#and somebody does/says something so simply sweet and nice and I just | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sohnric · 1 year ago

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sweet like candy – e. sohn

pairing: eric sohn x fem! reader

genre: summer au, strangers to something more ?? fluff, suggestive. very much stargazing by the neighbourgood and fantasize by the boyz capsuled into a fic. eric is a simp and a hopeless romantic because i said so. a girl romanticizes sharing a lollipop (its me im girl)

warnings: alcohol, maybe some minimal swearing, a heated make out session that hints onto a hookup (no smut mentioned!). the use of a cheesy nickname babydoll (dont @ me or i will deactivate), reader has hair long enough for a claw clip

word count: 6.9k

a/n: almost cried while trying to name this fic somebody send help. Also this doesn't feel like my best work its kinda rushed imo but 🤠 yolo

part of the @deoboyznet summer on you event! cant believe i made it on time

a summer tradition of renting out a cabin every year invented by a couple of friends takes a turn for eric when a new addition to the circle brings him to his knees - in other words, he never knew tequila could taste so sweet.

If anyone ever asked Eric Sohn if he believed in love at first sight, he would, without a doubt, say yes.

What was the proof he had? Well, absolutely nothing. All he ever knew about love at first sight was from romance movies he watched during lonely nights with his roommate Juyeon, never having the experience of the whole world stopping and zooming in on one particular person, taking his breath away– but to put it simply, Eric Sohn is a true romantic. Call him cheesy if you want– he wouldn’t like it, but he also wouldn’t disagree.

On one summer afternoon, though, his world tilts in its axis– the moment comes, and he is finally able to test out his theory.

You walk out of the passenger’s side of a red 2008 Toyota Auris, hair put up into a claw clip, jean shorts showing off your long legs and a pearl white button-up opened and lazily thrown over your outfit, and suddenly, Eric Sohn finds his knees buckling and his palms sweating with affection. He was aware that Juyeon’s girlfriend was bringing her best friend to tag along to their little summer retreat (more like a trip to a cabin in the middle of the woods), but he sure as hell didn’t expect the stranger to make him feel this type of way.

Sure, it might just be him being incredibly attracted to you. But with how fast his heart was beating when you smiled at everyone after introducing yourself to the group, he was sure he was slowly, but surely falling for you. And he was falling hard.

He feels like the world is moving in slow motion as he watches the group go and unload the car– you and your best friend Yeri were the last ones to arrive– and what wakes him up from the haze is when he watches you struggle to carry a cooler out of the trunk into the cabin, his legs dragging him closer to the vehicle and near to your body.

Now is his time to shine. “Let me help!” he hurries out, sneakers crunching on the gravel. His hands firmly grab onto the handle of the blue cooler, muscles flexing under the weight (making him wonder why you would willingly want to carry the thing and not ask him or any of the guys for help in the first place), and when your eyes look up at come in contact with his, he presses a smile to his lips. “I’m Eric, by the way.”

“Ah,” you gasp, a grateful expression breezing over your features, “thanks. I’m Y/N, nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Eric hums, watching your every move. Your figure walks over to the front of the car, your head popping in close to the window to look inside, and when a satisfied look overtakes your features, Eric finds himself asking. “Is that everything?”

“Yeah,” you nod, “we can head inside, I think.”

The boy tries hard to keep his cool, he really does. But with how he’s trailing behind you like a lost puppy, attempting to find a topic that would engage him in a conversation with you, he feels like a boy that is just experiencing a crush for the first time in his life. Everything about you is enchanting– and sure, you could say he was just painfully attracted to you and this had nothing to do with love– but he was also convinced that if you asked him to jump off the Empire State Building, he would do it without giving it a second thought (which is kind of worrying, but again– it says a lot).

You open the door to the cabin for him, and he finds himself speechless at the action. Once your eyes meet again and you offer him another subtle smile, he finds himself gasping at the sentence that comes out of your mouth.

“Hey! We’re matching, kinda,” you note, pointing towards his outfit.

And you’re right– Eric didn’t even notice at first, too enchanted with your sheer existence– but you two were indeed wearing the same thing. Jean shorts, and a white button-up– in your case, thrown over a white tank top, in Eric’s, closed (although he did leave it a bit open at the top, revealing his tanned skin). Suddenly, the boy is glad he’s wearing a red cap to cover up his hair, since he foolishly thinks the hat provides him enough shade in the face to not reveal his burning cheeks as he utters out a weak response.

“It looks so much better on you, though.”

With that, he walks into the cabin– escaping the situation, not really paying a single thought to chivalry and letting you go through the door first– and as he reaches the crowd of people in the kitchen, he prays for all high sources to find him, get to him and wipe his brain clean of all thoughts, because

even though you are basically matching (and he does think you look so much better in the outfit than he does), all he can think about is just how much more he’d like your outfit if the white button-up enveloping your body was the one he’s wearing right now instead.

The next time Eric finds courage to talk to you is when it seems like you’re not finding it to talk to anyone else yourself– the big group is currently sitting around a fire, marshmallows and sausages slowly burning in the blazing flames– and while everyone around was either talking to each other or singing along to the songs Jacob was playing on the guitar, you were sitting alone in the middle of two commotions: Chanhee and Changmin arguing about something seemingly important, and Yeri and Juyeon making out right in front of everyone’s eyes.

And Eric was supposed to listen to Sunwoo talk about his latest heartbreak– how the man still gets no girls despite having such an objectively handsome face, Eric truly doesn’t know– but the topic of the conversation was too boring for him to engage with it. That, and he was also painfully aware of your every move– you didn’t even move much– and word– you weren’t talking to anybody– and that was slowly driving him insane.

You looked a little out of place. Eric supposes it was because you didn’t really know anyone here– except from your best friend and her awfully sappy boyfriend– but even though it was logical and a little expected for you to be a bit excluded in such a foreign circle, the man took it as his mission to make you feel as welcome and as included as he physically could.

Completely ignoring Sunwoo’s blabbering (like he was doing for the last few minutes anyway), Eric confidently (and a bit shakily– hands sweating and breath hitching in his throat) walks to the other side of the bonfire, from where he’s been watching your stone expression through the flames, and sits down in the small place between you and Changmin. Changmin wasn’t even facing you, too engrossed in the debate he was having with Chanhee, and so it was Eric’s job to wobble his bottom into the place, efficiently making the older boy move away with a light elbow jab sent into his lower back.

“Hi,” he clears his throat, “are you having fun?” he asks, but mentally curses at himself right as the question escapes his mouth– does she look like she's having fun? Of course she doesn't, you stupid idiot.

You smile at the question, though, nodding. “Yeah,” you hum, “having lots of fun listening to your friends argue and my friends making out next to my ear.”

“You seemed like it too, y’know,” Eric laughs, “they’re always like this, by the way. They’ll forget about the fight in the morning.”

“Oh, that could never be me,” you sigh, shaking your head at the sentiment.

“No?”

“No,” you shrug, “I get too petty. If we have a fight, I’m not speaking to you for at least two weeks.”

Eric finds himself laughing at your comment. “I’ll remember that for future reference.”

Straightening your back and looking at your companion– as if you were going to call him out on his subtle hint of there being any future meeting between the two of you– you suddenly gasp and swiftly turn towards the bonfire, an honest mourn escaping your lips.

“Oh fuck!” you curse under your breath as your hand reaches towards a stick that’s had its end in the flame, the device efficiently resting against a rock in a position where you didn’t have to pay any attention to the snack you were cooking– more like burning– for yourself. With a quick move for the stick, you pull the tip of it out of the scorching red of the bonfire and look at it in an examining way, as if the result would be different and the marshmallow would unburn itself if you stared at it long enough. “I completely forgot about this!”

Eric takes a glance at the burnt piece of fluff, letting out a laugh at the black marshmallow in front of your face. “That’s not how you make a good s’more,” he notes, poking fun at your annoyed face.

“Oh, no shit, Sherlock…” you mutter under your breath, but your face looks a bit sad to see the piece go to waste. “I don’t know why I even tried, I’m bad at this stuff.”

There comes his moment, Eric thinks. “Well, you’re lucky, ‘cause you just met an expert at making s’mores.”

“Does a thing like that even exist?” you chuckle, rolling your eyes at the male in disbelief.

“Of course it does! You’re looking at one now,” he grins, leaning over you to take a brand new marshmallow out of the bag to your right– sandwiched between your thigh and the couple in love– before he reaches over to your hand and takes the roasting stick out of your hand, slides the white fluffy cloud through the sharp tip and hovers it above the flame.

“The key is to hold it above the flame, and not in the flame,” Eric chuckles as he looks at you from the corner of his eye, watching your expression change.

“Oh, but I thought the key is to burn the thing,” you ironically gasp, shaking your head at his teasing. “Where did you even learn all of this?”

“I grew up in the States,” Eric hums, “they would deport me if I didn’t know how to make s’mores.”

The comment gets a giggle out of you– a sound Eric almost folds at and falls into the open fire (thankfully, he held his composure– he doesn’t think 3rd degree burns would suit his look) – and it takes everything in him to not scream like a teenage girl at the thought of making you laugh. Yes, that’s how down bad you managed to get the male.

“Do you have a special recipe?”

“Just the basic one,” he shrugs, turning the skewer in his hand to make the marshmallow equally glazed on each side, “I will make it extra good for you, though.”

“I thought a master always does their best?” you tease, watching as the boy crumbles under your gaze.

“Not always. I don’t like to put effort into things that aren’t worth it,” Eric hums as he takes the marshmallow out of the burning fire, examining it, and after deeming it worthy, taking the skewer and holding it up in between his knees. The male takes a graham cracker and tears it in half, before adding chocolate to one of the sides. After he’s done, he carefully places the golden fluff ball onto the cracker and closes it, offering the sweet sandwich to you with a subtle smile.

“For you,” he winks as he turns back towards the fire, putting another marshmallow onto the stick to make himself a s’more as well (and also mentally kicking himself at the sudden burst of courage). He hears you take a bite out of the snack, his knee bouncing up and down nervously as he awaits the verdict.

“Man,” you hum, “this is so good.”

“Told you,” he says, “if there’s something I’m confident in, it’s making s’mores.”

“That’s a very unuseful skill to have,” you note, but continue to eat. The comment has him chuckle and shrug.

“Well, I used it now, so I’d argue it’s actually very useful.”

A hum cuts out of your throat at this, finishing the s’more he made for you with a satisfied sigh. “Is this how you got girls back in the States?” you ask, making the male choke on his spit.

Eric was too young to get girls when he learned how to make the greatest s’mores. He went camping with his dad and his older sister and he burned a couple before he got it right. He was in middle school and before what the kids call a glow-up these days (back in the days, you just called it overcoming puberty), but still– he decides to test the waters with another lazy, half-assed flirty comment. “Only the pretty ones.”

He hears a chuckle out of you– a reaction he decides to not pay much attention to or overthink, for he doesn’t really remember what a good reaction to flirting is anymore– but then, you sigh and nod. “Well, I give your s’more a 5 star review, so I’d find that believable.”

The comment has Eric press his tongue into the inside of his cheek, battling a victorious smile that wants to oh so desperately appear on his lips. Turning his attention fully to you, he looks at you with confidence coating his insides– it only grows when he notices you staring at the side of his face, the flame of the fire twinkling in your eye and making your features sharper and twice as attractive to the poor boy.

His eyes scan you over for a few seconds before he notices a glimmer of something on the side of your lip– a chocolate stain that has him cautiously lean in and swipe a thumb over the sweetness, not even thinking twice before smoothing his finger over your skin.

“You had a little… something there,” he hums as he licks the chocolate off his thumb. Your eyes still trained on him force him to avert his gaze back to the fire– for it was unbearable, as if sparks were flying and burning his skin, everything about the interaction making goosebumps appear over his body; even though he felt hot in his cheeks and not at all cold– when the sight of his marshmallow in flames suddenly comes to him, startling him awake.

Hurriedly dragging out the burnt snack out of the fire, he hears you chuckle at him from the side– so much for not ruining the moment. (It’s okay, though. As long as you’re entertained.)

“I thought you were a master at s’mores,” you poke fun at him, “got distracted?”

Meeting eyes with you, Eric shrugs, a lazy grin settling to his lips. “I guess you could say that.”

The night progresses quickly– with Sunwoo getting so drunk he borrows Jacob’s guitar and clumsily strums the strings, freestyle rapping about the most random topics with flushed cheeks and eyes dramatically glued to the fire; Hyunjae wanting to have a competition of who can jump over the flames and Sangyeon having to stop his drunk friend with the force of his own body– and Eric finds his eyes lacking the candy he’s been occupying himself with the whole evening. You disappeared somewhere into the house a few minutes ago, and although he didn’t want to be clingy, he walked up to the cabin with a nervous pep in his step– that’s it, he just wanted to make sure you were okay.

Eric walks through the doorway, having his body immediately be met with the joined common room slash kitchen area. The cabin is kind of small (too small for the amount of people currently occupying it) and kind of old, but it’s a tradition to rent it every year during the summer, so no one ever questioned the decision or made the move to rent out a bigger one, no matter the growing friend group.

Your figure finally appears in the dimly lit kitchen area, your back turned to the doorway. Standing at the kitchen sink, it seems like you were doing the dishes– tons of plates used to carry grilled meat and sausages dumped carelessly into the sink, forgotten in a minute and leaving the last remains of food dry up on them and get hard to scrape off, a couple of glasses and mugs with their ears broken off from their age waiting with coffee stains at the bottom– and Eric immediately feels his heart fall down to his stomach, because why would one do the dishes in the middle of the night? Those usually get left there until the morning, when the least hungover person will take mercy on the rest and take care of them. Were you feeling excluded from the conversation? Did you feel bored?

“What are you doing here so alone?” he asks, making you turn your head over your shoulder and smile at him– a stone falling off his heart at the action– before you shrug at him.

“Washing the dishes,” you say, as if it wasn’t clear already.

“I see that,” Eric chuckles, “what I meant to say was, why are you washing the dishes in the first place?”

“Well, somebody’s gotta do it.”

Eric huffs– and he doesn’t even know why he’s so defensive about it. “That someone didn’t have to be you, y’know.”

He’s standing next to you now– your eyes meeting as you stare at the boy for a heartbeat– a smile spreading on your face at his furrowed brows. The action has him visibly relax, watching as you shrug and get back to the dish washing. “I just wanted some alone time for a bit,” you muse, “outside was getting too loud for a second, I’m not used to crowds.”

“Ah… once Sunwoo drinks, he can’t shut up, so I kinda get that it was starting to feel insufferable,” Eric notes, nodding at you in acknowledgement before the realization hits him. “Wait– you said you wanted to be alone, so I should probably-”

You halt him with a soft laugh– the one Eric finds his heart liking a little too much, with how it jumps up and down and makes all of him feel warm inside– a soapy hand reaching out in his direction. “It’s okay, you can stay,” you muse, “I enjoy your company.”

“O-okay,” Eric stutters– so much for the smooth lines he had prepared in his head before coming in here, all of them flying out of his head straight out of the window– and to not seem so silly, he gets his hands occupied and reaches for the clean dishes you started stacking on the counter next to the sink, deciding to dry them and put them away. The kitchen falls into a comfortable silence that only gets broken by an occasional scream landing through the walls from outside, and Eric can’t help but indulge himself in the domesticity of the act.

He can almost imagine you two washing the dishes like this in your shared apartment after you two cook dinner together and eat it in your cozy living room. That scenario sounds almost too good for the boy, having warmth slowly ooze into his cheeks, and that, he finds to be the hint that he should probably stop thinking about you in that way now or else he’ll get too distracted and break the glasses he is currently putting away. (God forbid– there were not enough of them for the entire friend group in the first place.)

“Are you having a good time, though?” Eric finds himself asking through his weird delirium.

You smile– oh god you smile, you should stop doing that if you want him to survive the night– and nod at the boy, calmness overtaking your aura and slipping into his cracks as well. “I am. It’s nice meeting new people and everyone’s very nice,” you say.

“That’s good to hear. How long have you and Yeri been friends?”

“A couple of years,” you note, “we met during high school. We always dreamt of moving away to college and living together at dorms or something, so it’s… it’s nice that it worked out for us,” you say, having Eric nod at your words with a sweet smile.

“That’s great to hear,” he muses, “I met Juyeon and Sunwoo in my freshman year of college, and the rest just… came along after a while.”

“Your friend group is pretty big,” you point out, having the boy shrug.

“I guess so,” Eric mumbles, never really thinking of it this way– in his eyes, this was normal. This was how he operated, how he lived. A lot of people around him, always close– one would think such a large friend group wouldn’t be as close with each other, but it’s quite the opposite in his case, he thinks. Maybe he was just blessed.

“How do you do that?” you sigh, shaking your head in disbelief.

“I dunno,” he snickers, “guess you could say I’m quite the social butterfly.”

“I can see that,” you laugh. Eric watches you, his hands now empty of any dish– he’s been drying them quicker than you manage to clean (and rightfully so, the food is stuck on there) – he starts noticing the details of your sheer presence. How you have a slight smile playing with your lips even when your eyes are glued to the sink, how your hair slightly slips out of the claw clip and frames your face, how close you’re standing– his eyes slip towards your hands, noticing the water running down your forearms and dangerously close to the sleeves of your shirt.

Acting on reflex, mostly, the boy reaches towards your sleeves and gently tugs them up, the contact of your skin that he initiates and should realistically be prepared for making the tips of his fingers tingle, the action having you stop in your movements and glance up at him through your eyelashes– a sight he wishes he could engrave into the back of his eyelids so he could stare at it forever and always.

“Thank you,” you hum, voice barely louder than a whisper when he retracts away from you, taking his previous stance against the kitchen counter.

Eric hangs his head low for a second, clearing his throat to ease his own tension. Now is your turn to start up the conversation, a casual question falling off your lips as you get back to washing the last remains of dishes. “Yeri said you come here often?”

The boy nods enthusiastically to your sentence. “We do. We started in freshman year, because Juyeon was going to this exchange program to Paris for a couple of months, so we threw him a goodbye party. Then he came back, so we threw a welcome back party here. And then we celebrated Younghoon hyung’s birthday here, and it kind of stuck, I guess? We go here at least once a year during summer.”

