#Sky Force Trailer

[theomenmedia]

The Internet Reacts To The Trailer Of Akshay Kumar's Sky Force!

The Sky Force Trailer has taken flight! Check out the explosive reactions from critics, fans, and media on Akshay Kumar's latest aerial adventure. Will it be a blockbuster?

Read the full article right here: https://www.theomenmedia.com/post/sky-force-trailer-reactions-critics-fans-and-publications-weigh-in-on-akshay-kumar-s-patriotic-bl

[pahalikhabar]

Janhvi Kapoor, Salman Khan, Karan Johar pens 'best wishes' to Akshay Kumar and Veer Pahariya's 'Sky Force' trailer. Hindi Movie News

Akshay Kumar and Veer Pahariya have left fans impressed with the trailer of their upcoming film, Sky Force. The action-packed trailer has been receiving a positive response from audiences.Adding to the excitement, Salman Khan gave the team a special shoutout and sent his best wishes for the film. ‘Sky Force’ is all set to release in theaters on January 24, 2025. Poll How Do You Think ‘Sky Force’…

[nemesyaaa]

buffalo 66' au ! old!serial killer!rafe x young!sugardoll!reader (how they met, and their first night together.)

you were red and you liked me 'cause i was blue. but you touched me and suddenly i was a lilac sky.

warnings : lmfaooo this part always killing me but here it is....rafe being 90% of the warning part and the menace he already is, kidnapping, daddy issues, urge of sexualing your own self, slight of stockholm syndrome, dubcon, smut, dark!rafe, violence, mentions of threats, r being a missing girl, age gap, size difference, choking. rafe being mean to the reader. slight of daddy kink. sick attitude. dirty talk. attention whore. just minors DNI. (why it's bigger than my grocery list actually...). please carefully pay attention to the tags !!?

author's note : it's my first time writing a dark fic so don't expect too much 🙏🏿 you can read this without watching buffalo 66.

some girls were the trailer park princess, and others the queen of the gas station.

as the girl of the gas station, you were there all day on the road of these men much older than you, who had and drove pretty vintage cars who were literally bigger than you. those rich daddies surely had more money than your poor father who was always sitting behind the desk of his shop waiting for the night.

your father never gave you any attention, not even a look, he didn't care about what you did on your summer days as long as he never saw you. so you stayed all day at your playground queendom across from the pitiful, filthy motel where you lived. because here at least the men were looking at you.

of course they were looking at you, you always gave them something to look at with your tiny dresses that showed your naked thighs, your tits pressed together in that backless top. you always dressed in that soft and milky blue shades. as the sea and the sky, you were blue.

while their wives found you sick, you could feel their stares every time you leaned down to grab the keys that they forgot to give you each time. you could feel their eyes completely charmed by the way your summer dress rode up above your ass, and your panties stuck out.

fully bent over, you could hear the groans of these old men, the way they forced their hands themselves to not touch you when you wanted nothing more than to see them give in to the young temptation that you were.

you had a power in them and you loved to see them completely crazy.

you worked as a gas pump attendant. in reality, you did it behind your father's back because it allowed you to stay in the company of these men who only had eyes for you.

you always put on a show for them, and it always worked because you were irresistible.

but there was this guy every time, a regular customer, cold and short-spoken who never spoke to you.

he had a beautiful and luxurious car and you always wondered what job he did to drive such an incredible vehicle, and to spoil you so much with all this money.

he never said thank you for your service. after all, you were paid for it. his eyes were blue as you. he could park and glare at you for hours, sitting deep in his seat, a cigarette stuck between his opened lips.

he was so much older than you, so much to the point it was indecent. when you had first seen him, you had melted like sugar.

as you were coming back from the ice cream parlor, your lips sucking that delicious vanilla ice cream, you sat on the edge of the gas station, right in front of his car, your legs completely spread, white cream melting and dripping between your thighs. he rubbed his painful boner through his boxer.

you were sick, you let him look at you with this completely perverted stare while you let chunks of ice fall into your cleavage.

his eyes were all over you, but this time it was different, because this time it was him who was thinking about you while touching himself. this time it was him who was sick about you , him who had all these furious ideas about you. he pumped himself so hard, biting his lips harshly. and you continued your depraved show, while he jerked off, his big cock shaked and leaked in his own hand, his thick and already experimented fingers moved around his length faster and faster, the sweaty and dirty sound of his balls slapping, the squeaking noises of his chair, his arched back making the chair shaking. you thought of the veins of his dick engorged of blood pulsated against his hefty strength. that was enough to make you fully wet.

you wanted nothing more than to make this old man reach for you. but the problem was, you were too young and naive to know how mad he was, and what he really wanted to do with a pretty doll like you.

you stood up when you finished your ice cream, putting your dress back on neatly, and leaned down, leaning your porcelain princess arms over his car window.

you shuddered when he spread his cum on your face without any warning, smeared the remains of vanilla ice cream over your sloppy lips gloss with lick of drool.

he pushed his big thumb against your little mouth, pushed it into an o shape, and you closed her to start licking up the drops of his cum.

but like every time he came here, he never spoke to you. you had just seen the car leave, while you still had the taste of him on your lips. it was rude.

the next day, your father sent you out to do some groceries on a sweltering hot summer day, tired of seeing you around doing nothing. what he didn’t know was that this was probably the last time he saw you. and even shoupe that you had seen earlier in the morning, and who had told you to be careful, something with a killer around.

when you were done with the grocery, you started walking through the empty parking lot.

you thought you were alone, even though there were a few empty cars.

but it was a mistake, a terrible mistake that you were going to regret.

“didn't shoupe tell you to be careful this morning, sweetheart ? because i'm pretty sure, he did. ”

you screamed when the man grabbed you by the waist, pressing your little ragdoll body against his chest much stronger. the stranger quickly covered your mouth, and bruised your pretty lips with violence without any caring, shoved down his fingers between them to the point that you almost choked with your own breath and saliva.

“ you hurt..me…! ” you tried to say with a lot of difficulty, as his firm grip crushed against your breasts.

“ not yet actually, doll. but i promise, i will if you continue to fight. so beware, or i will fucking kill you. not a threat, sweetheart. it's a promise. “ and you knew that even god couldn't save you at this time.

you tried to bite him, but your teeth barely touched his skin. his lips hovered above your ear, you could hear his deep older voice warned you.

" bite me one more time, and i will break you. i love wrestle with you little girl, but i think you will really hate the way i fight. because when daddy fight sugardoll, he kills. and tiny things like you are so easy to wreck. and you dont want to die today, right ? you're too young for that. do you got it ? nod if you got it, yes. smart baby, understand easily that she needs to listen and not fucking run away. ”

his strength was heavy. you had stopped resisting a few minutes ago, even when he put you in his car.

he started driving, with a smirk, he looked in the rearview mirror before telling you.

“ what's the matter, sugardoll ? don't want to put a show for me, anymore ? ”

he had taken you to a shitty old motel down the road, where no one would be able to pick you up here. you knew he was intelligent, you knew it because you understood that every time he came to see you, he tried to learn more about you, but not to know you no, but to know when would be the right time to kidnap you. you knew it because he had stalked you carefully.

he had tried to tie you up while you tried to struggle one last time. but he had grabbed your jaw so violently that you felt your face shiver in his hands. “one more move, and i’ll show you how dolls are really treated, how i have no fucking bother to kill a tiny thing like you. ”

“i’m not going to run away.”

"i know.” he shushed you with a sick evil smirk. “ but it's not because you don't want to, sugardoll .but more because you can't.” he said, while releasing your jaw.

“ that's the small but important difference. i kidnapped you. do you even know what it means ? "

you started to cry, tears running down your cheeks.

“ you want a real reason to cry? fine. i can do that for you. i kidnapped you but you want to know the big part of all this? is that no one will come for you. your father doesn't love you , and that's why you work in this stupid gas station. you love the attention of these men so bad that you feel obliged to sexualize yourself to feel desired but me, i wanted you the first time i saw you. i let you do it, i let you play with them, but now it's all over. since i own you, this game is fucking over. ”

“shoupe will come after me ! ”

“but maybe you won’t be around to see it anymore.” he looked at you, and shushed your tears, while staring in your wet eyes. “ yes, i really like when you give me those tears, cry to me, little girl i'm the only men that really got you. ”

you glared at him as if he had fallen from the sky.

“ but now you have to be careful, don’t get on my nerves. i know it's hard for you, but don't do stupid things. ”

he placed your hand on his lower back, where you had felt the metallic coldness of the gun. and you shivered.

"yes, you got it. don't ever get on my nerves.”

“ how can i get on your nerves ? you don't really seems like a bad guy. more like a sweet guy ? ”

“ i'm not. and i'm not trying to be so watch your mouth. “

“ but i really think you are. can i hug you ? ”

“ try it, doll, literally try it. just try to touch me, i dare you. and i bet you will never tell me i'm the sweetest guy again. ”

“ can you at least bathe me ? ” you asked seriously.

“ jesus, do you think i'm your slave or whatever ? do you forget which position you are in ? in the captive one. so do not ask me those stupid things again. and don't try, no, never try to run away because, i can promise you that when i will find you, it will not be a pleasant time for you. and not even a little, but to the point, you will ask me to kill you. and i will be in a mood to accept your request ? yes, me. ”

you nodded as the kind and little girl you are who cannot argue against this tall man. he released your small face, and you were bathing alone. while you were taking your bath, alone in the tub, you heard rafe on the phone without being able to understand what he was saying but after that call, he left the room.

you had decided to buy some food with the little money you had at the food and drink vending machine.

with a happy smile, you went back up, hoping to please him. but you had found him on the chair in front of the TV.

“look, what…”

“i think you’re really nice. but not at your own good, sugar. ”

“ i just wan…”

“ get on the bed, now. ”

he couldn't help but relaxing when he saw how your blue dress was so tiny, already showing your soaked underwear.

" no whining. " he said as he shoved himself deeply in your tight abused cunt, your ragdoll body pressed down in the mattress, his thick stronger arms hugged your small waist, while thrusting harder and harder, your walls clenched around his fat cock. you can felt the size growing bigger in your wettering pussy, as he turned you into a real crybaby, tears flowing down your cheeks. you were caged by his beefy and muscular body on the bed, gasped on the edge. “ you wanted to act like a big girl ? then take it like a big girl. no fucking whining, i'm just giving you what you want. ”

he was literally buried inside you, snapping your hips, moving in and out. the atmosphere was hot, you felt the heat, there were trails of saliva around your mouth. “stop whining babydoll, daddy is not at his worse actually. and you don't want to see this happen.” you wanted to hate him but it was like you appreciated him being so mean to you, your pussy was dripping, your fluids drenching him, your sticky walls surrounded his girth. " yes, that's it. pull up some juices for daddy, make it easier for him to destroy you. "

everytime you runned away from him, he lifted your head with a grunt, and with a wild thrust inside of you, making you drip even more as his glistening tip reached your spot, the dirty and wetness sound of his moves echoed in the room, your body trapped against his taller one.

with a hand on your throat, you were arched to the point where he could see your wetted eyes rolled up. "try to run away again, and you will have the fucking pleasure to be a momma, as well as a missing girl. i'm not asking you to take my cock better.” he said with a threat. “ no, i'm telling you to do it as your fucking job. ”

all teary, you could bet that rafe didn't know how big he was for telling you this. you were trying your best actually. he was rutting in you, holding your tiny size with one big hand, getting so feral everytime he saw your small body twitching when he pushed himself further. your moans were loud, as your squirted more than one time on him, your dripping walls clamped his hard cock. even when your third orgasm flowed against your bulging pussy, creating a mess at the surface, he continued.

" you know sugardoll, you better work faster for my cum, because i will only stop when i will see how creampie your pussy is for my dick.”

he stuffed your puffy messy cunt, while your pumped his fingers who slidded deep down in your throat, your warm and bullied tongue fighting to not dropped them.

you slobbed more with the overstimulation. you felt like this man was insatiable. rafe loved to see you, his sugardoll in pain, taking so much for him.

when he finally stopped teasing you, and fighting himself to not cum, and clearly toying you, he exploded, making you cried out. all your body was filled with spasms.

you expected something from rafe when he pulled out, a little soft spot, or at least, just one look but he just went to the bathroom. alone.

you expected him to be sweet for you, like the sugar you were for him. and you knew, that you will work for this later.

when he came back, you looked at him, always attracted by his charisma, the way he made you felt so tiny by his big size, the way he was old enough to make you feel like a little girl, just the way his raised voice made you feel so small.

“ can i sleep with you ? ”

“ whatever. just don't touch me. ”

“ you're not gonna be my big spoon ? “

“ what the fuck is this ? i'm not gonna be your spoon. jesus, can you just sleep and not ask for any stupid things that you think i will do because you're already so obsessed with me ? and give me your hands. ”

he tied them up on the bed with your little blue ribbon.

“ just in case you think you can escape me. ”

“ i can't sleep like that ! ”

“ i fear it's not my fucking problem, sugardoll.”

“ fine. i will talk and talk all night. ”

“ i can fuck you all the night too. but one of us will not survive this. so stop being so damn annoying. ”

“ what if i want to pee in the middle of the night ? ”

“ you're strong enough to hold it. and you fucking better be strong enough to hold it. ”

“ why are you so mean to me ? why you kidnapped me ? ”

“ sugardoll, listen to me. look at me, yes. eyes on daddy right now. i swear, and you need to listen carefully because i will tell you once, just once, so your dumby brain need to pay attention, if you're talking another time, even if i see your lips moving, just a twitch, i will put my dick right in your mouth, making you suck it for without a break until the sun rises again. and i can promise you that after, you will never talk to me because you will never be able to open that mouth again. do you got it ? nod your head if you got it, doll.”

and you nodded.

as a doll, you were conditionned to listen to your owner, even if he was so mean to you. but you were as soft as sugar, always melted around, already thinking he was the best guy around.

“ sweet dreams, sugardoll. ”

i promise one day i will write something very good, just give me a chance. i think the only sweet thing in this work, it's rafe calling r " sugardoll ", he's so mean please 😭😭 i think i make him a little too dark to the point, i'm questionning about how he can be sweet to the reader now ????? but i guess, it's part of the game. tysm @bunnyrafe and @fae-of-prey me a lot !

[hairmetal666]

"I'm going to marry you one day, Steve Harrington," he declares to all and sundry (Steve and Robin) in Family Video.

Steve laughs, ducks his head, hair a bountiful cascade that doesn't move an inch. He's blushing but it's not, like, a reaction to the sentiment of marriage. Steve knows Eddie is just like that, flirtatious and over-the-top and incapable of not speaking his thoughts as soon as they enter his head.

Robin roles her eyes, goes back to flipping through her magazine, something about cinema, and Eddie swipes his just rented movies off the counter.

"You think I'm joking," he twists so he's facing them, walking backwards to the door. "But I swear it, oh, beloved purveyor of movies and deleter of late fees."

"Yeah, yeah." Steve's face is pinker than before and Eddie recognizes and immediately forces himself to forget how cute it is. "But get out of here before I change my mind."

And Eddie, he loves to push his luck and also has very little filter between his brain and his mouth, so he says, "aw, don't be that way, Stevie, you love me."

Robin looks up, then, mouth a pursed twist as she tries not to laugh. "Gross, Eddie." She throws a Sour Patch at him. "Keep all that mushy stuff to when you two are alone."

It's his turn to blush, fierce and raging, and Steve whirls, squeaking, to whack Robin with a Twizzler.

Eddie points at her. "Rude, Buckley. You know I love you too."

"Again, gross." She sticks out her tongue, tinged blue from the Sour Patch.

"We really need to work on your ability to accept affection," Steve tells her.

She scowls, kicks him, makes Eddie laugh.

"I think that's my cue to leave, children." He says. He, quite literally, bows out of the store, just missing the barrage of candy thrown his way.

---

Three Months Later

Eddie stumbles into the Harrington house, kicking his boots off by the door. Steve's in the kitchen, fussing around the stove. His hair's askew and he's--

"Harrington, are you wearing an apron?" He ignores the kick in his chest at the sight. "You'll make a sweet little housewife one day."

"Shut-up," Steve says without any heat. "Try this."

He brandishes a spoon filled with red sauce in Eddie's direction, and Eddie--heart always on his sleeve--eagerly leans in to taste. He closes his eyes, savors, and it's good, truly. Perfect fresh acidity with just a burst of sweetness.

"It's amazing, baby," he says without thinking. He opens his eyes right in time to see Steve turning back to the sauce, blush high on his cheekbones.

"Thanks. You're making me nervous though, hovering." Steve hip checks him. "Go sit somewhere."

And Eddie does, jumps onto the island--the Harrington's are the kind of people who have an island--and chatters to Steve about his day, about his new campaign, about the new song he's trying to learn.

All the while, he's watching Steve cook, in his apron, with such care and thoughtfulness, with true command. Maybe it's the domesticity of the scene, maybe his raging crush, but he has this flash of the two of them in the future. In their kitchen, Steve cooking dinner, and Eddie's arms are wrapped around his waist, he's pressing kisses to his temple, complimenting all his hard work and--

Steve feeds him a bite of the finished pasta, and it's so good that he groans, full-throated, unembarrassed, and says--he says, "I'm going to marry you one day, Steve Harrington."

He laughs, face pink, batting Eddie's shoulder. "Go sit down, man. It's time to eat."

---

Two Months After That

Eddie's working on a new campaign when the storm rolls in, wind rocking the trailer, thunder and lightning crackling in the sky. The power doesn't go out, but only just barely, the flickers making his heart pound for reasons that have nothing to do with weather.

There's a knock on the trailer door, and he opens it to find Steve Harrington standing on the porch, hair plastered to his head, clothes soaked. Robin's bike is propped against one of the awning supports. Familiar panic snaps to life in his gut.

"God, Steve, are you okay? Did something happen? That's Robin's bike, where's the Beamer? Is it--is it Vecna? Is--" He's blabbering can't stop, so he shoves his palm against his lips.

"It's not--not Upside Down stuff." He runs a hand through his soggy hair. "Can I come in, man? I--I want to tell you something."

This snaps Eddie out of his panic, and he's moving aside, saying, "Oh my god, get in here, you're soaked. Let me get towels. Do you want a change of clothes, I can--"

Steve catches him by the elbow and he full stops at the look in those big hazel eyes, fearful and sad and he doesn't know what, but his anxiety amps back up.

"I was with Robin and we were--we were talking, you know? And I told her that I like somebody, like really like them, but it was unexpected and--and--it's a guy. He's a guy but I still like girls? Robin said--she said that I'm probably bisexual. That I like guys and girls and--and everyone, I think."

It sends shockwaves through him, and he hopes it doesn't show, doesn't think it shows, but he's having trouble processing. Steve is bi and he likes someone and--Eddie stuffs down the jealousy that claws at him, knows it's more important that he's here for his friend.

"Thank you for telling me, sweetheart." He reaches out, slow in case Steve doesn't want to be hugged, but he launches himself into Eddie's arms.

Eddie holds him tight, heedless of his wet clothes, can feel his shoulders shake, and it tears Eddie's heart in two. All he can do is hold Steve and offer comfort, jealousy be damned.

"You're so brave, honey," he says once the tears taper off.

Steve gives a wet chuckle, face still buried against Eddie's neck. "I don't know about that. I think I got snot in your hair."

"It'll wash out." He laughs. "Is now the time to welcome you to the family? Apparently, we're growing exponentially."

"Does the welcome include a cake or something? I could really use cake."

And God, Steve, is so fucking cute, so sweet, so--everything Eddie has always wanted, and he--it's an accident, or at least, thoughtless--he presses a kiss to Steve's temple. More than one.

Steve pulls back fast, and Eddie lets go immediately. "Sorry, sorry. I--that was stupid. You like someone already, and I--"

His words are cut off as Steve kisses him. Steve kisses him? His brain can't process, but he kisses back. Can't not, not with Steve. Like, he doesn't know anything, head empty, but his body is with the program.

They break apart, he's breathing hard. Steve is beautifully flushed, mouth red and swollen. "You like someone," is what Eddie says.

Steve laughs. "I like you, Munson. Fucking crazy about you."

He smiles, so big it hurts, so big it grows into a delight laugh. "I'm going to marry you one day, Steve Harrington," he says.

---

Six Years Later

They're in bed, Saturday morning, rain pattering softly on the window.

Steve places slow kisses against his naked tummy, makes him tremble, shiver with overstimulation.

"Baby," he whines. "Sweetheart."

Steve smiles up at him, something cold pressing against his ribs, then into his hand.

It's a ring, black metal, shiny and iridescent as he turns it in the light. "What--Steve?"

With one last kiss to his hip bone, Steve sits up, slips the ring onto Eddie's finger. "I'm going to marry you one day, Eddie Munson."

[loveinhawkins]

picturing Dustin watching at the trailer park, right after Eddie says, “Hey, Steve? Make him pay.”

And for some reason Dustin’s reminded of ‘84, of his conversation with Steve on the railroad tracks, it’s like before it’s gonna storm, you know? You can’t see it, but you can feel it, like this, uh... electricity, you know?—although he’s grown enough to suspect that Steve might not know everything in that regard.

And it’s not electricity he senses, not exactly, but it’s definitely a storm of some kind: something fragile. Something—someone—that’s very scared.

Dustin’s running before he’s even registered his decision. “Steve!”

Steve turns around, and he already looks like he’s about to ask a question—something practical, like whether Dustin’s forgotten something—and Dustin feels a twist of regret, that that’s where Steve’s mind goes; yeah, they’re all ready for battle, so it makes sense, but…

Feeling suddenly very young, Dustin barrels into Steve and hugs him.

He hears Steve’s surprised inhale, his hesitancy, before he returns the hug in full force.

For a little while, it’s like the world narrows down to only this. No ash in the air, no nightmarish red in the sky. Just the two of them.

Dustin’s about to pull away when he feels Steve’s chin dig into the top of his head. Hears him sniff, very quietly, like he’s trying to hide it; and that makes Dustin think of the tunnels, or afterwards, really, when Steve held onto him with shaking hands, kept saying, “We’re okay, we’re okay.”

So he just keeps hugging back.

Steve’s the one to let go; he’s smiling, but he looks a little sad too, forehead creased with worry.

“I need a ride tomorrow,” Dustin says.

Steve huffs. “Oh, yeah? Where to?”

Dustin taps his nose obnoxiously. “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

It’s bullshit, of course; Dustin doesn’t need a ride anywhere.

Steve rolls his eyes, but some tightness in his jaw finally eases. “God, you’re such a dick.”

“Bright and early, Steve!” Dustin adds smugly. “Five am!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve says, waving him off, and for a moment it’s like they’re just in the school parking lot. He looks as if he’s about to say something else, then thinks better of it—glances back to where Robin and Nancy are waiting. He pulls Dustin in with one arm, a brief but tight hold. Nods, as if to himself. “Go on, scram.”

Dustin runs back to the trailer with a stitch in his side but a smile on his face. He knows it’s naive to think he can fix everything, but in this moment at least some part of the universe has been righted, even while in The Upside Down.

Eddie’s standing right where he left him, like he’s been frozen the whole time.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “is he, uh… is he okay?”

Dustin’s reminded that of course, Steve isn’t the only one who’s scared.

“Yeah, he will be,” he says, which he thinks is a more accurate answer than a simple yes or no.

It’s funny how life works, he muses while gathering supplies for the trailer defences. There’s no way he’d have thought even a week ago that Eddie would be sincerely asking him about Steve’s well-being. Whenever he happened to bring Steve up at Hellfire, Eddie would imitate him in a comedic falsetto, “Oh, Steve this, Steve that.”

For a minute, Eddie remains rooted to the spot, still staring in the direction of where Steve went—like he’d watched helplessly as Steve walked into the eye of a storm or something.

“You just gonna stand there and gawk?” Dustin says.

Eddie snorts. “So rude, Henderson.”

And it’s not like Dustin really knows, not when Steve and Eddie are still barely dancing around it themselves. Still, he can pick up on some things.

Like when they’ve finished setting up everything, waiting for the go-ahead for Eddie to start playing his guitar—to pass the time, they recount the high points of the day, keep it light. It’s a practice Eddie used to implement after campaigns.

And look, Dustin’s damn good at picking up on patterns. Like, he loves Steve, but he’s pretty sure the reality of him driving the hotwired RV doesn’t quite match up to how Eddie’s currently waxing lyrical about it.

He’s making it sound like it was something outta James Bond, Dustin thinks, when he’s sure Steve drove right into several trash cans.

Suddenly he knows exactly what he should do.

“Steve this, Steve that,” he sing-songs.

Eddie flushes; Dustin cackles.

“Fuck off,” Eddie says, but he’s smiling as Dustin keeps laughing, like he knows there’s nothing mean-spirited in it. He keeps going, Steve this, Steve that, talking right over Dustin’s teasing—somehow finding even more moments where Steve truly shines.

And Dustin doesn’t know everything, not even close, but at the very least, he knows that this feels right.

[vinylmango]

Flower Delivery (pt.2)

crazy ex!Nicholas Alexander Chavez x black!reader

Warnings: obsessive behaviors, breaking and entering, gaslighting,

Word count: 1.3k

Note: Sorry about the delay, work has been kinda crazy recently. Anyways, some people were asking for a part two so here it is! Hope you like it!

part one

part three

masterlist

“Alright, that’s a wrap for today everyone!” The director shouted as you and your co-stars left the sound stage and headed for your respective trailers. You shut the trailer door behind you, exhaling when you heard the click of the lock. 

Spinning around, a smile grew on your face when there wasn’t anyone or anything waiting for you this time. No more flowers, just the vaseful that remained on the side table, the tiny folded envelope left next to it, your name scrawled in Nicholas’ messy handwriting. 

Huffing you grabbed the vase and card, throwing the card in the trash and walking over to the small stainless steel sink to dump the water from the vase. You hesitated, they were such pretty flowers, your favorite in fact. You shook the thoughts from your head as you dumped the water, watching it disappear down the tiny drain. You threw the flowers in the trash, pushing down on the trash can lid as it didn’t fully close due to the length of the flower stems. The lid finally shut with a little extra force as you set the now empty vase on the table. 

A content sigh left your lips as you relaxed into the plush of the sofa, taking a moment before you decided to return to your apartment. Your phone ringing disrupted the quiet you had been reveling in, a stark contrast from the loud and active set that you had been on today. “Hello?”

“Hi Honey! How was filming today?” It was your mother, checking in on you for the day. Since you had moved away to Los Angeles from your hometown, hundreds of miles away, your mom or dad had called you every day, missing having you close.

“It was good. We wrapped for the day about 20 minutes ago. I’m about to head back to my place in a few minutes.” You explained, glancing at the time for a moment. 

“How’s Nick? He’s a good guy for you, (Y/n/n).” Your mom asked, catching you off guard. You blinked a couple of times, making sure you had heard her correctly.

“Nick? When did Nick call you?” You asked, grabbing your bag and stepping out of the trailer as your eyebrows furrowed. 

“Oh I just spoke to him earlier today. He called to wish your father a happy birthday.” She explained. “Speaking of, did you call your father yet?”

“Uh, no. Not yet. It’s been a hectic day.” Your brain was still stuck on him calling your family. “Uh, Mom, I’ve gotta go. Something just came up. I’ll call you tomorrow.” You said quickly, not waiting for her to respond before you hung up. You got out of your parked car, locking it before you walked up the driveway, going through your settings at the same time, trying to find the blocked contacts list to make sure he was still on it. Sliding your phone back into your pocket as you went up the front stairs and stood at your door. You placed the key in the lock, opening the door and looking around outside before closing it and locking it behind you, placing the latch lock on as well. “What the hell is wrong with him?” You mumbled under your breath thinking about how Nicholas called your parents again. 

Turning the lights on as the sun now hung low in the sky, your cozy living room was bathed in a soft yellow glow. You hummed to yourself as you placed your bag on one of the chairs at the kitchen table, grabbing the watering can and walking over to the kitchen sink to fill it so you could water all the plants that were scattered around the living room and perched on the windowsills. “How’d filming go?” You dropped the watering can onto the large area rug, your eyes wide and mouth agape. 

“What the hell!” You screamed, your vision blurry with unshed tears. You weren’t even sure why you felt the urge to cry, chalking it up to a fear response as you blinked the tears away and picked up the watering can that was now empty since its contents were soaking into the rug as you stood there. You threw the watering can at your ex boyfriend, rolling your eyes when he caught it, though the most that it would’ve done was bounce off of him. 

“A bit dramatic, huh?” Nicholas chuckled as he set the empty watering can on your coffee table. “I like what you’ve done with the place.” He gestures around to the plants and slightly different layout from when he had last been there over a year before. 

“Dramatic?” You questioned. “Dramatic.” A humorless laugh escaped you as you narrowed your eyes at him. “How did you get in here? This is breaking and entering.” 

