#and OH BOY i am so excited to finally write those scenes

[sometimeslwish]

Second Child, Restless Child

Aight, so, after... A month? Idk, after some time, the second chapter is finally out. I was doubting even continuing this because I lost all the extra scenes I had written after I finished the third chapter, and while I still vaguely remember what I want to write, it feels like a task to re-write them. I'm still mourning the loss of those scenes, cause I had done so well, le sigh. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy. Let me know your thoughts, please, they would cheer me up greatly.

Word count: 1,974

Tags: Mention of past lives, not canon compliant, assassination attempt turned into sparring, passing out from exhaustion, mention being hunted in the past, brief killing consideration. Idk man, it's 5 am as I try to tag this appropriately and I'm sleepy as hell.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

“Where did we leave off?”

“Going to find the dragon, momma.” The boy jumped on the bed, jostling his sister with his excitement. The mother laughed lightly.

"Careful, baby, you might fall or injure your sister." His reaction was instant, sitting down to hug her with careful consideration, as if he actually had injured her. "Okay, so, you trotted happily along the forest...)

See, I was born a restless child

And I could hear the world outside calling me

It took you a week and three days to find the cave. A little more and you would've considered yourself lost into a completely different adventure. Not that you would've minded, the woods were fun.

"This is it... we made it." You whispered to yourself, staring at the entrance of the cave with a bit of nerves. You considered stalling for a little bit, but there was the risk of someone else taking on the bounty and you didn't want it all to be for nought. So, you entered the cave quietly. You kept a hand on the hilt of your sword and the other on the wall as you made your way in. It got dark before there was light again, and you couldn't help but stare with your mouth agape at what you saw.

It was a little bit like you'd expected: piles and piles of gold and riches beyond you. You could try and calculate how many generations it would take to deplete it, but you weren't that good at math to begin with. What you hadn't expected, however, was a man-like-creature lying down at the center of it all. You thought you'd find a giant dragon, not what seemed like a man with a tail and...

("Are those supposed to be horns?" This time, it was the father's turn to interrupt her as she wore poorly made horns on the tops of her head.

He didn't even try to tame down the smirk that creeped its way into his lips when she shot him an unimpressed glare.)

. . . Yes, those were horns. Concentrate, dear, please.

You weren't religious by any means, but when faced with a creature such as himself, it truly left you to wonder what other type of creatures could exist. What was next? Mermaids? Goblins? Faeries? Gods?

There were red streaks on his body and black scales that contrasted his skin. It seemed like the armor on his left arm was melting onto his skin, or was it more scales coming out? You couldn't tell, not from this far, at the very least. His tail caught your attention as it moved. He seemed to employ it as if it was a third arm, bringing things to and fro as he rested on...

("Momma, what's that?" The girl asked, staring at the mother's poor drawing.

"It's a stone bed."

"That doesn't look comfortable at all." She smiled and patted the girl's head.)

Then again, he was a dragon, the stone bed probably was comfortable to him.

You were quiet in your approach, using his interest in his hoard to your favor. Quietly and swiftly, you took out your dagger, only for it to be batted away by his tail once you thrusted it into his back.

("Momma no!")

You gasped as the tail wrapped around your waist and pulled you towards him.

"Your footsteps are noisy," Oh gods, his voice. Deep and rumbly, almost like the purring of a cat but not quite there.

("Is it as deep as dad's?" There was skepticism on the boy's voice and the mother had to fight back an endeared laugh.

"Yes, it is")

"And you breathe heavily." Your jaw clicked shut and you held your breath, completely stuck in place as he turned to face you.

He was mighty handsome, with blood red eyes that resembled rubies and hair that looked as soft as you imagined moon dust to be.

(The girl gasped softly before looking at the father, her hand gripping the fabric of his sweater before shaking her tiny fist, "Daddy, that's you!")

Had you known your way with words, he would've turned you into a poet in an instant. But alas, creativity eluded you and you were left to this type of situations.

(There came a soft scoff from Sylus, and you stuck your tongue out at him before carrying on.)

"Consider yourself lucky. At the moment, I'm bored to tears."

You huffed at his tone, pulling yourself free– not just from his tail, but from the stupor– before unsheathing your sword once you'd gained stable footing.

"Very well then, what say you about some sparring? Surely you've got the energy for it." You smirked, shrugging off your backpack as he stood up. And that had been the beginning of a new stage in your life.

The dragon had seemed pleasantly surprised by your skills, if his taunts were anything to go by. His words only fuelled the fire in you, and you couldn't help but to get lost in the fight, pain and exhaustion left completely behind as adrenaline and excitement took over. It reminded you of your beginnings with your uncle, how you'd quickly taken up the sword and turned it into an extension of yourself. How you'd progressed more and more until you surpassed your brother and were able to spar with your uncle.

"Your movements are too slow, hunter." His voice pulled you out of your reverie, and you were lucky enough to dodge his tail by a hair. The adrenaline helped soothe the newly acquired cut on your arm and you couldn't help the affronted laugh.

"Why you–!" You lunged at him, cackling as you fought him with renewed vigor, "There better not be poison in your tail, mister!"

("Did you really think that when you first saw me?" He asked once you'd left the kids room, his hand seeking yours to intertwine your fingers.

"More or less," you admitted with a shrug, "You were very handsome– still are.")

. . . . .

You don't know for how long you fought, but you could feel the exhaustion take hold. You were sweating, far more than you ever had before, and it was making it difficult to keep your eyes open and hold your sword properly. The dragon barely seemed affected by it all, with only his hair slightly disheveled.

"Alright, dragon, I yield." You lowered your sword, tip of it piercing the ground as you leaned slightly on it. Your chest heaved as you tried to catch your breath and you could feel the sweat dripping down your back. Gods, a bath would be perfect right now.

"Tired, hunter?" He mocked with a smirk. You wanted to wipe it off his face, but settled for using your shirt to wipe the sweat from your face. It did little to soothe you, with the cloth being already drenched, but you didn't care.

"That was fun," you eyed one of the many piles of coins, questioning how cold the metal could be before simply settling on it and sighing in satisfaction. "we should do it again."

"After I rest, of course, I currently can't feel my arms." You added, before passing out from exhaustion.

("I had stared at you then," he admitted in a whisper, "You were the only one who hadn't stared at me like I was a beast. You were quite confident, almost foolishly so."

His pause is longer this time, as he stared at you. His palm was warm against your cheek, you didn't hold back from nuzzling it.

"I had considered ending it; giving you a painless death as you slept, as a little mercy."

"I'm glad you didn't." You smiled, kissing his hand before kissing the corner of his mouth.

"I'm glad too.")

Modified

10:00 p.m. by [name]

It was then that the dragon took the chance to study you.

The men before you hadn't stared at him with wonder, the only emotions they held for him were fear and anger as they proclaimed the end of his life. Some were determined, but in the end, they all failed.

You, however, you had "sparred" with him as if he were a long lost friend, eyes glinting with glee as you fought each other to exhaustion.

He could kill you right now, he thought, but the more time he wasted, the less inclined he was to do so. Something felt right about seeing you amongst his hoard, laying on the coins like you belonged there. The feeling surprised him, jolting up his spine with the same suddenness of having a cat jumping on you and climbing your clothes.

Normally, people daring to get near would've been enough to make his instincts flare up. Taking one step closer would've earned a growl from him, a warning that would've echoed and shaken through the cave. But you were the exception.

He stares as your chest rises and falls, pays attention to your breathing and notes how your eyelashes fluttered. He stays like that for a while, looking for something in you that will answer his question.

The only answer he gets is pride and satisfaction. The same he felt whenever his hoard grew bigger after finding treasure.

(Sylus softens as he turns to look at you. You're slouched, barely able to keep yourself upright as sleep settles heavily over you. You're blinking slowly, a frown paired with a pout as you try to focus on the words in front of you. He'd noticed how the satisfying clacks of the keyboard had slowed down as the night went on, soft pauses that grew longer and longer as you struggled to keep your eyes open.

You're going to complain about your grammar mistakes to him later, he can see it. You'll wince, make a disgusted noise and quickly get to fixing everything, maybe you'll even say “what the fuck did I even mean by that?” or read a misspelled world out loud with the outrage of someone who’d gotten insulted.

The image pulls a soft chuckle from him.

“Come on, sweetheart, let's go to bed.” He offers softly, getting up to pick you up. You protest weakly, eyes shooting open, but your actions are completely different from your words. You nuzzle into him, rubbing your cheek to his chest as you seek out his warmth.

“There's more I have to write.”

“It's not going to go anywhere, baby.” At the sight of your frown, he adds: “If you forget anything, I can help you remember; I've done it before.” You hum in response and softly pat his chest before falling asleep in his arms. His chest swells up with pride as he carries you to bed, warms up as he wraps you with the blankets and grows lighter with the weight of the love he holds for you when you mumble a soft “I love you” after he kisses your forehead.

He stays for a bit, in the same way he'd done at the cave, except this time, he knows what he feels. He stays to admire you and reminisce, finding you in this life had been harder than the last, but even more gratifying.

It takes him a while to find what you wrote after that conversation. He's not surprised by how much you've managed to write in all this time. He's seen you drop tasks to type furiously for a while before getting up to finish them. He's extra careful with the way he adds his own little note in his best imitation of your writing.)

Modified

3:34 a.m. by [name]

In that moment, he realizes you might be his biggest, most precious treasure yet.

Chapter 3

[marengogo]

UGH!-7: … Time To Pack It All Up, Y’all!

Be Mine (English Version) - by Jimin  [Be Mine (English Version)]

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

–🐺–🐺–🐺–

⚠️TW⚠️: I’m usually vulgar, but in this post, I might have outdone myself .

My dearest Gurls, Bois and Enbys, 

How’s everyone been doing? Are you enjoying Muse? Are you looking forward to RUN JIN? Are you ready for Are You Sure?!? Oh, let 👏🏾 me 👏🏾 tell 👏🏾 you 👏🏾, the excitement is way too real and I can’t even that's literally all the words I can fathom for now, I’m terribly sorry! That being said my Darlings, I’m afraid today’s blog will have to address a point I’m now realising that I must address, and I quite frankly assumed I wouldn’t have to, given that I am part of The Community and all. You see, there seems to be many Gladiators that wander into my neck of the woods completely misguided.  

They seem to think that my blog exist just so I can be present if one day JM and JK have sex on national TV, so that I can gloat in the faces of the Capulet enemy as I slay them with my mighty, and metaphorical, sword and bathe in their “blood” while I celebrating with fellow Montagues. Well, it is with a heavy heart, and great sadness, that I must inform you that frankly my dear, I don’t give a fuck, about none o’dat. Statements such as “Clearly JM has been single” like this Gladiator over here →  [LINK] or “JK has been fucking pussy every hour, every minute, every second” as the rest of Twitter ARMY believes or “They’ve been living together and have 100% been a couple since 2015, if you'd believe they are definitely real, why are you here...” like others on this app can really miss me, cause;

I 👏🏾 DON’T 👏🏾 GIVE 👏🏾 A 👏🏾 FLYING 👏🏾 FUCK 👏🏾.

The reason why I built this little nest in these treacherous woods is because, upon a sudden realisation, while looking at JK & JM, after careful observation and educated guessing, it started to feel like “Oh, hold on a minute … There might be something there …”. The idea that within this band that I adore there might be someone who is part of the community, like me, literally had my head implode, and not only that. It would appear that two particular members who seem to bring out the best in each other, as well as within those whom they interact with, might in fact be in this possible queer relationship, would make it even better, since we all love a stunning and powerful couple.

So yes, I am indeed here for the representation of it all. I’m not sure how many can relate, but as a minority in so many aspects of life, race, gender, sexual orientation etc, the feeling of having a fellow minority out in society who has the means and the will to live there life openly because coming out isn’t a must, we have the right also to not come out if we don’t want to as a minority is very positive and encouraging for all the rest of us, regardless of whether or not we decide to eventually come out or not. 

Though there’s obviously been many others who��d come out before Matt Bomer, he is the one coming out I will never forget. I loved White Collar like borderline obsessed. I watched it when it came out and it was my favourite guilty pleasure show before Suits. What I loved the most was watching him and Tim DeKay interact behind the scenes or during bloopers with the rest of the cast too, goofy as hell! And then in 2012 (three years in) Matt finally came out and took me by a storm, the fact that he had been able to keep his husband and three children hidden for all that time was also 🤯🤯🤯.

Once again, many others had come out before him Ricky Martin, for example, in 2010 but because White Collar was such a big part of my life, I was so ecstatic, it felt like a friend came out. It was also so great to see how much everyone on set, and the fans, were supportive and how much freer and happier he’s been since then. When Mew and Tul confirmed their relationship last month just a couple of months after Thailand legalised gay marriage y’all should have seen my face, I couldn’t stop grinning. All the speculations, the pictures, the public trips, etc etc etc. Anyways, they’ve both gone through quite some drama in the previous years, Mew in particular, so I am indeed quite happy for them.

So if JM and JK are not dating, or there isn’t a single queer person in the whole of bangtan and all have girlfriends and wives, or there are queer tannies and they are dating other queer people, or whichever other possible combinations, as long as they are happy, so will I, because I am first and foremost an OT7 ARMY and all I will always want is their happiness. I am thus afraid that you will not see me shed any tears, nor hear any miserable barking, in this neck of the woods; so~rry.

Guess I’m not packing up after all next time I’m bringing out my luggage best be for my trip to Japan …! So, in conclusion, and just as a reminder for anyone passing by as well, this has been, still is, and will always be a Possibly Queer until proven Definitely Straight safe space, as well as a space where amongst plenty other things obviously all things queer can and will be gracoiusly discussed and analysed to my discretion; You di~g?

Always respectfully yours 🫰🏾💜,

Marengo.

[forabeatofadrum]

2024 Writing Round-Up

It's the last SSS/WW for the year and I have nothing to share, since I finished Ever After and am not itching to start something new (and I'm back on my Persona bullshit). Luckily, @that-disabled-princess tagged me in this writing round-up, so I am doing that instead. Please enjoy my bespoke banner.

I posted 10 works on AO3, with three being WIPs. I have published 85,165 words in 2024. Oh boy, let's get into it under the cut

I did actually publish stuff in January and February, but those were multichaptered things, and I am putting the works in the months I finished them/last updated them.

So, with that said, let's start in March!

MARCH 🪻

February Friday Event 2024 (Radio Silence, gen, WIP)

I have written 2 of the 4 prompts for the February Friday event. I started the other two, but I just.... haven't finished them. I should. I liked what I have written for it. Completing this fic wasn't a priority and it shows. Oof.

吃了吗? (Glee, Tike, 1.564 words)

Part of the series that explores the Asianness in Glee, and yes, it was me projecting on Tina again. Tina feels disconnected from her Korean heritage due to her adoption. Oop. I really, really liked this one and I think it's one of the best titles of the year. Yes, the title is Chinese, not Korean, since it mostly takes place in a Chinese restaurant. Mutual, 你吃饭了吗？

APRIL ❤️

All of me loves all of you (Class, Charlie/Matteusz, 2.598 words)

A story idea that I have had for years and I'm glad I finally wrote it down. Charlie is an alien, gasp! And he only looks human. In this fic, he shows Matteusz his alien self and reflects on his human disguise. I'm really, really happy with this one and it's one of the reasons that my love for Class reawakened this year.

MAY 🌻

Just Some Guy (Carry On, Snowbaz + Matt/Leslie, 15.664 words)

HONESTLY ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I HAVE EVER WRITTEN, if I may so myself. It's Snowbaz's 7.25's canon years at Watford from the perspective of someone who doesn't give a shit about them. I fucking love this fic. I fucking love MCD (Matt Christopher Davis) and I loved writing how disinterested he is in the whole Chosen One shenanigans. It makes for a fun fic, but it also makes sense if you look at the state of the world. So many people keep living ordinary lives while weird shit happens, and MCD is just ordinary. He's just some guy.

JULY 🌼

Find My Way (Legally Blonde, gen, 1.358 words)

I was on a Christian Borle binge during the summer, so I rewatched the musical Legally Blonde and this fic is a missing scene. Vivian realises what is happening and decides to break up with Warner and back-up Elle. I think it's neat.

OCTOBER 😺

What's in the name? (Glee, multi, WIP)

The first multichaptered installment of my Asianness in Glee series and it's all about names. It's partially me trying to make sense of some of Glee's choices, and me lifting from my life again. I have published Wes and Yu-Jin's and Tina's chapters. The one for Blaine is not written and I have started the one with Mike and Tina. I'm struggling with the latter, especially since I don't really understand Mike's circumstances either.

Ljubili se (Glee, Klaine, WIP)

Ah, yes, the fic that I love but also regret. I've started it for the 2023 Klaine December Challenge. I am just stuck on it, even though I have cool stuff written for it. I just don't know what to do with this one, to be honest. I want to finish it, but I have also realised that I don't like writing it anymore because I am so stuck on it. I am waiting for the inspiration to strike and for my passion to be re-ignited, because do I regret it? I also like writing it when I am writing it. And I am excited to share what I have for later chapters. There's a lil moment where Cooper tries to flirt with Denise and Quinn and Blaine are standing there like🧍‍♀️🧍‍♂️. I will see where this fic will take me, I guess.

