#before she actually goes through with breaking up with mike

[sir3n-s]

Steve knew that one day he wouldn't be able to refuse to play dnd. 

Especially since he was now dating a dragons master or whatever it's called. He can't keep up with all the names. 

And don't get him wrong Eddie is great and dnd sounds sort of interesting but he's been against playing for so long he doesn't want to give up the act. 

But he if was going to give up the act he was going to get something in return. 

The kids were all gathered at Steve's house for a movie night. 

They had 2 different kinds of movie night, one where they all actually watched movies and the other where the movie was just there for background noise while everyone either talked or worked on something.

Tonight Mike, Will, Lucas, and Dustin were making character sheets for Eddie's new campaign while trying to get Steve to join as well. 

"Just play one campaign" Dustin whined for the 20th time that night. And probably the 100th time in his life. 

"Are you ever going to let this go?" 

"No! You have to play one now that you're dating Eddie. Aren't couples supposed to try out each other's hobbies?" He got him there.

"He's got a point Stevie," Eddie says finally engaging in the conversation after being glued to the TV. Despite the volume being low he was still watching it with intense interest. 

"You're right, couples should try each other's hobbies" Steve agreed. 

"Uh oh," Robin says without looking up from the puzzle she was going with Nancy, knowing what he was going to say next since he ran his plan through her first.

"I will play a campaign but!" He says before the kids could get too excited, "you all have to play basketball with me" 

They all groaned. Except Lucas who was completely fine with this arrangement.

-

It was Saturday and they were all at basketball court in the park. Most of them were wearing their gym clothes. 

Except for Lucas and Steve who actually had basketball jerseys. 

Max and el were also playing since they wanted to join despite the fact they won't play dnd either. 

And who was he to say no to them? The more the merrier.

Robin and Nancy were sitting at the bench in the shade, Robin saying she refuses to play a sport because she's too clumsy and Nancy saying Robin shouldn't have to sit alone. But Steve knows they just want to talk shit about them. 

He wasnt going to stop them, he knew it was a lost cause to try to get them to join as well. 

The only rule they had before playing was that Steve and Lucas couldn't be on the same team, 'it wouldn't be fair' Dustin said and everyone else agreed. Even Robin and Nancy. 

So they ended up being the team captainsin on each team. 

Steve's team was Max, Mike, and El while Lucas had Will, Dustin, and Eddie. 

And it was going well! Better than Steve thought it would. Especially with how unathletic most of them were. 

Steves team was winng, and despite Dustin whinning about how it was because Steve was older and had more experience he hasn't even made all the points. 

He did score the first point but El scored the last 2. 

It's was 3 to 1. The only point they had was from Lucas. Eddie couldn't throw for shit, Dustin kept dropping the ball, and Will was actually doing pretty well but was kinda being ignored because Lucas and Dustin wouldn't stop arguing.

He can tell eddie was getting annoyed with having to constantly break up their fights.

Their team only needed one more point to win and Mike had the ball.

"Pass it to me!" He yells towards Mike and he does pass it to him. Just way too hard. 

Because it goes past his hands and right towardd his face. Smacking him hard in the nose and knocking him over. 

He hears everyone gasp as he groans on the ground.

He heard the tapping of people feet on concrete, and on grass, get close to him. 

"Holy fuck are you okay?" Despite his eyes being closed he can easily tell that's Eddie's voice.

"Damn Mike why did you throw it so hard" he hears max says. He also hears a light punch but doesn't comment on it this time.

"I didnt mean to!" 

"I'm okay" Steve says while getting up, grabbing his nose when he felt something on his lip. Blood, of course.

"That would've been a great throw if I was a little bit farther from you," he says towards Mike as Eddie helps him off the floor and leads him to the bench despite saying he was okay to keep playing.

Everyone gather arounds him as El hands him some of the napkins she keeps in her pocket.

"If this is how you all act everytime someone gets hurt it's going to get extremely annoying as we keep playing" Everyone makes weird faces, except for Robin who was grinning.

And Nancy because Robin definitely told her. 

He smiles. "You guys are going to want me to play more than one campaign, so you will all be playing more games of basketball."

While Lucas smiled, everyone else groaned.

[catboy-cabin]

this post reminded me of something that's been rattling around in my brain since the first time i watch vol 2 & i still have yet to see anyone else really talk about this so i guess i have to now before it makes me insane:

the way that el not being able to find max in the void is revealed.

she finds the empty coke bottle she & max used to decide who to spy on in s3 under her old bed in the cabin, and when she spins it, it transitions to her alone in the void (or something like that, it's been a while since i last watched this scene).

the fact that she spins the bottle always really stuck out to me, even the first time i watched this scene. like idk it feels more significant than just a cool transition. it feels like el is making a decision here.

obviously, when she looks for max in the void, she's trying to make sure that max is okay. but i can't help but think that there's something more to it, that maybe el was looking for max to bc she wanted reassurance that it's okay for her to break up with mike (just like mike tries to get from will throughout s4, as the post i linked earlier points out).

it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that max will give her that reassurance, but if el can't get to max, then spinning that old coke bottle might just be the next best thing.

[apuckishwit]

When Your Boyfriend's a Reformed Mean Girl

100 percent inspired by this tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTR75sjkf/

Time seems to do wierd things for Eddie Munson.

It's something Steve has gotten used to, in the year they've been dating. Eddie is attentive and affectionate, always makes sure Steve needs are being met, always goes the extra mile to let Steve know how much he loves him, how much he cherishes their time together. In many ways, he's the best partner Steve's ever had.

Just...sometimes things like approaching deadlines and important dates seem to literally not register in his brain until it's almost too late. And not even then, sometimes.

Eddie acknowledges that it's a problem. He puts every effort into finding workarounds. There is a calendar hanging at both his (brand new, government-funded) trailer and Steve's house, hanging right by the door with color-coded schedules and a pack of Post-It notes and a cup of pens sitting on a little table below it in case something changes or comes up. Steve has a dedicated half hour every night where he's allowed to remind Eddie of things they have coming up, or ask if they've been added to the calendar and Eddie is one hundred percent not allowed to gripe about being nagged in that thirty minutes. Not that he would, because most of the time there's at least one, "Oh, shit, forgot about that." When something slips through the cracks, he apologizes promptly and sincerely if it's something that affects someone other than him and he is always trying to do better.

Steve understands. Hell, after as many concussions as he's had, details get away from him too sometimes. There's several color-coded blocks on the calendar for Steve, as well. Sometimes, Eddie just forgets things despite his best efforts.

But their anniversary? The date that Steve has been carefully planning for almost a month to celebrate their first (of hopefully, many) year together as a couple? Really?

Eddie is going to be horrified.

He is going to feel so bad, and so guilty, and he is absolutely going to go all out to make it up to Steve. Steve knows this. He knows Eddie loves him, and that Eddie was looking forward to tonight as much as he was, and that this is just an instance of Eddie's brain betraying him, and not him actively trying to hurt Steve, or be dismissive of him. Eddie is going to feel awful when he realizes that he stood Steve up on their one-year anniversary to fight imaginary dragons with the boys. Hell, the boys are probably going to feel awful when they realize they gave Eddie something else to focus on in the lead-up to his one-year anniversary.

Well. Dustin, Lucas, and Will are going to feel awful. Mike will probably think it's hilarious.

The point is, Steve knows Eddie didn't do this on purpose, and it's not that Eddie doesn't value his time with Steve enough to remember the date, and so he's merely irritated. Maybe a little exasperated. Not truly angry.

All he has to do is radio over to Wheeler's place and remind Eddie what the date is. His boyfriend will literally drop everything, will probably not even bother to pack up his precious miniatures and dice before he's tearing out of the driveway and breaking every traffic law imaginable to get to Steve's house. Steve doesn't actually want Eddie to get a ticket or anything, though. Besides.

He's feeling a little petty.

There's steaks waiting to be tossed on the grill, twice-baked potatoes in the oven, and a fucking homemade chiffon cake with fresh strawberries and whipped cream chilling in the fridge. Eddie's gift is sitting on the counter, in an elegant little gift bag tied with black ribbon.

"Hey Rob, you wanna come over for dinner?" he says into his walkie, deciding to let Fate decide if his boyfriend is listening and catches a clue.

"Do I get a piece of that cake you made?" Robin replies immediately, amusement already dancing in her voice because she's his (platonic) soulmate and she can read his mind.

"You can take the leftovers home," he says.

And then his (romantic) soulmate, who can usually read his mind, comes over the channel as well. "Have fun, babe!" Eddie says brightly. "This is probably going to run later than I thought. I'll probably just pick you up for breakfast tomorrow, okay?"

Steve rolls his eyes fondly. "Okay."

"Love you!" Eddie says, and signs off.

Robin brings a bottle of wine she stole from her parents' pantry and they demolish the dinner and half the cake. Steve does get another package of steaks out to thaw in the fridge for tomorrow, though, and blows out the fancy candles he'd lit before they burn too low to be used again. Fuck if he's making another chiffon cake, though, persnickety little thing. He calls Enzo's and orders a chocolate marble cheesecake to be picked up tomorrow.

"So you gonna milk this for a nice present or what?" Robin asks as Steve is packing the remains of the cake for her to take home, as promised.

"Nah. He's fucking perfect like 90% of the time...I'm not gonna get mad at him for the other ten." Robin smiles at him, a little gooey-eyed. Steve returns it with a smirk. "But I'm not letting him off the hook entirely."

He has just finished putting the dishes away when he hears the rumble of Eddie's van in the driveway. He glances down at his watch, laughing to himself a little when he notes that while late, it is far, far too early for a gaming session to be done. He scoops his little gift bag off the counter and saunters to the front door just in time for a frantic knocking to sound. He schools his features and opens the door.

"Steve! Stevie, baby, I am so, so sorry. I swear to God, I had tonight written down in like five different places, but Dustin wanted to try a new character class and we haven't done this campaign yet, and I got so excited...I'm so sorry I forgot, but I'm here and I SWEAR I will make it up to you!" Eddie pauses for breath, wild-eyed and panting.

Steve holds the silence for a moment, and then shakes his head, leaning forward to drop a kiss on Eddie's cheek. "You're such a nerd," he says, affection dripping from his words. He sighs. "I hope you know, now I'm expecting flowers tomorrow. And I get to pick the movies for, like, two weeks with no complaints."

Eddie almost wilts in relief. "Absolutely none," he promises, reaching out to grip Steve's hand. "I will make tomorrow night AMAZING. I promise."

Steve smiles at him, his chest aching with the love he feels for this man. But he's still feeling just a little bit petty. He holds the bag out to Eddie, tilting his head coyly. "You can still open this tonight, though."

"Babe! I thought we said no gifts." He takes the bag in his hands, plucking at the ribbon.

Steve's smile turns just a little sharper. He worked fucking hard on that cake. "It's kind of for both of us, really. It's what I was gonna wear up to bed tonight."

Eddie peeks in the box, his brow furrowing. "Stevie...there's nothing but strawberry lip gloss and a bottle of lube in here." He looks up, and freezes as his brain catches up with what his mouth just said.

Steve leans forward and kisses him, hard, long, and absolutely filthy. "Suffer," he whispers against his boyfriend's lips.

Then he shuts the door in his face.

[americasass91]

Use Me

Hello there! I know I’ve been M.I.A. for awhile. And literally haven’t written anything in like 8 months. I’ve been going through a shit ton. (Divorce, job change, all kinds of fun stuff) And I really lost my spark to write. And then the Fnaf movie came out. And seeing Josh Hutcherson on screen again lit a fire inside of me! That boy was my original crush (long before Evans). Peeta Mellark will forever have a piece of my heart. That being said, here’s a little something starring Mike Schmidt! I know, I know. It’s not a Chris Evans character? What’s wrong with me? Josh is fucking pretty. That’s what’s wrong with me. Like, I have a problem. Don’t get me wrong, I still think Chris is pretty and hope the best for him. But…he’s not been my muse lately. I said a long time ago that I wanted Josh to fuck me like a screen door in a hurricane. And it apparently still holds true today! So, I hope you enjoy it even though this is not a part of your regularly scheduled programming! Also, this takes place after the events of FNAF. Also, Also. Not sure if the people on my Taglist for Chris’ characters want to be tagged in Josh’s. If so, just let me know!

*DISCLAIMER*, If you’re under 18, this is nothing for you to be reading. Go away.

Words: 3.3k

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Smut, p in v smut, oral(f rec), unprotected sex, language, Mike being good, um I think that’s it

💙💙💙💙💙 

“Listen Y/N, I’m gonna need you to stay and work the next shift.”

You turn around and look at your manager as if she had suddenly grown 3 heads. “Excuse me? I don’t think I heard you right. It sounded like you said you needed me to stay and work the next 8 hour shift.”

She rolls her eyes as she goes back to charting the current patient she’s working on. “You know that’s exactly what I said. Look, I have no other options. Hannah called off.”

“Again? This is like the third day in a row! How is that fair exactly?” You put your patient’s paperwork down and cross your arms over your chest as you stare at her expectantly.

She doesn’t even bother looking at you as she answers. “I don’t know what to tell you Y/N. She says she’s sick. I can’t have her come in if she’s sick.”

Now it’s your turn to roll your eyes. “If by sick you mean hungover! She literally posted on Instagram last night about her night out on the town!”

She glances over at you. “There’s no way to prove if that was from last night or if it's older. Now just get back to work and I’ll let you have an hour and a half break instead of an hour.”

Now you’re pissed. “Yeah, see, that's not going to work for me. I’ve already been here for 16 hours because Kim was late. I’m not working Hannah’s whole ass shift. I have plans. I finally get to see my boyfriend after weeks because our schedules weren’t lining up. I’m not staying.”

“You really don’t have a choice. I wasn’t really asking you, I was telling you. There’s no one else to cover.”

Tears started welling up in your eyes out of frustration, exhaustion, and the possibility of not being able to see Mike again. “There’s a bunch of other people that can cover! What about you? You’ve only been here 8 hours. It would make more sense for you to stay.” 

She turns in her chair to look at you now. “Y/N, I have actual plans. My husband has a work party. And the rest of us have husbands and children to attend to. Not just ‘hanging out with my boyfriend.’

Now you’re seeing red. “So what you’re saying is because I’m the only nurse on this floor not married, I get the shitty end of the deal and have to cover when other people call off?”

“No. If you had legit plans then I’d be more sympathetic. But you haven’t even been with this boy that long. You don’t need to spend every free moment with him.”

“I’m sorry but who do you think you are? My mother? Because I’m a grown ass woman. And if I want to hang with my boyfriend on my time off then I’m going to! I don’t really need your approval for it. I’m not staying.”

You grab your Stanley and start heading towards the locker room to grab your stuff. 

“Y/N! If you don’t stay, then you can forget about this job.”

You turn around just before reaching the end of the hallway. “Well, then I guess you’re going to have to stick around and cover Hannah’s shift. Stick it up your ass, Jan. I quit.”

You don’t even stay to hear what she has to say. You quickly run to your locker and grab all of your stuff out before you start to cry. You can’t believe you just quit. And it’s not just because of your boyfriend. You haven’t been treated right since the first week you started. This was just the last straw. You just hope Mike won’t be disappointed in you.

💙💙💙💙💙

After a quick shower and outfit change at home, you reluctantly find yourself pulling into Mike’s driveway and getting out of the car. You haven’t gotten to see him in about 3 weeks and you know you look like shit from not only your long ass shift but also because you cried on the way over.

You head to the front door and open it up. He always leaves the door unlocked when he knows you’re coming over, and get hit with the aroma of pasta. Mike’s cooking you dinner. That makes you want to start crying all over again. He’s the sweetest.

“Babe? Is that you?” You hear him call from the back of the house. He quickly comes towards the front and sees you. His smile falters when he sees the state you’re in. “Babe, are you okay? What happened?” He quickly wraps you up in a hug. 