He dangled the key off of his finger. “Oh I just told Mr. Daniels that I lost my key at the airport and he gave me a spare.”

You gritted your teeth. This was the second time you had talked to your landlord, Mr. Daniels, about either changing the locks or something related to keys. “Get out.” You told him, pointing towards the door.

“Come on (Y/n/n), just hear me out.” His dark brown eyes bored into yours, and you weren’t sure why they were so disarming, why you were even considering listening to him right now. 

“I’m calling the cops, Nick.” You told him as you shook your head. “You can’t keep doing stuff like this. Just leave me alone! We’re done! We’ve been done for a year! Let me be.” 

“It was a mistake to let you go, (Y/n).” He shook his head this time, the cocky look on his face replaced by something genuine and sad. 

“You made your choice. We both did.” You interjected. “We aren’t little kids anymore, we’re adults. Start acting like one and accept that.”

“You know the cops won’t do anything.”

“Maybe, but I’m going to get a restraining order if you don’t stop. You need to stop and...and don’t call my parents! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You never told them that we broke up, did you?” You watched as a smirk began to pull at his lips.

“What?" Your voice faltered. "Don’t flatter yourself.” You scoffed at the tone of his voice. “I have told them…and if you don’t leave now, I’ll tell them everything else and we’ll see what they do.”

Nicholas rolled his eyes. “Well, I wouldn’t be here if you hadn't blocked me.” 

“Ok, well...Goodbye.” You said, pushing him towards the door. You gave him one final push, though you were pretty sure he definitely could’ve put up more of a fight if he had wanted to. 

“I’m sure I’ll see you around, huh?”

“Goodbye Nicholas.” You repeated, not answering his question as you closed the door in his face, locking the latch back once more. Sure, you hadn’t answered his question, but you both knew the answer anyway. 

It was unavoidable, Hollywood was way too small to avoid him forever whether that meant seeing him at awards shows, working together on the same project, or just seeing him around, you knew he would never actually leave, and for now he seemed content with that knowledge and you were content with the conclusion of the night.

The living room returned to silence as you sat down on the sofa. You pushed your hair from out of your face, twisting a piece around your finger before letting it go. 

For now, things were manageable. Maybe you would regret it later, but you had convinced yourself, however naive your thought process, that you would deal with him later. He wasn’t a real threat, he was just annoying.

Future you could handle it.

Let me know if you want to be on a permanent tag list.

[callsigns-haze]

tyler owens one shot idea: he’s your ex and now your forced to see him again while working with storm parr. and then one drunken night you guys end up hooking up.

Not so past

Pairing: Tyler Owens x Reader

Summary: Tyler and Y/N reunite in a heated, emotional encounter, reigniting their past passion and unresolved feelings during a late-night moment by his truck.

Chapter Warning: Contains explicit sexual content, strong language, and themes of intense emotional conflict.

The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the dusty road as Tyler Owens’ team bustled around their truck, preparing for the day ahead. The sky above was a mix of blue and grey, the calm before the inevitable storm—a fitting backdrop for the storm chasers. Dani was securing the last of the equipment, while Dexter double-checked the weather data on his tablet. Javi and Kate, the newest members of the team, exchanged excited glances as they packed away supplies with Lilly and Boone.

As the sound of laughter and banter filled the air, a distant roar of an engine grew louder, capturing everyone’s attention. A sleek motorcycle, its chrome glinting in the sun, pulled up beside the truck. The rider was dressed in a black leather jacket, the emblem of Storm Par emblazoned on the back—a rival storm chasing group.

The team watched as Scott, a burly member of Storm Par, stepped off his own bike and approached the rider. He helped her remove her helmet, revealing a woman with windswept hair and a determined expression. Her eyes scanned the area, seemingly indifferent to the curious stares she was receiving from Tyler's squad.

Tyler, who had been tightening a strap on the truck, froze as he recognized the woman. His breath hitched, and for a moment, he couldn’t tear his eyes away. Memories flooded back—late nights, shared laughter, heated arguments, and the bitter end that had left them both scarred.

“Y/N...” Tyler muttered under his breath, his heart pounding in his chest.

Boone, noticing Tyler's reaction, stepped closer to Javi and Kate, who were both watching the scene unfold with puzzled expressions.

"What's going on?" Kate whispered, glancing at Boone for answers.

Boone sighed, crossing his arms as he kept his eyes on Y/N. "That’s Tyler's ex," he explained quietly, keeping his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. "They broke up two years ago, and it wasn’t pretty. They’ve got a lot of rough history between them."

Javi’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “No kidding? That explains the tension.”

“Yeah,” Boone continued, his tone sombre. “They were together for a while, practically inseparable at one point. But the work... chasing storms, it’s not exactly easy on relationships. Things went south, and they both went their separate ways. This is the first time they’ve seen each other since.”

Tyler, still staring at Y/N, took a deep breath and forced himself to look away. He needed a moment, a chance to gather his thoughts. “Excuse me,” he muttered to the group, his voice strained. Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel and walked briskly away from the truck, disappearing behind a nearby trailer.

Dani shot Boone a questioning look, but Boone just shook his head, silently signalling that now wasn’t the time to press for details. The mood among the team shifted, the earlier excitement dampened by the sudden tension.

Y/N handed her helmet to Scott and exchanged a few words with him before turning her attention back to the truck. Her gaze swept over the squad, and she could sense the curiosity and unease. But her eyes didn’t linger on them for long. She knew who she was looking for.

Tyler’s absence didn’t go unnoticed. A flicker of something—regret, sadness, maybe even a touch of anger—crossed her face before she schooled her features into a neutral expression. She had a job to do, just like him. Whatever happened between them was in the past. At least, that’s what she told herself as she turned back to Scott and continued their conversation.

Back at the truck, Boone exchanged a glance with Dani, both of them silently acknowledging the unspoken tension that had settled over the team. "Well," Boone said quietly, “looks like things just got a whole lot more complicated.”

Kate nodded, her curiosity piqued despite the awkwardness. “What do we do now?”

Boone shrugged, his expression grim. “We keep working. Storm’s coming whether we’re ready or not.”

Javi looked at Kate, who gave him a small nod. The two of them resumed their tasks, though the atmosphere was noticeably heavier now. As they worked, they couldn’t help but glance occasionally in the direction Tyler had gone, wondering what this unexpected reunion would mean for the team—and for Tyler himself.

The energy around the truck had shifted from excitement to a more subdued, contemplative mood after Tyler’s unexpected encounter with Y/N.

Javi and Kate were sitting by the cooler, their conversation hushed but animated. The air was filled with the scent of gasoline and the distant rumble of thunder as a storm began to brew. Boone had just finished up some last-minute checks on the equipment, and Dani had gone off to finalize a few details with the weather service.

Kate glanced over at Boone, her curiosity clearly getting the better of her. “Hey Boone,” she said, leaning in slightly, “we were just wondering... What’s the story with Tyler and Y/N?”

Javi nodded in agreement, his gaze focused intently on Boone. “Yeah, what’s the deal? They seem like they’ve got a pretty complicated history. We saw how Tyler reacted when he saw her, and it seemed pretty intense.”

Boone, who had been busy organizing some gear, stopped and let out a long sigh. He wiped his hands on a rag and looked at the two younger team members. There was a moment of hesitation before he spoke, the weight of the past evident in his eyes.

“Alright, I’ll fill you in,” Boone said quietly, glancing around to make sure they were alone. “But it’s a long story. Tyler and Y/N were together for a few years. Two storm chasers who were on the same wavelength, both professionally and personally.”

Kate raised an eyebrow. “So, what went wrong? They seem like they were a perfect match.”

Boone nodded, a hint of a smile crossing his lips at the memory. “They were a great team. But chasing storms isn’t exactly a regular 9-to-5 job. The long hours, the travel, the constant danger—it puts a lot of strain on relationships. And that’s what happened with them. The job took its toll.”

Javi leaned forward, clearly intrigued. “Was it just the job that caused the problems, or was there more to it?”

Boone’s expression grew more serious. “It wasn’t just the job. There were personal differences, too. They had different priorities, different visions for their futures. And, of course, there were other issues—trust, jealousy, the usual complications when you’re working and living together.”

Kate nodded thoughtfully. “So, they broke up, and now she’s with Storm Par. That must have been a tough transition for Tyler.”

“Yeah, it was rough,” Boone agreed. “They broke up about two years ago. It wasn’t pretty—lots of arguments, a lot of hurt feelings. Tyler took it pretty hard. And then, she just... moved on. Got involved with Storm Par, who are our rivals in a sense. It’s like a double whammy for him.”

Javi frowned, trying to piece everything together. “So, Tyler seeing her with Storm Par... that must have hit him pretty hard. It’s like a reminder of everything he lost and the fact that she’s now on the other side.”

Boone nodded, his expression softening. “Exactly. It’s not just seeing her again after all this time—it’s seeing her in a place where she’s almost a symbol of everything he’s been struggling to move past. It’s a blow to his pride and his heart.”

Kate sighed, her gaze shifting towards where Tyler had retreated earlier. “I feel for him. That kind of history, it doesn’t just disappear. It lingers.”

Boone’s eyes softened with understanding. “Yeah, it does. And Tyler’s a tough guy, but he’s still human. This is something he’s going to have to work through. It’s not just about dealing with Y/N being with a rival team; it’s about confronting a lot of unresolved feelings and past regrets.”

Javi nodded, the seriousness of the situation sinking in. “I guess we’ll just have to give him space and be there if he needs us.”

Boone’s gaze flicked back to the truck, where Tyler had reappeared, his demeanour more composed but still carrying an air of subdued tension. “That’s the best we can do. Just be supportive and give him time. He’s a strong guy, but even the strongest need a hand sometimes.”

---

The temperature had begun to climb as the afternoon wore on, and Tyler knew they’d need more ice to keep their supplies cold. After taking a moment to gather himself, he walked towards the cooler beside the truck. The familiar crunch of gravel under his boots brought him some solace, but his mind was still reeling from seeing Y/N after all this time.

As he approached the cooler, Tyler spotted someone already there, bent over and digging through the ice with a small scoop. The sight of her familiar figure, the way she held herself—confident, yet focused—sent a jolt through him. For a moment, he considered turning around and leaving, but it was too late. Y/N had already sensed his presence.

She straightened up, holding a bag of ice in one hand, and turned to face him. The air between them seemed to thicken as their eyes met. Tyler froze, the usual easy confidence he carried evaporating in an instant.

“Tyler,” Y/N acknowledged him, her voice neutral, but there was an undercurrent of tension that he didn’t miss.

He swallowed hard, searching for words that wouldn’t come. This close, he could see the subtle changes in her—new lines of stress that hadn’t been there before, a more guarded expression in her eyes. But she was still Y/N, the woman who had once known him better than anyone.

“Y/N,” Tyler finally managed, his voice tight. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Especially... with them.” His eyes flicked to the Storm Par logo on her jacket.

Y/N arched an eyebrow, a hint of a smirk playing on her lips. “Yeah, well, life’s full of surprises, isn’t it?”

Tyler clenched his jaw, the words “full of surprises” echoing in his mind. He wasn’t sure which stung more—the fact that she was here, or that she was working with Storm Par, the competition, the so-called enemy. He could still remember their arguments about rival teams, the fiery debates they’d had about who was in it for the science and who was in it for the glory.

“Storm Par, though?” he asked, his tone carrying a mix of disbelief and disappointment. “You always said they were in it for the wrong reasons. What happened to that?”

Y/N’s expression hardened, the brief moment of softness in her eyes vanishing. “People change, Tyler. Circumstances change. Sometimes you have to take what you can get.”

He didn’t miss the bitterness in her voice, nor the hint of something deeper—resentment, maybe? Regret? It was hard to tell. But it cut him nonetheless.

“Is that what this is? Just... taking what you can get?” Tyler asked, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.

Y/N sighed, shifting the bag of ice in her hand. She glanced away for a moment, as if searching for the right words. When she looked back at him, her gaze was steady, though the fire that had once been there was now a cold, smoldering ember.

“It’s a job, Tyler. It’s what I’m good at,” she said flatly. “Just like you. I’m doing what I have to do. If that means working with Storm Par, then so be it.”

Tyler felt a pang of something deep in his chest—anger, sadness, maybe even guilt. They had been a team once, a damn good one. But those days were gone, and it was clear she had moved on in ways he hadn’t expected. Or maybe in ways he hadn’t allowed himself to think about.

He took a slow breath, trying to steady himself. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said quietly. “After everything that happened...”

Y/N flinched, just slightly, but she quickly masked it. She tilted her head slightly, studying him with an expression that was hard to read. “You’re right, Tyler. You shouldn’t be surprised. We both made choices. We’re living with them now.”

The weight of her words hung between them, and for a moment, the only sound was the crunching of ice as she tightened her grip on the bag.

Tyler opened his mouth to say something—an apology, maybe, or a plea to just talk things out—but the words caught in his throat. The history between them was too complicated, too painful to unpack in a casual conversation by a cooler.

Instead, he nodded stiffly, his expression guarded. “Yeah. I guess we are.”

Y/N held his gaze for a moment longer, then broke it, turning back to the cooler to grab another bag of ice. She handed it to him without a word, her touch brief, almost impersonal. Tyler took the bag, the cold seeping through his gloves, grounding him in the present.

“Take care, Tyler,” Y/N said quietly, her voice carrying a finality that made his heart sink.

He nodded, unable to find the right response. “You too, Y/N.”

---

The storm had finally passed, leaving behind a sky streaked with the deep purples and pinks of twilight. The day had been intense, with the team pushing their limits to capture every bit of data they could. As the adrenaline began to fade, exhaustion crept in, the weight of the day settling heavily on Tyler's shoulders.

The team was packing up, their voices quieter now, the earlier excitement replaced by a tired, satisfied calm. Tyler finished securing the last piece of equipment to the truck, his mind replaying the events of the day—especially his brief, tense encounters with Y/N. He could still feel the sting of their words, the unresolved tension gnawing at him like a dull ache.

He needed to clear his head, and a hot shower sounded like the perfect remedy.

Tyler grabbed a fresh change of clothes from his bag and made his way to the small, makeshift shower area they had set up nearby. The water pressure was weak, but it didn’t matter. As soon as the lukewarm water hit his skin, he felt the tension begin to melt away, the dirt and grime of the day washing down the drain along with some of the stress.

He stood under the stream, letting the water run over his face, his mind drifting. The cold splash of reality was as sharp as the water was warm—he was going to have to face Y/N again, probably sooner rather than later. The thought of her working with Storm Par still gnawed at him, a bitter reminder of how much things had changed between them.

Tyler leaned forward, bracing his hands against the wall of the shower stall, and closed his eyes. The heat of the water pounded against his back, loosening the knots in his muscles. He needed to let it go, at least for tonight. The last thing he wanted was to drag the team down with his personal issues, especially after they had all worked so hard today.

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to focus on the present—on the here and now. There was nothing he could do about the past, but he could control how he handled the future, even if that meant swallowing his pride and finding a way to coexist with Y/N. For the sake of the job, and for his own sanity.

After what felt like an eternity, Tyler finally turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. The cool evening air hit his damp skin, a refreshing contrast to the warmth he had just felt. He quickly towelled off and dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a fresh t-shirt, the familiar scent of his soap helping to ground him.

As he finished getting ready, Tyler caught a glimpse of himself in the cracked mirror. His hair was still slightly damp, and his eyes held a weariness that went beyond physical exhaustion. But there was also determination there, a resolve to push forward despite the lingering shadows of his past.

He grabbed his jacket and headed out, the sounds of laughter and conversation guiding him toward the rest of the team. They had set up a small gathering spot near the truck, a cooler filled with drinks and a few fold-out chairs arranged in a loose circle. The mood was relaxed, a stark contrast to the tension of the day, and Tyler could hear Boone’s deep, rumbling laugh as he told a story to Javi and Kate.

“Hey, you finally made it,” Dani called out as she spotted Tyler approaching. She raised her drink in a mock salute, a grin spreading across her face. “We were starting to think you’d fallen asleep in there.”

Tyler chuckled, shaking his head as he took a seat in one of the chairs. “Nah, just needed to cool off for a bit.”

Lilly tossed him a cold beer from the cooler, which he caught with ease. He cracked it open, the first sip a welcome relief after the long day. The cold liquid slid down his throat, soothing and refreshing.

“Hell of a chase today,” Boone said, raising his own drink in agreement. “We got some damn good footage.”

“Damn right we did,” Tyler replied, a hint of pride creeping into his voice. The thrill of the chase had always been a constant in his life, something that never failed to ignite his passion, no matter what else was going on.

Javi leaned forward, his eyes wide with excitement. “I still can’t believe we were that close. The footage is going to be amazing.”

“It will be,” Tyler agreed, his tone more relaxed now. He took another sip of his beer, letting himself enjoy the camaraderie. “It was a good day, all things considered.”

Kate, who had been quietly listening, glanced at Tyler with a small, thoughtful smile. “Glad to have you with us, Tyler. Couldn’t have done it without you.”

Tyler nodded, appreciating the sentiment. The team had his back, and he had theirs—that was something he could always count on. “Same goes for all of you. We make a damn good team.”

The night had grown quiet as the teams gradually retreated to their tents and vehicles, exhausted from the day’s intense storm chase. The hum of conversation and the clinking of bottles had faded, leaving behind only the occasional rustle of the wind and the distant rumble of thunder on the horizon. The stars were beginning to peek through the clouds, casting a dim, silvery light over the makeshift camp.

Tyler sat alone by the dying embers of the fire, nursing the last of his beer. The warmth of the earlier camaraderie lingered, but now it was just him and the night, the solitude giving him time to reflect. His thoughts, however, were far from peaceful—still tangled up in the events of the day, and more specifically, the reappearance of Y/N.

He stared into the darkness, his mind replaying their earlier encounters. Despite his best efforts to shake it off, the memories of their past and the unresolved tension between them gnawed at him. The sound of footsteps crunching on gravel broke his reverie. He looked up, his body tensing instinctively as he recognized the familiar figure approaching from the direction of the Storm Par camp.

Y/N was stumbling slightly, a half-empty bottle of beer dangling from her hand. Her usual composed demeanour was gone, replaced by the loose, carefree gait of someone who had had a few too many drinks. Her hair was slightly tousled, and there was a flush to her cheeks that could have been from the alcohol or the lingering effects of the day’s adrenaline.

“Tyler,” she called out, her voice carrying a slurred edge as she made her way toward him. There was a smile on her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes, which were glassy and unfocused.

Tyler felt a mix of emotions—concern, annoyance, and a pang of something deeper, more painful. He stood up as she neared, his brow furrowing as he took in her unsteady state. “Y/N,” he said, keeping his voice low and calm. “What are you doing out here?”

She waved the beer bottle in the air, nearly losing her balance in the process. “Celebrating,” she replied with a laugh that didn’t quite sound genuine. “Big day, right? We caught a hell of a storm.”

Tyler couldn’t help but notice the bitterness in her tone, the way she was trying to mask whatever was really going on behind a façade of drunken cheerfulness. He took a step closer, ready to catch her if she stumbled again. “Yeah, it was a big day,” he agreed, his voice cautious. “But it’s late. You should head back.”

Y/N ignored his suggestion, instead taking a long swig from the bottle before looking up at him, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Why’re you always so serious, Tyler? You were always like that... Always the responsible one.” She punctuated the last words with a playful poke to his chest, but there was a sadness in her eyes that belied her actions.

Tyler’s jaw tightened as he looked down at her, his concern deepening. “Someone had to be,” he said softly, his voice tinged with both frustration and care. “And right now, you need to get some rest.”

Y/N took a step back, swaying slightly as she studied him, her expression shifting to something more sombre. “You’re always trying to fix things, Tyler. But not everything can be fixed, you know?” She let out a sigh, her shoulders slumping as the bravado started to fade. “Not everything’s your responsibility.”

Tyler felt a pang of guilt at her words. There was truth in what she said—he had always tried to shoulder the burden, to keep everything in order, even when things were falling apart between them. “I know,” he replied quietly, his gaze softening as he looked at her. “But I can’t just stand by when I see someone I care about struggling.”

Y/N’s expression softened, her eyes searching his face as if trying to find something in his words. The tension between them shifted, becoming something more electric, more charged. She took a step closer, her breath brushing against his neck as she looked up at him, her gaze lingering on his lips.

Without thinking, Tyler reached out, his hand cupping her cheek. The moment felt suspended in time, the air around them thick with unspoken words and unresolved emotions. Then, as if pulled by a force neither of them could resist, their lips crashed together in a heated, desperate kiss.

Y/N responded immediately, her arms wrapping around his neck as she pressed herself against him. Tyler’s hands roamed down her back, pulling her closer, feeling the familiar heat between them reignite. It was like no time had passed at all—their bodies remembering the connection they once had, the intensity that had always simmered just beneath the surface.

He broke the kiss just long enough to catch his breath, his voice husky as he whispered against her lips, “Wrap your legs around my waist.”

Without hesitation, Y/N did as he asked, her legs encircling his waist as he lifted her effortlessly. Tyler's hands gripped her thighs, his lips finding hers again as he carried her toward his truck. They moved together in perfect sync, not breaking the kiss as he maneuverer through the darkness, the urgency of their need driving them forward.

When they reached the truck, Tyler pressed her back against the cool metal, the contrast of the cold against the heat of their bodies sending a shiver down Y/N’s spine. He deepened the kiss, his hands gripping her hips tightly, as if afraid to let her go again. She responded with equal fervour, her fingers tangling in his hair, holding him as close as possible.

The world around them faded away, leaving only the two of them, lost in the moment, in the passion that had been buried for so long. The unresolved tension, the pain, the love—they all collided in that kiss, in the way their bodies moved together, as if trying to reclaim something they had lost.

Finally, Tyler pulled back, his forehead resting against hers, both of them breathing heavily. His eyes were dark with desire, but there was also a flicker of something deeper—an emotion that went beyond the physical, something that had been lying dormant for years.

“Y/N,” he whispered, his voice rough with emotion.

She looked up at him, her expression mirroring his own, a mix of longing, regret, and something more profound. “Tyler,” she breathed, her voice trembling.

The night air felt cooler against their heated skin as they stood there, wrapped up in each other’s arms beside Tyler's truck. The world outside the small bubble they’d created was forgotten, leaving only the two of them, bound together by years of unresolved passion and lingering tension.

Tyler's hands slid from Y/N's waist to the hem of her shirt, his fingers brushing against her skin as he began to lift it. His eyes never left hers, watching the way her breath hitched in anticipation. He pulled the fabric over her head and tossed it aside, his gaze roaming over her exposed skin with a mixture of desire and affection.

“You haven’t changed a bit,” he murmured, his voice low and teasing. His hands traced the curves of her body, fingers grazing over the sensitive spots he knew so well.

Y/N shivered under his touch, her breath quickening as she felt the familiar heat spreading through her. But before she could respond, Tyler leaned in, his lips brushing against her ear as he whispered, “Still so vocal, aren’t you?”

The words sent a thrill through her, and she couldn’t stop the soft moan that escaped her lips. Tyler chuckled, the sound deep and resonant, vibrating through her as he continued his slow, deliberate exploration. His hands slipped to the clasp of her bra, fingers working with practiced ease as he unhooked it and let it fall away.

He leaned back slightly, just enough to take her in, his eyes dark with desire as he took in the sight of her bare chest. “You always did like to make noise,” he teased, his tone playful but laced with a deeper intensity. His hands moved up to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her nipples, drawing another gasp from her.

Y/N bit her lip, trying to hold back the sounds of pleasure that threatened to escape, but Tyler wasn’t having any of it. He lowered his head, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her neck, trailing down to her collarbone, his teeth grazing her skin just enough to make her whimper.

“Don’t hold back on me now,” he murmured against her skin, his breath hot and tantalizing. “I want to hear you.”

His words broke through her resolve, and she let out a breathy moan, her hands gripping his shoulders as she arched into him. Tyler grinned against her skin, his lips trailing down to her breast, where he took one of her nipples into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it before giving a gentle tug with his teeth.

Y/N cried out, her fingers tangling in his hair as she tugged him closer, the sensation overwhelming. “Tyler,” she gasped, her voice thick with need.

He pulled back, just enough to look up at her, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction at how easily he could unravel her. “That’s more like it,” he said, his tone full of teasing triumph. “You always did love it when I made you scream.”

Y/N’s cheeks flushed with both embarrassment and arousal, but she couldn’t deny the truth in his words. There was something about the way Tyler touched her, the way he knew exactly what buttons to push, that always left her breathless and wanting more.

Tyler’s hands moved to the waistband of her jeans, fingers slipping beneath the fabric as he began to work them down her hips. He took his time, enjoying the way her breath hitched with every inch of skin he exposed. When he finally got them off, he stepped back just a bit, his gaze raking over her with unabashed desire.

“You’re even more beautiful than I remembered,” he said softly, his voice tinged with a mix of awe and longing.

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat at the sincerity in his words, but before she could respond, Tyler was on her again, his mouth claiming hers in a searing kiss. His hands roamed over her now nearly naked body, his touch both possessive and tender.

As the kiss deepened, Tyler's fingers found the edge of her panties, teasingly sliding them down her legs as his lips trailed back to her ear. “I’ve missed hearing those little noises you make,” he whispered, his voice rough with desire. “And I’m going to make sure I hear a lot more of them tonight.”

Y/N could only moan in response, her mind clouded with need as Tyler’s hands explored every inch of her, his touch leaving a trail of fire in its wake. He was relentless in his teasing, drawing out every gasp, every moan, until she was trembling with anticipation.

Finally, when she was completely undressed and laid bare before him, Tyler stepped back just enough to admire his work, a satisfied smile playing on his lips. “You’re perfect,” he murmured, his voice full of genuine admiration.

Y/N’s heart raced, her body aching for him to close the distance between them again. “Tyler, please,” she whispered, the need in her voice unmistakable.

Tyler grinned, loving the way she was already begging for him. He leaned in, his lips brushing against hers as he whispered, “Oh, I’m not done with you yet. I want to hear you lose control.”

And with that, he claimed her mouth again, his hands roaming over her body with renewed fervor, each touch designed to drive her wild, to push her closer to the edge. Y/N responded with equal intensity, her own hands moving to undress him, desperate to feel his skin against hers.

Tyler’s breath was heavy as he felt Y/N’s hands on him, their fingers fumbling with the buttons of his shirt. She was desperate to feel his skin against hers, to close the distance that had been too wide for too long. As she finally pushed his shirt off his shoulders, revealing the toned muscles beneath, she ran her hands over his chest, savouring the warmth and solidity of him.

Tyler groaned at her touch, his own hands sliding down her back to pull her closer. Their mouths met again, a clash of hunger and need as they devoured each other. Every kiss, every touch, was laced with the urgency of all the time they’d lost, the years of separation making this reunion even more intense.

As her hands moved down to unbuckle his belt, Tyler couldn’t help the low growl that escaped him. He pulled back slightly, his lips hovering over hers as he whispered, “You’re so eager, aren’t you?”

Y/N’s response was a breathless moan as she finally managed to undo his belt, her hands working quickly to free him from his jeans. “I can’t wait any longer,” she murmured, her voice trembling with anticipation.

Tyler chuckled softly, a deep, rumbling sound that sent shivers down her spine. “Good,” he said, his voice thick with desire. “Because neither can I.”

With a quick, deft motion, Tyler helped her push his jeans and boxers down, kicking them off to the side. The cool night air hit his skin, but it was nothing compared to the heat radiating from the woman in his arms. His hands gripped her hips, pulling her flush against him, and they both gasped at the sensation of their bare skin touching, the connection between them electric and undeniable.

Y/N’s breath hitched as she felt him, hard and ready against her. The anticipation was almost too much to bear, but Tyler seemed to delight in drawing it out, taking his time as he ran his hands over her body, memorizing every curve, every shiver.

“Tyler,” she whimpered, her voice breaking as she clung to him, her need for him overwhelming.

He smiled against her lips, his hands sliding down to cup her ass, lifting her slightly. “Wrap your legs around me,” he instructed, his tone low and commanding.

Without hesitation, Y/N obeyed, wrapping her legs around his waist and feeling his strong arms supporting her. The feeling of being held by him, of being completely at his mercy, sent a thrill through her, and she couldn’t suppress the moan that escaped her lips.

Tyler grinned, loving the sound of her surrender. “There’s that voice I love,” he teased, his tone playful even as his desire for her surged. He shifted her slightly in his arms, positioning her perfectly against him as he pressed her back against the side of the truck. The cold metal was a stark contrast to the heat between them, and Y/N gasped at the sensation.

“Tyler,” she breathed, her hands gripping his shoulders as she looked into his eyes, her own dark with need.

He held her gaze, his expression intense as he slowly, deliberately, pressed his hips forward, teasing her with just the tip. The sensation was almost too much, and Y/N let out a cry, her nails digging into his skin as she tried to pull him closer, but he held back, his control infuriatingly steady.

