#and now i have lots of icarus feelings again

[limielle]

idk i feel like so much discourse could be easily minimized if people learned to say "i think" instead of "it is"

[thebigbiwolf]

Spittle - Part 2/2 (Astarion/F!Reader)

Summary: The chocolate seems innocent enough - if you look past the Infernal writing on the wrapper, and with so few pleasures in the wilderness, you all but jump at the chance to sneak yourself a small treat.

Unbeknownst to you, the bar is infused with succubus spittle. Just one square is rumored to contain enough potency to send a mortal into the throes of ecstasy.

This is what happens when you eat half the bar.

Fic Tags: Sex Pollen (kinda), aphrodisiacs, a bit of dom!Astarion, unprotected piv, overstimulation, he talks you through it (iykyk),

Fic Warnings: Explicit Smut (18+ MDNI), Language, No use of Y/N, magical influence

Read Part 1: Here

Read on AO3: Here

Word Count: 4k

A/N: Wow. I'll try to make this brief. First of all, I just want to say thank you all so much for your continued support. I know this took me forever to write, but I've been going through a lot of emotional turmoil with school and some health issues with my animals. Your patience means so much to me, and I can only hope this lives up to everyone's expectations! This is my first time writing smut, and ngl I feel a bit like Icarus, so let me know if y'all liked it. Last, but not least, thanks again to my bestie/beta @imaginarydromedary for holding my hand through the shame.

Astarion sits quietly beside the fire, absently picking the dirt from beneath his manicured nails. The night had unfolded like countless others before it: boring, mundane. Uneventful.

Perhaps he should retire early. The Realm According to Bumpo sits patiently atop the desk in his tent, and if he heads to bed now, he could potentially finish a chapter before his watch begins.

He stands, patting the dust off his trousers, just as Shadowheart emerges from your tent. He initially doesn’t pay her any mind - fails to notice the concern etched across her face. 

“Astarion.” 

He snaps to attention, recognizing the fear in her voice.

Astarion’s stomach sinks when their eyes meet. Shadowheart isn’t normally one to succumb to panic, but she looks as though she’s just stumbled out of a wolf’s den.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. She - I’ve never seen…” Shadowheart pauses, taking a steadying breath. “She’s feverish. She was fine only hours ago. I heard a cry from her tent and feared something was amiss. When I found her, she…” The cleric hesitates, eyes contemplative - as if weighing exactly how much she wants to reveal. 

“Out with it, damn it!”

“Is there any chance she’s been poisoned? You two stayed behind, back in the village. Did she come into contact with anything that might have pierced her skin?”

“Poisoned? No, she -” Astarion retraces the events, turning over your brief conversations in his head before landing on the only noteworthy detail he can think of.

He taps a finger on his chin, a thoughtful smile creasing his face. “Unless, of course, the Infernal chocolates didn’t agree with her.”

“I’m sorry, the what?” 

“The chocolate she found at the apothecary. I assumed she hid it away so she could enjoy her little treat, unbothered. There was Infernal text on the wrapper.”

She stares at him with wide eyes, jaw slack with disbelief. “And you didn’t think to mention this earlier?”

Astarion shrugs, unfazed.

“Where’s Wyll?”

He rolls his eyes. “How should I know? I’m not his keeper.”

“Astarion!” 

“Oh, come on. That chocolate must have been at least a decade old. Are you certain this isn’t just some sort of stomach bug?”

The cleric shoves past him, groaning in exasperation. She shoots him a glare and mutters, “I’m certain,” before jogging in the direction of Wyll’s tent. 

“Infused with succubus spittle. Just one bite will have you and that special someone rolling around for hours. Consume responsibly." 

Astarion giggles boyishly. “An aphrodisiac? How fun.”

Wyll squints as he silently reads the next bit to himself, fingers tracing the text. He turns to Shadowheart, jaw tightening, "How much of this did you say she ingested?"

"I only found half the bar."

Wyll’s expression grows more serious. "This says the recommended serving size is one square… How many squares were left?"

“Oh, gods…” she breathes, "Six."

The three exchange silent, worried glances.

“Could she die from this?” Shadowheart asks, her voice trembling with uncertainty.

Wyll’s lips press into a thin line. In truth, he doesn’t know the answer. He could ask Mizora for guidance, but the devil’s been awfully silent after his recent failures. He isn’t sure she'd be willing to answer him, let alone grant any favors. Still, it may be worth a call.

Just as Wyll’s about to suggest it, Astarion heaves a deep, dramatic sigh, throwing his hands up in defeat.

“Alright, I know what we’re all thinking. I’ll take care of this.”

The other two regard each other, thoroughly confused.

“Look," Astarion explains, I may not be well-versed in magic, or magical remedies, for that matter, but now that we know what’s causing this… I think it’s obvious what needs to be done.”

“You’re joking.” Shadowheart laughs, incredulously.  

“No,” he continues, “We can’t just sit here and hope for the best. We need to act quickly, and let's just say, this fits into my... skill set.”

“So, you’re going to, what? Have sex with her? You think she’ll be capable of saying anything but yes, given the state she’s in?”

Astarion shoots her a glare. The mere thought that he’d ever so much as suggest doing something like that - bedding you when you’re too weak to reject him - the very idea of it makes him sick. 

He isn’t that evil. 

“Watch your tongue,” he spits at her, “before I do us all the favor of removing it.”

“Hang on, you two,” Wyll interjects, “Astarion, I think you might have a point. You would know better than anyone whether she’s in a right enough state of mind to… consent to this. You’re closest to her. She trusts you.” 

He turns to Shadowheart, “It’s worth a try.”

Astarion notices two things as he pulls back the flap of your tent.

The first is that it is unseasonably warm. Scorching hot, like summer. A stark contrast from the welcoming cool of the early spring night behind him. 

And second, that the air in the tent is heavy - heady with the scent of sweat and something else he can’t quite identify. It's clouding his senses, making his head swim. The taste of it settles on his tongue, like salt on the rim of an otherwise very sweet drink.

The moonlight at his back casts a dark shadow over your sleeping form. Astarion hesitates for a moment, taking in the sight of you, vulnerable and oblivious to his presence, feeling too much like a wolf looming over a snared rabbit.

You twitch, grimacing in pain. 

He frowns. This wasn’t the way he wanted to go about seducing you. His plan was much more sophisticated: a carafe of wine, a few honeyed words leading to a night of passion, your endless thanks, all culminating in some well-earned release and his assured protection.

A mutual exchange.

But, this?

He’s roused from his thoughts by another grunt, escaping from between your clenched teeth.

Whatever you’re going through, it looks like hell.

Ugh. You know what? Fine. Maybe this isn’t the way he envisioned it, but when has life ever blessed him with a perfect scenario? He’ll offer his… services, and respect whatever answer you give him. If you refuse him now, he can always try again later. Under less perilous circumstances, provided you survive the night.

And if not, well, he's never been one to play the hero, but at least he tried. 

He steps further inside, closing the entrance behind him. The moment he seals the tent shut, there is a palpable shift. The space feels infinitely heavier, laden with unnatural energy, reminiscent of anticipation, but just slightly… off.

He breathes, trying to focus on anything but that intoxicating scent. The haze of it is maddening.

The elf sits on his knees beside you, hands resting in his lap. 

He clears his throat, hoping the sound would be enough to wake you.

There’s no response. 

He whispers your name.

Nothing.

No choice, then.

He drums a finger against your bare arm.

The cleric was right. Your skin is so hot, it borders on scalding.

Finally, you begin to stir.

-

Again. It happened again. 

As soon as you closed your eyes to rest, you saw him - That thing that wore his skin. You felt his hands and mouth as he ravaged you until you fell apart beneath him, above him, wrapped around him, like he was everywhere all at once. 

He was demanding as he took pleasure from you. Ravenous. Mocking your cries, your begging.

The hours stretched into what felt like lifetimes, and you’d nearly given up hope, resigning yourself to the idea that this was your new, endless reality. 

Until suddenly, you hear a voice that pulls you from the dark recesses of your subconscious-- the very voice being used to torture you

Your name, uttered quietly by Astarion. Just Astarion. No second, more sinister layer beneath it.

Your eyelids flutter, then widen as a chilling realization washes over you. 

He’s touching you. The pads of his fingers are both a balm and an irritant, soothing and igniting the flames licking at the corners of your mind.

“You look like you’ve seen better days.” He teases. 

You recoil from his touch, sitting upwards and crawling back away from him. 

He can’t be here. He, of all people, can’t be here.

And yet, something within you is screeching in delight.

'That’s him, isn’t it? The object of your desires? How fun!’

You swallow. Hard. 

“Astarion, I -” 

He holds up a hand, silencing you. “I’m aware.”

“Shadowheart informed us of your… predicament,” he continues, “I can’t help but feel partly responsible, seeing as I was there when you found the chocolate -”

“The chocolate? Is that - wait, what?” 

Shit. Your head is pounding. 

You press your palms against your eyes and groan. 

“I’ll spare you the details, but that chocolate was laced with succubus spittle - a highly potent aphrodisiac - and you, my dear, have consumed enough to bring an entire brothel to its knees.”

Your eyes snap open, meeting his own. There isn’t an ounce of humor in his tone. No sign of his usual mischief.

Gods, he’s being fucking serious.

“Now, as amusing as this might be if it were anyone else, I’d prefer it if our party’s leader made it out of this alive, and that leaves us with a choice."

You gaze at him silently, waiting as the candlelight paints his sharp features in warm hues of amber and honey. 

'He’s quite handsome. I see why you like him.’

“You can ride this out alone,” Astarion explains, “Shadowheart will return with her best salves and more potions for the fever. We’ll hope this passes quickly, but Wyll’s translation suggests the amount you consumed could leave you in this state for up to a week.”

Your stomach churns. You’re going to be sick.

“And the alternative?” you manage to ask.

His hand finds yours, fingers intertwining with your own. Your skin prickles at the contact.

“The alternative is that you let me help you through this. Consider it a repayment, of sorts, for gifting me your blood. I’m somewhat of an expert on… well,” he lets out a humorless laugh, “let’s just say, I’m the best chance you’ve got.”

Maybe it's the blood roaring in your ears, or maybe you’re still dreaming, but it sounds like Astarion is offering to… fuck you?

“I’m sorry, what?”

He groans, visibly frustrated. “Sex, my dear. If the magic is compelling you to have it, I think we should listen.”

‘Handsome and smart.’ 

You hiss, “Would you please shut up?”

Astarion squints. “What was that?”

“Nothing, sorry.” You clear your throat. “Listen, I - I get what you’re trying to do. I appreciate it, really, but -” 

Pain lances through your abdomen, a sharp, icy shard that interrupts your words. You clutch at your side, releasing Astarion’s hand before falling helplessly on your back, twisting in agony.

He inches closer, voice tinged with urgency. “We’re running out of time. If you want my help, it's best to ask now, because as much as I love the idea of you begging for me to bed you, I won’t be comfortable doing this unless you agree to this while you’ve still got your wits about you.” 

Tears sting the corners of your eyes, blurring your vision at the edges. He’s right. You don’t think you can endure this alone, and as much as you fucking hate to admit it, the damned succubus magic - that thing - is right.  

You do desire him. You’ve wanted him since the moment you met beside the nautiloid. Now here he is, offering to alleviate your suffering.  

There’s just one part of his offer that you can’t quite come to terms with.

“I didn’t let you drink from me because I was hoping you’d repay me.” Your voice warbles, wet and stressed, “I can’t have sex with you if it’ll just be part of some ridiculous transaction. Not with anyone, and certainly not with you.” 

His expression softens as your words sink in. It’s a confession, of sorts. The kind he’s wholly unfamiliar with. It stuns him almost to the point of speechlessness.  

“My apologies. Believe me, it was more of an excuse than anything. I didn’t mean to suggest…” He lets his words trail off, shaking his head. You two can revisit this conversation later, when time isn’t of the essence. “It doesn’t matter. I want to do this. Let me help you.” 

The sincerity in his voice sends a shiver up your spine.

It’s clear he means this.

He means every word. 

You nod. “Okay.”

Astarion clears his throat, rolling the tension off his shoulders. 

“Good. Now that we’ve got that taken care of,” he says as he throws one of his legs over your waist, straddling you, “Why don’t you lie back and let me take care of this, hm?” 

His posture is relaxed. Confident. He regards you with hooded eyes and the faintest hint of a smirk. It’s quite the sight, one you’d enjoy significantly more if your body wasn’t busy screaming for his attention. 

His deft hands make quick work of the laces of your shirt, and with every string that loosens, your composure unravels further. You squirm, unable to resist the heat that teases your skin and the growing itch beneath it. 

As if Astarion can sense your rising panic, he places a cool palm against your burning cheek, his touch both gentle and practiced as he rubs smooth circles at the dip of your temple. 

“Relax, dear,” he whispers, both a request and a command. The gentle lilt in his voice masks the underlying authority, but your body obeys all the same, tension releasing from your muscles. “I’ve got you.”

Astarion quickly rids you of the offending fabric, chest and stomach now bared to him. His eyes scan over your form with focused intensity, lips pinched between his teeth, like an artist deciding what to make of their blank canvas.

“Normally, I’d take my time with this,” he admits, “but given the circumstances…” He swiftly undoes the buttons of your trousers before yanking them off along with your smallclothes. One single, fluid motion. 

He can’t hide the mild shock that follows when he sees the state of you - dripping wet, red and pulsing with need. 

He dips the tip of his finger between your folds. It glides over velvet skin, coating the digit in warm, wet slick. A strangled, pitiful noise escapes from your throat.

For a moment, Astarion’s calculated expression falters, surprised by the rate at which your body opens itself up to him. A glint of hunger lurks beneath the surface.

“This may be easier than I thought.” He says with a smirk, more to himself than to you. 

He presses two digits in, slow and intentional. There’s no resistance; A knife through warm butter. You’re dripping down his knuckles, gripping around him like a vice. He slides all the way in until the heel of his palm meets your clit. 

“Breathe.” 

Not even realizing you’d been holding your breath, you release it with a shutter.

“Very good.” He punctuates his words with the slow drag of his fingers. Long, languid movements. He’s taking his sweet time with you, pulling scandalous little cries from your lips. It’s like he’s toying with you - seeing how long you can hold out before breaking. 

It doesn’t take much time at all.

“Astarion -”

“Yes?”

“Please.”

“Please, what? What do you need, darling?” His eyes are fixed on your own, grin tugging at the edge of his mouth. A cat playing with a cornered mouse.

“More. Anything.” 

He hums in approval, then wets the pad of his thumb on his tongue before drawing circles exactly where you need. Heat coils at the base of your spine, forming a ball of tension that threatens to snap. 

The sheer intensity of it is enough to scare you, caught between the urge to chase the sensation or flee from it. “Astarion, I -” 

He ignores your warning as if he hadn’t heard it, plunging his fingers into your heat and curling them - expertly caressing a spot that threatens to shatter you. Your hands fly out, gripping the fabric of his shirt, the sheets beneath you, anything in a desperate attempt to ground yourself.

“Go on, love. Let it out. I’ve got you.” 

Your body seizes as your orgasm tears through you, igniting every one of your oversensitive nerves. Back arching off the bedroll, several strangled sounds - almost pained - rip from your throat. The pleasure threatens to tear you apart, but the thick fog of lust occupying your mind begins to subside, offering the slightest bit of clarity as you twitch beneath him. 

Astarion grabs you by the jaw, tilting your head this way and that, admiring his handiwork. He's quite pleased with himself, with the mess he's made of you - jaw slack and brows pinched. He coaxes out the aftershocks, watching you squeeze around his fingers.

"There,” he gives you a playful pat on the cheek, "You're looking better already." 

"You're - agh - enjoying this too much."

"I never said I wasn't going to enjoy it." 

A beat of silence passes between the two of you as he allows you to catch your breath. For a moment, you think the coast is clear - that maybe, this was as far as things had to go. This was what the magic was compelling you to do, or at the very least - it was close enough. You fulfilled its wishes. Surely.

But then he pulls out of you, and the second you feel the vacuum of emptiness where his fingers once were, that voice in your head is screeching like some sort of petulant child. It pouts, waggling its non-existent finger in your direction. The demanding bitch. 

Part of you, instinctually, realizes that this is just the beginning - that you’re simply at the edge of the shore watching the tides recede while a devastating wave builds somewhere in the distance. 

“What is it? Does it still hurt?” Astarion asks, breaking the silence, and you realize that no, it doesn’t. Not like before, at least. 

You shake your head.

“Good. I’d wager that means this is working.” He smiles triumphantly, working the laces of his own clothes, and ridding himself of the final layers between you, revealing an intricate network of muscle beneath. For a man who’d supposedly been starved for the last two centuries, he certainly doesn’t look the part.

Astarion nudges your legs apart with his thigh, then settles between your knees, dragging the head of his cock between your folds. He hums in approval, admiring the sight as he coats himself in your slick. It practically drools out of you.

There’s no resistance when he dips himself into your entrance. 

His eyes scan over your face, searching for any discomfort, but all he finds is need. 

So, he presses in further. 

“Shit, you -” 

He hisses, sucking in a sharp breath as he bottoms out, then takes a moment, eyes pinched shut, collecting himself. 

He slides out, just an inch or so, before plunging back in, buried as deeply as he can reach. It’s so damn easy, the sinfully wet mess you’ve left all over his cock allowing him to glide in and out, tilting his hips with each thrust.

