#but also if anyone else wants to that’d be cool

[los-ninos-tortugas]

For your consideration: Raph’s spikes lighting up, from the tip of his tail and up his shell a la Godzilla, and then he breathes fire also like Godzilla because it’d be rad as hell

[lovebugism]

i am so sorry but reader talking about robin right before making out with eddie is like absolutely the best thing i’ve ever read i’m obsessed i genuinely can’t wait for anything else in that universe that you do

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | god help the girl

summary: in which you come to terms with the fact that you're hopelessly in love with eddie munson. pairing: virgin!eddie munson x reader word count: 13k warning: phone sex, more discussions of shitty boyfriends, j*son c*rver name drop, talks of unhealthy eating practices, smut 18+ mdni! a/n: this ask has been sitting in my inbox for ages now, but i wanted to save it until robin made an appearance in the series! thank you, anon, for being so sweet! and for the few of you who've been waiting on me to finally post <3 hope you enjoy! xoxo

( PREVIOUSLY ) | ( SERIES MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )

They only met once, but it changed their lives forever. 

That’s what the movie cover reads at least, but the words have long blurred into a jumbled mess at your tunnel vision. John Bender stares you in the face, but all you see is Eddie — boyish and brazen and scowling because he thinks it makes him look intimidating, but nowhere near as cruel as he seems. 

He’s certainly got the hair for it, much longer and curls far wilder than Judd Nelson’s measly set of brushed-back locks. He’s got the terribly animated personality down pat, too; the one that either makes you laugh uncontrollably or squirm in discomfort when it’s pointed your way. And the style’s a pretty fine match also, though you’d argue that no one sports a leather jacket quite like Eddie Munson does.

Wallowing in your boredom at the empty Family Video store on Main Street — where your best friends slave over mundane work with aching backs and a lingering sense of gratefulness that no customer has been in in well over an hour — you find yourself analyzing each character pictured on the front cover of The Breakfast Club.

Robin would surely be Allison, you conclude rather quickly, because their deadpanned glowers are eerily identical. They’ve also got this sort of atypical aura to them, too, like a dark storm cloud or the promise of a long night. But strangely it sparkles — strikes of lightning or a sky full of stars. It draws everyone’s attention to them; even when they’re desperately trying to hide in the very back of a room.

And Steve would be Andrew, not particularly because of his affections for this Allison-Reynolds-Robin-Buckley hybrid you’ve concocted, but because "popular guy with daddy issues" is a trope that fits him far too well. He’s way more likely to get detention for trying to look cool in front of his assholes friends than for anything actually malicious of heart. But that would’ve been years ago now. He’s not that kind of guy anymore. 

He’s soft and sweet — a Brian Johnson sort of soft and sweet, if you will. If Brian wasn’t the brains, but the sweetest dumbass anyone’s ever met.

You realize then, that Jim Hopper would make a mean Richard Vernon. He’s impatient to a fault, almost too stern at times, but never enough to make you genuinely fearful of him. You’ve found that it’s virtually impossible for you to take him seriously when he’s so cartoonishly angry. It’s a match made in heaven, you find, though Jim might take offense to the comparison.

And if Eddie is Bender, then that’d make you the Claire Standish of the bunch.

She’s dreadfully stylish, a bit stuck-up at times, and perhaps a little bit more spoiled than the average person; but it’s not like she ever claimed to be perfect. And you wouldn’t either.

You’ll take more pride in your wardrobe filled with pretty pleated skirts and flouncy dresses than your somewhat glacial disposition. And you might not be drowning in daddy’s money, but you’re certainly spoiled in other ways — if only in the employee discount at Enzo’s that got you wine for cheap and your connections at Family Video that meant free movie nights whenever you wanted.

The bad boy and the princess was a tale as old as time itself. It’s a fairytale you wouldn’t mind living in if it ended how it did in the movies — with a kiss on the cheek and an exchanged diamond earring in the calloused palm of another. A soft pink smile and a celebratory fist in the air.

But you’ve met your fair share of John Bender’s and none of them had been particularly kind to you, let alone had fallen in love with you. 

Maybe that’s because you were no Claire Standish. Never pretty enough, never mousy enough, never pure enough.  You try and dissect why you’ve never been successfully loved, and all the signs point to you, you, you.

You hope Eddie’s different. You need Eddie to be different.

“Something’s wrong with me,” you blurt out of nowhere.

Well, it’s not totally out of the blue for you. You’d been stewing over that thought since you got there — since you left the woods with damp underwear and the scent of you on Eddie’s fingers.

But to Steve and Robin, who’d stayed relatively silent and locked eyes only once after they noticed how abnormally hushed you’d gone, it catches them quite off guard.

Steve lifts his heavy head from where he mans the counter. His tired eyes leave the computerized catalog for the first time in forty minutes, and he has to rub at them with the bottom of his palms to see you properly. Meanwhile, Robin crouches at your side, taking returned tapes from the bin sitting next to her and placing them back upon the shelf you lean against. 

She blinks up at you, deep ocean eyes swimming with apprehension, like she can sense the spiral you’ve just about twisted yourself into.

“What do you mean?” she wonders, ever the supportive best friend, as she plucks Heather’s, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science from the bin and sets them onto their assigned rows in the Teen Drama section.

“Eddie won’t fuck me.”

Neither of them is particularly stunned by the unabashed nature of your admission.

Not only have they both fucked you at one point or another, but they’re your best friends — no one’s ever going to know you quite the way they do. It leaves little left unsaid between the three of you, with secrets you’ve all sworn to take to your graves. Steve once stuck a finger in his ass to see if he liked it (he did) and Robin sometimes gets off on her childhood teddy bear (rather ironically named Mr. Snuggles). 

So this? This was nothing. Especially in comparison to all the other shit you’ve confessed to them because god knows the whore of Hawkins has a plethora of stories to tell.

Steve is more shocked by the name that leaves your mouth than anything else. “Eddie Munson?” he repeats with furrowed brows, like he had to have heard you wrong.

You bring your chin to your right shoulder to look at him, then nod.

“Eddie… The Freak… Munson?”

You nod again, slower for him this time.

“You wanna fuck… Eddie Munson?” Steve reiterates once more, as though the idea was too appalling to be true. “Eddie Munson — The Freak?”

“Yes, Steve,” you huff in irritation.

His face contorts into a puppy-like confusion. A frown settles between his bushy brows and he cocks his head to the side, nose scrunching and his lip quirking slightly. He couldn’t look more disgusted if he tried.

“…Why?”

You groan and tilt your head back dramatically. “That’s not what’s important here, Steve. The better question is why won’t he fuck me?”

The boy’s lack of any actual assistance doesn’t surprise Robin in the slightest — his dumbfounded gaze and innate confusion are actually pretty on brand. It just puts all the burden on her, to help you wriggle out of the mess you’d tangled yourself into. 

It’s not like she isn’t used to it, though, nor does she mind doing it for you. She walks you through your emotions like a professional, squashing out all the burning orange embers for you before they have the chance to burst into flames.

“Well, what do you mean he won’t fuck you? Like… did he actually say that or does he just wanna, you know, take things slow?”

The latter would’ve been way too easy. Eddie’s always been nice enough to you. It’d make sense for him to want to stay unhurried and gentle with you, but those words weren’t exactly in your vocabulary. 

The first time you were alone with him, you were getting yourself off on his thigh after making him come in his jeans. The next time you saw him, after four days of him clinging to your consciousness, there wasn’t as much small talk so much as there were two of his fingers stuffed knuckle-deep inside of you.

You don’t know Eddie’s birthday, but you know how he likes to be touched — squeezed and not rubbed. You don’t know his middle name or how he likes his eggs in the morning or what his relationship with his mother is like, but he’s already made you come. Twice.

You are completely, utterly, and totally incapable of taking things slow. So it wasn’t that. It couldn’t be. So it had to be the other thing. The very scary, terrifying, boogeyman of a thing.

“I mean, I offered to give him a blowjob and he completely turned me down,” you lament in reply.

Robin and Steve wince. Like, physically wince. Their faces scrunch and their heads flinch from something invisible. Audible ooh’s fall from their mouths without them even realizing it, because you don’t get rejected. Ever. Especially not after offering to pleasure someone without much of anything in return.

They don’t mean to react the way they do. The visible shock that coats their features is involuntary more than it is anything, and it only adds to your fears.

“Exactly!” you exclaim.

“I hate to say it, but I think hell might be freezing over as we speak,” Steve half-jokes.

“Well, he was working, right?” Robin asks with raised brows. “Maybe he was just busy.”

“Sorry, Rob, but no guy’s too busy for a blowjob.”

“Real charming, Stevie.”

“Maybe he just has a small dick,” the boy concludes with a shrug.

“I felt his dick,” you shake your head almost immediately. The feeling of Eddie’s hard cock through his denim jeans, all rough and warm against your palm, hasn’t yet left you. “It’s not small.”

“Well, maybe he can’t get it up—”

“Yeah, that’s not a problem either.”

Eddie was rock hard when you left him, throbbing and aching and obviously needing some kind of relief. That’s partly why you’d been so ardent to return the favor, though the other half of it was purely selfish — you haven’t seen a more beautiful sight than Eddie Munson getting off. To deprive yourself of that masterpiece made you feel like you were starving.

You have a hard time imagining the raging hard-on just… dissipating after you’d left him. That means he probably jerked off in the back of his van and you missed it. And if he came, right after he promised everything was okay, that means he just didn’t want you to do it… right?

Steve seems to be caught in the same inner turmoil you’re currently stuck in; and for good reason. In all the years he’s known you, he can count on one hand how many times he’s had to turn you down. And every time, it was because he’d gotten back together with Nancy. It was never because of you. Not once. And sometimes he felt like it hurt him as much as it did you. 

As far as Steve’s concerned, you’re so out of Eddie Munson’s league that you’re not even in his fucking orbit — so the freak show, turning you down, doesn’t make whole lot of sense to him.

“Huh…”

“It’s me. It’s definitely me,” you conclude with the shake of your head. A bitter, almost hysterical laugh spills from your lips. “He thinks I’m fucking ugly or disgusting or something. It’s totally fucking me—”  

Robin completely abandons her basket of tapes then. She rises to stand in front of you, looking timid as she does so. Her raised brows form wrinkles on her freckled forehead and her blue eyes widen to reveal more of the whites of them. She looks like she’s approaching a wild animal. A bomb that’s about to explode.

“Okay… You’re starting to spiral, alright? So let’s just try and take a few deep breaths—”

You don’t listen to her. 

Actually, you do quite the opposite, as you begin to blurt every fleeting thought that crosses your mind.

“I’ve made out with nearly everyone in this stupid town— I’m pretty sure I’ve fucked almost half— and you’d think Eddie would wanna take advantage of that, the way everyone makes him out to be some sort of freak, right? But he hasn’t and at this rate, he won’t, and I just don’t understand why,” you ramble without taking in a single breath. “Usually being a slut is a huge turn-on for guys, you know? But what if Eddie thinks it’s gross? I mean, it is gross— I’m gross—”

You only stop for air when Robin takes your shoulders in both hands. She looks less apprehensive and more stern, as she forces you to look at her.

“Look. I love you, but you need to get a hold of yourself, alright? I know you’re not used to being told no, and I know how much it sucks, but shit happens. I’m willing to bet all the money I’ve ever seen that whatever is going on with Eddie has nothing to do with you, okay? And if it’s making you this upset, maybe you should just talk to him.”

“But I don’t wanna seem like I’m too eager, that’s gross—”

“Then find someone else to fuck,” she offers with her signature Robin Buckley half-smile. “I’m sure it would take you less than five minutes to find a willing participant.”

“Yeah, right here,” Steve jokes from the counter with the pathetic wave of his hand and a dumb grin on his lips. 

You don’t hear him over the voices in your head — half calling you crazy for letting a boy drive you this mad over nothing, and the other half bitterly affirming each of your deep-rooted insecurities.

Your face screws up, like the thought of being with anyone other than Eddie upsets you — it does upset you.

“I don’t want anyone else.”

“Then what do you want?” Robin yells in your face, shaking you by your shoulders.

“I want Eddie!” you shout back without thinking. The words seem to spill out of nowhere. It takes you of all people by surprise. No one in this rat trap town would ever expect the whore of Hawkins to want to settle down, least of all the harlot herself. It’s strange; it’s riveting; it’s really fucking scary. “…Fuck.”

The brunette smirks, proud of herself. “Well. There’s your answer.”

“I hate when you’re right,” you mumble to yourself, pouting as she crouches back down again.

“I know.”

It was a terrifying thought, to know that you were head over heels for someone else. You try to come to terms with what that means. 

Sometimes you think you fall in love with a new person every day. A cute guy holds the door open for you, a pretty girl compliments your outfit — they never think about you again, but they’re on your mind for days. It was so easy to develop such meaningless infatuations, especially when you were bored.

But Eddie was different.

He was a nice guy. A nice guy that was sweet to you just for the sake of being sweet to you; not because he secretly wanted something in return. That made you fall for him at first, but then you just… kept on falling. Eddie Munson was an infinite void you couldn’t crawl your way out of even if you wanted to, even if you tried.

And that’s what frightened you the most.

Because if you really thought about it, you’ve only truly been in love a handful of times. And, sure, it didn’t work out — that was normal — but some of them fucking ruined you. 

You’re still trying to figure out who you are without all of the people that have broken your heart. You’re still fighting like hell every day to recognize the person you see in the mirror, while Billy Hargrove fucks off with a new girl every other week like he didn’t totally destroy you.

But, even still, Eddie was completely different. No one’s ever made you feel the way he makes you feel. And it’s more than the stupid heavy petting — it’s more than anything. It’s never been like this before; not even with the blonde mulleted asshole who ripped your heart to shreds. 

And you’re scared that if you get hurt again, you’ll never be able to come back from it.

“Steve, do you have another copy of Fast Times in the back?” you suddenly ask the boy, tossing him a look over your shoulder.

It’s your last ditch effort to rid yourself of the ponderous, gray doom and gloom surrounding you like some storm cloud. Your comfort movie solves all of your problems — or, at the very least, Phoebe Cates does — but it seems everyone else in town has developed a similar fondness for minute fifty-three of the film and got all the tapes off the shelf before you could get your hands on one.

“You know I keep on in stock for you,” he answers quietly.

He reaches below the counter to pull out a spare copy for you, and your heart swells with the rays of a thousand rising suns and the songs of every morning bird.

Steve told you some time ago that he could change. And back then, all it did was piss you off, because he didn’t want to change for the town slut — for the girl he put through the goddamn ringer. He wanted to change for Nancy. The princess bruised his brittle ego a little, and then he realized what an asshole he’d been to everyone, to you.

But as angry as it made you, you never believed him. “Once the King of Hawkins High, always the King of Hawkins High,” you remarked bitterly.

You wouldn’t say it to his face, for the sake of keeping his ego from inflating all over again, but you could tell he was really changing.

He was kinder, he was softer. He stopped caring about what everyone thought about him, about what not caring would do to his reputation, and started giving a fuck about the people worth giving a fuck about. 

Apparently, you were one of them.

“…Really?”

He nods with a subtle shrug. Like it was no big deal. Like it wasn’t one of the sweetest things he’d ever done for you — keeping your favorite movie on hand so you’ll always have a spare, knowing that it’s the only thing that gets you out of a deep, dark funk sometimes.

“Stevie… You’re gonna make me blush,” you lilt with a grin as you saunter over to him, hands innocently laced behind your back. “You need to be careful, Harrington. I’m gonna start to think you actually like me.”

He scoffs. “I do like you.”

“Yeah, when it’s convenient.”

It’s obvious your joke hits him where it hurts. It serves as a bitter reminder of the asshole he used to be, the douchebag he’s trying like hell to grow out of. He looks up at you with a sheepish, honey-tinted gaze before ducking away again.

A year or more ago it would’ve made you feel good, to know that you hurt him just a fraction of the way he hurt you. But you know that that isn’t the same man standing in front of you now, that he’d rather die than make hurt your feelings, and it makes you feel like shit for saying it in the first place. 

“Sorry,” you apologize with a scrunched nose. The palms of your hands dig into the edges of the counter as you lean against it. Your shrug. “It just kinda came out…”

The barcode scanner in his hand beeps as he passes the thing over the back of the tape — never charging you, just getting the movie out of the database.

“So, uh…” he starts before clearing his throat. He focuses his gaze on the computer and types on the bulky keyboard with the tip of his pointer finger. “You really like this Eddie guy, huh?”

“Maybe. I think so.”

“And he’s not, like… a total freak or anything?”

You can’t tell if he’s trying to look out for you or if he just wants intel on what it’s like trying (and failing) to bang the local weirdo. Either way, it makes a smile tug slow at your lips as you joke: “Not in the way everyone thinks.”

“Jesus,” he winces at the obscenity of your words.

“Sorry,” you apologize again, though the laugh that bubbles from your lips after cancels out any hint of actual sincerity. “You don’t need to give me the talk or anything, Steve. I can take care of myself.”

“…Can you?” he half-jokes.

It makes you falter. “Well… With you and Robin and Hopper constantly on my ass, then yeah.”

“Just don’t want you to get hurt,” Steve finally admits, soft and suddenly shy as he hands the VHS over to you.

“That’s rich coming from you—”

He jerks back the tape before you can take it from him, leaving your hand reaching for thin air. His cinnamon eyes glimmer with a foreign seriousness, not completely unkind, but lacking their usual blithe. “That’s why I’m saying it. I just… I want you to be okay.”

Steve is one of the rare ones, you conclude right then in there — in the liminal emptiness of Family Video, beneath fluorescent lights that cast sharp shadows upon his already chiseled features. He was a mythical creature of a man, one who breaks your heart and does everything in his power to mend it again.

He hasn’t forgotten about what he did to you, not like Billy did, and he won’t. Not ever. He saw what he did to you and he never moved on from it, just matured enough to make sure it never happened again. And he won’t let another unworthy douchebag hurt you like he did. Not if he can help it, at least.

And he did try to warn you about Hargrove, to be fair. You were just the dumbass that didn’t listen.

“Well, me and my Phoebe Cates wet dream are golden, Pony Boy,” you promise. He hands you the tape again and lets you snatch it from his grip this time. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Stevie.”

Steve Harrington was right. 