You try your best to keep it together but a few tears fall. “I quit today.”

He pulls out of the hug but keeps his arms around you. “You did? Babe, that’s fantastic!” He pulls you back in for another hug and picks you up to twirl you around.

Your mood instantly lifts and you can’t help but laugh. “It is?”

He sets you down and pulls you in for a quick kiss. “Of course it is! That place was treating you like shit! And Jan was a bitch! What finally made you do it?”

He lets go of all but your hand and leads you into the kitchen so he can continue making spaghetti. He sets you down at the table and pours you a nice big glass of wine he bought just for tonight. “I want to hear all about it.”

He goes back to the stove and continues making dinner while you rehash the last 16 hours.

He turns around with the sauce spoon in his hand and his other on his hip. “Hannah called off again? Jesus, how does she still have a job? Didn’t she do this to you last year during Christmas?”

Oh, shit. You had forgotten about that. She did do this last year! You had plans to fly home and see your family for the holidays when Hannah unexpectedly came down with ‘the flu’. Jan had called and needed you to work since nobody else could cover. You felt like since you were still new at the time that you couldn’t say no. Now you’re getting pissy all over again. 

“Oh my god! You’re right! Maybe the bitch has some vendetta out against me. I’ve never done anything to her though! I’ve been nothing but nice!”

Just then your phone dings, alerting you of a text. You quickly check it. It’s from Hannah.

I can’t believe you threw a tantrum and quit just because I wasn’t feeling my best and couldn’t come in. Wow. All so you can hang out with your piece of shit delinquent boyfriend. You sure have your priorities straight.

“Fucking cunt!” You yell as you throw your phone across the table. Then immediately you slap your hands over your mouth just as Mike turns around to see what you’re yelling about.

“What’s wrong? Who was it?”

You remove your hands from your mouth. “Mike, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to curse that loud. I hope Abby didn’t hear me.”

He waves you off. “Babe, she’s not even here. She got invited to a sleepover at Natalie’s house. We’re alone. You’re good.”

You sigh in relief. “Thank god! I don’t want any of my bad habits to rub off on her.”

Mike just chuckles and turns back to the sauce. “If she turns out anything like you, I’d be entirely okay with that.”

You can’t help but feel a blush creep up your neck. He was always saying sweet stuff like that. You get up and hug him from behind and press a kiss to the back of his neck. “You’re too sweet.”

He turns around in your arms and grabs your face and gives you a proper, toe-curling kiss. “I mean it.”

After a few more shared kisses, Mike finishes up dinner and fixes you both a plate and a glass of wine for himself. As you’re sitting there twirling your spaghetti around your fork, you can’t help but think about Hannah’s text again. And then all of the little snide remarks she’s ever made to you come flooding back.

“Babe?”

You snap out of your thoughts and Mike comes back into focus. “Yeah?”

He puts his fork down. “I asked if there was something wrong with the spaghetti? You’ve hardly touched it.”

You look down at your plate and realize you’ve just been twirling it around your fork. “No, it’s fine. Just thinking about what Hannah said and how much it pisses me off. I’m sorry, I’m not meaning to ruin our time together.”

He smiles and grabs both of your plates and gets up and places them on the counter. He comes back over and holds his hand out to you. “Come on.”

You grab his hand with no hesitation and let him pull you out of your chair and let him lead you to his bedroom.

He turns around to face you right before you get to his bed. “First of all, you could never ruin our time together. I love getting to spend time with you no matter what. Second of all, it sounds like you need to let out some anger and need a distraction.”

You can’t help but feel all tingly at the smirk he’s giving you. “What did you have in mind?”

He backs up a little and sits on the bed and looks up at you. “Use me, Y/N.”

You shake your head. “What? What do you mean?”

He reaches out to grab your hands to pull you towards him. “I mean use me. Use me to distract yourself and to take your anger out on. I’ll be a good boy and do whatever you need.”

That almost had your knees buckling. “Oh.” He lifts your shirt up and starts pressing kisses along your stomach while running his hands from your back to your hips and down to your ass. You’ve never been in this position before. Sure, you guys have only been together for like 5 months but anytime you’ve ever been intimate, he’s been the one who’s taken charge.

He pulls back and looks up at you. “Use me, baby. I got you. Tell me what you need.”

You decide to run with it and take control and blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “I wanna sit on your face.”

He lets out a little whimper as he moves back on the bed. “Fuck, baby. Please sit on my face. I want you to suffocate me.”

He lays back and patiently waits for you to remove your pants and panties. You hesitantly climb up on the bed. You’ve never done this before with anyone but have always wanted to try it. You climb up until you’re straddling his waist and lean down to kiss him. 

He returns the kiss enthusiastically and grinds you down onto him so you can feel how hard he already is for you. It makes you let out a small moan into his mouth. The making out only lasts for a few more minutes before you pull away and start climbing up until you’re hovering right above his mouth.

Before you fully lower yourself onto him you grab his hair and yank so that he has to look at you. He lets out another beautiful whimper. “I’m going to ride your face until I can’t think of anything else but your tongue. You’re going to be good and make me cum as many times as I want, right?”

He nods instantly. “Yes, I promise I’ll be good for you.”

“Good boy.” You tell him, which makes his eyes roll to the back of his head. Hmm. Who knew he had a praise kink?

You let go of his hair and grab onto the headboard with both hands before you slowly lower yourself onto his waiting mouth. 

He immediately grips your thighs and pulls you even harder on him and starts eating you out like a man starved. “Oh, fuck!” You throw your head back and start grinding on his tongue. He gives you a few more licks before he sucks your clit into his mouth and starts lapping his tongue back and forth against it. “Oh, god. Fuck, Mike! You’re so fucking good at that.”

Your praise has him moaning and whimpering into your pussy, heightening the experience that much more. He moves his right hand towards your ass and gives it a nice squeeze before moving towards your pussy and immediately inserting two fingers.  It makes you start grinding faster, feeling yourself already close to the edge.

He starts pumping his fingers in time with your grinding, pushing you even closer to the edge. You can’t believe how quickly he got you there. 

“Mike, please! Gonna cum! Make me cum.”

He pumps his fingers even faster and lightly bites down on your clit, knowing it’ll make you fall over the edge.

You scream his name out and grind on him until it’s too much and you lift yourself away from his mouth. To which he whimpers out, “where’s that pussy going? I wasn’t done yet.”

You let out a breathy laugh. “Jesus. I almost passed out from how hard I came. Give me a minute.”

“So I did good?” He looks up at you with big eyes and his chin glistening with your juices.

You pat his hair. “You did so good, baby. Made me feel so good.”

He smiles and wraps his arms around your thighs and presses soft kisses to the inside of them. You close your eyes and take a minute to enjoy that before you look behind you and see his erection pressing painfully against his jeans. You need that inside of you. Right now.

You remove yourself from his face and he lets out a little whine. “Don’t worry. I’m not done. Need your cock, baby.”

You’ve never seen him undo his belt and slide his jeans down that quickly before. It almost makes you chuckle. “Eager, are we?”

He nods as he pushes his jeans down far enough that his cock springs free and hits your ass. “Need to feel you around me, babe. Please.”

You lean down and pull him into a kiss which he returns generously. You can taste yourself on his tongue. He grabs his cock and hits it against your ass, signaling that he’s ready for you to slide onto him. You take the hint and lift up and back until he catches at your entrance. He’s the first one to break the kiss as you slowly slide down onto him. The little whimpers he lets out as you sit flush against his thighs is music to your ears.

You decide to tease him and just stay resting there for a minute while looking down at him. He has his eyes clenched shut and a death grip on your hips. He opens his eyes after a few moments and looks up at you. He reaches his right hand up and places it on your cheek, caressing it with his thumb. “Go ahead and use me babe. Take what you need from me.”

You slowly start moving your hips back and forth, never really lifting them up and down. The friction against your clit is so delicious. You place both hands on his chest and start moving your hips a little faster. “Oh, fuck baby. You feel so good. You’re so deep.” 

“Yeah? Am I making my girl feel good?”

You smirk down at him. “Oh, yeah. You’re being so good for me.”

He lets out another whimper as he grabs you by the back of your head and pulls you in for a heated kiss. This one sloppy and desperate. His hand that’s still on your hip starts moving you a little harder against him. He pulls away from your mouth and kisses his way up your neck towards your ear. “Come on babe. Cum on my cock. I can feel you clenching around me. Cum for me so I can be good and cum for you.”

This time you’re the one letting out a whimper. “Yeah? Want me to be your good boy and cum for you? Fill you up?”

“Please.” You whine out, moving your hips even faster than before. You can feel your orgasm coming like a freight train. There’s no stopping it. 

“Oh yeah. I can feel it. You’re gonna cum for me. Do it. Make a mess on me babe. Please, I need it.”

“Yeah? You need me to cum for you? Need to feel me cum? Oh, god Mike. I’m almost there. Please don’t stop.”

He continues helping you grind your hips against his. You’re almost there. Just a little something…..

“I love you, Y/N. So fucking much.”

That did it. You’re pitched off the edge and silently scream out. The edges of your vision going white. You can vaguely hear Mike whimpering out your name as he does as promised and fills you up. You slow your hips down until you can’t move them anymore and slump down against him with your face tucking into the crook of his neck. He wraps his arms around you and rubs his hands up and down your back.

You both stay like that until your heartbeats return to normal. You lift up your head just until you can see him, almost nose to nose. He’s the first to speak. “So, did I do good for you?”

You let out a chuckle. “You were so good, baby.” You can feel him twitch inside of you at the praise. “But, we need to talk about what you said.”

Mike scrunches his brows for a few minutes before his eyes go wide and he realizes what he said. “Shit, I did not mean to say that.”

You can’t help the disappointment that crosses your face. “Oh, well that’s okay. It was in the heat of the moment.”

He quickly wraps his arms tighter around you. “No! That’s not what I meant. Shit. I one hundred percent meant it. I just wanted to make it special when I told you. Not in the middle of an orgasm. You deserve better than that.”

You smile and press a kiss to the tip of his nose. “I appreciate the thought. But I really don’t need anything special. I already have you.”

His smile lights up his entire face. “I love you, Y/N.”

This time you press a kiss to his lips. “I love you, too Mike. Like, a lot.”

“I bet not as much as I love you.”

Just as you’re about to retort, Mike’s cell starts vibrating, causing you to jolt with fright since his phone is still in his pocket which your leg is pressed up against.

“Jesus Christ.”

You quickly get up so that he can grab his phone. “Hello?”

You go into the bathroom to clean up. You come back in with a wet cloth to clean Mike up. He just hangs up as you come in the room. “Everything okay?”

He smiles in thanks as you hand him the cloth. He goes about cleaning himself up. “Yeah. That was Natalie’s mom. Apparently Abby has decided she doesn’t wanna stay the night so I have to go get her.” He stands and pulls his jeans back up and smooths his shirt out. “Sorry we won’t be alone anymore.”

You pull him in for a quick kiss. “Nothing to apologize for. I love you Mike. And that means loving all of you. Which includes Abby. Whom you know I just adore. Go get her and we’ll have a movie night or something.”

He shakes his head and pulls you in for another kiss. “I still don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

You just smile in return. “After the past year you’ve been through, you deserve to be happy.”

He chuckles as he heads out the door. “Ain’t that the damn truth!”

[bleedingoptimism]

You Are Mine part 3

Second day is an early call too. They are going to shoot a bunch of scenes of them hanging out between shows, loitering on the bus, playing d&d, and going to weird little dinners, all things they actually do when on tour.

It’s even better than the day before, Robin and Steve get along so well with the band it feels like they’ve been friends for years.

Since their conversation won't be distinguishable in the video, Argyle tells them they can talk about whatever and just be a little more emphatic when talking so it reads better on camera.

A direction that apparently they don't need at all because they are both so expressive. And so, they actually get to chat and get to know each other better, laughing and joking all through the day.

Robin, who is a ‘raging lesbian’ (her words) is fucking adorable and bizarre, her energy is contagious and nerve-racking. She’s finishing a career in linguistics, can speak fluently in like six languages, and is apparently a certified genius.

She’s also head over heels obsessed with her girlfriend, and won’t stop talking about her. Vicky is a nurse student, one of Steve’s classmates actually.

‘Steve is a fucking nurse student, why is that hot? Why does he find that so hot? Jesus’.

Steve is much quieter than Robin, especially in comparison. But he’s just, or even funnier. Eddie can see how observant he is, listening attentively and waiting for his moment, because he’s mostly quiet but when he speaks he always says the perfect thing.

It’s like every time he talks Eddie can see him dropping an imaginary mike on the floor. It’s fascinating honestly.

He is incredibly sweet too. Eddie can tell, by how his eyes light up when they are placed in a scene meant to look like they are playing Dungeons and Dragons and he goes on a tangent about the kids he used to babysit when he was younger, that they like to play too, how they drove him insane and how he never lost touch with them after they grew up, how they are all seniors in high school now, how proud he is of them. It’s so fucking cute.

They get a good laugh imagining the kids' reactions to seeing them in the video, Steve laughing so hard he cries when Robin starts imitating the expression of one of them finding out Steve made out with his favorite singer.

And they haven’t even talked about or planned that scene yet, it’s meant to be shot tomorrow, but when he hears them talking about it, it fills Eddie up with antici…pation. He’s dying to kiss Steve and he can’t stop thinking about it.

♫

After the lunch break, they shoot a bunch of scenarios of Eddie sneaking into various places, the bus, a bathroom, a changing room, and so on. Since Robin and Steve are practically the same height is easy to cheat the camera into only showing the back of the shirt that says ‘crew’ making it impossible to know which one of them he’s hooking up with until the end of the video.

He has a lot of fun pushing Steve into different corners of the set, and Steve does too judging from all his cute little laughs between scenes. 

Argyle calls it a day late afternoon, he’s happy and excited, says he has a really good feeling about this,

“Not many scenes left to shoot, mostly you two,” he said pointing at Steve and him, “So we can start mid-morning tomorrow. Get some rest my dudes, love you” and dismisses them.

Eddie gets distracted talking with Argyle so when he gets back to the changing room there’s no one there, except… Steve.

He’s meticulously fixing his hair in the mirror and he’s humming the video’s song. Of course he is, Eddie thinks amused, he’s heard it so many times by now. He leans on the doorway watching Steve’s reflection, waiting for him to notice Eddie, but Steve doesn’t see him right away, and thinking he’s alone, he starts singing.

I don’t want to hide anymore,

I want the whole world to know,

That you are mine,

Are you mine, please be mine, you are mine.

It’s his song, but it sounds nothing like it. The chorus of You Are Mine is loud, angry, desperate but what Steve is singing sounds so soft, so beautiful. It sounds like one of those slow acoustic covers that usually play in coffee stores and it’s funny, Eddie despises those kinds of covers, but Steve’s? 

Steve’s he could listen to all the goddam time.

He’s so lost in his thoughts he doesn't notice when Steve finally sees him, he only looks up when the singing stops.

Steve is smiling at him bashfully through the reflection in the mirror, blushing prettily. 

Smiling back he tells Steve, “I’m surprised you are not sick of it yet,”

He pushes himself off the doorframe and walks inside, hovering over Steve since he’s sitting on the only makeup chair.

Steve shrugs as he stands up and leaves the chair to Eddie, going around the room to grab his things. Eddie can’t help but feel a little disappointed, he kind of wanted Steve to keep him company, but to his surprise, Steve doesn't leave immediately, and it’s his turn to hover slightly close.

“It’s a really catchy song,” Steve says and Eddie snorts because, no, it’s not. But he just smiles again and says,

“Well, thank you.”

“You wrote it?” Steve asks tilting his head to the side and it’s fucking unfair how cute he looks when he does it.

Eddie just nods, because speaking hard when cute boy near. Man he usually has so much more game, what is it about Steve that just makes him feel so giddy?