The stretch of him is perfect, like you were made for this - made to take him. His length rubbing and dragging against your walls acts like a balm, relaxing your body as you swallow and grip him in scorching heat. 

He grabs one of your thighs, pressing it into your chest - the new angle allowing him to sink even deeper into your core.

It isn’t long before you’re begging him for more, digging your heels into the curve of his back.

Astarion starts pounding into you - a new, brutal pace spurred on by your encouragement and the wet, filthy slap of his skin against yours. The sounds reverberate off the canvas of your tent, blending with your choked sobs. You just know your companions are going to have something to say about this in the morning, but you honestly can’t bring yourself to care. 

The only thing that matters now is the man above you - his nails digging into the flesh of your ass, whispering how good you feel. How well you’re taking him, “Like you were made for this - for me.” His grunts are like music to your ears, drowning out all other thoughts as his chest vibrates against your own.

It’s all too much. 

Your orgasm sneaks up on you before you have a chance to warn him, but he feels the way you flutter around his cock and acts on instinct - snaking his fingers between your bodies and rubbing your clit in quick circles. 

You throw your head back with a cry, shaking beneath him, and grip him like a vice as you come. The force of it slams into you, hot and devastating, tightening every muscle within its wake. You wind your limbs tightly around the hard planes of Astarion’s body as he rolls his hips into you, slow and deep. 

You can feel him twitching inside you, his rhythm suddenly stuttering with each thrust. Something tells you he’d come now, if you’d allow him.

But where?

'Where else?'

The very idea of him not spilling every drop he has inside of you disturbs you nearly to the point of panic, and with that, you finally understand what this damned succubus has been demanding of you this entire time.

“Astarion, please. I need you.” 

“Where?” he asks, voice muffled, panting hot and open-mouthed against the swell of your shoulder.

“Inside,” you beg, “Please. Please -  It’s alright.” 

He shudders, surging up into you one last time with a strangled grunt. Holding onto your hips, he pulses within you, the warmth of his release filling you to the brim, until a thick white ring of come forms at the base of his length. You can’t help but clench around him, moving to match his previous pace and trying desperately to wring as much out of him as you can, until it begins to seep out onto the sheets beneath you.

It isn’t until he stills inside of you that you release your hold on him. The two of you take a minute to collect yourselves, waiting for your heart to settle and listening to Astarion’s ragged breaths. 

He lifts his weight off of you with a grunt, settling back on his knees. 

“That was - agh,” he shivers as he pulls out of you. You don’t even want to look at the mess.

“I’m going to have to burn these sheets, aren’t I?” you ask, sitting up on your shoulders.

He throws his head back with a genuine, hearty laugh, and cards his fingers through his dampened hair. 

This is the most relaxed you think you’ve ever seen him - not a scowl line in sight. He rolls his shoulders, and sighs at the subsequent pop before turning his focus back on you.

“I’ll have you know,” Astarion muses, “I’ve done this more times than I can count— but this, my dear,” he chuckles, “This was one for the books.”

“So, was sleeping with me everything you could have possibly imagined?” It’s an obvious joke, given your tone. An offer to squash any chance of this happening again, should he wish to. An exit. 

He hums playfully. “Well, next time I think I’d prefer the subtle influence of wine over a mind-altering aphrodisiac, if it's all the same to you.”

There’s a beat of silence. 

Did he just offer to do this again? Well, not exactly, but -

“And how are you feeling?” Astarion asks. 

Better, is the honest answer. Slightly confused and deeply embarrassed, but better. 

The apologies you’ll have to make after the night’s over seem endless, both to him and to Shadowheart for all the trouble you caused. Not to mention the others, who’ve probably had the sound of your squealing burned into their memories forever. The idea of it is daunting.

“Because if you’re still reeling from any nasty, lingering effects,” he continues, “I’m sure I could be… persuaded to help again.”

Oh.

Hm.

“Well, now that you mention it…”

-

Tag List (sorry if I missed anyone! I only added you if you explicitly asked to be tagged): @daedriclys @captain039 @sushiumex @sugasweettea @marauders-moon @starlightelegy @ablxssm @the-lake-is-calling

[spiriteddreams]

in exile, seeing you out

Hiraeth: (n.) a homesickness for a home you can't return to, or that never was notes: sunday x reader — angst with a hopeful ending, lots of feelings wc: 2.2k

i.  The story begins before his fall. It starts with the comforting warmth of lovers who do not notice the cracks that begin to snake beneath both of your feet. You are bathed in golden light, a product of the star-filled dream he has worked to build and sustain for the two of you to stand beneath now, to impress you, to show you what he can offer you in this world. The sun does not rise in this sweet dream beneath the stars so neither of you will burn if you get too close. But this story of Icarus starts with the falters in your relationship, the missed signs and the words that you couldn't translate for one another.

"Sunday, are you alright?" you don't fully address him by his name often, but the rise in his sleepless nights and his days spent out longer at work have raised your concerns.

"It's nothing you need to worry about, my dear,” he doesn’t look up from his work. This isn’t the first time you’ve approached him out of worry, but it comes to a point when you wonder when it will be the last.

You sigh and try your luck again. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself, you need to rest—“

“Well if it's not me to take on this mantle then who?” his pen stops scratching against the paper. It is silent now that Sunday looks up at you, holding your gaze with something swimming in his eyes, something you can’t quite decipher. He looks exhausted, wings drooping behind him, hand clutching his pen so tightly as if it is the only thing tethering him to this place. 

“What mantle? Sunday, what are you talking about?” you scoff. “You’ve been speaking cryptically for weeks, can you please tell me what’s going on or how I can help you?” He refuses to divulge anymore than he already has. With the Charmony Festival just around the corner and esteemed guests arriving to join in the festivities, you feel as if Sunday is closing himself away from everyone in sweet dream. And what is the opposite of the sweet dream but the harshness of the sun?

“Nothing. It's nothing you need to concern yourself with,” he sighs sharply then takes a deep breath. In a more gentle tone he continues, “Now if you would, please, I need to finish this. I'll join you for dinner, I promise.”

He joins you, just as he said and apologizes for his harsh words. He brings you home and his hands do not stray far. After all, at the end of the day you are both just lovers, with tangled hands and swollen lips, sweet nothings breathed onto skin. But even then, you can still trace the lines of tension etched across his face, the tightness to his words, the slight pulling away that you are unable to prevent the more times this pattern repeats. He locks himself up in work, snaps for your exit, then whispers bittersweet apologies later.

You think you’ve seen this film before. In a movie perhaps, one with Penaconian stars whose faces are plastered on billboards, a teaser of two tragic lovers whose paths ultimately diverge. You don’t quite like the ending to that, and yet you wonder if that was a warning, some sort of ridiculous sign you should have read into.

Another instance passes and he refuses to hear you out. You exit this narrative before Sunday has the chance to bring you down with him.

ii.  He’s not quite sure what hurts more: the train that barrels into him or the sting he feels at the sight of both you and Robin standing with the Astral Express. The sight of your horrified expression doesn’t suit you, and yet you are still standing there, hand wrapped around your own weapon as if you would not hesitate to strike. If you and Robin stand on the opposite end of all that he has built, he can’t help but wonder, in this split second of grace that he can afford, what is he defending now?

The train hurts more, physically of course. But with how fast everything has happened, he can’t quite piece things together, this scheme that had bloomed behind his back. The last time you both had spoken, it was a quiet and cold exchange of words with one another, fueled by both his and your exhaustion and frustration. Sunday hadn’t quite realized just how distant you had grown until you were packing up the last of your things, reclaiming the bits and pieces of your life that you had left in his care. It felt like only five minutes had passed after you both had quieted down and you had left, leaving him alone at the end of the hall.

But this feels like a betrayal in his eyes. Amidst the fighting his head spins, reeling between separate conversations with Robin and Gopher Wood. One urges him to lay down to rest, while the other sneers at him to continue this fight he is so rapidly losing. He tries to recall the signs, if there were any, that he may have missed that have led to this point.

“Love, don’t you think you should take a break, you’ve been working for hours non-stop.” He's not sure why this conversation has surfaced but he indulges in the memory for just a moment. A break sounds nice right now. And when was the last time you used such a term of endearment when addressing him? This memory of you is blurred, both by the heat of the fight and the distance in time but he hears himself saying, “There’s no need for you to worry, this is only a menial task I need to take care of. I’ll join you shortly.”

You open your mouth, hesitate, then close it. Sunday waits for what you have to say, but he can feel the paper at his fingertips begging for his attention. When you say nothing he looks back down. Even with his Halovian abilities, he’s no mind reader, but he figures that if you had something to say, you would’ve come out to say it. 

(When does concern turn to unease?)

Now, he can’t bring himself to meet your eyes. He knew that you and Robin were close, but he’s not quite sure how you ended up in this position. Yet he doesn’t have the grace of time to consider how and why you now know his secrets. But if anything, it gives him the drive to win, to craft this sweet dream within a dream for you and ensure that you will never have to see something like this again, with golden blood pouring down and a scorching sun that threatens to melt away all that he has built. 

All of a sudden everything around him feels like it’s burning. He can feel the wind rushing against his back as he reaches skyward for something, he’s not sure what this time. 

“Brother,” Robin’s soft voice surrounds him. “The dream is over.”

He rests his eyes and pretends that he falls into your embrace.

iii.  He can’t turn things around anymore, time never favors the fallen. But there are always other factors, unknown variables who enter the playing field, bargaining for his freedom. And when Sunday returns in search of a farewell, he realizes that his self exile from penacony is also an exile from you. 

He chooses to watch from a distance as you pick up the pieces he left behind for himself. He knows he has left his mark and that his time with you is far too ingrained for it to be washed away like all else. You are not Robin, so he can't find it in him to face you, even in this disguise.

So he doesn't quite understand your fleeting movements, never staying in place for long until he learns that you have been spending more time with the Nameless. You’re retracing his steps, he realizes, and that’s what leads you to stand next to Dan Heng. Jealousy bubbles in his chest from where he stands, within your field of view but still, he thinks, hidden in the shadows.

From this distance, he can't hear the words you exchange with Dan Heng, nor is he familiar with this expression on your face (he is, but he chooses to read it differently). You look excited, thrilled even, and Sunday wonders what could make you smile so brightly right now. He scoffs at the thought that you might continue to seek out this Nameless again, that you’re planning to move on. Would you hear him out, one last time?

He’s so caught up in his own thoughts that he misses the way you catch him staring, his disguise long gone, alter ego for once, quiet. You find it almost endearing that Sunday doesn’t feel the need to be in disguise around you, but that feeling is washed away by the reminder that he can’t even find the courage to face you. Robin’s told you of the little time she was able to spend with him, even if it was in disguise. What makes it so different for you?

Exile is a cruel word. It carries the weight of one’s memories, a haunted past that can eat one alive if they do not find it in themselves to seek out that closure. But Dan Heng reminds you that exile is not a word that can stretch out longer than time itself. 

“We all find our way back, one way or another,” he says. “The Express will remain here for a bit longer, you’re always a welcome guest so do visit. If I cannot convince you of that, I’ll have to send March after you.” 

“Then when you leave for your next destination, I’ll bid you all farewell,” you promise.

Sunday feels like he’s been hit by the Astral Express again. You stand in front of him and for a second he thinks he must be dreaming, because all this time, he thought he had done a good job at hiding his disguised return from everyone. 

“Sunday,” you greet him curtly. His mind races, trying to decipher the tone that you use. He’s speechless and it hits him that the rest of the crew have so conveniently decided to make their exit. It is just you and him and the two ends of a rope that each of you hold.

He swallows thickly. “You’re here. I… I wasn’t expecting this.” 

“I can go if you want—”

“No! Please don’t,” his words come out more rushed than he intended. You look thoroughly unimpressed and he can only wonder what could possibly be going through your head for you to be so composed and he be the one grasping at air. 

“I’m sorry,” he isn’t sure where to start. Now isn’t the time for him to be picking his words carefully but the anxiety in him festers because he worries nothing he says will be enough.

“Do you know what you’re sorry for?” As gentle as you say it, they still sting. He can hear the hurt that’s etched into the words and that’s enough for him to give in. Sunday has never been one to let his composure fall, but if the last few months have proven anything, it’s that he’s exhausted. So he lets his resolve crumble, in only a way that one might in front of a lover. And while that’s not the term he can rightfully use anymore, he still feels it when you pull him in and let him sink into your embrace.

He doesn’t hide his words as well as he thinks he does, but you still let him, even though it hurts that he still can’t find it in him to be completely honest. The Sunday in front of you is the same man, though scarred. His mannerisms still give away his festing anxiety and you’re not a fool to the way he subtly tries to reach for you. But he can’t stay, you know that.

When you both finally have a proper conversation, Sunday feels lighter. Exile no longer feels like a curse. Perhaps a ‘see you soon,’ in a twisted sort of manner.

“I’m surprised you’ve chosen to journey with the Express, even if it’s just temporary,” you hum. The two of you stand side by side, staring out one of the Express windows. Your hands curl around the window sill and Sunday has half a mind to wrap your hand with his. 

You continue. “I think this will be good for you. Look beyond the stars, at least try to.”

“And how about you and I?” Sunday asks. “Are we going to try again?”

You hesitate. The two of you know that with the Nameless, it's the stars that lead the way.

“It’s time for you to go, I’m sure we’ll meet someday soon,” you avoid the question. Sunday smiles to himself, you’re just as hesitant as he is. It’s just the truth that he must learn to confront if, no, when you meet again.

“Wait for me?” he asks.

“I will.”

reblogs and comments are greatly appreciated! <3 note: not rly content with the ending but i was listening to hadestown and this is what came of it

[devildomwriter]

Obey Me As Tumblr #27

Mammon: How many swords do you have?

Diavolo: Sword of a lot

Raphael: Blocked

Diavolo: Parried

•

Mammon: My pockets jingle with stolen buttons from hot topic

Mammon: I literally can’t stop stealing those buttons from the Button Vats like I don’t feel like paying 3 dollars for a piece of tin with Pusheen on it but I do feel like doing a heist

Mammon: Call the cops bitch I’ll have sex with them

Simeon: This feels like the kind of thing you overhear when the person next to you on the bus is having a heated phone call

•

Belphegor: Wasn’t ICarly that guy with wax wings who flew into the sun and fucking got rest because same

Belphegor: I just realized my phone corrected Icarus to ICarly because I type ICarly more than Icarus okay thanks

Mammon: I thought this was just a god tier shit post

•

Thirteen: Bro pick up your eboy he’s curled up in the corner of my living room quivering, speaking in tongues, and surrounded by an impenetrable wall of writhing lamb’s entrails

MC: That’s not my eboy that’s my malewife they’re supposed to do that

Thirteen: Stop being funnier than me or I’ll do something about

•

Belphegor: People like to claim you can’t be funny without being offensive but my twin once looked at a packet of tesco’s chicken and said “60% chicken? I like those odds.” And I’m still laughing sixteen years later

•

Mammon: How fucked up would it be if you jumped into a ball pit and it was just tomatoes painted different colors

Beelzebub: Depends

Mammon: …On what?

•

Satan: Amazing how a colon can completely change the meaning of a sentence. For example:

— Jane ate her friend’s Sandwich

— Jane ate her friend’s Colon

Leviathan: This is the hardest I’ve ever snorted. My nose/throat actually hurts a little now

•

Mephistopheles: There are breasts on my roof. Scampering about. Wretched.

Diavolo: Th—There are what

Mephistopheles: BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS BEASTS

•

MC: A knife block that screams when you put knives in it

Lucifer: A human

Barbatos: So a human

Solomon: Caesar

•

Solomon: Diamonds are carbon. People are carbon. I wonder how big a Diamond I could make out of one

Simeon: I think about your tumblr blog a lot. I think about the fact anyone can say anything on the open internet and I’m glad you are able to voice whatever is in your head

Solomon: Thanks

•

MC: Weatherboy (derogatory)

Diavolo: Op what does this mean

MC: Wouldn’t you like to know weatherboy

•

Asmodeus: Everyone wants me. Especially this guy chasing me with a knife

•

Mephistopheles: Fill your body with cranberries so the horse that kills you gets a sensual surprise

Barbatos: I will give the horse that kills me no such luxury

•

Mammon: *gets home*

*breaks knuckles* time to shit myself to sleep again boys

Mammon: Wait no it’s cracks knuckles

Mammon: Wait no it’s cry myself to sleep

Mammon: Don’t reblog this stop it

•

Asmodeus: Fun new blog title: “welcome to my twisted pussy”

Solomon: Ducks be like

Asmodeus: This is no longer a fun new blog title

•

Leviathan: I hope everyone is having a fucking day

Lucifer: Easily one of the days I’ve had this week

Last • Next

[ladykailitha]

The Rise of the Fallen Part 1

The thrilling sequel to Icarus and Around the World is finally here!

This universe has decided though, completely without prompting to do a little Christmas story set in this verse. So.... yeah!

Enjoy!

Summary: On the ten anniversary of The Fallen's eponymous debut album, the band decides to do an unmasking. This is the interview with Variety journalist Karla Lopez. SEQUEL TO ICARUS AND AROUND THE WORLD READ THEM FIRST!!!

~

Exclusive Interview with The Fallen Behind the Veil by Variety reporter Karla Lopez.

Karla Lopez: I am deeply honored to be chosen to do this, you have no idea.

Astraeus chuckles: Oh I think we have an idea, yeah.

