#but even if I did there’s no way I would be able to take enough time off from work to recover

[corroded-hellfire]

More Munson Than Expected - Eddie Munson x Reader

An As You Wish story

Written with my beloved @munson-blurbs 💜

Summary: The ultrasound for your second pregnancy brings a new wave of excitement to the Munson household.

Note: The excitement I have to let this secret out of the bag after cooking it up for over a year is real. I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: pregnant!reader

Words: 4.1k

[As You Wish masterlist]

“Eddie, you didn’t have to come with me,” you remind him again as he pulls up a chair next to the examination table he just helped you get situated on.

Your husband gives you a disapproving look as he makes himself comfortable in the seat. He shakes his head as he reaches out and takes one of your hands in his.

“Did you really think I was going to miss this?” he asks. “No way. I was there for Eliza’s first ultrasound, I’m going to be there for this one’s too.”

“What about the boys?”

Eddie sighs. “I was there for Ryan’s. But I wasn’t aware of when Luke’s was, so I missed it. Don’t tell him.”

“I won’t,” you say, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “He would know it wasn’t your fault, though.”

“You keep your mouth shut too, hmm?” Eddie leans over and presses a kiss to your emerging bump. 

“I don’t know if he or she developed a mouth yet,” you say, the sanitary paper crinkling beneath you as you try to get comfortable. 

“Not gonna find out if you’re a he or she,” Eddie continues talking to his developing child. He reaches out and rubs a hand over your stomach. “Wanna see you, though. And make sure you’re healthy.”

The door to the examination room swings open, bringing with it the distinct smell of antiseptic. The ultrasound technician walks in and closes the door behind her.

“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Munson,” she greets with a smile. “My name is Tara and I’ll be doing your ultrasound today. The doctor tells me that you don’t want to know the sex. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” you respond with a nod. “We want this one to be a surprise.”

“That is no problem. Let me just set up here and we’ll get started.”

While she gets to work, Eddie helps you as you attempt to tug your shirt up enough to avoid the cold and sticky goo that will inevitably be squirted on your stomach for the ultrasound. You’re able to tuck it into the underwire of your bra just to be sure that it won’t slide back down and get all messy. 

One of the sleeves of Eddie’s jumpsuit falls down and he shoves it back up past his elbow. You take in the navy material, your eye tracing over his name sewn on in red thread over his heart. 

“What time are they expecting you back at work?” you ask him.

He shrugs. “They know where I’m at. They know it might be a little while.” 

“Alright, are we ready?” Tara asks.

“Yep.” You offer your hand to Eddie again and he laces his ringed fingers with yours. 

Tara picks up the bottle of the dreaded goo and squirts a healthy amount on your abdomen. The chill against your skin sends a shiver throughout your body. At least the wand should warm it up as the tech spreads the substance around to get the best view of the baby. 

To you and your husband it feels like you’re just looking at a black screen with wavy white lines on it. Somehow, everything seems to make sense to Tara as she positions the wand on different parts of your stomach. 

“Oh,” she says at one point, stilling the instrument against your skin. “Here we go.”

A soft but steady thump thump thump fills the air of examination room 5. Tears immediately well up in your eyes. You look at Eddie to see him grinning from ear to ear. 

With the slightest movement of the wand sliding against the goo, you hear thump thump thump thump thump thump.

“Oh wow,” you say through a sniffle. “You can hear it even better now.”

“Sounds strong,” Eddie adds. 

“Actually…” Tara trails off.

“What?” Eddie asks. You feel his hand tighten in your grip. “It’s…not strong?”

“Oh, no, no, it’s very strong. It sounds perfect to me. But I want you to listen.” There are a few moments of silence as the three of you listen to the heartbeat. 

“It sounds fast,” you say.

“It does,” Tara agrees. “But if you listen, you can hear some of the beats overlapping one another.”

She leans in towards the screen and moves the wand again, just slightly. A smile grows on her face as she spots something in the mess of gray shapes on the machine. “Hear it?” she asks.

“Yeah, kind of,” Eddie says. “What does that mean?”

“Well, if you look here,” she replies, pointing towards what looks like a small blob, “that’s your baby.”

Pure glee radiates throughout your entire being. It’s your first glimpse at your and Eddie’s new baby. Another life that the two of you created together. You share a quick loving look with your husband before you both become engrossed in the image on the screen again.

“And here…” Tara says, sliding her finger slightly to the right, “is your other baby.”

The room goes silent save for the sound of the heartbeat. Or rather, heartbeats. Though your ears heard the words, your brain is still processing what they mean. It’s clearly the same with Eddie, as he stares at Tara just like you are.

“I’m sorry,” Eddie finally says. He chuckles and licks over his lips. “Did you say, ‘other baby’?”

“I did, indeed.” Tara taps a few keys on the machine, and it looks like it takes a screenshot. “There are two babies here. Two distinct heartbeats and two little nuggets showing off to the camera.”

“Twins.” The word comes out of you as a whispered breath. “We’re having twins.”

“Not just Baby Munson #4,” Eddie adds in a voice as awed as yours. “Baby Munson #5, too.”

“And they both appear to be developing well,” Tara says. 

Eddie laughs. “No. No, we, uh, we’re not having twins.” He looks down at you, then back at Tara. “We decided we’re just having one more. I’m already forty-one, so just the one newborn is already pushing it.”

Tara grins, clearly used to this kind of reaction. “Well, you’d better rest up. Because you’ll be a father to two new little ones in a few months.”

Eddie grabs your hand, still stunned by the news. You can’t say you’re faring much better, although it does explain why this pregnancy has been so much more intense than when you were expecting Eliza. Part of you feels relieved that it wasn’t all in your head. But another part…

“Twins.” The word leaves your lips in an exhale. “We’re…babe, we’re gonna have five kids. We’re gonna be a family of seven.”

A clammy hand squeezes yours, and you glance up to see Eddie visibly trembling. “How am I gonna raise five kids?” He murmurs. “That’s one more than Harrington, and that dude was pretty much born to be a dad.”

Tara’s brows furrow as she cleans off your belly. “I’ll, um, leave you two to discuss.” She starts for the door, then turns around. “Take all the time you need.”

As soon as the door clicks shut, Eddie starts pacing around the tiny exam room. “Okay, okay. We’re having two babies. At the same time.”

“Yes, that’s generally what happens with twins.”

He rolls his eyes in annoyance. “I could do without your sarcasm right now, Sweetheart. I just found out that I’m about to out-kid Steve Harrington.”

“Out-kid?” You tuck your lips into your mouth to stifle a laugh. 

Eddie doesn’t pick up on your joking tone. “Yes! He has four, and I’ll have five. Five!” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I was barely keeping two alive before you came along, and now I’m gonna be responsible for five?!”

“First of all,” you say, pushing yourself up, “you were an amazing dad before we got together. Even before I started watching the boys, when you were basically doing it on your own. Give yourself some credit. Second, Ryan will be going to college soon enough, so we’ll only have four kids in the house.”

Your attempt at consoling your husband falls flat. “Oh my god, I’m gonna have infants while my oldest is gonna be in college! I’m supposed to be slowing down, not re-babyproofing the house!” He buries his head in his hands. “What were we thinking? And why do you always have to look so hot? I wouldn’t be tempted to jump your bones all the time if you weren’t so goddamn sexy.”

You sigh. “I mean, you’re the one who’s always telling me you want to ‘pump me full of your babies.’ Guess now you really did it.”

“Holy shit.” Eddie runs his hands down his face and takes a deep breath. He stands in the same spot, staring at you for a few silent moments before a smile begins to crack through his fog. “Holy shit.”

“Calming down now?” you ask, raising an eyebrow. “Or realizing I’m the one who has to push two of them out of my body?”

Eddie ambles over to you on the examining table and rests his forehead against yours. His shoulders have gone down to their usual height again, no longer bunched up around his ears with tension. 

“Okay, I had my mini freak out,” he says softly, reaching up to tug the hem of your shirt down back over your bump. “You may have yours.”

With a low chuckle, you reach up and cup your husband’s face in your hands. 

“I still don’t think it’s hit me yet,” you admit. “Or maybe trying to logic-out your fear helped me with my own, too. I mean, you said something about being too old to re-babyproof the house? Sweetheart, we would have had to do that with one baby anyway.”

“Common sense left me there for a little bit, I’ll admit.”

“And I’ve got one more bone to pick with you,” you say, leaving one hand on his face and using the other to poke him in the chest. 

“What’s that?”

“You said Steve was pretty much born to be a dad. Eddie, out of all the people I’ve ever met in my life, you are definitely the one who was always meant to be a dad.” You lower your hand to your bump. “Because it doesn’t matter if there were one, two, three, or even eight babies in here. You’d still love them all unconditionally and try your hardest to give the world to them.”

“I love our babies,” Eddie replies softly. His hand moves to rest on top of yours on your bump. “I love our twins.”

“Hey, we’ve got some extra resources this time around, too,” you point out. “Ryan drives now. We can recruit him for diaper or formula runs. And he can take Luke and Eliza places if we’re not able to. Luke is old enough now not to be intimidated by being around newborns. He’ll definitely be more hands-on than he was with Eliza. And speaking of the little firecracker…we already know she’s going to be like a mother hen to them. See? Recruiting the kids to help with the kids. And that doesn’t even mention Wayne and all of our friends. At least ninety percent of them owe us from watching their kids at one point or another.” 

“My wife is so smart,” Eddie praises with a small smile. 

“She is,” you reply coyly. “Do you think you could help me off this table, though? Makes sense why it’s been harder for me to get up from things lately—two against one here.”

Eddie gently takes your arms and leads you to a comfortable seated position before helping you hop down from the high table. 

The two of you walk hand-in-hand out of the doctor’s office and across the parking lot to your car. The sun seems warmer and brighter than when you went in. There’s not a cloud in the sky—were there any before? Birds call to one another from the trees that encircle the medical plaza, and their tune brings a smile to your face. Everything seems so light and airy around you that it almost makes you feel like you’re dissociating. But there’s Eddie’s hand in yours. The sneakers you wear knock against the concrete with every step, reverberating the vibration up your legs. You’re very much here in this moment. The magic in the air comes from knowing the amount of love you carried for the bundle of joy in your belly has just doubled. The thought of kissing two little button noses goodnight every day instead of one has you giddy. 

“Baby,” you say as Eddie opens the passenger car door for you. “We’re gonna have double the cuddles.”

“Double the drooly kisses.” The smile on your husband’s face tells you that he’s excited about the prospect. “Double new baby smell.”

You secure your seatbelt and rest both of your hands on your belly as Eddie walks around the car and slides into the driver’s seat. 

“Double the love we give and receive,” you muse softly, looking down at your protruding bump. “I wonder if I’ll get double the pain meds when I’m in labor.”

Eddie laughs as he pulls the car out of the parking space. 

“Time will tell,” he says. “Are you hungry, princess?”

“Yeah. I mean, makes sense, since I’m eating for three,” you reply. “But don’t you have to get back to work?”

“There is no way I’ll be able to focus on anything,” Eddie says with a breathy chuckle as he shakes his head. “I’m taking the rest of the day.”

“Okay. Do you want to get lunch at—oh boy.”

Eddie’s eyes glance over at you before looking back on the road.

“What?” he asks. “What’s wrong?” 

“No, not wrong,” you say. “Just…I-I don’t know how we’ll keep this from the kids. We didn’t think we’d have anything to report to them other than the baby being healthy since we’re not finding out the sex. But there’s absolutely no way I won’t slip up and say ‘babies’ or ‘them’ or something that will give it away. I’d rather they hear the news from us directly than catching us in a slip.”

Eddie nods in agreement. “How do you think we should tell them?”

“Umm…” You purse your lips as you start to ponder different scenarios. Both you and Eddie think in silence for a few minutes before he speaks.

“Oh, I’ve got an idea…”

Eliza is thrilled to have both of her parents picking her up from school. The way she goes on and on about an arts and crafts project they did in class today reminds you of when you were just the babysitter and picked Ryan and Luke up from school. Luke always had something interesting to babble on about—much to your amusement. 

Your second oldest is already at home when you walk in the front door holding Eliza’s hand and Eddie trails in behind with a few bags from the store. Usually, Ryan drives both himself and Luke home from school every day, but now Ryan takes SAT Prep classes once a week after school, forcing Luke to take the bus home. Which you’d think was one of the trials of Hercules with how often Luke shares his disdain for the form of transportation. 

“Whatcha got, Pops?” Luke asks from the couch. His hand is buried in a bag of white cheddar popcorn and an episode of Supernatural is on the television. 

“You’ll see,” Eddie tells him, taking the bags straight to your room. Best to keep them out of the way of the two nosiest Munson children. Although, you wonder to yourself if that will change with the new additions. 

Eliza spies the snack her brother has and quickly sheds her Little Mermaid backpack and pink Mary Jane shoes to climb up on the couch next to him. She sticks an arm in the popcorn bag and brings out as big a handful as her little fist would allow her. 

“There’s food in the bags,” Eliza says to Luke through the kernels stuffing her cheeks.

“Huh?” Luke clearly doesn’t speak four-year-old-with-a-full-mouth.

“The bags Daddy has,” Eliza says once she’s swallowed. She wipes her white cheddar covered fingertips on her white tights. “There’s food in them. I smelled it in the car.” 

“Good job, Watson,” he tells her.

“Uh, who?” Eliza gives her older brother a look that clearly relays she thinks he’s crazy. It doesn’t stop her from taking another handful of popcorn, though. 

“Watson. Sherlock Holmes’ assistant. They’re detectives, Lize.”

“Oh,” is all she says before shoving more popcorn into her mouth. 

You putter around, cleaning up the kitchen and tidying the living room to keep yourself from spilling the beans too early. It’s important to wait until Ryan gets home later. You just know time is going to crawl by at a snail’s pace for the next hour and a half.

When your oldest son finally arrives home, you usher everyone around the kitchen table for a family meeting. 

“Am I in trouble?” Luke huffs. “Because if I am, I’d like to plead not guilty.”

Eddie raises his brows. “Not sure why you’d be in trouble, but I’m sure we’ll find out.” He clears his throat, placing a loving hand on your bump. “No, this family meeting is to tell you guys some exciting news we got at the ultrasound today.”

He reaches over and plucks a grease-soaked Burger King bag from the counter. “Ry, you get the first clue.”

Ryan practically tears open the bag, the hungry teenager ready to devour the Double Whopper without even unwrapping it. 

“Is the baby a hamburger?” Ryan asks mid-bite. He pulls out the fries you got along with it. “Or is it small? Is the clue ‘small fry?’”

You shake your head. “Nope. Nice try, though.” 

Luke’s clue is next, though he’s too busy trying to get his brother to share his food to really pay attention. When Ryan finally relents and tosses a fry his way, Luke looks down at the Gameboy game box in front of him. 

“A Looney Tunes double pack?” He wrinkles his nose. “Are you naming the baby Tweety Bird?”

Eliza sticks out her little tongue in disgust. “That’s a horrible name for a baby!”

“Maybe it looks like Elmer Fudd, like Eliza did when she was born,” Ryan chimes in, licking ketchup off of his thumb. 

“Who?” Your daughter glances between the boys, unaware of the joke being made at her expense.

Luke doesn’t hesitate to fill her in. “The weird guy who hunts Bugs Bunny. The one who always goes, ‘ooh, I hate that wabbit!’”

Eliza shoots him a glare that’s equal parts adorable and terrifying. Luckily, she’s easily distracted by her clue. 

“For Eliza,” you say as you tug the crinkling Target bag off of the biggest hint of all. Eddie already made sure to open the box and cut any wires attached so your daughter can get right at the twin Baby Alive dolls. 

The four-year-old gasps. “Babies!” She holds her arms out as you deliver the box to her.

Little fingers grab onto the first doll, and she gently places it on the table in front to her before removing the second doll. The rest of the family watches in amusement as Eliza covers the baby on the table with a blanket, and cradles the other one in her arms, holding its bottle to its mouth. 

“So,” Eddie asks, rubbing his hands together, “what do these gifts have in common?”

The three of them begin to think. At least, you’re pretty sure Eliza is thinking about it. She’s gazing down at the doll in her arms with the most heartwarming compassion. 

“There’s two burger patties, two games, two dolls…” Luke muses.

“Wait,” Ryan says, his head perking up as an idea occurs to him. “Is it a girl? Like, two X chromosomes?”

