#but none of the people available are RIGHT for my kind of yearning!!??!!?!!!!!!

[streatfeild]

oh shit. i‘m drunk and yearning for human connection. oh god

[thisislizheather]

March Magic 2023

Above Photo: Nothing better than this view

I do a million things the month of my birthday and I never regret it. Some people roll their eyes at the phrase “birthday week” or “birthday month” but those people tend to be supremely unhappy and I express my sympathy towards them. Here’s what happened in the birthday month!

The best tweets of the month can be found over here.

I recapped how I did with my winter list of things to do.

I made my new seasonal spring list of things I’d like to do.

Loving the new tomato leaf candle from Trader Joe’s as well as the great new sweet carrot cake from Bath & Body Works.

Above Photo: Tomato leaf candle from Trader Joe’s, March 2023

Above Photo: Sweet carrot cake candle from Bath & Body Works, March 2023

Ice skating in March with friends? Always a good idea.

Above Photo: 75% of us bought skates for this hahahah, it’s called FRIENDSHIP

You know the food blog Grandbaby Cakes? She just put out a new cookbook and the two main things I want to make from it? The salted butterscotch apple whiskey snacking cake as well as the chocolate pecan pie shortbread bars. 

If you have a NYC/Queens/Brooklyn library card, are you aware that you can get free tickets to museums all over the city?

I have made this chicken marsala at least three times this month, it might be my favourite way to eat chicken.

Above Photo: Chicken marsala should legally be eaten once a week

I bought this Banana Republic Factory funnel-neck sweater in black as well as white because it legit makes me feel like I have a 401k.

I know zero about coffee, but I’ve done this heating-the-press up method a few times now when I make iced coffee and I think it might taste better when you do it?? Nathan claims there’s no difference, so I might just be argumentative?

In love with the tomato potato chips from Eataly.

Above Photo: Available at Eataly, NYC

Will I ever use this pasta mold from Zara Home - or will I watch it sit on a kitchen shelf each day for twenty years while I yearn to be the type of person who uses a pasta mold?

Love this short article: Want to Lead a Better Life? The Secret Is in the Cemetery.

I had brunch at Quality Eats and the short rib hash was great, but really just inspired me to make it at home.

Above Photo: Short rib hash, Quality Eats

In birthday discount news…

Are you aware that Target gives you a measly 5% off one item on your birthday?! It’s so insulting, I wish they’d just do away with it altogether, it’s pathetic. Why are brands becoming such ingrates when it comes to customer loyalty?

I went to Ulta for my free March birthday gift and they were “out of stock” at TWO locations. And nothing was offered in its place. SWEET.

Milk Bar is supposed to offer some kind of birthday something, but since their loyalty “program” is so new, none of the employees have been taught what the benefits of the program even are. WHAT IS HAPPENING?? (Sidenote: am I the only one who think their cookies suck?)

You know the bra store I love, Journelle? They got rid of their birthday month discount, too! So I guess all these companies have decided that our collective slow march towards death with include ZERO BIRTHDAY PERKS. Cool cool cool.

I tried the crab rangoon March special at Mimi Cheng’s and they were only all right, why is everything disappointing me lately? They weren’t terrible, just too cream-cheesy. While we’re on the topic, on what planet does crab need cheese to accompany it? Seems dumb.

Above Photo: March Special (crab rangoon dumplings), Mimi Cheng’s

I also tried this newish Croatian restaurant in Astoria, Selo, and it was absolutely nothing special. I may have to stop giving such credence to the critics at Eater.

My niece Layla got me an incredible birthday gift - a ticket to Tao of Glass, which the New York Times called “a fantastical and often moving tribute to the composer Philip Glass and the power of art to flow through our lives.” IT WAS SO GOOD. Philip Glass was even there on opening night, which was too exciting and I was floored by the whole evening. God, I love it when someone knows you so well and can arrange the most perfect gift.

Above Photo: March 2023

I bought new jeans after maybe a decade and I can’t be more in love with these ribcage straight ankle Levi’s I got.

Some things I’ve watched: 

Tusk: I absolutely hate when American directors talk about Canada in their films, it’s always embarrassing. And jesus, the dialogue in the scene with the girlfriend: has Kevin Smith ever spoke to a girlfriend before? Needless to say, I severely hated the entire movie. I hate torture stuff. Weird that even needs to be said because doesn’t everyone? Johnny Depp was terrible. One of the most originally awful movies I’ve ever seen.

Scream VI: THE WORST SCREAM OF THE ENTIRE SERIES. I vowed not to even see this because I remain #teamneve but Nathan insisted so I begrudgingly went. What a shit show. It was terrible. I’ll never go to another one again, which is a little sad but also fuck everyone involved who thought it was an acceptable idea to move forward without Neve Campbell.

Frantic: I didn’t even know it was a Polanski movie until the end since Harrison Ford was the main draw here. It’s actually a great idea for a movie, but it just trails off midway through so I can understand why no one talks about this movie.

Succession: So I’ve only seen the first few episodes and here’s the thing… it’s legitimately a bad show. The dialogue is so terribly written, I’m actually confused why people praise it so much. NOBODY CALLS THEIR SIBLING SIS. Words can’t express how much I hate the camera work. Shiv’s American accent is wildly bad. I know we’re all desperate for a good show to watch, but the lies need to stop. This is unwatchable.

I’m not sure that I can even speak about it, but I went to a private rehearsal of a play with Michael McKean and good god, I love that man. I met him afterward and he was so kind and lovely, it was unreal. I mean, it’s Mr. Green for god’s sake.

So in love with these new USPS railroad station stamps. I may or may not have made a list of where each station is incase I ever find myself in that city so I can see it in real life.

Above Photo: Can I meet and hug the person who came up with this stamp idea?

I’ve been looking for a real fur coat for a few years now and I finally found her at Exile Vintage in Toronto. It was such a steal because the inner lining was shred, but my mom sewed it all up and it’s absolutely perfect now. So excited to throw out my faux-fur teddy bear coat from Marshalls that every. single. woman. owns.

There was an insane sale at Steve Madden in Soho and I got these new wedge heels for $16. To be clear, that’s $8 PER SHOE.

Above Photo: But can they replace my Terminators? Time will tell.

I saw the new Broadway play Shucked and… yikes. Yes, it was corniness taken to a whole new level, but parts of it were okay. If you love Rodney Dangerfield jokes, then this production was made for you.

Above Photo: March 2023

I also saw Pictures From Home with Nathan Lane and it was slow at first, but really picked up and got good. Love that man.

Above Photo: March 2023

I made a tres leches cake and words cannot describe how heavenly it was. Even if you suffer from dairy issues, I’d recommend that you pound a few Lactaids and eat this immediately.

Above Photo: Tres leche cake

I finally had lunch at Wayan (Jean-Georges’ son’s place) and I can’t wait to return. Best dishes: the corn fritters, the spring rolls (maybe my favourite at any restaurant ever), the lamb kebabs and the chocolate chip cookie with cheddar ice cream. The crab fried rice (which I was most excited for) actually wasn’t anything that special, though.

I had my birthday dinner at The Grill in the Seagram Building (the office building from Scrooged) and it was so great, if not insanely priced. The pasta appetizer was the most incredible thing we ate - they used this crank-type machine table-side to make the broth for the pasta sauce out of MEAT BONES and I can’t stop thinking about it. The other highlight was the gluten-free zucchini cornbread, which was magical. The only downside? Do not get the crab cake - $50+ for the most underwhelming appetizer of your life.

Above Photo: Pasta appetizer, The Grill (a must order)

Above Photo: Vowing to wear more tulle on a daily basis

The Mets promotional giveaways were announced if you care!

Some spring recipes I’d love to make:

Lemony Green Pea Fritters with Cottage Cheese

Banana, Pecan, Coconut and Chocolate Chip Blondies

Cadbury Egg Blondies (I’ve never even made a blondie before, but the urge is strong this season)

Lemon Almond Pudding Cake (love a texturally weird cake)

Carrot Cake Ice Cream (no ice cream maker needed)

Spring Couscous Bowls with Lemon Feta Vinaigrette (I made this last year and it’s spring in a bowl)

Things I’m looking forward to: I visited the insanely gorgeous Kings Theatre in Brooklyn so I’ll do a post about it this week, finally trying the bone marrow gravy at Hawksmoor, I have to get my hands on the Easter Dove Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Eggs, I’m trying to get a last minute lottery to see the Phantom of the Opera in its final days, I will find all of the NYC cherry blossoms, seeing the rooftop exhibit when it opens at The Met on the 18th, and finally going on a tour of the old City Hall subway station (this has been a dream of mine for years).

If you’ve got any interest in reading last month’s roundup, you can see what went down in February over here.

Above Photo: Baby Dog witnesses snow, March 2023

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

Hot takes about Severus Snape are a wierdly decent glimpse into how a person with progressive values analyses things. Literally every time someone talks about Snape, it’s like this tiny window into how one-dimentionally people actually think.

Recently saw a twitter post that was a fantastic example. Here’s how it goes (paraphrasing):

Person A:“Snape is POC and Queer coded, that’s why you guy’s hate him uwu lol.”

Person B: “Actually I hate him because he was mean and abusive to children under his care uwu but go off I guess lol”

Both of these takes are designed to be dramatic and/or reactionary. They each use partial truths to paint very broad strokes. These are get-em-in-one-hit quips. This is virtue signalling, if you’ll excuse that loaded phrase. Nobody had a substantial conversation, but now everyone who sees their statement knows the high ground they took.

At least a hundred other people chimed in to add their own little quippy hot takes into play, none of which add anything significant, but clearly made everyone feel very highly of themselves.

So many layers of nuance and complex analysis is completely lost in this kind of discussion. On tumblr, you get more of this kind of bullshit, but you don’t have a word count limit, so you guys just spew endless mountains of weak overblown evidence backing up your bullshit arguments, none of which was really about engaging in a real conversation anyway.

Here’s the thing about Snape.

He is a childhood domestic abuse victim. His abuser is a muggle.

He becomes a student at a magical school that takes him away from his abuser and immediately instills in him the idea that being a part of this magical world is a badge of self-worth, empowerment, and provides safety and security - provided that he keeps in line.

There is a war is being waged in that world over his right to exist (he is a half blood).

He is a marginalized person within the context of the narrative, forced to constantly be in the same living space as the children of his own oppressors who are being groomed and recruited into a hate group militia (the pureblood slytherins). They are in turn trying to do the same to him.

He is marginalized person bullied by children who are also part of his oppressor group, but who have “more liberal” leanings and aren’t direct about why he’s being targeted (the mauraders are all purebloods, Sirius, who was the worst offender, was raised in a bigoted household, the same one that produced Bellatrix.).

He had a crush on a girl who is a muggleborn, and therefore she is considered even lesser than him and carries a stigma to those who associate with her. That girl was his only real friend. In his entire life.

For both Snape and Lily, allying themselves to a pureblood clique within their own houses would be a great way of shielding themselves from a measure of the bigotry they were probably facing. There would have been obvious pressure from those cliques to disconnect with one and other.

Every other person who associates with Snape in his adulthood carries some sort of sociopolitical or workplace (or hate cult) baggage with their association. Some of them will physically harm and/or kill him if he steps out of line. He hasn’t at any point had the right environment to heal and adjust from these childhood experiences. Even his relationship with Dumbledore is charged with constant baggage, including the purebloods who almost killed him during their bullying getting a slap on the wrist, the werewolf that almost killed him as a child being placed in an authority position over new children, etc. Dumbledore is canonically manipulative no matter his good qualities, and he has literally been manipulating Snape for years in order to cultivate a necessary asset in the war.

He is a person who is not in the stable mental state necessary to be teaching children, whom has been forced to teach children. While also playing the role of double agent against the hate group militia, the one that will literally torture you for mistakes or backtalk or just for fun. The one that will torture and kill him if he makes one wrong move.

Is the math clicking yet? From all of this, it’s not difficult to see how everything shitty about Snape was cultivated for him by his environment. Snape was not given great options. Snape made amazingly awful choices, and also some amazingly difficult, courageous ones. Snape was ultimately a human who had an extremely bad life, in which his options were incredibly grim and limited.

In fact, pretty much every point people make about how shitty Snape is as a person makes 100% logical sense as something that would emerge from how he was treated. Some if it he’s kind of right about, some of it is the inevitable reality of suffering, and some of it is part of the cycle of abuse and harm.

Even Snape’s emotional obsession with Lily makes logical sense when you have the perspective that he literally has no substantial positive experiences with other human beings that we know of, and he has an extreme, soul destroying guilt complex over her death. Calling him an Incel mysoginist nice guy projects a real-world political ideology and behavior that does not really apply to the context of what happened to him and her.

Even Snape’s specific little acts of cruelty to certain students is a reflection of his own life experiences. He identifies with Neville; more specifically, he identifies his own percieved emotional weaknesses in his childhood in Neville. There’s a very sad reason there why he feels the urge to be so harsh.

Snape very clearly hates himself, in a world where everyone else hates him, too. Imagine that, for a second. Imagine total internal and external hatred, an yearning for just a little bit of true connection. For years. Imagine then also trying to save that world, even if it’s motivated by guilt. Even if nobody ever knows you did it and you expect to die a miserable death alone.

There are more elements here to consider, including the way Rowling described his looks (there may be something in there re: ugliness and swarthy stereotyping). These are just the things that stand out the most prominently to me.

J.K. Rowling is clearly also not reliable as an imparter of moral or sociopolitical philosophies. I don’t feel that her grasp of minority experiences is a solid one, considering how she picks and chooses who is acceptable and who is a threat.

All of that said, this is a logically consistent character arc. Within the context of his narrative, Snape is a marginalized person with severe PTSD and emotional instability issues who has absolutely no room available to him for self-improvement or healing, and never really has. And yes, he’s also mean, and caustic, and verbally abusive to the students. He’s also a completey miserable, lonely person.

There are elements in his character arc that mirror real world experiences quite well. If nothing else, Rowling is enough of an emotional adult to recognise these kinds of things and portray something that feels authentic.

In my opinion, it’s not appropriate to whittle all this down by comparing him directly to the real world experiences of marginalized groups - at least if you are not a part of the group you are comparing him to. There have been many individuals who have compared his arc to their own personal experiences of marginalization, and that is valid. But generally speaking, comparing a white straight dude to people who are not that can often be pretty offensive. This is not a valuable way to discuss either subject.

Also, I believe that while it’s perfectly okay to not like Snape as a character, many of the people who act like Person B are carrying Harry’s childhood POV about Snape in their hearts well into their own adulthood. And if nothing else, Rowling was attempting to say something here about how our perspectives (should) grow and change as we emotionally mature.  She doesn’t have to be a good person herself to have expressed something true about the world in this instance, and since this story is a part of our popular culture, people have a right to feel whatever way they do about this story and it’s characters.

The complexity of this particular snapshot of fictionalized marginalization, and what it reveals about the human experience, cannot be reduced down to “he’s an abuser so he’s not worth anyone’s time/you are bad for liking him.”

And to be honest, I think that it reveals a lot about many of us in progressive spaces, particularly those of us who less marginalized but very loud about our values, that we refuse to engage with these complexities in leu of totally condemning him. Particularly because a lot of the elements I listed above are indeed reflected in real world examples of people who have experienced marginalization and thus had to deal with the resulting emotional damage, an mental illness, and behavior troubles, and bad decisions. Our inability to address the full scope of this may be a good reflection of how we are handling the complexity of real world examples.

Real people are not perfect angels in their victimhood. They are just humans who are victims, and we all have the capacity to be cruel and abusive in a world where we have been given cruelty and abuse. This is just a part of existing. If you cannot sympathise with that, or at least grasp it and aknowledge it and respect the people who are emotionally drawn to a character who refects that, then you may be telling on yourself to be honest.

To be honest, this is especially true if you hate Snape but just really, really love the Mauraduers. You have a right to those feelings, but if you are moralizing this and judging others for liking Snape, you’ve confessed to something about how you’ve mentally constructed your personal values in a way I don’t think you’ve fully grasped yet.

I have a hard time imagining a mindset where a story like Snape’s does not move one to empathy and vicarious grief, if I’m honest. I feel like some people really just cannot be bothered to imagine themselves in other people’s shoes, feeling what they feel and living like they live. I struggle to trust the social politics of people who show these kinds of colors, tbh.

But maybe that’s just me.

[apixrl]

DRIVER'S LICENSE.

katsuki bakugou x fem! reader

WARNING(S): angst. cheating. swearing because it's bakugou.

word count: 4.5k

song: drivers license // olivia rodrigo (i wonder why...)

note(s): so i captioned this *at the time of writing* 'hello and welcome to i've had the worst two weeks ever so i wrote a katsuki oneshot to cope' and it's probably one of my most personal pieces of writing tbh

"-come Tuesday and we'll potentially see an end to this heavy downpour of rain. Temperatures will be on the rise to around-"

The talk on the radio cut short at the jab of your finger, heaving a great sigh which faded into the muffled pitter-patter of rain from outside. The streets had been showered with heavy downpours for the last week or so, no sign of sun or a still and restful day. Notwithstanding the miserable outdoors, the windscreen wipers on your car never ceased in their duty to grant you a clear view of the road ahead. And whilst you were grateful for their devotion, it didn't feel clear in the slightest. In fact, the road had never felt so blurry.

Shivering against the cold night chill and tucking your knees cosily to your chest, you eyed the raindrops on the windows. They raced against one another before they dripped down to your car's body, their glossy presence obvious thanks to the many hues of street lamps that surrounded them. You could have watched them for hours, being honest. Something about the droplets of water battling it out quite enticing. Anything to take you away from the cruel reality you were living in.

Your heart ached and yearned. But to no avail, the one you ached and yearned for didn't love you back.

Not anymore, at least.

Just the mere thought provoked a pulsating pang to resonate throughout your entire body. A pang filled with grief and sadness. Anger and hurt. You missed his sun-kissed face on the sunny mornings. You missed his eyes and how they gazed at you from across the room. You missed the smiles and laughter he would only show for you and you alone. The sense of glee and euphoria that came with that honour. Yet all of it was gone and there was no way you could get it back.

The memories of what had been triggered more waterworks. Hot, salty tears dug at the corners of your eyes and trickled down your face. Your motionless car concealed your cries and sobs. Every thrash against the wheel as you questioned to nobody in particular what went wrong and why. How you didn't see the signs sooner. What you could have done better. When he stopped loving you. If he ever planned to stop loving you. Whether it would have hurt more if you found out sooner.

All these questions with nothing to answer them.

Katsuki Bakugou had always fascinated you. From the very moment you met. You accompanied your friend on a double date, and he was the guy who she matched for you. Whilst he originally acted as though a blind date was the last place he wanted to be, underneath the aggression you could tell there was something much more genuine and true.

And your assumptions were correct. Truth be told, Katsuki Bakugou was one of the most genuine and truest people you had met (at the time). Once it was just the two of you, he allowed his true colours to unveil. Through the smallest of kind gestures that still haunted your mind to this day. Then upon confrontation, as you bid each other goodbye at your back door, his denial resulted in a flirtatious contest which then proceeded to an intimate night that changed your life forever. From there your mind was set.

He was the one.

Emphasis on was.

So blinded with a fairy tale love you grew so accustomed to, you never saw it coming. Never in your two-year relationship - that had so much strength and commitment built on top of it, never did you think that Katsuki Bakugou would throw it all out of the window like it was nothing. Disregard your loyalty and adoration for a drunken one night stand that slowly became an occasional hookup. Which soon became a mandatory pastime once a fortnight. Then twice. Maybe more than that. You wouldn't put it past him with what you knew now.

He kept it from you for nearly six months. Six months. The only reason you discovered his lies and deception was because you were let off early one night from work. You worked a night shift, see. Your last job had fallen to shambles, and it was temporary whilst you searched for a new one. And whilst that did take a toll on your relationship with Katsuki Bakugou, mostly finding time for intimacy since his working hours were during the day, none of that gave him any right to go and do what he did.

That wasn't one of the only reasons, you knew that for sure. There were other motives for his lack of loyalty. But you were never told. After you froze at the sight of another woman under his hold and stormed straight back to your car to flee. After he chased you down the flights of stairs in nothing but baggy pants into the streets of a twilight Musutafu. After you screamed into the darkness and belted your fists against his chest. Fists that were driven with rage and hurt and every emotion that burned like the hottest of fires and froze like the coldest of ice. He never even told you. He never made an effort to address it. Nor had he attempted to call or even try to visit your Mom's house - where you stayed as you searched for a permanent place to live. Just because you retreated for your car and cried that it was over, he never tried. But that didn't mean you weren't allowed an explanation. An apology. Something to give you a form of closure and a reason to move on. But you never did.

That wasn't even what hurt the most, either.

As silly as it was, the thing that hurt you the most was the very car you sat in.

EIGHT MONTHS AGO . . .

The red glow of traffic lights hit Katsuki's vermilion irises as he stared dead ahead at the long line of vehicles, the ash-blond heaving a sigh into the air. His finger tapped impatiently against the steering wheel he gripped with one hand, the spare rested casually against your upper thigh affectionately.