“That’s a nice tradition to have,” you sigh, turning the faucet off as you finish rinsing off the last dish– a big bowl that Sangyeon used to marinate the meat a few hours ago.

“It is,” Eric nods, smiling fondly at the sentiment. He reaches for the bowl and dries it with the now damp rag (there were a lot of dishes to dry, after all), and moves to put it back to its place under the sink. With your figure still in its previous spot, the boy puts away the towel onto the kitchen counter and gently grabs your waist with his free hand, moving you away a few inches to the left. He crouches and opens the cabinet under the sink and puts the bowl into the pyramid of other ones, straightening his back when he goes back into a standing position, catching you staring at him from above, watching his every move. Your body is leaning against the counter, having Eric mirror your stance only a few inches away from you before speaking up again.

“You’re welcome to join us when we come back next time.”

The time reads 3AM– or at least that’s what his circadian rhythm tells him, because he doesn't bother to check as he twists and turns in the bed, too hot and too alert to fall asleep– when Eric decides to walk down the steep stairs and try to get some fresh air. The cabin is hot inside, but he still takes his lost button-up that he had thrown over one of the kitchen chairs and puts it on before he makes his way outside, knowing that the forest will make his bones get cold with the crisp breeze.

He opens the door and moves to sit on the little patio– the silence of outside is overwhelming even after the cabin has quieted down and everyone has gone to sleep (each one on a different level of tipsy ranging from completely chill Sangyeon to doesn’t know where he is Sunwoo– with Eric somewhere in the middle of the spectrum). His legs drag a little tiredly as he scans his surroundings– god forbid there’s a bear out waiting for him– when the sight of a figure sitting on the floor takes him by surprise, their head already turned to him after hearing the sound of the door opening.

“What are you doing here?” he asks as he walks over to you, noticing your frame dressed in a tank top and sweatpants, hinting that you at least tried to get some sleep before coming out here, just like he has.

“Couldn’t sleep,” you shrug, confirming his suspicions.

“Same here,” the man sighs, “mind if I sit with you?”

“You’re welcome to join me,” you smile at him, patting the floor next to you and watching as Eric crouches down before taking a seat on the wood, ignoring the sunbeds and old rattan chairs situated all over the patio. (If you’re on the floor, he’s on the floor– it’s as simple as that.)

You’re holding a lollipop in between your fingers, your other hand occupied with a half-empty bottle of tequila that was previously passed around the circle at the bonfire. Eric raises his brows at the sight, having you shamefully avert your gaze from him.

“I thought it would be a waste to not finish this,” you say, snickering, “and I also… kind of hoped that it would put me to sleep…”

“Desperate times call for desperate measures?”

“I guess you could say that,” you laugh. Taking a sip from the bottle, you gulp the alcohol down before putting the lollipop inside of your mouth, sucking on it and licking your lips after. This is not the way you’re supposed to drink tequila, but Eric figures that gathering salt and a lime would be too much work anyways.

“Are you really using that lollipop as a chaser?” he giggles, making you hum.

“Yeah,” you stare at him, a grin overtaking your features, “this girl taught me to do that at a party last year. It’s not as good as literally anything else, but it gets the job done. Wanna try?” you ask, offering him the sweetness on the stick and the bottle.

The truth is, you were only a bit tipsy when the group slowly started to scatter into their beds. Eric didn’t drink as much either– only enough to make him laugh at everything that was said and make his staring at you twice as obvious as it was before– so he thinks he can take some more. As you said, it would be a shame if the bottle went to waste– and also, something about the idea of drinking with you alone on the patio was making his hopeless heart hammer against his chest in dangerous measures.

“Sure,” he agrees, taking the bottle first. The boy takes a sip, feeling the alcohol burn down his throat, and when he moves the dark brown glass away from his lips, he is met with the image of you leaning closer to him, offering him the lollipop. His hand instinctively grabs the plastic stick, thinking you’re letting go of it, when he’s met with the feeling of your flesh under his fingertips. You put the lollipop against his lips, making him open up on instinct and suck on the strawberry flavored candy, a million different sensations (all unrelated to the alcohol) swimming through his brain– you’re so close, you smell so good, he’s holding your hand, he’s sucking on the lollipop you previously had in between your lips and it’s driving him crazy– before you take the candy out from between his lips and put it back into your mouth, tongue swirling around the sweet ball.

The lollipop had an aftertaste of tequila on it, but it was enough to chase down the faint bitterness– Eric finds himself wanting to taste more of the sweet strawberry, but foolishly desiring to get the sensation off your lips instead. His eyes stay locked with yours throughout the whole exchange, sparks flying in between the two of you even though the bonfire has long gone out, his fingers lazily dropping from the candy.

“How was it?” you ask, voice barely louder than a whisper– goosebumps appearing all over Eric’s skin when he swears your eyes flicker to his lips for a split second.

“Good,” he admits. It’s silly how he feels so breathless at the action.

The sound of the wind playing with the leaves of the forest is the only thing accompanying you two. It’s as if you two were thinking of the same thing when you pull out the lollipop out of your mouth and offer it back to Eric, watching with utmost interest as the boy leans closer to capture it in between his lips, never breaking eye contact. The action feels a little too electrifying to him, a little too intimate, but he can't stop– can't even imagine wanting to.

Taking a sip of the tequila, but not chasing it down with the candy, you speak up again, lazy eyes practically glued to him. “This would be a perfect moment for a kiss…” you mumble, licking your bottom lip for a split second before biting down on it.

“Are you flirting with me?” Eric foolishly asks, tone of voice a bit weak, a little unsure, the candy still in his mouth, making his words come out a little jambled.

“Mhm,” you nod, grinning to yourself– Eric wonders how much of your behavior and how much of his raging heartbeat is due to the effect of alcohol in both of your veins.

His fingers pull at yours as he takes the candy out of his mouth, voice dropping as he answers you. “Then we probably shouldn’t waste the moment.”

Even though the intentions are clear, the boy can’t bring himself to make the first move– he’s completely enchanted with your presence, staring at you with tension in his shoulders and eyes trained onto your face, watching and examining it for any shift or change. Focused on the way you move, he thinks you must have realized you were going to have to be the one to take the first step– your lazily smile before you lean closer, impossibly close– making Eric’s eyes flutter shut with anticipation, your breath fanning his face making goosebumps appear all over his body.

When your lips finally touch his, he feels like he’s being kissed for the first time again, with the amount of fuzziness in his stomach and buzzing in his ears. He regains his composure quite quickly, though, as he positions his head in a way that makes you two even closer to each other, lips pressing firmer against yours now. His hand instinctively reaches out to hold your jaw, fingertips glazing the soft skin under them, your lips retracting only to go in for more.

Blindly placing the bottle onto the floor next to your bodies, you peck his lips and sigh into the kiss. “Damn, you’re good at this…”

“We’re only getting started,” he muses, making you chuckle.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mhm,” he nods, watching as you once again lean in and suck on his upper lip, making his eyes flutter close again. A weight appears over him as you shift in your place and move to straddle his lap, your hand moving to cup his cheek and tilt him upwards, everything about the kisses getting more hurried– less gentle, less hesitant– when you tug on his bottom lip with your teeth and grant your tongue entry into his mouth.

Sweetness mixes in between you, your hands moving around his neck, heavy breaths shared across the patio. Eric feels like he’s levitating, his body having an out of body experience, yet being awfully present– every little shift pushing him to overdrive, the slightest touch making his skin burn and heart drum against his ribcage.

You shift in his lap, making him huff under the pressure, his lips trailing wet kisses down the side of your neck. Teeth glazing the jointure of your shoulder, kitten licking the place and sucking in a bruise that will eventually be visible to everyone when you two wake up in the morning, Eric feels your hands tugging down the sleeves of his shirt, fingers feeling up his biceps. The action makes him chuckle into your neck, but the smile fades quickly as he feels your nails scratching gently at his flaming skin.

“Take this off,” you mutter, and Eric finds it endearing– helping you take him out of the button-up, sitting under you in just a white tank top and black basketball shorts.

“Why?”

“Your arms looked good in this,” you hiss before you hide your face into his neck, leaning down to give him your fair share of kisses and love bites, having the male teasingly joke as his hands run up under your tank top, painfully aware of the fact that you weren’t wearing a bra anymore.

He moves his head to the side to give you more access before speaking out, tone of voice husky and coated in lust. “What if I get cold now?”

“Then I’m more than happy to move this to your room,” you purr into his ear.

Eric sighs, fingers playing with the hem of your top before he lets his palms drift towards your exposed stomach, roaming across naked skin. Goosebumps appear all over your body at the action, making the boy victoriously grin. “It looks like you’re the one that's cold, though, babydoll.”

Rolling your eyes at the male, you shut him up by latching yourself onto his lips before you speak against his mouth. “I’ll take that as an invitation, then?”

“Wake up Eric! The girls are leaving, you should at least go say goodbye!” Sangyeon roars into the boy's room, making the male turn over in the bed and huff out in frustration. He drags his arm up to shield his eyes from the sunlight hitting his face, the intention of just rolling over and sleeping more written very clearly in his face.

“Come on man, we’re leaving in an hour too, so you should go send them off and then pack your shit so we can load the cars,” Sangyeon says when he gets no reaction from the youngest. It’s to no use, apparently, and so as the oldest and most observant out of the group, Sangyeon decides to use physical force– he knows Eric would hate to have you go without saying goodbye. He’s not stupid. Or blind.

A strong hold on his calves drags Eric out of the bed and makes his half-naked body fall to the floor, a yelp coming out of his throat finally making Eric’s body fully alert and awake.

“Yo! What the fuck–”

“Put a shirt on and go say goodbye to Y/N before she goes, would you, sleeping beauty?” Sangyeon huffs before rolling his eyes at his younger friend, escaping the room and shutting the door close after himself with a loud thud (to add more effect to the scolding, Eric thinks).

The mention of your name has Eric quickly scrambling out of the bed. His heart hammers at the adrenaline rush, pulling a clean shirt out of his bag and dragging it over his head, the basketball shorts from yesterday’s night found on the floor being pulled over his lower frame in approximately 0.5 seconds. Eric takes the stairs 3 at a time– with how steep they are, he questions how exactly does he not trip and break his spine on his way down– and puts on a pair of slippers he finds at the door (that are not his, or his size, for the matter, making his heels comically stick out from the back).

Without checking his appearance in the mirror anywhere, he swings the door open and walks out of the cabin, watching as the group settles in a half-circle around your car, Yeri loading the trunk with her duffle bag before she closes it shut and smiles at her boyfriend Juyeon on the side. Eric joins the crowd, clearing his throat when his eyes fall onto your figure, the sight in front of him freezing him in his spot.

You’re standing there, in your jean shorts from the day before, an oversized white button-up enveloping your frame. A clueless stranger might not tell the difference, but he does– you put the shirt onto your bare skin and buttoned it just enough to reveal a bit of your cleavage– and it’s so similar to the outfit you had on yesterday, just with one difference.

You’re wearing Eric’s shirt. You’re wearing his shirt and your neck is scattered with red and purple-ish bruises, and no, Eric wasn’t that drunk and he remembers everything, but the events of last night suddenly play out right in front of his eyes like a movie, still nailing him to his spot and wiping out all of his vocabulary.

The boy feels hot in his cheeks as he watches you and your best friend pay your goodbyes to the rest of the boys, the men pulling you into side-hugs and fist bumps, shared ‘It was nice meeting you’s and ‘You should come by next time too’s resonating through the place. Soon enough, you reach the end of the make-shift half circle and lock your eyes with Eric, a playful smile softly appearing on your face.

“It was nice meeting you, Eric,” you hum, “I had fun,” you note, shooting him a knowing look.

“Me too,” he nods, nervously chewing on his bottom lip. He doesn’t know where the confidence of last night went, but he suddenly feels unarmed and lost. What does one do now?

The sight of you in his shirt makes him feel like his biggest (wet) dream has come true– call him cheesy, but it also wakes up a sense of déja vu in him from the day before– you with sunlight in your eyes, hair messed up in a claw clip. He feels like he just fell in love at first sight again. Is that even possible?

It’s good you have a sense in you that makes you take the initiative and be in charge when you see him faltering. A giggle cuts out of your throat as you lean in and hug the boy around his neck, your lips dangerously close to his ear as you speak in a hushed whisper, not wanting to be heard by the men around you.

“I stole your shirt from you, by the way. You should text me if you want it back, so we can meet up, or something,” you mouth, lips gently glazing the sensitive skin of Eric’s ear, and god does he feel like he's going to suffocate from the lack of oxygen this causes in his lungs.

“You look amazing in my clothes, so I won’t ask for it back,” Eric hums, “but I’ll text you just in case you ever wanna bless my eyes with the sight again.”

“Deal. I’ll make Juyeon text me your number,” you say before you pull away from him, shooting him a wink that almost has his knees buckling like a school boy in love for the first time.

You walk backwards and wave at the group, sending Eric one last look before you join the passenger’s side and close the car door behind you, the sound of Yeri starting the engine resonating through the quiet forest. The men wave at you until the Toyota disappears out of sight, only scattering inside when it does to gather their things and load up their cars as well.

Eric is woken up from his trance by a teasing whistle coming out of Sunwoo’s mouth and a father-like slap to his back from Sangyeon.

He wonders if he’s truly being so obvious. (He's unaware of the fact that you two had very visible matching love bites on your necks. It doesn’t take much effort to put two and two together– don't tell him that, though.)

Still, Eric shrugs and goes inside with a different kind of pep to his step.

When he licks his lips, he swears he can still taste the strawberries.

#dbn: summer on you #deoboyznet #the boyz #eric sohn #tbz #eric sohn x reader #eric sohn fluff #eric sohn angst #eric sohn scenario #eric fluff #eric angst #sohn youngjae #tbz fic #tbz x reader #tbz fluff #the boyz x reader #the boyz fluff

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clangenrising · 6 months ago

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i think the hate comes from the fact she still does try to justify/excuse Razor, despite hearing from many cats how horrible he was to them. like we know he is an abuser and a rapist. she thinks it's bizarre/odd/whatever that his rape victim (Scorch) calls the idea of him being sweet and caring 'nightmarish'. brother or not, he is emotional, physical and sexual abuser, and she still seems to find it weird that cats dont… tolerate him in the slightest. that does rubs as rape/abuse apologism bc 'he was nice to ME and he is MY FAMILY, he would NEVER do something like that..' soo many irl families have sadly ('no way my son could had possibly violated someone. this bitch is clearly lying and trying to ruin our family' type of shit you know)

like yeah having to live for months with people (cats) who killed your family member celebrated it is harsh, i do give her that ofc. on top of her kitten crash and being more or less forced to tend them or else, and she is in no good shape to properly accept and internalize the Shadow Truth. but many people irl dealt with people like her, trying to bend over and backwards to justify their family members and friends, even after coming in contact with those who were deeply hurt by them.

That is a good point, I see where you're coming from. Clearly you've been very hurt by this kind of thing in the past and I hope nothing I've done made you feel more hurt.

I was just surprised because Mystique isn't like, for example, a parent who makes excuses for a son who has been accused of sexual assault and insists that he's totally innocent despite evidence to the contrary. She's a victim too, even if she was never physically or sexually assaulted by Razor. All of her denials aren't meant to hurt the victims or protect Razor, they're to protect herself from the terrifying reality of her situation. Does that make what she did right? No, and I don't think I've ever said that, but I do think it makes it less deplorable.

As well, its not like Scorch has told her "he assaulted me." Scorch is VERY private and so that stuff isn't public knowledge. I feel like there might be some projection on to her because of information the audience has that she doesn't. As far as killing Smokyrose, that was framed to the city cats as a casualty of war, not the murder of a peace negotiator, and to her is similar to if say, Razor were a cop who shot somebody. We obviously would find that terrible but from her conservative point of view that's just his job, to protect the city from dangerous cats with lethal force if necessary. When she got to the Clans that became more complicated for her and she's hasn't ever once claimed Razor was in the right to kill her.

What she did ask for was that the fight be solved peacefully. As far as she knows, the Clans are blowing Razor's actions out of proportion and jumping to killing him when there could have been a different solution. Like, imagine if you went to a village and everyone there was like "your brother is an evil murderer" and then failed to present you with any substantial evidence. Who would you want to believe, the strangers ready to kill him or your brother who has only ever been good to you and everyone you know (or at least, you've rationalized his behavior to believe that's the truth, lied to your self enough that you believe it)?

This isn't to trivialize what you went through or excuse real life cases of people who deny heinous acts. This is simply to say, I feel like anyone who hates Mystique isn't engaging with the entirety of the story I'm telling. I understand, though, that this could be because of a defensive reaction and I don't mean to put any blame on someone who might be feeling that way. This is a complicated topic and its possible for neither party to be the bad guy in this situation.

#not art #asks and answers #anon asks #Mystique #TW SA Mention

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babblingeccentric · 1 year ago

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Marco NSFW ABC headcanons

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

He's attentive and sweet about cleaning you up but he really isn't a fan of pillow talk. He wants to sit quietly in the peace of post orgasm and stare out the window maybe have a rare smoke. He'll cuddle you if you ask and are quiet about it.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

He likes his legs. And his chest. And his wings.

He'll lie and say he's a tits man but what he really likes is his partner's face.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

It's vaguely sweet since he eats a lot of fruit and he likes coming on your thighs and stomach

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Doesn't really have any. He's private about his sex life compared to a lot of other guys because he doesn't brag but he doesn't really feel shame about his sexual desires. I do think he'd be a little ashamed of having a partner much younger than him in a relationship. He doesn't want people to think he's taking advantage of you, even if he does find your ingenue vibe very attractive

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Very experienced but you don't know it until you get him into bed. He doesn't like to brag. His previous conquests will do that for him

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

He likes it when you're on your back on the bed or the desk or the counter and hes standing up

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Slightly more to the goofy side, simply as a way to defuse the tension. He likes to make his partner feel comfortable. He also just doesn't take stuff too seriously.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He doesn't have a lot of body hair and his bush kinda matches his head hair and looks like an upside down palm tree. Don't laugh at it he'll get cranky

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He tends to have more casual sex than actual relationships, and he's not really a super romantic guy either. I think his love language is quality time. Anyway I think he's a good lover he's just not very intimate or romantic about it usually. I think the intimacy is more something that evolves naturally from when he keeps coming back if I'm making sense

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Usually does it in the shower because it's the most reliable time and place that he gets left alone. Somebody's always asking him to reattach their pinky or look at their weird rash on this ship

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Brat tamer. He likes a little challenge to his authority. And an excuse to punish.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

The bedroom is a classic but due to aforementioned vying for his time anywhere with a lock on the door is his preference. Some people on this ship don't know how to knock.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

He really likes it when you get dressed up all nice for him. He likes a little insubordination too.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He's not into any serious edgeplay where he has to be super careful about managing your safety- breathplay, suspension, knife or gunplay, cutting or whipping, stuff like that. He also hates if you do something just cause it gets him off. It's important to him that you're just as into it.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Eats pussy absolutely spectacularly and enjoys it, it's an open secret among the nurses who absolutely take advantage. Can appreciate a good blowjob as a quick and easy way to get off but he doesn't like to suck dick very much himself.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.

