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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 months ago

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Cleantech has an enshittification problem

On July 14, I'm giving the closing keynote for the fifteenth HACKERS ON PLANET EARTH, in QUEENS, NY. Happy Bastille Day! On July 20, I'm appearing in CHICAGO at Exile in Bookville.

EVs won't save the planet. Ultimately, the material bill for billions of individual vehicles and the unavoidable geometry of more cars-more traffic-more roads-greater distances-more cars dictate that the future of our cities and planet requires public transit – lots of it.

But no matter how much public transit we install, there's always going to be some personal vehicles on the road, and not just bikes, ebikes and scooters. Between deliveries, accessibility, and stubbornly low-density regions, there's going to be a lot of cars, vans and trucks on the road for the foreseeable future, and these should be electric.

Beyond that irreducible minimum of personal vehicles, there's the fact that individuals can't install their own public transit system; in places that lack the political will or means to create working transit, EVs are a way for people to significantly reduce their personal emissions.

In policy circles, EV adoption is treated as a logistical and financial issue, so governments have focused on making EVs affordable and increasing the density of charging stations. As an EV owner, I can affirm that affordability and logistics were important concerns when we were shopping for a car.

But there's a third EV problem that is almost entirely off policy radar: enshittification.

An EV is a rolling computer in a fancy case with a squishy person inside of it. While this can sound scary, there are lots of cool implications for this. For example, your EV could download your local power company's tariff schedule and preferentially charge itself when the rates are lowest; they could also coordinate with the utility to reduce charging when loads are peaking. You can start them with your phone. Your repair technician can run extensive remote diagnostics on them and help you solve many problems from the road. New features can be delivered over the air.

That's just for starters, but there's so much more in the future. After all, the signal virtue of a digital computer is its flexibility. The only computer we know how to make is the Turing complete, universal, Von Neumann machine, which can run every valid program. If a feature is computationally tractable – from automated parallel parking to advanced collision prevention – it can run on a car.

The problem is that this digital flexibility presents a moral hazard to EV manufacturers. EVs are designed to make any kind of unauthorized, owner-selected modification into an IP rights violation ("IP" in this case is "any law that lets me control the conduct of my customers or competitors"):

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

EVs are also designed so that the manufacturer can unilaterally exert control over them or alter their operation. EVs – even more than conventional vehicles – are designed to be remotely killswitched in order to help manufacturers and dealers pressure people into paying their car notes on time:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

Manufacturers can reach into your car and change how much of your battery you can access:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

They can lock your car and have it send its location to a repo man, then greet him by blinking its lights, honking its horn, and pulling out of its parking space:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

And of course, they can detect when you've asked independent mechanic to service your car and then punish you by degrading its functionality:

https://www.repairerdrivennews.com/2024/06/26/two-of-eight-claims-in-tesla-anti-trust-lawsuit-will-move-forward/

This is "twiddling" – unilaterally and irreversibly altering the functionality of a product or service, secure in the knowledge that IP law will prevent anyone from twiddling back by restoring the gadget to a preferred configuration:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/19/twiddler/

The thing is, for an EV, twiddling is the best case scenario. As bad as it is for the company that made your EV to change how it works whenever they feel like picking your pocket, that's infinitely preferable to the manufacturer going bankrupt and bricking your car.

That's what just happened to owners of Fisker EVs, cars that cost $40-70k. Cars are long-term purchases. An EV should last 12-20 years, or even longer if you pay to swap the battery pack. Fisker was founded in 2016 and shipped its first Ocean SUV in 2023. The company is now bankrupt:

https://insideevs.com/news/723669/fisker-inc-bankruptcy-chapter-11-official/

Fisker called its vehicles "software-based cars" and they weren't kidding. Without continuous software updates and server access, those Fisker Ocean SUVs are turning into bricks. What's more, the company designed the car from the ground up to make any kind of independent service and support into a felony, by wrapping the whole thing in overlapping layers of IP. That means that no one can step in with a module that jailbreaks the Fisker and drops in an alternative firmware that will keep the fleet rolling.

This is the third EV risk – not just finance, not just charger infrastructure, but the possibility that any whizzy, cool new EV company will go bust and brick your $70k cleantech investment, irreversibly transforming your car into 5,500 lb worth of e-waste.

This confers a huge advantage onto the big automakers like VW, Kia, Ford, etc. Tesla gets a pass, too, because it achieved critical mass before people started to wise up to the risk of twiddling and bricking. If you're making a serious investment in a product you expect to use for 20 years, are you really gonna buy it from a two-year old startup with six months' capital in the bank?

The incumbency advantage here means that the big automakers won't have any reason to sink a lot of money into R&D, because they won't have to worry about hungry startups with cool new ideas eating their lunches. They can maintain the cozy cartel that has seen cars stagnate for decades, with the majority of "innovation" taking the form of shitty, extractive and ill-starred ideas like touchscreen controls and an accelerator pedal that you have to rent by the month:

https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/23/23474969/mercedes-car-subscription-faster-acceleration-feature-price

Put that way, it's clear that this isn't an EV problem, it's a cleantech problem. Cleantech has all the problems of EVs: it requires a large capital expenditure, it will be "smart," and it is expected to last for decades. That's rooftop solar, heat-pumps, smart thermostat sensor arrays, and home storage batteries.

And just as with EVs, policymakers have focused on infrastructure and affordability without paying any attention to the enshittification risks. Your rooftop solar will likely be controlled via a Solaredge box – a terrible technology that stops working if it can't reach the internet for a protracted period (that's right, your home solar stops working if the grid fails!).

I found this out the hard way during the covid lockdowns, when Solaredge terminated its 3G cellular contract and notified me that I would have to replace the modem in my system or it would stop working. This was at the height of the supply-chain crisis and there was a long waiting list for any replacement modems, with wifi cards (that used your home internet rather than a cellular connection) completely sold out for most of a year.

There are good reasons to connect rooftop solar arrays to the internet – it's not just so that Solaredge can enshittify my service. Solar arrays that coordinate with the grid can make it much easier and safer to manage a grid that was designed for centralized power production and is being retrofitted for distributed generation, one roof at a time.

But when the imperatives of extraction and efficiency go to war, extraction always wins. After all, the Solaredge system is already in place and solar installers are largely ignorant of, and indifferent to, the reasons that a homeowner might want to directly control and monitor their system via local controls that don't roundtrip through the cloud.

Somewhere in the hindbrain of any prospective solar purchaser is the experience with bricked and enshittified "smart" gadgets, and the knowledge that anything they buy from a cool startup with lots of great ideas for improving production, monitoring, and/or costs poses the risk of having your 20 year investment bricked after just a few years – and, thanks to the extractive imperative, no one will be able to step in and restore your ex-solar array to good working order.

I make the majority of my living from books, which means that my pay is very "lumpy" – I get large sums when I publish a book and very little in between. For many years, I've used these payments to make big purchases, rather than financing them over long periods where I can't predict my income. We've used my book payments to put in solar, then an induction stove, then a battery. We used one to buy out the lease on our EV. And just a month ago, we used the money from my upcoming Enshittification book to put in a heat pump (with enough left over to pay for a pair of long-overdue cataract surgeries, scheduled for the fall).

When we started shopping for heat pumps, it was clear that this was a very exciting sector. First of all, heat pumps are kind of magic, so efficient and effective it's almost surreal. But beyond the basic tech – which has been around since the late 1940s – there is a vast ferment of cool digital features coming from exciting and innovative startups.

By nature, I'm the kid of person who likes these digital features. I started out as a computer programmer, and while I haven't written production code since the previous millennium, I've been in and around the tech industry for my whole adult life. But when it came time to buy a heat-pump – an investment that I expected to last for 20 years or more – there was no way I was going to buy one of these cool new digitally enhanced pumps, no matter how much the reviewers loved them. Sure, they'd work well, but it's precisely because I'm so knowledgeable about high tech that I could see that they would fail very, very badly.

You may think EVs are bullshit, and they are – though there will always be room for some personal vehicles, and it's better for people in transit deserts to drive EVs than gas-guzzlers. You may think rooftop solar is a dead-end and be all-in on utility scale solar (I think we need both, especially given the grid-disrupting extreme climate events on our horizon). But there's still a wide range of cleantech – induction tops, heat pumps, smart thermostats – that are capital intensive, have a long duty cycle, and have good reasons to be digitized and networked.

Take home storage batteries: your utility can push its rate card to your battery every time they change their prices, and your battery can use that information to decide when to let your house tap into the grid, and when to switch over to powering your home with the solar you've stored up during the day. This is a very old and proven pattern in tech: the old Fidonet BBS network used a version of this, with each BBS timing its calls to other nodes to coincide with the cheapest long-distance rates, so that messages for distant systems could be passed on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet

Cleantech is a very dynamic sector, even if its triumphs are largely unheralded. There's a quiet revolution underway in generation, storage and transmission of renewable power, and a complimentary revolution in power-consumption in vehicles and homes:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/12/s-curve/#anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-eventually-stops

But cleantech is too important to leave to the incumbents, who are addicted to enshittification and planned obsolescence. These giant, financialized firms lack the discipline and culture to make products that have the features – and cost savings – to make them appealing to the very wide range of buyers who must transition as soon as possible, for the sake of the very planet.

It's not enough for our policymakers to focus on financing and infrastructure barriers to cleantech adoption. We also need a policy-level response to enshittification.

Ideally, every cleantech device would be designed so that it was impossible to enshittify – which would also make it impossible to brick:

Based on free software (best), or with source code escrowed with a trustee who must release the code if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

All patents in a royalty-free patent-pool (best); or in a trust that will release them into a royalty-free pool if the company enters administration (distant second-best);

No parts-pairing or other DRM permitted (best); or with parts-pairing utilities available to all parties on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best);

All diagnostic and error codes in the public domain, with all codes in the clear within the device (best); or with decoding utilities available on demand to all comers on a reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (distant second-best).

There's an obvious business objection to this: it will reduce investment in innovative cleantech because investors will perceive these restrictions as limits on the expected profits of their portfolio companies. It's true: these measures are designed to prevent rent-extraction and other enshittificatory practices by cleantech companies, and to the extent that investors are counting on enshittification rents, this might prevent them from investing.

But that has to be balanced against the way that a general prohibition on enshittificatory practices will inspire consumer confidence in innovative and novel cleantech products, because buyers will know that their investments will be protected over the whole expected lifespan of the product, even if the startup goes bust (nearly every startup goes bust). These measures mean that a company with a cool product will have a much larger customer-base to sell to. Those additional sales more than offset the loss of expected revenue from cheating and screwing your customers by twiddling them to death.

There's also an obvious legal objection to this: creating these policies will require a huge amount of action from Congress and the executive branch, a whole whack of new rules and laws to make them happen, and each will attract court-challenges.

That's also true, though it shouldn't stop us from trying to get legal reforms. As a matter of public policy, it's terrible and fucked up that companies can enshittify the things we buy and leave us with no remedy.

However, we don't have to wait for legal reform to make this work. We can take a shortcut with procurement – the things governments buy with public money. The feds, the states and localities buy a lot of cleantech: for public facilities, for public housing, for public use. Prudent public policy dictates that governments should refuse to buy any tech unless it is designed to be enshittification-resistant.

This is an old and honorable tradition in policymaking. Lincoln insisted that the rifles he bought for the Union Army come with interoperable tooling and ammo, for obvious reasons. No one wants to be the Commander in Chief who shows up on the battlefield and says, "Sorry, boys, war's postponed, our sole supplier decided to stop making ammunition."

By creating a market for enshittification-proof cleantech, governments can ensure that the public always has the option of buying an EV that can't be bricked even if the maker goes bust, a heat-pump whose digital features can be replaced or maintained by a third party of your choosing, a solar controller that coordinates with the grid in ways that serve their owners – not the manufacturers' shareholders.

We're going to have to change a lot to survive the coming years. Sure, there's a lot of scary ways that things can go wrong, but there's plenty about our world that should change, and plenty of ways those changes could be for the better. It's not enough for policymakers to focus on ensuring that we can afford to buy whatever badly thought-through, extractive tech the biggest companies want to foist on us – we also need a focus on making cleantech fit for purpose, truly smart, reliable and resilient.

Support me this summer on the Clarion Write-A-Thon and help raise money for the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers' Workshop!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/26/unplanned-obsolescence/#better-micetraps

Image: 臺灣古寫真上色 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raid_on_Kagi_City_1945.jpg

Grendelkhan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ground_mounted_solar_panels.gk.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

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yanderemommabean · 10 months ago

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I need to know more about the red rooms maybe like how the check ins would go I love this idea

Gosh I haven't really thought about the check in process :0

I like to picture these rented out hotels and buildings with specific rooms cut off from the public. Maybe they say "staff only" but really its for those /special/ clients who rented the rooms, so they can blend in.

but with how much money the CEO makes, I can see massive buildings being dedicated to this, but while they look like a typical office building, inside is the red rooms. They're being cleaned, tidied up, decorated to how the clients asked, people in suits come and go like your usual corporate job but there are these odd and blank delivery vans that come and go as well, and the boxes they carry in are always one at a time, very careful but very suspicious all the same.

It's fun to play around with really! I'd love to listen to any ideas you guys come up with too, I love world building with you guys!

-Mommabean

#mommabean #yandere scenarios #yandere imagines #anon confessions are amazing #anon asks #my ocs #CEO my oc #yandere red rooms #yandere red rooms au

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hellishjoel · 1 year ago

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surfing the crimson wave

3.7k / pairing: linecook!frankie x waitress f!reader

Series Masterlist l Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

summary: You lash out at Frankie, he unexpectedly does you a kindness. You thank him in his truck the best way you know how.

warnings/information: MA 18+ (minors DNI), swearing, discussions of having a period/emotions of going through a menstrual cycle (everyone’s is different! this is my rendition which may differ from your own experience), oral (m! receiving), slightly public sex (again, I’m not sorry), slight angst in the end, somewhat minimum editing, no use of y/n

A/N: These two live in my mind RENT. FREE. The next two to three chapters are outlined - wahoo! I’m writing this as if it's a sitcom honestly, so that’s why there’s that random interaction at the start of this chapter. Yes, this chapter is shorter than the last, the chapter sizes may vary depending on plot! I had a world to build in part one, but I still hope ya'll enjoy this even though it's shorter

Why the fuck did you have a growing soft spot for Frankie Morales all of a sudden?

Frankie forms a vice grip on the back service door and pulls it towards him with a yank, followed by the heavy scraping sound of metal crunching with orange rust.

On the other side waits the Thursday morning food shipment. The bright red van made Frankie have to squint his eyes, his face curling up in annoyance. He observed the mismatched wheels and a certain clunking coming from the engine.

“You’re late,” Frankie mutters to the delivery truck driver, Smithy.

The man wore a trucker’s hat to shield his balding head, loose greasy curls swiping out from under the brim. He mosied in, back hunched, old prescription cheater glasses on his nose as he slowly flipped through pages of his logbook with his pork sausage fingers.

“Ya fackin’ doorbell don’t fackin’ work. Been here since nine.”

Frankie narrows his eyes on the old man and takes a deep breath through his nose. His patience is evidently low this morning.

“There’s a damn sign outside, that I wrote, saying that the doorbell is fucked. You know how to fuckin’ read, old shit?”

