#art high school was just really frustrating and too many rules but i feel like i can just be a kid now

[arcanespillo]

sorry hope this isnt weird to send but i just wanted to say i rly rly like your art like a lot like i love that one drawing you did of the red shirtless guy with the blue outline i think its a good use of color and um i just really like your art and i hope you keep drawing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

omg thank you sooo much !!!! 🥺🥺 its not weird its so heart warming i mean it, and i hope to keep drawing too because i'm finally having fun with it !!

[archived-kin]

solomon deserves a husband so i'm giving him one (it's you)

note from kin: i don’t know HOW i’ve managed to get this out so soon after my last piece but i do know that it is a miracle (now watch me disappear for like a month lmao)

anyway there’s a severe lack of content for the boys in this fandom and therefore i am here to try to mitigate that!!

(as a heads up, this is sort of an au version of obey me’s story?? there’s no exchange program, and the general human world doesn’t know about the devildom or celestial realm, apart from sorcerers and similar special cases. solomon and simeon both still visit the devildom, though - solomon because he has a sort of job at the r.a.d., and simeon as an ambassador sort of thing for the celestial realm. the r.a.d.’s also less of a school and more of an organisation?? i haven’t really fleshed it out haha)

fandom: obey me!

character(s): male! reader, solomon, mammon (briefly), simeon (briefly)

pairing(s): solomon/reader

warning(s): blasphemy??? solomon disses god really briefly and that’s about it

genre: fluff!!!!!!!!!

As a general rule of thumb, Solomon doesn’t believe in destiny.

He’s lived long enough to know that, no matter what he does, the universe does not care about him, much less have some sort of plan for his future. The course that the world takes isn’t affected by some grand puppet master pulling the strings; one has to force the so-called path of fate in the direction they want it to take if they want something. Solomon knows this better than anyone.

It’s as much a downfall as it is a strength - as much as power as he’s amassed over the countless years, his constant need to challenge the universe’s power has lead him down a path far from humanity. There had been a time when he was like every other human on the Earth, when he was still young, full of hope and determination and promise, believing earnestly in some God high in the sky who would guide him through his life.

He shudders to think what sort of insufferable fool he’d been back then. An almighty God? Don’t make him laugh. The ruler of the Celestial Realm is incompetent at best, and a downright childish brat at worst. He doesn’t know how the angels put up with him - though he supposes his realm-smiting power is part of it. Why the universe chose to place such power on such a being’s shoulders will always be beyond him.

Long as it has been since he had been so naive, Solomon has learnt his lesson, to say the least. He’s seen people come and go, witnessed kings and queens reign and fall, watched on as friends and family live and die. It’s a truth that he’s been forced to learn across the years of his long, long life, a curse that he brought upon himself the moment he gave up the purity of his soul in pursuit of magical arts. 

He supposes he’s always had an insatiable thirst for the unknown - to play all his cards out front, to tempt fate’s hand, to jump into the void and hope to find ground beneath his feet when he lands. It’s that sort of reckless abandon and hunt for knowledge that has led him so far down this path, through so many years, across so many sleepless nights. The world continues to swirl around him, always changing, but Solomon refuses to be swept away. Because, even in the tumultuous movement of the universe, there has always been one constant that keeps him anchored - you.

The night he'd first met you isn’t as clear in his mind as he would have liked. He wants to be able to remember everything - the way the soft blue light of the will-o’-whisps had lit up your eyes in the dark of the night, the way that your hand had felt in his as you greeted him with a handshake, the way that you had said his name for the first time - in sharp detail, but Solomon knows better than to hope to recall something so long ago so perfectly.

He’d still been relatively new to a sorcerer’s life at the time - excited and determined and a little too full of himself. You… well, he doesn’t remember exactly, but he does remember thinking that you must be the most handsome being to exist. The you of today would probably shake your head and dismiss the past you as an obnoxious high hoper, but Solomon has loved you for so many years that he’s never been able to think of you as anything less than perfect.

There are times when he wondered how he managed to stumble upon such luck. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that Solomon has has had truly insufferable periods over the years he’s known you, and he’s always considered it a miracle that you still chose to stay. Even through all the restless nights and the exhausting trips, even after all of the clashes and vexation, you have refused to give up on him.

He had asked you once, in the aftermath of an argument spurred by his inability to confide in you and your own frustration with his refusal to communicate. He remembers that night so vividly that it might well have happened just yesterday - the frustrated shouts, the shattering of glass, the warmth of your arms around his shoulders as he finally collapsed on himself. He doesn’t know what your face had looked like as he stuttered the question out in stuttering breaths, head buried in your shoulder in an effort to conceal his tears, but he imagines that it had been soft.

“I’m not going to leave you to yourself,” You had told him matter-of-factly, stroking his hair with such fondness  that it still sometimes brings a tear to his eye when he remembers it on particularly long nights. “And I’m not giving up on you, either - not now, not ever.”

Solomon had been unable to speak, too choked up by his feelings and the sudden, overwhelming love spreading through his entire body to reply. He’d only sunk deeper into your embrace, wishing that the moment could last forever.

I wonder if he still remembers that…?

“...lomon! Anyone home?!”

He jolts up from the table he’s sitting at so abruptly that he nearly knocks his head right into Mammon’s chin. The Avater of Greed, however, reacts quickly, and hops back before Solomon can break his jawbone.

“Jeez, you’re off on a different planet today,” He comments, setting his hands on his hips as Solomon shoots him the sort of look that tells him that he’s not particularly enthused about his presence at the moment. “What’s up with ya?”

Solomon isn’t quite sure how to answer. Sorry, I got distracted thinking about how perfect and lovely my husband is and how I’m the luckiest man in the entire world - nay, the universe - to have him. He nearly physically shudders at the thought of how much teasing he’d receive if he answered like that.

Instead, he chooses a much safer and still technically true option. “Just thinking about going home today.”

Mammon nods in understanding, pulling up a seat next to him and throwing himself down into it without much grace. “I feel ya. S’ been a long day.”

“You’ve barely done anything today,” Solomon quips flatly, not particularly impressed by the demon’s attempt at… empathy? Relatability? Either way, it isn’t working. “I doubt it’s been that hard.”

“Now, now, Solomon, let’s not be rude,” interjects a soft voice from behind them. Simeon is still dressed in his fancy envoy cloak - the one so long and heavy that it trails along behind him like a bridal train, decorated with a number of elaborate golden charms that jingle as he moves.

Solomon attempts to shoot him a slightly annoyed look, but it’s kind of hard to stay irritated by one of the literal embodiments of holiness and light, even if he wakes you up at very unholy hours of the morning to help him figure out how to answer an email. Solomon isn’t ungrateful for the new age of technology descending on humanity, but he’d like it a lot better if it hadn’t somehow reached the angels as well. The amount of times he’s had to tell Simeon that he needs to actually turn his D.D.D. on before he starts calling someone is… embarrassing, to say the least.

“You’re back in the Devildom, I see,” He observes as the angel pulls up a seat and sits beside him. “Did Michael send you down again?”

Simeon nods with a smile. “There were some arrangements that needed to be made with Lord Diavolo. Naturally, I volunteered.”

“Naturally,” Solomon echoes, raising a brow at his friend. “I don’t suppose your biases had anything to do with your decision?”

“Well, they may have had some effect,” Simeon answers with a shameless smile and shrug, beginning to undo the tassels of his heavy cloak and draping it on the back of chair he’s sitting on. He’s still wearing all of his regular clothes underneath it - including the other, much smaller cloak. Solomon wonders how he hasn’t somehow melted in the heat.

“When’re you gonna start heading home, anyway?” Mammon asks, beginning to pick at a loose thread on his jacket sleeve. “It’s gettin’ late.”

Solomon blinks and looks up at the clock. “...ah, you’re right. In that case, I'll get going now.”

Mammon shoots him an odd look as he pushes himself up from the table and reaches for his bag, managing to hoist it onto his shoulder with some effort. He’s never been particularly good at heavy lifting - you’re usually the one helping him carry everything around the house.

“Oi, oi, what’s the rush?” the demon asks as Solomon adjusts the weight of his bag and starts heading for the door. “You on a timer or something?”

“I promised [Name] I’d be home earlier tonight,” is Solomon’s slightly absent-minded reply as he fiddles about in his pocket to find his transportation charm, nearly losing his balance and dropping his bag in the process. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

Mammon watches him in clear confusion for a moment as he pats down his pockets, mumbling a quiet curse under his breath as he realises that he’s left his charm at home again. How many times this month does that make it now...? He supposes that he could always perform a teleportation spell, but knowing his luck with those, he’ll probably end up somewhere in Morocco again.

“Oi, Simeon,” Mammon hisses to the angel, who cocks his head slightly to the side and leans over so as to hear him more clearly. “Who’s this ‘[Name]’ Solomon’s talkin’ about?”

“You don’t know?” Simeon blinks at him in blatant perplexion - as if he can’t even fathom the idea that Mammon might not know who Solomon’s talking about. “He’s talking about his husband.”

There’s a long moment of silence. Then—

“Solomon has a HUSBAND!?” Mammon practically shrieks, completely flabbergasted. “I thought he was totally, like, the forever alone type!”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never noticed?” is Simeon’s bewildered response. “Who do you think Solomon is always talking about buying groceries for?”

“I thought he was just buyin’ them for himself!” Mammon fires back, looking far more ruffled and shocked than he probably should be. He whips around to look at Solomon, who’s flicking through the little packet of blank charms he keeps on him at all times in an effort to find the right one to create a temporary transportation charm. He’s had to do it so many times this month that he’s already beginning to run out. “You’re married?!”

“Of course,” Solomon answers vaguely, briefly raising his left hand, allowing Mammon to spot the soft glint of a ring around his fourth finger. “You’re not?”

“Wh— ‘course I’m not!” Mammon exclaims, positively scandalised by the very concept. “Why would I get married, huh?! It’s a waste of time and a waste of money!”

“Think whatever you like,” Solomon dismisses him easily, which only seems to irritate Mammon further.

Finally having found the right blank charm, he plucks it out and begins carefully tracing patterns onto it with a single glowing finger. He’s dimly aware of Mammon furiously whispering to Simeon in the background, with the angel responding in kind, most likely sharing some exaggerated story from back when the three of you had worked together - when Solomon had accepted a job from the Celestial Realm. The details of the whole thing are a little fuzzy to him now, long as it has been, but he’s almost completely sure that Simeon somehow still remembers the whole thing flawlessly.

“How old even is he?!” He hears Mammon hiss.

“I’m not so sure myself,” Simeon replies, placing his chin in a thoughtful hand. “Let’s see… their two millennial anniversary’s coming up in about two years, and I remember Solomon saying that they got married when he was around two hundred or so… which means he’s about twenty-one hundred years old.”

“Holy shit,” Mammon mutters in disbelief, turning glance at the sorcerer as he starts folding down the corners of his charm into the right shape. “Humans aren’t supposed to live that long. How’s his husband still alive, then?”

“That isn’t really a question for me to answer,” Simeon shakes his head slightly. “I suppose you can always ask him yourself if Solomon ever brings him to work with him.”

“I doubt it,” Solomon speaks up for the first time since announcing his departure. “He’s usually busy during the day. Besides, transportation charms make him queasy, and I’m not making him walk all the way down here.”

“Aren’t you a wizard?” Mammon asks, scratching his head. “Just do one of ya fancy teleportation spells. Why d’you need a charm?”

Solomon sighs. He hates to admit it, but he can’t be bothered to make up some other reason to cover up for himself. “I’m afraid that teleportation spells aren’t actually particularly accurate. We could end up somewhere in the Pacific if I’m not careful.”

Mammon looks thunderstruck. “Then what about all those times you’ve teleported us?! Don’t tell me we coulda ended up in, like, the Archaic Pit or something?!”

“Well, it was always a possibility,” Solomon shrugs in reply, finishing the charm with a deft flick of his hand. “You’re a demon, I sure you could have handled yourself.”

“But…!” Mammon crosses his arms and turns away like a grumpy child. “Hmph…”

“Do say hello to [Name] for me, will you?” Simeon requests as Solomon turns to open the door, ignoring the sulking demon sitting beside him. “We haven’t been able to talk for a while.”

“You text him every day, don’t you?” Solomon asks, shooting him an unimpressed look. “I’d say that’s conversation enough.”

“Now, now, there’s no need to be stingy,” Simeon countered with a smile, tilting his head slightly to the side and leaning forward. “Besides, one misses the presence of an actual person after a while of nothing but electronic communication... especially texting is so difficult. Tell him he’s always welcome to come around for some tea - Luke would be happy to see him.”

Solomon shakes his head, but makes a sound of affirmation nevertheless. You had mentioned that you’ve missed seeing Simeon since he’d started the whole negotiator businesss, and he isn’t the sort of person to deny you the company of a friend. “I’ll let him know. Anyway, I should really be going now…”

“Have a safe journey!” Simeon calls after him as he swings the door open and sweeps out. Solomon waves a hand over his shoulder in response, then disappears down the corridor, most likely to a quiet spot in the courtyard to use his charm. He’s been banned from using them indoors ever since he accidentally shattered one of the fancy artifacts in the assembly hall and sent hundreds of shards flying everywhere. Apparently Barbatos is still finding tiny pieces of glass in the crevices of the floor.

“Why didn’t Solomon ever say anythin’?” Mammon asks Simeon after a moment of quietude. “Seems like the sorta thing you’d mention.”

“Solomon’s a private man,” Simeon says with a shrug. “Besides, he and [Name] have made plenty of enemies over the years, and you’d be shocked by how quickly names and locations can spread…”

“Does he mind us knowin’ about it, then?”

“Well, personally, I’ve known for a while,” Simeon answers, “And I’m sure the others will have worked it out by now - Solomon’s always finding ways to mention [Name] in passing. But no, I’m sure he doesn’t mind. He’d say something if he did.”

Mammon nods and goes silent for a little while. Then he asks, “What’s this [Name] like, then? Must be some guy if Solomon liked him enough to put a ring on him and keep him for that long.”

“Well, let’s see…” Simeon drums his fingers thoughtfully against the tabletop. “He has quite the penchant for raising deadly plants, he hasn’t gone more than a full month without exploding something or another for about five centuries, he takes clocks apart in his spare time, he likes his coffee with a touch of vanilla, he collects cursed books, he makes a lovely butterscotch-cinnamon pie, and he works as a curse breaker for hire.”

It takes a moment for Mammon to process all of the information that’s just been dumped on him. “...sounds like the kinda guy Satan would get along with.”

“I thought so as well,” Simeon agrees. “Their house even reminds me of Satan’s room, in a way… [Name] is quite the avid reader.”

“What, you’ve been?”

“Only once,” Simeon’s eyes flutter closed for a moment as he reminisces. “Quite a long time ago now. I wouldn’t know where to find it even if I wanted to go again, though - it’s always moving.”

“Do they move house a lot, then?”

Simeon shakes his head. “Oh, no, no. They’ve lived in the same house for centuries - it’s the house that moves itself.”

Mammon pauses. “...what?”

“The building,” Simeon clarifies. “They’ve got an enchantment on the whole thing that makes it change locations every couple of weeks or so.”

“But… why?”

Simeon shrugs. “[Name] doesn’t like staying in one place for too long.”

“Still, isn’t that a bit much…?” Mammon pulls a face. “They could always just travel, ya know…”

“As Solomon said, transportation talismans make [Name] feel queasy,” Simeon explains. “And he prefers not to use teleportation spells when it comes to him, just in case they end up somewhere dangerous.”

“And he doesn’t care about the rest of us ending up somewhere dangerous?” Mammon huffs and collapses forwards onto the table.

“Well, you can’t really compare the two,” Simeon says patiently as the demon continues to mutter indignantly under his breath. “He’s his husband, and we’re essentially just his friends from work.”

Mammon opens his mouth to make a rebuttal, then thinks about it for a moment and changes his mind. After a moment, he comments, a little less resentfully, “Well, you’d think he’d at least introduce us.”

“He’s been planning to for a while, actually,” Simeon tells him. “Give him some time and he’ll probably bring it up on his own.”

Mammon nods. “He’d better!”

“I’m home.”

You look up from the book you’re reading and hop down from your seat on the roof just in time to see Solomon emerge from the back garden, looking noticeably dishevelled, with leaves decorating his head like some sort of fancy accessory.

“Welcome back!” You greet him happily, setting the book aside and moving forward to start picking the leaves from his hair. Solomon smiles softly at you as you take his bag in one hand and start pulling him to the front door with the other. “You forgot your talisman again, by the way.”

“I noticed,” He laughs, gently removing your hand from his upper arm and wrapping his fingers around it instead. “Why else do you think I ended up in the hedges again?”

“It’s a wonder that you’ve had to make these temporary talismans so many times and you still haven’t gotten one right yet,” You tease in reply, nudging him in the shoulder. “How many points is that on the tally now, then?”

“Ten for the basement, seven for the roof, and eleven for the hedges now,” He answers with a small pout as you laugh. “Honestly, you’d think I would have learnt my lesson...”

“You never do, love.” 

The door creaks as you and your husband enter the house, only to immediately be greeted by a bundle of scales hitting you head-on. You manage to keep your footing and steady yourself on the doorway; Solomon isn’t so lucky, and ends up laying spread-eagled on the floor with about two hundred kilograms of excited adolescent dragon purring on his chest.

“Looks like Triton missed you,” You comment with a bright smile, setting Solomon’s bag down beside the umbrella rack and leaning over to give the dragon a scratch behind his left horn, just the way he likes it. He rumbles happily and jingles the little bell around his neck at you. “Isn’t he getting big?”

“I saw him this morning, [Name],” Solomon wheezes from his position on the floor, somehow managing to reach up and tickle Triton’s chin with one hand despite the dragon’s weight. “He can’t have grown that much in ten hours.”

“You never know!” You tell him, reaching up and wrapping your arms around Triton’s neck. He coos in a delighted fashion and raises his head, setting it heavily on your shoulder. Solomon uses the brief lightening of the weight on him to take in a deep breath as you allow your dragon to nuzzle furiously into your neck. “Dragons are unpredictable, you know.”

“Believe me, I do,” He sighs tiredly as Triton blows out a pleased puff of hot air and knocks the clock off the wall again. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, Triton, I’d quite like to get back up again.”

The dragon blinks and raises his head from your shoulder, glancing down at the sorcerer that he’s crushing under his weight. Then he huffs and turns away again.

“Oh, you—!” Solomon curses as the dragon seems to press even harder into him. Your laughter rings out across the hall, and while he’d normally take a moment to admire the sound, he’s a little preoccupied. “[Name], stop laughing and help me!”

“He’s like a rebellious teenager!” You splutter helplessly in reply, voice still trembling slightly out of mirth. Triton makes a happy noise as you reach up and rub his scaly cheeks, his ears fluttering slightly. “Awww, you’re really growing up, aren’t you, baby? Your poor dads are really going to have their work cut out for them, huh?”

“Hey,” Solomon calls reproachfully from beneath Triton’s enormous chest. “Your husband’s still being crushed down here.”

“Oh, right!” You click your tongue and give Triton a meaningful look. He grumbles but obeys nevertheless, hopping off of Solomon (though not without knocking all the air out of him by using his chest as a launchpad) and scampering off, most likely to go play with the salamanders that have set up shop in the storage room again.

“I’ll never understand how you manage him so well,” Solomon sighs as you bend down to pull him to his feet, rubbing at the sore spot on his chest. “He never listens to me.”

“Aw, he loves you, really,” You reassure him, taking his hand and pressing a comforting kiss to his knuckles. “He just likes roughhousing with you.”

Solomon shakes his head, wanting to complain further about the big lizard that the two of you had adopted six months ago after the last one grew up and flew the nest, but then he sees the smile on your face, and he feels the flicker of irritation in his chest die down almost immediately. It’s at times like this that he’s really reminded of how absolutely worth it all of the nonsense he has to put up with at work is - because, at the end of the day, you are here, with your warm eyes and your lovely smile, with your comforting hands and your warm embrace, and there is no road too long to walk if you are waiting for him at the end of it.

“I know,” He sighs, tugging off his shoes and stepping into his favourite pair of slippers - the ones with the little cat faces printed on them that you’ve charmed to always maintain a perfect temperature for his feet. He glances at your own feet and notes that you’re wearing your matching pair as well.

The two of you have long since set up a routine for this sort of occasion, and you both fall into it with unconscious ease. Solomon changes into something more comfortable while you put the kettle on in the kitchen, and the two of you inevitably spend so long snuggled up together on the largest armchair in the living room, unwilling to leave the warmth of each other’s presence, that the water cools down, and you end up having to put it back on again. Then you sit together at the table, you with a coffee with a dash of vanilla and him with his favourite chrysanthemum tea that you always brew just the way he likes it. Sometimes you’ll sit side by side, shoulders pressed up against each other as you show him the specifics of your latest curse-breaking commission, and sometimes you’ll sit across from each other, holding hands across the tabletop as he tells you about his day.

Today it is the former, but Solomon can’t help but zone a little out of the detailed deep-dive you’re giving him about the intricacies of the spell that’s cursed this teapot to shoot its contents at anyone who attempts to fill it. It isn’t that your explanation is boring - quite the contrary, in fact; Solomon could probably listen to you describing the most mundane or trivial of things on loop for the rest of his life and be perfectly content with it. No, it’s more to do with the fact that this is the first time he’s been home before dark in a long while, and he can’t help but revel in the fact that he can spend time with you like this again. Of course, there’s something wonderful in coming home to be able to collapse into bed beside you and bury his face in the crook of your neck, drifting to sleep as you burrow closer to him even in your sleep, but Solomon can’t run off of that forever - he needs to see you with your eyes open as well, after all. 

“You’re not listening to a word I say, are you?” You ask as you note the far-off look on your husband’s face. You’re not offended in the slightest by the way he starts at the directed question, evidently guilty, but you are a little puzzled. “Is there something wrong?”

Solomon’s mouth falls open slightly, then shuts again. There’s something about the way you’re looking at him so earnestly that makes his heart stutter like nothing else. Honestly, you’d think he’d be used to this after nearly two thousand years, but it seems that he’s still as weak for you as he was on the very first day of your marriage. “...I suppose I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

“You always have a lot on your mind,” You counter softly, giving his hand a brief squeeze. “Come on, you can tell me.”

He laughs quietly, bringing your linked hands up to his face and gently holding yours to the side of his face; you, in turn, unfurl your fingers from around his and rub his cheek affectionately. After a moment, a fond smile pulling at his lips, Solomon replies, “I’ve… missed you a lot this week.”

You pause in mild surprise, but it quickly turns to endearment as Solomon presses his body even closer to yours. The hand that you’re using to hold your mug of coffee moves to settle on his shoulder as you pull him closer. “Really now? What a coincidence. I’ve missed you lots as well, love.”

He chuckles a little bashfully, his cheeks flushing. It seems that your ability to fluster him hasn’t declined even a bit over the years. He’s still well and truly besotted.

You can’t help but find it rather amusing that, despite already having spent a good hour and a half or so in the living room, bundled so close together in the blankets that you could feel his breath on your skin, the two of you are still nestling so close together now. You suppose it’s the effects of a week with much less contact than usual.

You lean forward and press a kiss to his jaw before pulling back again, reaching for your coffee and taking a sip. Solomon exhales softly, pulling his own drink towards him and draining the last of the tea in a single mouthful.

“You know,” He says, setting his empty cup down on the table. “One of my coworkers was asking about you earlier.”

“‘Coworkers’,” You snort at his choice of language, earning a reproachful poke in the side as punishment. “Come on, just admit that they’re your friends.”

“Fine,” He sighs. “One of my friends, then - Mammon, the one that Lucifer’s stringing up all the time.”

“The one with white hair?” You recall, thinking back to the group photo that Simeon had sent you a while back. “He’s the Avatar of Greed, right?”

“That’s the one,” Solomon nods. “Apparently he never noticed that I was married.”

“Well, you can’t really blame him,” You say, giving him a playful nudge. “Honestly, the way you keep your mouth shut, you’d think I was some shameful secret or something.”

Solomon looks scandalised by the very idea - it had only been a little joke, but his eyes flash with such affront that it’s almost as if someone has genuinely called you such a thing. “Of course not! I’d never—”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I was joking,” You cut him off before he can get more riled up. Solomon calms down quickly once you set a comforting hand on his knee, though he still looks a little indignant. “I know why you don’t like talking about us much, but really, it’s okay. They’re your friends, aren't they?”

He hesitates, then nods, releasing another deep sigh soon afterwards. “I suppose. There isn’t much I can really do about it at this point anyway… according to Simeon, most of them have somehow figured it out already.”

“They’re probably a lot smarter than you give them credit for, Sol,” You hum, reaching up and brushing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes for him. “They’re demons, after all. They’ve lived even longer than us.”

“Believe me, they really aren’t.” Solomon shakes his head, a frown pinching at his brow at the very memory of the amount of things that his coworkers have done recently - some of the most notable being Diavolo setting an entire flock of geese free in the courtyard for an ‘experiment’, Levi quite literally throwing himself out of a window just to win a bet against Mammon about who could get down the stairs faster, Asmo causing a stampede in the main hall by dropping and shattering a bottle full of a powerful aphrodisiac potion that became even more powerful once released into the air, and Lucifer accidentally breaking one of Solomon’s favourite cauldrons when he’d transformed into his demon form and inadvertently smacked halfway across the room it with one of his upper wings.

“I’d really love to meet them some day,” You sigh, swirling the contents of your mug around. “They sound like fun.”

“Trust me, the trouble isn’t worth it—” Solomon attempts to reason with you, but he gives up laughably quickly as you pout at him in protest. “Oh, fine. But don’t blame me if you get sick because of the charm again.”

“We don’t have to use the charm,” You shake your head. “Just do a teleportation spell!”

“You know that that’s risky,” Solomon sighs, chucking you under the chin and leaning forward to kiss the tip of your nose. You laugh as he draws back again, a pleased smile rising on his face at your reaction. “We could end up anywhere.”

“You’ve teleported them a bunch of times, though, haven’t you? And you haven’t ended up in Texas or the Sahara Desert any of those times!”

The resemblance to his earlier conversation with Mammon and Simeon is almost uncanny. “That’s different. I was still teleporting them within the Devildom, not across an entire realm barrier… and besides, I can afford the risk with them. You’re a different story.”

You pout again, shoulders dropping in defeat, though it doesn’t escape Solomon’s notice that his sentiment seems to have appeased you at least a little. “...guess we’ll just have to use a transportation talisman, huh…?”

“That’s your only option if you really want to visit, yes.”

You go quiet for a moment or two, nose wrinkling and face scrunching as you think it over. Solomon doesn’t mind the lack of conversation - he entertains himself by studying your features, wondering for perhaps the millionth time how he managed to find someone like you.

Finally, a determined look rising on your face, you nod and proclaim, “Then I’ll do it!”

Solomon cocks his head slightly to the side. He can’t say he’s surprised by your eagerness, but he had expected it to take you longer to make up your mind. He opens his mouth to say something, but tou answer his question before he’s even asked it, a skill that you’d managed to pick up within the first year or so of knowing him.

“I really wanna see what you actually get up to when you work,” You explain, looking a little sheepish. “You’ve had a job there for nearly two years and I’ve never even said a word to the people you work with.”

Solomon laughs. “It isn’t usually a requirement in the workplace. Wear appropriate uniform, bring any equipment you need, introduce your husband to your coworkers within the decade…”

“Still, I’d feel bad if I didn’t at least meet them,” You say. “Besides, I want to see Simeon as well. You said he’s working down in the Devildom for a bit as well, didn’t you?”

“Why are you so eager to see him, huh?” Solomon’s tone is light and teasing, so you know not to take him seriously as he puts on an hurt expression. “I’m offended. Your dear husband’s right here and you’re thinking about some angel.”

“Oh, stop it, you,” You shake your head in slightly exasperated amusement as he runs a finger down his cheek in lieu of a tear. “You know it’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it?” He pulls an exaggeratedly petulant face and pretends to turn away like an upset child. “Sometimes I feel like you love him more than me.”

“Simeon’s a lovely guy, but you’re still the only guy for me, you doof,” You tell him, tapping fondly at the cheek he’s turned to you with your free hand. Solomon obligingly turns back around to look at you, a grin pulling at his mouth. “Why would I marry you and then stay here for two thousand years if you weren't?”

“I guess I always assumed it was out of pity or something,” He jokes in response, leaning forward and briefly brushing his nose against yours. “And, just so you know, you’re the only guy for me as well.”

“I’d better be,” is your lighthearted reply as he pulls away. After a moment, looking at him expectantly, you begin tentatively, “So…?”

He sighs, but gives you a smile nevertheless. “I’ll ask Diavolo. He probably wouldn’t mind if I brought you without asking first, but Lucifer definitely would.”

“What’ll we do if they hate me?” You ask. “Do demons actually eat humans?”

“They wouldn’t dare,” He replies firmly. “Not if I have anything to say about it. Besides, they won’t hate you. I doubt anyone could.”

You laugh and drop your head to rest on his chest. “You’re too nice to me, love.”

Solomon turns to wrap both his arms around your shoulders, setting his chin on the crown of your head. You smile into his jumper, looping your own arms around his waist and pushing yourself closer to him.

“I’m not just being nice. Honestly, [Name], you’re kind of the most perfect man in the universe.”

[yikesharringrove]

Agitation (or disturbance of the mind)

Here is my piece for the Harringrove Big Bang!! I’m so so proud of how this piece turned out and I’m so excited to share it! @harringrovebigbang

Read on Ao3 (highly recommended. It’s over 16k).

Special thanks to my beta readers @thinger-strang @crispysteve without whom this story would’ve been scrapped in many fits of emotions.

Art for this story to be linked soon by @thedogsled

Check out this amazing moodboard by @memes-saved-me !!

Enjoy!

-

Steve Harrington is a liar. 

He always has been. 

Nearly everything about him is a perfectly crafted facade. 

From the story of his family’s move to Hawkins when he was eight, to the smile that slides easily onto his face when he tells Robin I’m fine. 

Steve is a liar. 

But it's all out of necessity. All for the greater of some good he isn’t all that clear on anymore. 

It was always about protection. 

Protecting his friends and everyone in Hawkins from the truth about Hawkins National Laboratory. 

Then it was about protecting himself from his powers. 

From the way his words had a knack of worming their way into someone’s brain. Of setting up shop inside and clanging around until they could do nothing but bow to his suggestion. 

Just because he could get his way with the right inflection and the telltale shiver down his spine, didn’t mean that that was okay. 

It was drilled into him the first night he arrived in Hawkins. 

After his file was stamped with a large red mark that read defective, he was given to one of the scientists and her husband. 

The Harringtons. 

A normal new family from Eastern Oklahoma. 

That’s what they told everyone. 

That’s what they made sure Steve parroted to everyone in his brand new school. 

His new father took a cigar to the tattoo on his wrist, welting the flesh with an ugly burn. He ignored Steve’s screams and tears. 

You have to fit in here, Steven, he had said, the cigar smoldering between his fingers, Steve clutching his wrist, eyes shining with tears. You have to fit in and be normal. 

So Steve lied. 

He smiled and told everyone he came from a normal family from normal Oklahoma. He said that he lived in a normal house, and read normal books, and played normal sports. 

And he tried, and failed, to convince himself the lab was a dream.

-

“We should do something after this.”

Steve was careful to keep his voice casual. He didn’t want to let Robin in on how much he was dreading returning to his empty house tonight. 

Robin didn’t acknowledge him. She was sorting the returned movies, placing them in piles of genre so they could easily be returned to their proper section. 

Steve quietly lifted his leg, and lightly kicked her hip. 

She glared at him. 

“Quit ignorin’ me. Just say yes, or no.” It’s not like if she said no it would crush him or anything. No. It’s fine. 

“I just have a bunch of homework that’s all, like, due tomorrow,” she said it slowly, as though telling him a beloved relative had died. 

Was it that obvious how lonely he is?

“Don’t worry about it, Buck.” Robin took school real serious. She had perfect grades every year and had already applied to sixteen colleges and universities, including four Ivy League options. 

So Steve didn’t blame her for not skulking around with him. 

With college-less, nowhere bound Steve. 

“I’m really sorry,” she began, getting that sad look in her eye like that night in the mall bathroom when Steve spilled his drugged-out guts. Literally, and metaphorically. 

“Nah, I was just lookin’ for something to do. It’s okay, Robin. Really.”

And it was. 

Almost. 

It’s just that, Steve’s not got a lot going for him right now. 

He’s got a big empty house, and a brain that likes to give him excessive nightmares, and one age-appropriate friend in the whole place. 

But he doesn’t wanna talk about all that shit. 

And Robin looked like there was something on the tip of her tongue. Something her teeth were barely holding back. 

So Steve just scooped up the stack of neatly ordered Action films, and made his way over to the far shelf, taking himself out of the situation before it would get to a place that would only make him lie more and more. 

Robin means well. He knows she does. 

It just feels like a lot of her well-meaning chats end up with Steve lying through his fucking teeth and Robin nearly in tears of frustration at his lack of openness with her. 

She feels like being tortured and drugged together gives them a close kind of kinship very few share. 

Steve feels like he’s got just too much fucked-up baggage to dump on her. 

Not when they’re trying to put the Upside Down behind them. 

Not that Steve could ever put it behind him. 

He felt something build in his gut. Something hot and heavy. Something that always meant his powers were scraping at the walls of the neat little cave he had shut them in. Something that meant his skin would burn until he unleashed some of his pent-up energy. 

He took a deep breath, blowing out the air slowly through his nose. 

He had rules to his power. Rules he had given himself, mostly. Things he’d never use his powers for. 

He tried to avoid his powers at all costs, but he had seen what could happen if he tried to tamp them down. It was less dangerous to open the lid of the box just a tiny bit. 

Especially if he did it right. 

He made his way back over to Robin, finding that spot in his brain that made a shudder zip down his spine. The spot that was made of cold and electric heat. 

It was always too simple when he let the power take over. 

Locate her feeling. Let him consume him. 

And then just, twist it as much as he wants. 

“Robin,” he spoke slowly, honing his suggestion. “You don’t have to feel bad about not spending time with me tonight.”

He felt her sadness and guilt about the evening recede about as fast as the tide. 

She really shouldn’t feel bad about ditching him, especially not when her education is the main priority. 

He matched her lazy grin, wiping his nose discreetly, only a small drop of blood smeared against his hand. 

The rest of the shift passed without incident, and the roaring feeling in Steve’s gut had been sated enough for the time being. 

So he pushed it back out of his mind, and returned to his empty house. 

He was saving up to get his own place. He really was. But it was easier this way. He didn’t pay any bills, had lots of space to himself, and a pool in the backyard (that he never used). 

And it’s hard for him to explain, but there’s something tugging him back into this house all the time. 

He doesn’t know if it’s because it’s the only home he ever knew after the pain and fear that was his childhood in the lab, or if it’s something else that makes him feel tethered to the too-big house. 

Sometimes he thought there was a sense of safety in the old place. 

With parents that spent excessive amounts of time doing research for things he didn’t understand but was sure were important, it was largely an emotion-free place. 

Which was good for Steve. 

High emotion situations made his power boil up and spill over the edge like a pot of water on the stove. 

A place like his empty house, he could keep everything in check. Not get his feelings tangled with those around him. Not catch thoughts that were just beginning to be molded into something brand new. 

He clambered into bed, punching his pillows around in a way that was decidedly not petulant. 

There was a steady silence in the old house. A silence that was as depressing as it was easy on his brain. 

And there wasn’t silence. 

Creaks. 

Creaks issuing from downstairs. From the floorboards in the hallway. 

Footsteps. 

Steve was out of bed in a second, bat held aloft in as close to ready position as he could maintain while bolting down the stairs in his socks and faded green gym shorts. 

He knew how to navigate the house without a sound. Practice of tip-toeing around a volatile not-father kinda ended up giving him something useful. 

The creaks were still progressing, moving up the hallway from the back of the house, where his parents’ empty bedroom sat still. 

The person was getting closer, lumbering slowly as if they were trying to be quiet themselves. 

Steve adjusted his grip on the bat, taking proper batting stance, ready for the intruder to round the corner into his section of the hall. 

First sign of a person, and Steve would swing. 

No questions asked. 

The floorboard before the bend in the hall gave a loud sound, and he could’ve sworn he heard someone curse under their breath. 

He closed his eyes, and swung. 

His bat sailed through the air, and connected with, not an intruder. 

And then he was filled with an overwhelming sense of fear. A completely feral state of fight or flight made him nearly bare his teeth in an animalistic growl. He felt fear, and dread, and pure stubborn, stupid resolve. 

It nearly blinded him, the emotions were so thick and clear. 

And then there whooshed out of him, as though being sucked up by a feelings vacuum, leaving him empty and confused. 

His top lip was covered in blood. 

He had a lot of fucking questions as he stared at the bat, hanging by it’s long nails in the hallway wall, the ominous creaking moving past him towards the stairs. 

The footsteps that were caused by no one. 

It’s official. 

Steve’s lost it. 

He’s fucking crazy. 

He’s hearing footsteps and voices swearing quietly, and he’s going mad and completely batshit and should be tucked away in a padded room for the rest of his life. 

He didn’t even bother to wrench the bat out of the wall as he stumbled after the imagined footsteps. 

He clearly needed to get a good night’s sleep, and to forget that anything happened at all tonight. 

-

Billy hates Harrington’s house. 

He doesn’t, really. It’s given him excellent shelter while he pulled himself together, and it’s out of town enough to serve as a good base for the little gang of Lost Boys he had accumulated. 

It’s just that, the old house likes to make a lot of noise. 

It keeps him on edge. 

Every squealing door hinge, and every creaky floorboard sets his teeth on edge and makes him whip around in a frenzy, expecting to see a demogorgon snarling at him from the sitting room. 