The Mars fic (Glee, Klaine, 56 words)

An inside joke that is a sequel to an inside joke! BOOP! I peaked here.

DECEMBER 🕯️

All's fair in love and war (Class, Charlie/Matteusz + Matteusz & Quill, 16.646 words)

The story that deserves better, since it has, like, 9 hits, but hey, that is what happens when you write for a small fandom. Which is a shame, cause this is also one of the best things I have written this year and I also enjoyed it a lot. I loved delving into the morality of the show Class through Matteusz, who is a middle man in-between two people with extreme conflicting opinions. And he loves both of them. Please watch Class, and read my fic after that!

Ever After (Glee, Klaine, 30.624 words)

The fic for the 2024 Klaine December Fanworks Challenge, which I did finish! Blaine is living in the kingdom of Daltonia, and Kurt is stranded in this place, so Blaine tries to help him get home.... to another world. I had a lot of fun, especially since I stopped Ljubili se for it, and it reminded how much I love writing Klaine. I also liked my world building here. I just think it is neat. I really enjoyed this one. I think I left some things open, since I didn't have room for more, but December was Ever After thought almost 24/7.

And now, the weather: @quizasvivamos @coffeegleek @caramelcoffeeaddict @raenestee @tectonicduck 

@nightimedreamersworld @urban-sith @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @bookish-bogwitch @confused-bi-queer

@special-bc-ur-part-of-it @larkral @cutestkilla​ @wellbelesbian​

@artsyunderstudy​ @facewithoutheart​ @shrekgogurt @rockitmans @bitbybitwrites 

@whatevertheweather @shame-is-a-wasted-emotion @esilher @kurtsascot @blackberrysummerblog 

@nightimedreamersghost @ivelovedhimthroughworse @thnxforknowingme @martsonmars

[fanficmanic]

I have a confession to make.

I only started watching 911 a few months ago, after season 7 had ended. I was going through some rough time (health wise), and I needed something to take my mind off it.

I honestly wasn’t looking for anything serious. I just needed a show that doesn’t require me thinking about it too much.

I remember going over Netflix and Amazon Prime, and nothing had caught my attention. When I went on Disney+, I found that I had already watched the first 2 episodes of the show but, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember that I did or when I did.

I thought that if 2 episodes didn’t catch my attention, then it probably won’t, but I had reached a point where I didn’t care as long as it would numb my mind.

I didn’t realize how wrong I would be.

I gotta admit, season 1 wasn’t my favorite, but I powered through because I wanted to see where the show would go. Then I started with season 2, and boy oh boy was I hooked.

By the middle of season 3 I realized that yes, this show has taken my mind off my personal issues, but also, this show will be the one that makes me write again after not having written any fanfiction for over 7 years.

The last show I was obsessed with to this level was True Blood. I followed it religiously, wrote fanfiction, got into shipping wars. I even found a way to watch it same time as the US (those who don’t live there know what I mean) - which was 4 am in the morning where I lived at the time.

With the way True Blood ended (IYKYK), I promised myself that I would never get attached to another show that way again. I watched Game of Throne, which I loved and followed but not to that level of obsession. I watched some other shows and movies that I can’t even remember, which alone says what kind of impact they had on me.

Now, here I am, waiting for each episode like crazy, following the actor’s IG accounts and everything they post, following different accounts on Tumblr, IG, and TikTok for videos and edits, and filling most (all) of my free time reading amazing and wonderful fanfiction. I sometimes even have to take a moment to think about scenes if they happened in the show or if I read it in a story.

I’ve published 3 stories on AO3. I also have one story that I’ve written 4 chapters of so far, 5 stories that I’ve roughly outlined, and 1 that I just have an idea for.

The issue is, when I was obsessing over vampires and werewolves who lived in Bon Temps, HBO aired the show between June and August. Meaning, there was no break over the holidays, and the show didn’t go on hiatus.

This is the first time that I have to go through a fall hiatus, and I have so many mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I’m super excited about all the fanfiction that will come out between now and March 2025 – some will be speculation after the fall finale, some not so much, but regardless, it will all be great.

On the other hand, how am I supposed to wait 3 full months to see what will happen to my favorite characters?

Anyway... I apologize for the long post, but I just wanted to vent.

Here's a picture of our favorite fire fam BTS from this weeks’ episode to make up for it.

[lonesome-loki]

Hi everyone!

I recently binged the Scream franchise and I am OBSESSED. I am absolutely in love with Dewey, who doesn’t get much love. I’ve been scouring the internet for Dewey x reader fics with very little success, so I made my own! There will probably be more coming, but I don’t write on a schedule or anything so who knows when that will be. I have a few more ideas and I’m pretty inspired rn, so yay! Anyways, peace love Dewey Riley.

Background info:

You, Sidney, and Tatum have been lifelong best friends and are all neighbors. Ever since you met Tatum’s older brother, Dewey, you’ve harbored a crush on the dorky boy. Unbeknownst to you, those feelings are most definitely returned. You keep your little crush from Tatum and Sid, fearing that it might compromise your friendship.

The three of you are part of the student government, who is raising funds for senior prom. Tatum suggested the three of you run a kissing booth during lunch break to fundraise for the club. Sid immediately declined, so Tatum convinced her to run and oversee the booth. To be honest, you’ve been out of the dating scene due to your crush, but a kissing booth sounds like a good way to loosen up, get better at flirting, and ultimately have a little fun.

Start of the fic!!

I smooth out my skirt in the mirror, making sure I look just right. If I’m going to be kissing a bunch of guys, I at least want to look good. I’m combing my fingers through my hair, when the doorbell rings. “Coming!” I shout, grabbing my school bag and running down the stairs. Upon swinging open the front door, I’m met with Tatum’s beaming face. “You ready?” She asks, gesturing towards Sidney’s running car. I grin, “You know it.”

We get into the car, buckling up. “Hey Sid!” I chirp, happy to see her. She chuckles, “Hey (Y/N). How are you?” I sigh, “A little nervous, but pretty excited!” Tatum snickers, and Sidney pushes her shoulder. “What?” I ask. “Did I miss something?” Sidney reassures me, “It’s nothing—“ “It’s a shame a certain someone won’t be there,” Tatum interrupts, shooting me a mischievous grin. My face heats up. I cross my arms and huff, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tatum laughs. “Whatever you say, silly.” She replies, dropping the subject.

Phew. That was close. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, we arrive at school. Sid parks her car in the senior lot, and we go our separate ways. I wave goodbye to my best friends, making my way to my first class.

Time skip to lunch time

My stomach is literally fluttering, oh my god. Is this what “butterflies” are? I’m a confusing mix of excited and nervous. I walk through the courtyard, looking for Tatum and Sid. I finally spot them and our booth set up right in front of the fountain. It seems that a long line has formed already! I jog up to Tatum, hugging her and giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Hi guys! Ready to start?” Tatum answers in a singsong voice, “We were born ready.” I shoot her a huge grin, turning to face the line of customers. From the other side of the booth, Sidney shouts, “We are officially open for business! $1 per kiss with either Tatum or (Y/N)!”

The first guy places his dollar bill on the counter confidently, proposing, “How about it, (Y/N)?” My face gets hot. I pull some chapstick out of my thigh high boot and apply it rather slowly and dramatically, watching the boy stare in awe. I definitely recognize him, maybe he’s in my calc class? Whatever, doesn’t matter. I put the chapstick back in my shoe, smirking at the boy. I step to the side of the stand and motion for him to come closer. I get real close to him and place my hand on the back of his neck, pulling him in. He pushes his lips against mine with a lot of force. The kiss is short, but intense. When we pull away, I look at his shell-shocked face. Blowing him a kiss, I shout, “Next in line!”

The fundraiser continues like that for the majority of our lunch break, with most of the guys wanting a kiss with Tatum. I still got a lot of action, though. The line was huge! After about twenty minutes, we worked through the entire line. Tatum turns to me, an evil smile adorning her face. “So…” She pries in a teasing matter, “How was it?” I shrug. “Eh, it was fun at first but got pretty boring. It’d probably be a lot better if I actually LIKED any of these guys.” Tatum and Sid turn to each other, whispering amongst themselves and giggling. I pout, “What? You’ve been whispering to each other all day, it doesn’t feel nice to be left out.” Sid checks her watch. “You’ll find out in a minute, promise.” I tilt my head. “Huh—“ I start to ask, when Tatum points behind me at the booth. A figure is waiting at the front that definitely wasn’t there before. “D-Dewey! Hey!” I greet him, mentally scolding myself for stuttering. Dewey meekly smiles, taking off his hat. “Hiya (Y/N). I-I’m hoping you guys haven’t closed yet?” He questions. I grin. “No we haven’t! Um, who are you looking to kiss? I mean, I guess it would be weird if you were here for Tatum. But, surely you aren’t here for me?” Dewey’s always flush face deepens in hue. “I-uh actually, I am.” I try to fight the smile that makes its way into my face, but to no avail.

I turn around to look at Sid and Tatum who are beaming at me. I glance back at Dewey, “Give me one sec, I’ll be right back.” I pull the two girls off to the side. “Did you guys know about this?” I whispered angrily, “How am I supposed to not kiss him when he’s literally paying me to do so?” Tatum looks at me funny. “Why can’t you kiss him?” She asks. I fix my eyes on the ground and kick some rocks around, nervous to speak up. Here goes nothing. “Um, so, here’s the thing. I like Dewey—“ “We know.” They chime in, much to my surprise. “O-oh! Well, I guess I wanted to respect Tatum and thought that my feelings for Dewey would make her upset or get in the way of our friendship.” Tatum scoffs and wraps me in a tight side hug. “You goofball, the two of you have been giving goo-goo eyes to each other since the moment you met. It’s alright, I promise.” I look into her eyes, still unsure. “Promise?” I question, holding out my pinky finger. Tatum pushes my hand aside, ruffling my hair and gathering me in a bear hug. She says into my ear, “Of course I promise, now go get your man!” We let go of each other, smiles all around. I jog back to the booth and glance back at the girls, giving them a toothy grin.

From behind the booth, I look up at Dewey. “So…” I start, my heart thumping in my chest. “It’s usually $1 per kiss, but because it’s you I can cut you a deal.” His eyes widen. “O-oh yeah? What’s that?” I smile flirtatiously and place my fist under my chin. “I could make it free, AND give you as many kisses as you could ever want.” I did not think that man could get any redder, but alas here we are. He sputters, cute as ever, and I step around the booth and right in front of him. I gaze up into his gorgeous brown eyes. “So? Do I have permission to kiss you, Deputy Riley?” He doesn’t say anything, but nods furiously. I can’t help but smile, placing both of my hands behind his neck and pulling him in for a kiss. It’s soft and gentle, at first. Once Dewey gets over the shock, he places his hands on my hips and kisses back passionately. It’s nothing crazy, yet somehow it’s the best kiss of my life. After what seems like years, we part. Dewey’s looking at the ground, before I nudge his should and he meets my gaze with a dorky smile.

The school bell rings, making me jump. Moment = ruined. “I-I’ve gotta go,” I frantically say as I gather my belongings and face him again. “But maybe I could see you later and give you some more of your free kisses?” I ask, tilting my head in a questioning manner. Dewey chuckles, putting his hat back on. “I’d really like that.” He replies. Pressed for time, I grab his hands and place a quick kiss on his cheek. I respond, “Perfect, I’ll see you later!” I take off towards the school’s main entrance, noticing Tatum and Sidney way ahead of me. When I reach the front door I turn around and wave at Dewey’s car parked in front of the school. He waves back shyly. I giggle blowing him a kiss. Who ever would’ve thought that that damned kissing booth would score me my dream guy?

The end :)

[walkingaroundlostandconfused]

phew.. goddamn.. get ready for another lengthy yap.

author-san……

I FEEL LIKE A HUNGRY CROCODILE AND YOURE JUST DANGLING A PIECE(s) OF MEAT RIGHT INFRONT OF ME.

“begging, pleading Takemichi to NOT care and JUST WALK AWAY”

God, if they’re asking THAT from TAKEMICHI? theyd be begging until the day the sun explodes. But my god, the mental images of everyone’s breakdowns Chifuyu, the ever loser ; Inupi, the number 1 ranking ever loser, JUST EVERYONE. HUEHEUEHEUEHEUE. but omfg

— KISAKI😭😭😭😭 that boy is fighting a mental war every second and with that unhelpful never-ending headache which is Takemichi, i can imagine Hanma laughing at Kisaki for finally breaking his composure and truly acting like the true loser he is (AS IF HE ISNT NEXT.)

or the big, tough and mean guys, them being pathetic and begging and pleading only for Takemichi to just give them the sunniest smile ever, that has them WEAK in the knees, brush it off and then go do Hanagaki-shit aka dive head first into a fight. WORLD, I AM SO READY FOR THAT SHIT.

Also that fic reminds me of another one of yours, where he DID WALK AWAY (sobs..) and #DIED. Oh how much stabs my heart endured during that last chapter.. It’s such an underrated fic, i really loved how you wrote the memories in between the fight scenes.

Thank you for answering my question, genuinely sometimes there’s a line in your fit that’s just so? fucking ? poetic? I have to take a break and actually let the words settle in. You just have like a such wonderful way of writing that i really enjoy reading, along with your humor and ugh the characterisation, the headcannons.. (i think i could bust).

Oh. My. God. Mate.

Trust me. I will be sharing my lists. Every. God. Damn. CHAPTER!! I need that fic like everyone needs Hanagaki. it’s brilliant. Omfg. Loser ranking with them acting like losers every chapter? Yes. PLEASUH.

I feel like Inui has a drawer with only Hangaki’s clothes that he coincidentally took back with.. (at this point it’s Hangaki who has a drawer with their clothes with the way they’re “staying” over). But Koko is acting like he’s any better with his Koko-bugged items that Takemichi owns without even knowing, like ok weirdo you’re competing with Kisaki to see who has the best surveillance photo of Takemichi or whatever. Inui sniffing Hangakis clothes is NONE OF (but also yes) YOUR BUSINESS. XD

Wow, now this question…. This question is the same level of difficulty as asking Takemichi who’s his favourite friend… BUT WHO AM I KIDDING, AM NO TAKEMICHI.

Now, you’ve DEFINITELY have influenced this list haha.

1. HanTake ( #itwasthat16kfic) (i fucking LOVE them, can’t stress it enough.)

2. MitsuyaTake

3. KisaTake

4. BajiTake

5.

For the fifth spot, I’ve got MuchoTake, DrakenTake, KakuTake and TaijuTake clawing for it. (I think.. we see a pattern…)

6. InupiTake 7. KazuTake 8. KokoTake 9. RanTake 10. RindoTake

Who’s your favourite character/s to write and who’s the hardest one for you to write?

Hehhehehheheheh, live on Loser! Takeharem, LIVE ON PATHETIC TAKEMICHI HAREM.. LIVE ON. Truly making my day with these answers.

Man, if you could see the (evil) smile on my face...

I haven't said this before (or I don't say it enough), but thank you for taking the time and energy for all this yapping. It's been a very exciting few days to read and think of a response to these asks.

OH MY LORDDD. Kisaki is SUCH a stupid, fanboy loser!! I love him so much, love him even more when he's reduced to uselessness and has NOTHING but his stupid emotions that he's had since 1st grade (granted, it has grown since then... but only a little...)

Thank you for enjoying my stories. I wonder which ones are your favorites (esp after eyeing your list...) It's both a wonderful and shocking thing to me that someone likes my word vomit like I do hehehe. I have a longfig (augh) up now, but I'm hoping to get the fics that I had more fun writing posted soon. I hope you enjoy those too!

As for my terminally ill Takemichi story... well... No spoilers <3 To be fair, I thought it would be funny (writing Izana's and Mitsuya's and Draken's part for that was my favorite). Kakucho, the stupid loser who watches Takemichi fight, eyes burning, trying not to cry, so cute. I love it. Want more. That one was a fun story. I had a lot of fun writing it.

AUGHHH THEY'RE SUCH CREEPS. I LOVE IT. HEHE. And something about Hanma sitting there, smiling, knowing that he wasn't even the freakiest guy here (or myabe he'd turn it into a competition, I'm not sure), is my other favorite thing. Takemichi strikes me as the forgetful type, always forgetting his jacket and stuff. And someone is always there.... ready to take advantage of it. There is... so much... I want to write!!!!

And speaking of, thank you for sharing your list!! It is... remarkably similar to mine... interesting... I wonder why that may be... (and man do I have FEELINGS about Ran and Rindo that I haven't gotten out in a story yet. Hopefully soon...) Feel free to share these rankings with me anytime (esp if it changes KEKEK).

I am SHOCKED that Hanma is so high! and that Koko is lower than Inui? WHAT? I'm shocked they aren't right against each other (guess I should post that KokoTake story ....) And man Taiju, Draken, Kaku and Mucho??? That's a tough fight. and CHIFUYU AND HAKKAI is NOWHERE to be mentioned. COLD. Mitsuya the smooth criminal is SO HIGH UP omg. And Ran and Rindo are (Ran over Rindo too, Rindo can't win) on the top ten (top 14 if you count the tie for 5th I guess). Very interesting (takes notes).

Who’s your favourite character/s to write and who’s the hardest one for you to write?

I'm lowkey curious. What's your favorite harem combo then? (Any number of guys, but like, do you prefer to see certain guys fighting/working together?)