“I know how to fackin’ read, you greasy son of a bitch.” His gravely, smoke ingested wheezy voice makes every one of his words end with a shaky breath and a gross clearing of his throat. “I’m not shoutin’-... DING DONG! Like a goddamn PRICK!”

Frankie scoffs and wipes a hand across his tired face, dragging sweat away from the tops of his brows. “You just fuckin’ did- Christ.” There was no point in arguing.

He murmurs curses to himself as he walks past Smithy and out the back door to the loading truck, unsnapping the latch and letting the door fly up with a loud rickety creak.

“Fuck you, Francisco.” Smithy grovels, wobbling around the truck to watch from the pavement and keep an eye on him.

Once Frankie verifies the order and signs off on it, you were clocking in at the back hall. Your eyes slowly scanned over him, slyly smiling. He pauses about ten feet away from you, further in the kitchen, and holds your eye contact.

You look him up and down, shaggy appearance and all. He tries to give you his douchey smirk. “Mornin’, princess.”

You show no immediate response. You like watching him burn like an ant under a magnifying glass. You slowly begin to purse your lips and lightly narrow your eyes on him. “Your shirt’s inside out.”

Frankie’s smirk falters as he looks down at himself. His face flattens like a pancake as he brushes by you, untying his apron as he goes with an annoyed, “Shit.”

---

Fold linen in half. Knife, fork, spoon. Fold the left side into the center. Fold the right side into the center. Roll up. Set aside. Repeat.

Fold linen in half. Stomach cramp.

“Fuck.” You murmur, attempting to pause rolling the silverware as you gently knead your palm into the lower part of your stomach.

Knife, fork, spoon. Fold the left side into the center. Stomach cramp. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

Fold the right side into the center. Roll up. Frankie approaches with a stupid smirk. Eye roll. Set aside.

“What’s got you so down, princess?”

The booth you’re in bounces as Frankie scoots in beside you. This is the worst time for him to talk to you. Cramps were coursing through your abdomen like tiny volts of electricity, pulling and tugging on your insides and leaving you sore. The clamp you have on your jaw is so tight, your teeth are grinding. Periods fucking sucked.

Stomach cramp.

You whimper quietly and push the storage bin of extra linen-rolled silverware aside.

“I’m not in the mood.” You finally muster up, avoiding his eye contact. Fold linen in half.

You and Frankie have had limited contact since fooling around behind the back of the diner. It wasn’t exactly on purpose. He didn’t work Tuesdays, you didn’t work Wednesdays. Now it was Thursday and your period hit you in the middle of the week on your day off. What the fuck was that shit luck?

He plucks the red sucker from his mouth and looks over you slowly. Reading you. Trying to see if he should lean into your foul mood or not touch you with a ten-foot pole.

He juts out his jaw to the left, then to the right, muddy brown eyes observing you before coming to the bright conclusion that:

“Somethin’s wrong with you.”

Your eyes cannot physically roll back into your head far enough.

“No shit Sherlock.” You muttered, unimpressed by his harrowing detective skills. “Why don’t you solve Stonehenge next, or deduce what happens at the Bermuda Triangle.” You mutter. Knife, fork, spoon.

You had been in a foul mood since first clocking in. It was one minor convenience after another. On top of that, your body was achy, slipping between scorching hot and freezing cold. Your periods hit you like a truck, and simple Ibuprofen often didn’t shield you from the pain for long. You tried to stick to yourself for most of the day, but now here Frankie was, about to drive you into a corner.

You have a very short fuse right now.

Frankie slowly smirks and cocks up his head, throwing his sucker back into his mouth as he crosses his arms, making his biceps bulge.

“You’re pretty when you’re pissed.”

You snort up a short laugh, folding another set into the basket and running a hand down your tired face as you sigh.

“I’m on my period, Frankie. So, can you please just- leave me alone?”

He frowns lightly, eyes softening as he looks over you cautiously. The ten-foot pole option would have been a better route for him to take. He realizes that now.

He tries to choose his next words carefully. “You okay?”

You sighed in annoyance, emotions running high. You couldn’t bear the thought of anyone in your space right now, which is why you opted to take silverware duty during the dead hours of your shift. But here he was, in your space, making your anger bubble over as your stomach screamed at you, cried for food that your cramps wouldn’t allow you to comfortably digest.

“Frankie- Christ! I said to leave me alone, I even said fuckin’ please! I’m tired, I’m starving, I’m- I’m fucking bleeding from my vagina, and all I want-” Your eyes are filled with rage as you turned to him, putting your little fists up before you flatten them open, pushing your palms in his general direction.

“All I want is for not just you- but for everyone to leave me alone! Please!” Your voice was scorned, breaths heaving as you felt heat rush through your entire body.

It felt like the entire staff of Tumbleweed was staring at you. Busboy Lou stopped mopping the floors, do-it-all Paul was glaring at you for disrupting his daily crossword puzzle, and Tina was looking around, unsure of what to do. This was the first time she had seen you like this. Angry, short-tempered, blowing up on the first person that crossed an unknown line.

You sighed as you felt tears threatening to spill, trying to scoot Frankie out of the booth so you could escape to the bathroom.

“Please,” you quietly whimper. Frankie’s already moving out of your way, a sympathetic look on his features with parted lips, unsure of what to say or what to do. But there was really nothing he could do.

---

As the more responsible member of your group, you usually adhered to the designated fifteen-minute break period without extending it, based on basic principles. But after twenty minutes in the dingy bathroom alone with some peace and quiet for your wrecked brain, you were starting to feel a little better.

You changed your hygiene product and straightened yourself out. You washed your hands and scrubbed them under scalding hot water until you felt like your anger drained down the sink.

All you wanted to do was go home. Be in comfy pajama pants and a big shirt, sleep with a heating pad over your stomach, and munch on some ice cream. Maybe watch some porn. Maybe watch a period drama. Ha. Get it? Period drama. You quirked up a half-smile at your little joke.

Maybe before all of that though, you could work up the nerve to apologize to Frankie. He just asked if you were okay and you lashed out at him.

The restaurant is dimly lit in a yellow hue once you exit the bathroom. It's dark out, the velvet sky turning purple and blue. The tables are cleaned, and you see Tina working a rag over the line of barstools at the front counter. She gives you a sympathetic smile, and you give her a crooked one back.

“You didn’t have to do all the cleaning, I’m sorry-”

“Hey, everyone has bad days! Don’t worry about it! Ya know why? Because-” She pauses before breaking into a short-lived rendition of that one Annie song.

“The sun will come out, tomorrow!”

Your eyes widen, and you quickly take her by the shoulders, squeezing tightly.

“You know what? My headache- This migraine I have is just- so bad, y’know?”

Tina’s lips parted, eyes wide as you gave her a sympathetic smile.

“Another time, maybe?” She offers excitedly.

You give her a tight-lipped smile but eventually nod. She shoots you a thumbs up and takes her rag into the back.

You sigh as you go to grab your silverware tub, pausing as you see a plate of food hot and ready on the table.

“Tina- whose order is this?”

You don’t receive an answer, but you don’t need one.

You know every meal on this menu, front and back. This was your personal off-menu special. You always had the line cooks make it special for your shift meal. And Frankie made it the best.

You examine the dish further, confirming it was your greasy double cheeseburger with bacon, extra cheese, and a honey mustard mayo with a side of fries, a zesty sauce drizzled over them and sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan and parsley. This was about as gourmet as Tumbleweed’s food got.

For the first time in forty-eight hours, your stomach aches for some food. Your mouth waters as you reach for a fry and toss it past your lips. The flavor explodes in your mouth, sweet and tangy mixed with a salty golden crunch.

“Fuck.” You murmured. You turn to look behind the counter, leaning back on your hip as you watch Frankie through the pass.

His broad back was to you. You took in his signature look. He wore a dingy white short-sleeved t-shirt, the collar worn and warped from stuffing his head through haphazardly. The knot to his red bandana was circled tight and tied at ear level, dark curls circling the paisley-decorated material and wrapping around it like ivy.

He tosses a rag over his shoulder and walks towards the kitchen door, swinging out into the dining area and walking to your table.

He slows when he sees you, looking over your soft, apologetic face. He evades your eye contact after that and sets down a vanilla milkshake beside your food before returning to the kitchen.

You part your lips to speak, but the words fall silent in the air. You don’t know what to say. You barked at him, and he turns around and serves you food. Why the fuck did you have a growing soft spot for Frankie Morales all of a sudden? Fucking periods.

You can’t ignore your food anymore, and you won’t let it go cold. You’re shoveling bites of food into your mouth, fingers greasy and lips slick with evidence. You use about six napkins to clean your hands and face by the time you’re finished, topping it all off with the milkshake. It was perfect.

---

Frankie’s loading up his truck at the end of the evening. The manager, Rudy, lets you guys off an hour early since Tumbleweed was deader than the cemetery down the road and he can’t afford to pay you all for standing around twiddling your thumbs.

Let’s just get one thing straight: You don’t know how to apologize, even when you know it’s the right thing to do. Fuck apologies. Fuck Frankie for being nice to you, and having to owe him an apology.

You’re just a few feet behind him, both of you walking to your cars. Tina had hopped into her boyfriend’s car out front, and Lou’s on-again, off-again girlfriend scooped him up as well. Rudy’s still inside doing closing administration crap, leaving just you and Frankie out back.

He hears your feet scuff the gravel behind him. He looks at you as you walk by the back end of his truck, but you both don’t say anything. You hear him sigh before he gets into his truck and rotates his keys in the ignition, hearing it blast to life. Your hand is on your car door handle, but you stand there without tugging it open.

“God... fucking dammit.” You mutter as you turn around and yank open Frankie’s passenger side door, hoisting yourself up before you close the door with a slam. And you sit there in silence as he slowly looks over you.

“I’m not here to apologize.”

He blinks a few times. “Okay.”

“I’m not here to thank you for making me dinner.”

He slowly nods, large veiny palms resting on his denim-clad thighs. “Okay.”

You don’t really know how to say I’m sorry and thank you like a normal person, so you opt to do things a different way. Your way.

You reach into Frankie’s lap, his hands falling to his side as he looks from your fingers balancing on the clasp of his belt to your concentrated face.

He speaks your name, and your eyes connect.

“Don’t have to thank me like this.” He mutters, southern twang slipping through. “Know you’re not feelin’ good.”

You shake your head and move to kneel in your seat, bending your front over his center console to finish undoing his belt.

He says your name again, breathy, but persistently.

Your head whips up to him. “Frankie, I’m trying to apologize here-”

“Okay, fuck, ‘m sorry.” He teases, mouth glowing with his stupid cocky smirk. There was the Frankie you knew well.

He does you the courtesy of opening his belt buckle and popping the button of his jeans, the zipper going down echoing within his truck. His thumbs hook into the band of his jeans and boxers, pushing them down to the tops of his thighs and unleashing his cock.

You remember him being girthy, but being this close to him was enough to make a shiver shoot up your spine. He’s a handful, to be generous. God, you just wanted to throw yourself over his lap and ride him until the sun came up.

You move to flip your hair out of your face. Frankie strokes it away, his hand gentle at first as his fingers cast light strokes against your scalp.

Saliva fills your mouth in pure excitement. Being on your period made you ferociously horny, but you weren’t in the mood to let Frankie fuck you. Not tonight. Tonight was an ode to Frankie Morales.

You make yourself comfy over the console before ducking your head down and doing sweet kitten licks at his dark rosy tip. He twitches in your hand, you decide to show him mercy and start pumping over him.

Frankie’s abdomen flutters, his head falling back against the headrest as he watches with half-lidded eyes and pretty parted lips.

The warmth of your mouth consumes his tip, and you begin to suckle, tongue gliding over his slit and tasting drips of precum. Frankie grits his teeth and inhales sharply, his hand in your hair that was once gentle now turning into a fist for control.

You smirk around him, long eyelashes fluttering before you slowly work him deeper into your mouth. He’s large, he fills your mouth and causes a spillage of your saliva that leaks trails down his swollen cock. You swallow what you can around him before continuing to take him in inch by inch.

You push him to the side of your cheek when you need to breathe around him, your head weakly falling to rest on his thigh. He gently hushes you and strokes his thumb up your cheekbone.

“Is this how you say sorry to me, princess?”

Your eyes soften in slight shock. You whimper gently against him in response.

“Take my fuckin’ cock like you’re sorry. Show me how sorry you are.”

The ache between your legs only strengthens when he degrades you like this. Such a fucking dick. You know you can do better. You need to prove it to him.

You take one last breath with his tip plunged against the inside of your cheek before you slip him back down the center lane of your throat. You flatten your tongue on the underside of his cock and feel the thick vein that lines his shaft. You breathe through your nose and manage to take him down to his balls.

Frankie ruts his hips up into your mouth, and you choke around him. You clench your eyes closed, mascara stinging your eyes and making black smudges on your waterline. Your fist holds onto the meat of his thigh, nails piercing his blue jeans as you hold yourself against him.

He grunts, long and low before he pulls your head up and he leaves your mouth with a pop. You take a breath but keep pumping over him, a sloppy smirk on your lips before you reattached around his tip.

Your fist lightly twists as you work up and down his shaft, feeling his dick eagerly twitch in your hand.

Frankie’s watching you with a worked-up smirk, continuing to bob over him as slurps and chokes were emitting from your throat each time he hit the back of it.

He’s losing himself. His thighs twitch, and the hold he has on your hair is so tight it burns your scalp. You whine and moan against him, the vibrations only inch him closer to his end.

“So fuckin’- shit- so pretty chokin’ on my cock like that.”

Frankie's words make your hips rut into his center console. He releases your hair to skim his hand down the extent of your back, fist tightening around the hem of your skirt and hiking it up to reveal your ass. He takes a fist full and cups, making a messy moan shudder against his shaft.

You’re slurping around him, head bobbing and fist pumping with a certain eagerness. His hips buck up on instinct, twitching up into your mouth and making you choke around him once more.

“‘M close-” His words are taken by a rocky moan, jaw tight as his grunts echo the truck. He sounds heavenly, though you know him more comfortably as a hellish man.

He takes control, fisting your hair and guiding your head up and down to fuck into your mouth. You take it like a champ, despite your shaky breathing and black mascara tears hitting the tops of your cheeks.

You hear him take a sharp inhale, his head rutting back into the headrest, hips stilling as he holds you down on his cock. You feel his cum shoot down the back of your throat and on your tongue.

You despise to admit how good he tastes. A mix of saltiness and his natural musk.

You smirk lightly as you move to lay on your back, the center console causing a subtle arch. You laid your head in his lap, looking up into his hazy eyes as you suckle off his tip like the lollipop he sucked on earlier.

Frankie lazily smirks, in awe at the way you’re looking up at him while sucking on his cock. His gears slowly become undone, and his hand that was cupping your ass comes up to gently cradle your head and stroke through the knots he had created in your hair.

You keep slowly pumping over his shaft until he’s hissing through his teeth at the overstimulation, doing one last circular lick around his tip before you pull off of him with a subtle pop. You kiss his tip and let his softened length go, sitting up and scooching back into the passenger seat.

You shift your waitress dress back down your thighs, letting out a soft sigh as you flip down the sun visor and look yourself over briefly in the mirror. Frankie tucks himself back into his boxers, pulling the denim up past his hips and fastening the zipper and button.

