#because at the school they were planted as bait for traps

[grim-faux]

The Achievement Post Industrial inspired the idea that there are adults in the Pale City that pose no threat to the children, and manage to survive through various 'creative' means.

Unless they encounter a child, like Mono.

Since adults are all 'monsters' and always pose a threat to children - even when they don't mean to - children either avoid or will dispatch the threat. Usually avoid.

Unless it's Mono. He's very protective of his Thin Man.

[corn-fanfiction]

SAVIOUR COMPLEX (Mark Hoffman x F!Reader Pt. 16)

(Part 15) (Part 17)

Rated M

Gibson gets the first phone call seven minutes before 911 dispatch alters the station. It comes in to his cellphone from a blocked number.

“Detective Gibson,” he greets, trying to run the exhaustion from his eyes and failing.

“Hello, detective.”

Gibson’s hackles raise at the immediate recognition of the Jigsaw voice. Gibson motions for Perez and the chief to come to him and he puts his phone on speaker.

“And I assume I’ll be speaking to Agent Lindsey Perez and the Chief of the LCPD as well.”

The three look around at each other in scrutiny.

“Who am I speaking with?” Gibson asks.

“You'll likely be receiving an alert from 911 dispatch soon. What I will tell you now is that Mark Hoffman and y/n are fighting each other to escape a trap. The address is 817 Plumtree Road, by the riverfront. The old tool and dye plant.”

Perez begins to hurriedly write down the details and then hands it to the chief.

“They'll still be here once you arrive. Worse for wear but no one dead. The young woman’s trial has passed.”

“I guess it would be too much for me to ask your name.”

“The clock is ticking, Detective.”

The call ends. Dispatch is already on their way and Gibson and Perez get into a cruiser.

Perez bounces her leg. Gibson's grip on the steering wheel is almost bruising as the priorities gnash in his head.

Finding you is priority. But finding Mark, finding Jigsaw… Good thing he can do both in one fell swoop.

-

A very long time ago, when she was still in medical school, Jill had a friend who was a vet tech. His name was Nathan, and Nathan had gotten some tip about a dog fighting ring. He wanted to see it for himself before he told the cops. He never really explained that part to Jill. She'd always thought, even now, that a part of him was just curious enough to peek behind the curtain before tearing it down. Maybe Nathan had been the first in a long line of psychopaths that latched themselves onto Jill.

But the way you and Mark are looking at each other now strikes a remarkable resemblance to dogs thrown into a pit together. Two that have already been fighting, but one that has more scars, and one is more recently bloodied. You have survived, but Mark has won. At least until now.

Lawrence had talked her into it over and over and over again because with each breath it felt impossible and Jill would falter and Lawrence would reassure her and then the process would begin again. But here they are now, looking down at you and Mark. All of this for John, for their unborn child, for Adam and everyone else. The ropes are tangled and none of it really makes any sense. John wasn't a good man but she had loved him. And it had been about her, about them. And Lawrence had clocked pretty quickly that Mark would be coming for Jill soon, whenever he decided it was the appropriate time. Because he's a murderer. Because John turned him into that.

And you…you were just the perfect bait to finally get him in the trap.

Gordon had insisted that this is what John would've wanted, that Mark be put down like a wild animal. Gordon had insisted the same about your ex boyfriend, but that took more convincing. And at the end of the day, how much is what John would've wanted worth? Jill still isn't sure.

Gordon slips on a pig mask and nods at her. Jill nods though her throat continues to tighten. None of this feels right, not fully. Mark should face the full justice of the law, not whatever Mark has in store. Because Jill watches half-helplessly as Gordon descends onto the factory floor to incapacitate Mark again. You stand to the side, braced to move like a spring trap, but you and Jill both know you won't do anything to stop him. And you don't. Not as Gordon presses a cloth to Mark's mouth (how he still manages to overpower him Jill will never understand), and not as he drags his unconscious body away.

Jill doesn't know what Gordon has in store for Mark and she doesn't care to. All that matters is that she's alive, you're alive, and the sirens are approaching. She watches you shake, then sink to the floor with arms wrapped around yourself as tears begin to fall.

She feels guilty for what they've put you through. But what she feels, more than anything, is free.

-

By the time Gibson and Perez get to you, you're in the back of an ambulance with a shock blanket wrapped around your shoulders. All you can think about is the look Mark gave you right before he finally fell. He put up a good fight but something told you he wasn't going to win. The situation was a too perfect storm. One or neither of you were getting out. So all you could do was watch him go, your heart a hopeless mess of guilt and tragedy and confusion. And now, you realize that there would be no parting words or yearning touch. The cops weren't going to get Mark. Whoever had taken you both had taken him for good. You realize Gibson and the rest would be lucky to ever find a body.

You begin to sniffle. Somewhere nearby, Gibson screams in fury and Perez stares at the pavement with her hands on her knees. Someone's just told them that Mark is gone. You had already given a statement to dispatch. You didn't get a good look at anybody and you only knew there were two people inside.

A flood of cops and press push into the scene but you're kept well away behind a barricade. Eventually, Gibson and Perez do find you in earnest and ask you the same questions you've already been asked. And you give the same answers. A cop comes over and shows Gibson and Perez a file folder that seems to capture their interest.

“What is this?” Gibson asks, dropping any pretense of confidentiality around you.

“Evidence. Years’ worth. Proof Hoffman was working with Kramer and Amanda Young.”

Your stomach unravels at the finality of that statement. You'd known, you'd all known, but there it is in paper, in hand. Soon to be broadcasted and permanent. Strangely, a small part of you, and you're glad it is small, wants to grab the papers and tear them to shreds. Not to protect Mark because that was never possible. But to protect your mind, your heart, your pride. Because the world will know you were foolish to be hurt again. Not in the same way, but to the same caliber. There is a chance you'll spend the rest of your life as the woman who loved a killer.

It's almost as mortifying as how much you already miss him.

[apocalypticgargoyle]

could i pls get a part 2 of elevator with dream🥺 the way that they show their vulnerable sides to each other is adorable <3

yes! of course! i still kept this pretty fluffy but in another request, someone asked for smut so it's a little spicy.

𝐍𝐔𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑. ♘ 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

pairing: dream x reader (dre™ my beloved)

warnings: light smut (i didn't completely write it out I'm sorry), a virgin reader, language, fwb kinda, mentions of sexual content

previous part: elevator

After nearly two hours, the elevator began to buzz with life, hoisting up to the floor where Clay and Sapnap lived. The two of you had bonded in the dim, red elevator, coming out of the cramped room as friends when you had previously just been an odd mix of acquaintance and mutual. Sapnap stood in the threshold, an apologetic look on his face as he wrapped an arm around your shoulders.

You and Clay became nearly inseparable. You found yourself showing up at his apartment for him just as much as for Sapnap. There were even times when you’d text Sapnap to see if he was busy when your roommate would be trying to shove you out the door and he’d send Clay over instead. His presence always made it awkward for your roommate’s boyfriend and while you hated to admit it, it was hilarious.

“So, you do what kind of farming?” Clay asked from his spot beside you, leaning on the counter with his eyes zoning out to watch your hands as you cooked.

Her boyfriend---who the two of you often referred to as Ricky Fitts behind his back---sighed. He had explained his profession to Clay numerous times, but the manner in which he did it was so pretentious that Clay was addicted to picking at him for it. “It’s botanical gardening. Not farming,” he groaned. “In simple man’s terms, I curate a garden for plant research and help to diversify the plant species in the area.”

Clay nodded. “And how many strains of marijuana do you have in the span of, say, a year.”

“I’m not going over this with you again,” he nipped, making Clay look down in mock defeat.

He sighed longingly before straightening up. “Okay, fine. So, hypothetically speaking, how many strains.”

Ricky stared at him blankly and you knew if you looked up, you’d break character. “Don’t the two of you have somewhere to be? Like a cave or something?”

Clay let out a short laugh. “I’m free all night actually,” he spoke, smirking slightly. “Did you wanna check out a cave with me, baby?” Clay asked him, fluttering his eyelashes.

The two of you often rode the bus together; Clay's height mimicking a skyscraper over you to grab at the bar or handle above you and kneeing you in the butt just because you were short enough that he could. That would usually end in you elbowing him in the gut. When you were coming back from class was when you were a bit quieter usually, nearly falling asleep as you stood by him and then fighting off a blush when he would wrap an arm around you just to keep you balanced upright. When he had first ridden the bus, you had completely forgotten what had told him in the elevator.

Your fingers tightened around the pole attaching the overhead bus shelf to the ground, attempting to steady yourself as you stared out the window adjacent to you. The bus screeched to a halt, jolting you forward slightly. The sea of new people obstructed your view, namely a tall figure as he sidestepped through the crowd of people. You furrowed your brows, brushing your hand against Clay’s arm to capture his attention.

He removed his headphones after pretending not to recognize you. He greeted you and grabbed onto the bar you had commandeered, leaning on the bus wall beside you. “Don’t you have a car?” You asked, reaching out to lightly pull on the lanyard sticking out of his pocket.

He smirked, brushing your hand off. “It’s dangerous down there, careful,” he jeered, making you roll your eyes at his lude joke. “Is there something wrong with supporting local businesses?”

Your brows knitted together in disbelief. “We’re on a city bus, Dream.” He shrugged. You bit your lip slightly, your mind breaking off into another explanation. “You wouldn’t be stalking me, would you?” You baited, a ghost of a blush settling over his cheeks.

He reached forward to cover your mouth. “You ask too many questions.”

He moved closer to let someone have the seat beside him, his hand settling to the space just above yours as your sides threatened to touch. You bit back the idea that Clay was following you around, finding a silent pleasure in that fact. He would probably never admit it fully.

He towered over you as the bus swayed, you having to lean back slightly in order to talk to him. “So, are you gonna walk me to class too then, simp?” You mocked, making him shake his head.

He narrowed his eyes at you. “I’m not a simp, thanks,” he answered with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice. “And maybe I will.”

You crossed your legs, knees popping as you bent out of your previous position on the kitchen floor with your back pressed against one of the sink’s cabinet doors. Clay was on his back, shoulders emerged in that same cupboard as he messed with the sink. You handed him a tool that he vaguely asked for, your eyes lingering on his old high school shirt celebrating some kind of sports achievement.

You chewed the inside of your cheek. “Dream?” You got his attention, delaying your question. He hummed in acknowledgment. “How many people have you slept with?”

He was quiet for a moment. “Let me think,” he murmured, making you snicker. “Three.”

“You had to think about that?” You joshed.

He chuckled at your words. “Well, I mean. No one’s asked me what my body count is since like… I don’t know honestly.” He peeked out at you momentarily. “Why? You looking to be number four?” He jeered, a smirk brushing across his lips as you rolled your eyes.

You huffed sarcastically. “Yeah, you wish,” you mumbled, fighting not to blush.

“Maybe I do,” he stated plainly.

You opened your mouth to retort, but Sapnap walked in, peering down at his phone with an unbending concentration. Clay sat up beside you, flashing you a look before Sapnap began to speak. “I have a date. I just wanted you guys to know,” he stated before grabbing his coat off of one of the hooks. He finally looked up from his phone, lazily point a finger at the pair of you. “Don’t hook up. It’ll make it awkward for me and I’m not ready to deal with you guys being together yet.”

Clay laughed and your ears warmed, rolling your eyes as he left the two of you with his words.

After an hour, Sapnap’s words were blown to the wind as Clay’s fingers carded through your hair, his lips pressed against yours in some kind of heated passion to prove himself to you; that he was worthy of being with you in such an intimate way.

You weren’t hesitant, to say the least, and had even initiated the manner as the sun had begun to set. You had been sitting beside each other, lazily discussing your sex lives and lack-there-of.

“So, these three… Do you still keep in touch?” You asked him, watching as his green eyes searched yours for the reason behind your questions. The deep orange rays of the sunset peeked through the blinds to reflect against his blond hair.

He shook his head. “They were all me being stupid, basically. I didn’t really like any of them,” he admitted, making your stomach turn. “What about you? What’s your number?”

You shrugged. “Zero,” you snorted.

He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Oh, that’s right. I knew that,” he recounted as if he were remembering what you’d told him when the two of you were trapped in the elevator. “Um… Why?”

You shrugged again. “I’ve never trusted anyone enough.” He barely bit his lip, nodding in understanding. You cleared your throat. “It’s not that it’s a big deal to me or anything, I just… I’d like to feel safe during it, at least,” you clarified.

“It’s okay if it’s a big deal,” he stated. “It was important to me too at one point. I just…” he sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I got caught up in the pressure of losing it.”

You nodded, letting a breath of silence pass between the two of you. “Would you want to…” You looked away from him, biting back a grin at how stupid you were about to sound. “Would you want to take my virginity?”

He nearly giggled. “You feel safe with me?”

You snorted. “Yeah. I mean, I like you,” you answered, biting back a laugh. The air between you was mellow and easy. You had thrown your awkwardness out the window after Sapnap had left. “I mean, you’re one of my best friends, you know. But it’s just an offer.”

He grinned, a dusting of red settling in his cheeks from the pride he was beaming at you. “No, I want to. I just… I want you to be sure.”

You chewed on your bottom lip. “Yeah, I’m sure. But if it’s too much pressure and everything, like I get it.”

He chuckled. “Quit. I’m honored honestly.”

You laughed. “Okay, then do it,” you stated.

And there the two of you were, Clay’s breath warm against your skin as he knotted his fingers with yours, moaning as you ground your hips against his. You could tell he was holding back for your sake, being as gentle as he could and trying not to crush you under his massive frame.

When you had pictured losing your virginity in the past, you’d always thought your body would be urging you to be thinking of something else, racing with pure terror as your partner got themselves off to get it over with. But Clay’s hands were careful, slowly introducing you to different sensations and testing the waters for you. Your mind was only focused on the fact that Clay smelled like lavender; the scent lingering on his clothes and in his hair.

You slipped your hands under the hem of his shirt, before pulling it over his head. You hadn’t seen him naked before, but heat flushed to your cheeks at the view of him, even if he had pressed you into another kiss as soon as he had discarded his shirt. As he pressed a leg between yours, you moaned, fingers traveling along the length of his spine. His taste of bitter coffee and mint was becoming your new obsession as his tongue pressed into your mouth, grinding his hips against yours.

He leaned off of you to remove your shirt, every instinct telling you to cover back up, but he brushed it off, pressing his lips to yours again as his thumb gently brushed against your side. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you’re hot,” he joked, making you giggle as he lightened the mood.

“You’re so charming,” you mocked, running your fingers into his hair as his lips pressed against your neck lovingly.

He chuckled. “Only when you’re around,” he answered, making you laugh again.

The next morning, you sat beside Clay at the breakfast table, the two of you chatting about a movie you were planning on seeing later in the day. Sapnap strolled in, eyeing you carefully with his lips pursed. You both looked up at him as if to motion for him to spit out whatever was bothering him.

Sapnap took to the chair on the other side of Clay after pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Okay, so am I supposed to pretend I didn’t see you sneaking out of Dream’s room this morning?” He gestured between the two of you. “And now you’re wearing each other’s hoodies.” Out of the corner of your eye, you watched Clay look down with a small “what?” whispering from his lips quietly. “I mean come on, that one was mine at one point,” he continued, his comments mainly directed at you.

You scoffed. “Am I supposed to pretend you didn’t come back until an hour ago and I know you don’t carry condoms?” You countered.

Clay let out a soft gasp. “Sapnap… safe sex.” At this point he was just the Sophoclean chorus; the peanut gallery.

Sapnap sent you a sarcastic grin, disregarding your statement. “Am I supposed to pretend like I didn’t tell you guys not to hook up and you did?” Clay sipped his drink at this. “I mean, look at you two!” He swatted his finger to point at where the two of your hands were joined together.

In reality, you weren’t even sure when Clay had grabbed your hand or even that you here holding onto him as well. “Am I supposed to pretend like you didn’t do that on purpose so we didn’t bother you for a few hours?” You shot back.

Sapnap’s mouth dramatically tilted, brows raised in shock. “A Few. Hours?”

You covered your mouth as Clay laughed beside you.

Tag List: (follow this link to be added :))

@karlkitten @pluto-dizzz @more-like-reyna

[minshookie]

Pillow Fight.

Pairing |Bully!Jungkook x reader

Genre | smut, angst.

Summary | “Another day spent babysitting your bully’s little sister...you should really quit but the pay is just too good.”

!warnings! | 18+ mature language, bullying, mentioned sexual acts, mentions of past bullying, NON-CON,financial struggle, Jungkook is a really shitty big brother.

| this is not in anyway shape or form a true depiction or representation of BTS, this is a work of fiction and is not to be taken seriously. For entertainment purposes only.|

(this is my work, please don’t repost or steal)

Requested [open for request] words: 1k.

A/N: I rewrote this so many times! Lmfaoo! Buuut get ready because some of requests yall sent in are 🥵🥵.

“Orange is your best color.” Aera chirped dragging the paint drowned brush along your pinky nail. “I think you’re just saying that because it’s your favorite.” The young girl giggles continuing to color your fingertips. “Uhm are you staying all night miss y/n?” Nodding you brushed back her wild strands of hair softly with your free hand. “Soooo like a sleep over?!” She squeals closing the bottle of nail polish, her eyes glittering as she gazes into yours intent for answers. “Yeah!” You matching her energy only made her more excited, “yay! And-and can Jungkookie Oppa come?!” She bounced on her knees smiling ear to ear, fumbling over her words.

“Oh...Jungkook huh... Hmm what about no boys aloud?” You planted the idea praying she’d take the bait as you started cleaning her toy makeup, giving her a chance to think it over.

“What? Jungkook isn’t a boy, he’s my brother!” Giggling she pounced from the couch striding towards his room. At this point all you could do is laugh at her innocent lack of logic. She looks so happy who are you to burst her little bubble, for all you know Jungkook might want nothing to do with the both of you and your little mock slumber party.

Closing the toy purse you hid it back away in the large toy chest she pulled from her room, leaving it open you cleared the floor of the multicolored blocks and dolls. A whisper of a laugh escapes your lips as you overhear Aera’s begs and pleas mixed with Jungkook’s refusals....but finally the door creaks.

Please no. “Y/n, guess what?!” She drags your name out as her small foot steps pitter the floor, Jungkook’s thudding. She comes down the hall pulling Jungkook by his middle finger. “As if you weren’t undesirable enough, neon nails really helped it out.” Grumbling he throws himself on the couch you just tidied up. “Nice to see you again too Kook.”Aera bounced on her toes watching us have confrontation, unaware of the negative connotations.

Truth is you hadn’t seen Jungkook since you left for college and you hadn’t planned on seeing him ever again...that is until relationships fell apart, your roommate left and things got hard to pay for, and you were two bills away from being homeless. the job up at university paid $9.50 an hour while the busy Jeons still offered $12.00 the choice was clear. Take a little break, live with family, get back on your feet, and try again. But little did you know Jungkook decided to stay local with his schooling.All this aside the work was easy since Aera had grown a bit, but the thought of dealing with the person that made your life hell for four years made you want to quit daily.

“Can I do your nails Too?!” “No Aera, now be cute and get me something to drink.” He orders putting his feet on the coffee table eyeing you up and down,disgustingly. “No Aera I’ll get it.” You grabbed her shoulder. “No y/n! I’ll do it, I’ll do it quickly!” Setting free she bolted for the kitchen.

“So, you went to college got broke and came back sniveling to my rich parents?” You rolled your eyes, looking in the direction of the kitchen for any sign of Aera. “I thought you would’ve out grown your asshole phase, that’s very high school of you Kook.” He scoffed defensively, “and you using babysitting as your main income is high school of you, what happened your little rapper boyfriend leave you high and dry?” “You shut the fuck up.” You snapped back my reflex. He held his hands up in defense, “Suga blew up and left you in the shit show not my fault.” We argued in hushed tones as Aera ran back into sight.

“Here you go kookie!” She handed Jungkook the can of Coke, heaving for air. “Aera this is warm, cold...I want something cold, go try again.” He handed her the can, “oh okay Oppa sorry!” And off she was back down the hall. He turned back to me, “why’d he leave you...couldn’t make him bust?” you tried to hide it but his words stung, you’d been avoiding anything to do with Yoongi since he’d ghosted you weeks before you left for college. Bigger things waited for him in the world of fame, and you weren’t in the blueprint.

“Fuck you Jungkook.” “Come try it bitch.” Smirking he was satisfied with himself as you stood almost defeated. “Oh I forgot you’re scared of sex.” “Leave the high school rumors behind...ran out a material? Maybe you should get out more.” He rolled his eyes scoffing, “shut up before I make you.” “You like to pretend I’m still afraid you...make me, little boy...since you insist on being one.”

Jungkook’s come back was cut short by the thumping of Aera’s feet. “Kookie!Kookie! Ice! I got it all by myself!” She gave the cup of ice to Jungkook and then the Coke. “Good job, now pour it.” He handed them back and you took it from her small clutches much to Jungkook’s disliking. You poured him the drink, pushing his feet off the small table and placing the glass. “She’s not your little slave Jungkook.” He kept eye contact picking up the glass, “you’re right she’s not, you...go get me a coaster now or you’re fired.” His eyebrow arched cockily, his free hand waving you away. “As if! You can’t fire me Jungkook.” He got Aera sitting her on the couch beside him as she caught her breath. “Is that so? Try me, my parents might have hired you but you work for us...now work.” His gaze alone told you he wasn’t playing with you anymore.

Angered you stormed to kitchen pulling a coaster from the table before swiftly Turing on your heels, almost jumping out of you skin as you met face to face with Jungkook. “What the fuck do you want now?” “You said some shit I didn’t like.” You threw the coaster back on the marbled table, “I wish you’d grow up already.” You atempt to go past him but his muscular arm halts your plans. “I have to go do my job-” “I put on her show she’ll be good for the next hour.”

You don’t remember Jungkook being so brooding he looked down at you, his new tall posture slightly off putting yet attractive. “What now, you wanna talk it out?” You walked away siting at the island, “I’ll leave you be if you leave me to do my job Kook.” He came behind you, trapping you in his arms. Tattoos, he’d change a lot but not enough to leave you alone.

“I see you came and got the coaster, scared of me now?” What an ass, “no I need this job.” He hummed from behind you, no sign of him letting you go. “You know y/n, you’ve grown quite a bit.” You became more and more uncomfortable by the second, his breathing became deeper. “I’m aware, so have you.” Rudely he became handsy, groping your breast earning a shocked reaction. “Jungkook please-” “scared of me?” He squeezed you with a little too much force making you give a Yelp, he had you trapped, you were nothing but a game to him. “Shhh shh don’t want to startle my baby sister while she rests...that wouldn’t be very babysitter like of you now would it?”

Silent what could you even say? He had you trapped, your position less than hopeless he’d made you feel small and that’s exactly what he wanted. He’s always wanted that ever since you’d met him, and he always succeeds. He intruded under your top, skating his chilled hand over your skin leaving cold bumps in his wake he held your bra covered breast.

You griped his unexposed wrist trying at escape, knowing fully how downhill this could get. “Oh is the brave girl afraid?” “N-no your hands are cold as Ice Jungkook...please stop.” You lied continuing to push his muscular arm. “Oh? Let me warm them for you.” He removed his hand from the island almost causing you to topple over. Reaching down he found himself with his hand now between your legs fiddling with the pant button. “Jungkook! Please no!” His hand along your chest he pulled you back into his sculpted figure.

“You must not value your job as much as you say, scream again and you’ll be broke and fucked over and to think I actually liked you a bit.” He came to your ear, sniffing your hair eerily. “Little did I know how much of a bitch you were, I loved you when you were shy.” He finally got through your button, getting to your panties he gave you a two fingered massage along your core, you strained not to react to the unwanted pleasure. “Look at you pathetic and wet I bet you’re so needy I could make you cum right here.” He began to focus his nimble fingers on your aching clit. “Fucking stop it.” You could only whimper. “Why should I, we’re old enough now and you’re sopping through your panties I know you want it.”

He invaded under your bra, fondling your hardening bud. “I loved you when you were weak and innocent...I know she’s hiding deep inside of you, the little girl that would cry over me-”

“Miss y/n! I’m tired!” Her voice softly called from the living room. Saved by an angel, finally Jungkook stoped his assault backing off of you with a groan. “You’ll meet me in my room when she’s in bed, or else.” He grumbled leaving you behind to collect yourself, how could bad get so much worse?

[spaceorphan18]

99 Perspectives on a Single Love Story #51

A/N: The Story of Kurt and Blaine told through the eyes of everyone else but them. Each chapter is a different perspective in the ongoing tale of their love story.

