#do I main tag this. the trailer Just came out.

[joltning]

FINALLY FOUND THIS DUMBASS GIF I MADE I THOUGHT I CAPTIONED IT SOMEGHING WITTY AND FUNNY BUT IYS JUST “SNORE” 😭😭😭😭

[kaybreezy3000]

Looking for Happy Five Hargreeves X FTM Reader -anon request)

~Explicit sexual content -if no likey-stay away please.

Hilariously simple but true summary: Five Hargreeves is sad and horny and wants to fuck, and all he wants is you.

(Don't worry, I will try to take you a little emotional rollercoaster that's not all the dirty-dirty 👍)

~Reader is post-top surgery and pre-bottom surgery.

~This story was done as an anon request, asking if I'd be willing to do a pairing of Five X m reader, or Five X ftm reader. The request left the plot open for me to decide if it had much of one or how deep I went with it. Anon did give me a few fun ideas to include if I could, and I did my best to deliver and had a lot of fun doing it, so I hope you enjoy. Thank you, anon. And special thanks to my buddy Bad Kitty @badkitty3000 for proof reading this and catching my zillions of mistakes.❤️

(18,900 words)

Content Warnings and additional tags: Dom Five and some Sub Five, small 'Scream' movie add in per anon's personal love of the movie with sexy Billy and Stu, light praise kink, daddy kink, rough sex, choking, spanking, public sex, Five being sweet, Five being a cocky jerk, masturbation mentions, flirting)

NOTE: This story takes place during season four and after it, using a series of flashbacks, so it moves between past and present several times. Also, this was obviously written before season 4 came out, with an alternate season 4 ending written my way. It has lots of season 4 trailer and interview mentions to make it more fun and hopefully tie in a little with the real season 4.

~~~~~Looking for Happy~~~~~

Coming out of one of the empty offices at the Temps Commission headquarters, Five is met with silence. He still holds the title to the main building of the time controlling agency that he founded, but now, he and his family are the only ones that know it ever existed. 

He has no reason to be there.

It’s as it should be, but like always, he can’t seem to move on.

As Five told The Handler, he is a man that no longer belongs anywhere, only when he said that, he didn’t realize he was the driving force behind so much of his own suffering, or that in the end, it would all come down to him.

Everything he’s done was to restore life as it should be, and finally, this time they won. They are all alive. He should be happy. They are back in their original timeline where they should have always been, but the concept of time and Five’s place in it have always felt like pieces of a puzzle that were never meant to be solved. 

For everyone but the Hargreeves, with their exceptional powers given at birth, it’s as if the final battle that brought on the end, and then opened the door for the new beginning never happened.

That means you don’t remember him.

The rest of the world didn’t need to remember the terror. You just needed to live.

Strolling along, hands in his pockets, eyes downcast as the heels of his dress shoes echo down the vacant halls, despite his wins, Five feels empty. All he wants is to go back to a time and place that’s no more, back to when he could feel your lips pressed to his with a desperation that matched his own.

Reaching the end of the hall, he enters the narrow room filled with screens and panels of little white and blue blinking lights. He sinks into one of the industrial style chairs that’s placed in front of the Infinite Switchboard’s main frame.

Five clicks on the outdated looking monitor, his fingers turning the knobs, dialing.

~~~

Not long later, Five’s face is glued to the screen when Klaus peaks in at him from the hall.

Knowing Five would be here, Klaus passes over the threshold, loudly clearing his throat before saying, “Hey there, big bro…watcha doing?”

Five doesn’t even look up. “Yeah, lucky me. Is it time for our weekly check-in already?”

Treading lightly, Klaus approaches. “When you missed dinner tonight, we were a little worried you’d fallen asleep on the countertop in the break room again, but here you are...”

Klaus lightheartedly laughs at his attempt to make a joke about Five’s odd sleeping habits, but Five continues to ignore him.

“Thank goodness we still have a few of these things hanging around, otherwise the rest of us wouldn’t be able to visit this lovely place,” he says as he lugs up one of Five’s time traveling briefcases, waving it in his face.

Five glares at him.

“Really, man,” Klaus continues. “Everyone was there tonight. It was all the usual banter you’d expect from such an amazing group of misfits, but it would have been so much better if you were there too. Things even got a little out of hand when Diego insisted on coming here to force you to eat what was left of their disgusting vegan goulash, but don’t worry, I put him in his place.”

“Sure, you did,” Five mumbles.

Taking a step closer Klaus asks, “How are you?”

“I’m fine.”

Klaus’s eyes follow his brother’s unbroken gaze to the monitor, just as you enter your apartment building, where you stop in front of the wall of mailboxes. Your hand comes up, bringing your key to your lock, but your eyes remain fixed on the mailbox above yours.

“That was your mailbox,” Klaus points out, like Five doesn’t already know that.

Five once stood right there by you in that entryway. He hadn’t thought anyone that wasn’t part of his family would ever have the balls to try to put him in his place, but you did, and by doing it, you opened a part of him that before that, he hadn’t been willing to let anyone touch.

After shoving your mail in the back pocket of your baggy jeans, just like the day you met, with your face obscured by your sweatshirt, you stomp up the stairs, your anger evident.

The screen hisses with static as Five adjusts your location until it shows you walking into your bedroom. 

“Why don’t you just go there and talk to him? Maybe jump him in the shower or something. Sounds like something you kinky boys would both enjoy,” Klaus unhelpfully suggests.

“He’s not in the shower, you dumbass,” Five says, letting out an irritated sigh afterwards.

“He might be in a few minutes…”

“No.”

“Hey man, I know it wasn’t supposed to happen, but he remembers you,” Klaus insists, spinning Five’s chair around.

Swinging around, Five almost falls out of his chair. “What the fu-!"

“Five, I know you’re only trying to do what you think is right, but just look at him, something is wrong!”

Five does look, just as you pick up the stack of papers and news clippings from your bedside table. He doesn’t need to zoom in to see the one you are holding. It’s a famous image of him in his academy uniform, mask and all, standing like the smug little jerk he was while posing in line next to the rest of the superpowered Hargreeves children.

“There is no other explanation for why he is looking up all this stuff about you, and there’s other reason why he keeps coming by my old place,” Klaus furthers, “Why won’t you let me go talk to him? We were friends. He might remember me too.”

“Leave him alone!” Five snaps, but his bark has no bite, and his eyes can no longer hide how painful this is seeing you this way.

“Everyone is worried about you. We just want to help,” Klaus pleads.

“You can’t help me with THIS!” Hands shaking, Five jumps up, his voice breaking just a little as he says, “Klaus... I can’t.”  He looks back over at the screen, right as you furiously toss a tiny collector figurine version of him across the room. “Just because I want to see something in this doesn’t mean it’s real,” Five whispers, looking anywhere but at his brother, or you.

“He maybe wasn’t supposed to remember, but I think he does. As we all know, there are a lot of things that make no sense in this world,” Klaus disagrees. “There is something going on with him. Can’t you see he’s falling apart?”

Jaw working anxiously, Five drops back down in front of his screens again, flipping them to what is clearly a random time and date, somewhere in the past with ladies in long billowing skirts and the men in fancy dress coats, escorting them down muddy streets filled with steaming piles of horse shit.

It’s over.

This is how it always goes.

Klaus remains silent as Five pulls out a notebook, pretending to be taking notes on whatever he is pretending to get out of watching things from the past when there is no longer a reason to monitor it for corrections. 

Klaus knows that Five isn’t going to budge, but before he leaves, he says, “Five, I know you are only trying to do what you think is best for him, but what if it’s not best. It’s not too late to fix this part of what was broken too.”

Five’s pen slows as he looks up at his brother standing over by the door. He nods, trying to smile but Klaus can see it’s so hard for him to do it. “I promise I’ll be there next time. Tell Lila that I am sorry.”

“Tell her yourself,” Klaus shoots back, followed by a small chuckle, “She’s pissed. She worked for hours cutting up all those fancy organic carrots for you, so don’t be surprised if the next time you drop by, she chops something off that you find equally important as wanting us all to eat sustainably. And by important, I mean your wiener,” he unnecessarily clarifies.

The hint of a real smile fights to come out and wins this time as Five says, “Lila hates to cook, so I know she did not help make me dinner, and if she was going to chop off my dick, she would have done it by now.”

Klaus smiles too and shrugs. “Maybe… She was pretty mad at you though, so I guess you’ll have to come over to their place to find out if you are still besties. And hey, maybe think about bringing my friend along with you next time. Everyone is dying to meet him and see that adorable smiling face of yours. It’s not like we all don’t know how you like being perpetually grumpy, but seriously…you’re so much prettier when you smile.”

While Five is telling Klaus to fuck off, hoping he finally talked some sense into him, Klaus quickly rounds the corner, hoisting up his briefcase, his fingers punching in the correct date to go back to the present.

As soon as Klaus is gone, Five’s smile fades. He turns the dial, bringing up the footage of you also back in current time, right as you’re screaming into your pillow. “What the fuck is wrong with me!”

His heart breaks a little more.

Nothing is wrong with you. He is the problem, that is why he never should have done what he did. 

He should have let you walk away, but he didn’t.

~~~

The invisible string, a connection that refuses to be ignored, tugs at your mind and it won’t stop.

You’re going crazy.  

Like the miniature resin version Five you just sent flying, the pillow on your face joins it on the floor.

It makes no sense, but you can still feel the tickle of Five’s breath against your neck as you cuddled together on your couch, him contentedly holding you like he never wanted to let you go.

Your eyes remain focused on your motionless ceiling fan, but your brain refuses to come back to the present.

The pain inside your chest tightens.

You try to push it away, but it only gets worse the more you try to tell yourself to stop this.

This is insanity. You need help. That’s what people would say if you told them about the things going on inside your head.

From anything you can gather, Five’s family seem like they aren’t concerned about anything at all, but not that long ago you remember them being shown on every news channel, doing unimaginable things while defending themselves from the barrage of artillery being shot at them.

Five left you only hours before that, promising to be back, but he never came back.

Long after he said he’d be home, you watched in shock as the news blasted stories about him and other people associated with him that made no sense. They said they were aliens! They said they were superheroes from another dimension! They flashed images of Five’s much younger face alongside the other people he grew up with, including Klaus.

Then a war started in the streets.

Almost immediately, the news reporters had given up trying to maintain their façade of calm. The holiday lights beyond their lens twinkled eerily as the sound of explosions filled the air and rocked the ground.

People screamed and sirens blared, and not just on the TV. You could hear it coming from outside your windows.

As the collapsed news camera continued to stream live feed, out of nowhere, Five appeared in the frame, enveloped for a fraction of a second in a flash of violet hued light.

Your jaw nearly hit the floor. It couldn’t be real.

Five’s long coat tails flung like wings behind him as he grabbed ahold of the terrified girl whose picture you’d seen on the birthday invite Klaus had shown you. Five and the girl disappeared in another burst of light, just as bullets ripped through the metal garbage can she was hiding behind.

You smelled the smoke in the air when you ran outside. The earth shook, rattling your teeth as the echo of gunfire sent chills up your spine.

It all happened, only it didn’t. Nobody else remembers it.

Now, the Umbrella Academy is a thing of the past. The superpowered children that had once lived there are common knowledge, but they supposedly moved on with their lives long ago.

Klaus’s apartment isn’t his anymore, and the doors at the Umbrella Academy never open when you ring the bell.

The world in which you met is gone and the Five you knew is gone with it.

Five Hargreeves disappeared at the age of 13, never to be seen or heard from again.

Was any of it even real?

Again, you’re back to questioning your sanity.

“Fuck,” you curse, while raking your hand through your hair.

It’s been months. Three months and twenty-seven days to be exact since you first talked to Five, only then, you didn’t know that was his real name and not just a quirky nickname he preferred to go by.

He always had a nervous energy about him, and he always seemed distracted, so you usually paid no attention to him, but that day, something about the way he refused to acknowledge your presence set you off.

After he rudely stepped on your foot and pushed into you with his shoulder while reaching for his mailbox, you slammed your metal mailbox door closed, doing it much louder than needed.

You smiled with satisfaction when Five startled, even jumping a little.

He looked over at you with cartoon sized wide eyes.

Shaking your head, you’d said, “Not sure if you noticed, but you are not the only one trying to occupy this space. I exist too.”

Five’s eyes narrowed, the intensity of his glare slowly moving up and down as he took in your loose t-shirt and baggy jeans, comfortably paired with your favorite beat up low top sneakers.

You were sure the assessment he was making of you was not a good one. Especially when you consider that he was dressed impeccably as he always was, a long wool coat over a three-piece suit, with his hair a mess of chocolate brown strands, that though all over the place, only made him look even more unfairly attractive.

Compared to him, even though you stood over him by an inch or more, you suddenly felt like a tiny bug on the floor about to be obliterated under one of his shiny dress shoes. Your bodies outwardly didn’t look that much different, but you could tell that you were a little scrawny even when compared to his relative scrawniness. On top of that, he appeared to be close to the same age as you, but it was as if you were opposites, living in the same shitty apartment building, but he was somehow better than you.

You quickly concluded that he was a totally dickhead. Thinking about his stupid big black shoes, and then dicks as they related to shoe size, your mind started moving to certain ways that you were pretty sure you were different from him other than the fact that you weren’t an asshole.

You started to turn away, but before you did, you bitterly added, “I live here, by-the-way. We pass by each other almost daily. Not sure if you are aware of that?”

Ingrained manners getting the best of you, you extended a hand. Five looked at it like a foreign object.

He said nothing, so getting really mad, you casually as possible hooked a thumb under your waistline, while defiantly cocking your chin at him. “An I am sorry, or an excuse me, are just two options you could use to apologize when you just rudely rammed into someone, but it looks like you’re not going to do that since you lack even the most basic kindergarten level social skills.”

You tucked your mail in your back pocket and his eyes immediately moved down to your waist, openly checking out your striped boxers that were starting to show thanks to your pants sagging. Even more annoyed by this less than pleasant interaction, you started to walk away, quietly breathing out the word ‘jerk’ as you headed back towards the stairs.

“Wait!” he called out.

Surprised, you turned back to see the corner of Five’s mouth ticked up, the small movement hardly even noticeable if you hadn’t been suddenly hyper focused on the softness of his slightly parted lips.

“You aren’t wrong. Social graces aren’t where I excel,” he started. “I get lost inside my own head sometimes. I am sorry. Will you accept my apology, or is there something else I can do to make up for being so impolite? Wouldn’t want the neighbor boy thinking I’m a jerk.” 

He extended his hand. 

“You can call me Five, by-the-way.”

Fuck. He heard you, and what the hell, was he trying to be condescending? And Five? 

What the hell kind of name is that?

You looked back over at the name on his mailbox, it wasn’t Five.

“Five is a family nickname,” he explained. The dimple in Five’s cheek grew deeper the longer you dumbfoundedly stared at him. He lifted a brow. “I may be a lot of things, but deep down, I swear I’m a gentleman. I really am sorry for violating your personal space, but I am not that sorry about it because it meant we got to do this.”

What was with this guy?

Rarely did guys his age act so…

Shit… Was he hitting on you?

Five’s smile was like a superpower all its own and it was rendering you speechless, making you temporarily unable to maintain the level of irritation you’d had before. Feeling your face getting hotter, you couldn’t figure out why his words or his expression looked and sounded so flirty, but they did.

Maybe he was just trying to be nice?

Trying to play it cool, you threw a hand back through your slightly less shaggy looking haircut, then replied, “Sure… Nice to meet you and the apology is good enough. Very big of you. Thanks.”

Five’s taunting smile remained, as if you shooting him down was exactly what he wanted.

“Oh,” he breathed, digging through his stack of mail before pulling out an envelope, “I believe this is yours?” He frowned as he looked down at the feminine sounding name and your apartment number that was printed under the clear cellophane address window. “Your roommate, or girlfriend’s, I’m assuming?”

You took the mail from him. “No. No roommate and no girlfriend, just me.”

You were sure that Five looked relieved to hear that, and your breath caught, and your heart kicked up accordingly.

Adding the envelope to your back pocket, you breathed in, then slowly let it out as you rocked back on your heels. “That’s…my dead name,” you clarified.

Five said nothing. He seemed confused as his eyes wandered from yours and he rubbed his chin, but then his eyes suddenly came up, meeting yours again just as it seemed a lightbulb went off inside his brain.

His handsome smile took your breath away as he said, “I never would have guessed, but then again, there is a slightly unhinged, 64-year-old man hiding inside my head, and I am sure you never would have guessed that either.”

You laughed. You never would have guessed he’d be so funny or cute, but he was full of all sorts of surprises.

“You know, nobody reads the news that way anymore, other than grumpy old men, but I guess that makes sense since you’re a retiree,” you teased, trying to keep this whatever it was going by fucking with him again.

Unfazed by you making fun of him, Five nodded. “True,” he agreed, “When it comes to reading real newspapers and my other geriatric ways, I don’t mind getting my hands dirty from time to time on these ink smudged pages,” he waved his paper at you, “-or in other more challenging ways that are much more enjoyable. With the lifetime of experience I have under my belt, I’m sure I could teach you a lesson or two on how to have a good time the old-fashioned way.”

Taking his rolled newspaper, Five slapped it into his opposite hand, making a spanking gesture, all the while never taking his eyes off you.

You rubbed your palms down the front of your jeans. “Wha-what kind of fun?” you stammered, your brain clicking off as blood rushed between your legs.

“The crossword puzzle,” he clarified, followed by a cocky little chuckle. “There’s much more to the newspaper than doom and gloom news stories. It’s all about the delayed gratification. Seeing all those empty squares filled in the only words that can solve the puzzle is a sight well worth the effort.”

“You’re talking about doing crossword puzzles from the newspaper?”

“What else would I be talking about?” he countered.

Holy shit, you wanted to deck him.

~~~

A few days went by, and you didn’t run into your charmingly arrogant neighbor again, not until you were coming home late and you walked into a neighborhood pub to grab some dinner. You looked over, and to your surprise, you saw the familiar profile of a dark-haired asshole sitting alone at the bar.

“You can’t be twenty-one,” you said, sliding in next to him.

Five’s lips pulled to the side as he gave you the most mischievous looking side eye you’d ever seen. “So, you’re stalking me now? If my coworkers at the CIA knew how easily you tracked me down, I’d be fired.”

You scoffed, “You wish,” meaning both to the stalking and him working for the CIA.

Smirking fully, as if acknowledging he did wish you were stalking him, Five self-assuredly tipped his glass your way before sending the rest of the amber colored liquid down his throat.

With his head tipped back, tie pulled loose, and the top two buttons of his dress shirt undone, try as you might, you couldn’t stop looking at the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

“Really. How old are you?” you pushed, trying not to drool.

Five let out a cocky sounding laugh, his eyes a mossy calm as his gaze flicked down and up, drinking you in like he was a lion, sizing up its prey. “19 going on 64, give or take. Doesn’t matter because here, the drinks are strong, and the bartenders don’t care.”

“Right…” Shaking your head at him as you smiled, you flagged down a server.

Knowing what you wanted already, you ordered, but when you asked for it to-go, Five unexpectedly interrupted. “Make that for here, and for two, and put it on my tab, please.”

The bartender looked at you and you nodded that it was okay.

When you were alone again and Five realized you were still looking at him like he was nuts, he calmly said, “What? I thought we were friends now, and I owe you, remember?”

“I suppose that talking smack to each other for five minutes, one time, means we’re friends,” you pointed out, before adding, “And as long as you don’t try to plow into me again, you don’t owe me shit.”

Five shifted his weight, leaning closer, so only you could hear him since the seats on both sides of you had just been taken. “As a man that hasn’t come close to mastering traveling through time, both forwards or backwards, and can no longer do either anymore anyway, I can’t promise anything with it comes to my spatial awareness issues, but that’s a whole different problem of mine among the many. When it comes to sticking my landings and running into you accidentally or not, I tend to think you like the idea of me plowing into you again.”

Your mouth opened and closed a few times, like you were a brainless fish, nothing coming out, because what the hell do you say to that!

Five burst out laughing. “You are so easy to fuck with.”

“And you are a dick,” you duly noted.

“A dick that you’re apparently not opposed to eating dinner with, and hey, I’ll even buy you a drink too, but only if you’re a good boy and keep looking at me with that handsome little smirk of yours.”

Jesus… Did he just say that?

He did, and his patronizingly suggestive comments weren’t the only thing getting you worked up. You could smell the heady scent of his cologne every time you had to move closer to him to let someone else get up to the bar, and damn did he smell good.

“Confident much?” you cocked off.

Five shrugged. “Yes,” he said, matter of fact. “But the truth is, most of the time I am not great with people. I’ve spent most of my life alone, and I have only ever been with one other person intimately, and that relationship wasn’t what anyone would call normal, and abstaining from any sexual relationship since then is definitely not my penis’s first choice, it's more of an existential problem.”

“Oh, my God!” You burst out laughing.

Your second conversation with Five was starting no less shocking and confusing than the first, and like the time before, you were loving it.

For the next few hours, you sat there with him, getting to know each other, having several more drinks that went down with plenty of laughs and hardly concealed innuendoes that proved over and over that what was going on between you was much more than just friendly chatter.

With his dark strands of hair dangling in his eyes and his perfectly tailored three-piece suit, Five looked hot as hell, and because of that, he was getting checked out constantly the entire time, but he never seemed to notice, and that was because his eyes were always on you.

You didn’t even think about leaving until the band that had been setting up since you got there started to play, and it got way too loud to hold a conversation. As you offered to pay again, Five refused. Then, having already had his foot resting on the rung of your barstool, he abruptly spun you around to face him more directly, giving you an innocent looking smile as he let the tip of his shoe glide up your ankle.

“I’m not ready to let you go yet,” he said, his voice low.

“You’re not?” you sputtered, trying not to spray the liquid you’d just tried to swallow all over him.

“This has been nice,” he said, velvety soft as he moved closer “Thank you for keeping me company.”

“That’s not all I want to do,” you found yourself saying back, your lips brushing his cheek as your hand lowered to his knee, your palm running along the smooth wool fabric, stopping mid-thigh.

Five’s leg tensed. For the first time since you got there, he was tongue tied.

He suddenly moved back, and you instantly removed your hand. You were sure you’d just freaked him out, but then he quickly said, “Maybe we should move?”

Not a second later, you were both making your way through the mob of people, all the way to the edge of the dance floor in front of the stage.

Five seemed so at ease in the crowd, even having fun listening to the live music. He was not at all who you thought he was, and just looking at him next to you made it feel like you had a swarm of butterflies fluttering around in your stomach.

With eyes glossed over, standing as close as you were, the music wasn’t the only thing Five seemed to be enjoying. Taking full advantage of there being no room to move, every now and then, his hand would brush against the side of your thigh, staying there a little longer than necessary. Then, after both of you were getting repeatedly shoved around in the crowd of inebriated people, Five strategically placed himself behind you, as he was trying to protect you.

With him standing behind you, your body got even warmer, and you smiled to yourself, remembering how Five had claimed to be such a gentleman. Whether he did it to be gentlemanly or not, Five seemed all too happy to have a reason to press up against your backside, because now he had an even better reason to place his face next to yours, humming in your ear as he said absurd things to make you laugh.

You weren’t so much dancing together as the people around you were trying to do, but that didn’t mean Five wasn’t intentionally or unintentionally moving himself against you to the rhythm of the music. Trying to figure out which one it was, you reached back taking him his belt, tugging him flush as you dropped your head back and arched your back into him.

Five let out a pained sounding whimper as his hard-on poked the back of your leg and almost just as fast, the tip of his nose brushed your neck as the warmth of his breath caressed your skin. “I’m sorry, but fuck, you’re making me hard,” he whispered before you felt his lips gently kiss your already tingling skin.

He had no reason to be sorry.

Turning around, you slipped your hand around his, assertively leading him through the crowd. You weren’t even off the main floor, a few feet down a side hall near the bathrooms, when Five was on you, taking your face in his hands, pulling you into a kiss. He was so excited, his lips actually trembled as they pressed against yours, a low moan coming from deep inside his chest when you eagerly reciprocated.

It had to be a whole minute later before he let you up for air, gazing at you with darkened eyes as he smiled. "I really like you.”

Sliding your other hand around his neck, you grabbed at the soft tangle of hair brushing the crisp edge of his shirt collar, tugging it sharply. "You’re going to like me even more in a second,” you shot back, while moving your other hand lower.

Five let out the cutest sound as you started fondling him while also giving his mane another tug, but it must not have been all that upsetting that you were manhandling him because as you tightened your grip in his hair, his hips reactively bucked into yours.

Five’s hard cock pressed up against the crotch of your jeans as he ground himself against you, his hands hungrily groping your ass, pulling you back and forth over his dick.

"Fffiv-vvve," you panted into his frantic kiss.

He smiled against your lips and kept on kissing.

You trailed a hand up his inner thigh, cupping his erection through his clothing as your mouths parted wider. The heat of his tongue entered you, engaging you in a sloppy kiss that ended with biting and tugging at your bottom lip before he said, “You have no idea how bad I wanted this.”

Five let out a shaky sigh as he glanced over at the man carrying several cases of liquor, trudging by, heading towards one of the bars' storage rooms.

You were a little taken aback by how vulnerable he looked, his face flushed, and his lips wet and full from kissing you. You stayed silent for a few seconds, just looking at him.

You weren’t sure if he was going to stop. Something seemed off, only you couldn’t put your finger on it. Not that you were trying that hard. Your fingers were still busy doing something else.

Before you got too worried that he’d changed his mind, Five started kissing again, your oversized sweatshirt hood falling over your heads.

Going at it hard, with his hands latched on your ass, Five dry humped you into the wall, not even stopping when the door across from you flung open. Coming to your senses only slightly, you shoved Five backwards, forcing him into the men’s room.

Your adrenaline was pumping hard, and your heart was racing as the door closed behind you.

Five came at you again. Your hands went around him as he grabbed a handful of your ass, nearly lifting you off the floor. He pinned you to the wall again, his cock slamming between your legs.

His hands ran down your sides, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise as he kissed and sucked your collarbone, trailing teeth and kisses gently up your neck.

Breathing heavily as you momentarily broke apart, Five anxiously said, “You need to tell me to stop if this is too much, okay?”

You didn’t reply verbally, instead you kept kissing him. Five groaned into the kiss and pushed your crotches together with more determination.

Miraculously for as busy as the bar was, the bathroom was empty, but it wouldn’t be for long. Not even breaking apart, you walked Five backwards again, moving him inside the largest bathroom stall. Thankfully it didn’t appear that dirty, but again, you weren’t really looking.

You kicked the door closed, hand only leaving Five long enough to twist the lock. Lips coming off your neck, Five’s eyes trailed up and down your taller frame. He reached out as you cornered him, brushing some of your hair away from your ear while his other hand snuck between your legs and squeezed your crotch. Looking pleased with himself and what he was feeling, he tilted his head to kiss your neck while he rubbed his hand over your clothed sex repeatedly.

In return, you moved your hand over his dick again, unzipping and then tugging his pants down. His cock sprung forward with no underwear to prevent it from happening.

Naturally you both looked down, and wow did Five look proud as your eyes went wide.

“Impressed?” he asked.

“Hardly.”

He was clearly not buying that lie because fuck…

With no further ado, you lowered to your knees, and he watched you do it as if transfixed. Your hand wrapped around his ankle, then trailed up a bit further, before you stopped under his knee, rubbing lightly.

Five reactively opened his legs a little, and so did you in a futile effort to ease the slight feeling of friction you were experiencing against your briefs.  

You were buzzed and horny, and this was nuts, but fuck it. This was happening!

Five’s cock was already leaking. You licked your lips and positioned yourself. With the hand not already holding him, you reached out and gave his long cock a tentative pump, spreading the precum around with your thumb. He pulled back a little.

“You okay, big shot?” you teased.

A smile crept onto Five’s face, but his voice came out so broken it caught you off guard. “You don’t have to do this.”

