#do u like these i think these are my ultimate masterpieces

[szaryherbatnik]

Ive been making these for like 2 months now ive never shared them here. Enjoy.

[lionhanie]

boynextdoor playing minecraft! (ot6 hc)

what happens when boynextdoor starts a minecraft server?

word count: 1.2k i think

genre + warnings: crack LOL, cursing, written in lowercase, typos

a/n: this is so stupid LMAO. (i was playing mc earlier whos gonna match my freak)

reblogs ↺ + feedback always appreciated!

featuring… sungho as numberonecatdad! riwoo as LeeSanghyeok! (he didn’t know he was making his username when he made the account. literal full government name out there)  jaehyun as myungj4e! taesan as GiantMountain! leehan as 212121_! woonhak as xxBlockBeastxx2006! (he made it in 4th grade. says he keeps the name for the nostalgia he doesnt know how to change it)  

→ Join Server?

☆ sungho: the builder

i feel like sungho wouldn’t really be interested in playing mc “seriously” but BOYYYY get him into creative and he’s locking the hell in. ik he does NOT play when it comes to building The Ultimate Spruce Wood Base

he got sick of seeing jaehyun build dirt huts as shelter in their worlds so he took on the role of being the MAIN BUILDER… main vocal? yeah. main builder is his TRUE calling. but i genuinely think he’d be good at it LOL his attention to detail is insane

making entire mansions in survival except he doesn’t even collect the blocks himself. he just waits til people come home with them and he steals them for his builds

In the chat… numberonecatdad: who made this farm by my house 212121_: me and riwoo 212121_: y???? numberonecatdad: … LeeSanghyeok: wjats wrong with it :( numberonecatdad: it’s … so bad LeeSanghyeok: it took us 2 hrs to make btw 212121_: okay but it works numberonecatdad: HALF THE CROPS ARE TRAMPLED numberonecatdad: stay away. leave this to me

the next day its a full fledged farm. windmill in the background. beautiful fields of potatoes and wheat surrounded by a pretty fence. flowers adorning the whole thing. true masterpiece 

☆ riwoo: the noob

i think he’s not really the type to play games like mc. like give him tiny tower or something and he’s at like 400 floors.. neko atsume? he got all the cats unlocked. but MINECRAFT? idk i feel like he’s just 🙂 when he plays bc he has no idea what’s going on

everyone will be off adventuring on their own.. minding their business.. and then there's a death message in the chat saying riwoo died to something so incredibly random. everyone is just like ??? bc wdym you died to a berry bush

the members think its so cute how he’s just… there for the ride! but they can’t help but mess around with riwoo because he is truly lost  & blindly trusts everything they tell him bc he doesn’t know any better

In the chat… 212121_: riwoo stand right there LeeSanghyeok: why 212121_: ima show u a cool easter egg LeeSanghyeok: okie ^_^ LeeSanghyeok was squashed by a falling anvil. LeeSanghyeok: wat was the easter egg LeeSanghyeok: i dont get it xxBlockBeastxx2006: LKSJKJFHKJSnfd;sf GiantMountain: oh riwoo GiantMountain: if u left click u can pet the bees and they heal u LeeSanghyeok: rlly? thats cool i wanna try myungj4e: DONT DO IT LeeSanghyeok was stung to death. numberonecatdad: leave that poor boy ALONE

after that, riwoo learns to be cautious of the maknae line.... he just stays with sungho collecting flowers for his builds or lighting up the caves jaehyun explores and running from the mobs :,)

☆ jaehyun: the miner

jaehyun is definitely the type to go straight to mining when you start up a new world. the second everyone sees "myungj4e has just earned the achievement [Acquire Hardware]" they KNOW he's clocking into his full time job in the mines bye

it’s 30 mins in and he has half a set of diamond armor to his name and they’re like ?? bro we just started can you be fr rn… if any of the members ask for materials he won’t do it unless he’s getting something out of it (don’t tell anyone but he made riwoo a set of diamond tools when everyone is still using iron 😍 true romance i think)

lowkey everyone is convinced he has x-ray installed or something bc of how good he is at mining

In the chat… numberonecatdad: can i get three diamonds for a new pickaxe myungj4e: lmao NO  myungj4e: wat do i get in return numberonecatdad: how do you live in a dirt shack and have diamond armor GiantMountain: embarrassing.... myungj4e: okay making fun of the less fortunate now??? numberonecatdad: ill build u a house if u give me diamonds myungj4e: k fine  xxBlockBeastxx2006: OH BUT WHEN I ASK FOR DIAMONDS I DONT GET ANY

at the end of the day tho... he's lowkey a blessing bc if he's feeling nice enough he will hook u up with ANYTHING u need. the boys are spoiled w the way jae's chests are FULL of iron whenever they need it

☆ taesan: the fighter

unironically i think taesan would just be . oddly good at pvp. it’s like one of his random talents LOOOL "good at mc pvp" on his resume LOUD AND PROUD

like you load up into bedwars or something and he’s wiping out teams before you can even get yourself a proper set of armor. its lowkey attractive idk

in your survival world, he’s always instigating fights with the other members in hopes that they’ll want to fight. literally no one can kill him. he can probably 1v5 and still win

In the chat... myungj4e: WHO TOOK THE DIAMONDS FROM MY CHEST WHILE I WAS OFFLINE LeeSanghyeok: it was taesan GiantMountain: …what are u gonna do about it bro. huh. they’re mine now.  myungj4e: bro that was like a full stack. it took me like 3 hours to get them. where the hell are you  GiantMountain: why? you wanna fight for it? GiantMountain: whoever wins keeps the diamonds xxBlockBeastxx2006: oh ur cooked hyung myungj4e: OK DEAL myungj4e was slain by GiantMountain using Diamond Sword.

the way u can hear jaehyun RAGE through the dorm walls brings a smile to taesan's face bc he KNOWS he stays undefeated when it comes to pvp

☆ leehan: the troll

i think he’s similar to riwoo in the sense that he doesn’t rlly know whats going on but once they start their server you know DAMN well he’s looking up Top 15 BEST Ways To ANNOY Your FRIENDS in Minecraft! on youtube.,.. fucking loser (hearts in my eyes as i write this)

they’re usually harmless ones, like filling up jaehyun's chests with junk or renaming sungho's cat to something stupid like “Poopy Fart” or moving all of woonhak's cows from their pen

but ohh… if you piss him awf BADDD i think he would do some DIABOLICAL damage to the world. like imagine taesan is Also Trolling and he kills leehan before taking all of his stuff and running away into the distance. things would be quiet… too quiet…. until next thing u kno theres a whole trap waiting for taesan the second he walks into his house 

In the chat… 212121_: taesan do u still have my fishing rod GiantMountain: ye lol 212121_: can i have it back GiantMountain: LMAO GiantMountain: no 212121_: i think theres a creeper in ur house  GiantMountain: WHAT  GiantMountain was killed by magic while trying to escape 212121_.  numberonecatdad: LOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLL GiantMountain: when the hell did you set that up 212121_: >:)

OKAY YES he spent 46 minutes following a tutorial on how to set up a death chamber full of the WORST potion effects ever ... but it worked so he's sitting at his monitor feelijng like an evil mastermind

☆ woonhak: the sweat

he is like the only one i imagined actually PLAYED minecraft growing up. he unironically enjoys watching minecraft streams too LMAO much like jaehyun, i think woonhak goes straight to mining in survival. except rather than /just/ mining, he’s literally trying to beat the game 

he's usually off on his own doing something but ngl .. i bet he's a backseat gamer when he see's someone doing smth wrong. let's say he's out exploring w riwoo and he's falling SO FAR BEHIND he doesn't know how to sprint he will literally walk into his room to show him how to run

bro probably watched Ender Dragon Speedruns growing up idk i feel like he’s determined to beat the world record (he won’t, but he will definitely try) 

In the chat... xxBlockBeastxx2006 has just earned the achievement [The End?] numberonecatdad: ? 212121_: ?? 212121_: is that what i think it is myungj4e: ../?//???? ?  ??? LeeSanghyeok: wat is that LeeSanghyeok: whys the achievement purple GiantMountain: r u fr rn 212121z: LMAO tryhard alert... xxBlockBeastxx2006: yooo chill we can always respawn it dw myungj4e: HOW DARE U KILL THE ENDERDRAGON WITHOUT US myungj4e: UR FAKE AS HELL xxBlockBeastxx2006 has been banned from the server by myungj4e

woonhak doesn't talk to jaehyun for the rest of the night (he's unbanned the next day, but they force him to restart so he isn't absolutely STACKED)

taglist: @onedoornet @dongminz (ty saki for supporting me with my bonedo mc thoughts LMFAO) @gluion @icyminghao

© lionhanie 2024 ; all rights reserved!

[lovebugism]

oh my god,,,, gurl!!!! THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT fic is sooo good 😫 my heart literally breaks every time I read this story. Thank you for blessing us with this masterpiece <3

THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | square one

summary: eddie makes a confession that's been weighing heavy on his heart. you realize that your future with him is haunted by ghosts from your past. pairing: virgin!eddie munson / f!reader word count: 16.3k warnings: hopper, steve, and robin being the reader defense squad, hints at reader's previously poor mental health, mentions of abusive and toxic relationships, a banshees of inisherin quote, b*lly h*rgrove because he needs a warning. (pretend any typos don't exist pls and thank u!) a/n: guess who's back, back again? ✨✨ i'd apologize for disappearing for a month, but then there'd be apologies in all my notes, so just know that i'm sorry every time i disappear unexpectedly, okay? 🥲 thanks for being so patient! please enjoy this long-awaited installment of tcar ily <3

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

Eddie’s got a 1986 Van Halen tape in his boombox and a baby pink heart stitched into the fabric of his shirt. He’s the least metal he’s ever been, but he couldn’t be happier.

You keep your promise to him to patch up his torn Hellfire tee. If anything, you use the absentminded assurance as your excuse to see him again. The night you shared before, all but baring your scarred souls underneath glittering stars and streams of pale moonlight, hadn’t satiated your hunger for him. Eddie left you craving in a way you weren’t used to before — a yearning to be close to him that went beyond the boundaries of physical intimacy.

It was a simple sort of longing. It was a homesickness. A sense of nostalgia for a love you’d never felt before.

You wish you could wear Eddie’s adoration for you like a blanket, wrap yourself in the hand-stitched quilt of many colors and bundle it tighter around your shoulders when the cold comes. You want his softness to hold you in a way you’ve never been able to hold yourself.

You feel swaddled in it, succumbed and cloaked and at peace in all his tenderness. You’ve never been so at ease, so blissfully comforted by the presence of another human being. And Eddie feels all of that, every ounce of warmth you feel, because it pours out of you like rays of sunshine and bathes him in shades of gold.

He didn’t think you could get any softer than you had been that night at Skull Rock, until you were nestled in his unmade bed the next morning. You curled your legs underneath you as you weaved the needle and thread through the tear in his t-shirt, eyes squinted and tongue poking out the side of your mouth in an astute concentration. 

All of the sudden, you were marshmallow fluff and honey on toast — made of all things sickly sweet that made his stomach feel suddenly full. 

You finish mending the rip in record time and beam when he wears the heart-shaped stitching with pride. The rest of the day thereafter was spent in the tiny confines of his one hundred square-inch bedroom. From there, the both of you came to the silent understanding that you didn't want to spend another day apart.

The weekend had given you a limited sort of freedom, allowed you to pretend that you lived in a world with no responsibilities or anything other than Eddie Eddie Eddie, but adulthood made you no such promises. He had a side job to do to keep himself afloat, and you had a cat that thought it was the end of the world anytime you were gone for longer than a night. Both of those things together meant that the eve of parting was ultimately inevitable.

Every second you spent away from Eddie felt like you were grieving.

You mourned for him in the darkness of your apartment and tried to pretend you weren’t half a person in the cat food aisle at Melvald’s.

You tried to lessen the unbearable distance with phone calls, though it didn’t come nearly as close as feeling his fingers thrumming imaginary beats on your thigh or his heartbeat thudding against your ear. 

But his voice filled the emptiness of your one-bedroom apartment and the Eddie Munson shaped hole he’d left just behind your ribcage, and that was good enough for you.

When you weren’t with him, you were roaming around your apartment like some kind of ghost, with the phone tucked between your ear and shoulder and the rotary clutched in your free hand. 

You cook yourself dinner with him ranting about his day in your ear. You hold the receiver closer to Bowie and force him to hear her purr when she’s being exceptionally cute. He falls asleep some hours later to the sound of your soft snores, and you wake up the next morning to the sounds of his.

It was pathetic, truly.

You’d be gagging at how sweet it was if it wasn’t happening to you.

But it was.

Every ounce of this sticky sweet goodness was yours, and it tasted just like honey on your tongue. 

It was the honeymoon stage times a thousand, all rose-colored and reflecting light — your own personal utopia. It brought with it a heavenly sort of refuge, a bubble of peace you never wanted to pierce.

Eddie basks in the serenity of it all when he finally has you with him again. You’re in his lap, on his lips, and all over him, but it still isn’t quite close enough. He doesn’t think he’ll be satisfied until you’ve successfully melted with him and your limbs have entwined with his like tree roots, destined to remain that way for the next couple of centuries or so.

And it’s weird because he could hardly handle living in such a tiny trailer with Wayne, let alone stomach more than a couple hours with the guys from Hellfire all in one place. But you? You entered his life all at once and now he can’t remember what it was like without you.

He doesn’t particularly want to, if he’s being real honest.

It’s why he’s always less enthused about letting you leave when you’ve both got responsibilities dragging you apart. He begs you to stay with him a few hours more, pleads for you to stick around while he makes a quick deal or an emergency pick-up when Dustin Henderson calls and says he needs a ride. 

And you promise you’ll wait on him there, because he makes it virtually impossible to say no to his rosy pouted lips and chocolate syrup puppy dog eyes.

That’s when you run into Wayne for the first time, when Eddie’s out and you’re making breakfast for when he comes back.

French toast and scrambled eggs sizzle on the stove and warm the kitchen with all its cinnamon confections. It makes the man’s face screw up in confusion when he steps inside the trailer because he’s never known Eddie to cook a day in his life. And then his eyes find you — a young, pretty girl all alone in his kitchen with his nephew’s van gone from the drive.

“…Who the hell are you?” he wonders gruffly and pops a cigarette between his lips, totally unbothered.

He’s got no reason to be intimidated by the stranger in his trailer. He’s more confused than anything else, and he’s got this contorted look on his face like he’s blaming the exhaustion from the graveyard shift for his vision of you.

“Oh— my god,” you mumble through the mouthful of whipped cream you’d squeezed into your mouth moments prior. You fight to swallow it all down. “Uh. Hi. I’m, um… I’m Eddie’s... girlfriend?”

It sounds like you’re lying. 

In some ways, it feels like you are. 

You’ve been spending more time in his trailer than in your own home, but it’s not like either of you has motioned to make anything official just yet.

He eyes you with a tired and heavy gaze, eyes as dark and as infinite as Eddie’s. The man gives you a once-over and then chuckles lowly to himself as he tosses his corduroy jacket onto the back of the recliner and his tin lunchbox to the coffee table.

You shift awkwardly on the other side of the room. “…What is it?”

“When Eddie said he was talkin’ to a pretty girl on the phone every night, I thought he was lyin’,” he admits through hearty chuckles. 

It makes you laugh too. 

There’s little talking after the fact, besides you offering him some of the breakfast on the stove and him joking that you should come around more often.

You recount the story to Eddie when he returns, utterly mortified about the whole thing. You’re even more embarrassed when the boy finds amusement in your horror and starts to chuckle to himself — not exactly at you, but not with you either.

He laughs louder when you swat at him for it. You clamber on top of him, mattress squeaking mattress under your weight, as you demand him to stop through giggles of your own.

Somewhere down the line, both of you stop caring. 

Neither of you is quite sure where the conversation stopped and ended, only that when you started kissing, you couldn’t stop. 

They weren’t innocent little pecks, but they weren’t sloppy and full of tongue either. You press your lips together with the intent of being as close as you can to the other, like you haven’t spent every second you could together.

Neither of you will be satisfied until you’ve swallowed each other whole.

And you, you’ve got this ache for him. A swirling of want that’s constantly rippling in your belly for this boy. He’s just not usually under you when it’s happening — and now that he is, the crackling embers have burst into white and blue flames behind your sternum.

Your lips click each time you part, a lewd noise you never want to stop hearing. The sound of it gives you goosebumps, like a good song you’ve just heard on the radio. You wonder if Eddie can feel them as his hands start to creep up beneath your shirt and find purchase along your waist. 

You open his mouth with your own and sneak your tongue inside just as you roll your hips over his lap.

It’s the most forthcoming either of you had been in your three-day stint of nonstop talking. Even when you were over at the trailer, totally alone and pressed underneath him, it was otherwise completely innocent. You just make out like a couple of teenagers until one of you wants to make a food run or offers to roll a joint. 

And you like that. You like that he doesn’t expect anything from you, but it does get a little agonizing when you’ve tried every attempt to give yourself to him and he just won’t take it.

Like usual, Eddie tenses when he feels you grinding on top of him — partly because he feels a tingle at the base of his spine when he gets instantly half-hard, but mostly because he knows there’s nothing he can do about it.

He keeps preaching to himself it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time, it’s not the right time — but he’s got no idea when it’ll ever be the right time, if it’ll ever be the right time, or if he’ll know it when it comes.

Because he’s had you to himself for days now — no Wayne, no responsibilities, no pressure — with his tongue rutting against yours and your hands fidgeting with the metal buttons of his jeans, and it still doesn’t feel good enough. Eddie doesn’t feel good enough.

He’s not sure if he ever will.

And it’s not you. God, it’s the farthest thing from you. As far as Eddie’s concerned, he’s never had more fun with anyone else. He’s never laughed harder with anyone else. He’s never felt as comfortable with anyone as he’s starting to feel around you. So he’s not entirely sure why he finds the rest of it so hard. 

Eddie wants you so bad that the ache of all his yearning is palpable. It’s like the weight of it is what’s keeping him from you — unstoppable force, immovable object, blah, blah, blah. 

Either way, it leaves him entirely unable to take things further with you, however much he wants to. There’s something in his way and it’s him. 

Your heartache is his own when he has to pull away from you.

“You okay?” you ask him with wide eyes and swollen lips, always so concerned for him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good,” he’s quick to assure you. He’s still breathless when he fidgets beneath you, trying to prop himself up on his headboard without rubbing his half-hard cock against your thigh.

When he succeeds, he musters a smile that shakes at the edges. “It’s just… you know, not everything… It doesn’t have to be about sex, you know?”