The fleeting thought flashes across your mind for half a second, and you quickly realize that those words have never been uttered in the same sentence before now. But he wasn’t wrong in what he’d said about you, just before you left — you were completely, totally, absolutely, and implicitly unable to take care of yourself.

You nearly passed out in the bathroom after taking the hottest shower of your life, feeling too woozy to slap on anything other than moisturizer because you failed to remember to actually eat something that day. It wasn’t totally your fault, though; if anything, it was because of Eddie and all the butterflies he’d given you that made food the very last thing on your mind.

You half-heartedly dry yourself off, keeping your hair in a towel, while you slip on a cotton set of underwear you’ve had for way longer than what's likely acceptable. Damp and half-naked, you prance into the kitchen to fix Bowie her bowl of dinner before you feed yourself.

You fork a can of wet food onto a flower-shaped plate and let her eat on the counter — because you’re an adult now, and you can do that sort of thing.

The calico purrs while she feasts, but your stomach thunders with negligence. You peek into your mostly bare refrigerator and make a mental note to go grocery shopping when you get paid next week. 

With a lack of food and an even lesser will to cook something, you settle for the half-eaten chocolate bar you keep stashed in the very back of the fridge; kept only for the most special of occasions — when you’re reveling in your loneliness and trying to convince yourself that you can make it on your own.

It was practically the size of your forearm when you first bought the thing at some too expensive candy store in the city. Now it’s no bigger than your hand.

You eat the thing in bed, even though you know you’ll get crumbs everywhere and that it’ll make sleep agonizing for you — if you get any, that is. You’re bound to feel like a total zombie by the time the sun rises and the late-night sweet will likely make its appearance on your skin by then, in a red and raging blemish of a consequence.

You’ll feel empty and starved and surly, a snapping grouch instead of an actual person, until you get some actual food in your system.

And you’re more than aware of all of these things, but you don’t do a single damn thing about them.

You’re nothing but a sulking lump upon an unmade bed, lying in a pitch-black darkness that’s evaded only by the static-y television across your room, trying your best to pretend like you aren’t waiting for Eddie’s phone call. It’s hard to remember to forget him, though, when the movie you’re watching is practically a feature film of him and all the ways he makes you feel.

Spicoli and his terribly inebriated friends slur as they chorus “No shoes, no shirt, no diiiice” and you swear you can feel Eddie’s shoulder bump softly against yours as he laughs, hear every sound of his melodic chuckle in your ear that made you giggle right along with him. The low bass of Moving in Stereo plays in the otherwise empty silence of your bedroom, and every beat feels like the rhythm of your thrusts against his thigh.

Eddie Munson is all-consuming.

Even the thought of him feels physical.

Phoebe Cates all but undresses herself in front of you, but you’re stuck thinking about some guy who lives in a trailer park across town, deals drugs for a living, and can’t graduate high school. You’re a total fucking goner.

Your eyes flutter shut, and instead of the backs of your eyelids, you see Eddie’s trailer. Your lips start to tingle as they kiss his for the first time — hungry, yearning, needing. His thigh is pressed snugly into your cunt, denim jeans rough against your soft cotton panties, and you have to bite back a moan when he tenses every time you squeeze his hard, covered cock.

You can feel it, all of him, like he were here with you now. 

You wish that he were.

His fingers would feel far better, leave far more sparks of electricity in your belly, than the ones as you sneak through the hem of your underwear.

You try and take things slow with yourself, to be as gentle as he had been with you earlier in the woods, but it feels strange to treat yourself with so much tenderness. To touch your pussy like it’s the first time it’s ever been touched. Like it’s a beautiful thing you need to be sweet to.

Maybe you find it so foreign to be careful with yourself because no one has ever been careful with you.

No one, except for Eddie.

Your touch doesn’t rival his. It doesn’t even come close.

No matter how tightly you squeeze your eyes shut or how hard you try to pretend that they’re his fingers inside of you, you can’t make yourself feel as good as he did.

Your fingers aren’t as rough as his guitar-string-scarred ones and they don’t caress your clit with the same methodical care. They don’t fill you quite the same either, nowhere near as satisfying as his much thicker ones.

And you’re no stranger to masturbation, not by any means. Sometimes it’s the only way you can guarantee an orgasm for yourself when you’ve got a partner who cares so little about your own pleasure. But Eddie was different. Eddie cared — so much so, that he’s gotten more orgasms out of you than you’ve gotten from him, which is something you’ve never said about anyone else you’ve been with.

It’s rare and unfamiliar, a bouquet of all things refreshing and terrifying and strange, tied together with a pretty little ribbon.

You know that you can make yourself come. It’ll just take way too long to actually be worthwhile and won’t be nearly as mind-blowing as you need it to be. You won’t be left with trembling thighs and nearly numb legs — just a pitiful excuse for an orgasm that you could get from any one of your exes with half as much work.

What you need is Eddie. 

And you hate that. You hate how much you need him and you’re terrified of what that means.

As far as precedent goes, right when you start needing someone is usually when they start to leave. It’s like fucking clockwork most of the time — like everyone knows that you’re a ticking time bomb and eventually it gets too risky to stand too close to you. 

You’ll just have to keep Eddie at arm's distance. So he won’t see the grenade that you are.

You pull your fingers out of your wanting cunt, still slick and throbbing with a need that you can’t give it, when the phone rings.

The high-pitched shrill in the quiet makes you tense like it’s the first time you’ve ever heard the damn thing. Your breath catches in your throat, first out of fright and then at the inclination of who waits for you on the other line.

Suddenly, you’re scrambling to collect yourself. As though there was any possibility that Eddie might be able to see you through the phone line.

You wipe your wet fingers haphazardly on the cotton of your underwear and sit up straighter from your ungracefully lazed position. Then you count to five — one mississippi… two mississippi… three — so Eddie won’t think you’re some kind of crazy person who doesn’t have anything better to do than wait for his call. 

So he won’t know that’s exactly what you are.

You lift the ruby red rotary from its hook at your bedside table and stretch the corkscrew cord to press it to your ear. “…Hello?”

“Yeah, hi. I’d like to order a pizza. Half pepperoni, half hawaiian.”

You roll your eyes at his dumb joke, even though the familiarity of his voice makes you smile. It warms you like a home-cooked meal, like you were high-pitched and starving before and now you’re on the soothing comedown of finally being satiated.

“Yeah, sorry, we’re closed.”

“Then why’d you pick up the phone, huh?” he teases back. You swear you can hear the grin in his voice. You didn’t know a smile could be so audible. It makes you wonder if he can hear yours — if you’re doing a real shit job at pretending. You anxiously twirl the cord with the pointer finger of your free hand.

“Because I’ve been waiting for you to call me all night, dummy.” 

Your answer is more honest than either of you were expecting. 

Eddie’s sigh crackles through the shoddy reception. “Yeah. Sorry ‘bout that, sweetheart. I’ve been working all night. I only got home, like, five minutes ago.”

You can hear the heavy exhaustion in his voice. “Rough day?”

“Kinda,” he answers with a shrug. You can hear the grating squeak of his mattress as he plops down onto his bed. “I dealt to one of Jason’s goons today… They always give me a hard time.”

“I’m sorry,” is all you can think to answer. 

Eddie’s been the brunt of every joke since seventh grade — people made fun of too big clothes, his too wild hair, his too loud music. But he took it all in stride, laughing with everyone else before volleying a harsher joke back in response. You almost started to think that he liked it. That, somewhere deep down, he was fond of all the attention he got from people who supposedly couldn’t stand him.

But it hurts to know that it hurts him.

“Don’t apologize. It’s not like you did anything,” he assures with a soft laugh. He makes the bold decision to be honest then, too. “You, uh… You made my day a whole lot better, actually.”

You don’t know if he’s talking about the brief fling in the woods or the phone call you’re sharing now or if you particularly care either way. Your heart flutters like it’s been kissed by the wings of a butterfly.

“Really?”

“Yeah. I mean… I don’t know— I couldn’t stop thinking about you, you know. And, knowing that I was gonna get to talk to you again kinda got me through the day, I guess… And, yes, I am fully aware of how lame that sounds, but—”

You don’t get to hear the rest of his excuse, of why what he just told you totally isn’t lame, because you’re covering the receiver with your palm and turning to squeal into your pillow. A far more pathetic sight, in your humble opinion.

There hasn’t been a more fulfilling feeling than this one, to know that he’s been feeling the same way you’ve been feeling about him this whole time. It’s better than all the orgasms he could give you combined, to be loved so wholly.

“…You okay?” you hear his muffled voice ask after you’ve gone suddenly AWOL.

You press the phone back to your ear and nod like he can see you. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. The phone… fell— you said you just got home?”

“Uh, yeah. I met with Hellfire for a bit at school. We’re almost at the end of the Cult of Vecna, so they’re kinda on my ass about it. The little shits are obsessed.”

“Well, they should be. It’s a really good campaign, Eds.”

“Thanks to you,” he mutters. You can almost picture the glimmer in his button eyes and the shaky half-smirk he always looks at you with when he gets all shy.

“That was all you, Eddie Spaghetti,” you retort. “I still have no idea how you did it.”

“Did what?” he wonders, chuckling a bit at the nickname.

“Make something so beautiful out of thin air.”

Lying in the depths of his bedroom, blanketed by the darkness and bathing in streams of moonlight, Eddie feels his breath catch in his throat. 

For the first time in his life, he doesn’t have a joke to spew out on the spot. He’s speechless, just for a moment, a quick blink of a second, with nothing to say. Because, if he really thinks about it, that’s sort of what happened with you.

You were just his customer and he was just your dealer.

You were a loyal client and then a girl way out of his league that he developed a too big a crush on. Then you made him come in his underwear and washed the sticky stains out of the denim for him. Now you’re on the phone with him. You let him tell you all about his shitty day and apologize like you weren’t the only good thing about it — like you aren’t the only good thing, period.

It’s not the most cliche love story, nor is it the most beautiful, but it has his cynical little heart beating like the wings of a hummingbird.

Then, when all the mushy mess fades like fog, he finally thinks of something to say.

“It’s the witchcraft, sweetheart,” he shrugs to himself. “Didn’t you hear? I’m a devil-worshipping freak.”

“You know that’s not it, Eds,” you retort with the roll of your eyes.

You know that it’s hard, to be a metalhead from the wrong side of the tracks in the eighties — at the height of the Satanic Panic and all the delusional craze. That shit’s followed him since freshman year. Even still, it nips at his ankles like rabid dogs.

Maybe you were never naive or bored enough to believe all the rumors, but Eddie Munson was always more than that to you.

“No?”

“You can blame it on being a freak show all you want, but I know it’s because you’re one of the funniest, smartest, most creative guys I’ve ever met—”

“You must not know a ton of guys then, sweetheart,” he interjects playfully, like he couldn’t stand to hear you compliment him any longer. You’d give anything to see his blushing cheeks just now.

“…You’re kidding right?” you giggle in response.

“Sorry— that’s— I didn’t mean it like— It was— I was joking,” he stammers, frightened that he might’ve offended you in some way. 

It only makes you laugh harder. Both of you know you lost count of all the guys you ‘know’ a long, long time ago. You do imagine it’s somewhere near ‘a ton’, though.

“I know, Eds,” you assure with a contented sigh. “I was just teasing.”

“Oh.”

“The slut and the freak… Who would’ve thought?” you wonder all dreamily, like it’s a fairytale as old as time itself. That’s what it feels like, sometimes.

Eddie isn’t sure what you mean — who would’ve thought you’d be friends? Two people caught in that in-between stage of platonic and romance that’s complete agony and total, total bliss? A couple of kids falling in love—

“It’s sort of kismet, huh?” he answers.

“I think so.”

“So, uh… What are you up to?” Eddie wonders then, equal parts curious and eager to keep the discussion going. He’s frightened any lapse in conversation is going to lead to saying goodbye. 

He wants to stay on for hours, until both of you are fighting to stay awake, and then listen to the sound of your heavy breathing when you inevitably lose — like that isn’t the creepiest thing anyone’s ever wanted. He’ll fight Wayne about the bill if it comes to that, he doesn’t care, he just never wants to stop being this close to you.

“Do you want the real answer or the fake one?”

“Uh… Both?”

“Well, I’d say I was doing something super productive with my night, you know, catching up on all the boring adult shit, but then I’d be lying. And I don’t wanna lie to you, Eds,” you tell him with a teasing lilt playing at the edge of your voice.

Eddie swallows thickly, fearing he’d somehow been caught in his own lie — or rather, his half-truth. He moves on quickly, though not exactly full of grace. “Right. Yeah. Totally.”

“Honest answer is, that the only productive thing I’ve done tonight is shower, and now I’m in bed watching Fast Times and eating all the chocolate in my house, because I can’t cook for shit and I have nothing else better to do with my night,” you admit to him, picking at the thread of your comforter.

“Oh, don’t tell me I missed the ‘Moving in Stereo’ bit,” he agonizes.

“Just.”

“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, sweetheart, but it sounds like you’re having loads of fun tonight.”

“I’m having a lot more fun now,” you assure him.

“Glad I can be around to make you laugh,” he retorts like he’s not all too happy to do it.

“You’re a total comedian, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“If I’m the jester, you’re the queen, sweetheart,” he promises, a grin evident in his voice.

Your breath catches in your throat something fierce; you’re almost worried that he’s heard it. His words pierce your heart, a stroke of lightning or a blade of steel. He’s joking, but it’s so strangely profound, the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to you and it’s dripping in sarcasm. 

It’s sort of Eddie’s love language, you’ve come to understand, to say something so sweet but coated in venom to make it sour again. It makes you feel special, loved, almost.

A fire builds behind your rib cage, sharp and distant and all-consuming.

“Are you alone, Eds?” you ask him suddenly.

The sudden curve ball in the conversation takes him by surprise. “Uh, yeah, Wayne’s at work right now… Why?”

“Because I want you to talk to me…”

“Oh?” is all he can say because isn’t that what he’s been doing this whole time?

“And I want you to say things that… maybe other people shouldn’t hear,” you explain slowly to him.

“…Oh.”

He’s heard about this only once before, the whole phone sex thing. 

It was from Andy in the back of Ms. O’Donnell’s class a year or more ago, though Eddie never called him by that name. Andy, in all actuality, was Jason Carver’s right-hand man, and he meant that in every sense of the phrase. Eddie was more than convinced that the guy was so obsessed with the blonde haired, blue eyed douchebag that he was giving him handjobs on the regular.

But it seemed the dick brigade couldn’t function properly without their leader and Eddie had the misfortune of hearing all the mindless bullshit they were spewing behind him — basketball, parties, girls; in true white bread fashion.

His friends gathered around him like he was telling some sort of secret, though it was loud enough for anyone in a three foot radius to hear. Eddie, caught directly in the line of fire, heard all about Chrissy’s older sister, Wendy, who was two years older and off at college. 

He’d gotten her number from some party he’d crashed. At least that’s how he told it, right before telling everyone that she swore like a sailor when she came and that she told him all the dirty things she wanted to do to him while she did.

“It was like her hand was on my dick, dude, I’m serious. That shit was crazy, bro,” he’d laughed after retelling the whole conversation in excruciating detail.

Eddie rolled his eyes to himself then, inwardly jealous that he’d never get to meet Wendy — or any other girl that would be willing to have phone sex with him, for that matter. His phone only ever rang for telemarketers or a rogue Dustin Henderson calling to annoy him.

But, here you are now, the most wanted girl in Hawkins, offering it to him on a silver platter. He wonders if you’ve done this before, surely you have — oh god, he thinks to himself, what if you’ve done this with Andy?

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you assure him after his unusually long silence. “I know you’re probably busy and tired and everything—”

“No! No, yeah, I— I want to. I totally want to.”

“Okay,” you nod. Petals of a flower begin to bloom in your chest as you lie back in bed, settling further into the mattress. The movie, already long forgotten, serves only as light and background noise. “So… What are you wearing, Eds?”

“I feel like I should be asking you that,” he laughs. 

On the other side of Hawkins, in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, Eddie rises from where he’d originally flopped back onto his bed with the notion that it was going to be a semi-normal night. He props himself against his headboard. His fingers twitch at his thigh.

“Beat ya to it, Munson.”

“Well, I’ll have you know that it is very sexy, sweetheart. I’m wearing the same Hellfire shirt you saw me in, I don’t know, five hours ago — except now it’s got a rip in it because I totally ate ass on the way back to the van.”

He tells you this to make you laugh — it works — but he prays you don’t ask any questions. Because he got it while hurrying back to his van mere minutes after you’d left him, so hard he thought he was going to burst, with no more than seven minutes until his next client arrived.

 Thankfully, he only needed three.

“I love that shirt,” you respond in place of saying what you really want to — ‘I love how that shirt looks on you’ — how it clings to his lean torso and reveals his midriff whenever he stretches his arms over his head.

“She’s a lit-tle worse for wear now, sweetheart,” he lilts.

“I’ll stitch it up for you.”

“And I’ve got on a pair of boxers that are so old they’re practically see through because I’m pretty sure they used to be Wayne’s back in… I don’t know… the eighteen-hundreds.”

Eddie was right. It was sexy, though, for the exact reason they weren’t supposed to be. 

There was something so domestic about it all. You can picture him lying in his bed, in the most comfortable clothes he owns, in the one place he can feel at peace. Like a renaissance painting, something familiar and comforting and beautiful — fuck, you’d give anything to be next to him.

“…I think that means it’s your turn now, sweetheart,” he teases.

“Is it?” you mock in return.

“C’mon. Don’t leave me hangin’ over here.”

“It’s nothing, special,” you assure. Your eye flits down to peer at your own body — nothing special, indeed, you think to yourself. The lilac cotton set came from the grocery store downtown on the clearance rack you so often frequent. “I just have my underwear on. It’s very boring, I’m afraid.”

It’s not boring. Not to Eddie — the boy who prides himself on his insanely active imagination. He might not be able to pass english with his brain, but he can certainly create worlds with it, and it’s too easy for him to picture you. He imagines you, freshly showered, and smelling of the warm lavender-vanilla scent you always smell like, mostly bare and lazing upon a fluffy comforter.

He swallows thickly. “Oh, that’s— that’s really, uh— that’s really sexy.”

His thankful that you don’t seem to mind his poor excuse for dirty talk.

“It’s only because I was too lazy to get into actual pajamas.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Yeah?” you press, smiling to yourself and caging your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Yeah.”

