#and had to go somewhere completely knew <- that already takes so much energy | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starlightkun · 8 months

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❧ word count: 18.3k ❧ warnings: cursing, renjun gets CONSENSUALLY dosed with a magical aphrodisiac For Science ❧ genre: fluff, humor, one (1) heavy makeout scene but no actual smut, 0.1 seconds of angst if you can even call it that, academic rivals to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, siren reader, human renjun ft. siren ten, same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: in my lore, siren scales are visible when they’re in more human-like forms because of magic, and it’s not an indication of their skin tone at all. so when the reader’s scales are mentioned, please don’t take this as any sort of allusion to them being pale/light-skinned! i tried to take care and make sure i wasn’t implying that in how i wrote it, but please tell me if it reads like that this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: y’all. get ready for this one. no spoilers but renjun and reader r both crazy and nobody should be subjected to them except each other. like they both look at the other and think “i could fix them but whatever the fuck is wrong with them is infinitely funnier to me” but they’re both Wrong. they could not fix the other. i don't want what they have but good for them. anyway as always i had way too much fun writing this that it went over my projected word count and i hope y’all have a lot of fun reading it too

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”

2608, 2610, 2612…

The numbers of the study rooms you passed by went up, up, up, as you continued your hunt. You knew he’d be here. It was the day before the first test in your Linguistics in Magical Creatures Studies class, meaning he was going to be holed up in the library until closing time. Now it was just a matter of finding him. Somewhere quiet, obviously, which was why you’d completely skipped the first floor with its wide-open “collaboration areas.” The second floor was all bookshelves and private study rooms that would hold four or five students at most. You peered into the narrow window on each painted metal door as you walked down the hall. While the first floor was recently renovated with new technology and upgrades such as the “collaboration areas” and bright pops of your university’s school colors that made for great promotional photos to put on the website and pamphlets to hand out to new students, this floor hadn’t had seen anything more than a janitor in a good couple decades. The musty, stale smell of old, unused books was all around you, the air conditioning hummed and clicked irregularly, all the furniture had ugly, outdated patterns, and the exactly three desktop computers they did have in a far back corner were practically as old as you. Which, in the digital age, meant that they were artifacts belonging in a museum.

And of course, sitting at very last one, as if he had been hiding behind all of these bookshelves from you personally, was Huang Renjun.

Renjun was sat in the wooden chair facing the computer, clearly deep in thought. He had one foot propped up on the wide chair seat as both of his hands were on the archaic-looking keyboard, speedily typing something out. He wore a pair of jeans, yellow hoodie, and a red backwards baseball cap kept his hair out of his face. An open energy drink can and empty bag of chips on the desk next to him belied that he had already been there for some time.

Now that you had found your target, you put on a burst of speed, stalking up to him from the side and smacking your hand down on the tabletop beside him. “Renjun.”

The human jumped in his seat, looking up from his screen to you. Taking his hands from the keyboard, he made a couple quick clicks on the mouse as he used the other to take his headphones out of his ears. “Y/N. Fucking hell… is your new strategy this semester to give me a heart attack and kill me?”

“If murder was on the table as part of our little academic rivalry, don’t you think I would’ve just drowned you after our Intro course freshman year?” You asked, tilting your head innocently. After all, you were a siren, that would be much easier than scaring him into an early cardiac episode.

Huang Renjun was not your friend. Not necessarily an acquaintance either, you’d known him for going on four years now, since your first class on your first day of college. The two of you were in the same Introduction to Magical Creatures Studies class. He had sat in the very front row, you just behind him in the second row. When your professor had asked an open question to the class, both you and Renjun eagerly blurted out the answer, Renjun just a millisecond before you. Dr. Li gave him the credit, and also requested that you two raise your hands in the future. And from then on you hated Huang Renjun.

Well, hate may be a strong word. You overlapped in at least two classes every semester being in the same major, and were both chronic overachievers. The first to raise your hands when a question was asked, studying in the library until closing (separately), and visiting professors’ office hours just to discuss topics from class further. Your professors noticed this. Some would pit the two of you against each other, and others would try to pair you up, whether on projects, research, or just in general, as a meeting of the minds or whatever. And you two would get your project done, pocket your As, and part ways again. Academic rival slash frenemy was the best way you could describe who Huang Renjun was to you.

“Who knows, you might still, if they ask me to carry the banner,” he muttered, picking his pen up and spinning it between his fingers.

This was your last semester, both you and Renjun were graduating in just a few months. At commencement, each department picked one “outstanding student” to lead the progression, carrying a flag with the department’s name and seal on it. This semester it was Magical Creatures Studies’ turn to select a student for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and your program head had already heavily implied that they could choose either you or Renjun, but they hadn’t made their final decision yet.

This was actually a pretty good segue into what you were really here to talk to him about. Pulling your lips into an alluring smirk, you nodded, “You’re right. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that—”

“A fucking what?” He cut you off, his face scrunching up as he blinked at you in confusion.

“Obviously it’s going to be one of us two, since we’re the two best students in the program.”

“Well, yes.” He nodded, seeming to let go of what had presumably been another one of your jumbled human malaphors. You admittedly hadn’t been living among humans for terribly long, and for some reason their idioms just didn’t stick in your brain very well.

“I mean, we not only are dedicated to the field itself and the content we study in class, but the program too. We probably know everybody in it, professors and students, right? Between the two of us?”

Renjun considered this for a moment. “Yeah, probably. We’ve both taken on a lot of SI and tutor opportunities for lower-level classes.”

“Right. So, you know those forums the school has on the online class platform? The general message boards?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’m going to need you to sit tight with me on this until I finish talking, okay?” You pointed at him sternly. He nodded slowly. “Good. Back in the fall, about the end of September, I was on the message boards, just browsing around killing time. I was in the Tips & Advice section and saw this post. It was a gryphon who was losing feathers on one specific spot on her wing, and she didn’t know why. The witch she went to didn’t know why, nobody could figure it out. I was about to reply asking if it was her left or right, when I saw that somebody else already had. It was her left, and she’s a lefty. The same person replied again, asking if she sleeps with her wings out or not. She sleeps with them out. It turns out she was stress-preening in her sleep. Username: dr_magic2303. A couple weeks later, same message board, Tips & Advice, a human is suddenly producing dark purple goop from his feet but it’s so slippery he can’t even leave to go see a doctor or a witch and he was typing the post from his bathroom. Within an hour, this Dr. Magic is back telling him someone’s put an aether ooze hex on him, and to sit down and scoot on his butt to the kitchen and gather up all these ingredients for a cleansing foot bath. And if he doesn’t have them, then he’ll have to butt-scoot his way to an apothecary or call one who does home deliveries. Now people are posting on there specifically asking Dr. Magic to come heal all their magical aches and pains.”

Renjun stared at you, unblinking. The pen had gone still in his hand.

You breathed in, continuing, “I tracked this Dr. Magic all the way back to their first post in the first week of fall semester of this year. Now, I’ve been trying to figure out who they are on my own, and I’ve made a lot of progress on who they aren’t. But I’m going to lose access to those message boards once we graduate at the end of the semester. I know Dr. Magic has to be an MCS major, there’s no way they would be able to have to breadth, depth, and flexibility of knowledge by just Googling this stuff. And you and me, Renjun, I know we can do this. Not only do we know MCS, but we know the department, the people in it. It has to be us.”

He was still staring at you, mouth slightly agape. Then, his whole demeanor shifted. He dropped his leg so that both his feet were on the ground, and he resumed spinning the pen.

“Okay. I’ll help you.” He nodded thoughtfully. “If you’ll do something for me.”

“Do what?” You straightened up.

“I’ll tell you after we find Dr. Magic.”

You crossed your arms. “No, tell me now or no deal.”

“I tell you after, but you can still say no then if you don’t want to do it.” He bargained.

“That just sounds even more concerning, Renjun. Tell me now or I’ll do it myself.”

“I’m hurt. What happened to ‘it has to be us?’”

“I’m a siren, I know how to sweet talk. Don’t take it personally.” You snorted. “Now, what do you want from me?”

“You’re a siren,” he echoed plainly, as if that were all the explanation you needed.

“And you’re a genius.” You retorted. “Tell me now or I walk out.”

“I... want to experience siren venom. For science.”

Oh, you could kiss him right now, no deal necessary. He was meeting your gaze head-on, a slightly unhinged glint in his eye. Not a hint of fear, just a craving for new experiences, unbridled curiosity. Yeah, he was a bit crazy, you were realizing four years on, and you wanted him.

“You’re insane.”

He leaned back in his seat, putting his hands up in front of him in an ‘I-don’t-care’ gesture, “If you don’t want to find Dr. Magic—”

“I didn’t say no, I said you’re insane,” you corrected him with a grin, dragging your eyes up and down his form as he sat so confidently, negotiating with a siren like it was any average Tuesday for him.

“So do we have a deal?” He set his pen down and held a hand out to you.

“You help me find Dr. Magic, then I’ll spit in your mouth.” You momentarily thought about the disparity in division of labor on that, but decided not to point it out aloud. Easiest handshake of your life. “Deal.”

You wanted to eat him alive.

“You’ve tried IP tracking?” Renjun asked, scrolling through your word document of notes that you’d accumulated on Dr. Magic.

“‘You’ve tried IP tracking?’” You mimicked him under your breath, making your voice so high-pitched to the point of mocking.

He rolled his eyes.

This was your first meet-up to try to hunt down Dr. Magic together. It was a couple weeks after he had agreed to help you in the first place. There was a test and some assignments in a few of your classes to get through first before either of you had enough spare time to dedicate to this. But now the two of you were back in the library, having taken a study room on the second floor and set up with your own laptops. You’d sent him your notes to look through on it while you perused the message board for any new posts from Dr. Magic.

“You do know that any geographical location an IP address can give you will just be the city, right? It’s not like the movies,” you snorted, dropping your voice back down to your normal intonation as you shook your head. “Anyway, I did do some extra legwork with the IPs, and matched most of them to desktop computers here in the library. I think the others are a personal device, their laptop or something.”

“They’re all different.”

You tutted at him, “Oh, you sweet Thursday’s child…”

“That’s not the say—”

“They’re all somehow on other continents. Now, I don’t think Dr. Magic teleporting abroad and cross-dimensionally to make forum posts.”

“VPN?”

“Definitely. They’re covering their tracks, they almost never use their own device, and when they have to, they use a VPN to cover up the IP address of it.”

He made a noise of acknowledgement, eyes still focused on his screen.

Then, something on the forum caught your eye. “Oh! Right here. Thirty-six minutes ago, a dryad posted that she can’t sprout daffodils from her body anymore. Every other plant and flower are fine, except daffodils. She posted it specifically asking Dr. Magic if they know what’s wrong with her.”

“Huh.” Renjun’s brow furrowed. “Just daffodils?”

“That’s what it says,” you confirmed, making a few clicks on your computer. “And… ‘notify me.’”

“You can turn on notifications for forum posts?”

“You can’t,” you informed him smugly. “But one of the sirens in my pod, he’s got a bunch of CompSci friends who I paid to write a browser extension for me that bookmarks forum posts and sends me email notifications when anybody replies to them. So I’ll know exactly when Dr. Magic responds.”

“You…”

“Have definitely spent too much time, energy, and money on this, I know. Sunken cost fallacy, look it up.”

“I was going to say ‘are insane,’” he breathed out, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.

When you looked up from your computer at him, you saw that he had a curious gaze fixated on you, eyes narrowed slightly, mouth parted, and head tilted ever so slightly to the side.

You leaned forward minutely, holding his eye contact. “Takes one to know one, Junnie.”

He looked down at his keyboard, shifting in his seat before he looked back up at you. “Why are you calling me that?”

“Do you not like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So you do like it.” You smirked.

He frowned. “I didn’t say that either.”

“Well do you?”

“Answer my question.”

“Answer mine.”

“I asked first.”

“Ooh, how very primary school,” you teased, setting your chin in your hand.

“It’s only fair.” He pointed out.

“We could flip a coin.”

“Y/N.”

“Junnie.”

The human sighed, holding your eye contact wordlessly, looking entirely unamused.

You finally gave in with a casual shrug. “I just am.”

“Seriously? We’ve known each other for four years and you’ve never called me that—you’ve called me plenty of other things—but now suddenly you’ve got a nickname for me?”

“I’m not trying to be derogatory with it, if you’re worried about that,” you clarified. “Just sort of happened. I’m a siren, I flirt with cute people, sorry. Do you want me to stop calling you that?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing some off his face as he turned his focus back down to his screen. “It’s fine.”

“Anyway, I bookmarked the new forum post, so it’ll go on the board.”

“The board?”

“I, uh, I may be using a spare wall in my apartment to host a conspiracy theory board with you know, the red string and thumbtacks and stuff…” You admitted quietly.

“Can I see it?”

“Ho-ly shit,” Renjun breathed out, staring up at the multiple time-stamped printouts of forum posts, pictures of classmates and faculty, sticky notes, and yards of red string that you had pinned to a blank wall in your apartment.

You stood next to him, gazing up at your creation with a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment. This was the first time you’d let someone see this, and you were kind of glad it was Renjun. He actually seemed impressed. You were sure that any of your friends and family would be weirded out at best, and very concerned at worst.

“Yeah, I’m adding color copies off the school printers to the invoice I’m sending Dr. Magic at the end of all this.”

“You’re sending them an invoice for your self-assigned mission to hunt them down?” He snorted.

“Yup. It’s their fault for not using their school-issued login.” You crossed your arms. “Makes them enigmatic.”

Your classmate pointed to one of the headshots. “Is that Dr. Li?”

“Did you think our scope was narrowed to just students? Faculty have access to the message boards, too. And we’ve learned everything we know from our professors, so they obviously have the knowledge and skill to be Dr. Magic.”

“And their names also start with Doctor.” He added dryly, which you took to be a joke.

You decided that it wasn’t at your expense, though, and after giving a short chuckle, continued on with your explanation of why you specifically had your program head up on the board. “When I was grilling Dr. Li for information in the fall, he was giving me very duplicitous answers. Pointed me towards a freshman who I swear didn’t even know the difference between Arctic sirens and glacial sirens.”

“You think it was a diversion.”

“Obviously.”

Renjun tapped his chin thoughtfully. “What sort of questions were you asking him?”

“I couldn’t straight up ask him if he was Dr. Magic. So I was asking him things like... other than you and me, who did he think was the best student in the program, that kind of stuff. Said that kid reminded him of you and me on that first day of Intro to MCS.” You couldn’t help but let out an indignant scoff at the idea. “Can you believe? Didn’t know the difference between Arctic and glacial sirens…”

“Who was it?”

“Some basilisk in one of his Intro classes last semester. Uh…” You snapped your fingers as you tried to remember his name. “Seunghan! Hong Seunghan!”

“Seriously?” The human turned to look at you incredulously, clearly offended at the comparison as well.

“Seriously!”

He clutched at his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. “That’s who he thinks is the next us? I was an SI for that class…”

“I know! He’s not the brightest tool in the shed, huh?”

“So close, Y/N. So close…” He sighed.

“It almost completely threw me off my search for Dr. Magic. I figured I needed to seriously step up my game in his undergrad research or something.” You shook your head at the horrible memory. “Then I realized he might have been trying to get me to do exactly that.”

“Huh.” Renjun folded his arms over his chest as he looked away, pretending not to seem interested. “You did research with Dr. Li last semester?”

“Don’t give me those kicked puppy dog eyes, you’re doing research with Dr. Kwon this semester and she’s like, my academic idol!” You pointed at him accusatorily.

“And Dr. Li is mine!”

You waved your arms in front of you, shaking yourself out of the academic envy-induced frenzy you’d gotten worked up into. “We’re getting off-topic. We’re here to catch Dr. Magic, remember?”

“Right…” He took a deep breath, turning back to the conspiracy wall.

As Renjun studied your work, you studied him. You had a strand of fairy lights clipped up above the conspiracy wall for light and ambiance (mostly ambiance), and they now lit his features from the front. He didn’t have a baseball cap on today, leaving his brown hair to fall over his forehead, down past his eyebrows and just into his eyes. He blinked and shook his head slightly. A piece had presumably been bothering him. The curving slope of the bridge of his nose, his lips, his chin that he still had one hand propped up to hold, a finger tapping against his cupid’s bow like a metronome. You listened closer, curious if it would be mimicking the beat of his heart. The tapping was just slightly slower than his heart, and would stop if he found something that he took particular interest in, then start back up when he moved on again.

Not that you were going to tell him, but you were double motivated to find Dr. Magic now. Seeing Renjun under your venom was going to be a reward all on its own. You understood full well why he felt like he needed to ask you as part of an exchange like this, but he seemed to greatly underestimate his own selling value. Which was good for you. This was a win-win-win in your eyes.

Thinking of the deal made you curious, though. He had that request ready to go almost like…

“So, do you want to be petrified by a basilisk, too?”

Renjun didn’t take his eyes off the wall. “Already have been.”

“Really?”

“My friend Mark is a basilisk. When he had just gotten his powers a couple years ago and couldn’t control them, he kept accidentally petrifying his human roommate. So I figured out when it was most likely to happen, invited myself over and hid his sunglasses. It was strange, being able to think but not speak, see but not blink, and telling my muscles to move and not having them obey.” He casually detailed what sounded like one of the most horrifying experiences ever to you, leaning in towards a specific post from November. “But it only lasted one minute and twenty-nine seconds.”

You stared at him with both admiration and alarm. “You manufactured an opportunity to get petrified.”

“I knew he wouldn’t do it if I asked. He’s a wimp. That, and he couldn’t do it on command at the time, even if he did agree.”

“Have you had your blood drank?”

“Yup.”

“Been flying?”

“How so?” His eyes flicked over to you for a second, and you were glad that you had relaxed again with the more casual conversation.

“With a gryphon, phoenix, take your pick.” You shrugged.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have a list for this stuff or something?”

“Written down, no. But I suppose I have a mental list.”

“Poisoned by a wyvern?”

“Would have to find one first.”

You felt your eyes bug out of your head. “You want to be poisoned by a wyvern? You know there’s no cure for that, right?”

“Yes, I took the same class that you did on them last spring.” He reminded you tersely. Your head jerked back minutely, surprised for a second that he had noticed, remembered, and brought it up. The two of you didn’t have a spat in that class, taking an ‘ignore and pretend the other doesn’t exist’ approach that semester when you could, and hadn’t mentioned it since. Seeming to realize what he’d done, Renjun rushed to move on, “So I also know that there’s no cure because they went extinct hundreds of years ago.”

“Supposedly.”

“You think they’re still out there?”

“Maybe.”

“Hm.” He stepped to the side to read over the next post from the first week of December.

You scoffed. “Okay, coming from the guy who believes in aliens.”

“We haven’t explored all of space. But we know what habitats wyverns lived in, and they’re not there anymore.”

“They could’ve adapted, gone somewhere else,” you tried to argue. “I’m not exactly splashing around the ocean right now, am I?”

“Where did they go, then?”

“I... I don’t know,” you admitted, holding yourself by your arms protectively.

“Hmph.”

You tightened your grip, swallowing hard against the lump threatening to grow in your throat. “I just don’t want to believe they’re gone, okay?”

“So this isn’t a scientific hypothesis, but some rosy daydream?” Renjun’s disapproval of the lack of academic rigor in your argument was clear in his tone as his eyes never left your wall, following a red string up to your next connection for Dr. Magic.

“I don’t want to believe that wyverns went extinct because that means that sirens could too! Alright?” You finally snapped, hands squeezing tightly around your biceps as your claws came out with the raw burst of emotion. “I know that Magical Conservation was just some class to you, but I had to sit there and take notes on how exactly the native habitats of sirens—me, my friends, my family—are shrinking, and could theoretically lead to our extinction, and then write a discussion post on it after like it was some intellectually stimulating bit of information. So yeah, maybe I like to imagine that there’s still wyverns out there somewhere, because it gives me a modicum of hope that after everything, there could still be sirens, too. Sorry that that’s not academic enough.”

The image of Renjun that you had been yelling at in front of you was wavering as tears swam in your vision. He’d turned around to listen, mouth parting as he seemed to immediately realize his mistake. The human nodded regretfully, running a hand through his hair before finally picking his words.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t mean to be so dismissive. I-I misread the tone of the discussion. Sirens aren’t wyverns, and you won’t meet the same fate they might have. Siren advocacy and conservation groups are making huge progress. The world now is a lot different than it was hundreds of years ago,” Renjun said, and you could hear both the remorse and firm belief in his tone. “And who knows, maybe there are still some wyverns out there. I could be wrong... it’s been known to happen before.”

You took a deep breath, your claws receding back into your fingers and just leaving your normal fingernails. As you looked down at your arms, though, you let out a sigh.

“Damn, I got myself.” You clicked your tongue in your throat regretfully, spotting a few drops of what looked like molten silver metal welling to the surface where you’d punctured your skin.

“Ooh,” Renjun winced sympathetically. “Do you have some… bandages?”

“Even better, I’ve got running water.” You started towards the door, then noted that there were no footsteps behind you. Turning back around, you looked at the human knowingly. “Do you want to watch, Renjun?”

He perked up. “Please?”

“Come on,” you jerked your head, holding your arms level as you shuffled towards your kitchen.

Thankfully, you hadn’t been nearly deep enough to get your scales, just the skin overtop. Turning the kitchen faucet on, you grabbed one of your sleeves, then looked at your classmate imploringly.

“A little help, Junnie?” You nodded towards your other arm, where the end of your sleeve was getting close to your blood.

“Oh, sure.” He surged forward to help you roll up the other one.

“I know you know this but be careful not to touch my blood,” you reminded him, finally pulling up the sleeve you’d started on well enough. Siren blood was a neurotoxin to humans—and not the fun kind like your venom, but a proper ‘kill you in an excruciatingly painful way’ kind.

“Uh-huh, got it.”

A couple drops on your left and a drop on your right had run down to your elbows, and you just managed to catch yourself so that they dripped into the sink and not onto your counter (or gods forbid, Renjun). Looking over to make sure he was watching, you stuck your left bicep under the stream of water first. The ocean blue scales that peeked through your skin shimmered in the kitchen lights directly above your head. Thankfully you hadn’t come anywhere close to nicking one of those. That would’ve actually hurt. Within a second of touching the water your skin had meshed itself back together. You turned your arm to rinse off the blood, then brought it back out to show that there was no scar left. Doing the same with the other, it healed just as quick, no mark left behind to indicate that anything had ever happened.

“Yep…” Renjun breathed out as you grabbed a hand towel and went to dry off your arms. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.”

“How many does that make?” You giggled.

“What?”

“How many creatures have you seen magically heal themselves? What number am I?”

“You make me sound so…”

“Like a common MCS whore?”

“I was going to say clinical, but damn, tell me how you really feel, Y/N.”

Both of you laughed, and you put the hand towel back.

“You’re the first siren,” Renjun answered your question genuinely anyway.

You hummed as you mulled this over. “I’ll take it.”

He made a dramatic motion of wiping sweat off his forehead, and you reached forward to smack his forearm. You two laughed again.

After a bout of comfortable silence, your eyes settled on him again, still thinking about exactly how you’d accidentally stabbed yourself in the first place.

“I forgive you, by the way,” you said. “I don’t think I said that.”

“You didn’t.” He nodded. “Thank you.”

“You really mean all that? You think I’ll—we’ll be okay? Sirens?”

“Of course I mean it. Or I wouldn’t have said it. It’s the most scientifically plausible. I did take that Magical Conservation class seriously, you know. I know it couldn’t have meant the same thing for me as it means to you, but I did my final paper on siren conservation projects in the Arctic. The progress that’s being made there is incredible. I-I don’t want to tell you about your own species’ problems, obviously, but—”

“I did mine on siren conservation in the tropics.” You let out a dry chuckle at the flawless symbiosis. “You can tell me about your paper sometime, Renjun.”

“And I’d love to hear about siren conservation in the tropics.”

“Ah, ‘a meeting of the minds.’” You did your best impression of Dr. Li, thinning your voice out to sound like an elderly man, which garnered a smile from Renjun. “Isn’t this what our professors always wanted?”

“Uh-oh. We’re giving them exactly what they want.” He shook his head ruefully. “Quick, you need to start yelling at me about something.”

“Well you need to say something obnoxious first.”

Another gentle lull in the conversation, and you watched as Renjun looked around your apartment a lot more carefully than when you two had first entered. Your destination then had been solely the conspiracy wall, but now he seemed to be really taking it in.

“So why don’t you have like… a fish tank or something?” He asked.

“Because that would be cruel! Imagine if someone kept you in a 2-foot by 2-foot box!” You jabbed a finger into his chest accusatorily.

He held his hands up in surrender. “You’re right. That was a stupid question.”

“I’m glad you said it, because I was about to.”

“So why don’t you reply? To the posts.” Renjun asked curiously, back to trolling the message boards for new Dr. Magic posts. You two were holed up in your second floor study room again. “You’ve been tracking Dr. Magic so closely, you’re getting to these posts before they do, and you can help all these students, too. So why don’t you just reply instead?”

Yours and Renjun’s search for Dr. Magic had been going on for a month now, and he’d been proving himself useful. He’d finally convinced you to rule out Dr. Li as a suspect when he found a message board post made from a school computer while Dr. Li was away at a conference giving a presentation. Confirmed to be done at the exact same time. So you’d found another wrong person, but you still didn’t feel any closer to the right person. The remaining people felt like they were going to turn out to be dead ends, and there was nobody good to rule in either.

Spring break was coming up in a few weeks, which meant that commencement preparations would be starting, which meant that the colleges would be announcing who would be chosen to carry their banners, which meant the actual students who were going to be chosen would be told at least a week or two ahead of time. Every time you thought about that you wanted to bite something. Maybe there was some ancestral link between sirens and werewolves. Another paper waiting to be written.

“They don’t want me. They want Dr. Magic.” You told Renjun, hating the irritable edge in your voice when you addressed him. You weren’t upset with him, you were just anxious in general. He didn’t deserve to have you take it out on him.

“Right. Sorry…”

“No, Renjun, I’m sorry,” you sighed, taking the wood pencil out of your mouth that you had been gnawing on. “I just want to get this Dr. Magic stuff over with before midterms because you and I are both going to get super busy studying for midterms, and then no matter which one of us gets picked to carry the banner, that’s going to suck up a lot of time preparing for commencement too. I shouldn’t have snapped at you though, sorry.”

He offered you a small smile. “It’s okay, I get it. It’s another deadline. But it’s a group project, remember? We’ve got this, Y/N.”

You nodded. “Yeah, I know. Just feeling the pressure. I’m going to get something from the vending machine. You coming?”

“No, I’ll keep chugging along.”

“Okay. You want anything?”

“Nah. Thanks, though.”

“Alright,” you nodded, standing up and rolling your neck out. “I’m going to stretch my legs while I’m up, so I’ll be a few.”

“I won’t sound the alarm then.” He gave you a two-fingered salute as you headed to the door.

You meandered around the second floor, taking your sweet time to get to the stairs. There was a vending machine on the second floor, but it had a limited selection. The good snacks were all in the vending machines on the first floor, by the collaboration zones. Your back cracked all on its own as you plodded down the steps, and you let quiet groans with each one, until you finally landed on the first floor. There was a noticeable hum to the first floor, which only increased as you neared the two-thirds of the floor that was taken up by the collaboration zones. The vending machines were on the boundary of the bookshelves and the open spaces filled with tables and TV monitors and so many students.

Stopping in front of the drinks machine first, you mused over the options for a moment. Picking out your preferred seaweed-infused iced tea—an option you only saw sirens and the really hardcore human health-nuts drink—you then sidestepped to the snacks. It took you just a second to select a pack of mini peanut butter sandwich cookies. Neither peanut butter nor peanuts themselves were in the regular diet of a siren, but Renjun sometimes had the cookies on him for one of his werewolf friends and you’d picked up a taste for them. You would’ve never considered even trying them before hanging out with Renjun. Being an MCS major, you didn’t like to admit it, but your social circle wasn’t very diverse species-wise. You had your siren pod, and you were very happy sticking with them, thank you. Renjun, meanwhile, seemed to be best friends or friendly acquaintances with everything except a wyvern. You knew plenty about other species, after all, you excelled in class. But practical experience, you were finding you seemed to be lacking in. Maybe you should start your own Renjun-esque bucket list. Something to consider after finding Dr. Magic.

Taking a step back over to the drinks machine, you made the split-second decision to get Renjun’s favorite non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic drink. Honeydew melon soda. He had already said that you didn’t need to get him anything, but you wanted to.

“Hey, Y/N!” A cheerful voice greeted you, and you spun around, your two drinks and bag of sandwich cookies in hand.

You already knew who it was going to be, smiling at the familiar face of Ten. He was not only another siren, but specifically a siren from your pod, ocean blue scales and golden eyes matching your own. You threw your arms around his neck to give him a hug. “Ten! Ah, hey!”

“Are those… peanut butter?” He looked at the snack in your hand suspiciously.

“Uh, human study buddy,” you brushed off his concerns nonchalantly.

“Right, gotcha.”

The two of you usually hung out a lot—about as much as you and Renjun were together now, you figured—but since your spare time had been taken up with putting the search for Dr. Magic on full throttle, you were blanking on the last time you’d seen him. The beginning of the semester. Oh shit, you felt so guilty now.

The apology immediately started spilling out of your mouth, “Gods, I am so sorry we haven’t hung out, I wish I could say it was classes, or even research or something, but I’ve got this project. I can’t even really explain it without sounding crazy but—”

“Woah, Y/N, it’s okay,” Ten reassured you with a laugh, the same bright smile on his face as always. “I know how you get when you get really into one of your projects. Just let me know when you’ve finished it, and we can hang. Or if you ever need a break from it, too. It’s fine. If you weren’t a little crazy and obsessive, I wouldn’t be able to recognize you.”

He ruffled your hair with a snicker for good measure, and with your hands full of food, you couldn’t fight back, just huff and try to duck out of the way. But he was genuine about his sentiments, which really did make you feel better.

“Thanks, Ten. I’ll get in touch soon, I promise. I think I’m almost done!” You told him proudly.

“Soon in normal person time or soon in Y/N time?”

“Me time…”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll see you in six months then.”

“I’m not that bad!”

“Remember when I wondered aloud if sirens at the North and South poles were related, and you ended up spending our entire winter break researching that?”

“It only took four weeks!”

“You said it would be a quick search.”

“Exactly! People will dedicate their entire lives to that kind of research! I vastly condensed it!”

He shook his head fondly at the memory, elbowing you gently. “Get back to your project so you can finish early again and we can hang out soon, okay? And scoot, I’m trying to use the vending machine. You’re always in my way, I swear.”

You playfully pretended to block him, laughing as he nudged you out of the way with his shoulder. Starting back off towards the stairs, you turned around to give a cheery, “See you, Ten!”

“Bye, Y/N!” He waved to you with one hand, punching in the vending machine code with the other.

In better spirits having seen your friend, you traipsed up the stairs with extra pep in your step. Except Renjun wasn’t in your study room. Huh. Well, nothing in the rules saying a guy can’t take a bathroom break.

Setting his melon soda down next to his laptop, you plopped back down in your chair and kicked your feet up on the table. You ripped open your peanut butter sandwich cookies and cracked open your tea. The cookies were sweet, and while you didn’t have any oceanic reference for what peanut butter tasted like (you were told that “nutty” was a flavor profile unto itself, which wasn’t very helpful), you had decided that you liked it.

Waking your laptop back up, you saw that you had a new email, and shot up in your seat when you saw the subject.

dr_magic2303 replied to a post.

8 minutes ago.

Holy fucking shit, 8 minutes ago. While you were in the library? They could still be there. You looked around frantically. Where the fuck was Renjun when you needed him? Shooting to your feet, you snatched your phone from the table and rushed to throw the door open. Into Renjun’s face.

He stumbled back, holding his face as he let out a string of curses.

“Shit! Sorry, Junnie!” You didn’t sound all too sorry as you bounced on your feet, antsy to get a move on with your search. “No time for an ice pack though. Dr. Magic just replied to that dragon post we had bookmarked eight minutes ago. Which means that they’re probably still in the library! We need to go look for them right now!”

You took off in the direction of the desktop computers on this floor, keeping your voice at a fervent whisper-yell. The second floor computers were their favorite, according to the IPs.

“I know!” Renjun hurried after you, still clutching his nose. “I saw the email, and I tried to call you, but you left your phone in the study room.”

Checking your phone, you did in fact have a missed call from Renjun from 6 minutes ago. Well shit.

“So I went to go get you, but you weren’t at the vending machines, so I came back up to the study room and then nearly got my nose broken.”

You looked over your shoulder at him with wide eyes. “You went to get me? Not look for Dr. Magic on the freshest lead we’ve ever had? When they were quite possibly around the corner?”

The two of you had arrived at the desktops, and there was nobody in sight. One was awake, on the account login screen, the other two asleep on the ancient screensavers. You let out a heavy sigh, looking over at Renjun.

“I went to get you because this is your thing, not mine. I don’t know, I’d figured you’d want the satisfaction of taking the mask off them.”

You nodded. “Thanks, Junnie. Next time, though, just get them.”

“And how about you keep your phone on you?”

“So we both fucked it up.”

He gave you a one-shouldered shrug. “There’s still three more floors, Y/N.”

“Right, come on. You take the first, I’ll go up to the fourth since I smacked you with the door.”

The other floors were busts, and when you finally met back up with Renjun in your study room, you were glad to have your cold bottle of tea waiting for you. Knocking back a third of it in one go, you let out a noise of relief. Renjun had already opened the soda you’d gotten him.

“Thanks, by the way.” He held it up gratefully before taking a sip.

“You’re welcome.”

“And, I’m sorry. That I let Dr. Magic get away.”

“We don’t even know what floor they were posting from yet. They’ve could’ve been on the fourth floor and would’ve been gone by the time you got there anyway.” You brushed away his apologies. “Or they could’ve been on the second and been a psycho and you would’ve been a poor defenseless human all by yourself.”

“Oh, right, without my big strong siren to protect me.” He scoffed. “Woe is me.”

“Exactly,” you laughed, shutting your laptop. “Anyway, I’ll take a look at the IP later. Who knows, they might not have even been in the library. Might’ve been one of those rogue VPN posts.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He looked over you packing up your things. “You heading out?”

You nodded, zipping up your bag and tossing it onto your shoulder. “Prior arrangements. Sorry to cut this short, completely forgot about it when we agreed to meet up.”

“You’re so popular.”

“I know!” You mimicked his sarcastic tone, holding the door open with your foot as you stopped in the threshold. “Oh, hey— the midterm in MCS Linguistics. It’s my only one this semester, I’ve just got papers in all my other classes. Do you want to study together for that?”

“Yeah, sure, sure.”

“First session Saturday? My place for lunch?”

Renjun grimaced, presumably remembering your typical stock of pantry items tailored to a siren’s food preference. “I’ll pack a lunch.”

“Cool. See you in class, Junnie!” You waved to him cheerily as you took off for the faculty advisor meeting with Dr. Kwon that you were going to need to run across campus to be on time for.

“What is it?” Renjun set his book down where he was sat across your coffee table from you, an inquisitive eyebrow quirked up at you.

“What? Nothing.” You bit down on your lip, eyes boring holes into your computer screen.

“No, it’s not ‘nothing.’ You’ve been staring at me ever since I got here, while also refusing to make eye contact with me. What? Something in my teeth? My hair look bad?”

Normally that would’ve made you chuckle—he was wearing a backwards baseball cap again today—but you just bit down harder on your lip and shook your head.

“Now you’re refusing to talk?” He scoffed. “Did you get hexed or something? I can’t believe you’re refusing to talk.”

“No, I can talk,” you insisted. “What uh, what’d you get for number four? On the review packet?”

“Don’t tell me you’re still stuck on number four. Y/N, I’m almost done, and there’s twenty-five questions on this.”

“I’m not, I finished and went back, it was just one that I didn’t—”

But Renjun had grabbed your computer and turned the screen around, and you knew he could see that you had only done the first one. You buried your face in your hands, your skin prickling uncomfortably with shame. Your friend’s sigh was audible, but surprisingly, the next thing said wasn’t a string of derision. Instead, you heard the shuffle of clothes against your rug, and then he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee with you.

“Y/N, what’s going on with you today? Or, not today, the past couple days? You weren’t all there in class yesterday either. I left it alone then because it was Dr. Hyun, and nobody is ever all there for her classes but— what’s wrong?”

You slowly shook your head.

“You can’t tell me?”

You nodded.

“Okay. Is it bad? Like, dangerous?”

You shook your head.

“Alright, that’s good.” The relief was audible in his voice. “Is it family? Or, pod?”

You shook your head.

“School?”

You nodded.

“Alright, yeah. A lot going on. Is it like burn out?”

You shook your head.

“So, new stuff?”

You nodded.

He put an arm around your shoulders. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I know you already had a lot. Getting this midterm over with will be one more thing off your checklist, right? That’ll open a spot for this new thing.”

With a sniffle, you nodded.

“Ah, but you’re not going to be any good studying like this.” He sighed again, dropping his arm from around your shoulders and his presence shifted away from your side. “Come on, quick field trip. Then we’ll come right back to the MCS Linguistics grind. Sound good?”

You finally took your hands from your face to look up. Renjun was standing right next to you, offering you a hand. You tentatively put yours in his, and he tightened his grip to pull you up to your feet.