Okay… Maybe he was nervous, that was fair, especially if all his arrogance was just a show and what he said about being inexperienced was true, but considering how he had just been all over you, and now you were on your knees in a bathroom stall with his dick in your face, you looked up at him in disbelief as you said, “I know I don’t have to do this. I want to. Now stop being so damn frustrating and let me suck your dick!”

It was as if something in him snapped, the darkness in Five’s eyes smoldered as he purred, "Just remember, pretty boy, you asked for it. I am going to fuck your face so hard you’ll think twice before smarting off to daddy again.”

Holy fuck that was fucked but it only made you wetter.

Just then, someone walked in, going straight to the urinals. Your heads both flung that way. If they looked behind them, they for sure would see Five’s shoes lined up against your knees. There was no question what was happening, and even more turned on by that, you started stroking Five gently as you could while playfully sticking out your tongue to lick up the glistening fluid running down his shaft.

Falling back against the partition between the stalls, Five’s head made a hilariously loud thunking sound.

You kept at it, kissing the slit of his rounded tip, working it in a circular pattern. Five let out the quietest hum of approval as his fingers at his sides clenched and unclenched repeatedly.

You kept toying with him, enjoying how he was struggling to stay quiet, but only until the door closed and you were alone again, then he brought his hand to your cheek.

You looked up as his hand moved into your hair. “You look so good with your mouth on my cock.”

To that, the throbbing between your legs had you tensing your thighs to increase the sensation but it wasn’t enough and you let out a moan of complaint over it that made the darkness in Five’s eyes look all the more wicked with delight.

You put his whole tip in your mouth, opening and closing your kiss reddened lips around it, grazing it just barely with your teeth. From above, Five let out a moan as his hand in your hair moved, brushing your fringe of hair out of your face.

He couldn’t take his eyes off you and God did you love it.

He was letting out breathy sighs and grunts as you serviced them, his free hand pushing back through his hair the more agitated he got.

Wanting to send him over the edge, with the hand you were holding him with, slowly pumping him at just the tip, you leaned in even more, letting the musky scent of him fill your senses as your tongue ran along his balls. You were rewarded for that with a deep groan and an unsteady hand coming to the top of your shoulder.

That was all the praise you needed.

“Fuck yeah,” Five hissed, then he bit down on his lower lip, as you took him in your mouth, moving over him just little deeper and faster.

Almost right away, Five started rocking his hips in strained, shallow nudges. Each time he entered you and hit the back of your throat, he’d break apart a little more, and you swore you’d never seen anything so beautiful in your life.

Petting you, and making your hair all sorts of fucked up, Five encouragingly murmured “You are so fucking good at this. Fuck- Ohh-ffffff-you’re amazing,” he gasped.

Even though it was happening, you could hardly believe you were seeing this normally composed man turning into such a stuttering, red-faced mess.

Tipping your head back and opening your throat to him, the thick head of Five’s cock moved inside with ease, fucking you deep and hard enough in quick but controlled thrusts that it took away your ability to breathe.

Your eyes instantly began to water.

“Fu-ck-ye-ah-take-my-dick,” Five stammered as he wildly fucked into you.

The door opened again, the music getting louder for a moment before it shut again. This time there were several guys in there, but between the sound of them pissing, and their talking, and the thrum of the bass coming from outside, it still wasn’t enough to hide Five’s sharply cut off breaths and curses.

They knew, but the way Five’s eyes kept drooping closed proved his brain was no longer running the show and he didn’t care.

His fingers gripped tighter, yanking at your hair. You took the abuse, gagging on him until Five suddenly clasped his hands on the sides of your face, stopping you. “I’m gonna-cum,” he quietly cried.

He had a panicked look in his eyes. His teeth were clenched, and it was clear he was trying so hard not to orgasm, but it was coming one way or another, even with the guys outside your stall snickering and making lewd comments.

“Fuck yeah you are, and you’re going to do it my mouth,” you commanded, right before sucking him raw again, taking him all the way to the hilt.

Losing all self control, Five started railing your face again.

You couldn’t breathe at all, and were choking on your own spit. Your fingers dug into his thighs as your body instinctively fought back, but Five held the back of your head tight, forcing you down on him over and over.

Then, while violently scrambling your brains with his throbbing cock, hot spurts of Five’s seed started shooting down your throat. His hips jerked uncontrollably as he dug his heels into the floor. He fell back against the wall again. The waves of his shuddering release came out in a cadence of grunted curses as he moved himself in and out of your gaping mouth, moving slower and slower with each thrust until he was spent.

Having dumped his load, he started to slide out. Getting oxygen again, your blurred eyes took in the sight above you as you gave his well worked shaft a few more loving licks and twirls of your tongue. Sure that you just blew his mind, you popped your mouth off and smirked.

Five’s doe eyes were only slightly open and the dreamy way he was looking down at you was priceless.

~~~

Five was temporarily out of commission but you were both still horny as fuck as you burst out in the cool night air onto the sidewalk. Both riding the high, you fully intended to take your fun back to one of your apartments. As worked up as you were, coming out of that bathroom, hand-in-hand, quickly cutting through the crowded bar, your discussion hadn’t gone much past both of you smiling like idiots, but you knew the night wasn’t over, that was until you saw Klaus.

“Five?” he questioned, sounding totally shocked to see him as he approached from the opposite direction with his colorful meditation robe bundled around him.

Five slowed to a stop, back peddling a little. You looked from him to your friend, as his hand slipped from yours.

“Hey there, little brother,” Klaus said, “Would have never thought I’d see you out this late. What’s this?” He pointed at you with one of his latex covered gloves, the motion exposing his usual weird bubble wrap inner padding system that he liked to keep secured around him, so as he put it, he didn’t die while accidentally getting run over. “I didn’t know you guys knew each other,” Klaus added as he waved the hand holding his Styrofoam cup between the two of you.

It was subtle, but Five moved away from you a little more as he stuffed his hands in his pockets, trying even harder to hide that he’d been touching you.

Looking very uncomfortable, Five cleared his throat. “Well, Klaus, what with the nature of my employment, I am known to leave my apartment from time to time, and it’s not like I see you that often, so you wouldn’t know that. I also wasn’t aware that I needed to keep you updated with who my acquaintances are.”

Five looked at you for the briefest of moments, no indication of the sweet guy he had been in his now hardened eyes.

“We live in the same building,” Five irritatedly furthered, as he looked at Klaus again. “Happened to run into each other a bit ago while picking up dinner, so yeah… That’s it.”

“You guys going anywhere else fun? I’d love to join you, catch-up on life before the big family reunion b-day party next weekend.” Klaus held up his drink again. “This tea is amazing. I got it at a place about a block down. I’ll buy you guys one,” he pushed as you silently tried not to let it show how confused you were.

You’d met Klaus over a year before while at a park. He was there alone, sitting under a shady tree, legs crossed, eyes closed while positioned in namaste, when one of your friends threw a frisbee that glided over and clocked him in the side of the head, which was the only part of him not covered with protection from germs or flying projectiles.

Running over to apologize, from that point on, you’d been friends with the slightly odd, but always interesting spiritualist. The fact that Klaus was Five’s older brother, one of the other six orphans he’d told you he’d grown up with, was as crazy and unsettling as the way Five was acting all of a sudden.

As if you weren’t already feeling like shit, then Five said, “No thanks. I’ll have to pass on the tea. I have work to do at the office. I’ll see you around.”

“You still doing cool secret government stuff?” Klaus questioned, but Five didn’t answer him, or specify if he meant he’d see you around, or just his brother, then he strode off, his breath a plume of white in the night air as he quickly rounded the corner like he couldn’t get away quick enough.

~~~

The work week came and went, and you didn’t run into Five again, but that didn’t mean you hadn’t thought about him about a million times.

Of course, you asked Klaus about him, and he asked you about you and Five. Klaus said that his brother was super secretive. He said that he thought Five worked for the government in some capacity, but really, he wasn’t sure, but you were pretty sure that was a lie.

Klaus said Five was a loner and that he didn’t get out socially that much, so he was floored when he saw him laughing and smiling, walking down the street with you, and that part you figured was true.

When Klaus pressed you about Five, you could tell that he knew you were lying when you went along with Five’s story, by not giving him anything new, other than you’d eaten dinner with him since you both happened to be sitting at the same bar.

You said you were being neighborly. That was it.

You both weren’t telling the whole truth, and you both knew it.

As much as you wanted to tell someone how mad you were about what Five had done, it sure as hell wasn’t going to be his older brother. The way Five played you was dirty, but you weren’t the type to start shit.

Five was a prick. End of story.

You didn’t know if he was ashamed of people knowing about him being with you, or it was just his family knowing about it, or if he just used you to get off and that’s all it ever was.

It didn’t matter.

You felt so stupid because you had felt like you had something real with him, something that was maybe a bit too much based on an intense sexual attraction and a shared craving to one up the other with cocky remarks and flirty jokes, but there was also something else. When you were with Five, it felt like you were all that he could see. And even more important, he saw you how you wanted to be seen.

You wanted to get lost in him and the feeling seemed to be mutual, but you were wrong.

What Five did hurt. There was no other way to put it.

When you came and went from your place, a part of you wanted to run into him, and another part of you never wanted to see him again. Some days when you couldn’t stop thinking about that asshole’s smile and those dark lashes of his fanning his pale cheeks, you contemplated going up a floor to kick his door in, to either jump his bones or kick him in the nuts, maybe both.

You didn’t.

It had been a long day, and the last thing you wanted was to go out. You were planning on having over a group of guys to watch a horror movie marathon. It was going to be a mixed group, old friends and Klaus.

Klaus always seemed lonely, too obsessed with keeping himself from getting sick or avoiding quicker, more gruesome forms of death, so you weren’t about to leave him out. He needed to get outside of his head and so did you. Klaus was someone that needed a friend and you were happy to bring him into your fold, even if he often remained quiet, or nervously excitable. He could be so hot and cold, and so detached, and something about that reminded you of Five.

They were brothers, so…

No. 

No, you were not going there.

Fuck Five.

You dropped some bags of chips and other junk food on the table in front of the couch, busying yourself with getting things ready for your guests, rather than wasting your time thinking about Five.

Life goes on, your friends showed up and as usual, Klaus was late, but when he knocked on your door with his brother in tow, you naturally did a double take because you were so floored.  

“Mind if I join you?” Five sheepishly asked while handing you a bottle of very expensive looking Scotch, the same brand he kept buying you at the bar.

There you were, wearing your favorite sweats and frumpy faded t-shirt, and there he was, looking amazing as always in his slim fit white dress shirt and usual black slacks, but gone was the self-assured guy who strutted into your life and then stomped on your dick.

He looked so nervous and unlike himself that all you could bring yourself to do was take the bottle as you nodded your head, stepping aside to let them in.

Klaus came waltzing in, minus his usual bubble wrap bumper vest, which you assumed he left at Five’s apartment before coming down to yours. He instantly took his place on your recliner since you’d abandoned it.

“Since, my dearest little brother lives in your building and you two are friends, I figured I’d stop by and see if he wanted to join us,” he explained, clearly aware that you weren’t thrilled. “With how chummy you two looked the other night, I was surprised that you hadn’t already plucked Five out of his boring man cave,” he added while wagging his eyebrows at you.

“Funny, when inviting my friends over, thinking anything about Five and our chumminess totally slipped my mind,” you muttered, as you glared at the jerk you did not want there who was still expectantly staring at you.

The asshole was standing there on your door mat, looking about as clueless as ever, so you waved him on. “Don’t just stand there. Come on in. Join the party. We’re about thirty minutes into the first ‘Scream’ movie.”

“Are you sure this is, okay?” Five quietly asked, clearly not wanting anyone else to hear as you shut the door behind him.

“Why wouldn’t it be,” you shot back, the anger in your voice impossible to hide.

“It’s not what you think. I am sorry,” he tried.

“Whatever,” you snapped. “Hey, Klaus!” He looked up with his mouth full of popcorn. “Introduce your brother, please.”

After dismissing him, with no other choice Five walked out to meet your friends.

Entering your kitchen, you got down some tumblers to pour everyone a glass of Five’s ‘you sucked my dick and then I rejected you,’ peace offering or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be.

“Gentleman, my ass,” you breathed before coming out to the living room with your hands full of the sloshing liquid.

Of course, there was nowhere to sit but next to him on your L-shaped couch. Five was at the hooked end, doing his best to look somewhat comfortable.

Like before they came, mostly everyone ignored the addition to the party as they zoned out, watching the movie, making comments here and there. As it was before, everyone was just chilling, lounged out on your furniture. Deputy Duey was being a dipshit that you couldn’t help but love, and terrified girls with big tits, and stupid horny guys ran for their life, screaming as the ghost-faced killer sliced and diced them.

It would have been great, exactly what you needed, but Five’s presence was making it anything but relaxing for you. He was so close; you could feel the heat of his leg next to yours as the silent tension between you grew. The way he was bouncing his knee made it clear he wasn’t feeling very comfortable either, but fuck him.

Nearing the end, when the masks came off, Five’s agitation had gotten noticeably worse. He could hardly hold still. You could tell he wasn’t okay. His hand laying against his leg was shaking. Not even thinking, you reached over, placing yours over it.

His breath hitched as he looked at you. “Excuse me,” he whispered, abruptly pushing himself up off the couch.

As he passed, Klaus gave his brother a worried glance, but you told him to stay put as you got up to follow Five.

Coming around the partition dividing your small living space, you saw that Five had himself leaned back against your kitchen counter, head down, pinching his forehead between two fingers.

“Not enjoying the movie?” you sarcastically asked.

Five pulled in a long breath AS he looked up at you. “I am afraid that as an ex-assassin, there is something about these tragically misguided young men happily stalking their prey before slicing them apart with blunt objects that hits a little too close to home.”

You blinked rapidly. “You’re kidding?”

His lip quirked up. “Not entirely.”

“Ah-huh,” you breathed before taking a long pull of your drink while glancing around the corner at the TV in the other room.

“At least part of the motivation for these two bonehead murderers being their secret love affair made this otherwise less than thrilling teen slasher film less boring,” Five furthered, seemingly a little less upset, almost playful as he smiled a little more when you looked at him again.

“What! NO! I love this movie,” you argued, forgetting that you hated him, even playing up how offended you were by his comment over your favorite scary movie. “And hell yes, them being mad as fuck for each other makes this better,” you agreed, followed by a laugh.

Five’s smile fell. “I wish I hadn’t done what I did the other night.”

“Then why did you?”

He ran his hand back, pushing his hair out his eyes, but it fell right back. “Because, when it comes to my family, it’s complicated, and not even factoring them into my life, I don’t know how to be with anyone, and I don’t know if I should be with anyone with the way I am anyway.”

“I don’t get it. If you’re ashamed-"

“It’s not that,” he interrupted, then he raised his voice. “I don’t care if the entire world knows how I feel about you!”

Klaus had been talking, but hearing that, the other room got very quiet.

“You are the first person I want to open myself to like this, or who has ever made me feel this way,” Five said, coming to you, his hands finding yours at your sides as he leaned into you. “I still want this more than anything, I just messed up because I am messed up.”

Coming closer, his lips touched yours so softly for just a fraction of a second. His eyes like gems, implored you-asking forgiveness.

“Since the other night, other than hating myself, I have wanted nothing more than to see your smile again,” he whispered, “even though what I did made it seem like I don’t care about you, that is about the farthest thing from the truth. Will you give me a second chance to show you how much you mean to me?”

You were pretty sure you couldn’t have made your lips form the word no, no matter how hard you tried.

“Are you sure you’re not embarrassed about this?” you questioned, your fingers making soothing circles along the undersides of his wrists.

Five smiled again. “I’m sure.”

“Prove it.”

“You forgive me then?”

“I’m working on it, but you have a lot of making up to do.”

Five’s hand moved around to your lower back, sliding up the back of your shirt, pulling you closer. You nudged his nose with yours.

“Like I said, prove it,” you softly repeated, daring him to show you that he meant what he said about not caring if his family or anyone else knew.

Five glanced over your shoulder, as if he could see your guests even though there was a wall in the way. His hand moved along your hip, slipping below the waistband of your sweatpants. “What do you have in mind for how I can prove it to you, handsome?”

He plucked the knot in your drawstring free, pulling the bunched cotton at your waist, loosening it so his hand could slip inside your pants.

“This, maybe?” he hummed against your ear, his fingers just under the elastic of your briefs.

You looked back at him with pleading eyes.

“Your bedroom is right over there but you want it right here, don’t you dirty boy?” he taunted.

There was no time for a comeback, only a shuttered breath before Five’s hand dove lower and you gasped at the sudden feeling of his finger abruptly entering you.

A devilish smile lit up Five’s face. “Awww… Wet for me already? Such a good boy,” he chuckled as his finger began to move, lovingly stroking the lubrication upwards.

You lowered your head against his neck, your body already tightening with pleasure from the feel of his finger rubbing against your clit.

Five kissed your forehead as you clung to him, his words tickling the shell of your ear as he spoke. "Wanna give our audience a show? You were amazing the other night, but I’m sure if we both try really hard, we can do better this time.”

You whimpered, trying to put your thighs together so you could increase the friction. Five brought another finger into the game trailing his digits up and down before flicking them against you, making you let out a small moan.

A shout came from the other room. “Hey! While you guys are in there, you should make some more popcorn!”

Twisting just enough, you snatched a bag of microwave pop off the counter, furiously tearing into the plastic with your teeth before spitting it out. You reached back, yanking the microwave open, carelessly tossing it in there without looking.

After you slammed the door shut, while smiling at you looking so fucking cocky, Five helpfully reached up, punching in the popcorn button before he hit start. He raised a brow. “Looks like I better get to work. We have a countdown, sweetheart.”

Moving his fingers quickly, jerking you hard, you let out a low groan that got much higher pitched when you felt the warmth of his erection nudging your hip.

Riding Five’s glorious fingers, but thinking of him slowly entering you with his heavy cock instead had your eyes rolling back in your head. The agonizing pace he was setting making your moans of complaint louder.

“That’s it, baby, louder,” he encouraged, gazing at you with half lidded eyes that were so beautiful.

“I need more,” you hissed, gritting your teeth.

“So needy,” he teased, just before his finger dipped inside you again, only this time crooked up just a little before he pulled it out again.

Then, just as you thought the bastard was going to really start finger fucking you, he slipped his hand out of your pants leaving your cunt clenching around nothing. After your waistband snapped against your tensed abs, Five brought his slicked finger to his mouth, making a naughty show of sucking it clean.  

“I fucking hate you!” you growled.

If he tried to leave you with blue balls again, you were going to kill him!

Five gave you a sly grin and you frowned. “I’m going to make you take that back,” he menacingly sang, then suddenly your pants and underwear were tugged down, and your legs were forcefully spread open by his knees wedging yours wide.

His hands come up your sides, moving under your shirt, over your rib cage. His eyes looked into yours, watching you for signs of distress as his fingers moved up, traveling over the flattened planes of your pecs.

You closed your eyes and you felt Five rest his forehead against yours.

His hand smoothed down to your hips again, stopping.

You took a deep breath.

“You are the most handsome man I have ever seen,” he breathed, throwing you off even more.

To say your senses were heightened was an understatement. Every sound your friends made in the other room only added to the tension brewing. All they had to do was come around the corner and they could see you back up against your counter with Five dominatingly standing between your legs as your pants and underwear lay in a heap at your ankles.

Five moved his forehead away from yours. “I will stop if you want me to. If not, you know what to say,” he soothed. “You want me to suck you off, right here. Right now. With them listening.”

 Little explosions started to go off inside the microwave.

 You had never been so hot and bothered in your life. You moaned desperately, “Five, you fucking-!"

"Shh...” Five teased as his hand moved up over your mouth to silence you. "Can’t have you getting too loud. Don’t want anyone thinking I’m in here doing awful things to you.” He leaned in, his breath ruffling the short ends of your hair, his words ominously intimidating. “I want to hear you beg.”

“Please,” you whimpered under his hot fingers.

"Sorry, what was that?" Five asked, sweet as honey while moving his hand a little so you could say it louder.

“Please!”

“That’s it.” Five’s sinful looking grin spread across his entire face.

He got down on his knees. Not taking his eyes off you, he pushed up your t-shirt just a little so he could leave a trail of wet kisses along the fine trail of hair leading from your belly button downward.

He let out a heavy breath, hovering over your sex. “You’re perfect, you know that, right?” he said, then his tongue drug along your length before flicking against the tip of your swollen clit.

“Oh, FUCK,” you loudly cursed.

You tried to relax and keep your hips still as Five licked at you slowly, but with the way his tongue was pushing between your thickened folds it was impossible

A bitten whimper croaked out of you as he licked up a stripe while slowly palming his own dick. You lowered to your head, your fingers threading through his hair, tightening.

You gasped when Five began sucking you. His hum of approval and the sting of pleasure from his teeth accidentally dragging as he sucked a little too roughly, left your thighs shaking and the next thing you knew, you were grinding down on him trying to get more.

Undeterred, by you humping his face, Five continued to contentedly lap at you. At this point, you didn’t know what to focus on, the pleasure that was tearing through your veins, the screams coming for movie, the people who could come in the kitchen at any second, or the fact that there was no way Five was able to breathe correctly with the way he was going at it, his whole face buried between your legs, fucking you.

Everything clouded over. His hands were plastered to your thighs, his hair was sticking out in a million places, and his tongue kept probing inside your entrance, devouring you before he came back up to harshly flick at your clit again.

Your body fought against the invasive sensation. Vulgar noises were being forced out of you, but you couldn’t cum no matter how badly you wanted to.

The microwave beeped.

“I-I fff-fu-ah-ck,” you stammered as you tugged at Five’s dark waves, attempting to separate your throbbing sex from his mouth, but he wasn’t having any of that.

He grasped your waist, holding you in place, hungrily demolishing you. He was like an animal, the scratchiness of his very light stubble only adding to the brutality of what he was doing to you.

It felt like every nerve in your body was being touched at once. You were being torn apart more and more with each trail of his tongue and rub of his fingers, pinching and pulling you between forefinger and thumb as he sucked your clit like a dick.

As your orgasm hit, it felt electric, a flash after flash of hot white light.

Five made you cum so hard that you totally forgot that he was fisting his own cock, but he sure was, and he was loudly moaning while doing it and still sucking you with the most tender of kisses, making sure not to leave you until you’d ridden out all your crashing waves of pleasure.  

When he finally came up for air, his face from his eyes down was shining and his smug grin proved that he could have cared less that he was a mess.

 “So, did you enjoy cumming on my face?” he rhetorically questioned.

He lifted himself off the ground, staring at you as he leaned in, connecting your lips, making you taste yourself on his tongue.

“I am not sure. It was okay, I guess,” you said, smirking when he pulled away, wiping his face and then yours with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Maybe one more try, with a little more tongue and teeth this time and you’ll have a more definitive answer?” he suggested.

He started to drop back down, and even though your body felt like jello, you pulled him back up easily enough.

As you were reaching to pick up your pants, Five took advantage of you dropping your guard to quickly spin you around, your socked feet slipping on the floor before he aggressively pulled your hips out, making you present your ass to him.

You heard him hastily unhooking his belt, the metal clanking together before you heard his zipper coming down, then his body molded to your backside, the tip of his thick cock dangling between your legs.

“We aren’t done and I’m not stopping until they know you’re mine,” he said while lovingly massaging the side of your ass.

He started nudging himself against your inner thigh and you let out a little whimper. “So cute, just like your little dick,” he mocked. Then he moved his hand around you, tugging you out a little more from the counter so he could grope you, making you shudder.

He slapped your ass hard, the thwack sure to make everyone’s head in the other room spin in your direction. You jolted up. You heard your friends laughing, then Five spanked you again. "Fuck!” you cried, moving your ass against his cock even tighter.

“You really want it, don’t you baby,” Five growled in your ear, slapping your ass again.

“Please!" you begged with your head falling back against Five’s shoulder before rolling to the side so you could see him.

“You want danger?” he purred as he yanked up his shirt, letting his predatory eyes narrow at the sight of his cock wedged between your cheeks.

You said nothing, so, looking like a mad man, he reached up, taking hold of your neck.

You whined and squirmed in his grasp as his other hand cupped you bare. He slid his fingers inside as his thumb swirled over your slippery clit. Before you could make a sound, he started to choke you. 

He fingered your hole roughly, as he cut off the flow of oxygen to your brain. You couldn’t even think. You were drowning with desire, your body submitting.

Five started to rut his hips into you as you lost your mind, moaning into the palm of his hand.

That’s when Klaus called out. “How’s that popcorn coming, boys? Better not be any dick in it!”

As Five fucked into you and his second finger slide inside, you all but screamed through his fingers. “Mmmfff-fuck, Ff-ive!”

If Five hadn’t thought to muzzle you, you were being so loud, it wouldn’t just be the people in the living room aware of what he was doing to you.

As if that wasn’t enough, Five bit down on your shoulder through your shirt, thrusting as hard and as fast as he could go.

You felt your orgasm building all the way from your toes to your stomach. Your calves painfully flexed as you bucked your hips, trying to get more.

Five let out a moan of his own, and the pleasure of his fingers, the dizziness of being choked, along with the pain from his teeth marking had you clenching around his fingers.

The only sounds that could be heard in the room were the sounds of squelching, your moans, and Five’s sexy grunting.

Yanking your face back, he took his hand off your mouth, forcing his tongue onto yours, aiming to take you for all you were worth.

Your walls contracted around him, spilling fresh liquid pleasure with his every thrust.

His breath and his movements started getting more erratic, and he let out a few manic sounding noises.

He only stopped slipping his dick up and down your crack for a second to reposition himself. Apparently, the new angle was even better for him because when he started back up, his fingers in you started to move again too and that got you cursing and gasping into his hand again.

"Good boy. Let it out. Your pussy is mine now,” he growled, but he didn’t let you let it out as he clamped down on your mouth harder and slammed into you with all the energy he had.

You peaked again, him clinging to you, your stifled gasps hissing through his fingers.

“So perfect,” he breathed, then he let you free, the air filling your lungs doing nothing to clear your clouded mind and you helplessly slumped over.

One of his hands kept a tight hold on your hip, the other taking care of his own need. The sight of you bent over on the counter in front of him had Five grunting and growling as he stroked himself, his cum splattering all over your abused ass.

When Five was done, he crashed into you, pulling you up in a lovers embrace from behind, panting harder than he had been the entire time. The second he had enough air to speak, he did. “That was- Fuck."

You were out of it, legs shaking, mouth agape, head lolling to the side. He grabbed your face and languidly kissed you before breaking away, his lips moving along your sweat moistened neck as he said, “I want you and only you and I don’t care who knows. Don’t you ever question that again.”

“Ready or not, the men out here are demanding a proof of life check after that beautiful screaming performance, and we need more sustenance, so pull your pants up! I am coming in,” Klaus suddenly shouted.

Scrambling, you and Five both untangled yourselves. He snatched your hand towel off the counter, taking it to your butt cheeks, doing his best to wipe you first, then himself.

Dropping to the floor, he started pulling your sweatpants up, then sure you had them in hand, Five started trying to fix his own rumpled clothing.

“Is my little brother behaving himself?” Klaus questioned and by the way he said it, you could tell he had a huge smile even before he rounded the corner, eyeing you both up proudly.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Five fired back, with his pants only just zipped up, the ends of his belt hanging in front of the prominent tent he was still sporting. 

“Oh, I don’t know… Sounded like you were getting a little frisky in here is all,” Klaus replied.

Five reached over, opening the microwave, throwing the bag of popcorn at his brother.

As one would expect, Klaus started tossing the bag, hand to hand. “Ouch! Hot! Hot!”

You couldn’t help but laugh. That’s how mind blowingly dazed you were. You could tell it took a great deal of effort for Five to pry himself from you and you were still having a hard time standing up straight, so you had no idea how he was composing himself so well but then again, he didn’t just cum three times.

“If only I could blink us out of here,” he muttered while sticking the prong of his belt through the length, tightening it as he looked at you fumbling the strings on your sweatpants.

“Blink?” you questioned, unable to stop laughing as you said it because for the life of you, you couldn’t perform the simple task of tying a knot.