He nearly had a heart attack when he heard the thuds coming from upstairs. 

He generally liked to avoid the top floor of the house. 

Harrington’s bedroom was up there, and it wigged him out something fierce. He’d only been in the dilapidated version of it one time, his first night in the house he had claimed for safety. 

He didn’t intend to stay the night in there, he had just stumbled upon it, and curled up in the bed. 

He remembers not sleeping the entire night. He was so scared after coming to in the library, something slimy and disgusting slipping its way out of his throat. 

The whole place had been screaming, as though the Upside Down itself was alive. Alive and being horrifically murdered. 

He didn’t know what it was called then, all he knew was that Harrington’s house was the first one he came across, and that Harrington’s room was depressingly empty and impersonal. 

But, there was a thudding coming from that general area, and if some kinda shitty creature was making its way into the house, he needed to hedge it off before it did any damage. 

He took hold of his ax, never far from his side these days, and slipped out of his cot. 

The floorboards in the hallway were creaky, and he tried to walk slowly, muffling his footsteps as much as he could in his heavy boots, not wanting to warn the monster he was coming for it. 

He cataloged the crew in his head: Hopper had his troop of three in the basement where they were resting up for the supply run tomorrow. Timothy was on nightwatch with his team of five. Billy was in a pack with four others; Heather Holloway, her mother, Janet, and the two boys they found skulking around the library the same night everyone seemed to wake up. One of the boys was called Andrew. The other hadn’t spoken a single word the entire time they’d been trapped. 

Billy liked to call him by different names each time he referred to the kid. Trying to get him to laugh. He couldn’t’ve been more than seven years old, and he was trapped in this fucking hellscape with the rest of them. 

Andrew was thirteen. Billy didn’t like to look at him much. Andrew reminded him of Max. Which made Billy feel empty and achy in a way he didn’t think was very productive for survival.

But Andrew took a shine to Janet Holloway. Probably missing his mother and needing more comfort than his thirteen-year-old self was willing to admit.

The Holloway women were a hell of a lot feistier than Bill originally gave them credit for, saving his ass in a scrap just as often as he had been there for theirs. Heather and Janet were equal parts caring and soft, with the right amounts of clever and bossy to take point on their team. 

Billy let himself be the muscle. 

He let himself be the watchdog and attack dog. He took nightwatches and never let his weapons out of his grasp.

Everyone had a role. 

And that was perfectly okay.

They had to keep together in this world. They wouldn’t survive it otherwise. 

They’d all lost enough people to understand that. 

One of the boards gave a hefty creak under his left foot, and he breathed a quiet fuck through his bandana, listening for more of the thudding. 

It had stopped about forty seconds before, Billy had counted, and he couldn’t hear any other sounds of something forcing its way inside. Plus, the nightwatch hadn’t sounded any alarms. 

He took another step, ax held ready and aloft in case he came face to ugly face with one of the horrible creatures that prowled the night. 

He rounded the corner, and there was a loud bang on the wall next to his head. 

He jumped as paint chipped off the wall and flew all over him. 

He was hit with a feeling of intense fear, and adrenaline rush that caused all the blood in his ears to rush. He looked wildly around, seeing, nothing. 

Billy bared his teeth, ready to go down fucking swinging. 

As long as he took the fucker down with him, that’s all that matters. 

Save the rest. 

And he stood, ready to fight, ready to die. 

And there was nothing.

Nothing in the hallway. He was all alone. 

None of this shit made any sense. He hadn’t dreamed the wall cracked beside his head, and looking back, there were holes in the wall, and a big dent that had splinted the white paint and drywall beneath it. 

There was some fucked up shit going on, and Billy didn’t like it one bit. 

He continued down the hall, creeping to the stairs to check the original source of the noises that had woken him up. 

Harrington’s room was pretty much just as he remembered it from that first night in the house. 

It was sparse and sad-looking. The covers on the bed were all jostled and thrown around, the horrible spindle-like vines covering nearly every surface in the room. 

They had cleared the tendrils in other rooms, cutting them and burning them back, ensuring the vines didn’t start creeping over them when they weren’t looking. 

Billy didn’t fancy being covered and tethered by the slimy black vines. He was pretty much over all this Upside Down shit. 

He took a cursory look around Harrington’s room, not noticing any signs of forced entry from a creature, really nothing was out of place. 

The meager school trophies on the bookshelf next to the closet looked rotted and tarnished, just like everything else in this absolute hell called a parallel universe. There were few pictures in this room, much like the whole house. It had taken Billy a long time to notice the lack of inhabitancy the house had. The way it seemed to feel so cold and empty, it would be that way in the real world too. 

His eyes swept over the dilapidated dresser, cataloging the room quickly for anything that should worry him. 

Billy deemed the whole scene safe, and made sure to close the door tightly as he retreated back downstairs. 

-

Steve’s going fucking crazy. 

He was still in bed, his alarm clock ringing angrily at him as it had for the past six minutes. 

He hadn’t slept at all last night. 

Something just felt. Off. 

The feelings in his chest were scrambled, and they felt foreign to him. Like he had taken in somebody else’s emotions. 

But proximity was the key to his power, and he was alone. Alone alone. 

Like, the closest person was Mrs. Gardfeld in the next house, all the way across their combined, much too big, yards. 

It felt like. It felt like someone was in the house with him. Someone was in the house with him, and they were scared, and stubborn, and tired, and a flurry of things that made Steve feel ill. 

And he couldn’t push them out. 

He couldn’t find the chasm between this slew of someone else’s shit, and his own messy cocktail of feelings. 

The other feelings were like those awful vines in the tunnel. Snaking around under his feet, wiggling up his ankles and keeping him stuck in the mud. Wrapping around his own emotions and squeezing until they just merged into one. 

He’s lost the metaphor. 

Doesn’t matter. 

His feelings are fucked and his brain is fucked and his day is fucked. 

And he has to work a double at Family Fuckin’ Video. 

He found his way out of bed. Not going very far, just standing next to his warm nest of blankets, debating getting back in and hiding for the rest of his life. 

He was going to be late for work. 

He didn’t really give a fuck. 

Keith would be all smug and probably make some remarks about Steve not even being worth the less-than-minimum wage he was making. 

He took a shower, not so much cleaning himself as letting the lukewarm water cascade down on him and hope it got rid of the stench of sweat and anxiety and bad sleep that was clinging angrily to his skin. 

His brain was empty. 

Empty save for the pounding otherness that were these horrible fucking feelings. 

Robin didn’t even have the heart to call him out for being nearly half an hour late.

“You look like shit.”

No, she just called him out for looking like shit. 

“Y’know, it’s really wonderful to have such a caring and thoughtful friend in these trying times.”

She rolled her eyes. He always told her one day she was gonna get stuck like that. With her eyes permanently fixed towards the ceiling in exasperation. 

“Drop the attitude, Steve Harrington. Just because you didn’t sleep doesn’t mean I have to suffer.” 

Sometimes it was hard to tell if she was joking. Steve just clenched his jaw and stared at her blankly. Either she would get mad at him, or sigh and roll her eyes. 

She sighed and rolled her eyes. 

Bingo. 

She wasn’t actually mad at him. 

“You okay?”

“Jus’, some weirdness. Bad vibes.”

He couldn’t give her more than that. Couldn’t say I can feel someone else in my house and I don’t know if someone is hiding in my house or if I’m going crazy, oh and by the way, I was one of those freaky lab kids and I can manipulate and feel people’s thoughts and emotions, by the way.

That’s too much for a slow shift on a Saturday morning. 

That’s too much for really any time of any day.

No, Steve fully plans to take all that shit to the grave. Like a real man, his dad would say. 

“Well, if you could take your bad vibes back to rewind duty, that would leave all the good vibes up here to me.” She shooed him off with her hand, landing a quick slap square on his left asscheck when he groaned and dragged his feet dramatically on his way to the back room. 

Not that Steve would ever actually complain about rewind duty. Steve preferred doing it to anything else in the place. Especially re-shelving. That was just asking for someone to come ask him for a movie recommendation. Steve only watched the same five campy old westerns and when he recommends any of those, people seem to wanna get out of his face right quick. 

No, rewinding was dull and monotonous and solitary, all the shit that Steve really needed on a day like today. 

There was a strict routine and he didn’t have to think or do anything. 

Just sit. New tape. Rewind. Put in case. Put in re-shelve bucket. New tape. Rewind. Put in case. And again and again and again until all the tapes were ready to go. 

Hawkins tended to take out a lot of movies on the weekend. Not much else to do when you aren’t sixteen and ready to hit up any party you could possibly weasel your way into. 

So, Steve had about fifty some odd tapes to rewind from the past few days and he was feeling benignly excited about sitting in the small room for most of his shift. 

It was easy to pass the shift like that. 

Sitting with the quiet whirring of the tapes being tracked back to the beginning. Not having to deal with anyone’s thoughts except his own tedious ones about when he should take his lunch break and reminding himself to check the TV Guide for anything good tonight. 

It was an odd emptiness that took hold of him throughout the day. And he almost felt, well. 

Lonely. 

He almost felt lonely. 

Which is fucking bonkers because that horrible feeling of someone else had well and truly fucked him over last night, and well into this morning, but he kind. Missed. The other presence. 

He’s officially crazy. 

Someone find this boy a padded fucking cell because Steve Harrington has officially gone all kinds of batshit bananas wacky. 

He’s feeling lonely because the horrible not his feelings of fear and anger and betrayal and desperation aren’t clogging up his little brain sink. Even when they were, the brain sink was threatening to burst and leak all over his brain kitchen. 

Or something to that effect. 

He let his eyes unfocus, watching Jaws at double speed and backward for the fourth time that day. 

There was something about the foreign feelings he just couldn’t quite wrap his head around. 

Something twinging in the back of his brain, screaming at him to open his eyes and pay attention. 

But that’s never been Steve’s strong suit. 

-

“Stupid. Fucking. Vines .”

Hopper muttered to himself a lot. 

It was usually too muffled underneath his own bandana face covering and the hefty beard he had been sporting to discern whatever he was thinking, but it’s not like hating the awful black tendrils of gross plant/monster/everything-that-made-up-the-Upside-Down hybrid of vine-ish tentacles was something that just Hopper experienced. 

It was a sentiment they all shared as they hacked away at the new growth in the dilapidated Bradley’s Big Buys. 

They had already ransacked the general store five times over, and took as much as they could salvage from the wreckage of the other-dimensional mall. 

Supplies were needed, and they had to be smart about it. 

Things had been quiet lately. 

Not many beasties out and about since the night they all seemed to come to. 

Hopper had said something about the gate closing and the brain being cut off from the body. 

Billy hadn’t listened. 

He’d been scared off his ass and all that had really registered was clear for now. 

So, they made supply runs. And poked around town for any survivors left to take back to Basecamp Harrington. Only Billy called it that. 

They had the runs down to a system. 

Pry away any vines they could, burning them back as they went, making enough room to slip into the bargain store, gather as much canned food and grimy medical supplies as they could manage, and book it back to the relative safety of the big house on the edge of the forest. 

Nobody talked about what they’d do when they ran out of supplies. When they’d exhausted their resources and were stuck with nothing but the vines on the ground and the spores in the air. 

Billy got it. 

It’s not like he wants to hear he’ll probably die of starvation and/or a gangrenous infection before he’s eighteen. 

They just. Make do. 

Ration food and keep each other safe. 

Always thinking about the minute they’re in and the minute coming up. Not looking too far forward. 

There’s nothing to see too far in the future. 

Billy crashed the blunt end of his ax through the sliding door at the front of the store, clearing away as much as he could. 

Janet and Andrew would slip inside first go, taking as much as they could carry with them. Next round, Heather would take the little one and gather anything left. 

Billy would keep watch. 

He always kept watch. 

Things had been too good for too long. 

After the first wave of those who didn’t make it, the whole broken side of the Earth was too kind to them. Not sending horrible fleshy monsters to nearly suck out their very souls. 

Billy didn’t think this could last for much longer. 

Heather took the little one by the hand, rushing past her mother and Andrew as they returned with their supplies. Billy did a quick scan of them, noting no new injuries. Nothing out of the norm. 

Supply runs were choreographed down to the minute. 

Should the group not return in forty-five minutes, a search team was sent out. 

The small group trudged back to the Harrington safehouse, keeping in the shadows, not a single one of them daring to speak. Billy walked slightly behind the others, never letting himself relax for a single second. 

Things were too quiet.

-

The feeling hit Steve over the head like a sack of bricks being whacked against his skull. 

Walking into his home was like walking into a stinking den of fear and anxiety. The air was clogged with so many emotions Steve felt like he was choking on them, slowly being crushed under their weight. 

Whoever was emitting all these, Steve felt sorry for them. He can’t imagine living with this much bad energy taking up space in someone’s brain. He could barely cope with his own terrible bullshit. He doesn’t know how someone could cope with this. 

He tried to move through his evening to the best of his ability. 

He nearly set the house on fire when he left the tin foil covering on his frozen meal, causing the microwave to spark angrily at him, the potatoes underneath the corner of foil that had nearly caught fire to smolder and blacken. 

Even in the shower, the water as hot and steamy as he could stand, he felt that prickle he couldn’t get rid of. 

Like if he could just close his eyes and reach out far enough, his fingers would brush someone else. Someone nearby. 

He’s felt it before. That there was a person just out of reach. A person he could feel clear as a bell, but couldn’t alter. Couldn’t manipulate. Just had to experience everything that was going on inside and try to hold on for the ride. 

He wore headphones to bed, blasting a mixtape Robin had made for him last month. Something with a lot of heavy guitars and girls wailing about society. 

He doesn’t think it was all that good, but it helped. Helped him feel like maybe the person wasn’t seeping into his own soul. 

And the whining synth of Patti Smith finally let him get some goddamn sleep. 

  “Hello?”

It was his house. 

But it wasn’t his house. 

It was a blank void. It was nothing. It was nowhere. 

But for some reason, his brain kept telling him it was his house. 

“Harrington?”

It was Billy. Hargrove. 

But it wasn’t Billy. 

He was dirty, covered in soot and horrible black sludge that made Steve’s stomach churn. 

“Why are you in my house?”

Billy looked around the blank void all around them. Water sloshed on the floor, lapping at Billy’s black boots. Steve observed his own toes. 

He was barefoot, but he couldn’t feel the water. 

“This is your house?”

Steve didn’t want to explain. 

“You’re dead.”

“Could be soon.”

Nothing Billy said made any sense. But then, Billy never made much sense when he was alive, either. 

He was an enigma to Steve. A big question mark all wrapped up with a gorgeous face and perfect body.

“Where is this to you?”

Why was Steve’s brain so adamant on declaring this place his house?

“Somewhere safe.”

-

So. 

That’s something. 

Dreaming about Harrington. 

Not necessarily something that Billy wanted to have happen to him while he was experiencing the worst possible time in his life. 

Or maybe he did. 

He’d said it in the dream. 

Somewhere safe. 

It’s what he felt in that blackness. 

Safety. Warmth. Hope. 

All the shit he hasn’t felt since he opened his eyes in the rank-ass library. 

That darkness was like a harness, keeping him grounded to something real. Tucking him in gently at night and kissing him on the head. 

It made waking up that much shittier. 

Knowing he’d be on nightwatch with Heather and Janet tonight, he used resting up as an excuse to lay on his cot, hardly moving in the clouded air. 

He needed to process. 

There was something so fucking weird about that dream. 

It felt real in the moment, and he didn’t question anything that had happened. 

Why there was water on the ground at his feet? Why Harrington was there wearing pajamas Billy could only describe as skanky? All of this made perfect fucking sense to dream Billy. 

Awake Billy, had some fuckin’ questions. 

Mostly, those previously listed. As well as: what the fuck?

He blames seeing Steve specifically on being in his house. That makes sense. You tend to think about a guy quite a lot when you’re living in the broken shell of his family home. He blames seeing Steve in those itsy-bitsy shorts and a homemade cropped t-shirt on the well repressed sexual interest he refused to admit he felt towards the guy. 

All that made sense. 

But everything else. 

Steve said he was dead. 

Was he dead?

Was this Hell?

Purgatory?

He’s read The Divine Comedy, and this doesn’t quite match up with any of the shit Dante waxed on about. 

And dream Billy didn’t think that was a weird thing to say to someone. To accuse them of being dead. He just said could be soon and then acted like that was a normal fucking response. 

His head was spinning out of control. 

The only thing that made sense was when Billy said they were somewhere safe. 

Because, they were. 

Even in the void place, he knew they were safe. 

There was a small tapping sound on the wall next to the open door frame. 

The door had long since rotted right through. 

“Miss Janet sent me to see if you’re alright.”

Andrew was always calling Janet Holloway Miss Janet. 

It makes Billy wonder if manners like that were beaten into him by a father like Neil. 

He hopes not. 

He likes Andrew too much for that. 

Andrew hovered around while Billy swung himself out of his cot. 

He changed out the bandana over his mouth and nose. 

Most of them slept fully dressed, even with their shoes and socks still firmly on their feet. 

You had to be ready to go at the slightest sound of Bad in this place. 

Plus, everything was so goddamn dirty, what’s a little mud in the sheets in the grand scheme of things? And the rancid rotting smell of the Upside Down did wonders to cover the smell of body odor.

Billy followed Andrew down the L-shaped hallway, to the sitting room where he found Janet and Heather huddled together on one couch, the little one between them. 

“Apparently something happened on the run last night.” 

Billy’s blood ran cold. He couldn’t make out Janet’s expression under her face covering. The little one got up from his spot on the couch, standing in Billy’s shadow. He liked to do that. Billy figured he felt safe behind someone so much bigger and stronger than him. Someone with a big fuckin’ weapon that was never too far away. 

“Who’d we lose?”

“No one. Everyone’s okay. Hopper just called all of us for a discussion, then went to the basement.”

The basement was Hopper’s domain with his little chunk of the crew. 

He had found some busted up H.A.M. radio from somewhere he refused to explain, and spent all the time he wasn’t watching over his shoulder for threats or gathering supplies from smashed grocery stores, trying to fix it up, tuning it to different crackling stations, and yelling into it. 

El. El, I need you to copy if you can hear me. El!

-

The pillow was a mess of blood the next morning. 

It was congealed and cracked and tacky against his face and made the pillowcase stick to his cheek and his bloody upper lip in a way that kinda made Steve wanna puke a little bit. 

His nose had bled in the night. 

He never got nosebleeds. 

Unless he used his power. 

And that dream. 

That blank void space and that mucky scraggly Billy lookin’ like the hunky star of some apocalypse movie.

Wait.

Blood forgotten, smeared on his face and neck, Steve tossed himself towards the phone on his nightstand, smacking his shoulder against the wooden corner and tumbling to the floor, his legs still tangled in his sheets on the bed. 

He couldn’t deal with anything, snatching the phone up and punching in the only number that was grinding through his head. 

“ Pick up pick up pick up pick up pick up, ” he muttered into the receiver. 

His upper body was still flopped over to the plush carpet, legs twitching and shaking on the bed with his anxiety. 

He’s had some massive fucking realizations and he needs backup. 

“This is the Byers.”

“Put El on the phone.”

-

“Oh. Steve’s covered in blood again. The Upside Down must really be back,” Dustin said in complete monotone as Steve opened the door. 

Steve couldn’t give less of a fuck right now. 

He felt like he was on the verge of a major breakthrough, all coming in the neat package of a major breakdown. 

He felt manic and shaky and so what if he forgot he was covered in the aftermath of a superpower-nosebleed-explosion?

“Shut up. Just get in.”

El had rallied the old troops from St. Paul, calling everyone at the ass-crack o���fuck in the morning and saying something about catching some weird Hawkins vibes all the way from Minnesota. 

It was a fucking weak excuse, but explaining the whole Steve situation was just not really in the cards today. 

He’s got an agenda and they need to stick to it. 

Robin said she’d gather Max on the way to Steve’s place, and Nancy was probably hauling Mike and Lucas over faster than a speeding gun or whatever that expression is, so all Steve had to do was get his story straight. 

“And maybe you should think about putting on a clean shirt? At the very least. I’d say, maybe just start over. Take a shower. Powerwash your face, even.”

“When the fuck did you become sarcastic ?”

“Right after you became friends with the coolest chick on the planet and then decided you’re too good for her.”

“ Chick. Don’t call Robin a chick. And I’ve told you, we’re just friends. I’m not too good for her.”

Really, Steve thought she was too good for him. 

Well, that, and there’s the whole part where she’s super totally not into guys at all. 

“So, what’s this all about, anyway? Mike said on the phone that El called him and left a really cryptic message.”

“Look. She called me to explain and ask if everyone could meet here,” Steve lied. “I’ll give you guys a recap once the rest of the gang shows.”

“But she thinks there’s something going on with the Upside Down? Again ?”

“I think she knows there’s something going on with the Upside Down.”

The more Steve sat with the memory of how Billy looked in that dream, the more he was certain of where he was. 

Billy had been ratty. His normally perfect hair was long and limp, greasy on top and matted around his face. He was sporting a patchy beard, nothing like the fuckin’ pornstache the guy had been rocking all last summer. 

And he was filthy. Covered in grime and dirt, and Steve’s sure if he’d looked harder, he would’ve seen traces of that viscous black goo that only meant bad news. 

There was a squeal of tires, an alarm signaling the arrival of Nancy in her mother’s station wagon, toting her brother and Lucas. 

“I’m in this now, Lucas Sinclair!” came Erica’s voice from the entryway. 

Steve was tapping his foot impatiently.

“Erica, you accidentally found out about all this!”

“So did you!”

The Sinclair siblings’ bickering was only cut by the sound of the Wheeler siblings snapping at one another in turn.

“Am I the only one that thinks it doesn’t make sense to meet up this early? El and Will are like, seven hours away!”

“Mike! It doesn’t matter. We all have to talk and figure out what’s going on.”

The sounds of arguments all quieted abruptly as the four people rounded the corner and caught sight of Steve.

“Oh, Jesus. Who kicked your ass this time?” Mike snipped at Steve. 

Oh, yeah. He keeps forgetting he’s covered in his own nose blood. 

“What? It’s nothing. I kicked my own ass. Just take a seat.”

“I told you to-”

Steve didn’t wanna hear it. 

He loves all these people, but his head kinda felt like it was full of mushy jelly and runny pudding and all the loud talking wasn’t doing much to help. 

He stepped out onto the porch, snagging the pack of cigarettes he kept stowed in the flower box next to the door. 

It took two to finally tame his nerves any. 

Sitting there with all the people in his house waiting for an explanation, he kinda felt like his haphazard plan was shit and going to fall through immediately. 

Just tell them El called. Tell them she saw Billy in the nowhere place and she thinks he’s alive. Easy as pie. 

The tell-tale sound of a skateboard making its way closer and closer announced Max before he saw her. 

Robin was pedaling next to her, helmet lopsided on her head and not buckled underneath her chin. 

They were talking animatedly to one another, their laughter dying as soon as they saw Steve waiting for them.

“Fuck. So this is real.”

“Why does everyone think I got the shit beat outta me?”

“Your ass gets creamed every time some spooky shit goes down in this place, Harrington,” Max informed him. 

She was a little Billy replica, all the way down to the way the corner of her mouth twitched up when she said his name. 

It would’ve been sad. The way she tried to become her brother after losing him so violently last summer. 

But something like relief settled into his bones, strong and real and wait ‘til I tell her Billy’s not dead and he was laughing. Curling in on himself cackling so hard his stomach had already begun to get sore

“Fuck. He’s lost it,” Robin sighed, ditching her bike next to Dustin’s and heaving Steve up, both hands underneath his armpits.

-

Nobody dared speak. 

“And you’re sure? You’re positive you heard one of those things?”

Janet had her arms twisted over her chest, her jaw tight as she watched Hopper’s every move. 

“It’s not really a sound you forget.”

Billy’s hand was shaking, he was gripping the ax so hard. 

“So, we’re fucked,” Angela said harshly. Her cold voice sent ice down Billy’s spine. “If those things are back, we don’t stand a fucking chance.”

Hopper scrubbed his hand over his brow, sighing through the cloth over his mouth and nose.

“It just means I have to try harder. I can get to El, I know I can.”

Hopper said that a lot. But he never explained what getting to El meant. 

Heather had explained she met El once, but she said it was weird and she only saw her like some kind of shadow, a figment in this dark empty place. Somewhere as cold and broken as the Upside Down felt. 

The little one was leaned up against Billy, his left hand balled in the edge of Billy’s leather jacket. He stood like that a lot. It was grounding for Billy. Kinda like holding Max’s hand when she was young and still thought he was the coolest person she’d ever met. 

“But, you only heard something, right? So it very well could be nothing.” Timothy was good at keeping mediator. He always kept a level head and talked slowly and calmly. They needed someone like him in this nightmare.

“They make this noise. This kind of wet chirping. Like this gurgle that just sounds like they’re watching you, ready to pounce out at any time, shrieking and attacking. It’s not a sound you forget.” Hopper had this horrible haunted look on his face, and Billy fucking believed him. 

“Then we up nightwatch. Stick together,” Billy offered. He never usually piped up with strategy, but that’s the best he’s got, and frankly, he thinks it’s the only way they’d all be able to make it through. 

“Exactly. We move in a pack now. Keep track of everyone together, and stay aware of what’s around us. I think we should do a major run and then lock up for a few days to see what goes down.” 

Hopper leaned back in the ratty armchair he was taking up, looking around to see if anyone challenged his ideas. 

Billy had given up his alpha male attitude the second Hopper yanked his upper arm and nearly screamed at him, asking Billy if he was ‘one of the flayed’ all while aggressively checking him over for injuries. 

First time any of Neil’s lessons actually sunk in. 

Respect and responsibility. 

If that fucker could see Billy now, doing nothing but respecting authority and taking responsibility for all these peoples’ lives. 

“We should rest up. Take a run tonight. Get a lay of the land,” Timothy said with an air of finality. Nobody argued. 

Hopper nodded. 

Everyone broke out from the Harringtons’ living room, milling around to get prepared for tonight’s run. Taking stock of what they needed to keep going for the next few days. 

Billy was itching to slide back into his cot and try to seek out that space if he can. The empty space where Harrington and that warm feeling of safe existed. 

The little one stayed clinging to his jacket, and Billy took a loose hold of his wrist, trying to provide some kind of basic comfort to the tiny kid. 

“You wanna go raid the cabinet?” The kid stared up at Billy with big eyes. Billy could never tell what color they were in the gloom. He thinks maybe green. 

The cabinet was a large door, built into the wall of the sitting room, and clearly where the Harringtons kept their games. 

They had these excruciating couple thousand-piece puzzles, the pictures peeling and faded on the pieces. They had Trivial Pursuit and backgammon, and all kindsa shit. 

The little one went and pulled out the checkers board. That was the only game Billy knew how to play anyhow. 

He and Max used to sit for hours, playing with this dinosaur-themed checker game Max’s dad got for her one birthday. 

It helped, playing a game. Helped pass the time. Help bait the anxiety. 

Helped them all feel a little bit closer to human.

-

“I don’t. Get it.”

Apparently, Nancy was not the only one, if the blank stares Steve was receiving from around his living room were anything to go by. 

“Yeah, why did she call you ?” Mike’s snitty tone was really grating on Steve’s fragile nerves.

“She said, she called to make sure everyone could come over here before she told you all to just show up this early on a Sunday morning and then she kinda explained what happened.”

Max was white as a sheet, tracking Steve like he was playing a horrible joke on her. 

“And she saw Billy. Billy Hargrove .” 

Steve nodded at Dustin. 

“Why does she think he’s in the Upside Down?” Robin asked, perched on the coffee table, sitting closest to where he was standing nervously. 

“She just knows .”

It was frustrating, trying to impart the seriousness of the situation without just spilling his guts. 

He rubbed absentmindedly at the cigar burn on his wrist. 

“I just don’t believe this. I talked to her three days ago, and she’s still having trouble with her powers. She can barely move a book, and hasn’t been able to get to the void since July, and you’re saying she accidentally saw Billy Hargrove, who we all saw murder a bunch of people and then get killed -”

“Shut up! He wasn’t himself!” Max shrieked out over Mike, the only time she’d even opened her mouth since Steve had mentioned her stepbrother’s name.

“Even if he is alive, El couldn’t have seen him! It doesn’t make sense!” Mike’s voice rose over Max’s, and Steve has a fucking headache and he’s over it.

“It was me! I had a dream. I went to the void. I saw Billy in the Upside Down. I called El to say she saw him.” 

Everyone went dead silent, staring at him.

“Steve,” Robin began, searching his face.

It was like all the wind that had been filling up his sails, powering his energy ship, had suddenly quit blowing. 

Steve was tired. 

He sank to the floor, crossing his legs where he sat.

“I need you all to shut the fuck up for a moment and let me explain, because I only wanna say all this shit once.” He covered his bloody face with his hands. “I’m like El.”

That statement hung in the air for a moment. 

And then there was a roar of noise.

“How could you keep this a secret?” Dustin shouted.

“Not in a million years !” Lucas decided. Erica yelled something back at him, vaguely defending Steve, which was nice.

“You mean you came from the lab?” Mike had a look on his face like he’d swallowed a particularly bitter lemon. 

“Everybody, shut the fuck up!” Max roared, glowering at each person until they were silent again. 

In all this Robin hadn’t said a word. She was pale, staring at Steve.

“Look, I don’t wanna go into it because it fucking sucks to think about,” Steve still hadn’t uncovered his face. “But yeah. I was in the lab. I got out because they decided I was a failed experiment. My mom worked at the lab and she took me and we pretended like the three of us moved here from Oklahoma and my dad told me never to tell anyone. And I haven’t. Didn’t even tell El. She recognized me from then. Don’t even know how, I left when she was like, three. Doesn’t matter. I’m a freaky lab kid and last night I fell asleep and saw Billy in that-what’d you call it? The void? Yeah, I saw him, and he’s covered in dirt and gross black Upside Down shit, and he’s fucking stuck there, and now we’re here.”

There was another silence. 

Steve didn’t dare to look at any of them.

He didn’t want them to laugh in his face. Tell him he was making all this shit up and leave him alone to deal with Billy trapped somewhere else. 

He wanted them to take his word for it. To quietly believe this crazy fucking shit of a story because the scared other feeling was back and clawing at his spine and making him want to burrow into the ground and find somewhere safe and secure and-

“Okay.”

Of course it was Robin. 

It was always Robin. 

Steve let himself look at her. 

She was pale, but she was smiling at him. 

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Steve nodded once.

“Okay. Uh, great.”

“Wait, if you’re defective, no offense, then how did you see Billy?” 

Steve stared at Max weighing his answer carefully. 

“Because, well, the defective thing, that was all, I didn’t mean to, that was before I really understood what I could do. Don’t get me wrong, it really worked out, but it was an accident.”

“Spit it out, Sailor Man.”

“ Erica .”

Erica just rolled her eyes at Lucas. 

“Okay. Uh, before I explain, just, just keep in mind that I have rules, and I don’t use my powers if I can avoid them, and I’d never use them to be a creep, but-”

“Steve!”

“Fine!” The words were right there, ready to tumble out of his mouth and ruin his life forever. 

There was no going back after this. 

The second they knew, everything would be different.

“I can feel other peoples’ emotions and, like, change them.”

Another silence.

“I don’t understand.”

Nancy was the last person he’d ever want to have this conversation with. 

He knows what she’s thinking. He knows that the great anger brewing inside her is because she assumes he made her like him. Made her attracted to him. 

Made her want him. 

“I don’t use it like that. I would never, put something there that shouldn’t be there. It’s just, When someone feels something near me, I can tap into it. Let it become my own feelings. And then I just, change it. Just a little.” He cast around for a harmless example because so far, everyone was staring at him like a goddamn creep. “Robin!”

She startled slightly when he yelled at her.

“Okay, so Robin. I’d never, ever make you feel something not true to you. Like, I’d never make it so you were into me when you’re totally not, right?” He cast a glance at Nancy. “But, like, the other day, when you felt really shitty when I invited you over and you were studying, I just, I made it so you wouldn’t feel bad. I felt all this guilt you had for leaving me alone when you thought I was having a shitty day, and I made it so you didn’t feel guilty because you shouldn’t. That’s the kinda level I allow myself to work on.”

The look Robin was giving him was breaking his fucking heart. 

Worse still, was the feeling of betrayal that began eating away at her. 

“So, right now. You can tell what we’re all feeling?” Even Lucas, ever the level-headed one, couldn’t look him in the eye.

“I don’t want to. I don’t try to, but I can’t really avoid it. I just try to ignore it. But sometimes, sometimes if I bottle it all up for a while, it comes crashing out of me, and that’s when bad shit happens. If I don’t use it occasionally, it only wakes things worse, and I-”

“I can’t hear this.”

Robin’s anger crashed through Steve like a wave, nearly knocking him over. She stood, towering over him. 

“When we were in that bathroom, all drugged out of our minds. I-” she sniffed, rage tears pooling in her eyes. Steve likes her eyes. So crystal blue. “Are we even really friends?”

Her last question was nothing more than a whisper. 

And it made Steve wish he was never born.

He gaped at her like a dead fish.

“Rob, of course we are! I would never-”

“Because I hated you. And then one summer. Two whole months where we’re close enough that you can get all up in my brain, and suddenly I’m telling you shit I’ve never told anyone before.”

“It wasn’t, Robin I swear, that whole time, I never once used-”

She held up her hand, cutting him off. 

A sob caught in his throat as she turned on her heel. 

She slammed the door closed behind her. 

Another fucking silence. 

Steve couldn’t look anyone in the eye.

Their feelings were enough for him now, betrayal and anger and disappointment rushing into his lungs, drowning him. Choking him. 

“You’ve used them on all of us.”

It wasn’t a question. 

It was just a statement. The coldest he’s ever heard Dustin sound. 

“I just want everyone to be happy.”

“Jesus, Steve. You realize that’s actually totally fucked up, right? You can’t just make us feel whatever you want,” Dustin bellowed at him, standing up like Robin had done, looking down at Steve where he sat pathetically on the floor. 

And, when it’s put like that. 

Sure. 

It’s kinda fucked up. 

But he’s only ever meddled in a way that’s good. He only ever tries to make his friends feel the positives. Hell, on the night of that stupid Snow Ball, he’d given Dustin enough self-confidence to make Madonna seem insecure. 

All he does is try to help. 

“All I do is try to help.”

More fucking silence. 

Steve was so goddamn sick of silence. All he had was silence. He had the nothing, empty quiet. And he didn’t want it from the people who were supposed to make his life loud. 

“El won’t be here until later tonight. I think we should just meet up then.”

Steve buried his head in his hands, biting back sobs as the small group filtered out of his house. 

This is why he had wanted to take this secret with him to death. 

He told everyone who he really is, and now they all hate him, and he’s completely alone, and wherever Billy is he’s fucking scared and-

“Steve?”

Max’s voice was small, mirroring the way she was curled in on herself in the plush armchair near the wall. 

“Do you really think Billy’s alive?”

Steve nodded at her, desperately begging her to stay. To help him. 

“I know he is.”

“I have an idea.”

-

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. 

Doesn’t remember much of anything in this place. 

He studied the water lapping at his muddy boots, dragging his toes through it to make the water wave and ripple. 

It didn’t make a sound. 

“I want to help.”

Billy knew Steve was there even before he spoke. 

Something about the warmth he brought to the void place. 

The safety. 

“Don’t know if you can.”

Steve’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smile at that. His face was covered in blood, dried and flaking away from his skin, painted all the way down his face and neck, some staining the collar of his shirt.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

“That happens when the only interactions you have with a guy are to beat his ass.”

Steve cracked a real smile at that. Something big and bright that made Billy’s gut twist in a way he didn’t quite like. 

“You’re forgetting all those other times we spent together. You’re not very subtle, you know.”

Yeah, Billy knows. 

Mostly because he wasn’t trying to be subtle. 

He had talked to Steve about his bitchy ex while they both had their dicks out in the shower. He was trying to be very much un-subtle. 

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

“I know.”

Oh. 

Steve knows. 

And all he had done was stare blankly at Billy. 

Nice. 

“I need to know where you are.”

“Why?” 

“Because I can help.”

Billy just blinked at Steve. 

“Do you know El?”

Something funny happened to Steve’s face. He kind of gave a little smile that flickered into a frown and landed on something a little pinched and awkward. 

“Yeah. How do you know her?”

“Hopper keeps saying he needs to get to her. None of us know what he’s talking about.”

And with that, Steve’s eyes went huge, and his jaw dropped. The water at Billy’s ankles sloshed quietly. 

“Hopper’s there? Chief Hopper? Jim Hopper is there?”

“Jesus, yeah. Been here since we all woke up.”

Steve acted like Billy had told him that Farrah Fawcett herself was on her way to shave his head. 

Meaning, he looked struck fucking dumb. 

“I’m gonna need you to explain.”

“I don’t know. Don’t remember much. Crashed my car on one of your shitty backwoods roads, and then everything is just, kinda, gone. I woke up in this shithole version of the library and Hopper found me here and we’ve kinda set up camp.”

Billy shrugged lamely. Something was dripping, he could hear the sound of it far behind him.

“There’s more of you? How many?”

“Not as many as there should be.”

Steve’s mouth pinched, and his big droopy eyes went all sweet and sad. 

“Where are you? Where’s the camp?”

Billy was suddenly embarrassed. There was a sound like a stream flowing over rocks.

What’s he supposed to say? The hellscape skeleton of your house oh and by the way all your stuff is here and I slept in your bed once because I was scared and sad.

“Someone’s house. Don’t know whose.”

Steve huffed some air out of his nostrils, his mouth pinching again. 

Billy hadn’t realized someone could make so many different expressions just by pursing their lips in different ways. 

“Find out. We’re coming to get you.”

A crash of a wave, and Billy was back in hell. 

-

Steve sucked in lungfuls of air, tossing the towel that had been covering his eyes to the ground. 