I started something like this a while back - and now I’m taking the idea and really running with it. Each chapter is a ficlet of a different character at a different point in Kurt and Blaine’s life - documenting their love story. This starts in Audition, and each chapter will be paired with a different episode until reaching Dreams Come True.

[Ao3]

A/N:  Those of you who know me, know that I love superheroes - so, I couldn't help myself but let this one be so delightfully arch. Thank you for letting me indulge. And thank you for reading! <3

***

Hunter Clarington (Dynamic Duets) 

“You may enter.”

Hunter Clarington’s dominating voice rings in the empty chamber. He’s sitting, alone, behind a large, sturdy and polished wooden desk. His chair is of the finest leather - one that he brought himself from Colorado Springs. The shades are all drawn - the sunlight hurts his steely green eyes. Mr. Puss is curled up on his lap. Hunter slowly runs his fingers through Mr. Puss’s fur as Sebastian Smythe makes his way across the room.

Sebastian slides the manila envelope across the desk.

“What is it?” Hunter asks.

“Confirmation.” A smirk climbs on Sebastian’s face.

Hunter arches an eyebrow. “How did you get it?”

“Facebook isn’t that hard to hack,” Sebastian says. “I just had to entice a lonely, young IT student with some of my, let’s say, talented charm, and he got in without a problem.”

“Always good with your mouth, aren’t you Sebastian?” Hunter refrains from scoffing. He prefers the allure to money over sexual pleasure in order to get things done - but if Sebastian’s methods work, he’s not one to interfere. It’s all in the name of the master plan. “What does it say?”

“He hooked up with another guy,” Sebastian says, an air of impressedness in his voice. “And ruined his relationship with his boyfriend in the process.”

“Interesting…” Hunter leans back in thought. “Very interesting - so not quite the perfect prince I’ve been led to believe he is.”

“Never thought they guy had it in him, to be honest,” Sebastian says. “I guess Kurt Hummel isn’t as special as he thinks he is after all.”

“I’m not one for personal grudges, Sebastian,” Hunter warns as he pushes away from the desk. “This is about business - not revenge. However, I think this might work to our advantage. How much damage has been done? How vulnerable do you think he is?”

“Very, sir. His emotions have always been his weak spot.”

“Malleable. Hmm.” Hunter let’s Mr. Puss leaps out of his arms and into the chair as he faces the roaring fire behind him. This is good. This is very good. His eyes grow wide with delight, sparkling in the dancing firelight. “Love, I believe, is for the weak. If I was able to live without my heart, I would have had it removed a long time ago. Power, fame, notoriety, money… all of it much more valuable. But love... emotion… can be easily manipulated. And we just have to exploit that.”

Sebastian lets out a hardy laugh as he comes up to the fire beside him. “That shouldn’t be too hard. The only reason he left here in the first place was to be with Kurt.”

“Then all we need is the power of suggestion,” Hunter grins wildly. “You know, when I was brought here to Dalton, I was tasked with the mission to bring prestige and glory to this academy. How has a school, with such class, such dutifully tradition never been graced with the highest honors it could achieve? And when I started interrogating the members of the Warblers, the one thing that continued to come up is the Legend of Blaine Anderson. And how, despite never making it past Regionals, the glory days of the Warblers were when Blaine Anderson was a part of the group.”

Sebastian winces.

“Oh, don’t take it personally, Sebastian,” Hunter says. He gives Sebastian a dark and devilish stare. “You are truly a great number two. However your promiscuity gets in the way of greater ambition. Blaine, however, is the perfect front man. On the outside he exudes charisma and talent. On the inside he is a mushy mess of a man - one who can be easily manipulated, like a puppet on strings. Don’t get me wrong, Sebastian - we get Blaine back, he’ll be the face of the Warblers, but I will remain their leader supreme. Now - who is the closest to Blaine?”

“They all still adore him,” Sebastian says, as if it’s painful to say that. “However, I think Trent has the most connection.”

Hunter lets out a pleased laugh. “Of course he is. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to get me Trent. I’ll plant the idea in Trent that perhaps, in this trying time, it would be good for Blaine to return back to a place that’s familiar - back to a place that welcomes him with open arms, and does not judge him. Back to his real home. Trent, of course, will spread the idea like a wildfire -- and if Blaine is as legendary as the rest of you claim he is, the Warblers’ want will help us pursue our goal. However, this will not be enough. We’ll have to lure him here.”

“An invite?”

“No, something much better,” Hunter says, a wild grin on his lips. “We’ll take their National’s Trophy. Not only to use it as bait, but to mock the New Directions as we take a gem they might not even know they have.”

“Do you really think this will work?” Sebastian asks - there’s a slight challenge in his voice that Hunter wishes to eviscerate. No one doubts Hunter Clarington.

“Of course,” Hunter says, with authority. Sebastian moves to leave, but Hunter throws up a hand, staying him. “One more thing - I need a blazer, size - I’m guessing, extra small.”

Sebastian tilts his head. “Why?”

“Because,” Hunter licks his lips. “Blaine Anderson can’t return to who he really is, and accept his own destiny, unless he’s offered his true costume. A subtle reminder, and a true push, over to our side.”

“Genius,” Sebastian mutters.

His plan is flawless. The trap will be laid. And the unsuspecting hero, who fell victim to his own imperfections, and vulnerable to manipulation, will be theirs to do with what they wish. Hunter is giddy at the thought, and throws his head back in genuine, terrifying laughter.

[beomglocks]

unlikely allies ; txt x reader

part: one ,, next chapter / previous chapter

plot: when a zombie apocalypse breaks out in your town, you're forced to team up with a group of boys from very different social standards in your school.

genre: fluff, angst, horror i guess?, not really that scary but alright, some funny moments

w/c: 3.6K

warnings: blood, gruesome scenes (kind of really detailed), cursing, everyone hates each other, definitely some major injuries, zombies duh, everyone kinda pining for mc

︵︵︵︵︵︵︵︵︵︵︵︵︵

he sighs looking at the both of you. "if we wanna make it out of here alive...we're gonna have to fight."

silence. the room was engulfed in silence, save for the growling and moaning of the monsters outside the door. you and yeonjun stared wide-eyed at taehyun who was mirroring your expressions.

"excuse me what?" yeonjun blurted. "we don't even know what those things are and you wanna go out there and risk getting torn to shreds like the nurse? are you crazy?" all you could do was shake your head in fear. you were still shaken up from watching someone get eaten alive.

"s-she...i saw her get eaten and then she just s-stood up? she came back to life somehow?" you questioned out loud. the boys looked at you with fear in their eyes. yeonjun stared at your shaken state and frowned turning to taehyun. "see? if go out there we're gonna die!"

"well do you have any other suggestions? if we stay here we starve to death or something like that, it's better to go out looking for help and finding others before more of them corner us here!" taehyun was making a lot of points right now but going out there? where you just saw a woman die and come back to life? that would happen to you guys if you weren't prepared.

you tried to calm yourself by taking a deep breath, "ok i agree with taehyun...but we need to be really prepared. we may not be capable of murder at this moment but we can take them on enough to get away right?"

taehyun nods but yeonjun just paces around the room anxiously. "you guys are insane. i can't believe i'm gonna die here of all places." you and taehyun watch yeonjun tug at his blonde hair. he suddenly pauses. "i have an idea. what if we don't actually try to take them on." he looked at you both expectedly.

"what do you mean?" you asked. he rolled his eyes, "we could try to just trap them in here and make our escape." taehyun nods at yeonjun's vague plan, "i get what you mean. before we start though we should take some stuff with us. we got lucky that we're in the nurse's office, we can take stuff in case we get injured."

all three of you split up around the office to pick up anything that might be helpful. "its a good thing i brought my bookbag with me," taehyun chuckles dryly. you pack up all the stuff you grabbed and help him zip up the bag. "ok so here's how we'll go forward with the plan."

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

yeonjun sighs shakily as he crouches behind the door. "this was my plan so why do i have to be the one to open the door?!" he angrily whispers to you. you're hiding behind the nurse's desk which is right beside the door, glaring at him, "just shut up and wait for taehyun's cue. if they hear you, we're screwed."

"will you two stop arguing. if anything i'm the one with the risker job," taehyun glares at you both. he's standing in the middle of the office, just a little bit away from the desk. "let's go over the plan just one more time so nothing unexpected happens," he's nervous and you can hear it in his voice. he's trying to act brave like earlier. yeonjun starts, "simple, i open the door letting the monsters in. they won't notice me since i'm crouched below the window." you sigh, continuing, "once the monsters come running in, i pull the stethoscope attached that chair other there as hard as i can. they'll trip over it sending them tumbling."

taehyun takes a deep breath, "and i'll be standing here as bait. once i see that they're both down, that should give me enough time to run out and shut the door on them." yeonjun bites his lip, "i hope this works...my heart is racing seriously."

since taehyun is now visible from the one lamp shining down on him, the monsters outside now have new adrenaline in them, viciously gnawing at the door's window. you don't realize it but you all take a deep breath.

"3″

"2″

"1!"

as soon as taehyun yells, yeonjun swings the door open. the zombies pretty much bum rush through it to get to taehyun as soon as a slither of it was cracked open, effectively managing to swing the door all the way to the wall. you watch it hit yeonjun's arm roughly and flinch. he tries to hold back a gasp and squeezes his eyes shut.

you turn your attention to your task and pull on the stethoscope. thankfully it's stretchy enough to cause the zombies to trip over it. they tumble over each other and skid across the floor. you get up to run out the door and pull yeonjun with you who's clutching his arm.

however, when you look back taehyun is not behind you, instead, he's scrambling to the nurse's closet. apparently you overestimated the recovery time of a simple stumble to the floor. they managed to get up quickly enough to chase after taehyun who thankfully was also quick enough to notice a flawed plan. "shit!" you yell out before you could think. the zombies turn their attention to you and yeonjun who are standing by the door.

they come running at you but you slam the door shut in their faces. great, now taehyun was in there and you both were out here. not to mention, he's the one with all the supplies.

"damn it!" yeonjun kicks the door in frustration. the zombies are tweaking out watching you both from inside the office. thankfully they don't notice the closet door slowly creep open.

taehyun sneaks out of the closet in a painfully slow manner, as to not get detected. he ducks behind the desk, holding his breath. he waits a moment before rising from his hiding spot and hurling a pack of unopened pens at where the cots are located. you watch the zombies whip their heads toward the sound and clamber in that direction. taehyun crawls out from behind the desk and runs toward the door. the lunch lady, who is behind the nurse, notices taehyun and runs toward him and at full blown speed.

your heart is pounding so fast, it genuinely feels like time is going in slow motion. the monster is only like a foot behind the red-haired boy. you throw the door open for taehyun and he launches himself like the outside hallway is home base. you and yeonjun once again slam the door closed on the zombie who face plants into it with a groan.

you let out a breath you didn't even know you were holding. sliding down to sit on the floor, you glance at taehyun. he's recovering from literally upper body diving out of the room but you figure he's fine since he's used to it from playing baseball so long. yeonjun seems fine too since he's not holding onto his arm anymore.

after a moment, you speak up, "are you ok?" it's not exactly a question directed at either of the two boys. you kind of are just asking yourself that but yeonjun answers anyways, "i think i'm ok, my arm is aching though. the door slammed on me pretty hard but im ok."

taehyun backs himself against the lockers opposite from you too. "i'm fine too." you examine him though you can't see him from the distance and the dimming hallway lights. his face is riddled in sweat and you can kind of see tears running down his face but he notices you staring and harshly wipes them away. he sighs letting his head rest on the lockers.

"i thought that would be easier...i thought i was gonna die back there. thanks for not leaving me," you feel like he means that so you make a noise of acknowledgment. yeonjun also nods at him but doesn't say anything.

it's dead silent in the hallway and you hope it's because the rest of the school is hiding not because they're dead. if you don't think of the circumstances you'd think it's somewhat peaceful.

taehyun breaks the silence, "what if there are other people in here in that same situation." he's not looking at you, he's looking into the abyss of darkness that is your school's hallway. once buzzing with students who you wished would shut the fuck up and move to their next class is now a ghost town. it's eerie and it leaves you with an unsettling feeling just thinking about what hides beyond the darkness.

"fuck no," yeonjun says. he's calm and you hope he doesn't lash out at what taehyun's suggesting. "taehyun..." you mumble. you don't want to say it out loud because you hate how it will sound. well, yeonjun says it for you, "did you hit your head on the way out. you almost died, dude! i know you're having some kind of epiphany about helping others and what not but think about this: those two zombie things aren't the only ones in this school. we could really die in here so we need to get o-"

"shut the fuck up!" taehyun spits. you can tell he's trying not to yell just in case there really are other zombies out here. "do you seriously only care about yourself? what if there really are other people waiting to be helped? we can't just leave them to die in this stupid ass school!" he gets up with some struggle, clutching his wrists again.

"look im not saying you have to help them but it would be really cool if you did...the more people that are alive the more likely we are to survive," with that he starts walking down into the darkness of the hallway. yeonjun scoffs and looks at you. you bite your lip. "i know it's risky...risking our lives for other people but i would feel like shit if i just let people die here while i run off like a coward."

yeonjun watches you run after taehyun. he's now left alone standing outside of the nurse's office. the zombies haven't quieted down and he wonders how much energy they have. he sighs dramatically, running after you both, "hey wait up!"

•·················•·················•

"so where are we headed?" your school isn't that big but it isn't that small either. there are three floors in total but most of the important rooms are on the first floor where you guys are located. taehyun clears his throat, "i was thinking we should get some weapons just in case. the gym's locker room/storage closet is where the team's baseball bats are located, we should be fine against those things if we manage to snag the metal ones."

once he answers you the silence surrounds you three again. you had been walking quite slowly since you didn't know if you'd encounter another zombie soon. it would be better if you could see but the power in the lights seemed to have died out. the school really did feel scarier when the lights were off.

"isn't it still day time outside?" yeonjun randomly asks. now that you think about it, he's right. if you were thinking about the time you took yeonjun to the nurse's office it was around 2 pm. "wait you're right," taehyun stops and turns around. "it was last period when you guys got to the nurse's office."

"damn it, i left my phone in my bookbag," you mumble. you thought it would be a quick trip to the nurse's office so you left it back in the class. yeonjun pats himself down and grumbles, "mine must've fallen out of my pocket during the fight. man, i fucking hate soobin! if i ever see him again he's dead."

you ignore yeonjun and look at taehyun expectantly, "sorry mines dead. i was playing with it while i was waiting for the nurse to come back," he answers sheepishly. you sigh, "we could've called for help since it's not late we could've called our parents or better yet, the police."

"don't worry, i'm sure they'll worry that we aren't coming back from school yet," yeonjun reassures. "i had practice today and my mom doesn't know i broke my wrist so she won't be expecting me home until after practice so i don't think she'll be worried until then."

yeonjun suddenly grabs taehyun's arm. you look at him in alarm because that was really random. this boy has just been full of spontaneous actions lately. "if you had practice today doesn't that mean the team would've been gathered in the gym by now?" a look of realization hits taehyun but he masks it quickly. "they're capable... they wouldn't have been turned into zombies, i'm sure there are some survivors," he sounds like he's trying to convince himself more than you guys.

as you're growing closer to the gym though, taehyun doesn't tell you that he's the best player on the team. he doesn't tell you that none of his other teammates can properly wield a bat. yes, any idiot can hold a bat but to properly swing it for the hit to have an impact takes real practice, practice that his teammates just haven't mastered. he doesn't tell you that he really doesn't think anyone in that gym has survived.

"you hear that?" yeonjun whispers stepping closer to the gym doors. there it goes again, the unmistakable moaning and groaning of the zombies. the sounds are harsher and louder being that there seem to be a lot of people in the gym at once. "damn that must be the team," you mutter. "there's no way anyone in there survived."

"we-we have to try and find out," taehyun tries. you eye him. you really don't think you'll get out of this one alive but you don't tell him that.

"we can cause some kind of distraction like last time," yeonjun suggests. "yeahhh no, im not doing that ever again," taehyun deadpans. "i think he means like what you did with the pens. that seemed to work...i think they react a lot to loud sounds."

there's a moment of silence where you all are just thinking. "your phone!" you turn to taehyun. he raises an eyebrow at you, "it's dead y/n." you shake your head, "look since it's dead and you really won't be needing it, we can just throw it somewhere in the gym. the impact of the phone hitting the wall will alert the zombies and they'll move. then we can maneuver ourselves through the darkness of the gym into the storage room to see if anyone's in there!"

both boys are staring at you with a weird look in their eyes but none of them say what they're really thinking. "that's... actually not a bad idea. the gym is big so there's no way we'll run into one. and since it looks like the lights are off they won't see us if we keep close to the walls," taehyun reiterates.

"ok so let's just get this over with," yeonjun mutters. you look at yeonjun who's staring into the gym, "you didn't have to come with us." you don't wanna sound rude but if he's just gonna complain the whole time then you'd rather be with just taehyun. "yeah right as if i'd venture off on my own in a school full of flesh-eating monsters," he rolls his eyes. "plus i'm the one who comes up with all the good plans, you guys need me."

"whatever," taehyun answers dryly. he's already starting to open the door to the gym, telling you guys that that's your cue to shut up. walking behind yeonjun, who's behind taehyun, you all crouch in a stealthy manner. you wouldn't call yourself the most athletic person but damn, why are your thighs starting to hurt? yeonjun cranes his neck to look back at you and when he sees you struggling to keep up, he slows down.

"what the fuck are you doing?" he whisper-yells. you don't know if the zombies can hear him but that sounded quite loud to you. you glare at him when the groans in the gym increase slightly in volume. "my thighs hurt, just- just leave me alone and tell taehyun to throw the damn phone." you see yeonjun purse his lips but turn to taehyun, telling him to get on with the plan. taehyun looks over to you with confusion and ?concern? written all over his face and all you do is nod at him.

he gets up slightly from his crouched position on the ground, still kind of in a half squat. he lets out a breath, preparing himself to pitch his phone. you watch in awe as you see taehyun get in the zone. you know this is a serious moment and everything but he looks good when he's focused.his eyes are trained on where he's made a mental target to throw to. even in this weird setting of a gym full of zombies of his own teammates, you can see that his breathing is steady.  you wonder why you'd never been to any of the school's home baseball games when you realize that taehyun had somewhat of a cult following. right, just like yeonjun everyone liked him and you just figured it was for nothing or that he was overhyped but you can see why now.

drawing you out of your thoughts was the sound of taehyun's phone crashing against the gym's wall. at the moment in which you were daydreaming about him, he must've thrown it. "ok cmon we gotta hurry, that might not keep them that occupied," taehyun whispers. you turn to look at the zombies which, thankfully, fell for your trick. they were all gathered in the direction where taehyun had thrown his phone. you all rose from your crouched positions and ran the rest of the way to the gym's locker room.

once inside you all let out a breath. "i can't believe that worked," you sigh. "i'm glad it did," yeonjun also sighs. "ok let's go get those bats, once we have them then we might be safe," taehyun leads you both to where he knows they are. walking down the locker room's hallway is even creepier than walking down the normal hallway. there are no windows plus the lights are out so it's even darker in here. once again you're the behind yeonjun who's behind taehyun. you feel uncomfortable and almost feeling like there's an eerie presence behind you. you never liked to be last; the shiver you get through your spine from the mere thought of something following you was weird.

just then you whip your body around but you feel it before you see it. a zombie that must've been in the locker room before you got here hovering over you. you're not sure what happened but it must've flown at you hard enough to knock your body to the ground. it was snapping and snarling in your face trying to get a bite. your eyes were closed but all your other sensed were heightened and you could definitely hear yourself shrieking wildly. you weren't sure what taehyun and yeonjun were doing but you guessed they were standing and staring in shock and horror. you are surely gonna die here.

just then, the back of the zombie's skull was knocked in with so much force that it came out through the front, effectively landing on the upper half of your body and face. just like that, it was no longer trying to devour you, instead, slumping down onto you like a lifeless doll.

you wanted to throw up but you bit it back. you figured the image of you on the floor with blood and a bashed brain spilling out of a once alive human on you was enough. 

the body was thrown off you in an instant and there stood choi beomgyu looking over you with so much concern that you were scared you turned into a zombie and were about to suffer the same fate as the corpse next to you. "oh my god y/n," his eyebrows are furrowed and his mouth is agape. he kneels down to wipe the brain remnants off you but he does it hastily and not that gentle really. you flinch and he pauses, "s-sorry its just that...well i don't know. i didn't think anyone else was alive and then i see you but you're about to get eaten so i mean-." you cut him off with a shaky hand lifted when you realize he's rambling.

he wants to go in to hug you and shout for joy that thankfully his crush- i mean... thankfully you are alive but yeonjun steps in, "dude oh my god y/n, are you okay?" you don't turn around to look at him or taehyun because frankly, you're too shaken up to even stand.

"thank you beomgyu," you whisper the expression and you kind of hope it sounds spiteful towards the other two boys for not really doing anything to help. taehyun looks down and bites his lip and yeonjun just looks at you. beomgyu smiles lightly and helps you stand and when you turn around you see the other two boys flinch at what you look like.

you know you must look horrifying with blood all over you and you want to cry. not because you look absolutely disgusting in front of the two of the most popular boys at your school but because you almost died in front of them. you let out a sob and taehyun steps forward but beomgyu is already ahead of him. "oh y/n... it's ok. look," he wipes your face with his shirt and you feel even worse. "we're alive, you're alive, it's gonna be ok."

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ •• ✼

taglist: @fxd-skz​ (send ask to be added!)

[kaypeace21]

i'm losing hope of byler being an endgame :( milevens say that we are invalidating mileven, besides having several scenes that they show "passion/love". they make fun of us, besides always giving reasons why mileven is an endgame, and disrespecting other people's ship, and maybe actually Will will be with another boy right?? idk but I really hope I'm not being deluded

lol  lets not focus on byler for a sec and mostly discuss mileven. what scenes show mileven’s  ‘passion/love’? Because the show invalidates mileven constantly-why they’re so aggressive/afraid of us.THEY KNOW IT’S DOOMED (they live in head canons and nothing else).  I’m going to try keeping this short by doing bullet points.

-The writers in s3 threw in a telemarketing joke just for Mike to say “El. no. sorry not interested” and hang up the phone. 

- Flo  in s1: “only love makes you that crazy and that damn stupid.”

Mike: “if we’re both going crazy. we’ll go crazy together right?”will: “yeah, crazy together “ *smile and stare longingly at eachother *————————————————————-Mike: “they do say it makes you crazy”El: “what makes you crazy?”(the exact opposite of crazy together as she continues to be confused over every explanation he gives of love 😂)————————————————————-During the byler fight  Mike says “el’s not stupid!” After this, Will calls himself “ so stupid “ 4x .  rips up photo where they said they’d go crazy together and cries . But, El after fighting with mike happily says: “there’s more to life than STUPID boys .”  El’s catchphrase being “not stupid” which she says in s2 before going to see Mike at the school. And Nancy before Mike says he loves El / Mikeduring the byler fight (about mileven) say “El’s not stupid!”

original gifs  sources

-the s3 stobin confession parallels mileven’s s3 shop confession (full analysis in link). Both El/Robin have bandages on their legs and both pairings sit together (on the floor) during their confessions- and are interrupted by Dustin. And in both straight baits- the guys use the terms “stupid/crazy” but subvert the expectation of it being romantic-as both girls say they’re not “crazy” or “stupid” for the guy. El saying “what makes you crazy?” in response to Mike. And Robin saying she was not into Steve’s “stupid hair” (similar to El saying there’s more to life than ‘stupid boys’/other saying she’s not stupid.”Also the song ‘the first i love you’ only plays twice in s3. During Steve’s romantic confession and robin rejecting him because she’s gay & El’s romantic confession and awkward kiss with mike (where Mike doesn’t reciprocate). Cause Robin/Mike are both gay and will reject the romantic confession.

- Erica making he-man and barbie kiss: “Hey , They’re in love!”Lucas (livid- and standing right next to a rainbow forcing them apart): “No, actually,  they’re not. they’re not even from the same planet.”  El even watches he-man in s1! Mileven is not in love!

Cue El and mike being compared to ET and Eliot -WHO AREN’T FROM THE SAME PLANET (by the Duffers in multiple interviews and in the pilot script ) .   And then there’s the  old euphemism of “girls come from Venus, and boys come from Mars”.  The Duffers saying mileven isn’t in love cause they’re not from the same planet (aka the same gender) -is just them telling us Mike is gay so he can’t fall for El-who is a girl/diff species. They literally have Will say to Mike “welcome to my world” as a contrast. So El telling mike he should ‘stick with his own species’ (aka boys) is another gay hint.