Your husband simply stares at your oldest son for a moment before responding.

“In what world would I be smart enough to come up with that?” he asks. 

Luke nods his head in your direction. “Ma is, though. But I think it’s a boy because there’s two of us boys already.”

“Then the hint would have to do with three, genius,” Ryan scoffs. 

The younger brother contorts his face and mocks his brother’s words in a high-pitched voice.

“Maybe Mama has two babies in her belly.” Your daughter’s words are spoken with the most casual tone, the majority of her attention on the plastic doll she’s gently rocking to sleep in her arms. 

The boys both laugh, Ryan rolling his eyes at what he considers a silly idea from a little girl. The Munson brothers turn to you and Eddie, expecting you to be joining in on the laughter, but all they find are your excited and hopeful faces. The chuckles trail off as the boys pause and consider what those faces mean. 

“Wait, you don’t mean…” Ryan starts.

“Oh my GOD!” Luke shouts, banging his hands down on the table in front of him. It rattles the doll Eliza isn’t holding, and she gives her big brother a glare over the disturbance. 

“No way!” Ryan stands up, excitement nearly paralyzing him. He doesn’t know what to do except smile as he holds his arms out in front of him awkwardly. “It’s really…twins?!”

“It’s twins!” you confirm. You make an attempt to stand as well, but the two babies inside of you are keeping your center of gravity low enough to make you give up. 

“Two babies!” Luke hoots. “This is insane!”

Eddie chuckles, his heart at once light as air and completely full at seeing the excitement of his boys. 

“Do you have a picture?” Luke asks.

“The sonogram,” Ryan adds.

“Yeah! Can we see it? Let us see the picture!”

“Do you even know what you’ll be looking at?” Ryan asks as he sits back down next to his brother.

Luke shrugs. “They’ll show us.”

“Okay, okay, here it is,” you say, handing over the image that’s been sitting in your back pocket. “That little spot right there is one baby, and that one right there is the other baby.”

Their stunned faces make you giggle softly as you lean back. 

“Oh my God,” Ryan says. “I can’t believe it’s twins.”

“Holy sh—crap, we’re going to have two new siblings.”

“We’re going to need a bigger house,” Ryan says, looking around the room everyone is seated in.

“Wow, there’s going to be a lot of people living here,” Luke says. “Dad, were you going for twins?”

“That’s not how it works, doofus,” Ryan says as Eddie shakes his head in amusement. 

Luke scoffs. “Explain it to me then, Mr. SAT.”

Eliza heaves a deep sigh for someone with such a tiny body and small lungs. She sets the baby doll in her arms down on the table next to its sleeping sibling. 

“You’re so loud!” she complains. 

“Lize, it’s twin babies!” Luke tells her, gently shaking her frame back and forth. 

“I know, I know, you keep saying it over and over!”

“Aren’t you excited?” Ryan asks her. 

Your daughter shrugs her shoulders once before picking her doll back up and cradling it in the crook of her arm.

“Sure.” 

Both boys look to you and Eddie at her lackluster reaction. You give a gentle shake of your head.

“Don’t worry,” you tell them. “It’ll click at some point.” 

“Oh, what a day,” you sigh as you slip under the blankets to lay down next to your husband. Eddie lifts his arm, and you immediately cuddle up to his side, resting your head on his shoulder. Your bump nudges his side, and you rub one hand over the soft material of your worn t-shirt. “Makes sense why my bump is more pronounced earlier than it was with Eliza.”

Eddie wraps one arm around your shoulders and brings the other one down to place his hand on top of your own. 

“Can't believe there are four of us in this bed,” he says with a light chuckle.

“Daddyyyyy! Mamaaaaaa!”

A four-year-old with wild curls runs into your room and leaps onto the bed, landing at your and Eddie’s feet.

“Make that five of us,” Eddie says. 

“You’re supposed to be asleep, Little Miss,” you tell Eliza.

She pushes herself onto her hands and knees in her purple piggy pajamas and quickly crawls up the infinitesimal space between you and her father. 

“Careful, careful,” Eddie cautions the closer she gets to your belly.

Eliza halts her ascent and leans back on her heels. Her chocolate brown eyes are as wild as her bedhead is.

“I’m gonna be a big sister to two babies?!” 

Across the hall, a chuckle reverberates in Ryan’s chest as he turns to lay on his side in bed.

“There it is.”

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

can you see the stars in your dreams (and do they have a lot to say about me) - Part 1

Or: a secret Admirer AU

Less than a month into the school year, and Steve’s already making use of the library. If Mrs. Click could see him now, she’d be proud–until she caught sight of the blank notebook page in front of him and the lack of textbooks on the table. 

He feels stupid; he’s hunched over his notebook, trying to make his thoughts transfer onto the page in any coherent form. But, he’s not like Eddie with his impassioned speeches and clever English papers.

Words flow through Eddie in fully-formed, concrete ideas. For Steve, it’s more of a drip. Each word has to be scaffolded onto the previous one with blood, sweat, and tears. Even then, it’s never quite right. Too abrupt, never what he was actually trying to say.

He’s just never been good with words.

By the time he gives up, there’s more crossed out than left written, so he gets a clean page of paper and transcribes it as best he can. He’s left with:

       Your hair is pretty. Do you use conditioner?

Steve tears it from his notebook and lays it flat atop his table in the library, smoothing out any crinkles in the page. It feels like the start to something, sure, but there’s more blank space on the page than words. By a lot.

He leans back over his work, adds a little wonky heart in his blue pen and signs the whole thing—

       ❤ your secret admirer

—the way all the girls who leave notes in his locker do. Their notes are usually on pretty paper, written in sparkly gel pen that smells like strawberries. The i’s are sometimes dotted with little hearts he’ll never admit to finding cute. And there’s envelopes involved, and usually more than eleven measly words.

His looks like something Eddie’ll toss out before opening, mistaking it for trash.

Steve grimaces. How do girls do this? Do they all take some sort of class on how to write pretty letters on pretty enough paper that boys will fall in love with them? Is that what they teach in Home Ec? He should have never let Tommy mock him into switching to shop class.

Should he ask a girl?

Under no conditions will he ever ask Carol. She’d have far too many uncomfortable questions and tell the whole school all of his embarrassing answers. He’d be run out of town within days, Carol holding the sharpest pitchfork.

Steve leans back in his chair with a groan too loud for the library and fists his hands to rub tired eyes.

“Are you okay?” Steve jerks, sending his pen and paper careening to the ground in his attempt to cover the compromising words upon the page. “Oh, sorry!”

Steve watches, horrified, as Chrissy Cunningham bends down to pick his supplies up off the carpet before he’s had time to scramble out of his chair. She’s in her cheer uniform, white zip-up Hawkins hoodie covering her arms. She looks perfect and preppy and just like all the girls who’ve ever left a note in his locker.

She’d be able to write something that Eddie would want to read.

“Steve?” Chrissy’s hovering over him, lips pursed, eyes big and worried. “Are you okay?”

“Shit, sorry,” he replies. She’s got his note clutched to her chest. He curls his fingers against the urge to reach out for it—that’ll just draw her attention, and that’s the last thing Steve wants right now. “Just got lost in my head.”

“Anything I can help with?”

He knows what she’s going to do before it happens. Chrissy’s sweet—if there’s a way to help, she’ll want to. So, she holds out the paper and begins to read, probably expecting an assignment she can tutor him on, and there they are: Steve’s damning words written in still-wet blue ink.

Her brow furrows as she takes an obscene amount of time mouthing out the words before she looks back up to meet his eyes. “Did someone give this to you?”

Her eyes are still big, but they look sad now, like just the thought of someone receiving the note he’d slaved over is enough to distress her. Unable to help himself, Steve snatches it from her hands and crumples it into a ball, damning words hidden in his fist.

Chrissy gasps at his abrupt movement and takes a halting step away.

“I wrote it,” he mutters, no longer able to meet her eyes.

She’s silent for long enough that he’d think she left, except the library’s quiet, and he hasn’t heard her take a step. He stares at the grains of the wood in the table, empty hand rubbing against the smudged top as he waits for her to do something.

“Are you…” she starts, trailing off for a moment before picking her thought back up, “…picking on someone?”

Steve clenches his fist tighter, note crinkling beyond repair beneath his nails as he mutters, “no.”

Chrissy’s quiet again. Steve doesn’t dare to look up, even as he hears the chair across from him pull out, the sound of her weight settling into the wood. The table’s just so interesting. Nothing has ever been as intriguing as the little chip out of its edge, the ring on the wood where someone had let their drink condensate against all the library’s rules.

“Who’s this for?” Chrissy’s voice is soft now, like he’s some sort of horse, prone to bolting when spooked. “Steve?”

Steve looks up. Her eyes aren’t sad anymore; they’re piercing.

He’s always liked Chrissy. She’s the nicest girl in the school, until someone does something she doesn’t like. Then, it’s all disappointed eyes, and pouty lips. It’s like disappointing his Mom, but worse, because his Mom’s never around to stare balefully at him.

The point is, Chrissy’s nice. She’s not like Carol. If he told her, there would be no lynch mob, or fleeing Hawkins in the dead of the night with nothing but the clothes on his back. Probably. Maybe.

Steve tries to smooth out the page, and scowls down at it when the wrinkles refuse to disappear. It’s even worse now, words made illegible by the deep creases his fingers have pressed into the paper. There’s no way Eddie’d ever want a note like this.

So, he says, “Munson,” looking up to try to watch his meaning land on her face.

It doesn’t. Her foreheads all scrunched up as she looks down at the note. Only then does Steve realize he’s caressing the wonky little heart. He pulls his hand back, curling his fingers in so she can’t see the smudge of blue on his pointer finger.

“And you aren’t making fun of him?”

Steve can feel his shoulders drooping. He wants to disappear into the floor, melt into the carpet and become one with all the other mysterious stains upon it. “No.”

“Oh,” Chrissy replies, drawn out and low as she peers down at the crinkled note with a confused frown. But something must click because she straightens, eyes wide beneath her bangs. “Oh!”

It’s loud enough that they both reflexively flinch. But, when no librarians come skulking around any corners, Chrissy turns back to him, gaze uncomfortably intent. Steve wonders, somewhat horrified by the turn his life has taken, if he’s about to get hate-crimed by a cheerleader half his size.

But Chrissy’s nice—always has been, always will be. So, she bites her lip and looks furtively around like she’s only just realized this is a conversation that shouldn’t have any witnesses. “But you like him?” she whispers.

Steve leans forward, matching her energy and pitch as he replies, “yeah,” quiet enough that it’s barely a breath. Chrissy smiles at him, warm and small, just like her hand as she reaches across the table to put it over his and squeeze comfortingly.

The note sits, damningly soiled beneath their linked hands, wrinkled, and smudged, and barely-legible handwriting. The weight that’d lifted with Chrissy’s smile sinks back into his gut.

“But it doesn’t matter,” Steve says, letting go of her hand so he can pull the note closer to himself. “I’m no good at this stuff.”

Steve crinkles the note back up. It’s unsalvageable—a stupid idea executed badly.

He’s in the middle of stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans to keep his keys company until he can toss it out in the comfort of his home when Chrissy says, “maybe I can help?” voice lilting up, like it’s a question.

Steve meets her eyes, hand still half-shoved in his pocket. She’s all earnest now, the way she usually is when there isn’t a sad boy infecting her with his own ineptitude. Eyes shining with conviction, bangs curling sweetly around her face. She’s no Carol, that’s for sure.

“How?” he asks, and when she smiles, it looks a bit like hope.

***

 “I can help you write a better letter,” Chrissy starts. He perks up like a dog the moment its owner gets home. “If you do something for me.”

She feels like scum when he curls back into himself, gaze forlorn.

When she’d caught sight of the note he’d spent what seemed like a full hour pouring over, this isn’t what she’d been expecting. And when she’d finally made out his chicken scratch scrawl, she’d been sure Steve was picking on someone, no matter how unlike him it would have been. But then his shoulders had curled in, and his ears had turned red, and his voice had gone all soft and squishy when he’d said Eddie Munson’s name.

And she’d just wanted to fix it.

So, even as he asks, “what?” all sad and droopy again, she knows she’s going to help him, no matter what he says.

“Date me,” she asserts. It’s only as Steve blinks stupidly at her that she realizes how that came out of her mouth. “No, wait, not really!”

Her hands are waving around wildly and she can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. In contrast, Steve seems to come back into himself, shoulders shoring up as he smirks across at her with his signature raised brow. The one he’d used while leaning on Nancy Wheeler’s locker last year, or holding her books as they walked to class, and all the other assortment of stereotypical boyfriend activities.

He’d worn it all the time, like it was part of the uniform. 

“I just meant, we could fake it?” His right eyebrow raises to meet his left, forehead scrunching up with his incredulity. “It’s just, Jason and I broke up? And he won’t leave me alone.”

It takes all her strength to keep meeting his eyes as the seconds tick away. But then Steve nods, swings his letterman jacket off, and tosses it across at her. Unprepared for his sudden movement, it hits her in the face and drops into her lap.

“There you go, sweetheart,” he says with a cheesy wink that somehow manages to feel more genuine than any of his actual flirting techniques. “Gotta sell it somehow.”

“What a romantic,” she replies, deadpan, but she pulls his jacket on anyway, something that feels an awful lot like relief steadying her heart rate as she smooths down the too-long sleeves.

Jason’s going to freak out. But after that, maybe he’ll stop calling her house, and trying to put his arm around her at lunch, and trying to pick her up for school every morning. She’d do almost anything to get it into his thick skull that she’s not interested.

So, here she is, hashing out the details of a secret admirer letter from Steve Harrington to Eddie Munson, of all the unlikely pairings.

“What’s wrong with what I wrote?” Steve whines, running his fingers through his hair until it’s all mussed up and falling into his face.

Chrissy snorts. “It sounds like you’re telling him his hair is frizzy and dry.”

“I said it was pretty!” He throws his hands in the air before crossing them and pouting his lower lip out.

Chrissy can’t help but laugh. She’s always liked Steve. He’s nicer than most of his friends, and he’s easy to talk to. But this is a side she’s never seen of him. She’s not sure anyone has; can’t imagine Carol or Tommy seeing him put his whole heart into something and not tearing it to shreds.

“Do you use conditioner?” she asks, throwing finger quotations around it as she reads it off the crumpled page.

Steve’s blushing again, cheeks all blotchy and red, rather unbecoming for the shoo-in for this year’s prom king. “Well, I thought you said you’d help!” he says, a little too loud for the library.

So, that’s how she ends up spending the next hour painfully turning Steve’s earnest thoughts into words on the pretty baby blue paper she’d carefully removed from the back of her daily planner.

In the end, they’re left with this:

       Eddie –

       I wish I could say this to your face, but I’ve never been good with words, and you’d probably think it was a joke.

       I can’t even get myself to talk to you, you’re so distracting.

       I like how pretty your hair is. How do you get your curls so shiny? I want to run my fingers through them.

       I hope this note brightens up your day. You deserve all the smiles you can get.

       Yours,

       Your Secret Admirer

It’s not what she would write, but still, it’s leagues better than what he’d started with. She slides it across to Steve, and he smiles down at it. He reaches his hand out, fingers almost brushing the page before he pulls his hand back, curling his fingers into a fist.

“What if someone sees me?” he asks, voice so quiet she can barely hear him even in the resounding silence of the library.

They’d managed not to talk about it, the dangers of Steve liking a boy. But it’d been present in the hesitancy by which he shared each of his thoughts, looking up at her like each remark would be the last straw before she recoils in disgust.

If someone finds out that Steve has a crush on a boy, it won’t take long until he’s getting beat up between classes or heckled straight out of school. Heck, even with all the rumors floating around about him, Eddie might be the one to throw the first punch.

“Do you want me to deliver it for you?” she asks.

“You’d do that?” he asks back, because apparently no one ever taught him not to answer a question with a question. “For me?”

“What else are fake girlfriends for?” she asks because they’re all questions now, no answers to be had between the pair of them.

Steve laughs, all tension leaving his shoulders as he throws his head back with amusement, eyes downright twinkling as he beams across at her.

“You’re the best, Chrissy,” Steve says, smiling even brighter as she replies, “I know.”

She leaves school that night after pushing Steve Harrington’s love note through the slats of Eddie’s locker, Steve’s letterman jacket keeping her warm from the cold.