You still taste him on your tongue as you wipe the edges of your mouth clean and swipe your forefingers across your cheeks to scrub away any residual mascara. You look like a fucking mess, and it was all because of Frankie.

After two sexual encounters with you in less than a week, Frankie was probably over the moon.

“You’re welcome.”

His words make you pause, turning to look over at him. “What?”

“I said you’re welcome. You apologized, you said thank you. You’re welcome.”

You feel some heat rush to your neck and cheeks, slowly smiling and teasingly scoffing at him as you pluck open the door to his truck and land down on the gravel with a scuff from your sneakers.

"Whatever, Morales."

You weren’t sure what Frankie was aiming for with you. Friends with benefits? Something more? Whatever this was or could be, you didn’t want to put any sort of label on it. You didn’t need him getting any hopes up that something real could forge itself from these sexcapades. He was a warm body, you were a warm body, that was all.

You let out a shaky sigh and give him a soft nod. “Goodnight, Frankie.”

"Goodnight, Princess." You have to roll your eyes and slam his passenger door before he has a chance to come up with any more quick-witted remarks.

Let's go the fuck home.

---

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genshin-impacted · 2 years ago

Text

Exchange of Rings

(Alhaitham x Reader - 2/?)

You and Alhaitham get settled into your shared home in the beginning of your year-long test run of your marriage. The both of you try to figure out how to best live together piece by piece. OR apartment shopping + eating dinner + packing lunch

Word Count: ~3.7k

Notes: afab!reader, second person pov “you”, switches pov with Alhaitham, modern au, arranged marriage, fall first/fall harder, mentions of sex, slow burn

[Previous - Next]

The first thing in order is to get an apartment that the two of you can both agree on. As the two of you are fiancés, there really is only a need for one bedroom and one bathroom. You’re almost excited to share a bed with someone else again, but temper it with the knowledge that you’ll only be sharing a bed with Alhaitham and nothing else.

For now, at least. You try to not let your mind linger on what Alhaitham said at the first meeting regarding any… sensual possibilities. Regardless, the step to share a home is something inherently intimate.

The location of the apartment is at the halfway point between your parent's homes in a cozy suburban area with amenities close by and with enough space to fit two people. For one, the kitchen is spacious, and they leave you with a nice living room for activities next to a cozy dining room. With the both of you making wages, the payment is honestly not bad at all. You agree to split fifty fifty with him.

The apartment comes partially furnished. Together, the two of you bring enough furniture to make the apartment look more like a home. Alhaitham was kind enough– or would you say, meticulous enough to share a document between the two of you so you know what is still needed and who is bringing which item. It makes it easier to determine which item belongs to whom to return to if things go sour, but it also lets you see what the two of you still need to buy together.

It’s a very efficient way of doing things, and you see that in the other ways he plans things to make it as easy as possible: You come to pick him up at the apartment so the two of you can carpool together to shop since the store is in the same direction; Alhaitham tells you that he intends to rent a delivery van for any big purchases to reduce any of the hassle of doing it yourselves. And he’s fair too– he tells you he can pay you for gas for the car ride, and though you feel like it’s unnecessary, you feel inclined to agree anyways.

Alhaitham pauses in the middle of the conversation, and you take your eyes off the road for a second to glance at him.

“Anything wrong?” You ask him, “Did we forget something at the apartment?”

“No,” he says. “I suppose I’m just surprised you’re agreeing with all of this so easily. I expected push-back.”

“Push-back for what?” You say, genuinely curious. “It all sounds good to me. You’re very organized.”

You glance at Alhaitham again to see his hand at his chin, thoughtful. You expect him to elaborate, but he doesn’t, deigning to continue the conversation where he left off. It isn’t until you’ve parked and Alhaitham is waiting for you at your car door that you decide to ask again.

“So about earlier,” you begin, walking a few steps more to match Alhaitham’s long strides. Gratefully, you see him slow down for you to catch up, and the two of you begin walking side-by-side. “You said you expected me to… say something about what we were going to do? Why would I do that? It makes sense to me: buy essential stuff, unpack what we have, go buy what we’re missing if need-be…”

“I just have contingency plans in case something doesn’t go according to plan,” Alhaitham says. Now it’s his turn to glance at you, and there are those eyes again, piercingly observant like everything you do he will catalog for future reference. “Not everyone agrees with the way I work. I anticipated something like that would happen.”

You have a small feeling that the ‘disagreements’ Alhaitham mentioned happen often. You can see it: Alhaitham has a tone that may not sit very well with other people. It’s brusque at worst and matter-of-fact at best, but you find comfort in the confidence he exudes and the instructions he provides. You also don’t take his tone personally, which is for the best, you think, for this union. You have a feeling it is hardly personal when it comes to him.

“We can work things out if we disagree, can’t we?” You tell him. “We’re reasonable people… for the most part.”

At your last words, you hear Alhaitham huff in amusement, and his lips upturn into the smallest of smiles. You try not to look so bewildered when he tells you he’s going to get a cart, but you think that’s the first time you’ve seen him really smile.

You catch up to him the moment your heart stops leaping.

It’s fun shopping with Alhaitham. It’s nice having someone to ask for their opinions or taking turns pushing the cart with your collected items. You like to think Alhaitham doesn’t mind shopping with you either, mainly because he seems like the type of person to speak his mind, and he hasn’t complained about you taking too long to decide between what type of bowls you want for the apartment yet. (He chooses porcelain over plastic– microwavable safe.)

For the most part, you aren’t a very imposing shopper, moving through aisles quickly and only glancing over the things that aren’t important. You do take some time sifting through the candles though, and Alhaitham clears through your hesitation between cranberry and peach by putting both stacks of candles into the cart.

Just take them both– that definitely solves your problem of picking between the two. You try not to laugh at how his efficiency extends to shopping as well, even if it means indulging in your purchases. You think it's kind of cute of him, but you try not to let your hopeless romantic side speak too loudly (even if it's right!).

The moment Alhaitham finds an empty table, he brings his cart over and sits himself comfortably to wait for you. You’re at the middle of the line now to buy your frozen yogurt and cinnamon bun at the little shop at the exit. He lets his eyes follow your movement for a moment before he takes out his book from his bag to get some light reading in.

Or so he had planned, but he takes the time of solitude to gather his thoughts.

Some people who don't know him well at all may say that he treats interactions with other people as though they were transactions. Tit-for-tat, this for that– but Alhaitham could care less about receiving any favors back. Truth is he will only do something if he truly wants to, so the thought that someone needs to pay him back for something he’s done that has benefitted them is unnecessary to him. He lives by his own set of rules and morals, and however everyone else does it is none of his business.

It is his business, it turns out, when it comes to his roommate and fiancé: you.

Maintaining a relationship requires equal effort from both sides. An uneven distribution of labor, for example, sharing chores and duties of the household is a one-way ticket to the destruction of a relationship. It only makes sense to him that the two of you will divvy up the workload and weigh in on decisions together. He gives back what you provide, and hopefully it will be the same when he does it as well.

Like you said earlier, the two of you are reasonable adults. Thankfully. Alhaitham knows he has spoken with you at length during the first meeting and in short snippets since then, but he never really knows someone unless some time has passed. What are you like under stress? How will you react to unexpected situations? What will you do when the two of you fight? Power imbalances, as he has read, causes a greater rift when conflict occurs, so it’s best if he sets the precedence now for shared responsibility.

Tit-for-tat, this for that– Alhaitham has never felt the need to return what is given but then again he’s never really attempted to make a relationship work now, has he?

“Here you go.”

Alhaitham looks up from the book to see you hold out an ice cream cone toward him. He glances at your other hand to see another cone and at the table to see a cinnamon bun steaming from its small container. He takes the cone and you sit across from him, tearing off a piece of the cinnamon bun before smearing ice cream onto it.

Before you take a bite out of the sweet, you look at him with growing confusion. “Oh, sorry,” you say, “did you not want the frozen yogurt? I guess I just assumed you would; I always get one when I come here.”

“I don’t mind it. I actually enjoy sweets in moderation,” Alhaitham replies. Tit-for-tat, he thinks. “Let me pay you back for it.”

You wave a hand flippantly. “Nah, it’s okay. It’s really cheap anyways. You’re already paying for my gas so it’s really not a big deal. Here-” You slide the cinnamon bun roll closer to him. “Have some of this too. I got it for both of us.”

A small wrench in his plans. Perhaps he’ll pay you back another time? In another way? Or would it bother you if he treated every favor and action like a transaction to be paid back– he hasn’t considered this yet, and hasn't taken into account your personality in regards to what he should do. To his knowledge, you are… quite honestly, reasonable. Even-tempered, adaptable, even easy-going: it may do him good to review his plan and make some changes.

Perhaps he’ll just follow after you for once.

“Thank you,” he says, turning to his frozen yogurt and taking a taste. He looks up at you right in time to see you look away, smiling. For good measure, he rips a piece of cinnamon bun and, emulating you, smears the vanilla onto it.

It’s sweet.

The apartment ends up being an amalgamation of both your styles. The bookshelves are his, the couch and television are yours, and all the utensils and cooking ware are all bought. You had taken Alhaitham with you to buy everything, but he had very little to contribute to when it came to style. He commented more on practicality and only when you had asked him to choose between two did he make a stylistic choice. You find that he is a minimalist at most except for when it comes to his books, his bookshelves specifically from his own room. You find that oddly endearing, and when you suggest he purchase bookends, he denies it only because he already has his own.

For the most part, with the apartment, it feels like any agreement with a roommate. When will each person do their chores, what chores, how frequent? What are your schedules like? You tend to stay up late while Alhaitham is more than likely to sleep earlier to get his full night's rest.

"I work at 9 AM so I'll most likely be awake by 8," he tells you, "and come home at around 5:30 PM."

"I'll let you know my schedule for each week," you offer. "It's not as consistent as yours so I might work weekends too." You laugh at the quick grimace from Alhaitham. "It's not too bad. It's not like I work weekdays AND weekends. It just depends." You check your watch. "I can cook for tonight," you tell him, rummaging through the newly stocked drawers for utensils. It's been cold lately, so you think some stew would taste nice. You glance up at him right as he nods, and you wonder if he would be open to eating together.

It would be your first meal together, and the thought makes you a little giddy.

You open your mouth to say something when he speaks first. "Thanks," he says simply. He begins to turn away when you scramble to gather your courage and speak up again.

"Um, Alhaitham- ow!" You wave your hand in pain briefly after you bump it onto the corner of the drawer.

"Yes?"

"Would it be okay if we ate dinner together?" You ask. The ladle is still in your right hand, making you feel more childish than you want to be.

Alhaitham pauses for a second, and you hold on hope that at the very least, his first instinct isn't to say 'no.' "Based on your question," he says, "I'm assuming you mean for all our dinners, not just this one?"

Passively, yes, but you had intended to work up to asking him to eat dinner with you as a routine rather than come out the door with the suggestion. "Yeah," you say, not one to play coy. "I was thinking of tonight but if we could make it a 'thing' we do together that would be nice."

A part of you who still rejects the concept of an arranged marriage roils at the thought that you have to ask to eat dinner with your fiancé. The other part finds it a welcome challenge. And the other, larger part of you just wants to eat dinner with your fiancé; you try not to look so eager.

You are very adept at masking your emotions, as Alhaitham has observed. You are careful to not react when you ask him a question about his opinions on this or that so as to not sway him one way or another. You freely express yourself any other time though, your emotions painting your eyes, brows, and mouth to convey how you feel.

Alhaitham can see the way your eyes widen in anticipation and the grip on your ladle tighten as you hope that he says yes. He doesn't particularly find the idea whichever way. If anything, it is a natural thing to eat at the same time considering how you split your roles as cooks evenly.

But, hm, eating together is more than just eating at the same time, isn't it? It means eating at the same table with your presence at the forefront. Luckily, he finds that you are not an unpleasant person to be with, so until further notice, Alhaitham finds no problems with doing this with you. It is only a matter of time for the two of you to get to know each other, if only to gauge for compatibility. Besides it's a small act for something that makes you giddy and smile all throughout dinner.

There is no conversation at the table yet; you hardly know each other to come up with any worthwhile topics. But when he compliments your food for being flavorful (much like his mother's cooking, actually), he watches you hide your smile behind another bite of food before going into depth about the recipe.

Alhaitham thinks that you may be easy to please, but he finds that he does not mind that at all.

Alhaitham offers to do the dishes and it is hard for you not to beam at him at the suggestion. You clean up the table and set away any leftovers for another day. You don't have work tomorrow on this Tuesday but you know Alhaitham does so you glance over your shoulder and ask if he would like to pack lunch.

His shoulders are broad and his back expansive when you look over. When he responds, you try to not look so dreamy.

"The leftovers?" He asks, glancing down at the bowl. "If you won't be needing it then I wouldn't mind taking it to work."

"Okay, then I'll pack it for you?"

"Thank you."

The tupperware seals cleanly over the dinner you made, and you place it into the fridge for Alhaitham tomorrow. You sneak another peek at him as he places the dishes onto the rack to dry. It's not as if you are easy to enamor, but the domesticity of him washing dishes makes your heart flutter with affection.

You're almost tempted to write a note for him on his lunch. Something cute, but not too much. Something basic to start with? You take another glance at Alhaitham before shaking your head. Best not to start off too strong; Alhaitham seems like the type of person to go at a steady, calm pace while you're the impatient one, trying to race off without preparations.

Maybe you can write him a note next time?

Alhaitham is not a heavy sleeper, so when he feels you climb out of bed at around midnight, he wonders where you went if not straight to the restroom. You pad back to the room just as quietly as you left, much to your credit, and slide back under the sheets.

The next morning, Alhaitham readies for his day at work, brushing his teeth and washing his face with only basic soap and water-- you had stared at him enviously at the lack of product he uses-- as you sleep on in your shared bed, unaware of it all. He opens the fridge when he heads into the kitchen to find his packed lunch to see the tupperware with an addition sitting on top of it: a small bag of peeled orange slices and a note that he concludes must be in your handwriting.

"Have a good day at work! The oranges are yours too. :)”

Alhaitham finds a pen on the counter and writes his own message below it before placing it onto the counter where you can easily find it.

(It's a short 'thank you' from Alhaitham. It's not much, but it is something– or at least it's enough to put a smile on your face the next morning. You pick up the paper and let your eyes scan over the words. His handwriting is neat, to the point, and somewhat elegant, much like himself.

You sigh dreamily.)

It isn't unusual for Alhaitham to prepare meals and pack his own lunch. He goes for whatever tends to be available in his fridge or opts to eat in the first-floor cafe for the sake of convenience. Having someone pack his lunch is a novelty; the last time someone has done that for him was in middle school when his mother did it for him.

It takes him the entire fifteen-minute commute to work for him to notice that he is still thinking about your note. That must be why you had stepped out last night: to write the note. Your handwriting is neat, rounded and connected as though you are used to thinking too quick for your hand to write. The note is ripped from a little notepad that you had brought over, like you're used to writing messages for little lunches that you make. Little details in the actions that he gets to find out. It gets his mind off of traffic well enough and even as he walks through the office building door.

The oranges are a nice touch. Alhaitham doesn't remember you peeling them before the two of you went off to bed, so you must have done it the same time you wrote the message. He'll be sure to remember to tell you not to put in the hassle of doing something that late at night; no need to waste time sleeping doing this for him.

