of unnerving—Eddie is always moving, fidgeting. Damn near bouncing off the walls. But now it’s like someone hit the poor guy with a freeze ray gun.

Steve chuckles softly as he reaches out and touches Eddie’s arm, giving him a playful jostle, to loosen him up a little, “it’s okay, Eddie. I know. You don’t have to keep going easy on me. I’m gay! Or, bi-sexual. Whatever.” Steve shrugs, “see? Not falling apart. I can handle being in love with another dude. You don’t need to keep babying me.”

The side of Eddie’s mouth twitches into a downturned smile that he seems to be trying to hide.

“I know, I know. Not just any dude.” Steve rolls his eyes, a smile still firmly on his face. He takes Eddie’s hand from the steering wheel, and Eddie seems to watch it go in a detached sort of awe. Steve wonders if Eddie’s proud of him for being so cool with it all. “In love with you.”

“Steve, I don’t think—

“Wait, just let me finish.” Steve asks, and Eddie blinks and works on closing his mouth. Knows it’s important to let Steve get his thoughts out quickly, lest they be lost to the giant black hole inside of his beat-up brain now. “I know that I don’t remember any of the important stuff with us. Our first date, or our first kiss or, y’know, any of our other first firsts. So maybe it feels like you’re cheating on the old Steve with me? But… Eddie, I know it’s crazy but even though my brain forgot all of the specifics; my heart didn’t. I look at you, and it’s all there. I’m still so into you, dude. I can feel it, even though I don’t remember how I got here. I’m in l—“

“Steve! Stevestevesteve wait, holy shit—!” Eddie’s eyes snap up from his intense stare at the place where their hands are linked. “Steve—”

“Yeah?” Steve prompts when Eddie doesn’t seem to be able to find the words. He runs his thumb gently over Eddie’s knuckles. It feels so nice to finally be able to hold his hand again. They fit together so well, and Steve wonders briefly if it’s some kind of muscle memory.

Eddie opens his mouth a few more times before he remembers how to make the words come out.

“Steve. Buddy. We’re… we’re not dating.”

Steve’s face falls, and he can feel a lump form in his throat, but he keeps a firm hold of Eddie’s warm hand in his own. “Yeah, I know, I know. We haven’t had any time to be a couple. And it’s probably been torture for you, man. You’re so busy taking care of me and making sure I don’t freak out over everything that you’ve clearly been neglecting your own hierarchy of needs.”

Eddie raises a brow.

Steve chuckles, “Shut up. It’s a therapy term.”

Eddie laughs in his throat. “Steve, you gotta slow down and listen to me.”

He turns his shoulders so that he’s fully facing Steve while he reaches his free hand over and tugs at one of his earlobes. “Got your hearing ears on?”

Steve rolls his eyes, but he nods just the same.

“We… we weren’t dating before your accident,” Eddie speaks slowly, his voice warm, gentle. “Hell, I didn’t even know you were, y’know, into dudes like that. Much less me.”

Something throbs dully behind Steve’s eyes. It’s the start of a migraine—the one that makes it hard to process much of anything. Steve squints, trying to make sense of what Eddie’s saying. “…you’re not my boyfriend?”

Eddie shakes his head very, very slowly. “No.”

Steve snatches his hand back like he’s only just now noticed how burning hot Eddie’s hand is.

He settles back in his seat, staring out the front window. The sounds from the outside world are muffled, and everything feels far away and sort of… Made up. Just like everything he’d imagined was going on between him and Eddie. Not real.

He feels painfully detached from reality. Unmoored. Maybe this was the disassociation thing the doctor mentioned might happen…

“Are you sure?” Steve asks, risking another glance over to Eddie, who hasn’t taken his eyes off him for a second.

“Pretty fuckin’ sure.” Eddie snorts.

“Oh, God. This is… I’m—sorry. I’m so stupid. Fuck, I gotta—“ Steve suddenly attacks the door handle with a clumsy fury that has his hand fumbling with the handle for way too long. Fucking busted up, bruised as fuck fucking brain-!

“Steve, it’s okay, dude,” Eddie says from behind Steve, but that’s easy for him to say; he didn’t just humiliate himself in front of his not-boyfriend, definitely-crush, possibly ex-friend—“Steve, wait!”

Steve flees the van on unsteady feet, not daring to look back.

[amandabbbbb]

summary: after the scene where ward drops rafe at barry’s and tells him to not come home but barry’s sister pogue!reader tries to comfort him even though rafe is soo mean to her like woah but it’s a happy ending

tw: mention of drugs, idk rafe cries a lot, parental issues, rafe calls reader kid and bitch once

word count: 762

“don’t come home, son,” ward says, his voice cold and final, as he walks away from his only son.

“where do you want me to go?”

“dad! dad!” rafe’s desperate calls echo into the night, but ward doesn’t look back, leaving rafe alone in the darkness in front of barry’s and your house.

“hey, barry, open the fuckin door! i know you got the coke, dude, come on. please just open up!” he’s begging on the verge of tears. “barry, if you don’t open this god damn door, i’ll fucking smash it down myself. i need coke, man!”

you slowly open the door, and before he even sees you, rafe shoves his way inside, causing you to stumble back slightly. he collapses onto the couch, his movements frantic and erratic. “barry, what took you so long? christ, give me your best coke. i need that shit now, dude” he demands, his voice thick with barely-contained emotion. when he finally looks up and sees you instead of barry, he quickly swipes at the tears streaming down his face, trying to hide his vulnerability.

“oh, hi, rafe! sorry, i had my headphones on. wanna listen? oh my god, are you crying?” you ask, your voice laced with genuine concern.

“no, jesus fuck, y/n, where’s your brother?”

“oh, um, i think he’s down by the shipyards doing a deal. sorry, rafey,” you say, offering a gentle smile.

rafe pulls himself up quickly, furiously searching for the drugs he so desperately craves. “where’s his coke? i know you know where he keeps it. go find it. don’t just stand there helplessly. you’re so goddamn stupid! fuck!”

“why are you being mean to me? you’re never mean to me… i don’t know where barry keeps the coke, rafe.”

he yells at the top of his lungs, “it’s like you have no fuckin brain. you’re just a useless dumb blonde.” (sorry i’m blonde)

the harsh words cut through you, and you can’t bear his anger. you turn and flee to your room, tears pricking your waterline, blurring your vision as you go.

your whole teenage years, you knew rafe as your older brother’s richest client, who he secretly would rip off. but as the years went by, he started buying barry’s more hardcore drugs, not just weed. you got to know rafe more as barry’s regular client. he would constantly stick around, always flirting with you and bringing you gifts when barry wasn’t looking.

“y/n, don’t shut me out. don’t be a bitch, come on, open the door. i need the coke. you don’t understand, help me here, okay,” he pleads.

you’re scared. you’ve never seen him like this; he’s always treated you like a princess. you yell as he bangs at your thin bedroom door, pushing the wood so hard it starts to crack. “go home, rafe!” your voice shaky and filled with fear.

the banging stops suddenly, your words echoing in the sudden silence. the quiet stretches on, each second feeling like an eternity. cautiously, you peek out of your bedroom door thinking maybe he finally listened to your advice. “rafe, you there?” you call out.

he’s sitting on your couch, tears running down his face, hyperventilating. “i can’t go home. i’m a liar, an addict, a thief, and i can’t be trusted, so my dad said he can’t have me in his house. i have nowhere to go.”

you slowly approach the couch where rafe sits, his face hidden in his hands. his body is shaking, and the room is filled with the sound of his ragged breaths. “rafe…” you say softly, your voice trembling as you try to offer some comfort. “you, um, can stay here tonight.”

he looks up at you, his eyes red and desperate, filled with a depth of pain you’ve never seen in him before. “i don’t deserve you, kid. fuck, i’m so sorry. i never wanted you to see me like this. i thought i had everything under control, but now you probably hate me or some shit…”

you sit beside him, offering a soft, reassuring smile. you put your hand in his. “it’s okay rafey. i could never hate you. we all have moments when shit falls apart. it doesn’t change how i see you. you’re tired. i’ll set up the couch for you.”

rafe’s eyes search yours, a flicker of regret softening his expression. “i didn’t mean to take it out on you,” he says, his voice low and raw. “i just… i don’t want to be alone. y’know, on the couch. not tonight.” the words hang in the air, heavy with his unspoken need to hold you tonight.

[eddiesghxst]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cz3vEYss15I/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== (SFW LINK!)

Okay but imagine Eddie having a secret talent for card tricks like this if he ever did this to me imma jump his bones on the spot 😔✋

Eddie: *shows card trick* impressed?

Still Eddie: …. Wait why are you looking at me like that? 😳

(Eddie screaming like a banshee in mere seconds after tackling him)

GOD HE WOULD, he so would oh my god, he’s such a nerd i hate him

————

he would be so confused when you’re immediately all over him, pawing at him and tugging at the jawstring of his sweats, pulling his soft dick out as you mouth at his neck.

“woah, princess. what’s your deal, huh?” you lean back to look at him as you languidly stroke his cock, nuzzling against his hand when he reaches up to push your hair back. you frown, because it’s stupid and you can’t believe fucking card tricks sent you into a goddamn heat.

“the… the cards.” you mumble.

eddie raises an eyebrow, “the cards?” and you groan, dropping your head to softly thump against his shoulder, “please don’t make me admit it, eds.” you grumble into his shirt.

you swipe your thumb over his tip, his cock now alert and slowly filling out with excitement from your touch, and eddie hisses, hips bucking up against your hand. he breathlessly chuckles, “i’m a little confused, babe.”

you roll your eyes, pulling back to look at him again, “the card tricks were hot, eddie.”

and eddie almost laughs, he almost does, but then your squeezing his cock and fuck— the cards go falling to the ground in a white flurry, scattering all across the living room floor just like eddie’s fucking brain.

and sure eddie might be annoyed that he has to pick up all those cards, and he’s gonna be even more pissed off when he counts the cards and realizes he’s lost a few of them to the void that is the space under his couch— but shit, he can’t seem to find a reason to care because now you’re sinking down to your knees— and jesus christ, eddie’s gonna learn more card tricks after this.

[taintedcigs]

GETAWAY CAR — rockstar!e.m. x f!reader

CHAPTER EIGHT: MADE YOUR MARK ON ME

← prev chapter // next chapter →

✦ summary: in which you and eddie try to navigate the aftermath of the kiss (wc: 5.8k+)

✦ warnings — angst, ANGST, FINALLY SOME DESERVED FLUFF n then angst oops, a little bit of argument but v tiny, uhmmm smut, p in v, unprotected sx (wrap it up irl), lots of praises, kinda rough. body worshipping? idk. eddie and p are an old married couple, drinking, smoking/weed, thats it i think.

✦ pairings — rockstar!eddie munson x fem!reader, past billy hargrove x fem!reader

✦ authors note — @andvys my angel thank u for all ur love & help💗🙏🏻 not proof-read i tried but i cant do it. pls ignore all mistakes. i honestly have a love-hate relationship w this chapter BUT ENJOY!!. also like... ily all for all the love on the last chapter omg?

anyway ily all pls interact + like + reblog to support me! i'd also LOVE LOVE to chat about anything abt this series, pls dont hesitate to send me an ask about anything mwah thank you for reading💗

series masterlist | series playlist

Minutes.

But it felt like hours. 

And you didn’t want it to be over.

Judging by the hold he had on you, calloused hands grabbing onto your flesh like a man-starved, neither did he. 

This was all he ever wanted. Ever since the day you flagged him over when your car broke down. Even when you were a bitch to him. Even when you rolled your pretty eyes at him. Even when you left him. All he fucking wanted was you.  

Always just out of his grasp, close but never close enough. And this? This was a dream come true. Fucking explosions and butterflies in your stomach type of shit that Eddie always mocked, that you always mocked. 

That scar in his heart that scabbed at the mention of you. Healed. All gone. One kiss from you and it was all back to normal. 

“Eddie!” A booming yell echoed in everyone else’s ears but you.

“Jesus fucking Christ, I swear I’m gonna kill him, Eddie where the fuck are you?” 

Was that… Gareth? 

If Gareth fucking ruined this for him, he was going to hang him by his balls, up on the wall, make sure he could never fucking—

“Eddie!”