“You saw him.” 

Max was sitting in front of him, the t.v. playing static behind her. 

“Yeah. He’s okay. I mean, he’s really gross. Like, he’s-sorry. He’s okay.”

Max was still staring at him like she didn’t quite know how to proceed. 

“But he’s in the Upside Down?”

“Yeah. And there’s others. He said Hopper’s there, that he’s been trying to contact El.”

“Wait, Hopper? He’s alive?”

“Billy said all of the flayed woke up after the Fourth of July in the Upside Down. He doesn’t know anything that happened in this world, and Hopper was there and they’ve set up, like, some kind of camp, or whatever. He said they’re in someone’s house. He doesn’t know who.”

“ Fuck .”

Yeah, Steve agrees with that sentiment. 

This whole thing was like, kind of a lot. 

And deep inside him, those other feelings had yet to leave him alone all day. 

There was some kind of disappointment knocking about in his brain. 

He knows it’s Billy. 

All of those other feelings, it’s whatever Billy is feeling right that minute wherever he is. 

And it only happens when Steve is-

“Max, he’s here.”

She whipped around behind her, staring at the front door like Billy could waltz through it at any moment. 

“No, no not here, here .” She clearly didn’t understand. He used the towel to wipe the fresh blood from his upper lip, still having yet to clean himself up any. “The camp, the safeplace, it’s here. They’ve set up in my house!”

It felt like a revelation on par with the greatest inventions. Steve felt like the scientist that landed the man on the moon or the very first person to melt cheese onto fries. 

A genius. 

“So, he’s, I mean, he could be, just, here .” She looked over the room wistfully, and Steve knew how she felt. Like she wanted to pierce her hands into thin air, tearing a hole in between the two worlds and ripping Billy straight outta hell. 

(Really, she just filled him with a wave of fierce determination, but Steve likes to take poetic license on other people’s feelings sometimes.)

“And you can feel him.”

“Yeah.”

“Is he, okay?”

And he knows this question. 

Not the okay he assured her of when he first saw Billy. Soothing that he wasn’t missing any internal organs or possessed by any monsters. 

She wants to know if he’s held it together. 

“He’s scared. He’s always scared. But he’s really fucking stubborn, and he- I don’t know why he feels these things, but sometimes he gets kinda sad. Almost like he’s lost something, and sometimes, it feels like he’s caught fire, and his insides are just going up in flame and he gets overwhelmed by them. And sometimes he feels-” He hadn’t meant to continue.

“Tell me.”

He’s pretty sure Max knew what he was going to say next. 

She just wanted it confirmed. 

“Hopeless. Sometimes he feels hopeless.”

She sniffed, her eyes shining as she looked anywhere that wasn’t Steve. 

“But, we know now. He doesn’t have to be hopeless anymore. We’ll find a way in, and we’ll get him out.”

He didn’t want to manipulate her. 

He didn’t want to cross the boundaries everyone clearly thought he already had. 

But he was positive he would find a way to Billy. He was positive he would get him out and get him home. 

He sent a wave of that determination and hope and conviction to her. 

“Yeah. We’ll get him.”

-

“Hopper, man, some funky shit is going down.”

Hopper whirled around quickly, halfway to his feet and asking who's been hurt before Billy raised both hands, acting like he was calming an anxious horse.

“Nah, sorry, shoulda worded that better. I just mean, something’s happened to me. With me, maybe. I don’t know. Just hear me out. This shit’s gonna sound, insane.”

Hopper didn’t say anything as Billy explained, beginning with that night when the wall shattered next to his head, and ending with his most recent trip to the void place. 

Billy shrugged lamely when he finished explaining. 

“So, Harrington, huh? Never woulda guessed he was like her. You sure you didn’t see a little girl anywhere in the blank place?”

“No. It was just us. Both times.”

Hopper leaned back in his chair, scratching a hand through his thick beard. 

“The first time one of the demogorgons showed up on our side was behind Steve’s house. Took Will Byers from his shed. They live some few miles away. Second time was in Harrington’s backyard. Took Barbara Holland.” Hopper sighed, looking in the direction of the busted radio. Billy could more or less see the cogs turning in his head. “If you see him again, tell him where we are. Tell him I think the walls are thinnest here. That maybe he and El could tear through. Better yet, tell him to find me if he can.”

He clapped Billy on the shoulder, looking right at him in that way he did sometimes. It always made Billy feel like a little kid. 

“Thank you, kid. You might’ve just saved us.”

Billy felt awkward and didn’t really know what to do with his face. Thankfully, Hopper turned away from him, cutting the moment short and moving back to fiddling with the old radio. 

Billy ducked his way up and back to the furthest bedroom on the ground floor, taking a seat on his low cot and digging his palms into his eyes. 

He didn’t know how the void happened. If he could only get there in his sleep, or if it was Steve’s doing somehow. 

“C’mon, Steve. Where are you? Come find me, Pretty Boy. We gotta talk.”

When he moved his hands away, he was in that blank place. 

Billy was taken aback a bit, thinking somehow he had created the place around him. 

Until he saw Steve, standing nervously and staring at Billy. 

“I felt you. What’s wrong?”

“Sorry, you felt me? What in the fuck’s that supposed to mean.”

“Don’t worry about it. What happened? Are you guys okay?”

Steve wasn’t covered in blood anymore. 

In fact, he looked freshly showered, his hair slightly damp and soft-looking without product. 

It’s how he always looked right after having a post-practice shower. Clean and warm. Soft and inviting. 

“I talked to Hopper. He told me to give you a message.”

Steve’s eyes lit up, and he took a step towards Billy, the water rippling where his foot disturbed the surface. 

“He said, well. He told me where we are. Apparently, we’re at your place.” Billy tried to smirk a little, act like this was brand new information to him.

“Yeah. I gathered.”

“He thinks the walls are thinnest at your place. Said that maybe you and El could tear through easily. That mean anything to you?”

Steve nodded so hard his bangs flopped right into his eyes. 

He pushed his hair out of his face, tucking some behind his ear. Billy tracked the movement. 

“We’re going to try tonight. Maybe around six. Can you guys be ready by then?”

“We don’t have any way to track time around here. Don’t even know if it’s day or night, really.”

Steve bit his soft bottom lip, looking at Billy like he wanted to cry for him. 

“Then I’ll come and get you before. Warn you when we’re about to start. Make sure everyone stays close. I don’t know how long we’ll be able to keep it sustained, and we want to get everyone out if we can.”

“Steve, man, what in the fuck is going on? I’ve been shut up in this place for, for I don’t even know how long, and all of a sudden, you just start showing up in my head and telling me that you’re gonna take point on this big fuckin’ rescue mission.”

Billy doesn’t want to admit it to anyone, least of all Steve Harrington, but he’s scared, and confused, and he genuinely wishes that he had died in that library instead of waking up. 

“I’ll explain it when you get back.” 

And Steve smiled at him and the corners of his eyes crinkled and Billy didn’t quite feel like he wanted to die anymore. 

-

“Where are they?”

El didn’t even say hello when she pushed Steve’s front door open, just made straight for Max and Steve in the sitting room.

“They’re all being dicks,” was Max’s answer. “Steve told us about how you two know each other, and everyone kinda freaked.”

“I mean, it’s pretty freaky.”

“Yeah, sure, but they didn’t need to be such shitbirds about it.”

Somewhere between feeling harshly angry at Steve and his powers and hearing her brother’s voice crackle through the television speaker, Max had pretty much ensconced Steve as her sidekick. 

Which he didn’t mind in the least. 

It was kinda odd seeing the Byers in his house. 

Jonathan looked. Exactly the same. 

Like literally. His hair had grown out since his mother had taken a pair of scissors and a bowl to it last summer, and he looked just like the Hawkins Jonathan Steve was used to. 

It was kinda nice. 

At least one thing hasn’t changed. 

Especially because Will is pretty much unrecognizable. 

He had shot up, growing until he could nearly look Steve in the eye. And thank God, he must've followed Jonathan’s footsteps and stopped letting Joyce cut his hair. 

It was longer, adn shaggier, but it made him look so grown up. 

Nearly as grownup as El, her hair nearly down to her shoulder blades, the top of her head coming up on Steve’s chin, showing off the signs of her own growth spurt. 

Even Joyce was sporting a new look. Longer hair with bangs that were swept off her face.

She gave Steve a comforting hug, and those were just the same. 

Unease filled the room. 

Nobody knew what they were walking into. El had to have given them the basics, and Steve figures she explained some on the long drive back to town, but there had been even more developments since the last they had spoken this morning. 

Steve sifted through the borderline panic of Max and the Byers, clinging onto the fierce calm that El was radiating. Probably for his benefit more than her own actual experience. 

“I know where Billy is. We talked. I have an idea.” He took a deep breath, bracing himself for the feelings. “Hopper’s alive.”

It took a second. 

El’s carefully maintained calm wavered for a moment. 

And then it crashed down. 

Disbelief, relief, denial, anger, hope, joy. 

Everything a person could possibly feel at once poured out of El and Joyce both, nearly knocking Steve off his feet with the sheer velocity of the emotions. 

“Saw him?”

“No. But Billy mentioned him. He said he’s been trying to get to you.”

El’s eyes filled with tears, and Steve could feel the satisfaction, the pride, welling up in her that Hopper was still thinking of her. That he was trying to reach out. 

“My powers,” she trailed off.

“Yeah. I know. But, he said, well, he told Billy to tell me, he thinks the walls are thinnest here. Maybe in the woods outback. He thinks we can do it.”

Sorry,” Joyce interrupted. She had gathered herself somewhat, but her feelings were still shaky. 

She always felt like she was trembling emotionally. Joyce felt everything nearly as viscerally as Billy did. 

“I think we’re not on the same page. Steve, you spoke to Billy? El said she sensed him.”

“Steve is like me. From Papa.”

“You mean, from the lab?” Jonathan clarified. 

Everyone was staring at Steve again and he felt like burrowing a hole right through the floor and hiding underground forever. 

“Yeah, I got out when I was a kid. My parents were pretty hell-bent on hiding it from everyone. But. You know. Cat’s outta the bag now. But yes, it was me who saw Billy. He’s in the Upside Down. A bunch of people are. Including Hopper. It sounds like they were all taken and the flayed people out here were like, fake. Like evil twin versions.”

Sure, it’s a shitty explanation.

It’s the best he can do, okay? Leave him alone. 

“So, what’s his plan, then?”

That’s the good thing about the Byers, though. They get the whole, priority thing. Now’s not the time to focus on shit like Steve’s fake life. Not when the Upside Down is concerned. 

“Billy didn’t say much. Just that he thinks maybe El and I could like, band together to open it. I don’t really know how, I mean, I haven’t thought about it much, I just spoke to him, but that's the idea. I told him I would meet him in the void or whatever before we go so he can gather everyone and get ready.”

“So, is it just us?” Will asked quietly, biting the inside of his cheek. He was disappointed. His friends not being where they were needed. Not being there to see him for the first time since his family moved away months ago. 

Steve shrugged.

He was battling his own disappointment and hurt at everyone ditching him. 

“No. Let’s start calling. We need to stick together for this one. Billy hasn’t said anything about how bad the Upside Down has been, and we need to be ready to fight off anything that tries to get through.”

“Max is right. They should be here.” Will was already making his way to the phone placed on the side table. “They need to be here.” 

Jonathan caught Steve’s eye, jerking his head slightly to the hallway. 

Steve followed him, already knowing the line of questioning that was about to hit him. 

“I knew you called El. I picked up this morning. Now the story makes a lot more sense, I guess.”

“Yeah. I’ve been getting this weird feeling for a couple months, but I finally put it all together. Probably would’ve happened faster it is was El.”

“I don’t know. She’s been struggling a lot. She practices every day, but,” he sighed” I don’t know if she’s strong enough to make this work.”

He’s worried, adn scared, and has that exact same tremble-feeling that his mother does. 

“I know. I just don’t think we can leave them any longer. Billy said they’ve already lost people. I don’t know what it’s been like for them, but they’ve been stuck for fucking months, and-”

This time, it hit him so hard he really did blackout. 

His vision clouded around him, and his whole body burned with the raging fear inside of him. 

He could hear something, could hear someone screaming, adn something, something that sounded horrible, and so very very like a-

-

“Demogorgon!”

It’s like it had come out of nowhere. 

This towering figure, long and thin in all the wrong fucking ways.

And the sound. Billy realized what Hopper meant about how it’s not something you forget. 

They were in some form of a ready position. 

Billy among the front of the group, holding his ax he had never let go of in the first place. 

His heart was pounding. 

We’ll be out soon. We’ll be out soon. 

He didn’t believe it. 

How could he?

How the fuck is Steve Harrington going to get them out of the worst place ever? No offense to him or anything, but the guy could barely make a goddamn milkshake without spilling something on the sticky tile floor of Scoops Ahoy! and now, Billy’s life is in this guy’s hands while he stares into the jaws of a monster that looks like it stepped right out of H.P. Lovecraft’s wettest dreams.

It’s not like this is the first time he’s had this realization, but he is in way over his fucking head. 

“Steve,” Billy grumbled to himself through gritted teeth. “If you can hear me, get us the fuck outta here.”

The thing ahead of them wasn’t moving. It stood in the line of the trees behind Steve’s house. 

It was staring down the clump of people on the other side of the backyard. 

The air was still. 

Billy’s ears were ringing. 

He stared the thing down. 

Its long fingers twitched. 

Someone screamed. 

And the thing charged. 

It roared like nothing Billy had ever heard before. A shriek that seemed to vibrate Billy’s bones and tremble the earth underneath his feet. 

It charged. 

Sprinting forward on long thin legs, it loped with a grace that turned Billy’s stomach and made his knees wobble and threaten to give out. 

Plant your feet. 

It rang through his head, Steve’s voice from, some time Billy couldn’t remember. Or maybe Steve was just the little voice that commanded his bravery now. 

Either way, he dug the balls of his feet into the cracked ground, and waited. 

Don’t stop fighting.

He swung. 

The ax clocked right into the side of the thing, barely cutting into its thick leathery skin, but it slowed it down. 

Well, actually. 

It made it change course from attacking the group as a whole, to honing in on Billy. 

Which was less than awesome. 

Billy wrenched the ax out of its tough body, thick, sticky black goo connecting the ax with its entry point as he drew it away. 

He swung again, nearly hitting the same place. 

The thing cried out, roaring over the sound of screaming and gunshots. 

Hopper had his rifle trained on the flowered head of the one Billy was furiously chopping into like a tree. 

There were two more, two he hadn’t noticed in his preoccupation with the one in front of him. 

He didn’t know who was who. Which gunshot belonged to which gun, which shriek belonged to which animal. 

He didn’t know if the cries of pain were from the awful beasts or the people in his camp. He was hoping the former. 

He swung again. There was a sickening sound of the metal blade connecting with something solid. Something like bone. 

Hopper shot it, once, twice in the head. 

It was whining, making a high-pitched noise as it staggered about. 

One last blow to the side of the thing, and it was finished. 

The monster flopped onto the ground, dark liquid oozing out of it, its body nearly split in half where Billy had hammered it with his ax. A great gaping wound that showed sticky dark entrails. 

Billy turned. 

His brain was working in slow motion as he charged into the battle still raging. 

He didn’t know how many of the things had arrived. 

All he knew was taking them out.

His arms were sore from the force he was putting into each blow with his ax. His muscles threatened to give out at any moment.

Drive them back. We’re coming. 

The thought was shoved into his head. He didn’t know where it came from but he believed it. 

“Help is on the way!” He shouted to no one and everyone. 

He had taken down two more demogorgons with the help of the others. One was missing its body, a petal head lolling on the ground, getting trampled on in the fight. 

-

Steve had felt the demogorgon before Billy saw it. 

It was an odd feeling, almost like it was a black hole sucking up everything he thought and felt before he could cling onto it. 

It made him feel cold, and empty, and just like the Upside Down felt. 

“We don’t have time!”

El was insisting on contacting the others. She was livid with them for abandoning Steve, but things were taking a turn for the small group trapped in that hellscape. 

“Steve’s right. If there’s a demogorgon there, that means the Mind Flayer has gotten some strength back, wherever he is.”

Steve nodded at Will gratefully.

“But, what’s the idea? You two open the gate. Then what? We wait for those things to come through to our side?” Jonathan asked, kinda harshly, if you ask Steve.

Steve rubbed his eyes, his fists pressing against them so hard he was seeing odd shapes. 

“No. I go through. I get them. I bring them back.” His head was a fucking mess. Billy was all over the place. Fear, desperation, and a horrible calm that only came when things looked like the end. Plant your feet, he thought, trying to get his feelings to Billy through the thin dimensional wall. Don’t stop fighting. “For the past few days, all I’ve been able to feel is somebody else’s fucking fear and this stupid stupid stubbornness and I know it’s Billy, and I know he’s in trouble. Like right now. The demogorgons are coming for them, and he’s so scared. He’s so fucking scared and he thinks he’s gonna die, and he’s trapped .”

He looked at each person individually, glaring at them all in the eye. 

“We don’t have time.”

So it was decided. 

He brought El outside, and stared into the shimmering water of the pool. 

The pool where a demon came out and dragged Barbara to her death. 

It gave him the fucking creeps. Well, it more gave him the severe anxiety, but there was something about it that made it seem like it was the best place to try and rip the fold between himself and Billy. 

Drive them back. We’re coming. 

He wanted Billy to have some hope. Something like a lifeline that would keep him fighting the monsters. 

He had wrenched his nail bat out of the wall it was still planted in from a few nights ago, and stood next to El, ready to try. 

“To be honest, I don’t know how to help you.” It was the only thing that scared him about this plan. “I don’t have the same powers as you. The telekin-the moving stuff around. I don’t know how to open this.”

She looked at him thoughtfully. 

“In Chicago. Kali. When I’m angry my powers are better,” she took his hand. “Make me angry.”

Steve closed his eyes. 

He tried to push Billy to the side, clinging onto the first bit of El he could sense. 

Her anger was like a melted core running through her. Driving her in a lot of ways. 

He grabbed onto it. 

Papa. Everything he did to your mama. Being locked in isolation. Fights with Hopper. Being trapped in the cabin. Feeling alone and not knowing how to fix it. New kids at school being mean. Techs in the lab that treated us like rats. The smell of skin burning. Parents that called you a freak. 

He didn’t know when he had stopped using El’s ready-made rage, and began siphoning his own straight into the beating heart of her fury. 

His gut began to feel white-hot, and he could feel the blood dripping down his lip. 

Lying to everyone. Being abandoned for the truth. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

Steve was livid. 

He’s never felt an emotion consume him like this. Felt one feeling take over so completely it’s like there was nothing else in the world. 

He opened his eyes. 

There was blood flowing steadily from El’s nose, and he knew his was doing the same. 

He could feel his heart pounding against his ribs, his body going into overdrive to divert all of his energy to his powers. 

The rift glowed red through the clear pool water, splitting open like a seam on a well-worn shirt. 

The burn on his arm ached, and he pushed into it. 

He remembered being held down on his father’s desk. Remembers the cigar being forced against his skin, bubbling up and disfiguring the tattoo beyond recognition. 

He remembers his father, this is for your own good, Steven. You’ll tell everyone you had an accident. People won’t question a burn like they will a tattoo. 

Like no one would take one look at the quarter-sized mark and know what would make it. 

He remembers getting the tattoo. 

It was nearly the same process. 

He was strapped down in a chair, his screams going ignored as the needle drove into his skin over and over, leaving a neat black number behind. 

001

Number One. 

The first in a series of children bred for something more, and beaten into acceptance. 

His head felt like it could explode. He didn’t know what was going on around him, was barely aware of El’s sweaty hand in his, and the bright red light coming from the cracked bottom of the pool. 

It was open. 

Number One took a deep breath, and dived into the pool. 

-

It was the little one that noticed it. 

Billy had been trying to yell at him to get back inside, to keep himself out of harm’s way. 

They had killed six demogorgons, and more were certainly coming. 

The trees in the forest were rustling in a way they never did on their own. 

The little one was pointing frantically, his eyes wide and scared. 

Billy turned, and his blood ran cold. 

Something was moving in the pool. 

It was making the thick non-water slosh around dangerously, the dark liquid lapping over the sides and staining the concrete. 

There were vines crisscrossing over the surface of the liquid, and Billy approached it carefully, hoping whatever was coming out would be trapped underneath them. 

“This is the last fucking thing we need,” Hopper gritted out, cocking his rifle and aiming at the sludge. 

And then Billy’s head felt like it had been cracked open. 

He was blinded with pain and rage and 

Help me, Hargrove!

He started swinging his ax wildly at the vines. Trying to break them apart enough for a body to fit through. 

His heart thundered in his chest, and he dropped to his knees, ripping at the slimy black tendrils. 

He shoved his left arm in.

It was like dousing his arm in ice. Like the liquid was made from the purest essence of cold. 

He searched frantically with his hand, finding something solid and yanking with all his strength. 

He had to put both arms in, grabbing hold of whatever he could, using his body weight as leverage to extract Steve from the cold. 

He was limp when Billy finally got him out, but breathing heavily. 

He opened his eyes, wiping his face free of the goop and blood covering him, and grinned at Billy. 

“Told’ya we would get you out.”

They shepherd him inside, most of the gang speechless and struck dumb from the events of the past while. 

Steve was given a change of almost clean clothes, and allowed to use some of their bottled water ration to clean the freezing black fluid from himself. 

He wasted little time, and was down in the Upside Down version of his living room with everyone else. 

“We can’t be long. El had to use a lot of strength to open it, but she’ll need her strength to close it, too.” 

Nobody knew what in the fuck Steve was going on about. 

Nobody but Hopper, that is. 

He still had disgusting pool sludge all over his front from when he pulled Steve into a tight hug when he had gotten his bearings back from his journey through the rift. 

“We can’t send people through that shit. It took all of Billy’s muscle to get you outta there.”

“So we drain it,” Steve insisted. “My parents drain it sometimes, I know how to do it.”

“I’ll keep watch. Make sure nothing tries to make itself known.”

Billy had barely wiped himself off. 

He didn’t care anymore about how freezing that shit was, he just wanted to surge forward, and get back the fuck home.

Hopper studied them both.

“Bring weapons. Yell if you need help.”

Billy nodded once, and turned on his heel, following Steve out the back door. 

Steve led him to a wooden shed on the side of the house. Billy had to clear the vines away from it before Steve could pry open the doors. 

It was full of pool equipment, and it didn’t take long for Steve to locate a large grubby pump. He knocked it against the wall of the shed until the filter attachment clattered off, leaving bigger openings for the sludge to, hopefully, run through. 

“Shit. This thing is electric. You got electricity?” 

It was the first time Steve had really gotten a good look at Steve since being in the Upside Down. 

He looked exactly as he had in the void place. His hair had a lot more disgusting black fluid in it, and he overall looked kinda shitty with the flecks of grime and blood on his face, but he looked bright. Alive. Strong. 

“How did you do it? Take me to that place. Figure out we were here.” 

Steve flushed. Billy had become overly aware that his face was completely covered under his bandana. Steve should cover his face. 

He drew another one of his back pocket, and, he didn’t know why, but he tied it around Steve’s face. 

Seriously, he could’ve just handed it to the guy and called it good there. But no. He had to set his ax on the ground, propped against his leg, wrap his arms around Steve’s shoulders, and tie the bandana like this was some intricate ritual. 

All while Steve just stared at him with those fuckin’ eyes of his. 

“It’s a long story.” Billy could barely hear Steve speak through the dirty cloth now covering his mouth and nose. “I’ll tell you when we’re back. When we’re safe.”

“I’m holding you to that, Harrington. Can’t have a guy poking around my dreams and shouting in my head without knowing his intentions.”

It was as close to flirting as Billy dared right now. 

Right before they tried to journey between worlds. 

“Good to know you heard me. I was trying to give you something of a pep talk.”

“Well, it worked. I would’ve just put my arms out and let those things rip me to shreds if I hadn’t have known.”

Billy didn’t know what Steve’s face was doing behind the cloth, but his eyes dropped, and Billy imagined that little cinch of his mouth that he had noticed Steve doing so much in that void place.

-

Billy meant it as a joke. 

He really did. 

And the Billy that was torn to bits in the mall wasn’t this Billy. Wasn’t the real Billy that was made out of real Billy materials and real Billy personality. 

But it still made Steve feel queasy, thinking about his arms spread wide, black goop pouring out of his mouth and nose as the Mind Flayer decimated him. 

“We’ve got a lot to talk about, Billy. Just, not now.” 

And Steve turned off, hauling the pump back to the pool and taking calming breaths. 

The pump sank without much effort, like there was some kind of gravitational pull at the bottom of the pool. 

Steve had connected the thickest hose he could find, adn sent Billy off with the extension cord to find an outlet that didn’t spark and threaten fire. 

Before no time, the pump was humming, and pushing black slime through the hose and onto the dead grass. 

They didn’t need to get it all out, just as much as they could shove everyone through. 

Steve closed his eyes, trying to reach El like he had Billy. 

We had a hold up. Shouldn’t be long. 

He could feel her on the other side. 

She promised she would stay close enough to the rift that Steve could get in touch with her. 

He could feel something slither down his spine, a wordless confirmation from her. 

The liquid in the pool was slowly edging down, leaving a stain on the once-white walls of the pool. 

“Gather everyone up. Tell ‘em to meet out here. Tell ‘em to leave it all behind.”

Billy was still staring at the edge of the forest when he commanded Steve. 

It was odd, being in his house that’s not his house. 

Everything was so. Wrong. 

From the way the house seemed to be crumbling down, reduced to its studs in some areas, to the way it was still clearly his house. Paintings his father had bought. Elegant furniture his mother selected. 

It was all there. Just under a thick layer of dirt and nightmares. 

He thought idly about his bedroom, wondering if it would look like it did on his end. A little messy, the sheets typically rumpled and unmade. 

He resisted the urge to wander upstairs, reminding himself he was on a mission. 

“It’s time. Don’t bring anything. It’ll probably be ruined along the way.”

Everyone looked grave. Steve tried to smile at them, tried to push through some calmness to them all. He had forgotten Billy’s bandana was tied around his face. He sent one last wave of quiet confidence around the room, and led the group through the kitchen. 

They had barely rounded the corner of the kitchen island when they heard a strangled yell from outside. 

Steve put his head down, and sprinted through the shattered glass doors, skidding to a halt in the threshold. 

Billy was staggering backward, his ax forgotten on the ground and his left hand was clinging wildly to his right shoulder. 

His jacket was in tatters, thick blood dripping bright crimson down his arm, standing out like neon against the dark, dirty ground. 

Steve didn’t feel himself moving forward. He didn’t feel his hands raising in front of him. 

He just felt anger. The same anger from before that had ripped through him like a raging forest fire and straight into El. 

The thing shrieked. 

It backed away from Billy, twisting and writhing as its horrible screams filled the air, making the hair on the back of Steve’s neck stand on end. 

Fierce fury was exploding out of him, and he grit his teeth against the pounding in his head. 

“You don’t get to hurt him,” Steve barely barked out. 

All went still, and the demogorgon snapped into pieces. 

Steve felt like he could pass out where he stood. 

He had never felt so wrung dry. 

His vision was waning at the edges, and he felt an arm around his waist, coaxing him toward the red light now barely shining through a thin layer of slime in the pool. 

“Hold your breath, Pretty Boy.”

-

Steve was limp against him, and Billy was doing his best to ignore the searing pain in his right shoulder as he held Steve close to his side. He had fumbled off both of their face coverings, moving clumsily through the pain of his injury. 

He took one last breath, and jumped into the rip between worlds. 

He plunged into the water, the crystal blue of a chlorinated pool. 

It was the best feeling in the world. 

Being covered and surrounded by clean. The heated water doing more to soothe Billy’s frayed nerves than anything in his life. 

He kicked hard, swimming one-armed to the surface, Harrington a dead weight in his injured arm. 

His head broke the water, and he took in deep lungfuls of clean, crisp air. 

Someone was tugging at Steve, and Billy, for the first time in his fucking life, was glad to see those kids Max was constantly hanging around. 

A woman Billy didn’t know was fawning over Steve, feeling for a pulse, and looking relieved when she felt his hot breath against her palm. 

“There’s more coming,” Billy coughed. 

He barely managed to get the words out, dripping muck and grime on the cement by the pool, when it felt as though he was hit from the side by a speeding train. 

He buried his nose in bright orange hair, hugging Max back as tightly as he could manage. 

He was exhausted, and feeling her there, alive and okay, was all that was keeping him standing. 

“I thought, I mean, we all thought you were dead. We saw it. That thing killed you .” Billy realized, with a whole lotta horror, that she was crying. Sobbing outright into his dirty chest. 

“Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” How could they have seen when that monster just came at him? 

“Oh, you’re bleeding.”

And if she only just realized he was hurt?

Max frog-marched Billy inside, to a very pale-looking Nancy Wheeler, sitting ready with a first aid kit. 

Billy had to peel his clothes off his body, the fabric stuck to him like a second skin. 

Nobody was speaking, and more of the people locked in the other place came traipsing into the room, fluffy towels wrapped around their shoulders. 

Hopper was the last to come in, holding the woman tight to his side underneath the striped pool towel. 

“Steve and El are closing it back up.”

There was a quiet murmur around the room.

Nancy patched up Billy’s shoulder, Max still stuck to his side like glue, the little boy from camp pasted to his other side. 

He had no idea how much time had past when Steve finally came traipsing into the room with Max’s little friend, both of them sporting matching bloody noses. 

Steve looked like shit. 

His face was covered in blood, old and new, and he still had some of the gross not-liquid in his hair from the Upside Down. 

But Billy doesn’t think he’s ever been happier to see someone in his life. 

“I’m sure everyone has questions,” said the woman tucked against Hop’s side. El, Billy assumes, had taken her place on Hop’s other side, wrapping the towel around her shoulders as well. 

The woman launched into a story that made Billy feel like his brain was oozing out of his ears. 

A monster. One they had all met before. Playing body snatcher in their sleepy little town. 

Apparently, one had been wearing a Billy meat-suit and wreaking havoc around town, which made Billy wanna throw up until he died. 

Which, not-Billy, had died. Fuckin’ brutally. And in front of everyone. Which sure as shit explained why Max wouldn’t let go of his sweaty hand. 

The story made Billy queasy, and he took to studying everyone in the room instead. 

All the kids were there, even the one that had been following Steve around like a little shadow, but they were all glaring in the very much opposite direction of Steve. 

Steve himself was pressed almost against the wall, looking like he’d collapse if the wall weren’t supporting him. 

“What’s up with the cold shoulder?” Billy muttered to Max.

“They’re mad at Steve right now. He’s been lying to us all.”

It was all he got out of her before everyone started moving around. 

The woman, Joyce Byers, he’s learned, had finished her story, and the group from the Upside Down had begun clamoring for rides home, or maybe something to eat. 

Billy just saw Steve manage to slip away before he followed him. 

It took some doing, shaking off the little one, who still wasn’t speaking, and looked ready to burst into tears when Billy told him to stay behind in the living room. 

But Janet Holloway took the kid’s other hand and gently led him back into the living room. 

Billy nodded at her, and sped up the stairs. 

It was weird, being in Harrington’s actual room. 

It was messy, and looked like Steve spent most of his time here tossing clothes on the ground or twisting up in his bed covers like a tornado. 

But it was oddly comforting. 

Being in Steve’s real room, and not some perverse dirty copy. 

Steve was standing, facing the bed, peeling his borrowed jacket from his shoulders and leaving it there on the floor.

“I never said thank you.”

Steve startled at Billy’s voice.

“Yeah. No problem.” Steve’s tone was light and airy, but Billy heard him sniff.

“Max said the little shitbirds are mad at you. Something about you lying.” 

Steve turned around, giving Bily a watery smile.

“It’s a long story.”

“I got time.”

So Steve told him. 

About the lab. 

About the experiments. 

About the torture. 

He explained that he had rules. Never making anyone feel something they already didn’t. Never altering someone’s opinion of, or feelings towards him. 

Billy grit his teeth as he imagined Wheeler giving Steve a hard time about that.

Steve was silent for a moment, not looking at Billy.

“It’s okay if you hate me. I mean, everyone does now.”

“You'd be able to feel if I hated you. You and those powers of yours just saved my life, Pretty Boy. I’m pretty sure I’m feeling the farthest thing from hatred just about now.”

It was as close to a confession as Billy would let himself get. 

But if Steve knows what he’s feeling at any given moment, then that means that he knows, and he didn’t-

“Quit it. Insecurity isn’t a good look on you.”

Steve sounded tired, and he flopped back onto his bed, staring at the ceiling with his arms out. 

At first, it didn’t sit quite right with Billy. 

He had barely even begun to identify what he was feeling when Steve swooped in and just point blank told him what the emotion was. 

Billy spent nearly all of his time being a big fuckin’ facade. 

He tried his very best to hide any emotional tell from anyone around him. 

He prided himself on being a chameleon. That nobody would ever truly know how he felt in any given situation. 

And here’s pretty boy Steve Harrington. Who is feeling just as, if not more, strongly as Billy is. 

But, it takes out all the parts of emotions that Billy hates dealing with. 

Showing them. Talking about them. 

He’d never once had to grapple with the words to explain how he feels to Steve. 

Steve would just. 

He’d know. 

And god, that’s kind of a nice idea. 

Billy sat down gently on the bed. 

“Alright.”

Steve’s head popped up to stare incredulously at Billy. 

Billy just grinned at him. 

[heavenunderthemoon]

Dollface

Summary: After the death of her two brother, reader feels as though she must become the perfect child. She reaches her breaking point at a night at Rossi’s. 

Warnings: mentions of suicide, depression, angst Your fingers grabbed at another stray hair, a desperate attempt to make an escape as you smoothed the rest into a nice, sleek ponytail. Grabbing it, you tucked it under the hair tie, breathing deeply through your nose as you stared back at the reflection.

You didn't like staring into the mirror. Staring into the mirror meant seeing your eyes, a rather odd statement when you really thought about it, but the reason you hated it all the same. You had to stare into those brown orbs, brown orbs you had inherited from your mother, and ones she had passed down not only to you, but to Ethan as well.

Ethan.

The name sent a shiver through your body.

He had passed just when you both had turned nine. He had been struggling for a while, ever since you could remember actually. For years, you had accompanied him on doctor appointments, consults after consults. Alex Blake was no quitter, and she had fought tooth and nail to find someone- anyone- to save her boy. In the end she hadn't succeeded. He had passed in his bed, only a couple feet away from you. Sometimes you could still hear her sobs, her wails of agony after she had found him, a mother losing her son, her baby. Sometimes it felt as though you had lost her that day too.

You forced the tips of your mouth to lean upward, the motion looking so foreign on your face that you couldn't help but stare. A smile. A true smile. When was the last time you had one of those? You recalled the time before Ethan started presenting symptoms, a time before his illness, before the unrelenting sadness that ran rampant throughout your house. Before your mother was driven insane, a linguist unable to name the one thing she hated so much, the one thing that took away one of her children. Before your father ran off, escaping to different countries under the guise of Doctors Without Borders. You knew why he really took that position, that he was so driven by his grief of losing Ethan that he ran off to find children he actually could save. And your mother? She didn't get much better. When she had lost Ethan she had lost a part of herself you weren't quite sure she would ever get back. A carefree, laid-back part of her, one that wouldn't run to the emergency room every time you had a cough. One that wouldn't demand an MRI every time you needed a physical checkup. One that didn't watch you so closely, close enough that you could feel her stare on you, whenever you played on the playground with the other children. Before the stares were less loving, more analytical, and every goodbye felt like your last.

Your lips dropped down, eyes remaining on yourself.

Nothing was wrong with you of course, but your mother could never be sure. Losing one child was enough, the fear of losing her second drove her over the edge.

And so, you played along.

You pretended you didn't want to play baseball with the kids in the neighborhood, taking a liking to books instead. You pretended you didn't want to go out, or play in the rain, or step in puddles, or touch frogs. Childhood was non-existent, and for you, that was just how it had to be, because you didn't want to drive her mother any madder than she already was.

Your hands dropped to your sides, smoothing the sides of your pants with your hands, a nervous tick, but comforting nonetheless.

An evening at Rossi's. The invitation alone was enough to make you want to scream.

As awful as it sounded, you hated when your mother was home. Since you had turned seventeen, you were trusted enough to stay home alone when your mother was out on cases, so long as you FaceTimed every night and the neighbors could check on you in the morning. And, with your father away you were left to your own devices. You relished in the feeling of being alone. You liked being able to emerge from your room without that heaviness dragging you down, the weight of your mother's morbid stare, the one that made you think that perhaps you were dying and you just didn't know it, enough to make you feel an onslaught of loneliness. When your mother was gone, you were able to watch tv with the volume all the way up, or order pizzas with extra cheese. You could let the dishes pile up and leave the laundry to fester.

And then when your mother came home it felt like everything in the air was sucked up all over again. Like all the walls were caving in, the world was ending, and once more you were dying.

"Y/N! Time to go!"

You glanced at yourself one more time. Clothes ironed perfectly, a crisp button down tucked into a pleated skirt, hair pinned and proper. A doll. A perfect little doll ready to be played with.

You turned off the bathroom light, grabbing your purse.

"Coming, Mother."

-

"My mom speaks very highly of you all, it's nice to finally meet you." You spoke with a sense of tranquility that the team wasn't quite expecting. Though, to be honest, they weren't precisely sure what to expect when they had caught wind that Alex was finally bringing her daughter to an event. Typically, you were too busy.

Studying for school, babysitting for children around the neighborhood, getting ahead in your classes, attending chess club, book club, anything and everything that had made their lips part, eyebrows furrowing because you were just a child but the way she spoke about you made you seem so...refined. Independent. Not a child.