Tends toward hard and steady but a little on the slow side. He likes to take his time with good things in life.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Like I said he likes to take his time, so he's not huge into quickies. But if a partner initiates one he's not going to say no.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

He doesn't like super risky kink where he genuinely has to worry about harming you. However he does like making you struggle to be quiet so you don't get caught. He's pretty game to experiment otherwise though.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Can last a good while but he's too old cum more than once an hour these days.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

He's got one or two, a Fleshlight and maybe a vibrator or dildo. He usually uses them on himself but if a partner shows interest he'll use them on you.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Definitely a bit of a tease. He likes taking his time and making a partner beg for it before finally giving it to them. But he can also be pretty giving and indulgent it honestly depends on his mood.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

He's a pretty quiet guy naturally. He'll grunt and moan softly and swear a little. But he's not usually very loud or talkative.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Generally a top, and was pretty strict about it when he was younger but he loosened up a bit as he got older. Now he'll bottom very occasionally if he's in the mood for it and it's pretty spectacular.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

He's got chicken legs despite them being his strongest body part. He shaves his chest hair so his tattoo is visible. Respectably average dick. Uncircumcised. Used to have a tan line from his stupid anklet. Still has a sandals tan.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Pretty average. It's not high but it'll keep you satisfied.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

One of those weird guys who doesn't get sleepy after sex. He likes to just sit quietly and stare out the window. He prefers a partner that falls asleep immediately because then he gets his peace and quiet. And he likes to watch his partner sleep because he thinks it's cute.

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watatsumiis · 2 years ago

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Ah, greetings, dear author.

I noticed that your work suggestions are open right now and since i love your writing, i thought about giving it a try. But if smth not to your liking, feel free to ignore. Ill respect your final decision regardless.

So, suggestion itself is, maybe you wouldnt mind writing for a tall reader that looks intimidating and acts like it, but inside they are really sweet? Im not sure about exact idea, but maybe how characters would defence/comfort reader when somebody says bad rumors about them? Or like, they say really mean things cause of their apperiance?

I wasnt been able to find any rules for such asks, so ill undertand if u would want to change smth here.

So, character wise, maybe for Albedo, Xiao, Aether(?) and Wanderer(?) ?

By the way, hope ull have a nice time of the day.

Hi there!!!

Thank you so much for your kind words about my work, it really does mean the world to me, every little comment does <3

This is such an interesting request, I’ve been sitting on it for a while and I just hope I can do it justice! Disclaimer though, I’m the shortest and least intimidating person ever, so let's hope I can channel my inner tallscary (/lh) and go off of that :3

I added Heizou and Venti too so this could just be a fun little Anemo boy (+ Albedo (and -Kazuha I forgot him I'm sorry)) miniseries (and since I know you also like Heizou!) :D I haven't really written for Aether or Heizou before (and very minimal amounts of Scara) so here's hoping I've done alright!

Content: Gender neutral reader who is described as being tall and intimidating. Nameless characters spread mean rumours/say mean things (nothing explicit is mentioned), some hinted violence in Xiao and Wanderer/Scara’s sections (because of course there is)

Aether is like a sweet little golden retriever from day one. Despite your intimidating looks and stature, he follows behind you and dotes on you until your hard outer walls crumble and he can waltz on in like he owns the place. He always believes in the kindness of people, so no matter how many times you push him away or try to intimidate him, he’s always back for more because he just knows you’re a softie on the inside - and he’s right! He’s delighted to have been correct and will be all smug and happy with himself because of it.

If others were to insult you and talk badly about you behind your back… Aether will take it personally. He can be a bit overly-empathetic at times, and if he ever catches anyone saying something mean about you, he'll tell them off, only to get himself so worked up that he ends up in tears as he continues to scold the person who did it. He doesn't care about his reputation or causing a scene, he only cares about defending his friend from some big mean bullies. Once all is said and done he'll reassure you so many times that you're one of the kindest and loveliest people he's ever met and anyone who says otherwise is obviously someone so miserable with their own lives that they take it out on others.

Albedo may approach you with some caution at first - not because of your appearance, more because the signals you give off make it seem as if you don't want to be talked to. Once he's realised that's just one of your normal mannerisms, he disregards it entirely and will happily work to befriend you. He may sometimes ask you to help out around the lab (usually getting things off high shelves for him) and will use that time to get to know you better, away from prying eyes and people that may try to interrupt your budding friendship. It fills him with accomplishment to realise that you're letting your guard down around him and exposing your softer side - it may not seem like it, but he does keep note of a lot of your actions and behaviours and documents any changes.

At first, Albedo is rather puzzled when he hears about the unkind rumours going around about you and your 'unfriendly' demeanour. It's just not something that's ever occurred to him and he simply doesn't understand why people would be wasting their time spreading such obvious lies. He doesn't hesitate to point this out, blatantly calling people out in such a deadpan and genuine way that there's not much anyone can say to him that will convince him otherwise. He'll go into this psychoanalysis of why humans tend to gossip and encourage them to take up more productive hobbies instead while they just stand by, gobsmacked at his audacity. Once all is said and done, his way of 'comforting' you is still rather detached. He'll just smartly inform you that these assumptions people make based on your appearance are 'illogical and shallow' and encourage you not to worry about it. If you're still upset

Heizou often sees people as a puzzle to be solved, a mystery box to be poked and prodded at until they give up all their interesting little secrets, and you're no exception. He's not put off by your appearance in the slightest, approaching you almost every time he sees you to ask questions and try to find out more about you. No matter how you react or push him away, he bounces back nearly immediately and continues to test your patience as he tries to get you to let him in. He knows there's an aspect that you're hiding, and he wants to know what it is. Once you've revealed your softer side, he may lightheartedly tease you for it, but never in a mean way, and if you seem upset, he stops right away. He revels in being one of those stubborn enough to have befriended you.

Heizou hears a lot of rumours in his day to day life - most he tends to disregard unless they're useful to him. When it comes to you, however, he will matter-of-factly correct each and every person he overhears speaking about you, backing his arguments up by citing times he's noticed you being nice to others (and to him of course), refuting every argument that people may make until they're stuttering and stumbling over their words, absolutely turned around on themselves because of how thorough he is in his dressing-down of them. It's like watching a court case. If the person continues to be nasty, he might just dig up some unpleasant dirt on them and pass it on to a known gossiper and watch it pan out from there. One way or another, he'll make sure your pride is avenged, and will always comfort you if you happen to hear anything that upsets you.

Scaramouche is flighty around you, especially at first. He isn't quite sure how to act, and vacillates between trying to antagonise you and essentially clinging to you. He'll push your boundaries time and time again, waiting for you to snap, but you just… don't. It frustrates him to start off with, the fact that you seem so unshakeable, but eventually it becomes a source of comfort for him, especially once he picks up on your softer side shining through. Of course, he's as stubborn as anything and will completely deny the fact that he draws any comfort from your presence, but there's no mistaking the way his shoulders relax and his breathing slows when you're nearby. He quite likes having a tall, 'intimidating' friend to scare off all the goody-two-shoes that seem to be drawn to him.

Upon hearing the rumours about you circulating, Scaramouche is furious. If there is no one there to stop him, he is throwing hands the moment someone says your name in a vaguely disparaging way. He'll puff his chest out and walk right up to them, growling at them to repeat what they said one more time. There's no doubt at all that he'd be ready to fight someone on your behalf and kick up a huge fuss. He’ll make a big scene and is probably more upset than you are by the whole debacle. He has his own signature way of comforting you if any of it gets you down that consists of him grumpily insisting that none of this should get to you and that you should ignore all the idiots.

Venti has no qualms about approaching and befriending you - he’s not one to judge based on appearances or outward attitudes. He’s very good at reading people and picking up on how they’re feeling, so from day one it feels like he understands you on a deeper level than most people do. He sort of hangs off of you in a way reminiscent of how birds linger around tall trees, and will use you as a springboard if he needs to get to something higher up, just grabbing you and pulling himself up easily. He’ll also ask you to carry things for him so often that it just becomes second nature for you to hold your hand out the moment it seems like he’s unsure of what to do with something he’s picked up.

Venti isn’t really one to police people on what they can and can’t say, but he just can’t stop himself when it comes to you. They’re so obviously wrong and just being mean for no reason that it makes him physically hurt if he doesn’t correct them. There’s just such a sense of wrongness that seems to claw at his chest and throat that even if he’s long since passed by he’ll do a 180 in the middle of the street to go talk to the people he heard. He’ll keep the tone of the confrontation pretty light and jokey, but to anyone who has known him for some time, it’s not hard to tell that he’s genuinely pretty upset on your behalf. He may get carried away and say some pretty coldhearted/downright cruel things to people (still in that same light and airy tone) if they continue to insist on spreading mean rumours.

Xiao is wary of anyone and everyone, so of course this includes you too. Your height and general demeanour mean nothing to him, he’s more focused on whether or not you’re an impending danger to him or anyone he cares about. He methodically observes you on and off for a while (sometimes you can catch glimpses of him following you, or perching on high places near your usual haunts to keep an eye on you), peeling away your tough outer layers until he’s able to get a look at the softness beneath. Once he’s deemed you to be of no threat, he drops it for a while and disappears back to his usual duties, but soon begins to notice that his days feel almost… empty, in a way. It doesn’t take him long to gravitate back towards you, but now he’s keeping a lookout for you, not because of you. It’s a little flattering, really, and he’s much like a bird in the way he may pick up things you’ve dropped or lost and leave them at your doorstep for you to find. He’s much too shy to approach on his own, but if you catch him on a good day, you might be able to exchange a few words, and he won’t immediately dismiss you if you come to visit him while he’s keeping watch off of his favourite balcony in Wangshu Inn.

Though Xiao doesn’t directly interact with humans unless the situation directly calls for it, sometimes he does listen in to their conversations, just so he has a good idea of the goings on in the areas he guards. If he happens to hear your name, he might just go out of his way to figure out why. With all of his observation of you, it doesn’t take him long before he figures out that they’re just spreading nonsense rumours. It’s not something he really takes into consideration as something that would be upsetting - he’s had plenty of rumours about him passed around. But the moment you express any discontent at people saying these things about you, any future offenders may just happen to find themselves in a rather… misfortunate situation the next time they’re wandering around the wilderness. Nothing lethal, of course, but enough to scare them out of their wits. Xiao isn’t very good at comforting people, and the most he can offer is his company and some reassurance that those people are wrong and that they likely have many more skeletons in their closet than you ever have or will.

Please don't repost, steal, copy or otherwise plagarise my writing! This includes posting translations to other sites (without credit + permission).

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tartagliatum · 1 year ago

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I think a lot about Wrio allowing himself to indulge and gaining some weight as a way of healing, he went hungry for a long part of his life, but now he gets to be safer, to eat his fill and go to sleep with a full tummy. I also think of Neuvillete encouraging him to do it so, cherishing his softer body and rubbing his tummy, empty or full, which is great bcs Wrio not only lived starved of food but of affection too. I LOVE WG AND STUFFING AS HEALING, AND I LOVE WRIO. I CAN HEAL HIM FR (BY FEEDING HIM)

AHSJSHUS I LOVE THIS cherishing his softer body and rubbing his tummy <3333

i feel like so many canon profile bits and exchanges with him point to him being quite an indulgent character already; slacking off work, turning up his nose at the less desirable welfare meals, strolling around fontaine's patisseries, taking little tea breaks whenever the opportunity arises. as he deserves to!

given that he's said to be seen visiting bakeries while on duty in the overworld, i like to think he has a sweetooth :3 perhaps neuvillette often brings him pastries and cakes as gifts whenever he visits during work hours. he invites him to furina's famous tea parties whenever the chance makes itself available (one of which is sure to be hosted each time the warden has official business to discuss in the court of fontaine, no matter how trivial.) he is always delighted to see him treat himself, and wriothesley is just as happy to satisfy his sweet tooth on such a decadent feast; not only did he never think he would have the opportunity to live so luxuriously, but also because now he believes he deserves to do so, no longer holding back from his desires out of guilt and little self worth.

not only does he give in to his newfound large appetite, but neuvillette rather likes to indulge him too. he brings him out to restaurants and orders fine foods and wines - a gloved finger pointing out the dishes on the menu as he orders for the both of them. at furina's tea parties, he offers him another slice of cake or suggests which desserts to try next, even as wriothesley places a hand on the swell of his quickly filling stomach.

"kouign-amann pair quite well with ginger tea. i must say this batch has been baked long to perfection," he muses, delicately pushing a plate across the table to wriothesley, who is still making his way through the gâteau he insisted he try. "though if you are drinking something sweeter, i would suggest a few canelés, or this pear tarte tatin. what do you think, furina?"

"the red wine caramel is exquisite, wriothesley."

"these macarons from lucerne's, though, are truly delectable. they are still light and crisp from this morning."

"let me breathe first." wriothesley swallows, smiling fondly at his enthusiasm to see him eat well. (and, really, breathing may become slightly more challenging if he continues on like this.) "i haven't even finished the last few you so kindly bestowed upon me."

and ohhh the belly rubs,,, !!!!!!!

ofc i believe wriothesley is so weak for having his tummy rubbed in the first place - neuvillette's warm hands are the perfect balance of heavy and firm but gentle, and just feel so inexplicably nice - so when the deep circles he rubs into his belly are accompanied by the pleasurable feeling of being full of baked treats or a yummy dinner, he quite positively ascends to heaven. and when his lavish lifestyle inevitably fills him out and he amasses a few extra inches on his waistline, the iudex's hands on his newly senistive tummy send him out of this world entirely. falling asleep is a difficult thing for wriothesley, but under these circumstances - whether neuvillette is settling a meal in his stomach or simply providing affectionate rubs - he feels safe and cared for in his arms, and despite fighting it, sleep takes over him and he's snoring lightly into his boyfriend's shoulder. indulging is a fun little hobby, but having somebody to indulge with - somebody to pamper you - is much preferable.

(also consider - tummy kisses. neuvillette is absolutely over the moon when the soft cushioning of wriothesley's tummy means he can easily take it between his teeth, trailing little love bites over the gentle curve of his belly. or simply just pressing his lips to his warm middle in soft, adoring kisses, much to wriothesley's blissful delight.)

#wow i rambled im so sorry #im just so in love with him sorry 💔💔#more specifically his tummy #more specifically his tummy chub #the way u read my mind anon i have had something so similar for zhxngchi in my drafts for so long may b i will post it #given that in the AQ neuv observed how much the traveller can eat #i feel like he would take note of what i hc to be wrios v big appetite #more specifically /why/ he eats and /what/ he eats idk i think neuv is dumbed down by the fandom a lot so i love this ask ‼️‼️#so draconic of him to treasure and protect him in such ways #that being said #i love that he doesnt have social cues #and like to imagine him trying to rub wrio's belly in a restaurant after eating a little too much but he gets flustered and wont let him #sad neuvillette all miserable and morose bc he cant Hold Tummy until they go home :(

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belovedstill · 10 months ago

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bittersweet (ao3) svsss, bingqiu | 2.2k, canon divergence, angst and hurt & comfort if you squint, pre- and post-endless abyss, jinlan city (chapter 34)

“Binghe.” Shizun’s voice isn’t as soft or gentle as it usually is when he asks him random questions, so this one he’s trying to make sound casual. “Yes, Shizun?” “Does Binghe have a sweetheart yet?” “What does Shizun mean? What does ‘sweet heart’ refer to?” A glimmer flashes through Shizun’s eyes then and he straightens up a little more. Binghe knows this posture very well; with a heart feeling even sweeter, he sits up straighter himself, ready to listen to the teachings and learn.

written for @ficwip's hey, sweetheart event 💕 the rule was to have one character call another 'sweetheart' in a non-sarcastic way. wouldn't it be nice if Shen Qingqiu called Binghe this way? ...after years of pain, that is.

Full fic on ao3 & under the cut

The most dangerous thing that forever changes Luo Binghe’s thoughts happens on a morning like any other: special and warm, spent in the delicate sunlight while pouring Shizun his morning tea to be enjoyed with morning meal. Shizun has seemed somewhat absent-minded ever since he’s woken up, with his forehead creased ever so slightly. Luo Binghe has given him time and space to gather his thoughts and either keep them to himself or share them with him – after all, listening to Shizun’s musings is something Binghe is happy to do whenever his master pleases and it’s one of his favourite ways to spend their time together. Shizun doesn’t do it with Ming Fan or any of the other disciples—only with Luo Binghe. It’s quite a well-known fact at this point. Binghe likes to think it’s not just because he occupies the room in the bamboo house.

“Binghe.” Shizun’s voice isn’t as soft or gentle as it usually is when he asks him random questions, so this one he’s probably trying to make sound casual.

“Yes, Shizun?”

“Does Binghe have a sweetheart yet?”

Binghe blinks up at him as he puts away the tea kettle.

His heart flutters softly in his chest, as it always does whenever Shizun refers to him just by his given name. Whenever it does this, it does… feel… sweet. But Shizun surely doesn’t have that in mind, doesn’t he? Or does Shizun know… somehow…?

“What does Shizun mean? What does ‘sweet heart’ refer to?”

A glimmer flashes through Shizun’s eyes then and he straightens up a little more. Binghe knows this posture very well; with a heart feeling even sweeter, he sits up straighter himself, ready to listen to the teachings and learn.