And you pulled away, first, Eddie was going to fucking kill him now. A vivid torture method flashed across his mind. Even the adorable flustered look on your face as you drew a breath wasn’t enough to calm him down. 

“I—I think your set is about to-”

“Fuck the set,” Eddie spat, his veins still pumping with the need for you. Brain hazy, he was  never going to get enough of you, was he? A hunger that was never going to be sated. 

The lingering gaze was interrupted by Gareth, scoffing while he dragged Eddie away, ignoring the threats and the cusses that left his lips, the same gentle ones that were just stuck on yours, the sweetest taste, from the filthiest mouth. 

You really needed to shut your goddamn brain up. But how could you? 

His body was turned toward you, shirt stretched out—you did have a tight hold on him. Pale lips now a bit shiny from your candy gloss, stretched into the widest grin, eyes glinting with something you’ve never seen in him before. You couldn’t quite put your finger on it.

But it was beautiful. He was pretty. Tempting. 

-

You could barely comprehend Eddie’s words when his gaze on you was that striking. “We’re Corroded Coffin, thank you and goodnight.” Slipped past your ears, you didn’t care, you needed him. 

What happens now?

Lingered in your mind, you wanted him to rush to you like you’re in a fucking rom-com, lock your lips in a dizzying kiss, again, you didn’t fucking care. You wanted more. You needed more. 

You could feel the eyes of everyone, including Steve’s impatient nail-biting, dying to know what the fuck happened between the two of you. Yet they didn’t dare to ask you until Jonathan and Nancy had left since the rehearsal dinner was tomorrow. And ever since they were gone, Robin and Steve had been teasing you nonstop, trying to make you crack.

Clearly, something had gone down, and the co-dependent idiots had to know. 

“He looks like he’s going to eat you.” Steve hummed, making you roll your eyes at him.

You were about to give him a smart-ass answer, but of course, he didn’t let you. “I bet if I laid one hand on you, he’d end up here in seconds.” Steve barked out a laugh, Robin joining him as you threw them a dead-set glare.

“It’s not like that—we haven’t—he won’t.” Your frustration was interrupted by a grinning Steve.

“Oh, yeah?” Steve teased, his hand quick to brush away the strand of hair away from your face, fingertips gently brushing against your cheeks, making heat flutter to your cheeks.

“Steve!” you protested, your gaze widening as you chided him, while Robin playfully counted down from ten by your other side.

Steve ignored your protests, throwing an arm over your shoulder and pulling you into a side hug. You attempted to push him off with a scoff, but he was relentless. 

“Three… Two…” Robin's counting came to a halt, and your childish squabble with Steve ceased as a deep voice interrupted.

“Mind if I borrow her for a bit?” The metalhead’s gravelly voice cut through the air, his gaze shooting daggers at Steve, who only smirked, much to Eddie's obvious dismay.

“Eight seconds,” Steve murmured in your ear, you could almost feel his stupid smirk forming on your ear shell, prompting a huff from you.

“She’s all yours, man,” Steve chuckled, releasing his hold and retreating with Robin, leaving the two of you alone. Eddie scoffed at Steve's retreating figure before turning his attention to you. 

“What’s their damage?” His brows scrunched together as he watched Steve and Robin walk away, engrossed in their hushed gossip. 

“Do you have all day?” You asked with a roll of your eyes, earning a chuckle from him.

He liked this, he loved this, he missed this. Easy banter, shared laughter. 

“So… you goin’ home?” Eddie asked, nonchalant, like his heart wasn’t thumping in his chest each time you stole a glance at him.

You nodded, keeping it simple, almost avoiding his gaze. His exaggerated reaction, a spat-out “What?” made you giggle. A melody he could never have enough of.

“Well, the night’s almost over, so…”

“Come with me,” He muttered, amber gaze like silk as it connected with yours.

“Where?” 

“Mi casa es yours or whatever the saying goes.” He grinned.

With a huff, “Yeah, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” you muttered.

“Why?”

“You know why.” You enunciated.

He raised a brow, “Enlighten me.”

“I—It’s late.”  

“So? That never stopped us before.” He shrugged, seemingly unfazed.

“Oh, c’mon Pinky,” he coaxed, “we never end nights this early, at least not until we’re a couple more joints in, smushed on the couch, putting on some old horror movie… I thought we were revisiting the past.” He hummed, puppy dog eyes staring at your soul. Shit. 

You shouldn’t. You fucking shouldn’t.

“Are you really gonna say no to gettin’ high with me, sweetheart?”

Sweetheart. Sweetheart. Sweetheart.

A nickname you had heard so many times before. Yet, it was different, the way it rolled off his lips making you almost jump in place.

“Okay,” you gulped, physically. Fuck.

He grinned, taking you by hand, fuck all, while you waved a shy goodbye to Robin and Steve, who watched it all with an all-knowing grin.

“Pay up,” Steve turned to Robin with his palm in front of her.

Robin snorted, “No fucking way.”

“Trust the process, Robin. Trust the fucking process.” Steve huffed, watching the two of you leave hand-in-hand.

-

As the two of you entered the familiar house, the sight of it brought enough memories that made you feel light-headed, a repository of memories flooded in your mind. 

“Is Wayne around?” you inquired, breaking the silence that clung to the space. Eddie, leading the way, answered nonchalantly, “Nah. At his girlfriend’s.”

Your eyes widened. “Wait what? Wayne has a girlfriend?” You exclaimed.

“Uh-huh, Hannah.” 

“Oh! That’s great!” 

“Yeah, he’s having sleepovers with her like a fucking teenager, I told him to ask her to move in, but he’s too chicken shit,” he scoffed. 

“Oh, come on.” You elbowed him playfully, “Be nice to him, he deserves this,” you said with a smile.

He nodded in agreement, “He does.” Then turned to you. “You want anything to drink?” You shook your head. 

You didn’t know why, and you didn’t know how, but a shyness appeared within you, propping up your elbows as you leaned against the kitchen counter, watching him intently. 

With a shrug, he opened the fridge, taking out a Schlitz, gaze on you dangerous when he popped it open with his teeth, barking a chuckle when you squirmed at the sudden, sharp sound. 

“Fidgety much?” He grinned, that damn dimple taking its place on the corner of his mouth, making all sorts of warmth flush to your cheeks, making you feel so timid under his gaze. 

You could sense the cockiness radiating off of him, it was addicting, and it was making you feel more and more shy under him. Because both of you knew why you were here, at two fucking A.M., dismissing everyone else, flirting and bickering all the way home. 

Yet, since you entered the familiar trailer, you had been silent. Because you knew, you fucking knew that kiss changed everything. But this would seal it. Another step forward. A territory the two of you had never crossed before. 

And your mind was not being kind to you, screaming at you to stop, to run, to not fucking do this, because you’d end up hurt, because someway somehow he’d end up hurting too, but Eddie wasn’t having any of it. 

Your silence made him cockier and cockier, drawing you in more and more. And if he kept it up, you knew even your idiotic abandonment issues wouldn’t be enough to stop you from jumping on him. 

You wanted this, all your mind could replay was his fingers on that damn guitar, the way his mouth popped open that damn can of beer, the way his stupid plushy lips curled into a smirk. Shaggy bangs fell onto his forehead when he leaned on the counter, arms flexing with it. 

Stop fucking thinking about it.

“You gonna answer me or what, sweetheart?”

“Huh?”

“Jesus, you okay?” He asked, concerned, cornering you in the kitchen with his soft hazel eyes. 

Fuck. 

“Mhmm,” you hummed.

“You don’t seem okay.”

“‘M f-fine!” You answered too quickly and meekly for that to be the truth. 

“Don’t tell me you’re still mad at me.”

Yes. No. Yes. No. I think I crave you more than I’m mad at you, but I can’t let you know that, your thoughts swirled. 

“I thought—”

You interrupted all quippily, “Thought what? That kissing me would suddenly undo everything?”

“No…” He sighed, “I thought I proved myself to you.”

“You did, but that doesn’t undo it.” 

“Well, I forgave you.”

You scoffed. “You know forgiving me doesn’t mean shit if you bring it up every time I tell you  you did something wrong, right?”

Crossing his arms against his chest, “Can you blame me?” He muttered, almost defeated. 

“What would you do? If I up and left, would you just forgive me? Would you just trust me and act like it was all okay?” He tensed, words spilling out of his mouth like venom. 

And you narrowed your gaze, returning it back to him. “What would you do if I kissed Jason? I asked you that, yet you never answered. Would you still kiss me? Would you still write notes for me, knowing that Jason’s slimy lips were brushing—“

He was quick to wave his hands in front of your face, grimacing just at the thought. “Stop! Just fucking stop!”

“What, too much for you?” You spat.

“Of course, it’s too much for me! T—the thought of him, anyone, being with you… makes me sick to my stomach.”

“Good, then I think we’re even!” You suggested.

“Even?” He scoffed,  “Is that all you fuckin’ care about?” He retorted, making you huff, once again.

“God, no! I just—I just mean we both did fucked up shit and from this point on we either move on, or we never talk to each other again, which we can’t seem to do!” You snapped, that anger from before had disappeared though, the kiss had softened things. Softened you. 

“Okay, then let’s just move on!” He took a step toward you, getting close again. So fucking close. 

You took a step back, your back hitting the marble counter, yet you remained on your angry stance. “Fine by me!” You retorted, all hastily. 

“That’s fine by me too!” He agreed, towering over you, trying to one-up you. 

“Good!” And, of fucking course you returned the energy. Stubbornness is exactly what defined the two of you, babbling like a bunch of kids over nothing. 

Eddie didn’t hesitate to take another step toward you, this time, both his hands on the marble kitchen counter, fully cornering you, as he grinned. “Great!” 

And you were about to answer, about to one-up him, like he did with you… but then you looked at him, really looked at him.

Looked at how fucking close he was to you, and you shuddered a deep breath, getting caught up in your throat when it reminded you of the kiss.

And that’s when Eddie realized it. 

You weren’t really mad at him. 

At least not really, not since the kiss.

You were nervous… because he was standing this close to you. 

A piece of dangerous information for Eddie—someone who had been in love with you since you were teens, to acquire, because it’d turn him into an arrogant fuck in a matter of seconds—even more so than he ever was.

“Oh.” The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, he was grinning like a devil now. 

“What?” You furrowed your brows, trying to have that annoyed stance from before, but it wasn’t working. 

“Why are you looking at me like—”

He was quick to interrupt, face inches away from yours. “You’re not mad, at least not that much, you’re… nervous.” He grinned.

“N—nervous? Why would I be nervous?”

“Because of me.” That stupid smirk on his lips returned

“Don’t be ridiculous—”

“What happened to that Pinky who refused to talk to me today? Who told me we couldn’t do this? Did one kiss soften you up this much?” He quipped, making you scoff.

“You know what? You’re an asshole.” You sneered.

“There she is.”

“When did you become this cocky, Munson?” You narrowed your gaze.

“I was always an arrogant fuck, sweetheart. But I’d say the kiss helped, like a fuck ton, and you squirming now, too.” He shrugged, like what he just said was no big deal, like how close he was to you didn’t make you gulp nervously.

You almost gasped, offended, like it wasn’t the truth. “I’m not fucking squirming—”

“Look at you… shuddering a breath just because I’m this close to you.” He barked out a chuckle, gaze dangerous, dare you say… lustful.

“Fuck you,” You spat, feeling small under his bashful gaze, cheeks heating.

“Well, I’m trying sweetheart,” He was quick, you had to give him that, making heat grow everywhere in your body, but especially within your thighs now, fuck, he was smooth.

And you weren’t willing to put up a fight, or a front, you wanted—needed him. You couldn’t deny yourself him any longer, not even your commitment issues were enough to hold you off. 

“You’re s—such a little shit,” You stuttered, embarrassingly so. 

God, you wanted to wipe his smirk off by kissing him, you wanted to feel his honey-flavored lips on yours again, you wanted to feel his lips twitch against yours instead of the air.

And he was close again, all in your face, all you had to do was lean a little bit and his lips would be on yours.

“And you’re an absolute pain in my—” 

Fuck it. 