In s2 they even had El wear the same shirt as a 1986 movie character (staring Winona Ryder). The movie is called coincidentally “lucas”- and he’s in an unrequited romantic relationship with a gal named maggie. And he later says him and Maggie are  from “different worlds.” El being movie-Lucas in a unrequited romance, in this scenario. And the other easteregg is the Duffers have st-Lucas  say the “planet/worlds” similar to movie-Lucas.

some milevens also attribute romeo/juliet to mileven cause Dustin mentioned it while mileven was out of shot. But romeo & juliet weren’t actually in love-it was just kids in infatuation. And also used to describe the unrequited infatuation of Lucas/Maggie.

-Also when dustin in s1 says el is “like a wizard” (like Will.) Mike corrects dustin and says “more like yoda”. Really hammering down the alien references- which the Duffers reference to el in interviews all the time-by comparing her to et . In the pilot they even said mike and el are like “Eliot and et.” They said they made el dress like a ghost cause et did so- and then for the extra burn they made mike a ghost hunter/buster. And they also said that EL’s makeover in s1 was like et’s in the movie. And sorry ... who compares the girl they “crush on” with a green gross alien (yoda)- kind of shows how he sees her more as this foreign superpowered entity rather than a girl/crush. And on what planet is et /Eliot romantic??Answer is -it’s not. 

- In contrast, They have Mike and Will parallel  Diane and Venkman. In ghost Busters, Mike -is Venkman- and Will -is Dana Barret- who Venkman flirts with shamelessly until she is possessed. Dana finds a demon-dog in her fridge, and hires the ghost busters. And right before Venkman goes on a date with her she is possessed by the big-bad, Zuul, and is transformed into the gate-keeper (who controls demo(n)-dogs). Venkman proceeded to try to talk to the real Dana , ignoring her possessed form and eventually realizes how serious her condition is, is forced to sedate her. Eventually with the help of his team, Venkman closes the gate to Zuul’s dimension, rescuing Dana in the process. And Venkman plants one on Dana before riding away in triumph. While, El is a ghost and Mike is a ghost hunter XD

Notice in the same season lucas says mileven is ‘not in love’ and compares mileven to he-man and barbie .  Dustin has a  he-man & Et next to each other (along with a ghost buster sign above them, and the ghostbusters-trap next to et). This just reinforces the mileven eastereggs I’ve already talked about -  and how they want you to make the connections  about mileven not being in love. They showed et/barbie next to he-man, had El watch he-man, compared El to Et (who had a barbie-like makeover/ghost costume), so the next he-man ref of ‘not being in love’  cause rhey’re from different planets would connect in a more obvious way to mileven.  Same with Et next to the ghost trap and ghost busters sign (and El dressing as a ghost and Mike as a ghost buster-as an extra burn).

- Mike dehumanizing El is hammered down again when they compare s1 mileven to s2 dart /dustin (a demo dog) , to further show how un-romantic it is. Fin even said the duffers told him Mike saw el (OFFENSIVELY) as a “puppy’ (right after s1).  And of course millie accurately said “what a horrible way to describe me!”But the parallels are there: Dustin/Mike sharing sweets ( nougat vs eggos) for breakfast and saying they’ll have to wait for them to come home from school. And having mike annoyed, say  “a bond? cause you shared nougat?!” is dissing milevens who think the ego thing is cute/romantic. Dustin/Mike saying they ‘promised’ to take care of them and that they ‘trust’ dustin & mike. Dart killing a cat and El almost killing a cat. Dustin/Mike trying to convince Lucas- Dart & El aren’t bad. The boys thinking both El & Dart were bad guys causing both to end up running away because of that. Mike even admits in s1 he doesn’t like eggos and told El she doesn’t have to eat “like a dog” anymore.  it’s ironic when Mike says to Dustin “she’s not a dog” cause he treated her as such. Why El says in s3 angrily , “am I your pet?” It’s because he did/does unfortunately treat her this way to some degree. 

-They Parallel Mileven to Hopper & El (since mileven isn’t actually romantic)!

*teaching the meaning of promise vs com-promise. And making “promises” to eachother is not some super romantic thing- for just mileven.

* Telling her to eat “real food” vs eggos

* saying her new look is “cool”and saying it’s “bitchin” after El says the look is.

* Saying others are “corrupting her” and in response gals say neither respect her ability to make “decisions” in regards to romance. Hopper not accepting Mileven together (want them to break up)  and Mike not accepting she dumped him.

* Max saying to not let Hopper/Mike control her

*El saying “you lie” to both of them

ok , back to listing other points

- they dance to ‘every breath you take’ a break up song about a stalker ex who can’t accept he is now with her friend. The writer of the song also has said many times “it’s NOT a love song.” The duffers obviously knew that. Lumax also danced to it and Lucas was called a ‘stalker’ . El also stalked Mike in s2 (all that stuff milevens found romantic- El watching him without him knowing. Mike says he was not ok with it in s3). And in s3 he said not to do that and she just says ‘i make my own rules’.Plus, sting (the singer) mentions it’s supposed to sound romantic but the lyrics are sinister. And that the ambiguity/deceptive happy -romantic tone was intentional. Kind of like how people think mileven is healthy and in love when the show (ambiguosly says ) that it’s not -and the “opposite”.Just like the song being misinterpreted as romantic because of its deceptive packaging -mileven is the same . Mileven got popular cause everyone missed all the warning signs it wasn’t healthy (cause it was packaged as ‘cute’ and ‘ in love’) when behind the surface it was shown to be the opposite and not healthy.

 Not to mention Nancy teaching Dustin how to dance is a direct parallel to Mike teaching El. 

Mike also tries to act like Dustin, and  forces Will to dance with a girl (who’s wearing a rainbow hair clip). Trying to be a good sport like Dustin is about lumax. And right after this we see Dustin look sad about Max/Lucas dancing and Mike (next to Dustin) look sadly at Will/girl dancing in the same exact frame as Max/Lucas. As they switch between these 2 shots to emphasize their sadness/jealousy.Then they both sit down (mirroring each other) on the verge of tears before Nancy and El show up to comfort them and distract them.  As El once again (presumably) wears Nancy’s dress. Mike after El asks “will you be my brother?” “you cant go  (to the snowball) with your sister... i mean you can but it’d be really weird.” 

- before their first kiss in s1 she asked if he would be like her brother (after being compared to a cousin, and being compared to Holly, and wearing Nancy’s dress.) In s2 they even make a direct parallel to Luke &Leia (who were siblings who had a weird romantic relationship/kissed before realizing they were related). Mike (as Leia) saying “it’s a trap” to El (Luke). 

- Mike in s1 writes a d&d story for Will inspired by star wars.  in ep one Will tells Mike “it was a 7, the demogorgan it got me.”At the end of the season Mike writes a whole story of him and his friends killing a 7 headed monster, and showing the decapitated head of the monster to king Tristan (Will). Similar to how at the hospital he tells Will to not worry cause “it’s dead now”. This is right after Will rolls a 14 (cause Mike and Will are 7s together). And Mike who is a fan of starwars has King Tristan give them medals after killing the monster. Cause he wants Will/king tristan (instead of Leia -a girl) to present him with medals and be his romantic love interest (and praise him for being a hero).

- They had Dustin call mileven “bullshit” just like stancy (who were never in love). And in s3 for almost every single character in the show to dislike mileven . if that isn’t a cry for help from the writers idk what is XD

other stancy parallels: Making out on a bed to cheesy music. stancy wasn’t in love but they kissed the most in the series and nancy and steve (similar to mileven exchanged ‘i love yous’) but weren’t endgame and it was never love. Mike and Steve sing to their gfs and neither girls are fans and cut them off.In s1, both Nancy/Mike slap Steve and El and then both yell “ What is wrong with you?!”  Stancy/mileven are compared to Karen/ted who according to Nancy “never loved each other”. El is a fan of ted’s lazy boy. (Karen in s3 looks at Ted in the chair when the lyric “I should have walked away “ plays). And Steve and ted continuing to eat chicken as their gf /wife storm off from the table upset , and they do nothing. After the mileven and Karen/Ted fight- Steve says while eating “what did I do?what did i do?” And mike while eating says about el after their fight “what did i do wrong? what did i do wrong?!Steve and Ted both tell Mike to “stay on the bench/you’re on the bench.” Karen/ ted that they “never loved each other” (just like mileven and stancy which are “bullshit.”) All 3 wheelers were with people cause it seemed like the rational choice ( rich guy/ popular guy/ girl). Not to mention mike said “ I don’t remember” ( in reference to saying he loved el ) . And doesn’t say it back when el says “I love you”. Which mimics Nancy in s2 saying “I don’t remember ” (saying the stancy relationship is bs) . And she is also unable to say she loves Steve when he says“say you love me.” And Steve and el walking away as both wheelers stand there in silence. Unable to say “I love you” back.  Also, when stancy officially breakup it also pans to mileven on the porch as another parallel.And 11byers mentioned (at Christmas)  jancy has a moment but despite stancy’s issues she goes back to Steve where she looks sad over the decision .  Similar to how Byler have a moment , but then after , mileven talks about christmas  and they have that awkward kiss. In s3, steve when talking about stancy and trying to be popular even says “dustin’s right it’s all a bunch of bullshit.” (meaning Dustin’s right about mileven). Steve even says “everything people tell you is important that you’re supposed to care about- it’s bullshit.” (same season Mike mimics Lucas’ words from s1 about El being the “most important thing”.

-They also had Mike tell Max “i don’t hate you. I don’t even know you.”  Aka he can’t hate Max or love el cause he knew both for a week-and doesn’t know them. The amount of mileven burns that were in s2 -were insane XD.

other direct contrasts between Mileven & byler 

besides the ones already mentioned. 1) ‘crazy together/so stupid’ vs ‘what makes you crazy?/el’s not stupid/more to life than stupid boys & 2) ‘they’re not in love they’re not even from the same planet’ vs byler’s ‘welcome to my world’

3) Mike has drastically different expressions after the byler/mileven fights and the difference in weather and music selection ,convey how Mike is feeling. He looks regretful with Will, and almost annoyed with El dumping him.  Mileven breaks up to upbeat music on a sunny day (the break up being in front a crowd and a joke) vs the morose music and the storm shown (with just Mike and Will fighting ). We are supposed to take the byler fight seriously and the mileven one as a joke.They had Mike apologize to Will immediately. But with El he says “what did i do wrong?’ (Kind of like how ted, after pissing off karen says “what did I do?”)And then had Mike wait by the phone for her to apologize- says sexist stuff about her. Then have mike laugh/burp and talk about cheese and El to laugh about the break up/high five max and immediately oggle a pic of another boy/male celeb (unlike Will who looks sadly at the pic of Mike after their fight). And then after staring at the  teen-male celeb,  El says she’s not sure if  Mike’s a good kisser cause he’s just her “first boyfriend” and she has no other boys to compare him to (implying she’s thinking of other boys in the future).  Contrasted to Will who said he thought him & Mike would never get gfs but just spend the rest of their lives together. El after all these events, then happily reads comics  as Max says she shouldn’t hang out with Mike all the time. VS Will having him sadly read his comic to distract himself  only to throw his comic on the ground right before he looks at the pic of mike from Halloween (where they said they would go ‘crazy together’), calls himself stupid (unlike El saying there’s more to life than stupid boys/mike saying El is not stupid-aka in love ). And then destroys castle byers /crIES after the their fight. These events were perfect opposites.

4) When Mike says in the pool shed she’s the “most important thing in the world” to him. she cuts him off and says Hopper is right about them spending too much time together. But when Mike in the shed says asking Will to be his friend was the “best thing he’s ever done” (it was practically the cliche of true love breaking the curse) XD.

When Mike says to El  “you’re most important thing to me” in the pool shed. El doesn’t even acknowledge the comment (and neither should the audience- cause the words were empty). The framing of this mileven scene was not cinematic or heartfelt, and neither was the delivery from Mike. He’s not crying, trying to reach her with proclamations of his genuine feelings. There’s no dramatic music, framing, lighting or shot composition (and the scene was incredibly short).And El just responds and cuts his supposed ‘true feelings’ off- only to agree with Hopper and says “ what if he’s right”  . I didn’t speed this up FYI.

Juxtaposed to the MUCH longer byler shed scene. A literal single tear falling down his cheek as Mike , recounts the first day they met. This whole monologue is only of tight shots of just their faces (their bodies aren’t shown like in the pool shed scene). With contrasting colors of light and shadow.This is a personal moment between them and them alone- and the fact we zoom in on their faces (expresses this to be important emotionally) . And when we see Will’s reaction to Mike saying “it was the best thing I’ve ever done”. We just see Will’s face only- no music is playing and all we hear is  Will’s whimpers and Mike crying in the background.*

5) Max in s2 at Will’s house questions how Mike can still trust Will now that he’s a spy for the mf . Max (in s3) at El’s house: says that Mike doesn’t trust El- and Mike mentions that her spying is why he doesn’t trust her.  in s2, Mike: “if anyone could stop them it’s Will“. Max: “ I thought we couldn’t trust him that he’s a spy for the mf now?” Max in s3 calling Mike out  : “El has saved the world twice. And Mike still doesn’t trust her.” Mike: you want to talk about trust really?! after... Eleven spied on us! I guess girlfriends don’t lie they SPY!”

Not to mention - the fact is... El has “saved the world twice but Mike still doesn’t trust her” to fight the mf. Yet he 100% believed Will could defeat the mf -despite Will being possessed/a spy for the mf . And despite the fact Mike  thinks Will has no powers - unlike El ( but we all know he does , though :P). And, Mike even says Billy is dangerous cause  the “mf is in him ...Billy’s mind is sick, diseased” (but with Will possession -Mike still trusted him).  Max rolls her eyes and stares challengingly at Mike cause she remembers what Mike said about Will in s2- and the hypocrisy . And she finds it annoying how little faith he has in her compared to his almost unmoving-trust in Will (who at the time was possessed) . Mike has 100% trust and faith in Will-but simply doesn’t trust El.  And MAX KNOWS IT! Cause she’s paying attention. Like her facial expression/raised brow, at the end, is a challenge- you think non-superpowered Will could defeat the mf but not El with a history of fighting monsters? You say Billy possessed by the mf is dangerous- but still have more faith in Will possessed by the mf- than your own gf?! tbh El couldn’t defeat the mf (so technically him trusting Will over  El was proven to be correct). He wasn’t right about the El ‘giving up’ bs and he was still wrong for not respecting El as her “own person” with her “own free will” : not believing in El’s ability to make decisions like breaking up with him/ not believing El made the idea to spy on him, etc . But, Team work has always been what saved the day in s1-2, so over-relying on El to do it all and acting like she was the messiah ( like most of the st fanbase) was a poor plan . It’s not the El-show (it’s an ensemble cast with several mains). When they relied on her only ,to be the chosen one- she lost her powers, 30+ people d*ed, and they had to save her.

6) ) El and Will both calling for “Mike” alone in the upside down . And Mike “never giving up” on them.In the exact same ep (s2 e2) , both call for Mike from the upside down. El saves herself without Mike’s help. But Mike rushes to save Will crouching to comfort Will (whose body language mirrors El’s but who was alone in the forest after she sees mike and he did nothing). 

in s2 ep 1, both call for Mike ,but Mike only comes for Will -not el. It was like how Nancy in s1 called for Jon, and jonathan pulled her out of the upsidedown.  And as Jonathan and Mike both pull Nancy and Will back from the upside down , Jonathan says “I got you”. And Mike says “I got him “ twice. But mileven is like how barb while in the upsidedown called for Nancy (but nancy didn’t hear her screaming her name-cause it shows symbolically Nancy does not return Barb’s romantic feelings). Just like mileven.

Mike even saw Will’s dead body but the second he heard his voice he convinced everyone he was alive. Mike deep down assumed El was dead he brushed off seeing El as seeing things (like how Hopper described seeing Sarah). He even tells Max “ they took her just like they took bob” who was dead. Then a few minutes later lies and says he “never gave up” on her when she appears alive (which was a lie cause he just said she was dead). When El goes to his house Mike doesn’t ever go the forest to find her (unlike how Mike went into the forest in the pouring rain twice for Will). The truth is the only person he ‘never gave up on’ was Will.

7) They have El & Will have pics of Mike on Halloween (same night of the ‘crazy together’ speech). El only has a pic of Mike being miserable  and Will has pics of Mike staring at Will, and smiling next to him- despite the joke Mike never smiles in photos , this isn’t the case when mike is next to Will (he always smiles with Will). Cause being crazy with Will makes him happy - unlike his relationship with El who he fakes being ‘crazy’ about .

zoom in of Will & El’s pics of Mike: Will’s pic on left vs El’s on right . XD

8) Millie said El is “obsessed with Mike” so she has Mike-themed stuff all over  her room. She has a drawing with a heart that says mike on it/random heart pics, mike pic, dice that spell out mike, mikes’ stuff. So, It’s funny that mike has nothing relating to El at his place. In contrast to this, he still has 5 d&d drawings from Will on his wall (that he’s kept on his wall for 3 years despite removing an old poster from that same wall-which he gave to El). Mike even put up a 6th Will-drawing in s3- next to his new poster. And he never put a single 1 of her many drawings on his wall-just Will’s).

back to other points...

- They compared mileven to karen/billy. El in s2 , mimics Erica Kane who m(in the ep she is watching) rushes into a relationship with a writer named Mike Roy. (That relationship is not endgame-and  literally ends with one of them stalking and sabotaging their next relationship, but eventually accepting it’s over). This, also parallels Karen/ Billy. Before she meets him in s2, Karen is reading a romance book that has a guy that resembles Billy on the cover. The Duffers even mentioned they changed the cover to show the resemblance between Billy and the fictional book character. And we see Karen reading the sequel in s3 before Billy appears. Both El and Karen don’t/didn’t love Mike or Billy- they just projected onto them fictional characters they were infatuated with. El being into Mike roy- but projecting her crush on to Mike wheeler.

-They had El’s whole s2 arc be destroyed to show mileven is bad for her. “friends don’t lie” to let me lie to my friends so I can kiss mike and ditch them. lucas even said “they’re lying (about her curfew).”And lie to Mike about hearing his confession. Then in s2 trying to leave the cabin to experience the world and see my friends and fam again. To literally ignoring them all for 6 months and never leaving the cabin-despite Hopper letting me leave the house in s3.

- El in s3 says Mike treats her “like a pet” and “garbage”.

-In s1 Mike referred to her as a ‘weapon’  to help get Will back. smacked her when he thought she lied about Will being alive and said Lucas was right about her all along when he thought Will was dead and he couldn’t use her anymore. 

- They had El never apologize for spying/stalking . And  Mike never apologize for lying -despite it being the cause of the breakup . And had mike not reciprocate the kiss/ or say ‘i love you ‘ back  and had his eyes open while the same exact song plays that robin came out to: called ‘the first i love you’). These are the only 2 times the song plays in s3. The ‘first i love you’ also sounds like ‘the first lie’ - that song played when jancy said they were just friends. it sounds the same cause jancy lied about it not being romantic while mileven lied by saying it was.  He never apologized for lying cause the love is the lie- like Max said “boyfriends lie ALL THE TIME”. And it’s why the camera panned to Will when Lucas asked why Mike lied to her. And he never answers El’s question of ‘why do you lie?!’ (he just looks up silent and guilt ridden).This awkward kiss all happens in Will’s room too while Mike is in front of an open closet (while El is holding Will’s old bear).  

Plus he also fought with Hopper in s2 (’about El’) in Will’s room too. He wasn’t actually calling Hopper the liar he was calling himself “a stupid disgusting liar”out of self hate .  That scene was foreshadowing his lying to El in s3 (about his feelings for her). He blamed Hopper for his feelings for Will cause he told himself it wouldn’t have escalated if El had been around to ‘fix him’ . “I BLAME YOU! NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS OK! NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS OK. YOU STUPID DISGUSTING liar, liar, liar, liar”.starts crying.

- Mike says “i never gave up on you (to El). “ When moments earlier he says “it took her just like it took Bob.” HE’S LYING AGAIN. He always thought she was dead -he was just hoping she was alive so he didn’t have to blame himself. He felt bad for treating her like a “weapon”. Mike saw El and didn’t even bother looking for her in the woods cause he assumed she was dead and was hallucinating. Mike saw Will’s dead body- but heard his voice and got him from another dimension (for El he couldn’t even bother to walk into the woods). Despite going into the woods in the pouring rain 2x for Will in s1& 3. El and Mike both call for Mike in the upside down (Mike in the same ep only comes for Will).

- They barely spoke to each other and all they did was makeout for 1 ep (while Mike put a drawing of ‘Will (the fire wielding) wise’ on the wall to help him kiss her/ with rainbows pic everywhere in the room to signify he’s gay and lying).  All while listening to a mixtape Will gave him as he kisses El.As Mike moves her hands off him (and sings a song from ‘boy in the box’) and El says to Max later she doesn’t know if mike’s a good kisser . And Mike rushes to one of his many established double-dates with Will and lumax  (x). And Mike in s3 when dating el, removes the sign of the heart being propelled by a rainbow (which he had before meeting El in his basement) .BUT it follows him symbolically ,as a drawing of a heart being propelled by a rainbow (in el’s room- cause no matter how much he kisses el there, he can’t escape his rainbow/being gay.)

-as mileven kiss in s3 e1. We zoom in on the drawing of Will the wise (the lyrics over the pic are “a little more time can open closing doors”). And then Mike continues to sing this song from ‘boy in the box’ (cough closet).Will in s3e1 says he won’t fall in love and the song then a diff song plays “love that was new to you , you open up the door.” mileven at the end of s3 kissing in front of Will’s open closet door with Mike’s eyes open not kissing back , and saying he doesn’t “ remember “ the love you and just says it was “in the heat of the moment”. The mike song being from “boy in the box” (closet). And they make out to “I can’t fight this feeling” which the singer says is about wanting to admit your feelings to your friend of many years and being afraid it’ll ruin the relationship. Aka even when kissing El he’s thinking of Will and admitting his feelings and not being able to fight his feelings

- Mike saying about Max “awesome? you don’t even know her.” Dustin says “ i don’t have to i mean look at her.” El was said in s1 multiple times to look like a boy (specifically Will). So Dustin and Lucas had no interest in her -only Mike did. BUT when max (a girl who looked like a girl) arrived- they as straight boys  were smitten. And Mike was not interested at all (cause he’s gay). The fact people don’t realize Mike was rude to her because he thought Will liked her too makes me laugh - he even was 1/2 honest in s3 saying he was jealous of her  XD 

why in s3 (when she looks like a girl) the compliment to her look is almost the same as Hopper’s comment to her makeover in s2. Paralleling Mike to her dad is the opposite of romantic!

-people say in s3 Will saying “a day free of girls” is gay coded but everyone ignores Mike in s3 saying “BOYS ONLY”. Same energy.

-MiKE has more rainbows than Will: Mike’s rainbow bedroom blinds, the rainbow-heart wooden sign in the basement in s1, the rainbow heart drawing that says Mike in s3, a rainbow sticker in his room, byler standing behind a rainbow poster in s2. And Will with the rainbow ship and the girl he danced with having a rainbow hearts-hairclip.

- People mention Mike saving El in s3 was romantic ( when he hit Billy). But when Billy slapped max he charged in to save her too and tried punching him (despite their beef). that moment wasn’t romantic (unless you think madweheeler is- which no). Mike is just a good person- he also risked his life for dustin. He’s brave and will defend HIS FRIENDS. 

- we’re almost to the end for those not keeping tract mileven is compared to stancy, ted/karen,  karen/billy, stobin, Dart/Dustin, max &mike, barb/nancy, nancy & dustin, siblings & cousins & a parent/kid dynamic. And contrasted to byler.

- Finn, after s1, said the duffers told him,   Mike thinks of her as a “puppy/ “et” , and that Mileven was a  “first summer love thing”- foreshadowing what was mileven’s downfall during the Summer (aka s3). He repeats this “first summer love” phrase 2x.  Millie when he mentioned what the duffers said, rightfully thought the puppy thing was “awful”, but Finn was clearly told mileven doesn’t last -very early on.Summer love” by definition fails-as it only lasts during the summer.  