Your peers had said the same things- behind your back, of course. You didn't have many friends. Being the perfect child didn't give you much time to make those, and you weren't good at it anyways. The teachers had always praised you, admiring you for your perfectionism. Your straight A's, good temperament, and ability to surpass the school's curriculum had you earning your teachers' result rather quickly but it had soon turned to sympathy. They had begun to notice how your posture was always straight, how your pens were always in alignment, how you never spoke unless answering an academic question.

Sometimes, they would watch you, just to see if you would suddenly sneeze and ruin that perfect mirage that you displayed to the world. But you never did, not really. You were a doll. You were picture perfect and they had previously found that quality a little endearing but now they just felt pity, because how many times had that doll felt like she wasn't enough in order to make it appear as so?

Met with enthusiasm, you smiled along as the night progressed, making light conversation with your mother's team. They were nice enough, and you tried not to let along how painful your smiles began to be. It wasn't long before you had excused yourself to a smaller room, bringing out the school work you had brought along to get out of the way.

it was an art project, your least favorite subject. Art, your teacher had stated, is an expression of emotion. There were no rules, no tips, no studying to help you along. Either you had it, or you didn't. You definitely did not.

The noise of the party chattered against your brain as your teeth began their assault against your lip, biting down hard as your eraser grated against the paper once more. With a frustrated grunt, you tried again, the circle coming out just as uneven as the last time.

Spencer must've noticed you out on the patio by yourself. He excused himself from the party, approaching you slowly.

"Hey."

You knew he was being nice. He was mingling and from what you mother had told you about him he didn't do it often so you were trying your very best to not snap at him, your agitation at an all time high due to the failure of your art project.

"Hello."

Your eyes were still on your paper, trying to salvage something- anything- from this artwork but it was futile. Every time you added something it made it worse and every time you removed something it looked empty and you were beginning to get frustrated. You hated art, you wanted to drop it, but it was a requirement. A stupid, useless class, in your opinion (though maybe it was biased due to your inability to do it). Your heart rate quickened at the thought of getting anything lower than an A on this piece. Your grade was already at a 92, that in itself was enough to make your head spin but what if you got a B on this work and it brought your overall grade down? What if you received your first ever B? What would your mother say then?

Spencer was watching you with curious eyes. He saw a bit of himself in you ever since you had arrived, though that isn't all a good thing. He saw an intelligent, capable girl who put far too much pressure on himself. A girl who carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. A girl who refused to ask for help.

And now, your breaths becoming ragged and eyes unfocused, he saw you, really saw you. Your eraser was grinding against there paper and in your anger it ripped it, your lips parting at the action. As bad as it had been this was even worse because now you sound have to start over.

Starting over meant setting you back at least three days in work and you were supposed to have this assignment done by tonight to get ahead for other classes tomorrow.

"Y/N? Y/N you need to breathe, take a break from you're homework, it's okay-"

You had forgotten that Spencer was there in all honesty, but now that he was speaking you whipped toward him.

The words seemed to cut through you like a knife and you shot an incredulous look at the man. "Okay? It's not okay! I can't take a break because I needed to get it done by tonight! I need to write a paper and get ahead in physics so that I can make time for babysitting, and attend lectures, and sit in on mom's classes and-"

Your hands were balled now, clenching into fists and Spencer was reaching for them.

"Look at me, take a breath-"

"This stupid art project, it didn't look good-"

"It looked fine-" Spencer tried, and he could tell that the two of you were attracting attention now because he could feel eyes flitting to the back door windows and he knew for certain that Alex would be here soon but none of it seemed to register for you because your eyes were far too panicked and cheeks too flushed.

"It can't be just fine, it needs to be perfect!" You broke. Your voice was louder than you had ever used with an adult and if you weren't  so far gone in your breakdown you surely would've apologized. The eraser in your hand dropped, fists unclenching to cover your ears because your thoughts were too loud. They were always too loud. Constant planning, scheduling ahead. Worries about your parents, your reputation, your next step. It came crashing over you.

Later, you would realize you were sobbing but for now, you were left to wonder why your throat was so sore.

"Y/N, you need to breathe, okay? Breathe. It doesn't need to be perfect, you're okay-"

Alex was relieving Spencer, and he retreated back into the house with a reassuring nod from Alex. The team sent worried looks, but looked away to give the two of you privacy. You hardly even noticed the change.

"Hey." Alex was taking your hands from your ears, eyes wide. She had never seen you like this, never seen you so distraught and it scared her. It terrified her to see you in such a state because, clearly, you weren't okay and you hadn't been for a while and how did she miss this? It scared her because ever since she could remember you had been such an easy child. A child who didn't ask for help, a child who didn't cry, who didn’t yell, who didn't ask for things. And was that a result of her?

"Hey, look at me. Look at me." Her finger was going under your chin, forcing it upward, forcing your eyes on hers and she was accentuating her breaths, making you take them with her. "What's going on, hm? Whats' going on, talk to me."

Maybe it was the softness in her tone, or the woe in your eyes, or maybe it was just exhaustion from constantly trying to be...everything and anything your mother could ask for, but you chose to tell the truth.

"I have to be perfect." And it was quiet. You could hear the water fountain somewhere far to your left, something Rossi apparently had put in two years ago, but you couldn't see it over the hedges. Alex rose a brow, not understanding and so you continued.  "I have to be perfect...for you."

And the Blake woman was gasping because how could her daughter even think that? How could she not see that her daughter was thinking that? "Honey, no-"

But you weren't letting her finish. "Yes, I do. I have to be the perfect child because you lost the other one. And I," You swallowed, sighing softly. "I can't be him for you."

"W-what?"

"Ever since he died I- he-...you were different. You and Dad both were, and I just wanted to make you happy so I tried to be good, I tried to be the best kid so that you wouldn't feel any sadder than you did."

"Oh, baby, you didn't have to do that-"

"Yes I did. When he died it was like every time you looked at me I was already dead I just didn't know it.  I've been dead for years. I think I might've died with him."

And you were breathing steadily now. You chest wasn't as tight, your mind wasn't as foggy but now your eyes were filled with tears. You cried because you had wanted to say these words for so long, you had wanted your mother back for an eternity snd now she was listening, now you were going to surrender yourself to imperfection.

"I never meant to make you feel like that, please-"

The tears fell across your cheeks, splayed out like a beautiful painting, a masterpiece created by you, a girl who thought that she was a horrible artist. Perhaps you weren't as horrible as you thought.

"I wish it was me instead of him. Because I can't take it. I can't keep doing this-"

Alex was shaking her head, gripping your cheeks in her hands now, because the words you were saying made it sound like she might lose you, made it sound like you might just dissolve under her touch. And all she felt right now was dread. "Don't say that."

"The classes, the perfectionism, I'm...I'm just so tired."

"Baby, please. I'm, I'm so sorry." And that thought entered your mind once more, that perhaps you were a wonderful little artists because kneeling before you now was a tragically beautiful piece of art. A grieving mother, wet cheeks piling up by the minute, eyes filled with some kind of morose morbidity and that was something you had created.

"I'm a perfect little girl in a perfect little house. We all play pretend that Ethan didn't exist-"

"Y/N Y/M/N." Alex was trying, begging you to stop because it hurt. It pained her because Ethan died of something no one knew about but you? You were dying because of her.

"It's alright. I'm just so tired of all the pretending. I wish Ethan and I could swap places, because then he could be playing pretend and I can just...relax."

Where to go from here? The two of you sat on that patio under the watch of the stars, under the protection of the moonlight. What might happen when the sun touched your faces once more?

You doll wasn't so perfect anymore. Perhaps she would never be again.

TAGLIST: @bubblyabs @spencer-blake-supremacy 

[buckyskorpion]

11 hours - part two

Pairing: Biker!Bucky x Reader

Summary: bucky is the mystery you can’t wait to solve. if you can get out of his bed long enough, that is. a biker au.

Warnings: gang-typical violence, sex scenes, alcohol mentions, probably more to come so stay tuned

A/N: thank you guys so much for the incredible response i got to part one!! it made me so happy so thank you. let me know wha yall think of this bit, we’ve got some plot going on which i always enjoy. i wont be taking tags for this so please dont ask.

title taken from 11 hours by wet | playlist

part one

You don’t hear from Bucky for a while after the party. It’s disappointing - you’re self-aware enough to admit that. But you also aren’t stupid enough to expect anything else. Bucky asked you to that party as a favour, you got a one-night-only special being in his life and you’re not expecting anything else.

You had hoped it wouldn’t have impacted your nightly rendezvous, but those had stopped too. You suppose Bucky decided not to trust you after all.

Almost three weeks later and you’re at work, thoughts of Bucky barely a buzz in the back of your head compared to the job at hand. You’ve always been able to let your work consume you, and it pays off in your line of business. Being a private investigator requires attention to detail, lateral thinking, and a questionable moral compass. Your patented paranoia doesn’t hurt either. Your dad tells you every time you visit that he wishes you’d get into something more stable, something less dirty, but you’re not really good at anything else. Considering the majority of your clients are partners trying to figure out if their significant other is cheating, it also pays well for quite minimal effort.

Quick rule of thumb for aspiring PI’s: they’re almost always cheating.

Today is one of those clients. You’ve tailed the guy in question to a tattoo shop in Red Hook, which is already a red flag. He’s an investment banker and buys Louis Vuitton cufflinks for his ugly work suits. He stands out like a sore thumb in this grungy neighbourhood. You snap a few photos of him outside the store, very obviously checking left and right for a tail before entering the place. People suck at being subtle, you’ve come to realise over the years. And at being observant, because all you’ve bothered to do to hide is sit at the cafe across the road and pretend to be taking photos of the latte art on your coffee.

Entering the tattoo parlour is a no-go, even if your grunge aesthetic would fit in with the clientele more than your straight-laced prey. There are other ways, though. You leave some bills on the table and cross the street into the alley beside the tattoo shop, wrinkling your nose at the dumpster smell. There’s a fire escape which you can reach if you stand on the lid of the offensive dumpster in question, leading to a window you hope will get you some insight into what Mike Shorditch of suspected-cheating fame is up to. Maybe he has a tattooed, lip-ringed young girlfriend he meets here? Or a heavy-set biker boyfriend? Or he just wants a tattoo and his wife is as paranoid as you are.

Squeezed uncomfortably between the bars of the fire-escape, you manage to aim your camera lens at the window and zoom in - jackpot. It’s a small window near the ceiling of the high-roofed shop, letting in minimal light to ruin the dark aesthetic of the place, allowing you a somewhat clear view of the shop inside. It’s really nice, you notice, and they have good taste in music. Slowly Slowly bleeds minimally through the glass and you try focus your lens on the faces inside, catching Mike among them like a unicorn in a goth reunion. He’s talking to someone, waving his hands around dramatically while the guy he talks to towers over him, arms folded over a ginormous chest.

You know that face, you realise as you aim your lens a little higher. The shock burns, almost makes you drop your camera and fall off the fire escape you’re precariously lying on. It’s Steve, blonde head unmistakeable as he glares at your target and dismisses whatever Mike says to him with an eyeroll. Without questioning it, you snap a few photos of Steve’s imposing figure - so at odds with the friendly, downright cuddly man you met at the party a few weeks ago. Just when you thought you’d gotten rid of thoughts about that night, they show up at your work. How is this possible?

None of this sits right with you. This strange coincidence, the weird behaviour at the party towards Bucky and his friends, Bucky’s general evasiveness and the feeling you get of being watched just being around him. Nothing is adding up and you’ve never been the kind of person to leave well enough alone. You snap photos of the shop, as much as you can - Steve’s tattoo sleeve that had been hidden under a jumper at the party, the stencils lining the walls, the locks on the front door, the counter where a scrawny kid in glasses bends over what looks like genuine high-school homework and ignores the adults in the shop. There are too many variables - you have to start making sense of one of them.

The easiest thread to pull is Mike, and he’s the one you’re being paid to solve, so it makes sense to start there. Clearly it isn’t cheating his wife should be worried about, but the meeting he’s having with Steve and the others doesn’t look like a friendly catch up with friends either. His personal cybersecurity is poor enough you figure you’ll be able to solve that particular mystery easy enough.

Bucky and his friends, however? That’s going to take a bit more digging.

***

According to Mike Shoreditch’s bank records, he owes somebody a lot of money. You get this from an account his wife doesn’t even know he has, believing all their money goes into a shared account with a completely different bank. Mike has a lot of secrets but cheating isn’t one of them - the print outs of his secret bank account statements and the pictures of him at Steve’s tattoo parlour would be enough for you to close the case and get your money. But you don’t. Not just yet. You have your own itch to scratch, now.

You’ve taken to watching the tattoo shop’s comings and goings, snapping pictures here and there. Steve comes in at ten in the morning, ready to open the shop up by lunchtime for customers and doesn’t close it until midnight. His customers are the usual sort you’d imagine at a rough tattoo shop in Red Hook - heavy set guys with full sleeves and chest pieces, grungy couples who probably live upstate but are rebelling against their trust-fund parents, random walk-ins who’s nerves you can sense from across the street at what’s become your usual table. There are a few, though, who stand out. Leather jackets and motorbikes they park in the alley beside the shop, using the back entrance you snap a shot of one night once they all went home.

You’re not jumping to conclusions just yet, you’ve learnt the hard way from doing that, but you’re also not stupid. Whatever Steve is into, whatever Bucky is by association a part of, there are some shady looking people involved as well.

It’s one of those days where you’re watching the shop from the cafe, camera left on the table in favour of devouring an almond croissant and cataloguing the people you’ve now dubbed regulars at Steve’s as they enter the shop. You should probably be doing your actual job but you can’t bring yourself to, too caught up in the shady business across the street from you. Absorbed, in fact, so you practically jump out of your skin as your phone rings and you send it flying to the pavement with an errant elbow.

You pick up without checking the ID, and boy was that a mistake. Heart pounding painfully in your chest, you answer, “Hi, hello, hi, this is (Y/n) speaking,” all in a rush.

A familiar, honey-warm laugh rumbles down the phone to you and your previously racing heart all but stops beating. Bucky says, “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

Does he know? Had Steve caught you spying and called Bucky asking why the random girl he brought to a party that one time was stalking him? You glance around the street, half expecting Bucky to be standing behind you and catching you red-handed. He’s not, of course he’s not, you’re just losing your mind a little bit.

“No, no, sorry,” you say, running a shaky hand through your hair. “I’m at work. What’s up?”

“I won’t keep you long,” Bucky says, sounding amused, and you hate how the rough catch of his voice through the phone all but erases the suspicions you have for him, warning you to stay away. You had missed him, is all. He says, as if plucking the thought from your brain, “I was missing you.”

“Yeah?” you ask, glad he can’t see the grin you send to the table. “That why you disappeared after the party?”

“Let me explain over drinks?” Bucky asks, dodging your jab with ease. No, no, no, don’t be stupid, he’s bad news and you’ve got the proof, don’t-

“You’re paying,” you say instead, silencing the smart side of your brain.

“Always do,” he says, which is blatantly not true but whatever, “Nine at Joey’s?”

“See you there,” you say, and hang up before you can do anything else stupid.

You bury your hands in your hair, leaning your elbows on the table and letting out a frustrated sound probably inappropriate for a public place. How are you going to go meet Bucky and pretend you aren’t, essentially, investigating his best friend? Maybe you don’t. Maybe you use this to get more answers, full-stop some of the question marks that have been playing havoc with your head all week.

And sex. You’re not going to pretend you won’t be ending up in Bucky’s bed again, shady secrets be damned.

***

Joey’s is a divey, underground bar you absolutely adore, and you’ve met Bucky here multiple times. He introduced you to the place, actually, a week or so into meeting up him. He’d laughed at how excited you were over the movie posters they used as decor behind the booths, the bartender who squeezed fresh apple juice into your shot of Jameson, the dirty bass-heavy music you eventually convinced him to dance with you to. Bucky is clearly trying to win you over by meeting you here, and you can’t say it’s not working. Just a little bit. You’ll still make him work for it.

Bucky’s got a booth at the back when you arrive, two whiskey apple’s already waiting on the table as he stands up to greet you. He pulls you into a hug, not letting you set the tone at all, but you can’t find it in you to mind as you’re crushed into his chest and he rests his stubbly chin atop your head. He smells nice, reminding you of spiced rum or something else warm and comforting, and his hands feel real nice as they dip under your top to press against your bare skin. Had you really missed him this much? You squeeze him tightly, ignoring the thump of your heart as he starts rubbing circles into your back, and you stand there in his arms for far too long to be appropriate.

Pulling away, though, feels like you’ve lost something.

Across the booth from you, now, Bucky slides a drink towards you with his usual cheeky grin. You roll your eyes at him, popping the straw in your mouth and looking out at the bar so you can pretend not to pay attention to him. He bumps your foot under the table but you ignore him, hiding your smirk in the rim of your glass.

“Doll,” he says, exasperated, and reaches across the booth to place his giant hand on the arm you have resting on the table. You look at him then, scrunching your nose up at the pet name which makes him smile. His eyes crinkle up at the sides, all soft and blurry blue, and you feel yourself forgetting why you’re supposed to be mad at him in the first place.

“What,” you say, mimicking his tone just to watch his jaw clench. His frustration is hot, what of it? You love winding him up like this.

“Brat,” he retorts, and oh, that makes you feel something you probably shouldn’t, all low and coiled hot in your belly. “Did you think I was avoiding you?”

“You were avoiding me,” you correct, raising your eyebrows at him. He hasn’t let go of your arm, now taking to rubbing his thumb back and forth across the leather of your jacket. You refuse to let it melt you.

“I was away,” he says, eyes sparkling. He’s practically laughing at you, which is- rude. You huff, barely believing him, and he says, “I was! Did you want me to tell you I was going or something?”

“No,” you say, rolling your eyes at him. You sigh - he’s right, what did you expect? Nothing, and yet you were put out anyway, but that’s a problem you’ve got to deal with on your own. Bucky doesn’t owe you anything and he knows it. You relax, finally, putting your drink down to cover Bucky’s hand with your own. You smile, say, “I’m just messing with you, Bucky.”

“Sure you are,” he says easily, but you know he doesn’t believe you. It’s dropped, then, forgotten as you sit there staring at each other in the dim light of the bar. You really had missed him, even if you still barely knew him. His stubbly jaw, the close-cropped sides of the new haircut he’d gotten since you’d last seen him, the glint of his dog togs against tanned skin disappearing under his t-shirt. The swirl of his chest piece peeking out from the neckline, and you can fill in the blanks because you’ve seen what’s under that t-shirt. You’ve traced your tongue over it, as well as every other inch of him you’re trying to memorise in case another month passed before you saw him again. If you ever saw him at all.

“What?” you ask when you realise he’s starting to smile at you, holding back a laugh. He shakes his head, looking down to pick up his drink and take a sip. You lean back, retracting yourself from his grip and folding your arms across your chest - he’s making fun of you, you know it, but you don’t know why. He does laugh then, also leaning back in his seat and regarding you with that head tilt that infuriates you.

“Nothing,” he laughs, eyes saying the opposite. “It’s just- it’s nice to see you.”

“You going soft on me, tough guy?” you tease, but he sobers at your words, the smile dying on his pillow-plump lips. He stares you down, that deep thing that reminds you how easy it is to get lost in him (if you aren’t already).

“Maybe I am,” he says, and that surprises you. You had been joking, but the heady way he’s looking at you turns it serious. “Would that bother you?”

You shake your head, not trusting yourself to say the right thing. You don’t even know if that’s a good response or not, but you’ve done it now and Bucky nods, downs his drink, all without ever breaking eye contact with you. You get the distinct feeling you’ve just agreed to something you don’t entirely understand, entangling yourself further into Bucky without even trying to. Given what you’d been uncovering about his friends the past week, you should know better. You should leave.

But you don’t. You lean across the booth, coming to him this time, and peel his hand off his glass to entwine your fingers with his. The cool metal of his signet rings offsets the warmth of his palm against yours, and the way he grips your fingers tightly signs the deal. Bucky is too enticing to stay away from, and you are too tired of trying to.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you,” you ask, but it’s not really a question. You watch his eyes dart across your face, tongue flicking out over his lips, stalling for time. You wonder what he’ll say. My friends run dodgy business deals out of a tattoo parlour? I’m involved in that, too? I’m dangerous, I’m a liar, you should stay away?

“I’m a mechanic,” he says. You try not to show your disappointment, but still, this is information you didn’t have before and you’re greedy for anything. “I have my own shop in Queens. Natasha helps me out, helps me run it. I’ve been obsessed with cars and bikes and shit since I was five.”

You smile at that, imaging little Bucky running around a car yard trying to convince his dad, or whoever, to teach him how to drive even if he couldn’t reach the pedals yet. You imagine him now, the hand you’re holding all greased up and elbow deep in a car’s guts, maybe with his shirt off and sweat dripping down his back. You’ve got to see that one day before you die, you decide right then. That’s too hot to just stay in your brain.

“Your turn,” he says, shit-eating smirk in place like he can read your mind. You blush, despite yourself, and scramble for something to say that’s not I’ve been investigating your friends all week and it’s not looking too good for them.

“My dad,” you blurt out, and Bucky give you a funny look like he thinks that’s your fact - you have a dad, isn’t that something. You curse yourself for starting this, you could’ve gone with anything and you said ‘my dad’? But you’re here now, so, “He raised me on his own, like, I don’t know my mum at all, but he always said he wanted me to have something of her so he taught me Russian. She taught him, apparently, and he taught her English. Now it’s like our secret language.”

“Russian, hey?” Bucky asks, and he seems far too surprised for the anecdote you’ve just given but you suppose it is the first actually personal thing you’ve told him. He doesn’t seem off-put by it, though, like you have expected him to be because you don’t do personal. In fact he just leans closer, almost unconsciously, baiting you to tell him more.

“Yeah,” you say, compelled to keep going. “We’d leave each other notes around the house in ‘code’, y’know, but it was just in Cyrillic. Thought it was so cool.”

“It is cool,” Bucky says, smirking at you again, “You’re cool.”

“Fuck you,” you laugh, kicking his ankle under the table but immeasurably grateful for the tone change. You don’t know why you’ve just told him that. You don’t know if you’ve ever told anyone that - Russian isn’t exactly a handy language to know. You feel drunker than you should be after a tiny bit of whiskey, high on the rush of unleashing a secret. Drunk enough that Bucky unlatching his fingers from yours to grip your wrist tight, a bit bruising, tugging you close, makes you flush from your scalp to your toes.

Bucky looks at you, dark and heavy, and asks, “Want to?”

You nod, throat suddenly very dry, and Bucky tugs you out of the booth without another word. Usually you wait a bit longer before getting on Bucky’s bike, have a few more drinks, maybe dance a bit if you can coax Bucky into it. Not tonight. You’re both on the same page - it’s been too long and you need his mouth on you about five days ago.

He pushes you into the apartment by the shoulders, rough enough you stumble but you’re quickly righted as he strides through the door after you and grabs you by the hips. Bucky crushes his mouth to yours, swallowing your needy whine with soft lips and velvet tongue as you fist his t-shirt and drag you both backwards, going and going until your back hits a wall. His palm slams into the drywall by your head but you don’t flinch, only groan as he smudges his spit-slick mouth across your jaw and down your neck. Bucky bites down, sharp teeth on soft skin, and you rake your nails down his stomach as payback for the mark you’ll have later.

“Off,” Bucky grumbles as he shoves at your jacket, getting it stuck at your elbows and trapping your arms by your sides. He seems to like like this, eyes flashing something dangerous in the dark of his hallway. You hold his eyes, heart thrumming something wild in your throat at being caught, pinned, vulnerable. With Bucky, though, you like that.

You want to reach for him but you can’t, so you wait for him to come to you. Kissing you breathless, hand fisted in your hair, other undoing the front of your jeans. God, you wanna touch him so bad but Bucky has you in his grip, yanking your head back to kiss that same bruised spot.  He sucks another under your chin as you cry out, pinpricks of pain-turned-pleasure bursting at the base of your scalp.

He gets his hand in your jeans, in your panties, runs two fingers down your cunt so easy with how wet you are already before rubbing bruising, slow circles on your clit. Your whole body jerks against Bucky’s hold on you, his thighs bracketing your body into the wall and his hand still fisted in your hair. Your mouth drops open in a soundless moan and you feel, rather than hear Bucky laugh against your throat. All executive function has diverted to the radiating ache of pure pleasure from Bucky’s fingers on you.

Bucky lets go of you hair only to press his hand on your throat, cold rings digging into your burnt-up skin and pressing you back into the wall. Long fingers tilt your jaw to look at him, increased pressure warning you against looking away, but you don’t want to anyway. Bucky’s eyes are dark like a sea storm, molten blue, and he squeezes his grip just once before saying, “Still think I’ve gone soft?”

Jesus christ, but you can’t answer him like this - not with your pulse thundering against his palm and the way he picks up the pace on your clit, making your thighs shake with the effort of holding yourself up. Bucky grins, boyish and crinkly, and it’s so at odds with the way he slides his two fingers down and pushes into you, twisting to the knuckle, that you think you might be losing your mind. Unravelling, Bucky pulling at the threads, and the only thing holding you together is his hand on your throat.

“Bucky,” you say, his name a broken breath as you start to lose focus. Everything’s hazy, glassy, your toes are going numb and tingly so you know it’s coming, building tight in your stomach as he rubs his fingers back and forth inside of you. At his name Bucky makes a sound almost like a growl, pressing his body against yours and somehow further into the wall. You need that contact,  the press of his muscles holding you up as it gets harder and harder to breath with the heat coiling up inside of you. He presses his forehead against yours so all you can see is blue edged out by black, claiming your every breath and moan, drawing you in deeper and deeper because you’re his, now. There’s no way back from this.

He presses his thumb to your clit, thrusts his fingers deeper into you, mouth parting with yours as you moan as if he means to swallow the sound. You’re there, you’re right there, and then he kisses you so soft you might’ve imagined it and you’re coming, your whole body clenching up and whiting out while he finger fucks you through it.

Trembling muscles come to leant against the wall, barely holding yourself up as Bucky extricates himself and allows you room to breath. He gently tugs your jacket all the way off, freeing your arms to come up sluggish and heavy around his neck, holding on. He laughs, just quietly, letting you nuzzle your way into the side of his neck and breath in that warm honey Bucky smell as you try and regain mental functions. It’s hard. You think Bucky’s just blended up your brain with a swizzle stuck and sucked it out through a straw.

“C’mon,” he says, gravel rough, and nudges his nose against the side of your head. “Not done with you yet.”

“Hmph,” you say, but let yourself be picked up under the ass and wrap your legs around his waist as he carries you to his bedroom. You press a kiss to the skin of his neck you can reach with every second your body comes back online, digging your teeth in a little when he squeezes your ass as he walks. You’re both still fully clothes, basically, but you don’t plan to be for long. You’ve got tattoos to kiss and a dick you want anyway Bucky’ll let you. You’ve got all night, after all.

***

It’s late, you should be going, but you steal a few more minutes lying on Bucky’s chest. He’s sat up against the headboard, trying to braid little pieces of your hair with the cutest look of concentration on his face. The way he goes from dirty to dork always makes your heart do complicated things in your chest. You’re drumming your fingers on his chest, right next to his dog tags, and before you can overthink it too much you pause your drum solo to pick them up.

Bucky doesn’t pause in his hair-braiding but you can feel him watching you as you turn the worn metal over in your fingers. They’re well loved, a bit bent in places and the letters starting to rub flat  but you can still read it. His birthday, March 10th, and his name. You’d never thought to read these before - they always seemed part of Bucky’s past, something you weren’t allowed into yet. But tonight has made you bold, and you run your thumb over the letters of his name so you can memorise the feel of them.

“James Buchanan Barnes,” you mumble, words half said into his skin. Bucky hums but doesn’t respond, so you say, “I always knew no mother could look at their newborn child and call it Bucky.”

“Watch it,” Bucky warns, but without any real heat. You don’t ask what the tags mean, which war he fought in, when he got back. You lay them back on his skin carefully, straightening out the chain, before turning in Bucky’s arms to prop your chin on his chest piece and look at him.

“I should go,” you say, as you continue to lie there with legs tangled and Bucky’s hand now resting idle, cupping the back of your head. He bites his lip, strokes his big hand down the back of your hair and making you close your eyes for a second. You’re enjoying his touch too much, you’re getting too close for a man you don’t know. A man who you know has secrets you probably don’t want to uncover, but you can’t stop yourself.

“You could stay.” Bucky’s words hang there, suspended in the space between you. He’s never said that before. You never thought he would say that, ever. Bucky looks at you, face unreadable, and you don’t know why you feel sick to your stomach all of a sudden but you do. There are lines being crossed that you can’t backtrack from. You’re not ready to make that step yet.

“Not tonight,” you say, and it’s not a no but it’s not what Bucky wants to hear. He withdraws his hand from you, letting it drop uselessly to the bed beside him. You take that as your cue to go, rolling off the bed and dressing silently with Bucky’s eyes burning a hole in your skin.

You’re pulling away, trying desperately to regain some distance and control from his man who already has you swallowed whole, he just doesn’t know it yet. Even still, you can’t stop yourself crawling back on the bed and straddling his lap, holding his face in your hands as you kiss him. You want him to remember this - not you saying no, but the way your body will always say yes to him as he holds your hips and keeps you there, kissing you back as desperate as you feel.

But now you know you have reason to climb through the laundry room window that night and sneak away from Bucky’s apartment building, that you’re not just being paranoid because you’ve got photos to prove it. It’s that thought alone that makes it bearable to leave him, even if your heart is begging you to stay.

Part 3

[ryuichirou]

Can you also share your mikannie/hitchannie headcanons if it's not too much to ask?👉👈 I love both your yuri and yaoi art so much😭❤️

Ohhh THANK YOU FOR YOUR ASK, ANON! I love both Mikannie and Hitchannie to death, I’ll gladly tell you what I think about them haha

I’m sorry in advance if there are not as many headcanons here that were in the previous posts.  I ended up deleting a bunch of them because I really want to draw them out one day… So you’ll see them eventually! Well, let’s hope so lol

This one is also not as smutty, pardon me for that

Ok, so here are some headcanons:

 Mikannie

In the canonverse, when they were cadets, Annie was kind of intrigued by Mikasa. And Mikasa definitely had very strong feelings towards Annie, although she didn’t understand them really well. She was sure that what she felt was pure annoyance and jealousy because Annie got to spend some time with Eren. What she didn’t realize was that both of then felt that they were similar in a lot of ways and were drawn to each other, but never got a chance to know each other properly.

They stare at each other a lot. In the girl’s barracks, in the dining room, in the training ground. Sometimes they end up having a staring contest, and Annie usually looks away first, because she thinks that this is stupid. Plus, Mikasa is much, much more stubborn than Annie.

In Isayama’s Attack on School Castes AU their mutual interest in each other is still there. You can clearly see this in my concert comic lol but I feel like they have a lot in common (they taste in music is similar for sure), although it’s a surprise for both of them. This is a “they could be very close if not for the circumstances” situation, and since this is a High school setting, the circumstances are stupid, superficial and made-up by angsty teens who just won’t let themselves be happy.

After the concert they started to get more and more opportunities to spend time together alone (well it’s almost like the Universe wants Mikannie to happen, smh), and they took them gladly, although both of them tried their hardest to make it seem like they don’t enjoy talking to each other. The tension is still in the air, there are a lot of things that piss them off about each other, but their desire to get closer is stronger.

The fact that they can spend time together and have fun scares them a little bit, but they enjoy it too much. The realization hit Annie first, and Mikasa understood it, err, let’s just say later lol

As much as Annie teases Mikasa for being a total beast (both in the canonverse and in the AUs), she likes the fact that she is this strong and powerful. It amuses her in a lot of ways. I feel like Annie is the type of person who would feel things while being grabbed and shoved (in a very particular way) by someone who she has a crush on, so Mikasa with her brute forceful nature is a good fit for this kink.

Annie teases Mikasa a lot, but Mikasa is too oblivious to that and takes everything literally. She is definitely easier to provoke than to flirt with. It frustrates Annie sometimes because she isn’t always in a mood to poke a bear just so Mikasa gets angry at her – she isn’t Jean, after all.

She does poke a bear sometimes though and enjoys it very much when the said bear reacts and they get to have a moment.

If Mikasa was to show Annie her caring side, she’d be surprised and probably act like she doesn’t care, but she would still enjoy it. She isn’t used to this type of treatment.

If we’re talking relationship development, these two are kind of stuck, because Mikasa is in denial and Annie would rather die than make the first move. Both of them want to be closer to each other, but Annie is pessimistic about this scenario: she thinks that this just isn’t possible with Mikasa. She still keeps giving her hints though, still having a liiiiiitle hope that Mikasa’ll catch them.

However, things do happen between them, because Mikasa just stops thinking when she’s too emotional and when the mood is right. So they’ll get to the 3rd base pretty quickly.

Annie is always slightly shook when they have sex because she gets from Mikasa much more that she expects. Granted, she doesn’t expect much, because Mikasa is Mikasa and it’s hard to imagine her in this type of scenario (especially considering the Eren thing), but Mikasa can be very enthusiastic and almost aggressively passionate with her. Sometimes she is almost possessive. She also leaves marks on Annie’s body.

Annie makes it seem like she’s more experienced than Mikasa just to mess with her. The truth is, she doesn’t understand what they are supposed to be doing either. And she always lets Mikasa take the lead anyway. Annie gives up surprisingly quickly in general with her.

If these two had nothing else to worry about and all the time in the world, at some point in the future they would just realize that they’ve been dating for a while. They’ve been doing everything a couple does without calling it “dating”, but they are clearly dating.

Hitchannie

In the canonverse, Hitch is very intrigued by Annie from the moment these two meet. She genuinely wanted to be friends with her from the very beginning. Partially because they were the only girls in their group and because they were roommates lol, but these weren’t the only reasons.

She also instantly recognized that Annie is not as scary and cold as she seems, although she jokes about how scary she looks from time to time to tease her.

Hitch likes it when Annie gets shy. Sometimes she says and does things just to see her blush with a more-or-less stoic face.

Annie respects and likes Hitch. She knows that she is way smarter than she makes herself look like and is a good person overall.

Hitch kissed Annie while being drunk at least once. She also kissed her while pretending to be drunk at least once.

Hitch talks a lot. Hitch tells Annie everything that happened to her during the day, even if Annie didn’t asked her (and she never does). Hitch also believes that Annie doesn’t listen to her at all, but she doesn’t mind. Annie does listen to her though….

When Annie was stuck in a crystal and Hitch was complaining to her about the boys, she said a couple of times that she’d rather date Annie than any guy ever in her life. She said it kind of jokingly, but she still meant it every time. It felt very good to say it out loud, although Hitch was sad she couldn’t see if this made Annie shy or mad.

In the Attack on School Castes AU they didn’t get along at first, because well it’s high school and prestige means everything to Hitch in this AU (which is why she wants to be friends with Historia so badly). And Annie doesn’t like this stupid “you are treated accordingly to your friend group” rule. So yeah, total opposites.

But surprisingly, Hitch got curious enough about Annie’s nihilism and started talking to her. At first Hitch denied that she ever talked to her and was very secretive, but after some time (when she realized that Historia gives exactly 0 fucks about who she talks to) she started talking to Annie more openly. She even started being obviously friendly with her, catching her to take a selfie, stuff like that. This development confused Annie very much.

Annie thinks that Hitch is very charismatic and beautiful.

And whether it’s canonverse or AUs, they can have casual “no strings attached” sex from time to time. The strings do get attached though, because both of them develop strong feelings toward each other overtime.

Hitch is more experienced than Annie, so she takes the lead first.

Even though Hitch knew that Annie wasn’t as stoic and cold as she seemed, she got very surprised about how soft and tender she can get. Getting reactions out of Annie kind of broke Hitch in a good way, she’s almost obsessed with getting her as aroused and embarrassed as possible with every position and sexual practice she can think of.

The morning after their first time Hitch teased the heck out of Annie for being so adorable and got her butt kicked because of that. She complained about it for an entire day, even though it didn’t hurt so badly – Annie was very careful with her kick, it looked more painful that it actually was.

 Ok so something like that… <:D

[misiwrites]

Beyblade Week Day 1

joining @beybladeweek2021 late but i’ll probably be doing these belatedly all may so, whatever! it is what it is.

i’ve never participated in a fandom challenge with writing before, but i was feeling adventurous this time and the seasonal themes were just perfect for the 4kingdoms AU-verse (which is this), i haven’t been writing much anything in so long that i’m mega rusty and thought i could use the bey week to do some warm-up oneshots. these aren’t going to be particularly interesting because i’m really bad at doing oneshots actually, but i like the idea myself and. that’s the only thing that really matters. right. (i’m not even sure if AUs are allowed for the beyblade week?? but the rules didn’t say anything about it so /shrug)

the day 1 oneshot is a little story from takao’s childhood about how he first met kyouju. this was inspired by my own childhood memories as the youngest sibling when i just wanted to hang out around my big sisters because i thought everything they were doing was Cool Big Sister Stuff.

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

Firsts / Childhood / Spring

”Takao! I’m trying to read this! Leave me alone already, will you?”

A groan of disappointment. Reluctantly, Takao backs away from his older brother by the desk, shooting him a frown of judgment and betrayal. Now, a quick change of tactics: he figures that, just maybe, Hitoshi allows him to stay in the room if he zips his lips to his best ability.

Wrong. Two silent minutes pass in the small study room until Hitoshi bellows at his brother again, swinging an arm in the door’s direction.

“I’m serious, you can’t keep doing this when I’m trying to do my homework!”

“I’ll just watch and keep quiet, I promise,” Takao insists, giving his brother his best puppy eyes.

“I can’t focus if you’re standing there! Now get out!”