You fisted his stupid shirt, crashing your lips down to his, dizzying, just as magnetic as before, but needier. His lips still tasted the sweetest, yet mixed with the bitter taste of the beer on his tongue made you grow weak in the knees. 

You were about to open your mouth fully, to feel his greedy tongue on yours, but much to your surprise, Eddie pulled away, making you whine.

“Wait—” He faltered.

“What?”

“Do you want this?” He asked

“Yes!” Your voice raised an octave.

“Tell me you want this.” His gaze was serious.

“I do,” you breathed.

He scoffed. “No, I wanna hear you say it.”

“Eddie—” 

“I wanna hear you, or we can just pretend like none of it happened, I can forget the kiss we can just sit around here and—” 

I want to know if you’re in this as much as I am, is what he meant.

“Jesus you’re so fucking—” You scoffed, but he actually backed away, your eyes widening at him.

“W—wait!” You pleaded.

An awaiting grin sat on his lips and you rolled your eyes at him. 

“Of course I want this, Eddie. I’ve wanted you for five fucking years, I wanted you the moment I laid eyes on you—okay wait maybe that’s a lie because you really were annoying the first time we met but I wanted, no, I want you—”

His mouth crashed against yours, interrupting you in the best fucking way. His lips felt warm, hot almost. Skin burning everywhere where he touched you, leaving goosebumps in its wake. 

“So eager, princess, already begging for me, hmm?” He taunted, making you roll your eyes in an instant. 

“Just shut up you, asshole.” He grinned, mouth crashing down on yours once again. Much more gentle this time, but rough enough to have your chests pressed together. 

His lips only left yours to be reattached to your neck, leaving a trail of kisses from your chin to your cheekbone. “‘M sorry, sweetheart, I just can help myself you’re so—” He mumbled, voice muffled by your skin. 

He lifted you up, strong hands meeting behind your waist in one harsh move, making you yelp before you wrapped your legs around him, he kissed you like he never had before, all teeth, and no mercy, passionate yet still gentle in somefucking way. 

He pivoted while trying to get to his bedroom, making you chuckle into the kiss, pining you against the wall, and it was all so desperate and messy. And just so you. 

You wanted to discard your dress but he wanted to rip it off, wanted to grab onto your flesh, and feel you, completely. Drink you in. 

He stumbled inside his room, knocking over a few boxes, and sending them over to the other side of his room. Not that either of you cared enough to break the kiss, at least until Eddie plopped you down on the bed, a grin overtaking his lips at the sight of you. 

“You’re so pretty, so fucking beautiful and just—” He took a deep breath, words were failing him, his entire being captivated by you. 

His mind was spiraling, cheeks almost a salmon pink. Eddie had sex countless times before, but none of them meant anything. None of them left him this speechless, none of them made him nervous. It was like his first time, the way his breath got caught in his throat, cock stirring at how pretty you looked, stomach fluttering at how he was on top of you. 

“You have no idea how long I wanted to do this. How long I’ve wanted you… How perfect you really are.” He towered above you, and your breaths mingled, bodies tied, chests pressed against one another. 

You wanted to joke around and tease him like he did with you, but you couldn’t help the flutters in your stomach. All you cared about was whether he thought if all of that was. Did he really see you like that?

“You mean that?” You asked, almost shy, wanting to hide your face, but he just gave you a scoff, like it was the most unbelievable thing ever.

It was to him. 

“‘Course I do, Jesus, Pinky I basically worshipped—” He placed a soft kiss on your lips. “The ground you walked on.”

You drew in a breath, “I—I wanted you just as much.”

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he groaned. 

“Don’t say things like that,” he warned, shaking his head. Did you not know the hold you had on him? Even still? He was wrapped around your finger, always has been. Always would be. 

“Don’t think I’ll be able to control myself.” 

“Then, don’t, please, Eddie, I want you, more than anything.” 

That was all he needed, low grunts escaped his lips. He attacked your lips hungrily, desperately, twirling his tongue with yours, needy and passionate. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he cursed, hands meeting behind your back to unclasp your dress, and you helped him get rid of his clothes, your fingers fiddling as they struggled to take his shirt over his head. 

It was all messy, stupidly impatient, making both of you giggle while you struggled to get rid of the clothes that were keeping both of your bodies away from each other. 

“So impatient,” you mocked with a chuckle, enjoying the way his eyes boggled your body, it wasn’t disrespectful, you didn’t feel the intrusion as you did with every other fucking guy you’ve been with. Just pure appreciation and your stomach flipped with excitement. 

Fuck, what was he doing to you? 

He drew in a breath when your chest rose up and down, he felt like he was watching a ping-pong match, eyes darting over to every part of your body, he wanted to engrave it in his mind. Have you there forever. 

He could barely comprehend it, you, stark naked, on his bed. Telling him you wanted him, more than anything. And you looked perfect. Fucking perfect. More than he could ever imagine. All those years he spent thinking about you. 

The girls he fucked were always a spitting image of you. It wasn’t a fucking coincidence. He couldn’t get his mind off of you. You made him feel out of his head, and fucking finally, it was happening. 

Cold rings ghosted over your chest, making you gasp. “So—” His head dove into your breasts, latching his tongue on one nipple. “Fucking—” His hand dove down to your panties, discarding them without care before he ghosted over your slit, still waiting for some approval from you. “Perfect—” He hummed, against your nipples, making you mewl. 

“P—please, Eddie,” you muttered, pathetically. 

His eyes shot up at you, amber gaze dark, wanting, needing you to tell him exactly what you needed. “Need you to fuck me, please.”

“Baby,” he rasped, jaw almost hung open with how forward you were being. His cock was trapped in his boxers, needing room with the way words fell like silk from your lips. The nicknames were new, especially something like ‘baby’ but it felt so familiar, like the two of you had always been like this. Like the last five years didn’t exist.

This was all the confirmation he needed, his ringed finger met your entrance, and you whimpered at the slight sensation, your entire body burned with need at his one touch. 

His soft lips trailed down from your chest to your belly button, tongue leaving nice strokes on his way to your pussy, making you arch your back in desperation. 

“Need more, Eddie,” you whined, a pout apparent on your cheeks.

“That desperate, huh?” He grinned, pad of his thumb still toying with your clit, earning gasps out of you. “Haven’t even done much, yet you’re soakin’ my fingers, baby,” he added, that taunting tone making you roll your eyes.

“Arrogant fuck,” your voice came out as a squeak, making him let out a greedy chuckle. 

He inserted a finger inside of you, enjoying the gasps he earned. “You know, I always thought that attitude of yours needed a fix?” He hissed, ringed finger curling inside of you, making you squirm at the coldness as you bucked your hips for more. 

You didn’t know what took over you, or him. The dirty talk just rolled out of your lips like it was natural like the two of you had been together for the longest time. 

It was all the pining, anticipation, and the pent-up desire. And it was making both of you needier by the second. 

“Then do it, fuck it out of me.” A low groan echoed in the bedroom, followed by a string of curses, Eddie’s entire body shuddering with it. 

His fingers left your clit, hands working their way to slip out of his boxers, a rough expulsion of moan released from his lips when his cock plopped against his stomach, making your mouth water at the sight. 

Shit, fuck, shit. 

You gulped, jaw almost wide open, making him cockier if that was even possible. His hands jerked at his cock, collecting the bead of pre-cum collected at his hot tip. “Gonna give this to you, is that what you want, sweetheart?” He taunted.

With a nod, you licked your lips, making his cock twitch in his hands. “I’ll fuck the brat out of you, don’t worry, honey.” His hand was about to stroke his cock again, but you were quick to shake your head. 

“Let me help,” you hummed, your smile and attitude all disappearing, a glazed look washed over your features as your soft hands fisted his length. 

“You’re gonna be the fuckin’ death of me,” he groaned roughly when your fingers stroked his rock-hard cock, until he couldn’t take it anymore and pushed you down on the bed and taking you by surprise before his lips re-attached to yours, hands slightly parted your thighs, teeth clashed together, and nibbling on each other's lips, before he finally, finally guided his cock against your entrance. 

Then, he stopped, making you furrow your brows when he reached for his bedside table, and you, unable to wait, were quick to stop him. “No!” His attention snapped back to you. 

“Please… I wanna feel you, ‘m on the pill,” you murmured, pupils blown wide, making Eddie curse once again before he blabbed, nervousness spilling out of him. 

“O—okay,” He hummed, turning to you with a nervous look, “and just so you know I haven’t had—” Shit, he was going to ruin this. 

“I was tested not too long ago and me and Chr—”

“If you finish that sentence I swear to god, I will leave, Munson,” you warned, gaze narrowed and jealousy bitter in your veins. 

He scoffed, “I was going to say we haven’t done a—anything, you lunatic,” he wanted to joke, but words rolled out of his lips like a quick ramble. He couldn’t fucking ruin this. But, he had to let you know. You had to know that they didn’t sleep together.

And much to his surprise, with a grin on your lips, “Oh? I don’t know if I can say the same with me and Jame—” your joke was quickly shut up by a dizzying kiss, and his groan turned into a growl, filled with jealousy, making you giggle into the kiss.

Both of you were idiots. Total fucking idiots. Insane. Crazy. But, fuck, did it feel right, like dominos falling into place, this is what it should’ve been. 

He dragged you more toward the edge of the bed with his rough hands, finally guiding his cock to your entrance, wiping off that grin from your face, hunger taking over fully. 

“You think you’re funny?” He spat, and you nodded all sassily, “Laugh it up, doll. But once I’m done with you, you won’t even remember the names of those other douchebags, I’ll fuckin’ make sure of it.” His arrogance was back, and that smirk played on his lips, shutting you up once again. 

He pushed into you without a warning, making you cry out while your eyes squeezed shut at how good he felt. Your pussy wrapped his cock nicely, so warm and tight that Eddie had no fucking idea how he didn’t cum right then and there on the spot, a low groan escaped his lips. 

He dropped his head to your shoulder, frantic breathing escaped through his nose as he tried to adjust to how tight you were. 

Jesus, fucking Christ. 

He had to hold himself off. 

Your hands clawed at his back, enjoying the stretch while Eddie pushed himself inside of you at a slow pace, reveling in the way you mewled for him. 

Eyes already squeezed shut, mouth slightly open, lashes fluttering the more he drove his cock into you. You looked so beautiful. Ethereal. 

He was struggling to comprehend if this was all real. This entire fucking night. From the fight to the kiss to now. 

It was always back and forth between the two of you, but more real than anything he ever had. 

Pinky. 

His Pinky. 

He loved you, so so much, that his heart was about to explode, his body felt hot from everywhere you were touching him. 

“God, you’re so fuckin’ tight, sweetheart,” he hissed, pace picking up once you finally accommodated his size, eyes rolling to the back of your head. 

“Feels s—so good, Eds,” you whimpered. He caught your chin in his hands, tilting your face toward him, making your fuzzy gaze focus on him. “I’ve wanted this for so long. You, wanted you for so long, shit, honey.” 

“Tell me…” He muttered, licking the trail to your boobs, sucking on it with a growl. “Tell me that this changes everything. Tell me that we’ll never go back, and I’ll fuck you like you deserve it.” 

“E—Eddie,” you stuttered, still struggling to comprehend it when his cock was hitting spots inside of you that you didn’t know existed. 

“I…” You sucked in a deep breath, mind feeling mushy before Eddie groaned, tucking his hips back, pulling out of your warm pussy as you gasped at the feeling, just as you were about to whine, beg, he rammed himself deep inside of you, again. A grin appeared on his lips when you cried out in pleasure. 

Yet, his movements halted, as if he was giving you a taste of what might happen, and you wanted to cuss him out, tell him to never fucking stop again, cry out, beg for him to continue. Your body felt woozy with how much you needed him to fuck you, how much you desperately needed to cum. 

“Everything!” You cried out frantically, “E—Eddie, fuck, I d—don’t ever wanna go back, please…”

That was all he needed to hear. And he simply couldn’t wait any longer, deprive his body of you any fucking longer. His movements picked up with a low grunt, fucking into you roughly and fast, all animalistic as he held onto your hips, leaving bruises all over while he worked on your neck, sucking, marking you. 