Alhaitham pauses his movement as he clocks into his workplace.

For some reason, the phrasing doesn't sit right with him. He has a feeling that it will only discourage you and push you to do more, which is the opposite of what he wants. He'll need to think of a better strategy to tell you, but that's a problem for later. He manages to dodge most of his coworkers on the way to his secretarial office where he sits on his ergonomic chair he purchased himself; no need to wear himself out doing his job, after all.

He lets out a long breath as he turns on his monitor and checks his emails, only to find that he has two meetings to go to that morning that, based on the descriptions, might as well just be emails. It’s going to be one of those days, he thinks blandly and gets to work.

Though most days pass by without much event, Alhaitham, much like anyone else, looks forward to the half-hour lunch break. He normally doesn’t need an alarm to remind him, because like clockwork, Dehya will come into his office and pop her head in. "Hey, Alhaitham," Dehya says, right at noon. "Nilou was asking the office if we wanted anything from the cafe so she could go grab it."

“No, I have lunch today,” Alhaitham says, and he doesn’t need to look at her to know that she shrugs before closing the door. With how loud it’s getting, it seems to be the cue for his break as well.

The lunch he takes out from the tupperware is as good as it was yesterday. Alhaitham eats his lunch and wonders if this is the type of life he would have if he got married. So far, so good– though he supposes it's too early to say having only been living under the same room for a few days and speaking on regular terms only a few days more. The two of you are bound to find something to disagree on: it's only a matter of when. Though, for the first time, Alhaitham thinks perhaps it won't be as much of a hassle as it could be with you.

It's sweet, he thinks, popping a slice of oranges into his mouth. It seems to be a theme with you, if the past few days are of any indication. Alhaitham has yet to update his grandmother (or parents, by extension) but he can already feel the mild smugness she’ll exude when he eventually calls her and tells her how well it’s actually going. So far, anyways. The cynic in him knows they could be one argument away from dissolution, but he is anything if not a pragmatist. With how willing you are to compromise and to talk things through with him, he thinks there’s a possibility that the two of you can get through any possible conflict.

It’s a foreign feeling, he thinks, to have belief in something to last, but he supposes there is always a chance for something new, even for him. Something tells him that if you knew that was how he felt, you would be elated.

You’re easy to please in that way, with your perpetual smile and abundant laughter; Alhaitham finds he does not mind that part of you at all.

#alhaitham x reader #genshin impact x reader #alhaitham #al haitham x reader #any guesses to where they went shopping flajsdflkajsfl #oh frozen yogurt how i love u

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florianniss · 5 months ago

Text

Dungeons and Drag Queens

RatedE, Identityporn, Drag Queen Eddie

“Gah!”

Steve has a tight-knuckled grip on his ‘Oh shit’ bar and his brake pedal is pressed all the way to the floor. He squeezes his eyes shut and waits for the crunch of metal, the crushing of glass, the impact that throws him into the windshield and puts him in the hospital in a full-body cast.

It never comes.

“Jeezus, Steve. Lighten up, will you?”

Somehow, miraculously, Dustin has managed to swerve and miss the parked delivery van and is tooling proudly down the street like he didn’t almost send Steve’s life flashing before his eyes.

“You’re not my Dad, you know.”

Dustin turns the wheel back and forth, like he’s in one of those grocery store ride-ons that you put quarters in to make it move. He comes up on a stop sign way too fast and slams on the brakes at the very last second. Steve has to throw his hands on the dash to stay in his seat.

“That’s right,” Steve says, pulse rapid and thready, and he’s sure his veins are popping out all over the place. “I’m your Mom. And you’re a menace.”

Dustin rolls his head dramatically and steps on the gas. The old fake-wood-grocery-getter he’s borrowed from his folks spits up gravel from its back tires. Steve wishes he’d ridden separately, taken his bike instead.

“Why are you such a chicken lately, anyway?” Dustin whines. “You used to be fun.”

Steve bristles. “I’m still fun.” It comes out as a growl, like a cantankerous old bear woken way too early from slumber.

Dustin laughs and lays down another screeching halt. Steve swears he can smell the brake pads burned and disintegrated into dust. He grins like he’s done it on purpose, takes a corner and heads out of town, and Steve forces himself to relax.

He would never admit it, but he has become rather — conservative — these past few weeks. Like, his body is still twenty-two but his brain is thirty years older.

“Do I need to run through any rules with you before we get there?”

Steve gives a long-suffering sigh. It’s Saturday, and it’s the first day he’s had off in two weeks. And, like the soft-serve (coward) he is, he’s agreed to stand in for Dustin’s girlfriend, Suzie, at their little gang’s weekly board game.

“I got it.”

It’s not true, of course. He has no idea what the hell he’s getting into. What he does know is the second he found out Dustin and Mike and Max and Lucas and Will were secretly meeting in some random guy’s garage, his Mother Hen transformed into Mother Lion.

“OK.” Dustin doesn’t sound convinced.

He picks up the other kids and they pile into the back two rows, punching the back of Steve’s seat playfully as they pass. They pair off naturally, Mike with Will and Lucas with Max. Steve’s chest twinges a bit when he thinks about how Suzie rounds out their little group nicely.

Meanwhile, he’s the third wheel. (Or rather, the sixth? Seventh?)

Dustin and the others have been trying to get Steve to come for weeks. He explains nicely that he’s an adult and he has responsibilities: job, rent, groceries. Recuperating from life. The kids try to make him feel guilty by telling him everyone they invite always says ‘no.’ So, of course, he’s got to prove them wrong.

He also wants to meet this guy whose garage they meet in. What if he’s a creep or a kidnapper? Or a killer. The kids don’t even know how old he is.

Steve intends to find out.

Dustin pulls into the trailer park and Steve definitely gets Texas Chainsaw Massacre vibes from the place. He kinda wishes he’d brought his Leatherman. Or his bat.

The kids spill out of the car and hurry down the dirt driveway toward the mandoor on a faded puke-green metal building. Behind it, there’s a trailer in the same color and condition. A rusted van is parked crooked near the garage, an old Chevy truck has been pulled right up to the front porch. Steve notes the plate numbers in case he needs to report a crime.

He opens the station wagon’s back door and lifts the cooler. He’s packed healthy stuff like string cheese and peanuts, a bag of grapes and a few apples. It’s not just for his wards; it’s for him too. Ain’t no way he’s eating some serial killer’s pork rinds. No sir.

Steve follows the rest into the garage and isn’t half surprised to find it smells exactly like a garage. Rubber and oil and musty rust and something sweet — radiator fluid? He takes in the large open space, scanning the boxes and tools and spare parts before settling on a large, heavy, claw-footed dining table that looks like it belonged to somebody’s dead grandmother.

The boys pull out folding chairs and begin to set them up around the table, all talking as loud as they possibly can to make sure they’re heard over the others. Max smiles and hangs her gray tote bag with the rainbow straps over the back of her chair. Steve is pretty sure she’s wearing a Care Bear shirt, and he loves her for it.

Steve sets the cooler on the floor next to the table and realizes he’s forgotten something.

“Oh, shit, guys! I forgot the pop!”

Groans circle the table and Steve feels horrible. He’s about to volunteer to take the wagon to the 7-11 and pick up Slushies to make up for it, when a voice behind him offers another solution.

“I got drinks in the trailer.”

Dustin cheers and Steve spins around, hair prickling on his arms because this guy sounds much older than seventeen. And when he lays eyes on a very adult face, his stomach does a very convincing leap off a highrise. It’s nothing like he expected.

Apparently, neither is Steve, because the guy drops the opened box of dice he’s carrying in the crook of one arm and they clatter onto the floor like hailstones and roll under the table. A stunned set of dark eyes pop out of a narrow, handsome face, and his mouth falls open. For a second, Steve feels embarrassed for the guy.

Dustin, however, flies in from the side and hugs him. “Thanks, Eddie! We’ll just run in and —“

This Eddie shakes himself like a wet dog, and a stern frown creases his forehead as he narrows his eyes “Not you, Henderson. Or you two.” He points at Will and Mike. “Max. You and Lucas grab some and haul them out.”

Lucas grins at Max, who returns the smile with something mischievous. Eddie catches it and shakes his head. “And no beer. I ain’t serving minors, here.”

Steve watches the whole exchange with a little jealousy. He’s supposed to be the only one who gets to boss these kids around. But he can’t possibly say anything; the guy’s logic is sound, and even if he’s just covering because Steve is here, it’s one less thing to worry about.

Because there’s definitely something about this Eddie that has sent Steve’s pulse racing.

He realizes he’s staring and quickly crouches to help the others collect the escaped dice. Down on hands and knees, he notes how sweaty his palms are, the nervous shimmy behind his navel.

What the hell is wrong with him lately?

When everything’s been collected and he crawls back from under the table, Eddie and Dustin are standing in the same spot. Except Dustin has a shit-eating grin on his face. And Eddie is looking like he’s been hit with a baseball bat.

His eyes are – well, they’re captivating.

“Uh,” Eddie says, and he folds both arms over his chest, hugs himself tightly. “I’ll go check on Max.”

He spins on his heel and high-tails it outside, like he’s seen a ghost or something.

Dustin continues to smile as he approaches the table and chooses a chair. He carefully spills out his little figurines and bag of matching dice, and Steve wants to throttle him for how smug he’s being.

The conversation returns to the volume levels from inside the car. Everyone is going on about what happened last time, all of them trying to fill Steve in. He tries to listen to each of them in turn, catches phrases like, ‘That demon was so sick, man!’ And ‘I can’t believe you tried to open the chest with a shovel!’ They were really getting into it, saying, ‘OK, then, next time you open the damn thing!’ and, ‘But nobody’s got lockpicking!’ when the door opens, and Eddie and Max and Lucas walk in.

Steve’s eyes flit over the Mountain Dew piled in both kids’ arms (they’re gonna be a handful on the ride home) and settle on the fact that Eddie has changed his shirt.

It’s long-sleeved, less wrinkled, and newer-looking. It’s like his hair has been combed; all the tight curls have separated and they seem softer somehow. He swaggers, yes, swaggers, across the floor right up to Steve and shoves his hands in his jeans pockets. Jeans that hug his frame a little too well.

“I’m Eddie Munson. Hey.” It’s cocky.

Steve stands so quickly that he almost knocks his chair back. Someone at the table snickers.

He slips his hands in his own pockets. “Steve Harrington. Hey.”

They exchange hard-focused glares and brief nods, and then Eddie moves away to take a chair at what’s clearly the head of the table. It’s directly across from Steve.

Eddie sits, and Steve sits, and he tries not to think anything at all. Tries to clear his brain and make it an empty space. Because, if he doesn’t, he’s bound to think this guy is threatening him in some way. There are some pretty territorial vibes coming off him.

Chaos ensues. Everyone scrambles to spread things out on the table. They lean over it, sometimes standing on their chairs to reach. And they argue, of course, because they always argue.

“That’s not where the garden was! It was over there! Next to the rowboat!”

“No. That’s where the temple statue was, remember?”

Steve tears his gaze away from their host’s and finds the tablecloth he thought was a honeycomb-themed covering, is actually the mat they’re playing their game on.

He checks to see if Eddie is still watching him, and, he is. Looking over the top of a large manilla envelope as he slides white sheets of paper out, one at a time. It’s eerie, really. The way his eyes seem so deep. As if he’s some sort of —

Well, Steve doesn’t know.

Eddie passes out character sheets and Steve’s instructed to read his. He scans through it, reading about a man who’s a noble who worships some kind of dragon god. He doesn’t understand all the stuff on the front; it’s a lot of reading. More than he’s done since college. Even then, he needed a quiet room with no distractions to understand what he was reading.

Eddie’s garage is far from that.

Dustin leans over and hands him a velvet pouch. “You can use some of my dice.”

Steve leans into him. “You’re gonna have to help me. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”

Dustin laughs, but he does help. All of them do, actually. More than enough. At one point, when his character “Rodrick” is standing on a half-sunken pirate ship, and it’s his turn to decide whether he should investigate a dark, dank, waterlogged room, even though apparently he can’t see into it, Max pats him reassuringly on the back and says, “Don’t worry. We’ll cover you.”

Steve isn’t worried about some fictional character in some fantasy game, who can’t die anyway because he’s got a biblical laying hands spell. He’s worried about making a fool of himself in front of –

Yeah.

Eddie’s murder stare eases eventually. He lords over the board, hunkered down behind a makeshift barrier he’s set up on his end. Steve catches on that he’s not playing, he’s leading the game. He’s sarcastic and loud, swears like a sailor, and it’s clear he knows his shit. It’s like he knows how everything is supposed to play out ahead of time, and he lures the other players into his trap.

It doesn’t go as he expects either, because Dustin challenges him on everything. He argues that in real play some character wouldn’t really do that. He corrects Eddie on how many hits someone gets, or whether spells can be used in certain instances. They bicker like a couple of old, long-married people, while the rest of the kids dive into notes they’ve taken, share each other’s sheets and basically work together to overcome and defeat monsters. And if Steve hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, hadn’t been there to watch the playful back and forth that was actually whimsical and light-hearted, he wouldn’t have believed it.

After Dustin throws a fit when an undead monster stays dead by Max a second time, when it should have resurrected once more to be killed a third, Eddie loses his cool. He picks up the suspect monster and hurls it across the garage, where it slides over the concrete floor and ends up in a pile of junk.

“He’s dead because I say so, got it?”

Steve watches fire dance in the guy’s eyes, but he’s not fooled. He understands, just like the kids do, that he’s not really angry. He’s enjoying this.

They’re a few hours in when Steve dies. And it’s not the fact that he’s dead, really. No. It’s the humiliating way it happens.

“Why the hell did you do it that way, you idiot?” Dustin shouts at Mike, who has made the decision to take a fancy bow-and-arrow shot between his legs, aiming for the space under Steve’s character’s arm where it sits on his hip. Unfortunately, it hits Roderick directly in the ass, and the following roll of the dice lands on the ‘twenty’ side. And the table erupts into shrieks and complaints in every direction.

“You killed him!”

Steve sits back in his chair, shocked and not quite understanding what happened, when Eddie begins to laugh.

It’s not your typical everyday ha-ha funny thing. This is a full-bodied, chair tipped on two legs, clutching your stomach because you’re about to piss your pants, raucously mirthful and fucking joyful laugh.

And it goes on. And on. And on. It continues for so long, in fact, that Steve finds himself grinning. Dustin has his head in his hands, Will is defending Mike, and Max and Lucas are looking over Steve’s shoulder at his sheet to see how they can bring him back to life (because apparently, nobody else has healing spells).

Eventually, Eddie sets his chair back on four legs and gets out of it. He steps away from the table and motions for Steve. He walks right out of the garage.

Steve follows, because how can he not?

The trailer house is filled to the gills with old-people stuff, trinkets and wall hangings and lots of Catholic mementos. It smells like cigarette smoke, but it’s basically clean. Small and cramped, well-lived in, but not the kidnapper’s lair Steve imagined.

Eddie is in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open, just his backside showing. He slams it closed and comes out with two PBRs. Eyebrows raised in question, he waits for Steve to open receptive hands before he tosses it over.

“Thanks,” Steve says.

Eddie cracks his open and leans sideways against the counter, crossing one long leg over the other. He lifts his beer as acknowledgement and tips it back, watching Steve as he pops his open too. A grin lingers at the corner of his mouth.