“It must be about someone very special,” Steve says and there’s a question hidden somewhere in there.

And Eddie wants to tell him ‘I wrote it for you’ because it feels like he did. He wrote the song thinking about a concept, an ideal, someone he would truly want, and he genuinely feels he was conjuring up Steve in his mind. Even before he met him.

But instead, he shakes his head and says, “It’s hypothetical, there- there’s no one.”

And Steve smiles at him, his smile getting bigger slowly and his cheeks redder as he looks down for a second before staring at Eddie through his lashes, “Good” he says in an almost whisper and then leaves the room.

And Eddie thinks maybe all the songs in their next album will be about Steve.

to be continued

part 1: ♫

part 2: ♫

part 3: is this

part 4: ♫ 

☕ cafecito?

[mikedfaist]

can we get more pregnant!reader??? like when she’s actually going into labor and he takes her to the hospital? supportive sweetie mike is my favorite

Mike took the classes. He read the books. He sought insight from his friends who have already ventured down this path before. The hospital bag was ready. The nursery was complete – alongside a crib he did indeed decide to build. He was ready for fatherhood. Frankly, he welcomed it with open arms. He already loved his little girl so much that he couldn’t imagine that love growing anymore than it already is. How is that even possible?

When those first real contractions hit in the middle of the night – much different than the “practice” ones from before – your first instinct isn’t to wake up Mike. No, you let him sleep. You scamper into the kitchen, lay down on the couch and turn on Modern Family. They weren’t far enough apart yet. No point in going to the hospital. No point in waking up your boyfriend. Until your water breaks, you are going to relax as much as you can until the pain permeates to the point of surrender.

You don’t have to wake him up though, because that boy senses your absent presence, and goes looking for you. It wasn’t unusual to find you in the kitchen in the middle of the night; when a craving calls, it calls. This time though, he caught you in the middle of a contraction. Not unbearable – you were even able to talk through it, but he saw it in your eyes. Less than a minute, and it was over.

When you told him you’ve been having contractions for the last hour, you might as well have told him you joined a cult.

“Why didn’t you wake me?” He was aghast.

“There’s no point right now! Can’t even go to the hospital. This could last for hours, Michael. Hours. Maybe in the morning something worth telling you about will happen.” You didn’t mean it in a bad way. Obviously, anything that happens in this pregnancy he wants to know about. To you, this was nothing. If the contractions weren’t five minutes apart, then why bother? “Go back to sleep, okay? Get your rest while you can.”

“You really think I can just go back to sleep when you’re in labor?”

“Early labor, it barely counts.”

“It does count.”

“When my water breaks, then I’ll bother you with my problems. But for now, I’m chillin’.”

By morning, seven hours later, things had progressed enough for you to roll over onto your side and shake your boyfriend awake.

“It fucking hurts.”

“It’s just early labor, babe, it barely counts.”

“I will break up with you—do not test me right now.”

It wasn’t until the afternoon when your water broke in the middle of the kitchen as he was making you grilled cheese. (You made him finish the grilled cheese before leaving). Once at the hospital, he fed you ice chips, massaged your back, kissed your forehead, and let you fracture each of his fingers. He did nearly pass out when you got your epidural, and again when you did eventually give birth. His excuse was he had forgotten to eat because he was so focused on you, but you remember how white he got watching a real birth video in preparation for this moment.

Once you begin pushing, he’s beside you, brushing the hair out of your face, letting you squeeze his hand until it’s purple. He’s so gentle with his encouragements, whispering it in your ear and kissing your temple. He can’t put into words how amazed he is with you in this moment. He thought he loved you before, but that love has grown exponentially. You not only grew and protected their child, but you were putting yourself through hell to bring her into this world. It’s something he’ll never know firsthand, and he knows he’ll never be able to look at you the same way from now on. You really were the most incredible woman he has ever had the pleasure of knowing.

When they hear that first cry, he nearly breaks into sobs. All those months of waiting, and being very impatient about it, have finally come to an end, and his baby girl is right there. She’s so tiny—how is she so tiny? How is she so tiny but expelling a cry so loud and raucous?

“She has a set of lungs on her, for sure.”

When they set her on your chest, she instantly quietens. She knows that’s her momma. Mike has to cover his mouth to control his cries. None of the books taught him how to handle the moment he meets his baby girl for the first time. He leans over and caresses his finger over her hand—holy fuck it’s so tiny! Instinctively, she grabs his finger, and refuses to let go. There’s nothing quite as strong as a baby’s grip.

He loses count of how many times he tells you he loves you. A million times wouldn’t even be enough.

[henry-fox-biggest-stan]

S5 predictions

-At the final episode, the party goes back to the local village with three waterfalls and mileven marry while Will watches sadly (if he’s even alive, perhaps he died fighting Vecna)

-Max comes back to life, but she comes back wrong. Her limbs have been replaced by robot parts by doctors and she’s now a cyborg

-Lucas jokes about her being C-3PO from Star Wars. Max shoots him with her laser arm and he dies

-Dustin starts wearing lipstick and it’s just never acknowledged. It’s red. Very red. Too red.

-Turns out Henry is possessed with an evil spirit sent by the Christian devil because his parents never loved him, and during the final fight El looks at him in the eye and says “hey🥺 this isn’t you🥺” and they hug and he becomes Henry again and he’s the best man at the mileven wedding

-Steve gets his ass beat, again

-Robin falls head over heels for Jonathan, who cheats on Nancy with her. Nancy is so mad than she grabs one of her guns and shoots them both

-Eddie comes back to life but he only speaks French now

-Will develops a crush on Steve and they are endgame

-Robin begins growing pumpkins

-Also Joyce and Robin kiss

-When hopper finds out he’s so mad he handcuffs Robin and refuses to leave her hands free, so she spends half a season completely free and in liberty but handcuffed

-Lucas’ ghost comes back to haunt the party after max killed him but not in a scary way. Neither a sad way. He’s just an inconvenience. He moves papers and cups to other places, he opens the door while Dustin is showering, he tugs at mike’s hair. He doesn’t do anything to Will tho and this pisses everyone off cause that’s just not fair.

-El is actually Henry’s daughter, el’s mom and him hooked up while he was in the lab.

-El grows her hair out and dyes it pink

-Mike grows a mustache

-Will hits the gym and gets jacked

-Max steals Robin’s pumpkins at night to leave them in mike’s room. Mike is so confused each morning, there’s always a new pumpkin.

-El and Steve share an emotional moment with an almost kiss but they are interrupted by Will

-Suzie is Russian and has been on it all along

-Argyle appears during the first episode and he’s driving the van. He’s supposed to drive Jonathan and will somewhere but before he arrives at their house a truck hits him and he goes flying and dies

-Will, despite being endgame with Steve, objects at the mileven wedding, and Nancy just shots him and they continue the wedding like nothing happened

-Robin and Steve get a new job at the arcade. They are eventually fired because they spend their shifts playing, and they are so bad but they keep playing anyway, and eventually they lose all their money and end up with 20k dollars in debt. A s5 subplot is them trying to break into the arcade at night and steal their money back from inside the machines. They fail

-Mr Clarke appears and has an affair with hopper

-Holly gets taken to the upside down cause she doesn’t know how to ride a bike yet, so she just goes walking through the forest and Vecna sees her and just snatches her.

-Surprise surprise, Karen knows how to use a gun and she’s the one to kill the evil spirit possessing Henry by shooting it

-Billy appears and Steve and him have some very homoerotic wrestling before El kills him just because. He was alive for 15 minutes. Also during all this he was a zombie

-Max’s mom actually works for the lab and was brenner’s ex

-The last scene of the whole show is Ted wheeler waking up on his armchair, having dreamt all the story

[nelo0wesker]

Prison Break Part 2

Part 1

Armando x reader

@violetmuses @thesizzler

——————

Y/N walks towards Armando outside her laptop in her hand. “I have the list” she tells him, giving him her laptop so he could look. She watches him go through names and then stopping on a cop. She looks at the name. “Mike Lowrey? Didn’t your mother say he was the last Armando? Don’t go for him” she tries to tell her and he shakes his head no. “Where is he?” He questions her. Y/N didn’t look at him as he asked him. “I-I don’t know-“ she tried to say but was cut off by her boyfriend. “Cariño, dímelo ahora!” He tells her and she pauses and sighs. “He’s at a party down in the city Armando… Don’t do anything stupid okay. There’s cops down there and everything just don’t do anything stupid” she tells him.

Armando sighs going up to her and kisses her on the forehead. “I won’t mami” he tells her, hugging her. She allows the hug looking at him, noticing he’s in leather. She always did enjoy him in leather. Actually anything he wore and didn’t she liked him in. She yelped as he smacked her ass and he chuckled pulling away as she glared at him watching him walk away to go to his bike. She didn’t see the gun he had as she rubbed her ass from him slapping it. “Be careful!” She tells him watching him rev his bike and he rides away.

——————

Y/N was typing on her computer when she got a notification on her screen about the news. She goes to it and her head drops seeing what’s on it. She heard crashing in the other room. Y/N gets up and goes to where she heard the crashing just to see Isabel mumbling in Spanish making Y/N gulp. She could tell Isabel was pissed. “Isabel-“ she tries to talk but Isabel raises her hand up making Y/N shut up. “Le dije que Mike era el último!” She yells out in Spanish at Y/N.

Y/N looks at Isabel wondering why the hell Mike Lowrey was last on the list. “Isabel… ¿Por qué es Lowrey el último?” She questions making Isabel stop and look at Y/N with a crazed look. Isabel gets close to you and then grabs her chin and pierces her skin with her nails. “Me estás interrogando?” Isabel questions her. Her nails going into her skin making it bleed. “N-no Isabel” she tells her and Isabel smiles letting go of her chin. “Bien” she says walking away as Y/N watches feeling blood go down her chin. That moment made her suspicious of who this Mike Lowrey was to Isabel Aretas. It was suspicious how similar Armando and Mike looked.

Her head turns hearing walking behind her seeing Armando. He immediately goes to her, seeing the blood on her. “Mami what happened?” He questions looking at her chin. She looks at her boyfriend for a minute. “I just fell… hit some glass…” she says lying to him. Armando looks at her for a good minute not believing her. Wondering why she lied before he could even ask why she’s lying she cut him off. “Your mother wants to see you. She isn’t happy what you did” she tells him watching him pause looking at her and then nodding leaving her to find his mother.

Y/N gulps watching his body leave her sight. “What are you hiding Isabel?” She whispers to herself wondering what it is. She looks at her phone seeing another notification seeing Mike Lowrey live. “I’ll find out soon enough” she whispers leaving the room.

————

Y/N checks off people on the list that were on Isabel’s list of people she wants dead. Armando needed two more people left. Conrad Howard and Mike Lowrey. She tunes in the radio hearing how Captain Howard is down. She waited for another mention of a body but didn’t get it making her confused on why Armando didn’t kill Lowrey. She gets up leaving her spot and goes to Isabel. “Howard is dead… Lowrey isn’t” she tells her as Isabel turns to her and smirks. “Good….” She says and goes back to the shrine and starts whispering in again making Y/N suspicious.

She leaves the room going to her laptop and starts typing on her computer looking up info on the case on shutting down the Aretas Cartel. Scrolling down she notices something. Benito Aretas was infertile making her pause. She thinks about how this could be wrong and Benito is Armando’s father but she couldn’t be too sure.

————

A couple days later Y/N head turns to Armando seeing him in his leather outfit again. “How did it go?” She questions him and he shakes his head. “He isn’t dead” he says pissed sitting down she gets up and rubs him back in hope it loosens the knots. “I replayed my mothers message to him” he tells her and she gives a confused look. “Message… what was the message?” She questions him as he relays the message. “Hasta el fuego” he tells her and she repeats it not knowing what it means. “What the fuck does that mean?” She questions him and he shrugs his shoulders not knowing. “My mother wanted me to say that to him” he tells her as she keeps messaging him thinking. She pauses hearing a phone go off. She watches as Armando pulls out his phone and a message pops up saying. “Hasta el fuego”. She looks at the message and then Armando. “Armando I don’t think Benito is your fa-“ she tries to say but stops hearing Isabel yell for Armando. She watches him get up and leave her.

She silently goes to her computer typing looking for the location that Mike sent the message from. She finds it and goes through the cameras and goes back watching and listening to Mike tell Marcus how Armando is his son. She gasps getting up, pausing the video as Armando walks in. She tries to talk but he passes her telling her to get ready. She opens her mouth to talk but hears Isabel walk in so she says something else. “Okay… I’ll get ready” she says walking past Isabel and looks in her eyes as Isabel did the same to her and stops watching her walk away. Her eyes harden watching you walk away having a feeling you know something.

—————

Translation

“Honey tell me now!”

“I told him Mike was last!”

Isabel… why is Lowrey last?”

“Are you questioning me?”

“Good

[xetlynn]

Twilight- The Switch of Daylight: Chapter Ten, Steam

(Alice x Reader x Jasper)

[Nine] [Ten] [Eleven]

I sat with Mike, Angela, Jessica and Eric like usual. Listening to them rant about the illness going around.

I then look up to see Bella carrying her tray of food to her normal table but then looks at us. I smile, encouraging her to do it. She takes a deep breath and joins us. I watch as the others take note but continue talking.

"I'll kill Tyler if he gave me his flu." Jessica threatens. "It's going around. My sister was so sick she couldn't come on our hike this weekend... so she didn't see it." Angela frowns, they were talking about a large animal. "Ang, maybe you should keep that to yourself." He whispers to her.

"We saw something Eric." Angela argues with him. "I believe you." He assures her. "No he doesn't. He's just trying to get lucky." Jessica calls him out.

"Is that an option?" Eric asks in a hopeful tone. "It was jet black and huge; on all fours it was still taller than a person. A bear maybe." She explains what it is and I stiffen up.

That's definitely one of the Quileute boys...

"Or Big Foot." Jessica interjects. "Or an alien. Lucky you didn't get probed." Mike jokes. "We saw it." Angela whispers and my face softens, I believe her but I can't be the one to speak up. "You're not the only one." Bella says, everyone then stares at her, shocked that she actually spoke up. "My dad's been getting reports at the sheriff's station. A couple hikers went missing. People are scared." She explains, everyone's now sitting a little straighter due to what she said. "I did hear some guy talking about it at the store." Mike admits. "Last time you clowns doubt my girlfriend." Eric puts his arm around Angela, now they all continue to another conversation.

Angela moths a thanks to Bella. Sharing a smile before they both join in. Bella rejoining the group again.

"You look scared." Jacob tells Bella, I stand there with my arms crossed. "I'm not." She's lying, she's now on one of their completed motorcycles, Jacob stands next to her, holding the bike up.

Now on the La Push forest clearing, a dirt road, Jacob runs through the instructions. "Brake?" She taps it. "Clutch?" She squeezes it. "Right. Gas?" She then grips it, he smiles up at her. "You ready?" She nods, he then grins, kick starting the bike. "Slowly release the clutch."

She does as told, the bike moves forward an inch. Jacob nervously steps back and she moves another inch forward. I notice her turning to find something. Her hand slipping off the clutch and the bike bucks and falls on top of her. Jacob and I quickly lift it off of her. "You okay? Bruises, breaks?" He questions her and I stare down at her. "I'm going again."  She tells us. "I'm not sure that's a good-" She's already up and hopping back on the bike. "Guess we're going again. Now what are you going to do with the clutch?" He asks her.

"Release it. Slowly." He nods, kick-starting the bike again. She releases the clutch and moves forward. Slowly at first.

Now she keeps going, a tiny bit faster. I notice as she is looking around and then the curve up ahead gets closer to her. "I don't- How do I turn!?" She yells to us. I drop my arms and I want to run to her but it would give myself away to Jacob. "Bank it! Bank- hit the brake!" He shouts. "Hit the break, Bella!" I scream. Both of us running to her. I try to match my pace with his, She reaches the turn, not banking and goes straight.