Pleasure bursted through your body as Eddie’s thick cock dragged along your walls. Both of your eyes locked, emotions gathering in them. Panting as your foreheads connected, thinking the same thing. 

Those three little words begged to roll out of both of your plushy lips, yet too scared to ever utter them. His lips crashed down on you again, this time, just so that those three words didn’t escape his mouth, kissing you with such passion that your head grew light. 

“Pretty girl,” he breathed into your neck, “my pretty girl,” he growled. His cock was driven by a primal need to make you his, every touch meant something, every time he thrust himself into you, it was deliberate, rough, but gentle in some fucking way. 

Shallow breaths escaped your mouths in puffs, as you watched him drive his cock all the way into you, and you tightened up almost immediately, your pussy pulsing around him.

He groaned at the sight of you, mouth hung open, tits bouncing up and down, mewls coming out for him. You looked fucking beautiful, babbling to him about how you were going to cum soon. 

He pressed his middle finger to your clit, drawing quick circles as you whined for him, he was fucking good, and you could feel your walls swelling as you yelled out his name. 

Your screams were muffled by Eddie’s lips as a wave of pleasure hit you like a ton of bricks and the second you came undone on his cock, he fucking lost it. His groans grew guttural as he spilled his load inside of you, falling on top of you with a contented sigh as he made sure every drop of him was stuffed into your walls. 

Ragged breaths filled the room as Eddie slumped next to you, and you stared at the walls, a smile curved on your lips when the drawings you gave him were still there.

“You still have that?” 

“Of course.” His fingertips traced a delicate path along the canvas of your skin, gentle, and warm, pulling away that strand of hair that was hiding your pretty features, a smile formed on his lips, his gaze on you so soft that you almost melted into him. “I told you… your art matters, it’s the very reason, I am where I am.” 

As his words hung in the air, you looked up at him, and he gazed down at you. In that shared gaze, both of you knew. No words were exchanged, yet the depth of your connection bridged any gap.

Three words. Eight letters. 

You should say it, you should tell him first. Let him know, that you love him, always have, always will. Your lips, poised in anticipation, hovered let him now, to utter those words.

But he interrupted, a subtle pull drawing you closer into the cocoon of his embrace. “W—We should go to sleep… hell of a day ahead of us.” He cleared his throat, fingertips weaved through the strands of your hair, caressing it.

A day ahead of us. Us. Us. Us.

It’s promising, so fucking promising. Peaceful. Everything you asked for. Yet, it scared you, because it was good. All of it was almost too good to be true. 

But you wanted to shut that part of your brain off. No, because you weren’t going to ruin this for yourself again, you weren’t. 

You hummed into his chest agreeingly, the vibrations resonating into his chest, his scent enveloped you, fully, completely. 

And each gentle stroke of his fingertips through your hair was like a lullaby, making you give yourself into the security of his presence. It only took a handful of caresses for you to give into the sweet desire of sleep, nestled against his warmth.

-

You woke up next to a void spot in the bed. The morning sun burst through the lazily taped windows of Eddie's room, forcing you to squint against its intrusive rays.

A languid groan escaped your lips as you reluctantly left the warmth of the bed, lazily throwing on one of Eddie’s shirts as it hung well over your knees, making your way to the kitchen as you called out for him.

Silence greeted you.

You checked the fridge, hoping for a note, a hastily scribbled message, anything that might explain why he was gone. 

But nothing. 

At this point, your mind hadn't erupted into full-blown panic; there was no reason for it, or let your intrusive thoughts kick in, no, they were wrong, they had to be wrong. 

There was no way he’d leave you, he wanted this himself. He invited you over. 

And the two of you were supposed to go to the rehearsal dinner early. To help Jonathan and Nancy out. There was no way he’d just leave you like this.

Right?

Or maybe he regretted all of it and left in a panic.

You kept telling yourself the same lie until seconds melted into minutes, and eventually into hours.

And then, it finally dawned on you. 

Eddie didn’t leave a note because he didn’t want to see you.

He regretted everything.

That's why he left you.

[soupforsoup]

The vision for this edit entered my brain, possessed my waking thoughts and wouldn't let me rest until she was realised so here I guess everybody cheer

I hated every goddamn second of learning how to make this, the only thing that felt worse than learning to edit was not working on this mediocre edit the app crashed so many times jesus christ where's that defunctland reddit post clap for the boy or I'm blowing this whole fucking building up

[treedaddymcpuffpuff]

Excessive Force : Tom Ludlow x Fem Nurse Reader (COLLAB W/ THE INCREDIBLE @johnwickb1tsch) - Chapter One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight

TW: NSFW, dubcon if you squint

You are laying in bed, not sleeping, feeling sorry for yourself when your phone rings on your bedside table. You don’t recognize the number, so you answer with a cautious, “Hello?” 

“Hi, pretty girl.”

You pause a long beat, and not because you don’t recognize the voice on the other end. “How the ever-loving fuck did you get this number?”

It’s Officer Tom Ludlow, of course. Just what you need, on this night from Hell.

“I’m a detective, remember?” You can just hear the self-satisfied smirk, and he’s lucky he’s not standing in front of you, because tonight you just might have slapped him.

You use your moderately adequate brain for some deductive reasoning of your own, and realize, “You took my number from Julian’s phone. After you assaulted him.”

On the other end he lets out a long whistle. “Baby, that’s such a strong word.”

“Do not call me baby.”

“Alright. Sweetheart.”

“God, you are such a fucking caveman.”

“Thank you.”

You sigh, too fucking tired for this shit. Your heart feels like a chewed up piece of gum, and your lady parts are pulsing angrily at you for ruining their evening earlier.

They like the sound of Tom’s deep voice in your ear, and that is so not good.

“You okay?”

The question actually takes you aback, because the smarmy shit-eating tone is gone, and he sounds…serious?

“I guess. Why?”

“That doesn’t sound okay.”

“Why do you think it’s any of your goddamned business?”

“I told you. If Dr. Bitch hurts you, it is my business.”

“He didn’t hurt me,” you grumble. In fact, he didn’t really do much of anything to you. Now that more time has passed, the more annoyed you are about that.

Fuck if Detective Ludlow doesn’t seem to hear that in your voice too. “Ohhhh. Sounds like the Good Doctor didn’t hit anything?” 

“Oh my god. I hate you. Do you know that?”

He gives a low chuckle that absolutely goes straight to your deprived pussy, and you squirm a little in bed, so grateful he can’t see you.

“You wish you hated me.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“Don’t hang up, pretty girl. Tell me what you’re wearing.” His voice dips low, and smooth as velvet.

Every hair on your body lifts in response to this, your nipples pebbling into painful points. Bastard.

“A parka.”

“Pshh. You sleep in a parka? Come on, baby.” How effective that soft, coaxing tone is at dissolving your inhibitions is alarming. You can almost see yourself, as though standing at the edge of a great abyss. If you jump…there will be no going back. 

“Fine. I’ll use my own imagination. I think you’re wearing…a cute little lacy negligee that just floats on your luscious curves…”

Well, you guess you’re getting a picture of what he likes.

“Jesus Christ. I’m wearing a tank top, you pervert,” you grouse, trying to shatter his fantasy. Nevermind the fact that you are now soaking wet, again.

“Nice. No panties?”

“I am wearing panties.”

“You aren’t going to need ‘em. Do you know what I’d do to you, after dinner, my beautiful nurse?”

“Gee, I bet you’re going to fucking tell me.”

“Oh come on. We’re having fun.”

“You are having fun.”

“But you’re still listening.”

Well, he has you there, the smug sonofabitch.

“Maybe.”

He chuckles at the other end of the line, a low sound that makes you clench with need.

“You’ve got to answer a question for me first.”

“What?”

“You’ve got to dip into that sweet little pussy for me, and tell me how wet you are on the scale from one to ten.” 

You should rip him a new one for this. Or just hang up. Why can’t you just hit the button and end this nonsense? But then…you’d be alone. Your real-time reaction is less dignified, but maybe more honest. 

You laugh.

It starts as a giggle, then crescendos into an all out guffaw. “Tom…you are a nut.”

You can hear the smile in his voice as he answers, and goddamn if you don’t actually start to feel better. “Oh come on baby, don’t hold out on me. I’ve got a solid ten inches in my hand for you here.”

This makes you laugh even harder. “Ten inches?!”

“Ok. Maybe nine and a half.” 

You giggle, and you can’t stop. “I don’t know if I can handle all that, Officer Ludlow.”

You don’t know how his voice lowers even more, as he says, “Oh, I know you can take it. Don’t worry, I’ll ease it in nice and slow.”

Suddenly the bubbles of laughter in your gut go flat, replaced with an aching heat that sears your insides, your clit throbbing in response to his dirty mouth. It’s possible a kittenish little sound squeaks from the back of your throat.

You really don’t know where you get the courage to ask softly, “Yeah? Then what?”

“Then I would kiss all over those pretty, soft titties. I want those perfect nips in my mouth.”

You know you make a sound then, and he surely hears it. “Will you check them for me? Lick your fingers and give them a pinch.”

“You are ridiculous.” It comes out small, and breathy, and it doesn’t really sound like an insult at all. So what, if you do as he tells you? And so fucking what, if imaging it’s his hands on you makes you feverish with desire, a spear of longing throbbing in your cunt.

He doesn’t answer you right away, which means he’s busy with something else. Maybe Tom is just as pent up as you are from all this edging the two of you have been putting each other through. 

“Are you.. are you really?” You ask, hating how your voice exposes the fact that you’re not only pinching your nipples, but borderline feeling yourself up at the sound of his hiking breath. 

“Yeah, honey, I am.”

“Oh,” you say, because it’s the only thing you can think of. Your cunt is screaming below about how she wants to talk to Tom Ludlow because you’re doing a shit job at it. 

“Ah, fuck. Are you doing what I told you?” 

“No.”

“Good. Lick your fingers again, circle those pretty nipples for me. Close your eyes and imagine it’s my tongue. Fuck, I wanna suck on your tits so bad.” 

He doesn’t have to know that you’re following orders. That you’re grinding on the bunched blanket between your legs while you imagine his big, rude hands playing with your tits instead of your own.

“You listening to me, beautiful girl?”

“Yeah. Don’t get a big head about it.” 

“Good job. And too late.” 

“I do hate you, you know. I’m serious.” It has no real venom; in fact, it sounds more like a term of endearment at this point. 

He laughs. “C’mon, tell me how soaked she is.”

She’s flooded, is the answer. She’s dampening the pressed comforter, she’s throbbing and screaming and crying and pulsing to the tempo of his black coffee voice. 

You’re not much for vocals when you get off. You have neighbors that already have to hear about your dreams, and the act itself seems like more business than pleasure sometimes. When you were younger, you shared a room with your two sisters, so you learned to be quiet and discreet about rubbing your pussy. That all flies out the window when you sink two fingers into your sopping cunt at Tom’s direction. 

“10,” you hiss, straining to hit your gspot. Maybe you really do need to invest in one of those toys Sheila is always elbowing you about.

“Oh, poor baby.” Your walls flutter violently at his mocking tone. 

“I thought you were going to tell me what you would do to me after dinner?” Maybe you’re desperate, or just stupid. It doesn’t really matter when all you want is to orgasm on Tom’s voice.

“Thought I was? Didn’t I tell you about how I’m gonna dip into that sweet wet pussy, and play with your little clit with my thumb while I fuck you with this big cock? How do you like it, honey? Slow and deep? Fast and hard?”

You make a strangled little sound–because your fingers are just not enough, and it hurts. It hurts that he’s not here with you, filling you up, holding you down with those calloused hands and that filthy, insatiable, mouth.

“What was that?” 

His voice is strained, and you think you’re not the only one in pain here.

“Slow,” you answer. “At first.” Why exactly are you handing him this ammunition? How stupid, how dangerous, to offer up the keys to your undoing? You know he will only use this information against you.

“Mmm.” His breathing is labored, and the thought of him with his cock out, stroking himself to this dirty talk is almost too much to stand. Julian had you trussed and at his mercy right in front of him, but couldn’t keep it up. All Tom Ludlow needs is the sound of your voice. After the night you’ve had, that alone is nearly enough to make you cum.

“But then I like it deep,” you pant. “You think you got what it takes?”

