#as I was halfway through reading it I realized 'oh my god it's just going to be the exact same chapter over and over'. and it was

[anodymalion]

Your tags made me curious what book you would unrecommend 👀

lol yes. So I had a hard time coming up with a book fitting that prompt because usually even for books I dislike I wouldn't completely unrecommend them. There are trashy substanceless books that are still pretty enjoyable to read in the moment, and there are deeply unenjoyable books that have important things to say, and both of those things are worthwhile. I've also read plenty of books I disliked, but feel they could work for other people. And even when I hate a book usually I feel it still teaches something useful about the craft of writing. Like, I've posted on here before about how much I hated Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke - but I think it's still valuable as an example of how not to write a horror book. I mean, I disliked it so much I had to spite write an entire essay for myself about how awful I thought it was just to get the book out of my mind. But there is still a value in that even if the value is "please learn from this book's mistakes so you never ever write something this bad".

So I feel to match the prompt of being truly unrecommendable it has to be not only something bland, badly written, boring and substanceless, but it also must have absolutely nothing to learn from about your own reading and writing preferences. It has to be a nothing of a book. It has to be a total waste of time.

Anyway it's This Is How You Lose The Time War

[scificrows]

#and the song references the greek shield on the album cover which shows justice leading a soldier #saying I will bring this man back and he will have his city and move freely in his father's halls (op how could you leave this in the tags!!!)

the mountain goats’ new song fresh tattoo is soooo breq/seivarden coded like

very “picking up a half-dead soldier off the street and dragging her along on your quest for justice” core

[astrcmoni]

✮⋆˙⭒NIGHTS LIKE THIS✮⋆˙⭒

CHAPTER I: ALL HAIL NIGHTRIDER

pairing: street racer!reader x billie eilish

MASTERLIST

warnings- cussing, drug use (weed), scorches (something fell on you and lightly and briefly burned you, that’s really it.)

wc: 3.7k…damn

authors note: this is my first actual fic on here and i’m nervous as hell to publish it. let me know what y’all think. also anyone can read this (reader is fem tho i forgot to put that) like reader is not heavily described only physical descriptions would be through family descriptions.

“Dude, where the hell am I supposed to go?” Billie’s voice was almost swallowed by the bustling crowd as she called out to her friend on the phone.

“I said—” Her friend’s voice was distorted, breaking up as the connection faltered. Between the weak signal, the endless chatter of people crowding around her, and the constant bumping of bodies as she waded through the sea of strangers, Billie was overstimulated and ready to turn around and go home.

She raised her phone high in the air, stretching her arm up in a desperate attempt to catch a stronger signal. She stood like that for a good minute, nudging into people who glared or muttered curses under their breath. Her frustration melted into relief when she felt a hand grasp her forearm, spinning her around.

“God, there you are man.” she exhaled in relief when she realized it was her friend. “I’ve been literally shouting at my phone like i’m insane. People keep fucking staring at me,” she added, casting side-eyes at the annoyed faces around her as she moved closer to her best friend.

“Well, I’ve got you now, so let’s just go,” her friend laughed, wrapping an arm around Billie’s shoulders and steering her through the throng of people to where the rest of the group was gathered.

They came to a halt in front of a crooked, black wire fence embedded into the patchy grass and dirt. The track lay just beyond, close enough that she could see the dust and rubble scattered on the pavement.

Billie’s breath hitched as she stared out at the cars lined up on the track. She leaned against the fence, eyes wide and mouth agape, taking in every gleaming detail—some vehicles boasted flashy modifications, while others were classic models still in their original forms. Her excitement and awe were almost childlike, as if she were experiencing the best Christmas of her life.

“How much are you betting?” one of her friends asked, snapping her out of her trance.

“Huh?” Billie replied, still entranced by the sight before her, eyes glistening under the bright floodlights.

“I said, who are you betting on and how much? I might match it,” the friend whispered as if it were a closely guarded secret.

“Uh—shit, man, I don’t know. Lemme see.”

Her gaze swept over the cars lined up from back to front, her eyes scanning each driver hanging around their vehicles—likely waiting for the race to start. And then, she spotted it. You.

Or rather, your car.

A smooth, lustrous, sable-black custom GT500 sat front and center. The tires glowed faintly in a soft lilac hue, casting a mesmerizing light over the soot-covered terrain. A raven, intricately engraved on the back right side of the car, shimmered with deep violet accents, giving the vehicle an almost ethereal quality.

You sat at the very front of the starting line, so close to the crowd that if you focused, you could catch snippets of their conversations. Your windows, tinted so dark no one could see inside, were rolled down halfway, allowing the warm glow of lights from the track and your car’s interior to cast delicate shadows across your face. Soft music drifted from the vehicle, mingling with the cacophony of the streets.

‘To take my love away, when I come back around, will I know what to say?’

Billie’s eyes widened and her heart jumped a little when she realized what song was playing softly from your car. She knew that song. The melody, the lyrics—it was Chihiro.

Her song.

“Oh my God, Zoe, she’s playing my song!” she blurted out excitedly.

“Who? Billie, who?”

“Her, right there in the black car.”

“The one with the bird?”

“Yes, the one with the fucking bird.”

“Can you tell who it is?”

“Uh…no.” Billie squinted, trying to make out your face, but all she could see was your hair cascading down your back in a cascade of purple and grey highlights. You seemed engrossed in something in your lap, brows furrowed in concentration.

Your car chimed as the door opened and rocked slightly as someone climbed into the passenger seat. The radio’s bass thrummed louder into the night as the beat dropped along with the chorus.

“Oh my God, you’re still rolling up? This is why I get pre-rolls,” the passenger teased, irritation lacing their tone as they glanced at you. The irritation in her voice made you smirk, but you kept your eyes on the blunt you were carefully twisting between your fingers.

You lifted your head, resting your elbow on the armrest. “But they don’t look as pretty as this one, now do they?” you teased back, handing over the blunt you’d been working on. The passenger rolled her eyes but took it from you, holding it delicately in the air inspecting it.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” she grumbled. Her long acrylic nails clicked against the blunt as she placed it in her mouth with practiced ease and sparked it up with a flick of her lighter. The cherry of the blunt glowed a vibrant ember in the dim light as she inhaled.

Her red and black racing suit, with the name Blaze stitched onto the left sleeve, fit snugly against her frame. Silky, pressed black hair, highlighted with streaks of red and pink, fell to her upper back in waves and curls, framing her sun-kissed face. Her slender brown eyes gleamed with a look of concern as she exhaled, the scent of weed wafting through the car.

A ping sounded from your phone, drawing you back in. You picked it up, eyes narrowing at the notification:

11 new messages from Mom

“You good?” she asked, leaning over to glance at your screen.

“No. It’s my mom again. She’s been blowing up my phone ever since I left this morning.” You sighed and took the blunt from her hand, not caring about the remnants of her sticky lip gloss left on the wrap. You knew your lips would leave the same trace. She took your phone, unlocking it without hesitation. You knew she’d handle it while you leaned back, taking a long drag, your gaze drifted to the night sky, watching how the stars shimmered against the inky backdrop.

“I keep thinking that this is a bad dream, and that if I try hard enough, I just might wake up,” you murmured.

“Yeah, well, this sad-ass music isn’t helping,” she joked. As if on cue, the next track started—an upbeat tempo that vibrated through the car’s interior. your heart beat matched as the bass trembled throughout your body. ej bounced in her seat, trying to lighten the mood.

“Uht-uh,” you protested, disconnecting your phone from the Bluetooth. “Don’t go changing my shit. My car, my music. You know the rules. Besides, it’s not sad.”

“Yes, it is. That’s like Billie Eilish’s whole schtick, isn’t it?” she scoffed. “Oh, by the way, she’s here.”

“Who?” You turned to look at her, confused.

“Billie. Eilish. The singer. She’s right over there,” she said, pointing.

You leaned over her, eyes darting around the crowd. “Where? I don’t see her.” All you saw were the flag bearers collecting extra bets on the side, cash being shuffled and tossed in baskets.

“Wait, what? Where?”

“Over there—” She pointed, and you leaned over her, eyes darting around.

“Oh my god, girl, she’s *right over there*!” your friend shouted, exasperated.

Hearing this, Billie looked over. Blue eyes met yours. EJ’s shout of frustration caught Billie’s attention, and her gaze drifted back to your car. She lifted her hand in a tentative wave, offering a soft smile.

Your eyes widened in panic. Instead of waving back, both you and EJ ducked, bumping into your friend in the process, shouting curses at each other. The forgotten blunt fell into your lap, searing through your suit and burning you in the process.

“Ah—damn it,” you muttered, picking it up and handing it to her. Her soft hands brushed against yours as she took it, putting it out and storing the remnants in a container before stuffing it in the glove compartment.

“You looked so rude. You should’ve waved back.” EJ chided, side-eyeing you.

“Shut up,” you muttered, reconnecting your phone to the car. The opening notes of “Goosebumps” by Travis Scott filled the space, the beat thrumming through your body.

“Listen, I get that you’re going through a lot right now, but I need you to lock the fuck in. You need that money, and I’d hate to see you lose.”

“I know. I’ve got it. Don’t worry.”

“Good, ‘cause it’d be a shame for me to wipe the floor with your ass. You’ll be begging for mercy when we’re done.” Her sudden switch to competitiveness made you laugh.

The sight of the flag girl approaching your car caught your attention. You watched as your friend climbed out and into her own car. The flag bearer checked to make sure you were set before returning to her position at the starting line.

“Ready, Rider?”

Even though you were wearing your riding gear, the hairs on your body stood up as the crisp breeze snuck through the open window and washed over you. Your arm dangled out of the car, fingers loosely tapping against the exterior, while your other hand gripped the steering wheel firmly. The hum of your car vibrated through your entire being, a calming rhythm that matched the beat of your heart. Around you, the other drivers started revving up their engines, plumes of smoke and gas curling up into the air, mixing with the noise of the restless crowd.

"As ready as I can be." you called out, turning your gaze to your best friend and rival. Her car was parked right beside yours—an M4 F82 that was as sleek and black as the night sky. Its red headlights burned like fiery eyes glaring through the darkness like a beast ready to pounce, and the rims, designed into the shape of hearts, shone brightly against the pavement.

You remembered how she’d insisted on having them when you guys went to pick out your first racing cars. “Because I’m ‘just a girl’ ” she’d declared, sticking up her middle finger at the guys who laughed at her. She’d never cared what anyone thought, not when she’d made them eat their words in nearly every race, leaving them in the dust while looking good doing it.

The hum of motors built into a crescendo as everyone continued to rev their engines, the anticipation and excitement electrifying the brisk night air.

“Is everyone ready?” The flag bearer stepped in front of the starting line, checkered flags poised high in the air. Shouts of agreement and cheers erupted from the crowd, adding to the energy of the moment.

You hovered your foot over the gas pedal, adrenaline coursing through your veins.

“Ready.”

You glanced at the starting line, taking a deep breath as your fingers tightened around the wheel. Eyes closed, you drew in a deep breath, focusing. All the energy, anger, and frustration from earlier started bubbling up to the surface.

“Set.”

With your eyes shut, the words from this morning's argument with your parents flashed through your mind:

“You’ll never be like him.”

“Racing isn’t something you can do forever.”

“You need to fix your shit. This hobby will get you nowhere.”

“You’ve become such a disappointment. What happened to you? Where did I go wrong?”

All that pain, all that bitterness—you channeled it, letting it fuel you.

“Go!”

The words barely left her mouth before your eyes flew open. For a brief moment, the world went still and everything seemed to fall away. It was just you, your car, and the road. Your foot pressed down on the gas pedal, and you took off, the lilac lights on your car morphing into an intense, inky purple as your tires gripped the pavement.

You felt weightless, like a feather caught in the wind, as you accelerated, the track lights casting an ethereal glow over the cars. The world blurred around you, every twist and turn coming effortlessly, your hands moving as if on instinct.

A constant ringing broke through your focus. Your phone vibrated repeatedly, the lit screen showing multiple notifications. You took a quick glance, irritation flaring up as you scrolled through them.

- 5 new missed calls from Mom

- 20 new texts from Fam GC

- 2 new voicemails from Mama J

- 3 new texts from Dad

Your fingers hovered over the voicemail from Mama J, your heart tightening as you reluctantly hit play.

“Hey sweetheart. Now I don’t know what’s happening between you and your parents, but they’re blowing up my phone, asking about you…” You rolled your eyes in annoyance. Typical of them to involve someone else when you refused to entertain their bullshit. “I’m not trying to get in between this, but what I will say is that you need to call them people. Or at least call your mother and stop running away fr—”

You turned off your phone and tossed it back into the passenger seat, jaw clenched in frustration. You loved your Mama J, but you weren’t in the mood to hear any more of that nonsense. Not now, not during this. You got enough of it from your parents, you don’t need to hear it from your godmother either.

Your grip on the wheel tightened as your chest rose and fell with deep, heavy breaths. The fight with your parents played on a loop in your head, every word an echo that grew louder and more taunting.

‘Look, all I’m saying is that I don’t understand why you continue to choose racing when you know how I feel about it—how we feel about it.’

‘Ma, I get where you’re coming from,but—‘

‘I’m telling you right now, you will get nothing from this. You already have a good job—why must you go and ruin it by doing this foolish nonsense?’

“Fuck this. Like, actually fuck them.” You muttered the words aloud, forgetting for a moment that the line was still open, and your best friend, EJ, was listening on the other end.

“Yo, are you good? Like actually?” Her voice was laced with concern, crackling through the car’s speakers and snapping you back to reality.

“Y-yeah, I think so. Why?”

“Because you’re falling so behind that Nick is beating you. Mind you he literally can’t race for shit. Girl, c’mon!”

“Fuck,” you cursed under your breath, eyes darting to the rearview mirror. Sure enough, you were lagging behind. The other drivers had taken advantage of your distraction, speeding past and leaving you in the dust.

“And stop worrying about what my mama said. She’s just playing messenger. We’ll handle it when we get home, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” You nodded even though she couldn’t see you, your foot pressing down harder on the gas pedal.

“It will be okay, just hurry your ass up.”

The car lurched forward as you pushed it to its limits, the rush of adrenaline pumping through your blood like fire. Everything else melted away—the arguing voices in your head, the messiness of the family drama—all of it evaporated, leaving just you and the open road. You swerved expertly between cars, dodging obstacles and maneuvering through sharp turns, the wind roaring in your ears.

This—right here, right now—this was freedom. This was why you kept coming back, no matter how bad things got. The thrill, the speed, the way your heart seemed to beat in time with the roar of your engine. It made all the god forsaken bullshit in your life disappear, if only for a little while.

The white of the finish line came into view, a grin breaking across your face as you accelerated one last time, crossing it just seconds before anyone else.

You’d placed first.

You pressed on the brakes, heart pounding wildly as you let out a shaky breath, leaning back in your seat.

“Congrats! See what happens when you block out the bullshit and focus?” EJ’s voice rang out as she parked beside you, hopping out and pulling you into a hug.

The two of you leaned against the hood of your car, laughing and catching your breath, your excitement palpable. You could hear someone shouting your name, prompting you to look around until your eyes landed on the culprit.

“What the fuck, dude,” she whispered to her best friend as she stared in awe.

“What?” Zoe asked, glancing back and forth between you and Billie. “Billie, you’ve been staring at her all night. Let’s just go say hey.” she wrangled with the gate until she got it open.

“I did though. I waved, and she hid from me,” Billie grumbled, but Zoe ignored her, practically dragging her over to where you were standing.

You turned and your eyes locked with Billie’s for the second time that night. This time, she took you in fully, studying every detail—the way your eyes gleamed under the lights, how your glossed lips shone, and the soft cascade of purple and grey streaks of hair framing your face.

“Oh my god, Zoe, is that you?” You greeted Zoe first, pulling her into a tight hug as the two of you exchanged a few words. Then, you turned your gaze back to Billie, offering a small smile.

“Who’s your friend here?” you asked, nodding towards Billie.

“Sorry, this is my best friend, Billie.”

“Well, hi Billie,” you said, your tone gentle and welcoming. The way her name rolled off your lips made Billie’s stomach do a little flip. You kept your gaze steady, not once breaking eye contact. “How’d you enjoy the race?”

“I really liked it.” Billie smiled softly, but before she could say more, Zoe chimed in.

“This is her first race. I practically had to drag her here.”

“Really?” You tilted your head, curiosity piqued. “Well, I’m glad you came. Who’d you bet on?”

“I didn’t get a chance. The race started too soon. But if I could’ve, it would’ve been you. Your car looked sweet as hell.” She rocked on her heels, trying to keep her cool, but you could tell she was nervous. It was cute.

“Thanks, I appreciate the support.”

She shrugged casually, but her eyes lingered on your face. “It’s whatever.”

“Is there something on my face?” You laughed, wiping at your cheeks just in case.

“No, no,” she stammered, shaking her head. “It’s just… you’re so gorgeous.”

The compliment caught you off guard, and you couldn’t stop the smile that stretched across your face, even though you tried to play it off. “Oh my god, girl, stop playing.”

“I’m serious,” she insisted, stepping closer.

“Could say the same about you, pretty.”

“Really?” Billie’s eyebrow quirked. “Because it didn’t seem like it when you hid from me earlier.”

“Shit, you saw that?” You asked, rubbing the back of your neck. “I normally would’ve waved back, but I got—I don’t know—scared, I guess. Well, not scared—” You trailed off, looking up at the night sky, searching for the right word as her laughter rang out. Hearing her laugh threw you off, causing a small grin to creep up on your face. “Okay, whatever the fuck the word is,” you muttered, giving up with a light chuckle of your own. “But... I’m sorry.”

“Nah, don’t sweat it. it was kinda cute.” Billie’s eyes did another slow sweep over your frame, lingering on every detail like she was trying to commit it to memory.

“Stop looking at me like that, bro.”

“Like what?”

“Like that.” You shook your head, glancing away as if that’d hide the heat creeping up your cheeks and the way your smile stretched wider every second. You turned your gaze back, realizing something. “Where’s Zoe?” She was supposed to be around somewhere, helping you avoid embarrassing yourself too much with your obvious—and very clumsy—flirting. But she was nowhere in sight.

Your eyes swept over the parking lot until you finally spotted her lounging on the hood of EJ’s car, chatting it up with your best friend.

“Hey, uh—do you maybe wanna take my car for a ride?” you blurted out, shifting your weight between your feet.

Billie’s eyes widened, surprise flashing across her face. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, why not? It’ll just be a few minutes.”

She wandered over, running her fingers along the sleek lines of your car, eyes alight with curiosity. “Damn, this is really something,” she murmured almost to herself, voice low. A small whistle escaped her as she took in the intricate details and custom work. You were just about to toss her the keys when—

*Woop Woop*

The sound of sirens pierced through the air. Blue and red lights started flooding the lot, casting sharp, flickering shadows everywhere.

“Fuck. Okay, y’all need to get out of here. Now.” Your voice was rushed as you bolted back to the driver’s side.

“EJ, I’ll meet you at your house,” you shouted, throwing yourself into your seat and jamming the key into the ignition. The roar of your engine masked the rising panic around you. “Zoe’s got my number,” you called out to Billie over the commotion. “She’ll give it to you, and we can talk about that ride later!” That was the last thing you managed to say before you and everyone else peeled out of the lot, tires screeching against the pavement as a sea of cop cars closed in fast.

Billie stood there, frozen, eyes locked on your car as you sped away. The flashing red and blue lights reflected off her pale face, her expression caught somewhere between awe and disbelief. Zoe had to physically drag her back, yanking her arm until she stumbled out of her daze.

“C’mon, we have to go now!”

You glanced into your rearview mirror, catching one last glimpse of Billie as she stood rooted to the spot, staring after you. Zoe tugged her along, but she kept looking back, even as the sirens blared louder and the chaos around them spiraled.

There was no way EJ wouldn’t hear every single detail about tonight. If she thought you weren’t about to gush for the next few hours, she was just plain wrong.

authors note: part 2? if so comment something to let me know if you want to be on the taglist! love and light, be safe <3 -vay

[bingbongsupremacy]

Notice Me

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Reader

Warning: Reader wears a dress, cursing

Summary: You really want Steve to notice you. What you don't realize is that Eddie's been there all along.

Eddie is only 1 yr older than the reader.

*Not Proof Read*

Ok, I had a bit of a brain block halfway through writing this one. I hope it's not too noticeable. I hope you guys enjoy it! Thanks for reading!

□□□□□□□□

" I don't think I've ever seen you in a dress. " Jeff states with a mouthful of sandwich.

" I'm trying something different. " I set my tray down across from the guy. " Why, does it look bad? "

" No, just different. " Eddie adds in, a smile on his face.

God, I love that smile. Stop. Don't make it weird. He doesn't like you. Besides, what if it makes things in the friend group weird? It's better to date someone outside of the group like Steve.