Flying right into a wall of trees. As she lies on the ground dazed, we hurry to her. "What are you training for the X-games?" He questions her. My nostril flares as I can already smell her blood. "I want to go again." She says. "Forget it. I'm revoking your motorcycle privileges. Man, look at your head." He tells her, I back away from the sight. Holding my nose. Normally blood doesn't affect me, but it's been a while since I've been hunting.

"God, I'm sorry." Bella shrinks as Jacob pulls his shirt off to wipe the blood. "You're apologizing for bleeding?" He questions her. "It uh bothers name." She points to me as I then pretend to gag at the sight.

Knowing it's really just making my mouth water like feigning animal. "[Name] you alright?" He asks me and I just put my thumb up. "I uh, I'm gonna go over there." I look away from them , hurrying away.

I go into the woods, far away from them. I can hear them talking but I know that they won't be able to hear me.

Shit, why haven't I gone hunting in so long. I feel the pain of smelling her blood. My nose stinging as my mouth waters tensely. I cover my mouth to muffle the sound of my groans.

I then see a deer walking, my body starting to shake as I try to control myself. I squeeze my eyes. Looking back to the entry of the forest. They can't see me. I'm going to have to not be messy with this. I then surprise attack the deer.

Wiping the blood off of my face, I cover the deer with leaves, cleaning myself off as well.

"[Name]!?" Jacob calls after me. I curse mentally. Checking myself one more time and I walk over to him.

"I'm right here." I laugh. "Sorry, blood really freaks me out. I had to throw up." I lie to him, walking up to him. His facial expression shows confusion. "You never had that problem when we were kids. You were the one who practically played doctor when one of us got hurt." He remembers and I bite my bottom lip thinking of what to say.

"Yeah, then in Arizona a kid broke his leg, bone out and all. I've gotten sick at the sight of blood ever since." I pick up a quick lie, he seems suspicious but shrugs it off, both of us leaving the area.

Charlie and I are watching a game, well more Charlie than I am. I'm more focused on Bella doing homework, she's on edge. Jacob hasn't respond to texts or calls after they went out to the movies together with Mike. She wanted me to go too since it was going to be awkward for her, knowing both boys like her. I refused though, not wanting to be caught up in that mess. She told me Jake wasn't feeling good at the end of the night, feeling extremely warm.

She's been trying to call him, she had the flu too so she wanted to make sure he's alright too.

As the next few days passed I heard her try to call him over and over again. Now we're in the kitchen, she left yet another message. Charlie comes into the room.

"Harry and I will be back by three." His sentence stops when he sees her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's mono, Bells." He softly reminds her. "He's too sick to even call?" She exclaims. "You just gotta wait it out. You know, I don't have to go fishing..." He says, even though he desperately wants to go. "No, go. I have [Name]. I'll just call Jessica or something." She forces a smile. "Good but you two stay here or at Jess's. No hikes or anything. We're issuing a warning about those bears." Charlie sternly tells us.

But of course Bella and I don't listen, After we watched Charlie and Harry leave we went to the woods. Bella tries to navigate her way to the meadow with a map and a compass. "You know I could just get the top of a tree and probably find it easily right?" I remind her, she just hums in response. I just let out a sigh, continuing to follow behind her. I know it's a wolf that everyone's seeing but I want Bella to feel a little safer so I can along.

After a while I see Bella notice the clearing ahead, hurrying towards it. Once she goes into the opening she seems hopeful. Like something... someone will be there waiting for her. She told me about the sun that would be out but instead it's cold, gloomy and cloudy. Bella sinks to her knees, I frown at the sight.

Before she can even cry, we hear a rustling noise. We turn towards it, I move my body to cover hers. Another noise coming from a different area of the woods. Then we turn to another noise and Laurent is a few yards away. My body stays in front of Bella.

"Laurent?" She questions.

"Bella. [Name]." He acknowledges my existence as well. "I must admit, I didn't expect to find you two here." He admits to us. "We live here. But you- I thought you were in Alaska with Carlisle's friend." She brings up.

"Tanya, I was. It was kind of him to arrange, given my association with James and Victoria. The enemy." He smiles to himself. "You tried to help us." Bella disagrees with the last part. Laurent begins to stroll in a slow arc around us. Bella grips onto the sleeve of my jacket. Every movement he makes I follow. "I went to visit the Cullen, but their house is empty. I'm surprised they left you two behind. As you were some sort of pet and you... you turned." He grins. "Congratulations." I roll my eyes in response. I begin to feel Bella's fear. "Um... something like that." She tells him.

"Do the Cullen visit often." He looks between the both of us. "Absolutely. All the time." Bella lies. Good call. "I'll tell them you stopped by." She's trying to soothe her body. I begin to focus on my energy while also on him. Any step closer and I'll tear his head off. "Will they be able to reach you in Alaska?" She questions.

"I don't think so. Tanya's vegetarian family was pleasant enough. But the dietary restrictions were difficult- living on nothing but animals." He then looks at me, smirking.

"Something you've been finding difficult lately, hm?" He whispers, only audible to me. I give him a look. I haven't tried human at all. What is he talking about?

"Tell me Bella. Do you ever fell compelled to cheat?" She tries to step back while also holding me but I keep my stance. "But that's not why I left. I came back here as a favor to Victoria." She

"You're still friends."

"More or less. She asked me to get the lay of the land with the Cullen. Because, well... I'm afraid Victoria is quite put out with you." He informs her. "That's too back." She responds. My eyes glare him down, he's not focused on me. He doesn't know my ability. "Yes. She feels it's only fair to kill Edward's mate, given he killed hers. Eye for an eye, mate for mate." He tells her, Bella's heart quickens each word he speaks.

"Edward will know who did it. He'll come after both of you." She knows to not bring up my ability. "I don't think he will. After all, how much could you mean to him if he left you here unprotected?" He then glances at me again, he thinks I'm not a threat. "Victoria sent me here for information. She won't be happy about my killing you." He hums. "No, Laurent..."

"No, no, no. Don't be upset. I'm doing you a kindness. Victoria plans on killing you both slowly. Painfully, whereas I'll make it very quick." I'm apart of it now too?

"And you smell so mouth watering." Laurent inhales my sisters scent which grosses me out. He then shoves me out of the way, taking Bella into his arms.

Shit.

I hear her whisper something. I stand up, then look over to see a black wolf. It's Sam. He skulks out of the darkness of the woods. Letting out a disturbingly deep growl, his sharp teeth gleaming. I smile at the sight of the others coming out. I go over to Sam. Laurent goes to bolt across the meadow. I use my ability to slow him down, weaken him.

"What is-" He stares back at me, noticing it's my doing. The wolves then spring out, seemingly towards Bella but then leap above her. It's impossible for Laurent to fight back as my ability weakened him into an almost human state.

"Run, Bella." I push her towards the way we came in. "What about you?" She panics. "They're good. It's okay." I tell her. She then runs like she was told.

Once she's out of sight I run to the mess they've made of Laurent. His limbs all over the place. Sam and who I think is Jacob come up to me. I smile.

"Good timing." I pet who I think is Jacob. "I'm sorry you turned." I sadly look at him. He whines a bit, backing away from my hand. Sam makes a low grumbling noise.

"I'll make the fire and then meet you guys at the rez." I tell the five wolves. Sam huffs. Paul comes up, purposely bumping into me, whipping me with his tail. "Hey, get going now." I order them.

Sam does a quiet howl, they make their way away from the scene and I pick up Laurents limbs, putting them in a pile.

After putting out the fire I rush back to my house. Charlie is already angrily storming out the door. "I'm going to the station, you want to come?" He asks. "No thanks, I'm gonna go to the Rez." I tell him, he comes over and gives me a quick side hug and kiss on the forehead before getting in his car. Bella comes out.

"Can you come with me to get Jacob?" She asks, storming towards her truck. "Uh-" "I'm going either way." She opens the truck door. I let out a groan, she's already taking off so I look around and then jump onto the back of the truck bed. She looks in the back and I irritably wave, she tries to hide her smile as she continues to drive. I stay sat in the back.

Feeling rain droplets start to fall on me. Lifting my hands I feel the rain. Then notice my hands steam, I begin to panic. Going to yell to Bella but then it stops and I close my mouth. What is happening? I feel my chest begin to pound and the steam emits once again off my body.

Stop stop stop stop.

Bella's truck goes to a halt and I stand up from the truck bed. The steam stops again. The rain only getting harsher.

Bella and I head to the door, she knocks. No one answers. Then a second time and finally Billy is at the door. "Hi, Billy. I know Jacob's sick but-" "He's out with friends." He cuts her off. She seems taken aback. "Oh." "I'll let him know you came by." He begins to close the door but Bella stops him. "Wait- he's got mono, right? That's what you told my dad." She interrogates him. "You should go home, Bella." Then he finally closes the door.

Bella storms down the stairs, getting into her truck and slamming the door behind her, obviously pissed. She begins to start the truck but then stops, tossing the keys aside. I slowly walk down myself, instead of going towards the truck I go to where I can hear five boys rough housing in the woods.

I speed off to where I hear them, peeking out from a tree as they don't even notice me.

"You know for wolves. It was pretty easy for me to sneak up on you." I fold my arms in front of my chest, they all jolt, getting into an attack position but once they realize it's me they calm down.

"Jake you're hurting my sister." I point a finger in his face. "I don't have a-" "Ah," I cut him off. "I didn't ask for excuses. We all have choices." I then look over to Sam who doesn't look me in the eye. "He really doesn't have a choice." Paul speaks up and I laugh. "He does, everyone does. You guys just choose the dumb ones!" I throw my hands up in the air.

"Well here's a choice you have, you're a bloodsucker who has the choice to be something better." Jacob throws in my face and my eyes widen. "Excuse me?" I step closer to him, Sam places a hand on his chest, pushing him back. "Jacob that's not-" "You told him!?" I glare at Sam.

"I can't control it, wolves read each others minds. I don't get to hide anything." Sam defends himself, I close my eyes tightly, now angered. "Jacob apologize to my sister or so help me." I spit in his face, shoving him against a tree before I walk away. I hear Sam jog after me, the boys looking after Jacob.

"[Name], I swear I didn't mean for anyone to know." He tells me and I just ignore him. "[Name], I'm sorry." He's practically pleading and a part of me wanted to stop to listen to him. That child in me who had the biggest crush on Sam Uley wanted to stop. But the other part, the person I am today, refuses to even look him in the eye after the betrayal he committed for his own selfish reasons.

I then see Jacob at Bella's truck, her climbing out. "You cut your hair." She announces. "Go away." Jacob turns away and bite the inside of my mouth. She grabs onto his arm. "What happened to you?" She asks him and he turns back as the others wait for him, out of earshot.

"I can help." She lowers her voice. His face is stern, shaking his head. "Sam got to you. What did he do?" Bella questions, obviously concerned for her friend. "Sam's trying to help me, don't blame him." He retracts. "Then who?"

"How about those filthy, reeking bloodsuckers you love? The Cullens... your sister." He says, he obviously didn't realize I was there, if my heart was working it would be broken by the fact that he just said that. "I... don't know what you're-" "You know exactly what I'm talking about." His body was shaking with anger.

"The Cullens are long gone. How are they to blame? And [Name] is still her how could you say that..." Her face falls. "They started all this by existing. Goddamn leeches-" "Jacob." Sam gives him and look and Jacob takes a breath, then he finally notices I'm there, rolling his eyes before going back to talking to Bella.

"I can't be friends with you anymore." He tells her. "Jake, I know I hurt you, I should have been more up-front but I needed you, I still do. I don't know what that means yet, but if you give me time-" "Stop. Don't it's not you." His humanity is still there, Sam is making him do this.

"It's not you it's me? God." Bella shakes her head. "It's true. I'm not good." He tries to find the right words. "You're wrong-" "It's doesn't matter. This is over." He tells her.

'"I can't take losing my best friend too." Bella's voice breaks.

"You already have-" "don't say that- you promised!" She tries to remind him, it was an effortless fight though.

"Go home, Bella. Don't come back." He runs away, joining the group to leave Bella standing in the rain.

I helped Bella into her truck and it felt like that day all over again. Only this time I was filled with a rage I've never felt before.

And when we got home I knew there was something wrong with me as Bella said the only words I never wanted to hear again. "[Name], you're really hot. Like burning." She mutters to me, backing away from my body. "I think you're hallucinating." I wave it off, lying to her is my best option right now. Charlie comes out and helps her inside. I sit in the truck, nervous about the steam with the rain again, it would prove that I'm heating up instead of being cold.

I can't turn. I can't.

I curl up in the truck seat, wanting to cry.

Masterlist

A&J M.L.

I guess I’m posting a lot right now. lol might post another tonight🧍🤷‍♀️ What are your theories for future chapters🤪🤭

Taglist: if you want to be added lmk

@stevenandmarcslove

@steh-lar-uh-nuhs

@kisekihany

@aureliacorvina

@l3ejm

[milevenstancyendgame]

In Defense Of Mike

Sometimes antis inspire you to write meta - I don't know why, but today I feel like going through these Mike accusations that someone left on my Eleven post, lol:

No one talks shit about my boy Mike on my post.😎

-"And not to make this about shipping because El is her own person and should be discussed outside of ships, BUT" - goes on long ass shipping discourse.

You nailed it right there, buddy.😂

-"Mike babies her throughout their relationship":

I think it's so funny that those who are on the fence shouting about El needing to break up with Mike, to be independent, are doing exactly what they accuse Mike of doing (gaslight much?). You're willfully ignoring her love for Mike, which is canonical, projecting your own dislike of him onto her, like you know what's best for her. You're babying her.

So when does he baby her? I can't think of any time, but since you also said that he's protective and "El wants to be trusted and supported", I'm gonna take a wild guess and say you're talking about SOME scenes between El and Mike in s3.

I think it's funny that antis wave Mike's protectiveness over El in s3 as though it was some big red flag.

Like, ya'll act as though he wanted to lock her up in the cabin. Oh wait, that was Hopper in s2, actually. I don't see you hating on Hopper though, even though he's an adult.

Mike is worried and traumatised from losing El several times before. Yes, he doesn't know how to deal with this, but like you keep saying, El is her own person and should be respected as such.

So what does El do? She shows that she doesn't like it, and in an intimate moment away from the over-the-top comedy of s3, she tells him "I need you to trust me".

And how does Mike react? Did you actually watch that? Because it doesn't sound like it. He ACCEPTS what she says IMMEDIATELY, even gives Max an acknowledging glance, and backs off, letting her do her thing.

Like this right there. That's growth.

And that's him doing exactly what you say El needs - that's trusting, supportive, and letting her decide for herself. Which, by the way, he has been doing the whole time and continues to do.

He apologies to her and shows that he has been self-reflecting, and is overly hard on himself. He's aware that he was jealous and that he doesn't know how to deal with his strong love for El.

That's healthy and wholesome, and also huge for a 14-year old emotionally neglected boy, who has no blueprint for a healthy romantic relationship.

But no, you don't want to see this. Nor anything else, apparently. Just literally this ONE DAY on which he was overwhelmed and worrying about El. And you interpret that as "babies her throughout their relationship". That is…wild.

-"Mike puts El on a pedestal" & "Mike never compliments El's personality" :

Wow, this feels like the most unjust accusation of all. You interpret him thinking and telling her she's a superhero as putting her on a pedestal?

First of all, how can you do that, when you just said that he babies her throughout.😆 It almost seems like your various views about him are incompatible...maybe because they're not founded on reality...👀

He's the one who constantly reminds everyone else that El is not a machine, that she has limits, that she has human needs...seriously, have you watched the show? S1? When everyone saw her as a problem or a weirdo or a traitor or a monster or a criminal or a science experiment....and he was the one who treated her for what she was - a scared, friendless child in danger. An equal. A friend.