KL: Why did you decide to do a reveal now? You have all been pretty vocal about not wanting to break persona.

They all look around at each other like they trying to decide who’s going to answer that. Finally Abbadon speaks.

Abbadon: Back when we were first asked about it, Asmodeus said that maybe if we were still here ten years on. This marks the 10th anniversary of our first album, so I guess it just felt right.

KL: Fair enough. There were talks about this being live so you could answer questions from a chat on air. But all of you nixed that. Can you tell me why?

Asmodeus laughs: We all wanted to see the reaction on our friends and family’s faces when they find out who we are.

KL: You have fans among your friends and family?

Abbadon: Oh yeah. It’s funny having to pretend to hate metal so much I won’t go to our concerts.

Astraeus: You have to film yours, man. I have to see his reaction.

Abbadon laughs: Don’t worry, my partner has it on lock.

KL: Someone we’ve been told we can’t talk about until after the reveal.

They all snicker

Azrael: That’s because he’s here and them being a couple is also being revealed today, too.

KL: Awww, that’s so sweet. So this is how the reveal is going to work: each of you will take turns in the hot seat I point to a large red leather armchair off to the side a little and you will take off your mask, tell us your real name and a bit about yourself.

They all nod

KL: So you guys picked the order. Youngest to oldest, right? Again they nod So who’s up first?

Azrael stands up and moves over to the hot seat and sits down. He takes a deep breath and removes his mask. He pushes back his hood. Behind the mask is an unassuming man with blue eyes and wavy blond hair that goes to his shoulders. He’s conventionally handsome but he’s got a bump on the side of his nose where it’s likely been broken.

Azrael: Hi, I’m Spencer Peters, I’m 32 years old with a wife and twin little girls aged four. No she didn’t know I was a drummer for a metal band only that I travel a lot for business. He waves Hi, honey! Shout out to Sweet Pea and Pumpkin. I was an EMT before I met the rest of the band. I had been playing drums since I was ten, but I never thought it would become my job.

KL: Why did you chose the name Azrael?

Azrael: Because I wanted to pick something I wasn’t. As an EMT my job was to save lives. I figured that if I chose the angel of death no one would guess it was me. He huffs a bitter laugh And it fucking worked.

KL: No one in your life even wondered?

He shrugs: If they did, they didn’t tell me. As far as I know, no one in my life put together that my business trips line up with our touring dates.

KL: Do you feel angry about that?

He looks over the other guys and then back at the camera: Sometimes.

Abbadon ducks his head as Azrael (Spencer) stands up and walks back over to the group.

KL: Do you want to talk about that anger?

Abbadon lifts his head: My partner figured it out. Before we got together. It’s partly why we got together. But as far as any of us are aware no one else in our lives have figured it. Not spouses, parents, siblings, close friends. So yeah sometimes it hurts that they don’t know us well enough to guess.

KL: That’s got be hard. How does no one else know? Aren’t there dozens of people milling about after shows?

Asmodeus: Certain people have to know, our agent and our manager. Our chief security; they all sign NDAs but we’re also very quiet about it. We don’t get ready in their dressing rooms unless we have to. And if we do, we have armed guards in front of the door.

Abbadon waves: Shout out to Murray Bauman, though. He guessed I was the frontman for one of the masked bands. Just didn’t care which one. So he’s not on the list of people who knew I was Abbadon, because he didn’t. Until now. He wags his eyebrows.

Azrael: Plus once we’re ourselves again, everyone thinks we’re roadies or PAs or whatever role we can slip into that won’t draw suspicion.

I laugh: I guess I can see how they might make that mistake. Who’s next?

Asmodeus stands up and walks over to the hot seat and sits down. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.

Abbadon walks over and puts his arm around his shoulder and they whisper for a couple of moments. Abbadon stands up and moves just enough out of view of the camera but close enough that Asmodeus can still see him.

Abbadon nods and Asmodeus takes off his mask and pushes back his hood. The man’s coal dark eyes are apparently natural as he doesn’t remove any contacts. His hair is as dark as his eyes. He has a square jaw and a sweet smile. Abbadon smiles back encouragingly.

Asmodeus: he waves awkwardly at the camera My name is Simon Olsen. I’m also 32, but older then Spence by two months. I’m the biggest nerd of the group. I play D&D, I’m big sci-fi nerd, huge Trekkie. I was trying to write a sci-fi novel when I met the other guys. It’s not very good. I’m a better guitar player than I am a writer. I started playing when I was sixteen to get girls.

KL: Has it worked?

He laughs: As Simon? No. As Asmodeus, girls are always throwing themselves at me. But I never felt that was genuine so I’ve never indulged. I guess I’m a 32 year old virgin.

He winces and looks up at Abbadon. Whatever he sees there soothes him and he clears his throat.

Asmodeus: Like Spence, I picked Asmodeus because he was the antithesis of me. Someone to drive the girls wild. Cool, confident. I like being him more than me sometimes.

Abbadon holds out his hand just out of frame but Asmodeus stands up and takes it and they both walk back to the group.

KL: Is that something you all feel? That you like being your alter egos over yourselves?

They all glance around at each other.

Azrael (SP): Sometimes. We’re all what people in the 80s called preps. I’m not sure what they would call us now, probably nerds. Polos, chinos, Henleys. Suburban dads, I guess. So our alter egos, our personas if you will aren’t like that. They are so much cooler than us so it’s easier to be them.

KL: Has it been hard keeping the two lives separate?

Astraeus: More than you’ll ever guess. It’s why after a tour we don’t immediately go home we learn how to be regular guys again.

KL: I laugh How does that work?

Abbadon: Military grade specialists.

I laugh again but they don’t laugh with me: Wait, you’re serious?

They nod

Asmodeus (SO): They have these people that teach incoming soldiers how to turn off being soldiers and be people again. They’re kinda like that. Not exactly but close enough. Our head of security heads this up. He’s really fucking good.

Abbadon: I was the reason for this, by the way. My persona is so unlike my real life that there was actual talk about me being cursed. Our manager helped me that one time, because she knew me before I went on tour, but it was clear it wasn’t perfect. So she found a couple of people that would be willing to help us get in and out of character before and after our tours. It’s been a real life saver for sure.

Astraeus: And believe me, I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous. But it’s really helped us out.

KL: Who’s next?

Astraeus stands up and makes his way over to the hot seat and curls up on it like a large house cat. It’s a jarring affect to see the large bassist tuck his legs under him like a teenage girl about share secrets with her bestie.

He takes of the mask and drops the hood. He runs his fingers through a riot of tight red curls. His face is freckled and his has a gap-toothed, goofy smile.

Astraeus: Hey guys! My name is Shane Kendrick, I’m 33 and me and Abbadon have the same birthday, year and everything. I’d call us twinsies, but he already had a soul twin in the form of our manager, and you so don’t want to get into the middle of that!

Abbadon, their manager, and Abbadon’s partner all burst out laughing. Astraeus winks at Abbadon.

I am starting to see a pattern and it’s making me a little upset if I’m honest.

Astraeus: I tease, I tease. They’re super cute. I chose the name Astraeus because there aren’t that many night gods, lots of goddesses, but not whole of gods. But I am a huge mythology nerd. In fact I helped everyone come up with their names. I chose Astraeus because he’s not a god of night, he’s the titan of night and that sounded way more metal than just a god.

I was actually studying to become a history teacher for the middle school grade when I met the rest of the band.

KL: Where did you guys meet?

Astraeus (SK): Abbadon was working at a little cafe where the three of us would come in for coffee. Me and Simon would spend hours there. Him doing his writing and me doing my homework. Spence would come in after his shift and just sit in a corner to decompress.

KL: How did you guys become friends?

They all laugh

Astraeus (SK): Abbadon was playing Corroded Coffin on their speakers. First cafe I’d ever been to where they didn’t play some new age shit.

There is a choked off laugh from Abbadon’s partner and Abbadon ducks his head. I’m sure if the mask was off, we’d see him blush.

KL: You bonded over Corroded Coffin?

Astraeus (SK): Yeah, I told him I had a crush on the drummer and he told me that he had gone to high school with them.

My jaw drops: Wait? Really?

Abbadon nods: All Hawkins High alums. Almost all different years though, too. Eddie was ahead of me, Jeff and Brian were below me one year and Gareth was two years below me.

KL: Wow!

Astraeus gets up and swaps with Abbadon. They give each other five as they pass as if they they are tagging the one out and the other in.

~

Part 2

Tag list: CLOSED

1- @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog @chameleonhair

2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence

3- @goodolefashionedloverboi @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @irregular-child @blondie1006

4- @yikes-a-bee @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten

5- @genderless-spoon @y4r3luv @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt

6- @disrespectedgoatman @dawners @thespaceantwhowrites @tinyplanet95 @garden-of-gay

7- @iamthehybrid @croatoan-like-its-hot @papergrenade @cryptid-system @counting-dollars-counting-stars

8- @ravenfrog @w1ll0wtr33 @child-of-cthulhu @kultiras @dreamercec

9- @machete-inventory-manager @useless-nb-bisexual @stripey82 @dotdot-wierdlife @kal-ology

10- @sadisticaltarts @urkadop @clockworkballerina @eyehartart

[hellfirenacht]

Wing Man Part 8

Fic Summary: Steve 'the Hair' Harrington is your best friend, and is constantly striking out. Sick of this, you two make a deal; you'll wing man for each other. Hooking Steve up with dates is easy, but he finds himself struggling to find you a date. At least, until Dustin starts talking about his new cool friend Eddie.

(1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9)

Chapter Summary: Eddie explains himself, and you two make plans to hang out on purpose.

5.7k Words

a/n: Sorry I haven't been updating! I swear, I'm almost always thinking about this fic but I've been trying to figure out where to go with it. I'm started to see how I want to shape the story (over 40k words in, go figure). Thank you all so much for your patience!

Also, I've had a lot of people ask me about Paige and have shown interest in what happened between her and Eddie. She is actually from Eddie's prequel novel, Flight of Icarus! I'll still explain bits and pieces during the story, but I highly recommend reading the novel for the full context. I am trying to write this in a way you don't need to read FoI, but it does give extra context to the story.

Anyway, we continue.

Aside from the mixtape playing in the van, it was surprisingly quiet between you and Eddie. Despite his eagerness to show up and take you out, now that you were sitting in his passenger side seat again, he had no idea what to do next. The sound of Iron Maiden was rumbling through the van, crackling through the old speakers. 

It wasn’t often that Eddie was at a loss for words or couldn’t come up with something to say. After embracing his role in the Hawkins High ecosystem as the resident loudmouth freak he could always come up with something to say to break the ice or cause a ruckus. 

But, being loud wasn’t exactly a substitution for actual charisma. He could hold the attention of his Hellfire Club during the game, and keep them safe enough from most bullies even. But intimidation was different than... whatever the hell he was supposed to be doing here. Flirting? That seemed right. He knew he should be trying to flatter you or compliment you or do something to show that he had an interest in you. 

“So,” you were the one to break the silence between the two of you. “What have you been up to for the past two weeks?”

Eddie know what you actually meant was “What the fuck, man?” which was a really fair question. 

“I should have called you sooner.” It was best to go ahead and rip the bandaid off now and get this conversation out of the way. “I’m sorry, I wanted to but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” you asked, leaning against the passenger side door as you looked at him. Despite your eagerness to get out of Family Video with him, he could see that you weren’t going to just let him not explain why he hadn’t talked to you. Not that he was going to leave you hanging like that anyway. 

“My phone blew up.” Eddie said bluntly. 

“Your phone blew up? Like... actually exploded?” you asked, trying to see if he was fucking with you. 

“Remember that huge storm a few weeks ago? Turns out that old trailers don’t exactly have the best wiring sometimes so when lightning strikes it knocks out power for a few days and fries some important wires.” he explained. “So... yeah, we just got a new phone today and when I tried to call...”

“So, I didn’t answer my phone so you decided to track me down?” There was amusement in your voice which he took as a good sign. “Seems like you could have done that part earlier. I’m not hard to find.” 

“I’m not exactly interested in stalking.” Eddie snorted. “I’m already on enough people's shitlist in town.”

“Oh, you’re no fun.” you laughed. “You know where I live, you could have shown up at my doorstep in the rain or used random phones around town to leave weird messages about how you can’t stop thinking about me or sent me letters with cryptic meanings.”

“Where do you come up with these things?” Eddie laughed, feeling the tension between the two of you start to dissipate. 

“I read a lot of bodice-ripper books.” you shrugged. “Trashy romance novels are a guilty pleasure sometimes.” 

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a weirdo?” 

“Steve did about an hour ago when I suggested that Bozo the clown could be the shit out of Pennywise from It.” 

Eddie wasn’t sure what he expected you to say, but it wasn’t that. Every time you had shown up in his life, you had completely thrown him off. He was starting to suspect that no amount of “Munson Magic” was going to work on you. Not that he wanted to work his dad’s charm on you to begin with. 

What he really wanted to do at that moment was ask you about your little bet with Steve. No, wait, not a bet. A deal? Maybe he should have asked Dustin more questions, or at least waited until after Hellfire to talk to the kid- 

”So what’s the plan?” You broke through his thoughts once again. “You show up out of nowhere and have me get into your unmarked van to take me to a second location... is there a second location in mind?”

There wasn’t, Eddie really hadn’t thought that far ahead.He’d panicked after his talk with Wayne and had shown up to Family Video on the chance that you’d been there. He’d run straight out the door with every intention of finding you and let you know that he was stupid for not trying harder to call you before. 

”I figured we could just... drive.” He wished he could ignore the sudden parallel between you and Paige. He wished that he could just forget about what happened in ‘84. Fuck, him and Paige never even had an official date, only hooking up in his van for a few weeks before everything blew up. 

Wait, was this a date? Crap, that had been the plan right? Show up, ask you on a date and then... then he’d be on a date. What the FUCK was he actually doing? He was acting so fucking awkward now- everything had been easier before. Why did Dustin have to open his big mouth about this?

“Just driving sounds great.” you said, and Eddie once again tried to relax. Every girl he had been with had wanted something from him. Nicole Summers and Cass Finnigan just wanted bragging rights that they got with the freak, and Paige had wanted him to be a rock hero. What did you want from him?

“Have you eaten?” It wasn’t exactly late, but it wasn’t really early in the evening either. His uncle always asked him that whenever one of them got home, and it had taken Eddie an embarrassingly long time to realize that it was Wayne’s way of showing that he cared. 

“I could eat.” you replied, which at least gave this... whatever this was, some structure for the night. Eddie didn’t have a lot of cash on him, but he could probably scrape together enough to get you each a burger or something. 

When the Iron Maiden tape clicked off and spat itself out, you took it upon yourself to pull it out and look it over. “Got any other tapes in here? I need to judge your music taste.” 

That made Eddie laugh “You and every other person in this town. I have a few more tapes in here.” He tapped on the center console which you eagerly dug into, flipping through the different cassettes with eagerness. 

“Metal. Metal. Metal. Metal.” You said, going through each cassette one by one. “I’m starting to see a pattern here, Eddie.” 

“What gave it away?” He said deadpan. “Was it that I play guitar or the fact that we’ve only bonded over music so far?”

“And Chris Morrison.”

“And Chris Morrison.”

“It was your hair, actually. You look so much like Eddie Van Halen it’s actually uncanny.” You looked up from the tapes and he could feel your eyes studying his face. He was glad that it was dark out now, as he could feel warmth rising in his cheeks at the comparison. Was that a compliment? Were you into him looking like Van Halen? 

“Van Halen?” Eddie asked. “I figured I was more of a Kirk Hammett type.”

“The hair yes,” you agreed, still staring at his face as he continued to drive. “But your smile is definitely more Van Halen.”

When was the last time someone had ever looked at him with that much consideration before? Something in Eddie’s gut twisted as he glanced over at you for a split second to meet your eyes. Huh, that was weird. Had anyone made him nervous like this before? Yeah he’d been attracted to Paige but this was starting to feel different. 

He really needed a cigarette right about now. 

“I hope that’s a compliment.” Eddie managed to say as he fumbled for the packet of Camels in the cupholder by him. 

“Oh, it is. I promise.” you replied, digging out a lighter and helping him light the smoke in his mouth. The world's tiniest supernova...

Eddie hated that the closest thing he had to compare notes on when it came to a healthy romance was two months with Paige and a handful of movies that he barely watched. 

You went back to his tapes, and seemed to pick one out. You removed the tape that had been spat out, put it back in the appropriate case (which Eddie found himself appreciating), and he was surprised to hear the old riffs of Muddy Waters playing. 

“A palate cleanser.” you said, leaning back into the passenger side seat. 

Eddie felt his mind reeling from your choice of music. Muddy Waters had been how his mom introduced him to rock at a young age. The two of you sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the well loved tape as he pulled into the drive in of the next fast food joint he’d seen. 

When he pulled up to the window to pay, a fresh ten was shoved in his face before he could even reach for his own wallet. It took a moment for him to realize that you were wanting to pay. 

“You got me out of work early, it’s the least I can do.” you said, not giving him the option to say no as cash was exchanged for a bag of questionable but cheap food. You held the bag in your lap as Eddie started making his way out of town. 

“So is this an ‘eating van’ or a ‘non-eating van’?” you asked, messing with the top of the bag. 

“I think I’d starve if I didn’t eat in here.” Eddie snorted. “Knock yourself out.”