Favorite character is probably a toss-up between Baji, Draken, Hanma, and Kisaki. They come surprisingly easy to me. Baji especially, I have to work hard so he doesn't take a story as his. Of course, I love Taiju and Yuzuha as well. I love the Taiju who never lies to Takemichi, could never lie to Takemichi, and Takemichi still doesn't get it. And Yuzuha who is spoiled by Takemichi and soaks in all of the attention and affection and returns it sixfold. And in general the Shiba siblings who only get along when Takemichi is watching and is back to hissing and snarling at each other as soon as he turns around. And then, when they are older and Takemichi thinks that they are still tense with each other, but they're actually fine. They're actually fine with each other, but the perfect excuse of "you should come over because I don't want to face Taijuu by myself" brings Takemichi over every time. Damn opportunists, hehe.

Luckily for me, most of the cast comes to me okay. I might have a hiccup here and there, but once I get into it, it flows out without me thinking too hard. With that said, I think the hardest one for me to write is probably Sanzu. Pre and Post timeline, he's like a completely different person. I have a story that explores it, but it's so OOC/head-canon infested that I'm not sure if I'd ever share it. For now, I guess Sanzu will enjoy his life in the shadow (and we just won't think about the fact that they all grew up together....)

but otherwise YESSSS more HAREM! YESSS give it to Takemichi! Takemichi having a harem and not even knowing that he does is my other favorite thing hehehe.

[fckinwild-kiwi]

Our Love Child (Steddie)

Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson Warnings: Cursing (anything else let me know????) Word Count: 7.6k

Author's Note: To be honest, this might not be worth reading? I saw a prompt on Tumblr a few weeks ago and then this started rotting in my mind. I had to write it so that I could finally sleep at night! I cringed writing the kiss scene, that is not what I am good at. I am so sorry in advance :')

“Okay class, I have already paired you up for the next assignment. When I call your name, come up and grab your flour baby and join your partner at their desk.” A collective set of groans echoed around the room. Steve, being the oddball out, sat up straight as he listened for his name. “Munson and Harrington.”

With wide-eyes, Steve stood up to walk to the front of the room to collect his new flour child. “Hey, big boy,” He heard from behind him as he grabbed the sack of flour. 

“Munson,” Steve acknowledged, as he turned towards the metalhead. “You ready to be a dad?”

“I was nervous,” Eddie said, looking at the flour in Steve’s arms before looking up and at Steve. “But I’m less nervous knowing that I’m partnered up with the jock with the most motherly instincts.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Steve mumbled before turning to go back to his desk. Eddie quickly grabbed the baby blanket on the table next to their teacher’s desk.

“I didn’t mean that in a shitty way, Harrington,” Eddie said quickly, taking the seat in front of Steve. “I would much rather do this stupid project with you than anyone else. I mean I have already taken this class, as I’m sure you know. I should have graduated last year but the stupid gym credit, English class, and this stupid baby assignment really fucked me over. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf but at this rate, I’m not even sure it will be enough. It’s just so hard to come to school every day… But you have great motherly instincts. I’ve seen you with those kids you hangout with…not that I watch you all the time. And I know if we were to have our own kids, not that I’m thinking of us having kids , but you know we do share a sack of flour…our kids would be in great hands is what I’m trying to say. Ugh, slap me when you want me to shut up…”

“Nah, I wouldn’t slap you, Eddie,” Steve said, letting a chuckle slip up. The sound of the laugh and his name being said aloud caused Eddie’s eyes to whip up and look at Steve. “In fact, you can keep going if you’re going to continue to say nice things about me...how many kids are you thinking we are going to have? I’ve always wanted a big family.”

“Oh shut up,” Eddie said, barking out a laugh before punching Steve in the shoulder. “So how should we do this?”

—

Two days later, Steve was both exhausted and exhilarated. He was really starting to get the groove of this whole parenting thing. For one, Steve absolutely loved when he had to hold his flour child. There was something so comforting about keeping something that  you’re supposed to protect close to your chest. “What do you think, sweetheart?”

“Hm?” Steve asked, Eddie startling him from his thoughts. 

“I asked, what do you think we should name our love child? He’s two days old and it’s about time we named him. I was thinking of something metal like Ozzy.”

“We are not naming our love child after a man who bit the head off of a rat.”

“It was a bat and it’s hot that you even knew that,” Eddie said, looking up at Steve with moony eyes. “What name do you suggest then?”

“I was thinking something simple like, James?”

“Boring,” Eddie said with a faux yawn. “But whatever you think is best, sweetheart. I’ll love our little Jimmy regardless. In fact, I love him so much that I think it’s my turn to take him home tonight.”

“Are you sure you want to take him overnight?” Steve questioned, his grip on their love child tightening. He was excited for this project with Eddie, it’s his chance to get to know him better and hopefully curb this crush that has been bubbling for far too long but could he trust Eddie to keep Jimmy alive overnight?

“You don’t trust me to protect JimBo?”

“I don’t particularly like these nicknames you’re coming up with for our son,” Steve grumbled out, putting one hand on his hip as he cradled James in the other. “I don’t doubt your ability to take care of the child though.”

“Good, then it’s my night,” Eddie said, grabbing the bag of flour out of Steve’s arms before pressing a quick kiss to Steve’s forehead and running off.

“What the fuck just happened,” whispered Steve, touching his forehead.

—

Later that night, Steve was pacing. Why in the fuck is he so stressed about Eddie watching a bag of flour. This “child” of theirs was literally just a pantry staple. It wasn’t a real person! He can leave it on the table all night and it would be fine. The phone ringing at 12:46 a.m. was enough to get him out of his head for a split second. For some reason, the voice he was hoping to hear sent an odd feeling of dread down his spine,“Maybe you should have doubted me.”

“Eddie,” Steve groaned. “What the fuck happened?”

“I can’t explain it over the phone, I am so sorry Stevie,” Eddie whispered, Steve could sense his voice being clogged with emotion but the nickname caught him off guard.

“I’ll pick you up in the morning, Eds, we’ll run to the store and get a new baby. We will have to rename it too,” Steve said, trying to sound reassuring. It was a sack of flour for God’s sake. It’s not like Mr. Jones would know they purchased a new bag of flour.

“I killed our first child,” Eddie choked out. “I’m the worst partner ever, oh fuck. You should tell Mr. Jones that you need a new partner. There’s a reason I couldn’t even pass this last year.”

“Eddie, Eds, stop,” Steve said, as he began to laugh. “It’s a bag of flour. Shit happens, I’m not going to sweat it and you shouldn’t either. And for the record, if you decide you don’t want me as your partner anymore, you can tell Jones yourself. I’m not going to go willingly.”

“Keep talking like that big boy,” Eddie whispered, his voice catching in his throat, trying to play off his earlier emotions. “And I’ll start to think you have a crush on the Freak or something.”

“I’ve had crushes on worse people,” Steve whispered back, a small smile lingering on his lips. “Good night, Eddie. I’ll see you in the morning so we can pick up our new baby.”

—

Steve was buzzing, which maybe wasn’t the most unusual for him as he was a morning person but it definitely had something to do with this project with a certain metalhead. It was exactly 7:06 in the morning when Steve drove his Beamer up the path of the Forest Hills trailer park. Getting out of the car, he began to walk up the path to Eddie’s trailer. As he took the first step onto the trailer’s porch a voice called out to him, “What are you doing here, boy?”

“Oh,” Steve said, startled. “Um, sorry for the intrusion sir. I’m here to pick up Eddie. We’re doing a project together for health class and he called me last night to tell me he accidentally let our kid die. We’re going to get a new baby— I mean a sack of flour from the store.”

“That damn flour child assignment?” The man questioned.

“That’s the one,” Steve said, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking on the balls of his feet. 

“Well, I’m about to head in and go to sleep, I’ll holler at Ed for ya. You’re welcome to come inside and wait if you’d like. I’ll be surprised if the boy is already up and at ‘em. Usually takes a miracle to wake him up in the morning.”

Steve nodded, following who he presumed was Eddie’s uncle into the trailer. As they walked through the threshold, Steve could hear whistling and a low humming coming from a different room. “You already awake, son?” Wayne called into the trailer.

“Ah, yes, Uncle Wayne,” Eddie singsonged, still in the other room. “Steve Harrington is supposed to be coming by to pick me up. You see, I might have accidentally let our first child die. And I might have not slept a wink last night after a very pleasant phone call from— AH!”

“Steve’s here already,” Wayne chuckled as Eddie walked into the room, noticing Steve’s figure and cutting himself off from telling his own story. 

“Hey, Eds,” Steve whispered, a small smile forming on his lips. 

“When did you arrive, my liege?”

“I just got here a few minutes ago, I was talking to Mr. Munson out on the porch—”

“Boy, you better call me Wayne,” interrupted the older man.

“Sorry,” Steve said, sheepishly. “Wayne and I were talking outside. He wanted to make sure you were awake.”

“Though this feels like a dream, I can assure you I am most definitely awake. Now that you two are introduced, we need to go pick out our second child and the old man needs to get some sleep, off we go!”

—

“So,” Steve began as he started backing the car out of Eddie’s driveway. “How did you happen to kill James?”

“It was a most tragic event. I sat him on Gareth’s couch last night, all wrapped up like a bug in a rug. He was sleeping so peacefully, I rocked him and everything,” Eddie assured Steve, his hand reaching out to touch his arm before continuing. “But then, as I was working on my current DnD campaign, I hit a groove that I wasn’t expecting. I mean just going to town and creating scenarios that I know the party is going to be pissed about. As I grabbed the manuals I was looking for, I must have accidentally put them on top of Jimmy and then Gareth was acting like an asshole and began to hit me so I had to take matters into my own hands. Long story short, I threw him onto the couch and he landed on our baby. Good news is, he didn’t feel any pain. The baby, I mean. Gareth definitely felt some pain.”

“Rest assured our child died peacefully,” Steve choked out, in between giggles. “Only you, Eddie Munson, would admit to killing our child, do it with the most earnest story, and not even try to blame the accident on someone else.”

“I’m nothing if not honorable,” Eddie said, lips quirked up. 

“Yeah, you’re honorable alright,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. Steve pulled into a parking spot, put the car in park and looked towards the boy in his passenger seat. “Alright, let’s go pick out our child. You will only have supervised nightly visits from now on. Until you can be deemed trustworthy again.”

“That is fair,” Eddie said, shaking his head before following Steve out of the car. “So what do these supervised visits entail?”

“Shut up, Munson,” He said, punching Eddie in the shoulder.

Side by side, they walked through the supermarket and straight to the baking aisle. As they approached the bags of flour sitting on the bottom row, Eddie grabbed the bag of flour sharing the same branding as their previous child. “I’m thinking we should name our new baby, Aragorn. I’ll probably call him Ari for short.”

“Eddie,” Steve said, releasing a sigh. “That name sounds like something out of DnD. Why that name?”

“You know DnD?”

“Um, yes… but I have no clue how to play it. It’s too much math and random things to remember. The kids I babysit like to play and you were just talking about it. It’s all very fantastical so a name like that would definitely stick out to me as DnD.”

With wide eyes, Eddie continues to stare at Steve, his mouth slightly agape. As the younger boy started to walk towards the cash register, Eddie trailed after him. “You’ve tried to play DnD?”

“A few times. But like I said, it didn’t work out for me.”

“Well, I’m going to try and recruit those pipsqueaks to my club to play with me and my friends. You’re also going to have to attend one of my sessions.”

“I could be persuaded,” Steve said, looking at Eddie before he grabbed the sack of flour he just paid for. “Come on, we’re going to be late for school.”

Eddie trailed after Steve, following him toward the blue BMW. “Lord of the rings.”

“What?”

“The name I picked out, Aragorn. It’s the protagonist of Lord of the Rings.”

“So I was basically right.”

“Yeah, Stevie,” Eddie said, letting out a laugh. “You were basically right.”

—

Steve had been fulfilling his fatherly duties the whole day. He brought the baby to all of his classes and in HomeEc, Steve passed the baby to his other father so they could “bond.” Those were Eddie’s words, not Steve’s. When the last bell finally rang, his next plan was to take baby Ari to the park and pretend to put the sack of flour in a swing. Even a sack of flour needed fresh air, right?

“Stevie!” 

Hearing the nickname that only Eddie used made his head rush, Steve, willing the blush on his cheeks to down, turned towards the metalhead. “Hey, man, what’s up?”

“I barely got to see you today—I mean you and baby Ari today! Where are you going?”

“Oh,” Steve said, flustered by Eddie’s choice of words. Of course he meant the flour baby. “I was going to take Ari to the park to ride in the swing for the first time! Did you want to come with me?”

“Um, I want to say yes,” Eddie started. “But I can’t, I have band practice tonight. I would like to see our son tonight though.”

“Oh, okay, right. Here—”

“No, Stevie,” Eddie said, putting his hands up to stop Steve from passing the baby over. “I have supervised visits, remember? Do you want to come to band practice with me and bring our baby? To make sure I don’t get into trouble, of course.”

“Of course, I guess I can’t trust you with Aragorn alone yet.” He paused, a smile on his face as he pretended to ponder his decision. “I’d love to watch you and your friends practice your ridiculously loud music.”

“Yes!” Eddie cheered, turning away from Steve and pumping his fist in the air. “Can’t wait to have my two favorite guys there to support me! I’ll even get some headphones out for baby Ari.”

“I drove us to school this morning, can I drive you to Gareth’s?” Steve asked, trying not to think about what Eddie just said about him being one of his favorite guys. There’s no way this man thought about him the same way he did. Steve was definitely going to bring this up to Robin later. 

“I’ve been giving Gareth driving lessons so I’ll ride with him, it’ll be good practice for the young padawan! Just keep our baby safe and I’ll lead the way,” Eddie said, winking at Steve before turning around and walking towards Gareth’s vehicle.

After quickly saluting the metalhead, Steve got in his car and began to follow him. This whole assignment wasn’t meant to make people fall in love but the last few hours had been the most domestic fun Steve has had in years. After Nancy broke his heart and stomped on it in front of the entire school, Steve had struggled with feeling fulfilled or worthy of this kind of attention. Robin would remind him how wonderful and deserving of love he was and that was great. It’s one of the best feelings when you find your best friend in this crazy world but he couldn’t help but ache for something a little more romantic. Eddie being so kind and actively wanting him to be around, when he could easily hate him for Steve’s past King Steve bullshit was not lost on him. He couldn’t help but fester his already pathetic lovesick crush on the boy. 

Three minutes later, Steve pulled in behind Gareth’s car in an unfamiliar driveway. Once the car was safely in park and the car turned off, Eddie jumped out of the passenger side, walking towards Steve’s BMW. 

“So what’s the verdict,” Steve asked, grabbing the flour baby and closing his car door. “Is Gareth a safe driver?”

“He’s got a lot of learning to go,” Eddie began as his friend scoffed in the back. “He’s getting pretty good though!”

Steve let out a laugh at Gareth’s reaction, stepping forward to become shoulder to shoulder with Eddie. A slight touch of someone’s pinky snapped Steve out of his daydream. “Follow me, Stevie,” Eddie said whispering. Glancing down at the metalhead’s pinky touching his hand, Steve felt his whole body catch fire and he did just that. As they walked into the house, Eddie led Steve through the entryway and into a side door leading to the garage. “You assholes are late,” came a voice in the garage, set up as a mini recording studio complete with couches, a full drum kit, rugs, amps, and microphones. 

“Sorry, Gareth was driving and my baby daddy and love child followed us so we couldn’t rush too much,” Eddie responded with a shrug before walking over to the guitar stand to grab his guitar and plug it into the amp. “This is my sweetheart, one of the great loves of my life, next to Ari and you of course,” Eddie said lovingly, petting the instrument as he mumbled out the last part of his sentence. 

With heat rushing to his cheeks, Steve pushed Eddie trying to turn his body away so he would miss the blush. From behind them, someone cleared their throat, making Steve jump away from Eddie.

“Ugh, hi,” Steve said, waving to the group of guys in front of him. 

“Steve Harrington, didn’t expect you to willingly hangout with the likes of us,” a man holding a guitar, who Steve remembered as Jeff, said. 

“I’m sorry for how I acted before in school, Jeff, not only to you but to Eddie, Gareth, and Doug as well” Steve said, hating how he could just never seem to escape the shit past he created. “That’s not who I really am and I’m trying really hard to prove that.”

“Good enough for me, a friend of Eddie’s is a friend of mine,” Gareth said. “Let’s get this show on the road, I have to go inside and babysit my cousin tonight. The parents are all going to Enzo’s to celebrate some big promotion of my Mom’s.”

“Let’s rock! One, two, one, two, three, four!” With a wink pointed towards Steve, Eddie began to play the guitar. Thirty minutes later, the band was taking a five minute water break and Eddie excused himself to the bathroom inside. “How’s the HomeEc assignment going?” 

“It’s going good,” Steve said, shrugging. “Eddie is kinda ridiculously clumsy. Our first bag of flour, named James, was murdered by him last night. That’s why I’m here. He said he wanted to see the baby but I limited him to supervised visits with our new baby Aragorn.”

“Clumsy? Eddie?” Jeff questioned, causing Gareth to let out a chuckle.

“Aragorn?” Doug said, pointedly. “Can’t believe you let him name the bag of flour after a Lord of the Rings character.”