“Patience, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice rough with the effort of holding himself back. “I want to hear you beg for it.”

Y/N’s breath came in ragged gasps, her body trembling with the need to feel him completely. “Please,” she whimpered, her voice breaking as she looked up at him, her eyes pleading. “Please, Tyler, I need you.”

Tyler’s control wavered at the sound of her begging, and with a low growl, he gave her what she wanted, thrusting into her in one smooth motion. The sensation of him filling her completely tore a loud, wanton moan from her lips, and she clung to him as waves of pleasure crashed over her.

“That’s it,” Tyler groaned, his voice strained as he began to move, each thrust slow and deliberate, driving her wild with the intensity. “I knew you’d sound just like this.”

Y/N was lost in the sensation, her head thrown back as he set a rhythm that had her gasping for breath, each thrust pushing her closer to the edge. The combination of his teasing words and the way he moved inside her was driving her mad, and she could do nothing but hold on to him, her legs tightening around his waist as he drove her higher and higher.

“Tyler,” she cried out, her voice filled with desperation and desire. “I can’t... I can’t...”

He pressed his forehead against hers, his breath hot and ragged as he increased the pace, pushing them both closer to the brink. “Yes, you can,” he whispered, his voice a mix of command and encouragement. “I want to hear you come for me.”

His words sent a jolt of pleasure straight through her, and Y/N could feel the tension inside her coiling tighter and tighter, ready to snap. She was so close, her body trembling with the effort to hold on, but Tyler wasn’t done with her yet.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice dark and velvety as he pressed deep inside her, his thumb finding the sensitive bundle of nerves between them. The combination of his relentless thrusts and the pressure on her clit was too much, and with a strangled cry, Y/N’s body exploded in pleasure, her orgasm ripping through her with a force that left her breathless.

Tyler watched her come apart in his arms, the sight of her in ecstasy driving him to the edge. With a few more powerful thrusts, he followed her over the brink, his release crashing over him with a raw intensity that left him trembling.

For a moment, they stayed like that, clinging to each other as they rode out the aftershocks of their shared pleasure. The night was silent around them, the only sound the heavy, ragged breathing as they slowly came back to themselves.

Finally, Tyler gently lowered her legs, letting her feet touch the ground as he held her close, their foreheads still pressed together. His hands ran soothingly up and down her back, grounding them both in the aftermath of their passion.

“Damn,” he whispered, his voice rough with emotion. “I’ve missed you.”

Y/N’s heart ached at his words, the sincerity in his voice cutting through the haze of pleasure. She looked up at him, her eyes filled with a mix of longing and uncertainty. “Tyler...”

But before she could say anything more, Tyler kissed her again, this time with a tenderness that hadn’t been there before. It was a kiss filled with all the unspoken feelings between them, the things they hadn’t been able to say.

When they finally pulled back, Tyler rested his forehead against hers, his hands still holding her close. “We need to talk,” he said softly, his voice full of the weight of everything that had just happened.

Y/N nodded, her heart pounding as she looked into his eyes, knowing that this was just the beginning of a much-needed conversation. “Yeah,” she agreed, her voice just as soft. “We do.”

Requests for Tyler are open be free to send in as much as you wish!

tagging some:

@senawashere

@saviorcomplexrry

@cevansbaby-dove

@saynotononsense

@missdottie

@willowisp7

@taorislover94

@eloquenceinpurple

@86laura11

@rosiahills22

@jessicab1991

@kmc1989

@shanimallina87

@eternalsams

@teen-antisocial

[leonsdolly]

Tammy Faye

Leon Kennedy x fem!reader

Synopsis: In which you love Leon so much, you'd do anything for him.

CW: nsfw 18+, angst, obsession, depictions of murder, subby Leon, oral (m receiving)

WC: 4.4k

A/N: inspired by Tammy Faye by Nicole Dollanganger !

Red, black, red, black! Your hands are painted with the brilliant scarlet hue as you scrub them vigorously under the freezing tap water. You glance up at the filthy mirror to catch a glimpse of yourself. Black streaks of mascara trickle down your cheeks, mixing with the blood splattered across them like unholy rouge on a Venetian mask. You force a smile through the cracked exterior. Pierrot gone rogue. If he’d stabbed Harlequin eighteen times in a truckstop bathroom less than ten miles from Raccoon City and made sure to pose him all special for a handsome cop to find.

It’s as if all you see these days are red and black. How you long to catch a glimpse of the blue that swirls your lover’s eyes. The faint baby blue shadow you had applied that morning was a poor substitute. You screw your eyes shut and try to picture the particular shade of cerulean that you live for. His lovely face is overtaken by the gut-wrenching smell of copper and mildew as you open your eyes and continue scrubbing at your flesh. No matter, you’ll see him soon. For now, you focus on washing away all evidence of your inundating love. You scrub harder and harder and harder. Jesus, how much blood could a girl hold?

After what feels like eons under the flickering fluorescent light, you turn the rusty faucet off and smile widely at your reflection again. If Leon were to see you now, would he be enraptured by the way your thick mascara coated lashes frame your teary eyes like a doll that’s been trapped in an unopened box, forced to watch the most heartbreaking scenes play out through the unrelenting acetate sheet? You shake your head forcefully, expelling those thoughts out. The cops will be here soon. A twinge of giddiness zaps through your heart at the thought. He’ll be here soon.

You reapply a fresh coat of red lipstick - Dior, of course, before taking one last look around the dingy restroom. It’s filthy, but it was your personal respite for the past few hours. You wrinkle your nose at the row of grotesque urinals lined up against the dirt encrusted wall. They were filled with mysterious liquids that made your stomach churn. Thick reddish-brown goop that lay still with unidentifiable objects submerged within like a bog in Hell. Who would even think of doing something as disgusting as sticking their hand in? You turn away and push the door open to be greeted by the warm summer air. The night sky looms over you, a black sheet covered in stars that twink and blink and wink down at you as if to say “your secret’s safe with us.”

While this truckstop is gross, its beauty lies in the fact that it’s tiny and desolate as hell. Sure, the city is less than ten miles away, but the dense forestry surrounding the Arklay Mountains provides some coverage along the highway, shielding this particular stop from careless eyes. If you weren’t careful, you could miss it altogether unless you paid close attention to the fading signs. And because this was in the middle of nowhere, there weren’t any workers manning the facility at night. You wink back up at the stars and circle around the bathroom towards the gaggle of deserted semi-trucks, towards the one with its back door unlatched and open for all to see, towards her. 

She sits up unnaturally, thanks to the crate you had propped up against her back. The emptiness of the semi’s trailer looks as if it’s about to swallow her for all that she’s got like a black hole. The shadows of moths fluttering against the lights dance over her, contrasting the stillness of her features. You tilt your head as you cross your arms and glare up at her. You’re still prettier, right? Her skin has taken on a sallow tone that appears even more unflattering in the harsh fluorescent light. Her hair is tangled and matted with blood. The black blouse she wears is torn and looks even darker with the stains covering it. You gently smack your lips, feeling the satisfaction of freshly applied lipstick. The whore got what was coming. 

Gone were the nights of crying on the kitchen floor as Tammy Wynette played from another room. Gone were the days of having to excuse yourself in the staff restroom at the station to wipe the raven smudges away from your eyes. Gone were the moments of sheer exasperation and disgust as you watched her touch his uniform clad shoulders and lean in close to let him brush his lips over her own.

You pull your dainty white lace-trimmed gloves out of your pocket and slip them on before padding over to the lonesome payphone. You deposit a quarter before carefully dialing the three digits that would summon your lover like Beatrice descending from Paradise.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“I’d like to report a dead body at the old truckstop about ten miles south of Raccoon City.” Click.

You put the inky black phone back on the receiver before smiling uncontrollably. Butterflies erupt in your stomach as the anticipation of seeing him very soon washes over you. You love him so madly, you’re convinced the only way out of it is 500 mg of midazolam, 100 mg of vecuronium bromide, and 240 mEq of good ol’ potassium chloride.

The dense forest behind the truckstop beckons you with open arms, and you oblige. You skip over to a spot that will allow you to have a front row view of what’s about to transpire while keeping you hidden among the foliage. From here, you can see the girl sitting up with deadweight limbs like a marionette being forced upright with invisible strings. The strings are in your hands, but you were forced to seize control of them from her. Who knows what her influence would have done to Leon?

A bat of her clumpy lashes here, a hand on his firm shoulder there, and your Leon voluntarily hooked himself onto the strings, dancing to the tune she hums from her spot in the dingy break room. You suppose you can't fault him entirely; it's in his nature to grin bashfully and gaze at a woman who fawns over him with lovesick eyes. After all, that's what you love about your sweet rookie cop. Sweeter than candy floss, tantalizing in every aspect like a perfect little peach ready to be plucked from Eden. He just needs to realize that you had always been leaning against the counter of that break room, observing the two with astute grace.

“Excuse me, could you point me in the direction of the chief’s office?” You dissolved.

The first words he had ever uttered to you solidified that you wanted all his words, and you would give him yours. You can’t even remember what you had responded with, lost in the tranquility of his eyes and splendor of his smile. You didn’t miss the way those eyes softly ran over your cream silk blouse, caressing and thumbing over the first few buttons for a peek of something more, something buried deep within your soul. Those lips pulled back to beam at you, beckoning you to press every part of you onto them until you shed black tears from a warmth you weren’t accustomed to.

You hear the sirens approaching from your protected spot, silently thanking nature for watching over you while the love of your life approaches.

“Come get your gift, sweetheart,” you murmur. “It's all for you, everything I do…”

Your heart thumps faster as the sirens scream louder and louder until they reach the truckstop. The slam of car doors echo throughout the otherwise silent night air as the officers’ frantic voices jumble over each other. You hold your breath as you identify your darling's voice among the two; your heart is about to blast off for the moon, leaving a red heart-shaped chemtrail behind it for all to see.

Some tinkering with flashlights and crackle of walkie-talkies, and there he is.

Leon rounds the corner to face the semi’s trailer, face going slack as he takes in the stage you set for him. He stands transfixed before her, immobilized like he’s now the one behind the acetate sheet. A pretty Ken doll, waiting for someone to tug at his strings.

His partner, Officer Redfield, flanks the semi as he joins Leon. “Fuck.”

Officer Redfield wastes no time in flinging open the car door and jamming his button to radio dispatch while his partner pales in the moonlight. You can't really make out what he's saying to dispatch but the terms “DOA” and “requesting units” and her name float over to you. When dispatch has confirmed that backup is on the way, Officer Redfield walks over to Leon and hesitantly places a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Kennedy.”

Leon shakes his head, a little dazed, a little frantic, but pretty just the same, and your thighs clench together. “How could this have happened again, Chris?”

Officer Redfield sighs heavily as he gazes up at the displayed corpse with unease. “I don't know. Goddamn it…”

He says something about how great of a colleague she was and how the entire station would miss her, but you can scarcely hear him over the blood roaring in your ears. Your beloved had asked how something like this could have happened again. Again. He knew. He was at least putting the pieces together. Your cheeks hurt from beaming in the shadows of the foliage; he was acknowledging the gifts you had bestowed upon him. A girl from a coffee shop whose smile drew him in like a shrimp to an anglerfish. A brute of a man who dared to connect his fist to such a lovely cheek during a drunken brawl at a bar. Both posed for his lovely eyes only, their last moments entombed in the polaroids tucked away in your desk drawer.

I’ve done it again, you silently mouth to him. I’ve done it again.

He doesn’t show up to work the next day. Or the day after that and the day after that and the day after that, and your organs fail.

An entire week passes, leaving your heart to writhe in agony from his absence. You stare forlornly at his empty desk from your own, shuffling papers mindlessly and feeling your hand twitch towards the letter opener whenever Chief Irons walks by - the bastard was the one who granted your darling “time off” to “process his emotions.”

A feeling of solemnity looms over the entire station as it whispers in hushed tones about who could’ve ripped away its beloved receptionist, a young woman who was in the prime of her life. The collective mourning is enough to make you want to vomit all over her desk, covering the slab of wood in your spite. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

You skim your fingers over the mahogany surface of Leon’s desk, feeling every crevice he feels as he hastily writes up reports and laughs at the other officers’ jokes like an angel breathing life into humans formed from dust. You long to see his splendorous face again, long to hear the stumbling of his words as his superiors tease him, long to inhale his reassuring scent as you brush past him to heat up your food in the break room. 

“You friends with him or something?” Officer Redfield’s voice shatters you out of your reverie with a jolt. 

“Oh, um, kinda…” Your voice softens at the question. Were you friends? Absolutely not. You were something better.

“Well, a few of us are gonna take him out tonight. Try to cheer him up after everything that’s been going on. Hell, we all need to cheer up. That last one hit way too close to home, especially for Kennedy.” His expression grows solemn. Three unsolved murders in such a short amount of time doesn’t necessarily boast confidence in the local police department. “You should come.”

You’re hesitant to respond. While your instincts are screaming at you to politely decline the invitation and instead observe the gathering from afar, a part of you realizes that you’ll get to be close to him. The thought makes you flutter like a little lacy thing in the wind that’s been pinned to a clothesline for as long as it can remember.

“I’d like that, thanks for inviting me.” You beam up at Officer Redfield. “You’ve all worked so hard. You deserve to relax as much as possible.”

“I don’t know about that.” A heavy sigh escapes his lips, and it looks like he wants nothing more than to tip his head back and let the whiskey slide down his throat, burning and clawing and gnawing at his esophagus until his vision turns black. “That’s three families who are cryin’ themselves to sleep, wonderin’ why this is happening to them.”

“Right.” Your eyebrows raise together in a display of faux sympathy, and your lovely mouth twists in a way that one could interpret as a pout of sorrow.

Where was the collective empathy when you were crying yourself to sleep every night while he was undoubtedly hugging her to his chest as they slept peacefully without a care in the world? Where was the justice in forcing yourself to be satisfied by your own fingers knowing it was a poor substitute for the heavenly cock filling her up? Where was the sense in any of it?

You slip back into an easy grin. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Raucous laughter and clinking of glasses and billiard balls missing their shots surround you as you enter a bar that’s rather homely in its own way. Your nerves are powerful enough to puncture flesh as you had primped and fussed over your appearance beforehand. This is your first outing with Leon, and you know that looking like anything less than Aphrodite’s descendant is not an option.

You see him before anyone else, just the way it’s always been. A modern-day Adonis standing unsuspectingly among the mediocre. His beauty wafts over to you like the aroma of honey and vanilla and brown sugar brewing on a stove, sweet and utterly tantalizing. It wraps itself around you, commanding you to drink it in until you relinquish all control. You’ve already given it all up for him. Gazing at him like he’s your cult leader, ready to usher you into the New World where it’s just you and him and no one else. You’ll do anything to preserve that world.

You make your way over to the group, greeting them and exchanging pleasantries before ordering your own drink. He’s leaning haphazardly on the edge of a pool table, and you casually stand by him, gripping onto your glass with trembling fingers.

He looks rather exhausted. Faint shadows encircle his eyes, and his blonde hair is a little mussed. His clothes are slightly rumpled, and he looks glumly at the tequila in his hand. His cheeks are painted with a subtle flush from the alcohol. You try not to reveal the utter state of adoration he’s put you in as you speak up.

“How are you, Officer Kennedy?”

He throws you a sidelong glance, and you catch it with bambi eyes. “I’m… hanging in there, I guess. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.”

You feel as though he’s taken an ax to every single appendage as you giggle softly and tell him your name.

He gives you a small smile as he nods at you. “I see you in the breakroom a lot.” His smile heals the bloody mess he just made, regenerating your wounds until you feel whole again.

“I do too. I’m really sorry about what you’re going through. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling.” You tilt your head sympathetically to show him you really care about his well-being. The angle also shows off your good side.

“Thanks,” he sighs. “I don’t know how something like this could’ve happened to her. Been beating myself up all this time wondering what I could’ve done to prevent this from happening. I don’t know. Sounds kinda crazy, but the other two cases we had felt pretty c-close to me too… You think I’m being real self-centered for that or something? It’s only my first year on the force, and I-I’m trying to process all of this. S’a shitty feeling…” His lets his drunken ramble fade away.

“I think you’re a good and kind person who is just trying to make sense of some horrible events that have happened.” You gently touch his arm as a way of offering comfort, and the feeling of his skin underneath your fingertips evokes an overwhelming surge in between your legs. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Officer Kennedy. You can’t blame yourself for anything.”

He blinks back tears that are starting to brim along his heavenly lashes, and your clit throbs underneath your dress. 

“I really appreciate that.” He smiles at you again which brings forth another wave of sticky arousal in your panties. “And Leon’s fine. Don’t need to do any of that ‘Officer’ stuff with me.”

“Leon.” Your favorite word in the world rolls off your tongue with practiced grace. He doesn’t need to know that you cling to the two syllables every night with frenzied cries as you try desperately to make yourself cum.

“Leon, what do you say we find somewhere a little more quiet? It can get pretty rambunctious and overwhelming in these places…” You lean in closer to gaze up at him underneath your pretty lashes, allowing your carefully selected fragrance to pull him under the depths of your desire, a siren calling out to the shipwrecked prince.

He lets out a stutter as the alcohol-induced blush dusted over his nose and cheeks intensifies further. It’s enough to put a Botticelli painting to shame.

“S-somewhere quiet would be good.”

You give his arm a gentle pat before leading him outside where the crisp night air kisses your faces, giving two lovers a proper welcome. The back of the bar is relatively secluded, and there is a small wooden bench that you promptly perch yourselves on. For the next minute or so, the two of you sit in silence. Your heart is about to blast off towards the moon as the realization that he’s here with his thigh pressed against yours hits you hard.

“Thanks for listening to me back there,” he finally murmurs with his eyes cast downwards. “I don't really want to get into that with the others.”

“Why not? They care about you, and want to make sure you’re okay.” I’m the only one you need, and I’ll make sure it stays that way.

“To be honest… I don't want them to think that I can’t handle myself. That I’m still just a stupid weak rookie who can’t compartmentalize his emotions like a real man.”

“Oh, Leon…” Darling, sweetheart, baby. “You don't have to prove anything to anyone. You’re a talented cop and a great person. You feel everything the way you want to feel. No one’s judging you or looking down on you for it. Trust me on that.”

You’re so caught up in reassuring him that you don’t realize your hand has floated up to cup his cheek until he stammers something unintelligible. You let your thumb rub soothing circles on his soft skin as you continue.

“I mean, anyone can tell how kind and sweet and smart and skilled you are. You have the respect of everyone at work, including mine…”

His flustered expression causes your breath to hitch as you gently brush his bottom lip with your thumb. You could write poetry inspired by the way his lips curve into a shy smile, pulling his faint dimples out of their slumber and letting sweet nothings be whispered to them under the moonlight.

“You want me to make everything better, baby?” You let your murmur be as soothing as possible, an elixir that promises to heal the broken man before you.

He nods bashfully as your forehead touches his. You let your hand fall from his face, and he whines softly at the loss of warmth, and as much as you’d love to mentally record the sound so that it’s playing over and over in your brain for those unfulfilling nights on the kitchen floor, you swallow it up with your own lips.

Your first kiss is what people go to war for. As your lips move together in tandem, you’re overcome with nostalgia for a time when the aroma of freshly baked apple pie wafts through the home and neighbors wave to each other over their white picket fences and Leon comes home with a twinkle in his eyes as he kisses you and the bundle in your arms.

This is why you did what you did.

He whimpers into your mouth as the kiss grows deeper. His hands roam down to your waist, squeezing gently at your sides as you let your tongue intertwine with his. You move your lips south, along his jaw and towards his neck where you set up camp. He lets out a whine as you press your lips particularly hard against the sensitive spot by his throat, taking care to pay attention to the two little moles peeking back up at you.

“P-please…” He gasps at another scrape of your teeth against his delicate skin.

“Just leaving a few marks to remember me by,” you coo. “Making my pretty boy even prettier.”

To your delight, his hips shift uncomfortably at your words. You lower your hand to meet his crotch, gently palming the growing bulge underneath his jeans. His head tips back, proclaiming open season on his throat to which you attack with vigor. Your thighs squeeze together as your lover pants towards the moon. You’re so focused on making your pretty boy feel good with your soft rubs and passionate kisses that you’ve scarcely paid any attention to the soaking gusset of your panties.

You slowly but surely lower yourself to the ground, internally cringing at the feeling of dirt on your knees. Oh well, it’s not the worst thing you’ve ever gotten on you. You perch yourself in between his legs and fumble with his belt buckle. His head returns to its original position as he gazes down at you with flushed cheeks and hooded eyes.

“Y-you don’t have to.”

“I want to, baby. I said I’d make everything better, right?”

“Mmm, yeah.” 

He sighs as you successfully unclasp his buckle and shimmy his hardened cock out of his boxers. You preen at the sight - it’s pretty, just like the rest of him, and weeping for your attention. You gingerly take it in your hands, marveling at the girth as you stroke it up and down with slow movements. He whimpers at the feeling and involuntarily bucks his hips up so that he fucks into your hand. You let him do this a few times before deciding enough is enough.

“What do you want me to do, sweet boy? Tell me, I’ll do anything you want me to.”

“Your m-mouth,” he whispers.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear you,” you tease as you hover your lips over the head.

“Want you to put your mouth on it,” he says, sounding more brave. How cute.

You hum in approval as you plant a kiss on the flushed tip of his cock which elicits the sexiest moan you’ve heard from him all night. Your hips roll against nothing, seeking pleasure for the ache in your cunt, but you force yourself to ignore it. You can’t be selfish tonight.

You softly lick at the sides before working on enveloping his length with your warm mouth. You bob your head up and down, relishing in the heavenly noises escaping his lips. You savor the taste of him as you slowly lift your head off to suckle at the tip before diving back in again, letting each inch tease against your throat. Your cheeks hollow out as you gaze up at him through your mascara covered lashes, letting your eyes go hazy with pleasure.

“You’re so pretty,” he heaves as he grips onto the hem of his shirt for an anchor. It’s all too much - your puffy lips stretched wide to accommodate his girth, the black tears trickling down your cheeks as you take him in for everything he’s got, the way you’re massaging his balls to heighten his pleasure. “I’m gonna-”

You pull all the way off, and you swear he almost cries.

“P-please, keep going. Please make me cum, I was almost there…” Tears bead along his lash line, and he desperately reaches for you. Your heart swells as you feel your emotions crash over you at the sight of the man you love crying for you to make him orgasm. How far you’ve come since those melancholy nights on the kitchen floor.Their sacrifices weren’t in vain after all. 

You smile up at him and proceed to pleasure him in the way you can - the way he deserves. The lewd slurping sounds you make fill the air, and he tries not to thrust harshly into your mouth, but it’s all too overwhelming when you’re sucking his cock like it’s your favorite thing to do in the world.

He throws his head back and lets out a high-pitched moan as he bursts into your waiting mouth. You swallow his load, savoring the taste of his cum and trying to commit the feeling of it all into your memory. You pull off of his softening cock and press kisses to his twitching thighs as you observe his blissful state. His chest heaves as he attempts to catch his breath. His cheeks are as flushed as ever and a bit of drool has escaped onto his chin. 

“Th-thank you,” he breathes.

“The pleasure was all mine.” You help him get fully dressed again and capture his lips in one more kiss.

“Do you maybe want to come over tonight? We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to… I-I just don’t think I want to be alone right now.” His eyes are begging, and who are you to deprive them of their desires?

“I’d love to.” You smile sweetly at him and take his hand to lead him to the car, winking up at the stars as you do.

[queenimmadolla]

𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐍𝐄'𝐒 𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐋𝐃

(dad!eddie x mom/pregnant!reader)

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟏 ─ 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟐 ─ 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝟑 • more of the pennyverse here.

Summary: . . . Under a raging storm, your difficult pregnancy comes to an end. And so might you. warnings: angst, a whole lot of angst, near death experience, difficult pregnancy, early labor, preterm birth, talk of loss of infants, birth defects, happy ending.

a/n: sorry I have to post this in parts, Wayne's World ended up being over 16k, so I split it up in three. part one's word count is 5.3k. this was a real labor of love and i hope you love baby wayne as much as i do. and for the people mad about the long post, sorry, had the 'keep reading' tab on but it kept fucking with the format and eating chunks of it. you're gonna have to scroll. let me know what you think? ◡̈

“Do you have a queen of hearts?” “Go fish.” You grumbled as Wayne reached forward, lifting–but making sure not to catch a look of the other side–a card from the deck to hand you. Your frown deepened when it wasn’t a pair for any of the cards you already had. “Nuts,” you mumbled, eyes darting to all the pairs Wayne had matched up on the small living room table, then down to the four pairs you had placed over your bulging stomach. It was risky of you to keep them there so late in your pregnancy considering how active your baby was but you didn’t feel like reaching too far for them, regardless of the fact that his kicks had sent them sliding down your sides twice now.

You’d been playing card games with Wayne for the past hour and a half, the raging storm having knocked out the power for the entire park. Eddie was with your friends, no doubt trapped at the pizza place Lucas’ parents had booked to celebrate his birthday. His actual birthday had been a couple of days prior but the Hellfire session that would have celebrated it had been canceled; you weren’t feeling too good and Eddie had stayed faithfully by your side. You hadn’t been feeling all that great when you’d woken up today, either. You’d forced Eddie to go, refusing to let Lucas down again even though you knew he’d understand. He was a sweetheart. So, Eddie had reluctantly gone, taking Penny with him.

The storm had come out of nowhere, you’d woken to a lovely day but you wouldn’t know it from how dark the sky had grown; the sun having been blocked by heavy rain clouds. 

Despite practically living at his girlfriend’s, just a couple of trailers down, Wayne had rushed over to make sure you were okay and to keep you company. You’d been watching an Indiana Jones movie and talking to Wayne about the apartments you and Eddie were looking at when the power went out but Wayne–always practical and level headed–pulled out some candles you’d accrued and a deck of cards he had remembered he stashed in one of the kitchen drawers to keep you amused.

You’d lost just about every game. Clearly, Wayne wasn’t going to let you win just because you were pregnant like Eddie did.

“This ain’t even one of them bettin’ games. How’re you still losin’?” Wayne chuckled, taking a sip of the tea (powdered, of course) you’d served him. 

  “Just my luck, I guess.” Wayne was referring to the game of Poker you’d played earlier. Unfortunately, you didn’t know how to play. While he taught you a little along the way, you’d still obviously lost and you were positive you retained absolutely no knowledge regarding the game.

Sensing your frustration, Wayne leaned forward from his place on the recliner he’d dragged to the otherside of the small table and placed his cards down, settling back into the chair with his old man creaky noises that you’d grown comfortable with him enough to tease him about (and always made up for with a sweet kiss to his head).

  “What say you an’ I just talk, hm?”

That was fine with you. You gathered the cards on your baby bump, tossing them onto the table alongside his, “Eddie won’t let me name the baby after him.”

“Really?” Wayne asked, eyebrows furrowed in a brief moment of confusion. He’d expected his eccentric nephew to want to leave behind some sort of legacy, nothing better than a child.

  “He’s playing devil’s advocate, shooting down every name I come up with but never giving his input, I’m starting to think we’ll have to just put names in a cup and pick one after I have him.” You slumped further into the couch, pouting through your exhaustion.

  “Now that sounds like ‘im,” Wayne scoffed, raising the mug to his lips once more before he really took in your appearance. 

  You looked beyond exhausted, skin dull, dark circles around your eyes and you lacked the spark always attached to your personality. You didn’t just look miserable, you looked sick.

  The mug was placed back on the table as he regarded you with concern, “You alright, darlin’? Don’t look so good.”

  You gave him a tight lipped smile that didn’t reach your eyes, hands settling to rest on your protruding tummy, “I’m okay, really, Wayne. I’m just very tired. I’ve had high blood pressure for the last couple of months, so the doctor says I’m considered high risk.”

  You had a doctor’s appointment earlier this week—with another one scheduled for tomorrow afternoon—and she’d also told you to do your best to relax, not to move around a lot and not worry too much about it, or it could get worse, so you added, “I just have to take it easy. Being tired just comes with it.”

  Wayne didn’t think it was right, if you were taking it easy, you shouldn’t have been so exhausted. Tired, he could understand but you looked beyond that.

  “Why don’t we get you into bed?”

  You nodded, agreeing only because you wanted to let him get back to Maude. Wayne moved around the table, offering you his hands to help pull yourself up. It was pitiful, your stomach wasn’t even that big but you were significantly weaker this pregnancy compared to when you’d been pregnant with Penny. 

  You slipped your hands into his, groaning as he pulled you up.

  “Lil’ man’s got you making old man noises, too,” He joked, referring to the grunts he’d make when he stood up with creaking bones for which you’d tease him.

  You laughed, small but genuine as you placed your hands on your lower back and stretched, “Alright, alright. You’re not wrong but I’ll remember this.”