-It wasn’t a break it was a breakup. Like Max and Will said in response to Mike  “ she said she dumped your ass! That doesn’t sound like a break?!/ it wasn’t!’ Or El knocking all the candy out of the machine, except the kit kat Mike wanted. Slogan of kit-kat “ having a break , have a kit kat.” In other words, it was NOT a break. It was a breakup. Difference is - in s4 it’ll be El who can’t accept this fact , not Mike. Max having to correct El that Mike is her “ex boyfriend” after the breakup (in s3) foreshadows this.The other couples in s3 who fought -were always still paired together in framed shots (jancy/ lumax) were on a break (but got back together- by the end of s3,  not confident about their futures together, but they still have a distinction from mileven-based on such framing). That mileven didn’t get back together. El in s3 was always on her own and Mike was paired with Will (while the other couples were in frame). 

this could go on and on honestly. there’s so much other stuff proving mileven is not going to be endgame. Not to mention all of Mike’s queer coding (x) XD   

[sonicasura]

Balan Wonderworld Review: Favorite Costumes Part 2

Before we get started, I like to say something. I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE TIM TRAPS. If you don't know, there is a specific plant that tends to appear in certain levels called Tim Traps. A carnivorous orange flower that's favorite meal is TIMS. If you kick the plants, you can free your Trapped Tim or prevent one from getting trapped for a short period of time. Problem is if the Tim is trapped for too long, your baby is gone for good. Chapter 3 and Chapter 5's Act 3 are loaded with these annoying plants. To the point if I can't find the trapped Tims, I exit out of the game just to save my poor fluffballs. Ain't sacrificing my little birds for Drops and Trophies! Mini rant over.

Rules are the same as before. I'd be ranking both a Common Costume and Rare Costume. Common Costumes are easily to find whether it be in multiple levels and Rare Costumes are those that rarely appear or are difficult to get.

I'll be doing my favorite Secret Costume after playing all Act 3s for each chapter. Now let's begin.

Chapter 7

Common Costume- Floaty Flower

The Flower Fairy and greatest glider found in the main story. Floaty Flower is a costume that can be found in the Act 1, 2 and the Boss Act, it offers a slower descent but faster movement than the hover for Soaring Sheep.

I love this costume not for its aesthetic but a cute Easter Egg I found in Chapter 7 Act 1. On rare occasions, this costume is an NPC that actually flirts with you! Some NPCs in certain chapters act differently from their standard counterpart. They often try to disguise themselves or runaway. Catching them grants you a free costume of the one you caught.

Floaty Flower will appear and follow you, similar to a shy school girl with a crush. If you go to her, she will run which is a similar action to any shy person getting approached by their crush. Also... I think there is some lore hidden in this one that might be quite sad if it's directly linked to Cal, the human whose heart created this particular world. If so then... OOF.

Rare Costume - Paladin Puncher

A knight fights with his fists than a sword. This costume can be found in Act 2 and is a stronger version of the Pumpkin Puncher that can break iron or ice blocks. He's a bit slower than his Chapter 6 counterpart but perfect breaking the more blocks and defeating spiky enemies.

I also love the fact this costume goes against the traditional tools of a knight. Knights often fight using swords, shields, lances and rare occasions bows or axes. If you give me one who PUNCHES or straight uses martial arts to fight then you got my vote in seconds.

Chapter 8

Common Costume - Snow Fairy

Elegant dancer of ice and snow. The Snow Fairy costume allows the wearer to walk on air for a short period of time and can in found in Act 1 and Act 2. This costume does have a shorter usage time than Air Cat but makes up for it with the added elevation.

I absolutely adore how elegant and beautiful this particular costume is. You can compare the Snow Fairy to myths often related to fae or hidden in the freezing mountains. An otherworldly beauty that makes any hardship worth seeing just a being before your eyes. Being a reindeer type Faun just adds to the mystique and creating snowflakes to walk on is a perfect extra touch.

Rare Costume - Amadeus

Sophisticated pianist. A costume that can only be found in Act 1 and is a performing costume. Now I am a big fan of piano covers, whether it be covers of game osts or actual songs, there is rarely any piano music I don't like.

I love the fact he's wearing piano keys as a collar and even has a tutu made out of those very keys. A very creative take to a normally grounded instrument. And the big white wig is a nice touch since it's often portrayed with pianists in various media.

Chapter 9

Common Costume- Iron Panda

Adorable crusher. Iron Panda is a costume found in Act 1 and Act 2 with the ability to break iron blocks using both its jump and weight. This costume is surprisingly fast for a rather large and heavy form, perfect for fast stomps on enemies or quick getaways if you have rare costumes you don't want to lose.

This costume reminds of a rolling Russian Doll with a panda theme. Very adorable, the bluish purple color suits the white very nicely and I love that sleepy look on its face. The large blue dots on its sides are actually the arms too, they mimic panels! Only thing that unnerves me is when the costume turns their head by a 90 degree angle. Super creepy when using it.

Rare Costume- Merry Ghost

Cute and Spooky! The Merry Ghost is a costume that can be found in Act 2 and gives the ability to constantly float. It's main purpose is to avoid ground hazards like poison swamps and has a larger slightly floaty jump. The only downside is that you can't harm enemies with this, it's only for quick mobility.

Very adorable especially with the stitched rag cloak covering the body. It has this Mimikyu sort of vibe but also a Casper the Friendly Ghost aura too. Friendly spirits are often tossed aside for more vicious or antagonistic ones in a lot of media. Getting an adorable friendly one just adds points in my book and a good pal for Casper.

Chapter 10

Common Costume - Inky Blaster

Yuji Naka's take on a squid kid. This costume can be found in Act 1, Act 2 and the Boss Act. She allows the wearer to throw fast globs of rainbow paint at opponents or targets and is decently agile.

Love that her hands are paintbrushes and is based on the octopus. Tentacles mimicking the frills of a dress and used for hair and feet? A very creative take and splattering rainbow paint on the annoying types of Negati (looking at you ya divebomb happy Pelican and destroyer of most of my good costumes) is very therapeutic.

Rare Costume- Air Unicorn

The first unicorn I like?! This costume can only be found in Act 1 and allows the user to walk on air farther than Air Cat. The practical godfather of mobility, and recovery. You won't believe how many times this costume has gotten me to very difficult areas and saved me from death via falling into the abyss.

It is a very tricky costume to find but if you turn around, there's a large paintbrush on the wall. You need the Double Jumper to get on top but you'll be able to see a hidden mirror. That is where the Air Unicorn is located.

I won't lie that unicorns are not my preferred mythological creature. I live in America where unicorns tend to be oversaturated to oblivion and don't get me started on My Little Pony. The show isn't my cup of tea but I do have some followers and friends who are fans. People have their own opinions and it's rude to question them about it.

I honestly love the elegant but cute design, the purple, pale pink and cyan just fit well with the white, I also love that the mane mimics a paintbrush tip and the large light purple collar of fur is a perfect touch to this fine design.

Chapter 11

Common Costume - Bulldozer

A man's punny best friend! This costume can be in Act 1, Act 2 (?), and the Boss Act. It lets you push special construction blocks and you can boost the push speed by button mashing.

They definitely took a lot of creative for costumes in Chapter 11 amongst the other ones in my opinion. Fire Stations tend to have some animal companions with dogs being the most common but instead of a Dalmatian for the design they used a Bulldog! 😍

Like the aforementioned machine, this good boy is bulky, has the appropriate color scheme and even the hands turn into bulldozer's shovel when using the ability! I love the fact his tail is wagging when you push a block and it wags faster if ya button mash!

Also the name is a pun!

Rare Costume - Fiery Blaster

Pyromancer of Lions. The Fiery Blaster costume can only be found in Act 2. It gives the wearer that ability to throw large fireballs alongside fire and lava immunity. If you hate lava levels or have difficulty with this Chapter's boss then I recommend getting this Costume.

First thing I like to say about this particular design is how they use the colors. Looking at the mane, you can see how the red and darker red are patterned in a way to mimic flames. The dark red fur on the feet are even in fire like a pattern. The outfit such as the yellow and brownish kilt alongside the gloves spewing fire around the wrists just reminds me of a fire dancer.

I can see this fella wielding one of the torches a fire dancer uses and just put on a spectacular show.

Chapter 12

Another loveable version of a beloved icon. The Invisible Man costume can be found in Act 1, Act 2 and the Boss Act. It has the power to turn the wearer invisible for a period of time and become undetected to enemies that aren't bosses.

Agile and perfect to deal with enemies who are very annoying or are difficult snipers. You don't know how satisfying it is to give the more aggravating Negati an invisible middle finger by sneak attacking them. I have lost many costumes whenever enemies got the drop on me so it's fair to dish out payback.

I love how this design takes aspect from the popular icon but also have it relate to their human counterpart. Bandages were used by the original Invisible Man to cover skin his normal clothing couldn't cover in public and made it easier for him to disappear when needed.

The shoes and arms being covered in bandages and some of the bandages being used as bangs for the hair is a nice touch.

Rare Costume - Jolt Tiger

Immovable Taser. This costume can only be found in Act 2. It grants electricity immunity and create a barrier when you stand still. One of the better costumes for baiting particular enemies. You do have to be careful because a single itch will stop the barrier.

If you don't know, the Tiger is my Chinese Zodiac and electricity is one of my favorite elements. Love the yellow lightning bolt flairs and even the black stripes mimic lightning too! I also like the will o' wisp pattern on the stomach and the large tuft of grayish fur around the chest. The design puts it above the Sun Walker.

And that is it! The next thing I will cover is the level design and it's music. The bosses will be done last since it's good to save the best for last!

Until next time folks, see you back in Wonderworld.

[folderolsfollies]

sangyao arranged marriage fic (arranged by Nie Huaisang)

summary: Before Jin Zixuan and Jiang Yanli’s marriage and after Wei Wuxian’s flight to the burial mounds, Jin Guangyao is rapidly gaining power, which a strong marriage alliance would cement. Jin Guangyao likes taking care of people. Nie Huaisang wants to be a trophy husband. If you ignore literally everyone else in their lives, they’re a perfect couple. (Basically I saw this post and then this post and then I blacked out thinking about playing games with power dynamics.)

word count: 2.5k rating: t

Part 1

“San-ge! San-ge!” Nie Huaisang shouts, skidding through the halls of the Unclean Realm. He has to go farther than he thought before he sees the ridiculous black official’s hat bobbing along, one of the disciples had only informed him that Jin Guangyao was there when he was practically out of the door, since for some bizarre reason, Jin Guangyao has made the trek all the way over to Qinghe and didn’t even bother telling him.

When he reaches the other man, he flings his arms around his neck.

“Second Young M-ah, Nie Huaisang...”, says Jin Guangyao warningly, but his eyes are bright and laughing, and he doesn’t step away until Nie Huaisang releases him. His eyes are darting around the halls, but the halls are deserted. Nie Huaisang had made sure to intercept him in a quiet spot.

“Why don’t you just call me A-Sang,” Nie Huaisang says mischievously, “After all, we’re brothers now!”

Jin Guangyao gaze dims and he looks down. “I wouldn’t dare take the liberty, not in your brother’s home,” he murmurs, chin tucked in, eyes firmly planted on the floor. And now that won’t do one bit.

Nie Huaisang points at him with his fan, playfully. “Oh, Da-ge, he just shouts. If he gives you any trouble, just come to me! I’ll protect you,” he says, and grins, remembering the way that Meng Yao would scold him for missing practice and then say, well Young Master, I’ll protect you this time, but don’t do it again!, the both of them knowing that he would never listen unless it suited him.

Jin Guangyao is looking up again and grinning now, and he says, “And how does Nie Huaisang propose to protect me? With his saber?” He’s openly laughing at Nie Huaisang, and it fills Huaisang with a helpless, giddy fondness. Little Meng Yao, who flinches like a kicked dog at every low-level disciple, always with that polite strained smile, gets so vicious when he’s around Nie Huaisang. He’s like a bird with a broken wing. Nie Huaisang wants to tape him up and let him fly.

But the trick with trapping a wild animal is that you can’t let them know that you see them, or it gives the game away. “I was thinking I’d cry until he forgave us, actually” he says, and does a massively fake pout for emphasis. “Now that I’m your little brother, you’ll have to get wise to all my tricks.”

Jin Guangyao smiles, a quick little glimmer like a fish gleaming brightly from deep within murky water. Jin Guangyao has a whole repertoire of smiles, smiles of appeasement and anger and reproach, but this to gain this one is a particular treasure, and Nie Huaisang will say a staggering amount of nonsense if he can see it again. “Not much of a trick, if you announce that it’s one when you’re doing it.”

Nie Huaisang looks at him, and pitches his voice as serious as Lan Qiren 2,000 rules deep into a lecture at the Cloud Recesses, “Ah, you see, my devoted pupil, the real trick is to lull your target into a false sense of security. Then they’ll never see your real schemes coming.” He taps his finger on the side of his nose, like his friend Wei Wuxian constantly does, and hopes that it reads the same on his delicate features as it does on Wei Wuxian’s handsome ones.

It must work well enough, because Jin Guangyao’s quick-fish smile is back, and his posture is relaxed enough for Nie Huaisang to drag him through the halls with only cursory protests about how he really must be going back to Lanling, he has important work to do, his father would never-

“Ugh, your father,” Nie Huaisang says, carelessly, and feels Jin Guangyao stiffen under his arms.

Before Jin Guangyao can say anything to ruin the pleasantness of the moment, Nie Huaisang says quickly, “Ugh, sorry, I’m stupid! You know I wasn’t old enough to really know my father until his last days, and by then he was, well, unwell,” he finishes delicately. Nie Mingjue probably wouldn’t like him using his father’s last moments like this, as a bait, but Nie Huaisang kicks the brief stab of guilt merrily to the side. Frankly, this is the least that his father could do for him, he feels. The last three months of his life really were not ideal. (Hiding in his locked room, Mingjue’s hand briefly clasping his before he leaves the room to face him, the noise of someone screaming - well. All in the past now.)

As he suspected, Jin Guangyao has softened at the mention of Nie Huaisang’s Tragic Past, which is exactly as he had wanted it to go. “You’re not stupid, young master, family is sometimes difficult,” he says politely. There’s an opening there, if he wants to push it- with the way that Madam Jin and Jin Guangshan and Jin Guangyao all deliberately look past each other when they’re trapped in a room together, it’s truly stupid how the larger cultivator world can’t seem to see that there’s something fishy going on there - Nie Huaisang thinks, and then lets it go.

“Ah,” he says, and schools his features to look carefully brave for a second, “but let’s talk about happier things! I’ve done some remodelling on the aviary, you should come and see the new birds.” It’s also usually deserted and with clear sight-lines in all directions, which are two things which automatically relax Jin Guangyao.

The truly nice thing about Jin Guangyao is that Nie Huaisang can manhandle him all that he likes, because if Jin Guangyao truly has better things to do, he’ll be all Yes, Nie-er-gongzi, and, you’re very wise, Nie-er-gongzi, and melt away the moment Nie Huaisang isn’t looking, so Nie Huaisang feels no compunction regarding linking their arms together and tugging him towards the aviary.

Nie Huaisang makes the trip up and down the aviary’s spiral staircase all the time, but if he still takes the opportunity to lean against Meng Yao when they reach the top, to place one hand on his forearm, huffing a little to show how laborious of a trip it was, well, who’s hurt by it? It’s good to make a show of uselessness sometimes. Meng Yao certainly doesn’t say anything. He’s wearing golden silk robes with squares of bright, shining gold inlaid in the fabric, and the smooth portions are an interesting textural contrast to the rougher raw silk. Nie Huaisang pets it gently, to feel the texture shift under his palms, smooth, rough, rough, smooth. His mind feels pleasantly empty, narrowed down to just the sensation of cloth and the harsh rustle of fabric.

Meng Yao’s mouth is smiling, which doesn’t mean anything, but his eyes are wide and confused. His gaze is fixed on Nie Huaisang’s hands, where their two sleeves are twined together like grafted tree roots. A long moment passes before Meng Yao pulls away, and carefully smooths out the creases that Nie Huaisang has made in the fabric. He doesn’t say anything at all.

For no reason, Nie Huaisang feels his cheeks heating up, feels like blurting out an apology, and he rushes into the aviary ahead of him, speaking a little too fast and loud.

He darts among his birds, showing him which ones have laid new eggs and which ones he’s bought recently, and all the new plants that he’s brought in to simulate Gusu’s mountainous environment for his new black bulbul. Nie Huaisang doubts that Jin Guangyao spends more than a quarter shichen thinking about birds when he’s away from the Unclean Realm, and that probably on what to serve at a feast, but he still remembers exactly how it was the last time he came, and comments cleverly on the new arrangements. Sometimes Nie Huaisang misses Meng Yao so abruptly he can’t breathe, misses that serious, attentive face, the way that he took him not too seriously, but just seriously enough.

He has a fantasy where Meng Yao just told him about the guard that had treated him so badly that it had led to his banishment. Would have Huaisang killed the man for him? Well, probably not. But there are ways to disgrace a man, banish him without lifting a finger. Huaisang lies in bed at night and thinks about all those ways. Although it doesn’t matter anyway, clever Meng Yao has landed on his feet, hasn’t he?

When he thinks that, he’s filled with a sense of disquiet. Meng Yao was Nie first - well, Nie before Jin, at least, and he hopes that he hasn’t forgotten that.  “Come, braid my hair,” he says suddenly, plopping down on a chair, and Meng Yao doesn’t raise an eye at the sudden change of topic. “I can’t reach the back properly and nobody does it as well as you.” By nobody, he’s means Da-ge, and they both know it, but he won’t breach their fragile bubble of happiness by mentioning him if Meng Yao won’t.

“Nie Huaisang, you’re too hard on yourself,” Meng Yao says, smiling and patient, “you braid beautifully,” but he’s already reaching for the comb that Huaisang is handing to him, lining behind Nie Huaisang. The gesture is familiar, the room is familiar, the murmurations of the birds through the trees are familiar. Nie Huaisang’s skin tingles in anticipation. He can feel the phantom weight of fingertips scratching along his scalp, teasing into straightness every errant whorl of hair. The way that his unbound hair would hang along his waist, the looseness and lightness of it.

Meng Yao, standing behind him, drags a thumb around the circlet holding his hair up, in between the heavy loops of braids and the hair underneath. The sensation is too dull, fleeting. “Your hair looks fine, Huaisang,” Meng Yao says quietly, his cool breath tickling Huaisang’s ear.

Huaisang twists around quickly so they’re facing each other, and it’s ungraceful. Nie Huaisang remembers - in the past - when he’d turn to talk to Meng Yao, it was like Meng Yao had somehow created a Huaisang shaped bubble that he could just slot into. Something has changed, in the last two years, and the shape of space between them is all wrong. Jin Guangyao’s eyes are pointed in the wrong direction, and Nie Huaisang’s face is too close.

He shuffles backwards a little, angles his face a little, and it’s still not the same, but now he can breathe. His usual tricks won’t work. Jin Guangyao won’t believe that he’s bad at it, and he can no longer threaten him with Da-ge. Well, there’s another tactic he hasn’t tried.

“Please, Jin-er-gongzi?” He says, looking down. It feels strange to address him so formally, to someone who’s worn the Nie family braids and who wears Huaisang’s hairpiece in his hair, but it also feels right. Smart, elegant, deadly - Mingjue may have always seen him as a delicate servant boy, but Nie Huaisang always saw him as a prince.

Eyes still focused on the floor, he chances a quick glance upwards. Jin Guangyao’s smile has frozen. He doesn’t know what game they’re playing.

He straightens. “I’ll start calling you that more,” he says decisively, scheme forgotten, “It’ll be helpful to you. I’ll get Da-ge on board too.”

Meng Yao gapes at him for a moment before he smooths it over, glint of a fish in the river before its lost again to the murky depths, and Nie Huaisang hadn’t known he could make that expression at all. “Jin-er-gongzi,” he says experimentally, to see if he can draw it out again, but Jin Guangyao has his smiling face firmly in place again.

“It’ll take more than that to earn my place,” Jin Guangyao says, and underneath his pleasant tone it sounds bitter, like the taste of ink under Nie Huaisang’s tongue. It sounds real.

Nie Huaisang drops his closed fan, and when he catches it by the head, it’s open in his hand. He flutters it, and opens his mouth to see what would come out. “A marriage would help with that, surely,” he says.

“I will have faith in what the elders decide, when that time comes, which of course would be after my elder brother weds,” Jin Guangyao says demurely, which they both know is a crock of shit; the elders all defer to Jin Guangshan, and what that man knows about marriage or women - and it would have to be a woman, with Jin Guangshan - in general could fit on the back of a talisman paper, if the paper was very small and the handwriting very large.

“Hm, yes, Da-ge is never interested in marriage, which is great! Because then nobody ever bothers me about it,” Huaisang says instead, and doesn’t add that it’s likely because the prospect of him creating more little Nie Huaisang’s is most likely terrifying to all involved.

Nie Huaisang has always seen the workings of his mind like a vast and subtle river, which overflows its banks and deposits thoughts to him, not fully under his own control. So he’s not fully sure what motivates him to continue, “And you know Da-ge’s so protective, I’d need someone who would protect me, just like you used to do.”

“You have to learn to stand up for yourself, Nie Huaisang,” Meng Yao says, and his large eyes are softly distant, like he’s listening to a thought, “there won’t always be someone to rescue you.”

I miss you- Come home, Nie Huaisang thinks, and the thought is sharp enough to feel like pain. “I’ll try, Jin-gongzi,” he says instead politely, “although you know about my weak cultivation.”

Another nice thing about Meng Yao is, when Nie Huaisang complains about his weakness, Meng Yao never argues against him or says that he would magically get better if he tried a little harder, worked a little more, he points out Nie Huaisang’s skill at art and astrology and Taoist magic. His tone is indulgent, parental. “In that sort of conflict, it’s not always your cultivation skill that counts,” he says, low and warm, like he’s imparting a lesson.

“I know, I know” says Nie Huaisang, who does know, who has been watching Meng Yao stammer and apologize and look deeply horrified at small misdeeds since before he realized what that sort of coquettishness implied. Whenever Nie Huaisang tries to imitate it, it comes out a child’s whine. Not a princess in need of rescuing, but a small dog that can be indulged or kicked aside.

“I must be going,” Meng Yao says, finally. “I am needed back at Lanling.” There’s a tone of finality in his voice.

Nie Huaisang is filled with a sudden, ridiculous desire, but he’s found that the consequences of indulging them have never been terrible. Not for him. He leans forward into the space between the two of them.

When he thumbs off Jin Guangyao’s ridiculous hat, there’s a circlet of Nie braids coiled like a serpent on the top of his head.

Nie Huaisang smiles. “I’ll see you soon.” he says.

[sandalwoodhusbands]

watching cityscapes turn to dust 

"Why don't you say my name anymore?"

"I do. Not often, but I do."

"But why?"

"Because i'm afraid that once I start saying it, I will never stop."

There's silence. And then-

"Would that be so bad?"

Part IV - Interlude 

(tw: light bondage)

Somewhere in the world, Spring 2019

“Two beers, please.”

The bartender gives him a nod before turning around to fix the drinks.

Lucas smiles slightly, one of those tight-lipped smiles with a jerk of the head that you give to express your gratitude, one arm propped on the counter as he stares at the polished marble with boredom.

What a fucking way to kick off the weekend, he thinks. How fucking great is it to get the smell of alcohol and sweat under your nose. How strangers’ arms dig into your sides and jostle you around like a ragdoll. It’s definitely his idea of fun.

Except that it isn’t, and he doesn’t even like going out that much, so what the fuck is he doing out here if not for the person he had come with?

The music is loud in his ears, making his head pound, his chest, all the way down to his fingertips. He feels light-headed, just a little bit, the smell of vodka and cranberry mixing in the air makes something heavy sit uncomfortably in his gut. He doesn’t like it one bit.

Worst of all, though? Eliott didn’t come after him when he left. It hurts more than he’s willing to admit. It’s whatever, though. Fucking whatever, they don’t owe each other anything after all. Lucas knows this. He makes sure to rail it inside his brain every sleepless night that he spends alone in his apartment.

Everything is going fucking great tonight.

“Here you are.” Someone says in his ear. There’s arms around his waist and then Eliott presses himself against Lucas’ back. Lucas resists the urge to grit his teeth. “What are you doing all the way here?”

He doesn’t takes the bait, but his hands clench on the counter momentarily before he forces his muscles to relax. Taking a deep breath, he hopes Eliott’s arms are low enough that he won’t feel the way his heart beats against his ribcage.

After a moment, he shrugs. “Looked like you were having fun with those two brunettes.” says Lucas. He doesn’t turn his face, biting the inside of his cheek when he feels Eliott’s breath ghost over his bare neck. “I thought I’d step out to get the coast clear for you.”