"I can't believe we have to sit through this torture just to go to some damn party," Katsuki grumbled, taking a glance over at you. His brows furrowed when he met you peacefully slouched down, nose dug into your phone as you presumably played some sort of game to pass the time. Like you had no care in the world for your predicament.

"It's your best friend's birthday, love," You mused back, Katsuki surprised you even listened based on your focused expression directed towards your phone. "It's not like we can just miss it,"

"Yeah, but we could have missed all this pain by taking the train instead of driving across town during rush hour,"

"Trains are icky, the seats would have ruined your suit and my dress," You pointed out, looking at the blond over your screen, sending him a sweet smile. He cocked a brow, a smirk creeping its way onto his lips as a scoff of a laugh broke out between them.

"Right, and laying down like a sloth is gonna help keep your dress uncreased?" He returned, amused at your realisation. At his comment, you sat up faintly and pouted your lip.

"Driving means more time to play Gravity Pops, and so does traffic,"

"Seriously? That's the game you're playing? You're such a dumbass,"

"Yes! I'm in the top 11% globally! I need to get to number one!" Was your protest, your arms flailing ahead of you briefly for dramatic emphasis. Katsuki clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes, though the small smile plastered over his lips betrayed his initial reaction. Unable to deny your determination, he spoke with confidence and almost a sense of pride.

"Number one, hm? Clearly rubbing off on you aren't I?"

"In a way, yes,"

"That's my girl," Katsuki remarked, earning a giggle from you that was uplifting to hear. It was there your attention went back to your phone, but Katsuki wasn't done. "So, speaking of cars, Y/N," Hearing his chosen tone - which sounded suggestive, you eyed him closely. Hesitant to reply as you had a sense of what he planned to say.

"...Yes?"

"Have you thought any more about getting your driver's license yet?"

Called it.

"...No,"

"What?" Katsuki began, tilting his head. He was surprised that he felt surprised. You had said those words in regards to this topic countless times. Still, he persisted. "Is that a no meaning you haven't or no meaning that you don't want to?"

"Both?" You half-guessed, sheepishly grinning at the look you were sent. "Look, cars scare me okay? And so do roads. And people. My nerves wouldn't be able to handle it! I can barely communicate with people face to face, so me being on the road is a recipe for disaster!"

"I know but -," Katsuki exhaled sharply, understanding your reasoning. You had voiced these concerns when confiding to Katsuki about your fears of the road. Something built and corrupted from social media as well as phobias and fears in general, it was a battle you had yet to overcome. You wanted to drive but was terrified of messing up or causing chaos on the road. Potentially inflicting harm to someone and yourself. You still weren't sure what triggered it all, but over the years it had manifested into something quite irrational, to say the least. Katsuki had been supportive of it and whilst he truly would love to always act as your personal taxi - you couldn't hide from it forever. It wasn't his job to keep you in your comfort zone. That, and he couldn't always be there for you that way. What if he was miles away and you had somewhere urgent to go like the hospital? "It's not as scary as you think. I know it's hard to believe that but seriously. The freedom you get from driving is amazing,"

"I'll think about it a little longer, okay?" You said with hesitancy, looking at Katsuki for a sign of confirmation. He nodded in defeat, knowing you probably needed more time and felt put on the spot. So he averted his eyes back to the road to check if the traffic had moved at all. It had not.

"Okay," Katsuki said. "But I can't be your taxi service forever,"

"But I like you being my taxi service," You jokingly said, a little sadness in your tone. "Your road rage is funny and I like watching you get out of the car and walk to my door after pulling up in my driveway,"

"What do you mean?" Katsuki asked, catching the twitch of a smile on your face upon saying those words. It struck his interest in what you could mean.

"You know, like when you say you're coming to pick me up?" You explained. "You pull up at my driveway and I don't know... simple things like that just remind me of how much I love you. It's dumb really, but it's important to me,"

"Really?" Katsuki questioned in disbelief. How something so small and meaningless could mean so much was puzzling. He couldn't understand why it was so special to you. But that didn't invalidate it in any shape or form. So he pushed that aside, replacing his wonder with gratitude. He returned to your bashful and flustered features, feeling a smile grow on his face.

"Yeah," You said, shrugging to downplay your words. "I love you. Stuff like that means a lot to me,"

"I love you too, even though you're a dumbass," Katsuki said, humbled by what you had said. The two of you shared a gentle exchange, your hand grabbing hold of Katsuki's as you gave it a squeeze. He squeezed back, and silence ensued. Had he realised such a thing sooner, then Katsuki would have pulled up in your driveway much more than he had been doing. But at that a thought struck his mind, victoriously smirking as he had an idea on how to potentially sway your worries. Or begin swaying it. Something was better than nothing, after all. "But what if I wanted you to pull up in my driveway one day?" His words caused you to look over at him in curiosity, hearing the seriousness in the question. It caught you off guard momentarily, having to contemplate as you gradually concluded that he had a point.

"Well one day, maybe I will," You vaguely replied and sat up a little bit. The hand holding yours pulled back and lifted to land on your shoulder, gripping reassuringly tight.

"I hope you do, I'd like to get in on this driveway action," He joked and smirked, faith riddled in his expression. You giggled ever so slightly, tempted to lean forward and peck Katsuki on the lips in thanks, but never a thing was to happen as the alerting red light from outside switched to warm amber.

"Ah!" Katsuki yelled in triumph, his attention leaving you swiftly as he got back into the driver's seat. Giving you no opportunity to respond to him and overall ruining the moment. "Took fucking long enough!"

The light turned green, and he set the car in motion, leaving you with your thoughts and the words he had uttered that day as the traffic stood still.

All your efforts, all your time devoted to getting over your fear of driving and the road as a whole... all of it was pointless. You did it for him. You promised him you would overcome your fears and better yourself. He built that motivation up brick by brick until you could grab hold and seize control. He wasted all that time to get you to reach such a stepping stone only to abandon it once it was through.

Just so you could pull up in his driveway, just like he requested. And what did you get in return when you finally did? A stab in the back and the loss of your other half.

You wiped your eyes via the sleeve of your hoodie, dampening the cuffs. Sniffling and exhaling a shaky breath, your gaze landed on nothing in particular. Yet somewhere within your clouded mind, you found interest. As that was where your gaze remained for a certain amount of time. You weren't sure how long exactly. It could have felt like an hour and only been five minutes. Or it could have felt like five minutes and was actually an entire hour. Either way, the clock ticked on and didn't wait for you to stop.

It was a good thing you had pushed your fears down and rose above them. It just pained you that you didn't even do it for yourself. Without Katsuki Bakugou, you never had any intentions of doing so. As a matter of fact, you had set out to take the train or bus for the rest of your life. Hell, you were going to use a bike and scooter if you got desperate. Had he even acknowledged how much work you put in just to get where you were? Was all that effort part of the reason why he decided to cheat? There was absolutely no telling. Absolutely no telling at all.

You wondered what he was doing now. Was he laid in bed resting peacefully? Out with his friends for a boy's night only? Maybe cooking his favourite curry? Possibly on a late-night jog despite the harsh weather? It never stopped him other times.

Did he ever think about you? Regret what he did and the actions he took? Had he ever considered apologising? Would he ever apologise? What if he was celebrating the fact you were no longer in his life? Had there ever been any love there for you in the start? Did he ever actually want you to get your driver's license because he believed in you? Or was it so he could get rid of you with much more ease? Make his departure less severe and less selfish? A way to justify his choices because it's not like you were hopelessly left to suffer everyday life now that you had a means of transport. Was he really that cruel?

Your thoughts were interrupted by the sharp jingle of your phone, the device lighting up as it sat in the passenger seat to your left. It took two or three rings for you to glance over at it, E/C eyes sore and drained from crying out. You squinted them to read the caller, seeing the name 'Work' fade in and out on the brightly lit screen. For a second or two you argued back and forth on whether to even bother picking up. Something about reaching across for your phone requiring a magnitude of energy you no longer possessed. Having spent it all on your cries of agony and the deprivation of your old life as a whole.

However, you had ignored your work in the last couple of weeks too many times now. So many times that pulling the same stunt again would probably risk you losing your job. It's not like your work was interested in why you felt such overwhelming pain... all they cared about was you turning up to do what you were hired to.

So using a forceful hand, you leaned over to pick it up. You fumbled to grip your phone and accepted the call with a dainty tap of your thumb. Then you blinked away your tears and subtly sniffed, pressing your phone to your ear to address the caller.

"Hello?" You practically croaked, quick to clear your throat and push any signs of upset down. It was presumably dry from how much you'd cried in the last two hours.

"L/N! Hey! Glad you finally picked up!" Unlike the droll and unvarying tones of your boss, the person on the other end was much more lively and greeting. So much so you could only assume it was none other than your work colleague, Etsuko. Probably the only person you genuinely liked where you worked, and the only person who made the time pass by faster. "I was worried you were gonna leave me on answer phone again,"

"Hm, what? Oh right. Yeah. Sorry about that. Haven't been feeling too great," You lied, even though it wasn't a complete fib. You hadn't been feeling great at all. You had never felt so rock bottom. It all just originated from your mind over anything else. But when did work care about that?

"Sounds like it, I hope you've been okay!" Still cheery as ever, Etsuko followed up with a laugh to fill the silence you created by not saying anything. "Is everything well? It's nothing serious, is it?"

"No. It's not. Just some dumb cold I caught," You excused. "I'm better now, though," Slouching down in your seat, you decided to ask the question that had been roaming your mind the last minute or so. "So why are you calling?"

"Oh, right!" Etsuko said. "Mr Kobashigawa was just wondering when you planned on coming back - for schedule reasons and to get people to fill in for your shifts,"

"I er...," Not entirely sure how to answer, you stuttered as your words cowered away in your attempt to speak. "I don't -,"

"It's okay, he doesn't need an answer yet," Etsuko reassured. "Maybe in the next day or two, though? He wasn't really specific, being honest,"

You sighed at the guilt brewing in your stomach. You weren't even sick for crying out loud! Why were you lying just so you could wallow in your own sadness?! Like that was going to change anything! Sitting around and crying wasn't going to give you what you wanted. You weren't getting him back. Katsuki Bakugou wasn't yours anymore. He made that clear by cheating. By making minimal effort to give you an explanation. By causing you so much pain with little care or concern. Why couldn't you get it through your thick skull that your feelings didn't matter anymore?! That they were being wasted on a lost cause. A lost relationship!

"Well I mean -," You started, running a hand through your hair as you tread carefully on your words. "I could come in tonight? Has Mr Kobashigawa got someone to fill for me yet?"

"Um... no? I don't think so?" Etsuko answered, uncertainty in her voice. "Let me go check. Be right back!" And with that, the line fell dead. The call didn't end, just Etsuko placing the phone down to get an answer for you. Leaving you all by your lonesome once more.

Reflecting, you could see the logic in your thoughts. The best course of action would be to hold your head up high and live life the way it was before. When you were happy. Just... excluding the factors that actually made you happy. Which was him. Wouldn't that be healthier than crying all the time?

Yes, it would. But was it what you wanted? Not really.

"L/N!" The voice in your ear startled you to the point you nearly dropped your phone, panicking through a gasp as you fiddled to grab hold of it again.

"Wa-! Careful you nearly scared me half to death!"

"Oops, sorry!" Etsuko giggled softy, sounding as perky as ever. "I'm just excited to tell you that nobody's filling in your shift! You can still come in for ten-thirty!"

"I-I can?" You asked. After an upbeat 'yeah!' filtered through your ears, you considered your options. Remaining in the serene, quiet confines of your car with only the downfall of rain to accompany you sounded like utter bliss, given how you felt. But you felt an internal kick up the backside which told you - no... demanded you to just get over this moping attitude of yours and look on the bright side. To get over the lack of closure and simply... move on.

Yeah... if he found out you were an utter train wreck thanks to the damage he inflicted; Katsuki Bakugou would probably revel in it. He had a history of gaining pleasure from other's misfortunes... or it was rumoured he did (during his younger years, anyway). You had never wanted to believe it but you couldn't find a reason to refute it anymore. After all you had been through, it seemed to fit his character and personality more than ever. So with that fact apparent, you held a firm forefront and searched for a determined tone, and made your answer to your friend.

"You betcha I'm coming in! I'll see you in half an hour!"

Too enthusiastic? Probably. Still, it was better than acting pessimistic and hopeless. No matter, however, because that was exactly the attitude Etsuko had been hoping for.

"Alrighty!" She exclaimed, smile audible in her voice from the other end. "I can't wait to get our dynamic duo going again! I've missed you!"

"Yeah, me too, 'Suko," You hummed in agreement.

"Great! Catch ya later my partner in crime,"

"Heh. You too, dumbass," You found a reason to smile from her childish behaviour, though your choice of wording seemed to hit a nerve. It did more than that, it practically reverted all that confidence and progress you had made in the last ten minutes of being on the phone. All from one innocent word that escaped your lips.

Dumbass.

That's what he used to call you.

The phone call had ended without you even noticing, your phone still pressed to your ear as a small buzz sounded into it. You stared dead ahead, flashes of all the times he had said that word to you running through your memory. It was his form of a pet name. Some might see it as a little degrading on the surface, but you never minded. Once you learned the deeper meaning of the name, it became something equivalent to the likes of 'Sunshine' or 'Angel'. If anything, you ended up preferring it to those sorts of nicknames. Hence why Katsuki Bakugou had called you it on so many occasions.

No. Stop it. You can't let something like that bother you. Not after the efforts you just went to. Stop. Shaking yourself out of it, you returned to reality and permitted your phone to drop onto your lap. Your hand once holding it gripped onto your steering wheel, the other following shortly behind to do the same.

"I love you too, even if you're a dumbass,"

That rung in your head one final time, tormenting and mocking your present. The things you'd be willing to do to hear him say that to you one last time...

"No," You firmly shook your head, banging it lightly against the headrest to return yourself to reality. An attempt to knock those words to the back of your mind where you could lock them in a securely tight safe for the rest of eternity. "Just... just don't think about it. Easy. Just focus on what you're doing now," You reached for your keys which sat in the ignition, taking hold and turning them ever so slightly. Your car stirred to life, engine rumbling and the dials lighting up in a form of warm greeting. "You're going to work. No more feeling sorry for yourself,"

No more feeling sorry for yourself.

Your eyes set themselves on the road ahead. The vacant, dark and solitary road that didn't wait for you to make your decision. Life moved on after all, so if you were going to do anything - it was to catch up and take the winning lead.

So despite your circumstances; your inner desires and wishes and begs for what you wanted back but to no avail would ever get, you pulled out of your parking space (which had long exceeded the time limit, thankfully nobody was around to see) that drowned in pitiful rains of the night, and began to make your way down the street. In search of a place better than the one you were trapped in.

An endless road that wasn't all that clear, you were going to tackle it. Not for anyone else, unlike the last time you met difficulty and hardships. No, no, no. This time it was for your sake. All the mental energy to recover and become a better version of yourself, in the endgame it was all for you. You could push past all the deceit and lies you had been told and you could push past your normality which was him. Katsuki Bakugou. The man that hurt you as nobody had ever done before. You could create new normality without him.

A thought of forever he created and destroyed, resorted to driving alone past his street, never to be thought of again.

[cheeriecherry]

Ty for answering that -w- I wanted to make sure of your comfort zones before I asked this. What are your HC for when some of our favorite UA teachers realize they have a thing for a student (who they may or may not have realized have a crush on them back)

Ofc! I should make an official list of thing I’m comfy writing/uncomfy writing <:3c

Anyhoo! I’m assuming our fav teachers are the same, but in case not, this post includes Aizawa, Yamada, and Yagi!

Warnings: Depictions of student x teacher! This is a work of fiction, and in no way represents how I feel about the matter irl. Please read at your own discretion. 

AIZAWA SHOUTA|ERASERHEAD

-He has an ‘oh fuck’ moment XD 

-At first you were just one of his most tolerable students; kind, hardworking, level headed. He sees a lot of potential in you, so he does his best to train you well.

-You have a habit of always wishing him a good afternoon when class is over and you’re headed out the door. He keeps a straight face, but deep down he finds it charming that you always take the time to say goodbye.

-Probably doesn’t realize how deep his feelings for you actually run until you’re older, maybe a second or third year. You come back to his classroom after summer break, and the moment you walk in the door, laughing with a few friends, his heart clenches in his chest. It fucks him up for the rest of the lesson.

-I think he’d let it stew for a while, anger and shame pressing at the back of his mind. Every day he sees you he falls deeper, whether you’re laughing and smiling with friends, or concentrating hard while studying, or even just meandering around the campus. Everything about you draws him in.

-He’d never act on his feelings, not while you’re a student. Besides the fact that he could lose his job if you got caught, he wouldn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize your future. He cares about you too much, and you’ve worked too hard to have it ruined.

-Until he notices you staring at him in class. The moment he catches your eye, you look away and pretend to be interested in something else, but that specific moment sticks out in his mind. It’s the first of many.

-Sometimes you fluster when you get caught looking at him, other times you’re so lost in thought that you don’t even realize he figured you out. It’s usually when you’re daydreaming that Aizawa gets a good look at you; pretty features, soft skin, cute lips wrapped around the end of your pencil as you think about him-

-The moment the bell sings and everyone starts leaving for the day, he beckons you over. Probably sprouts some kind of nonsense about how you’re distracted in class, and how you need to pay more attention or your grades will start to suffer. It’s complete bullshit, but coming from him it sounds serious.

-At least, it would to anyone else but you.

-You sit on the edge of his desk, leaning back casually and swinging your legs, and you look at him in a way that almost makes him feel like prey. 

- “If my grades suffer, you could always give me some extra credit~” you say with a coy smile.

He’s deadpan as always when he replies, “Your grades haven’t dipped. Not yet, at least. This is a warning, Y/N.”

You pout a little, and sigh. You’re obviously dejected about something, but he’s got no idea why you’d be sad about having good grades...

“Pity,” you mumble, “a private tutoring session could have been fun.”

-You slide off his desk and make your way towards the door, and only then does it click for him. You like him, the same way he likes you.

-He calls out to you right before you slide the door open, and motions you back over. You huff and do as he says, and move to sit back on his desk, but just as you’re getting settled, he reaches forward and pulls you into his lap. It feels a little awkward at first, while you squirm and get comfortable, but once you find a good seat it’s actually pretty comfortable.

-You’ve got an arm tossed over his shoulders, and you’re leaning against his chest with your face tucked up by his neck. He resists a shudder at the feeling of your warm breath against his skin, instead looping an arm around your waist to keep you steady.

- “You’ve been flirting with me,” he says, and it’s not a question.

He can feel a smile break out across your face, before your lips press tenderly against his throat. “I have been for the past eight months, but thanks for noticing.”

He deadpans and pinches your thigh gently, earning a muffled squeak from you, a noise he decides he likes very much.

-But the overall question looms over him. What to do now? He didn’t want to put your future at risk, not to simply sate his own desires. He loved you too much to do that to you.

- “We can’t do this,” he says, and he feels you freeze against him. “Not yet, at least.” He feels you relax.

“I figured as much,” you grumble, but there’s no malice in your tone. “I’m gonna wait for you, you know that, right? The moment I graduate, I’m jumping you. I see the way you look at me when you think no one’s watching; you want me just as much as I want you.”

-He doesn’t deny it, simply holds you tighter.

-You smile softly and take his face in your hands. “If it’s gonna be a while until we can do this again, then...a kiss for the road?”

-It’s sweet, and warm, and a little bit desperate. It’s been a long time since he’s had anyone with him like this, and you’re spectacularly warm and pliant. It’s not a kiss he’ll soon forget, and will only serve to make you both yearn for more, but it’s worth it to feel your lips against his.

-You keep things on the down low after that, sneaking conversations here and there and whenever you can. He gives you his phone number in case you ever need anything, but you mostly use it to send him cat memes and suggestive texts.

-He scolds you every single time, but you both know his heart isn’t in it.

-He takes you out on an official date not three days after your graduate.

YAMADA HIZASHI|PRESENT MIC

-Unlike Aizawa, he does not have an ‘oh fuck’ moment. His feelings for you culminate slowly, and he’s quite aware of them, just the same as he’s aware of your feelings.

-He notices your lingering glances, small smiles, and cheerful greetings whenever he’s around. You’re not obvious about it, not being more than friendly from everyone else’s point of view, but he’s perceptive, especially when it comes to people.

-A little piece of him hopes you get over your crush on him, so that he in turn could get over you too, but the big emotions part of his heart wants you to keep loving him in hopes that he might have you some day.

-He tries rationalizing it when he’s on his own, telling himself that he’s really not that much older than you, and that he’s seen larger age gaps, and that after you graduate you’ll just be another hero. He knows he shouldn’t be harboring such strong feelings for one of his students, which is why he doesn’t tell anyone, but he figures that as long as he doesn’t act on it then no one will get hurt.

-But it’s very hard. By the time you’re in your third year, you’re openly flirting with him. He doesn’t necessarily encourage it, but he doesn’t dissuade it either. If anyone ever questions him on the matter, he’ll say that he doesn’t want to hurt your feelings or embarrass you so it’s best to let you work through your feelings on your own.