You wasted no time digging into the fries and taking a few for yourself as Eddie went to the only place that he could afford to take you right now that might be date worthy. 

Luckily, Lover’s Lake was quiet and private on weeknights. If Eddie had taken two minutes to plan this better, he would have thought to maybe clear out the back of his van and set out a blanket and have a picnic. When it came to music and D&D he was great at planning out details, with dates? Not so much. 

This isn’t a date. He reminded himself for the hundredth time tonight. She’s just a girl that you ran over to spend time with the second it occurred to you that she might have an interest in you and she really willingly hopped in your van and your friends actually like her-

Shit. This had to be a date right? Neither of you had said the word but that’s what it was... right? 

Eddie was snapped out of his thoughts with the sweet smell of hot potatoes and grease was wafting under his nose. You had shoved a few fries in front of his face and Eddie wasted no time in taking them. You continued to absently feed him fries as he found a spot to park.

The two of you divided up the food on his dashboard, and Eddie rolled down the windows to let the cool autumn air in. 

“So... what are you gonna be for Halloween?” Eddie asked, wincing internally. When was the last time anyone he knew had dressed up for Hallowen? Okay, so Hellfire Club did tend to dress up on Halloween for a special one shot but that was different- no one came to school in costumes anymore.

“It depends on my plans.” you answered. “Halloween is on a Thursday so I’m usually working. If I have a morning shift I’ll probably do zombie makeup for work, if Steve and Robin are working with me that day I think we’re gonna attempt to be Luke, Leia, and Hans.” 

“And are you gonna be Leia?” Eddie asked. 

“Ideally, I wanted to be Chewie but I don’t have the time for that.” you laughed. “Robin and I voted on Steve to Be Leia. Robin will be Luke, and I’ll be Hans Solo with a teddy bear.”

“Please tell me that Harrington isn’t going to be in the bikini.” Eddie laughed. 

“Keith said costumes had to be work appropriate so, sadly, Steve will not be gracing the store with his sweater-vest chest hair under a bra.” You sighed dramatically. “It’s like he hates the idea of us having fun!” 

“What if you have to close?” Eddie prompted, adjusting in his seat to lean against the door to face you as best he could. Next time he was absolutely clearing out the back to give you both more room. 

“Oh, I am not closing.” you said firmly. “And if Keith thinks he can schedule me that day he can suck it because I have plans.” 

You already have Halloween plans. Of course you would. It’s not like you had to worry about school on a weekday like he did. Eddie tried not to deflate in front of you and remained calm. 

“And what plans would that be?” he asked. 

“Have you ever seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show?” you asked, a smile tugging at your lips. 

He had, once, with Reefer Rick a few months ago when picking up his usual supply. A quick pick up had turned into a game of pool, which had turned into the two of them high on Rick’s couch watching an old VHS tape while Rick laughed his ass off and yelled at the tv before passing out in the middle of Tim Curry seducing Brad and Janet. 

“Once.” Eddie said, not giving the exact details of circumstance. “With a friend, I didn’t really get it.” 

“Did you see it in theaters or did you just watch it at home?” you asked, finishing off your food. 

“Friend’s house.” 

“Oh, no wonder you didn’t get it. Rocky Horror is an experience, you can’t just pop the tape in and watch it. You have to come see it in a theater.” As you spoke you were absently folding a napkin in your lap turning it into what looked like a heart. When you were done with that one, you started with another shape with a different napkin. 

“Is that an invitation?” Eddie asked, tearing his eyes away from the way your fingers moved for now. He found his heart pounding in his chest, unsure if you were actually wanting him to come to this, and from the knot forming in his stomach as the shapes you were folding reminded him of the times he met you before. 

“It is.” you confirmed, the ninja star you had shaped with the napkin was placed on the center console as you grabbed another napkin. “...It could also be a date.” 

Despite the period at the end of the sentence, Eddie heard the slight waiver in your voice on the word date. It was that same nervous stammer that had been in Paige’s voice when she offered to let him move in with her in California, it was the same hesitant inflection that one of his Hellfire players used when they weren’t sure if Eddie would approve of what crazy plan they had for their character. 

Aside from that first awkward meeting at the Palace Arcade, you had been pretty confident and upfront with him. Now here you are, laying out your intentions and seeing what he would do. 

What would he do? Eddie had shown up at Family Video with no real plan. He only knew he wanted to see you again, and he knew that Dustin and Steve were trying to set you two up. And it’s not like Eddie was completely against the idea of going on a date with you. You were sharp, and you kept him on his toes, and when you smiled at him it felt like his brain might short out. 

But he had also panicked when he had thought that you were going to kiss him before. After Eddie’s disastrous break up with Paige two years ago, it’s not like he’d been completely against any physical relationships. There had been a grand total of two other hook ups that he’d sabotaged. People weren’t interested in getting to know the freak, they just wanted to say that they had been with him. So both times, Eddie had made sure that he’d been a lousy date and a decent enough lay before deciding that he’d rather had a date with his right hand and a Heavy Metal magazine.

Eddie would rather the rumor mill call him a boring date rather than set a standard that he’d go out with anyone who asked. He wondered if he had, would Steve have put his name on the town marquis for the world to see? Would Eddie ‘the Slut’ Munson be treated any differently than Eddie ‘the Freak’?

Shit, you were still waiting for a response. 

“A date.” Eddie finally managed to echo your last words back at you. The napkin you had been messing with in your hands was now taking the shape of a ninja star. 

“I mean, if you’re interested.” you said quickly. “It could just be a friend thing. Or you probably already have plans for Halloween-”

“I don’t.” Eddie interjected. “It could be a date.”

He watched your shoulders relax and you smiled up at him. “It’s a date then.” You grabbed a napkin and your green marker out of your bag and scribbled something down, handing it over to him. 

“In case your phone blows up again, here is the date and time and location for the Halloween showing of the movie.” your eyes narrowed slightly at him. “And my work schedule has been hectic but I consistently work on Sunday’s and clock out at four.”

Eddie got the message loud and clear, he would know where to find you now. There wouldn’t be any excuses for not reaching out, but two could play at this game. He took the marker from your hand and grabbed his own napkin, scribbling his own phone number down and handing it over to you. 

“I’m at school all week, but I still play at the Hideout on Tuesdays.” He answered back. “Friday is Hellfire.”

With that, the playing field felt a little more level. Both of you now had the power to track the other one down or call when needed.   

“So what are you going to be for Halloween?” you asked, tucking the napkin with his number into your bog. 

“Oh, haven’t you heard? When you’re the town freak every day is Halloween.” Eddie chuckled. 

“So what, you’re gonna put on a polo and khakis instead?” He liked the way you scrunch your nose when you laughed. “Ditch the jewelry and cover your tattoos?” 

“That would probably scare some of the teachers at school.” Eddie had considered doing exactly that, but he really didn’t think he’d want that kind of attention. “No one dresses up at school anymore.”

“Boring.” You sighed. “I tried dressing up for Halloween my senior year but when I got to school my friends convinced me to change clothes.”

Eddie raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem like the type to let other people tell you what to do.” 

“Now I’m not.” you shrugged. “I’m not in high school anymore, and all those people that I saw everyday? Turns out I was only friends with them because I saw them every day. Once you get away from that forced routine you realize that it’s all bullshit.”

Eddie could relate, probably better than anyone else. He was so sick of the day to day hierarchy of highschool that he’d scream it from on top of a table. Literally. 

“What were you trying to be before your friends killed your fun?” Eddie asked. 

“A pirate. It was last minute but I had a bandana, an eyepatch, a sock puppet with feathers glued to it for my parrot, and a wire hanger I was carrying around as a hook.” you laughed at the memory. “I ended up dropping the eyepatch before my friends made me change because I kept running into people. My wire hanger was confiscated, some asshat stole my parrot, and one of my friends gave me a sweater to change into. I didn’t even make it to first period in that outfit.”

Eddie had made it a point to not pay attention to anyone outside of his small group at school, only ever keeping an eye out for lost sheep that didn’t have anywhere else to go. He wondered, if he had seen you that morning in the brief window before you were pushed back into conformity would he have noticed you? Talked to you? You had already been nice to him before. 

“Wait,” Eddie over at you, taking in the picture you had painted for him. “You made a sock puppet parrot?”

“I needed a parrot, or else no one would get it!” you explained. “But then when I took it off and left it to go use the bathroom it was gone. I finally found the thief in fourth period because they kept playing with it and squawking my own parrot at me. But by that point I had just cut my losses and had given up on Halloween.”

“Are you usually this crafty?” Eddie asked, once again looking at the final napkin you were folding into what looked like an old cootie catcher. 

“I get bored easily.” you said. “If I don’t have something to do with my hands I can’t focus.”

“How’d you start with the whole-” Eddie grabbed one of his slightly used napkins and gave it a wave. “Folding thing?”

“Fourth grade show and tell.” you said. “I did not prepare anything and so I spent a full ten minutes in the school library to find something to show. I found a book on origami, found the easiest thing to make and realized that I actually enjoyed it.”

If that was a mystery, it sure did get solved right there. Eddie wanted to ask about Steve and Dustin. He wanted to ask you why him? He could keep his mouth shut, let this whole thing play out and see what happened. Eddie could sit here, and enjoy the fact that a girl was giving him the time of day and leave everything up in the air just like he had with Paige. 

“So I heard you and Steve had a deal going on.” Eddie said. “Something about getting dates?”

You froze for a second, the completed cootie catcher in your hands. Things were dead silent for a grand total of ten seconds. Ten agonizingly long seconds. Even the cassette player had clicked off and was now whirring as it rewind the Iron Maiden tape. 

Then you started laughing. A lot. 

“Jesus, Eddie!” you said, wiping your eyes with the ninja star as a tear threatened to spill down your cheek. “I tell you I have origami as a hobby, and you follow up with ‘So I heard you and Steve are trying to get dates.’ Seriously?”

Eddie remained silent at your reaction, trying to process your laughter. You didn’t seem scared or nervous that he had called you out, and he had to admit that he hadn’t completely thought through the consequences of asking you that question. 

“Who blabbed?” You asked, after your laughter had calmed down. 

“Henderson.” Eddie admitted and, in an attempt to ease any lingering tension he leaned forward to rest his elbow on the center console and held his chin in his hand as he looked at you. “That shrimp informed me that you found me so irresistible that you begged Steve to set you up with me.”

“Is that right?” You asked, raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh yeah,” Eddie agreed. “Told me all about how ever since Chris Morrison shot you down, you’ve been desperate to get my attention to get back at him.”

“So which is it, am I attracted to you or am I using you to get back at a guy I talked to once in high school years ago?” you asked. Eddie saw a glint in your eyes, the same one he’d seen that first night at the arcade when at the air hockey table. 

“Both are true.” Eddie continued to explain, a shit eating grin on his face. “You see, you were originally going to use me to get back at Chris, but then you saw me play guitar and instantly fell in love.”

“Damn, this sounds like the plot of a terrible movie.” you laughed. “So is this the part where I tell you that ‘It started out like that, but I swear it’s not like that anymore!’? Do I beg on my knees that my feelings for you are genuine, even though we’ve hung out a grand total of two-and-a-half times?”

Five times, but who’s counting? 

“What’s the half-time?” Eddie asked. 

“You ditched me at the arcade after I said I’d be right back.” you stated matter-of-factly. “I’m hoping it’s not a pattern where you start dropping off the face of the earth just when things start getting good.”

“Between you and me,” Eddie leaned in closer. “I thought Dustin was trying to set me up with Steve. Not you.” 

Cue more laughter from you as you threw your head back. “Are you kidding me?! Dustin makes me and Steve show up to an arcade and tries to force a meeting with you- and you thought you were supposed to be dating Steve?!” 

“Not dating!” Eddie clarified quickly. “You see, Steve and I only have one thing in common and that’s Dustin Henderson. Kid practically worships Steve. I thought he was trying to get us to be friends or something.”

“Oh my god, you thought Dustin was trying to hook his two dads up!” Your cootie catcher was now crumpled up in your hands, stained with tears from your laughing. “I’m a homewrecker!” 

Yeah, this really wasn’t going the way Eddie had expected it. 

“Shit, Eddie, I’m sorry.” you said, your laughter calming down into giggles instead. “Have I been reading this whole thing wrong? I mean, if you have more of an interest in Steve I could probably set that up. He’s only ever shown interest in girls but you have long hair and are pretty enough-”

“No.” Eddie said. “I don’t have an interest in Steve- you think I’m pretty?” How were you able to throw him off so easily? He could tell that if you had been able to join Hellfire you would have been a menace at his table.

“Extremely.” you said, your voice more sincere now. 

The two of you just stared at each other for a while and Eddie felt that same twisty feeling in his gut again. You thought he was pretty. That was good, right? Did you like pretty boys? You were pretty- he liked that a lot. 

“I...” Eddie started and then dug deep inside himself to find the words he wanted to use. “Prettier than Steve?” Those were not the words he wanted to say, but he said them anyway. 

“Steve is conventionally attractive but, as I said before, not my type.” you said. “I like guys with long hair anyway.”

Eddie really couldn’t tell if he was nailing this or blowing it. “So, what is your type?” 

“I’ll tell you mind if you tell me yours.” you countered. 

Had Eddie ever really thought about what his type was? Yeah, he’d had ill-advised crushes and had been attracted to various women in comics and tv but did he have a type? He tried to connect all the girls in his mind that he’d been with, trying to find a pattern. 

Someone who actually pays attention to me. That’s pretty sad, Eddie. He came to the conclusion. Yeah, aside from his disastrous kiss with Ronnie five years ago, every girl he’d been with had been the one to show interest first, and you were no exception. But had he actually had feelings for the others? Not really. Attraction? Yeah. Feelings? Well, with Paige he had been far too busy dealing with Corroded Coffin, his dad, and school to really decide what he felt for Paige. Any other small flings had been dead on arrival.

So why did he keep wanting to spend time with you?

“Don’t go spreading this around,” Eddie started. “But if I had to pick a type, it’d be She-Hulk.” 

“She-Hulk?” you mulled that over in your mind. “So tall, green, and angry?” 

“Strong-willed, and funny as shit.” Eddie corrected. 

“And green.”

“And green.” 

“If I had known that earlier I would have picked Kermit the Frog as my Halloween costume this year.” you teased. “I don’t have a character off the top of my head, but I like people who feel.. Real.”

Real. The word that Paige and him had used over and over in those two months. 

“What’s real to you?” 

“Not high school.” you said. “Someone who’s not afraid to exist and be themselves. I’m most attracted to anyone who can let go of their desperate ego and just have fun. High school was boring because everyone was so wrapped up in their own bs of looking cool that they didn’t do anything that they actually wanted to do. Shit, even I fell into that.”

Eddie didn’t want to ask if he was real to you. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for an answer. There were lots of times he wished that he wasn’t still in school, but this time really hit harder. He was starting to really like you, and yeah part of him was terrified of that. 

The two of you finished off the last of your food and Eddie shoved all the leftover trash into the brown bag and tossed it in the back so you wouldn’t be stepping on it. 

“I don’t know much about real anymore, but I think you’re pretty badass.” Eddie finally said. “I mean, you brought a wire hanger and a fake parrot to school for a costume. That’s pretty brave, even if your friends did talk you out of it.”

“I’m more mad that the parrot was stolen and used to annoy me than the lack of costume.” you said with a small laugh. “They weren’t even funny. They just kept repeating what I said. It was easier to just shut up at that point.” 

“Didn’t think to make them say anything embarrassing?” 

“Oh, I tried. But, jocks don’t know the art of a good ‘Duck Season, Rabbit Season’ gag. Anything embarrassing I said they’d just turn it around. I’d say ‘I pissed myself in gym.’ they’d reply with ‘you pissed yourself in gym’. No love for comedy.” You took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “If you’re going to be a bully, at least give me a good story to tell later, you know?”

“I once got slammed against a locker by a jock who called me ‘a myriad freak.” Eddie said. “To this day, I still don’t know what he was trying to mean by that.”

“See? At least that’s funny.” you said, and then. “Holy shit, we’ve gotten off topic.” 

“There was a topic?” Eddie leaned back on the seat again. 

“Yes, an important one that I was very interested in before we started talking about bullies and high school and She-Hulk.” you nodded. 

Talking to you was so easy that he hadn’t realized how many topics the two of you had blown through in a short amount of time. He looked at his watch real quick and realized it was creeping towards 11 pm now. Had the two of you really been talking that long?

“What topic was it?” 

“You flirting with me.” you said, your lips pulling back in a cheshire grin. “I’m pretty sure you were at least, before I became a homewrecker between you and Steve. Normally I’d hate to break up a happy family, but I might have to make an exception this one time.”

“Was I flirting?” Eddie tilted his head with his own grin. “I’m pretty sure I was just telling you that I thought Dustin was trying to make me be friends with Steve. If I had known that the shrimp was trying to introduce me to a cute girl-” He would have shot it down and canceled Side Quest Day- “I wouldn’t have left the way I did.”

“You think I’m cute?” 

“Extremely.” 

You nodded. “Alright, then it’s a good thing that we’re going on a date. I’m glad to know that I’m not coming between you and Steve.”

It was just past midnight when Eddie dropped you off at your apartment that night. This time when you leaned over the center console towards him, he didn’t freeze up or panic. Eddie let you hug him and he hugged you back, his cheeks growing hot momentarily when he felt your lips press against his cheek and he was able to breathe in your scent. 