  Wayne chuckled at your response, hand on your shoulder ready to guide you to your bedroom. He had no intentions of leaving the trailer, planning on camping out on the couch or the pullout that was still tucked into the corner until Eddie returned.

  You’d just managed to get your back to pop in the most satisfying of ways when you felt a bit of pressure between your legs—like you really needed to pee—followed by a rush of liquid.

  “Oh, fuck,” you mumbled, eyes squeezing shut to keep the mortification of having just pissed yourself in front of your father-in-law at bay, “I am so sorry, Wayne, I didn’t even know I had to… to…”

  You trailed off, staring down at the wet patch of carpet surrounding your feet. There was no noticeable urine smell, but what really concerned you was the red mixed into it, staining the fibers of the carpet.

  “Wayne…” Your voice was so small as you reached around you to hold your stomach, as if you could somehow protect your baby.

  Wayne saw it too, eyes wide and horrified when he’d realized your water had broken.

  “New plan: let’s get you to the hospital.” He tried to urge you forward but you wouldn’t budge, trembling in his hold.

  “I—I can’t,” you stated, voice hitching and laced with fear as you finally turned your head to look up at him. Wayne could see the terror in your eyes, the panic and the shine to them. Everything he was feeling inside, too, he just knew he had to keep it together for your sake. “I’m barely 30 weeks, he’s too early, he has to stay in there!”

  You were nearly hyperventilating, head pounding as horrible thoughts raced through your head. Your hands moved frantically over your belly, trying to feel a kick from your baby. When was the last time you felt him being active? Was he okay? Why was he being so still? Why did your water break so early and why was there blood in it? And what the hell was that loud pounding sound? It was your heartbeat.

  “Hey—‘member wha’ you told me earlier? ‘Bout what the doctor said? You gotta take it easy, right?” Wayne was panicking just as much as you but he knew he had to keep you calm, had to reassure you. 

  You swallowed hard, tears welling in your eyes as you nodded, following up with a watery confession, “Yeah. But I’m scared.”

  “Thas’ okay,” he stated, recalling a time he’d said the same thing to another scared mother-to-be just hours before Eddie had been born. “We’re gonna get you to the hospital and they’re gon’ take real good care of you. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  For once, Wayne Munson’s eyes were easy for you to read, you could see the sincerity of them, the certainty and despite the fear still coursing through you, you believed him. 

  Finally, you moved and Wayne sprang into action, asking you the whereabouts of your coat, if you’d had a hospital bag prepped—which thanks to Eddie’s paranoia, you did—before he’d actually carried you through the heavy rain, out to the car. You’d been surprised, hadn’t expected Wayne to be that strong since he was more so on the gangly side.

  He’d ensured you were buckled in, made a last run into the house to make sure the candles were out before the two of you were braving the storm.

  It was a rough drive; Wayne was speeding but it wasn’t enough, the pushback from the wind made it seem like he was going uphill, losing speed rather than gaining it. The windshield wipers on his truck were working overtime to clear the constant stream of water from his view.

  You were faring no better, feeling weaker and more fatigued by the minute. Despite the cold weather, your skin became coated in a layer of sweat, though you were by no means hot. You couldn’t even register your own body temperature, too out of it as your forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window. 

  “We’re almost there,” Wayne promised, glancing nervously at your slumping figure. He was scared out of his mind now that he knew you weren’t just sick. Wayne Munson was afraid you were dying before his eyes.

  You stirred just as he was a few turns away from the hospital, face scrunching into a frown as you whimpered. Wayne thought you may have been in pain, he was wrong. You were hit with an intense need to push and you did, once and hard.

  The dull thud of something hitting the floor mats was somehow louder to the two of you than the raging storm. Wayne glanced away from the road and inhaled sharply when he watched you look down at the unnaturally pale baby, the only color on his skin was that of some of your blood.

  You reached down and picked up the smaller than normal baby, cradling him to your chest as you stared at his face. It was all squished up, and his eyes were closed, lips turning blue. He wasn’t breathing. 

  You turned him over, belly down in your hold as you patted his back. As you grew more anxious and fearful, you pinched the bottom of his tiny, soft foot and while he didn’t cry, he finally moved in your hold, his back expanding with his breath. A sign of life.

  The relief you felt was short lasting, your fatigue returning full force as Wayne pulled up the emergency entrance. Two staff members ran to the truck, approaching as their rain ponchos danced wildly in the wind. 

  “Sir, are either of you injured?” One of them, a woman asked before peering into the passenger window. At the sight of you, clutching the baby still connected to you via umbilical cord, the door was yanked open and she bellowed for a gurney which her partner sprinted to collect. 

  Wayne didn’t bother moving his truck, it was towards the end of the entrance, anyways. He hurried out and followed as they loaded you and the baby onto the gurney, running alongside as they wheeled you in. 

  You were trying so hard to stay conscious, trying to ignore the sweet allure of closing your eyes for a few moments of rest. The doctors and nurses around you were all barking orders to each other with a couple trying to talk to you but you couldn’t focus enough to know what they were saying.

  Once Wayne saw what operating room they were carting you off to, he ran to the nearest desk, asked for use of the phone and phone book. Once he’d placed the call to the pizza place, relieved the lines were finally going through again, he’d had a staff member search for Eddie. It hadn’t been easy hurriedly explaining to him what happened, but judging by how quick Eddie had ended the call, it was only a matter of minutes before his nephew turned up.

  Then Wayne ran to the area he’d seen them take you too, hurriedly dressing in a gown, a cap and mask one of the staff had shoved into his arms. They were still prepping you when they finally allowed him in and you were no longer holding the baby. He was in the arms of a nurse, still connected to you with his umbilical cord. 

  “Would you like to cut it?” She hurriedly asked, offering him a pair of surgical scissors. Wayne figured he was a better option than a doctor severing your connection so he did as instructed. She immediately carried him away and out of the room in a rush.

  “Where’s she taking ‘im?” He asked, voice full of worry. 

  “Neonatal Intensive Care Unit,” He was informed by another nurse who was setting up a barrier over your lower half, “He was born preterm.” 

  Wayne was somewhat familiar with it; he remembers Penny had briefly been sent there when she’d been born and suspected to have jaundice. After a few hours of whatever treatment, she was returned to you and Eddie, having a not very severe case of it which had been treated effectively.

  Wayne thought the whole process would be faster, he’d seen people rushed into surgeries in the movies and it had been instant but it wasn’t like that. They were still running around, setting everything up and new people kept coming into the room. It took more than ten minutes, but they were doing their best to keep you stabilized. He was holding your hand the entire time, squeezing every once in a while so you’d squeeze back and he’d know you were okay.

  You weren’t very vocal, eyes half lidded as they pumped you full of drugs to try to counter your symptoms and numb you.

  “‘M gonna check to see if Eddie’s here, alright?” He waited for your response, a very weak and monotonous okay before he gave your hand a final squeeze and let a nurse know he’d be checking to see if the father had arrived.

  He’d made it out of the operating room doors and was hurrying down the hallway, just about to breach another pair of large doors when they swung open and he had to jump back to avoid being hit. 

  “LORD!” He shouted and Eddie cursed, muttering a quick apology.

  “Where is she?” He panted out, chest heaving, eyes wild and frantic. Eddie’s hair was in disarray from having run his hands through it so many times as he sped to the hospital. He looked like the personification of panic, a mess.

  “Through them doors,” Wayne pointed in the direction he’d come from before yanking some of the sanitation wear off a nearby rack. “Put these on ‘fore you go in there. Where’s Penny?”

  Eddie was hurriedly yanking the scrubs over his clothes, “She’s in the waiting room.” 

  He clutched Wayne’s shoulder, wanting to thank him but desperate to get to you before he made a run for the room Wayne had directed him to while Wayne hurried to the waiting room, expecting Penny to be in the care of a nurse.

  He breached the doors and stood shell shocked at the amount of people who jumped to attention, faces filled with varying degrees of worry, anguish and fear; it was all of your friends, familiar faces he’d seen in the trailer before at one point or another. Penny’s curly head was visible from the arms of a tall redhead, wearing glasses.

  It seemed the entire party occupying the pizza parlor had filled the hospital waiting room, concerned about your wellbeing. 

  The sight nearly brought Wayne to tears.

  You could make out the sound of various monitors beeping, eyes trying to focus on the ceiling above you but everything was so hazy. You no longer felt fatigued, couldn’t really feel anything. A nurse had tried to check in with you earlier, get your attention but you couldn’t even hold a conversation.

  You felt a hand slip into yours again, and you squeezed it, turning your head to look at Wayne. Only, it wasn’t Wayne looking back at you. Eddie’s piercing brown gaze was easy for you to make out through the haze, and you were even able to smile.

  “Eddie.” You spoke it so softly but Eddie was still relieved, lowering his mask so he could press a kiss to your head.

  “Hi, baby,” he croaked out, tears pooling in the corners of his eyes as he stroked the side of your face. 

  “Dad’s here,” one of the doctor’s greeted him. Eddie recognized her as your primary Obstetrician, Dr. Eisenerg, the same doctor you had all your appointments with and the same who had delivered Penny. “Would you like the rundown?”

  “Please.”

   “Pre-eclampsia, I suspected as much during our last appointment, the next step would have been Bed Rest starting with tomorrow’s appointment, but baby couldn’t wait that long, could he, mom?”

  Eddie watched as you slowly shook your head, smile on your face because you were happy he was with you.

  “He was born nine weeks early, out of the hospital so unfortunately I don’t know his stats at the moment, he’s being looked over and assessed as I speak. He’s in good hands. I’ll have more information about him for you as soon as we get mom settled. We’re performing a Cesarean section to get the placenta out, she’s much too weak to push it out on her own.”

  God, Eddie loved your doctor. He’d write rock ballads in her honor for knowing exactly what to say to calm his ass down. After that, Eddie focused on you, trying not to pay attention to what was going on behind the cover they’d put up.

  “You sure know how to scare the hell out of me, baby,” he mumbled, eyes crinkling as he smiled under the mask, caressing your pretty face again. He’d never felt more fear in his entire life than when Wayne had spoken to him over the phone, informing him you’d had the baby early and they were taking you into surgery.

  You smiled and Eddie chuckled at the doped up expression on your face. He hadn’t seen it on you in months. You had to be high as a kite. 

  “Sorry, Eddie.”

  “It’s okay.” He pulled his mask down to press a brief kiss to your lips which you happily returned. “After you’re out of here, I’ll go check on our little dude, okay?”

  You nodded, reassured by Eddie that everything would be alright. You trusted him. Trusted him to let him know something you hadn’t yet voiced.

  “I’m tired, Eddie.”

  You slurred it so low, Eddie hadn’t caught it. “What was that, sweetheart?” 

  You didn’t answer him, eyes fluttering shut as multiple monitors began to beep, one at a higher rate and one much slower than the rest.

  “She’s hemorrhaging,” Dr. Eisenberg informed her staff, and Eddie paled. He’d heard that in enough hospital movies and shows to know it wasn’t good. The relief he’d momentarily felt fled from his body, quickly replaced by dread.

  He watched the movement around him, people shouting medical terms he couldn’t understand. He made the mistake of peering around the cover to address your doctor, horrified at the amount of blood on her gloves and the sleeves of her gown.

  Was that all yours?

  “What’s happening?” He demanded, breath hitching around the last word. 

  She didn’t look up at him, asking one of the attendings to escort him out. 

  Eddie called your name, over and over again as he was pushed out of the room, fighting to keep you in his line of vision. Your face, too peaceful looking to be resting, was the last thing he saw before the doors shut in his face.

  He’d made it back to the waiting room on autopilot, collapsing into the free chair next to Wayne, who was now holding Penny. When he’d first walked in, it looked like everyone wanted to bombard him with questions, the look on his face must have stopped them.

  He sat in that uncomfortable hospital chair, gaze unfocused and watery as he stared at nothing, the image of you on the operating table, eyes shut and appearing lifeless replayed in his head over and over and over again, torturing him.

  He had no idea how long he was in a catatonic state, only forced out of it when he registered a firm grip on his shoulder, shaking him.

  Wayne had been trying to get his attention since the moment a doctor called for him near the entrance of the hallway.

  Eddie snapped up, catching sight of the small woman, lightning fast and nearly tripping over himself trying to reach her, desperate for any news on your status. You were going to be okay, right? You had to be.

  “Edward Munson?” She asked.

  Eddie nodded, swallowing hard as he tried to find his voice, his throat was dry, felt like it was made of sandpaper when he cleared his throat, “Y-yes.”

  “I’m Doctor Houseman, Cardiothoracic surgeon, your son is one of my patients.”

  Right away, Eddie felt a sense of dread ooze over him, thick, heavy and suffocating like tar.

  “Your son’s limbs, most of his organs and responses are developing well. Ten toes, ten fingers and he can hear fine. His sight is a little sensitive, but should improve rapidly as should his growth. We are, however, concerned about his heart.”

  Eddie was sure he’d left his heart in that room with you, yet he still felt something in him plummet.

  “He has what’s known as VSD: Ventricular Septal Defect. A hole in the wall of his heart. It’s one of the more common heart defects at birth, normally the hole can close up on its own, be treated with medications or, if necessary, surgery. Because of his premature birth and how weak his body still is, he may not respond well to the medication and the odds of him surviving a surgery are low.”

  He felt the bitter taste of bile rise in the back of his throat.

  “We’d like to keep him for an extended stay in the NICU, let the hole try to close on its own. It still may be too much for him, but it’s his best bet.”

  Eddie squeezed his eyes shut at the first hot sting of tears, desperately trying to hold it together.

  It appeared today would be the day Eddie Munson’s world was due to come to an end, he knew he must have looked pitiful; a red-eyed, pale, clammy, crying mess on the verge of a nervous breakdown. You were lying on some operating table, bleeding out and now his son’s heart could possibly stop on him. Eddie’s was broken. He was broken.

  He sniffled, inhaling deeply before he forced his eyes back open, tears immediately cascading down his cheeks as he nodded and agreed with her plan.

  Dr. Houseman regarded him with sympathetic eyes.

   “Mr. Munson, I don’t believe in miracles. I used to be a general surgeon,” she started, “And then one day, my longtime boyfriend took me out for a night on the town, dancing. He had a heart attack that night, I spent the four hours in that waiting room thinking he was going to die. I’m not religious, but I prayed and I prayed he wouldn’t die. He did. 

  “I switched my practice, to see if I could save others from the same fate. Some I did, some were simply beyond anyone’s reach. Then one day, they brought in a little girl. Tiny thing, frail, six years old, the size of a four year old and she’d had a heart attack. I was sure she wouldn’t make it, tried like hell to save her but sometimes the circumstances just don’t work out in our favor and her body shouldn’t have been strong enough. But it was. She pulled through and she survived. I don’t believe in miracles, Mr. Munson, but she did teach me to have more faith in my patients. The same faith they have in me. Have faith in your son.”

  Then she was gone, whirling out the doors she’d come from. Eddie stared at them, wondering if she was on her way to tend to his baby. It wasn’t fair, he hadn’t even gotten to live yet, wasn’t even a day old and he was fighting for his life.

  Eddie felt Wayne’s firm grip on his shoulder and he turned around, briefly staring into his sorrow filled eyes before he collapsed into his arms and sobbed, shaking with each one that wrecked through his body.

  Wayne held him like he did when he was younger, when Eddie had finally come out of his room and let Wayne comfort him over the bullying he’d faced and the nasty things the other children had said about him, about the family he came from.

  Eddie cried and he didn’t care his friends were most likely watching him, he couldn’t hold it together anymore. Not when there was a chance he could lose his son. Not when he could lose you.

  “I can’t do it on my own,” he sobbed out against Wayne’s shoulder. How was he supposed to care for Penny without you? His family wouldn’t be complete, it’d be fractured, it would be broken. And if—it made him sick to know it was only a possibility and not a certainty—he took his son home, how was he supposed to raise him without you? What would he tell them? His son would be too young to remember, but Penny would. She’d miss you so much, he’d miss you so much. “I can’t, Wayne! I need her! She can’t leave me, I need her!”

  The statement triggered a worrisome thought process, what if you did leave him? When was the last time he said he loved you? You knew it, right? You had to know, he told you all the time but no matter how hard he tried to recall it, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d said he loved you and it made him sob harder.

  Wayne’s arms tightened around him, eyes clenching shut at the agony his boy was feeling. He was hurting too, he’d been in this position before. He’d lost her. Wayne couldn’t let Eddie believe he’d lose you, too. Couldn’t let him think he’d ever have to raise his family alone.

  “She ain’t going nowhere,” he forced out, throat thick with emotion. He was trying to believe it just as much as he hoped Eddie would. “It’s gonna be okay. She’s gonna be okay. They both are.”

  Wayne held him until Eddie stopped shaking and his sobs had subsided. Even then, he hadn’t wanted to let him go, wanted to protect him. But Eddie had his own kid to protect.

  He wiped at his face, taking a couple of shaky breaths. He wasn't okay, far from, but his broken heart was aching for someone he knew would manage to hold the pieces together without even trying, simply by existing. 

  He gave Wayne a brief, grateful smile that didn’t meet his eyes and walked over to Barb, his daughter curled up in her arms. He obviously hadn’t told Penny what was going on, as far as she knew, they had just been going to the hospital because her baby brother had been born.

  Her excitement quickly turned to exhaustion while her dad had been in the delivery room with her mom and she’d stopped running around to sleep in her grandpa’s lap. She’d been knocked out while Eddie was catatonic and had evidently slept through his hysterics, having been passed back to Barb when Wayne got up to comfort Eddie.

  He was relieved she hadn’t seen him like that.

  It was selfish of him, but Eddie woke her up, pulling her out of Barb’s arms and into his own.

  She stirred, raising her head briefly to look at Eddie with sleep heavy eyes, squinting before she nuzzled her head into the crook of his neck. Then, as if she remembered the reason for their hospital visit, she pulled away, an arm lazily resting over his shoulder.

  “Daddy?” She asked through a yawn, lips stretching into a plump ‘o’ before she smacked them together. 

  “Hi, baby,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her crown and nuzzling his face into her curls, the pleasant smell of her sweet strawberry scented shampoo filling his nostrils. Her scent was comforting. 

  “Ganpa says the stoke came.”

  Stork. While Penny knew her baby brother was growing in her mommy’s belly, she also simultaneously believed a stork would be dropping him off, prompted by a number of childrens’ books and cartoons. 

  Eddie had tried asking her about her logic once and she’d made him feel thoroughly stupid for not understanding.

  “Yeah, it did.”

  Penny shook her head, something Eddie noticed she did when she was trying to wake up. You did the same thing, shaking your head whenever you were nodding off. 

  His heart clenched.

  “I see my baby brudder now?”

  For a moment, Eddie struggled to come up with a reply. He didn’t want to tell her the full truth, she was still just a baby herself. He didn’t want to lie to her, either, but he needed to protect her.

  “Soon, sweet pea.” 

  She seemed satisfied with that answer, curling up against his chest as he moved back to sit in the chair he’d been occupying before Dr. Houseman called on him. She quickly made herself comfy in his lap, little fingers pulling at the blue material of the scrub top he still wore.  

  “Know what, daddy?”

  Eddie hummed, stroking his hand through her soft curls, letting them wrap around his finger tips and twisting the ends. They were still short, not long or heavy enough to be weighed down so it still looked like she had the Annie hairdo. She was so adorable, it drove him crazy.

  “He looks like a ‘tato.”

  Eddie stilled, brows furrowing down at her in confusion. 

  “What?”

  “He looks like a potato,” she repeated, matter of factly, “Ganpa says.”

  Eddie’s eyes darted over to Wayne in the seat next to him. 

  “She wanted a description. You try comin’ up with somethin’.” Wayne had only gotten a brief look at the baby, he’d been almost unnaturally pale and covered in something that looked chalky and pasty. Reminded him of how potatoes look after being washed and air dried so it was the first thing that came to mind.

  Eddie highly doubted a potato was tucked into an incubator in the NICU.

  “I don’t think he looks like a potato, sweet pea.”

  “No,” Is all she said, resting her head against his chest and effectively smashing the curls he’d been messing with there. She wasn’t agreeing with him and Eddie knew it. She meant no, you’re wrong.

  He snorted, blinking harshly at how sore his swollen eyelids were. 

  “Alright, potato he is.”

  Penny didn’t know it and maybe in the future Eddie would tell her, she was getting him through this. His anxiety and panic had not left him, but it was easier to focus on a little light when it was curled up in his lap, telling him all about her baby brother she had yet to meet, with certainty they soon would.

[respectthepetty]

Your Sky is another university BL, which means I, once again, will be fighting my sworn enemy — school uniforms.

But, luckily, I already know what I'm up against and spotted the colors from the trailers.

Muenfah, aka Fah, is a Blue Boy.

He and his friends have been incorrectly rumored to be mysterious and powerful Black Brooders by their peers.

But he is just exhibiting the negative traits of his blue color by being distant and impersonal.

So it's great that he ran into Teerak (or did Teerak run into him?) with his yellow cloth.

Because Teerak is a cheerful and chatty Yellow Yal who will provide balance to Fah's default distant demeanor and yank him out of his comfort zone.

Teerak comes from a colorful and happy family.

But it seems like Fah comes from a family of cold and emotionally closed-off people since I think even his brother seems like a Blue Boy, or Pun might be an actual secretive Black Brooder.

And normally I would rely on the phones being color-coded, but this show is giving me something different with color-coded iPads!

Joy in her pink jacket with her pink iPad and pink accented phone is a Pink Person.

And even though Type doesn't have a color-coded iPad, he does have green-colored headphones, so I think this forgetful and chill friend is a Green Guy.

He also had green text on his shirt at the party while Teerak had red already blossoming from his chest after running into Fah, so I don't need phones or iPads to feel sure about these colors.

And although we might not see sis again, she came, she served, and she was a Pink Person. Everyone pray we get to see her again.

But this is all to emphasize that everything about Teerak's life is very colorful. He is the bright sun coming out to make a rainbow.

Even Oh, being 🎶The Worst🎶, knows that Teerak is the yellow sun at the center of this universe since he got Teerak sunflowers.

But Blue Boy Fah easily gave Teerak his heart without a second thought, much like he is about to give Teerak everything he wants without hesitation.

It's like the red thread of destiny was always connecting these two color-coded boys who are about to be in love.

But first they have to get past one small barrier between them.

Which doesn't take long since, like I wrote, Teerak will force Fah to step out of his nice box of isolation without even trying.

Because Yellow Yals are impatient and don't like to be kept waiting, so Fah will have to move quickly to keep up with Teerak in everyday life and in love.

But, like I mentioned, fate seems to be saying their were destined.

And gave Fah the pink equals love light.

Which he knew exactly what to do with.

So really, fate gave Fah a head start.

And true to his Blue Boy-ness, he was smart enough to take it.

Good for him since he is going to need all the help he can get to handle his Yellow Yal and his colorful crew.

Where's his friends when he needs them?

Probably making out with each other if fate is on my side.

[theomenmedia]

The Trailer For Akshay Kumar's Sky Force Is Out Now!

Get ready for an epic sky-high adventure with Akshay Kumar in Sky Force! The trailer drops bombs of excitement! In cinemas 24th January 2025.

Check out the action packed trailer right here: https://www.theomenmedia.com/post/sky-force-soars-high-akshay-kumar-s-new-trailer-ignites-patriotic-fervor

[wynnyfryd]

Trailer park Steve AU part 24

part 1 | part 23 | ao3

cw: alcohol, throwing up, brief reference to canonical character death

"Oh, my god!" Robin barks, nearly throwing herself off-balance again with the force of her laugh. "This is too good, man. You truly cannot escape your babysitting duties."

"Can I help you?" Max seethes.

Help him? Help him? "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" She gestures to the guy she's holding onto, some fluffy-haired kid with a cut-off vest covered in safety pins that Steve sort of vaguely recognizes as one of Eddie's friends. Oh, shit. Is Eddie here finally? Has he seen him?

"Wait, where's Lucas?" Steve asks.

"Who cares?" she bites back.

The guy gives a nervous chuckle and loosens his grip on her waist. "Uh-h. Did you say babysitter?"

"He's not actually, Jesus. I'm fourteen; I don't need a babysitter. And he was just leaving, anyway, right?"

Her glare feels like a slap. Girl's got daggers in her eyes, holy shit. It's like she's hoping some of El's powers magically transferred to her; like she's picturing him flying ten feet into the air and landing with a splat on the far side of the concrete, and he doesn't need this. He did not come out tonight to be bullied by a teenager. "Okay, that's it, I'm taking—"

"—me to the punch bowl!" Robin interrupts, putting her hands on Steve's chest to stop him from grabbing Max and hauling her back to the car.

"Robin, what—?"

"Yep!" She shoves him hard, pushing him to the edge of the dance floor. "Silly me, just dying of thirst, ha ha. Okay, cool, see you both later!"

—

"What the hell was that?" Steve demands when they're safely on the far side of the pavilion.

"An intervention."

Oh, my god. May he never hear the word 'intervention' again in his life.

"Un-ruffle your Mother Hen feathers for two seconds and think, would you? One: it would look really, really, seriously weird for you to be seen dragging a dead jock's kid sister kicking and screaming to your car."

A dead jock’s kid sister. Jesus, tipsy Robin has no tact.

"Two: you said we were going to go out and have fun and get, and I quote, 'very drunk.' Take your babysitter hat off for one night. She's a high schooler, and this is a high school party."

"Yeah, I know," he sulks. Doesn't need the reminder that he's technically past the age limit.

"Okay, so then let her have fun! It's not like you weren't out drinking and smoking by her age."

'I'm always so right about everything. I'm, like, cosmically correct.' Goddammit. Steve needs another drink. "I just don't want her to do anything dumb and get hurt."

"She won't. We can just, like, keep an eye on her from a distance, right? Let her come to us if she needs anything."

"So we should just act like your parents?" Steve snorts.

"My parents are amazing, thank you!"

"Your mom offered me mushroom tea once."

"Like I said: amazing."

Steve huffs a laugh, flips his hair out of his eyes and snags a handful of tortilla chips. "Okay," he says around a crunchy bite, "so what's the third thing?"

"Third thing?" Robin asks. She’s not even looking at him anymore, her eyes eager and distracted as she scans the crowd.

"You're biting your lip weird, there's clearly a third thing."

She turns to him, and the smile springs free from its containment, spreading all over her flushed, ecstatic face. "Vickie just showed up."

—

Steve’s hammered.

Whoops.

Didn’t mean to do it; feels a little bad about it as he tips his head up to the sky and all the stars go raining in bright streaks across his vision. Reminds him of the ceiling at Starcourt, nauseous and spinning under a swirl of bright fluorescence. He hopes Rob’s flirting is going well.

He meant to get politely drunk.

A socially appropriate amount.

But then Robin ran off to flirt with Vickie, and Steve was doing his best to just lay low, steer clear of Max and maybe find a way to casually run into Eddie if he could find him, when he spotted the girl he went on that disaster of a date with instead and realized his options were either: stay there by the beer coolers while she came over with her new date and subjected him to the most painful small talk of his life, or retreat to the dark edges of the party with as much booze as he could carry, so.

He's slumped on top of a picnic bench downwind of the bonfire, bad ear ringing, belly full to bursting, trying to remember when one beer became… more than one beer.

Five?

Six, maybe?

Fuck.

“‘M gonna puke,” he confesses to the splintered wood beneath his feet; to the pine bough overhead, the smoky fire at his back.

“Wow,” someone says, an amused lilt to their tone, and Steve knows that voice, he—

Oh, no.

Ohhhh, no.

Now? Really?

Steve whips his head around, opens his mouth to ask ‘Eddie?’ and barfs all over his shoes.

—

part 25

tag list part 1 below the cut, let me know if you want me to add you tomorrow (21+ only, please confirm your age if you're asking to be tagged)

@a-little-unsteddie @ahsokatanoss @aliea82 @alyelf @anne-bennett-cosplayer @aol19 @awolfstudio @bambibiest @bananahoneycomb @bookbinderbitch @bronwenmarie @cheonsazu @cinnamon-mushroomabomination @courtjestermunson @cuips-not-cute @dauntlessdiva @dawners @dontwasteyourchances @eddie-munsons-missing-nipple @eriquin @estrellami-1 @fandomfix8 @gregre369 @griefabyss69 @grtwdsmwhr @hallucinatedjosten @hellion-child @hiimlevi @honoragreyskull @hotluncheddie @jackiemonroe5512 @kas-eddie-munson @kingelyx @lifeisacrisis @littlebluejane @marvel-ous-m @melonmochi @messrs-weasley @milklechee @mrsjellymunson @mugloversonly @munsonslure @nburkhardt @nerdyglassescheeseychick @notsopersonalcharlie @novelnovella @nuggies4life @phoenixtheone @questionablequeeries @runninriot

[whenyoufellfromheaven]

WHEN YOU FELL FROM HEAVEN

by Alyson Greaves

Expand this post to read the first three chapters for free, right here!