Across the room I spot the boy in my thoughts. Steve is chatting away with some of the guys on his team, oblivious to my gaze. He's not bad looking. Definitely not Eddie, but not hard on the eyes.

I tear my gaze away from the boy only to discover Eddie looking at me. He glances back at the table I was looking at and then down at my clothes, his eyebrows quirking in realization. He doesn't say anything, opting to instead keep listening to Doug talk about one of the past campaigns.

Halfway through lunch I begin to pack up my things.

" Where are you going? " Eddie asks curiously, cutting off Jeff.

" The business club. They have meetings second half of lunch every Tuesday. " I don't necessarily want to go but Steve's really active in it and I figured it might be a good place to try to get to know him.

Eddie's brows furrow in confusion. " Since when are you interested in business? "

" Since yesterday when I joined. " I roll my eyes. " What is this, an interrogation? "

" Just curious. " Eddie stands up, pulling his jacket off of the back of his chair. " I'll walk you. "

" Sure. It's not thar far. "

We head out of the lunch room together in the direction the business classroom.

" Hey, don't get mad at me, " Eddie begins slightly nervously. " But are you doing all of this, " He gestures to my clothes and the room down the hall. " for Harrington? "

I feel heat rise to my cheeks. I had hoped no one would notice. " What makes you say that? " I try to act calmly.

Eddie shrugs and shoves his hands into his pockets. " Dunno maybe because...you're dressed like every other girl in the school, you joined the club he's the president of and I saw you at his basketball game last night. You hate basketball. "

" I don't hate basketball...I just don't particularly enjoy or understand it. " I say while stopping in front of the classroom. Inside lots if kids are sitting around the tables, waiting for Steve to talk.

Eddie rolls his eyes. " You hate basketball. So you're doing all this for a guy? Why? Because you like him? "

My eyes widen. I clamp my hand over his mouth, pulling the boy away from the open door. " Shut the fuck up, Eddie. Someone could hear you. " I hiss. I move my hand away from his soft lips.

I wonder how it would feel to kiss-Stop.

I step away from the guy, needing to create some distance between us.

" Look, personally I don't think it's a good idea to do what you're doing. " Eddie begins. " But it's your life. Whatever. Listen, " Eddie pulls out a folded slip of paper from his ripped jeans. " the band landed a gig at The Hideout next Friday and I'd really love if you'd come watch. " He unfolds the paper to reveal a printed poster of the band and the bar name.

" Oh fuck yeah, Eddie!! I knew you'd land a gig! " I exclaim while wrapping the boy into a hug. " I'm so fucking proud of you, dude. I'll be there, I swear. "

Eddie wraps his warm arms around me. The faint smell of weed and cheap cologne fills my nostrils, a smell that's just so Eddie.

His face is so close to mine. I can feel his breath on my cheek. If I lean a little I could just k-Stop it. He doesn't like you like that. You're just a friend.

" I should be getting inside. " I pull away, needing to create some distance between us to clear my head.

Eddie gives me a small wave good bye.

I step into the classroom and take a seat at one of the tables. This is going to be boring as shit.

The club meeting seems to take forever to finish up. I don't understand half of what anyone is saying nor am I very interested in finding out what it means. By the end, I'm very happy when the end of lunch bell rings.

I begin to pack up my things when I notice Steve walking towards me.

" Hey! Are you new to the club? " He asks kindly. His smile is wide and friendly. He extends a hand.

I shake his hand and smile back. " Yeah, actually! I joined yesterday. "

" Well, it's always nice to see a new face. I'm Steve. I don't think we've ever officially met. Are you in my next hour math class? "

I nod. " I am, yeah! I'm Y/N by the way. "

Steve grabs his backpack from one of the tables as we walk towards the door. " Is it cool if I walk with you then? "

" Of course. "

Steve's actually pretty nice. Very smart too. He has a bit of a reputation of being a bully, especially around Tommy, but so far I can't see it.

He helps math pass by a lot faster, especially since he understands the concepts a lot more than me.

" Are you free this Thursday? " Steve asks.

That's the day we play DND. Shit

But who knows if I'll get another opportunity with Steve like this.

" Yeah. " I nod, jotting down an answer on my homework. " Why? "

" Well, a few of my friends and I are going Donny's Diner after school to hang out. You're welcome to come if you'd like. "

I'm so torn. Eddie or Steve? Well, there's always another campaign next week. Who knows if Steve will invite me out again.

" Sounds like fun. I'll be there. "

********

" Come on, Y/N. This is 7 millionth time you've canceled on plans with us in two weeks. Is loverboy really that important? " Eddie's voice is slightly annoyed.

" Relax, Ed. It's only been 2 times. I promise I'll go to the next movie night, I swear. "

Eddie sighs. " You better. I miss hanging out with you, who else am I supposed to make snide comments with? "

" What about Gareth? "

" Gareth's not at peak humor like you are. "

A soft 'hey' makes its way through my phone.

" I'll be there next time. " I feel bad for ditching our monthly movie night, but Steve invited me to a party.

" Are you still coming to the gig on Friday? " Eddie asks hopefully.

" I wouldn't miss it for the world. "

Eddie and I end our phone call just in time for Steve and Nancy to show up.

I've actually had a lot of fun with Steve and his friends the past few weeks. I'm not the biggest fan of Tommy and Carol, but Nancy and Barb aren't that bad.

" Are you coming to the game on Friday? " Nancy asks while handing me a beer.

Eddie's gig's on Friday.

" What time is it? " I ask while taking a sip of the amber liquid.

" Varsity starts and 7 and ends at 8-8:30. We're all planning on going to Donny's after. You should come. " Nancy invites with a warm smile.

Corroded Coffin plays at 10. If I'm careful, I should be able to make it.

" I'll be there. "

I just really have to keep track of time.

******

" I can't believe you shot from that far, that was amazing. " I compliment Steve in awe.

Steve smiles widely. " I honestly can't believe it either. I'm still in shock. "

I'm glad I came out tonight. I didn't really understand the game but it's been nice to talk to Steve and the others. Although, I feel like I might've forgotten something.

Eddie.

" Shit. " I blurt, my eyes widening. I look over at the clock on the diner wall. 10:40. " I've got to go. " I hurry out of the diner booth I'm in.

" Is everything alright? " Steve asks in confusion.

" I forgot I had to do something tonight. " I explain quickly. " Thank you guys for inviting me, I'll see you later. " I excuse myself. I quickly pay my tab with the waitress before heading out to my bike. Thank god I chose to bring to with me instead of taking a ride with Steve. There's no way I could make it to The Hide Out on foot.

Eddie's going to kill me. I can't believe I forgot about tonight.

I pull up to the bar to see the guys loading up the back of Eddie's van. Shit, I missed it.

Eddie doesn't acknowledge me as I pull my bike to a stop a few feet away from the band.

" I'm so sorry, guys. " I apologize to Jeff, Gareth and Doug who are closest to me.

" T's fine. " Gareth mumbles. " Eddie's the one who's pissed. "

Over his shoulder, I can hear Eddie curse as he drops a box of cords on the street floor.

" You should go talk to him. We'll give you guys space. We've got stuff to clean up inside anyway. " Jeff leads the guys back into the bar leaving me and Eddie alone outside.

Part of me wishes they were still here. I'm fucking terrified to talk to Eddie. I know I let him down. I just hope I didn't fuck everything up.

" I'm sorry, Edd-"

Eddie cuts me off. " You promised. " He stands up from his place by the fallen box of cords, his eyes filled with anger and hurt. " You fucking promised, Y/N. You said you'd be here. You missed the whole fucking thing! "

" I'm sorry, I lost track of time. I went to dinner with Steve and his friends and I-"

Eddie lets out a bitter chuckle. " Of course, you were with Steve. When aren't you with Steve? It's like you've completely forgotten that you have other friends. "

" Thanks not true! " I argue, beginning to feel defensive. " I hang out with you guys all the time. "

" Bullshit. You've blown us off every chance you've gotten to. " Eddie tosses the cords into the back of his van, quickly moving to pick up the rest of his stuff.

He's not wrong. I hadn't realized how many times I'd stood the boys up. How many times I'd stood Eddie up.

" I don't even know you anymore, Y/N. " Eddie's voice is soft but full of hurt. " You've become a completely different person. Your style, your interests. "

" I'm allowed to change, Eddie. "

" The problem is you're not changing because it's shit you like. You're changing because you want someone to like you. You're lying to yourself and you're lying to Steve. If he can't like you the way you normally are, then he doesn't deserve to be with you. You need someone who accepts you for the way you are. Not someone you need to change for. " Eddie shakes his head in disapproval. " You know what, Y/N, I'm done. "

My brows furrow in confusion. " What? "

" I'm done waiting for you, Y/N. " Eddie avoids my gaze, his face lighting up from what I think is anger. " You never seem to realize that I'm here. I fucking like you. "

My eyes widen.

Eddie likes me?

" I like the way you dress. I like the way you smile. I like the way you're always you! Or at least, the way you were always you. But I'm not good enough for you, and I see that now. Nothing I ever do will make you like me back. "

A sinking feeling builds in my stomach as I realize what Eddie's about to say.

" I can't be your friend anymore. I-I thought I could handle it but I can't. We're done, Y/N. " Eddie turns and begins to quickly walk back into the building.

" Eddie! " I call after the boy, trying to chase him into the bar. " Wait-Eddie! "

The bouncer at the door refuses to let me in, his strong arms holding back from getting inside.

" Eddie! Please! "

He doesn't look back. He doesn't listen.

I fucked up.

*****

It's been three days since I missed Eddie's band preform. He's completely ignored me at school. I don't eat lunch with the boys anymore, it's too awkward. The one day I tried Eddie didn't bother to show up.

I've spent the last few days thinking about Eddie's confession. How did I miss it?

I'm so fucking stupid.

It was so obvious.

He opened my door. He stood up for me. He went out of his way to make sure I got home safe after work. He always showed up to important events for me. He gave me gifts.

And I couldn't even make it to the most important thing to him.

How could I think he wouldn't like me back?

I'm a shitty person. I'm a shitty friend.

" Hey, Y/N. " Steve's voice pulls me out of my head.

I look up to see the boy sitting across from me with a smile. " Hey. " I smile weakly at him.

This is my other issue. I have to tell Steve I've been lying.

Steve seems to notice something wrong. " Are you okay? "

I shake my head. " Not really but I will be. Eventually. "

" Do you want to talk about it? "

He's so sweet. Why did I fucking lie to him?

" You're going to hate me. " I whisper.

Confusion falls Steve's face. " I couldn't hate you. What are you talking about? "

It's now or never.

" I lied to you, Steve. " I begin. " And in the process, I hurt you and someone I really care about. " I gesture down to my clothes. " This isn't me, Steve. I don't wear shit like this. "

Steve's eyes widen.

Embarrassed to see his reaction, I look away. I know he's going to hate me.

" I don't wear dresses and I don't wear uncomfortable shoes like this. I fucking hate business. And I really couldn't care less about basketball. I'm sorry I just don't understand. What I'm saying is, Steve, I liked you and I tried to become someone else to impress you. But I can't do that. It's not fair to you or me. "

I close my eyes, preparing for Steve to curse me out or call me a freak or something.

He doesn't.

" I know. "

I snap my head towards him. " What? "

Steve sends me a small smile. " I know you were lying. "

" How? "

Steve chuckles. " We were in middle school together. And I saw you around the school before we started talking in class. I know what you dress like. I figured you weren't that into business because every time we go to a club meeting you look like you're about to fall asleep. Also, we don't have goalies in basketball. And I had a hunch that you might've had a crush on me, I just didn't have the heart to tell you I'm dating Nancy. I really like hanging out with you, just only as friends. " He says softly.

I feel heat rush to my cheeks. I knew all along. I drop my head onto the table in front of me, trying to hide myself from the boy. This week keeps getting worse and worse. " I'm so fucking stupid. "

Steve gently pats my arm. " No, you're not. I should've told you about Nancy. We all make mistakes, I'm sure whatever you did to your friend, if you just apologize it'll help. "

I peek over my arms and sigh. " I don't know. I messed up pretty bad. "

Steve leans back in his chair. " Well, we've still got about 40 minutes of lunch left. If you want to talk, I'm all ears. "

" Well, it started the day after I found out we had a class together..." I explain the while situation to Steve who's silent majority of the time. He doesn't make me feel judged, just heard.

At the end he finally speaks.

" That's a lot. "

I groan. " I know. And now I don't known what to do. "

" I think you should apologize and tell him how you feel. What's the worst that could happen because of it? " Steve gently pats my hand.

" You're right. " I sigh. " I should go talk to him. " I push myself up out of my chair. " Thanks Steve. "

Steve sends me a smile. " Of course, anytime. "

Now it's time to fix things with Eddie.

******

Mismatched music pours out of Gareths garage as I come to a stop on my bike.

They're tuning up.

Memories of me hanging out with the guys while they practice fill my mind as I get closer to the building.

My heart pounds. What if Eddie hates me? What if they all do? Gareth and Jeff were a little upset but they got over it pretty quickly. Doug didn't give a fuck. What if that's a lie?

Eddie laughs at something Jeff says before turning around and seeing me. His laughter and smile slowly fade until he's left with a neutral expression. " Hey. " He greets quietly, so quiet it's nearly drowned out by Doug's guitar.

" Hey. " I respond feeling awkward. I glance around to see my friends watching us in confusion.

Normally when we get into fights it's over in a few hours. A day at most. Not this one.

" Can we talk? " I ask.

Eddie studies me for a moment. He looks like he's contemplating something. With a sigh, he sets down his guitar and begins to walk past me. " What's there to talk about, Y/N? "

We make far enough away from the garage to have some privacy.

" I want to apologize. " Will he even accept my apology?

Eddie folds his arms in front of his chest, his expression a mixture of anger and hurt. " You can't just run back to me because things with Steve didn't work out. "

" That's not what I'm doing. " I sigh. " Eddie, you were right. I was trying to change myself for someone else-to be someone else, and that was wrong. I...I liked Steve because I thought I had a better shot at somehow dating him than dating you. " I feel heat rise to my cheeks. I avoid his gaze. " I thought that you didn't like me...that you wouldn't ever like me. I mean, we've known each other for years and you've never made a move-at least none that I had realized at the time. I'm so stupid. And I'm so sorry for missing your show and missing our hang out days. That wasnt right. I made plans with you first and I should've prioritized those first. " I groan, burying my face in my hands. I'm stupid and embarrassed.

" You liked me? "

I nod, my head moving down to my arms. " Since middle school. "

Eddie is silent for a moment. " We're both fucking idiots. " He chuckles, taking me by surprise.

I look up from my arms, confusion on my face.

Eddie looks over at me, a small smile on his face. " I've liked you since middle school too. "

What the fuck.

" Are you kidding me? " I groan in frustration. " All this shit could've been avoided if we just had better observational skills. "

" And communication skills. " Eddie points out.

I nod. " What do we do now? " I ask quietly, scared of what he'll say.

Eddie sighs. " Well, if I'm honest, I'm still a little upset about you missing the show, "

Of course, that's a big thing. I hope I didn't fuck this up forever.

" but...I guess it's okay since we got invited back to play this Friday...And every Friday after that. " A wide smile spreads across Eddie's face.

" Really?! Oh my gosh, Eddie! That's amazing! I'm so excited for you! "

" Thank you, thank you. " Eddie chuckles at my excitement. " I really hope you can make it to my show this Friday though. "

I nod. " Yes. I'll be there, I swear. "

" Good, because I'd really love to introduce the bar owner to my new partner...if you want to be my new partner, that is. " A hint of nervousness is hidden in his voice as he watches my expression.

My heart pounds. Is this really happening?

" I'd love that. " I grin.

A wide smile breaks onto his face. " Let's go tell the boys. " He gently grabs my hand while threading his fingers through mine.

I am definitely going to be there for his show this Friday.

[clementinecleo]

Know how

young Ford + Reader

Summary..

You and Ford are working on a research paper, and you comfort him about his 'weirdness'

non genderd reader

💫

You and Ford first met in college due to having the same morning lecture. He was nervous and slightly confused when you decided to start a conversation with him about Constellations, and soon It was small things here and there. A walk n talk, or just a quick wave around campus. Eventually, you guys became acquaintances. Getting coffee and reading together, he was always nose deep in his books.

And one day during class, your professor announced a project for your midterm. Telling you all to form into groups of however many people, and you turned your head to look at Ford, who was sitting next to you. He was chewing on his pen before he noticed you staring at him.

You looked at his eyes, smiling gently as you spoke up. “Partners?” with a tilt of your head. He nodded. The rest of the class consisted of the professor explaining what to do and how to, and then let everyone go.

As you packed up and got ready to go back to your dorm to absolutely pass out, Ford cleared his throat. You shook the tiredness out of your head and glanced at him. “should we go to yours? For the project, I mean.” You interrupted him with a chuckle and replied. “Yeah, sure dude. Follow me” you gestured, walking down the steps with him trailing behind you like a stray dog.

As you both walked, you spoke up. "Hey, do you have any other friends? Not in a mean way- just I only ever see you walking alone."

Ford rubbed the back of his neck and replied solemnly. "Well my only close friend is fiddleford. He's my roommate. But he's in a lot of different programs so we don't see eachother much on campus other than in our shared dorm"

You grin, "Fiddleford? I remember him! He was the one who fell asleep in the fountain after a party right?"

Ford chuckled and nodded "I had to carry him back to our dorm. Woke up the next day not remembering anything from the night before."

You both walked in comfortable silence through the winding hallways. footsteps echoed and voices boomed as people passed by. At one point going down an elevator a girl giggled at Ford and murmured something crude about him. Immediately Ford shrunk back, shoving his hands in his pockets. You gave the girl a disgusted look before trying to walk up to her and ask why she was being a bitch but you felt a hesitant tug of your sleeve.

Ford had an unreadable look on his face as he shoved his hands into his pockets. muttering a small “it's fine, really. Don't worry about her.” you gave him a ‘are you sure?’ and he just nodded, then looked away.

The second week of you two casually hanging out, Ford asked looked up from his notebook and looked at you. "Why did you approach me, y/n?" he asked, curious about your reasoning.

And you awnserd truthfully. "Well, I actually thought you were really smart for someone going to..this college. And it fascinated me. What nade you want to come here? Whats your backstory.-" but halfway through talking you can see a very confused and surprised look on his face. And before you could even ask, he opened his mouth. “and..not for my fingers?”

He lifted both his hands towards you. wiggling them, really trying to prove that you supposedly faking it. This was his way if trying to freak you out and drive you away. But it back fired horribly.

You looked at him bewilderd, and as he held his hand up you counted. 1..2..3..4..5..6!

You gave him an excited smile and basically shouted at him. “Oh my god! I didn't even notice- that's so cool man!” after asking your 7th question about his hands you realized you had just made him extremely uncomfortable. And you apologized profusely. he didn't talk to you for a couple days after that. So you never dared to mention them again. Even going as far as to not look at his hands at all.

You guys got to your dorm and as you opened your door he was hit with the scent of your favorite candle and the cool air conditioning. His body relaxed, before he gently closed the door and sat on a nearby chair. Looking out of place while pulling out his note book in your very..interestingly decorated dorm.

“So, we should get started on the research first and make sure every source is as factual as possible-” He took his nose out of his book to look over at you to see if you were listening to him but your eyes were trained on his fingers.

"can I see your hand?" you ask with a blank face.

Oh.

He sighed. Why would he ever think he'd make a friend as popular as you? He went straight to overthinking. Imagining you laughing at him or running out the door to go gossip with your multitude of friends across campus. He gave up. Might aswell show you, he's never better for anything else but his weirdness.

You grabbed his hands so gently he barely noticed you even touched them. You handled them with such care as if you breathed the wrong way he'd shatter. Your hands were smooth and warm.

A shiver crawled down his back as you ran your index finger up and down each and every six of his fingers. Circling around every knuckle and especially his thumbs. Lifting his hand up so you could see his palm. Tracing the lines and indents across it- and it reminded him of when his mother would give him palm readings. and suddenly, he wasn't so afraid of you anymore. It all washed away.

You were absolutely and utterly mesmerized. You'd never seen such beautiful hands.

“Stanford, your hands are divine.”

You muttered out.

His heart jumped up into his throat and his face turned as pink as bubblegum, stammering and watching you fiddle with his middle finger..or well one of them. He watches in amazement, his heart beating through his chest. Butterflies galore, how could one ever handle holding hands with someone? Gosh he was overthinking- you're hands are so reassuring. This is too new, you're so gentle and any time your finger runs up his hand he tries not to let out an embarrassing gasp.

"Ford?" You speak up. "You still there?"

"Yes! of course. Why do you ask?" His hands are so sweaty now and suddenly he can smell his bo and gets self conscious on the one empty pizza box he left out.

"Everything about you is so intriguing and weird..but in a good way. Your hands- your fingers. They're amazing." you say in awe.

Fords cheeks go a deep red and he starts coughing, nodding along. And he froze when you said his fingers were amazing. "You really think so?" he says, locking eyes with you.