The two of you ended up in a froyo shop down the street from your apartment. You gleefully picked a gummy shark off the top of your swirl, biting the head off first before tossing the rest in your mouth. Renjun lifted a meticulously curated spoonful of froyo and toppings to his mouth, satisfaction on his face as he tasted his perfect bite. You watched in amusement as he went to start creating his next scoop that had the precise ratio of yogurt and every single topping he had chosen—each partitioned to their own area atop the froyo. You decided to save your second big gummy shark for last, and took a big spoonful from the melting edge of your froyo.

“Why not me?” Renjun asked abruptly, his gaze still on the dessert in front of him.

“Huh?” Your jaw dropped. How could he have known what—

“You haven’t asked me if I’m Dr. Magic. Why not?”

Ah, Dr. Magic. Of course.

“You were my first guess, and the first person I ruled out back in like September,” you admitted with a shrug.

His head snapped up at that. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re such an arrogant, neurotic overachiever that you’d want credit if you did all this. You wouldn’t use an alias.”

“Oh. Huh.” Renjun looked between you and his froyo, a sheepish smile coming to his face. “Strangely, that makes me feel better.”

You watched a dollop of froyo fall off your spoon and plop back into your cup. “And I nabbed your IP address off your laptop the first time we hung out in January and double-checked it with every Dr. Magic post. Just in case.”

“When I was in the bathroom?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course you did.”

“Were you taking it as an insult to your intelligence that I had apparently not considered you as an option?”

“Maybe…”

You laughed, and laughed, and laughed. You laughed so hard your sides hurt, there were tears in your eyes, and you genuinely started wheezing. Renjun pretended to roll his eyes, but you saw the smile on his face and knew what he was thinking: success, no more mopey siren.

Once you had enough air back in your lungs to talk, you pointed your spoon at him firmly. “See? Just proving my point. You want people to know you’re smart.”

He crossed his arms. “As if you don’t.”

“Oh, I definitely do. But I know I’m like that.” You put a hand over your chest, looking him dead in the eye. “Do you?”

With your head screwed back on the normal amount, you and Renjun were able to dive back into your study session at your apartment. Several hours into it, though, you noticed Renjun blinking like way too much and constantly rubbing at his eyes. It was to the point where it was distracting for you.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” You asked bluntly.

That immediately burst the Renjun griping dam (which was really held together with tape and prayers anyway). “The screens hurt my eyes and human blue light glasses don’t do shit and no fairy has let me try theirs out. I know I should probably just take the plunge and buy them but I really can’t justify the price and—”

“Try mine.” You stood up, walking over to a display shelf on the other side of the living room.

“You have a pair? Why? Sirens don’t—”

“You collect magical experiences. I collect magical things.” You said nonchalantly, grabbing the pair of silver frames from where they sat between a phoenix feather (a gift) and a small wristwatch that would tell the correct time until it was put on, then it would be set on the time and date most significant to the wearer in that moment until it was removed. Walking back over to him, you held them out to him insistently, “Here, try them.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Renjun gingerly took them, sliding the arms over his ears and the frames onto the bridge of his nose. The pair you had was a little older, admittedly. You’d picked them up at a novelty shop, so they had some retro charm to them. An older style of frame, thicker lenses. But you thought it added a quaintness to their look. Especially on Renjun, he just looked downright adorable in them.

You sat back down to watch with your head in your hand as his brown eyes blinked from behind the thick lenses, and he looked around your living room like a newborn woodland animal. His face had already relaxed, and he turned his focus down to his laptop screen next, messing with the brightness up, then down. After that, he took out his phone, doing the same with that device.

“Well?” You prompted him, though you truly would’ve been content with watching him look around as if he’d been born colorblind and it were his first time seeing in color. Which, you had an enchanted pair for that too, but he wasn’t colorblind to your knowledge.

The human looked at you, a giddy smile stretching across his face. “They’re perfect! Thanks, Y/N!”

His hand reached up to take them off, but you stopped him.

“Keep them—”

“No, these had to be so expensive!” He protested immediately.

“Just for a week or so,” you finished your sentence pointedly. He was cute, but not that cute. “Make sure you really like them before you buy, okay? If you end up hating them, give them back. If you like them and buy your own pair, you can give them back whenever yours arrive in the mail.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s not like I’m using them. Superior siren eyesight.” You tapped next to one of your eyes for emphasis.

“Thanks for not rubbing it in or anything.”

Scrambling to dial Renjun’s number, you put your phone on speaker as you fervently flicked through all of your Dr. Magic notes. You’d been laying in bed binging some mindless baking competition to numb your brain from all the studying you’d been doing when an email notification had popped up alerting you to a new Dr. Magic post.

“Y/N?” Renjun answered the phone, sounding utterly confused. “What’s—”

“New Dr. Magic post. I ran the IP and they’re in our city!” You blurted out.

“Okay… Well we already knew that, right?”

“Yeah, but this is an IP in our city that they posted from at midnight on a Saturday. Not any of the school computers.” You hit CTRL + F, typing in the string of numbers to quickly cross reference it with your extensive list. “This could be their IP. Like, their actual one, from a personal computer.”

“Oh, yeah. Could be.”

“Can you give me a little more enthusiasm here, Junnie? Did I wake you up or something? It’s only—” You stopped like you’d just walked face-first into a brick wall, eyes locked on the search result.

“Yeah, only quarter after midnight,” he scoffed.

You clicked the next arrow on the search bar, but that was the only match. 1/1 results.

“Y/N?” Renjun called for your attention. “You there?”

You hung up.

Not wanting to lose your nerve, you pressed the doorbell over and over insistently. You could hear the complaining tone of the occupant before his words were even audible.

“Christ, I have neighbors, you know?” Renjun swung open the door with a scowl. The human was in a big, slouching hoodie and pajama pants. His hair was stuck up in a couple different directions, making you think he might’ve just woken up. Except behind him, you could see that his kitchen light was on, and a couple books and his laptop were open on his kitchen table. Late night studying. And the fact that you’d just talked to him on the phone fifteen minutes ago.

“Can I come in?” You requested, fidgeting with the sleeve of your cardigan.

His face immediately softened. “Yeah, of course.”

“Sorry to just show up like this,” you said as you took off your shoes by the front door before following him further into his apartment.

“It’s okay.” He stopped you two in the kitchen, picking up a colorful, patterned cardboard box. “Uh, I was just about to make a midnight snack. Pizza bites, you want some?”

“I… don’t think I’ve ever had them.”

“Perfect, you can try one now then.”

“Mm,” you made a non-committal noise, leaning against his kitchen counter to watch him pour out the frozen food onto a baking sheet.

The oven beeped, and he put the tray in before pressing a couple more buttons.

“So, I was thinking about the Dr. Magic stuff. Not the IP stuff but like… What even is your plan for when you do find Dr. Magic?” Renjun asked as he put the remaining pizza bites in his freezer.

“What do you mean?”

He leaned against the countertop across from you, though in the narrow space of his kitchen, you were practically knee-to-knee. “Like, say we finally find out who they are, we run up to them in the library or on campus or something. Then what? What are you going to do? What are you going to say? You’ve done all this, and I know why you had to. I get it. But, do you know what you’re going to say to them?”

“Probably something along the lines of…” You trailed off, giving an exasperated sigh. Dropping your chin to your chest, you groaned, “Gods, I don’t know.”

“Hey, that’s why you got me. So you can bounce ideas off someone, do a dry run.”

“I thought the words would just come to me, and now that I’m trying, I can’t—”

“It’s fine, Y/N. Let’s think about why you did this. I know it’s really hard to put into words. I mean, I know why you did. I get it. It’s that need to know. Not because you can, but because you have to, right? It’s curiosity in its rawest form. So obviously it’s not going to be some schmaltzy ‘haha I caught you’ spiel or anything.”

Looking up from the kitchen tile to Renjun’s eager features, you shook your head in disbelief. “You’re still helping me… when I know it’s you, Junnie.”

He tilted his head to the side, a comical noise of confusion coming from his mouth, “Uh?”

“I know it’s you, and you know that I know that it’s you.”

“You already ruled me out, because I’m an arrogant—”

“Junnie, you made a post on the forums from your laptop. No VPN. When you knew I was still tracking Dr. Magic’s IP on every post they made, and that I had your IP. That’s not a whoopsie that you make unless you want to be caught.”

The human crossed his arms over his chest, but otherwise seemed entirely calm about being caught. “And you didn’t come in here guns blazing now that you’d caught me, either. Why?”

“I didn’t know how to say it. I mean, you’re right, I only did all this because I needed to know.”

“And now you know.”

“Why now? Why just give up now?” You asked with a shake of your head. “You started posting as Dr. Magic back in August, and I came to you in January. You knew everything I was doing; you could have cruised through the rest of the semester and I’d have never caught you.”

“You wanted to find out who it was by midterms. One less thing on your plate.”

“And now I know…”

“So how does it feel? Finally catching Dr. Magic?”

You wrinkled your nose and sighed, “Bit disappointing. I was right on my first guess.”

“And you immediately dismissed me out of hand for being an arrogant, neurotic overachiever on your first guess,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t really know you then. If I’d known you then like I know you now, I would’ve known as soon as I saw the first post.”

Renjun batted his eyes teasingly. “Aww, Y/N…”

“Doctor underscore magic two, three, zero, three? Twenty-three, oh-three? That’s your birthday, Junnie,” you deadpanned.

“Right.”

Pushing off the counter to stand up straight again, you said, “Anyway, you did help me find Dr. Magic. So, my turn.”

“Oh, no, you seriously don’t have to do that. I rigged the deal—”

“Yeah, about that.” You took a step forward. “How did you think that was going to end up for you, anyway? Were you going to sell somebody else out as Dr. Magic and hope I wasn’t going to talk to them? Spit in your mouth first and ask questions later?”

“I was thinking on my feet.”

“Maybe think laying down next time, Junnie.”

“Ouch.”

“Anyway, come on, you’ll want to sit down for this.” You grabbed his wrist, pulling him towards the living room.

“You don’t need to feel like you have to do this,” he reassured you.

Stopping the two of you in front of the couch, you turned to face him with a smirk. “Believe me when I say that it is going to be a treat unto itself for me to see you under the effects of siren venom. M’kay?”

Renjun’s surprise was evident on his face. “Oh.”

You stepped closer to him, delicately placing a hand on his chest. “Now unless you want me to literally spit in your mouth, I’m going to have to kiss you, to administer the venom.”

His eyes flicked between the hand you had on his chest and your face as he replied. “I’m okay with that—the kissing—if you are.”

“Renjun, I’ve been ready to eat you alive since you said the words ‘I want to experience siren venom for science’ to me.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. So why don’t you sit?” You guided him with the hand against his chest to sit back against his couch. Swinging one leg over his hips, then the other, you lowered yourself onto his lap. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, tentatively settling his hands on your thighs. “Is this okay?”

“More than.” You smiled, looping your arms around his neck. “Now, a couple things, before we get started.”

“We haven’t started?”

“You’ll know it when we do.”

“Right.”

“I know you think you know what siren venom is like, but whatever scientific articles you’ve read, or documentaries you’ve watched, or slides you’ve studied under microscopes in lab, cannot actually prepare you for what it’s like. Which, I imagine is why you want to experience it for yourself.” You smirked down at him as you watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down with a gulp. “So before I actually dose you up with it, I need you to tell me what you’re actually okay with doing and what you’re not. Because once you get my venom in you, you’re going to want to let me do anything and everything to you, up to and including kill you, remember?”

“Well that’s off the table.”

“Good to know,” you snorted, running a fingernail down the nape of his neck. You felt a shudder go through him. “Is this okay?”

“Y-Yeah.” He seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes open. You halted your motions to let him think, and watched in amusement as he blinked his mind clear.

Once enough time had passed, you prompted him, “So?”

“I think just kissing,” Renjun answered. “Like, making out, or whatever. If you want…”

You snickered. “What part of ‘eat you alive’ was I unclear about?”

“The ‘eat’ part, actually. How literal is that?”

“Guess you’ll find out,” you teased. Then, you focused again as you sat back a little. “Okay, making out. Making out means different things to different people. So… we know kissing’s on the table. Tongue?”

“Yeah.”

“Teeth?”

“Where?”

“Waist up. You got somewhere you don’t want them?”

He took a moment to think about this. Then shook his head. “No. You can use them. Anywhere.”

“Same goes for you. Hickies?”

“Giving or receiving?”

“Both. You first.”

“Both are okay. You?”

You were already zeroing in on his neck and a small part of his collarbone peeking out from under his hoodie. “Same. Touching over clothes?”

“Okay, as long as you don’t think it’ll be too much with the venom…”

“Oh, Junnie, everything is going to be too much.” You grinned down at him.

His breathing had picked up pace as the two of you were talking. “You? The touching?”

“Good. Great. Touching under clothes?”

Renjun squirmed underneath you, but maintained your eye contact. “Just under my shirt.”

“Smart boy,” you said approvingly. “Me too.”

“Is that it?” He asked quietly, eyes now flicking down to your lips.

“I think so…” You looked around the room to buy a couple extra seconds of thinking time. When you hadn’t come up with anything else, you looked down at the human below you once more. “Ready, Renjun?”

“Yes.”

You took one final look over him like this, how much he already wanted you before he’d even gotten any of your venom in him, and dragged the tip of your tongue over your bottom lip instinctually. His heartrate jumped, and you wondered if it was fear—if the motion had reminded him perhaps of a hungry predator—or need. Or maybe a bit of both.

But you couldn’t tease him nor yourself any longer, swooping down to connect your mouths. You started off with just a couple light, closed-mouth kisses, to ease him into it. You heard him inhale quickly through his nose, his grip on your thighs tightening minutely. Swiping your tongue across the seal of his lips, you were delighted when he immediately parted his mouth in response, his tongue seeking yours out. You hummed contentedly into his mouth as you started stroking a fingernail down the back of his neck again. At the same time, your venom was beginning to mix in with your saliva, being passed onto Renjun.

Once his jaw started going slack in the kiss, and his hands slowly slid off your legs entirely to rest lamely at his side, you deemed him plenty dosed up. Consciously, you blocked off your venom glands once more. When one particularly drawn-out scratch down the back of his neck finally elicited a noise from him, an involuntary whine, you felt something in you snap. You needed more of that.

“So this is what siren venom feels like…” He mumbled breathily, letting his head loll back against the couch cushion as you kissed a path down his jawline and neck. When you felt his breath hitch in his throat over one particular spot, you decided to take your time there, sucking and nipping a mark into his skin.

When humans were… locked in a lover’s embrace, they let off a certain perfume distinguishable only to sirens—which was what made them the favored prey of sirens for so long. A human under the influence of siren venom? Delectable. And every human’s was unique too, so Renjun under the influence of your venom? Absolutely addictive.

With each kiss you stole from his lips, every nip you left on his neck that you then soothed over with your tongue, you got another taste of it. A sweetness that came with a bite, like ginger candy.

Renjun was still talking, though, his vocal cords vibrating under your lips. “My-My heart’s beating so fast, and I’m so warm—that’s so the ocean water doesn’t feel cold, of course—”

“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”

“Oh. Right.” He closed his mouth, looking up at you with glassy eyes, waiting. Gods, he was so pretty like this.

You crashed your lips back on his, a mess of teeth and lips and tongue as he tried to keep up with you. But you knew that your venom was in full effect now, every single one of his nerve endings was approximately three and half times more sensitive. So you were sure it was all a little overwhelming. But he was definitely trying his best, kissing sloppily into your mouth with hungry, desperate whines.

Pulling him back off with your grip in his hair, you traced a thumb over his kiss-swollen bottom lip, cooing over how fucked-out he looked like this. “Oh, baby. Oh, poor Junnie. What’s wrong? Can’t even kiss me properly because it feels too good? Baby’s overwhelmed with just a little bit of kissing?”

He opened his mouth wider, darting the tip of his tongue out to brush against the pad of your thumb. You pushed the finger in his mouth, groaning as he immediately closed his lips around it. “Gods, you’re perfect, Junnie.”

Taking your thumb back out of his mouth just to grab his chin with the same wet digit, you attacked his lips with yours again. Ginger candy. His hands that had been lamely resting at his sides the entire time now fumbled at something in the area where your hips met.

“What? What are you trying to do, baby?” You asked, leaning back to look down. He was grabbing at the hem of his hoodie, unsuccessfully yanking it up towards his head as part of it was stuck under one of your thighs.

“‘m too hot. Please…” He panted, dropping it as he looked up at you pleadingly.

You nodded slowly in understanding, knowing that one of the effects of the siren venom was an increase in body temperature, not to mention what you two were just doing. The collar of another shirt was visible underneath the sweatshirt. “Okay, Junnie, we can take your hoodie off. But only the hoodie. Your other clothes are staying on, understood?”

He nodded quickly, hips bucking up against you. Sweat was beading up on his forehead, his hair getting stuck to the damp skin. You shifted back on his lap so that none of the sweatshirt was under you anymore, grabbing the hem and reaching behind him to yank up from underneath him as well.

“Sit forward for me, baby?” You requested in his ear sweetly.

Renjun obliged as best he could, leaning forward to get his back and shoulders off the couch. You pulled the hoodie up over his head, tossing it off to the side, leaving him in a black t-shirt that certainly couldn’t be helping much either. But having that heavy layer off seemed to provide some relief for him, as he let out a sigh, falling back against the furniture again.

You giggled as you settled back into the crux of his lap again, lacing your fingers together behind his neck. “Is that better now, Junnie?”

He shook his head, and you arched an eyebrow curiously.

“Oh? What’s wrong, then?”

Renjun tugged gently at your cardigan where it had shrugged down to show one of your shoulders. “Please?”

Pulling your bottom lip in between your teeth, you thought this over. You had a tank top on under the cardigan, and both of you were still wearing everything else. Not to mention that you were starting to get a bit warm too. Sirens ran naturally cooler than humans, so you were sure that to him, you felt practically refreshing right now, but you honestly were a bit hot for a siren’s tastes.

Giving a contemplative hum first, you finally relented, “Alright, Junnie. But just my sweater. Everything else stays on, because we didn’t talk about that before the venom, do you understand?”

He rushed to strip you of the knit cardigan, his mouth following his hands’ path down your skin. First on your shoulder, then down your arm. You let the garment drop on the floor behind you as he kissed back up along your shoulder, then over the fabric of your tank top until he got to your collarbone, and finally the hollow of your throat. Fondly stroking the back of his head, the pleased purr that had started in your chest turned into a surprised moan when he licked a long stripe up your throat.

Holding his face in your hands so that your noses brushed, and your lips barely ghosted over each other, you let your breaths mingle in the meager space afforded. Renjun ended your little anticipation game quickly, kissing you tongue-first, and you kissed him back just as eagerly, sucking on his tongue with lewd, wet noises. He moaned into your mouth, his hands grabbing at your waist for purchase first, then slipping and curling into the material of your shirt, bunching it in his fists.

Slowing the pace of your kisses, you eventually sat back, appraising the state he was in. You affectionately ran a hand through his hair as you took in his blown pupils, kiss-swollen lips, and pink cheeks. “Junnie? How are you feeling? Need a break?”

You hadn’t given him another dose of venom since the initial one, which wasn’t very large to begin with. But this was his first time experiencing it, so you wanted to check in. He should be just past the peak of it by now, starting to come down but for all intents and purposes still very much intoxicated. Siren venom wasn’t meant to last very long, after all, it took an adult human less than a minute to drown.

“Need you…” He insisted, arching up towards you.

Indulging him in one, two more feverish kisses, you pulled away once again. “I know, baby. And you’ve been doing so good for me. So I need you to tell me if you need a break. Okay?”

“’kay.” He agreed before you sealed your mouth over his again.

Kissing down from his mouth to just under his jaw, at the same time you trailed a finger down the center of his front until it got to the hem of his t-shirt.

He nodded fervently before you could say or do anything more. “Please… please…”

“Shh, shh, shh,” you quieted him down gently. “Doing so good for me, Junnie. The best.”

You slipped your hands under his shirt, just to stroke his waist. His muscles tensed under your touch, and he let out a sound of satisfaction. He grabbed at your thighs again, but you couldn’t tell if it was an attempt at reciprocity or to have something sturdier to ground himself to than your flimsy tank top. The corner of your lips quirked up as you pressed a couple more kisses down his neck to hover your lips over his pulse point, content to start a new mark there as your hands continued to explore under his shirt. It was when you gently raked your nails down over his pecs that you got the loudest moan out of him yet, and you groaned in response.

“Gods, you’re perfect,” you nuzzled your nose into Renjun’s neck, then pressed a couple relatively chaste pecks to his cheek. “Just perfect…”

Taking your hands back out from his shirt, you silenced his whine at the loss of contact by slotting your lips together once more. You cupped his face with one hand, using the other to take one of his hands off your leg and lace them together, palm to palm. This seemed to make him content once more, especially when you brought your connected hands up to the back of the couch, pinning his behind his head. He squirmed under you, letting out a familiar noise of pleasure into your mouth and squeezing your hand tightly.

You knew the venom was well and truly starting to wear off when Renjun began keeping pace with your slow, lazy kisses, his mouth not as sloppy but no less delightful as it moved in tandem with yours. The thumb of the remaining hand on your thigh started to stroke over your skin, and the hand that you were holding gave yours a gentle squeeze. You gave him one, two last lingering kisses, drinking in the dwindling taste of ginger candy while you could, Renjun matching you beat for beat.

Unlacing your fingers and dropping your hand from his face, you drew back from him. Before you could say anything, though, Renjun grabbed you by the back of the neck and pulled you in for one more kiss, sinking his teeth into your already tender, over-kissed bottom lip. You gasped into his mouth, which gave him the perfect opportunity to intertwine his tongue with yours again on his apparent mission to try to kiss the breath from you. A nigh impossible task for a human to do to a siren, but it definitely felt like he was succeeding. He was crushing his lips against yours so hard you were worried about him drawing blood—not because you would mind the pain, but for fear of his safety if he got a direct hit of your blood in his mouth.

In the back of your mind, you were desperately trying to remember if you had maybe accidentally opened your venom glands a second time later on, but just drew a blank. That wasn’t something you did unaware, it wasn’t automatic, it had to be done on purpose. Then, for a brief moment, you were worried about secondary wave syndrome—some humans break down siren venom in two phases instead of one, and the second one almost always kills them if they’re not brought to a human medical doctor for treatment—and you started running through the symptoms as well as the nearest human emergency rooms in your mind. Burst capillaries in the eyes, refusal of food and water, the hospital three blocks over should have an ER, right? But the kiss didn’t feel like when he’d been intoxicated on your venom before, this one felt deliberate, in control. He was in control. You let out a small moan at the thought, and Renjun’s lone hand on your thigh tightened in response.

Once he finally let you go, you both sat there in silence for a good few seconds, you still on his lap. You stared extra hard at the whites of his eyes. They looked normal. He seemed… normal.

It was rare for either of you to be speechless, much less the both of you.

“Well…” you broke the silence. “That was siren venom. You should drink some water. Stay right here, I’ll get it.”

You climbed off of him, heading into his kitchen. Looking at the oven, you were wondering how the timer hadn’t gone off in that entire time when you saw that it wasn’t on. The words ‘TIMER SET?’ were flashing on the screen at you, and the preheat hadn’t been started either. The pizza rolls had just been slowly defrosting on a pan in the cold oven. You couldn’t help but laugh, reaching into his fridge for his Brita filter then securing a couple cups from the cabinets.

Walking back into the living room, you handed the human his cup of water and remained standing as you took a sip of yours.

“You didn’t start the oven, for your pizza rolls,” you informed him quietly.

“Wh— oh, shit,” Renjun groaned, tipping his head back. “I guess I don’t get to give you your first pizza roll tonight.”

“That’s okay.” You dropped onto the couch next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

“So… that was siren venom,” he breathed out, then took a long gulp of his water. Definitely not second wave syndrome.

“That was siren venom,” you confirmed with a laugh, fondly brushing a piece of sweaty hair off his forehead.

“You were right… I was not prepared,” he admitted with a laugh, taking another drink.

“So do you think you would’ve let me kill you?”

“Yeah. I would’ve given you my credit card info, bank password, spilled all of my friends’ worst secrets, let you kill me, killed someone else if you asked me. God, that was…” He said with wide eyes, shaking his head. But there was a familiar glint in his eye as a smile cracked across his face, “Incredible.”

“Glad you think so,” you giggled, patting his chest. “Now don’t become a venom junkie, okay? I couldn’t live with myself if you did and it was my fault.”

“I won’t. Not really what I meant anyway.”

You grinned slyly at what he seemed to be implying, that it might not have just been the siren venom, but that it was you and your venom that made it so incredible. Like how every human had a slightly different essence, every siren had a unique chemical signature in their venom. It’s why using it non-consensually nowadays would be extremely stupid (as well as just an immoral thing to do and also a crime)—it can be matched to the siren in a lab like DNA. In addition, anecdotally, every siren’s venom was said to produce a slightly different high, but no mass studies had backed that up. You were inclined to believe the stories, though.

Renjun was still a bit hazy, though, still riding the high of the venom, so you decided to tuck a conversation like that away for another time.

“So why did you pick Magical Creatures Studies? Other than you’re insane?” You redirected the topic to a more neutral one.

Renjun didn’t seem put off at all about this jump. “When I was a kid, my family traveled around a bunch, for my dad’s job. I got to meet a lot of different kinds of beings, some of them became my best friends, and I never wanted to stop learning about it all.”

“What does your dad do?”

“Government job,” he answered, suddenly interested in picking at his nails.

You furrowed your brow thoughtfully. “Wait a minute… Huang Renjun. As in, your father is Ambassador Huang? That we’ve had to write papers on in class?”

Ambassador Huang was the first human ambassador sent on diplomacy trips to outside nations of magical creatures post-integration. His trips had largely been considered a monumental success, and credited as a big driver behind the huge uptick of immigration that your city has been seeing from outlying areas in the past couple decades. You’d hardly gotten through a single contemporary MCS class without directly learning about him or at least hearing his name. And you’d apparently been going to school with his son for four years and just pumped said son full of your venom and made out with him while he was high on your venom.

“Yeah…”

“Dude! What the hell? You didn’t think to mention that at some point?” You asked incredulously.

“And sound like some uppity nepo kid bragging about my dad? No thanks,” Renjun snorted.

“Yeah, maybe not like day one but like… I don’t know, before I used my venom on you!” You nudged his arm teasingly.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I just venom-ed Ambassador Huang’s son!”

“Oh my God, could you not call me that?” He snapped at you. “This is why I don’t tell people! Because now I don’t have a name anymore, I’m just Ambassador Huang’s son.”

You immediately realized your mistake, your stomach dropping as you heard the hurt in his words. “Renjun, I’m—”

“Just go.” He demanded, standing up from the couch and putting distance between you two again. “We both got what we wanted, right? You found out who Dr. Magic was, and I experienced siren venom. That’s all this was, so you can go. You don’t owe me anything else.”

You clenched your jaw, setting your cup on the end table beside the couch. Picking up your cardigan from the floor with as much dignity as you could, you pulled it back on. Neither of you said another word as he watched you stalk over to the front door, shove your shoes back on, throw the door open, and slam it closed behind you.

Drumming your fingertips along your keyboard, you squinted at the flashcards on your screen. You were in a sour mood, which had persisted ever since you’d left Renjun’s last night feeling used.

Ten was next to you at your picnic table outside the student union, finishing up a pencil portrait sketch of one of his other friends—one of the CompSci majors you’d paid to write your browser extension, actually. Dejun, a dragon, whose slit pupils, many bejeweled earrings, and a singular fang poking out from under his top lip featured prominently in the portrait. The sketch was part of Ten’s midterm portfolio check-in for one of his classes. Midterms were literally this week. Like, right now. You forced your sharp teeth further into the wooden pencil in your mouth.

“You’re going to ruin your cuspids like that, Y/N,” Ten chastised you calmly, rubbing at a line with the pad of his ring finger to smudge it before flipping his own non-mangled pencil around and continuing to sketch with the graphite.

“I’ll grow another set,” you grumbled, but took the writing utensil out of your mouth nevertheless.

“And have no teeth in the meantime. Real sexy siren stuff. Sure to lure all the hotties to their deaths looking like GamGam missing her dentures.”

“Shut up!” You shoved his head away, earning a loud peal of laughter from your friend. “As if you’ve been pulling anybody yourself. You’re literally a siren art major covered in tattoos that he designed himself, more piercings than a dragon, including nipple rings, and you haven’t been on a date in… what, almost a year?”

“So we’re both disappointments to the good siren name, huh?” He held up his hands in surrender, still grinning. “Just a couple of poor, celibate sirens doomed to be disgraces to their species forever…”

“Can you not yell that to the entire courtyard, dude?”

“What? Not announce very loudly that you haven’t been with anybody in exactly four—”

You lunged to cover his mouth before he could publicize precisely how long it’s been since you’d hooked up with someone. Ten immediately broke down into laughs behind your hand that was covering his mouth, his shoulders shaking even as you smacked him on the back of the head with your other hand.

“Gods, what is wrong with you?” You hissed at him. “You’re a menace to society. And me.”

When you’d finally let go of his face, he said through a couple more chuckles, “Hey, you could easily do it back to me.”

“Why would I want to do that? And the fact that you’re suggesting it makes me think that you want me to do that, which makes me want to do it even less. You freak.”

Before your podmate could respond, you caught sight of a figure approaching your table head-on. Setting your jaw, your body immediately tensed. There was no mistake, Huang Renjun was walking straight towards you. Ten seemed to have noticed the shift in your body language and mood, as he didn’t say anything further, quietly going back to his sketchbook as you watched Renjun get nearer and nearer.

“Y/N,” he said your name quietly, stopping not quite at the end of the table beside you, but next to the end of the bench across from you.

“What do you want from me now, Renjun?” You replied bitterly, pretending to return your hands to your keyboard as if you were going to refocus on your studies.

“Uhm, to talk, I guess?”

Ten interjected, “Do you guys need a second? I can go—”

You held him in place with a hand around his wrist, your voice curt, “No, Ten. Stay. This will be short.”

Your friend lowered himself back down into his seat.

You then set your hard gaze on Renjun. The marks you had left on his neck were still visible above the collar of his t-shirt. Moving your eyes from that to his face, you cocked your head to the side. “What’s in it for me? You established that our relationship is purely transactional, remember? We apparently just use each other. You scratch my back, I spit in your mouth, quid pro quo.”

“Okay, I’m going now,” Ten declared, wrenching his arm from your grasp to grab his sketchbook, pencils, and backpack before taking off.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I don’t see you like that at all, I just... I got defensive and snapped. It’s not an excuse, but still, I want you to know that I don’t mean anything I said. I’m sorry.” Renjun shifted uncomfortably on his feet, but you could see the genuine remorse on his features.

You breathed in, then out.

“I’m sorry too,” you sighed, letting your voice relax back to the natural softness that it held around Renjun. “You’re your own person, aside from just ‘Ambassador Huang’s son.’ I’m sorry for treating you like anything other than Renjun.”

“It’s not that I’m not super proud to be his son or anything, I think he’s really awesome. He was my hero growing up; still is. I mean, I’m going into the same field as him. Kind of. You know? It’s just because we’re going to be doing the same kind of thing, I want to be able to be looked at for what I do. Good or bad.”

“Bad? You plan on using your degree for evil, Renjun?” You teased, scooting over on the bench seat to take Ten’s previous spot and freeing up a place for Renjun to scoot in beside you.

“I could,” he played along, gladly taking the seat offered.

The two of you made eye contact, then burst into laughter at the same time.

“What?” He questioned in mock offense. “I think I’d make a great evil dictator, personally. You don’t think so?”

“Not at all, you’d be great at it.”

“Thank you. My friends don’t take my threats so seriously.”

“Which will ultimately be their downfall.”

Renjun looked back out at the campus in front of you two, his voice turning serious again, “But, seriously, I mean, I don’t want people having all these lofty expectations for me and then be disappointed when I don’t change the whole world, nor do I want them making things easy for me because they know my dad.”

“That’s fair. Unattainable, but fair to wish for,” you nodded in understanding.

“Ugh...” He slumped forward, dropping his head into his arms atop the table.

“Look, Renjun…” You rested one hand on his arm as the other rubbed up and down his back supportively. “You can’t change who your dad is, and you said it yourself, it’s not like you’re ashamed of him either. So don’t brag, and don’t be a dick when somebody brings him up either. Just do your best to show people who Huang Renjun is. And if they still don’t get it, that’s their loss. Because I already know him, and I think he’s pretty cool.”

Renjun sat back up to look you in the face with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “You’re such a cheeseball. Aren’t sirens supposed to be alluring and enchanting?”

“Shut up! I will drown you! See how alluring I am when you’re under a siren call,” you huffed, crossing your arms over your chest.

“I’m kidding.” He grinned at you, nudging your shoulder with his. “That really did make me feel better, thank you, Y/N.”

You smiled back. “You’re welcome, Renjun.”

The two of you kept smiling at each other for a moment before he broke the eye contact, looking down at his hands then shifting his gaze back to the courtyard.

“Uhm, while we’re airing stuff out about last night...” He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Yeah, Junnie?” You tilted your head to the side, watching as his cheeks started flushing.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you. I kind of popped off on you right after... everything. But thank you, for taking care of me before, during, and after. It didn’t even occur to me to talk about what we could and couldn’t do beforehand. Thank you for that, and for getting me the water. And... all of it in between...” His ears were bright red too at this point, but he managed to look you in the eye as he gave you his genuine gratitude.

You nodded in understanding. “You’re welcome. I’m glad that you felt cared for during all of it. In addition to, you know, everything else you felt.”

“Mm, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Studying his face curiously, you said, “You look like you want to ask me something else.”

“Well, I feel like you still weren’t very clear on the ‘eat me alive’ thing.”

You rolled your eyes. “Gods, Junnie, I’m not going to actually eat you—”

“I mean...” Renjun took a deep breath. “I kind of always feel like I’ve got a little bit of siren venom in me when I’m around you, Y/N. My heart races, and my skin is warm, and everything is just better when I’m with you. I want to see you when you’re not around, and when things are hard for you, I want to make everything better. I like you, and between the Dr. Magic deal, and our stupid academic rivalry, and what we did last night, I don’t know what I am to you, but that’s how I feel.”

If someone had told freshman you that Huang Renjun would ever say words like that to you, you’d have laughed in their face to the point of tears— or slapped them. And yet, in that moment, you weren’t surprised in the slightest. It was the most natural, beautiful, delightful, perfect thing that could’ve happened. Just like you leaning over to give him a modest, near-demure kiss on the cheek, absolutely beaming at him as you pulled back.

“I like you too, Renjun,” you admitted.

His eyes went wide before a broad, tender smile spread across his features and he wrapped an arm around your shoulders. He let out a drawn-out sigh of relief, “Ohh, that’s one weight off my chest for this week.”

You laughed in agreement. “Me too. Actually makes everything feel lighter.”

“Yeah, it does,” he said, squeezing your shoulder. “So how much do I owe you?”

“What?”

“You said you were going to invoice Dr. Magic. For the browser extension, and the color copies, and whatever else. How much do I owe you?”

You tapped a finger against your chin, pretending to think before a smirk pulled across your lips. “Mm, should be exactly the price of one nice dinner and a movie.”

“Dinner and a movie? Just how many copies were you making?” He asked with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

“A nice dinner,” you reiterated. “I paid those CompSci majors fairly for their time.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Friday night after your last midterm, you were knocking on Huang Renjun’s door. The two of you had seen each other this week for your Linguistics in MCS class, but had been utterly locked into academic mode and hadn’t met up aside from that. So, per his invite, you were here in your “midterms best”— i.e., the pajamas you had been wearing at your own apartment since submitting your last mid-semester draft earlier today. You’d been told this wasn’t going to be a fancy affair.

Judging by the pajamas that Renjun had also answered the door wearing—giving you vivid déjà vu to the last time you were here—you were dressed appropriately for the occasion. He led you in by the hand, informing you there was something he wanted to show you in the kitchen.

You came to a stop in front of a plate piled high with small, pillow-shaped pieces of dough, some with bursts of red sauce leaking out of them. You couldn’t help but let out a sputtering laugh. “Pizza rolls? Did midterms scramble the egg on your face so bad that you missed the part where I said nice dinner?”

You might not have ever eaten pizza rolls, but you knew what section of the grocery store they came from.

“I can’t even tell what that was supposed to be… You’re so beautiful…” He was staring at you with a look of pure adoration, and surprised you by giving you a fleeting peck on the cheek, gone as soon as you’d realized what he was doing. Your hand instinctually came up to brush at your skin, almost in disbelief, as he went back to explaining his plans for tonight. “Anyway, I didn’t get to give you your first pizza roll the other night, and I figured that the last thing you actually wanted right after midterms week was to go out to some hoity toity place and be out at the movie theater really late, right? So, I’ve got pizza rolls, peanut butter cookies, your seaweed tea, and like way more snacks and candy and stuff. So we can chill and watch whatever movies you want tonight, unwind from midterms. And then next weekend, we’ll do your nice dinner and go to the movie theater. Think of it as an IOU.”

A fond smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you nodded your approval. “Mmm… you’re right. This is great, Junnie. Thank you.”

Set up on Renjun’s couch with the assortment of snacks—pizza rolls included—and your first movie chosen, you settled in next to him, knee to knee, under the same blanket as the two of you ate. You decided that pizza rolls weren’t that bad (you still liked peanut butter sandwich cookies better), convinced Renjun to try some of your ocean flakes again—a favorite snack of sirens, which he’d already tasted on one occasion at a Dr. Magic hunting session and hated—to similar results, and finished off a bottle of seaweed-infused tea by the time the first movie was about a third of the way done. At this point, you were pretty satiated food-wise, and set your empty drink bottle on the coffee table to sit back on the couch.