-He absolutely plays favourites, though. He only calls on you in class when he knows you know the answer to something, and always offers helpful advice about your classes when he’s able to. Some of your classmates grumble about ‘special treatment’ but none of them take it any further than that.

-It all comes to a head one rainy afternoon when he finds you curled up under a tree, looking very, very sad. He hasn’t got anywhere to be, but even if he did, he’d still come over. You’re still his student, even on weekends, and he cares about you a lot.

-You’re surprised when the rain suddenly stops dripping on you, and you look up to find Yamada holding an umbrella over your head, while the rain starts to soak him. You scold him lightly, complaining that you’re already wet so it doesn’t matter if you don’t have an umbrella. He has none of it though, and offers a hand to you.

-He pulls you to your feet and carefully arranges the umbrella so you’re both under it, and after a couple beats of silence, he finally asks what’s got you looking so down.

-You fidget a little, chewing your lip in consideration and wringing your hands. But you’re almost a graduate, you tell yourself, so it shouldn’t matter now if he knows. You’re pretty certain he likes you back, anyways, but on the off chance he doesn’t, you can cope with a month or so of awkwardness.

-You sigh deeply, and explain to him that your classmates were teasing the shit out of your earlier, on a subject that is very near and dear to your heart. You’d had enough of their antics, so you’d left to dorms to get some fresh air, and it had started raining. You’d hoped to get some respite beneath a tree, to no avail.

-He looks you up and down quickly, just now fully realizing how soaked you were. Your clothes cling to your skin in a way he never sees you dress, and it’s a little unsettling how something so mundane gets his heart racing.

-But he pushes through, and rests a hand on your shoulder, going on about how other people’s opinions can hurt but ultimately don’t matter, and that it’s most important how you feel about yourself. He tells you that you’re deserving of kindness and respect, and praises you lightly for being his favourite student and a bright young hero.

-Less than two seconds after he finishes speaking, your lips are on his. Soft and damp, and your fingertips are cool against his jaw where you’re holding him, but he doesn’t mind. Not in the slightest. He drops the umbrella in lieu of gripping at your hips, pulling you flush against him so he can kiss you back.

-You stay there for a few moments, rain soaking further and further into your clothes as your lips mold and slide against each other. He has half a mind to push you back against the nearest surface and deepen the kiss, but he remember that you’re still in public, and you’re still his student.

-He pulls away slowly, grinning inwardly when he sees how breathless and hazy you are. He presses one last kiss against your nose, before he’s grabbing the umbrella off the ground and tugging you along. 

- “That can’t happen again,” he tells you, “Not while you’re still a student here. Okay?”

You begrudgingly agree, even though you know it’s for the best. you really do love him, and you don’t want him to lose his job -or worse- over something like this.

“Understood,” you mumble sadly. “I’ll try to get over it, and I’ll stop flirting with you in class.”

-He tilts his head slightly, a questioning gesture, and gently laces his fingers with yours. Just once, out here in the rain, where no one can see.

“I said ‘while you’re a student’,” his tone is playful. “Sweetheart, the moment you graduate, I’m wining and dining you like it’s nobody’s business.”

-Your heart soars after that, and your anticipation for what’s to come makes your last month of school -and your friends’ teasing- more bearable. That, and the fact that you get to text him whenever you feel like, and how your sweet private conversations. He chides you when you get too lewd about something, either in your words or in photos you send him, and tells you to be patient.

-By the time you graduate, you’re just about ready to say fuck it and dive on him, but he beats you to the punch. After the official ceremony, he scoops you up and spins you around a couple times, asking you how it feels to be an official hero.

-You simply kiss him.

YAGI TOSHINORI|ALL MIGHT

-Most concerned out of the bunch. He’s got one hell of an image to uphold, and he never wants to put any of his students in harms way. He probably notices really early on the way his heart flutters around you, the way his stomach twists up in knots when he hears you laugh, the way it’s hard to breathe when he watches you train. Ngl, it scares him a bit.

-Having feelings like that is one thing, but having feelings like that for a student? That’s got bad news written all over it. And it’s especially bad when he realizes you don’t treat him like you do your other teachers; you’re kinder, softer, more interested in lessons.

-Sure, you could just think he was a good teacher, but he’s had many a people crushing on him over the years, so he knows the signs. You like him.

-He hides himself away from you at first, keeping you at an arms length, a curt distance, a professional ways away. He realizes that he may be coming off a little harshly towards you, often keeping any one on one time to a minimum and overlooking you in class.

-You thought he felt bad for liking you? Look how shitty he feels when he realizes he’s made you sad. The day you seek him out after class and ask him why he dislikes you so much, it feels like someone has stepped on his heart and ground it into the pavement with their heel.

-The way you hold yourself to appear smaller and less threatening, the way you avoid his gaze like you’re afraid of his judgement. He decides then and there to be honest with you. You’re almost done your second year in school, so you’re a little more mature, a little more capable of handling what he has to tell you.

-And tell you he does. He explains the way you make him happy, how he enjoys your company, how your smile warms his heart. He also tells you about the guilt he feels for looking at a student in such a way, and how he wouldn’t be offended if you never wanted to speak with him again.

-You, of course, have not been subtle about your feelings towards him. Strange as the situation is, it’s comforting to know he thinks of you the same way. You take his hand gently, marveling a little at how it dwarfs yours, and assure him that you don’t think less of him, even if he thinks you should.

-You can tell that he’s genuine and serious about having feelings for you. You’d never want to put him at risk for anything, so you quietly ask him if he’d be willing to wait for you, until you graduate. After that, you’ll no longer be his student, there’ll no longer be any risk associated with your relationship, and you can be together.

-He’s got his reservations still, but you talk about it more throughout the months, convincing him by the beginning of your third year to pursue something more after you finish school. Once that’s decided, he finds it difficult to keep you at an appropriate distance, but he does his best. From time to time he’ll keep you after class to ask how things are going, how you’re doing, etc. almost always ending with a gentle kiss on the forehead.

-From the outside, it looks like you’ve patched up whatever hole was formed between you, with only the two of you sharing knowing and longing glances across the room. He tutors you and gives you extra lessons when he’s able to, wanting to make sure you come out of this with as much skill as possible.

-The year is long and every day is more difficult that the last, but the weekend after you graduate, the two of you are curled up on his couch watching a movie after eating dinner, sharing sweet kisses and basking in each other’s presence.

[youngerdrgrey]

better me than him (you know, sisters) // a Black Widow fic

About: SPOILERS FOR BLACK WIDOW (2021) // Yelena says, “Even as a Widow, all the girls looked up to what you could do. I would tell them, ‘Natasha is my sister. Natasha is coming back for me. Natasha—’” Yelena spits at the ground. Her despair and her rage overtake her face, and her nose could scrape the clouds, she turns it up so high.

or, an alternate scene for Black Widow, where Natasha talks to Yelena after the kitchen table breakdown instead of Alexei. + read on ao3

Yelena shirks out of Milena’s touch. She snatches up the vodka from the table and turns for the bedroom. Natasha struggles to find the words to respond to her. Some kind of explanation for disappearing, or some way to take back what she said about the reality of their mission together. But it was a mission. It had to be.

“Yelena.”

Yelena doesn’t break her stride. “No.” The door clicks shut behind her. Tense air makes breathing harder. Natasha parts her lips for a bit of extra oxygen. Zones out and misses the moments where Alexei and Milena exchange words. When Alexei goes to move though, Natasha lifts a hand to stop him.

“I’ll go.” At least then Yelena can’t say Natasha never did anything for her. Yelena probably doesn’t remember that Natasha had held a gun to the soldiers who tried to take Yelena away. What does that matter when Natasha failed, right? Without another word, Natasha goes after Yelena into the guest bedroom.

Yelena’s already on the floor with the bottle of vodka in her hands. Her knees bent up to her chest, her elbows just barely on top of them — she looks so small. Defiant. Natasha closes the door behind her.

Yelena looks too tired to glare. “I came in here because I didn’t want to talk.”

Natasha calls, “Bullshit. All you’ve done since we met up is talk. Talk about feelings and futures and our pasts.” She can’t quite tell if her voice sounds disparaging or wistful. Lonely or yearning for whatever part of Yelena still thinks they could be a family.

“We have a lot of time to make up for,” Yelena snaps back. “Or we would, if any of it were real.”

Natasha takes a sharp breath in. “Come on. I do not want to sit here, holding your hand when there are other Widows out there who need us. Drekhov is still alive and ruining their world.”

Yelena gestures to the door with her vodka bottle. “Go then. It’s what you do best.” She won’t look right at Natasha’s eyes. She glares at her forehead, or her chin. At the walls that Milena has looked at for who knows how long instead of looking for either of them. “You left me. You left the Widows. You even left the Avengers to hide out in the middle of nowhere in a camper with a barely functioning generator. You called Mom Milena a coward. But all you do is run and kill and hide from anybody who tries to care about you.”

“And you care about me?” Natasha doubts that. Why would Yelena still care? Yelena was six the last time they really saw each other. Sure, they crossed paths a few times on missions, but the Red Room took great care to make sure they wouldn’t fall back into old patterns. “Because of some assignment?”

Yelena screams, “Because you were my sister! You-you were someone to look up to! Even as a Widow, all the girls looked up to what you could do. I would tell them, ‘Natasha is my sister. Natasha is coming back for me. Natasha—’” Yelena spits at the ground. Her despair and her rage overtake her face, and her nose could scrape the clouds, she turns it up so high. “They told me again and again that Widows are not a family. But I beat your records, and I thought, ‘One day, she will call me on beating her. She will want a rematch. She will want….’”

“You.” Natasha finishes in a whisper. Yelena grinds her teeth and sends her gaze back down to the vodka bottle. “Even if I did want to know you, that’s not how things are done.”

Yelena takes a swig. “You broke your Accords like a week after signing them. Rules are nothing to you. If you want to lie to yourself to make yourself feel better, then go ahead. But do not lie to me like I am a child. I stopped being one the moment you let them take me.”

“I was a child too, Yelena. Dad—” Natasha cringes at the slip. “Alexei knocked us both out. You can’t keep holding onto this.”

“Tell me what I should hold onto then. Hmm?” Her lips curl into a sad snarl. “I have a vest and some memories of-of handstands in the dirt and chasing after your bike because I was too little to have my own.”

“You crashed your own,” Natasha corrects. “We found it before we were supposed to. I tried to teach you how to ride, and you slammed into the garage door. Woke them both up.”

“Great, another wrong memory.” Yelena shakes her head. “It could have been you.” Yelena snorts like the pigs. A sad, strangled sob follows.

Natasha gives Yelena her privacy and averts her eyes. Maybe that’s the cowardly choice here too. Shield herself from Yelena’s emotions. Pretend that… pretend that none of this hurts her too.

Natasha’s not the one who gives the big speeches. That’s Steve’s department. He stands there with his broad shoulders and his bright eyes, and he talks like he’s still that scrawny kid who couldn’t back down from a fight. But he understands what it feels like to be out of place. He made her feel less alone. He made her feel like she was actually helping people. She was an Avenger. Or, like Yelena said, ‘the trained killer little girls call their hero.’

“Do you remember when I first dyed my hair? Probably not. You were, like, four.” Natasha chuckles, and she wonders for the first time if Milena and Alexei are listening in. She walks over to sit beside Yelena. “Milena did it as a science experiment. We used kool-aid to temporarily dye my hair blue, and you got so scared that the blue on your tongue from drinking it would never go away. So I drank a bunch to turn my tongue, and so did Milena. By the time Alexei got home, my whole head was bright blue, and so were our lips and a little bit of your nose.”

The memory makes Natasha laugh, and when she chances a glance across her shoulder at Yelena, she can see the deep knit of the younger spy’s eyebrows. Yelena doesn’t remember, does she? Doesn’t know about some of the little days that made all the other ones that much more bearable.

Natasha clears her throat. “After Budapest, I had my own life again. And I wish I could say that I felt free. But I felt exactly like I did in Ohio. Like someone was waiting to rip me back out of what little peace I could find. So, I did the only thing that I could think to do. I went to the store and bought a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of bread, and a shit ton of blue kool-aid. And I dyed my hair in the S.H.I.E.L.D safe house into the grossest shade of purple that I have ever seen in my life. Clint has pictures somewhere, I’m sure. They’re….” Embarrassing is a word, but they’re the first look at her trying to take her life back.

She’d thought about getting a tattoo back then. She’d gone to a parlor and had flipped through the books of available designs for an hour. Clint had waited with her, making smart ass comments about placement and goading her into making a decision. His personal favorite had been an arrow that he swore would look amazing on the side of her neck. But those permanent changes didn’t feel like her. Not like recreating the memory did.

“I have no idea what they made you do, or what they took from you. We’re going to get the others out, and then you can do whatever you want, Yelena. You never have to talk to me, or Milena, or Alexei again. You can make your own family. Make some new memories. Those days in Ohio, they don’t have to be your best ones.”

Yelena’s lip trembles. She pouts around the emotion. “What if….” She exhales slow, and even that shakes. “What if I wanted that? The… ‘Don’t slouch,’ and the embarrassing parents.”

Natasha lets her voice drop into its raspiest. “They are pretty embarrassing.”

“She raises pigs. Who does that?” Yelena laughs.

Natasha blinks her red-rimmed eyes and nudges her shoulder into Yelena’s. “You and your vest, you fit right in.”

“Don’t be jealous. I could show you where I got it. Make a day of it maybe.” Yelena’s watery eyes find Natasha’s, and they’re so damn hopeful. They ask what Yelena won’t. What if Yelena wants Natasha too? What if they could be sisters again?

Natasha reaches for the vodka bottle, and Yelena hands it to her without question. “Maybe. Once we stop Drekhov.”

“And you get the others,” Yelena adds. “The witch needs new clothes. She looks like a tourist.”

Natasha snorts. “I’ll be sure to give Wanda your fashion advice once she’s off the raft.” They might get along actually. Both younger women, lost a lot as kids, used as violent weapons, but now they’ve got a second chance. It wouldn’t be the worst thing if Yelena tagged along. She’d make a few bad jokes. Get Steve to laugh whenever he comes out of hiding. God, if they ever make up with Tony, he would have a field day at finding out Natasha has a sister. “Do a good job on this mission, and maybe I’ll let you meet them. No autographs though.”

Yelena shoves Natasha’s leg. “I don’t want autographs from your friends.” She pauses to reconsider. “Hm, maybe Captain America. Alexei would shit himself.”

“Did you hear him in the bathroom earlier? He probably already did.”

Yelena groans, and the only thing sweeter than the laughter to follow is the small smile she gives to Natasha. Like maybe there’s still something in Natasha worth looking up to.

“Hey,” Natasha’s voice comes out more serious than she intends it to. Yelena lifts an eyebrow as she waits. “You were always the best of us, you know that?”

The words make Yelena’s lip tremble again. Her nose pitches up, and she sniffles before putting on her best Widow smirk. “That’s why I beat all your records.”

Natasha rolls her eyes. “Сука.”

Yelena pushes herself up from the floor. “I’m not a bitch.” She reaches her hand out to pull Natasha up. Natasha accepts the assist.

“You’re a brat; that’s what you are.” Natasha leads the way back out of the bedroom.

“What are little sisters for?”

Hope. Not that Natasha would admit that part. Way too sentimental, way too honest. She sticks her tongue out instead. Yelena understands though. It’s what they do. Or at least, what they could do, if they keep showing up instead of running away.

"Tell me when you figure it out, okay?"

.

.

notes: Natasha is her (foster, mission) mother's daughter, in more ways than one, and Yelena should say it.

I also want to thank you all for the very warm reception to my other Black Widow fic. I have at least one more in the chamber. You are welcome to send in requests, and if any speak to me, I will do my best to write them. Mostly, I just care about this family a lot. Go figure. Let's talk about them. Or anything else in replies/reblogs/asks.

[goose-books]

whoa, it sure is about time around here for a post, huh!

today i offer you 1.7k words about cressida and rory simply being soft. that’s all. this is the happiest thing i’ve ever written in the darkling canon and making this moodboard reminded me that it’s because these two are the only kind and friendly people in the entire book.

more details about cressida and rory’s home WIP, darkling, can be found here! (short version: it’s a speculative fiction king lear; there’s magic but it’s weird about being magic; half the characters are gay trans and neurodivergent because i said so.) this takes place about a year before the story starts; the two of them have just turned sixteen and seventeen, respectively!

also, i wrote all of this while listening to “kentucky” by hippo campus on repeat. the lyrics aren’t quite as relevant as the vibe. if you catch me yearning on main mind your own business /j

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

Beside them, Cressida is soaked, long golden hair and long white dress dripping. Rory rocks up onto their toes and back down, anxiety worming along the back of their neck like an itchy coat. This was not the plan. The plan was not “get caught in the rain and run through a storm for two blocks.” The plan was for the two of them to go walk by the river and - who knows, talk about Joan of Arc or the Kennedy assassination or something. Swap special interests. Maybe swap spit. Probably not, though. It’s not a date. It’s not not a date - but, like, Rory still does work for Cressida’s dad, so who knows how awkward things could get. Plus Cressida’s hard to read. She doesn’t really make facial expressions, and that’s usually fine, because Rory can’t really read facial expressions so it’s about the same to them, but in this particular situation -

“I trust you,” Cressida says, squeezing their hand, “but where are we going?”

The rain’s left Rory’s glasses fogged up enough to render them effectively blind. They take their glasses off and squint at the elevator buttons. They are still effectively blind.

“Is that a five or a six?” they say, pointing.

Cressida peers over their shoulder. “Which one do you want?”

“Five.”

Cressida presses the five button with her free hand. The elevator, which is about the size of a broom closet, jerks into unsteady, fitful motion.

The thing is that the apartment building is kind of - well, not a dump. It’s not horrible. There aren’t cockroaches. But Cressida lives in a manor, literally. Stayer Manor. Capital S, capital M. And there was never any sort of plan for today, even in the wildest of circumstances, that involved Rory bringing the city’s golden girl to a building the size of a shoebox. But then it was raining, and Cressida kept saying she didn’t mind the rain despite clearly minding because if she ruins her dress her dad will go rabid-dog on her, and Rory’s cognitive wheels were spinning like they were powered by a well-greased hamster, and none of the restaurants close enough to duck into were appropriate places for them to safely freak out about the thunder, and their apartment was only two blocks away.

So.

Here they are.

“Sorry,” Cressida says. “Where are we going?”

Rory attempts to dry their glasses on their soaked-through sweater, to little avail. “We are going,” they announce, “to a world of pure imagination.”

Outside, thunder cracks the sky. They know Cressida sees them flinch, because she squeezes their hand again.

The apartment is 505. Cressida waits as Rory digs around in their jacket pocket, shuffling past loose coins and two pairs of headphones and four melted Starbursts and way too many scraps of paper until they finally unearth their key. Their lock sticks - their lock always sticks - so once they’ve turned it, they have to drop Cressida’s hand and plant one wet Doc Marten on the wall and yank. The door swings open.

“Voila,” Rory says, performing jazz hands. “Willy Wonka wants what I have.”

Their apartment is purple. Not startlingly purple. Gently purple. Purple like it creeps up on you. Purple like you don’t realize exactly how purple it is until you realize everything - walls, gauzy flower-patterned curtains, plushy armchair, compass-rose-shaped clock, old-fashioned record player on the table - is the same shade of soft lavender.

There is at least one nail sticking up out of the hard-wood floor. Rory snags a sock on it every time they dance around with their headphones in.

Two people have been inside since Rory started renting the place a year ago. And that’s them and the landlord. This is their place, their safe haven, their nook, and it’s the size of Cressida’s bathroom, and rich pretty Cressida Stayer is standing, dripping, in the threshold.

“Don’t touch anything,” Rory says. Cressida draws her hands in like the walls might electrocute her. “That was a joke. You can touch things.”

“This is your apartment,” Cressida says.

“Indeed.”

“You live here.”

“That succeeds the first!” They give her an encouraging smile. “Subsequent statements! How cogently lucid of you!”

Cressida looks down. The hem of her dress is dripping onto the floor. “I don’t suppose you have a vent I could sit on…?”

“In fact I do!” Rory directs her, aircraft-marshall-style, to the heating vent on the floor. They’re jittering. They’re using way too much arm movement. They can’t get their heart to stop skidding around, because normally! They do not! Let people in here!

They stand and drip. Cressida sits and drips. She gazes around, and Rory gazes with her, trying to see it through her eyes.

“Where’s your bed?” she says.

Rory skips over to the closet and pulls the door open, with the grand gestures of a magician presenting a trick. The inside of the tiny closet is lined with a thick downy comforter; there are sheets and pillows scattered around atop it, and there are glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up all over the walls and ceiling.

Cressida gazes at it. “On purpose, right? Not because -”

“On purpose. Yes. I could have bought a bed. I just think it’s cozy.” Oh, Rory is going to lose it right here. Their foot is tapping the floor at about a million miles an hour. Granted, being in their apartment helps the overstimulation a little - just being where it’s safe and everything’s always the same and they control their space. That always helps. But it’s not like they can just curl up in their closet with their headphones in and the door shut, because Cressida is here -

Cressida, for her part, looks a little impressed.