“Baby, I’ve got everything you need.”

You are trying to be as quiet as you can, while you abuse your clit with your two middle fingers, practically holding your breath, getting high on the oxygen deprivation. You’re too quiet, you suppose.

“Don’t be shy, beautiful. Gotta let me hear it when you cum for me.”

“Or what?” you grouse. “Maybe I’m just…mixing pancake batter.” 

His laughter is strained, and you just know he’s close. “Or you’ll regret it, sweet girl. When I finally get these hands on you? Mmm I’ll make you pay. I’ll make you cum without mercy.” 

Again, you can’t help but compare the versions of punishment to the men in your life. Julian wants to hurt you. Tom just wants to make you cum.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah? You there, baby?”

You try to just breathe through your nose, to not give him the satisfaction–but you fail spectacularly.

“Y/n?” He calls, singing your name and making it sound so pretty and good and special. 

“Y-yeah?”

“You coming with me? I’m waiting for you.”

You’re right there, dangling over that sweet, slippery precipice that you can usually ease yourself over carefully. Tom gives you a little shove, and you’re plummeting. 

“That’s my girl.” He doesn’t sound much better off than you while you sob from the unexpected, haywire orgasm. 

It takes a long minute for you to come back to earth, come back to breathless Tom who isn’t saying anything for once in his life. 

That pleasant, floaty post coital bliss gets stained with shame when the clarity of who you just mutually masturbated with hits you. 

He talks first, what a surprise. “Do you feel better?”

“No.” But then, “a little bit.”

“At least one of us does.” You hear him shuffling around on the other end, maybe opening a fridge. It makes you smile to think of him jerking off at his kitchen table. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Why in God’s name are you still entertaining this conversation? You both got what you wanted, and if you stay here too long listening to his voice you’re going to be right back where you started—ready for round two. 

“I won’t feel better until you’re mine.” He sounds humorless, which worries you in itself even without the possessive words added. “C’mon, sweet nurse, aren’t you supposed to help me feel better?”  

“I don’t belong to anyone, Tom. I never will.”

“Oh? Bullshit.” 

“I’m hanging up.” 

Almost as if he knows you’re full of it, or maybe he just doesn’t care about talking into an empty phone line, he continues. “You’re telling me you’ve never wanted a man to take care of you? Protect you, defend you, fuck anyone up who even thinks to raise a hand or word against you?”

Honestly? That’s all you’ve ever wanted, although you’ll take that admittance to your grave. After a lifetime of taking care of other people, having someone to do that for you in return sounds like a castle in the sky. But, the thing about castles in skies? They’re imaginary. You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Let me guess, you’d do all that and more?” Maybe the venomous sarcasm is a little too mean. 

He sighs as if you’re the one assaulting his date, stealing his number, and then calling to harass and annoy him. “Okay, tough girl. Get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“No you won’t.” 

“Mm. Night, beautiful.” 

You wait for him to hang up. He doesn’t. You don’t, either. You feel his grin blossoming through the white noise of the line, listen to him rustle about, hear bottles clinking, water running, fabric swishing. Your eyes get heavy to the sounds of his nightly routine, lashes threatening to touch cheek. 

His voice is void of its usual gruff when it permeates the pleasant, strange, foggy land between awake and unconscious. “Baby?”

“Mm, yeah?” You try to make your mouth move properly, but the words come jumbled and slurred, weighted with exhaustion. 

“Sweet dreams.” 

[hippolotamus]

Way More Than Seven Sentence Sunday

Tagged by the lovely and talented @kitteneddiediaz @tizniz @diazsdimples @spotsandsocks @inell @wikiangela Be sure to check their works!

IDK this has been rolling around in my brain since I first heard Casual. Sooo… 🦴 🍎 🦷

“C’mon, Luce,” Nat teases from the driver’s seat, poking Lucy’s thigh. “I play personal taxi and can’t even get a tour? Guess I need to up my game.”

Lucy rolls her eyes. Hopefully it’s more annoyed than fond. Honestly, Natalia could ask for a million things and Lucy would readily give them. At least, she wants to. She wants to want to. But that involves levels of vulnerability Lucy plans to keep locked up tighter than Diaz’s Catholic guilt.

“Your game’s fine, Dollenmeyer. I’ll show you around.” Lucy grabs her work bag and exits the car before Nat can gloat and kiss her about it.

Kinard and Thompson are chatting over coffee in the hangar, while Lee checks over the equipment in one of the birds.

“Well, if it isn’t my little ray of sunshine,” Kinard chirps, flashing his stupid, dazzling lovesick smile. God, Buckley’s got him so whipped. She’s happy for them but Jesus Christ. “And who do we have here?”

Tommy, ever the gentleman and charmer, takes Nat’s offered hand. “Tommy Kinard. One of Lucy’s favorite teammates,” he says with a wink.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard about you!”

“This is Nat. Natalia,” Lucy interjects. “We were hanging out and she very nicely agreed to drop me off since my car’s in the shop.”

Beside her, Nat stiffens. Tommy raises an eyebrow, shooting a knowing look at Lucy.

This. This is why she tried to resist Nat’s offer and insisted an Uber would be fine. Because Lucy knows she’s fucked up. Knew she would before it happened. What’s worse is Tommy knows — or highly suspects — she fucked up. He was in the closet too long, and with too many shitty partners, to not see right through her. He’s going to give her hell about this.

“Uh, yeah,” Nat agrees, barely hiding the way her voice is trembling. She drops Tommy’s hand and clutches her purse tighter. “So, uh, gonna take a raincheck on that tour. Maybe another time. Nice to meet you.”

Nat doesn’t run back to the car but she may as well. She doesn’t look at Lucy once. Not with anger or sadness or disappointment. Not at all. Lucy bites the inside of her cheek and watches her go despite the desperate clawing thing in her chest that wants Nat to stay. Now. Forever maybe.

She hikes her bag up on her shoulder, turning to walk toward the locker room, only to be met with Tommy still there. His arms are crossed and he doesn’t look at her with any judgement. It would be better than the almost pitying, understanding expression he’s wearing.

“What, Kinard?” She bites out, staring past him. “I have to change for my shift. Just- say it already.”

He watches her a moment longer, rolling his lips in, assessing. “Do I even have to?”

“I have to change for my shift,” she says again, biting her bottom lip, hard. Because she’s not going to get upset about this now. Just like she’s not going to think about waking up this morning, for the very first time, to Nat sleeping beside her, hair sprawled across the pillow while sunlight painted her bare back. How it made Lucy ache.

Tommy sidesteps, making a sweeping gesture to let her know she’s free to go anytime. She nods tightly, unable to meet his gaze as she passes.

“Y’know, I kinda wanted to hate her,” Tommy starts. Because he’s a bastard that way. She hates him. Hates him so fucking much for it that she loves him for being so goddamn forgiving and thought provoking. She swears he went to the Bobby Nash School of Life Advice and Mentoring.

She stops, but doesn’t turn around.

“Evan said nice things about her. Decent things anyway. Admittedly, I wasn’t crazy about why she was into him. But he didn’t have anything terrible. Being his first- I felt a little nervous and wanted to find something. Anything about the people in his past. You know how it can be with exes. Gets messy sometimes.” He pauses, probably sipping his lukewarm coffee. “And then they just- I don’t know, surprise the hell out of you in an unexpected way.” Another pause. “Don’t worry. I won’t hold you up anymore.”

His footsteps echo across the hangar, growing quieter. Lucy tightens her death grip on her bag and marches to the locker room. When she gets there, if she turns on the showers so she can cry in peace, that’s between her and the ancient tile and god.

np tagging @actuallyitsellie @diazheartsbuckley @weewootruck @saybiwithme @bidisasterevankinard @dangerpronebuddie @theotherbuckley @stereopticons @daffi-990 @your-catfish-friend @thekristen999 @filet-o-feelings @underwaterninja13 @rainbow-nerdss @steadfastsaturnsrings @honestlydarkprincess @exhuastedpigeon @jesuisici33 @dr-shortsighted-owl @eddiebabygirldiaz @dorkydiaz @bi-buckrights @elvensorceress @bucksbiawakening @giddyupbuck @beyourownanchor6 @lemonzestywrites @monsterrae1 @statueinthestone @slightlyobsessedwitheverything @the-likesofus @thewolvesof1998 @watchyourbuck @shipperqueen6 and anyone else who wants to 😘

[billdenbrough]

@naturecalls111 prompted me kevaaron + procrastination and was like ‘post grad’, meaning they’re not undergrads if it’s canonverse, & something abt the phrasing latched into my brain so we ended up with this vaguely professor au w/ the flimsiest excuse for a TA-adjacent situation ever instead. idk. as ever this was just for her texts & i’m coming off a 30hr migraine so pls forgive me LMAO <3

“I can see right through you,” Kevin murmurs.

“Oh, yeah?” Aaron challenges. God, he’s close.

“Mm,” Kevin says. “You just don’t want to mark the test.”

It's an accusation, but there’s no censure in his voice. He's amused, mostly; fond too, despite himself. It’s not exactly behaviour he should be encouraging, but—

Aaron huffs. “I never want to mark a test,” he points out. “Undergrads are fucking stupid. Or these ones are, anyway.”

“You were an undergrad once,” Kevin says. He very determinedly keeps his hands steady on the bench. Maybe he’s gripping the edge so he stays in place; so what? That's between him and whatever God Renee believes in enough for the both of them.

“These ones,” Aaron repeats, scoffing. “Anyway, I'd never have taken a history paper. Get real.”

Kevin can’t help the frown there. “History is fascinating,” he argues. Aaron scoffs at him again, but the way he watches Kevin runs counter to that. Like he’s listening to whatever Kevin says, regardless. “It is,” Kevin insists again, clearing his throat.

Aaron's gaze tracks the movement, eyes following the motion of his throat, and Kevin kind of wants to clench the counter edge hard enough to crack the formica. Jesus Christ.

“You like research,” Kevin says. He keeps his eyes on Aaron, watches as he steps in closer again. “History is an endless study of every mistake we’ve ever made—”

“—So we don’t repeat our forefathers’ mistakes?” Aaron asks wryly. “Hate to break it to you, but that’s a non-starter.”

“No,” Kevin says, shaking his head. “We’re bad at learning. Mostly, we don’t even see the patterns for decades, if not centuries.”

Aaron cocks his head. “Doesn’t that frustrate you?” he asks. “I've seen you watch sports. You get mad if people make the same fuck-up within, like, three minutes.”

An image floats in Kevin’s head, unbidden: the two of them at the sports bar, late one night after they finally convinced Jeremy to go the fuck home because the college wasn’t paying him enough to sleep at his desk to reply to nineteen year olds’ panicked emails at 11:17pm before a midnight deadline. Kevin had been unbelievably put-out by the Astros’ scoreline; Aaron hadn’t cared so much, but had seemed to find great entertainment in prodding at Kevin to express his opinion to a bar full of patrons who strongly disagreed with him.

Do you even care about baseball? Kevin had asked in the end, exasperated. He’d unknotted his tie and slipped off his jacket, heated by his opinions and the game and the alcohol and the way Aaron had sat there, head tilted, that clever mouth of his quirked up to the side like a smirk, like a secret.

Not really, Aaron had said, shrugging. He swished his beer a little. I played hockey at school myself. Before Kevin could get too excited about that—a sport! An actual goddamn sport! that wasn’t only worth watching European leagues for, cough cough Jeremy and Jean and fucking football—Aaron added, I like seeing how much you care about it, though, and knocked Kevin right on his ass, metaphorically-speaking.

That night had ended in a blur: Kevin’s flushed cheeks as he lectured the bar at large about heliocentrism after finishing his grumbling about the baseball, Aaron’s quiet snort and eyes that laughed more than his mouth did, alcohol-sticky wood beneath his feet as he made his way to the bathroom, the taste of Aaron’s beer on his lips, Aaron’s cool fingers a balm against his cheek, his mouth a searing heat burning all the way through Kevin.