"Of course. I've never seen something so..stunning. You're such a oddball, Stanford Pines." you chuckled.

the rest of the night was filled with you and Ford having a deep conversation about things, almost forgetting you had a paper to work on.

You both smiled at eachother fondly and the night went on.

💫

[zyhkoo]

☆ we do together - jason todd x f!reader

fluff, vigilante reader, college au

you and jason work on your research paper

With patrol done, the two of you immediately slumped on the couch. Though you had your own patrol route, you loved to get in Jason’s patrol route. Not that he didn’t mind of course, he’d gladly let you patrol with him. Today’s patrol was crazy though, it definitely wore the two of you out.

Not bothering to change into much comfortable clothes, you and Jason lazed on the couch. You were sitting down while he was on the far corner of the couch while his feet laid on your lap.

Your stomach grumbled, you forgot to eat your lunch a while ago because you were so busy with your college assignments.

You looked over at him “Jay..” you called out his name. Jason, whose eyes are closed while facing the ceiling, answered “Yeah?”

You sighed, “I’m hungry.. you promised to cook.” Jason slowly turns his face to you “Told you, you said you weren’t hungry while doing the assignment.” he scolded.

The two of you were in literature degrees, in the same class, same professors, and the same lectures. So any assignments, projects so on and so forth; Jason and you would always work together.

“I really wasn’t, I snacked too much.” you retorted “Can we just get takeout?” he asks while crossing his legs. You rolled your eyes and reached the phone to your pocket “Fine.”

You looked at the clock on your homescreen, 2:30 am. Then.. a sudden realization hit you. You tug on his jacket “Jason..” he looks at you with a lazy expression “Hm?”

You looked at him horrifyingly, he checked the clock then it hit him too.

“The research paper!”

You were quickly going through the food app while Jason scrambled to the laptop “Fuck we’re only halfway.” he curses, his hand moving to his forehead “At least it’s halfway…” you pointed out.

You look for sources while Jason reads and types out whatever is needed, if anyone walked in on both of you they’d be concerned to see two College students looking like zombies.

The pizza you ordered arrived, Jason opened the box and saw the toppings you disliked on the pizza “Thought you hated this?” he said, showing you the pizza.

She groaned “Ugh, I must’ve accidentally asked for it. Whatever, give me a slice I’m starving.”

Jason remembers waiting for the letters for both your college applications. You both graduated highschool together, and now this was the bigger deal. Jason was looking forward to being in college with you, especially in a degree you both absolutely were interested in.

He remembered you pacing on the manor waiting for the mail to come while Jason told you that it was going to be alright. You wanted to be in college with him too of course, you’ve known each other since forever and you want it to stay that way.

Damian knocked on Jason’s door with two letters on his hand “These are for you, Todd. Is she in there as well?” Jason took the letters from his small tiny hand “Yeah she is, thanks.” Jason says as he closes the door.

“Is this it?” you asked “Yep, here's yours.” the two of you read in silence, he was accepted. Jason looked at you, a small smile on his face. You were still reading the contents of the letter, focusing hard “So? What’d they say?”

You turned back to him with a bright smile “I'm in! You?” he returns the smile “Got accepted too.” you pulled him to a tight embrace “We’re starting college together oh my god I’m so happy.” she says.

He wanted to experience all the bad and good things in life with you. Because he loves you, your presence just makes him happy already. At first, he wasn’t sure if he was capable of loving, but with you it was enough.

Morning passed, Jason woke up on the table. A blanket was covering him and next to him was you, peacefully sleeping on the coffee table. He looked at your features and smiled, pressing a kiss on your forehead.

You stirred in your sleep “Jay?” he looks down “Yeah?” he answered your call, you shook your head, yawning. “Nothing.” he sighs softly, playing with your hair “Just wanted to call my name?”

You nodded “Yeah.” he yawned “Well, shit it’s twelve now. Can’t go to class today.” he comments, " you stretched your arms. “It’s okay fuck the professor.” you say “We’ll pass it tomorrow.”

[writingsfromhome]

If you Love Something

A/N: this has been an idea sitting in my drafts for a while. You and Harry had a brief but intense relationship as teenagers, were forced to make a serious decision then, and it’s aftereffects have lingered for the rest of your lives. It deals with some heavier topics so read with caution (alcoholism, depression, unwanted pregnancy etc). I’d describe it as sad but hopeful.

Part 2

—————————————

Age 17.

It started in secret. We’d found each other on the roof of a house party. Truth be told, I saw him sneak out of the window where people were crowded around the TV watching some controversial music video I hadn’t heard about. And I’d followed.

I knew who Harry was. Had him in English, Maths, and Biology last year. He was well spoken, thoughtful, and silly. I never spoke to him once though. Only admired him from afar.

Tonight I had my first drink and then another. I was feeling buzzed and despite being painfully shy for most of the time I’d known everyone here, I was suddenly gripped by the realization that we were approaching the last year we would all be together. Why had I waited this long to pursue someone I thought was cute?

I snuck out after him, when my friends weren’t looking. I even tilted the window more closed than usual so no one would suspect anything; I had the attic room at home so I knew how to maneuver the angled roof to get comfortable.

“You need any help?” Harry’s voice is clear in the silence.

“I’m alright.” I stand up to peer at him. He’s climbed near the top.

“Sure? You don’t seem steady.”

“Oh I’m steady,” I prove it to him by climbing up to where he was. “See?”

“I’m mistaken. My bad.” He holds out a hand to help me sit beside him and the night sky flashes brighter for an instant when I grasp his hand. My stomach is in knots.

“Harry. Styles.” I don’t know why I say his full name but I was nervous.

He repeats my full name back to me. I don’t know why I’m surprised he knows it. It’s not like we went to a big school.

“What brings you out here?”

I try to be bold about it, “You?”

“Party was getting too much.” He says. I stare at him in confusion while he complains about something his friends had gotten up to.

I replay my answer and realized it sounded like I’d skipped answering his question and asked the question back. Bugger.

“You know my name.” I interrupt him, forgetting he was telling me a story. Awkward.

“Yeah? Of course I do.”

“We’ve never talked.”

“We talked. Once in Maths. We had to grade each other’s answers.”

Oh yeah. I burn when I remember the 4/10 he’d given me with a smiley face saying that maths was masochistic.

“Barely.”

“I know you though,” he says with a softness that makes my heart stutter.

“Do you?” I look to him, resting my chin on my shoulder. He gazes down at me and I swear I could taste the colours around us.

His eyes draw me deeper as he inches closer. Was he going to kiss me? Oh my god.

I look back out to the roof and he jerks away. Omg.

“I do.”

“Oh,” I don’t know what to do after that awkward moment.

“I know you’re really quiet and shy but your smile is so loud you can see it from across the room.” He says and my breath catches as he continues. “You’re yourself with your friends, you really like Harry Potter and field hockey. You would kill Mal Adams if you could get away with it and you hate Maths just as much as you love art. You’re dating Oli Graves but your smile is only ever shining half as bright when you’re around him. Can I go on?”

I stop breathing completely halfway through his declaration of knowing me. All this time I had my eye on him, I didn’t know he was watching me too.

“I didn’t ask you for your opinion on my relationship.”

“You didn’t. I didn’t give you one either.”

I glare at him. He was right. He smiles knowing he was. I’m mad that I’m not mad at him. That he was right.

“What are you doing with a guy like that?”

Oli and I had been dating for 7 months now. He was loud and fun in a way I wish I could be. That’s why I liked him so much. That’s why I was at a party like this to begin with.

“He’s a good guy.”

“That’s all?” He asks. I look over but he’s looking up at the sky. I follow his gaze and get lost in the great expanse of nighttime.

“I think you deserve someone who sees you. Don’t you?”

“Did Ally see you?” I ask with a hint of aggression I didn’t mean to have.

“Ally and I broke up during Easter. So there’s your answer.” He’s unbothered.

“Well what do you want?” I ask.

“Right now? Or in life?”

I shrug. “Both?”

“I want to explore the world and meet all kinds of people. I wanna make the world a better place by being in it. It’s cheesy as shit so if you ever said I said this I’ll deny it and you’ll look like-“

“My lips are sealed.” I turn his way to promise him that. It makes me laugh at how serious he looks saying it all and when I do his face relaxes.

“You laugh is nice too. I forgot to mention that.”

That quiets me very quickly.

“And right now,” he continues. “I’d really like to kiss you.”

My ears ring. Did I hear him right? Could you get so drunk you hallucinate? I swear the cold air had sobered me-

“Did you hear what I said?” Harry’s moved in closer to me. Did I? I don’t know.

“What d-“

“I’d like to kiss you.”

I nod, afraid to talk and realize I’d hallucinated him saying that.

The world melts away when he kisses me. It’s tender, nothing like Oli and his jagged pushy kissing. In the nighttime air it’s warm, and soft, and easy.

“I know you,” Harry says when we part. I’d nearly climbed into his lap and I try to edge away, embarrassed, but he keeps a hand firm on my thigh.

“I know you too Harry,” I breathe. He smiles and it crinkles his luscious eyes.

I think I was falling.

***

We keep it a secret after I break up with Oli. For months, until mid-August when I invite him over for dinner after my mom insists on meeting “the boy I was all doe-eyed over”. The night with my family goes so well—Harry is the picture of a courteous gentleman that even my sister is swayed by him despite saying boys were gross. I ask him to hang out, in public, the next day. He doesn’t hesitate to say yes.

That’s what I love about Harry—yes love. He’s not pushy, he lets me go at my own pace. He respects me and sees me for everything I am and loves me anyway. I wanted to spend my whole life with him.

It was so intense and relaxed at the same time. It felt like no relationship I’d been in before. I felt different being with him, even my friends noticed.

When final year started, Harry and I were official but we didn’t flaunt it. We didn’t need to. My friends knew about us and they were happy for us, they told me I was more me. Whatever that meant.

Life was phenomenal and I was living in a dusky haze. Nothing could touch us.

Until one day in February. I was out with my sister, mum didn’t want to take her out and since I recently got my driver’s license with plenty of lessons from Harry, I was driving her to the mall. She needed Valentine’s Day cards.

“I thought you said love is stupid.” I remind her on the way.

“It is.”

“So why the hell am I driving you to buy cards for a made up holiday?”

“Because!” She crosses her arms and stares out the window. I flick her arm at a red light.

“You have a crush.”

“I do not!”

“Do too. Who is it? James? Mattie? Hamid?”

“Ew! They’re freaks.” My sister continues staring out the window.

“Why do you want to buy cards so bad!?”

“I just want them! For my friends!”

“Okay then,” I didn’t believe her. But I couldn’t bring her home crying or mum would ground me.

A lot of places have slim pickings. Wandering the aisle of Waterstones I catch sight of a family friend. She was my dad’s uni friend’s daughter, a few years older than me but by the time I got to secondary she had dropped out after getting pregnant. I remember the buzz when everyone found out.

I avoid her and find an aisle to occupy myself.

Harry and I were always careful, mum had already given me the talk and he never pressured me to do anything I didn’t. I imagine Harry as a dad. He would make a good one I think.

As one thought leads to another I go cold as I realize something. My last period was during the holidays.

I feel like I’m walking in a swarm of locusts as I walk to the edge of the aisle, scanning for my sister. Maybe I can pop into a pharmacy before she’s done. Maybe…

This was crazy. It was probably just a missed period.

But if it isn’t, another voice asks. I felt it in my gut. I had to do this.

I don’t remember getting home. I don’t remember anything about the rest of that day except two faint lines, and then two faint lines again, and a third time. I fall asleep before dinner that night and shut the world out.

***

“I know something’s wrong.” Harry’s walking me home after school. It’s Valentine’s Day and he’d been nothing but sweet. He bought me chocolates, flowers, and we planned to cook dinner together after school. I had bought him chocolates too, and had written him a heartfelt note with a bunch of photos of us weeks ago. The box was in my room, waiting for tonight. “Do you not like the flowers? Or is it dinner? We can go out somewhere instead?”

“No everything’s lovely.” I’d never heard Harry this desperate before. It gets under my skin even though part of me knows that’s not really it. But having him hover over me all week trying to figure out what was wrong was too much.

I’d spent every night this week with a hand over my belly. Thinking about it. I hadn’t told anyone. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. All I can think of was Jenny and I didn’t want that life. I couldn’t. I couldn’t be a mother.

“Please. What’s the matter.” Harry asks again, tugging at my hands but I pull them away.

“I just need some space!” I shout and he flinches. “I’m sorry Harry. I just need space right now.”

“Right now like…” he scratches his head. “I don’t get you. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’ve been talking about this day for weeks what do you mean you want space?”

“I can’t do this right now. Please.”

“Are you-are we…”

“I’m not breaking up with you.” I look at Harry with tears in my eyes, I didn’t want to cry out here. But every time I look at him I remember the reality. What’s growing inside me. I can’t take it. “I just can’t do today.”

I go inside my house. Leave him without further explanation. I feel awful, I can’t hold the tears in long enough to get to my room.

***

“Hey love?” My mum and dad knock on my door at half past 5. I lay in the dark, having cried myself dry. “We’re worried about you. Can we talk.”

“I can’t.” I say, voice stuffy.

“I thought you and that boyfriend of yours had plans,” dad says. He liked Harry but he rarely called him by his name. “Did something happen?”

“No!” I wanted them to leave me alone. “I just. I had to cancel. I’m fine.”

“Don’t sound fine to me love,” I feel the mattress dip as mum sits down. Dad strokes my hair. They whisper something I can’t hear and a pair of footsteps pad out of my room.

“Mum just leave me alone.” I try again.

“I’m not.” She pushes me further into my bed and leans down, tugging my blanket down. When I finally look at her she smiles kindly and kisses my forehead. That fills me up enough to start wailing again. “Oh love, what’s wrong?”

“Everything!” I sob into my blanket. Mom lays down beside me and I let myself be cradled like a child. God, I had a child. This was so fucked.

“Talk to me. We can figure it out together.”

I don’t know how my parents would react. They were never particularly strict, especially after what happened with Jenny I remember them always being sympathetic. We even visited her in hospital with a gift.

Mum strokes my hair and whispers that it’ll be okay. Slowly my sobbing eases into light sniffles. I had to tell her. She would know what to do. And if she hated me for it, I would just have to deal with it.

“Mum don’t be mad-“

“I won’t honey I-“

“No. Mum.” I cut her off. She moves back on the pillow so she can see my whole face, moving a strand of hair so I couldn’t hide. “Something…messed up. Happened. And…I was careful. We were always careful I don’t know what happened but I-“

I watch her face changed. Like she knew. She knew what was coming but she waits patiently as I muster up the courage to say the words that felt too real once I said them.

“Mum I’m…I’m pregnant.”

Her eyes fill with tears and she bites her lip. What was she thinking? Was she crying for me or with me? Why wasn’t she saying anything!?

“Mum-“

“C’mere.” She wraps me in her embrace again and kisses the top of my head. My body feels drained and limp. I finally told somebody. It was real. This living thing inside of me was real.

“What happened?” She asks next. And I tell her what I think happened. When. How I found out. She listens, holding my hand in hers. When I’m done and it’s poured out of me she smiles supportively. “This isn’t a bad thing okay? It’s okay. Any decision you make is up to you. I’ll talk to your dad but just know you call the shots okay? I love you.”

This is what carries me. The love.

She asks me it I told Harry yet and I tell her the truth. She urges me to tell him. I tell her I wanted to so bad but I was scared.

She leaves shortly after that, I hear her talking softly outside my room. Nobody calls me for dinner until 7, a soft knock on my door. My sister would never be so soft, I assume it’s dad so I tell him to come in. I was scared to face him.

It’s Harry instead.

“Harry!” I cover my splotchy face with my blanket, why was he here? Did mum invite him? This was soo embarrassing.

My heart pounds and Harry is silent until he takes a seat where mum had previously been.

“I came over, your mum invited me. She explained.”

She did what? For a moment I feel betrayed.

“She said you weren’t doing so well. Stressed? I could make you some tea if you’d like. But I told you y/n, you’ll get into unis. You don’t have to worry so…”

I sigh. Mum had told him a half-truth. But he had come. Of course he had.

I couldn’t even think about uni right now because that lead me down a road of what if I couldn’t go because I had a baby. And that life felt so bleak it made me depressed.

“Harry.” I inch my blanket down a little and his eyes go round when he looks at me.

“You look…awful.”

“I know.” I cover my face with my hair but he brushes it away and kisses my forehead.

“No. I’m worried about you. I brought dinner-“

“Oh Harry.” I spot the bag he brought with him.

“I made it all for us. With my mum’s help but mostly me. I packed it to bring to you.”

I didn’t deserve him. And I had to tell him. And he was going to break up with me. What high school boy wanted a child?

“Harry it’s not uni.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I was carrying another living thing. It was the size of a seed but I was carrying it inside me. Like a living breathing pot. I was a potted plant.

“Then what is it?” His brows crinkle. “Is it us?”

“No!” I rush to tell him. “I…I don’t know how to say this. And I don’t know how you’re going to react but it’s okay either way.”

“What are you talking about?” His hands slide up my lap. “What is it?”

“Harry. I’m um, I’m pregnant.”

I watch him freeze and stay exactly how he is, his brows pinch ever so slightly. I knew this look. He looked still on the outside but his mind was racing. And I was scared what was racing through it.

“Pregnant?”

“Yeah. From…the holidays.”

“How did-I thought we-“

“I guess it’s not foolproof.” I whisper. Mum had told me to go on the pill, and I hadn’t listened because all my friends told me it made them gain weight. If only I had listened. Now I was gaining weight anyway.

“What are we going to do?” He asks next. And I never realized six little words could weigh the world. If I could cut those words out and surgically implant them into my heart I would. Just to remind me the equal parts relieved and comforted they made me.

I hold his face in my hands, new tears springing to my eyes. He was in this. With me.

He kisses me and pulls me into a hug. I cry into his shirt again and he holds me so tight I swear I could break.

“I don’t know if I can keep it Harry,” I finally whisper to him.

His hands fist in my shirt, he holds his breath and after a long minute he lets me go with it.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Was he really okay with all this?

“It’s…I can’t make you keep it.”

“You’d want to keep it?” I couldn’t believe it.

“It’s…” he swallows his sentence and keeps his gaze on my stomach. I tug his hand and lay it over it. When his eyes meet mine I see a hint of heartbreak. We were going to break our hearts either way I think.

Not once did I think he might want to keep it.

“It’s okay.” Harry finally says. “We’re so young right? How would we keep a baby and go to school, and do everything we always talk about?”

“Yeah I don’t…I don’t know.”

“I love you.” He says with such a sudden passion. I wrap my arms around his and return the sentiment.

Eventually we lay down and just talk about everything. Truthfully, my head was telling me not to keep the baby but everything else felt dead thinking about it.

Maybe that’s why it took me until April to finally make a decision. It was the size of a plum by then, and a tiny bump was starting to show but only when I stood naked in front of the mirror. With clothes on, nobody was the wiser. But the longer I kept it, I think the more Harry fell in love with it. The idea of it.

We have a long talk during our Easter holiday. We talked in my bedroom until the sun comes up. I tell him I was sure of my decision.

I’d gotten accepted to Cambridge by then. Harry was staying in London. We knew it wasn’t feasible. To live the life we always wanted, we had to get rid of this new life we never knew could happen.

I don’t know why but I don’t tell him the day I go to do it. I go with my mum. Mum drops my sister off at school—she didn’t know. Mum said she had a big mouth.

We drive in silence. When we park mum asks how I feel.

“Sad.” It was the truth. I knew this was right. But it felt like shite.

“Yeah.” She rubs my hands. “Want to go in?”

“I just want to sit here for a bit.” I tell her.

“Okay. I’ll go sign you in.”

She takes my purse and hers and leaves me there. I take the moment to ground myself. Say goodbye to the other future.

When mum knocks on my window I jump.

“Yn? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah yeah I’m coming in.” I open the door.

“You know you’ve been sitting here half hour?”

I pause, one leg out the door and one still in. “I…I must have got lost in my head. Sorry mum-“

“Look. Do you want to do this?”

“I don’t know…I have to.”

“There are other options love-“

“But how can I give it up and live my whole life like that?”

“We can help raise her. You can go on and live your life-“

“I’d be a horrible mother.” Mum and I had this row so many times before. It always ended in me storming away but I couldn’t here.

“You don’t need to make the decision today.”

“But I do.” I tell her. “Otherwise it’ll drive me insane.”

I tuck both feet back into the car and rest my hand on my belly. I’d allowed myself to do that only in my room, when I was alone. Doing it out here made it feel even more real. Suddenly I couldn’t imagine going through with the decision.

“I can’t do this.” I tell my mum.

She smooths my hair down and kisses my temple. My door closes and a few seconds later she climbs in beside me.

“Think about it.”

“I can’t. But I can’t keep it either.”