He makes himself as soft as possible for you when he says this. He gets rid of all the usual teasing lilts that tend to lurk on his tongue as the words spill from his mouth. The last thing he wants to do is hurt your feelings or, in some roundabout way, make you think you’re the problem. 

He just wants you to know that that isn’t why he’s been wanting to spend so much time with you. There was never an ulterior motive with him other than all the adoration he holds in his hands and his mouth for you.

The strike of hurt that flashes across your face is obvious to only Eddie, who’s spent enough time mapping out your features to know what twitches are ones of discontent. The slight frown that dips between your brows when they scrunch together for half a second comes like a stroke of lightning. It’s a brief flash of purple in the sky that leaves so quickly that it makes you wonder if it was ever there at all.

You fidget on his lap, not resting as comfortably upon him as you had been just moments before. “Oh…” you murmur through soft, jutted-out lips. “Sorry. I, I didn’t—”

“No, it’s not— that’s not what I—” he tries to assure over your insecure stammers, but succeeds only in tripping over himself in return. He cuts himself off with a breathy laugh, shaking his head while his fingers fidget on your hips. “That’s just not what this is about for me, you know? I just… I wanna spend time with you.”

It’s easily the softest thing he’s ever said to you — to anybody, for the matter — and the marshmallow sweetness of it all wraps around you like wisps of pink cotton candy.

Your apprehensiveness twists into something lighter, a pair of twinkling eyes and a bashful smile.

“Oh,” you hum again, obviously more pleased than before. “That’s nice…”

“No one’s ever said that to you before, have they?” Eddie asks you.

He tries to muster a crooked smirk as the words leave his mouth, but he’s got a feeling he already knows the answer. Hearing you affirm his suspicions will do nothing more than make him angry at all the assholes that had you before him, at everyone who taught you that you were good for sex and hardly a thing else. 

It makes him wish that he’d gotten to know you sooner. Maybe then you’d understand that he’d be happy just holding you like this and never doing anything more.

You don’t answer him verbally, just shake your head with your lips pursed softly to the side. You look more innocent than anything he’s ever seen before, even with your lipstick smeared on your chin. 

He’s still not quite sure how someone could be so reckless with such a fragile thing — to watch you break and not spend the rest of time grieving to know that you’ll never be quite the same again. 

There’s a primal instinct that swims in him then, an urge to keep you in his arms and locked in the confines of his trailer forever and ever. He wants to keep the wolves of Hawkins, Indiana from ever getting a whiff of you again. It’d be more than they deserved, anyway.

“God, you have got to get better boyfriends, sweetheart,” Eddie tells you with a playful lilt in his voice despite the anger simmering in his belly.

“Isn’t that what you are?” you giggle.

His world stops.

“Huh?”

You tense at his tenseness. Only when he’s gaping at you does the weight of your words dawn on you. “…Huh?”

The awkward moment goes as quickly as it arrives, chased out by the fit of laughter the two of you are quickly thrown into. Your entwining chuckles rise like smoke in his tiny bedroom and then settle back over you like a fuzzy blanket.

“Are you asking me to be your boyfriend, babe?” Eddie teases.

“Of course not,” you scoff. “Babe.”

“Oh, right, of course not. That would be way too crazy considering we’ve spent, like, every day together and have made each other come… what is it now? Twice?”

“Three times for me,” you correct with you a smile. “You need to catch up, Eddie Spaghetti.”

“Another time?” he offers with a scrunched nose.

“Whenever you want.”

Eddie is grateful for your lack of urgency, even more so for the kiss you press to the tip of his nose. 

You peck him on the lips after — once, twice, and then a thiiird, drawn out time — before moving on to his chin and jaw and neck. Whatever part of him you can reach (which is just about everywhere, considering the vantage point you’ve got sitting on his lap), you sprinkle a kiss to it.

It’s an innocent sort of affection, the kind that makes him wonder how it ever came to be in the first place. What evolutionary measures led to this, to you pressing your lips to his skin to show how much you care about him? Eddie doesn’t really want to know the answer, he’s just grateful that it happened in the first place.

You’re so good at it, loving on him. You’re always so kind and so gentle in your way and it makes him feel guilty. There’s a lingering feeling of undeservedness that settles something heavy at the base of his stomach. How could he ever expect you to be so open with him when he hasn’t done the same for you?

A heavy sigh rattles in his deflating chest. 

“I gotta tell you something, sweetheart,” he cautions when your lips smack against the thrumming pulse below the left side of his jaw. “Something you’re not gonna like…”

A billion things run through your head all at once. When you part from him, he can see the rollercoaster of emotions each one of them puts you through.

Your first instinct is that he’s got some kind of partner he’s kept hidden from you until now. It wouldn’t be the first time you’ve gone steady with a guy who’s then told you about some other girlfriend he had — or, god forbid, a wife. 

But then you realize that you surely would’ve had some sort of inkling if that were the case. There’s no way Eddie would’ve been able to spend every second of his day with you — and then another several hours on the phone when you had to leave — without someone else coming along to burst your bubble. 

And so far, there haven’t been any angry wives, just the occasionally confused Uncle Wayne.

Then you start thinking he’s about to tell you he wants an open relationship. The you’re great, but I’m just not ready to settle down yet spiel that you’ve heard a thousand times before. Usually when people say that, they mean that they just don’t want to settle down with you.

You’ll become some douchebag’s fuck toy for a month or more until the girl next door comes around. He gets her knocked up in record time, his family forces him to marry her, and they begin their cushy lives together in the center of some cul-de-sac — really settle down, as it were.

You’re not sure if you could take that from Eddie. You could grin and bear if it you had to, take whatever attention he’s willing to give you because who cares if he’s giving it to someone else on the side? You’re just not sure how long you’d last like that.

And then you start to worry that he’s just going to break up with you entirely — it’s not you, it’s blah, I’ll always care about blah, please don’t tell anyone about how we blah-ed. That whole talk. 

All the rest of your worries stop mattering so much because you’ve only just called him your boyfriend. And here he goes, about to end it all before it can really even start. That’d be just your luck, you figure.

“Did I do something wrong?” you caution after a few moments of heavy silence.

Eddie’s bleeding heart wrenches at your words, at how sad they sound spilling from your mouth, and how you immediately think that it’s got something to do with you. 

He shakes his head feverishly in response. “No. No, it’s not you. You’re… you’re perfect.”

“Okay…” you concede quietly, voice trembling with a lingering disbelief.

“I just… I haven’t been totally honest with you, you know?” the boy admits before his glimmering chocolate eyes fly open and he corrects himself quickly. “And I haven’t lied to you or anything. Not— Not exactly. I just… I wanna be honest with you… As your boyfriend and all.”

You can tell by the sudden weight in his voice that he’s serious. But the fine coat of glowing rose that splotches Eddie’s cheeks after calling himself your boyfriend for the first time makes you melt. 

You smile to yourself and start to trace the heart you’d stitched into his t-shirt with your finger.

“Yeah. I mean, we are about to spend our two minutes anniversary together and everything.”

“Exactly,” the boy huffs out a laugh. It lacks its usual jest, though, because of the ice-cold anxiety that drenches him from head to toe and makes his hands and feet go numb.

His fingers tremble where the rest on your waist, trying and failing to find a comfortable position there because, right about now, Eddie feels the most awkward he’s ever felt.

“I just want you to know that I… I’ve never done this before,” he confesses quietly and with his eyes squeezed shut. He prays that he doesn’t have to be any less vague than that.

Your face twists in confusion — your brows furrow and your nose twitches and your head tilts to the side like a puppy. And then you’re laughing, a soft little thing of a giggle that normally makes his heart sing, though now he can only feel it breaking.

“What…?” he tries to scoff out his own chuckle. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because you’ve already told me that, dummy. That you’ve never felt this way before…” you answer, reciting his own words back to him. You haven’t yet forgotten how he’d looked at you as you said them, pale skin made silk under the moonlight while he sparkled beneath the beams of it and his love for you. 

“No, it’s… it’s more than that,” he corrects. “I’ve never even had a girlfriend before you. Or anything really.”

You still don’t seem to understand. You just look on at him with uncertainty. 

A quiet “okay?” tumbles from your mouth entwined with a nervous giggle, because you don’t understand what’s got him so somber. He’s never dated anyone, you’ve fucked half of Hawkins — these are just facts that went unsaid before now. 

And maybe it’s because you’ve never been with a virgin before, but the thought that Eddie might be one hasn’t seemed to cross your mind at all. 

It’s that exact thought that scares him. 

Because if it hasn’t already, maybe it’s because you’re avoiding it altogether. And why would he ever be the exception?

He opts to bite the bullet and hopes that his heart doesn’t get broken after.

“I’m a virgin. Okay? I’m a complete, total, proper adult virgin,” he blurts with a brazenness he’d previously lacked when it came to all this. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before now, but I didn’t, because I liked you and I was scared. So if you wanna yell at me or if you wanna break up with me before our five-minute anniversary, I totally get it, but I should probably let you know that it’ll rip my little virgin heart to shreds, so…”

Eddie ends his nervous ramble with a trembling, lopsided smile that does little to ease the leaden tension he’s just manufactured in the four walls of his bedroom.

He can’t seem to gauge your reaction after the fact, which is strange because he always knows what you’re thinking. 

He knows when you’re laughing with him and not at him. You scrunch your nose and giggle when he tells you a funny joke, then tilt your head back and cackle when he trips over the punchline. 

He knows the exact moment when something’s started to bother you — when you get real quiet in your bubble of reserved stillness and your eyes start to glaze over. To anyone else, it might just look like a person who’s keeping to themselves. Eddie’s starting to learn that usually means trouble when it comes to you.

He knows the difference between your gentle sort of sadness and when you’re damn near inconsolable. When you cried at the end of Stand By Me, you smiled at him with a glassy tear-filled gaze, then rolled your eyes when he tried to comfort you. The tears only spilled over when you laughed because Eddie pretended you’d hurt him when you’d shoved him away. 

But when you’re really upset about something, you don’t show him at all — you fight to keep it all to yourself until you’ve squished the problem into a tiny enough ball that you can forget about all of it.

This is something different.

There’s too much crossing your mind all at once for him to get a good read of you.

You just gape at him, like you’re trying to figure out if he’s joking or not, and then fighting to understand what it means when you realize he’s being serious. 

And just when you’ve started to wrap your head around it all, when your brain remembers how to make words again and you realize you haven’t said anything in several agonizing seconds, a foreign voice sounds from down the hallway.

Not foreign in that it was unfamiliar exactly, just foreign in that you and Eddie had spent so much time alone that you were starting to forget that there was an entire world outside of yourselves. A great big world, filled with a great many people, some of whom were your friends who tended to get pretty worried about you.

“Edward Wayne— why the hell is the Chief in my driveway?” his uncle curses from the living room, sounding like he’s speaking through a cigarette in his mouth.

Eddie himself is immediately freaking the fuck out because he figures he must’ve gotten tipped off again. He tries to calculate the quickest way to get you off of him and to all of his cubby holes full of miscellaneous drugs so he can flush them down the toilet before Jim Hopper busts the door down.

And even though you’re not the drug dealer who’s had cops on their ass since they were fifteen in this equation, you look a whole lot more terrified than Eddie does.

Your eyes go wide and the whites of them swim with terror as you launch yourself off of his lap. You don’t spare another glance back at him, not even when you nearly trip over yourself when you shove your sneakers on your feet and shuffle out of the room. He’s forced to follow behind you like a confused puppy as you bound through the trailer at lightning speed. 

The haste of your movements startles even Wayne, who halts mid-puff of his cig when you’re in and out of the living room before he can blink. The opening squeak of the screen door and metal slamming against metal is the only thing that punctuates your exit.

“Would it kill you to answer your damn phone every once in a while?” the powerful timbre of Jim Hopper’s angry voice, of which only the man himself could pull off, is muffled until Eddie cautiously slinks onto the porch behind you. 

He finds the chief standing beside the Cruiser he’s parked sideways. The door of it is still flung open. A distant beeping sounds from the ignition. 

He’s still got on the pressed khakis of his uniform — complete with the golden badge pinned to his chest, darkened sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, and flat-brimmed hat on his head. Even with the majority of his face covered, it does little to hide the anger that radiates off of him like a hot stove eye.

You remain on the porch, shifting your weight on your feet at the top of the steps. “Okay, Hopper, just listen to me for a second—”

“Three days!” he shouts over you, not deterred by your composed nature. “I have been calling you… for three days! Seventy-two hours. No answer!”

Eddie decides to speak up from behind you despite his better judgment. “Yeah, uh, that was kinda my fault,” he confesses with an awkward laugh. “Wouldn’t let her hang up the phone—”

“I’ll deal with you in a second,” Jim interjects firmly and without thinking. He goes back to berating you with an admirable finesse. “Buckley wanted my head on a pike when I wouldn’t file a missing person’s report in the first twenty-four hours, but seventy-two? She was gonna kill me!”

Rather than argue with him, like every fiber of your being so desperately wants to, you make the difficult choice to concede with a heavy sigh. Because you don’t doubt that Robin was on his ass the second she realized you weren’t answering your phone or at your apartment when she and Steve dropped by.

She did tend to be on the overprotective side, after all, which obviously paired well with her melodramatic disposition.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’ve just been… busy.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard the one before,” the man answers bitterly.

“It’s different, Hopper!”

“I’ve heard the one before, too!”

Eddie can only assume that the both of you are communicating telepathically, what with the way your synchronized glares seem to say a thousand words (probably every curse imaginable, if he had to guess) without your mouths ever moving once. 

He stands on the outskirts of it all, feeling a bit stuck in the thorniness of such a tense silence, like any slight movement might cut him.

Jim moves slowly, akin to a creeping snake, as his hands raise to remove the glasses from his face. Their lack reveals the ice-cold glare that was previously hiding beneath them.

“Get in the car—” 

“—No,” you reject just as the direction leaves his mouth because you knew it was coming.

Jim inhales sharply and smacks his lips against his teeth, like a father whose child is most ardently testing his patience. He plants his work boot in the gravel and his hand on his hips. His steel gaze goes far off for a moment before flitting back to you again.

“…Get in the car or I put you in handcuffs.”

Your breath hitches at the threat. You squint over at him. “You wouldn’t.”

Jim smiles at you, but it’s more threatening than anything else. “We both know that I would.”

Eddie’s eyes flit between the both of you. He can tell that Hopper’s serious and that you’re trying to decide whether or not to call his bluff, with your arms crossed defensively over your chest and lips pursed in a tight line.

You ultimately decide not to. Because Hopper has, in fact, done that before. And even though the circumstances are very, very different, you wouldn’t put it past him to do it again. So you all but stomp your foot like a protesting child and spin on your heel to storm back inside the trailer.

Eddie’s nervous gaze flits between your disappearing form and the storm cloud of a police chief standing in his driveway. When their eyes lock, he realizes he should probably say something. He cocks his thumb over his shoulder and stammers, “I should— I should probably…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He catches the front door before it shuts and slithers through the crack of it to follow in behind you.

“Wait, was he— was he being serious about that?” Eddie wonders once you’re back in his bedroom.

It feels a lot less cozy than it did minutes before, less like the bubble of refuge that you thought nobody could pierce and more like a lonely space that feels entirely too empty. You pluck your things scattered around his room, and it starts to feel less and less like home with parts of you gone from it.

“I don’t know,” you answer within a sigh as you collect your cardigan from the back of his desk chair and shrug the thing back over your shoulders again.

“But it’s happened before?”

“Yeah. Once. When I was…” you confess quietly, then trail off. You get your bag from his nightstand and haphazardly shove your scrunchie, sunglasses, and chapstick into the bottom of it. “…When I was in a bad way— it doesn’t matter now.”

Eddie so desperately wants to pry.

He’d wanted to make a joke before, about the handcuffs — something less than tasteful about them and you and Hopper and some good ol’ freaky deaky that you'd scold him for after. But he decides not to now because you sound so strangely solemn about the whole thing, as though it was a story you buried deep with the intent of never bringing it up again.

“You don’t have to go with him if you don’t want to, you know that, right?”

“Of course, I do,” you scoff at his worries, not nearly as threatened by Jim as the rest of Hawkins. You move to stand in front of him in the center of his room and meet his furrowed brows with a soft grin. “He’s not gonna do anything, he’s just pissed. He’ll berate me on the drive back to my apartment and then it’ll be like nothing ever happened.”

That seems to please Eddie well enough, though he’s still a bit disheartened at your leaving.

“I guess we couldn’t keep spending time together like this, huh?” he teases lightly, like the realization of it doesn’t make his chest ache. “Sorta forgot about the rest of the world… whatever that is.”

“It was fun while it lasted,” you tell him with a shrug and a whimsical sigh.

“Wait for me, will ya?” he jokes, if only to make you laugh and to feel like he’s stuck in some sickly sweet ending of a romcom for a couple moments more. 

You roll your eyes at his dramatics but let him wrap you in his arms anyway. His hands find purchase on your elbows, thumbs rubbing soothingly along the outsides of them. “How about a kiss, then?” he offers when the urge to feel you because too great to bear. “For our ten-minute anniversary and all?”

“You never have to ask me, Eds,” you assure with a laugh. You rise to the tips of your toes and he meets you halfway. 

Home is in your mouth. It’s warm and cozy and safe there. It’s easily the most familiar place he’s ever known, with your bottom lip nestled between his own. He feels homesick when you part from him. 

“You’re not mad at me?” he wonders quietly, feeling a bit like a cowering child from where he stands in front ahead of you — eased only when you shake your head almost immediately in response.

“No. I couldn’t be even if I wanted to, I think.”

“Okay. That’s… That’s good.”

“We can talk about it later, if you want. After I get lurch off my ass.”

He tries not to smile too wide, but it’s hard not to beam every time he looks at you. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll… I’ll see you around, I guess?” he stumbles over himself, having forgotten how to say goodbye to you. 

It’s equally as hard for you too, it seems, because you nod at him and turn to leave and then realize once you’re halfway down the hallway that you might not survive if you don’t kiss him again. 

So you turn and rush back, catching Eddie with his back turned and spinning him around so you can peck him again. You feel his cheeks heat beneath your palm and his sigh against your cupid’s bow and his lips melt against your own.

You etch each tingling sensation into the edges of your mind in the hope that you won’t drive yourself completely insane when you inevitably start to miss him like crazy. 

You focus on that and on him when you find Hopper and his stupid proud dad smirk. It’s the only reason you don’t punch him in the jaw and tuck and roll out of the Cruiser when the silence becomes so slowly insufferable.

You’re starting to think Jim left the radio off on purpose. You’ve never known the guy not to drive around without the strumming of an old-school folk song to accompany him. You figure it must be some sort of intimidation tactic, to make you so uncomfortable that you break. You’re a lot closer to that than either of you realize.