“A sweetheart is a very important person. It’s somebody you love and cherish. Somebody you want to spend your life with, caring for and protecting. It’s somebody you want to make happy and be happy with.”

Yes, Binghe thinks immediately. Yes, I do have a sweetheart.

“Binghe is such a talented and dedicated young man, he’s at the age of finding his first sweetheart. This master was simply wondering if he has found her yet.”

And then Shizun opens his fan and looks at him over the edge of it.

There are some things Binghe doesn’t understand from Shizun’s speech. ‘First’ sweetheart? Binghe is not planning on having any other. ‘Her’? What’s with the pronoun? But he pushes that thought aside and gives him a firm nod.

“This Binghe has already found his sweetheart,” he says without a shade of doubt in his heart.

Shizun gives him a nod. With a gentle hand, he reaches for his teacup and takes a sip, hidden behind the fan.

“Good. In this case, this master has guidance to offer.”

“Yes, Shizun.”

“Binghe must take care of his sweetheart and always treat her with kindness and respect. He should show his feelings clearly and make time for her, pay his attention to her, even if affection settles into something lukewarm and guaranteed. He must not take her for granted.”

“…? Yes, Shizun.”

“Even more importantly,” Shizun says, his voice gaining a harder edge as he puts his cup on the table and closes his fan with a swoosh against his palm, “if Binghe doesn’t feel loved and appreciated by her, he must remember that he’s worth more than that. If she seems to love Binghe only for some parts of him and not the others, he must not sacrifice his own happiness for her and stay with her. If Binghe ever finds himself unhappy, he can leave.”

Binghe’s heart is thudding in his chest at the way Shizun is looking at him. The feeling in his heart turns into something warmer, hotter than a simple sweetness.

“Does Binghe understand?”

He tries, but there are holes in what Shizun is saying.

“Shizun, this disciple is too simple and unlearned to understand fully,” he says carefully. “If a sweetheart is a very important and loved person, why would anybody leave them?”

Shizun’s fingers tighten around his fan a little, but Binghe doesn’t miss it.

“Because sometimes those most important to us hurt us the worst. Sometimes, they don’t feel the same. And sometimes, they take advantage of our feelings for their own gain, and they are ready to abandon us whenever their fancy strikes.”

“Shizun.”

Who hurt you this way?

“Binghe will encounter during his life many beautiful maidens who will make his heart aflutter. They will be drawn to him, his skills, and kindness. They will offer Binghe warm words and warmer feelings. But words and feelings can be temporary. Every sweetness can turn into bitterness. This master does not want his disciple to be unhappy.”

Binghe puts his hands together and bows.

“This Binghe understands.”

When the charged moment seems to pass and Shizun has finished his morning meal, Binghe says,

“Shizun, this one has a question he is not sure he should ask.”

Shizun faces him with a calm expression. “Speak.”

Binghe lowers his head, then gingerly looks up through his eyelashes.

“Does Shizun… have a sweetheart?”

Hes fully prepared for the gentle pat of Shizun’s fan against his head.

“Shameless.” Spoken without heat or anger. And then, “This master is too old and busy to be chasing after maidens.”

Binghe smiles and offers him his most respectful bow. “This Binghe understands.”

Shizun enjoys speaking in riddles, and Binghe loves solving them.

No maidens. Too old. Too busy to chase.

But Binghe isn’t a maiden, and he doesn’t need to be chased. All he needs to do is wait some years and hope.

“Thanking Shizun for his teaching.”

Two years later, Shizun pushes him into the Abyss, and the sweetness in his heart trembles in worry.

A delicate paper fan falls together with him, its edges fraying from the heat and specks of molten sparks. For dozens of thick and dark hours, he holds it open in his hands, blinking back mist from his eyes as he stares and stares and stares at the face of the fan. No matter how much time has passed, though, the fan’s bamboo design, trembling in his swimming vision, does not change. And when it becomes clear that Shizun will not somehow send him a sign or instructions or an explanation, the sweetness in his heart starts tasting bitter.

Shizun was right. Of course, he was; all the wisdom he’s imparted which hasn’t brought Binghe hope has eventually turned out true.

And shouldn’t Binghe have expected this? Wasn’t that how it’s always been for him? If every sweetness can turn bitter, then it’s only certain that Binghe’s must do so in a way that hurts the most.

For what feels like days, Luo Binghe cradles the frayed fan to his just as frayed heart and decides to stay there. If he’s so unwanted, so despicable, he’ll just lie here and wait for the darkness to consume him.

But instead of darkness, in come the monsters. Shizun’s teachings have been nothing but thorough. On instinct, Luo Binghe evades each and every lunge, bite, and swipe of claws. He brings the monsters down with mere twigs and stones.

In all this ruckus, the edge of Shizun’s fan has got another small tear. Binghe carefully folds it and ties the fan with a piece of straw.

Shizun can’t have intended to have one of his favourite fans fall into the Abyss so Binghe should return it. Just so Shizun doesn’t feel the loss.

Of the fan.

For that, he’ll have to get out of this place.

He won’t even need to show himself to Shizun when he returns the fan.

…but if he does, would Shizun greet him…?

…maybe there’s been a misunderstanding. Maybe Binghe could explain…?

The bitterness stops spreading, kept back by the vulnerable flicker of hope. Within the bittersweetness of his heart, Luo Binghe finds himself a goal.

He has Shizun by the throat against the wall of an abandoned building. He’s chased him from street to street, rooftop to rooftop, after Shizun has started running the second he’s realised Luo Binghe is not Liu Qingge. Whom he’s apparently been expecting in his bedchamber.

What a fool he’s been.

Shizun hasn’t missed him at all. Shizun doesn’t regret pushing him down. Shizun hates him and hates him and hates him, and Luo Binghe—

“Binghe?”

—hates how his name sounds sweet only in Shizun’s voice. It’s the only voice he can hear, the only sound that reaches him through the murky, swirling fog in his mind. His frayed heart is pounding with hot blood, each pulse cracking it more and more open, each look into Shizun’s evading eyes scalding and sharp and confining.

“Am I really so undeserving of anything?” he grits through his teeth and pain and heartbreak. “Of warmth and closeness, and love?”

He can’t see Shizun’s face anymore, but he can feel the sudden light of his eyes on him. A piece of his heart trembles in a long-lost but never forgotten way, carrying with it a faraway scent of bamboo and fresh congee and sleep-warm inner robes.

“Binghe…”

Shen Qingqiu doesn’t care, flashes through his mind. He shakes the thought away, though he knows it’s right. The voice that speaks it has been the only company he’s had for so long and it’s never lied to him.

“—you hear me?” Shizun’s speaking in a softer tone now.

He just wants to leave.

Maybe he’ll listen now…?

He just wants to leave to Liu Qingge and Gongyi Xiao. He’s found others his heart is sweet for.

…maybe I could still be one of those—

For you, he feels only bitterness. If he claims otherwise, he’s lying.

…

“—need to calm your mind, focus on—"

He’s just afraid of your pain. He’ll leave if you show it to him. Make it so he can’t. Tear him apart as he’s done to you. Rip his chest open, see the hole where his heart should be. You’re not unworthy. You deserve everything. He has nothing worthy of giving.

A cool hand touches his cheek. It feels like relief.

He lets go of Shizun’s throat and clutches at his shoulders instead, pushing his face firmer against the cold, cold skin.

“Shizun—” Take his worthless breath away so he has none left to give anybody else— “—it hurts…!”

“Oh, sweetheart…” Shizun whispers, his voice nearly lost underneath the pain, pain, pain, but the word has touched his lips, Luo Binghe has never been more certain of anything in his life.

Shizun has called him—and before, all those years ago, he said that—

—then does it mean—what does it mean?

Shizun lets go of his face and wraps his arms around his body, close and tight and open.

The chaos in Luo Binghe’s mind stutters.

“For all the pain I’ve caused you in the past,” Shizun says close to his ear, “let me repay it all today.”

The voice in his head crows.

Familiar cool, calming energy starts flowing fast into his spiritual veins. Shizun’s spiritual energy. The same Shizun’s who was poisoned by an uncurable poison when protecting him; the same Shizun’s who took Luo Binghe’s blows when they were trapped in his Dreamscape. His Shizun’s—protective, caring, ever self-sacrificing Shizun’s.

“N—no!”

The energy increases even more. The voice in his head spurs him on and cheers. He pushes against Shizun’s body, struggles like his life depends on it.

“Don’t—stop, I don’t need it, just stay! Just stay, don’t leave me, just stay, don’t leave—”

Shizun’s energy stutters to a stop then. A second later, his body sags against him and his arms fall down.

For a long, long moment, Luo Binghe stays like that, breathless, frozen in fear, eyes wide open yet unseeing. Shizun’s forehead is pressed against his neck. It’s cooler than it should be.

His mind is silent.

His heart is numb.

He can’t feel his arms.

And then—

Shizun sighs. Luo Binghe feels his eyelashes flutter against the skin of his neck.

“Of all the times to act up,” Shizun mutters.

His heart gives a tentative thump. Then another. And another.

Shizun’s hands brace against his chest, but before he can push himself away, Luo Binghe wraps his arms around him and pulls him close.

“Binghe—”

Luo Binghe shuts his eyes closed and says, “Begging Shizun to forgive. This Binghe asks for just a moment.”

Shizun sighs and goes slack in his arms again. “This master isn’t going anywhere. Binghe needn’t worry.”

How could he not? If Shizun wasn’t poisoned—

He shakes his head and stops that track of thought. The worst hasn't happened. Shizun is here and talking to him. Maybe—maybe everything can be fixed. Maybe all he has to do is start.

He’s never been more grateful for Without-A-Cure.

"Shizun," he whispers, not loosening his arms. "I believe Shizun's lost his fan."

Shizun's eyelashes tickle his neck. His breath feels warm.

"I've brought it to him," Binghe continues, "but it's a little damaged."

A moment passes in silence, and then Shizun's hands tighten on Luo Binghe's robes.

"I don't mind," Shizun breathes. "As long as it's back, all is well."

Luo Binghe presses his face against Shizun's hair and cries.

#svsss #svsss fic #bingqiu #more tags and potential warnings on ao3!#hey sweetheart #(i forgot the tag earlier. sorry!)#my writing #m #this one is a lil rougher than my usual fics but i have a soft spot for it anyway <3

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oraclekleo · 1 year ago

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Let's talk about content consumption and diversity and freedom of speech.

We are all different and each one of us has different preferences and taste. I think we can agree on this general statement.

So, why do people keep saying about some content that it should change? As long as it doesn't break the laws, it's not a bad content. Maybe it's not your taste but it can be somebody else's cup of tea. If a certain content creator irritates you in some way, their style of speech, their tone, their wording, don't engage with their content. That's the beauty about today's word - YOU HAVE SUCH A VARIETY OF POSSIBILITIES AND OPTIONS!

I remember times when there was only one kind of breakfast cereal available in the store. And if you disliked those, you had to have something else for breakfast or just swallow it.

Now you have roughly 100+ kinds of cereals available. If you dislike the fruity rings, you can have chocolate flakes for breakfast. You don't go and tell the fruity rings company to start adding more chocolate into their product, do you?

Same applies to content creators. There isn't a scarce of them. If you dislike someone's style, simply ignore them. When someone does NSFW readings and you're not a fan of those, just don't read those posts. If you think the rhetorics of someone is too harsh and hurting your feelings, stop reading their content. You have other options. Simple as that.

It's funny how people always declare how they support diversity but then they can't really understand that their own taste isn't universal and the rest of us might like NSFW content or people talking without filter or even being rude.

It would be nice if those posts had warning at the beginning but content creators aren't your mom. It's not their duty to protect you from your own choices. So yes, you might be half way through some post when you realize you don't like it but that's how learning and experience gaining works in real life. You step into the unknown and explore around and decide about what you like and dislike.

No time spend on learning is a wasted time.

If you reverse it, I for example dislike sweet and overly sensitive content. Should I demand some of the PAC creators to put warnings letting me know they are being nice in their readings? Sounds foolish? So does "rudeness" warning.

Please, understand that YOU AND ONLY YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE for your own life and for your content consumption. You have the choice! Cherish it! Appreciate the diversity in full, not just the "your cup of tea" part of it.

Feel free to dispute with me on this because I can appreciate the full spectrum of diversity. 😉😂

I wish everyone, especially the people who create content I'm not a fan of (because I respect you all just the same as I respect my mutuals), to have a blessed time ✨✨✨✨✨

Kleo 🦄

#oracle kleo #diversity #tolerance #self love #appreciation

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boldlyvoid · 2 years ago

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Midnight Runner 3

18+ Steve Harrington x Eddie Munson

Summary: What's worse than crushing on someone at a time like this? Falling in love with them.

Warnings: season 4 canon scenes just fruitier, background ronance, mentions of steves bloody wounds, hurt/comfort, love confessions (kinda), emotional heart to hearts

word count: 11k

Fic Masterlist

Eddie was scared of 2 things, currently: spending his life in prison… and dying at the hands of an evil wizard from another dimension. So when he got into the boat with Nancy and Robin, the last thing he expected was to develop a 3rd fear:

Losing Steve.

They got out into the middle of the lake and the compass started to freak the fuck out, Robin radioed back to Dustin to say his theory was right and before he could even reply, Steve was taking off his shoes and socks.

“Steve, what are you doing?” Nancy wants to stop him before he makes any stupid decisions thank god.

“Somebody’s gotta go down and check this out… unless one of you three can top being a Hawkins High swim co-captain and a certified lifeguard for 3 years, it’s gotta be me,” he says, so matter-of-factly, rubbing it in that he was the brawn to their brains. “No complaints. Alright?”

“Hey, I’m not complaining,” Eddie doesn’t fight it, he simply takes everything out of the shopping bag he’s been carrying around in his pocket— it had his smokes and a lighter, and all his snacks were gone now. “I do not wanna go down there…”

Steve was going to want to see under the water, and the flashlight wasn’t going to like being wet, so he wrapped it in the plastic bag and tied it real good. Steve’s done nothing but feed him and worry for his safety these last few days, Eddie was going to repay him by protecting him. From the boat. There’s no way he’s going down there with him.

Steve takes his sweater off, Nancy stares at his chest with a look of admiration… he was her first time, she’s always going to look at him a certain way. Robin caught that, staring back at Nancy with a smile that screamed just how fond she was of Nance after getting to know her better these last few days. Eddie watches it all happen, everyone is looking at someone else, they were a party that cared for one another first and foremost. It was nice. It felt like a family.

“Hey,” Eddie gets Steve’s attention to hand him the flashlight. Steve, ever the flirt, smirks and says hey right back to him. Eddie wants to smile back and say something about him stripping and putting on a show for everyone but there’s this anxious feeling gnawing at his stomach and he can only reply with: “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Steve replies, tossing his shirt to Eddie.

First, he shows up in track pants with that ass, then he admits to liking him and now he’s shirtless and deliciously lit by the moonlight… Eddie takes a cigarette out of the pack and places it in his mouth because sweet Jesus Harrington was pretty. Just as he flicks his lighter, robin takes the cig from his mouth and tosses it in the water. “Gross.”

Eddies about to say something when Steve starts to stretch and hype himself up, they all notice he’s about to jump and Nancy cuts him off. “Steve…” she panics, making him turn around. She gives him the softest expression he’s seen from her in a long time.

She can’t verbalize that she still cares for him because what would that mean? They’re exes, and she has a boyfriend… at least, kinda? Robin said Nancy seemed to be having issues with him, so is this all just a way to get over him? She can’t tell him she cares about him, but she can ask him to “be careful.”

He gives her a little nod and then flashes his attention to Eddie. It’s a mere millisecond of his time, but it says everything. I’ll be back for you.

Before anyone can say anything else, Steve jumps off the boat and into the water. They grip onto the boat and stay completely still as statues, hoping the stele frame will even itself back out on the lake, and eventually, it does.

All three of them are on edge for the same, yet completely different reasons.

Robin loves Steve with her entire being, he is the brother she always wanted and the friend she was always supposed to have. He is her person.

Nancy has a million things she still hasn’t said to him and they all start with I’m sorry. She would give anything to be Steve’s friend again, especially now, especially if it means Robin comes with him.

And Eddie… Eddie wanted to take him out and show him a good time and god willing, make him his. Repay the favour from that first night and treat him properly from now on until forever.

He wanted to love Steve Harrington.

“Where are we at, Wheeler?” Robin asks, her voice shaky with fear.

“Closing in on a minute,” Nancy replies, watching the second hand on her watch come right back around.

They’re waiting on the light to come back. They watched it fade as he got deeper and deeper and then it went pitch black. Eddie figured that when he was swimming back up, they’d see the flashlight again and they’d be able to calm down. But they never saw it. The water is pitch black and as still as ever. Like Steve never jumped in, in the first place.

Suddenly Steve emerges above the water, arms flailing, he takes in a large gasp of air and scares the shit out of all of them but only Eddie yells. “Jesus Christ!” He can’t help it, he’s been on edge for days and Steve just kept scaring him.

“I found it,” Steve gasps, swimming towards the boat and taking hold of it so he wouldn’t have to tread in the water for so long. Once he caught his breath he’d get back in… it wasn’t going to be pretty trying to haul himself back over the side of the boat.

“You found it?!” Nancy is so excited to see him and hear the news.

“Yeah, I found it… it’s more of a snack-sized gate than the mama gate but still, it’s pretty damn big,” Steve explains, the lack of oxygen still evident in his breathing patterns but he’s trying.

And then something grabs his foot. Steve is tugged down below the water, causing them all to scream and panic, but he comes back up. He wipes the water ff his face and stares at them like what the fuck was that… and then he’s gone again.

“STEVE!” Eddie panics. “Steve!! No, no, no!!! Steve!” He yells over the other two, leaning over the side of the boat to see nothing. The water is too dark to know what happened. “What the hell was that, man?!”

“Nancy, seriously what the hell was that?!” Robin panics, but Nancy is silent.

They turn to her with looks of pure terror, but Nancy isn’t panicking. She’s in survival mode— no, protector mode. She doesn’t even think twice, she just places her boot on the edge of the boat and goes to jump when Eddie grabs her hand. “Wait, wait, you’re not going in there, are you?”

“Just wait here,” she pushes his hand off of her and jumps in.