“How do you know Dustin?” he asks once Steve has had a chance for a swallow. “Believe it or not, he hasn’t told me that yet.”

Steve imagines the breakneck speed at which Dustin talks, especially with someone he’s just met. And he hadn’t even considered that Dustin would have told Eddie about him.

“His mom knows mine. We went to the same school.”

Eddie tips his head slightly, like he needs a different angle to be able to understand. “How old are you?”

Steve considers the beer the guy tossed him and figures he must have an idea. “Twenty-two.”

Eddie smirks, eyes glinting. “Seems kinda suspicious for two guys to live together. Especially when you’re so much older than him.”

And Steve gets it. Eddie is making sure Steve isn’t hurting Dustin, just like Steve’s been trying to do with Eddie.

He counters with, “Well, how old are you? People might get the wrong idea, seeing as you’re an adult, and all, and these kids keep coming over to your house.”

Eddie’s smile widens and he takes another sip instead of answering. Steve decides to push the envelope a little.

“How do I know you’re not giving them drugs?”

Eddie chokes on his beer, but catches himself before it spews all over the kitchen. He coughs as he’s smiling, wipes his mouth off with a towel that’s threaded through the oven door handle. And when he looks at Steve, there’s some self-preservation bleeding through.

“Why do you think I invite them to play DnD here, huh? All sorts of shit goes down in this community that no one even knows about. They’re good kids, Steve. I just wanna keep ‘em safe.”

It’s the first time he’s said Steve’s name, and it feels – well, it feels, strangely intimate.

“I just didn’t realize they already had a babysitter,” Eddie teases, and the tense atmosphere lifts.

They share a look and a smile and it goes on for far too long.

That’s when Lucas slams the screen door open and leaps into the hallway. “We figured out how to save you!”

Steve catches Eddie’s eye before giving in to Lucas’ incessant tugging on his elbow.

“I’ll be there in a sec. Gotta take a piss,” Eddie says, burping into the back of his hand and crushing the can against his thigh. It’s something that shouldn’t make Steve’s brain fizz out. But it does.

Steve is bombarded when he enters the garage with a plan the group of them worked out together. It seems Will is still mad at Dustin, scowling over Mike’s shoulder, but the rest of them are enthusiastically escorting Steve to the table while explaining their plot to resurrect him.

Eddie strolls in, not five minutes later, with more beer. This time, instead of tossing it, he sets it on the table at Steve’s elbow and smiles down at him. Steve smiles back because he’s honestly over his head here.

They continue on, successfully completing that quest and jumping headlong into another, until Steve’s ass is sore and he has to pee, and he steps out into the now-night air to piss behind the garage.

Two beers in and his thoughts are making connections he really doesn’t need at the moment. Like how twice now he’s become completely enamored with someone the first time they meet. Like how he’s a sucker for a big, wet, expressive pair of eyes and an intelligent mind. Like how it doesn’t matter that Eddie’s a guy, because he’s not picky. And he’s suddenly sinking into the horrifying feeling that he’s cheating on –

But that’s ridiculous. He’s not going steady with anyone to be feeling that way.

When he returns, Eddie is telling a gory story about some chick in space who’s encountered alien things with acid blood. The kids are ‘ewing’ and ‘grossing’ and Dustin is on the edge of his seat listening to the tale. Eddie eyes Steve and winks, then dives into a graphic description of something called a ‘chestburster.’

Eddie laughs at their disgusted groans. “Ellen Ripley is fucking badass, and I love her.”

Steve feels a strange swoop in his gut. He doesn’t know who this Ellen Ripley is, but he’s suddenly jealous of her.

“I have an idea!” Max shouts over the din, waving her hands to get everyone’s attention. “We should go see the movie. All of us. Together. Suzie too”

“What movie?” Steve asks, and everyone answers in unison.

“Aliens!”

Steve makes eye contact with Eddie, who is watching him with amusement. He’s heard of the movie, but isn’t sure it’s the type of thing the kids would enjoy. He doesn’t even know what it’s rated, and if they can even get in to see it.

But the kids are already making plans for the following weekend. Dustin rounds on Steve and says he absolutely has to go with them.

“Yeah, Steve,” Eddie says, teasing from across the table. “You just have to go.”

Steve knows a challenge when he sees one. “Fine. I’ll do it. But you have to go, too.”

And that’s how Steve Harrington drives a carload of kids home, hopped up on caffeine and sugar, wondering how he’s gotten himself a group date with a bunch of teenagers and Eddie, of all things.

Read on AO3

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #alternate universe #drag queen eddie

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gabessquishytum · 1 year ago

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Mob dream and pub owner Hob? hob just opened a new business and the rent was so cheap he can’t believe the owner was so desperate to sell it. And it’s in a great area! He pours all his money into opening the place…but the day before it opens when he is stocking up the bar, the door opens. Which is…odd. That someone else apparently had the key.

Hob turns in time to see a grinning blond man enter, the first of four other men, including a pale man with glittering eyes.

Hob starts to protest but the man just calmly tells him that this is Endless territory and Hob owes them. He’ll have to pay if he wants their protection. And if not…the threat is implied.

Hob has no money. He’s put it all into the bar. And he’s a proud man. So he refuses.

That night, there is a break in. When Hob comes to the bar in the morning, ready for his first day, he is heartbroken to see all his windows have been smashed and the entire stock of alcohol in the shelves. The tables are all broken and the photo of his mother that he’d hung in the back is cracked. It’s all destroyed.

Hob is sweeping up the glass when the men come back. This time, they don’t hesitate. He’s grabbed and shoved in a chair, his hands cuffed behind his back. The leader, Dream, leans in his face. Again he demands payment.

Hob breaks down. “You destroyed my stock, this whole place,” he says. “I’ve got nothing left. Take my credit cards, but there’s barely 80 pounds in my bank account. You destroyed the only thing of worth I have.”

Dream stares at him. But hob’s genuine anger seems to convince him. Quietly he asks the others to leave. Alone with Hob he slips Hob’s wallet out of his pocket. He looks inside. Then he takes out Hob’s driver’s license and slips it into his own pocket.

“What are you—“ hob is interrupted by Dream’s hand on his face, tipping his chin up to meet his eye.

“I’m willing to come to a more personal arrangement. I’ll even pay for repairs. A whole new stock, just for you.”

“I just told you, I can’t pay—“

“You can. But ill be generous. I’m amenable to … alternative payment.” And he strokes Hob’s lower lip.

Hob has no choice. Seething and afraid, Hob gets on his knees. A blowjob gets him new windows. For new chairs and tables, he’s got to wear a remote controlled vibrating plug all day. He stares at his new bar stock when he bends over his counter so Dream can fuck him hard, one hand pressing his cheek into the wood.

And he knows, based on how Dream looks at him, like a starving man before a feast, there’s no end in sight to the payments.

“You’re mine,” Dream growls, hand hot around Hob’s shamefully hard cock. Hob can’t help but come when Dream demands it.

Mmm yes lovely morally dubious boys <3

Hob slowly begins to realise that Dream really is quite obsessed with him, and that he can use this to his advantage. Obviously it sucks to be used as a sexual plaything, so he ought to at least try and get something more out of it. He'll start milking Dream for all he's worth.

On their arranged night together, Hob surprises Dream by wearing a huge flared plug so he can immediately sink down on the mob boss's cock. It's a pleasant surprise, especially when Hob starts riding like his life depends on it. Dream is whisked off to a world of pure pleasure, while Hob flutters his eyelashes and makes sure that Dream cums explosively inside him. And then he starts talking about how the pub decor could really do with an upgrade... something cozy and classy to pull in the patrons who have money to burn. Dream immediately finds himself agreeing to pay for whatever decoration Hob wants. It doesn't occur to him until later that their "arrangement" just got flipped on its head? Since when was Hob allowed to ask for things?!

And Dream means to punish him for his gumption, but next time he goes to Hob he gets his brains sucked out through his dick. He forgets all about punishments and immediately agrees when Hob suggests that it would be useful to have a new van? To pick up deliveries for the pub?

And so it goes on. Dream asserts that he owns Hob, and Hob nods respectfully as he kneels on the (new) plush carpet. He lets Dream fuck his mouth, and he even says thank you afterwards.

He's got big plans for his pub, and he's going to make sure that Dream pays for every penny... even if Hob is technically paying with his body. Best not to think about it too hard...

Especially not the fact that it makes Hob cum so fucking hard whenever he thinks about how Dream owns him, and probably always will.

#the sandman #dreamling #nsft #cw manipulation

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argumate · 12 days ago

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the French are obsessed with black cars; taxis are black, cop cars are black, even delivery vans are black, it's style gone mad, makes me want to rent an orange convertible and drive through Paris munching on baguettes

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askvectorprime · 7 months ago

Note

It's exciting knowing that you've been examining the overlaps with the greater Omniverse. Would you care to provide some insight into Code Red's somewhat confusing existence? He seems to exist in a reality where Transformers exist as a fictional property, if Dustin Henderson's ownership of a (somehow motorized) Ultra Magnus toy is anything to go on.

Dear Hellfire Harried,

It is completely true that Code Red's existence in that universe is an anomaly—but he is not unique in that respect. Like many of the stranger things seen in that world, Code Red originated outside that universe. I should warn you, though, I have only limited insight, as the timeline remains somewhat in flux.

Code Red had originally been an Autobot on a very different Earth, fighting an ordinary battle of good and evil against the Decepticons. Unluckily for him, he was one of several bots displaced by the time-traveling quartet of Galvatron, Cyclonus, Scourge, and Bayonet, ending up trapped in the Limbo between universes.

In a strange cosmic coincidence, Dustin Henderson's world was at the same time experiencing an event where time and space were rent asunder by an entity he and his friends had named Vecna. Out of desperation, Dustin's friend Eleven was venturing into the Void in an attempt to stabilize things.

And so, in this realm of utter darkness, Eleven came into contact with Code Red, inadvertently bringing the Autobot into their universe. At first Code Red assumed this was another torment caused by the parasites that inhabited Limbo, but after an encounter with some of the minions of Vecna, he was forced to conclude that his imagination would never have been able to come up with anything that horrible. Attempting to hide, he scanned a nearby pizza delivery van... which backfired, as Eleven and her friends mistook him for the original. As they drove around, they argued at length over whether they were going to call him the Apparatus of Kwalish or the Machine of Lum the Mad—completely oblivious to the fact that they were sitting in him.

Unfortunately, I do not know if he ever revealed himself to the children. The future events of 1987 are too indistinct to relay at this point.

#ask vector prime #transformers #maccadam #stranger things #code red #galvatron #cyclonus #scourge #bayonet #limbo #dustin henderson #vecna #eleven

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limousinenassarrr36 · 10 days ago

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limousinenassar4923 · 11 days ago

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nine-of-words · 6 months ago

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Something Borrowed (Part Eleven)

M Gargoyle x M Reader

PREVIOUS || STORY TAG

Wordcount: 7437

Content Warnings: Discussion of a Breakup, Brief Mention of Fantasy Catholicism

I’m not dead and here is another chapter! However this part ran way too long in the original plan, so I’ve decided to break it in two. It is somehow still more than 7k, so, whoops. Fittingly, we’re going with a baker’s dozen for this story rather than a dozen.

The anticipation is killing you.

You are in the back of a rented van, babysitting two comically large, magically chilled boxes full of partially constructed wedding cake. Your eyes are eagle sharp as you monitor it on the way to the venue.

It's something you've done hundreds, if not thousands of times before at this point, but it still makes you feel slightly queasy, watching the result of your hard work wobble and sway in its supported box with every little bump in the road.

But this time, you're an extra bit queasy for a different reason, as you hold your device out in front of you.

If you're going to call somebody, you need to have called them… at least twenty minutes ago, now.

Between working double time late into the night to remake this cake, and getting it ready for delivery today, you haven’t had time to make the call at a reasonable hour.

Until now.

…Or so you tell yourself.

You definitely waited until the last possible minute, at least partially out of fear.

You look down at the screen, the pixels composing the letters of Carlyle’s name starting to lose their meaning from staring at them for so long.

You suppose the second best time to call is now.

You finally swallow down the dread and start to mentally count down from ten.

Ten, Nine, Eight-

Ugh, what are you even doing? You’re just going to make a fool of yourself!

Seven, Six, Five…

What if he doesn’t pick up? What then? It’s the middle of the day on a work day! He's a lawyer, he's probably on a courtroom right now-

Four… Three… Two…

And what if he does pick up? You should’ve rehearsed what you were going to say better-

One.

You force yourself to hit the button before you can hesitate again. The sound of ringing on the other end is like a series of white hot pokers in your chest. Your eyes are screwed closed in anticipation.

It rings once.

You consider wrenching open the sliding door of the van and tossing your voci out onto the highway speeding by.

It rings twice…

“Hello?”

Even with just the single word, he sounds absolutely incredulous. You can clearly imagine the way his eyebrows arch up when he hears something particularly egregious.

“... Hi,” You finally manage to force the word out on a forceful exhale, but then immediately stall, the ghost of your next sentence leaving you in a near-silent rattle.

“...Hello. Are you… okay?”

“Yes- Well, no. Maybe?” You laugh nervously. “It really depends on what your answer to my next question is…”

“Hah, well- I’m listening, whenever you're ready.”

You take a deep breath of air, fist nervously clenching your apron hem, then swallow it down with your remaining pride.

“I know this is last minute and I know I don’t really have the footing to ask you a favor right now, but… I really need you,” You say, mouth already dry and your voice beginning to shake, the words harder to excavate the more you scrape out. “Do you think that you could… would you be my date to this wedding?”

“Of course. I’ll be there.” Carlyle’s response is more nonchalant and so much lighter in tone than you expected; relieved, even. You hear fabric rustling and what sounds like the subtle grinding of stone on the other end. “Send me the address. And the dress code- I'm assuming there is one.”

“R-Really?” You say in disbelief; you expected rejection, or at least much more pushback. You expected to have to beg for forgiveness. “Just like that?”

“Yes?” He lets out a soft, barely audible laugh. “Were you expecting me to turn you down?”

He has a point. What were you expecting, exactly? Bitter resentment? But no, of course he’s behaving in a kind and supportive manner- He’s never given you a reason to think he’d act any differently. You’ve never been happier to be wrong.

“I… suppose I was. I wouldn’t have blamed you.”

“Just so we're on the same page here,” The rustling of movement on Carlyle’s end of the line continues. “I’m going as your date, but is this a date? I'll still join you in a platonic capacity, of course, so there's no pressure, but I would like things to be transparent from the start.”

“A date!” You blurt out, but quickly clarify; “A, uh, not platonic one. A romantic one, I mean. I-If that's what you want.”

“You don't know how happy I am to hear you say that.”

“Sorry- I think I might know. Just a tick-” You’re overjoyed and devastated at the same time, struggling to blink back the sting of tears at the corners of your eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. Really. You don’t have to apologize.”

You try to convince yourself to get off the line, but it’s just so good to hear his voice again, you’re desperate to wring as much of it as you can out of this short interaction- to save it up in case things go south again. But you’ll need to unload this cake soon, and understandably, Carlyle can't stay on the call for much longer either, given the sudden need to pack and commute. So, after giving him the information he needs, you’re forced to cut it short.