“Yeaaah, he seemed really excited about the name though. It’s kind of growing on me,” Steve drug out, a blush coating his cheeks before looking at the guys skeptically. “Is he not a clumsy guy though? We didn’t even have the bag of flour for 12 hours before he killed it.”

“You see that guitar over there?” Gareth said, pointing at Eddie’s Sweetheart. “Eddie has had that thing for three years, and he has never as much let it get scratched. If that man cares for something, nothing is going to happen to it.”

“Oh, he calls it his sweetheart, right?” Steve asked, Gareth nodding in response. Clearly he didn’t care about their love child as he kept calling it. “Right, I mean it’s a stupid sack of flour so hard to compare them, right?”

“‘Course,” Jeff said, giving Steve a small smile before Eddie bounded back into the garage. 

“Ready to keep rocking?” He asked, walking over to where Steve was sitting and picking up baby Ari. As he scooped up the sack of flour, he began walking back towards his guitar, but as he turned, his foot got caught in the microphone wire. The quick motion caused Eddie to lose his footing and fall forward, the bag of flour falling out and onto the floor where it exploded open. “Stevie, I’m so sorry…”

“Honestly Eds, it’s fine,” Steve whispered as he looked between the pile of flour on the floor and the wide-eyed man in front of him. “I’m going to head home now though. I’m tired and I guess you don’t need supervision anymore if there’s no kid, right? You’ll be fine to get home on your own?”

“What? No, wait!” Eddie called out after him, following him to the front door. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” 

“I know, Eddie, I know you didn’t mean to,” Steve said, running his hands through his hair. “But fuck, it’s like you don’t even care!”

“You know that’s not true,” Eddie said, taking a step forward, reaching out towards Steve before dropping his hands. 

“No, no I don’t. You’ve literally ruined two bags of flour in less than 48 hours. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Steve said, walking out the front door and hopping in his car to speed home. 

With tears in his eyes and an empty home in front of him, Steve locked his car door and walked inside. After kicking his sneakers off by the door, Steve picked the phone and called Robin. He felt ridiculous. There was no way Eddie even had a crush on him so taking his lack of caring personal was on him. Robin had spent months reminding Steve that you can’t put expectations on other people…and look at what he did. He expected Eddie to suddenly like boys and care about this stupid classroom assignment. It really was just a bag of flour. What was the big deal?

“I think you’re being too hard on yourself,” Robin said through the phone. “Eddie Munson is a great guy but he’s never been the best at school and he’s not known as some crazy Casanova. Maybe he just has a fatass crush on you and he continues to lose his cool?”

“Yeah right, please don’t put false hope in my head,” Steve grumbled, flinging himself onto his bed. “It’s getting late though and I have a stupid headache forming so I’m going to go to sleep, Robs.”

“Steve, I love you. Please be kind to yourself. Talk to Eddie, he’s a good guy. Honestly, what if he’s afraid of your King Steve persona beating the shit out of him? Like it’s not easy to be a queer person especially in Hellhole, Indiana.”

“I know he’s good, Robin. Trust me… I wouldn’t hit him for anything, what the fuck. Everyone knows my reputation with getting in fights,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “But you do have a point. I'll talk to him tomorrow. I love you too. Bye.”

— 

Steve woke up with a killer migraine and way too much self-doubt to be considered healthy. Going through the motions, he showered, made a cup of coffee, and laced up his sneakers before slinging his backpack on his back and making his way to the car. He tried to drink some water while driving to school, hoping to ease the migraine. As he pulled into his normal parking space, he spotted Eddie’s rusted van parked a few spots over. The metal head leaning on the front with a baby blanket sitting in his arms.

“What the hell,” Steve whispered before exiting the car.

“Steven Marie Harrington, I am so sorry,” Eddie said loudly to get Steve’s attention.

“Eddie that is not my middle name,” Steve responded back at the same volume as he began walking towards the curly haired boy.

“Well that’s the best I could come up with,” Eddie said, cheeks warming up when Steve nudged his shoulder. “Look I’m—”

“I’m so—” 

“Let me first,” Eddie said, causing Steve to look up at him, wide-eyed. “I am so sorry for last night, Stevie. I was so fucking clumsy and I didn’t mean to kill our second love child. Second. I’m such a fuck up that I’ve killed two sacks of flour.”

“You’re not a fuck up,” Steve whispered, looking at Eddie’s arms where the baby blanket rested. “I also don’t think you’re clumsy. The guys told me that you’ve never even let so much as a scratch on your Sweetheart but you’ve killed two sacks of flour so it has to be that you don’t care or something. Which I get. It’s a stupid school assignment. But I just want to do well, Eds.”

“I want to do well, too,” Eddie said, exasperated. “I went to the store this morning, bought our third baby. This one is going to stick because third times a charm. And I think you should name her.”

“Her?”

“It looks like a pretty princess, right?” Eddie questioned. “She gets it from her Dad.”

“Sure, Eds,” Steve said giggling. “I think we should name her Beth.”

“Princess Beth, has a nice ring to it.” 

“Yeah it does, now hand her over, you’re limited to getting supervised time with her and that means that you can’t even hold her for a bit. We’re working back up on that trust.”

“Fair enough,” Eddie said as he let out a sigh. “Do you want to hang out tonight? Maybe watch a movie at my place? My uncle is going to be at work. We can do homework together too, work on this stupid report?”

“Oh, um…”

“We don’t have to,” Eddie said, backtracking as quickly as he could. “I need to keep working on my next DnD campaign anyway…”

“No!” Steve yelled. “I mean, no. I would love to hangout with you but I actually made plans with Robin and one of the middle schoolers I babysit, Dustin Henderson. We are going to Benny’s for dinner. Do you want to come with us?”

“Actually,” Eddie started before flinging his arm around Steve and guiding him towards the high school. “Benny’s with your girl and middle school bestie sounds fun.”

“Ew,” Steve said, wrapping his fingers around Eddie’s wrist draped over his shoulder. “Rob is not my girl. She is my platonic with a capital P soulmate. And Dustin is a little asshole who is too smart for his own good so don’t let the middle school part fool you, he probably knows more than all three of us combined.”

“I can’t wait, Stevie,” Eddie said smiling at Steve as they came to a stop in front of Steve’s first hour class. “I’ll see you in HomeEc?”

“See you in a few hours,” Steve said untangling himself from Eddie as the older boy began to walk away. Steve looked down at the sack of flour in his hands, “I am diving into deep waters, Bethie girl.”

—

Steve took a seat next to Robin in their shared U.S. History elective, the smile on his face and the sack of flour in his arms hard to miss. “You’re in a quite a different mood than the one you were in on the phone last night. Did your headache go away?”

“Actually, now that you mention it, I think it is gone,” Steve said, the smile still plastered to his face as he shoved the sack of flour on the table. “Eddie picked up our new child, this is Beth.”

“I think I’m going to drop out so I don’t have to do that stupid assignment next year.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. “I also invited Eddie to eat with us tonight.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t like your tone,” Steve said, crossing his arms before narrowing his eyes at his best friend. “Why did you say it like that?”

“Last night you were crying about this boy probably not having feelings for you, now you’re giddy because he agreed to eat dinner with you, me, and a fourteen year old. You, my friend, are a dingus.”

“Shut up.”

“You need to either tell him how you feel or just find a way to move on. Do what I do, stare at your crush from afar and know that it’ll never happen. We can’t keep letting these crushes affect our entire mood. It’s not healthy.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Steve sighed, turning his attention to the teacher walking into the room. “I’ll try not to feel so much.”

“Steve, you know that’s not—”

“No, I heard you,” Steve said, cutting her off and effectively ending the conversation. 

Two hours later, Steve was making his way to the HomeEc classroom. As he made the turn into the classroom, he was stopped by Tommy H. An arm wrapping around his shoulders much like Eddie’s this morning but lacking the same warmth and safety as Tommy spoke,“Heard you were partnered with the Freak for your baby project.”

“Eddie Munson is my partner for the Flour Baby project, what is it to you, Tommy?”

“Just don’t want you to get wrapped up in that cult of his. We used to be best friends once, I’m just looking out for you.”

“Get the hell away from me,” Steve said, throwing Tommy’s arm off of his shoulders. “I would much rather be partnered with Eddie in every school project than be forced to talk to you for even a second. He’s awesome and has been a better friend to me in the last five days than you were in our ten years of friendship. So take your energy somewhere else.”

“Whatever,” Tommy scoffed. “You know he’s gay right? It’s written all over the bathroom stalls.”

“I’ve never been one to listen to what the bathroom stalls say about others, but I’d still like him just as much if he was gay. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to class,” Steve said, before he mumbled under his breath. “Asshole.”

Steve entered the classroom right as the tardy bell rang. As he walked over to the desk that he and Eddie shared, he noticed that Eddie had not yet arrived. With a sigh, he sat down, placing Beth on the table and getting out his notebook. 

“Miss me, princess?” Eddie asked, scooping up the bag of flour as he plopped down next to Steve.

“Well only a little,” Steve said automatically before he realized what he said. “I mean, Beth. Beth obviously missed her dad, quite a bit. Not me, I just saw you a few hours ago.”

“Aw, sweetheart,” Eddie said. As he watched Steve’s cheeks light up pink, he leaned in and whispered, “I missed you too.”

“Shut up,” Steve said, giggling and nudging Eddie away. 

The rest of the class went without any hiccups. Together they began to write down their experiences and started the report that would be due the following week on Wednesday. Though they still had a few days left of this assignment, Steve was already feeling sad that it was almost over. 

“Do you want to ride to Benny’s together?” Eddie asked, breaking Steve out of his thoughts. 

“I have to pick Dustin up from school and Robin comes with me. She doesn’t have a car. You are more than welcome to join us, though?”

“Oh, um, I don’t want to take up your entire car,” Eddie said, awkwardly chuckling. “I’ll meet you guys there then?”

“Sounds perfect, Eds,” Steve said, eyes shining up at Eddie. He stood up, putting his stuff in his backpack before taking the sack of flour from Eddie right as the bell rang dismissing the class. “See you tonight, then?”

“Wouldn’t miss it!”

—

“Why did you invite someone else to our weekly Benny’s trip?” Dustin said, crossing his arms in the backseat.

“How do you know Steve invited Eddie, what if I did?” Robin questioned, turning to look at the younger boy. 

“You, Rob? Eddie Munson is so not your type,” Dustin said, tilting his head to challenge the argument. 

“Point taken, Steve did invite Eddie.”

“We are working on a project together,” Steve began. “I hung out with him a few other times this week and he’s been a lot of fun. I want to keep hanging out with him.”

“Are you into him? Like into him into him?”

“What?!” 

“Because it’s okay if you are, you’re getting a weird goo-goo look in your eyes, the same one that I get when I talk about Suzie,” Dustin said, looking at Steve in the rearview mirror. 

“I…I’m not sure,” Steve said, releasing a sigh. “I haven’t fully figured out my feelings” Total lie, I absolutely like Eddie Munson, Steve thought to himself. 

“Well figure it out,” Dustin said as Steve put the car in park at the Diner, spotting Eddie leaning against his van. “That boy is also looking with the goo-goo eyes. Weird star-crossed lovers thing going on here.”

“Shut up, dork,” Robin said, turning towards Dustin and giving him a glare before hopping out of the car. “Eddie! Weird seeing you outside of band. How are you?”

“I’m great, Birdie! Excited to see King Steve in a new environment.”

“Hah!” Dustin barked out. “This man is definitely not a king. He’s the Tweedledum of the duo there.”

“I haven’t been King Steve in a really long time, Eds. I’m not that guy anymore,” Steve said looking down before turning and leaving the other three outside while he made his way into the diner.

“I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s a sensitive subject for him, Eds,” Robin said. “But, he’ll be okay. Let’s go.”

When they approached the table, Steve was sitting on the inside of the booth studying the menu as if he had never been at Benny’s before. “Are you trying something different today?” Dustin questioned as he scooted into the book next to Eddie, who was sitting directly in front of Steve.

“‘Course not,” Steve mumbled. Releasing a sigh, he looked at Eddie, sitting directly in front of him. “Hey, Dust, did you know that Eddie runs the DnD club at school? I bet he could run a campaign that even you couldn’t win.”

Watching the corners of Eddie’s lips twitch up, Steve felt the heat rush into his cheeks and down his neck. There was something so fulfilling about introducing people you knew would just get along so well. 

“Are you a DM?” Dustin questioned, turning his body to fully look at the boy next to him. “Our DM is looking to move so that would honestly be perfect.”

“Yeah, man! I’m ruthless though, don’t think I’d take it easy on you,” Eddie said, looking back at Steve and winking. Grabbing onto their love child tighter, Steve forced himself to look away, choosing to look to Robin instead.

Two hours later, four burgers, three sides of fries, one side of onion rings, and five shakes later (Dustin just had to try two different flavors) the group were heading back to their cars. Robin and Dustin were arguing about who got to sit in the front on the way back to their respective houses but Eddie grabbed Steve’s wrist before Eddie had a chance to speak, Steve cut him off, “I have to drop these assholes off at their houses but would you like to come over? To work on the paper?”

“To work on the paper,” Eddie echoed, a small smile playing on his lips. “I’ll be there shortly, big boy.” 

With his mouth agape and cheeks ablaze, Steve made it back to the BMW, facing a wide-eyed Robin and annoyed Dustin from the backseat. “Not a word, guys, not a word.”

“Thanks for finally introducing me to someone cool,” Dustin said, ignoring Steve’s warning. His comment caused Robin to reach into the backseat and slap the younger boy. Fifteen minutes later, Steve was pulling into his usually empty driveway to see Eddie’s rusted van sitting there, Eddie, once again, leaning against it. For the first time in ages, butterflies were swarming his gut. It’s now or never, he thought. In actuality, it would be smarter to wait until the end of the assignment, that way if Eddie wanted to kill him, they could avoid each other and forget it ever happened. Steve just didn’t think he could wait that long. 

“Sorry it took so long, Dustin wouldn’t shut up about you. He gave me a list of things to tell you about the campaign you guys talked about,” Steve said, locking his car door and walking towards Eddie. 

“He’s a cool kid,” Eddie said, reaching out his hands to take the sack of flour from Steve. “Not as cool as our kid though.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. He walked through the threshold of his front door, quickly ushering Eddie inside and shutting the door before taking off his shoes. Eddie followed suit, switching arms to hold the ‘baby’ as he took them off. 

“You’re being extra gentle with Beth tonight,” Steve said, looking at the sack of flour cradled in Eddie’s arms. Turning around, Steve walked to the couch, nodding to Eddie to follow.  

“I’m trying to prove to you that I care,” Eddie whispered, looking at Steve before taking a few steps to the couch and sitting down. “I care Steve.” 

“Eddie,” Steve breathed out. “I know you care, I want us to do well on this assignment, I want you to do well with this assignment…”

“I’m not talking about the assignment, Stevie.”

“What?”

“I care about you.”

“Eddie,” Steve started, breathing turning heavy. “You know what your band told me the other night? You were the least clumsy person they knew. You were excellent at protecting what you cared about. Ensuring that nothing ever happens to your things.”

“That’s true, I’ve never let my sweetheart get a scratch on her. I’ve also never had a boy I’ve had a crush on not only in the same room as me but watching me play,” Eddie said, scoffing. “You can punch me and kick me out, make me finish the assignment on my own, I don’t care. The reason my friends haven’t been able to see me falling over the place, ruining things, is because I’ve never brought my crush around them!”

“You—”

“Yes! Stevie, I have the biggest, fattest crush on you. It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“I can’t believe it,” Steve whispered, his hands coming up to rub his neck, a nervous tick he’s had for years. 

“I’m sorry for making it weird, Steve,” Eddie whispered, rising to his feet. “Before I go, I wanted to say thank you.”

“Go? What? Where are you going? And thank you? For what?” Steve said, voice raising before he jumped up and grabbed Eddie’s hand, stopping him in his place. “I have a fat ass crush on you too, ask Robin. I was basically crying about it after your band practice last night.”

“Steve Harrington has a crush on little ole me?” Eddie questioned, turning his body back to face the younger boy and moving the both of them back towards the couch. “I didn’t even know that you were into guys?”

“I’m bisexual, Robin helped me figure it out last year,” Steve affirmed, sitting next to Eddie before turning towards him. “But thank me? For what?”

“I heard you with Tommy this afternoon, before HomeEc,” Eddie started. “No one besides the guys in my band have ever stuck up for me.”

“Eds…”

“It’s crazy because there are a lot of things said about me in this shit hole town, most are untrue. I am not a Satanist and I don’t run a cult,” Eddie said, turning towards Steve. “But I am gay. That part is true.”

‘Thank God for that,” Steve joked, leaning over to Eddie, lifting his head to meet his eyes. “Can I kiss you now?”

“God, yes,” Eddie breathed out. With a rush of adrenaline, Steve leaned up, grabbing the metal head’s cheeks before connecting their lips. “Wait.”

“Huh, what?” Steve said, feeling as though his hands were scalding hot and dropping his hands from Eddie’s face. “I’m sorry, did I misread this?”

“No nothing happened, you’re perfect,” Eddie reassured, rubbing his nose along Steve’s cheek and breathing his scent in. “I can’t kiss you knowing that I upset you earlier. What happened at Benny’s? What did I do or say to make you upset?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Steve said, brushing it off.