This might be the best relationship she’s ever had, fake or not. Eat your heart out, Jason Carver.

PART 2

Welcome to my new AU! This will be posted in 21 parts. It is complete, so there will be a new update each morning until it's all posted. I've elected not to do a tag list, but it will be added to my pinned post each day as well. If that's not your speed, it will be added to Ao3 once it's all been posted here.

Special shoutout to @queenie-ofthe-void for not only their usual fabulous beta work, but also both the original idea and the writing of some of the secret admirer letters. You not only make me a better writer, but this work literally would not exist without you. <3<3

Title of the fic from the song Eyes in the Sun by Florist

[gay-dorito-dust]

Hello omg I love your soft sylus writing a lot !!

May I request please a reader where she loves sylus so much that she tries to express it by words but can’t cause she is so shy and never done so and sylus encourage it and tease her

LOVE UR WRITING

You had something to say and it clear as day to Sylus that you were lost within the internal conflict raging on within your mind, weighing out the pros and cons of speaking truthfully of your heart to him. And while it was adorable to watch you squirm and struggle to articulate your thoughts into coherent sentences for the first five minutes, Sylus was soon aware that since your so hesitant in taking the first step, he’ll have to take the first step on your behalf by grabbing you by the wrist and pulling you onto his lap.

‘Somethings on your mind kitten, it’s eating away at you and I want to know what it is that’s been consuming you from the inside out.’ He says while tightening his grip on your wrist just enough to keep you from being able to pull away, but enough where he’s not bringing you to any harm. You could practically feel your heart in your throat as it righted in on itself, it didn’t help that Sylus’s crimson eyes were peering into you in a way that made it seem as though he knew but loved to watch you suffer. ‘I- I don’t-‘ you stopped before you could even say a full sentence as everything leading up to now had resurfaced in your mind.

You knew you loved Sylus, you have for a while now, but past experiences or close to the sort have made you hesitant in making the first move and into something more meaningful between the two of you. You remember times where you would wonder whether you’d be luckily enough to be blessed with having someone become interested in you, fully investing their time and energy into what you had to say, their eyes remained on you as though they couldn’t bring themselves to look at anyone else.

You wanted everything you’ve seen in movies or read in books so badly, but even if you did find someone who was interested by you, you tended to pull away before they could get close enough to see the real you and become distant because you didn’t fulfill their idea of you that was unrealistic. You couldn’t help it for after being on your own for a long while you have grown accustomed to the idea that you might be left to your own company, maybe have a cat and or a dog in the future to make up for the lack of connection. So the idea of sharing your space with anyone else has always made you feel seriously self conscious and unable to articulate your thoughts and feelings like you’d like to.

However soon Sylus came into your life and you felt the same way you did when you were still talking to the person you preciously liked. You felt jittery, scared, excited and eagerly anticipated when you’d next see Sylus again while occasionally on the look out for Mephisto. Yet once you realised what you were feeling, what you were doing, a cold sense of dread filled you and unfortunately Sylus’s actions towards you only made it even harder for you to deny what was happening between you two.

Sylus would go out of his way to hold you by the small of your back in crowded spaces, keeping you close proximity to him, lightly touch your shoulder or stand closer to you then normal and even get in your face to watch your expressions as he did some lighthearted teasing. He was in your personal space and he was everywhere you went, and since it happened so often it came to a point where you were actively seeking out the tall man with crimson eyes and snow/silvery hair without realising it. The implications scared you gravely to the point where recently you’ve tried to avoid Sylus…only for Luke and Kieran along with Mephisto to find you and inform Sylus before he greeted you in person.

Sylus took your chin in his free hand and moving your head so you were back to staring into his observant eyes rather than to your fiddling fingers. ‘Use your words kitten, after all I’ve got all the time for you to sort out what you want to say.’ He tells you as a smirk played upon his lips as he watched your eyes widened a tad and your breath hitched in your throat. Sylus then taps a finger against your lips softly, letting it linger there for a bit. ‘So speak your mind sweetheart, speak it to me and don’t be afraid of the consequences,’ he then leans forward to rest his head against yours as his eyes looked at your lips briefly before looking back into your eyes, ‘you might like what happens afterwards.’ He finishes as he caresses your jawline with his fingers.

‘Don’t.’ You tell him sternly, taking Sylus back a little. ‘Don’t say things like that if you’re just going to be giving me false promises and leave after I say it.’ You reiterated as you looked at his face as you felt a wave of embarrassment over come you as everything within you screamed to protect yourself.

‘What makes you think I won’t take what you say to me seriously? Have I given you any doubt to distrust me into thinking I would laugh at your innermost emotions?’ Sylus asked and when you didn’t respond his smirk faltered as a serious emotions overcame his face and he took a deep breath. ‘You know I would never laugh at your emotions right? What do I have to gain in knowing your feelings? For I would never use it against you, not when I know that I’d loose you and your trust for that matter.’ Sylus told you as he lets go of your wrist to hold your face between his palms instead, stroking your cheeks softly that you couldn’t help but melt into his touch.

‘I love you Sylus.’ You admitted softly but clearly enough for him to hear as his thumbs stopped caressing your cheeks. ‘I always knew I love you but didn’t want to say anything incase you’d find another person to call your muse, to call your kitten or sweetheart. Someone who can keep up with you where I can’t. I knew I couldn’t confess if I knew that this thing between us will never be anything but serious.’ You continued as you felt everything come to the surface, easing the weight upon your shoulders greatly as you could feel yourself breath properly once more.

Sylus didn’t say anything at first and it worried you, especially with the way he keeps his gaze locked on you as though nothing else mattered in this moment but you. It felt as though he could see right through you and directly into your soul and it made you feel a little exposed and vulnerable. It scared it greatly that your fears were proven right, so much that in the moment you tried to move yourself off of his lap, only for Sylus to pull you in closer to him by your face until you were touching noses and lips were ghosting over the others.

‘Sylus-‘ before you could finish your sentence, Sylus was quick to press his lips to yours as he began to weave his lips between yours with a tenderness and passion you weren’t expecting after confessing your innermost feelings. He held your face as though it was porcelain as he deeper the kiss, moving a hand to the back of your head to keep you close to him, all the while his other hand rested on your waist to pull you further into him as though you weren’t already physically close enough. It was passionate, sweet and warm as you found yourself putting your hands on his shoulders, bunching up the fabric of his expensive shirt under your grip as you melted into the kiss; wanting nothing but to forget everything else except the taste of his lips on yours.

Only for your lungs to burn, forcing you to pull away from him as you catches your breath.

Sylus smirked as he hurried his head into your neck, breathing heavily as his fingers traced your skin over your clothes lovingly while you rested your head against his shoulder, soaking in his warmth and comforting feeling you get from cuddling against his chest. ‘I told you I wouldn’t take you nor your emotions for granted kitten, why would I do that to the person I love?’ He says against your neck and you couldn’t help but smile goofily at his own confession as your heart fluttered.

You were glad that you finally got your feelings off of your chest…even if it did take a little nudge from your crimson eyed beloved to do so as you spent the rest of the evening in his arms and whispering sweet nothings to one another.

[pluralsword]

this was really relatable to us apologies beforehand OP but this really spoke to our robot aft so;

legit been thinking for many months about adding a disclaimer to our instant messaging app profiles (and if we ever using dating apps again) that says "Don't ask me out unless you're willing to read EXRID or even just Best of Arcee plus having carefully considered the full meaning IDW1 Arcee's wiki page and that essay we wrote that one time" because literally only one person (who we're still friends with) out of more than a handful did that latter step (not specifically for this reason but it came up) and that was most we felt like someone understood us and could respect our boundaries and desires in retrospect, save for us wanting her to be able to love herself and accept that people care for and think well of her (this has gotten a lot better from what we can tell).

finding a succinct way to put that on a shirt honestly is tempting for another reason after dealing with a probable chaser cis guy recently who could not take the hint on us mentioning how much we liked the transfeminine narratives in transformers and it took outing ourselves as "sapphic/enbian" (this is just living and breathing) and plural (more difficult but in the space we were at the time not really) + a gal friend of ours (bless your heart dear pal) showing up and us lighting up to say hi to our friend for him to take the hint and he left immediately without saying goodbye or a word when I said bye. which combined with the fact he had tipped off knowing I was trans earlier in a weird way that made me wonder why would you ask me to come out for a smoke if you know it's unhealthy for me my guy kind of told me that he um well was not interested in respecting me. this is the third chaser we've dealt with so far in our life bleh.

I mean. I already looked like I was out in that peak 2010s undergrad degree queer showing who I am and what my neurodivergence is through pins kind of way?!!? How do you look at someone with a pin of Anode/Lug embracing + Greenlight/Lancer together not to mention various other gals (Aileron and Arcee included) and a lesbian colors Arcee and conclude 'this insert slur trans gal is primarily interested in cis men or evenly bisexual and I should totally try to follow up on this when it's very clear you're trying to leave to go home' at a transformers convention (the kicker is he did not know much about transformers so he was what. there to pick up trans women since somehow that deep cut of a takeway that transfems like transformers was disjointed from why?) lmao? lmao. lmao! its funny in retrospect but also absolutely ridiculous and concerning.

Maybe when we finish our EVA back stacks we'll have to write trans4trans on them to shoo people or something but we already know that in itself isn't enough

(note also to please not do this to straight/androphilic transfems either okay even if transness is why you're attracted it shouldn't be for fetishizing transness reasons you need to consider the full scope of what acting on attraction entails and thus value the needs and desires of the other person rather than have their worth be contingent on sexualization)

very beautiful art of gabriel btw

Gabriel in leather

[dekustowel]

[12: that time she met the parents]

synopsis - in light of a major controversy that causes his fan support to dwindle significantly, katsuki bakugou is forced to do anything possible to garner back the affection of his fans before the announcement of the year's hero rankings. katsuki has two options: either "date" japan's most-adored social media star, in hopes of her amazing reputation bringing up his, or kiss that #1 spot goodbye. it's a no-brainer what he chooses. and it shouldn't matter at all, right? it's a fake relationship. nothing more, nothing less.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

masterlist | previous | next

*there’s a written piece of this chapter*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your eyes quickly darted up from your phone catching on to something that would leave anyone that bled red speechless.

now to make something perfectly clear - you never thought katsuki bakugou was ugly.

not in school, when you'd see him in the hall. bakugou was unapproachable in his own right - and believe it, your friends tested that theory often. there was an unspoken beauty about him, said in a whisper from lips that knew they would never meet his.

he was not ugly when you lived separate lives and only saw him on billboards and your television screen. there are enough people in japan with bakugou's face plastered across their shirts, their rooms, and their bodies, that you could never deny his beauty had only amplified over the years.

you could always appreciate that the boy wasn't ugly.

'not ugly' isn't how you would describe seeing him today, leaning against the nicest car you've ever seen, with a grimace that would make anyone smart enough turn in the other direction.

today, katsuki bakugou stands tall and striking, with blonde hair that catches the light just right, framing a face carved with sharp, almost ethereal features. his eyes, a vivid and unsettling shade of red, holding an intensity that made it hard to look away. he's definitely a little more than 'not ugly'.

when the fuck did you start noticing details about his fucking eyes?

you pushed down any semblance of a reaction to the masterpiece before you as you wearily approached him.

"you look good," was not supposed to be said out loud, but your body's doing all kinds of weird gymnastics today, so you accept that you've said it and search his crimson eyes for a response.

katsuki doesn't dignify what you just said with a response.

instead, his eyes rake over you in what appears to be fucking disgust, as he opens the car door, feigning any illusion of a gentlemanly bone in his body.

you're barely able to get all your limbs safely in the car before bakugou slams it closed and walks around to the driver's side.

it's going to be such a long afternoon.

the car ride is mostly silent other than the low hum of an unrecognizable artist playing over the radio.

you take a moment to look at the interior of katsuki's car. black, like his fucking soul, and absolutely spotless. leather seats, probably so it's easier to clean the blood of his sacrifices off of. manual, because bakugou obviously wants you to know he's better than you in every way.

he probably never even stalls.

you laugh to yourself before your eyes zero in on his radio.

he listens to music, like the rest of us. this shouldn't surprise you, he's human. but it's an insight into the katsuki bakugou novelty. and your next move lines up with all the other impulsive ones so far for the afternoon.

you reach over and turn up his radio to just about max volume.

I thought that I was dreaming When you said you loved me

"you like Frank Ocean?!" you just about yelled, causing katuski to jerk the wheel a little bit.

"are you fucking insane, don't do that!" he scolds, turning down the radio to a more manageable volume, "and what's it to you?"

"i love Frank Ocean."

"not very uncommon, most people do."

"i guess, i just didn't realize you fell into the category of most people," you look out of the window as the sunset cascades down one of musutafu's nicer neighborhoods, "it's refreshing. you're human."

"get out of the car, y/n." you hadn't noticed the car come to a halt in front of a particularly nice house. it looked like the kind of house that loved poured out of. the sort of house that contains and produces well-rounded, delightful members of society. how katsuki bakugou lived here his whole life, you don't fucking know.

"so, this is where you grew up," you mutter, folding your arms over your chest, and leaning against the car door.

"what's it to you?" he snaps, his voice cutting through the air just as the driver-side door slams shut with a hard thud, matching the edge in his tone.

"nothing," you say, letting a smirk slip as you stand upright. "i just didn't know you were a little rich kid," you add, your tone light but taunting, a crooked smile playing at your lips as you glance his way

"have you realized im god's favorite yet?"

you laugh a little at his comment before mindlessly slipping your hand into his as he walks by. bakugou stops, turning to you with—well, it's hard to place his reaction—you've never seen it before. it’s agitation.. but softer?

it's convoluted, like everything involving katsuki bakugou.

"what’re you doing?" he demands, his gaze fixed on your interlocked fingers. despite the edge in his tone, he makes no move to pull away, his hand staying right where it is.

'holding your hand?"

"why?"

"for your parents, so we look like a couple?" you ask, voice midly irritated as you start to pull your hand away, "do you want me to let go?" But just as you begin to slip free, his grip tightens, holding you in place. suddenly, you’re acutely aware of the warmth and solid feel of bakugou’s hand, more comfortable than you'd expected.

his grip is firm as he drags you toward the front door, his strides confident and unfaltering. meanwhile, your stomach twists with nerves, each step making you more aware of how close you’re getting to his parents’ house. you try to keep up with his pace, but your pulse races, and you find yourself squeezing his hand a little tighter—hoping he doesn’t notice just how nervous you really are.

"callm down," he says simply.

you swallow, the anxiety tightening in your chest. "what if they don’t like me, katsuki?"

he scoffs. "doesn’t matter, ‘cause we’re not actually dating, idiot."

unhelpful.

you don’t even look at him, too consumed by the dread pooling in your stomach.

this was a bad idea. im going to kill Mina. this was a terrible idea.

"hey," he says more gently, an arm slipping around your shoulders. a warmth spreads through you, chasing away the knots of fear. "relax," he murmurs.

you glance up, eyes wide. "everyone likes you. just calm down, all right?"

you're barely even able to process the interaction you were just a part of before the front door comes swinging open, presenting the clear explanation for bakugou's good looks and charm.

she really is a milf. fuck.

"jesus, katsuki! it's fucking cold, you're gonna just stand there gawking at her and let her catch a fever?" the woman, who you can easily assume is bakugou's mother, beckons for you both to come inside.

"the pictures don’t do you justice; you’re absolutely breathtaking," she beams, pulling you into a warm embrace. as you bask in her warmth, her eyes sparkle with mischief. "but why are you with my son? you could do so much better, sweetheart."

"thanks, mom." bakugou deadpans.

"shut it, twerp. im talking to your girlfriend," his mom snaps back, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"matsukawa, come meet your future daughter-in-law!" she calls out, her voice echoing through the room. A deep blush creeps up your neck at the thought, and you nervously scan the space, trying to steady your breathing.

your gaze accidentally locks with bakugou’s, and in that fleeting moment, something in his expression takes you completely off guard. there's an intensity there, a mix of vulnerability and warmth that absolutely floors you.

but as quickly as it happens, he turns away, leaving the moment hanging in the air.

completely unacknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~``

FUN FACT: Mitski and Matsukawa already googled everything they'd need to know about y/n before Mitski messaged Bakugou. they already liked her! they really just wanted to see their bratty son ;)

thank you for reading!