“It’s nice,” she says, wrapping her arms around her knees. “You just live here? By yourself?”

Rory shrugs. “I’m emancipated,” they say, which isn’t strictly true, but they work for the most powerful man in the city, who has their back if anyone actually looks into their files, so it’s as true as it really needs to be - and then thunder roars outside again and Rory skitters sideways and falls over their armchair.

“Oh! Oh my God -” Cressida jumps to her feet.

Rory scrambles up from where they’ve tumbled to the floor. “Sorry sorry sorry!” they say, except really they yell it because they have their shaking hands over their ears. “Sorrysorrysorry, I - I really don’t like loud - I d-don’t -”

“Can I -” All of a sudden Cressida’s in front of them. Rory doesn’t move away, just stands there, chest heaving, and Cressida slides her still-damp hands very gently up both of their arms, and she very gently pulls their hands off their ears.

The thunder, again. Like a cannon blast. This time Rory yelps a little. Cressida pulls them in close to her and sits both of them down on the vent, which, at the very least, is warm and also on the floor, so Rory can’t really trip over anything when they flinch.

“You don’t like loud,” Cressida repeats. She’s a good deal taller than they are - Rory’s exactly five-foot in their Docs - and so it makes logical sense for her to settle down with her chin on their head, probably.

“I don’t. I don’t. I really don’t.” They’ve started fluttering their hands a little; their voice is getting that shaky tilt it gets when they’re in sensory overload. “Fun story, back in high school we went on a field trip to this play where they used gunfire blanks for sound effects and I had a full-on crying-and-screaming public meltdown. I like to tell fun stories from high school like it wasn’t actual purgatory, because I cope through humor!”

“I know,” Cressida says simply, and she wraps her arms around them so they can lean back into her chest. The next thunder crash comes, and she tightens her grip. “Is this helping?”

“Yeah. Uh-huh. A lot. Like a weighted blanket.” Rory tilts their head back to give her a shaky upside-down grin.

They don’t like making eye contact, so they don’t, but they are aware that Cressida’s gaze is resting pretty solidly on their face, which is - fine, and normal behavior for friends, and the fact that they’re cuddling on a vent and they can feel her heart beating against their spine is, like, normal also, probably -

“Rory,” Cressida says tentatively, “can I…”

Rory tilts their head. “Can you what?”

Cressida hesitates; then she leans in. It is a very very gentle kiss, almost hesitant; she pulls away after a second or so, to find Rory staring at her dumbfounded.

“Whoa,” they say, face assembling itself into what they’re fully aware is a stupid doofy grin. “Whoa. Hi. Hey. I - yeah! You can do that!”

They both cling to each other’s hands for a second; they both let out a breath that is, Rory thinks, equal parts relief and euphoria.

Then Rory leans in and kisses Cressida again, and this time neither of them pull away, and when the thunder crashes overhead Rory thinks they’ve never felt safer than they do right now.

[creative-frequency]

Inquisitor!Cal Kestis x Reader: Free Time

Word count: 1564 Pairing: Inquisitor!Cal Kestis x Reader Notes: I had a mighty need for inquisitor Cal, asked what kind of scenarios would you guys like to read and here we go.

My Writing Masterlist

He is always training.

Alone.

You don’t know much about this new Inquisitor who some call unofficially the Eleventh Brother. There would be plenty enough numbers available among the first ten. Some even whisper that he is the next Grand Inquisitor. He doesn’t look that special to you, but you don’t want to go close enough to get a better look.

With the way he handles the red lightsaber, it’s clear that he is no stranger to the weapon. After a few sparring matches, the Purge Troopers quickly learned to avoid him in training spaces. Everyone gives him a wide berth.

Former Jedi Cal Kestis is always training because when he isn’t, he can hear his own thoughts, screaming inside his head. There is no one to talk to, no one to drown the thoughts with. The other Inquisitors barely treat him as equal, most often settling for avoidance. The feeling is mutual.

Cal feels the yearning for companionship, but there is none he can trust now. None who would comfort or encourage him. Getting physically exhausted and falling into dreamless sleep makes his new life somewhat more bearable. There is no light in his existence now. Just aimless darkness where he wanders, trying to hold his head above the surface. He is just surviving.

Attending to your duties at the Fortress Inquisitorius, you have no time to stare at the new Inquisitor, as handsome as he may be. He is swinging the double-bladed lightsaber in a speed that makes you dizzy. You don’t like the way the Second Sister looks at him, like a trophy from a hunt. It makes you feel sick but there is nothing you can do, especially show your disgust.

Nur wouldn’t have been your first choice, but one can’t exactly say no to a direct order. So you just focus on the job and hope that a new order will come soon.

It’s been two years.

Working in maintenance isn’t the most exciting career under the rule of the Galactic Empire. At least you don’t have to torture or murder anyone, only look the other way when someone else does. Things like that tend to numb people. You’re not proud of it. You’re just surviving.

Most of your coworkers are droids. Sometimes you hear people joking that you’re leading an army of your own. You tend to avoid the Troopers and especially the Inquisitors. Keeping a low profile is not just the best tactic to stay alive on the planet, it’s a necessity.

With a job that mainly requires only hands, you have too much time to think and wait for the comlink to spark into life.

“Requiring maintenance on residential level. Over.”

An everyday occurrence. You sigh. “What seems to be the problem? Over.”

“Another blasted lock. Apartment 2-5-7-K. Over.”

Gripping the comlink, you bite your lip. Shit. Anything over 250 means it’s an Inquisitor’s door. You’d best hurry.

“I’m on my way. Over.”

A blasted lock. You wonder what the reason is this time. What Trooper was stupid enough to draw a weapon in the hallways? They probably paid for the insolence with their life. Maybe there was a skirmish with one of the prisoners or someone tried to escape. Wouldn’t be the first time. You try to think of something else.

The hallway is fortunately empty so you speed walk to the right door. 257K. After a short inspection it seems that the lock is not actually broken, the door just needs some basic maintenance. The room hasn’t been in use for a long time but apparently someone has moved in recently. You make a mental note to bump it higher up on the priority list and to make sure a droid is taking care of it.

“It just needs adjustment, right?”

A scream almost flees you and you drop the servodriver.

The red-head Inquisitor stands next to you, slightly crouched to see better what you’re doing. You didn’t hear anyone approaching.

“Would’ve fixed it myself if I had the tools,” he continues, ignoring your almost heart attack.

“I’m sorry! This’ll be ready in a minute,” you say hastily and try not to look at the freckles on his face.

The Inquisitor’s brows crease closer together when you don’t look him in the eye.

“Okay,” he simply replies and leans against the wall, arms folding on his chest and looking like he isn’t going anywhere soon. If anything, he seems to enjoy watching you panic. A light smirk on his face and all.

You feel the eyes on your back as you work as fast as you can, checking and testing the connectors. Some of them need to be changed soon and that requires another order of spare parts. You just love paperwork and spending the Empire’s credits.

“Can you take a look at the AC inside? It’s been acting up.”

The servodriver almost falls from your grip again. You turn around to bow your head to the Inquisitor. Your eyes are obstinately drawn to the lightsaber resting against his thigh. “Of course, sir.”

The constant feeling of “I hope he doesn’t kill me” in your gut makes your hands shake but somehow you manage to make sure the lock works again. The Inquisitor still leans on the wall, looking like he has all the time in the world to just hang out. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him outside the dojo.

“There. Is it okay if I go in to check the AC now?” You don’t want to look him in the eye and with your every cell hope that he will leave now and let you work in peace.

Not a chance.

He shows you inside and stays hovering nearby as you try to calm yourself enough to work. He can’t seem to take his eyes off you. Something about you, watching you is… itching him.

“The thermostat seems to be broken, sir.” You dare a peek at the Inquisitor. He doesn’t seem as intimidating as the others and is actually younger than you initially thought. “I’ll need to go fetch some parts but I’ll set a static room temperature for now.”

“Okay.” He runs his hand through his ginger hair and sighs. “Can’t you just make a droid bring the parts?”

You blanch. “Uh, yes. Of course, I just thought it’d be faster if… I go… myself…” Your voice trails off under the cryptically meaningful look in his eyes.

Cal examines you, circling around in a slow, lazy arc. He has noticed you before even though you actively make every effort to not stand out. He felt something spark inside him in the hallway and he needs a moment to realize it’s curiosity that brings life to his dull existence. The feeling has some exhilarating new shades and he wonders is it because you look like a cornered animal, shaking in fear.

It excites him.

“Sir?” you squeak and can’t form the follow up question because Cal takes a step towards you.

“Who are you?” he asks slowly, gaze trained onto your face, eyes boring holes into your mind. His pulse is quickened like in the thick of a combat and he cannot understand why.

“Um, I’m not sure I– I’m just a technician. I’ve got clearance, y-you see… I can show you my ID…” you stutter and fumble a hand into your chest pocket to fish out the ID card. “See?”

Cal doesn’t even spare a glance at it.

“Yeah. I’m not interested in that,” he says coolly. He stands close enough to either strangle or hug you – though you know he wouldn’t need to get close and personal to kill you. You’re starting to panic.

“Sorry…” you peep, “Can I…”

Go?

You can’t finish the sentence because the Inquisitor leans forward and plants a gloved hand against the wall over your shoulder – a predator enjoying one last sniff of his prey before the killing blow.

All of your jittering ends and you completely freeze. The whimper that escapes your lips doesn’t sound like you at all. He has so many freckles and the feeling they enact in you acts as the perfect opposite to what their owner is doing. As good-looking as he may be, getting within a kissing distance to the Inquisitor wasn’t on your bucket list.

However, while you’re waiting perfectly still – in spite of your racing heart – for his next move, Cal hesitates. The excitement that spurred him into taking the initiative is gaining an altogether different tone. He is suddenly nervous and has to ball his hand into a fist to stop it from shaking.

You stare at each other, mere inches away and lightly gasp for breaths. The menacing Inquisitor aura is gone and you curse him for toying with you like that since there’s no way you can forget this ever happened. For a fleeting moment, you think should you just kiss him and be done with it – and gamble your life on his goodwill.

Cal finally loses his nerve and leaves without so much as a word or a glance at your direction.

You wait for a few stunned breaths to hear if he is coming back after the fateful sizzle of the door. Your head is positively spinning by the time you make it out alive from the quarters of Inquisitor Cal Kestis.

You hope nothing breaks in his room again.

//

Part 2

[ofdragonsdeep]

20: Petrichor

The wound only heals once you've pulled out the knife.

(HW spoilers, implied m!WoLxThancred and m!WoLxHaurchefant)

Soft snow tumbled down from the grey clouds above, a thin layer of fragile white settling on the shoulders of Ar’telan’s armour as he sat on the wall at Falcon’s Nest and stared out into the Highlands beyond. The stiff breeze brought a numbing cold, not that it made much impact on his statue-still vigil, his face stoic and his mind churning with regrets.

The peace conference had gone poorly, if one was being kind. Instead of the usual assault by heretics that Ishgard was used to, this time it was the victims of war rising up in anger. He could not even blame them for their anger, knowing intimately the wellspring from which it drew, but this?

He should not have accepted the drink. He should have known better. But it stung more than the cold that they thought he did not understand the way they suffered.

“I wondered if I might find you out here. Still hurts, does it?”

Thancred, solid and steady as always. He hopped up on to the wall beside him with customary grace, sitting easily upon the parapet and following Ar’telan’s gaze, as though there were anything of interest to be found at the end of it.

“I don’t need your pity,” Ar’telan said, and Thancred sighed, shaking his head.

“No, you don’t,” he agreed. “Maybe that was indelicate of me. Apologies.” Ar’telan made a muted noise of acknowledgement, looking away until he felt the touch of fingers brush the snow from his shoulders. A fleeting part of him yearned for what was gone - Haurchefant and the knights teaching him the proper way to dry snow-stained gear, coming in from training covered in sleet and mud, Thancred’s touch on the edge of his robe - but it quickly warped and distorted. A hole in a shield, a wound in his heart, Lahabrea muting his voice with a grip on his wrists. He stiffened, and Thancred withdrew.

“...Sorry,” Ar’telan managed, and Thancred made a wearied noise.

“I should think we’ve moved past that part of things,” he said. “How are you holding up? Beside the obvious, I mean.”

“You should not have hit him,” Ar’telan said, which made Thancred start in surprise. “He made poor choices, but so did all of us, at one point or another. He is small, and scared, and alone. It wasn’t needed.”

“You’re the only person who’s said that,” Thancred said, though he did not seem offended by the statement. “Maybe you’re right. You know them better than I do.” Ar’telan shook his head.

“Barely. Just- Just…” He cut himself off, a sharp inhalation of breath reminding him that he had been sat out here for a long time, and he was cold. ”I don’t want to think about it. How long before the Grand Melee?” Thancred shifted his position, resting one arm on a raised knee, considering the questions both asked and unasked, as he was wont to do.

“It will be some time before the Alliance gets themselves into gear, despite the initial offer,” he replied. “A few weeks at worst, a few days at best. What do you want the time to do?” Ar’telan made a noncommittal noise.

“I don’t know. It all feels like it’s too much,” he said. “It was horrible, what happened at the banquet, but at least it felt easier in Ishgard. Simpler, maybe. And then even that fell to pieces, and I… I feel like I break all that I touch.”

“Lahabrea was not your fault,” Thancred said, and Ar’telan flinched as though he was the one who had been struck, and not Emmanellain.

“No. I know that. But… Sometimes I wonder what the point of it is. The people, they… they see me as a hero. Here and in greater Eorzea. But what good is a bulwark if everything around it falls to pieces?”

Thancred was quiet for a while, an unusual state for him. Ar’telan looked over, saw the frown of thought on his face, the clouds in his aether-bleached eyes. It was easy to remember what had happened after the chaos at the Praetorium, the uncertainty and the anger of Thancred’s recovery - of his own. The wounds were undeniable, in both of them. But the way that the Flow had pulled them apart, even if Thancred himself had only tumbled out a few moons ago, gave them just enough distance for it to feel… distant, somehow. Less keen.

“Well, I can’t imagine that travelling on foot will be particularly fun for you, but I’ve a proposal, if you’ll hear it,” Thancred said eventually. Ar’telan nodded, keeping cautious distance. “It’s only a day’s ride by carriage to Thanalan, if you’ll come with me. Put a few malms between yourself and the pain, for a little while.” Ar’telan wasn’t sure there was anywhere on Eorzea that didn’t hold some poor memory, but it was far away from this pain, this betrayal, and he supposed it would do the job.

“Alright. You’re paying for it, though.”

---

Eastern Thanalan sat on the edge of the vast desert, where the Shroud gave way to high heat and cracked ground. The town around the aetheryte sat in a shaded dip just off the main road, which meant that when it rained - as it often did after the Calamity, and as it was when Ar’telan and Thancred arrived - the rain poured down the entry slopes and pooled on every available surface, leaving the townsfolk to slosh through it in despair.

“Not quite the weather I had in mind,” Thancred remarked as they took shelter in the tavern, Ar’telan shaking the water from his armour with a look of dismay writ on his face.

“I don’t even own an umbrella,” Ar’telan grumbled. Thancred chuckled, gesturing to a table with one hand before going over to the bar. Ar’telan watched with careful eyes, but he only ordered one drink, and did not try to pass it over.

“I think you’ve had quite enough liquid for one day,” Thancred said, though it was still obvious to Ar’telan that he had noticed his concern. He held in his embarrassment with the determination of a man who had killed gods.

“If you have not dragged me out here to watch you drink yourself under the table, why are we here?” he asked, trying not to let the bitterness show through in his voice. A look of annoyance passed over Thancred’s face, but it seemed he was being as coy with his emotions as Ar’telan was trying to be.

“Well, the idea was better before the weather turned, I’ll admit,” he said. “I thought it would be… nice, I suppose. Well, you’ve been collecting all of those seeds, haven’t you?” Ar’telan stiffened at the question, staring down at the table and feeling the fingers of his hands slowly curl against the wood. “There’s a clearing near the chasm here. Maybe you know it. Giant goobbue corpse, nothing too unusual - but it’s covered in odd flowers. They say it came down from the mountains before it died.” Ar’telan swallowed back the well of feelings that threatened to overwhelm him.

“Do you know why I…” he tried, his hand movements jerky and uncertain. Thancred took a long drink from his flagon, waiting in vain for Ar’telan to have the chance to finish, before sighing to himself.

“I’ve my suspicious, yes,” he answered. “If only because I’ve never seen anything else tether you so tightly. It’s for your elezen, right?” It was strange to hear it said without judgement, when they had all but ruined what remained of their friendship over his relationship with Haurchefant. When it had become clear that they would not, could not work again in the wounds that Lahabrea had left behind, the ascian’s spite tearing holes in them even after his forcible discorporation. He was dead now, truly dead, as Ar’telan understood it, but his shadow lingered yet.

“Yes,” he said, pulling his hands in close to his chest as he said it, the closest to a quiet word he could manage it.

“I said some things I regret back then, before all of this Ishgardian nonsense kicked off,” Thancred said, his tone light, but the admission was a serious one. “About you. About him. About a lot of things, if we’re being honest.” He glanced at the window, noting the rain hammering down on it, and shrugged. “I suppose we have time to be honest. I’m sorry.”

“You were not the only one who did things they regret,” Ar’telan replied, hands muted, head still bowed. “I don’t know if… if we could have made it work. If there was a solution for us after what the ascians did. But I did not help matters.” Thancred laughed at that, leaning back in his chair with a creak of old, sun-baked wood.

“Best not to spend too long dwelling on it, I think,” he said. “The ifs and the whys and the maybes - none of them matter in the now. Too many moons between them.” He tilted the flagon towards Ar’telan, who shook his head in refusal. “What matters is where we go. How we move forward. But on that, I would give the floor to you.”

“To me?” Ar’telan repeated, surprised. “Thancred, I… I don’t know. Finding a direction for myself is hard enough, never mind for two.” Thancred’s mouth creased up into a smile.

“It’s not a no,” he decided, draining the flagon. Ar’telan found the embarrassment on his face, the twist of his stomach, was not entirely fear or shame. The distance of moons indeed.

“It is not a yes, either,” he said, a stern look on his face. Thancred sighed.

“Yes, yes,” he said, a hand waving through the air as if to dismiss the concern. The look on his face was kind, though, as he brought his arms to the table to rest his head upon his hands. “I jest. Whatever life decides to throw at us, I will respect your distance. And I won’t ruin a friendship for a snuffed candle this time.” Ar’telan sighed.

“As long as you promise not to die, it is a start,” he decided.

“Well, on that front I can only promise my best.”

--

The sparse grass of the eastern reaches of Thanalan sparkled with collected rain, the ground still soft underfoot even though the clouds had cleared to make way for the stars of night. Ar’telan was knelt by the old goobbue’s grave, carefully collecting what few seeds the rain-soaked plants would offer him, Thancred leaning back against the swell of the ground and watching him work. It was a far cry from their first visit to eastern Thanalan, camped out by the little oasis in borrowed rags and a makeshift tent. It would not end the same, either, though Ar’telan noted the appreciative eyes on the taller man as he got to his feet. Not now. Not soon. But, perhaps, eventually. A bridge built between them by their suffering, instead of tearing out the planks in a misguided attempt to heal. The moon twinkled in the sky above them, a quiet witness to their sadness, and it felt a little like the storm had stopped.

If the clouds would abate, only time would tell.

[boxedblondes]

killing eve fic recs

since we’re all yearning HARD after the s3 finale, i thought i’d share some of my personal favorite ke fics (in alphabetical order by author) to maybe, possibly, help fill the void until season 4!

we tried the world; good god, it wasn’t for us by agentpolastri (@topeve)

rating: G

warnings: major character death

summary: They jumped together. When do they not?

↳ i never ever ever read fics with a major character death warning, but mei is just such a fantastic writer i had to give it a try. this fic is SO exquisitely beautiful and heartbreaking. i’ve read it several times and it never fails to punch me square in the chest. i don’t have enough words to express how much i love this piece.

i don’t have a choice (but i’d still choose you) by agentpolastri (@topeve)

rating: T

warnings: major character death

summary: It’s the ending they didn’t want, but knew was coming anyways.

↳ well....... she did it to me again. idk what else to say about this except the line “she feels like a sunset.” makes me craaaaaazy

(if you need something a little happier after these fics, i could be your excuse for a lover is also wonderful)

this is what you wanted by dollsome (@dollsome-does-tumblr)

rating: T

warnings: none

summary: Villanelle goes to Alaska. Set after the season two finale.

↳ essentially v goes to alaska and absolutely hates it. a creative, funny, and lighthearted take on what could have happened post-s2.

you know i'm such a fool for you by dollsome (@dollsome-does-tumblr​)

rating: T

warnings: none

summary: Eve waits. Villanelle hallucinates. Set after 2x02.

↳ this was one of the first KE fics i ever read, so it holds a special little place in my heart. short, sweet, and very, very gentle.