You spare a glance over at the man next to you. He hasn’t looked at you once since you get in the car. He’s got one hand at three o’clock on the steering wheel and the other with its elbow propped up on the door as he scratches at the stubble on his jaw. 

He’s too at ease not to be bothered. This is obviously some kind of front he’s putting on to conceal his inner irritation.

You give on the lecture you’d been trying to prepare yourself for and exhale sharply through your nose. Your fingers fidget on your thighs as you kick your restless feet up on the console. 

“Get your feet off the dash,” Jim scolds without missing a beat. 

You huff and obey. “Okay, this is crazy— can’t you just yell at me already?”

He barely wastes a second.

“I cannot believe you right now!” he seethes through gritted teeth, stewing in a dad-like sort of anger.

“It was three days, Hopper!”

“You know what happened the last time no one heard from you for three days?” he shouts back. 

You tip your head back against the seat and groan. You should’ve known he was going to play that card. 

He waves an accusatory finger between the both of you. “You and me— we had a deal, remember? You let me check in on you. You agreed to that. You visit your little high school friends, and I see you at work, so I can make sure you’re not off somewhere killing yourself.”

Hopper becomes a casualty to the tense silence he created then, when you don’t retort with some comeback of your own and force him to feel every ounce of pressure from the leaden quiet. 

He sighs a great big, too loud sigh and shifts in his seat. His softening gaze flits between you and the road. “I didn’t… I didn’t mean it like that, okay? I just meant it, you know, figuratively. I wasn’t… trying to be mean.”

“When have you ever cared about being mean?” you monotone.

“I don’t,” he assures. “I’m just not trying to hurt your feelings, alright? Jeez…”

You try not to take too much pride in the man’s half-apology, though you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t a little bit rewarding.

Jim Hopper’s practically an iceberg. He only melts for his kid, Joyce Boyers, and you, apparently. 

It’s why he’s always so damn protective over you. He’s developed this sort of deep-rooted urge to keep you safe after watching you make every wrong decision a human being could possibly make. And when you mess up, because you do mess up, he feels like it’s partially his fault — that, if he’d done more, he could’ve kept you safer. 

It makes you feel like a burden most of the time, but you know it’s above yourself and mostly out of your control.

You’d known of each other for a while before you really met, because a troublemaker and police chief in such a small town are bound to. But somewhere down the line, he found you in a valley of mourning for someone that was still alive and you found him in a black hole of grief for someone who wasn’t. The empty and infinite voids within you both were stitched slowly together all over again. 

Jim Hopper was the dad you never had. You were the daughter he couldn’t.

And you thought something might change after he adopted El. You figured he might forget about you because it wasn’t like it was his job to watch after you or anything. Playing pretend always felt nice, but you knew it wasn’t real. 

It was to Jim, though, who’d developed a similar adoration for you as the one he had for Sara. He hasn’t been able to forget about you in the same way he hasn’t been able to forget about her. 

Every night, after he’s scrubbed the day off his body and washed it all down with a lukewarm beer, he lays on his pull-out bed in the small living room of his cabin and goes through a checklist in his head. 

He makes sure that he’s checked on El and reminds himself to wake up early to make her breakfast the next morning before he brings Joyce coffee at Melvald’s — Joyce. She always comes next on his list, always right after El, and then you. 

He forces himself to calm down when his blood pressure inevitably spikes at the thought of not having heard from you all day. He reminds himself that he saw you at work on his lunch break and that he’ll see you again tomorrow.

Jim hums to himself as he settles more comfortably into his springy cot, deciding that he’ll try a new wine he can’t pronounce when he sees you at Enzo’s the next day and that he’ll drink it while he rambles about Joyce or El’s new boyfriend.

He drifts to sleep with thoughts of Sara.

You’re as ingrained into his mind as every other person he’s grown to love.

He stopped worrying about never getting you out a long time ago. Like a tomato sauce stain on a dress shirt, he knows he’ll never get you out of his head. He knows even more so that he doesn’t want to — no matter how much you annoy him or how angry you make him when you don’t answer his calls.

“Sorry…” you murmur and swallow down whatever mundane argument you could’ve spewed then, at the result of his sudden warmth. You turn to gaze out the window and trace the edges of the puffy white clouds with your eyes. “I wasn’t thinking about that — the… deal, or whatever… Honestly, I was a little too busy being happier than I think I’ve ever been in my life, so…”

You don’t see the dramatic eye roll he gives you in response, but you can’t miss the hearty groan that spills from his mouth. 

“What?” you laugh in response. “Have you never been a kid in love before?”

It’s almost jarring how he goes from huffy to concerned in a fraction of a second. His head snaps over to you, jaw clenched and eyes suddenly stern and swimming with a lingering fear. 

“Love?” he repeats like he must’ve heard you wrong. “Love— That’s— That’s what this is?”

You shrug. “I don’t know… Maybe…”

His eyes flutter shut for a moment. “Please don’t tell me you’ve said that to each other yet. This guy was just a crush four days ago.”

“No, Hopper. We haven’t. I mean, he literally just told me he was a virgin, so I don’t think we’re even close to—”

“A virgin?” Jim echoes, voice high-pitched and giddy. He beams at you from beneath his bushy mustache and slaps you a little too hard on your arm when he laughs. “Shit, teacup. Are you runnin’ out of options over there or somethin’?”

You twist your body to hit him back harder with your right hand. “It’s not funny, Hopper,” you scold. “He’s nice.”

“You said that about Hargrove once—”

“This is different,” you monotone before the words have the chance to leave his mouth.

“Yeah? How do you know?”

The question stumps you for a moment because you don’t know — you can’t.

You’d never admit it out loud, but Hopper was right; you’re still not quite sure how you ever could’ve thought that Billy Hargrove was a good guy, but you did. You felt a similar feeling of elation with him as you do now with Eddie, an otherworldly sort of happiness that makes you feel like you’re the only person it’s ever happened to.

And here you are now, sometime later and reveling in the aftermath, still gluing pieces of your shattered heart together.

You treat love like a drug. You use and use and use until it stops being a fun thing and becomes a crutch you can’t live without. That’s always when it starts to hurt you, but you’re in too deep to stop craving it.

And you know it’s bound to happen all over again, but you have to believe Eddie’s different or else you might as well fall into the deep pit of despair you’ve been trying this whole time to crawl out of. 

He makes you happy, really really happy, and you’d rather gamble that he hurts you than give it all without even trying.

“I… don’t,” you conclude after a few moments.

Jim seems surprised by your admission, shooting you an incredulous look with his untamed brows raised to his hairline.

You meet his look with a wavering grin. “But he makes me really happy, Hop. Like… It feels like it should be illegal or something. He makes me feel so good my heart hurts. There’s like this—”

“Ugh,” the man grumbles in disgust, sullen all over again.

“I didn’t mean it like that, you weirdo,” you chide.

A grin twitches beneath his mustache in response. “I know you didn’t… ‘Cause Munson’s a virgin.”

“Oh my god!” you groan. “I didn’t even mean to tell you that, okay? Leave him alone— and a swear to god, Hopper, if you make fun of him—”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it, alright? I mean, he’s got the expert around to show him the ropes— ow!” You cut off his stupid joke and accompanying sardonic grin with a fist to his shoulder.

Steve and Robin tend to be quite the formidable duo.

They’ve barely got a brain cell to rub together between them, but there’s still something strangely intimidating about them when they’re both angry. It feels a bit like they’re your I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed parents, and you’re the scolded child taking your lashings in the form of a lecture.

It’s what you feel like now, sitting across from them in your designated booth at Benny’s Burgers — the one by the window in the corner. It’s far enough away from the bustle of the entrance but close enough still to gossip about the assholes you used to know from high school when they walk through the door. 

“You scare the shit out of us when you go AWOL like that, you know?” Steve confesses, still soft even though you know there’s a more upset part of himself he keeps hidden for now.

His chocolate gaze flits between you and the pile of fries in the middle of the table that the three of you share. He finds the one covered in the most salt and pops it into his mouth.

“AWOL?” you echo with a distant laugh when you realize how much he sounds like Hopper. “It was three days.”

“Yeah, and you fell off the face of the earth,” Robin retorts, half-muffled through the hearty gulp of strawberry milkshake starting to melt in her mouth.

“You guys are acting like I went halfway across the country,” you scoff. “I was with Eddie. At his trailer.”

“Exactly!”

Steve’s face contorts mid-bite. “Wait, you were with him? The freak?”

It makes you roll your eyes. He’d been too busy hopelessly flirting with the waitress at the counter to hear the entire recounting of your absence to Robin, though it was more of you gushing about it than anything else.

“Yep,” you answer.

“You skipped out on movie night to be with… Eddie Munson?” he reiterates for himself, as though there was any correlation between watching the same three movies while gorging on greasy junk food with your best friends and falling more in love with a guy you were already head over heels for as he tried to explain away the unopened box of condoms collecting dust underneath his bed.

Both are equally fun in their own ways, but totally totally different.

“How did you survive without me, Steven?” you joke back in response.

“He didn’t,” Robin quips.

“So… what? You guys just went on some kinda bender? I don’t get it. Did you just fuck the entire time or something?”

“Well, contrary to popular belief, I can actually spend time with someone and not fuck them—”

“Okay, that’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“And to answer your question — no, we didn’t fuck,” you confess, then elaborate more slowly, a tad bit awkwardly. “Because he told me today that… he is a… virgin.”

Your words seem to settle over each of them differently. Robin stills with her lips wrapped around the candy-cane striped straw then furrows her brows, as though their meaning hits her a few seconds after the fact.

Steve, meanwhile, goes entirely agape in an amazed sort of shock. His eyes go wide, his brows fly up and hide beneath the bangs that hang down over his forehead, and his jaw falls open. And then he starts to smile, a subtle hint of a grin on the corners of his pink lips, like he finds it funny.

“I knew it,” he murmurs to himself.

“…Why are you smiling like that?”

His smirk widens. “That freak said he screwed Vicki Carmichael senior year. I knew he was lying.”

“And why do you look so proud of yourself, exactly?” Robin asks him.

“Because now I feel less bad about never fucking her,” the boy explains like it’s obvious. He set his elbows on the table and gestures wildly with his hands. “I always thought the freak one-upped me because she, like, never gave me the time of day after Hargrove came along, you know? But… It’s good to know that I’m still king.”

His delighted grin is met with confused looks from both you and Robin, who look upon him with twisted eyebrows and squinted eyes. 

“Are you not aware of how strange everything that comes out of your mouth is?” you ask him, only partly joking.

“At least that settles why he wouldn’t let you give him a blow job,” the brunette girl concludes with a shrug as she slouches against the booth. “Poor guy was probably shitting bricks about it.”

You realize then that it does make sense, why he’d always been so adamant about your pleasure and never his own. Why he always touched you like you were some fragile thing he might break, and like everything was new to him. Because it was new to him. All of it.

And even though it baffles you to no end how he went his entire life without someone wanting to jump his bones (because truth be told, you’re doing a terrible job at hiding your want to do just that), the fact still remains — Eddie Munson is a virgin. 

He’s a virgin with an acute infatuation for the local slut, both of you freaks in your own right. 

It just adds more intricacy to a puzzle that already feels so complicated.

“I’ve never been with a virgin before,” you admit quietly, mostly to yourself, as you train your gaze on the straw wrapper you curl around your finger. “It’s different… Scary.”

“Why?” Robin wonders aloud.

“I don’t know. I just— I don’t know what to do now.”

“Just do what you always do,” Steve tells you like it’s that simple. He folds his arms on the table and leans in closer to you. “Experience is good. Okay? Experience is key.”

“No, it’s not that. I think I’m just… I’m scared I’m gonna treat him the way, you know, that I was treated. And I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna do that to him.”

You’re not sure when the shift started, when you stopped being a person to people. You only know that you were something less than that. Somewhere between junior and senior year, you become a plaything that anyone could do anything they wanted to with, and you were too starved for physical affection to tell them otherwise. 

You liked the attention. You liked feeling loved, even if it was only for a minute and a half, and all you had to show for it was a pool of cooling come on your belly.

Eddie’s the fragile thing now that you were then. 

He was a delicate little thing that can break so easily, something you could split in half if you wanted to. 

You don’t. 

You want so desperately to be kind, but you’re scared you won’t know how to, because no one’s ever been kind to you.

Steve reaches across the table for you, taking a wild stab at an attempt for affection after several months of being scared to touch you — he did enough of that, he thought, and he’d hurt you. But he can see the lingering ache hiding in your glazed-over eyes and feels an overwhelming urge to quell your worry. 

Five warm fingers wrap around your wrist, not too tight or too strong, just enough to stop you from cutting circulation off to the tip of your pointer finger and to remind you that he’s still there.

“Trust me,” he tells you with a sudden soft swimming in his caramel-colored eyes and a smile playing on his lips. “You couldn’t do that to anybody. Not even if you wanted to.”  

Your heart nearly stops at his words, at the sheer kindness of them, and at the way he holds you in the soft way you’re used to only Eddie holding you. Your eyes go wide when they flit up to him and then start to sting with the weight of unshed tears. 

You’re quick to blink them away though, while you playfully shrug him off and joke — “stop being so nice before I get the wrong idea, Harrington” — because it’s easier than accepting his tenderness.

Robin takes one look at his fond gaze, all gooey and dripping with honey, and then at your rolling eyes and accompanying shy grin, and groans at the softness of it all. She slides out from the confines of the booth and grumbles something about getting a refill on her milkshake.

“Some fries too, while you’re up?” Steve offers with a hopeful grin.

He’s met with the girl’s signature scowl.

“Please,” you finish for him.

Robin grins. “Anything for you,” she croons, if only to make the boy pout, before skipping off to the counter.

She leans her elbows upon the red wooden laminate top and smiles that same sickly sweet smile for Benny by the grill — no doubt trying to get her refills for free. 

Even though the bearded man seems unimpressed with her presence, you know that he’ll give them to her free of charge. He’s always had a soft spot for her, one of the only people in town who could rival his wit.

The door dings open, a familiar and high-pitched chime that often becomes more frequent as the evening progresses. This time it lets in a foreign, bitter breeze when the door swings open and closed again.

You can feel the chill from a distance — it resembles the crispness of autumn despite being comfortably settled in the middle of March. It nearly takes your breath away, prickles your skin and makes you grimace back a shiver. 

When your eyes leave Steve, a difficult feat considering he’s doing an alarmingly good impression of a walrus by sticking fries in his upper lip, you find that it wasn’t abnormally cold air at all. It was a Peter Parker spider sense form of anxiety that had felt like a bucket of ice water had been poured over you.

Billy Hargrove used to turn heads when he walked into a room. 

Now he just sucks all the air out of it.

And it’s not like you haven’t seen him since the break up; for a while, the asshole was painted on the backs of your eyelids — he all but haunted your consciousness. You’ll see him around town on occasion, in his sunglasses and jean jacket and too-tight denim pants, while he struts around Main Street with his new girlfriend (otherwise known as, his flavors of the month).

You think this is the first time you’ve been in the same room as him since your split, though. It feels like it must be with the way your throat starts to tighten and you forget how to breathe. 

All at once, you’re scrambling for an exit. It’s like Billy’s a fire and his smoke is rapidly filling your lungs. Your legs start to tremble when your adrenaline spike. Your brain tells you to get out as quickly as you can before he burns you.

Steve notices the look of fear flood your features like a dark storm cloud. You were laughing just seconds before the door opened, equal parts with him and at him, but now you just looked terrified — like a child who’s just spotted a boogeyman in her closet.

He turns in the booth to find what haunted thing has just caught your eye and finds that it’s worse than any monster you could conjure up. It’s Billy fucking Hargrove, with his pretty hair and his pretty smile and his pretty girl under his arm.

His presence filled targeted, almost. Like he chose to come to this diner, on this day and at this time just to fuck with the group of you.

“Don’t even look at him,” Steve advises when he turns back to you. “Look at me, okay? He’s not even worth it. That asshole doesn’t deserve to ruin our day.”

And you try to listen to him. You try really, really hard to let him change that subject to the cold fries or Robin taking too long or a combination of the two, but you can’t focus on him. You’re already so overwhelmed at the sight of Billy that you can’t focus on anything else but him. 

You settle on the fact that you might just have to drag Steve and Robin out by their wrists because you can’t sit in this booth any longer, and you definitely aren’t hungry anymore.

And that’s when he spots you.

Your eyes lock and you freeze, immediately averting your gaze but catching the sudden sparkle in his own as he grins a sly, sadistic grin.

“No way,” you hear him say with a laugh under his breath. The sound of his voice makes you tense. You hadn’t realized how at peace you’d been all this time without having to hear it. Now it feels like so many little needles piercing your skin.

“Fancy seeing you guys here,” he greets after he’s made a b-line for your booth and dragged Vicki Carmichael along with him. He smiles with all of his pearly whites while he smacks pungent wintergreen gum between them. 

When he slides into the booth beside you, he does so without invitation, and forces Vicki to slink in next to Steve.

And like it wasn’t already awkward enough, you know Vicki — like, know her, know her. There was a drunken makeout at a Halloween party in ’82. Then a one night stand with her brother before he left for college in ’83. And then her Tom Selleck clone of a father at a sleepover for her eighteenth birthday in ’85. 

You’re not exactly proud of it, but you’ve gotten a rather hefty taste of her family tree, and the fact that both of you know it makes it that much more uncomfortable.

“We’re kinda busy here, Hargrove,” Steve tells him when he notices how comfortable he’s making himself in your booth.

“Ooh… Is this a little date?” Billy teases with a grin.

Steve’s face falls. “…No.”

“Oh, right,” he nods, though the sardonic lilt in his voice tells you that he already knew the answer. He crosses his arms on the tabletop and turns to look at you with eyes bluer than any ocean. They flicker up and down your form. Suddenly, you feel self-conscious in your baggy jean and tank top duo.

“You’ve been seeing that guy, haven’t you? What’s his name again? The, uh— the freak?”

“His name is Eddie,” Steve answers for you, defending him because you can’t find the words to.

“That’s it,” Billy snaps his fingers, then points. He nudges you with his shoulder. The familiar feel of his jean jacket against your skin makes you wince. “God, you must be runnin’ out of steam over there, huh? I mean… the freak? Seriously? You couldn’t do any better than that?”

The jokes were tolerable coming from Jim and Steve and Robin — they weren’t funny by any means, but you could stomach them because you knew they were jokes. But this? This was just to hurt you. And it works too easily because Billy knows exactly how to break you. He knows all the wires to cut and buttons to push because the puzzle of shattering your psyche is one he memorized long ago.

“He’s actually a really nice guy,” you manage through a tight throat, still staring at your fidgeting hands.

“Well, that’s good,” he hums like you need his approval. “It’s about time, right?”