@teacakes06 @pinxeajin @eitelle @kaldurahms-lover @daughteofaphrodite @sara4uuu @f0und-heaven @azamii0 @vitanicheney666 @twinnintwink @kara062284-blog @astraea-lunar @neoclb @apple9i3 @thekookiecorner @beatr2x @lovra974 @justbepeace @luvrluvrr @kyluskaye @nottherealslimshady @punicorn999 @itgetzweird08 @iamaconfusedpan @yoonights @shotos-angelic-whore @nnnyxie @nachofrien @bakunianadecorazon @spilled-coffee-cup @minetaphobe @y-n1simp @enterdivinity @sweetblueworm @kovu-bunnbunn @gsyche @nerinefy @missmanda511 @m-0ona @bbybubbles @tokeposts @jiyuu-zou @ch3rry-bombb @living-in-a-veil @lainlovelain @prentisswig @marsbars09 @iluv-ace @prentisswig @haychhans @awkardnerd @peachystea @lover-no-lover61 @emma-sometimes-writes @irenne-stans @themultifandomgirl @fuckassinstincts @rv19 @centerhabit @strwbrrykthv

[starryjake]

attention | l.h

in which you find a way to get your gamer boyfriend’s attention by edging him until he breaks.

pairing: heeseung x fem!reader

includes: edging, cum swallowing, m receiving oral, slightly throat fucking (lmk if i missed anything).

your boyfriend was so lazy.

you didn’t mind it. you actually liked being able to do things for him because he did a lot for you, lazy as he was. he paid the entire rent of your shared apartment, bought you nice things, and was honestly the best boyfriend you could ask for.

but as soon as he sat down in front of his computer monitor and put his headset on, it was nearly impossible to get him to move. he could easily spend hours in that seat not moving, yelling to his friends over his headset and perhaps even forgetting about you had you not brought him drinks and snacks every couple of hours.

that was the case as of right now. it was late and it was rainy outside and nothing sounded better to you than cuddling on the couch with your boyfriend and watching a movie together.

“heeseung,” you whined, standing next to his chair as he stared into his monitor without even blinking.

“i know, baby,” he replied, still not looking at you. “just give me a few more minutes.”

“i’ve given you hours,” you informed.

“five minutes, baby,” he said. “c’mere. sit on my lap and watch me play for five minutes.”

you huffed in annoyance, taking a seat on his lap with your back pressed to his chest. he wrapped his arms around your waist and continued playing with you sat on him.

you rested the back of your head on his warm chest and watched him skillfully play some video game, occasionally saying something to the friends he was playing with over his mic.

admittedly, you were entertained watching him, but then you’d realized an entire 10 minutes had passed and your patience started wearing thin.

“hee-”

“dude!” he yelled suddenly to his friend, interrupting you. “you totally could’ve gotten that guy, man, c’mon.”

“heeseung,” you scolded, sitting up in his lap and facing him with a frown.

“out of the way, baby,” he said, shifting his neck slightly so he could see the screen.

your jaw clenched. you were beyond pissed now and the fact he couldn’t even tell because he was so distracted pissed you off even more.

then suddenly, like a light bulb turning on, an idea popped into your head.

you shifted off his lap and onto the floor, kneeling in front of him. he glanced down at you for a second. you were nearly hidden under his desk, but a little smirk appeared on his face at the idea of what you might be doing.

you disregarded him, sliding your hand up and down his thigh, watching the gray fabric grow tighter and tighter as he slowly got hard from your contact.

he was still only half paying attention to you. in fact, it wasn’t even half. he would just occasionally glance down at you before regaining focus on his game.

you wrapped your hand around his half hard erection over his sweatpants, feeling it grow harder in your grasp. you licked your lips, already excited to get him on your tongue.

you didn’t have enough patience to tease, so you got straight to it. you tugged on the waistband of his sweatpants, to which he lifted his hips up a bit to help so you could pull them down to his ankles along with his boxers.

his cock, now fully erect, stood straight up and long in front of you. you grabbed his length by it’s base, leaning forward to softly kitten lick the smooth pink tip. heeseung looked down at you and offered you a little smile, mouthing the words “good girl” to you.

you smiled back, and as soon as he looked back up to his game, you rolled your eyes. he would not be calling you a good girl for long.

you wrapped your lips around his tip and started sucking, forcing yourself further down his length. heeseung let out a sigh since he couldn’t moan, not with his friends on the same call. he’d never hear the end of it.

during a break in the game, he finally gave you all his attention. he momentarily set his controller down so he could glide his slender fingers through your hair, playing with the silky strands while your mouth moved up and down his twitching length, leaving his dick shining in your saliva.

“so good, baby,” he said quietly, watching you in pure fascination and awe.

you planted your hands on the tops of his thighs, forcing yourself to take him even deeper until his tip was hitting the back of your throat. your throat convulsed around him, gagging silently, and your eyes welled up with tears.

heeseung couldn’t help it this time when he moaned, a deep moan that came straight from his chest. he loved feeling you gag around him because he could feel the walls of your throat squeeze around his cock, and he loved seeing the saliva start to trickle out from the corners of your lips, spilling down the rest of his length and his balls.

you were hoping his mic was muted, but you weren’t sure. you assumed it was given how he was moaning the way he always did when it was just you listening.

but then, after about another minute of you giving all your energy to deep throat him, he pulled his hand out of your hair to pick up his controller again. he started talking to his friends and you knew that the game was starting back up.

you pulled off his cock to catch your breath, frustrated that he was back to not paying any attention to you.

you reattached your lips to his tip and dug your tongue into his slit, like you were digging for his precum. sure enough, a pretty pearly bead of precum formed and you lapped it right up like a kitten drinking milk. the salty substance washed over your taste buds and you had to squeeze your thighs together in order to calm the ache forming between them from tasting your boyfriend. you were mad at him sure, but you still were a sucker when it came to tasting his cum.

you held his cock in your hands and rubbed his tip over your lips like you were putting lip gloss on, only instead of lip gloss, it was a mixture of his precum and your spit. heeseung glanced down at you, smiling a bit at the sight, but it only made you more mad. you didn’t want him to be smiling. you wanted him to be on the verge of cumming.

if you wanted to get to that point, you knew what you had to do.

you licked a stripe down his shaft, tracing a vein, until you reached the end of his cock, then went for his balls. you licked them and heeseung jutted his hips up in surprise at the sudden sensation that he didn’t see coming.

“oh, fuck,” he said straight into his microphone.

you chuckled to yourself as he tried to explain to his friends why he just said that.

you took one of his balls into your mouth and sucked, fondling it with your tongue as you jerked off the length of his cock. heeseung’s breath was starting to get heavier and his hands were getting so sweaty that he was having trouble gripping the controller.

he bit his lip to keep himself from saying anything again, but that didn’t last long.

as you moved back up to licking at the underside of his tip, you massaged his balls in your hand because you knew it was what it would take for him to cum, and you were right.

all of a sudden, he looked down at you with those wide deer eyes, fucking his hips up into your mouth. you could feel his cock throb and his balls tighten with the need to release and just when you felt that he was about to let go, you pulled off of him entirely.

his jaw dropped in shock and he looked down at you in confusion and disappointment. he couldn’t speak because of his friends, but you basically knew what he would’ve said: that he was about to cum. you’d known that, of course. that was why you stopped.

his dick twitched in front of your face, a string of pre cum trickling down the side. you resisted the urge to lick it up, knowing that the slight contact might’ve just been enough for heeseung to cum.

innocently, you laid your head down on his firm, bare thigh, pressing your cheek against it. you looked up at him through your eyelashes, pouting teasingly.

he was still confused. he had no idea what you were doing, no idea what he was in for.

you waited a couple of minutes until he was back fully engrossed in his game, his cock gone half hard by then. you then lifted your head back up and immediately wrapped your lips around his tip again.

he glanced down at you, eyebrows furrowed. you jerked off what you couldn’t fit in your mouth, focusing mainly on his tip as you knew he was so, so sensitive there.

he was back to fully erect in no time and since he got so close to cumming before but didn’t, it didn’t take long to get him back to that point.

he was slightly fucking his hips up again, his knee bouncing, his hairline beading with sweat. he tried not to make it obvious that he was about to cum, not wanting you to take it away from him again, but you still knew. what kind of girlfriend would you be if you didn’t know he was about to cum?

besides, his cock twitching and bobbing in your mouth told you everything. it was practically pulsating, getting ready to shoot what would most likely be a very big load.

he brought one his hands down to your head to try and hold you against his cock but you’d managed to pull off just in time, right before he could touch you.

he groaned in frustration, muting his microphone and staring down at you with less confusion now and more rage.

“what are you doing?” he demanded.

“nothing,” you replied innocently, fumbling with the bottom of his sweatshirt. “i’m just playing.”

“well stop playing and let me cum,” he said.

you frowned, mirroring his angry expression. you did not like the way he was bossing you around as though he was in charge right now. you had the power here, and he was only making things worse for himself.

“okay,” you said, though not sure if you meant it.

he gave you a warning glance before unmuting his mic and going back to his game. you rolled your eyes…again.

you focused your attention back to his cock, noticing how the color of his tip had changed from a soft pink to an angrier red, clearly feeling the effects of the edging you were putting him through.

you kissed his tip softly and his cock was wet enough from your previous saliva that you could glide your hand up and down it with ease. it was so wet that it even made a slick sound as you jerked it off, a sound so lewd that heeseung could feel the knot in his stomach again.

he gave you another look, one that was really telling you that you better let him cum this time, but where was the fun in that?

you smiled innocently, wrapping your lips around his cock and moving down to play with his balls again. immediately, he let out a little gasp and gripped the side of his chair.

“please,” he whispered, holding his breath.

you appreciated that he was using his manners now, but you still didn’t feel like giving it to him just yet. he still hadn’t learned.

his cock was beating like it had a pulse of it’s own in your mouth and you pulled off. this time, heeseung hurriedly brought his hand down to his dick to finish the job himself since you clearly weren’t going to, but you grabbed his wrist and held it out of the way, preventing him from touching himself.

he tried to break free of your grasp but you were gripping him tight, making sure that he wouldn’t be able to touch himself and make himself cum.

“what the fuck,” he practically sobbed, ripping his headset off and slamming his controller down. “let me cum already, y/n, fuck.”

you had to bite back a smirk. this was just what you wanted. you wanted to turn your boyfriend into a mess, a puddle of the composed man he normally was.

“play your game,” you said, disregarding his comments.

“no, i don’t care about the game,” he expressed. “i just wanna cum. please let me cum.”

“oh, so now you don’t care about the game,” you scoffed, softly dragging your fingertips over his warm tip, which caused him to wince. “now that i might not let you cum, you don’t care about it. how come you cared so much about it when i wanted to watch a movie with you?”

heeseung swallowed a lump in his throat. nothing he could say would help his case and he knew that.

“i’m sorry, baby,” he exclaimed desperately. “i’m so sorry. fuck—mm, please. please, i won’t do it again.”

“yeah right,” you muttered, rubbing his tip on your lips.

“i promise, baby,” he said. you pushed him past your lips, sucking on his spent cock again. “oh fuck—i promise. promise i’ll be better next time. please just let me cum. it hurts.”

you resisted the urge to roll your eyes again because you thought maybe it did hurt. maybe you’d edged him enough times by this point that his cock really had been too hard for so long and he needed it.

you didn’t want your boyfriend to be in pain.

you forced him all the way back down your throat, gagging like you did before once it was all the way in, except now heeseung had his undivided attention on you, and he loved to see you choke on his dick.

“oh fuck, yeah,” he grunted. “please, baby, please. i’m already close. i need it so bad.”

you squeezed his thigh, drool spilling out your lips and dripping down his cock and thighs. it was messy, but that only made it better for him, and he could already tell that he was about to cum, and he just prayed that you’d actually let him.

he dug his fingers through your hair, trying to be as subtle as possible as he held your head to his cock, trying to ensure that you won’t stop.

“please,” he whispered, biting his lower lip harshly.

you looked up at him through your eyelashes, feeling yourself get more turned on by how desperate he looked. you’d turned him into a complete and utter pathetic mess and you loved it.

“don’t stop,” he begged, his grip on your hair tightening. “i’m gonna cum, fuck! i’m gonna c—”

he threw his head back and could no longer produce any words, just a long, drawn out moan as he started cumming down your throat, jutting his hips up to fuck your mouth.

whimpers, whimpers you’d never heard from heeseung before left his mouth, which only showed you how fucked out you made him by edging him so hard. he was entirely so far gone, practically panting like a dog.

it seemed like he was cumming forever, keeping you held to his cock as he dumped what felt like a bucket of cum down your throat. your eyes watered and you were gagging uncontrollably around him, but you let him continue to fuck your throat and finish his release until he was done.

you pulled off his cock, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. his eyes were shut, still trying to catch his breath after cumming as hard as he just had.

“holy fuck,” he muttered to himself, forcing himself to open his eyes and watch you pull up his pants for him. “thank you, baby.”

you stood up and turned his monitor off.

“i think you owe me a movie,” you said, raising an unamused eyebrow.

“i think you’re right,” he said, too afraid of going through what he just went through with you again. “you pick, baby. we’ll watch whatever you want.”

you smirked to yourself as the two of headed towards the living room. now you knew what you had to do with your boyfriend in order to get your way.

-

i was kinda half asleep when i wrote this so idk if it’s any good lol

thank you for reading <3

[lostintransist]

Seamstress | Part 5

Check out part 1 here.

Every time John brought in a shirt, pair of pants, or suit coat to get fixed it got harder and harder to stop yourself from touching him. Touching him casually, obviously. You weren’t going to up and grope the man. But fuck you bet it would be as amazing as your dreams alluded it might be. He would probably, rightfully, hit you if you did. John seemed bashful around you and his body.

Watching him pull off a sweater in the colder weather became a fascinating trial of self-restraint. The man had a happy trail and a small bump of flesh pushing above the waist of his pants. You wanted to lick that happy trail until he gripped you by the hair and bite his stomach, just gnaw on it. Hair covered him, not an excessive amount but a light dusting that you want to pet.

The sweater he handed you had a hole in the cuff. After he graced you with a smile, that you returned by rote, he turned to the back room. Watching him slip beyond the door every time he came to visit made you want to follow him. Dammit, your new vibrator couldn’t arrive fast enough.

You lived life fine without sex or orgasms until one John Price looked so delectable you wanted nothing more than to sink your teeth into him and hold on like a bulldog. The vibrator would hopefully take the edge off the yearning and sand the edge of your annoyance with dealing with your mother.

She had been hounding you since you had left her house ‘in a huff’ about Christmas. You had managed to dodge her calls, replying via text that you were busy with work and couldn’t talk. Mid-November the damn nearly broke. She sent your father to the shop.

Looking up as the door bell dinged you smiled when you saw your father.

“Hi, Pops! Surprise to see you here.”

Finishing your current project to the point of being able to step away you joined him in front of the counter. After a quick hug, you gestured for him to sit down.

“What brings you by?” You look him over. He sits tall even with age dragging at his bones and color leeching from his hair.

“Your mother sent me,” he says in his quiet, firm voice.

That is all it took. Leaning back in the chair you cross your arms and your legs. The sour look on your communicates your displeasure. Feeling fifteen again sat uncomfortably in your grown body.

“I don’t have anything to say to my mother right now.”

Pops gave you a slow blink that told you so much. He didn’t want to be here, but for the sake of his marriage, he would. His wife bullied and nagged at him until he came to play peacemaker.

“She is upset that you are not talking to her, says you are avoiding calls about Christmas.”

“I am avoiding calls about Christmas. I already called Nana and I will be spending Christmas with her.”

Both Pops’ brows lifted, he spoke to his mother once a month when your mother went to visit her mother.

“If you don’t mind I’ll send her gift up with you then if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind that at all.”

“Why the distance with your mother?”

“She doesn’t listen to me, or like me. She is always siding with my brother in every disagreement and I’m done. I hate the way she treats me and unless she is willing to go therapy I don’t want to talk to her.” The words coated your mouth like vomit.

You had never said these things out loud outside of therapy. In therapy, you ranted that your mother hated you and regretted having you but that wasn’t something you were willing to dump on your father.

“She is upset about the silence,” Pops hedges.

“She makes me upset every time I see her so this feels fair.”