How come you're not hating on Dustin and Lucas? Maybe you're able to see how they changed? Or Max, because she's in awe of El in s2 and in s3 is 100%ly confident that she will be able to defeat the monster on her own? Maybe you're able to see that she had a normal reaction to finding out about someone's super powers and that she simply was mistaken? Or Steve, because he refers to her as "this girl with superpowers that we usually rely on"? Maybe you're able to see that this didn't reflect any dehumanising on his part?

Oh, but Mike is different of course.🙄

Mike never treats El as anything else but his equal. If he actually put her on a pedestal, he'd constantly be like: "Oh, but I'm sure El can fix it!" for every problem they have, and he'd be disappointed and shocked to witness her humanity - her flaws, her needs, her imperfections.

Well, he doesn't. On the contrary, he tries to provide for her every need, reminding others of them, is worried about her overexerting herself (which you hated on a moment ago, but now strangely seem to have forgotten), and never pushes her to fight for them. He's also always the one who wants to provide a back-up for her, to not let her fight alone or do everything for them (like in the caves in s2, or in s3 when they try to overturn the car in the mall).

Okay, and my personal favourite: "He also does this with Dustin and Will" So I'm guessing you're referring to Mike telling Dustin in s1 that his cleidocranial dysplasia is like a superpower, after being bullied; and in s2, when he tells Will he's like a super-spy now. And of course telling El that she's a superhero.

And you think this is bad????????

😳

Sorry, I just....HOW? He's literally reassuring Dustin that he not only accepts him as he is, but that his difference is cool, he compares him to the coolest people they know and admire, the super heroes from comics. He's trying to cheer him up after he got humiliated for being different. I mean...I guess if he had given him a hug, you would have found a way to interpret that as bad.😬

And the same with Will - he sees that his friend is barely keeping it together, he's rightly panicking, because he's possessed by an interdimensional monster, but Mike finds a way to distract him, invite his mind to see things in a different way that actually EMPOWERS him, reassuring him that they won't let the monster spy back, and again, this is bad, because?

Or do you mean it's only bad when he does it with El?😂 Because it's the same thing. He's trying to reassure her that she's not a monster, that he loves her.

And once again - when she shows in s4 that she doesn't like something he's doing (not saying "I love you"), he accepts that, he feels bad, and tries to give her exactly what she asked for at the next opportunity!

Apparently you didn't see that either.

And "he never compliments her personality". How many hoops do you want him to jump through?🤣

Mike shows that he loves and respects El all the time, he doesn't need to say "You have an awesome personality." for El to feel that. And she never expressed any need for that. Does Hopper compliment Joyce's personality to her face? Did Joyce do that for Hopper? Did Nancy do that for Steve or Jonathan or vice versa? Did Max say that to Lucas? I guess Lucas is the only one who really loves his partner, because he did that once.🤣😂🤣😂🤣😂🤣

Oh, and of course, the whole monologue at the end of s4 doesn't count, because. "I love you on your good days, I love you on your bad days, I love you without your powers, I love you with your powers...I love you exactly for who you are."

That's somehow not valid, hm?

Mike can't win in your eyes, because you don't want him to. This is called scapegoating, btw.

Lastly, it's strange that you have a reference to him in your username, when you clearly think he's so horrible and accuse him of all this...together with a reference to Will...hmm...how mysterious....🙄🙄🙄 Almost like you had double standards for a certain agenda.🤔

*Drops mic*

[thosewildcharms]

Hi:) thanks to twol I fell in love with richonne and im watching twd and I couldn't tell when exactly they fell in love when do you think it was? When did they realize it? (I feel like rick knew it long before her in that 6x10ep he was like "finally" when they kissed)

hi! first of all let me just say I love the fact that you started watching because of richonne lol THEIR POWER. how are you enjoying both shows??

second of all, thank you so much for asking me this question, because it is one of my favorite things to think about.

I'm gonna start with michonne because I think it's way more clear cut for her. I have always personally believed that she fell in love with rick when he bit the shit out of that guy joe's throat in order to protect carl (and michonne and daryl for that matter). danai recently said this as well, - that while this was a subconscious turning point for michonne. I think this tracks, considering the show goes out of its way to use this moment to draw a direct comparison between rick and mike, michonne's ex/dead boyfriend. in her scene with carl in the immediate aftermath of the bite scene, she tells carl that it's important to know how her first son died: because his father gave up, got high and was too weak and neglectful to protect his child. she, essentially, tells carl that rick is the exact opposite of that, and that he shouldn't think badly of rick because of what he did (and in turn, shouldn't think badly of himself either, which is lovely), that instead of thinking of rick as a monster, he should know that what rick did was necessary. for michonne to lose her first child that way, only to see rick find a way to protect his family with both hands (literally) tied behind his back? of course she fell in love with him then. that moment on the tracks with rick right afterwards ("I'm okay"/"I know"/"how?/ "because I'm okay too") is also a direct comparison to lori. lori was horrified when she learned that rick killed shane. michonne, by contrast, is just grateful. she does not judge him or look at him any differently. she just loves him for it. and the way danai played it, I think you can see it on her face in that scene.

I do agree with danai that this was subconscious for michonne until the scene on the couch in 6x10. the look on her face is such a blatant "oh" moment straight out of fanfiction that it's pretty clear (to me, anyway) that while she was already in love with him this was the first time she allowed herself to see it.

rick I think is a bit harder to pin down. it's well documented by pretty much everyone and their mother (including but not limited to: the richonne fandom, yvette nicole brown, norman reedus, andrew's lincoln's mom, etc) that rick was, at the very least attracted to michonne and looking her up and down as early as the prison. but, I think he fell in love with her when they reunited after the prison fell, when he saw that she was able to reach carl in a way that he himself could not. a long standing concern for rick at that point was trying to preserve what was left of carl's innocence, and it was something rick struggled with due to his own mental health issues/his responsibilities as a leader. so to see michonne break through to carl, and even make him laugh on the train tracks and act like a kid again? I think that was everything to rick.

rick basically, quite literally actually, asks her to co-parent carl with him at that point (the "if you need a break/I'm done taking breaks" scene), and from then on treats her not just as his equal within the larger the group, but as a co-parent in the smaller family unit between himself, michonne, carl, and judith. he makes decisions for the entire group based on her opinion and her needs (such as walking to washington solely because she asks him to, and then agreeing with her decision to trust aaron and go to alexandria). it's where the shift starts for him.

but, I'm also inclined to think that this shift was subconscious for rick too, up until the moment on the couch, or maybe just before it. I say this mostly do the jessie arc when they first get to alexandria, which while sloppily done, basically boiled down to rick projecting all of his unresolved lori-shaped guilt onto a lori-shaped stand in. I don't think he could be consciously aware of being in love with michonne until all of those issues were resolved. notably, richonne get together the episode right after jessie dies, so I think that tracks. I agree though, that the way andy played that moment on the couch be seen as a finally moment. so my best guess is that he consciously realized he was in love with michonne during the (two month? is that right?) time gap betweeen 6x09 and 6x10. you can see in the opening of 6x10 that rick, michonne, and carl are really overtly domestic and settled with each other, so I think it's totally plausible he was aware of his own feelings by that episode before the couch scene. BUT I also think an argument can be made for him also having his own oh moment on the couch too, the minute he touched her hand. I think that's debatable.

anyway, I'm so sorry for writing this novel lmao. when do you think they fell in love with each other?

[mikesgaylittlethoughts]

'when blue and yellow meet in the west' pt.2

I reached the image limit in the first post so season four will need it's own post.

First part is here!

⭑ Season 4:

Ah, yes, the lying, hiding and miscommunication season. This should be great.

El's outfit at the start has a lot of red, but still with some blue. Mike isn't around now, and she's being mostly true to herself at school, but that's the issue. People are mean as hell and don't like her for who she is.

She wants so badly to be seen as normal, to live the life of an ordinary girl, but even now she's seen as weird and unusual. At least one sweet detail i noticed is that the flannel she's wearing might have been Joyce's.

I also find it sweet how red has been incorporated into Will's outfits, too. It happened a few seasons back, and it's a nice detail considering how undeniably close he and El are.

Mike's in his Hellfire shirt. With El away, he doesn't feel the need to perform so much anymore, and feels more free to actively enjoy his interests and be himself again.

The day Mike came to California, El was, once again, wearing mainly blue.

And then there's.... Michael's outfit....

Mmhm. Yellow over purplish blue. This is the outfit for the awkward ass airport hug, and the entirety of Rink-o-Mania, until they get home.

After his s3 realizations, he went straight back to repression. Acting totally weird around Will and forcefully happy around El again.

While Mike wears yellow, Will wears blue.

Oh, also, the flowers Mike picked for El had "too much yellow", and "vomit green socks".

Mike's fight with El here is a super important scene to mention. He's wearing mostly blue with just a few yellow accents, but he's still lying to El, isn't he?

Oh, he's lying, alright. It's just not working.

El isn't running with it like usual. She's crying, confronting him about not being able to tell her he loves him and Mike's trying to convince her but even then, he can't say it. Eleven can see right through him. And the yellow... Well, I think we know why Mike can't say he loves her.

The monologue scene is the same case. About 0% of what he said in it was true, but El knows that. That's exactly why it didn't work.

This is when the pink starts showing up again, but there are still layers of blue to remove before it's free.

Mike and Will switch back to their respective colors again, and make up from their previous fights. Will wears blue and yellow, and Mike wears that blue shirt with that godforsaken sideways pocket.

These are the outfits they're forced to stay in for the rest of the season cause everything goes to shit afterwards.

Throughout the season, El sheds her blue layers, until finally, she's all pink.

She realized she doesn't need him and they're definitely going to break up next season. She's finally free and will finally get to be herself without molding her image to fit into what others think she should be like.

Now it's Mike's turn to free himself.

────────── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──────────

Okay, that was a lot! Once again, thank you @62percentmaplesyrup for all the help !!! I'll leave her posts linked down here if you guys wanna look for yourselves, it's a super interesting detail.

Here and here!

If any of you actually read through all of this, i really appreciate it. I worked on this for days on end lmao.

anyway byler endgame stay gay losersss

[princess-glassred]

Au where Maturin decides to bring Eddie back and let him do over his life, but the butterfly effect causes Richie to marry connor and now HE'S the one in an abusive relationship and Eddie's gotta help him out of it.

Maturin lets Eddie make one wish before he brings him back so Eddie wishes for him to have never met Myra and to break the abuss cycle sooner. He then wakes up on the morning that Mike is supposed to call him, remembering everything that just happened. It worked well, Eddie is single, happier, healthier, and wealthier now. He even ends up google searching Myra's name since, even though she was toxic, he was still married to her for a long time and finds it hard to wish ill will on her. Luckily she also seems to be doing much better, so Eddie doesn't gotta feel too guilty about his wish. It kinda sucks he's gotta fight pennywise again tho, but he knows whats gonna happen now so it should probably be a breeze.

He gets to the chinese restaurant and everything plays out excatly how you'd expect it, none of the losers have been changed at all by Eddies wish for independance. None except for Richie that is. Richie is so strikingly different Eddie doesn't even recognize him at first. He's wearing like... normal office worker clothes? And he looks cleaner and less uhhh haggered? And he even seems a little more quiet than usual. The scene where they talk about marriage goes about the same, except for when Richie says "You didn't know I got married? You seriously didn't know?" It's not a prelude to a joke. Eddie completely expects it to be but it's not, he just pulls out his phone and shows them all a picture of Connor and explains they've been together for a while now and got married in canada.

Eddie's very suspicious of this, and the overwhelming horror he feels when he finds out Richie Tozier isn't even Richie Tozier anymore, he's Richie BOWERS, makes him wanna throw up. It's actually pretty sad, because from context clues he picks up when Richie talks about Connor, he seems super unsupportive and downright mean. Richie's not even a comedian in this timeline, because Connor insisted being a comedian wasn't really viable and STRONGLY suggested Richie do something more useful. This seems to have fundamentally changed Richie's personality to the point he regards all his silly jokes and impressions he used to do as just kid shit that he's grown up past. All the losers finds this sad, especially Bev since she's been in an abusive relationship, but nobody but Eddie knows how to approach him on it.

He tries to help him realize Connor's an abusive spouse because he doesn't support him, and Richie lets it slip that the only reason he started dating Connor was because he was so lonely after the losers started splitting up. He hit total rock bottom, so before he left town he decided to give connor a chance again. And Connor managed to take the already emotionally vulnerable and insecure richie and make him even more insecure with demeaning remarks, nasty comments, and the insistence Richie change everything about himself. He does ultimately realize Connor is just using him, and that their relationship is woefully unhealthy, and it's all through Eddie reminding him of what actual love feels like.

Unfortunately this doesn't end well for either of them, because bizzarely, because now that Eddie knows to dodge pennywise and avoid getting stabbed in the stomach, some one else has to die. He realizes it's going to be Richie, but he feels that's unfair because he just finally understood how awful Connor is, he deserves to live to see a day where he's not tied down to him anymore. Eddie got to enjoy two days, knowing he wasn't burdened by his mother or Myra anymore, and that's good enough. Richie deserves that too. So he pushes him out of the way at the last second and winds up dead again. The i fucked your mom exchange is a lot more sad now though, because Richie hadn't even made a joke like that in years.

The fuckin turtle is shocked to see Eddie back, but he thinks his self sacrifice was very kind of him to do. It was so kind he decides to give Eddie ANOTHER chance, but he turns down the offer since he figured he screwed up richies life with his last wish, and he isn't too in the mood for fighting pennywise again. Maturin clarifies though that there won't be any tricks or loopholes or anything. They can just "skip right to the happy ending". So Eddie says all he really wants anymore is for he and Richie be together in the end.

He winds up outside the decaying neibolt street, being hugged by Richie. Richie is overjoyed to see Eddie survived the pennywise attack, and Eddie's just happy to see Richie back to his usual old annoying self. Then they all go to the quarry together, and Eddie and Rich smooch like Bev and Ben. Happy ending. :>

[bambi-kinos]

McLennon male/female AU

So way back in June 2022, I was talking with some friends including @dovetailjoints about this Paul McCartney manip where his face was converted to a woman's:

I promptly lost my mind on account of being a huge d*ke so I started spinning up a McLennon m/f AU about it. I still think about it a lot but I also don't know if I'll ever write it or not. Looking at @erinarigby's beautiful rendering of John and Paula reminded me of it, so I am publishing these notes for the pleasure of the reading audience.

I might still return to it at some point but I am currently waist deep in my longfic and have different projects lined up after that.

John and Paula are at the fete together but Paula is being crowned the Rose Queen or whatever it was that was happening in the background. Her best friend is Dot and her closest guy friend is Ivan and she's too busy basking in the attention of winning a competition to give a single fuck about John Lennon. She already knows her worth so who gives a fuck about that guy? They do NOT have a fateful meeting at the church hall.

(The secret is that she quietly follows him on the bus and has his route memorized. Light stalking of the teenage girl kind and I bet Dot has been helping but they treat it as a big joke.)

Ivan and Len both know Paula from school before they went to gender segregated academies or whatever. Paula actually finishes her education here because her dad wants her to do it and I bet she would have been a daddy's girl through and through. Mike is still her little brother and she vacillates between doting on him and bullying him. (Older sisters can be really mean to their younger brothers, I've noticed.)

Ivan still sings her praises to John but John does not take this in the slightest bit seriously. He and the rest are convinced Paula is Ivan's secret girlfriend (it's actually platonic between them, George is the one who carries a torch for Paula) and that Ivan wants her around so that he doesn't feel lonely at Quarry Men practice.

Things finally come to a head when Paula helps Ivan carry his tea chest bass to a QM band practice. The mythical J. Paula McCartney! (She won't tell anyone what the J stands for because it's embarrassing.) Paula's face definitely catches some unwanted attention so she deliberately plays up being Ivan's girlfriend to escape it. I imagine she's pretty cold about this kind of thing and probably much more ruthless than AMAB Paul because she has to play for keeps to be taken seriously.