You finally say goodbye and end the call, left sitting in the back of the van with the cake, the anxiety weighing on you laced with a bit of pleasant anticipation, now.

One look at the place when you get out of the back of the van, and you’re already intimidated. They certainly didn’t spare any cost, from the look of it. You push the feeling down and remind yourself you have a reason to be here- you’re here for work primarily, no matter what the self-critical voice in the back of your mind is trying to tell you.

The building is an old Elven palace nestled in sprawling gardens, situated on the northern edge of the city and repurposed into an event venue. The exterior is all tall, windy spires and iridescent panes of stained glass, with sprawling plant life tracing cracks where they’ve found purchase. Even from here, you can see that a massive tree growing from the same craggy base of the hill the palace is perched on has started to grow into a hole in the building’s stone facade who knows how long ago- now kept artfully pruned now as a feature, rather than a signal of disrepair, you have to assume.

You walk into the reception venue’s service door from the parking area, somehow even more intimidated by the inside. Fittingly, it’s the palace’s ballroom. Branches of the tree have slowly crept their way in here over the years, twisting through the stone and dotting the cracks with the occasional vine or flower. Long hanging pennants of silky cloth hang down between marble columns and the same rosy stained glass panels from the outside, the backdrop to meticulously set dining tables with live floral centerpieces, evoking what it likely looked like in the past. The high ceiling has some sort of eerie gloss to it, with multiple finely dressed banquet workers in the room seemingly running tests as the lights flicker and twinkle a different color occasionally- you can only imagine what this room will look like with the lighting fully set later.

In your line of work, you’ve seen a lot of wedding ceremonies, or at least the set up preceding them. Elven weddings tend to be showy and overdone, ostentatious in their presentation, and this one is no exception. Everything about the venue you’ve seen so far screams “I paid a lot of gold for this”, which given Trevor’s parents likely foot the bill for it, you’re unsurprised.

As usual when you arrive, your first order of business is to locate the wedding planner, to confirm where to put the end product of your hours of effort. This time, it's a stern looking elven woman in a flowy black and gold jumpsuit and sporting a tight bun atop her head- someone you instantly recognize and find yourself hit with a wave of dread, realizing you have to have this conversation, of all things, right now.

“Ooh, hello!” She says your name, but all you hear is being called up to the gallows. “What a nice surprise it is to see you here!”

This is the wedding planner you were talking to when you had begun to plan your own wedding, when you and Trevor were still engaged. You feel a little bad that you don’t remember her name- you could probably find her card somewhere in your files from the times you’d worked on the same wedding before you hired her, but so much of that time period is such a blur to you now. It feels like a whole different lifetime.

“Hi,” you say awkwardly, fingernails already digging into the strap of your bag of supplies. You force yourself to unclench your fingers. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“It has! We haven’t worked on the same event for more than… well, more than a year now, wouldn’t it be?” Her nails tap the datapad in her hands as she types away.

You can hear the question she’s being too polite to ask: It was when we were planning this wedding when it was going to be yours, wasn’t it?

“I changed location, so that might be why.” You offer an explanation.

“When Ms. Devinthal said she had a backup in mind when the groom’s first choice bakery fell through, I had no idea it was going to be you! I didn’t recognize the business name at all!”

Backup? First choice…? What’s that supposed to mean?

“Yeah, well, I changed my shop’s name too, so I imagine there just hasn’t been a lot of overlap in customers lately, hahah.”

“True…” She lowers her data pad and purses her lips, barely bothering to conceal her pity. It seems she’s able to piece together the reason as to why pretty easily. “If I can be purely honest with you? I thought you’d have quit the business. Spirits know I wouldn’t be able to keep working in this business after… well, all of that heartbreak transpired. I hope things have improved for you in that regard, dear.”

You can feel your eyes glaze over a bit as you vividly recall the day you had called this woman in barely-withheld tears to cancel her service; how you barely were able to explain through your weak voice, hoarse from crying, that there wasn’t going to be a wedding to plan anymore.

“Oh, they have.” You say, trying to keep your teeth from gritting, with a drawn on customer-service smile.

“Ohoh! Well, I should let you get to work! That cake isn’t going to stack itself, is it? However, if things keep going well, you’ll have to keep me in mind when you hear wedding bells ringing again, hmm? They say the second time's the charm!”

“Of course I will!” You lie through your teeth. “Thanks.”

Mercifully, you have your job to turn your attention to.

As soon as she’s out of earshot, you let out a long, withering breath, and resteel yourself. You’re not going to have a breakdown. It’s too early in all of this.

One by one, you bring the chilled boxes into the reception venue, fingers locked tightly, but not tight enough to damage the cake inside. You’ve never dropped a cake at the venue- yet- but given your luck lately, you’re not taking any chances.

Once all the necessary pieces are inside, you begin the work of extracting the cake tiers from their boxes and moving them to the obnoxiously broad cake stand. The cake will be set on a small table all on its own, pride of place of the banquet area of the ballroom.

Every tier you place as if you’re disarming a bomb; your life and the life of everyone in the building depends on it being undamaged. Dowel rods and cardboard circles are strategically placed as needed for structural integrity, each tier of cake perfectly centered in the middle of the one below.

Finally, you gingerly slide the last, petite tier on top of the whole thing.

…It’s secure. That’s most of the battle won. You let out the breath you were holding. Putting on the final aesthetic touches won’t be nearly as mortally terrifying as the potential of the cake crashing onto the floor into a heap of sweet mush due to an accidental slip of the hand.

You begin the process of touching up the sides and the seams of the tiers, dolloping buttercream from your container to hide any cracks like you're spackling a wall. Time both flies by and is somehow agonizing in how long it drags on. All the way through laying down the final buttercream decorations, up until you've meticulously placed the last sugary rose you spent so much time sculpting, there's only one thing on your mind, and it’s not the cake.

All that’s left is to seek out the wedding planner once again for final approval. To your relief, she's thrilled with your work and gives you the go ahead to clean up as she uses the datapad in her hand to send the rest of your payment to your account. It's always easier when there's no new demands or fabricated issues brought up at the very end. The tightly wound muscles in your upper back ease, just a little bit.

And with that- it's done, finished, out of your hands. The cake is delivered safely, and you feel lighter already knowing it's not your problem anymore.

… As long as it makes it through the night without exploding, that is.

You swallow dryly at the thought. Kirby enthusiastically assured you that there was basically no chance of it happening again so soon- that it happening to the first version of this cake was a blessing in disguise, since that explosion took place in your shop and not the venue, and there wouldn't be enough time for negative energy to accumulate again by now. You can't help but still feel the twinge of apprehension, despite you trusting their judgement.

The last of your supplies get neatly packed away just in time, as you're starting to see more elves dressed in their best formal wear filtering through by the passing minute.

Casting one last lingering look at the cake, you leave the grandiose ballroom for your hotel room to get ready. By nature of attending a wedding you've also delivered the cake to, the time you have to prepare is somewhat more scant than you’d like, so you’ve got to get moving.

After a walk down a particularly gilded hallway, you enter the frankly ostentatious lobby of the hotel portion of the palace. The high vaulted, ribboned ceilings are almost dizzying, and all of the small details on the architecture being gilded or inlaid with some other precious material is making it hard to look at anything for too long.

A bellhop takes your bags, leaving you less to fiddle with in your anxiety. So instead, you compulsively check your voci every few moments while you wait for the front desk agent to do her thing. Hopefully, she doesn’t notice how sweaty your hands are with nerves when you take the set of keycards from her. You want to get up there and get ready as soon as possible. You don’t want to hog the bathroom if Carlyle still needs to finish getting ready, too…

Since the guest rooms themselves are in the various high towers of the palace, the elevator ride takes what feels like forever. You’re left to look at your many reflections, scrutinizing the imperfections of your face amplified in the glass and regretting most of your life decisions up to this point.

When you finally get there, the hotel room itself is even a bit intimidating in how expensive and ornate it looks. You’re aware you likely got one of the most standard of rooms, as a low priority guest. You don’t even want to think about what the bigger suites must look like… And certainly not the bridal suite, which the front desk agent was happy to chirp about being at the very top of the highest spire.

Despite being what’s considered a standard room, it’s still more lavish than anything you’d ever buy yourself for the night by far, all gilded and crystal surfaces and the finest fabrics.

Of the most note is an incredibly tall window pane that reaches from the floor all the way up to the ceiling- at least double and a half of your height. The view overlooks the swathe of greenery and pastel color of blooming flowers below, and then eventual transition to the blocks of Windrise City proper in the far distance, past the gardens.

You may be in a time crunch, but the view from the window is so entrancing you find yourself opening the light curtains a little wider and staring out in awe for just a few moments. If you had time, you’d probably be out on the balcony right now.

Your delivered bags sit on the golden luggage stand in one corner, looking very out of place in their mundanity.

Hastily, you pick out the one suit you own from the top of your luggage, where it’s neatly folded on the hanger. You shake it out a bit before hanging it on the bar in the hallway closet.

Carlyle hasn’t shown up yet, which is both a relief and terrifying. What if he got stuck in gridlock traffic and he can’t get here in time? You’ll be here on your own anyway, after all of that. Somehow it’d make the whole situation even more embarrassing, seeing familiar faces while you stew in shame, left to endure pitying looks that cover up deep disdain for your presence…

But.. no. He’d definitely call back if he was running late.

You peel yourself out of your slightly sugar-crusted apron and hop into a hurried shower, starting the rush through your grooming routine.

Once you’ve bathed, you immediately move on to shaving; going through the motion of working a lather of soap onto your face. Thanks to your mother being an elf, you don’t have to shave that often, but she is a snow elf, so the stubble will still get out of hand if you let it.

The preening gives you a sense of comfort- a calmness that you’ve been sorely lacking lately.

You can at least handle this. You are fully capable of looking presentable. It’s part of your job.

While the momentary refuge from your dread is a comfortable diversion, reality quickly sets back in when you hear a knock at the door.

You look up and freeze, the razor still in your hand hanging inert by your jaw.

A bolt of terror courses through you, despite bubbling with joy. You want to see him, if the urge to run to the door and immediately throw it open means anything. But it’s going to be so awkward… What do you even say now?

Maybe it’s just room service, even though you didn’t order it. A maid with extra pillows, even though you didn’t ask for them? A maintenance worker coming to fix something, even though you didn’t report an issue?

You realize you’ve been standing here frozen for far too long, and scramble to get some semblance of covered, throwing open the closet and yanking one of the robes off the attached anti-theft hangers, then hurriedly putting your arms through the sleeves and tying a sloppy knot around your waist.

Finally at the door, nearly working up a sweat in your haste, your hands fumble with the chain lock and the door handle, but manage to open the door.

Carlyle is on the other side, of course, and not the random hospitality worker you were conjuring in your head. He has an overnight bag slung over one shoulder, and a smaller one held at his side in his opposite hand.

He looks as handsome as ever, clearly freshly groomed and put together himself; freshly pressed suit, dreadlocks neatly tied in a loose gather, and the warm, spiced scent of his cologne’s heart note.

You imagine Carlyle must own more than a few suits, given his job and the fact you’ve rarely seen him in anything less formal, but if this isn’t his best suit, it’s probably close to it. The fabric of the lapels is a silky, resplendent black, shimmering just enough when the light hits it that it’s nearly impossible to resist the desire to run your fingers along them. The rosy blush paisley pattern on his chosen tie is strikingly familiar…

His free hand is hovering halfway between his tie and the door, like he’s contemplating knocking again after fussing with his focus in anticipation. He lowers it to straighten his tie, and his face breaks into a smitten, amused smile at the sight of you.

“Good afternoon.” The way the corners of his eyes tighten and his voice has the slightest hint of wavering, you can tell he’s barely holding back laughter. “I’m truly flattered that you wanted to answer the door so quickly, but you didn’t have to rush.”

“H-Huh?”

He gestures to his face like he’s stroking a nonexistent beard. You move your own to mirror the movement, immediately regretting your choice when the fingertips find the shaving lather you still have on half of your face.

The accumulated tension is blown to smithereens.

You can feel your face heating up in embarrassment, running to answer the door like this.

A momentary silence falls between you- with you too dazed to access your proper manners, and Carlyle too patient to suggest you move out of the doorway and let him through.

Both on one side of a threshold, but neither being quick to trespass.

It’s a foreign feeling, knowing how close you’ve gotten, yet having this invisible, manufactured barrier still standing between you.

That evening in the shop when he came by late and you were in much the same circumstances comes to mind. There’s no extinguished neon shop sign barring the way now, though, just your own awkward behavior.

“Um. Well,” You cringe at yourself, trying to relax your wooden posture. “Come in?”

As soon as Carlyle has slid past you and inside the room, you scoop up your main layers of clothes that you had laying out within reach.

“Right, um. I’ll just. Be out in a minute-” You manage to blurt out before unceremoniously locking yourself in the bathroom, only catching half of his affirmative words before the door shuts.

Finishing shaving and getting dressed doesn’t take nearly as long as you’d hope- not nearly enough to think up something meaningful to say to him. You find yourself gripping the edges of the sink, staring yourself down in the mirror, desperately trying to plan your approach.

What is even appropriate here? Should you thank him for coming? Should you apologize again?

Anything is better than this. You can’t hide in the bathroom forever torturing yourself.

Right?

You close your eyes to splash your face with a bit of water, and take a long, drawn out, deep breath. Then you steel yourself and meekly emerge from your hiding spot.

You stall in front of the hallway closet, eyes turned away, and pick up your tie from the neck of the nearby hanger with your blazer on it.

But before you can make much progress with your tie, you’re hit with a pleasantly familiar, slightly sweet, slightly malty smell that calls you out into the room proper, despite your best attempts to keep hiding from your date.

You glance around for the source, quickly finding that there’s a neutral white mug sitting on the grotesquely ornate lacquer tray next to the brewing machine.

“Tea?” You identify, forgetting your task and taking the still-warm mug into your hands.

“I made you a cup. I thought you might need it.”

Carlyle’s taken a seat in the embroidered club chair in the corner of the room. Even in a place like this, he manages to somehow not look out of place. He peers out at you, one leg folded over the other. His spaded tail lazily whips the empty space below him.

“Ah. T-Thanks.” You say, trying not to let your voice crack, before taking a long sip.

Queen’s Breakfast Blend. He even put cream and sugar in it- a bit under what you would’ve, but that’s only to be expected from him. You’re sure to him, this was just as excessive as you’d like. It’s nothing like the authentic blend Devin brings you, but you’re touched that he remembered your preference.

“Can’t help but see the coffee’s untouched.” You sniff dryly and look into the beige, opaque liquid in your cup, extending a cursory bit of teasing. Testing the waters.

“Hah! Well. A man has to have some standards.” Carlyle quips in turn, clawtips drumming the fabric of the armrest.

Another long sip. You investigate the prepackaged coffees.

“...It’s the same store brand that I buy, though.” You snort. “You've been drinking it for months. Every time you turned up at the shop…”

“It’s different when you make it.” He shrugs with a knowing smile; a bolt through your chest. You can only huff out a laugh in response to prevent yourself from getting too flustered.

The mug clinks against the tray as you set it back down to focus on the fabric still hanging limp around your neck, waiting to be arranged.

You can feel Carlyle’s eyes on you as you fumble your attempts to tie it, but he’s not saying anything. Yet.