“Okay.” Mum pulls me into her and I think I should cry but I can’t. I’m calm, maybe I know I’d made the right decision. Or just a decision. I was going to stick to this.

“I can’t raise it. I’m just a child I…maybe someone out there wants a baby and can’t have one maybe-“

“I’ll look into it for you.” Mum promises. “You set the rules remember?”

And that’s how it goes. Mum looks into it, we decide to go for adoption. We go to the hospital on the first warm day of the year. By then I’d taken to wearing jumpers over flowy dresses and been thankful for the first time in my life that I wasn’t skinny like other girls. At most angles you couldn’t tell my belly was so perfectly round.

By then too, Harry had accepted the decision. He seemed relieved. Thinking aloud he’d said maybe he could raise it, but quickly turned around when I asked him what he’d do about uni.

“Someone out there can take care of it better than us. Someone will love the baby like we do.”

During the summer, I tell all my friends I was staying with family in midlands. And I do go up there, that’s where the couple who was adopting lived. Harry and I meet them with my mum and his. It’s awkward, we run out of conversation fast. But their house is big and they already have a 2 year old from an adoption last year. My baby was going to be loved here. And have a sibling.

“We did want to discuss one last thing,” they’d said before we left. We all listen intently. “We…find it best when it’s a no contact adoption. We’ve had a lot of friends who keep contact open and it gets messy-“

“What?” I hadn’t really thought about this until now. Hearing I’d have to give the baby up and go on like it didn’t exist felt wrong. Harry’s hand slips into mine.

“This is typical,” Harry’s mum says from his side. “Let’s hear it out.”

“Right. So just to prevent future complications, we do no contact. Of course when baby’s older and wants to seek out the real parents we can’t stop them. But until then…”

“Thank you.” My mum steps in when it goes silent. I could hardly wrap my head around what they were saying. When it gets older?

Pretty soon mum is ushering me out and Harry’s hand is still clutching mine. We don’t let go until we reach my Uncle’s where we were staying until August. The baby was due in September. I was going to miss the first week of class.

“I can’t do this.” I tell them later. “How can we just have no contact.”

“I thought you knew.” Mum says. “I explained that some parents want this when they adopt.”

She might have. Ever since I hit the third trimester like my doctor said, I’ve had a hard time listening and understanding what someone was saying after they spoke too long. I was glad school was done—for obvious reasons, but also for not having to sit in a class and learn.

“We have no other choice.” Harry says from beside me. He rubs my back and slowly, I zone back into the conversation. “We can find another family but they might want the same thing.”

“What if the baby never looks for us?” I turn to him, our heads press against the other’s. “What if we go our whole lives just wondering?”

“What’s the other option?” Harry whispers. He was right. I just didn’t want to get it.

Acceptance slowly creeps into me over the course of the summer. It was always hot carrying another person around, I was always hungry and thirsty, and very cranky. Harry came up to see me every other weekend when he could, mum stayed with me and that summer was one I could never forget.

It was September 1st, a particularly hot day. Rain fell in the afternoon and by the time the unforgiving sun set, the cool air was heavenly.

I sat by the bedroom window, moisturizing my belly like mum had shown me, talking to the baby. I wrote it a letter last week all about me, that I loved them and hoped the best for them. I told the baby about my family, how Harry and I met, and then I sealed it in an envelope with a picture of Harry and me. It was taken last Halloween when we’d both dressed up as each other. I tell mum to give it to the new parents. In case the day came the baby wondered about who we were.

As I spoke softly, I felt a gush of something wet down my leg.

“What?” I stand up, confused. “I…”

It takes me a second. I was going into labour.

“Mum!” I shout. “Mum! Come here!”

She rushes in and confirms it. It was happening.

“But it’s supposed to be next week!” I try not to panic but that’s all I can do as mum grabs our things and my aunt rushes to the car. “Does this mean something’s wrong? Is the baby o-“

I freeze as a contraction forces me to fold. I’d felt the kicking and the nausea and everything in between but these. These were a bitch.

Somehow we make it to hospital. Somehow I lay on a bed and push when the doctor tells me to. I nearly pass out. I just wanted Harry here with me. He didn’t know his kid was being born.

With a final push that felt like I was ascending my body and leaving it behind, I hear a wail and I cry. The baby was out, they cried and everything was okay.

“Okay congratulations mummy,” a nurse crouches down to me. “We’re going to clean you and baby up. She’s healthy and looks okay.”

“What?” I can barely see with my hair in my face and the nurses around me. It was a she? I had a baby girl?

We were never told the gender, so we wouldn’t get attached. But I had a baby girl. The nurse just called me mum.

I feel the tears on my cheeks, I was crying too. I try to look around me but a new nurse is talking in hushed voices to the doctor.

“…outside…call…adoption…shouldn’t or….contact-“

“What’s going on?” I can barely get the words out. “What?”

“Oh my love,” suddenly mum’s in the room and things are a bit better. A bit better.

“Mum what’s going on?”

“The baby’s born. The parents are outside they’re going to meet her soon.”

“What?” I look at mum’s face and it’s shining with tears. Why was she crying?

“Oh she’s beautiful love, she’s perfect. But your job’s done now. You should rest.”

“Mum,” I cry. “Where is she? Can’t I hold her?”

“No love,” mum moves my hair out of my face. I feel something break in half inside of me. I couldn’t even hold the baby? The baby girl? Mine and Harry’s baby girl?

“Why? Mum why? I just want to see her-“

“I’m sorry,” mum says through tears. “It’s just the way it is. She’s going to a loving home okay? She’s good. You’re okay.”

I can’t stop crying. I was going to lose her last April and I stopped that but I lost her anyway. My baby, I was never going to see her.

I remember when my sister was born. I was 5 and I was angry she’d taken the attention away. But when I saw her with her perfect toes and angel face I was obsessed with her. I even remember her first steps, she’d taken them at a park with mum and dad and me together. I was never going to know these things about my own baby. I was never going to know her.

I must pass out soon after. I remember waking up to the nurses instructing me about something. I’m half asleep and barely remember what I did when I get up. When I do wake it’s morning and there’s a figure on the chair beside me.

“You’re up.”

Harry. Relief washes over me knowing he’s here.

“Harry they took her,” I tell him.

“I know. I know yn.”

I move aside and he crawls into bed with me. I must look disgusting but he watches me with love brimming in his eyes. I can tell he’s been crying.

“I feel empty,” I whisper. Like someone had carved me out like a pumpkin. Something I’d had with me all year was gone. “How can I just move on? Start uni and all that when I…they just took her.”

“I keep thinking that.” Harry says. “Khalil invited me to a party to meet some blokes from uni and I just sat in my car the whole time. I couldn’t even go in. She…she was never going to be ours.”

“I feel awful.” I burrow into his neck as he strokes my hair. “A baby girl.”

“A baby girl,” Harry echoes.

***

I head to uni a week later. My body still feels like it fought a war and lost. It’s like it still thinks there’s a baby there. I produce milk for a few days, continue to have contractions, my belly is saggier than usual and I can’t stop crying about everything.

My dad drops me off to uni. He tells me he was proud of me, that I was always his baby girl. I cry then just like I cried at home when I said bye to mum, or when my sister hugged me which she never does. I can’t stop crying.

When I move into my dorm I feel like a completely different person than I thought I was going to be. My dormmate fills me in on everything she’s learned, complains about a boy and a party and it just feels so irrelevant to me. Did I used to care about those things? I had a baby. And now I didn’t.

By October, Harry and I are in different worlds. We hadn’t broken up but we talk weekly. Each week there’s less to talk about. When I visit home in October, being around him just makes me sad. He tries to cheer me up, make it like old times, but I know he’s hurting inside too.

I decide to do the breaking up. And at first he’s angry, insisting we could make it work. He actually refuses and walks away. We don’t talk for a whole day.

But at a house party in South where his uni mates were from, he accepts the end.

Through tears we kiss each other one final time, we whisper sweet nothings, we pour into each other all the hopes and wishes we had for each other.

When he hugs me for the last time I leave something behind. It’s similar to waking up the morning after my delivery and knowing something was gone. I really feel the shape of the loss. It sits in my sternum, a hole that grows smaller with time, but not just yet.

I fall into a depressed state for most of my first semester but my dormmate doesn’t give up on me and eventually I go to my first uni party. Eventually my brain fog clears and I actually go to all my classes. Eventually my life, on the outside, looks like it could be back to normal but inside I ache with the loss. So much that it becomes part of me. I don’t know where it ends, and I begin. It lives in me.

Age 23.

“The first of many hey?” Mal clinks his bottle to mine. I barely knew Mal but we were both friends with Khalil and therefore both at his stag.

“Before you know it we’re all going down,” one of Khalil’s friends joins in. “Stag after stag, suit after suit, it’s gonna be a blur man.”

“Let’s enjoy it while we can!” Someone cheers and everyone raises their beers. I toast with a smile; blokes loved to act like being in a relationship was the last thing they wanted when I knew most of them were mush in their girlfriend’s hands.

I also smile knowing I bought an engagement ring a few weeks back. I wanted to propose to Shannon, we met on her 22 when a friend invited me along. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the birthday girl. We’d been together since.

“Who do you think’s next?” The bets start going and nobody bets on me. Everyone always thought Shan was too good for me, they were counting on us breaking up. I was going to prove them all wrong.

The night gets sloppier until we all head back to the air bnb we’d rented for this. Tomorrow we were all supposed to go play golf like we were cosplaying old money bastards when we all knew we were just broke blokes from East. But I guaranteed they’d all be too hungover. We would get to the club and just drink the hangovers away.

And I’m right. I update Shan that I’m right when the boys stay in the dining area of the club. They decide on lunch and I step out to talk to my girlfriend.

“No birds allowed this weekend,” someone pipes in when I excuse myself.

“That’s just cuz you’re miserable Eli.” I brush past as the boys laugh. At me. And him.

I catch up with Shan. It was a bright day for September and I stay a little longer after the phone ends. Shan was in med school, she was always stressed or sleep deprived. I tried to support her the best I could—right now she needed moral support that she was going to get an internship she was applying for.

“Mummy doesn’t like when I have sweets,” a small voice says to my left. I look at a father with his daughter. He’s crouched down zipping her sweater up while she rambles on.

“Well it’s going to be our secret.” The dad says. “Sundays are for sweets aren’t they?”

“I love sweets.” She responds.

The father catches my eye and I shoot him a smile.

“Her mum’s going to hear every detail when we get home,” he says as he stands. “Can’t keep a secret to save her life.”

I laugh. The way she was rambling on, I didn’t think so. “How old’s she?”

“6.” He says, smiling down at her fondly. My heart aches.

“Almost 7.” She corrects her dad.

“Birthday’s in the spring.” He says more to me. “But almost 7 sure.”

I see them leave with one more shared smile, like we’re in on something. I imagine that’s how it would feel to be a parent. Always knowing something your kid doesn’t.

My daughter was 6. Wherever she was.

Thinking about the daughter I never had, the girl I lost always leaves me a little winded. Today’s no different.

Yn and I both made an agreement and it had been the hardest thing I’d done. Letting her go. It took me a proper year to even think about moving on.

I liked to think about yn, doing everything she wanted to do. But when I thought about the baby I spiralled into a dark pit. Sometimes when I drank too much, it pulled me in too deep to get out of. That’s what Shan liked to call my depressive drinking. She’s limited me to 3 drinks since.

Before I go in I take a minute to think about yn, where she might be. I hear from friends in high school random facts about her life. But I wonder how she’s doing. If she thinks about our baby like I do. How life would have been if I’d been here, calling her on the phone instead, asking if our baby girl was doing alright.

Age 29.

I stare at the nape of the man in front of me. It couldn’t be, but I’d memorized the back of his head—amongst other things, nearly 2 decades ago and I would bet £1000 I knew who this was. But I continue staring until the cashier rings him up.

In the same voice I remember, the one from my memories and my fantasies, I hear him say: “debit.”

I wait for him to pay before saying, “Harry?”

He turns so quickly he drops his card, wallet, and keys.

“Hi!” I laugh awkwardly and crouch down to help him pick his things up. There’s an awareness that the people in the queue behind me are witness to a moment that feels more intimate than a grocery store chat and it makes me shrink a little in my shell like a spooked turtle.

“Hi I-uh,” Harry short-circuits in front of me as the bored cashier holds his receipt out and stares at him with eyes that have worked one shift too many.

“I’ll just bag-“

“Yeah we can talk later.” I give him what I hope is a reassuring smile but it feels watery. I couldn’t believe of all the places I’d run into him, it was a grocery queue. How intense in such a mundane place.

As I watch my total rise on screen I risk a glance at Harry. His hand hovers over a white reusable bag, I wonder if that was his. Or his wife’s. If they did their weekly shop in a mismatch of bags that looked like that or they were the type of couple to have a set.

His eyes are on me though, somehow here and not here. I feel the same way.

I look back to the cashier asking me how I was paying. She glances between Harry and I. I don’t look back at him. Or the growing queue a few feet away.

I take my groceries—just some items my mum asked me to pick up, and stuff them into the tote I’m wearing. Harry waits for me by the exit.

“Hi.” He says as his eyes scan my face. I do the same, taking in all the ways time had spent with him. It must have been good—he looked good. “I can’t believe-“

“A Whole Foods of all places.” I laugh. A grin splits his face but his eyes stay on me.

“That smile, that laugh. God I’ve missed you.”

“I…missed you too.” How I could miss someone I’d known for one year and then never again for nearly two decades…I didn’t realize it was possible until now.

“Are you busy?” He asks. “Maybe we can grab a drink or?”

“I don’t…drink.” I hated that I had to announce it to people. I was still at the stage where I was figuring out how to say it confidently, or find a way around saying it.

“Oh.” Harry glances down at my belly and I realize he’d misunderstood but it’s too unspoken to correct him. “Cafe?”

“Yeah. That sounds lovely.” Honestly going anywhere with him sounded lovely right now. I wanted to cancel all my plans for the day and just sit with him. Stare at him and catch up. I couldn’t believe he was here.

We walk in a comfortable but waiting silence, like taking a cold drink out to a park with the anticipation it’s going to be good , and no desperation to open it as soon as you get it.

“Usual? Tea?” Harry asks when we step into a nearby cafe. It’s big for a cafe but has enough students working on laptops to not feel empty. I nod, unsure how to feel that Harry still knows what I order at a cafe. Or that my order hasn’t changed since 17.

I find us a booth and pretty soon he’s sliding into the seat across from me. The two of us can’t stop smiling.

“Hi,” he says again.

“Hi…”

“You look good, the same but better.”

“I was going to say the same thing about you!” I exclaim. More smiling.

“How’s…I mean, how are you? How is everything? What-“

“There’s so much to ask-“

“I don’t even know how to ask what I want to know!” Harry laughs and I’m warmed from the inside out at the sound of it.

“This shouldn’t be hard!”

“No.” He scrubs his face. “I’m really buzzing that we’ve run into each other.”

“Me too. It’s a bit unbelievable.”

“I know.” He continues gripping his cup and not taking his eyes off of me. It’s the exact way he used to look at me when we were teenagers. It nearly takes my breath away. “You look good—but I already said that. Sorry.”

“No,” I laugh. “That’s all that’s running through my head.”

“Oh—I remember hearing you were engaged a few years ago-“

“Yeah.” I turn my hand so he can see the ring. “Married now. You?”

“Yeah,” he looks down at his own hand. He had so many rings on I couldn’t tell from a glance. “Coming up to 5 years now.”

“Wow. It’s only 1.5 for me but Tatum and I—my husband, we’d been since uni.”

“Took him a while.”

“Mhm,” it had been a sore subject way back then. Harry says it casually but he studies my face. I know he wants to ask more but he’ll politely maneuver around it.

“Are you happy?”

I let out a breath. “That’s more complicated than anything else you could ask!”

“Is it?”

“Yeah I-“ I shrug. “I don’t know if I am. But I also have no idea what I could do about it. So. There’s that.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” My stomach curdles with his words. I didn’t want pity, least of all from Harry. Harry. I can’t believe he was here. “I get it though. Everyone says your 30s are even more glorious than your 20s. We’ll see soon enough if they’re right.”

I meet his eye, they always intimidated me to look too long into. Even now, I glance back down at my drink. When I look up again he has a wry smile twisting his lips. He knew.

I was sorry to hear life hadn’t been as good for him. And then I understand, it wasn’t pity he was giving me. He truly was sorry like I.

I thought about Harry often. Of course I did. I liked to imagine him living out his dreams like he always talked about. I liked to imagine him happy and thriving.

“Do you ever think about us?” I have to ask. “If we did it all differently?”

“We would have had a 12 year old with us.”

Hearing him say it feels like someone had taken a screwdriver and opened me up. Raw and exposed. But looking at him I know he thought about her as much as I had. Both of us were apparently mourning a future neither of us had fought for.

“Yeah,” I breathe but I just sound winded.

“We were trying, at one point—Shan and I.” Harry fiddles with his ring. “Did all the tests and the trials and the shite. But no kids. It put a real strain on my relationship. I think we cracked instead of bending. And I don’t think either of us know how to make it right again.”

I grasp his hand and squeeze. “I know what that’s like. It’s hard. I…a couple years ago. I lost a baby. A baby boy. I felt like it was a punishment for-“

“Don’t.”

We hold onto each other, our drinks long forgotten. He holds my hand and it feels like being known again, like I wasn’t such an awful person. That someone could see everything I’ve done and still choose to have love for me.

“I’m sorry.” He tells me.

“Me too.” I bite my lip. With a sigh I let him go and lean back. Here we’d been so excited to bump into each other but we’d both been carrying sorrow and grief. It wasn’t very hopeful.

“So I guess you’re not drinking because you’re-“

“No.” I say, surprisingly without feeling awkward. “I’m just sober right now. Trying to figure out life without a drink.”

“Sounds like torture but I respect that. Sounds hard.”

“It was at first. I like the feeling now of thinking clearly. But I miss a glass of wine I do sometimes.”

We smile at each other.

“So do you live around here?” Harry broaches talking again after both of us had lapsed into silence for a while. I blink away the fog of the past.

“Yeah. You?”

“Nah. Shan’s out of town and I was feeling lonely. Came over to visit my sister. I’m just staying with her for the week.”

“Lucky me then.” I smile.

“Lucky me too.” He smiles back. It’s soft. We’re soft. It felt impossible to me after all this time the tenderness was still the strongest thing between us.

We chat a bit more, much about nothing. What we did for a job, anyone we still kept in touch with from school. Nothing that meant a lot.

“I need to head off now,” I say when my phone buzzes for a second time. “I was on my way to my mum’s. She keeps calling me.”

“Yeah. Don’t want to keep you.” Harry says but he stays seated. So do I.

We continue just studying the other until my phone rings again and I laugh. “It was…I really loved seeing you.”

I slide out and Harry mirrors me. I still come to his chest, he still smells the same and stands the same and looks just as handsome.

“How about uhm, how about dinner some time?” Harry asks. I knew it was coming, it’s still painful saying no.

“I…can’t. I…we can’t just do dinner, can we?”

“No,” Harry bows his head. We had too much history to just do dinner. From what he said—and I knew, both our lives were too complicated to add the allure of each other into the mix. I couldn’t do that to my life as tempted as I was. Especially not sober.

“Yeah.” He stands straight again and gives me space to head to the door. “Good seeing you. Give your mum my best if she doesn’t hate me.”

“She doesn’t.” I assure him. We stand awkwardly not sure if a kiss, a hug, or a wave was appropriate. We settle for a hug.

I remember the last time I was enveloped in his arms, tucked away into his tall frame. When we said goodbye forever, agreed to live our best lives separately. We’d both been too scarred to be anything together. Too much grief.

“Maybe we’ll run into each other again.” Harry smiles at me when we part.

“Maybe,” I say knowing full well I wouldn’t do groceries on the weekend anymore.

With a final wave we both part ways again, this time it doesn’t feel as much like closure.

Age 35.

“Graduation’s graduating, what a mouthful.” I say to Andie. We sit in the parking lot of a local pub back home. Both of us had avoided reunions after going to the first one 10 years ago and being reminded of how much people liked to remind you of who you used to be. But this year Andie found out an old flame was going and single. And this is the first year I saw that Harry had checked off going. So we’d decided to go together.

I could have easily reached out to him. Asked him about meeting up there. But I didn’t want to come across any way. I remember our run-in 6 years ago. We felt the same way—we would do anything for each other, and I didn’t want any affect over him coming. Last I heard he was still in a relationship. Just cuz I was didn’t mean I had to ruin another.

“Okay. We going in?” Andie passes me her flask.

I’d taken to drinking again. Originally I stopped after a particularly bad night when I was 28. It nearly cost me my wedding back then.

I stopped to get sober. To feel what it felt like not to rely on alcohol to keep from feeling my emotions. I had a lot of grief I never processed. And unfortunately being sober, and processing the grief and depression, had ultimately cost me my marriage. But I was better for it. I knew what unconditional love and support was. I didn’t want to settle for someone who only loved me at my best.