“Can I tell you a secret, Eds?” you wonder, made brave enough by his own admission.

“‘Course you can.”

“Before you called…”

“…Uh-huh?” he eggs on, intrigued at the way you trailed off, sounding suddenly shy.

“I was…” The thought of telling him what you were doing mere seconds before he called makes you nervous. It wasn’t like you were ashamed of touching yourself or anything, nor is the art of dirty talking lost on you, but something about Eddie makes you timid.

“You were… what, sweetheart?” he wonders gently, with a too audible grin.

“I was touching myself.”

That’s all you tell him. The words linger and hang in the air of your separate bedrooms and you cling to the silence — almost mortified and anticipating his reply. Eddie, meanwhile, feels like his tongue has swelled in his mouth and all the air has been punched out of his lungs.

“Oh...” he tries to respond without the breath to accurately do so. “…Yeah?”

“You know what Phoebe Cates does to me,” you try to joke.

His laughter crackles through the receiver. “Yeah. I kinda have her to thank for the other night, don’t I?”

“Give yourself some credit, Eds. The hottest guy in Hawkins was sitting right next to me, what was I supposed to do?”

“No way you think I’m the hottest guy in town,” he scoffs. “Everyone knows you’ve got a thing for pretty boys.”

“Pretty boys?” you echo with a giggle.

“Uh-huh. The Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington type, you know?”

“Well, I think you’re a hundred times prettier than he is.”

“Really?” he scoffs cynically, obviously not believing you.

“He wasn’t the one I was thinking about with my hand shoved down my panties,” you admit, immediately quelling his self-doubt. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”

Eddie clears his throat and then stammers, “I— I guess so— yeah.”

“Are you hard, Eds?” you ask in a breathy whisper.

And he just nods to himself at first, too stupid to answer audibly. He can feel himself stiffening in his boxers, only halfway hard now, but getting firmer by the second. Soon, he’ll be aching. 

“Yeah…”

“Can you touch yourself for me?”

Eddie would rather take a bullet to the chest than say no to you — at least, he figures that’d probably hurt less — so he slips his fidgeting fingers through the band of his boxers and takes his warm, stiffening cock in his hand. He squeezes himself just enough to make his stomach tighten.

“Want you to touch yourself, too,” he admits, neither asking or demanding it, just telling you.

“Yeah?” you tease.

“Well, I think it’s only fair, sweetheart.”

You can’t help but notice how breathy he’s gotten — how it shakes on the inhale and hitches on the out. He’s got his hand shoved down his underwear and you’re jealous of the fingers that get to wrap themselves around his cock. You wish they were yours. Both of you will have to settle, it seems.

“Whatever you want, Eds,” you answer playfully. 

You obediently slide your hand back into the warmth of your panties. Your fingers slot between your lips and collect the slick that had gathered there since before you’d even answered the phone. You bring it up to your clit, circling the pads of your fingers there until you twitch, then dragging them down to press into your opening. They slip in with ease. 

Both of you have turned into lovesick idiots, separated by so many miles, and missing the other most ardently. Lying in the depths of your bedrooms, basking in a velvet loneliness, building with a mutual pleasure with nothing but yearning hands and longing sighs.

Eddie’s eyes flutter shut at the sounds of your low moans and fragile whimpers that crackle through the static — beautiful still, but certainly no match to the ones you were breathing in his ear just hours ago. 

His lashes dance across his cheeks as he tries to remember how you’d felt against his fingers, soft like velvet and delicate like silk, weeping and pulsating with need. 

He drags his hand from his boxers and lets the band snap against his pelvis. He spits into his palm and wets his cock with it, sighing as he tugs at himself without much friction.

“Are you wet, sweetheart?” he asks, though the words threaten to get stuck in his throat.

“Yeah,” you whisper back like it’s some kind of secret. 

You work yourself open with your middle finger and slip your pointer in next to it without much trouble. Your walls flutter around them while you fight to find the spot the makes you keen. You’re only able to tease it, fingers not quite long enough to caress it completely. Your thumb keeps working at your clit, though, to make up for the lost pleasure. 

“I’ve been wet since I left you,” you admit through labored breaths. “Haven’t been able to… to stop thinking about you, Eds.”

“Glad I’m not the only one whipped over here, sweetheart,” he manages a laugh.

“No one’s ever made me come that hard before. Not just with their fingers,” you tell him mindlessly, dumb on pleasure, as you feel yourself climbing that peak.

“Really?”

“Never,” you promise, then whine. “Doesn’t even feel as good now… Can’t get as deep as you can—”

Eddie hangs on your every word as he works his palm up and down his stiff cock, squeezing at the base and swiping his thumb over the head with an expert hand. His face scrunches as his stomach starts to tighten, he’s close to coming — too close for his liking. He doesn’t want this to be over so quickly.

“You’ve ruined every other guy for me, Eddie Munson,” you confess, more than pleased to hear how it makes him whine. It sounds like it comes from the depths of his chest, the way it crackles low and needy through the receiver.

“Good,” he grumbles through his pants after he’s gathered himself all over again. “Don’t want anyone else to have you, sweetheart.”

This time you’re the one letting out the most pathetic of whines. It makes a smile flicker at the corners of his lips.

“You like that?”

It sounds so dirty, but you can tell by the sincerity of his tone that it’s genuine. So you answer with a longing truthfulness, a delicate “yes”entwined with a yearning moan.

“You just wanna belong to me, don’t ya?” 

Now, this is dirty talk. The teasing lilt of his tone — it’s almost degrading —  and makes you clench around your fingers. “Yes, please,” you whine, all but pleading for him now.

Eddie’s close, so dreadfully close, with a pleasure so tangible he could taste it. Your words make his cock twitch in his hold as the fire builds in his belly. 

Through your whole-hearted promises and wanting moans, he can hear the sound of your slick through the receiver. The static reception doesn’t do it justice, but the wet click of your fingers working you open was unmistakable.

A moan grumbles in his throat as he digs the crown of his head back into his pillow. “Holy fuck— I can hear you, baby.”

“I’m so wet for you, Eds,” you tell him through fragile slurs, like it wasn’t inherently obvious. 

You were wrong before, about wanting to hide from him. You couldn’t conceal your need for Eddie if you tried. The honey you drip, all sweet and just for him, wouldn’t let you keep it a secret.

“I know, baby, I know,” he nearly coos. “Are you— fuck, please tell me you’re close?”

“Yes,” you promise in a whine. Your thumb presses harder into your clit. It makes your thighs tense until they’re shaking.

“You rubbing your clit for me, sweetheart?” he asks like he knows. “I know that’s what you like.”

You whimper, working at the spongy spot within you as your hips buck off the bed. “Yeah.”

“Keep rubbing yourself like that for me, okay? Want you to keep going until you come for me.”

If he keeps talking to you like that, it’ll come a lot quicker than he’s prepared for. 

It’s too soft to be much of a demand, but you listen obediently anyway, rubbing at yourself though your sensitivity keeps building. It grows like a morning tide, rising and flowing like white waves on an ocean, stirring something fierce in the depths of your stomach.

“Eddie,” you sigh out his name, broken through staggered pants.

You hear his stuttering breaths, too. “Y—Yeah?”

“I’m about to come,” you promise through a whine when the familiar crescendo sends a shock through your body.

“O… Okay,” he responds, pathetically, then whines, even more so.

“Want you to come with me… Please…”

“Fuck— okay. Shit, sweetheart, I’m almost there.”

“What are you thinking about?” you ask him.

“Your pussy,” he answers without thinking — he’s not doing a whole lot of that anymore. “Wish I’d gotten to taste you earlier. Wanna feel you… fuck… Wanna feel you come on my tongue.”

“Holy shit, Eds,” you moan at his words, at the vivid picture they paint in your head.

“And you get so… God, you get so fucking wet. Just want you to drench me, baby.”

It feels good, to be complimented for something boys used to make fun of you for, to realize for the first time that’s it’s sexy — that you’re sexy — and that Eddie is more than happy to drown in you. The feeling almost rivals the impending orgasm that’s bound to hit you like a tidal wave.

“I’m thinking about how I coulda took you on that bench… Just, fucking, get on my knees for you. Shove my head between your legs. Hold your— shit, baby— hold your thighs open, keep you exactly where I want you,” he rambles but then cuts himself off to moan at his own words. “Goddamn, sweetheart. Wanna taste you so fucking bad.”

The moan you let out is pitiful. It leaves your mouth in the most delicate cry. 

No picture has ever been clearer than the one of Eddie between your thighs, your hands knotted in his hair to move him to exactly where you need him most and forcing him there. You can feel his fingers digging into your hips, his rings pressed against your burning skin, and the way your legs tremble on either side of his head.

“Yeah. Keep— Keep doing that. Keep moaning for me,” Eddie tells you. “I’m about to… holy fuck, I’m about to come.”

“Wanna feel your tongue in me so bad, Eds,” you whimper, egged on by the moan he lets out. “Want your cock even more.”

That’s what does him in, the assurance — the promise — that you want him just as bad as he wants you. 

He tightens his fist around his cock, achingly hard and raging a crimson at the tip, trying to imitate the way you’d feel around him. It’s not all that close, not nearly as wet as the honey you’d be dripping for him, but his imagination does the rest of the work for him. 

All at once, you’re on top of him, riding him for all he’s worth, your pussy threatening to swallow him whole. You’ve drenched him, just like he’d begged for, and that wet schlick noise still echoing from the receiver is the evidence of each of your assured thrusts over top of him. 

You’re still pleading for him anyway — for more, for his tongue, for his cock — and he wants so desperately to give everything to you.

“Oh god, baby—” he sputters. He grips the phone in a white-knuckled, fist trembling. “Oh, fuck, I’m coming, baby.”

“Please, Eddie. Please come for me,” you plead over the low sounds of the forgotten film playing across the room and all the dirty wet sounds your pussy makes against your fingers. You sound like you need it, like you want his orgasm more than your own.

“Want you to come with me… Can you— Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Please?” It’s not dirty talk anymore. He’s actually fucking begging you and doesn’t feel the least bit ashamed to do so. 

He wants to hear all the pretty noises you make when you come — that initial cry that stems from the depths of your soul, the high-pitched whimpers that come when the sensitivity builds, and the whines that leave you when it ebbs.

He wants to hear it over and over and over again, like a worn cassette, and play it until the tape spins out.

“Yes…” you promise through a set of stuttering breaths.

There’s no talking when either of you come. Eddie’s long forgotten to talk you through it, but you would barely hear him if he had. The phone slips out of your hand when your grip slackens and it falls to the pillow beside your head.

You chase your orgasm full throttle, working through the crescendo and the strikes of lightning, focusing only on his muffled moaning and the pretty sounds he makes as he comes. 

The breath of your name whimpered through a tight throat is what does it for you. Your body has hardly any time to warn you before you’re gushing all over your fingers, twitching every time the pad of your thumb rubs over clit.

That cry, the one you always let out as you come — all wet and full of need — makes Eddie orgasm right alongside you. 

He swipes his thumb over his head again, collecting the pearls of precum gathering there and sliding them down the base to squeeze himself there like he’d been doing this whole time. He clutches harder this time, imagines it's your cunt locking him in a vice-like grip, and whines in his throat when he comes.

Several loads of it spill onto his cotton boxers, most of it gathering along the side of his hand and dripping down his knuckles. His breath staggers as he works himself through his high, praising you through the phone like you’re the one who brought him to it. 

“Fuck, baby… You’re so good… So fucking good.”

You’ve long settled from your own orgasm, still tingly and numb in some places, but not as gone as you had been just moments before. You still float on a cloud, getting lost as you stare through your window at the half-hidden stars sprinkling the night sky and feeling as though you could reach out and touch them.

You can feel the satin moonlight bathing you, and the jittery static of the neon of the television screen. You can feel everything and somehow nothing at all. 

“I don’t know how you do it, Eds,” you confess, hardly thinking about the words spilling from your mouth when you lazily bring the phone to your ear again.

“Do what, sweetheart?”

“I don’t know… You always make me feel good. Even when you’re not here… Even when we’re not getting each other off.”

“I feel the same way,” he promises you, all mushy, even though he feels like a slob for wiping his hand off on his discarded jeans on his bed. “Just… wish you were here.”

“I wish I was there, too… Wish I could clean you up.”

Eddie’s eyes shut tight as his head tilts back to his pillow at the thought. “Fuck… You’re gonna make me hard again, sweetheart.”

You perk up suddenly as an idea sprouts like a flower in your head. A smile blooms on your lips, and you rise up onto your elbows, glowing with an unanticipated excitement. “How long would it take you to get ready?”

“…Get ready?” he echoes.

“Yeah,” is all you say.

“I mean, I— I don’t know. I figure if I put on some new underwear and a fresh pair of pants, I’ll be good as new... Why?”

“You wanna do something?” 

“Yeah. Sure. Anything,” he answers clumsily in place of saying, ‘Anything to not have to be without you.’

“I wanna go to Skull Rock.”

“Skull Rock?” he repeats. 

Legend has it, you and Steve made that place a local landmark. People have always said that Hopper caught the both of you one too many times up at Lover’s Lake and the Quarry, that you needed a more hidden place to fuck. So you’d stumbled around in the middle of the woods until you found a place the chief wouldn’t think to look for you.

You’d certainly found it. Then every other horny high schooler did too.

It’s the place you go to fuck, the most private place in all of Hawkins — hell, maybe even Indiana entirely for teenagers who can’t get the house to themselves. And as appealing as it sounds, to take you beneath a sky of twinkling stars, Eddie doesn’t want his first time with you to be on dirt or in the middle of the woods. That’s how all the horror movies start, don’t they?

So, needless to say, your answer takes him by surprise.

“Yeah! You can see all the stars really good from there. It’s too hard to see them so close to town.”

Eddie’s heart swells all at once at how sweet you are, like sugar poured directly onto his tongue. You’re not eager to be without him either, it seems, and that thought is as gratifying as it is thrilling. 

You’re an adventure he’s about to go on, without a map or a way out, a journey he’s happy to go into blind as long as you’re holding his hand the entire way through it.

It breaks his heart to hang up the phone. He practically begs you to do it for him, and it makes you laugh — a kind giggle entwined with a tease ‘you’re such a baby.’ It rings in his ears long after the receiver clicks.

Most of all, he hates all the stoplights that separate your place from his. He hadn’t known where you lived before now, not until you uttered it over the phone. He makes a mental note to figure out a quicker way, somewhere through the winding back roads that his old van can speed through to make the distance less daunting.

He pulls into your apartment complex, a quaint two-story thing on the quieter side of town, where the woods are plentiful and the street lamps far fewer. He turns his radio down out of respect for all your neighbors that he’s sure he’ll never meet and spies you through the neon orange porch lights. You shut and lock your door in quick succession, then scurry across the way to meet him.

Eddie leans over to unlock the passenger side door for you, already beaming, and finds you’re smiling too when you climb in next to him. The grin you shoot his way outshines the night sky and makes a bright yellow sun of the girl sitting in his passenger seat.

“Hi,” you’d greeted him, all shy like you didn’t just make him come all over his hand thirty minutes ago.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he volleys back like he always does, with that big ol’ smirk and teasing lilt as he cock his head to the side — using his playfulness to cover up the bashful mess you so easily reduce him too.

Neither of you had gotten particularly dressed up to see each other. All he did was put on fresh under and pajama pants. You succumbed to a smilier laziness it seems, haphazardly brushing through your half-damp hair, throwing on a too big t-shirt, and calling it a day. 

The cotton hangs low at your chest, stretched out and obviously well-loved. It falls well past your thigh, though you spend much of the drive anxiously tugging it down. 

It makes him wonder what you’re wearing beneath it. If you’ve tugged on a pair of shorts or if you’re in the bra and (undoubtedly wet) underwear you’d told him you were wearing over the phone. 

Eddie winds himself up all over again while you sift through the flimsy case of endless cassettes he keeps tucked in the glove compartment that never quite shuts all the way.

“How do you now have any ABBA tapes?” you wonder like it’s baffling, with an Iron Maiden tape in one hand and Cinderella in the other. Metallica plays lowly, nearly inaudibly, from the stereo.

Eddie laughs and darts his eyes from the darkened back roads to look at you, all smiley and bathed in moonlight, before turning back to the road again. “Uh, because I’m not a thirty-year-old woman. That’s the shit moms listen to.”

“Moms and hot girls,” you retort jokingly.

“Right, moms and hot girls listen to ABBA — of which, I am neither, sweetheart. Sorry to be the one to break it to you… Besides, it’s not like you walk around listening to, fucking, I don’t know— Van Halen or whatever.”

“Hey. I listen to Van Halen,” you shoot back.

He scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

“It’s got what it takes!” you sing suddenly, not quite catching the rhythm of the song, but smiling anyway as you reach for his forearm resting on the center console. “So tell me why can’t this be love!”

“Oh, my god— that’s literally their worst song,” Eddie chuckles through the widest grin you’ve ever seen from him. 

It makes you smile big too, looking like an idiot who’s totally head over heels for the boy next to her. And of that, you’re happily guilty of.

“Not true,” you shake your head defiantly. “I love that song.”

“So that means it has to be good, right?” he retorts playfully, shooting you a teasing look, though his beam is more than sincere.

“Obviously,” you answer with a scoff that makes Eddie roll his eyes.

He knows he’s going to start to love it, though, if only because it’s the only Van Halen song you halfway know.

He’s going to hear that song on the radio and he’s going to want to turn it, but he’s going to remember this moment now — the one with you reaching for him while you sing the lyrics to a song he can’t stand, sitting pretty in his passenger seat, while the moonlight blanches your smile and the bare skin of your thighs.

Eddie Munson is going to love that goddamn song for the rest of his life.

He parks as close as he can to Skull Rock, knowing his van can’t work its way that far into the woods. The two of you are forced to walk the rest of the way, not exactly minding it, though Eddie’s incessantly worried you’re going to get cold. 

He’s already forced his jacket upon you, which you took with little fight. It warmed you almost immediately — with his cozy heat and musky cologne.

You make mindless conversation the entire way there, about music and then about his band and then what animal you’d want to be in your band if that were the least bit possible. Eddie chooses a sheep without any hesitation, though you’re confident that a penguin would be far cooler. 