You try again. You fail again.

Your hands are trembling the smallest bit, but it’s making it hard to complete the fine movements. You don’t know if it’s your nerves about the event in general, or maybe the fact that you know if you look up, you’ll catch Carlyle’s warm, dark brown eyes shamelessly fixated on your movements.

“B-Blast it-” You hiss under your breath as you fail to form the knot once more, but clearly not as quietly as you think, and you seem to have fully spurred your date to action.

“Here. You look like you could use some assistance.” Carlyle laughs a sift laugh as he gets to his feet and clears the short distance between you. Though, he does hesitate a moment before touching you, despite his hands already raising to do so; “If you’d like it.”

“Please.” Your voice comes out an exasperated groan, weakly throwing up your hands in defeat.

He moves in closer now that he has expressed permission, untwisting the mess of a tie and laying it flat against your flipped up collar. The room is so silent, you can hear the faint sound of the cotton brushing against this stoneskin.

“I know how to tie a tie,” You insist in your own defense, fighting no one but yourself- not angry, but more so particularly exasperated. Of course you’re failing this task while someone’s watching you do it. “I just. Don’t do it as often as you do, probably…”

“I’m sure you’re perfectly capable.” Carlyle says in a reassuring tone while his hands deftly maneuver with the finesse of someone who has absolutely done this way, way more often than you have. “Though, I’m not complaining about getting to do it myself.”

His movements are delicate but still firm, just like you remember.

His stone fingers brush the sides of your neck in the process. You simultaneously fight the urge to melt into his touch while your heart hammers in your chest so hard that you’re starting to feel it in your throat.

…You’re fairly sure he’s dragging this out on purpose, but you, similarly, are not complaining- you’re too busy savoring the feeling.

“Is this okay?” He speaks barely above a whisper, and secures the tie at the base of your throat with a gentle tug. He’s asking about the tightness of the knot, surely, but with the way his hands linger, it’s also serving the purpose of re-confirming where your boundaries for physical closeness are, in your still undefined standing.

Your anxiety on the matter can't stand up to how badly you want him.

Your hand rises to gently touch the side of his jaw, but you hesitate, still unsure of yourself despite the clear look of invitation in Carlyle’s eyes.

Then, there’s a slight pressure on your neck from your tie, still in Carlyle’s hands, as he gently pulls you closer by it. He does it slowly, almost agonizingly drawn out, giving you time to back out or stop it. But you don’t- you only lean in to close the gap, taking his lips in your own.

His kiss is warm and slightly rigid, just like you remember. You flinch, second guessing yourself- but his grip on your tie is still there, holding you firmly to him, clear that he has no intention of letting you go this time.

So, your hesitance melts away. Your other arm snakes around the yoke of his shoulders as you embrace him, the way you’ve been dying to do since you saw him standing at the threshold. You feel his tongue and the tips of his fangs, remapping the shape of them with your tongue.

Your kisses grow more heated by the second, barely keeping from gnashing teeth, desperate to get more of this feeling; there’s a pit of lacking in your chest needing to be filled from the time you spent apart.

When he finally releases his hold on your tie, you pull back just enough to part your lips, you’re a glutton for air and blinking back the moisture rimming your eyelids. Overcome with emotion, you lay your head on his shoulder, too embarrassed to look him in the eyes, but not ready to break your touch for the fear that you’ll wake up and it won’t have been real.

“I missed you.”

Your voice is barely audible as you speak into the padded surface of his suit shoulder.

“I missed you, too.” He responds in a breathy, almost half-laugh, stroking the back of your head with his claw points.

Several moments pass with you unmoving, entwined with your head resting on him. None of what was bothering you seems to matter much now.

You could stay like this forever- if only there weren’t things you had to do…

As if on cue, you hear the rumble of Carlyle clearing his throat, sounding particularly hollow from your ear’s position on his chest.

“We should be going if you want to make it to the ceremony on time.” Carlyle finally says quietly, checking his watch behind your head, but doesn’t budge yet himself, either.

“Right...” You sigh wistfully, still basking in the heady feeling of having your arms around him and his lips on yours again. You manage to somehow pry yourself away and slip your blazer on, but it’s the most difficult thing you’ve done in days.

Carlyle watches in approval as you straighten the lapels, a warm smile on his face.

“I have to say, you look stunning this evening.”

“My, what did I do to deserve such flattery?”

“Well- you see me in a suit regularly, but this is the first time I’ve gotten the pleasure of seeing you in one. It feels like a rare treat I should savor while I can.”

“I’m sorry but you’ll need to wait to do much more savoring, I’m afraid.” You say, unable to resist touching his face one more time, gently running your finger over the smooth stone surface of his bottom lip.

He kisses the tip of your thumb in response, looking you straight in the eyes as he does so.

You feel your face heat up immediately, and quickly detach your hold on him and open the door to the hallway before you give into the temptation to miss the event entirely.

“Sitting through this wedding is going to be difficult enough already- for completely other reasons now.” You quip, your voice coming out a slight rasp as you pass through the threshold of the hotel room.

“Look at this way-” Carlyle follows closely behind you, pulling the door closed with a soft click. “It's an excellent incentive.”

You manage to make it into the ceremony space just in time to not stand out as rude, sliding into the carved wooden benches at the back row, amongst the hushed pre-ceremony conversation.

The ceremony venue itself is just as extravagant as the reception area you got acquainted with while setting up the cake.

The tree is most present in this room. Huge branches reach in through the partially open roof of the area, clusters of blossoms covering the whole left side, suspended high over the altar and reaching past over the rows of wooden benches.

If nothing else, the pictures will be fantastic…

A small band of classic Elven musicians are in one corner, playing the equivalent to faerie elevator music on their antique reed and string instruments, to fill the room while people file into their seats.

Every attendee seems to have pulled out their best gown or set of robes from their wardrobe for the occasion, desperate to win the coveted and definitely real title of ‘best dressed wedding guest’. Swathes of Aurelian fabrics dominate your vision- shimmering flowing silks and light, twinkly sheer voiles, some likely literally enchanted with magic to float or gently shift like an aurora. You do see a handful of suits, as well as several more numan-standard cocktail dresses, but they are far outnumbered by the sheer amount of Elven finery in the room.

It’s suffocating.

You can already feel your back muscles tensing and your jaw setting, looking out at the gathering of rich people dressed in formal wear. Even knowing you’re well within the dress code, you can’t help but think you’re underdressed somehow.

Every time a set of new eyes glance over you with brief curiosity or hazy half-recognition, you’re hit with a new small wave of panic and disgust. You sure recognize many of them- all extended family members and acquaintances that you’ve encountered over the several years of large, overblown functions for every Elven holiday with Trevor’s family that you had to endure.

You’re sure none of them recognize you in turn- after all, why would they bother to remember you? You were only present for eight years. You were only engaged to be married. Why bother to remember something as trivial as what you look like or what your name was? At the very least, if any of them do remember who you are, they don’t dare acknowledge it.

You weren’t enough before, why would you be now?

The only small mercy is that the people closest to Trevor are far at the front, without a clear view to the back where you’re seated…

“So, how many crystal chandeliers do you think that lovely lady’s gown is worth?” Carlyle leans to the side with his back straight, just enough for his words to be audible to you but not likely anyone else, nudging your knee slightly with his own to direct your line of sight. You can hear the smirk on his lips without even turning to seeing his face. “Or do you think perhaps she robbed the baron’s bank vault directly?”

“That would be a difficult heist.” You reply, barely keeping a straight face, somehow no longer able to dwell on the occasional, real or imagined scan of familiar eyes on you. “Three, maybe four.”

A few minutes pass with Carlyle pleasantly distracting you from the impending ceremony with silly chatter. It works marvelously, until you catch sight of Trevor, dressed in uncharacteristically formal elven robes, taking his place at the altar. He, as always, looks as bored as he could probably get away with looking, though he’s standing at attention with his hands joined in front of him, rather than leaning on something.

A particularly bitter thought- that he looks far too overdressed for his face to look like he’s waiting for the bus- crosses your mind. He can’t even muster the effort to look excited on his wedding day, of all days? Typical.

Bile rises in your throat. You could vomit, and being in a crowd of people might be the only thing that keeps you from doing so. You want to yank the circlet off his head and wing it like a frisbee across the room.

Your teeth grit, and it takes all you have not to scowl. He’s attractive, and it makes you angry how good he looks in his stupid robes. Of course you find him attractive, you dated him for eight years. But any sense of thinking he’s good looking now comes with the added footnote of him leaving you when you needed his support the most.

You don’t want him anymore. You’re well aware of that. But you still can’t let go of the fact he’ll never own up to the pain that he caused you, or the fact that closure from him will stay out of reach-

The fact that you weren’t good enough.

Before you can spiral too far, however, you feel the familiar sensation of a stoneskin palm gently slipping into yours.

Carlyle doesn’t say anything, clearly not wanting to be disruptive during a ceremony, but he looks over at you and gently squeezes your fingers in a firm grip when your eyes make contact.

You don’t really need him to speak, because you can hear the message loud and clear-

I’m here.

He doesn’t take his hand back, letting it rest on your leg indefinitely. The feeling of the weight is comfortable and reassuring.

Warmth spreads in your chest. Maybe you can make it through this ceremony.

The music slows, then immediately shifts into a recognizable, though mellow composition of a wedding march. Heads all turn in expectation.

The bride finally appears at the end of the aisle, and despite your feelings around the wedding itself, you find yourself a bit stunned by the sight. Devin is pretty anyway, so it’s not surprising that she’s also pretty on her wedding day of all days. Even if her face wasn’t obfuscated by a shifting, translucent veil, she would still be almost unrecognizable in the sheer amount of layers of fabric in varying levels of opacity she’s clad in, between the veil, train, and the full body of the gown. The bodice is fitted, with slim sleeves that start at the elbow and go down all the way past her wrist into delicate closures on her middle fingers. But the rest of the gown is simply the most ornate sea of cloth you’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s so foreign to anything you’ve ever seen her wear before, and you have to imagine it must be heavy, if the squadron of flower-clad elven children in white dress, barefoot and nymphlike, holding the train of her dress behind her are any indication.

It’s definitely still Devin under all that finery though, because she can’t hold the emotionless countenance of a demure elven bride at all- she’s too overjoyed, a permanent grin on her face as she tries to lock eyes with each and every person in the rows and give them a tiny, hurried wave from behind her bouquet- starting with you. You can’t help but smile sheepishly and return the quick wave. A small child abruptly and enthusiastically throws a fistful of flower petals at your row as soon as the bride passes by. A single petal clings to your blazer.

Trevor manages to smile in what looks like an almost genuine manner, but not after a moment of thought.

She finally reaches the altar, and the gaggle of blonde elven children are dismissed, seemingly barely restraining themselves from dashing back to their seats.

Devin is already visibly struggling to keep her composure, even through the veil, the sniffling audible in the gaps of the music.

Like most elven ceremonies, the wedding itself is elaborate and a bit drawn out. It involves multiple phases, the first of which involves both of the betrothed’s parents, even before any actual marriage vows are made between the couple. You of course are familiar with this, given the research you had started back when it was going to be you up there. This is the closest thing that an elven wedding ceremony has to a typical numan bridal party, instead focusing more on the couple themselves.

Trevor has always looked like a perfect mixture of his parents, almost like he was purposefully created in a lab, selected from their best features. They never quite warmed up to you, so you simply try to avoid making much eye contact with either of them. Devin, on the other hand, looks like a carbon copy of her mother, with her father having a more neutral complexion and dark brown hair- likely a grey elf, rather than a dawn one. As you let your eyes wander to avoid looking at Trevor and his parents too much, you follow Devin’s parents back to their row. Your eyes settle on a curiosity in the front row next to them; what certainly is the back of the head and shoulders of an orc, towering above the svelte people around them.

And of course, such a culturally important ceremony is completely performed in an archaic Aurelian dialect of Elvish. You struggle to follow along with the small amount of basic Elvish you learned from your mother, but it is a battle you’re slowly losing. Even Sunday mass for the Burning Lady doesn’t take nearly this long, and that might as well be a standard measure for what constitutes “too long” back home.

Several more observances go by, from what you can tell: A cleansing ritual with pastel colored clouds pouring from a small rose gold censer, Another chanting rite performed by the priestess for longevity and fertility, A spell performed to dissolve the bride’s veil with a sparkle of magic. Then, what you assume must be their vows, given that either of them speak following being prompted by the officiant. And after that, finally, is the actual handfasting.

A set of hazardously long ribbons are secured around their joined hands and the priestess says the last of their spiel. The music slowly starts to build back up.

Bride and groom kiss.

After all of the anticipation, you thought it would’ve felt worse- a twinge of jealousy, or even disgust. But you don’t really feel much at all, apart from a strange, deja-vu adjacent sensation that it might’ve been you up there, if things were different.

And finally, somewhere, in the back of your mind… there’s relief.

You can’t say you mind that it isn’t you. Not anymore.

It’s not you. And that’s a wonderful thing.

You squeeze Carlyle’s hand.

Mercifully, after a one more short closing verse of Elvish, the new couple walks back up the aisle, fastened together, hand in hand.

If nothing else can be said- at least Devin looks happy. You can’t bring yourself to feel sour at the moment, regardless of how wary you are for her, given who the groom is.

“Well, that was enlightening.” Carlyle rises to his feet and moves to the end of the row, where he stands, straightening the buttons on his blazer. “Very… thorough.”

“Reminded me a bit of going to mass back home as a kid, to be honest.” You chuckle as you scooch to the end of the bench after him. “But much less kneeling.”

“Oh? We must’ve gone to different types of mass, then. I haven’t been since I was a child, but I clearly remember ours was always very succinct.” He holds out his hand to you with an amused smile, giving you a flash of fang. “If we ever find ourselves on the Queen’s Isle, maybe you can instruct me on the finer details.”

“I’d like that.” You grasp his hand and he helps you to your feet.

You don’t even need to plaster a smile on your face after that, and head to the reception area, hand in hand with your own date.

All that’s left now is to see the cake through to the cutting.

>> ✨ MASTERLIST >> ☕ KO-FI

#exophilia #monster lover #monster romance #monster x human #monster x reader #gargoyle x reader #gargoyle #male x male #mlm #mxm #male reader #series: something borrowed #oc: carlyle #oc: declan #nine of words

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camaro-and-smokes · 9 months ago

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Get Out of My Dreams, Get into My Car

Chapter 2: (s)He Works Hard for the Money

Read on tumblr >> / Read on AO3 >>

Warnings, tags etc: No warnings, just fluff. Light angst in this chapter, mentions of a breakup.

Chapter summary: Billy finds a note of someone looking for a place to stay at Mandy's notice board.

:::::::::::

On early Monday morning, Billy was leaning under the hood of the Camaro at work.

"Morning, Billy!" Mark, his co-worker, called out.

"Morning," he replied, annoyed, trying to find the problem the car had this time before he’d had to start working on paying customers’ cars. The Camaro was old and while it was easy getting parts for it, he’d either have to fully restore it at some point or just get rid of it. Even though he loved it the damn thing broke down all the time. Right now, though, he needed a car and he sure as hell didn't have any money for a new one.

"Hey, you hitting the waves later today?" Mark asked, leaning against the car.

"Nope," Billy grunted. I wish, he thought. "Got a class in the evening."