You huff and choose to entertain him despite your better judgment. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He only shrugs. “I don’t know... Just, you know, that found a guy willing to settle for you. That’s all.”

“Settle?” you repeat, trying to laugh despite how tiny your voice sounds.

“You know what I mean, c’mon,” the blonde boy chuckles. “Sluts are fun and all, but they’re not the kinda girls you wanna settle down with. Steve knows what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Steve monotones quickly and without thinking, gaze hardened and jaw clenched. “And you need to leave.”

“I”m hungry, Billy,” Vicki whines, feeling every ounce of the tension surrounding her — like syrup or quicksand. She slides her permed bangs from her eyes and tucks a rogue strawberry strand behind her ear in a nervous tick. “Can’t we just get something to eat?”

“Alright, alright. I know when I’m not wanted,” Billy chuckles.

You grumble bitterly under your breath. “Apparently not…”

“I’ll see you around, Harrington,” Billy singsongs with a grin that wreaks of insincerity while his girlfriend slides out from the booth. He turns to look at you and squints. “Don’t be a stranger, alright? Matter of fact, point Munson my way, and I’ll give him a few pointers.”

You’re uncowed by his offer and angered by his mention of Eddie. Your eyes are stern and unwavering as you meet his gaze for the first time since he sat down beside you. 

“I think you could learn a thing or two from him, actually,” you retort, words sounding sweeter than the venom lingering behind them.

Billy’s grin only widens, impressed by your arguing. “Ooh… I forgot about the mouth you had on you, sweetheart.”

The use of the nickname makes you cringe. It doesn’t sound nearly as fulfilling as it does when it comes from Eddie. Now, it just sounds artificial — degrading.

He leans in close to you like he’s about to tell you a secret and splays his arm along the back of the booth behind you. The nicotine on his breath makes you grimace; it’s intoxicating when it comes from Eddie, disgusting from the boy sitting next to you. 

His eyes are bluer so up close, darker than you remember them being, and you notice he’s trimmed his usual stubble to a patchy mustache. He looks like the grown-up version of the boy you used to know, visually more mature but still the same in his way.

“When he gets bored of you — because, let’s be serious, he will get bored of you — you know where to find me,” Billy murmurs to you, a cynical smirk on the edges of his lips. “I’ll make sure you stay nice and broken in for the next dozen guys that want a taste—”

Steve can’t hear a word from where he sits across the booth, but he’s fuming with fists clenched under the table anyway. He hates how close Billy is to you, more so how uncomfortable you look with the proximity and how his words make you flinch. 

“Alright, you need to leave,” he blurts. “Now.”

Before the blonde could respond with a quip of his own, Robin all but teleports to the head of the table. She’s standing in front of the four of you suddenly, carrying a basket of fries and a strawberry milkshake and wearing a frown on her face.

“You’re in my seat, dickwad,” she monotones, even though she hadn’t been sitting next to you before. She’s not the least bit threatened by the Californian douchebag.

Billy smiles up at her anyway. “I was wondering where the third musketeer was! Still a carpet muncher, Buckley?”

“Happily.”

“What do ya say me and you head up to Lover’s Lake later?” the boy offers despite his date shifting awkwardly a few feet away. It’s a joke, for reasons that are more than obvious, and that’s what makes it so unbearably unfunny. 

He slinks out from the booth. The lack of his warmth is strangely comforting and you’re able to breathe for the first time in five minutes. He stretches his back out when he stands to his full height in front of Robin, then shrugs with his hands splayed on his hips.

“Maybe you just need some good dick. I mean… we’re gonna die anyway, right?”

“I’d rather,” she quips with a rouge-tinted smile.

The way it makes him laugh is startling. He finds a strange humor in being rejected — in most things, really. You still haven’t forgotten the cackles that left his bloodied mouth when Steve delivered blow after blow to the boy’s face in the middle of his living room, like it was all a fun game to him.

That was, of course, before Billy got the upper hand and nearly killed Steve that night. He laughed about it that too, until Max knocked him out with a baseball bat.

He’s got the same grin on his face now as he did then when he turns to look at you. A pink and pretty smirk, just wide enough to reveal the dimple in his left cheek. It’s nothing short of taunting, like he’s mocking you without having to say anything at all.

“Don’t be a stranger, alright?” Billy repeats. He keeps smacking his gum between his teeth and winks at you before spinning on the heel of his boot. He guides Vicki with him to the counter with a hand on the back pocket of her jeans.

Even when Robin slides in next to you and effectively pierces the bubble of tension that had already started to shrink with Billy’s leaving, you still find it hard to breathe. You have to keep reminding yourself, forcing oxygen in and out with wobbling breaths through your nose, or else you just stop altogether.

The other two move on rather quickly, having no trouble finding their voices again after he’s gone. Their words are muffled, though, like they’re underwater.

“I forgot what an asshole he was,” Robin grumbles.

“Well, I didn’t,” Steve retorts, eyes scanning the basket of fries for the most strategic pick of the bunch. “I can still barely breathe through my nose.”

“That’s because you didn’t go to a doctor, dingus.”

“Because I didn’t need a doctor, Robin.”

“Yeah, because being concussed three times in two years is so healthy—”

Your eyes act like magnets as they stay locked on Billy’s form. He leans in closer to Vicki to tell her something, then pats her once on the ass before walking towards the exit again. The door dings when he swings it open. Through the window, you catch him pulling out a red and white pack of cigarettes — the same brand of Marlboro Reds he’s been smoking since he was in middle school.

“You okay?” you hear Steve say, but it sounds too far away for you to realize he’s talking to you.

Robin nudges you with her shoulder to jog you from your stupor. You blink hard once and then turn to her with wide eyes. “What?”

“You doing alright over there?” the girl wonders.

“Yeah,” your answer is too quick and too high-pitched to be true. “Fine.”

“Like, fine as in you’re actually fine, or fine as in, if I leave you alone for too long, I’m gonna find you living under a bridge like a troll?”

You roll your eyes at her. “Fine as in, if someone bums me a cigarette, I’ll be good as new.”

Steve huffs when you hold out the palm of your hand toward him. He’s the only one of you who smokes recreationally enough to carry a lighter and pack of cigs with him. You swear he only keeps it with him because the weight of them makes him feel cool. You’re grateful for them now, though, and for the escape they unexpectedly provide you.

His fingers are warm when they brush your hand. The metal zippo he drops in the center of it is far colder and carries a comforting sort of weight to it. He thumbs a cigarette from the pack for you, and you take it with a sardonic smile and a sickly sweet “thank you, Stevie.” 

Robin gets out of the booth to let you slide out of it.

The door chimes again, this time over your head when you open it. 

Fresh, spring air nearly knocks you on your ass when it hits you for the first time. You realize then, that you’d forgotten to tell yourself to breathe and now your vision’s all swimmy. The cool breeze tries its hardest to quell your swelling anger, but you’re still at a simmering boil. Fists clenched over the lighter and cig duo in your palm and your sneakers slapping angrily against the cracked pavement.

That’s what signals your arrival, the raging stomps that echo in the alleyway Billy takes his smoke break in. 

The boy takes a puff of his cigarette and smirks on the exhale at the sight of you. All he needs is one glance to see how angry he’s made you. It’s an innocent, childlike sort of rage that’s got you all scrunched face and red — a heartbroken girl on a war path.

“I knew you couldn’t resist me, sweetheart,” he taunts with his signature sarcastic smile. He holds his arms at his sides, like he’s waiting for some kind of embrace from you. “You used to be like that all the time — all over me, you know? Clingy.”

“You know what you used to be?” you ask him once you’ve planted yourself a few feet away from him, fists shaking at your sides in a nearly overwhelming mixture of rage and apprehension.

“What’s that?”

“Nice! You used to be nice! Or do you not remember that?” you wonder rhetorically. Your anger fades slowly, an ebbing tide, as a reminiscent sadness eclipses your fury — a flood of blue in all your red. 

The sharp frown between your brows crumbles and so does your clenched jaw as your harsh features crumple like a balled-up piece of paper. You look upon the man that broke your heart with all the shattered pieces of it.

“You used to let me sleep over at your place when I was too scared to sleep alone at mine, and you’d bring me food when I told you I hadn’t eaten all day, and you’d take me on drives when you knew I hadn’t left my apartment in days,” you ramble in a single breath, gesticulating wildly with your hands — waving them at him and at you and the still air between. They fall hopelessly to your sides. 

“You used to be so sweet, Billy…” you conclude with a wavering breath. Your chest trembles on the inhale as you straighten out your shoulders and lift your chin, trying your best not to look as defeated as you feel. “And you know what you are now?”

Billy grins that stupid grin at you, the one that almost looks kind. Almost. It’s still soft in all its insincerity, like a parent entertaining their kid that’s gone on some meaningless tangent.

“No, sweetheart,” he answers after a beat. “What am I?”

“Not nice.”

He scoffs out a laugh.

“You used to tell me, all the time, how scared you were about ending up like you’re dad—” he tenses at the mention of the man, of his own monster in his own closet. “—He’d beat you black and blue every night, and I’d bandage all your cuts and put makeup on you when you begged, so you could go out and pretend like everything was normal. And you know what? You’re just like him!”

Billy doesn’t cower when you walk closer to him. He’s got no reason to be afraid of you, but your words hit him in a place far deeper than a thousand bloodied fists.

“What he did to you, is exactly what you do to me… Or do you know see that?” you don’t wait for a sarcastic reply, mostly because you wouldn’t see the indicators of it through the tears that blur your vision. “You’re not punching me, but it feels like you are. You break me over and over and over and I have to pretend like everything’s just normal and that we—”

“Real mature of you. To bring out the dad-card,” he interjects, if only to stop your ramblings so that he might not have to hear the truth that comes with them.

“You used to he nice,” you repeat, you agonize, you deflate. “Or… Or did you never use to be?”

The shell of your mind answers for you, paints itself with all the memories you’ve been trying like hell to forget for the past six months. It’s easier to pretend the bad things aren’t real than unravel all the reasons why they were bad to begin with, you find.

The negative memories come together like renaissance paintings — dark and gloomy and blotted with too realistic tears and spatters of blood. The oil stains the backs of your eyelids, destined to remain there forever like paintings in museum that’ll stand the test of time if you nurse them well enough.

You hadn’t yet been able to forget the screams and the cracks of fists colliding with bone. They tend to keep you up at night, even when you squeeze your eyes shut and beg for your memory to be wiped away completely. 

Billy crouches over Steve’s chest and pummels wholehearted punches to the boy’s face, never tiring in their force, even well after the boy goes limp underneath him. You beg for him to stop while trying like hell to shield Max from the sight of it all. 

For a while, you’d blamed yourself for it — for Max being there in the first place and for Steve’s cuts and bruises. 

You’d taken the girl and sought refuge in the Harrington home after witnessing a rather heated fight between Billy and his father. There was a sudden urge within you to take her far away from it before it ended how it always did — in weeping cuts and salty tears and insincere apologies when the cops were called.

But you made it worse anyway. 

For Max, for Steve. 

And you apologized profusely for it after, cried to the boy in his bathroom while you nursed his cuts like you were the one who put them there. 

When he told you it wasn’t your fault, you didn’t believe him. Not until now. Not until you realized that Billy had always been angry — always raging with an ocean of fear and grief and violence.

When he fought with his sister, you thought it was normal, that that’s just what siblings did. But the way she cried to you after couldn’t have been normal. Neither could the unearthly fury that washed over Billy like a riptide when he found out you and Max had sought safety in Steve The Hair Harrington — angered that it was Steve and that he couldn’t be that for the both of you.

And then there was the fights. The yelling and screaming and crying fights that felt like the end of the world every single time. The kind of fights you shouldn’t be having when you’re eighteen. You thought that maybe there was some normalcy in the cheating and the secrecy and Billy’s accompanying assholery because that was all you’d ever known.

Or maybe because you had to tell yourself that was normal in relationships because you didn’t want your’s to end. Billy was the first guy to give a damn about you in ways that went beyond just sex. How were you supposed to just give that up?

But then there’s Eddie — Eddie The Freak Munson, who was really just sunshine wrapped up in leather jackets and wild hair and chunky rings and metal music. He makes you happy. The sort of happy that makes you suspicious because something bad has to counteract all the goodness he makes you feel. 

Maybe that’s what this was. 

Seeing Billy after having wrapped yourself in a blanket of Eddie’s warmth made you see somehow more clearly. He loves on you so much that it’s made a mockery of everything else. 

Whatever you had with Billy wasn’t normal, it was a goddamn shit show. He loved you when it was convenient and then had you believing it was the real thing, that you wouldn’t find it anywhere else, when you tried to leave him. 

It was a lie, all of it.

The realization makes you falter.

“Oh, god…” you sigh, voice fragile like cracking glass. “Maybe you never used to be…”

For the first time ever, you see Billy’s grin shake. The edges of it flitter, like he’s fighting to keep the corners quirked up. And his eyes have gone a lighter shade of blue, the way they always did when he blinked back angry tears as he talked about his father.

It isn’t rage glassing his eyes now. It’s something sadder, but still as real — something you never got from him in the two years you were together.

He tries, still, to cover it all up. He smacks his lips against his teeth, sympathetically. “Sorry it took you this long to figure that out.”

The laugh you exhale then is heavy with sadness. Your smile is far away and so is your gaze as you stumble back from him. You turn your head to the edge of the alley where mom’s with strollers and people in fancy suits bustle on the sidewalk and keep your eyes on the strangers that whiz by you’ll probably never see again. 

“This is… This is pointless,” you murmur. His lean form is blurry through the burning tears you blink away. “Every time I see you, it’s just more bullshit so let’s just— let’s just leave each other alone, okay?”

Billy takes a puff from his cigarette. When he sighs, white smoke billows from his plump, pink lips. “That’s a shame… I was just thinking that you were the most interesting you’d ever been.”

The ebbing tide that had just left you rushes back in a bubbling scarlet wave. His words don’t make you sad anymore, they just make you angry all over again because you know you don’t deserve them. And you’re not entirely sure why he’s chosen you to antagonize out of all the other girls who’d made the mistake of falling for him, but you’re too far past the point of not caring to ask.

“Bother me again and I tell Chief Hopper,” you threaten even though you don’t feel very threatening just now. “I know you’re not scared of me, but you’d be stupid to be scared of him.”

“Why’s that?” he wonders before sticking the half-gone stick between his lips again.

“Because he runs Hawkins. And he fucking hates you—” for what you did to me, you almost say. You swallow the words down like bile before they have the chance to spew out. “And… And be nice to Vicki. Okay? She’s too good for you. Don’t do to her what you did to me.”

Your plea for another is the last thing you say to Billy before you turn away from him. You wouldn’t be upset if it was the last thing you ever said to him. You’re grateful for the resounding silence that follows. It’s nothing but the sound of your receding footsteps and the soles of his shoes scrapping the concrete as he snuffs out his cigarette. 

There is no snarky remark or insincere plea — just two people who used to love each other that have no idea to exist together anymore. 

When you step outside the brick confines of the alleyway, you feel as though a fraying string that had always connected the both of you had been finally cut.

It allows you to take a deep breath in for the first time in months. A lungful of fresh air that cleanses you, body and mind.

And when you catch Steve and Robin idling at the corner and doing a terrible job of pretending like they hadn’t just been eavesdropping, you don’t get upset or angry with them — you don’t feel much of anything, really.

You just hand the boy his lighter and unused cigarette and let them comfort you on the drive back to your apartment.

A misery sandwich. That’s what Robin calls the three of you and the heaping pile you lay in. 

Your queen-sized bed is in no way meant to accomodate three moderately sized adults, but you make it work anyway, like you always do.

Steve lays on his back, legs crossed and hands tucked under his head. Robin is on her stomach on the other end of the mattress, arms wrapped around the pillow she smushes the side of her face into. You lay between the both of them — on the both of them. Sprawled out sideways, you’ve got your head on propped up on Steve’s ribcage and your legs thrown over Robin’s thighs. 

The awkward position is the most comfortable you’ve ever been.

“I can’t believe that asshole had the nerve to show up to the diner on our day,” the boy rants. “And then sit in our booth, I mean— who does he think he is?”

Robin’s response is mostly muffled by the pillow. “I thought he left, like, forever ago.” 

“Maybe he just couldn’t stay away. It’s Hawkins, shit attracts shit, right?” Steve answers with a shrug that jostles your head slightly. It doesn’t little to knock you from your stupor, though, where you’ve been stuck for the better part of the day. You pick at the skin around your nails with little regard for how red and raging it's gone.

He notices this and thumps you on your temple — hard enough for you to feel it, gentle enough that it doesn’t hurt you. 

You turn your chin to your shoulder to look over at him. He tilts his own head to stare down at you, honey-tinted gaze somehow stern and soft at the same time. “If he bothers you again, I’ll kill him.”

You’re instantly warmed by his protective disposition. You know that he cares about you, even though you like to joke that he doesn’t. Steve hurt you once, made a promise to himself to make it up to you, and then just never left you alone. 

You’re grateful for it. 

You’re not sure who’d be the butt of every joke if he wasn’t around.

“Good to know,” you answer, nodding against his side and trying to hide the smile he gives you. You fail. “You think if he breaks your nose again, it’ll pop back into place?”

His face falls. “You’re real sweet, you know that?”

You open your mouth to respond, something along the lines of “I’m always sweet. You of all people should know that, Stevie,” before a knock sounds at the front door. It comes in the several rhythmic raps that Eddie is known to give when he’s got a tune stuck in his head. 

Apparently now, it’s the chorus to “Why Can’t This Be Love?” The Van Halen song he said he couldn’t stand before you.

Robin huffs at the sound of the muffled taps. She frowns like a child. “Who the hell…?”

“It’s just Eddie,” you affirm through a half-hearted grunt as you rise from your comfy position.

That brightens the two of them up almost immediately. Her and Steve share a look you can’t place as they grin at one another. Then they turn back to you with identical mischievous twinkles in their eyes. “Your boyfriend is here,” the former of the two singsongs.

You roll your eyes, but make no move to correct her. 

When you stand from the bed and make the short journey towards the door, you hear the patter of their feet following close behind you. 

“Gonna go all the way tonight?” Steve teases and jabs you on the shoulder. “Do you want us to leave?”

“No, nothing is happening. And yes, I think you should leave,” you monotone playfully.

Robin rushes past you suddenly and grabs the brass door handle before you’re able. She swings it open without thinking twice about it. Her sudden appearance, coupled with the fact that it isn’t you, startles the man on the other side of the door.

Eddie’s umber eyes go wide, brows raising and disappearing beneath his fluffy bangs, as his head jerks back.