Tell Me by dollsome (@dollsome-does-tumblr)

rating: T

warnings: none

summary: Eve and Villanelle catch up on what they've missed. Set right after 3.08.

↳ essentially, the girls FINALLY have a conversation about everything they haven’t talked about. a soft, cathartic little fic to fill the post-finale hole in all of our hearts.

touch and go by etymology

rating: not rated

warnings: none

summary: “Why are you in my hotel room at 3 a.m.,” says Eve. “I could not sleep,” says Villanelle, shrugging. Eve narrows her eyes. “Are you kidding me.”(Or, the one where Eve keeps hiding Villanelle from the authorities.)

↳ also one of the first KE fics i ever read. this one is short, soft, and gets their dynamic just perfect.

there are no rules when you show up here by glitteration

rating: E

warnings: sex stuff, dubious consent (kind of), ambiguously violent ending

summary: this is why we can't have nice things, darling. (eve goes ahead and hops out of the frying pan only to launch herself straight into the fire. post-s1 fic, told entirely through phone calls. working title in my gdocs was "the one with all the problematic phone sex")

↳ there is a lot of phone sex in this which, although problematic, is also very hot. the characterization in this fic is so on-point, and the dialogue is both funny and believable – which is often a delicate balance.

your body hurts me as the world hurts god by GucciAspirin

rating: M

warnings: sex stuff

summary: "I think of you when I look at the sky. I think about how we share it with so many other people - when it was clearly meant for just the two of us." // Villanelle wants closure

↳ another entry into the collection of lovely, sexy villaneve fics. this one also deals with the aftermath of the s1 finale.

tie me to your longing, I'll tie you down to mine by nextgreatadventure (@next-great-adventure)

rating: M

warnings: sex stuff

summary: These are all things Villanelle remembers. She doesn’t know if any of it meant love, but surely it meant something. It was not nothing.

↳ my comment on ao3 for this fic is: “I’m officially quitting my fic writing career because this is THE best villaneve fic out there, goodbye. :’)” and i think that’s all i need to say.

this dark world is precious to me by nextgreatadventure (@next-great-adventure)

rating: M 

warnings: sex stuff

summary: Eve dreams of so many things after Rome.

↳ this is the kind of fic that leaves you wanting more once you’ve finished reading it. it is sexy and complex and extremely well-written. i’ve reread it so many times in the past year and it’s just as good every time. 

If at last we be true by pengukat

rating: E

warnings: sex stuff

summary: My contribution to the "Eve doesn't stab Villanelle, they bone instead" repertory of works.

↳ i am.... suddenly realizing how many of the fics on this list are explicit. anyway, this one is perhaps the best sexytime villaneve fic of them all.

two wills (one mirror holding us dearer now) by poiesis (@weirddyke)

rating: E

warnings: sex stuff

summary: "I don’t want to be around you. / I don’t want to drink you in. / I want to walk into the heart of you / And never walk back out." Nico Alvarado, 'Tim Riggins Speaks of Waterfalls' – post-series, eve waits for the inevitable

↳ idk what to say about this. sometime after the s1 finale, v breaks into eve’s house (again) and they finally give into their mutual sexual attraction. it’s both hot and incredibly well-written – aka the best kind of fic.

of villages, and other places that villanelle would like to burn to the ground by silent_h (@yesokayiknow)

rating: T

warnings: canon-typical violence/death, animal death summary: canon divergence au, of course (but maybe not in the place that you were expecting)

↳ after the s1 finale, eve and v go on the run and “accidentally” take irina along for the ride. this fic is written in second person pov, and the stream-of-consciousness style is just gorgeous.

feedback loop by silent_h (@yesokayiknow​)

rating: T

warnings: none

summary: (season 2 episode 2 spoilers) the person you have called is not available. please try again.

↳ a lovely, dreamy look into eve’s mental state after 2x02. second person pov again!!!!

One Hundred Minutes of Normality by variousflumps

rating: M

warnings: none

summary: In which Eve and Oksana watch a movie. Finding Nemo, to be precise. "For the next" – Eve checks the back of the DVD case – "one hundred minutes you and I are going to pretend that the following things are true. One, neither of us is a psychopath. Two, we both strongly disapprove of murder. Three, I never stabbed you, four, you're not even thinking about stabbing me back, and five, we're dating and have a perfectly normal, healthy relationship. I need one hundred minutes of normality or my entire head is going to explode. Do you want popcorn?"

↳ THEY FINALLY WATCH A MOVIE!! (but they mostly ignore it in favor of having the world’s most chaotic get-to-know-you conversation.) funny, sexy, and incredibly full of life.

and of course! what’s a reclist without some self-promo. my own KE fics can be found right here. comments and feedback are ofc always appreciated ♥️

[onelovewonderwoman]

could i get a peter parker imagine where peter has a huge crush on reader but is too scared to do anything so when they are at peter’s house the reader makes the first move and he’s kinda shocked pretty pleaseeee?

i hope you like this one! i love writing peter sm and was really happy to get this request lmao i’m sorry i took so long, i had some stuff going on with my family and everything (not with the virus! we’re doing fine. stay safe everyone!)

words : 885

masterlist

warnings: none!

—————————————-

Peter couldn’t help but stare at you from across the classroom, where you spoke with Mr. Harrington about decathlon.

It wasn’t just a stare. No, he was entranced by you. The way your eyes light up when you smile, the way you talk, your cute laugh, everything; they had him hooked.

“Dude.” Ned broke Peter from his trance from where he sat next to him. “You’re doing that weird staring thing again. Do you just not realize you do it or…”

“No, I-“ Peter exasperated, “I know when I do it, I just can’t help it. You know what? Maybe I should just tell her that I like her. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?”

Ned gave it a thought before saying genuinely, sans filter, “She’s disgusted and tells the whole, so then you’re an outcast that has to drop decathlon ‘cause she’s in it an-”

“Ned!”

“What?” Ned gave a sheepish look. “I’m giving you the worst case scenario here, man. That’s what best friends do.”

“Okay, look,” Peter said pointedly, “Worst case scenario aside, what about best case? I mean, what if she maybe likes me back?” He found himself trying to push back a smile at the thought. “Wouldn’t that be great?”

“Yeah, but, Peter… worst case scenario.”

Peter groaned, ready to give up as his elbows came up to rest on his desk so he could let his face fall into his hands.

Noticing his friend’s distress, Ned tried again, “Look, Peter, you really like Y/N, so I guess try? I was giving you, like worst case, worst case. Chances are, like, practically nothing that she’ll do that. She’s really sweet.”

Peter, face still covered by his palms, groaned, “She is really sweet, huh? What if she pity dates me?”

“She won’t pity date you-”

“Hey guys!”

Peter’s head shot up, almost violently, as well as Ned’s head shooting in your direction, when they heard your voice.

“Y/N!” There you stood, impossibly prettier than you were a second ago, and Peter had no idea what to say.

“Does she get prettier by the second? Is that possible?”

Before Peter could get a word in, he was interrupted by Ned blabbing out nervously, “How long were you standing here?”

“Um.” You shifted on your feet, looking confused. “I just got here? Look, Peter.” Your gaze was directly on him. “I was just wondering if maybe we could get together after school to practice for decathlon? Everyone else is kinda busy and won’t be available for practice this Wednesday, so…”

“I’m not busy,” Ned said nonchalantly, prompting a look from Peter… and you. Thankfully, the boy understood quickly. “I mean, on second thought, my mom has this thing she wants me to help her with, so I’m really busy. Really, really busy.”

“Pete?” You asked once more with a small smile on your face and pleading eyes, “You’d really be helping me out here.”

“Yeah,” Peter found himself agreeing against his better judgment. What if he said something to you on accident? “We can go to my place? After school?”

Your smile widened. “Sounds like a plan.”

—————————————-

Peter only realized how horrible of a plan it was when the two of you entered the empty apartment, May obviously still at work.

He didn’t know what to say or do. How does he act around you? It’s different when you’re both in school and interact among other people, but alone? Peter didn’t know how to exist around you without feeling like a nervous dummy in love.

“Uh,” Peter stuttered, feeling like the kid from middle school again, before the spider bite, as he walked ahead of you, “We can go to my room? Or! Or we can stay out here. Whatever… whatever you want.”

“Wait.” You grabbed Peter’s arm to stop him from moving away and face you. His eyes were wide and his mouth a tiny bit a gap; he looked so much cuter than he had the right to. You spoke again, quickly yet shyly, “I kinda told myself I was gonna do this today ‘cause I don’t think you’re gonna make a move any time soon with Ned’s advice. So, with that, I was wondering if I could maybe, sorta, kinda, kiss you?”

Peter’s breath hitched, his brain still attempting to process what he’d just heard. “You- You wanna kiss me?”

Biting the inside of your cheek, you nodded.

“Ned’s advice?”

You smiled sheepishly. “You guys aren’t as quiet as you think.”

“Oh.” Peter found himself smiling at the nervous girl in front of him; the girl who likes him back.

The realization hit him like a truck.

That’s what prompted his sudden surge forward to connect their lips in a chaste kiss that left you wide eyed in awe.

It wasn’t a perfect kiss at all. It was short, inexperienced, and Peter was kind of off by a little, landing a kiss on only one half of your lips, but it was with you.

“I’d never pity date you, by the way,” You spoke softly, your (Y/E/C) eyes staring into his, unable to pull away, “I’d like to actually date you, date you.”

Peter found himself slowly leaning closer to you, yearning for another kiss, when he told you, “I’d like that too.”

[offtopicoverload]

Howdy there!! Who are the li’s you fancy the most from LITG??

hi! thanks for the ask!

i honestly dunno who’s my top answer, cuz they’re all interesting in their own way

I’m only going to talk about female LIs cuz the only male routes I’ve finished are Bobby and Jake, and I tapped through most of Jake and only ended with Bobby on my first run cuz I never unlocked Marisol, so I’m not the best source lol

Talia:

She’s just so chill but has no problem standing up for MC, she has her back no matter what

Which, like, what a queen

She’s the original and only one of 4 LIs, which maybe it’s just me, but for a game based on an incredibly heteronormative reality show, allowing representation for queer audiences from launch is such a big deal and so cool to me, so Talia’s kind of special in my mind

She was also my first LI so nostalgia points

And she’s such an easy LI, not much drama on her route outside of Lucy, just her having MC’s back as the boys make themselves look like idiots

And she has so much potential, like I know some people think her only personality trait is fancying MC, which I mean, is a little fair, but there’s so many opportunities for her in fics and headcanons to develop the good amount of information we got on her in 13 days

I absolutely love how self-aware and confident she is

She just went for what she wanted, struggled a bit with commitment at first, because who wouldn’t, but after that it was smooth sailing

Like obviously what she said in the Beach Hut at the beginning of the season wasn’t great for MC, but she knew exactly what she wanted out of her time on the show

She was confident in herself and her sexuality so much so that she was just down to have a fling with a girl and not worry about how it would effect the show

And then she *coupled up* with that same girl, not even giving a shit about the rules or anything

A queen

Allegra:

I know she’s not an official LI, but her arc is what got me into writing so she gets a million points for that

I love what could have been done with her progression if she was given an actual route, I’m a sucker for some good enemies to lovers, but alas, she’s canonically a bad bitch with a lot of internalised homophobia yet enough confidence to ask MC out

I still love her

Marisol:

I know so many people hate her, and I get it, but I do really like her growth

Maybe it’s cuz I’m pretty analytical too, but her analyses never bothered me or anything, and now that I’ve played her route so many times, it’s pretty obvious that that’s a defense mechanism, and I understand that

She very much so has a “figure their weaknesses out before they have a chance to figure mine out” attitude, and I’m 99% positive it’s because of the ex that Elisa reminded her of

So not only has she been burned in the past, I’m willing to bet it was by the only woman she’s been in a serious relationship with

I really have no problem with her commitment issues, it’s understandable, and I can really empathise with her fear of coming out, it’s absolutely terrifying even if you’ve accepted it and bought a flag, saying the words can be really difficult

My biggest issue is her entitlement and immaturity, I guess?

Like her using Graham to make MC jealous just feels like an excuse to crack on with him and still have MC available for when she’s ready

I understand her being scared to couple up, but playing games to distract herself just made things with MC worse

And unless youre on her route, and sometimes even when you are, it’s clear to me that she expects things and has no problem saying what they are, but going after them is a problem?

Like her going after Lurik even though they don’t have a connection, or Gary even when he’s with Hannah

But then it never works and she gets sad and I melt because I’m weak

ALSO, can I just say how awful it is that Lucas and Henrik don’t pick her unless they have to???

Like cmon she deserves MC after that

And when they finally couple up? And she’s all soft? The GROWTH ohmygod

Anyway I love who Marisol became, maybe not everything she started out as, but definitely the person she ended the season as, more confident and self assured and willing to be vulnerable

It’s precious

Elisa:

I still haven’t done an Elisa route

I tried to a couple months ago, but dumping Marisol felt so cruel, what the hell was Fusebox thinking with that?? 

I do really like that they learned from their mistake though, even if they went in the opposite direction

From what I’ve seen of Elisa, she can be pretty sweet, I’ve seen her described as a Lucas-Bobby hybrid, and while that’s not the most interesting personality to me, I will say that she’s a really cool character that FB messed up on

Why did they make her a straight up villain???

And why ONLY her???

None of the other female LIs have been villains or had such a complete 180

Like her going from shouting at Chelsea, who is literally meant to be MC’s ride or die and the person outside of your LI that youre supposed to want to defend and avenge, to “i cant even sleep because im pining so hard”

I know the treatment of black women has been discussed before, specifically in regards to Hope and Erikah, and it is by no means my place to speak on it, but I definitely think something’s going on with Elisa

Anywayyyy, I love her archetype

The celebrity and influencer has so much potential, to the point that I wrote a one shot without even knowing her lmao 

And she’s so confident in a way that’s so different from Marisol

She doesn’t even care if MC’s happily coupled up, she WILL get in her pants and I respect that

In conclusion, Fusebox did her dirty and I’m probably going to try and retcon some canon for her in the future

Lottie:

Ohmygod

Lottie

A goth babe

Lottie

Yeah, anyway, so I love her

Her growth is just unbeatable in my opinion

Yeah, she still has her flaws by the end of the season, but she went from ready to rip everyone’s throat out to biting her tongue around Hannah

And her and MC???

And the development between them??? 

Ugh

No matter what way you swing it, you’ve either got best friends to lovers or enemies to lovers and I adore both

And her aesthetic is one of my favourites, I’m alt myself and having a character like that is just so cool

My Runaways MC is a ball of sunshine with some hidden darkness specifically because Lottie’s such a dark cloud but can start shining with the right person, and that’s my absolute favourite trope

But man were the wedding episodes a cop out

Why couldn’t they give her the Noah treatment? Or the single treatment? Where they just get together after the show? Same with Hannah, why are they giving such an intense confession after who knows how long of literally nothing, like no communication even????

Don’t get me wrong, I kinda simultaneously love it for the angst and yearning, but it just… makes no sense?

So yeah, amazing bat lady that I seriously vibe with and wish my MC could have wifed up

Hannah:

I know this is a little controversial buuuut

I fucking love Hannah

But only OGHannah, Returning Hannah was butchered and I will never let that go

And it was such a toxic message too, that she needed to change herself and her appearance just to get a guy to like her?

Fuck that, Original Hannah was amazing and perfect exactly as she was

I love her trope, too, the naivety and how obvious and clear it was that she’s still learning about the world and relationships, to the point that it’s going to get her in trouble

And her obsession with fairy tales? 

Fucking adorable ohmygod

I started a fic a while ago that I think I’m gonna scrap, that just indulged in the fairy tale metaphors and stuff because I just love how cute it is lmao

If she wasn’t dumped, I think she could have had amazing growth alongside Lottie, and their friendship/kinda, probably, most-definitely-if-MC’s-not-there-more-than-a-friendship growing together would have been so good

In an alternate reality Hope was dumped instead, and that helps me sleep at night

I firmly stand by the fact that Noah should have been the deciding factor between Hope and Hannah/MC, where Lottie said something that screwed with his head earlier in the day to make sure her friends were safe

Noah should have saved Hannah/MC and Hope should have returned with Rocco, hellbent on revenge and proving herself

That would have been so good for Noah stans and such good drama, that actually made perfect sense

Hope was fully expecting that she’d get picked by Noah because they’d spent three days attached at the hip and then to just… not have that happen. It would have driven her insane and if there was then a scene with MC where she just like, gives up

Like she’s spent the past two days grafting Noah but he won’t make up his mind and she’s just done and MC can comfort her or fight with her and you just get to humanize her make her vulnerable and hurting and I fucking WISH they did something like that, even for RHannah

And Hannah’s growth in the Villa would have been so amazing

I think her idea of a perfect guy is definitely too much, and I’m not advocating that she settles by any means, just that she could have learned that there are things more important than money

That conversation on day 1 where you choose between money, kindness, and intelligence still baffles me

Like why are you a gold digger Hannah?!?!

Why don’t you just want a Prince/ss Charming???

Her and Hope should have swapped and I don’t understand why they weren’t

I mean, I do really like Hope, but Hannah’s just so cute and has so much to learn and her struggling in the Villa just to have a lightbulb moment with MC would have been precious and now I want to write it dammit

Anyway, Hannah is adorable and had so much potential and she never should have returned if they were just going to scrap everything that made her Hannah, except for snooty literature

I wanna listen to her rattle on about Belle and Mulan and every other Disney Princess and what they meant for representation and progress in media and then compare them to their original stories like a dweeb and I would have melted on the spot

Like yes, please tell me more about how gruesome Cinderella is

She should have shown up at the finale and hugged MC and been innocent and sweet so I could have just lost my shit for like a half hour

But stan OGHannah, burn RHannah

AJ:

Adorable, precious, denied an arc outside of coming out

I am not exaggerating when I say that I cried at 4:30 in the morning at her blushing face when playing the first two days

It’s just so fucking cute and I’m a sap and I don’t know why it made me cry, but it did okay?!

And her coming out was such good representation!!! By far the best thing in Boat Party, and I’m so proud of the progress FB’s made in queer representation at the very least

I know she’s pretty one dimensional, but most of S3 is unfortunately

Her being available right off the bat was also such a win, I’m positive it’s the reason she had so many stans

If her and Yasmin had switched or her and Lily, they would have been the ones that were dominating Reddit polls and stuff

And I know she’s written as masc but I just can’t really see it? Like I can’t see her in a dress, but outside of a few clothing items, I guess I just can’t see it? Maybe androgynous is more the word for my image of her, like definitely a mix

She’ll wear a skirt under the right circumstances, but never a dress, a crop top with a flannel, her prom outfit that’s like a frilly jumpsuit, stuff like that? idk im not a lesbian

Her route for me was so glitchy, but I know that if MC’s stolen from her by Yasmin, Tai, or Ciaran, she has some really cute scenes and I wish I could have seen them

And I know some people were ragging on her for the eyelash at the end of the scene but I thought that was just a perfect callback - maybe it’s the writer in me

Basically, AJ’s adorable and why did Ciaran have to split her and MC up, not cool dude

Yasmin:

I forgot I was doing a Yasmin route a while ago, but from what I’ve seen and played, she’s really sweet 

I hate that she’s almost nonexistent outside of her route

Give us a mysterious musician friend, you cowards!

I saw that she sings to MC on the final date and damn is that cute

Her eyeshadow kinda throws me off, but her stuffed animal makes up for it

And I’m salty that Yasmin the Lamb disappeared too, that was such a nice detail that made me start a Yasmin route

She’s distant and self-assured, but has a soft, gooey, nostalgic center and I wish we saw more of that, even if we weren’t on her route

My final thoughts on Yasmin: An artsy indie icon that I really need to stop getting distracted from and finish her route

Lily:

Again, don’t know much about her, but she seems really cool

Her shaving her head between the finale and Boat Party is such a flex and I wish she did it right before Boat Party so we could see her in all her bald glory

She’s into cars, right? And… architecture?

Idk, I barely remember my own name, let alone a 10 minute date from months ago

But I’ll definitely get around to doing her route at some point, maybe just to write for her, we’ll see

Elladine:

I know she’s not an LI, but MC so should have been able to run away with her

I missed that option in S3

I kinda get why they didn’t do that, but Boat Party’s just so messy in general

And I would include Genevieve here, but she’s so cute with Seb that I’d feel bad splitting them up

But Elladine had actual problems with Nicky!!!

Why did they mention it for it to never pay off??

And I’m so mad that the hype around her died when it was revealed she wasn’t an LI or the badass of the season, because I still adore how sweet she is

I also want to brag that before we got a name I was calling her Emma and that’s just on example of my almost psychic-ness

But yeah I wanted Ell to be a run away option and I’m salty that she wasn’t

Know what, fuck it, Viv too, she’s smart and cool as hell, let us love these awesome women FB, you cowards!!!

I have no idea who would be my number 1 based on canon, but if we’re talking hypotheticals, I think my answer, as strange as it is, is Hannah.

I just love what she could have been, but by no means what she is. 

It’s so awkward to know her for three days, not see her for three weeks, then spend a couple more days with, a couple weeks at most, just for her to write a whole ass book about MC?? And tell her about it with that hair????