“Don’t do that,” Eddie said, pulling back just enough to look in Steve’s eyes. 

“You called me King Steve,” Steve whispered.

“Stevie,” Eddie began.

“No, it’s fine. I have to accept that I did shitty things and hurt a lot of people during my reign,” He said, pronouncing reign with as much disdain as he could. “But fuck, it’s like that only thing people can seem to remember me for no matter how much work I do on myself!”

“No that’s not—”

“Eddie, you don’t have to try and make me feel better. I know I was awful. The name haunts me and I know you didn’t mean it in a condescending way. I think it just hurt coming from you, someone I care about,” Steve said, looking down at his fingers intertwined with Eddie’s.

“Baby,” Eddie whispered, causing Steve’s breath to hitch. 

“I like that one.”

“You like being my baby?” Eddie asked, his lips quirking up into a small smile before pulling Steve’s body close.

“Sweetheart, honey, love, Stevie,” Steve whispered, tilting his head up. “But yeah, I think I like being your baby the most.”

“You’re killing me here,” Eddie said, giggling as he tried to pull his hair across his face to hide. Steve reached up, brushing his fingers across Eddie’s cheeks before grabbing the metalhead’s hair from his fingers. Staring up into Eddie’s eyes, Steve found the confidence he had been looking for. Shivers rushed down his spine as their lips finally met, a small groan sounding in the back of Eddie’s throat. 

Steve responded with the same hunger, dropping his hands to Eddie’s nape to pull him closer. His body melting into Eddie’s, Steve couldn’t help but drag his tongue along Eddie’s lip, asking for more, but still fearful that he was asking for too much. Eddie quickly responded, not allowing Steve the time to overthink, opening his mouth to give the younger boy enough space to finally break the barrier, finally taste him. Steve could feel his entire body light up, this is what freedom feels like, he thought to himself. Emotion clogged his head as he pulled away to catch his breath. 

“What’s wrong?” Eddie questioned, his lips following Steve’s as the younger boy pulled away.

“I just—”

“C’mere,” Eddie said, pulling Steve even closer and wrapping his arms around him.

“I didn’t know it could feel like that…”

“Me neither, Stevie baby,” Eddie said, a small smile forming on his lips before pressing a kiss to the top of Steve’s head.

“We’re awful parents,” Steve mumbled into Eddie’s neck. “I think I might have forgotten Beth in the car.”

“No you didn’t, I sat her in the loveseat over there,” Eddie said, motioning to the chair in the far side of the room. “We literally talked about her before you got moony-eyed over me and wanted to eat my face off.”

“Excuse me, that is not how I remember that happening,” Steve scoffed. “If I remember correctly, you were also staring at me moony-eyed. And you’re the one who moaned first!”

“Who can blame me?” Eddie said giggling. “You quite literally kiss like I’m the most special thing you’ve ever touched, it made me feel weightless.”

“You are the most special thing I’ve ever touched,” Steve confirmed, leaning back into Eddie’s space. “Does this mean you’re my boyfriend now?”

“Do you want me to be your boyfriend?” Eddie asked, eyes wide. 

“Never wanted anything more,” Steve responded, pressing kisses down Eddie’s neck.

“God, yes, Stevie, want you to be my boyfriend,” Eddie groaned, hauling Steve back up and bringing their lips back together. “Want you to be my best friend, groupie, boyfriend, baby daddy, want it all with you,” Eddie whispered, against Steve’s lips.

“Kinda soon don’t you think?” Steve asked, pulling back with a smile on his face. 

“Not soon enough if you ask me, I’ve been pining for you since I was sixteen.”

“That’s crazy, I had a crush on you when I first watched you stand on a cafeteria table my freshman year,” Steve said, glancing up at the older boy. “So powerful and commanding but I could tell there was more to you.”

“Are you sure you want to be seen with me?” Eddie asked, getting quiet. “I would understand wanting to keep this between us and our friends for a while. I don’t want to make it harder for you at school.”

“Eddie Munson,” Steve began, face heating up. “I’m not embarrassed of you. In fact, I would shout it to the rooftops right now if it wasn’t ten o’clock at night. I’m lucky to be with you. I’m not embarrassed.”

“Okay, good,” Eddie said, settling back on the couch with Steve in his arms. “When we get married we will have to send Mr. Jones an invitation.”

“What? Why?”

“He single handedly set us up or at least pushed us together and allowed us to admit our feelings,” Eddie said, rubbing his hands up and down Steve’s arms. “If he didn’t do this, we would both pining for God knows how long.”

“Thank god for our love children and the flour assignment” Steve mumbled, turning around in Eddie’s arms before bringing his lips back to Eddie's.

[wings-of-ink]

it’s like i just drank an entire oceans worth of water, buckle up because i’m about to ramble

chapter 4….hooh boy where do i even begin. i never know how to begin. to summarize, it had me on the edge of my seat. when the horses ran off and oswin curses?? that’s when the thought of “we’re so fucked” finally settled. and after that, it was just one thing after another like a literal landslide (talk about foreshadowing yikes). i seriously thought we were about to have to put down a horse and while i was still in shock, i get hit with “we’re splitting up.” like HELL NO? NO THANK YOU? and to make things better, a landslide. like wow, MC hasn’t been through enough already let’s fuck up their shoulder too. i also really thought we were about to get our arm amputated because of infection, how do you explain that to papa and da when you get home.

duri’s first appearance and introduction? flabbergasted. first it was “WHAT IS THAT 😭😭” to “gee this is one smart wolf” to “what the hell. what the hell??” ALL POSITIVE REACTIONS!! i couldn’t believe it. maybe the onions we found on the side of the road contained some hallucinogens and we were all conveniently imagining the same thing. when oswin said my healer MC was obviously delirious, i was half expecting her to ask him just who was the healer here HAHA!

you deliver once again, lunan. without fail, every time. i appreciate the maps you provide for rest stops everytime they’re always so pleasing to see <3

and how do you feel about these long rambles or bug reports…..i don’t wish to flood your inboxes with my words >_<

Oh honey, don't drink ocean water...lol

I am tickled pink that you were thrilled, my dear. Though it is chapter 4, those scenes were some of the very first I thought of when plotting this story. I have been so excited to write them and I'm glad that seems to have come across in the passages to you. This is really where some of the "oh shit" comes into play for the story. We'll have more hills and valleys as we continue as well (hopefully no more fall out from under us though). And Oswin usually only drops the F-bomb when he's really stressed, lol.

I want to make sure your MCs have lots to tell their fathers about when they get home. I have a feeling they are going to have this moment when MC gets home and be like "we let them out of the house ONE time!" and then you get grounded. I anticipate getting the MC back home for a little break around chapter 6. It's going to be interesting, lol. MC leaves with 1 companion and comes back with more people, injuries, and maybe a little something else...

As long as the journey to the city goes okay, I'm sure MC will be totally safe from additional complications...mmhmm...

LOL you know I didn't think about your onions being the cause of a mass hallucination. Sounds kinda fun really. I am glad you enjoyed Duri's grand entrance. They love that shock and awe, and they don't show those parts of themselves to just anyone either.

And not to worry about filling my inbox. I appreciate every message including the long ones. I enjoy reading your thoughts, opinions, and ideas so much. It brings me great joy to see how enthusiastic you are about the experience. And now that the chapter is cleared, I have more time to dive into here and read and respond!

Thank you so much for sharing with me. ^_^

[andromedism]

hi! i binge read your entire fic in one night and i have things to say:

precursor to everything that there are parts of this fic that i literally repeated out loud and ended up reading to my gf bc i like needed to justify to her why i was staring at my phone and saying things like “i’m like an egg!”

the trash twins scenes are immaculate. i love them together. i LOVE them together. they have such great banter.

the listicle for charlie’s brine exorcism was so good. so funny. i could totally see it all play out in my head like a sequence from the actual show. and his monologue about the brine was so in character lol

mac and dennis’ fight and dennis’ monologue about hating mac’s bf was also so good. i could hear the glenn howerton delivery of “how much honey do you think i eat, buddy boy?” and “am I to infer that Colin plays the timpani in an underfunded high school drumline, mac!?”

dennis’ angst is so good bc you captured how in denial he is about it!!!!!!! when i got to the last line and there were no more chapters i yelled out loud.

i can’t wait for what comes next. i hope you know this fic is a gift.

omg anon!!!! i love when people tell me specific things they like about my work!!!!!!! it’s so validating, honestly. like “oh thank god, someone got it.”

i’m actually in the throes of writing the final few chapters and i’m really excited about the ending (it’s where all of the spice is concentrated and i’ve read those bits over like a hundred times, tweaking them, bc i want the payoff for my four chapters of witty banter to be so good and also i’m afraid of disappointing you fbsdjwxbakdabxajdabdakseb).

i love that you loved the listicle! it’s my favorite part of the whole work. and dennis’ angst is so fun to write—that angsty little fella! and yeah, i love dennis and dee so much. i hope s17 has like a really good trash twins episode, just for me.

pls pls pls keep sending me feedback on this fic, i crave validation and constructive criticism. i love this note and i love you for sharing it with me! thanks again!

-

feedback is for this fic (x)

[queenofbaws]

Good morning (...or night?), for Like Wringing Blood, what is 16, 17 & 20? Hope you're doing good :)

well good morning-night yourself!!! ;P i'm all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed today, whatever the time may be, and getting to chat about the hacketts only makes it that much better!!! hehehe

16. What was the easiest scene to write?

hands down, the easiest time i've had getting a scene down is...something i haven't posted yet, ALAS! i'm so excited to finally get there, but...i've referenced it before, and i'll reference it again by simply saying it involves OLD! MEN! FIGHTINGGGGGGGG!!!!! 🥳

when i first started writing all in the family, the oneshot-turned-whole-fic precursor to like wringing blood, this scene came to me so...fully. and vibrantly. and intensely. that i decided i had to write like wringing blood, if only for this one scene to live. it wouldn't do as a oneshot, not in my mind, and it needed context so that it could (eventually) have catharsis, and just...i'm very, very excited to get to the old men fighting. and i hope, of course, that all y'all out there will enjoy the old men fighting, and i hope it'll show, how the fic as a whole kind of grew from that one angry, angry seed.

17. What was the hardest scene to write?

so my cop-out answer for this one is this: literally any scene that involves travis and constance interacting. lmao. i've for sure commented on that before, but man. it's just. a lot. having the two of them in a scene together. any time i'm working on something that features both of them heavily, the vibes are just...rancid, and i always end up having to get up and walk off some of the grimacing. it's not just a "shitty parent interacting with their kid" thing either, believe me, because i do not have the same issue with say, jed and chris. this is a constance-and-travis-specific issue and BOY. it makes getting through certain chapters...ROUGH!!!

a less generalized answer, though, is that there is another scene i haven't gotten to yet involving chris experiencing some...l...light haunting, let's say. that's non-spoilery enough, i think. chris experiences some light haunting during the course of camp, and i am having a hell of a time getting that scene down because it's also very alive and very big and very bright in my mind, but conveying it all in words has been a challenge. i keep rewriting it, keep adding things and taking them out, and short of making that particular chapter fuckin 75k words on its own, i think i'm going to continue to struggle with it for a minute, ha!!!

20. What is something you wish more people noticed about this fic?

i just want people to acknowledge that the fiddlers and hacketts being related doesn't only make sense, it exPLAINS SO MANY OF THE PLOT HOLES IN TQ AND

i wish someone would go "OH THAT'S WHERE LAURA GOT THE EYEPA

i would love for anyone to notice that the first letter of every chapter spells out rick astley's never gonna give you up

hehehe okay, for real though, i'm genuinely so flattered and even touched that people have been reading and enjoying this fic at all, given it's (1) not shippy, (2) centered on a really difficult/uncomfortable family dynamic, (3) focusing on characters who are morally grey at best, (4) deeply, deeply ugly at times. that in and of itself is all that i could ask for, truly, because this is such a personal project and so much of my own stuff is sort of being worked through within it, so anytime anyone says anything about it, my heart grows three sizes <3

the only itty bitty thing i'll say, though, and it's not really me hoping people notice so much as i hope they'll realize as time goes on, is that...nothing in this fic is there accidentally. this is not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants story, everything in like wringing blood has been planned out and put where it is for a very, very specific reason. if those reasons aren't apparent yet, it just means we haven't gotten there ;) so if there are details that have stuck out, if there are pieces-parts that feel...conspicuous, that's all by design. i have so many planning docs for this fuckin fic, i have been sowing so many seeds. can't wait until it's time to reap them :)

behind-the-scenes fic asks!

[ciaossu-imagines]

So I’m finally responding since you said not to send anything while you were finishing off your old requests and then I forgot so now finally I’ll send in a response to your admin chatter. Here I honestly have no idea what to say about the series apart from the fact that I’m glad I found it. It’s so fun and interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing what more the author has planned. And so true to what you’re saying about the manga and I really love it for that and wished that all anime also paced things like that. So yeah, same.  

Cool. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts when the time comes. And sure thing. Thank you. And I see. If I remember correctly, my friend also mentioned the Undertaker but I can’t remember anymore what exactly she said. Thank you so much. That’s really sweet of you to say. It did take me some time to remember the names and sometimes I still have to look up where I know them from so there’s that as well. Or I’ll do what you do and look up the character, then the voice actor’s page and then see whether I’ve heard them somewhere else.

Honestly same. Like I used to send so many messages to my friend because I’d want to share any kind of exciting news or fun pictures with her but she told me it was quite overwhelming so I always wait until she’s responded and then I’ll add the new stuff on. Though sometimes there are images that I feel like I need to send and then I do, hoping she doesn’t mind. I’ll use a recent example. To celebrate the Haikyuu!! movie release, the author of the manga released a special chapter and I got to see some of my favourite boys grown up and it was so nice and beautiful that I just had to send it to her. A part of the scene also kind of had to do with something we were talking about before so there’s that as well. And now it lives rent free in my mind so yay to that 😅 Though literally I am happy about it. I can’t say much more since I don’t want to give anything away but just know I’ve been blessed. Though I’ll also say beautiful smile, beautiful man. And it’s concerning the character I recently info dumped to you about. And I feel the same way about long replies so truly is a win-win here. You didn’t disappoint and I don’t think you ever could. And I’m looking forward to reading your Ever Young story and anything you post on AO3.

I hope you got your radio silence and that things are going well.

Yeah, this bitch caught up in pretty much a week 😅 And thank you so much for saying all that 😭

Yeah, really. And that information should be, especially since it’s info about the patient themselves. Oh gods. That’s so much. I see. I’m also kinda jealous of people who don’t have to wear glasses since I’ll be in my house and someone will tell me to look at something on the TV and I’ll have to go really close to it or will have to tell the other person to wait while I grab my glasses from my room. Even though, yeah, I got my glasses a few years later than you.

Oh that sounds so cool. And thank you. Though it’s more like that since I always finish my stories in Word before I post them, all I have to do afterwards is copy and paste the chapters afterwards one by one so it’s nice to listen to music while doing that routine thing. And I’m actually one of those people who can’t listen to music while writing since I want to be able to fully concentrate on my ideas and what I’m writing. Sine I do tend to let the music take up most of my brainspace while listening to it. And that’s nice 😃 It’s really cool that you have specific playlists like that. For me it’s just a whole bunch of songs that I like all together. Though I don’t add all songs that I like anymore since my mind is used to those songs and I like it that way.

C

Hey there! It’s nice to see you back in the inbox and thank you so, so much for waiting for me to finish off everything and open the box up again. I love seeing the response and getting to talk to you, especially since like I mentioned, I’m still waiting to finish catching up  on Servamp to finish up my dm replies to you – got sidetracked with a lot of things, haha. I love the fact that you’re enjoying the series so much! It really is an absolutely amazing story, the characters are engaging and fun, and I’ve always said that Servamp is almost criminally underrated. I’m going to be happy if I can introduce even one more person to the series, honestly!

I look forward to sharing my thoughts and then talking all kinds of things out with you when I get the opportunity! I’m busy at the moment building a solid queue here on the blog (after the event, I had 150 actual requests and, like I said I would, I used all the unrequested prompts for all my fandoms, so I have a little over 500 posts to write and queue…should have plenty to keep the blog going for the next three or four months, even if I bump the queue up past 1 a day and I’ll have a shit ton more time for chatting and writing passion projects that way, though that means you guys see unrequested headcanons and fics quite often sorry) but I’m so looking forward to taking the time to not only write, but read and watch things again! I have decided to go manga for Black Butler, just because I can breeze through a couple hundred chapters in two days so it’s quicker for me to get caught up. I’m hoping it’ll live up to how good everyone keeps telling me it’s gotten! Aww, that’s awesome! And I have to do the look up to see where I know them from not just with voices I recognize but actors and actresses all the time too because I’m terrible at names! I think it’s so cool that you put the time and effort into remembering voice actors like that because yeah, they definitely deserve fans and all the respect!