“NO NANCY!!!” Robin freaks out next, Eddie hears a similar fear in her voice. The two of them stare at each other, not knowing what the fuck they were going to do without the two people who know what to do in a situation like this.

Robin thinks about it for a second, she takes a deep breath and hauls herself to the edge of the boat. She didn’t want to do this, but not only was Steve down there…

“No, no, no, no,” Eddie reaches out. “What are you doing? She said wait.”

“Yeah, I heard her,” Robin says with another exhale, she was getting ready to go no matter what he said.

“She’s in charge!” He freaks out because if Robin goes and if Nancy is already down there, he has to go too. Everyone who loves Steve should be jumping in right now to go after him and Eddie is so scared, too scared. He needs an excuse not to follow Nancy and if Robin goes, he doesn’t have that anymore.

“Are you kidding me? I made that shit up.”

Before Eddie can even say anything, she plugs her nose and tosses herself back off the boat.

“God-damn-lying-son-of-a-bitch!” He freaks out, tossing Steve’s shirt to the floor of the boat, he stands… then he sits again, but ultimately he stands back up and gets ready to jump in too, “oh this is stupid. This is so stupid… shit, shit, shit, shit!”

He jumps in head first, the water is so fucking cold. Shockingly so— it is March after all… after the initial shock of it all, he starts to swim deeper and deeper. It’s hard, the water fights him the whole way down, and about halfway there, he sees the glowing red light that must be the gate. He follows it, reaches out for the weeds around it and pulls himself forward until he’s ripped through the gate and tossed out the other side. He was prepared for more water, but he was tossed onto the hard rock that should be the lake floor.

The first thing he hears is screaming. He stands up with Robin and Nancy who are all searching for him, they can’t see him behind the shipwrecked boat covered in vines, they can only hear him. Nancy picks up an oar from the ground, she tosses it back to Eddie and grabs another for herself, robin on the other hand grabs the once-abandoned flashlight and follows them toward the sound of his screaming.

Without thinking, Nancy sees the thing attacking him and hits it with her oar as hard as humanly possible, sending it flying. “Hey there.”

The adrenaline that rushes through Eddie is more intense than any drug he’s ever taken, he’s able to fend off the bats coming to attack them while robin and Nancy hand the two that attacked Steve’s chest. He’s still on the ground, eddies on his way to tear the thing off him when Steve bites into its tail and pulls it off without letting it get away. He swings the bat around like a fucking rag doll, hitting it off the floor again and again until it stops trying to fly away. He places his bare foot onto the centre of the beast and tugs on the tail, successfully ripping it in two.

The 4 of them back up into each other, nothing’s flying at them, everything is dead… but the pieces of the beasts are still moving around trying to catch up to their own deaths. Once they realize the immediate danger is over, thats when it sets in.

“Jesus Christ…” Eddie mumbles to himself, registering that he just killed something for the first time in his life and he was in another dimension and it was in fact scary as hell. “Jesus H Christ!!”

Steve, however, he’s bleeding and tired and he almost drops to the ground if it wasn’t for Nancy catching him. “Are you okay?”

Steve looks down at himself for the first time, and Eddie sees it too. “They took about a pound of flesh,” Steve chuckles with disbelief, “but other than that… yeah, never better.”

Nancy checks behind him, Eddie does too, but Steve’s only been bitten on his sides and he’s bleeding around his neck from the spikes on these little fuckers tails… but he looks okay. It looks liveable.

“Uh… do you guys think that these bats have, like, rabies??” Robin asks, leaning over a bat and staring at it with her flashlight.

“Excuse me?” Eddie can’t believe he’s hearing her right, that’s what she’s scared about right now?

“It’s just that rabies are like my number one greatest fear, and I think we should probably get you to a doctor like really soon—” she starts to ramble. Steve looks like he’s heard it all before while Nancy looks at her with disbelief, shaking her head lightly. “—because once symptoms set in, it’s like too late, you’re already, like, dead.”

In the distance, the bats make their gut-wrenchingly awful screech, drawing their attention away from Robin's anxiety. Eddie rushes to Steve, he goes to stand in front of him but Steve pushes him back, he makes sure he’s in front of everyone. His arms out, he makes sure they’re safe… they are everyone he’s ever loved in his entire life, after all.

5 bats land around the gate, fishing with their tails for something to eat. “We can take them… right?” Steve whispers.

But he speaks too soon, lightning illuminates the sky to show off the hundred of bats headed their way for what must be dinner time… there was no way they were taking them all.

“The woods, come on!” Nancy points, taking off before the others.

The 4 of them run as fast as they can towards the shoreline, mostly uphill from the deepest part of the lake towards the boat launch, over dead fish and lost tires, around vines connected to Vecna and finally, they reach the forest. There’s enough tree coverage to keep them hidden from the bats, but even if they did see them, they were preoccupied with going to the gate for a snack.

They run all the way back to skull rock, hiding under it for cover until the sky sounds empty again. It's genuinely terrifying. Eddie has never been so scared in his life… and he’s been through some shit from the age of 4 to 20. Nothing was ever this horrific.

When the coast is clear, they think they’re fine and all go to stand back up… but Steve isn’t fine. He topples over himself and falls against the rock, barely holding himself up. Nancy rushes to him and Eddie wants to, too… he just doesn’t know if he’s allowed to. He doesn’t know if he’s Steve’s little secret. He doesn’t know how much he still loves Nancy, but he’s starting to realize she might still love him. So he stays back.

He lets her clean him up, she rips her shirt and makes a homemade bandage for him all while robin rants about rabies. Eddie can’t watch, he runs away once again… standing at the edge of the tree line like a coward because seeing Steve in pain makes him want to cry. Instead, he climbs over a fallen tree like an idiot and takes a look at the land.

“So this place is like Hawkins but with monsters and nasty shit?” He calls out, mostly to robin so she’ll talk about anything other than rabies.

“Pretty much,” Nancy answers instead, helping Steve back up to his feet. “Hey, watch it! This is all a hive mind.”

“Right, shit, sorry,” he remembers what Steve said the other night and slowly but carefully makes his way back down.

“But everything from our world is still here, right? Except people, obviously?” Robin double-checks.

“As far as I understand it, yeah,” Nancy nods.

“So, theoretically, we could go to the police station and get guns and grenades and whatever else we need to blow up those bath things that are guarding the gate,” Robin suggests like it’s easy.

“Yeah, I highly doubt that the Hawkins PD has grenades, robin,” Steve shakes his head, “but yeah, sure, they might have guns.”

“Well, we don’t have to go all the way downtown for guns,” Nancy reminds Steve but the others have no idea. “I have guns. In my bedroom.”

“You,” Eddie points at her, “Nancy Wheeler, have guns, plural? In your bedroom?” He can’t fucking believe it. Little miss goody two shoes was actually keeping guns in her shoeboxes and no one would’ve ever known.

“Full of surprises, isn’t she?” Robin says, overwhelmed and just talking for the sake of it now.

“A Russian Makarov and a revolver—

“Yeah, you almost shot me with that one,” Steve teases, bumping shoulders with her.

“You almost deserved it,” she says in a tone that sounds a lot less friendly. It makes Eddie’s blood boil the way she stares up at him.

He just can’t take it anymore. Steve was his. What better way to prove it than to mark him with his scent… he takes off his jean vest and tosses it at Steve, hitting him a bit too hard and taking him right out of his gross little eye-fucking session with Nancy.

“For your modesty, dude,” he glares at him.

Steve stares back, about to snap for the unneeded aggression when the earth starts to shake. Robin trips over herself and starts to fall to the floor, Eddie reaches out for her only to fall with her, cushioning the blow with his own body. Nancy falls into Steve and the two of them grip the edge of the rock formation to keep steady until the shaking stops.

And when it does stop, every critter in this god-forsaken hell-hole starts to cry out. The forest echoes with sounds only heard in one’s nightmares, “yeah, so, guns seem like a pretty good idea to me,” Eddie suggests as the sounds die down.

“Me too,” Robin agrees, still on the floor with Eddie.

He hurt his knee when they hit the ground, he rubs it silently, waiting for Nancy or Steve to say something when they walk out in front of them. “So what are we waiting for?” Steve asks, now wearing Eddie’s jacket.

Fuck. He looked good in it too.

—

The walk from skull rock to Nancy’s house was too long… they stopped for a few breaks, they didn’t have any food or water so it was a struggle trying to keep going. The only thing that kept them from staying still too long was the sounds of the creatures in the distance. Luckily, they didn’t see anything, but they were definitely out there.

Nancy took the lead, with Robin at her side, and Steve stayed at their rear— he was the slowest with his injuries but also the most alert in times like this, Eddie stuck to his side, evening it up. The girls walked pretty fast, they were deep in conversation about god-knows-what while Steve kept his attention on making sure Eddie didn’t trip and trying to ignore the pain he was in.

“Hey, man,” Steve turns to him, the girls up far ahead enough that he didn’t have to worry about them hearing… and honestly, even if they did, he wouldn’t be scared to tell Nancy the truth. With the way she smiles at robin when she rambles, he has a feeling that she gets it.

“Yeah,” Eddie slows down, giving Steve a smile.

“I just wanted to say thanks… for saving my ass back there,” Steve can’t help it. For a moment he felt like a goner, he couldn’t get loose, he couldn’t breathe… and then all 3 of them came to rescue him. All 3.

“Shit, you saved your own ass, man,” Eddie bumps shoulders with him, shrugging it off. Steve places his hand on his back and pats him with a smile, it’s a small thank you. “I mean, that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back there.”

“Ozzy?”

“When you took a bite out of that bat?” Eddie explains further but Steve still doesn’t get it.

It’s also part of his shtick; pretend not to care and it drives them wild. So just he stares at Eddie blankly, shaking his head slightly.

“Ozzy Osbourne?” Eddie clarifies further, looking absolutely let down that Steve doesn’t know him. “Black Sabbath? He-he bit a bat's head off on stage?”

“I don't—

“No?” Eddie can’t believe it.

Steve has to look away to fight the smirk bubbling inside of him. This is how he got his hooks into him. He wanted Eddie to keep talking, to explain it all to him with that glimmer of love in his eyes that he gets when he’s excited.

Robin, just ahead of them, can hear it all. She turns to Nancy with a knowing smirk, “he’s so obvious… he does this thing where he pretends to be uninterested so that it drives them crazy and they want to talk to him more.”

“He used to do that to me,” Nancy can’t help but laugh, looking back to see them standing so close.

“It’s very metal, what you did,” Eddie drops his tone and bumps shoulders with him again, practically begging to hold his hand. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“Thanks,” he takes the compliment, avoiding eye contact so he doesn’t lost in them and they don’t get left behind.

“Henderson told me you were a badass… insisted upon the matter, in fact,” he keeps going with the compliments.

“Wait, Henderson said that?” He can't believe it, he half expected them to bond over calling Steve an idiot or something like that… not this.

“Oh yeah, shit, kid worships you, dude,” he exaggerates, Steve is sure of it. “Like you have no idea. It’s kinda annoying if I’m being honest.”

Steve laughs, biting his tongue he almost replies, ‘you love it.’

“I don’t even know why I care what that little shrimp thinks,” he keeps going. “But uh, I guess I got a little jealous, Steve.”

Steve says nothing, he just turns to him with a smirk, that same ego Dustin carries around starting to show in him again. Eddie was just digging a hole deeper into Steve's heart, making a home there with each new true and kind compliment. Normally people just called him pretty… sometimes funny. Never nice. Never loving. Never brotherly or badass or metal.

“I guess I couldn’t accept the fact that Steve Harrington was actually… a good dude. Rich parents, popular, chick love him. Not a douche? No way, man,” he rants, invading Steve's space and talking with his hands. “No way. That, like, flies in the face of all the laws in the universe and my own, personal Munson doctrine.”

He’s so up in Steve’s face, and so cute, he has to push him away with a giggle. But he comes right back, leaning in close, Steve’s given up on playing it cool and now smiling like an idiot.

“Still super jealous as hell, by the way,” Eddie teases, close enough to kiss him.

“Ch-yeah, okay,” he pushes him away, shaking his head with disbelief. He really likes this dork.

“Which is why I would never have jumped in to save your ass. Not under any uh… normal circumstances—“ they stop when they hear a branch break, flashing the light through the trees, they don’t see anything except Nancy and Robin a fair bit ahead of them, laughing at something funny they can't hear.

“Nope,” Eddie keeps going, staring off into the distance as he walks and talks at the same time. “Outside of D&D I am no hero. I see danger and I just turn heel and run… or at least, thats what I’ve learned about myself this week.”

Steve follows him, “give yourself a break man,” he reaches out to touch his arm but Eddie grabs his hand and moves it off of him, halting all movement.

“See?” He points over to Nancy and then stares Steve deep in the eyes. “The only reason I came in here was ‘cause those ladies came in straight after you. Now, I was too ashamed to be the one who stayed behind. But Wheeler, right there. She didn’t waste a second.”

Steve looks over at her, confused why Eddie’s bringing this up. Nancy just does that. She runs into danger and thinks about the consequences later, that’s just who she is. She’s a protector. She’s an older sister. She’s a strong woman trying to keep everyone in the town safe, not just Steve. But Eddie wouldn’t know that. Eddie only knows her as the quiet goody-goody from some of his classes this year. He knows her as Mike’s older sister with the perm and the pink backpack who is always in the library, reading alone since her friend died. He doesn’t know that she’s a badass with a perfect shot. He doesn’t know she was apprehended by the government and recorded their whole conversation to expose them to the media, knowing she could go to jail or worse, be murdered for it. He doesn’t know the real Nancy.

Or the real Steve for that matter.

“Not one second, she just dove right in.” Eddie keeps going, trying to drive his point home but he just draws Steve’s eyes back to his own. “Now, I don’t know what happened between you two, but if I were you, I would get her back.”

Steve's jaw clenches then. Not again... Not another person in his life trying to get him back with Nancy.

“Because that was as unambiguous a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen,” he holds his hand over his heart, staring back at Steve with a look that can only be described as personal heartache. He doesn’t mean what he’s saying. He’s just trying to let him off the hook.

They look back at Nancy and Robin, so far now they’re barely a shadow in the trees now. Steve, without thinking it through, reaches out and takes a hold of Eddie’s shirt and pulls him closer. His other hand lands on Eddie’s cheek just in time to guide him into a kiss.

Eddie is shocked at first, stiff as a board for a good second before he settles. He carefully wraps an arm around Steve, inside of the vest so his hand rests on Steve’s bare back. He pulls them in so they’re chest to chest, breathing in deeply through his nose, he makes the kiss last as long as possible before they pull apart… barely.

They rest their foreheads against each other, Steve rubs his thumb over Eddie’s cheek and stares into his eyes. “I don’t love Nancy.”

“Okay,” he believes him.

Everything starts to rumble again, sending them down into the dirt, Steve on top of him and saying Eddie’s catchphrase out of sheer surprise, “god-damn-it!”

“Here we go again,” Eddie complains, holding Steve close and gripping the dirt for support at the same time.

It lasts longer than the others, rumbling long enough to make something feel wrong. Really wrong. And then Robin is screaming Nancy’s name over and over.

Steve and Eddie stand even through the rumbling, Steve takes his hand and tugs him along, running after their friends as carefully and as fast as they can.

The world stops shaking when they meet up with her at the edge of the tree line, facing the toppled-down transformers covered in vines that used to stand in the field behind Nancy’s home. She’s frozen with fear. Seeing her home like this was a shocking thing. And now they have to go inside it.

“Are you okay?” Robin asks, rubbing Nancy’s back softly.

She nods, “come on.”

The field doesn’t have any tree cover, it’s open and illuminated by the red lightning that cracks in the sky. Robin reaches out for Nancy’s hand, not even noticing that Steve and Eddie are also hand-in-hand. Nancy takes it, gladly, tugging robin along and keeping her safe while they’re exposed in the open like this.

“I didn’t know they were close,” Eddie mumbles near Steve’s ear as they walk, not too far behind them.

He shrugs, keeping his own voice down, he slows so they fall back a bit more, “she’s just like that… she lost Barb to a Demogorgon, she’s going to let any of us die down here.”

“Wait, I thought Brass Barb died in a lab accident?” Eddie says a bit too loud, making Nancy and Robin turn around.

“How’d you know her nickname?” Robin asks.

“How’d you know it?” Nancy is extra confused when Robin knew it.

“She can play every brass instrument in the band, she was interchangeable for a bunch of our players,” Robin explains… “we stood together every day for 2 years.”

“Yeah, I was there too, until I got kicked out of band for flunking English the first time, you guys were sophomores then,” Eddie sighs, still pissed off about it.

“Yeah, no, I remember,” Nancy shakes her head. “It just feels so weird to think about how long she’s been gone for, especially when I’m down here…”

“So let’s get out of here,” Robin gives her a little smile, tugging her along quicker, the boys run just as fast behind them.

—

Eddie followed Nancy up into her room to find those guns she spoke of, except all they found was her exact bedroom from November 6th, 1983… and while they’re in the past, Dustin and the kids are back in their own time, in the right side up, figuring out exactly what’s going on with these gates. Steve hears them in the walls like rats, almost going crazy trying to figure out why the fuck he can hear only Dustin speaking until the others finally come back downstairs.

It's Erika's idea to get the light bright, light is literally in the name and you can make anything you want on it. It’s a genius idea and it allows them to talk through universes… she was the future of hellfire, and Eddie couldn’t wait to see what other wonderful ideas she had in her mind once they make it out of this.

Turns out, what Nancy said earlier was right. Every time the Demogorgon attacked it left a gate and vecna was doing the same thing. If they got in through Patrick's murder site, there had to also be one in the woods where Fred died and on the ceiling of Eddie’s trailer where Vecna got her.

The last message they send says “bike 2 Eddie’s” and they’re off, running down Nancy’s stairs and through the kitchen, towards the garage. “Hey, uh,” Eddie stops by the fridge, “you don’t suppose there’s like, anything still safe to consume here, right?”

“No,” Nancy looks at him like he’s an idiot. “Come on, we have 7 miles until we get back to the real world and you can have a snack then.”

“And what size, prey tell, are these bikes?” He continues to ask as he follows her outside.

“Ah,” she smiles when she sees them. “You see, they were 12 and in my basement the night the gate opened the first time, so all 4 bikes are still here.”