No thanks, I’ll stick with closeted sapphic horse girl nerd Hannah because I guess that’s somehow my type??? Oh god what the fuck I swear I’m not a total weirdo

[maverick-werewolf]

Wulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends - Pre-order Link & Preview

Interior illustration for Wulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends, drawn by Justin RR Stebbins

More promised previews - as well as a preview of an interior illustration of Caiden wrestling with a werebear! You can find a lot more werebear action (and berserker lore for my setting) in the previews below, please be sure to check them out!

For more info on the book itself, you can also check out this post. Also be sure to check out the Hunt Never Ends tag for a whole lot more book previews!

And now in very important news... Wulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends is available for preorder on Amazon.com!

Pre-Order Link

Please note that, while the ebook is now available for preorder, Wulfgard: The Hunt Never Ends will also be available in paperback on October 30 from the same Amazon listing! Paperbacks cannot be preordered using Amazon’s system, however.

Be sure to check back October 30 for the physical (paperback) edition!

In the third section of the book, Caiden and Gwen hunt for a mysterious berserker whom the locals claim is causing trouble... and, for the first time, Caiden truly sees how hard it is to draw the line between man and monster.

If you’re interested in purchasing the book digitally, you can now pre-order it right here and have it immediately on October 30!

(Paperback edition will be available on Amazon on October 30)

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

“Thoughts?” she asked.

Caiden threw her a quick look. “We check the forest north of here, the direction he was heading. By now, maybe he’s calmed down some, even if he hasn’t turned back.”

‘Turned back.’ It was insane. Humans weren’t meant to turn into anything else, and neither was any other creature. The curses and magic he’d learned about since joining the Venatori, even not being able to read… He still couldn’t imagine a man turning into something he wasn’t.

No way he could imagine what that actually sounded like, what that drunk had to have heard – or what it looked like, for that matter. What it actually involved. It defied all nature, all sense, or at least any he’d known for his entire life.

They left their horses in town, setting off on foot to track the monster. As Caiden pulled his crossbow from his back and loaded it, Gwen nocked an arrow to her bow and spoke.

“So what do we know about berserkers – we know they bond their souls somehow to some kind of magical skins they wear, and this gives them special powers. Usually they bond with wolves, but they say that’s also the most dangerous, so some of them bond with other animals like bears instead. Because if they take it too far, they can lose control and lose themselves, turning into monsters.”

Caiden nodded. “Do we know for sure if they ever turn back?”

“There were at least two cases where they did that I read in some old accounts, but I don’t know how accurate they were.”

Tracking the berserker was easy, like Caiden figured. The monster had carved a swath of maddened destruction leading away from the city, toward the forest. He’d barreled over saplings, charged through streams, knocking aside underbrush and stones as he drove ever deeper into the wilderness.

Then, the tracks stopped.

There, sitting with his back against a tree trunk, was a man clad in little more than a few tattered clothes and furs that barely kept him decent. Every inch of him was made of tattooed muscle, scars, and some fresh bloodstains. A ragged grey beard covered half his face and reached down to his chest, full of unkempt remains of braids…

But he wore no animal skin.

What he did wear was not physical: a palpable cloak of regret. A pain so deep Caiden almost felt inclined to regret along with him as he drew near, the berserker’s emotions filling the air like a cloud of dreary, remorseful rain.

“I won’t fight,” the berserker said at once, showing empty hands and fingers stained with blood. “Show me mercy – I won’t fight.”

Gwen stood a few feet away, bow at the ready again, watching them. Caiden narrowed his eyes at him.

Slowly, the berserker stood, keeping his hands in plain view. Gwen swore under her breath, just loud enough for Caiden to hear. Even if he couldn’t match up to Caiden’s height, that didn’t make him small.

“I never meant to do what I did,” the berserker said slowly, his deep green eyes flicking between the two of them. “Whatever it was that I did.”

“You don’t remember?” Gwen asked.

“I remember some Imperials gathering around me and throwing insults…”

Caiden could hardly focus on the berserker’s words for the emotions churning in the air. Worry, even fear, and some strange anger that seemed to lurk like a monster waiting to spring. But there was a weariness, too. Something old and tired that yearned for only one thing: peace.

And always that remorse. Like someone who’d taken a life out of necessity, not desire – like a soldier in his legion who’d killed a man in self-defense. He’d felt this regret before, this guilt.

But monsters, supposedly, didn’t have remorse.

Caiden blinked, scowled harder against the sensations, and locked his eyes firmer onto the berserker before him.

“I fought for control, but… I am old. My skin took me years ago. I can fight it, but when pressed, it will always win in the end.”

“Yet,” said Gwen, “you came into an Imperial settlement knowing perfectly well you might lose control and kill innocent people there.”

Caiden glanced at her. Gwen kept her bow trained, ready to loose, a fire and distrust in her tone not quite like any he’d heard from her before. Still the berserker didn’t move, maintaining his calm, despite a sorrow in him that deepened to the point of leaving a lead weight setting heavy in Caiden’s stomach.

“Yes,” the berserker said, quieter now. “I was traveling – tired and hungry, in need of only shelter and nourishment.”

“None of that,” Gwen answered firmly, “excuses what you did.”

The berserker’s voice lifted, defensive, and pride came to grapple with his fear. “I am Gundahar of the Frost Raven clan, once a respected warrior. This is the first time I’ve ever harmed another with this curse – do not accuse me of not being careful. I know what I am and what the beast will do.” Wearing a scowl, he let his hands drop at last. “I only wanted a drink.”

Gwen glanced at him. Caiden glanced back.

And he lowered his crossbow.

“Caiden?” she said, perhaps a little stunned, the grip on her bow tightening in a way Caiden didn’t much like.

“Easy, Gwen,” he said, extending a hand toward her, lowering it, motioning for her to back off. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

She wasn’t having it, and she didn’t lower her bow. “Monsters hide in good men. The Venatori have taught it for eons – once someone is cursed, they can’t be trusted.”

Cursed. There was that word again, one he’d heard so often in this order of monster hunters. It meant so many different things, and every time he heard it, he wondered if there was some dark corner of that word reserved for him.

“Maybe not,” he said, stepping nearer to her and looking her in the eye. “If that turns out to be the case, I’ll shoulder the blame. But I’m asking you to lower your weapon.”

Gundahar neither moved nor spoke. He stood there watching with a dark look of jaded weariness etched across his features. Caiden couldn’t help but feel he’d seen a look disturbingly similar in one of the mirrors in Castle Greywatch.

At length, Gwen nodded. She lowered her bow, straightening herself and taking a deep breath, saying only, “I hope you’re right.”

Caiden nodded back. He returned his attention to Gundahar, but the berserker to speak first.

“I am sorry, truly, for what happened… Though perhaps your Imperial youths could use more lessons in how to stay their tongues. I came here peacefully, did nothing wrong, and they ridiculed me. Insulted me. Accused me of witchcraft and devilry – they didn’t know the holy powers of Odin they slandered with their words…”

His voice drifted. The pride faded away again, dissipating, pushed aside by the resurgence of guilt. Caiden’s near-eternal scowl almost softened around the edges. Almost.

“Tell us what happened,” he prompted.

(Werebear action under the cut!)

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

Down in the lamplit streets, a mob surged furiously around their quarry, torches aloft and voices raised. From here, Caiden couldn’t make out much, but he didn’t have to make any guesses to know what was happening.

Turning, he threw his crossbow over his shoulder, grabbed his harness covered in weapons and potions, and pulled it on over only his shirt while he burst through the door to his room and stormed down the stairs. No time for his armor or the rest of his gear.

Not far from the inn doors, where the innkeeper and his daughter stood watching in horror, Caiden found exactly what he’d feared.

In the center of that mob they dragged Gundahar along by a rope around his neck. He struggled, clawing at it, getting to his feet to stand tall around most of the civilians around him. The instant he did, several rushed forward, brandishing cudgels to beat over his arms and legs, trying to force him back down.

Gwen, groggy and confused, appeared at his side with her weapons in hand.

“Dammit,” Caiden growled.

Charging forward, he shouldered his way straight into the mob with Gwen following in the wake he cleared. They parted around him like water against a stone.

He glanced at her and said, “Talk them down or distract them. I’m going after the berserker.”

She nodded.

Each step he took toward Gundahar, the air seemed to grow thicker. Stuffier. Harder to breathe, full of a desperate fear, a wild need to escape. He felt like he walked toward a cornered animal, one tired and scared – but not wanting to hurt anyone.

They reached the center, where Caiden grabbed one shoulder of a man with his club raised over the fallen Gundahar and shoved him aside hard enough to send him staggering away, teetering awkwardly like a drunk. Judging by the smell, he probably was. As was half the mob.

Somewhere behind him, Gwen tried to raise her voice over the din of confusion, anger, and accusations. Telling them to calm down, that this was their job, to go back home…

Caiden barely listened. He’d trust her with that. With the talking. She liked doing it, after all, and he’d be damned if he had words for these idiots. Not with how he felt something in Gundahar that wanted to snap. He couldn’t let that happen.

Kneeling, he put a heavy hand on Gundahar’s shoulder as he half lay in the street, bruised and bleeding. He’d fallen silent. Gone were all the hoarse yells and pleas and him trying to explain. Spent. There weren’t any words left in him, only ragged, sharp breaths and a hard twitch of the muscles in his neck. The instant Caiden touched him, something almost seemed to lash out – something with claws, and something very intent to kill.

Caiden gripped his shoulder anyway, prompting Gundahar to look up at him. He blinked, locking gazes, sending Caiden almost more pain and remorse than he knew what to do with.

“Gundahar,” he said, “breathe. Focus. Get on your feet – I’m taking you out of here.”

“N-no— no, Venator—” he gasped. “Too late— please—”

Whatever else he might have said died on his lips, fell to a look of resignation that passed over his features in a blink. Caiden knew it was over then, even before Gundahar’s jaw set and frigid determination rushed from him, like a gale from the North.

Gundahar surged to his feet, and with one swipe made of inhuman strength, slammed his arm across Caiden’s head powerful enough to send even him sprawling into the street, skull cracking hard against the cobblestones.

Whatever happened next, Caiden didn’t see it. Didn’t much hear it, either, for the ringing in his ears. Screaming, ripping, popping – strange sounds rippling like water swam through his head as if they were ten leagues away and drowned.

This was new. All of it. The wash of cold, biting down deep, right to the bone, and the fury. It was like nothing he’d felt before, a high-pitched scream tearing on around him, and into him, settling like it wished to stay. Wished for him to scream along with it, to give in to the anger. He almost didn’t even realize that screams – even worse, distorted, full of more pain than he and all his experience could even imagine – were also very real, filling the air around him.

And when Caiden scrambled to his feet again, his head pounding from where he’d knocked it against the ground, Gundahar was already gone.

A monster stood in his place.

Caiden stared straight down a wrinkled muzzle, lips already starting to drip strands of white froth. The thing before him looked like the largest bear he’d ever seen. Massive, hulking, covered in brown, grizzled fur and twitching muscles the size of which no man could ever achieve. Yet its shape looked almost human, with arms, and great hands bearing fingers that ended in long, hooked claws.

No recognition stirred in the green eyes like he’d seen on the man wearing this monster’s skin – or the man skin the monster wore. Maybe Gwen had been right.

Because when the bear-monster turned, it opened its wide, toothy maw and lifted a hand-paw the size of Caiden’s entire head, ready to bring it down on the nearest fleeing civilian.

This was their fault – the civilians.

But right now, that wasn’t important. All that mattered was stopping it.

[dreamiesdotcom]

[11:27] Dating Lee Donghyuck is playing with fire, and everyone knows it. He's everything everyone wants — good grades, Soccer Team captain and handsome face. It's not hard to see why they like him so much, with his eyes a beautiful shade of brown, skin gracefully tanned and attractive proportions, he's quite a sight. Not to mention the positive vibes he radiates, his existence so bright you could only compare it to the Sun's and it still seems like an understatement — and with this, it's a given fact that the boy, or Haechan as he likes to go by, can get what and who he wants easily.

What makes being in love with him like playing with fire, though, isn't his popularity — it's his lack of interest in anyone who trips over their feet for him; you could fall for him for as long as you want but he would never reciprocate. Lee Donghyuck can get what he wants easily, but Lee Donghyuck doesn't like easy. What he likes, or more specifically, who he likes, to everyone's clear knowledge, is you.

Unfortunately, you happened to be the 'most dense, cold hearted, oblivious person to walk on this planet' according to his very own words, and Jaemin has to shake his head no, with a whispered "She just isn't interested, let her be, let her have her peace". Another unfortunate thing, though, is that listening is not a skill Donghyuck was given, and following advices is not something he's known for.

Just to add to the list of the boy's misfortune, you're absolutely willing to do everything to not have to cross paths with him because despite the rather flowery descriptions provided, you're not exactly fond of the boy — you hate him. You hate his guts, the cocky grin that never seems to disappear from his lips whenever he's looking at you, and the teasing from your schoolmates whenever they catch him flirting with you. You hate him, Lee Donghyuck, with every fibre of your being, passionately. Or so you want to believe.

But that isn't enough, apparently, because even if you're bursting with the will to avoid Lee Donghyuck, it proves you hard escape this situation when he's standing at the door of your classroom like he owns the school, "Hey, Y/N-ah, the professor said you can't leave without giving me a hug first. What's up?"

The room echoes with cheers, and it only makes the boy's grin wider. Some of your classmates nudge at you and others whine in jealousy — you cross your arms. The last thing you're about to give Haechan is satisfaction from getting a reaction out of you.

"What's down?" you roll your eyes at him. He's popular, isn't he? Why don't he just ask for a hug for someone else? Pretty sure half the University would trip over their feet rushing to him — why would he even ask you for a hug? "Literally, shut up."

"Why are you so mean to me?" he feigns hurt in his voice and you feel annoyed because the lingering stares only means more teasing you about this later. Somewhere behind Hyuck, you see Jaemin's apologetic eyes and the other boys' cheeky faces, "You were hanging out with my friends just as fine a while ago! I don't like feeling excluded, include me!"

"It's because they don't annoy me and they're pretty cool," you mentain a blank face despite being really pissed, "Unlike you."

He opens his mouth to make a comeback, but before he gets on your nerves, you roll your eyes and does the thing you do best — you run away from your problems, in this case, the problem being Lee Donghyuck.

The rest of the day wasn't anything interesting. Everything went pretty normal — you go home, eat dinner, finish up your homeworks earlier than expected, and you think of things. Okay. Maybe the last part was a bit out of the ordinary, but these days you find it easier to think about things more than just letting the thought slip off your mind.

Things change, people leave, families aren't perfect — you try to convince yourself, and it works. These thoughts are mostly suppressed in the back of your mind, preoccupied with whatever nonsense you have to accomplish, and you wanted to keep it that way.

It makes you heart hurt and you're not afraid to admit that you think it will never stop hurting. Time will heal it, you believe. Realistically, maybe not completely, but you're sure it will heal you to the point where the wound only hurts on the bad days, and you're gonna make sure to have less of those. You succeed, as you expected, keeping the thoughts to the very far back side of your mind until you eventually forget you have them.

But just because you do a good job keeping them away, it doesn't mean they're not there.

On times like this, silent and lonely, a huge house to yourself; when the house you're supposed to call home is empty besides you, your parents absent again, you're reminded of all the certain happy memories and the melancholy they bring; the people you'd rather not yearn for, and the feelings you'd rather keep burried, bottled up until they eventually get left behind, cold, forgotten. Just like they all did to you — just like he will once he gets what he wants, and that's the exact reason you wouldn't give him that.

You shake your head as soon as the words ring inside your head, closing your eyes and luring yourself to sleep to prevent yourself from dwelling on it. You wonder what tomorrow had to offer with a solemn expression, hoping to sleep soundly for tonight — you didn't.

Today was just as bad as the others, you narrate to yourself with a spent sigh, wondering how pitiful you look pinned against one of the book shelves with your nightmares towering over you, "Fancy seeing you here, sugar."

"Yeah. Can we not do that?", you try to push him to no avail, your eyes automatically searching for Jaemin so he could help you but the absence of his friends leaves you helpless. You try to look away, trying to distract yourself from the close proximity of your bodies and the lack of space in between your lips, "Is there any way I could unsubscribe from your life? If there's none, for the meantime, move."

"Say, mom wants to invite you for dinner tonight to say thanks because you know, you helped me with subject I'm struggling with," he says with a low voice, body unmoving, "Come over?"

The smile you lend him makes you look stronger than you feel, and the push you served him lacked in strength, "If your mom didn't tell me back then that you're indeed her son, I would have thought you're adopted because of your parents' kindness. I'm busy. Don't worry, I'll make sure to come over when you're not there."

"Oh? She's playing hard to get?" Hyuck says, still dangerously close and all of a sudden, you feel a sudden urge to wipe the grin he's sporting in his lips with your own, "I — like — that," he punctuates each word with a mocking tilt of his head and your fists shake.

Donghyuck's known for his bad boy reputation, and it's getting on your nerves now. The display on power he shows everyone, the teasing smirks tugging up his lips and the way he flirts — they don't matter, because you just see him as bad. Bad for your health, bad for your mind, bad for your heart. He's not the type who does crazy shit, offends laws and overall throws their lives away, no. He's the type that screams danger, walks on burning wires with a wicked grin on his face — one look at his eyes and you're gone, a taste of his lips and you'll want more. You don't like it.

Whether it was out of anger or just to stop yourself from doing something stupid, you didn't have the time to figure out because not even two whole seconds after the words left his mouth, you're doing the thing again — running away. Although it was not as simple as you made it seem. No, your life is never that simple and Donghyuck just never gives up — you learned that the hard way. For the rest of the afternoon, Donghyuck doesn't stop appearing in your line of view, popping up with the same words as the last.

You would say it angers you that he just won't back off, but that would be lying to yourself and you already lied to yourself a handful of times. To be true, you lived for it — you love the chase, and you notice. You notice the way his eyes linger on you every now and then, the heart fluttering smile he sends you when nobody is looking and the way it drives him crazy when you smile at everyone that is not him, playing the oblivious card to all his antics.

It's like a sick little game for you, and what's crazy is that you don't really want to win. A stronger emotion overpowers your coldness towards him — a feeling you're not yet ready to admit — making you want to give in, but also wanting him to earn it. You don't want the victory — you want to wrestle and lose. You want to feel his love and be overcome by it, you want to be in his arms but not willingly. You want a chase, you want him to play the game that you planned to lose, you want him to drive you wild until you have no choice but let him in. You want to see what he has under his sleeve. You don't want to defeat him — you want to challenge him. Never did you feel guilt.

There is a first to everything, as people say, and if the way something bubbled up your chest during dismissal when you saw Haechan's devastated face after Jaemin came up to you, all sweet smiles and gentle eyes, was something to hold onto, then it's most probably right. "I'm throwing a party later. Wanna come? I mean you always do… but since you know, were kinda friends now, I'd like you to come with us as our friend."

"Later?" you tilt your head to the side and smile, and you weren't even doing this to rile Donghyuck up but you lock eyes with him before grinning widely to Jaemin and the others behind him, "Sure, I don't have anything planned later, anyway."

"Thank God you agreed! I thought you wouldn't," Jaemin's smile was bright but it did not distract you from the sad glint in Haechan's eyes, "I'll make sure to have extra cherries for you, since you seem to love them."

"Oh babe, they're my favorite," you scrunch your nose up, and you watch Jaemin laugh before waving them bye with the words 'I'll see you guys later' and walking away. Once you're out from their sight, you lean to the nearest wall and clutch your constantly hurting chest — guilt is something you hate, and with the pain it brings you, it sure seems to hate you just as much, if not more.

The guilt is long forgotten later that night when Renjun shows up in front of your house by 8pm, making a comment about how nice your house is. You shrug at him, not really fond of the place but you still offer him a kind smile and tell him that he's free to come by whenever he wants, so as the other boys. The ride to Jaemin's house was surprisingly not long, the two of you live pretty close to each other. The whole time you were inside the car was fun, Renjun playfully complimenting you through insults and you two share a banter with the radio tuned down. By the time you arrive at the party, it's already in full swing and you see the rest, Jaemin and Jeno waiting for you and Renjun outside.

"Hey," Jaemin says before slinging an arm to your shoulders, "You look pretty, but I hope you're comfortable because those shoes like a pain in the ass."

"It is," you hum, "and it will be a pain in your ass if I kick you with it later because your party disappointed me."

Jeno just grunts beside you, Renjun following closely behind, and he clicks his tongue, "You get so bratty once you're comfortable with people, don't you?"

You only shrug, offering him a smile as they lead you to the drinks. As promised, Jaemin's left you a bowl of cherries for you to snack on, Renjun not leaving your side even when you insist he go alongside Jeno and Jaemin who are currently enjoying themselves. You already know how to spend your night — just like this, and Renjun assures you that it's totally fine to want to go to a party just because and not socialize, because that's exactly what he does too. You smile at his thoughtfulness, the gentle aura around the boys you never expected but is not unwelcomed, and you wonder if Hyuck is like this too.

Hyuck? Did you just call him Hyuck? You're not even that close!