Then she notices John playing with banjo chords. She says something. This goes very, very poorly.

John could take direction from an AMAB Paul who showed off his skills but Paula just rocks up and makes fun of him to his face. "She doesn't even play! Ivan, muzzle your bitch and get her out of here." Doesn't help that John is immensely taken with her but he doesn't like this at all.

Years of slapslap (no kiss) ensue, Paula eventually does make her skills known to John in someway but he's able to put her down for being a girl and therefore not a threat. I have no idea how they would both develop musically but I imagine that any attempts at a collaboration between them would go immensely poorly at this stage. John would not be able to put aside the sexism and Paula would needle him mercilessly.

Eventually though they come to a sort of détente which means that their two social spheres get some measure of peace after some 2 odd years of them screaming at each other during house parties. Everyone else can tell they want to fuck each other's brains out but they both frequently declare their public loathing of each other. For some reason John makes it his business to know what the guitar girl from Allerton is doing with her time and who she is spending it with. As she gets older this might even become a more reasonable proposition as Liverpool is still a rough neighborhood and she insists on walking home by herself after dark. Eventually she and Ivan stage a public break up so that John realizes its "over" (lol) between them and stops bothering poor Ivan about it.

George is more territorial about Paula which is cute coming from a pipsqueak that John easily has 30 pounds over. Unfortunately Paula does not see George that way.

At some point Paula becomes a bit of a woman about town and starts seriously dating men. John muscles his way into this, for some god forsaken reason, and makes a nuisance of himself running off Paula's dates. More screaming matches ensue but John seems incredibly agitated about something that Paula doesn't understand.

At some point in the détente John makes it into art college. Paula makes sure to mock him to his face for being an academic failure and reminds him that he'll never graduate because he doesn't have the guts. To this end John does in fact buckle down out of pure spite. I don't know if he would actually finish but I think he'd actually develop as a painter and a sketch artist just to show her up. I don't think John Lennon of all people could bear a beautiful woman mocking him for his inadequacy.

John might go on two dates with Cynthia but I think she would be a little unsettled at how he manages to insert Paula McCartney into every single conversation, but not in a jealous way. Cynthia tracks down Paula at some public gathering and asks her if she's being bothered by John. A trio of Dot, Paula, and Cynthia forms. SLEEPOVERS etc. John settles down because Paula isn't actively dating anyone here, she has her galpals and they are extremely epic friends.

Something happens that triggers Paula and John running off on their own. I'm imagining John stealing a college teacher's keys and they drive out to get some lunch somewhere. It's an unexpectedly good gesture from John Lennon who Paula usually dismisses as a cad.

I think at some point during this conversation John would admit that he knows Paula is a good guitar player -- its just that he can't really own up to it in public. A unique moment of vulnerability from him and she responds in kind. She tells him she thinks he's the best singer she's ever heard. For the first time things are not shitty between them. John probably ruins this by honking her breasts.

Paula graduates secondary and has to decide what the fuck to do now. It is 1960, they're going to go to Hamburg eventually but not yet. John has managed to establish something with Stu and I think Paula sent George John's way because he needed support that he refused to accept from her because she's female. She's been a loner for all her life, it's not a big wrench now.

George has had a front row seat to John's Paula obsession for years now and he's both intrigued and weirded out and wants to date Paula himself.

I'm imagining some scenario where John finally goes…why not try it. What's stopping him. So he finds her at an outdoor market and he actually tries to be smooth. He catches her eye on the other side of the road and nicks a wildflower bouquet. He trips comically and almost goes down but then appears three stalls later. Paula is laughing, yes yes she thinks it's funny. He waits at the end of the strip and gives her the bouquet and they spend some quiet time together. Nothing sexual, John is just ready to try something he's never attempted before: treating a woman like a person.

Paula reciprocates and buys him something to eat probably. He really is very handsome and very intelligent. She likes him better without the quiff and says so. He succeeds in making her laugh. His hair is so red and he's still the beautiful boy she saw on the bus.

They're watching the sun set over the Mersey when she says "I was accepted to [university.] I'm leaving at the end of the week. I'm studying music."

John goes quiet but doesn't really react except to congratulate her. He knows she will do well.

He goes home and it goes poorly.

Cyn and Dot throw a big good bye party for Paula to celebrate her leaving home. Their pearl is escaping into the big wide world. Paula is deeply unhappy. Something is missing. She gets very very drunk. George shows up and tells her that John and Stu have secured a gig in Hamburg. They'll be leaving at the end of the week too. For some reason John was really, really intent on leaving all of a sudden. Paula definitely locks herself in her childhood bathroom and cries her eyes out.

John notably does not put in an appearance at the party even though Stu and his hot friend Pete Shotton definitely do along with George. Everyone knows that John and Paula have a thing so where the hell is he? Even if they don't like each other they've still been a big part of each other's lives -- John has an arrest record because he punched out the guy who spiked Paula's drink a few months ago and she screamed bloody murder in the police station until they let him go. What gives?

John still does not put in an appearance. Someone sees a creeper by the front door but he slides away before anyone can see him.

Around 4am Paula finally drags herself upstairs upset and wasted and not sure why she's unhappy. She hears the rocks clatter against her window and by the time she pokes her head out John is risking death by climbing up the drainpipe. She almost screams but helps him inside instead.

John is a MESSY PERSON and he promptly goes to pieces in her arms. What am I supposed to do without you, he sobs. Aren't you going to miss me? Aren't you going to think about me? Don't I matter to you at all?

They have another small argument but its not very serious and its clearly flirting at this point. They're both pretty bombed so they just end up stripping and holding each other.

Jim finds them the next morning. It goes poorly.

Paula decides she's going to Hamburg with John. He told her they need a fifth person and he gave her the eyes. She knows what he wants and she knows what she wants and she isn't wasting money on some stupid school. She doesn't want to be a music teacher anyway.

Jim informs her she is not going to Germany in the company of four randy boys much less with the town ne'er do well John Lennon. Paula bides her time and packs a bag and her guitar. She escapes out the window the morning that they're set to leave for Hamburg and shows up at the last second. John hugs her tightly and doesn't let go for several hours. She just blew her uni placement to be with him.

Hamburg happens. It goes poorly but also very well. John suddenly gets a lot more sensitive to their accommodations. If it was all blokes he wouldn't care but now that they're out of the cradle of Liverpool he's suddenly sharply aware of how many people are watching them, and watching Paula, and how vulnerable she actually is. Paula adjusts to the German catcalls and otherwise refuses to appear ruffled. Honestly don't know how to render this particular section except that John would get an early education on how a woman and a bandmate can be treated. This isn't Cynthia being pawed at by a German sailor, this is his bandmate Paula having to dance away from blokes trying to climb up the stage to get to her. "Alarmed" doesn't quite cover it.

For Paula its an education. She's never performed live in front of an audience before; this version of Paul never performed with the QM. Gelling with the band out of no where is a hell of a challenge but Hamburg still makes them. She surprises John by engaging in the loogie races and by being intrigued by the sex workers around town. I think that she and John still wouldn't be having sex at this point because John is still absorbing all the new experiences and it's easier to keep her on a shelf where he can admire her tits without actually trying to fuck her. In John's mind he's keeping the upper hand by not ruining Paula by having sex with her. In his mind he's protecting her from something; he doesn't feel worthy of her and if they get physical he's scared of making her "dirty."

Paula still has ways of unsettling him though. Imagining John's face if she shows him the underbust corset she bought without a shirt to go under it. He's only seen her nipples in the dark before so seeing her dressed up like one of the street girls makes him pretty feral and that's on top of the prellies.

Paula only performs dressed this way once which results in some mass chaos at whatever club they're performing at that night, kek.

Honestly Hamburg is still intensely deranged and Lennon and McCartney's fixations one each other becomes even more pronounced once they start writing songs together. I can't imagine how their music would change once they have access to Paula's vocal range. Probably something more Nightwish-esque as I think Paula being a woman would make John more tolerant or intrigued with operatic styles just because he wants to hear her belt it.

George still gets deported for being underage but I think John and Paula end up staying in Hamburg together because Paula doesn't light a condom on fire this time. She's too busy putting it on John. I like to think they spent Christmas in Germany performing and boning.

They finally make it home after New Year's. Paula is half dead and John is barely a person because he's full up on amphetamines and sex. Mimi won't let John into the house because he had the nerve to take off with a scarlet woman to Germany without asking permission which means…

Jim does not officially let John into the house so Paula sneaks him in through her window. The band recuperates through out January and John gets used to sleeping next to his lady. It's a quiet hibernation period that they think back on fondly later.

At this point Paula is somewhat disgraced for running off with John Lennon and once again John gets to see this up close and personal which is discomfiting for him since its his actions that are visiting these consequences back on Paula's head. He didn't quite understand how intense the judgment was before he saw it aimed her way. It forces him to grow up a little.

But he still takes her to Paris. Common expectation is that they're running away to get married. Neither of them want to get married yet but they're also doing the Lennon-McCartney dance with each other where they become screamingly jealous of anyone who looks at their partner.

Things progress to 1963. They meet Brian, shit happens idk. Beatlesmania kicks off. I have this idea that maybe Paula crossdresses as a man. She is beautiful but she still has a strong jaw and her breasts are small enough to bind without much effort. She is also still the tallest member of the Beatles and she easily has a full inch over John in height (which regularly leads to the best erections of John's entire life.) Being an Amazon has its advantages and this one means she can present herself as a man to secure a unified front with the other Beatles.

I am unable to render how Beatlemania would change if Paula was the single girl in the Fab Four but I can imagine how it would change their look -- 3 beautiful matching boys and the sole female. Lots of color play in my mind going on and of course there's the quiet understanding that Lennon and McCartney belong to each other.

Paula "accidentally" gets exposed as a woman when John loosens her undergarments as a prank and her breasts pop out during a performance. (I don't think anyone would see her nipples, it just be immediate cleavage and a button pops off her jacket.) I am unable to render how this would go, I can't imagine anything except a huge uproar that would send the Beatles into the stratosphere. This would become a moment that gets debated for decades, whether it was a prank from John or if John and Paula came up with it together.

Paula has incentive to do something like this: Brian won't let John and Paula get married because it would disrupt the Beatles image.

1965 - the big one, I think. Paula can be a woman in public now which results in the photoshoot that breaks the world. Referred to only as "the Beatles wedding." It's just too good to pass up.

Paula gets to model a few hundred different wedding gowns (most of these are separate from the boys just because there's so many and she looks good in everything) with various accoutrements anc accessories. There is a portion where the boys will be dressed up as grooms and they'll be getting special sessions with her each.

John is a complete and utter bastard leading up to and throughout the days of this shoot and its commonly conjectured in Beatles fandom circles for decades afterwards that he was seething with jealousy and humiliation -- he should have married her years ago so that this kind of spectacle couldn't come to pass, and he knows it, but he can't change it now and he's furious that she's dressing up as a bride when she's not even really his. And on top of it George and Ringo are getting to see her before he does and they won't tell him what she looks like.

"I hate you and I will never forgive you for as long as I live," is what George tells John when he asks how it went, what she wore, what it was like. John is hurt and confused.

"You're a lucky man John Lennon. Don't squander it," is what Ritchie tells John when he asks about it. "Make sure to brush your teeth and whatnot though."

John is nervous as hell even though its just some stupid photo shoot and they've done thousands of those already. Brian won't let him drink to calm down so John now has to face Paula in her wedding gown while completely sober.

There's a modern trend of "photos of grooms seeing their brides in their dresses for the first time" and I think all 3 of the boys would get these with Paula. It might even be enough to power several magazines, idk. Collectors items and whatnot. The McHarrison issue, the McStarr issue, the McLennon issue…

Photogs definitely capture the moments leading up to the reveal and then the seeing, the shock, the surprise, the awe. George started laughing and flung himself at her and danced her around, Ritchie did that presses-his-fist-to-his-face thing men do sometimes when they're overcome, yes, Paula is an absolute joy. She made sure to insist on having all different dresses per day because she didn't want repeats. Her boys deserve something brand new every time.

John though. Oh, John. Very nervous, trying not to be, clearly hating the camera, he doesn't turn when he's supposed to and he only reacts when she touches his shoulder and calls his name. Honestly I can see them leaning into a beauty and the beast angle with these two.

If there was any doubt before there isn't now. It's love. Everything else fades away and it's just John and Paula being themselves, except they were always in love, weren't they.

The world promptly goes completely insane upon the release of the Beatles wedding photographs. They got what they asked for and then some. Honestly John and Paula probably have one iconic photo spread of just the two of them that day and in that timeline, that portrait blots out pretty much anything else of cultural significance from 1965-1968. The world turns on but the wedding portraits from that day is what ends up being the most iconic part of Beatlemania.

after that IDK, I'm not really capable of thinking past that. I just like the idea of the wedding photoshoot and how John and Paula came from those humble beginnings. I think they'd definitely have children together but I don't know if they could manage a stable family unit or if they'd be able to save the band from the break up. But there wouldn't be any faffing around about "the Lennon and McCartney rivalry" or "they always hated each other." The wedding shoot was too real.

Notably, John and Paula did attend the premier of A Hard Day's Night with Paula in a white dress and John in a black tux. Symbolism.

I think by the time the Get Back sessions happen John and Paula have an almost three year old and Paula is heavily pregnant with their second or third child. Instead of the deadline being Ringo's acting job they're trying to get one last project in because the second baby is due in February.

I think with Paula's height (she would still be taller than John after all and this time she's wearing high heels to make the point) and her androgyny they would also get some mileage out of early boundary pushing by dressing her up in the boys clothes, so the Shea uniforms would definitely make an appearance unchanged except Paula's tits are out to here and John spends a lot of the stadium concert unbuttoning her jacket every time she buttons it back up.

Just occurred to me that Help! would be a much more straight Dr. No parody especially with Paula as the built in Bond girl. AHDN would be more similar as a documentary with surreal comedy elements but Help! would definitely be more ridiculous and Johnny gets his girl in the end haha

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

These are all my notes from last year. Thought you guys would appreciate. As I was writing this out last year, I remember being caught between two impulses: the "John and Paul would be a pregnant teenagers couple" idea (which I see many other based users have agreed with!) and then the "Beatlemania but if Paul was a woman" idea. In the end I went with the Beatlemania Paula because that's more interesting as a story especially with Paula having to exploit her androgyny for success. That being said I think Paula would absolutely be the Domme to John's sub, there's no way a Beatlemania Paula doesn't have John's balls in a cage and John liked being controlled by a strong woman. He's not allowed to finish until she tells him that he can.

I remember thinking that they would have their first child in 1965, with the idea being that Paula is pregnant during the Beatles Wedding Photoshoot, which would take place sometime in the winter so that the fashion designers could sell their wares with Paula advertising them. IMO Paula would make John wear condoms for years but once Ed Sullivan happens John makes a disturbingly sincere plea to trash them and Paula assents. Two months later she's pregnant after John's been climaxing inside her multiple times a day <3 But honestly, she's rewarding him for being so fucking brave all the time, he's unironically earned it.

I also think that a female Paula is still has full on baby rabies and by late 1964 she's desperate to get pregnant by John so they can finally start their family. There's an element of rebellion too because she'd be furious with Brian for not letting her and John get married and retaliates by having out of wedlock children.

[hellfirenacht]

Upside Down to Inside Out Chapter 2

Fic Summery: It has been four months since anyone has heard from Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson. After the Events of the Upside Down, he skips town, leaving you to reflect on the fallout and how your relationship changed during the battle for Hawkins. 1

Chapter Summery: Hellfire goes to the Championship game and Team Surfer Boy looks for El.