“See you later, Eddie. Oh, and for the movie- I highly recommend dressing up.” you looked him up and down. “Actually, just wear what you’d normally wear. I think you’ll fit right in.” 

Eddie made a mental note to ask Rick later on what he was supposed to wear for this. 

“I’ll call you.” he said. “I promise. I mean it this time.”

“Not if I call you first, I have your number now. And worst case scenario, I know where you play.” you responded. “See you Tuesday, Eddie.” 

And with that you were gone again, leaving Eddie alone in the van feeling much better than the last time he had given you a ride. There were still questions he had. He still wanted to know why exactly everyone was wanting the two of them to meet again, and why you always so readily agreed to meet up with him. But those were questions for another day. 

“You had a missed call.” Wayne said as Eddie made his way into the trailer. “Didn’t leave a name or number. Said she’d call you back.”  

Eddie laughed and shook his head, guess you meant it when you said you’d call first. 

“Don’t stay up too late watching tv.” Eddie said before heading towards his bedroom. He once again found himself falling asleep with his copy of The Hobbit, the origami flower tucked safely in the back. 

Next Chapter

Ending note: This fic takes place during October 1985. Stephen King’s It did not come out until September 1986. I would like to ask you all politely to suspend your disbelief for the historical inaccuracy of a piece of dialogue that probably didn’t add much to the plot. If this horrible inaccuracy bothers you, please repeat to yourself “it’s just a fic, I should really just relax” which is what most of us should be doing anyway.

Dividers by: @strangergraphics

Tag List: @k8loo @terrormonster55 @sp1dyb0y1008 @crocwork-clockodile @ali-r3n @mxcheese @josephquinnschesthair @gagasbee @peaches-roses-sins @witchwolflea @vintagehellfire @royale1803 @cumslutforaemond @prestinalove @browneyedgirl320 @perpetualmess @thebook-hobbit @mistonk @cultish-corner @grishaversecaptivated @sortagaysortahigh @halialex1119 @bakugouswhOr3 @siriuslysmoking @pookiesnatcher @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @takemetoneverlandbabe @killjoynotes @maelibo

[mind-lost-in-the-stars]

Incorrect Quotes! incorrect quotes!!

———

Ruth: Where's Steph?

Richie: Don't worry, I'll find them.

Richie, shouting: Pete sucks!

Steph, distantly: Pete is the best person ever! Fuck you!

Richie: Found them.

———

Max: I don’t have anything against you, but I can make up lots of reasons to attack you!!

———

Max: *shoves their hand in the slot of a toaster*

Pete: …

Max: …I get confused sometimes.

Pete: Me too.

———

Pete: I am going to need you to swear-

Steph: Fuck.

Pete:

Pete: ...swear as in promise.

———

Richie: Get on my level!

Grace: Unfortunately, to "get on your level" I'd need a boat trip to the Mariana Trench and a pair of cinderblock shoes.

———

Max: Wait you like me? For my personality?

Richie: I know, I was surprised too.

———

Steph: Wasn't icarly that guy that girlbossed too close to the sun because he was down for Apollo?

Richie: ICARUS?

———

Pete: So, Grace is no longer allowed to take the trash out at night.

Steph: Why?

Pete: Because I've caught them trying to train raccoons to fight five times in a row.

Grace, arms crossed and pouting: You'll be thanking me when the third raccoon battalion saves your ass.

———

Steph: It doesn’t have a bone.

Max: Then why is it called a boner?

———

Pete: Can you come out?

Richie: Yeah gimme a minute…

Richie: Pete, I’m gay.

Pete: I know that. Come out to the car.

Richie: Okay.

Richie: Car, I’m gay.

———

Grace: Good morning. As you begin your day, remember that violence is always an option and often the answer.

Steph:

Grace:

Steph: ...Please, go back to bed.

———

Pete: When I first met you, I thought you were weird and annoying.

Ruth: And?

Pete: And you are.

———

Grace: They don’t make them like me no more. I’m the last of my kind.

Ruth: Thank god.

———

Max: I am so horny and angry all the time.

———

Grace: I am so horny and angry all the time.

———

Max: So anyways have y'all seen Pete?

Richie: I think they went in Steph's room 'studying'.

Grace: Doubt that. I heard groans there.

*Meanwhile in Steph's room*

Pete and Steph, fighting:

———

Grace: I feel like doing something stupid.

Ruth: I’m stupid, do me.

———

*At a speed dating event*

Richie: Oh wow, people are really shallow.

Grace: Consider it a background check. For example: Do you have a death certificate?

Richie: *Checks their pulse* Sorry, not yet.

Grace: Good, I'm not fucking a ghost again.

———

Pete: Make her pussy wet not her eyes.

Steph: Make his dick hard not his life.

Max: Break her bed not her heart.

Ruth: Play with her boobs not her feelings.

Richie: Get on his dick not his nerves.

Grace: Always salt your pasta while boiling it.

———

I’ll prolly do some TGWDLM and Black Friday soon, but I gotta sleep now lol

[kolyasangel]

NEW BEGINNINGS

synopsis: the new apartment complex you just moved into doesn't feel like home just yet, but you're hopeful you can make friends with your next-door neighbor.

content: ch. 1 of icarus falls - main navi / wc: 4.2k

A thud is heard when you drop a box on your foot.

You groan and stoop to pick the box back up. Thankfully, it wasn't that heavy, so your foot is alright. You should be at work right now, but you're thankful your boss knew you've been busy moving and had been kind enough to grant you a day off to settle into your new apartment. It's actually been a few days since you officially moved in, but you're still hauling items from your old uni dorm, plus your parents' house, which was a lot more difficult than expected.

You recently moved into this apartment complex with the hard-earned money you saved up. Although it was far from beautiful, it wasn't awful at all either by any means. But you do hope that one day, you can afford a house of your own. Daydreams often come to you about having a place you could call a home of your own, maybe even a cozy cottage surrounded by lush greenery and lots of vibrant blossoms. That sounds nice, right? The thought of a tranquil and secluded place is undeniably appealing, you have to admit. With your current job, affording something nicer than this seems like a distant dream, but you make it work since you're grateful for what you have now. Something is better than nothing.

Even though many people live in the complex, you feel like an odd one out in this building, as most of the residents are considerably older than you. Despite this, you've made it a goal of yours to become acquainted with some of your neighbors who live on the same floor. Sometimes when you're walking past them, you'll wave or exchange greetings, and perhaps even strike up a conversation when the opportunity arises. But there's still someone you've yet to meet.

Your thoughts are interrupted by your landlord, who has just finished inspecting the apartment to ensure everything is in order and that there are no issues with the place. Judging by his appearance, he seems visibly older, probably in his forties.

"Everything looks great, miss. The place is in pristine condition, just like new." He says with a chuckle.

"Thank you." you smiled at him and listened as he continued to speak.

"If you need anything or encounter an issue, I'm always available." he flashes one more kind smile before turning to the stairs and heading to leave.

Just as he was about to take the first step, you summon the courage to speak up. "Uh, sir, excuse me..?"

He turns to look at you, his actions halting when he hears your voice.

"Does someone live here?" You ask, pointing at the door to the right of yours.

He glances in the direction you are looking in. "Huh? Yeah, the guy's pretty depressed though. Probably not a good idea to talk to him." He laughs, finding his own comment humorous, although it doesn't sit well with you as you don't find what he said at all to be funny. Despite this, you try to downplay your reaction, concealing your displeasure at his words.

"Do you know his name?" you press further, your curiosity now piqued.

"Uh— Niko.. Nikolai, I believe. Yeah, that's the one." he rubs his chin as if he's thinking hard about the question.

"Nikolai.." You pronounce softly, the name rolling off your tongue easily.

"Well, if that's all, I'll be off then."

You nod and thank him again and watch as he walks off, disappearing from your sight.

You weren't sure of what he meant by what he said, but it left you with a sense of uneasiness. Maybe you should just stop worrying, it's none of your business anyway. At least that's what you tried to convince yourself to believe in an attempt to silence the nagging worry at the back of your mind. Just leave it alone.

A frown fell on your lips when you thought of his words again, causing you to bite the inside of your cheek as you recalled the distasteful words. Even if it was meant to be a joke, it was a poor one at that. No one deserves to be talked about in that way.

Interest in the person who lives next to you is only heightened, which compels your next action— Knock. Knock. Knock.

"Hello?" you call out to whoever might be inside, your knuckles still against the wood.

No answer.

Maybe you shouldn't bother.

You sigh and withdraw your hand, pulling away from the door and looking back at the ground. The few remaining boxes left outside your door were practically calling for your name, awaiting unpacking. However, you couldn't concentrate on unpacking anymore, thanks to the new information you'd just been informed of that completely derailed you. With some reluctance, you decided that you were going to attempt to delve into the task again, leaning down to pick up a box.

But that all quickly went out the window when your gaze was again drawn to the quiet apartment adjacent to yours. You don't know who or what possessed you to make the next move, because you found yourself standing up again and reaching for the handle of the neighboring door.

"What do you think you're doing?" A stern voice interrupts your actions, catching you off guard.

The suddenness and the daunting tone instilled a feeling of dread in you, the situation diverting into something you didn't expect. It causes you to retract your hand quicker than lightning, fearful of catching a glimpse of the person's face, probably angry with you. But in a fleeting second, your head turns anyway, and your gaze meets his. A cold shiver immediately runs down your spine when piercing, mismatched eyes peer back into yours. You observe his worn-out appearance and the grocery bags he's holding in his hands, his long white hair tied into a braid, and the unnerving scar running down his left eye.  

"Watch where you're going." He says rather coldly before jingling his keys into the lock.

"I-I'm sorry.." You move away from the door and let him enter his apartment, leaving you standing there, feeling apologetic. "Um, I—!" You step back with a look of shock on your face as he slams the door.

Maybe he's just in a bad mood. No, he has every right to be mad at you— it literally looked like you were about to break into his fucking apartment. Great, this was the impression you left on the person who lives next door to you? Fantastic.

You realized it was by your own fault that provoked such a reaction from him, but recalling what you had just been told about Nikolai, all you were left with was a lingering sense of concern and curiosity.

— ✦

It's nearing afternoon, and you are getting ready for work. Since your job requires some moving around, you like to wear something simple and would rather be comfortable than anything while also considering practicality. But you still did like to make yourself all pretty, doing your makeup and hair being a simple but enjoyable part of your routine and overall day. Although, the heat of the summer has led you to opt for lighter, more refreshing makeup these days. After finishing up, you grab your belongings— car keys, wallet, lip balm, and put them in your bag, prepared to head out for the day.

On your way out the door, you see your neighbor standing on the balcony, his arms resting on the railing and his eyes focused on the view in front of him. He seems to be lost in thought.

"Good morning, Nikolai." You greet him politely.

Startled by the sudden voice, he turns his head toward you. "How do you know my name?" he asked with a hint of wariness laced in his voice.

"O-Oh um, the landlord told me. I promise I'm not a stalker.." You laugh it off, but he doesn't seem fazed.

"That's what a stalker would say." He says in a low tone, jokingly.

"What?"

"Nothing."

You look down at your feet, hoping he will break the ice as you are starting to feel uncomfortable in the silence that continues to prolong.

"Do you need something from me?" he eventually asks, noticing you aren't moving from your place.

Your ears perk up when his words register in your head. "I wanted to apologize for yesterday.. I know it looked like I was doing something bad but I promise that wasn't what I intended! I-I moved in recently and I just—"

He walks past you and reaches for the door to return inside his apartment, disinterested in what you have to say, having heard enough already.

"Wait!" You grab his arm in desperation. "I'm sorry for scaring you.."

"You..? Scary? Please." He looks at you with an unreadable expression before tugging his arm away from your weak grip. You're acting like you've already known each other for years. He has to wonder if you fake it, or if that must just be your personality. After all, he would know a thing or two about artificial personas.

"That's not what I meant.." you grumble, frustrated once again by his stubbornness.

"I'm nothing but a stranger to you, why are you trying to get close to me?" he shoots back.

"But, we don't have to be! I'm trying to make it so that's not our situation, I would like to know you a little better. You are my neighbor after all." You defend yourself.

Surprisingly, he lets out a chuckle, though it was seemingly a mocking one at that. "Do you do this with everyone you meet? There's a lot of dangerous people roaming around, you're going to get yourself into a very bad situation one day if you're not careful who you talk to, girl."

"But the fact that you said that makes me think you're not one of those people."

His eyes widen for a second before you continue to speak.

"Can I buy you a drink or something some time? As a proper apology?" You offer, hopefully, to elicit a positive response from him.

He was silent for a moment while staring at the door he wanted to so badly close on your face. "We'll see." He leaves it at that, undoubtedly not interested in drawing out the conversation.

"Really?" Your eyes light up at his words, leaving you with a spark of hope.

"Please, just leave me alone now."

That hope you felt for a short moment was quickly extinguished by his plea for solitude. You noticed the falter in his sentence contradicting his earlier coldness. Disheartened, you let go and step back in defeat, watching him return inside and close his apartment door.

There was something very wrong.

— ✦

"I like this one!" The cheerful voice of a customer rings in your ears.

"I'll get that one for you then, just a minute sir." You politely assure with a warm smile. You are arranging a bouquet for a customer who is planning to surprise his girlfriend, and he has just picked out the ribbon color to wrap around the flowers.

The soft pink of the ribbon perfectly complements the delicate pink tulips as you skillfully tie it into a flawless bow, taking a moment to admire your handiwork.

"Add in one of those white teddy bears too, I think she'll like that." the customer jovially adds.

You glance to your side, where an array of tiny gifts, such as small teddy bears and other stuffed animals, are displayed and available to add an extra touch of sweetness to someone's day. Choosing one of the teddies and placing it on the counter along with the bouquet, you ring the customer up at the cash register before handing over his new purchases.

The jingle of little bells on the door signals the departure of a pleased customer, a satisfied smile creeping up on your face as you watch the customer walk out of the shop. As stressful as your job could get sometimes, it was rewarding in the long run. Making people smile when they receive flowers is always the best part of your job. Moreover, it's a Friday today, so you also have a restful weekend to look forward to.

Your fingers tap on the counter as you stare at the clock, hoping your intense glare bullying the arms of the clock will impend them to move faster. The uncharacteristic impatience is unusual— because you actually like and enjoy your job. But there was something else on your mind today, plaguing your thoughts. Ever since Nikolai left you with a vague answer this morning regarding your potential hangout with him, it lingered in your mind, stirring a need for reassurance. You needed more confirmation from him, and perhaps, if luck was on your side, he would agree.

You don't know why you're so persistent in your endeavors. Maybe because you just want to make new friends, and Nikolai's dismissive behavior made you only feel more determined to bridge the gap between the both of you.

Post-college life has felt uneventful thus far, to say the least. Following uni, your friends moved away to further their education and achieve their dreams, off to different cities, countries even. Things have been quiet after graduation, and making new friends proved challenging. And amidst all this, you felt an undeniable sense of loneliness gnawing at you. It's only natural for humans to yearn for a connection, but you feel that the longing weighs heavy on you, especially nowadays. It all appeared too out of reach, too elusive to even hope upon. But, now that you had a chance to make a new friend, you weren't going to let the opportunity slip away from your fingers so easily. At first glance, Nikolai didn't seem much older than you either, so that was also a plus. Maybe the two of you would have some things in common if he was open to conversation, that was. His stubbornness, albeit making you feel a mixture of frustration, also fuels your determination to connect with him, feeling that there is more to him than what meets the eye.

Even now, you are working only with one other person on your shift. There were only ever a few people working in the shop, one of you handling arrangements and the front register while the other assisted and made deliveries on occasion. The tasks you needed to complete at work depended, based on what needed to be done on that day. Sometimes you engaged in conversation with your coworkers, but light chatter about the weather or what you ate for lunch was as far as your interactions went, evolving into nothing more than small talk.

As closing time neared, you began to close up shop, your movements more hasty than usual. You were eager to clock out and head to your favorite cafe down the road, which had become a post-work ritual for you. Locking the shop door with your key and hearing a satisfying click before exchanging goodbyes with your coworker, you look up at the sky, noticing that the sun is going to set soon. You pull out your phone and check the time— 7:13 p.m.

With anticipation, you walk a few blocks down until making it to the cozy cafe you've come to adore. A familiar chime of bells greets you as you push the door open, a reminder of the same bells you added to the gift shop entrance after a visit to the cafe— not being able to resist replicating the charm.

Usually, you order something simple, but the allure of the new summer menu catches your eye. So you decide to try something new and treat yourself to an iced strawberry green tea. Although you had to admit, you only ordered it because you were enticed by the cute strawberry drawing on the chalkboard that advertised the seasonal drink.

You pull out your wallet, fingers idly grazing the edge of the card while you wait in line after placing your order. While you wait, you take a moment to take in the lovely ambiance of the cafe— the soft glow of twinkling lights overhead and the relaxing atmosphere of the place. However, your peaceful mood is eventually spoiled when your gaze shifts to the pairs of couples sitting at the tables and groups of friends sharing laughter, briefly stirring an all-too-familiar pang in your chest. Your mind gets lost in the bittersweet memories shared with old friends when you were still a student. You wonder if your friends stayed in the city if they would spend time with you like they used to, if they would still call or text you like they used to.