“What my adorable brother is referring to,” Klaus said, “is a thing we used to call a thing he used to do.” He reached out, ruffling Five’s already fucked up hair. “He’s super fast, but you already knew that,” he said while winking at you, “He used to be able to blink or as the common man says, telapor-"

“If you don’t shut your yapper, I am going to shut it for you,” Five snapped, while reaching over to tie your pants up since you’d failed and they were already slipping down.

“Oh… Not going there yet. Okay,” Klaus said as he shrugged off whatever Five was angrily trying to get him to shut up about. “You two joining us for the second movie?” Klaus mumbled with a handful of freshly popped kernels in his mouth.

You looked at Five. He took you by the hand, grabbing the bottle of liquor off the counter in his other, leading you out there.

Moving to your spot on the couch, Five sat down first, pulling you down next to him. As soon as you were seated, he wrapped his arms around you, pulling you in tighter, his lower leg hooking yours to him as he took your throw blanket, tossing it over you both.

“So, you guys a thing now,” your buddy next to him asked while giving you a smart-ass grin.

Five glanced at you. He squeezed his hand that was already in yours. “Yes,” you firmly stated and just like the amazing friends they were, they all let it go. They could see this is what you wanted. It was written all over your hopeful face.

You leaned back against Five’s warmth, the comforting rise and fall of his chest reassuring you that everything was as perfect as it seemed.

Every so often, as his fingers absentmindedly trailed down your arm, Five would softly kiss the side of your cheek, then nuzzle his face into your hair.

~~~

When you woke, hours later to one of your friends leaving and Five attempting not to wake you as he quietly answered something his brother had just said, you had no idea what time it was.

“Klaus was planning on staying at my place,” Five whispered. “We have that family birthday thing early in the morning and we are riding together.” He slid you out from under him. “You want me to carry you to your room?” he asked, as he righted himself.

“I doubt you could,” you said back while smiling up at him in the dim light as you stretched your legs out, accidentally kicking your zonked out friend who was sprawled out on the other end of the couch.

“Goodnite,” Klaus whispered, before he went out the door.

Swooping down, Five gently kissed you and kept on kissing you until you started to laugh over how obviously he didn’t want to go. “Best night of my life,” he chuckled, his own smile stretching as he finally pulled away. “I’ll be back sometime early afternoon. Can I see you again?”

Stroking your fingers along his jaw, you whispered back, “You better.”

Five’s tired eyes softened even more. He brushed his lips against yours one more time.

Then he was gone.

~~~

Back to reality, your mind lost in a past that doesn’t exist anymore while your body remains stuck in a present form of hell you can’t escape, lying there in your bed, you keep trying to work through your memories of Five.

For his part, like he always does at night, Five stays with you in the only way he feels that he can, over 60 years of time separating you as he sits in his chair in front of the Infinite Switchboard.

After thrashing around in your blankets, reliving things you don’t want to let go, giving into your body’s most primal urges, you shove your hand in your pants, digging your fingers against your clit, tugging and pulling and rubbing. Breathing heavily, your release comes and goes way too fast, giving you nothing to replace the man you refuse to let go.

Finally, worn out and mentally broken, your breathing slows, and your eyes close.

You fall into a fitful sleep, your face pinched with the same stress it’s had since you entered your apartment earlier that night.

A few minutes before this, with his reddened eyes darting around as he tries to squash his own anguish, trying in vain to convince himself that what he’s seeing isn’t because of him, Five throws his arms down on the messy desk space, burying his face in the fold of his arm.

You’re upset, that much he is willing to admit.

You have old news clippings of him and his faded collector cards, and other silly trinkets from the days the Umbrella Academy meant something to the world.

You only have his.

Going through the list of issues in his head, Five comes up with only more problems with all this.

All that is something, but it's not like you would be harboring some old crush on the nerdy little 13-year-old he was in those pictures, because back when those cards were cool, you were only four years old! Back then, you probably didn't even know your address, let alone who the kids who lived at the Umbrella Academy were. But despite that, you clearly have something going on and it’s clearly aimed at him.

You moan repeatedly as the blankets covering you shuffle.

“Fuck…” Five breathes as he looks up, realizing what you are doing.

What you have going on is clearly at least partially a horny thing, and an angry thing, and fuck, fuck, FUCK!

Five can’t stop looking at you writhing against your hand.

He shifts his legs apart, refusing to give his hardening cock the attention it's screaming for. It’s bad enough that he’s watching you jerk off, but doing that with you, like this…

No.

“God damn it!” he curses, kicking his legs out, throwing his hands back behind his head as he forces himself to look at the floor.

No one else remembers, so there is no way you do! 

This has to be something else causing this, right?

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he looks back up. Your breaths are slowing. Your hand slips up along your stomach, laying limply against your t-shirt.

Your eyes stay closed and Five wants so badly to kiss the lids covering them. Since he can’t, he does what he’s always done, he imagines the things he wants.

Shutting his own eyes, he imagines himself there with you, protectively folded around you, your bodies illuminated by the muted silhouettes from the leaves fluttering outside in the canopy of trees outside your window. 

He can almost feel himself kissing the moonbeam dancing across your cheek, flickering along the ridge of your nose-almost.

There’s no warmth to this dream, no sensation of your touch lovingly holding him back.

This is all there had ever been for Five for nearly a lifetime, but now, thanks to you, he knows what it’s like to have something real, and now he is drowning in the shocking reality of his endless loneliness.

Chilled, but unwilling to move to an office to throw himself down on something more comfortable, when his breathing melts into a rhythm of rest, Five floats away with you, going into a nightmarish dreamscape, a place moments before the world fell apart and he lost you.

~~~

As your sleep deepens, you start tossing and turning, your mind projecting images of you bursting out the doors of your apartment. You didn’t care how terrified you were or that you had no weapon to defend yourself against whatever was happening. You had to get to Five.

You took off, sprinting down the sidewalk in the direction of the explosions, rather than in the opposite direction like everyone else was doing.

The sky was casting a strange glow of orange and violet light over everything. It looked like an alien landscape, not the loud city with its shops and business filled with people doing normal things, unless you considered running for their life normal.

You knew it was crazy for you of all people to think you could do anything to help, but it was also crazy that the Five apparently had superpowers, but you'd seen it for yourself on your TV, and the people with him did too.

You kept on, moving along, seeing the destruction getting worse the closer you got to where the news had shown the fighting.

The air near the ground was thick with black smoke as you got closer, but you kept going, knowing from what you’d seen on the news that Five was there, but nothing could have prepared you for it when you rounded a corner and saw all of them. Like some kind of science fiction movie on crack, everywhere you looked, unexplainable things were happening that shouldn’t be.

It was madness, all of it, the way Five was disappearing and reappearing, the way they were shooting laser beams from their eyes and throwing cars like they were nothing. Klaus was there too, like some kind of oracle, casting his hands out, making phantom-like figures appear out of nowhere, all the luminous bodies he’d created readily joining the fight.

Either brave or stupid, you started to cross the battlefield of flipped cars that lay between you and them, staying down, trying not to get hit by the barrage of bullets and other things flying in your direction.  

Five was yelling, calling for everyone to get together. He wasn’t okay, you could see that. He was staggering, trying so hard to stand in the storm that was enveloping him.

He fell to his knees, screaming for them. 

Blood smeared across his face as his hand came up, wiping his cheek. 

The blood was gushing from his nose and seeping down his neck from his ears, but he kept screaming for them. The near blinding light kept growing, extending out from his hands and entire body.

Between broken car windows, you watched as the group gathered around him, two of them looking like they were sending out some kind of force field that was keeping them safe from the bullets and the fire-like aura that was glowing down from the sky.

Then, to your horror, you realized the fire was actually coming from some of them. Their flesh was cracked and blackened, like lava was running under their skin.

They were burning. 

Five was burning!

Your voice cut through the air, penetrating the chaos. “FIVE!”

Just then, extreme pain was the only way to describe what you felt. 

A deafening blast sent you flying, slamming your spine against the door of an upside-down car. Pain radiated through you. You reactively curled in on yourself. You desperately clasped your hands over your ears, trying to block out the high-pitched sound that was trying to stab your brains out, but you painfully realized that the ringing wasn’t something you could stop.

You could hardly move, gasping for air that wouldn’t fill your lungs, but then suddenly Five was next to you, eyes wide, searching you over, saying something, but all you could see was his lips moving as his hands frantically moved over you, trying to cover all the places where your clothes were becoming wet with blooming circles of red.

You watched Five’s mouth repeating the words, “I will fix this.” He was saying it over and over.

Then, just like that, stinging pelts of liquid hit your face as the side of Five’s skull ripped open.

You watched as if in slow motion as the inside of his head spilled out like a macabre brain soup. Then you watched in horror as he tumbled over, your shell-shocked body not working fast enough to catch him.

The side of Five’s ashen face slammed into the glass covered concrete.

Scrambling to your knees, you pulled him to you, his broken head rolling limply in your lap as you screamed. 

Your tears mixed with his blood. 

You didn’t even notice Klaus until he was right there. He came sprinting to a stop a few yards away, seeing you and his brother.

“Help him,” you begged. You refused to take your eyes from Five’s, then Klaus took off, shouting something.

“No, no, no! Please, no!” you wailed as Five remained motionless, legs twisted in a way that made him look so small.

Five was not small. He was strong and he was…

He was everything.

Suddenly a wind from nowhere started whipping up tiny bits of debris from all around you. Looking up, you saw the impossible. There was a ghostly image of Five out in the street next to his brother where they were standing in a blue-ish purple electrical storm filled with glistening marigold, fire and light.

You could see Five over there, but he was also still with you, his warm blood matting his dark strands of hair, coating your fingers as you cradled his head as if you could fix the damage done to him if you willed the hole in him closed, but his empty green eyes continued to stare off at nothing.

The torrents of energy that Five had been violently projecting before he’d appeared over by you grew stronger, making it near impossible to make out anything happening over by them, but you were able to see him out there, lightning filled hands clenched like claws as fire like sparkles swirled around him and the strange static and twinkling lights of power weren’t just coming from Five. It was coming from all of them, as if mixing.

Dazed, and evidently not stable, they all simultaneously fell to their knees, but Five didn’t this time.

His face was no longer spattered with his blood as he looked up, past his siblings as they fell to the ground as if they were puppets whose strings had just been cut.

As your eyes met, it was as if you were seeing Five for the first time ever, seeing all versions of him, and it wasn’t just happening to him, though the ghostlike projections of Five were dramatically different compared to those of his siblings. He was older in some of them, but you were sure it was him, with that funny mustache and his same soft eyes.

Five was that man, and then he wasn’t again, he was just a boy, so young, so angry, nothing but skin and bones, his tormented face covered in ash and grime. 

All of them, all the different versions of them were morphing, snapping together with alternate images of themselves, like a flip book that’s pages clapped with thunder as they turned.

Then, out of nowhere, out of anyone who could have been out there in all that madness, Reginald Hargreeves, the richest man in the world, was towering over you. His expression was serene as he looked down at the dead boy you were crying over. Then he looked up, his expression not scared at all as he said, “Hold on to him. It will all be over soon.”

Bleeding out and going into shock, you looked back out at the other Five. Even in the distance, you could see his mouth. 

His mouth! The one you knew intimately, pulled up just a little as he gave you a dreamy smile, as if he was seeing something in all this that you couldn’t.

You screamed Five’s name as the ball of fire inside him began to consume what was left of his crumbling body.

“No!” you cried, but this time Five couldn’t hear it.

The bubble around them burst, life and death, creation and destruction, you, Five, all of it and time itself, all tied to him and the tale of rebirth, and it was coming for you in a wall of fire.

Your own terrified scream echoing inside your head was the last thing you heard.

Then you were all gone.

~~~

“NO!” You cry out, trying to free yourself from your knotted blankets. You’re in the darkness of your bedroom again, no longer holding Five’s dead body while you watched the ghost of him in the distance, being taken away by an otherworldly fire.

Your heart feels like it could rip out of your chest, it's pounding so hard.

Your hands come up, digging at your eyes as if you can make it all go away, but the heat of your tears is as real as the pain of losing him. “Please no,” you helplessly whimper as you pull your legs up under your arms so you can drop your head between your knees. “I need you, Five,” you sob, your body shuddering.

“I am here, please don’t cry, I am so sorry.”

Your head shoots up, your eyebrows flying halfway up your face, the thumping in your chest threatening to do you in as you blink, over and over, seeing Five right there, at the side of your bed, looking like he just woke up, but looking as beautifully disheveled in his three-piece suit as he always does.

“Ff-Five?” your voice cracks.

“Hey, handsome,” he quietly breathes as he sinks down on the bed next to you, his legs dangling over the side as he reaches over, gently brushing a sweat-dampened piece of hair out of your eyes.

“You you-you-"

“I know,” Five says, pulling you to him.

Arms around him, he squeezes you tight. You breathe in, your face buried against his collar because you’re still not sure he’s real.

“I didn’t think it was possible, but-” He stops, pulling back enough to make you look at him. His eyes glaze over in thought as he lets out a shaky breath. “No one else but us remembered, and I didn’t-" His teary words catch in his throat. “I didn’t want to hurt you. I never should have-” A single tear rolls down his cheek. “I never should have let this happen, but nothing could have prepared me for you and how you made me feel, and I- Even if you remember me, I shouldn’t be here, but I heard you crying, and I had to-"

He tries to pull away.

“NO! Don’t you dare go!” You give Five’s shoulders a little shake, “Don’t you dare leave me again! And what the hell do you mean you heard me? Where were you, in my fucking closet!”

“No, I was pathetically hiding out in a musty old office building in 1955.”

“Okay- Okay-" Your heart is racing so hard you can’t think but that makes no sense. “What the fuck, Five!”

He lowers his face like he wants to disappear and that only makes you cling to him tighter.

“The place I am talking about, and my association with it is a long story,” he starts, “-and I promise I will tell you everything if you want me to, but the reason I was there now was because it’s the only place I could go to see you.” He looks up, his eyes filling. “There’s a machine I invented, it lets the operator dial in places and times. I have missed you so fucking much,” he rambles, clearly spiraling, but you refuse to let him go no matter how confused and mad you are.

“Look, the things you say are just- Yeah.” You let out a puff of air, shaking your head over all this craziness. “But I want you! I don’t care about the rest!"

“I’m not who you think I am. I have done so many horrible things,” he interrupts.

“Five, I know that you are so many more things than what I thought you were in the beginning, but I want all of them. I saw you! All of you! You had a mustache for Christ Sake! I know who you are!”

“You don’t know all of it,” he whispers.

“I don’t care! You saved us. I don’t understand it, but I know you did. You were the only one in the end before everything disappeared. I thought you were dead!”

“I know.”

“You told me that I’m the first person you wanted to open yourself up to,” you continue, “Did you mean it when you said that?”

His lower lip quivers as he nods. “I meant every word of it, and you are still all I want.”

“Then don’t leave me again!” you shout at him, pushing him down on your bed.

Five still looks totally lost but with your insistence, he surrenders himself to you heavily crawling on top of him.

Fully reclined, you throw your leg over his, coming down at his side to tuck your head under his chin, effectively detaining him but letting him breathe. You can hear his heart hammering in his chest as he looks down at you peering up at him. 

His eyes search yours he quietly asks, “Are you sure you still want this?”

“Yes, I am sure,” you insist.

His long fingers trace a line up your back, skating the surface of your shirt.

“Please talk to me, Five. I meant it when I said I want this with you more than anything.”

“Why?” he questions, sounding so dejected.

You sit up, straddling him so you can keep him trapped but also take him on, face to face. “Because even with all the crazy things you told me, knowing what I know now, I think you were telling me the truth about all of it, and you know what, I am not scared. I don’t care how old you are, or if you were an assassin. I don’t care what you’ve done to get here. All that matters is you are.”

“You mean that?” he whispers, reaching around you, his long fingers tracing a soothing line up your back.

You nod and his hand comes up, moving to the back of your head, pulling your lips to his in a chaste kiss that ends all too fast.

You try to kiss him again but Five turns his head, squirming away, not letting you.

Your eyebrows come together in frustration.

“You know… For all my mistakes, I finally thought I had it all figured out, but then this…” His voice trails off as his hands move around your backside, grabbing your ass. “This never should have happened. You weren’t supposed to remember, but you evidently do, or you wouldn’t be trying to hump my leg because you know that getting me hard is going to help you get your way.”

You look down where your crotch is pinning his quad, and he laughs.

You’re just about to tell the asshole you are not trying to hump his leg when he says, “The reason I think you remember,” He cracks a sad smile, making him look so beautifully broken, “The reason you remembered, is because I fell in love with you. A part of you was with me in the end and I couldn’t let it go. You’re a part of me now whether you like it or not.”

“You love me?”

“More than anything.”

In the subsequent silence, your shoulders wither, a single thought floating among the sea of worries in your mind.

You love him too.

You come at him, there’s no stopping you from kissing him. Like you are doing to him, Five’s hands grasp at your body, everywhere they can reach, caressing, groping, pinching, anything to feel each other. 

Jutting your cunt across his thigh, you assault his lips, drawing your teeth across his pout in retribution for him thinking you wouldn’t want this.

Stroking his neck, his hands holding you in place, he moans as you grind his leg. Adding to your pleasure, Five begins exploring your neck with his tongue, tasting your skin, licking the sweat of your nightmare clean off as you rut into him, panting and gasping, filling the quiet of the small room.

Boldly sticking your hand down your pants, rubbing your cock, you lower your voice as deep as you can as you ask, “Did you watch me do this?”

“Yes,” Five rasps, his hands moving down, suddenly taking you by the waist. Like lightning striking, the air around you lights up, every nerve ending in your body comes alive as you’re flung through a swirling storm of sapphire, coming back to the present a millisecond later with your back slamming on your mattress.

Head still spinning, Five falls over you from the air, his body still glowing in his whirl of magical light. His irises dance with embers as he dives in, kissing your neck again.

“What. The Fuck Was That? Did you just teleport me?” you deliriously groan as he attacks you.

"No, I blinked you," he corrects, "It's a spontaneous reaction to having a very naughty boy trying to fuck my lap,” Five informs you with his lips at your earlobe, before kissing down, gnawing on your jaw, as he attempts to blindly unbutton his shirt.

Oh, my God, this man...

Not satisfied with the speed, you begin to help him, and his smile at your impatience is almost as hot as the sight of him laying over you, shrugging it off. Five is nothing but lean valleys of muscle, all pointing to the dangerous weapon he’s packing in his pants, but interestingly enough, his famous Umbrella Academy tattoo on his wrist isn’t the only tattoo he’s got.

Seeing geometrically balanced circles and lines criss-crossing in the middle of his chest must have you making the funniest looking face because Five starts laughing.

“This,” He points to the black and gray washes of ink marking him. “This is evidence of one of my many blunders through time, but it’s worth the pain and looking like a fucking idiot if it means I get to see you looking at me like that.”

You trace the lines. “You are beautiful, Five, all of you.”

“As long as you think so, because I think I’m stuck with it now,. I am a complete package of the old me, the young me, and the tattooed and very fucking horny me,” he says before much more seriously asking, "You ok taking yours off too?"

You nod and Five dips low, using his nose, he starts nudging your t-shirt shirt up. He playfully sucks and nips you all the way up to one of the darkened pink scars under your pecs. Your breath hitches as he traces a line over it with his fingertip, then slowly begins to kiss you there too, his teeth grazing your nipple for good measure.

“So perfect,” he hums, sending a direct signal from you’re the now hardened nub all the way down to your groin. 

As you’re reeling over him saying that and the feeling of him flicking his tongue across your other pec, Five’s hands start moving up your sides, slowly lifting your shirt over your head.

Your legs tense, fighting against the growing ache between them as Five kisses down your torso, marking you where the skin dips at your hip, the palm of his hand hot as it rests over your abs, firmly holding you down.

Already trembling, you let out a small cry of desperation.

Gazing up at you with his pupils blown dark with desire, Five tears open the button holding your jeans closed. Lifting for him, he pushes your remaining clothes down your flushed thighs.

With you fully naked, your bodies roll slightly as Five comes down on the bed next to you. You spread your legs and just as fast, he reaches between them, rolling your clit between thumb and forefinger.

You gasp your approval, “Fuck yeah, don’t stop.”

“Fuck, you’re so hard for me,” Five groans, just below your ear, sending a shiver zipping up your spine as a gush of wet drips out of you. “I can’t get enough of your dick,” he says while playfully pecking your jaw.

“Same,” you gasp, your enlarged clit so sensitive, you can’t help but whine like a puppy when his hand starts to firmly rub it.

Your hand reactively grips his shoulder painfully hard the faster he goes, and his eyes narrow dangerously in response.

Knowing without words what you need, barely thirty seconds into it, two fingers start jabbing inside you, aiming at your sweet spot.

“Holy fuck,” you breath before Five can capture your mouth in a hard kiss again.

As your hips jerk into his hand, Five’s hand snakes down along your side to rub his own cock, all the while he never stops sucking at your neck or giving you needly little licks in between his kisses. Soon the nips get hard enough to make you throw your head back, thrashing.

With Five jerking himself, bucking against you, your hands grip at the sheets, hanging on for dear life as your walls start spasming.

Even though you’re flailing, moaning loud as your hips jerkily fuck into his fingers, you can hear that Five is humming all sorts of dirty things, the vibrations of his words against your throat sending your brain even further down the spiral of your fuckedy fuck land.

Having brought you over the edge, he pulls out. His hand on your thigh moves around you, gripping your ass to pull you in closer as he rolls on top of you.

Five licks at your lips before he slides his hands down to the back of your thighs to pick you up, grinding your crotch into his restrained shaft. “God, I want to fuck you so badly,’ he growls before crashing your lips together again.

Five’s powerful body bears down on you, the drag of his cock between your legs too much but also not enough. Encouraging him to keep up what he was doing, only with his pants off, you try to push his pants down, even as he’s still urgently rocking his hips into you.

“Fuck,” he groans, his teeth grazing your neck as he gasps for air. His hips twitch to a stop at the feeling of his cock about to spring free.

“I want all of you, Five,” you breathe, holding his cheeks under your palms as you pull his head up, making him look at you.

“Are you sure?”

“More than anything. I love you, Five.”

His soft eyes light up as if this wasn’t already obvious. He smiles down at you with an adoring look, caressing your face and pushing your hair aside as you blush under his loving gaze. He leans in to kiss along your jaw and down your neck as he scrambles to remove his pants with you helping him along, hooking your fingers under his tailored waistband, dragging them down his thighs, pushing them the rest of the way off with your feet.

“Oh Fuck,” Five groans as he lowers back down and his cock slips over the moist heat between your legs.

Instinctively, he starts to rut against you again. Before you can do more than hum a moan through your pinched lips, you feel the head of Five’s dick align with your throbbing hole. 

“Protection?” Five impatiently asks, coming to a full stop.

Drunk with desire, all you can do is shake your head no, but the message is clear. You don’t need it.

Tenderly squeezing your ass, with his eyes locked to yours and his voice barely above a whisper, Five asks, “You ready?”

“Yes,” you breathe, keeping your fingers threaded in his thick dark hair, holding him in place with one hand, the other sliding from his muscular back to gripe his shoulder.

He starts to push slowly. “Aw fuck” you moan as just the head of his cock slips in. You throw your head into the pillow, biting your lip to keep from crying out.

Five’s warm breath slowly fans over your neck. He’s not moving a single inch. “Does it hurt?”

“It- It’s good,” you huff, letting out a tense breath as you lift your hips higher, letting him know you can take it.

“That’s it, baby,” he soothes, as your body tightens and quivers along the thick length slowly filling you.

Not even full deep, your brain feels like it’s just flashed on and off and it’s not at all working right.

"You’re so fucking gorgeous," Five patiently huffs, his focus on gauging your every reaction, holding himself still as possible.

“More,” you whine.

You clench involuntarily, letting out a low moan when Five works his hips forward, then back a little, a pleasant change that has you twitching for him even more.

He dips to kiss you, gasping for breath as he opens you even more. Too much for him at once, he takes his kisses to your neck.

He takes a moment to pull half-out of you before digging back in. Firm, slow, and steady, he fucks his hips into you while he bears down with a hiss. Your walls clench him tight, the extra pressure drawing out a moan from both of you.

Your eyes flutter closed as your fingers scratch against Five back. His hips press up, aiming to get as deep as possible, where he stays for one moment before pulling out and thrusting halfway in again and again.

"Fuck, Five, fuck," you slur out as your body begins to slip and slide across your sheets.

He grabs hold of your knee, pushing it back to meet your shoulder, falling into you deeper on his next thrust and you let out wet gasp, before he starts fucking you at a maddening pace, in and out, in shallow thrusts.

As he looks between your bodies, watching with an adorable fascination as his cock disappears inside you, you cry out, “Faster.”

Five obliges.

He really starts moving and the feel of him pumping his whole length inside you has your body arching and writhing up from the bed, lips parted in broken moans that fill the room and your entire apartment and probably your entire floor.

“Yes, Five. Fuck yes! “Don’t stop-fucking-fff,” you stammer, moving your ass up slightly which drives him deeper and brings on more breathless curses from you both. He’s so deep each time his body meets yours he’s knocking the wind from your lungs in breathy consonants and vowels of nonsense.

“Mmmmffff- aaah-ahhh-"

“Fuck-you-rrr-such-ah-good-boy, so tight,” he incoherently gasps along with you, as he pistons his cock into you, his thick tip fucking your cunt just right.

You’re plunging into a freefall, the coiling inside you causing you to cry out his name. At the sound of it, Five’s mouth finds yours, sloppily kissing you.

You’re both breathing too heavily for the kiss to last very long because breathing through your noses isn’t giving either of you enough oxygen. Breaking away, his forehead presses to your shoulder, a curtain of his dark hair falling around it as his strong pelvic slams into you.

"Please- fuck- harder-" you plead, and your magical super boy grants your wish.

Your eyes roll back in your head as Five pounds you harder and faster. Head spinning, your heart feeling like it might burst, your entire body is screaming for release.

“Come on, cum for me,” Five growls before resting his palm over your clit, thrusting his hand in time to his hips.

Your brain is getting shook loose with each slam of his body smacking into yours, and your bed frame isn't doing much better as it creaks and thumps into the wall in a pattern that matches your curses.

"Fuck- Fuck- FUCK-"

You’re reduced to disjointed moans as you fall apart. Shaking head to toe through a mind-melting orgasm, the throbbing intensity as you cum hits you over and over until it completely overwhelms your senses and leaves you speechless.

“That’s right, cream on daddy’s cock,” Five encourages as he quickly flips his head back, his dampened hair falling right back in front of his eyes as he smirks.

“Five- Fu-ffff,” you wetly gasp.

“Ready for another one?” he asks, still undulating his cock as he quirks an eyebrow.

“Ww-wah? How are you doing this,” you ask, meaning how the fuck is he still fucking you! He said he’d been with someone else before, but… Fuck!

His smirk only gets bigger. “Lots of practice with a very receptive inanimate object, named Dolores,” he replies. “Now roll over. Don’t make me count to three,” he warns, before suddenly pulling out, leaving you reeling, his hands on your hips, rolling you over before he pulls your ass high in the air.

The heat of his cock hits your entrance with zero resistance and your body jumps forward when you feel his balls hit your ass.

That move gets you both hissing out strings of discombobulated profanities again as Five holds himself stock still, his eyes closing tight as if he’s in pain..

“Dolores?” you manage to choke.

“Desperate times,” he huffs in way of explanation, then just as the shocking statement he just made and the jolt of him bottoming out is starting to subside, Five smacks your ass, and he’s back to it, fucking into you with a relentless pace.

“Fu-ua-uch-yea-ah, so good,” he disjointedly praises as he rides your ass, hooking his feet inside your ankles so you can’t close your legs.

Your body tightens as his thrusts speed up. You shudder, mouth falling open with a shocked moan as you feel Five’s cock rutting against your insides, demanding every inch of your attention.

With your face down in your mattress, you gasp against moistened fabric. Your shaky fingers clutch at your fitted bedsheet, Five’s brutal pace making steady smack, smack, smack sounds.