Linking your arm with Renjun’s, you rested your head on his shoulder as he was still finishing up his plate of pizza rolls. “That was good, Renjun. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I call dibs on little spoon first, by the way.”

“Damn.”

Once he was done eating as well, you laid down to eagerly take your promised place as little spoon. Renjun stayed partially propped up against the arm of the couch so he could see the TV as you were nestled back against his chest, one of his arms slung over your waist. Your fingers played with his under the blanket absentmindedly as you got used to your new place, with him, in his arms.

“Renjun?” You said into the quiet. The only noises were coming from the TV. The movie was nearly done, just a couple little resolving scenes after the climax left. You’d seen it plenty of times before—both of you had, it was a favorite that you’d discovered you two shared earlier in the semester—which was why you’d picked it, an easy watch that you both liked. But nothing that required your full attention, so you could talk or miss scenes if you wanted.

“Yeah?” He responded just as softly.

“This is really nice. Hanging out, just us. No school, no Dr. Magic.”

“I know. Almost doesn’t feel real.”

“What? That we’re hanging out without trying to kill each other?”

He let out a couple laughs, catching your hand that had been playing with his under the blanket and lacing your fingers together. “I think there’s definitely some people that would be shocked to see us right now. But I meant more-so that we don’t have any schoolwork to do right now, and that the whole Dr. Magic thing is finally over. Other than the dinner that I owe you.”

“Oh… I owe you… I-O-U…” you sounded the words and letters out slowly. “I get it now.”

“God, you’re perfect,” he sighed dreamily, brushing your hair away from your face to press two kisses to your temple in quick succession.

You turned over to face him to properly protest, “Hey, I didn’t grow up around humans, you know that, right? I just came here to go to school! I moved here like, two weeks before our first day of freshman year—”

“I’m not making fun of you, Y/N!” He promised, sandwiching your hand between both of his and squeezing it tightly. “I respect how difficult it must have been for you to acclimate to the new culture and city when you moved, and so suddenly, on top of starting school. I just love y- love when you do that. Genuinely, I’m so charmed by it. Endeared. Bewitched. Whatever word you want to use. It’s something I never noticed until this semester, when we started doing the Dr. Magic stuff together. Despite knowing you for so long, in the department, in classes.”

“You know what I never knew about you before this semester, Junnie?”

“What?”

“That you were such a softie,” you snickered fondly. “I thought you were all textbooks and GPA and flashcards and whatever.”

The human ducked his head bashfully. “It’s something I’ve been working on this year.”

“Between this and Dr. Magic, I think you’ve been doing pretty well.”

“Thanks.”

“So, why did you do it, Junnie?” You asked curiously. “Not be a softie, I mean, but…”

“What? Be Dr. Magic?” He clarified, to which you nodded. “I didn’t mean to make a persona like that, really. I had to pick a screenname, and the guys had jokingly called me that a couple times when I helped them out with some problems. That’s all.”

“I know why you started the account. Knowledge. That’s also why you didn’t get the credit. You just needed to know. Though, the story behind the name is cute,” you pinched his cheek, and he tried to deter your hand with his shoulder half-heartedly. “I mean more like, why were you hiding your IP and using VPNs and stuff before you even knew that I was trying to track you down? In the fall.”

“I made the first couple posts from the school computers just because I like to do my work there, I wasn’t trying to cover anything up. Then I pictured what I’d do if I found someone posting like I was on the forums. And I would’ve tried to find out who they were. So I started covering my tracks a bit more intentionally after that. Didn’t want any groupies rolling up on me.” He pinched your side teasingly with the last sentence, and you slapped his hand away with an eye roll.

“Oh shut up!” You scoffed, ignoring his hands as he tried to pull you back towards him again.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I’m sorry,” he apologized through his chuckles. “If anything I’m your groupie, I swear. Your number one fan from the moment you showed me your conspiracy board.”

“Mm, fine.” You scooted closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around you once more. “Glad we got that cleared up.”

Renjun shifted to lay on his back, and you easily followed the move to snuggle in mostly on top of him, resting your head in the crook of his neck and your hand on his waist, fingers innocently smoothing over a patch of skin above his hipbone where his shirt had ridden up. It sounded like the credits were on by now, but you didn’t really care about picking another movie as Renjun hummed along to the familiar song that played over the scrolling names. You’d sing along too, if you were alone at your own place. But now you didn’t dare even hum like the human with you for fear of what it could do to him. Renjun’s voice was plenty lovely enough though, even just this casual little bit humming. You’d see if you could get him to sing for you properly one of these days. If an opportunity came before graduation. Who knew what your days would even look like before then.

Gods, graduation. You felt like you could shrivel up and die just thinking about it. Not to mention that you hadn’t even told Renjun that you’d—

“Hey. What are you thinking about?” He suddenly asked, his disapproving tone clear.

You gulped. “How could you tell I was thinking about something?”

“For one, you’ve got your bad thinking face on.” He pinched your bottom lip. “You pout. It’s very dramatic. You look very concerned.”

“I have different thinking faces?”

“Yeah, you look different when you’re studying. I’ve seen you do plenty of that to know the difference. And you’ve got a third face when you’re contemplating. Usually you do that one when you’re looking at menus.”

“I didn’t know I was apparently an open book.” You covered your face with your hands in embarrassment.

“It’s cute, Y/N. You’ve got a cute face, and you make cute facial expressions with it, don’t cover it up.” He gingerly grabbed your hands to encourage you to take them off. “Except I am worried about what’s making you make your bad thinking face right now. What’s wrong?”

With a sigh, you pushed up into a sitting position. Renjun followed your lead curiously, a thoughtful frown on his own features as he watched you pull your knees to your chest.

“Renjun, I need to tell you something.”

He regarded you with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Okay… go for it.”

Nervously, you smoothed out some wrinkles in your pajama pants as you confessed, “Uhm, Dr. Kwon asked me to carry the banner at commencement. I said yes.”

“I knew that.”

“What?” You looked up at him in disbelief.

“Well, since it was midterms already, I figured that if they’d picked me, they would have asked me by now and since they hadn’t, then they must have picked you. I was just waiting for you to tell me so I could tell you… Congrats.” Renjun grinned brightly at you, reaching out to rest his hand on your arm.

“You’re not upset?” You asked trepidly.

“We’re not petty little freshmen anymore, Y/N. No, I’m not upset. I’m proud of you, you deserve it.”

“So did you.”

“Not any more than you did.” He shook his head firmly. “So would you just accept my congrats already?”

You gave a small, shaky smile. “Thank you…”

“There we go.”

“This is what I was so freaked about… when we went to get froyo.”

“You were afraid of me being mad at you for being picked to carry the banner?” Renjun asked incredulously.

“I didn’t know how to tell you!” You defended yourself. “And now I have to do the commencement practices, on top of senior capstone and my extracurriculars…”

He wrinkled his nose. “Ew, commencement practices. So glad I didn’t get picked now, actually.”

“And that was so convincing, Junnie.”

“You remember what you said to me when we got froyo?”

Scrunching your face up, you struggled to think back to the exact conversation you had that day—you’d been really stressed. “Uh, ‘exactly two gummy sharks on mine please?’”

“Well, yeah, your hyper-specific froyo order—”

“Throwing stones at black kettles much?” You teased.

“Excuse me?” Renjun’s eyes went wide.

“Is that not—? I really thought I got it that time.”

“Did you mean to say ‘throwing stones in glass houses’ and/or ‘the pot calling the kettle black?’”

“…Yes.”

He turned very serious as he went to tenderly cradle your face in his hands. “I’m going to kiss you in like two seconds after I finish what I was saying, okay?”

“Oh, okay,” you agreed weakly, wishing very much that he’d just do it now instead of making you wait. He then let your face go.

“When we were talking about wanting people to know that we’re smart,” Renjun clarified. “You said that we’re both like that, and you knew that you were like that. And then you asked me if I knew that I was like that. I had tried to swear up and down this entire time that I was doing all of this—the needing to be the best—for myself. But it wasn’t. I’m like that too. That’s kind of what Dr. Magic was, me taking a step back from needing everyone to know I was the smartest person in the room. A quasi-experiment, to see if I could do it.”

“I think that after graduation, maybe we both chill on being the smartest person in the room, and try to just spend a summer working on that magical bucket list of yours?” You suggested.

“Oh?” He perked up at this. “Really?”

“You ever seen a werewolf shift?”

“No…”

“That sounds like a ‘not yet’ to me.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He confirmed with a conspiratorial grin that mirrored the one that you could feel across your own face. “You know how sirens can’t get dosed up on their own venom?”

“Yeah…” You nodded, wondering where he could be going with this.

“Well, I know a witch with a proprietary love potion blend that I think we might be able to modify to produce similar effects.”

“Fascinating.” You thought on this for a second, very quickly running through your knowledge of potion properties to imagine what it could be. “Two-factor blood potion?”

“Yes. But we’d put your venom in it instead of your blood so it wouldn’t kill me.”

“That could work…” You mused. “Speaking of, I should really give you a full dose one of these days.”

He breathed in sharply. “That wasn’t a full dose?”

“Nope.”

“Holy shit…”

“Have you ever watched a phoenix reincarnation?” You added another suggestion to your joint summer bucket list.

“Have you? Wouldn’t that literally blind us?” Renjun questioned, something akin to genuine concern on his face now.

You shrugged. “Allegedly. It’s never been recorded in a lab setting, so who really knows.”

“I think we’re going to get each other killed before we can get our PhDs,” he declared with a fond smile and shake of his head.

“Hey, the betting pools said we’d kill each other by junior year, so I think we’re doing well for ourselves.”

“Do you think we can collect on those bets when we graduate and we’re both still alive and have all of our limbs?”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

“Oh my god, come here,” Renjun groaned deliriously, kneeling to grab your face with two hands and crash his lips to yours. You curled your fingers in the front of his shirt, pulling him down with you as you fell back against the arm of his couch, still connected.

Yeah, you’d drive off that burning bridge when you got there.

⤷ blog masterlist ⤷ anthology masterlist

#renjun #nct dream x reader #nct x reader #renjun x reader #huang renjun #nct dream imagine #renjun imagine #nct imagine #nct dream fluff #nct fluff #renjun fluff #i: renjun #f: dr_magic2303 #au: strawberry sunday #*100 #*200

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nextikeu · 9 months

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i'm sorry — psh.

SUMMARY. a dark forest during winter wasn't the way you thought you'd die,but here you are.

GENRE. vampire!sunghoon, vampire!reader, established relationship, character death (kinda), mentions of blood, drinking blood, rivalry between brothers, angst, fluff (if you squint), crying,suggestive content (not really)

side note : I have no knowledge of this vampire stuff so some things might not make sense :/

. . .

It is often said that love is another reason to give you motivation for living. Love. Something you never knew since your parents abandoned you from a young age. Until he came into your life. Park SungHoon. He used to be a competitive ice skater,until his parents divorced,not willing to keep him in the rink.

Sunghoon made you feel in ways you never felt in all of your years of living. He made you feel alive. He gives that boost of energy whenever you need it,enveloping you in hugs,planting kisses on your face while whispering soft praises in your ear every time.

Of course,like every couple,you had numerous fights,often ending with you both stripping each other's clothes,waking up together every morning. And that's how you always forgave him. Either he fucked you real good,either he apologized with his eyes puffy while you let him cry in your chest.

Not long enough you found out that Sunghoon is a vampire. You wish he was just joking but you saw him with your own eyes. He killed your ex boyfriend, sucking the blood out of him while you watch the scene in front of your eyes in horror.

Ever since you found out he was a vampire, you practically begged him to bite you, completely not believing that you'll turn into one. And he did bit you. While walking through a forest, he found himself very thirsty and lucky for him, your neck was next to him. However, you did turn into a vampire,according to him. Yes, you do have fangs,but you never felt the need to drink blood and you thank whoever made these vampire laws for that.

Being a few years older than you, he spoiled you more than anyone. Buying you flowers almost everyday, walking you to highschool and waiting for you to go home together. Everything was great until you went home after school alone,finding Sunghoon in the living room,lying on the floor,blood coming out of his stomach.

Like every other relationships,there is someone who doesn't stand the fact you are dating each other, and that someone is his best friend, Jay.

He is the one who hurt Sunghoon,threatening to kill him if he doesn't stay away from you.

Sunghoon always assured you that everything will be okay, lying that Jay would probably lose interest if you didn't give him any attention,which you didn't. But things did turn worse, each time Sunghoon came home injured, wounds decorating his pale skin, while you blame yourself every time it happens.

And here you are now, running away from Jay and his friends. Among the freshly fallen snow, Sunghoon stood out like a drop of ink on a white canvas,dressed in black from head to toe. He was already injured, and you could feel his body weaken,having to carry him in your arms.

Out of nowhere,just like a hard rainy day,Jay stood in front of you, hands balled up in fists,while Sunghoon grabbed your arm,telling you to run. On your way out,you meet a boy who you assume it's Jake,one of Jay's friends. He is quick to grab your wrist, while taking you somewhere else.

In reality,Sunghoon knew everything about Jay and his friends. All of them are brothers,well not blood-related brothers,but growing up together tightened their bond,being inseparable. But that didn't stop Sunghoon from betraying them, dating a human. You. He betrayed his brothers because he loved you too much to let you go,not caring about what the others will think. A vampire and a human, something that others will say it's a cliché, but you worked it out.

But if there's one thing he had forgotten about his brothers is that they have superpowers. Something he was never gifted with,making him the powerless brother,always left out.

Sticking his dagger in Jay's stomach,Sunghoon feels that something isn't right. Just a second ago, when he thought he was fighting Jay,he quickly took out the dagger,breaking the illusion,revealing your figure.

Just as the illusion crumbled,his heart did the same.

With his lips parting in shock,he watched as your body went limp,falling to your knees like a trampled flower by the road. He is quick to throw away the knife,catching you in his arms.

It feels funny to him the way he didn't hesitate to end the life of his own brother,but yet he is witnessing you die right in his embrace. Regret washed over him, feeling his eyes watering.

You were fighting with your own body to keep your eyes open,your breath shortening,struggling to let words out. Even if you are a vampire,your body weakens more each time you take a deep breath.

A petrified Sunghoon stood in place,his brain not comprehending what's happening at the moment as he stared at you: your face was pale,lips almost blue while you pressed your palm on your wound trying to stop the blood from pouring. He watched as soft whimpers escaped your mouth,closing your eyes as you pressed harder on the cut on your abdomen. Tears were rolling down your cold cheeks,feeling his hands shaking under you.

With the way his hands were holding you and his voice trembling while calling your name simultaneously it was evident you're slipping away from him,death approaching you.

He couldn't believe it. How could he let this happen to you? If only he had listened to his brothers, if only he realized he's putting you in danger - how is he going to live knowing what he did to you?

All the pain you had suffered from was always caused by him and he wishes he was in your place now, dying so you wouldn't have to deal with his bullshit anymore. The broken sob your throat emitted made his inside burn,holding onto your fragile body as you struggled to sit back on your knees,trying to face him.

He even thought about taking you to the hospital,but it was too late. Then he finally realized that no matter what he does - he will lose you, right now, in a forest, a place you were always afraid of.

How would your friends react? He had just taken away someone's life. Your future,all your hopes and dreams - he stole them away from you.

Something flashes before his eyes, a foggy memory of his younger self. His limp body lying down on the cold snow,while his brothers were pacing around him. Then he remembered. His older brother,Heeseung. He told him that if vampires get badly injured, drinking another's vampire blood will cure them,so he immediately thought of you. But Heeseung also told him that once you drink another's vampire blood,that vampire will fade,vanishing in thin air. And so he is willing to take this risk if that is what will make you live,for both of you.

He grabs your shoulders,leveling his face with yours,his cold breath fanning over your features. His voice was shaky,preparing himself to leave you,willing to end his own life.

"___ you have to bite me."

"no,no I can't."

You shake your head in despair as he cups your cheeks,wiping the tears away. He nods and hums,begging you to do this,telling you he will not be the one who'll live. You wrap your hands around his shoulders,holding him tight,your tears wetting his coat. You feel him kiss your shoulder,then your forehead and then finally your lips. The kiss was a soft one,almost nonexistent,not like you could feel anything from how hard your body was bleeding. He breaks the hug,kissing your blooded hand,placing his own ring on your finger.

He whispers soft praises in your ear ,casually muttering apologies, while his hand is patting the side of your head as you sob uncontrollably. You bring your head back from his shoulder,looking in his eyes.

"Please don't make me do this."

Your eyes were begging him,your croaky voice telling him that this is not the only way you'll live.

your body slowly gave in as your head dropped in his chest,his arms supporting you.

"___ ,I'm sorry."

He gave you a final nod and you felt a tear stopping on your cheek. Not running down,just laying flat on your cheek,almost if it had frozen.

You frown,confused why it had to happen to you. Why do you have to lose the only person in your life? Why are you out of everyone?

And so you did it. You sunk your teeth in his neck,starting to suck his blood. You felt so disgusting and dirty, how can you do this to him? Why is he letting you live? Hot tears were now cascading on your cheeks as you watched his figure slowly vanish in thin air,leaving you alone.

Fragile snowflakes started to fall down on the surface. Broken sobs fell out of your mouth as you stared at your hands. You bring your hand to your mouth,kissing the ring he gave you. The snow under you was now melting,your tears falling down like a river.

Trying to get up,your weak body betrays you as you fall to your knees again,feeling a sharp pain in your chest. You touch the wound on your stomach,feeling dry blood,realizing it healed.

He healed it. He gave his life for you,so he wouldn't feel guilty.

You look around yourself in a way of getting familiar with the place. But the only thing you could see were trees,snow and your blood decorating half of it. You place your hands on the ground trying to stabilize yourself as you slowly get up. Then you feel a presence behind you,making you turn your heels.

You see him. Sunghoon. Standing tall in front of you. You feel like your mind was messing with you because there was no way he was still alive after you saw him practically disintegrate in the air. He smiles at you and you feel your heartbeat quicken, a warm feeling settling down in your chest.

"If I pretend you're still here then I'll go insane. You know I hate that."

This is not real,none of this is real, you tell yourself, feeling frustrated and confused. You shake your head again,finding your way out of the forest.

And that was it. Four years of relationship were gone just like that. You concluded that you have to live your life,for both. Damn you,Park Sunghoon. Why did you have to save me?

#enhypen angst #enhypen #enhypen smau #sunghoon #sunghoon smau #angst #idk what else to tag #vampire #sunghoon angst

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ordon-pumpkin · 5 months

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Percy Jackson spoilers and criticism below.

I see people complain about how the show just has the characters figuring out things way too quickly (I completely agree with this.) Then I see people complaining about that criticism saying things like “Oh it makes sense! They would know that because Annabeth’s been at camp, Grover is a satyr, and Percy’s mom taught him about the myths!” However, there is a difference between them knowing about the stories and them IMMEDIATELY figuring each potential trap/situation out and zapping the energy from the scenes.

These same instances in the book usually involve a feeling of unease, something feels off, things seem kind of familiar, and it slowly dawns on them what they are dealing with OR they are escaping one situation to be thrust into another and don’t have time to think about it at all. There’s tension, there’s drama. I’m here for it. The show on the other hand? Oof.

Also the circumstances in which they encounter these situations in the book greatly influence how things go. They are human(ish) after all and them getting into these messes makes them easier to connect to as characters. Let’s break it down a little more there.

- With Medusa they were lost in the woods and hungry. The smell of food lured them in. They were hungry children dang it! From the circus lol (Honestly, this instance didn’t bother me too much in the show when I first watched it because it was early on before the knowing things too soon became an ongoing theme.)

- With the Lotus Hotel and Casino they were tired and feeling grimy, having just traveled in the back of a truck with a bunch of animals in horrible conditions. It was scorching hot outside. They were absolutely exhausted and wound up there where a doorman invited them in and it was a relief to have somewhere to take a break, recoup and figure out their next move. Once inside they had access to a shower! There were snacks. Plus the place was incredible. It also showed their interests with Annabeth being drawn in to trivia and city building games, Percy liked the bungee jumping! Grover played a reverse hunting game! Percy figured out the trap by asking a guy using 70s slang and dressed to match, what year it was. He kept asking and getting different answers. Then he was able to snap Annabeth out of it by describing spiders, which he knew she had a fear of from the Tunnel of Love ride. (This whole scene in the show was such a let down, so was the Tunnel of Love scene but I’ll leave that alone for now.)

- With Crusty they were on the run and dashed into the store. This encounter is one of my favorite moments of Percy’s quick thinking in the books btw. Also his absolute lack of hesitation to slice someone’s head if they mess with his friends. Percy is smart. He’s very street smart actually. In the book this scene shows that really well. (The way I paused the show in frustration and almost turned it off when the episode started already at Crusty’s with the line “I know who you are.” Like of course. That’s just how we’re telling this story now. Check. They met Crusty. And he doesn’t feel like a threat at all. But they met him I guess.)

The exhaustion and the circumstances in these instances in the book and getting into these traps aren’t the trio being “stupid.” They were moments that set up the situation to feel more relatable, alive, tense, and interesting. The show’s changes have taken away most of the tension from these scenes. Them knowing and catching on to things so quickly is lazy and it is incredibly boring. It just feels like they are checking off a list of places from the books they wanted in the show, while losing the entire energy and impact of those locations and scenes.

To me everything in this show feels like it’s at 20%. The humor, the stakes, the tension, the personality, the freaking lighting (why is so much of this show so hard to even see?), the whimsy, the magic, the charm. It’s all so dialed back and watered down. The book is a roller coaster of making you laugh and putting you on the edge of your seat with the tension and situations these kids get into. It’s campy, it’s intense, it’s crazy, and so energetic. The show feels bland in comparison. Idk how you manage to make Percy Jackson feel boring but they did it.

I’m not asking for it to be an exact copy of the book. I’m just disappointed with how dull it is. When it’s boring and it’s a scene that was the furthest thing from that in the original version then YES I’m going to compare it and wonder why there were changes to make it less interesting. In fact, my favorite scene in the show so far is actually the taxi in the parking garage scene. It captured the energy and vibe of Percy Jackson really well and it’s a scene not in the books at all. The energy is important and this show is lacking severely most of the time. It has some really good moments (back to that 20% thing) but overall it’s such a let down.

We have one episode left of the season and I don’t exactly have high hopes of it making things better. It just makes me sad because I wanted to love this series. The incredibly talented cast, a major studio behind it, passionate people being involved including the author, amazing source material… I look at all of the ingredients and it should be amazing. But I’m pretty disappointed right now.

#pjo tv #Percy Jackson and the olympians #Percy Jackson #Percy Jackson spoilers #pjo #pjo tv critical #pjo tv crit

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headkiss · 2 years

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how you looked at me then

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

summary: based on the song K. by cigarettes after sex. moving to hawkins might not have seemed great, then you met steve and everything changed.

word count: 14k

warnings: smut, slight angst, fluff, all of it!!

a/n: this is my baby.. it took so long and i really hope u guys enjoy it!!!! it’s a long one so buckle up, and please please tell me what you think!

༄

You’ve known Steve for over a year now, and you've been sleeping with him for a couple months. It was a long story, and something completely unexpected.

You never thought moving into a trailer park in Hawkins would lead you to make so many friends, but here you were. Eddie was the one you met first, because you were neighbors. He was misunderstood, an outcast. For you, though, he was just the kind person who welcomed you to the town.

Eddie showed you around, taking you to his favorite spots like the arcade, his band practices, a strange spot in the forest that should’ve scared you but didn’t, the works. You would occasionally smoke together, winding down after long days with a joint. He was a good friend to you, a platonic partner in crime.

He even introduced you to his group of friends. Dustin, the other kids, Nancy, Jonathan, Robin, and Steve. Especially Steve.

You don’t know if Eddie had some kind of motive with his talking up of the Harrington boy, but he seemed to want to sell you on him. To make sure you would give him the time of day, as if you weren’t already planning on it.

The group took you in, reluctantly on some ends at first, but they became your people. A support system and a family. Even if they seemed to have a bond that didn’t include you, something that ran deep, you were still treated with warmth and kindness.

Robin was quick to befriend you, claiming that she was tired of her and Nancy being outnumbered by all the boys, and she was ecstatic to have someone else to turn to that wasn’t Steve, as much as she loved him. Some things were better spoken between women.

As your time in Hawkins passed, your friendship with everyone grew stronger, and it was like you’d been part of the clan all along.

The kids had someone else to look up to, to put their trust in, and it felt good to be needed that way. To be loved like that.

The flirty dynamic between you and Steve was something that came easily, thoughtlessly. It just worked. Your energy matched, the tension built. You both ignored that tension, until you couldn’t anymore.

You sat in your trailer with Eddie, Steve, and Robin. Each of you sprawled somewhere in the main area, bored and in need of entertainment for the night. Most of the time just being in each other’s company would be plenty of entertainment, but there was something missing this time. It was like everyone just needed something to do.

Eddie was the one who spoke up, “isn’t there a party somewhere tonight? We should go.”

“Hell no,” you were quick to shut it down. You weren’t one for parties because of the people. You didn’t know them and you didn’t necessarily want to.

“Why so quick to say no, babe?”

Of course Steve was smirking as he said it, it seemed like it was almost always on his face when he spoke to you. He loved to tease when it came to you. You always reacted or gave it back in some kind of way and he couldn’t get enough of it. Couldn't get enough of you.

“Because! I don’t know anyone here besides you guys and I don’t really need to. Why can't we just stay here?”

Robin decided to join in next, also trying to persuade you to go out even though it wasn’t really her scene either. “All the more reason! Meet new people and stuff, it could be fun.”

“Not you too, Robs. Really?”

She just shrugged, a small smile on her face because she knew you’d cave if everyone agreed. You were the type of person to do anything for those you cared about, even something small like attending a stupid party.

At everyone’s expectant looks towards you, you sighed. Standing up from your spot on your couch, you just placed your hands on your hips—a move you might’ve picked up from Steve—and nodded your head towards the door.

“Let’s go then.”

Your friends were right, it wasn’t horrible and you did get to meet a lot of new people, which was nice. Eventually, though, the small talk got old and the drinks got gross. You grew bored despite the music and party games.

Steve noticed it when you disappeared from the crowd, of course he did. Lately it seemed like he noticed everything you did. He wished he could say he didn’t know why, but that would be a lie. He liked you, and that was that.

He made it his mission to find you, and he did. You were leaning against the counter in the kitchen, just observing the party by yourself. Steve smiled when he saw you, your hair a little messy from the heated air, your eye makeup smudged the tiniest bit. And yet, you still looked perfect to him. Effortlessly.

“What are you doing hiding here, babe?”

You looked over at the sound of his voice, Steve’s eyes already on you. He came over to stand next to you, eyeing the crowd just as you were seconds before.

“Not hiding. ‘S just getting old. The party, I mean.”

“We can go back to mine. Drop Robin off on the way, I’m pretty sure she’s only here for you anyways.”

“She’s great. What about Eddie?”

“He’s making business, we can just let him know we’re leaving. He’ll be fine.”

“So you wanna go back to your house… just you and me?”

Shit. Did he spook you? Did he ask too much? He knew you’d been friends for a few months, but he didn’t know how to read this situation. Obviously he wanted to spend time with you, and only you. But he had no idea if you felt the same. Or if you even thought about it.

“Um. Yeah, is that okay?”

“‘Course it is, Steve. I’ll go tell Eddie. You get Robs?”

“Okay. Meet me at my car?”

“Sure thing.”

You walked off after that, assuming Steve would do the same. He waited a few moments first, though, just watching the way you moved through the room. The way his eyes seemed to stay stuck on you like that. He shook it off eventually and went to go find Robin.

She was sitting on a chair in the living room, somehow almost asleep even in this noisy house. Steve shook her awake and started talking. He needed her advice.

“Robin, wake up.”

“What?”

“Wake up! I need your help.”

“Jesus, I’m awake. What?”

“So y/n wants to leave and she’s coming to hangout at mine. I said we’d drop you off on the way so it’ll just be us. What do I do? I’m gonna embarrass myself. Oh my god.”

“First of all, rude of you to exclude me. Second, just be honest, like really honest. Tell her how you feel.”

“No, I’m not doing that.”

“You ask what to do and you never listen! You’re hopeless.”

Steve simply rolled his eyes and turned to exit the house, Robin following. He couldn’t tell you how he felt, you’d be so freaked out. It was so early in your friendship, in your time of knowing each other in general. It was just a crush. It had to stay that way.

Meanwhile, you found Eddie and told him that you were leaving with Steve and Robin.

“You’re going back to Harrington’s place? Priceless.”

“What are you saying Eddie?”

“I’m saying you like the boy. It’s about time you do something about it.”

“He’s my friend, Eddie, that’s it. Seriously.”

“Sure.”

You left after that, going to Steve’s car where he and Robin were waiting as promised. Eddie just shook his head at it all. He knew Steve liked you, it was pretty clear in his flirting manner and the look on his face whenever he saw you. He also knew that you liked Steve, even if you didn’t feel it yet. Eddie just knew you two were perfect for each other.

After dropping off a very stumbly Robin and getting back to the Harrington household, you and Steve were sitting on his couch with a random movie playing. At this point, it was background noise, something neither of you were paying attention to.

You and Steve have hung out just the two of you before, but never like this. Never in the quiet and privacy of an empty house, never this late in the night when things seemed to be deserted.

It went unnoticed when you both seemed to shift closer to the other, as if it was just a reflex that didn’t need any thought at all. It was natural, easy.

You can't pinpoint exactly when the mood shifted, when it went from lighthearted flirting like usual to something more, something deeper that was full of want.

Maybe it was when his arm ended up around your shoulders, a heavy weight that led your mind to all things Steve. Maybe it was when you turned on the couch to face each other, eyes roaming and curious. Maybe that want had been there all along, dormant and waiting to escape.

You felt it when Steve’s hand was placing itself on the side of your neck as you spoke, causing a slight hitch in your words. Just the reaction he was looking for.

Steve knew he wanted you, he was never sure if you felt the same until now. He was so intrigued by you, pulled in by all that you were. While he knew he felt something deeper for you than just want, he would take anything you offered. Anything at all.

With his hand on your neck, your pulse picking up under his palm, he felt something. Something mutual.

“How mad would you be if I kissed you, babe?”

Even with the thickness in the air between you, you weren’t expecting that to come out of his mouth. Yet, you couldn’t bring yourself to be mad at all. You wanted him to kiss you, to feel his mouth on yours. What the hell was up with that?

“Why don’t you find out?”

A whispered “holy shit,” and then he was leaning in, looking in your eyes one last time to search for any hesitation. He found none.

So, he kissed you.

It seemed like the world went still when you kissed, nothing else mattered then. His lips were as soft as they looked, pressing to yours softly at first, then, quicker, hungrier.

If Steve wasn’t kissing you dumb, you’d be freaking out over the fact that Steve was kissing you. When you gasped and he slipped his tongue into your mouth, any trace of thought you had slipped away.

He paid attention to everything that made you react. Breathe harder, push yourself closer.

His senses were going wild and it had everything to do with you and your mouth. You were enchanting and soft and so pretty, and you were here, kissing him. He couldn’t help but groan when you shifted to straddle his lap, a hand braced on his chest and the other tangling itself in his hair.

“How mad would you be if I told you I wanted to make you feel good?”

He was breathless, his pupils wide with desire and his hands now on your hips, guiding you. You could feel him hard underneath you, and it was driving you crazy.

“Not mad at all.”

It was a rush from there. Shirts coming off, kisses stolen between every item of clothing removed. You ended up on your back with Steve hovering over you, both of you in nothing but your underwear.

It was heated touches and his hand slipping beneath the hem of your panties. An orgasm coaxed out of you with skill and praise and all the right words. Another kiss and a question of “Can I fuck you?” and your answer of “yes, please.”

It was the beginning of something.

Since that night, an arrangement of sorts was made between you and Steve. A friends with benefits thing that just worked.

You understood each other and what was wanted at what time. How to read what your bodies were saying, what certain looks meant when you were with the rest of your friends. One for ‘my house, later,’ another for ‘I need you. Now,’ that would usually lead to half-assed excuses and two friends leaving early. Very sneaky.

Through the months of your situation, Steve’s feelings for you only grew, though they remained a secret to you. Meanwhile yours stayed buried, in a space of your mind and soul that lived in ignorance.

Despite you and Steve believing you were secretive enough, everybody knew something was going on, and they all knew it would end in one of two ways: with the two of you happy and in love, or a horrible disaster.

Steve’s emotions towards you were clear for anyone to see. Anyone except you, it seemed. His hand would find a place on your lower back when weaving through crowded rooms, his eyes often softening as they fell on your figure, the flirting you had leaving him more flustered than ever before.

He had it bad.

Last night, Steve had the whole clan over. The kids and the other’s all together with pizza and games. It was fun and lively. Exactly what you all needed every once in a while to remind you of the brilliant support system you had.

It involved Eddie’s classing routine of trying to get everyone to give his music taste a chance, Dustin’s huge ego invading every single game, the couples trying to play on teams—except Max, who loved to beat Lucas in anything.

To put it simply, it was a long night. No matter how fun, you didn’t feel like driving home after the chaos that was that group of people, so, naturally, Steve let you stay the night.

When everyone got ready to go, and you didn’t, it gave them even more proof that the two of you were trying to hide something. It gave Eddie more proof to use to get you together, winking at you as he left.

You and Steve had sleepovers before, but always with the expectation of something more. This time, it was just a friend offering a place to sleep for another friend. No sex tonight.

It felt like muscle memory as you walked up to his room with him, changing into pajamas of yours he’s made room for in the top drawer of his dresser. Moving on to the bathroom where Steve kept spare bottles of your skincare products, ready for you anytime. Where there was a second toothbrush in his holder just for you.

You never over thought any of it, though. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for you, but friends could be sweet, too. It didn’t have to be romantic… right?

You and Steve moved around each other with ease throughout your night routines, never in the way. It was something you had lots of practice with considering the amount of late night phone calls that turned into late night visits.

Once you were both in his bed, that’s when there was a small hesitation. Do you still cuddle even if nothing happened beforehand? Was it acceptable for Steve to give you a forehead kiss goodnight in this case? Were you allowed to wrap his arm around your waist, deeming yourself the little spoon?

After that moment of wondering who will make the first move, though, you both seemed to just think, fuck it. You both turned to lay on your sides, Steve wrapping his arm around you, you scooching back so his chest was pressed right against your back, radiating warmth and comfort.

Then, a forehead kiss from Steve, whispered goodnights, and you were both asleep.

You woke up to sunlight slipping through the gap in the curtains, an arm still holding you close, legs tangled with yours. A warm chest against you and soft breaths hitting the back of your neck.

When you felt Steve shift around, consciousness coming back to him, you turned around in his hold to face him. You loved the way he looked in the morning, his usually perfect hair messy from sleep, his eyes still hazy and blinking open slowly. He looked cute.

One of his favorite things was waking up with you, because it was domestic and soft in a way that was rare for him to come by. You were extra pliant, welcoming his morning cuddles no matter the context. He gave you a lazy smile, “hi.”

“Hi.”

You reached up to push his hair away from his forehead, tender and delicate. Something a lover would do, but your morning brain wasn’t one to think too hard about your actions. The earlier hours of the day were spent together, it was like they didn’t really count, as if acting like a couple in the privacy of his room now wouldn’t matter.

He sighed happily, rolling over to lay himself on top of you, face squished against your chest and his arms hugging you close.

“Steven!”

He just giggled, knowing you were smiling too. You only called him that teasingly, trying to be serious with him when you couldn’t.

“Mmm, you’re so comfy.”

“And you’re squishing me.”

He gasped, mocking offense and pushing himself up to hover over you and let you look at his dramatically pinched face, “I am not!”

“Don’t pout at me, you’ll get wrinkles.”

“Heyyy. Don’t be mean, I'm fragile in the morning.”

“Sorry, c’mere.”

To both of your surprise, you placed both of your hands on his cheeks, pulling him down for a soft kiss to make him feel better, even though he wasn’t actually upset. You two never kissed, or did anything in the mornings. Usually, you’d just get up and get dressed. Something about today felt different.

It was a short kiss, but when Steve pulled away and looked over your pretty face, your eyes fuzzy and glancing at his lips, he dove back in. He was propped up using one arm, bent just above your head so he could stay close, the other running over your side.

Your hands shifted so one was buried in the hair at the nape of his neck, keeping him close to you, while the other was hugged around his shoulders, feeling the muscles there ripple and shift with his movements. It became heated, the kind of kiss that was bound to lead to something else, and it felt exciting, new.

Steve’s hips began to shift against yours, the morning stiffy he sported no longer ignored. You pushed your pelvis up to meet in the middle, a delicious friction that felt even better with your newly awoken senses, minds still a little bit tired, but completely focused on each other.

When you let out a whimper, Steve slipped his tongue into your mouth, the kiss going languid. Slowed down and relaxed, but just as arousing as before. Somehow, with the pace going down, it made everything better, stronger.

“Steve, please,” you whined between kisses, feeling needier with every push of his hips and stroke of his tongue. It seemed like this pocket of time belonged to only you and him, the rest of the world falling away in the midst of the risen sun and morning dew.

“What is it, honey?”

“Need you.”

“Know you do. I’ve got you.”

