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frickatives · 2 days ago

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[a/n]:: I've had this steddie one-shot fic in my drafts for ages. wasn't sure if I'd ever get around to posting it. but it's 2025 now, and the world is feeling like an especially difficult place, so let's all post our self-indulgent angsty fanfics pls. the steddie is pretty low-key in this one, tbh, it's more pre-steddie angst than anything, but we all deserve to engage in a little wish fulfillment re: eddie at the end of s4, no? I have some ideas for maybe continuing this fic, sooooo we'll see if I can defeat my Serial Fic Abandoner demons~

[warnings/tags]:: steddie, angst, perhaps too much angst, canon-typical gore and violence, bisexual king steve harrington pov, everyone's having a bad time, gratuitous italics, playing fast and loose with a vague understanding of life-saving resuscitation procedures, s4 ending fix-it fic vibes

[wc]:: 3.3k

[ao3]

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Standing on the front porch of a rotting house in a rotting world, staring at the charred patch of not-quite-grass where there should have been a body, Steve Harrington's stomach lurches up into his throat. He struggles to swallow around it.

He saw the bastard fall. Pumped full of buckshot, molotov-fried extra crispy over rice, falling ass-first out of a window to what was supposed to be his death, so goddammit, where is he?

Nancy's staring at the grass, too, heaving terrified breaths with the rest of them, which can't be good. Steve and Robin both glance at her, their leader, their ferocious, fearless, capable, whip-smart Nancy, and the fear plain on her face grabs Steve by the spine and shakes.

Maybe Vecna evaporated, he tells himself. Maybe it's normal that there isn't a body. It isn't like any of them would know; none of them have ever killed an evil wizard, before. Maybe Vecna hit the ground and turned into a million of these little flakes of gross that are always hanging in the air, here. Maybe they kicked Vecna's ass so hard that he's dust, now. A hysterical part of his brain bubbles with the words maybe his ass is grass.

He opens his mouth to say so, even though it's dumb and probably wrong – Steve is usually wrong – and the clock behind them starts chiming.

His stomach does new, awful acrobatics.

They run back into the house, stopping short an arm's length from the grandfather clock, as if it might lash out at them. Four chimes, each one pumping his own chest full of buckshot, because whatever this means, it's probably bad. Robin's hand finds his arm and he clings to her as hard as she clings to him.

The name is out of Nancy's mouth before Steve's brain can put together what's happening: "Max."

She's right. Of course she's right. She's Nancy Wheeler, and she's always beautiful and always right, even when she's breaking Steve's heart.

There's no time for the pain to take root. (They lost Max, they lost Max, they weren't fast enough and Vecna got her and now that sweet-and-sour kid will never terrify him with her temper or her underage driving again–)

The fourth and final chime has hardly stopped echoing in his ears when the house cleaves in two.

The ceiling above them groans and splinters and red-orange hellfire (red-orange like Max, his stupid, useless brain supplies) carves a line down the hallway, moving towards them fast.

"Woah, woah, woah, shit– shit!" he yelps, dragging Robin back towards the door.

Nancy doesn't need dragging; she's jogging backwards with him, sawed-off tucked against her shoulder, eyes not leaving the tearing, ripping, growing split in the world above them, like she expects Vecna himself to reach through it.

God, Steve hopes he doesn't. He hopes Vecna really is dead and that his disgusting, decaying world is falling apart without him.

He hopes that Nancy was wrong (for once) about the clock chiming, and that they did save Max.

Bits of plaster rain down around them. Vines – those slimy, sentient veins of the Upside Down – pry the fissure wider, shredding everything in its path.

They make it out onto the not-lawn and leap out of the way of the destruction as it darts forward and swallows ground where Vecna should have been, and they keep running with everything they have.

It's so loud. The entire world groans and shakes like some great, wounded beast – and, shit, for all Steve knows, the Upside Down is some giant creature that's dying with them inside it. Every monster and vine-vein writhes and screams, like they can feel their world dying, too.

They need to get back to the trailer. They need to climb out of this crumbling hell. Steve clamps his hand around Robin's as they run. Nancy sprints ahead of them, the sawed-off shotgun bouncing against her back.

He will get them out of here.

They run and run and run – Robin runs so weird, why are her feet doing that – and Steve can't feel the burn in his legs that he knows is there. He's still a little oxygen-deprived after being throttled by Vecna's vine-veins, and he has too much panic thumping through his own vine-veins. They don't stop until they're bursting out of the woods and into the trailer park.

Steve's heart stutters. There's another hell-fissure, and it's swallowed half of the Munsons' trailer and cut a jagged path toward the center of town. Nancy looks over her shoulder at him, as if to brace him for the worst.

What if the gate is gone? What if they're trapped here?

Robin almost eats shit when her sneaker slips against something on the ground – the wriggling body of one of those fucking bats Steve can still taste in the back of his throat. He grabs her elbow and heaves her upright, pushing her forward, towards where the trailer used to be. Maybe the gate is still there, in the not-eaten half of the trailer. They have to try.

All around them, the rips in the world continue their rampage. Metal screeches and avalanches of rubble rumble in the distance. The not-grass and slabs of cracked concrete beneath their feet buck hard enough that Steve can hardly keep himself upright.

Robin half-gasps-half-shrieks in his ear and he and Nancy freeze.

"What– What is it? Are you okay?" Steve yells at her over the cacophony, gripping her shoulders, eyes wide, heart pounding, looking down at her weird-running feet for any sign of injury.

She raises a trembling arm and points at something: a lump on the ground a few dozen yards from the trailer, not very large, wearing a ghillie suit.

Steve's heart stops.

His knees threaten to buckle.

"HENDERSON!"

He's off like a sawed-off shot.

He was so stupid, to let the kids out of his sight. He wants to reach through time and slug himself in the mouth for ever complaining about babysitting because this is so much worse. First Max (please, please let her be alive), now this? It would kill him to see any of them here, now, with the underworld falling apart around them, but Dustin?

As he closes the distance, the ground is littered with more and more bats – either dead or dying – and he can hear Dustin crying, which is both a knife through the heart and the biggest goddamn relief Steve has ever felt. At least the kid is alive. A sob lurches up Steve's own throat and he falls to knees beside Henderson and–

That's when he sees Eddie cradled in Dustin's arms.

Bloodied, battered, and motionless.

"Dustin, hey," he says as gently as he can, though he actually wants to start screaming and never stop. "Look at me."

"He– He didn't come back through with me," Dustin chokes out, still staring down at the boy in his lap. The kid's voice wavers with a tearful vibrato that obliterates his usual precociousness and makes him sound exactly as young as he is.

Anger flares somewhere in Steve's gut, beneath the all-consuming fear. He'd told Eddie, hadn't he? He'd given him one simple job– explicitly told him not to be a goddamn hero. They were supposed to be the diversion. They were supposed to be safe.

Steve grabs Dustin's face, probably too roughly, and forces him to look up, away from Eddie.

"We gotta go," he tells him, his voice shaking badly, too.

Nancy and Robin are somewhere behind him now. He hears their footsteps skid to a halt, and another ragged gasp out of Robin, followed by a muffled cry. Nancy murmurs, "Oh, no."

"We can't leave him," Dustin says. His face is streaked with tears and his voice cracks under the combined crushing weights of puberty and desperation.

"We won't." He reaches over and tries to lift Eddie away from the kid, but Dustin pulls him back. Small hands grab ahold of Eddie's collar, refusing to let go. Another knife through Steve's heart.

"I think this is the gate!" Nancy calls from far away. "I think we can make it through." When Steve looks up, she's on the edge of the glowing crevasse, prodding at it with the shotgun. Robin is standing a few yards away, still, her hands buried in her hair and her eyes glued to Dustin. And Eddie.

"Dustin," Steve says, forcing more calm into his voice, "you gotta go with Nancy."

Dustin shakes his head emphatically. "No. No, no, I can't leave him–"

"Robin? Robin!" Steve shouts over his shoulder, and Robin startles out of her horror-borne trance. "Take Henderson and get somewhere safe. I'll be right behind you."

She rushes over and hooks her hands under the kid's arms and hoists him upright, even though Henderson can't seem to put much weight on one of his legs, and even though Robin's arms are about as strong as wet spaghetti on a good day.

"I've got Eddie, alright?" Steve says firmly, looking Dustin in the eye and pushing him away with Robin. "Go."

A stream of soothing sounds is falling out of Robin's mouth rapid-fire, and she's dragging Dustin over towards Nancy, who's got one leg fully inside the fracture in the world, and, hell, the world is probably ending any second now, but all of that falls away when Steve looks back down at Eddie's face.

Big, hickory-brown eyes stare skyward, unfocused. Blood is smeared across the pale skin of his cheek and collected in the corners of his mouth. His chest isn't moving.

Steve's never seen a dead person, before.

He'd been there when Billy died, yes, but he hadn't seen it. Hell, he'd flat-out refused to look inside the open coffin at his grandmother's funeral when he was a kid. But here was Eddie– or, the absence of Eddie, where Eddie should have been. A terrible, wretched vacancy.

It doesn't feel real. Eddie is right here. Steve can reach out and touch him– he does reach out and touch him, laying an uncertain hand on his shoulder. Eddie doesn't swat his hand away. Eddie's dimples don't appear on either side of his bloody mouth and he doesn't say something snarky and flirtatious that makes Steve feel simultaneously annoyed, flustered, and confused. Eddie doesn't so much as blink.

He's so… still.

Steve's heard people in the past describe death as something peaceful, but the look on Eddie's face–

He looks scared.

Steve thinks he might throw up.

He presses his fingers against Eddie's throat, searching for a pulse that he knows isn't there. Eddie's still warm. Blood dribbles out of his mouth and oozes out of a gnarled lash across his neck (it matches the one that crisscrosses Steve's neck, those fucking bats). His stupid leather jacket is shredded. His stupid Hellfire Club shirt is similarly tattered and soaked through with red.

Steve wonders how long he's been– if he– had he gone in front of Dustin? A fresh wave of anger licks at his throat. Son of a bitch, can't even listen to simple goddamn instructions–

He remembers the last thing Eddie said to him with a sharp pang: "Hey, Steve? Make him pay."

Steve had nodded. Eddie had nodded, too. It was a promise.

And Steve Harrington, King Steve, captain of the basketball team, and captain of the swim team, and ice cream slinger, and video rental wrangler, and monster fighter, and lifeguard for a few summers, and secret Russian base infiltrator some other summers, and lapsed babysitter– he's failed to keep it.

He's failed so many people, tonight. He couldn't stop Vecna, didn't make him pay. He couldn't help Max, or undo whatever Dustin saw. Everything he was wasn't enough.

Nancy was right (she always was); he was bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

The world around them growls again, and Steve looks down at another person he's failed to protect, and he thinks, Fuck this.

He has to try.

Moving quickly, he laces his fingers, locks his elbows, places his stacked palms in the center of Eddie's still-warm chest, and presses down hard. He sings Dancing Queen under his breath, out of tune, timing his compressions to the beat (something he learned in lifeguard training). He dares Eddie to wake up and tell him how much he hates the song.

Blood spurts out of a wound in Eddie's side and soaks the knee of Steve's jeans with coppery warmth.

"Shit, shit, fuck," Steve hisses into a few more compressions, before he stops and gently tilts Eddie's head to open his airway, one hand against his still-warm forehead, one hand gripping his chin. He leans over and checks for breath sounds. Nothing.

He pinches Eddie's nose shut and presses his mouth over Eddie's, trying not to think about how much blood floods his own mouth. He breathes once, twice. Eddie's chest rises weakly each time. That's good, that's– It's good.

He starts the cycle again.

"You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life…"

Red lightning streaks across the sky and Steve flinches. The ground shakes more violently, like the whole place is threatening to give up the ghost and fall away beneath them. Part of him wishes it would, to save him the embarrassment of failing again.

"Come on, Munson."