Then when Kevin’s TA dropped out because of ‘unmanageable stress’ (which was not Kevin’s fault, no matter what Dan says, she and Matt can fuck off) and he had to scramble to figure out what to do, Abby had offered one of her tutors—but only for marking, Kevin, he has no base in history. He’s just smart enough to use a rubric and willing to help. Between this and Jean’s long-suffering offer to lead the tutorial that didn’t clash with his meetings with his advisor, and even Neil’s unlikely assistance in the form of helping restructure the syllabus, it all seemed pretty manageable. (The history department had quietly come to the conclusion that this was not, strictly speaking, acceptable by university standards, but elected to ignore this information until the conclusion of the semester. As far as Kevin’s been able to tell in his years in academia, this is how things tend to work.)

When Abby showed up at his office with Aaron, though, Kevin's cheeks had gone hot enough that she’d asked him if he was sure he wasn’t coming down with a stress fever. Aaron's face had stayed blank, but his eyes were – amused.

It was one thing when Aaron had been the regular third person in the staff room late at night alongside Jeremy and Kevin, rubbing his eyes as he scowled at whatever it was he was looking at. (Anatomy exams, Kevin found out later.) He’d been mostly quiet, but sharply funny when he’d ended up interacting with them, mostly starting with indelicate snorts at whatever madcap thing Jeremy was saying, then incredulous stares at Kevin’s rebuttal, and finally muttered jabs as he worked the coffee machine and Jeremy laughed delightedly and Kevin stared at him with disbelief and a slow-building warmth in the base of his stomach.

It was yet another thing when Aaron had been the guy he bundled up Jeremy with, the guy he got drunk with for hours in a sports bar, the guy who laughed at him and offered him buffalo wings so spicy that they made Aaron’s cheeks red and Kevin’s lips feel like they were on fire, until Aaron kissed him, tipsy outside the bar, the warmth spreading through Kevin overtaking both the chilly night air and the spice-stained echoes on Kevin’s mouth.

But it was another thing entirely for Aaron to be Aaron, meaning Abby's favourite postgrad and the guy who diligently read Kevin’s syllabus on top of his own work just to better understand the marking rubric and hater of psych majors everywhere. Aaron, with his tired eyes and quiet laugh and complete inability to answer a phone call from his brother in a normal way. (At one point, Kevin had been half-concerned he was ordering a hit—less about the morality or legality of the situation, more in a if you get arrested, I’m screwed again type way—until Neil had shown up half an hour later with lunch for Aaron and Aaron had gone, ugh and Neil had rolled his eyes, spotted Kevin, and turned to Aaron to say, you’re one to talk. Aaron had flushed a little, then scowled and flipped Neil off, and said fuck off, to which Neil said, gladly, then see you at dinner? And Aaron had waved his hand. If you eat your fucking vegetables, to which Neil had laughed, and flipped him off, and walked out. Kevin had stared at Aaron, nonplussed, but Aaron had ignored him, focusing instead on the test he was marking while he ate the sandwich Neil had brought.) Aaron, with his unbelievably rude opinions about Kevin’s lack of video game knowledge, and the genuinely unreasonable amount of sour gummies he can put away in an hour, and the unbearably soft look he gets on his face when he’s sleepy and huffy and Kevin has gently dragged away whichever test he’s marking or article he’s reading that’s made him so grumpy late at night.

Aaron, who Kevin actually knows now. And likes even more for it, which is inconvenient and inopportune and probably inevitable.

Kevin clears his throat. “People are meant to try and win in sports,” he says. “History is about things that have already happened. It’s a different ballpark.” There’s a moment, and then, “They’ve already lost the battle. I'm not rooting for anything else there.”

Something flares up in Aaron's eyes at that, and he snakes his hand forward, tugging on Kevin's tie. Kevin, hands still holding onto the bench, allows it.

“But sports are about victory?” Aaron asks. 

He’s not even subtle about procrastinating, Kevin thinks. He wants to laugh. He swallows a sigh instead, and says, a little warningly, “Aaron…”

But he doesn’t move. Doesn’t stop Aaron, doesn’t do anything to stop him. Maybe leans in a little, even.

“Yeah,” Kevin says after a long moment. “History, you live or you die. Sports, you’re the best or you’re not.”

“That's a reductive way of looking at the world,” Aaron says, but it’s that tone he gets sometimes, the one where Kevin doesn’t know if he believes it or if he just wants to poke at Kevin a little. Kevin hates that he likes it as much as he does; that he lets it stoke him up, bites at the bit every time.

“You are not subtle,” Kevin murmurs. The tests are sitting on the table behind Aaron, staring up at the ceiling. Aaron's coffee is abandoned, probably cold.

You are not subtle, Kevin says, and means it, but Aaron’s cocked his eyebrow at him, and there’s something a little taunting in his eyes, and he’s still holding onto Kevin’s tie, and something in Kevin loosens. He sighs, and lets go of the bench, tucking his fingers into Aaron's belt loops instead and pulling him forward.

“Is this a sport?” Aaron asks, because he’s a dick and facetious and he knows just how to make Kevin want to shut him up.

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” Kevin scolds, and then leans forward to kiss the rebuttal out of Aaron's mouth.

[corrosivesaints]

Prompt: lipstick and a split lip

Pairing: CrozBrady

john brady martyr complex poppin' off in this one! my sweet boy with so many problems...ough. i tried not to make it too angsty... but unfortunately for all of us mr brady is just a lil angst generator. ty for the prompt, bestie, MWAH! 😘

“Christ, John, have you at least seen Smokey?” Croz asks as he wets his handkerchief. This time of night the base is empty, most men out carousing or bothering the local English girls, so the bathroom echoes with his voice as he wipes John’s lower lip carefully. 

“It’s nothing,” he says, the words garbled by Croz’s steady hand holding his aching jaw and the handkerchief in question. “You should see the guy Bucky got.” 

“Jesus Christ,” Harry mutters, mostly to himself as he turns to rinse out the cloth. John’s blood is red and lurid in the low light, bright as a warning flare, and he wished he didn’t have that knowledge in his brain. “You’re gonna have a bruise the size of Texas, by the way,” he adds. 

John rests his chin on Harry’s shoulder to eye up the damage in the mirror. A split lip, and he’s right, a nasty bruise to the right side of John’s face, starting to purple. Even his hair is in disarray, falling over his forehead sloppily. Harry didn’t quite get all the blood, it paints his mouth a cheery color, almost as if he’s wearing lipstick. 

“Ouch,” he remarks dryly, watching the light shift over the darkening bruise. Harry meets his gaze in the mirror and then rolls his eyes. 

“Your observation skills dazzle,” he shoots back, handing him the wet cloth. John dabs at the blood. The texture is all wrong for lipstick, the mark it would leave on a shirt collar would be oxidized and runny. Harry leans his hip against the sink and holds Johnny’s jacket. Just to show he’s there, listening, waiting. 

“It was stupid,” he finally says, staring down at the faucet. The porcelain is stained with the memories of toothpaste and shaving cream. He’s going to have a blinder of a headache tomorrow, and it’s going to piss off Cleven. Bucky’s gonna tick him off even worse, but it’s Bucky. John will take the brunt of Gale’s displeasure, it’s what he’s good at after all. “RAF bullshit,” he clarifies, folding the handkerchief up carefully. Harry’s initials are monogrammed in the corner, palest blue as a perfect sky for flying, HHC. He’s never asked what the middle initial is for. 

Harry sighs, stares out at the tiled walls like they’ll give him an answer.

“And you got involved…?”

“Because we didn’t have Biddick.” The words came out soft, he wasn’t expecting that. Poor Curt, his bones food for the earth, flesh picked clean by the birds. He licks at the wound in his lip absently, welcomes the sting. Pain is straightforward, it is either present or not. Pain is God’s gift, clearing his senses, bringing purpose.

“John,” Harry says, voice just as bruised as John’s poor face is. “Hey, look at me, huh?” He nudges his chin with one hand, his fingers cool. He’s always got ink on his left hand, from smudging it as he writes. John lets him, stares at Harry’s beautiful, earnest face. 

“You aren’t him,” he says firmly, mouth in a grim line he hardly ever adopts, the serious expression strange on his face. It makes John’s stomach turn over. 

“I know.”

“You could ask Crank or Demarco to help out, next time.”

“It has to be me.” The conviction catches Harry off guard, he furrows his brow and blinks at him. “I promised,” he adds. And in the end it doesn’t matter if it was to Curt or to Bucky, John Brady doesn’t break a promise. Harry sighs, looking so goddamn worried for him, so sad, and John hates to see it. He can carry it for the both of them, he’s had practice. Harry should be unburdened, it’s not his cross to bear. “I’m not doing anything I wasn’t prepared to do, Croz.”

“Jesus, at least get someone to help if you’re going to fight.” 

“Sure.” That’s an easy request at the end of the day. Harry asks so little of him, John makes an effort to listen when he does. He’s apparently not mollified by this answer, he’s studying John carefully, as if he’s a difficult terrain map he doesn’t have a legend for. He takes his jacket back, puts it down, and leans into Harry’s space. He’s warm, he smells like his aftershave, familiar to Johnny like the smell of his own pipe, or the scent of the engines on a B-17 when they’re hot. 

“Harry,” he says, kissing the side of his face softly. He shivers, one hand going to John’s waist, the touch burning-hot. He makes a noise of protest, even as his eyes flutter shut. John doesn’t stop, and his poor split lip leaves behind faint crimson smears, as if he really is wearing lipstick. This is dangerous, anyone could walk in at any time. They can’t leave marks, evidence, they’ll get blue-ticketed faster than a fort in a nose dive. But John Brady wants to leave behind some impression that he was alive, that he walked this earth and loved on it, an impulse that grows more frantic with each passing week. So many dead men and who will remember them? 

“We shouldn’t–” Harry pulls back enough to look him in the eye. “Not here,” he amends softly, eyes straying to John’s mouth. 

“One of the sheds?” Most guys are in town tonight, it shouldn’t be that hard to find somewhere away from prying eyes out at the edges of the base. They finished a mission recently, nobody will go looking for Captain Brady or Lieutenant Crosby if they steal away for a little bit. Harry nods, kisses him once, chaste and quick.

“Ten minutes?” he says from the door. John nods, and like that he’s gone. He takes his time putting his dress greens to rights, shrugging his jacket back on, tucking his hair into place. Carefully reconstructing his armor, the unflinching Captain John Brady sliding back into place, covering up the scared boy that had hit that RAF officer. Bucky will smooth things over the next day. In the morning, he’ll sit next to Hoerr in the mess and eat those awful powdered eggs, and deter Meatball from eating his toast, and life will go on. 

“Right,” he tells his own reflection. “Once more, unto the breach.”

[the-hopeless-haze]

When Will the Clouds All Disappear? (ch1)

Gregory House x Reader - part of Series If You Want It, You Can Bleed on Me

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: heavy suicidal ideation

“Kind of rude to make a cripple head to the roof of a building to look for you.” You hear his voice, loud and clear behind you, gravelly and distinctly masculine. You’d know it was him anywhere.

“What do you want, Greg?” You ask, sniffling. You're sitting on the ground, your back against the ledge, having made yourself sick staring off it for a good ten minutes before he arrived. Your head is in your hands, blocking him out, blocking everything out. You can’t open your eyes. You can’t bring yourself to look at him.

“You know,” he says firmly. You wish you had four hands so you could block your ears, too. You wish you were senseless. It would be so much easier. So much more peaceful.

“You wouldn’t have to worry anymore. I would just be gone,” you say, and you hate this, you hate everything, you wish he didn’t come up here so you could jump. Guilt-free. You know you look fucking ridiculous, with your hospital gown riding up to your thighs and those stupid non-slip socks damn near falling off your feet. Your hair is blowing wildly in the bitter January wind, and you feel lightheaded and woozy as it is, having pulled out your IV that hooked you up to fluids a half hour ago now.

“That isn’t what I want. I want you to come back downstairs with me.”

“How did you even know I was up here?” you question.

“You’re the one thing I can and can’t predict. Knew you’d come up here when they said you left the bed… still don’t know if anything I can say can get through to you. If you jump I jump?”

You shake your head. “No. You deserve to live.”

“And you don’t think you do?”

“No. And I don’t want to either.”

“Why not? I thought we had fun together.”“But you don’t care—“

“Why am I up here with you freezing my ass off if I don’t care?”