I’m horrible for not sending messages until I know I have everything I want to say out so I can sometimes hoard messages for a good couple days or a week so my replies can get overboard! And I’m sure your friend has so much fun, getting the add on messages and pictures because I know when you do that in our messages, I always love it! That’s so exciting about Haikyuu! movie release getting that special chapter! Was it an interesting and good chapter? Did the boys you saw grown up look like you figured they would as adults? Were their lives what you thought they would be? I’m curious as to your reaction to it all! I’m glad to hear I don’t disappoint and thank you so much for saying that 😊 I look forward to sharing but the delinquent! Shouhei story will definitely be coming out first. The Ever Young is so dear to my heart that I want it perfect and several chapters to be finished before I post them.

As far as radio silence, it did get better. I got one ask after that outside of the box being open, but it calmed down a lot, both for dm’s and for the ask box. I really appreciate everyone giving me that time and space and being so patient and supportive of me while I work on things both on and off the blog. I really do consider myself super lucky to have such amazing readers! And you did get caught up really quickly! I have thirty more chapters to read before I’m completely caught up on Servamp, and my manga app updated Nanbaka to chapter 355 so I think that will be the next one I work on getting caught up on after Servamp!

And yes! A lot of people don’t know this but at least here in Canada, a patient can legally request a copy of their medical file and history from any of their doctors at any point and the doctor has to comply. It’s just a little known thing and most of the time, patients aren’t really kept up to date on their information, which bothers me greatly. And I am so jealous of people who don’t have to wear glasses. Not only can they easily see, but it’s annoying to have your glasses fog up when you wear a mask, something I’ve had to do at work since I came down with a bad cold. Mask and medical grade non-latex gloves for 7-8 hours a day…not fun, but at least it keeps people safe and healthy.

And that is cool to learn! I’ve been wondering, since I haven’t messed around with it yet, how the formatting of stories goes on AO3, so it’s good to know I won’t have to mess around with a lot of formatting or html codes to post stories on there, if you can use copy and paste! I completely get that – everyone’s different and I know some people simply cannot concentrate on their writing if there’s music or a lot of noise around. I need the background noise because all the little sounds bother me in complete silence and throw me off – dripping taps, the click of the baseboard, the hum of the refrigerator, the sounds of the neighbours and things like that. I love the way you worded that by the way, that your mind is used to those songs because I know the exact feeling you mean and it’s a pleasant-unpleasant feeling all at once haha.

[bookinit02]

(Be warned, incredibly lengthy script reply ahead, copy-pasted directly from my notes app. It’s a lot of separate paragraphs so it will probably take up some space, apologies in advance)

SCRIPT SCRIPT SCRIPT SCRIPT OMG YES

Karen!!!! Yes Karen!!! AND HOLLYYYY OMG. I love this bit so much. Karen’s gonna find her kids!!! She’s gonna find out what’s going on!!! I love good mom Karen!!

OHHHH OH MY GOD THE CFROP CIRCLE WILL MADE THE CROP CIRCLE AKJDHKSJDHSJFBSND. IT CROSSED OVER FROM THE UPSIDE DOWN AND HE MADE IT AND THEY CAN ALL SEE IT HOLY SHIT

She’s good </3 oh Max </3

“Come here often?” Mike you DORK.

AWWW THE SWING :((( MIKE TRYING TO TELL WILL HE LIKES BOYS TOO :((( God that’s so sad and sweet and heartwarming. But YES WILL SAID IT!!!! YOU GO WILL!!!! And god. That HUG. I bet that’s gonna SLAP in Mike’s POV in the fic <3

OHHHHH NANCY TALKING ABOUT MIKE TO ROBIN :(((( OH MY HEART.

“I’m a lesbian. We know these things.” LMFAO ROBIN

Oh my god Will and Mike straight-up CUDDLING in the upside-down while Will sleeps. And it’s just like, normal. NO SHIT they’re gonna be different after this, goddamn.

“BABY”????? ARE YUOU???? FUCJING???????? MICHAEL. MICHAEL WHEELER

NOOO GOD VECNA. FUCK. HOLY SHIT THIS VISION GODDAMN

BABY????????????? GOD VECNA THAT’S FUCKING FOUL

HOLY SHIT??:?? THE FUCING???? MINDFLAYER?????? WHAT. WHAT? VECNA WEARING ZOMBIE WILL’S FACE AND SAYING ‘HOW ABOUT A KISS INSTEAD’ BEFORE FUCKING POSSESSING MIKE I’M. I.

Ha. Haha. H. Okay. I can uh. I can see why Suni said she hated you. Because what the fuck. What the fuck? I mean that was AMAZING but what the fuck. I can’t wait to scream at you even more when the fic chapters come out because WHAT. The FUCK.

Goodnight

(Sidenote added as I am re-reading my own commentary before sending this ask: I kind of can’t wait to see Will go fucking BALLISTIC at Vecna for pulling this shit with Mike. Like. Those newborn powers are gonna go CRAZY. Vecna you’re in for it buddy)

yayyy!! so excited to answer comments🥳

i’m so glad you liked karen’s scenes! i’ve had her s5 arc planned FOREVER (as in it was literally one of the first things i ever thought up for this fic, and the main reason i wanted to include a script to show other storylines!), so i’m super excited to finally dig into it!

the crop circle😎 that’s My spooky little eldritch creature! so proud of him🫶🏻

elmax🥺 my Babies.

dork!! & yes i am SOO excited to write this scene in fic format.

nancy & robin! and i’m glad u liked robin’s line bc i rlly couldn’t figure out if i wanted to leave that in or not. but yk what. i stand by it!

the CUDDLINGGGGG GOD I LOVE THEM😭 and the “baby” line was another that i was super undecided about leaving in, to the point where i had to consult suni and get a second opinion😭 but she was like yeah you Freak leave it in. so i did.

as for everything else: 😇

thank you so much for reading!!! i appreciate your comments so much💗

[chaos-has-theories]

UM. I don't have a specific fic for the ask game so just answer as general questions abt ask ur fics I guess?? But

5. Is there any scene you're excited about writing?

10. If unpublished, can you show a sneak peek of what you've written?

13. Is there any unwritten/unpublished fics you haven't mentioned you're gonna do?

15. Do you have any unwritten scene that you think about a lot?

21. Is there any unwritten fic that you don't know if you ever will write?

BREATHING ROOM FINALLY time to answer some askssssss :D

5. Is there any scene you're excited about writing?

I mostly write the scenes I'm excited for immediately - if I don't, I'll just sit on the fic without ever getting past the first paragraph. But I am looking forward to writing the third scene to that Marcia & Silas oneshot I sent you, where Marcia is all IS THE PRINCESS OK and Silas is like ARE YOU OK and then they stare at each other for a minute.

10. If unpublished, can you show a sneak peek of what you've written?

Heh. Have a paragraph of Marcia in the Miraculous Ladybug AU?

Wayzz and Sass stayed quiet and out of sight while Marcia made her brooding way back across the walkways. Plagg, of course, had no such decency. "Of course Sugarcube gets to stay with Silas. Now him, he knows how to feed a cat. S'over a decade since I saw him - which is animal cruelty, just so you know - and he's still got my camembert stocked. Sass gets his mice and Pollen gets her honey but I have to live off butter and cream -" "You get plenty of cheese," Marcia said distractedly. She was getting a headache again. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to cut back on how many miraculouses she wore. "Oh, but nothing can ever surpass the taste of properly aged camembert. You know, when I-" "Quiet." Marcia stopped stock-still halfway to the great double doors to the tower. There was - something was wrong. Slowly, she started turning around, squinting far off. The place was deserted. No guard, she realized. She should probably have been pleased, but - There. The snowdrift must have slid off the pyramid all the way above, neatly burying the boy who just that morning had entertained himself - and Plagg, unknowingly - by trying and failing to hit the kwami's animal shape with a snow ball. "That wasn't me." Plagg's eyes were large and worried. "I think." "Nevermind that." Marcia clenched her jaw. She should have brought Orikko with her today. No matter - her hands would have to do. The boy's heartbeat was only getting slower.

13. Is there any unwritten/unpublished fics you haven't mentioned you're gonna do?

I... may have started writing a scene from your Timetravel AU? It was just supposed to be a warmup, but, well.

I won't post it anywhere without your permission, but I can send it to you sometime, if you want.

15. Do you have any unwritten scene that you think about a lot?

Recently it hasn't been a lot of SH, because that has been mostly oneshots and i either write them down or forget about them.

But - my TLT AU is still missing all of the important conversations between Gideon and Harrow, and those are going to be juicy. ("Who do you think paid for your commission?", and the pool scene, and)

Pretty much everything in the ML Daemon AU is angsty as hell, and I happen to be here for that. (LB and CN talking about grieving for their daemons. Nathalie severing herself, and the fallout from that. Gabriel's no good very bad decision making.)

And I'm always thinking about my modern Merlin AU. It's just so disorganized and huge that it feels impossible to work on anything specific in it right now. It's brilliant though. You'll just have to take my word for it.

21. Is there any unwritten fic that you don't know if you ever will write?

Puddyng. It's the most self-indulgent Sep Heap thing I could ever write, based on a years-old joke my neighbor reminded me of recently ("this is what book 7 is going to be called") and my own memories of my grandmothers. I might write it one day, but I'm pretty sure i'll be the only one getting much out of it.

The plot would have been the kids visiting Aunt Zelda's after she's passed to hold a kind of memorial. Jenna refuses to make cabbage sandwiches in her honor, so they mess up the kitchen making pudding instead and having a lot of emotions about it. That's it.

Thanks for the ask!

[leiakenobi]

3, 11 and 14 for the fic asks 🫶

fic writer asks

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

Holyyy moly, you sure started off with the hard questions. I've written so many at this point that it'd probably be impossible to pick just one. So I'll give you a few:

"This Must Be The Place"/"Once In A Lifetime." Honestly Santi is the kind of character that's wormed his way into my brain so deeply that I feel like a lot of my fics about him end up being my favorites (in my head I think of bartender Santi/baseball Santi/knight Santi as a trifecta) but "This Must Be The Place" is The One ya feel. Like how can you read it and not fall in love with Santiago Garcia a little bit.

"now let me at the truth." The premise of, "lol what if Ted Lasso but Ted and Trent knew each other back in college" was fully a goofy bit that my bud and I were riffing on in our DMs and it turned into this whole 50k+ world? Which is exciting in and of itself but I think what makes me so proud of it amongst my longer fics is that I really let the story guide me in terms of structure and length and style. It felt like I kind of leveled up in how I approach fic in a way that I hadn't felt in a long time.

"a shallow creek that too runs deep." Oh my goodness, truly this fic does atmosphere in a way that I measure all my other writing against. I also am very proud of how it kind of gradually developed over time from a oneshot into the full fic that it is now; I'm generally unwilling to expand on my oneshots because usually I feel like it would make the original story worse. I initially felt that way about this fic, too, even though I knew already that Poe and Rey's story would culminate in the same place where it eventually did. But I think the final product ended up being a really meaningful and well-done elaboration and I revisit it often.

11. Do you have specific playlists for writing fics?

I'm actually very rarely able to write fic while listening to music anymore (this is the problem with studying music). On occasion I will listen to music if I've made a playlist for that specific fic, but even those are more for getting myself into the headspace of the world as I mull over what's next for the characters, with the idea that then I turn the music off when I really get on a roll. If I do listen to music, it will generally be this or this on repeat.

14. If you could see one of your fics adapted into a visual medium, such as comic or film, which fan fic would you pick?

Most of the fics that are coming to mind have one or two specific scenes that are very cinematic in my head? I don't think I have to sell you on the idea that it would be glorious to see the "Come and Get Your Love" scene from "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" on the screen. Combat is significant enough in "clipped wings" that I think a visual medium would probably do it justice better than I can in writing, and I think the Force visions would also be very cool to see in film—particularly the one in Chapter 10 would probably be more readily comprehensible. Meanwhile I think "Post Script" would make a superb comic, though of course that would immediately change it from a generic reader-insert to a specific character—but that moment of her going into her old room and seeing all the post-its.......... oof oof oof that would hit so well visually.

[lamentationsofalonelypotato]

@zepskies

You have no idea how excited I am to finally jump into the first installment of this series! I absolutely love historical au's and the 1940's so I am SO ready for this!

He let it fly. The abacus began to clack as one ball hit the other. Sam looked up from the deposition he was writing to give his brother a wry brow raise.

Right off the bat we get the classic and hilarious brother dynamic between the two of them. And of course, Dean being Dean. He just couldn't resist. 🙄 Not to mention the fact that Sam literally gave Dean a list of things to do in NYC other than bother him 😂

Both of them had enlisted, but Sam had spent most of his time in London while he was deployed, helping British Intelligence. Dean had clawed his way out of Normandy, and later, out of the Ardennes—the last offensive before the end. Their experiences might as well have been worlds apart, but one thing remained the same: it had been three years in which neither brother knew if they’d see each other again.

I love this little bit of world-building, because right off the bat you are introducing little things that will divide Sam and Dean. It builds the scene, shapes the characters, and introduces the idea that, yes both men enlisted, but at the same time there are other sides/fronts to the war and those experiences shaped these two men in different ways. I also like that you made them be in different places in the military, because their personalities are so different and it fits that Dean was the one who saw combat and has a little bit of shell-shock, but then you see Sam who is able to keep a stable job and merges well into the hustle and bustle of NYC.

You later followed behind him through the hallway and into the office. With a lit cigarette between his fingers, his arms crossed, Dean took note of you. He subtly glanced down at your crème-colored blouse, neatly tucked into the long, burgundy skirt (with lipstick to match), your modest, classy heels, and the way you wore your hair. His brows subtly raised. He’d met quite a few girls this week, but he hadn’t seen a lady like you in quite some time.

Man already can't keep his eyes to himself. 👀

"He'd met quite a few girls this week, but he hadn't seen a lady like you in quite some time."

I'm dying with this line. I love it so much. Oh boy... I already feel like this fic is going to destroy me in the best way.

Dean scoffed. “Nope, I’m just here to distract him.”

You know what Dean, you can come distract me any time you want. At least I'll appreciate it more than Sam lol.

You were still sniffling, and twice you dabbed under your eyes to make sure your face was dry. When you handed over the check, your hands shook, just a little. Sam wouldn’t tell you that he discounted his usual rate.  

Aww Sam 😭 I'm also dying that Dean walked her home, my word, what a man.

“Oh, the Midwest,” you inclined your head. “What’s it like there?” Dean scoffed. “Dusty.”

You don't gotta ask what it's like sweet pea, you're gonna be out there soon enough with a ring on your left hand that actually MEANS SOMETHING to the man who gave it to you (DEAN)!

Part of you trilled inside at the small touch, but you immediately beat that reaction down. Dean Winchester was an attractive man, to be sure. His hair was a lighter brown than his brother’s, and shorter too. He had an air of roguishness about him, even though he’d been perfectly pleasant so far. But by the way he eyed you when you came into the law office, you had a strong feeling he was a flirt. You had no room for that in your life, and not only because you were still a married woman. Yet, there was something about him that…well, made you curious.

Girl please be curious for all of us 🤣

But I will say I like that she still upholds her side of the marriage even though her husband is literally a human trash can filled with Raccoons. As Dean put it earlier, she's a lady.

Also I love that you made her a nurse and that she and Dean were in the same area, so they're able to connect on that level, and it's not just Dean being flirty. I think that giving the reader that particular background also will help her navigate how to help Dean, if she's seen other soldiers with shell-shock and PTSD.

“Because the fact of the matter is, Sergeant, words don’t move me anymore.” You picked up your gaze from the ground, and you met his. “Flattery is just a pretty way of lying, and I’ve grown to really, truly hate lying.” 

Oh my sweet goodness she's the best. Did she stutter?! I think not!

“Sorry it’s so late, darling. Got held up,” he said, kissing your shoulder through your nightgown. His fingers played with the ends of your hair while you laid facing away from him.

“What’d you make tonight, outta curiosity?” he asked. “Egg salad sandwiches,” you replied flatly.  “Hmm. No real loss there then.” 

Michael huffed, shaking his head. “Sometimes you got a real mouth on you. One of these days, you just might regret it.” 

You know what Mike, if you keep talking you're gonna regret it. Your wife might be a lady, but Dean isn't. And Dean will go full Lorena Bobbitt on your ass while you're asleep for doing the twisted tango with another woman!! 😡🤣

Alex this chapter was amazing! I can see how much research and hard work you put into it my talented friend! I can't wait to see what else is in store for Dean and this reader 🥰

BETWEEN THE CITY & THE STARS - Part 1

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

Summary: In the fall of 1945, Dean is having a difficult time assimilating back into civilian life after the War. He’s visiting his brother Sam in New York City, where he’s beginning to build up his law firm. At two minutes to closing time, you interrupt their evening to solicit a solicitor. Your request? You need help in order to divorce your husband.

AN: My day tomorrow is going to be a bit packed, so I decided to release this a bit early for you guys! So here we go! The first chapter of yet another new series, my first ever 1940s AU. 🥰 I hope you have fun on this one, because I sure did. Again, very much inspired by The Clock (1945), starring Judy Garland and Robert Walker. 💜

Prompt for @jacklesversebingo: Historical Epic

Song Inspo: For this chapter it’s “Cry Me a River” by Ella Fitzgerald

Word Count: 3.9K

Tags/Warnings: Angst, mentions of cheating, PTSD, historical tidbits

✨ Series Masterlist

🎵 YouTube Playlist || Spotify Playlist

Part 1: Legal Grounds

November 2, 1945

Dean idly read the pamphlet stacked with others on his brother’s desk, which advertised his new and successful enterprise.