Takao’s frown deepens; with heavy feet and a heavy heart, he trudges toward the sliding door. He doesn’t like this recent change in his brother, all this emphasis on what Hitoshi refers to as “important stuff”. Just because he’s now seventeen. Acting all high and mighty, pretending to be so adult and so important, too adult and too important to play with his younger sibling.

“It’s a very important time for your brother,” their grandfather responded to Takao’s fraternal laments once. “In one year, he will officially inherit the crown of the Seiryuu-ou. There’s much for him to do to grow into the role of the king before his coronation.”

Important this, important that. What about having fun, wasn’t fun important at all? And fencing – surely instructing Takao with the basics of fencing has to be important? Hitoshi’s fencing skills are second to only their grandfather’s, and Takao cannot imagine – doesn’t want to imagine – anyone else teaching him the art of the bamboo sword. And now Hitoshi is “too busy” to teach him, all of a sudden.

“But I’m boooored,” Takao whines from the doors, balancing his weight on his heels back and forth.

“How about you go study something too for once? You really should be reading a lot more than you do, you know. I don’t want my little brother to end up being a dumb prince who doesn’t know anything about the way the world works.”

Takao’s nose wrinkles in disapproval. The word “study” smells like old paper and dust and boredom.

“It’s the Sowmoon holiday now! And what the hell would I study?” he barks.

“Don’t cuss. Anything – whatever interests you. How about the history of the city?”

“Bahhhh.”

“The history of fencing, then. I don’t know – go to the library, take a look at the books or whatever, just leave me alone. I don’t have time for this.” Hitoshi lifts the yellowish document in front of his face and disappears behind it. A wall has risen between the two brothers.

* * * * * *

In the country of spring and year-round greenery, it’s difficult to stay sullen under the tranquil blue of the Eastern sky. Moments later Takao is skipping down the road that leads to the town of Tsuno below, his child’s heart already ignited with new-found hope and aspiration, his feelings of frustration shed by the sturdy wooden gates of the Cherrywood Castle and he's moving on, literally.

At first, the idea was dull at best; reading sounds like just about the flattest thing he could be doing on this beautiful Sowmoon day, a warm breeze blowing through his indigo hair as he carefully hops from one cobblestone to the other… but, in the end, it’s the wish to please his brother that has won him over. Now a plan is taking shape in his mind, the idea swelling like a balloon by each step he takes down the road, and soon his head is racing with the ambition of studying as many topics as he can think of; he’s dreaming up scenarios of impressing his brother with all his newly acquired knowledge, his brain buzzing and his proud heart thumping with all the imaginary praise from Hitoshi… and, just maybe, he’ll then agree to do something fun with his cool and smart little brother again.

So caught up in his daydreams, Takao hardly pays attention to all the familiar townspeople greeting him as he passes by their wooden dwellings and shops and stalls, and he prances past several flocks of tourists lingering on the streets of Tsuno, too busy taking pictures of the cherry blossom trees in their rare blue Sowmoon bloom to notice the royal prince walking right past them. Even if they did see him, not many would pay attention to him; people from outside the city would never imagine a member of the royal Seiryuu-ou family strolling around in a simple hakama without making a scene; but in the royal capital of the Country of East, this was a mundane everyday sight, and Takao was a regular guest of the pastry stalls on the main street of Tsuno. The townspeople loved to pamper this bold and friendly little prince, who hadn’t yet been spoiled by the privileges of the royalty.

Takao reaches the tall glass doors of the main library, only to face the reality of the numbers painted on the glass panel. Five minutes to closing time. So caught up in the rollercoaster of his imagination as he left the Cherrywood Castle, checking the opening hours of the library didn’t even pass his mind.

“Oh, hello, Your Highness,” he’s greeted by one of the kimono-clad library workers who spots him. (The surprise is evident; Takao is not a usual guest in the library.) “How wonderful to see you here. Are you looking for something?”

“Well, yeah, for something to read… but it looks like you’re about to close.”

But coincidence is on Takao’s side today, for the clerk tells him that the library is staying open for one extra hour every day this week.

“The reading hall has been reserved by Professor, a local researcher – but I’m positive he won’t be disturbed by Your Highness’s presence.”

“Really? Okay.” Relieved and triumphant, Takao enters the old-fashioned yet admittedly curiosity-inducing depths of the city library.

He quickly comes to the conclusion that he has underestimated the number of books in the world. Expecting there to be one of each subject of his admittedly limited academic imagination, he is instead hit by an entire universe of paper and ink and covers and words. The map of the library layout alone is full of complex characters that Takao hasn’t yet come across in his schooling.

Dammit.

In the end, Takao finds himself pacing back and forth a narrow aisle of local history books, looking for one with a cover that sparks interest. Perhaps he cannot read all the text, but at least he can look at the pictures.

That’s when he notices another person sharing the space with him, at the far end of the hall, where the shelves have been moved to hug the walls to make room for a reading area in the middle and the ceiling seems to climb up impossibly high under the arch of a dome roof. This person is another kid, hardly older than Takao, and he’s not paying the prince any attention in return; the boy is glued to the screen of a laptop computer that sits on a table in front of him along with several books, one of which has been spread open. Every now and then, his fingers dance across the keyboard at a speed that Takao didn’t even know a computer keyboard could be used with; then the boy crouches over to take a quick glance at the open book before turning back to the laptop again.

A curious sight. For a moment, Takao is tempted by the allure of calling out to this strange boy, to ask him why he’s still there after closing hours. He decides against it and swallows his curiosity. If there’s one thing that his older brother has recently taught him, it is to mind his own business and not bother other people hard at work.

* * * * * *

The next day Takao returns to the library, a pile of books in his lap that he leafed through all night last night. Hundreds of pages of buildings so old they probably stayed up in the pictures with willpower alone – so old that Takao half-expected them to crumble and disappear by the turn of a page, leaving empty picture frame squares behind.

He came to the conclusion that Tsuno’s history was perhaps not the subject to start from.

Takao returns the books, decides to try and find something about fencing, a subject he’s already in some way familiar with. (Between the important-looking books, he secretly slips in a story about Southern pirates; this one he’s not going to tell Hitoshi about.)

In the hall with the dome ceiling, the kid with the laptop is by the exact same table again. Only the array of books next to him is a little different… maybe. Takao is nearly seized by his curiosity again, but something about the air around this boy holds the lingering scent of “do not disturb”, so he bites his tongue once more.

* * * * * *

How could even books about fencing slap him in the face with all this wall of text?! The following day Takao once again turns up at the library, to return his previous findings that had only briefly managed to capture his interest with images of old fencing gear that were not only ancient but, as he ultimately decided, very ugly and stupid-looking.

What about archery, the other national sport of the East? Takao finds it boring and repetitive compared to fencing, but since books about fencing turned out to be boring, did it mean that books about the boring sport were, in turn, more interesting? It makes perfect sense, in Takao’s eight-year-old mind.

However, as he makes his way to the library at the cusp of closing hours again, he no longer pays much heed to the books. Instead, his feet take him to the reading hall under the dome right away.

Sure enough, the kid with the big round glasses and a laptop in front of him is there in his usual spot, all alone. And again the boy’s fingers are hammering at the keyboard faster than Takao can form a coherent thought about computers, the strange machinery that originates from the technically advanced Country of West for all he knows.

It’s been three days now, and Takao can no longer hold back his burning curiosity. Eyes on the strange boy, he takes small sideway steps between the bookshelves, inching his way closer and closer, until he reaches the open reading area under the arched skylights above.

“Hey,” Takao says as he enters the boy’s proximity by the table.

The boy doesn’t do as much as raise his eyes from the computer screen.

“Is there something I can do for you?” he asks, still typing away. The tone of his high-pitched voice is just slightly aggravated but his choice of words oozes formality, a strange speech pattern for someone his age. It throws Takao off a little.

“Umm, I’ve seen you here every day this week and was wondering what you’re doing, that’s all. You know the library was already closed, right?”

After saying this, the thought then passes Takao’s mind that perhaps this kid never leaves the library. Perhaps he’s not even aware that he’s in a closed library. What if Takao is talking to a ghost, haunting this remote corner of the library all day and night? Or, maybe, he’s nothing but a product of Takao’s imagination?

The boy’s voice is now so blunt in response that these phantasmagoric thoughts immediately vanish from Takao’s mind.

“Yes, of course I know. The library personnel was very kind to allow me this one working hour without other people disturbing me. So really, I should be asking – what are you doing here?” Now the stranger’s hands finally leave the keyboard and he lifts his eyes to Takao.

A moment of confused silence. Then the boy’s face begins to resemble the colour of a strawberry.

“Oh!” he squeaks and jumps up to his feet, only to bow his head toward the floor. “Oh, Your, uh, Your Highness! I am terribly sorry for being so rude! Oh, goodness me, how could I…!”

“Wow, calm down,” Takao interrupts, startled himself by the suddenness of the boy’s reaction. “And raise your head – I don’t like people bowing at me, it makes me feel weird. More importantly, what you said just now – are you saying you booked this extra hour from the library?”

Hesitantly, the boy straightens his back, which doesn’t increase his height significantly; now that they’re standing next to each other, Takao notices how small the person he’s talking to is, his head barely on level with Takao’s shoulders.

“Yes, Your Highness,” he says. “I wasn’t aware I was sharing it with the royal family, though. How thoughtless of me.”

“No, well, I kinda just walked in on my own, to be fair. So… you’re a researcher?”

“You could say so, I am indeed carrying out some research here. My name is Saien Manabu, but everyone calls me Professor.”

“Oh, wow. What exactly are you researching?”

“Right now I am writing a paper on the goddess cult of the Country of North. I know, it’s not exactly a topic that interests most children, but I find it so terribly fascinating…”

The mention of children – a nod to the fact that this boy, too, is a child just like him – makes Takao immediately feel more at ease. This person, albeit strange and overly formal and clearly too smart for his age, really is just a child after all. This notion alone is enough to make the kind-hearted and fairly simple-minded Takao like this boy more.

“Sure, that sounds cool,” he says with a grin. “Hey – you said you’re Saien, right? Like that ramen shop on the main street?”

“Yes, it is owned by my parents.”

“Well, it’d be real interesting to hear more about your research and all, but I’m kinda hungry, to be honest – the Saien noodles sound awesome just about now. How about we go there and then you tell me more?”

“Hmm. Well, I wasn’t making as much progress today as I wanted, in any case.” The boy, visibly at least a little relieved to get a break from staring at the screen, slams his laptop shut and tucks it under his arm. Then he flashes a friendly smile at Takao. “Very well, Your Highness. But my mother may pass out if I bring a member of the royal family to their shop all of a sudden, so please prepare for that.”

“Bah, just call me Takao, I’m not so into that formal stuff.”

“Alright, and you can call me Professor.”

* * * * * *

Once back in the Cherrywood Castle, Takao told both his brother and grandfather how much he’d learned about the Northern goddess Hiromi of time and space already; and from that day onward, Hitoshi never needed to refer to his younger brother as the dumb prince again, as Takao, who became a frequent visitor of the Saien family ramen shop both inside and outside business hours, never ran out of curious stories to share about all the things he learned from his new friend.

And while the royal Seiryuu-ou family wasn’t to stay together for much longer from the moment of this story, Takao and Professor remained best friends for many years to come.

[luvdsc]

would you mind doing a description of each member of nct dream? you don’t have to cuz that’s lowkey a lot BUT i figured i’d ask since i’m trying to write something and get their personalities right. i really admire your work!! have a nice day, babes!!!

yes, of course, lovebug 💕 I’ll be rewording the analyses from the asks about my ideal type and adding to them, so it might be a bit familiar! I could’ve written more, but I had to stop because I reached max length for each paragraph 😅 I hope these are helpful to you, and thank you so much for liking my work, honey bee!!! 💛 best of luck with your writing, and I hope you have a good day, too! 🌼 also, I’m on mobile and I’m so sorry for all the scrolling! I’ll add a read more when I get on my laptop ✨ edit: the read more has been added :’)

MARK :: oh, where do i start with mister absolutely fully capable? mark is the definition of adorkable. if you look up that word in the dictionary, you’re gonna see his picture pasted right under it. he’s endearing and awkward, and he tries his best in everything and puts his best foot forward, giving 110% in whatever he does. he’s a hard worker and a good boy. he laughs at that’s what she said jokes, and he’s the type of person to think of a funny joke from three days ago and start laughing at the most inappropriate time, like in the middle of standard testing. he’ll say things he thinks are funny, like “five guys hello guys” or that long sentence about possibilities and immediately look to you with those wide doe eyes, seeking a positive reaction from you and hoping you’ll laugh. he’ll try to wink at you randomly sometimes, but he always fails and just ends up blinking, which will make you laugh and call him cute and have him scrunching up his nose because that’s not what he intended to happen and he’ll be really flustered at the compliment. he’s really sweet, and I think taeil called him the most romantic? however, I feel like having a relationship isn’t a high priority for him right now. he seems to have workaholic tendencies, which could frustrate his s/o. he would need to have someone that understands his work and music is the most important to him, and he might unintentionally neglect checking up with his s/o at times. he’s a little shy and introverted, so it might be hard for him to make a first move if you aren’t friends at first. he’ll write dozens upon dozens of songs about you. that’s the way he’ll express his affection because he’s too shy to in the beginning and music is what he’s good at. there will be lots of late nights with him strumming his guitar and you sitting next to him, reading a book or playing a game on your phone, and he’ll call your name and you look up before he nervously starts to play a new song that he’s written for you. and at the end of the song, he’ll glance up at you really quickly before looking back down at his guitar, and you’re going to have to go over to him and take his face into your hands softly and tell him his song was amazing and you love it as much as you love him. and he’ll smile so big as his glasses slide down his nose before he quickly leans up and presses the softest kiss against your mouth to show you his appreciation before he loses courage to do so. sometimes you steal those round rimmed glasses of his and try them on yourself, and mark has to cover his face and look away and wring his hands and he makes those little oi mark noises because you look so cute and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. on the other hand, mark is also very stubborn. it may not look like that, but if you notice the relationship between him and hyuck, hyuck is always the one giving in at the end. mark will absolutely not do something if he doesn’t want to do it. I do think he will go after something if he wants it, but he will hesitate slightly at first. he follows the rules a bit too much. he doesn’t seem to be the most fun person to party with either unless you get him to drink a beer because he’s a lightweight, but that also means you have to take care of him afterwards. also, he said in an interview that he doesn’t like rollercoasters or fast rides, but he enjoys the cotton candy at amusement parks lol but he did go on those rides in the end, but his head was down the entire time rip. mark gets easily embarrassed. it’s like in that video where they read tweets aloud and mark got super embarrassed when jaehyun read this tweet that gushed about his laugh, and mark just curled up into himself and couldn’t lift his head up and awkwardly laughed. he’s adorkable. please tease him and hype him up in this very same way just to get this cute reaction out of him.

RENJUN :: renjun is the one you can call when you have a body to bury and he’ll show up with the shovel. he’ll call you a stupid idiot, but he’ll still show up to help you. he’s the type that would come over at 3 a.m. if there’s a bug in your apartment and squash it for you after much complaining and telling you that he won’t do it. he’s fiercely loyal and caring. he took care of chenle when chenle wasn’t as proficient with korean and made sure he was doing ok and was always ready to translate for him whenever. he puts up a tough, ready to fight front, but he’s a scaredy cat and if you pretend to be a ghost (read: jisung), he’ll be scared shitless. you can see him get scared and hide behind jeno and hug him so hard when the zombie jumped out in one of those save dream interactive videos. he’s the person you can banter with and he understands dry humor and sarcasm, and I think he’s best for e2l story plot lines because of this lmao but he also fits the best friend role well. he will roast anyone with no mercy with just a few words. he’s artistic. he’s super good at art and has shared several of his beautiful digital drawings before. he’s the person to go to when you want to have long, serious talks at 4 in the morning, and as seen through his radio show, he will try his best to give you advice, even if he may not be experienced enough, but he is trying his hardest to help. if you read some of the advice he gives on his radio show, you can get a better sense of who he is as a person. he’s really insightful and puts a lot of effort into giving the best answer he can. also, he really reminds me of a little brother or someone I want to be best friends with because we can roast people together or talk about paranormal stuff. he just seems really fun to mess around with because he gives funny reactions. he gives off that younger sibling vibe where only your big sister can make fun of you, but once she sees someone else doing it, it’s not ok and she’s gonna go after that person for making her lil bro cry. in a relationship, he wants someone he can trust with his thoughts and interests, such as aliens, and while his s/o may not believe in them, he wants them to genuinely listen to him and not just brush it off. however, he will still roast his s/o into oblivion. it’s how he shows his affection lol. he’ll call you an idiot and cute all in the same sentence. but he’s really a soft and sensitive boy underneath his snappy, sarcastic exterior. he cried when they won first place for the first time. i’m sure he cried when ridin’ reached number one on the charts. he’s attentive and likes affection even though he tries to say he doesn’t. in that one weekly idol dreamie episode, hyuck listed who hated affection, and he wasn’t one of them. he’s a good boy, and underneath all his snarky comments, he wants to be loved and cared for. you can see how he got a lil huffy when jisung chose chenle as his favorite hyung lol he doesn’t express his feelings outwardly as much, but if you’re his s/o, he will quietly adore you in his own way while outwardly being that one snarky couple who banters all the time. he’ll draw pictures of you, secretly have you as his homescreen, or have a secret photo album on his phone of just pictures of you. he’ll complain if you get him a couple item, like a bracelet, but he’ll wear it 24/7 and refuse to give it back to you. he will absolutely lose his shit if he misplaces it. he’ll cook for you if you ask, but he’ll make a big show about fake complaining about it beforehand. I think he’s okay with hand holding and kisses here and there, but he won’t do grand gestures of pda because he thinks those should be more private and between the two of you. he thinks pet names are sappy as heck, and he’ll get terribly embarrassed if you call him one but he’d be like “that’s so gross and corny... but call me that again.” honestly, just tell him ily and his cheeks will turn so red and he’ll bury his face in his hands but he’ll say it back in the quietest voice and he truly does mean it with his whole chest.

JENO :: jeno is someone who fits in so many roles. his character is versatile in a sense. you can make him into a bad boy, the boy next door, your best friend, anybody. his humor is underrated, and he makes funny puns. he’s good at sarcasm and wit, like when he asked jisung if he thought jaemin’s iq was single digits or when the instructor complimented him and said his rap sounded like mark and he was like “oh.... that’s not good.” he worries about being funny. he mentioned losing sleep over it in weekly idol, so please tell him he’s funny and laugh at his jokes ): he really is funny, and i love his humor. jeno is really smart. he managed to rank 4th or something I believe in his school after cram studying the day before. he’s really self-assured and confident in himself, but he doesn’t show off or act cocky, yet you can sense the quiet confidence in him. he’s humble and works hard and deserves more credit than he’s given. he possesses leadership qualities and is a source of strength for other members. i think they said he was one of the cleaner members and when he’s drunk, he cleans LMAO he is into sports and gymming, especially biking. hyuck said that jeno’s bedroom has his and jaemin’s bikes hanging on the walls lol he also is really competitive, but not a sore loser type. jeno doesn’t strike me as the type who needs his s/o around 24/7 and prefers to have hobbies and space separate from his s/o. he’s laid back, but at the same time, still energetic and fun to be around. he’s still weird, but not over the top weird. jeno is insightful and kind, and he has stated that he’s very shy and timid before. doyoung likes him the most because he’s kind and respectful and takes into account other people’s feelings and listens well. he’s a good boy. he’s also really playful and teasing and plays well with others, like jisung jokes around with him all the time. I feel like jisung jokes around with him the most out of all his hyungs aside from chenle because jeno doesn’t get mad. i believe the members say he’s the only one aside from chenle who doesn’t get mad when someone messes up in dance practices. he cries when he gets angry. jeno is also really affectionate. he enjoys cuddling and holding hands and back hugs and whatnot, but he doesn’t overdo it. it takes a long time for him to trust and open up to someone, and you’re a very lucky person if he lets you see this side of him. he won’t force you to do anything you’re uncomfortable with. If something is bothering you, he won’t pry at first if you refuse to talk about it, but I do think he will eventually make you talk if he feels something is terribly wrong or if it’s affecting the relationship. jeno is driven and knows what he wants. he’ll give you space, but if you’re not what he’s looking for or if you don’t put the effort in as well and won’t open up to him, I do think he will move on. he might bottle up his emotions at first, but as the relationship progresses, he’ll be fully open to you and tell you everything. I don’t think he’ll be terribly affected if he’s rejected because he is confident in himself and able to brush it off. he knows his self-worth. oh, and he loves animals. obviously, jeno loves his cats because he has them even when he’s allergic. he’s the type of s/o who, if you mention you’re walking back to your dorm late at night after staying in the art building to finish your painting, he’ll show up with messy hair and his glasses in his sweats with a hoodie thrown on haphazardly and walk you back safely even without you asking. kiss him on his nose at random times just because you love him, and he’ll make that jeno trademark noise of confusion before giving you the prettiest eye smile that makes the moon dim in shame and nuzzling his face into your shoulder shyly. call him jeno darling or jeno love if you want to see the same reaction as before. it’s gonna be a total KO to his heart if you call him that and boop him on the nose with the softest kiss. anyway, jeno is the bestest boy in the entire universe, and give him all your love, please and thank you.

HAECHAN :: hyuck is so fucking talented. he’s good at everything: singing, dancing, rapping, variety shows, you name it. he was born to be an idol. he’s the golden one and excels at everything. he’s an ace, and he knows it. yeah, he’s cocky and brags about everything he does, but he actually has evidence and proof to back it up. plus, no one can stay mad at him for very long because have you seen how cute he is?? he’s a brat, but you still love him anyway. he’s good at sweet talking and getting what he wants. he plays a push and pull game, and you end up falling for him in the end. i know in fics on here, you often see jaemin in the playboy/fuckboy persona, but I think hyuck absolutely exudes this persona. he is able to read the room or a person and knows the exact way to act in order to get the reaction he wants. it’s hyuck’s world, and we’re all just living in it. he can have all of us eating out of the palm of his hand if he desires. i think he truly embodies the traits of a slytherin: ambitious and cunning. it’s every man for himself, and he’ll do whatever it takes to get what he believes he deserves and plays by his own rules. hyuck is so smart and intelligent, both in terms of brains and emotion. he’s absolutely brilliant, and he’s the type of person to ace an exam without even studying for it. I think he did very well in school, and he also beat doyoung in mental maths when they had a competition on weekly idol lol and he’s also street smart. there’s a reason why doyoung and taeil are scared of him and why they prefer to be on his team than against him lmao. I think hyuck is also a people pleaser though. he wants to be liked, and it’ll drive him crazy if someone calls him boring or shows no interest towards him. I think he’ll want a s/o who plays the push and pull game with him. he’ll playfully tease them a lot, and they’ll have to be interesting and able to dazzle him with their own wit and sarcasm. he, like renjun, is snarky and sarcastic. he likes to make people laugh and enjoys being the center of attention. he is super affectionate and rivals jaemin in this aspect. he thrives off of physical touches, hugs, cuddles, etc. he likes to cuddle when he sleeps, and I feel like he enjoys being the little spoon. he isn’t afraid of pda and will show off his s/o to the world with a loud kiss or back hug anywhere. he’s the type who would do that back pocket spin peter does to lara jean lmao. the two of you can laze around at home, while he plays video games on his computer and you can sit in his lap and he’ll do that thing where his arms are around you and his chin is on your shoulder. he’s a good cook, and he’ll cook for you, but he expects you to pay him back in kisses. his s/o might think he doesn’t pay attention to what they’re saying to him, but he does. he absolutely adores his s/o and remembers everything about them. he’s the type to surprise his s/o with their favorite flowers on a random day, and his s/o would’ve thought he wasn’t paying attention when they told him their favorite flower months ago. and please, please, please surprise him with flowers too because that will catch him off guard and you’ll see him blush and get flustered for once. it’s like when the dreamies first debuted, and chenle said hyuck was the best singer and he wanted to be like hyuck, and hyuck got really quiet and shy and flustered about it. however, he’d get really shy around his crush if they weren’t friends first. there’s that video of him returning something that twice’s mono dropped I think and he was so nervous before and afterwards. or there’s that time when he handed flowers to seungwoo and got so flustered as the dreamies teased him afterwards. also, I feel like sometimes people forget that so much hard work goes into what he does because he makes it look so effortless. hyuck works so hard in everything and puts his all into what he does. anyway, please appreciate hyuck and love him lots. he deserves to be showered in love and affection.

JAEMIN :: jaemin is like jeno in the sense that his character is also super versatile. you can make him fit any type of persona for your fic. jaemin is a sweetheart. his entire existence is love. hyuck said that he treats his members the same way he treats his fans in an episode of weekly idol before. he’s a really affectionate person as seen in the way he showers jisung with affection. he eats, sleeps, and breathes aegyo. you’re going to experience his aegyo a lot if you’re his s/o, so brace yourself. he even managed to make hyuck flustered when he kissed him in that recent reload era game video. he has a lot of love to give out, but he also wants the same amount of love in return. you can see how he craves for love from jisung in return and the way he gets a little upset when he doesn’t get it, like when jisung didn’t call him his favorite hyung. his s/o needs to be okay with being showered with affection and love, and they have to do the same for him. call him cute pet names, give him random kisses throughout the day, back hug him while he’s cooking, he will just absolutely glow and bask in your love. jaemin is good at cooking. he will cook for you, and if you cook, he’ll eat what you make with no complaints. it’s like that meme where person A gives person B a drink with salt in it, and person B drinks it all, and when person A asks why they did that even though it was salty, person B says it’s because they didn’t want to hurt person A’s feelings. jaemin is person B. he’ll also make you model for him and pose literally everywhere so he can take pictures of you because you’re the prettiest person in the entire world to him. he’ll make you his lockscreen, homescreen, hang up pictures of you in his room, all that jazz. he’s the one who buys couple items or outfits and makes you wear them with them. his entire Instagram account will be pictures of you or with you. however, he’s also petty af and nags a lot lmao. he complained to jeno when jisung said he wanted to eat bread at 3 a.m. and how he couldn’t go out to buy him any. he also nagged renjun in one of those dream vs dream videos for not having any questions about him, while all his questions were about renjun. or when he was sulking about jeno not knowing his favorite cartoon character. I believe he mentioned having extreme mood swings too where he’s either too quiet or too loud and out there, and as a s/o, you’d have to cater to both sides of him. jaemin is also an introvert. he’s very quiet and shy around strangers, but he’ll unleash his inner weirdness and loudness when he feels comfortable around you, and you’re in for a wild, fun ride. in that video where he and jeno were making cakes, he seems really hyper and wild. same goes for that video where they went out to eat, and jaemin was pouring soda into a glass dramatically. or when they played that dance game where you have to add onto the dance and copy the previous dances, and he added some random flailing motion and complained when someone did it wrong. or when he and renjun were paired up for that guessing game when they both had headphones on, and he started flailing everywhere and getting kinda frustrated at renjun for getting zero right. he’s a bit weird lmao. as his s/o, i hope you go along with his weird antics and have fun with him too! you also have to remind him to take care of himself. make sure he doesn’t drink that ungodly coffee drink of his or eat too much sugar. take care of him, love him, cherish him, and jaemin will be the best boyfriend ever. he might even set up a whole led light display for you at night declaring his love like he did for jeno. actually, no, he definitely will. he’ll do big grand gestures to show his love for you. he’ll fill your house with roses and press kisses to each of your fingertips with a different reason for why he loves you. he’ll continue to list the reasons for why he loves you for every star he sees until he runs out of stars, but he’ll never run out of reasons for loving you.

CHENLE :: chenle was born to be a star. he is so incredibly talented and picks up skills so quickly. it’s evident because he managed to debut after two months of training and he became fluent in korean quickly. he’s humble and gracious, and he’s the embodiment of that miss universe song: he’s beauty, he’s grace. he doesn’t flaunt his wealth, in fact, it only ever comes up because others bring it up. or he accidentally shows it off when he asks what rent means or when he tries to innocently rectify the situation, like when jaemin was like “oh his parents held a concert for him for his bday” and chenle was like “noooo no it was just to make a memory” on idol room lmao. the way he expresses his love is through gift giving. it shows in the way he told mark he’ll buy him anything he wants for his bday or when he gave apple watches to the 00 liners or when he immediately agreed to buy jeno a plane ticket to china to show him around his home. but he’s not trying to flaunt his wealth. this is simply how he shows his love. chenle is laidback and easygoing. he doesn’t care about jisung using honorifics with him, and he’ll go along with whatever’s happening. there’s that one video during mfal era where hyuck and chenle won the prize and hyuck was like “hey I’ll take the prize ok?” and chenle just immediately agrees and doesn’t care at all. but don’t get me wrong, chenle is super competitive. he wants to win, but it’s more about that feeling you get when you’re the winner, rather than the actual prize for him. he’s really into sports, specifically basketball, so i feel like he’d enjoy it if his s/o expressed some sort of interest in it with him. they don’t have to play basketball with him, but he’d appreciate it greatly if they listened to him talk about stephen curry or cheer him on from the sidelines. he’s affectionate. if you read my renjun description, chenle is the other one that hyuck said doesn’t mind affection from the other members on weekly idol. I don’t see him showing affection blatantly as much like hyuck and jaemin, but I think he loves receiving it. chenle obviously receives so much love from his family and is super close to them. he will love his s/o with his whole heart, and I hope his s/o will love him back just as much. also, I’m pretty sure he’ll love his s/o acting cute because his heart rate spiked up when jisung did aegyo on idol room lmao. I think he’s the only other extrovert in the dreamies, besides hyuck. I believe someone asked jaemin or skz hyunjin if they got close after the collab stage, and they said that they were really awkward with each other. however, skz felix and chenle became good friends! chenle is friendly and a people person. he thrives in social settings, and he’s a social butterfly. he’ll help people out of their shells and make sure to include them in conversations. he’s the type of person who would clear his throat and be like “hey y/n has something to say” if you tried to say something in a group convo and weren’t heard. he’s fine with being the center of attention, but he doesn’t actively seek out that position, like hyuck does. unlike hyuck, he’s not a people pleaser. I think he’s confident in himself, and he’s self assured and satisfied with who he is, so he doesn’t really care what others think of him. chenle is really playful. he likes to tease the other members and wreak harmless havoc lol you can see how he plays around with the other members, like in nct life where he just throws snow at jisung or scares jisung with a rubber chicken when they went to an amusement park in shanghai. he’s a thrill seeker. he loves roller coasters, shooting games, laser tag, etc. he gets excited over the littlest things, and he’s a naturally cheerful person who lights up the room and just naturally has people gravitate towards him. however, he has his serious moments too, and I can see him sitting next to his s/o behind the piano and playing something for them. but then, he’ll probably ruin the soft moment by slamming his hands down on the keys and scaring them at the end.

JISUNG :: jisung reminds me of high school puppy love. he’s curious about the world and introspective. he asked the fans to send him pictures of the moon because he couldn’t see it himself. I think he has a lot of deep thoughts and keeps them to himself because he’s introverted and nervous about sharing them aloud in case he’s not taken seriously as the youngest. he’s inquisitive and sweet, and he’s the culmination of everything good in the universe. he’s the one whom renjun talks to about aliens and paranormal things, and I believe he’ll want a s/o who will take him seriously on these things and listens to his concerns without teasing or making fun of him for believing in them. jisung is shy and gets embarrassed when he’s given compliments. there’s this video where the dreamies read compliments from fans aloud, and you can see how flustered and shy he gets as he ducks his head, has to pause and cover his face before playing with his hair as he reads through the compliments with the biggest smile peeking on his face. I think this is the cutest thing ever, and at the beginning of the relationship, if his s/o compliments him or does something cute, he’s going to react exactly like that. tell him his dancing is amazing, watch his fancams around him, tell him his face is nice to look at, etc. and you’ll see him get reduced to a flustered, blushing mess. the first time he sees you wearing one of his sweaters with the sleeves covering your hands and giving you sweater paws, he will combust and stutter and not be able to look at you as his cheeks turn red. he might just suffer a heart attack if you decide to casually call him a cute pet name one day. additionally, jisung is at that age where he wants to know what others think of him and he wants to be liked. I think this is the reason why he’s more hesitant about speaking up or voicing himself in an unfamiliar environment because he doesn’t want to give off a negative image. he’s also painfully shy, but he wants to make friends, which he explains on dancing high. because of this, he truly cherishes any friendship or relationship he has because it’s seen as something incredibly special to him. as his s/o, you’re gonna mean the world to him and he will value your opinion greatly. once he’s comfortable around you, he’ll be loud and talkative. jeno says that jisung talks the most at the dorm and he’s never quiet. jisung is also a lil shit lol, and he knows how to get out of things, like cleaning up after dinner by locking himself in the bathroom. he’s also a little lazy and probably not the cleanest tbh. he sleeps in jaemin’s bed or in the living room because he’s too lazy to go to his top bunk. he doesn’t listen to his hyungs and talks down to them in a playful way because he knows they’re whipped for him lmao. when the relationship progresses, jisung is going to act in the same, exact way with you. he’s a savage, and he will roast you in the same way he roasts his hyungs, like when hyuck wanted to go to LA with him for why not the dancer and he was like “you have to be good at dancing to go” (which btw, fight me, jisung, hyuck is literally the best dancer). he’ll tease you, hide items on the tallest shelf just so that you’ll call him for help, and smush your cheeks and call you cute. he’ll ruffle your hair and run up behind you and sweep you off your feet princess style just to scare you before carefully placing you back down or tossing you into the pool lol he may have complained about carrying renjun in that reload era game video, but he’ll give you piggy backs when you’re tired or carry you around if you asked. he likes playing video games and those block breaker game apps and when he loses, he’ll sit there and pout without realizing it. he does that little nose scrunch unknowingly, and it’s the cutest. he’ll like dates at home the best. he sucks at cooking, but he’ll try to do it for you. but it’ll end up with you cooking while he back hugs you, and you have to walk around the kitchen with him being a koala attached to you as you feed him bits of the food being made.

[rhosyn-du]

Never make a mess when a total catastrophe will do - Chapter Nine

Pairings: Jimon, past Clace, background Clizzy, a bunch of other minor background pairings Rating: Explicit Art: @cor321​ Beta: @all-thestories-aretrue​ Tags:  Alternate Universe - College/University, fake dating, oh my god they were roommates, friends with benefits, idiots to lovers, pining, miscommunication, holidays, drinking games, mistletoe, symbolically significant Oreos, domestic fluff, brief mention of past character death, Jace’s self-worth issues deserve their own tag Summary: What do you do when you find out your sister is not only dating your ex and love-of-your-high-school-life but is also bringing her home for Christmas? Bring your annoying, hot, annoyingly-hot roommate as your fake boyfriend to show them you're totally fine with it, obviously! There's no possible way this could backfire. Link: AO3 , Tumblr Master Post

Chapter Nine

Wednesday nights at The Hunter’s Moon weren’t exactly hopping, but the small crowd would do for Jace’s purposes. The atmosphere was familiar, at least, and he wasn’t likely to find better at any of the other bars in town. He’d been on uncertain footing for months, not knowing how to be whatever he and Simon had been. But now, alone, unwanted, and with a soul-deep ache in his chest, he was finally back on familiar ground. This feeling, Jace knew exactly what to do with, and step one was getting very drunk.

He almost hesitated when he saw Maia behind the bar. She must have switched shifts with someone, because she didn’t usually work Wednesdays, and Jace wasn’t prepared for her too-knowing eyes or her pity.

But Maia greeted him with her usual easy smile, so either she didn’t know Simon had moved out, or she didn’t know him half as well as she pretended to.

“Wasn’t expecting to see you here tonight,” she said. “Isn’t tomorrow your god-awful early Latin class?”

Jace shook his head. “That’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Can I get a double shot of Stoli?”

Maia’s smile slipped, just a bit, but she nodded and poured his drink. “Starting off strong right out the gate,” she observed. “You want to talk about it?”

“Nope.” Jace tossed back the shot. The heat that followed it down felt less like the usual ripping off an emotional Band-Aid and more like rubbing salt into an open wound. “What I want is another one of those and to find some company for the night.”

Maia paused, bottle in hand. “Okay, no.” She wasn’t even pretending to smile anymore. “I can’t actually stop you from riding whatever self-destructive train you’ve decided to hop on, but I don’t have to enable it, either.”

“You’re a bartender,” Jace said flatly. “It’s your job to pour drinks.”

“I’m your friend, and I’m not pouring you anything else until you tell me why you’re in my bar looking for a drunken hookup instead of at home with your boyfriend.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Don’t be obtuse,” Maia told him. “Where’s Simon?”

Jace met her eyes. “Simon left. Can I have my vodka now?”

“What do you mean, ‘he left’? Oh god, did you guys break up?” And there, finally, was the pity he’d been expecting. At least it came with another shot of vodka.

“Can’t break up if you’re not actually dating.” Jace downed his shot. This one didn’t soothe any better, but at least it didn’t make things worse.

Maia gave him a flat look. “You’ve been sleeping together, exclusively, for the past five months.”

“That was just—” He shook his head, trying not to choke on words that he knew were true but still felt like a lie. “Just a couple hookups between friends.”

“Yeah, that’s complete bullshit.” Maia’s tone was so certain. Jace wanted to believe her.

“Don’t know why you’re so surprised. Simon and I hook up with our friends all the time.”

“No,” Maia said slowly. “You hook up with your friends. So does Lily. So do I, sometimes. But Simon?” She gave him a significant look. “Simon doesn’t do casual. He’s just a great guy who stays friends with most of his exes.”

Jace didn’t even try to hide the bitterness in his smile. “Guess I’m an exception to many rules.”

Maia’s voice was soft when she spoke again. “I don’t actually believe you do casual with someone you’ve been pining over for the better part of a year, either.”

Jace looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t bullshit me. Neither of us was actually drunk enough to have forgotten that conversation.” When Jace didn’t respond, she asked, “Why’d he leave?”