Open airway, check for breath, pinch nose, breathe, breathe.

"Friday night and the lights are low…"

He does it again, and again. Still nothing.

"Come on, come on, come on," Steve begs. "Please."

The quakes crescendo more and more, until Steve is practically shouting lyrics over them–

It sounds like a bomb goes off miles away, and a shockwave slams him in the chest. Steve throws his arms over his head and his body over Eddie's, shuddering with fresh adrenaline. He squeezes his eyes shut.

Everything around them falls silent. The ground under his knees settles. His ears ring with the absence of it all.

He must have waited too long to leave. He can't make himself look. Surely the gates are gone. Surely that explosion was his way home being blown to smithereens. Part of him is glad Eddie didn't come back to this– trapped in the underworld with someone he despises? He'd probably ask Steve to re-kill him, and Steve would probably fuck that up, too.

He's so screwed. Everything is so completely screwed and he screwed up so much of it himself, and it's probably good that he's probably trapped here, now. He probably deserves it.

Something jolts beneath him and then–

Eddie Munson coughs a mouthful of blood directly into Steve's face.

"What– Oh! Oh, shit!" Steve scrambles to shift his weight off of Eddie's chest as the other boy draws a clotted, strangled breath and chokes on it. Steve grabs him by the less-bat-bitten shoulder and hauls him onto his side. The other boy's ring-bedecked fingers brush against his arm, making weak attempts at grabbing him back.

Eddie whimpers and groans, spitting and drooling more blood out of his mouth and nose. He coughs again, and it's the most gorgeous sound Steve's ever heard.

Steve grins, even with a face and mouth full of Eddie Munson's stupid blood.

Eddie looks up at him, panting, and his eyes go wide when they finally focus on Steve's face. "H– Harrington?" He's almost voiceless. Not just hoarse, but struggling to make any sound at all.

"Yeah," Steve says, still smiling like a fool. He feels drunk. Eddie's breaths are all distinctly shallow, fast, and wet, but they're there, and they keep coming, which hadn't felt possible a moment before. The overwhelming, sudden joy is a massive head rush.

Eddie looks confused, and wracked with pain, and he squints at Steve and asks, "Did you die, too?" His tongue seems to tangle with each syllable.

That trips Steve out of his daze. His smile falters. Trapped in the Upside Down, his brain reminds him. "You're not dead, Munson," he says.

Steve looks up, then, and scans their surroundings. The red-orange ravine still yawns open not too far away, which slaps him across the face with relief and chases it quickly with dread.

They can get home, thank fuck, but what had all of this done to their Hawkins? Had it been similarly torn open by nightmare super-gates? Is there this much destruction on their side? Steve's stomach clenches.

The hellfire-filled crack that begins in the middle of Eddie's trailer stretches off into the distance, as far as Steve can see. If these fissures were like the gates– if they'd appeared in Hawkins, too– they're twenty or thirty feet wide, in some places. Big enough to swallow cars, houses. People.

Something like this… It would kill a lot of people.

"Hurts," Eddie gasps.

Steve's attention snaps back to him. "What hurts?" he asks.

Eddie manages an especially-wet, "Everything. F-feels like a– fucking– elephant– sat on my– chest." He fights for air between every couple of words, but never draws in very much.

"Yeah, well," Steve says, easing Eddie up to sitting and sliding an arm under his knees, "you had to go and stop breathing, like an asshole." He hefts the taller, ganglier boy up into his arms and staggers up to his feet. Eddie ought to feel heavier, he thinks. Maybe this is one of those moms-lifting-cars-off-kids things.

"Seemed like– the thing– to do," Eddie pants. His eyes flutter closed and his head lolls backwards, curly hair brushing against Steve's arm.

"Hey," Steve snaps. "Eddie."

Eddie groans. Still alive. Steve releases his captive breath.

Steve walks them over to the tear in the not-earth, where Nancy had been. He expects it to be warm – it glows like lava – but the air around them is freezing. It reeks of ammonia and decay. He tucks Eddie a little closer to his chest.

And then Steve hesitates, staring down at the maw in the ground.

He should just go through. Quickly. Eddie needs medical attention way beyond the skill of a sometimes-summer-lifeguard. Shit, Steve probably does, too.

But…

What about Max? What about Dustin, and Robin, and Nance? What about everyone else? What about his parents? What if this didn't just happen in Hawkins, but happened everywhere? What if the whole apocalypse happened without him?

As long as he stays in this universe, he doesn't have to know how badly he hurt his own. He can pretend the damage is limited to this shithole, and that everyone on the other side is blissfully unaware. It's like that thing Henderson tried explaining that one time– Schlongdinger's Box, or whatever. If he stays here, there's nobody around to disappoint besides Eddie, whose opinion of him is already so low that it would be impossible to drag it lower.

"Steve?" Eddie wheezes, oblivious to the turmoil happening inches away from his face.

"Yeah?"

Munson hesitates, too. "Were you– singing– ABBA?"

That startles a huffed almost-laugh out of Steve's tight chest. He rolls his eyes. "I don't wanna hear it, man. ABBA saved your goddamn life."

Eddie squints up at him and starts telling Steve (slowly and quietly, as he grapples with his halting lungs) that he'd never besmirch (besmirch? what a dork) the good name of ABBA, he's not a monster, he was just curious why Steve's rendition had been in so many different keys is all (unbelievably rude), and even though Steve can hear the fear in Eddie's voice, and he knows Eddie's only talking about ABBA because the alternative is to freak out, something clicks into place in Steve's head:

He wants to have a million more inconsequential conversations, like this one, with the people he cares about.

Even the ones who might despise him a little.

Even if the apocalypse happened on the other side, and even if people he loves are hurt, and even if Steve Harrington is bullshit, he has to try to do what he can to help.

He holds Eddie a little tighter. He informs him that he actually sang it totally normal, thanks, and gingerly, he maneuvers them both down through the gate and back into Hawkins.

#steddie #steddie fic #steve x eddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #my fics #steddie fanfiction

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misettemisette · 3 days ago

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Chapter 5 ➺ Valleys and Peaks

Starting over In Madrid

Summary: After moving to Madrid as Real Madrid's new photographer, Nicky can’t seem to take her eyes off the pretty face Misa Rodríguez. But how will she handle her growing desire for the Canarian goalkeeper when her contract strictly forbids dating players? WC: 3K words TW: very suggestive PS: French writer Chapter 1 ➺ A harder job than I thought Chapter 2 ➺ Clearly on a bad slope Chapter 3 ➺ Calmly panicking Chapter 4 ➺ Hell Clásico

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧

I was already lying in bed when I got Misa’s text. My pillow was wet and stained with tears mixed with smeared makeup. The bed sheets were a mess from all the tossing and turning as I tried and failed to find a comfortable position. I had planned to take the time to really reflect on what had happened, but the calm introspection I hoped for never came. Instead, I was overwhelmed by an uncontrollable urge to let go, to release the emotions I’d been bottling up for nearly four months.

So, I cried.

I cried because I didn’t want to feel empty anymore. When I arrived at the Ciudad on my first day, I was still shattered from my previous relationship. My ex had dumped me as if our three years together meant nothing, leaving me to pick up the broken pieces of my self-esteem. But when I looked at Misa that day, something inside me shifted for the first time in months. That feeling had only grown stronger, filling the void within me, even as I constantly reminded myself it was wrong to feel this way.

So, I cried.

I also cried because I wanted Misa so badly it physically hurt. My entire being ached for her in a way I had never experienced before. My heart had soared when I realized Misa felt the same way, though I could hardly believe it. How could someone like her possibly desire someone like me? Yet, she did. Yet, it couldn’t happened. And, so it hurt. Very much.

“Nicky where are you? I thought you’d wait for me 😞”

Seeing Misa’s message made fresh tears spill over. I had done it, I had finally hurt her.

After we kissed and she returned to the pitch, the euphoria I’d felt was quickly replaced by a suffocating storm of guilt. I’d been weak, letting her believe there could be something between us, letting her know how much I wanted it to happen myself. And then I ran. I told my boss I felt sick to skip the post-match events. I hurriedly packed up my things and slipped away without telling anyone else.

Now, reading her message, my heart sank deeper. What could I possibly say to her?

“I had to pack my work stuff. Sorry, I’m home,” I replied, sobbing more.

A few seconds later, I received, “I don’t understand…” followed by “In fact I guess I do. Adios.”

I spent the rest of the night crying over those words.

***

Days off after the Clásico passed, and I was back at work. Misa and I were no longer speaking. She ignored me during every training session. Hayley was doing the same, which led me to assume Misa had told her everything. There were no more photo lessons or endless chatting. The job I had once loved so much felt bland without friends, especially now that I had lost them.

And I knew I deserved it, just as much as Misa deserved an explanation. I was preparing myself to give her one. Of course, deep down, I hoped our friendship could return, but it was first and foremost because I had hurt her, and she had no idea why I had acted the way I did. Maybe it was also because I couldn’t bear the way she avoided my gaze at the start of each training session. Her cold indifference felt worst than a punch to the stomach. I found myself craving to talk to her, waiting for the right moment to confront her. But the goalie was never alone, or she made sure she wasn’t, every time I was near.

Weeks passed, with guilt and loneliness weighing on me more and more each day. Angela couldn’t do much from afar, though talking to her for hours on the phone helped ease my frustration a little. On the other hand, I avoided most calls from my parents, unwilling to tell them about Misa. My mom in particular, had a gift for reading my mood from a simple hello, and I had no intention of letting her know how my attraction to the Canarian goalkeeper was making my life in Madrid far more complicated than I had ever intended.

***

Spring had arrived when the opportunity to tell Misa the truth finally presented itself, or should I say, when telling her the truth became absolutely essential. It happened during a commercial photoshoot for a new sportswear collection. Naturally, Misa had been chosen as the model. I had dreaded the prospect of directing her without having managed to speak with her beforehand, and I had been right to…

The set was a gym corner with a bright blue bench and a few exercise items. As usual, I was assisting the main photographer and his lighting team. Misa arrived on set, her face a mask of unreadable emotion. Her brows were subtly furrowed, and she avoided my gaze, as usual now. She wore the featured sportswear, a neon orange sports bra paired with matching shorts, knee socks, and white sneakers. Predictably, she looked incredibly hot.

She sat on the bench, elbows resting on her knees, waiting for pose instructions.

“Um, straighten up… turn a bit to the left and… look at the camera,” I stammered.

Misa shifted into the pose with deliberate slowness. Her eyes met mine, and she didn’t look away. My cheeks burned. Her almond-shaped eyes were filled with emotions she was barely containing: hurt, longing, sadness…the mix showing her evident confusion. I swallowed hard. After a moment, she pursed her lips and glanced toward the camera.

“Okay. Stand up, put your hands on your waist, turn your back to us, and look over your shoulder”

Misa rose gracefully, turning her back to us. The muscles of her tanned shoulders caught the grazing light from the spots. She flexed her arms, resting her hands on her waist, where her so-tight shorts clung to her figure. Her long legs were slightly spread to give her a steady presence while her underexposed profile detached nicely against the background. She was so stunning I couldn’t do anything but stare, heat rising to my face and other unmentionable places.

“Nicky, adjust her hair. We need to see the bra properly,” the photographer instructed.

I unfroze and stepped forward, each step incredibly slow. As I approached, Misa held her pose, her expression unchanged. Our eyes met again, and I noticed her slight frown as she took a deep breath. I bit my lips nervously. Touching her felt like crossing another forbidden line. Her soft, sweet perfume reached me as my fingertips brushed the skin of her neck and I ran my hands gently across her shoulders, gathering her hair to one side. She stiffened and muttered something in Spanish under her breath.

I tucked a stray strand behind her ear, and she rolled her eyes, her frustration evident. My face burned, partly from embarrassment and partly from the intense heat of the spotlights. I retreated to my spot beside the photographer. He snapped a few shots and seemed satisfied, so I moved on to the next pose.