You keep a careful distance between you, at first, like both of you are too scared to initiate the first move. That is, until you trip over a raised branch and nearly eat ass on the forest floor. Then Eddie’s holding your hand the entire way, keeping you close.

“If you wanted me to hold your hand, you coulda just said so, you know?” he jokes. “Didn’t have to go through all the dramatics, sweetheart.”

You try and yank your hand out of his grip in protest then, but he doesn’t let you. In fact, he pulls you closer and twirls you into a bear hug that you happily relax into.

He feels your sigh fan against his collarbone as you rest your head at the nape of his neck, his arms wrap around your shoulders as yours settle at his waist. He rocks you back in forth, in a moment that’s too almost sweet to make fun of.

Eddie finds a way, of course, “See?” he singsongs. “I’ll hug you like this all the time, if you want. You don’t have to almost kill yourself to get my attention, babe.”

“All I did was trip,” you laugh at his theatrics.

“Death by tree root… What a gnarly way to go.”

He holds your hand the entire way to Skull Rock. 

He doesn’t let you go once, not until you’re ascending the large boulders to plant yourselves at the very peak of them. He’s grabbing you again once you settle, though, and the two of you just sit there, for several long moments, just gaping at the stars that dance with life above you. They sprinkle an infinite void with enough light that manages to touch you, trillions of miles away.

There’s a subtle beauty in that Eddie never would’ve appreciated before now.

“Shit, babe,” he breathes through a whimsical existential dread. “You were right. The stars are really fucking pretty out here.” 

You love how much he loves this, to come to Skull Rock with you and count the stars. Any other guy would’ve had their tongue down your throat by now, stuffing your hand down their unbuttoned jeans.

But not Eddie.

He just holds your hand because he likes the feeling of his fingers entwined with yours, grasping tightly onto you while he gazes at an infinite universe — like you might float off right along with it.

His neck is stretched to gape at the night sky. You catch his adam’s apple bobbing every time he swallows. You want so desperately to kiss his milky white skin and sprinkle blotchy red bruises there.

His curly locks fall over his shoulders. He shakes his head to get his bangs out of his eyes while the chocolate buttons of them dart around the endless void.

He’s more beautiful than every star in the sky combined. You can’t be sure of how many that is, of course, but it’s a whole bunch if you had to guess. It makes sense, though, for the prettiest boy in the whole damn galaxy.

“Told ya,” you answer with a smile, leaning over to nudge his shoulder with yours. “You come out here often?”

You’re asking if he takes girls here and he knows it, but it’s not like you’re being inconspicuous about the whole thing. Eddie gauges it almost immediately, the subtle jealousy hinting at your tone — something no one else would’ve caught — and he squeezes your hand in reassurance.

He shakes his head. “No… Never.”

“Never?” you press with raised brows, like his answer shocks you.

“Ever. It’s not really my scene, I guess… But what about you, sweetheart? Never seen you around these parts before.”

You knock his shoulder again, harder this time.  “Shut up. You already know the answer to that.”

“Yeah…” he nods to himself, eyes darting back and forth as he reminisces on something. “You and Harrington, you and Hargrove. Hell, I think I heard about you and Jason one time—”

“That was a long time ago,” you argue. “Before I even knew you, okay?”

“I’m just saying,” he shrugs in defense. “You totally have a thing for pretty boys, sweetheart.”

“I never said I didn’t, Eds. Just that you were pretty, too.”

“Whatever,” he scoffs and rolls his eyes like he isn’t glowing red beneath the moonlight.

“You’re better than all three of them, Eds,” you confess with a sudden softness that catches his attention almost immediately. He turns his attention from the sky to look at you properly again. His breath catches at you sad you look — all beautiful and coated in shades of blue.

“…Yeah?”

You nod and drag his hand into your lap to fidget with his fingers. You trace the skeleton heart on his middle finger, subverting all your attention there because it’s easier than having to look at him now. “Better than all of them combined— not even just them, you know? Out of everyone. No one’s ever been this nice to be before.”

“Me neither, sweetheart,” he confesses with a morose grin. “The freak of Hawkins High attracts a lot of assholes, believe it or not.”

“Is it bad?” you wonder cautiously, like you’re scared to hear the answer. In some ways, you are. 

You hadn’t known him in high school, not really. For obvious reasons, you ran in very different circles. You never even had classes together. There was never any excuse to be close to each other before now, never a reason to become friends. So you didn’t.

You grew to know him as a freak, and he knew you as the town slut. Then somewhere down the line, he became your dealer and now… here you were. 

But you’ve graduated now and he’s still army crawling towards a diploma. You couldn’t save him from the hell of Hawkins High even if you wanted to.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” he shrugs. “Jason and the dick brigade just wanna make my life hell, that’s all.”

“I hope they aren’t,” you respond shyly.

Eddie scoffs then shoots you a smile. “Oh, of course not. Look at me. I’m at Skull Rock with the most wanted girl in Hawkins. I’m living the dream, sweetheart.”

“So you don’t care?” you wonder, peering at him through your lashes, as you twist the silver cross around his finger.

“Care about what?” 

“That I’m a slut,” you laugh like it’s obvious.

Eddie doesn’t think it’s all that funny. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s not like it isn’t true, Eds,” you retort with a trembling smile. “I mean, that’s literally what people call me — most people don’t even care to call me by my real name anymore.”

“I don’t care,” Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t care about that. I don’t give a shit about what people say about you. If everyone cared about what everyone said about everyone, neither of us would be here right now… Because you’d think I was some devil-worshipping freak and I’d think you were too busy getting it on with Chief Hopper.”

You screw your face up immediately at the thought. The mere idea was repulsive. The asshole was practically your father these days. Jim Hopper was in that small bunch of available people you would never fuck, and happily so. 

“I’d never stoop that low,” you joke.

“I like you, how you are, right now,” Eddie promises. “Don’t want you to change a damn thing.” 

His brown eyes twinkle with a sincerity that rivals the stars above you. All of a sudden, you don’t care about a bunch of heavenly bodies light years away from you — you care about this man, the one sitting beside you now, holding your hand even though your palms have gone all sweaty.

It’s too good to be true — the way you looks at you, the way he talks to you, the way he treats you. You’re scared that it’s a dream, that you’ll wake up and find that none of this was ever real. Or worse, that he was, and that he just didn’t care about you the way you cared about him.

It’s almost irrational. Almost. 

But it’s happened before. 

And it’s left you a scarred and mangled mess.

You shake your head to yourself and scrunch your face as you turn to look him. “Have you ever done this before, Eddie?”

“Don’t what?” he wonders with furrowed brows.

“I don’t know…” you shrug. “Any of this? With anyone else?”

He’s grateful he doesn’t have to lie. Or tell some clumsy half-truth for the sake of saving his own skin. He realizes tonight is perhaps the most honest he’s ever been with you, baring his pale soul beneath a silver moonlight. 

“Never,” he answers, unwavering, with a firm shake of his head.

“Really?”

“Really,” he nods, then swallows thickly at a gut-wrenching realization. “I’ve never felt his way about anyone else before.’

“Me neither,” you promise. 

It’s a tad more meaningful coming from you than from a boy who’s never had someone to love and to love him back.

You’re experienced, you’ve found what you like and what you don’t like. You’ve been with guys who have given you the world and guys that have ended yours altogether. And out of all of them — all of the assholes in Hawkins you could’ve picked — you’ve chosen the freak. 

You want him. 

You want Eddie.

The revelation makes him grin. “Promise?”

“Cross my heart, Eddie Spaghetti.”

[frozenjokes]

Annoying, Smelly, Stupid, Loud Wolves, Of Which Joel Is Not Even A Little Bit Fond Of

Now, Joel didn’t really know what the fuck was going on, but all in all, he wasn’t too fussed. He had a nice little house, a nice view; a perfectly good place to be in the middle of a death game.

He didn’t have many allies or anything, but no enemies either- you could say he was a bit of a lone wolf, like a really cool mysterious loner type lone wolf, not a stupid loser wolf with no friends, an awesome, kickass type with big teeth or whatever- A cool guy. Cooler than you at least, though, it’s not harder to be cooler than you, especially when you’re Joel and you’re a lone wolf.

Speaking of wolves. They were loud.

Yesterday he had seen quite a few of them out and about, wandering, growling, pissing on things; dog stuff, you understand. But it only really hit how many of them there suddenly were at night when Joel was alone in bed in his house where no one else lived (perfectly secure, mind you), and they were just barking and yipping and howling and making a right mess of his backyard with their scratching and digging and, as established, pissing everywhere- it was a complete pain, and rolling out of bed to yell and wave his hands and throw a fit did nothing to deter them. Which. Probably fair. But a sleepless Joel was not a happy Joel, and you could hardly blame him. (You couldn’t blame him at all actually, like you would fare much better, okay, because you wouldn’t.)

Joel wasn’t quite sure what he meant to accomplish when he set out the next day, but his stride held some amount of purpose, and hopefully that’d be enough to show these wolves who’s boss. He could bark too, did you know? He could bite! He wouldn’t though, not a dog, that’s some freak shit, and also he didn’t want to die, but he could. If he wanted to. Which he didn’t.

And then, a distant whine.

Joel didn’t have a specific location in mind; he was just walking, and he hadn’t intended to follow the noise, persistent as it was, but he was closing the distance, perhaps his own curiosity being too much for his own good. And Joel wasn’t surprised it was coming from a wolf; of course it was, they were everywhere all of a sudden.

But he was surprised where the wolf had gotten itself stuck.

“For goodness’s sake.” A third ravine. This had to be a third one. Joel was just about sure a giant crack in the ground was not here before, solidly dividing his and Scott’s and Jimmy’s side of the flower biome- what the hell? He checked his communicator; didn’t seem like anyone had died from fall damage recently, so clearly this hole hadn’t opened up under someone’s feet like the desert ravine and the Crastle ravine. Now, Joel hadn’t seen the ravine in the desert (He did want to check in on Grian, but right now he wasn’t touching Scar with an eight foot pole), but he had seen the Crastle ravine, and this one looked just as deep and dark and ominously bottomless. Another whine cut through Joel’s thoughts. Oh no.

Cautiously, extremely cautiously, Joel poked his head over the edge, and sure enough, there was a wolf stuck on a small rocky outcrop, pawing uselessly at the steep edge and crying pitifully. It was pretty far down- blooming hell, how did it get down there. Goodness, the poor thing. It looked up, large, black eyes round and pitiful and-

“Alright, alright, I’m coming, you just sit tight. Sit.” The wolf did not sit, nor did Joel expect it to, but it did seem to understand something was happening when Joel started a careful bridge downwards. He didn’t have that many blocks; one by one stairs would have to be enough if he didn’t want to leave the pup hanging, but he managed, the wolf growing more restless as Joel inched closer and closer.

Eventually, he got close enough to touch the poor thing. There was no way Joel was going to let it walk up his precarious bridge on its own, but luckily, the wolf must have been so relieved to be helped, it didn’t even whine as Joel scooped it up, only wiggling gently in his arms. Fine. That was fine. Everything was fine actually, Joel taking his time to carefully turn around before he heard another whine, and then a bark, and hey- was that growling? He looked down. What could have been a hundred more pairs of eyes stared back up at him.

“Oh, for goodness’s sake!”

…

Joel didn’t even know how many dogs he rescued from the ravine before he fell. It was almost inevitable really, falling, especially building precarious bridges all over the damn place to carry out stupid ass wolves who were apparently breeding like rabbits at the bottom of a ravine with zero food. Why the hell were they even spawning down there in the first place? They just have fallen, right? Nevertheless. Despite being resigned to the fact that he was most certainly going to fall and die while rescuing idiot dogs from starving or whatever, Joel was quite miffed about how he fell.

He hadn’t even been bridging or not looking where he was going- he hadn’t even been carrying a dog, and thank goodness for that. He had been standing on a perfectly stable platform, a wide platform, a natural outcrop he’d walked over a thousand times before it just- collapsed. Just like that. And he was about 90% sure it wasn’t made of gravel or sand or anything either, but he had a lot of time to doubt himself as he fell. Why was he falling for so long anyway? And why was it so cold?

And then he was suffocating. Oh.

Smallishbeans fell out of the world.

Joel jolted bolt upright in bed as he gasped for air, clutching at his chest. It had been a while since his last void death and they were never pleasant- always leaving that lingering feeling of cold and terror for hours afterward unlike most any other death in the game.

Hey, wait, how had he managed to fall out of the world..? Jimmy had done it once as well, hadn’t he? Ugh, this stupid server was so broken!

(Hopefully Grian would be in the state to fix it soon, but Joel wasn’t too keen on thinking too much about what was looking like this server literally collapsing in on itself.)

Joel had died once before this and was red now, but felt no different, and honestly didn’t really care all that much; his dogs were still at the ravine, they were waiting for him, and surely they’d seen him fall? He wouldn’t have that.

But as he left the front door of his home, Joel was quite literally nose to nose with Ren and Martyn, who looked just as shocked as he must have, Ren’s fist raised to knock.

“Greetings, scum!” Ren greeted brightly, and Martyn crossed his arms behind him, sort of stoic looking, or at least that’s what Joel was pretty sure he was going for.

“Uh, hey guys, I’m actually kind of busy right now, could you come back la-“

“Silence in the presence of your king, The Red King Of Dogwarts!” Martyn bellowed, then looked to Ren, almost shyly, “Was that good?”

“Perfect, my dude! Yes, yes, we are here today to request kindly your loyalty to The Red King!” Ren put all sorts of unnecessary flourish on his words, rolling his ‘r’s whenever he got the chance. Honestly, kind of a lot to face after suffocating in the void.

“Okay.” Joel sighed, hoping if he played along this would wrap up quickly, “You have my loyalty. There you go.”

“Oh!” Ren looked so genuinely delighted, even the accent dropped, and Joel had to roll his eyes with an exaggerated scowl to keep himself from smiling, “That’s great! We do need tribute, though.”

“What tribute?”

“Oh, like how when people living in a kingdom pay tribute to the castle in return for its protection! Like-“

“I know what it means, Ren, what do you want?” Joel had to cut him off; Ren’s excitement (presumably at how well this was going) was getting to the point of being too much to bear.

“Well, fine sir- my, I must say, you are looking quite handsome today! Very handsome, very strong.”

“I am handsome and strong, yes, continue please.”

“Well, Dogwarts requires you hang upon your lovely home the red banner that signifies your loyalty to the crown! Placed where the whole serrrver can see it!” Ren puffed out his chest to the point of ridiculousness, producing a banner from his inventory to present to Joel, though his valiant attempt at being intimidating(?) was bogged down a tad by his shining eyes. “And also that you come to fight by our side when we call upon the banner, for it signifies our mutual commitment to the land of Dogwarts! We, of course, will be ready to jump to your defense, should you so require.”

Joel took the banner from Ren’s hands, only giving it a moment’s glance before hanging it above his front door. “There. That good?”

“Brrrilliant!” Ren whooped, hopping on his toes, “What do you think, Martyn?”

“It’s perfect, mi’lord!”

“Perfect! Yes, I agree. Welcome to the family, Joel of Smallish Beans! Trust me that you will not regret this decision!” Ren beamed, and before Joel could even ask if they were finished, the two of them turned around, galloping off on fake horses without so much as a goodbye. Well. Guess that would do. Joel gathered his things, and made his way back toward the ravine.

He couldn’t go down there again, that was for sure; he wasn’t about to get knocked out of the game for a few more dumb dogs, but at this point, Joel was pretty sure he had left behind enough scaffolding that any more unfortunate wolves could finagle their way back to the surface if they were determined enough. That would have to be fine. He definitely wouldn’t be thinking about it after this. Not at all.

Joel was pleasantly surprised to see how many wolves were still lingering where he had left them, and then a little annoyed- seriously, standing so close to the ravine must have been how they all fell down there in the first place! Though, that feeling dissipated when the wolves spotted him, their tails wagging gently in a gesture that was quite adorable when multiplied by so many dogs.

“Yeah, yeah, I’d be happy to see me too, just came to let you all know I wasn’t dead or anything. I was a little bit dead. But I’m back. So. Good talk.”

The wolves definitely weren’t tame; most of them kept their distance, and the few that trotted forward took great care in not getting too close. A great improvement from being growled at in the woods though, seriously, Joel was starting to feel like one wrong move would end with him getting torn apart. Hopefully these ravine wolves would tell the surface wolves he wasn’t a bad guy.

Joel stopped, pausing for the first time to really look at the gathered dogs. There were.. a lot of them. It looked almost ridiculous to see dozens and dozens of them gathered together like this; Joel was sure he’d hadn’t rescued this many, but he couldn’t exactly be sure, either. Goodness. He had really been doing this for a while.

Well! A day well spent. Now that the wolves knew he hadn’t died tragically saving their sorry lives, he could turn right around and head home with a clear conscience, and maybe even do something productive. And that he did, starting his journey home with a few long strides on his very long legs before- thump thump thump. A soft sound, almost like an echo of his own footsteps in the grass, only multiplied by about a hundred times.

Joel turned around. The wolves stared back, unmoving. “Oi,” he said. A couple of them cocked their heads. Whatever. He kept going.

Thump thump thump thump thump.

“Oi!” Joel whirled around, and most of the dogs had to stumble over their paws to stop in his stride, yipping and growling as they stepped on each others’ toes and tails. “This is not happening. I do not have room for all of you. More importantly, you'll be in my way. I’ll have dog shit on my shoes for the rest of my life. No.”

The dogs stared back.

(This was, in fact, happening. Joel wouldn’t let them in the house, though.)

It was safe to say Joel wasn’t in a fantastic mood as he neared his home. He hadn’t gotten anything productive done, he died being stupid, he had about a hundred new dogs he did not want- listen, he could be praised as a hero among hounds if they insisted on worshiping him. Joel wouldn’t fight such a title! But he was not in the position to be responsible for anyone right now, including but not limited to a shit load of dogs. And Joel was tired too; hauling good boys out from big ravines and then dying in the void would wipe anyone out! Which is exactly why his heart sank as he heard voices arguing outside his house.

“So we can’t talk to anyone now? Is that it? Anyone with your rOyAl rEd bAnnErs is off limits? I bet Joel doesn’t even like your banner, it’s ugly and it smells. Is that a stain?” That was Scar’s voice, which honestly, was a massive surprise. Joel could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen him over the course of the game- would Grian be here too?