“Because he wants something real,” Jace told her. “And he doesn’t want it with me.”

When Jace met her eyes again, he expected to see pity. What he got was pure skepticism. “He said that?”

“Yep.” He lifted his glass. “Pour me another?”

She pursed her lips, then shook her head. “I’ll bring you beer.”

Jace sighed, but he didn’t argue. Maia was a much better friend than she was a bartender.

“You know,” Maia said when she returned with his beer, “I’ve known Simon a long time, and that really doesn’t sound like something he’d say.”

Jace lifted his glass in a toasting gesture. “Guess I just bring out the best in people.”

She sighed heavily, leaning on the bar. “Look, I wasn’t there, so I don’t know what you guys said, and he’s never actually talked to me about it, so I don’t know for sure whether he feels the same way about you that you do about him, but anyone who’s not a complete idiot can see he cares about you. That’s not something he makes any effort to hide. And Simon would never say something that cruel to someone he cares about. So, whatever he said? I’m pretty sure it’s not what you heard.”

“Did you just call me a complete idiot?” He needed to make a joke out of it because he couldn’t let himself believe what Maia was saying. He didn’t have it in him to hope again.

“Yes.” She nudged his hand with her elbow. “But you really should talk to Simon.”

“Don’t think just because you’re finally dating the woman you’ve been crushing on for ages that makes you some kind of relationship expert.”

“Oh, I don’t,” she assured him. “I just think I’m more of a relationship expert than you.”

Jace silently flipped her off, then pulled out his phone. He stared at it for a long time before finally texting Simon.

Can we talk? Please.

As soon as he hit send, he put his phone face-down on the bar and turned his full attention to drinking his beer. Maia gave him an approving nod before going to help the trio of customers that had just walked up to the bar.

It took Simon almost ten minutes to respond, and Jace wasn’t sure how to take it when he did.

Bat says it’s fine if you come over.

It wasn’t exactly a gilded invitation, and Jace was pretty sure he didn’t want to have whatever conversation he and Simon were going to have with Bat there, but it also wasn’t a no. Jace could live with not a no. He’d have to.

He caught Maia’s eye. “Close me out?”

“Sure.” She took his card and scanned it. “Where you headed?”

“Bat’s place. Simon’s staying there.”

He expected at least a little bit of gloating, but all he got was a smile and his card back. “Cool.”

Jace shoved his wallet back in his pocket and stood to put his jacket on. Maia stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Hey. If this doesn’t go the way you want it to, promise you’ll come back here to say I told you so instead of finding a different bar to drown your sorrows in?”

Jace scoffed. “Like I’d ever pass up a chance to rub it in your face that you were wrong.”

Maia gave his arm an encouraging squeeze before letting go. Jace downed the last of his beer and hoped he wasn’t about to fuck things up even worse.

~~~

“How did my place become the designated space for heartbroken sulking?” Bat asked when he opened his door to find Jace standing there.

“It’s because you have the best couch to crash on and the nicest gaming setup,” Jace told him. “Also because you’re too nice to kick your friends out even when we probably deserve it. Can I come in?”

Bat watched him for a long moment, then stepped back and let the door swing all the way open to allow Jace inside.

“I’m gonna run to the store to pick up some more chips,” Bat announced loudly. “I will be back in half an hour, and if any bodily fluids end up on my couch while I’m gone, you are both permanently banned from my apartment.”

“Dude,” came Simon’s voice from the direction of Bat’s living room.

“Just saying,” Bat said, and then he was closing the door behind him, leaving Jace standing in the entryway.

Jace took a deep breath to steady himself, then a second one before finally forcing himself to walk into the living room.

He found Simon on the couch, feet tucked underneath him like he always sat when he was upset. Simon didn’t look up, instead staring intently at the hole in the knee of his worn Boba Fett pajamas as he poked at the threads.

“Hey,” Jace said.

“Hey.” Simon’s eyes stayed trained on his knee.

Okay. This was fine. Jace could work with this. Probably.

He sat down on the far end of the couch and tried again. “Look, I know I’m shit at apologies, but I can’t even try if I don’t know why you’re pissed at me.”

Simon’s shoulders slumped, and he finally looked at Jace with red-rimmed eyes. “I’m not pissed at you.”

“Really? Because you’re acting kind of pissed at me.”

“I’m not—” Simon made a frustrated sound. “Okay, I’m kind of pissed at you, but I know it’s super unfair, and I’m, you know,” he shrugged, “working through it.”

“And when you’re done working through it, then you’ll come home?” Jace’s question sounded desperate, even to his own ears.

“I think—” Simon went back to studying the hole in his pajamas. “I think I’m going to spend the summer back in New York with my mom. Bat said I can crash on his couch for a couple weeks until finals are over.”

“Simon.” Jace was shaking his head, but Simon just kept right on going.

“I can—I can keep paying my half of rent until you find another roommate.”

“I don’t want another roommate.” I want you. Jace shook the thought away. That could wait. All that right now mattered was keeping Simon from walking out of his life.

“Look,” Jace continued, “I know things are kind of weird between us right now, but you don’t have to leave. We can fix this. We can just—just go back to how things were before, like nothing ever happened, and it’ll be—” It would be agonizing. Jace wasn’t sure he could do it. “It’ll be fine.”

“I can’t just go back to how things were before, Jace.” Simon’s glare was withering. “It’s not that easy.”

Jace ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I know I fucked up. I shouldn’t have kissed you at Alec’s wedding, but I swear it won’t happen again.”

“You didn’t—Jace, we kissed each other at the wedding.”

Jace glared back, letting anger mask his hurt. “Then what exactly is the problem?” If he didn’t know what he’d done, he couldn’t fix it, and if he couldn’t fix it… “If it’s not about the kiss, then why the hell won’t you just come home?”

“Because I love you, you asshole!”

Simon looked almost as surprised by his own outburst as Jace felt. Jace stared. He couldn’t have heard that right. Because if Simon loved him, then he wouldn’t be glaring at him like he just kicked his favorite puppy. If Simon loved him, he wouldn’t have left.

“I love you,” Simon repeated, calmer now, “and I can’t keep pretending that I don’t.”

“Simon,” Jace croaked. His voice didn’t seem to want to work.

“That’s why I can’t live with you anymore, because I’m never going to be able to get over you if I do.”

“Simon,” Jace tried again, voice stronger now.

“And that wouldn’t be fair to either of us. But I think if I just take some time, and some space, then maybe I can—”

Jace let out a frustrated growl. “Will you please stop talking for five seconds so I can tell you that I love you, too?”

It was Simon’s turn to stare. “You—I don’t understand.”

Jace let out a bark of laughter that was half hysterical, half wonder. “Yeah, this is. It’s a lot.”

“But,” Simon’s voice was soft, vulnerable, “if you love me, then why don’t you want to be with me?”

“Simon,” he reached out to cup Simon’s cheek with his hand, “what could possibly have given you the idea that I don’t want to be with you?”

“You!” Simon’s voice was indignant, but he didn’t pull away, instead leaning into Jace’s touch. “You’ve said it like a million times! That you don’t date. That you’re not a relationship kind of guy.”

“Yeah, because I suck at it.” It wasn’t an easy admission to make, and Jace had to force himself not to cringe away from showing this much vulnerability. But for Simon, he would. “You were right when you said I don’t know how to be bad at things, and I make a terrible boyfriend. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to be yours.”

Simon let out a choked laugh, winding his arms around Jace’s neck. “You were actually a pretty great boyfriend, even when you were just pretending.”

“Simon. I was never pretending.”

Simon made a wounded noise and dragged him the remaining inches between them into a kiss. It was messy and the angle was awkward as hell, but Jace wouldn’t have traded it for anything. He kissed back, putting everything he felt into it. And then Simon was throwing a leg over him to straddle his lap, and the angle—along with everyone else—was so much better.

“Dude, what did I say?”

They broke apart at Bat’s very annoyed question. Jace had been too distracted to even hear the door.

“Technically, we didn’t break your rule.” Simon’s grin was wide and bright and a little dazed as he disentangled himself from Jace. Jace suspected he was wearing a similar expression. “No bodily fluids on your couch.”

“I expect more than a technicality when your fluids are involved,” Bat said flatly. “And I’m happy you guys got your shit together or whatever, but please get the fuck out of my apartment now.”

“I think we were just leaving, anyway,” Jace said.

“Oh yeah,” Simon agreed. “We’ve got some, uh, stuff to take care of back home.”

Jace barely even heard the pained noise Bat made over the sudden burst of joy in his chest at hearing Simon call their apartment “home” again. Grinning like an absolute idiot, he let Simon pull him out the door and down the street toward their apartment. Toward home.

~~~

It took them far longer to get back to the apartment than the distance warranted. Probably because they couldn’t seem to go a full block without kissing, which inevitably led to making out against the nearest wall until one of them remembered that they actually had an apartment with nice features like beds and privacy.

“This is ridiculous,” Jace said half a block down from their building, ignoring the fact that he was the one who had Simon pinned to the neighboring complex’s laundry room wall. “You’re ridiculous.”

“Either kiss me again or get moving,” Simon said, grinding against the thigh Jace had between his legs. “I’d really like to get you naked before I have to leave for morning classes.”

With a put-upon sigh, Jace stepped back. “It’s really annoying when you’re right about things, you know that?”

“I know that you say ‘annoying’ when you mean ‘hot,’” Simon said with a smug grin.

“That is not at all a thing that I do,” Jace lied.

They managed to make it back to the apartment with no more detours and practically fell through the door with how eager they were to get their hands and mouths back on each other.

“Missed this,” Simon said between kisses. “Missed you.”

“It’s been like half a week,” Jace said, like he hadn’t missed Simon like he’d lost a limb, blood loss included. “And you’re the idiot who decided we should break up, so whose fault is that?”

“We weren’t even dating, you dick. I didn’t think you wanted to.” Simon pulled away then, suddenly serious. “You do want to, though, right? You meant it when you said you want to be my boyfriend?”

“I can’t believe I fell in love with someone so dense,” Jace said with an affectionate smile. “Yes, I meant it.”

“Okay,” Simon said, smiling back. “Cool.”

“Now that we’ve got that sorted out,” Jace leaned forward, lips hovering a hairsbreadth away from Simon’s, “can I please take you to bed already?”

Simon kissed him, quick and hard, before grabbing the lapels of his leather jacket and walking backward down the hallway, dragging Jace with him.

“I like it when you say please,” Simon said. “It’s definitely something you should do more often.”

“Yeah?” Jace used the fact that his own hands were free to unbuckle Simon’s belt while they walked. “You gonna make me?”

“I thought that was implied.” Simon pushed the door to Jace’s bedroom open and shoved Jace through it.

Jace took another step back, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it vaguely in the direction of his desk chair. “You really think you can?”

“I’ve done it before.” Simon followed and slid his hands up beneath Jace’s shirt. “I can remind you how it went if you forgot.”

“Could have been a fluke.” Jace’s words probably would have been more convincing if his entire body hadn’t jolted when Simon’s thumbs very deliberately brushed over his nipples before moving to tug his shirt over his head.

“You’re right,” Simon said as he pulled his own shirt over his head. “We’ll need a bigger data set if we’re going to do a proper statistical analysis.”

“Less math.” Jace pulled open Simon’s fly and reached a hand inside his boxers. “More sex.”

Simon rocked into the touch. “I didn’t hear a ‘please’ in there.”

Jace snorted. “Bite me.”

“I mean, I was going to suck you, but if you’d rather I bite—”

Jace cut him off with a kiss. By the way Simon smiled against his mouth, he thought that might have been exactly the reaction he was going for. Jace couldn’t be annoyed by it, though. Not when Simon was making those soft, eager noises into their kisses while they divested each other of their remaining clothes. Not when every touch, every kiss felt like coming home. Not when they finally tumbled into bed and Simon kissed perfect and so hot and love you into his mouth and skin.

It wasn’t until Simon had him practically writhing with want, lazily fingering him while he traced patterns across Jace’s hipbone with his tongue, that Jace realized he’d meant it about making him say ‘please.’ The realization must have shown on his face because Simon, the utter bastard, winked at him before stroking his finger against Jace’s prostate, just once. It was almost as infuriating as it was hot.

Jace’s resolve not to beg lasted right up until Simon shifted so he could reach Jace’s other hip with his mouth, causing his own cock, hard and leaking, to brush against Jace’s calf. Knowing that Simon was just as turned on as he was, it was too much.

He rocked his hips down as Simon added a second finger, trying desperately to get some pressure where he needed it. The stretch felt good, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough. “Are you waiting for a gilded invitation?”

“You know what I’m waiting for,” Simon said mildly, cheek just barely grazing Jace’s cock as he lowered his head to place an open-mouthed kiss on the seam of Jace’s thigh.

“Fuck, fuck, fine,” Jace panted. “Please.”

Simon didn’t waste any time to gloat, swallowing him down to the root in one smooth motion at the same time that he crooked his fingers to press against Jace’s prostate. Jace let out a strangled sob, fighting to keep his hips still and failing miserably. If Simon’s answering moan was any indication, he didn’t mind in the slightest, so Jace stopped trying, losing himself in the heat of Simon’s mouth, the perfect pressure of his fingers.

He glanced down, needing to see, and was very nearly undone by the sight of Simon’s lips stretched around his cock, the obvious enthusiasm for what he was doing. Simon caught his gaze and swallowed—very deliberately—around the head of his cock. Jace let out a keening noise as his body shook and he spilled his release down Simon’s throat.

Simon kept working him with mouth and fingers until it was just pushing the edges of too much, and then he was crawling up Jace’s body to kiss him, needy and desperate, as he jerked himself off. Jace had just enough presence of mind left to kiss back, to slide one hand between them to join Simon’s on his cock until Simon was shaking apart above him, painting their hands and stomachs with his come.

“See?” Simon said a few minutes later, still half-breathless. “I knew I could get you to say ‘please.’”

“Fuck you,” Jace mumbled without any real heat, too fucked-out to muster a proper comeback.

Simon gave him a crooked grin. “Next time, I should make you ask nicely, though.”

Jace thought he probably shouldn’t be as into that idea as he was, especially since he’d just come, but he absolutely was, his mind spinning out an elaborate vision of what that would be like. Not that he was going to admit it.

“Shut up and cuddle me,” he said instead.

Simon’s answering smirk said he knew exactly what Jace wasn’t saying, but he didn’t argue, curling his body into Jace’s with a contented sigh.

“Hey,” Jace said quietly. “I love you.”

He felt Simon’s smile against his shoulder. “I love you, too.”

Eventually, Jace knew, they would have to move. They were both in desperate need of a shower, and he should probably put something in his body that wasn’t alcoholic if he didn’t want to feel like death in the morning. But for now, he was content to stay like this, wrapped in the arms of the man he loved. And when they did finally make their way out of bed, he’d be fine with that, too, and whatever came after. As long as Simon was beside him.

[free-pool-trash]

talking too fast - peter maximoff

this is my first peter maximoff fic, i actually really liked writing for him and i wouldn’t mind doing some more for him and maybe even warren if you guys would want that? idk this blog is kinda dead rn but i liked this request/idea a lot so show it some love if you like it <3

comments and reblogs are appreciated  <3

Request: Can you do like fake dating that end up in real love or something idk big cliché for our speedy boy. 'cause why tf not ksjdjdn

Word count: 3.7K (Jesus ok)

warning(s): swearing(it’s me, are we shocked? no), kinda angsty tbh, everyones a lil insecure but don’t worry it’s happy to end :)

(gifs not mine! he’s so cute oh my)

Peter Maximoff always had a tendency to go fast. That much could be seen in literally everything about him. The way he moved, the way he thought and if he was excited enough or angry enough, the way he spoke. You, of course, figured all of this out the hard way.  

It had started out innocently enough, some of the younger guys, mainly Scott, had made fun of Peter for not having a girlfriend, Peter, in response to the teasing told them that he did. He definitely didn't, but they didn't need to know that. And that's how you found yourself in your current predicament.

Peter was sprawled out on your bed, his legs hanging off the foot of the bed as he whined, “(Y/n) please! I need to prove I have a hot girlfriend!" 

Not looking up from the work you were doing at your desk, you laughed at him, "But Pete, you don't have a hot girlfriend."

The silver haired boy sighed audibly, lifting himself to sit up on your bed, at the same moment you spun around in your seat to face him.

"Nooooo…" He drew out and you shook your head in agreement, "No." You confirmed.

"But!" Peter shouted, pointing an accusing finger at you, a cheeky grin on his lips and his dimples peaking through.

"I do have a hot best friend!" He stated, wiggling his eyebrows at you, his grin turning pleading.

Peter was your best friend, ever since he'd joined the school of mutants he immediately became your favourite person and soon enough he'd claimed your best friend position. And vice versa.

You knew him better than he knew himself. So you also knew exactly what he was suggesting and you wouldn't lie and say that you never entertained the idea of being in a relationship with your doe eyed best friend, because you have, you've thought about it, you've thought about it way too much. 

For that reason you shook your head furiously at what he was insinuating, "Pete, no." 

He huffed, jumping off the bed and speeding infront of you, his eyes boring into yours. 

"Come on, sweetheart! It's not like we don't act like we're dating already, it's foolproof!" He reasoned and you couldn't dispute that you and Peter did act like a couple, and often got mistaken as already being a couple.

But still, you just couldn't put yourself through that sort of emotional stress, you wouldn't do it for a total stranger so you definitely wouldn't do it for your best friend who you've been harboring a huge crush on for the bones of a year. 

The risks it posed for your heart and your friendship with the speedster were just too high.

You couldn't help the laugh that fell from your throat as you watched Peter Maximoff, king of pranks and master of meaningless flirtations literally graveling on his knees in front of the chair you were sitting on. 

"Peter just because we cuddle in the common room and you call me 'sweetheart' sometimes does not mean we act like a couple."  right?

You told him only to be met by a frustrated whine, "Come on! I'm begging you! Just for like a week! Just to prove that I can get a hot girl to date me!" 

You stayed silent, looking at him expressionlessly. Don't give in.

"Please!" He pressed again. Don't.

"Pretty please! Hey, I'll even let you set the ground rules??? Huh???" He tried to persuade you, although he was speeding through every word he said, if you weren't used to him you probably wouldn't have caught half of what he was saying.

Don't. Fucking. Do. It.

His hands grabbed yours as he pulled you both up into standing position, he held your hands softly and gave you the puppy dog eyes that he knew always made you almost melt before releasing a final pleading, "Please?" 

Furrowing your eyebrows you let out the most dramatic sigh you could muster, but you couldn't hide the small smile growing on your lips "Fine, but you owe me." 

You're a fucking idiot. You scolded yourself silently. But how could you ever say no when he looks at you like you're the answer to everything? God you were more screwed than you thought.

"Yes! God I love my girlfriend!" He told you excitedly, pulling you in for a tight hug and kissing your cheek.

When Peter left your room that night your head was spinning and you couldn't be sure how things would go tomorrow.

Maybe you were overthinking it? You'd hold his hand for a few minutes and try and convince a bunch of sixteen years olds that your best friend could successfully obtain a girlfriend and then that would be it. But did you really want that to be it? No, you wanted more, but that you already knew. 

You'd set some ground rules with Peter to "protect the sanctity of our friendship" to which he'd laughed, but in reality the rules were to protect you from your own feelings.

Rule 1) No Kissing on the lips unless absolutely necessary

Rule 2) The lie would only be told to the students and not any of your colleagues (because you knew Peter's first stop would be rubbing your fake relationship in Warren Worthington III's face, they had some kind of light-hearted competition going on, you don't really know what it's about but you made it very clear to your best friend that you wanted no part in it.)

Rule 3) Peter cannot make comments about your fake sex life 

Rule 4) You had to wear an item of Peter's clothing to, in his words, "really sell the story."

And the final rule was, of course, no telling anybody it wasn't real.

The next day you and Peter walked hand and hand toward the common room where you could already hear Scott, Kurt, Jubilee and Jean chatting and having fun.

"You're so immature you know that, babe" You whisper quietly to your "boyfriend" while bumping his shoulders with your own which was clad in the material of his silver jacket. 

Abiding by the rules was all you were doing, you definitely weren't enjoying the way the sleeves were slightly too long so they covered your hands as far as your knuckles, or the way his scent covered you, that cologne he always wore which you happened to love the smell of and you definitely weren't enjoying the fact that despite the jacket being about two sizes too big for you it seemed to just fit. No, definitely not, you were just following Peter's rule.

He only laughed, "What's immature about wanting to show off my beautiful, stunning, hot, loving, smart, talented-" 

You had to cut him off before he could say the word "girlfriend" because you weren't his girlfriend, and hearing it would surely make you want to cry, right there in the hallway.

"Alright Romeo, I've already agreed to your babyish plan to psych out some teenagers, you don't have to butter me up."

As you entered the common room, Peter's face broke into a mischievous grin and you had a deep feeling in your stomach that this little show was going to go way too far. Hoping that this wouldn't be the end of your little show wasn't serving you very well at the moment.

You were absolutely screwed.

"Hey, nerds." Peter called out, pulling you into the room slightly behind him.

"Seriously, Maximoff? (Y/n)?" Scott asked as soon as he noticed your linked hands, his voice was disbelieving, you were a little offended honestly.

What's wrong with me? You wondered, if a pubescent sixteen year old boy could find faults in you maybe Peter was seeing the same things? Maybe that's why he doesn't really want you to be his girlfriend.

It seemed Peter noticed your panicked train of thought as he let go of your hand and wrapped an arm around your shoulder protectively, "What's that supposed to mean, Summers?"  

One of the things you loved about Peter was that he always defended you, even if you don't need defending he always has your back. But now wasn't the time to think about that, you could obsess about the feelings you so desperately try to hide for him later.

Noticing the growing irritation between the older 'couple' Scott shook his head, "No, nothing! (Y/n)'s hot, it's just, you two definitely aren't a thing."

At least they don't think I'm ugly, I guess.

 He stated, crossing his arms as the other teens nodded in agreement. All except Jean who was looking at you suspiciously.

"Why not?" Peter asked, raising an eyebrow. 

As the two boys entered what was essentially a pissing contest about how Peter couldn't handle you which turned into how Scott couldn't handle Jean and as it went on and on, Jean entered your head.

'You're not really dating are you?' she asked you, something hiding in her voice, a question within a question, there was something more she wanted to say.

'Why's me and Peter being together so hard to believe?' You asked her in response, sure Jean was a telepath but you've mastered the art of manipulating what she could see when she peaked in your mind, which is probably why she was so confused.

Not that you really had anything to hide from her, what you felt for the man arguing with the teen in the middle of the common room was genuine and authentic, but better safe than sorry.

'It's just… Don't you think you could do a little better?" She pushed and then you understood that had been what she really wanted to ask in the first place.

The question made you angry, how quick they were to lessen Peter's worth. This wasn't just an issue with the younger X-Men, but with the older ones too. It seemed that nobody could appreciate Peter Maximoff for the amazing person and mutant that he is. You knew it made him insecure, he'd confided in you on so many different occasions about his self worth and because of this you'd developed a need to throw hands with anyone that treated him like a joke.

He saw himself as a loser, so he let people treat him like one.

Before you could respond to Jean's question you were interrupted by Peter whining in your ear, "Baaaaaabe, tell these guys we're together!" 

Letting out a sigh to calm yourself, hiding your angry string of thoughts from Jean was exhausting, you let a small smile settle over your face and wrapped both your arms around Peter's middle, if they wanted a show you'd give them one.

"Okay kids, Peter and I are dating, we have been for the past while. We didn't say anything because we wanted to keep it on the down low but since it's out there now, yes, we are in fact, a couple." You confirmed, confidence clear in your voice, you were asserting the facts.

Peter nodded in agreement, a smug smile on his face, he looked so proud to call you his girlfriend and you felt a pang in your chest when you reminded yourself that it was only for show.

"How'd he manage to get a girl like you though? I don't get it." Scott piped up again and you couldn't hide the exhausted expression that crossed your face.

It got to Peter, the blatant disbelief towards him, you could tell his face fell ever so slightly before he regained his composure. So you squeezed him a little tighter.

"Well, he's sweet, he's caring, he's loyal, he knows me pretty much better than I know myself, he makes me smile and laugh, he knows exactly what to do when I'm sad and sure, sometimes he can be a little much and a huge pain in the ass but it's worth it." You told the group, squeezing Peter with every word you said, smiling at the little "hey" he let out when you called him a pain in the ass, the way he was looking down at you was so pure and loving that you completely forgot to remind yourself that it was just make believe.

Your description of your fake-but-wish-it-was-real-boyfriend received an "aww" from Jubilee and a smile from Kurt, Jean and Scott however, still looked apprehensive.

Keeping the red head out of your business was giving you a headache.

"Prove it." Scott challenged as you and Peter looked at each other in confusion, how were you supposed to prove it? These kids sure were ballsy.

"Kiss." Jean added and you couldn't physically stop your eyes from rolling and your lips from forming a smirk.

You were about to break your biggest rule, but you didn't care. The whole interaction with the teens had brought Peter's self-esteem way down and you could predict he'd be crying on your shoulder because of it later on tonight. You weren't going to deny him a kiss and you absolutely weren't going to embarrass him in front of Scott fucking Summers.

"Ok." You removed your arms from around Peter's middle and brought one hand to his cheek and let the other tangle in his Silver hair, he didn't miss a beat, immediately he pulled you flush against him and placed his hands on your hips, his movements were deliberate as if he'd been imagining kissing you for as long as you'd been imagining kissing him. You pushed that thought away, the truth that he didn't think about you that way hurt too much.

His lips met yours and you could've sworn you felt sparks flying from where your lips connected. The kiss was short but it was passionate and really, really, really good. His lips were chapped but soft and the way that they moved in sync with your own sent your head spinning and your heart flipping.

When you pulled away, Peter's lips chased yours and you giggled as he placed pecks on your lips multiple times before he finally allowed you to push him away.

If you weren't so caught up in the moment you would've cried, that was everything you've been wanting for so long, but it wasn't real. You didn't think about it though, it would get a chance to bring a tear to your eye later. When you're alone.

"Alright you're dating, Jesus, get a room." Scott scowled as he scrunched up his face in disgust at the display of affection he and his own girlfriend had demanded.

Laughing, you grabbed Peter's hand in yours and began walking back towards his room, you didn't feel like answering any more awkward questions and you needed a minute to recover from Jean's constant attempts to get into your subconscious.

Once you'd both entered Peter's room and shut the door behind you, you finally let your guard down with a loud sigh, flopping down on Peter's bed and throwing an arm across your eyes to block out the light.

"Jean's mind poking really is relentless huh?" Peter said, flopping down beside you. 

"Tell me about it. She's persistent as fuck." You laughed, turning your head to look at Peter, who was already looking at you.

"That no kissing rule didn't last too long, couldn't resist?" Peter asked jokingly but you could tell that he wanted to know what caused you to abandon your number one rule.

Chewing on your cheek, you debated on whether or not you should spill all or just tell him what he needed to know at this moment in time. Going this the latter you sighed again.

"They were being assholes, I wasn't gonna embarrass you by saying no, was I?" Peter's smile was soft but it didn't reach his eyes, your voice was quiet when you added, "Besides, you looked like you needed a kiss."

His face was now turned to the ceiling with a thoughtful look adorning his features. 

As you both laid side-by-side on the unmade double bed, close enough that your arms were touching but not close enough for your fingers to be intertwined, you, a hopeless romantic, hopelessly falling for your best friend as you wear his favorite jacket and lay on his bed. And Peter who looked like he was trying to figure out the universe's greatest mystery. As you laid with each other, a heavy silence settled over you both, until Peter turned his face back to you, his eyebrows furrowed.

"Can I ask you something, (Y/n)?" Nodding wordlessly, you turned your entire body to face him, so that you were laying on your side.

"Am I really that bad?" He asked, his brown eyes staring into yours.

"What do you mean?" You asked him, you knew where this conversation was about to go, but he had a lot to say and you wanted to let him let it all out.

"All those guys back there, they didn't think I could really be your boyfriend… and hey they're probably right, you could do better. But is it really that unbelievable that someone could love me?" His last question came out cracked and tears filled his chestnut eyes.

Your own eyebrows furrowed now, you put your hand on his face and brushed the tear that slipped from his eye away. "No, Pete. What's unbelievable to me is that people can't see how fucking incredible you are." You told him, your emotions coming through in your voice, anger and sadness taking over.

"No," Peter shook his head, again returning his face to look at the ceiling before he went on, "they're right, I couldn't get a girl, especially not one like you."

That hurt, you have to admit that it hurt you so bad to hear him talk so badly about himself but what hurt most was the fact that Peter didn't want a girl that was you, no, just one that was like you.

"You have a girl like me, Pete." You reminded him sadly, turning your own face to the ceiling.

Who knew one outing as a fake couple would be all it took to make you fall apart? You did, you knew from the beginning.

Peter was upset, it was obvious by the way he spoke next, too fast and before he thought.

"No, I don't, not really. You're this incredible, pretty girl. You're talented and your mutation is useful and everyone loves you! I'm just this loser who people don't take seriously and pretty soon you're going to realize that and just leave like everyone else." 

The pit of your stomach has never felt so deep before, it was so clear to you now, in his voice, it was there, he didn't trust you to stay. And that fact hurt more than any heartbreak of rejection ever could.

Sitting up on the bed, you looked down at him, fighting the tears that were attempting to gather in your eyes.

"I know you're not a loser, Peter. I know you're incredible and talented and maybe the best friend I've ever had. But if you think I'm shallow enough to leave you behind, for some preppy asshole, you really don't trust me as much as I trust you." You finished, tears falling freely as you got off of the bed and made your way toward the door before he sped infront of you, standing between you and the door.

His eyes were wide, like a deer caught in headlights, "That's not what I meant to say!" 

You didn't say anything, just stared at him, tears falling and waiting for him to say his piece.

"I trust you more than anyone, you know everything about me, I'm sorry my mouth was going too fast and it came out all wrong." He was still rushing through his words but he took a deep breath before going on again.

"What I was trying to say is," he swallowed thickly, he was nervous, scared even, "you're amazing, you're my best friend and I've had this scenario running in my head of maybe being more than just friends. But I was afraid if I told you and you didn't feel the same you'd leave because of how awkward it would be." 

Your heart was pounding, if you had a few broken ribs after this conversation  you wouldn't be surprised, "oh."

"And when I suggested you be my fake girlfriend you were so reluctant that I figured I never had a shot. But then we kissed and I just can't come to terms with a kiss like that meaning nothing." He told you, hands finding yours, carefully.

This time it was you who was speaking before thinking, "I'm in love with you."

Hearing the words fall out of your mouth, your eyes widened, months of trying to hide the fact and you managed to let it slip out into the open without it even crossing your mind first.

Taking a shaky breath you decided to speak again and hopefully ease Peter out of the shocked state your declaration put him in.

"I didn't wanna fake date you because I wanted to real date you and I was afraid it would hurt too much. That kiss, it was real for me, I had kinda been wanting to do it for a while." You confessed to him, squeezing his hands that were still holding onto yours.

A smile overtook his face, his dimples showing and his eyes brightening, his face was lit up with what seemed like pure happiness like a puppy who's owner just got home from work.

"I love you too." 

Oh thank God.

"I knew you couldn't resist." He added shooting you a cheeky wink before he pulled you against his chest, his face was so close to yours, your noses touched and his lips met yours again.

This time was different, though. It was real and you both knew it and both wanted it.

His fingers intertwined with yours as he pulled his lips away from yours, his boyish smile coming back as he rested his forehead against yours.

"So, um, do you maybe wanna be my girlfriend, like really be my girlfriend?" He asked, still nervous about asking you despite the fact you'd both just made your feelings toward each other perfectly clear.

"I'd love to." You replied, connecting your lips to his again.

Safe to say, fake dating Peter turned into a total shit show but you're really glad it did.

let me know what you think <33

[somedayonbroadway]

So about that Radio Rebel AU... 👀

I’m oddly excited about this one. I love the concept of this movie, it’s so interesting.

Radio Rebel AU

Characters

Racetrack Higgins — Tara Adams

Rafaela — Stacy DeBane

Spot Conlon — Gavin

Albert DaSilva — Audrey Sharma

Obadiah Weisel — Principal Moreno

Jack Kelly — DJ Cami Q

Coffee Bean — Kim

Hot Shot — Gabe

JoJo De La Guerra — Larry

Buttons — Barry

Alright so…

Antonio Higgins never claimed to be outgoing. He never wanted to be popular or even really put himself out there. What he knew he was, was shy. Well, if having severe social anxiety meant being shy, then, yeah… that’s what he was. People terrified him and the mere thought of talking to some of them could send him into a full blown anxiety attack.

Therapy had helped once. But he didn’t go anymore. High school kept him pretty busy. Not to mention his ride had gotten busy with someone else. Walking was just too much. He just didn’t care enough. He would shut himself in his room for the rest of his life and never come out.

That is, until he found out he’d be getting a new stepdad. And that came with a new stepbrother.

Everything happened so fast and Race couldn’t keep up. His step brother was some radio host who loved attention and parties. Race knew he’d been the popular kid in school who played sports and got any date he wanted.

Jack was so open with people.

Race wasn’t.

When Jack starts coming around more, Race finds himself getting jealous of how easily Jack connects with people. Jack puts himself out there in everything he does. He’s a radio host, he’s got a lot of friends. He’s a singer and a songwriter and he plays guitar and he plays sports and everybody loves him. Even Race’s own mother who seems to like having Jack around more than him.

Eventually, when Race and Jack are forced to hang out a bit, Jack tells Race that he didn’t always used to be so outgoing, that he had to work up to it. He hadn’t had the easiest childhood. He tells Race a bit about it, being the more talkative one of the two of them. He admits that his father hadn’t always necessarily been the most loving, affectionate guy. He admits to Race that his dad was a drunk and that he used to get so out of it that he’d beat him. With the bruises and the scars, Jack never wanted anyone to notice. But after his dad got help, straightened himself out and took himself and his son to therapy and worked hard for years and years and still tried to make it up to him, Jack found himself wanting to allow himself to let more people into his life.

He wanted to finally be heard when he struggled through forgiving his dad.

So he started his own mini radio show. He was in high school when it all started.

Without any prompting, Jack pulls out a laptop and shows Race how he did it. He shows him how cool it is to put on his own show and then he stops because he knows he’s rambling. He tells Race that the show really did help him grow, though and make friends and be a part of society.

Eventually, Jack’s dad went back to work at a radio station that he’d run before and he brought Jack on as a host. His radio host name is Jay K and his show focuses a lot on how to stay positive even when bad things are going on in the world or in people’s lives specifically.

Race listened to his show every day that it’s on. But he doesn’t tell Jack that. Jack’s a cool college guy. He’s just his awkward step brother who has trouble getting out two words to someone and whose mother has to order food for him whenever they go out to eat.

But something about Jack’s show makes him want his own.

So he makes one. And he calls it Radio Rebel.

He locks himself in his room and puts on some headphones and just… starts talking.

And people listen.

They like his taste in music and what he has to say about the world they live in, the awful truths of high school and he asks why it has to be that way, why kids are supposed to respect adults who talk down to them and don’t care what’s going on in their lives. He challenges the rules that they’re being told and the things they’re being taught and the biases that people have and how teachers play favorites.

And the best part of all of it? No one knows it’s him.

Radio Rebel is a mystery.

He has one friend at school. Albert DaSilva. Albert broke into his shell and is the only person Race ever talks to really. Albert is constantly trying to help Race overcome his fears of talking to people. Eventually, he even tricks Race into taking drama with him.

The first day of classes, Race knows he made a mistake, if it’s not the participation grade that’s introduced to him it’s the fact that the guy he’s had a crush on since the sixth grade is in that class for his art credit and the girl who’s been making everyone’s life hell since forever is also there with her ever present sidekick.

The first day of class, the first day, and Race gets picked on by the teacher to write down a scene suggestion. He freezes in front of the class, his hand shaking as he tries to function like a normal person.

See, when he was young, his father died. His father had been the person he looked up to above all else. He was so happy all the time, even when he got sick. After that, it was like a little part of Race died with him and he just never knew how to communicate his feelings anymore. He didn’t know how to function in society because he spent most of his time as a child at his dying father’s bedside instead of out with children his own age.

At least, that’s what he thinks.

Even as he’s clearly terrified, Rafaela, a walking nightmare, decides that this is the perfect time to make fun of him. So Race, still trembling, tries to go back to his seat, knocking down the popular girl’s books and then he tries to pick them up, only hitting his head beneath her desk.

He looked up to find Spot staring at him. Spot Conlon, the hottest boy Race had ever known, was staring at him like he was some kind of freak. So Race ran, hiding in the bathroom completely humiliated.

He tries to calm himself down with some music. Though he still won’t admit it, his step brother’s music really does help him relax. He listens to it when he feels alone.

But in the hallway on his way to his next class, his principal, the ever irritating Mr. Wiesel, or, as Race likes to silently call him, Weasel, confiscates his third pair of headphones this semester, leaving Race to muddle through until he can go home and anonymously let his frustrations out with a microphone, some music and a voice scrambler. He plays one of Jack’s songs on the radio that day.

In the middle of his show, Race is jamming out to his song choice while he’s waiting to go back on when a knock comes at his door.

It’s his stepdad.

Race doesn’t hate the guy, he just barely knows him. They’re practically strangers living under the same roof. But, wanting to form a bond with his new step son, the man asks Race is he’d ever heard of someone called Radio Rebel, stating that the kid was some kind of local sensation and suggesting they listen to him together. Race tries to get rid of him, but doesn’t wanna be rude so he ends up giving in and continuing his show with the man in the room.

He’s terrified of what’s going to happen. His stepdad, however, offers him a job. He doesn’t wait for an answer before telling Race that he’s hired. That’s when Race is even more terrified.