The look your father sends you sends you back to the age of seven as you hold out the broken porcelain doll you had been told repeatedly to not touch. Before either of you can pick the tug-of-war conversation back up the door bell dings. Looking up you can feel the weight of the chat with your father fall away.

John stands in the doorway, a wooden box tucked under one arm. He stomps his feet on the mat and lets the door fall shut behind him. Eager to escape the chat with your Pops you stand.

“John! I wasn’t expecting you today.” He had been yesterday and tended to keep anywhere from four days to three weeks between visits. If he would be gone longer he made sure to mention.

Smiling at nodding once at your father he set his box on the counter. Stepping around to your side of the space you examine the piece with your eyes like you do with clothing.

“I wanted to confirm you liked the design before I started to stain and line it.”

John turned the jewelry box around, watching your face as you examined each corner and the neat construction of it.

You glance up at him, the same look in your eye that you get before you start touching the clothing while he is in it.

“Can I touch?”

“Of course,” he nodded.

Damn if only he could get you to say that about him instead of objects. Any part of him. Really, even his pinky.

The man you had been having an intense chat with stood, drawing John’s attention away from you. The older man stepped around the counter, placing a hand on your back and a kiss to your hair. John’s stomach met the top of his boots.

“Goodbye sweetheart, I will call you later this week to finish this chat.”

“There isn’t anything else I have to say on the matter Pops. She can go to therapy or she can leave me alone.” You don’t look up from slowly rotating the piece in front of you.

“She’s still your mother.”

“And I’m still her daughter, not that that has ever gotten me a modicum of love from her.”

He hums in response, giving John a nod as he heads past him into the cold.

As the ding rings out in time with the blast of cold air you slump forward onto folded arms on the counter.

“John, would you lock the door please?”

Without question, he does as requested. Stepping back to the counter he looks you over.

“Do you want to talk about it?” He probes gently.

“No,” you bite the word out at the countertop.

“Can I show you more about your gift then?”

John knew how to push and when to pull away from the pain and try again later.

“There’s more?” Your head pops up, eyes filled with tears.

Pulling out each drawer he showed you the differences. Two drawers had inserts to increase the storage space. Three were empty and one had been left half filled with wood. Tipping that drawer to John you lifted a brow.

“I know you mentioned you don’t wear rings often but it felt odd to not give you any storage space for them. My mum had heirloom rings she held onto and hated having no good storage for them,” he explained.

Setting the drawer down gently you cover your mouth with one hand and hug yourself tight with the other. John is confused until you let out a small sob, and then he is terrified. What the fuck did he do?

“Sorry, ignore me,” you sob out.

Fuck off, that had no chance of happening. Stepping around the counter John doesn’t wait to ask you for permission, pulling you into his arms.

You cry until you can pull the reigns back on the overly large emotions and shove them back in the box meant for therapy. Leaning back you move away from John. His hands drop slowly, keeping contact with you until they hang at his sides.

“Better?”

You sniff as you tip your head back and forth.

“Meh?”

Looking away from his probing blue eyes you pull a tissue from your shelf. Carefully blowing your nose, because you’ve already cried on the man no need to make it worse by being loud now, you keep your eyes down.

“Why don’t you tell me about it as you finish looking it over? I have more to show you,” John picks up a drawer, rotating it between his hands.

Filling your lungs as deep as you can you try and think of a way out of this. Seeing none within easy reach you decide to get to know him better.

“How about a truth for a truth?”

He glances at you from below his beanie.

“I won’t be sharing any state secrets no matter how pretty you ask.”

His deadpan delivery shocks a laugh out of you.

“What would I do with state secrets other than give myself an ulcer?”

John has a big laugh. You love it instantly.

“Fair point that.”

You trade truths as he shows you how to access the portion of the box that holds necklaces. The top of the box shifts forward. The back wall can be lifted out if a necklace falls from the hooks he will install. You tell John of your rocky relationship with your mother, and he tells you of the distant but decent relationship he has with his siblings.

“You’ve really thought of everything haven’t you?” You start to slide the drawers back into place.

“I have a lot of time on my hands on missions,” he holds out another drawer.

“Can you tell me what this is?” You point at the joint of the drawer you had taken from his hand.

“The joint?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t look like most furniture I see nowadays. I’ve seen it once on my great grandmother’s dresser drawers,” you look to him.

Seeing the words form in his mind is fascinating.

“‘S called dovetailing. Bit more work but holds joints better than glue alone like most pieces are made with anymore.”

Brushing a finger over the joint you are amazed by the smoothness and dare you say softness of the wood.

“This is lovely John. Much better than I expected. You will tell me how much I owe you when this is all done?”

Watching his eyes crinkle is a treat, even if his expression says he thinks you’re being silly.

“Don’t owe me a thing. Let me use your shop for naps for the low price of a fix to the clothes I bring in? This is the least I can do. You don’t even badger me for state secrets,” he winked at you.

Your cheeks have to be blushing, thankfully you can’t feel the heat radiating off them. Focusing on putting everything away you start speaking again.

“I will be gone the week of Christmas. I am going to be up north with my Nana. Did you possibly want my number so we can coordinate a gift exchange?”

“Don’t need to get me a gift,” John eyes you with suspicion.

“And you don’t need to give me this well-crafted box for free but we find ourselves at an impasse.” You lift a brow at him, liking the drop in your stomach as he narrows his eyes at you. “Do you want my number?”

“Yes, give me your phone and I will text myself.” He shifts from foot to foot, eyes tracing your features.

You pass your phone, number pad ready. After he punches his number in he calls himself instead, the phone carrier-assigned tone ringing out from his pocket.

Taking your phone back you smile at the connection to him.

“There, now you can just text me if you need a nap instead of stealing your men’s clothes.” Glancing up at him you continue, “At this point, I’m almost wondering if you are causing more tears just to come see me.”

John felt the alarm bells go off in his brain. You were onto him somehow. Play it cool John, you can bluff a terrorist cell you can do it to one woman.

“And if I am?”

You have the cutest nose scrunch as if you don’t believe him.

“I don’t think you are but just in case you better knock it off before they start hiding their clothes from you.”

John laughs again, keenly aware that he hasn’t laughed this much since Roach got so tipsy trying to out-drink Gaz that he couldn’t stand right. Gaz had also promptly fallen over when trying to prove he wasn’t that drunk.

“I’ll text you. This,” he placed his hand on the box, “Will be done after Christmas. Want to get together for New Year maybe?”

Smiling at him you folded your arms and tugged the inside of your lip between your teeth.

“Yeah, that sounds good. Stay safe out there John.”

“Always do.” He left with a wave and a smile, unlocking the door on his way out.

Masterlist

[dragonfire2lm]

Holy shit, reading all of this just felt so damn good. I'm blind in my left eye and need glasses to see through my right, so reading other's experiences with only one functioning eye is...nice.

I thought I might share some of my experiences, because I don't really think too much about it honestly, I just know how things go for me because being half-blind is my normal.

Slopes and uneven ground are the worst. Walking is more than just seeing the ground in front of you, its also feeling it with your feet. When just out and about during the day, I can see just fine, but I do need/prefer stable ground because my depth perception is off and my balance is shit. So when dealing with say, a hill or holes i nthe ground, I take it slower, feel out each step because I can't tell how deep something is by just looknig down at it.

My night vision is also...not a thing, lol! I've gone out at night before, but would have to rely on having a torch (flashlight for you americans) with me and point down at my feet so I can see where I'm walking. For real, one time when I was walking home i nthe dark I accidently stepped onto the curb of the road because I couldn't tell I was veering that close to it, but I course corrected pretty quick. Because of my shit night-vision, we've got a motion-sensor light in the hallway for me, and I have a little lamp in my room for whenever I need to get up in the middle of the night. I don't necessarily need to turn a room's light on to see, I just need enough to tell where I'm going because gonig from darkenss with some light to full on "let me turn the bathroom light on for you" means I need to take like..ten, twenty seconds for my eyes to adjust to the suddenly bright light flooding my vision.

I'm not sure if this next thing is because I'm half-blind, or just a me thing, but I tend to not do well with navigation or cluttered environments. For example, If I need to find a phone on a table covered in clutter, you can see it, its right there surrounded by other things, but its there. I cannot see it, its not in an obvious spot where I could notice it at first glance, there's too many things, even if you point it out to me, I would still have trouble finding it. This applies to video games too! I often get lost in video games, or need my friend to point out something I missied because I just don't notice it amongst everything else.

I hate bright light. I'm very sensitive to bright light to the point most of the curtains in my home are closed, I wish real life had a brightness setting, and sunlight glinting off cars on a sunny day is my own personal hell. I've gotten flashbanged walking into the bathroom a couple of time because Mum opened all the curtains in there for important reasons I can't remember (like, she did close them later on, they are normally closed but sometimes they're open if the windows need to be cleaned or something).

People think I'm more blind than I am at first. When they first learn I can't see out of one eye, they assume I need to have things pointed out to me, like "watch out for the step/curb." when its during the day... I can see just fine, that's what the glasses are for. Yeah I can't see shit at night and will let people know that, but I know what I can and can't do...it's like people take a bit of time to really get the message that only under certain conditions do I need help and can manage the rest of the time perfectly fine on my own.

I prefer to have people walk on my blind side, because that's the side I'm keeping a closer eye on, so its easier for me to walk and talk with someone if they stay at my left.

Let's see what else? I do the head turning thing too! Its way easier and less eye strain to just turn my head towards something to look at it.

With my vision being the way it is I need to be mindful of what videogames I play. Yeah there's the obvious thing of most horror games are out because I would need to crank up the brightnesn super high and its frustrating not being able to see shit, but there's also ui elements to take into consideration. If a game uses small font, or a small hud, that's just eye strain and a headache waiting to happen. I've bought games wheere I;ve had to stop laying them because the console ports just aren't made for people like me who need larger font sizes and ui scaling, and I don't play PC because my laptop isn't a gaming one, and its much more comfortable for me to play console games because my large tv means less eye strain because its a bigger screen.

Speaking of the laptop! I wish most sites were zoom-friendly...like I need to have my web browser set to be zoomed in because again, I need the larger font and ui elements even when browsing the web. Most of the sites I frequent are fine with this (namely tumblr and AO3) but some of the sites i do use aren't zoom firendly and I have to zoom out to use the site properly, and that means tiny font and stress because I have my shit zoomed in for a fucking reason! but no, a lot of sites just don't do well with the fact that I have stuff zoomed in at 90 or 100%, like they weren't desinged to be used with zoom or larger fonts in mind.

I have to write my fanfics with font size 22 or 24 and then scale it down to a more presentable size 16 when I want to share previews of what I'm writing via google docs. Thankfully I don't have to worry about doing this on AO3.

Some of this wound up being a little bit ranty, don't take it too seriously, its just little things that frustrate me sometimes.

Stuff about having monocular vision that people don’t know (in my experience)

1. You only ever sit on one side of a room. (Especially if you’re in class) If you’re blind in your left eye like me, you sit to the left of the room so your right eye has the greatest scope, and there’s not much to your left to look at.

2. Harder time seeing past obstacles. People with two eye vision have the perception of both their eyes blend together for one image. Without this, you only have one eye, so you’re don’t get to see past obstacles the same way. For example if something is blocked for your right eye and not for your left, you can still see it through your left. For people with monocular vision this isn’t possible.

3. People don’t walk on the side of your blind eye. It may just be me, but because I’m blind in my left eye I tend to accidentally bump into people if they’re on my left. So when people walk beside me I naturally go so they’re to my right, or they do, without it being discussed.

4. 3D movies are headaches. Even though we’ve progressed past the red-blue type glasses, 3D just doesn’t work well for monocular vision. (And you know those fun optical illusions? A lot of them don’t work at all- nothing happens!)

5. Things like grabbing a pencil without looking at it are extremely difficult. (Due to lack of depth perception, you have a hard time discerning where things are in 3D space). This also stretches to having bad posture and balance. Meanwhile, things that are flat are relatively easy.

6. You turn your head when you’re looking at something, so your good eye is focused on it. This includes tilting your head at worksheets, TVs, and computer screens- and also people.

7. Seeing in the dark is also much harder, because people rely on their depth perception for it, and without that stuff gets real hard

8. The headaches. Most people with blindness don’t experience total blindness, but instead low vision, where their vision is not able to be used in a way that’s helpful. Your brain tries to merge the images, or use your bad eye to see something in the peripheral. This just makes your head hurt. Much like people who need time to adjust to having glasses due to the headache, getting headaches is common because your vision is always at odds.

9. More susceptible to eye damage. Since you’re not overly aware of your bad eye, you may not notice if the sun is shining directly at it. I tend to squint with my bad eye whenever I’m outside, without thinking about it. Additionally, you’re more wary of anything that could damage your good eye. It’s the only one, so you gotta be careful with it.

10. Also, it makes things really, really weird if there’s a bright light from one side but not from another. There are often after images that float in my vision.

11. Looking at things that are moving can be hard. I can focus on an object, but if a camera is panning in some direction without being focused on one thing in particular, I just stop being able to make sense of what I’m seeing. It becomes very jarring.

12. Sometimes it’s not that your eye necessarily has anything wrong with it, but that your optic nerve isn’t fully connected. So the eye may be healthy, but your brain shut it off, and the connection between the light coming in your eye, and the way the brain interprets it, never fully formed. Funnily enough, I’ve heard that this can cause the connection between your good eye and your brain to be stronger, as it is with mine. For some people it’s the opposite, and it makes both of their eyes worse. Peoples experiences can really differ.

[wing-ed-thing]

Rainy Day (Crocodile x Reader)

Synopsis: You find yourself caught in the rain with a pirate.

Word Count: 1.5k

Tags/Warnings: No Reader Pronouns, Fluff

Notes: *blub blub*

“I guess you don’t like the rain either?”

Crocodile wasn’t expecting you to speak, let alone with the light laugh you held in your voice. It threw him off acutely, causing him to raise a slight brow as he regarded you from his periphery. 

You pulled your thin sweater across your chest, still holding your light grocery shopping in one hand. Your sorry excuse for a jacket looked completely drenched through, which didn’t surprise Crocodile in the face of the downpour just a few feet before you. 

You sought refuge under the same storefront canopy, watching enviously as people ran by with umbrellas and sporting dry-looking rain boots. But the streets quickly vacated, leaving you and Crocodile stranded in the only spot of semi-dry cover. Water rushed the street, leaving a river about ankle-deep in its wake. The drains weren’t formidable enough to stop the backup, causing little whirlpools to swirl on the roads. Even where the both of you stood, rain rushed in a thin layer under your shoes. 

“I should have known I wouldn’t be able to make it back in time, but—” You glanced at Crocodile with a smile. —“You don’t look like you’re from around here, huh? No one probably told you about the downpours.”

It was the second time you’d regarded him so casually, and Crocodile wasn’t used to anyone speaking to him in such a blasé way. No one had ever tried to make inane chitchat about the weather with him before, especially not at his towering height and with the jagged facial scar he sported with menacing pride. He had a hook for a hand, and you were talking to him without an ounce of hesitation.

“Hasn’t anyone taught you not to talk to strangers?” Crocodile gruffed, avoiding your gaze as he scanned the environment outside your canopy. The rain was falling in sheets without sign of letting up anytime soon. You laughed again.

“Maybe when I was a kid, but as an adult, wouldn’t that make us both strangers?” 

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense.” 

“No, I guess not.”

Crocodile barely listened as he dug into his jacket breast pocket to fish out a cigar. He placed one between his lips before toying with his lighter. It took a few strokes for it to ignite, but Crocodile was eventually able to take a long drag of his cigar. And as he released a massive cloud of smoke from his lungs, he hoped it would be enough of a deterrent for you to stop your chatter. 

There was a pause as the pitter-patter of raindrops hit the ground. 

“Is that Al Fakher—?”

—“Fucking hell—” Crocodile turned to face you fully, ripping his cigar from his lips as he threw his hook up in vexation. But even as he scowled at you, your expression didn’t change. “Do you not have any survival instinct? Any at all? For all you know, I could be a pirate here to pillage your village—”

“Oh, you most certainly are,” you hummed with a nod, and the singular action took Crocodile aback. 

His words stopped on his lips instantly as he scrutinized you, forehead knitted together as he took another drag of his cigar in contemplation. His weight shifted to his back leg, his scowl deepening by the second. 

“What makes you say that?” 