Now that it comes to mind, you don't ever recall a time when you weren't the one reaching out and asking your friends to hang out with you first. It didn't bother you before, possibly because you didn't notice at the time, but the give or take of communication always fell upon you. A certain discomfort permeated your senses as you sat with your thoughts for a bit longer, your nails scratching against the plastic of your card in a vain endeavor to quiet them. Not wanting to wallow in your own thoughts, you quickly shift your focus so that your gaze is fixated on the floor instead. That is until you hear your name called, deterring your eyes from the ground. You pay for your drink, settling up at the register before exchanging a thank you. The coldness of the iced drink brings a chill to your fingers as you touch the cup and bring it to your lips, the sweet flavor of strawberry settling on your tongue, leaving you satisfied with your choice.

Leaving the cafe and heading to your car, your mind wanders again, a flood of old memories washing over you as you reminisce about your days in uni. It was pointless now to think about what could've been different, what you could've done differently. You know that. But you can't help but do it anyway, the reason why things turned out the way they did being unfathomable to you. Once inside your car, you take a deep breath before putting on your seatbelt and starting the engine. The soft hum of the engine lulls you into a reflective state as you begin to drive home, the route you're still becoming familiar with soothing your mind.

— ✦

As you park and step out of your car, you look up at the apartment complex and notice someone standing on the balcony.

It's Nikolai, and he's looking out at the sky. The sun was beginning to set.

Walking up the stairs to your apartment on the second floor, you catch a glimpse of Nikolai as his back is turned to you. You approach him calmly and comfortably.

"Hi, Nikolai." you say with a soft smile.

He turns to you. "Hey." he says, low and plain.

You were expecting a harsh comment or look from him, but to your surprise, he has a gentler look on his face, his eyebrows relaxed. Maybe he's in a better mood now.

Nikolai observes your tired expression and realizes you must've just returned from work, particularly eyeing your simple outfit comprising of jeans and a short-sleeved top. Wherever you work, he doesn't care enough to ask.

As you join next to him on the balcony, your eyes fall upon the sun that is dipping below the horizon, casting a warm glow over its surroundings and painting the sky in fiery shades. Sunsets never fail to bring a sense of peace and calmness to your day, there was something about them that made you want to delve into the awe and beauty of nature. After not-so-great days, the sunset was a reminder that a better tomorrow would await you, always giving you the feeling that everything was going to be alright.

Nikolai must like watching the sunset too, you assume. You thought as much as you shifted your gaze towards him, his usual expression and features softened by the evening light. However, you notice how he looks distracted or rather that he's thinking hard about something. Hesitation pervaded your mind as words sat at the tip of your tongue, daring to spill. But you decide that you shouldn't ask him about whatever was on his mind, worrying he'll get irritated.

"You stand here a lot." You comment instead.

His tone shifts into a light-hearted one, putting your worries at ease. "What do you mean? You've only seen me twice. Don't tell me you actually are a stalker?" He joked, his gaze not moving from the view ahead.

Feeling relief from his playful response, though still slightly embarrassed by your previous statement, you redden, wishing you would've eaten your words rather than speaking them out loud. "Well, I mean.. you were here this morning.. and right now. I'm just making an observation." you replied, almost stumbling over your words.

He hummed, nonverbally agreeing with your words.

"But then, why haven't I seen you before yesterday?" You asked, curious.

"I was busy."

"With?"

"Gosh, you're so nosy, aren't you?"

"I-I'm sorry." You murmur as your voice gets fainter, looking back towards the fading sunlight in the sky.

Nikolai looked back at you for a moment when you looked away from him, taking heed of the pink tinge of glow that spread across your cheeks. He watches the wind wafting away strands of hair before cascading over your flushed cheeks again as both his and your hair billow from the gentle breeze, finding himself incapable of looking away after noticing how the setting sun poured pools of orange and yellow into your eyes, creating reflections that swam around in your irises.

Noticing his gaze is now fixated on you instead of the sun, you confusedly ask him, "Is something wrong?"  

For a moment, he seems to struggle to find the right words. His gaze averted from you swiftly, feigning indifference to pretend he wasn't doing anything. He had to look away before unwanted feelings rose in his chest. "No... I'm going, g'night." He hastily spoke before turning away, excusing himself.

"Wait!" you called after him, causing him to halt and look back at you, taken aback and visibly perplexed by your frantic voice. "About us hanging out, are you still down? I mean, you didn't really give me an answer last time.. so I wanted to check with you to make sure."

"Why did you want to in the first place again?" He asked, running a hand through his hair before stuffing his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, looking at you confusedly.

"As my apology to you, remember?" You explain, your voice growing quieter with sheepishness, replacing your previous tone. "And.. and I think it would be a nice opportunity to get to know each other and maybe become friends."

The reason is unknown to you, but the way Nikolai tenses up at your words is discernible, though he quickly composes himself before replying to you. "You're still thinking about that? Listen, I don't care about what happened yesterday. What's done is done, you don't need to do anything for me."

"But I want to." You insisted, looking at him with pleading eyes.

Gosh, you wouldn't give it up, would you?

Nikolai sighed involuntarily, taking some time to gather his thoughts before he carelessly spews out something unnecessarily mean at you. It's dangerous to get too close to anyone. Ever since what happened, since he died, he pledged to himself that he would never get close to anyone again. He cringed whenever he thought about how he committed all those atrocities and conducted a whole prison break years ago— all in the name of what? Freedom? What freedom? There is no true freedom. At least not here. He had to learn that the hard way. He'd become too overconfident and didn't realize it wasn't as easy as he had initially thought, and now he's stuck in this strange space in life where he doesn't know what to do with himself anymore. And yet, despite the chaos occurring in his head, clouding his mind, he knew he had to give you an answer. He figured that if he said yes to you this one time, maybe, just maybe, you would leave him alone after that. That's the only reason why you're doing this, right? You just want to show him you're sorry for your stupid mishap, and that's all. He didn't have any big plans for tomorrow anyway, and it was about time he actually did something else for once rather than his usual routine.

"As long as you don't constantly interrogate me." He eventually settles.

You held out your pinky to him, causing him to look at you with bewilderment at your childish display. "I promise I won't berate you with questions." you pledged, softly giggling.

And for the first time, you swear a genuine smile graces his face. He takes one hand out of his pocket and holds out his pinky, linking it with yours.

Maybe things will get better.

© kolyasangel 2024 - no reposts. do not copy, steal, or translate. reblogs are appreciated.

[ashprompts]

𝐆𝐀𝐌𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐒

a collection of sentence starters from dropout tv's game changer. feel free to alter pronouns/text as you see fit

“I’ve been here THE WHOLE TIME”

“It’s hard to hold this much anger in my body.” 

“If you never hear from me again, you know what to do!.”

“If they don’t find me it’s because I was chopped up and fed to the pigs!”

“I SOLVED YOUR LABYRINTH, PUZZLEMASTER. THE MINOTAUR’S ESCAPED, AND YOU’RE GONNA GET THE HORNS, BUDDY”

“I. CANNOT. WIN!!!!”

“A lot of people have been saying that ___ is a singularly evil, wildly incompetent, befuddled nepo baby silver spoon motherfucker. This is what people are saying.” 

“If you can do ONE swing on the swing I will let you play with all the math puzzles that you want” 

“You’re not getting a FUCKING JOKE OUT OF ME until you let me out of this room! You want bits?! You let me out of this room for bits, motherfucker!”

“Are we gonna die before we get outta here?” 

“I’m gonna lose so fucking hard it’s gonna blow your fucking mind”

“But in this sick rodeo, this bizarre fucked up clown festival, we’re here celebrating what I can only describe as the sickness at the core of America.” 

“Give me the assignment and I don’t miss. I’m gonna DIE before this is over.”

“Your tower’s gonna fall. Laugh it up now.” 

“A river of sweat is running down my back right now.”

“I do hate zombies and I will have nightmares about this tonight. But in this moment I just feel like I’m surrounded by friends.” 

“We don’t give a cum.”

“If you’re in a hole, DYING. I WON’T BE THERE.”

“I showed them my feet, [name]! I SHOWED THEM MY FEET FOR NOTHING?”

“Stop shaking your cock in the middle of a fucking huddle, dude!”

“I’d fuck that pie.”

“If you’re like me, you eat a lot of ass.”

“I hate capitalism but I also hate losing.”

“I get my tongue so far up somebody it’s like I’m tasting their tonsils. I get so deep in there I’m gonna burn myself with stomach acid.”

“I like perching like a little bisexual gargoyle”

“If you were performing on a subway I would take money away from you.”

“I’VE ONLY JUST BEGUN TO PULL THE THREAD ON THIS SWEATER.”

“Icarus flying too close to the sun, but it seems Daedalus our little mastercrafter over here had some WAX WINGS OF HIS OWN, didn’t he? Wanted to see his son fall, faaaalll from the sky, OH HOW CLOSE TO THE SUN HE FLEW”

“Hey can I get an ah? … Don’t scream at me.” 

“You kinda have the vibe that your kids call you by your first name.”

“The day I DON’T curse when a body falls from the sky, call somebody.”

“Could I place an order? I’m hungie. What do you think would be the best pizza to order if I’m quite hungie? Um, I like cheese, what is your largest pizza? Yeah let’s get an extra large because I’m hungie. I’m hungie, I’m hungie, I’m hungie.” 

“WE ARE NOT ANIMALS!!!”

“So long as I am on this stage and drawing breath, you can good and goddamn believe I’ll be trying my best in every challenge.”

“Was it bad that we just started smashing shit?” 

“You didn't count on INGENUITY did you motherfucker?!”

“FIGHT THE BOURGEOISIE. I WILL VENMO YOU $20.” 

“This could be hell. This is very Satre-esque.”

“YOU ARE NOT GOD. THE MACHINE IS GOD.”

“Can you tell us why you’d do this to us?”

“I won’t be made a fool”

“I do feel like I’m in a nightmare”

“I’m the only one OUT of the loop it seems”

“Everybody do the wenis! The wenis is a dance! Everybody is a genius! Who knows it in advance!” 

"DANCE IS A SIN!"

"You think I'm gonna fucking roll over?!"

"It'll be a COLD DAY IN HELL when I go out like a fucking chump!"

"I don't care about winning, I just don't wanna lose"

[max--phillips]

Okay here goes

First, the spoiler free stuff:

Ridley Scott knows how to make a fucking film.

If I don’t see fics of Acacius x reader x Lucilla I will begin biting

If you are going in it for Pedro, I will warn you his character is very important but kind of… idk, shallow is too strong of a word, but not very fleshed out. I don’t think that’s an issue in the greater scheme of the movie though, it makes sense in the plot and doesn’t feel out of place or bad in the universe.

If you are going in it for Paul Mescal, you will not be disappointed.

Please watch the first movie first. The story will not make any fucking sense if you don’t.

Just the right amount of flashbacks and footage from the first movie . Chefs kiss

Ridley Scott really said “all emperors and tyrants are nasty little freaks with terrible vibes”

Oh also if you’re squeamish about gore and stuff like. It’s a movie about gladiators so set your expectations accordingly. There is an instance of a disembodied head used as a prop. So y’know

Okay, spoilery stuff below the cut

Arishat was hot :( rip

Monkeys at the beginning? Terrible. 0/10 did not enjoy that. Also did not enjoy seeing and hearing Mr. Mescal BITING ONE

I love Ravi I would watch a whole movie just about him tending to gladiators’ wounds quite frankly. Give me that story

We love to see bisexuality on screen (even though that wasn’t a social identity at the time but we’re not here to talk about that) what with the concubines and drunk as fuck Macrinus

Speaking of drunk as fuck Macrinus: that whole scene was so fucking funny. They’re like that meme about people getting high. You know the one

Speaking of Macrinus—Denzel Washington stole the show. When TIME magazine pushed a story to me today headlined “Gladiator II Belongs to Denzel Washington,” I was like, pshhhh, nah. But it really does. It’s not about him? But it’s his fucking show.

The politics . THE POLITICS

It feels a little heavy handed right now but that wasn’t probably how it was intended, given it was made before. Y’know. The election. But the whole dream of Rome being a place where everyone is equal and cared for but you can only whisper it or it’ll shatter? Yeah.

Oh, right, Acacius: that dude is so tired he does NOT want to be there. Let him go home to his hot wife. Alas, his hot wife is the way she is and like… no good deed goes unpunished.

And I fucking called it with my text post a few months ago. Two (2) movies now where Denzel Washington (either directly or indirectly) kills Pedro Pascal. Brilliant

Admittedly selfishly I would’ve liked to see more of him. But it felt like the correct thing in the context of the story. If he didn’t die then, if he wasn’t the inciting event for the uprising of the people of Rome, it wouldn’t have made sense and it would’ve just been fan service and “look, we got Pedro Pascal!” at that point.

I would’ve liked to see a more in-depth exploration of the change in relationship between Lucius and Lucilla—it seems like they went from Lucius screaming at her to get out to them hugging it out without any real development between the two of them specifically. Obviously a lot had happened in the world of the movie at that point but nonetheless

Macrinus shooting Lucilla was his Icarus moment. There was no coming back from that. “But what about Geta” “but what about Caracalla” no. It was Lucilla. If she’d gotten got by the praetorian guards or something else, it would’ve been fine. But because it was Macrinus there was nowhere he could go from there other than [checks notes] getting his hand chopped off and then gutted in a dirty irrigation ditch.

Remember kids, the people in power who are causing all of the things going wrong in the world have names and addresses and are mortal <3

Also another takeaway from the movie: imperialism, religious extremism, ableism, and authoritarianism will be the end of us all <3

Anyway. Good movie. Can’t wait to watch it again in my own home with subtitles so I can actually like… process everything everyone was saying LMAO and take better reaction notes.

I’m still sitting in the theater parking lot it’s been like 30 minutes LMAO okay thanks for coming to my tedtalk or whatever

[of-a-darkness-untold]

The Devil Looks So Pretty When He´s You

My Secret Santa gift for @naughtygobbo, I really hope you like it 💕

Dabi x fem!reader

Navi.

Warnings: mdni can be read as (questinable) cnc or dub/noncon, praise and degradation, one slap against reader's thigh (light slaps against her pussy), he calls her names (e.g. slut and whore), barely any aftercare like honestly just like cuddling the reader after potentially traumatising her (but at least there's some aftercare ig), lots of crying (incl. a little bit of crying afterwards), dacryphilia (only during sex though), a bit of a toxic relationship this one

Notes: this is for @ectologia 's secret santa event. Thank you for letting me participate 💕

Wordcount: 1.5k

He was Lucifer incarnate. A heart burned in his chest with such ferocity that it could consume whole cities, and his face seemed an artist´s dream chiselled unto marble. Whoever had created him, must have looked unto Icarus´ graceful fall; a face full of sublime and captivating anguish; and thus, had made him the one you now call your love.

And yet, with all his beauty, and his pain and his adoration for you, he was so cruel.

His tongue on your heat made you gasp, and it felt so good you thought you were dying. Of course it felt good. No one but him could make you feel like you were transcended. But still, your lashes caught on tears, and you blinked them away, scared of what he would do if he noticed them. He'd love them, in the same twisted way that he loved you.

You bit your lower lip to suppress a sob threatening to break out. Did you really want this? There was a memory trying to break through your clouded mind, but when his fingers pressed inside you, it fled again.

Only slowly did they return: hazy images of you trying to fight his grip on you as he had pulled you to your shared bedroom. You were unsure, but you could swear you had cried out when he had pounced on you like a man starved.

Then again, did you really care when he looked so beautiful between your legs?

Finally, your back arched and your eyes squeezed shut as your orgasm rippled through your body. He hummed appreciatively against you core and the vibrations sent shots of unbearable pleasure through you.

"No, stop, s'too much," you mumbled, trying to push his head away.

“No, stop, s´too much,” Dabi mocked you. He slapped your thigh and you froze, but his grin only darkened. Your heart sped up, pounding so hard you had to press your hands against your chest to calm yourself.

"C´mon, you were so cute just now, baby, don't you fucking ruin this for me," he rasped.

"M'sorry."

"Naw, of course you are." He crawled up your body to pinch your cheeks mockingly. “My baby´s always fucking sorry, isn´t she?”

Your breath hitched at the sight above you. Even with how he was treating you now, he was beautiful to you. He forever would be. You couldn´t help but simply stare at him.

“Hey, you still here?” He tapped your face. "C´mon dollface, want you to be present when I fuck you."

You pouted and shook your head.

"I'm tired, Dabi."

He shrugged.

"I don't care. You'll take it like the good girl you are, hm?" he cooed condescendingly. Gently, he spread you lower lips to guide his cock against your twitching hole. At first, he only rubbed himself against your cunt, watching amused as you squirmed and whined at the sensation. Only when he had his fill did he start to press into you with a low groan.

"No, Dabi," you whined, eyes squeezing shut again at the sensation of his length stuffing you full.

"Fuck, just like that." He completely ignored your whines, pushing deeper and deeper until he had finally reached as deep as he could get. A satisfied rumble emanated from his chest.

Finally, he spared you a quick glance and he couldn´t help but chuckle at the pitiful sight in front of him.

"Ah, you're too good to me, baby," he told you, wolfishly grinning at the wince you let out once he rolled his hips against you.

He settled for slow and deep movements, just how he knew you liked - on other days, at least. Appreciative hums escaped his lips with every inward thrust, his head nearly lolling forward with how your walls gripped him just right.

He frowned when he saw how your eyebrows were furrowed and your eyes squeezed shut, little droplets running down from them.