You still have no idea how he’s doing it, but Five just keeps on going like his real superpower is that he’s the fucking Energizer Bunny.

Pulling your limp body up to his, Five’s face nuzzles against the back of your neck, hips rolling hard and fast, the sweat from your flush bodies only making it easier for him to fuck into like he’s a well-oiled machine.

“God, you’re magnificent. You feel so fucking good,” he breathes.

"Hnn-mm-unh, uh, uh, please, please-" you moan.

“I’m gonna cum inside you. And you’re gonna cum with me,” Five growls, bearing down on you harder.

You cry out, your next orgasm hitting you as Earth shattering at the first two. You’re shivering, open-mouthed and helpless as you start to feel his warmth spreading with each thrust, Five’s hips jerking slower and slower as he empties his throbbing cock.

He hisses, moaning out a melody of expletives as his hips stutter to a near halt. He just came hard, but that doesn’t stop him as he rolls you against the mattress, coming down next to you, his cock pumping into you a few more times until you’re both left panting and boneless.

He kisses the nape of your neck and tenderly brushes a sweaty strand of your hair from the side of your face. Five stays connected to you until your chests are both rising and falling much slower, then his softening length slips out on its own, a white ribbon of cum immediately spilling out of you, the feel and sight of it making Five let out the softest whimper of distress.

Not letting you go, he kisses your temple.

"That was amazing," he contentedly breathes.

You huff out a sigh in agreement, cheeks flushed, gaze half lidded.

"I didn’t hurt you?" he whispers, a hand coming up to brush over your jaw, so gently. The concern for your wellbeing is reflected in Five’s soft green eyes as he pulls himself up on a wobbly elbow to look at you better.

“Not at all," you mutter with a weak smile as you pull your blankets over, throwing them over both of you.

Five’s hair is sticking up in just about every direction and it’s only adding to the beauty of his dazed grin.

“I’m never leaving you again, that’s unless you make me,” Five murmurs as he lays back down, kissing your shoulder. 

“I can’t see that happening, unless you get all boring, getting up early, only to take afternoon naps on my couch before you finish your old man day with one of your exhilarating crossword puzzles rather than finding new ways you can pounce on me and spank my ass.”

He laughs. There’s an impish glint in his eyes, like the twinkles of distant starlight.

“Awww, sweetheart,” he mocks. “You make all my favorite hobbies sound like bad things” 

You lean into his touch, sighing in contempt before gently whispering, “Go to sleep and I’ll deal with you in the morning.”

Obediently shutting his droopy eyes, he whispers I love you. Then the prick sneakily pulls his hand back, then smacks you in the ass, making you yelp like a little girl.

Ass burning, your heart is full.

This is Five. The wonderful, amazing, sexy jerk you fell in love with.

Next to you, almost as soon as the quiet fills the space between you again, you can tell he’s drifting off to sleep.

Five is finally home.

You roll over just enough to watch him sleeping. 

He looks so peaceful. Like a very naughty angel. The best kind.

You kiss his forehead, and he pulls you back in, making you his little spoon.

Laying there, still trying to take in everything that just happened, you think about all the times Five made jokes about his traumatic life and his loneliness. You caught stolen glimpses of his pain in his sweet but sad smiles, shaking his head, eyelids fluttering closed as he determinedly set his jaw, acting like his memories didn’t hurt him.

Five tried to build a wall around his heart, the barriers entrenched by years of grief, but it all came crashing down at the world’s end. 