Nancy picks up what once was Will’s bike, it has Byers carved into the handlebars. It’s the smallest one, she’s the smallest of the 4 of them, so she takes it.

“So they’re preteen-sized, sick,” Eddie nods, picking up Dustin’s, it has a light on it, and it still works.

Robin takes Mikes and Steve has Lucas’s, they’re not too small, their tires still have a decent amount of air and all the flashlights work. Luckily, the roads aren’t as covered in vines as the forest, so they can take off pretty fast. 7 miles wasn’t going to be too hard… but it did feel like forever.

They passed the Creel house where thousands of bats circled around it like birds of prey stalking a meal. They picked up the pace and biked faster, all through the neighbourhoods that hated him on the other side, and even though the town looks like a nightmare, he takes it in as his last look. He has no idea if he’ll ever get to bike through town again without people throwing tomatoes at him… or worse, his last trip through could be in a cop car or a hearse.

They enter the trailer park and Eddie takes the lead, he takes them down the winding path towards the middle of the park and points at the minty blue and white trailer, now covered in nasty shit, “right here!”

He tosses his bike to the ground as soon as they reach the grassy part right in front of his trailer. He tries his hardest to catch his breath, arms above his head while he takes a look around… it’s so freaky with the vines and the perpetual darkness, but this is where he grew up. He doesn’t have enough time to panic about how fucked up this is because Nancy is already storming towards the trailer door.

“Thats gotta be a Guinness world record,” Robin explains, lungs heaving, searching for air but still finding space to talk. “Most miles travelled inter-dimensionally.”

Steve coughs while following the rest of them towards the door, he spits out whatever was in his mouth, “I just inhaled a bunch of that shit.” Then he coughs again, more alarmed this time, “I think it’s stuck in my throat.”

Eddie swings the door open and heads in first, he almost stops right in the doorway at the sight of his living room's new feature but he keeps walking so they can all get in. Steve closes the door behind them all and they huddle unintentionally for protection, Steve points the flashlight at the gate. “Goddamn…”

Eddie hasn’t been back inside his home since Chrissy died. The last thing he remembers is looking up from the floor to see Chrissy on the ceiling, her bones breaking, the sound rings in his ear— he swallows, cringing inside at the memory of it all. “That’s where Chrissy died… like, right where she died.” His voice breaks, and he turns to Steve for support and finds it in his eyes.

They say ‘it’s not your fault’ with the slightest shake of Steve’s head, they’re so wrapped up in each other that they don’t notice what robin sees.

“I think there’s something in there,” she panics, fearful more bats will break the seal and they’ll be trapped in a tiny space with deadly creatures.

They all lean in closer, not stepping closer per say, but studying it carefully from where they are, “what the hell is that?” Steve wonders aloud, it’s exactly what they’re all thinking, anyway.

Suddenly the gate bursts open, the red membrane breaks and goop starts to spill, they jump back, screaming for their lives for just a second before the adrenaline kicks back in. Eddie and Steve haul the girls back and stand in front but Nancy breaks past, watching the gate drop in horror. “Ugh? What the—

It's a broom handle that’s sticking through and from the other side they can see a brighter version of the trailer floor. They turn to each there with pure amazement. Dustin did it. That little shit pulled through. Literally.

They hear his giggle before they see him, cautiously taking a few steps towards the gate, they look up to see Dustin, Max, Lucas and Erika celebrating their success of finding another safe gate for their friends, they get even happier when they see Steve, Nancy Eddie and Robin from the other side. Dustin waves, “hi there!”

“Hi?” They all wave back, absolutely over the moon that they’re rescued and that the kids, their kids, managed to figure it out and get there in time.

“We’ve got a plan to get you out, don’t worry!” Erika yells up to them. “Get it, Lucas,” she shoves him, sending the boys back to get the mattress.

Max is holding a bunch of bed sheets tied together to look like the rope they climb in gym class, “we're going to toss this through… Dustin thinks that if it’s half there and half there then it has to stay secure in the middle? Cause that’s where the worlds meet and the gravity is different? I don’t know.”

“Makes sense,” Nancy shrugs.

The mattress gets thrown down on the floor and Eddie is immediately embarrassed. He’s had that bed since he was a preteen and it was Waynes before that, he spilled bong water on his bed the morning before shit went south and the others are… he doesn’t even remember at this point. He’s had those ugly yellow and brown butterflies on his bed for as long as he can remember. New sheets weren’t really something he ever thought to put on the grocery list when they had a perfectly good washing machine and no one slept in his bed but him? This is why.

“Those stains are, uh…” he looks at robin and Nancy and then Steve and then back up, wanting to die ever so slightly. “I don’t know what those stains are.”

“Mhm,” Robin looks at him with a look of disgust and then over to Steve, who looks at her just as alarmed. ‘This is really the love of your life?’ She asks with her eyes.

He shrugs and sighs, ‘I guess.’

“Now, I’m not quite sure how these physics are gonna work,” Dustin cuts into the awkward silence and takes the rope from max. “But uh… here goes nothing.”

He tosses it through and they jump back when it comes flying at them in the upside down. Dustin holds his end so it doesn’t all go through and then it stops. It hangs there with half of it dangling from each side, just as they suspected it would.

“And if my theory is correct…” Dustin drops the side he’s holding and steps back with a laugh, “abracadabra.”

“holy shit,” almost all of them mumble under their breath. It’s remarkable just how much Dustin knows and how much of it is applicable to the shit they go through.

“Okay, pull on it, see if it holds!” Dustin calls up to them, watching Robin reach out and take hold of the rope. She tugs on it with all her body weight and it doesn’t budge at all. They all keep laughing in amazement, it’s just so fucking cool.

“This is the craziest shit I’ve ever seen in my life!” Erika rants, “and I’ve seen some crazy shit…”

Dustin reaches back to give her a high five, Eddie can’t even imagine what they mean by that… they’re like a decade younger than him, how could they have seen something that almost equals up to this?

Robin takes a deep breath and takes hold of the rope again, “okay, I guess I’m the guinea pig.”

The younger group all backup, making way on the landing pad as Dustin puts it. Robin struggles just a bit but finds her footing, Nancy stands behind her with her hands up, ready to catch her if she falls, watching her carefully the whole way through. She flops over to the other side and lands on the mattress, on her back, she sits up with a smile. “Oh thank god… that was fun.”

Dustin gives her a hand and helps her off the mattress, and she gives him a little hug as a thank you for getting them back through a safe spot.

Eddie expects Nancy to follow her but she doesn’t and Steve isn’t going either, they’re looking at each other so Eddie just grabs the rope. “All right! I guess I’ll go.”

Eddie jumps up and starts making his way up the rope, this was his least favourite part in gym but he did it every year, for 6 years. Only this year did they let him skip it and yet here he was, doing it anyway.

“Easy, easy,” Steve worries, knowing he’s clumsy and he’ll fall a lot harder than Robin did, given how much bigger he is. He’s like a tank compared to her.

Eddie smacks down onto the mattress and sits right up, wiping his bangs from his face he gasps, “that was fun? Shit,” he takes robins hand and she hauls him up to his feet so they can watch Steve and Nancy make it through next.

“See you on the other side,” Steve says, not because he’s going next, but because he’s letting Nancy know she is. He’s not leaving until she’s out. She knows that.

She nods, “on the other…” she freezes, her eyes roll back into her head and Steve panics.

“Nance… Nancy!!”

“What’s going on!?” Robins shouts through the gate.

“Oh no,” Steve starts to shake her. “Oh no, no, no, no, no…”

“Vecna,” Max says it out loud, but everyone already knew. They’ve all seen Max go through this.

“Music,” Robin smacks eddies arm, “she needs a song, oh my god… oh my god! Steve!! What song would have a good memory for her?”

“I don’t know?!” He screams back at her, still shaking Nancy, “Dustin, what song played when she danced with you?”

“I don’t remember!?” He screams, “and I doubt that’s her happiest memory?”

“It doesn’t have to be the happiest it just has to give her a memory happy enough to get her out of his nightmare, she has to get to a dream, to the light, basically,” Robin rambles and thinks, she’ sees Nancy around all the time… like the other morning.

Steve dropped her off just as Nancy was getting out of her car. The exact same song was playing on the radio moments prior, she locked eyes with robin and gave her a little smile and then waved at Steve. It was simple. It was happy. It was before all this shit started… yet if it never started, she’d never be this close to Nancy now.

“The radio,” Robin points at Dustin’s walkie and they pass it to her, she turns the knob towards the radio station thats always on in Steve’s beamer and hopes to god they’re playing Object of My Desire by Starpoint. It’s been so overplayed lately, that she might just— “thank god,” she hears it and cranks the radio to full blast.

“We can’t toss it through,” Eddie reminds her, “the towers are all down, down there, they’re not going to hear anything once it gets down there.”

“Right,” Robin looks around, “get me that chair,” she points.

Lucas hustles over and gets it, setting it up on top of the mattress so Robin can stand on the chair and hold it up to the gate.

“Can you hear it?” She asks Steve, who’s picking Nancy up around the waist and lifting her up so she’s closer to the sound.

“Yeah!”

“Come on, come on,” Eddie mumbles to himself, tapping his thighs and watching carefully. It’s taking too long… it feels like it goes on forever, just like they described with Max. Chrissy wasn’t out this long, she had long since cracked and fallen back to the floor in this amount of time. It must be a good thing if it’s taking forever.

The song is just about to end when Nancy snaps out of it, panicking and swinging as she comes to. She pushes Steve to the ground and crawls away from him, “it’s okay, it’s okay!” Steve assures her.

“Oh, thank god,” Robin steps down from the chair and turns the walkie off. She moves the chair off the mattress but stands back on it so she can watch what happens on the other side.

Eddie steps into view as well, watching Steve soothe Nancy while she pushes him away. “It’s fine, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” he lets it go. “Can you climb?”

She nods and looks up to see Robin, she sighs and softens. “Yeah, I can.”

Robin pushes Eddie back so Nancy has the full mattress to fall down on, they watch her climb the rope carefully and flop down just like they did, only less enthusiastically. Robin breaks away from Eddie and helps Nancy off the floor, “you’re okay?”

She nods, “yeah, I… I talked to him?”

“To Vecna?” Max knows but she asks anyway.

Nancy just nods, following robin off the mattress so that Steve could come through, finally. Eddie anxiously watches as Steve climbs the rope and tosses himself down to the floor with a hiss and a whine, he’s been thrown around quite a bit and it was starting to show. The others crowd Nancy, not knowing Steve was so badly attacked beforehand, so it’s just Eddie that helps him up, he holds Steve close and rubs his arm, “you okay?”

He nods, “I’m okay…” Steve makes his way over to the others, he places a hand on Nancy’s back, “you don’t have to talk about it right away, you know that?”

She nods, “yeah, I know… um, we should all take like a few hours to just chill, I don’t think he’s going to get right back to it. I think he likes the challenge.”

“We shouldn’t be here,” Dustin reminds them that they’re currently inside a taped-off crime scene, “is your mom home?” He asks Max.

She shakes her head, “no she has a 24-hour on shift at the hospital, she’ll be home around noon though…”

“Okay, we’ll head next door,” Lucas agrees, opening the door to let Erika out first.

“Um,” Nancy doesn’t mean to draw all their attention back to herself but they all stop and turn, thinking she’s got more news. “Robin, can you come with me for a walk? I need to calm down and I can’t go alone.”

“Y-yeah, absolutely,” she doesn’t even think twice, she just takes Nancy’s hand.

“Don’t go off too far,” Steve interjects, “take a walkie.”

“On our walkie,” Robin teases, knowing Steve just wants to keep them safe. She even manages to make Nancy smile a bit. “We’ll be fine.”

Steve knows that but it’s still hard to let her go knowing anything could happen to either of them. “I know,” he gives them a small smile and a nod as they leave, heading over to Max’s with the other kids. Leaving Dustin with Steve and Eddie.

“Are you okay?” Dustin asks, finally noticing all the blood on Steve and the fact he’s in Eddie’s vest.

He nods, “yeah I just—

“We need to get him some clean clothes,” Eddie interjects. “You go watch Max, you can be in charge until Nancy gets back.”

“Yes!” Dustin cheers, Eddie knew exactly how to get him to leave without asking any questions. “I’ll come get you if we need anything.”

“Sounds good,” Eddie holds the door open for him and pats his back on his way out. He shuts the door once he’s gone and turns to Steve with a smile, “and then there were two…”

“I’m in no condition to be seduced,” Steve teases, moving over to the counter to lean against it, he’s getting tired.

Eddie walks over and cups Steve’s face with his hand, staring into his eyes, “I know, sweetheart, so let’s get you cleaned up.”

—

Eddie's quick to start rummaging around in all the drawers in the hallway, he talks to himself while he does it and eventually pulls out a white box, “found ya, sucker.”

He cracks the box open and starts heading to his room, Steve watches and follows carefully, “what’re you doing?”

“Wayne used to hide the first aid kit from me cause I wasted all the supplies once trying to make my own special effects face wounds with the gauze… that’s another story, anyway, I have a bunch of shit in here if you want to get cleaned up?” He suggests, holding up some antibacterial spray and some big bandaids.

He crosses his arms and smirks, overflowing with what could only be described as love. “You wanna take care of me?”

“Yeah, Harrington. Sue me,” he tosses the gauze onto the bed, which is now just a boxspring covered in his comforter and pillows. “But, before I can do that, we’ve gotta wash all that blood off of you.”

Steve sighs and looks down at his chest, this was going to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch but he knew Eddie was right. “okay…”

“Right in here,” Eddie places a hand on his arm and leads him into the bathroom. “You can shower or I can just run a towel over you?”

“If I shower and then have to get back into these clothes I’m going to freak out,” Steve admits.

“I was going to let you borrow— well, actually I don’t need anything back, you can wear whatever you want from my room,” Eddie explains, riffling through the linen closet for some facecloths that Wayne wouldn’t mind ruining with blood and bat guts. “It’s not like I’m coming back here anyway.”

“Hey,” Steve reaches out and pulls his attention back to him. “Don’t say that.”

“I’m just being realistic.”

“I’m not losing you,” Steve puts his foot down. “Not to jail, not to Jason and his goons, not to Vecna or-or these fuckin’ bats,” he references down to his injuries. “You’re not going anywhere except to dinner with me when this is over and done with. Okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie manages to smile. “Now would you take my vest off so I can wipe you down? I cant have you dying from an infection before our date.”

“Okay,” he starts to push it off his shoulders and realizes just how much it hurts to lift his arms and stretch out his chest. “Ouch, fuck?”

“Sorry,” Eddie apologizes on behalf of Steve's wounds and takes the jacket as soon as it’s off of him. “Turn around?”

“Yeah,” Steve does as he’s told, slowly but surely.

Eddie looks at the knot that Nancy tied in the fabric, it’s tight as can be, and his meaty fingers aren’t getting that knot out. “Stay here, I’m going to go get the scissors.”

“Okay,” Steve didn’t mind, he simply takes a hold of the edge of the sink to steady himself and waits. Eddie runs out, Steve can hear him tossing cutlery around in the drawer in the kitchen and then his heavy feet running back to him.

“Okay, here we go…” he has to hype himself up for this part. He really didn’t want to see how much of Steve was missing under this fabric.

Steve hisses as the fabric tugs on his skin where it’s been fused by dried blood, Eddie apologizes again and again as he takes it off slowly, making Steve turn around to face him again in the process. “Jesus,” Eddie says under his breath once he takes a good look at the damage.

“Hot, I know,” Steve teases, giving him a smile before he too looks at it in the mirror. He catches Eddie looking at him in the mirror too, then their eyes meet in the reflection, making them smile slightly. “It’ll be okay… at least it’s not another head trauma.”

“Yeah, you seem to get your ass beat a lot…” Eddie doesn’t mean it as a dig or an insult, “I mean, that’s gotta affect you somehow?”

He nods, “headaches mostly, and this ear rings a lot,” he points to the left one. “But it’s liveable.”

“So, when we get supplies later we should add a helmet to the list, got it,” Eddie teases again and Steve shoves him.

Steve watches him giggle through the mirror, Eddie picks up one of the face cloths and turns the water on. He plays around with the taps until it’s a good temperature and he wets the towel. “Do you want to sit?”

“Where?” Steve gestures to the counter or the toilet.

“The counter would be better,” Eddie thinks, “here, I’ll help—

Steve doesn’t need help, he grips the counter with both hands and stands on his tip toes so that his ass cheek is taller than the counter and he scoots himself back until he’s secure. “There,” he spreads his legs and tugs Eddie between them so they’re closer.

“Showoff,” Eddie teases him, he wrings the excess water out of the face cloth and brings it over to Steve’s chest.

“You probably shouldn’t wring it out,” Steve micro-manages him. “You’re going to scrub my skin off if you don’t let the water soak the grime off.”

“Right,” he doesn’t argue, he simply re-wets it, “get ready…” he says as he brings it over to his chest, water droplets falling onto Steve’s pants and he hisses as it spreads down his stomach, “sorry, sorry.”

“Stop apologizing,” he says through gritted teeth. “It’s fine, it has to happen.”

“Yeah, well I still feel bad,” he all but whispers, watching the water turn red as it rushes down his chest.

He’s so close to the wounds he has no choice but to look and he hates it. It’s not that it’s gross(it is) it’s the fact that it’s Steve and in Eddie’s mind, Steve isn’t just Steve anymore… Steve watches his face carefully, in complete silence while Eddie washes the blood and grime off of him. Eddies face is so concentrated, he bites his tongue and breathes through his nose, he tries to shake his bangs out of his face as he leans in closer to Steve, hunched forward, and they keep falling into his eyes.

Steve just reaches out and runs his fingers through Eddie’s hair, pushing his bangs back for him. It draws Eddie’s attention back up to his eyes, he looks shocked, “sorry,” Steve whispers. “You just—

“It’s okay,” Eddie gives him a sweet smile. “No one really touches my hair…”

“Me either,” Steve knows what thats like, a bit too well. Out of everything in his life, his hair was the one thing he could control perfectly. Eddie probably felt similarly. It’s something he grew, something he takes care of, something that makes him, him. He’s so perfectly Eddie with this hair. “You’re pretty, you know that?”