Tags: Eddie Munson x Reader, no use of y/n, reader is not described, sfw

May 1986

You hadn’t been to a school basketball game since you were in middle school when you’d been dragged by a few friends with the promise of free food. This wasn’t much different, with the school marching band blasting music and the excited chatter of what seemed to be the whole school anxiously waiting for the game to start. 

Eddie had disappeared for a few hours after the final bell rang, only appearing at the last minute to meet you with the rest of Hellfire outside of the gym. He smelled faintly of weed covered with some cheap cologne to avoid suspicion. Shit, that would have been a good idea to have a joint before this. 

Despite his assumed inebriated state, Eddie still held a firm frown on his face that made you wince internally. It was clear he was still upset with the change of plans for the evening, and you didn’t blame him, you really didn’t. But this was something important to a friend, and you hoped he could at least pretend to care long enough for Lucas to see his friends coming out to support him. 

His mood affected the others as well, or at least the more impressionable ones of Jeff and Gareth, who had been in Hellfire the longest. Gareth had always looked up to Eddie, and had always been one to fall in line first with the DM, imitating whatever emotion Eddie had to almost a comical degree. 

Tonight it wasn’t funny, Gareth’s scowl at you seemed to be overkill compared to Eddie’s look of annoyance from having to be here. Jeff and Zack were talking to each other, probably going over some strategy that their characters would use when the final session did happen. Dustin and Mike looked like they had a d4 up their asses from the way they were nervously looking between you and Eddie. 

It always came down to between you and Eddie. Somehow in the year and a half that you’d been a part of Hellfire, you had become his second-in-command with the club. You hadn’t set out to do it, but while Eddie was good at actually running the campaigns you were better at making sure that Higgins didn’t have any reason to disband the club and sweet talking the drama teacher into letting everyone use the prop room for the meetings. 

Hell, you’d been the one to actually make sure that the yearbook club came to take everyone’s photo as proof that you all existed in the school. 

“So,” Dustin said, trying to shift the mood a little. “Should we go inside? I think it’s about to start.”

“Yup, I got everyone’s tickets.” you said, pulling out six slips of paper from your back pocket and handing them out. 

“How’d you get so many tickets to this game?” Jeff asked, looking at the ticket and then at you. 

“I have connections.” you shrugged. The connection being your piggy bank at home that was now starving. You’d probably have to go without your usual supply from Eddie for a while, but it would be worth it, though. You all would make it through the game, Lucas would be happy, and then you all would be able to meet up over Spring Break, beat Eddie’s campaign together as a team, come back to school, graduate, and then maybe you’d finally consider telling Eddie- 

“Henderson!” 

Everyone looked up to see Steve Harrington of all people walking towards the group. There was a pretty blond girl on his arm, who looked confused as to why she was being ushered towards the freaks of Hawkins. 

Dustin had mentioned a few times that he was friends with Steve, and you had honestly thought he was joking. He’d acted like the two of them went on life threatening adventures together, and that Steve was some sort of badass. Mike had backed him up, which added a little bit of credit to his account as Steve had infamously dated Mike’s sister at some point. 

But now there was no doubt in the world that Dustin and Steve knew each other. Both of their faces lit up and soon they were doing some sort of dorky secret handshake that shattered any previous perception that you had of King Steve. You covered your mouth with your hand, trying not to laugh too much and immediately looked over at Eddie, as if to say ‘Are you seeing this?’. 

Eddie was looking back at you out of the corner of his eye, his lips slightly parted and his eyebrows raised. Yes, he was indeed seeing this, and he looked just as baffled as you were. 

The two of you glanced back at the scene and you looked over at the blond girl who seemed equally as baffled at her date’s sudden burst of dorkiness. 

“I thought you had your nerd club on Fridays!” Steve said, clearly pleased that Dustin was holding a ticket to the game. 

“Yeah we, uh, were able to reschedule for Lucas! Eddie was generous enough to postpone the final session so that we could cheer on the Tigers.” Dustin said, trying to give Eddie credit for the good deed. You couldn’t tell if the attempt at flattery had helped or hurt, as Eddie was reminded why you all were outside of the Gym and not safely tucked away in the prop department. 

Steve looked at Eddie, and there was just something weird about seeing the King and the Freak acknowledging each other in any way. Steve had never so much as glanced at another member of the Hellfire Club, despite his former reputation of being a jackass. You had assumed that you all were beneath him, and yet there was an undeniable real friendship between him and Dustin. 

“Yeah, that’s great!” Steve said, turning his attention back to Dustin. Guess he didn’t know what to say to Eddie, who also didn’t seem to know how to handle this bizarre scenario. 

Steve’s date tugged on his arm, clearly ready to go inside and be around normal people again. Steve and Dustin bumped fists, and he gave everyone else a polite enough parting, making eye contact with you for a moment before the two turned to head into the gym. 

“I’m sorry, was that Steve Harrington that just came over and was willingly seen next to us with a girl?” Jeff asked, looking around at everyone. “Am I dreaming?”

“That sure was.” you said, as Steve and his date disappeared behind the double doors. 

“He’s cool!” Dustin said defensively. “He’s not as bad as you think he is.”

“Didn’t he vandalize the movie theater downtown to call Mike’s sister a slut?” Zack asked, and Eddie’s eyes widened. 

“Jesus.” he muttered. 

“Shut up.” said Mike, glaring at Zack. 

“Alright, that’s enough!” you said, placing yourself between the two. “How about we all just go inside, we’ve stalled long enough.”

In a sea of Hawkin’s Tigers green, the Hellfire club stood out like sore thumbs with their matching shirts. The six of you had managed to find a few spaces on the bleachers to stand around in. You, Eddie, and Jeff were standing a row above Dustin, Mike, Gareth, and Zack. The seven of you barely had time to file into the gym and grab spots before the team was running out onto the court. 

You made sure to cheer as loudly as you could as Lucas ran onto the court with the rest of the team, only losing in enthusiasm to Mike and Dustin. You swear, the only other time you had ever seen Lucas’s face light up like that was was when his character had pulled off a near impossible bluff check last semester that could have ended badly for everyone in the party. It was worth pissing off the whole club, if anything just for this. Even Eddie managed to bring himself to clap with a grimace. You wished that he understood that this wasn’t the end of the world to support his friend. 

Then again, you’d been lucky enough to fly under the radar at Hawkins High. You hadn’t endured the same level of bullying that everyone else in this club had, even on the days that you wore your Hellfire shirt.  

Everyone’s attention was brought back to the court when Higgins was announcing for everyone to stand for the national anthem. 

Tammy Thompson couldn’t carry a tune in the bucket. You were once again looking to meet Eddie’s eyes as the second most bizarre thing to happen today happened. She came back to Hawkins from Nashville to sing at a school function? This day kept getting weirder. 

“Do you think Nashville kicked her out?” Eddie asked, leaning into you. You snorted and elbowed him. It was reassuring that he was at least talking to you and making a joke. 

Tweeeeeeeet

The whistle blew and within a few minutes it was clear that you and the rest of Hellfire was completely lost. The baseline of everyone’s knowledge of the game was that the ball needed to go in the laundry basket hoop, anything beyond that might as well be calculus. 

Jeff and Zack lost interest pretty quickly, almost immediately turning to chat with each other rather than watch the game. When it became clear that Lucas was going to be sitting on the bench, yet again, everyone took their seats and started ignoring whatever was happening on the court. The only ones even trying to figure out what was going on were Dustin and Zack.

“So... how does everyone think the adventure’s going?” you asked, seeing the glazed look in everyone’s eyes as you tried to lighten the mood. 

“We aren’t on an adventure.” Gareth was looking at you like you were crazy. 

“Yeah, we would be on an adventure if we didn’t have to be here.” muttered Jeff. 

“Oh, come on.” you rolled your eyes. “It’s not even that bad. Yeah we have no idea what’s going on, and the person we came to support and cheer on is on the bench-”

“You are terrible at pep talks, mom.” Zack said. 

“I’m better than Jason Carver!” you pointed out, remembering his horrible pep talk this morning at the pep rally. 

“A mime is better at pep talks than Jason Carver.” Mike said.

“Yeah the bar for that is in Hell.” Added Dustin. 

“Gee, thanks guys-” you started. 

“Wait what happened at the pep rally?” Eddie asked, much to your surprise. You knew he skipped, having looked for him earlier in the day in the bleachers but you didn’t think he’d bother to show an interest. 

“He basically said that when their team was losing, he told them to think of dead students and Hopper and how they’d want the team to win.” you provided. “It was really distasteful and gross.”

Eddie looked even more unimpressed that he was here now. “You all could be fighting cultists right now instead of this.” he said, gesturing to the players on the court. “It’s not too late to head to the room, you know.”

He grunted when you punched him in the arm, glaring at him. “Absolutely not.” you said firmly. You’d already have to miss out on anything that required money for the next month getting everyone tickets to this game. “Besides, who says that we aren’t already fighting cultists?” 

He looked at you skeptically, as did the rest of Hellfire. Sometimes, it was hard playing the ‘Team Mom’, the ‘Bad Cop’, the ‘Cheerleader’ as Jeff once even called you much to your distaste.

“Look around, everyone’s wearing the same outfit!” you said.  “The basketball team is clearly performing some sort of ancient money ritual-”

“I’m sorry, a money ritual?” Gareth asked. 

“Wait, that makes sense!” piped up Dustin. “Doesn’t the school get extra funding if the sports team does well?”  

You pointed at Dustin, thankful for the assist. “Exactly! See? So the team’s doing this crazy ritual with a rival cult, right? And everyone in town is showing up because they want in on it, even if they won’t get any of the benefits because the money’s just gonna be funneled back into the cult.” 

“You know, she’s starting to make some sense.” Zack said slowly. 

“I do that often.” You looked back at Eddie. “You said it yourself that Sinclair’s been taken in by the dark side, see? He joined a cult!” You pointed to the bench where Lucas was watching the game intently. 

Eddie followed your gaze and you saw that crack of a smile as well as his shoulders relax just a little. Right, this was working. Just get through the game with everyone in something resembling a good mood and things will work out. 

You were about to start on how the cheerleaders were bards when you noticed someone staring at you from below. Somehow you and Chrissy Cunningham were making direct eye contact with each other. Why would she be looking at you? Why would she be looking at anyone in this area? She realized you were looking back and she quickly turned back to the game, clapping with her pompoms. 

Bizarre count: Three.

It really wouldn’t have made your list of strange happenings for the night had she not kept looking over her shoulder at your group nervously. You realized that it wasn’t specifically you that she was looking at, but (assuming you were not insane) Eddie. Chrissy the Cheerleader was looking over at Eddie the Freak. She looked a little shaken up and you nudged Eddie. 

“Eddie, why does that cheerleader keep staring at you?” you asked, motioning towards the strawberry blonde ponytail that was now bobbing up and down as she cheered for the Tigers. 

“She’s not.” Eddie said quickly, with the undertone of ‘shut up’.

“Oh, she really is.” you said. “She keeps staring directly at you, and she looks... scared.”

You didn’t want to accuse Eddie of anything, you refused to make any sort of judgment without at least asking what was going on. 

His hand wrapped around your arm and he jerked you closer and leaned in close. His voice was so quiet, even this close to your ear you could barely hear him over the sound of the crowd. “I’m selling something to her tonight. Stop drawing attention to this.” 

You quickly shut your trap, though you looked at him in surprise. Prom Queen Chrissy Cunningham was buying off of Eddie? She was the last person that you would ever expect to approach Eddie, let alone buy from him. 

“I’ll shut up, but she should be less obvious.” you mutter, more to yourself than to him. 

The sound of a buzzer echoed through the gym, signally halftime. This was good, the club no longer looked like they were completely miserable being there, just regular annoyed. You were sure that by the end of the game they’d be able to move on and set up a time for the end of Eddie’s campaign. 

Everyone started to disperse, using this time to go to the bathroom or grab snacks. You made your way over to the concession stand, looking over once more at Chrissy, who was talking to two other jocks, you think they were from the football team? She still looked nervous but at least she wasn’t looking at Eddie anymore. 

That was the memory that would haunt you looking back on that night. More than what would happen just a few minutes later, more than the words exchanged between you and Eddie, and more than the large bruise that would appear on your ribs before the end of the night. 

Maybe if Chrissy had kept her eyes to herself, things would have been different. 

September 1986

Trying to keep up with where all the kids hung out was proving to be an impossible task. You, Jonathan, and Argyle had started with visiting Hopper at his cabin. A few months ago it had been run down and nearly uninhabitable but the past few months had seen changes. There were still parts of the exterior that could use a good coat of paint but it was far more intact than it had been. 

Former Police Chief Hopper wasn’t exactly thrilled to see three stoners showing up at his door unannounced but he didn’t immediately turn you away either. It probably helped that Johnathan and Argyle had been the ones to help El save the world. 

She wasn’t home. It was the weekend and El had disappeared with Mike and the others some time after school and he’d only heard from her twice. The last Hopper heard, they were at Mike’s house. 

Mike’s house proved to be of no help either, with Nancy opening the door. You liked Nancy, she had at least been nice to you in school and the two of you had worked well enough together to solve the Creel mystery as well as her using her own money to help buy Eddie food when he was in hiding. 

You didn’t know if Nancy and Johnathan were together. You knew that had been, but were unsure now. It didn’t help that the two seemed to freeze when they made eye contact, their smiles hesitance and awkward. You and Argyle looked at each other, before Argyle stepped up to the plate to ask if El was there. 

Jonathan just stared at Nancy as she explained that they had been there last night and this morning, but they had run off right after breakfast. She mentioned that they had talked about grabbing something from Dustin’s house before they left. 

Nancy and Johnathan gave each other the most painful and awkward hug you’d ever seen in your life, and you think Nancy kissed his cheek when you turned away. Just like you had only given your new friends snippets of your relationship with Eddie, Jonathan had kept the more intimate details about his relationship with Nancy Wheeler close to his chest since you all started hanging out.

You already knew that the kids were long gone before Ms. Henderson even opened up the door. There were no bikes in the front yard to indicate that anyone other than Dustin’s mother was home. 

Sitting in the Surfer Boy van, you sighed as you all tried to figure out where to go next. The three of you ran down the mental list of all the kids, crossing out where you had been. El, Mike, Dustin... there was always the Beyers house, Lucas’s house, Max’s-

The thought of stepping back into Forest Hills Trailer Park made your stomach turn. You hadn’t been back in months, not since Wayne gave you the news. You highly doubted the kids were even there anyway. 

“We’re getting nowhere with this.” you said, rubbing your face, leaning against the seats. The scent of pleather and weed fogging up your brain as you leaned forward against the driver seat. Months ago it would have just reminded you of Eddie, but the scent memories were slowly shifting to long nights talking to Argyle and Johnathan.

“Man, this would be so much easier if we had that girl's powers!” Argyle said. “We could, like, go lay around in a tub and just think about where she is and we’d know it!”

“Argyle, if we could do that, we wouldn’t even need her to find Eddie.” you snorted. 

“Oh right, we’re looking for Eddie!” 

That just made you laugh more. You probably shouldn’t be trusting Argyle to drive in this state, but here you were, letting him pull out of the driveway of the Hendersons. 

“Wait, shit. I think I know how we can find them” you said. “Take me home, I have an idea.” 

Soon enough you were digging through your drawers, pulling out an old heavy walkie talkie. You hadn’t touched the thing since the last time you saw Eddie. After checking to make sure it had batteries, you brought it back to the van. 

“Those kids always have their walkies on.” you said, flicking it on and extending the antenna. Your hands were shaking a little-

“-NEEDS AN AMBULANCE! DOES ANYONE COPY? EDDIE NEEDS AN AMBULANCE. WE’RE CALLING 911-”

A firm hand on your arm made you jump and you looked up at Johnathan. Right, you were supposed to be using it, not having flashbacks. 