Now it’s time for happiness. 

~~~~~~~

Masterpost

Link to my other Tumblr story/art/and asks

Link to visit me direct on A03tua

[steddieas-shegoes]

sew you up

for @steddieholidaydrabbles prompt 'hurt/comfort' rated t wc: 993 cw: injury tags: post-vecna, someone finally takes care of steve's bat bite, getting together

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

He just had to get them all safe. Then he could take care of the bite.

He just had to keep an eye on Eddie, make sure no government officials tried to take him or let the police arrest him. Then he could take care of the bite.

He just had to help Wayne get them moved into their new trailer. Then he could take care of the bite.

Excuses kept piling up, one after another, and the pulsing, searing pain of the bite became easier to ignore. That meant it was healing, right?

But one month later, the bite was still as open and ugly as it had been when the bat latched on, and he had to face the facts.

“You okay over there?” Eddie asked from his bed.

He was mostly mobile, but moved much slower than he used to and had a lot of aches and pains from still-healing scar tissue. He rested in bed more than he did anything else, and Steve usually kept him company long after everyone else left.

“Yeah, think I’m just tired.”

He was tired. But he was also in pain, and could feel the sweat beading on his forehead as he clenched his jaw to avoid groaning.

He’d just moved wrong a little while ago and the pain wasn’t subsiding like it usually did. He’d be fine.

“You’re pretty pale, Stevie.”

“Might be coming down with something,” he shrugged it off. It could be true, after all. He was feeling feverish.

“Oh! Meant to ask you the other day. How’s that bite doing?” Eddie asked casually.

Too casually.

Steve stared back at him, eyes squinting in suspicion.

“It’s fine.”

“Yeah? Mine’s kinda hurting still. Can’t bend down all the way.”

Still so casual.

“Yours was worse than mine, man.”

Eddie nodded, seemingly accepting that as a response, almost looking like he was going to move on.

“I saw a doctor for mine. Many doctors. A few nurses. One government person who took an hour bandaging it up. Not sure what that was about,” Eddie shook himself out of a thought. “But you didn’t see anyone, did you?”

Steve bit his lip.

“No. But mine wasn’t that bad. It’s healing.”

Eddie put his notebook down and took in Steve’s posture. Steve tried to sit up straighter in the desk chair he was lounging in, but as soon as he tried, he let out a hiss and small whimper.

“Let me see it.”

Eddie’s tone was short, serious, something Steve had never heard from him before.

He stood up slowly, wincing as the area around the bite pulled painfully.

Eddie slowly moved to the edge of his bed and parted his legs, waving his hand to get Steve to come closer.

Steve moved closer, ignoring the way his stomach fluttered when Eddie’s hand gripped his uninjured hip to tug him even closer.

His other hand lifted Steve’s shirt up enough to see the wound.

“Steve,” he breathed out. “This needs to be stitched up. It’s too deep to heal on its own. You’ve just been walking around with this?”

“I mean, yeah. It’s gotten a little better.”

Eddie looked up at him with wide eyes.

“This is better?”

Steve nodded.

“This is. Steve, does Robin know it’s this bad?”

Steve shook his head.

“Does anyone?”

Steve shook his head again.

“Alright. I’m fixing this.” Eddie started to get up, gently pushing Steve away from him, but not removing his hand from his hip. “You lay down. I’m grabbing my sewing kit and alcohol.”

“Wait. What?” Steve felt himself panic. “You can’t- you’re not!”

“Steve. Do what I tell you to do before I call Robin and tell her you’ve been ignoring a fucking demobat bite for a month.”

So Steve got as comfortable as he could on the bed, lifted his shirt up to his chest, and waited.

Eddie took his time, but Steve didn’t mind, would much rather wait than Eddie hurt himself worse.

Eventually, Eddie came back and pulled the chair to the side of the bed.

He worked slowly, but confidently. He gave Steve a pillow to hold so he wouldn’t flinch too much while he worked, closing up the main part of the bite so it could actually heal.

When he was done, he bandaged it up tight, and then traced the edges of the bandage.

“Why didn’t you say something?” He whispered.

“Didn’t think it was that bad,” Steve whispered back.

“You didn’t think an open wound like that was bad? Jesus.” Eddie shook his head. “I knew you were self-sacrificial, but this is insane. You can’t hide this shit, Stevie. You could get an infection, you could die.”

Steve gulped.

He’d considered it a few times, but figured he would have already ended up in the hospital if it was going to happen.

“Yeah. But you fixed it, so I’ll be fine.”

“You better let me change your bandages every day for the next week so I can make sure it’s healing right.”

“Won’t that get annoying?” Steve asked.

Eddie didn’t answer for a moment, just watched as Steve pulled his shirt back down.

And then his lips were gently pressing against Steve’s forehead, lingering heat making Steve close his eyes.

“You could never annoy me. The only thing annoying to me is that you thought that being taken care of was annoying,” Eddie said, lips still resting against Steve’s skin, his breath almost tickling.

“So you’re my nurse, now?” Steve asked with a smirk.

Eddie pulled back and cupped his cheek.

“Yep. You better be a good patient.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll steal your hairspray.”

Steve gasped.

“You wouldn’t!”

“I would. So you better do as I say and make sure you take care of this.”

“Fine. Do I get a real kiss for being on my best behavior?”

Eddie bit his bottom lip, his cheeks going red.

“Maybe if you make room for me in bed.”

“Deal.”

[jakowskis]

torchwood resources

just some stuff i've accumulated during this fixation :) hope it proves handy :D

ianto's-desktop (livejournal) - archived most of the things found on the torchwood website during season 1 and season 2; the only thing missing is the videos. / note: click the headers of the posts to see the full thing, or some stuff with appear incomplete. took me a sec to figure out, lol

speaking of the website...

season 1 website (archive.org)

season 2 website (archive.org) - unlike the s1 website, the bulk of the s2 site's content is pretty inaccessible through the wayback machine (at least for me; maybe i'm doing something wrong), so thank g-d for ianto's desktop

there's also a good amount of rebloggable site content in this person's tumblr tag.

season 1 declassified (youtube)

season 2 declassified (youtube)

season 1 commentaries (mega.nz)

torchwood books (google drive) - gonna be honest, i haven't tried to download any of these myself

border princes audiobook (read by eve) + all of the radio plays (archive.org)

torchwood magazines (beta.reddit) - download links for all of them! p fuckin kewl

torchwood official yearbook (archive.org)

herecomesthedrums (youtube) - account that started posting before the show came out and is chock full of promos, trailers, interviews... some real fun goodies in there

torchwood: up close (youtube) - handful of bts videos with the cast + crew

season 1 unreleased tracks (soundcloud) - the end of days ones hrhghgh

out of time unreleased tracks (soundcloud) - i absolutely adore the music in this ep so i was so happy when i found these

the torchwood fanpop - this has sooooooo much content like i scrolled for a loooooong time and never reached the bottom. lotta stuff i hadn't seen before, too. there's fun hd promo pics, pics of the cast, and a lot of extremely early 2010s edits, graphics, and fanvids. / note: i also had this page bookmarked + it's got different content than the main page so i'll link it

aaand under the cut i'm gonna dump some silly stuff i've collected of the cast. but yeah, there ya go :-)

gally 2015: zip files of someone's pictures of eve, naoko, and burn (livejournal)

gally 2015: someone's account of the torchwood panels + meeting the cast (everyone was there but gareth!) - naoko & burn's solo panels / autograph table chats + barrowman photo-op + the naoko&burn&eve group panel / barrowman solo panel + burn&eve joint panel

dragon con 2013 (flickr) - i found two albums: this one, and this one, which has torchwood cast images on the first and second pages.

burn at chicago tardis 2012 (flickr) - ehehe 2012-2013 burn gorman w his classy little outfits my beloved. this is just hq pictures of that event. burn's in a bunch at the top and some at the end of the second page

the hub 2009 (flickr) - some kind of torchwood event. gareth, burn, eve, kai, and tom are all there. i dunno

hvff 2018: 'insights from the whole cast'

hvff 2018: video of everybody goofing off (twitter)

gareth endorsing owandy teehee (twitter) - this is getting dumped here bc im gay

sigh. (blogspot) - pics from that one fuckin 08 panel where gareth & john made out like 5 times + gareth took his jeans off for some reason. i don't even go here but i feel like this is unfortunately historically relevant. also the fujoshis in the comments are really funny

incomplete but sizable lists of cons gareth's been to and john's been to, in case anyone wants to dig around for photos/footage of any of these. the other cast members (excluding burn, for some reason) all have pages on this site as well, but theirs are super incomplete so i won't bother linking

[jo-harrington]

Corroded Coffin Fest - Day 7 - Celebrate Good Times, C'mon

Summary: Eddie Munson is being a party pooper.

Word Count: 930

Rating: T

Warnings/Themes: Friendship fluffiness, some angst, hurt/comfort, it’s supposed to be a celebration but I’m a sad little asshole so here we are, FOI References, Ronnie Ecker, I don't know...are they in character? Probably not and I don't care.

Check Out the Main Post for @corrodedcoffinfest here! Even if you didn’t start on Day 1, you can still join!

Tagging: @the-unforgivenn at her request.

You can find my masterlist here.

Please do not interact if you are not 18+.

Enjoy!

"A decade later and you're still out here digging holes."

Eddie bristled as Ronnie's voice hit his ear, but ignored it and continued to poke at the ground.

He felt her drop to the ground beside him and rest her chin on her knees, silently watching his repeated motions.

It was graduation day, and even though Eddie hadn't been able to walk across the stage himself, he and Wayne had still gone with Granny to cheer for Ronnie.

And Dougie, of course.

But mainly Ronnie.

Eddie had been caught up in the excitement of the day, hung around with Ronnie and the rest of the class of '84 until it was time for him to take his seat. He ignored all of the curious glances of his now-former classmates who apparently thought that they'd seen the last of Eddie Munson, and instead fucked around with his friends for, what seemed to be, one last time.

It wasn't, they still had the whole summer.

Ronnie and Dougie teased him over the fact that he was so non-conformist that he probably wouldn't even wear a cap and gown when he graduated the following year. Or that he'd light his diploma on fire a la Hendrix.

"Don't give me any ideas," he'd joked right back.

It was a fun morning, felt like the disappointment of the past few months hadn't even happened...and damn if he hadn't been the loudest one in that crowd cheering for his friends.

But by the time they got back to Forest Hills for a little barbecue to celebrate, reality really hit Eddie. And the regrets snuck up on him yet again.

That'd been happening a lot lately, even after he'd gotten over that initial funk.

Never in his life had he really regretted anything he was or did, but now it had become a part of him, a stain on his soul...because he'd hurt the people he cared for most in the world.

He'd just meant to step around to the back of the trailer to have a smoke and get back into the party mindset, but then he'd heard a bunch of laughter as Jeff's dad and Wayne struggled to get the grill going. Then another car pulled up--some other neighbors stopping for a drink and a congrats.

And he just couldn't bring himself to get back there.

"You're missing out on burgers," Ronnie finally piped up again when she got sick of watching him torture an earthworm for several consecutive minutes. "You know, we got sesame seed buns because they're you're favorite."

"Hmm."

She huffed and nudged his shoulder, then dropped her voice to emulate his.

"Gee thanks Ronnie, they are my favorite, sorry I'm being a shithead, I'll come back to the party now." He fought the smile that threatened to make its way onto his face. She cleared her throat and stared at him expectantly, but when no answer came, she slapped her knees and stood. "Alright, more for me then."

"It sucks," he finally spoke up.

"What does?"

"Change."

Ronnie snorted and kicked his sneakered foot with her own, "no shit."

"I always lived in dad's stupid shadow," Eddie continued, "and people judged me because of the things he did. Now...they judge me because of the things I've done."

"Wow, Eddie Munson has to face the consequences of his actions, what a lovely life lesson for you."

It was Eddie's turn to get to his feet, ready to abandon this conversation altogether.

"Burgers you said?" he asked avoidantly, turning on his heel to walk away.

"Eddie! Ed!" She grabbed his arm and stopped him; he schooled his features to not show any emotion, but Ronnie saw all of the pain and fear in his eyes. She knew it as well as her own. "It sucks, and I know you're feeling all...pessimistic and shitty right now, and you're stuck here while everyone else gets to move on. It sucks.

"But you get something that a lot of people don't get: a second chance. You get to redo senior year, maybe get some better grades--"

"Impossible, I won't have you to copy homework off of."

"--make things up to Wayne. You already started making things better with me and the guys. Maybe Corroded Coffin will be even better with Gareth? And you'll actually get to make a name for yourselves."

It was a mixture of emotions that he just didn't know how to handle, the sweet hope and the bitter regret. But the more he listened, the more the hope shined through, until he was hiding a smile in his hair.

"You really think so?" he asked, a little bashfully.

"I know so," she punched him in the shoulder. "You guys are gonna be stars. And I'm gonna be jealous up at NYU, where I will be a weird kid from the midwest who knows nothing and no one...actually...on second thought, I might have to stay."

"Oh no you don't!" Eddie knew she was joking but he laughed regardless. "You got yourself out of this shithole, don't be tempted by mediocre promises at fame Veronica."

"Full name," she winced. "I guess I went too far."

They shared a laugh, and then Ronnie pulled him into a hug.

"Can I have my best friend back?" She whispered into his ear. "Bad jokes and fart noises and the walrus impressions with straws for tusks? This party is really missing out without him."

He laughed and squeezed her tightly.

"No more sad sackery. Only the finest farts for you on your big day, Ecker."

[kaija-rayne-author]

Dragon Age Veilguard Review 4th in series

22 game hours 20 actual playtime

Spoilers for Dragon Age Veilguard

Critical review and a rant

Part 3.5 here.

Obligatory disclaimer. If you've already read it you can skip to the cut.

Something came to my attention. I need to make it crystal clear that I utterly love the diversity in DAV. It's fantastic. I'm also a heavily left leaning, non-binary, queer as fuck reviewer, editor, and author.

I'm on media blackout while I play this, so I'm only getting second-hand info on how awful it is right now in the DA Fandom. Please be safe and take care of yourselves. Arguing with incels and white supremacists is completely pointless. They sea lion worse than an actual sea lion. Your mental health is important.

Y'know? Every single time the anti-queer brigade comes out for a new DA game, I sit there thinking 'have you Bozos ever played any DA game, like, ever?' My guess is nope.

3.5 in series is here.

If I've ever played a glitchier piece of shit game in my life I honestly can't remember it.

So I went to go watch a movie with the partner and kids. I saved my game and turned it off.

Came back and it played okay for a few hours. I met both Mae and Dorian squeeeee!

Met Davrin and Assan. Everything's going fine. I got creamed (again), I swear the devs have no idea. I'm a consistent gamer who plays on hard/tactician mode in most games I play. (Many the same style of fighting as DAV.) And I'm having trouble with the strength of these monsters. WTF do they think someone just getting into gaming is experiencing?

Anyway. I got creamed, clicked reload last save, and it loaded with the now far too familiar no CC reverted back to the basic elf body error. I went back to the main menu, and now absolutely none of the saves are showing up with video. They load with sound, map in the corner, and tags above heads but no fucking video. They're either corrupted or the game is just a piece of shit.

Yes. I'm rather annoyed. I was looking forward to finishing recruiting Davrin tonight and it doesn't make my brain happy to have to stop in the middle of what I wanted to get done. In game or out.

I'm currently verifying my files from steam. We'll see if that fixes it. I just... and this is what the devs thought was releasable? REALLY?

I know I keep using BG3 as a comparison (which honestly isn't a very good one because one is turn based and one 'live' fighting). But the Venn diagram of people who play DA and who play BG is probably a circle so that's why it comes to mind.

It's also the most recent game I've actually purchased and played a lot.

I played that day of release and on into the week and had nowhere NEAR this many problems. I actually think I've had more trouble with DAV in three ish days than I've had in BG3 for over 700 hours FFS!

Anyway. Vent over (for now. I imagine this game will give me plenty of more opportunities).

Dorian looked really weird. He has what I'm now dubbing the 'Solas effect'. He doesn't look like himself. I wouldn't have recognized him at all if it weren't for him introducing himself.

Oh, and way to retcon the condition of the veil guys. For three games it's been getting more and more tears and holes in it. Now it's solid and the only thing holding off a world of blight that hadn’t ever really existed in the fade like that before? It was just the black city. Do these guys ever get sick of retconning shit? I sure get sick of playing retconned shit.

My partner saw the game and he really can't get over how jarring the art is. He's a pretty consistent gamer too but I doubt he'll play this one.

Y'know how I said I didn't know WTF the devs were thinking in my review of the game play trailer?

I'm even more flabbergasted now. I just... seriously?

The game doesn't work well. it has numerous glitches.

The art style sucks.

The bad dudes are WAY overpowered for even a pretty decent gamer. Not so experienced gamers are likely rage-quitting in droves. Every one of the glitches I look up is pretty common. Even for people with better machines than mine.

The story took bloody forever to get started. It finally seems to have but it shouldn't take me 20 hours of game time to get somewhat invested in the story!

The characters are honestly pretty meh so far. My much beloathed Lucanis is the only mildly interesting one so far.

I honestly just can't get over how they felt this was A. Good. and B. Ready for release.

I'll keep trying. But if it's corrupted my whole 20 hours I'm not sure if I've got the stomach to replay all that boring assed nonsense to get to where I only just got to today.

I HATE writing critical reviews as a matter of course. I especially don't want to write them about a piece of intellectual property like Dragon Age that I love so very much. But What. The. Actual. Fuck.

Part 5.1

[sflow-er]

To August anon 2

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply! I don't know if you'll even see this as I've decided not to risk the backlash of putting it on the main tag, but I hope you do.

[Earlier posts: August anon 1, August anon 2]

I want to curate the discussion a bit now that you've shifted part of the focus on Sara. I don't share your position of liking both her and August for being 'morally dark' people, and I fear it may be a bit jarring to any Sara fans reading this. So I've decided to screenshot your message and put it under the cut instead of replying directly.

We disagree on some fundamental things when it comes to August's and especially Sara's characterisation, and I doubt we're going to reach consensus. But that's okay! I'm just going to explain some parts of my POV below, and then we can agree to disagree. There are also a few areas where we seem to be getting our wires crossed (e.g. what we mean by 'understanding' the consequences) so I want to clear those up.

Most of this rambling essay was written before the S3 trailer came out, so I'm not focusing much on the glimpses we see of them in the trailer. But I am still using the spoiler tags just to be safe.

CW: negative take on Sara (but the anon actually likes her); couple of suicide mentions

Okay so... I'm going to start by clarifying a couple of things:

Understanding vs. understanding

Infantilising vs. taking young age into account

When I talk about August and the consequences, I'm not saying he lacks the intellect or analytical thinking to know/predict them. I'm saying he lacks the empathy and relevant frames of reference to understand them. I think we're just using the word 'understand' to mean different things - maybe internalise, empathise or relate would be a better choice for what I mean by it?

To revisit my previous example, August as an incredibly privileged member of the elite cannot understand i.e. relate to Simon's experience as someone whose ability to make his own reputation and get by on his own merit has been permanently affected by the video. As a very confidently straight man, he also cannot relate to Wille's experience as someone whose non-straight sexuality, a deeply personal and private thing that he wasn't even done figuring out, has suddenly been exposed to the world and potentially even some homophobic hate.

I'm not saying this to infantilise, defend, or excuse August. I'm saying it because to me, it partly explains why it's so easy for him to dismiss the harm to Simon and see his betrayal of Wille as just a matter of loyalty - the only moral code he knows - instead of something that would've been wrong no matter who the victim was. It's a thought pattern that stems from his upbringing and worldview, and it would have to be dismantled for him to feel proper remorse. Which I think would probably take professional help at this point.

(I agree with you that August would be extremely prejudiced against Boris. A glimpse of him googling therapy providers or booking an appointment for after graduation might feel more realistic to me - but I guess it depends on what the writers want to do with him. We already saw very quick progress with Wille in S2 so it's safe to say they can take some liberties.)

I still believe that August will lose his social status in S3, likely towards the end. But it's fair that you don't, and the trailer is certainly edited to support your position. If he retains his status, then you may be right about him remaining the same old asshole! If he does lose it, then my original point about him likely not being resilient enough to cope with the consequences still stands. He is very much the kind of person to whom suicide is the "proud" way out compared to the shame of losing everything.

Now, the age thing.

Respectfully, I think you may be ascribing too much meaning to August and Sara being of age in S2 (note that Sara was still 17 when she made the deal with August in S1). Eighteen is the age of legal adulthood, yes, but it doesn't make them fully grown and mature adults in the (neuro)biological, psychological or social sense.

[This feels like a good point to say that I am not going to try to account for Sara's neurodivergence here. I definitely don't have the insight, so if anything I've written below is in any way inaccurate or offensive to persons with AuDHD, please let me know!!]

Firstly, it's important to note that that the human brain matures gradually and unevenly. The prefrontal cortex i.e. the 'reasoning centre' only matures in the mid-to-late 20s, while parts that handle things like right/wrong, risk/reward, and emotional responses (e.g. the amygdala) mature earlier. This can cause teens and young adults to struggle with things like impulse control, assessing the long-term consequences of their actions, understanding others' emotions, and rational decision-making in situations that trigger a strong emotional response. Reason can get overtaken by emotion on a chemical level; sometimes the young person can't even fully explain afterwards why they did something they rationally knew was wrong all along.

[I don't think August was in a particularly analytical state of mind when he decided to post the video. He was an intelligent but emotionally unstable and empathically challenged 18-year-old who felt like he had nothing left to lose and the only moral code he knew (i.e. loyalty) was obsolete. He was also still stewing in the emotional turmoil of his humiliation and likely stuck in a negative feedback loop. It feels very plausible to me that he could be in a very bad place for a pretty long time and still function enough to plan his revenge (more on the revenge part below).]

Secondly, both August and Sara have also had some pretty traumatic experiences (Sara's bullying, August's dad's suicide, the influence of both their dads while they were still in their lives). These may have impacted their emotional and psychological development in various ways and created some thought patterns. Not to play arm-chair psychologist, but I don't think it's a coincidence August's decision to post the video is related to his family estate and legacy, while Sara's decision to make a deal with August is related to the threat of being sent back to Marieberg.

[This feels particularly relevant for Sara, whose bullying was brutal and long-term enough for her to have to repeat a year. The negative attention on Simon after the video probably seemed less severe in comparison, and also like a 'first incident' (in fact, she might have even felt like Linda was applying a different standard to Simon's ordeal compared to hers by immediately wanting to take them both out of Hillerska).]

[I vehemently disagree with Sara's idea that the damage to Simon was already done and it wouldn't have made a difference whether he knew who was responsible, but I think it matters to some extent that she didn't know the history between Simon and August. To her, the video probably seemed like something that was mostly between August and Wille. That idea was likely reinforced by August consistently dismissing Simon's side of it - and also by Simon seemingly moving on with Marcus and no longer being the talk of the school after Christmas. This kind of rationalisation may have even made Sara feel better about pursuing a relationship with August in S2.]

[I also think Sara probably felt like she had the right to be selfish after everything she'd been through. Simon's support during her bullying wasn't conditional; she didn't feel like she "owed him" any sacrifices. It was clearly Simon's idea to follow Sara to Hillerska, and she may have even felt like he was hovering a bit (I doubt S1E1 was her first time saying she was fine now and he didn't have to be there). Then, Simon started to keep secrets and even see Micke for reasons Sara didn't know, altering the terms of their relationship, while Sara was finally daring to dream of things she'd been denied for so long. Friends, a better future, even romance. To her, it felt extremely unfair to have to give all that up and go back to a school that was a nightmare to her but not to Simon. Especially when her and Simon's lives weren't as intertwined anymore and she finally felt like she was gaining some agency in her own.]

Thirdly (circling back to the point about maturity), it's good to keep in mind that both August and Sara are still in the high-school phase of life. A phase when most people are a bit selfish, and their past and current dramas and dreams for the future are everything to them. They haven't really acquired much experience or long-term perspective yet. So I really don't think we can call them that much more mature in the social sense than, say, Wilhelm and Simon. They are still messy teens living their messy teen lives, shaped by their upbringing and limited life experience, all the while thinking they are basically grown adults.

So am I saying all this to infantilise August and Sara and excuse their actions? I'm sure it sounds that way; hence, not putting this on the main tag.

But the way I see it, to infantilise them would be to say they weren't responsible for their actions or didn't know what they're doing. They are responsible, and they do know. All the factors laid out above (and also in my previous August posts) explain their reasoning and actions to some extent, but they do not excuse them. The fact still remains that they both applied their best judgment and deliberately chose to do the thing that they knew was wrong.

You're right that they took time to consider their decisions in S1, although I don't think we can know for sure exactly how long August takes. The timeline is a mess at that point; he is still at the Palace wearing the same outfit when the others make their statement, and I doubt he could've been there overnight. But he does take several hours in any case, and although he isn't thinking rationally at that point, he still knows what he's doing is wrong. In fact, he does it with the sole intention of hurting others, which makes it all the more reprehensible.

I just want to caution against labelling him as some evil, fundamentally unfeeling mastermind. He's just a very selfish and immature young man with a very warped view of the world, who needs to see some consequences for his own sake as much as his victims'. I think part of the reason we saw him turn so soft with Sara in S2 was to underline that he is capable of empathy and caring; it's just a matter of unlocking those emotions. They haven't exactly been nurtured growing up, so he is only applying them to the people he deems "worthy", instead of all his fellow human beings. That selective empathy is another thing he seriously needs to work on, alongside the lack of accountability.

As for Sara, she takes several days to consider what to do about the video, which makes her betrayal of Simon more severe. But as explained above, it's so much more nuanced than her not caring about him. (Or indeed her being some poor victim who didn't know what she was doing and fell in love with The Devil! Don't get me wrong, August definitely let her believe she was guiding him in a better direction, which may have even pushed some Micke buttons in her subconscious and/or memories of Simon's insistence that everyone deserves a second chance... But she still made her own decisions and is responsible for them.)

It's easy to forget that we do in fact see Sara aware that her actions are wrong even before the end of S2. She looks conflicted/unsure when she and August make out in S1E6, cries when Simon earnestly proclaims "I like you when you are you" and "I'm trying to be your friend again because I need you" after she has just betrayed him, and again looks conflicted when the siblings talk about loving the "wrong person" in S2E5. She did some very selfish things and hid them for much too long, yes, but I believe her regret is genuine. It will take some skilful writing to make her and Simon reconcile in a way that makes sense, doesn't feel rushed or reduce her to an archetype, and doesn't just magic away her leftover feelings for August (as those will probably take some time to clear out). But I do have faith it can be done.

So I think that just about covers what I wanted to say. This isn't a comprehensive essay by any means, and I'm sure it won't go down well with everyone. I also don't expect it to change your mind about these characters, anon, and that's okay!

I mostly just wanted to push back on the notion that Sara and August being 18 means all their bad decisions are now on par with bad decisions taken by fully grown adults and their character development is now set in stone. I highly doubt the show will end with them both proudly standing behind their poor choices - I can certainly see August doing that if he doesn't see any repercussions, but not Sara.

In any case, thank you for taking the time to explain your point of view on these characters, and sorry again for taking so long to respond!

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Okay, so a friend and I went back over a portion in the Season 3 trailer last night.

Because both of us (on separate days), after having watched the trailer a few times, essentially had the question: Is that green shatterspace portal actually Boscage Maze?

When I myself watched it I felt...idk...like the shade of green was different. And then my friend mentioned (after another look at it) that the color was more muted.

And then...we let our brains run.

Mind you, before the trailer or any summaries of the season came out, my friend and I were talking over discord. We'd decided that based on the evidence (Sonic's natural eminence of prism energy, whatever makes him special compared to Shadow, the fact he shattered the prism, etc) Sonic could theoretically have a deeper connection to the paradox prism due to the energy inside him. Then, they threw a what if in the air.

Essentially "I don't think they'll do it, but what if Sonic is the missing piece to the paradox prism. So they won't be able to complete the prism and do anything with it without risking killing Sonic"

To which I said "That would be so cool! And given that I've never believed Sonic's going to have to actually make a big choice between his old friends or his new friends existing—or at least that he'd never actually make that choice and would find a secret third choice—I think a Sonic's wellbeing versus everything he cares about makes sense. That has the potential to hurt the other characters, because if need be, Sonic would do it"

Needless to say we watched the trailer the first time and I was like "No way he was right. Like, it was a good thought, but none of us thought for sure that they'd do it"

Now, with that in mind. As I said, my friend and I decided to let our brains run after feeling that there was a difference between the green shatterspace in the trailer and the one for boscage maze. We couldn't shake the idea that the colors are different, nor the idea that the shape of the portal openings are different. And we've both seen people talking here about how it could be the last shatterspace open or something (boscage maze that is), but to me...that doesn't make sense. Without special context, it doesn't make sense why it would have to be Boscage Maze of all worlds that would be the last to collapse, or why taking Sonic to Boscage Maze of all shatterspaces could be enough to save him. Plus there are other voices talking in that scene. There are other people who would need to get to Boscage if it was truly the last, and if it's just to get Sonic to the closest shatterspace, the characters would have to be fighting in the in between space (between the shatterspaces). And my friend too, from looking at it, thinks that the green shatterspace in the trailer seems like it's farther out at the edges of the place between.

So, we rushed to the episodes to get a clear shot of the Boscage portal, and then a clear shot of the one in the trailer.

Now, turns out we were right about the color difference.

But it's the shape too.

If you've been looking in the main tag, I probably don't need to tell any of you that each portal (the part you enter to enter a shatterspace) is shaped like its prism shard. The first image is a shot of the Boscage Maze portal my friend screenshotted. The portal opening resembles the shape of the green shard, and the green is more vibrant than the more muted green in the trailer.

The shatterspace in the trailer is just...a completely different shape, both in portal opening and the crystals around it. If you need another angle of the Boscage Portal to compare to the crystals surrounding the portal in the trailer, here's another shot.

So, different green color. Different opening shape that would correspond to a prism we haven't seen before.

Let's return to the "Sonic contains the missing piece of the paradox prism and is essentially a living prism shard" theory, and let us also employ the idea that after the prism shattered and each shard landed in one of our alternate green hills, the shards gave off an outburst in energy that allowed the blue shard to fill the shatterspace with water, the green with dense forest, or the purple with mountains of crystal.

Now you're probably saying "But tumblr user hadesknockedupintheunderworld, what about the red shard? We saw a flashback. The red shard didn't just start growing buildings when it landed in what would become New Yolk"

And to that I'd say...you're right! We know based upon the Chaos Council's flashback that they used the prism shard as their energy source (whether they received it when conquering or after the fact), and that they themselves built New Yolk city without using the prism shard (after all, they only knew it as an energy source)

So, I say to you back. What if upon landing in a shatterspace, the shards were initially unstable. So they either caused a major change/addition to the world they landed in, or it's energy was properly harnessed and contained. That wouldn't be so far fetched, right? Because we know that Nine adapted the power core the council built to properly contain and channel the energy of the red shard to create his shatterdrive.

Now, the idea that the shards, while having shared powers, also have specific element based powers is not a new idea to this fandom. So let's run with this idea too, for funsies. If the blue shard corresponds more to weather (creating storms, lightning, flooding) and the green shard causes plants to grow (as examples), what, then, would Sonic be?

I'd say speed. Why? Well, besides the fact that that's Sonic's thing, let's backtrack to episode 1.

As of episodes 1 and 2, we know Sonic's body produces the same energy as the red shard. Before Nine crafted tech to attach to Sonic's clothes, the energy was not properly distributing to his body. Sonic would run and not be able to stop, he couldn't control his speed, and sometimes, he'd even start running without actually wanting or trying to run. In short, he could not control how fast he was going, how soon he could stop, or even when he would just start running. Even his shoes, which can canonically handle his usual speeds, had started to smoke after a while.

Couldn't you perhaps extrapolate from this that...Sonic became unstable upon entering New Yolk, his speed going haywire, and it was Nine's tech that properly contained and channeled Sonic's (he living shard's) prism energy?

And if Sonic is essentially a living prism shard...

Let's go back to the shatterspace from the trailer again.

A shard shape we've never seen before.

My friend and I got to this point and we thought:

"What if this is Sonic's shatterspace?"

As in, if each prism shard corresponds to a shatterspace, what if this is a secret 6th one that corresponds to Sonic?

Earlier I said that the ideas people brought up (without in season context) for how or why Shadow would speed to take Sonic to Boscage Maze wouldn't make sense. BUT

If there's a shatterspace out there affected by/created by Sonic's prism energy, it may not be a stretch for the writers (and our main characters) to conclude that getting Sonic there could keep him from disappearing.

Just...food for thought.

[agnesmontague]

buddy daddies theory: rei's mission

gonna drop this into the main tag before any canon can nerf me but i had the theory in the group chat earlier that rei has been on an undercover mission this entire time to keep tabs on kazuki, and miri has been an unforeseen factor in his plan

we don't know how or why kazuki came to live with rei; presumably this happened after his wife died, but who set him up to live with rei, and why? were they partners before the wife's death, or did they only come to know each other afterwards? until we get more solid answers to these questions i had the idea that someone sent kazuki to live with rei--the rich boy, the son of the boss--because rei was tasked with keeping an eye on kazuki for whatever reason.

there are small indications throughout the show that rei really doesn't know much about kazuki at all; this goes both ways, as shown in the "i won't ask." "i wouldn't tell." conversation, but rei always is shown to react whenever kazuki reveals info about himself:

[ep 4]

[ep 6]

i think it's very likely that rei is collecting some kind of intel on kazuki as he goes, possibly to report back to headquarters, which would be ironic considering getting intimate with his marks to get info is exactly what we see kazuki doing in ep 1.

this is also why i don't think these two had known each other or even met until after kazuki's wife passed away. they don't give the impression of having worked together for a long time, or at least, they have known each other just long enough to work up a rapport but not enough to actually talk about themselves. which is fascinating considering how much of a married couple they seem to be already, but that's another topic for another day...

another thing i've seen pointed out is that rei doesn't seem too happy at the end of ep6 despite witnessing miri and kazuki being all sweet and lovey-dovey together:

this could just be a humorous moment--kazuki's overreacting again, or rei also wants to be miri's favorite dad and is jealous--but it's been speculated that rei could also be going through some complex emotions here: it was never supposed to become this complicated. starting a family was never really in the cards for him, but rei is an inveterate collector of strays and got attached to miri just as quickly as kazuki did. and now here we are.

finally, this would serve to rather neatly explain why rei's father's organization seems to be "calling rei back" in the 3rd trailer:

my running theory is that kazuki and rei were both part of the same organization, but kazuki did something to "betray" or otherwise run counter to the org's principles, thus getting his wife killed. this killing was his "warning", after which he would have come to meet rei:

now, if rei isn't careful with his newfound family, the organization would target them as well. it would be rei this time who would be getting the "warning", if he got too attached to miri and/or kazuki, who was meant to be his mark all along.

truth be told i'm still not 100% on the pulse of where PA Works seems to be going with these two; we really have no idea how much they want to focus on kazuki and rei as a duo (not even necessarily as a romantic ship, but as a team) as opposed to them naturally just becoming parents to miri. but here's hoping that they've got something juicy in store.

[idolatrybarbie]

main masterlist | series masterlist | read on ao3

pairings: francisco "frankie" morales x f!reader, marcus pike & f!reader

word count: 5.4k

rating & summary: mature - 18+ only! | Francisco didn’t seem to like you very much. Maybe it was the direct approach you took—not everybody loves being confronted with allegations of terrorism. Or maybe it’s just you.

tags: angst, dark themes, the United States government comes with its own warning, emotional abuse, toxic friendship dynamics, misogyny, grief, discussed past violence.

You wake in a pool of your own sweat. The alarm clock next to you says it’s two o’clock in the morning despite unruly sun shining in through the curtains. Someone has taken a power drill to the soft spot between your temple and left ear. Your skull throbs, throat dry as bone. It takes a moment, cheek squished into the pillow, for you to remember where you are. The blackout curtains of your shoe box apartment would never let the sun in to wake you; hell, there is no sun in New York in the first place.

The memories come in an quick onslaught. Brief flashes of the past two days flit through your mind: D.C. and the White House. Marcus’ intern. All of those flight logs. The shitty little town of Lubbock, Texas.

Looking for a sign? This is it!

Everything clicks. Your curtains wouldn’t dare let a sliver of UV rays pass through the glass of any window, but these aren’t your curtains. This isn’t your apartment and this is not New York. This is a motel—another one—in the unincorporated township of Posey. The Palm Tree Lodge, or something to that affect. Dirty, cheap. You’d managed to haggle the front desk manager into letting you book per night instead of their usual by the hour.

You could go home. Francisco Morales made it clear that he does not want to speak to you. You should go home. Tuck tail and drive to your parents’ place, confess your sins and have them console or confront you. You should call Marcus and tell him you’ve failed. 

Ultimately, you don’t do any of these things. After a long shower, you get in the two-hundred-dollar-a-day truck you’re renting and drive back to where you know Morales lives. It’s faster from the motel than the airport. Pushing the engine and speeding down back roads, you make the drive in twenty minutes. When you pull up to the trailer again, you realize that he’s not there. The truck with the half-crumpled grill isn’t parked out back. No one answers the door when you knock, no signs of life past the old blinds covering every window. Francisco is gone—for the day or forever, you don’t know.

You should be in a cushy Washington hotel room paid for by the company card, writing up story notes to send back to the Post this afternoon. Really, you should be anywhere but here. And yet here you are. You decide, plopping your ass down on the shaded steps up to the trailer’s door, that here is where you’ll stay. He’ll either come back or he won’t. For this, you’ve got the time to wait.

Francisco didn’t seem to like you very much. Maybe it was the direct approach you took—not everybody loves being confronted with allegations of terrorism. Or maybe it’s just you.

Begrudgingly, Mr. Morales let you in.

“What do you think you’re doing, showing up here?” he’d asked.

You couldn’t help but scoff. “Trying to help you. If you’d just let me explain.”

“I’m gonna need you to explain how you found me in the first place,” Francisco said.

“Mr. Morales, I understand that you want your privacy—”

“I don’t think you do. If you did, you wouldn’t show up here talking about… What? Extradition? The U.S. government? All this bullshit?”

“Respectfully sir, none of this is bullshit,” you said. “This is very real. This is serious.”

“If the government wants to come arrest me, they can do it themselves. They don’t have to hire some hussy to lure me out first,” he said.

“Excuse me? Is that what you think this is?” you asked.

“Tell me you’re not wearing a wire,” Francisco said.

“I’m not, Mr. Morales. I came here to help you, if you would listen to me. For the third time.”

He remains standing near the door, ready to see you out. He doesn’t believe you.

“Oh for fuck’s sake—” You started picking at the buttons along the front of your shirt. Sleeves rolled to the elbow, you huffed as the fabric fell open, revealing skin as you went. Clavicle, chest, then bra…but no wire to be seen.

Francisco stared at you, brain seemingly catching up with his eyes. You rolled yours, up to the ceiling and back down again.

“You believe me now?” you asked.

He only shook his head. “No.”

Maybe it’s a bit of both.

The weather is boiling once again. The shade that covers two-thirds of your body does nothing to mitigate the humidity. The collar of your shirt sticks to your skin, the grey fabric damp with sweat. It’s comfortable, the oldest item of clothing you still own. Your first big girl purchase after moving out of the house. The Rice University crest has faded with washing and time, the bottom hem threadbare, but you hold onto it. The shirt has too many memories attached to throw it away.

Rice is where you met Marcus. After declining offers from Northwestern and Duke, you showed up on campus totally lost. You thought staying in-state would minimize the lifestyle whiplash, but Houston was a world away from the town you once called home. Marcus had found you, kind of like finding a box of puppies abandoned in the rain. He befriended you and showed you the ropes of adulthood, already a junior in your freshman year.

When he moved three hours away to pursue law at Baylor, your world changed. Marcus said he would visit as much as possible, making good on the promise. Every long weekend, stat holiday, and sometimes just because, his ‘93 Honda Accord would pull up outside your pack rat apartment. He guided you when your parents couldn’t, never having gone to college themselves. He was there when no one else was. When he didn’t have to be. You’ve owed him a lot longer than you realized.

That’s where the unending trust in your relationship comes from. Marcus is good. He’s always had you. Why would that change now?

Something has changed, though. You can feel it. Could feel it on the phone that first time months ago, his voice a little too smooth; lines rehearsed.

Time goes hand-in-hand with change. It’s no shock that Marcus is a little different than you remember. But between the cold shoulder and the subtle manipulation, it doesn’t sit quite right. You’ve started waiting for the other shoe to drop—something you’ve never felt in this friendship before. Locked in a staring contest, the two of you seem to be waiting each other out.

You hope you’re wrong. You hope you blink first. You’re scared of what you will see if you don’t.

The burst of an exhaust pipe rips you from sun-addled daydreams. Eyes open, you watch as a familiar blue pickup pulls in next to yours. Francisco Morales flies out of the vehicle, stalking over. You stand from your place in front of his trailer.

“The hell do you think you’re doing here?” he asks, pointing a finger in front of your face.

“Sunbathing,” you deadpan. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“I told you to get lost.” He makes his way back to his vehicle, pulling a toolbox out of the truck bed.

“And lost I am, Mr. Morales,” you say to the open air. “Lost on why you won’t let me help you.”

“You think your funny,” Francisco says, toolbox swinging by his side.

He bypasses you at his steps, walking up to the door. He shoves a hand in his back pocket, keys jingling when he pulls them out. Seeing an opportunity, you take it, rushing up with tinny footsteps to grab them from his fingers. Francisco spins on his heel, trying to crowd you against nothing as you step away.

“Give those back. Right now.”

You eye the toolbox held in his grasp, the way his fingers flex tight around the handle. He’s resisting an urge that, given his military training, must be hardwired.

“Or what? You going to bash my brains in?” you ask. “I’m trying to keep you out of prison but if you want in so bad, go ahead.”

The muscles in his jaw tense. The toolbox falls to the dirt and gravel with a clatter, tools spilling out on the ground. Francisco says, “You have thirty seconds.”

“I’ve obtained documents—federal U.S. documents—that detail your upcoming indictment and potential extradition to Colombia, Mr. Morales. Whatever you may or may not have done, the government is convinced that you’re guilty. They’re set to hang you. All of you. I’m trying to make sure that doesn’t happen. Please. Let me help you. Let me do the right thing.” Seven seconds to spare.

Francisco’s face is stone, unreadable as he stares at you. With the sun behind him, you see the contrasting light and dark browns in strands of his hair. This man can’t go to prison if only for the fact that he’s too pretty. Still, he seems stubborn as a mule. When he opens his mouth to speak, you brace yourself for another rejection.

“It’s Frankie,” he says.

You blink at him. “Pardon?”

“Not Mr. Morales. Call me Frankie.”

“Frankie, is that a yes?” you ask.

He looks at his shoes, worn and muddy, then back at you. “Yes.”

“Okay, so—”

“Come back this time tomorrow,” Frankie says.

“Are you serious?”

“You wanna help me? Do the right thing?” he asks sarcastically. “Come back tomorrow.”

Then he steps forward, taking his keys from you before turning towards the door. Frankie walks up the steps, turns the key in the lock and disappears into the trailer. You stare at his door for a moment longer, sighing to yourself. You let yourself float back to the car, functioning on autopilot as you hold the steering wheel and drive back to the motel.

Limbs heavy with sunshine, you roll into bed. Part of you wants to call Marcus and gush about the success. You want to hear him tell you that you did a good job. That you’re good, just like him. Something holds you back from reaching for the phone. The sense that he could dismiss you; stay toeing the company line as he tells you that he can’t discuss this on a call.

No, it doesn’t quite feel that way. Disappointment doesn’t catch in your throat as you stare at his contact on your screen. A kernel of something else has lodged itself in your gut, throwing everything off. It’s an overreaction, surely…but you can’t shake the feeling.

You drift in and out of sleep. Strange dreams dance behind your eyelids between intermittent hours of pausing black. Nothing is discernible from anything else, all of it blending into one mess. Your heart pounds when you sit up next, eyes wide in the dark. Deep breaths calm your body, bringing your heartbeat back to something within the territory of normal. You can’t shake the adrenaline coursing through your veins, hands clenched tight at your sides.

You haven’t felt anything that strongly since the arrest. Six years ago, in the events before the courthouse and the lawyer: a federal officer holding you at gunpoint, your own weapons a cup of coffee and a very incriminating file folder; getting on your knees outside of a yoga studio—or was it a convenience store? You can’t quite remember. The memory has been dissected and rearranged too many times for proper examination.

Ever since, you have never been alone again. At first it was real, the ankle monitor on your left side winking at you every so often. The device was constant reminder that you were always being watched. Supervised release, they called it. Reporting to your federal probation officer, you were ordered to never step foot outside of Kendall County for the next two years. No alcohol, recreational substances, or access to any type of computers. Apparently, supposedly committing treason by accessing a government database meant you couldn’t text anyone for the rest of your days.

It certainly felt like your life would end there. Two years. 730 days that never got easier. The looks of shame from your mom started to subside around day 457. Dad was easier to come around, figuring you needed someone in your corner. He helped you get a job working at the local library, completely analog in their systems. The two of you traded off the duties of cooking every week.

The first person you called when it was over was Marcus. Of course. Your best friend, the man who saved you. He had to be the first call.

Despite all odds, he’d answered. You’ve never cried so hard. All you could do was thank him over and over. Between the tears, he managed to tell you about Teresa Lisbon.

You never really saw him as you pieced your life back together, but it always felt like he was there. The position at the library evolved into a spot at the Boerne Star, then at the KSAT station as a scriptwriter. Phone calls were few and far between with Marcus Pike. He was busy in Houston catching forgers and thieves. It always puzzled you, the art obsession. You remembered Marcus in school. He’d wanted to change the world. But this must have been his way of doing that. 

When you told him that you were taking a job in New York, he sounded so…disappointed. There was no other way to put it. You thought he would be proud. After life spun out of your control, you had finally managed to make it somewhere. But his words were placating, trying to conceal the let down with the usual script of excitement. You hung up the phone before Marcus could finish saying goodbye.

Nothing bad has to happen these days for you to lose touch with someone. Maybe that was a lie.

Even with Marcus’ absence in your life, you could never shake the sense of being watched. You figured that was a result of the probation. Once you come to accept those kinds of conditions, they never leave. Even if no one else is watching, you certainly are. Right now, you’re waiting on the moment that you catch yourself.

The Lodge and the room you’re staying in can only be described with the word grime. You can feel the filth on your hands that isn’t visible to the naked eye. The back of the sink is coated in a thin layer of dust each morning, regardless of the toilet paper wipe-down you give it. The only saving grace is the shower; a constant, even-pressured flow of temperate water to take your mind off the past and present.

You should be thinking about Francisco—Frankie. What you’re even doing out here. After months of fishing, you have finally caught him. The question is, what are you going to do with the man they call Catfish?

Ultimately, you start with what you do best: asking questions. But when you get to his place and he lets you in, willingly this time, he can’t seem to answer even the first one.

“Frankie, it’s a simple question. Are you innocent?” you ask him again.

The man meets you with uncomfortable silence, foot tapping lightly against the peeling floor.

“This is the part where you say yes.”

He simply hums, giving you a sniff of his nose. Frankie’s lips stay shut.

“You need to answer the questions if I’m going to help you,” you say, this side of exasperated. The two of you have been sat here for twenty minutes, semi-silently going back and forth over this one question. You have no clue how he’s going to manage the entire list you have prepared.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” he finally says.

“Yes or no,” you say. “And the answer’s yes…” Frankie’s jaw twitches as he clenches his teeth. A tell. “The answer is yes, right?”

Another sniffle. You sigh. Clearly this is going nowhere.

“Okay, let’s try a different question. When did you meet Will Miller?”

“No.”

“How am I—” You stop yourself, hearing the strong tone as words burst forth. Pause, readjust. Restart. “How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know anything?”

Frankie sucks his teeth. “There’s a lot I can’t tell you.”

“Then what am I doing here?”

“You tell me,” he says.

“Why do you want me here?” you ask. Frankie meets your gaze before glancing away, the corner of his left eye twitching.

There it is. His body betrays him with each question you ask, bit by bit. He wants you here. Something has led him to allowing you in this space, to let you take up his wasted time.

“Tell me about yourself.” It’s not a question. Men like this, like Frankie, don’t respond to questions. They follow orders and meet demands.

“I’m fourty-two. Five foot eleven, 210 pounds. I like long walks on the beach and candle-lit dinners, and—”

You stand from your seat at his crappy dinner table.

“Shit, wait. Okay,” Frankie says. You don’t look at him, organizing your notes to slip them back into your purse. “I said okay.”

“You’re done with the bullshit games, then?” you ask.

Frankie sighs silently, his chest caving in slightly.

“We grew up in Raymondville. Poorest family on the block, not that that’s sayin’ much. My mother, me, and my little brother. She worked nights as an attendant at the Valley View Inn. Sometimes she’d come home with those, uh…the hotcakes from McDonald’s. You knew it was gonna be a good day when Mom came home with breakfast. My brother always asked her where they got those tiny pads of butter—if they kept hundreds of little containers in the back, like the big tub of margarine we had in the fridge. And she’d always say, descuida, mis pollitos.” Frankie swallows. “Anyway. She’s dead, so.”

Jesus. It really is all or nothing with him.

You say, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It’s fine. You know, people die,” he says. “Cancer, by the way.”

“Huh?”

“That’s how she died. I figured you might ask. They said they found it a little too late.”

You don’t know what else to say. There’s something plain and aching on his face, an open window to all the hurt Frankie holds over this. It makes you feel bad. Terrible, really. Your mind hitches to the track of what could have been done to make this better. Who could’ve stepped in? Who could have saved this family?

It’s exactly what you want. What you need. This right here? This pain, spun the right way, might just save his life. His buddies too, if they’re lucky. You pretend to scribble something down, clearing your throat before moving onto the next question.

You leave shortly after that, getting through twelve of the fifty questions. Crude notes on his childhood, family life, and a few answers dipping into his time in the military litter your notepad. The experience isn’t exactly Frankie opening up. You’re prying him apart, bit by bit. There’s no guarantee of a pearl waiting for you when everything is said and done; you don’t even know when that will be.

Back at the motel after a criminally long shower, you lie awake in bed. Sleep won’t come no matter how hard you try. At this point, you’ve given up.

Something isn’t sitting quite right. The refusal to spare you even a word, then sliding right into a deeply personal admission is…strange. That’s not how people work. Well, normal people. You’ve known for a while now that these men are not exactly the most well-adjusted folks. Replaying the day in your head, the interaction puzzles you.

You dial Marcus despite your better judgement. He answers on the fourth ring.

“How do you know if someone’s guilty?”

“Jesus,” he says, voice thick with sleep. You hear shuffling on the other end. “It’s four o’clock in the morning.”

“What about it?”

“A little early, don’t you think?” Marcus asks.

“Think of it as returning the favour,” you say. Then, “So, how do you?”

“How do you what?”

You sigh, frustrated, ready to hang up already. “In your line of work as a professional narc—how do you, Marcus Pike, know when a suspect is guilty?”

“My gut.”

“Oh, come on,” you sigh.

“I’m serious,” Marcus says.

“So they teach bowel movements at the academy? Makes a lot of sense, actually.”

“Very funny. I don’t know, uh…usually you’ve got evidence against them.”

“Let’s say it’s circumstantial. Or you don’t know what it is,” you say.

“Like, it’s classified?” Marcus asks. For a moment, all you can hear is his breathing. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing, just ans—”

“Is this about…” he trails off, dodging the unintentional self-incrimination attempt. “Is this about that thing from breakfast?”

“Answer the question,” you say.

“You first.”

“Marcus.”

“If you’re going in blind, you want to observe the behaviour of the suspect. If they’re dodging questions, how they react to pertinent details or things tangentially related to the crime they’re suspected of.”

“What about…manipulation?”

“We see it all the time. Trying to appeal to your better nature, justifying the crimes without directly linking themselves,” Marcus says.

“And?”

“Telling you what you want to hear. Sometimes guys will answer one half of the question but not the other, or something to that effect. A smaller sacrifice to keep the bigger deal under wraps.”

Shit.

“Are you okay?” Marcus asks.

You didn’t realize you mumbled that out loud. “Fine. Sorry to bug you so early.”

“Wait, wait. Hold on. Seriously. Is this about that pilot?”

“I thought—”

“Don’t worry about it. Just answer the question,” he says.

“There’s something off. I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it,” you tell him.

Marcus sighs. “Want me to look into it?”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” you say.

“You’re not. Consider it done. I’ll let you know if there’s anything later on. Alright?”

You’ve missed this. Missed him. Marcus who helps you, protects you, uplifts you. The one guy who can always get you out of a jam; always has a solution. All of your uncertainty melts away at his question. Marcus is your best friend. He loves you.

“Alright.”

When you pull up to Frankie’s place again, he’s waiting on you. His works boots are scuffed with mud, a shiner bluer than the moon gracing the skin around his right eye. Getting out of your truck, you try to school any look of worry off your face. A neutral mask takes the place where gaping concern should be as you greet him with a quick hello.

“You wanna come in then?” he asks, shielding his face from the sun.

You follow him inside, setting your purse down and pulling out your notepad once again. Frankie hasn’t sat at the table with you quite yet. He stands at his fridge, fishing something out. He comes away from the tall appliance with a clear plastic pitcher of something liquid, vaguely foggy yellow.

“Would you like something to drink?”

Looking up from your notes, you pause to stare at him. It’s the first nice thing he’s done so far in this…working relationship. It takes a moment for your mouth to catch up to your brain.

“Uh, sure,” you say dumbly.

He pours out two mugs of something, both emblazoned with a fiery racing logo. Walking closer to you, he hands you the taller one. You take it with both hands, fingers clutching the ceramic like it’s some sort of precious artifact. Sipping slowly, the drink washes sugar onto your tongue, followed by a wave of mild tang. Lemonade.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Frankie says.

“So I figured we would start where we left off,” you say.

A beat passes where neither of you speak. Then Frankie says, “Can I ask you a question?”

Narrowing your eyes, you say, “Shoot.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Why are you trying to help me?” he asks. “Most people look at the things I’ve supposedly done, and then they look at me. Doesn’t usually end up that they feel like helpin’ out.”

“I’m not like most people,” you say.

“That’s pretty clear,” Frankie says.

This moment of whatever ends at that. You delve back into your list of softball questions, writing down brief notes on his answers. Anything here could be good to mine for an article. Background on his family, the shallow waters you’ve broached about the service.

You ask, “What’s life like now?”

Frankie seems to almost flinch, giving you a bit of a double take. “Life now?” he repeats.

“Yeah. What’s the day-to-day of Francisco Morales?”

“Get up around four—except for the days you’re coming around. Shit, shave, brush my teeth. Uh…I usually get to work at six, get off at eight.”

“So it’s dark when you leave and dusk when you get home?” you ask.

Frankie hums, considering this. “Yeah, I guess so.”

You write that down, eyebrows pinching as you swallow down the gloom that rises in your throat. From what you have so far, even if he was guilty, a part of you can’t really blame him. The hand he’s been dealt is dog shit. All those things he’s done for this country, supposedly so great, and this is the life he has to show for it?

For any other profession, being such an expert in his field would have awarded him a comfortable existence. A nice house in some plain, cushy suburb. Two-point-five kids and a dog, a wife. Maybe a divorce, considering his general demeanour, but still. He deserved that life. He deserved a choice. From what you’ve pieced together, it wasn’t an option. Not sustainably.

Finally, you can’t help yourself. “Can I ask what happened to your eye?”

“It’s nothing,” he shrugs. “Little altercation with the neighbour. It won’t be happening again.”

Looking out his side window, you’re only now noticing the lack of the dainty little RV that’s usually parked a few spots away. The body was striped pink and green, faded with sunshine and age. It reminded you of a grandmother’s doily, especially in contrast to the mired trailer of Frankie’s that sat so close by. You can’t imagine anyone living in that thing to have wanted to hurt a fly.

“You get into it with granny over her shortbread recipe?” you ask, laughing lightly.

“The granny’s punkass grandson, actually,” Frankie informs you. “Said some stupid shit. Had no idea what he was talking about, so I set him straight.”

You hum. “Right.”

“If you don’t like my way of doing things, you can leave,” he says, motioning to the door.

The tonal shift gives you whiplash. “I didn’t—” you stop yourself as your phone buzzes, pulling your attention away from him. You slip it off the table, quickly reading the notification.

A message from Marcus. Call me ASAP.

You look up at Frankie again. He’s watching you expectantly.

“Well?” he asks.

“Clearly you’re upset,” you say. “Maybe I should come back another day.”

You’re confused and, you hate to admit, a little hurt. Just when you start to see some progress here, Frankie rips it away. Quietly, you pack up your things and turn to leave. You’re waiting for that sudden epiphany, that movie star moment when he’s supposed to realize what an ass he is and hastily apologize. It doesn’t come, and you let the screen door slam shut behind you.

Standing by the door to the truck, you call Marcus.

“Hey, what’s up?” you ask.

“I found some new information,” he says.

“Alright. Anything good?”

“Where are you right now?”

“Just leaving the Morales place.” You pull open the driver’s side door, tossing your purse into the passenger seat. “What’d you find?”

“You should get out of there first,” Marcus says.

“Just tell me, god. The suspense is killer.”

He says your name, snapping you out of your lackadaisical daydream. “He’s guilty.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve got security camera images from the drug lord that they supposedly shot and robbed. They’re all here. All five of ‘em.”

You freeze. “You're sure?"

"Certain."

"How could I have missed this?” you ask.

“You didn’t miss anything. Highly classified. I’m even breaking a few too many rules for the department’s liking right now looking at it myself,” Marcus says. “They buried the good stuff, kid. I’m assuming so they had it in their arsenal should this thing go to trial. To stop fuckers like us from doing what we’re trying to do.”

“And what is that exactly?”

Your whole world comes crashing down in one phone call. How sad.

“Don’t beat yourself up about it. You thought you were doing the right thing,” he says. “Just…get out of there. Come home.”

Home. That sounds like exactly what you need, ego bruised and hope shattered. All of this work, and for what? Another mistake. You’re still the same fuck up you’ve always been.

“Hey!” you hear a deep voice call from behind you. Turning, you watch Frankie descend from the porch of his trailer, holding something.

“What was that?” Marcus’ voice seems so out of place here.

“I’ll call you back,” you mumble into the speaker.

Hanging up before Pike can get another word in, Frankie’s walking up to you now.

“You forgot this,” he says, presenting you with a pen.

“Thanks.” You pluck it from between his fingers, manner cool and reserved.

“Look, I’m sorry. I need to stop doing that,” Frankie says. Here comes the movie moment. “D’you wanna come back inside?”

Here, you’re at a crossroads. Two paths lay before you, distinctly forked down the middle. Go to Marcus… Or stay with Frankie.

There’s that familiar warmth that doesn’t seem to always welcome you anymore, but when he does, it’s a refuge from everything else. But when it’s cold, it’s freezing—Marcus can ice you out oh-so-easily these days. Then Frankie, an uncertain tiptoe around a test of rusty nails. On the other side is a sweetness that you’ve only seem a glimpse of, a sadness you can feel in your chest. Something tells you that’s a rabbit hole you’re never leaving if you decide to drop down.

The decision is unfortunately yours. You hope Marcus can forgive you.

You slam the truck door shut with your elbow. Pointing the tip of the pen at Frankie, you stare him down. “You have to stop being such an ass. It’s not doing you any favours.”

That manages to pull a laugh out of him, breathy and garbled in its tired reluctance. He looks like a man who hasn’t laughed in a long time.

Back inside his crowded home, you bypass the chair and sit right on the edge of the table. Feet dangling, you set your purse down where your seat usually is.

"I've got a question for you," you say.

"Isn't that your job? You've got about a million of 'em," Frankie says.

Ignoring the dig, you press on. "You did it, right?”

"Excuse me?"

"What they say you did. The heist, the money, the murder. That all happened?" you ask further.

Frankie looks away, jaw clenching under muscle. He'll need to work on his poker face. "You saw the files, surveillance photos. You know what it says."

"If you think I'm the type to blindly trust the United States government, you are sorely mistaken," you say. "The files say one thing—they tell one narrative, give me certain thoughts. I wanna hear it from you."

That seems to pique his interest. "Certain thoughts...such as?"

You kill his line of questioning as quickly as it blooms. "It doesn't matter what I think. What matters is if you're guilty. So I'll ask again: did you do it?"

You know he did. Hell, in all likelihood, he knows that you know. This is a test. A simple regimen of pass or fail to see if you should even keep going with this.

"Yes," Frankie says. He doesn't look at you, almost like he can't. The word falls from his mouth like a tooth on a string; you've slammed the door shut and yanked it from him.

"Good," you say. He raises an eyebrow. "Getting you to admit it now will be easier to maneuver in the story. And in court."

"I don't understand."

"If you're going to prison, it should be here," you say. "Not because you deserve it. But because over there, you’ll die." 

[farmerlarrry]

Orange Slices (Joel Miller x f!reader)

masterlist | chapter eleven | chapter ten | read on ao3 | playlist

story summary: A story about finding companionship and love in the midst of chaos.

a/n:  Another fun chapter to write lol. Also, I really don't know anything about horses (or riding horses) and tried to do research to the best of my ability, so if anything is inaccurate, I apologize!

word count: 5829

if you want to be notified when I post new chapters, follow @farmerlarrrylibrary and put on notifications! If you'd rather be tagged, just let me know.

Chapter Twelve

The moment your brain processes what came out of James’ mouth, Joel is back, you start shoveling everything back into your backpack: your journal, the book you bought with you, the water canteen, everything that found its way out of your bag. As you’re frantically wrapping up what’s left of your sandwich, it slips out of the paper wrapping and falls to the ground; the top piece of bread tumbles a few feet away from the rest and the one thinly sliced tomato is now covered in dirt and small rocks. At this moment, you couldn’t care less, not even giving it a second thought and leaving it there for the birds and animals to have at it. As soon as you have everything in order, you’re flying down the rugged path, your legs moving faster than you thought possible. Strands of hair keep finding their way in your mouth and you have put your arms out in front of you to shield your face from the overgrown bushes and trees. On a handful of occasions, you nearly slip on the loose gravel, sending a shock of adrenaline shooting through your veins.

When you get to the barn, Lucky seems to be overwhelmed by your erratic behavior, she softly neighs in suspicion, carefully watching you as you frantically untie her reins from the rotting wood post. The worn leather fumbles under your thumbs, causing you to become slightly frustrated at how slow it was taking. As soon as you mount her, she breaks out into full speed, taking you back toward the main gates without any sort of direction coming from you. The wind is cold on your face, you can feel the tip of your nose become raw due to wind burn. A small group of four guards are very slowly making their way back to the community, presumably coming back from the dam. Lucky rushes past, causing them to turn their heads at you. Where’d she come from, you hear one of them say.

Lucky is still at a sprint as she comes up to the gates. The moment your weight shifts onto one stirrup as you begin to demount her, she hastily slows down, letting you drop to the ground without falling. You’re holding onto her reins tightly, you can feel the palm of your hand begin to perspiration as you scan the entrance with tunnel vision, completely ignoring the guards approaching you.

“Can you…” You don’t finish your sentence as you hand her off to one of the guards, looking past them into the community. Oh, I guess, okay… you hear them mumble under their breath, their tone sounding seemingly confused, but not entirely put off by your request. Wiping your palms on the bottom of your thin thermal long sleeve, you continue searching for Joel. An intense feeling of anticipation and worry rises in your chest, almost catching you off guard. Would they have taken him to the infirmary? The thought suddenly occurs to you. Whoever called it in said there was one survivor, not specifying what physical state they were in. You come to a dead stop, spinning slowly around in a circle, your eyes shifting from one side to the other as you turn. Joel is nowhere in sight. 

In the corner of your eye, you see the door to the guard trailer swing open. Nora is slowly walking out with her head down, distracted by her clipboard; she's scribbling something onto the piece of paper, her face is screwed tight as she concentrates. She definitely knows where he’s at, you think, immediately sending your body into action, charging toward her as she turns her back toward you. 

“Joel’s back?” You grab Nora by her shoulder as soon as you’re within an arm’s reach, pressing your fingertips firmly into her. She swiftly turns around on one heel looking you up and down with an insulted expression and holding her clipboard in front of her as if it were a shield. Nora doesn’t say anything initially, just glaring at you in return. “ Where is he? ”

“Who said he–” She looks around her, keeping her eyes narrowed and her voice hushed, seemingly not wanting anyone to overhear. Of course they would want to keep this on the downlow , you think. 

“Don’t fuck with me, Nora,” You cut her off, not attempting to keep the volume of your voice down. You’re in no the mood to play anyone’s childish games today. “I heard James on the radio.”

Her chest expands outward as she deeply sucks in some air through her teeth, her eyes shifting upward in annoyance.

“You’re not supposed to be on that channel,” She monotonously responds, hardening her expression. Her fingertips turn white under her first grasp on the clipboard. You give her a challenging look, not giving up on your mission to find Joel. She eventually gives up, rolling her eyes and pointing in the direction of the trailer. “ Whatever… he’s in there. By the way, James knows you–”

You promptly push past her, nearly sending her to the ground. Hey, what the fuck, you can hear her call after you with hostility in her words, but in the moment you don’t care. You just want to see Joel and have the reassurance that he’s okay.

The door isn’t completely latched when you reach for the pull handle, allowing you to enter the trailer unnoticed; the door lets out a quiet, barely audible squeak as you ease it back closed with one of your hands. Joel is standing at the edge of one of the countertops in the back half of the trailer, leaning his hip against the edge. The trailer had been completely stripped bare and remodeled by Tommy into a command center for the higher up guards once Jackson became more of an established community. Beside the cabinetry, there were a few narrow tables and cushioned benches lining the wall up. 

Joel is distracted, completely occupied by something, probably a map of some sort, on the counter. From this angle you can see that he’s slowly dragging his finger along it. For a short moment, you take advantage of him not knowing you're there; staring at him, unable to breathe. It’d be really fucked up if I woke up right now, you think. The way this happened– it feels just like one of your many dreams you had about his return.

“You’re back,” You finally bring yourself to say something, your voice coming as a surprise even to yourself. Joel’s head shoots in the direction of your voice, his eyes undeniably full of remorse and almost a hint of relief the second he sees it’s you. 

He abandons what he had been looking at, turning around to face you completely; leaning back, he places his palms flat down on the counter, curling his fingers around the edge. You notice his swollen, freshly bruised knuckles turn white, blood pooling in his fingertips. Once the initial realization dissipates, he straightens himself up and brings his hands in front of him, adjusting his cracked watch. Your eyes move downward, now taking notice of the crimson blood mixed with dirt on the top of them, expanding up his arms. Whatever happened out there must’ve been bad, but he seems okay; upright, breathing, you think, a sense of relief overtaking your worry. 

“I had some… loose ends I needed to tie up,” He responds softly, almost too carefully. You dart your eyes back up to his face, the gash above his eyebrow now stands out, along with a busted lip. He’s very obviously avoiding any eye contact with you. His lips are slightly parted, making it evident he doesn’t know what else to say.