It’s announced the next day that Radio Rebel is going to be on WORLD FM (i don’t know what it stands for). Race is horrified. And it doesn’t help that he has to blow off Albert in order to keep his identity a secret. His best friend is starting to get frustrated and Race knows it won’t be long before he’s had enough.

A couple days later, Race finds out that he will have to perform a Shakespeare scene in front of his whole class with two partners. Rafaela and Spot. Because of course it would be them

On Race’s first day at the studio, his step dad tries to give him a tour of the place only to lose him. Race runs off and tries to find an empty room to have a panic attack in. He only ends up finding Jack in the kitchen. Jack immediately greets him and tells him how happy he is that he tried to put himself out there and he’d tell Race how much he liked his show and how it encouraged so many people to just be themselves and have fun. But Jack turns around for one second to finish pouring himself some coffee, only to turn around and have the room be seemingly empty.

Having been on the verge of a breakdown for days, Race is hiding between the wall and the refrigerator, unable to barely breathe. When Jack finally finds him, he starts rambling, not knowing what to do or say. He tells Jack how scared he is and how different it is to go from pretending no one’s listening to knowing that everyone is.

Eventually, Jack coaxes him out of his hiding spot and gives him a soda, sitting him down and telling him that everybody gets nervous. Even him. He tells Race that it doesn’t help to feed into it and continue telling himself how scared he is, but instead use the adrenaline to hype himself up.

Race actually benefits from the talk and thanks Jack. Jack just tells him that’s what brothers are for before going to show him the ropes. He gives Race a small tour of his live room and explains to him how everything works and lets Race get in a practice run. It doesn’t go extremely well. But Jack just tells him he’ll be great, just like he was when he was alone, and then he’d tell Race that he had fifteen second before he was live and he’d go into the next room to watch and listen and help if Race needed it. Race shuts himself in the room, trying to pretend he’s alone before his show starts up.

He falls back into an easy rhythm.

His show is an immediate hit.

At the end of his show, he talks about the hierarchy of high school and how it’s all a bunch of crap. How differences shouldn’t be outlined as a bad thing and everyone should just learn how to accept each other. Then he asks every listener to wear red the next day, just to show that they were all equal.

He shows up to find a sea of red at school the next day. People were listening.

Albert is still mad at him.

Race tries to just continue on but after having to rehearse his scene with Spot and Rafaela, he just feels overwhelmed and practically begs Albert to talk to him again. When Albert still tries to refuse, he pulls him into an empty hallway and finally tells his best friend that he’s the guy everybody loves so much. Albert almost doesn’t believe him but eventually just kind of hugs him and tells him how proud of him he is.

After school, Race agrees to rehearse the scene with Spot and Rafaela and after being berated a bit by Rafaela, Spot encourages Race to stand up for himself and push back against Rafe, who’s acting as their director.

Race finally admits that in this scene of Romeo and Juliet, the audience would only get real emotion from them if they were closer. Spot is Mercutio and Race is Romeo.

Race has adored Spot for so long. He was always just so genuine and yeah, he was a tough guy, originally from Brooklyn, who plays sports and works out, but he was also in a band. He played guitar.

And after this particular rehearsal, he accidentally leaves behind a demo of his band. And Race picks it up.

Race uses it on his show later as he encourages everybody who’s listening to just get up and dance at eight o’clock tomorrow and just go crazy. Jack and Race dance to it in the studio and Race’s stepdad gets a small video of it, loving how well his boys are getting along now. This is the most of the real Race either of them have ever truly seen.

The next morning, when a full on dance part breaks out, Race gets to dance with Spot for a split second before Rafaela joins in with her weird, jerky movements just to get on his nerves. It’s only moments later that Radio Rebel is threatened by the principal to turn himself in now.  

The principal is not happy with the encouragement from this mystery person to disobey school policy and dance instead of focus on classes and work. He then states that anyone caught listening to Radio Rebel during school hours will be expelled.

But that only gives Race an idea.

He runs to Jack who he feels more comfortable with now than he’s sure he’d ever felt with anyone before and asks him for a favor.

The next day at lunch, Jack shows up with a WORLD FM van and gives the kids a special lunchtime dance party, making sure he’s right on the border of city property as a recording of Race tells everybody that they were taking lunchtime back and making it theirs again.

Weasel is not happy and gets it in his head that the minute he finds out who Radio Rebel is, he will be expelling them.

Later that night, after Jack’s show, Race stays to watch Jack record a new song he’d written with a small team of people. Race is a little nervous still, but feels comfortable enough with Jack there. Jack is singing and playing guitar for this new track (Burnout. A song Jeremy Jordan did in fact write) that Race sort of inspired him to write after opening up to him and telling him about his crush and how he doesn’t know how to talk to him. But while trying to record, something just sounds wrong and Race offhandedly points out that he needs a bottom harmony. So Jack tells him to get into the booth and grab a microphone.

And they record a song together.

The next night, Jack lets him play it on his show.

Jack can see Race starting to open up and gain confidence and just be himself. And he’s so happy for him.

A couple days later, Albert pulls Race into the janitor’s closet to tell him the news. Radio Rebels was nominated for Prom King. Race is immediately terrified and starts having a panic attack as he says he has to stop doing the show because no one can know who he is. Albert calms him down and drives him to the studio where they park three blocks away and wear hoodies and sunglasses to try and hide their faces.

Race finally shows Albert where the magic happens and introduces him to another one of his favorite radio hosts, Jay K.

Just before his show starts, Race’s stepdad makes an appearance, telling him that they have to cancel the show. Outraged by this sudden turn of events, Race asks the man why and he explains that Principal Wiesel just called and that if he finds out who Radio Rebel is, he’ll be expelled and that he’s Race’s stepdad first.

Race just says no. He says that he didn’t come this far to get shut down and he didn’t bend the rules just to be cornered by some lonely, bored old man (Weasel). And his stepdad says that’s the most he’d ever heard Race speak, not Radio Rebel, and that he’s on in fifteen.  

He turns back to Jack who gives him a thumbs up and a grin.

That night, Race asks people to share their fears, to stop being afraid of admitting they’re afraid. He gets calls immediately.

The last call he takes is from Spot. He tells Race that he’s afraid to do his own thing. See, his band used to be made up of his best friends but they only want to make loud, superficial music while Spot wants to make something real. Race admits he was terrified to do his own thing too. He looks at Jack as he said he had somebody who believed in him and told him that if he wanted to, he could make a real difference. And then he’d tell Spot that he believed in him and could do the same.

When Race gets home that night, his mother is waiting up for him, waiting to tell him how proud she is of him and how he inspires people to be themselves and that she knows he’s teaching himself some things along the way too.

The next day, however, the school gets some disastrous news. Weasel is cancelling the prom until Radio Rebel reveals themselves.

Race is devastated. He knows people are gonna destroy him for this.

Sure enough, he’s greeted with an angry mob on his way to the studio. He tried to blend in. Jack meets him at the front doors, trying to figure out a way to get him inside without anyone noticing. So, he pulls a hood over his head and starts running to draw away the crowd while Race and Albert sneak inside.

Eventually, once Jack gets back in the show starts. And it’s brutal.

Race gets through several calls of people yelling at him and calling him names and telling him how much they hate him and Jack can see Race start to shake. So the second they take a music break, Jack goes in and hugs him. It’s the first time in a long time Race can remember being held like this. He cries a bit and tells Jack he’s gonna come clean and Jack discourages that, telling his little brother how backwards this all was.

And that gives Race an idea.

On his way out of the building, the mob is still there, so they ask some guy dressed as a sandwich to distract the crowd while they get away. And he does.

The next morning, WORLD FM hijacks the high schools PA system and announces that WORLD FM will be throwing the school a Morp instead of a Prom. Race recorded himself saying that a Morp was a celebration and encouraged people to come as they are. No limos, no hundred dollar dresses or suits, just a party that celebrates them.

And everyone loves it.

Except for Rafaela, of course. Race teasingly encourages her to call in and tell Radio Rebel her frustrations about the prom court. Later that night, on Race’s show, he talks about prom court, giving Rafe the suspicion that it’s been him all along. So Rafaela decides to find a way to prove it and get Race expelled.

She invites the whole school to a party at her house during Radio Rebels broadcast. Whoever doesn’t show up is the person they’re looking for.

Only… Race shows up.

At the studio, Jack and Race’s mom are going crazy trying to figure out the recordings they made of Race and are trying to navigate a call with Rafaela who calls in only screwing up a line and trying to push her off the phone. Race then finally calls in and tells Jack to patch him into the show. Jack does and Race has to run around Rafaela’s house to hide from her while he takes her phone call.

Race finds her room and remembers that when they were young, Rafe used to dress up in dresses and tiaras at school. Race used to be so jealous of how comfortable she was just being herself. Race tells her that when she walks in before he runs out to find Albert.

A few minutes later, Rafaela sends out her best friend Coffee Bean to “deliver a pizza” to WORLD FM. To end this once and for all. Coffee Bean ends up recording Jack and Race’s mom talking about how far Race had come and how proud they were of him. She also gets a bit of Jack talking about his own past. She feels bad, knowing that Jay K had such a traumatic past. He always kept it a mystery to his listeners. But that’s not as important as finally busting Race.

A few days later is the day of their drama scene presentation. Rafaela tricks Race into following her into the janitor's closet before she locks him in there. He knows Spot will hate him if he misses their scene and he also knows that he hates small spaces.

He calls Jack to beg for help and Jack literally runs to him and gets him out while people are still in class. He calms Race down enough for Race to try and get through the day.

But Rafaela finds Race right after school. She plays the recording, telling him that she knows who he is. Race tries to explain that that doesn’t prove anything but Rafe threatens to forward it to the whole school. Race can’t have that happened, not only to keep his identity safe but also to protect the secrets of his step brother and his step dad from getting out. If people found out the guy who ran WORLD FM was a former alcoholic who used to beat his son, that wouldn’t be good. Race knew that. So he does what Rafaela tells him to do and tells the whole school to vote Rafaela for Morp Queen.

Albert however, after talking to Race and finding out what happened, tells Spot the story of him getting locked in the closet.

Spot confronts Rafaela who he was supposed to be going to morp with and immediately breaks it off, telling her that he’ll be going alone.

The next night is morp. Jack is DJing and Spot’s band has a small time slot. But that’s not what has everyone hyped.

No, what has everyone hyped is that they know who’s gonna be crowned prom king.

Jack announces it. It’s Radio Rebel.

Race panics for a moment before he realizes that he can’t keep hiding. He finds a mic backstage and starts talking, telling everyone how scared he was and how this was all even scarier. He reveals that he didn’t know he could feel so much like himself until now. Then he walks out onstage and reveals himself.

Weasel laughs from the crowd as people cheer. He grabs the mic and tells Race that he’s expelled in front of the whole school and Jack stands protectively in front of him, ready to give Weasel a piece of his mind before Albert shouts out that he’s Radio Rebel. Spot follows suit. And suddenly, the whole crowd is admitting to being Radio Rebel.

So Weasel backs down.

And then Spot gets up on stage to sing a song dedicated to a boy that isn’t afraid to ask a dancing sandwich for help. After this, he reveals to Race that he’s always been afraid to be himself and asks Race to help him do just that, asking him to dance and kissing him in front of the crowd.

And Race thinks just maybe he’s not afraid anymore.

For more Mood Boards and AUs, click here!

[shinahbee]

December favorites 2020!

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GREETINGS

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 Hello,

 So we have finally reached another year happy 2021! let's all hope this year will be kind to us, as I have mentioned in my previous favorites post, I finished my work term and now will be working on my art more

so please look out for more art coming soon!

also this maybe a little too early to think of but I was thinking of opening an etsy store to sells stickers/ keychains, this was a project that was on my mind for many years actually, but I have never really considered starting it

Please let me know if any of you would be interested if I do start one.

I would also like some ideas as to what type of characters from what show would you like to see merchandise from. I know there are some franchises that are not well known and most people wouldn’t be able to find so much as a fanart of that particular character/show

so if you could all let me know what you’d like to see in the shop I will highly consider it, with that being said I don't have any anime recs this month, mainly cause I was very busy in the month of December and have not watched any dramas or anime in a while,

so just a heads up, that part will not be included this month. The only thing I was watching is bunch of end of the year award shows, so like the drama awards and melon music awards and MAMA awards...haha that seems really boring to discuss so i'll skip that.

My friend and I were discussing and thought that they should rename these music awards as the BTS awards because they won so many lol.

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MANHWA/MANGA/WEBTOONS

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 This section of the favorites is on fire! you don’t even know how far deep the rabbit hole i`ve dug myself into.

I finally was able to save my progress and crawl back up to list a few of my favorites/ updates of the old favorites and a special segment to ones that triggered a raging response due to utter frustration

Let’s start with a review of the manhwa I have read and discussed so far

 Recap:

 1) Whose baby is it? (ongoing)

2) Social temperature (ongoing)

3) Salad days (ongoing)

4) To be or not to be (ongoing)

5) Path to you (completed)

6) Here u are (completed)

7) BJ alex (completed)

8) No way, vampires don't exist (ongoing)

 so some updates on the previous ones that I have listed out so far, with the exception of the completed ones.

 1) Who's baby is it? ; last time I read up to chapter 72 and now they have up to chapter 126 and I have to say so much more has happened in terms of story and relationship development and I especially love the development between

yi yun and his relationship with jinyao, they are acting more and more like a married couple without even knowing it. You see a gradual change within the two of them that shifts from being very comfortably being able to talk about their problems to one another to

physical touches that would make them  both nervous, I don't mean physical in a sexual way...it's not at that point yet, it's just holding hands and being near each other makes them, nervous and as an audience I felt that nervous energy

and it makes as the audience appreciate the development even if it is slow, it becomes more realistic over time.

Needless to say, I am still a giant fan girl of this author and her story and I can't wait to see this week’s chapter

 2) social temp; I said that I have read the novel so I pretty much knows what happened in the new chapters that were just out, this manhwa is updating a little slow so I have to wait to really comment

When they go further, there is a scene soon that will be the turning point of their relationship so I am excited to see that in the manhwa

 3) salad days; There is also a slow development here as well in terms of relationship building, so far they are working on their careers as professionals and dealing with bullying and jealousy from their peers

But it's all part of life so I appreciate that the author included these aspects as an important part of the story and not just focusing on romance alone.

 4) To be or not to be; you'd think a person who had studied Chinese for 8 years would be able to read the raws....nope,LOL

So far the story is going into a good direction so I'm hoping to see how this new development will play out in their relationship

 5) no way vampires don't exist; I have and fanart and long post dedicated to this alone, so please refer to those for more details. I am happy this is updating again and hopefully all of it will be translated in no time for others to enjoy

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Welcome to heaven

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Okay so that is all for the old ones that I have read, I will include updates throughout my favorites now and then if it is still ongoing.

now let's look at some new ones that I have found this month, these are just a few of the ones I selected out to talk about, but I have read much more as I have said and these were the ones that were the most memorable

 1) Unintentional love story- "Wonyoung gets unjustly suspended from work after getting caught up in a corruption scandal. But when he accidentally discovers the chairman's favorite artist Yoon Taejun living under an alias, he is tasked with a tricky new mission. Could this be Wonyoung's chance to get his job back?"

 This is the summary from the licensed lezhin website, and it pretty much sums up the story, it is still ongoing right now so I can only comment on how I feel about it so far.

I really like this story its really straight forward and focuses mainly on the two characters and how their relationship went from business partners to eventual lovers

it has minimal drama and works on moving the relationship buildup between the two main characters and I really appreciate that, it makes me less frustrated, since you know there is always that one a-hole that will never take no for an answer

i will discuss that later for the other ones I plan to discuss. But so far the story is straight forward and cute, and I really like wonyoung he is really adorable. This is a manhwa but not in the form of a webtoon, so it's black and white and read in traditional manga style

if you like a straight forward story and development please give this a read, you will enjoy it.

 2) Karasugaoka Don't Be Shy!! - "Sou Izuhara, the leader of the crime prevention group "VOICE" that protects east Karasugaoka, realizes he's in love with the man he keeps butting heads with and leader of the rival group "Karasukai," Tetsuji Shinba...!?"

 omg finally a manga recommendation? lol. you have no idea how much trouble I had remembering the title of this manga, I didn’t save it into my bookmarks and I usually did that if I was going to talk about it in the favorites.

I went through 5 websites to figure out the name but at least it was found. This story is both comedic and cute and it was a perfect break from the dark stuff I have been reading, I don't believe it has been updated in while so I'm not sure if it will ever be picked up

but there is a decent amount of chapters to get started on. But as the description says that it is a story about two crime prevention group leaders, they look like thugs but they prevent crimes from happening, so like an anti bullying campaign that recruits volunteers. two of the leaders from the largest groups apparently doesn’t get a long

on the surface but one of the leaders Izuhara really in fact admires the other leader Shinba. they start to get along after shiba went to izuharas territory to take care of some suspicious activity on that side and accidentally discovers a whole new side to izuhara due to the fact that he wasn’t wearing his glasses and didn’t know he was talking to shinba

and invited him to hang out together for that day. lol. You probably know the direction this is heading; it all starts from interest in a person right?

anways, I never recommended a  manga yet so this would be a good one to read,it has a balance of a good romantic comedy.  

 3) Semantic Error- "Computer science major Chu Sangwoo is the epitome of an inflexible and strict rule-abiding person. While working on a liberal arts group project with freeloaders who don’t put in any effort, Sangwoo reasonably decides to remove their names from the final presentation. But he didn’t imagine how involved he would become with the person whose study-abroad plans were messed up because of that project. The involved person: the campus star who everyone knows, Department of Design’s Jang Jaeyoung. He has everything from skills, looks, family background and good relationships except for 1 big problem: Chu Sangwoo. What happens when an engineer and an artist whose personalities are like oil and water have to work together? Jang Jaeyoung is like a semantic error in the perfect world of Chu Sangwoo. Will Sangwoo be able to debug this?"

 this has got to be one of the most accurate portrays of an antagonist relationship start off ever, it was really comedic and relatable at the same time, if you are in current group assignments and are or have suffered the same as sangwoo, please let me know cause I know I have.lol.

there’s only 16 chapters so far and I believe it hasn’t been updated in a while either so I don’t know if it is discontinued or not.

I can't wait to see the development between the two male leads, because their relationship right now in the manhwa is really hilarious and worth the read.

side note, not that this will ever be considered as a k-drama but I would like to see sangwoo being played by kim soo hyun, because he looks like him in the drama it's okay not to be okay.

 4) Tied up in twins- " The story starts off with three friends Jiwoo, sohee and woojung who had been friends since high school began to developed complicated feeling towards one another, woojung had been in love with sohee and sohee had been in love with jiwoo who was in love with woojung, things turned for the worse when jiwoo got drunk one night out and decided to confess his feelings to woojung by going to his apartment, he found 'woojung' standing outside and invited him to go drinking, he finally was able to let out his feelings and 'woojung ' accepted them without hesitation. Jiwoo felt like he was on cloud nine at the moment and slept with 'woojung' that night after thier feelings were made mutual. Turns out 'woojung ' was not actually woojung himself but his twin brother sarang, not knowing this fact he spots sarang with a man from his past eunji that used to bully him during his military service which made him confused and angry that 'woojung ' might be playing with his feelings. Sarang then confessed that he is the twin brother  of woojung and both of them decided that that night was a mistake and that they should just forget about it as it didn't happen. Of course fate had other plans as they keep running into each other during difficult times and decided to become friends. It didn't take them long to be attracted to one another which lead them to end their previous relationship, sarang especially was suffering from his cheating boy friend's abuse and jiwoo with his one sided feelings for woojung. After a series of events sarang and jiwoo found that their feeling for each other were mutual and started to dating, which poses a lot more obstacles than either of the two had bargained for...."

 This is actually my very own summary since I can't find one for this manhwa, I also did and fanart and discussed why i really like this story in that fanart, so please check out my art for my thoughts on it! Shameless self promo....

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Welcome to hell

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ooo now it's time for the fun part.LOL. Now let me just say that there is sometimes a fine line that defines what shounen ai and Yaoi are, sometimes stories is listed as both because one story that starts off like shounen ai will suddenly become yaoi

I define yaoi as a story that includes all the things that i'm uncomfortable with, which is emotional trauma from sexual abuse, sexual harassment and rape, physical abuse, suicide etc

 these stories usually include some or all of the listed above and could make you uncomfortable in many ways, so as a warning if you are bothered by any of that even a little please don't read the ones I’m about to list, because there is a lot of it and there are situations that made me really sick while reading them. on the upside there is a lot of whole heartedness from the love scenes between the two main characters, although it’s like pages of sex scenes, you know from reading that it is between two people that love and trust each other.

 so you have been warned, i'm not going to spoil it in terms of story but there is something these ones i chose out have in common and that is a SICK A-HOLE THAT EVERY PERSON WANTS TO KILL.You should have seen all those comments about calling sangwoo (killing stalking) to kill theses mofos and I could agree more, these disgusting human beings made me sick.

 so let's begin...btw these are in no particular order, I was going to list these from the least worthy of dieing to most worthy of dieing but you know in the end they should just all die...lol.

1) My Suha -"A skillful secretary by day and choosy cruiser by night, Suha is a young professional who’s in search of some no-strings-attached action. He hasn’t had much luck lately, though, since a handsome face doesn’t always match what’s in a guy’s pants. This might be why he finds himself wondering about his dreamboat boss, Director Park Jiwoon. But there’s no way he can mix business with pleasure… That is, until Jiwoon and Suha run into each other in the gay bar bathroom."

 so where to begin, um this pretty much includes all those listed above but it mainly focuses on the relationship between jiwoon and Suha, and it is not abusive and very loving in fact,I'm glad that they show the contrast between how suha's previous realtionships don't work out because of his trauma

and how jiwoon despite being an unwanted heir in his grandmother's eyes was able to give love and protection to the person that matters to him the most. So there's this scum bag...I even forgot his name but the red haired dude in this story he`s the legitimate heir to the family, who is the absolute worse and not only sexually abused Suha when they were younger and also emotionally scar both jiwoon and suha

making them feel incapable of being loved. I didn’t get a good feeling form him when he was first introduced and I was right...lol. But at least the comments section was in agreement; let me sum up my feelings in the form of this gif alone...

 you get the point...

I heard it was going to finish soon so hopefully these emotional scars can be resolved and that suha and jiwoon stick together to get through it all. That would be a good ending for them after everything they have been through.You really need to read it in order to under stand why these events happen the way they do but please remember that suha`s inability to feel love stems from the all of his previous relationships not lasting long yes...but started with this red haired mofo. I am never going to let this dude live, let`s just say that.

2) Crash into me- " Seung-chan is stressed. He has enough on his plate with the long hours at work, and now he can’t even get any rest at home! Every night, the lustful moaning and violent banging from the apartment upstairs keeps him awake. Just as he’s at his wits’ end, he chances upon the gorgeous, enigmatic Hyesung outside his building. Surely all those filthy sounds couldn’t be coming from such a pretty mouth? But as Seung-chan soon finds out, there’s a lot more to Hyesung"

 from that little description you’ve probably figured out what’s going on with the neighbour next door keeping seung chan awake right? well no surprise sexual abuse, after hyesung was forced to suffer from a ordeal that wasn't his fault the brother of the person that died made it seem like it was his fault and sexually assaulted him

and so this ongoing sexual abuse progressed for several years which lead hyesung feel like life is meaningless and he should just die, until he locked eyes with seung chan walking back to the apartment and thought of jumping out the window, because he had a strange feeling that seungchan who he has not met before would catch him if he did.

I just almost cried from what I just wrote...to think there’s is some a-hole out there that would drive a person to suicide like that just to satisfy his own needs or whatever...i don't even know cause it’s still ongoing...i don’t think any amount of back story will justify any kind of sympathy for this person..

from what I have read so far it seems so be going ending soon so i hope seungchan and hyesung will be able to get through all this and live in peace because of suengchan, hyesung was able to love again and find his worth and is able to fight for himself and I’m sincerely glad that he had met and trust him whole heartedly.

3) Dine with vampire- "Caught in the clutches of an abusive relationship, Sooin longs to escape. A vampire who finds human blood repulsive, Chi-hwan only drinks the blood of other vampires. When chance brings the two together, Chi-hwan makes Sooin an enticing proposal. Chi-hwan will help Sooin get out of his living hell, and in exchange… Sooin has to let Chihwan drink his blood. Will this proposal change both their lives for the better?”

 y'all don't even get me started on the mofo in this story....I’ve never felt so much rage from staring at a 2D character on my screen, the amount of times I hissed at him...you don't even know

like I have mentioned before ever since my twilight phase I didn’t consume anything vampire related in a while, I don't really care much for the vampire aspect but I guess it's still important over all

once you start the first chapter you will immediately know why I hate the harry potter a-hole in this story..he is despicable and that’s putting it lightly...but you know he doesn’t last long cause vampire tsukiyama (lol, not his name but they look alike) shows up and kills the mofo

and saves sooin who is the person who harry potter had been sexually abusing...to the point where you guessed it, he wanted to die.

chi hwan agrees to grant any wish sooin wanted in exchange for his blood because being vampire by nature he had not been drawn to anyone’s blood for some reason and had only consumed the blood of other vampires.

of course it was a small price to pay for sooin considering all the misery he had gone through. slowly sooin discovered that love was not abusive through the many times chi hwan...lmao i almost called him tsukiyama again...and he had sex, he discovered that it was safe and gentle and enjoyable

nothing that he had ever felt before, and so they became drawn to each other more than they thought they would to the point where they genuinely care for one another, though of course chi hwan knows that one day sooin will die and he will have to live on forever alone, thus the fate of his vampire blood.

 but here’s the catch..it's not a spoiler really cause you knew it was too easy when main villain dies in chapter 4...and he’s on the front cover...which means yes harry potter mofo is back...ugh...he should have burned his body...WTF and as a vampire no less..

i'm like great now look what happened, you should have chopped him up and threw him into the incinerator!

you know that saying " mistakes were made..."

anyways, now he's back meaning shits about to do down and i'm not ready to see it happen, right now they are going through his back story and i’m like sorry author...whatever you try to feed me there’s no way i can have any sympathy for this dick...

 so that's all i'm going to rant about for these yaoi titles...i had to go back and read some it again to know what i'm going to write about and i revisited a lot of things i’d rather not.I think the rage I felt was ignited again all of a sudden and I felt utter frustration to finish reading it again, what I am trying to say is, ya`ll need to read this once and that`s it...these aren`t stories you`d want to revisit.lol

so if you like this hell segment let me know and i'll continue it cause there’s an endless supply of content for this genre, I have a few more but i'll save those for next month.

and i'll probably come across more in the mean time to discuss, but I guess this is where fiction and reality divides, cause you know in real life if this crap exists absolutely no one will take this bull crap!

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MUSIC

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 I have been listening to the Start up soundtrack and found a lot of songs i like from it, I don't like the drama and have not finished it, but the soundtrack is bomb

I have also been liking some old pop songs and went down the rabbit hole of 90`s pop songs...Britney spears especially

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 so that is all I have for this month, I'm sorry its manhwa and manga focused, i'll have time to watch anime that I need to catch up on and start some drams now so i'll have more

to discuss in the next month hopefully, so please take care of your selves in the new year as well!

take care,

sheena

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SOCIAL MEDIA

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INSTAGRAM: shinb_art

TUMBLR: shinahbee

DEVIANTART: she-be.deviantart.com

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[loopy777]

RE: WIPs game: do I even want to know what Dicebenders is is it another scam how many times are the Gaang gonna get arrested for scamming

No, this time it's me scamming people. XD The dice in question are the RPG Dungeons & Dragons kind.

For a while I was doing a screencap webcomic in the style of "DM of the Rings" and "Darths & Droids" with another creative fan named Captain Boomerang. I was the scriptwriter and selected the screenshots for each panel, and Capt-BA would assemble the comics and improve my scripts (a process that did frustrate me a little, as I felt locked out of the revision process, but I did like the results. I just felt like I wasn't holding up my end of the partnership a bit). I wrote a story bible explaining the characters and storytelling rules, planned out the adaptation of the entire AtLA premiere, and had less detailed plans for the rest of the series, but we only got 6 comics in before Capt-BA went on a trip and never returned to the internet. I did manage to re-establish contact with her long enough to get permission to continue the comic, but the problem is that I have no image-editing skills whatsoever.

If I could find comic-making software that I know would do what I want and be easy to use, I wouldn't mind dropping some money on it, but everything I've looked at is trying to do lots of things I don't need. I only want a way to import existing pictures into comic grids, and then easily add dialogue bubbles. That's it. But the stuff I've found is more about image-editing than comic assembly, and it takes me an hour to put together a dialogue bubble that looks good. So I have 3 scripts that were never produced, which along with the planning docs are what's in that WIP folder, and I don't ever see myself going beyond that.

Besides, someone else already managed to complete something like this, and while I'm not a fan, I don't need to be. At this point, Dicebenders is dead. I'm glad I tried it, and it's a shame it didn't work out, but I'm happy with the other projects I've done instead.

I am squatting on an empty Tumblr for it, though.

Anyway, to share something new, here's the first section of the Story Bible I wrote to make sure Capt-BA and I were on the same page in terms of characterization. The rest of the bible details the plotlines for full series.

AVATAR: THE LAST DICEBENDER

BIBLE

Premise- A small group of players attempt to run a fantasy martial arts RPG that winds up essentially becoming the Avatar saga, or something very close. The main point of the series is comedy, based mostly on ridiculous links between Avatar and RPG's. Sometimes the humor will be in the vast difference between what happens in the comic, and what happens in the cartoon with the same screenshots. Other times, the funny will come from the unexpected ways they converge.

SPIRITUAL PREDECESSORS

DM of the Rings- The original, and my personal favorite. It's a good showcase of how to run a single quest together, while using narrative jumps to skip to the good bits.

Darths & Droids- A similar project, this stands out from its predecessor in two main ways. The players and GM are more friendly with each other, and are more or less having fun with each other. There is also a running, coherent storyline in both the game and in the lives of the players.

Benders & Brawlers- This is actually an existing attempt to do Darths & Droids with Avatar. This is helpful as an example of what we DON'T want to do, retell the Avatar story in a completely straightforward manner, with RPG players behind the characters.

CHARACTERS

None of the characters will be given real names. The players shall always be referred to by their character names, although this can be done in a teasing, ironic manner. When the characters are speaking, their dialogue bubble must always be attached to an image of the character.

The Gamemaster- The GM is a female in her early teens. She is a geek, and a bit of a social outcast for it. Nevertheless, she's trying to make that work for her, although she's not quite mature enough to make it happen yet. She has just discovered RPG's, and in her enthusiasm has gone all out in starting her own campaign. The only problem is that she doesn't know how to recruit players, so she ropes her best friend and little brother into playing with her. This is the GM's first campaign, so she'll a little in over her head. She knows the mechanics of play, and what she's supposed to be doing as GM, but doesn't have the fine skill in crafting an engaging RPG experience. Still, she wants to do her best, is willing to learn, and has a positive attitude about the whole thing. The GM has a strong crush on the Sokka player, but the only way she can express it is by having all the female NPC's flirt with the Sokka character.

Katara- Female in early teens, and the GM's best friend. Katara's player was friends with the GM from when they were both in grammar school, so while they have grown up into wildly different personality types, they are fully loyal to each other. Katara is popular, and outgoing, and doesn't care or know about geek stuff at all. She's only playing the game because the GM begged her to. At first, Katara is clueless about RPG's, and frequently questions or ridicules the mechanics of the game. She never quite gets into the idea of role-playing, but quickly takes to the idea of meta-gaming. She'll have her character act like a righteous do-gooder, because completing missions and fighting bad guys earns XP. She hoards items that will boost her stats. She'll advocate abandoning a mission/plot if it doesn't pay out enough rewards. Katara's player also can tend towards trying to Mary Sue her character, but this is inconsistent and usually shot down by everyone else.

Aang- Male in junior high, and the GM's little brother. He plays simply because his sister has cajoled him into it, and there are hints that he's getting some kind of reward or payment for it. He abuses his position by forcing the GM to give him what he wants in the game, even if it breaks the rules- access to the restricted Airbender class, the ability to bend all four elements, overloaded stats, an Avatar State that protects him from dying, a magic super flying cow ride, etc. However, it's important to note that Aang's player isn't a jerk. He's just immature, and like all kids, just always goes for what he wants via the easiest path, and doesn't realize that he may be causing trouble or hurting feelings. He's enthusiastic about trying out this RPG thing, but he has trouble coming up with any action beyond attacking or retreating. He's also hyper aware that the GM and Katara are girls. He is too old for cootie concerns, but thinks that girls are fundamentally different creatures with their own incomprehensible concerns. Having a big sister, he doesn't find this a big deal, just part of life. Aang's player is too young to be a geek. He likes cartoons and sports and fantasy and school-dramas. He also tends to follow whatever his sister likes.

Sokka- Male in late teens. This guy is your quintessential RPG player. He has is own top-quality dice, he's played campaigns and systems of all kinds, and knows the tropes of the hobby cold. He's a huge geek for all things geeky, but roleplay is easily his favorite. He's a social outcast, but he's made friends among his fellow geeks, and thinks life is just fine. Sokka's player joins when he meets the GM at the comic/games shop they both frequent. The GM was buying some sourcebooks and material to support the fantasy martial arts game she's running, and Sokka noticed, asked about it, liked what he heard, and got permission to join the game. What Sokka doesn't realize, because he is a geek and neither has experience with it or realizes it's even possible, is that the GM is sweet on him. This manifests in the character Sokka's canon luck with the ladies, only kicked up a notch. *Every single* female NPC flirts with him, whether it's appropriate or not. Sometimes player Sokka notices and tries to roleplay it, and sometimes he's just plain confused. Sokka has a few quirks. His best set of dice are his Lucky Red Dice, which always roll high when he needs it, but have been tested and proven to be fair dice. He also mandates that every character he plays use a boomerang; he was turned into a geek by the first video game he ever played, a Legend of Zelda title, and his favorite weapon from those games are the boomerang. Each of his characters has a unique, named boomerang.

Zuko- The GM's favorite NPC. She created him to be a compelling, dramatic character, with a complicated back story, moral struggles, badass loner personality, angst about his existence, a darkly noble quality, and a cool scar. The GM intended Katara to get to know Zuko, for her to try to woo him away from the side of evil, and perhaps to even have a romance with him. The PC's, however, couldn't care less about him. To them, he's just another mini-boss, and the fact that most of his character development is happening "off screen" means they don't realize that he's recruitable. A frequent gag is Zuko delivering a stirring monologue while no one pays attention.

Iroh- Background NPC. The GM tries to use him to give (ignored) hints to the players.

Toph- (tentative) A male munchkin gamer who picked a long list of weaknesses in order to get superbending. Toph's player is a friend of Sokka's player, brought in after an "incident" with his old group, and causes some initial resentment in the group when tries to show the n00bs how its done. Cowing Toph's player is a major victory for the GM.

Momo- NPC, but maybe make him a talking sidekick who gives the players hints when the GM is really exasperated?