Now I felt in control when I drank. I knew when to stop.

“Let’s go!”

“Do you think he’ll remember me?” Andie asks as we walk up to the place.

“You comment on so many of his posts. I think he does.” I tease.

“Gah. It would have saved me so much heartbreak if I just told him back 18 years ago how I felt.”

“Maybe,” I think about my confessed love 18 years ago and the heartbreak that ensued.

“Well at least I would have gotten him outta my system. Oh god I see him-“

“Hi ladies,” we’re stopped near the front and given name tags, making small talk with the girls working the booth. I vaguely remember them from a club but I have to read their name tags to pretend I remembered them at all.

Andie ditches me pretty quickly but I don’t mind. I find some friends I saw a couple times a year. Guess this was the couple time this year.

The whole time my eyes scan the room. People had brought their partners and I wondered if Harry would do the same. Deep down, I prayed he didn’t. I just wanted to see him.

I spot him halfway through the night. He’s leaning against the bar talking to Khalil. I remembered they used to be friends, he was always nice to me while Harry and I dated.

I watch him talk and drink. I lose him for a bit and then catch him leaving. Shite.

I excuse myself and rush out but nearly trip over myself slowing down. He was just outside for a smoke break.

“When did that habit start?” I ask. He nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Fu-y/n you scared me.” He shakes his face dramatically, like he’s getting something off of it. I bite back a smile, he was pretty drunk. “When did you get here? I didn’t know you came to these things?”

“I don’t.” I correct him. I couldn’t tell him I came for him. “It was just the name of this reunion, Graduation’s graduating. How could I pass it up?”

This earns a laugh. Eases the air between us. “Did you see Oli in there? He’s gotten bald.”

“He looks like his dad actually,” I remember his dad was always coming to Oli’s football matches, screaming at his son to run faster.

“Glad you didn’t end up with him?” Harry smirks.

“Oh yeah. I heard last reunion he just kept going up for the karaoke sober. If I want my bloke to embarrass me, at least give him the excuse of being drunk.”

“Shit,” Harry laughs. “I remember that! I remember! Wish I could forget!”

I laugh with him. “Harry you’re getting pretty close to drunk yourself.”

“Ah yeah. More than 3 drinks that, I’m being naughty tonight.”

I scrunch my nose, no idea what he’s talking about.

“I can’t believe you’re here tonight,” Harry says again. “I thought I wasn’t going to see you again for another 12 years after our last time.”

“Thought I’d halve the time.” I watch Harry squash out the butt.

“Glad you did.” He looks at me and I’m 17 again. Why couldn’t we both be single? Why did I come here knowing I couldn’t have him.

Maybe I was as masochistic as the person who invented maths.

“Yn?” A voice calls out to me. “Oi! It is you I thought I was dreaming you up! What a sight!”

I’d been avoiding Oli all night. Not anymore.

I glance at Harry and he hides a smirk. Oli notices Harry then and his face hardens a little.

“Oli! Long time!” I go in for the hug he’s reaching for, unsure why he was so sweaty on an autumn night. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he grins at me. “You look good! Not a day over 25.”

“Don’t flatter me Oli,” I roll my eyes. “It’s not going to get you anything.”

“I’m not looking! I swear it!” He says earnestly. “I’m just paying you a compliment. It’s good to see you. Hey, I’m actually in a good relationship. Gonna propose to her.”

“Are you? What’s she like?”

I stand in the brisk evening as Oli tells me about his girlfriend. I’m happy for him, what we had in high school wasn’t really a relationship but I never wished him bad. He was a good guy, I was glad he found his person.

I change the subject when he asks about my love life, tell him I was getting cold. We head back in and I tell him I’d catch up to him later. I’d lost Harry and wanted to find him again. I had more I wanted to talk about.

“Khalil,” I interrupt him playing pool. He goes in for a hug and I engage in polite small talk until I tire of it. “I’m looking for Harry.”

“Of course you are,” he wags a finger at me. “I saw him leaving ten minutes ago?”

“Jeez really?” I couldn’t believe I missed him! After coming here just for him. Maybe he had to get home, maybe he had a kid by now. Had to tuck him in.

“He’s not doing so well since the divorce-“

“What?” I stare at Khalil like he’s spoken gibberish. Why hadn’t I heard about that?

“Ehm yeah. He’s pretty private about it.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. He’s been separated a few years now but he just signed the papers a couple weeks ago. I dunno. He gets kinda depressed around this time of year. Probably the weather.”

It was September. It wasn’t the weather.

I had to find him.

I brush past the people I went to school with. I followed Harry outside to a roof 17 years ago and today I follow him out to find him again. We needed to talk.

I look both ways, hoping for a miracle.

I spot a figure slumped on the far end of the road. I recognize the church, it was where we went every Easter and Christmas growing up.

I walk towards the figure until I can make out the hair. It was Harry. Thank god.

“Why’d you leave?” I ask him when he looks up to my approaching footsteps.

“I drank too much,” he hangs his head again. I sit beside him.

“I heard about the divorce. I’m sorry.”

Harry shrugs. “We separated a while ago. It was coming for a long time.”

“Yeah. Still.” I say.

We sit in silence, the only sound is our breathing and the faint noises from the pub down the road.

“She’s in her last year by now.” I say without further explanation. I know he’d know.

“Our baby’s 17.”

Our baby? I feel choked up. All these years we’d been apart, built our own lives, and there was still an our even when there hadn’t been.

“It’s always been us hasn’t it?” Harry says. “Nobody understands.”

“They couldn’t. We were so young, making such a big decision.”

“Oh y/n.” He leans into me and I wrap my arm around his shoulder. He’s cold, his jacket pooled on the steps around him. I gather it to spread over his shoulder but he stops me. “How much heartbreak can you have in one lifetime?”

I sit, aching for the pain Harry was going through. Knowing it was mirrored in me.

“I’ve had enough for a lifetime. I know that.”

“Me too.” Harry sighs. “I miss you.”

“I’m right here.” I intertwine our hands. They still fit the exact same, all these years later. I examine them, but they looked the same too. I wonder if our baby girl ever looked at her hands, wondered who she inherited them from.

“D’you think she thinks about us?” Harry asks what I’m thinking.

“Maybe.” I say. “I like to think so. I just hope she doesn’t hate us for giving her up.”

“Yeah me too I think…” he hangs his head. I hear him sniffle. Seems like Harry hit the point of drinking where all you could feel is regret. I remember those days. I knew where he was.

When he doesn’t finish his sentence I fill the silence; “Me and Tatum split uh…four years ago now.” I update him. “You probably heard something about it. I remember my mum saying she ran into yours when it was happening. They probably talked all about it.”

I wait for Harry to give confirmation but he stays the way he is.

“I went sober a few years before then. Almost ruined our wedding cuz I was exactly where you were. Unprocessed grief and all I could do was drink about it. I’d given up a baby at 18, then lost a baby a decade later. It feels silly to say out loud, that something that never really came into this world—something the size of a fruit could act like the rock you push up the hill every morning. The grief you fight at your darkest times. How could we be haunted by something that didn’t even exist—not technically. But that’s just the way it was. And that’s the way it had to be when we were 18. I’m not always sure I made the right decision overall but I know it was a decision we had to make at the time. I’ve had to find my peace. So do you Harry.”

“Yeah. I-I have to. Y’know? Sometimes I wonder if I would have made her proud.” Harry sniffles. I had similar thoughts. My throat feels tight remembering. “I don’t think, right now, I would be.”

“She’s so loved. She is so loved Harry. Whatever…wherever she is.”

“I love you.” Harry turns to me. His face is raw with grief and emotion. “Never stopped loving you. But I don’t want to give you this version of me.”

“I’ll take any version of you Harry.” I reassure him. “I think we’ve seen too much of each other to be able to hide anything away.”

He tips forward slowly until his head rests on my chest. I hold him there, just like he’d done for me so many years ago. I tell him the type of thing that meant everything to me back then and I hope it helps him to hear it: “We’ll get through this Harry.”

***

“I don’t remember getting here.”

I look up from my book, Harry stands in my kitchen with a confused look on his face. It was weird seeing him here in my flat. But it was so right too.

“We walked home. I thought you sobered up.”

“Nuh-uh.” He takes a few steps towards me, hesitant.

“Coffee?”

“Maybe I’ll take a shower first?”

“First door on your right. Extra towels in the cupboard.”

“Thanks.”

We look at one another for a beat before he moves back. I make another pot of coffee and clean up from breakfast while he showers.

Next time he walks back in he looks a lot better. Smells nice too.

“Black please.” He says when I hold the coffee up.

I pour him a cup and watch him sip it.

“Thank you for last night.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I tell him.

“I remember what you said to me. You’re right of course. I think I knew it, I just didn’t have anyone to talk to about it with. Nobody knew about us…”

“You didn’t have to keep it a secret ‘til this day Harry.” I was surprised he had. “You didn’t even tell any of your friends?”

“The only people who knew were my family, a-and Shan. But. Year after year it didn’t mean the same thing to her. I stopped talking to her about it pretty quickly. Think it made it worse because her and I couldn’t actually…”

“Yeah.” I understood.

“But I realized. I think it was losing both of you. I feel like you were taken away too. We just went from being around each other all the time to cold turkey. That was a loss too so…”

“Yeah.” Again, I understood.

���I’m 35. I’ve gotta…get my head on straight.”

I examine him. “Looks okay to me?”

He smiles and puts his cup down.

“I’m sorry to hear about your divorce.”

“Meh that was years ago. Hard then. Fine now. For the best.”

“I agree,” Harry moves around the table to stand where I am. My heart pulses just like it always does around him. He rests a hand on my hip, dragging it up to wrap around my waist. He must feel how hard my heart’s beating. “Did I tell you? That I love you?”

“Maybe?” I feel myself growing more present. The hole that always lived inside of me growing even smaller in this moment. It allows me to settle on the floor better; less air, more weight.

“Well I do. I love you. At 17, or at 35.” He says this with a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth.

“Well. I love you.” I return the kiss, relish in the way his hand grips my tank. “At 17, or 35.”

“Sometimes I wish I held on tighter at 17. But I look at you now and I’m excited to get to know you again.”

His words pour over me like honey. It was sweet we were still on the same page.

“I’m not letting you go this time.” Harry whispers in my ear. He pulls me in tight, swaying from side to side. “I want to spend 41 and 50 with you. I want all of you, every side.”

“Perfect,” I peer up at him. “That’s exactly what I want too.”

“And maybe one day,” he continues in a hush voice. “We’ll get a call from a young girl. She’ll tell us all about her life in a town up north. About a picture she has of her mother dressed like her father and her father dressed like her mother.”

“She’ll tell us she’s had a good life, and she’s thought about the people in the picture. She’d tell us she wants to meet them.”

“We would be able to show her the love we kept for her. Our love’s like a venn diagram, the bit in the middle is just for her. She’d know why she was born in the first place.”

“Closure,” I whisper to him. “We would know closure.”

I remember the day she was taken, how the loss of not even being able to see her felt bigger than the loss of her itself back then.

I think of a 17 year old girl, with green eyes and brown hair. With my smile and Harry’s dimples. My hands, and Harry’s height. She was loved by people, families, that she didn’t even know existed yet.

They say if you love something, let it go. If it’s meant to be it’ll come back.

As Harry and I stay intertwined in the kitchen of my flat, I send out a wish into the universe for her like I did most days. That she was healthy, happy, and one day curious enough to seek us out. That one day, she would come back.

Right now I focus on the man in my arms. The one I never thought I’d get to hold again. For now this was all I needed. I’d loved him, let him go, and after so many years apart, we were back.

[lesbianrobin]

lesbianrobin fic scraps #5: you construct intricate rituals to be lifted by other men

"You do know that you have curly hair, right?"

"Uh, yeah," Eddie says, yanking a brush through his hair and wincing at the ripping sound.

"So you're destroying it on purpose? It's, like, a metal thing?"

"Huh?"

"Do you even use conditioner?"

"I didn't invite you here so you could heckle me in my own home."

Steve leans against the front door, all casual like he hangs out in Eddie's living room all the time. "You didn't invite me here, I came to pick you up and you weren't ready. Also, I'm not heckling," Steve says, "Just observing. You don't, do you?"

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” Eddie says, “It’s called two-in-one shampoo and conditioner, asshole.”

Steve lets out a noise that's halfway between a groan and a gasp. "You're joking."

Eddie raises an eyebrow.

"Oh my God, you're not joking," Steve mumbles, eyes wide.

Eddie drops his hairbrush on the coffee table and grabs his keys. "Didn't realize I needed perfect hair to ride in Steve Harrington's fancy car."

"No, but you do need shoes."

Eddie looks down.

"Oh," he says. "Yeah, that would probably help."

-

"After this party, you and I are going to the store and getting you some real shampoo and conditioner."

Eddie's still tying his right shoe, seated in the passenger seat of Steve's BMW. "I shudder to think what overpriced garbage you consider the baseline for hair-care products."

“Whine any more and I'm buying you leave-in, too.”

“What's leave-in?”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve says mournfully, looking up at the sky as if asking the man himself to lend some strength before starting his car.

Eddie observes as they pull out of the trailer park. “So, O Great Master of the haircare arts, how did you acquire such knowledge on the demands of curly hair?”

“Did you miss when people called me 'The Hair' for four years?”

“Your hair isn’t curly.”

“What, I’m not allowed to know things?” Steve sounds agitated, and he looks straight ahead at the road, not even glancing at Eddie a little bit as he speaks.

"...Oh, there's a story here!"

"No, there's not."

"The lady doth protest too much," Eddie sings, leaning close to Steve's face. Steve glances at him, though he looks back to the road quickly, shoving Eddie back toward his own seat without looking at him.

"Don't laugh."

"I won't, swear on my life," Eddie lies.

"Alright… so, you know Lucas."

"Yes."

Steve sighs. "Well, you've seen me fuck with Dustin's hair, right? I do it to Max and even Mike sometimes if he doesn't look like he'll bite me, and Lucas, he used to have, like, shorter hair, so you could kinda give him a noogie and it was, like, whatever, but now he's got the flat top and I didn't know if I could, like, touch it without messing it up, yknow? So I went to the library—"

Eddie bursts into laughter.

Steve slams his hands on the steering wheel. "I knew you were gonna laugh!"

"No," Eddie struggles to say between laughs, "No, oh my God, that's the cutest thing I've ever—"

"I fucking hate you," Steve sulks.

He can just see it, is the thing, Steve walking into the library and ringing the little bell and stumbling over his words as he asks the librarian for help finding books about hair. Squinting at the spines of books, checking out a few, carrying them back to his car and dumping them in the passenger seat with a satisfied grin.

"I had to help Dustin with his hair for the Snow Ball, too, and his is curly, so you know, I started with him back then, and then Lucas, and then I just kept reading, and it was…" Steve shrugs. "I don't know, it was cool."

Steve says it nonchalantly. As if that isn't the most precious thing on planet Earth.

"You're so cute," Eddie says, and Steve rolls his eyes, but there's something there, Eddie thinks, something soft and fond in the slight curve of his lips. There's something.

-

This isn't how Eddie had imagined getting Steve's hands on him, but he really can't be mad about it.

“Alright, alright,” Dustin chants, as Robin hoots and whistles her support.

Someone begins pounding on the table repeatedly.

“Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve!” Lucas begins the chant and Max joins in, followed shortly by Robin and Dustin. Mike looms over Eddie with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.

“No pressure, Harrington,” Eddie says.

“Man, shut up,” Steve replies, and starts to push.

Astoundingly, Eddie rises.

“Oh, shit,” he says, tensing his body as much as he can. Steve would never drop him, but Eddie might not have the abdominal muscles required to keep himself from toppling off to the side.

The Steve chant gets louder and faster, more hands pounding on tables and feet stomping on the floor. Mike is clearly trying so hard to look unimpressed, but his eyes just keep getting wider as Eddie rises higher and finally reaches the peak, Steve's arms extended as much as they can without locking out, and he holds Eddie aloft for a few seconds, and Eddie wishes more than anything that he could see Steve's face right now. Steve begins to lower him down, and god, this was all over too fast, and Eddie's heart is pounding like crazy, so loud in his ears that it almost drowns out all of their friends' raucous screaming.

“What in the hell is all this racket?”

Eddie startles, almost falling, but Steve digs his fingers in, and holy shit Eddie's going up again, and then he's coming down, and how is Steve this strong?

“Two,” Dustin calls out, “Holy shit!”

As Eddie goes up again, Nancy explains, “Steve said he can bench, like, two hundred pounds or something, and Eddie said he bet Steve couldn't even lift him and he's about one-seventy—”

“One-sixty, Wheeler,” Eddie calls out, and then he's coming back down again and Steve says, “I don't know, feels more like one-eighty.”

“Oh, screw you.”

“Three!”

"...Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve..!"

“Huh.” Mike's dad almost sounds impressed. “Well, keep it down, your sister's trying to do her homework.”

Mike snorts. “Holly's homework is coloring.”

“Hey, don’t knock coloring,” Eddie says. It’s hard to sound normal, with Steve’s hands pressing into his back and thighs, but he’s pretty sure he’s managing it. “It’s a noble and honored tradition, Wheeler, one of humanity’s oldest pursuits. Art is—”

“Four!”

"...Steve, Steve..!"

“—what makes life worth living, after all.”

Steve grunts with effort, making Eddie’s chest seize up, but he rises for the fifth time. Someone says, “Jesus Christ,” but Eddie’s not sure who.

“Mike, maybe you could ask Steve here to take you to the gym sometime.”

“Dad,” Mike groans.

“And five!” Dustin begins to clap as soon as Eddie’s back down. The hooligans abandon pounding on the table to cheer, hooting and hollering with all of the enthusiasm of an adventuring party confronted with a chest full of riches.

“Alright, get off of me,” Steve grunts, and Eddie acquiesces, rolling to the side and leaping to his feet. God, he could scale a mountain right now. Eddie turns to look at Steve, and holy shit, actually, he could not scale a mountain right now, because his heart would explode. Lying on his back, face slightly flushed, arms splayed out and hair messy, Steve looks utterly obscene. To be fair, Steve always looks obscene, but Eddie can still feel the phantoms of Steve's hands pressing against him, and he holds a hand out without thinking. Steve takes it, leveraging himself up in a way that nearly has Eddie toppling down onto the floor next to him, but they manage to both stay standing.

"What do I owe you, again?"

"You guys forgot to actually bet anything," Dustin says helpfully.

"Shit," Steve sighs, letting go of Eddie's hand to put his hands on his hips.

"Maybe you could get me that hair crap you were talking about earlier."

"I win, and my reward is that I get to buy you things?"

"Yep," Eddie says. He can feel himself smiling, so wide that it's almost embarrassing, but he can't help it. Steve is smiling, too.

Steve eyes his hair, and apparently he's distressed enough by what he sees to sigh and say, "Shit, alright. But you have to use it exactly how I show you, asshole."

Eddie puts one hand on his heart and the other in the air. "Scout's honor."

[erinwantstowrite]

Let me just quickly say, cross-overs can sometimes get REALLY difficult to map out and write in a cohesive way but you have absolutely NAILED IT!! I absolutely ADORE LoF!!! I usually don’t even bother reading fics with the ‘Richard Grayson is Richard Parker’ premise cause I felt like they were super confusing and overcomplicated but this fic?? SUPERB. ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. OH MY GOD I ADORE IT. Everyone’s characterizations are so nice and wonderful aaaaaaah!!!! <33333

Ok ok I did actually have a question as well: would you be willing to share what your writing process looks like in terms of a chapter you’ve already posted? I was just wondering since I’m also currently working on my own fic (it’s been a few years but I managed to get fixated on an idea and it grew legs lol) and I’m currently fighting the organization of it haha.

How do you keep track of the plot points and/or foreshadowing you want to get a ‘lightbulb!’ moment for later? Do you have any tips?

Thank you so much! I absolutely adore your writing AND your art is so gorgeous omg it adds so much to the incredible story :DDD I hope you have a good day!!

I have a secret: I actually didn't like "Richard Grayson is Richard Parker' tag for a while for the same reason. Sometimes they felt like they missed the mark or it's just. A thing that's there? I almost didn't include it for LoF, but I'm glad I did because it changed the direction in such a big way.

Another secret: this made me incredibly happy because I have read so many wikis and scoured the internet to make sure that I had enough info on both fandoms so LoF could make sense to anyone who's reading it, whether they know Spider-Man, Batfam, or neither at all. Sometimes I worry a lot before I post that I'll miss a mark and will confuse people.

As for the question: I definitely am willing to share what my writing process looks like!

Be prepared for under the cut, I love to yap. It's in my blood to yap. And that's why it took a minute to get to this ask haha

(Spoilers for Leap of Faith!! Everything mentioned has already been published ((Chapters 1-11))

I had to go and find out which chapter I wanted to use as an example and I think we're gonna go with Chapter 5 for the most part :)

My writing process is, as described by alighterwood:

I think the description fits because while I'm all over the place, I have to be very detail oriented and I store everything in one spot.