“Face us. Hold the ball in your right hand, let your left hand hang naturally, and look at the camera,” I said.

The photographer interjected, “Not straight at the camera, it’ll look too forced. Have her look slightly to the right, at you, actually.”

I closed my eyes. For real? I heard Misa stifle a sneer, indicating she had caught the corrected indications. When I opened my eyes, she was staring directly at me, her gaze intense, her fading sneer still on her lips.

“Nah, it’s not working,” the photographer muttered. “She looks like she’s about to murder someone. Tell her to smile more naturally.”

If Misa heard him, she didn’t show it. Her expression hardened even further.

“Uh… can you smile, please?” I asked awkwardly, my voice barely above a whisper.

Misa’s chest rose and fell as she took deep, controlled breaths.

“What’s…”the photographer started.

“Tengo que salir!” she shouted suddenly, dropping the ball on the floor. It rolled toward us but didn’t hit anything by some miracle. She stormed off, slamming the door to the back room behind her. A heavy silence hung in the air. Finally, the photographer broke it.

“What’s her problem? That was completely unprofessional! I’m reporting this.”

“Calm down,” I replied quickly. “She’s not at her best right now. I’ll go talk to her.”

I timidly opened the door of the changing room. Misa was putting on a jumper, the promoted kit laying on the floor. She froze when she saw me but went back at gathering her stuff without a word and I closed the door behind me.

“Misa… wait please, I… I have to talk to you…”

“About what? No necesitamos hablar”, she coldly reply while tiding her shoes.

“I know you were upset because of me, I…”

“Oh, I wasn’t just upset because of you! But you sure did put the cherry on the cake that evening!”

My heart sank again, I tried to gather my courage. “There is something that you don’t know, something I should have told you a long time ago. Please, let me explain!” I twisted my hands nervously.

The brunette looked up, her hands on her laps, her glance icy. “Vale, te escucho.”

“Not here, I can’t! Wait for me in my office. I have to finish the photoshoot, just give me ten minutes!” My eyes stung as she narrowed hers at me. “Please, Misa!” I begged.

She looked down and sighted. “Vale”, she said, standing up and slinging her bag over her shoulder.

“Will you really be there?” I urged her, unsure of her response.

“Te dije que si!” she shouted as she walked out the door without looking back.

I exhaled in relief, still shaken. Angry Misa was truly intimidating.

When I entered my office, I found the goalkeeper sitting in my chair, looking at her phone. My computer was on, displaying a photo of Hayley, Misa and me sitting on the grass in our favorite corner of the pitch, the three of us laughing hard. I ignored the prickling in my eyes. I had a job to get done.

Misa’s gaze followed me as I rummaged through the drawers of my desk. I pulled out a folder, opened it, and retrieved a stack of papers clipped together. Grabbing a second chair, I placed it in front of her and sat down. I flipped through the pages until I found the right section and began to read.

“Employment contract. Clause number 23. To prevent any conflict, the employee agrees not to engage in any form of personal relationship with Real Madrid team members. This clause applies to the current players and staff as well as any future players and staff. In the event of a breach of this clause, Real Madrid reserves the right to terminate the employment contract immediately, including any associated work visa or housing provided by the organization. Real Madrid will not offer assistance with any further administrative procedures for the former employee.”

I set the paper aside and looked at Misa, her face a mix of astonishment and heartbreak. “I’m sorry… I wish so… so badly it could be different.”

Misa leaned back in her chair, rubbing her hands across her face before letting out a forced laugh. "No lo creo! Que pasa en este puto club..?" She blinked and sighed. "Well, that does explain things…”

“I should have told you after the Clásico but…”

“Shh, Nicky please don’t, it’s done”, she said, leaning towards me. Sadness lingered in her eyes now as she glanced at the photo of us on the screen. “I just wish I could rewind and go back to that moment. La Copa de la Reina was still up for grabs… we were having fun together."

My eyes stung again. "We were. I miss you guys…"

"And what am I going to do without my awful teacher ?” Misa added softly, a small chuckle escaping her lips. “Maybe we could go back at being friends?” Her warm gaze shone with hope.

I looked at her fondly, my eyes tracing her face, from her dark brown eyes under thick eyebrows, to her cute nose, and to the dimples framing her smiling lips.

“Every time you look at me like that, I can only think of how much I want to kiss you Misa," I confessed.

She smirked shyly, her cheeks flushing as she closed her eyes for a moment before locking them with mine once more. "Only kiss me ?" she dared to ask.

I gasped at the thought of her body pressed against mine. “Not a chance” I whispered, leaning toward her. Our hands brushed on our lap and without thinking, we intertwined our fingers. Our breathing quickened as our lips parted slightly. Our faces drew closer and closer. “What are we doing?” I vainly asked, my nose grazing hers.

“Nonsense,” she breathed, her lips hovering just over mine.

“I’m doomed then,” I confessed, before crashing my lips against hers.

I kissed her intensely, feeling an odd sense of freedom for the first time. We both knew the trouble we were in, but neither of us could stop. Her tongue brushed my lips, and I opened them, letting her in. I couldn’t suppress a whine, felt a quick worry about being overheard, before I sank back into the kiss.

Misa gripped my neck, making me so needy for more I stood up, leaving my chair, and straddled her. I enveloped her lips with mine again, pushing her against the back of the chair, my tongue pushing deeper into her mouth. Her deep breaths stirred me, and I barely stopped myself from crying out, the last of my restraint holding me back. Misa slid her hands under my t-shirt, caressing my back with her large palms, making my head spin. I buried my fingers in her hair, and she kissed me harder, soft whimpers escaping from her.

She pulled my t-shirt up, revealing my chest in my bra. The beautiful woman stopped kissing me, pulling me closer, and making me straighten up so her face pressed against my breast. I bit my tongue hard, trying not to moan as she kissed the soft skin there. I was nearly panting, my hands and face buried in her hair, intoxicating myself with her scent and touch.

Then, three knocks echoed on the door.

We froze. I jumped off her in panic, pulling down my t-shirt as I scrambled back into my chair. Misa quickly ran her fingers through her hair, trying to flatten it, just as the door swung open.

Ana entered, a stack of folders in her arms. She didn’t bother closing the door behind her.

“Hola, Nicky. Ah! I see Miss Rodríguez is here. Did you call her in to discuss her unacceptable behavior at the photoshoot?"

Misa scratched her nose, her hand conveniently covering her mouth. I was sure she was hiding a smirk by pretending to be embarrassed.

"Yes," I replied, perfectly happy with the made-up explanation of her presence in my office.

“And did she reprimand you severely?” she asked, turning her attention to Misa.

Misa managed to compose a serious face, thought I caught the corner of her mouth twitching twice. “She did. I apologize for my lack of professionalism. I wasn’t feeling myself. I assure you it won’t happen again.”

“Good. Consider it over, but keep in mind I expect better composure under pressure from a professional athlete, Miss Rodríguez.”

I saw Misa sink a bit in her chair before she slowly nodded. Ana turned back to me “Nicky I have a lot of things to go over with you.”

The goalkeeper stood up. “I’ll leave you then”, she said and Ana took her seat.

“Yes, thank you, Misa. Now, Nicky, let’s start with the most urgent matter: the trip to Paris next month for the Nations League…”

I tried hard to focus, but all I could think about was how wet I felt down there.

***

“Hey Misa” I said, calling her from my tiny kitchen later that day.

“Hola Nicky, cómo estás?” her sweet voice sounded even softer through the phone.

“Estoy bien y tú?"

"Bueno. What’s up? Did your boss figure something out?"

"No, not at all, don’t worry! I… well… we were interrupted earlier, ahah… and I thought we should talk about what comes next…” I began pacing back and forth in the small room.

“Sí, pero… I don’t know… I don’t risk much myself but I don’t want you to loose everything because of me… We were pretty close of getting caught”.

“You are probably right…” I sighed. “But how do we fix things now? We’re not exactly behaving like friends do…”

She laughed. “Exacto. Right.” She paused, and I stopped pacing to gulp a glass of water. “Look Nicky, I say we wait until after Paris. I need to focus. It’s not against you but I don’t think I should be distracted by anything else right now. It’ll be a tough game against PSG, I have to work harder. I don’t want another Clásico…”

“I understand. Don’t be too hard on yourself though. You did your best!”

“I didn’t manage to save any penalties… not one out of five.”

“You know better than me it’s the hardest job for goalkeepers."

"But I want to be the best goalkeeper, the one that can stop them, the one that can make my team win."

I bit my lip, Misa was putting so much pressure on herself. At the same time, hearing her so passionate moved me. "You will be, I believe in you."

There was another pause “I’m glad we’re talking again, Nicky”

“Me too, Misa. Friend or more, I’m here for you if you need me."

"Muchas gracias, I’ll see you tomorrow at training."

"Bye.”

I hung up and gazed at the pink sky of Madrid through the narrow window of my kitchen. I didn’t know where Misa and I were going. I didn’t want to think about it for now. I was just too content to have earned back her trust after the valleys and peaks we’d been through. I took another sip of water, already feeling impatient to see her practice tomorrow, to watch her work toward being the best goalkeeper she could be.

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧

#misa rodriguez #misa rodriguez x reader #spwnt #woso #woso community #woso fanfics #woso x reader #real madrid feminino #woso imagine #woso soccer #writters on tumblr #woso writers #spanish goalkeeper #slow burn #long fic #misa rodriguez fanfic #woso x y/n #woso x oc

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paigelts05 · 3 days ago

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Theren Schmidt [FNAF 3, Renegade AU]

Published: Feb 2, 2025

https://www.deviantart.com/paigelts05/art/1154465305

Theren has always lived a stones throw away from danger. Her decision to be a security guard at Phoenix Douglas's Fazbear's Fright was rather logical for her.

When Theren was a baby, she was orphaned during one of Fazbear Entertainment's Missing Persons Incidents: one location targeted parents as opposed to children, and both of Theren's parents were among the lost. She wound up growing up in foster care in foster care until she was four, when she was adopted by a young couple: Mike Schmitt and Danielle Peirson.

Her home life was relatively stable, aside from the fact that after Mike started working at Freddy's, he'd frequently come home injured. One week, he didn't come home at all because he got kidnapped, and then not too long after he was saved, he didn't come home again because he'd been rushed to his sister's medical clinic because both of legs had been broken.

After that, things became slightly more stable, even though her parents sometimes vanished for days at a time for the sake of investigations. Sometimes, Mike would go missing, other times it was Danielle. Sometimes she'd have to stay with Fritz or PT as both of her parents would be off investigating some dangerous Faz Ent facilities. This was normal for her, but given that they'd tell her all about it after, she didn't mind.

And then when she was a teenager, Fazbear Entertainment forced her dad to run away for far longer than he'd ever gone missing for before: they sent a bunch of advanced animatronics to try and wipe out the loose ends that posed the largest threat to Faz Ent, and those loose ends happened to be Theren's dad and his friends. Fortunately, a detective named Audrey had phoned Danielle and had come up with a plan. Unfortunately, that plan was for Mike, Krasnyy, Jeremy, and Fritz to all run away.

With Mike, Krasnyy, and Jeremy all being investigators of some denomination, and Fritz knowing way too much as-is, the reason for Audrey only getting those four men to run away was obvious: concentrate the most valuable loose ends in one place to increase the chances of drawing all of the new killer animatronics into one place. Whilst Audrey did only imply her plans, inferring it was second nature to the ex-guards.

Being a teenager, Theren had been told precisely what was going on. Being a teenager, Theren was angry that her dad would be running off again. Being the child of someone who was almost killed by Fazbear Entertainment, she knew that her dad was only running away in order to keep those who had worked at Freddy's location C safe, and to keep those who knew those ex-employees safe.

She knew that her dad was protecting her.

She was so glad that she didn't watch the news the morning after her dad and his friends had left to follow Audrey's killer robot containment plan.