He doesn’t miss the way Eliott’s chest rumbles against his back with a low chuckle, and with that so does his entire body. He fights against himself to not melt into it.

“So clear,” Eliott bends to whisper in his ear. His lips brush the shell of Lucas’ ear, a feathery touch that could pass up as nothing if the tip of Eliott’s fingers hadn’t slipped inside his jeans. “So clear, that you took the only thing I wanted to fuck away with you.”

Lucas flinches with surprise. This is not something they usually do – not in fucking public, not when Eliott had been two steps from dropping on his knees to slip his head under one of the girl’s skirt. Maybe he’s been one step from sucking his dick all night, though, if actions are anything to go by.

Well.

The hairs at the back of his neck stand up, and his knees buckle as he feels nails scratching up his belly. He doesn’t make any sound, but he’s ready to drop his façade, turn around in Eliott’s hold, his sense of self-preservation be fucking damned – and there’s no such thing when it comes to the man glued to his back, desperation flowing in his blood to get his hands on him, in him, anywhere he’ll let him. He’s so fucking easy.

And that’s when the bartender comes back with the two drinks.

Eliott’s hands still inside his underwear.

“Two beers? You got one for me too?” And he sounds so happy, and his voice is so light that Lucas wants to smash his head against the nearest wall and maybe cry a little.

As it is, he schools his face into a smirk with a roll of his shoulders.

“Don’t get too cocky, the second one is for when I’m done with the first one.” And then, because paper cuts sting for a little while, “like you and those girls, you know?”

The sudden coldness on his heated skin makes him hiss. The marble counter digs into his abdomen, freezing and sticky, and his knees buckle when he feels Eliott’s crotch pressing into his back.

“Baby.” Eliott whispers, the asshole, because he knows what that term of endearment does to Lucas in bed, and he’s got Lucas’ body trapped between his back and the bar as he says it. He unbuttons Lucas’ jeans, pulls the zipper down. “When will you understand that it’s your ass that I’m going after every time we go out?”

Lucas’ breath hitches when he feels a hand cup the front of his underwear.

Still, he swallows past the dryness in his throat. With one hand traveling down to cover Eliott’s, he pushes his ass back. “Feeling lucky tonight, are you?”

He grinds his ass down on Eliott’s crotch, tongue caught between his teeth as he lets his eyelashes flutter at the feel of Eliott’s finger trailing down his length teasingly.

“Wise words said from someone who’s pressing their ass against my dick like a fucking tease in the middle of the club.”

Despite himself, he grins. “Didn’t say I was any better.” He circles his hips, and Eliott’s grip jerks around him. “Besides, you love it.”

“Hmm.”

The hum is pressed to the side of his neck, a low breath followed by Eliott circling his dick with two fingers, carefully untucking it from inside his underwear. The cotton fabric catches on the head, and Lucas inhales sharply, the pounding music fading into white noise that has his head swimming between clouds.

Everything is on fire, his body going into shock at the heat between his legs where Eliott is rubbing slowly and the cold kisses pressed to the back of neck. Eliott traces the shape of his dick over the underwear, and Lucas gasps for air.

“Fuck” swears Lucas. He lets himself melt in Eliott’s hold, lets his head fall against his shoulder. He twists his head to the side, lets his lips brush the side of Eliott’s neck. “Christ.”

A bead of sweat rolls down the side of his face when he feels a thumb toying with the head peeking out of his underwear, breath turning into a hiccup as Eliott’s hand rubs down his hard-on before palming him tightly.

He grips the counter harder.

“Don’t you fucking dare stop.” Lucas groans into Eliott’s jaw. He mouths the words, letting his lips drag, tongue flat on the dip of Eliott’s neck. “Don’t you dare stop now.”

The grip on his dick tightens, and then Eliott is rubbing his palm up and down Lucas’ underwear to the beat of his own heartbeat. He feels wetness drawing a dark stain in his underwear. His stomach quivers, ragged breaths that makes his chest hit the counter every time, and he lets out an involuntary ah sound as Eliott squeezes roughly.

And then the hand pulls away.

Lucas whines high in his throat, hips buckling forward in search for Eliott’s touch. Eliott only chuckles lowly in Lucas’ ear, buttoning Lucas’ jeans back up before he can even form a coherent response, and with a light tap to his ass he’s moving away.

“Sorry, what were you saying?” He yells over the music with ringing laughter, and Lucas doesn’t have to turn around to know he’s grinning. The asshole. “The music’s too loud!”

Lucas exhales, jaw clenched. Okay.

This is how they’re playing tonight.

He turns around. Pushes up on his toes, arms curled around Eliott’s neck, he lets his tongue run up behind Eliott’s ear. Eliott grabs him by the waist, and Lucas can feel the goosebumps awakening in Eliott’s skin under his mouth as he breathes a hot puff of air over the trail of spit.

Eliott’s grip on his hips tighten. He grins.

“You’re fucking dead.”

***

He’s got his hands under Eliott’s shirt.

His veins thrum with want. There’s a calmness in his bones, something soothing that washes over him, certainty about what happens next. If everything else fails, he knows where this is headed. Still, the characteristic giddiness of a teen at giving their first kiss takes over him every time it happens.

He should be used to this by now, but he isn’t. He doesn’t think it’s something one ever gets used to.

Not when it comes to him. Not when it comes to Eliott, who smells like strawberry lollipops and rum in his mouth when he kisses him, who tastes like rain when Lucas dips his head to nip at his jaw.

Eliott, who kisses like he laughs, who smiles into his mouth and runs his hands down his naked shoulders before curling his fingers around his hips.

He opens his mouth against Eliott’s, letting him steal the air off his lungs. Sighing, he lets their foreheads bump together. His cheeks are hot and his breath is ragged as he takes the shirt off Eliott, running his hands down and over his stomach.

Eliott’s eyelashes tickle against his cheeks. Lucas juts his chin out, catching his bottom lip with his mouth in a slow kiss. Their chests press together, warm and smooth as Lucas lets his hips circle down against Eliott’s crotch.

There’s hands traveling down his spine, making Lucas shiver at the dance of Eliott’s fingertips on him. It goes down and down and down, hands slipping under his jeans and squeezing his ass.

Lucas makes a sound at the back of his throat, searching behind him to grip Eliott’s wrists.

“Nope,” Lucas pants between kisses. He brings Eliott’s hands behind his back, interlocking their fingers. “No touching today.”

Eliott huffs, planting a kiss on the corner of his mouth.

“Still mad?” He asks, and there’s laughter in his eyes when he says it. Lucas doesn’t falter, raising a challenging eyebrow, and this time Eliott does laugh out loud. “Baby.”

God. That term again. It heats his skin – hot in his face, and his neck, and between his legs.

He shakes his head, but still lets Eliott brush their noses together at the same time he buckles his hips up, and his heart has never felt lighter and heavier at the same time before.

“You have no fucking idea, do you?” He asks with bite, rolls his hips forward. The grip on his fingers tighten. “You drive me fucking crazy.”

Eliott kisses the side of his neck as an answer. He turns his head with a stuttering sigh, breath hitching in his chest as teeth scrap over his pulse point, squeezing Eliott’s hips with his thighs. In a shot of lucidity he takes Eliott’s wrists in one hand, pining them flat on the mattress.

“So crazy,” Lucas groans at the tongue trailing down his throat. Eliott gives a little appreciative sigh as Lucas squeezes his wrists, pulling at them until Eliott loses balance.

His back hits the mattress, and he stares up at Lucas with awe in his eyes as Lucas towers over him. He’s gorgeous like this, with his hair sprawled on the bed and his eyes that shine more than the shitty artificial light above their heads. His chest is flushed pink under Lucas, and his fingers walk up his jeans-clad thighs.

“Jesus, look at you.” Eliott breathes, gripping Lucas’ legs. His thumbs dig into the inside of his thighs, making Lucas’ hands shake on his belt. “You’re fucking beautiful.”

He undoes his belt blindly, back arched as he bends down to kiss Eliott. Once, twice. On the mouth, on his chin, sucking his tongue between his teeth and making him gasp as he sets his belt free and pops the button on his jeans.

Just as blindly, he takes Eliott’s hand in his, guiding it towards his groin. He leads Eliott’s touch, letting his fingers brush up and down his underwear.

“At first I thought I’d fuck you, you know?” Lucas whispers into Eliott’s mouth. Eliott’s hand twitches in interest, and he smirks. “Tie you up, turn you on your stomach with your ass on display, all pretty for me,”

Eliott’s hips buckle under him, his fingers pressing harder into Lucas’ navel. Lucas presses his ass down, moving Eliott’s hand away from him. Eliott growls in impatience.

“Hands tied behind your back,” A roll of his hips, he moves Eliott’s hand back to his crotch. He hisses at the contact, muffling it on the side of Eliott’s face. “So you have no chance to touch yourself.”

He can hear Eliott’s hard swallow at his words. It’d make a really fucking good picture, he has to admit. He stores that thought for another time.

“But you’re not gonna do that.”

Lucas shakes his head.

“No, I’m not gonna do that.” He agrees. Pulling back, he ignores the soft groan from Eliott at the loss of his lips. “You’d enjoy it too much. I’m still gonna tie you up though.”

He moves to one side, pulling his jeans down. Eliott’s eyes are on him, black with lust, and he makes a show out of it, hooking his thumbs into the elastic waistband before pulling the underwear over his thighs.

He takes the belt on the side of the bed.

“I’m gonna tie you up, and I’m gonna fuck myself on your dick until you’re begging me to untie you. I’m gonna ride you so fucking hard, and you’re not touching me until I say you can.”

Eliott looks at Lucas with surprise, then at the belt in his hands. He exhales.

“Holy fuck, Lucas. Virgin you is really no more.”

Lucas grins.

He straddles Eliott, sits on his thighs with his hands on his shoulders, heart rabbiting in his chest. Hands go to hold his waist, and Eliott brings them closer together, sitting up with Lucas on his lap. The touch on his back feels charged, electricity at Eliott’s fingertips that has Lucas squirming as they crash their lips together.

The leather of the belt brushes against the back of Eliott’s neck when Lucas hugs his shoulders, and he feels a shiver shaking Eliott’s body. He stops.

“Wait,” Lucas whispers as their mouths pull apart. Eliott blinks at him expectantly, dark grey in pools inside his eyes that warms his face up. “This is- this is okay, right?”

There’s sunlight hidden in the crease of Eliott’s bottom lip when he smiles at him. He cups Lucas’ face with his hands, fingers tracing Lucas’ features softly.

“Hey.” Eliott holds his head in place, forcing their eyes to meet. “If you don’t tie me up right the fuck now I’m gonna fucking tie myself, so,” He presses a kiss to the corner of Lucas’ mouth before offering his wrists to Lucas. “Please.”

The face Eliott pulls is far too eager, and Lucas has to muffle his laughter in Eliott’s collarbone as he brings his arms behind his back.

“Don’t make it unsexy.”

Eliott squints at him jokingly.

“I wouldn’t dare.” He says, and the last word ends in a hitched breath when the belt binds his arms together.

Lucas traces the edges of the belt tangled around Eliott’s arms. “Good?” He pulls at the knot experimentally.

Eliott throws his head back.

“Fuck,” he curses, and his throat looks so good when he stretches like that that Lucas has to bite it. “Fuck, why is this so hot?”

Lucas doesn’t answer. He pulls away from Eliott with one last kiss to his chin, and then he’s guiding him down on the bed by the shoulders. Eliott lets himself be pushed down, fire in his eyes staring up at Lucas until his back hits the mattress.

There’s wonder in Eliott’s face as he wiggles his arms behind him. Lucas watches nervously, ready to – call it off? Keep going? He has no fucking idea of what he’s doing, so he waits. He waits, hands running up and down Eliott’s stomach as Eliott tests the grip.

A blink later, and Eliott is looking at him expectantly.

Lucas nods, mostly to himself.

He gets Eliott out of his pants silently, and when he pulls down his own underwear he’s so hard his dick slaps against his belly wetly. He hears a curse over his head, but he pays no mind to it.

Instead he curls his fingers around himself, wrist moving up and down teasingly slowly. He has to stop for a second to get the bedside drawer open, breaths coming in low pants at the knowledge that Eliott is watching him. He brushes his thumb over the head, and Eliott hisses with him.

“Out of all the things you’ve made me do,” says Eliott, and Lucas looks up from the lube coating his fingers. His lips are wet, cheeks pink, and his stomach quivers with every drag of Lucas’ dick. “This might be the cruelest one.”

Lucas licks his lips. He lowers himself on the bed, smirk set on his face. Kisses the inside of Eliott’s thigh.

“You should know by now that I don’t like it when you say no to me.” He taunts. Rubs his face on Eliott’s crotch, back arched high enough that he knows Eliott can see the dip of his back and his ass. “Hopefully by the end of this though,”

He cuts himself off with a kiss to the tip of Eliott’s dick. With one hand on Eliott’s hipbone he supports himself, the other going between his asscheeks to play with himself. He makes sure to twist his wrist enough to show Eliott what he’s doing.

“Hopefully by the end of this, you will have understood that you don’t fucking try to get me off in the middle of the club.” He swallows Eliott down in one go, coaxing a strangled sound out of him.

Lips stretched, he lets his tongue trail down the side of Eliott’s length. And then he stops. Eliott whines.

“You don’t do that,” he bites Eliott’s thigh. “And then just fucking stop. And think I’m gonna be happy about it.”

Eliott tries to buckle his hips up, but Lucas stops him. “Be good.” And then he’s taking Eliott in his mouth again.

He bobs his head up and down, the string of curses falling from Eliott’s lips drowning out the wet sound of his mouth going down on Eliott. It’s hot like this, with Eliott squirming under him, putty in Lucas’ hands as if he’s the only thing he trusts more than himself.

He can’t help but miss the pull of Eliott’s hands in his hair, but he makes do with the heated feeling of Eliott swelling up inside his mouth.

“Fuck, you’re killing me,” Eliott groans loudly as Lucas presses one finger inside of himself.

Lucas hums around his dick, moving his finger in and out of his ass expertly before he’s adding a second one. He rubs at his rim, wet with the leftover lube on his fingertips, and presses down as he starts lapping up at Eliott’s dick.

“I really fucking wish I could touch you. Hold your head down, fuck,” Lucas looks up to find Eliott thumping his head against the mattress. He’s breathing hard, Lucas can see from here, but his hands don’t move behind his back. “You’re so fucking beautiful with your lips around me, fuck, baby.”

Lucas whines at the back of his throat, and it makes Eliott look down at him. He’s got his bottom lip between his teeth, face scrunched up in pleasure and eyes full of wonder. His shoulders move up and down with every labored breath he takes.

The sight is enough to make the second finger go in. He moans around Eliott’s dick. He pumps himself, wrist cramping at the angle he’s in, but he doesn’t move, fingers driving in and out of him decidedly. He imagines it’s Eliott’s fingers in him, curling inwards, rubbing down, tips catching on the rim, and the shiver it gives him is enough to make his hips jerk forward.

“Fuck,” He pulls away, rests his forehead on Eliott’s thigh as he tries to catch his breath. There’s drool running down the corner of his mouth, sweat at the back of his thighs, and his heart beats in his ears as he scissors his fingers inside himself. “Fuck, God, Eli-“

He can’t help but push back on his fingers at every thrust, and it’s not until the breathless ‘Please’ coming from Eliott rings out in his ears that he stops.

“Please, baby.” Eliott begs. His chest is red, dick twitching against his belly, and there’s desperation in his eyes. “You wanted me to beg, right? So I’m begging, please, please, let me fuck you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lucas sighs. He kisses Eliott’s leg. “Yeah.”

He takes his fingers out, wipes them on the bed sheets before leveling himself on Eliott’s hips. He raises up, trembling legs making its way up to Eliott’s body. He stays on all fours above Eliott, juts his chin out until Eliott tilts his head up, kisses him like he’s missed him.

In a weird, fucked up way, he thinks he did.

He lets Eliott suck on his tongue, dips down to nibble at his bottom lip. Lick, kiss, worship with his own mouth, Eliott’s lips are sweet against his when they slide together. It’s wet and dirty, and he indulges in it for a few seconds before he’s pulling back.

The next second he’s sitting on Eliott’s stomach with his back turned to him.

“Of fucking course,” He hears Eliott utter under his breath, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

Any other normal day, there’d be fingers gripping his ass roughly until it’s over.

As it is now, he lets his ass sit on Eliott’s lower stomach tauntingly. He takes him in his hand, making a quick job of rolling the condom down.

Knees sunk on the mattress, he sits back on his thighs, hands on Eliott’s knees to support himself. His hips raise up a bit, enough to catch Eliott’s dick under his ass, and grinds down.

“You’re the asshole of my life, Lucas Lallemant.” Eliott curses. Lucas smirks to himself, heartbeat raising as the head of Eliott’s dick catches on his rim. “I hope you, ah- fucking know that.”

Lucas reaches behind his back. Hands on his ass, he spreads himself open. Loosely sneaks two fingers inside of himself before he’s holding Eliott in his hand, guiding him towards his entrance.

He look over his shoulder with hunger in his eyes. “And they say romance is dead,” he says.

And he sinks down.

His fingers push down on his rim, holds Eliott’s dick in place he goes lower, and lower and lower. With each shift of his hips another inch goes down. He feels it in the small of his back, in the strain of his thighs, a burning pleasure that consumes them both the lower he goes.

Eliott hisses, groans, rustling sounds coming from behind Lucas’ back, and Lucas doesn’t need to look to know Eliott is undressing the bedding with the jerking of his head.

He lets out a long sigh when his ass sits flat on Eliott’s belly.

“Holy fuck,” Eliott drags out. “Holy fuck, I hope Hell is nicer with their punishments than you.”

Lucas raises himself up one inch. “Are you calling me a demon?” And he falls down again, punching a groan out of Eliott.

“If you are,” Eliott grits out as an answer. He gets cut off at the roll of Lucas’ hips. “Fuck, you’re a demon disguised as the most beautiful angel I’ve ever seen.”

Lucas closes his eyes.

There’s a flush at his cheeks that isn’t from the sex, and his hands clench at his sides with every word that Eliott says. His dick pulses against his belly, and he gets the sudden need to call the whole fucking thing off, untie Eliott and hide in the crook of his neck as Eliott fucks into him until he cries.

It works as a motivation to get him moving.

There’s fire inside his veins. Sweat rolls down his collarbones as his hips move up and down. He feels every thrust in his stomach, hears every soft slap of his ass against Eliott’s stomach in his brain, committing to memory the sounds coming from Eliott.

With his eyes closed, he can almost feel Eliott’s lips branding every inch of his body. With every drag of Eliott’s dick on his rim he imagines it’s Eliott’s hands pressing down on his belly and jerking him off.

He’s lost in the ghost of Eliott’s touch christening his body, kissing behind his ear and nosing at his jaw as he thrusts up into him. He’s lost in a phantom mouth and invisible fingers, fucking himself down on Eliott with his back as arched as it can go.

There’s words of praise falling from Eliott, and Lucas’ breathing comes out in quiet gasps the deeper Eliott sinks inside of him. When he thinks there’s no more to take, Eliott will tilt his hips up, and it’ll steal the air off Lucas’ lungs.

“Fuck, baby, Lucas-”

Lucas fists at the bed sheets.

“Baby, spread your ass for me, let me see baby,” Eliott moans brokenly. There’s urgency in his voice, and he growls low in his throat as Lucas does just that. “Yeah, that’s it, you’re so good. So fucking god.”

Lucas grips his ass, spreading himself as far as he can go. It makes the thrusts deeper, somehow, and he gasps loudly with every roll of his hips.

“Like this?” He asks, salt in his lips when he licks the corner of his mouth. He asks, and he digs his fingers harder into his ass. “Do you think I’m pretty?”

“Yes, God – yes.”

He picks the speed up. He lets a finger press down where they’re connected, the pressure coating his stomach with white fire, and a dry sob shakes his chest. “Prettier than those girls?”

Eliott lets out a strangled shout.

“Fucking hell, yes! Is that even a question?” Lucas presses down harder, until the tip of his finger joins Eliott’s dick, and Eliott cries out. “Prettier than any person I’ve ever seen, fuck, faster- baby, harder.”

Lucas rolls his hips rougher. He looks behind his back, and for a second the world tips over the edge when his eyes meet Eliott’s.

“Come.”

Eliott comes.

His thighs tremble and his hips drive into Lucas jerkily as Lucas loses himself to the pleasure. He’s loud when he comes, louder than Lucas is used to hearing him, and maybe it’s that what makes him pull back once Eliott’s hips lay still on the bed.

He pulls himself up, Eliott slipping out of him, and he mourns the loss for a second before he’s crowding Eliott’s space. There’s a craving to have Eliott’s lips on him, a need that fills his head with white noise as he brushes their lips together, rubs his dick on Eliott’s stomach with uncoordinated jerks of his hips.

It’s Eliott with his lips murmuring against Lucas’ that reminds him of the belt.

“Off, off, please. I need to touch you.” Eliott pleads against his mouth, and Lucas unties the belt.

The first thing Eliott does with his free hands is bury his fingers in Lucas’ hair, making Lucas sigh, and the next thing he does is yank on it, rolling them over until he’s on top of Lucas.

Lucas moans loudly, head tilting up at the pull of Eliott’s hand, mouth falling open.

There’s hands running up and down his body, overwhelming touches at his sides, and down his chest, and up his shoulders. Eliott’s lips follow after, soft and gentle, kissing down the trail of his abdomen. Thumbs rub circles on his hipbones, and he closes his eyes at the feeling of Eliott’s stubble tickling his belly.

“Fucking beautiful,” Eliott moans against his skin, and Lucas moans too. “My pretty boy, how do you want it?”

Lucas parts his legs. “I don’t care.” He shakes his head. “I don’t care, just touch me.”

Eliott kneels between his legs. His hips brush against the back of Lucas’ thighs, and he’s got one hand brushing up and down teasingly close to his crotch while the other goes to grab to back of his thigh.

Every single muscle in his body aches. Still, he lets Eliott throw his leg over his shoulder, and he lets Eliott tuck it against his chest as he bends forward.

“Is this enough touching?” Eliott asks while two fingers press at his rim. Lucas hums loudly, craning his neck to one side to make room for Eliott’s mouth. “Is it enough?”

He digs his heel into the mattress. “Not enough,” he pants, even as fingers move in and out of him.

Eliott curls his fingers around his jaw. He swipes Lucas’ bottom lip with his thumb softly, rolls it between his fingers, and then he’s pressing down on his neck, holding his head still. “Is it enough now?” he whispers, softly, and Lucas’ eyes slip closed.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” he asks again, this time with his hand wrapped around Lucas.

Lucas lets himself feel. The hand moving up and down wetly. The press on his neck. He breathes through his nose, and his body burns from the inside out. There’s not an inch of his body that isn’t touching Eliott, and he scratches at Eliott’s shoulders in pleasure.

It’s quiet gasps, hips rocking up to Eliott’s touch, chasing it, his body shooting forward on the bed when Eliott alternates it with fingering.

It’s with a whimper of his name that he comes. A whispered Eliott that falls from his lips, and there’s sweat at his forehead, and his face is red, and a weak whimper comes out of him when Eliott twists his wrist. And he comes.

He thinks there’s lips peppering kisses to his cheeks. To his nose, his chin, the spot under his jaw that makes him squirm. He blinks his eyes up, once the clouds in his head dissipate, finding rainy grey staring at him. He smiles lazily at him.

“Hello.” He murmurs, bringing Eliott down by the neck.

Eliott kisses him, smiling into his mouth a little.

It’s lovely. It’s so fucking lovely, everything is lovely right now, so he pulls at Eliott until he falls on him. Rolls them on their sides, keeps kissing him as he throws a leg around his waist and hugs him.

“Hi.” Eliott answers when he pulls back. He makes their noses touch, beaming, and Lucas huffs out a laugh.

Without saying anything else, he tucks himself under Eliott’s chin. Inhales contentedly, kisses the side of Eliott neck before closing his eyes.

He feels a kiss to his hair. Words hang in the air. “So we do jealousy now?”

Lucas squirms uncomfortably in Eliott’s hold. He shrugs after a moment, because what’s there to say? What’s there to say, he asks himself, and comes up blank. There’s to say, he supposes, that the thought of Eliott kissing other lips that aren’t his form a gap in his chest.

“I mean, they were pretty.” He settles for in the end. Because it’s not silence, but it’s not something either, and he just doesn’t know anymore. “And you know I like having your dick to myself.” He adds, half-jokingly.