Starting with the overall process, what I find is most helpful for me, when organizing, is having a notebook rather than doing it all digitally. I've been using a 70 sheet notebook that I had lying around waiting to be used, and as of yesterday, I officially filled the entire thing front to back. It's been an incredible help, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it's a lot easier to remember something I physically wrote down than it is to remember something I typed. I'm now on to my second notebook for LoF, and I might even have to get a third.

In another ask, startupkat asked me this:

And I shared a little about my outline process there, but I'll try to go into a little more depth here. Emphasis on little because this is so long.

I write a truly insane amount of outlines in this notebook.

This is just what I can show you, but a good chunk of the notebook is just outlines. Over and over and over again. That's because they're always changing/adapting based on so many different factors. Sometimes I get to a chapter I thought I had fully planned out and then realize it just doesn't work anymore. Other times, I get to the chapter and realize I don't want to write that anymore/isn't as interesting as I thought it would be. A few times I got halfway through a POV of a scene I was struggling on and decided to switch POV's, which will change up the outline for a chapter every now and then.

Which is why I don't write incredibly detailed outlines and try to keep it vague until I actually get to that chapter. It's a lot less daunting to rewrite a chapter outline than it is to rewrite the entire outline.

Fic outlines and Chapter outlines look a lot alike.

This is what I said in the other ask, but I didn't elaborate on it all the way.

I make a list just like that, and then I try to put it in chronological order/in an order that makes sense. I keep the Fic outline vague by writing down "Goals" for a chapter rather than scenes. But I also keep notes to myself if I really think something is important. The more important I think a scene needs to be, the more details I write down to make sure my future self recalls what I had in mind when I thought it up.

Really simple example:

Chap 1 Goal: Peter gets to Gotham and meets Babs while running around. Meet Nightwing too? Get shelter.

Chapter 2 Goal: Bats are like "???" about Peter. Batfam dynamic important... Peter stalking Batfam back? Peter meet Batman >:)

When I get to a chapter, that's when I make a far more detailed list of wants/needs/goals. It's the Step 2 from the Step 1. Here are some examples from Chapter 5:

Needed to have:

More POV's from universe 1299 (Peter's home universe)

Tony's POV more specifically, how he's doing/feeling, what he's figured out

What they've figured out on 1299 side vs what's going on in 1300 (Gotham)

Explaining more about Peter's trauma/his past

Dick learning more about Peter, and vise versa

Wanted to have:

Ned being a more central character

Natasha :)

Loki being a little shit

Tony and Cap bickering

Peter talking to Nightwing again

The last name Grayson

Gymnastics!!

(This is the shortened list, because the chapters are so long)

When I looked at this list before writing my outline, I had to figure out how I could incorporate everything. If I needed more 1299 POV's, and I wanted Ned, Natasha, and Loki, there's one scene accounted for. I had to get their side of things and wanted that trio together. I needed a Tony POV, and I wanted Tony and Cap bickering, so those went together, plus I got 1299's POV of Ohnn and his plans explained.

I needed to have Peter explaining more about his trauma, and Dick and Peter to talk/get closer. I wanted a Nightwing POV, to have Peter say his last name, and them doing gymnastics. I knew Peter wouldn't willingly talk about that, so I had him have a nightmare. Not only did it give readers perspective but it made Peter more susceptible to talking to Nightwing because he was more emotionally vulnerable/lonely, and that's how that scene came together.

That's when I would write down the chronological order of these events by writing out "Scene Blocks." (This is what I wrote down but my handwriting was so bad I can't subject y'all to it):

scene 1- Ned talking to Loki. Natasha should be nearby and observing Loki's behavior. They are not on friendly terms. Ned is more worried about Peter than he is as to what Loki could be up to, so Natasha takes on that role.

scene 2- Tony is freaking out about Peter being in an alt dimension. He should attack Ohnn when he's not prepared for it. Beat his ass? Beat his ass. Cap there too.

scene 3- Peter's nightmare. "Ben, where do you go when you die?" "Where do you think?" "With you. Where you went."

scene 4- Nightwing and Peter.

Of course, things come to attention when writing. Like originally, Tony and Cap were arguing in the Tower. But it was a little too much like his and Natasha's argument, and I kept in mind that Tony is smart. Sometimes I forget that the characters are smarter than I am, so I have to account for what they would figure out. So Tony would have picked up the puzzle pieces and come to more conclusions than I originally thought about, and I figured he'd be way more proactive about it than just. Being in the Tower and waiting.

Which means that that scene ended up being as listed above: having a squabble with Cap, learning more about Peter's dynamic with the Avengers in this universe, and seeing how Tony is reacting to it by throwing himself head first into trying to capture Ohnn.

I'll realize I need something else to be mentioned or put in and I'll have to shimmy things around, but that's basically how it goes.

As for other forms of organization:

Keeping a timeline is so important because it tells you a lot about the environment your characters are in. It's also important to remember what a character has on them, what money they've spent, who they've met/who you have mentioned, every alias that is being used, to read your work and write down edits you want to make before you make them, to write down ideas beforehand of situations you can use, and, most importantly: MAKE A MAP!! This has saved me so many times. Sometimes your brain WILL trick you or make it harder on you to envision a scene. Make a map of where your characters are physically!! It will save you too!!

As for foreshadowing and plot points, I'll let you in on yet another secret:

Your subconscious is doing a lot more than you think it is.

Sometimes when I foreshadow something, I didn't even know I was until I got to it. I very often go back to read chapters that came before this to see what I've mentioned and what I haven't, and when I do, I'll see something and go "I have to bring this back" or "I almost forgot about that!"

Other times, I am very aware of what I'm foreshadowing, and that's because I follow a mystery plot formula. You have to keep in mind everyone's intentions, all the time. How are they feeling? What are their motivations? And: what are they doing right now, while this character is doing this?

Like Beck and Ohnn. From the very beginning, I knew I had to make sure that it was obvious Ohnn wasn't working alone. From there, I had to weave through the story and slowly build him up as someone who's working behind the scenes. Even from Ned's first POV, I made sure to mention that this person knows Tony and is tech savvy.

My biggest tip is to make sure you reread your work or at least skip through it, because sometimes you don't even know that you placed something there.

And sometimes, it's very purposeful. :)

I hope this helped! I really tried to keep it short but I am insane and the process is sooooo long. It sounds complicated but it really is simple when you're actually doing it I swear

[erinsturniolo]

i don’t want you like a best friend - M.S

summary: bestfriend!matt and “bestfriend”!reader at a party with unknown desires for eachother.

warnings: p in v, unprotected sex, lots of smut, shower sex, swearing, underage drinking, very few uses of y/n (I tried to put it in here no times but I couldn’t!! I’m so sorry omgggg I hate it too dw 😭)

may make you get mad: “that’s not fitting.” “I’ll make it.” I know. I hate this too but his dick is like seven inches and tbh any girl would be lucky to have all seven inches regardless of height. also I’m new to smut writing so I may suck at explaining shit and have horrid grammar. I myself don’t know what (juno) position they are in but I’m too lazy to fix it so.. finally, “pretty sounds” cringy af but I used moan and groan and idk what else there is

if u wanna take inspo from this (thank you!) idc as long as you don’t copy my entire thing. but if your under 18 fuck off, no smut for you 👎

word count: idfk?? find out yourself xx

(this isn’t gonna be realistic, I’ve never been to a party or hooked up with anyone before so 😭 I feel a lot of us here on Tumblr haven’t. we’re saving ourselves for Matt 😭😭😭)

(this is my first time writing a smut fanfic, first sturniolo fanfic and first Tumblr fanfic! sorry it might be bad, not proofread. just trying out writing instead of reading!)

(english is NOT my first language. if I spelled a word wrong or something DONT BLAME ME, LOVE MADE ME CRAZY. (iykyk))

I ACCIDENTALLY CHANGED IT TO I INSTEAD OF YOU HALFWAY THROUGH OH MY GOD IM SO FUCKING SORRY IM DUMB AF

You were just hanging out with one of your friends, gossiping about the latest rumors around your school when you got an invite to the biggest party of the year. Thrown by the one and only sturniolo triplets, they were known for throwing the most lavish parties and sneaking in drinks for everyone to have. Their parties also earned the reputation of the place to hook up. You and the triplets were best friends, but you were especially close with Matt. You secretly have a desire for Matt that no one knows, not even your best friends. When you saw the invitation you squealed. “f/n, we need to go shopping for dresses, right now!” And so you did, you went to every store when you found the perfect dress. A short dress with a black dress part and gold straps and trim. It was perfect, but you could only imagine Matt taking it off.

you and your friend arrived at the part around 9:00pm. The lights are on and music is blasting, even from outside. You and f/n park at the end of the 50-ish line of cars. You finally step into the party and are immediately greeted with booming music and a drink to start, you take the drink and glance around at everyone. The party had only started 30 minutes ago but people were already on the dance floor. You scanned the crowd specifically looking for one person. Matt. “Girl who are you looking for? You’ve been to these parties before, come on!” F/n yells over the loud music, yanking your arm and entering the dance floor. You started having sips out of your drink, and sat down at the kitchen island. “Hey! I’ve been looking for you for so long, where were you?” You turn around to see Matt, in a leather jacket and pants, you glance up and down at his body. Shocked on how good he looks. “oh, my friend just pulled me to the dance floor, I was looking for you too!” You giggle, while your hands begin to shake trying to maintain eye contact and not dick contact. “you? on the dance floor?” Matt teased “don’t even right now.” you tried to hide your grin as he kept teasing and laughing at you.

the time with Matt went by so fast. Your conversation lasted around an hour before you both realized how long you had been talking, and the party was livelier than ever, you and Matt had been pulled back onto the dance floor. The amount of people in the crowd was making your body be thrown around like you were in a washing machine. You finally caught up to matt, who was significantly taller, making it easier for him to get through. “Jesus Christ, it’s like a mosh pit in there.” You laughed “that’s because it is a mosh pit.” Matt informed you. You glanced up at Matt when you heard yelling from behind, you turned around to see Nick and Chris fighting for approximately the 1989th time. “No, cause-!” Chris was cut off by Matt’s yell for them to stop. “whatever, I’m gonna go get some a drink, you guys want any?” I said in annoyance by the mosh-pit-like crowd. “nah- jinx!”Nick and Chris said at once, then continued to fight over who said “jinx” first. “I’ll come, I’ll have to protect you from the crowd or else you’ll get trampled.” Matt chuckled. I chuckled back, but what he didn’t know is that that sentence sent butterflies through my stomach.

I opened the cabinet to grab another bottle of liquor and was only a centimetre away from the bottle, even in my tippy toes. Matt was on his phone, and I didn’t want to bother him, so I just tried to get it myself. I groaned in annoyance at the fact I couldn’t grab it myself, so I climbed onto the counter. I finally caught the bottle and was about to climb down when my foot slipped and I fell, but I didn’t fall. someone caught me?

Matt. motherfucking matthew sturniolo caught me, he is my best friend but still. I was in his arms looking up into his eyes like a dumb puppy. I was so stunned that I didn’t even realize the entire bottle of liquor emptied onto my dress. “shit- sorry.” I say as I try to stand up and clean myself off with the nearby paper towels. “no it’s fine, I should have helped you-“ Matt tries to say “no no Matt it’s okay, my fault entirely. how dumb did I have to be to climb up there?” I apologize, Matt chuckles “we don’t have much paper towels, let’s get you cleaned up” Matt says as he grabs my arm and pulls me toward the bathroom. “here you go-“ Matt says as he hands me a handful of toilet paper. with any other person I would be fine with the setting, but not with Matt. being in the bathroom with Matt probably seemed normal to everyone except me. it seemed like a fanfiction, a dream. I’m so lost in thinking about how romantic it is that he - MATTHEW STURNIOLO is in the bathroom with me, that I didn’t even think to look up. But much to my surprise Matt was staring right at my eyes. “oh-sorry. your eyes are just really pretty, whoever is your boyfriend in the future would be lucky to have you” Matt stutters, I freeze. did Matt just say, I’m pretty? “o-oh! thank you Matt” I smile blushing like a ripe-RIPE tomato. Matt giggles, I glance over and I realize that 10 seconds ago I swear the bathroom door was open, but now it’s closed. I look back at matt and he must have saw the lust in my eyes, and I saw the lust in his. I could tell that look, even if I haven’t hooked up with anybody before. the look of lust, wait no- love.

I stutter “m-Matt? why’d you close the do-“ “you know y/n.” Matt says while putting his hand on my cheek. I lean into him, he leans into me. and in that moment, I kiss him. I know, me, kissing Matt? but no, it’s happening. right now, I close my eyes and just stop thinking. it feels like both me and Matt are stunned at what we’re doing, but it both feels magical. He pulls me in and turns so my back is leaning against the sink counter. we let go of the kiss and Matt moves his hand toward my hip, and placing the other on my shoulder, fiddling with my dress strap. I place one hand on the back of his neck and one on his belt. I lean in again but Matt leans into my neck and starts playfully kissing it. I let out a small groan and start fidgeting with his belt. “matt-“ I try to say but matt cuts me off. “shh” matt whispers, and pulls my strap of my dress to the side of my shoulder. I fidget with Matt’s belt, but what I didn’t know is that it comes undone easily, and his pants are only held up by his belt. all of a sudden Matt’s belt crashes onto the floor and so does his pants. “fuck sorry Matt” I whisper. Matt pulls away and suggests me “how about I make us even? hmm?” I nod my head as he pulls a strap of my dress off, then the other. I put my hand under his shirt and slowly lift his shirt. Next thing I know my dress is on the ground and Matt’s shirt and pants are on the ground and Matt is turning on the shower.

Matt steps into the shower and throws his boxers off and out of the shower, I undress slowly but get pulled into the shower by Matt, still in my underwear. “I couldn’t wait.” Matt says seductively. I glance down and freeze. “like what you see?” Matt chuckles “that is not fitting.” I speak “I’ll make it” Matt whispers. he places his hands on my underwear and glides it off grinning. Matt grabs my hips and pins me against the foggy, cool glass. I place my hands on his checks and start kissing him. Matt pulls me closer and bites my lip, making me groan. He takes a hand off my hip and onto his dick, and starts teasing me with his dick, I can’t help but moan. My lips let go from his as I bite my lip. “there you go, keep making those pretty sounds for me.” Matt moans as he slides his length into my pussy, I practically scream at how good it feels, my head flings back in pleasure as he wraps my legs around him. He holds my body and bounces it to reach maximum pleasure, with each bounce, he goes faster. And so do my moans. I’m moaning as fast as I can and as loud as I need, I’m positive other people can hear but I don’t care. I can feel the knot in my stomach start to build up. “m-Matt g-gonna c-“ I stutter before creaming all over Matt’s veiny, throbbing dick. Screaming at how good it feels. Matt keeps me bouncing on his dick, just waiting for himself to cum. He starts moaning and I knew what was about to come (see what I did there 🤭)”shit y/n I’m about to co-“ Matt gets interrupted by my moans of his cum filling my walls, painting them white. “oh my fuck- I” I stutter before Matt lifts me off his dick and onto the ground. I land on my knees, panting like a dog. “oh my god, that felt so good.” I moan, Matt puts his hand on my chin and pulls my face towards him. “just wait for the car.”

[endlessthxxghts]

Babes you already know. Smutttaaaay!!! Let’s go with Frankie, and I would really love for you to include a food item. Not saying it HAS to be caramel, but like, also not saying that. 😉 ILY and I am SO FREAKING PROUD OF YOU. You write your bootay off and feed us all. You deserve it!

Please accept 1,000 kiths from me to you. 💋💖

Comfortable

Frankie Morales x afab!reader Can be read as a standalone or in association with Liquid Gold.

Summary: Frankie helps fulfill your craving for s'mores. SMUT 18+ MDNI: food play (melted chocolate), slight soft dom!Frankie, neck kissing/hickeys, vaginal fingering, finger sucking, cumming untouched.

A/N: @katiexpunk, MY LOVE, I LOVE AND APPRECIATE YOU SO MUCH. I'M GIVING YOU 1,000 KISSES RIGHT BACK. I'm also giving you 1,000 (maybe slightly more… but I won’t tell if u don’t🤐) smutty words right back. 💋💋

MASTERLIST || L'S 1K CELEBRATION

It wasn’t often you craved s’mores, but when you did—God, did you need them immediately. Frankie knew right away there was no battling you on this even though you two were in the middle of cuddle time, so with a kiss to your forehead, he told you he’d set up the bonfire while you dressed into something more warm. 

Padding to your room, you change into your usual bonfire outfit—a two-sizes too big sweatshirt paired with your favorite flannel pajama pants—then you make the trek to your backyard to Frankie basking in the orange glow of the flame, all the s’more ingredients placed on the chair beside him. 

He smiles at you, opening his legs further, patting his lap. You make your way to him, and with his hands on your hips, he turns you around to face the fire, settling you to sit on the inside of his thigh. 

“I’ll have mine after yours, baby, get your fix first,” Frankie tells you, placing a kiss on your shoulder as he places a fluffy marshmallow on the skewer.

“Okay, baby,” you beam, turning your body more to face the fire—your ass directly on his crotch at the change in position. Frankie nearly chokes on his spit.

After a few more seconds, you’re sitting back up, the friction against him enough for a breathy groan to escape his lips. “Done! Ready for the assembly, baby, can you-” 

Only then do you take him in, your eyes meeting his pained expression. “Baby- are- are you okay? Am I hurting you? I could pull up another chair-”

You move to get up, one hand still holding the skewer slightly over the fire as you look back to Frankie behind you, but his hands wrap around your thighs, keeping you atop of him. 

“No,” he cuts you off. “Don’t- You’re- you’re not hurting me,” he tells you. 

“Are you sure? Really, if this isn’t comfortable-”

Frankie sits up a little straighter, a little taller now, his face closer to yours. He stops your rambling again. “Querida, does it feel like I’m uncomfortable?” He asks, voice an octave lower. 

As soon as the question leaves his lips, you realize how hard he feels beneath you. You realize then, too, that his gaze isn’t pained. No, it’s aroused. Your heart skips a beat, a tiny squeak of an oh escapes you. “No, I guess- I guess not,” you whisper. 

Suddenly, Frankie’s clearing his throat, trying to erase his dirty mind to help you satisfy your s’more craving. He reaches to the seat beside him, grabbing the graham cracker rectangle and breaking it in half, laying a piece of already semi-melted chocolate onto the cracker before he sandwiches the marshmallow, squishing it tightly so you can pull the skewer out. 

Setting the skewer down, you grab the s’more from him, taking your first bite. As you relish the pleasure hitting your taste buds, Frankie’s hands are on a mission, settling on the insides of your thighs and pushing them open, guiding each of your legs to sit on the outside of his. He doesn’t go further yet, just sits there rubbing on your thighs as you eat. 

Halfway through your dessert, you feel his hand start to make its way higher, his large hand cupping the entirety of your mound through your pants, his tongue licking a stripe up your neck. 

“Frankie,” you whimper, pausing your work on your s’more. 

“Shh, just-” he breathes, rubbing your clothed pussy in a slow, circular motion as he speaks. “Just finish your s’more, baby, don’t mind me.” 

You can’t help the way your hips thrust into his hand, your body already hotter than the fire burning not even 3 feet away from you. “Please,” you cry again. 

“Finish it, baby, I’ll give you what you want when you do,” he breathes. You can feel his cock twitch underneath your ass, only spurring you on more. 

Utterly distracted, you didn’t realize just how tight you’re squeezing the poor sandwich, so a big glob of melted chocolate plops right on your face—from your bottom lip down to your chin. 

A frustrated huff of disappointment leaves you, turning your head to Frankie with a pout. “Baby, my chocolate,” you whine. 

His free hand glides up your body, settling on the base of your neck, his long finger nudging your chin to look at him. “Mírame,” look at me, he rasps, his tongue coming out to lick up the chocolate on your chin, bringing himself all the way up to your lips, pulling you in for a sloppy, chocolatey clash of mouth. The last bite of your s’more now forgotten as it falls to the floor, you reach to grab onto the wrist of the hand that’s rubbing you while your other hand plants itself in his messy curls, keeping him flush against your lips as you both swallow each other's desperations. 

He breaks away, sucking and releasing your bottom lip with a pop as he goes. “So damn sweet, querida,” he moans into you, bringing his mouth back down to your throat, biting and sucking as his fingers make their way inside your pants, passing your clit to lather his fingers in your slick before he comes back up and continues his slippery assault all over your pulsing bud.

“Oh, sh- shit-” you squeal, your hips thrusting wildly against him, the pleasure overtaking every inch of your body. A particular nip to the sweet spot of your neck has you reeling, Frankie taking that moment of weakness to slide his two fingers inside of you easily, the feeling of a stretch prevalent but all too consuming to register as any kind of pain. 