In response, you slightly nod at his bullshit answer, pursing your lips and raising your eyebrows at him. You let some air inaudibly escape past your lips, dragging your finger along the surface of one of the tables. His muscles tense up as you walk closer to him, though he remains still. You stop when there's only a few feet separating the two of you, looking up at him with wide eyes. His throat bobs as he finally brings himself to match your gaze.

“For a year?” Your words come out as a painful croak, your throat starting to itch and burn. “It took you a year to wrap things up? What does that even mean?” 

He brings his hand up to your collar, fixing it back into its proper position; running the tattered edge between his fingers before letting his hand drop to his side, bringing his dark, heavy eyes back up to meet yours. Joel looks a lot more worn down since you last saw him, it would be alarming under any other circumstance. His worry lines have become deeper, his eyes hold a deeper sense of sadness and dissatisfaction; you didn’t think that was even possible. Your emotions quickly take over your rational thought, and you don’t think before you speak.

“You didn’t even say goodbye… to Tommy, or… to—“ You press further, wanting answers from him, but not knowing where to even begin. He redirects his eyes to the floor, taking his bottom lip in between his teeth and lightly gnawing on it. You continue to carefully watch him, attentive enough to catch any change in his microexpressions. You’ve learned, at least with him, those are more telling than words would ever convey. Joel clears his throat, his shoulders raised in discomfort. 

Taking another small step closer, you bring your hand up to his chin, turning his face so you can see the deep cut just above his eyebrow a bit better; semi-dried blood clings to his eyelid and his cheek. Joel’s jaw tenses up the longer you look, shifting his weight underneath him. He gently grabs your wrist, that familiar roughness of his palm rubbing against your skin. 

“You do patrol now?” He changes the subject, slowly pulling your hand away from his face. Joel takes a few steps to the side to create more distance between you and him.

“Yeah, after you left, I too-” You start to say, but the sound of the door aggressively banging up against the metal exterior of the trails makes you stop mid sentence and look over your shoulder. James enters the trailer. He has a tight grip on his gun which is slung over his shoulder and his hair is messily tousled. Of fucking course, the thought pops into your mind the moment see it’s him . You quickly roll your eyes, turning your body completely to face him. Tommy shortly follows behind him, the door snapping shut. 

“Yeah, I showed her how to do things properly ,” James interrupts, his eyes narrowing in Joel’s direction. You can see the muscles in his jaw tense up. 

You turn your head toward Joel, who does the same, and you give him a shy smile. Joel lets outs a small awkward laugh, slowly nodding his low hanging head; only lifting it when Tommy clears his throat.

“ Joel, ” Tommy says tightlipped, approaching Joel. You take a few steps back, pushing yourself up against the side to make room. “You know the drill by now, gotta go see Maria ‘n talk.” 

“No welcome train for me this time?” Joel says darkly. Tommy doesn’t react, still staring at Joel stone faced.

“You comin’ too?” Tommy half turns and directs towards James.

“I’ll catch up in a minute,” He responds, his voice is uptight sounding, tension is thick in the tone. Fuck, you close your eyes, not wanting to deal with James right now.

Joel stiffly reaches across from you, grabbing his backpack which was sitting on the bench next to you; your eyes linger on each other as his arm brushes up against yours. The hair on your arm raises at the close proximity, you don’t want him to leave– not now. You try to control your breathing, knowing James is carefully watching you. Ever since the two of you have gotten closer , Joel has become an especially sore subject. Even the mention of his name in passing conversation can turn his mood sour in an instant. You know that deep down he knows what Joel means to you. You’ve never talked to him about it directly, but you’re sure the way you reacted when he left made it very apparent. With James being the only one there for you during that period of time, there’s no way he doesn’t have a tiny bit of an inkling.

The door to the trailer snaps shut once again, the latch still doesn’t latch, leaving a thin streak of sunlight beaming across the floor and walls. You can hear some of the guards talking outside, although not clear enough to hear what they’re saying. James backpedals, pulling on the handle more forcibly so it fully closes– the loud slam causes you to shudder– he then slowly walks over to you, his posture becoming more relaxed now that it’s just the two of you. An anxiousness unmistakably radiates off of him; his face is long, excessive worry exudes from his eyes. James takes a seat on one of the cushioned benches underneath one of the windows right next to where you’re standing and leans back, spreading his legs. 

“Where have you been?” His voice is soft, yet bitter as he speaks, his hands now clasped together laying in his lap. He sounds like your father when you’d miss curfew. You begin to chew on the inner flesh of your cheek, your cheeks becoming warm. “You were late, again might I add , and you never called in…” 

Your eyes widen. Fuck, I forgot, the realization hitting you like a truck You really were on one today, first with the dam and now not calling in. This only works if you keep your end of things up and running, no mistakes or minor slip ups. You force yourself to swallow the excess saliva that has built up in your mouth.

“I do my job, I—“ You stumble on your words, though you know nothing will be good enough of an excuse as to why you didn’t call in– not for James. It’s one of the first rules they teach you in training, and probably the most important rule of being a guard and doing patrol; always communicate, always call in, over communicating is better than under communicating. You can vividly hear Maria’s voice in your head.

“Well apparently not today,” He snaps back, the aggressiveness behind his words make you flinch. It hurts coming from him, even though you know it’s a well deserved scolding. James already puts his neck out enough for you as it is. “You’re lucky with how things turned out–”

“I’m sorry, it won’t happen again,” You match his tone which upsets him more.

“Sorry isn’t enough,” James instantly spits back, you can see the muscles in his neck tense up and red coming to the surface in both his cheeks.

“Why are you so fucking uptight right now,” You become defensive, grasping at anything that might make him think he’s in the wrong here.

“Why?” He says in disbelief. A line appears between his eyebrows as he cocks his head to one side. The way he’s looking at you is as if it should be obvious. “Probably because I fucking care about you… when they called in what happened at the dam, all I could think about was you and how you were supposed to be there today, and how you didn’t call in to clear it yet. You could’ve been dead for all I know.” 

You lower your head, understanding his concern and anger. A deep feeling of guilt and embarrassment resonates deep inside of you. 

“Maybe it’s not a good idea for you to go out by yourself anymore,” He adds, his voice now sounding threatening. 

“What? No , James,” You immediately shoot back. “It slipped my mind…I promise it was just a one time mistake, I–”

“It’s not just because of that. What happened at the dam– you shouldn’t be out there with no one to help you if something like this happens again. Despite what many people in the community think, there’s still so many dangers outside of these walls,” He says and you know he’s right. “Maria’s concerned as well, questioning my judgment now… Did you see anything when you were there?” 

“No, everything looked fine, like it hadn’t been touched since last time I was there, at least. I don’t know about the others who checked it after that,” You sound defeated, looking around as you try to recollect the details of your sweep; your eyes wander, running along the papers, notes from guards, and the countless maps with various markings all tacked up to the wall. Your mind is blank.

“It’s just, uh–” His voice goes dry, his throat bobbing as he forces himself to swallow. “When we swept it, it looked like they might’ve been staying there for a little bit… Well, someone was, at least. Behind one of the control centers, there were food cans, wrappers, nothing too telling but—“ 

You cock your head to the side, narrowing your eyes. Was I really that absentminded? You think, your chest begins to rapidly rise and fall as your breathing becomes heavier and deeper. James takes notice of your panic, and sits up from his slouched position. You look down at him, a heavy feeling of culpability hangs around you as he looks at you with wide eyes. 

“Listen, I’m not saying you can’t do patrol anymore… I– we don’t have to talk about this right now,” He says reassuringly. Silence follows as you gather your thoughts.

“Maybe, now that Joel’s back… maybe he can…” You test the idea quietly, letting your voice trail off and you look at James, watching his expression change into annoyance. He shakes his head, reaching out and grabbing your arm. You squirm out of his touch, shying away from him without thinking, causing him to roll his eyes. He shoots up from his sitting position, his quick movement makes you take a few steps backward until you're pressed up against the counter. His nose twitches as his eyes ignite with irritation. 

“ Okay , wow,” He scoffs, shaking his head in disbelief. “Now that he’s back, all of a sudden you don't want anything to do with me? I was gonna say I can start going out with you again now that we have more guards in command.” 

“What? No, it’s just–” You say, following with a short pause. “James, I missed something out on my watch– my watch– and it could’ve put the community at danger.”

“You sure it’s just that?” He cranks his head toward you, his eyes full of rage. “Not whatever Tommy and I just walked in on? You know people talk, Nora told me you came barreling in, looking for him. You know how many times the people at the radio tower told me you stopped by… askin’ if they heard anything from Joel?” 

“Oh, okay . You mean the same radio tower Aimee works at…who is notorious for stirring shit up just for the fun of it?” You lie straight through your teeth, slightly embarrassed he knows about that. James' expression quickly changes, melting under your anger. “And just to be clear, nothing was happening when you came in, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?” 

“I– I–” He stutters, his posture becoming weak. “I didn’t mean it like that… I– just–”

“Drop it then,” You spit at him, he cowers, nodding his head in defeat. A feeling of guilt washes over you the moment the words come out of your mouth.

James shifts his position on the bench, now resting his elbows on his knees and letting his head hang; his hair covers his face not allowing you to see it. You let out a heavy sigh, slowly taking the few steps it takes to get over to him. He lifts his head up slightly, looking at you through his brows and thin strands of hair blocking his sad eyes. Hesitantly, you position yourself between his legs, forcing him to sit up straight. James lifts his hands, wrapping them around the back of our thighs ever so slightly. You don’t move, the feeling of his hands running down your thighs give you goosebumps. 

“ I’m sorry, ” You say softly, moving his hair out of his face. “I just feel horrible about–”

“No one's gonna blame you for what happened at the dam, I'll be sure of that, okay?” He cuts you off. “What were you supposed to do? You didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, so…” 

You slightly nod your head. What he doesn’t know is that I barely even remember sweeping the dam, you think, your breathing becoming heavy. You mindless fuck.

“I should probably go,” He changes the subject, standing up so the two of you are nearly chest to chest. “Are we meeting at Charles’ tonight, or should I drop by your house to get you?”

He brings his hand up to the back of your neck, smoothly rubbing the pad of his thumb along your skin, waiting for you to respond. You bite down on the inner part of your bottom lip. The thought of being anywhere but either alone or with Joel sounds unappealing.

“N–Nessa and I… we actually have plans for tonight,” You say slowly, lying right through your teeth. He’s staring down at you with innocent eyes, ones that are hard to look directly into. “We haven’t had a lot of one on one time, so…” 

You let your voice trail off, your nose twitching as you think about what you just said. His lips curl upward into a smile.

“Maybe I can stop by later then,” He laces one arm around you, planting a soft kiss on your cheek before leaving. “Just let me know.”

You give him a quick nod. As soon as he leaves, you plop down in the spot he had just been sitting in and begin to zone out. Fuck, fuck, fuck, you softly mutter, bringing your hands up to your face.

–

The light in the kitchen is emitting a soft, dim glow, occasionally flickering. A low buzz stands out against the silence, matching the fuzzy feeling in your head. You sit slouched at the kitchen table, resting your elbows on the table with your arms extended outward. The guilt you’re feeling is sitting heavy in your chest; the guilt from how relieved you were to see Joel’s face and to simply hear his voice again, the guilt from how repulsed you felt when James walked into the trailer, the feeling of annoyance that came over you when he interrupted you and Joel. Then on top of all that, you lied to him. You lied about how you felt about Joel, you lied about the radio tower, you lied about your plans for tonight. You could have said anything, but you settled with plans with Nessa, a lie that could so easily be unraveled. 

You bring the tips of your index and middle finger up to your temples, slowly rubbing them in circles. How shameful, you think. The light flickers again, your eyes darting up to the single bulb. You stare into it for a little too long, causing your eyes to start to burn. James is a good guy, you think to yourself. He’s good to you, he was there when no one else was. You should want James.

You should want him, but it’s so painfully obvious that you don’t. You never wanted him to begin with, at least not in that way. But the longer Joel was gone, the harder it was to delay certain things from happening. And it felt good to be wanted, it felt good for someone to want to take care of you. You knew that made you a shitty person. You knew that stringing James along, not making your intentions completely known, would eventually get you into trouble. It just wasn’t until now you realized how bad this situation is going to turn out, likely losing someone who you genuinely considered to be a friend. 

The worst part is, it doesn't even matter if Joel doesn’t want you in that way; with him being back, you wouldn’t even want to entertain the idea of anyone else but him. This past year you thought you came to terms with what you felt for him, you thought your feelings were under control. At first, a part of you was hoping it was just some fleeting crush. His darkness, the mystery that was so apparent, his changing emotions, the uncertainty of what side you were going to get of him, it all drew you in. The kindness he showed you, that caught you by surprise, the night you met Nessa’s friends, the way he looked at you and the complexity in his eyes; it had an unfaltering grasp on your mind, body, and soul. Your so-called control completely went away the second you set foot into that trailer.

You desperately want to escape your thoughts, ignore them for one more day. There’s a bottle of dark rum snuggly tucked in the corner where the unused fridge meets the countertop. Tommy brought it over one night after a particularly hard day emotionally, and you kept it here for whenever he needed to escape, always welcoming him with open arms. Typically, alcohol wouldn’t be your go to for escaping, but this was a last ditch effort. You just wanted your mind to be clear and according to Tommy, alcohol is a great way to achieve that. 

Pulling yourself up from the table, you lazily walk over to the base of the counter, kicking off your boots that still remained on since your patrol this morning. You grab the bottle by its neck, swirling it and watching the liquids dance around the glass confines. You let out a heavy sigh, looking at the label, before reaching into one of the overhead cabinets and grabbing a glass. 

The harshness of the alcohol sits heavy on your tongue, your face twisting up as the liquid caresses your mouth; it burns as you force it down, clearing your throat after the initial swallow. The first sip is always the hardest , you think, forcibly exhaling through your nose. You throw your head back, downing what’s left in the glass in one big sip and slam it down on the table. You cough and saliva quickly begins to pool in your mouth. You go again, filling your glass half full, downing it all in one go, nearly gagging yourself to death before taking in another half glass full. 

A triple knock at your door causes you to screw eyes shut, letting out a deep sigh. James, you think, contemplating if you should open the door with the state you’re currently in. It was a poor excuse to tell him that you and Nessa had plans, you didn’t weigh the consequences in your head before telling that lie, but it just came out of your mouth with no thought. The chances of them running into each other were high enough as it is, and knowing James, he most definitely asked about what the two of you had planned for the night

Knock, knock, knock. You can see the dark shadow of a figure out on your porch slightly shifting their weight under their feet.

“Just a second,” you call out. Fuck, you mutter under your breath as you bring your hands up to your face for a quick moment and spring up from your seat. The wooden legs scrap against the floor, the sound makes you cringe. A rush comes over your head at the sudden movement, and you black out for a few seconds, leaving you grabbing at the back of the chair to steady yourself until your splotchy vision returns.

Hey James, I’m sorry, I just needed to be alone for the night… no, no… maybe just tell him you thought… you thought Nessa and you had plans tonight, but actually, you got the days mixed up, yeah that’s perfect, you think. Your stomach churns as you quickly approach the door, trying to perfect the deliverance of yet another lie. You quickly flip on the porch light as you turn the doorknob. 

“ I’m sorry, I just rea–” You begin to talk before the door is fully ajar, stopping mid greeting when you look up.

Joel is standing on your welcome mat. His hair combed back, still damp from the shower, and his beard has been trimmed nicely. The gash just above his eyebrow is still prominent but it’s been cleaned, butterfly stitches holding it together. You run your eyes down his body, the top few buttons on his shirt have been left undone, his chest hair peeking out. You can feel your lips part ever so slightly as you marvel at the man before you.

“Hope I’m not intrudin’,” he says, his voice sounds smooth. You shake your head, trying to pull yourself out of your daze.

“Not at all,” You breathlessly respond, swinging the door wide open. Joel enters as you turn to head back into the kitchen, flicking on more of the interior lights. The hinges let out a loud creak as he closes the door.

“Nights are startin’ to get cold again,” he initiates the conversation. “Won’t be long before it starts snowin’.” 

You’re not in the mood for any sort of small talk, completely ignoring what he just said.

“What happened out there today?” You turn to face him, looking at him inquisitively. “I cleared the dam, and then—“ 

“I know,” He cut you off, lingering in the wide cased opening that separates the living room and kitchen. Confusion overcomes you, dropping your gaze and staring at the toe of Joel’s mud clad boots. “I saw you.”

“You what?” You couldn’t process what he just said, a line forms between your eyebrows as you draw them together.

“I saw you walkin’ out of the main building–” He’s now slowly coming toward you, shrugging his brown jacket off of his arms and draping it over one of the kitchen chairs. “Once you were finished.” 

“You knew it was me?” You say, the kitchen light flickering again. Joel darts his eyes up at it, before looking back at you. 

“I could pick you out from anywhere,” He says barely above a whisper, moving on as soon as the words leave his lips. “I was on my way to the community, but when I saw you, I stayed back a bit behind the treeline.” 

“You didn’t think of coming out and saying something to me?” You sound somewhat angry, your reaction very obviously throwing him off. 

“You had a gun, didn’t know if you would remember me,” He says in his own defense.

“Remember you?” You shout. “You think I would forget you, after… after…” 

You don’t finish, resorting to silence. Joel doesn’t dare to say anything either, just clearing his throat awkwardly in response.

“I thought…” Joel gestures to the bottle of the alcohol on the table as he pulls out a chair— his usual chair– and takes a seat.

“Things change,” You remain standing, leaning up against the kitchen counter with your arms crossed. “You want some?”

Joel responds with a single now, leaning back in the chair. You let your eyes linger on him for a few seconds before turning and opening a cabinet, retrieving a small, short glass. You set it down in front of him, clumsily leaning over him and grabbing the bottle of alcohol and your glass. You catch his eyes as you wrap your fingers around the neck of the bottle, your faces now only a few inches apart. Sorry, you mutter under your breath. His throat bobs as he gulps, darting his eyes off to the side. 

“There was a group of men, three of ‘em,” Joel says as you pull back, connecting the rims of the glass and the bottle, and you begin to pour his drink first. “They came in from behind me— that’s good— not long after you left.” 

“And you got all three?” You say somewhat sarcastically in disbelief, setting the bottle back down on the table a little harder than you meant to. He nods as he brings the glass up to his lips, his nose twitching at the strong aroma of the alcohol. “By yourself?”

“You don’t know me very well if you are questioning if I could do it by myself, darlin’, ” He almost instantly follows up to your skepticism, his lips slightly curling upward.

A small smile forms on your face, one that you try to hide by tucking your bottom lip in between your teeth. His use of darlin’ makes your stomach lurch, the feeling immediately pulling you out of your pissy mood. Joel steadily watches you as you take the seat adjacent to him, very obviously pulling the chair a bit closer to him. 

“So, what’s got you drinkin’?” His voice sounds sincere.

“Oh—“ As you go to say some bullshit answer, a figure outside the window comes into view and you switch your focus from Joel to the person at the end of the pathway leading up to your house. The porch light barely expands out far enough for you to see who it is– James. In one hand he is holding a tupperware container, the other is tucked in the pocket of his dark blue hoodie. He flashes you a smile as you two make eye contact. You can feel your entire face drop. Joel quickly catches on to your shift in focus and turns slightly in his chair, looking over his shoulder out of the window. James’ smile quickly fades as Joel leans into his view. You avert your attention down to the wooden grain of the table, not watching to see his full reaction. You had this coming , you think. 

“Oh, should I go?” Joel begins to half stand up from his chair. 

“No,” You immediately shake your head, James is still staring at you through the window at a standstill. 

He must have seen you shake your head, seeing you mouth the word no to Joel, because he slowly backpedals, a look of anger plastered on his face, and turns around, heading away from your house. Joel takes his seat again, taking a smooth, long drag at the remaining liquid in his glass, slowly setting it down on the table. You and Joel exchange looks to one another, he flashes you a slight smile, disappearing just as fast as it appeared. With tongue in cheek, you squeeze your hands around the cool surface of your empty glass, becoming lost in thought. 

You’ve made your decision, not caring at what or who’s expense.

You choose Joel.

read chapter thirteen here!

painting divider | credit: @cottage-writings

[followmetoyourdoom]

So the Megamind movie/TV show announcement came out yesterday and there's such a divide within the fandom and so much anger directed at both sides and I just, can't understand why?

People are allowed to have different opinions, people are allowed to be super excited for it and people are allowed to be disappointed in what the trailers are showing.

It's been so long since we got content and you've got people who are so excited to get what we're getting and that's great! That's awesome! We're getting content! But there's also people who wanted more than this, who wanted DreamWorks/Peacock to put more money into this and that's understandable. People who wanted the original voices bc that's what's familiar, that's what they fell in love with. And it's okay that the show is different, but it's also okay for people to be upset at it being different.

I don't think it's greedy or ungrateful. I just think this shows how much people care and how optimistic they were and how hopeful they were. And yeah, some people are being rude about it, but those are very specific cases and generalising either way isn't helping.

Let people love the new content, let people be disappointed. It's okay. We're all going to watch it, and then there will be more divided opinions and that's also okay!

I think keeping hate out of the main tag, especially when Megamind is so big these days, is pretty unavoidable, but adding extra tags to things isn't. Discourse and criticism for the show could be tagged as such (maybe under 'MegaRant'?), and then those who don't want to see that, blacklist those tags. If people aren't tagging things, gently asking them to, and if then they're a dick about it, well the block button is there.

As someone who often loves things others hate, I get the instant defence mechanism, I really do. My URL/Tumblr name is from Button Of Doom, and we all know how well that was received, but I genuinely love that silly little short. And that's okay.

For people who are blaming the animators or blaming those who worked on this at a lower level, aim that disappointment higher if you can, at CEOs and those who just care about shareholders. The film industry at the moment is not a pretty picture and the people with passion are often working as hard as they can with very little time and very little budget.

It's okay to be disappointed, just know who's to blame for it. It's okay to be really excited and then upset at the people shitting on that thing you're excited for. But let's find a way to live in harmony rather than getting angry at each other. And if people don't want to, you're allowed to curate your own experience and block/step away/blacklist, whatever you need to do.

[daydreamingfuel]

Freak Like Me

Chapter 4

Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

AO3 // previous // next

Y/N has just moved to Hawkins from England with her parents and is starting at the high school in the final term of her senior year. Eddie immediately takes a liking to her and they become fast friends, deciding to take her under his wing and falling to her charms. This is Hawkins however and things are never quite as they seem...

WHOLE FIC TAGS & WARNINGS: gratuitous use of Y/N (I'm not sorry), friends to lovers, slow burn, mutual pining, eventual smut, semi-fix-it-fic, angst, injury, canon dialogue and events used, canon graphic violence, no main character death :)

Chapter Tags & Warnings: A whole lot of angst (reader is scared and angry), new character appearances (Wayne, Steve, Robin and Max), Eddie getting jealous, most of this is the reader interacting with characters other than Eddie but it's vital to her growth as a character and she does not shut up about him so he's still very much present.

Chapter Word Count: 6k

A/N - Yeah, I know it took me two months to upload the next chapter again, I'm sorry, I had writers block. Also thank you to everyone that commented on and reblogged the previous chapters, it means so much to me, you're all sweethearts

Her heartbeat thumped in her ears, her mind screaming to move, but Y/N was paralysed. Eddie was gone. He’d left her. Out of fear or cowardice or something inexplicable, she didn’t know. The once loud sobs had turned to a silent tremble as tears continued to cascade down her cheeks in the time that had passed. She had no idea how much time had passed. Hours most likely, though the world seemed to move in slow motion as she tried desperately to pull herself together. She had to think of something.

How are you supposed to explain this to the police, huh?

What would everyone think? You’ll be exiled. Again.

What will Mum say?

“Mum…” A sharp intake of breath made her body crumble. She could go home, explain what she could to her mum and form a plan for when the police came knocking. But it was inexplicable, they wouldn’t be able to explain the death in any way that makes sense. Chrissy’s death didn’t make sense. The sound of boots outside the trailer door alerted her to the reality of the situation but Y/N couldn’t will her body to move. Keys at the lock told Y/N it was Eddie’s uncle Wayne coming back from his shift.

The man was no stranger, and he had grown accustomed to seeing her in his home. Y/N could remember the first time they met, as clear as day. Popcorn had been flung everywhere when a jumpscare had actually managed to make her jump during one of Y/N and Eddies movie nights. Wayne had walked in on Eddie laughing at Y/N for being scared of the “kind of cheesy” jumpscare and immediately called Eddie out for being a scaredy cat himself as a child, then making him clean up the popcorn. From then on he often doted on her subtly when Eddie wasn’t looking so as to not embarrass him further. What the man did not expect when he came home was a mutilated cheerleader in his living room, Y/N sobbing by the kitchen counter and Eddie nowhere to be seen.

“Care to explain?” Wayne asked in fear and desperation to make clarity of the grotesque sight before him.

Her voice was quiet and hoarse, the memories of Chrissy’s bones breaking flashing through her mind, making her shudder as she spoke, “I don’t know how to…but I didn’t do this. She was my best friend, Wayne.”

Something in the fear and horror in Y/N’s eyes softened Wayne’s already weakened resolve, but he still urged on, “Did you see what or who did? And where is my nephew?” What was she supposed to say to him? That his nephew had abandoned her with Chrissy’s body after they watched her be raised from the earth and murdered in mid-air? No, she couldn’t do that to him.

“No.” Y/N locked her wide, wet eyes with his worried ones, “I didn’t see a thing.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Y/N had no clue who or what had done this to her friend. But it wasn’t the whole truth either. “And Eddie…”

“His van is gone, I thought he’d be with you, celebratin’ an’ all, but he ran didn’t he?” Wayne spoke, the weight of it settling on him. “Running scared, and left you here.”

“I begged him to stay. That running makes him look guilty when he isn’t, he would never, but he-” The words cut themselves off with a choked sob bubbling up from her chest. After a few deep breaths to calm herself down she asked quietly, “What do we do?”

Wayne stood up and pulled Y/N up with him, he ran a hand over his head and down his face before answering, thinking over everything, before ultimately saying, “I’ll handle the cops, you go find my boy.”

“Wayne, I-”

“Just go find him, bring him home. I’ll call this in, say the house was empty when I got here.” Wayne insisted and urged her to go. She didn’t have it in her to argue, so Y/N quickly rounded up her things and fled the house, sparing one last glance at Chrissy and mouthing a ‘thank you’ to Wayne as he dialled ‘911’, before running home before anyone noticed she was even there.

Her whole body was aching and sweaty when she finally collapsed through her front door, finding her mother asleep at the dinner table. Y/N's heart squeezed in her chest at the sight as she rounded the table and made her way to the bathroom to freshen up a little, splashing cold water over her sticky flesh and taming her hair as much as she could before heading back to her sleeping mother and gently waking her. As soon as she opened her eyes, Y/N all but flung herself into her mother’s arms. Though she had only just awoke, Mrs Y/L/N held her daughter close, stroking her back to soothe her though she had no clue what was wrong. Y/N’s mind raced once more, shaking though protected in her mother’s warmth and care, as the tears began to fall again, soaking into her mother’s old cardigan. Feeling like a child again, she was rocked gently until she found her voice.

“Mum, something terrible happened,” Y/N whispered into her mother’s shoulder. She couldn’t lie to her. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t hide this from her. So, Y/N recanted the whole story - no inexplicable, horrifying detail spared - to her mother, who sat and listened patiently until the story was over. It all came out in one long ramble, jumping from one thought to another until she ended by saying, “I need to find him, he’s in huge trouble.”

“Breathe, Y/N.” Mrs Y/L/N spoke calmly, “Count with me, 1…2…”

“1…2…3…4…”

By ‘10’, Y/N’s thoughts were clearer and she pulled herself up to make eye contact with her mother, who had been silently crying herself. “I hope you are aware of how insane this is, dear.” Y/N could only nod and her mother took a breath before saying, “But I believe you.”

“You do?”

“You are many things, dear – reckless, stubborn, strong-willed, but you are not a killer, and you’ve never lied to me. Why would you now? If you say you nor Eddie did it, I believe you.”

“Mum, I’m scared.” Y/N finally let herself say, “There’ll be a manhunt for him soon and Chrissy won’t get the justice she deserves, because he didn’t do it, and there’s no proof…there’s no proof that it was him but there’s none that it wasn’t either. He ran, he looks guilty.”

“Do what you promised, find him and we can clear his name. If there really is no proof and all they have is circumstantial it won’t hold up in court, but he needs to be back here to plead his case.” Mrs Y/L/N was calm in her own fear, moreover protective of her baby. “But eat first. Go have a shower and I’ll make you something, you’ll need your strength.” She stood and started pulling things from cupboards and the fridge as Y/N stood to wander back to the bathroom. “Honey?”

“Yeah, mum?” Y/N turned back to face the kitchen.

“Let’s not tell your father, just yet.”

“Agreed.”

The hot water running over her sore muscles made her groan in relief as she rubbed soap into her skin. She was tired and hungry and scared, but her mind was wide awake. Where would he go? There weren’t many options, but she still wasn’t too familiar with Hawkins and the surrounding woods. The sun now bursting through the curtains alerted her to how much time had actually passed. Checking the clock on the wall, made her shudder, past noon. He could be anywhere by now; this was going to be difficult. Hot food wafted its comforting smell through the house and pulled Y/N quickly back to the kitchen with a grumbling stomach, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since before Hellfire the previous day. Y/N and her mum ate in relative silence, sat side by side with their chairs almost touching, letting the gravity of the situation begin to settle around them. With every bite, Y/N tried to piece it all together to no avail, so instead turned her mind to really thinking about where he could have run off to. Running through every conversation she had ever had with him, picking out as many different locations as she could remember. Just as she was forming a list in her head of places to check, the phone rang, cutting through the silence.

With a hard swallow, Y/N stood and answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Y/N!” Dustin’s voice echoed through the phone speaker, “Thank god, do you-”

Bewildered, Y/N asked, cutting him off, “Dustin? How did you get this number?”

“I, um..” he stumbled to fund the words but quickly got himself back on track, “That’s not important right now. Do you know where Eddie is? You were the last person to be seen with him.”

Y/N’s blood ran cold, her grip on the phone growing tighter.

“Y/N? Are you still there?”

“Y-yeah, Dustin, I’m still here. I just-,” Y/N’s breathing began to get more laboured with each word, “Eddie, he’s- I don’t-,”

“Y/N?” A new voice, a young girl. “I’m Max, Dustin’s friend.” Y/N realised this must be Lucas’ ex, the ‘badass’. “I live opposite Eddie in the trailer park.”

Shit.

Max continued, “I saw Eddie leave, he looked scared, terrified. But I saw you and Chrissy go in together, with him.”

“Fuck. I…Max, can you put Dustin back on?” Y/N heard the phone being passed on, “Dustin? He’s innocent, I swear to God he’s innocent.”

“I know.”

Y/N’s breath hitched, she took a chance on him before her brain could even process the words falling out of her mouth, “Where are you right now? I think we need to talk in person.”

She ran to her room to get dressed and dry her hair as much as she could before backing up a backpack of things she might need in the search for Eddie. In just over an hour from hanging up the phone with Dustin she was pulling him into a hug outside Family Video. The freshman was perplexed as to why she was holding him so tightly but didn’t let go until she started to pull away. He lead her inside, where she could finally put some faces to the names of people that she’d heard about over the past two months.

Max Mayfield was taller than Dustin, with fiery red hair pulled into a braid, a strikingly pretty contrast to her fair skin, with headphones around her neck. Robin Buckley, a girl in her year that she had somehow managed to not have any classes with, stood leaning against the counter of the store, her bobbed hair framing her face perfectly, though slightly dishevelled from running her hands through it. And Steve “The Hair” Harrington, whom she had heard so much about from Dustin, taller than them all, strutted over to greet Y/N and Dustin at the door. Y/N was immediately taken aback by how casually handsome he was.

“So this is Y/N?” He asked Dustin who nodded with a smile looking between Steve and Y/N, “I’m Steve, this is Robin and Max. We’ve heard a lot about you, nice to finally meet you,” he smiled, charm dripping off the words with ease, though Y/N got the immediate impression that it didn’t work as much as it used to, the uniform vest taking his confidence down a peg. But Y/N was charmed anyway, he seemed cool in a classic way.

"I wish it was under different circumstances,” Y/N gave him a smile back, which quickly turned into a frown as her rows furrowed. They all silently agreed. Dustin guided Y/N to the central counter where the group huddled. “Look what happened…it’s nonsensical.”

They all exchanged uneasy but familiar looks as Y/N filled them in on what had occurred at the trailer as simply as possible, not wanting to break down again. Their expressions weren’t of disbelief, but of recognition. They actually believed her. When it was over, Y/N could all but see the cogs turning in their heads, putting missing pieces she didn’t know of together.

“Do you have any idea where he could have gone?” Robin asked, her voice vaguely hoarse but soft.

Y/N licked her lips and took a breath, “I have a list, but there’s one that sticks out the most. Eddie gets drugs from some guy named Reefer Rick, and sometimes Eddie crashes there.”

“Sounds promising. It’s the best lead we’ve got, after you.” Dustin said. Of course, Y/N would be the first lead people would follow with how closely linked they are. Y/N raised her eyebrows quickly in acknowledgement and Dustin continued, “Where does Reefer Rick live?”

“See, that's the thing. No one knows.” Max answered, “He's more of a… a legend than someone that people actually know.”

“He never let me go with him to do pick-ups, so I have no idea,” Y/N added.

“Last name?” Robin then asked as Steve wandered away in frustration.

“I don’t know that either. I’m sorry.” Y/N wished she could be of more help, all she wanted to do was find him, and it seemed like they wanted the same. For one reason or another.