The smirk that grows on Eddie’s face is beautiful, his eyes glisten in the soft yellow light of his trailer bathroom and he’s quiet. There isn’t a snarky reply, he doesn’t tell him to shut up or draw his attention to something else. He just smiles and takes it all in.

“I mean it,” Steve says for good measure. “Before Robin even suggested that it could be you, I already thought you were too pretty for your own good… it’s why I was so short with you, looking at you was so hard, I just want to tell you all the time that you’re so fuckin' pretty.”

“You’re going to give me a big head, Steve,” Eddie can’t take him seriously anymore, it was too much affection for him to handle. “Then again, you do give good head.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t play dumb,” Eddie teases him, still wiping down his chest and now avoiding his eye contact. “You like pretty much sucked the soul out of me back there, I haven’t been the same since… haven’t even tried getting laid since, I’m like hypnotized by you, Harrington.”

“Back to Harrington,” he sighs and leans back against the mirror so Eddie can get at the lower bites on his stomach. “Got it.”

“Don’t do that,” Eddie picks up on it too. “It’s an endearing Harrington, okay? I need more than 4 days with you to make more nicknames than just Stevie and if I say that around the kids they’re going to have a fucking field day with it.”

“I guess,” Steve can see where he’s coming from. “Are you afraid of me?”

“What?” He looks up into Steve’s eyes again, his big brown puppy dog eyes could break Steve’s heart if he looked at him the right way. “Why would I be scared of you? You’ve done nothing but try and protect me?”

“I don’t know, it just seems like no matter what I do, no matter how open I get, you’re still so closed off? What do I have to do to get you to let me know if you like me back? I don’t want this to just be some end of the world I might as well flirt with him, shit, I want this to work if we live through this,” he’s honest about it. “I’ve done nothing but think about you— well, the you from the woods— for almost an entire year.”

“That’s not me, anymore,” he whispers. “You know that. We’re different now. Things are a lot different. And if I don’t make it I want you to be normal and not get hung up on me, get back with na—

“I swear the next person to say I should date Nancy again is getting punched,” Steve cuts him off. “I’d rather saw off my arms than date Nancy again.”

“Then why did you lose it back there,” Eddie points out to his living room. “You can’t tell me that you don’t love Nancy and then react like that. You were distraught dude, don’t lie to me. You still care for her. You still love her.”

“How would you feel if your friend, not the drummer the other one… Jer—”

“Jeff.”

“Yeah, how would you feel if Jeff was getting Vecna’d right in front of your eyes? You said Gareth is your best friend, but would you still react with love if Jeff was in trouble?” Steve asks, really getting him to think about it.

He nods, realizing he’s been over thinking it. “It’s just, you see, Nancy’s pretty and she’s not wanted for murder and—

“And she doesn’t love me. She never really did and she’s happy with Jonathan,” he can’t help but cut Eddie off. “I know Nancy better than anyone here because we dated— if you can even call it dating, but I took her on a few dates, I slept with her the night her best friend in the world died and then I over-reacted when she started spending time with Jonathan, not knowing she was hunting the thing that got Barb for revenge… and then I lost her before I even had her.”

“Oh,” Eddie can’t believe he’s getting the full story like this.

“And if I’m being really honest with you, I’m not even sure if the love I had for her was real. I can’t hold it against her for pretending anymore when I genuinely don’t remember being in love with her. It was so long ago. But sure, I love her, she’s my friend and she’s Mike's older sister and she’s buddy-buddy with Robin now and I can’t let her die while Jonathan isn’t here! He’s kicked my ass once already, I don’t need more brain damage because I failed to protect someone we all care about. The same way I’d protect Robin or Max and especially… you.”

Eddie’s never seen Steve talk so passionately. It’s like he took a page out of Buckley's book and paired it with his freakish ability to hold his breath for a long time, resulting in that ramble of truth. He didn’t even know what to say to it, at least he thought he didn’t and then he asks the simplest question. “Why?”

“Which part?” Steve manages to smile, “the not sure about loving Nancy bit or the falling in love with you bit?”

Eddie’s eyes do that thing where they get impossibly big and he leans forward, feeling like he imagined it. “What?”

“I kinda figured since you love me and all, I could say it to you.”

“Backup, backup,” he waves his hands around in front of himself with his eyes closed for a moment, taking it all in. “When did I say I love you?”

“You didn’t have to, you just jumped in after me.”

“Not right away and I definitely didn’t want to?” He freaks out, feeling like he’s been caught and he needs to defend himself.

“I didn’t want to help Nancy and Jonathan the first time. But I did because I loved her,” he explains with a growing smirk. “I figured you out so easily because I did the exact same thing before.”

“You ran?” Eddie can’t believe it. Badass Steve was actually… kind of normal dude.

“I showed up to apologize to Jonathan for calling him and his brother queer… yeah I know it was a shitty thing to do given who I am and all, but, after he kicked the shit out of me, I had time to reflect and realized, like, nope, it’s just me who’s queer and what I said was super fucked up… So I went to apologize but imagine my surprise when Jonathan opens the door and he was bleeding from his hand and the whole house smells like gasoline and there is a bear trap in the hallway and a Demogorgon on the way,” Steve honestly can’t believe its a real memory and not a dream he’s retelling.

“But it was too late, they dragged me down the hall into Will’s room and we waited for the thing to attack but it got distracted? It disappeared again and I took the first chance I had to get the fuck out of there.”

“I mean, it’s not like they needed you,” Eddie teases, bringing a smile to Steve’s face.

“I know, but that’s not the point, is it?” Steve points it back on him. He did the same fuckin thing earlier. Nancy and robin probably had it covered and he went anyway. “Nancy Wheeler, given any partner, is fantastic at defending this town. That’s a fact I know for sure.”

Eddie drops the washcloth in the sink and gives in, he places his hands on Steve’s thighs and looks up into his eyes, “what else do you know?”

“I know I went back into that house not because I didn’t think she could do it, but because if Jonathan died and Nancy lost him and Barb, and Joyce lost him and Will… I couldn’t live with myself. I went back in because I loved Nancy and I would’ve thrown myself in front of the thing if need be to make sure they were the ones who got out of it okay.”

“It was a suicide mission?” Eddie softens, putting all the clues together.

He nods, “I loved her, I hated myself and who I was becoming and it wasn’t changing. Even if I dropped Tommy and Carole, even if I somehow got away from my parent's influence… I never thought I’d get to a point in my life where I could be myself and like myself at the same time. I was ready to die in there for her.”

“But you didn’t,” Eddie is thankful beyond belief.

“Yeah, but surviving wasn’t any better. The government sat us all down and said we could never speak about it, we were in danger from the Russians if we did talk about it—

“Yeah right—

“No, they were serious but that’s later,” Steve is serious and Eddie can tell. “Nancy and I were told it was best to act as normal as possible and that we’d never get in trouble for being underage and drinking the night barb went missing and while I was super thankful my parents wouldn’t find out, Nancy was pissed that nothing was being done as justice for Barb… I processed it all by pretending it didn’t happen and she couldn’t because she didn’t get closure. Not like Joyce, Joyce got her son back and Nancy was stuck with me and nothing else.”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie reaches up to cup Steve’s cheek, “you didn’t look happy that year… I remember she’d sit in the parking lot with Jonathan and you’d always just play basketball in the gym or run track the whole break.”

He nods, “I always passed you on your way for a smoke.”

Eddie gives him a sweet smile, “you’re the only jock that would pass me without saying something snarky.”

“I never saw you leave a fight with a black eye,” Steve admits. “I was still yet to win a fight of my own at that point.”

“I would never hurt you,” Eddie whispers and Steve knows that to be true. It’s why he can open up to him so easily.

“I didn’t feel worthy of love for a long time,” he whispers back. “Nancy helped, she told me and I believed her but… I knew it wasn’t real. I knew we weren’t having sex cause she remembered how Barb died every time we tried and she didn’t sleep over at my house ever cause it feels haunted to her and the more I tried to be normal the more it made her wish she wasn’t with me. We were both pretending but for vastly different reasons. She didn’t want to get in trouble and I didn’t want to accept the fact that once she left, I was going to be lonely.”

“Didn’t you already have Dustin then?” Eddie asks, knowing how much Dustin loves him.

He shakes his head, “no, actually, I was on my way to her place to ask her to take me back after we broke up when I ran into Dustin and he needed help with something from the upside down that ate his cat.”

Eddies eyes grow wide, “his cat?”

He nods, “yeah it was one of those demo-dog things I was telling you about, they have the same mouths as the bats but they act like wolves.”

“Holy fuck?”

Steve just nods, “it’s been insane and thats just he starts of the second year… last summer we found out that the Russians were in Hawkins under the mall and I went down there with Robin, Dustin and Erika… we barely made it out alive and then we still had to fight the thing from the upside down that came out of the gate that the stupid fucking Russians opened up.”

Eddie can tell he’s the most traumatized by it so he runs his hands down Steve’s shoulders and shushes him softly, “you’re here now though, we’re working all together on this one. It’s not just Nancy, it’s not just you and the kids. It’s all of us. We can do it.”

Steve leans forward and kisses him again. He can’t help himself. He has to kiss Eddie as much as humanly possible before they can’t anymore because if he knows one thing from all of this, it’s that the people you love can be taken from you in the blink of an eye. Barb. Bob. Billy… Hopper. They’re all gone and everyone who loved them is devastated now.

He doesn’t want to know what it feels like to lose Eddie. Thats a devastation that he’d never recover from.

General Taglist

@ncsls0515 @stevesmunsons @reidsbookclub @wroteclassicaly @sweetyyhippyy @manuosorioh @mrs-dr-reid @k-k0129 @squishyturtle @katsukis1wife @babybisexual

Steddie

@nosaladallowed-ao3 @wifeyreid @girl-with-an-orange-cat @sunshinemunchkin @luna-munson83 @manda-panda-monium @steve-thehair-mamabear

@knightoftheieves @swimmingbirdrunningrock @throwbackthrowaway

#cruising fic #steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steve harrington fanfiction #eddie munson fanfiction #stranger things fanfiction #steddie fanfiction

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natureplay · 1 year ago

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୨୧Chapter V • Surprise Encounters

୨୧Masterlist

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Word count: 1.6k

Receiving your paycheck can be one of the best feelings ever, but there is something even better: spending it. Taking out those crisp bills and feeling their crispness between your fingers. It's an incredible sensation. Nothing compares to the satisfaction of knowing that your money is going toward something you need or want.

You are walking around the grocery store, checking off items on your list like some sort of grown-up. It's a strange feeling, considering how you were so used to tagging along with your mother on these trips. But here you are now, all by yourself managing to get everything you need for the week.

You’re walking around the snack aisle, looking at the shelves. A variety of chips and biscuits. Your stomach sends signals to your brain that it’s craving something salty so you grab a large bag of pretzels scanning over it.

Somebody calls your name from behind. When you turn around, you’re met with the familiar face of Eric.

For the past several weeks, he's made it a point to take every opportunity to talk to you. Whether you’re eating lunch with Hunnigan and he just has to join you, sitting at your desk taking a little break or simply passing by in the hallway, he always makes sure to find an excuse to strike up a conversation. Every time he talks with you, you feel his voice blossom and his face warms into a beam of happiness.

You didn’t like that. Well, maybe a little bit. Who doesn’t enjoy getting attention from others? It makes you feel a tad bit more special and wanted. But with Eric was different. Not just because he was borderline annoying with his very obvious interest in you— but also because you don’t date co-workers. You made that mistake already and it ended terribly.

“Hey!” Eric says.

You smile awkwardly and mutter a little hi to him. Eric smiles back, his eyes crinkling at the corners. You didn’t want to be rude and ignore him, though you could do that. Just turn around and leave. Pretend you never saw him.

“How are you doing, kid ?”

‘Kid’. That word immediately brings forth a feeling of resentment within you. It's as if he is superior to you and that you require his guidance to make it through life. You hate the way it makes your skin crawl every time he utters that moniker. You do nothing about it.

“Just doing a bit of grocery shopping. What about you?”

“Same here”

Another thing about Eric is that, yes, he does strike up conversations with you every single chance he gets, but he doesn’t know how to continue them so you’re left standing in an abyss of awkwardness. You’re sure he shares the same feeling.

“Are you excited for tomorrow?”

“I am a little bit nervous but I’m sure we’re going to do great…” You quickly start thinking of any excuse to escape this discomfiting situation.

Eric nods and stares at you.

“Well, I need to hurry. Don’t want to lose the bus. You know how these lines get” You laugh stiffly and start walking away before he can offer to help you by giving you a ride home. Your poor nerves can’t handle that, “See you tomorrow!”

As you’re walking away, you silently say sorry to all the snacks you couldn’t buy today—next time for sure.

You go straight to check-out not wanting to have another encounter with Eric. You told Hunnigan about what he’s been doing. She has the same thoughts as you but she enjoys teasing and making fun of you for it.

The line at check-out is short. Surprisingly, not that many people do their shopping on a random Tuesday evening. Except you and, well, Eric apparently.

You start walking towards the bus station. You're carrying two large and heavy bags in both of your arms. It's definitely giving you a bit of a workout. You can't imagine how sore your hands are going to be.

You didn't buy groceries just for yourself, oh no. The sweet old lady that gave you cookies when you moved on asked very nicely if you could also buy her groceries. You couldn't say no, especially after she said her grandson hasn’t been to visit her in over four months. So, guilt pushed you to help her.

It's not the first time you're helping her. You've helped her with cleaning, grocery shopping, and washing dishes. She always makes sure she gives you a little something in return that is in the form of her baking and cooking. She's been inviting you over for dinner where you both sit on the couch, eat one of her spectacular dishes, and watch the television and yell at the characters when they do something stupid.

The bus arrives in front of the apartment complex and you struggle to carry both of the bags and try to balance yourself.

You get in the elevator—because there is no way you're taking the stairs— and press the button to your floor. You set the bags down to give your poor arms a little break. You used to be a regular at the gym, maybe you should start doing that again.

The elevator doors open and you're met with the familiar hallway with peeling wallpaper and a questionable taste in tiles.

You enter your apartment first, setting both the bags on a kitchen counter and catch your breath for a little while. You take off your coat and toss it somewhere, not even looking where it lands, just hoping it's on the couch or somewhere nearby.

You take your neighbour's groceries and make the short journey to the door across the hall. You knock twice, taking a moment to wait for a response. While you stand there, you can't help but imagine what Mrs Ledger’s grandson is like. Most likely a loser who doesn’t care about his family.

Mrs Ledger hasn’t shown you pictures of him like any other grandparent would. She said that on the off chance you’re both here at the same time, she wants to embarrass him as much as possible with his naked baby photos.

Your nice neighbour opens the door and greets you with a warm smile.

“Come in, dear,” she says. Her voice is warm and welcoming.

You step into the apartment and you are struck by the familiar scent; it is a combination of nostalgia, reminiscence, and childhood memories that each grandparent has. You can't help but inhale deeply; you remember the days of visiting your own grandparents, and how their homes were warm and inviting. You wander to the small kitchen and set the bag on the counter.

“I hope I didn’t convenience you too much” She starts taking the items out of the bag and setting them down.

“It was no trouble, really”

By this point you know where every time needs to be stored. You grab the two bags of flour and put them away in the pantry.

"Thank you so much, dear, You've been a real help," Mrs Ledger says with warmth in her voice "I spoke to my grandson while you were away. He said he's coming over, to visit" Her eyes light up. So he does remember he has a family.

"That's nice... When is he coming?"

"Just about now, he said he's bringing me dinner" She replied with a wide grin, her cheeks glowing as bright as her spirit.

You nod; You didn’t want to be here when he arrived.

“Do you want to come over for dinner, dear?”

You freeze for a moment. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t. You needed to get all the sleep you could get. Tomorrow you were going to assist Eric Williams on his mission. You didn’t know how long it was going to take, but you knew it was going to be a long and exhausting day.

“I would really love to, but I have this really important thing tomorrow and I need my mind to be—I’m really sorry,” you say sincerely but gladly at the same time.

“Oh, well, that’s too bad. I don’t know when he’ll come visit again” While she still has the smile on her lips, her voice and eyes betray the poor old lady. You can’t help but pity her. From what you’ve heard, she doesn’t have any other family.

“You never know” You smile and head out the door.

“Thank you again, sugar!”

Leon is sitting in his car, head resting against the steering wheel, feeling completely overwhelmed. He's been feeling down for quite a while now and finds himself unable to shake the deep-seated sadness he feels.

Almost four months since his last visit to his grandmother, the only living family he has left.

Life and work got in his way multiple times. And whenever he had time to spare, he was moping around his house trying to get himself to get up and check on her.

He grabs the dinner he promised his grandmother. He still has the spare key she gave him so going inside was no problem.

He walks up the stairs with his head empty and body on autopilot.

He’s about to open the door to the apartment but somebody else opens it for him.

You.

You are standing at the door, looking up at him with confused eyes. He’s equally as confused. What were you doing here?

“Leon!” your voice sounds so surprised. You look back inside, then at him again. Gears seem to be grinding in your head then you make a sudden connection.

“I was just leaving. Good night, Mrs Ledger!”

You almost bump into him in your hurry. You open the door and slip inside your apartment. The one next to his grandmother’s. How interesting.

୨୧Masterlist

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#resident evil #leon kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #daring destiny

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alexcutecolly · 10 months ago

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youre 1000% right. he is so truly nice but desperate to have something better in the world and he would be so relaxing to be around most times like i am always saying this. i bet being swallowed by him feels like a hug every time. love thinking about him being really playful like this

v.olo uwu anon

Oh hi again v.olo uwu anon! 💕

He's a wonder to be around fr!! 😭❤️ To me he's the sweetest guy in all of H.isui, you could even fall asleep by his side if you're hanging out with him or something, it feels so cozy and peaceful! He's just got that chill, home sweet home aura! 🥺❤️

And I feel like his cheerful demeanor would transmit sooo well to vore as you said, since staying inside his belly would equal the most wholesome, wonderful and warmest hug he could give! I'd love to be surrounded by him that way tbh! 🥺❤️

Warning: Major spoilers for P.okemon Legends: A.rceus below!