“Fuck, baby-” his deep voice grumbles into your neck. “Feel so good wrapped around my fingers like this, honey, oh, fuck-” 

His own hips start to move, his length rubbing against the swell of your ass, his own pleasure starting to cloud his brain. 

In the corner of his eye, he sees the chocolate beside him, apparently a bit too close to the fire because it’s now a melty gooey mess in its wrapper. Way too addicted to a sweet mess with you, he can’t stop his free hand from reaching over to the chocolate, and squeezing the melted sweetness, spilling all over your neck—his tongue immediately laps it up as you moan and writhe on top of him. 

“Yes- yes, Frankie, please, m-more,” you sob, your breathing as erratic as your hummingbird of a heart. 

“Yeah? My sweet baby wants more?” He asks, biting the lobe of your ear. “Where do you want it? Here?” He licks your neck. “Or you want it here?” His finger makes its way to your mouth, tapping on your bottom lip, your mouth immediately opening to allow him entrance. 

A whimper leaves your throat as his finger finds itself on your tongue. “Oh, sweet girl,” he breathes, his hand slipping away from your mouth momentarily. 

You were expecting him to bring the chocolate to your mouth, but instead you’re met with two of his fingers—completely covered in chocolate, all for you to lap up. “Just want something in that pretty little mouth of yours, huh, cariño? I got you, sweet girl, open up for me,” he whispers, his long fingers already hitting the back of your throat, your eyes rolling back at the sweet, full sensation in your mouth. 

You’re quite literally rendered speechless now, pornographic squeals and moans unrelenting as he continues to keep your mouth and pussy full. A familiar tingle at the base of your spine flickers, growing brighter and brighter as his release approaches. 

Your whimpers grow more desperate as your pussy flutters around his digits—he knows you're close. “Alright, baby, alright, baby, come on now,” he coos, his fingers leaving your mouth, your lips and chin covered in your overproduction of saliva. He puts his own fingers into his mouth now, drinking you in but also making sure all the chocolate is gone, he now brings those fingers down to your sex, rubbing on your clit as his other hand continues to fuck you towards your high. 

Turning your head to him, your tongues meet first, hints of sweet cocoa mixed with a flavor that’s all Frankie—your orgasm hits you hard, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you grind yourself against his lap, his hand and your pants completely soaked in your arousal. He moans with you, his hips shaking against your own as a slight warmth floods your lower back. 

Fuck. He just came. 

You both come to a halt, sitting in your own messes for a minute to let your hearts sync to a slower beat. You pull his hand from your pants, bringing his finger up to your mouth and sucking it clean. You can hear a low groan from the back of his throat. You turn to him. “Sweet,” you say. “Wanna try?” You ask with a smirk. 

“Cheeky,” he mutters, bringing his fingers up to his own mouth, licking your spend clean. 

Too caught up in each other’s embrace, you forgot to tend to the fire, now just a pile of barely glowing wood, a shiver racks your body—particularly your drenched, lower body. 

“Are you sure you’re still comfortable like this?” You repeat your sentiment from earlier, a hint of amusement laced in your voice. 

“Yeah, no, baby, I think we should go inside and clean up,” he says, kissing your temple. His hand makes its way down, cupping your sex once more. “Still haven’t had my dessert yet.” 

You shoot up from your place in his lap, pulling him up and hastily making your way to the bathroom. “Let’s get going, then, baby, I don’t wanna keep you waiting,” you say, mischief written all over your face.

End note: God, someone lock me in a room with Frankie and a bunch of messy foods, please and thanks. Katie, baby, I hope this does our food play delulus justice. Many sloppy kisses for u. Thank you everyone again for being on this journey with me, for supporting me, for interacting with me. I know I say it a lot, but truly, there are no words to describe my endless amount of gratitude I have for you all. Thank you. More requests were sent in!! Keep on the lookout for those!! Please do let me know what you guys think, too!! I love hearing what you guys think about these lil stories :-)

[mcu-coworkers]

Complete

Summary: Life for you and Miguel was greener on the other side. 

Word count:2.5k+

Warnings: slight child birth complications, pregnancy. Other than that  nothing much.

A/n: This is pt.3 to “Where Do Broken Hearts Go?” I wanted to give you guys something to read while I work on Pt.3 to “You?” so I hope you guys enjoy the third and final bit of this story, see you guys soon!xx

Tag list:  @marcswife21 @greeknerd007​

Parts: I  II III^

CREDITS TO THE OWNER^

It had been months since you’re little get away with Miguel, 7 to be exact and six since you found out you were pregnant.

And 3 since you found out it was a boy.

You’ll never forget the day you found out.

Miguel had come home early from HQ to take you to a surprise dinner date, he’d been thinking about it all day.

He found it a little weird you didn't come to the entrance when he opened the door like you usually did.

“Amor, Ya llegue.” He yelled out walking into the house.

Still no response.

“Lyla checks for heat signatures.” he said as he began looking into the rooms.

You didn't mention going anywhere and last he checked you were home.

“Low heat signatures detected on the…the bathroom floor.” she said, realization hitting them both.

Miguel made record time running upstairs and into the bathroom where he found you on the floor.

“Ay mi amor. Lyla check her vitals.” he said, picking you up and laying you on the bed.

Lyla began doing a scan on your body when she found something strange halfway through.

“Um Miguel, there's uh..” she paused, not sure how to say it.

“A what Lyla what's wrong with my wife?” he asked, getting annoyed.

“A baby.” she blurted.

Miguel froze.

Suddenly you began to stir, eventually opening your eyes.

“Miguel? Honey- oh ow..” you said rubbing your head.

Sitting up in bed you start taking in your surroundings, a bunch of holograms that all look like a big blur.

You looked back at Miguel who had what probably is the biggest smile on his face that you could have ever seen.

“Mi hermosa luz, eres mi todo. (my beautiful light, you are my everything.)” he said, taking your face in his hands.

Confused but delighted by the compliment you rubbed his arm, “Gracias mi vida?”

“We're having a baby.” he said, finally deciding to fill you in.

Gasping in shock you looked at Lyla who confirmed that statement by showing you a sonogram of a little bean in your belly.

Miguel laughed at your reaction and pulled you in for a hug.

Finally, he thought.

His world was complete and all thanks to his beautiful wife.

“Thank you.” he said as he kissed all over your face.

“It takes two to tango O’hara don’t forget to thank your biggest asset.” you said giggling, you could feel him smiling as he continued to kiss down your neck.

Ever since that day Miguel made it a priority to have yours and the baby’s checked frequently.

Very frequently actually he just wanted to make sure all was well the Miguel O’Hara way.

At 4 months you began to feel cramping sensations so the doctor recommended indefinite bed rest and that devastated you because Miguel was finally taking you to the Spider Society to meet everyone but with this news there was no chance.

Two months later you feel yourself at your best and hoping the doctor sees that too.

“Are you ready mi amor?” Miguel said, peeking his head into the kitchen.

“Yep.  I   hope the bed rest order gets lifted or  I   actually think  I  ‘ll go insane Miguel.” you said slightly waddling over to him.

Your bump was getting bigger and walking like a normal person was getting harder.

Giving him a peck on the lips he followed you out the door smiling at your little walk.

-----

One more month.

He made you do one more month of bed rest before granting you freedom.

As soon as you heard those god sent words you were ready to get out of that hospital and go for a nice long walk.

….At the spider society.

Not to mention that throughout your entire pregnancy your attraction to Miguel only grew stronger.

Just the thought of feeling him inside you again would have made you cum on the spot.

The doctor said sex was normal but the closer to the due date the less like bunnies and more like turtles.

Whatever it was  you’d take it.

You wasted no time as soon as you got home.

“Amor?” you called out.

“Yes?” he said as he went into the kitchen to grab a drink.

“ I   need you.” you said bluntly, beginning to take off your maternity clothes.

“Is everything okay? ¿Te sientes mal? Que pa- oh.” he said as he stood in the entrance of the living room.

“ I   need you.” you said one more time walking over to him slowly, grabbing his hand and bringing it down to your hot core already dripping for him.

“Baby- fuck.” he said trying to refrain from going back to his rough ways.

Turtles, turtles, turtles he thought to himself as he laid you down and gave you everything you wanted.

After a night that was much needed you laid together on the couch as he rubbed on your belly.

“Miguel?” you said tracing patterns on his bicep.

“Hmm?” he hummed in response, eyes feeling droopy.

“Can we go to spider society?  I   wanna meet everyone, please?” you asked sweetness dripping from your voice hoping it would work.

“Whatever you want Princessa, it's yours.” he said pulling you in closer and dozing off into a deep sleep.

Smiling to yourself you fell asleep content, and impatient to get to HQ.

----

To be completely honest, Miguel was halfway to dreamland when you asked him about going to HQ.

So when you reminded him in the morning and asked what day he’d be taking you it practically caught him off guard.

“ I   said what?”

“Ay Miguel, aren't you the attentive one? You said you’d take me to HQ this week.” you said, serving him his breakfast with a bright smile.

Cursing himself for slipping up he looked up at you and smiled.

“Friday mi amor,  I   will take you on friday.” he said, earning an excited squeal from you and you waddling over to kiss him on the cheek and rant about all the things you wanted to see.

----

Friday couldn't have come any sooner for you but for Miguel it could have.

Once he told the team about your upcoming arrival they were just as over the moon as you were.

Jess and Peter B. were planning a surprise baby shower after hearing you elected to not have one given how tired you were and Miguel's persistence of you getting rest only solidified that decision even more.

The real kicker was that not even Miguel knew about the surprise so decorating and planning had to be swift and silent.

But at last, it was friday and you had picked your prettiest sundress and waited patiently for Miguel to come get you.

While you waited you thought about the weeks you had left with your little guy, the time was getting closer and you for one couldn't wait to have him in your arms.

Miguel walked through the portal just outside the living room and walked into a sight that made his heart skip a beat.

“Funny,  I   told Lyla to send me home but  I   think she ended up sending me to heaven.” he said as he leaned down to kiss you on the lips whilst rubbing on your belly, making you smile.

“Hi baby, let's get going, I don't wanna keep anyone waiting.” you said extending your arms so he’d help you up.

Nodding in silence he reopened the portal and let you go first.

Walking in he made sure to stay close to you and explain a couple of things.

“If you or the bay get too overwhelmed just tell me and we’ll go strai-” beore he could finish that a very excited Peter B. was coming down the hall.

“Is that who  I   think it is? My god she is Beautiful Miguel. Hi, I'm Peter B. this is May Day. I'm the only spiderman with a kid.” he said pulling you in for a hug.

“For now.” Miguel said, smiling down at you.

“It’s nice to finally meet one of my husband's best friends, not to mention this cute little thing. May  I  ?”you asked, reaching out.

“You do not have to ask,” he said, handing a smiley May Day over. “Do you wanna see the pictures  I   took of her? You are absolutely going to flip.” he said, pulling out his phone.

“Oh  I‘d love to.” you said taking her from him as Miguel tried to interject.

“Amor, maybe you shouldn't hold a baby-” he tried gently following you closely.

“Corazon it's fine! Look at her, she's a feather.” you said cuddling your face with hers.

“Wow, Never thought  I‘d see the day someone told my buddy Miguel no.” Peter B. said, mesmerized by your being.

“Keep walking Parker.” Miguel said, and there he was.

Eventually Peter B. was able to lead you to the room where the shower was and the surprise was overwhelming to say the least.

Miguel would have ripped out a couple of throats had the act upset you but you were over the moon especially after meeting Jess.

After making sure you were okay Miguel allowed himself to relax and enjoy watching everyone meet the love of his life and adore her almost as much as he did.

No one would ever love you as much as he did. Not even close.

After hours of talking and laughing Miguel decided it was finally time to go home.

“Alright this was fun but we should get going, you need to rest.” he said putting his hand on your lower back.

He was right you were a bit tired but there was still so much to learn, “Pero amor Im still getting to know everyone! Where is LEGO Peter, your best man?Is that plush spidey?” you asked looking around you could swear you just saw someone holding a plush spidey.

“ I   know  I   know but we can come back another time, Ya lets go.” he said urging you on.

“Okay fine,” you said, turning to say your goodbyes while he opened the portal.

“Oh oof hold on.” you said clutching your belly whilst holding on to Gwens arm.

“Everything okay momma?” she asked as Miguel ran over.

“Yeah it's just a braxton kick, give a second im alright.” you said taking deep breaths trying to reassure Miguel.

And just as you were about to stand straight your water broke.

“Oh my-” you heard Peter B. say while everyone else's eyes just widened.

“Shit. Alright come on we gotta go.” Miguel said, picking you up swiftly.

“Miguel you can’t take her in this state, It could hurt the baby we need to get her to the infirmary now.” Lyla said, appearing over his shoulder.

That statement only angered Miguel.

This isn't where he wanted to be when his son was born but now he had no choice.

Running you up to the infirmary he laid you down on the bed as Lyla plugged in your vitals.

“This is actually happening.” you said taking in the moment. You were about to give birth to your baby boy at the Spider HQ.

“It's okay baby, just take deep breaths.” he said as he kissed the top of your head.

You really thought you were hallucinating it when a spider doctor walked in the room to help you deliver your baby.

Nope this was entirely real, Miguel was holding your hand looking at the doctor with a look that could kill.

Which probably would if he risked anyone's health.

Two hours is what it took for you to fully dilate and thirty minutes is what it took for you to bring him to the world.

Lucca Gabriel O’Hara.

He was perfect.

Miguel didn't want to let him go at first but the nurses needed to check him and make sure everything was alright.

It was more than alright, it was perfect. Ten toes, ten fingers, and one cute little face that you already loved so much with all your being.

Your body felt overly exhausted but you wanted nothing more than to hold your baby.

While you did just that Miguel admired the scene before him. Nothing would ever top this moment.

“Mr.O’Hara a word?” the spider doctor asked to pull him out of the room.

“Everything alright?” he said, feeling a weight in his chest.

“Well yes and no, because your DNA was morphed to be 50% human and 50% spider the baby took a lot from your wife in its time in her stomach,” he paused hoping Miguel was catching on.

“We’d like to keep them here to ensure her body doesn't go into shock from his departure, and give you guys an idea of just how this baby will be growing all things considered.” he finished as Miguel looked back at you and Lucca.

“Alright, how long?” he asked hoping it wasn't long at all.

“Two weeks, one to analyze initial growth, and a second to compare data. Their health will come first of course.” he said reassuring Miguel.

“Fine but no guests until she allows it. And  I‘ll tell her.” Miguel ordered as he walked back into the room.

Giving you a soft smile he told you the news and you couldn't have been more excited, it probably would have shown more if you weren't so tired.

“Miguel, will you take him? I'm pretty tired.” you whispered, Miguel realized the heart monitor was starting to slow down.

Taking the baby he rang for the doctor through his watch.

“Hold on baby don't close your eyes okay? Stay awake for me.” he asked, panic began setting in the further away the beats got.

“I'm just so tired Miguel, just need to close my eyes and…” you said letting your head fall to the side.

“Baby? Y/n! Lyla!” Miguel tried but it was no use you were out cold.

Just like that, the doctor and Lyla were present and at your side.

“Just like   I   said, her body is in shock. After giving so much energy to the baby the sudden loss was too much to handle.” he said as he injected you with something that brought your heart rate back to normal.

“So what? She needs what she gave him back?” Miguel asked, if he were calm he’d understand and probably take care of it himself but you were his wife.

He needed you to operate properly and right now his mind was nowhere near capable.

“Yep. These next couple of weeks will be a bit hard on her but she's a tough one,  I  ‘m sure she’ll be just fine.” the spider doctor assured.

And eventually, he proved to be right.

In all instances actually.

You turned out to be just fine, Lucca was a spider baby growing astronomically but still at the rate of a human baby, and you could finally go home after two weeks.walking out of that infirmary felt like a relief to Miguel.

As you said your goodbyes to all the spiders who gave you company when Miguel had to step away Miguel opened the portal home.

Walking through together you smiled as you stepped in your home again.

Your smile grew when you realized your home had been decorated with all kinds of spider decorations to welcome baby Lucca home.

“Welcome home baby.” Miguel whispered, kissing your cheek.

“It's good to be home papi.” you said, turning to give him a peck on the lips.

“So good.” Miguel replied, kissing you some more.

He felt whole again after so long, the feeling he longed for was back and he was never letting it leave again.

[bengals-ix]

Snooze

Summary: A late night drive through downtown Cincinnati after a rough day at work helps your blossoming relationship with Tee become even more serious.

Warnings: just straight up sickening fluff; allusions to a potential spicy part 2 👀 and it’s also just really freaking long so 😅

Also, thank you again @balanceingrace for helping with framework and helping me love this story again. I love you always🤍

You shuffle into your little house after an extremely long and busy shift at the hospital, throwing your purse lord knows where and your shoes in the general vicinity of the little shoe rack by the door.

You loved your job, but a day like today made you want to break down and never go back. It was one thing after the other, difficult patients, difficult family members, there was no time for time management, and not to mention losing a patient halfway through the day. That was your straw, but you had no choice but to swallow back the tears and keep moving.

You peel off your scrubs after slugging off to your bedroom, and lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Your mind was numb, your body was numb.

After a few minutes, you finally slide off the bed and go into the bathroom to take a shower, the borderline scorching heat of the water soothing your achy, and extremely tense muscles. You let a couple tears slip out but you always tried to make sure you didn’t bring work home with you, because that would just make your job and home life worse. You refused to combine the two.

You step out of the shower and quickly dry yourself off and half ass-ly drying your hair. You realized once you started that you quite frankly didn’t care. You slip on an oversized shirt and panties before slipping into your bed, the tears wanting to flow but you wouldn’t let them. You just took a deep breath and stared at the ceiling once again.

Your brain started running 100 miles a minute. Replaying the day in your head, if this was what you still want you wanted to do for the rest of your life, what tomorrow what was going to consist of, your relationship with Tee that has become VERY serious recently, the big black hole in the middle of our galaxy. You know, all the things.

At one point, you turn over and the clock read 10:47pm.

“Oh shit” you groan. You had laid here for an hour and a half just thinking. You wanted to go to sleep but you couldn’t shut your brain off.

Your phone dings and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. You lazily picked up your phone off of your nightstand, and it was almost like your favorite person read your mind.

Tee 🤍

wanna go on a drive?

You smile at the text, your heart that has been cold most of the day flooding with warmth almost instantly and a couple tears make their way down your cheeks. It’s like he knew, he had that instinct of needing to take care of you, and that’s what he was going to do.

(Y/N)

how did you know I needed that?

Tee🤍

bc I know you

I need to see you and I feel like you need to see me

I was just hoping you were up since it’s way past gma’s bed time 😉

You roll your eyes, that smile not leaving your face. You did normally go to bed at 8:30pm. You loved your sleep, who doesn’t? But he loved to make fun of you for it.

(Y/N)

I do need to see you, really bad.

come get me

Tee🤍

on my way baby

You take another deep breath, not only thanking Joe and Olivia for introducing you two but thanking God for placing Tee into your life. The longer you guys have been together, the more he knows you, how you operate, which faces mean certain feelings, even as much as knowing when something is wrong even when he’s apart from you. It was the little things.

You throw on a pair of biker shorts and a long sleeve. It was fall time and temp was in the 60s. It was beautiful outside lately.

You fix your hair as best you can, still keeping it up but making it look like you weren’t just about to go to bed. 15 minutes later, Tee texts you saying that he had just pulled in and you throw some shoes on before heading out of the house.

You walk down to his car and open the door, leaning down to peek at him. He smiles at you, one arm leaning on the console and the other resting on the steering wheel and you couldn’t help but match his smile.

“Hey you” you say.

“Hey you” he repeats, his smile radiating. His smile killed you. It was so bright, so genuine. He was someone who was genuine. Very kind hearted and caring. You adored him.

You climbed into the passenger seat and made eye contact once again. You two look at each other for a moment before he leans in and presses a gentle kiss to your cheek and then on your lips.

You pull away a few moments later and bump your nose against his, smiling like a love sick puppy. The way he makes your mood change instantly still blows your mind.

“Missed you” he murmurs.

“I’ve missed you too” your voice cracks, not intentionally, but those tears were making their way back. Little did you know that you just needed him to help you feel better.

“I knew something was up, what’s wrong?” He asks, resting his hand on your thigh, his eyebrows furrowed as he watches the tears form in your eyes.

“It was just my day. I can tell you while you drive” you assure him.

“Driving can wait” he gives your thigh a squeeze.

“No Tee, it’s okay. I’ll be over it by tomorrow. Just go ahead and drive, for me, please?” You quietly beg. He stares at you for a moment before nodding and backing out of your driveway.

You two ride in silence for awhile before you tuck a foot under you, getting comfortable since who knew how long you two were going to be driving around for. At one point, the air was getting colder and you were getting cold but you didn’t want to say anything because you were enjoying the windows down.

Tee easily read your body language so at the next red light, he put the car in park and unbuckled before slipping his hoodie off and handing it to you.