How to Fly, book one of When You Fell from Heaven, which comprises the first ten chapters of the story, is available:

On Amazon, for Kindle and in Paperback.

As an ebook from these online stores.

Or from Itch.io.

Or you can read all current chapters on my Patreon! Subscribing to my Patreon at the $5 tier will get you all fifteen chapters (so far) of When You Fell from Heaven. You will also get access to my ongoing stories The Catch, a forced-fem riff on Fifty Shades with illustrations by Emory Ahlberg, and Kimmy, a horrifying take on the Halloween costume that won’t let you out. And you’ll get the full epub of the revised version of Show Girl, my egg-cracking trans romance, and access to chapters of The Sisters of Dorley two weeks early!

One

THE BOY WITH THE RUBBER BAND IN HIS HAIR

He thought there would be more palm trees.

The car bounces off a pothole and wakes him from a restless sleep, and Max’s first thought, when he pushes himself up in the back seat and stares out the window, is that California doesn’t look like California. His whole life, California’s been a near-mythical paradise, drenched in sun, scattered with palm trees and populated entirely by beautiful people. But all he sees is just more America. More of the same suburbs they’ve seen, on and off, for the five days of their journey. It looks almost exactly like Rock Falls, the nowhere town in the middle of the country they spent a whole day walking around because Dad needed a break from driving. The same strip malls, the same absurdly wide streets, the same endless sky.

It’s just brighter here. More painful to look at.

After everything that happened, Max never expected to miss New York, but for the whole drive across the country he’s been feeling increasingly like an animal bred in captivity let suddenly out into the wild. Where’s the density? Where are the people?

All in their fucking cars, apparently. Same as him.

Screw this. He needs music.

His headphones must have slipped off while he was sleeping, because Clay’s holding them out for him. Max takes them, smiles at his brother in silent thanks, and thumbs blindly at his Discman until the first track starts again. The throaty rumble of someone seriously abusing a bass guitar immediately shuts out the rattle of the trailer and the hum of tires on asphalt, and Max turns back to the window to watch building after bleached building glide slowly by as they head for their new home, for his new life.

He doesn’t exactly have high hopes.

* * *

Taking the stairs two at a time—but sometimes jumping back up one just because she can—Taylor revels in her first Saturday alone in the house. Her parents are away all week! And that means she can do whatever she wants! Sure, she normally does whatever she wants anyway, but now she can do it without her mom complaining about the noise.

She sticks the landing in the front hall, bounces right into the living room, and collects the remote from its little holster on the side of Dad’s armchair without slowing down. The CD changer opens for her, prompting the whole stereo setup to light up like a space shuttle control board, and Taylor gets to work dumping out all of Mom and Dad’s boring old crap so she can listen to something good down here for a change. She’s got a handful of favorites on her, but she’s also got something that came out almost a month ago that she still hasn’t gotten to listen to on anything better than the crappy little portable stereo in her room. And as the speakers shake with the opening bars of Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love, Taylor readies the remote like a microphone and prepares to strut.

Holy shizz, she loves this song. She turns it up until the floor hums along.

Gordo should have been the one to get her this CD. She was excited about it for, like, ever, and he knows she loves Destiny’s Child, but did he remember? Nope with a big fat N, O, P and E. So she got it for herself a week late.

Freaking Gordo! He was supposed to come over today, help her take advantage of the parentals being away, but he’s flaked, which is more and more like him lately. Five texts on her Sidekick when she woke up, and not one of them was an apology! He’s preparing for college; he has football camp coming up; she wouldn’t understand.

Taylor scowls. It’s a sore point: no cheer camp this year. But Mom and Dad had the vacation booked anyway, and Garrett barely inhabits any part of the house that isn’t his room, the couch or the kitchen, so at least she has some time to relax.

Time in which she should stop thinking about her disappointing boyfriend.

Leaning into the beat, Taylor lets it lift her mood again, and when the final chorus comes around, she times her, “Yeah!” with a precise kick to the latch on the patio doors, opening the house to the summer breeze. As she dances out into the backyard, she points the remote back into the house and ups the volume another couple of notches.

Taylor lets the album play as she does some of her warm-up stretches. She’s not planning to go through her whole routine right now, but she can’t start the day without moving just a bit, and today she gets to do so to some loud music.

There’s a reason she always practices to music. Nothing gets her going like a beat and lyrics she can yell. And under any other circumstances, she might be a bit embarrassed, because her singing voice isn’t exactly great and it’s worse when she’s stretching a leg up over her head, but their neighbors on the right can’t get out into their backyard anymore without help from their grandchildren, and the house on the left’s been empty since—

Wait. It got sold, right? Isn’t someone moving in soon? Really soon? Like, today, maybe?

Shoot!

Given Taylor’s luck, they probably already moved in yesterday, and right now, cute boys are watching her out of their upstairs windows and laughing at how she almost fell flat on her face when she tried to do a handstand and sing Naughty Girl at the same time.

She shuts off the music, throws the remote down into the grass, and runs to the fence. There won’t be anybody there, she’s sure, but paranoia requires that she check.

Every house on this street is the same—on the outside, at least—and that means Taylor’s house has the same row of stubby trees against the privacy fence as their (potential) new neighbors. They’re staggered, so no tree interferes with any other, but together they provide enough cover that Taylor can stand on a lawn chair and peer over the fence and be pretty sure she can’t be seen.

Nobody in the rooms upstairs. And nobody in the backyard. Except now she’s switched off the music, she can hear noises from the front of the neighboring house, faint but growing louder: the growl of a large engine (a truck? or a regular car, towing a trailer?) and raised, bickering voices (boys?).

Then there’s movement inside the house. Curtains being swept aside, doors being propped open. People milling around. Taylor’s pretty sure she just saw someone dad-sized and -shaped staggering along with a huge box.

The back door opens, and Taylor lowers her head a little. Her blonde hair doesn’t exactly help with the whole camouflage thing, but what are the chances anybody’ll glance over at this exact section of fence? The backyards here are the size of football fields!

A figure emerges. Gotta be the mom. Looks like a mom, standard model, Italian-American variant: kinda tall, kinda middle-aged stocky, and her hair is incredible! She’s got it pinned but the volume! It’s straining to be set free, like a caged tiger, if a tiger was jet black and sort of lurked.

More like a caged panther, maybe.

The mom yells something back into the house—a New York accent! cool!—and the dad of the family comes out to meet her, and whoa. He’s not super tall, maybe an inch or two taller than his wife, but he is wide. Like if you took two people, trimmed off all the excess limbs, and smooshed them together. He’s like if puberty didn’t stop until you’re forty, and you just kept getting stockier and more hairy.

They talk a little, pointing out different things in the yard—none of them Taylor—and then they kiss, except they don’t just kiss, he dips her!

“Oh my goodness,” Taylor whispers. She can’t help herself; that was just so romantic! Married with kids and they still do that!

She remembers them now: they came looking around the neighborhood right at the start of the holidays. Mom offered them iced tea and they asked for regular coffee, and Taylor saw them for approximately three seconds, on her way through the kitchen to the front door. On second inspection, she likes them.

What was their name again? Something Italian, something with a G… Giordano, that was it! She remembers clearly now: when Taylor got back that night, Mom was going on about finally getting some ‘Italian flavor’ in the neighborhood, and Dad asked her what that meant, and she said something about tomatoes. Garrett, who was having one of his rare moments of consciousness, told them their heads would explode if they ever saw any actual diversity, and Taylor told him he smelled like weed again.

Another fun night in the Scott household.

Mom Giordano kisses Dad Giordano again and they both set off for the house. When they get to the door, Mom Giordano sticks her head inside and yells, “Boys! Stop messing around and unpack! We’ve been in California five minutes and you’re already driving me crazy!” She shrugs at her husband, and they both vanish into what Taylor assumes is the kitchen.

Then there’s nothing for a bit. Shame, because this is the most exciting thing to happen in Vista Primavera in years. She’s about to step down from her lawn chair and get back to her routine when someone new comes out the same door, and he’s… yum. Like his dad, he’s not exactly tall, maybe five-ten, five-eleven, but he’s built. He’s wearing a sleeveless shirt and jeans, and Taylor can see enough of him to know that there’s a good shape under all that. And he’s not shaped like a bodybuilder, either; nor is he shaped like her boyfriend, like a football player. He’s shaped like a guy who works for a living. He’s got the family black hair, cut short and kinda curly, and thick eyebrows and a mess of stubble, and if it weren’t for her stupid boyfriend and also for the fact that he’s probably at least twenty-one, she’d hop the fence right now and ask very politely if she could eat him up with a spoon and maybe some non-fat ice cream on the side.

Guys like that look good on her.

“Hey!” he yells back into the house. “Max! Come check this out! You can see a mountain from the backyard!”

Taylor doesn’t laugh, though she kinda wants to. That’s not a mountain! Not like the real ones; you have to go north for those. Here in Vista Primavera they have, well, they have hills, hills with delusions of grandeur, and they look kinda blasted and scrappy most of the time, except for two months in the spring. She makes a mental note to really admire them when they get green again. To genuinely try to appreciate them, because people in other parts of the country don’t have crappy hills to look at.

And then the last member of the Giordano clan steps out of the kitchen door. Max. And he’s nothing like his dad or his brother. He’s closer to Taylor’s height, maybe five-eight, definitely a good couple inches shorter than his jacked brother. His features are similar, though, just softer, like if his brother is maybe twenty-five percent through the family forty-year puberty, Max is at five percent. Maybe ten; he does have a little dark hair on his upper lip. He wears his black hair long and a little greasy, tied in a messy ponytail with what looks like a rubber band! Ick! She shudders to think what it’s like to get that mess straight in the morning. Maybe there are brushes still lost in there!

Maybe he doesn’t brush it, like, at all.

Max is clearly the younger brother, but he’s not young, he’s just kind of… hard to place. He’s wearing board shorts and a shirt with a band she’s never heard of on it, both of which are too big for him, and— Hmm. He is sort of toned, actually. He’s not covered in muscles, not like his brother or like Gordo, but they’re there, lurking in his slender limbs. He’s built like a swimmer. A swimmer on a starvation diet, maybe, whose hair hasn’t known the cleansing kiss of water in far too long, but a swimmer nonetheless.

And then Max high fives his brother, sways his arms, steps into a ready stance, and performs the most perfect sequences of handsprings, somersaults and flips Taylor’s ever seen. The form! The confidence! The sheer height he achieves! He finishes with a double full, and he’s barely panting at all!

Not built like a swimmer, then. Built like a gymnast.

Interesting…

“Show off!” his brother shouts.

“I’m just stiff!” Max yells back at him. “From the drive! I needed to stretch my legs!”

“Whatever.” His brother grins at him. “Just come help me unpack the kitchen stuff before Mom goes ballistic, okay?”

“Fine.”

His brother goes inside, but Max apparently can’t resist one more tumble, even more elaborate than before, and although Taylor’s inner cheerleader wants to scold him for not stretching properly and for just going for it on a lawn he’s never even seen before, which could have hidden rocks or loose stones or unexpected divots, she can’t help applauding.

Because he’s amazing. She’s only seen moves like that at the Olympics! And at, well, at the annual cheerleading competition. The one she’s been wanting the squad to at least try to qualify for. The one she always has to settle for watching on TV.

Oh.

Oh no!

He’s seen her.

Well, obviously he has: she’s still clapping like an idiot. Like a performing seal. He’s frowning in her direction, but before she can wave and say hi and maybe apologize, he takes off, running back to the house with impressive speed.

He glances at her one more time, and then he slams the kitchen door.

Shoot.

* * *

Max drops onto his brand-new bed, too tired and too annoyed to unpack his own shit. He helped with the kitchen stuff, he helped with the living room stuff, he even helped Clay put together those stupid ‘couch in a box’ things and almost got his fingers trapped, and none of it was strenuous enough to forget the fact that he’s been in California just a few hours and already he’s humiliated himself in front of a pretty girl.

A pretty girl who is his neighbor. And it’s not something she’s likely to forget. In a year, when they graduate, she’ll still be telling the story of the loner boy who moved in next door and immediately started prancing around the backyard like a—

Careful, Max. You hate it when they say it; why use it on yourself?

Ugh. It was supposed to be different here. Stupid thing to let himself think. It was always going to be exactly the same.

And why California, anyway? Everything’s too damn big here.

His bed included. He’s stretching to his fullest extent—he’s still sore from the car—and he can’t reach all four corners of the bed at once. Not like in his old bed. No, back home in Queens, when he and Avery lay in bed, talking, it would sometimes be a challenge not to knock each other off. But the money Mom and Dad got for the old place bought a fucking mansion here; he and Avery could probably host three other people on this monster-sized mattress before it got awkward.

At least the yard is super-sized, too. A genuine California bonus. One that he instantly wrecked, of course; he can’t go out there now. The neighbor girl might see him.

His phone buzzes again. He’s been ignoring it the last hour or so, but he can’t keep pretending the outside world doesn’t exist. After all, there’s so much of it here.

Max flicks open the pocket of his board shorts and digs around in the fluff until he finds his phone. Last year’s model, but when Clay upgrades again next year, he’ll have this year’s model, and until then, he’s fine with his Nokia 3410. It’s not like phones are any different year on year, anyway; they get a bit smaller and a bit rounder, and sometimes you don’t get Snake.

Avery’s been texting him. So far, he hasn’t wanted to respond. Too final. He doesn’t want to acknowledge how little they’re going to be in each other’s lives from now on.

Avery: Maxxy! Have fun in sunny California! Don’t forget about me! Avery: You’ve forgotten about me, haven’t you Avery: Crying real tears right now Avery: Max, you’re supposed to reply when someone texts you. That’s how it works. It’s called Textiquette. I read it in a magazine at the dentist. Avery: WHAT STATE ARE YOU EVEN IN RIGHT NOW? DID YOU MAKE IT TO SO-CAL? OR ARE YOU STUCK IN FLYOVER HELL? Avery: Sorry for caps Avery: I’m so bored Avery: Maxxxxxxxxxy

Unfair that he had to leave her behind. Unfair that he had to leave at all, but he couldn’t very well tell Dad he wanted to stay in Queens, not after everything. When your whole family sacrifices everything they’ve ever known and moves across the country just for you—even if they don’t say it—it’s bad form to bitch too hard about it.

Avery, though. An impossible goodbye. She cried a lot; he tried really hard to join in. But maybe it’s for the best. Maybe she’s better off with him out of her life, attached to him by only the thinnest and lengthiest of threads. She’s going places, after all; to the Olympics, almost definitely. He was never as good as her, even before he quit.

So she can get over him. Make other friends. Start her senior year without the baggage he brings unavoidably with him wherever he goes.

Avery: Max Max Max Max Max Max Max

He should probably reply before she texts again.

Max: Hey Avery: Max! Get on AIM nowwwwwwww Max: How do you even have the energy to hit the 9 key that many times Avery: Because I do my warm ups Max Avery: Unlike some of us Avery: Now get on AIM I’m booooooored Max: I can’t, sorry. I don’t think we have internet yet Avery: Not even dial up? Max: I saw the phone line when I was helping Dad unpack downstairs. Is it supposed to have a bunch of bare wires coming out of it? Avery: Boooo Avery: I don’t have infinite texts Max Max: You could have fooled me Avery: So I’m going to wish you a happy California and a very get on AIM as soon as you have ANY kind of internet Max: I will. Miss you Avery: You BETTER

Max drops his phone onto the nightstand and allows the low battery indicator to motivate him into doing something useful. He rolls out of bed—he has to roll twice to actually accomplish this—and starts rummaging through boxes, looking for his charger. Once he has it, he looks around for an outlet and plugs it in.

There. Now he has a bed and a phone charger! The place looks more like home already. And now that he’s out of bed again, he might as well have a shower and wash off the gunk from traveling all night. He digs around until he finds the box marked Max’s Bathroom and just takes the whole damn thing in with him.

Another California bonus: he doesn’t have to share a bathroom with three other people anymore.

* * *

Garrett’s finally crawled out of his room and slugged his way down the stairs to take up residence on the couch. Ick. Just three hours ago, this would have been bad because he would have made Taylor turn down her music or beg her to go to the store for more Doritos or something, and that would have been annoying enough. But now she’s on a mission, and the thing about being on a mission is that your goal is greatly hampered by anyone knowing what it is or having reason to guess.

So she’s trying to make smoothies as subtly as she can, and maybe he won’t get up from his cartoons and ask—

“Hey, Tay, whatya doing?”

Taylor stamps a foot in irritation. “None of your beeswax, Gar‑rat.”

“Okay, okay,” he mumbles, rolling off from his precarious position against the dividing wall and returning to the living room. Moments later, he turns up the volume on the TV.

Well! That went okay. Obviously he’s still too wasted to have more than two consecutive coherent thoughts, and that suits Taylor just fine. He can waste away the day in front of his cartoons if he wants to. She checks interact civilly with my gross brother off her mental list and throws the rest of the ingredients into the blender.

They really should have grown out of the sibling thing, the way the other girls she knows with older brothers mostly have. But it’s absence that makes the heart grow fonder, and he’s always around! Worse, he’ll always be around! Mom and Dad won’t kick him out, not after he paid them rent on his room for the next five years, which means she’s stuck with him.

When the blender gets done, she pours the contents into two metal cups and screws on the lids, throwing them both into a plastic bag. In the mirror by the side door, she gives herself a final check, and she looks perfect: pink cargo pants, pink crop top, and a white shirt thrown over the top, for modesty. She looks sporty but fashionable; exactly the impression she wants to give to the new boy next door. She even left her hair up!

As she steps into her white sneakers she throws a final glare through the kitchen wall at Garrett. He won’t see it, but he might feel it, and it might spoil his cartoons by like one percent.

She has to admit, they’d probably also get along better if he wasn’t such a tech prodigy. And without even trying! It’s bullcrap. Computers are supposed to be Taylor’s backup, in the very likely event that cheerleading isn’t enough to take her to college, but she’ll always have to live in the shadow of her older brother, who started a dot-com when he was fifteen and sold it for literal millions when he was barely older than Taylor is now. So even if she does go to college for computer science, she’ll always be the cheerleader little sister to the guy who created Munchie Portal, the Portal for Munchies.

It has a new name now that Yahoo! owns it, but everyone still calls it that.

Ick. Forget Garrett. She’s here for one reason, and she squares it in her mind as she skips the short distance between the houses and knocks on the Giordanos’ door. A few seconds later, Mom Giordano opens it and smiles down at her.

“Well, hello!” she says. “Who do we have here? Wait, don’t tell me; you’re the neighbor girl, aren’t you!”

Taylor puts on her most dazzling smile. “Guilty!”

“Well, do come in. And what do you have there?”

Hefting her bag, Taylor says, “Actually, these are for Max. Or one of them is, anyway.”

Mom Giordano’s welcoming smile contorts somewhat. “You know Max?”

“I don’t know him,” Taylor says quickly, sensing she might already have stepped on some hidden motherly landmine, “but I think I sort of embarrassed him earlier? I saw him practicing out in the yard and I thought he was really good, so I clapped, and then I didn’t have a chance to tell him it was a sincere clap and not, like, a sarcastic clap, so—” she lifts one of the cups out of the bag, “—I brought an apology present.”

“Aren’t you a sweet girl?” And then Mom Giordano does the classic mom move, which New York Italian moms apparently do just as well as WASPy Californian moms: it’s when they lean back, away from the teen in front of them, and yell at the top of their voice up the stairs. Taylor’s never known why any of them do this, because the extra foot or so of distance doesn’t moderate the extreme volume even slightly. “Maxwell! You got a visitor!” When there’s no answer, she looks back at Taylor. “Why don’t you go on up? Third door on the right.”

“Thanks, Mrs Giordano!” Taylor says in her peppiest voice. She starts up the stairs.

As she ascends, she hears Mom Giordano say to her husband, “Well, look at that! She even remembers our names. And that outfit! This one might not be so bad…”

Taylor slows as she reaches the top of the stairs, and counts doors, quickly identifying Max’s as the half-open one on the end. There’s another mirror up here—just a little one hanging on the wall, filling one of the many preinstalled picture hooks, most of which are still empty—and she checks herself again: not a hair out of place, and her outfit still looks good. She could have worn her cheer uniform, since it tends to make a good impression on guys and parents alike, but she knows the reputation cheerleaders have at some schools; he might have cheer-TSD.

She knocks on his door, and though there’s no answer, the door swings all the way open at her touch, so she takes a half-step inside.

And immediately she sees a door on the other side of the room open up.

Before Taylor can react, Maxwell Giordano, loosely robed, with long wet hair draped over half his face down to his shoulders, and with a slice of his toned but almost skeletally thin body on display through the open top half of the robe… steps out of his bathroom and meets her eyes.

“Fuck!” he yells, and immediately turns around and slams the bathroom door behind him.

Shoot!

* * *

“I’ll be outside!” the Peeping Tom neighbor girl yells, and it has to be her, because, yeah, he didn’t get a good look at her before, but the girl hanging over the fence was blonde like her and—more pertinently—she clapped at him like a perky idiot, and only a perky idiot would walk into the bedroom of someone she doesn’t know, uninvited, so, yeah, it’s her. “I’ll let you get dressed! I’ll just… I’m sorry! I’ll be outside.”

He probably can’t wait her out, then. Not unless he gets lucky and the sun explodes before she gets bored, or Mom comes up to yell at him for being rude.

The first thing Max does when he leaves the bathroom again is check to make sure that Peeping Tom neighbor girl did, in fact, close his bedroom door; she did. Thank fuck. He leaves her out there while he sorts through boxes, trying to put together something presentable, eventually ending up with three options.

They all suck.

Whatever! None of his shit actually fits him, but that’s not exactly a new problem, and if the neighbor girl doesn’t like it, she should learn not to show up unexpectedly in people’s rooms. Shit, what even is the protocol in this situation? Should he make her a coffee or something? What do Californians drink? Orange juice? No, that’s Floridians. Iced tea? Pulped palm trees? That would explain why there aren’t as many around as he expected.

If only Avery were here. She might not know what to do either, but at least she’d be funny about it, and at least having another girl around might stop things getting awkward.

Fuck it. He’s eighteen. He can do what he wants. Including embarrass himself in front of local girls. What can she do, make his life worse?

He picks the least awful set of clothes, throws it on, and stuffs the others back into the nearest box. A quick glance in the closet mirror is enough to confirm that he looks adequate, so he ties up his hair in a rubber band and opens the door. On the other side, the neighbor girl smiles sheepishly at him.

“Sorry,” she says. “Twice. Sorry for that, and sorry for earlier, in the yard. Can I come in?” She holds up a plastic bag. “I have a peace offering.”

She might be intrusive and forward, but she’s also gorgeous. California blonde and dressed for a run, just like any number of other girls he saw out of the car window this morning, and there’s enough individuality to her face to make her attractive, not merely pretty. Like, very attractive. To him. Personally. And her cheeks are flushed with embarrassment and her eyes are apologetic so he can’t be all that mad at her. She reminds him of Avery, a bit; she couldn’t look more different, but the expression on her face is uncannily like when Avery came rushing over at six in the morning to tell him she finally kissed Rebecca and that it was just as magical as she always hoped.

And it’s a cute expression. On both of them.

“Sure,” he says. “Come in.”

“Wow,” she says, craning her neck, making a show of looking around. “Nice room! Lots of boxes! And… a guitar! You play?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, but I don’t do anything with it. I just kinda pick it up and put it down again.”

“Still. Pretty cool.” Then she shakes her head and pulls out of her plastic bag a metal cup with a straw poking through its lid. “Behold: my custom smoothies. No fat, plenty of protein, and a hundred percent delicious!”

“No fat, huh,” he says, a smile riding unbidden on his lips.

“I promise. Athlete to athlete.”

She’s still holding it out, so he takes it from her and tries a sip and, yeah, okay, it’s actually good. In fact, it’s excellent. It’s better than the smoothies Coach used to hand out back home, a long, long time ago.

Best not to think about that.

“Wow,” he says.

“Can I cook, or can I cook?”

“Yes. You can cook.”

He steps backward and drops onto his bed, still holding the smoothie. She takes it as an invitation and sits cross-legged on the floor, sucking on her own cup and looking around again.

“I think your house is the same as mine inside,” she says thoughtfully. “Like, I was pretty sure it would be? Since all the places on this street are kinda the same. But I’ve never been inside another one before. This? This is actually my room. Just—” she crosses her arms at the wrist, “—flipped.”

“Oh,” Max says, grinning. “Sorry for imposing.”

“Forgiven.”

“So, you’re an athlete?”

She perks up. “I am!”

“Um, this would be the point where you tell me what kind of athlete.”

“Cheerleader,” she says with a slight wince, like she’s expecting him to laugh. And that would be a dick move, so he doesn’t, but he is a little offended that she would compare what he does to what she does.

Still a dick move, Max, even in your own head. At least she’s probably still active. Probably doesn’t neglect her stretches, either.

“That’s cool!” he says, injecting the proper enthusiasm.

“It is cool,” she says, very seriously.

“Okay, neighbor girl, what’s your name? I can’t keep thinking of you as ‘the Peeping Tom girl’ forever.”

She giggles. “Sorry about that. I really did think you were good, though. That’s why I clapped. And I’m Taylor. Taylor Scott.”

She’s holding out a hand, so he takes it and they shake. He doesn’t linger on it, pulling his hand away immediately. It’s always a little embarrassing to shake hands with people: with men, they want to do that insane test-of-strength thing—Max tends to think of it as a Business Armwrestle—and he’s terrible at it; with women, he finds they both just sort of limply clutch each other for a moment.

At least with girls, his hands don’t get lost inside theirs. His brother’s hands are huge, multiple glove sizes above Max’s, though to Clay’s credit, he hasn’t teased him about it. He’s just promised Max that his growth spurt is coming, and that if he starts, like, actually eating again, he’ll soon be as big as the rest of the Giordano men. And Max is ambivalent about that, because as much as it would be nice to no longer be so scrawny, if he becomes suddenly Clay-sized, his gymnastic career—his primary passion since he was a kid—is definitely over, not just probably over as it is now. He’d have to relearn everything: how to move, how to jump, where his center of gravity is, all of it. And after the way things ended before, he’s not sure he can take instruction again.

He might finally have an impressive handshake, though.

“Hey, Max?” Taylor says. “You okay? You zoned out a bit.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.” He shakes his head and rubs at the back of his neck, where he’s the most sore. “I’m tired. I slept in the car but not well, you know?”

She nods, then looks around again and giggles. “Max,” she says, scandalized, “the door’s closed!”

So it is. Must have springs on the hinges or something. “Yeah?”

“Your parents aren’t going to yell at you?”

“Oh,” he says, laughing a little, “no, probably not. I had a friend back in New York— That’s where I’m from, by the way.”

“I guessed.”

“My accent?”

“Your mom’s actually. And you do look kinda… New York-ish.”

“I do? Huh. Anyway, me and my friend were in and out of each other’s rooms all the time. I liked hers better, actually; mine was always too hot in the summer. Our parents got used to it. They didn’t have much of a choice.”

Her eyes wide, Taylor says, “But a guy and a girl in a bedroom together? My mom and dad would not be happy about that.”

“Avery’s gay,” Max says, shrugging. “And even before she came out, I think her parents knew. And mine guessed. So they knew we weren’t going to do anything.”

“You’ve got a lesbian best friend?” Taylor says, almost shrieking. “That is so cool.”

“I’ll make sure and tell her you said that.”

“And you really never did anything together?”

“Well…” He can feel himself start to blush.

God damn Avery. Around guys—even around his brother these days—he keeps himself locked tight for his own good, but Avery never put up with that when he tried it with her. He kept closing himself off and she kept jamming that crowbar back in. Thanks to her, he’s used to letting his guard down around girls his age. And now Taylor, who’s been in his life for all of ten minutes, is able to open him up like a clam.

“Go on…” she says, leaning in with a smile and touching his hand, a maneuver that demolishes any chance he might have had at defending against her.

“We practiced kissing,” he says into his shirt. “Quite a few times. First she wanted to know what it was like and then she wanted to get good for this girl she liked, so I’d, um…” Helplessly he mimes something, his fingers vaguely grasping at each other.

“Right.”

“Yeah.”

“She was your first?” Taylor guesses.

His cheeks are burning now. “It’s that obvious, huh?”

“It wasn’t obvious until you lit up like a Christmas tree!” she says, delighted. “You blush worse than I do. You really didn’t have a girl back in New York? A non-lesbian girl, I mean.”

He shrugs again. “Guys on the gymnastics team come in two types,” he starts, and then he hesitates, and Taylor takes over.

“Right,” she says. “Big built guys like your brother, and slim quick ones like you. And it’s the big ones who get the girls. And the slim ones...”