His hand that was steady on your waist moved down, pushing your pj shorts and underwear aside to slip his fingers down to where you were wet, a sigh escaping you when he moved up to your clit. He knew exactly how to wound you up, how to make you feel good. He had plenty of time to learn you and your body and it was easy now. Easy to get you there.

“Steve. Stop teasing.”

“Sorry. Can't get enough of you.”

He kissed you again when he slipped a finger into you, swallowing the moans you gave him. You were squirming under him, needy for anything he’d give and he fucking loved it. The way you gave yourself to him, trusted him.

Your first orgasm was coaxed out of you with the expertise of his fingers, and the encouragement of “that’s it. Atta girl.”

Your back arched enough to press your chest to his, your head digging into the pillow beneath it. He kept going until you couldn’t take it anymore, knowing the kind of whimper that was a signal of you needing a minute to come back.

Steve stood up as you caught your breath, sucking his coated fingers into his mouth before helping you strip and pulling his boxers down, both of you left bare. You’d seen each other naked many times, but in the golden glow of sunlight it was special. He grabbed a condom from his nightstand and put it on before crawling back over you, giving you another dizzying kiss before lining himself up.

“You want this?”

You nodded, arms slipping around his neck, “I want you, Steve.”

“Fuck.”

He kissed you again as he pushed himself in, distracting you partially so you’d relax for him. Once he was all the way there, he pulled back just enough to lean his forehead against yours, your noses brushing against each other at each push and pull of his hips.

“You’re beautiful. So good for me.”

“More, please.”

He could never deny you when you asked so prettily. A whininess to your voice that made him feel special because he brought it out of you. He’s the one who made you feel this way.

Steve moved slow and deep, brushing against all the right spots that had you moaning and wrapping your legs around his waist to let him in even more. He kissed you all over, a peck to your forehead, your nose, then spongy lips trailing down your neck to kiss at your throat.

Sounds escaping both of you without control, senses full of each other and nothing else. You and Steve had sex often, but never like this. Never in this intimate way that seemed much more like making love than simply fucking.

“Can feel you squeezing me, sweet girl. You wanna come for me?”

“Steve.”

“I know, I’ll get you there.”

And he did, the hand that wasn’t needed to hold himself up sliding over the hill of your breasts and down to rub circles against your clit, pushing you over the edge yet again.

“There you go. So pretty.”

Your second orgasm washed over you, and before he could even react, you flipped Steve over so you were on top, straddling his thighs and riding him slow and steady. Your hands were braced on his chest at first, but at that look of pleasure and bliss on his face you leaned down to kiss him.

With each grind of your hips, your chest would slide against his, as close as you could get. He held your hips, helping you along and making sure you were feeling the best you could.

After letting you lead for a bit, he planted his feet on the bed, giving him the steadiness to meet your hips and thrust into you. Your face was buried in his neck after that, moans falling into his ear and a hand cradling his head, the other squeezing the pillow in your fist.

“Steve. Want you to come.”

“I will, babe. Can you give me another first?”

All you could do was nod against his skin, and he felt it, giving him encouragement to speed up just enough to have you pulse around him one more time. He came with you then, a hand coming to the back of your neck to guide you to look at him. Your eyes locking in a way that was so intimate, so full of devotion it felt like the fabric of your relationship shifted right then.

“God. You feel so good. So, so perfect for me.”

The only things leaving your mouth were curses and whimpers of his name. Both of you coming and then relaxing together. You all but collapsed on top of him when you both finished, spent and completely fucked out.

“You okay, sweet girl?”

“Think you turned my brain to mush,” you mumbled against his sticky skin. He chuckled, running his hands up and down your back to soothe you, to bring you back to him.

“How ‘bout a shower?”

Together? That wasn’t something you’d done before, surprisingly. You would always take turns, avoiding the intimacy a shared shower would provide. The feelings that might escape.

This morning, everything shifted though, and it was like nothing else even existed. So, naturally, you said yes.

Neither of you were in a rush to get up, though, taking the time to come down from the events of the morning before moving over to the bathroom. You’re almost positive you would have fallen asleep laying on top of Steve if he didn’t roll you over so he was able to pull out of you and get rid of the condom. After that, he disappeared from the room for a minute to turn on the shower.

When he came back in, smiling at the sight of you so sleepy on his bed, he almost felt bad for disturbing that. He knew you wanted to wash off though, and he couldn’t deny that he was giddy at the idea of showering together. It was something couples did, not something that was mixed in with a supposed feeling free arrangement.

He walked over and scooped you up bridal style, not wanting to let the water run for too long.

“Steven! I can walk.”

“Yeah, well, I wanted to carry you.”

“You’re sweet.”

“I try my best.”

He set you down once you were in the bathroom, and you got in the shower right away. You didn’t want to give yourself time to overthink this new part of your relationship with Steve, and everything this morning might mean. The warm water relaxed your muscles, eased your mind ever so slightly.

Steve joined you quickly, stepping in behind you so his chest was almost pushed against your back. When you tilted your head to let your hair get wet, he snuck a quick kiss to your forehead that left you flustered. He was a soft person, and he cared so deeply for the people around him and you knew that. That’s why this was scary to you, because the last thing you wanted to do was hurt him or your friendship.

He reached for a bottle of shampoo, one that happened to be yours because he even kept your favorite brands of soap in his shower, and squeezed some onto his hand, “can I?”

“Mhm. You have good hands.”

“Dirty.”

“Your mind is dirty, that’s all.”

He massaged the suds into your scalp, probably longer than needed because he enjoyed the way you sighed at the feeling, the way your body seemed to calm even more under his touch.

He rinsed your hair and did conditioner too, knowing to only put it in the ends of your hair because he was an expert on the subject.

“Why’re you so good at this?”

“They don’t call me The Hair for nothing.”

You laughed, you had heard the story of The Hair and it never failed to be funny to you, “I can't believe people actually called you that.”

“What? You don’t think my hair is my best feature?”

You were facing him now, watching him wash his own hair while you stayed close to him. You thought about it. You knew he was teasing but it made you wonder. You couldn’t help but think of his eyes and how expressive they were, the sweetness of honey that was so easy to get lost in.

“Your hair is nice, but I like your eyes. Your eyes are really, really pretty.”

His hands paused in his hair, his head moving to look down at you, at the sincerity of your words. He decided then that you didn’t have a best feature, because there wasn’t a single bad one about you. You were perfect, and sometimes he’s convinced that you’re an angel that was sent to him as a protector. Someone meant to keep him grounded without any effort at all.

He was in love with you.

The thought had been floating in his mind for months, but here and now, he knew it for sure. He loved you and he thinks he has for almost as long as he’s known you. This moment of intimacy, of trust and peace, it confirmed it for him.

He was scared that if he opened his mouth to speak, he’d let those words slip out, so instead he just gave you a quick kiss. Chaste but still tender as ever. Then, he just went back to washing his hair with his mind full and his heart even fuller.

After finishing up in the shower and getting dressed in fresh clothes—yours from the drawer he left empty just for you—Steve made you breakfast, the saccharine haze of the morning still present. It stretched across the day.

The hours slipped away when you were with Steve, time didn’t really exist. You watched TV cuddled up on the couch, comfortable enough to have a nap together there. He challenged you in board games, but was ready to let you win if you showed any bit of disappointment in how it was going. You spent a bit of time reading, Steve asking if you would do it out loud so he could listen along.

It felt natural to spend so long with him, like this wasn’t only his home, but yours too. Maybe that was an odd thing to feel, but it was true. Being with Steve in his expansive house, just the two of you, felt right. Like you belonged there with him. That was another point to add to your list of things to overthink.

You had a lot to figure out because all of this had to mean something.

Steve never wanted the day to end. He loved having you with him in the house that was so often empty of company. He loved being able to spend so much uninterrupted time with you in a way that really made him wish for things he shouldn’t be wishing for. A relationship with you, for example. A real one where you would call him your boyfriend and he could call you his girlfriend. Where one day you’d become his wife and you could live together, just like this, every day.

In an attempt to stretch the best day of his life even further, Steve had the idea to ask you out. He’d do it in a way that was casual enough to pass as a friend's thing, when really he wanted it to be more.

“You hungry, babe?” He asked you from his spot on the couch, the two of you having gone back to watching pointless television.

“I could eat. Why?”

“Was wondering if you wanted to go to that diner that’s just out of town. You know, with the staff on roller skates and milkshakes and stuff.”

“Sometimes, Steven, you have really great ideas.”

“What do you mean sometimes! I have great ideas, like, hourly. At least.”

He enjoyed the way you laughed at that, replying to him with, “gosh, you’re a dork. You’re lucky I like you so much. Let’s go.”

You’re lucky I like you so much.

He knew you probably meant it jokingly, but he was stuck on it. How much was it? Enough for it to be romantic? Was there something there after all? He was convinced he’d been imagining the shift that was felt since you both woke up this morning, but maybe it was real. Maybe it was something clicking into place.

“The luckiest. C’mon, I’ll drive.”

The diner was tucked away, standing by itself on its lot outside of Hawkins. Outside, it was just a regular building with a bright, lit up sign attached to it. Inside, however, it was perfect.

The checkered floors, the jukebox sat in the corner, the pink countertops and booth seats. Everything about the space was bright and fun and you wished you knew about it earlier. At the same time, you’re glad Steve’s the one who’s showing it to you.

He watched your face as you looked around, the smile on your face and the glint in your eyes. He knew it wasn’t something huge, but he loved this diner and he’s only ever been here alone. Until now.

“This is so cute, Steve!”

“I knew you’d like it.”

His hand on your lower back guided you over to a booth tucked by the front window of the diner. When you sat down, he opted to sit next to you instead of across, and you couldn’t deny the way it made your face heat and your stomach flutter.

The menus were already on the table, allowing you to pick it up and take a look. The other menu was on the other side, where Steve chose not to sit, so, he just leaned in with his head next to yours to read it with you. His chin was perched on your shoulder, his arm slung around you and resting lazily on your hip.

“What do you think, babe?”

“Everything looks really good. Can you just choose for me?”

“You trust me with your meal? I’m so honoured.”

“Yeah. You should be.”

You both turned to look at each other, smiling at the ease you felt when chatting. Your smiles faded when the proximity of your faces was realized, your noses nearly touching. It was confusing, a question of who will move first, and will they pull away or get closer.

The small moment was broken when a waitress in roller skates approached the table, her light pink uniform and big welcoming smile coming into view.

“Hi, Steve! Good to see you again. You’ve brought someone, this time!”

“Hi, Brenda. I did. This is the girl I told you about.”

Brenda seemed sweet, and genuinely happy to meet you. It wasn’t her fault you felt a little jealous at the idea of Steve coming here alone, being taken care of by someone so pretty and kind like her. What the hell was wrong with you?

“Oh! Yes, I’ve heard so much. I’m Brenda, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Um, yeah. Hi. You too.”

If she noticed your apprehensiveness, she didn’t let it show, while Steve just squeezed your hip a little to remind you he was there. With you, not her.

“What can I get you guys?”

“Okay, I’ll have the usual. Burger and fries. She’ll have the same, and a vanilla milkshake, please. Two straws.”

“I’ll be right back with that.”

She skated away, somehow elegantly and it was impressive. You think you could like her, if you just sorted out whatever that pinch in your gut was at the wink she gave Steve before pushing off.

You looked at him, now leaning against the seat with his head tilted towards you. He was really pretty, you’d always known that. It was present here in the lighting of the diner, the fluorescent lights beaming and yet, he was beautiful.

“Two straws?”

He gave you a little tap on your nose, grinning at the cute way you scrunched it up, “duh. One for you, one for me. C’mon, pretty, keep up.”

“My bad, Steven.”

“Mhm. Said you trusted me. Did I choose well?”

“So far so good. Gotta taste it to know for sure though.”

“Dirty.”

“That’s your mind!”

“It’s your fault. You bring it out of me, I guess.”

Bring what out of him? Being dirty? You already knew that, the sex you were having spoke for itself. But he sounded like he was talking about something else, like maybe he just meant his laid back, teasing behaviour was something saved for you. Or, maybe you were just thinking too hard.

Steve loved the way he felt with you, how he could be himself without any second thoughts. He liked that you never knew him in his high school days, that you never knew him as ‘King Steve,’ only as Steve, or Steven—which was reserved for you. It was a relief to meet someone and not have their judgement of his past weighing down on him.

While you had been told about the person he used to be, you only knew who he was now. That was really special to him. Because he was proud of the person he became, and that’s who you met, who you chose to spend time with.

“I’m really happy you moved here.”

You looked at him, noting the sincerity in his words and the hand that wasn’t on your hip moving to tuck a piece of hair behind your ear. You really looked at him, at the situation. You couldn’t help but notice how much this felt like a date, and how you really wanted it to be one.

It was like a pocket of your mind had been emptied, revealing your feelings for him right there, all at once. He was the sweetest boy you ever met, with the kindest eyes and the softest heart. He was someone you wanted to spend every minute with, and you don’t think you could ever get sick of him.

He was someone you loved. Someone you might even be in love with.

Something changed there in that booth for you. How you looked at him then. It turned into something more, or maybe it was always there and the only difference was now you knew it. Either way, things weren’t the same.

“Yeah, I’m really happy I moved here, too.”

He gave you a quick kiss, without a thought. He liked kissing you, he wanted to do it and he figured that in this almost empty diner, he was allowed. He wished he was allowed all of the time; in front of your friends or anytime at all that wasn’t the two of you sleeping together.

He just wanted you to be his, and he to be yours. Completely.

A peck on your cheek followed, then your nose and forehead. When you giggled at his actions, he pulled away, looking at your smiling face and feeling special that he’s the one who made you react like that.

“You’re a great person, Steve. I mean that.”

“Stop.”

“It’s true! I’m glad you’re in my life.”

“Sometimes I think you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

It sort of slipped out, his thoughts travelling into words quicker than he could process. It was true, though. You were a vibrant light in the town of Hawkins. Exactly what he needed.

Then, your food was brought out, your vulnerable conversation cut off by hungry stomachs and a yummy meal. Steve stole fries from your plate, he teased you with fake gags when you dipped yours in the milkshake. You forced him to try it and his mind was changed, of course.

From the counter, Brenda observed the two of you with a smile. Steve told her about his feelings for you, because she wasn’t on the inside. She didn’t know any of his and your friends, and she was able to give him advice without any bias.

Seeing you in the flesh next to him was even more proof of how he felt. He was practically glowing because of you, his eyes on you with so much emotion she couldn’t believe you weren’t already together. She just shook her head and brought over the bill, giving Steve another wink because she knew.

On the ride home, he rested a hand on your thigh, keeping contact with you like he absolutely had to. You knew he was a physical touch kind of person, and today really brought it out of him.

He wanted to take you back to his, to spend another day like this one all over again tomorrow and the next day, and the next. He wanted to hold you in his sleep and wake you up with kisses and love and all of that couple shit.

“Can you come to mine again?”

“I want to, but my mom will lose her mind if I’m not home tonight. You know how she is.”

“She’s nice.”

“Because she likes you!”

“How could she not? I’m a charmer.”

“Just take me home, Steven. You dork.”

“Alright, alright.”

Even on the short drive, you managed to doze off. Steve’s hand on your leg a calming weight that kept you grounded, the lull of the music playing making your eyes heavy. Your head lying awkwardly against the seat in a way that was sure to hurt your neck if you stayed there for too long.

Steve didn’t even notice you’d fallen asleep until he pulled into your driveway, glancing over at you to say bye and finding your eyes shut and your breathing steady. Yet again you showed that you trusted him, to get you home, to take care of you. He fucking loved you.

He really didn’t want to disturb you, you looked so peaceful and he just wanted to let you stay that way. But, he knew that you had to get home, he didn’t want to upset your mom or you in any way.

Steve decided to wake you slowly, first cupping your face in one of his hands and letting his thumb brush back and forth against your skin, then using his other hand to grab the hand laying in your lap, squeezing.

“Hey, we’re here, babe.”

You shifted slightly, your head nuzzling into his palm in your drowsy state—something Steve found adorable—and breathing in deep. The boy squeezed your hand again, leaning in closer to kiss your eyelids, your cheek, then backed away again.

You blinked your eyes open then, lazy and so, so soft. “Hey.”

“Hi, sweet girl. You have a nice nap?”

“Mhm. Smells like you in here, ‘s cozy.”

“You’re cute. And we’re in your driveway.”

You hadn’t even noticed you were home, glancing out the window towards your front porch, the lights left on to welcome you home. As much as you loved your room, the bookshelf that sat in there, the stuffed animal you still kept on your bed, you wanted to stay with Steve.

He was a welcomed presence at any time, and now more than ever you knew that. He took care of you, he knew you. What you needed or wanted without a word, Steve could tell. You never had a connection like that with anyone else.

You could say with certainty now, you were in love with him. It wasn’t just your sleepy mind or a random thought, it was true.

“Thank you for today. For dinner and driving me home. You’re the best, Steve.”

“You know you can call me anytime, for anything. I love y- um, spending time with you. You’re my best friend, pretty.”

Did you catch his slip up? He certainly did and his heart was beating wildly in his chest. If you heard what he almost said, you didn’t mention it, only looking at him in that way you always did that made him weak.

Best friend. Right. You knew that, but you were also pretty sure he almost just said something that might have meant you were more. Having just woken up, though, you weren’t sure if you were just making things up.

“I love spending time with you too. I’ll see you later?”

“Of course you will.”

“Okay.”

Before you let yourself overthink it, you leaned over the centre console to plant a sweet kiss on Steve’s lips. He welcomed it, welcomed you and your taste. You didn’t let it go for too long, scared your mom might walk out and see or that you’d get carried away. So, you pulled away, pressed two more pecks to his mouth before opening the passenger door.

“Goodnight, Steve.”

“Goodnight, babe.”

He watched you walk up to your front door, waiting for your bedroom light to turn on before backing out of your driveway and taking himself back to his empty house that somehow felt even emptier without you in it.

It’s been a couple of days since the diner, since the time spent with Steve that taught you so much. That day made you realize you loved him, made you aware of how you felt and what you really wanted. You wanted him as your boyfriend, as your future and hopefully forever.

You had seen him since, but not separately from the group. It was full of glances and smiles and teasing. Your dynamic hadn’t really changed, at least not when you were around others, you weren’t sure you could say the same for your alone time.

Tonight, you had plans with Steve and the older crew. There was a bar type thing outside of town that seemed exciting enough, more so than the Hideaway, and with the fake IDs Eddie got you all, you’d be in no problem.

You were finishing getting ready in your bathroom, grateful you were the last person on the way to the bar because you needed the extra time. You were carefully applying your mascara when you heard the honk outside, letting you know your ride was here.

You hurried down the stairs, trying to put your shoes on as quickly as possible on the way, then, you were out the door. You spotted Eddie’s van right away, quickly walking to the back door.

The van was spacious, but always seemed to look full with your friends in it. Eddie in the driver's seat, Robin in the passenger seat with her feet up on the dashboard, Jonathan and Nancy sitting next to each other in the back, and Steve, wearing the sweetest smile at the sight of you.

Your dress was beautiful, but maybe he only thought so because you were the one wearing it. Your hair styled in a way he wanted to ruin, to mess up with his hands. He had it so bad for you and he knew it. Everyone did, really.

“Hey, babe! You look amazing.”

“Thanks. You too, Steve.”

Eddie groaned dramatically, but he was still smiling, “okay enough flirting and get in! Let’s go!”

This time, you listened to Eddie, climbing into the van and shutting the door behind you. Steve didn’t know what came over him when he tugged you down by your waist to sit on his lap, but he was glad he did when you let out the cutest surprised gasp.

He was more comfortable being touchy with you without the kids around, without their incessant questions and lack of filter. Here, he felt like it was more okay, like nobody would really say anything even if they wanted to.

They all knew about Steve’s feelings for you, even if he’d never told them. He became a very transparent person and that vulnerability was more amplified when you were involved. They were also fairly sure there was something going on, and that you felt the same way he did. The two of you weren’t really that great at hiding it.

You were shocked at his actions, considering his usual restraint around your friends, but you can’t say you weren’t buzzing because of it. You settled in his lap, his arms around your waist to keep you steady. It was nice, to feel like you were really his.

If the others felt a type of way about the couple-ish behaviour, they didn’t show it. They just kept the conversation going as normal as it would. Poking fun at Eddie’s driving, asking Robin if she was ready to dance without falling over, checking Jonathan’s temperature because he must’ve been sick if he agreed to going out like this.

It was all in good spirits, spilling laughter and a happy atmosphere.

The closer you got to the bar, the bumpier the roads were, and Steve noticed. He could feel you shift and bounce in his lap every time the car would hit a pothole, could feel you trying to squirm back into a comfortable position after getting jostled a little.

He was about to lose his mind.

When you shifted around again, he gripped your waist harder, stilling your movements.

“You gotta stop moving so much, pretty.” He was whispering, so quiet that you were the only one who could’ve heard him. His mouth by your ear and his hands holding you still.

“What?” You turned your face towards him so your lowered volume could be heard by him. You saw the look on his face, the deep breathing in his chest. Then you felt him. He was hard. “Oh. I’m so sorry.”

“‘S okay. Just try to be still for me.”

“I will. We’re almost there. Sorry again.”

“Not your fault you turn me on.”

“Shh! Steven!”

“Oh stop, they're too loud to hear us.”

You shook your head and turned back towards the front, trying your best to remain steady so Steve could get a break. You were flustered at the reminder of the affect you had on him, of how you made him react to your body without knowing it.

You and Steve joined back in on the main conversation after that, hearing the tail end of Robin’s story about an angry customer from the day before. It was hard to focus, though. With the hands splayed wide against you and the thoughts about what could be.

Eddie pulled into the parking lot of the bar shortly after that, turning the car off then glancing at the rest of you with that mischievous look that could only ever be an Eddie face. “You guys ready to get fucked up?”

“Who says we’re getting fucked up?” Nancy, the supposed responsible one, replied.

“Well, miss Wheeler, since I’m the chauffeur and can’t drink tonight, you’re all doing it for me!”

You giggled at your friend's train of thought, “sounds like a solid plan, Eds. You’re gonna be in charge of all of us?”

“Yes and I’ll be great at it! You’ll see.”

Steve leaned his head against yours, “enough chit chat, let’s get in there!”

“Patience, Steven.”

But you were already getting up, and getting out of the van, Steve following. Everyone else did, too, and you all made your way towards the doors, IDs and your best poker face at the ready.

As promised, you got in easily, and then you were all headed to order drinks. Steve’s hand found yours in the crowded space, gripping it to make sure you stayed close to him and he knew you were there. It was sweet, and you squeezed his hand because of it.

Drinks were ordered and downed, the second round for sipping slower. At first, you all stuck together, trying to talk over the noise, but eventually you split off. Nancy and Robin pulled you onto the dance floor with a new drink in hand before you could protest. Steve and the other two boys finding a spot to stand and lean and watch you all, making sure you were okay.

“So, Steve, when are you gonna fess up?”

“What?”

Eddie rolled his eyes. You and Steve were driving him nuts because he knew about the feelings and he knew it would work. It was just taking so long.

“Oh, come on Harrington. That you love her? That there’s something going on. We can all tell.”

“Nothing’s going on.. um. Yeah.”

“Back me up here, Byers.”

Jonathan had a way of speaking that was very persuasive, very matter-of-fact, and that’s why Eddie roped him into the conversation. He needed assistance in his match-making task.

“Steve, it’s kinda obvious. You look at her like she’s the sun, or something. Just admit it.”

You look at her like she’s the sun. Maybe that’s because you are, in a way. The brightest star that keeps him warm and relaxed and cheery. He only hoped he wouldn’t get burnt in your rays.

“Okay. So what? She’s my friend. Yeah.”

“Cut the bullshit. You love her and there’s something there. Just tell us. We can give great advice.. look at Byers over here, he’s in a great relationship.”

“Jesus, we’re having sex. You happy?”

“And you haven’t told her how you feel because..?”

What a great question that was. Steve didn’t even know the answer, because there were so many reasons. You might not feel the same, you might get totally freaked out and pull away from him. Or, you could love him back and he could ruin it because he thinks that’s what he’s best at. Messing things up.

“I don’t know.”

Jonathan spoke more reassuringly, “trust me, she feels the same way. She talks to Nancy about you.”

“Oh. Good to know, thanks.”

You talked about him? Was it good? Did you worry about every little thing like he did? Worry about whether he felt the same way or how to go about things in the future?

That was a lot to think about.

He didn’t have the time to do so, though, because when his eyes were back on you, he saw a guy talking to you. He saw you laugh at something that he said and then he saw him hold out a hand to dance with you. He saw you take it.

He felt like shit.

You were tipsy, just enough to be giggly and happy. When the stranger asked you to dance you didn’t even realize he was flirting, you only agreed because you lost Nancy and Robin and this seemed fun.

Steve downed his drink and walked onto the floor, his eyes focused on you and that fucking guy you were dancing with. In your defence, there was a distance between you and the stranger, not even touching other than the hand he held. That was enough to make Steve jealous, though.

When you saw Steve walking over you waved to him with excitement. Your grin was inviting and it almost made Steve forget about why he was walking over there in the first place. Almost. But the stranger came into view once more, and his jealousy flared up again.

“Steve! Dance with me!”

You let go of the stranger when Steve got close, opting to hold onto him instead. You stumbled a little and Steve caught you with ease, the stranger disappearing into the crowd. You weren’t even drunk, only slightly fuzzy, but it was enough that mixed with the atmosphere, you were feeling extra giddy.

He felt his past annoyance fade, because you were literally tripping to be with Steve instead of that guy. He was who you wanted to dance with, really. Who was he to deny you of that?

“Show me your moves, pretty.”

You wrapped your arms around his neck, his going around your waist loosely to give you room to move. You grinned at him, happy to have the contact and time with Steve. Your hips swayed to the best of whatever song was playing, eyes locked on Steve and his on you.

“Why aren’t you dancing, Steven!”

“You’re too good, I can’t compare.”

“Don’t care, dance with me.”

“You’re gonna have to teach me, honey.”

“‘Kay. So just listen to the music, right? Then you gotta move to it.”

He tried, but ended up looking more like a dad at a barbecue than a pretty boy in a bar. You bit your lip to hold in your laugh, but failed, and he pouted at you for it.

“What?”

“You’re gonna need so many lessons.”

“Hey! I’m not bad. Maybe it’s my teacher's fault.”

“No way. You said yourself, I’m too good.”

“Got me there,” he kissed your cheek, distracting you with his soft lips. The lightest touch from him managed to take your mind off of whatever was happening beforehand. It was baffling to know that someone had that much power over you, but you felt safe knowing that person was Steve.

Steve continued to try and dance the way you instructed, often failing but eventually getting better, able to keep rhythm with you. You were having fun, not a care about the world around you.

After a while, your mouth was dry from the lack of a drink and constant movement, “Steve, ‘M thirsty.”

“Don’t move, I’ll get you some water. Sound good?”

“Mhm. You’re the best,” you gave him a quick peck and he was off. You didn’t really think about kissing him, it was a reflex that you couldn’t control.

From different spots scattered around the place, your friends all collectively saw you and Steve’s quick kiss. Various reactions of eye rolls, smiles, and eyebrow raises ensued but they were all thinking the same thing. When would you two finally get together?

After the collective moment of briefly watching you two interact, they went back to whatever they were doing before. Eddie trying to convince the bartender to give his band a slot, Robin playing a game of darts against a random stranger, Nancy and Jonathan creating narratives for strangers throughout the place.

You waited for Steve and stayed put as promised, but got antsy when he was taking a while. To be fair, it had probably only been five minutes, but any time without him felt longer. You stood on your tip toes trying to find him, when you did, you wished you hadn’t.

He was talking to a girl, a pretty one. Damn it.

Her hair was shiny and soft and seemed perfectly in place even in the sweaty atmosphere. Her smile perfect with teeth that looked super clean and white. Worst of all, her hand was on his arm as she laughed at one of his jokes. Jokes that should be meant for you.

Jealousy was a bitch.

You wanted to push your way over there, to nudge her away from him and take her spot. You wanted to have your hand on him and you wanted to be on the receiving end of his humour. You hated the feeling, like reality was coming back to you because he wasn’t yours, he never had been.

Then, the stranger from earlier was next to you again.

Steve was graciously turning the girl down. She was really pretty, seemed nice, too. She wasn’t you, though. He made some kind of self deprecating joke to make her feel better and he shifted at the arm she placed on him. Lately the only touch he welcomed was yours. He apologized to her, grabbing his two waters off the counter and turning around to find you.

He didn’t like what he saw.

The guy who you danced with for like two minutes earlier in the night was back, leaned in way too close to you for Steve’s liking. Rationally, somewhere in his mind Steve knew it was probably just so you could hear him. But, that’s the funny thing with jealousy, rational thoughts go out the window.

He wanted to storm over and push the guy away from you, to tell him to fuck off and stop trying because you were his. But that was a lie. You weren’t really his, and he wasn’t yours. You weren’t doing anything wrong, you weren’t even touching the guy and still, Steve was fuming.

Instead of storming, Steve walked as casually as he could muster until he was behind you, wrapping an arm around your waist and tugging you against him. You stumbled a little, surprised because you didn’t see him coming, but when you smelled Steve’s cologne, you relaxed into him.

“Here’s your water, babe.”

“Thanks.”

You chugged it down, and while you drank, Steve stared the other boy down. He was conveying a message with his fixed gaze.

She’s taken. Go away. She’s with me, not you.

The guy walked away, muttering something along the lines of ‘asshole,’ under his breath and retreating. The relief Steve felt was immediate, because you were in his embrace, after all.

You finished your water, feeling refreshed and clear. The song playing was a great one, and you started to sway again, this time right against Steve who was still holding you against his front. This time, he moved with you easily. His hips grinding against your ass not so subtly and you loved it.

It was getting arousing, the way he groaned in your ear when you moved a certain way, the grip on your waist tightening as if he had to let out tension somehow. He was turned on and you knew it, you felt it.

When you pushed yourself into him harder, he couldn’t take it anymore and leaned down so his mouth was next to your ear, “bathroom. Now.”

He was walking away before you could muster a reply, but he knew you’d follow.

You did, staying a few paces behind him but making sure you could see where he was going. He walked into the hallway with the bathrooms with you in tow, heading into the furthest one from the rest of the bar.

As soon as you were through the door, he was rushing to kiss you and press you against it, flipping the lock so nobody would disturb you. He pushed himself against you, his hands wandering all over like they couldn’t settle. You had one hand in his hair, the other squeezing his shoulder.

It was like all of the built up tension throughout the night had finally snapped. The car ride over with you on Steve’s lap, the glimpses of jealousy, the dancing together that eventually brought you here.

The kiss was a mess of tongues, fast paced and probably the most heated you’d ever felt with Steve. You didn’t know if it was the environment of the bar, if it was the shift from the perfect day rearing its head, or if it was everything you couldn’t say being conveyed.

Steve pulled you off the door, walking you over to the sink and helping you to sit up on the counter where he could fit himself between your thighs. His hands cradled your head for a minute, kissing you again with so much passion, so much force, your mind was a blur of Steve and nothing else.

His hands then traveled up your legs, pushing the skirt of your dress up along with them until it was up around your waist, leaving your underwear in sight. His kisses shifted down to your neck, then he pulled the collar of your dress down to suck a hickey into your skin where it could be hidden later. A reminder for you, and nobody else.

Then, he was kneeling, his lips now moving up your legs until he was teasing the insides of your thighs, riling you up.

“Steve.”

“Hm?”

“You’re teasing me.”

“Thought you liked to be teased, pretty. You’ve been teasing me ever since you got into the damn van.”

You scoffed, “you’re the one who pulled me onto your lap.”

“Always blaming me, huh?”

You were about to reply when you were cut off by your own gasp at the feeling of Steve’s fingers finding your clit over your underwear.

“Steve, come on.”

“What is it, honey? Tell me what you want.”

Your hips were squirming, searching for relief, “please touch me. Mmm, want your mouth.”

“Only because you asked so nicely.”

Definitely not because he’d been dying to taste you since he had you on his lap. He moved your panties aside, and leaned in to lick a stripe up to your clit. He was calculated and quick, knowing exactly what to do to please you.

You leaned back, holding yourself up with one hand and the other buried in his hair, your legs thrown over his shoulders. You couldn’t help but moan when he sucked your clit into his mouth, grateful for the blaring music that blocked out any noises you made.

As good as he was making you feel, you couldn’t wait any longer to have him, so you pulled him back using your grip on his hair. He looked up at you, slightly concerned and confused.

“Something wrong?”

“Not at all. Just don’t wanna wait anymore.”

“Yeah? You want me?”

“So bad.”

He stood up, letting your legs fall from his shoulders and leaning in to kiss you. His hands were busy finding his wallet, then the condom that was in it. The kiss grew messy due to Steve’s distraction, and you moved to kiss at his neck, giving him some room to breathe.

While Steve ripped the package open, your hands worked quickly to undo his belt and his pants, pushing them down along with his underwear enough to free him of his confines.

He groaned, slipping the condom on and tossing the wrapper aside before pulling you closer to him so you were sat on the edge of the counter. Your legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck.

“Still okay? You’re ready for me?”

“Yes, Steve. Please.”

“I’ll take care of you.”

Steve didn’t waste any more time, lining himself up and pushing into you with ease considering how wet you were, and how in tune you were with his body. He gave you a second to adjust, but when your legs squeezed around him, pushing him deeper, his resolve collapsed.

He pulled himself out of you almost completely before pushing back in, quick, hard, deep. His grip was tight around your back, keeping you steady and close. Steve was a careful partner, even in more intense moments like this one.

Something about the way he was fucking you, the added roughness to his actions had your mind losing focus of anything that wasn’t Steve.

“Fuck. You feel so good,” he was breathing heavily, moans falling into the space between you. He kissed you again, but it quickly became an uncoordinated thing because of his pace. The kiss broke but the two of you stayed close, your mouths hovering over each other to breathe in every sound.

It wasn’t long before he felt you tightening around him, your pelvis squirming against his because you were close. He drew back enough to snake a hand down to your clit, giving you the added sensation you needed to reach your end.

“That’s it. You’re gonna come for me, huh?”

All you could manage was a nod, your mouth agape to heave in as much air as you could, your eyebrows scrunched with that expression he knew you made before you came.

“Go on, pretty. All over me.”

“Fuck. Steve.”

Your head fell back, your orgasm hitting you as hard as Steve’s movements. He kept going, pushing you through it and making it more intense than it already was. He pulled out of you when he could tell you were sensitive, giving you a moment to catch your breath.

“You didn’t come?”

“Not yet, babe. Want you to again. Can you?”

“Shit. Yeah.”

He lifted you off the counter, setting you down and spinning you so that you faced the mirror, bent over the sink with Steve standing behind you. He nudged your legs apart so he could fit between them, your skirt still flipped up to give him access.

Steve’s eyes locked onto yours through the mirror, checking your face to see if you were ready to go again, and your eager nod told him you were. He pushed into you again, his pace picking up right away. His hips smacking against your ass, an arm around your middle and a hand teasing your nipples through the fabric of your dress.

Your eyes squeezed shut at the heat of it all, the overwhelming pleasure leaving you completely fucked. Steve didn’t like that, though, and he moved a hand onto the back of your neck.

“No. Open your eyes.”

You obeyed, it was hard not to when he used a commanding tone that was harsher than what you’d heard from him before. Your eyes opening and looking at him in the mirror yet again.

“Good girl. Watch me fuck you. Who’s making you feel like this?”

“You, Steve. Only you.”

“That’s right, only me. Nobody else can get you like me, huh?”

Your response got stuck in your throat after a hard thrust from Steve, a moan coming out instead. He was so completely lost in you that he didn’t really know what he was saying, only that he wanted it to give a message.

Mine.

He never thought he’d be a possessive person, but he supposes being in love with someone who he only has sex with would complicate things. Love wasn’t what he was conveying with this round, he was fucking the jealousy out of your systems, reminding himself that you only gave yourself to him this way. For now, at least.

He pulled you up from your spot leaning on the countertop, your head falling back onto his shoulder and your hand grabbing the back of his head. His pace kept up through it all, chasing his high as well as yours.

“Please.”

You didn’t even know what you were asking for, relief, anything at all. You were encompassed by Steve and his feel, his smell, you didn’t have time to think about anything other than how he was making you feel.

Your legs were shaky and Steve’s grip around your middle played a big part in keeping you upright. He was working you both up to a sweat, foreheads damp and bodies warm.

“Can feel you squeezing me, pretty. You gonna come again?”

“Yeah. Don’t stop.”

“Never gonna stop with you.”

You couldn’t stay up anymore, and collapsed over the counter yet again when you felt your second orgasm coming on, and Steve followed. He leaned over you while he got you through it, encouragement and praises muttered into your ear between his own moans.

“Fucking shit,” he came with you then, his hips losing rhythm until he was stilled in you and all that was left were sounds of you two trying to catch your breaths.

When the two of you came down, Steve’s previous roughness seemed to melt away completely, his hands running over you and his forehead against the back of your shoulder.

He got up after a couple minutes, pressing a soft kiss between your shoulder blades and pulling away from you to get rid of the condom and right his clothes. He came back to you with a wad of toilet paper in hand, wetting it in the sink and then using it to clean you up.

You hissed at the sensitivity, and he kissed your back again and whispered an, ‘I know, you’re okay,’ into your skin.

He fixed your clothes for you after that, pulling you up and turning you around so you were facing him. Your eye makeup smudged and your forehead shiny with sweat, but your mouth was twisted in a lazy smile.

He brushed your hair away from your face, “did I hurt you?”