Mark hung around for a while before their boss called him to take a look at another car and Billy could finally concentrate on finding the fault. Not too soon after he figured it out. It was the carburetor, just as he’d been afraid.

Billy sighed, deflated. Thankfully, he would get a spare part quickly and he could change it at the shop after work, but it would still take a few days for it to arrive.

He'd have to borrow the shop's van, even if it meant that he'd be the designated delivery boy for the time being. Even if the garage and the studio were both within walking distance from his place, he needed wheels to get him from place A to place B quickly because of the timetables.

---

After work, Billy stopped by at Mandy's before hitting the studio to get a smoothie and hear the neighborhood gossip. When Billy was almost out the door with his drink, his eyes stopped on a note on the notice board by the door and he backed up to read it. Someone was looking for a place to stay.

'Seeking room/roommate. Quiet, responsible professional. Call Holiday Inn, ask for S--- H---,'

The note itself was written in a neat handwriting, but the note was signed rather than telling who left it. Of the names Billy could tell only the first letter. “Hey, Mandy? Do you know who left this?” he asked, looking at her and pointing at the note.

She squinted from behind the counter, trying to see which note of several Billy meant. “The... rent thing? Oh, yes,” she said, a sly smile spreading across her face. “He usually comes by in the morning, maybe on his way to work. Tall, brown hair, always a nice suit on. I think he’s a businessman of some sort,” she said. “Seemed nice. Really good looking too,” she continued, winking.

Billy rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you. I’m out of the dating pool for a while. I’m looking for a roommate, not someone to break my heart again.” He looked back at the note and tried to read the name. “Do you know what’s his name? Can't make anything out of his scribbling.”

“No, sorry. But he stays at the Inn around the corner. Maybe the staff recognizes him? Or if he comes over, I can tell him you have a room available and ask his name.”

Billy took the note and put it in his pocket. “That's okay, I’ll take the note. If I can’t reach him, you can ask him his name.”

“Sure thing!” Mandy shouted after him.

Billy wouldn’t be selective if the guy was what he advertised in the ad. Because at this point a roommate was no longer optional but also urgent.

Money from the garage was good and the few lessons at the aerobics studio were a great addition to that. If he'd lived anywhere else, he would’ve probably managed more than well with all that. But the bungalow by the beach was expensive. The smart move would’ve been to find a place somewhere away from the beach. But there was nothing better than walking straight onto the beach from his own backdoor and get on the waves first thing after waking up. It had been his dream for as long as he could remember. And then there was everything else on top of that. He just couldn’t let it go, not yet.

But the phone bill was already late because he had to eat and buy gas, and the first time of rent to be paid just by him alone was looming at the end of the month. He could live without a phone for a few weeks if it came to that. But no matter how hard he tried to cut expenses, he couldn't pay for everything alone longer than just for another month.

---

When Billy finally got home in the evening after his class, he dropped his bag of sweaty training clothes on the laundry room floor. He dug out the note he’d taken with him from Mandy’s from his jacket pocket and looked at it.

It felt bittersweet that he'd have to rent out the room they'd used as a recreational space with Rob. Now all that was left there was his own weights. Rob had taken every single painting he'd ever painted in that room with him. Even though Rob hadn't been a proper artist—though he himself thought so and Billy hadn’t had the heart to question it—his art had color and life in them. The place felt lifeless and dull with all that gone, and the empty spaces on the walls reminded Billy about the breakup day in, day out. He'd have to buy at least some posters to cover those places. If he only had money to do that…

He sighed. A businessman sounded as good a roommate as anything. Better, even. He should at least have his half of the rent each month for sure.

Rob hadn't exactly been able to pay his half in full every month, but at least he'd been able to help some. Well, at least whenever he didn't have to unexpectedly stock on blank canvases or buy the latest trend hue selection of red paints absolutely necessarily because he just couldn’t express himself without them. And the whole time they'd lived there, Rob had been spending more time on the beach than Billy had. Rob didn't even like surfing.

All that was what had eventually led into the ultimatum Billy had given Rob: he would have to pull his weight, as in actually getting a proper day—or night—job, Billy didn't really care which one. Otherwise, Billy would have to reconsider their relationship. And not for the first time. He'd hoped it would've made Rob snap out of his reveries for good—but of course it hadn't. Rob had said he's not one to listen to any ultimatums, taken his things and left the next day.

Billy wiped his eyes angrily. He wouldn't let himself cry because of an asshole like Rob. That piece of shit didn't deserve his tears. With a new roommate, Billy could hopefully heal, move on from Rob at his own pace, and maybe at some point to date again, too. Because businessmen weren’t Billy’s style at all, he found them all boring. So, this guy would be a safe choice.

He just hoped that his phone was still connected as he went to the kitchen to make the call to whoever it was who was looking for a place to live. He unhooked the receiver of the phone attached to the wall and dialed the number.

The receptionist at the hotel answered. “Holiday Inn. How may I help you?”

“Hi, uh, I'm looking for someone who's staying at your hotel,” Billy said, looking at the paper and still trying to figure out what the squiggly letters of the name were.

“Can you give me their name?”

“That's the thing. I have a note with his name, but I can't really read it. I think the first name is Steve or Stephen, and the surname starts with an...H?”

“Hmm, let me see,” the receptionist said, and Billy could hear her typing on her computer. “Well, we have three guests matching for Steve H. at the moment: Hamilton, Harrington and Howell.”

Billy's brain hit blank for a moment. When he’d ran into Harrington, he’d said he had just moved into town… He closed his eyes as he shook his head, letting out a laugh. Shit. It had to be.

“Sir?” the receptionist asked.

“Um, yeah,” Billy said. “Harrington. Can you connect to his room, please?”

“Just one moment,” the woman said.

The dial tone came back for a while, and then the call connected.

“Hawrington.”

Yeah, that was Steve Harrington, the one and only, Billy thought. Even if he sounded like he was eating something. Billy had to keep himself from barking a laugh. He couldn’t quite believe that he was actually doing this. After a while, he managed to open his mouth. “Uh...Hi.”

The other end was quiet for a bit, and Billy was already about to ask if it was Steve when there was a reply. “Hi... Who is this?”

Billy laughed shortly and turned to lean his back to the kitchen wall. “It's Billy... Billy Hargrove,” he stammered slightly, scratching the back of his neck.

There was another brief pause. Then, “Uh, hi… How did you…um…” Harrington stuttered, surprised. “What can I do for you?”

Billy heard a paper crinkling somewhere close by the receiver. Harrington must’ve been wiping the corners of his mouth. Billy smiled. “You left a note on the notice board at Mandy’s. You still looking for a place to stay?”

“Oh, right! Yes, yes I do,” Harrington replied. “You know someone who has a room available?”

“Yeah. I, uh… I have a free room. My boyf… um…” Billy had to swallow. This was supposed to be easy. It wasn’t. “My previous roommate moved out. It’s, uh…it’s just a small two-bedroom bungalow, but it's by the beach. Easy to take early morning waves if you're into that kind of thing.” He had to pause. There was no going back after this. “You can move in as soon as you want.”

“Really?” Harrington asked and then was quiet for a while. Billy was again about to open his mouth when he finally spoke again. “Well, I’ve had none other offers and I haven’t found a good place from any paper ads either.”

“Oh, so is my offer something you’re taking just because you have no other option?” Billy let out bluntly, feeling Harrington’s words stinging even while knowing it wasn’t his fault he needed someone to pay the rent with.

“Hey, I don’t even know what you’re offering except a room by the beach,” came the reply with an annoyingly calm tone.

Suddenly, this didn’t feel like such a good idea anymore to Billy. “You know, I can hang up any moment…”

“No, please don’t,” Harrington said quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m just…” Steve sighed. “I’m just tired after having no luck with finding a place to stay. It’s been more stressful than I expected. The hotel rates aren’t exactly built for my paycheck in the long run. I have just a few bags with me, no furniture. I can move in as soon as it suits you.”

Billy wrapped the cord around his finger. “So, you wanna see it first or…?”

“No, no need. I believe you it’s in a good spot and in a decent shape. On the beach and all.”

“Okay, pretty boy, you need to get yourself a bed, then. But you can sleep on the couch until then. It's a bit lumpy, though.”

Billy gave Harrington the address and hung up. He hooked the receiver, letting his hand hang on it for a while as he stared at the wall.

Rob was out. For good. If Rob tried to slither his way back, he wouldn’t have to come up with any excuses. Just say that there’s no room left. Even if Rob still very much occupied a nook in his heart and refused to leave. The bastard.

Then it hit Billy that he was about to live with Steve Harrington, of all people. It forced his mood to lift a little and he couldn't help but chuckle at the odd way of them reconnecting. They’d bumped into each other just a few days ago and now Harrington was about to move in with him.

He was a little concerned, though.

It wasn’t like they couldn’t have gotten along back in high school, but something had always been between them. Something abrasive, like hard sharp edges brushing against each other. Billy just hadn’t gotten enough of poking Harrington at any given moment. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut even after Harrington broke up with miss goody-two-shoes and saw that the other one was already on the edge.

Now he felt bad about it. He’d been the poster boy of a bully back then. He wasn’t proud of it, even though he’d had his reasons. This time he would do his best to try to get along with Harrington.

If something, at least he didn't have to fear falling in love with the man. The guy was straight as a board.

---

The next evening, Steve parked his car on the street in front of Billy’s bungalow. He got out of the car and looked around. The first thing that assaulted his senses was Metallica's ‘Nothing Else Matters’ blasting out onto the street from a window of the small powder blue house that bathed in the last sun rays of the day. Steve was sure the entire neighborhood heard it, but surprisingly, there was no one around complaining. Apparently, they were used to it.

The small, tiled front yard of the bungalow was covered with a pergola full of blooming wisteria. A salty breeze blew lazily from the ocean and made the heady fragrance of the flowers to surround Steve. Everything looked exactly the way Billy had described so far.

Steve took his bags from the trunk, walked to the door, and rang the doorbell.

A moment later, Billy opened the door. “Hey, Harrington!”

Steve smiled at the apron Billy was wearing. It was pink, saying 'Kiss the Cook'. He pointed at it. “Should I?”

Billy looked down on himself, then looked back up at Steve, long-faced. “Oh, ha ha.” He opened the door wider. “Get in.”

Steve walked in and, after setting his bags down, he took in the space. Billy hadn't lied when he'd said that the bungalow was small. The front door opened directly to the living room and with the couch—that was luckily fair sized—a TV with a VCR, and a shelf full of VHS-cassettes, it already felt full.

Billy closed the door behind Steve. “It's small, I know. Not like the mansion you used to live in back at Loch Nora,” he chuckled as he wiped his hands on the apron. “But the beach is right there,” he continued, pointing at the windows of the living room.

Steve looked wide-eyed at the gorgeous view of the beach and the ocean that opened behind the windows. “I bet that's why you chose it, right?” he said.

“Yeah. Which is why I also didn't want to move away from here when my boyfri...roommate left.”

Steve didn't miss the word Billy swallowed halfway. He glanced at Billy. “I'm sorry.”

Billy looked out for a moment, then glanced at Steve before a sad smile flashed on his lips. “Nothing to be sorry about. He was an asshole.”

An awkward silence fell over them for a while.

Clearing his throat, Billy gestured towards the other rooms. “Anyway, kitchen's over there. Bathroom's tiny and we have to share, but it does the job. The rooms aren't unfortunately that much larger, either.”

Billy showed Steve the empty room that was about to be his. With only Billy's weights on the floor, it looked a decent size.

When Steve saw Billy's room though... A double bed filled almost half of the room and the bed wasn't even that big.

But it wasn't the size of the room that surprised Steve the most. It was the powder pink duvet on the bed, turquoise shelves with surf paraphernalia and car books neatly organized on them, way too many crop tops hanging on the door of a small closet.

Not exactly what Steve had expected.

For some reason he'd imagined Metallica posters, haphazardly put together shelves, messy piles of clothes-mostly jeans-on the floor, maybe. The faded white and turquoise surfboard hanging on the wall was the only thing that somehow fit the picture Steve had of Billy.

Steve realized that he actually had no idea who Billy really was.

Suddenly, they were both snapped out of their thoughts by a smell of something burning.

“Oh, shit!” Billy yelped and ran to the kitchen. “Fucking piece of...Ugh!” he cursed loudly as he grabbed the pan from the stove and turned the gas off.

A moment later, the smoke alarm in the ceiling went off.

Steve went to the kitchen, holding his fingers in his ears. Black smoke rose from the pan in the sink and Billy was standing on a chair, trying to reach for the alarm in the ceiling to turn it off.

“Need a hand?” Steve shouted over the blaring alarm.

Billy managed to remove the screeching gadget from the ceiling and he ripped the battery out of it, quieting the noise before tossing both onto the table. He stepped down from the chair and leaned his hands onto the side of the sink where whatever had been cooking in the pan had transformed itself mostly into soot and smoke and was quickly exiting through the open window. “Nope. Dinner is ruined, though,” he sighed. “Fuck,” he muttered a while later. “Can’t do even this right.”

Steve was surprised at the disappointment on Billy’s face. Maybe the boyfriend situation was making things harder than normal. “I can get us pizza,” he offered.

Billy looked at Steve for a while, biting his cheek. “I wanted to welcome you with dinner but…” He shook his head. “Things haven’t been easy lately. Would you mind?”

Steve smiled. “Of course not. My treat.”

---

Later, they were eating their pizzas—Billy a Hawaiian, Steve a pepperoni—in the kitchen by the table Billy had set while Steve was out getting the pizzas.

“You seem to really...enjoy that,” Steve said, amused, when he saw Billy basically inhaling his pineapple filled slice.

“Hey,” Billy replied, mock-offended, “If you start telling me I can’t have my vitamins in the form I choose to...”

Steve laughed and raised his hands up in a placative gesture. “No judgment, just an observation.”

Billy smirked with a snort. “Right.” He ate the rest of his slice and wiped his hands on a napkin before taking a swig of his beer. “So, how's the work at...what was it? Marketing?”

“Yeah, marketing. For Blockbuster,” Steve replied.

Billy raised his eyebrows. “Oh, wow. You a big shot there or something?”

“Something,” Steve smiled. “So far, it hasn't been exactly what I thought it would be, though. I was hoping for fewer Excel sheets and projector slides and more something creative. I'd definitely spend time on waves rather than in the office.”

“You? On waves? Other than under them?” Billy teased, grinning. “Have you ever even seen a board? You looked at mine earlier like you'd never seen one before.”

“Not exactly what I meant,” Steve said, laughing.

Billy joined in the laughter. “Well, it's not that I spend time on the waves that much, either. Or haven't, not since we–I moved here. Had to make the ends meet, so to speak. But maybe now that you're here, I can catch a few here and there.”

Steve looked at his pizza and nodded, smiling. He'd been concerned about the idea of living together with Billy, and especially if their ideas of handling income and expenses would meet at least on some level. If it had been Billy who'd had to stretch the pennies before and he'd done it, too, maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Though the coming days would tell how well they'd really manage.

Steve just hoped they wouldn't be at each other's throats the whole time.

#harringrove fic #harringrove fanfiction #billy hargrove #steve harrington #harringrove #billy x steve #steve x billy #billy hargrove needs a hug #stranger things au #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #get out of my dreams get into my car #suometar writes

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