“Do not speak ill of the Dogwarts banner, scum!” Martyn bellowed- were they still doing that accent, seriously? “They are not ugly, nor do they smell! Weaved by my very hands just this morning they were!”

“Oh so that’s why they stink.”

Pause.

“Guess I walked into that one,” Martyn mumbled, decidedly out of character.

“Silence, heathen!” and there was Ren, just as loud as his partner in crime, “You shalt not crosseth these lands, for they are protected under the Red King! Me! If you do not want your head to be SLICED from your shoulders, I suggest unkindly that you leave this place AT ONCE.”

“You see, I just don’t believe that you’re..” Scar trailed off as Joel entered the clearing, his mouth hanging slightly at the army of dogs at Joel’s heels. “Wolves here too, huh?”

Grian was right beside him, uncharacteristically silent as he always was lately; maybe he was dizzy or had a headache or any other number of symptoms from his supposed ‘concussion.’ He wasn’t smiling either, when anyone that remotely knew him would know he should be, especially in the middle of the dramatic sequence like this. Or maybe he wouldn’t be smiling, but trying to pull Scar away instead, insisting they avoid this confrontation while making everything worse with not-so-subtle jabs. He would be doing something. He would be feeling something.

“Don’t talk to me about wolves,” Joel grumbled, turning around so that they all froze in place, then turning again to keep walking, followed by the thumping of clumsy paws.

“Joel!” Ren cut in, sounding quite pleased with himself, “You should know that your alliance to the Red Crown is already paying off! We were just about to chase these scoundrels off your land, though, with a battalion like that, I don’t expect them to bother you anymore.”

“We were not bothering anyone! Joel, I only wanted to know which hole you fell into. You didn’t say in the chat or anything, and you weren’t answering your messages..” Scar looked almost guilty, but that was probably just because he was the king of ignoring messages on this server, maybe only second behind Grian. (But Grian was sick.. It wasn’t his fault.)

“New hole. Between mine and Jimmy and Scott’s bases.”

Ren and Martyn exchanged a shocked glance, though Scar didn’t look very surprised at all; a little concerned, maybe, but not surprised, and any trace of worry vanished when Scar threw Martyn a sly glance, Martyn fuming in return. Well, Joel didn’t really care what was going on between them, so he didn’t interrupt their silent argument, going instead to Grian.

Joel had to get frighteningly close before Grian even looked up, not even acknowledging him with anything other than a glance.

“Hey, Grian. You okay? How’re you holding up?”

“I’m alright.”

Joel paused, waiting for him to continue. He didn’t. “Well, I’d let you pet my new wolves if they’d let me touch them. We’re working on it. You’d think after hauling them out of the ravine one by one they wouldn’t be so fussed, but they don’t seem to like it when I get too close. That’s how I fell in, actually, funny story. It was a very heroic thing I’ll tell you, a piece of falling rubble frightened one of the dogs in my arms when we were so close to the top. I lost my balance, but in my last moments I threw the wolf as hard as I could the rest of the way to the top, and it almost didn’t make it, scrabbling with its little paws against the dirt, but the last thing I saw before I died was the same dog, having turned around to give me a salute before I hit the gr- well, before I died.”

Grian stared, clearly listening, but taking a while to process, and Joel couldn’t remember the last time he’d anticipated someone speaking so much. “I don’t want to pet the wolves.”

“Well! That’s all I came by to ask, so we’ll be leaving now, just like you two,” Scar gestured vaguely to Ren and Martyn, his grin unwavering, “wanted so badly! Congratulations on chasing us heathens off your land! Goodbyyyyye!” Scar waved as he turned, and Grian copied the gesture like nothing was wrong with him at all, speaking without turning around.

“Bye, Joel.”

Joel gaped. Ren and Martyn didn’t look nearly as surprised, instead a more tired expression painted across their faces, and Joel started to wonder just how much they’d had to deal with. Maybe he had picked the right side, even if this was just a game. Even if they were all just.. playing around.

“Well, we must be going as well,” Ren sighed, only a hint of his frankenstein accent remaining, “Many places to see before dark. Much to do.”

“Yes!” Martyn was clearly making an effort to lighten the mood, nudging Ren softly, “We must paint this land red. First with literal paint- our banners, you know, AND THEN WITH BLOOD!”

“Aye!” Ren cheered.

“Aye aye!” Martyn cheered right back, leading the way down the slope in the opposite direction Scar and Grian were headed, chin held high. Ren trotted after him with a smile, both of them completely forgetting to say goodbye. Well. That was fine. All Joel wanted to do right now was lay down. The wolves were still keeping their distance, but Joel made sure to slide carefully through the front door anyway, just in case anyone decided they wanted to force their way inside. Fine. This was fine. The dogs were fine, Grian was fine, and the server was most definitely fine; nothing to worry about.

…

Joel had no reason to think the wolves would be quieter tonight. There was no reason they would be, though Joel had held the small hope they would do him a favor and shut their snouts in return for his saving their lives.

Would you believe that was not the case? Joel would. Joel would believe it, laying in bed, wide awake and very irritated about it. But it wasn’t just the howling and yipping and biting and scuffling and running around like freaks; tonight they were scratching at his door. It was an awful noise, hardest to ignore, especially when a wolf would occasionally decide running face first into the door was a solid plan. The first time Joel had gotten up, he saw at least five just waiting out there, staring at him, but he had closed the door in their faces when they had tried to come in. No way! No. way.

The second time he got up, he let the gathered wolves in. There were less this time, only three, and if that was going to stop the scratching then letting them in was a sacrifice Joel was willing to make.

It did not stop the scratching.

It felt like Joel had gotten up at least ten times before there were thirty wolves in his home, sniffing and grumbling and being complete nuisances, but after that, after his house was packed to the brim with smelly dogs, the scratching finally stopped.

And then a wolf climbed into his bed. No. No. Joel kicked it off, probably with the added flourish of several expletives, but the dog growled back, something low and unhappy. A reminder that it was a wolf, huge, and could absolutely eat his face if it wanted.

Okay.

One dog.

…

Two dogs.

…

At three dogs, Joel could not fit in his own bed anymore. Fine. So he got up and made a bed. Two beds actually! You could say his foresight was impeccable. (It was not enough beds.)

By the time Joel had made five beds, he tried separating them from his own, but, predictably, this ended up with ten wolves attempting to pile into his bed at once and more than one future bruise via sharp elbows and uncoordinated paws, so finally Joel just gave in, pushing all five beds plus his own together so he could just be done.

…

Did you know dogs snore? Some dogs snore. Some bark in their sleep. Some kick. Some punch you in the face for no reason. Did you know? Joel knew.

Well. This was his life now. Guess that life would no longer have sleep in it.

Though, he certainly wasn’t alone anymore.

Maybe.. maybe this was alright.

…

Another night of zero sleep, and Joel would like to formally amend his previous statement. IT WAS NOT ALRIGHT. ARGRHAGGRGGAGHGAH

***

this is a one shot that is part of an ongoing series, most of which isn’t posted on tumblr. If you would like to know what the hell is going on with… everyone (+ the server), you can find it here!

[quillkiller]

do u think if regulus somehow survived the cave and, once free, barty learned of his betrayal to voldemort would barty stick with regulus despite feeling himself betrayed or would they end up fighting eachother every chance they get. a bit like sirius and reg who end up on different sides of the war and seek eachother out in every duel just to see eachother. Like they still can’t stay away from eachother but now they hate eachother so everything is more complicated. tbh i think that’d be pretty one sided because regulus does not see how betraying voldemort could hurt barty at all, i think he’d be kind of compassionate.. would even pity him for what he went through

me & and kara had a meeting over this ask and here’s out conclusion…

we don’t really know what happens with bartylus if reg somehow survived the cave… we don’t necessarily think he’s with voldy out of some kind of loyalty, but for a lot of other complex reasons mostly to do with barty sr and his upbringing. barty is revenge personified. to me however there could ever be hatred or spite between bartylus no matter the betrayal. they always always always regress to their adolescent teenage selves when they’re together, it can’t be helped.

we also don’t see regulus on the field ?? i have a hard time picturing regulus like out on all the raids…. i think his role as a death eater is something completely different. and, if they were in the field, i think regulus and sirius would always avoid each other, knowing that neglect and silence cuts deeper. and because they don’t actually want to hurt each other. if anyone wants to hurt anyone its reg wanting to hurt sirius, and sirius defending himself. i don’t see them seeking each other out though. sirius would seek bella out on the battlefield, but never regulus. sirius can and does stay away from regulus and he proved that when he left home. even if it hurts ! the sacrifices we make to save our own lives and what not :/ i dont see either of them trying to reach out in any sort of way, both too proud and stubborn, and knowing that silence will hurt more

we also don’t think that regulus’ betrayal with the locket is an indicator that he’s now a good person / or that he would join the order. similar in how i dont think narcissas act of betrayal isn’t an indicator that she’s good either. it was personal for both of them. a way to (hopefully) save their loved ones (draco & sirius) and a defiance against voldemort. fighting against voldemort doesn’t equal being on the good side. and if that’s the case i can see barty choosing regulus over voldy. he’ll find other ways to get his revenge / the reason (to me) that he was so devoted to voldemort in the end is because all his friends died and he had nothing left BUT revenge. now he has regulus, and where regulus goes barty follows.

not to go on and on about dil’s masterpiece bartylus microfic but it really changed my life forever when barty runs away w reg and reg says ’you’re hardly the first one to ask’ and barty says ’i didn’t ask’ <- HE DIDNT ASK. i dont think he’d question regs betrayal, wouldn’t take it personal, wouldn’t pity him for it. reg survives and decides to leave / maybe try to find the other horcruxes and barty is like ’cool, guess that’s what we’re doing then’ and invites himself. and regulus would never, could never, tell him no. they’re childhood best friends and their carnal weird fucking need for each other will always outweigh anything else between them. they’re not strategic or calculating in their relationship, aren’t capable of it <- and they’re both strategic and calculating people, barty especially. it’s like that post ’when you’ve known someone for too long you’re doomed to always see them as a person.”

so if regulus survives and decides to continue to fight against voldemort, i think the natural transgression for barty is to leave with him <- lap dog tendencies. i don’t think either of them do it out of the goodness of their hearts or join the order.

[destinygoldenstar]

My Evil Arin AU Prediction (Fully Expecting To Be Wrong)

So Arin, caught up in Sora’s lie, believes in the false hope that he has his abilities starting to be figured out. That with Lloyds, Sora’s, and his own minds support, he can be a valuable ninja and be a great asset to the mission to get Kai and Bonzle back.

My prediction of this is that Ras and the gang come up with a plan to revive the blood moon to get the other elemental masters freed. So the ninja after realizing this plan have to return to the dragons to come up with a way to save Kai and Bonzle.

But oh no, Egalt (sorry I still can’t spell his name) still things Arin isn’t good enough.

Arin is by no means arrogant of his own abilities after his success, (that’d be very OOC in my opinion), but he is more trusting in himself and blindly optimistic that he has more of this figured out than he actually does.

He tries to prove this, but no matter what he does, he just can’t get it right.

Even Lloyd starts to get confused. But, you know, Arin could do it, so he has faith in the kid that practice will make perfect.

There could even be a scene where Lloyd tells Arin about his experience of getting possessed by Morro (maybe Euphrasia is also in this scene to give her character development), and how his own master, Master Wu, set him up for something so impossible that Morro became twisted jaded and arrogant in himself to achieve something he couldn’t.

Lloyd is saying this as a warning for Arin. While he by no means thinks Arin is acting the same way Morro was, he had the paranoia that he could. And Lloyd totally knows he isn’t setting Arin up for something impossible. He saw Arin get better and be able to do his tricks. So it’s not an impossible standard. Totally not.

Then there’s Sora, who is trying to keep her distance from Arin, who doesn’t know why. The guilt of what she’s done is killing her, and it’s cost her some sleep knowing that either route she could take could potentially end her friendship with Arin. Keep the lie and watch Arin meet his downfall, or tell him the truth and crush his spirits for good.

After all, she was the one person who since the very beginning believed in Arin. Even when no one else did.

And then she didn’t.

She can’t ever take that betrayal back.

Then, you know, she’s learning Spinjitsu. But Arin isn’t completely bothered by it so long as he’s got his own thing going too.

Arin is obviously hurt by her distance, unsure if there was something he did wrong. But maybe there’s a scene where he pours his heart out to her about their friendship, how their belief in each other is something nothing can undo, and how no matter what is bothering her, she should know very well how forgiving he is.

So she’s ready to be honest and tell him-

And then one of the generals of the villain faction attacks them (and whoever else you want to say is here). For now I’m gonna say Jordana, but anyone can take this slot.

And in this fight, Sora gets knocked down, and Arin is ready to defend her using his object Spinjitsu…

But he fails.

And Jordana reveals to Arin, against Sora’s consent, that Sora lied to him and used her own tech to move that object in that fight. She really taunts it in that his best friend and companion never believed in him and was lying to him the whole time.

How does Jordana know this? Idk maybe she found out in a scene before this.

Arin is obviously so devastated that he’s zoned out and unable to defend himself.

Sora, enraged from Jordana having zero respect, protects Arin and does Spinjitsu for the first time.

Jordana is forced to retreat at Sora’s power, part of that has to do with her anger. And once she’s gone, Sora cools off and tries to help Arin. She doesn’t even care or process that she did Spinjitsu, she’s more concerned about her friend.

But Arin is just… blank. Spaced out. He should be furious at Sora, yell at her and express how absolutely betrayed he feels…

But instead, nothing comes out of him. His feelings towards Sora, or the fight, or everything else is replaced by… nothing. And Sora now being able to do what he can while he’s still him is just icing on the cake that Arin is basically nothing now.

Blah blah, in some other points of the season they can learn more about the elemental masters and the wolf masks and the reveal of Ras’s master.

But Arin is mostly just a spaced out person in the way of all of this, it seems.

Lloyd obviously chews out Sora for her stunt and lying about it, but it’s clear she’s very much aware of the damage she’s done and wants to figure out how to apologize and make it right. She doesn’t know how though with Arin’s condition. Lloyd is quick to forgive her so long as she’s willing to try this apology towards Arin.

Lloyd is also trying to help Arin the best he can. It doesn’t matter to him that Arin doesn’t have anything figured out yet. Lloyd himself didn’t, even when his destiny was written in stone. Arin is just… a late bloomer, shall we say.

This doesn’t help Arin, and even tries to get Lloyd to tell him the ‘truth’. That he is a failure of a ninja. He can’t even help with beating Ras. He can’t even find his own parents…

But Lloyd still refuses to call Arin a failure.

That’s a shred of hope that Arin has that maybe the voices in his head, and Ras, are wrong. As long as his idol believes in him.

Maybe he even expressed how much he misses his birth parents. He misses the life he had before the merge. Even everything made sense. Maybe then he could be a kid DREAMING about these big things and not having to think those dreams would ever come true. That was the simple life.

Then there’s the mission to save Kai and Bonzle. And stop Ras and the others. A plan that’s so tight on the ninjas end that they NEED this to go PERFECTLY. Otherwise, a lot could go wrong.

As such, Lloyd makes the call to leave Arin out of the field part of the mission. Instead he’s gonna be working in the back on comms or something.

Arin tries to convince the others that he wants to be out there and help save Kai, but there’s no convincing the others. They all have agreed to leaving Arin behind for his own good. Especially Lloyd. He lost Kai to this and Kai was a professional. He can’t drag Arin into this and lose him too, if a vision of his is correct. (Maybe he sees Ras grabbing Arin’s hand or something, and he’s come to the conclusion that Ras would use Arin as a sacrifice too)

So they leave, and Arin is stuck on comms.

But eventually, seeing one of them get knocked down hard, Arin decides to refuse the order to stay in place. He goes on the field anyway, ready to prove himself and help the ninja as a ninja.

So far, the plan on the ninjas end is going very smoothly. They got Bonzle out and are ready to get Kai out too, and they’re fending off the villains pretty good…

But then Arin interferes, trying to help. You can decide exactly what he does, Im not sure.

Point is, that because of Arin’s actions, and specifically that, everything goes wrong.

More of the elemental masters get out, (probably using Euphrasia as one of the sacrifices), and not only that, but they are unable to get Kai out of there.

They try hard, very hard, but ultimately… they fail.

Four of the elemental masters get out, and they’re ready for the last one when Lloyd realizes Arin is here and Arin is the cause of this disaster.

Not only were they not able to save Kai, Lloyds beloved surrogate brother, but they also now lost others too (whoever you want to imagine got sacrificed. Pick two more characters you think did alongside Kai and Euphrasia). And it’s all Arin’s fault.

So in a bit of rage and unable to think straight (also from his own mental health issues making him irrational), Lloyd lashes out at Arin.

Arin ruined everything.

Arin didn’t listen to him.

Arin should’ve stayed behind.

Arin doesn’t know what he’s doing out here.

Arin is a failure.

And as soon as that last one gets said out loud, Lloyd snaps out of his rage and realizes what he’s done.

He just confirmed all of Arin’s insecurities. That everyone who said Arin was a failure and a terrible ninja were correct. That absolutely nobody believes in him to do the right thing.

Lloyd IMMEDIATELY regrets it. He immediately tries to take it back! He didn’t mean it! He’s sorry! They’re gonna figure something out! He’s so sorry-

And then Ras gets behind them and knocks away Lloyd. After a short fight, Lloyd becomes the last sacrifice for the spell, all while Lloyd is begging and screaming for Arin.

Arin is obviously devastated by what he’s heard and can’t even process the situation. All the elemental masters are freed and it’s his fault. His idol is gone and it’s his fault.

The very idol that said to his face that he was not good enough.

…was he even an idol anymore?

Arin kneels down to Ras in surrender, ready to be defeated. But he becomes surprised when Ras instead shows pity towards the kid.

Instead, Ras offers Arin a way to find his parents. To go back to his old life and not worry about any of these people who never believed in him.

All he has to do is join Ras and help him out. In exchange, he would spare him and his parents. He even offers the wolf mask to help Arin reach his full potential and become the powerful fighter he saw in him.

And with nothing else left, Arin accepts this deal, allowing himself to be corrupted by the mask.

Almost immediately, his insecurities vanished and are replaced with a sense of purpose, of belonging, of power. With nothing holding him back.