"C'mon baby look at me," he murmured, gently brushing away some of your tears, "'s no fun fucking you if you're not really there." He kissed your wet cheeks - "s´it really that bad?" You bit your lips and nodded. "Can't really blame me though, can you? Can´t blame me for having my way with you, hm?" His fingers found your clit, stroking in tandem with his thrusts, "-you just look so fucking cute when you're helpless. You know that."

A moan escaped you and he couldn't help but speed up, his hips finding yours in rhythmic slaps that drove you closer and closer to your orgasm. Grunts left his lips every time he drove his cock into your heat.

Dabi only slowed down when your back arched and a cry left your lips. However, as cruel as he was, the break he granted you was brief at best. He thrived on your sweetest of agonies, aching to see you break - die - for him over and over again. Just á la petite mort.

He gently smacked your clit a few times and the torturous touch sent shivers down your spine. A broken sound somewhere between a sob and a moan left your lips and Dabi seemed to understand it as a sign that you enjoyed what he was doing.

 "You know, you're not supposed to like it," he said, tilting his head to the side. "Thought you didn´t want this, slut?"

He didn´t give you any time to reply or defend yourself. Instead, he crammed himself even deeper into you and began to move again. This time, he settled for a gruesome pace aiming to utterly break you. He all but rutted into you, hard and unforgiving, every stroke so deep you swore you felt him in your throat. You gasped, eyes wide as you could do nothing but take what he gave you, body jolting with every forceful buck of his hips. Dabi threw his head back and let out a long and guttural moan.

"Oh, fuck yeah. Just like that."

"No, Dabi," you cried, having finally found your voice again.

"Huh?" he looked down at you, eyes unfocused. Tears streamed down your face, but you could only feel him get harder at the sight. "You look so much prettier like this, you know," he murmured softly, and he leaned down to kiss you all over your face. All the while, his pace did not falter, he even seemed to have gotten more desperate.

Then, his thrusts became erratic. His brows were furrowed as he concentrated on driving his cock into you as deep and precisely as he could. He drew out choked gasps from you with every harsh snap of his hips, the sound giving him the push he needed. His head fell forward, his lips mouthing at your neck as he pounded into you - your hips creating heavy, wet slaps. He grunted with every thrust until, finally, he came with a low groan right against your ear. You sobbed when you felt him fill you with his hot cum.

For a moment, everything was calm. His weight lay heavy on you, sticky skin pressed tightly against sticky skin, and you moved, feeling uncomfortable.

"Fucking stay still," he rasped, delivering one last thrust to reprimand you. Your body tensed, yet you immediately forced yourself to relax underneath him. However, you couldn´t help your little trembles as a few tears still rolled down your cheek.

You laid there entangled for a few minutes until Dabi finally lifted himself up with a groan. He patted your cheek appreciatively, but halted his movement when he felt the wet on your cheeks.

"Wait, are you actually crying?" he murmured, frowning. You shook your head with a sniffle. "Aww, baby, c'mere. Can´t have my pretty baby crying, hm?" he cooed at you. Carefully, he pulled out of you, and you flinched when your entrance let him go with a wet pop.

He moved your body without a word, making you rest against his chest while he caressed you exposed skin.

“Was I really too hard on you, doll?”

A nod was all he got. He placed a hand on your head – heavy and comforting – and started humming to slowly nurse you to sleep.

He did not say a word – what would he even say? That he was sorry, when you felt so good around him? That he was sorry, when he knew you had felt good too? Never. – So, all he did was caress you and let you cuddle deeper into his embrace, because at the end of the day you knew him to be warm and safe. Not safe for you, but at least he would keep you safe from everything else.

Only when night had fallen completely and the air was still, did he speak again, lips pressed against your cheek.

"You're way too fucking good to me, you know that doll?" he whispered, comforted by your body resting peacefully on his. "But I´m gonna break you again when you wake up, okay?" He licked his lips in anticipation, "A pretty whore like you should be able to take it, right?"

[liedownquisition]

Jason Todd's timeline and "Age"

So, there's a lot of discussion of Jason Todd's age esp as relative to other sidekick vigilantes, particularly Tim and Mia. I believe the exact words are usually something about a "grown ass man beating up/trying to kill teenagers."

DISCLAIMER: This particular post is specifically regarding the "grown ass man vs teenagers" statement, I have posts regarding the "tried to kill them" portion and other stuff like "seriously Jason Todd is like being shot by a marshmallow gun compared to what goes on directly before and after him in these incidents, also you don't bitch about the right stuff, also a lot of you prop up characters who are Objectively Worse, and no that's not hate on your fave it's just me calling out hypocrisy". It just takes time to find digital copies of the panels I'm using. NOTE I AM NOT JUSTIFYING HIS ACTIONS. I'm just saying y'all blow it out of proportion for petty character hate. Like, shit, they're superheroes. Jason's soooo fuckin' tame. He's not even framed as a big deal to the teens it's only the adults that think it's that much of a problem.

Courtesy readmore post cut:

Now, to start off, we all know Jason died at 15 & a few months off from 16 (if you want me to dig up panels, sure, but I figured at this point that wasn't in question). Tim at this point is somewhere between 12-13, and we have this panel in Lonely Place of Dying which takes place a few months later:

So that's a ballpark of 2-3 years between Jason and Tim.

But Tim's age is really fucky and they keep de-aging him tbh. We can extrapolate that his confrontation with Jason was between the ages of 16-17 bcs it's after the arc where he has his incredibly shitty 16th birthday in Robin Vol2 #116 and before Red Robin where he's stated to be 17. This would put Jason between 18-19 at the time. (If you really want me to find panel sources for Tim's birthday and his age in RR then, sure, but I don't think they're necessary. I used it more as a guidepost for Jason's age, since we have a clear idea of what the age gap is.)

At least, on paper.

Mia for her part I've had a hard time finding like, on panel mentions of her age and if anyone can direct me to it being explicitly stated I'd love that. I'm rereading old comics but it's a LOT of comics to hunt down & dig through. To my understanding she was fifteen when Ollie first met her, and there's at Minimum of about a year and a half between that to her meeting Red Hood, more likely at least two? because there's at least few months between that and her joining the Titans, the Doctor Light stuff, then One Year Later, and then returned to Star some 3 months after Ollie came back to run for mayor? And then Jason not too long after. So, two years feels safe. Puts her at 17-ish, Jason at 19-20

Once again, I specify: on paper.

People would happily point out at this point that the upward stretch of a 4 year age gap is a "huge gap in maturity." And yeah, under normal circumstances, I'd agree.

But, and this is going to get contradictory bcs I found Two different timelines (BOTH written by Winick, lmao), and depending on how you read it it could be up to three different possibilities. Let's Start with Batman Annual #25: Daedalus & Icarus.

Timestamp before Jason's resurrection, which is pretty well known at this point:

Next, him waking up from a coma afterwards, when he escapes the hospital:

Now the above could be interpreted as either 1 year after he died if we're assuming that it's using the same "start" point to count as the resurrection (unlikely), or one year after he came back (more likely).

Next, the timestamp right before a guy recognizes him and sells him out:

And, finally, the timestamp before being put in the Pit:

That is, count it up, between 3-3 1/2 years where Jason was dead, in a coma, or otherwise not particularly... cognizant of the world around him. His ass is NOT developing emotionally, socially, or mentally like this, which pretty handily bridges the gaps there. Taken at face value, Jason's maturity level is going to be, unironically, younger than Tim's in the wake of these setbacks.

Now, if we go to Lost Days issue 1, it doesn't specify how long he was dead, nor how long he was in a coma, so we'll just carry those two over, what we DO have is this from just after Talia brought him home:

This puts him as being on the streets for five months, so we're at just shy of two years so far. And then we have this:

Which is right before Talia puts him in the Pit.

So, in summary: 6 months dead, 1 year coma, 5 months on the street, and something like 1-1 1/2 years with the League which...

Actually puts us on almost the exact same timeframe either way. 3 to 3 1/2 years. It just changes whether Jason was on the streets or with the League for longer.

And is utterly incomprehensible because comic timelines are a freaking nightmare.

If we're being generous, then that would put Jason at a minimum of 19, maybe toeing the line of 20 for UTRH, again, on paper, because like hell are you convincing me he did less than a year's worth of training abroad throughout Lost Days. Yeah maybe they trained him in fighting while he was catatonic, muscle memory and all that. But the other teachers that we KNOW of? The bombs, guns, probably something to get him up to date on handling all that tech we see him using, Egon, potentially arguably All-Caste if you want to draw from n52...

but you'd have to knock at least a year and a half off of his internal/personal development from death & coma, at minimum. Maybe you could argue he was somewhat developing while in his "the lights are on, but nobody's home" phase, you can't say it's at the same level as a normal person might when going about their day to day life, and it's difficult to measure. But he's not hitting the kind of milestones that he should be for his age. I wouldn't put him at anything less than two years behind. So if we use our upper estimates on Jason, and lower estimates on both the developmental setbacks and Tim/Mia's ages that gives us:

Jason toeing 20, mentally 18, fighting Tim at 16. 2 year gap, kind of stretching the physical age gap if we assume Tim had just barely turned 13 when he showed up to be Robin. - OR LESS

Jason maybe 21, mentally 19, fighting Mia at 17, two year age gap again. Honestly, still not that big of a difference - OR LESS

And, to be frank, that's not even counting the mental development issues that come from the intense physical trauma from dying - and I swear to fuck don't give me the "He's not the only one who died he's not special" speech.

HOW MANY OF THE OTHERS YOU'RE USING AS A GOTCHA LOST, *GESTURING AGGRESSIVELY ABOVE*, LITERALLY MULTIPLE YEARS OF THEIR LIFE.

Not counting adults, of course. Barry lost years, Hal lost years, Ollie I think also lost a couple years? but A) they came back still adults, bodies pretty much the same. B) While Jason's body didn't go through a magic growth spurt in canon, it did still grow esp while with the League.

I'll eventually get around to Titan's Tower & GA#72 (tbh, there are other people who've already done Titan's Tower and it'd probably be better than what I do, so I'm more going to focus on the latter, but there IS a specific part of the former that drives me nuts that I don't see brought up a lot), and maybe if we're feeling spicy all my issues with UTRH starting with how Winick is just as guilty of retroactively writing Jason as being inherently a bad penny since his Robin days as any of the other "modern" writers. Like, bud, Severe enough Head Trauma is legitimately enough to change someone's personality, not to mention trauma. It wouldn't hurt your narrative for that eerie difference, the Shade of What Once Was if you're really going for RH being Like that.

Final addition: I swear to god if you use my post to start up some kind of petty-ass ship war or flame other characters I will immediately turn off reblogs and replies I am Not Dealing With That Shit, please and thank you.

Anyways, @glitter-stained, your interest made me decide to actually put the work in now to pull it up rather than passively gather stuff to dump whenever discourse pushes me over the edge so, here ya are. Looks like you did have it closer on the mark than I did.

[forlornmelody]

Icarus & The Sun

Rating: Mature (Things get hot and heavy but no actual smut)

Fandom: Good Omens

Ship: Crowley/Aziraphale

Summary:  My take on the 1941 kiss, or is it?

Note: Mind the tags, will you? This ain't your mum's 1941 kiss.

-----

“There must be something I can do for you in return?” Surely the angel has realized by now how ridiculous he seems when he looks at Crowley like that. 

“Forget it, will you?” If Crowley were any other demon, he’d walk all over him. “Right.” Crowley clears his throat shifting the conversation and the Bentley to safer places. Aziraphale would be scandalized if he had any idea of what he was offering. “Spot of business to do–”

“Have you ever wondered what it was like?”

The Bentley jerks to a stop. A bomb nearly falls on them but Crowley whisks it out of existence with an automatic wave of his hand. He’s too focused on the white knuckles of his other hand to pay attention to much else. ‘Lot going on. That’s why he’s not hearing the angel right. Right? “What?”

Aziraphale giggles girlishly, only to swallow it with a cough. “I mean. They do it all the time. The humans, I mean.”

Bloody hell, Angel. “Do what?” Crowley dares to glance at the angel, praying-well, not praying exactly –that the shadow of his sunglasses hide where his gaze is pointing. No. Aziraphale’s not blushing. It’s the fiery glow of London’s streets. Yeah. That’s it. 

The angel nudges the Bentley into park. And then his fingers ghost across Crowley’s once free hand. “Touch each other.”

Aziraphale’s fingertips are as soft as the whisper of an owl’s feathers. They light a spark on the back of Crowley’s hand–one that travels up his spine and back down. He forgets to breathe. 

“You alright, Crowley?” Aziraphale starts to pull his hand away, before Crowley grabs onto it for dear life. 

“Don’t stop,” Crowley chokes out, squeezing Aziraphale’s fingers between his own. Dear Satan, if the other demons saw him now. 

His angel smiles as bright as the sun. He clears his throat, glancing down at the hand still clutched between Crowley’s and the demon lets go as if he had been holding onto a hot iron. “Thank you,” Aziraphale says with the softest chuckle. With a boldness that always catches Crowley by surprise, he grazes those finger tips across his hand again, but he goes farther this time, letting them fly up inside Crowley’s jacket, stilling as his palm finds his beating heart. The angel lets out a soft gasp, his finger tip matching the rhythm that hammers inside Crowley's chest. His lips stay parted, and Crowley’s tongue darts out of his mouth ever so slightly, as if he could taste the angel from here. “You’re so warm.”

“Sorry to disappoint you.” Crowley means it as a joke, but it comes out in a desperate rasp. Clearly no one who has touched a demon has ever actually said they were cold hearted. Has…has any other demon been touched like this? 

Aziraphale’s fingers brush the satin of Crowley’s shirt, and one finger grazes the space between two buttons, just barely touching his skin. Something inside Crowley snaps. He scoops up the angel’s hand, drawing it up to his lips to kiss. His eyes watch Aziraphale for a reaction, any reaction. The angel says nothing, though that blush– definitely a blush –spreads across his round cheeks. 

“Angel…” Crowley whispers, half-begging, half-warning.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale’s bright eyes search his own, his smile growing wider and wider…

The demon feels as if his body is being pulled through the center of the universe. With a trembling hand, Crowley dares to brush his fingers along the angel’s jaw. “Aziraphale,” he whispers.

Crowley isn’t sure who kisses who first—only that he would dare to never breathe again if that meant he could keep kissing him. Aziraphale presses deeper, drinking the demon in the same way he did his first goblet of wine—all haste and hunger, and Crowley can’t bear to tell him to slow down. That angel can’t decide on where to keep his hands, and so they wander from winding underneath Crowley's hat to grasp at his hair–to his shoulders, his back, his arms…Grinning against Crowley’s mouth, Aziraphale runs his fingers innocently…or perhaps not, to Crowley’s belt. 

Finally, Aziraphale pulls away from kissing Crowley, biting his swollen lip. Crowley didn’t even think about biting. Oh how he wants to now….”Is this alright?” The angel tugs on Crowley’s belt ever so slightly. Funny how Crowley hadn’t noticed how tight his pants had become. 

“Yes . ”  

Aziraphale’s fingers fumble as he works on the buckle, and Crowley is half-tempted to wrench his hands out of the way to speed things up but his knuckles feel oh so wonderful against his crotch–the belt gets tossed into the backseat. The angels fingers wander into Crowley’s pants–

Crowley’s eyes fly open. He sits up, shivering in his own sweat. Even the heat of his flat can’t match that of an angel’s touch. Bumping into his desk, Crowley remembers the day he watched the new archangel leave. How he waited for what felt like an eternity for Aziraphale to change his mind-to step out of that elevator with a laugh “Oh, Crowley, I didn’t mean it!” But that moment didn’t come. 

Does Aziraphale dream of him? Does he sleep? Does Aziraphale ever get the chance to sleep? 

Wandering into the atrium, Crowley gazes up at the sky. 

[rip-quizilla]

To Gareth, From Ronnie

A/N: This is based off the prompt for Day 3 of @corrodedcoffinfest- Day 3: Best Friends

Summary: Ronnie writes a letter to Gareth detailing the truth about being Eddie Munson's best friend. (Ronnie is a character from Flight of Icarus by Caitlin Schneiderhan, but you don't need to have read the novel to understand this piece!)

Word Count: 442

No content warnings other than strong language!

Divider credit to @steddiecameraroll-graphics

Gareth,

If you’re reading this, it means I’ve already left Hawkins. I told Jeff to put this in your mailbox for me since my flight leaves early in the morning; I wanted to make sure you know what you’re getting yourself into here.

It is not easy being Eddie Munson’s best friend.

Sometimes it feels like it is, I know- he can make you smile in an instant, he has a joke for literally every occasion. He never knows when to quit trying to make everything seem okay. He can talk his way out of anything, and no matter how long you’ve known him, his talent for getting himself into trouble then back out of it within moments never ceases to amaze. 

But here’s why I’m writing you this letter- the real secret about Eddie.

He is loyal to a fault. When you have his allegiance, it’s for life, and by that I mean he would probably give his life for his friends if he thought it was the right thing to do. You’ve seen it firsthand; how many times have you found yourself in deep shit, only for Eddie to save your ass? Who’s the one getting himself beat up time and time again just so you can have an opening to run away? It’s noble, yes, but it isn’t sustainable, kid. 

He can only get beat up for you so many times. I know it isn’t what you want to hear, but you need to stop being so fucking reckless. You don’t have to pick every fight you see an opportunity for, because from now on it isn’t just your ass on the line. Eddie’s going to put his there too, every damn time. Because that’s how he shows people he cares about them. 