“No, you were perfect.”

“Okay. Okay, good.”

He was concerned that he was too harsh with you, letting his emotions get the best of him. While he knows you would tell him if he did something wrong that had to do with sex, he couldn’t help but worry about you.

“We should probably get back out there.”

“Maybe we should fix your makeup a little, honey. You look like you just got fucked.”

You laughed, “that’s completely your fault, you know.”

“Yeah, so let me help.”

He ran some paper towel under the faucet, getting it damp and then using two fingers to grip your chin and tilt your face up to him. He swiped away at the makeup beneath your eyes, his touch soft and careful. When he was satisfied with his job, he pecked your nose and moved to let you look.

You smiled at his softness after sex, his willingness and need to take care of you even in the aftermath. He came back to hug you from behind, to kiss your cheek and your neck once and then perch his chin on your shoulder.

“Still pretty even with a fucked up hairdo.”

“Again, your fault.”

“I know, sorry. Can't help it, I like having my hands on you.”

You glanced down to where they were resting on your stomach, “yeah, I know. I like it, too.”

“That’s my girl.”

That’s my girl. Did he mean that? Did he really want you to be his? You really hoped so because you wanted that more than anything. Tonight was yet another shift in everything, the open affection, the neediness and jealousy that brought you to the bathroom. It had to be more than just sex, there was no way it wasn’t.

That scared you almost as much as it excited you.

“‘Kay, I’ll let you fix your hair and wait in the hall. Sound good?”

“Mhm. Thanks, Steve.”

You shared a quick kiss, another thing that felt like something a boyfriend and girlfriend would share. Something soft and languid. Easy.

He backed away and left the bathroom to let you finish up, and was startled by Eddie walking into the hallway at the same time.

“There you are, Harrington! I’ve been looking for you all over. It’s time to go, Robin and Nancy said so. So we have to listen.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay.”

How long had he been in there with you? Shit, Eddie was about to witness you walk out of the same bathroom.

Just as Steve thought it, you walked out into the hall and stopped short when you saw Eddie talking to Steve. Both of their heads turned to look at you, and the long haired boy smirked teasingly because he caught you. Red handed and all.

“Well, look who it is!”

“Um, Steve was just helping me fix my.. hair. Yeah.”

“Okay, sure he was.”

Steve shook his head, turned to look at you and attempted to change the subject because this was awkward. “Eddie said it’s time to head out, you ready?”

“Sure, lead the way.”

You trailed behind the boys, Steve turning to make sure you were still there every couple seconds. Eddie noticed it, “real discreet, Harrington.”

“Shut up, Munson.”

The drive home was much more relaxed than the way there, everyone subdued and lazy from the quiet of the car. You sat next to Steve this time, his hand on your leg and your head on his shoulder.

Neither of you cared about any ideas the others would get then, it wasn’t even on your minds.

Besides, they all knew anyway.

They got to your house first, and Eddie turned to look at you with a smile, “we’ve arrived at our first destination, miss.”

“Thanks, Eds.”

“‘Course, see ya.”

A chorus of ‘bye’s and ‘goodnight’s from your friends, a squeeze on your leg from Steve, “I’ll walk you up.”

“Okay.”

You got out of the car, and Steve came along, walking with you up to your porch which really wasn’t far at all, but the gesture was sweet nonetheless.

You paused at your door, Steve’s hand trailing down your arm to grab your hand in his.

“I had a good night. I really like you, pretty.”

Your breath caught, because that could have easily been an admission of feelings. You weren’t sure if he was saying it that way, or if he even realized. He called you his best friend, that must be what he meant.

“I really like you too, Steve.”

“I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah, you know you will.”

“I’m that irresistible, huh?”

“Shut it, Steven.”

He just smiled and shrugged at you, and he leaned in to give you a slow kiss. He was fully aware your friends were probably watching, but he wasn’t worried about that because they knew enough already. He wanted to kiss you, so he did.

You returned it despite the shock you felt at him giving you a kiss goodnight in front of the prying eyes of your nosy friends. You loved Steve, and you’d never turn down a kiss from him.

He pulled away, squeezing your hand that he still held, “Goodnight, babe.”

“‘Night.”

He walked off while you unlocked your door and went in, shutting it behind you and leaning your head onto the wood because what the fuck? Tonight was definitely something you’d have to work yourself up over later.

When Steve got back in the van he was met with everyone’s eyes on him, some smiles and some eyebrows arched at him.

“You’re so gone for her it’s insane.”

“Thank you for the revelation, Robin.”

“Why aren’t you guys dating yet?”

“It’s complicated.”

An exasperated breath from Eddie was heard by everyone, “it’s really not. You guys love each other, simple. Just be honest and then voila! It’s pretty clear to literally everyone that you’re a thing, just make it official and put us all out of our misery.”

Steve just turned to look out the window, he wasn’t in the mood for an intervention or a spell out of what he knew he should do. He was scared to be honest and open, having been hurt in the past because of it.

“Just drive, Eddie.”

It’s been almost a week since that night, and things between you and Steve were.. different.

You haven’t had sex since then, no late night phone call that could only be one person, no sleepovers, nothing. You only saw him when you hung out with the others, and it was strange.

You missed him, you missed his touch and his smell and his cuddles in the morning. Being in love with him only made it worse.

You, of course, overthought that night at the bar. Did he ditch you for that girl he talked to? Was he freaked out because your friends knew and he didn’t want anything to do with you if it wasn’t a secret? It felt like he was pulling away from you and it was scary, terrifying.

Steve, on the other hand, realized something after the bar. He realized that you had feelings for him too because why else would you welcome his touch so readily at any moment, why else would you treat him the way you did. Maybe Eddie had a hand in this realization, but either way, it was finally in Steve’s head.

He felt the change in you and it scared him. Of course Steve wanted to be with you, but he was so nervous that something would go wrong. The last thing he wanted was to lose you and your friendship because he couldn’t take care of you properly as a girlfriend.

Even though he’d been treating you as his all along, the title made it more real. Made it easier to lose.

The pouring rain was the perfect backdrop to both of your emotions lately. The confusion and indecisiveness on what to do next lingering.

Your thoughts were running wild, faster than you could keep up with, but you knew the one thing you needed to do was be honest with Steve. You needed to tell him how you felt before he pulled away completely, because you weren’t letting that happen. He treated you like a lover would, and you were ready to stop ignoring that.

His house wasn’t too far from yours, so you decided it would be a great idea to bike over in the rain to see him. You guessed people really do act like fools when they’re in love.

A knock on the front door brought Steve out of his whirling thoughts of you and what the hell he was going to do.

He walked over and opened the door to find just the person he was thinking about. You stood in front of him, drenched from the rain and panting. Still beautiful.

“Hi, Steve.”

“What the hell are you doing? You’re gonna get sick. Get in here.”

He pulled you inside by your sleeve, running up the stairs to get you a towel and a change of clothes because he couldn’t go a minute without making sure you were alright. He could worry about why you showed up unannounced after you stopped shivering.

Steve came back and wrapped the towel around you, rubbing his hands up and down your arms to give you warmth then kneeling to untie your shoes and help you slip them off. You could’ve done it yourself, he knew that, but he liked to do things for you anyways.

When he stood, he handed you the clothes he brought down for you, some sweats you left in your drawer, and ushered you to the downstairs bathroom to change.

“Go, put these on then we can talk, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

You shut the door softly behind you and changed as fast as you could. Partly because you wanted to talk to Steve as soon as possible, and partly because you were really cold. Biking in the rain was a stupid thing to do but you were about to drive yourself insane with your stressed out thoughts.

Steve was who you needed to see, so you came to see him.

Once you changed, your wet clothes hung up in the shower, you walked out to find Steve. He was sitting on the couch in the living room, his head turning when he heard you approach. You walked around to the front of the couch, sitting down when Steve patted the spot next to him.

“Is everything okay?”

He couldn’t stop worrying, wondering why you showed up this way when usually you’d call him and he’d drive. Something had to be wrong for you to go out in the pouring rain and end up on his doorstep.

It was especially concerning to him because he knew things were off the last few days, and he knew he was pulling away from you for no good reason. He was only doing it because he loved you so much and the idea of messing anything up scared him.

“Yeah, it’s fine. I just wanted to talk to you.. if that’s okay?”

“‘Course it’s okay, honey. I’m here for you. What’s going on?”

You had to take a deep breath to prepare yourself, to get ready to spill your heart out to Steve. It’s what you came here to do, and as much as you wanted to back out, you couldn’t. You had to see this through even if it’d break you in the process.

“Ever since that night at the bar, things have been weird, don’t you think? We haven’t done anything just us and I miss it. I’ve just been thinking so much and I wanted to come and see you. I wanted to know what was going on because you seem to be pushing me away, and if you wanna end it that’s, um, that’s fine just tell me now.”

Steve was frozen, taking in all of the information you just dumped on him at once. He heard it all but he couldn’t get past the part where you said the reason you came to see him was because he was pushing you away, being different. He had no idea you cared enough to risk a cold—which was like, your least favorite thing ever—just to see him.

“You came all the way here because I was acting differently?”

He was so fucked.

“Yeah. Is that weird?”

“No. No, it’s really sweet. I’m sorry for making you feel bad.”

“Stop. That’s the thing, Steve, you don’t make me feel bad. You do the opposite, really.”

Oh god, you were gonna do it. You were about to confess your love for him and there was absolutely no turning back now. Your heart was pounding in your chest, your palms clammy.

“I do?”

“Yeah. You make me feel so good. Like, the best I’ve ever felt and I don’t just mean.. you know. I mean all the time. Just being around you.”

Holy shit. It was happening. Steve could tell where this was going and he was buzzing. He wanted to tell you first, but he supposed you were braver than he ever could be. He could feel your nerves, though, and he reached over to grab your hands that were fiddling in your lap.

Your eyes flicked to his when he did, encouragement and care written all over his face. It was enough to get you to keep talking.

“So, um. Ever since I moved here and Eddie introduced us, you’ve been my closest friend, and I want to tell you I think you always will be. But, I was hoping maybe we could be more than that?”

“You mean…”

“I mean I’m in love with you.”

“Really?”

Steve was someone who needed reassurance, who needed to know everything because he hated being blindsided, and you knew that. You knew pretty much everything about him.

“Yeah, really. For a really long time. I realized that day, with the diner and stuff. But, I think I’ve loved you since we started.. ya know. I just never knew it.”

“I can't believe this is happening.”

“I’m sorry if it’s not what you wanna hear.. we can forget about it and-”

“No! No, it’s not- I love you, too. I’m in love with you. Have been for months.”

“We’re idiots, aren’t we?”

“Completely. But I do love you. I’m better when I’m with you, better because of you. I want to be with you, and I don’t wanna hide it anymore, okay?”

“So, I’m your girlfriend?”

“Yeah, pretty. Can finally call you my girl.”

“I’ve been yours.. I never thought about anyone else.”

“Me either. I think you're it for me and it’s scary. I don’t wanna lose you and that’s why I’ve been distant. I’m sorry.”

You understood where he was coming from, and you knew that he had a lot of baggage from his past relationships and childhood, you only hoped he’d let you be there to help him carry it. To take some of the weight off his shoulders.

“It’s okay, Steve. Everything’s okay. I love you and nothing’s gonna change that.”

He pulled you into him then, his hand on the back of your neck to guide your lips to his. He kissed you without any restraint, putting all of his love for you there and it felt incredible. It was honest and raw and it was a promise of the future. One with you two together.

You were the happiest you’d been, Steve was fully yours and he was kissing you like he wanted you to know that. You only pulled away when you ran out of breath, leaning your forehead against his and squeezing his hand that was still in yours.

Steve pulled away and smiled that devastating smile at you, his hand still a comfort weight on the back of your neck, his eyes soft and sweet.

“Sleepover?”

“I kinda already told my mom I was staying here.”

He shook his head at you, “presumptuous of you, pretty.”

“I’d like to call it hopeful. And smart! I was thinking ahead.”

“Of course you were.”

The night was full of touches and kisses and teasing. Your dynamic stronger than it was before and it was perfect. It was everything. You cuddled in bed without any hesitation at all, your head on Steve’s chest and an arm tossed over his stomach, his arms hugging you close.

As you were dozing off you felt a kiss to your forehead, an ‘I love you’ spoken into your skin. You said it back and then, you were asleep.

When Eddie found out about your relationship with Steve being official, he practically screamed ‘finally!’ before giving you a hug.

“I knew you guys were gonna end up together! Eddie the matchmaker, you’re welcome.”

You and Steve looked at each other and grinned. You were thinking the same thing: maybe you really should be thanking Eddie because if it weren’t for him you two would’ve never met. If it weren’t for him you would’ve gone your whole life without knowing the best boy that was Steve Harrington.

“Thanks, Eds.”

Steve looked at you, and everytime he did he practically had hearts in his eyes. His emotions were written all over him.

“Yeah. Guess I owe you one, Munson.”

And it’s just as good as I knew it would be / Stay with me, I don’t want you to leave <3

༄

if you enjoyed, please reblog! it would mean a lot!

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington fic #steve harrington x you #steve harrington imagines #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x y/n #stranger things #stranger things fic #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington requests #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington story #stranger things fanfic

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josiesullysblog · 1 year

Text

Don’t Underestimate Me.

~AGED UP Neteyam x reader

~Explict content, Neteyam is 22, reader is 21.

~Proofread?~yes

~Summary-You were always extremely close with Kiri. Growing up so close with the girl you were bound to meet her family. You always believed Neteyam to be so uptight and boring, you were so very wrong.

***

The night had started like any other night. You and Kiri often snuck out to hang out around the “spot.” Only kids around your age went, and no adults were allowed. A great place to cool off, and talk with friends after a long week.

You had just arrived with the girl, laughing, when you noticed the boy. Your eyes lingered on him, blatantly eye-fucking him. You would admit, you found the boy super attractive. You unconsciously fixed your hair as you walked to take your seat near him. His eyes were the first thing to drag you in, a sort of mystery, something many people miss at first glance. I mean, he was your best friend’s older brother, he was never at the spot, and always off doing some training with his father. He was next in line so much to live up to, yet your mind and body still wanted him.

The boy licked his lips, and a wish fell in your mind that it was your mouth he was licking. You were sure the boy had no experience with women. He was too busy with his duties, watching his siblings, and being the perfect son to be dealing with such things. Soon, you were to find out how wrong you were. You often imagined how it feels being his first time, his mate. How it would feel to be swollen with his child. Your mind was ahead of your body because as of right now, he believes you were nothing but his sister’s friend. And you were dying to change that.

You noticed the cup he held in his hand, you slowly made your way to him, watching him carefully. You gave a small smile as you sat next to him, “what are you drinking?” his eyes scanned your body, giving you a boost of confidence. “Nothing a little girl like you should be drinking,” you chuckled out loud, “there are no adults out here, give me a sip.” you had already assumed he would say no, as you watched him bring the cup to his mouth. His hands found their way to the back of your neck as he titled you back ever so slightly, “open for me,” to which you gladly did.

The drink burned the back of your throat as you took the drink in. With his hand on your neck and his breath almost fanning your face, you clenched your legs tight. You feared he or some other male would smell the scent of arousal that left your legs. Neteyam was no stranger to the smell that engulfed you two, just by your body language he knew where your mind was. He was willing to do anything to you, but he just had to be sure.

He brought his mouth close to your ear, “I see the way you clench, do you want me to fuck you?” his words caused your heart to speed up, “teyem,” you called him out by nickname causing a smile, “such a dirty girl.” your attraction had been found out, but he didn't push you away in disgust or politely decline your advances, he indulged in the way your body called out for him. His eyes called out for more. You had been the one making advances, the roles completely switch as a dominant energy waved off the boy.

“Sage we are heading back now!” Kiri’s words rang reminding you of your current state. “Sage said she’ll stay back and clean with me, right?” Neteyam said as he removed his hand from behind you, “yea I’ll catch up with you later,” you turned and smiled at the girl, “alright!” she smiled back before leaving with the group.

Still turned as you watched everyone else leave, you felt a hand find its place around your neck, this time with a stronger grip. Out of reflex, your hand grabbed the larger hand causing Neteyam to coo at you, “you're just so pretty.” His other hand trailed down your body looking for somewhere to stop, he let go of your neck manhandling you to your knees. “You're a good girl, right?” you nodded your head looking at the bulge under his loincloth, “I’ll do whatever you want,” he smiled at your words taking his loincloth off and showing off the hard cock he had hidden.

You take the cock in your hand, rubbing up and down attempting to fit in your mouth. Before you could even lick the tip, he put his hand on your chin. “Open wide,” he shoved fingers in your mouth, “so ready aren't you?” you nodded as you sucked his fingers. He grabbed the cock, which was dripping in precum, and brought it to your mouth. You gladly let him control your head, as he played with you as if you were some disposal toy.

His moans echoed in the air, making you even wetter, “shit, Sage,” you slowly found yourself dragging your hand to your lower parts, rubbing the clit lightly. “Aw, are you that desperate? You can’t even wait for me to finish?” his words turned you on as he made your head go faster. His moans became high-pitched as his load fell in your mouth. “Don't waste a single drop,” following his orders you swallowed the whole thing, showing your tongue off as proof.

He pushes you softly into the grass, bringing his head down to your legs,“ so wet, just for me,” he smiled before digging his fingers deep into you, a loud moan echoing. He watched your lips as drool fell from them, you were too far gone to notice anyway. The pleasure continued as his pace sped up, “I’m gonna cum, Neteyam!”

He smirked at you, slowly taking his fingers out, causing you to whine, “no, please let me-,” he cut you off with a kiss. You returned it attempting to drag his hand back, he broke the kiss, “oh, baby you didn't think it was that easy, did you? I’ll let you come when I want, whenever I want. You are mine now.”

His words, in any sane person, would cause fear, but for you, it caused a small heartbeat in between your legs. “I wouldn't want anybody else,” you said smiling at him, “but you are gonna let me cum.” you assumed your words would make him return to in between your legs, but they only made him smile and walk off.

You followed behind the boy, screaming his name. But to him, this was only the first part eventually you would become his perfect toy.

***

Ya’ll I’ve had a lot of free time this week to write!! I was your comments from my last story, and I’ll definitely try and make a second part!! Hope you all enjoy this one!

#avatar way of water #neteyam #jake sully #avatar #avatar loak #avatar neytiri #neteyam x y/n #avatar smut #neteyam smut #loak x reader #neytiri

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lovelynim · 1 year

Text

Kaveh’s key

Genshin Impact - Alhaitham x Kaveh (feat. Mehrak)

A/N: I got a little too obsessed with Kaveh being able to use telekinesis. That’s the plot behind this one.

Summary: Kaveh decides to use Mehrak’s help to teach Alhaitham a lesson for stealing his keys.

Word count: 1305 words.

Alhaitham and Kaveh walked inside the house, but in two completely different moods. While the scribe had a rather calm expression, and even a little drained from his work day, his roommate was clearly upset, making the sound of his heavy footsteps echo through the house as he went to the kitchen to search for something to drink.

Because Alhaitham ended up taking both keys (for the third time that week), Kaveh had to wait outside their house for at least an hour, waiting for the other man to get back from work and allow them both to go in.

Kaveh wasn’t sure what was making him more angry: the wait, the fact that it was becoming a common occurrence or how unbothered Alhaitham looked, not showing the slight concern for his roommate.

“Could you at least pretend you care?” Kaveh whined out loud, staring at Alhaitham’s direction. The scribe was comfortably sitting on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, and with a book on his hands. Kaveh clenched his teeth. “I’m talking to you, you idiot.”

But there was no response. Alhaitham simply turned the page, barely taking his eyes out of the book as Kaveh only got even more upset.

“Alhaitham!”

“Yes, Kaveh? I’m listening,” the scribe snapped back, clearly uninterested. Kaveh placed his cup down and he crossed his arms, pouting.

“You can be such a pain to deal with sometimes. Don’t you have something to say to me?”

“Hm…” Alhaitham muttered, placing the book down on his lap and slightly lifting his chin, as if thinking about his next words. “Yes. Be more careful and don’t forget your keys next time,” he said, tilting his head to the side to look at Kaveh with a sly smirk.

“I didn’t forget them!” Kaveh roared, slamming his hands over the kitchen’s table. “You took both keys with you! Again!”

“Then be more careful and place them somewhere else, it’s not my fault they got entangled,” Alhaitham muttered, turning another page and continuing to read.

He was really getting on Kaveh’s nerves.

“Why can’t you pay more attention when you leave the house?! And it took you an eternity to get back home! Do you know how much time I spent outside for you?!”

Alhaitham sighed. Kaveh was being loud enough to disturb his reading and, now, he was getting annoyed as well. He had no energy to argue with his roommate and just wanted to finish his reading… Maybe it would be better to just agree with Kaveh, he thought.

“Alright, Kaveh, I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful tomorrow,” the scribe sighed, noticing how his words made his roommate go silent.

Taking it as a good sign, Alhaitham picked up his book again and resumed reading. However, in Kaveh’s end, those words didn’t land so well. The blonde clenched his hands, thinking about throwing the cup in front of him right at Alhaitham’s head. But once he looked at his own hands, he was struck by a different idea.

Giving Mehrak a subtle look, Kaveh nodded at his suitcase and it already knew that the architect had something in mind.

He walked around the living room, as if going to his bedroom, but stopped behind the couch. “You asked for this,” he warned Alhaitham, who simply lifted his eyes from the book and raised an eyebrow in confusion.

“What do you me-” before he could finish, he felt something around his wrists. Two yellow rings made out of energy. Mehrak’s energy. The scribe got even more confused and was about to turn back to look at Kaveh when his roommate spoke again.

“Up,” the blonde spoke, placing one hand over his waist while he swiped his finger up, waiting for Mehrak to follow his command. With that simple move, the rings went up, holding Alhaitham’s hand above his head.

The scribe felt blood rush to his cheeks, tainting them with a faint shade of pink. He tried to pull his arms down, but Mehrak’s energy kept holding them firmly. No matter how much he twisted his hands, it wouldn’t move a single inch.

“It’s not going to work like that, you know, especially since keeping you in place doesn’t demand a lot of energy from Mehrak.”

“What?” Alhaitham gasped, sitting back on the couch as he had no option but to accept that his arms were restrained. “Then tell it to let me go,” he hissed, managing to look over his shoulder and glare at Kaveh with the corner of his eyes.

“Not until you apologize.”

“I already did it.”

“Sure,” Kaveh chuckled, walking towards the scribe and making him shiver in anticipation, “do as you please.” He muttered and Alhaitham could hear the grin in his voice.

Kaveh placed his hands over each of his roommate’s bare triceps, lazily tracing up and down over them. Just from that simple touch, Alhaitham could already feel his heartbeat increase. He greeted his teeth, stiffening his body as he tried to hold back his laugh while an awkward smile took place in his lips. “K-Kaveheh- St-hng… s-stohop it.”

The change in his voice tone didn’t go unnoticed. The blonde grinned, lightly moving the tip of his fingers in circles right above the middle of Alhaitham’s underarms. “Not so tough now, eh? You almost sound like a nice guy speaking like this,” he teased, amusing himself with his friend’s squirming.

“T-Thihihs childihish! S-stop it, Kahahaveh!” Alhaitham protested, twisting his torso side to side as much as the energy rings allowed him to.

“And so is your stubbornness.” The architect snapped back, lowering his hands a little just to drag the tip of his nails up the scribe’s outstretched armpits.

Alhaitham choked with his laughter, banging his heels against the floor beneath him, finally giving in to ticklish sensations. “AHAhaha, K-KavehehEHeh!! QuihiHIHihit it, pleheHEhease!” He cackled, trying to bury his blushing face into his arms with no avail. The scribe pressed his hands into fists as Kaveh’s nails moved freely over his skin, tickling each muscle with a precision that was sending Alhaitham up the walls.

“Begging won’t take you anywhere, you insufferable idiot,” Kaveh taunted, adding just enough pressure to his touch to send Alhaitham into another wave of hysterical laughter. “Are you sorry?!” He yelled, trying to make his roommate hear his words over the loud pleads and chortles.

“YEHEHES- AhahAHaha, j-juhuhust stahAHA- W-wahahait!!” Alhaitham giggled, letting out an embarrassing squeal when Kaveh decided to pinch the skin right above his underarm. His other hand, however, explored each inch of sensitive skin on the other side, wiggling his fingers mercilessly into the middle of his hollow.

“Nuh-uh, not so fast. What are you sorry for?” Kaveh knew he was being petty, but he also believed Alhaitham deserved that. Regardless, he wasn’t stopping the tickling.

“F-for tahAHAhaking yo- ahAHAHAhah,” he pressed his eyes close as hard as he could, feeling like he was melting into a puddle of laughter over the couch when Kaveh’s hands went a little lower, tickling all the way up from his ribs to his arms. “For tahAHahaking y-yohou kehEHEHeys!!”

“See? It wasn’t this hard to put some sincerity into your words, was it?” Kaveh grinned, pleased with what he just heard. Taking his hands away, he snapped his fingers, releasing the scribe from Mehrak’s hold. “I’ll take a shower and go to bed, I had a really rough day, you know?”

“Ah-ahah.. f-fuck you, Kaveh,” Alhaitham muttered, laying his head back into the cushions as he tried to catch his breath, feeling the electric aftershocks running all the way across his torso.

“Good night for you too, Haitham,” he giggled, deciding to spare the scribe from another tease. He probably learnt his lesson and, if he didn’t, Kaveh could always count with Mehrak to give him a little reminder.

#genshin impact #genshin impact tickling #kaveh #alhaitham #kavetham #lee!alhaitham #ticklish!alhaitham #ler!kaveh #tickle fic

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grandwretch · 2 months

Text

only i must wander, pt. 5

[on ao3] [pt 1] [pt 2] [pt 3] [pt 4]

content warning: gun violence, government conspiracies, implied racialized violence against black children, child endangerment, and references to impact play

Sleep did not come for Steve that night, too outweighed by guilt and failure to find him. He rattled around his empty house, waiting for it to come, and instead found only the spiral of his own thoughts. It was stupid to dwell on it, he tried to tell himself, the way it had been stupid to dwell on Barb. There was nothing to be done to change it, no way to go back in time and stop it, so why was he agonizing over it like it was a problem he could actually solve? It was just causing himself unnecessary heartache. He knew that. It didn't make it any easier to stop.

It was worse doing it alone. Having Nancy around had been a little easier, although Steve didn't know if it was because seeing her tearing herself apart made his own mind a little clearer, or because he simply let her take over all the thinking. Neither was a very flattering reason, he was afraid. Now, he felt even more useless than he had then, when all Steve could do to comfort anyone was make stupid jokes at the dinner table. That, at least, had been well-meaning. What the fuck had he been doing the past few days?

Really, it had been his own fault for believing he could change things. Realizing he wasn't human had given Steve too much confidence-- He had never been a good person, Steve knew that, but there was almost some hope in him that maybe he could be a good Wesen. Which was ridiculous, of course. He should have left those kids alone. He should have never let Dustin and Robin convince him that he was needed. He should have known that he wasn't meant to be the hero.

Maybe that was why he had always bucked against the idea. What had he been thinking, letting himself pretend that it was because he didn't want to hurt someone? Everyone knew Steve Harrington didn't have any real morals; He would do anything for a smile or a warm touch. Maybe, somewhere deep inside, Steve had just already known he would fuck being a Grimm up like he had everything else.

It was hard to think about anything else.

By the time the sun came up the next morning, Steve had moved past panic and into the quiet acceptance of someone who had realized they had nowhere to run. He made himself a pot of coffee, ignoring how it made his empty stomach twist, and forced himself to stare into a sunrise that stung his tired eyes. Despite the exhaustion that clung to his limbs and heart, Steve didn't have problems finding energy to move. If anything, he felt like his body was pushing him to move faster, always finding a small reserve of energy to burn.

Not for the first time, his body was at odds with his mind-- Every inch of him wanted to go out there and fix things, while Steve himself knew it would all be useless. He just had to wait for everyone else to show up. Maybe they would have some better ideas. Eddie seemed particularly keen to save the world from Steve.

So the morning lingered, every hour seeming longer and longer until Steve was certain it might drive him insane. They had agreed to meet up just before lunch, in order not to keep Robin past curfew again should they need more time to regroup. Steve was beginning to regret being so responsible, letting everyone go home and be normal for a little while, and he honestly wasn't sure his soul could take another regret.

Even as Steve craved the comfort of his friends, though, he knew he didn't deserve it-- So he sat, quietly, and drank another cup of coffee, ignoring the phone next to him.

Eventually, when the sun had finally completely risen over the treeline and the sleepy suburb around Steve had cleared itself out, all the fathers at work and the mothers at the club and the children at their camps and practices and programs... Steve heard the sound of a car coming up the street. The fact that he heard it at all was something of a warning; Those who lived in Loch Nora did not, as a general rule, allow themselves to be so gauche-- or practical --as to have their engines introduce their vehicle before the logo could.

Steve leaned over the counter to peek through his blinds, sighing when he saw a familiar blue and white van in his driveway. He had never expected Eddie Munson, chronic truant, to be so punctual. It would figure that the one time no one wanted Eddie around was when he would actually show up for once, Steve thought, and then immediately scolded himself for being an ass.

This was Steve's fault; Not Eddie's.

Besides, if Steve could forget that he was barely keeping it together, at the moment, it might be nice to spend some time with Eddie alone. He could look his fill, at least, without having to worry about Robin or Dustin noticing. Maybe they could talk about something that wasn't death or kidnapping for once. Maybe he could even get Eddie to like him.

And all for what, a nasty little part of Steve whispered. Which was a good point, really. There was no sense in Steve getting his hopes up just to have Eddie hate him again when he'd realized what Steve had done. Although, maybe it would be nice to have something to remember besides snarky comments and hateful little looks, when Steve was alone again. Because Eddie would be so upset, if Steve told him. Kids like that were probably the only reason Eddie was even still in this town, he had made that extremely clear, so why would he even both pretending to get along with Steve after he'd lost them like that?

Watching Eddie hop out of the van, Steve sighed, and put the last cup of coffee down on the counter. Whatever happened, it would have to wait until everyone got here. Steve wasn't going to have this conversation twice.

By the time Eddie knocked, Steve was already in his foyer, hand on the doorknob. Eddie's hand was still raised as Steve opened the door, and he turned the gesture into an odd little wave, smiling crookedly.

"Hey, Harrington," he said, tongue pressing into the gaps of his teeth when he grinned, smug. "Nice digs."

Steve blinked. Eddie didn't sound mocking, exactly, but he could tell the compliment wasn't sincere. Maybe he was just trying to teach Steve how to give a real compliment, since he had failed so completely on Friday. Whatever Eddie was trying to imply, Steve's head hurt way too much to figure it out. If he wanted to say something, he could just say it. Until then, Steve was ignoring it.

"Yeah, uh... Thanks," Steve said, shaking his head. The fog didn't want to budge, but he forced himself to step back and motion Eddie in as he struggled with it. "Come on in. Coffee?"

"No, thanks." Eddie shoved his hands in his pockets as he shuffled past Steve, peering around the house like he was at a zoo. Which was odd, Steve thought, because Eddie had definitely been here before. Hadn't he? Steve couldn't imagine a Hawkins rager without a Munson peddling his wares, and Eddie was the only one Steve had ever known.

"Not a big coffee drinker?" Steve asked, politely continuing the conversation as he led Eddie into the living room. He couldn't go back for his coffee if Eddie wasn't going to have any; It would only draw attention to how desperately he needed it, and how his hands still shook around the porcelain.

"Nah. Wayne loves the stuff, though," Eddie said. "Says it's his only vice."

The Munson trailer's walls had been tinged yellow with nicotine, and there had been a mountain of Camels on Wayne's sidetable, so Steve wasn't sure how true that was.

"So all the cigarettes must be yours, then?" Steve shrugged. "Can't say they taste much better."

"Well, they definitely look cooler than coffee," Eddie said. He plopped onto Steve's mom's favorite love seat, all black and denim against the pale beige upholstery. Eddie grinned up at Steve, who hesitated for a moment, thinking how truly odd it was to see Eddie here, amongst the frippery and chintz of his day to day life. Sure, Eddie looked gorgeous in opulence, like some kind of king who thought his comfortable thrown was far beneath him, but that didn't make it less surreal.

"That's why I have both," Steve said, eventually, as he sat in the chair furthest from Eddie. He couldn't stand the idea of being touched right now, and he wasn't even sure if he meant from anyone or Eddie specifically. The entire world felt too big, too loud, and someone's skin against Steve's own might be the last straw.

"From what I've heard, Steve Harrington isn't someone who denies himself any vices." Steve would have thought it was a come on from anyone else. It certainly sounded like one, dripping with innuendo. But Eddie wasn't looking at Steve anymore-- His eyes darted from the open doorway into the kitchen, to the front door, to the stairs, over and over again.

Steve liked to think if Eddie Munson was making a move on him, he might actually be more interested in Steve than monitoring all points of escape. Call him a romantic.

Alright, so Eddie was scared of his house. That wasn't actually that big of a shock; Most people were a little uncomfortable or intimidated by the Harrington house. It wasn't even that big, really; Three bedrooms and two and a half baths wasn't exactly a mansion. It was the decor, usually, that threw people off, or the sheer ugliness of the outside. It was the kind of tacky you only got away with by being very, very rich, and Steve's mom ate that shit up with a spoon. Now it was Steve who was stuck with it, a flashing sign pointing to a world he'd been cut off from, and a bunch of friends who were constantly alienated by the very house he lived in.

So, yeah, Steve was used to it. Still, this felt different. He felt it had to be personal, on some level, because Steve had seen Eddie deal in plenty of big houses before and seem totally fine. Plus, it wasn't like Eddie had said anything besides some weird compliment about the yard-- Most people usually did, when they were freaking out about the weird gold statues in the bathrooms, or the over-large chandelier in the foyer that made Steve claustrophobic. No, Eddie hadn't seemed put off by the house itself. Just Steve.

Which wasn't a good sign, really, because Steve hadn't even told him about the new missing kids, yet. It was a little early for Eddie to already mark him off as a murderer.

"Is everything okay, Eddie?"

"What?" Eddie's gaze snapped back to Steve's, then skittered away again like a frightened cat.

"You keep looking at our china cupboard like it's going to bite you," Steve said, trying to make a joke of it. When Eddie didn't laugh or smile or even so much as a grimace, Steve dropped his own awkward smile. "I'm sorry, if I did anything to..."

"Oh, God, no," Eddie said. He shook his hand, but Steve could see him wiping his sweaty palms off on his pants legs. "Sorry, Steve. It's not you, it's... I just can't get used to the fact that I'm in the Harrington house. I keep expecting your parents to pop out of a door and grill me on why I'm in their lair."

"I used to feel like that, too, sometimes," Steve said with a shrug. "You get used to it." His parents haunted every inch of this place. There touch was everywhere, in everything, even in places like Steve's bedroom, where he was pretty sure neither of his parents had deigned to be since they'd moved in. They were inescapable.

"Oh." Eddie looked thrown, and he frowned up at the picture of Steve's parents that hung above the mantle. Steve had meant to take that down-- He did, most nights. Jesus, no wonder he couldn't sleep last night.

"I'm a little curious, though," Steve said, leaning forward. Now was his chance; A perfect opportunity for someone to finally spill what Steve was desperate to know. "About what you've heard about them. Wayne seemed to think they were pretty okay, but you..."

"I..." Eddie sighed. "Did your parents ever tell you about the Bogey Man when you were a kid?"

"No. Is that some kind of Wesen?" Steve asked, tilting his head.

"Ha, no. It's a fake monster, one the humans made up," Eddie explained. "I guess it makes sense your parents wouldn't need a fake one. But, uh, basically human parents use it to make their kids behave, I guess. You know, parent shit. A 'if you don't clean your room, the Bogey Man will get you!' deal."

"Weird," Steve said. It seemed bizarre to even think about, really. Steve had seen his classmates with their parents before, of course. Tommy and his father fought constantly, even though Mr. Hagan had been one of the most even-tempered men that Steve had ever known, and Carol's parents were a lesson in politics and manipulation.

He'd seen them both rail against their parents in ways both subtle and direct, but that had been so... them. Of course Tommy and Carol fought back, they fought back against Steve all the time, and teachers, and basically every other person on Planet Earth. But Steve couldn't imagine their parents threatening them with some made up monster to frighten them into behaving. He couldn't imagine his own parents even bothering-- Not when Steve was perfectly capable of being afraid of them already.

Steve had to wonder which was kinder-- Frightening your children with a lie, or being the monster yourself?

"Yeah. Yeah, well, when I was kid," Eddie continued, "your parents were the Bogey Man."

Steve laughed, hollowly. Yeah, he supposed he and Eddie had that in common. "So I guess you're not as big a fan of my parents as Wayne is, huh?"

"No, not really. Sorry," Eddie said, flatly.

"Don't apologize. I definitely wasn't expecting him to be so accepting," Steve said, because he had honestly expected every Wesen to hate him on sight for the rest of his life. "I know what Grimms do to Blutbads. You know, historically."

"No, it's not about that," Eddie said, as if thousands of years of blood feuds and murder didn't bother him at all. "I run into a Grimm on the street, or something, I don't think I'd have a problem with them. We live in modern times; Someone isn't just going to kill me in broad daylight for minding my business. I'm wieder, I've never killed so much as a squirrel-- It's... Sorry, man, I could explain it but I don't think it's going to make much sense."