“Just go.”

“Not without you, sweetheart.”

You grimace at the pet name, it sounds so fake coming from his lips. “You didn’t even come to see me,” you whisper.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know… I didn’t know what to say.”“Anything would’ve been better than nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know. You’ll say anything so I don’t jump,” you say, tasting bitterness acrid on your tongue. You wish you could turn off your brain, but you’ve been here before, seconds to an attempt and still gone through with it with no one to stop you except for your diseased brain. And it was diseased, every impulse usually hardwired to keep your body alive at all costs screaming to be let out of its misery and to just let you die, please. It’s almost like an addiction, instead of one more hit, it’s just like, one more thing to let go of. One more thing to convince yourself doesn’t matter, one more person to convince yourself wants you to die or doesn’t care if you go, one more event you’ll never get to live through that you convince yourself you didn’t want to attend anyway.

“I mean it,” he says urgently. “I’m sorry. Okay? I’ve been a shitty boyfriend, lover, friend with benefits, or whatever you want to call me. I know I’m not the reason you’re contemplating this right now. You’ve struggled with this all your life. I’m not going to fix it. But Jesus Christ. You and I both know this isn’t the goddamn answer. You spent your whole life going to school and working to prevent people from offing themselves.”

“Fuck you,” you mutter. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to see you,” he says. “I came for the surgery—“

“You had plenty of time to see me. You weren’t there when I needed you to be! I’m just another patient, is that it? Don’t come visit them unless you think you’ll learn something? What was it, you never got to see a D&C before? I called you, Greg. You never answered. I had to call Wilson to make sure you weren’t dead but of course, you weren’t, you were just avoiding me and why should I expect anything more from you? Of course you run when things get hard; when the woman you’ve been fucking might need a little more than after-sex cuddles.” You stand up as you say this, turning your back to him, looking over the ledge. Fuck.

“I’m sorry. Just please don’t jump,” he says and if you were in your right mind you’d notice that he was getting increasingly desperate, but you aren’t noticing much of anything right now. Except that your plans were thwarted. You see firefighters and they’ve already set up a trampoline on the side of the building. You don’t say anything, nothing at all, and you start to walk away from that ledge and then sprint toward the other one, hoping that you can get over there, run faster than he can, but he’s on you, and he moves fast for someone with an injured leg when the adrenaline kicks in, and you feel yourself knocked to the ground, his warm breath fanning your face.

“Got you. You’re not getting away from me that easy,” he says, and you finally look at him for the first time since you’ve been up here. You wish he would crush you to death but he’s barely putting his weight on you, just enough that you can’t move.

“I can’t go through this again,” you mutter, squeezing your eyes shut, and you expect the hysterical tears but they never come. You feel numb. Empty.

“You can. You can and you will.”

“You’re going to put me on a hold?”

“I have to,” he says, and you could trick yourself into thinking there’s guilt in his blue eyes when you open yours again. “I’ll make sure they give you the good stuff. Say you need to be chemically restrained. Order you Haldol, Ativan, or whatever you want. But I need… I need to know you’re safe.”

“So you’ll sedate me?”

“It’s the only way I’ll be able to sleep.”

“Just like you to make it about yourself, huh?”

“Shut up,” he says sternly, tacking your name on the end of the command like a warning. “This isn’t about me. None of this is about me. I know that.”

“Then you should have let me go.”

“One day you’ll thank me,” he says, digging his phone out of his jacket pocket. “Hey. Yeah. I need help bringing her downstairs. She’s not going to go willingly.”

You hate how he’s talking about you the way you would talk about patients to your coworkers, and you hate him for calling Wilson to help him walk you down the stairs. Wilson’s a certified sap, and the look on his face, his brown eyes sympathetic and his brows furrowed… makes you want to hit him, and maybe you’d try if you had the energy to. You don’t want pity. You want to be left to your own devices. You want nothing, hatred, you could stand, but Wilson looking at you like you were a kicked puppy is more than you can handle right now.

“I wasn’t going to jump,” you say, and it’s unconvincing even to your own ears. “I wasn’t even on the ledge when you came up here.”

“Yeah. Well. It’s enough that I don’t believe you,” Greg says. “Your track record sucks. Every attempt has been after a traumatic event. Forgive me for being a little worried.”

You’re about to protest, say he doesn’t know anything, but you know he went through your medical files before the first time your lips touched his. Fair enough. Two could play at that game, certainly, and you took what you felt you could without him getting suspicious out of your file. You looked through his, too, because what’s good for him is by all means fucking good for you too, and if you can’t have normal conversations like a normal couple, at least you could learn about each other unconventionally. Isn’t that love, at least kind of love, searching high and low for information, trying to memorize somebody else like you know yourself?

Never mind that it’s illegal.

You feel his mouth on yours, his scruff scratching pleasantly at your skin, and… yeah. That’s when the fucking tears come.

You wish neither of these men saw you like this. You were meant to be firm, cold but compassionate, distant but likable, albeit only from that distance. You didn’t get close to people, not since you were younger, because you knew how you’d get and you knew it was a horrific sight. Wilson, you love like a brother, but Gregory… you love irrevocably, irreverently, irreversibly. Intense is an understatement, and you wish it wasn’t the case, you wish so badly you could turn it off and become the woman you were before that man and his cane hobbled into your life. You wish more than anything you were alone right now.

But then again. You might not be alive.

“Shh. It’s okay,” he says, and you don’t believe him. He doesn’t believe it himself. It’s just something to say. And he hates those clichés. He hates talking just to talk. Yet … he says that to you. He lies to you, just for your benefit. Everybody lies.. but it's usually for their own gain. “I don’t want to make this worse than it has to be,” he says slowly. “Make this easy for us.”

“You have drugs on you, Greg,” you say, rolling your eyes through your tears. You hate that you know him this well. “You’re prepared to sedate me regardless.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t want to have to get to that point. Would you rather be sedated? Because I can arrange that.”

“Get off me.”

“Are you going to walk with us?”

“Yeah,” you huff.

“Good girl,” he says, and in a different context that would lead to something very different than this. But no. He lifts himself off you instead of dicking you down, wincing when he puts his weight back on his leg, and he and Wilson both help you off the concrete roof. It’s now you realize your back is scraped from when Greg pushed you down, and you grimace as you stand up. Everything hurts.

You have four strong hands on your body now, Wilson’s thin graceful fingers wrapping around your left arm, the other hand on the small of your back to steady you. Greg, you’re more fine with seeing you this way, he’s a train wreck himself and you’ve gotten him out of his shell before. But Wilson? He’s got everything together, well, except for his marriages. House’s larger hands grip you too, one hand firm on your right shoulder and the other around your side.

It’s a slow walk down the stairs, back into the building and you feel a rush of relief at the feeling of heat on your body, but then it becomes too much and you don’t know what you’re fighting for because you know there’s no way you could run, you may be faster than Greg but there’s no way you’d get by Wilson in your current state, and then you’re pushed against the wall in the staircase, Wilson’s calling for security on a radio and a gurney on the radio, and they’re both holding you there and you’re struggling against them, arms you try to push out of the way and legs you try to kick but it’s to no avail, you feel the slight pinch of a needle in your arm and … that’s it. Maybe this is what you were asking for but you were too ashamed to say, too ashamed to acquiesce verbally to the sedation, too embarrassed to say “no, I need to be unconscious for this, thank you.” But you weren’t too embarrassed to pull a fucking nutty in the staircase of the hospital you work at.

“I would’ve just given it to you,” you hear Greg say. “You don’t have to do everything the hard way.”

And then, thankfully, mercifully, pleasantly, you fade out and away.

[1moreoffkeyanthem]

I finally did it yall I made a list of my favorite Cartmanisms bc I do in fact very much enjoy writing his out of pocket ass

“Oh speaking of,” Cartman added, “let’s just sacrifice the Insulin Bitch and the brain damaged hippie to the zaliens so the rest of us can make a run for it.”

Eric was scowling. “Only I’M allowed to make comments about you two gayasses. I say we wipe the floor with those homophobes.”

“I doubt they’ll have a vest in your size, Thumbulimia.”

“Please, I have better things to do than watch the Jew have a Post Traumatic Spider Disorder episode.”

Cartman rolled his eyes, but got up to drop a five in the Fuckwad Jar. “I hate you guys, seriously. Marj, you weren’t even in the room for the Nancy joke.” The lace trim of his robe fluttered as he sat back down, which made Stan laugh again. “What’s so funny, hippie?” There weren’t really words, honestly, but he’d try. “I just… I never want us to change, you know?” “Gay.”

Eric sung a few lines of ‘Jesus Loves The Little Children’ in a creepy horror movie voice and then sprung out from his hiding spot and started blasting on an unsuspecting youth who got too close, chasing him down the field with rarely shown athleticism.

Cartman looked incredibly bored as he clicked the magazine and snapped it back into place. “Well fuck me for being prepared.”

Cartman scoffed. “He’s not doing anything but staring up at you like he’s Sleeping Goddamn Beauty and you just kissed him out of a coma.”

“Awww, looook, you guys! They’re having a gay little hurt/comfort moment again! What, you gonna kiss it better, Kahl?”

Cartman just rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “What the hell ever, Jimothy. Go stutter about it to someone else.”

“Okay, fucking first of all,” Kyle shot a glare at Cartman, “no one’s getting sacrificed. Literally, that’s not goddamn happening. AND we’re keeping this discussion CIVIL. It’s five in the morning and nobody’s slept very much. There’s not a single guy here who’s actually thinking straight.” “That would be because half of you are gay as balls.”

“Once again, I’m moving that we leave the hippie behind.” “Cartman, remind me to kick your ass when we’re out of here.” “Good luck on that if you fucking faint like one of those stupid goats again.”

Cartman was out of bullets, but he’d taken out a good chunk of the extraterrestrial undead. “Holy shit, Kahl, you better not die on us. Cockroach, remember? You’re a damn cockroach.”

“Aight, so anyway, what’s JewBot up to?” “Still at work. He’ll be home later. We’re gonna go out to dinner with the Tuckers.” “I didn’t ask for your life’s story, buttplug,”

“Oh JESUS CHRIST!!” Oh, great. Cartman had emerged from his cave. “Did I just walk into a stairwell orgy?”

“Fuck you, Kahl. Your recycled dildo and his weirdo wingman pulled me out of a Klance slowburn.” “WHO the FUCK is reading Voltron fanfiction in 2023?!” “Some of us are dedicated.”

Eric paused his self imposed quest to rob every taco truck in GTA and set aside his controller. “Hellllll no. The vampires don’t get my blood without paying me for it.”

“Geez, pack it up, Fiddler On The Roof.”

“Fatass, if he dies in a car accident because YOU made him freak, I WILL kill you.” “Good luck doing that with one leg and a fever, fleshlight.” But his voice softened. “Just try to chill out until he gets home, Kahl. Then you can be a terrible patient for someone who actually likes you.”

“Yeah, hippie. I wasn’t going to deal with you if something happened to your burning bush.”

A certain abrasive fuckwad leaned casually against the wall. “Oh, the Bubonic Jew didn’t tell you yet? I said he fell on the stairs, didn’t I? He just hurt his knee again, what else is new.” Stan made a noise of surprise and Cartman pointed his beef jerky at him. “By the way, I really don’t get why you get so stoked about lugging him around. He’s difficult.”

Cartman scurried off to inspect a leaf. “Woah, you guys! I think I just, like, discovered empathy!” “You’re looking at a plant.” “Plants have feelings too, Khal! Look at your photosynthesizing dildo back there!”

“Like he needs an excuse to get on his high horse about shit.” “I’ll kick your fat ass,” Kyle warned. “Good luck, tinkerbell.”

Cartman had planted himself into the passenger seat, munching away at that bag of funyuns. He glanced back. “What’s the ‘sitch, Ken-Possible?”

“Because, you pussy,” Cartman said with a false saccharine smile, “you have the biggest TikTok following from your gayass little songs.

“Yep.” Cartman said through a mouthful of eggs. “Plus, Clyde has an affair going with the town vet, Butters is a total twink, and Stanny boy has a boner for the Jew.”