(Because that’s not the reason. At all. His dad always said he was a greedy son of a bitch, and maybe he was onto something.)

He waits for a hum of agreement. A word that might hurt more than the silence, and he braces himself, but the silence drags on. He thinks maybe he fell asleep, maybe his heart was spared for yet another night, but then Eliott speaks.

“Did you know, Lucas Lallemant,” he shifts above Lucas. Instead of pulling back, he pulls him closer, and Lucas goes. “That second you enter a room, even the smoothest 10 fades into a 3 in comparison to you?”

A shot of euphoria runs inside his veins. He doesn’t know anymore, no, but this, right here, feels like something. So he holds on to it, presses his smile into Eliott’s skin, hard enough that he hopes it’ll stay there. That he’ll keep it with him for the sad days. For the sleepless nights.

“Tell me again.” He whispers with his hand on Eliott’s chest.

Eliott’s laughter rumble inside his chest, rattles Lucas’ body, but he complies.

“You’re my fucking beautiful angel, and I want you all of the time.”

Lucas presses his lips to Eliott’s collarbones, and there’s still a smile there. Maybe they can use that one without a reason, he thinks. Not for the sad days, or the angry days, or any particular day. Maybe Eliott will look down at himself one day, and he’ll see all of Lucas’ smiles etched in his skin. And then he’ll smile too.

“Good.” He says, and Eliott smiles against his forehead in return.

Maybe one day they’ll look at each other and they’ll only see themselves in every inch of skin.

Maybe.

[hartigays]

“I’m in love with you." "Shut up and kiss me."

1. “I’m in love with you.”

4. “Shut up and kiss me.”

steve comes in from the cold with a shiver, knocking his boots against the doorframe to shake loose any remaining snow.

there’s a thin trickle of snot dribbling from steve’s nose, and he wipes it off with a gloved hand, sniffling. he doesn’t have to look in the mirror to know that his nose is red and chapped after the hours he’d spent outside clearing the traps.

“we get anything good?” hopper asks. he’s squatting by the fireplace, tossing some logs and sticks into the flames.

steve brandishes the belt of rabbits and squirrels he’d collected, smiling. “we did pretty good, all things considered.”

joyce is the first to jump up, examining their kill with a gleeful smile. it’s been a few weeks since they’ve gotten this much in the traps, and they’re in dire need of protein. steve wants to strip a rabbit clean and roast it over the fire to feed el right then and there, her sunken-in eyes concerning him more than anything.

“good thing, too,” joyce says, sighing happily. “we need it. help me in the kitchen, will ya, hop?”

the two disappear into the kitchen, and steve makes his way into the living room, crouching down by the fire to warm his hands. the kids are gathered around under an assortment of blankets; el is curled into max’s side, and will his mimicking their position with mike. dustin and lucas are huddling for warmth as well, curled up under the same flannel blanket.

“we eat tonight?” el asks, fixing steve with inquisitive eyes.

steve nods, leaning over to ruffle her hair. “sure are, kid.”

it’s been over a year since the world went to shit, every corner of the earth crawling with the living dead. they still aren’t sure how it happened, but they’ve managed to adapt as best as they can as a group, under the circumstances.

steve has been thankful since day one that he’d been with the party when this shit went down, rather than home alone in his big, empty house.

joyce and hopper had been holding a family dinner when the world basically ended, so steve had been in the company of them, all the kids, nancy, and jonathan when the first of the flesh-eaters staggered its way onto the porch. el had taken care of it quickly, but it was the first of many.

after that, they’d stayed at the byers house for as long as they could, but it’d been a matter of time before they’d needed to go on the move in search of food. along the way they’d come across robin and heather, trapped in robin’s house with the rotting corpses of her parents.

it hadn’t been more than a few days after picking them up, everyone parked in their cars in a vacant lot trying to ride things out, that a herd had passed through. the group had fought with all their might, but they’d been hopelessly outnumbered.

that is, until one crazy motherfucker with enough firepower to rival a small army came blazing through, blowing the head off of anything that had once been dead and since came back to life.

and that motherfucker had been none other than billy hargrove.

billy had survived the first wave of flesh-eaters by letting them overrun his house, using neil as bait. steve hadn’t asked too many questions about why billy had been so comfortable using his father as a tasty snack for the living dead; he’d met neil once or twice, he didn’t need to ask.

and one good thing about neil was his tendency to stockpile weapons. which, in any other situation, might not look so good. but in these times, it was nothing short of a blessing.

an unfortunate casualty of billy’s neil-turned-zombie-snack plan had been susan. according to billy, he’d tried his hardest to get her to leave with him and max, but she’d refused to leave neil’s side. even after neil turned into a flesh-eating monster, trying to rip her head off, susan had declined to leave her home.

it was only a matter of time before she became dinner for a pea-brained flesh-eater. billy had to pull max away as she kicked and screamed, initially not wanting to accept her mother’s fate. but it was too late - the moment susan had gotten a chunk ripped out of her neck by the thing that had once been her husband, max stopped fighting.

it’d only been a few days later that they’d swung in and saved the party’s collective ass, staving off the now near-inevitable fate of every living creature on this planet. that fate being the inevitability of being torn apart by flesh-eating monsters, only to be reanimated as flesh-hungry monsters themselves.

now, the group is holed up in a dilapidated home that had once been a bed and breakfast of sorts, just trying to ride this shit out without losing their heads. and they haven’t lost anyone yet, by some miraculous stroke of luck.

that isn’t to say that they don’t worry every day that each hour might be their last. but they’re thankful for the small things.

steve acknowledges this now, as he appraises the group of kids before him. although they’re more like teenagers now, having grown up far too fast during all of the chaos.

el opens up the blanket she’s sharing with max, gesturing for steve to come get warm. he accepts her invitation gratefully, curling up under the blanket as another shiver runs through him.

“cold,” el says, her eyes meeting steve’s. she has a hand covering his icy fingers, her brows furrowed in concern. “too cold.”

“don’t worry, kid. i’ll warm him up.”

the voice comes from the hallway, and a moment later billy appears at the threshold, leaning against the doorframe with a toothy smile.

steve can’t help but roll his eyes, even though his stomach does a little flip-flop. el’s eyes flit between them, her brows coming even closer together in confusion.

“ugh,” nancy groans from the kitchen. steve sees her shoot billy a disapproving look. “keep it in the bedroom, hargrove. there are kids here.”

“hey, we’re like, old now. we know what sex is!” dustin protests.

steve chokes on his own spit, his cheeks heating up. “we are not having sex! i don’t even - that’s not even - i can’t believe - that’s just - it’s just. it’s wrong - we don’t even -”

billy gives steve a look, his brows raised, and it effectively cuts off steve’s rambling protests. because, okay, it’s not like billy is wrong, per se. steve has seen billy’s dick more than his own in recent weeks. but really, can anyone blame him? like, it’s the end of the world, for fucks’ sake. it’s not like he has many options to choose from.

and it doesn’t help that billy is, like, disgustingly hot, even after having not showered in months.

maybe steve is just weak. or maybe he’d thought about riding billy into the sunset more often than not before the world decided to go and practically spin off its axis. either way, he doesn’t hold himself solely responsible for having fallen into bed with billy the moment billy had used a cheap pickup line when steve had taken a few too many sips of toilet wine, and had stayed there ever since.

steve heaves himself up off the floor, scuffling over to billy to plant a gentle kiss on his cheek. “quit it. they don’t need the details.”

“but i like the details,” billy protests, though it’s more to be annoying than to actually argue.

billy tugs steve in by the lapels of his coat, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. steve can’t help but smile into the kiss, his heart doing little somersaults in his chest.

“you did good with the traps,” steve tells him, bumping their noses together. “got enough to last us ‘bout a week.”

“told you they’d work,” billy says, sticking his tongue out. “and you said i was too much of a city boy. better pay up, princess.”

steve rolls his eyes, despite the fact that he’s pulling billy in closer. “i stand corrected. happy now?”

“ecstatic.”

billy leans in for another kiss, but steve steps back with a cheeky smile, backing into the kitchen despite billy’s disbelieving look.

steve helps joyce and hopper strip and clean their kill, stringing up most of it above the fire to form jerky in the smoke. the rest they cook up for their evening meal, finally having enough food for everyone to go to bed with a full stomach.

later, after a long evening spent laughing and eating around the fire, the group turns in for bed, sated and full. steve offers to take on cleanup duty for the evening, so he’s the last to make his way to his room, trudging up the stairs with an armful of blankets.

billy is already laying in bed, lounging in nothing but sweatpants, cocooned in their comforter. they’d originally shared a room with nancy and jonathan, but the two had switched to bunk with robin and heather once they realized billy didn’t care whether or not they were present when he wanted to get laid.

it’s not like steve really cared either - billy is tight and warm and all the things steve wants to bury himself into after a long day of trying to survive. and it can’t be said that billy isn’t a giver either - he has a dick and he knows how to use it. steve can attest to that fact. he’s experienced far too many days of not being able to walk straight to say anything less.

and billy’s appetites aren’t anything steve can complain about, because they now have a room to themselves. which is nice for reasons other than being able to pound each other into their mattress. they can stay up late whispering to each other, talking about the future and their dreams and how they feel.

turns out billy isn’t just busting it open for steve’s monster dick. he’s after steve’s heart, too, and steve is more than happy to give it to him. despite billy being an absolute tool in high school, he’s turned out to be a soft-hearted romantic in the midst of the apocalypse.

“you’ve gotta stop alluding to our sex life in front of the kids,” steve says as he crawls into bed, having changed into a warm set of flannel pajamas that he’d grabbed from a wal-mart on one of their many food runs.

billy just looks at him, his blue eyes big and innocent. “but how else will everyone know you’re mine?”

steve snorts, snacking billy’s bare shoulder. “i think you’ve made that abundantly clear. seriously, hop is gonna force us to sit down with him and have ‘the talk’ if you don’t cut it out.”

“sounds sexy,” billy says with a wink, and steve can’t help his cackle. “‘sides, they said it themselves. they’re not kids anymore.”

“it’s still weird,” steve groans. “and you act like they don’t hear us railing each other nine times out of ten. the walls here are like paper.”

“railing each other, huh? i don’t believe you. i think we need to test that out to see if that’s actually what we do.”

steve shoves billy with a groan that’s half a laugh. “oh my god, you’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“only for you, sweetheart,” billy tells him, tongue poking out between his teeth.

“shut up and kiss me, asshole.”

billy normally would challenge steve given the insult, but not tonight. instead, he rolls over, tugging steve in and sealing their lips together with a contented sigh. steve isn’t sure if it’s because he’d been gone for hours clearing the traps, or if billy is just in a cuddly mood, but steve certainly isn’t complaining. he just kisses billy until both of their lips are swollen and bruised.

it’s when they break apart that billy fixes steve with a wide-eyed stare, his chest heaving a little. “i’m in love with you.”

steve’s heart feels like it stops in chest, and his mouth pops open in surprise. “wait, seriously?”

it’s not what steve means to say, but it’s not innaccurate. he is in disbelief, just a little. billy looks kind of self-conscious, his eyes drifting up towards the ceiling. he rolls onto his back, putting some distance between them.

steve reaches out and catches billy’s hand, threading their fingers together. “hey, i didn’t - that’s not what i meant. i mean, i love you too. i thought that was obvious.”

billy’s head snaps over to look at him, his eyes narrowed. “yeah? you’re not just saying that ‘cause i’m the only hot piece of ass left within a fifty-mile radius?”

“you were the only hot piece of ass within a fifty-mile radius before the world ended,” steve mutters, his thumb rubbing across the softness of billy’s skin. “i mean, seriously. i didn’t need the dead to rise up for me to know that.”

“oh,” billy says, and steve can see him chewing on the inside of his cheek. “thought you were only in it ‘cause you didn’t have any options left. y’know, nancy having ditched you for stalker boy and robin liking pussy and all.”

steve shoots billy a disbelieving look, snorting softly. “billy, you literally had me getting hard for you in the showers after basketball practice. doesn’t bother me than you’re not a girl, if that’s what you’re worried about. i fucked tommy when i was fourteen.”

billy chokes out a surprised laugh, and it echoes around the room. “you’re fuckin’ kidding me.”

“nope.”

“well, shit. thought you were straight as an arrow before all this,” billy says thoughtfully. “would’ve paid to see you fuck hagan. bet he cries when he cums.”

“nah, he giggles. which is somehow weirder,” steve laughs. “wonder if he’s dead.”

“dunno, saw him with perkins at the school when everyone was gathering there for that refugee camp they kept talking about. got overrun, last i heard,” billy says with a shrug. “maybe he made it out.”

“i hope so,” steve hums, then shrugs when billy gives him a pointed look. “he was my best friend once upon a time, you know. just ‘cause you’re jealous doesn’t mean i hope he’s dead.”

“yeah, yeah,” billy snorts, rolling his eyes. “can we fuck now? i need to get the image of you pounding hagan out of my mind.”

“why, that get you worked up?” steve teases, poking at billy’s cheek with his index finger.

billy just catches steve’s wrists in his hands and rolls him onto his back, straddling his hips and pinning him to the mattress. steve can’t help but giggle when billy leans down to kiss him, tangling his fingers in his curls when billy releases his wrists.

the world is a bleak place these days, but steve has carved out his own slice of happiness despite it. smiling into billy’s kisses, the warm weight of billy on top of him, grounding him, steve knows he’ll do whatever it takes to defend his little piece of paradise.

and maybe it’s not what steve envisioned for himself back when he was an idealistic teenager. but he’s not going to argue it. it’s not like they have much left to find joy in, after all.

steve will take whatever piece of it that he can get.

send me super sappy prompts!

[purrincess-chat]

Kill Em With Kindness CH3

It is finished! Now I can move on to chapter 1 of Dogrien to post this week~ I hope you all enjoy this chapter. Uncle Jagged has made his entrance and now things are about to get interesting.

Read on AO3

Chapter 3

“Knock, knock!”

Marinette paused her sewing, a wicked smile curling on her lips as Adrien climbed up carrying a plate of warm cookies.

“From your dad,” he said, holding them up before setting them on her desk and pulling up a chair. “How’s your Ladybug sweater coming along?”

“Great! I was just sewing up the seams now,” she said, smoothing over the red and black sweater that read ‘Ladybug’s bff’ on the front. “With her compromised immune system, I’d hate for Lila to catch a cold from the chilly weather in London on our field trip this week.”

“Wouldn’t that be a shame?” Adrien agreed, cupping a hand to his cheek. “Well, I successfully got Mr. D’Argencourt to give her some one-on-one time to make up her PE grade. He made sure she paced herself and didn’t put too much stress on that bad ankle of hers. It’s a shame she didn’t finish in time to get ice cream with all of us.”

“Well, school is important. We don’t want her to fail the term, do we?” Marinette said with an overly sarcastic tone.

“Of course not! That would just be awful.” He nodded, and they both broke into a fit of giggles. “By the way, I have some good news.”

“Oh?” Marinette quirked a brow, grabbing a cookie.

“Guess when Lila’s birthday is?” Adrien smirked, and she pursed her lips.

“Dunno, when?”

“Some time in August, but guess what I overheard her telling Marc when he asked her to beta read their next comic since she’s such good friends with Ladybug?” He rolled his eyes. “She said she can’t help him because she’s going to Achu with her mother this weekend to celebrate her birthday.”

“But it’s only March,” Marinette said, eyes narrowing. “That brat totally blew them off.”

“Yeah, but it gives me an idea,” he said, tapping his chin. “Okay, so you know how we all planned a big surprise party for you this year?”

“How can I forget? My grandmother got akumatized,” Marinette said pointedly.

“Well, what if we threw Lila a party this Friday before she ‘leaves’ to go to Achu?” He suggested, and Marinette tilted her head to the side in thought.

“What if we centered it around all of her lies? We could have tons of recycle bins for her anti-pollution campaign, we can have the local shelter bring out a bunch of adoptable animals since she loves volunteering, and we can even get Jagged to send a bunch of signed posters for everyone,” Marinette said.

“You’re a despicable genius, Marinette. I’m a little scared.” Adrien eyed her with a smirk, and she turned her nose up.

“Lila had it coming. She did get me expelled,” she said with a defensive huff.

“Not arguing with that. I just hope I never get on your bad side,” he chuckled. “So, what’s our first move?”

“First, we plant the bait for everyone, then we set the trap for Lila. Alya and Mylene volunteer at the animal shelter frequently, so I’m sure they can handle that, and Sabrina’s dad has an in with the city for the recycling bins,” Marinette listed.

“What about Jagged?” Adrien asked, and a sly grin curled on her lips.

“Leave Jagged to me.”

***

“Hello, Penny,” Marinette greeted the following afternoon outside Jagged’s suite.

“Marinette, it’s good to see you, but what are you doing here?” Penny tilted her head to the side.

“Did you say Marinette’s here? Rock on! Let her in,” Jagged called from the grand piano in the middle of the room. “Yo, Marinette, you have to check this new song I’m working on.”

Penny blinked in confusion but stepped aside nonetheless, and Marinette entered with an appreciative smile. Jagged perked up upon seeing her and scooted over to make room for her on the bench.

“What brings you by, Marinette?” He asked, plucking out a melody on the keys.

“I kind of need a favor, if you don’t mind,” she said with a wince.

“Ay, of course. You can ask your ole Uncle Jagged for favors any time,” he said with a grin. “Just tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Well, there’s this girl at my school, and she’s kind of a huge liar-”

“Ugh, I hate liars. I dated a liar once. Great kisser, but he always needed attention. So annoying.” He wrinkled his nose.

“Tell me about it, except this girl is a bit more than just annoying. I called her out for lying a few times, but she always spins things back on me, and now we’re sworn enemies, and she has it out for me,” Marinette said, and Jagged paused his playing.

“D’you want me to feed her to Fang?” Jagged offered, and Marinette considered it a moment.

“Nah, I wouldn’t want to make him sick.” She shook her head. “But me and another friend who knows about her have been plotting a bit of revenge against her since she got me expelled recently.”

“She got you expelled?” Jagged’s fingers slammed onto keys, filling the room with a discordant harmony.

“Yeah. My friend made her fix it in the end, but now we’re done with her lying and manipulating everyone, so we have a plan,” Marinette said before giving him the run down.

“Wow. This is all very high road yet secretly low road of you, Marinette. Rock on!” Jagged smirked, offering a fist for her to bump. “I will totally help you.”

“Thanks, Jagged!” Marinette hugged his chest.

“Anything for my favorite little lady,” he said, giving her a noogie. “But I’ve gotta say, I feel like we can do better than posters. This girl almost ruined your reputation.”

“What do you have in mind?” Marinette tilted her head to the side.

“Well…”

***

“She’s coming!” Nathaniel called, running through the park entrance, and everyone took their places.

“I can’t believe we pulled this off,” Adrien said to Marinette. “I can’t wait to see the look on her face.”

“She’s going to lose her mind.” Marinette winked.

Alya led Lila into the park blindfolded just as she had done for Marinette so many weeks prior only this time, Lila had no idea what to expect.

“Surprise!” Everyone shouted when she removed the blindfold, and Lila’s jaw dropped in confusion and disbelief.

“What’s all this?” She asked with a nervous laugh.

“It’s for your birthday,” Nathaniel said as if it were obvious.

“Yeah, you’re going to Achu tomorrow, so we wanted to celebrate today,” Alya explained, and Marinette saw the gears click.

“Oh, you guys! You didn’t have to,” she said modestly.

“You’re our bud, and you do so much for the world. We wanted to make sure you had a great bday,” Nino said, wrapping an arm around Alya’s shoulders.

“You guys are too sweet. Thank you.” Lila placed a hand over her heart.

“Thank Marinette and Adrien. They orchestrated all of this,” Alya said, and they waved to her with cheery grins which she met with a brief hint of skepticism that she morphed into a smile of her own.

“We made sure to celebrate all of your achievements,” Adrien said, gesturing to their spread. “We had the city bring in recycling bins to cut back on the garbage, and all of the party decorations are made from recycled materials.”

“We also asked a local shelter to bring by some adoptable animals for us to socialize,” Alya said, pointing to the pins of dogs across the sidewalk. “And finally, Marinette has a super epic surprise!”

Lila flicked her gaze to Marinette, her eyes narrowing under that elastic smile.

“It was no big deal, really,” Marinette said without averting her gaze. “He absolutely jumped at the opportunity when I told him it was for you.”

“Yo, Lila! Long time no see, huh?”

Lila blanched a little as Jagged approached with Penny and Fang in tow, and Marinette crossed her arms over her chest with a smirk.

“Thanks for coming, Jagged,” she said sweetly.

“Of course. Anything for my two favorite ladies.” Jagged pulled them both in for a hug. “I’d love to personally give all of your little friends autographs, and Marinette even agreed to help me sing your favorite song of mine. You know, the one I wrote for you, Lila.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s so generous of both of you, but you don’t have to do that,” Lila said, holding up cautioning hands.

“Why not?” Adrien asked, shoving his hands in his pockets as everyone gave her similarly perplexed looks.

“Uh, I have a headache, so loud noises probably aren’t the best,” she said, and Marinette and Adrien exchanged looks.

“Oh, is your tinnitus coming back? I have an ear plug, and I’ve started carrying around painkillers just in case you ever need it,” Marinette said, reaching into her purse, and Lila stared down at the items in her hand blankly.

“Wow, Marinette. You sure think of everything, don’t you?” Lila said through gritted teeth.

“She’s so detail-oriented. It’s what makes her such a good designer. That’s why she’s one of my favorite little rockers. Second only to you, of course, Lila,” Jagged said.

“I’m just doing my part. We can’t all save African villages, but we can be there for each other,” Marinette said, clasping her hands together with an innocent beam. “I just wanted to make sure my amazing friend had a great birthday.”

“So thoughtful of you,” Lila cooed, though Marinette could see the rage burning behind her smile.

“Alright then, who wants an autograph?” Jagged asked, holding up a pen, and their classmates all crowded around him.

Marinette and Adrien stood back on either side of Lila with impish grins.

“I don’t know what you two are planning, but you’d better tread carefully,” Lila said under her breath.

“What’s the matter, Lila?” Marinette asked.

“Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?” Adrien added, and Lila’s eyes narrowed.

“Drop the act. I’m not an idiot, and if either one of you even thinks about starting anything-”

“Gosh, I didn’t realize inviting Jagged was going to upset you so much. I thought you two were good friends,” Marinette said, pressing a hand to her lips.

“I’m serious, you two. Call off the song, or else,” Lila said, shifting her gaze between them. “I’m not dumb. I know you’re going to get Jagged to diss me in front of everyone.”

“You really think we’d do such a thing?” Marinette gasped, and Lila rolled her eyes.

“I haven’t bought your whole nice act from the moment it started, but if you threaten me, I can get you kicked out of Paris for good,” Lila growled.

“That seems like an unkind thing to do to a friend. Marinette worked really hard to put all of this together, Lila,” Adrien said with a warning tone, wrapping an arm around Marinette’s shoulders as her face fell.

“No, it’s okay. Lila doesn’t want us to sing, so we won’t. It’s her birthday after all,” Marinette said. “I’ll let everyone know.”

Lila and Adrien watched her join the crowd before Lila turned to him with a scowl.

“I don’t know what you two are up to-”

“We’re just trying to be your friends, Lila,” Adrien cut her off.

Lila glared up at him, jaw clenching, and his face hardened for one brief moment.

“But you might wanna tread carefully,” he said, giving her a pointed look before a smile broke over his lips again, and he patted her shoulder. “Happy Birthday, Lila.”

“Oh, your throat is sore?” Alya was saying when they joined the group.

“Yeah, just a tickle, but I’d hate to ruin the performance,” Marinette said with a frown. “But maybe it’s for the best. Lila has a headache still, and when I told her about it, she was totally cool with putting it off for another day.”

“It’s a shame. We must have worked too hard rehearsing it last night,” Jagged said. “Hey, here’s a thought. Why don’t you all come to my concert tomorrow? You can rest your chops tonight and perform with me tomorrow. All of your friends can come.”

“Wow, really?” Marinette perked up.

“Of course! I want to rock out with you for sure,” Jagged said, ruffling her hair.

“Oh, but Lila’s going to Achu tomorrow,” Marinette said, deflating again. “She won’t be able to make it.”

“Don’t worry, love. Lila gets to go to my concerts all the time. She won’t be too upset missing one chance to come backstage with everyone. Isn’t that right, Lila?” Jagged gave her a look, and Lila’s spine stiffened.