Law Offices of Winchester, Bialystock & Bloom

What do you know? His brother had his own office, his own business, and his name on a pamphlet.

Dean couldn’t help but curl a finger around a steel ball on the abacus sitting at the head of the mahogany desk, right next to Sam’s nameplate.

He let it fly. The abacus began to clack as one ball hit the other.

Sam looked up from the deposition he was writing to give his brother a wry brow raise.

“So this is what you do, huh?” Dean remarked, crossing his arms.

Without his jacket, his suspenders were on display over his shoulders. His red pinstripe tie was still in place, but his white dress shirt was rolled up to the elbows. Meanwhile, his brother preferred to keep himself more presentable with his sleeves down to his wrists. Jacket on.    

Dean glanced around the office, nodding at the line of bookshelves behind Sam, framing him as the bookish academic he’d always been. There was limited seating in here though, just a spare chair in front of the desk, and another to the right of it. Dean stood on the opposite side.

“If you’re bored, all you have to do is say so,” Sam said. “Which is strange, considering we’re smack dab in the middle of a city that never sleeps.”

He was right, Dean could concede. His little brother had given him a veritable list of things to do in New York City: visit the park, go to the zoo, see a picture show, visit a nightclub, or sample a host of restaurants that Sam knew Dean would probably enjoy.

He’d seen a lot of this place in the week that he’d been here visiting Sam, but a good deal of it he’d either spent alone, or with any willing young lady Dean came across, thanks to the demands of this office. If he was honest, entertaining young ladies was eating into the wallet in his trouser pocket, and the hustle and bustle was starting to be a little much for him.

“You don’t get tired of it?” Dean asked, gesturing to the out there beyond them. “The, uh…the lights, the noise, all the people?”

Sam picked his head up from his paperwork to consider the question. “No, I like it. Keeps my mind busy, and…I guess it makes me feel alive, you know?”

Dean supposed he could understand that, so he nodded.

Sam wasn’t fooled though. He thought he could tell what was running through his brother’s head, watching him fidget, and turn his head a bit sharply when a bus honked loudly outside the office’s glass doors as it thundered past.

It had only been two months since the end of the war. Two months since he and Dean met back in their family home in Lawrence, Kansas after three years fighting on two different fronts, in two different countries.

Both of them had enlisted, but Sam had spent most of his time in London while he was deployed, helping British Intelligence. Dean had clawed his way out of Normandy, and later, out of the Ardennes—the last offensive before the end.

Their experiences might as well have been worlds apart, but one thing remained the same: it had been three years in which neither brother knew if they’d see each other again.

Now, Sam saw the signs. Dean seemed a bit jumpy, overstimulated, but willing to be here to spend a little more time with Sam before he went back home. Guilt prickled in Sam’s gut. 

“I’ve got some work here to finish up, but afterwards let’s go to dinner,” he suggested. “Maybe see a show?”

Dean’s lips flickered at a smile. “You’re burning both ends of the candle. You know that, right?”

Sam opened his mouth to reply, when there was a knock on one of the glass doors—at the entrance to the small building. Their heads turned, and through the open door of his office, they spotted you standing there in the evening light. You wore a wide-brimmed hat on your head and a scarf underneath, wrapped over your hair and under your chin to shield your face. You knocked again with a hand covered by a leather glove, more persistently.

Cocking his head in confusion, Sam stood from his desk and left the room to let you in. Dean hung back and sat on the corner of the desk to wait. He withdrew a cigarette from the pack and a lighter from his pocket as he did so, but he heard you talking with his brother by the door.

“I’m sorry. We’re closed, miss,” Sam informed you.

“It’s still two minutes until closing. At least, according to my watch.”

“…Well, I suppose you’ve got me there.”

“So can I come in? I need to speak to a lawyer.”

“You sure it can’t wait until tomorrow?”

“I’m afraid it can’t, sir.” Your tone was firm, and it more than implied that you wouldn’t be moved. Sam paused then, perhaps to take a steeling breath.

“All right. Come with me, please.”

You later followed behind him through the hallway and into the office. With a lit cigarette between his fingers, his arms crossed, Dean took note of you. He subtly glanced down at your crème-colored blouse, neatly tucked into the long, burgundy skirt (with lipstick to match), your modest, classy heels, and the way you wore your hair. His brows subtly raised. He’d met quite a few girls this week, but he hadn’t seen a lady like you in quite some time.

Should’ve shaved this morning. The thought was accompanied by the way he swiped a subtle hand over his prickly chin.

You gave him a cursory glance in turn, and offered a polite, “Hello.”

He stood from the desk and switched his cigarette to his other hand, so he could shake yours.

“Hey there. Dean Winchester,” he said. He offered a smile with no small amount of charm. “Pleased to meet you…”

You dutifully gave him your first name only. He found that a little strange, but you soon slipped your hand out of his and focused on the nameplate on the desk, followed by Sam himself.

“So you’re brothers,” you realized. “Do you work together?”

Dean scoffed. “Nope, I’m just here to distract him.”

Sam tossed him a sidelong glance. There was a subtle edge of bitter truth in there somewhere, and you didn’t seem to miss it. You looked between the two men, a hint wary.

“Well, as I said, I’m here to speak to the solicitor,” you said. 

“That would be me,” Sam nodded. He went to his desk and sat down behind it, gesturing for you to do the same in front of him. You obliged him, smoothing your hands down your skirt once you were seated. “How can I help you?”

You met his eyes with a directness that surprised him a little.

“I want to divorce my husband,” you said.

To say it shocked the room would be an understatement. Behind you, Dean gave his brother a pair of raised brows. Sam didn’t allow himself to react too much in order to remain professional, but he still tilted his head, blinking, before he focused on you again.

“What’s your husband’s name?” he asked.

“Michael. Michael Milligan.”

“Why do you want a divorce, Mrs. Milligan?” 

Here, your gaze fell to the folded hands in your lap. 

“I have reason to believe he’s been unfaithful,” you quietly replied.

Once again, there was a pregnant pause.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Sam said. His sympathy was genuine, because he could see the way you’d hesitated to say the words, like they embarrassed you, shamed you, and saddened you all at once. 

“But I have to ask,” he added, “do you have proof?”

Dean glanced his way, his brow raising once again. Sam knew what he was thinking, just as he saw how you frowned as well. But there was a reason why he asked, and it wasn’t to be unkind.

You sighed. “What kind of proof?” 

“Pictures. Letters. A witness. Something of legal standing that we can use as leverage and as grounds to grant you a divorce, whether he wants it or not,” Sam said. 

You let out another heavy breath through your nose. “No, I don’t have anything like that.”

“Then what makes you so sure he’s steppin’ out?” Dean chimed in. By now he was leaning against the wall, off to the side where he could smoke with the window cracked open. It let in the sounds of cars and distant honking, people traversing the sidewalks. 

You turned in your seat to give him a tight look. “If you must know, there’ve been…signs. I won’t trouble you with the details, but I’m sure.”

You met Dean’s gaze, and then Sam’s firmly. 

“So will you help me?” you asked him. Sam nodded.

“Yes, I’ll look into your husband and try to find some evidence of his…extracurricular affairs.”

Your lips pursed. “And how long will it take?”

Since you were being so direct, Sam levelled you with honesty.

“It may take time,” he said. “Realistically, we’re looking at months, even after I find what we need… It would be easier to legally separate.”

You had been slowly deflating the more he spoke, but now your expression became stony.

“Mr. Winchester,” you began. “I don’t want to just be separated. I don’t want to live in our apartment, let alone share his bed or wear his last name.”

Despite your best efforts, your voice began to shake. Tears welled up and stung in your eyes.

“I don’t want anything from him, other than his signature on the damn papers,” you said. “The case is that I can no longer tolerate that man in my sight, much less in my life. Will you help me? Or should I look for another lawyer who will actually do his job.”

Sam and Dean shared a glance. For his part, Dean couldn’t remember the last time he heard a woman curse. Despite your outburst, the tears clinging to your lashes stirred both men.

“I understand, Mrs. Milligan,” Sam said. “I’ll help you. Don’t worry.”

He began to look for his handkerchief, but you retrieved one of your own from your purse and quickly dabbed at your eyes, sniffling. You were embarrassed.

“What about your fee?” you said, withdrawing your checkbook. “I, um…I have a little money stashed away. I’ve always worked, you see.”

Sam nodded and went over what his rate would be going forward. Once the two of you came to an agreement, you signed the first check right then and there, even though he felt bad for even taking it from you.

You were still sniffling, and twice you dabbed under your eyes to make sure your face was dry. When you handed over the check, your hands shook, just a little. Sam wouldn’t tell you that he discounted his usual rate.  

Again, he mentioned that he would need some time first to investigate your husband and begin collecting evidence for your case. He asked you for any documents you could safely bring him of your finances, for example. You agreed to do an investigation of your own.

“Just be careful,” Dean cautioned. He was getting an idea of what kind of man your husband was, but Dean couldn’t be too sure of what the man was capable of. He’d hate to hear of a girl like you getting hurt over a few papers.

Dean put out the bud of his cigarette on the ashtray lying on the windowsill. He pushed off the wall to approach where you and Sam were getting to your feet. You gave Dean a nod of acknowledgement.

“I will,” you agreed. “Thank you both. I’m sorry I’ve taken up so much of your time, but I’ll be heading home now.”

“Did you take a bus or a taxi?” Sam asked.

“Oh, I walked,” you replied, and you checked your watch as you gathered up your purse. You headed for the coatrack, but Dean got there first, helping you into your beige wool coat. It went nicely with the burgundy you had on, namely on your painted lips.

“Thank you,” you said to him, but you still didn’t smile. You were a hint demurer now. It seemed with Sam’s promised help, the fire had dimmed behind your eyes and your tongue.

“How about I give you an escort, make sure you get home okay?” Dean found himself offering. “It’s getting pretty late on a Friday.”

Sam shot him a knowing look, but Dean ignored him, instead focusing on your face.

You hesitated. “It’s a bit far though. Out of your way, I’m sure.”

“All the more reason that you shouldn’t go it alone at this time of night,” he argued.

You considered his offer, and him, with a quick perusal. You seemed to be judging for yourself if he was trustworthy. Dean kept his posture straight, yet relaxed. Maybe he’d liked what he saw the moment he took you in, but after hearing your situation, he felt for you. It really was just an honest offer to walk you home.

“Where did you serve?” you asked. “The Army, the Navy, or the Air Forces?”

The question took him off guard for a beat, but he answered you.

“The Army,” he replied.

“Your rank?”

“I was a sergeant, ma’am.”

You looked at him a little more shrewdly, then you relaxed.

“I might’ve guessed,” you said. “All right, Sergeant. Let’s go then.”

You buttoned up your coat and turned to leave the office. Dean shot his little brother a raise of his brows and a what do ya know? kind of smile. He grabbed his dark brown jacket and hat and followed you out.

Sam’s smile was more reserved, with a shake of his head. He closed the door behind you and Dean and locked it. He still had some work he wanted to finish before tomorrow, and Dean’s little show of chivalry would give him time to do it.

Dean had his hands in his coat pockets as he walked with you down the long city sidewalk. Night had drawn into the November sky, but with all these lights, he couldn’t see many stars. It was also cold as all hell. The frigid wind slapped at him every time they turned the corner of a building, snapping right into his bones.

Still, he supposed there was a kind of attractiveness to the city at night. The stores and their signs were all lit up gold and other neon colors. Couples and families walked together, all done up nice for wherever dinner reservation or movie they were trying to get to. It begged the question of what your husband was doing right now if he didn’t notice his wife out at this time of night.

“Where’s your husband tonight, if I might ask?” said Dean.

You shot him a look, reading between his lines.

“He claims to be working late virtually every night of the weekdays,” you said, “but he usually comes home stinking of alcohol.” Your eyes dimmed, even with the pretty lights shining in them. “He was in the Army as well. A corporal. He’s had a hard time adjusting to being back home, and I know that… He doesn’t sleep very well. And do you know, he had a hard time finding work for a while too. Luckily, he has his father’s business to fall back on.”

Dean tried not to show how much your words resonated with him. He didn’t think it a good thing to have common ground with your husband, if he was the kind of man you said he was.

“Yeah? What’s his business?” he asked.

“He manages a meat production plant, of all things,” you said.

“Ah, located in the Meat Packing District, I presume?”

“You’d presume right.”

Dean nodded. “I get it. I inherited the family home back in Lawrence. I just need to figure out what’s next.”

“Lawrence?”

“Kansas.”

“Oh, the Midwest,” you inclined your head. “What’s it like there?”

Dean scoffed. “Dusty.”

You almost laughed at that. At least it earned him your first smile of the night.

“Do you have an idea of what you’ll do for work?” you asked.

Dean chuckled. “Not just yet. Didn’t plan that far, you know?”

“Why not?” you asked.

“Hmm. Guess I didn’t see the point,” he replied with a mild shrug. It hid a deeper, darker well inside him. The part of him that hadn’t thought he’d make it back home after the war.  

You turned to him then, and you saw it behind his eyes. The two of you walked in silence for a little while as the neighborhood blocks began to shift and change, becoming somewhat quieter, more residential. Dean put himself between you and the sidewalk when a taxi zoomed by too close to the curb, resting a hand on the small of your back for protection.

Part of you trilled inside at the small touch, but you immediately beat that reaction down. Dean Winchester was an attractive man, to be sure. His hair was a lighter brown than his brother’s, and shorter too. He had an air of roguishness about him, even though he’d been perfectly pleasant so far.

But by the way he eyed you when you came into the law office, you had a strong feeling he was a flirt. You had no room for that in your life, and not only because you were still a married woman.

Yet, there was something about him that…well, made you curious.

“I was a nurse,” you said eventually, earning his attention. “I was there when they liberated Paris.”

Dean turned to you with newfound interest lighting his green eyes. “You were at Normandy.”

You nodded. “For a while. Almost a year before D-Day.”

Dean let out a short, if humorless chuckle, running a hand through his hair.

“Well, that’s where I was. At that time, at least,” he said. You gave him a similar look; respect, and perhaps finding a kindred spirit.

“I did what I could do before, during, and afterwards,” you said. “I think that’s all we can do now, Mr. Winchester.”

“Call me Dean,” he said. “If you like.”

A second smile almost tugged at your lips. You nodded in agreement.

“Dean,” you said.

In another ten minutes, he was walking you up to your porch at your apartment building. You travelled up the four small steps, while Dean stopped at the second one. For the first time, you had the vantage point above him as you turned on your heel to face him. You were about to thank him when he shook his head, scoffing.

“This guy must be dumb, deaf, and blind, sweetheart,” he said.

Your face warmed in a blush, and you gave a rueful smile when you realized what he meant. He was looking up at you like someone who couldn’t understand your plight. You knew the feeling.

“That’s kind of you, but you don’t have to do that,” you said.  

His brows furrowed. “Do what?” 

“Try to make me feel better,” you said, scuffing the toe of your sensible heels against the brick platform. Dean crossed his arms. 

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because the fact of the matter is, Sergeant, words don’t move me anymore.” You picked up your gaze from the ground, and you met his. “Flattery is just a pretty way of lying, and I’ve grown to really, truly hate lying.” 

It took him a moment, but Dean nodded.

“I guess that’s fair,” he said. He had to stop himself before he proved your point with a smart word on your pretty smile. Although, it wouldn’t have been a lie. He tipped his hat up. “Goodnight then, Mrs. Milligan.” 

You stopped him from leaving with just your voice. 

“Please,” you said, your eyes briefly closing. “Just…call me by my name. My first name.” 

Dean slowly smiled. “Perfect. I like your name better anyway.” 

This time, your smile in return was genuine, if tinged with amusement. 

“Goodnight, Dean,” you replied.

He gave you a charming grin and a more casual soldier’s salute. Then he stuck his hands back in his pockets, turned on his heel, and began to walk back the way he came. You couldn’t help but watch him go for a second or two. His legs were slightly bowed under his slacks, you noticed.

With a blush, you shook your head to rid yourself of those silly thoughts. You closed the door.

That night, Michael came home late, as usual—this time at two in the morning. He reeked of alcohol, also per usual, but this time when he rolled over towards you in bed to say goodnight, you stiffened. He also smelled like a woman’s perfume. Expensive stuff. 

This was one of those signs you hadn’t wanted to tell Sam Winchester. Frankly, it was crude and embarrassing.

“Sorry it’s so late, darling. Got held up,” he said, kissing your shoulder through your nightgown. His fingers played with the ends of your hair while you laid facing away from him.

You squeezed your eyes shut. You were fighting every instinct you had inside you that wanted to recoil from his touch and bolt out of the bed. When just a few months ago, his touch was all you craved, almost desperately so. 

“Where were you?” you asked. Somehow, you kept your voice steady and calm. “You weren’t at the office all this time.”

“Had a couple of drinks with the guys after,” he said with a shrug. “Sorry. The night got away from us, but, uh…I’ll be home on time for dinner tomorrow.”

With your back turned to him, you were able to roll your eyes.

“What’d you make tonight, outta curiosity?” he asked.

“Egg salad sandwiches,” you replied flatly. 

“Hmm. No real loss there then.” 

Your teeth clenched. “If I thought you were actually going to be home when you said you would, maybe I would make a rump roast with all the fixings.” 