She was so glad that the first she heard of her dad being reported as dead was from her dad telling her as much over a video call that was facilitated by the tiny catgirl robots that PT and Fritz had put together for encrypted communications. He told her the full story: one of the killer robots had boarded the train and killed the conductor (whom was the only other person on board) during a power outage. The animatronic had then attempted to board the train carriage that he was in, and Jeremy had shot the animatronic in order to stun it. That Jeremy had busted open a window and that after escaping from the now stopped train, a Fazbear Entertainment freight train had crashed into the now abandoned passenger train. That the news had reported all five people on the train as dead despite the only body that was found being that of the unfortunate conductor.

Theren had to pretend that her dad was dead.

She wasn't alone in this though.

Everyone back at home would have to keep up the act. Whilst insisting that the presumed dead ex-guards were merely MIA managed to get them so far, having to pretend that her dad had actually hit the point of no return was terrifying.

At least he kept up the voice calls when he could.

Through these, Theren learned about the warehouse incident, as well as the later entrapreneur incident. Whilst Audrey had managed to use a first restaurant and false identity to get the lay of the land, Mike had informed Theren that Audery's second shot almost resulted in the lady detective's own death, as whilst she was able to trap all of the killer robots that Faz Ent had sent after the guards, she'd also collected some scrap animatronics from location Zero along the way. These 'guests of honour' had been what Henry Emily had set up the entrepreneur kit to find and put to the torch, and Audery had only narrowly escaped. Mike also explained how he and the others that Audery had employed had managed to evacuate the restaurant before it could collapse.

With the killer robots gone and her dad able to come home once more, things finally settled down, for real this time, and the frequency of the investigations that took her parents away from home for days at a time decreased. But they never stopped: Faz Ent was always clawing their way back into the world, and her parents and their many allies were always there to curb the effects of whatever murder machines they'd make next.

The next major incidents occurred when Theren was an adult: Fazbear Entertainment was trying to revive its brand via a cover up operation that came in the form of a VR game, code named 'Help Wanted', and as a countermeasure, Phoenix Douglas was attempting to create a 'museum' that would inform the public about the atrocities commited by Faz Ent through the guise of a horror attraction.

After finding out about Phoenix's plan, Theren wanted in. She knew that the plan had two parts: part one was to expose the truth of Fazbear Entertainment to the public, and part two was to reunite people with the ghosts of their loved ones that had been trapped within the walls of Freddy's restaurants. She wanted to do whatever she could to help, and given that Phoenix was already burning the candle at both ends, she insisted on taking the night shift.

Her first night was rather uneventful, but it got her acquainted with the place, and some of the resident spirits that Phoenix had already gathered. She also found that some of the vents that allowed air from outside to enter the establishment seemed to be prone to jamming. Unlike the large vent that she could probably crawl through that let air come from the office to the rest of the building, this was a small vent that was high up on the wall, so reaching it was a pain, bit she did find that the vent could be reopened by resetting the ventilation.

Her second night was when things got interesting. Phoenix had managed to locate Vincent Taylor - whom Theren had last seen in a video call back during the entrapreneur incident - and Vincent was more than happy to help with Phoenix's plan in exchange for the use of cleaning facilities and a negligible fee. Theren was pumped to see her uncle again: at this point, it had been over ten years since she'd seen him in that video call, and whilst he honestly looked worse for wear, that was to be expected when he'd just spent the past few years in Location C's safe room, completely off his own volition (a far cry from what others in his role would do in his position, given that location C was the only Freddy's where the safe room was never actually sealed but merely concealed behind a hidden door).

Vincent had also brought over some other ghosts with him too: a group of ghosts that Phoenix apparently had a hard time seeing. Call it what you will, but Theren was pretty well acclimated to ghosts, so she had no trouble spotting Ryley - who appeared to take the form of a phantom that resembled Foxy - and the others. There was one ghost that Phoenix could see, curiously enough, and he always called them 'Dr Ophelia Harper'; apparently Ophelia had worked with Phoenix's dad back in the 80's, and that was how Phoenix was already familiar with this ghost that appeared to be a phantom form of the Mangle.

The first hour of her shift was great! She was able to talk to the ghosts about their lives, as well as about the renovations to the attraction that Vincent had directed that honestly made the place look way more authentic.

And then Vincent seemed to have a migraine. Theren tried to see what was wrong, and Vincent could only tell her that there was this high-pitched buzzing noise, and that it felt like something was puppeting his body. He insisted that she stayed away - insisted that she kept him away from her and the security office - before fleeing to the opposite end of the horror attraction. The phantoms also seemed to be getting more and more mentally out of it, and their presence seemed to be screwing with the systems, so they fled to the corners of the horror attraction too.

When Phoenix called, he was so happy about his findings. When Theren told him about the migraine that Vincent had just had and how he was acting differently now, she heard Phoenix panic before she heard the sound of something crashing to the ground on the other end of the phone. Had Phoenix just passed out? Probably. Was she going to have to survive her uncle and friends who were likely being mind controlled? Yes.

The night was rough, and she had several close calls, but she was always able to use audio lures and was able to keep the correct vents sealed to keep Vincent from getting to the office.

When the morning came, Vincent was incredibly apologetic: as he'd managed to claw some control back, he figured that he should have done more to fight it. Theren let him know that what he did - which was 'just' making sure that the entity puppeting his body couldn't move as fast as it wanted to - was more than enough. She told him that he knew that if it was able to keep taking over, it'd probably become harder to beat, so him being able to just keep the entity slowed was a huge help, as it helped her devise strategies that she'd be able to learn and employ if or when the entity took control again.

When Phoenix showed up, Theren briefed him on what happened that night, and the trio (plus the phantoms) begun to try and find the source of the buzzing noise that caused Vincent to be forced into the back seat of the robot he possessed.

The search came up empty.

Even though the search came up empty, nobody gave up. Each night, Theren would survive the entity that was puppeting Vincent's body, and each day, they'd search for the source of the buzzing sound that seemed to facilitate this control.

However, on her sixth night, as the minutes ticked closer and closer to six, she smelled the tell-tale stench of petrol. The stench had come out of nowhere, and when she looked at the external vent, she saw a puddle below it.

Both of her options went against her better judgement: stay in the office and risk someone outside setting the building on fire with her at ground zero, or chance whatever was controlling Vincent in hopes of getting to one of the two doors that lead out of the building.

She smelled smoke before she could move, and the fire spread faster than she could run. The last things she could recall about that night was the fire causing the rafters to come down, one of them hitting her square in the back and knocking her down, then something picking her up and carrying her out of the burning building.

She only woke up later that evening, long after the morning news had reported the fire as a likely electrical fault. But Theren knew that it was arson.

Whilst Phoenix was going through with the auction plan as a front in order to reunite ghosts with their families, Theren was under the care of her auntie, Dr May Schmidt. Theren's injuries were primarily localised to where the burning rafter hit her in the back, with only a few minor injuries elsewhere, so whilst her recovery would be far from quick, Theren just felt lucky that the damage was so minor compared to what it could have been.

After she got out of hospital, she'd found that Phoenix had made plans to open up a more formal memorial museum in order to expose the truths behind Fazbear Entertainment.

With this formal museum being way more up to code with better defences against arson, Theren took the job of security guard again. After all, she liked talking to all the wayward souls that had found their way out of Freddy's on the backs of the artefacts that Phoenix salvaged, and even with all of the ghosts that Phoenix had found so far being reunited with their folks, there always seemed to be more ghosts.

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megamindsupremacy · 4 months ago

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Drifting Stars headcanon where Mabel and Ford use the "we're father/daughter" story so often to avoid suspicion that Mabel calls him "Dad" instead of "Grunkle Ford" now.

Ford has a reasonable amount of emotions about this and does not nearly cry the first time Mabel calls him "Dad" outside of lying to people.

#mads posts #drifting stars #drifting stars AU #mabel pines #ford pines #stanford pines #gravity falls #gravity falls au #listen i have a lot of emotions about drifting stars AU #specifically how mabel and ford interact after getting out of the portal #i want them to be so intensely close with one another in a way neither of them never really realized when they were constantly running for #their lives #mabel can't sleep without her crossbow in hand and ford within 10 feet of her #ford panics whenever he loses sight of mabel for more than 30 seconds #dipper gives mabel her old knitting needles back and she gets halfway through sharpening the points before she remembers not everything has #to be a weapon anymore #dipper and stan drifting further from each other while trying to get their twins back from the portal #because dipper blames stan and stan blames himself and neither of them want to breach that gap #versus ford and mabel becoming insanely close while in the portal because they had to rely on each other for EVERYTHING #and when ford and mabel get back; stan and dipper have to wrestle with how the two of them are so close #and all four of them lost so much time together #um #anyways #uh #yeah im normal about this

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sokkas-therapist · 3 months ago

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Started Killing Eve last Monday, finished it at 3:00am last night, devastated. changed forever. will never be the same.

#that might have been the best piece of media I’ve ever seen #utterly consumed my life and obliterated me it was phenomenal #I’d watch 100 more hours of them #finale spoiler*** they deserved so much more time together #they got half an episode to be happy after four seasons of build up you’re joking #and now Eve is so lost #V became her whole life #she destroyed everything else in her life and has no one else to turn to #and they killed all the members of the 12 (minus Carolyn who V should have killed when she had the chance w how she backstabbed her)#so the mission that comsumed her life is over #and the love of her life is gone #what gets me the most is that she didn’t even get to hold her #Eve kept reaching for V in the water and she couldn’t even touch her or hold her for closure #she just had to watch her fall #and either drown herself trying to grab V or choose life and resurface #it was so devastating #they literally got 30 seconds to be happy #killing Eve #killing eve season 4 #killing Eve finale

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apocalypticdemon · 6 months ago

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hhhhhhhhhh being annoyed with someone and knowing you're in the wrong about it is the fucking worst

#i have a friend where every fucking time i talk to them i just hear about how bad their life is #'undergrad was so bad and it's so rough and my master's was so isolating'#'also i'm having a bad time and i'm still not over my toxic relationship that ended four years ago' like bro i do not care.#i stopped caring like a year and a half ago #and i know i'm being a bitch! i know it's callous and mean of me to be sitting here going 'goddamn man get the fuck over it'#'oh i lost so much time i could be better off in my career by now....' too bad!! the time is gone anyway!!! everyone progresses #at different rates!!!!!#it has already happened! it's over! it's done! it's time to pick yourself up and move on!#and i know i'm being mean!#i don't say these things out loud at all bc i know it's cruel but i have hit my limit!#i have played therapist with them for years now and i'm tired! i don't fucking care! get your shit together or shut up!!#again. i know i'm being a bitch. i know this! but goddamn. i'm so fucking tired.

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arolesbianism · 8 months ago

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See my vision

#keese draws #oxygen not included #jackie stern #pmd au real 👍#I like to imagine she tries to stand upright as often as possible since she absolutely hates being on all fours #it brings her so low to the ground and she’s used to being tall so being that low makes her feel tiny #olivia has to coax her into just toughing it out because her body isn’t built to waddle around on two feet all the time and also she looks #even sillier doing it than she would low to the ground #I was going to draw olivia too but then realized it’s way to late so that’ll have to wait #anyways pmd au jackie is still a grumpy old fart but she’s been forcefully removed from her downwards spiral #and by that I mostly just mean she lost her memories if she were in the same situation but with them the spiral would carry on #it’s fun to me imagining jackie starting to do Much better mentally after the first week or so of being here #while olivia is being haunted by The Dread™️ eternally as she deals with withdrawal symptoms #also au like imagining the two working together to try and figure out who they were and how they got here together #little do they know…. little do they know……

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muirmarie · 1 year ago

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hey quick question why do I keep ending up with plot. where is all this plot coming from. I do not Want this plot. I specifically requested a no plot story next. someone please come take this plot away from me.