“You’re okay.” he said and you nodded. 

“Dustin, do you copy?” you said into the brick. “This is Team Surfer Boy to Dustin- do you copy?” 

The three of you stared at the walkie talkie. Maybe it was a few seconds, maybe it was a few hours, but the speaker crackled to life and you looked up at Argyle and Johnathan in surprise, relief flooding your face. 

“This is Dustin to Team Surfer Boy, we copy. Over.”

“Dustin where are you and is El with you? Over” you asked. 

“Yeah, we’re all over at Will’s place right now.” 

You looked up at Johnathan who groaned in annoyance. Of course they were at his house. This could have easily been solved with a phone call home- or any phone call. Wait, why were you running all over town again?

Ah, so that’s why weed is not the most conducive to making logical decisions. 

“I repeat, we are all at the Byer’s home now. Is everything okay?” Dustin’s voice repeated. 

“Copy that, Dustin. Everything is fine, no one’s in danger.” you hoped. “Team Surfer Boy is coming to crash the party. ETA fifteen minutes.”   

“Copy that.” Dustin said and you pushed down the antenna again. 

“Alright Brochachos, buckle up! Next stop is Casa Byers!” Argyle said, taking off again. Argyle had been living with them for a few months now. You wondered if he would ever go home. 

You couldn’t imagine Hawkins feeling like home to anyone after everything that happened.

It was just warm enough outside to roll down the windows of the van as Argyle drove. You hoped that the cool air would do you some good as you zipped through the familiar streets towards the new home that Johnathan lived at. You realized that you had never actually been to his home. Everytime the three of you hung out, it was Argyle picking you up from your house, or meeting up somewhere else. 

If you had never been to their house then why did this neighborhood look so familiar to you?

The faint sound of drums and guitar was echoing through the old speakers of the Surfer Boy van. This was also something that didn’t make sense as this song wasn’t exactly Argyle or Johnathan’s usual style of music. It sounded like... 

All the blood drained from your face as you heard the music getting louder. A guitar riff- one not as practiced as it used to be, echoed through the otherwise quiet street. You could basically hear the lyrics in your mind ‘raging through my skin, blazing through my veins’

You had been told that they broke up, that Corroded Coffin was no longer together after Eddie had skipped town. Gareth had made it very clear that he blamed you for the destruction of the band and Hellfire Club. You couldn’t even bring yourself to argue if that was fair or even technically correct. But everyone else agreed that it was better if you all went your separate ways, needing space apart to heal the gaping wound that Eddie’s disappearance had caused. 

Jeff, Gareth, and Zack were healing. You felt your wound start to pull at the seams. 

You slid down in the backseat as you passed by the Emmerson house and pulled in right next door. Of fucking course. Of course Johnathan and Argyle lived next to Gareth Emmerson. Of course Gareth was outside with the friends that shunned you. Of course you’d have to get out of the car and risk being seen by them. 

“You doin’ okay back there?” Argyle asked, turning off the van. 

“Not even a little, why?” you asked, staring at the ceiling. 

“I take it you know those guys?” Jonathan asked, looking next door. The music had come to a stop and though you couldn’t make out any words you knew that Corroded Coffin was standing around and talking now. 

“Yup. That’s.. Hellfire Club. Well, Corroded Coffin. Eddie’s band. We were in Hellfire together.” you explained, wishing you could disappear into the seats. “They hate me.” 

“Mom isn’t too thrilled with them either.” Jonathan said, continuing to look out at your former party members, not being even a little discreet. “She says they make too much noise when she’s trying to work.” 

Music started up again, a cover of an old song that you and Eddie had listened to one night after they played the Hideout. He’d snuck some beers out of the back, you two stayed out all night just talking-

“You aren’t gonna find him in my van.” Argyle said, nudging your leg. “Let’s go talk to the psychic girl and find your friend!”

He was right, you knew he was right. But stepping out and being seen by those you’d given everything to was hard. You sat up and took a deep breath, maybe if they were playing they wouldn’t notice you and you could just sneak into the home. 

If only things could ever be that simple. When you stepped out and the van door slammed shut with an echo, the drumming immediately stopped followed quickly by the rest of the music. 

You froze in place as you made eye contact with Jeff, stuck in place like a deer in the headlights. 

“You know this is a closed practice, right?” Gareth said, stepping out from behind his drums and walking outside of the garage. There was a small line of shrubs that separated the two driveways and you supposed that if Gareth tried to fight you he’d at least be slowed down by that.  

“I’m not here for you, Gareth.” you said, crossing your arms. “I’m here to-” 

You couldn’t tell them that you were here to see a girl with psychic powers who could possibly help you locate Eddie and confirm that he was alive. You wanted to tell them, but the look in their eyes was distrustful, as if your very presence would somehow disrupt their fragile contentment that they had clearly worked hard to piece back together. 

“I’m here to see someone else.” you swallowed and looked at all of them. You should say that they sound good, that it’s clear they’re working hard. Something, any kind of compliment to ease the tension just like you used to. You always were able to get everyone to relax, right?

Maybe the old you could. Maybe Team Mom could. But not now. 

“You should probably not keep them waiting.” Jeff said, and you looked for anything other than contempt and distrust in their eyes. When you didn’t find it, Jonathan placed an arm around your shoulders and led you into the house. 

Maybe it was just easier to be mad at you compared to Eddie. After all, you were the one who stopped Hellfire from having its final campaign session. If everyone had that closure of finishing the Cult of Vecna before Eddie’s grand disappearing act, then maybe they wouldn’t direct their hurt and anger at you. They didn’t want to blame Eddie, and so you were the next best thing. 

It had been easy to push the rejection down when you didn’t see them, when you were spending time with Johnathan and Argyle. But the reminder that you weren’t wanted tugged at the wound inside of you. 

The Byers’ basement was spacious, with plenty of room for any casual group of teenagers to hang out without the bother of parents hovering. As Johnathan directed you down the stairs you saw the party in place. Well, some of them. 

Dustin, Mike, Will, and El were sitting around and watching a movie as you all walked in. The tv paused as everyone greeted each other. 

Of the four, you knew Dustin and Mike the best after a year of adventuring as well as the battle of the Upside Down. Will you barely knew, only hearing stories from Johnathan, and El you had met in person a handful of times. 

“No Sinclair or Max?” you asked, looking around. 

“Max had rehab and Lucas went with her.” Mike said. 

“It’s called physical therapy, Mike.” said Will. 

You nodded, at least one couple might actually make it out of all of this. 

“So.... what are you guys doing here?” Dustin asked, bringing up the elephant in the room. “I take it you didn’t track us down to have a friendly chat?”

“You were looking for me.” El said. 

“Wooah... she’s good.” Argyle said with a nod and you pat him on the shoulder, not having the heart to remind him that you had specifically asked for El over the walkie talkie. 

“Yeah I... I need your help.” you said, walking over to the young girl. Her hair was short, having been buzzed a few months ago. It was slicked back right now, and you couldn’t help but think about how badass she looked, even with her softer features. “I want to find Eddie. Can you help me?” 

The silence was deafening as she looked at you in surprise. The rest of the kids were also looking at each other. 

“Have any of you heard from Eddie...?” you asked, looking around. 

Mike looked over at Dustin who shook his head. “No. No one’s heard from him.” Dustin looked away, and you felt for the kid. He’d looked up to Eddie so much, and you were sure that his disappearance had wounded him the same way it had for you. 

You were going to strangle Eddie if you ever saw him again, if not for yourself then for Dustin and Wayne at least. 

“He probably doesn’t want to be found.” Dustin said. “I mean, he left months ago and no one’s heard from him. I mean, this town still hates him.”

“My dad told me that I’m not allowed to go to Hellfire anymore.” Mike added. “That’s why we come over here to play D&D now.” 

“Hellfire doesn’t even exist at school anymore.” Will chimed in. “Higgins banned it the second school started again.” 

“Which is not fair, because Eddie did nothing wrong.” El said looking at you. “Eddie was a hero and Dungeons and Dragons is a game for nerds and it is bitchin’.”

Eddie would have loved El, you were sure of it. You couldn’t help but smile at her. “Yeah, yeah you’re right, kid.” you said. “Please, El. I just want to know he’s alive and not dead in a ditch somewhere.” 

She looked at the others, a silent conversation happening between them all. El finally nodded. 

“I will look for him.” she said. 

You reached into your wallet, and pulled out a polaroid of you and Eddie. It had been taken a few weeks before everything had gone wrong. You two looked so happy. Eddie was on his throne in the props department, you were standing behind the chair with your arm slung around his shoulders as you pretended to try and look at his DM notes. He was laughing and trying to push you away. 

“I don’t know if you need a picture or anything but, here.” you handed over the photo to El who looked at it. 

February 1986

“I will do my best.” she said. 

It had been a pain in the ass going to yearbook club every week to remind them that Hellfire Club still hadn’t had any pictures taken for the yearbook but finally they had sent someone to do it. Molly was the only one who had been willing to come and get the few group photos needed, and you were fine with that. The two of you had English together, and she had always been nice enough to those in Hellfire. 

She had just finished taking the group pictures in the hallway of everyone and now you all were back in the drama room. Molly had said that she wanted to take some more dynamic shots, like at any other club. You somehow doubted that anything other than the group shot would make it in, but you appreciated the effort anyway. 

Eddie had already set up his DM screen earlier and was more than happy to ham it up as the freak for a photo. She had taken a few of everyone at the table, pretending to play while getting quotes from everyone about why they liked Hellfire Club and how it “enriched their lives at Hawking High”. 

While Eddie was going on a tangent about his many notebooks he kept to keep track of his game, that’s when you got your idea. You stood up as quietly as you could, sneaking behind him. His back was turned to you as he chatted with Molly, and you leaned over his chair, looking over his shoulder in the most obvious way possible to catch a glimpse of behind the screen. 

“Hey!” Eddie’s head whipped around and he looked at you. “Nu-uh, nope, you know the rules. Get back in your seat.” Eddie grabbed his notebook and slammed it shut. “Nice try.”

“Come on, Eds!” you slipped around him and threw your arm around his shoulder, leaning over more. ”I know you keep track of who your favorite players are, and I want proof that you’re unfairly targeting me!” you joke and reach for the notebook again. 

“Touch my notebook and I’m killing you when the session starts.” he said, and despite his words he was smiling at you. Eddie tried to push you away, but you leaned into the touch instead, feeling his warm hand squish against your face as you reached for the notebook again. 

“Don’t you mean kill my character?” you asked as he pulled the notebook out of reach. 

“Nope. I mean you specifically.” he teased.  

The notebook he was holding wasn’t even where he kept his important notes. You knew that, and he knew that. That was the notebook for doodles and song lyrics, and fucking around. You knew that because you had given him the leather bound notebook that he kept his real notes in last year for Christmas. 

You had forgotten that Molly was even there until-

Flash

September 1986

El was sitting on the couch, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. You’d been told that she had powers, that she could do this but you had never witnessed it. 

She had only looked at the picture for a few seconds before handing it back to you. It was tucked safely back into your wallet for now. 

It had been tense in the room for a few minutes as you all stared at the girl. From what you had been told, she had lost her powers and had just recently had them come back. You had no idea what to expect from this, really. What if she couldn’t find him? What if only some of these powers had come back? 

“I see him.” El’s voice sounded far off, as if she were talking in her sleep, hell maybe she was. “Eddie is... at a store. He is buying cigarettes.” 

Your heart leapt up in your chest as you listened to her. He was alive. Eddie was alive and he still existed somewhere. 

“How... how does he look?” you asked, unsure if she could even hear you in this state. 

“He looks... tired.” El said slowly. 

You wiped at tears that were threatening to fall from your eyes. 

“But he’s.. He’s alive? He looks okay? He’s not.. Not hurt?” your voice cracked. 

“I do not think so.” El said. “He is not talking. He is buying cigarettes and a mountain dew.” 

“That’s not real food, Eddie.” you said, a tear escaping your eye. . 

El removed her blindfold and you got up and hugged her tightly. 

“Thank you, El.” you said. “Thank you so fucking much.”

Eddie Munson was alive, but that did little to ease the ache in your heart. Eddie was alive, and you were still slowly dying inside without him. 

Now what?

----

Dividers by @strangergraphics

a/n: Only 2 people showed an interested in this fic, but I love it so I'm gonna write it.

Comments and reblogs feed the muse <3

[greenfiend]

Hi there! Let me first say that I love your (and kaypeaces21s and strangertheorys) theories about Will having DID and many of the previously established characters being his alters. Out of all the theories I've seen so far it makes by far the most sense and explains so much which I've just thought to be bad writing before (like Hoppers sudden personality shift in S3) And if you don't mind, I would love to hear your thoughts on Max as an alter in particular if you ever come around to write them down as Max's journey in S4 seemed really noteworthy to me especially when compared to Els. Like in theory El is in the best starting position for a fresh new start. New town, a family that cares for her, a boyfriend. Max on the other hand is depressed, isolates herself and breaks up with her boyfriend Lucas. However after that I find it interesting how Max's ties to the outside world strengthen (through Lucas and everyone else who tries to help her) while Els actually weaken. Hopper and Joyce aren't there, it's becoming more obvious day by day that Mike neither understands her nor loves her romantically and even though Will is trying to help fix their relationship, it is also not working. (We all know why) The further along the story goes, the more lonely El seems to become. This happens while Max gets back together with Lucas and Lucas making it clear how much he loves her, doesn't want her to get hurt and wants to help her, if she would just talk to him. (which I know she can't do under any circumstance) "Running up that hill" also has a very special meaning I think. Like yeah, at first it makes you think she wants to switch places with Billy and what that implies (and I do think it does carry that meaning as well) but there may also be a very different meaning beyond that. One that goes into the complete opposite direction.

"And if I (Max) only could, I'd make a deal with God (Will) and I'd get him to swap our places (Max's and Wills)" Just listen to the song from the perspective of Max as an alter and and think of how it may depict her relationship with with Will. It's seriously heartbreaking. I think if there is any chance (even if ever so slightly) of one alter not integrating back into the system in the end, it may be Max (and not El)

Re: this post on DID/Will's internal world

Anon!!!! Thank you for bringing up MAX! There’s SO much to discuss here.

First of all, I think more people are slowly starting to accept the very real possibility that Will created El… BUT they’re not willing to accept this of Max yet. Understandably so!

Some evidence for the fact that Max is another alter of Will's:

When Max is first introduced, it was mid way through a lecture on the brain. Mr. Clarke states that there are "a hundred billion cells" "all working as one". Suspicious...

Then of course, this sequence. A "complete change to his personality" you say? Now. WHY would they feature Will and Max during these specific lines if Max is NOT an alter of Will's?

"And I am a material girl". Double meaning here. "Material Girls" as in they are materialistic but also...

Anon, as you brilliantly pointed out... "Running Up that Hill" also has a double meaning. Look at these screenshots! They literally CUT the song so it would line up right when we focus on the WILL lookalike girl (same hair colour, VERY similar shirt... people here have already dubbed her the "lesbian Will/Willow") and Max glancing at her. They focus on Max glancing at her!!! Max wants her time "in the light". She's been in the dark so long. A dark place, because of always "swapping places" with Will and the other alters. She wants her chance at life. Oh boy doesn't that just break your heart...

I need to show some major appreciation for this whole sequence! We see the "swapping places" in action. We start with El in the spotlight (Will just lagging behind) then BAM she swaps places with Max. It's Max's turn. Look at how she watches that couple with a look of longing then sees her love (Lucas). Afterwards, she encounters another struggling alter (Chrissy) and looks on empathetically.

You’re absolutely right that El will choose to “combine”/integrate with Will again. She feels she doesn’t belong anywhere. With Max? She’s beginning to find more connections and more reason to be her own person. It’s opposite for these two! I’m hoping there is some sort of way she can become her own person in the end but I’m not sure which route they’re taking. 🤔