He decides to commit to going rogue and finding his parents with this power. He doesn’t care if Ras wins or loses so long as Arin gets what he wants.

With Arin leaving and now on the dark side, Sora, who I guess was knocked out during the fight or something, realizes what has happened.

It’s not hard to imagine her bawling her eyes out and realizing she just lost her best friend. Maybe she even blames herself.

For the remainder of the season, Arin is just kinda along for the ride with Ras’s forces and the master taking a liking to him and helping him control his new abilities. Maybe he’s able to do the object Spinjitsu without much issue thanks to the mask power. But like I said, Arin doesn’t really care about these villains and their plans, so he’s not concerned which side wins, so long as he gets what he wants.

I’m going to say that Sora, making an army with whoever is remaining, sets up one last fight to rescue the sacrificed ninja.

And TLDR, they win and they’re all fine.

I mean, it’s Ninjago, what do you expect?

The only notable thing is that at some point of this fight, Sora is cornered and most certainly going to get a killing blow by someone, but Arin stops them to ‘focus priority on something more important’.

Even evil, Arin can’t bring anyone, especially not himself, to kill his best friend.

It’s short, but it’s enough that after the fight, Sora says that she knows Arin is still in there and there may be a way to save him in the future.

She doesn’t know how yet, but with her power is a strong responsibility to use it properly this time, and she’s making it her own personal mission to get Arin back. No matter how hard the road of struggle and training is, and no matter how long it takes.

Then of course she has to explain to the others, especially Lloyd, that Arin has turned to the dark side.

Lloyd is the most hurt by this, for obvious reasons.

He failed his student.

He can imagine Wu’s ghost shaking his head in disappointment in Lloyd.

From here on, (season three), Lloyd kinda changes as a mentor. He’s still caring towards the kids, but he’s much stricter on them and very cryptic and demanding of them. Kinda like how Wu was in the first couple of seasons of the main show. It’s obviously taxing on the others. But they also kinda understand how paranoid Lloyd is that he’ll fail another person.

With Ras’s forces defeated and the main members scattered, (whoever you want to say is alive or dead), Arin is alone with a bind of his own to Ras’s master guiding him.

Arin becomes a rogue wanderer searching for answers on where his parents are. And while he doesn’t resort to killing, he still will not let anyone get in his way or let him feel that despair of failure ever again. Not even the ninja.

I expect this to be totally wrong. As I said, I don’t think this theory will come true at all. At most I expect Arin to be turned good again and fixed after like one episode. Whereas this AU theory has Arin’s villainy be expanded further into Dragons Rising where Arin becomes a reoccurring antagonist. But while a villain and having seen a villain origin story unfold, we the audience are still routing for Arin anyway in a pretty twisted kind of way. I don’t know, I thought that’d be an interesting angle instead of ‘And then he became a heartless monster’

[starkstruck27]

My sixth fill for @harringrovesummerbingo!! I kinda cheated a little with this one, as they aren't technically 'walking', but I wanted to do something from a different perspective, so this is it. Prompt + Space: Walking hand in hand in public, A2 Title: Hold me Close and Hold me Fast Major Tags: None Rating: General Word Count: 1638 words Additional Tags: Photography, Closeted characters, Assumptions, Assumed relationship, Accidental voyeurism, But not in a dirty way, Secret relationship Summary: Jonathan and Nancy are working for the Hawkins Post during the summer of '84, and their latest assignment is to get pictures for the article about the new mall that opened up. While looking through their shots, though, Jonathan notices something interesting… Also on: Ao3

“Hey, Nance, c’mere a sec,” Jonathan said from across the darkroom, squinting at the freshly developed picture in his hand. It was one of many that he’d taken earlier that day at the new mall that’d just opened up, and they’d be running in the next issue of the Hawkins Post next to the article about said opening. Now they were just developing them, and then they’d pick the best few to print along with the article. But as he was looking through his shots, Jonathan noticed something he hadn’t at the time of taking the picture, and he had no idea what to do with it now, except get Nancy to take a look at it and confirm he wasn’t seeing things.

“What’s up?” She asked as she walked over, peering over his shoulder at the picture.

“Am I crazy or do you see that, too?” Jon asked, handing her the picture.

“See what, exactly?”

“That,” Jon said, pointing to the background of the picture. It was one of the ones he’d taken of the front entrance of the mall, slightly off to the left side to make the perspective seem more impressive. It was a great picture, probably one of the top contenders to go with the article, until he noticed the two people leaned up against the side of the building in the background of the shot.

“Okay, what about them?” Nancy asked as she studied the shot, trying to see what it was her boyfriend saw.

“They’re holding hands,” he said, as if there was something more to it.

“Okay? Lots of people hold hands, what’s your point?”

“Lots of people aren’t Steve and Billy Hargrove,” Jonathan said, pointing at the picture again and making Nancy look a little closer. “That is them, right?”

“I think so, but that doesn’t make sense. I know they’ve cooled down from wanting to kill each other on sight, but I don’t think they’re that friendly. Are you sure they’re holding hands?”

“Pretty sure. I mean, it’s a little blurry, but the angle certainly makes it look that way. And if they were just sharing a smoke, there’s no reason they’d need to be that close together. What else could it be?”

“I don’t know. Wow, I didn’t even know Steve swung that way, let alone that he’d go for someone like Billy,” Nancy said, lowering her voice a bit. 

“Neither did I, I never would’ve guessed,” Jon said, taking the picture back again. “So, what should we do with this, then?”

“Well, we obviously can’t run it with the story. I guess we should give it back to them.”

“Why don’t we just throw it away?”

“Because one, somebody could find it, and while I don’t think anyone would really notice and put two and two together, I don’t think we should risk it. You know word travels fast around here, and if Steve’s parents ever got wind of this, they’d probably ship him off to military school within a day. And who knows what Billy would do if anyone even dared to wonder about him. Besides, I don’t want to make assumptions, and I’d feel weird knowing something like this without them telling me themselves. It’d make things more awkward than they already are.”

“Yeah, but you remember how Steve reacted the last time I caught something I shouldn’t have on film, and I really like this camera. And I also happen to like my face, I would prefer not to have it rearranged if Billy flies off the handle.”

“Oh come on, Jon, Steve apologized for the last time, and at least this time it was an accident. He won’t go near your camera. And if you’re worried about Billy, you can hide behind me if you want. I’m sure he’d never hit a girl, it’ll be fine,” Nancy said, taking the picture and stuffing it in her purse. “Once we finish up here for the day, we’ll stop by Steve’s house and talk to him.”

The rest of the work day went by way too fast for Jonathan’s liking, he was not looking forward to confronting Steve with what he’d captured. Before he knew it, it was five o’clock, and he was gathering his things up to take home and punching out with Nancy hot on his heels. Unfortunately, it’d been her turn to drive today, so he couldn’t even pretend that he’d forgotten and taken her home, and he just had to wait as she steered her car towards Steve’s house.

The house was just as big and intimidating as he remembered it, just like the guy who lived inside. Jon had only been inside it once, at a party back in freshman year, before he realized how much he hated parties and being around large groups of people in general. But even with only one or two people inside, he was more afraid of it now then he had been then. Still, Nancy was determined to get this off her mind, so Jon didn’t argue as he followed her up to the big French doors and knocked.

“Oh, uh,” Steve said as he answered them, keeping the door open just enough that only he was visible, “Nance, Jonathan, what are you guys doing here? Is there something wrong with… y’know…?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” Nancy said, smiling brightly, “May we come in?”

“Um, now’s not really a great time…” Steve said, avoiding eye contact as he scratched the back of his neck.

“It’ll only take a second, Steve. It’s important,” Nancy continued, nudging Jon, who nodded along while also avoiding Steve’s eyes. Nancy didn’t, though. She looked at Steve head on and gave him a face that he must’ve known meant that she meant business, because finally, with a quick glance behind him into his living room, he let them in. He closed the door behind them and then turned to lean against it, obviously not wanting them to go any further. 

“What is it?” He asked, getting a bit antsy as he started tapping his foot.

“We have something to show you,” Nancy said, opening her purse and making Jonathan break out into a cold sweat. Steve eyed both of them curiously as Nancy took out the picture, handing it to him and standing up straight as she said, “We took this picture earlier today at the mall, the Post is running an article about the grand opening and they wanted a visual element. But when we developed the film, we found something we didn’t know we’d captured and we wanted to do the right thing.”

“What are you talking about?” Steve asked, glancing over the picture quickly. He didn’t see anything wrong with it.

“That’s you and Hargrove, isn’t it? You’re holding his hand,” Nancy said, pointing to the two in the background and Steve’s eyes went wide. He tried to say something but he was too panicked, and he kept looking back and forth between Nancy, Jon and the picture.

“L-look, Steve, I didn’t even know you were there when I took it! I only noticed later and Nancy said we should tell you but I was just gonna get rid of it, I swear!” Jon babbled, taking a tiny step behind Nancy as Steve finally closed his mouth and looked at them.

“He’s telling the truth, Steve,” Nancy said, “He just wanted to get rid of it, but I said we should tell you about it. I wouldn’t have felt right jumping to conclusions and especially not if I jumped to the right ones and then knew something you didn’t want me to know. So I made him come here with me to give you both the picture and the film, that way you know we aren’t trying to keep anything from you.”

“I-I, um,” Steve cleared his throat, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything, we just thought you should know,” Nancy said, smiling nicely as she stepped forward to hug him. “And just so you know, we won’t tell a soul. Make sure Hargrove gets the message too, alright?”

“I will,” Steve said, hugging her back and finally starting to calm down a little. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jon said, finally regaining some confidence as he shrugged. “Thanks for, y’know, not getting pissed.”

Steve gave a small shrug and an only half-strained smile at that remark as he showed them out, waving as he made sure they got in their car okay. Nancy smiled and waved back as they drove off, poking Jon lightly in the side as she stopped at a stop sign.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” She teased, steering her car down the road.

“I guess not. I’m just glad Hargrove wasn’t there, he’d have probably beaten the shit outta me,” Jon said, shrugging again.

“Oh, he was definitely there,” Nancy said.

“What?”

“Yeah, you didn’t notice? Steve almost didn’t let us in, and he wouldn’t let us go past the foyer, there was obviously someone else there. And I saw his shoes by the door.”

“Shit, do you think he’ll come after us for this?”

“I doubt it. He has no reason to now that Steve has the pictures. Besides, you were worried about Steve, but he’s changed from the person he was two years ago. Maybe he’s helping Billy to change from the person he was when he first moved here,” Nancy shrugged.

“Maybe. I hope you’re right,” Jonathan said, shrugging as well.

“I am. I know Steve, and he wouldn’t date anyone who would hurt the people he cares about. And if Billy does end up coming after us, I’ll protect you,” Nancy grinned, taking Jonathan’s hand and squeezing it.

“I’m holding you to that,” he said, but he smiled and squeezed back.

[crazylittlejester]

Got slammed into a fatigue wall so I'm lying in bed and thinking again. :>

I spent a few hours yesterday translating a Skyward Sword fic from English (American) to Portuguese (Brazilian) and I think it turned out okay. (It's probably also half the reason I'm so drained right now but I'm ignoring that.) I swear I have a point I'm trying to make, but it's going to take a few roundabouts to get there.

I've been doing Fic Rec Friday, and I think people like it. I like it, anyway. I've got way too many bookmarks and people keep writing new things, and I think it's fun to look through what I've read during the past month or so and pick something to showcase for the week. I've got a format figured out after a little bit of trial and error and I'm happy with it.

Back to translating. I'm not very good at it because I'm still learning. I haven't taken composition class yet, which is a whole other side tangent, so I'll stop there. But the point is I'm wondering if maybe I should post the links to what I've translated here in a similar format to how I've been posting Fic Rec Friday. I highly doubt many people would read them since there's like... 5 LU fics in total if you put the French and Spanish translations together. And I'm also self-conscious because I'm practically glued to my ENG-POR dictionary at this point. But it's a thought.

Which sort of leads to my next thought being whether or not I should go back to posting the fics I've written here or not. I was posting the Whumptober fics during October but I stopped doing that once the event ended even though I'm still chugging through. I'm definitely doing something to celebrate getting to the end once I finish.

All that to say, I'm not 100% sure what I want to do. I know I want to organize things again (the brain demands it), I'm just not sure if people mind seeing my Ao3 posts of dubious quality. I have more confidence in other people than I do myself, I guess.

Either way, don't feel like you have to give me advice, I just wanted to get my thoughts out there on the topic in case someone else was thinking about the same things. You're always really kind and empathetic and willing to listen to literally anything, too.

PS: I am planning to work on an EAH & LU crossover AU thing once I get myself together.

Okay first of all it’s really cool that ur translating fics. That sounds like a lot of work, but it’s so cool and like damn, good for you dude that’s awesome

Second: I LOVE UR FIC REC FRIDAY, i think we as a fandom should recommend more fics, i love when people share stuff they like and ive found a lot of awesome stuff that way! Plus it’s always fun to talk to people about really good fics :)

If you do decide to post ur fics on here that’d be really cool, I dunno if you mean like whole fics or just ao3 links or a combo of both, but i think that’d be nice to see em. I love opening tumblr and seeing people share their writing, and even if i cant read it right then, i almost always save it to come back to later :)

I’ll always listen to anything people say, and while I may not be the greatest at giving advice, i’ll try my best!! and if anyone else has any thoughts on this im sure they’ll leave a comment of some sorts

(i look forward to the au whenever you get around to it!!)

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

On the way down into Area Zero, Scarlett tells her friends a bit about her parents. This mostly raises more questions than it answers.

---

The trek through Aero Zero is even more exhausting than Arven remembers. A slow spiral downhill, waiting every moment for the monsters to attack - for something only half-imagined in the Scarlet Book to spring out of the fog. And his backup doesn’t reassure him; Scarlett keeps rushing ahead to look at wild pokemon, waterfalls, rocks, and straight down into the thick fog below. Even Nemona has to yell after her to be careful, and it has to be bad if Miss Student Council President Battle Aficionado is telling someone to slow down. 

Though Arven is pretty sure that Nemona wants to run into battle with a monster, and she’s only worried about Scarlett slipping off the edge of a cliff. Which, yes, he’s also worried about that. He’s worried about many things. He can multitask.

They reach the second research station, are attacked by a monster that looks almost-but-not-quite like a jigglypuff, and decide it would be a good site to camp for the night. Sada tells them she’ll speak with them in the morning, and that’s it.

“So what are your parents like, Scarlett?” Penny asks, when they’ve all set up on the floor to make their dinners. Arven hopes they’ve packed enough food. He’s hungrier than he thought he would be.

They talked about their families on the way down; the specter of parents hangs heavy over this mad quest. Arven has learned a lot about Nemona and Penny, but less about Scarlett before everyone started to complain about being tired and hungry. Or that was mostly Penny and Nemona. And maybe Arven had also complained. And maybe it was good that all of them did, because one thing he has learned about Scarlett, today and other days, is that she could run straight until she collapses and never think to stop for a rest.

“Oh, they’re cool!” Scarlett chirps, which reminds Arven that she is the youngest of them and would still be at an age where she thinks her parents are cool.

“They seemed nice, when I met ‘em,” Nemona says. “Only briefly, but - lots of pokemon at your house, I remember.”

“Yeah, that’s Mom’s old team,” Scarlett says. “And Dad’s zoroark. They were both trainers when they were younger - I guess Mom still is, she battles for fun sometimes. And it’s good exercise for the team.”

“Would she be willing to battle me?” Nemona asks, because of course she asks that. Arven isn’t even surprised. 

“I bet she would!” Scarlett says brightly. “That’d be fun! Since you’re Champion ranked, and Mom was like - um, I guess she said she’s technically not a Hall-of-Famer, but–”

“Hall-of-Famer?” Arven asks.

“It’s like - like being Champion ranked,” Scarlett explains. “‘Cause the Unova League only gives the Champion title to one person at a time, and they’re the sitting Champion, and they’ve got all the responsibilities like La Primera, and then anyone who beats them gets entered in the Hall of Fame.”

“So why technically?” Penny asks.

“Mrghmph.” Scarlett takes a massive bite out of her sandwich, laden with peanut butter, banana, and whipped cream. “Mghm. Um. I don’t think she said? I can’t remember if she said. Or, wait, she said she could’ve entered, and didn’t, something about that she only battled the sitting Champion later, after he retired, and - I don’t know, it was weird, she didn’t totally answer when we talked about it. Something wonky.”

“Sorry, she could’ve, and didn’t?” Nemona repeats. “League culture in Unova is loco! Gym leaders are celebrities! It’s a full-time job! If I were Champion-ranked - er, Hall-of-Famer, there, I’d never run out of opponents! She turned that down?” 

“Not everyone wants to spend every waking moment in a pokemon battle, you know,” Arven says, but he has to admit - to himself, and no one else - that he’s curious, too. What would it be like to have a normal mother? Is Scarlett’s mother normal? She raised Scarlett, after all, and Scarlett is far from normal.

“But then why challenge the League at all?” Nemona demands. “If you’ve put in all that work to reach the top, why stop right before the peak?”

Scarlett shrugs. “Iunno,” she says through another mouthful of sandwich. “You can ask her, when you battle.”

“So you’re from Unova?” Penny asks. “And your parents moved here, too?”

“Well, I grew up in Unova,” Scarlett answers. “I’m from Kalos, kinda. But they’ve been all around and lived all over, but never Paldea before. So now they’re here!”

“You’re adopted?” Arven asks. Nemona glares at him. Was he not supposed to ask that? Scarlett offered that much. Everyone here knows about his crazy mother. He can ask Scarlett whatever the hell he wants.

“Yeah,” Scarlett says. “Dad found me in the woods.”

“I’m… sorry?” Arven asks. “Found you - in the…?”

“Oh, so he’s a jokester, like my dad,” Penny says. “Says all silly things like that.”

Scarlett frowns. “He’s not,” she says. “I - there’s this place somewhere in Kalos that people call the Pokemon Village. Only a few humans ever’ve known where it is, but when Mom lived in Kalos and Dad was there he found his way there and spent a lot of time there. He and a local gym leader, he said, knew the way. Mom says she always got lost when she tried to go alone. Anyway it’s like, a refuge, for pokemon, away from humans, that’s why it’s secret. But I lived there, when I was little. The pokemon took care of me but they thought it would be better as I grew up if I had a human to take care of me, instead. So they asked my dad if he would take me, because they trusted him.” She grins. “And that’s how I got my parents!”