“Uh, yeah. I get to sing with you all the time. It’s no biggie,” she said, and Jagged patted Marinette’s shoulder.

“See? She’s cool with it, so whaddya say? Wanna rock out with your Uncle Jagged?” He asked.

“If it’s really alright then…okay!” Marinette perked up, and all of their classmates crowded around her excitedly.

Lila crossed her arms over her chest as everyone broke off to enjoy the rest of the party. Marinette may have won this battle, but Lila didn’t intend to lose the war. She wouldn’t be so easily fooled next time.

“Ya know.” She jumped a little as Jagged draped an arm over her shoulder. “Marinette told me everything, and if it were me, I would have totally asked me to call you out in front of all your little friends today, but she didn’t.”

Lila averted her gaze.

“Marinette is one amazing little chick, and she’s like family to me. If anyone ever hurts her, they’ll have me to answer to, and they’ll learn that I’m not so nice,” Jagged said. “Just a little something for you to keep in mind. Because she’s miraculous, simply the best, up to the test when things go wrong- hey, ya know, now I could make a song out of that.”

He patted her shoulder before pacing over to join Marinette and Adrien, and Lila closed her shaking hands into fists. If this was the game they wanted to play then fine, but they were about to learn what a formidable foe she could be.

[thestarkerisobvious]

The Thing That Lives Under The Bed -- The Conclusion

This it the Coda for The Thing That Lives Under The Bed.

Did you wonder what Peter and his friends did once they got their hands on ALL those spellbooks?  Maybe you were curious what would happen if Peter performed the spell of the Kings of the East and the King of the West, splitting Tony in two?

I will be posting one chapter a day #OnHere, in honor of the place where the story began.

                             -------------------------------------------------------

                                               Adulthood

                                   The Trap and The Bait

In addition to realizing that he is in love with the thing that lives under his bed, Peter Parker and his friends have also discovered an underground library full of spellbooks, spirits calling out to be freed and the promise of any number of superpowers.

You may be wondering what they did next.

You are getting closer to the answer.

The twenty-six year old High-High Priest could have simply run down the path, but sometimes Peter Parker was just overcome with the need to leap around like a character from a comic book.  Under any other circumstances Angel would have complimented him.  Certainly Angel had read his fair share of comics himself (from Monica’s and Peter’s childhood stashes.  Angel prided himself on the fact that he could hold up in own in any heated Bob Keen vs Alan Moore debate) but, at the moment, the only image in his mind was that of a mouse in a trap. 

Peter was wearing the same suit that he had arrived home in, the same one he usually wore on Capitol Hill when he was schmoozing senators about the Clean Water act or another EPA bill.  The tie was gone, and the shirt was opened at the collar.  The suit itself should have been rumpled from his journey through the trees, but it must have been one of the enchanted ones.  Not that Peter Parker would have minded in any case.  It wasn’t his only expensive suit.

He was devastatingly handsome in the moonlight, but Angel knew that the man was devastatingly handsome everywhere.  Everyone thought so.

The weak and infirm flocked to the Lavern Post Healing Center from far and wide.  Either they were healed by Dr. Cyprian, or they were convinced by Laura-Bee that it was their destiny to find treatment elsewhere.  But all them, every one, commented on Peter Parker and his movie-star good looks.  Even Matty, the High Priest, reluctantly admitted that, even though he stayed behind to cast the convincing-spells, it was Peter’s good looks that really opened doors for him when Peter set out for [the directions to the White House.]  Laura-Bee, of course, was always happy to tell, in loving detail, about the first time she had laid eyes on handsome Peter Parker.  About the day the first met, about how they were childhood sweethearts.

Laura’s super-power was mesmerism, and she didn’t use it very often.  

But when she told stories of her childhood, you couldn’t help but feel like you were falling right into her memory.  As if you, yourself were walking home from Robert E Lee school, walking down the dirt road, desperate to hold Peter’s hand lovingly and listen to him describe every detail of Silent Spring.  Every long-time member of the Post Homestead had heard that story.  Maybe that's why every member of the Post Homestead felt like they had been in love with Peter Parker their entire life.  That Peter Parker was the only man they had truly ever loved, and that they, too, would be married to Peter if Peter weren’t married to Dr. Tony Cyprian.

And they were.  In love with Peter Parker, even if only for a little while.  Every guest seemed to fall for him too, if not romantically… well... they all seemed to be a little hot for him.  Even the guests that chose to stay in the Abe Sexton Library suites (recommended for all the straight-laced practitioners, the ones who weren’t interested in the Homestead’s attitude toward sexual freedom) lay in their beds and night and fantasized about the devastatingly handsome and dead-sexy Peter Parker.  Angel knew. 

Angel knew it all.

And Angel was certainly in love with the man himself.

Which was ridiculous, of course.  Imagine… being hopelessly in love with the Peter Parker, the man loved by politicians, Disciples and demons.  Fabulously wealthy parishioners flocked to him to be rid of their pain and their guilt, side by side with big-name lawmakers from Capitol Hill, all succumbing to his charm and openly trying to introduce him to their daughters.  Imagine a man like that even looking twice at him.  At him, a scrawny, dirty, sunken-eyed miscreant with a wild unruly hair and a perpetually bad attitude.

Of course, Peter Parker was looking at him now.

His handsome face looked perplexed, taking in Angel, the lapping water, and then the rock.  He looked back at Angel, barefoot and trembling at the water’s edge.  He didn’t look angry at all, but he did look like a man in a hurry.  He was panting a little.  Gracefully he stepped down to the sand where Angel stood.

“Angel?  Sweetheart… what are you doing?”

“I don’t want to go back,” Angel cried out.  Hating the petulant, childish sound of his voice, hating the way his throat felt too tight to speak at all.  “I won’t go.  You can’t make me.”

“What are you talking about?  Of course I could make you…”

For just a moment, Angel saw it.

Peter Parker was a handsome man with kind eyes (and he could be kind, oh he could be so very kind) but he was also a master magician, the leader of a coven of magicians, each commanding their own army of spirits.  (Any minute now Angel was expecting Plucky to turn the plants into bindweed to hold him down or Moonlight to appear and force him back to the ceremony with silent, pleading eyes.)  Peter Parker wasn’t just the darling of Capitol Hill and a brilliant environmentalist crusader, rubbing elbows with chieftains and royalty and Heads of State.  He was also a formidable wizard who had summoned his first demon at the age of 13, a man of incredible natural power, a man feared by mortals and devils alike.

For just a moment Angel saw that man, that other powerful man, flash across Peter’s face.

Then it was gone.

“But I don’t want to make you.  I’m not going to give you orders.  You’re not my slave.  But… but I don’t understand...”  His face and his voice was gentle as he stepped closer.   “Angel, please help me understand what’s happening.  You’ve never run away from a ritual before.  We called for you, but you were nowhere.  Even Anton couldn’t say where you were.  What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to… please.  Please, I don’t want to go.  I know what the High Priest wants to do to me.  I know what Anton is going to do to me – I know what the bones are for.  The black-cat bones.  The ones you keep in the back of the refrigerator  Please, Mr. Parker, please don’t make me.”

“Mr. Park…?”  Peter looked completely baffled.  He took a few hesitant steps forward, until he was almost within arms reach.

He didn’t look in the least bit out of place, wearing that expensive, glad-hander suit and standing on the banks of the lake by moonlight.  But Peter Parker never looked out of place anywhere.  He had a very convincing personality.

Angel was almost convinced himself.

“Baby, you’re confused.  Why would you be afraid of… I don’t even…why are you calling me Mr. Parker?  Oh god…”

He looked behind him at the black sky.  The moon, one day passed full, shown down on them like an all-seeing eye.  He groaned. “I waited too late, dammit I knew I shouldn’t have.  And you’re shaking like a leaf, just look at you…”

Peter reached for him and Angel started to back away, but then his bare feet splashed in the water.  He yelped in terror and leapt away from it.  That meant there was nowhere else to go, but directly into Peter’s arms.

Peter pulled him close, easily fitting Angel’s head into the crook of his neck, wrapping muscular arms around Angel’s skinny body and pulling him close.  There was no helping it.  Angel wrapped his boney arms around Peter’s body and clung to him, shivering.

“Oh god, I told them not to feed you but… I made a mistake, didn’t I?  I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have stayed in Kenya for so long, I pushed it too far, I’m so sorry.  The things Princess Shuri told me were so huge… it was all so important and I thought I had more time.  Matty told me I had more time.  Amado,I didn’t mean to hurt you.  This is all my fault.  Please forgive me.  I should have taken better care of you.”

Angel pressed his slight body against the firm body of the taller man and held himself there.  Against that strength, he thought he could manage to stop shaking.  He even managed to pull one hand away long enough to wipe the tears away from his cheek (then snuck that hand up to touch Peter’s face shyly for a moment.)  “Did… did you?  Get to meet with Princess Shuri at the consulate?  Are we going to be protecting the black rhinos now?”

A look passed over Peter’s face, a look Angel had never seen before.  For a moment Peter looked… doubtful. 

“She wasn’t there to talk about the rhinos,” he said quietly, look away, gazing out at the moonlit lake.  “It was a trap.  Well… not a trap, but… but Shuri was definitely the bait.”

“She betrayed you?”  Angel asked in horror.  He would be angry, would be shaking in impotent rage... if he weren’t so surprised.  How could anyone deceive the High-High Priest?   How could anyone meet Peter Parker and not adore him with everything they had inside?

The strong man laughed ruefully.  “I don’t suppose it’s really ‘betrayal’ to lie to a man you’ve met twice because your brother asks you to do it. 

“Angel... Shuri and T'Challa are… well the word is “enhanced” now.  I suppose ‘superhero’ sounds too childish.  But T'Challa is just like me… we both inherited some ancient magic that was a hell of a lot bigger than we ever expected and a hell of a lot more than we ever bargained for.  Trust me, we talked for hours.  Unlike me, he grew up knowing what he was getting into… but he’s still been given a lot more than he wanted.  And just like me…”

Peter’s arms tightened around Angel has looked sadly at his domain.  He looked into the forest, across the lake, then up at Dead Oak Hill, bathed in the erie torchlight.  “… we just want to be left alone to play Comic-Books with our friends in our own tiny corner of the world that we’re king of..  Unlike me, he thinks he’s ready to join the grown-ups in the real world.  I’m not so sure.  Angel they want me to…”

He caught himself suddenly, as if he had forgotten who he was talking to.  He shook his head.  “I can’t really talk about it yet.  But it’s big, Angel.  It’s really big.  I can’t tell the others until I’ve talked to Tony.  Which means I have to take care of you first.  Look at you…”

Peter tightened his arms again, gazing into Angel’s eyes with a tender look.  He brushed his lips against Angel’s forehead in a tiny kiss.

“Angel,” he whispered, “…are you afraid?  What on earth could you be afraid of?  Nothing scares you.  You’re fearless.  Baby, please tell me what’s going on.”

Angel looked up into Peter’s face, so perfect and so beautiful in the moonlight.  He struggled to remember… he had been afraid, only now he couldn’t quite remember why.  There was something wrong with him, something terribly wrong, but now he couldn’t quite remember…

…until he did.

“Don’t let them send me away… please don’t.  I don’t want to go, please don’t make me go through the ceremony.  Please, Peter.  I can’t.  I can’t leave you.

“I love you,” he blurted, choking on the confession.  He found himself blushing, his whole body flushing at the secret words said aloud.  “I love you so much.  I know I’m not… I know I’m not anyone… I know I’m just a ragged, spoiled-rotten kid that weighs next to nothing and bugs everybody and I know I’m a constant nuisance and I know that I’m not someone important like a princess or a senator… but I love you.  I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you.”

Peter’s forehead wrinkled in concern, his mouth hanging open in surprise.

“Angel, Angel sweetheart, do you see?   You’re so confused baby… oh can you… oh god how is this happening?? 

“Angel, how could you forget that I love you?”

Peter’s mouth on his was sweet and gentle and warm.  The kiss was tender and loving and everything Angel had imagined it would be.  Peter’s arms were strong and solid and he held Angel as if he never wanted to let him go.  It was a dream come true…

…and that was the problem.  Frantically Angel pulled away, trying to look around him.  Maybe this was a dream… maybe Laura-Bee was there with him, holding his hand and telling him the story, over and over and over again, of how she had fled across Lovesick Lake on the darkest night of her life, and there found the man that could take all her fear away just by holding her hand. 

But Laura wasn’t there.  He and Peter were alone in the moonlight, kissing on the banks of Virgin Lake.  Peter was warm and strong and solid and suddenly all Angel could think was… hadn’t they done this all before?  Hadn’t they held each other like this, kissed each other like this, on the same night as the ceremony?  Was that why it felt so much like a memory?

“Do you remember Amado?” Peter was whispering.  “Try… try to remember.”

“I can’t… I don’t… I keep reaching for it, but it’s not there…” Angel said through his tears.  Peter pulled him close again, tucking Angel’s head in the crook of his neck and rocking him back and forth.

“This is my fault,” he said, stroking Angel’s hair and kissing his head over and over again.  “It’s because I was sick the day of the spell, isn’t it?  I was still getting over the food poisoning, I was still weak… god I should have let Matty do the spell but I was too jealous and now look what’s happened…”

Angel was so surprised he pulled back enough to look into Peter’s face.  He wasn’t sure what startled him more, the fact that Peter could get sick, or that Peter had been jealous… of Matty?  Of Matty… and him?

“I can’t believe how badly we messed this up.  It’s always gone so smoothly, but this time…

“Angel… you told us that you had to focus on eating this year.  So you couldn’t get distracted by everything else, so you could concentrate on taking care of yourself and making yourself strong.  But all we did was make you hungry and miserable all the time, and now you’re dressing in rags and lying to everybody… Angel try to remember.”  He reached up with one hand to cup Angel’s cheek.  Angel leaned into the warm touch, closing his eyes against the pain in Peter’s face.

“You told us that if we could make you forget about the world outside the border, that you’d be content, and not feel rejected or left out while the others worked.  It was your job to stay here, to focus on yourself and to get strong.  But look at you.  You’ve forgotten what you’re supposed to be doing, you don’t remember who you are.  You’ve forgotten that you are a fierce and powerful force… and, god, you forgot that I love you…”

“I do remember, I do!  I remember you love me,” Angel said quickly, grabbing Peter’s face and kissing him hard, not because he remembered, but because he couldn’t bear the sound of Peter’s broken voice.  He only wanted Peter to be happy, couldn’t stand the idea that he had made the man feel sad.

Peter wrapped one arm around Angel’s waist and pressed their bodies together.  Angel moaned at the sensation and willingly opened his mouth to Peter’s kiss. 

Maybe it didn’t matter what he did or didn’t remember.  He certainly wasn’t the first person to come to the Lavern Center to pay Dr. Cyprian to take terrible memories away, only to be extremely confused afterwards because they couldn’t remember what they had paid for.  Maybe he was even one of the wealthy clientele… (but he suspected he was more likely one of Peter’s charity cases.)  But he knew one thing, he wasn’t going to argue endlessly about it.  Year after year he had watched Laura-Bee argue patiently, then not-so-patiently, as she made her annual pilgrimage to the secret library behind Peter’s office where the reports were locked away.  That was the place for everyone else who had benefited from the Memory Therapy, but not for her.  She had never even been to that room.  Had never seen it before.  

Once a year she went to that room, arguing all the way.  Once a year she sat down to listen to Monica read all the things that had been written down for her.  Once a year she had to remember that she had never been BORN Laura Foster, but legally changed from Hortense Lovelace to Laura Foster-Beeker, the day she turned 18.  All because of something horrible that her father had done, a memory she had chosen to give up completely, a memory she never wanted returned.

And he could do the same, couldn’t he?  Ask to go to the locked file cabinets to see what he had written down, to see what he had forgotten. 

But not just now.

Just now he wrapped his arms around Peter’s neck (and all but wrapped one leg around his waist) and pressed his entire body against Peter’s hard, solid form.  He didn’t feel ragged or shaky or hungry when he was with Peter.  He felt safe and warm and strong.

Just as strong as he felt during the Great Ceremony, he was sure of it.  The one day a year that four disciples were back at the homestead at the same time, Matthew Mark Luke and John, Matty and Sarah D and Doctor Wickham and Monica, each a powerful magician in their own right, each with multiple spirits at their command.  Along with Peter and Laura-Bee they would sing their way through the spells, adding their voices to the beautiful, practiced harmonies that the second circle magicians had prepared for the occasion.  For hours they would sing until the sky was full of fairy lights, until their spirit-servants were vibrating in a counter melody until the whole forest rang with power and promise.   He remembered… how the singing would last long into the night, even after the moment of the solstice was over, even after seals were recast, even after each task was done.  How they would continue singing for the sheer joy of it, for nothing other than the pleasure they felt when they stood and created together.   How they would promise each other, NO REALLY this time they meant it, that they would come together more than once a year. Reveling in the sheer power that they had when they stood side by side, when they joined their voices together.

The Great Ceremony, that was due in less than a week.  That’s why they were saying good-bye to each other.  That’s why…

“We came here and you kissed me good-bye,” Angel murmured against Peter’s mouth.  Then he pulled away a little, looking around the moonlit hills.  That’s who he had been looking for, that was his memory.  The tall, strong man was Peter.  Peter was holding Angel in his arms.  They had come to the lake for a private moment alone before the ceremony.  He had been seeing the memory of them.

“Did we?” Peter said, his forehead creasing in concentration even as he smiled.  “Oh yes, we did.  That was two years ago.  We should do it every year. I love kissing you here.

“Angel,” he said, bringing his hands up again to cup Angel’s face.   “John and I will study the spell and we will absolutely do it right next time.  You can’t ever forget that I love you.  Of all of them, you’re the only one who ever says it back to me, and I treasure it.  You can’t understand how much I treasure it.  It means so much to me, precious.  I don’t think you know how much I love you.”

“But you don’t,” Angel said, even as Peter brought their mouths together again.

“You don’t love me.”  His arms were too weak to push a strong man like Peter with any force, but he did his best.  He pushed Peter away from him as hard as he could, fighting back the tears.

“You don’t love me, you love him.”

“What the… the hell?” Peter stammered, angry and baffled.  “What is this about?  You’ve never once had a problem with… wait… love who?”

“You love him.  You love Dr. Cyprian.”

If he weren’t so distraught Angel would have laughed at the face Peter made now.  It was comical.

“I love… Tony?  This is about Tony?  You can’t really…”

He stopped himself short and shook his head, hard.  It was a gesture Angel knew too well… it meant that Peter was looking at a long, pointless argument and deciding to skip past it and get to the end.

 “Yes,” he said decidedly.  “I love Tony.  He’s the first man I ever loved.  He’s my Significant Other, my David.  He’s my husband, Angel.  He’s my whole world, and not just because he’s the only reason why any of this works,” he said, throwing his hands out and gesturing around him at the lake, the forest, the moonlight.  “He’s my whole world because he is my best friend, and I HAVE to talk to him… I have to talk to him tonight.  I have to make the biggest decision of my life, and… look!” he said with a painful laugh.  “I’m here!  I’m here, at the center of it all, in the place where I always make the big earth-shattering life-changing decisions!  Except he's gone so he isn’t here to tell me what he thinks! 

“I have to go back and tell the others, Angel.  I have to tell them what Princess Shuri wants me to do and I can’t tell them until I talk to Tony and instead of talking to him I’m standing here arguing nonsense with you.  We’re going back now.  We’re going back and we’re finishing the ritual and when it’s over you’ll understand.” 

“Not yet we’re not,” Angel said boldly, stepping into Peter’s arms and kissing him hard.  Maybe he had been fearless once, just like Peter said.  He certainly felt fearless now as he shamelessly reached down and cupped Peter’s erection, working it with skillful fingers.  He remembered, now.  Remembered that this powerful man, the man that commanded all of them, humans and spirits alike…

…this man was his lover.  Only a week ago, just before they had left for the Kenyan Consulate, Angel  had crept into Peter’s bed and gotten everything he had asked for.  And it hadn’t been the first time, either.  More than once Peter had given in to him when he begged… and oh… what Peter gave him was so sweet.

[xtruss]

A frozen tuna enters a cleaning machine at the Grupo Pinsa processing plant in Mazatlán, Mexico. Tuna from Mexico is restricted from being sold in the U.S. with a dolphin safe label because some fisheries in the region continue to chase and net dolphins when catching the fish. PHOTOGRAPH BY SUSANA GONZALEZ/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

— By Rene Ebersole | March 10, 2021 | National Geographic

Jennie Dusheck makes a habit of preparing for the worst. When the California writer realized a few years ago that wildfires and smoke-filled air were becoming an annual inevitability, she bought Israeli gas masks in case it became difficult to breathe. In December 2019, when many West Coasters were looking forward to heavy snow forecasts for skiing, she fretted about the threat of mudslides and wrote an article about how to survive one. With the news of a mysterious disease in China the following February and concerns about food shortages if it spread to the U.S., Dusheck hurried to the grocery store to stock up on staples—pasta, peanut butter, nuts, sardines, tuna.

She felt a little guilty about the tuna, “because there aren’t a lot of fish left in the sea,” she says. “But it was an indulgence that would keep—and I wanted something besides walnuts.”

Of course, Dusheck wasn’t the only pandemic prepper stockpiling tuna. Early on, canned tuna sales doubled. In July 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported that the increased demand for tuna, compounded by pandemic-related port closures and worker quarantines, was challenging some tuna companies to keep up.

The majority of tuna arrives at processing facilities frozen. After thawing, the fish is steam-baked to allow for easy removal of the skin and bones. Workers seen at the Grupo Pinsa processing plant in Mazatlán, Mexico, are cleaning the meat, which will be cooked a second time before it’s machine-packed in cans. PHOTOGRAPH BY SUSANA GONZALEZ/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

While the pandemic has been a boon to business, tuna companies have for years struggled with declining sales and perceptions about their product being tainted with toxic mercury, harmful to the environment, and passé with millennials. The newfound popularity of tuna hasn’t freed the longtime staple from controversy, however. The three largest U.S. tuna brands—StarKist, Bumble Bee, and Chicken of the Sea, which collectively account for up to 80 percent of the national market—are facing class action lawsuits claiming that they’re defrauding shoppers with marketing campaigns touting dolphin safety and a commitment to sustainability.

The suits come on the heels of a price fixing scandal involving the big three working together to sell their products at inflated costs. StarKist, acquired by Dongwon Industries in South Korea, pleaded guilty and was fined $100 million. Bumble Bee, recently purchased by the Taiwan seafood conglomerate FCF Co, Ltd., also pleaded guilty and was fined $25 million. The company’s former chief, Christopher Lischewski, who maintained his innocence, is now serving 40 months in a federal prison in Tucson, Arizona. Chicken of the Sea, owned by Bangkok seafood seller Thai Union, was granted amnesty for blowing the whistle on the others.

The dolphin-safe court battle could drag on for years, but it raises important questions for consumers aiming to buy products that are environmentally friendly and socially responsible. (Here’s what the different labels on tuna cans mean.)

“People often see a label on a can and think things are taken care of,” says Ryan Bigelow, senior manager of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, which makes science-based, sustainable seafood recommendations to grocery shoppers. “The reality is there’s often still a lot more work to be done.”

Gone Fishing

Scientists say there’s one inescapable certainty in any type of commercial fishing: incidental bycatch, the lackluster term for marine life—from whales and dolphins to sharks, seabirds, and endangered sea turtles—unintentionally hooked or ensnared in nets. Fishing methods associated with dolphin bycatch include gillnets, purse seine nets, fish aggregating devices, and longlines.

Each name fittingly describes how the technique works. Gillnets are made of mesh that snags fish by their gills as they swim through it. Purse seine nets encircle schooling fish, which become trapped when the net is cinched, or “pursed,” by a metal cable from the bottom. Often used in combination with purse seines, fish aggregating devices (FADs) are floating rafts attached to a sonar-equipped satellite buoy; they take advantage of the natural tendency for fish to congregate beneath such things as logs drifting in the ocean. Longlines trail up to 50 miles of fishing rope baited with thousands of hooks.