You planned everything so clearly, you go to the party looking peachy, sit down with the bowl of cherries Jaemin gave you and maybe have a few shots — you had two, and that's enough, but boy, parties can drive you wild. That's the only excuse you have on why right now, you're in the middle of a circle with Lee Jeno, stuck in a game of Too Hot, pressed up against each other with hands behind your backs, "Wait, we have to do it here?"

"Well, how else are we supposed to know you're not touching each other if we're not watching you?" a girl from the circle says, and you remember her from your Math class. You shake your head, "No, I'm not kissing Jeno in front of you, perverts," your comment makes Jeno giggle, agreeing with you but you just roll your eyes when they all just shrug at you — you have to do it, just because you're Y/N and you're too stubborn to back down.

You sigh, offering Jeno a smile which he mirrors and makes a snarky remark about how you're probably gonna give up after five seconds. You roll your eyes playfully, "I'm not drunk enough for this," you say, wanting to grab a shot but before you can do so, Jeno is pulling you close to a kiss, and the last thing you remember was the cheers around you before you drown into it, mind focused on keeping your hands to yourself.

He tasted like the dessert Jaemin served, but there was no trace if alcohol in him nor Jaemin, you realized. You want to laugh at how ridiculous it was, them not even drinking when they were the ones who wanted to throw this party. Through the whole thing, you realized something. Jeno is soft spoken, all about eye smiles and cats but for the whole time you hanged out with them, you realized that Jeno is someone who possesses strong duality, and that's exactly what kissing him felt. He started soft and playfully, ever so often giggling with each other but it only takes a scream of 'you're supposed to make-out, not all that mushy shit' for him to dive in deeper and the moment you to dared to push your tongue out, you knew you were in for a ride, the smirk tugging on his lips proving that he's amused by your daring action.

Jeno is competitive, almost as competitive as you, you're willing to give him that, but letting someone overpower you without much struggle is not something you're known for, and you figure that you should find a way to make him lose after seven minutes passed and neither of you was near losing. You let a moan slip past your lips, Jeno's hands flying to your waist to pull you closer as if on instinct and the two of you burst out laughing alongside the crowd. Somewhere along the blurs, they joke around about how cute Jeno is and the boy just laughs.

You go back to where Renjun is, finally done with the game of Too Hot and he shakes his head at you, showing you that he filmed the whole thing. It's probably not the best idea, but even if you only became friends a couple of months ago, you have been schoolmates with Renjun for so long and you know the boy is harmless. You just laugh at his antics, "Don't use that weirdly, Huang."

"Oh, believe me, I won't. I just want to show Jeno how pathetic that was," he laughs alongside you, shoulders shaking, "You're really wild. I never understood how people approach you when you're so quiet, but maybe they all already saw this side of you and now, I know."

"Yeah, at one point, they all did. And our school is not even that big, everyone knows everyone and I'm friends with them. Well, except…", you shrug instead of saying his name. Renjun nods in understanding, "And I'm not wild. I just do really bad things… and I do them very well."

Renjun almost choking on his laughter was the highlight of the night, and that says a lot because the people who played the game saw you and Jeno almost make out in the middle of the whole party. A half smile forms on your lips as you look around, bodies pressed against each other around you, Jaemin and Jeno stacking cups to build a tower on the side, everything surrounding you felt so close yet so far, soaked in red lights but all you could see is yellow.

And it dawns to you.

This is what cool people do. This is what you don't want to do. And so, with a smile and a kiss on the cheek, you left the boys behind at the party despite their offers of driving you home — you have no intentions to go home; you have no home to go to. What you have is a house, people who gave you life and deprived you of everything else that money can't buy.

You're out of it, walking carelessly without a clear destination. You had enough fun for tonight and it's time to be sad now. You walk, and walk, and walk with nothing and everything inside your head at once, unbothered by the horrors of the dark and humanity. You're out of it, maybe that's why you're in this situation. Your brain is foggy and messy and you're inside your nightmare's car, eyes occasionally meeting every now and then.

He didn't bring you to a romantic place up the hill, he doesn't drive you to a nice park, but he drives you up to a high place, to an abandoned building, led you to the rooftop and offered you the sight of the city of stars and the glistening city lights under your feet — the whole drive was silent, unlike the one you spent with Renjun, but it felt so nice to be silent for a while. It also feels nice that someone found you worthy enough to bring you to a place so dear to them.

Donghyuck seems warm outside the school — his thighs still clad in tight jeans, but instead of the leather, another shitty stereotype he goes along with, he's wearing a much more comfortable hoodie. Outside of the school, you needed to play no roles; Donghyuck is the soft person he is, and you're still his exact opposite.

"Why were you outside?", he breaks the silence, eyes locked to the view in front of you. Your shoulders shake, "I was from the party, and decided it's the perfect time to not be happy," you smirk, "You're probably mad that I went to Jaemin's party and lied to you, but I'm just not the family dinner kind of person. It's fine, you probably hate me right now."

"I don't. I was just curious," he shrugs and it takes you everything to stop yourself from cooing at the way his lips is forming a pout — he's your enemy, you remind yourself, but damn, the things he makes you wanna do, "Although I'm quite surprised. You don't leave parties unless they're over, so why now?"

"Things change." you simply say as if you weren't just thinking about the cruel ways you could leave him wanting more after a kiss, about the way you could treat him good, as if it's the most normal thing in the world, "I already got my fun, I got what I want. I figure I take my leave."

His expression remained lost, ever so subtly scrunching his brows and you laugh at the words that spurt out his mouth, "You, you're interesting."

"I know. That's why you like me, right? Don't try to look shocked now. Yes, I, Y/N, know that you, Donghyuck, is flirting with me more often than not," you roll your eyes at his pout.

"Can I ask a dumb question?", he mutters silently, eyes still not meeting yours and you had to hold a laugh, "Better than anyone I know, if you're wondering."

"You're always mean to me even if you're friends with my friends, and this is the longest conversation we had," he shakes his head, finally looking at you, "Why do you hate me so much?"

A bittersweet smile makes it's appearance on your face, nothing compared to his crestfallen one. You're out of it, you remind yourself again, and maybe that's why you're currently spitting out shit you'd most probably regret later, but you allow yourself to fall apart, the wall you built around to protect you disappearing slowly as a sad smile overcomes the bittersweet one, "I don't hate you. I just know what you want and I like the chase."

His face screamed confusion, and you know it would have been the best if you just let him be instead of providing him with answers — there are things that are better left unsaid, and you're sure that you're pretty sober and conscious, just stupid, "Why do you want the chase so much, then?"

Your lips dripped of sweets and honey as you spoke, a wistful look in your eyes as you stared down to the city lights under the building, "I want to feel wanted." A silence envelopes the two of you and you take it as a request to continue, "People have a tendency of leaving me when they get what they want. My parents stopped being parents when I could already live and take care of myself since they are confident they already have a child to take over the bussiness, and my best friend left when she already knew all my secrets. People stop looking for you when you're no longer interesting, when you no longer serve purpose to them, when they already got what they want. The chase is better than the end game."

Donghyuck makes a sound similar to being punched in the throat, and at that moment, he felt something fall — maybe his heart broke for you, maybe it fell deeper for you, maybe both. Eitherway, that night, the two of you was closer than ever, crying together, and at that moment, you were sure that everything is now changed with Lee Donghyuck.

Your life is a huge spiral of wrong decisions and thoughts, you prove when Monday comes in the form of Lee Haechan harshly pulling you out to a more secluded place, only some students around the corner, and his angry expression tells you that nothing really changed.

"Why the fuck were you kissing Lee Jeno?", you frown at his words, and you remember Renjun's text earlier that day about Donghyuck stealing his phone and most likely seeing the video. You knew it won't end well when he showed it to you, but nobody really is to blame here because why the fuck would Renjun think that a certain Lee would steal his phone? "Y/N, answer me!"

"Jesus, Lee Donghyuck! You can't just lose your temper like this when the slightest of inconvenience happens! You're not entitled of me!", you strip his hands of your wrist, "I kiss whoever I want. My body, my choice — and if you don't respect that, I'll make sure nobody finds yours, Lee."

He finally breathes, arms crossing and clearly annoyed, but his pout almost makes you want to apologize, "I really hate you."

"It was just a game, for the love of fuck," the profanities keep going out of your mouth out of annoyance, and you just want to end this now — possibly with your lips against his, "And in case you're wondering, I hate you too. Why are you even mad?!"

"Hey, what's happening?", Jaemin comes running, panting and moves in the middle of you and Donghyuck. Renjun and Jeno was behind him, the two moving to Hyuck, and the boy just whines, "Jeno! Why were you kissing her?"

"I just told you!"

"I'm not talking to you, Y/N!", he grits his teeth, "Jeno!"

"Why are you so bothered by it anyway?!", you yell loudly at him, annoyed because you're aware that people are starting to stare. Haechan snaps his head towards your direction, annoyed that you won't even let the others speak, "Because I like you, Y/N, and you just kissed Jeno!"

"Oh my God, Hyuck! Can't you just be Elsa and let it go? It's just a kiss — it's not like Jeno and I married behind your back? I literally have to watch you suck faces with people who confesses to you every day of the week, and you're losing your shit over me and Jeno kissing?", you roll your eyes. Now, people are actually staring, "So annoying. Why am I even in love with you?" you make a show of childishly stepping at his foot before walking away, leaving them and the people watching gaping, a hint of smile on your lips.

You walk towards the lone tree on the field, Donghyuck following shortly after, catching his breathe. Once he looks decent enough, he speaks, "W-was that a confession?"

"Eyes up here, loser." you say to him, and once he complies, you step on your toes to catch his lips in a chaste kiss, "You owe me a date, and thanks."

"What?" he says, dazed, and you take pity on the boy. For the first time in years, a soft expression creeps up your face, and you shrug as you speak, "Thank you. Just thank you."

Donghyuck's smile mirrors yours, and it feels like game over to you; there are two ways this would end, you break each other or together, the two of you goes for forevermore. Eitherway, loving Lee Donghyuck is art — there's no right way to do it, you just have to do what feels right. As your hands intertwine, you realize that by the end of the chase, you never really lost. You had Donghyuck, and that's enough to consider it as a win.

Loud cheers from behind Donghyuck erupts, the three boys laughing crazily and basically wheezing. Friends. Finally, they're your friends too, and as they tackle the two of you into a group hug, you felt something you never felt before.

It feels warm, it feels like you belong, it feels like purple. It feels like something you never felt — home. You're home. A place where you don't need to play shitty roles, a place where you can cry and smile and laugh freely, a place where you don't need to be interesting to be worthy. People usually are the happiest at home, and it never made sense to you until now. Maybe you thought wrong before, maybe the end game is better than the chase, and this is the reward for holding on that long. You could live like this. You want to live like this. Forever.

Forever and more.

[the-hidden-writer]

An Odd Family Tree

A series of snippets from the lives of the FitzSimmons family, set post 7x13. Also, the series of events that lead up to the birth of their grandson.

Available to read on AO3 and FF.net.

Comments make my day!

Epilogue (2)  [FINAL]

Cows. He’s back in the ‘right’ timeline and the first things he sees are cows.

He never liked cows. Sheep he could deal with. Dogs? He loved them! Sheepdogs? He’d never actually seen one before, but according to common sense he should love them, right?

But no, he had to land in a huge sloped field full of those big burly beasts. At least they sort of resembled sheep with their long brown fur that seemed to cover their eyes. Someone really needed to give those cows a haircut.

It took him almost a whole hour to orientate himself with his surroundings. Since the transportation device he’d just used had never actually been tested before, there were a few unpleasant side effects.

The main side effect that Deke came across was that he’d lost most of the feeling in his limbs. It was only towards the end of that hour did he remember that he was a robot. Huh.

After finally gathering up the courage to move and checking his pockets for the generous amount of money he’d brought with him, he stumbled his way down the hill to the quaint little farmhouse at the bottom. It didn’t take much effort to convince the friendly farmer that he was just an airheaded traveler who’d lost his way. He even managed to persuade her to give him a ride into the nearest city. Which, as it turned out to be, was Inverness. As in, Scotland.

Honestly, the accent should have given it away.

She was kind enough to just drop him off on the outskirts of the city. As much as he wanted to visit Loch Ness, he had a much more important place to visit.

He was too self-conscious to ask anyone what year it was. In his timeline (not technically his, but the one where he’d ended up living most of his life) he wouldn’t think twice about asking a random stranger even the stupidest of questions. But he didn’t belong here, he technically really shouldn’t be here is what Enoch had said, and so he had to try and avoid bringing too much attention to himself at all costs.

That, and the fact that he wanted to make a good first impression.

But that left him with the problem of not knowing what year it was. Honestly, they should at least display the online newspapers in store windows! The device had been programmed to take him to whenever and wherever the majority of his DNA was concentrated into a small area so that he’d hopefully get to see his grandparents together. He’d hate to arrive and there to be only one of them, or worse, none at all.

And since he’d made it to Scotland, he had a glimmer of hope that it had worked and that they were both still alive.

Asking around a little (he’d given up on trying not to), nobody seemed to recognize the names Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons. But more than one person asked him if he meant Alya Fitz-Simmons who was apparently a very famous person within the city. That most certainly caught his attention. And after another painful two hours of asking random people, one elderly woman eventually gave him an address as well as a message to pass on (“Tell them that Elaine says hello.”)

He hailed the closest taxi he could find and practically screamed the address into the poor driver’s ear. The journey felt like it dragged on for hours. And still, somehow, it was over too quickly. The driver pulled into an estate that seemed to be a village of its own. Deke paid him and asked if he could stop a little further away and just show him which of the houses he needed to head to.

Once his feet touched the dusty old road, Deke felt like his metal knees would just collapse from under him. It was a straight path from where he stood to his destination.

It was the most homely, picturesque cottage he’d ever seen. There was a small wooden gate that led to the ivy-covered stone building, and there was a relatively wide area surrounding it that was protected by tall bushes. The section of the garden he could see through the arched entrance was filled with various species of vibrant flowers and bonsai trees. Next to the house, peeking over the top of the bushes, was a strong Acer tree that stood proud against the sky.

It was the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen, and he hadn’t expected anything less.

He dragged his feet closer. One foot in front of the other. He was glad he didn’t need to breathe because there was no way he would have been able to at that moment.

It was only a few feet away. He suddenly broke into a run, half-prepared to break down their door but then his ears caught-

“Bobo! Nana, Bobo, look at me!”

He screeched to a halt. Though he knew it should be impossible, his heart still felt like it had been ripped out of his chest. It still felt like blood was pounding in his ears. It felt like his vision was blurred and his head was spinning.

It couldn’t be-

“You’re doing great, sweetie!”

That was his Nana’s voice. Jemma Simmons. Nana!

He quickly retreated to behind the bushes and resorted to pulling apart some of the sharp twigs (he needed to get used to the fact that it didn’t hurt) in order to peek into the front garden.

There… there was his Nana. His Nana looked like how he vaguely first remembered her- her hair grey and neatly tied in a bun with a pair of glasses hanging around her neck by a chain. She was sitting on a tartan armchair with her hand help up as if shielding her eyes from something. Next to her was-

“Get down from there! You’ll fall off and break your leg and I’m not gonna make that trip to the hospital.”

Bobo. Fitz. His usual, grumpy self with his itchy sweater and long beard. Deke felt a memory be unlocked when he caught sight of the walking stick beside his Bobo’s chair. Fitz had his phone in his hand but was glaring a little boy that was wobbling dangerously on a branch of that magnificent Acer tree.

In a flash, someone jumped up to catch him before he could fall.

“That’s enough of that for one day, little dude.”

Dad! His Dad, in all of his blonde glory. He looked a lot happier and healthier than what Deke remembered.

And if Dad was there, then…

“Play on the ground now Deke, okay?”

Deke felt himself choke up.

Mom.

She looked exactly like he remembered her, but there was one major difference. She was laughing. She was laughing and smiling and she was happy.

It was the first time he’d ever seen his mother truly happy.

“Okay.” Said the boy, and only then did it hit him what his Mom had just said.

She’d called the boy Deke.

Despite his family being right there, Deke felt his eyes wandering towards the boy that had begun to chase a white butterfly that was flying around the garden.

Untamable brown hair. A scarily familiar spindly frame. Mischief shining on his baby face, as well as complete and utter adoration of the adults around him that was matched tenfold by said adults.

Doubt began to creep into his mind so intensely that he almost missed it when the boy, himself, turned in his direction.

Only then did Deke realize that he’d been shaking that entire time.

Green eyes met green eyes. One pair was full of trauma and survivor’s guilt, and the other of pure childhood innocence and curiosity.

Deke had never exactly seen a picture of himself when he was younger and had no idea what he would look like, but he was pretty sure that he never had the chance to have that sort of perfect childhood. He’d seen too much. The envelope containing many USB sticks filled with voice messages and pictures suddenly felt extremely heavy in his pocket.

That’s when he made the decision.

The second he noticed the tiny version of himself open his mouth, he turned and ran, not caring that the bushes noticeably rustled behind him, scaring a bird.

A robin. How fitting.

As the voices that he’d yearned to hear for years became distant, Deke finally stopped running.

There was no way he could show himself to that family. They were all happy together in the way that it was supposed to happen... Yes, he was jealous of himself, who wouldn’t be?

The last time he saw his Mom alive was the seconds before she was killed in front of him. The last time he saw his Dad was when he was being dragged, kicking and screaming, to his death sentence while Deke shrieked at him that he should’ve just listened and given up hope.

And his grandparents… he didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye either time.

The people he had just seen in the garden were Alya Fitz-Simmons, Owen Shaw, Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons joyfully playing with Deke Shaw. They belonged to that version of him, not himself.

People regularly called him selfish, so is it still selfishness if you’re doing something for the benefit of an alternate version of yourself?

Little Deke Shaw should live a normal existence. The life that Deke had often found himself begging for. A life without a weird future-past-adult version of himself intruding.

...He might go visit Loch Ness after all.

Pulling out that damned white envelope, Deke smiled through his pain.

He pulled out a pen from his backpack and scribbled on it.

“Elaine says hi.”

Before he went on a Loch Ness Monster hunt... he had a delivery to make.

[THE_END_]

[mitchmarnier]

i took too many hits off this memory [i need to come down]

pairing: eddie kaspbrak/richie tozier [reddie] & beverly marsh/kay mccall [mcmarsh] rating: teen audiences and up chapter warnings: q slur, internalized homophobia, sexual content, word count: 4,777 chapter count: 2 of ? summary: Eddie Kaspbrak doesn’t remember much from his childhood. He doesn’t really know he doesn’t remember. He also doesn’t know why he’s so drawn this terrible comedian on tv, but when Eddie runs into him in a bar, and they spend the night together, Eddie’s life is changed forever. It’s finally back on track- and he doesn’t know anything about it

read on ao3. moodboard by @kaspzier​

perma taglist: @jwilliambyers​, @stebbins​, @kaspzier​, @s-s-georgie​, @chaotickaspbrak​, @eddiefuckinkaspbrak​, @edstozler​, @emgays​, @anellope​, @thorn-harvester-ven​, @wheezyeds​, @vipertooth​, @tozierking​, @billdenbrough​, @sydinastans​ @itfandomprompts​, @loserslibrary​​ (let me know if you want added!) 

TWO YEARS LATER

Eddie Kaspbrak cringed as the stench of the place hit his nose. He turned his face away and tried to discreetly press the sleeve of his sweater to face to ward it away. Kay McCall turned to face him and grabbed hold of his arm. “What have I been telling you?” She said sharply. “Stop passing judgement before you���ve experienced anything.” 

Eddie rolled his eyes. In the two years since he’d walked away from his relationship with Myra- or more accurately, forced her to walk away from it- Eddie had grown to accept that part of him he was sure he’d been running away from since his youth. There were dim, blurry memories of being a kid with sweaty hands and a pounding heart but he could never touch them. Sometimes, in his dreams, Eddie was sure he did- but they were gone when he woke up, leaving only a vague feeling of yearning left behind. 

He’d met Kay McCall nearly a year and a half earlier at the community center when Eddie had been having meetings to help with some ongoing mental health issues. It seemed that over decades of repression couldn’t just be turned off by coming out of the closet and ran much deeper. Kay had been an irreplaceable piece of Eddie’s self acceptance. Without her persistence that Eddie go out, that Eddie experience all these positive things, Eddie didn’t doubt for a second that he would have been sitting alone every weekend for the last two years.

And he hadn’t been, that was a beautiful thing. Eddie had gone out, he’d gone to clubs and bars and parades. He’d painted his body in neon colours and danced under black lights. He’d had a few short lived relationship with men Eddie would have allowed himself to look twice at before. Eddie had come to trust Kay blindly in every activity she suggested. Until tonight.

“I fucking hate comedians.” 

“So you keep saying,” Kay said. “But you refuse to give me any sort of reasonable explanation to why that is, so I’ve chosen to continue to ignore you.”

Eddie shook his head, and scowled at the ground. He wasn’t entirely how to begin to explain his animosity towards comedians. How could he explain the broken, faded memory of a comedian, a hotel room and a name that always seemed to be on the tip of his tongue?