“Eddie Munson,” the girl full-names the stranger she’s never spoken a word to before now. She leans against the doorway and effectively blocks the boy’s view of you. Steve, who squeezes himself in beside her, doesn’t make it any easier. “Fancy seeing you here.”

“You too, Buckley…” he wavers, trying to peer past them for any sight of you.

“Perfect timing, Eds,” you call out from behind them. “They were just about to leave.”

He’s relieved at the sound of your voice — even more so at your appearance when the two in front of you step off to the side to toe on their sneakers. 

You don’t look much different than when he saw you last. You’ve put on some makeup that’s started to smudge after the long day and changed your baggy sweatshirt for a more fitted tank top and boxers, but other than that you’re still the same. Still familiar and comforting in your way, a home away from home.

His smile is a tired one and it wobbles at the edges. “Oh, shit, am I— am I interrupting something?”

“No,” you’re quick to reassure him. “You’re saving me, actually.”

“Oh, give me a break,” Steve scoffs. “You love us.” 

The boy pulls you into a hug before he leaves, and it’s not the rarest thing in the world, but embraces like this do tend to be few and far between. He whispers  “use protection” in your ear and then a sharp “ow!” when you jab him in the ribs.

He and Robin smile kindly at Eddie when they walk by him and out the door, but waste barely a second before turning back around and grinning wildly at you. Steve flashes you a thumbs up while she mouths a cartoonish ‘good luck’ — like it’s the first time you and Eddie had ever been alone together. Like they were just on your ass about having been with him this whole time.

You usher Eddie and shut the door behind them. A quiet sort of peace settles on the apartment like a weighted blanket. The boy revels in every bit of its warmth.

Exhaustion drips from him like syrup. He’s sticky with it. His eyes have lost their usual twinkle, weighed down now with the burden of his fatigue. His face has lost most of its color, leaving a pale sheath of monotoned skin, and his hair is wilder than normal, with an unintentional sort of ruggedness to his curls.

It’s what being without you has done to him.

“You okay?” you ask him softly. It almost makes him want to cry.

“Yeah,” he answers anyway and idles in the spot where your kitchen meets your living room. “Just had a pretty shitty day. Wanted to spend time with you.”

“Me too… About the wanting to spend time with you part— and the shitty day part, too, I guess.”

Eddie smiles at your rambling, but purses it to the side to conceal it from you. “And since it is just about our…” he trails off and bends his elbow to check the watch on his wrist. “…Twelve hour anniversary, I picked us up some takeout.”

He sets the plastic bag on the counter. The red logo of Oriental Jade on the side of it makes your stomach roll with a distant hunger. You hadn’t realized how starved you were feeling after you abandoned your early dinner at Benny’s. It makes you more grateful for Eddie, who always seems to be on the same wavelength as you without even trying.

“Keep this up and we’ll be married before we hit hour twenty-four,” you joke as you rifle through the cartons — chow mein, sweet and sour chicken, dumplings, the works.

Eddie settles in next to you, propping his elbows on the countertop. “Well, I’m pretty sure the courthouse opens at nine, so… What were you thinking for the honeymoon? Hawaii? Bora Bora?”

“How about a cabin in the woods where no one can find us?”

“Hmm… Spooky. Sexy. I’m into it.”

You settle in the living room and eat on the couch while She Ra re-runs play on the television. You try to teach Eddie how to use chopsticks, though he can only work them with his non-dominant hand and all the wrong finger placements. You think it’s cute to watch him fumble with them, and you giggle about it until you’re scolding him for trying to feed Bowie some noodles. He laughs as you swat at him.

When all the containers are fully scrapped clean and tossed in the recycling bin, you migrate to the bedroom — which is perhaps too raunchy a phrase to use when the two of you only bury yourselves under the covers to talk shit.

Eddie drags out the chunky box fan you use when the air conditioner goes out in the summer — because it always goes out in the summer — and props it on the chest at the foot of your bed so the covers will billow around the both of you. “And it’s perfect because we can stay in the fort forever and not get hot,” he tells you, all giddy about it like he's a kid again.

“What if I get cold?” you retort.

Without missing a beat, he answers, “Well, lucky enough for you, I know several ways I can warm you up, sweetheart.”

He ditches his leather jacket and strips down to his boxers and settles in beside you underneath the blankets. The two of you lay shoulder to shoulder while you trace absentminded patterns on the palm of his hand and tell him about your day.

You make sure to leave out all the re-traumatizing-Billy-Hargrove bits, though. You focus mainly on the tense drive with Hopper and the small fight you’d had with Steve on the drive to the diner later that afternoon about the lyrics to Love My Way (both of you had been wrong).

Eddie tries his hardest to focus on your story and your fleeting touches, but he’s too far in his own head. You tell him all these things but he can’t stop thinking about himself — about whether or not you might’ve brought him up somewhere in between. 

He wouldn’t have blamed you, if you had. Steve and Robin are your closest friends and, for whatever reason, so is Chief Hopper, you’re bound to bring him up eventually. He was just hoping it would’ve been in a better capacity. Maybe about how kind he was or what a god he was in bed — not how he could only be one of those things because he’d never been anything in bed.

“It doesn’t make things weird between us, does it?” he wonders out of the blue.

You halt mid-sentence and turn to him with furrowed brows. “What?”

Eddie realizes then, that the first half of the conversation with you had only happened in his head. He prays that it’s too dark beneath the covers for you to see how red his cheeks get. “Just… What we talked about this morning. About me… you know…” He finds it hard to say the words. Or any of them at all.

“Why would it make things weird?”

“I don’t know. Because I wasn’t… totally honest with you, I guess? I feel a little bad about it, you know?”

“It’s okay,” you assure and turn on your side to be closer to him. Eddie stays on his back, more than happy to let you cuddle further into him. “I guess I do wish you’d said something before, though.”

His chest tightens. “I’m sorry. I just… I didn’t know how to—”

“I’m not saying it to make you feel bad!” you interject quickly when you catch the spiral of regret he was about to twist himself into. You curl tighter into his side, tossing a leg over his thigh and wrapping your hand around his bicep in an effort to melt with him. When he turns to face you, your noses nearly brush.

 “That’s not how I meant it. I just meant that, if I’d known before, I wouldn’t have… I would’ve taken things slower. I wouldn’t have been so, you know, so all over you.”

He hates how apologetic you sound. Like there was ever an ounce of him that would want to take back what happened that night at his trailer or a part of him that might hate how much you love on him.

“I liked it. I do like it.”

“Maybe we can just start over,” you offer. “Pretend like none of that ever happened.”

Eddie knows there’s no way in hell he’ll be able to forget about a single damn thing — not his cum stained jeans and how you looked so pretty washing them for him, not the feel of your tits in his mouth or you wrapped around his fingers, not how you made him blow his load all over his fist just by talking to him. 

He goes along with it anyway, though, just for you.

“Okay...” he nods slowly, then squints over at you. “You’re still my girlfriend, though, right?”

“Of course I am,” you giggle.

He grins proudly to himself. “Well then… Hope it’s not too early to have our first kiss then?”

It makes you roll your eyes because it’s such an Eddie Munson way of asking to kiss you. You told him earlier the day that he never had to ask you — in fact, you’d prefer it if he’d just kiss you out of the blue and take your breath away without you ever knowing it was coming. But there was something foreign and sweet in his little reassurances.

“Kiss me silly, Eddie Spaghetti,” you beam. He twists on his side to press tiny pecks to your smile.

It’s rather strange, you find, to kiss someone this way without the intention of it ever becoming something more. You kiss him just to kiss him — just to map the outline of his cupid’s bow and memorize the pattern of his tongue. Just to feel him, as much of him as your mouth will allow you to.

With one arm curled under his head and the other cradling your jaw, when his watch alarms — high-pitched beepbeepbeeps in quick succession — it’s sudden and close to your ear. 

Your lips click in protest when they part. His are pink and swollen and glossy with your spit. He smiles with them. “Happy twelve hour anniversary, sweetheart.”

“How long are you gonna make that stupid joke?” you laugh like your heart isn’t swelling so much you’re scared it might burst entirely.

“Uh, I was thinking… forever. Yeah. That sounds about right,” he concludes after a moment of feigned thought. He turns his watch off again and you swear you see him set for another twelve hours from now.

“Forever?” you echo.

“Uh-huh. Forever—” he presses his lips to yours once. “—And ever—” Twice. “—And ever.”

Eddie kisses you until you’re flat on your back and surrendering to each of his tiny little pecks. You twist your hands in his hair and let him love on you a little while more. You giggle when his mouth trails from your lips to your chin to your jaw to your neck. Please don’t get bored of me, you beg silently within your laughter.

I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, he answers with each kiss his sprinkles to your starved skin. How could I, when you’re the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me?

[thecrystalkid]

what is your opinion on the tdc Netflix show?

i haven’t posted in a billion years but HII thanks for the ask!!!

it’s been a hot minute since i’ve rewatched the show, so it’s far from being fresh in my mind, and i’m of course not an expert on it. all the same, i still have a lot of thoughts and opinions* on it (*some of these might be a lil controversial as far as the TDCAOR fandom goes but i’m not trying to attack or criticize anyone for enjoying anything in this show, go in peace, ily❤️)

the show itself

to be honest, AOR has never been my favorite installment in the TDC franchise. i’m very attached to the original movie and jen and kira, so i think the obvious absence of them in the show may have played a part in that

but this^^ has nothing to do with the fact that the show is an objective masterpiece of artistry. it’s overwhelming how immersive and beautiful every inch of the environment is within thra, and whatever the creative team and everyone involved with the making of the show were paid, it’s not enough.

the design and craft of the gelfling is another thing i’m obsessed with, i loved the distinctive fashion and presentation of every clan (especially drenchen i love u drenchen) and just the sheer quality of every individual puppet. there’s something so uncanny and beautiful about the realistic skin, hair, and eyes of the gelfling, each one is so mesmerizing to watch.

sadly, i’ve always kind of disliked the overall voice-acting of the show. i love taron egerton, anya taylor-joy, etc. as much as the next person, but personally, their voices seemed so detached from their characters, which i think could be partially attributed to the fact that several of the actors are not professional voice actors

i’m beating the very dead horse here but i’m never not devastated that the show was cancelled when it was. it may not have been my favorite installment in TDC but not knowing what ultimately became of deet haunts me forever and always

not a day goes by that i’m not sad that lisa maxwell (kira’s voice actor) didn’t do the opening narration for the show. i didn’t even know that was a possibility until i listened to a podcast episode about it and found out lisa was originally going to do it. i still love sigourney weaver but like come on.

characters n in-universe stuff

one thing i love about the show is how many sibling relationships it explores. as someone with older sisters i obviously am a sucker for the dynamic between brea, tavra, and seladon. i always love seeing an absolute gutpunch soul-crushing diabolical sister relationship in media, the mirroring each other, bringing out the best and worst of each other, i love it it’s terrible. also gurjin and naia, i’m also a sucker for comedic siblings

i really really hate to say it but i’m not a fan of rian and deet as a romantic pairing. i just never really felt any chemistry between the two of them, and the fact that their whole thing started so shortly after the death of mira has always personally rubbed me the wrong way. obviously i’m not here to beat up stonegrot enjoyers, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the pairing or people who enjoy it, it’s just not for me. i love and am happy for stonegrot folk, god bless <3

augh you know what pairing i do like though is brea and kylan, this whole post could be about them. idk, i know it’s one of those things where they barely have any interaction with each other but i always die at kylan’s little “and brea!” when they’re rescuing them all, and i would’ve DIED for an interaction between them where they discover they both can read

i do also really love how the show explored the skeksis and mystics being two halves of the same whole, and how that relationship can differ. it’s one of the most interesting concepts from the og movie and i’m glad it was expanded upon

i’m sure this may have been being saved for a possible continuation of the show but i would’ve loved a deeper look at each individual gelfling clan, like a really detailed thorough episode(s) about the life/history of each clan (dousan especially i feel like they were skimped on the most)

i, like many, am obsessed with aughra, and i love that she played such a major role in the show. i love how they showcased her maternal role and connection to the gelfling and thra, whilst always keeping her stern, choppy personality present

this is just my conspiracy theory but on the subject of who jen and kira’s respective parents are, i choose to imagine it’s not anyone in the AOR cast and just some other gelfling we never/haven’t met

wow that was a lot of yapping but again thanks for the ask!! i love being able to just dump all my thoughts into one place, it’s always very fun! 

[livlepretre]

Hey what was Klaus mindset when he learned that Elena might be in danger from his father after he had abandoned her for three years. I mean I know what he did but what was he thinking what he felt. Could u give us some insight.

Also fe 64 stelena damaged me to the point that I went straight to youtube for stelena edits just so I could fall in love with them again. Not kidding, they broke me. You know this is the only fanfic that is able to put me through these strong emotions.

I thought that Beklena would be over by now but maybe the tipping point would be when Rebekah actually turns Elena into a vampire. But won't she develop a sire bond. Maybe it could be Kol. I doubt you would have Elena have a sire bond with Klaus because so much of this fic had been her journey towards finding her own agency. I mean Elena seems much more accepting of 'dying" and being reborn as a vampire in this chapter.

Thanks for sharing this masterpiece with us 💜

Thank you!!!

I think he was like a force of nature. Literally nothing was going to stop him from going to her, and saving her from Mikael. I think that learning that Elena was in danger from Mikael temporarily erased all of the unresolved feelings and issues he had with her and instead threw him back into this primal mindset of needing to go to her. Immediately.

That was probably the only time we've seen Klaus in any sort of honest state since the reunion.

Elena was unconscious for a while after that, though, so he had time to reel it all back in and put his mask firmly in place before she woke up.

And 💙💙💙💙💙 it is an honor to break you

Not going to lie, I take special pride in being able to do this with stelena-- which, I personally love, but I know there are as many haters as they are lovers, and I think a lot of people have turned around on stelena, at least in this fic. It's my ultimate angst ship. I really do think they were soulmates in every way that mattered, and it just still didn't work because what are soulmates when compared to destiny?

To be honest, I do think some of the writing in these latest chapters has taken me longer to accomplish certain goals than I would have liked; in an ideal world, I would have been able to write this arc straight through, and probably condensed things by a few chapters. Like, I always intended Rebekah and Elena to still be together at this point in the narrative, but it is taking me a while to get to where I need to go. A lot of that is just that I had so little time to write these past few years-- my momentum ended with the chapter after Elijah showed up in fall 2020, and after that, I updated only once in 2021, once in 2022, and twice in 2023, so basically, we have been in this little section of story for like 3.5 years. I think that also makes it feel like the relationship is lasting forever, when really it's only been a thing for like 10 chapters/4-5 months. But. I think, even for my klena shippers out there, this relationship is necessary for Elena, and even necessary for Klaus. You'll see.

I think Elena is sort of glumly coming to terms with becoming a vampire because she wants to keep Rebekah at almost any cost. (Almost. The almost is so key.) But the compulsion to live would probably in practice get in the way-- she'd have to be turned against her will/knowledge because she definitely does not consider becoming a vampire to be "living."

But you'll have to read and find out to see how the Elena-vampire question turns out >:)

[wooahaes]

hi hello here to talk abt the masterpiece that is uts ☀️

are there any deleted scenes that you could tell us about? or scrapped plots/scenarios?

hi hiii skdfhsdf savv calling it a masterpiece... i owe u my life...

anyway uts spoilers technically

yep!! i have scraps leftover from mingyu's part where i wasn't sure what i wanted to do regarding his injury. i had one idea where mingyu would have pushed reader out of the way of a falling, cracked glass jar and ended up with it shattering as it hit his hand. it'd be incredibly messy and painful and i dont really remember why i chose the burn over this? i think i just picked the one i wanted to write more. there was a slight vague part of said 'how gyu get hurt?' process where i considered something like him fucking up his leg while pushing reader out of the way.

actually now that i think about it, i think i chose the burn because it wouldn't have been so 'mingyu saving reader.' i didnt like the idea of reader having to deal with the guilt of being the reason mingyu got hurt and i felt it'd be cuter to just have reader decide to take care of him because they truly cared for him--not out of this sense of obligation.

uhhh the original original ending of cheol uts would have p much outright stated that he and reader had sex (i think i implied it in a few endings but left it entirely up to readers choice on whether they did or not--it was left very very vague). i scrapped the idea entirely because i felt like the emotions in the scene were too high and that they didn't need to take that step, and then later i scrapped the scene entirely (and shared it here) because i wanted reader to be the one who confessed to cheol. like idk i just Really liked the idea of reader taking initiative to confess to cheol and do something special (+ i really like the sentiment i wrote into it where cheol found everyone, but reader found cheol). plus idk my blog is almost entirely sfw (save for that one hosh fic i wrote where its outright stated he and reader bang + i think some sexual implications in my own bday fics that i wrote For Me lol) so it felt weird to end cheol's part of a series by outright saying "yes they sex" esp since im p sure i have some readers who are ace and i didnt wanna alienate 'em if they don't want sex at all

plus also something something reader was still recovering from being sick so i felt like cheol would be Very vigilant about not pushing reader too hard & making sure they were taking care of themself. banished to cuddle in his arms for one million years until he knows ur better >:(

in said og og ending there was a mention of there being a mix of bliss and regret because it felt like reader and cheol had rushed into this kind of relationship when like... he felt like reader deserved something softer. sweeter. to take them on dates and sneak kisses when the others weren't looking. but that he'd ultimately feel relieved in being there next to reader. maybe ill release it at some point haha

i DID however take the part where cheol breaks down crying in the ending of his part from it (the whole 'it's not beautiful to watch a person crumble' thing) as well as the following bits. the line w the 'love itself was an uncertain beast' and cheol admitting that he thought he needed to hide his feelings because hes supposed to be strong and reader makes him weak.

technically i scrapped the idea of doing moodboards to introduce everyone. i was going to do a lil moodboard + have a litle blurb with their alternate name & a little about each. i think that was before i wrote the 'before.' chapter that pretty much said everything + i only finished seokmin's before i changed gears.

i thiiiink i considered 'fawn' as the nickname for reader in the very beginning? but joshua was supposed to be the deer of the group so.

aside from thaaaaat.... im not sure? i think i followed most of my fic plans for UtS pretty closely.