Oh dear god. Cartman was NOT about to babysit the argumentative dickhole while the housekeeper worked. As much fun as he was to fight with, Kyle was a fierce opponent, and Cartman wasn’t really in the mood. He’d had a weird night. The cats had been on edge.

Oh, of goddamn course. The OTHER buttplug. It wasn’t a secret. Well, technically it was, because no one talked about it, but anyone with eyeballs could see that Stan and Kyle had a gayass little private relationship going on behind Craig’s back. Good for them, or whatever, but if the Spider ever got proof…

Cartman just rolled his eyes. “Scott, you glucose gobbling ass bitch, I’ve literally butchered two people. I know the human body, okay?”

“The fuck.” Cartman’s eyes widened. “Every single one of you dildos had better be praying that there’s no internal bleeding.”

Cartman put his hands up. “Gahdamn, you guys. Just trying to lighten the mood in this hot air balloon to Hell.”

“Ay! Hippie! The Jew had to stay for basketball so I’m here with your buttfucking homework-“

Cartman definitely wanted to rip on him for wallowing in his own sadness, but the sooner he got this loser to be a person again, the better. “No shit, asshole. Your fucking fleshlight is even more intolerable without you to hold him back. You need to come back to school.”

“Also, I’m telling your little prince of Egypt that he can come over. It’s not like he’s gonna catch your Sad Bitch Disease.”

Cartman strolled around the corner, now wearing his frilly ‘widow whose husband died under mysterious circumstances’ robe.

[comicbookhyperfixationtime]

Uncanny X-men #196- What Was That?!!

CW: racial slurs

Last Issue Recap: The Power Pack made a cameo and Wolverine did not disembowel a child. Callisto in the Morlocks did show up and they are as skrungly and terrible as ever. And then there was Secret Wars 2 which I have mentally blocked out of my brain because it's too pointless and annoying to take up important Nightcrawler Obsessing Space.

Anyway, HOLY HELL, how did this cover make it to print?! Its literally a woman in a gimp suit! Have I talked about Rachel's Mutant Hunter gimpsuit before? I feel like I have, but I would once again like to say, what the actual fuck.

It's Chris Claremont so I expect to be using this a lot in the near future. Also, in this cover there are spikes around her crotch that form a thong/triangle shape (super umcomfy 😬) which (spoilers) are not there when she wears the suit in-issue. Which just makes this worse.

Gimpsuit aside I don't like this cover. The composition is meh, and its the same sort of misdirection we saw in the last issue. Is Rachel going to beat the shit out of the X-men and get stabbed by Wolverine? Of course she's not. The splash panel on the first page is pretty striking though.

The title is uncreative, but I do adore when writers try to work their issue title into the first page's dialogue or onomatopoeia or something (Thor #366 is my absolute favorite example of this). This is a fantastic first page, not only does it immediately set up tension, mystery and stakes while quickly delivering exposition, but it cleverly uses the in-universe curtain behind Professor X as a tool for adding motion and energy, whilst directing the reader's eye around the page.

I half forgot that Professor X is actually a professor and that he didn't just make that title up to sound cool. Hell, since he has a PhD it should actually be Dr X but that sounds a little too much like a porn knockoff of Dr Strange for my and Marvel's liking. Jesus Christ I bet he's the sort of proff who never ever grades essays in time because he's too busy fucking off fighting Godlike entities in space. I'd give him a 2 on Rate My Professor so fast.

Several students in this packed classroom are smoking. Oh 1985, how the times have changed!

As his students leave, Professor X laments that he cannot simply read their minds and figure out who's thought this was. Not because this would be highly unethical, but because his mind and body has been weakened ever since he got the shit kicked out of him by anti-mutant muggers a few issues back.

Meanwhile, Storm is home in Africa on her self discovery tour, where she is- shot in the head and left for dead by the racist poachers she'd fought before?!

I know logically this is just a fakeout but I'll be damned if it isn't some good tension! Also; the racist poachers are a brother-sister pair named Andreas and Andrea. Their parents must have hated them even more than I do.

We immediately cut to Kitty talking about Ororo's letters at a team meeting just to hammer the stake further into my goddamn heart. The Gang has gathered in a deli to discuss Professor X's mystery, including Magneto (whose presence goes undiscussed, probably because it was explained in Secret Wars 2) and some blonde lady named Aleytys who I have no idea who she is. (Edit: I know who she is- Lee Forrester, Scott Summers ex-girlfriend who apparently hooked up with Magneto in New Mutants. What an absolute power move.) Something I haven't mentioned yet because it hasn't come up is that Chuck has been hiding his growing frailty and power loss from his friends and teammates for some reason I've forgotten but which is probably stupid. Also he can walk at this point in continuity but that's not important.

Rachel sees the Beyonder shows up for his editor mandated plot interruption for a few pages and I'm not going to discuss it because I Don't Care.

My thoughts exactly Kitty.

Speaking of the best boy, he is off at his parish, talking to the priest about his crisis of faith.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to go into confessional with a superhero he has heard some shit someone redraw this man in that one stock photo of the priest.

The monster Kurt is talking about his the Beyonder because goddamnit I guess I can't just ignore that motherfucker. TLDR, he was the ultra-powerful being who started the excuse plot for the original Secret Wars. In Secret Wars 2 he comes to Earth to learn the meaning of life or some bullshit and wanders around causing problems before turning himself into a baby (probably, idk I never finished it, Jim Shooter did that before so he'd probably do it again.) Kurt's faith has been completely destroyed by the Beyonder's sheer power which is like no being he's ever seen before- oh please.

This whole scene sort of pisses me off. First off, its more wanking off about the Beyonder and I really don't want to hear about this guy. Second, its another reason to leave Kurt out of this weeks plot and that pisses me off, give my boy more screentime! Third, this really doesn't feel justified by the Beyonder. Nightcrawler saw Dr Doom hand him his ass in Secret Wars, he knows he's not omnipotent. Nightcrawler having a breakdown is fine but there's way more interesting stuff for him to break down over.

Back on the main plot, a group of shadowy figures sneak into Professor X's office and plant a bomb under his desk! I see someone has been reading Hitchcock's quotes on suspense.

Rogue and Rachel are flying over Columbia U having a dramatic irony-laden conversation about how much less nasty this current timeline is than Rachel's home time whilst she mind-scans for the culprits. They don't find them, but they do find a mugging in progress and stop it.

I'll tell you what else is a crime, that hairdo! Yeesh.

It turns out the civilian they saved is a anti-mutant jackass who was grafitti-ing the words "Muties die!" when he got jumped, because Marvel civilians are assholes. Kitty and Wolvie take a quick break from crimefighting and have an conversation that's too cute for me not to share.

Kitty phases into a building because she sees a light on in a lab after hours. She finds some of her student acquaintances skulking about and, despite having doubts that any of them could be murderers, is immediately suspicious. I personally think the fact they ordered pizza with anchovies on it would be enough to peg them as supervillains on the spot, but Kitty is more of an optimist than me. The terrorists realize Kitty is a mutant and confront her about it.

Kitty Pryde just said the N-word. This isn't ok. I don't know how the editors at Marvel ever thought it was ok, and it speaks volumes that they did. "Mutie" isn't a real swear. "N-----" is. That word is hateful and terrible and affects real people and it is not ok at all to equate it to a made-up slur. The X-men are supposed to be an allegory for suffering that empowers minority groups. This just hurts them more. Hell no to all of this.

I took a hot minute to absorb what I just fucking read and then moved on with the issue. The terrorist kids get the jump on Kitty and chloroform her before she can phase out, with intent to kill her. Meanwhile, Magneto, Professor X and Rachel Summers are in the Prof's office, discussing the case and the Beyonder's continued presence because he's been stalking them like a weirdo. Rachel tries to psychically link the three so they can sense the Beyonder like she can, but using her psi-powers sets off the bomb, which is actually not a bomb but a "psi-scream," a device that amplifies and reflects psychic energy back to its source. This is a massive plot-hole; how did they know Xavier was psychic?! As far as I'm aware its not common knowledge Professor X is a mutant at all, let alone what his powers are! And these are just normal Columbia U college students with no connection to any supervillains or secret organizations whatsoever, there's no way they'd have access to this info!

The bomb overloads Rachel and she accidentally destroys the office, sending out a shockwave of energy that sends Professor X and Maggie flying. Rogue has to catch them both which I find sort of curious because its always so inconsistent whether Magneto can fly or not (my personal headcanon is that his costume has metal soles and he levitates them). Rachel senses Kitty's distress through their psychic link and freaks out so bad she manifests her BDSM Mutant Hunter costume. She flies over to the lab, explodes the anti-mutant students and rescues Kitty in a very hetero way.

Cannot imagine what goes on in Kitty Pryde's head. Must a beautiful and terrifying place to visit.

The guy in the pink jacket from before regains consciousness and tries to shoot Rachel, but its a bit like trying to stab a rhinoceros with a butter knife. She's about to kill him, when Magneto shows up to stop her from making the same mistakes he has.

I don't know bout you but if Magneto in a suit told me to do anything I'd drop whatever I was doing immediately. I love reformed Magneto, such a richer and more interesting character than racist whiny asshole villain Magneto. I sure hope Marvel lets him continue to grow as a person and don't constantly regress his character for the stake of a stupid status quo! Haha. I hate the Endless Wheel of Comic Book Samsara.

The conversation between Magneto and Rachel is honestly really beautiful. Two people who've never interacted before, but understand each other's pain better than anyone else can. Its a fantastic scene only slightly marred by the final panels being of the Beyonder observing the scene and giving some pointless, longwinded commentary. Its too long for me to screenshot and post here so I super recommend you check this out for yourself!

On the plus side, next issue is Dr Doom!

Final Thoughts: This issue had some really high highs and some really low lows. I'm honestly super shocked the panel of Kitty Pryde saying the N-word isn't more infamous than it is, because holy fuck that was awful.

[tiltingheartand]

virgin mary you fucking alien pls :D (this is lexie)

also:

tagging @wakeupnew and @chobani-flip both in this one!

so, okay, first, the title comes from voltaire's song "the man upstairs" (... side note: i remember telling @chobani-flip how horrified i was at discovering the devil's bris came out in nineteen-ninety-fucking-eight; i am still appalled, for the record). absolutely not the title i'll be using, but as working-titles-in-gdocs go it serves its purpose (i.e., telling me which file it is without me having to think too hard).

but. anyway. this is the "tommy lived in buck's building already when he moved into the loft" fic that i posted snippets of here and here. i don't actually even remember what made the things connect in my brain that i got the initial idea for this fic anymore, although it's possible if i dug around in my chatlog with christine on discord i could find it.

but i think part of it is, you know. if buck and tommy did know each other before the helicopter rescue in s7, but neither of them were necessarily in a place where their relationship would be anything but friendship, what would that change? would that change anything? (this is also related to my deeply-held belief -- reflected in at least one other WIP of mine -- that buck just. desperately. needs more goddamn friends. people in his life that actually mean something to him that aren't in the "colleagues who've been promoted" category. that's one of the things that pissed me off the most about his relationship with taylor turning into a Relationship actually.)

and, hey. some things change. some things stay the same. buck's gonna buck, after all. i haven't 100% decided at what point they're going to get together yet -- i think i need a full-series rewatch before i can work on this much more, honestly -- but the one place i keep coming back to in my brain is in s5b, after the speed rescue with lucy. is this in large part because i fucking hate that arc? maybe. i love lucy but jesus fucking christ i hate that shit. >_> and here, another snippet, double-sized because there's two of you!

to: Tommy no it’s fine don’t worry it’s the middle of the day anyway i shouldn't be drinking

from: Tommy Lunch wouldn’t be the worst idea in the world, but if you want to drink, just drink. Leaving yourself beholden to an artificial standard of when it’s okay to indulge is less healthy than day drinking. Also shift work means that you can drink whenever you want to, in my opinion. I’ll be worried about you either way. You might as well have a bad day with somebody else’s beer.

to: Tommy i promise that wasn't what i was trying to do i worry enough people as it is we don’t even work together

from: Tommy This is a free service from me to you. I get it if you don’t want to, but don’t feel like you have to say no to be polite. If I didn’t mean the offer I wouldn’t have made it.

(ask me about any of my WIPs, if you'd like!)