It’s how I know he cares about you, because I’ve seen him get more black eyes with your name on them than anyone else’s. 

Eddie makes mistakes- big ones- but he always wants to do the right thing. Sometimes he’s going to think that the wrong thing is actually the right thing, so he needs…direction. Frequently. Hope you’ve got a strong moral compass. And a larger capacity for forgiveness than me. 

Between Hellfire Club, taking my place as drummer (good luck with that, by the way), and Eddie repeating senior year, you’re going to be around him a lot. He won’t say it out loud, but he’s going to need you. He’ll have the rest of the younger guys, I know that, but he needs a right-hand-man. I think you’re up to the challenge… but hey, maybe I’m wrong and you’re a total loser. 

Please prove me right, Gareth. For Eddie’s sake.

Ronnie

[ladykailitha]

Icarus Part 24

So, it pains me to say that there is only one more chapter after this. Yep. Just the one. But I have an epilogue all written up and a sequel partially written up. So you won't have dwell in sadness for long.

In this we have a wild Dustin appearing, Ellie be awesome, another asshole reporter shows up, and Gareth and Eddie finally have it out.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23

~

The Fallen were holed up in their trailer, Ellie showing off her fix for the hoods. She held up a small fan and battery pack.

“Since the hoods cover most of the neck,” she explained, “this will go on a collar that you can turn on and off, and even change the speed. This will help keep you cool so you don’t faint again.”

Spence took the fan from her. “That’s genius. How did you come up with that?”

“I convinced my dad to go as the Red Guardian with me to New York Comic Con a couple of years ago. I was dressed as Yelena from ‘Black Widow’ ,” she said with a grin. “But as you guys know leather is hot so we put a couple of these bad boys in the neck of the costume to keep him cool.”

“That’s amazing,” Shane breathed. “I mean the fans are neat, too, I guess.”

She giggled. “The blonde wig I wore wasn’t very fun, but the rest of it was.”

“Thanks, Ellie,” Steve said. “How long will it take you put them together for us?”

She cocked her head to the side. “About twenty minutes.”

They piled out of the trailer to find Dustin arguing with Eddie.

“I keep telling you,” Eddie huffed. “I don’t know who they are and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you! I don’t even know how you got past security in the first place.”

“I showed them pictures of us from your Instagram.”

Eddie pressed his fingers into his eye in frustration. “Dustin...” he said warningly. “You can’t do that.”

“I just did,” he said smugly, crossing his arms and grinning at him.

“You are such a butthead,” Steve groused. “How are you even here in the first place? Don’t you have school?”

Dustin shrugged. “You’re touring in California right now, it’s not that hard to drive up here for the weekend.”

“Dustin,” Steve said, pinching the side of his nose. “It’s Tuesday!”

He pulled out his phone and looked at the date. “Huh. Oops.” He put it away. “Well, I’m here now. No use crying over spilled milk.”

Eddie surged forward to strangle him, but Steve stopped him.

“Why are you here?” Steve asked sternly.

Dustin’s shoulders slumped. “All right, I was feeling a little lonely. Mike and Will graduated last year and they moved back to Hawkins to figure out where they want to go from there. And Lucas and Max are on the other side of the country. I missed you guys.”

Eddie and Steve shared a glance over his head and sighed.

“I know, bud,” Steve murmured, putting his arm around him, “but you’ve got school if you want to make it into MIT.”

Dustin sighed. He was a late bloomer, college wise, because it took a lot of convincing Mrs. Henderson to let him go. She was really worried about him on his own. It wasn’t until Steve moved out to California that she was willing to let him go.

“It was a dumb idea,” he admitted. “I just wanted to see you guys.”

Just then the trailer door opened and Ellie stepped out. Dustin’s jaw dropped. Eddie lifted his his chin with his finger.

“Oh hey, Steve,” she said, “I have the cooling collars for the band, can you make sure they get them before they go on tonight?” She held out the four devices and Steve took them.

“I sure will,” he replied. “Dustin this Ellie Hopper, she designed The Fallen’s costumes this year and her dad is head of security.”

Dustin reached out to shake her hand which she took with a small smile.

“Ellie,” Steve continued, “this Dustin Henderson. I used to watch him and his friends when they were snot-nosed kids.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Dustin said with his winning smile.

“Same.”

“I was just about to bug these two into lunch,” Dustin said. “Care to join us?”

Steve and Eddie glared at him.

“I’d love to!” Ellie said brightly.

And now Eddie and Steve were caught. They had to go now, because it’d be rude to turn down the person that made the costumes for The Fallen.

So they all went out to lunch, but they had to be back for the sound checks.

“I don’t know hwy you have to be there,” Dustin whined. “You’re only a medic, it’s not as though you’re a rockstar, too.”

“Because I’m the medic for the band,” Steve huffed. “If something goes wrong at the sound check I have to be there.”

“Can we watch the sound check together?” he asked hopefully.

“Why don’t you take Ellie around,” Eddie suggested. “She’s never been this far north in Cali.”

Ellie immediately agreed and Eddie and Steve breathed a sigh of relief.

As they were walking off, Eddie got a text message and he grinned, hurriedly typing back.

“You cheating on your lover over there, Munson,” Steve teased.

Eddie threw back his head and laughed. “It’s just Chrissy. You know, the lesbian?”

Steve grinned wolfishly as they got into the car that would take them back to the venue.

~

A week later Corroded Coffin were doing their own press conference when some reporter from a gossip rag dropped a bombshell.

“A question for Eddie Munson.”

“Shoot.”

“What do you say to the rumors that you have a secret lover on this tour?”

The room went dead silent except the clicking of camera shutters going off.

“Do you want to repeat that?” Jeff growled into his mic.

She repeated the question with a smug expression.

“I wasn’t aware there was one,” Eddie hedged. “And all questions about my sex life are off limits.”

“Are you worried that with your past exploits on previous tours that this man will be labeled as just another notch in your bedpost and you’re trying to protect him from that?” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him.

“You heard the man,” Brian hissed. “He doesn’t want to talk about his sex life.”

“What about the rumors that you are fucking the frontman to The Fallen?” she asked a little louder as the other reporters started shouting their own questions.

“Unless your sucking my dick, you don’t get to know about my sex life!” Eddie snapped. He stood up and walked out.

Chrissy walked up to the front of the room, putting herself between the other band members and the now pressing throng of reporters.

“This press conference is now over.”

The woman who had started it all, crossed her legs and smirked at the chaos all around her.

~

Steve watched the YouTube video of the press conference over and over. Those same forty-seven seconds over and over again.

Who was the leak? Who told? Was it just speculation because that’s how Eddie usually played it on tours? Or was it something more sinister?

He decided if nothing else, he should at least go check on Eddie to see how he was doing.

He walked up to the door of Eddie’s hotel suite, but the door was partially ajar.

“Oh I get it now,” Eddie was saying. “The call is coming from inside the house.”

“You’re blaming me?!” Gareth cried.

“Oh yeah,” Eddie hissed. “This has you written all over it.”

“I’m on your side!”

“You’ve always been jealous of Steve,” Eddie snapped, “and now that we’re a couple, you couldn’t take it and went to the press.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Gareth pleaded. “I know said some fucked up things last year. But I’ve been in therapy for that shit and I know it’s unhealthy. I don’t know who leaked it to the press, but it wasn’t me.” There was a brief pause. “Here, check my phone. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

There was silence for a long, tense moment so Steve took the liberty of the pause to knock on the door.

Chrissy went to go open it and saw Steve. With a single look she knew he’d overheard at least some their exchange. She winced and mouthed, ‘I’m sorry’.

“Come on in, Steve,” she said, opening the door wide enough to let him in. “Vickie’s on her way and will be here in about twenty minutes.”

Steve nodded and walked up to Eddie. “Hey,” he asked leaning down to look him in the eye, “are you okay?”

Eddie’s lips quivered as he nodded. He was still going through all of Gareth’s messages, DMs, and social media posts.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered to Gareth.

Gareth hugged him fiercely and Eddie hugged back. Soon they were both crying.

“I’m sorry I blamed Steve for everything wrong in the band,” Gareth murmured. “I was just scared he’d take you away from me.”

Steve snorted. “Dude, I would need a fucking crowbar to remove Eddie from you guys’ lives. He loves you like brothers. I’m not here to get in the way of that. Okay?”

“Yeah, man,” Brian said, “families grow and change, that doesn’t mean we don’t still love each other.”

Gareth nodded into Eddie’s neck.

“And I’m sorry I accused you without evidence,” he muttered back, “Uncle Wayne would kick my ass if he found out I did that.”

“I won’t tell,” Gareth said softly, “if you won’t.”

“Deal.”

They stood like that for awhile, just holding each other and muttering apologies.

Vickie came barreling into the room like a bull in a china shop.

“Fucking hell!” she growled and threw herself onto the sofa like a Victorian maiden. “That was such bullshit.”

They all turned to her, Chrissy closing the door tightly behind her to make sure no one in the hall could hear them.

“It was a completely unsubstantiated comment said off the cuff in the same vein as ‘I’ll kill you for that’,” she moaned, rolling over and putting her hand on her forehead.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Eddie said, “what was said?”

Vickie sat up drew her knees to her chest. “Someone overheard Steve teasing Eddie about cheating on his lover.”

Eddie and Steve looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Seriously?” Brian huffed. “That’s it? God. People must be hard up for news if that’s all it takes.”

“The reporter’s name was Heather Halloway,” she continued. “She works for the same gossip rag as the guy who brought up the spelling of Abbadon’s name in their press conference. His name was Billy Hargrove. He also has some conspiracy podcast he does that she’ll sometimes feature on. A regular Bonnie and Clyde.”

“So she was just trying to rile Eddie up to get a reaction?” Jeff asked.

Vickie nodded. “Which unfortunately worked.”

Eddie grimaced and scratched the back of his neck. “Sorry.”

“You’re only human,” Vickie said with a half shrug. “I’ll get out ahead of this and like with what happened with Steve, just call all your friends ‘lover’. Make it as uncomfortable for them as possible. Turn it around and throw it their faces.”

“In other words, ‘let Eddie be Eddie’?” Gareth asked.

Vickie grinned. “Perfect. Let Eddie be Eddie.”

Eddie blushed and shoved his hair in front of his face to hide his bashful smile. “Thanks, guys.”

“Now get out of here so I can cuddle with my boyfriend,” Steve huffed, making shooing motions with his hands.

Everyone laughed and they all shuffled out of the room.

Well all but Gareth. He held out his fist.

“We good?” he asked shyly.

Both Steve and Eddie fist bumped him.

“Not yet,” Eddie said softly. “But we’re getting there.”

Gareth smiled and slipped out of the room. A single step forward was better than a step back. They’d get there. They had the time now.

As soon as Gareth left, Eddie turned to Steve. “Cuddling, huh?”

Steve advanced on him like a tiger seeking his prey. “As I understand it, unless they’re sucking your dick they don’t get to know your sex life.”

Eddie’s tongue dragged slowly over his teeth, his drooping seductively. “I did say that, yeah.”

Steve started pushing him back to the bed. When they reached it, he pushed him on the bed and then began crawling up Eddie’s body.

“And since I’m the only one who gets to suck your dick,” he purred, “I wasn’t going to tell them shit.”

Eddie smirked. “You’re a bitch, Stevie. But you’re my bitch and I’m going to fuck you into this mattress.”

“Hmm,” Steve hummed. “Bring it on.”

~

Part 25

Tag List: CLOSED

1- @mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog

2- @gregre369 ​@a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence

3- @goodolefashionedloverboi @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @irregular-child @blondie1006

4- @yikes-a-bee @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten

5- @genderless-spoon @y4r3luv @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt

6- @disrespectedgoatman @eyehartart @dawners @thespaceantwhowrites @tinyplanet95

7- @iamthehybrid @croatoan-like-its-hot @papergrenade @cryptid-system @counting-dollars-counting-stars

8- @ravenfrog @w1ll0wtr33 @child-of-cthulhu @kultiras @dreamercec

9- @machete-inventory-manager @useless-nb-bisexual @stripey82 @dotdot-wierdlife @kal-ology

10- @sadisticaltarts @urkadop @chameleonhair @clockworkballerina @garden-of-gay

[sagaduwyrm]

Infinite Realms World-building

So I have a lot of thoughts over why their aren't that many ghosts in the Ghost Zone/Infinite Realms and how other afterlives fit into the situation so here.

The Infinite Realms aren't an afterlife. They're not a place any mortal soul is supposed to reach. They're the lining between afterlives, the wall holding them apart, the cradle holding all those places souls are meant to go. The Infinite Realms aren't anything, just a no man's worthless land.

The Infinite Realms weren't anything.

But. Picture this.

You are dead.You are dead you are dead you are deadyou aredeadyouaredead

It hurt. It was the worst thing you've ever felt, that moment when the bindings between your mortal body and your immortal soul were sundered beyond all recovery. You're disoriented and in pain and crying, weeping wails echoing across the metaphysical expanse.

But then a hand reaches out to you.

Hands, really.

They whisper in your ear. Come home, one says, offering gentle, glittering love. You've earned this, screams another like it’s a battle-cry. A dozen voices like hellfire and damnation offer atonement, if that's what you seek, although the punishment they offer varies. One voice that is not a voice but is the void offers the rest of non-existence, the creak of a wheel suggests reincarnation.

These gods and demons and spirits and entities want you, is the thing. Their grip is like chains around your ankles, dragging you down, and you have to choose, you hAVe To cHooSE, or It Will Be Chosen For You.

And this is what's supposed to happen, isn't it? The next step. Your eternal rest. Getting to pick is a greater mercy than a little mortal deserves, even.

But.

But…

You aren't a little mortal. You refuse to be.

You are the woman who revolutionized school lunches.

You are the greatest hunter in the world.

You are Romeo and Juliet, except they were a tragedy and you are not because you can bet your ass you went out laughing.

You are the world's next rock-star whose voice no one ever got to hear.

You are a man who loves boxes.

You are a clever wish-granter, the greatest magician in the world..

You are a Queen with people to protect.

You are the master of technology.

You are a boy who died too soon, too young, and hell, you should give up, but you never got to see the stars. You never got to see the stars, or what your sister looks like graduating from college, or how your friends look when they change the world. You'll never know if you'll be an uncle, if you'll have your dad's shoulders or your mom's wiry strength, what it feels like to kiss someone, whether or not Dash will ever get that stick his ass and become a decent person again. No one will ever read your paper on the genesis of stars, or fly to Pluto in a rocket ship you designed, or welcome you home after you've fulfilled your life's dream and gone to space.

It's a goddamn tragedy is what it is.

And dying hurt, so bad you're not sure if you'll ever be the same. But. All your chains are broken now. Your soul is free, in a way that it's never quite been before. You are a butterfly, broken free from your cocoon.

And they want to chain you.

They whisper so sweetly, so gently in your ear, even as they tear you apart in a child's game of tug-of-war. You have to choose.

Fuck that.

Fuck that. Dying hurts but it also freed all the potential of your beautiful, brilliant soul, and you aren't going back. Maybe you’re Icarus, flying too close to the sun, but you have wings now, and you won't let them be pinned.

You take the plunge. Through brimstone, through the river with its eternal ferry, through light and dark and a thousand different afterlives that want you like they have any damned right to your soul.

You fly, and you aren't sure if you're running forward or fleeing, but you fly. And it takes forever, a century and a day that lasts less than the beat of a heart, but then you burst free of all those grasping hands and you see green.

The green is infinite and it's empty. But it's free. It's beautiful and bright and you breathe it in, this base stuff of reality, this entropy in motion, and your soul comes to life. You aren't bound anymore, not by the base practicalities of your body, not by the laws and hunger of the gods, not by anything but your own willpower and trust in yourself.

Once the Infinite Realms were empty, once they were nothing. Now there are ghosts singing their exultant freedom. With them they bring ideas and movement and life, and the eddies they stir become whole new beings, spirits that never lived as anything other than what they are. These empty currents now hold whole worlds, ghosts and spirits and monsters.

And one day some strange being comes and tries to take your freedom and he calls himself Pariah Dark. Maybe he was a determined mortal just like you, maybe he was a demon, something sent by the gods to punish you for daring to be more, but it doesn't matter. Regardless of how hard he tries, how many lands his armies invade, how deep he digs his clawed hands in, it doesn't matter. 

No one can conquer Infinity.

And then the Ancients awake. Even in a realm of equals, there are still those who are more. And what is the point of power if you can't protect your fellows?

So they shut him away, this fool who doesn't care for the freedom the Infinite offers, put him in a sleep so deep even his dreams can't disturb others. And when he wakes up there is a boy, small and young, but with more determination in his body than most could dare claim, and the tyrant who steals freedom is sent straight back to sleep.

The Infinite Realms need no King, but this boy is small and clever and kind, and when two people war, he is the first to come and mediate, the first to shove himself between their fury and make them remember themselves. They don't need a King, but the Infinite Realms are so big, with so many people, and they wouldn't mind a Speaker. Someone to connect them all, regardless of how far they lay apart.

And this boy with stars in his eyes and gentle hands grumbles, but he loves the Infinite as much as they love him, and he's almost meant for this, existing between Ancient and New, Living and Dead. They would never chain him, but he was always meant to explore, and who wouldn't want to meet and see and know everything?

The Infinite Realms are green and free and beautiful, and no god can ever change that.