OH OH i can talk about maybe scrapped poly au endings since i know how im ending it now haha

so the original poly au was gonna go fully delulu tbh? one by one they would have all disappeared until it was just reader and cheol, ultimately 'facing the sun' and accepting the memories that have returned to them (and the fact it meant they would disappear from this world). it would have branched off into two endings i think? one where reader refuses to let go, and both reader and cheol agree to just... stay there forever. together.

and then reader would have woken up the next day in a field with a blindfold over their eyes. they take it off to see a pretty man with brown eyes. who is he? and... for that matter, who are you?

and if they chose to let go, accepting that they might never see cheol (or any of the others again) bc as much as they need them, the world needs them more, reader would have woken up in their apartment, annoyed at how long they felt they'd slept. they find a little mouse plushie they don't remember buying, and they can't really remember the dream they had--only that they went to bed sobbing and wishing life would be simpler.

weeks pass. reader ends up getting coffee at a place and overhearing one of the guys behind them whispering about how their drink order sounds good and they forget to give their name for the order. the order gets called out, reader goes over to get it, only to run straight into said guy--who recognizs reader instantly with a quiet 'mouse.' and reader turns to realize they've come face-to-face with vernon (and seungkwan, who was with him), bc i liked the idea of it coming full circle to be reader seeing vernon again and immediately recognizing him as everything started to come back.

the three of them ended up going back to someones apartment while calling all of the others over bc "dude its fucking important" and they all reunite, unsure of what will come next, but glad to be together again, even if only for a little while.

aaaaaand the other ending was going to just be a time loop. reader fully confesses their love to the group and then wakes up in the field the next day, remembering nothing.

BOTH OF THOSE ENDINGS FUCKING SUCK THO-- bc they don't fit the idea of what UtS is to me. a huge part of UtS is the acceptance of grief in a sense and moving forward and i kinda hope to dig into that far more with the poly fic once i finish planning it and get around to writing it. although i do like the split idea? honestly if i bring it back... pretend u all never read this.

[trashimoto]

SORRY IAM AT SCHOOL that comic is absolutely stunning thank you for the masterpiece

i would be interested in your hcs and other sdra? stuff u make!!! nikei yomiuri fixation is going on 116 days and i need some content to keep me aalive right now

I bestow upon you my ultimate favorite nikei headcanons

I think he ends up using his little around his neck scoops notebook for lots of different things like of course notes interviews and articles but i imagine he also uses it kind of like as a journal / diary too as well as like planning stuff and also the joe biden negative ebergy manifestation thing (pic below) but with mikado

I think like his biggest interest / thing he could go on and on about BESIDES journalism is soda. he has some moments where he talks about it in the game like when he gets really excited abt the discontinued soda in the vending machines but like i think this guy knows way too much. collects old bottles bit doesnt tell anyone because he thinks its dorky. he loves trying the weirdest flavors he can find and he has a seperate notebook with his comprehensive soda reviews and rankings.

Based on the bit we do know about his food preferences in canon + a little bit of me projecting I do really think he has ARFID. This goes a little bit with the soda thing because like i think he probably doesnt drink anything besides soda and coffee. hajime is BEGGING HIM to please drink some water. I think he survives mostly on like chips and ramen. And of course he doesn’t want to eat whatever mikado makes because its mikado but i do think part of it is also mikado makes very fancy dishes a lot and i think they are Scary Foods. This ine is very like self indulgent LOL

He’s definetly the type to get mad, punch the wall, and then break his hand as a result. I just know he’s done it

This is more of a headcanon for an au nikei i roleplay with some friends but im includijg it because inreally like it. there are multiple other characters who can use magic in said rp and as a result of his experiances with Mikado, nikei is staunchly Anti-Magic. He’s afraid of it + it just makes him SO mad too. Like this extends from like magic powers to psychics to like slieght of hand magicians. Very strong emotional reaction from him everytime and I don’t even blame him honestly

i think he plauys angry birds

He dresses in just as many layers of clothes in the summer and winter. Like he’s always wearing a ridiculous amount of clothes unless he’s like actively swimming. I know he did go swimming in the prolouge BUT i think that if he wenr ro the beach to just relax he wouod be in the full get up vest jacket two scarves and all. But also like hell hes going to the beach just to relax this man doesnt know how to relax

I THINK HE HATES SCARY MOVIES BUT WHENEVER HES DOING A MOVIE NIGHT WITH VOID OR JUST FRIENDS HES LIKE “WELL WE CANT WATCH A SCARY MOVIE BECAUSE IROHA WILL GET SCARED” BECAUSE HE DOESNT WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW (THEY CAN TELL)

Hes definetly bad at math. This guy is a WRITER you just know he was crushing it in lit classes but doing shit in math. I think it just doesnt make sense to him. My dad actually oen time was telling me how he likes math because theres always one objectively right answer and i think as a journalist and a liar nikei would struggke with that aspect. You can’t reallt bullshit your way with persuasive writing through math LMFAO.

Regularly gets in fights in the youtube comments section

Personally I don’t think Nikei has his liscence because I don’t think he’d be a particularly good driver. I think also if he does though he’s almost never allowed to drive when hes going out with other people because he gets the most insane road rage.

He tried to start a book club on the monocruise and it ended up with only three members himself iroha and yoruko. Iroha only wanted to talk about yaoi and the book club was dissolved before the first meeting finished because monocrow ushered yoruko and nikei out of the library for yelling at eachother (they had different interpertations of the books ending)

[luvrodite]

tag game!!

thank u lovely @lauraneedstochill for the tag <3 adding a cut because my answers got a bit long at the end hehe

your name? it’s not actually my name but for the sake of privacy i go by aurore/ro on here xx

your sun sign? scorpio baby

the last thing you listened to? heat wave by snail mail! i’m at the hair salon and their playlist is really good)

what are you wearing? bell bottoms and a green cropped flowy top

how tall are you? 5’7 i think?? or in between 5’6 and 5’7

piercings? two on each ear!! i want a helix and nose piercing but i’m too chicken (i also choose peace while living with my parents)

tattoos? none and i don’t have plans for any but they’re so attractive

glasses, contacts? glasses. i used to wear contacts when i was in high school for a period of time but ultimately returned back to old faithful

last drink? water

last thing you ate? avocado and egg on toast!

any pets? no </3333 one day i will have an orange cat and my life will be complete

do you have a crush? once more, i wish but i get the ick so easy and i haven’t met anyone i actually want to crush on

favourite fictional characters? jo march (laura how kindred of us!!) anne shirley cuthbert, jason todd, alicent hightower - there’s SO many but jo and jason are so dear to my heart

a movie you think everyone should watch? i was wracking my brain for an answer to this and then i realised the movie i tell everyone to watch the most is the boy!!!!! i genuinely unironically love that movie, like, i loved lauren cohan from the walking dead and supernatural, and she was great (speaking subjectively as someone who doesn’t Watch Films). it’s probably not objectively great and it’s a bit silly but i love it anyway, and my best friend and i love brahms. he is my friend actually.

a book you think everyone should read? you deserve each other - romcoms get such bad press but i am a rom com girl till the day i die!!! this one was so special to me because i don’t think i’ve actually read second chance (?) romance books that actually convince me they should have given it another go. it sounds silly to say but i learned so much from this book and the characters are so so dear to me even in their ridiculousness. it’s very much millennial humour and cringey at times but i love them anyway and i think sarah hogle wrote a masterpiece. i recommended it to all my friends because it was so important to me. i could write an essay on the feelings i have about this book. so so good. so important. i loved the characters and their insecurities and miscommunication and how they addressed every issue that had caused their relationship to sour in the first place and worked to do better!! usually with second chances/grovelling it feels very superficial and i still hate the male lead even by the end of it but i came to love nicholas by the end. he and mr darcy are the only two times i’ve ever seen characters pass the reread/rewatch test - every time i watch it/read it i get nervous i’m gonna realise they’re still an asshole at the end but they always prove me wrong. i hated him so much in the beginning and by the end i was wishing he was real.

last place you travelled? the gold coast

no pressure tags: @st-eve-barnes @rottingviserys @1800-fight-me

[dolphs-world]

Subspace

This past week I have decided to return to Super Smash Brothers Brawl after probably a decade. I never picked it up after Sm4sh and I never picked up that game after Ultimate. I will probably never play Sm4sh again despite having 2 copies of it. Much like a lot of Wii U games, it's been replaced. I often here this statement applied to big gaming series that are largely consistent, the newest game replaces all the rest. As a Mario Kart fan, this is where I hear it the most and really 8 is the only game that replaces any, 7 and even that game had first person for whatever reason and some neat tracks that haven't been brought back. Brawl is very unique and therefore unreplaceable. What a bizarre game. Everything outside of the core appeal, a fun party fighting game with a competitive streak, is great and better than any other in the series (I haven't played Melee) but it's that core that's missing. Best new roster, almost cut out Jigglypuff, best new stages, all the best items come from this game, Masterpieces, Stickers, great remixes of music. Olimar is third best in the game. Wow, although I prefer him in the later games, he is way more balanced. However, I love the Pikmin models, so low poly. And I love Luigi's final smash in this one! But the items are broken, R.I.P Cracker Launcher, and you really start to notice Nintendo falling behind the times. A distaste for the exploits and competitive scene of Melee has lead to a clunky feeling game with slow movement and a 1% chance of tripping during any movement. I tripped during the final boss! The game is definitely a product of partial malevolence but compared to Sm4sh it shouldn't be forgotten. And how 'bout that Adventure Mode?! I may take back everything negative I've said or thought about cutscenes, these are great (I'll come back to this). But honestly, it's decent. It's a fine time made cool by everything else outside of the core gameplay, are you noticing a trend about this game? The Metroid and Donkey Kong sections were highlights feeling like a nice bridge for those series in 2008, especially for classic Metroid at that point. Apart from Link and Yoshi, I seldom had to play a character I didn't like and I don't think I ever played as Falco. The game makes you appreciate the remixes of classic tracks, although the Earthbound ones were and still are strange, and Brawl has the best theme out of any game. And the best Final Destination, that yellow sunset is beautiful. I didn't realise that the song meant something, I just thought it was like Duel of the Fates. What a surprisingly deep game (ew, I feel like a video essayist) for a game where Wario farts on Samus. The main issue is taking damage. Because this mode is like a moving action platformer instead of stationary stage, the camera locks for you to get flung off and it felt like it was really easy to get launched. There is a lot of just bad feeling controls in this game. Why doesn't the c-stick do a charged attack? Stuff like that. The enemies were really cool, I wish there was more unique Smash stuff in later games. Leading in to my next point. Is the Subspace Emissary better than the World of Light? Yes. Playing this reminded me that Smash Ultimate is that in name only, that game removed a lot of the uniqueness of Smash's history, specifically Melee and Brawl. No events, no trophies, weakened singleplayer stuff. Brawl feels way more like a singleplayer game than a multiplayer one, which is probably a bad thing. The World of Light is tediously long and the gimmick of spirits wears of really fast. - Sidenote: I beat Pikmin 1 and Subspace Emissary in the same time and Pikmin 4 and World of Light in the same time. Weird little coincidence. - But, and major but, World of Light prepares you way better for the actual core gameplay of Smash. Everything is a fight and those fights are better. The only good boss is Rayquaza, the rest are cheap. Gharleem and Dharkon blow Tabuu out of the park, he deserves to stay in Subspace. Subspace is fun but is mainly held up by the cutscenes.

[anarchistbitch]

well it's not like according to tradition I replied in a timely manner lmao dont worry about it

sfjkfjsdk me too, i dont usually make playlists, i just leave everything in my liked and shuffle it and let it be what the universe dictates but idk i felt like getting them into one playlist

well if you add pepa pig id burst out laughing in the middle of a call probably and one of my work friends would probably shout "send her to sleep" bc thats what we say when we send clients back bc we cant do anything from our end so it would be funny and we would just ultimately skip it lmao

im looking forward to whatever songs you add, the playlist is long as fuck already tbh so it might take a while for the oli london song to come on

SFGDSJKFGDS well in my defense I had to ask bc i didnt know how long youve been on tumblr so yeah (shiro's cloning and the episode about it and the fight with keith)

anyways i motherfucking hated that they exploded adam and then tried to console us with curtis but anywaaaaaaay the fanfic is dirty laundry which if you were in the fandom i doubt you didnt end up hearing of it or at least the discourse around it but anyway it got deleted but i had it downloaded so have a google drive link https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwU9LMiUJoN7RjFWSGZVUlJQd1U/view?

yeah, the whole not enrolling classes in uni is a mess and i try not to think about it too much rn (i am seeing a therapist and i hope that by next year i have figured out what i want to do) but i like my job, we(my team)'re actually planning to rent a house and stay there a weekend very soon to celebrate our supervisor's bday :'3

making choices that will greatly impact our futures is seriously so hard, and i also not qualified for any career advice but manifesting that whatever you choose in the end allows you to be happy

just last night it started raining hard so i got up to turn off the fan but then like two minutes later i got up to turn it on again bc even tho it was raining it is still so fucking hot, seriously hate the weather rn

god mountains are so preetty, specially when the weather is cool and they get all foggy

atsv is a masterpiece and it continues from itsv so damn well, i really do love it and i hope hollywood gets up it's ass and pays their workers what they're owed so we can see it soon

KJSDFJKSDFHJS i am still seeing so many miguel o hara edits everywhere for real, i gotta say tho im in love with hobie and pavitr

JKSHFJS i used to do something similar with fob, i had a lot of them printed out and would put them on my binder cover so that i could memorize the lyrics so i was all day everyday singing them until i memorized it and the changed it for another song

idk how id rank fob albums, its so hard when theyre soo good but i really do love so much for stardust, aside from that one i think my favs are save rock and roll and american beauty american pyscho, mania was the first album i was a fan of them when it came out so it has a special place in my heart as well

my special lyric is part time soulmates full time problem, ive always been a fan of soulmate aus and hhhhhhhh just makes my brain smooth, also we started off as shiny dimes but we got flipped too many times, we did it for futures that never came and for pasts that we're never going to change 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

cheers to us and our interesting meeting jdfshjf

love you and i hope you have a good week :3 get plenty of rest and fun and water!!

-M

i feel like if we had a competition on late replies i would emerge victorious😎(crying inside)

honestly fall is prolly the best time to make playlists[not that im gonna, but sure is a nice time yk] but ahhhh anyway!!!! havent added anything but u will know when i add it <3

check hello tumblr user nonbinarymikaela pls provide access to the drive check [i checked out of any fandom drama cause i had so many exams that yr lmao. only time the edu system saved me]

[this is me actually hi]

honestly idek if i like my degree rn, like i really wanted to go for a history degree a couple years back before i changed my stream[its a whole educational system thats actually fucking fucked in india i hope it dies soon💜] but on the flip side - it was pretty hard to get a spot in my uni anyway so now im just in a whirlpool of smth. bleh

thinking of how next year is so close is like skewering me and roasting me like a kebab😭😭😭😭[but like dont keep a strict timeline yk, ur like seriously cool and i think any decision you take will be the best as along as your the one taking it ] [i wish i had answered this earlier so i couldve wish you good time on ur retreat but i hope it was good anyway💜💜💜💜💜💜💜]

man i need to like seriously cope up with my decisions cause i need to take an exam for my career which is seriously sooo..... but yea thats how its going

omg its raining here too and my college[which is seriously just a reformated jungle] turned into a swamp ish and they STILL didnt cancel classes. and i forgot my umbrella. i came back home like a sad wet cat .

gotta love that near-to-the-equator ass weather with climate change [i need to kill billionaires rn]

hope the strikes come to a fruitful end soon[for saf-aftra & iatse !!! fuck the amptp!!] but also i wouldnt mind waiting a couple years for btsv if the animators need that time to like animate in a safe and healthy manner yk

OH wait also im on my halloween movies watch rn!! just finished the addams family and watching paranorman rn [i need a gomez man btw. need him to be silly and obsessed and intense.and mwah]

[also if u wanna watch an indian series made in heaven is pretty cool(its okay-ish in terms of writing but it covers some very important social issues + the main leads are hot and dubious. what more do i need to watch a show)]

hobie kinda scratched a very specific itch in my brain like i want to be him AND kiss him , pavitr is so slay, and o'hara needs like a massage session thing where they unlock the trauma in ur knees or like a stamlo 50mg.

me & my friends fav fob lyrics was the 'how the mighty fall' cause we would do that "fall out...boi" intro everytime lol

i dont think i have a fave lyric but i think immortals was a top contender for reasons[i like big hero 6 :3]

Song rec: nothings new by rio romeo (saw it in a reels animatic and .. yea)

to many more yrs of late asks 🥂(appy juice cause i dont like the taste of alcohol)

my love and hopes to u💜💜💜 and also an umbrella for this weather☔

p.s. drink water/soup/iced tea + i care for u+ W in the chats

[hyuck-xix]

Hi for the kpop asks I want to know about 127 :>

hi! thanks for asking! <3

✦ my first bias: technically, probably mark because he was the first nct member i learned about, but it quickly became taeyong after i actually started getting into nct, and taeyong was my bias for the first three or so months of being an nctzen!

✦ my current bias(es): haechan! he is my ult, i love him so very much. probably slightly too parasocially attached to him but i'm not going to worry about it lol...

✦ my album and/or era ranking (or favorite of each): 127 has so many albums, and i decided to write my reasoning behind each one...bear with me... from favorite to least favorite:

Cherry Bomb: this is a masterpiece of an album. Cherry Bomb is SUCH a good song, the music video has that artistic scrappy Neo identity, the styling is so cool in my opinion, and the album is full of great songs. When i think of nct 127 this the era i think of.

We Are Superhuman: okay, i just personally love this album. Superhuman was what made me an nctzen. I feel so fond of it, it's my baby. Superhuman and Highway to Heaven are such feel-good songs! And I love the concept/styling/photobook.

Limitless: Limitless is a song that's really grown on me recently. The "Rough vers. MV" was truly ahead of its time. The styling was... questionable lol. Poor haechan's hair! But this album also gave me Back 2 U, which is maybe the best 127 b-side ever.

Regulate (Simon Says): I love Simon Says, it was another early favorite of mine in my baby nctzen days. The styling for this mv was immaculate, I still dream about yuta's grey plaid skirt thing and the vans shoelaces tied around the ankles.

Loveholic (Gimme Gimme): Maybe it's because I got into nct in this era, but loveholic is really special to me. The concepts for the photobook really speak to me (especially the rain one, but i also find the bright green and orange color scheme of the album cover sooo satisfying) and 'right now', the last song on the album, is my ultimate favorite 127 b-side, i almost feel a little possessive over it >.< the gimme gimme mv was a little lacking but i like the song itself!

Chain: the chain music video!! omg. Also the b-sides dreaming and 100 are such hidden gems. I also really vibed with the styling (shout out to the stylists for giving taeil that sexy haircut lol). 127's japanese releases hit different for me.

Neo Zone: I mean... neo zone is iconic. i feel like i should love it more than i do? kick it is a banger, the mv is soooo well executed, i love mullet hyuck and mark's stripey hair, i love the concept and outfits, and the photobook is crammed full of really cute photos... but there's something about it that i don't feel as nostalgic or lovey about compared to the albums i ranked above it. i think most of the b-sides feel slightly bland to me? and sometimes i feel like neo zone was a little too perfected, like it lacks some of that original 127 crunchy absurdity.