Robin shook her head as if to say ‘Don’t be’, but then her eyes lit up with an idea as she messed with one of the tapes. Suddenly, she was sitting at the computer typing away.

“What are you doing?” Max questioned her friend’s odd behaviour, moving to stand next to her as the rest of the group followed suit, surrounding Robin and the computer.

“Maybe we don't need a last name.” As Robin pressed ‘Enter’ on the keyboard, the screen filled with a list, “Twelve Ricks already have accounts here.”

“Lot of Ricks,” Y/N said, more to herself but it got a snicker from Max and Steve, as she rested her hands on the back of Robin's chair, leaning over her shoulder a little to read the list of names.

Robin looked up at Y/N over her shoulder and blushed slightly at the proximity but quickly turned back to the screen, “So, let's narrow it down.” She clicked on the first name and his details filled the screen. “Rick Alderman's latest rentals are Annie and Dumbo. Chances our drug dealer has a family?”

“Not likely.” Max immediately said and Y/N nodded in agreement. Back, down, enter.

“All right. Rick Conroy.” Robin announced the next Rick, “Sixteen Candles, Teen Wolf, Romancing the Stone.”

Max, Steve, Dustin and Y/N all spoke in unison, “No”

“Okay.” Back, down, enter. “Rick Joiner. Mask, Footloose, and Grease”

Another resounding “Nah,” from the group. Back, down, enter. “Rick Kimbrough. The Blue Lagoon and Splash.”

They laughed lightly at the film selection, but it still didn’t seem likely, as told by Max who said “Definitely not”, immediately followed by Steve’s “No way.”

“Okay.” Back, down, enter. “Rick Lipton. Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Cheech & Chong's Next Movie.” They all looked at each other smiling, as Robin read out the list, “Cheech & Chong's Nice Dreams. Cheech & Chong's Up in Smoke.”

Y/N chuckled “Bingo.” Found you.

Max asked, “Lipton?”

“Spelled like the tea.” Robin confirmed, “2121 Holland Road.”

“That's out by Lovers Lake,” Dustin said immediately.

Max nodded slowly before adding, “Middle of nowhere.”

“It's a perfect place to hide.” Robin finished all their thoughts for them and backed out of the screen as they all scrambled to move. Steve did a sweep of the shop to make sure there were no customers left inside before grabbing his bomber jacket from the back office along with his car keys. They rushed outside, Robin bringing up the rear, slamming shut and locking the door to the store, flipping over the ‘Closed’ sign before piling into the front passenger seat of Steve’s BMW. Y/N, silently questioning how Steve could afford such a nice car whilst working minimum wage, clambered into the back seat between Max and Dustin, only just pulling her seat belt on as Steve floored it out of the parking lot.

Max leaned her head against the window, headphones connected to her Walkman, eyes closed listening to the music. On her other side, Dustin was going through his backpack recounting the contents methodically, before pulling out a notebook and a pen and writing down as much as he could remember from Y/N’s story along with some other details that Y/N didn’t recognise. But she did catch the phrases ‘Demogorgon’ and ‘The Upside Down’. Steve and Robin, in the front seats, playfully bickered, talking about the different film choices the Ricks made and debating who had the best taste, intercut with stories of Steve’s failed attempts to impress the girls who came into the store. Y/N’s knee bounced as she played with her hands absentmindedly in her lap. If Eddie were there, Y/N knew he would rest a big, warm, ringed hand on her thigh to ease her anxiety before threading his fingers through hers and squeezing gently. Heart clenching at the thought, her head dropped back with a deep sigh as they drove further out of central Hawkins.

Steve, having seen Y/N’s anxiety in the rear-view mirror asked, trying to be as casual as he could, “So, you and Munson?”

“Huh?” Y/N lifted her head up off the back of the seat to look at him quizzically, having zoned out and only just registering that she was being talked to. “Oh, yeah…Eddie, he’s, well…”

Dustin scoffed and muttered under his breath, still writing, “They’ve got something going on.”

“Dustin!” Robin exclaimed, getting the freshman to look up in offence to his scolding, “You don’t have to talk about it Y/N.”

“Nah, it’s okay. He’s not completely wrong.” Dustin gave Robin a smug smile and then looked at Y/N expectantly. “Look, there’s nothing official about it but we’re close, that’s it.”

Steve and Robin nodded in understanding and dropped the conversation, turning up the radio a little and going back to bickering like siblings. But Dustin rolled his eyes, before talking in a hushed tone, “You know, you’re not very subtle.”

“What do you mean?” Y/N asked, matching his volume, and watching as he put away his notepad and pen.

“It’s obvious that you like him,” Dustin stated, matter-of-factly, as though it was as known that the sky is blue.

Y/N blanched silently, mouth agape in shock at his audacity. Thinking back to their heated moment in Hellfire before this all kicked off, she blushed before it was taken over by a surge of anger. “Well, he obviously doesn’t feel the same, he still left me there. Alone, with my best friend’s corpse. After watching her be brutally mutilated.”

Dustin gulped. He looked away, staring at his lap. Y/N looked away from the boy to find the rest of the car’s eyes on her, making her groan and sink into her seat more, hugging herself. Steve and Robin made eye contact, silently communicating before Steve fixed his eyes back on the road and sped up. The rest of the long drive was quiet, only Steve and Robin still talking. In a few hours, the high streets and shops turned to cul-de-sacs, which in turn became back roads into the forest. By the time they were nearing the lake, it was getting dark and Y/N was starting to feel hungry again so pulled out a bag of Doritos from her backpack. She took a few before offering the bag to Dustin with a small smile. She hadn’t meant to snap at him earlier, she was just tired and confused. He grinned at her and took a handful gratefully. Forgiven.

Leaning forward, Y/N placed the bag between Robin and Steve on the centre console, Robin immediately dived in with a bright “Thanks Y/N”, followed by Steve who squeezed Y/N’s hand gently in thanks, eyes fixed on the now dark road ahead. Finally, she offered the bag to Max who had barely spoken or moved since getting into the car, laying a hand tentatively on her shoulder and gently shaking the bag in front of her. But Max just shook her head and moved the bag away, readjusting in her seat. Y/N tried not to take it personally, maybe she just wasn’t hungry. As they came up to a small house by the lake, Y/N stuffed the half-empty bag back in her rucksack, pulled out a torch in its place, and unclicked her seatbelt.

The group clambered out of the car, Dustin handing them all a torch and smiling when he saw that Y/N had come prepared. He wandered up to the front door and rang the doorbell. No response. He tried again. Still no response. So, he tried again. And again, and again and again and again until-

“Okay. Well, that's settled. I guess he's not here.” Steve cut Dustin’s assault on the doorbell off. Y/N snickered at Steve’s sass but took matters into her own hands.

“Eddie?” Y/N knocked on the door as she called out for him.

Immediately echoed by Dustin. “Eddie! It's Dustin!”

 “Great,” Steve said flatly as Robin shone her torch through the window, peering through.

Dustin continued to call out for Eddie as Y/N knocked, “Look, we just wanna talk, okay? No cops, I swear. We just wanna help.” Dustin was growing more agitated with every passing second, “Eddie!”

Robin shushed him as he tried the doorbell again, Y/N dropped her head to thump against the door in frustration. But Dustin wouldn’t stop, “Rick!” Dustin bangs on the door, “Reefer Rick!”

“Don't scream that.” Steve chastised, shaking his head his young friend as he continued to bang on the door, talking back and forth as they shone their flashlights into the house.

“Rick!”

“He’s not there!”

“Reefer Rick!”

“Just-”

“He could just be really high.”

A small pause in their bickering was interrupted by Steve, “Is that a foot?”

To which Dustin replied, “No, that’s a shoe.”

“Oh, my god.” Y/N finally exclaimed, having heard enough, and walked away from the pair and started wandering over to Max, who was circling the house.

Max tilted her head as the light of her torch caught something, then stopped still as the light revealed a hidden structure in the darkness, “Hey, guys?”

The group shone their torches where Max was facing, to find an old-looking, metal bunker of sorts. It was worth a shot. Y/N immediately set off for the door, quickly followed by Steve, and Robin close behind. The lock was undone, making Y/N’s heart skip a beat, as she pulled it free from the fastening of the door and dropped it into the grass. Steve reached over and slowly pulled the door open with a creak, making them wince.

“Hello?” Y/N called out into the darkness, scanning the room where the light of her torch traced. The bunker was filled to the brim with old fishing equipment, barrels, boats covered with tarp, and absolutely covered in a thin layer of brine and dust.

“Is anyone home?” Robin asked into the space but there was no response.

Steve wrinkled his face in disgust, “What a dump.” Walking along the back wall of the room, Steve’s eyes caught something. He suddenly turned off his torch and picked up an oar in both hands before lunging at the tarp-covered boats and prodding them with the tip of the oar.

“What are you doing?” Dustin stopped searching and turned to Steve in bewilderment, he asked again. “What are you doing?”

“He might be in here,” Steve answered, as though it was obvious, continuing to poke the tarp and whatever was underneath it.

“So, take the tarp off.”

“If you’re so brave, you take the tarp off,” Y/N rolled her eyes at the boys bickering again and wandered over to a table where Max was looking.

“Hey, look over here,” Max called out and was flanked by Y/N and Robin, their eyes scanned the surface, strewn with crumpled-up papers and empty wrappers. Unlike everything else in the room, there was no dust covering them. “Someone was here.”

“Maybe he heard us.” Robin considered as they looked through the mess on the table. Y/N instantly recognised the candy bar that Eddie kept in his glove compartment ‘in case of emergencies. “Got spooked and ran.”

“Again,” Y/N added bitterly.

“Don't worry. Steve will get him with his oar.” Cheerful sarcasm dripped from Dustin’s words.

Steve straightened himself up for a second to glare at Dustin before giving a sharp jab to the tarp, “I know you think you're being funny, Henderson, but considering almost everyone in this room has nearly died a hundred times,” Y/N wasn’t sure whether she had heard that quite right but she didn’t have the time to process, “personally, I don't find it funny in the slight-”

Suddenly, in a violent blur, Steve was being held up against the wall of the shed, a broken glass bottle to his throat, the group shouting for it to stop, by a deranged-looking Eddie. His eyes locked onto Steve’s panicking face, practically foaming at the mouth.

“Eddie!” Y/N cried out for him, “Eddie! Stop!”

A sharp turn of his head forced him to lock eyes with Y/N, she saw something akin to regret flash in his dark eyes before he turned back to Steve.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Eddie! Eddie! Stop!” Dustin shouted louder, “It's me. It's Dustin. This is Steve. He's not gonna hurt you, right, Steve?” The man in question nodded as much as he could and voiced his agreement that he was harmless, before Dustin continued, “Steve, why don't you drop the oar?”

Steve reached out his arm and dropped the ore to the ground with a thump, and Eddie pinned him even closer to the wall, Steve’s neck stretched back and exposed to the sharp edge of the glass. Y/N’s heart raced in her chest, terrified for a man she had only met mere hours ago.

Dustin tried to ease the situation again, echoed by Steve, and Eddie finally spoke, voice shaking, “What are you doing here?”

“We're looking for you.” Y/N was exasperated, and the sound of her voice made Eddie close his eyes to take a shaky breath. She added, more gently, “We're here to help.”

“Eddie, these are my friends.” Dustin broached the subject as calmly as possible, “You know Robin, from band.” She imitates a brass instrument of sorts, in a kind of cute but awkward way, “This is my friend Max. The one who never wants to play D&D.” Max nods and shrugs in acknowledgement, giving Eddie a small wave.

“Eddie. We're on your side.” Y/N interjects, getting angrier, “I swear on my mother.”

She could swear that his breath hitched. They all chimed in agreeing with the bizarre statement. But it worked, as Eddie lowered the bottle and let Steve go.

“Jesus Ch…” Steve rubbed at his neck with a huff of relief as Eddie walked away and slumped against the wall, slowly sliding down it until he was sat on a bench by a partly covered window, the bottle still gripped tightly in his hand. The moonlight shining through glinted off the glass and highlighted the tear tracks on Eddies flushed cheeks, mirroring Y/N’s as fresh tears began to fall at the sight of him trembling in front of her.

Dustin, not wanting to scare him, slowly crouched down in front of Eddie, “Eddie, we just want to talk.”

Y/N came to kneel down next to Dustin, looking up at Eddie and biting back her anger, pleading with him to listen. He looked away again, and Y/N’ whispered in disbelief, “What? You can’t look at me now?”

A delicate hand was placed on Y/N’s shoulder, Robin said, “We just want to know what happened.”

“You won’t believe me.” Eddie's voice was hoarse and weak, staring off into space and gently rocking himself back and forth.

“Try us,” Max stated firmly and Eddie looked up at her with wide eyes.

Y/N licked her lips and reached out to take the bottle from him, he allowed it but still couldn’t face her, “Eddie, they believed me.”

Finally, his eyes found hers again and he didn’t break it. As he looked at her, the fear and anger in her eyes transported him back to the moment he’d left, wishing he had stayed. Instinctively, his shaking hands reached out for hers, but she pulled away with a deep sigh and walked away, standing by Steve and checking if he was okay. Steve ran a hand through his hair and nodded that he was fine, but she stayed by his side. Eddie’s blood boiled at the sight but knew he had no ground to stand on. He swallowed the growing lump in his throat and started to talk. He skipped everything that had happened between them after Hellfire, they didn’t need to know, and Y/N was glad that there were still some things left unsaid between them – that their private moments weren’t told for the group to indulge in.

“Her body just, like, lifted up into the air and, uh…” The once eloquently spoken boy was grasping for words like they were foreign to him, unable to properly explain what he had seen, “And she just, like, hung there. And her bones…Uh, she…” A small whimper escaped him as the memory came back to him “Her bones started to snap.” The sound of it echoed in Y/N’s mind and she had to turn away, Steve noticed immediately and reached out for her, resting a comforting hand on her arm as she silently cried, “Her eyes, man. It… It was like there was something, like, inside her head, pulling. I… I didn't know what to do, so I…ran away.” Y/N tensed. “I left her there.”

Y/N was by his side in a flash, the sound of her slap ringing through the air, a red handprint on his cheek, “You left me there!” Y/N shouted, tears streaming freely again, hands pulling her back and away from him. She shook them off. “I begged you to stay, and you left me anyway! I was the one that was found at the crime scene by your uncle, he let me get away before calling the police but we’re probably still prime suspects one and two.” She stalked towards him as she spoke, the bottle still in hand, fury oozing off her with every word. Eddie’s eyes were scanning her, wide, terrified and guilty, “I was terrified Eddie, we watched my best friend get murdered and you abandon me to deal with it, making yourself look guilty - and now you have the fucking nerve to expect sympathy? Fuck you.”

She dropped the bottle, and it shattered on the floor, before walking away from them all towards the door to get some fresh air and calm down. Once she was outside the rage subsided somewhat, but it was still festering. She would forgive him, eventually. Hearing steps behind her, Y/N turned and found herself against Steve’s chest. “Woah, sorry.” Steve took a step back, holding his hands up in a show of deference, “So…that was, intense.”

“Yeah, guess I’m angrier than I thought I was.” Y/N leaned against a nearby tree, a low-hanging branch making it easy to pick off leaves and rip them apart, dropping the confetti foliage to the ground and repeating the process.

Steve slowly approached her, not wanting to crowd her space, “I understand it though. I’d be pissed too if it was me.”

“You don’t think that was an overreaction?” Y/N said, laughing bitterly at herself, regret already starting to sink in.

“Even if you’re not together, it’s just a bad thing to do to a friend.” Steve reasoned and she sighed, closing her eyes. “Y/N, he hasn’t even apologised for leaving you there.”

She looked past him towards the fishing shed, “I haven’t given him a chance to.”

“We’ve got time.” She decided she liked this Steve, “But, right now there’s more important things to say. Stuff you need to know.” Steve’s soft expression hardened, and his jaw twitched. He held out his hand to lead her back inside, and after taking another deep breath she took it. He didn’t drop her hand as they entered the room, only letting her go when she went to sit by Eddie on the bench.

“I’m sorry for slapping you,” Y/N stated tensely, “But I am still mad at you.”

“Understood.” Eddie nodded, before running his hands over his face and sniffing back more tears. He looked at the group in front of him as they processed what they had heard, nobody mentioning Y/N’s outburst, “You all think I'm crazy, right?”

“No. We don't think you're crazy.” Dustin tried to reassure him but Eddie was having none of it.

“Don't bullshit me, man!” Eddie shouted but calmed quickly, his voice coming out in almost a whimper, “I know how this sounds.”

Y/N swallowed her rage, her care for him overpowering it momentarily, and rested a hand on Eddie’s. He clung on for dear life, and she hated the way she could feel herself forgiving him already. She didn’t want to forgive him just yet. Still, she laced her fingers with his and rubbed soothing circles into his skin with her thumb.

“We're not bullshitting you.” This time Max tried a hand at reassurance, her voice soft but firm, mature for her age and Y/N wondered what had happened to them to make this feel almost normal.

“We believe you.” Robin urged looking between Eddie and Y/N, “Both of you.”

Dustin sighed softly, as though preparing himself, “Look, what I'm about to tell you both might be a little�� difficult to take.”

“Okay?” Eddie said, slightly confused as Y/N looked over to Steve who nodded, obviously knowing what Dustin was about to tell them, and affirming that however insane it would sound, it was the truth.

“You know how people say Hawkins is… cursed?” Dustin asked and Eddie nodded but Y/N shook her head, she hadn’t been around long enough to know the folklore of the town, but she had a feeling she was about to find out. “They're not way off. There's another world. A world hidden beneath Hawkins. Sometimes it bleeds into ours.”

“Like ghosts and shit?”

It was Max who replied, “There are some things worse than ghosts.”

“These monsters from this other world…we thought they were gone.” Dustin continued his explanation, and a strange chill ran down Y/N’s spine, “But they've come back before. That's why we needed to find you. To be sure.”

“If they're back again, we need to know,” Max added in earnest.

There was a brief silence, and then Robin asked gently, “That night, did you see anything?”

“Dark particles, maybe?” Max prompted, followed by Dustin.

“It would almost look like dust, swirling dust,” Dustin said it like it was something as familiar as grass, but Y/N had no clue.

“No, man, there was nothing you could see or, uh…or touch.” Eddie answered, gently squeezing Y/N’s hand to stop the stammering, “You know, we tried to wake her, man. She couldn't move.”

Y/N nodded, the memories strong behind her eyes, interjected with memories of them happy in a gruesome reminder of how fast it all happened, “It was like she…she was in a trance or something.”

“Or under a spell,” Dustin suggested, realisations setting in in his mind, worry running deep.

“A curse.” Eddie corrected, his voice stronger now, looking Dustin dead in the eye.

Dustin stared up at Eddie, “Vecna's curse.”

A heavy weight hung in the air. “Who's Vecna?” Steve cut in, genuinely confused.

“It’s a D&D thing,” Y/N answered him with a small smile that was quickly overtaken by fear. “An undead creature of great power.”

“A spell caster.” Eddie added and Dustin confirmed, “A dark wizard.”

If all this was true and monsters and an alternate Hawkins did exist, Chrissy had been cursed and killed by an evil sorcerer from another dimension. How in hell were they going to survive this?

previous // next

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

i of course HAVE to ask for number 6 on the ask game with mcqueen and anyone else you think would be fun to answer for. i would also love to ask 1 and 5!

~zale (@zaletham)

Thank you so very much Zale!!! Didn't realize how lengthy I was gonna talk about this here in the post and in the tags, but it was very nice to get out my system!! 😊

I'm actually so excited that you asked number 6 for M.cQueen, it hadn't even crossed my mind at first, and technically isn't zoo or aquarium, moreso museum, but I think that still qualifies- but! L.ightning actually loovesss dinosaurs! I don't know if you've ever heard of C.ars On The Road, it's like this little series that came out in 2023, each episode is about 5 minutes long(they say like 7 minutes but it's just 2+ minutes of credits, no extra credit scenes except for a 5 second one in one episode) and L.ightning and M.ater, to make a long story short, go on a roadtrip together and they go on stops along the way and the first stop they go to is like a dinosaur museum!

And L.ightning like full swing goes into hyperfixation mode and just babbles about dinosaurs and I love it. He says he did "hours of intensive research" and it just cuts to him watching documentaries in M.ack's trailer and it makes me giggle. M.ack is so sweet, I can only imagine how much second-hand dino knowledge he has cause of L.ightning or overhearing his documentaries! There's also been some jokes that what if the main reason L.ightning wanted to be D.inoco's team in the first movie is just cause he likes dinosaurs and I love it.

I explain a bit more in the tags but tumblr has a one video limit per post that I didn't know about?? So I'm just doing one of the clips here!

They're so silly I love it.

But basically to make a long story short! L.ightning has a massive hyperfixation on dinosaur stuff and would thrive in a dinosaur related musuem. Though, I'd imagine he'd be bored in an aquarium or zoo until he realized that he could make connections here, and he'd go around to all the bird-type species or sharks and talk about how they're related to dinosaurs or have dinosaur ancestors and such!

1) what does their alarm ringtone sound like

It took me some pondering at first who to answer this for and then an idea immediately hit me, and I'd figure I'd answer this for F.rancesco

Basically, to put it in a nutshell, F.1 is a bunch of international racers on international race courses, and whoever wins at the end of each race gets their national anthem played! And I'm giggling over the thought of F.rancesco setting his alarm that he wakes up to in the morning to ltaly's national anthem.

Ringtone wise though, he'd definitely set it to a specific song, or something someone would ask questions about so he could go on this entire spiel about how it relates to him or something he likes. I'd probably rub off on him at some point and he'd make his ringtone(or the ringtone specifically for when I call) S.mooth Operator by Sade.

5) how do they bookmark their book pages

I'll answer this one for F.inn, just cause I think he's the one that's mostly likely to read full books fairly frequently. He'd probably just have a simple bookmark. something small and fairly thin cause he likes taking care of his books and wouldn't want to bend any pages or mess up the spine of the book too badly, probably something like this:

Maybe not the particular design that's on it, but definitely just the rectangle with the little tassels on it. I wouldn't be surprised if he had a bookmark with the UK flag on it as a design, he's quite patriotic and I think it's adorable. Though due to my recent knitting escapades he'd 100% ask me to knit one like one of these:

Though this has also given me the brilliant enlightenment idea of F.inn having one of those book lights or book lamps that clamp onto the book and shines a light on it and you can kinda adjust it and l'1l be having brainrot over that for a bit. May or may not have cultivated a fic idea around it already.

[serendertothesquad]

Seren's Studies: Odd Squad UK -- "Odd Ones In" Episode Followup, Part 1

May the days of the whiteness of the Big O's desk be forever remembered in favor of this thing that flashbanged me and made me nearly drop my glasses.

No, guys, seriously. I am looking at this thing. It is floating. Why is it floating.

But enough whining. It's October 1st and that means Odd Squad UK has officially premiered! With it, we get a bunch of episodes that have been graciously pulled by a friend, @personinthepalace. Many thanks goes to them! (And all the work they've had to do throwing them up in other places where YouTube failed.)

For those unfamiliar with how these work, it's pretty standard: I watch the episode, plop screenshots into this post, and react accordingly in text form. Sadly, until I can get a new laptop and some privacy, Seren Reacts videos will be on hold.

So join me below the break for screaming, crying, and much, much asking of "did I hear that right", "what did they say?" and "hi doctor, I might need hearing aids".

(This will also be Part 1, due to Tumblr's 30-photo limit. I can amass as much as 50-120 screenshots for a single episode, so this will be broken into many parts. To find them all, peruse the #seren's studies tag!)

(Oh, and spoilers. Don't read this, or any of the other parts, unless you've seen the episode in full.)

With huge props to those who guessed Captain O would be doing the intro, in line with how Oprah used to do it in the past in order to not spoil new characters.

It's funny because from what I've seen, Captain O goes out onto the field a lot more and doesn't just play the role of Ms. Exposition. I like that change!

I'm...well...okay, maybe this doesn't surprise me given how Ozzie was literally in the first promo picture...but sure. Fine. I dig it.

Osgood has his own cookbook, and quite frankly, I'm just mad they didn't give Oksana one. You're telling me the girl cuts food with diamonds and she doesn't have her own cookbook? Piss off the roof and pray it rains.

"I'm in charge of an organization of kids like these...but...not these..."

OH MY GYAHD THEY BROUGHT BACK THE BIT FROM SEASON 3 ONLY IT'S LESS SPECIAL NOW.

Look, I was there when people went nuts over Oprah bringing all six main characters (at the time) back for a cameo in the intro. I went nuts. It was beautiful!

This just doesn't hit the same. It tried to aim for my heart and instead got me in the nose.

...I still laughed, though.

Most of the stuff in here is taken from the trailer, but there is some new stuff here too, like Captain O giving a big "fuck you" to what I have to assume is a construction worker seeking help on a nearby project.

...Look, I'm a dumb lil' American. You are bound to get fed misinformation up the wazoo. I am bound to not use Google because I am allowed not to and also I am lazy and tired. Don't ask me how shit works.

Ah yes, I see that, in addition to upgrading the special effects used for exiting the tubes, they also upgraded the special effects and animation used for riding the tubes themselves.

Once again, I will point to "Down the Tubes" for a comparison and ask you which one looks better to you. My vote is down easy.

This is a wooden ship and they have couch cushions.

WE ARE NOT ON A LUXURY PRINCESS CRUISE THIS IS A CAPITAL SIN PREPARE FOR DESTRUC-

My God, it's like they saw Season 3, saw people hated it, and upped the ante more than if literally anyone else sane bought Twitter from Elon.

The fact that I could probably tell you what episodes these bits all came from is terrifying. Terrifying still, I'd only get half wrong.

*deep inhale*

Two things: who thought this was a good idea, AND WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT HAVING AN OFFICE BEHIND A WATERFALL WAS A GOOD IDEA.

Caves behind waterfalls are where villains run off to. Where treasure is buried. It's not- oh my God...oh...my God.

Okay, legally, you can't have finger guns in the UK, so Captain O is committing a crime AND GET YOUR KEYS AWAY FROM MY CAR THAT I SPENT THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FIXING UP IT IS A JOKE. A JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

From a height angle, this is as jarring as Omar and Oneta up against Maine Mr. O.

Back then, when there was the followup for "The Void",there was a joke that he could probably be their little sibling. Like, little little. Like "generation gap" little.

The latter most certainly holds true here.

OH THANK GOD THEY DIDN'T BRITISH-FY THE LOGO. THANK YOU JESUS. BAD ENOUGH I GOT FLASHBANGED ONCE YOU WANT IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN?????

But also, rest in pieces to the creator credits appearing here. Usually that only happens when the creators have done some egregious thing and episodes are edited to remove their name in most capacities. (And I'm staring The Loud House down with the fury of a thousand suns. You are better off not knowing.)

Here...Tim and Adam have done nothing egregious, but it's still jarring to not see their names up here. They're not showrunners, but give the men some credit, damn it!

I gotta say, one second in and I'm already digging this episode. Most Precure episodes I watch don't even get that far enough in to make me say "wow!"

But oh man is this Tube Lobby crazy retro. I mean if the film reels back there didn't give it away...

And your writer for this episode! Mark is basically a pioneer within the franchise, having written some fantastic episodes that, if I listed them all, would derail the entire followup. He's got strong writing chops and I can't wait to see what he does with this one. Basically, if you see his name pop up, you know shit's gonna be real good.

And your...ah...producer. I don't think we've ever seen a producer credit on here before. The name's not familiar, so I'll assume she's one of the British staff and hope she can work her magic better than 70% of Season 3's writers.

Not even past the first ten seconds yet and already I've spotted my first criticism: the audio balancing.

I went into the gadget competition video thinking it would be fixed. Much to my dismay, it has not, and that means my eardrum hairs will have to suffer for a good 22 minutes.

...

Scratch that and make it 12 episodes' worth.

To my body, I am so sorry in advance.

And your director for this episode. This guy had an interview regarding references in Odd Squad UK that I unfortunately never found, even after asking about it and spreading the word around. Quite a shame, but now that the show's here, I can go play Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon: Delusion Edition and cry profusely.

Honestly, as much as I want to be a sour realist and say that no one is this excited walking into work...I'm more focused on the planet/glowing Perplexus maze ball/good God what is that Seymour.

The guy has his own cheer team waiting for him when he comes into the bullpen, and either this is some weird-ass Department of Help perk or this is the happiest Odd Squad precinct I have ever seen in 10 years.

See, Otto was a happy guy. Olympia was a happy gal. Omar was a happy guy. Where are their cheerleading teams, hehh?? Where are their teams?!

*spits out Pepsi at such an insanely fast speed it beats Comcast by ten thousand miles*

THEY HAVE AN AGENT WITH DOWN SYNDROME?!?!?!

IT TOOK THEM

10 YEARS

TO HAVE AN AGENT

WITH DOWN SYNDROME?!?!?!?!?!

...Okay look, I had a friend with cerebral palsy and from watching this bit repeatedly I don't think this agent has it...

BUT THEY PUT IN AN AGENT WITH DOWN SYNDROME ALL THE SAME AWWWWWWWWWW HNNNNNNNNNNGH MY HEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHT

I'm not even mad they did that before a canonically autistic agent. I'm not mad. I'm not mad it exists. I'm not mad they could have done this 10 years ago and given a raspberry and a "fuck you" to all the ableist critics. How the fuck do you expect my ass to get mad at this? I'm not fucking barbaric, sweet Jesus Christ.

Only a minute in and this is by far one of the best things of the episode, right here. I can't gush about this enough. You ask me why I love this franchise, and this is one of the reasons.

"I work in the Department of Help. It's my job."

Thank you, Ozzie, but I didn't spend a year waiting to get slammed face-first with exposition. I could teach a college class on this entire show/season at what was my dream college before nu monies crushed that.

Just to note: the last time we ever saw a PA system used by a Director was -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- Oprah in "The Jackies", a good 10 years ago.

The fact it's become a mainstay for Captain O and her precinct is a lovely bit of continuity, if unintentional.

I remember seeing part of this set a long time ago in a BTS photo. Nice to see another angle of it!

I like the seafaring stuff in here too. Scuba helmet, what looks to be maps of islands, a telescope...the only funny thing is that Ozzie staring down Captain O here is the equivalent of Otis staring down Orson aaaaaaaaand I can't get that out of my head now. Beautiful. Thank you.

As if the Oona image Easter egg wasn't enough, they have to go and reference toast again?

I'm not even mad, this literal humor is on-brand and hilarious, but this being the 10th anniversary series, it's funny they choose to reference this and not Sheila.

...Or maybe they will reference Sheila later. She does have that Bizarre Brigade show...

It's probably unintentional on Alexander Shaw's part, but this line here sounds so artificial it's like maybe, just maybe, he has something to do with it.

...

MA GET MY TINFOIL HAT I'M GOIN' OUTSIDE-

"I'll be brief: I have no idea why all this is happening."

Very few kids shows can sell a character to me and make me slam my wallet chock-full of bills down on a single line, but Odd Squad UK did it with Onom and I have no regrets.

Is...hold on, is this is a whole-ass meeting Captain O's having in here? It's not just Ozzie, Onom and Orwell?

Either I'm trippin' like hell or this is the live-action equivalent of needing background characters to fill up spaces in a scene.

And just like that, 13 chances for name-drops of past "living legend" agents were shot with bullets going into all the crucial arteries in the bodies.

How does he know about Orli? Who the fuck knows! He's got a better chance of knowing about the 13 "living legend" agents in question than some girl working behind a goddamn waterfall!!

You ever watch Adult Swim and it cuts right from the show to an ident scene?

That's what this is. Only there's no ident, it's mid-episode, and it's so sudden that it's like half of the ASMR memes on the Internet that jumpscare you.

(On to Part 2!)

[nerendus]

There's still a few bears and hippopotamuses wandering untouched in the shadowlands, but in terms of story and main bosses, I can comfortably say I have finished the Shadow of the Erdtree DLC. And boy, do I have some thoughts.

Most of what I have to say is extremely positive, but there is of course the hippopotamus in the room--the ending of the DLC, which I discuss here and here in greater detail. Short gist is yeah, it sucked and the fact that MohgMiq (one of my favourite aspects of the base game) was a lie sucks, and fighting Radahn as the final boss sucks and would have been infinitely better if it was Godwyn instead, but I understand this is coming from the perspective of a person who has been reading into the story for two years, and GRRM probably didn't intend the story to be broken in to two parts and only be furthered explain long after the base game, and if I had played the game for the first time along with the DLC I would not be upset in the slightest.

I've made my peace with it. There's nothing to be done. I will keep the tags muted for a few weeks to just let everyone else cool off probably a lot slower since having a feed full of people complaining isn't exactly fun, especially considering how amazing the rest of the DLC is.

And...that's it for complaints. Now on to unending praises.

First, the gameplay and combat was really fun. It's baked in to be difficult, and while some players probably won't like it, I really really really enjoyed it. It took some time adjusting to, but after that, I just came to expect bosses to be difficult and had a fun time with it.

The setting was absolutely gorgeous. All of the areas just blew my mind. It's kinda embarrassing to admit, but there were multiple moments where I unintentionally started doing the pog face whenever I entered a new area. The Abyssal Forest, or as I like to call it, Louisiana, is by far my favourite area and may be my favourite out of all Fromsoft games.

I also really loved the Shaman Village. I long theorised Marika to have come from a simple background and finding that place....man I want to cry just thinking about it. Marika is my favourite character in the game, and I never stop winning when it comes to her lore.

Jagged Peak was really fucking cool. The music and skybox...mwah mwah. I loved finding the two dragons fighting each other, that was so cool to see. And Igon, my boy, his voice actor deserves a raise. What an insane performance. Bayle was an amazing boss fight, difficult--mainly because my computer couldn't keep up with him--and very satisfying to beat.

Dragon lore was also amazing. I was always confused on the idea of dragon communion if the people who worshiped the dragons were the ones eating the hearts, but it makes so sense that they only eat the hearts of lesser dragons. I loved it. I also loved the dragon priestess, I want to marry her.

I loved the look of gaols in this. They are so pretty, and it was so fun traversing through them while weird jarussy enemies attack you.

Ymir!!!!!!!!! What a freak!!!!!! I loved him and the Mother of Fingers. Fingers lore is a weird phrase to say out of context, but wow, I really loved the fingers lore in this expansion.

Messmer, my beloved, I love him so much. With the trailer, I sorta expected him to be like, a ruthless heartless freak that's losing it, but when you get to him, he just comes off as....lonely and sad. My poor boy. If he would stop attacking me, my Tarnished could have him return to the Lands Between and become their god when they achieve status of Elden Lord but noooooooo. He's very much his mother's son in level of tragedy and very very very easy to sympathise with.

I loved finding St. Trina. I missed out on their entire questline and didn't even ever find the NPC tied to them, but I got a cute flower so I'm happy. :) The game uses feminine pronouns for them, but I still feel a bit weird referring to them as she/her, especially since the base game sort of implies them to be genderfluid but Idk, maybe eventually I can convince myself to call them a she.

Midra and Nanaya are officially my favourite characters, and I don't even really know that much about them. I've come up with a pretty good baseline of what I think is their deal here, but I really want to talk about them more. I'm already outlining a fic about it, but I'd love to have other people's input on their whole story.

That's pretty much it for the big stuff.

Final rating: 10/10. I wanted initially to bring it down to a 9/10 for the ending, but the rest of the story truly is too amazing to make it any lower than 10.

But yeah, I'll start dissecting the lore in my sleep and posting about it here. And of the topics listed with great love here is open to discussion. I want to talk about the good parts this DLC because it truly was amazing, but for now....I am going to sleep.