She doesn’t have to finish the thought. They both know what everybody at school thinks of the little guys on the gymnastics team. But she doesn’t seem to be judging. It’s just like before, when she saw him messing around in the backyard: she could have mocked him, and she didn’t. And it’s all right there for her to pick up and use against him! In his experience, nobody leaves an opening like that alone around him.

Nobody except Avery.

Huh. Maybe Taylor can be a friend. Like Avery.

“Hey,” he says, remembering how they got onto this topic, “do your parents know you came over to see a boy?”

“Oh, they’re on a trip,” she says, waving a hand. “And I’m eighteen in, like, a month, so what can they do?”

“What can they do?”

She sags. “They’d yell. A lot. But what they don’t know can't hurt me, right?”

He returns her grin. “Right.”

* * *

Taylor practically skips out of Max’s house. Wow, she’s almost high! For some reason, when Max spoke, it felt like every word he said was the most important thing in the world. And he’s so cool! He’s from New York, he plays guitar, and on this morning’s evidence, he’s also the best gymnast she’s ever met. He just might be the answer to all her prayers.

And he has the prettiest brown eyes…

It took some doing, but she managed to persuade him to come over tomorrow morning to spot her while she runs through her routines. He was nice enough not to say it, or even show it, but he almost definitely thinks cheerleading isn’t as challenging as what he’s used to; she’s going to show him how wrong he is. And she confirmed that he’s her age—eighteen, actually, so older, but only by like a month; his mom must have held him back at preschool or something—and he’s going to Vista Primavera High for senior year, same as her. So all she has to do, once she’s shown him how awesome cheerleading can be, is ask him to join the squad.

Ick, and then talk the other girls into accepting another guy on the squad. That might be the tricky part; it’s not that guys on the squad are a problem, but all the guys they have are, well, big. And they have to be, since they anchor and they catch a lot. Max, who is barely an inch taller than her—she checked when they said goodbye—doesn’t fit in there.

Whatever! She’ll work it out. She’ll make the squad see what he can do, and they’ll have to accept him. And then they might finally have a shot at regionals!

And that means she gets to spend a lot more time with Max Giordano.

She swings the plastic bag with the metal cups in her hand as she opens the front door, and she’s about to go straight to the kitchen to wash them when Garrett yells out from the couch, “Hey! Tay! Gordo’s here!”

And, rising from the other couch, where he’s been watching cartoons with her loser older brother, is her boyfriend.

Oh yeah. She has a boyfriend. Shoot.

Two

I CAN FIX HIM

Max can’t remember the last time he spent so long in the shower. Usually he just kinda jumps in, soaps up everywhere he can reach and jumps out again, but today he’s making an effort. He even snuck into the main bathroom, the one that has pride of place at the center of the upstairs hallway—the one nobody’s ever going to use, because every bedroom bar the guest room in this insanely massive house has a bathroom of its own—and stole the fancy shampoo, conditioner and body wash. He’s got no idea why Mom put that stuff out; it’s not like they’re expecting guests on their second day in Vista Primavera. But he’s got the matching blue bottles lined up on the side and he’s working his way through them, one by one. In a surge of diligence, he’s even been reading the instructions on the bottles for the first time in his life.

Apparently you’re supposed to leave the conditioner in! For several minutes! Does everyone know that? Is that why his hair’s always gotten so tangled? Because nobody ever told him?

He lathers up and cleans almost every other part of his body twice—skipping over the burn scars on his ribs, same as always—and then washes out the conditioner, running his hands through his locks as he does so. His hair parts cleanly between his fingers and doesn’t even clump up when he squeezes the water out of it. It feels kind of amazing, actually.

But yeah. He’s trying. This morning, he’s really trying. Sue him.

There’s no point to it, really. Taylor’s a cheerleader, and cheerleaders never go for guys like him, and she’s probably got a quarterback boyfriend or something. But Avery was always trying to get him to take more care of himself, like he used to, so what the hell, right? New city, new state; new Max. Mostly the same as the old Max, but cleaner and with detangled hair.

Besides, Taylor’s nice. And a nice cheerleader is so far out of Max’s experience that there’s no way he can’t take advantage of the opportunity she represents. To see how the other half lives: the popular half, the half that wears bright colors and has pep.

He should take notes. For posterity. There might be a book in it.

Opening the door between his bathroom and bedroom, he checks to make sure the drapes are still shut—of course they are; he hasn’t opened them since he got here—and follows the misty air out into his room, toweling his hair and dripping on the carpet. When he’s more or less dry, he throws his towel onto the bed and starts looking through his closet. Last night, in another uncharacteristic burst of diligence, he actually put all his clothes away. Hung up his shirts and pants and balled up his socks and shit. While he looks, he slaps at his CD player, and fills the room with music from whatever the last CD he had loaded was.

Knowledge by Operation Ivy. Cool.

Catching himself in the mirror as he walks around, his eyes flicker, as they always do, to the triad of scars on his right-side ribs. His fingers brush momentarily over them, from the base of his pectoral to the top of his belly, feeling the bumps and the distressed skin, reading his burns like a relief map.

They’re dry. And kinda rough to the touch.

Shit, he’s been neglecting himself in every possible way, hasn’t he? Habitually forgetting the dermatologist’s instructions is just another symptom.

Well. New state, better habits.

He remembers dumping the aloe moisturizer his mom’s been buying him in the same box as all his other bathroom crap, back when they packed everything up, so that means it must be… ah! Bathroom cabinet.

Still not used to having his own bathroom.

He spreads the moisturizer over the scars, and then over the rest of his torso and along his arms, because it smells nice, all the while looking through his clothes. In the end, he picks basically at random; he’s making an effort, sure, but he has no idea what Taylor likes. More to the point, he has no idea what kind of guy she likes, except what he assumes: massive, hung like a horse, and with a football instead of a brain that bounces around inside his head like a DVD screensaver. And he can’t ever be that, not unless the long-delayed growth spurt Clay’s been promising decides to show up, so why not just pick whatever? All that matters is whether he can move in it, since she invited him over this morning explicitly to work out with her or to help her practice her cheer routines or something. She wasn’t entirely clear about it.

Maybe she was and he just wasn’t paying attention. Too distracted by those bright blue eyes.

Anyway.

An old band shirt.

A pair of board shorts.

Mismatched socks.

And a belt. In which he already poked an extra hole. Because, yeah, shit, he lost weight, and a lot of it. Turns out, if you don’t really eat for over a year and you continue—halfheartedly—to exercise, you lose mass, and a lot of it. All his jeans look like cargo pants now, and his cargo pants are basically unwearable.

Today’s shirt—one of the many he inherited from Clay when he cleared out his closet—is baggy as hell, but it covers his scars and it hides how thin he’s gotten, and the belt holds up his board shorts, and that’s enough. He can exercise in this. He can stand on his hands in this. Hell, he can do cartwheels and somersaults and basically anything you ask of him in this, and he can do the fucking splits, too.

A quick look in the mirror. Yeah, there’s Max. Same as the old Max, the one from New York. But moisturized, and with nicer hair.

It’s fine.

Let’s go see the cheerleader.

* * *

Taylor never wears makeup to work out. Some of the other cheerleaders do, but some of the other cheerleaders are silly bee-yotches who’ve spent the last several years meticulously blocking every pore, and now they have no choice but to slap on the foundation half a tube at a time, lest anyone get a look at their real skin! Taylor, meanwhile, wears it light and only when appropriate, and she cleanses every morning, every evening and after practice, and that’s why she still has the skin of an angel while Meredith looks like the dark side of the moon.

So she doesn’t know why she’s doing her face this morning, except that maybe she still feels gross from last night and wants to look her best. Pretty face, empty mind, like Robyn, her old cheer captain, used to say.

Last night…

Last night!

Ick.

Taylor reaches over and yanks up the volume on her little CD player until J.Lo’s Love Don’t Cost a Thing starts to crackle and distort.

Stupid Gordo! He tried to get her to touch it again, and she’s beyond fed up with telling him she’s waiting until she’s eighteen. And that’s, like, only a month away! She doesn’t know why he’s being so impatient; she’s clearly relayed her parents’ rules around sex, which are that Garrett can do whatever he wants, because he’s an adult—legally, if not mentally—and Taylor cannot, because she is still a child. Also, and this comes specifically from her mom, because nobody wants to have to fight through the anti-choice weirdos outside the family planning clinic. And because good girls are not sluts.

And, no, Gordo, she doesn’t care that the other girls have all done it, because a) if Meredith’s done it, Taylor’ll eat her own pompoms and b) if the other cheerleaders jumped off a cliff, she’d only follow them if they’d managed to form a pyramid at the bottom, and would catch her.

But still he insisted! Ick! It’s like he wants her to get disowned by her parents and have to live under a bridge selling cheers for money, or something.

He insisted and he made her feel gross and she told him to leave and now she’s putting on lipstick, because if he can’t see her, then she’s going to look extra pretty.

It makes sense. Sort of. If you tilt your head and squint. Anyway, he’s off to football camp this week, so she doesn’t have to deal with him again for a while. Maybe he’ll find someone there to touch his thingie, some girl football player who shares his interests. Maybe she can make him come, and he can yell ‘Hut! Hut! Hut!’ at the moment of climax.

The song ends and she stabs irritably at the pause button before the next one starts. This morning’s gone wrong already, and it’s all because she’s sitting here, staring at herself, applying and reapplying lipstick until by rights her lips ought to stick out several miles from her face, and thinking about her stupid boyfriend and the stupid things he wants her to do and—

Reset.

Taylor closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out slowly. Opens her eyes again.

It’s a new day. Gordo’s a part of yesterday, and she doesn’t have to see him for a week. A new friend is coming over and she’s going to get to show him what she can do and find out what makes him tick.

She blots most of the lipstick onto a tissue, ties her hair in a practical ponytail, and skips out of her room. Same room as Max, she remembers, though not precisely. Their houses are identical but mirrored; their bedrooms even face each other! What sucks, though, is that even if they become friends, they won’t be able to do the teen movie thing of talking to each other through their windows; they’re kinda far apart. If Max ever opens his drapes, though, they ought to be able to wave to each other. And maybe yell.

She checks: his drapes are still closed. No wonder he’s so pale.

No, wait; he’s from New York. Don’t they have like five days of sun per year? Obviously he’s just not used to it. Well, that’s job one, then, isn’t it? Get Max used to the Southern California sun! The whole Southern California lifestyle!

He’s going to love it here, she’s certain.

* * *

Christ, even the mornings here are too hot. Good thing he covered himself in deodorant before he left the house, even if it did mean getting gently ribbed by his brother about the effort he’s obviously putting in for this Taylor girl.

He’s not putting in any effort, not really. Not for her specifically. He’s just stopped neglecting himself.

Yeah. That’s it exactly.

He rings the bell, and when the door opens, he’s presented with a face he doesn’t expect. Taylor didn’t talk about her brother much yesterday, except to say he’s a stoner and the most annoying man in the world, but here’s a clean-cut guy with a toothy grin and slicked-back blond hair. If not for his shorts and logo shirt, he could be an office worker, though from what he’s seen, casualwear is de rigueur enough around here that maybe people do go to work in shorts.

But then he comes close enough for Max to see his bloodshot eyes, and it all makes sense.

“Hey,” Garrett says. “You’re the, uh, the, uh, the dude from next door, aren’t you?”

“I’m Max. Garrett, yeah?”

Getting Garrett’s name right seems to delight him. “Yeah! Yeah, that’s me!” He leans down to whisper in Max’s ear, flooding Max’s senses with the smell of stale weed and cool ranch chips. “You’re not fucking my sister, are you? Because if you are… Be careful, dude. Big boyfriend. Big.”

“No plans, dude,” Max says. Yeah. She’s got a boyfriend. Obviously.

“That’s a ‘maybe’, then. Cool. Cool. Cool.” Garrett folds his arms, satisfied that he’s relayed his oh-so-important message. “So come on in! Mi casa es su casa. Mi… sister es su sister.”

Alright. Kinda gross.

Taylor appears from behind Garrett, whacking him with the flat of her hand. “Oh my gosh, Garrett, you slime!” she yells, whacking him again. “Don’t say things like that! And move. Move! Ick!”

She keeps slapping him on the shoulder until Garrett finally catches on, and with a roll of his eyes at Max, he steps aside and walks slowly over to a split square of couches in the living room. He falls into one and stops moving.

“Hi, Max,” Taylor says, huffing a displaced strand of hair out of her face. “I see you’ve met my brother.”

She grabs Max by the wrist and leads him inside, but Max is distracted: Garrett still isn’t moving.

“Is he… okay?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Taylor says without looking, dragging Max into the kitchen.

“He looks dead.”

“Yeah, he does! Unfortunately, it never lasts. Check it out: I made you a smoothie!”

Max’s view of Taylor’s allegedly alive brother is cut off as he enters the kitchen, so he turns his attention to her and finds her posing in front of the open fridge like a game show assistant. Two more of the same metal cups from yesterday are waiting in the door, and now that she has his attention, she pulls one out and hands it to him. He takes it from her, but she doesn’t pull away; instead, she squints at him, leans closer, steadies herself on his shoulder, and bats at his ponytail.

“Max?” she says slowly. “Why is your hair in a rubber band? Correction—” she raises an impertinent first finger right in front of him, “—why is your hair in a rubber band again?”

“Because I don’t want it in my face? And what do you mean, again?”

She snatches the smoothie back from him, re-fridges it, and beckons him. “C’mon,” she says, walking back around the dividing wall. “We’re fixing it.”

* * *

He comments on the way up the stairs that, oh yeah, their houses are the same, just flipped, and Taylor’s about to agree with him—and talk about the extra rooms that were built over the garages that he won’t have at home—before she realizes that, shoot, she just invited Max up to her room! She invited him up to her room and he’s a guy! A guy who isn’t Gordo!

Isn’t that, like, adultery or something?

Eh. Maybe in Utah.

She pauses, her hand on the doorknob, and thinks quickly, thinks like she’s about to be thrown and she’s just realized it’s Meredith who’s going to catch her:

It’s different, right? It’s not like Max is a guy like Gordo, right? He doesn’t seem the type to put his hand on the back of a not-quite-eighteen-year-old’s head and push her down toward his pants.

Because he’s nice. Okay, so they didn’t talk for all that long yesterday, but he is nice, right? A little sad, a little snarky, and a bit of a fixer-upper, but he’s nice. And does she even know any nice guys? Any guys who haven’t openly lusted after her since she joined the squad? Correction: does she know any nice guys who aren’t already (sort of but not really) dating her best friend?

Well, now she knows Max.

And they do share an interest, don’t they?

So there’s no harm, she decides, and lets him into her room.

“Wow,” he says, following her inside, “pink.”

“It’s not that pink,” she says, wondering why she instantly feels defensive about it. She points to the accent wall, the one her computer desk is pushed up against, which she had Dad paint pastel blue because she read that blue is conducive to memory retention. Plus, she’s wanted a skylight ever since she saw one in a movie. Something about looking up at those California-blue skies every morning being super romantic. Unfortunately, because of the attic and all, she had to make do with a not-very-big window and a very blue wall. “See?”

“I stand corrected,” Max says, holding up his hands in surrender. Gosh, he has a sweet smile. Teeth are a little faded looking, though. Don’t they have whitener in New York?

She can fix that. She can fix everything! And that starts with the way his smile fades too quickly, like he can’t have a positive emotion without something in his brain showing up and reminding him, hey, dude, you’re supposed to be miserable. Must be why he likes all those punk bands he was telling her about.

Anyway. She can fix him. Make him happy. Whiten his teeth. Get him to stop tangling up his hair with rubber bands. Get him a girlfriend.

At that last thought, it’s like she borrows Max’s sadness demon. Ick! Shoo! She chases it away and bobs up to him, confirming once again how close in height they are, and then puts a hand on each shoulder and turns him round. He doesn’t resist. Gently, she hooks a finger inside the first ring of the looped rubber band and starts to tease out the hair.

“I can’t believe you use this,” she says as she works and, gosh, his hair is so silky! Yesterday, when he first got here, it was really greasy, like, greasy enough that she could tell from halfway down the backyard—understandable, though, after driving the entire width of the continental United States!—and after his shower it was still only, like, passably clean. Did he wash it especially for her?

She’s not sure she’s allowed the level of excitement that thought generates in her. Kills the sadness demon right off, though.

“What’s wrong with a rubber band?” he says, speaking slowly like he’s in a trance, and it takes Taylor a second to guess why. When she does, she’s glad she’s behind him, or he’d see the huge, adulterous smile that temporarily takes over her whole face. She’s got her hands in his hair. And she is, no need to be modest, super pretty. What guy wouldn’t enjoy it?

Gordo. Gordo wouldn’t enjoy it. He just wants her to touch it.

Ick.

She returns to the task at hand, carefully extracting layer after layer of soft, sweet-smelling jet-black hair from its rubber band prison. To distract herself, because she’s enjoying this a bit too much, she concentrates on answering his question.

“Rubber bands are grippy, Max,” she says. “Your hair will get caught up in it and it’ll get stripped apart. It’ll completely destroy your hair.”

“Oh,” he says. It seems to be all he can manage, so before Taylor lets out the final loop, she gives herself a moment to smile again.

Why is she so loopy around him? He’s just another long-haired punk guy; she could throw a rock from the front room and hit a dozen of them as they drift lazily by on their stickered-up skateboards.

Whatever. A puzzle for later. She turns him round again and takes a step back to admire her handiwork. Smoothing out his locks, billowing them out around his face, she almost forgets to breathe. There really is something about him, something those other rando guys don’t have. Something she thinks Gordo would probably kill to avoid. And it’s more exciting to Taylor than a hundred sweaty football guys. It’s more exciting to her than the memory of Max’s own older brother, whose thick arms and tree-trunk waist had previously seemed so enticing.

In a way, it’s a shame that Clay is Max’s brother. If Clay’s anything to go by, Max is going to gain a good few inches, he’s going to thicken up, he’s going to be a man. And it’s going to happen soon.

So? So that makes this Max special, dummy! A firefly isn’t beautiful because it lasts forever.

“Taylor,” he says, “what’s up?”

Shoot! He noticed! And his hand’s halfway to hers, like he wants to comfort her but doesn’t want to cross a boundary. Which, again, her decision to let him up into her room: vindicated! She shakes her head, grins at him—wow, it’s easy to find a smile when he’s so close to her—and turns him ninety degrees, toward the mirror.

“Why do you tie your hair up, Max?” she asks. “It’s way too gorgeous to not show it off.”

He doesn’t look at himself in the mirror, not for more than a second. Instead he starts gathering up his hair, pulling it tight, away from his face. “It’s not supposed to be gorgeous,” he says. Huh; cryptic! “Do you have a hair tie for me?”

She turns around and quickly finds one on her nightstand. “Here,” she says, pressing it into his hand.

“Taylor,” he says, holding it up, “this is a scrunchie.”

“Yes,” she confirms.

“It’s a scrunchie.”

“And?”

“It’s— Taylor. It’s a scrunchie. A pink scrunchie. Those are for girls?”

“Don’t be a baby,” she says, taking it back. Before he can stop her, she steps behind him, gathers his hair up, and ties a ponytail for him. She twitches her nose in concentration as she adjusts it, making sure it’s dead center, and then taps him on the top of his head. “You can look now.”

“Wow,” he says, turning his head. “That is definitely a pink scrunchie in my hair. And isn’t it a little high?” He reaches up to adjust it, and she bats his hand away.

“Leave it!” she commands, leaning into her cheer captain voice. And, yeah, it is a little higher than he usually ties his hair, but high is better, right? For cheering?

Oh right! They’re supposed to be exercising!

* * *

The Scotts’ backyard is, unsurprisingly, exactly the same dimensions as the one behind Max’s house, except theirs has a pool close to the house and way more intentionality to the foliage. Dad’s already been complaining about the weekends he’s going to lose getting theirs into shape, and Clay wasn’t fast enough getting out of the room when he was looking for volunteers to help out.

It’s nice, though. It’s like a preview of what their place will look like when it’s done. Taylor’s entire house is, actually. Even her room, fully furnished as it is and not merely looming around a single desk and a corner with a guitar in it, is a preview of what his might be like once he’s lived here more than ten minutes. Minus the pink walls, obviously. And all the televisions. The very boxy, very beige televisions.

Huh.

“I just realized,” he says, as he stretches his arms over his head, “you have three computers in your room. Which seems excessive.”

“You just realized?” she replies. She’s got her feet on the grass and her head between them, and either she’s showing off and she’s going to feel that tomorrow, or she’s limber as hell. “We’ve been in the yard for like two minutes and you just realized.” She straightens up and, despite her critical tone, she’s grinning at him, so he doesn’t take it the wrong way.

“I thought they were TVs. I was trying to think if I’d seen a TV that exact shade of beige before.” He copies her move, just to show her he can, and she laughs at him.

Christ. She’s so cute.

“And?” she prompts.

“Yeah,” he says, “no. Which led me to the obvious conclusion: three computers.”

“Well,” she says, “for your information, I have four computers.” When he straightens, to stare incredulously at her, she starts listing them. “I’ve got my main PC and some older ones for testing. I also have a laptop; I wanted to mess with OSX so Dad got me an iBook for Christmas. Don’t give me that look! It’s not fancy. It’s just the base model.”

Max snorts. “That’s not what the look was for, Taylor.”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Max,” she says, sounding suddenly surprisingly pompous. “If you don’t know how to use a computer, you’re going to be left behind.”

“I know how to use a computer; I don’t know how to use four computers.”

“It’s not like it’s hard.”

“Oh my God,” Max exclaims in fake wonder. “Four computers. You’re a nerd!”

“I’m captain of the cheerleading squad. I can’t be a nerd. All I have are esoteric interests.”

“You’re a nerd,” he giggles.

The levity he feels around her! Avery’s the only other person who ever made him feel like this: understood and appreciated. But there’s more here, something he never felt before. Maybe it’s because Taylor’s straight, and therefore, despite her boyfriend, despite Garrett’s assessment of her boyfriend—big—some incredibly stupid part of his brain thinks he has a chance?

Doesn’t matter. He feels good! He’ll take the win.

“I like your shirt,” she says, when they’re done warming up. “Is that your band?”

He laughs, pulling at it to show it off fully. “Not my band,” he says. “This is Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. They’re, uh, well, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

Taylor bounces over, takes the hem of the shirt out of his hands and stretches it out all the way, so she can look at it more closely.

“Try me,” she says.

He can smell her perfume or her shampoo or her body lotion or something, and it’s intoxicating, and distracting as hell. Which might be why he babbles a bit.

“Okay, so they’re a punk rock supergroup, formed in San Francisco circa 1995 and still going today. They only do covers, and that’s because they all have their own projects outside the group, like, Chris Shiflett is also in No Use for a Name. Have you heard of him? You haven’t heard of him. Anyway, their first album was all songs from the sixties, seventies and eighties, stuff like Uptown Girl and Rocket Man, and their second album is all show tunes. They did Don’t Cry for Me Argentina from Evita and Science Fiction Double Feature from Rocky Horror, and… What?”

She’s looking at him with the most peculiar smirk on her face, and when he shuts up she broadens it into a delighted smile and says, “And you called me a nerd!”

Wow. Her smile is incredible.

“Uh…” he says, his retort dying on his lips, which he’s suddenly biting, for some reason. God, he’s losing control here.

“I think you were going to say something like, punk rockers can’t be nerds,” she says. “They just have esoteric interests. And then I was going to say something like, you just proved yourself wrong, you’re the biggest nerd that ever nerded, and then you were going to blush even harder than you are right now, and insist we start doing what we came here to do.”

In a daze, he says, “Which is…?”

She lets go of his shirt and prances backward, ultimately transforming her momentum into a perfect backflip and segueing into a full sequence.

“This!” she says, as she lands and spreads her arms out.

Holy shit.

She’s an actual athlete.

And she’s really good.

* * *

On their way back in, Taylor collects the smoothies she prepared for them both, and in her room she digs out her TV—her actual TV; she doesn’t know how Max could have mistaken her computer monitors for televisions since they’re so completely different-looking—from under a discarded pair of jeans and puts on the Disney Channel. Chores done, she flops onto the bed and starts sucking earnestly on her straw. Max, meanwhile…

Max looks adorably about the room for something he can sit on that isn’t her bed. Vindicated, vindicated, vindicated! She’s known him for a day and she’s never felt so safe with a guy. She points with her toe at one of her computer chairs and, moving slowly, he drags it over near to the bed and drops into it, cupping his smoothie with both hands and sipping from it, his eyes on the Boy Meets World rerun. As his exhaustion starts to fade, he makes himself more comfortable, dragging one leg up under his butt and propping the other high enough that he can rest his chin on his knee. Which, like, wow, flexible.

He’s still breathing heavily. But then, so is she.

What a workout! He challenged her like nobody on the squad ever has, like Coach Dale never has, like not even Robyn did, and she challenged him right back! She never knew she could move like that!

She never knew a guy could move like that. The guys on the squad, they’re talented and they work hard, but they’re all kinda bulky, whereas Max moves like…

Okay. So she can never say it to him, ever, because she knows what boys are like, but Max moves like a girl. He’s got grace and speed and just enough power to accomplish everything he needs to and not a drop more. And maybe that’s just what pro gymnasts are like, but Taylor watches every Olympics and she doesn’t think so. He’s just not built like those guys.

Except he will be one day.

Maybe, anyway. Thinking about it, she got a good look at Mom Giordano yesterday, and a decent glimpse at Dad Giordano and the older brother, Clay, and Max takes much more after his mom while Clay looks like a younger and less wide version of his dad. So maybe that means he won’t grow into something like Clay. Maybe that means he’ll stay just as he is. After all, he’s eighteen, and aren’t you basically done at eighteen? Like, sure, other stuff happens, like you lose your puppy fat, and if you’re a guy you start getting hair everywhere—ick—but at eighteen, you’re finished growing, right?

“How tall are you, Max?” she says without thinking.

“Five-eight,” he says automatically.

Well, that’s a lie. “Are you sure?” she asks, reaching out with her foot and rotating his chair to face her.

“I’m five-eight… if I go up on my toes a little,” he admits.

“I knew it!” she exclaims. “You can’t lie to me, Max. You’re an inch taller than me at most, and I’m five foot six and three-quarters.”

“Three-quarters?” he confirms weakly.

She nods at the door frame. “Check the marks.”

Humoring her, he stands, slightly stiffly, and carefully puts his cup on the floor. He walks over to her bedroom door and runs his finger over the notches in the frame. There’s a notch for every one of her first seventeen years, but she doesn’t expect to be making a new one on her next birthday in September, since she’s basically done, too. It’s kinda sad, really; always is, when a yearly ritual ends.

Following an impulse, she jumps up and joins him. She turns him around by the shoulders, the way she did in the backyard, until he’s facing her with his back to the door. She pushes him until he bumps against it, and then she prods at his feet with hers until he’s standing straight.

Without taking her eyes off him, she reaches for the craft knife on her chest of drawers, flicks out the blade, and places her hand on top of his head, to create a straight line to the door frame.

“You stick out your tongue when you’re concentrating, you know that?” he says. She shushes him and carves his notch into the frame.

She doesn’t know why she’s doing this. She barely knows him. They might not end up friends at all. They might not speak to each other after school starts. They might turn out to hate each other! But this feels important. And if there’s one thing she’s learned as a cheerleader, it’s that when something feels right, she should trust it.

“Step away,” she says, and he does so.

The craft knife goes back on the mess of junk, and she opens a drawer—her underwear drawer, which she’s curiously unembarrassed to open around Max—and pulls out her tailor’s tape measure. She unravels it, presses the end against the wall with her toe, and smooths it up the door frame until it reaches Max’s notch.

“There’s a Sharpie on my desk,” she says, keeping everything in place. “Can you get it for me?”

“Sure.”

Moments later, a Sharpie—uncapped; how thoughtful—drops into her waiting hand, and she writes Max, August 3, 2003 — 5 foot 7½ inches on the wall, just above Taylor, September 13, 2002 — 5 foot 6¾ inches.

“There,” she says. “Immortalized.”

She twists around to smile at him, expecting one of his shy smiles in return, but instead he’s retreated back to her desk, he’s got his fists clenched at his side, and he’s standing very still.

“Max?” she asks.

“Shit,” he says, turning away. A hand goes up to his face, as if he’s covering his eyes or something, and that’s just so confusing that she takes three whole steps toward him before she realizes he’s not one of her girlfriends and she can’t just manhandle him because she doesn’t know how he’ll react. And, oh yeah, he’s a guy, and he’s in her room, and he’s been careful not to even touch her so far, and as nice as he’s been, she doesn’t want to give him the wrong idea.

“Did I do something wrong?” she says. She’s making her voice small on purpose, which is a little manipulative, but it is appropriate to how she feels. Max is special, and she doesn’t want to lose him as a friend before she figures out why.