#stretching that writing muscle tag #listen i love me some world-building but this is supposed to be a throwaway. a gimme. a no plot needed #a fun times whimsy ride #so why am i trying to come up with harvest traditions for 3.5 different cultures so i can mush them together into one.#ESPECIALLY why since probably very little of it will even end up in the fic??? i just need to know so i can write the shape of them???#the ~haunted house~ which was built on this unpopulated colony planet with pieces of houses from the 4 nearby worlds #which is filled with mementos of those loved and lost. of ancestors too far back to even remember #a haunted house haunted by the ghosts of ancestors of different worlds who fought and killed each other #put together by their descendants trying to build an uneasy peace #i genuinely don't even know if I'll include that in the story!!! but it's there. that's what my brain is trying to give me. frickin PLOT.#i don't want plot!!!!!#like i love the idea of that house so much and it's gonna get like. one dang throwaway line. bc the story is VERY MUCH not about that.#the story is just early relationship fun times!!!!#but these four planets + earth scientists decided to hold a harvest festival and mush their ideas together and an earth scientist #mentioned haunted houses as an autumn thing and the scientists from those four worlds took the idea and RAN with it and made it their own #anyway. i'm probably not going to include the house at all. the story has NOTHING to do it with it. but at least you know about it now lmao #SIGH.

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prisonhannibal · 4 months ago

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!! DONT SKIP !! donations urgently needed They are only at €5,561 out of €50,000 goal

I was contacted by Nader to draw pictures for and help spread his brother Abdulsalam Al-Anqar’s fundraiser to save their family. Nader is a 17 year old boy who lives in Gaza with his family: parents Ahmed (54) and mother Iman (49), brothers Abdulsalam (26), Mohammed (14), and Omar (21) and Abdulsalam’s wife and their one year old daughter Iman. Imagine it was your sibling, your friend, your son, who should be in school or with his friends, who instead has to hide from bombs and ask for help online to save his family. His family have suffered through one year of genocide. All of you are their hope to get to safety.

This fundraiser is vetted by @gazavetters, number four on the spreadsheet here

Abdulsalams daughter Iman is only one year old and has lived most her life in a war zone. She is suffering from malnutrition. It’s every fathers worst nightmare to see their child starve and not be able to feed her. Please help him feed his daughter and get her to safety. No child should grow up hearing the sound of bombs. Every child has the right to food and safety. You can help give Iman the childhood she should have, where she can sleep in a safe bed at night with a full stomach.

Their father Ahmed has cancer and needs surgery and medication. It is not possible to get the treatment he needs in Gaza. every day his illness is left untreated, the cancer will continue to spread through his body, so he very urgently needs money for treatment and travel. If you help them get to their goal, you are saving their fathers life. Don’t let this family who have already lost so much lose their father, husband, and grandfather

Nader has showed me pictures of this explosion close to them, thankfully they were able to get away. Every day they stay in Gaza their lives are at risk from israeli bombs. Every day and hour counts. I know there are compassionate and kind people who are willing to help. every euro helps, YOUR donation will bring them one moment closer to safety. With love and hope I’m asking you to give what you can, I believe in the kind people of the world and I beg you to not let them die. If you can’t donate, please share so it may reach people who can.

Never forget that palestinians are not numbers on a list of deaths. Please think of each of them, think of their names and faces and know that you can help them. I think of them every day. I think of the hopes and dreams they should achieve, I think of their education, their future, and the love they show when they work hard every day to get help. You may feel powerless to stop this genocide, but you have the power to save Abdulsalam and his family. I dream that the day will come soon where they may use their days to rest and recover from what they’ve been through, where they can share a meal and laugh and the children will play, instead of having to use their time to beg the world to listen and help them. We can make this possible.

50 000 euros is a lot of money for one person to give, but for all of us together, it can be done. Please don’t look away.

(drawing above by @neechees)

Thank you for reading their story. Please don’t keep scrolling without sharing

here is the link again to their fundraiser

tagging for reach:

@90-ghost @heritageposts @gazavetters @neechees @butchniqabi @fluoresensitive @khanger @autisticmudkip @beserkerjewel @furiousfinnstan @xinakwans @batekush @appsa @nerdyqueerr @butchsunsetshimmer @biconicfinn @stopmotionguy @willgrahamscock @strangeauthor @bryoria @shesnake @legallybrunettedotcom @lautakwah @sovietunion @evillesbianvillain @antibioware @akajustmerry @dizzymoods @ree-duh @neptunerings @explosionshark @dlxxv-vetted-donations @vague-humanoid @buttercuparry @sayruq @malcriada @sar-soor @northgazaupdates2 @feluka @dirhwangdaseul @jdon @ibtisams @sawasawako @memingursa @schoolhater @toesuckingoctober @waskuyecaozu

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criticalsucc · 2 months ago

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gangbangs are usually depicted as this very rough thing, a handful of people just selfishly using whoever is at the center, passing them around, taking their pleasure without much care. and that’s fucking hot.

but, consider: romantic gangbang. being deeply in love with the four people fucking you. we’re all here for your pleasure, for your emotional satisfaction as well as physical. showering you with love and adoration and affection and praise as we worship every inch of you. us working together to maximize your pleasure, cooperating with the goal of getting you so utterly lost in it you feel like you are just floating on a cloud.

you just lie back and close your eyes, having no idea whose fingers or tongue or cock is in you at any given time. you don’t know who is currently sucking and biting your nipples, or who is kissing your neck and pushing their fingers into your mouth, or who is taking a fistful of your hair and turning you toward them to plant a kiss on your head. you don’t bother to figure out whose cock is thrusting into you with vigor, or whose tongue presses against your clit shortly after they pull out. you just know you are in a room with 4 people who would do anything for you.

you don’t have to worry about whether we are enjoying it. it’s impossible for us not to, with you at the center. it’s impossible to not be pleasured by your body, so very beautiful and delightful and delicious as it is. we do use you for our pleasure, but only in the way we know you like, and we do it so sweetly and caringly, because we all love you so very much.

#my blue sky #spoken and unspoken

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pop-punklouis · 4 months ago

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they were all brothers. they are all brothers.

no one, and i mean no one, will ever be able to understand those years and growing into adults in the bubble they were the way those five will. for five years, they saw each other more than they saw their own families. they became family. they share something so special that people nor circumstances will ever break— they shared their youth. they shared a flash of time together that shaped them from boys into men. and as much as we’ve talked about how integral liam was to our childhoods and growth through this band, a piece of the other four boys’ childhoods and youth also died yesterday. a piece of their history died yesterday. a face to their personal memories died yesterday. and it’s devastating.

they found a home in each other when they were so far away from home, and i cannot even begin to imagine the grief they are feeling and will continue to feel.

walking in the wind has the perfect line like “if you’re lost, just look for me. you’ll find me in the region of the summer stars” and i know for a lifetime to come those four guys will be living that out as the years go on.

my entire chest aches for them. they deserve all the space and grace during this delicate time.

#aches for them #liam payne

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dreamsteddie · 26 days ago

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Steve and Eddie who kind of flop in life and end up poor, living in a trailer in a different small town living quiet lives of no import.

The kids, Robin, Nancy, and Johnathan all seem to take the small handful of opportunities offered to them by the government in the aftermath of the Upsidedown to take off and make something of their lives. They're off writing headlines, making news, and living their lives to the best of their abilities, but Steve and Eddie find themselves stuck.

Steve stayed in Hawkins until the kids graduated and left for college. By then Nancy, Johnathan, and Robin are all in their second or third years of college. John and Nancy have their own apartment in New York together and don't reach out all that often, only seeing the rest of the Hawkins crew on Holidays and some vacations. Robin is flourishing at an all-women's college in Maine and has a partner and a cat and plans for graduate school brewing. She's always saying Steve can come out and join her whenever he's ready, but when the time comes it feels like he would just be trying to insert himself in the middle of a life he doesn't know how to fit into, so he turns to Eddie instead.

Eddie is permanently disabled in a number of ways following the events of season four. He struggles with chronic pain, has breathing issues due to the loss of part of his right lung, and lost enough muscle mass in his left leg that walking will never be easy or done without the use of a walker or arm bar crutches. The doctors said he recovered as well as he could have. The kids said he would get better with time. Wayne said it didn't matter if he never got better, he could do anything he set his mind to.

Steve is the only person who tells him the truth.

Steve tells him that it sucks. Tells him that it will probably always hurt. Doesn't give him false hope when he's trying to grieve the loss of the life he wanted to live. The goals he wanted to reach. When he falls deeper and deeper into himself, stuck in the muck of depression, Steve is the only person he lets in. The kids try their best but their lives are moving fast, and taking care of someone like Eddie is exhausting, no matter what they try to say. Eventually, everyone but Dustin gives up on reaching out, the younger boy showing up every Sunday to try and get Eddie out of the house. He always leaves disappointed.

When Steve asks him if he wants to use what's left of their partly government payouts and Steve's equally meager Family Video savings to buy a truly shitty trailer in a town an hour and a half south of Hawkins in the fall of 1990, it feels like the first boon he's been given in almost five years. He'll never be who he could have been if he had ignored Chrissy that day in 86', but he's always thought maybe he could be more than a ghost between Wayne's walls if he could just get out of this god-forsaken town full of people who know too much and too little of what's happened to him.

They get the trailer, pack what little they have, let Wayne hug them close, and leave.

Steve has already transferred to their new town's Family Video, moving up to claim the dubious honor of being the opening manager. Mostly he just unlocks the door, signs into the computer, and makes sure nothing catches fire. Eddie hoped that moving would miraculously make him fit to enter back into the world, but he spends most of his days with a blanket on the front porch, watching people pass by. He does, though, finally accept that he needs to apply for disability to help Steve keep the lights on and the water hot. That last little bit of hope that he could be what he used to be dies, but he's learning to be content with what he does have. He starts taking a walk, just ten minutes around the loop of the trailer park saying hi and trading polite nods with his fellow residents. He's not ok, but he's starting to build a new community of people not too different from himself.

The new trailer only has one bedroom. Eddie sleeps on a fold-out mattress in the living room. It had been a major argument when they first moved in with Steve insisting that Eddie needed the bed. Eddie argued that it wasn't fair for him to take the room when Steve was the one working 40 hours a week to keep them afloat. In the end, Eddie was the more stubborn of the two. It helps that Eddie has absolutely no qualms about crawling into bed with Steve on the nights when the couch bed really won't cut it for his aching body. Steve never questions it, just shuffles over a little and lets the other man in.

Steve doesn't question a lot of stuff.

He doesn't question when all their effects are shared between them with no effort to distinguish between yours and mine, Eddie's and Steve's. He doesn't question it four months in when Eddie starts to get his feet under him and decides to take up cooking, always trying his best to have everything done just as Steve walks through the door. He doesn't question when a good chunk of Eddie's first disability check goes to buying Steve a sturdy, if not very fashionable, new watch for his birthday since his old one went bust almost a year ago.

He doesn't question it when Eddie holds his hand for the first time under the stars hanging above their front porch.

He doesn't question it when Eddie introduces him to one of his new neighbor friends with a hand resting comfortably on his lower back

He doesn't question it when Eddie starts sleeping in the bedroom every night.

Or makes him box mix cupcakes for Valentine's Day.

Or kisses him for the first time on the couch that's never a bed unless they want to spend the day binge-watching bargain bin films.

Because really, isn't this how it was always going to go? Wasn't this exactly what Steve was asking for when he asked Eddie to skip town with him?

Isn't this what Eddie was hoping for when he said yes?