He noted your three-point glance. 

“You’re kidding, right?” 

Crocodile’s brows bounced on his forehead as he took another puff. He crossed his arms over his chest. He wore his usual heavy fur coat, which usually did the trick regarding light sprinkles. If it were any heavier, Crocodile might have braved the dismal downpour just a few feet ahead. 

The rain on this island came often, and when it rained, it poured. Although, the rain was typically unaccompanied by other characteristics of a storm. Lightning was absent from the grey clouds above, and thunder hardly rang out over the skies. It was all just rain.

“You’re an odd one, I’ll give you that,” Crocodile muttered. Smoke continued to take up the space under the canopy, dispersing into the muggy atmosphere. He had been weighing braving the downpour in the face of your talk, but the rushing water became less appealing as he puffed on his cigar. Crocodile eyed you from his peripheral. “You’re not scared or nothin’.”

It was equally a question as it was a musing.

“Oh… should I be?”

And just like that, the rain stopped. It dropped in one final sheet like someone switched off a lever. The pool of water on the ground slowly swirled into the sewer grates, and the clouds above remained grey and dark. 

“Yeah,” he answered, taking his cigar between his fingers. Crocodile’s hook glinted in the low light. “You should.” 

He turned to face you fully. His towering shadow engulfed you in the changing light. You stepped out onto the sidewalk, your head tilted upward and your palm extended as you checked for lingering sprinkles. And once the skies had been vetted for rain, you turned to look back at Crocodile with a cheeky smile.

“Why should I be scared when I have you to protect me?” 

The cigar nearly fell out of Crocodile’s mouth as you turned to walk down the road, your words only stalling him for a moment before he stormed after you. His long coat whipped in his wake. 

“Now, wait a goddamn minute,” he gruffed. You continued to make your way down the road. Crocodile walked closely, almost diagonally, behind you as he positioned himself in your peripheral. “I don’t play bodyguard, especially not to some random villager when my bounty—”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s very high,” you hummed, glancing at him briefly out of the corner of your eye. Crocodile scowled as he narrowed his eyes.

“I don’t like the way you said that…” His hand shot out to grab you by the back of your shirt, stopping you in your tracks with little resistance. Crocodile hasn’t expected to have to fight to still you, but you seemed to immediately stop the moment he grabbed you. That oddity alone was enough for him to recoil his touch slowly. 

You turned, pivoting slightly on your heel to meet his gaze.

“I wasn’t being sarcastic by any means. I can only imagine how powerful a pirate you must be,” you sighed, glancing off to the side in thought with a shrug before meeting his stare once more. “I don’t know anything about that kind of stuff, but even I can see that… But you don’t seem that bad.” 

And just like before, you began to walk off. Crocodile followed as you took a turn down a side street. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I suppose it means that I don’t think you seem like a, uh… bad guy, I guess?” You splashed through a puddle with your knee-high boots, paying no mind to the ankle, deep water as Crocodile stood on the significantly dryer sidewalk. He glowered as tiny droplets flew onto the ankle of his slacks. 

“You’d be wrong about that,” he huffed as you returned to the sidewalk, now walking next to him as you trailed water on the ground below. Your footsteps grew dryer as you went. 

“You’re gonna fight me about being a bad guy? Isn’t that a little cartoonish? Childish?” You walked up a flight of stairs with Crocodile following alongside you. For every two steps you had to make, Crocodile made one before you stopped at the landing.

Crocodile let out a boisterous laugh, paying little actual attention to you as he regarded you incredulously. 

“You’re one to talk!” 

“You can disagree, I guess. But I don’t think a bad guy would walk me all the way home,” you hummed, placing your key in the lock to your front door. 

You didn’t seem to bother even to catch Crocodile’s violent recoil. He jerked back, gaze immediately flying to the front of the building he found himself standing in front of. It was a modest stone front with identical ones sandwiched on either side. Each boasted a set of stone steps leading up to deep-green colored doors. Romantic street lamps illuminated the road below.

You opened the door, and before he knew it, you had one foot inside as you turned to Crocodile.

“Did you want to come in?”

“You’ve lost your mind.”

You turned back to the dark entrance hall, flicking on the light just inside the doorway with a shrug.

“Well, if you change your mind, just knock, I guess.” And before Crocodile could say a word, the door shut behind you, and the latch of the lock clicked firmly. 

Crocodile turned with a sigh, still trying to wrap his head around what just happened as he moved to take a step down the stone staircase. But in an ironic twist of fate, thunder cracked above, and the sheets of rain dropped from the clouds with force. No canopy could save him from the elements this time. Crocodile took one last puff of his cigar before the onslaught of raindrops put it out, leaving his hair soaked and water dropping off his nose. 

[hvnyrt]

Request/idea: Jason pining for reader, although he’ll never admit it

Voice in the Wind

Hi Anon! Thank you so much for submitting a request! Luckily for you I have no class or work today and was able to get this out same-day for you. :) I went angsty for this request, I hope it's to your liking!

SUMMARY: You have been in love with Jason Todd for a while now, and he had been too, yet he was too trapped in his mind to even take your relationship into consideration.

WARNINGS: Angst, non happy ending :(

WC: 1.9k

The rooftop of a Gotham skyscraper was cold beneath Jason Todd’s boots. His breath formed small clouds in the air, the city’s ever-present hum a background noise to his thoughts. He stood facing the edge, arms crossed, eyes scanning the streets below. It was late — or early, depending on how you looked at it — and the city was bathed in a sickly orange glow from the streetlights. Gotham was always awake, like a predator that never rested, and Jason… Jason was just another hunter in its maze of shadows.

He was trying to focus. ‘Focus, Todd,’ he told himself. ‘Don’t be weak. Stay sharp.’ But there was a problem. Your face kept slipping into his mind. No matter how hard he tried to shove it away, there you were again, with that crooked smile and those damn eyes that could cut straight through his walls.

Your voice rang in his ears. He hated your voice because it followed him everywhere, like an earworm he couldn’t get rid of. And your name. He hated your name because it made him feel like he could say it, like he could speak it aloud and claim it, and he didn’t want to claim anything. Not You. 

"She’s just a distraction," he muttered under his breath, the words lost in the wind. "Just a damn distraction." 

Except you werent. He knew it. 

He didn’t know how you had got under his skin, but you had. It had started innocently enough: a few random meetings while he was on patrol, a conversation here and there. But then something shifted. Something he couldn’t control, couldn’t shake. It wasn’t that he wanted to care about you; he didn’t. He couldn’t. Not when he knew better, when he was haunted by the ghosts of his past mistakes. People like him didn’t get to have things like that. People like him didn’t get to have… normal.

It was so fucking frustrating. 

"Stupid." Jason spat the word out as if it could wash away the thoughts, the feelings he didn’t want to deal with. There was no place for feelings in the world he lived in. It was all blood and violence, adrenaline and fear, and you… you were none of that. You were calm. Grounded. Real. You made him feel like he wasn’t constantly running from something.

Nope. Not happening.

"Jason?"

The voice broke through his internal tirade, familiar and warm, cutting through the cold like a blade. Jason didn’t turn around. Didn’t even flinch. But his heart did a strange little lurch. He hated that it did, but it did.

There you were, standing a few feet away, your arms wrapped around yourself to shield against the Gotham night. You didn’t even seem to notice how out of place you were up here — on this rooftop, so far above the city you loved but could never truly understand. You weren't like him. Never would be.

"You shouldn’t be here," he said, his tone as dismissive as he could manage. "Go home, It’s dangerous up here."

Your eyes flickered with that same mixture of concern and defiance he was growing all too familiar with. "And I’m guessing you’re worried about me?" you said, your voice laced with quiet amusement.

Jason’s lip curled slightly, though it wasn’t a smile. More like a reflex. “I worry about everyone, you're no different.” He said flatly, his back still turned.

But even as he said it, the doubt crept in. You had a way of doing that — making him second-guess every cynical, hardened part of himself that wanted to pretend he didn’t care. But he didn’t let it show. He never did.

"I’m not helpless." you said softly, stepping a little closer, close enough that he could feel the heat radiating off you. "You don’t need to protect me. You don't have to worry me. Just please, tell me what's on your mind. Talk to me. Let me in." You wanted him so bad to just admit that he wanted you as much as you wanted him. You tried too hard to get him to open up to you, to get him to see what your relationship could be. He never listened.

The words hit him harder than they should have. He wanted to argue, to push you away again. You didn’t understand. You didn’t get what the world was really like, what it could do to someone like him. Someone who had already been destroyed once, who didn’t want to give it a second chance.

Instead, he just shrugged, trying to appear indifferent. "I’m not your protector. Just someone who knows better."

You raised an eyebrow, that familiar smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth. "So you’re telling me I shouldn’t be out here, too, but you’re not protecting me?" 

Jason didn’t answer. His gaze drifted away from her, back to the city lights, to the shadows below. But he didn’t walk away. He never did.

"You really think I can’t handle myself?" Your voice was quieter now, and for a moment, it almost sounded like you were teasing. Almost. 

Jason let out a breath, unable to keep the edge out of his voice. "You think you’re the only one who can handle themselves?" He turned his head just enough to catch her gaze. "This place doesn’t make you stronger. It makes you smarter. And if you’re not smart enough to get the hell out of it, you’ll get crushed. And that’s not something I’m willing to let happen."

The words left his mouth sharper than he’d intended, but he couldn’t stop them now. He never could when it came to you. 

You didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at him with those damn eyes that felt like they saw straight through his bullshit. Then, slowly, you took a step closer, not intimidated, but calm.

"Jason, you don’t have to pretend with me. I’m not going anywhere."

The words hit him like a punch to the gut, though he’d never admit it. "I’m not pretending," he muttered, too quickly, and too defensively. 

The city stretched out beneath them, vast and indifferent, like a black sea dotted with the flickering lights of a thousand lives he would never touch. Jason stood there, his shoulders tense, his fists clenched. You were still beside him, too close for comfort, your presence a constant reminder of everything he couldn’t afford to feel. 

Focus, he told himself. Don’t let her in. Don’t let her do this to you.

But it was already too late.

You were right. He was pretending. 

Jason’s jaw tightened at the thought, and he could feel the familiar coldness creeping in — the walls he had built so carefully around himself, the ones that were starting to crack and crumble under your quiet, persistent gaze. The feeling of wanting to reach for you, of wanting to say the things that scared him more than anything else in this broken city, gnawed at him like a sickness. 

But no. He couldn’t do it. Not to you. Not again.

"You don’t get it," Jason said, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. He didn’t look at you, but he could feel you staring at him, that soft gaze that always seemed to see straight through him. "This isn’t… this isn’t some fairy tale. You can’t just waltz in here and fix me. I’m not… I’m not someone you can save. You don’t know what it’s like, and you never will."

He finally turned to face you, his eyes burning with something he couldn’t even name. "I’m dangerous. And you think you can handle me? You think you can be around me and still come out unscathed? You have no idea what this world does to people like us."

You didn’t back down. Of course you didn’t. You never did. Instead, you stepped closer, her voice low but steady. "I know enough, Jason. I know you’re scared. You don’t have to push me away—"

"Stop," Jason cut you off, his voice sharp, almost desperate. He took a step back, as if your proximity was suffocating him. "Stop pretending like you know me. Like you understand anything about me."

Your brows furrowed in confusion. "Jason, I—"

"I’m not the guy you think I am!" He didn’t shout, but his voice trembled with the raw emotion he refused to show. "I’m not the guy you can fix. You think I don’t care about you? That I don’t—" He stopped himself, the words lodged in his throat like broken glass. He could already feel the heat in his chest, the thumping of his heart, the same damn pain that had been there since he came back from the dead. 

His fists clenched tighter. "I’m not your fucking hero. I’m a killer. A broken, fucked-up, damaged thing, and you don’t want to get close to that."

The words came out in a rush, desperate, but also… final. His eyes were wild now, the storm inside him too strong to ignore, the war he’d been fighting with himself spilling out in a way he hadn’t intended. 

You stood there, silent for a moment, your face unreadable. Then your expression softened, a mixture of hurt and understanding flickering behind your eyes.

"I’m not trying to fix you," you said quietly, your voice steady despite the tension crackling in the air between them. "I’m just trying to be here. I’m trying to be someone you don’t have to push away."

Jason didn’t respond right away. He couldn’t. The words felt too raw, too close to something real. And that scared him more than anything. 

"You don’t understand," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "You can’t understand. I can’t let you in. Not like this. Not after everything."

He took another step back, further into the shadows, his heart pounding in his chest. Every instinct in him screamed to get away from you, to run, to push you out of his life before you were swallowed up by the darkness he carried with him.

"Jason," your voice was quiet now, soft, like you were trying to reach him through the thick walls he had built. "Please."

But he couldn’t do it. Not for you.

Jason shook his head, more to himself than to you. He turned his back on you, the weight of his decision heavy in the pit of his stomach. His feet moved automatically, the thought of staying with you—of letting you see him, really see him—was too much to bear. 

Before he could even reach the edge of the rooftop, he heard your voice again, fragile but clear.

"You don’t have to do this alone."

He froze. For a second, everything inside him wanted to turn around, to reach for you, to tell you how much he wanted to believe that. How much he wanted to let you in. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t let anyone in.

Because when you let someone in, you gave them the power to break you. And Jason was already broken. He couldn’t let anyone else be hurt because of him. Not again.

Without another word, he jumped off the rooftop, vanishing into the night, leaving only the sound of his footsteps echoing in the cold air.

You stood there for a long time, staring into the empty space he had left behind. Your heart felt like it had been crushed under the weight of everything unsaid, everything unacknowledged.

You weren't stupid. You knew what had happened. 

Jason had chosen the darkness. He’d chosen it over you. Over them.

And the worst part was, you didn’t know if you could ever change his mind. 

But one thing was certain: you weren't going to forget him. Not now. Not ever.

Jason thinks people who reblog/like the fics they enjoy deserve a good time :)

[anartificialsatellite]

I'm having a really hard time with "People didn't vote for Trump out of bigotry, they did it because of the economy." Because it's true! I know it is. I interact with people regularly who aren't especially interested in politics and don't read past the headlines of any news articles but still vote every election. I know most people don't actually care or even know enough either way to vote for him primarily based on the bigoted shit. His loudest, most hateful supporters are the minority...

The thing is, like, that doesn't... really help? It doesn't, probably because I knew it before this happened and it's not a revelation to me. I'm having an extremely hard time taking any comfort in the fact that people didn't pick Trump because they openly hate people that I love, they just picked him because they thought he'd be better for the economy, because the result is the same.

It also means that I don't know what kind of threat it would take to get people to pay better attention, because they obviously haven't at all over the last EIGHT YEARS.

I absolutely understand that people are going to put their immediate wellbeing and security over what they see to be abstract ideals - sure people should be able to do what they want, but I'm worried about paying my bills - but for the majority of Americans, the result is now going to be that neither of those things will end up in a good place, and it's getting very hard for me to have patience for people fucking falling for it.

[flowergoddessblooms]

I will never forget that day. In the middle of the night, as the storm raged, wind bellowing, we were safe in our house. It wasn't huge, but we were quite well to do compared to others in our community. The wood burned and the fire crackled, providing warmth much craved. There was enough food to last a month. We all sat in the light of the burning embers. I remember thinking how unfortunate that the others weren't so lucky.

Oh how I hate myself for even having had that thought. For moments after, we heard the sound of glass breaking. Our eyes darted across the room, now staring at a man brushing glass pieces off his black cloak. You would recognise the emblem on his cloak anywhere.

The Black Raven guild.

Mercenaries.

Before my brain could process what had just occurred, the man rushed through the room, armed with a dagger. It was over in a split second.

I stood agape, watching the crimson flow.

My parents were dead.

Blood seeped through the carpet, under the floorboards. Time was at a standstill.

The man looked over at me.

"A scrawny brat, eh? Well you weren't in the request and I couldn't care less about a little shit like you."

And he was gone.

My tears wouldn't stop. For days and nights I sat there clutching the bodies of my parents, as the rain and thunder never stopped. The stench of decaying corpses is something you can never imagine. One whose face is filled with absolute fear and desperation. It was etched into my heart.

And so, after a long time spent crying, trying to fix the wounds, venturing out into the storm to ask for help only to return dejected, I swore. I swore to myself that I would make that man regret being born for taking away my happiness.