 “I’m only doing this for your stupid date.” Eddie said stubbornly. “You say this girl is the real deal, and I’m choosing to believe you. This better be serious.” 

Kay rolled her eyes. It was, of course. Eddie knew that Kay had had many partners since they’d become friends, some lasting for weeks and Eddie possibly even getting a name, but Kay had never - not once- invited Eddie to meet one of her girlfriends before now. 

“I don’t know anything about this guy. I Googled him, he’s some white dude. Reggie or something. Very mixed reviews.” Kay said simply.  “Beverly seems to think he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to comedy, and I’m letting her pick the date so here we are.”

Eddie raised his brow but knew better than to say anything.  Kay grabbed Eddie by the arm and didn’t so much guide him through the crowd as yanked him. This was fine. This was used to and expected. What wasn’t expected was the soft, almost bashful smile when a short, redhead girl pushed her way through the crowd and ran up to them. 

‘Hey,” she said, almost out of breath. She and Kay held long eye contact until Eddie cleared his throat. When Beverly turned and met Eddie’s gaze, his breath caught suddenly in his throat and he wondered for the first time in many years if he’d need to use his inhaler. Beverly’s eyes blew wide for a moment, her mouth opened then clapped back shut just as suddenly. She seemed to almost shake herself, then offered her hand out. 

“Beverly.” She said with a sweet smile. “My friends can call me Bev.”

“Eddie.” Eddie shook her hand quickly, and Beverly didn’t say anything when Eddie immediately pulled a small bottle of hand sanitizer from his jeans pocket. “Tell me more about this bozo, but Kay is not convincing at all.” 

“I understand the skepticism.” Beverly said as she draped an arm around Kay’s shoulders. Eddie watched for a moment and waited for Kay to shrug her touch off, but no rejective motion happened. “But trust me, this guy Richie is actually good. He’s come a long way in the last couple years, and I don’t know, he talks about chicks a lot but I get a bit of a gay vibe-”

Eddie’s hearing buzzed out, brain seemed to float right out of his ear and out of the bar. Richie… comedian… his heart was suddenly at risk of exploding right out of his chest. He pressed his hand against his hand to his chest, able to feel his heartbeat through his shirt and sweater. Blurry memory began to ring into focus.

“I fucking hate comedians.” Eddie lied under his breath. Nobody listened. They moved to their seats that was being held by a tall, thin man with blonde hair that seemed to already be balding at the top and an orange stain on his shirt. Eddie stopped and turned to the two women.

“I didn’t agree to a double date.” Eddie said sharply. “Especially not a blind, surprise double date.”

Beverly glanced away, biting at her thumb nail but Kay held Eddie’s gaze without a flinch. “Eddie. You haven’t been laid in what- four months? Just give him a chance.” 

Eddie glanced back at his supposed date and watched as wiped snot from his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie. Eddie and Bev pulled mirrored looks of disgust. “Not fucking happening.”

“Sorry.” Beverly said quietly to him. “He was kind of the only person available and Kay didn’t tell me until tonight that she wanted a date for you and-”

“And you don’t have to fuck that guy, because he’s pretty disgusting.” Kay broke in with exasperation. Eddie glared at him. “But are you getting some tonight, I’m going to make sure of it.”

Eddie thought of how his stomach had been in butterflies since he’d heard Richie’s name, and how his face was still burning, and wasn’t so sure that was going to be an issue. The lights began to dim before Eddie could give any sort of response, negative or positive, and they all quickly moved to their seats. Eddie silently thanked a God he wasn’t sure he believed in that there wasn’t time to introduce him to the dirty date before the show began.

In complete honesty, Eddie couldn’t tell you much about the show itself. He thought at one point, he’d noticed that Richie’s jokes had gotten better than what he’d listened to years before but he didn’t have enough memory of the old stand up to be sure. It still wasn’t good by any means, but the crowd seemed to eat it up. He thought maybe Richie seemed a little more passionate, a little more comfortable, and that made a world of a different even with shitty dirty jokes. 

“That guy was hilarious.” Eddie’s “date” said as he wiped the barbeque sauce from their chicken wings his hands on his jeans. 

Eddie looked through the crowd at nothing, simply for an excuse to not look at the date he hadn’t bothered to learn the name of. In his haste to keep his eye line away, it took Eddie a moment to realize where it had landed. Not until he realized that he’d accidentally caught the eye of none other than Richie Tozier himself.

Eddie as good as vomited his heart up into his mouth when Richie winked at him. His stomach fluttered and he broke out into a cold sweat across the back of his neck. Richie whispered something to the shorter man by his side- a boyfriend? His manager, maybe- and then he was walking towards them.

“Heya, Eds.” Richie said with an easy grin. “Long time no see.”

Kay turned to Eddie with wide eyes, mouth half open, and Beverly had a confused frown on her face. Eddie wanted the Earth to open up and swallow him whole. “Yep.” Eddie said begrudgingly.  “Richie, this is my best friend, Kay, and her friend Beverly.”

“Friend?” Richie challenged as he took and shook Kay’s hand. 

She raised her brow at him. “Girlfriend.” She said angrily. “Is that a problem?”

Eddie pursed his lips to hide a smile as Richie let out a soft laugh. “Trust me, ladies. It is the opposite of a problem.”

Beverly gasped and slapped at Richie’s shoulder. “Hey, hey! Careful, Red!” Richie said, but he was laughing. “If security sees you knocking me around, it won’t be too good for you.” 

Beverly just laughed at him. “I knew you were gay. I fucking knew it.” An odd expression came over Richie’s face then, and Eddie almost felt bad for him. “We gays have a sense about this. You’ll get there. It comes with coming out.”

Richie’s face blocked them out. “I’m out to the people who matter to me.”

“And portraying yourself as straight asshole for the world to see.” Beverly said with a shrug. “Sure, it’s funny and it sells, but don’t you think it would be more impactful if you were a gay comedian?”

“I AM a gay comedian.” Richie said sharply. “And if I started telling jokes about being gay and fucking men from bars, I’d be an unemployed gay comedian.” 

“Hey.” Eddie said softly. His eyes were on Kay and Beverly, put he hoped that Richie could sense that the words he directed at them were for his benefits. “It’s not an easy thing to do. You should know not to push people.”

A silence settled over them, the buzz of the bar behind them, and Eddie began to fidget where he stood. Richie cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck. “Listen-” he said, pursing his lips. “I’m supposed to go to some sort of big name after party now, stupid publicity garbage.”

Eddie tried not to feel disappointed, but Richie kept talking.

“But that’s not really my thing. I’ve never cared about publicity before.” Richie said with a grin. “So, I’ve got a bunch of better ideas. If you guys are down.”  

Beverly’s eyes blew open wide. “For real? Are you serious?”

Richie reached out and pinched Eddie’s cheeks. “Course. Any friends of Eds are friends of mine.” Eddie swatted Richie’s hands away, stubbornly refusing to look at Kay despite how much of an effort she was putting into meeting his gaze. 

“Well, hell yeah!” Kay said as she pushed on a dazed Beverly’s shoulders. “Let’s fucking go!”

“Let’s fucking go!” Richie repeated, looking at Kay with a mixture of awe and wariness. Richie wrapped an arm around Eddie’s waist and squeezed his hip once. Then let go quickly, gesturing wildly towards the back door. Richie walked towards it and Beverly began to immediately skip after him, her face light up like that of a child. 

Kay turned slowly to Eddie, brows raised and a soft smirk settled on her lips. “So… does he have anything to do with you hating comedians?”

Eddie frowned. Did he? Eddie hadn’t thought about Richie Tozier since… well, probably since Richie had gotten on that plane in New York that same day. He had vague memories of meeting a guy in a bar who prompted his spilt from Myra, a weird twinge in his stomach that told him it was the best sex he’d ever had, but until tonight he hadn’t been able to put that memory to a face. But now? Yeah. That face was Richie Tozier. But Eddie didn’t hate that experience, not at all, it was a good one. A life changing one. Not one that prompted hatred or hard feelings.

“No.” Eddie said with a roll of his eye. “I hate comedians because they make their living being not funny about minorities and as a marginalized person,-”

“Alright.” Kay tossed an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and started guiding him towards the back door. “We all get it. You’re a big-time activist now, we did a good job with you, Kaspbrak. Now our next task is getting you to let your hair down.”

“My hair is always down.” Eddie said with a smile. Kay bounced on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. They pushed out the back door at Eddie’s mouth dropped open at the sight of the limo parked out back. Beverly was inside, her head poking out the sun roof. Richie was leaning against the car door, smoking.

“Hasn’t anybody ever told you those things will kill you?” Eddie asked, knowing his voice was all too cheerful. Richie looked up at him and grinned. 

“With the lifestyle I live?” Richie asked with a wave of his head. “Something is going to kill me long before my smoking habits do.”

Eddie didn’t like the twinge that settled in his stomach at Richie’s joke and he forced a smile. Richie clasped Eddie on the shoulder and he helped usher Eddie into the back. Kay dove in after them, and Eddie found himself pressed right up against Richie’s side. He could feel the heat radiating off him and Eddie’s heart began to race in his chest. He fought the urge to lean up against him completely, telling himself that he needed to maintain at least the slightest hint of dignity in this situation. 

Beverly kept her head out the sun roof for the first several minutes of the ride, and her hair was a bird’s nest when she dropped back inside, grinning from ear to ear. Eddie couldn’t help back grin back. “So where are we going?” Beverly asked, messing with her hair in a furitious attempt to tame the mess. “Never did tell us.”

Richie let out a long, exhale of smoke from the joint between his fingers and grinned lazily at her. “You get into car’s with strangers and it takes you nearly fifteen minutes to ask where they’re taking you?”

Beverly shrugged, still grinning. “I’d get in anybody’s limo, stranger or not.”

Richie shook his head, eyes half open. He offered the joint over to Eddie, who’s breath caught in his throat. “Oh, no, I have-”

“ASTHMA, ASSHOLE.” Eddie cried, smacking at Richie’s shoulders. Richie laughed, and fell backwards against the dirt and grass. They were sitting up at the top of the Quarry, feet dangling over the edges, as the sun went down in front of them. Richie had been working at a joint for the better part of a couple minutes, and Eddie had been choosing to ignore it until Richie had offered it over to him. 

“I think we both know that you don’t.” Richie replied, and there was something all too appealing about Richie when he was high. Eddie supposed he always found Richie appealing, though he’d never admit it to another living, breathing human (and certainly not to Richie) but the way Richie almost seemed to turn into lower power mode when he was high just held Eddie’s interest so intensely. It was Richie he was still getting to know, barely beginning to understand. And that captivated him.

“Put that shit out.” Eddie demanded. “Put it out or I swear to God I’ll throw it over the edge.”

“Oh, really? And you’ll buy me more then.” Richie said and waggled his eyebrows. “For all you know, Eds, this could be all I’ve got left.”

“I don’t care how much you have!” Eddie cried. “And I would not be buying you more because it’s illegal and you shouldn’t even have this in the first place, you know? You know all about the health risks just as well as I do!”

“Nobody knows any health risks as well as you do, Eddie Kaspbrak.” Richie pointed out, before taking another hit of the joint. Eddie watched his lips intently as the smoke blew out through him and he tried to force his heart race to slow down. This was a new feeling for Eddie, over the last few months. Richie doing little things that made Eddie feel like he’d just run a marathon. It was harder to pretend that Richie Tozier didn’t affect him deeply. 

“You know things people tell you about health is bullshit, though.” Richie continued, but Eddie was a little more focused on Richie’s fingers pulling on his own bottom lip as though he’d just remembered he had one. His legs and hands kept occasionally twitching and Eddie’s eyes followed the motion each time. “It’s just what the man wants you to think. Weed is good for us, and they want to keep it from us because they can’t make money off it.”

“You’re such a fucking a stoner, Rich, oh my God.” Eddie rolled his eyes but he couldn’t help the little giggles that were building up in his chest. 

“So you really aren’t going to have any? Not even for me? Your bestest friend?” Richie held the joint out towards Eddie, and spending so much time with Richie, Stan and Beverly the smell of the weed didn’t bother him as much as it used to. That fact made him uneasy. 

“Bestest isn’t a word.” Eddie replied, turning his eyes back to the sky.

Richie scoffed. “Oh, okay. Whatever. You aren’t gonna have any at all? Eddie? Eds? Ed-”

“Earth to Eddie!” Kay’s voice suddenly caught through his mind. 

Eddie jumped in the seat, suddenly aware that the limo was moving and Richie was still holding the joint out in his direction. Eddie looked slowly over Richie’s face,  his heart hammering in his chest and his brain reeling to find a grasp on reality. Real or not real. “What?” He asked, voice coming out almost a hoarse whisper.

“Do you want a hit?” Richie asked him lazily, the paper burning and wasting between his fingers has he watched Eddie. 

“No, I have-” Eddie broke off again, brain buzzing inside his head and heart picking the pace back up. 

Richie raised his eyebrows. “Have what?”

Eddie cleared his throat and reached his fingers out for Richie’s joint. “Nothing. Give it to me.” Richie handed it over willingly and as Eddie put the joint between his lips, something deep inside told him that this wasn’t his first time smoking weed. 

Richie patted his back, and made soothing sounds as Eddie coughed and his chest burned. “It’s alright, dude. The more you cough, the higher you get.” 

A familiar phrase. Familiar. A word that Eddie Kaspbrak would like to stop applying to Richie Tozier, because it never failed to make him feel on edge. Before Eddie could feel anything besides the tightness in his chest, the limo was suddenly taking a left and skidding across something that felt much more like dirt than any real road. 

“Where are we going?” Beverly asked, from where she’d draped herself across Kay’s lap once returning inside from the sun roof. Eddie thought that maybe this weed was laced with something, because there was no way Kay McCall was just letting some girl lay in her lap and there was zero possibility that she was actually running her fingers through the girl’s long red hair. And yet-

“We’re not going anywhere.” Richie said with a grin. He popped the back door of the limo open before the vehicle had slowed to a complete stop, and Eddie rested his head against the seat of the limo to watch him. “We’re already here.”

Eddie tumbled out the limo on Richie’s tail, with Kay and Beverly following and whispering behind them. Eddie squinted out the darkness around him, unaware that he was leaning against Richie’s side. “Central Park after dark? So you’ve taken us here to be murdered?”

Richie let out a little awkward half-laugh, hand unconsciously going to spread around the small of Eddie’s back. “Nothing so sinister as that.” Richie said. “Just that most of the times I’ve spent in New York have been spent in a bar or in a hotel room.” 

Eddie’s face burned, but even more than embarrassment over Richie speaking of the night they’d spent together, Eddie felt a weird sense of jealousy of the verbal acknowledgment of other people being with Richie like he had been. Before him, and worse, after him. Eddie knew perfectly well that he couldn’t be mad that Richie had slept with people before they’d met, and he had even less right to be mad about Richie may or may not had slept with after their literal one night stand. He had been the one to say no, to go home and ignore what he’d also felt. 

Eddie shivered almost violently as he walked through the grass, knowing it was getting his shoes wet and likely ruining them completely. Oh well, Richie’s career was starting to really take off- Eddie could bill him for new shoes. Something fancy and expensive no doubt. He could afford it. 

Arms wrapped around Eddie’s middle and he startled as he looked down at Kay, who grinned back up at him. “Oh, Miss Kay gets cuddly when high? Nice to know.”

She laughed, and squeezed Eddie’s middle until he coughed then released him. She turned away and moved over to Beverly, taking her back the face and kissing her deeply. Eddie frowned awkwardly to himself, and turned back towards the dark park. He felt Richie walk up beside him but he didn’t turn to look at him.

“You know, it’s kind of weird.” Richie said, but he wasn’t looking at Eddie either. “Until I saw you tonight, I don’t think I even remembered you. Which makes me sound like an absolute monster, but-”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” Eddie said lightly. “I didn’t remember you, either. At least not… specifically. I remembered an intense dislike for comedians, but it wasn’t you that I remembered. Until your show started at least.”

Richie snorted and took a drag of a cigarette. Eddie watched the smoke flow through the dark, and tried to pretend he thought it was gross rather than attractive. “Don’t know why you’re walking around hating comedians. You’re the one who ripped my heart out at an airport, all I did was give you some sweet, sweet loving.”

Eddie made a rough noise at the back of his throat. “You sprialled my entire gay crisis and prompted me to have to change my entire life. I think I deserve a little bit of resentment here, man.”

“Man, I met you at a gay bar. I don’t think I started anything. You were already on your way there yourself.” Richie laughed. “Besides, don’t you feel better now? Rather than marrying some chick because you thought you had to, and playing the role of some straight husband when you were really miserable and craving some good dick. I think you owe me a thank you, actually.”

Eddie shook his head and finally turned to Richie. “You’re right. Thank you, Trashmouth, for being just hot enough that I confessed fully to myself that I wanted to suck dick.”

Richie grinned at him. “Well, you’re here with me now, aren’t you? There must be something about me you like. Besides the fact that I have a dick.”

“You also have a limo, and I didn’t have anything better to do tonight.” Eddie said slowly, letting the words roll off his tongue. Richie continued to look at him, head tilted with a goofy smile on his face. “Did it… I’m not going to apologize for not getting on a plane with a stranger that day. I still think I made the right call.”

“Yeah, you probably did.” Richie said slowly. “I knew that even as you did it, but Eds… God, I still can’t shake the feeling that I knew you. That we’re somehow supposed to meet.”

Eddie didn’t say anything, keeping his eyes on Richie as Richie dropped his cigarette and crushed into the ground. Eddie didn’t even lecture him on the littering, waiting for Richie to finish whatever train of thought he was going down. “And what are the odds that your best friend would just so happen to drag you to see that comedian who asked you to drop your life for him two years ago? On the one night I performed at a small bar for nearly a year.  Come on, that can’t be coincidence, Eds.”

“You’re a believer in the universe, I admire that.” Eddie said dryly.  “You’ll ask a stranger to run away with you after one night. It’s sweet and it’s insane. Sometimes coincidences do exist.”

Richie looked at him, face suddenly somber. He reached out and took Eddie’s hand in his. Eddie tried to ignore the electric shock it sent running through him. “It’s not just any stranger, you know. There’s something about you, Eddie Kaspbrak. And I think, for you, there’s something about me, too.”

“Maybe.” Eddie agreed. “But I still don’t know you, you don’t know me. Our lives are so different, it’s like we have anything in common or even live on the same side of the country. We ran into each other twice in two years. That’s not exactly some great romance story.”

“It could be if we let it be.” Richie said wistfully. “But don’t fret, Eds. I’m not asking you to run away with me this time. I tried that, but it didn’t work. I don’t offer up potentially life changing decisions to the same dude twice, no matter how drawn I am to him.”

For whatever reason, disappointment settled itself in Eddie’s stomach. He’d already worked himself up, gotten himself ready to tell Richie no, and to find that Richie wasn’t going to ask was a let down. Why he wanted Richie to ask him, he had no idea. Probably the same reason he had no idea why he was more comfortable around Richie Tozier than he was around people he’d known most of his life.

Richie turned around and grinned at Kay and Beverly, who were running through the park fountain. “You’ve got a good thing going here. Much better than last time I met you. Good people in your life. You shouldn’t turn your back on that, and I don’t even want you, too. Like you said- you don’t even know me. And maybe I don’t know you. But they-” he gestured to Eddie’s friends. “They’re good people. Keep them around.”

“I plan to.” Eddie said, throat suddenly dry. “You’re good people, too, Rich.”

Richie turned to look at him, a soft smile on his face. “Thought you said you didn’t know me.”

Eddie shrugged one shoulder. “I’m good at reading people. You put on some big show, but you’re the kind of person who’d stopped to pet a cat no matter how late he was running… and he believes in romance. Soulmates. You’ll find yours, Richie. Someday.”

Richie let out a loud sigh as something in his suit pocket started beeping loudly. He rolled his eyes. “My team has officially realized that I haven’t made it back to my hotel yet. They’ve got me on a tight lease these days.” He held his hand out and Eddie took it without a second thought. “Hey, ladies! If you want a ride back, let’s move it.”

Beverly and Kay stumbled into limo, giggling, and Eddie tried to ignore their kisses as Eddie gave Richie the directions to Kay’s apartment- and Richie gave the directions to his driver. It wasn’t a super far drive, the streets of New York surprisingly calm as they drove through. Eddie kept his eyes trained out the window, and his hand resting on Richie’s bouncing knee.

He watched Beverly and Kay tumble back out of the limo outside Kay’s apartment and moved to follow them, but Richie’s hand wrapped around his wrist. Eddie turned back to him, and his heart fluttered as Richie leaned forward and tucked a piece of paper into the front pocket of Eddie’s jeans. 

“If you ever find yourself wondering about the universe,” Richie said, his voice cracking through a dry throat. “Give me a call. I think I’ll be seeing you again, Eddie Kaspbrak.”

Eddie reached out, cupped the side of Richie’s face and kissed him deeply. He let their foreheads press together for a moment before pulling back and climbing out of the limo. He watched the limo drive off until it completely disappeared from view.