Neo Zone: The Final Round (Punch): I actually am fond of Punch, she's underrated imo. there's something about that song that i find really satisfying. the styling isn't anything to write home about, but it works well in the context of the concept.

Regular-Irregular: Confession...I don't really like Regular *winces*. i'm too anti-capitalist for it lol! but that said, the music video is delicious. And the song itself is really catchy... if i look past the lyrics. although... maybe the lyrics are supposed to provide a negative commentary on our money-obsessed culture?? are they that deep?? i'll have to think about this...

Sticker: When this album came out i remember liking it a lot. But as time has gone on, it's gotten more boring for me. The song and music video weren't bad objectively, but i feel like it marked a significant shift in 127's artistic voice, a change i didn't really want... although shout out to the seoul city version of the photobook, which i still think is gorgeoussssss

Awaken: I cannot get through Wakey-wakey. it is SO grating to my years lol. however! i am obsessed with ‘end-to-start’, the outro song of the album. i get chills every time mark says “the origin will begin”. i’m also giving it bonus points because i like the way haechan was styled :P

2 Baddies: The biggest reason why this album is so low is that i really don’t like most of the songs on the album. For the title track, the song and mv aren’t terrible. i like that it’s playful, i really enjoy jaehyun’s rap, and the styling is really cool! but... idk, there’s just something about the whole thing that makes me disappointed, like i feel like it had potential to be better.

Favorite: oh lord... its only saving graces for me are: the catharsis photoshoot, the cool forest set that taeyong and mark rap in in the mv, haechan singing ‘your love, your love’ in the outro, and love on the floor being one of my top guilty pleasure songs. The rest was just not it for me.

Fire Truck: hey, i guess ranking their debut album last means they’ve come a long ways?? I don’t really care for any of the songs on this album. the fire truck music video was... interesting... i do love the styling (i might be the only one who does, but i actually sincerely do!), and i like the choreography, but that’s about it.

✦ how i got into them: at the time i was really into shinee, and i remember watching this mashup and i was blown away by superhuman, and that was the beginning! but i didn’t quite consider myself an nctzen then. i think a month or so later when i was leaving for an internship and i was really anxious, i started listening to all the 127 title tracks to help me feel strong and tough and i think that’s when i really formed an emotional connection to 127 itself and got to know the members better.

✦ which member would be my best friend: oh god, this is hard because i’d want to be friends with all of them! i think personality-wise, i’d probably get along the best with taeyong. i see a lot of myself in him.

✦ something i associate with them (or with a bias/any member): with 127 as a group: neon colors, leather fingerless gloves, messy hair, science fiction. with taeyong: fish, furiously scribbling in a notebook, the subway/metro. with haechan: falling asleep with your head on someone’s shoulder, scuffed favorite sneakers, lambs and baby goats, the concepts of soulmates and fate, the golden hour.

 📥 send me a kpop group & i'll answer

[1kook]

commercial break; SEVEN

this is part of my netflix & chill series ! happens a few months before part 7 

summary; And lastly, Jungkook will bring it full circle by indulging you two in some good old fashion spooky sex where he nuts inside you because the only thing scarier than a scary movie is a pregnancy scare. It’s a perfect plan.  warnings; horny jk, jk wants to roleplay... everyone point n laugh, mentions of his impreg kink lol, making out, tits, honestly jk is just very horny n in love lol, jk in a vampire costume w fangs O_o rating; mature (18+) wc; 2k

notes; if u don’t know who lindsay is first of all ur sick, second of all here’s my queen’s top moments. also i just gotta say, this was originally gonna be a larger fic (a halloween special) for my ncouple, but i got a lil busy with school n ultimately didn't have time to invest in this as a whole installment so..... enjoy this commercial break instead!!

Jungkook loves Halloween.

He loves the pumpkin carving and the decorating. Loves the spooky music and the abundance of candy. He loves it, absolutely adores it, and for the second year in a row, he gets to spend it with you! Yet another person he loves very much.

He doesn’t remember ever being this excited for Halloween. Last year, you had roped him into going to some frat party with him, had egged him on, begged so cutely that it was your last year in college, baby until he caved. The two of you had spent the night drinking until you blacked out, Ubering home with your costumes half on, and then unceremoniously fucking in his living room with the blinds wide open.

(The next neighborhood meeting had been very awkward for Jungkook.)

It was his first time ever drinking with you like that, and he vaguely remembers, through his own drunken gaze, how cool you had been. Had absolutely owned a bunch of greasy football players at beer pong in your little sexy nurse costume. And when the crowd cheered your name, shrieked in awe, it had been him that you turned to for praise. “Did you see me, baby,” you had giggled, crowded him against the wall of this random house until Jungkook was sweating profusely. In lieu of a costume, he had worn a silly jogger set with a skeleton design that was supposed to glow in the dark, according to Amazon. You had told him he looked adorable, had kissed and squeezed his cheeks until Jungkook was a flustered mess.

It was still early into your relationship— if Jungkook did the math, you were only about five months in at that point —so he didn’t know how else to cope with the rapid thundering of his heart, the confession sitting on his tongue, the then scary L-word begging to be heard. So, he took you home and fucked you until your little nurse cap slid off your head and you were begging for him to let you cum, thus earning him his first ever offense for violating the neighborhood rules (i.e., traumatizing a group of middle schoolers by fucking in plain sight).

Long story short, Jungkook loves Halloween, and he loves it even more when he gets to spend it with you.

(He’ll never admit it, but he’s a hard romantic. He wants to do cheesy things with you, like cuddle you into his arms when you get scared, pat your head until you can look at whatever is happening on screen again. He wants you to feel safe in his arms, wants to be your refuge when things become too much. He likes to think he’s done a pretty good job so far.)

Jungkook’s plan goes like this:

First, welcome you with that Halloween basket you’ve been sending him tweet links about all month. The cute little Jack-O-lantern candy bucket stuffed with candy and hair ties and a soft Halloween themed blanket. It’s so cheesy, makes him blush when he catches sight of it in his closet, but Jungkook will do anything to please you.

Next, after presenting you with your Halloween gift and having you coo and tell him he’s a good boy, he’ll invite you to break your new soft blanket in. The living room will be prepared with an assortment of your favorite foods, the flat screen ready to play whatever horror movie the two of you settle on.

And lastly, Jungkook will bring it full circle by indulging you two in some good old fashion spooky sex where he nuts inside you because the only thing scarier than a scary movie is a pregnancy scare.

It’s a perfect plan.

It’s the best way to spend his favorite holiday, with his favorite girl by his side and some of his favorite horror films on the big screen. Jungkook spends all of October geeked up for it, even considers hanging up lights around the living room to really set the mood. He’s so excited, can’t wait to spend another wonderful holiday at home with you, that he doesn’t fully realize why you haven’t brought up the long awaited topic of costumes.

“You like?” you ask, standing at the door of his bathroom with a sultry look in your eye, tits practically pouring out of the tight top you’ve wiggled into, skin oiled up scandalously. He fumbles with the fake vampire fang prosthetics he’d been trying to glue in for the better half of an hour.

He had heard the door open downstairs when you got here, had called out his mandatory greeting as he heard you come up the stairs. But none of that had prepared him for the sight of you in… whatever this was.

Jungkook doesn’t really understand exactly what you’re supposed to be dressed up as until the two of you are back downstairs—blinds drawn, full moon slipping in through the cracks—with some random horror movie pulled up on the TV. “I’m Lindsey,” you whine, brand new fluffy blanket wrapped around your shoulders. It shields your boobs from view, but he’s not sure if that’s a win or a loss. “From Total Drama Island!”

He settles in beside you, doesn’t get too comfortable because it’s nearing sundown now and he knows the herds of children are bound to start flowing in. “Uh huh,” he says mindlessly. His collar feels itchy, the overly-detailed vampire costume he meticulously scoured the internet for being one size too small. You snuggle into his side anyway.

“You don’t know anything about cinematic masterpieces,” you frown, avidly tuned into The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, because apparently you love horror movies all of a sudden, a fact that genuinely throws Jungkook off. He’s not sure what it is about you that had deluded him into thinking you would be a scaredy cat, but he doesn’t take the new bit of information too hard.

The doorbell rings right as the first gorey scene ends and you make a big show of huffing and whining as he rushes to answer it. But it’s only the beginning of the long night that awaits, and, as Jungkook comes to find, running back and forth from the door to the couch is harder than it seems.

Anyway, Jungkook’s neighborhood is a little posh, or ‘bougie’ as you like to claim, and trick-or-treating hours end a little before eleven pm. By then he’s tired, having refused your offer to switch places in fear that your boob might fall out of that scrap of fabric you call a top and earn him his second neighborly offense.

However, that doesn’t mean he’s opposed to your boobs falling out in private.

“Stupid,” you giggle when he gets caught in his long cape, the sound slowly melting into a whimper as he slips his hands beneath your top, fighting with the ridiculous push-up bra you’ve donned tonight. Hands tangle in his hair, mess up the careful side part he’d styled up for tonight, and legs lock around his waist. “Your curtains closed?” you tease.

He huffs, catches your chatty lips with his roughly, presses and presses until your mouth must bruise. He belatedly remembers about those sharp fangs he’d glued on—hey, if he was going to dress up as some gaudy monster it might as well be realistic—and doesn’t realize until he tries to bite your neck and you let out a little yelp. Truthfully, he feels bad right away, but then you’re practically dissolving in his arms so he plays along. “Shh,” he hisses.

The roar of a chainsaw and terrified screams fill the living room, almost drowning out the soft sounds you release by his ear. “O- Or what?” you pant, flinch when he pushes your sad excuse of a skirt up over your waist. “Gonna b- bite me?”

And so Jungkook does.

You shriek. “That hurts, you idiot!” you scold with a tiny whine in your voice, but Jungkook’s cock is so hard. Your tiny, tight outfit does you no favors. Tits in his face, tiny thong against his bulge. He wants to make you sob, litter bites and marks all over your skin until his love makes you ache. You must see the crazed look in his eyes, because you drop the scowl. “Hey,” you say slowly, hand on his chest. “You look like you’re gonna eat me.”

He lets go of a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. He wonders if you can feel his thundering heart beneath your palm. “Fuck,” he sighs, leaning away to regain his senses. Was it something in the air? Was it the fatigue? The full moon? Why did he want to fold you in half and fuck his cock into you until you were a crying, shivering mess? Something about you tonight, laid out for him to take, makes him feel absolutely insane. Starved and psycho; he just wants to take and take until you don’t have anything more to give. He purses his lips, tries to ignore the hot feeling in his lower abdomen when your hardened nipples register to his eyes. “I think I’m becoming evil.”

Of all the idiotic things his brain can come up with, this one is definitely top five. His cheeks flush right after, fueled by the boisterous laughter that escapes your lips at his statement. “Oh my god,” you gasp in glee, hands falling down beside your head. “You’re becoming evil?’

Jungkook frowns, flopping down on top of you to hide the embarrassment that paints his face. “Shut up,” he mumbles against your neck, warm and safe.

A hand cards through the back of his hair, nails dig lightly into his scalp. “Aren’t you the cutest little vampire,” you coo, seemingly ignoring the rock hard cock Jungkook presses against your thigh. He’s still so horny, has this sick thought that he could just pin you down right here, tear that silly costume to shreds and swallow you up in his lust. But your voice is so sweet, has his eyes fluttering shut as you gather him in his arms. “Silly vampire,” you hum, one leg thrown around his hip, a subtle roll of you hips up into him.

Jungkook huffs, licks a flat strip along the base of your neck. It draws a shaky exhale from you, has your hands digging into his back when he begins to slowly lap against the skin, nibble and tug until your back is deliciously arching up into him. “Wanna push you down,” he confesses quietly, hands securing themselves against your hips as he leans back. You're all dazed, eyes trained on his fanged mouth when he hesitantly adds, “l- little human.”

You could laugh, tease him for his sudden weird need to role play with you, but you don’t. A look of understanding crosses your face, sly smirk slowly following. “Oh?” you grin, hand coming around to cup his cheek. “The little vampire wants to use my body?” Jungkook tightens his jaw at your jab, but nods nonetheless.

You’re a feast before his eyes. Boobs in his face, pussy begging to be filled. You’re his, just like Jungkook is yours. And when you indulge him and his stupid whims—kinks, he should say, occasional interests that sometimes make him question himself—his heart feels warm and full. Proud and unashamed, like the truest version of himself when you look at him with those eyes. And your words only confirm it.

Your hands reach down for your top, pull the flimsy material over your head in one swoop that has your bra coming off with it. It drops to the floor. If it makes a sound, Jungkook doesn’t hear it over the shrieks of terror on screen. the blood deaths, the suspenseful music. All he hears is he hammering of his heart. 

It’s two of your sneaky fingers that come up to play, pinch one nipple tenderly as you meet his eyes. “It’s all yours,” you purr. “I’m all yours.”

And the thirst he feels, well. It’s a little vampiric, to say the least. 

—

Copyright © 2020, 1kook on tumblr. absolutely NO reposts allowed.

[astranne]

Dropping this now to get rid of the fuzzyness in my chest.

Blind!albedo let's go. I 100% think Albedo would blind himself in an chemistry accident and have to rely on his knowledge of his surroundings. He most definitely tries to figure out to how to get his vision back he ultimately gives up because, after awhile he knew he would have to adjust to this new life.

Or maybe Albedo's eyes slowly degrading, maybe his memories too, maybe hes losing his sight and he cant remember faces anymore, he doesnt remember Jean's scrunched face when Albedo wakes up at his desk, he doesnt remember Kaeya's sympathic eyes when Albedo is pouring his fifth cup of coffee that day, he doesnt remember Lisa's unwavering scary gaze anymore when he returns a book just a few minutes before the deadline. Maybe he's forgetting Klee and he's scared to forget her and hes doing everything he can to get his memories and vision back to he doesnt forget the few family and friends he can.

Maybe he goes out and forgets where he is, Dragonspine does look similar (i get lost so much), maybe he now needs someone to guide him to remind him of what hes doing, maybe he forgets his origins what truly was and made to be. Maybe he slips up on it, forgetting its suppose to be a secret.

Blind!Albedo running his fingers along the wall with a fast pace and everyone moving out the way because he will push you out the way u forgivingly.

Him with a cane? Oh my god he most definitely hits People ankles with it, especially people being disrespectful to any of his friends (Sucrose especially).

ALBEDO WITH A GUIDE DOG? I dont know if theres any big dogs in Mond other than the huskies that are spotted around town (hoyo let me pet them) but a big slobbery mess of a mastiff dog guiding Albedo around is too cute to me. Klee decorating the guide harness with stickers or etching letters into the leather covering the hard plastics for Albedo to run his fingers over to where they get worn but Klee always etches them again.

Before i continue this, pls note that blind is a very wide spectrum 🫶

Albedo with thick glasses hello?? I think him waking up and forgetting he just cant see clearly anymore so he goes to his lab squinting and Sucrose and Timaeus has to literally carry an extra pair around.

Blind!albedo getting his eyes injured in a scuffle or perhaps one of his eyes got punched a bit too hard.

Maybe he was created with faulty eyes, his eyes are not as good as they are suppose to be, eyes on humans are such delicate things afterall and probably the most vulnerable. He doesnt tell anyone why he bumps into things or why he squints or why he hates changing him room around because he can't remember where everything is.

-🪶

you came here and delivered this absolutely beauty of a masterpiece, i can’t-

ngl i was prepared for another xiao brainrot but this… is even better holy shit, thank you so much for sending this in (and i'm very sorry this took me so long again hhh-)

BLIND!ALBEDO YES PLEASE?? okay so he's blind now, but you bet he will use his geo vision to 'see'. he pretends not to, so he can fool some people (aka assholes and unsuspecting strangers seeing a blind man and be like 'i'm so sorry this happened to you, do you need help' and albedo proceeds to beat them up without breaking a sweat)

he still has a cane and guide dog tho. the cane is kinda a fashion statement, gifted to him by lisa and he really likes hitting peoples ankles and shins with it.

the guide dog is definitely a bernhardiner dog. a big slobbery mess and a mountain dog, a perfect companion for him. said dog will be the most spoiled dog in whole mondstadt, if not teyvat. he also always eats the fish klee brings back from fish blasting, even tho most times the fish is... a bit more than burnt. klee is his favourite person, besides albedo. dunno what his name would be... but we can worry about that later.

also, the different ideas about how albedo became blind or is blind? is so brilliant so i'm adding a few things and kinda sorting it in groups

chemistry accident. and while he knows the biology of humans very well, he doesn't have the knowledge to fix himself. after all, he isn't quite human and his master never taught him how to fix his eyes. either he's 100% blind on both eyes or only on one eye (and wearing an eye patch like kaeya xD)

slowly losing his sight. this is such an awesome, but also sad idea. just him slowly but surely losing his sight and also his memories of the people around him. oh he knows that jean is blond and has a beautiful smile, but he just can't remember how it looked like. He knows klee is small and cute, his favorite person of all, but he can't remember how her face looks like when she laughs. he can't remember kaeya's grin and lisa's chuckle, every time something amusing happens.

eye injury. his sight is pretty weak after a fight against the fatui, it doesn't get worse, but it also doesn't get better. he can't read now without glasses and detailed examination of his experiments is a bit more difficult now, since before the accident, his eyes were top notch, super sharp and generally making his life easier when he experiments.

'born' blindness. he isn't exactly blind, one eye sees better than the other, but he still needs glasses to read. his general coordination and awareness of space around him is a bit fucked up, since his creator did create working eyes, but something just... went wrong. maybe his brain can't work well with the pictures and information produced with his eyes, maybe there's something wrong with his eyes. he doesn't dare to change anything, in fear of damaging his eyes even more, this is why he has thick glasses.

in general, blind!albedo would be probably using his geo vision even more, and probably be one of the few mortals, who unlocked all potential of his vision. he can see with his vision, and paired with the elemental sight, he's still an foe you wouldn't want to cross.

(kinda reminds me of toph, from avatar, and ngl albedo figuring out something similar as earthbending would be freaking awesome. after all, fighting with a sword while being blind is a bit difficult, isn't it?)

[jacepens]

Hey, how u doing? I wanted to ask for you for indications on washette fanfics, what are the best that you have

p.s. and yes, I do want to hear as well about yours in that list as well, 'cause they're gold

Hey! I'm doing alright:) Thanks for asking! What about you? (is this the correct tumblr to anon etiquette?)

Oh goodness this is such a loaded question because the answer is many. I hope you're alright with a big list sorted by category <3

Fluff! Fluff!!

The French Mistake

One of the first washette fics I read, so it holds a special place in my heart. A little silly, a little lams, ultimately very cute and good time.