It's been 21 years. 21 years of hunting for this man whose face I didn't know. 21 years of traveling around the country, spending days at inns, flocking bars, approaching information guilds, anything and everything. And I finally found him.

I found out everything about him.

57 years old. Muscular. Tanned. Shaved head. A thick beard. Lived in a little village on the outskirts of the country. He would protect the villagers from bandits. He was quite loved by the community.

But I know who he truly is. Beneath all that facade of a good man and the protector of women and children, he is someone who would kill people for money.

It didn't take me long to find him. And boy oh boy, it was infuriating.

He was a changed man. He didn't talk like the way he did that night, in a rugged tone, without an ounce of humanity. He had a slow speech and spoke as though he was an enlightened monk.

How. Funny.

He didn't recognise me at first. It was only when i mentioned who my parents were, that he looked at me with a forlorn gaze and sighed.

Was this asshole pitying me? This person, who wasn't worth being called human, was showing sympathy?

I remember what he said, word for word.

" All those years ago, I was someone who only lived for money because I had to take care of myself and my family. My sisters were about to be sold off if I hadn't paid off my father's gambling debts. I didn't have much choice. I don't do that anymore. I've found my place with these people here. I take care of bandits for them, they feed me and my family in return. It's quite a peaceful transaction." He said gazing wistfully towards the village.

Not a single apology.

And was that story supposed to make me feel empathetic for him? Where was his empathy when he mercilessly murdered my parents in front of a 9 year old?

Did he expect me to droop my shoulders, cry and hug him?

He deserved to die and I would give him that.

I raided his home late that night. It was dark and stormy, quite fitting really. I broke the window and jumped in. He wasn't ready and it wasn't much of a fight for me, he was old and slow, barely able to dodge my attacks. It was soon over. I stood over him, as blood splurted out of his neck, staining the wooden floorboards with a rich crimson hue. I sat there, laughing, relishing my victory, when I heard little whimpers from close by.

It didn't matter anyway. I had fulfilled what I had sworn all those years ago. I was finally at peace.

No matter how much of my humanity it took from me.

I was finally at peace.

When you were a child, a mercenary made you watch as he killed your entire family in front of you. You swore revenge. Decades later, you've finally tracked them down- …only to find they're now a pacifistic geriatric who's beloved by his community.

[iwritethingssometimes]

I'm seeing some posting about a feeling of fishiness about the recently completed US Election.

In the attempt to do something more productive than my last post, I'm gonna do an adhoc examination of how feasible I think a "rigged election" actually is, looking at a few methods that could have been used. So, to start with, what is the actual evidence here?

Most of it is... honestly vibes based, which I get, but don't put a lot of stock in, There was a lot of energy around the Harris campaign, and she had some good polls, but Donald Trump has proved nothing else in the past fucking decade, its that the polls literally do not matter for him, and he can outperform them by a hundred miles.

But. There's also some numbers.

None of this has been verified yet, and I want to make that clear, but this year has largely reported record turnout in a ton of states, especially the swing states, and yet, so far.

The number of votes seems much lower this year.

Not republican votes, not democrat votes, all votes. Hell, third party voting collapsed this year--whatever else you take from this election, this was not a case of the left splitting the vote.

Now, it's true that the vote count hasn't been completed, and it's possible that the numbers will make more sense once that's done. It's also true that the states didn't have quite the same turn-out as last year... but it was only a percentage point or two lower.

Add that to the frequent postings about people having their ballots rejected for... questionable reasons, and.

Well. It starts going from a "the moon is fake!" conspiracy to "Epstein had sex slaves" conspiracy.

But, okay, is it even possible for Trump to have faked the vote like this? People talked about it, but it was mostly in terms of legal challenges trying to overturn a Harris victory, or pulling in the supreme court to decide narrow districts. This, by all accounts, seems to be a straight forward Trump sweep.

So if there is shenanigans afoot, how could he have done it?

There's three feasible(ish) pathways, in my opinion:

Voter suppression and manipulation pre-ballot: Yeah this happened. It's also irrelevant to any possibility that the vote counts were tampered with. Look, this election was flooded with misinformation, legal suits, court cases, and election officials doing everything in their power to fuck with people's right to vote. It was filled with ballot boxes being lit on fire. Elon Musk did a fucking paid vote scheme! Of course there was voter suppression! But there always is, and although it was worse this year than many others, it wouldn't cause any numerical mismatch between turn out and votes, and there's not much that can be done now for this election. Even if someone voted because Musk slipped them $100, no court will ever be able to prove they didn't just happen upon $100 bucks and then voted for Trump.

Voting machines were manipulated: A few hours ago I would have said this was practically impossible, but apparently a bunch of election officials and cyber-security experts were sounding the alarm about this a few months ago, so, uh. That being said, I've seen people claiming that Starlink or whatever hacked voting machines, and no. No, Starlink did not hack voting machines. No one "hacked" voting machines. They weren't connected to the internet, or any wireless communication systems, because anyone with any degree of cybersecurity knowledge will tell you that's how you create an insecure system. Now, it's not impossible, technically speaking, than Elon Musk or fucking Russia managed to hire engineers and somehow bribe enough officals to get access to the machines and install hardware that would allow external access, but in that case we live in a Bond movie and somehow have bigger problems. So, if the voting machines themselves were compromised in any technological way, it would have required direct, physical access, which should be basically impossible, unless...

Ballot officials fucked with the vote This is the one I think is plausible. Basically, in this case, what could have happened is that various election officials at different levels of the process more or less lied about the vote count. This could have happened in a lot of different ways--they could have found reasons to reject mail-in ballots, which several states attempted to make legal, they could have found reasons to reject in-person ballots, which several states attempted to make legal. They could have, if the corruption ran deep enough to make this feasible, just... not counted or reported votes that swung for Harris. They could have, if the election machines work similar to the ones up here in BC, seen the results from the machines, then called the central election office over the phone--because remember, the ballot boxes should not be connected to anything. I don't know. There's a lot of options, and it varies from state to state, because remember, each state runs their own elections, and has their own rules and procedures.

So yeah, three explanations, only one of which is really plausible.

Now, I want to be clear, I don't think this election was fraudulent. Not yet, at least, I need to see actual evidence, or this is nothing more than a theory, but I also want to be clear.

...3 makes sense.

3 would explain why urban areas seemed to be underrepresented in this election, while rural areas surged. 3 would explain a discrepancy between voter turn out and votes counted. 3 would fit the strategy Trump and MAGA loyalists have been describing for the last four years, of infiltrating the election machinery and manipulating it to their own ends.

So I'm not saying it's likely that Trump fucked with the vote, not without evidence. Not yet.

But I will say this looks a hell of a lot more plausible than any claims made in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

[seeker-ophelia]

Mythal, Solas, and Lavellan

So there’s lots of discussion about Mythal and Solas, and we need to talk about it.

I too, at first, was mad that Lavellan wasn’t enough for Solas.

And then I started thinking about it.

Not only was Mythal his mother, his creator, she coaxed him into being. Into changing his spirit and his purpose.

Regret Number 1.

He let her use his knowledge and wisdom to do a terrible thing, to kill (tranquil) the titans, changing a whole race of people at a molecular magical level.

Regret Number 2.

When that choice created the worst power known to Thedas (the blight) he was responsible again. And Mythal asked him to step up and fight against it, and he did. And a lot of people died.

Regret 3.

Mythal DIED. (IMO The gods blighted her because she stood against them for wanting to use the blight but that’s not important here). And Solas blames himself.

From Solas’ perspective, he is her puppy. Her Emerald Knight. Her General. Her Protector. Her Wisdom. Her servant, her SLAVE. He is BOUND TO HER. And he caused her downfall.

And you’re all like, GEAS! GEAS!

But wait.

From HIS perspective.

Rook says something somewhere along the lines of like, by abstainsing from being the good guy (oh wait maybe it was Varric in the fade…)

By choosing to be the villain instead of the hero is he absolving himself of the guilt (regret) that comes from having to have made those choices.

From Solas’ perspective, he is her slave.

LOOK AT HIS BODY LANGUAGE.

He is a worm in the dirt in front of her. He is a scolded child, a puppy with his tail between his legs.

But in the eyes of Mythal, he was always her friend. The one person who had always stood by her. She did not literally entrap him, or bind him. It was all in Solas’ own head.

He refused to take accountability for his actions, only able to survive through the crushing weight of his own guilt by blaming it on servitude to Mythal.

That’s why Rook escaped the prison. Because she faced her own choices, choices with terrible consequences, and accepted them. Took responsibility for them, and promised to do better.

Remember, after the Temple of Mythal…

Solas…

You gave yourself into the service of an ancient elvhen god!

What does that mean exactly?

You are Mythal’s creature now, everything you do whether you know it or not will be for her. *** You have given up a part of yourself.

***THIS WAS NEVER TRUE. IT WAS NOT TRUE FOR FLEMYTHAL & MORRIGAN, NOR WAS IT TRUE FOR ABELAS, NOR WAS IT TRUE FOR SOLAS. HE JUST WANTED TO BELIVE THAT IT WAS.

…I suppose it is better you have the power than Corypheus. Which leads to the next logical question… What will you do with the power of the Well once Corypheus is dead?

The war proved that we can’t go back to the way things were. I’ll try to help this world move forward. **Lavellan is talking about the mage/templar conflict, but Solas is putting her in his own shoes. Solas reached for power he could not control and fucked the whole world up.

You would risk everything you have with the hope that the future is better? What if it isn’t? What if you wake up to find that the future you shaped is worse than what was? **

**This is literally him asking her what she would do in his shoes. He woke up and the world was in chaos OF HIS MAKING. To prevent an evil HE CAUSED from spreading, he orchestrated the downfall of the people he loved and swore to protect.

I’ll take a breath, see where things went wrong, and then try again.

Just like that?

*He is in shock that she can be so cavalier about the guilt that has rocked him for (4?) millennia.

If we don’t keep trying, we’ll never get it right.

*And this is the only thing that calms him down.

You’re right. Thank You.

For what?

You have not been what I expected, Inquisitor, you have… impressed me.

You have offered hope that is one keeps trying, even if the consequences are grave… that someday, things will be better.

Then, of course, he takes this to mean that he needs to try to put The Evanuris in a different prison and take down the veil which isn’t at all what we meant sweetie but that’s okay get up and try again.

This is a classic case of a person in power not understanding the terrible, horrible consequences of unfettered power imbalances. Because Solas was always Friend to Mythal (Im not going into Freudian sex shit with you weirdos right now).

Solas was Mythals FRIEND.

Mythal was Solas’ EVERYTHING.

co·de·pend·en·cy

/ˌkōdəˈpend(ə)nsē/

noun

excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner,

His Mother, General, Creator, Protector, Queen, Goddess.

And he loved her so fiercely with every fiber of his new, physical being.

And he hated it.

And when Lavellan fell for him, and he for her, he was afraid.

Because he would never force a spirit against her purpose, and in his eyes the only way to love is the sick and twisted way he loved Mythal.

But again, from Mythal’s perspective, it wasn’t twisted. Solas was just Solas. And once again the powerful care not for the thoughts and opinions of those beneath them.

And that sin is on Mythal.

And that’s why she comes out and talks to Solas. Both aspects of her. To release him from the bonds that never existed. Be free, friend. You always were, but if you need me to say it I will because I love you.

“I pulled you from the fade and sent you into war. I used your wisdom as a weapon… and it broke you.”

Cole: Is there a way to save more spirits, Solas?

Solas: Not until the Veil is healed. The rifts draw spirits through, and the shock makes demons of them.

Cole: Pushing through makes you be yourself. You can hold onto the you. Being pulled through means you don't have enough you. You become what batters you, bruises your being.

Be free.

“The things that I have done…”

“Are not for you to bear alone, my friend. The many wrongs we did, we did together.”

And he COWERS before her. Shaking and shuddering. FNALLY being absolved of the guilt he’s carried since his inception.

“I release you from my service.”

And he SOBBS. At the RELIEF.

And Lavellan kneels before him (wrong, IMO because they should be equals but its fine)

And he can go back to his original purpose.

Not Pride.

Not Knowledge.

Not even Wisdom.

But Protection.   

“My life force now sustains the veil. With every breath I take, I will protect the innocent from my past failures.”

The Shepherds Wolf. Protecting his flock from those who would do them harm.

And Lavellan promises it won’t be terrible, as long as they’re together.

And maybe Solas can try this different kind of love. A love built on respect, and trust, instead of fear, and obedience.

And he can be his purpose, Protection, and also be a man. And love his vhenan.

Because he is free.

[ahyperactivehero]

If you're still feeling DBD drabbles I'd love some post-canon Edwin and Crystal bonding (making fun of celebrities together? studying magic? comparing rich neglectful parents?)

I love a good Edwin and Crystal bonding moment! I hope that if we ever get season 2 we get to see more of them bickering and bonding. Because these two remind me of me and my sibling so strongly it almost hurts <3

(reminder that i am taking election night drabbles, although i can't promise they'll be posted tonight. i'm working on as many as i can, but it is getting late! i'll likely finish most of them tomorrow unfortunately)

Drabble 2 

Crystal and Edwin were at war. Or at least, that’s what Crystal would have labeled themselves as. According to Charles this was simply, ‘Edwin when he likes you,’ which Crystal wanted to be judgemental about, but she had her memories back and she could remember what a menace she’d been to people she liked.

“It is not hard, Crystal,” Edwin stressed, leaning heavily on to the desk in front of him. At some point in time he had abandoned his coat and jacket and rolled his sleeves up in what had to be the most laid back outfit Crystal had ever seen him in.

Yet there was nothing relaxed about Edwin. She’d never known him to be a particularly relaxed person, but there was a strange undercurrent of stress that was running through him that she was pretty sure wasn’t always there.

She sighed again for what must have been the millionth time and dropped her phone onto the couch next to her. It’s not like anyone she actually liked contacted her that way. In fact, she’d been arguing with her mom the last time someone had actually reached out to her, which had only resulted in Crystal storming out of the house and crashing in the agency’s office for a few days.

Which brought them to where they were now. Edwin tapped the book in front of him, looking for all the world like a young teaching assistant annoyed with his students. “If you would simply try, I know you cou-”

Violently, she shoved herself up off of the couch. Her feet banged against the floor, almost loud enough to rattle the windows, and for once she was glad Charles wasn’t here. She didn’t want him to see her like this.

“I have tried, Edwin! I’ve tried, okay! Have you ever tried shutting up?!” she asked before throwing herself back down onto the couch, her back turned towards the world as if that might somehow block out the ghost.

One of Crystal’s favorite and least favorite things about Edwin was that he never seemed to be dissuaded by her poor attitude. Sometimes, it even seemed to encourage him. “If you had actually tried, you would have cast the spell,” Edwin said. There was no heat to his voice, not even an ounce of actual anger to him– even though Crystal was sure he was pissed.

She squeezed her eyes shut. Maybe if she did that she’d be able to block out Edwin’s voice and the tears at the same time. “I did try,” she said, all of the fire in her voice having faded until it sounded broken and sad.

The sound of soft footsteps filled the room. Edwin’s familiar sounding boots shuffled against the floor until he reached the couch and seemed to hover there for a moment. 

“Ah,” he said. “I see.”

And Crystal wasn’t sure what he meant until she rolled over and saw him looking at her phone. 

“You are fighting with your parents,” he said.

“So what?” she asked and snatched her phone out of his hands.

“So, magic, especially one as instinctual and ingrained as yours, is highly influenced by your emotions.” Crystal glared up at him from the corner of her eye, which forced him to hold his hands up in defense. “Not because you are a woman, or whatever else it is you might be thinking I meant. Just because magic works that way.”

They needed a new couch. She poked at a hole that had long since been worn into the cushion and pulled out a bit of stuffing before sticking it back inside. “So I’m just going to keep fucking it up?” she asked.

Edwin sat down on the floor with his back to the couch. It was almost easier to talk this way, the two of them back to back. At least then she didn’t have to see his judgmental face, and he wouldn’t have to see her cry.

Not that she was crying, of course.

“No,” Edwin said quietly. “You will not keep ‘fucking it up.’ Although it will likely take time for you to get used to doing magic with such intentions, not just relying on your instincts to guide you.”

She pulled another thing of stuffing out before shoving it back in. “What’s so wrong with instincts?” Her ancestors had done fantastically for her so far.