Silence reigns. No one even moves; Nemona is frozen with a sandwich halfway to her mouth. “That can’t be true,” Penny says. Arven is glad someone who wasn’t him said it. He might not know what it’s like to have a parent, really, but that sounds like the thing a parent would say when they don’t want to tell a kid where babies come from. Except Scarlett is adopted anyway. 

Scarlett’s face falls. “It is!” she insists, almost angrily. 

“That explains your table manners,” Arven says. “You’ve got peanut butter on your nose, by the way.”

“There was Kangaskhan,” Scarlett says, either ignoring or not hearing him. “She carried me around on her shoulders when I got tired. And I’d play with Zoroark and her pups, and there was - was - there was someone else. But I can’t…” She is frowning, still, but it seems more to be directed more at herself, and her memory, than at anyone else’s doubt. 

Arven grabs a napkin and wipes the peanut butter from her nose. She takes another bite of her sandwich and smears whipped cream across her cheek. Arven gives up and drops the napkin on her lap. She can deal with that herself. 

“How long were you raised by pokemon?” Nemona asks. “If you remember it, that’s - how old were you?”

“About six,” Scarlett says. 

Her being raised by pokemon in the woods for half of her life answers a few questions Arven had and yet raises dozens more. 

“How did you learn to talk?” Penny asks. 

Scarlett finally wipes her face with the napkin. “I think I used to be psychic,” she says, quietly and very seriously. 

“What,” Penny says. 

“¿Qué?” Nemona says. 

“Huh,” Arven says. 

“It wasn’t words I had trouble learning,” Scarlett says. “It was the - the–” She exaggeratedly moves her mouth. “Making the sounds. Out loud. But I knew them, and I–” She cuts herself off. Her gaze is fixed on nothing in particular. “Or there was a psychic pokemon? Or - there was someone else, I know there was something I’m forgetting.”

This is the most distressed Arven has ever seen Scarlett, and he’s fought Titans with her. He still doesn’t know if he believes her story, exactly as it is, but he now believes there’s - something weird in her past. Trauma can cause people, especially kids, to forget stuff, right? Or maybe if she’s right, and there was a psychic pokemon - those guys have weird powers. Maybe that caused her problem.

A profound horror overtakes Arven as he realizes, for as weird as Scarlett is, she’s also way more well-adjusted than she has any right to be.

“I bet you kill it in Mr. Salvatore’s class,” Penny says. “Since you had some immersive study for a while there.”

Scarlett grins sheepishly. “Not really,” she says, rubbing the back of her neck. “And my dad can talk to pokemon, too, and that’s still my worst class.”

“You always seem pretty in-tune with your pokemon to me,” Nemona says.

Penny looks at Arven. He can see in her eyes that she desperately seeks solidarity in this conversation - someone else to acknowledge that this is weird. What the hell does Scarlett mean, talk to pokemon? Anyone can talk to pokemon. Whether the pokemon listen, or talk back, is another matter entirely. Arven decides this is not a road he wants to go down right now, and he watches Penny’s face flash through every stage of grief before she nods firmly, having also decided not to pursue this line of questioning at this time.

“I think it’s hard in class because there’s no other context,” Scarlett replies. “Body language, what you’re doing, what the pokemon’s doing… It’s not really fair.”

Arven really would like to meet Scarlett’s parents, though. Not that he doesn’t trust Nemona’s brief judgment of them, but - yeah, he doesn’t trust Nemona’s brief judgment of them. Maybe they are nice people! He hopes they’re nice. They’re nice, and Scarlett really was found in the woods, and Arven will still be able to say that out of all of them, he has the worst parent. And then it will all be fine. They’ll have dealt with the reason that his mother dragged them all down here and then–

He doesn’t know what then.

“Is school supposed to be fair?” Penny asks. “Pop quizzes, trick questions–”

“Ms. Tyme asks so many of those!” Scarlett complains. “She’s so nice all the time, but–”

And they’re talking about school like they always would. Like Scarlett didn’t just say all that. He wants to ask more about her parents. He doesn’t know what to ask, besides that talk to pokemon remark that could mean anything or nothing. 

“Hey, speaking of school,” Nemona says, “why didn’t you go to Blueberry Academy, in Unova? I mean, I’m glad you didn’t! But your parents are from Unova. Wouldn't that have been closer?”

“It’s out in the middle of the ocean,” Scarlett says. “It’s not super close to anything! But it is, well - it’s all about pokemon battles at Blueberry. If I wanted tutoring for battle strategy, I could just ask my mom and a bunch of her and dad’s friends. Naranja has classes on everything. And like I said, my parents have lived all over. My mom actually traveled here once when she was younger but didn’t get to stay as long as she wanted - Paldea’s got all kinds of history like she’s interested in. And Dad will go wherever. So I decided I wanted to go to Naranja, so we moved to Paldea!”

Just like that. Scarlett got to choose what she wanted and her parents let her have it. They rearranged their lives around her. For one sickening moment, Arven is so envious he can’t even see straight.

“That’s cool,” he says.

“You don’t mind having them right there?” Penny asks. “Don’t they start smothering you?”

Scarlett shakes her head. “Mom always says she learned from her own travels when she was young that you’ve gotta have space to figure yourself out. She says one of her friends had a dad who was like, way too overprotective, and that caused all sorts of - anyway, she doesn’t want to get like that. They’re around when I need them but they’ve got their own stuff to do.”

“That’s cool,” Nemona says, looking a little wistful, herself.

She’d said that her parents were normal, that she was glad for the way they were hands-off, but now Arven’s not quite so sure. Maybe he actually has something in common with her, after all. Something besides Scarlett.

“I’ve gotta take you guys all to meet them sometime,” Scarlett says, and Arven can’t tell if she’s picking up anything that he and Nemona are putting down, or if this is her continuing to be herself. Something like a well-intentioned, earnest, wrecking ball. A tauros charging headlong across the plains. “Once everything’s all sorted out here.”

“Sounds like fun!” Nemona says. “You gotta warn your mom in advance that I’ll be looking for a battle!”

“Oh, for sure!” Scarlett says. “I mean, I’ve told them both about you, so Mom can’t be surprised!”

And just like that, they’re making plans for the future. None of them have a clue what Sada is going to say to them tomorrow, or what they’re going to find as they head even deeper into the crater. 

“You haven’t told your parents about all of us, have you?” Penny asks. 

“Of course I have!”

“Oh.”

“What? What do you think I’d say—?”

What did she say? About poor Mabosstiff, or crazy Professor Sada alone in the crater, and Koraidon - how Arven was the one that pushed him off on her in the first place? How honest is she with her parents? She’s not going to tell them about all this, is she? They’re not going to learn that Arven dragged her down into the dangerous Great Crater of Paldea, are they? They’re the type of parents who would be concerned by that, right? Not the type of parents who would ask their child to come down here for them, right? 

“It’ll be fun!” Scarlett is saying. “Right, Arven?”

He missed some of the fillings of this conversation. He has no idea what she’s talking about now. “Right,” he says anyway.

[trans-luis-serra-navarro]

This is gonna be a weeeeeee bit of a controversial post so if you’ve come here to argue please just dont!!!!!!!!! But one thing I absolutely despise seeing in disabled Luis headcannons/fics is the idea that his disability would be ‘atonement for his actions’ or would be a ‘punishment’ of some kind

Disabilities aren’t punishments. They aren’t the ‘consequences of your actions’- disabilities are a part of life!!!!!!! And a VERY SMALL amount of people I’ve seen talk about this subject have a pretty damn abliest view on it!!!!!!!!!!

Sure, maybe Luis would FEEL that way about HIMSELF- but Luis being disabled would NOT be his ‘punishment’!!!!!! He’s already gone through MORE than enough he REEEEALLY doesn’t need it rubbed in anymore (I mean that was his whole arc right HDBSHSBSH) and insinuating that disabilities are punishments for ANYONE is really abliest!!!

Him being disabled makes sense for his character!!!!!!!! Like- ignoring the fact that there is literally no way he’d be walking after having a hole in his spine BXBSHSNSHDB change is a very core part of his character and he’s ALWAYS learnt how to make the best of whatever life throws at him, I think if he survived and was disabled that’d be a really cool aspect of his character!!!!!!!! And I REEEEALLY DONT THINK he would wanna try and ‘fix himself’ or cure it cuz again the idea that all disabled people wanna be ‘fixed’ is a pretty abliest idea!!!!

Also PLEEEEEEEEAAASE PRETTY PLEASE don’t take this post as me saying ‘oh you HAVE to write Luis as disabled’ or ‘oh if you draw him without mobility aids you’re abliest!!!’ Cuz like!!!!!!!!! Hell no!!!! IIIIIIII draw him as not being disabled all the time!!!! You can have your own headcannons or theories etc and sometimes some people just don’t feel like they’d do disabilities justice that’s totally cool too!!!!!!!!! Luis is a fictional character Nobody OWNS him we can do whatever we want this the fulla!!!!!!!!!!! Everyone’s version of Luis is amazing and perfect mwuah mwuah mwuah I’m kissing them all!!!!!!!

Edit: I just wanna clarify this isn’t talking about anyone in particular or any post I’ve seen!!!!!!!!! I think most people who have said this meant to say something else and it wasn’t done with ill intent or English wasn’t their first language!!!!!!!!! And all those posts are super old anyways this isn’t ‘fresh drama’ or a take I’ve seen recently or anything!!!!!!!!!!! I’m not talking about anything or anyone in particular!!!!!

[manyfandomocs]

You know, I feel like we definitely need to talk crossovers at some point… Glee, Descendants, Wizarding World, whatever you want, I feel like our OCs would go so good together. 🤭

Okay in a strange turn of events considering what I asked you, I ended up overwhelmed by all the options I first immediately thought of?? But here is the big List pls tell me anything else you can think of I love anything and everything

And I left most of these vague on whether it’s platonic or even romantic so?? Lmk!!

Glee

Audrey + Beatrice (Bea would absolutely adore her, she’d love Audrey so much and think she’s so great)

Audrey + Carrie (Honestly this is mostly fc bias cause of Dumplin’ but I do think they’d be fun. Carrie is a bitch tbh but she can be a nice bitch, she’d question Audrey’s taste in Finn a little though)

Audrey + Felicity (Felicity is so kind and sweet to everyone she would welcome Audrey so fast)

Audrey + Giselle (Giselle is always welcoming she is usually the clubs mom friend she would love her)

Audrey + Saoirse (You know how Rory got attached to Sam a bit for American life, I think that’d be Saoirse and Audrey)

Audrey + Scott (I think this is one that would have a little buildup cause Scott isn’t a dick but he isn’t offering a bunch of friendliness right away either. But he does get really close to Coach Beiste and I see that being their in)

Audrey + Xavier (He’s a menace and annoying and he’ll flirt with her way too much but he means well)

Audrey + Zeke (Cousins! Zeke would love her! He’d also wanna fight anyone being mean he is a chill skater boy but also that’s his favorite person)

Leo + Ashton (As a baseline Ashton hates jocks except he doesn’t he thinks they’re hot. I think they’d have such an interesting dynamic tbh with Ashton’s attitude and them both being closeted)

Leo + CJ (CJ would think he’s so cool. He’d probably wanna talk his ear off tbh but I think he’d like Leo a lot)

Leo + Giselle (I love me some MLM/WLW solidarity these two can be that that’s the thought process. Plus he likes her brother so she’s supporting that)

Leo + Leonard (They’re both Leo’s I don’t have too much thinking here tbh. Leonard will make him pastries and probably have a crush on him tbh)

Leo + Scott (Hockey teammates hockey teammates. Scott would at least be more likely to talk to him quicker than some other crossovers because of hockey but he’s also like so singularly focused on hockey until the New Directions makes him open up so, it’d be rough but I’m so here for them)

Leo + Xavier (Also hockey teammates! Xavier would be chill with him for sure. Both from different states and having to deal with Lima weirdness, though Xavier would definitely seem more like the other assholes on the team but he’s chill really)

Parker + Ashton (Ashton would be so chill with them. He’s got his little skank bad boy rep so Parker is definitely up his alley to hang)

Parker + Carrie (Unexpected duo. Carrie is popular and ambitious and bitchy but?? I feel like she’d like Parker. Maybe cause they don’t give a fuck I feel like she’d respect that)

Parker + CJ (CJ thinks they’re the coolest person ever he will be wanting to copy their look and everything else. The ideal person to him)

Parker + Jasper (Idk i think Jasper would like Parker a lot he would be down for their whole vibe)

Parker + Steve (I don’t have too many thoughts I just think Steve could be into them and their whole thing)

Parker + Xavier (Honestly their storyline with Puck would just also work with Xavier though he’s more accepting)

Bruno + Ashton (I just like giving Ashton crossovers. I think it’d take a little bit but Ashton would definitely be into hanging out)

Bruno + Carrie (I think Carrie would end up liking Bruno a lot, she’s here to have one favorite New Directions member and it’d be him)

Bruno + Christina (I truly have no basis for this I just think they’d be so fun together)

Bruno + Isadora (I feel like they could hatch a plan together, be a little mischievous to get Mike and Tina to date them instead)

Ivy + Ashton (Honestly anyone that goes against the grain is cool with Ashton. He’d be down for her)

Ivy + Beatrice (She would think she’s so cool oh my god, number one fan she’s so impressed by her existence)

Ivy + Isadora (They are so similar I love it. Isadora would be so okay hanging out with Ivy and tbh after she stopped being friends with Santana and Brittany I see her being like “Ivy is my best friend now bye”)

Ivy + Sophia (Sophia would respect her sm. She is constantly arguing with people cause of Kurt so she would love Ivy standing up to people)

Ivy + Steve (Steve loves Broadway and would be amused by how outspoken she is so I think they’d end up being pretty chill

Bailey + Ashton (Honestly the idea of a little southern belle type befriending an asshole like Ashton is just really good to me)

Bailey + CJ (He has a crush on her. I have no doubt he has a crush on her. A very big embarrassing crush he would think she’s so great)

Bailey + Isadora (Their looks and aesthetic are so opposite and I love it I think they’d be great. Isadora would like her)

Bailey + Leonard (He’d love her, he’d love how nice he is because he’s ridiculously nice so it would be a great pair)

Bailey + Saoirse (Bailey has a southern accent, Saoirse has an Irish accent, I think they’d have conversations people wouldn’t understand and I love it)

Bailey + Scott (I just like Scott with a lot your people I’m sorry. I think she’d melt his little “Ice King” exterior pretty quickly)

Mara + Giselle (Giselle would love everything about her. The jewelry, being an out lesbian, all of it she is a big fan)

Mara + Jasper (Jasper shows up in Lima and he instantly decides he likes Mara that’s the rules)

Mara + Jupiter (Jupiter would find her weird I won’t deny that but she also is not against that at all she’d be charmed by it)

Mara + Saoirse (Saoirse would also love her. She would be so interested in everything about her)

Descendants

Greta + Cadence (I had to try to not give every VK I have but anyways. Cadence is not supposed to be in Auradon but she is here anyways which I think would already get Greta’s attention)

Greta + Emmeline (Emmeline is too friendly always so if Greta wanted one person in Auradon it would be her)

Greta + Gabriel (Besides the fact of Gabriel being my crossover boy I think he’d vibe with her a lot. He doesn’t wanna be here but she would be easy to befriend)

Greta + Hallie (Hallie would originally wanna befriend Greta to gain Auradon trust but once Greta’s friends with the VKs I think I can see them becoming friends)

Greta + Jackie (These two I see vibing a lot. Very cool together, Jackie would show up with the VKs unannounced and be very chill with Greta)

Greta + Ruby (Ruby would honestly be jealous of how open and herself she is so I think Ruby would definitely seem like one of the people that doesn’t like her but they’d grow close!!)

Sebastian + Evelyn (Evelyn wants to befriend him so badly. The Sea Three are her people she’d love him around)

Sebastian + Ginevra (Idk idk I just see a good friendship between these two. She usually hates people but Sebastian might get through)

Sebastian + Jackie (I also see these two vibing a lot, she’s been different places and would be happy to tell him about it)

Sebastian + Polly (Tbh a lot of this idea just stemmed from Sebastian’s intro saying that his parents said he belongs in Neverland so, my Neverland girl would be happy to talk)

Sebastian + Stephen (Brothers that end up dating villain kids they got a type)

Sebastian + Wrenley (They both are very dreamy and want more things I think they’d get along well)

Wizarding World

Rosaline + Cadmus (Two pureblood raised people that don’t really believe in the prejudices but aren’t going against their parents right now that date Weasley’s? They have lots in common I love it and also perfect with the fcs)

Rosaline + Catherine (Mmmm more fc bias but their both Slytherin’s and though Catherine doesn’t follow any pureblood crap I think they could be so fun)

Rosaline + Elio (More two pureblood raised people but Elio doesn’t date Ron they’re just besties. I think they’d get along I love it)

Rosaline + Zara (Rosaline takes time to get over her issues but I see them being really cute and good together)

Cat + Kieran (Cat really doesn’t need two pretty boy menaces in her left and yet, don’t they? Kieran will hit on them and be so annoying but also so charming)

Cat + Matilda (Tilly would love Cat? So much? She’s annoyed by James, Cat’s annoyed by Sirius, they can bond over it together)

Tbh I really should get some Fantastic Beasts and Riddle Era ocs too

[l4dy4edd0fc01dh4rt]

Fantasy isn’t reality

Tom Glynn-Carney got threats by psychos online just because he plays Aegon II on HotD. Do some of you not know what acting is anymore? What is wrong with you? It’s a tv show. Westeros isn’t real, dragons don’t exist, there are no “great and noble houses,” magic isn’t real and none of the characters exist.

Some of you act like you’re 5 years old and need to be told “it’s fantasy” at your grown ages? The content warnings are there before the episodes starts-you know the ones that have mature subject matter on them that you can read for a couple of seconds before the show starts? Yes we all know there’s swearing, sex and violence in these shows? Why? Because we’re all adults, it’s a show for adults and these themes exist in real life except we do know for certain that the world and characters we’re watching in this ARE NOT REAL.