Michael paused, but then, he grasped your shoulder, slowly turned you around in the bed until you were facing him. His face was sterner. 

“Excuse me?” 

You remained quiet. Your gaze travelled downwards, avoiding his.

Michael huffed, shaking his head. “Sometimes you got a real mouth on you. One of these days, you just might regret it.” 

He turned his back on you, laying on his side. You did the same while trying to stem your tears.

When did this become your life?

AN: Oof, sorry for all that angst at the end there, but I hope you liked the first chapter! Did you enjoy soldier!Dean and soldier/lawyer!Sam? Do you want to find a dark alley for Michael yet? 😅

And are you ready for what's coming up next? 😘

Next Time:

Dean both could and couldn’t believe it. He might not have been a saint himself when it came to the fairer sex, but if he went through the whole ordeal of marrying one, let alone a straight-shooting woman like you, beautiful, clever…

“Geez,” he muttered. “He could’ve at least waited until the ink dried on the certificate.” 

Sam nodded in agreement. He picked up the receipt to the Cotton Club, and he shot his brother a grin.

“Wanna go to the club tonight?”

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Author’s Note: Little Ghosts! Here we go! I was originally going to post on the 4th because it is fairly significant to the story, but chapter one was ready and I was really excited to share it! Chapter two should be up soon- it’s a lot lighter than this one, which is a bit of a doozy. But things have to get bad before they can get better right? I will also be posting to Wattpad once I get my cover to a place where I am proud of it. Oh! Also, this story will intersect slightly with my latest oneshot, “Who am I?” I’ll add notes for clarification as the story progresses. Confused? So am I! But writing is always as messy as it is fun for me! Hopefully you all will enjoy the mess and have as much fun reading this as I did writing it! Now, let’s give Bordon and Marigold a happy ending- heaven knows, they deserve one! 💖 And… scene!

Draw my eye to center stage

To the little ghost who wears my name…

-Mipso, “Down in the Water”

Chapter One

The Signs

There was a sign hanging in the cafe’s window, left behind from the day before. Boris didn’t have to read it to know what it entailed, he could have guessed it all. Line for line, verbatim. Still, there was something about its presence that stopped him in his tracks. He could have simply stepped inside. The lights were on. The door, propped open wide enough for the rich aroma of espresso and fresh pastries to waltz out onto the street, just like any other day. Perhaps if he saw it one more time in writing, he would find not only acceptance, but permission to move on with his life, along with the rest of the world.

His eyes scanned the message, almost obediently. The first half was painless, “Closed today so our staff can attend…” he collected himself and read on.

The remaining letters stood before her name like a firing squad, solemn and unforgiving. She had cheated death before. Made a career of it, according to some. From the moment they met, standing on a median in traffic, to their final embrace on her front porch, he was fully aware of her resilience. Her aptitude to live loudly and burn brightly in the face of all that haunted her. If anyone should live forever, it would surely be Marigold Casey. If anyone should die young, it would be her, too. No acceptance came. No permission. Only anger. Accompanied by the desperate desire to fire back at each horrible syllable.

It was over now and could never be revoked. The date and hour, the service and the burial all had passed, leaving behind a sequence of memories that he hoped would fade with the passage of time. But those immortal few with no discernible grave of their own, Boris included, can never forget such things.

“She would have hated this,” he grumbled, pulling the door open and stepping into the air conditioned building. All the tables were empty, a rarity for this time of day. “You should take that sign down,” he shouted into the chrome kitchen, “might get more foot traffic with it gone.”

A teenage boy with shaggy brown hair stepped out from the back room. Boris recognized him, but had to take a closer look to confirm. “Double Americano, yeah?” The boy asked, mindlessly punching a series of keys on the register.

“Better make it a triple today. Thanks, Tommy.”

“Done.” He rang it in and got started on the order, almost methodically. Yet another rarity. Tommy Martin was not exactly known for being thorough. “Giselle’s waiting for you on the back patio. You go ahead and I’ll bring it out.”

Boris left a twenty on the counter and told Tommy to keep the change. In hindsight, he felt bad for making the kid work. But he seemed to welcome the distraction. Anger again. Anger spiked with the sour taste of annoyance. “She would have hated this,” he repeated to himself. The thought was still there, but as he made his way through the cafe, it took on a new form. Marigold would not resent Waterford for moving on. She would want Coffee n’ San-tea to open and function as usual. But not like this, drowning in grim silence. She would be pained by those empty tables and seats, the quiet speakers hanging overhead. Pained by the overwhelming sense of hopelessness and defeat. The very antithesis of everything she stood for in life.

To him, she would always be a flower blooming through the darkness, towards a beam of narrow, unobtainable light. It was not enough to crave the sun. She had to embody it, to become it, somehow. She wore bright florals like plate armor. Optimism was her weapon of choice. Because of this, she was the happiest person he ever knew. The loneliest, too. But the happiest, regardless. “Joyful Always”, just as her headstone declared and the comforting eulogy disclosed. At least, it was meant to provide comfort to her loved ones, but it only deepened his pain to learn that her final words were not words at all, but a smile. Such intense devotion must have countered her mortality, right? If it truly was her time, surely she would have only vanished for a while. Vanished without a trace of her existence left behind. Swept away by a sunbeam, faded like starlight at the break of day.

Instead, the evidence of her mortality was all around him. The city she loved seemed to mirror her now. Death staged to resemble sleep. Only yesterday, he touched her cheek and whispered his farewell. All warmth was gone. All softness, too. Cold as marble and smooth as clay, holding only a whisper of color. If only he had touched her more in life, instead of merely admiring that sweetly blushing face. If only…

Like the cafe, the outdoor dining space was a ghost town. Occupied solely by frizzy-haired Giselle Zipp, who was seated at a small, metal table. Her eyes were glazed over and her hands remained motionless on either side of an untouched latte. The only acknowledgement she gave Boris was a single, absurd question, “Have you visited him yet?”

“Who? William? No.” The chair scraped loudly as he dragged it outward, across the concrete ground. “I was going to approach him yesterday, but thought better of it.”

“That isn’t who I meant,” she looked at the ring on his finger. Antiquated silver with a blue stone in the center. Nobody else in town knew how long he had worn it, save for its previous owner. “Henry. Or should I say, ‘John’?”

“I have no interest in combing the cemetery for an unmarked grave. Not after yesterday. I could barely stand in the yard for more than five minutes, hopefully nobody noticed…” he shook his head and breathed in deep, feeling Giselle’s judgmental gaze searing into the side of his face.

“Oh, I noticed. But I wasn’t surprised. You always had a talent for bailing on your friends. Did you even bother speaking to anyone? Anyone at all?”

He crossed his arms and looked at the ground where shadows of the nearby trees, the iron tables and chairs mingled in a dark dance. “I’m afraid you have it all backwards. Only one person bothered to speak to me.” His voice weakened, then snapped like a fragile branch in the wind. It was not the loneliness that caused this reaction, or the bitterness that he had been shown- but the kindness of that one man who sought him out in the chapel when everyone else had departed. “I’ll admit it. I was hiding in there when Pastor Benson found me. He said so, himself. Called it ‘the worst place to hide’. I think I know now what he meant by this.” There it was, the burning sob that Boris had carried in his throat for the better part of a week. He tried to fight it off, but was quickly defeated. Face in hands, he bent over his knees and wept, uncomforted.

Giselle nodded at Tommy, who placed the Americano on the outermost corner of the table and scuttled away. “Stop, Boris. Stop this right now. You know, you really should be ashamed of yourself. We all have it far worse than you do…” she caught a glimpse of the pain in his eyes when he looked up at her and decided, for at least a moment or two, that she had said enough.

“How is William?”

“Worse than me and I’m a damned mess. But nobody has it half as bad as their baby girl. He won’t even look at her. I hardly can, myself. Can you imagine? Barely a week old, without a soul in the world to love you.” She lifted the mug and contemplated taking a sip. “I’m mad, if you can’t tell. Real mad. At William, I think. And at you. But at myself most of all…” Boris started to cry again, but she really didn’t care. “Don’t give me that look, you know what you’ve done. And what you haven’t done, too.”

“No, I know. Trust me, I know. I could have been a better friend to her…”

“Damn straight you could have. I’m actually surprised you came. My best guess is Jake invited you on accident. But I’ve got something for you, anyway- something that Mare wanted me to give you should ‘the unforeseen happen’. Which it did.” She reached into a large, leopard print handbag and pulled out a piece of notebook paper, folded haphazardly down the middle. “Don’t worry, I didn’t snoop. I didn’t have to. I connected the dots a long time ago. She wrote it around the time you noped out of here and she was missing you like crazy. You don’t deserve to read it, but she wanted you to know. Just so there’s no confusion, she did not take these feelings for you to the grave. And if she did… well, then I guess I’d be mad at her, too.”

It felt heavy in his hands, that little piece of paper. The note itself was alarmingly short. Two simple, cursive paragraphs scribbled in fine, red ink. A few lines and words were crossed out here and there. In truth, it didn’t seem like something written by Marigold. He had seen her writing before, longwinded and colorful with flowers doodled in the margins. But the penmanship was hers, as well as the vernacular.

“Should the unforeseen happen…” he pressed the page between his palms, as though in prayer. “She wrote this at the facility, I assume. Long before William arrived in this century. Forgive me for asking, but I must. When did she entrust this note to you? When did she ask you to give it to me in the event of her death?”

“You really are a piece of work, you know that?” Giselle massaged her temples. “Do you remember what you told me, about three weeks before Mare and Henry split? Forth of July, if that rings a bell? You knocked on my door at midnight. I’ve seen grown men cry before, Boris, but never like that. Remember why? Or do I have to remind you?”

“Giselle…”

“No. You can tell me what you had for breakfast on a random Saturday in 1779. It hasn’t even been a decade since that night. Did you really love her?”

“It makes no difference now.” He drank out of the steaming mug. It was piping hot and strong enough to give anyone the jitters after a single sip. “But yes.”

“Just so we’re clear, I don’t blame you for moving back to New York. The ghosting her and screening her calls, especially after learning what was going on… friends don’t do that. If you were scared to talk to her, you could have gone through me, just to wish her well. I’ve been annoyed with you for years, but what makes me furious now is that on top of all this, you haven’t made any efforts to bring her back.” She reached across the table and grabbed hold of his arm, digging her acrylic nails in deep. “Bring her back! I know you can. I know what you are. And the devil you’ve made deals with…”

For most of this uncomfortable conversation, tears notwithstanding, Boris managed to maintain at least some semblance of composure. Now enraged, he forced himself from Giselle’s grip, startling her. Startling himself, too. “Don’t!”

“Don’t what?”

“Mythologize Arthur Tarleton.” Another sip, longer and somehow more scalding than the first. “He is a con man with a stolen name. The only thing setting him apart from the rest is that he cons people like John and I. Besides, I already tried. I broke down his door the other day. I called him last night, begging for answers. For guidance. For anything. Do you want to know the worst part of all? He gave me an answer. Everything else, I pieced together after talking to Pastor Benson.”

“Did you now?”

“Have you ever noticed Arthur never visits this town? He’s terrified of it. Of the power that pulls us apart and brings us together again. He claimed to be the architect of our fate. But there is something divine at work here, Giselle. It is greater than you and I… and certainly… undoubtedly greater than some fraud in New York. We are ghosts on a stage, puppets on a string. Arthur has seen the stage, the players, the tapestry and has held in his hand the very fabric of time. But he is not their creator. Not yours, not mine. It should make me angry, too. God knows, it has in the past. But it is almost encouraging to know this. Calming, in a way. The table we sit at now, this building, the street has been visited by more ghosts than he has encountered in his lifetime. You want Marigold back. I do, too. What if… what if she is here already, standing in the unseen world on the other side of the veil? And all we have to do to be near her again is to stop bickering with one another and listen?”

For five whole seconds, they did just just this. The only sound was the blaring of a horn in the distance and the rumble of an airliner overhead. Then, nothing.

“Well, that was enlightening.” Giselle scoffed, retrieving a mirror from her bag and fixing the smudged mascara in the corner of her eye. “She gave me the note several months ago. When she first started having complications. Henry might have left her, but she always referred to you as ‘the one that got away’. You should have picked up the stupid phone. If anything, to give her closure. You broke her heart. Sure, William picked up the pieces and put them back together as best he could, but broken is broken. Broken is forever. I hope you know that. And that it haunts you for just that long, if not longer…”

With that, she left him to finish his coffee alone. But the silence was far too loud there. The stillness, overwhelming. The bus stop down the street was being rebuilt and the line had been rerouted through Crescent Park, two blocks away. As much as he hated the idea of walking through her old neighborhood, fate seemed to be fighting in its favor. So, he walked. Past the record store and the neighborhood market where he had seen her agonize over calories and pay for meager lunches with hands so trembly she could barely get her card into the chip reader. He saw the treelined street where her former home stood. Still a cheery shade of yellow and lovingly maintained by its new owners, but to Boris it seemed hollow and condemned.

These scenes were torturous. The park, worst of all. Even from a block away, he could see the bench. The one he chose to sit and sober up on, years ago on the Forth of July. Now, it wore a sun bleached scrap of cardboard that displayed the words, “Temporary Bus Stop”. He sighed, backed into yet another corner. Before moving in, however, a vision unlike anything he had ever witnessed before appeared. He could see them perfectly, two figures from the past, seated side by side. Her golden hair was curled and pulled into a high ponytail, bouncing and swaying with every move she made. The dead giveaway for the occasion was her flowery red, white and blue pinup dress and the matching bandana she had fashioned into a headband. For as fun and festive as she appeared, Marigold was anything but happy.

He could see himself, playfully tugging on one of her blonde ringlets and slurring stupidly, “Ding dong! What’s wrong?!”

For a moment, she looked like she was about to chuckle. Instead, she looked away, up into the sky. It must have been alight with fireworks because he could see bursts of colors reflected in her eyes. “I don’t think Henry loves me anymore.”

“Oh,” Boris watched his likeness grapple with this information. Not because he was blindsided by it. If anything, he was the first to see their romance unwind. He did nothing then. Nothing again. “Are you sure? It could just be a bad case of sour grapes!”

“Sour grapes?”

“Yes! It is Independence Day, after all. And the British lost. Pretty abysmally, I might add.”

They shared a laugh, louder than the joke had warranted. It would have gone on longer, if Marigold hadn’t reached for his hand. “I’m so glad we’re friends,” she wrinkled her nose, grinning now, almost like a child. “Wanna know a secret? I always imagined love and marriage would feel more like this.” Boris closed his eyes and suddenly, he was no longer an onlooker. He was there beside her, holding her hand in his. “Friendship,” she continued, “best friendship set on fire.”

“You really are drunk…”

Her eyes were so clear. Full of energy and brightness. Innocent, from a distance. Even when sorrowful, those eyes were never jaded. Now, up close, he saw at last the true nature of her pain. It was not a shadow, but a burning thing. A flame he could still feel the heat from, even now. “May I kiss you?”

“Marigold, you…” he moved closer to her, just as he had back then, without so much as a second thought. “You can do anything you want to me.”

Amusement surfaced in those eyes of hers. Then a sort of tender contemplation. “I’m really not that far gone. Just tipsy enough to be a little braver than usual… and I certainly wasn’t drunk the other night when I saw you in a dream. Would you like to know what I dreamt?” She was closer now than ever before, drowning his senses. “I saw your reflection while standing in a harbor. Charleston, I’m sure of it. Only… I think it was in a time that has long since passed. While we’re on the subject of the American Revolution. You were in uniform. And looked really, really good in red! I turned around and held you and just like this… I wonder why. I wonder what it meant. If it was a memory or a merely a wish. Whatever it was, it was beautiful…”

She kissed him, boldly, but it was also brief. Neither greater nor smaller in its longevity than the life of an unlabored breath. Her lips were warm and soft. He could taste the source of courage on her tongue, bourbon whiskey. A strange deviation from the crisp white wines she preferred. It was short, but sweet. She was never one for small talk. How then could this wordless conversation possibly be any different? It ended on a high point, just as their rhythm was found. They remained close, eyes locked and breathing deeply. The only forces stronger than the desire to continue were the vows and commitments that were keeping them apart.

“You should head home.” He said, lowly. She did not respond. Just sat there, staring softly into his soul. “May I walk you to your door?”

Marigold nodded, but did not move. Not even to blink, not even to breathe. “I’ve never been able to understand why time moves so much faster when you are nearby. I’m sorry…”

He drew her in again. Planning on being the one to kiss her now, but instead cowardice guided his lips to the apple of her cheek. Like yesterday, its warmth evaded him. He was no longer a participant in this scene, but a spectator. “No. It is true,” said his ghost. “There never seems to be enough. Let me walk with you. And I promise we will walk slowly.”

They moved away from him, then rose like vapors above the sidewalk. He had little time to recover. Grief arrived again, a merciless tidal wave. He reached into his coat pocket, finding the piece of paper and clutching it like a talisman. To remain at the bench might have been the responsible thing to do with his bus arriving in under five minutes. Yet, the thought of lingering in that haunted space, saddened him. He made his way into the park, stopping at the highest point of the footbridge that arched over Crescent Lake. There, he opened the letter- the final thread connecting them to one another, to their past and, in the case of this curious tale, their future.