"Try me," Steve said, because he needed to know. He needed to understand what the hell was going on in this town, on at least some level. Eddie's thoughts seemed like the one thing Steve could figure out without dragging the entire town into a disaster, at the very least.

Eddie huffed, like Steve was being purposefully contrary. "I mean, this deal they've got going on with us, all of us in Hawkins. Would you be okay living like that?"

Steve shrugged. "I don't know much about the details, really."

"What, your parents' iron grip on the people around you not interesting enough for you, Your Majesty?" The venom had dripped back into Eddie's voice, and Steve wanted to bite back, but-- Well, it was his own fault that Eddie assume that he was in on things. He'd basically lied to them about his own relationship with his parents, just to look a little more competent. Eddie was allowed to be a bitch about Steve's ignorance.

"Nah, my parents just aren't big sharers," Steve said, because he really didn't want this to devolve into another stupid fight. Today was going to be hard enough. "They haven't really... been around, since my powers started acting up. Most of what I've learned has been from my grandpa's diaries. No mention of any deal in there."

Eddie hesitated for a moment, something curling his face into a grimace. Steve wasn't sure how to take the way Eddie was looking at him right now-- He'd never been good at figuring out why someone was mad at him, and Steve was feeling a little of that same cluelessness. Sure, it might have been because Eddie had just put together that Steve had lied to Wayne's face about his parents, but that seemed a little tame for a guy like Eddie.

And, really, if Eddie had a problem with Steve lying, it was the least of Steve's worries. He would tell Wayne himself the next time he saw him, if it was that big a deal to him, but Steve didn't think it was anybody's business. No one had begged the Harringtons to come home when Steve needed them. Now it was Steve picking up his parents' mess, and trying to cover the fact that this had been happening right under their noses for who knows how long. Steve was the one suffering here.

He tried really hard not to think about all the missing kids, and raised an eyebrow at Eddie, waiting for the judgement to fade.

"Well," Eddie said, eventually. His voice slipped into a role with just one syllable, a habit Steve had noticed more and more in Eddie. His posture even adjusted to fit, as if Eddie was pulling the same party trick as Steve, but with concepts more than real people. A teacher's voice came from his mouth, "It's simple really. Your basic, everyday example of laws being nothing but threats the ruling class put in place to keep themselves at the top."

Steve snorted at the exaggeration. "That's a little--"

"No, Harrington, you wanted to know, so I'm telling you," Eddie said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. There was a pissy little line between his eyebrows, and Steve could already picture the wrinkles Eddie would have there, one day. "There are all these stupid fucking laws, right, like who can marry who, and who's allowed to be a person. There are laws that are made to keep poor people poor, and laws to keep stupid people stupid, and then they made laws to keep those people from voting, because god forbid anyone change those laws."

Resisting the urge to sigh, Steve wondered what Eddie would do if Steve just came out and told him that he didn't have to dance around the subject of gay people with Steve. Mostly because Steve had very explicit fantasies of sucking him off in this very living room sporadically since freshman year. It didn't seem worth it, though, considering Eddie was looking for a fight. With Steve's luck, Eddie would probably decide to be homophobic on the spot. Besides, Steve didn't know if he could call himself gay outloud without puking.

"I don't know what that has to do with my parents," Steve said, instead, because they were getting pretty off track.

"Yeah, I'm being really unfair about the whole thing. I know that," Eddie said, throwing his hands up in the air like the dramatic asshole he is. "It's just, you know, it's a little funny. America is, like, so fucking focused on keeping the lower classes surpressed they just let people die in front of them everyday, and yet-- And yet they're still fairer than the fucking Harringtons."

"Eddie--" Steve cut himself off, no longer trying not to sigh. He got the point, he really did, but Eddie was preaching to the choir on this one. He had never been convinced that his parents were great people to be around, and if you had told him as a child that his father was in charge of actual human lives, he probably would have had nightmares for weeks. That didn't mean that he would just stand here and agree with Eddie calling them dictators, either. They were his parents. And if anyone got to be mad at them, it was Steve. Not some gorgeous dickhead who'd never even met them.

"Because you know, if someone breaks into my house and tries to kill me and I defend myself, the cops will eventually let me go," Eddie said, and he hadn't looked Steve in the eye since this whole thing started, but he seemed even further away now. Like he was mostly talking to himself, working through his thoughts, and Steve was merely an audience to his genius. It reminded Steve a lot of Eddie standing on lunch tables and yelling about how the basketball team was stealing kids' self-expression, and Steve wondered if it was too late to put a table cloth down on the coffee table.

Eddie continued, "Self defense, right? But Wesen don't get self defense. If I'm wieder, I'm just a dog. Or-- or-- fuck, I could get put away for years for selling drugs, but I'll be safe! Better tell Wayne goodbye, though, if the Harringtons find me with springroot in the backyard."

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry," Steve said. He felt suddenly like he had to beg Eddie to forgive him for his parents, just so they could move on from this. A little unfair, sure, and Steve was sure that when he'd finally had some sleep and his pride had the opportunity to rebuild itself he would regret it, but Steve just wanted this to be over. He just wanted Eddie to look at him and see Steve, not the product of two people who hadn't bothered to even stick around to raise him. He just didn't know what to say. There was no blueprint to make Eddie like him, no person he could imitate good enough to capture Eddie's goodwill. "I had-- I was afraid that it would be that bad, but I guess after talking to Wayne, I got my hopes up. I didn't mean to make you-- I know it's hard--"

"Hold on, Harrington," Eddie said, a hesitant hand raised between them. He looked blindsided, shock on his face as he blinked through the furrowing of his brow. "You don't have anything to be sorry about, okay? I'm not, like, having a breakdown or anything. I was just... talking. You know me, I can't shut up when something pisses me off." And that was true, at least-- Steve had listened to enough of Eddie's lunchroom rants to know that Eddie couldn't really mean half the shit he said, and might very well change his mind on the other half by the next one.

This seemed a little more important than high school politics, though. Bigger than what Steve thought even real-life politics, with it's scrubbed-up movie stars and glittering galas, could effect anymore, like the kind of shit people who invented politics used to think about. The kind of shit no one really wanted to think about, much less talk about, anymore. The kind of shit that made people turn the channel to something stupid and thoughtless, pretending the uncomfortability of reality had never revealed itself.

"But they're my parents," Steve said, helplessly. He was a little lost in the swamp of the matter; He wished he had paid more attention in history class to have the words for the conversation, the way Nancy or Jonathan would.

"Yeah," Eddie said, in that increasingly familiar tone of voice that said Steve was being slow. "And my mom is still out there somewhere, hunting down Bauerschwein like Blutbader society can't survive with one more pig in the world. What's that got to do with me?" he continued, with all the confidence of a man who didn't lay awake at night sure that it did have something to do with him.

"That's different," Steve said, though he wasn't sure how it was-- Eddie would know better than him, obviously, but Steve wasn't sure how he had been able to assure himself of anything of that. Steve didn't think he'd ever be able to stop blaming himself, if it had been him. Which was probably Eddie's point. Still, there were a few key differences, the biggest of which-- "Have you even met her?"

"I mean, I have to believe I was present at my own birth," Eddie said with a shrug, "but other than that, nah. That's not the point, Harrington. What I'm saying is, you've got nothing to be sorry for. You aren't your parents."

And that was where Eddie was the most wrong, Steve thought. Because while he hadn't seen them for months, Steve had more than enough time with his parents to know just how like them he really was. Every time he looked in the mirror or watched his own hands move as he spoke, he saw Bradley and Sophia Harrington. His parents felt inextricably a part of him, like he could feel their very DNA inside him. It was a curse before he had even known what they were, and an even greater one afterward-- Because there had never been a single moment where Steve had been able to believe that they were ignorant of this dangerous world Steve had found himself in. If anything, it was easier to believe they had created it wholecloth, just as they had created him.

"You should be afraid of me," Steve said, like reminding someone to bring an umbrella along on a cloudy day.

"Afraid of you?" Eddie repeated. "Why?"

Steve shrugged, thinking about the split-second moment of fear on El and Robin's faces. How he couldn't meet his own gaze in the mirror. Of Eddie woging in the dark, eyes flashing. "Everyone else is."

"Steve, you got your ass kicked by a jumped up racist in the shittiest car in the world," Eddie said with a snort, as if he'd ever won a fight in his five years at Hawkins High. "I think I'll be okay."

"I-- I wasn't even really a Grimm then!" Steve protested. Lucky for Billy, honestly. While Steve wondered from time to time if his vision and hearing hadn't been just a bit too keen in the junkyard last fall, everything else had still been completely human. Steve hated to think what he might have done to a human, if it had happened all at once. If all that adrenaline and instinct had seen Billy-- and maybe even the kids, honestly --as a threat. If his strength, growing more unnatural every day, would have broken bone as easy as plaster.

Would Billy have still been alive when they stuffed him in his own trunk?

"Yes, but you were an asshole," Eddie said, wry tone jerking Steve out of his worst case scenario. "Balances itself out, you see."

The absurdity made Steve chuckle, the knot in his chest loosening a little bit. Eddie was right-- For all he was a monster now, he had been even worse when he was a human. A reminder of that was as freeing as it would have been upsetting mere months ago. From the pleased grin on Eddie's face, Steve assumed he knew that, too. It must have been written all over his face.

Steve hated to think what else Eddie could see in his eyes, and tilted his face away, hiding the smile on his lips.

A welcome distraction came in the form of the familiar growl of Claudia Henderson's car in the driveway. If Steve strained, he could hear Dustin's voice through the closed window, followed by his mother's-- And, Steve realised with a start, Robin's. At least, he hoped that was Robin-- He'd been working on his hearing, lately. Even his improved vision couldn't process things as quickly as his ears could. It was mere seconds, but it was more than enough to keep them alive.

Although, Steve thought as a familiar tingling began between his eyes, maybe he didn't have to work that hard. His head seemed determined to ache the moment a Wesen got in the vicinity anyway. Althought it usually faded within moments, there was nothing Steve processed faster than pain.

"Kids are here," Steve said, standing. Dustin's heavy boots were loud on the front porch, and he knew the little shit had stolen a key weeks ago.

"They are?"

Dustin answered for him, throwing the door open and yelling, "Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve!"

"I am right fucking here, Dustin, holy shit," Steve said, flinching.

Robin muscled her way past Dustin and into the front hall, waving at Claudia over her shoulder. "Holy shit, Henderson," she hissed through a plastic smile, "don't wake up the whole neighborhood."

"You got a ride with Mrs. Henderson?" Steve asked. He didn't know if it was more surprising that Robin actually got in the car, or that Claudia had let a Fuchsbau in her backseat. The two most paranoid people he knew, in one car ride? Fuck, throw Hopper in there, too, and they'd be convinced the world was ending in a matter of minutes.

"We saw her walking and stopped to pick her up," Dustin said, throwing his backpack under a rickety sofa table. "It's a bad week for bike tires."

Rolling her eyes, Robin dropped into Steve's vacated seat, kicking his legs out of the way of her sprawl. "I wish I didn't live in the opposite direction of you, Eddie," she groused, "because that was the worst car ride of my life."

Steve wasn't sure that Eddie's clunky van would have been much smoother, considering what he'd heard coming up his own driveway, but he kept his mouth shut for once.

Dustin had much more specific protests. "Hey, my mom is great!" Another statement Steve was smart enough not to address.

"Your mom has eaten people!" Robin flung her arms up, feet and knees jittering with nervous energy. "How am I supposed to act normal about meeting her when literally the first information you ever told me about her was that she ate people for fun!"

Eddie's gaze slid sideways to Steve. "What's going on right now?" he asked.

"Oh, uh." Steve leaned against the back of Robin's seat, crossing his arms over his chest. "Dustin's mom took human heart in college, apparently."

"You seem remarkably chill about that," Eddie said. The creases in his face, too deep and practiced for a man his age, jerked into a shaky frown.

Steve shrugged, unsure of what Eddie had expected him to say. Eddie was the one who sold drugs out of the back of his van, supplying most of Steve's best parties, and Eddie had been the one to say that Steve was too good to be a real threat. It was something of a relief to have found where a boundary might lay, finally, but Steve wasn't sure why this, of all things, was enough to take the shine off.

"I've seen worse," Steve said, although that was stretching the truth a bit. He'd never actually seen the inside of the Hawkins Lab, just the tunnels underneath, but he'd heard enough from El and Hopper to have a pretty good idea. The shit they were doing in there was worse than any college girl could ever do, even if she was a bit munchy.

Sure, if you wanted to get in the philosophical weeds about everything, consuming human flesh might be a tad more wrong, morally speaking, than human experimentation. It seemed, at first, a much deeper sin. His Sunday school teacher would have said as much, probably. But then again, it always seemed that the sins that didn't make you money were the ones people most cared about. Everything else could be justified, but the idea of doing something out of sheer enjoyment was the real sin.

"You are such a hypocrite!" Dustin said, ignoring Steve and Eddie's sidebar.

"It's not a moral judgement," Robin soothed, ruining all effect by rolling her eyes dramatically the whole time. "I just don't know how--"

Steve watched Dustin puff up in righteous indignation. "No, come on, you've literally been talking about how creepy she is the whole time--"

"You accused my dad of murder!" Robin said.

"Why--" Eddie began, before Steve shook his head. He had learned that it was best just to let them tire each other out before he got involved. Until then, they could just sit back and watch the show.

"He made his whole business out of dead people; What was I supposed to--"

"He sells them! He sells dead humans. He's not the one getting high by snorting it, or whatever."

"Oh, yeah, right," Dustin drawled, with a level of sarcasm Steve was almost sure had come from him.

"I don't know, Henderson," Eddie said, leaning forward. He was having entirely too much fun already, his grin sharp and smug in the same way Max often got when she started a fight amongst the boys. "Robin is making a lot of sense. No good drug dealer gets high off his own supply."

"See! I--" Robin's triumphant shout was interrupted by her own sudden realization. "Oh, fuck, my dad is a drug dealer."

"You already knew that," Steve said, rubbing his hand against his forehead. His headache was beginning to make a reappearance.

"Yeah, but I was thinking about it in a moral way, not like..." Robin shrugged. "Him being a fucking loser."

"Wow, Buckley," Eddie drawled, mock offense all over his face. "That's really nice."

Despite Eddie's gleeful problem-causing, it opened up an opportunity for Steve to finally step in. Now that Robin's ire was split in two, he might be able to get out of this without getting his head bitten off. "Alright, all of you, stop it. There's some coffee in the kitchen if you want some, Robin."

"Thank--" Robin began, but Dustin interrupted her, yelling over his shoulder as he made his way to the kitchen.

"Oh, Steve, do you have anymore Smurfberry Crunch?"

"Uh, yeah?" Steve said. "I think there's a whole box left over in the--"

"Great, thanks, Steve!" Dustin's voice echoed out of the kitchen.

"Don't worry, Harrington, I'll make sure the kid doesn't eat you out of house and home," Robin said, which Steve was pretty sure just meant that she was going to try and eat all the snacks before Dustin could get to them. Still, he watched her boost herself out of his seat and skip into the kitchen without saying a word.

He still wasn't sure that he was used to having people in his house like this. Steve didn't think of himself as a lonely person, really; He had no problem going out to find the company he needed. Someone was always willing to have Steve Harrington hang out on their couch for a couple hours, or to joy ride in some neighbor's old pickup, or to drive to Lafayette and get dinner that wasn't made by someone you'd known your entire life. There was always someone by his side, until recently. Tommy, Carol, and strings of dates and teammates had made sure of that.

It was the house that was lonely, not Steve. Even Tommy and Carol didn't like staying in it for too long-- They never said much about it, but Steve didn't think it was coincidence that they always hung out by the pool, even on nights when the air was on the wrong side of freezing. When they did spend time outdoors, they overcompensated, inviting everyone whose name they knew. There was no popularity gate for a Harrington party, just because the adoring, unworthy masses were so handy in making the house feel alive for once.

Even when he'd given all that up, Nancy hadn't stuck around Steve's for very long-- They spent most of their time at her place, which Steve hadn't really minded. He'd wondered if Nancy also felt trapped in the vast expanse of his parents' house, or if she just preferred to not be the one to sneak out at the end of the night, but he'd never asked. Now, he just wondered if that was another reason that Byers had outdone him-- If the cramped but cozy home of a real family was a necessary ingredient in a real future.

It had certainly been part of what drew Steve to Nancy, but then, he'd never really thought of family being all that important to her. Maybe that was just another thing he'd missed, along with everything else between them.

With the Wheelers' house no longer a comfortable escape for him, Hopper and El's cabin had been a surpring replacement. And Steve loved it there, he really did-- Loved how small and worn and soft everything was, how clean didn't mean empty and echoing. He loved the fireplace with ash in the hearth, and their smelly, patchy couch, and the way the refridgerator door hung loose. It was a small place, though, and although Steve knew that Hopper and El would never think it, he knew that he didn't always fit. Especially the nights Joyce or Mike came over-- That was a level of family that he just didn't fit into, and Steve didn't know if it was in his head or if everyone was just too kind to say it, but he felt too over-large and clumsy to be welcome, those nights.

The kids helped, though. All of them. Even Mike was tolerable when he and El weren't trying to climb into each other's pockets, and the kid's attitude had taken a noticeable upturn once Steve and Nancy's break up had proven to be as boring as possible. He was over here the most often, after Dustin, the both of them dragging Will and Lucas along with them-- Max came too, sometimes, usually alone.

Steve hadn't expected Robin to make herself part of the conquering forces staking her claim on the Harrington house, however. Although he thought they were something approaching friends-- he wasn't sure what other choice they had in the matter, at this point --the last thing he had ever expected to see was Robin Buckley walking into his kitchen like she owned the place.

He watched her through the archway for a moment, smiling when she went right to her favorite mug, before turning back to Eddie. He stalled when he found Eddie's large, brown eyes on him already.

"You sure there's nothing I can get for you?" Steve prompted.

While he hated the idea of watching Eddie make a move on Robin in his own kitchen, he supposed it was at least polite to give him the chance. It's what Steve would have done, if the object of his current obsession had been some nice neighborhood girl, instead of Eddie Munson himself. Sure, he probably would have been a little more subtle about things, but if it had been him and Nancy in some random dude's house, he wouldn't have left her side.

Maybe Eddie was shy, Steve thought. Maybe he just needed a little nudge towards the kitchen, or confirmation that Steve and Robin weren't ever going to be a thing. Steve's stomach churned with jealousy, but it was the least he could do to give that to them. If that's what would make them happy. It wasn't like Steve would ever deserve Eddie's attention, anyway.

Eddie did stand at Steve's prompting, though to his surprise, he didn't make a move for the kitchen. In fact, Steve wasn't sure if Eddie had even glanced in Robin's direction as she left. Instead, he just stepped closer to Steve, hands in his pockets in a show of faux nonchalance. Like everything else Eddie had ever done, Steve couldn't be sure if he was supposed to buy into Eddie's dramatics, or if the obvious theatrics were part of the performance.

"You know," Eddie said, ignoring Steve's polite offer. "I've always wondered what happens when a Grimm takes Wesen drugs. You ever try one?"

"No." Steve's nose scrunched in disgust. "Why? You don't sell any of that shit, do you?"

"Nah." Luckily, Eddie didn't seem offended by the question. If anything, his smile only got wider. " Couldn't exactly call myself wieder if I was carrying around human remains in my lunch box, could I?"

A fair point, Steve had to admit. Wayne, at the very least, would probably have knocked some sense into him by this point. It made Steve feel a little better about letting Dustin (and probably the other boys) walk into Eddie's psuedo-cult. And, if he was being honest, his own taste in men. Then again--

"But selling cocaine and Special K is super humanitarian, right?" Steve said, rolling his eyes. Selling coke to high school kids wasn't as bad as trafficking human organs, but Steve was still determined to have some standards for himself. A pair of big, brown eyes couldn't dismiss everything.

"You sound mad, Stevie," Eddie said, his voice curling around the syllables like smoke. "You used to be one of my best customers. What happened?"

They both knew what had happened-- Steve had never been buying for himself, only reaching out to Eddie because he was the one with the cash, the one who never had parents breathing down his neck, the one whose house the drugs would be the safest in. He wasn't surprised Eddie had noticed, either; The man hadn't been joking when he'd said that Steve was his best customer.

In the beginning, Steve had spent most of his allowance on supplying the older kids, ones who couldn't be seen dead with twitchy sophomore Eddie Munson, who hadn't yet grown into his hair or nose yet. It was this role that had let him rocket to popularity as a freshman, a rare feat even in small towns. Although Steve had slowed it down, once his position solidified, it was well known that Steve was generous with his friends in all their vices. When the party invitations dried up, though, so had his wallet-- And Eddie's profits, presumably.

Steve didn't feel much like dragging out dirty laundry, or defending himself. He knew what he looked like, knew what people thought of him. If Eddie wanted to give him shit for ancient history, Steve could play along. It was becoming something of a theme in his every friendship.

"Believe it or not, Munson, I've never thought that fighting monsters on a coke high was a super good idea."

"'s probably for the best. New word on the vine is that it can split your pretty little head wide open if you take too much, and you've already had one bonk too many." And then Eddie leaned close, reaching out. Steve tensed, watching Eddie's hand like a poorly socialized dog, resisting the urge to snarl. He forced himself to stand still, afraid that running would only give away how badly Steve wanted Eddie's hands on him. He could feel his adrenaline flood his veins, the bullet-time of flight or fight kicking through his system, and he watched Eddie's fingers curl into a fist.

Eddie's knuckles rapped gently against Steve's forehead, and that, Steve understood. That was the only way he and Tommy were allowed to touch each other-- Teasing words followed by the gentle fascimile of violence, pulling back before it could become anything greater. Steve had always assumed that was his fault, that the breadth of his obsession had colored every touch between them, but maybe that was normal? Maybe that was how men were, with each other, when they were normal. When they didn't crave to be touched gently like a drug, maybe a shove was just a shove. Maybe--

Everything in Steve had been prepared for Eddie to pull away, for that familiar disappointment to hit low in his gut once an appropriate distance was between them once more. His own hand rose to bat Eddie's away; It was easier to be alone in his skin when he was the first to pull away, the first to scoff and pretend the touch of another man was nothing more than an unavoidable inconvenience.

To Steve's surprise, though, Eddie didn't let the tease linger long enough for Steve to push him away-- Instead, Eddie's hand unfurled, the loose fist turning into a gentle caress, as he pushed an lock of hair off of Steve's forehead.

It was a familiar move, one Steve himself had pulled out more than a time or two. He knew it worked, and he knew why. Girls loved it because they thought it meant that they were being taken care of, and because it was a declaration of intent. It they actually liked the guy pulling the move, it made them feel safe but sought after-- And, unfortunately, making a girl feel safe was usually the best way to get what you wanted from them. Steve liked to think himself a little better than that, but he had to admit it was a useful move when a date was just a as little too shy or too oblivious to catch the hint of a kiss.

As familiar as Steve was with the move, he had never been on this side of it. Had never really thought about how it felt, not the emotions after the dust settled, but the actual brush of skin against skin in the moment-- He had never really cared about the actual touch of it, before, except for the split-second calculation of how long to let the fingers curled against her skin linger. None of that prepared Steve for this, not for the edge of Eddie's callouses tracing a line of heat across Steve's skin, or the way he felt himself quiver down to the very molecules.

"Must be pretty serious if you're letting your loyal subjects see you so unkempt, Your Majesty," Eddie said, the smile on his face holding such a warmth that Steve was certain he must have imagined it.

Steve was suddenly aware of the fact that he couldn't feel his fingers anymore.

"Oh," he said. Somewhere inside him was King Steve, hidden away where Steve could reach for him if he needed a little extra confidence. His own words lost in the thrum of his pulse, Steve tried to pull the old persona back on like a worn cape, but his grasping came up empty. There was nothing in Steve's brain besides the echo of his own absent thoughts and the exact color of Eddie Munson's eyes. "Um..."

"Okay, so are we doing this in here?" Robin's voice said from the doorway.

Eddie had stepped back and away before Steve even registered Robin's presence just over Eddie's shoulder. In a single breath, it was like they had never touched-- Eddie had never been subtle, and now his movements were even more obvious, almost leaping back to his side of the couch.

Robin stared at him for a moment, paused halfway through a sip of Steve's coffee. Eddie stared back, eyes wide, and shoved his hands in his pockets. Her gaze slid over to Steve.

Swallowing his disappointment, Steve shook the static from his hands. "Doing what?" he said.

Robin looked at him like she was as worried about the condition of his brain as Eddie had pretended to be mere moments ago. "... The meeting? You were supposed to tell us what your source dug up, right?"

Eddie brightened, the awkwardness falling away from his face. He threw himself back onto the couch, chains jangling as he bounced on the cushions. "Yeah, Harrington," he said, eagerly. "Tell us what your government boys found out."

The dread that Steve had carried around with him all morning came flooding back into the pit of his stomach. The guilt was even keener now that he had let Eddie and the others distract him; He didn't deserve to have a soft morning, filled with laughter and flirtation, when he had let such bad things happen. Steve knew that. But he also couldn't pretend that a lot of the nausea didn't come from knowing he was about to lose this. After today, he was going to lose them both, and that... stung in a way Steve didn't really know how to process.

It wasn't that Steve considered them his best friends, or assumed he was as important to them. Eddie, especially, would never fit into Steve's life the way Steve hoped-- But that was okay. Steve had become used to that, over the years. But there was a potential there, with Eddie and Robin both. If Steve let himself, he knew that he could fall ass over tits in love with the both of them, in very different ways. And, when he let himself hope, he thought that they might love him a little one day, too. Not after this, though. Not after what he'd done.

Eddie would drop him first, of course. Steve wasn't even sure if the dude liked him at all, or if they were still in the era of begrudging allies. It was obvious that the guy was only in it for the kids, and Steve didn't blame him for that-- But when it was so obvious that Steve was somehow even worse at protecting the Wesen kids of Indiana than his own parents, there wasn't much reason for the guy to stick around.

Robin might hold out for a day or two, just because they had started to make progress on their friendship already. Maybe a week, if he were lucky. But then it would be missed calls, and switched shifts at work... It had been about the fun for her, the thrill of solving a mystery. When the fun went away, so would she. Steve just hoped she could work out this thing with her dad on her own. Maybe Dustin could help.

Speaking of Dustin, just him being there helped Steve breathe easier. While the kid would probably be upset, might even ignore Steve for a little while, he knew that what they had been through was too much for the kid to drop him over one fuck up. Steve might have to grovel, and he'd be paying for arcade trips and McDonald's dinners for the rest of his natural life, but he'd always have the kid by his side. That knowledge alone kept Steve from chickening out. Or throwing up. Or moving to Chicago and changing his name to Bryan.

Which was good, because somewhere beneath all the panic, Steve knew this was his only real choice. It would be hard, but it would make things less complicated and, distressingly, it was the right thing to do. They deserved to know the truth. The kids deserved to have their story told, even if it should come from worthier lips than Steve's.

"Hey Dustin!" Steve called, a man assembling his own firing squad. "Get in here, man."

Dustin ambled out of the kitchen, with a large salad bowl overfull of cereal and milk in his hands. "Yeah?" he mumbled through a full mouth, milk dribbling down his chin.

"Fucking seriously, Henderson?" Eddie snorted.

"What? Its yummy!"

Steve pinched his nose. All three of them seemed to be determined to be as Looney Tunes as possible today. "Just... put the cereal down, okay?"

Grumbling under his breath, Dustin complied, sitting his bowl on the coffee table and sitting on the couch next to Eddie. Robin retook her stolen seat, and they all looked up at Steve.

Struggling not to squirm under their attention, Steve struggled to break the news. "I have... I have something I need to tell you all before we start talking about next options." He hesitated, hand rising to his face once again to rub at his nose. He knew it was an awful tell, the kind of thing he'd been trying to train himself out of forever, but the lack of sleep and overabundance of nerves proved to be too much for Steve's thinning willpower.

Robin's eyes narrowed, obviously clocking the gesture. "What happened?"

"So..." Steve began, wincing. "So, over the weekend, while we were working-- It was just two days, really, I don't... Look, I don't know all the details yet so it might have nothing to do with the case, but--"

All the amusement was gone from Eddie's eyes, leaving him with the same flat, angry expression that he'd had upon finding Steve and the others rooting around in his backyard. "Spit it out, Harrington."

"Five more kids went missing this weekend."

The words fell out of his mouth like a curse.

Before he even had time to regret his own lack of tact, Eddie was on his feet again. The woge had torn across him before his feet had even hit the floor, creasing Eddie's brow and elongating his face. His eyes were still the same, though, big and brown and warped with betrayal. Steve had expected it-- even a wieder's iron control couldn't withstand this kind of news --so he didn't flinch away from the sudden movement.

It took more experience than he had, though, to stop Steve's answering woge. He wasn't sure how he knew his eyes had gone glassy and black once more, but Steve could feel that even though he didn't deserve it, his body was still trying to protect him from Eddie's anger. He looked away, not because of Eddie's woge, but because he couldn't stand the thought of Eddie seeing the worst of himself right now.

Steve's gaze naturally fell to Dustin, next, though the sight wasn't any less heartbreaking. The kid was pale, his silence so obvious that he wore it like a physical object. Steve had never seen Dustin react to bad news with anything less than pure indignation, and the proof of how much he had failed to protect this kid was almost too much to bear. The only thing he'd succeeded in was giving Dustin another screaming nightmare.

Desperate for another steadying presence, Steve turned to Robin. She was uncharacteristically quiet as well, but luckily unlike Dustin, or really anyone else in the room, she seemed to be holding it together. Even sorrow hadn't seemed to touch her yet, as if she refused to be sad about something she didn't understand entirely yet. It was the kind of strength that Steve had missed in his life since distancing himself from Nancy, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for Robin's presence.

With a frown, Robin shook her head, asking, "How could we possibly have missed something that big?"

"They were all spread out," Steve said. After promising Nancy last night, she had given him all the information she'd been able to dig up. Even in her own grief, Nancy had been remarkably thorough. Though the news out of Indianapolis hadn't quiet picked up the thread, yet, she'd reached out to every contact she had and a few of Jonathan's and Murray's, too. She knew more about these kids than probably any detective in the state, and now Steve did, too.

"They were from five different counties, coming straight up from Kentucky," he continued, "I don't know much about what's going on with the media coverage outside of the information I was given. I think they're trying to keep it pretty quiet on the mainstream channels. As far as I know, the cops aren't talking about it like they're connected or anything, but, uh, one of the conspiracy groups that Nancy is plugged into is all over it. I don't know if they've made the connection to the kids from before, but it's only a matter of time." And once the cops figured it out, there would be no way for them to get involved without painting a target on their backs.

Claws flexing by his side, Eddie choked on a growl "I can't believe you would fucking let this happen," he said, the words gurgling in the back of his throat. It sounded painful, like his anger was squeezing at his windpipe. Steve frowned down at a stain on his mother's rug.

"That's not fair--" Dustin began, voice weak, but Eddie cut him off.

"No, fuck that!" Eddie turned on Steve, his lips pulled back into a snarl. "You ride around Hawkins acting like a fucking hero, and five kids die on our watch? And you just fucking missed it? God damn it, Harrington, do you even know their names? Do you even care?"

Steve wished he didn't. He wished that he had any hope that he could ever forget them. He wished he didn't know their parent's names, or the names of their schools. He wished he didn't hear their addresses and know the roads they lived on, wished that he had any chance of driving them again without thinking of his own mistakes. More than anything, he wished he could be strong enough to remember them without regrets, because that was what they deserved. He wished he could swallow his own guilt and be strong enough to live through his punishments.

It wouldn't help to tell Eddie any of that, though. It wouldn't make him any less angry and, besides, Steve deserved it. No apology would absolve him of his guilt, and whatever punishment Eddie thought was fit wouldn't even begin to wipe the blood from Steve's hands. There was nothing he could do but wait for the punishment to come and for the yelling to stop.

If there was one thing Steve was sure of, it was that the yelling always stopped, eventually, if you just kept your mouth shut and made it to the other side. For a few moments, Eddie held his glare, frown deepening as if he was trying to force the expression into permanence. When Steve made no move to give him the fight he was looking for, however, Eddie deflated, expression falling along with his stance. As he faded back into his human force, claws shrinking back into his skin, the flat planes on his face only made Eddie's eyes seem bigger and shinier. It made the tears beginning to well in the corners all too obvious, and Steve had to look away. Maybe he was a coward for it, but he couldn't watch Eddie cry.

"Sorry," Eddie choked out. "I'm sorry. Just-- Jesus fucking Christ."

"I know," Steve said, still staring hard at the floor. "It's okay."

Robin began to make an awful noise, painful jerks of sound caused by desperately trying not to sob. Steve crouched down to rub her back, wordless. There was nothing he could say to make this better-- Not for Robin, and not for Eddie or Dustin, either. Steve was honestly surprised this was the first time one of them had burst into tears; The amount of stress they'd put themselves under wasn't something the human brain dealt with easily. Even Dustin and Steve, who had shouldered traumas unacknowledged by science, were only used to small, short-term disasters. This thing with the kids had stretched into weeks, now. The only thing that kept Steve from joining them in their tears was the guilt.

The fact that Dustin wasn't crying was honestly starting to worry Steve, at this point. He knew how hard this was for Dustin, after everything with Will. El being presumed dead for so long probably hadn't helped, either. This should be effecting him more than anyone. But Dustin's eyes were dry, which could only mean that, at some point, Dustin had gotten used to living in a world where kids just... went missing. They just disappeared one day, or they died, and there was no use in crying because there was nothing he could do to stop it.

There was nothing that Steve regretted more than not being the person Dustin needed him to be at the beginning of all this. He knew that it was a silly regret, considering he hadn't even really known the kid until a full year after he and Nancy had started dating, but-- A part of him was convinced that if he had just gotten his shit together sooner, he might have been able to protect Dustin from all this.

"What the hell are we supposed to do now?" Eddie said, voice hollow

"We can't give up," Robin said between sniffles. "We just can't do that to those kids."

"Yeah, of course. Obviously, we're going to find them," Dustin said. "We still have, like, time, right?"

Even as he asked the question, Dustin didn't look convinced. Steve couldn't blame him.

They were all so young, too young for this kind of heartbreak. Were they just going to set themselves up to be crushed again? They had no leads. There was a ticking clock on the cops figuring out at least some of these cases were connected, and at that point things would only get more difficult. Maybe it would be better to let someone else take responsibility. Hell, maybe Steve's parents would hear the news and come home. He wasn't exactly ecstatic at the thought of trusting an adult with this, especially not his parents-- They were historically abysmal at finding justice for dead or missing kids --but he was running out of options. Even if he found the guy, then what? He was just going to drag these kids and who knows how many others into a fight with a serial killer?

"This is only going to get harder from here on out," Steve said. He struggled to keep his voice level, every syllable wanting to crack with sorrow. "Obviously, they've started going faster. More kids might-- More kids might go missing, and it might be even closer to home. If anyone wants to step away from this now, no one will blame you."

For a long moment, no one said anything. Dustin's gaze never lifted from the ground. Steve felt Robin shift against him, elbow digging into his ribs from how close she was pressed against him. Eddie was the only one who would look at him, and when Steve met his gaze, Eddie kept them locked. Steve had never been a fan of eye contact, and in the months since he'd discovered his woge, he'd gotten used to the people around him avoiding his gaze. Even Eddie and Wayne, who never seemed to take Steve seriously as a threat, avoided eye contact whenever possible. Now, though, Eddie was looking into Steve's eyes like he would find answers there that Steve's voice wouldn't give him.

Despite the first jolt of shock, Steve didn't feel the urge to squirm away from the intimacy of it. It filled him with relief, because if Eddie was looking at him, then it meant this wasn't over. Eddie wasn't going to leave; Even if he was angry, that still meant he cared. Steve knew what indifference looked like, and it was nothing like the depth of the emotion swimming in Eddie's eyes.

But the longer Steve looked back, the longer he allowed it, Steve realised that he couldn't read Eddie. He knew annoyance, he knew indifference, he knew pity, and lust, and mocking, but whatever Eddie was trying to show him felt ancient and sacred in a way that Steve hadn't known emotions could be. Like Eddie had taken whatever primal thing existed inside of Steve, the link he had to the people who had once invented love and fear and hatred, and was trying to cradle it in his palms.

Steve looked away.

"Okay. Okay, well, I've been thinking about it," he said, trying to gather the plans that had been scattered by exhaustion, "and there are next steps. First off, we gotta find out what exactly the cops know before the evidence is too old to be any use. Nancy's working on looking into it, but it might have to be slow to not raise eyebrows, so we should--"

"Sorry, Nancy? Nancy Wheeler?" The shock in Eddie's voice wasn't exactly a surprise, but the disdain was. Steve could feel himself prickling at the tone already, even as he tried to tell himself that Eddie was still just looking for a fight.

The problem was, Steve had never been good at not fighting over, for, or about Nancy Wheeler. Besides, if he was being honest, Steve wanted a fight almost as badly as Eddie seemed to. Schoolyard fights had never been something that Steve was allowed to indulge in with the other kids, because a Harrington didn't indulge in such vulgarity, but he had craved it. Sought after it. The summer between middle school and high school had been a summer spent hiding busted knuckles and bruised lips. It was the freest Steve had ever felt.

Billy had been the last real fight that Steve had allowed himself to have, and it would be so much better with Eddie. Because Eddie was gorgeous, and kind, and Steve wouldn't hate himself when he looked at himself and saw Eddie's bruises on his skin--

"What about her, Munson?" Steve grit out, teeth clenched tight around the thought of knowing the shape of Eddie's fist.