“You don’t have to do that. I’m fine” you smile at him as he buckles himself again.

“No you’re not. Can’t have my girl freezing” he smiles back before hitting the gas as the light turns green. You roll your eyes and throw his hoodie on, sneakily smelling his cologne.

Tee’s hand slides onto your thigh, giving it a nice squeeze. You smile over at him and you rub your hand up and down his tattooed arm. Sexy ass.

“Do you want to talk about your day now?” He asks, glancing over at you. You let out a deep sigh before starting to explain one thing after the other, and he listened attentively, he was a very good listener and you were thankful, especially on the days where you needed to rant.

“….and everything just piled on top of each other and it became almost unbearable. I tried to wind down so I could go to sleep and just forget about today but my brain wouldn’t shut the fuck up” you let out a huff of annoyance and he quietly chuckles at the last part.

“First off, I wanna say how much of a badass you are. I could never do what you do in a day. That’s a hell of a lot of brain power to use and energy that I don’t have”

“You’re a fucking wide receiver, Tee, you have a lot of both of those things” you giggle.

“But it’s different, you know what I’m sayin’? Like you are having to keep people alive, some you can’t help and it was written in the cards from when they were even thought of. But you are so fucking brave and so strong to do what you do everyday. I hope you know how badass you are, because seriously, you are and I admire you for it every single day” he looks over at you as he arrives at another stop light.

Your heart floods with a familiar feeling you’ve experienced honestly since you started dating Tee but you kept pushing it off because you didn’t want to believe it so early but it was happening; hell, it happened already, you fell in love with him, truly, madly, deeply. It was pathetic.

He was the most generous and loving person. He was supportive and encouraging in everything you did. Always looking out for you, checking on you, making sure you feel beautiful always. You were his queen, his number one, other than his Momma, and rightfully so.

You’ve had a few serious relationships over the years but all of those men turned out to be trash and honestly gave you trust issues but this was different in only the best way possible. You saw a future with Tee, even after this short time that felt like a lifetime.

Not to mention he was a hottie. His handsome face, that stunning smile, his tall and muscular frame, his tattoos; the man was the definition of tall, dark, and handsome.

Tee glanced over at you, feeling your eyes on him, he gives you his bright smile that makes you want to squeeze him tightly and never let him go.

You love him.

“You want to tell me what’s on your mind right now? Did I say something wrong?” He asks, turning his eyes back to the road, a small and almost worried smile gracing his face.

And speaking of heart racing, yours was about to beat out of your chest at what was spilling out of your mouth.

“I love you” you breathe out.

Tee’s heart could about explode. He’s been so scared to say it, afraid of how you would react when he would say those exact three words to you. He honestly fell for you a lot sooner than you fell for him but that was another story for another time.

“I am so glad you said that, because I love you too” he says, his smile the brightest it’s ever been.

“I really need a damn stop light because I need to kiss you so bad right now” you say and he laughs.

“Hold on, I gotchu”

He turns onto a different street and the light turned yellow and he slowly comes to a stop, placing the car in park and looking over at you.

“Thank you Jesus” you breathe out and grab his face, smashing your lips against his. You two smiled against each other’s lips, thinking about how you both finally made the long awaited confession.

Then to make it even more perfect, “Snooze” by SZA comes on shuffle. You two finally pull away from each other, not without another sweet kiss from Tee.

“I fucking love you” he says just above a whisper. Your stomach was doing backflips. Just hearing him say those words meant the world to you.

“And I love you” you smile.

He gives you one more firm but tender kiss before he shifts the car back into drive as the light turns green.

That just happened.

When you first started dating Tee, “Snooze” was y’all’s vibe, and still is. You dreamt about him. There was never a moment where you wanted to be somewhere else. He made you feel so important, so wanted, cared for, loved.

Everything in this moment couldn’t have been more perfect. This song playing as you two drove through mildly quiet downtown Cincinnati, windows down, the cooler air slipping into the car, nipping your skin but in a comforting way.

The sky was clear so despite the city lights, you could still see the beautiful stars in the sky. The man you loved to the left of you, his tattooed hand on your thigh, you wearing his hoodie, and both finally saying out loud that you loved each other. Your heart was surely the size of both of your lungs combined at this point. Every bad thing that happened today vanished from your brain like it never even happened. This was what heaven looked like to you.

He must have felt this moment too because his hand finds yours and laces your fingers together, giving it a soft squeeze.

“Long as you dreamin' 'bout me, ain't no problem

I don't got nobody, just with you right now

Tell the truth, I look better under you

I can't lose when I'm with you

How can I snooze and miss the moment?

You just too important

Nobody do body like you do”

“Damn” Tee murmurs and shakes his head.

“What?” You ask.

“You…the way you make me feel. It’s just wild” he says, full on blushing and you couldn’t help but blush in return.

“Quit Tee” you smile down at your clasped hands.

“You quit” he chuckles.

“Ain't a home when you not here

Hard to grow when you not here, I'm sayin'

I can't lose when I'm with you”

“You should stay over tonight” he glances over at you with hopeful eyes.

“Teeee” you sigh.

“Please? It’ll kill me to take you home tonight” he juts his bottom lip out.

“That’s very dramatic” you giggle and flick his lip.

“It’s not dramatic. I don’t wanna take you home, especially now” he says, squeezing your thigh. You smile sadly and rest your head on his arm, your mind already working to figure something out. You didn’t want him to take you home either.

After another half an hour or so, he pulls back up to your house. He leans his head back onto the head rest and looks at you, his eyes sad.

“Don’t look at me like that, Tee” you whine.

“I don’t want you to leave. It’s been a week and I miss you” he sighs, looking down at your hands intertwined, his thumb rubbing back and forth on your hand.

“You’ll see me at the game this weekend” you tell him but he still didn’t like that. You wanted to play a little hard to get now.

He turns his head back, looking forward. You knew he was pouting.

“Tee”

You sigh when he doesn’t answer you. His hand still rested on your thigh as you watched him. You get an idea.

You unbuckle your seatbelt and climb over the console and into his lap, straddling his hips. He looks up at you, eyes widened slightly. He gave you a quick glance up and down before his eyes meeting yours as you speak up.

“Can I suggest something?” You ask and he hums.

“I would stay at your place, but I have stuff to do here tomorrow, stuff that I could get done while you’re at practice. So what if we stayed at my place tonight? I know it’s not as nice as y-“

“Okay” he smiles, his hands running up your thighs and holds onto your hips.

“Okay?”

“Okay. But I might have to run home to grab stuff for tomorrow, if that’s okay?”

“Well yeah, of course, whatever you need to do. Are you sure it’s okay?” You ask running yours hands up and down his shoulders.

“More than okay. I don’t care where we stay, as long as you’re there” he smiles again and you couldn’t help but smile back.

“And then I could stay with you this weekend?” You suggest.

“Absolutely” he nods.

You wrap your arms around him and nuzzle your face into neck.

“I’ve also missed you” you say, pressing gentle kisses onto his neck, your breath sending chills down his spine. He wraps his arms around you tightly in a hug. He couldn’t get enough of you, ever.

“I’m going to go home and grab my iPad for our meetings and grab more clothes so I can stay a couple days, okay?” He asks, running his thumb over your bottom lip.

“Okay”

“That okay with you?”

“More than okay with me” you kiss his lips multiple times, him giving you a loving and healthy smack to the ass before you crawl out of his lap and out of the car.

“I’ll be back. I love you” he smiles. God, it felt so good for him to say that, and it felt so good for you to hear it.

“I love you. Be careful” you smile back, giving him another kiss before shutting his door and making your way back into the house.

Holy shit. What a day.

45 minutes later, as you laid on the couch, you get a knock on your door.

“Damn it” you curse under your breath as you hop off the couch and run to the door. You accidentally locked the door out of habit.

You unlock the door and open it to be greeted by Tee who had a bookbag on his shoulder and a duffel bag hanging by his side.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to lock it” you say grimacing.

“Don’t want me to stay, huh?” He smirks pushing his body up against yours, backing you further into your living room, shutting the door behind him.

“Don’t you start being dramatic again. You know I want you to stay. I want you to stay all the time” you cock an eyebrow at him, sliding your hands up his arms and around his neck as he drops his bags.

“Mhm” he hums as he presses his lips to yours, his tongue making its way into your mouth, giving you all the feels.

Tee’s hands slide from your hips to your ass, squeezing it with his large hands. You moan into his mouth and he presses his hands into your ass so your hips press into his.

After a couple minutes of your make out sesh in the middle of your living room, he pulls away slightly, his breath fanning your face. He must have brushed his teeth before coming back over to your house because you tasted and smelled mint.

“You make me feel…insane” he says.

“Is that a good or bad thing?” You ask and he smiles at you.

“So good” he chuckles, reattaching your lips for a few more minutes before you break away again.

“As much as I want to continue this, it’s so late and you’re gonna hate yourself in the morning if you don’t go to sleep” you breathe out.

“You right. Tomorrow, after I get back?” He smirks.

“If you’re lucky” you shrug, giggling at his expression.

“I’m very lucky, damn it” he says nuzzling his face into your neck making you laugh.

“Let’s go to bed, you exhaust me” you sigh, walking past him towards your bedroom.

“You haven’t seen anything yet, baby” he says, giving a harsh smack to your ass as he walks behind you.

“Tee!” You gasp and he smiles innocently.

You two eventually get changed into more comfortable clothes and get comfy in bed, your back pressed against his front, his long arms wrapped around you and his face nuzzled into your neck, mumbling “I love you’s” to each other that still didn’t feel real.

And that’s when he starts to slowly hum a melody that you both listened to earlier in the night, allowing you to relax and finally drift to sleep.

I can't lose when I'm with you.

How can I snooze and miss the moment?

You just too important.

Nobody do body like you do, you do.

[jxckchxmpi0n]

Ethan Landry as spiderman headcannon

I'm thinking about Ethan as Spiderman ♡

The idea of Ethan as Spiderman makes me giggle.

did not proof read. |m.list

I start college in 4 weeks but more into my dorm in 2 😵‍💫🤮

Ethan would keep it a secret for as long as he could but one night, he forgot you were coming over, so he was messing around in his suit when you walked in, and he almost shot you with his web.

You yelled at him like a mother, and anytime you would make some smart comment about being a hero, he would hit you with the "Okay, MOOMM"

There would be some nights where if he got hurt pretty badly, he would go to your bedroom window. you would already have the first aid kit on your bed and the window unlocked, waiting for him.

After you found out about his spider side you begged him to take you swinging around the city, but he would say no for weeks until he realized you won't stop asking.

"I'm telling you this now, don't open your mouth unless you want to eat bugs for dinner."

"Yeah, yeah I'll survive bug boy."

When he started to get noticed by the public and people made merch he would 100% buy it and make you and him match when it was movie night

If it was a slow night in crime he would go to your place with wildflowers and tell you his favorite crimes he's stopped

When you guys' hangout he gets bored sometimes so he would start throwing your things and shoot them and web them to your ceiling and see how long it would take you to notice

His favorite thing is when you're across the room and he wants attention from you he would shoot his web across the room around your waist and pull you towards him.

Some nights when you clean his cuts when it's really bad you don't warn him you are cleaning it, so he yelps and slaps your hand away. "OW! that hurt what the hell y/n!"

"Oh, shush bug boy you are fine."

Some days you wanted him to set aside the spider-man persona and be Ethan for one night. Halfway through, it ends up in him running into an ally and swinging through the buildings while you watched.

He would walk around your room... like walk around! Walls and ceiling just walk around like it's normal.

If you were busy doing homework at your desk and he was on your bed, he would crawl on your ceiling and hang over you, wondering when you'd be done. "Are you don't yet?!"

You look up and see his face a few inches away. "No, I'm not, I'm sorry, but I need this to be done tonight, or I won't get it done at all!"

He leaves web messages around town for you.

He let's you play with his web shooters

He left a suit at your house and came over one day to you, trying it on. "Baby- what- what are you doing"

You freeze. "WHAA NOTHING"

He laughs and holds your face "God you're so adorable!" He then kisses your face everywhere.

Sometimes, he lets you be the man woman in the chair.

Making spiderman themed bracelets. He never takes it off!

He would 100% start teaching you fighting moves just because crime has gotten worse

He makes you carry pepper spray which back fired-

He thought it would be funny to scare you one day but you had the pepper spray and you sprayed him

"Ahhhhhhhh OWWW WHAT THE HELL"

You couldn't help but feel terrible at first but once he healed he just acted like a baby.

"I though I'd never see again!"

When he's swinging around town and he see that you see him he waves aggressively.

Even though he's a spider when he sees one he still freaks out.

"Y/N THERES A SPIDER ON YOUR WALL!!!! ITS BIG A GROSS!!!!" He stood on you bed scared.

"Now what did we say? No talking about yourself like that!" He threw a pillow at you while you laughed.

When he catches another criminal he ends up break dancing in his suit.

There is no doubt in the world that this boy would go shopping but mid spree his spider tingles when off and he came home without the food.

"DID YOU FORGET THE FOOD AGAIN???"

He makes uses his webs in school. You don't like when he does but sometimes he does it for you. "Ughh there's only one muffin left" you were close to the end of the line.

He looks around and stretched his arm out activating the webs. He grabbed the muffin and before you can fully blink he put it in your hand. "Love you"

Talks way too much when fighting

Dances in the middle of fighting

Gaslights the criminal

"Oh no not knives please it's my worst fear" he falls covering his face.

"Yeah that's right punk-" he shot his webs ans then just used the robber as shooting practice.

100% makes "pew pew pew" noises when he shoots his webs

[estrellami-1]

Steddie Week 2023

May 22nd Prompt: Hunger

Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7

@steddie-week

Steve wakes up slowly, rolls over to look at his alarm clock, then bursts out of bed in a rush of limbs and sheets and curses.

3:42 blinks back at him. Sometime during the night the power had gone out, and Steve knows it is well past 9, when he was supposed to be opening at Family Video. He pulls on his jeans and a clean shirt, stuffs his feet in his shoes, runs a brush through his hair, and grabs his vest on his way out the door, sparing half a glance at his kitchen, but not having time to eat.

If it comes down to it, he thinks, there’s always the candy.

He gets to Family Video in record time, breathing out a sigh of relief when he yanks on the door to find it still locked. That means he’s the first one there. Keith might notice when he goes back through times this week to figure out pay, but Steve’s hopeful he’s gotten away with it this time.

He clocks in, computer reading 10:01 (an entire hour late, whoops), and takes a breath as he looks around the store. Robin’s scheduled to come in at three, meaning he has five hours alone.

No one comes in for the first hour. Steve finishes logging returns and winding back the tapes.

Halfway through the second hour, the bell above the door jingles, and Steve raises his voice from where he’s putting away tapes. “Welcome to Family Video!”

“Either you’re hiding or you’ve officially started haunting this place,” a voice calls back, and Steve laughs as he walks out of the aisle.

“Hey, Eddie.”

“Hiya, Stevie.” He grins. “Tell me if this is too forward? But I noticed the power went out last night and figured if I know you as well as I do, you slept in and missed breakfast.” He hands Steve a brown paper bag, creased nicely at the top.

“Lifesaver,” Steve gasps, opening the bag. Three muffins. He sniffs them, then groans. “You’re perfect, holy shit, thank you.” Banana nut, his favorite. His heart skips an odd beat, then again when he realizes Eddie’s blushing, pulling a piece of hair across his face.

“You’re welcome,” Eddie says quietly, chuckling slightly. “I guess I was right?”

“Yeah, I woke up, like, half an hour after my shift had started, immediately panicked, and got here as fast as I could. I don’t need another write-up.”

Eddie nods, a smirk crawling onto his face. “How about waiving the fees for your favorite customer?”

Steve makes a show of looking around. “Dustin’s here?”

Eddie just laughs. “I can’t even be mad at that one.”

“Steve,” Eddie says, eyes wide, adorably serious. Steve tries to school his face accordingly, but he can’t really feel his face. “I’m hungry.”

Steve thinks about it. “I am too,” he decides, then thinks some more. “Is there pizza left over?”

Eddie shrugs, looks at the blunt in his hand, then shrugs again, taking another drag. “Chips?”

“I have chips,” Steve agrees, grabbing for the blunt. “C’mon, share.”

Eddie hands it over. “Steve,” he says again, “I’m a genius.”

“Yup,” Steve agrees.

“We should watch a movie.”

“Oh my god,” Steve breathes. “With snacks?”

“Yeah. Yeah, with snacks, c’mon, help me, help me!” He pulls Steve up, laughing when Steve does.

“Eddie,” Steve says. It’s his turn to be serious. “What if we call Argyle? And Jon?”

“And they can bring pizza,” Eddie breathes. “Stevie, I think you’re the genius.”

“Yup,” Steve agrees again. “I’ll call. You get snacks. And movie.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie laughs, resting his head against the wall. “There’s no way.”

“I swear! That’s exactly what she said! And then she tried to blame me, like it isn’t all automated.” Steve huffs a breath.

Eddie shakes his head. “You have way more patience than I do, man.”

“That’s not true. We have different types. I could never sit like you do, painting your figurines.”

Eddie snorts. “I zone out and wake up four hours later. I don’t think that counts as patience.” He sighs. “As fun as this has been, Steve, I’ve gotta go get ready for my shift. I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely. What time does your shift start?”

“Six.”

“That… Eds, that’s in twenty minutes.”

“No? I’m looking at a clock right here. It’s 4:40 right now. I’ve got an hour twenty.”

“Eds,” Steve says, sounding pained. “Daylight savings.”

“Oh, shit,” Eddie breathes. “Shit, shit, shit, you’re right, shit, fuck, okay, I’ve gotta go, love you, bye!”

He hangs up before Steve can say anything else, stuffing his feet in his shoes and grabbing his keys before racing out.

He’s halfway to work before he realizes he’s hungry. He lays his head on his steering wheel at a red light, breathes. “Just five hours,” he tells himself. “I can make it five hours.”

Half an hour in, he’s not so sure. His hands aren’t as steady as they should be, but he hides it from his coworkers, takes another few deep breaths, and tries to trick himself by drinking more water.

Ten minutes later, a familiar maroon Beemer pulls up. Eddie’s heart thuds in his chest as he goes out to meet Steve.

“Sorry I’m late,” Steve grins. “I think I got caught by all the lights possible.” He grabs something from the passenger seat. A brown paper bag.

“You didn’t,” Eddie breathes.

“I did,” Steve admits. “I hope turkey’s okay.”

“Turkey’s fantastic,” Eddie promises. “Freakin’ food for the gods, when I’m this hungry.” He opens the bag. A sandwich, a small bag of chips, an apple. He laughs. “Jesus wept, Steve, I brought you three little muffins!”

“Yeah, and I meant it when I called you a lifesaver.” He tilts his head. “I’m curious about something, though. If you meant it.”

Eddie pauses with the sandwich halfway to his mouth. “Meant what?”

“Gotta go, love you, bye.”

“Oh.” Nausea makes its presence known. He brings the sandwich down. “Steve, I-”

Steve’s fingers land on his forearm. “The truth, Eds. Please.” He’s whispering, eyes big and hopeful, and Eddie feels some of that same hope filling him.

“Yeah,” he whispers back.

Steve grins again, steps back. “I’m picking you up tomorrow. Seven o’clock.”

“Okay,” Eddie whispers, watches as Steve drives away.

“Hi,” Eddie says breathlessly, opening the door before Steve could knock.

“Hi.” Steve chuckles. “Ready?”

“Yeah. Where are you taking me?”

“Where do you wanna go?”

Eddie bites his lip, slides into the passenger seat. “Dinner? I’m starving.”

Steve grins at him as he puts the car in gear. “Me too.”

[gffa]

"How's your Jedi Citations project going, Lumi?" you ask. OH LET ME TELL YOU, I say with absolute no mania lurking in my expression. I'm almost ready with the next part, but I'm realizing: - I eventually have to rework the entire thing because, when I started, I didn't realize there was even going to be enough for a "Jedi fables" category, and someday I'm going to have to comb through all of the quotes in the culture section to see what fits there, AND refine some sub-sections like, "Jedi absolutely do and always have freely admitted that they make mistakes, that's how they learn, from THR to the prequels to the sequels". - I have approximately 600 screenshots I took while reading books (before realizing that audiobooks were much easier on me) that I have not begun to go through and find the quote I decided would be important later. - I have approximately 150 capped comics panels that I have to transcribe and place into context, which I'm not looking forward to. - I am on episode 10 of Young Jedi Adventures, I finished The Fallen Star, and I'm halfway through Convergence. Don't ask me where I stand on the comics, I'll cry on you. I think I only have about 4-5 books left to catch up on before The Acolyte airs? - I got hardly anything fun done today because I spent awhile screaming about Tales of the Empire and just like. Trying to catch up on my dash. PRAY FOR ME, realizing I actually still kind of like Star Wars is fun but also oh my GOD. orz