Turkish fishing boats deploy a purse seine net to surround a school of bluefin tuna in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Bluefin tuna, highly prized for sashimi, are in steep decline from overfishing. Globally, there are 15 species of tuna; albacore, yellowfin, and skipjack are favored for canning. PHOTOGRAPH BY GAVIN NEWMAN, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

A purse seine net traps a school of skipjack near North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Globally, many tuna fisheries use purse seines, fish aggregating devices (FADs), and longlines—methods that indiscriminately kill dolphins and other marine life as bycatch. When buying canned tuna, choose pole-caught or troll-caught varieties. PHOTOGRAPH BY SHANE GROSS / NPL VIA MINDEN PICTURES

The volume of dolphins and other marine life caught as bycatch from these fishing methods is “staggering,” says Zak Smith, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council who contributed to a 2014 report titled Net Loss: The Killing of Marine Mammals in Foreign Fisheries. The report cites data estimating that 650,000 marine mammals including dolphins, whales, and seals are caught or seriously injured in fisheries every year. “Three hundred thousand of those animals are cetaceans [whales, dolphins, and porpoises],” Smith says, “and the vast majority of them are dolphins because there are a lot more dolphins than anything else.”

The Indian Ocean and the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean—770,000 square miles of blue water and archipelagos off the coast of Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Columbia— are infamous for dolphin bycatch. In the Indian Ocean, scientists estimate that four million dolphins have died in the region’s poorly regulated gillnet fisheries since the 1950s. The researchers report that roughly 80,000 dolphins are now killed as bycatch annually.

In the tropics of the eastern Pacific Ocean, fishermen have long used dolphin schools as living fish finders, signaling a tuna payload in the deep. This is the only region in the world where a commercial fishery overlaps with the unique, and poorly understood phenomenon of spotted, spinner, and other species of dolphins routinely swimming with schools of yellowfin tuna.

In the old days, seamen chummed the dolphin-rich waters with baitfish, drawing tuna to the surface, where they could hook them with poles. By the late 1950s, however, bait fishermen had widely switched to purse seining, and they commonly targeted and chased the dolphins to corral their tuna catch in the center of nets that could be up to a mile long and 80 feet deep. Scientists estimate that more than six million dolphins were killed by eastern tropical Pacific tuna purse seiners in the three decades before the mid 1990s.

The tipping point came in 1987, when a 31-year-old biologist named Samuel LaBudde (pronounced “LaBuddy”) went undercover as a cook on a Panamanian tuna vessel. On a four-month voyage, he filmed hundreds of dolphins dying as they were hefted from the ocean.

"Drowned or snagged in the net, the dolphins fight a losing battle for life," LaBudde said, narrating the graphic video, broadcast on television and presented before the U.S. Congress. "Some will fall back into the sea as flippers and beaks are broken or ripped out of their bodies, only to become ensnared moments later and be pulled out once again."

Public outrage led to an amendment of the U.S.’s Marine Mammal Protection Act to better protect dolphins and one of the most successful consumer boycotts in national history. “It infected people with a sense of injustice and anger,” LaBudde says. “Thousands of school children refused to eat canned tuna.” In response to the uproar, the big three U.S. tuna companies proclaimed in 1990 that they would not purchase any tuna captured in nets along with dolphins.

Furthermore, the newly signed Dolphin Safe Consumer Information Act of 1990 made it illegal for any tuna product exported from or sold in the U.S. to claim that it’s “dolphin safe” unless it’s in compliance with a bevy of complex U.S. laws and regulations designed to protect dolphins. Demand for dolphin-safe tuna in the U.S. drove many fisheries to adopt the standards, but tuna caught in association with dolphins continues to be sold in Latin America, Asia, and some European countries.

“The U.S. dolphin safe program has been very effective,” says Sara McDonald, a senior fisheries scientist at Monterey Bay Aquarium. “Dolphin mortality in the 1980s was 130,000. In 2018, there were 819 documented deaths. If your product has a dolphin safe label, you are legally obligated not to sell tuna where dolphins were injured, killed, or set upon. It doesn’t mean dolphins aren’t interacting with the tuna fisheries; it means that tuna can’t be sold in this country.”

Accusations of Fraud

The Natural Resources Defense Council’s Smith says he believes that most tuna sold in the U.S. with a dolphin-safe tuna seal is legitimate, but because tuna is a global commodity with very long supply chains, there are opportunities for fraud and deception. “The U.S. laws are good if everyone is being honest,” he says. “But that doesn’t mean nothing ever gets in. There is an incredible amount of illegal wildlife moving into the country. [Law enforcement] can’t catch it all.”

The dolphin-safe tuna class action suits charge that the tuna companies are not being honest about the integrity of their supply chains. More broadly, they allege that the companies have run pervasive advertising campaigns that lead consumers to trust that the companies “never” kill dolphins. For example, the group of people suing Starkist allege that parent company Dongwon’s distant water boats often entrap dolphins, because many are purse-seine fishing vessels that use fish aggregating devices to capture tuna. (Neither purse seine nets nor FADS are banned under U.S. dolphin-safe fishing standards.)

A crew member on the Steve Irwin, the flagship vessel of the conservation nonprofit Sea Shepherd, cradles a common dolphin killed by an illegal drift net in the South Indian Ocean during the group's Operation Driftnet campaign. The UN banned drift nets in 1992 because they kill non-target fish and other wildlife such as sea turtles. PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF ELIZA MUIRHEAD / SEA SHEPHERD GLOBAL

“Either the companies should stop accepting tuna from these fishing practices or be up front with consumers that they’re not dolphin safe, even though they may be in compliance with the law,” says Stuart Davidson, one of the lead plaintiff attorneys in the lawsuits. “We want restitution for everyone in the country who paid more than they should have because the tuna was caught with these methods.”

StarKist officials, according to court documents, say it’s unrealistic for consumers to expect that the label means zero harm or injury to dolphins and other wildlife because bycatch is an inescapable reality of any fishery, no matter whether tuna is caught with purse seines or more dolphin-friendly poles—a reality that’s accepted and acknowledged under the Dolphin Protection Consumer Information Act.

Bumble Bee and Chicken of the Sea did not respond to interview requests. A StarKist spokesperson would not comment on the litigation but provided a statement about the company’s commitment to protecting dolphins. “StarKist does not purchase any tuna caught in association with dolphins,” the spokesperson said, and “condemns the use of indiscriminate fishing methods that trap dolphins, whales, and other marine life along with the intended catch of fish.”

Peeling Back the Labels

As a federal court in California weighs the dolphin-safe lawsuits, sustainable seafood experts offer guidance on how to buy canned tuna that is not only dolphin safe but also environmentally friendly and socially responsible.

“The misconception is if it’s not hurting dolphins, then it must be okay,” says oceans expert and renowned environmental author Carl Safina, who spearheaded a sustainable seafood guide when he was working for the National Audubon Society in the 1990s. “But the reality is it’s likely to be hurting some other non-target species in a big way, or simply depleting the species. The overwhelming majority of tuna populations are overfished.”

Buying sustainable seafood pushes retailers to source environmentally responsible products, which can drive improvements throughout the industry, say Monterey Bay scientists involved with the aquarium’s Seafood Watch consumer guide.

In the case of canned tuna, McDonald says it’s best to read labels for descriptions such as “pole-caught” (fishing one tuna at a time) and “troll-caught” (fished by a slow-moving boat dragging lure lines). “Anything else is less sustainable,” she says. “These fisheries have better control of what they’re catching. There’s also a higher survival rate for the bycatch that they throw back.”

The nonprofit activist group Greenpeace has worked for many years to bring to light the environmental and human rights issues associated with tuna fisheries, including dolphin mortalities, endangered sea turtle and shark bycatch, debt bondage, human trafficking, and forced labor. Taking these factors into account, Greenpeace evaluated the sourcing policies and practices of 20 canned tuna brands and published them in a Tuna Shopping Guide.

StarKist, Chicken of the Sea, and Bumble Bee were among the lowest ranked brands featured in the guide. The four top-rated tuna companies were Wild Planet and American Tuna, which tied for first place, followed by Whole Foods and Ocean Naturals. Selling only pole-caught fish, American Tuna supports local and small-scale fishing and production in the U.S. Wild Planet procures pole- and troll-caught tuna from sustainable fisheries in the U.S., Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, and the archipelago of Cape Verde off Africa’s northwestern coast.

Shoppers pay a premium—up to six dollars a can—for eco-friendly tuna brands. Wild Planet founder Bill Carvalho says the higher cost is unavoidable because there’s more labor involved with sustainable fishing. “You can’t do this for 59 cents a can,” he says. “Cheap tuna comes at an astronomically high environmental price. They’re dumping endangered species overboard.”

Safina says he tends to avoid eating tuna—with two exceptions. The first is if he catches it himself. “These fish are the most superb animals. When you kill one and turn it into food, it’s precious,” he says. “If you handle it well and use it as sashimi or put it on the grill and cook it just right, it’s just phenomenal.” Second, if it’s pole-caught. “I have a philosophy that it’s good to support the good actors,” he says. “Even if the good actors are within a bad fishery.”

Many consumers are now left with the question of what to do with all the tuna that they stockpiled—Google searches for canned tuna recipes have soared by 300 percent. Writer Jennie Dusheck has no plans to cook tuna lasagna, fish cakes, or noodle casserole. She’s enjoying her “indulgence” with lettuce, red pepper, celery, and lime juice on some good sourdough bread.

[bookandcranny]

Rely On The Lighthouse Keeper

So once upon a time, the icebergs melted and the sea levels rose and people died and people lived and now there’s a lighthouse standing half-submerged a half mile or so off the shoreline. Charlotte dreams about the lighthouse every night. Not so unusual, since she thinks about it every day.

Every morning she runs the length of the docks where the fishermen call her Lottie. Her legs are long and lean and her sandals go thwap thwap thwap against the saturated wood two planks at a time. She cuts her hands climbing the tide-battered cliffside and eats clams with every meal for want of pearls. Boiled, steamed, fried. She’s trying to turn salt into diamonds between her chipped teeth and so far? Not much luck.

After her morning run, she works the floor of her uncle’s dive shop, pandering to wannabe treasure hunters. 

“All kinds of hidden beauties in the sunken cities, ripe for the picking,” he tells them.

“Whatever hasn’t already been picked dry years ago, or eaten by fish. Treasure hunting is a sucker’s game,” he tells her.

He’s not really her uncle, except in the ways that count. They sell thermo-control, pressure-control wetsuits that only sometimes tear at inopportune moments and gadgets to evade sensors in the places where such activity isn’t strictly legal. Mostly their customers come back with satchels full of scrap, green with age and algae- worthless except to be melted down for raw material. Her uncle drops a few coins into their open palms, subtracting a generous finder’s fee for the equipment, and sends them on their grumbling way. They’ll be back though, because it’s a bad gamble but it’s one they don’t know how to live without, and one big win is all they need to change their lives for good

Suckers though they may be, Charlotte can’t help but feel for them. Something about the way they cycle through fervent hope and resignation in tight circles like a dog chasing its tail, she’d be blind not to see the resemblance. Every kid in this town has the exact same haunted look in their eyes, tailed by the loss of something that died long before they were born. 

For dinner Charlotte boils rice in a thin salinous bone broth until it becomes pale, barely palatable mush that her uncle can press comfortably into the space of his missing teeth. She eats two boiled clams and her own porridge, marginally thicker and with some actual meat in it to make it more resemblant of a meal. They don’t speak very much as they eat, outside of the same old discussions about Charlotte’s education or the future of the shop which resolve without conclusion and will be forgotten by the next time it comes up. Neither one is much for conversation.

Afterwards the girl pours a bath as cold as she can stand and sits and scrubs and fills her lungs. Hold, hold. She can keep in her breath for over two full minutes on a good day, but it’s not good enough. She needs more practice.

Outside her bedroom window the lighthouse beacon blinks in and out of sight as it turns, winking at her where she sits wide awake in bed. She dips into sleep only long enough to get what she needs, and it comes to her in a pool of golden light and promises. Her and those suckers at the shop, they’re just the same, except where they cast about blindly in the ruins she’ll never lose sight.

In the other room she can hear her uncle groaning as he works the heel of his hand against his bad leg, trying to exorcise a memory. For people who live seaside ghosts are as common a problem as bedbugs or radiation poisoning. Everyone has a story, from so-and-so’s brother’s neighbor’s cousin who had a grandfather who died in the first tidal wave that took Long Island and so on and so forth. In most of the stories though, or at least the good ones, it’s women they see. Ghost women bobbing in the surf and dressed only in moonlight. Always naked. Sailors are so predictable.

So the story goes: “The widow of a navy marine. She went half mad when the call came in and fully mad by the time the war was over. When the waves went up she refused to retreat to higher ground, still waiting for her husband to come home. They say she waits to this day.”

So the story goes: “She loved to dance on the beach even though she knew it was forbidden. A healthy young woman in her prime, but died suddenly of a vicious pneumonia. At her autopsy they found a tiny ocean in her lungs, coral reefs growing all up the sides and freckled with starfish. Real coral, can you imagine?”

So the story goes: “Their daughters were possessed by a longing for the world that was. When at last it was more than they could take, they met under a red moon one night and threw themselves from the cliffs in despair.”

So it goes. In another month Charlotte can hold her breath for almost three minutes. Soon it’ll be four. The rising bubbles tickle her cheeks as she breathes out. Clams every day, still no pearls. Her hair is growing long now and on rainy days it slaps her back and shoulders as she runs. 

A season of fishermen return to the docks while another sets sail and they don’t recognize her there anymore. She’s not Lottie to them but “that girl”. They make jokes to mask their unease. They say she runs like she has the devil on her heels. She knows though, she knows the devil doesn’t chase. He waits.

He waits for her to get slow, to take her eyes off the horizon. She’s seen it happen. As she gets older it’ll get harder to dream except for of her next spot of luck, a good business quarter or a diver with a rare bounty, and her treasure will slip away from her. The devil is a man o’ war, the devil is the scar that streaks diagonal down an old man’s calf as he tells tales of days when sharks swam the seas in great numbers, the devil is a lazy trawling net caught in a propeller. If she waits, someday she won’t wonder who lights the abandoned lighthouse at night. Someday she might not notice it at all. Just another part of the scenery like craggy cliffs and sunken skylines and the gates. 

“The devil is a tall iron gate,” she mutters, disinfecting her scraped palms.

“That’s a new one,” her uncle says. “And I’m pretty sure those gates aren’t made of iron. Would rust, wouldn’t it?”

“Iron sounds more,” She casts about for the right word. “Epic.”

He laughs and his laugh is the only thing still completely dry in this shop. Then he says, “You could be a real writer if you put in the time. Didja give anymore thought to going back to school?” And the conversation is over.

The devil is the slow broadening of her hips. Three minutes and forty six seconds until she can’t take the burn anymore, but instead of resurfacing she sucks in an involuntary lungful and comes up retching. More clams come up, and a yellow starfish smaller than her pinky nail. 

There’s a medicine woman in a shop a few doors down who claims a paste made from dry-earth roots will expand the chest and bellows. It can’t be any worse than pinching crawlies from the bait-box. What she really needs though is a remedy no one’s given her yet. She needs a cure for time.

Another few months and she can run from one end of the docks to the other in sixty six identical strides. Before she so much as hits the docks her legs are shooting out to the bow and stem of her like a dancer. Meanwhile her uncle can barely walk anymore. She isn’t ready to go.

The fog is so constant, so oppressive now that the lighthouse shines not just at night but throughout the day. From sat upon the cliffs she times her blinks in rhythm with the beacon and looks out on the waves, for ghosts, or just for a sign. 

For five minutes this time she quiets the hurting part, the signal that burns bright and angry, and focuses on the chill of the water engulfing her. 

In a year not quite to the day, while preparing dinner, she cracks open a particularly stubborn shell to find a lumpy pearl bigger than her goddamn knuckle. She leaves the pearl at her uncle’s bedside while he’s sleeping, paralleling nicely the way her mother left her once upon his doorstep, though she can’t know this. In the morning the dockworkers see a girl- a young woman they used to call Lottie, sprinting along the boardwalk so fast that she seems not to touch the ground. It’s another gray day, misty and magical, and when they tell this story to their mothers’ good friends’ nephews she will be naked with skin made of gold and ambergris.

She dances the length of the boardwalk and down to the wire fence surrounding the bivalvarium and without breaking stride she begins to climb. Right up and over, planting herself in the sand with a muddy thunk, one foot sailing in front of the other over rocks and ridges and into the chaste waters where fishermen and treasure seekers alike are forbidden. The oysters buried in the earth are singing, chattering their shells like castanets. The coastguard siren sings its angry song too. With no time to spend languishing on the beach, she wades on and begins to swim.

The current doesn’t welcome her, but she wouldn’t expect anything less. The state tried to make her go to a nice inland school once and it felt a little like this. The resistance isn’t anything personal, it’s just how it is. 

“Go back where you belong, land-walker,” it says. “There’s nothing here for you but heartache.” But stroke by stroke she insists herself upon it. Somewhere someone is screaming from the shore. Whether in excitement or recrimination, Charlotte can’t hear any of them now.

Hand over hand, out of the surf and then in again. As she approaches her destination, squinting against the salt in her eyes, she breaches a final time and then nosedives to the bottom. Five minutes. The tide and the air trapped in her ballooned lungs try to buoy her back to the surface so she activates the weighted bracelets filched from the shop. They’re tricky little trinkets, only used by the more experienced or reckless divers. Once they’re cracked a chemical reaction within the donut-shaped shell makes them heavy as anchors, giving the wearer an extra bit of depth but also limiting their movement. Charlotte had her reservations about them, and still does, but right now they get her just where she needs to be.

At the base of the sunken lighthouse there’s a crack. An ordinary crack, worked open naturally by the years and the pressure. It’s down deep though and the point of entry is small. An adult burdened with lots of heavy diving equipment couldn’t fit. She squeezes in, scraped raw on all sides, struggling to release the clasps on the weights when they get her stuck in the gap. 

She’s all through but her ankle now. Two minutes of air left by her rough estimation and she still needs to make it back to the surface. Panic will eat up her air faster. She knows this, she knows. She grabs one of the bracelets and hammers it against the stone until she breaks free. A small burst of blood halos her ankle as she races for the faint light above her, winking at her in a rhythm she knows so well.

There is movement in the ocean around her. Big flat-bodied fish? Monstrous mutant eels perhaps? Or ghosts. So the story goes.

She swims up and breaks through and her ears are ringing. Only now does she let herself feel the cold and the ache in her lungs and the throbbing of her muscles, and she wails like a newborn, her cries echoing to the heavens. She’s survived, and the surviving is an agony unlike anything she’s ever known, ever could have anticipated. The collision of the dream and the reality is less breaking a fever and more hurtling through a pane of glass.

“Well that was dramatic,” say the ghosts. They do indeed look like women, although they have clothes fashioned from layers of seaweed and rubbery fish skins so thick Charlotte can’t tell where it ends and they begin. Their bodies are thin but only in the way flounders are. They twist and writhe like a child’s lost ribbon floating in the tide. One sniffs and touches her wounded ankle curiously as she floats, and she doesn’t feel much like a ghost at all. She feels as plain to her as fish porridge.

So the ghosts who are not ghosts swim her over to a ledge, where the water laps upon the stair. Their ribbon tails shimmy back and forth in hypnotic rhythm and when the pale light shines upon them they glisten like jelly. Charlotte doesn’t know it but sailors didn’t always just tell stories about ghosts. It’s just that tall tales lose some of their zest once they come true.

“Since you’re here I guess you’ll be staying,” says one gilly girl, not cruelly but not kindly either. “You might as well get comfy.”

Another, smaller than the first with a bob of inky hair matted to her cheeks, tugs shyly at the hem of her top. “Did you bring anything fun with you? Oh, do you have any movies? We found a VCR the other day in the old houses.”

“It won’t work.”

“You don’t know that. I want to watch movies again. I miss having new stories.”

“Do you know my brother? He’s a bivalve farmer back on the cape. Unless he isn’t anymore. It has been a while since I saw him.”

“Is the president still a prick? I promised myself I wouldn’t be coming back until there was someone with half a brain in office. Oh hey remind me, what year is it now?”

“I have a blockbuster card in my purse! You can use it if you bring back some movies.”

Two of the girls begin to drum up a chant of, “Moo-vies! Moo-vies!” Charlotte just sits and stares.

A different one swims up to her, shooing away the clinging creatures who poke and prod and inspect her person. Her features are long and angular, more mature to Charlotte’s reckoning, not knowing how meaningless the term is here. Like describing the maturity of a fossil or an insect petrified in amber.

“Ignore them, they’re just excited,” she says. There is something moving behind her dark eyes, flitting about like a school of minnows, yet her expression is peaceful. 

Charlotte, finding her voice, asks, “Are you the guardians of the treasure?”

She cocks her head. “Treasure?”

“Yes, the- the treasure!” she struggles to explain. “I dream about it every night. Treasure from the old world, a golden light, guarded by the lighthouse keeper…”

“You’re in shock, dear. You look pale. When’s the last time you ate?”

“Who’s in charge here?”

“No one is. We’re a self governing body of-”

”Who lights the lighthouse?” she demands, ignoring the fish-woman’s protests. She braces her hands on the slick stone wall and pulls herself up. “Someone must light the lighthouse, but none of you have legs. None of you can climb the stairs. So who lights the lighthouse?”

“Oh, silly girl,” the not-ghosts not-fish not-women fawn. “You do.”

So much love in their eyes. So much love living behind them, wriggling in the shiny shells of their bodies like happy mollusks.

Charlotte’s legs feel weak. The elder mermaid touches the back of her knee gently, comfortingly. When, she wondered, had anyone last touched the back of her knee, of all places. She nods up towards the stairs which spiral skywards in the shape of a conch’s crown.

“Would you like to see?"

So once upon a time, a girl chased a dream to the edge of her world and in consequence fell off of it. Not the worst outcome. Not for Charlotte, who was just one girl against a great big ocean of trouble after all. And still the sea levels rise, and still the lighthouse lantern turns around and around, reliably guiding home ships full of sailors who tell all sorts of old stories and know well enough not to try and see them through to their ends.

[etraytin]

Quarantine, Day 32-ish

Monday again, and the start of the new school term, sort of. Our school district has decided that this will be a review term, that we are going to focus on not letting the students' brains rot and ideally keep them retaining everything they already know but without introducing too many new concepts. This is one place where the dumbfuck standardized testing system works in our favor: spring term is testing term, so there's a lot of review time baked into even a normal term. No standardized testing this year, though, woo-hoo! Maybe they just won't bring that back at all and we'll be much better off.

Yesterday I took an only semi-essential trip to the garden store, but it was all outdoors and carefully socially distant, so I feel okay about it. Sunlight is nature's disinfectant! I took it upon myself to procure my own birthday present, and ended up buying three tomato plants, a marjoram, a chamomile, three hummingbird attracting flowers for my hanging baskets, and a large pot of bee balm. At least they were on sale? This does fill all the pots on my balcony, which means I will have no more need for garden store runs plus a leafy, growing retreat for all of us in the 12x3 space that is our corner of the great outdoors. It's going to rain tomorrow, which means it's a good time to sweep the balcony because all the dirt that inevitably falls down onto our neighbors' patio will be washed away quickly. Kiddo also found and ate the first strawberry of the season from our unexpectedly large strawberry plants!

I got the exciting news this afternoon that there will be a feral spay day this week for our TNR program! Since No More Chasin' Tails shut down operations we have had to stop trapping, because there is no point in trapping a feral if you cannot get them fixed. Now we have two days to catch ten feral cats, so it'll be all hands (carefully, distantly) on deck to do all the trapping we can to fill our slots. Let's hope the cats are hungry! It is nice to be able to do one helpful, normal thing during all of this, and trapping cats is an inherently asocial activity that mainly involves sitting around for hours with increasingly stinky bait. I also went ahead and dropped forty bucks on another ten miracle nipples to make sure I am ready for fosters. The ones I bought on Amazon last year were knockoffs, so I bought directly from the company this year. Much better! With no prime shipping, it pays to think ahead. I have also volunteered to be a blood donor screener for Red Cross, but haven't heard back on that one yet. Still on call for DAT til Thursday, but people seem to be refraining from burning their houses down while they are in them lately and I appreciate that.

Thirteen days since groceries and I am getting very twitchy. A number of meatpacking plants around the country are slowing or shutting down, and it makes me want to go try and stock up. But I have a turkey and a ham in the freezer already, ten cans of chicken and the same of tuna, and some other random freezer meats. We are okay. We've still barely dipped into the box of food I bought in the first week of March, back when it still felt kinda dumb to be preparing. We still have fourteen rolls of toilet paper, and last night I learned to hard boil eggs in the air fryer. If we didn't need snacks, pop and milk, we might be set indefinitely! (We are set indefinitely, I remind myself, all those things are optional.) I waaaaaant to get groooooooceries!

Also, has anyone else noticed that while March lasted several centuries, it only took approximately thirty-five minutes to get nearly halfway through April?