The combination of protective and playful fits him perfectly imo, omg! And I can see him poke his gut to tease us a bit xD plus after eating us he could start reading a mythology book, or take a nap to relax x3 gosh, this is giving me more ideas for vore stories to write about him!! ❤️ Originally I had slightly more... twisted plans (100% safe as always ofc, dw), but lovely vore fluff is so neat too!! 🥺

Talking about how he feels though, it pains me to see how much he must have suffered ;-; he keeps asking himself if he's unworthy of A.rceus's attention since it favored the MC instead of him, despite everything he's done to even be acknowledged by it ;-;

"I've devoted myself to A.rceus beyond any other! I worshiped it as the creator of our entire world! I bent all of my passion and interest to its study! All the time I've spent poring over the legends... Everything that I've done—!"

And even when he's defeated he goes:

"How? How could this happen?! Almighty A.rceus, if you have any heart within you, then tell me...

The blood of the ancient S.innoh people flows in my veins, does it not?! What is it, then, that you find so lacking in me?!

Do you mean to tell me that this world doesn't need to be remade?"

Also, him asking us if we have dreams like he does literally makes my heart ache ;-; ;-; (and it reminded me of N. as well ;-;)

In general, I think he perceives himself as a very lonely individual, and it gets worse since nobody even goes to look for him after the final battle (I'd do it myself if the game just let me, aksbdejsbsn) and pretty much everyone simply accepts that he was the villain and moves on ;-;

His loneliness got me thinking nonetheless. Despite him being able to hide it behind his usual happy-go-lucky attitude, some of it could still come through. For example, he could enjoy our company a lot more than it seems, and with vore it'd work the same way since a pred is technically not alone after nomming somebody. So he could also rub his middle and take in all the positive feelings that come with eating a close person in safety x3 ❤️

"In the end, I was alone... But not you."

To be honest, I wish we could say goodbye to him before he leaves, or at least see him tell professor L.aventon what happened, oof ;-; we saw him from a brief moment tho in the second H.isuian Snow episode! That gives me a lil bit of hope xDD

In any case, G.amefreak please bring him baaaaaack!!! (Alive, possibly ;-;) We miss him!!! 😭😭

#this almost turned into an angst v.olo post ooops #sorry dear v.olo uwu anon i hope you didn't mind #a lot of non-vore thoughts resurfaced lol #i still love adding depth to vore and i see v.olo being both this playful lovely guy #and a very lonely person seeking for connection and answers #mmmmm now i want to be vored by him so bad lmao #i should probably write more stories with him #i'm just stuck with that g/t story wip i was never able to continue oof #coming up with a believable shrinking method in a land 200~ years back in time that doesn't rely on “A.rceus magic” is hard lmao 😭#anyway i loved seeing this ask in my inbox!! thank you again for sharing your v.olo thoughts with me dear anon! 💕💕#safe vore #g/t vore #v.olo vore rambles #v.olo uwu anon #v0re #my asks

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rawbins-undertale-blog · 3 years ago

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Hey! I was thinking about this at 1 AM, but how would the UT, US, and UF bros react to their S/O telling them that they love them even with all their flaws, and will always be there for them? Also, I just wanted to say that I love your writing and your art, and you're a huge inspiration. You're simply the best, and I hope you have a good day.

BHJAJBHHBJD THIS,,, THIS IS SO SWEET AAaAAaaa (and tysm!!!!!! mY HEART,,, hope you have a good day too!!! Even if this is extremely late sorry lol)

Hope this will do <3

UT + US + UF BROS WHEN S/O TELLS THEM THEY LOVE THEM DESPITE THEIR FLAWS

Vanilla (Undertale Sans):

Admittedly a bit awkward at first and will try to brush you off (because sincerity and being heartfelt isn’t something that comes easily to him)

“even with my ketchup addiction?”, he’ll joke and if you just keep being genuine with him, he’ll quickly melt and allow himself to be vulnerable with you

Gives you some kind of sappy speech about how amazing you are and how he loves you so much and while he doesn’t see why you love him, he’ll do his best to be what you deserve and be better for both of you. He promises to be there for you when he can too, and you know he doesn’t take promises lightly.

Might cry, depending on how far into each other’s insecurities this talk goes and/or how much you insist upon loving him even if he isn’t perfect.

Miraculously won’t include any jokes or puns beyond maybe the first couple of responses to you initial confession

After this, you’re having a LONG cuddle session

Cinnamon (Undertale Papyrus):

Ecstatic. Announces proudly that the same goes for you and then dives into a long-winded talk about every single thing he loves about you.

The things he loves about you include things that bother you, things that not even you were aware of before now, and things you thought he wouldn’t have picked up on. He’s actually very perceptive.

Either this ends up with the two of you having a cute movie-night or some other kind of goofy activity or it ends with crying as you hold each other after confessing to things you regret and/or are insecure over.

Blue (Underswap Sans):

Smiles softly, gently, before he also goes on a ramble about all the things he adores about you. It’s genuine and sweet and wonderful. He won’t leave you, he swears it on his own soul.

He admits to his faults he keeps hidden, how he’s afraid he’s not as good of a person as he likes to pretend to be and how guilty he feels about it.

But you still love him.

He internally doesn’t really understand why, but he accepts it. You’re the most wonderful and fantastic person he’s ever met, why should he question you?

Stretch (Underswap Papyrus):

hjksjhdsjbhsdhjsdfhvdsfhvsdhk

He’s blushing so much, he doesn’t know what to do or say. Help.

I mean! You too!! Uh!!! Of course he loves you!! He loves you so much!! He just!!! Doesn’t know how to respond, give him a second please!!!!!

After a minute of him stewing silently in his hoodie and blushing like there’s no tomorrow (and you’re pretty sure you can see steam coming from where his ears would be), he finally starts stuttering out an actual response (while still looking like he’s ready to explode any minute).

You’re- you’re so amazing and perfect and by the stars, he loves you more than he ever thought it was possible to love somebody (who isn’t Blue but that’s another type of love and also beside the point) and sometimes he thinks he could just die from how great you make him feel just by being there.

He’ll confess to having some serious anxiety about thinking you’ll leave him any day now once you realise you could do better (which you’ve probably picked up on already, Stretch isn’t the best at hiding things).

Let’s be real, this ends with at the very least him crying and it gets emotional my guy

Red (Underfell Sans):

Melts. Immediately.

He doesn’t know how to reply verbally, he’s not good with words for the most part, so he hugs you tightly and says something vaguely resembling “you too, i love ya so much” but he genuinely doesn’t know how to give you an actual response.

But you said you love him even with his flaws, which means you’re okay with that.

It isn’t much of a verbal conversation here, more just Red cuddling you because he can’t find words to describe what he feels.

But what he feels for you is good, and that much he’ll tell you.

Edge (Underfell Papyrus):

You’ve done it. You’ve broken down his walls and he’s not going to act all tough and brave. He’ll be sincere.

Except for for like half a second. He half-heartedly tries to brush you off at first like “OH. Y-YES, OF… OF COURSE YOU DO!” before faltering and going all mushy on you lol

Goes on a long ramble about how he thinks you’re so amazing and how he loves all these little things you do, like the way your face looks when you’re concentrated or how you act when you feel happy.

It turns into self-deprecating himself for being… not soft and nice, for being so rough around the edges (PUN NOT INTENDED!!!!!!!!!!). He doesn’t like who he used to be, nor does he really like who he is now, but you… you help him become something he doesn’t despise.

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under-sedationnn · 3 years ago

Text

the arcana: main six reacting to injured! reader

anonymous: Could u do m6 reacting to mc coming home injured? I want some hurt/comfort >:))

Warnings: talk of being injured, blood. if that bothers you or tiggers you in anyway, please scroll away! i want this to be a safe place, only :)

thanks for the request anon!! i hope you enjoy!! <3 requests for the kissing prompts and physical affection prompts are STILL OPEN. please send them in with the character of your choice (which could be any character from any series i write for) and i will create an imagine!! thanks and happy reading!!

- tries his very very best to stay calm

- you can see panic bubbling under the surface

- faust is on high alert

- slithers around your shoulders and squeezes you for a hug

- "friend! hurt!"

- doesn't immediately ask what happened, just gets you to a comfortable place to be cleaned up

- then, and only then, will he brave to ask what happened to you

- or who did this to you

- wipes the blood from your skin with very gentle swipes

- winces when you wince, and apologizes profoundly

- "Y/n, how did this happen? i thought you were just taking a quick trip to the market."

- "i fell in the market, tripped over a stone"

- "and nobody helped you?"

- in this case he's disappointed with the bystanders, but does not become angry

- in a situation where someone hurt you?

- oh god

- "Y/n, how did this happen? i thought you were just taking a quick trip to the market."

- "yeah, well, somebody had their eye on the same apple i picked up. somehow, though, they managed to push me to the ground and steal it from my hands."

- i don't even think he would know what to say

- and asra is not really the type to march out into the streets of vesuvia and seek to challenge the one who hurt you

- but he would certainly hold a grudge against whoever it was if he did find out

- and would feel absolutely awful about letting you get hurt

- his mind would race about the possibility of losing you again

- because he simply can't handle it

- and what if that person had been particularly violent or malicious? what if you had been taken??

- you'd have to comfort the hell out of him to make sure he knows that you're okay

- "asra, hey, i'm fine! i can handle myself, you know that"

- "you're right, and i know you're right. it's just hard"

- "it's still hard for me, too. the market still makes me a little nervous and i got caught a little off guard, is all"

- that would make him feel better

- would finish patching up your wounds and would make sure to bring you to julian the next day if they were too bad for him to fix or needed stitches

- would also create a special brew to help with the pain and ease you to sleep

- "why don't i go down to the market tomorrow?"

- "why? so when you pick a fight over apples, i can pay you back for all of this high quality medical treatment?"

- "well of course, surely you didn't expect all this tender love and care to be free" *wink*

- panicked doctor mode enabled

- immediately begins checking you over, asking questions

- something tells me it would be a head injury of some sort

- "oh darling, what happe- you're bleeding!"

- "julian, i'm okay! it's just a little scratch"

- "no no no you might need stitches, come sit down. i'll go get my kit!"

- there's really no use in arguing

- he has cold ass hands, so he tries to warm them up before he begins suturing the wound

- tries to be gentle, and his expert hands move quickly without any snagging

- "so, how did this happen?"

- his voice is literally trembling

- "well, i was in the clinic grabbing the list of ingredients we need for our next grocery trip and there was a puddle of... something on the floor. i slipped and hit my head on the corner of your desk"

- immediately thinks it's his fault

- like "oh shit i should have cleaned better that could have killed y/n and then what would i have done-"

- doesn't necessarily voice this, but you can tell by the silence that follows that he's feeling really guilty

- would kneel for you, head on your knees

- "y/n, i am so sorry"

- "juli, it's really okay, i should have watched where i was going"

- "i'll make sure to clean better from now on, okay?"

- would guard you throughout the night in case of concussion

- nurse juli <3

- but let's say someone had put their hands on you

- would patch you up the same way, and apologize profusely for not being there with you

- tuck you into bed and fetch mazelinka to keep an eye on you throughout the night incase of a concussion

- would most definitely be self destructive and seek that mf out

- maybe not successfully, but would try his hardest

- "i'll be back in the morning, get some rest"

- "I can find them myself if I want to, you know"

- embarrassed blush

- because he KNOWS you can take care of yourself

- "of course, but right now you're hurt. as your partner, i will do what must be done on your behalf darling"

- probably shows up the following morning with battle scars of his own

- the guards found you in the garden, passed out in the maze

- blood trickled down your arm, a large gash marking your bicep

- ran you up to the palace and immediately to the medical wing

- them]n nadia gets word

- the calm, collected queen act disappears

- abandons anything she's doing, anybody she's talking to

- "we will finish this at a different time, i have more important matters to attend to"

- she is so worried and it's honestly adorable

- very much giving "where tf are they?" energy

- god i love her so much

- anyways um

- asks the nurses over and over what happened, if you're okay, etc.

- watches the physicians and nurses like a hawk as they clean the wound and suture the cut

- and they're so intimidated lmao they never come face to face with her literally ever

- brushes your hair back from your face as they do so

- holds your hands

- would demand that you be brought to her sleeping chamber

- so that's where you wake up! how cute

- she's laying beside you, her brows furrowed

- maybe even her eyes are a little hazy

- "y/n, sweetheart, do you remember what happened?"

- patiently waits for your answer, you're still a little groggy

- you were either attacked by an animal and passed out from the fright

- or you were attacked by an armed person and was knocked out

- either way, the guards are on it

- nadia isn't letting whoever or whatever did this get away without a fight

- the palace is meant to be a safe haven for you

- for the both of you

- "well, don't you worry, we'll take care of that"

- you try to sit up but she won't let you

- "oh no, you must stay down, y/n. you are possibly concussed from the fall"

- "oh okay, sorry"

- "is there anything i can get you?"

- the countess of vesuvia, serving you in your time of need

- "just some water would be nice"

- "of course, i'll have some brought up right away"

- i literally feel like he would just start crying straight up

- cause like he has some problems anyway

- he big sad boi

- and you coming home to the hut bleeding from a gash in the arch of your foot is not helping

- picks you and carries you to the bed without a word

- just starts examining the cut

- inanna is also very concerned

- she licks the blood from the cut, she's trying to be helpful

- meanwhile muriel is stumbling around the hut looking for anything to stop the bleeding, disinfect it, bandage it, anything

- but he's not the best about keeping that stuff in stock

- keeps looking back at you with worry in his eyes

- he doesn't know what to do

- "muriel, let me see if i can contact asra. maybe he or julian can bring me a salve. i'm pretty sure i'm gonna need stitches"

- low-key makes him feel worse

- cause he feels like he's unable to care for you and keep your safe

- even tho this was just an accident

- he's breathing really fast, his anxiety creeping

- agrees anyway, but goes to get them himself

- "i'll be back soon, just keep this piece of cloth pressed against it"

- cause you're bleeding like a lot

- inanna stays behind

- he returns very quickly with julian in tow, though he doesn't look happy about it

- leaves the hut without another word

- julian gets to work immediately

- "so, you cut your foot i see"

- smartass.

- "yeah, muriel always tells me to put on shoes when i walk in the woods but i love to feel the grass beneath my feet"

- julian chuckled at this

- "and i'm assuming you, what, stepped on a rock?"

- "...yeah, sliced it right open"

- after julian is done cleaning up the cut, he tells you to just stay off of it for a while and make sure it doesn't get infected

- once he's gone, muriel trudges back into the hut

- "muriel, baby, it was just a cut it's not a big deal"

- but his eyes look hurt, and you beckon him toward the bed

- "hey," your hands on his cheeks, "i'm okay, really"

- "sorry, i just got scared. blood is still a trigger for me and since you got hurt in my woods, i felt like it was my fault"

- "muriel, of course it wasn't your fault"

- he really needed a hug

- after this instance, he made sure to keep medical supplies in the hut and you promised to try and wear shoes in the woods more often than not

- "i'll try my best to be more careful. deal?"

- sweet lil smile

- "deal."

- "oh my god, y/n, what the hell happened??"

- you were tending the garden

- without her supervision

- and the garden sheers might have sliced into the palm of your hand

- deep

- brings you over to the sink and runs water over the cut, covering it with a towel when the dripping blood had been washed away

- girl is on the move

- cause she knows what to do! love that

- low-key a main reason why julian managed to live as long as he has

- pepi is curiously perched atop one of the counters, peering down

- finds her personal first aid kit she had stashed in the bathroom

- guides you over to sit on the counter while she tries to figure out what to do

- "damn, you really cut yourself, y/n"

- "sorry! i think i just got a little carried away"

- she giggles at that, though she is still worried about the fact that it won't stop bleeding

- gently wraps the cut in gauze and adheres it together

- places a kiss to your fingertips

- "all done! no more gardening for you!"

- "hey, why not?"

- "well you don't want that cut to open back up again and again, do you?"

- "no"

- "alright then," she smiled, moving to put away the first aid kit again, "and we're going up to the palace medical wing first thing tomorrow morning to make sure it's not infected"

- eye roll

- "yes ma'am" you mocked

- even though you know it's just because she loves you

- "but since you got hurt, you want me to bake you some cookies?"

- "only if you let me eat the dough!"

- good god do i love this man

- but he is so self-absorbed it's actually insane

- and I feel like he wouldn't even notice at first

- cause he's too focused on himself

- gazing into the mirror without a care in the world when you walked in

- "y/n, thank goodness you're home, how do you feel about these pants?"

- you just hobbled to the nearest seat, hand resting over the gash on your knee

- mercedes and melchior were lazing across a rug at the base of his mirror, their attention set on you

- "u-um, yeah, they look good"

- literally just trying not to bleed out, over here

- "good? oh really, now, y/n don't they look amazing?"

- "yes, they look ama- ow, damnit"

- then he turned around

- immediate shock and worry! oh no oh no y/n is hurt!

- mercedes and melchior walked over first, whining as they took in the cut, brushing around the edges

- lucio raced over, squatting down in front of you, and began examining the cut

- "hey, hey, what happened?"

- "i accidentally tripped on my walk in the garden and scraped my knee on the cobblestone"

- he was lightly touching around the cut, gauging how sensitive it was

- when you flinched he stopped, looking into your eyes with a soft "sorry"

- "i think i need to go to the palace infirmary"

- "oh there's no need, i can take care of you!"

- you were not convinced he could take care of you, at least not well

- "uh, lucio, are you sure?"

- he looked slightly offended, at that

- "you know, y/n, i did fight in battles at one point. i have not only tended to my own wounds, but the wounds of others, as well"

- you giggled at the thought

- "much to your protest, though, i'm sure"

- he moved to the small cabinet of medical supplies in the ensuite to your bedroom, returning to your side with it in hand

- "at points, but i don't mind helping you in the slightest"

- for all of his antics, his soft side was enough to make you fall in love all over again

- and although i know he would take care of you in literally any situation, i can't say for certainty that he would stick around and place nurse lucio for long if a person had hurt you

- attacked you

- much like nadia, the guards would be sent out without a second thought, lucio leading the pack in the search for you aggressor

#the arcana nadia #the arcana julian #the arcana #the arcana imagines #the arcana headcanons #the arcane game #the arcana lucio #nadia the arcana #the arcana asra #asra the arcana #lucio montag #count lucio #lucio #portia devorak #portia headcanons #muriel the mountain man #muriel x mc #the arcana muriel #muriel

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