Azula- the GM's best favorite villain. Azula is the GM unleashed, letting her take out frustrations on the players in both combat and harsh taunting. Eventually the GM comes to like the character so much, she retcons mental health issues into the character's backstory, and has her pet NPC, Zuko, spare her.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #462

i am way too tired to mentally flip through lyrics to put here, rip

Who in your family has been married the longest? (and how long?) I have zero idea. When did you last travel alone? Where were you going? The last time I visited Sara in Illinois. Do you take your shoes off when you come inside? Yes. What was the first color you ever dyed your hair? I think I got purple highlights? What was the first social media site you ever used? MySpace. Do you have any exes you really regret dating? One. Of all your friends & family, who has the most nicely-decorated home? Sara's house is lovely. Have you ever been catcalled? No. Are you allergic to any dogs? I might be. Have you ever touched a plant and had hives shoot up your arm? No. Do you think dragonflies are cool? Absolutely! What’s your favorite thing to draw? Meerkats!! Did you toss your hat in the air at graduation? Not high. I wanted to keep it. Do you like fudge? I CAN FUCKING DESTROY SOME FUDGE. Are you an affectionate person? Very. Name something you have to do today: Girt and I are hangin', making fun of bad Netflix anime and going to Buffalo Wild Wings. :^) Would you ever write to a death row inmate? No. People don't get on death row for no reason. I ain't got shit to say to them. Do you reckon online friendships are real? No fucking shit. Most of my most genuine friendships began online. Do you like Slipknot? Yep. Can we talk about how fuckin BADASS Corey's new mask is btw?????????? What do you think of Gorillaz? I like "Feel Good Inc." and one other song I can't remember the name of. Bow ties on guys, dorky or adorable? BOTH!!!!! :') What is the cutest Halloween costume for a baby to wear? GUYS I recently saw a picture of a little baby dressed up as a Little Oogie Boogie and it made my ovaries cry. Which of your friends is the tallest? Which of them is the shortest? Jesus, Girt is a giant. I don't know about my shortest... If you could re-paint your bedroom, what color would you choose? Pastel pink. :') What has been the best night of your life so far? Why? Probably something sexual so let's keep it on the down low lmfaooo Would you ever even think about taking part in a wet t-shirt contest? Uh, no. Even if I WAS confident in my body. Is you hair color the same as it was when you were a baby? No. It was dirty blonde. Have you ever been in trouble for being too loud? Ha, yeah, at school with friends. Not big trouble or anything, we were just hushed. Did you ever attend a wedding that was a complete disaster? No. What is something that you were surprised you were able to do? Hm. What is the most bullshit-sounding true fact that you know? Male cats have spiked penises lkasdjfal;kje;kjwr it's something to do with preventing other tomcats from mating with her. What Oreo flavor is your favorite? Gimme that Double Stuffed, friend. Sour gummy worms or plain gummy worms? SOUR. Ever been in a talent show? How many times? What did you do? Nope. Ever try out for the talent show and not make it? Did you cry? Nope. What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever cried about? Y'all when I was a very little kid, during my older sister's b-day party, I sobbed because I couldn't pin the tail properly on the donkey lmaoooo How do you feel about the use of nuclear weapons? Absolutely fucking barbaric. What song has the most meaning to you? "Life Won't Wait" by Ozzy Osbourne. What is your favourite dinosaur? Spinosaurus!!!! :') Have you ever made bread? No. Has anything ever fallen asleep on you? Pets, a baby I was watching after, and Jason. Ever been dominated in a game you were/are really good at? yep alskdjfla;jwej Have you ever decided to set fire to something out of anger? No. Would you rather be a house pet or a wild animal? Wild animal, I guess? Have you ever listened to a group of chanting monks? I haven't. If you had to get a portrait tattoo, who would it be of? Probably of Teddy. I've still yet to decide on the total design of his tribute tat I'm getting. Do you like the smell of men’s colognes better than woman’s perfumes? I think so, yeah. How mad would you be if someone copied your original work (story, poem)? I'd be pretty fuckin pissed. Have you ever blown something up in science class? Ha, no. Have you ever gotten a serious wound from shaving? Not serious, no. Have you invented anything, only to find out it actually exists? I feel like I have? Ever realize you never truly LOVED your first love? Absolutely not. I loved him. Would you want a Bachelor/Bachelorette party before you get married? Sure, sounds fun. Do you prefer pads, tampons or something else? As of very recently, I returned to using pads. I used tampons for most of my maturity, but I got annoyed with them for TMI reasons and resorted back to pads, even though I don't like them either. Have you ever dated a model? No. What is your ultimate goal in life? To die happy with my life and what I (hopefully) accomplished. What colour are the socks you’re wearing today? I’m not wearing any. Who was the last person you sent a Facebook message to and what did you say? Girt. It was something regarding how I once considered doing the suicide mission at BWW where you eat a select number of their hottest wings, but I didn't wanna die via chicken. :^) Are you tall, short or average? Would you change this? I'm average in height. I wouldn't change it, nah. Especially now that Girt and I are together the ridiculous height difference is hilarious but also cute lmao. Have you ever worked in a store while someone shoplifted there? Like, while I was there? No. Have you ever had casual sex? Nahhhh. What’s your favourite flavour of frosting? Chocolate. @_@ When you think of your childhood, are the memories mostly happy or sad? Mostly happy, I guess. What is it like being you? Is it enjoyable? It's very boring with few sources of joy. What are your thoughts on the cause of homosexuality? I would *assume* it's a genetic mutation. Reason being, having a romantic partnership without the ability to reproduce defies the motives of science. There is nothing, absolutely NOTHING, wrong with said (and hypothetical) genetic mutation, though. Mutations are just another part of science. They occur naturally. What subjects did you find most interesting in school? Least? Most interesting: literature/English (especially reading like, old mythology and epics and stuff like that), LOTS of branches of science (but primarily genetics), art, and I looooved my four semesters of German. Least: ANY and ALL math, history, economics, social studies... that kind of stuff. Which do you enjoy more–hot or cold beverages? Cold, for sure. What were some of your favorite bands from childhood? Green Day was one. Would you be more afraid of drowning or being buried alive? Buried alive, for sure. It would be much, much slower. Should you really be doing something more productive right now? Well, I SHOULD be sleeping. Today's going to be a long day, because when Girt comes over, he has a tendency to not leave until like fuckin midnight or later alksdjfl;waje Have you ever lived out of your car? No. Does your family own more than two houses? HUNNY we r poor. A relative just committed a very serious crime, do you turn them in? It depends on the exact crime, but odds are, yes. If you're endangering others, byyyyeeee. You’re in the woods, alone, at night…are you honestly not afraid? Bitch I'm terrified. I have zero survival skills. You are on life support, what would you want a loved one to do about it? For the love of god, please kill me. Your child has only a while to live, do you still enroll them in school? That would be up to them. Also, define "a while." How would you feel if you met your idol and they ended up being rude? WELP I have a tattoo in his honor so that would suck ass lmao According to the tale, was Eve wrong for eating and sharing the apple? "God was wrong for even setting up an apple tree and making up rules in the first place." <<<< There ya go. And the punishment was fucking ludicrously extreme. Are you working on any goals? Yes. I'm currently going to the gym regularly to try and better my physical health and then find a job. I know that being connected sounds odd, but trust me: I can barely carry out very simple tasks just because I have absolutely ZERO stamina to do almost anything. I need energy and endurance. I'm also working towards developing some self-love. Which parent named you? I wanna say my mom. Are you currently frustrated with someone? I mean, myself. Aforementioned self-love is hard. I'm just annoyed my head is so reluctant to accept that I'm not a piece of shit for a million reasons. Why have most of your past relationships ended? They all ended for different reasons, really. Are you having any online conversations, currently? I'm not. What’s on your mind? I'm just tired and going back to bed real soon. Have you ever had an argument with a teacher? No.

[90slevi]

Butterflies {Draco Malfoy x Reader} - Pt.2

Wandering down the corridors with nobody in sight was certainly scary. Although it wasn't night-time and you broke the rules often, there was nothing to say you couldn't be ambushed by Filch and Mrs Norris or, even worse, a magical creature that'd broke into the school (which unfortunately happened on multiple occasions). And, worse than all that was Umbridge would know for a fact you were missing, and you'd be given detention immediately. Glancing at your already-scarred hand, you didn't fancy going to another one of her hellish torture clubs.

You'd just have to say you were vomiting in the school toilets. If there was one thing Umbridge didn't like, it was vomit, and there was no way she could prove it, either. Most Slytherins were either the subjects of pranks (by mainly Gryffindors like the Weasley Twins) or dishing out the pranks, so it was highly unlikely you wouldn't be believed.

Almost as soon as you heard footsteps, you ducked into an empty classroom, hiding behind the closing door and holding your breath. It was one of the many Transfiguration classrooms, and there was nobody in there - except for Peeves, who was pushing over books to presumably piss off Mrs McGonagall.

Although it was unlikely that Peeves, of all people, was going to snitch on you, you didn't fancy your chances of being caught and just wanted to find Draco as soon as possible. Or go to the bathrooms to hide it out until class was over. Once the footsteps passed the door, you peered out, watching the creepy Mr Filch walk past with Mrs Norris at his feet as they disappeared around a corner. Sighing with relief, you tiptoed out of the classroom, carefully closed the door, and ran down the corridor to wherever you were going.

Soon, the stairs to the dungeons (and the Slytherin Common Room) appeared, and extremely relieved, you wandered down. There wasn't supposed to be anyone around, since everybody was supposed to be in class, but you were still on high alert with your hand discreetly tucked underneath your cloak and gripped around your wand.

"Y/n," you heard a voice say from behind, and your heart stopped for a split second before realising who it was.

"God, you scared the Hell out of me!" you exclaimed with a laugh, turning around to see Draco at the bottom of the stairs with a smug smile on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

"My bad," he shrugged, glancing back up the stairs to make sure you hadn't been followed. "That Potter hasn't trailed you, has he?"

"Not that I know of," you chuckled, glancing up too just to make sure. "If so, he'd have been caught by Filch by now."

"That creepy squib threatened me," Draco said in disgust, rolling his eyes with a slightly wrinkled nose. "The bastard."

"Yeah, he almost caught me too," you grimaced, with as much dislike towards Filch as the blonde was. It wasn't because he was a squib; you didn't really care about blood-status and being muggle-born and all that. He was just... creepy. "I hid in an empty classroom. I think Mrs McGonagall is gonna kill Peeves when she sees the mess he's made."

"That little shit threw a book at my head once," Draco grumbled, slumping down the wall as he sat at the bottom of the wall, not wanting to go inside the Common Room in fear of being caught by Snape or another teacher. You sat in front of him, crossing your legs and hoping the floor wasn't too dirty. "If he wasn't a ghost, he'd never see the light of day again."

"I mean, you did insult the Weasleys," you grinned, amused at Draco's distain towards everybody. "And you know Peeves is pretty good friends with Fred and George."

"I have no idea what you see in those Blood-Traitors," he muttered in response.

He was referring to your friendship with Fred and George, whom you'd become good friends with in your first year after helping them pull pranks on their youngest brother and Snape. Of course, it was incredibly strange for a Slytherin to be friends with Gryffindor students, but you didn't really care for the norms. Due to being a half-blood witch (your mother being a muggle and your father being a pure-blood), you found blood-supremacy to be completely ridiculous and as long as you got along with somebody, you didn't care at all about what they were. This made it incredibly surprising that you were put in Slytherin, but hey.

Draco wasn't the most pleased to find out one of his best friends was a half-blood, as you hadn't brought it up in front of him and he'd found out on his own in May of your second year. But, since you were already good friends at that point, he tried to brush it aside (he didn't speak much to you until your third year, but by then he'd at least matured a tiny bit and befriended you again).

Although... your prank on Snape wasn't exactly the best idea, because he hasn't liked you since.

"They're really cool, Draco!" you exclaimed, giving up on trying to convince the blonde that the Weasleys were genuinely nice people. It caused enough arguments, anyway. "You need to give people a chance, y'know? Although, I doubt they'd be willing to give you one..."

"Whatever, I don't care," he shrugged, looking away and at the stone wall that entered into the Slytherin Common Rooms. You pouted, unsure how to continue the conversation but not wanting it to go silent in fear of an awkward tension appearing in the air.

"So, why did you want to meet me here at dinner?" you asked, cocking your head and scratching the back of your head. "And why did you skip Defence Against the Dark Arts? I thought you liked that class."

"With Umbridge in charge, it's boring," Draco sighed, dreading another lesson of just sitting there and flipping through pages of a textbook. Not only was that woman abusive, but she was a terrible professor with no idea of how to teach a class. "I want to learn how to blast Potter out of the building, not read about who created what spell."

"Ah, so even you dislike her," you replied, and his lip curled. "She's absolutely horrific."

"At first, she wasn't too bad," he muttered, and you knew he was trying his best not to admit how bad she was. Mainly because he was one of the few Slytherins trying to find other students breaking her rules. "But then I saw some of her punishments and it made me feel pretty uncomfortable."

He glanced down at your hand. The white lines of scarring were still extremely visible, and although the words had blurred together to just create more of a blob, it was still clear you'd endured something nasty.

"Just wait until you're the victim of it," you laughed softly, tracing the back of your hand with your finger. "It sucked."

Draco took your hand in his and examined it, his eyebrows furrowed. "I can't believe she did that to you."

It was surprising that he was being sympathetic. Whenever you injured yourself, he laughed and teased you. Usually, you never got into serious accidents and were able to laugh it off too, Draco even making fun of you when you fell down the stairs once and broke your elbow. Although, he only did that AFTER he'd taken you to the infirmary, almost too stunned to move at first and only helping when Lucy was freaking the hell out.

"Did it... hurt?" he asked, and you raised your eyebrows at him.

"Of course it did, dumbass," you chuckled, taking your hand away and putting it in your lap, the sleeves of your robes covering it back up. "Lucy didn't suffer as badly, so hers hasn't scarred, but I had about a hundred or so lines to do. I literally had to grab dinner right after in fear of passing out."

"It's surprising you ended up in that position. She was a Slytherin too," Draco stated, and you nodded. "Although... you did curse at her."

"She's a bitch, what did you expect?" you grinned, and he almost snorted. "Fred and George have done worse, though!"

"Potter also got that same punishment," he added, and you cocked your head, wondering how he knew that. "I overheard Weaselbee and Granger talking about it. I would've laughed if I hadn't remembered you'd got the same thing done to you."

"Yeah, like I said, it's not fun," you sighed, knowing for a fact that Draco would never receive any of the punishments you'd get. Due to his high blood-status and his father's position of power (plus Umbridge's obvious bias towards him), there was no way in hell he'd get abused by her. The most he'd get is a slight slap on the wrist, and it frustrated you to the maximum. You'd also overheard the teacher-in-pink's utter dislike to 'half-breeds', including half-bloods such as yourself. "Anyway, you didn't answer my first question. Why did you want to talk to me at dinner?"

"Ah, yeah," he muttered, much quieter than he'd just been talking and a hint of colour appearing in his very pale expression. You cocked your head with your eyebrows furrowed, wondering why the hell he'd suddenly become so timid. "That."

"What's wrong?" you asked, reaching your hand out and putting it on his knee. Clearly something was on his mind, and surprisingly, he didn't swat you away this time. Instead, he placed his hand on top of yours, and he cleared his throat. "Draco?"

"You know how I asked you to the Yule Ball last year?" he asked, and you nodded, beginning to feel a bundle of butterflies appear in your stomach at the thought. You'd worn a stunning blue dress that made you look and feel like a fairy, and Draco had absolutely adored it, talking about how good his date looked for weeks on after (he hadn't planned for you to find out about it though). "Well... there was a reason for that."

"Well, I'd hope there was," you chuckled, and a small smile appeared on his face. "I was hoping you hadn't just gone 'Eh, got nobody to go with, gonna go with Y/n as a last resort'."

"Yeah, that wasn't what was going through my mind," Draco answered, unable to hide his smile from your comment. It was nice to know he found you funny and didn't just raise his eyebrows in distaste. "Look, I'm not exactly... the best at things like this but..."

He took a deep breath, looking up at you with as much confidence as he could muster and trying to maintain eye-contact (which really wasn't going well).

"Y/n, I really like you," he said, scratching the back of his neck and looking back at the ground. For someone who claimed to be so confident and acted like he was all that, he certainly wasn't. Which, of course, you didn't mind. You were glad he wasn't as cocky as he made himself to be. "Y'know, really, really like you. You're funny, cool, easy to get along with and pretty, and you're not a weirdo, which is a bonus."

You were stunned. You'd known for a while that a rumour of Draco liking you was going around, but you'd never believed it, and for him to just confess to you, just like that, was shocking. And it wasn't that you were angry with no feelings back. In fact, ever since the third year, you'd gathered feelings for him. Although small at the time, knowing Pansy absolutely adored him, they'd managed to grow a lot more, especially when he asked you to the Yule Ball.

"F-for how long?" you stammered, unable to keep your composure as your own face went almost as red as a tomato. You would've been more embarrassed if it wasn't for his last comment, which almost made you laugh.

"I dunno, maybe two years now?" he said, raising his eyebrows. "I didn't really mean to. It just happened, y'know."

"What would your father say if you were dating a half-blood?" you asked, half-joking yet half-serious. You knew Draco wasn't the biggest fan of those who weren't pure-blood, and you dreaded what his father would think about you being... well, who you were. "Would he even let you?"

Draco shrugged, a shimmer of hope in his eyes as he realised something. "Wait, we can think about that at a later date. I just need to know, do you like me too? Or, at least, what do you think of me?"

"I like you too," you mumbled, a mix of sudden shyness (that really wasn't like you) and enthusiasm in your voice. "Since our third year. I thought... you liked Pansy, though."

A wide, confident smile appeared on Draco's face, satisfied with that answer, only to pull a face of disgust at the last bit. "Absolutely not. Just because she's obsessed with me, it doesn't mean I feel the same."

You couldn't help but smile, amused by his comments at one of your friends. "Self-absorbed, much?"

"I can't help it," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "How can I not be self-absorbed when I just found out you like me back?"

You laughed out loud accidentally, making the blonde chuckle too as he watched you. There were so many more things he loved about you, including the way you laughed and the way you weren't cruel but didn't take shit from anybody, but he didn't have the confidence yet to tell you. Maybe he'd tell you another day.

However, the laughter stopped when another voice echoed down the stairs, and Draco put his hand over your mouth. Your eyes widened, noticing how close his face was to yours - he'd jumped up in surprise and done the best thing to shut you up.

"Oi, who's down there?" Filch's obnoxious voice echoed down the stairs, and Draco visibly recoiled. "You can't stay there forever. I heard you, you see, and if it was up to me, any students skipping class would be hanged upside down in my office!"

"Hex me," you whispered, and Draco raised his eyebrows in disbelief, mouthing the word 'no' as if you were insane. "I'm not about to get murdered by Umbridge. Just... I dunno, make me eat slugs or something. I can stomach it. It gives us reason to be out of class."

Draco was conflicted. If it was anyone else, he would've done it straight away. But because it was you, he really didn't have the heart to. However, Filch was coming down the stairs, and he didn't want to watch you get punished AGAIN by Umbridge. So, quietly, he took out his wand, whispered the incantation and watched as you were knocked backward. His eyes widened, and thankfully, the flash disappeared before Filch saw.

"Now, what do you two think you're doing?" he asked, a sick smile on his face as Mrs Norris peered out from behind his legs. Before either of you could answer, he continued, "You're in big trouble now. Professor Umbridge told me two of her students were missing, and I'm sure she'll give me permission to do what I want with you."

"Can't you see, you idiotic squib?" Draco exclaimed, standing up to his full height. He was taller than Filch, and although the older man wasn't intimidated, it still came off as threatening. As if on cue, you vomited up a slug, almost actually being sick at the sight and feeling of the fat thing leaving your mouth. Why the hell had you chosen that curse, out of all things? "She's sick. I was about to take her to the infirmary but due to her stupidity and clumsiness, she fell down the stairs."

"Wow, thanks," you groaned, throwing up a second slug. Draco looked at you with a sympathetic expression, but he didn't want to let down his regular attitude in fear of Filch getting suspicious. The blonde wasn't stupid, and he'd do anything to get out of trouble, which included insulting you. "I got cursed by a stupid second-year brat. When I get my hands on that little shit-"

"Oh dear, you're all going to be in a lot of trouble, aren't you?" Filch said, completely ignoring your story. You glared, only to burp up another slug and gag at how disgusting it was. Your face had gone incredibly pale and sunken, and Draco helped you up off of the floor, putting his arm around your waist as yours went over his shoulders.

"Try not to vomit on me," Draco chuckled quietly, walking straight past Filch and up the stairs. You nodded, giving him a weak smile as you tried to walk as carefully but as quickly as possible. The caretaker simply stared at the two of you, either giving up on giving you punishments or believing the story. "Also, sorry for insulting you."

"It's fine," you mumbled, more bothered about the slugs coming out of you than being called stupid. It was also quite surprising that he'd apologised; it was a rather... out-of-character thing to do for the boy. "Just get me to the infirmary. Please."

Draco nodded, feeling incredibly guilty for having to hex you, but you kept assuring him it was fine and that you'd asked for it. Although you wished you'd hexed him instead.

"I never thought I'd confess my feelings for someone and then hex them straight after," he chuckled after a while, finally reaching the infirmary. You giggled, watching as Madam Pomfrey rushed out, her expression clearly frustrated with the state you were in. "Madam, she was hit with a slug-vomiting curse from a stupid Gryffindor second-year. Is there anything you can do?"

"Not really," she answered, ushering you to one of the beds. Draco followed, watching as she passed you a large bucket as you sat down. Next to you was a Ravenclaw girl in her fourth year who'd been hit by a bludger and fallen off her broom in a game of Quidditch, and you assumed by the large cast on her leg that she'd broken a few bones. "We'll just have to wait until the effects of the curse wear off. Which should be in about ten minutes."

"Word of warning, there's quite a few slugs wandering the school grounds now," you said with a depressed grin before throwing up again. Draco grimaced, glancing from you to Madam Pomfrey, who was sighing deeply and shaking her head. "Damn, what a shame. I was so excited for Defence Against the Dark Arts too. With Professor Umbridge, as well!"

Madam Pomfrey actually laughed at that, clearly disliking the new teacher as much as you and the other students too. It was obvious that teachers such as McGonagall and Flitwick didn't like her, as Umbridge had been incredibly rude and offensive to the two of them, but for Pomfrey to show extreme distaste towards someone was surprising.

"Shame you were cursed, then," she answered, before wandering off to attend to an older Hufflepuff student who appeared to be suffering from some sort of curse. Draco sat beside you, trying to avoid looking into the bucket of slugs.

"Bad time to ask you this, but do you want to go to Hogsmede next weekend?" he asked after a minute, and you raised your eyebrows at him.

"Really?" you chuckled, vomiting again and groaning. "You decide to ask me on a date while I'm throwing up?"

"Why not?" he asked with a grin, shaking his head and wondering why he'd asked at such a stupid point. "I guess it'd be funny to other people if they asked how we started dating."

"True," you giggled, slime dribbling from your chin. This wasn't exactly the most attractive thing ever, so you were surprised Draco was even asking you out. "So... does that mean we're a thing?"

"If you want it to," he answered, and you smiled.

"Sure!" you beamed, clapping your hands together and watching a slug try to escape the bucket. "I'd love to be your girlfriend, Draco."

And with that, you vomited another slug into the bucket.

[littlemeowmeowschimmy]

Come Play [Taehyung x Reader]

credit: littlemeowmeowschimmy

Requests opened // m.list 

Werewolf:  Jungkook

Genre: Smut

Warnings: Oral (f) choking (f), slight degradation, wolf in heat, public sex, creampie

WC: 3.8k 

Summary:   Taehyung broke the rules twice but what he didn’t know was the second time around..he’d mess everything up. 

A/N: Since y’all really enjoyed JK’s, I’ve decided to write one with all seven. So, I’m slowly moving backward. Next will be Jimin’s :) 

»»————- ★ ————-««

White always seemed to bring out the best parts in Taehyung. You noticed it from afar when he came to school with a tight shirt and ripped jeans. You wouldn't openly admit it to anyone, but seeing him in such attire made you want him. 

You weren't known to be that person to step out of your comfort zone at school. Nor were you known to walk up to a person randomly; especially if they were as popular as Taehyung was. Since he started to lose all of his baby fat, people began to pay more attention to him. 

It happens rapidly, and you certainly didn't know what the hell was going on mostly because he started hanging around six other gorgeous men.  At last, it was Taehyung's senior year so that you wouldn't be seeing him around much, during the day that is at least. Since he stuck so close to the other seven, they usually came around after school. That was, everyone but Jungkook and Jimin. They were the talk of the student body. Everyone knew who was who, and who wanted to bang who.

Since you kept to yourself, you never talked to many people about it. You were in the grade between Taehyung and Jungkook. So you didn't have many classes with them, but you saw them quite often. Sometimes even locking eye contact with them. But you didn't say much to it as you only flushed and glanced away. 

Now, as you were watching Taehyung walk on the school ground, your mouth watered. Noticing how he quickly wrapped his arms around Jimin and Jungkook, pulling them in with his boxy smile painted. The way the folds of his shirt creased and stretched, showing off more of his body. 

Your eyes shifted downwards, tongue licking your lips as you were enjoying his company more than ever. Out of all the days he could have, it was this particular day he decided to wear something tight. Your heart clenched in your chest as you saw him move with his friends. This wasn't a good start to anything and hell; you were slightly terrified of yourself. 

Why? Because you were beginning your cycle. Some might say you were like a bitch in heat for how your core clenched in between your legs. You wanted someone; you needed someone to relieve your pain. That someone you wished was none other than Taehyung. 

Every single time your cycle hit, you wished it was him.

»»————- ★ ————-««

"Why are you wearing tight clothes?" Jungkook mumbles under his breath. 

"Coz it's my body, and I get to decide what goes on it," Taehyung answered honestly shrugging his shoulders. He glances over at Jimin, then back at Jungkook who both looked undoubtedly surprised that he was taking this approach to something. Then, they got a better look, and one brought a hand up; only to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

"You know Seokjin is going to get angry because you broke the rule." Jungkook answers watching as Taehyung shrugs his shoulders. Seokjin was the eldest of them all and usually made the rules then Namjoon was the leader of the pack, so he enforced them. The law that Taehyung was breaking was coming to school while in his cycle. 

Taehyung had known his entire life that he was a werewolf. The moon hadn't started playing with his body until he started high school. Now, he was like a marionette under the moon's delicate hands. In doing so, he found his pack as they came to him. Jimin was the first to find him, then the rest followed. They recently added Jungkook a few years ago, and since then, they hadn't left each other's side yet. 

Although they were in different parts of the city, they were still watching each other. The rules laid out so they could keep a low profile. Not many people believed that the supernatural was real. Plus, they didn't want to get any hunters' attention on them. 

If one of them died, the pack would feel unbalanced. They strived to make sure everyone was okay and doing well. They especially attempted to keep the pack safe with the rules they've obtained. 

"Seokjin doesn't have to know." 

"He will, at the end of the day." Jimin points out, leading them towards his lockers. 

Once again, Taehyung shrugs his shoulders. "I'll be out of here before you even notice," he mentions showing his purely whites once again. When his friends looked, both of them rolled their eyes. There were a few characteristics of an alpha wolf during their rut cycle on the human body. 

There were two characteristics, one of them being their eyes. Since everyone's color was different, it certainly depended on the individual. Taehyung's eyes usually went from a honey brown to dark chocolate. The longer in this state of rut, the darker the individual's color went, and a new color would emerge around the ring of their pupils. Usually meaning the wolf color was starting to show, which was this amber golden color. 

The second was the sharpening of the canines. When an alpha wolf went through a rut, they usually mated their partner. So, their canines would slowly appear throughout their cycle. To most outsiders, they wouldn't notice. However, to a wolf, it would be obvious. It was one part of the body that they tried to keep from the public as long as possible. 

"Why do you say that?" Taehyung muses. 

"Because unlike the rest of us," Jimin counters back. "You tend to show your rut off like you're wearing your emotions." pausing for a second to stick his tongue out and fiddle with his locker combination. "You go through the stages rather quickly in one day."

"And you're whole attire changes as well too." Jungkook points out. "You show off more of your body, attracting attention to yourself," he answers. 

"Isn't that being confident in one's self?" Taehyung argues. 

"Would you wear this if you weren't in this rut?" Jimin questions wanting to hear his friend's answer. 

"Possibly." 

"That's what we anticipated," Jungkook answers jabbing his index finger at Taehyung's chest. "You better go home." 

"Not in a million years." 

Jungkook simply shook his head in his friend’s direction. He moved himself to shut his locker and then proceeded to walk away. Taehyung stood there glancing in his friend’s direction before moving off with them. He wraps his arms around them, squeezing them tightly before Jimin simply pushes him off. 

“You’re not going to get another tattoo tonight are you?” Jimin questions changing the topic as Jungkook just shrugs his shoulders. “Coz Seokjin said that you were bringing a friend over,” he mentions.

“Oh yeah, Mike?” And that was about it before Taehyung completely zoned out of that conversation.   It was like they were completely ignoring him and he didn’t particularly enjoy that. So, he simply paused once they walked up the stairs. 

He noticed Mr.Davison in the studio and wanted to go say hello. Then he remembered that he had to discuss some kind of project with him. Which lead him to simply forget to say goodbye to his friends and act upon his own accord. 

You sat at the potters' wheel, starting to get frustrated. This was the second time this week that your cups were starting to come out crooked. How would you be able to give your teacher something beautiful for the final project if nothing was coming out right? 

You leaned back against the wall, watching the wheel slowly start to dwindle. Since you were in an advanced class, your teacher allowed the students to do whatever they wanted. You wanted to learn more about clay since it was a medium that you thrived in. With that being mentioned, your teacher, Mr.Davison, suggested that you should try the wheel. 

In doing so, he gave you a few quick lessons. Since the beginning of the semester, you sat there working on them. Yes, you had gotten better within the first couple of weeks, but as of lately, you started to lose hope. It was like your fingers didn't know what they were doing anymore. You had used a bunch of clay and even had to make a few batches yourself. 

You were starting to grow impatient, and you wanted to scrap the entire project away. Just as you were about to give up, a tall figure crossed your vision. Taehyung made his way through the classroom, heading over towards Davison's desk. Everyone knew he was going to be an artist someday, so it wasn't a surprise to see him in the studio. 

"Taehyung my boy," Davison said rather happily. He wrapped his arm around his shoulder, bringing him close in for a hug. Taehyung gave out a small laugh, hugging his teacher back. "What brings you in so early?" 

Taehyung shrugs his shoulders, moving himself back so they could have a conversation. Since you didn't bring your headphones in, you were listening to them speak. You weren't surprised that they were talking about art and the project. You undoubtedly didn't know that this class was offered twice in one week. It made you slightly upset to find that you weren't in the same class as him. 

The entire time you sat there trying not to concentrate on Taehyung and Mr.Davison. You wanted to get your project done, but each time you tried, nothing seemed to work. Out of the corner of his eye, Taehyung saw you struggling. He paused the conversation with his teacher, then walked in your direction. As he did so, your heart started to pound in his chest. 

He walks behind you, mentioning that you should slow the wheel down. He leans in, wrapping his fingers in yours. “I hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” he starts trying to explain himself. “But I wanted to show you without causing you to get up.” then proceeds to mold the clay. You weren’t paying much attention because your heart was pounding thousand times harder in your chest. 

You swore Taehyung could hear it, but it seemed like he wasn’t making any indications that he could. Instead, his breath hit your ear, causing you to shiver each time. Taehyung could see the effects he had on you and smirked to himself. Thankfully the teacher wasn’t paying you all any attention, so Taehyung felt like he could somewhat get away with it all. 

“You have to open the clay-like such,” he whispers moving his fingers with yours and then molding the piece of clay. “Then make sure it doesn’t get too wide, as we don’t want to make a bowl.” he finishes helping you mold it once more. You simply let out a shaky breath then pause as you could feel Taehyung move away. 

“Then, I’m assuming you know what to do next?” He questions, you nodded your head in his direction. Taehyung gave a boxy smile, one that made his eyes disappear for a split second. You quickly looked down, not wanting to make eye contact with him. Then, he proceeded to walk towards the sink, where Davison met up with him again. Their conversation-starting all over as you were left shaking in your seat. 

For the rest of the day, Taehyung seemed to bump into you. Asking how things were and seeming like he was genuinely interested in you. This made you suspicious at first, but once you started to discuss with him more, you couldn’t help but feel somewhat attached. This continued for not only the rest of the week but for the rest of the month. That was until Taehyung stopped you in the middle of the hall one afternoon. 

He asked if you wanted to head down to the auditorium with him. You agreed too whole heartily, striking a conversation up as you walked. Once entering, you noticed the lights were off, except for on the stage. As you walked forwards with him, he grew silent. 

You grew anxious as you didn’t know exactly what was going on in his head. Once standing at the bottom, he turned to grasp your attention. This time, you noticed how his eyes weren’t the same color as they used to be. This time, they were more amber-like than anything else. You were curious as to what was going on with him, but you didn’t want to ask any invasive questions. 

“Y/n,” he spoke breaking eye contact. “I uh..I don’t know how to put this.” he continues. 

“Well, get straight to the point right? Rip the bandaid off.” You joked hoping that he wouldn’t take that advice at all. But, Taehyung didn’t see the warning signs and actually ripped the bandaid off. 

“I really want to fuck..” 

Wait what? 

»»————- ★ ————-««

How did this happen? Why was this happening? And why were you not afraid of getting caught? 

It didn't take you long to be convinced. If you were going to fuck one of the hottest men in school, you were going to get right on it. Taehyung took your hand and led you backstage. The bell for the eighth period rang, and his hands were already moving down your sides. 

The rational part of your brain was telling you that this wasn't right. The school was still in session and you two where ultimately skipping your eighth period. God, what was your mother going to say when she found out? You were telling yourself to push him off, but when his lips connected with your skin, that was enough to make you fold. 

His fingers glide against the fabric of your blouse, his nose pressing into the side of your neck. He puffs out a small bit of air, then pulls back. His eyes glowed for a split second, and you swore you were going crazy. But that was instantly pushed aside when Taehyung leaned in and kissed you. His lips were soft, but the kiss itself was rough. 

Taehyung moves your body up to have your hips press against his rotating ones. He was grinding against you, and boy could you feel his length. You wanted to squeak under his kiss, but since you were so caught up in it, you only moaned. This let out a low growl and a sharp pain on your lip a moment later. When Taehyung pulled back, he had a little bit of blood on his lower lip. 

Then, you brought your fingers up to press against your own. You were feeling the sting of a small wound as well as your finger soaking up some blood. As Taehyung smiled, you noticed his canines were just a little sharper than before, but you passed it off as usual. Was it normal, right? 

"I..I don't think we should be here." You whispered, the rational side of your brain slowly starting to take over. Taehyung wasn't focusing on your words. Instead, he focused on your body and how it moved under his touch. 

"Then where would you like to go?" he whispers, his voice lowering a few octaves. He snaps the band of your skirt against your waist. You gave a small cry, moving your hands to grip your shirt tightly. Taehyung glances in between your size and eyes wanting to see how far he could take this.

"I..I don't know." You stutter trying to be careful when you bit your lower lip. 

Taehyung notices this and then pauses in his movements. He opens his mouth, then shuts it again as he was trying to think things through. Almost immediately afterward, he leans forward. This time, he is pressing his palm in between your legs as his head moves slightly to the right. He could feel your excesses soaking through the fabric of your underwear.

You gasp, pushing back against him and trying not to lock eye contact with him. 

"If you can't think of anywhere else," he whispers cocking his head to the right.

"Then, you don't mind if I touch you now, do you?"

You answered simply by shaking your head. Giving him your concent and watching his flirtatious grin spread. Taehyung moves back, lifting your skirt and pulling your underwear down. He spreads your legs, shifting himself in between them. 

Then, opening his mouth, he plants open-ended kisses all around. He was noticing how your body twitched when he hit your bud and entrance. Wetting his lips, Taehyung leans inwards. He flattens his tongue against your clit, his hands gripping your waist, so your hips don't rotate. He wanted you to feel the pressure of his tongue without any friction. It drove you completely insane. 

Why? 

Because you couldn't move, you had to feel his weight against your bud, the nerve endings screaming for him to do something. Your grip tightened on your shirt, chest starting to rise and fall quickly. It was only when Taehyung rotates his tongue around, did you let out a puff of air you didn't realize you held. 

Then, Taehyung was merciless. He was raking his teeth against your bud, sucking on it and even softly biting. It was like he was drinking you and couldn't get enough by how quickly his tongue worked. He also brought a hand up to wrap around your mouth as your moans were slowly starting to get louder. Both your hands moved up to grip his wrist, nails digging into his skin. 

With one arm, Taehyung wraps it around your waist, pulling you back on his tongue. Fucking you over and over as he could tell you were getting close to your end. Everything happened so quickly; you almost didn't remember cumming all over his cock. 

Right before you were about to end, Taehyung immediately pulled himself back. His hand was still pressing firmly against your mouth as his other was working on his jeans. It was like he was tearing the fabric apart, trying to release the pressure. 

You hadn't given him any lubrication, nor did he have a condom. Your eyes widened at the sight of his length in all its glory. His red swollen tip was leaking precum, and veins were popping out on the sides. He spreads your legs just a little more, then says in a harsh growl. 

"This is going to hurt." he pauses then groans. "A lot." breaking again, then only to line himself up and thrusts in. Your body shook against how one simple thrust was enough to get you cumming. Taehyung wasn't kidding when he said it was going to hurt, because it did. The sting of your walls stretching with little to no lubrication made you want to cry. He noticed this and reached up to wipe away any stray tears. 

To make some amends, Taehyung sat there inside. Allowing your body not only to adjust itself. He slightly rotates his hips, using his lower back strength while one hand helped steady himself. 

"Tae.." his nickname falling from your lips. This perks Taehyung's attention as his dark eyes meet your half-lidded ones. One eyebrow rose, watching as you snaked one hand up to the back of his neck. Pushing his head down to brush your lips against his. "Please move..this whole cock warming thing isn't enough." 

"If you say, sweets," he answers, shifting his hips and pushing back. You groaned at the small amount of friction. 

"God you're so tight.." he grumbles cocking his head slightly to the side. Your body was starting to heat all over again because his cock was getting into places you hadn't touched in a while. You moved your head to the side, exposing your neck to him as heat rises to your cheeks again. Taehyung noticed this and paused for a second as he was trying to hold himself back. 

He didn't want to let himself completely loose. He had already lost the battle when smelling you, then tasting you. Now, since he was inside of you, it was hard for him to control himself. 

"Fuck me." you whisper the words sending a shiver down his back. Taehyung was trying not to let his wolf take over. He already gave you somewhat of a taste when he ate you out. But at these two small words, it was enough to break him. 

Taehyung's eyes glowed a bright gold as another deep growl emerged from his throat. He leans in, wrapping his lips around the crook of your neck and biting. When he does so, his hips move faster. The lewd sound in between your legs was enough to distract the pain of his bite.

Taehyung angles your hips again after pulling back. Now having your shoulders against the cold wooden tiles as he fucks you from a new position. This time, getting deeper than before. 

"Would you shut up?" He growls, placing a hand over your mouth as once again, your moans started to get louder. "We don't want to get caught now do we princess?" he snarls thrusting into you particularly hard at "princess." 

You shook your head, tears welding from the corners of your eyes as this was more than you could have asked. He chuckles, bringing his hand down from your mouth to your neck, squeezing it tightly. Grasping for air, your eyes widened almost instantly. Who knew you'd enjoy getting choked...

Then you felt it again — your pussy clenching around his cock and your stomach tightening. You felt him start to twitch inside, your panicked mind racing. But it was quickly overthrown by your sexual side. You wanted all of him. You wanted him to cum inside you, to feel his seed filling you to the brim. 

Once again, you felt yourself go in and out. The second orgasm was just as powerful, if not more than your first. You clenched around his length; you let out a choked cry. Taehyung let one out as well as he tried to control himself from biting you again. 

In a split second, he pulls himself out and back from you; as his seed spills from his swollen tip. Most of it hitting the floor as the rest of it ran down his length. You got up on your elbows, watching him finish in front of you. Taehyung then blinks a couple of times before looking at your body. 

He sat there as something washed over his system. Taehyung had never felt like this before; it was almost like he was seeing you for the first time. Then, he noticed the half-crescent along the crook of your neck. 

What had he done...