It gets him to turn around, at least. And his eyes aren’t red and his cheeks aren’t wet, so it can’t be that bad. “No,” he says, forcing a smile. “Sorry. It’s just… It’s a me thing.”

“It’s just a stupid mark,” Taylor says. “I can fill it in if you want. I know where Dad keeps the filler.”

“No, no,” he says quickly. “I like it. If you don’t mind it there… I like it.”

Okay. Okay. He has an issue about this. But as much as she wants to probe it, as much as she wants to know everything, she refrains. If there’s one thing she’s learned as a cheerleader, it’s when to give a girl her space. Still applies here, even though Max isn’t a girl.

“Let’s keep it, then,” she says, matching his smile. It has the effect she hoped for, which is that his smile becomes warmer and more genuine, and she has to fight very hard not to just bounce forward and hug him. “Hey, Max,” she adds, “you wanna go out? We could go to the mall or something.” She pulls playfully at the hem of his shirt again. “We could even buy you some clothes that aren’t black and don’t have bands on them. And that are maybe your size?”

He laughs, and it seems almost real. “No thanks,” he says. “I’m tired out. Maybe I’ll just go home.”

“Oh, no you don’t, mister,” she says, mom-voicing him hard enough that he steps back. “I have nothing to do today, so you’re going to keep me company. Deal?”

He surrenders instantly. “Deal.”

“So. You smoke weed?”

Darn; she should have waited until he had a drink or something, because the look on his face is absolutely priceless, and she definitely could have gotten him to spray water if she timed it right.

“Uh,” he says, floundering. “Uh. Yeah? I guess so?”

She bounces on her toes. Flustering him is fun. “You wanna smoke weed and get takeout?”

“Sure?”

It’ll be good for him. He needs to talk, get whatever this is off his chest, and Taylor, she needs to listen. And maybe look at him a bit. Maybe look at him a lot. And if there’s one thing she’s learned as a cheerleader, it’s when to stay sober and when to get high.

“Wait one second,” she says, holding up a finger. Then she skips over to her door, yanks it open, leans out, and yells down the stairs, “GARRETT! I’M TAKING SOME OF YOUR WEED! IF YOU TELL MOM I’LL RIP YOUR BALLS OFF AND DROP THEM IN YOUR FISH TANK!”

She turns back to Max, grinning and waggling her eyebrows at him, her hand cupped around her ear for the rejoinder.

“I WON’T TELL MOM IF YOU BRING ME ANOTHER BAG OF DORITOS!” Garrett yells back, probably from the same dumb couch they left him on. “See?” Taylor says to Max. “Told you he wasn’t dead.”

Three

LEGIT AIR

“Look at that,” Taylor’s pointing at the screen. “Look at the air they’re getting! It’s good, right? It’s legit.”

Max nods. It’s not been enough to admit to Taylor that, yes, she’s an incredible athlete and, yes, cheerleading’s legit, and, wow, no shit, captain of the squad, that’s really impressive; she wants to show him, and beyond summoning the rest of the squad and running through their routines right in front of him, the best way to do that turns out to be to drag him over to her computer desk and call up video after video of competitive cheerleading.

The trouble is, he’s having trouble concentrating. It’s not that the weed’s hit him all that hard, because it hasn’t, but between it, the takeout, the exercises this morning and the lingering fatigue from spending almost a week, on and off, in Dad’s cramped car, a portion of his brain keeps insisting it would rather just fall face-first into bed, and resents having to squint at a sequence of blocky videos recorded off of ESPN2.

He’s aware enough, though, to be seriously impressed by what he’s seeing. The shit the girls—and guys; a lot of the squads are mixed—are pulling off is downright incredible.

“It’s legit,” he says, passing the joint.

“Okay, okay, okay,” Taylor says, taking it from him and taking a lengthy drag. “Last one, I promise. See these guys?” She cues up another video. “Their routine is amazing. Just wait until you see the throws at the end!”

On the screen, a squad in green uniforms performs a tightly choreographed routine, and the more he watches them, the more he can’t believe they’re a high-school-age cheerleader squad.

“Tay,” he says, “this shit is ridiculous!”

She beams at him. He’s noticed she likes it when he calls her Tay. Almost makes him want an even shorter version of his name, so they can trade. But only his grandparents call him Maxwell—and his mom when she’s pissed.

“This is from two or three years ago,” she says, grinding the end of the joint into dust in the ashtray. “It was a huge controversy: another squad turned out to’ve been stealing their routines for, like, years, and winning trophies with them. Winning this trophy!” The video shows them being announced as the winners of the tournament, and Taylor stabs emphatically at the screen. “They just never had the money to compete for themselves. But they got the money together, they went all in, and they won. It’s like something out of a movie!”

“That’s… actually cool.”

“Right? It’s inspirational!”

“Yeah.”

“C’mon,” she says, abruptly switching off the monitor. Then she puts both feet on the seat of Max’s chair and pushes him away with enough force that the casters trip on the rug, tipping him right off onto the bed. Judging by the glee on her face, she planned it exactly that way, and it came off perfectly. “Max!” she exclaims, forming her mouth into a perfect O of shock. “I thought you were a gymnast! But there you go, falling off of chairs…”

“I would have been fine—” he starts to protest, but he has to cut himself off when Taylor launches herself at the bed. She lands next to him, bounces a couple of times, and comes to rest leaning on her elbow, grinning at him. “I would have been fine,” he tries again, “if I wasn’t so tired.”

“Jet-lagged?” she says. “No, wait; car-lagged?”

“I hate cars,” he says, counting on his fingers, “I hate motels, I hate small towns in the middle of the country, I hate my dad’s music, I hate how Clay takes up all the space in the back seat…”

“How come you didn’t fly? There are people who can move boxes across the country for you.”

“Money. Cheaper to do it ourselves than pay movers, or so Dad said. Hey, um, Taylor…” He shuffles away from her a little. “Should I be on your bed with you like this? Is this really okay?”

“Why?” she asks, pretending to be afraid. “Are you going to molest me, Max Giordano?”

“What? No!” He recoils even farther just at the thought of it, but she reaches out and rolls him over, bringing him closer again.

“So, chill,” she says. She leans over him—Max tries to compress himself into the mattress so she doesn’t actually touch him—and retrieves the remote for her CD player. She switches it on and dumps the remote on the floor. Something by Alanis Morissette comes on, but he’s only heard that one album of hers, the one that got really big; he doesn’t know this one. Next to him, facing up and with her hands clasped on her belly, Taylor sighs contentedly. “You want to smoke another?” she asks after a short while.

“Sure.”

She nods, sits up just enough to retrieve the baggie of pre-rolled joints she stole from Garrett’s room, and lights one up. She passes it to Max, who takes a deep drag, and when he looks again, she’s gotten another ashtray out from somewhere and placed it between them.

“How many of those do you have?”

“Enough,” she says, and accepts the joint from him. “Mom never cleans in here because I do it myself, and she can’t smell it in here because Garrett’s room always stinks of it, so…” She shrugs.

“Weird to be smoking weed with a cheerleader,” Max says, feeling sufficiently loosened up—by the weed, by his exhaustion, by Taylor’s apparent belief that he’s not the kind of guy who might try to hurt her—to just say shit. “I always thought you guys lived on mineral water and pep and calling all the other girls sluts.”

“Max,” Taylor says, passing back, “I’m going to say something very rude now, and you’ve got to promise me it won’t leave this room. I have a reputation to upkeep.”

Max crosses his heart. “Promise.”

“Your New York cheerleaders sound like stuck-up bee-yotches.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, they kinda were.”

“What about your friend? Avery?”

He laughs. “Yeah, she thinks New York cheerleaders are stuck-up bee-yotches, too.”

“I mean,” she says, giggling, “what kind of girl is she?”

“Gymnast. Lesbian. Oh, and she’s a huge nerd, too.”

“Like you, then,” Taylor says.

“Like you,” Max counters.

A little while later, when the second joint is done and they’re lying on their backs together, looking up at the star stickers on her ceiling, and when Max is feeling more relaxed than he has at any point in at least the last year, Taylor goes and ruins it all—or complicates it all, anyway—by asking the question he’d been hoping she wouldn’t.

“Hey, Max? Where did you get those scars?”

“You saw those, huh?”

Of course she did. You can’t throw yourself around the way he did this morning without your shirt flying all over the place, especially when it’s too big for you by several sizes. He ought to take a leaf out of her book and wear a tight crop top or something. The thought of it, of his belly sticking out of one of Taylor’s pink gym tops, is almost funny enough to make him laugh.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she says. “Really, you don’t.”

He shrugs. He ought to lie, or claim it’s a secret, or otherwise keep it from her, because it isn’t exactly the kind of story you tell to make yourself seem cool in front of a pretty girl, but if she’s going to be his friend, she should know. And if she laughs or thinks less of him, then it’s better to know now, right? Better to be rejected by someone you just met than by someone you’ve known for a long time.

“It was last year,” he says, settling his head into the pillow. He might be telling the story, but he doesn’t want to look at her while he does. He wants to get her reaction all at once, when he’s done. In case it’s bad. Rip off the Band-Aid, etc. “End of the spring semester. I’d never been that popular, but I was never unpopular, either, you know? I was just another kid. And I’d been dabbling in gymnastics a long time already, but high school was where I started really getting into it. Coach thought I had real promise. I wasn’t as good as Avery—she started before me—but I was good. And Coach said I could be great. And I’d never been great at anything before, so I let her talk me into taking private classes. Mom was against it but Dad, in a fit of unexpected parental involvement, persuaded her. And then that was it. School, home, life, it was all about gymnastics. Me and Avery and gymnastics. It was everything to us. Anyway, Coach was right: I was great.”

“I’ve seen it,” Taylor says quietly. “You are.”

“And you’ve seen me after a year of doing nothing more than backyard stuff,” he says. “And we didn’t even have a big yard back home. Since then, since what happened, I’ve lost weight, I’ve lost muscle. I don’t have the stamina I used to. Compared to back then, I’m— Ugh. Sorry. Hard to lose something like that, you know?”

“What happened to you, Max?”

“It was inevitable, really. At school, I wasn’t just some kid anymore. I was a gym fag. I had my special fag gym clothes and I walked like a gym fag and— Well, you know what people are like. Shit written on my locker, guys bumping into me on the stairs and trying to get me to trip and fall. You’ve seen it, I bet.”

“Yeah,” she says. “There are a-holes like that in every school.”

“So, it’s the end of the spring semester last year,” he says briskly, moving the story along as quickly as he can, “and three guys corner me. I thought they were just going to beat the shit out of me, which would have been an escalation, but still, something I could deal with.” His voice is shaking. Huh. “No. Christ, I wish they had. What actually happened was that two of them grabbed me and held me down on the ground and the third, he had this beat-up old Volvo, and he got the cigarette lighter—”

“Oh no,” Taylor breathes.

“Yeah. Pushed it into me three times. And he wasn’t quick, either. He held it there each time. If you’re wondering: incredibly painful.”

“What did you do?”

He can’t help it. He sits up, earlier than he planned, unable to wait for her judgment, but she’s just lying there, watching him, no cruelty or satisfaction evident on her face. She feels for him. It’s obvious. And if it weren’t, the hand that reaches for his would make it pretty clear.

Still, he’s not done with the story yet.

“I didn’t do anything. At first it was because I was in pain, like, monumental amounts of pain, and then I just didn’t want to get up. They didn’t stick around. Just kicked me a bit, taunted me, and ran off. They left me there and ran off. And lying there, Tay, I think I already knew they’d broken me. I think I knew that was it, you know?” He shakes his head. Too much. “Anyway, I didn’t tell the cops or the principal or anything because I still had to go to school for another two years with those assholes and they could have made it even worse for me. So I just… went home. Swallowed Tylenol like candy and wrapped my chest in gauze. Mom eventually saw the burns and freaked and took me to, like, a gajillion doctors, but the best they could do by that point was just tell me to use lotion on them.”

“Does it help?”

“No. Not really.”

Taylor pushes up on her elbows, bringing herself closer, and she lets go of his hand and reaches for the hem of his shirt. “May I?” she asks, and waits for his nod.

It’s light and airy in Taylor’s room, and a breeze ripples over his chest as Taylor lifts up his shirt. He expects her to pull it up only enough to see, but she raises it higher and shoots him a questioning glance, which he interprets—correctly—as a request to raise his arms. She slides his shirt all the way off and drops it on the bed.

“I know,” he says, “I’m skinny.”

Taylor smiles sadly. “No skinnier than me,” she says, which is generous of her. “And I’d say ‘toned’, anyway. Um. Do they hurt?”

“Not anymore.”

He knows how they look in the light; three angry, deep-red scars burned into his chest. Three concentric circles, the skin at its worst where they join. Each one is a memory, a humiliation.

Taylor doesn’t seem to know what to do with herself. Caught with one hand halfway to his chest and another halfway to her mouth, she’s frozen in place, her eyes searching him for the answer to a question she seems scared to ask. He nods again, and she touches him. Gently, almost nervously. She traces the outline of the scars.

And then he’s too self-conscious. Not just because of the scars, but because his skin is sallow after so long without sun; because whatever she says about how toned he is, he can see his weakness in her eyes. So he snatches up his shirt and slips it back on.

It breaks the spell.

“I’m so sorry, Max,” she says.

He struggles to regather his usual emotional state, to find again the ol’ reliable ‘Max’ persona, the guy who doesn’t care too much about anything, not the burn scars on his ribs or the friends he’s lost or the fact that his one remaining real friend is now thousands of miles away.

“We used to know each other,” he says, casually tossing it at her like it’s a factoid his mom just read in the Style section of the newspaper. “The guy who burned me. Grew up together.” He knows he sounds flippant, but better that than bare himself again. And she seems to understand. A guy needs his emotional space. “We used to be close. Like kids are, I mean. Back in New York, there’s a room with both of our heights marked on the wall, just like that. Him and me. It was him and me, and then we drifted apart, and when he came back, he did this to me.”

“Oh,” Taylor says, eyes wide. “Oh! That’s why you, uh, when we marked your height, uh…”

“Yeah,” he says, his cheeks reddening. So much for ol’ reliable, emotionless Max. “That’s why it hit me so hard. Kinda brought him back, you know?” He laughs. “I thought I was better at hiding my shit than that. Turns out, I’m really not.”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I see everything, anyway. So you’re just going to have to get used to that.”

* * *

Those burns are vicious. And that level of bullying is something else! Vista Primavera High has its problems, yes, but the worst she’s heard of lately is just normal bullcrap like freshmen getting dumped in the trash or having their lockers vandalized. And that it was done by someone he used to be friends with…

Max Giordano is going to need good friends from now on. Of that, Taylor is absolutely certain.

It hurt him so much to tell her, too. She saw him clam up after. And that’s so accurate, actually! He opened up, just a little bit, just enough for her to see, and then he snapped shut! It took her almost an hour to restore the innocent, fun, almost flirty attitude he had out in the yard, and she wonders if the weed was a bad idea; Max seems like one of those people who get melancholy when they’re high.

It was probably just because she made him relive the memories, though.

He’s also moved farther away from her on the bed. He’s practically falling off! Inevitable, probably. Honestly, you get a guy to admit to having one (1) emotion, and they immediately stop talking at all!

No, actually. That’s unfair. That’s not Max she’s thinking of, that’s Gordo, a teenage boy who can’t wait to be a man, who already considers himself to be what a man ought to be, and Taylor’s not in a rush to spend time socially with people who remind her of her father, thank you very much! She’s tried to tell him, over and over, to just talk to her like he used to. If he did, maybe she’d even get to the bottom of his obsession with sex!

No, wait; that’s also because Gordo is a teenage boy. In a way Max, somehow, is not.

“Hey,” she says, “talk to me, Max.”

“I’m okay,” he insists. He’s regained a little of the slight swagger he had before, the sense that he knows who he is, what he wants. Yes, it’s a lie, or at best a coping mechanism, but it’s a comforting one, for Taylor. There’s a real Max under the front he puts up, and she got to see it.

“Are you sure?” she says.

“Yeah. It’s just… I think you’re the only person I’ve talked to about what happened. Apart from my family. And doctors. And Avery, obviously. You’re the first person since her I’ve chosen to talk to about it. Which is kinda confusing, because I’ve known you for, what, twenty-nine hours?”

“More like thirty-one,” Taylor says, and she bounces on the mattress to bring herself closer. “Avery. You miss her, huh?”

He smiles, and that’s good, right? That’s a genuine smile on his face! Not one of the fake ones he puts on when he knows he ought to be smiling at something.

“I do. She’s been bugging me to talk to her online, but we don’t have internet yet, so—”

“Oh!” Well, there’s a good deed she can do! “I have internet. You want to talk to her right now? I can set it up! It’ll be really quick. Will she be at home on a Sunday afternoon?”

“Um, yeah, I think so,” he says, recoiling a little. Taylor reels herself in a bit. Too much enthusiasm for someone who just finished being a huge downer.

“Come on, then,” she says, bouncing the rest of the way over to his side of the bed—her thigh momentarily grazing his; just an accident!—and hopping off onto the floor. She rolls his chair back over to the computer desk and boots up her main PC again. The fans whirr gently into life—she spent a whole afternoon making sure her computer doesn’t sound like a jet engine, unlike Garrett’s—and by the time Max joins her, she’s looking at the desktop again. “Which client?”

“Which, uh…?”

“AIM, MSN, ICQ…?”

“Oh. AIM.”

Taylor opens AIM, logs herself out, and wheels herself away so Max can sit in front of the keyboard. When he maneuvers himself into position, she swings her chair around behind his and rests her forearms on its back, with her chin atop them. She can see the screen over his shoulder.

It must be a slow Sunday over in New York—three hours ahead, she remembers; Avery’s probably going to be called for dinner in the not-too-distant future—because the AIM window lights up almost instantly with a response.

Maximillion: Hey Avery A-Very-Nice-Person: Holy shit you got internet A-Very-Nice-Person: Did you get cable? Is it fast? A-Very-Nice-Person: We’re stuck on DSL and it’s not fucking dial up at least but I hate it A-Very-Nice-Person: Dad says we can’t get cable again until we pay our cable bill A-Very-Nice-Person: And he is ideologically opposed to paying cable bills as you know A-Very-Nice-Person: Anyway it’s so cool you’re back online I was DYING without you to talk to A-Very-Nice-Person: Max? Are you there? Maximillion: I’m here Maximillion: You just type really fast Maximillion: Chill A-Very-Nice-Person: I refuse A-Very-Nice-Person: ONE of us has to talk

“I like her already,” Taylor says.

“Why does that not surprise me?” Max replies.

Maximillion: Anyway I don’t have internet yet Maximillion: I’m at a friend’s house A-Very-Nice-Person: You made a friend already! That rules A-Very-Nice-Person: Can I embarrass you in front of him yet or are you still in the delicate getting to know you phase A-Very-Nice-Person: Circling the cave and grunting at each other until you establish a firm enough masculine bond to roast and eat a dead stag without trying to kill each other A-Very-Nice-Person: I think that’s how it works with boys anyway Maximillion: When have I ever grunted? A-Very-Nice-Person: I think you could grunt A-Very-Nice-Person: I’m not saying it wouldn’t be under duress A-Very-Nice-Person: But I AM saying it would be adorable Maximillion: Well Avery Maximillion: You’ll be happy to know you’ve already embarrassed me in front of HER A-Very-Nice-Person: ROFL A-Very-Nice-Person: Sorry Max’s friend if you can see this A-Very-Nice-Person: But I’m about to get even worse A-Very-Nice-Person: Deep breath A-Very-Nice-Person: What’s her name is she pretty is she prettier THAN ME and if she is does she like girls and is she open to a long distance relationship Maximillion: You have a girlfriend Avery A-Very-Nice-Person: SHE doesn’t know that

Taylor leans over Max’s shoulder and borrows the keyboard.

Maximillion: Hi! Max’s friend here, Avery, and I’m sorry, but I very much do know that now. Maximillion: Ya blew it. Maximillion: Sorreeeeeeee!!!!! A-Very-Nice-Person: Hey look Max your friend likes punctuation Maximillion: I’ll have you know I have a 4.3 average. Maximillion: I love punctuation. A-Very-Nice-Person: Holy shit Max a 4.3, hitch your wagon to this girl A-Very-Nice-Person: She’ll take you places Maximillion: Okay it’s me again, and I’m doing fine thank you Avery Maximillion: I’ll keep my wagon where it belongs.

“You’re a menace,” Max tells Taylor. She beams at him, and then twists around to get out of her chair.

“I’ll give you two a minute,” she says. “You want something to drink? We have iced tea or water or—”

“Iced tea is fine, unless you have anything like Dr Pepper.”

“I think we might actually have Dr Pepper. You want? Okay! Be right ba-aaack!”

She sings the last word as she skips out of the room, and then she’s down the stairs in a flash. She can’t resist putting a little flourish into it as she rounds the bend from the bottom of the stairs into the living room, because Garrett’s probably still in there, and it annoys him to see her expending so much excess energy. Or moving fast, like, at all.

And there he is, wasting whole days away on the couch. As usual. She sticks her tongue out at him; he gives her the finger. She escapes to look for sodas, but by the time she’s dug them out of the fridge, he’s leaning against the arch that separates the kitchen from the rest of the rooms downstairs.

“Make sure you put the baggie back in my room,” he says.

“Yeah,” she says. “Duh.”

“Make sure you reseal it.”

“Obviously.”

“And make sure you air out your room and—”

“I know, Garrett!”

“Okay! Jesus! I’m just trying to help.”

“You’re starting to get cranky,” she says, maneuvering around him as she exits the kitchen, a Diet Dr Pepper in each hand. “Maybe you should smoke some more.” On her way back up the stairs, she turns and yells, “And then maybe you’ll get turbo cancer and die!”

“I’m your big brother, Taylor!” he shouts after her. “I’m looking out for you!”

“You’re a big pain in my ass!” she shouts back, leaning over the railing so her voice echoes properly. She swoops back into her room, ignoring the grumbling from downstairs, and as she closes the door with her butt, she’s delighted to see Max laughing at something on the screen.

Well, mostly delighted. It would have been nice if it had been her who made him laugh, not this Avery girl, but it’s still good to see.

“Drink up,” she says, placing the can in front of him.

“Diet,” he observes, before opening it and taking a swig.

“I’m an athlete!” She opens hers and presses the cold can against his bare forearm, making him wince and pull away. “And so are you!”

“Thanks, Tay,” he says, grinning at her.

“So? How’s she doing?”

“Avery? She’s good. Same as normal.” He points to the screen, and Taylor swings her chair around behind again, so she can look properly. As she drinks, Max goes back to typing.

A-Very-Nice-Person: It’s going to be weird going back to school without you A-Very-Nice-Person: I’m going to have to get a new best friend Maximillion: At least you won’t have to have the locker next to the one that always has FAG on it anymore A-Very-Nice-Person: What if I befriend a new fag A-Very-Nice-Person: Oh shit am I allowed to say that Maximillion: No but neither am I

Taylor hides her smile behind her Diet Dr Pepper. Definitely not gay, then. Just checking!

A-Very-Nice-Person: Have you seen your new school yet Maximillion: No but I figure any school is like any other school right? Maximillion: Different color metal detectors maybe A-Very-Nice-Person: ROFL depressing A-Very-Nice-Person: Rolling on the floor sobbing my eyes out A-Very-Nice-Person: Leave New York and see the sights in sunny California! A-Very-Nice-Person: Get violated by entirely new rentacops!

“It’s not too bad, actually,” Taylor says, having drained her Dr Pepper already. “We’ve got a couple security guys, but no metal detectors. They keep saying they’re going to beef up security, but so far…” She crosses her fingers.

Maximillion: Taylor says no metal detectors

Taylor borrows the keyboard again.

Maximillion: Taylor here, AND our security guys have cute little name tags and they get fired if they get too handsy. Which HAS happened, so that’s not great, but at least they got fired. A-Very-Nice-Person: You’re leading the nation A-Very-Nice-Person: Also hi Taylor! A-Very-Nice-Person: Max won’t say if you’re prettier than me Maximillion: Just a second, Avery. I can solve that conundrum.

Taylor surrenders the keyboard to Max, but before he can type anything else, she claims the mouse and loads the webcam application. The little camera is still positioned on top of the monitor, pointing down at them, covering what Taylor’s always considered her most flattering angle. “Say cheese,” she says, and puts on a peppy smile, pressing her cheek against Max’s.

In the preview, he looks adorably startled and she looks great, so she saves the picture and drags it into the AIM window.

A-Very-Nice-Person: Oh shit she IS prettier than me A-Very-Nice-Person: How depressing A-Very-Nice-Person: You see it right Max A-Very-Nice-Person: You see how she’s prettier than me Maximillion: Avery Maximillion: You realize I’m stuck now don’t you? Maximillion: I can’t say you’re prettier than Taylor because she’s right here Maximillion: And I can’t say the opposite either Maximillion: Whatever I say I’m doomed

“Duh,” Taylor says, giggling. “You say we’re both beautiful.”

A-Very-Nice-Person: Repeat after me, Maxxy: “You’re both pretty.”

“She makes a good point,” Taylor says.

Maximillion: There’s an echo in here. Maximillion: Taylor said the exact same thing you did. A-Very-Nice-Person: Well yeah A-Very-Nice-Person: All of us are taught this as children A-Very-Nice-Person: We get secret classes A-Very-Nice-Person: How to make boys uncomfortable is like the first lesson A-Very-Nice-Person: It’s our main weapon in the battle of the sexes A-Very-Nice-Person: That and mace

“I have some Mace,” Taylor whispers, “if you ever need some. I have spare, I mean.”

“Why would I need Mace?”

“Don’t know. But just in case. I’ll bring some over.”

“Don’t bring me Mace, Taylor.”

“Just in case!”

* * *

Max isn’t exactly late for dinner, but he needs to shower to get rid of the weed stink, and since it’s also his turn to set the table, he’s going to be cutting it really close. So he barges in through the front door at full speed, yells out that he’s here, that he’ll be down in a minute, that he just needs a shower, and he makes it to the stairs without either of his parents getting a chance to intercept him and yell at him about timekeeping, about the watch his Aunt Gabriele got him, about how it keeps perfect time, about how he should wear it more, and about how he knows when dinner is and when to be home for it.

See? He doesn’t even need to be yelled at; he’s got the script memorized.

He doesn’t make it to his bedroom entirely unscathed, though. Clay’s in his room with his door open, and he calls out as Max passes. Panting, Max stops in the doorway, leaning on the frame with both hands.

“Yeah?” Max says.

“Nice girl, is she?”

“Yeah.”

“Girlfriend?”

“What? No. Clay, we’ve been here a day.”

“You moved on Avery pretty quick back home.”

“We weren’t— Never mind. I need a shower.”

“Good idea.” Clay wafts a hand in front of his nose. “And wash those clothes yourself.”

“Uh, yeah, I will.”

As Max turns to leave, Clay says, “Nice scrunchie, Max.”

“What? Oh. Shit.”

“You wearing it to dinner? So Mom and Dad can get a good look at it?”

“Uh. No. Definitely not.”

“Okay then.”

Max makes his escape.

It’s annoying to have to wash his hair twice in one day, but hair’s worse than clothes for retaining weed stink, and as much as he could pass it off as an unfortunate byproduct of existing in the presence of Taylor’s stoner brother, he doesn’t want to take the risk; Mom’d probably go over there to complain about Garrett’s corrupting influence. And the shower gives him the opportunity to think, too.

About Taylor.

He let her touch his scars. And something about that felt right. Felt like it demystified them somehow. Like Taylor claimed them, and in doing so, released their hold on him just a little. He’s not going to start going topless, but maybe by bringing them so completely into his new life, into a new friendship, she’s begun a process which might eventually sever their connection to his past.

Yeah. He kinda likes that.

He also likes that Taylor and Avery get along. They chatted for a while, switching the keyboard back and forth, until Avery had to go for dinner. She and Taylor exchanged details, and then it was just Max and Taylor again. Watching TV. Talking about nothing. Talking about everything.

She’s relaxing to be around. She’s a lot smarter than he originally assumed she would be, which is on him. Making assumptions. Like a girl can’t be bubbly and peppy and test well!

He smiles as he soaps himself up. Her words in her voice. Different to Avery’s—basically two exact opposite points of the female vocal range—but not shrill and whining like he always expects cheerleaders’ voices to be.

“Wow,” he says to himself, imitating Taylor. “Prejudiced much?”

They talked about birthdays. She has one coming up, and he is of course invited to her eighteenth on September 13. He told her he had a birthday recently, but that he didn’t really celebrate it, just hung out with Avery as usual. The confession brought the mood down again. It didn’t last, though, and to change the subject, she showed him her hand-annotated copy of the squad routine book and talked him through what cheerleaders do that gymnasts don’t. When it was finally time for him to go home for dinner, it was with the knowledge of what flyers, bases and spotters are, what they do, and how disastrous it can be when any of them fuck up.