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whytheylosttheirminds · 2 months ago

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Don't Call Me Kid - Chapter 8 (part two)

(Rafe Cameron x Reader series, 6.2k words)

series summary: You'd had a crush on Rafe Cameron since you were six years old, but he friend zoned you at every turn. Once shy and insecure, you found new confidence and self-love after high school. When your high school friends go on a reunion beach trip, Rafe finally sees what he lost, but he isn't going to give you up without a fight.

tropes: unrequited crush, glow up, she fell first/he fell harder

series content: some angst, eventual fluff, slow burn, tomfoolery and shenanigans, drinking, fem!reader has occasional insecurity and body image issues

⇢ series masterlist

A blood curdling shriek rang through the house, jolting Carter from her restless dreams.

She sat straight up in bed, heart racing as she looked around the dark room, head so heavy she could barely remember where she was or how she got there.

In her hungover mental fog, she pieced it together slowly. She was at the beach house, in her room, it was early, she drank so much last night and Topper said -

“OH MY GOD!”

Another sharp scream came from downstairs, and her heart rate spiked all over again. She pulled the fluffy comforter around her shoulders and hurried out of the room, quiet on the stairs as she nervously approached the source of all the commotion.

When she saw what was inducing Sabrina’s shock, she doubled back, hiding around the corner so they couldn’t see her. Her stomach churned with bitter loathing, and something else even more nauseating…

She dropped the blanket and rushed to the half-bath off the house’s entryway, doubled over the toilet bowl as last night’s poor choices continued to haunt her.

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Rafe drove faster than he had before your interrupted rendezvous, seeming not to want to drag this adventure out anymore. You eyed him nervously from the passenger seat, searching for words that weren’t coming to you.

Tongue tied and exhausted was not how you wanted to begin this…whatever this was between you. Rafe had given you words, so many of them, back on the beach and all he asked in return was a simple yes or no.

Are you my girl?

No four words had ever felt so heavy. The shitty part was, you wanted to say yes. At the sound of his breathless question every cell in your body was screaming yes! I’m your girl! I’ve always been your girl!

But then there was that pesky piece of self preservation that cemented itself in your heart all those years ago and didn��t plan to give up any time soon.

He looked so disappointed when you couldn’t give him a quick and easy answer, his chest now deflated and shoulders sunken as he drove the rest of the route home. Despite your lingering hesitation, you felt like you needed to give him something, needed to lift the frown that was settled on the lips you had tasted so many times this morning.

“I’m sorry,” you mumbled.

“For what?” He asked.

“I’m…slow,” you began, “it takes me a while, y’know? To find the words. I’m not like you, I don’t know how you came up with that speech in less than a minute.”

Rafe laughed, confusing you.

“What?”

“You think I came up with that speech in a minute?” He chuckled, “I’ve been practicing it every day since senior year of high school.”

Your heart clenched at the endearing thought of him in front of the mirror, driving to class, taking a shower all while rehearsing what he’d say if you ever gave him the chance.

“Oh,” you tucked your hair behind your ear.

It was infuriating, your complete inability to get a grip on your own thoughts and feelings around him. It had always been this way. You were well-spoken and sound-minded, until this one person was in your atmosphere, his presence your own personal kryptonite.

To be fair to yourself, it wasn’t just your own weakness for him that had caused you to build such high walls. When you were kids, he sometimes made you feel this way on purpose. He used to have fun watching you get flustered, just the right amount of flirting to send you into a tizzy, only to leave you spinning like a top with no one to stop you.

You truly tried to leave the past behind, burying it somewhere back in the sand on the beach. You reminded yourself that the Rafe of your memories was not the one sitting next to you right now. But that might just be the problem, because at least you knew that Rafe, you knew exactly what he would do next.

If he grabbed your hand, you knew he was about to drop it. If he said something sweet, you knew he was about to say something passive aggressive. If he acted like he loved you, you knew he was about to act like he’d never met you a day in his life.

But this Rafe, this new one, was completely unpredictable. Wild and dangerous in his apparent affection for you. How were you supposed to know what he did next wasn’t going to hurt? He was right about what he said on the jet ski - you won’t know until you give him the chance. Easier said than done.

“You don’t have to say anything right now,” he offered after you’d been quiet for a long time.

“This week has just been…” trying to come up with one word to describe it felt like a futile task.

“Overwhelming?” Rafe tried to help.

“Surprising,” you countered. “I’ve never been good with surprises.”

“You like to know what’s coming next,” he nodded, once again displaying a deep knowledge of you that you never knew he possessed.

Like he could read your mind, his arm stretched across the small divide and his palm, warm and soft, settled on your thigh, a single soothing stroke to let you know he’s still here, he’s still yours. The feeling of his skin touching yours was like aloe vera directly on the burn.

With a grateful smile, you leaned back in the seat and took a deep breath as he steered you home.

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Carter padded down the hall, stopping three separate times, trying to decide if she should just go back to her own room. But the sight of her frantic texts to you still saying “delivered” and not “read” was too concerning to ignore.

She opened Topper’s door without knocking.

He was sitting up against his headboard, typing feverishly on his phone. At the sight of her, he clutched his duvet cover, pulling it up higher over his nearly naked body.

“Have you ever heard of knocking?”

“Please, like I haven’t seen it all before. Like I didn’t see it yesterday,” she rolled her eyes.

“Oh okay, so you do remember. Based on the way you were acting last night I thought maybe you’d forgotten we’d ever been together,” he snipped at her.

“I don’t want to talk about last night,” she waved him off, dismissing his complaints flippantly, “are you aware of what’s happening downstairs right now? Of who is happening downstairs right now?”

“Yes, I saw her pull up,” he returned his attention to his phone and his frenzied typing.

Outside his cracked open door, Carter heard Kelce, Tom, and a few others come barreling up the stairs, chatting about the recent arrival.

“Be so fucking for real, did you invite her?” Carter said, attempting to lower her voice.

“I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this but you do this thing where you think you’re whispering and you’re actually not,” Topper informed her.

“Topper…”

“No, I didn’t invite her.,” he answered. “Actually I was about to ask if you did.”

“Why the fuck would I do that? I hate her.”

“Wow alright, hate's a strong word, Carter, maybe calm down a little.”

Ever since their knock-down-drag-out at the club last night, the arguing that was usually playful and lighthearted had an edge of actual bitterness to it.

“First of all, if you ever tell me to ‘calm down’ again, I’m going full Lorena Bobbitt on your ass. Second of all, you need to go down there and tell her to leave,” she flicked her hair behind her shoulder and held her chin up as she bossed him around. He hated that despite how mad at her he was, he fucking loved it.

“How does that job possibly fall on me?” He scoffed.

“Aren’t you Mr. Team Rafe-and-my-sister? Don’t you want to get rid of the reason they stopped talking in the first place?” She reasoned.

“I’m not gonna tell her she can’t be here,” he shut her down. “It’s not my house, and it’s really none of my business. Or yours.”

Her eyes narrowed at him, “oh yeah? Then who are you texting so much over there?”

“I’m just giving him a head’s up,” he shrugged. “She should probably know too.”

“And you’re just assuming they’re together?” She snarled.

“Puh-lease,” he rolled his eyes, “did you see them at the club last night? There’s no way they didn’t hook up.”

She wouldn’t accept it, couldn’t, even though she knew somewhere deep in her gut that he was probably right.

When Rafe still didn’t answer any of his texts, Topper sighed heavily, “fuck it, I don’t care if I’m cockblocking, I’m calling him.”

Before he could dial, the house shook with the slam of the front door. Carter and Topper hurried out to the hall and hesitated at the top of the steps. Your lone voice carried up to them, talking to no one in particular as you muttered, “un-fucking-belivable.”

Carter actually did whisper this time, “I think it might be too late for that…”

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The feeling of Rafe’s hand, warm and steady on your thigh, as he drove the rest of the route home was so nice and comforting, you let yourself slip into the possibility that this could actually be it. Maybe you really could just leave the past behind you, maybe you really had finally found each other and it could just be simple like this.

But your fantasy didn’t last long.

Rafe parked in the spot across the street that you had taken Carter’s car from a few hours ago. Even when he turned the key and cut the engine, he didn’t remove his hand from your leg.

“You ready?” He sighed.

“For what?” You questioned, eyeing him curiously, his face serious as he looked down at the site of his hand on your skin.

He shook his head like he didn’t know the answer himself, “reality, I guess.”

You placed your hand over his, smirking at the sight of your fingers encompassing each other’s, wanting so much more from these hands and truly believing you’d have all the time in the world to enjoy them.

“Bring it on,” you gave him a small smile.

“He leaned across the center console and dropped a deep kiss to your lips, causing you to sigh into his mouth. All the times you imagined kissing him, you never thought such a rough-around-the-edges guy would have such soft lips. You felt like you might be able to spend forever with them on your skin.

When he finally pulled away, you reached for the handle of your door, beginning to open it, but Rafe reached across your body and pulled it shut again.

“What are you doing?” You asked in surprise.

He smiled that perfect, dimpled grin of his, “extra credit.”

You giggled as he hurried to climb out of the driver’s side, hurrying around to your door and opening it with a chivalrous flair.

“Wow,” you beamed, accepting his hand as he helped you down from the tall vehicle. “You weren’t kidding about trying to be a gentleman.”

“For you, I’ll be anything,” he flirted.

Despite your best efforts not to, you blushed, the red hue on your cheeks deepening when Rafe kept your hand in his, intertwining his fingers with yours as you walked back to the house. It was the first time he’d held your hand out in the open like this, where anyone could look out from the windows of the beach house and see the two of you together. It was foreign to you, his public display of affection, and yet it felt so right. You couldn’t help but wish it hadn’t taken this long.

“Can I ask you something?” You said quietly.

“Anything,” he squeezed your hand assuringly.

“Why didn’t we do this a long time ago?”

Rafe’s face fell slightly, watching his feet as they made less and less forward progress on the sidewalk, until he came to a full stop. The question was mostly meant to be lighthearted, a tease really, but his solemn reaction made your stomach twist with concern.

“I…” he started, voice unsteady, not meeting your eyeline, “I don’t know if I should tell you this but -”

You never knew what he wasn’t supposed to tell you, because before he could, a sickeningly familiar voice called out from the front porch.

“Hey guys!”

Head snapping toward the sound, you looked up, and there she was, as stunning as ever in that same signature everything-you’re-not-ness.

Cassie Bryant.

Her face was adorned with a glistening smile, yours was noticeably not. Everything in you sunk, including the corners of your lips, completely unable to hide the way your heart dropped six feet under the ground at the sight of her.

She was somehow even more golden and glowing now than she was back then. Glossy blonde hair flowing down her back like a waterfall of silk. Her perfect, blemish free skin glowed in the early morning light. Her big, round Disney Princess eyes quickly found Rafe and flicked over your joined hands, clocking the way they were folded together in unmistakable intimacy.

It happened so quickly, and yet it felt like years worth of hurt and heartache compacted into one small moment.

At the sight of Cassie on the porch, Rafe dropped your hand.

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Surely, any minute now, a camera crew would pop out from the bushes and announce that you were being Punk’d.

Or maybe it’d be the Mythbusters:

The myth? That you can actually heal from your childhood trauma with just four years of painstaking hard work. Well, we’re about to prove that all of that can be unraveled in the span of 72 hours! Also, we will be using your heart as our crash test dummy. Myth busted!

You didn’t look over at Rafe, couldn’t bear to watch the way he pulled his body away from yours, ever-so-slightly, almost imperceptibly. But you could feel it all the same, and you were sure she could too.

Before Cassie could say anything else, the front door opened behind her, Sabrina stepping out of the house and taking in the unfolding scene on the lawn.

“Oh shit,” she laughed, “this is awkward!”

It’s like her main goal in life was to find new and creative ways to make your bad moments worse.

“Is it?” Cassie asked, seemingly unaware of the cause of Sabrina’s laughter. “We were just saying hi.”

She caught your eye as she said it, a polite but knowing smile on her lips. You realized with shock that she absolutely knew what was happening and was trying to make you feel better about it. You should just be grateful for the unexpected kindness, but something in you was suspicious. The Cassie you knew would’ve jumped at the chance to embarrass you, and she would’ve loved the way Rafe was treating you like you had the plague.