Edwin shuffled, but she couldn’t figure out what he had done. “Nothing. Instincts are, as Charles would say, brills. They help keep you alive and safe and have been developed for exactly that reason.”  He shifted again, and this time Crystal could feel him fully leaning back against the couch, and the goosebumps that a ghost in too close proximity caused raised along her skin. 

“But what happens if you can’t trust your instincts? What if something has changed or been manipulated and you can’t trust them?” he asked.

And Crystal knew they were talking about something heavy, something that Edwin would definitely rather not talk about with her. But here he was, talking about it with her just the same.

“You mean Hell?” she asked. She rolled over just enough to get a peek at the top of Edwin’s head. Even though she could see very little of him, she could tell that he was nervous and that made her nervous.

“Not strictly speaking of Hell. There are plenty of supernatural beings with the ability to manipulate you or your senses for their own gains.” He looked over his shoulder, his eyes barely catching hers. “But yes, I was referring to demons like David.”

Her nails had already been bitten down to the quick, but she chewed on them anyways. Buzzes shook the couch as more texts from her mom chimed in, likely just another rant about what an awful child she was and how she was making everything so difficult for them.

“They’re just saying those things because they feel like they are failing as parents,” Edwin said. He’d turned back away, his eyes staring into the closet as if it offered something particularly interesting inside. “And while that might be true, that does not mean that you are a failure.”

She snorted. “Oh yeah,” she said. “What do you know about it?”

Edwin’s sharp green eyes turned towards her before quickly cutting away. “You are hardly the only one to grow up with rich, neglectful parents,” Edwin said. “Why do you think I was sent away to school in the first place?”

Any and all fight she had had in her died. Fighting with Edwin was supposed to be fun and sharp and quick– it didn’t seem fair to fight him when he was being so honest.

A forced smile spread across her face as she reached out and bumped him with her hand. “Shoulda known you had rich parents,” she said. “Look at how you talk.”

Edwin furrowed his brow. “Everyone at school spoke the way I do.”

“Exactly.”

They sat in silence for a while before Crystal sighed and held out her hand. “Gimme the book,” she said. Which Edwin gracefully did.

The original language was too hard for Crystal to read, but Edwin had written it down in English and then wrote it out phonetically below that. It wasn’t very long, nor was it anything special, just a minor illusion spell. It wouldn’t be enough to trick anyone, or save her from a demon, but it was definitely a start. 

“Charles will be happy you’re trying again,” Edwin said as she ran her hands over the pages. 

“Oh yeah?” she asked. Was that a B or a D? Edwin’s handwriting was so nice it was almost hard to read.

“He takes his job very seriously as the brawn,” Edwin said, as if she needed to be told that. “But it makes him happy to know that you or I could defend ourselves with spells if we had to.”

Once again she snorted. “But you never do,” she said. “And I don’t see how this little spell is supposed to help.”

Edwin nodded. “Never need to. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to in return. Besides, this was one of the first spells I ever learned, and it's a great base to build on.”

And maybe that was a better way of looking at it. Not just defending herself or learning magic that some old, dead person other than Edwin had created when she could just use her own ancestral abilities. No, this was just another way to protect not only herself but the people she had come to love. 

Plus, wouldn’t it be nice to have a base spell that she could work on? If she could master this, maybe she could use some elements from it in her family's own magic.

Slowly, she read the words out as she tried to picture what she wanted to show Edwin. It wouldn’t be perfect, she was sure of that, but God if she wasn’t going to make this time work.

Purple petals and leaves filled the air as the image of the tree inside herself appeared in her palm. It was shaky, the picture almost glitchy and waving before reappearing slightly less detailed than before. It was as if someone had roughly sketched what was inside her without any special art talent.

But dammit, that was her tree, and she had cast it.

“It’s beautiful,” Edwin said. His eyes were wide, and he leaned in. Petals settled over him for a moment before passing through him on the way to the ground. She wondered if that was a ghost thing or a magic thing. 

“This is me,” she said. 

Edwin glanced at her before turning back to the tree. “Your ancestors’ tree,” he said, finally understanding. “I can only imagine how amazing it is in person.”

Pride she hadn’t expected to feel flooded her, filling her tree with even more light until it nearly blinded the two of them. Edwin folded her hands closed, shutting off the spell as they blinked spots from their vision.

She smiled sheepishly and he grinned back at her, one of the first true smiles she thought she had ever seen on his face. 

“We’ll work on that,” he said.

And they would.

[concreteangel92]

Do you write angst? Could you write something? You decide 😊

The One Who Never Was

Noah Sebastian x female reader

Warnings: Noah being a complete and utter fuck boy, talks of sex but nothing detailed, breakups, playing with someone’s feelings, gaslighting, love bombing, mental and emotional abuse, depression, co-dependency, unhealthy relationships, fwb, situationship, no happy ending in this story, drinking, self destructive behaviour, let me know if I’ve missed something!

Noah is not a nice person in this fic, if that is going to bother you then please don’t read. I did also picture long haired Noah when I was writing this.

I hope you all enjoy (if that’s the right word for a story like this ahaha) and I’m hoping to get back into my writing this week as I’m not back at work until Saturday (if I’m well enough) and this is the first time in about 6 weeks that I’ve been able to rest and do nothing so I’ll try and be productive with it

Tags: @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard @Ima1986 (never lets me tag you properly for some reason?)

“Hey fancy meeting up today? Feels like it’s been ages”

You nervously sat there waiting for Noah’s response, in your mind already knowing the answer.

You and Noah had been in this ‘situationship’ for a year now, you’d started off as just friends and then one night, it had all changed.

You’d not long been out of a bad relationship when Noah first text you and asked if you wanted to hang out, you knew what he wanted and at first you thought it was a good idea, help you move on from the last dickhead that you’d been with.

“Best way to get over a man is to get under one”

So you went.

After that night, Noah then wanted to date you, he’d asked to take you out for a meal but you’d politely declined as you wanted to stay single longer so you could heal but you spoke about being friends with benefits with him instead, something he was completely up for. Looking back, you had no idea of everything that was about to happen.

•••••

You were sitting on Noah’s sofa, a film was on in the background and Noah was cooking you both dinner.

“What do you think of this?”

Noah had walked back into the living room with his hand under a spoon, you wrapped your lips around it to taste his home made sauce for the chicken he was cooking.

“Oh my god, that’s amazing! Since when did you cook?”

He gave you a big smile and a cheeky wink as he replied “I’ve always loved cooking, it’s even better when I have someone to cook for”

You’d both be curled up on the sofa, eating his amazing food before you’d spend the rest of the night together in his bed.

Noah had this power of making you blush with every word he said, he always made you feel like you were the only woman in the world.

“You’re like no woman I’ve ever been with”

He’d text you first always, told you how he felt about you and that you were the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Oh shut up!”

“I’m serious, I don’t know how I’ve got so lucky to be with someone as gorgeous as you”

The fact he’d accepted the friends with benefits over an actual date made you feel he would wait for you, that he completely understood that you needed time.

And let’s talk about the sex. The sex was like nothing you’d ever experienced before, he was such a pleasure dom, making sure you were completely satisfied again and again and again.

No man has ever made you feel the things that he did, he was willing to do everything with you.

“Whatever you want to to try, I’m down for it, even the weird shit”

“Weird shit? 😂”

“Any kinks you might not have tried because others think they are weird, I’ll do it all for you”

Noah always held you until you feel asleep, you fighting it, not wanting the night to end.

“Shhh, I’m here”

His fingers would gently caress your cheek while your eyes became heavy, feeling so warm and content in his arms

You’d wish you had longer, knowing that by morning, you’d both be going about your day and then never knowing when you’d see him again due to your schedules.

At some point, during the long into night deep chats, the dinner dates, the small details that Noah always remembered and done, you fell for him.

••••••

“Sorry I can’t today, busy in the studio”

That was it, it was so cold and blunt, there was no warmth in his messages anymore. Not that your heart allowed you to fully see it.

You felt the tears prick at the corner of your eyes as your heart became heavy and you felt the sinking feeling in your gut.

All of your friends have told you to leave him, that he’s making his feelings clear but every time you have tried to pull away, Noah always had the right words to say or a good excuse for his actions.

So you stayed.

And here you were, a shell of the person you used to be, when you first started this with Noah, you had such a spark in your eyes and you felt so happy.

Now, happiness with him was like a drug, he was like a drug. You knew he was bad for you, you knew he was killing you. But you couldn’t stop.

You stared at the screen, almost like your will alone could change the words. You scrolled up and saw it was much the same.

“Hey you about today?” “Sorry I’m working today”

“Fancy some dinner later?” “Maybe. I’ll text you in a bit”

Unless he messaged you…

“Hey baby, you free today? I miss you”

“Yeah I’m free, what do you fancy?”

“You 😏”

“Cheeky haha no seriously, what do you want to do?”

“Come to mine and hang out?”

You knew every time that it would lead to sex, you prayed it would, so you never said no to him.

You convinced yourself that he loved you as much as you loved him. Over the last year, you’d never felt anything like it before.

The only way you could describe it was that whenever you were with him, your soul felt at home. It didn’t matter what you were doing, you could be doing nothing and you were so contented to be around him.

You were always laughing together, you fitted together physically and just overall seemed like each other’s perfect partner.

You saw him for who he was, not this big rock star. You knew the rumours about him but you saw another side to him, a side he wouldn’t let many see. You knew he loved you deep down. Noah just struggled to show it because of his past.

You knew you shouldn’t make excuses for him, what’s the age old saying?

If a man truly wants to be with you then they won’t let a single thing come in between you.

And Noah gave you excuses most of the time, would take hours to reply and then blame it on work. You knew that wasn’t always true but you just accepted the behaviour because you’d fallen in love with him.

You’d fallen in love with the man who made you laugh until your belly hurt, who looked at you like you were the only other person in existence. Noah had recently said that he loved you back for the first time.

••••••

2 weeks ago, the last time you saw him in person.

You’d gone out for a few drinks with your friends and knew Noah was out already so you gave him the invite, not actually expecting him to show up in all honesty.

So when you arrived at the bar so see Noah stood there with your favourite drink next to his, your heart swelled within your chest.

The smile he gave you matched your own, his hug was so warm and for a moment, you felt like the whole world had stopped.

You sat down with your friends, both next to each other and clearly not paying attention to anything else around you other than each other.

In the words that your friend text you later….“A bomb could have gone off in that bar and neither of you two would have known, you couldn’t take your eyes off each other”

You both laughed and chatted all night, it only when you were outside getting some air that you decided to be honest.

“I love you Noah, I know you won’t say it back because you’re scared but I love you”

Noah stood and stared at you for a moment before he smiled and brushed your hair behind your ear.

“I love you too, always have”

The feeling in that moment was indescribable, the man you truly believed you were meant to be with had finally said those words back. He had finally admitted his true feelings.

The rest of the night you felt like you were walking on a cloud, you knew now that everything was going to be ok. All the heartache and loneliness before Noah had lead you up to this moment. To know it was all worth it.

You couldn’t stop smiling all night, even after he’d said that he needed to go, you gave him a big kiss and a hug and said that you couldn’t wait to see him again and finally start dating properly and have a relationship.

For Noah to ghost for you about a week, every message you sent was left unread, all the phone calls ignored.

Every time you felt your heart shatter, how could he do this? Surely not after he’d admitted he loved you? Who can do that?

Your friends were adamant that he was playing you and that you needed to block him.

You sat and cried your heart out, you drank your pain away and tried to find the answers at the bottom of a bottle, you’d do anything to numb the pain that you were feeling.

The feeling of having your whole future ripped away after just being given to you was soul destroying. You have hardly slept, hardly eaten. The weight was falling off your body as the days had turned into weeks.

It was only a few days ago that you’d finally had a response from him.

“Sorry been so busy with work, hope you’re ok”

But when you tried to arrange to see him, you got all the excuses once again. The never ending story of this game of cat and mouse.

You’d even confronted him about his behaviour.

“How could you tell me that you loved me to then ghost me? Who does that?”

“I wasn’t lying to you, I honestly have been busy, I can’t just drop everything for you”

You knew it was wrong, but you still wanted him, you craved him.

••••••

Sipping on the vodka in your glass was the only comfort for you at this moment. You’d text your best friend but of course just had the same old reply.

“Just block him, he’s made his feelings clear, he’s making a complete fool out of you”

You decided enough was enough, you’d walk over to his and see him in person, you couldn’t take this uncertainty anymore.

Walking to Noah’s was almost like a dream, but not the good kind, the feeling of dread was making you feel sick with every step, especially by the time you were outside his front door.

Taking a deep breath, you rung the doorbell, every nerve in your body on edge in preparation for the confrontation you knew was coming.

After a moment, you heard the sound of footsteps before the door swung open to reveal Noah’s tall frame.

“What are you doing here?”

You were sure you looked awful, dark circles around your puffy eyes, hair a mess.

“I needed to speak to you, can I please come in?”

Noah looked annoyed but stepped aside so you could enter.

“I haven’t got long, I’m going out soon”

Your chest became tighter at his words, the excuses already starting.

“Then just be honest with me Noah. What the fuck am I to you?”

He looked slightly shocked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“You’re my friend y/n, I care a lot for you, you know that”

You couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.

“Do I? You told me you loved me and then ghosted me! No one is this fucking busy Noah! I’m tired of the games, I want you to be honest with me!”

The tears had already started, leaving a warm trail down your cheeks as you spoke.

Noah seemed to look anywhere but you, not able to meet your eyes as he answered.

“We have already been through this, I’ve just been busy”

“So you keep saying. May I remind you Noah that you originally chased me! You were the one who wanted to date, you were the one texting me and doing everything you could to make me fall for you! And now what? You just can’t be bothered anymore and don’t have the balls to tell me? You scared you’ll lose your booty call if you do?”

The last year was finally catching up with you, all the games and played feelings were coming to the surface, something you could clearly see was bothering Noah.

“Or are you too scared to actually commit because you’re frightened of getting hurt?”

“Are you for real? I’m not scared of anything!”

“Then why?!”

Noah throw his hands up in frustration and paced around.

“Because I don’t want to be with you! It’s that simple! You’re not the only girl I can have or have had! You’re a joke, you’re treating me like I’m your fucking boyfriend and I’m not, we were never dating!”

You stood in shock, how could he say that, although you never had an actual label, you’d been a couple in every way but the title and he knew that, he even wanted the two of you to be ‘exclusive to each other’.

But now it was starting to make sense, why he wouldn’t take it further.

“So you made me feel like I was the only woman for you, why? You told me that you loved me, said you wanted to be with me. Fucking hell, we even sat and told each other about all the dark shit in our pasts! You once said to me that I was the one person you never wanted to hurt!”

Noah’s face had become hard, a sign that he was shutting down from the conversation.

“And I didn’t. I’m not your boyfriend, I never have been and never will be. You’re making this all up in your head and you’re acting crazy. I’d like you to leave right now”

Your body was shaking and the tears wouldn’t stop falling as you stared at him. Your voice came out as barely a whisper.

“Where’s my Noah gone? My Noah would never have done any of this?”

Instead of answering, Noah simply opened the door, void of all emotion on his face. You stood in complete disbelief before you admitted defeat, your pride had already been shattered and you couldn’t take anymore.

You ran out of the door and kept running down his driveway. You collapsed at the corner of his road, the tears never stopping as your crying pulled your breath from your lungs.

You pulled out your phone and found Noah’s chat, the sinking feeling you had was confirmed when you’d tried to call but realised you’d been blocked.

You couldn’t wrap your head around it, your Noah, the man who made you feel so special and loved could never do this. Where was he?

•••••

The days turned into weeks, turned into months and the heartache never stopped.

Noah had ripped out your heart and broken you as a person. Your friend’s were always concerned for your mental state as you tried to navigate a life without him without any closure.

You didn’t see him again, unless it was online, but you knew he was just fine. Every time you saw his photo, he looked so happy and care free, he was living his dream, the band was starting to go viral and you knew this was only the beginning.

The rumours of who he was dating of course started to spread, each one like a knife to your heart.

You never got the closure your mind needed, you had to move on with no answers. Trying to piece yourself back together.

It was the hardest break up you’d ever gone through, and although others may say “well you weren’t actually together”

That was worse, he was the man you had completely fallen in love with, who never truly loved you back but made you feel like he did.

Noah was the one who never was.