In all, his second day in California could have gone a lot worse. Though it’s weird that Taylor hasn’t mentioned her boyfriend even once yet.

* * *

He’s so dumb! So adorably, annoyingly dumb! He wants to do gymnastics. He’s desperate to get back to it! She could see it in the way he hungrily watched the cheer routines she played for him, and in the rapt attention he paid when she was showing him the cheer book, but he won’t do anything about it! And, okay, Vista Primavera High doesn’t have a gymnastics team, so he can’t do it at school, but he can take classes or something! He can do it on his own time! But no, instead he’s just going to try to keep up with the basics in his backyard—or in hers—and leave it at that.

But he’s also not dumb, and she knows why. He doesn’t want to be the ‘gym eff ay gee’ at another school. He wants to keep his head down and graduate and go to college. And eventually, it went unsaid, he’ll become more like his brother—because he will, Taylor’s wishful thinking notwithstanding—and he’ll either have to learn everything again from scratch—and never again be as good as he was—or he’ll give it up forever.

It was itching on the tip of her tongue all afternoon: join the squad! She wanted so much to say it! And he’d be amazing! He’s better than her at the technical stuff, even if she’s fitter and can last longer, and the other stuff, the cheer-specific stuff, she could teach him, no trouble. Eddie could teach him the guys’ role in the squad. And he’d make them better in turn! They could learn so much from each other!

But she didn’t say it, because she can’t. Because he’s the wrong size and shape. Their routines—their very squad—assume a certain size and shape of guy. Eddie is six foot one and closer to Gordo than Max in physique, and the other guys on the squad are similar; there’s no role for Max there. And while in theory he could take up the same role as one of the girl bases, or even be a flyer if he starts working on his core again, since he can already land like a champ… he’d never agree to it. Being a guy doing girl stuff on the cheer squad is probably significantly worse than being a gym eff ay gee.

Shoot. She’s so close to a solution that helps them both, but there’s no way she can make it work!

Taylor shakes her head and jumps up from her bed, aiming to call for takeout before Garrett gets a chance to order the greasiest and most disgusting food he can find in the big pile of menus in the kitchen. On her way past the computer desk, the picture of her and Max, the one she took with her webcam and sent to Avery, catches her eye.

It makes her smile. Warms her stomach. Because they look like such good friends already!

But what’s weird is that with the low resolution of the webcam, with the fat pixels obscuring the finer details of his face, with the angle the picture was taken from, he looks kinda like a girl.

He looks kinda like a pretty girl.

Taylor stares.

Like a really pretty—

“Taylor!” Garrett calls from downstairs. “I’m ordering food!”

Shoot!

She shakes her head and runs to the door. “Oh no you don’t!” she yells, and starts down the stairs, flexing her fingers, preparing to rip the phone right out of his stupid stoner hands before he orders something with more oil by volume than an entire KFC, and kick him if that doesn’t seem like enough.

* * *

Monday goes by quickly. Max showers, dresses in loose clothing he can move in, and goes over to Taylor’s. They exercise together. Taylor shows him more of her cheerleader moves and tries to give him an idea of how they work with more than one person, but it’s difficult to imagine. She says she should get her friend Willa over, because she’s on the squad and can help Taylor show him, if he’s interested. He says he’s fine just imagining for now.

Then it’s back upstairs to chat and watch TV. She will take him shopping one day, she says, but she’s going to give him more time to get acclimated before she subjects him to the malls here. They hang out, they talk to Avery a little more together, Taylor still doesn’t mention that she has a boyfriend—he’s been noticing more and more how she doesn’t talk about him—and then it’s dinner time and he’s got to go home.

And just when he’s getting excited at the thought of doing it all over again tomorrow—and reveling in the feeling of actually looking forward to something for once—his mom drops the bombshell: on Tuesday, they’re having a family day. They’re going to go out together and look around the stores and have a nice lunch somewhere, so he needs to get his sunscreen and some nice clothes and be ready to go out at nine in the morning sharp.

As Taylor would say, ick!

They got the cable TV and internet connected while he was out, though, so after dinner he sets up his aging computer and messages Taylor on AIM to tell her he can’t come over tomorrow. She’s sad—and annoyed that it’s not going to be her who introduces him to the shopping here—but she gets over it, and they end up talking well into the night.

* * *

“Yeah, and he can’t come over today. His parents want a ‘family day’, which basically means they’ve kidnapped him and his enormous brother and they’re going to drive all over town and go shopping and eat out and because they’re from New York they’re probably all going to die of heatstroke on the steps of Spring View Mall twenty feet away from the air conditioning and I’m bored, Willa!”

“Whoa! Okay. Take it easy, Tay. Start again. Who is Max?”

Taylor winds the phone cord around her little finger. “He’s this boy—”

“No, no, I understood that part. I mean, why are you so into him?”

“I’m not into him! He’s just— He’s nice, Willa. He’s a nice guy. Do you know any nice guys? Apart from Eddie, I mean.”

“Apart from Eddie? No. I know plenty of only mildly offputting guys, if that helps.”

“It extremely does not.”

“Fair,” Willa says.

“Willa, he’s super sweet and you have to meet him! So what I was thinking is, he had his eighteenth like a week ago, just over, and he didn’t even do anything for it! So I thought about a surprise party—you know how much I love surprises—but he’s kinda gunshy. So then I thought, what about us? Like, the four of us? You and Eddie and me and Max. Tomorrow night. Over here. Garrett can get us drinks and we’ll have a little birthday party! For Max!”

“Uh-huh.”

“What do you mean, ‘uh-huh’?”

“Me and my boyfriend and you and your…”

“Max, yes.”

“You and your Max.”

“No! Just me and Max. He’s not mine…” She probably shouldn’t sound so wistful.

“You have a boyfriend, Taylor! Remember Gordo? Big guy. Linebacker. Very straight nose.” Over the line, Willa giggles. “Very straight guy in general.”

“Max isn��t like that.”

“Didn’t you say he’s not gay?”

“He’s not! He said so!”

“He just, like, came out and said it?”

On her kitchen stool, Taylor squirms. “Not directly. But we were talking to his friend from New York and they were talking like he’s not gay. He even said he’s ‘not allowed’ to say the word; you know, um, eff, ay—”

“You don’t need to spell it, Tay.” Willa breathes heavily into the phone. “So. He’s not gay. And he’s not like Gordo. What is he like?”

“I don’t know, Willa! He’s… He’s sweet and he’s sensitive and he’s kinda… He’s Max, Willa. Max.”

“You’re saying his name like you think it’s helping your ‘not into him’ case.”

“Is it?”

“No.”

“No fair,” Taylor whines.

“You’re lusting, Tay.”

“Am not!”

“Does he know he’s got no chance?”

“…No? Yes? Maybe? But I don’t want that from him, Willa. I want a friend. I want him to be more like how you are with me, not like how Gordo is with me. I think. Shoot, I don’t know. Stop asking confusing questions.”

“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“I’ll come to your party, Tay. I’ll wear something nice and I’ll bring Eddie and I’ll meet your new best friend and we can do the birthday thing. Just promise me it won’t be weird.”

“Zero weirdness. I promise. Willa, you’re the best.”

“I know. And—”

“Shoot! Doorbell! Gotta go!”

She could probably have made it to the front door without having to hang up, because the kitchen phone has a really long cord, but if she kept Willa on the line she was going to keep asking those uncomfortable questions, and they’re not anything Taylor wants to address right now. She’s on the fourth day of her friendship with Max and she still doesn’t know exactly what she wants from him, only that she wants something, and it’s definitely not what she wants from Gordo.

She’s still frowning at the thought of it when the doorbell goes again, reminding her why she hung up in the first place. Irritably she rushes to the front door and yanks it open.

Shoot.

“Gordo!”

“Hey, babe!”

He yanks her into an embrace she has no chance of getting out of unless she wants to get violent, so she waits for him to get done before she says anything else. And then he plants a kiss on her mouth as he releases her, so she has to wait that out, too.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, when finally she can. “I thought football camp was—”

“It’s not ‘football camp’, Tay, I keep telling you.” He starts taking the stairs two at a time, and Taylor has to admit that for all that he can be, well, annoying and persistent, he has a great body. And it’s a reactive body, too. He moves a muscle in his arm and it’s like a butterfly flapping its wings; somewhere on the other end of his body, another muscle moves with it. “It’s an intensive week-long training regimen overseen by—”

“If it’s so intensive,” she says, climbing the stairs after him, “then why are you here?”

“I missed you, Tay!”

He punctuates her name by swinging open the door to her room. She follows him inside, allows him to shut the door, and when he sits down on the end of her bed she chooses one of the computer chairs, rolling it into the center of the room.

“No, seriously,” she says. “Why are you here?”

“Coach gave us the afternoon off and it’s only sixty miles and I wanted to surprise you, Tay!”

She reaches forward to swat him on the knee. “Gordo! You know I hate surprises!”

“I know, I know,” he says, “you like everything to be organized and in its place—” he mimes typing on an invisible typewriter, which is seemingly how Gordo thinks you organize yourself, “—but you’re not doing anything today, are you?”

“No,” she admits.

“So?”

“Fine,” she says, stepping up from her chair and over to him. He rises to meet her, circles an arm around her waist and dips her, and the shiver that involuntarily passes through her isn’t entirely unwelcome. Enough that when she comes up, flushed, she’s ready for more. But she has to set the ground rules, first. “No sex stuff, though.” She holds a finger up to his face, which is tricky because of how close he’s holding her. “Okay?”

He kisses her again and releases her. “Yeah, Tay, I got it. I can wait a month. Hey, you wanna go out on your birthday, just the two of us, and celebrate?”

“I have a party on my birthday, Gordo. You know that!”

“Okay. Day after?”

“That’s a Sunday, and we have school the next day. We’ll do something the Friday after, okay?”

Gordo nods, grinning expansively. “Perfect, Tay, just perfect. I can’t wait. I mean, I can wait. And I will wait. But I can’t.”

“Understood, Gordo.”

“And— Oh, hey, what’s that?”

“What’s what?”

And that’s when Taylor realizes she should have been so much more careful, that she shouldn’t have let Gordo come up here—not that she had much chance of stopping him—and that maybe she should start applying the same ruthless organization and forward planning she uses for school, cheerleading and Gordo to the rest of her personal life, because he’s over at the door, looking at the latest addition to the height marks carved into the frame.

“Tay,” he says slowly, “who’s Max? Is he a guy? Did you have a guy in your room?”

Strangely, he doesn’t sound mad. At least, he doesn’t sound like he usually sounds when he’s mad. His voice is too steady. Somehow that’s even scarier.

“No guys, Gordo,” she says quickly, because it’s what he needs to hear. “Promise.”

“So who is he?”

Looking quickly around her room for inspiration, Taylor’s eyes land briefly on the computer, and she remembers the webcam photo she took. How the low-quality camera basically erased the wispy dark hairs on Max’s upper lip and softened his features. Made him look different.

“Max is a girl,” she says. “Maxine. She’s a friend and she was visiting. We were just messing around.”

“I don’t know a Maxine,” Gordo says, still frowning.

Taylor quickly reaches for some facts she can use to anchor the lie. “She just moved here. She starts at our school in the fall. She’s nice, Gordo.”

“Cool,” he says, nodding. “Cool.” And then his grin returns as if it had never left. “Is she hot?”

“Yes,” Taylor says, “she’s hot, but you’re taken, you idiot!”

He holds up his hands in fake surrender and edges around the room, pretending to back away from her. “I get it, I get it, don’t attack me!”

Gordo’s still backing away, and he bumps into the computer desk, knocking the mouse and deactivating the screensaver, and Taylor wishes desperately for a do-over of the last few days, or at the very least, the last few minutes.

She left the webcam picture up on the screen. She had it up last night when they were talking—just to look at—and she never turned off her stupid computer because she was too tired, and she couldn’t even hear it when she woke up because it’s so freaking quiet, and now Gordo’s looking at Max, and—

“Oh, hey,” he says. “Is that Maxine? She is hot.”

How to Fly, book one of When You Fell from Heaven, which comprises the first ten chapters of the story, is available:

On Amazon, for Kindle and in Paperback.

As an ebook from these online stores.

Or from Itch.io.

Or you can read all current chapters on my Patreon! Subscribing to my Patreon at the $5 tier will get you all fifteen chapters (so far) of When You Fell from Heaven. You will also get access to my ongoing stories The Catch, a forced-fem riff on Fifty Shades with illustrations by Emory Ahlberg, and Kimmy, a horrifying take on the Halloween costume that won’t let you out. And you’ll get the full epub of the revised version of Show Girl, my egg-cracking trans romance, and access to chapters of The Sisters of Dorley two weeks early!

[aetherdoesthings]

hanahaki!reader x arlecchino pt 3

forethoughts: as this series ends, i'm going to start sifting through my inbox to see requests i haven't done and fulfill some in due time. so if you want, why not add more to the pile? it's open! just read the rules first found in pinned post!

notes: reader is still drunk!!! modern setting, arlecchino and reader are actresses, fem!reader, hanahaki au

Arlecchino let out a chuckle, her head coming closer to your view as she examined your form. “Oh, darling. You finished half the bottle. Certainly enough to get you wasted, but not your desired outcome.”

You let out a whine as your body was moved, head resting against something soft, your knees and shoulders supported by arms that lifted you like you were just a piece of paper. In your drunken state, you found yourself leaning closer to the source of heat, nuzzling your head closer to the source of heat and the steady beat of Arlecchino’s heart. You swore you heard a soft chuckle from above, which made your heart churn and your lower half all fuzzy again. 

“Too bright for those eyes, darling?” Arlecchino smiled at you, using her shoulder and head to block the harsh lights from hitting your half lidded eyes as a warm gush of air was plastered over your body.

“I know, I know, don’t worry. We’re almost there.” Arlecchino continued to carry you in her arms, as you listened to the steady beat of her heart thump, a melody you could never grow tired of listening to. 

“Where’s your key, darling?”

“Pocket…”

Without rocking your head or forcing a whine out of you, Arlecchino grabbed your key, shoving it into the door to your trailer as a familiar scent filled your nose. 

“A-Arle…” You mewled, your hand flapping against her chest, tugging on her satin dress that blended in with the night sky and the darkness of your trailer. 

“Yes, darling?” Arlecchino chuckled at your nickname for her, as your body was laid down on a soft surface, cold and fluffy blankets covering your body up to your neck. Pillows were placed underneath your head, your hands scrambling for Arlecchino’s sleeve. Arlecchino instantly offered her hand for you to cuddle with without hesitation, using her free hand to brush the hair out of your face.

“...I…” Everything that had some sense of conscience and rationality was screaming, attacking your mind to stop your ill self from talking and doing anything further. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Well, not how you envisioned it to be. It was always going to be you dying alone because of the damn disease, forever stricken and tormented with guilt and denial.

Not with Arlecchino’s hand on top of your heart and sitting on your bed watching your drunk self writhe around and spill everything you once planned to take to the grave. The idea of spilling everything in front of the woman you loved to death made you want to claw your skin off and dig into a ditch and perish.

Your body erected itself in its spot, adding to your preexisting nausea as you hawked, the flower becoming more and more uncomfortable to get out. You watched the single petal drift onto your blankets, right in front of Arlecchino.

“Interesting.” Was all Arlecchino said. Like she didn’t watch you cough out petals before.

“Does it hurt?” Arlecchino asked, her hands guiding your body back down to the mattress.

You glanced at Arlecchino, avoiding those crimson crosses that danced in those dark voids, fingers fidgeting with your blanket before nodding your head. You supposed lying in your bed with the love of your life by your side was how you were going to go out. 

Better than dying in a broom closet.

“Oh, my poor darling…” Arlecchino’s thumb brushed against your temple, rubbing soft circles as her fingers petted your head. A sigh of relief and comfort was ripped out of you at the action, nuzzling your head into the touch as if you were a puppy.

“How much longer are you going to suffer and deny yourself of your feelings?” Arlecchino sighed, looking at you with a bittersweet smile.

You stared at the ceiling, contemplating the many answers that were in your head. Because Arlecchino wouldn’t ever say yes. Because you were a masochist. Because you were a coward. 

“...I’m scared…” Was what you chose at the end, your head tilting towards Arlecchino like an unoiled robot. “...that I’m going to die.”

Arlecchino’s crimson glow dimmed, the grin on her face turning into a thin line, as she continued to pet your head. 

When Arlecchino remained silent, your mind took it as a chance to do the one thing you swore never to do.

“...I-I…have always been a fan of what you do, a-and always watch your movies and films; everything. I-I like watching your interviews online, I’ve always found you were much more entertaining and interesting to watch. E-Everytime I looked at you through the screen, my heart always did a backflip and my stomach always twisted into itself, and I n-never understood why. T-Then I got to work with you, which was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a-and initially I was scared to commit and a-actually work with you, b-because I’ve seen everything you do, and you always perform like you knew you were the star, and everyone around you were mere background actors meant to support you and carry your energy to the audience, always carrying that confidence wherever you went. And I just kept thinking t-that no way I was able to match your level and finesse as some rookie actress I was, b-but I took it, a-and then I actually met you, and that same feeling came back, making my insides all fuzzy and warm. I c-couldn’t explain it. B-But then I started to cough, I started to cough up flower petals, which was i-insane, and I thought I was in a dream. I mean, I was able to work with you and spend so much time with you, but then I started coughing up flower petals, and I-I remembered about that hanahaki disease… a-and I realize those feelings… o-of always smiling whenever I see your face and my heart going a thousand miles an hour when I’m close to you… I… I was in love with you. A-And I was scared. I was scared of being in love with you. Because y-you’re… you’re a queen! Y-You’re the queen of Hollywood, and I-I’m just a D tier actress lucky enough to stumble my way onto a set with someone like you, a-and… and I sound like a total freak and perv and weirdo for being so obsessed with you… a-and I understand. I-I.. I knew you wouldn’t e-ever say y-yes, b-because well, y-you’re you, and I-I’m me. A-And I was going to die because of this damn disease, s-so I-”

A warm feeling surged through your body, searing through your veins. The fire that was brought upon you was overwhelming, something you never imagined yourself experiencing in a lifetime. Your hands scrambled around to find anything to grab onto, to stabilize yourself from the foreign feeling. Like a lost child trying to find their mother, your hands flew towards Arlecchino, craving and desperate to feel her warmth and feel the steady beat of her heart, never ceasing to calm you down and provide you a sense of clarity. You held onto her shoulders for dear life, nails clawing into her bare skin. Your mind was in a fight or flight mode, panicking between removing yourself from the source or letting yourself free and fall deeper into the feeling. A gasp exits your mouth as the fire enters your lungs, burning the disease that plagued your body, that plagued your very existence, cleansing it from your system. A clear, fresh wave of air entered through your nose, filling your lungs with the oxygen it craved, once and for all restored back to its original form. 

You opened your eyes, letting your senses go back to work. There was a hand around your cheeks, holding your head in place to wherever the owner of the hands desired, which was directed at the person’s face. Arlecchino looked at you with a soft smile on her face, her thumbs reaching for your eyes as she wiped your tears away. 

Oh. 

You were crying. 

A lot.

“You ramble a lot, don’t you?” Arlecchino chuckled, her lips coming in contact with yours, providing another sense of warmth and heat to your body, clearing any more damages done by the disease.

“I-I’m s-sorry-”

“Don’t be. I’ll happily listen to you ramble all day, all night. Everyday when I’m by your side.”

“Y-You will?” A small hopeful smile crept onto your face.

Arlecchino returned the smile. “Of course, my darling.”

You looked into those crimson eyes, that small genuine smile that never ceased to make your day and make your heart flutter. Your eyes bored into Arlecchino’s, silently asking if it was finally okay to let your feelings out, to let yourself feel what you had denied yourself all these weeks. Arlecchino’s smile and gaze was enough to give you your answer and grant your request.

“...I love you.” You murmured under your breath, unsure if Arlecchino even heard it.Arlecchino smiled back, placing her forehead against yours. “...I love you too, my darling. You are the only star that shines in my eyes. The one that lights up my world. Never put out your own flame, my love. You’re much more than what you call a D-tier actress. You’re my star in my heart. Never doubt your importance to me or to the world, my little star.”

[lalunanymph]

Speculations for Caleb's myth based on what we Know So Far (Dawnie's Version) (Infold please don't sue me) 

Disclaimer: THIS IS ALL PURE SPECULATION after discussing with the caleb gc and i thought i would share it here, too‼️

CalebMc is not your typical love story because of two things: 

Caleb’s established relationship with her

Infold’s commissioned art depicting CalebMc as the seduction of eve 

ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP

Caleb and Mc were both adopted by Josephine, though it is noted that he does not share the same family name as her and retains his own surname (Xia). However, due to the close nature of their relationship, it is not socially acceptable to simply just show his love to Mc… but what if there’s something deeper? 

SEDUCTION OF EVE

Eve is a biblical figure known to be the first mother of humankind. During her time in the Garden of Eden, she is seduced by the potential knowledge from the serpent. Most interestingly, Infold has commissioned a drawing of Mc and Caleb in this exact scenario which implies: 

Caleb has knowledge Mc wants

The desires within the both of them need a catalyst to grant them that knowledge 

OR

Caleb is being set up as someone to corrupt MC. 

BUT, WHO IS CALEB?

He is shown to be someone kind and charismatic, witty and good at cooking. It is implied he is a charmer and is highly intelligent due to his high-risk job as a fighter pilot in the Deepspace Aviation Academy. 

WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?

After the explosion, Caleb is presumed to be dead. However, with his name already listed in the beta, it is highly probable for us to deduce that he will be returning back to the game. Further proof: In the trailer for the Visions Opposees music video, we see a man falling from the sky after the 4 LIs are shown with MC. There is some speculation that this might be Caleb. 

As he falls between time and space, there are suspicions that because of his Evol or the Spatium Protocore, he is currently in a different plane of existence.

But, where he is or when he will come back is not what we’re here to discuss. We’re here to speculate about his myth. 

THE MYTH OF THE WHITE SNAKE

Snakes are an important figure in Chinese myths, and the biggest one is Bai Suzhen. She is a white snake spirit who became immortal and could take human form and is the main character in the Legend of the White Snake, one of China's four great folktales. She notably met her husband in a past life and risked her life to steal herbs from the monk of the South pole to revive him back from the dead. 

THE COWHERD AND THE WEAVER

Another big Chinese myth. This one centers around forbidden love between a celestial weaver and a cowherd. Long story short, she returned back to the heavens after living a life with him and bearing him two children, but because of her grave error in tarnishing herself with humans, the gods separated them by heaven and earth—forcing a milky way between them. They are only allowed to meet once a year by crossing a bridge of magpies. 

SPECULATIONS FOR CALEB'S MYTH

If we follow Infold’s style according to the other LIs’ myth, MC is always someone who is shunned and ostracized by society in order to set up a connection between her and the LIs. However, taking into account all the myths listed above running in the same vein as Caleb’s general vibe, they have one thing in common: forbiddenness. 

Forbidden love. Forbidden knowledge. 

Mirroring Caleb’s love for MC which is forbidden because they were raised together. 

What I speculate is this:

MC is someone who is of high importance and meets Caleb through a chance encounter. Her life is sheltered and she yearns to learn more—to experience more (kind of like Abysswalker’s MC). But, she is not used for the powers of her Aether core, and is sheltered from that knowledge. Enter Caleb who has an inkling of what she is and what is her potential. He shows her a different world, one where she can’t be used as a pawn in anyone's game and gives her a taste of true power. In turn, she becomes drunk on it and seeks him out more to learn about her true purpose.

Somehow, they fall in love with each other and he admits his feelings. But, what she doesn't know is he has a different form, and only lives among humans to [insert motive because I am not Infold’s writer goddamnit]. However, something happens to her and she gets seriously injured. To save her from the brink of death, Caleb has to steal something from a deity or whatever. He goes to the heavens and steals a herb that can bring her back to life but unbeknownst to him, MC is actually the child of a god/higher up being/etc and this could be alluded to be Josephine. 

Knowing what he has done to her granddaughter, the Queen Mother Cvnt of heaven casts him away and keeps him from MC in the heavens, where she thinks he has abandoned her during her weakest moment. Someone saves her and it's Josephine, who brings her back to life but only poisons her thoughts about Caleb as the subsequent days go by. 

But, seeing how much Caleb loves MC, her heart softens and she allows them to meet once a year, under her watchful eye (EVER WHAT’S UP). 

….. Okay that’s it…. That is the only way I can connect the dots. 

THE END 

[paceprompting]

hallucination or not

written for ‘chill’ wc: 858 # | steddie | rated: t | cw: blood, mention of death | tags: post season four, near-death experience, rescue mission, protective steve

@steddieholidaydrabbles

Dustin had gone, finally convinced to leave Eddie where he was.

Torn apart at the sides, blood seeping out into the ground. He could hear his heart pounding still in his ears, but the beats were getting longer and longer pauses between them—slowly aiding in killing him the more it fought to keep beating.

It didn’t hurt, not anymore. Not like when the bats' fangs and claws had dug in and ripped away at him until the pure weight of the hoard forced him to his knees.

He’d left Eddie alone, and it hurt even though Eddie had forced him to go.

Eddie stared up at the red and shadowed sky, his own wheezing breaths his only deathbed companion. That and a few dead bats splayed out on the ground beside him.

The blood underneath him was warm on his hand, which he couldn’t move as much as it made tears spill from the corners of his eyes because his blood was spilling out and he could touch it but he couldn’t fix it.

His blood was warm, but he was so, so cold.

God, he was leaving Wayne all alone.

He’d be homeless without the trailer, subject to the temperamental kindness of a small town. But he was probably better off without the dead weight of an accused murderer and cult leader nephew hanging around him. Once Eddie was dead, Wayne was free.

His original plan to do that was just to leave Indiana. But needs must, he guessed.

Eddie forced himself to take a shaky, wheezing breath. Because dying was fucking difficult, apparently, when the body was meant to keep going until it couldn’t anymore.

Did he even want to die?

He was going to, that’s for sure. But how long was he going to fight it?

His heart was still beating, too slow, but stubborn. He could feel it in the ground.

Or, no…

It wasn’t slowing, it was speeding up. Too fast for a real heartbeat, and getting stronger.

Not a heartbeat.

Footsteps.

Eddie tried to look, but his head wouldn’t move.

The vibrations in the ground grew closer, and Eddie could nearly hear the pounding that preceeded a blurred shadow coming to an abrupt stop beside him. The momentum carried them forward, over Eddie’s eyeline and after a second, the sight focused.

“Steve?”

He was hallucinating, now. His brain was fritzing out as he lay there dying, and it had decided to torture him in his last moments with the vision of the boy he could never have. He looked just as Eddie had left him in his battle gear, if more dirtied and bloodied. Like he’s been through hell.

Last they’d seen each other, Steve and the girls had gone off to face the real monster.

He wanted to believe Steve had made it out.

Another weight appeared at his other side, like hands laid on his arm. Eddie strained to look out of the corner of his eye, and was even further confused.

“Rob..in?”

He couldn’t get enough air, but did that mean his brain was really adding in more people as an audience to his death?

Eddie closed his eyes, but he could still hear the voices. Muffled, like being underwater. Almost familiar, if he could just make out the actual words.

“Henderson, shut up,” Steve snapped and Eddie opened his eyes, barely about to make out curls and waving hands just out of his line of vision. Hallucination Steve rubbed at his temple, smudging the blood and dirt there. “I need to figure out how to carry him, and you in my ear is not helping.”

No, Dustin…he can’t be there. He can’t watch Eddie die.

Hands touched at his neck—Steve’s hands, he realized, as he came back into view. Pressing hard to try and find Eddie’s fading pulse. His hands were like fire against his chilled, frozen skin, and he felt tears burn down his cheeks again.

He had to believe this was a hallucination. Because if it wasn’t…

Everyone was putting themselves at risk to end up just like Eddie. And he didn’t deserve it.

Steve’s hands fell away, taking their warmth with him.

“Give me your jackets. All of you,” he ordered, yanking his own of and laying over Eddie’s torn-up body. Eddie could feel weight, but nothing else. He was still cold, even when Robin and Dustin added their jackets.

“Eds. Eddie, hey. I need you to look at me.” Steve cradled his jaw and turned Eddie’s head. He was getting fuzzy, but Eddie could swear there were trails of wet tears through the dirt on Steve’s face.

Steve leaned closer, so all that Eddie could see, could hear was him.

“I’m going to carry you. It’s going to hurt. We will not leave you here.”

Eddie wanted to tell him no.

But he didn’t have the air left to speak.

And there was a chance now, maybe, that he could hold on long enough to tell Wayne goodbye. That Dustin’s last memory of him would be with some hope as he was wheeled off to some emergency room.

He couldn’t get there without Steve.