"That's your inside source?" Eddie said, a sarcastic laugh warbling the last few syllables. "Your fucking Mathletes ex-girlfriend?"

Steve huffed. "I know it sounds ridiculous, Eddie, but Nance has done this before. And she's tougher than she looks. You don't have to worry about her."

Eddie woged once again, and Steve struggled not to smirk in the victory of provoking Eddie into losing control twice in one day. "I don't care if she's a fucking Siegbarste, Harrington, she's a high school girl who weighs 90 pounds soaking wet. What happened to those government guys you kept bragging about, huh?" he continued, taking a threatening step towards Steve. "They in fucking middle school?"

"These aren't men I can just call up and have it go away," Steve said, glaring up at Eddie. He refused to give him the satisfaction of moving him. "If they come help they are going to be in our shit until they're satisfied. They're not loyal to anyone in Hawkins and, frankly, I can't trust them."

"So this is about you thinking you're more important than some dead kids, is that it?"

"What? No--"

"Steve is right," Dustin said, finally looking up at them. His small, sad voice cut through the argument like a knife. All three older teens turned to him, falling silent until he continued. "It's not us. There are Wesen here that Owens and his men can't know about. If we call them here without being careful, it's not just us and the kids that are in danger. It's all of Hawkins. Maybe everyone clear to Lafayette. Who knows how big they'll make the gas leak next time."

He had considered this before, Steve realized. Of course, Steve had, too-- Nancy and El had never let him forget how much danger the government was to all of them, now that they knew so much. But he had thought that maybe the kids had been spared that knowledge, that maybe childhood innocence and good ol' fashioned American propoganda had spared them from that fear. The way Dustin spoke, though, made it abundantly clear that he was absolutely aware that one day, the wrong person might decide that Dustin Henderson and everyone he loved needed to die.

Steve was suddenly on Eddie's side, when it came to the future of America. Or maybe even a little more radical-- Steve could see the logic in wanting to burn the entire thing down, never stopping until everyone who had ever failed his kid was groveling at his feet.

"Wait, wait, wait. Why does the infant know about these government guys?" Eddie asked, voice filled with the same horror Steve had become all too familiar with in '83. "What the fuck have you been doing, Harrington?"

"Steve didn't do anything, Eddie, please--"

Robin pulled away from Steve, and when he looked back to her she had turned to face him. Her eyes were colder than he had ever seen them, even when she had hated him, and though she still didn't make eye contact, he could feel the intensity of her glare burning through his skin. Somehow, things were going even worse than Steve had imagined.

"I'd actually like to know the answer to that question, too, Steve," she said. Her voice belied a little of her usual nervousness, but her gaze didn't flinch.

"Rob..."

"No, Steve. I've tried to stay out of it, because you obviously don't want to talk about it--"

"I can't!" he said. Of course he wanted to tell her. Of course he did. He had never been the kind for big secrets. They drove him absolutely crazy, and that was why he had to ignore it. He had to, because it wasn't safe. It was bad enough that they had pulled Max into everything, last year. Steve couldn't handle another person with a target on their back because of the Upside Down.

Robin continued, as if he had never spoken. "--but you both keep bringing it up, and I can't just let it go anymore. I want to know what happened."

"Robin, I signed papers," he sighed.

"There are kids dying, Steve."

"That's not... It's not even connected!"

"How do you know that?" Eddie cut in. "Are you sure? Or are you just praying that it isn't?"

Steve looked to Dustin, praying for back up, but the kid only shrugged. He knew that Dustin would probably be willing to tell them, because they wanted to know-- Dustin was even worse at secrets than Steve, not out of obsession but out of sheer joy for imparting knowledge. It probably had ocurred to him that Eddie and Robin would be in danger if anyone ever found out what they knew, but Dustin was the kind of person to think it was worth it.

Steve wasn't that person. He couldn't be. He couldn't let Dustin paint a bigger, more legal target on his back, and he definitely couldn't drag Robin and Eddie into this. They could leave if they wanted to, but he wasn't going to hurt them like that.

"You have no idea what you're asking me to do to you," Steve said. He stood, stepping back to put distance between him and Robin.

"What the fuck, Harrington." All the anger was gone from Eddie's voice, leaving only vacant betrayal. Steve wanted to leave, wanted to sit in his bedroom floor and scream for half an hour. Instead, he wrapped his arms around his chest and dug his fingers into his sides until he felt his ribs ache.

"What's the fucking point then, man?" Eddie continued. "I'd have better luck finding this guy if I walked out the door right now and did it myself."

Something inside Steve broke. He was so tired of being left behind. He was so tired of watching people walk away. He was so tired of being told, without a trace of doubt, that life was better without Steve Harrington in it. He was so fucking tired of the fight, every fight, even the ones he asked for, being bigger than the love he had to give. He was so fucking tired, and when he was tired and cornered, Steve was known to bite.

"And what are you gonna do when you find the guy, Eddie?" Steve asked, baring his teeth. "Huh? You gonna wieder him to death? You gonna give him a big, long speech about how life is so unfair and he should feel bad about himself?"

Eddie pulled back, hurt flashing through his eyes as his woge fell away. "Man, fuck you--"

Steve wasn't done with him yet. "It doesn't fucking matter, does it? Because if by some miracle you get the balls to actually take the guy out, my parents are going to fucking kill you. In fact, I'm the only person in this room, maybe the only person in this entire fucking state, who has a fucking chance of not having my parents put me down afterwards, so maybe everyone should just shut the fuck up and listen to me!"

It was only after the words echoed through the room that Steve realised how much he was beginning to sound like Hopper. So much so, in fact, that Steve thought maybe he should have just invited the man along. Maybe this was what they needed, in the end, because Steve knew he was right. He was right, and he needed them to listen, and he needed them to stay.

Just this fucking once.

"Are we--" Robin's small, quiet voice tentatively broke the silence. "Are we going to talk about you saying that you only had a chance at your parents not--"

Steve buried his face in his hands and felt a scream rising in his throat. So fucking much for the 'listening' part, apparently.

"I told you, Robin," he heard Dustin whisper. "Terminal fucking parental issues."

"That is not the fucking point, guys," Eddie said, sounding awkward and a little scandalized about the whole thing.

"No, the point is their legion of secrets that they won't tell anyone," Robin said.

"Lots of people know; Just not you."

"Dustin..."

"Look, I don't have a problem with either of you knowing," Dustin said, "but if Steve thinks it's a bad idea, then I trust his judgement."

That was enough to get Steve to emerge from his tantrum, a little mollified by the loyalty."Thank you, Dustin."

"But if it effects the case, then we deserve to--" Robin began, but Steve was done. He wasn't just going to stand there and hear it all relitigated. Not when he'd already made his decision, and definitely not when people's lives were on the line. The lack of sleep was beginning to get to him, his head woozy and aching. Steve needed water and a Tylenol, and then probably more water-- He'd spent most of the night anxiety puking, and he was starting to feel like a dead bug.

Tuning out Robin's protests, Steve walked into the kitchen-- But not before Eddie caught him by the arm, fingers tight at Steve's elbow. Steve leaned away, his body moving on instinct to push Eddie away or yank his arm out of Eddie's grip, but before he could start the fight Eddie had been asking for, the Blutbad threw him for a loop.

"Are you okay, Steve?"

It was hard not the scoff at the audacity, honestly.

Steve tugged his arm out of Eddie's grip, more gently than he had planned, and kept walking. Maybe he was being a little hypocritical about the whole thing, but Steve thought he was allowed. His brain already felt like it was in a pressure cooker, and Eddie's inability to decide whether or not he liked Steve was rapidly becoming least favorite thing. Being angry was one thing; Steve had expected that, had almost expected Eddie to never speak to him again, but there was really no reason to be so wishy-washy about it. Even before the bad news, Eddie had blown hot and cold, all the way until the end. Eddie couldn't even keep his name consistent-- He was a disdainful Harrington in one breath, and Steve again in the next.

It was like dating Nancy again, only worse, because now Steve didn't even know what he was supposed to be doing. There was no rules for if a dude was playing hard to get about being your fucking friend, of all things. Of all the things that had happened in the last few months, that was definitely the strangest.

Did adulthood always make friendship so complicated, Steve thought as he pulled a glass out of the cabinet, or was it the monster shit that had it all screwed up?

Turning on the faucet, Steve didn't hear the walkie-talkie that he had abandoned, months ago, on its charger on the kitchen counter crackle to life. It was only when the voice repeated itself, annoyance clear in its voice, that Steve could even make it out over the rush of water.

"Hello? Are any of you losers there?"

It was a girl's voice, faintly familiar but obviously not Max or El's. It was far too young to be anyone else on their frequency, younger than even the Party, maybe. They also weren't using any of the codes or ettiquette Dustin and Lucas had written out for them, so it couldn't have been one of their school friends-- At least, not one with any real fear of being lectured for hours about it. Sitting his glass down, Steve reached over and grabbed the walkie off the stand.

"Who is this?" he asked, slowly. He wasn't sure how this could be a trap, but it certainly felt like one.

"Who am I?" the voice said. "Who is this? Are the nerd herd with you?"

Ah, that made more sense-- Steve finally recognized the voice, and why he knew it. Erica Sinclair, Lucas's little sister, had been a frequent guest at Scoops Ahoy all summer, although she had an obvious disdain for her brother and all his friends. And that, of course, included Steve. Maybe even especially Steve, since he was the one old enough to know better. Most of her visits were uninterrupted roast sessions, but Steve enjoyed them; She was honestly really funny, and it was nice to spend time with a kid unaffected by the Upside Down. It was the same reason while he still looked after Holly months after he broke up with Nancy.

"Oh, hello, Erica. It's Steve. Are you looking for your brother?"

"What other loser would I be talking about?"

"Um, he's not here," Steve said, glancing over his shoulder at the group waiting for him in the living room. "Maybe he'll pick up on his walkie if you keep trying?"

Erica huffed. Steve wasn't sure why she needed to broadcast her huff to him, but he was sure it was a carefully calculated attack. "Idiot, I'm on his walkie!"

"Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Steve said. A beat passed, then, "Wait, he left his walkie at home?"

That didn't make any sense. Steve frowned. Lucas was always the most responsible of the group, and the only one Steve trusted to make good decisions in an emergency situation. The idea that he would just leave their only dependable lifeline at home? Nonsensical. It hadn't even been a full year since the last Upside Down incident. The kids were smarter than that. And if they weren't, then Steve was going to kick their ass... After he pulled Lucas out of whatever situation he'd gotten himself into.

"Eyes on the prize, Harrington, because that is so not the point." Erica's voice lost some of it's brovado, although she was still giving a valiant effort. "Lucas said this walkie was for emergencies, and I'm calling one in. Do you know where Lucas is?"

Dread started building in Steve's stomach. "Uh, no, but I-- Dustin is here, I'll ask him."

Steve jogged to the living room, adrenaline starting to fizz through his veins. Things were starting to pile up in a way that Steve didn't trust-- Lucas was missing and Erica was calling for him, frightened, while a known serial kidnapper was loose in the area? He knew the chances that the Blutbad would go after his kids were low, but the chances of having a MKUltra victim with super powers as a little sister were also pretty low. He had a feeling that he couldn't shake, one so strong that it was beginning to make him dizzy.

Luckily, the argument in the living room had mostly died down in Steve's short absence, although Dustin was looking at him like someone had kicked his dog.

"Dustin, do you know where Lucas is today?"

Dustin's face creased with thought, a frown appearing on his face. Steve pressed the talk button so Erica could hear his answer, too. "At Mike's, I think? They were all meeting up for a big oneshot to cheer Will up--"

"Of course he's playing that stupid nerd game when I need him!" Erica interrupted. "I already called the Wheelers, and no one picked up, because they're all in that smelly, stupid basement--"

Despite all of Erica's bluster, Steve could hear the genuine fear in her voice. And, sure, maybe they were both being paranoid-- There had been a lot of times when Steve had been home alone, scared out of his wits, when there had been nothing wrong but an overactive imagination. If she just kept calling Mike, someone would pick up, eventually. Mike was never more than two steps from his walkie, even though he wasn't as strict with things as Dustin was-- But then, Steve would have said the same about Lucas until today. Besides, who knew how long that would take?

Steve prayed he was wrong, but he was pretty sure they didn't have time.

"Erica, what's wrong?" Steve asked, trying to override the panic in her brain with his voice. "Where are your parents?"

"They went to a church thing?" Erica said, like even in a life or death situation, she really didn't care what her parents did with their time. "They were supposed to be back by now, I don't know where they are."

Charles and Sue Sinclair were wonderful parents; Steve knew that for a fact. There was no reason to think that they would leave Erica alone if there was a chance she was in danger. The neighbors were probably watching the house, just to give Erica the illusion of the freedom that she so often demanded. They probably just got sidetracked with something on their way home-- Erica and Lucas took care of themselves all the time, always floating from one friends' house to the next with the happy knowledge that their parents would come get them, no matter what. Steve knew that.

But even if Erica didn't recognize the fear and confusion in her own voice, Steve did. He still heard it come out of his mouth when he ran into his middle school English teacher at the grocery store, or when his Little League coach stopped him at the park. He hated being asked where his parents were, how they were getting on, what they were doing. He hated being reminded of his own blind spot, the giant, bleeding weakness plain as day on his back.

"Okay, well, keep calm--" Steve tried.

"What I do know is that mouthbreather brother of mine better show up fast," Erica said, voice jumping in her throat, "because there are people trying to get in my house, and I am not playing with these white people's nonsense today!"

"What?" Dustin said, although Steve could barely hear him over the sudden roaring in his ears. "Next time start with that!"

And suddenly it was real. The trickle of adrenaline that had been slowly increasing his heartrate suddenly became a flood, and Steve could feel when it crossed from human into something else. Every cell in his body came alive, and the chill from his veins suddenly consumed the entire world. Everything was cold and clear, like the silence after the first snow of the winter-- Every harried thought, every extraneous emotion, fell away suddenly, and Steve knew exactly what to do.

There wasn't enough time to consult the rest of the room, and Steve wouldn't have listened if they tried to stop him, anyway. They were smart Wesen, clever friends and allies, and as Steve turned and headed for the front door, he trusted them to follow. He tossed the walkie to Robin as he passed, not bothering to stop long enough to see how her surprised, fumbling catch turned out

"Stay on the line with her," Steve said as he pulled on his boots. They were new, a paranoid purchase he'd made from a catalogue one night after a nightmare about the tunnels. They pulled at his feet as he shoved them on, too new to offer any comfort or real support, but the extra weight behind his foot would be worth the blisters it would give him.

"Hey, Erica! It's Robin!"

Eddie scrambled to put his Reeboks on and take his jacket off at the same time, hopping along on one foot. He nearly bowled Dustin over as the kid bent over to put his own shoes on.

"Is everybody in this house except my brother?"

"Uh. Yeah, basically."

"Typical."

Robin was talking to Erica like nothing was happening, and it was just another day of making fun of Steve at Scoops, but she was never less than a full step behind Steve's heels. Some distant part of Steve's brain that still cared about things like loyalty and free will was so grateful for her-- For her willingness to take this on, and her ability to keep Erica calm. And although Eddie was far clumsier, there was no denying that he was just as eager to have Steve's back. The Blutbad left his leather jacket thrown over the back of Steve's couch, and as Steve and Robin flew down the stairs, Steve could hear the delicate sounds of Eddie's jewlerey landing in the Harrington key bowl.

Eddie was a weider, preparing to go to war for a little girl he'd never met. Robin was a fuchsbau, a psuedo-predator who worked in the shadows, with her teeth already bared in challenge. These people were so fucking good.

Dustin lagged behind, panting as he sprinted after them, his shoes still untied.

"Hey! Hey, will you athletic predator assholes please slow down for the rest of us?"

Steve's Grimm brain hated that idea. He needed Dustin to stay home, needed to make sure that at least one of his family was safe at home. Even past the fear, there was the cold hard logic of what Steve needed to do. How was he supposed to get Erica out of there alive if half his brain was focused instead on keeping Dustin out of trouble? Being a babysitter was the best thing that had ever happened to him, but it didn't mesh with Grimming. Dustin could boss him around about it all he wanted, but he would do it over the walkie, where he would be safe.

"You're staying here," Steve said, yanking open the Bimmer door. "Hold the fort down, okay, Henderson?"

"You're insane if you think I'm going to let you go without me," Dustin said, cheeks puffing as he huffed. "If this is the guy--"

"If it's the guy then you're in just as much danger as Erica is with him. Stay home!"

"If something goes wrong, someone needs to be around to call for back up."

"That's what Eddie and Robin--" Steve began, but Robin's harried voice cut him off.

"Guys!" She leveled Steve with a wide-eyed look over the car door. "I get it, but we're running out of time."

Fuck, but she wasn't wrong. Steve gave her a short, tense nod, and then turned back to Dustin.

"Fine," he said, because there was no telling what Dustin would do once he was left to his own devices. "But you stay behind me, and you keep your mouth shut. Understood?"

For the first time in his life, Dustin didn't look interested in arguing. He nodded furiously, pushing past Steve to crawl into the Bimmer's backseat with Eddie, who immediately began bitching about Dustin climbing all over him. Steve gave himself one moment of humanity to sigh and briefly close his eyes, preying for a little patience and a lot of luck. When he finally heard the door slam behind Dustin, Steve pulled the Grimm back over him like a cloak, and started the ignition.

The drive to the Sinclair house was both the fastest and the longest it's ever felt. Steve had been driving Hawkins' streets daily for years now, long before it was legal-- The past few months, especially, had him driving between his house and the Sinclairs' most days of the week, with stops at the Hendersons', the Byers', and the Wheelers' in between. There were no stops today, and Steve used every trick and shortcut he'd ever learned on these roads. He ran every red light, cut every corner possible, and still every inch felt like it was taking a millenium.

Part of Steve hoped that Hop or one of his lackeys was lying in wait somewhere, ready to stop any joyriding teens or overworked house wife from running rampant. His car wasn't exactly inconspicuous, and they probably knew they wouldn't have to chase him down to ticket him, but ever since he'd been dropping by the station to say hi to Hop, they'd taken great glee in pulling him over. Usually, Steve was a huge bitch about it, but he would welcome it today-- He had no idea what he was about to drive into, and having armed back up was always welcome.

Unfortunately, the cops seemed to only like Steve when he didn't want them around, because no one even blinked at Steve's driving. Not even his passengers-- Eddie's eyes were glued to the road like he was the one driving, and Robin, who usually slapped Steve on the arm when he took a turn a little too fast, was rambling about something inconsequential to Erica. Dustin's eyes were closed, and he hadn't moved since they'd gotten on the road. Claudia had never mentioned religion to Steve, collapsed or otherwise, and Dustin was a science man through and through, but for a moment Steve had to wonder if Dustin was praying.

Steve slid into the Sinclair's road sideways, a move he hadn't pulled since he was stupid and picking up girls in the Melvad's parking lot at night. The smell of burnt rubber filled the car, and he could hear the distinct crunch of the neighbor's garden gnomes falling sacrifice to the abused tires. Dustin was the first to throw open the door, sending a trashcan bouncing into the neighbor's yard.

In front of them, parked on the street, was an unmarked white van. As Steve got out of the car, he motioned towards it with his head-- It was a bit cliched, sure, but it was also an unfamiliar vehicle at the scene of a kidnapping. Robin frowned as she came up next to him, and Eddie, who was trying to shove Dustin back in the car, paused for a moment.

"No plates?" he said, frowning as he pinned Dustin against the seat with his forearm. "Not exactly a great sign."

"What the fuck does Hop even have the officers doing?" Steve muttered under his breath.

Robin was already heading towards the Sinclair's driveway. "We're here, okay, Erica? We're here. Everything's going to be--" Steve yanked the walkie from her grip. He appreciated how well she held it together on the way here, but she wasn't exactly his first choice for a negotiator in a life or death situation.

"Erica, this is Steve. Listen to me. Whatever you do, keep away from the windows," Steve said, scanning the front of the Sinclair house. He'd like to send her to the second floor, out of the way of any crossfire, but if she needed a fast exit from the back door, it would only make things more difficult. "Put as many walls between you and the front of the house as you possibly can. Okay?"

"Excuse me--" Erica's voice said, but he tossed the walkie back to Robin. There wasn't any more time left for negotiations.

Steve began to slowly approach the van, trying to keep his gait casual, but he doubted anyone would think a roving band of teens was up to anything but mischief. Especially with as hot of an entrance as Steve had made. Eddie finally let Dustin up, hissing at him to stay close, and the kid only threw him a dirty look before rushing to Steve's side.

The van was clean and well-maintained, just unassuming enough to be obviously from out of town. There wasn't a single Hawkins handyman who put that much thought into their vehicle, and the mechanics advertised their skills through their own rides-- No one else in town would drive a van like this at all; Even the soccer moms had better taste. Hell, the only person who actually lived in Hawkins who drove a van every day was Eddie.

"There's still a driver inside," Steve muttered. He couldn't make out a face, or any real features, but it was obviously a man. Short, brown hair, white skin, as unassuming as his vehicle. It wasn't possible to tell if he was Wesen or not from here, obviously, but it was stranger than the image Steve had in his head of his culprit-- It was much easier to think of some hulking Blutbad as a villian, some twisted version of Eddie or Wayne snatching kids up in the middle of the night. This was just... some guy.

"There's another one in the bushes next to the window," Eddie said under his breath. Steve followed his gaze back to the front of the Sinclairs' house.

The man had already turned to face them, and without the shadow of the car, Steve's new vision let him see the man's face. He was handsome, in a bland 1940s sort of way, the kind of man that wouldn't be too out of place in his mother's yearbooks. He, too, was brunette, with his hair closely cropped and slicked back. Everything else about him was equally unremarkable, from the white button down to the pressed but unaffected blue jeans.

The only thing Steve could focus on was his smile. He had never been really good at reading people's faces, but it wasn't hard to get what the man was trying to say, with the easy grin on his face. There was nothing wrong with him being here, nothing to catch him out on-- This was totally normal, and he was so trustworthy, and didn't you just want to move along?

Steve knew that move. Steve had practically invented that move. This smarmy asshole using it like this, to hurt kids and get away with it, was fucking infuriating. Was this really what had been going on? Had he really gotten away with this fifty fucking times? Steve had known people were stupid, but this was a new low. He could feel the familiar, inhuman anger growing in him, so sharp by now that it felt like his ribs were growing fangs. His chest panged, but for once Steve was grateful that his powers had given him a way to make his anger useful, for once.

"Eddie, I need you to watch my back and keep eyes on the driver. Sound good?"

Eddie nodded. He stayed close, at Steve's right shoulder, but as they turned down the Sinclair's driveway, he kept his upper body angled down the street. Dustin climbed into the front seat of the Bimmer, and waved his walkie at Steve through the open window.

Good, the little shit was listening to him for once.

The closer they got, the faker the asshole in front of them seemed. He obviously didn't belong here-- Although he had obviously tried to emulate the relaxed fatherly look of the men in the neighborhood, he was too clean and intentional to fit. His shirt was spotless and his blue jeans were immaculately creased, like he had gone out of his way to iron them this morning. He was dressed like someone Steve's dad used to work with, wearing the costume of a "normal person" on the weekends to seem like something besides a jumped-up office jockey.

What business man would be hanging outside someone else's house, harassing a little girl, though? As they drew closer, Steve woged, and looked the man directly in the eyes. The hollow, smiling face remained entirely human, and Steve answered it with a grim smile of his own.

Government, then. Motherfucker.

The man waved, not a trace of fear or shame in him. "Hey! Hell of an entrance, friend."

"You're not supposed to be here," Steve said, flashing bared teeth around the edges of his consonants.

"Son," the man said. The fakey small town charm had fallen out of his voice, leaving the kind of bored, assumed authority Steve only heard from onscreen cops or his own father. "This is an adult's situation, so why don't you and your friends--"

"No. You're not supposed to be here. Leave or I'm going to call the cops," Steve said, and hoped Hop was close enough to get here before Steve started swinging.

Despite the threat, the man only smiled, a hint of smugness on his face. He reached into his pocket and Steve tensed, hand nearest to Robin darting out to pull her by the belt loop more firmly behind him. He thought it might be a knife, or a gun or something, but instead the man only pulled out a badge-- From what Steve could tell, it was real, but there was nothing about it that gave away any information. Not that it would have mattered. Steve had met assholes like this last fall, when they had been trying to convince Joyce to let them do more tests on Will, and he, Nancy, and Jonathan had to cajole Mike and El into staying hidden in the other room instead of starting a fight.

"Let me introduce myself. My name is Special Agent Ritter, and I'm with the American Government. I'm really going to have to ask you all to--"

Steve felt Robin and Eddie stiffen behind him. He knows they're thinking about the argument and his 'guys'-- He would be, too, if he didn't know any better. Steve knows that he hasn't exactly been the most anti-government member of their little 'Party'. Most days, it doesn't feel like it effects him very much, outside of keeping El safe. Sure, he doesn't trust them any more than the others do, and he's never been the President's biggest fan, but they all share a common enemy in the Mindflayer and the Upside Down. They're a necessary evil.

But added to everything else he knows, Steve can't stop thinking about those kids. Fifty of them, and who knows how many before Dustin had started looking. And now the government, outside of Erica's house? Erica, of all people? If the government was trying to fuck with Erica and maybe Lucas, then what would stop them from messing with the other kids? He knows they're not above it. He knows they took El and her siblings already. What were the chances of this not being a crazed Blutbad, barely tied to Wesen culture at all, and was just another government plot to turn them into a weapon?

Steve hoped he was wrong, but if he wasn't-- Well. He's never won a fight before, but he's never tried to kill anyone, either. It'll be interesting to see how that goes for him.

There is one bright, shining light if it is the government, though: A way to get Ritter away from his fucking kids.

"Great! That makes this all so much easier," Steve said brightly, clapping his hands together.

"Steve..." Eddie mumbled, but Steve steamrolled on.

"The house you're standing in front of belongs to the family of Lucas Sinclair. Do you know that name? I bet your boss does," Steve said, his grin widening. "You can go ask him, if you don't believe me. These kids are protected, sir, so I'm gonna have to ask you to leave that little girl alone."

Ritter blinked, and for a moment, Steve was sure he had him. It was only a moment, though. Just a crack in that perfect mask. The smile was still on his face when he nodded, and then paused.

"You--"

The Sinclairs' front door was thrown open, the clatter cutting Ritter off. He and Steve looked up in sync, to the top of the short stairs, where Erica Sinclair stood, glaring down at them.

"Are y'all done yet?" she demanded, hands on her hips. "Tell him to get his weird ass out of my yard!"

"Erica!" Dustin threw himself out of the car, yelling the entire time he was picking himself up off the ground. "Erica, go back inside!"

"What? I'm not afraid of a nerdy ass cop! I know my rights!"

Dustin and Robin both sprinted towards Erica, who watched them come with a glare. Robin got there first, with a gentle hand on Erica's shoulder, but it was obvious she didn't want to push, and Erica wasn't going without a fight. Dustin was right behind her, huffing and puffing from his sprint across the yard, but Erica wiggled away from him, and pressed into Robin's side.

"If one more person touches me, I am going to scream."

"Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea," Robin muttered under her breathe, but she had never been a great whisperer.

"Oh, I don't think we need to get the neighbors involved in all this," Ritter said, that same eerie smile still plastered on his face. "There's no telling what would happen to such a little girl in the middle of a big ol' mess."

That was a threat, plain as day. One that set alarm bells off in Steve's head. As much as Ritter had wanted Erica, enough to risk being seen snatching her up in pure daylight, he didn't care if she made it out of this alive or dead. Steve didn't want to think about what that meant for the other missing kids-- Couldn't spare the brainpower it would take to process the grief. All he knew was that it meant it wasn't enough to just get Erica away from them; She had seen their faces. They all had. They were all in danger, which meant Steve wasn't going to turn his back on these men for a moment.

His gaze flickered to the van driver for just a moment, before going back to Ritter.

Eddie leaned into Steve's side, voice low in his ear. "He hasn't moved. He's just watching us."

Steve took a deep breath, letting himself settle with the knowledge that Eddie had his back, and Robin was still in-between Ritter and the kids. He wasn't expected to do this alone, for once, or chase after answers on his own.

The warmth of Eddie against him gave Steve the confidence to raise his chin, giving Ritter his smugest, most King-ly glare. "I'm serious, man. You don't know who you're messing with."

The smile dropped off Ritter's face for the first time. "If that's a threat--"

"No. I'm just trying to help. You keep messing with Lucas Sinclair's little sister, maybe she disappears in the middle of the night--" Steve shrugged, as if it didn't matter to him either way. "--things are going to be very bad at the office tomorrow. Really, call your boss. Ask him about Dr. Owens. We'll wait."

Ritter's eyes narrowed, but whatever he found in Steve's face had him sighing, and dropping his gaze. "Alright," he said. "Alright, I suppose it can't hurt to check. I'll be right back." Ritter walked, slowly, keeping his hands in Steve's view, out of the bushes. Steve kept his gaze glued to Ritter's back as he made his way across the bus, not moving a muscle even as the others milled around behind him.

Steve didn't buy that easy capitulation for a minute. It honestly had less to do with the man being a serial kidnapper and plain just because he was an adult-- Since when did adults ever believe what kids said without a reason? Besides, there was no way in hell that whoever sent him didn't know that Lucas lived here. There was no way that they had just been snatching random children from their home with no one knowing. Not when it was the fucking government. Steve's intention had only been to make it very clear that he knew what was going on, but he hadn't expected Ritter to fold. Or to pretend to, either.

As Ritter approached the van, Steve strained his hearing, hoping that whatever Reagan's boys knew about Hawkins and Wesen didn't go far enough to make them lower their voices.

"We have a problem?" The driver's voice was rougher than Ritter's, a low accented growl that Steve would have told you was the stuff of fiction, at least in Indiana.

Ritter looked back over his shoulder at Steve and the rest, shaking his head. "They're kids from the lab incident last year, apparently."

The driver hissed through his teeth. "Bad lack."

"No kidding. "Daddy's boy, there, told me to talk to Dr. Owens."

"Worse luck for them," the driver said with a laugh. "You think the Doc really would have gone to bat for them?"

"Probably. You know he always had a soft spot for the kid," Ritter said. Steve saw him shrug. "That's why they had to cut him loose."

The driver grunted in acknowledgement, and then after a beat of silence, continued. "We still taking the girl?"

"Yeah," Ritter said, like it had never been in question. "There's another little one, probably one of the freaks. We could take him, too, real easy."

"And the others?"

Ritter hummed, considering, and then said, "Too many of 'em, and they're old enough to put up a fight. I don't want a repeat of that bear asshole. It's quieter just to get rid of them now."

"Five kids is going to be pretty noticeable."

"Eh, it'll be alright. We've always got the city."

"That's true. We could keep going on runaways for the rest of the decade, if this winter is as cold as last year."

"And by next summer, no one will remember these kids," Ritter said, relishing every syllable.

There was another long moment of silence, and the driver asked, "It ever freak you out how fast they forget, in these towns?"

"Nah," Ritter said, "I get paid too much to think."

Then there was a sound, a sound that Steve only recognized from the months he had spent with Nancy. It was a sound he couldn't have even told you he was familiar with, a sound he had been fairly hopeful he might never hear again: It was the gentle, metallic click of a gun's safety being slid off. The thought barely even processed before his body reacted, sending him into the same spiral of violence a woged Wesen did-- The racing thoughts, the pulsing muscles, the doubled pulse.

For once, Steve did not want to hold back. For once, Steve wanted to hurt these men. He wanted to hurt them very badly.

He watched Ritter turn back to them with a smile, and knew what he had to do.

"I need you both to take the kids and run," Steve said.

All four voices raised in protest, but before they could even get a syllable out, Steve hissed a warning. Literally. Without even thinking about it, Steve hissed through his teeth, a sound more guttural than anything he could have intentionally made. All arguments fell into awkward, unfinished sounds in the air around him. Clumsily, without taking his eyes off Ritter slowly making his way back, Steve pressed the keys to the Bimmer into Eddie's palm.

For just a moment, Steve let himself indulge in the warm, dry slide of Eddie's fingers against his. It was all he could do. Might be all he ever had the chance to, now. He just wanted to know what it might be like, if Eddie held his hand.

Steve swallowed his own future and squared his shoulders, letting his hand fall away from Eddie's.

The driver got out of the van and fell into step with Ritter, trailing a little behind. They were both smiling in a way that left Steve unsettled, like baring their teeth at prey.

"No arguments," Steve said, keeping his voice low and even. His hands folded into fists at his sides. "There's not a lot of time left, and things are about to go very badly. I need you all to follow my lead."

There wasn't a peep from the others as Ritter got within hearing distance. Steve knew they wanted to fight back, knew they wanted to tell him where he could shove his plan, but none of them flinched for a second. Pride filled Steve as silence overtook the little yard-- Even Erica, the sole human among them, was silent and unmoving in the face of danger. He only hoped he would make it out of this alive so he could tell her how good she was doing.

"Steve Harrington, right?" Ritter said. Steve tried not to flinch at the sudden confrontation with his last name. Honestly, it didn't matter one way or another; Steve was either going to die here or he wouldn't, and no amount of anonymity was going to get him out of it. But it unsettled him to know that his name was important enough to someone for this man to remember it. Somewhere, in all those big files about El and Will and who knew what else, was Steve's name. Not just 'Nancy's boyfriend', or 'Dustin's babysitter', but him.

And that meant that someone had decided he wasn't worth keeping alive.

"... Right."

Before the confirmation could even leave Steve's mouth properly, his eyes flicked down to the driver's hand, hidden in his jacket. There was a twitch, a movement, something-- Steve would haved liked to say it was like something out of an action movie, time and space shifting liquid around him, but it wasn't anything that controlled. For all his strengths, Steve hadn't become a fighter overnight. Instead, Steve found himself out of control for the second time, his body reacting entirely on its own.

With Eddie, Steve had held himself back. He hadn't been there to hurt Eddie, and wasn't looking forward to a fight, so he'd locked the instincts down as quickly as he did with El or Robin. This time, though, there was nothing to stop-- For once, Steve and his instincts were in total agreement.

Before the gun even cleared the jacket's lapel, Steve threw himself at the man. The guy had a few inches and probably a few dozen pounds on him, but he wasn't trying for a full tackle. Steve's only goal at the moment was to put as much of himself in between the gun and the kids.

The man grunted as Steve's weight hit him, stumbling back from the momentum, but his feet dug into the dirt and held firm. Steve's lungs wheezed as he crumpled against the man's chest, like a car running into a brick wall. He could feel the barrel of the gun digging into his side as the driver struggled to push him off-- Steve grabbed at the man's wrist, already feeling the man's tendons beginning to tense under his fingers.

It was only the fear that gave Steve the strength to push the gunman's hand down before the bullet fired.

Steve gasped, the sound overwhelming him more than the pain. He felt it hit, sure, like being frogged in the thigh by a particularly enthusiastic upperclassmen, but nothing like he would have thought it would be. Of all the beatings Steve had taken in the last few years, this didn't even clear the top two. Hell, he would rather get shot again then chance a bite with a demodog.

If only his fucking leg would listen to him.

He kept trying to push forward, tried to dig his heels in and make this son of a bitch move, get him one step further from his kids, but his leg refused to listen. It just went cold, sluggishly bleeding, mocking him with little thumps of pain that meant absolutely nothing to his frenzied brain.

It was then that Steve realised he was falling.

Well, he thought, as his good leg started to collapse-- Might as well make the most of it.

Holding tight to the man, Steve flung himself onto the Sinclair's driveway. The man came tumbling down after him, dragged down by Steve's sudden dead weight-- And Steve was already rolling before they hit the ground, trying to pin the driver underneath him. It wouldn't last very long, if he could even manage it, but it would be enough to give the kids time to run.

The driver's neck strained as he glared at Steve, trying desperately to get some leverage by keeping himself off the ground. "Jumped up little shit," the driver muttered.

The only answer Steve could give was a feral growl in the back of his throat, then reaching up to slam the man's head back into the gravel. Blow after blow was landing on Steve's ribs, enough force behind each punch to give Billy Hargrove a run for his money. His fingernails were beginning to tear and bleed from how hard Steve was hanging on. Neither of them were winning, and neither of them were willing to give up.

Sometime in the last year, Steve thought as he struggled, he really should have learned how to fight. A real fight, not tips and tricks from his ancestors in a dusty notebook, or the regulated self-defense classes at the YMCA. A real fight, with someone who wanted to kill you. Hopper could have taught him, probably-- If Steve made it out of this, he was absolutely going to dedicate the rest of his life to learning.

Out of options, Steve latched onto the driver's shoulder. "Ow, you fucking Wesen freaks--"

From behind him, Ritter said, "Fuck, James, hold on."

Robin was faster. Steve could make it out from the corner of his vision, although he couldn't afford to watch too closely-- She was woged, all teeth and fangs and glowing eyes. She was clumsier than Steve, but not by much, and she launched herself at Ritter with a rage that even Nancy would have balked at.

Blood spattered next to Steve on the grass, the smell filling the air.

Distantly, Steve could hear Eddie and the children. Erica and Dustin were yelling at the top of their lungs, Eddie was cursing under his breath, and the Bimmer doors were slamming open and shut. When he heard the familiar rumble of his ignition, Steve felt himself go lax with relief.