Plus, her taking pity on you, acknowledging the way Rafe had just hurt you, was somehow worse than her just being mean to you. You’d rather she go back to that.

“Y’all having a good trip?” She asked you and Rafe when the silence had lasted just a little too long.

You looked to Rafe, waiting for him to answer, begging him silently to say something that indicated that you were in fact having a good trip…together.

But he just said, “it’s been cool. Weather’s shit, though.”

“Yeah that’s what Sab told me, but I got a few days off my internship so I thought I’d come hang with y’all,” she said, eyes on you as she spoke, like she owed you an explanation.

“Well, welcome, then,” you smiled a polite smile that didn’t meet your eyes.

“You ready?” Sabrina asked, linking arms with Cassie, thick as thieves.

“We’re going into town for some brunch if you guys want to join,” Cassie offered.

“That’s okay, I need to check on Carter,” you declined, all eyes turning to Rafe for his response.

“Uh yeah, I’m good here, th-thanks,” he stuttered, so awkward and shaky, a completely different person from the guy who was delivering monologues and sweeping you off your feet just a few hours ago.

Cassie just smiled politely once more as Sabrina pulled her into the car. As they drove off, you stood wordlessly with Rafe on the front walk, your chest completely hollow. You mustered some nerve and finally looked at him, head tilted, a completely unamused smile tugging your lips.

“Weather’s shit?” You repeated his words back to him.

“Look…” he began but didn’t finish the thought.

You just laughed humorlessly, shaking your head at him as you stormed off toward the house. Rafe stood frozen for a moment, kicking himself mentally and begging his brain to catch up with the moment, finally rushing off after you, but not able to before you slammed the door in his face.

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Carter and Topper exchanged nervous glances at the sound of you stomping into the house.

They slowly and quietly settled on the top step, sitting forward to listen in as the front door opened and closed again, Rafe’s voice echoing through the house.

“Wait…” he said, following after you as you marched further into the house toward the kitchen.

You didn’t stop, “No, go ahead, you should go to brunch with her. Don’t let me keep you from a good time.”

“Wait, let’s just talk,” he pleaded.

“I’m too tired, Rafe,” you rejected him. “I can’t do this right now.”

“So you’re not even gonna let me explain?”

At the top of the steps, Carter and Topper simultaneously held their breath as they listened, both jumping as Kelce’s voice startled them, “what are we listening to?”

“Shhh,” Carter waved her hand at him, motioning for him to shut up.

Kelce plopped himself between them on the top step, shuffling a bit so they’d make room for him. He listened in, picking up your and Rafe’s raised voices quickly.

“Oh shit,” he barely whispered, “trouble in paradise already?”

“Dude shut up,” Topper cut him off.

Soon, Maddie, Tom and Jack joined the little huddle on the top step, each cluing in on the source of the entertainment in their own disruptive way before being shushed by the group and eventually sitting. You continued your argument with Rafe, completely unaware you were performing in front of a live studio audience.

“You don’t need to explain,” you told him, trudging down the front hall toward the kitchen. “I know exactly what just happened because it’s happened a thousand times before. What I don’t know is why I’m even surprised.”

“Come on,” he caught up to you, stopping you in your tracks as his large frame rounded you. “It is not the same as it used to be.”

“It’s exactly the same,” you side-stepped him, walking into the kitchen and dropping Carter’s keys on the counter. “I mean jesus Rafe, it’s the same fucking person! I can’t believe I’m here again, it’s like I’m having a nightmare where I’m back in high school. Next thing you know I’m gonna walk into homeroom and I realize I’m completely naked.”

“Sounds more like a dream to me,” he smirked, trying to flirt.

You just blinked back at him, your sharp eyes cutting straight through his head.

“Do you think this is funny?”

His smirk dropped, snatched right off his lips by your ice cold tone. Good. You’d been waiting years to wipe that shit eating grin off his face.

Something new was rising in your chest, knocking out the embarrassment and sadness with a closed fist, a fury long buried coming back with a vengeance.

“I thought all that shit was behind us, over and done.” Rafe reached out towards you but you stopped him with your own rough grip, lowering his hand away from you and dropping it like he’d dropped yours.

“Oh, it’s fucking done alright, so fucking done,” you spat.

“You’re really gonna let ten stupid seconds ruin everything that’s happened between us? You’re not even gonna give me the benefit of the doubt. You really think that little of me?”

“It’s literally only been two hours, and you’ve already lied to me once and pushed me away the second someone saw us. And you wonder why I'm having a hard time saying yes to being with you? It’s because I fucking can’t trust you, Rafe!”

“I don’t know what else I can do to show you I’m different,” he threw his hands up in exasperation. “This is so fucking unfair.”

“Are you being fucking serious right now?” You stepped towards him as you snapped at him. “You’re actually pissed at me?”

“Yeah, I am!”

“Why?”

“Because I lost my best friend!”

Everyone on the top of the stairs winced, air sucked from the room when Rafe raised his voice at you. For all his flaws and mistreatment, he had never raised his voice at you before.

“Oh shit,” Kelce whispered.

“Shhh!” Carter and Maddie hushed him in unison, everyone leaning in a little closer to hear how you’d react. But you said nothing. They couldn’t see the widening of your eyes, jaw locked tight as you gave him space to follow up on his outburst.

“Do you really think it didn’t hurt me when you just up and stopped talking to me back then?” He took the space you gave him and slowly unpacked the hurt feelings he’d buried for years. “I know I was a dick, I shouldn’t have taken advantage of how you felt about me, I shouldn’t have strung you along. But when that shit went down senior year and you just ghosted me, I wanted to talk to you and make it right. I tried, but you blocked me out, you went from talking to me every day to radio silence without giving me a single explanation. That fucking hurt. And you’re doing the exact same thing now, not even giving me a chance to explain things. So yeah, I am a little pissed. I’m pissed that you’re just gonna throw it all away again over nothing.”

He waited for your response with baited breath, prepared for you to yell, or cry, or do something. But you gave him nothing, mouth closed in a tight line as you turned on your heel and walked further into the kitchen, lifting the coffee pot from its home and filling it in the sink.

He watched your back as you scooped the grounds into the filter and turned on the machine. Minutes passed and you remained silent, hands on the counter, looking out the big window towards the ocean while the coffee brewed one drop at a time.

Finally, after eight cups had dripped into the pot, you spoke.

“How was prom, by the way?” You turned to face him, the edge of the marble countertop digging into your waist as you leaned back against it, hands crossed in hostility over your chest. “I never asked.”

Rafe’s gaze fell from you almost instantly. He didn’t have to ask why you were bringing this up, the ‘hell hath no fury’ look on your face dragging the memory forth from its carefully hidden spot in the back of his brain. Nothing made him feel like a jackass quite like that memory, and based on the mocking curve at the corner of your lips, you knew it.

The memory used to keep you up at night.

For a full year after it happened, it was like a fire poker bent into the shape of regret and shame was branding your heart over and over.

Now, the burn was healed over, still calloused and red at the edges, but you’d done your best to cover the scar tissue in the healing balms of self-love and lots and lots of therapy. Still, it was the moment in your life you were the least proud of.

You’d thought it was gonna be you. Really, earnestly, completely delusionally, you believed when he asked for your help with his grand prom-posal that it was all a playful ruse to ask you to be his date. You stayed up all night, decorating three different poster boards with glitter glue so he could pick the one he liked best. You bought out all the battery-powered candles at Michael’s - he said he’d pay you back, he never did. You waited with him in the park until the sun set, giddy with the hope that he’d drop the ruse and pop the question any minute.

“What will you do if ‘she’ says no?” You attempted to flirt.

“I guess I’d just have to take you.”

Every muscle in his body flinched at the memory and the white hot regret he felt every time it replayed in his head.

The kid who said those words was such an asshole. Standing here in the kitchen, looking down at you, the love of his goddamn life, and facing the possibility that he might lose you for good, he wanted to ring the idiot’s neck.

Because he hadn’t asked you. He made you watch while he asked her. And he didn’t even give you a ride home from the park.

Fuck, he wouldn’t forgive himself if he was you, either.

Rafe felt about two feet tall, looking back at you with absolutely nothing to say. He was relieved for a second when you opened your mouth to speak first, until he heard the words.

“You don’t understand. The voice in the back of my head, the one I’ve spent years trying to silence, the one that tells me I’m not enough, that I’ll never be enough…it’s your voice, Rafe.”

He grasped desperately for a reply, but there were no words in the English language that made that statement any less devastating.

“Maybe that’s not fair,” you continued before he could come up with anything, “but I don’t think I have control over that. I don’t know how to undo it, if it can be undone. So those ten seconds that just happened out there? They’re not nothing to me. When you dropped my hand at the sight of her, I felt like I was that stupid teenage girl again, giving my whole heart to the one person who knows how to break it. Blind and foolish and desperate for you to notice her. I don’t like that girl.”

You made it through the whole speech with a steady voice, up until the last sentence. Your voice cracked on those words, your heart doing the same as you pictured your younger self. The one who would sit on her bed for hours, rereading the texts she sent him and praying he’d reply.

Thinking about that version of yourself, you weren’t sure if you wanted to hug her or slap her. Surely, she’d hit you right back if she saw what you were doing now, potentially pushing away the boy she loved more than anything, finally having him within your grasp and letting him slip right through.

At the top of the stairs, unbeknownst to you, Carter was picturing that girl, too. She would roll her eyes at you back then, using sarcastic comments like “are you sure Rafe even knows how to read?” to mask her truer concern; that he could but he wouldn’t, and the heart you wore on your sleeve would end up crushed again. Even now, she couldn’t protect it, couldn’t save it from reaching out to this boy who did nothing but break it.

Frustration welled inside her, the absolute powerlessness to put an end to this cycle that hurts you feeling like a dark cloud over her head. The anger manifested into hot, watery tears gathering on her lash line. Without permission, one slipped through, rolling down her cheek slowly.

Topper caught the whole thing, and despite their fight and his resolve to freeze her out until she apologized, he couldn’t stop his hand from reaching out and stroking her cheek softly, wiping the tear away with a gentle swipe of his thumb.

They shared a look so full of unspoken words and tender emotions that they almost forgot about the conversation in the kitchen, until Rafe’s voice cut through the moment and pulled them from their silent reconciliation.

“Are you okay?” He asked you after you’d been silent for nearly a minute, trying desperately to compose yourself.

“Yes, that's all just a lot. I’m processing,” you sniffled.

“Take your time,” he said, pulling out one of the high back stools from the counter and motioning for you to sit in it.

Your body was so exhausted, even your stubborn anger at him couldn’t stop you from accepting the offer. You slumped on the plush stool, folding your arms on the counter and resting your chin on them.

“How do you like your eggs?” Rafe asked.

“Is that a pick-up line?”

“Nope, just a question,” he said as he opened the high cupboard and pulled out a frying pan.

You tried to remind yourself you should reject his offer to feed you, you should storm out, you should tell him where he can put his frying pan…but you were hungry. And so tired.

“Sunny side up,” you answered.

He nodded and got to work cooking you breakfast, eggs and bacon sizzling on the stove, Rafe close by with a spatula in hand, silent as he stirred and flipped. You rested your head on your folded arms, eyes half-closed and brain sleepy, watching him.

If you blocked out the last twenty minutes, you could pretend this morning was your real life, could let yourself imagine it really was all this simple and pleasant and sweet; he’d cook you breakfast, you’d make him coffee, and you’d kiss until the sun rose.

At the top of the stairs, Kelce stood and started descending, before Carter reached up and grabbed his arm.

“What are you doing?” She whispered.

“I’m hungry!” He whined.

“You can’t go down there,” Maddie scolded him, “give them some space.”

“Are we just gonna stay up here all day?” Tom complained as he and Jack stood to join Kelce’s crusade into the kitchen.