Some of my favorite villains in the GoT universe are Aegon II, his brother Aemond, Daemon Targaryen, Otto Hightower, Ramsay Bolton, Tywin Lannister and his daughter Cersei, his grandson Joffrey and many others, I love villainous characters because they’re what pushes the story in different directions. I love to see their plans, their ideas, their bad attitudes and personalities. Not all of them are cool and calculating, but they can also be vengeful, devious, violent and manipulative.

But does that mean in real life, that I would hurt people or commit war crimes? Hell no. Because I know that it’s just tv shows and books and that the people who are playing those roles are just actors playing roles. I know that Tom Glynn, Rhys Ifans, Jack Gleeson and Lena Headey are great actors who are doing a fantastic job at portraying GRRM’s characters. The people who do cosplays of these characters love the outfits and look cool doing it at cons. It doesn’t make them criminals or lunatics for liking a character who is “bad” just like how if you like good characters like Rhaenyra, Ned, Jon, etc doesn’t mean “good person.”

The idea that “you can’t like this character because they’re evil” is something that little kids would do and we don’t need those types of attitudes in an adult fandom. That’d be like going to a con and seeing a Cersei cosplayer and telling her “you know she’s a psychotic and incestuous, shouldn’t dress like that and if you do you’re a bad person.” Or even seeing Aemond and Aegon cosplayers and fans online and telling them “you guys must like killing people” or “you like committing crimes” and threatening to hurt them.

Does anyone see how weird and offputting that is? Can you imagine someone judging and threatening you just because you’re wearing a costume? Or if your pfp is of a character to one of your favorite movies or shows?

Even on the whole fandoms of Team Black and Team Green, it’s perfectly alright to love Daemon, Aemond and Aegon. They’re great and Matt, Ewan and Tom are amazing at playing them and you can tell they love their work. People are allowed to make fanart, cosplay and make fan edits because it’s fun for fandoms and we all just want to see our favorite shows.

Fantasy isn’t reality and the actors are just doing their jobs. If you have issues with a show, don’t watch it. You’re an adult and you can change the channel at anytime. No one’s forcing you to watch a show you don’t like. Don’t make your problems with a show everyone else’s and send threats to actors because you can’t handle it.

[anduln]

— star lake, star eyes

Kalecgos and Wrathion have been busy as of late. Between blue dragonflight reunions and black dragonflight diplomacy, the two unlikely friends barely have any time for fun, or rest. Well, except when Kalecgos drags Wrathion to the middle of nowhere in Azure Span. On horseback.

i’ve been wanting to write a kalethion fic in this landscape for so long!! maybe you’ll recognize the place. the dragonscale expedition sometimes has a raft catalogue quest there. also apologies for mistakes lol i wrote this in under an hour. enjoy 🌟 also on ao3!

‘And remind me of why we’re here again?’

‘I told you, this is my special spot. I’ve gotta show it to you!’

Wrathion sighed at how enthusiastic Kalecgos was to show him this ‘spot’. Not that he was annoyed by him, but he was quite busy, you know. Between his new job as the black dragonflight diplomat, getting acquainted with a land he barely knew, and helping the Aspects rebuild the Dragon Isles, Wrathion was frankly pretty overwhelmed by it all. He never had any time left for rest.

Maybe getting dragged to the middle of nowhere in the Azure Span wasn’t such a bad idea after all, he thought, a soft smile drawing itself on his face.

Kalecgos subtly turned his head as best as he could while riding next to his friend, noticing his change in expression. Kalecgos was relieved to know Wrathion wasn’t really as irritated as he tried to look.

Their horses walked on the crunchy snow, the noise turning into a lullaby for Kalecgos. He stuck out his neck to feel the cold air bite on his skin. It was charged with arcane magic and its sting felt like soft electric shocks to him. He always loved spending time in the Azure Span. Or anywhere ripe with magic, really. He felt right at home.

Wrathion wasn’t feeling so peaceful, and turned to his friend, willing to say anything just to break the silence, but he caught himself upon seeing Kalec’s face. Eyes closed, head back, hair flying. All blues & glitter skin, though not any shinier than the snow itself. Just shiny enough that you could see the light get caught on that impossibly pale skin. ‘He looks like he’s never seen the sun,’ Wrathion chuckled, and so did Kalec, and he quickly blushed, realizing he spoke outloud.

‘That much is true. I’ve never been one for summer season. There’s too much heat! I prefer winter a hundred times over,’ Kalec said.

‘I can’t agree,’ Wrathion replied, brushing over the embarrassing moment that’d just ocurred. ‘I love the sun. To feel it warm up my scales, & have the wind cool it off while I fly, it’s just… so very freeing.’ Kalecgos saw him smile, and he thought Wrathion should definitely smile more. It suits him.

He paused, as if lost in thought, and Kalec picked up the conversation. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but that is simply not what you’ll be getting today,’ he said, a light tone to his words.

‘Clearly…’ Wrathion grumbled, and Kalec laughed. Another blush on Wrathion’s face…

‘S-so what is it about this snowy, cold place that you like, anyway? This better be about spotting a rare yeti…’

‘Even better…’

And a soft tingle sound filled Wrathion’s ears as they approached the spot. Bell chimes mixed with magic pitter-pattering in the air, entering his lungs as he breathed in deep. Kalecgos was right to have insisted on travelling by horse instead of flying over. He wouldn’t risk anyone else finding this place either.

Up on a mountain top, lilac and magenta flowers were littered around the cloudy waters of the lake. Crystals and gems sprouted from the lake’s shores, a sign of arcane life. There were trees that looked like pinetrees but not quite, as if transformed by the magic nearby. Wrathion couldn’t tell if the stars in the sky were a reflection of the bright, scintillating lake, or vice-versa.

‘It’s… breathtaking.’ Wrathion stared at the landscape, mouth agape. But Kalecgos stared at him, glad to see his friend appreciate a place that was so important to him.

‘How did you even find it?!’ Wrathion exclaimed loudly, his usual fiery demeanor back.

‘I was surveying the land, to see if everything was alright. I found it by coincidence, and have been coming here ever since. When I need time away from the Archives…’ He trailed off. They got off their horses, walked to the dock, and had sat down while talking.

‘I can see why you like this place, now. A little retreat opportunity from the responsibilities of being an Aspect, I suppose.’

Kalec sighed despite himself. He wasn’t one to talk about his troubles, but the lake was so relaxing to his mind, and Wrathion’s voice sounded so soft.

‘Exactly. It can get… overwhelming. I appreciate that Sindragosa is willing to help me every step of the way, of course I am— but I feel like… Sometimes, I think Sindragosa tries to remake the past, through me…’

Wrathion stared at him, patiently waiting for him to continue.

‘I know I’ve got a lot of work to do, if I want to restore our flight to its true power and history, and purpose. I just feel a bit lost, sometimes. Sindragosa knows so much, and I feel the gap between our experiences everytime we talk. It’s hard to not— to not, well…’ Kalecgos sighed. He didn’t want to say the words. He was scared that they’d be real if he did.

‘…to what?’ Wrathion prompted.

‘To feel like an impostor.’

A pause.

‘Like I have no place here. Like I’m just pretending to be what the blue dragons need. Like even if I work hard, and read every book that exists in those Archives, that I’ll still be lightyears behind Sindragosa, or Senegos. Or, well… whatever older blue dragon is still alive…’

Wrathion had the good conscience of not mentioning that, technically, Sindragosa wasn’t alive, from what he understood when Kalec told him about it.

He wanted to say so much. That he was, frankly, quite stupid for even thinking that way. That Kalec was probably the most knowledgeable wizard there ever was. That the blue dragonflight hadn’t been this united in hundreds of years. But he paused. And he looked at him. He knew Kalecgos. He knew he needed silence to gather his thoughts. Much unlike Wrathion, who preferred to say whatever thought came to him. But this wasn’t about him, so, he waited.

The sound of water hitting against rocks & crystals surrounded them. And after a few minutes, Kalec spoke up.

‘I’m sorry.’

Wrathion blinked.

‘What on earth would you be sorry for?!’ He blurted out.

‘I�� know this sounds like I’m ungrateful for the fact that I became an Aspect, but I swear that’s not the case. And I know that being an Aspect is —was, —well it still is, something that’s very important to you, and I know you probably wouldn’t complain about it the way I am right now, but I swear—’

‘Kalecgos.’

He stopped, and looked over to Wrathion. Had his complaints angered him? Or had Wrathion not noticed that Kalec was acting ungrateful before he’d pointed it out, and now he was angry? What if—

‘What if you allowed yourself a moment of reprieve? You’re the first leader the blue dragonflight’s had in so, so, very long. You managed to reunite scattered blue dragons from all across Azeroth. You’ve got siblings and cousins that admire and respect you simply for who you are.’ Wrathion’s fire red eyes betrayed the soft tone of voice he adopted. He clearly felt very strongly about the words he was saying.

Kalecgos blinked, taken aback. His heart skipped a beat when Wrathion got closer to him and reached for his hand.

‘You are exactly who your people need right now.’

Kalecgos stared at him, surprised. Wrathion held his gaze.

Kalecgos chuckled, and Wrathion’s valiant demeanor broke, leaving place to confusion, and, honestly, embarrassment.

‘What, what is it? Why are you laughing?’ His cheeks were as red as his eyes now. ‘I demand to know what makes you laugh like this!’

Kalecgos was smiling from ear to ear. To think a whelp like him would be the one to give him the courage he needed to be who he wanted to be—needed to be, more so than the all-knowing simulacrum currently living at the Azure Archives… He admired Wrathion’s attitude. He always seemed so fearless, no matter the obstacle in front of him. Suddenly Kalecgos felt the crystal tingles and bell chimes deep in his belly.

‘Wrathion. I…’

Red eyes & red cheeks were staring at him. But his lips weren’t red enough to his liking. Should they? Should he?

Wrathion seemed to agree. He kissed Kalec, and pulled back, a determined look to his face, even though he seemed quite surprised with himself for doing what he did.

Wrathion always seemed to be one step ahead of him, somehow. But he was the one person he didn’t mind following.

[thatdesklamp]

words cannot explain on how much i LOVE your Gojo x Reader fic sosososo frickin much! you've inspired me to write my own story! also, i have a question! do you have any thoughts about on what Hebi looks like? or maybe what she would wear occasionally, her uniform and much more!

lots of love! take care, I'm always looking forward for updates regarding your fic! 🎉🎉

fyi: (srry if my english is bad, it's not my first language lol)

Hello! I’m so pleased you’re writing just because of IW, this is fab! If you’re having fun with it, that’s the best thing ever, hell yeah!

And good question! Physically—yes, but also, no. I’ve said at some point before that I’ve made a distinct effort not to describe Hebi’s appearance as much as possible. This is because I know that some people like to project themselves onto the reader character to varying degrees (it’s an x reader, igu), and also because I personally know how weirdly disconcerting it would be to read something and then suddenly be told that the reader-character, or ‘you’, are for some reason 5’1 with blonde hair and blue eyes and you’re super not pretty but also so hot and idk man it just feels weird. I don’t want to alienate anyone, so I try my best to avoid describing anything that could indicate physical features; you’ll notice she never visibly blushes, but her face will heat up, etc., stuff like that.

That being said, as I’ve been writing this, I do have some visual in my head of what I think she looks like. Idk if I really want to say, just in case other people have an idea and it conflicts with that, and then they’re like, oh damn that’s not the right thing that I was thinking of (?). Like when you’re reading a book and halfway through the author reveals a physical description of a character and you’re like… oh. Well, I’ve been picturing them wrong all this time. Er. Cool. Anyway, if anyone does have an image of her that’s not just themselves-in-jjk-world, then I’d love to hear about it. That’d be sick.

In terms of fashion I have much more of a concrete idea. I’ve made quite a few references to Hebi liking fashion magazines (an attempt to give her hobbies when I first started IW and didn’t really know how to write characters having hobbies, lmao—I do recognise that the earlier moments weren’t the most slick with it, lol). But I do think she’d like to spend her money on small luxuries like that, and clothes would be something that would make her happy, and so she’d be one of those people who has a fab wardrobe and can always look sick. I remember writing her uniform to include a skirt, which, in my head, was more long, Nobara-esque, than a Shoko miniskirt. Fashion-y, more than anything else. She’d also keep to a colour scheme (she’d only buy the colours that suit her—this is something I also do, so completely copied from my own life, lmao. Work out your colours, guys! Makes such a difference.). I don’t know much about clothes, but I can see her looking very put-together and quite classy, yk?

Very fun to sit down and have a think about this. Most of the stuff I’ve not thought about in-depth before, if that’s evident, lol. Anyway, thanks for asking! <3333

[moltengoldveins]

so an odd quirk of my dreams is that, while I rarely remember the plots of them while awake, I actually have several long-standing continuous dreams that progress in plot whenever I have them, and are fully memorable as if they were real memories when I’m asleep. Another odd quirk is that my brain has enough anxiety that, when these long-standing dreams occur and I’m slightly* stressed, (*so frikkin stressed I can barely breathe) I can remember them completely, usually because they’ve become unpleasant and for some reason my brain only wants to remember the bad dreams. So, context given, I woke up this morning with the exhumed memories of about three years worth of dreams in which there was a social media platform where songwriters could collaborate, sorta like a combination of Tik Tok, GarageBand, and Substack. They could release whole songs, but each element of the song would be separated into tracks for people to play with or move around in their reblogs/remixes. You also didn’t need to find a chain on which everyone was good: you could mix and match all the collaborators who had already pitched in. The ideal way of working on the app was to release something like the clip of the gal singing to an AC, or a loop of a really cool beat you made, and see what people made of it. You couldn’t make money off the app either: your posts weren’t monetized. BUT, if you got a record deal from the app or a client that’d be cool! Anyway maybe a year back I can vaguely remember having a dream in which I, tired and worn down from working on college with my failing health, wrote a song, sung it, and posted it on there. I then almost immediately did what I always do on social media, and got bored of the site and deleted it from my phone, because I have better things I can do with my time. THEN, just last night, I had a dream where I logged onto the same site and my old account out of boredom, having recently (finally) dropped out of college to fix my rapidly failing health, and found over a million views on the clip and a bunch of record offers. For Anyone Else I’m sure this would have been a good dream. For me? I got hit with the shame lazer for being so disconnected that I missed all the emails and phone calls I must’ve been sent about such a big thing because I was so sick. I have only the vaguest memory about what the song was but tbh I’m kinda upset this social media site doesn’t already exist, I think it would slap.

[zedleaked]

Hello! I Hope you don’t mind me reaching out, but in my blog I have a project called the Pride of June. Everyday has a flag that will be talked about and I’m trying to gather enough people so that every flag has someone who is like a representative of it! Someone who is part of that community and could potentially answer questions I might not be able to. It also gives an opportunity to support Queer Artists for those who want to submit an art piece for their flag. If you’d be interested, please let me know! More about it is in my pinned. Thank you :)

hell yeah that’d be awesome! It’d be cool to talk about my sexuality and stuff, though it will probably be rambly and full of personal experiences heh heh. I am super interested I think it’d be cool to draw somethin for this too!

I’d be happy to participate, you can message me or send another ask about it if I’m allowed to join in!

for anyone else seeing this ask I’d say check out this blog because it’s really neat!

[chilapis]

i just wanted to say that 1) i hope ur resting well and 2) im so enamored by the extensive analysis of both tartaglia's character and how you think he'd smell like i wish i had enough knowledge abt perfumes to do that myself ALSO i did NOT know there was a "tartaglia "perfume"" which is so endlessly funny to me ? even funnier how it doesnt match him as a character at all. they should just contact you to make his perfume instead for a new perfected release. also i thought that the one that had a handle that resembled a blade was really really cool and its rly interesting to see ur thoughts abt what he'd wear i chuckled imagining it as if u were giving him a whole presentation about what perfume you think he Should wear . sorry for rambling in ur inbox that whole post was just so cool

CLARA, hello! This is so sweet, hi; I hope you’ve been well. ♥️ Not to worry, I fell asleep literal . moments after sending the post because I was physically fighting for my life by the time I reached the conclusion.

Perfumes are quite easy to figure out if you know the basics of what you’re looking for. Is it masculine or feminine? Is it a clean scent or a dirty one? Is it floral, gourmand, woody, marine, leathery, something else — what is it? Search what type of notes make up such a scent. If you have any perfumes you really like (that is in your possession and you have experience with) or want something similar to, search that perfume up. Read up on the notes while you’re wearing the perfume and see if you can smell them; familiarise yourself with those scents. Find out what those notes symbolise, what they invoke, what effect they hold.

If you want a scent but have no “reference” perfume to work off of, that’s fine; follow all the steps prior to it. Search up perfumes that follow your description, but be careful to not buy a perfume entirely on the basis of its notes or ingredients. It’s always preferred to actually try the perfume out rather than blind-buy, because it might smell different to you or on you (because, again, personal body chemistry & body odour).

For example, I mentioned Russian leather as one of the “close but no cigar” special mentions; its notes include cedar, nutmeg, tonka bean, guaic; this leads you to imagine a warm, woody, spicy, scent. But it is not; I tried it in a fragrance store (I went to find Ocean leather, tried like seven different fragrances, and then left the place with Iberian leather which I am SO delighted with, it is such a thick and heavy scent I’m in love) and it wasn’t… spicy at all; it also had a few floral notes, such as rosemary and Pathouli, but I couldn’t smell the florals either. The basil, mint, pine and sage were TOO strong and it reflected a very, very… green mood. Maybe something that’d be a strong contender for Al-Haitham, but not really Ajax, and we don’t care about anyone except Ajax here so.

So I recommend just picking out a few fragrances that seem promising from their notes and accords, and then going to a physical store and confirming them for yourself before the purchase. Do not be afraid to ask if you can try out different scents there; I promise it’s all right to take your time deciding rather than making a quick, on-spot decision.

The presentation part is so funny to me though. Average Chilapis date. Me and the bad bitch I bagged through my autistic tendencies or however that meme goes.

I’m sick and tired of everyone treating Ajax like “oh my god my boyfriends so crazy 🥺” first of all, that’s my husband you harlot. And second of all I’m crazier than him. I will literally hold him in place and sniff him after dousing this man in perfume to see if it fits. And that’s not even MENTIONING the skincare routine and hygiene products I have to introduce this man to. I could not care less if you wish to conquer the world, you’ll do so smelling and looking good. This is peak Chilapis dynamic. v