He couldn't do this forever. He was cold. So fucking cold, all over his body, and though his leg still didn't hurt, Steve knew enough to know that it wasn't exactly a good sign. Now that the kids and Eddie were safe, the adrenaline wasn't enough to keep him moving. He was tired, and fading fast. Steve wished Robin had gone with Eddie and the kids, wished that she wasn't resigned to the same uncertain future that he was, but he had to stop fighting.

The driver pushed him off, and Steve fell into the grass limply, his ribs protesting as he rolled. He tried to get to his feet, tried to at least be enough of a distraction to let Robin make a run for it-- The pressure on his left leg was enough to make the pain known, the burn of the wound through his leg sending bile up his throat. He collapsed, vomiting into the Sinclairs' manicured lawn.

When Steve looked back up, vision blurry with tears, the driver had his gun to Robin's head.

"Stay down, or I will put her down."

Steve raised his hands, palms open, in supplication.

Grabbing Robin by her hair, the driver pulled her away from Ritter, her claw pulling out of his shoulder with a sickening spurt of blood. "You gonna behave now?" he asked her.

Eyes wide, Robin nodded.

"Good," the driver said. "Then--"

Ritter backhanded Robin across the face hard, sending her stumbling into the driver's chest. Steve whimpered, trying to peel himself off the grass, but there was no use. The burning in his leg had started to spread, and he could feel his own blood warming the ground beneath him.

"Lionel!" the driver snapped.

"The fucking bitch took off half of my shoulder!" Ritter hissed, all former pretense of respectability gone from his voice. Even his accent had changed, from the broad, transatlantic relatability of a government stooge to the rough vocal fry of the West. "Fuck, that hurts."

Robin tried to sneer, but her animal eyes were blown and shifty, like a hunted rabbit. She wasn't meant for this; Steve had known for years now that this would probably be how he died, even before being a Grimm had all but confirmed it for him, but he hadn't ever meant for anyone to come with him.

"Just let her go, man," Steve gasped, trying to sound reasonable through clenched teeth.

Ritter squatted, baring his teeth at Steve in a mockery of a Wesen's posturing. "You're not really in a position to start making demands, Harrington." He wasn't wrong, but Steve wasn't about to let that stop him. If anyone knew how to find leverage in a desperate situation, it was Steve.

"And you're not really in a position to be wasting any time." Steve forced himself to stop trembling, pushing the shock and his sluggish heartbeat to the back of his mind. He met Ritter's eyes, pushing his woge until he was sure Ritter could the smoky, echoing haze of his eyes as clearly as the Wesen could. It might not scare him without a woge of his own to trigger, but Steve was willing to bet it would unsettle Ritter enough to make him listen. "Gunshots in a town like Hawkins, middle of the day? Our friends are already gone, and it won't be long until they find help. How long do you think it will take the cops to show up?"

"Not long enough to hide the bodies, that's for sure," Robin jumped in.

Ritter looked up at the driver, a moment passing as their eyes met in silent conversation. After a beat, the driver nodded.

"Get him in the van," the driver said, shoving Robin towards the road.

Steve stared up at Ritter, watching him pull what looked like a large, archaic flashlight out of his back pocket. It took a moment, but Steve had spent enough time dicking around in Hop's office this spring to recognize it for what it was: One of those fancy stun guns, like the cops they used in the big cities. Hopper hated them, said that there was no one in Hawkins who deserved to get electrocuted that didn't also deserve to get shot, but Steve had thought they were pretty nifty.

He guessed he was about to find out.

Letting his head fall back into the dirt, Steve sighed. "Make it quick, asshole."

There was a snap, then a light tug in his side, and the world was on fire until it kindly faded into black.

#oimw #steddie #the cws are wild

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emeraldelysian · 2 years

Text

Poly!TXT ✧ Drunken Slumber

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Pairing: OT5 x Reader

Genre: Angst, Fluff

Synopsis: The members get a call from you to come over to your house and have a sleepover. Little do they know, you're in a rare drunken state that they've never seen before.

Wordcount: 2.7K+

Warnings: Drinking, Self-Doubt, Polyamorous relationship, just a lot of angst for most of this

Note: So this is the first poly fic I've written, which I've been meeting to write for months but never knew how to do exactly. Please let me know if you'd like me to do more of these!

♡︎ follow, provide feedback, or reblog if you enjoyed but please don't repost or translate!♡︎

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Normally, you didn't drink.

You've never liked the lack of control it gave you over your body and actions, only resorting to it when you just needed to forget everything that was happening around you.

And this was definitely one of those times.

You didn't want to admit it, but the stress of life had been catching up with you. Work was piling up, somehow, despite there not even being more responsibilities than usual for you. It just felt as though everything took every ounce of your energy lately, and even the most minuscule of tasks that you'd normally complete within an hour would end up taking an entire day.

It definitely didn't help that your dear boyfriends were too caught up with their next comeback to spend time with you lately.

You could understand their situation, knowing what you signed up for going into a relationship with them. It just so happened to be the worst timing this time around, as the house felt colder and emptier than it ever had been.

So, to resort with the emptiness that you felt, you decided to drink.

You had only had drinks once before, more just to try it than anything else. What you ended up realizing was that you were much more of a giggly drunk than you had realized, feeling all worries and anxieties drain away as you lived in bliss temporarily. That's what you hoped to repeat this time around, at least.

You made sure not to tell your lovers what you were doing though. They had already been working hard and stressing out lately; the last thing you wanted was them rushing home because of you.

After a few drinks though, that reasoning became very blurry in your mind, replaced with the thoughtful looks of your boyfriends. With each drunken sip, you were slowly drowning in memories of them.

You remembered the way Soobin would stare at you whenever you talked about things as if you had put all of the stars in the sky.

You remembered the way Yeonjun would wink at you from across the room whenever you both would catch each other's eye.

You remembered the way Beomgyu would fidget with your fingers whenever he wouldn't have much to say during your conversations as a group.

You remembered the way Taehyun would cling onto your arms whenever you two would go out somewhere together.

You remembered the way Kai would bury his face into his hands whenever you'd fluster him with your words.

Those memories felt so distant from where you were at that moment. It felt as though moments like those were so far from your grasp, never to return to you. And yet, you so desperately held a grip on them, wanting nothing more than to have their comfort.

The next few moments felt like a blur, as you unlocked your phone and scrolled through your contacts. The letters on each name jumbled together as you tried to decipher them. You see the familiar emojis you put next to their names though, and decided to call Soobin.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

The person you are trying to call is unavailable at this time. Please leave a message or try your call again.

You end the call right there. It felt like your heart slowly sunk at the lack of response. He's probably just busy. That's why he couldn't pick up, right?

You scroll down more until you find Kai's name. You knew he wouldn't be the fastest person to answer but he did always at least try to text you as soon as he could about calling you back later.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

The person you are trying to call is unavailable at this time. Please leave a message or try your call again.

You press the red button once again, ending the call. You could feel yourself choking up a bit at the familiar, generic message that you had come to loathe. Maybe his phone was dead?

You decided to make one last attempt, knowing that calling every member and having it go to voicemail would inevitably end with you being heartbroken. You scroll through the contacts list once again before your eyes landed on Beomgyu.

He was always the fastest one to respond. If he wouldn't, then nobody probably would for a long while.

Ring. Ring. Ri-

"Hello?"

Your thumb had been hovering right over the end button before you heard the familiar voice. You stopped, trying to find any words to come out but you had none for him.

"Ah, I don't know if you're talking but I can't hear you right now. There's really bad cell service here."

You moved your lips but no sound came out. You felt tears buildup in your eyes as you grew frustrated. Why couldn't you say anything?

"Listen, I'll call you back! Let me go outside, and maybe the service will be better-"

"Gyu?" Your hands shook as you whispered the only word that flooded your mind at that moment. You just hoped he could hear you because you could not be alone. He can't hang up yet, please.

"Honey? What's wrong? Did something happen?" His voice coated with concern as he heard your voice quietly mutter his name. He'd never heard you like this before.

"No... no. Nothing happened. I just wanted to ask you.... wanted to ask when you and everyone would be coming... coming home?" You shut your eyes, scared of the answer he'd give you.

"Oh! Well, I think practice is going to run late again today. You know how Taehyun is with his vocals, practicing as if he wasn't blessed with a voice given by the gods themselves. And Yeonjun with his dancing, thinking that more practice will make him any less old. If anything, I think Kai is practicing with him just to make sure his bones won't break."

He paused, wanting to hear you laugh as some sign that you were okay but all he got was a hum in response, "Hey hun, don't take this the wrong way but are you drinking right now? Or tired at all maybe?"

"Gyu I..." you trailed off for a moment, blinking with intention as you tried to formulate any words, "miss you. I... I... I miss you. So, so much. And thank you for.... thank you for reminding me to... to get another drink. I'm gon' go and...I'm gon' go get one."

"Oh, honey. I miss you too! But please, please don't get another drink okay? Can you get a glass of water instead for me?"

"But..." you shake your head at his suggestion as if he could see it, "but I need t' forget."

"What do you need to forget, honey?" At this point, he was collecting his things. He signalled to Soobin, who had his phone turned off during practice.

"I need to forget... need to forget how sad I am. I don' want to be...want to be alone anymore. And, and, and... and the drinks make me less alone." It was as if his heart had been shattered into a million pieces. He knew that the long hours that they had to stay practicing would take a toll on your relationship, but he hadn't known it would get this bad.

He mouthed to Soobin that they had to go home and that he'd explain why later. Soobin looked confused at first but the worried look on Beomgyu's face said everything it needed to say for him. He ran to get the other members.

"Listen, honey, we're going to be home soon okay? We're just packing up our things right now."

"Oh," you whisper sadly, "I'm sorry. Are you.... are you mad at me? I didn'... I didn' mean to make you leave... leave practice. I...I'm sorry-"

"No, of course it's not your fault, silly. I was getting really tired too! Why would I want to be at the practice room in the middle of the night when I'd much rather be around you right now?" He watched as the other members packed up their things. His screen flashed, indicating the worst notification he could've gotten in that moment: his battery was almost dead.

"Ah, honey, listen to me. My phone is about to die and I-"

"Gyu please... please don'... don' go," You felt your eyes well up with tears once again, "don' hang up on me, please. I can'...hic... I can' be alone..." You grip the phone tightly as if loosening your grip would make him disappear.

He could feel his own throat welling up as he heard your broken sobs. "No, no, please don't cry. You're not going to be alone, I promise. Another member is going to call you, okay? Right after I'm gone, they're gonna call you. Is that okay?"

You think about it for a moment before nodding and whispering a small "yes."

Right then, the call ends, leaving you in darkness once again. You stare at your phone for about a minute or so, before another familiar name flashes onto the screen. You answer on the first ring.

The call is silent for a few seconds before you hear a familiar "Hi sunshine!" from your boyfriend.

"...Hyunnie?" Beomgyu had quickly briefed everyone on your situation, and hearing his name come out of your lips so quietly made Taehyun realize just what Beomgyu had meant. The whole thing made him want nothing more than to hold you tightly and not let go.

If he was honest, he felt partly responsible. He knew he couldn't control how busy it would get around comebacks but knowing that you had resorted to drinking away the pain from loneliness made him wish he prioritized you more.

"Hey Sunshine, how are you doing? Were you able to get that class of water Gyu told you to get?"

"No...no I didn'. But I didn'... I didn' drink more either, I... I promise."

"That's so good! I'm so proud of you. Have you eaten dinner yet?"

"I don'... I don' think so, I... I don' remember eating today."

"Oh," Taehyun bit the inside of his lip, realizing that they had all left before you had woken up today so they couldn't vouch for you eating breakfast either. "That's okay! We're going to come home and make you something, okay?"

"Okay," admittedly, hearing two of your boyfriends voices was helping you calm down a bit, but you were starting to feel more drowsy as the seconds went by, "Hyunnie?"

"Yes, sunshine?"

"Miss you...I miss you."

"I miss you too, so so much. We're almost there okay?"

"Hyunnie," You blink quickly trying to stay awake, "'m feeling very sleepy."

"Hey, no, no, don't go to sleep yet! Just wait for us to get there okay?" Kai, who sat next to him in the car, turned to him as his voice heightened in panic. Taehyun looked at him, and they shared silent communication before he passed the phone to the youngest.

"Baby?" You could hear his smile through the phone as he talked to you with an excited tone.

You gasped hearing his voice, "Hyuka?"

He laughs at your response, "Yes baby it's me! I know you missed me the most out of everyone, right?"

You couldn't help but smile talking to him. It was as if he radiated all the bursts of sunshine and rainbows in the world whenever he'd spend time with you, leaving you no choice but to fall for him over and over again.

He kept you talking for a few minutes, making sure you were present in the conversation as much as possible. When the boys reached the house, they didn't see a single light in the house turned on. Soobin had rushed out of the car first, running to the door, with the other members following closely behind.

Soobin unlocks the door and walks into your shared home. He calls out for your name, as the others go to search throughout the house for you. He walks into the living room, and sees you on the floor, leaning against the couch with the phone in hand. You hadn't necessarily fallen asleep, but judging by the bottles in front of you, you were clearly not sobering up any time soon.

He goes over to you and kneels down in front of you. He looked over to your face as your eyes adjusted to the new figure in front of you. He takes in the tear marks that had been streaming down your face, before gently wiping them away.

"Hey, tulip. We're here now, it's okay." You didn't say anything, instead opting to lean into his arms. He stroked his fingers through your hair, comforting you.

By now the others had found the two of you and assigned themselves their own little tasks to take care of you. Yeonjun and Taehyun went to the kitchen to make dinner while Beomgyu and Kai started to build a big pillow fort in the living room for you all to lie down in.

You couldn't help but feel incredibly apologetic during all of this, feeling bad for making them work for you. Your sorries went in one ear and out the other for Soobin though, as he kept reassuring you that it was the least they could do for neglecting you for so long. He continues on to promise that they would do better and that whenever your work would end, he'd be happy if you stopped by the studio and did your work instead of staying home by yourself.

Yeonjun enters the living room with a glass of water to hand to you, and kneels down in front of you. "Hi angel, drink this for me okay?"

You grabbed the glass and nod your head. Yeonjun moves to get up, but he feels a tug on his arm from you. He turns to look at you.

"Thank you...please don'... don' work too hard, okay? I love you."

He coos at how adorable you're being before answering, "I love you too, angel. We're just going to get this food done and we can all sit in the fort, okay?"

You give a small smile and nod. He ruffles your hair a bit before going back to finish up the meal he was making. You then shift your gaze to the other side of the room, where the pillow fort was almost done. Beomgyu and Kai were just putting the last touches inside, stealing every single pillow they could find and making it the softest bird's nest for you all. When they were done, they ushered you and Soobin to come inside.

You both move to the pillow fort, and you look at the inside in awe. Somehow they managed to string up fairy lights on the inside, giving the fort a soft orange glow. You fell onto the pillows underneath you, staring at the roof of the fort. Since it had been some time since your last drink, you were slowly starting to sober up.

Right then, the entrance to the fort opened again, revealing Taehyun and Yeonjun bringing in food and snacks with Soobin holding the blanket open before entering inside himself. The six of you sat in the spacious fort, with the food set in the empty space in the middle.

They realized that you probably weren't ready to talk about your feelings in that moment, so instead, you all decided to put on a movie and watch that while eating the snacks.

Feeling comfortable enough to take the well-deserved rest that you needed after your day, however, it didn't take long for you to feel your eyelids getting heavy. You leaned into Taehyun who was lying beside you as you began to doze off. He wrapped his arm around you. Kai, who was to the other side of you, was also beginning to fall asleep, so he nuzzled into you as his eyes began to flutter shut.

Subsequently, the eldest boys placed all the snacks and the laptop outside of the fort before wrapping themselves around some part of you, or another member, ending with you all in an entangled pile. They all made a promise to themselves to be there for you more as you all drifted off into sleep.

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finkinthisfrew · 9 months

Text

Anything (Pt.50)

cw: 18+ :)

"So... what's the good news?" I finally asked curiously as Matty finished wrapping the duvet tightly around us on the couch.

"Oh right!" he turned to smile at me. "Well, the good news is that we're semi-rested and awake now, and we have the next-" he looked up at the wall clock to check the time, "-9 or so hours to do whatever we like together." He smiled brightly at me, and I beamed back at him with excitement, and he was quick to add, "Within reason- no extreme sports for you, missy!"

"That's too bad, I was really hoping to go skydiving tonight," I said with an eye roll.

"I wouldn't put it past you!" he said. He laughed at my frown of bewilderment. "You're crazy enough to fall in love with me- skydiving must seem paltry to you in comparison."

"If you don't stop spewing this complete and utter nonsense I swear to god I'm going to sprint five laps around the house," I threatened Matty, pretending to go to stand up.

"Oi! I've got it- don't give me a heart attack, now!" he said, grabbing my arms and pulling me back down to lay beside him as I giggled.

"So what would you like to do, my love?" he asked sweetly.

"If I could do anything? ...I wish we could do a little of everything..." I started.

I glanced out the window at the darkened sky and was bummed to see that it had begun to rain. I loved the rain, and I adored walking in it, but I knew Matty wouldn't let me in my current state, especially after he'd already gently scolded me for running outside earlier, worried I was going to catch a cold. I had been hoping for clear skies anyway so we could star gaze.

"Like what, darling?" Matty prompted.

"I love how cozy it gets when it rains," I said wistfully as I watched the raindrops dance on the concrete tiles of Matty's patio. "But it would've been nice to go outside for a bit and get some fresh air."

"What would you like to do outside?" Matty asked curiously.

"Take a walk... go for a picnic... Lay in the park and read together... " I listed off, getting lost a little in my daydream.

"What else?" Matty encouraged, watching my daydream-glazed eyes continue to wander deeper into my fantasies with a smile. "What else would you have us do, darling?" he whispered.

"Go for dinner somewhere fancy... Watch you perform on stage... I'd love to go out dancing with you, though I don't think I'm gonna want to do that for a while..." I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking the thought from my head as I continued. "But I want all the frills that come with it- you taking me home at the end of the night, all silly and cute like you get after a few drinks, kissing on the walk home, then maybe kissing a little too much..." I said, trailing my fingers down Matty's chest seductively.

He snatched it quickly, planting a kiss in my palm.

"I think that might be in the same realm as extreme sports, darling," Matty chuckled, making me roll my eyes, trying and failing to not laugh.

He placed my hand against his cheek, nuzzling himself into my palm. I stroked his cheek with my thumb, enjoying the roughness of his unshaven face against my skin as he looked deep into my eyes. I watched as his eyes, soft and kind, suddenly sparked with an idea, making him smile brightly at me.

"Come on, petal, I've got an idea," he said before swiftly standing up, gathering me and the duvet up in his arms in the process.

"What, Matty?" I asked him as he walked us out the door and down the hallway towards his bedroom. He stayed silent as he took me to his bed, carefully placing me in the centre.

"Will you be okay if I leave you for 15 minutes?" he asked with wide eyes.

"Sure, but what-" I started before Matty cut me off with a swift kiss on the lips.

"I'll come get you in a bit- I promise I'll be quick," he said as he tripped over himself, rushing over to the door. "Rest up and call my name if you need anything- but no peeking!" he wagged his finger before pulling the door shut behind him.

Deciding I didn't have enough energy to question Matty, I decided to lay back to rest a little more so I could stay up as late as possible tonight before Matty's flight. My exhaustion took me the moment I let it, and for the next half hour, I dove in and out of sleep, interrupted only occasionally by distant bumps and mysterious noises drifting in from the hallway, as well as a couple of visits from Matty rifling around in the room and letting me know he needed a little longer than 15 minutes.

Almost an hour later, I heard the door creak open and shut closed accompanied by the sound of Matty's feet shuffling across the room.

"Time to get dressed, darling," he whispered in my ear, pressing a kiss to my cheek.

"Dressed? I am dressed," I squinted my eyes open in confusion as I rolled over on my side in his direction.

"If you want to wear sweatpants on our date, you're more than welcome to. By the way- did I mention how gorgeous you look in them?" Matty beamed at me as he sat down on the edge of the bed, resting a hand on my hip.

"We're going on a date?" I asked, excitement gathering in my voice. "What are we doing?"

"Well since it's raining, and you're still recovering, I thought I could bring all your favourites to you," he said somewhat bashfully. "So I wanted to ask... would you like to go out with me, Anna?" he smiled down at me, offering me his hand.

"I'd love to," I said, taking his hand and letting him pull me up, noticing he was out of his sweatpants now and dressed smartly in a speckled grey knit sweater and a tailored pair of grey pleated trousers. His hair hung in damp curls, curlier than usual, and a silver earring hung from his ear. "But I don't have anything to wear!" I said, looking down self-consciously at my own outfit.

"We'll find you something," he said with a wink before pulling me into a gentle embrace.

Collaboratively, we decided on a black wifebeater and a black pair of Matty's dress pants, paired with a brown belt, cinching the loose pants around the small of my waist. Once Matty finished dressing me, after which I successfully hid my completely flushed face at just how hot the feeling of him strapping the leather belt on me was, he took my hand in mine and led us to the closed bedroom door.

"Would you like to go for a walk to the park with me, my darling?" Matty asked with a big grin.

Before I could ask Matty what he meant, considering we both knew a walk was likely too much for my current state, he swung the door open, making me gasp.

The hallway had been transformed into what could only be described as a magical garden path, complete with foliage, and candles. Matty had dragged in a few dozen plants from his beautiful garden patio and lit several candles lining the hallway all the way to the end. The leaves of the plants all sparkled, the dew which clung to their leaves (and now I realized likely Matty's hair from the number of trips he made out onto the patio) shining with the flickering candles. At the end of the hall, I could see a warm glow emitting from the dark living space.

I turned to look up at Matty with wide eyes. He simply beamed down at me, then took a step into the hall, pulling me with him. We strolled down the long hallway and both giggled giddily as I recognized the various plants from their different homes on the patio. As we reached the end of the hall and stepped into the dimly lit living room, I noticed Matty had cleared out a space in the centre of the floor and prepared a small picnic. He had laid down a blanket and put a variety of chopped-up fresh fruits he'd bought earlier, as well as some nuts and crackers he'd found in the pantry. He also had brought in another few dozen plants from the patio to place around the blanket and then circled the blanket with several string lights and a plethora of candles. It was our own little indoor evening picnic.

"Oh Matty," I said breath taken.

"Come, darling," he said with a proud smile as he knelt us both down to the blanket.

We sat down and began to munch on our snacks as Matty pulled out a book. It was a book of poetry by various authors, including Pablo Neruda- the same poet we read on the beach together in Panama. He poured us each a cup of tea from his thermos (which made me giggle) and then got us comfortable. Matty sat with his back resting against the back of the couch, and I sat between his legs, reclining against his chest. Then, he opened the book and began to read.

Love poem after love poem, he read the most romantic literature, staining it with his melodic voice and northern accent. I loved it so much. I was in heaven lying there in his lap.

"Matty, this is so sweet. I'm so touched," I said after Matty finally finished reading, placing the book down as he reached for his phone which had lit up with a notification for the fourth time. He leaned over to make eye contact with me.

"Oh, this is only the beginning of the date. I hope you're not too full from the snacks because we have a dinner to attend," he said with a sly look.

I couldn't help but laugh with joy. Matty smiled and laughed in response, and it warmed my heart to see him become so happy when he saw me happy. It felt special.

Matty led me to the dining table which I hadn't noticed was already set with dishes, glasses and unlit candles. He tucked my chair in behind me before running downstairs to grab the delivery. I grabbed the matchbox from the end of the table and began to light the candles one by one as I waited for Matty to return.

"I wasn't sure what you'd be in the mood for-" he called out as he started to walk back up the stairs, "-but I didn't want to spoil the surprise so I just ordered a bunch of different things from your favour- Excuse me!"

I froze, the lit matchstick hovering in the air.

"You are being pampered, missy! You aren't to lift a finger! Do you hear me?" Matty said as he plopped the takeout on the counter before coming over and giving me a loud kiss on my cheek, then blew out the lit match.

"I don't mind helping- you've put in so much work already!" I protested.

"I won't be having any more of this! You are a princess! Princesses don't do the work of mere peasants such as myself!" he frowned stubbornly as he scolded me.

"Kiss me," I said suddenly.

"Huh?" Matty asked, caught off guard.

"I said kiss me. If I'm a princess I should be allowed to command you, shouldn't I? Well, I want a kiss," I said pompously.

Matty's look of confusion slowly morphed into one of understanding and satisfaction.

"As the lady wishes," he said with a smirk. He looked so sexy when he smirked.

Later, after we finished eating our dinner, Matty led me over to the couch where he told me to sit and wait for him. He disappeared for several minutes and I tried not to peek down the hallway to see what he was up to. Eventually, I heard his voice, purposefully muffled, ring out in an announcer's voice.

"Introducing, the greatest band of all time, at their very best, the nineteen seventyfiiiiiive!"

Matty jogged into the room in his usual concert outfit, a half-unbuttoned white dress shirt tucked into black dress pants, carrying an acoustic guitar in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other. I cheered, squealing with excitement as he came up to the couch, dragging a barstool with him. He propped himself up on the stool and beamed down at me from his makeshift stage.

"I'm pretty sure you meant it when you said you wanted to see me drunk and silly, so while alcohol is off the table for you- as per the doctor's orders," he said sympathetically, his eyes turning tentative, "I figured I could drink for you if that's something you'd like? Obviously nothing excessive... But I know you like it when I get a bit silly."

"Are you kidding me? Yes, please!" I said, completely over the moon. The thought of Matty getting all cute and drunk made my heart flip-flop.

"I had a sneaking suspicion you'd like that, you freak," he teased with a laugh, making me giggle in the process.

Matty opened the bottle, taking a large swig as I watched his face transform into his performance mindset. I cheered and wooed loudly, mocking the sounds of a giant audience, as he sang. He crooned, he wailed, he danced, flirting with me through little winks and smiles the whole time between healthy gulps of wine. I'd fan myself in response and sing along with him, which only made him smile wider.

By the end of the fifth song, the bottle of wine was less than half full, and I could see from the goofy smile on Matty's face he was starting to feel a little silly. His energy was infectious as we continued to play our roles of rockstar and fan, exchanging flirtatious lines.

"God does the crowd look gorgeous tonight," he smiled down at me.

"Have my babies, Matty Healy! Woooo!" I cheered.

He set his guitar down with a chuckle as he grabbed the remote to the stereo and turned on some soft music. Then he walked over to where I sat on the couch and reached out to pull me up into his arms.

"I don't usually like to ask my fans out, but you're extra pretty," he said with a cheeky smile, his eyes only slightly drooping as leaned down towards my lips. "Have you got a boyfriend I should worry about?" he asked in a low, dark and flirtatious voice, his lips hovering in front of mine as his hands slipped around my waist, holding me up with his strong arms. His eyes flicked up from my mouth, and I could feel his breath on my lips- making the hair on the back of my neck rise in excitement as my insides melted from lust. I was like putty in his hands standing there in his embrace as we swayed to the music.

"Yes," I breathed back as I stared at Matty's perfect lips which parted slightly. "He's very big and very strong and very sexy. He'd beat you to a pulp if he knew some rockstar was hitting on me right now," I whispered seductively as his eyelids fluttered in ecstasy at my compliments. I loved the way his drunken state gave away his turn-ons so obviously.

"Well I'd better take you home before he can find us, then," he smirked, then took my lower lip between his teeth, tugging on it passionately as he reached his hand up to my throat, letting it linger there for a moment before wrapping it around to cradle the back of my head as he kissed me.

I could have kissed him forever, but he pulled away right as I started to press myself into him, smiling down at me smugly as I panted in his arms.

"You're such a tease," I whined, smacking his chest gently in frustration.

"And you're going to catch a cold on the walk home," he said with a smile, then grabbed a coat he had stashed away behind a pillow, then draped it around my shoulders as I laughed. "Shall we?" he said as he offered me his arm.

I nodded wrapping mine around his as we walked out of the living room and back down the hallway. After we reached the bed, I lay down on top of the duvet as Matty ran out of the room, dutifully blowing out all the candles in the other rooms before running back into the room and jumping onto the bed, making me giggle. He lay down next to me, propping his head up with his elbow as he took my hand in his.

"I'm sorry we can't do much in terms of the bedroom stuff," he said apologetically as he massaged my index finger. "I really would've loved to make you feel good tonight," he said earnestly as he brought my finger to his mouth, placing a kiss on the tip.

I lay there wistfully looking at his handsome smile, enjoying the way his curls fell across his forehead and how his cheeks flushed pink from the wine. A generous portion of his chest was exposed thanks to his undone shirt, taunting me with skin that begged to be touched. He lay there so innocently, and it only made me hornier.

"That doesn't mean that you shouldn't feel good tonight..." I said as I moved my finger down to his chest, trailing the edge of the tattoo on his chest suggestively.

"Darling," he blushed. "As much as I'd love that right now," he said, brushing his hair out of his eyes bashfully, then feeling the heat of his cheeks with the back of his hand, "There's no way I'm letting you do anything. You're meant to be resting."

I snuck my hand underneath his, cupping his cheek tenderly before stroking his lips with my thumb, dipping it in his mouth briefly as his lips parted automatically at my touch.

"But look how hard you are," I pouted without needing to glance at the tent that had grown in Matty's pants. He quickly grabbed a pillow, covering his still-growing erection.

"Don't mind that," he said with a gulp. "I'm not letting you jerk me off darling- and please please, I beg you, don't make me repeat myself because I definitely don't have it in me to say no again," he pleaded.

"Well if I can't... Can you?" I asked, tugging gently at the pillow.

Matty gulped again as he read the lust on my face. He raised his eyes into a look of shock and eagerness.

"You want... you want to watch?" he asked tentatively as he unsuccessfully tried to hide the smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth.

I nodded, maintaining eye contact with him as I did.

"Very, very badly," I emphasized.

He pondered in thought, obviously trying to search for any possible holes in the plan. It was so sweet how well he wanted to take care of me in my current state, but I couldn't care less if it would excite me too much. All I cared about was him right now.

"Alright then. Come here," he said, hopping up out of bed suddenly. He offered me his hands and I took them, giving him a look of confusion in the process. He pulled me up close to him, looking down at me, letting his curls tickle my forehead as his brown eyes bore into mine.

Wordlessly, he ran his hands down my back. As he reached my lower back, his hands trailed down further, gripping my ass firmly and pulling me into his hips, pressing his erection against me. He dove into my neck, planting his mouth on my sensitive skin, sucking and pulling on the skin with his teeth, making me moan in the process.

"You're a little overdressed for bed," he whispered in a low voice as he trailed little slow kisses up my neck to look down at me from under dark lashes.

His hands travelled to the front of my pants, taking my belt into his strong grip. He yanked me towards him, ever so slightly, then undid my belt roughly, every tug short but sharp, moving my hips in whichever direction he pleased. I felt myself growing wet as we gazed at each other through hazy eyes, eye contact unbreaking. I almost moaned at the sound of the belt slapping against his wrist as he finally yanked it off.

After he slowly peeled my clothes off, leaving only my underwear on, he guided me back to the bed before standing at the end and letting me watch him undress. He looked me straight in the eye as he unbuttoned his shirt, slowly slipping it off his torso. His hands reached down to his belt and I finally broke eye contact to watch his strong hands, savouring the prominent veins as they expertly undid the leather that held up his trousers. The button and fly were undone in a heartbeat, and suddenly he was sliding his pants down, revealing the enormous erection that strained against the white cotton fabric of his boxer briefs.

His hand trailed down behind the waistband of his boxers, pulling out his hardened cock, then began to stroke it slowly. I let his eyes trail over my exposed body as he jerked off, biting my lip as I watched him stand there growing even harder at the sight of my body. I watched as the muscles in his chest tensed tightly, moving under his skin as he pumped his cock in his hand, his chest rippling like sunlight on a flowing creek.

"Fuck, you're so gorgeous, Anna," his throat squeezed out as he worked, his head tilting back in pleasure with a frown.

"Come here," I said, patting the bed beside me gently.

He obliged immediately, laying back beside me and turning his head to continue roaming my body in boyish curiosity.

I reached out, trailing my fingers over his pecs, enjoying the feeling of his muscles which flexed over and over under my skin. My own curiosity overtook me as my fingers found his nipple. I pinched it lightly, looking up at Matty's face which watched me desperately, now screwing into a new look of pleasure. His eyes rolled into the back of his head briefly as he groaned in response, then began pumping himself quicker. He squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lower lip as I teased his nipple, his breaths becoming shorter and sharper as he worked.

"Matty," I whispered.

His hazy eyes looked over at me from behind the lust that weighed his eyelids down. His lips, puffy and pink from clenching at them so much with his teeth, were parted, begging to be kissed.

"I'm so wet right now," I said, a small smile growing on my lips as he groaned even louder, his chest caving in with frustration as he pumped even faster now. His cheeks puffed up and then hollowed as he blew out a breath, biting back more moans. I could tell he was getting close.

"Matty," I said again, reaching out to his free hand which lay tensed into a fist beside him. "I want you to feel how wet I am," I said, taking his hand which relaxed at my touch and guiding it to my stomach.

"Anna," he began to protest, the hand around his cock slowing slightly.

"Shhh," I shushed him as I guided his fingers down under the waistband of my panties, moaning quietly as his calloused fingers slid freely over my soaking-wet slit. This time he moaned- loudly.

"I want to fuck you so bad, Anna," he said as he bit back another moan, turning the sound into a growl as he felt my wetness, his fingers beginning to circle my clit.

"Then fuck me," I gasped, his fingers sending shockwaves through me.

"Fuck, Anna, you're making this really hard," he grunted, though his fingers in my panties didn't slow.

"I can see how hard," I teased seductively, my eyes watching the pink tip of his cock. I knew he was moments from breaking. I arched my back, letting a moan flow freely from my mouth as Matty continued to rub my clit. I felt his eyes watching me, taking in every little movement, glued to my body.

"I need you, Matty," I whined, my body now completely on fire for him.

He was jerking himself off in a frenzy now, completely overwhelmed with the voices of reason and doubt in his head. I smiled, knowing exactly how to push him to the edge.

"Please, daddy?" I said, emphasizing the last word with a pout. And then, I knew it was over.

"Oh fuck it," he growled loudly before flipping over and running his hands down my body. He frantically placed kisses down my naked stomach, then, as he reached my panties, he ripped them off me in the blink of an eye, his desire for me now animalistic.

"I can't help myself around you," he mumbled as his kisses trailed back up my body. His lips reached mine and he looked down at me, his face serious now. His hand snaked around my throat, tightening every so slightly. My heart stuttered, his dominant energy making me breathlessly horny.

"Move an inch and I pull out, got it?" he threatened. I could tell he meant what he said as he placed a gentle kiss on my cheek in reassurance. "You're my little pillow princess tonight."

I gasped loudly as he entered me, slowly filling me up with his hard length. He rocked back and forth, teasing my G-spot over and over as my orgasm coiled tightly within me, begging to be released.

"Fuck," I whined. I felt Matty's cock twitch inside me at my noises, which only made me moan more, and in turn, made him moan. We fed each other endlessly, turning each other on more and more. He kissed me urgently, his lips feverish against mine as he fucked me deeper, his pace quickening.

"Matty, please..." I whined, my pleasure interrupting me.

"What, baby girl?" he asked darkly in my ear, but his pounding was relentless, and I could only moan loudly in response. He slowed his pace, moving his free hand down to rub circles into my throbbing clit, then asked again, "Tell daddy what you want."

I whined even louder this time as his fingers pushed me closer to my climax.

"Spit," I choked out between gasps of pleasure, "Please- spit-"

I almost came as he smirked down at my desperation. He was so fucking sexy. He began to fuck me faster again, but his hand didn't leave my clit, pushing me dangerously close to the edge now.

"Come here. Come on now, open your mouth for me- there's a good girl," he said with a smug smile. "Open wide. No- wider," he commanded, his face turning stoic again with lust. I watched as his lips pursed before he spat into my open mouth, my back arching uncontrollably as I groaned loudly. I was seconds away and he knew it.

"Are you gonna cum for daddy now?" Matty cooed tauntingly in my ear as his fingers rubbed my clit even faster, and at that, I lost it. My entire body unravelled as I came, my legs shaking as he continued to pound into me, pushing my orgasm further and further.

"That's right, cum all over daddy's cock like a good little girl- fuck," I heard him groan, then whimper above me, releasing his cum inside me, filling me up as he pumped himself into me, riding both of our orgasms out to the very last moment.

Eventually, he slowed, panting above me before collapsing onto me. His chest, now slick with sweat, slid off of mine as he moved to lay next to me, then slowly scooped me into his arms and pulled me into him, spooning me from behind. He placed slow tender kiss after slow tender kiss on my bare shoulder as we caught our breaths.

"I can't believe you tricked me," he teased into my ear.

"I'm glad I did," I said defensively before wriggling around in his tightened grip to face him. "I think this was my favourite night ever, Matty. Not just because of that- because of everything."

Matty beamed at me.

"I think it was my favourite night too," he agreed breathlessly. "I adore spending time with you Anna. I can do anything with you and enjoy myself. I'm happiest when I'm with you."

"I feel the same way," I said as I nodded happily. "Thank you for being here. And for taking such a terrible memory and turning it into such a beautiful one. I love you so much, Matty. Thank you."

"No thanks needed," he smiled back at me. "Your companionship is thanks enough. God, I'm the luckiest man on the planet," he said in wistful disbelief as his eyes looked back and forth between mine. "But if you trick me again, I'm not explaining to Agatha why we were doing extreme sports together in the early morning, got it?" he said sternly.

"I got it," I giggled as Matty pulled me closer into his chest. "I got it."

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