“Everybody sit down!” Topper whisper-yelled. “Give them five fucking minutes, you’ll all survive. You can fuck off back to your rooms if you want but no one’s going down there.”

Carter couldn’t help the heart eyes she made at him, surprised and delighted by his show of aggression in your defense.

Kelce groaned as he backed back down, Tom rolling his eyes and throwing his hands up as he trudged down the hall back to his room, Jack following with a huff.

“Kelce, I have a granola bar in my purse, c’mon,” Maddie offered, leading him towards her own door.

Alone again, Topper and Carter looked at each other for a long, quiet moment.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed.

“I know,” he mouthed back.

She scooted towards him, nuzzling into his side as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, kissing her temple.

Downstairs, Rafe was done with your meal, scooping it onto a plate and sliding it to you across the counter.

“Thank you,” you sat up and began nibbling at a slice of bacon.

Rafe took the stool next to you with his own plate of food. You sat in silence for a while, only the sound of forks scraping against porcelain and the occasional “can you pass the salt?” between you.

Between bites, you rested your head on your arm again, nearly falling asleep.

“I’m so tired,” you mumbled sleepily.

“It’s been a long twenty-four hours,” Rafe agreed, taking a sip of his coffee.

“That’s an understatement,” you snorted, sitting up again and finishing the last bite of your eggs.

“What about…the next twenty-four hours?” He asked quietly.

You took a deep breath, the smile falling from your face as you considered the question underneath his question. You didn’t answer him right away, hopping down from the stool and collecting your plate and his, carrying them to the sink. Rafe was quick behind you, arm reaching around and pulling the dishes from your hands to lay them in the sink. His hand rested on your waist, turning you to face him, pulling you in. Reluctantly, and without returned tenderness, you let him.

“Rafe, I can’t…” you said sadly.

“Please just talk to me,” he pleaded, hands running up your arms and resting on your shoulders. You shook your head, blinking away fresh tears as you pulled away from him.

“It hurts too much, Rafe,” your voice cracked. “As great as the last few days have been, you can’t see that being close to you hurts me. I worked so hard to get over you. So this isn’t me throwing it all away, this is me protecting myself. Protecting what I’ve spent years rebuilding.”

“So what, that's it then? You’re just gonna go back to school and pretend this never happened?” The pain in his voice was palpable, and you cursed the part of you that wanted to reach out and make him feel better.

“I don’t know, Rafe,” a small tear slipped through, gliding slowly down your cheek.

“You’re just gonna stop talking to me, stop thinking about me?” He continued desperately.

You looked up at him finally, searching his face, nodding sadly.

“I’ve done it before.”

Hurt flashed in his crystal blue eyes, flinching like your words had burned him. “You didn’t…you don’t…think about me?”

“No,” you told him honestly, another tear joining the one before it. “Never. Because if I let myself think about you, I would’ve fallen apart. I’m not strong enough, I would’ve run to you, and every time I did that before, you’d let me down.”

“What about yesterday? What about this morning? Just think about the beach, everything was so good, it can be that way now…”

He reached out and cupped the side of your face, thumb brushing over the tears as he pulled you in toward him, kissing you out of sheer desperation. Like maybe if you tasted his lips, it’d transport you both back in time, back to the beach, back when he’d done and said everything right.

You allowed him to take you there for just a second, before the incident on the front walk flashed in your mind again, the pain of rejection like a knife to your gut. You pulled away from him quickly, side stepping him and moving to the other side of the kitchen, creating as much distance between you as possible.

“No, no, you can’t just kiss me and act like what just happened with Cassie didn’t happen,” you shook your head rapidly, wiping your tear stained streaks with the backs of your hands. “I can’t do this right now, I need some time to think.”

It required fighting every impulse he had, but he didn’t push, didn’t close the space between you, didn’t try to regain the control he was so used to having. He just sighed deeply and nodded, eyes low.

“Okay, well let me know when you’re done…thinking.”

With one last longing look at you, he stepped away to the basement steps, stopping at the top and turning halfway toward you.

“Oh and that girl? The one who gave me her heart? For what it’s worth, I like her. Always have.”

With that, he was gone, the door clicking softly behind him.

Carter and Topper could hear you approach the bottom of the steps. Carter stood first, fully ready to greet you and grill you on everything that had happened since you last spoke. Topper could see all her questions and comments written on her face. He grabbed her hand and squeezed gently, stopping her before she marched down the stairs towards you. She looked at him in surprise but understood quickly as he gave her a slight shake of his head, whispering, “give her some space.”

Reluctantly, she nodded, allowing him to lead her quietly down the hall and into his room.

Your footsteps were heavy on the stairs, body aching. Your brain was so fried you couldn’t even pick one thing from the morning to focus on, like the part of your brain that processes events was temporarily out of order. So you stopped trying to think and just let your feet carry you to your bed, crawling under the covers in your clothes, falling quickly into a restless slumber.

⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄

In your dreams, you were back in the kitchen with him, shoulder to shoulder in comfortable silence as you did the dishes together. Rafe washed and you dried.

Only, it wasn’t the beach house kitchen, it was one you’d never been in before. And in that dream-state way of knowing something you don’t actually know, you were sure it was a kitchen the two of you shared, sometime in the distant, unwritten future.

(chapter 9: part one)

a/n: I'm so sorry, I had to do it.......also the prom thing may or may not be based on a true story and I may or may not have cried writing it....

also I’m sick and tired so I didn’t edit much sorry for typos!

please note: the taglist for this series is closed. For updates when I post, follow @whytheylosttheirminds-works and turn on notifs <3

friendly reminder that writers live off of reblogs, don’t forget to feed your faves! 💘

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entitled-fangirl · 2 months ago

Text

The next one.

Cregan Stark x wife!reader

Summary: Cregan returns home after months away, reuniting with his wife and children.

Warnings: innuendos and sexual comments between a husband and wife.

Masterlist

............................................

"My lady, Lord Stark has returned. He is leading the men through the gates now."

She nearly dropped everything in her hand.

Cregan had been gone for far too long it seemed, and finally the North was getting their Warden back.

More importantly, she was getting her husband back.

She ran past the servant, practically sprinting through to the main doors.

When she saw Cregan proudly leading his men, she didn't stop to let him come to her.

Cregan's face lit up in joy at the sight of his wife running to him. Before she even neared, he was throwing his leg over his horse to dismount.

He braced himself and caught her, the feeling of her against him relighting the spark that had begun to fade in his heart from such a long time away from home. The smell of her hair calmed him.

The men that chuckled were few, understanding the feeling of returning to a wife.

Cregan had to practically pry her away to even get to look her in the eye. "How I've longed for you, woman."

She all but melted in his hold, her face held between his two large hands. "Cregan, you must know-"

"-Whatever it is, it can wait," he smiled. "For now, I reunite with my one." He looked over his shoulder to his men. "The war is won. Now reclaim your homes and your wives!"

There was a loud cheer that washed over the men like waves. They all slowly dissipated, each going to their respected homes.

Her fingers brushed up and down Cregan's wrist, awaiting his next words as if he commanded her to breathe.

"Tell me, pretty girl. Did you miss your lord?"

"Dreadfully," she admitted with a pitiful whine.

"Aye. Thought so." He spun her, her back now pressed firmly against his chest. He let his hands explore her as he spoke in her ear. "Tell me how dreadfully my beautiful girl missed me. Tell me how you managed along without me. How much this cunt missed me. My mere touch runs your breath ragged." His hand grazed over her most intimate parts through her skirt, causing a red to come over her face. "And my children, how you've raised them s-"

"PAPA!"

Cregan's hand fell to a more appropriate area on her waist, but his attention on his wife was lost once he recognized the voice.

His little Arya.

She ran with a wobble to her step still, only being four. But the brightness in her eyes at the sight of her father's return made his heart soar.

How she had grown in his few months away.

He scooped her up, tossing her into the air and catching her with ease. The two giggled together as they connected, a scratchy kiss placed on her cheek from the burly man. "My perfect girl! Have you been good for your mother?"

Her big bright eyes held the Stark mischief to them, and she shook her head with a knowing cheeky grin.

He feigned dropping her, catching her with ease with one hand and beginning to tickle her with the other. Loud shrieks of laughter came from the small girl.

Prompting Rickon to join them.

Rickon was older, going on five. Despite only being a year older, he held himself with high esteem, carrying the Stark name with the same pride as his father.

He faked the stern face, but all knew deep inside that he was just as excited to see Cregan.

He came to Y/n's awaiting arms, leaning his head against her stomach as the two watched Cregan finish his reunion with Arya. He held her up with one hand and acknowledged his boy. "Rickon." The once joyous tone with Arya dissipated to a firm one. He bent down to Rickon's level, putting a heavy hand to his shoulders. "You have kept them safe. My little lord of Winterfell. Well done." His hand affectionately patted the boy's cheek.

Arya squirmed and pulled from Cregan's arms, now hiding in her mother's skirt.

Cregan stood with a small groan to his aching muscles. "But I have missed you most," he clarified to his wife, now giving his full attention back to her.

"More than Jonnel?" Arya asked with a peek around the skirt.

Cregan's brows came together, looking to his wife for clarification.

"Cregan, we must talk," Y/n tried again.

"Wh-" He felt a small anger in him rise.

"You left me all those moons ago with child!" She clarified. "A boy."

His face dropped and soon a disbelieving smile replaced it. "A-A boy? Another boy?"

She nodded. "He's perfect."

"You've given me another?" He still asked in shock.

"Now two moons old." A smile grin plastered to her face, "I don't think I've seen a more northern babe in all my days."

Cregan stared at his wife like she'd said the most profound thing that even the greatest philosophers could not think of.

Then a large smile took over his features. "Let us see this babe!" He scooped up Arya and guided Rickon by his shoulder, Y/n following behind them.

As he walked through the Winterfell halls, she took notes of the small differences in him. His hair was now much longer than before, his beard grown in some- signs that he may have tried to keep it trimmed at the beginning of the journey then gave up. Most noticeable was his stance.

Cregan Stark had now seen war, and the very essence of him screamed it.

How tired he must be. And still, he finds the energy for his little family.

He almost busted down the door to the nursery, forgetting himself and frightening the maid within. She excused herself under her breath.

Y/n watched Cregan bring his children to the side of the small crib. His eyes practically glowed as he took in the sight of little babe.

"Jonnel," he whispered. "It suits him."

"I liked Torrhen," Y/n mentioned from behind him, now approaching and wrapping her arms around him. "But he's more of a Jonnel."

"There's always the next one," he chirped, smirking when he knew his wife turned a bright shade of red.

"Rickon, Arya, off you go," she waved them off, "Your papa will see you at dinner." When Arya opened her mouth to complain, a small look from her mother made her go.

"You didn't notice the changes in me?" Y/n finally asked as the two lovers stared over the child. "You always used to say you knew my body better than I."

"I noticed," he admitted. "The way your breasts have swollen in my absence, yes, I noticed." He reached down, brushing a finger over the child's cheek. "Though I did not know if it was from a child and I would not embarrass you in that way."

Warmth moved from her cheeks down to her stomach. Her husband's words had a deep effect on her. She stood on the tips of her toes, nipping at the northman's ear. "The next one, you said?"

A deep rumble of a chuckle came from him and he finally spun to look at her. "Aye." He brushed hair from her face. "I plan to fill you with children until you tell me to stop."

She giggled and feigned offense as Cregan kissed at her jaw. "Am I just a broodmare to you?"

He pulled away, grabbing her jaw and pulling her in. "You're my wife. I will love you until you tell me to stop. In all the ways a man loves a woman."

"And if I don't want you to stop?" She tested, a whisper across his lips.

His gaze flickered down to her lips and back. "Then I won't."

She looked down at the babe, "I don't feed him for another hour or so-"

She could barely finish her sentence before Cregan picked her up and took her to their chamber.

Cregan Stark had seen war, but he didn't let it seep into the walls of his home.

........................................

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