Under the Arches of Moonlight and Sky

Just very good, cute, soft weary bed sharing. (this is only wholesome, I swear)

Let's Dance

Short, sweet fic with dance instructor George and our beloved two left feet Laf:)

I Like You Better in Real Life

Did someone say Influencer/Youtuber!Laf and President!George?? No??! Well start and read this fic. Seriously, it's a longer one, and just really damn cute. A bit of slow burn in terms of internalized homophobia (done in a good way) and trans Laf?? Yes. It's really so good.

The Prince

Ok, ok, it's one of mine. The one chapter is deceiving, it's decently long and featuring Prince!Laf and Royal Knight!George!:) Also magic!! angst, fluff, denial of feelings but then of course love confessions;) after angst though, don't worry haha.

Fathoms and Foundlings

Ooooohh boy. This. This one. Mermaid Laf and regular ol George! So so so well written, I mean, the feelings, the war, the weather, literally everything you can name, it's spectacular in this fic. Be warned, it is incomplete, but I remember when the latest chapter was released when I lost all hope (plus the author is still active) so I definitely don't count this one out of being updated!:) But, I'll be honest, I'm unsure about it being finished BUT I still think you should 1000% read this because you really will not find something like it anywhere else and it's just so cute!! Did I mention fucking amazing?

Whom can we trust now?

Platonic washette!! Really well written and just altogether really well put together!:) comfort after Arnold's betrayal! Seriously, I highly recommend this fic it's just so perfect of their relationship and cuuute.

The Particulars of Language

Oh goodness. Oooh goodness. This is so so cute. A nice little blend of angst and fluff and did I mention internalized homophobia? (In a good way, if that makes sense) Also so well-written by an incredible author, I just- language confusion. Need I say more??

Marque

Ok, ok, it's been too long since I read this one, so I will say, it is very tentatively going in this category. I just love soulmate au washette! Angst! Kidnapping? ...no final chapter. So I'm not sure, it could've been planned on ending very happy and fluffy! I do believe overall, this leans on the darker side, but I know I really love this one and they love each other. I want more washette soulmate aus.

Breaks your heart, puts it back together

what's my name, what's my station

Oh God oh fuck it's this one. (said with love). Brutal? Hot? Expanding my vocabulary?? An incredibly beautiful use of metaphors??? Actually feel like crying when I read it. Yeah. This is amazing.

May the Melody Disarm Us

Oh Godd oh Fuck it's this one. (maybe I should change this section's title) this one isn't even angsty per se, it's just like...brutally beautiful. They love each so much but oh my god. The metaphors, the way the author sets the scene and environment and everything! Ugh. So so good.

Let Down My Guard

Oh dear lord in heaven above preserve me. I'm gonna be dramatic but there are simply not enough words in the universe I have that can describe how I feel about this fic and how damn incredible it is!! And boy do I mean it when I say this one breaks your heart and puts it back together. I have seriously never sobbed over any piece of fiction like I did this. Just ahhhh. The feelings they develop for each other, the confusion of cultures, the secrets revealed?? I didn't even tell you Laf is a mermaid yet. Just- please. Please read this. It will rip your heart out, but it will put it back together. But really, this is just a fucking masterpiece and so so beautiful.

Porn With Plot

that dress you like

Very nicely done smut + feels! (Did I mention how nicely it's all done?) Oh! Did I mention genderqueer Laf? Yes.

Mon General / My Marquis

Ok the only reason this is going in this category is because I find the others up there more heart-breaky than this one. I love this one!! The historical details! Their loving relationship!! Very very good and lovely. With some angst of course.

The Mistranslation

Oh God oh Fuck it's this one. (I'll be saying that a lot). Would you like all these categories put into one beautiful fic?? Here it is, here. It's incredible. Please read it. It's free serotonin. (Did I mention incredibly written??)

The Things I Would Do to You

Ahhh ok. So. Super duper sweet, lots of angst sprinkled throughout but Laf's visit to Mount Vernon + feels + (smut). Need I say more??! Seriously, this is wonderful.

Not So Easy to be the Teacher's Pet

Oh. Oh god it's this one. So this is borderline Oof (Laf is 17) but if that does not bother you, then you are in for a treat!(??) Ok but really, lots of feels, denial of feelings, way-too-sweet-for-his-own-good Lafayette and poor confused George. Just fantastic.

Devil to Pay

Hoooo boy. If you like pirates or sea adventures, (hot pirate captains. I'm just gonna say it) then I'm literally begging you to read this. Kidnapped noble Laf?? Slowly falling for the pirate captain Washington?? Not to mention so many maritime details and wonderful emotions, beautifully crafted just. Spectacular. Please, read it if you haven't. Even if pirates don't appeal to you, they will after this fic.

A secret weapon

Ahhhh!!! Thiiiiiis. Is everything. Ok, yes, it includes more than washette, but I mean come on, it's (sexy) demons. It's desperate Washington trying to win a war and fight his gay feelings (guess which fight he wins?) But also, super well written and detailed and feels!! I adore this fic, and the whole series is a treat. Go read it. It's wonderful, you won't regret it.

Oof (not in a good way)

The Sweet Enjoyment of Partaking

If the not-so-sweet side intrigues you more, this is one of the few washette fics that I do love and is...not so nice. It's really good as a not nice piece! Pretty straightforward and fucked up. Ya (I) love to see it.

Transmutation

Oooohhhhhh. This is a fic I didn't read for a while just because I didn't know what it was but boy let me tell you, it is soo good. I'll say it's not as oof as the fic above, but oooh maaaannnnn. I don't know how to describe it just, don't expect sweet things, but if darker takes are your thing please go read this. You will not regret it. It's so damn good.

OW

Day One Way, By Night Another

Ok ok here me out. This one might seem a bit random and it is. It's very short and for the longest time I didn't read it until I did and said ow because ow!!? I find this has the most impact going in unarmed so...watch out. (but like check it out. it's just so unique I really do love it)

Once More, With Feeling

Oh GOD. This one is quite brief and straightforward but if you are looking to rip your heart out with feels and angst then boy do I have the perfect fic for you. But seriously, it's so well-written and just expresses all the feelings so so perfectly. But at what cost? (Pls read it)

A Beautiful Tragedy

Hello darkness my old friend. Ok but seriously, this fic still remains so impactful in my own mind just as the writer. It's not a happy ending, but I try to leave you with hope. Pretty music that I highly recommend listening to, I don't know. I think it's really good, I don't say that often about my own stuff soo if you're ok with heavy amounts of angst and pretty aesthetics then check this ok!:) (but guard your heart, sorry not sorry<3)

Porn Without Plot

Betrayals and Allies

So, admittedly, this one very tentatively goes into this category because I find compared to the others, this one has less feels and less focus on it, but don't get me wrong this is very emotional!! It displays their relationship and love so cutely (and smutily..? new word) and as extra bonus it fills in the gaps of the deleted scene from Turn. You know the one;) It's very good!!

Cold Nights

Look at me adding another of my own. This is super duper short, but I kinda like how the emotions turned out. I think this was the beginning of my first dive into my current style of writing so that's cool I guess? But yeah no, it's porn without plot lol.

What Good is Honor When You're Starving?

Oh dear, another of mine in this category. I barely put this here, but the main focus is on the smut, but there are many many feels aplenty. Oh wait, did I mention vampire Laf? George definitely not falling in love... but really, I like how this one turned out!:) Good sexy vampire times (with feelings)

Ah wow! You stuck with me! Thank you! I...tried to keep it brief. This is not an exhaustive list by any means btw, there were a few (many) I decided to cut because I wanted this list to be all encompassing of many authors, styles, etc.

But anon, thank you for the ask and giving me the chance to rant about my favorite fics! My apologies on taking so long to finish, I hope you can understand my life has been a little hectic, but I always try to make time for washette;)

Thank you!!<3

[sophsicle]

Do you ever finish a book that was so viscerally evocative that u just sit and stare at a wall after? Well, that’s exactly how I felt after catching up with Choices. My emotions are going haywire. I’ve only read two other fics before, with Choices being my third. Fan fiction gets a lot of bad rep, at least from what I see, so I’ve never ventured into this until recently. I literally knew nothing about the marauders except from what I remember while reading the HP books at age 12, until somehow getting onto that side of tiktok and seeing this constantly recommended. I have no words except you've created a fic that’s better than lots of published books I’ve read. Wow, totally understand why people are still talking about Harry Potter, these fics are absolute masterpieces. You’ve made me an avid jegulus shipper, that ship seemed totally random to me before you brought it to life. Ok I’m ranting now, so sorry. Thank you for reintroducing me to the marauders, no words could ever repay you!!!

Hello lovely! Thank you! This is so so so sweet!! I think tiktok has really done some interesting things for fanfiction and has started to kind of make it a little bit more acceptable and respected. Which honestly I think is good, because historically most of literature is fanfiction in some form or another and this idea that art has to be radically unique or individual and can't build off of other works is ridiculous (and ultimately I think is not about creative integrity and all just about whether or not you can copyright something and make money off of it). Okay, sorry, fanfiction rant over. I'm so glad you like the story though, and chuffed to have been part of your reintroduction to the marauders :)

[itsthemoofacewriting]

Take them, they’re yours

For Ray, the person who is very quickly becoming my partner in crime for all things SaNami related. We did a trade; I wrote this for them, and in return she drew this masterpiece from a scene in ‘amongst the trees’.

I also have to thank them their endless patience as I wrote this and teased them as the word count steadily went up and up. I’m so sorry this took so long.

Let’s play a game (points for those that thought of Saw), there’s a line in here that inspired my very rude SaNami piece I posted recently, can you find the line?

So, it’s been shown time and time again that Sanji has good kenbunshoku haki but not the full extent of it, so please excuse some of the artistic liberties I took.

Summary: If it was between his hands or Nami, it would be Nami, every time, without question. Every. Damn. Time. Rating: T

You can also find this on AO3 and FFN.  

Enjoy!

It’d all gone so wrong so quickly.

“There he is! Vinsmoke!”

Instantly Sanji felt his mood flip like a switch, from content to enraged at the use of that name.

It’d been a wonderful day. Nami had agreed to come shopping with him and Chopper. Although he had a feeling Chopper had something to do with that more than him, but that was fine- he’d soak up any attention she gave him. They’d been shopping to do all the chores, such as food shopping and medical supplies, as well as some personal shopping for her. When they’d dropped everything back at the ship, Sanji had taken the bold step to suggest extending their trip out and invited them both to a café and, much to his relief, Nami had accepted.

But all of that came crashing to a halt as one man turned into two and then three, more and more men appearing from behind trees and shrubbery, creating a circle around them.

His eyes zeroed in on the guns some of them were equipped with.

“What the hell did you call me, shithead?” His voice threatening and all attention turned to him as he took a small step forward in front of Nami, Chopper the other side of her doing the same.

As he looked over the large group, he wondered how long they’d been following them and how they’d managed to go undetected.

It was their first day here and Luffy hadn’t even made a ruckus yet, so it was strange how they knew where they were but as he eyed his surroundings, from the large group to their location it started to make sense.

There was only three of them, him, Nami and Chopper, in a tight secluded spot, far away from their ship or the rest of the crew.

This wasn’t by chance.

This was planned.

It was an ambush.

And Sanji had let it happen. Something that could’ve been prevented, quite easily, if he’d been paying attention to his surroundings, instead of the gorgeous woman behind him.  

His question was ignored as, what he presumed was the leader, took a step forward and called out, “Take him alive, we can get more money for him that way.”

They weren’t marines or CP9, they didn’t care if he was dead or alive. It looked like they bounty hunters and he knew what they were thinking; he was a prince; he came from wealth and power. Something these people would be able to attain through him.

But they clearly didn’t know anything. Didn’t know that his family would happily see him die before handing over money or technology for his life and it was why he hated that poster so much. There were assumptions that came with his birthname and no matter how notorious he became in his own right he’d never be able to escape them.

“Take the woman too,” one of them added.

And that very title had dragged Nami into his mess.

Again.

“Chopper, take Nami back to the ship.” He wasn’t sure if Chopper was depressed at being overlooked, he was too busy staring the leader down.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you,” Nami said firmly, tone suggesting there was no room for discussion.

He wondered if she was thinking about Capone’s back on Zou. She hadn’t wanted to leave him then either, but she hadn’t had a choice back then. Now she had a choice, and from her rigid posture and frown, it was clear she wouldn’t be moving. The irony was that they only needed Brook and it’d be a reunion.

“Call the others, we found them!”

At least they weren’t being taken lightly, but that still wasn’t good. It was hard to believe there were even more of them considering the size of the group already.

“Chopper, go to the ship, get whoever’s on board.” The words felt bitter coming from his mouth, but it was no secret they were vastly outnumbered and if they managed to get their grubby hands on Nami, he’d have no choice but to surrender instantly.

Chopper looked like he wanted to argue, stand his ground just like Nami had, but he must’ve done the math; knew they’d come out of this better if there were more of them.

“I’ll be back!” He called, changing into his walking point and sprung between the men with ease, dodging their attempts to stop him.

They didn’t follow after him though, so at least that was one less person to worry about.

“Nami-san, do you have your climatact?” They were back-to-back now, and he chanced a glance over his shoulder to look at her, she looked fierce and determined.

“Of course.” Her hand disappeared down the front of her dress and he quickly averted his gaze because he really didn’t need that sort of distraction right now. He had to be on his game, because as much as he trusted Nami’s strength, he was still responsible for her.

A tension settled over the tiny clearing with both parties hesitant to make the first move, sizing up the other with a critical gaze. It finally shattered when a branch in the woods snapped, and it had the effect of a gunshot through the quiet clearing.

They’d been outnumbered plenty of times before, so they sprung into action just like they had in the past.

A glance over at Nami as he spun to kick someone in the face, and she was more than holding her own. It was a hard trying not to become distracted by her as they fought. She moved with such grace, body in total coordination whilst she twirled the baton between her hands, timing meticulous as the climatact extended and retracted to do the most damage.

But ultimately that was the issue.

Whilst they may have done this in the past, they did it under very different circumstances. They weren’t contained in such a tight space, with only the two of them and the opposition desperate to get one of them to the floor as they were now.

They could only keep them at bay, push them away before someone else was on them trying to pin them down.

There was too many of them to be able to fully take them down without the risk of being overwhelmed.

A quick scan told him they needed to do crowd control and do it now. He couldn’t take off into the air like he normally would, it’d leave Nami on the ground by herself and a flurry of kicks would be reckless in a tight space. If he hit her, even by accident, he’d never be able to forgive himself.

There was no thought process as he flipped into a handstand, moving away from Nami, and spinning on his hands. He ignored the grit and sharp pieces from the floor digging into his hands and instead focused on the people before him. They’d be up after a while, the move not doing enough damage to keep them down, but it’d be enough to buy him and Nami time and stop them being swamped.

Ultimately, his only goal was keeping her safe and their grubby hands off of her.

And it seemed her goal was similar to his. He knew it wasn’t for the same reason as his, but it made him feel warm at least that she cared for him that much.

With their similar goals, they were doing well at containment, even as Sanji moved slightly further away hoping to do a bit more damage without the risk of hitting her.

But all of that came abruptly crashing down.

In the heat of battle, his haki was better, he could sense the people around him and just about anticipate their moves, which was handy, and it guided him on where he needed to be. Right now though, it was heavily focused on Nami so he could get a feel for how she was doing without having to take his eyes off his opponents. She was focused and slightly anxious, but that was to be expected and he couldn’t sense any panic, so he trusted she was alright.

However, the feeling that came next had ice settling over his heart. Someone close reeked of ill intentions, repugnant thoughts almost brimming over, and that was saying something considering the group were all bounty hunters. But this was different from the rest of them, this individual was backhanded, immoral, a mixture of utter glee and vile motive.

It was that combination he didn’t like.

For the first time since developing his haki, he could make out a shadowy outline and it was over as quickly as it came on but there was no forgetting it, it was like he’d had a front row seat to a horror show. It’d been a shadow of a woman being shot from behind, her figure falling in slow motion to a heaped pile on the floor.

Despite it just being a shadow, there was no mistaking it, the woman from his vision was Nami. He’d know her presence anywhere.

It made him feel sick, but he didn’t linger on the image, instead he sent a forceful kick to the man in front of him and did a U-turn, charging towards her before he could think about what he was doing.

The voice in the back of his mind was chanting that he would be too late, be too slow and would be picking her body up from the floor before he could do anything. The people around him were forgotten in his single-minded devotion to get to her, shoving them out the way as he pushed any doubt out of his mind.

By hook or by crook, he would get there in time.

It wasn’t the heroic, princely move that he wanted or ever envisioned doing, but desperate times called for desperate measures as he hurled himself at her, outstretched arms curling around her and knocking her off her feet. The distinct sound of a gun firing went off as they started to fall to the floor, but it was okay, because he’d made it in time.

He spun them just in time that he ended up taking the brunt and they skidded on the ground, Nami clutched to him. His arm hurt and his back burned, his jacket no doubt shredded but the woman scrambling to get off of him was all worth it.

She was out of his arms and at his side, looking down at him with a frown. “Sanji, what are you- are you bleeding?!”

Her frown was gone, in place panic and when he looked down, he was greeted with a bloody arm. It twinged when he moved it but from what he could see, it was a graze.

It at least explained why his arm hurt.

Luckily the chaos bought them some time as the bounty hunters argued amongst themselves about the use of the gun that almost damaged their pay-check.

Just a shame it wasn’t all of them that were distracted.

He pushed up on that arm, ignoring the pain that flared from the wound in distress, and kicked one of the men that got too close to Nami. He shucked off his ruined jacket and threw it at another group starting to get too close and it gave him and Nami the time to get back on their feet.

But it wasn’t working like it was before, no matter how much they both pushed back, it felt like all of a sudden, the tables had turned. Where they’d been holding them back before they were now overwhelmed, barely keeping up with the punches. The distance they’d been able to establish was gone as the men crowded in and it was relentless.

He was being reckless, he knew he was, as he threw himself around with very little regard for himself, but he’d be damned if what he saw came to life. He didn’t care what happened to himself and at the end of the day, what was a scratch or bruised rib if it meant a healthy Nami.

His recklessness soon cost him when he fell to the floor a second time, but not of his own free will this time. Someone had taken him by surprise with the end of their gun and as his brain rattled, he knew that hit held the intention of trying to knock him out.

His head throbbed at him, almost begging him to stay down, but if he went down, it would only be Nami left, and he couldn’t leave her. With that thought in mind, he swept out his leg, knocking the other man to the floor before he could get in a hit that actually did finish him. He fought through the way his vision blurred and how the world wouldn’t stop moving as he stood to his feet.

“Sanji-kun! Are you okay?” She grunted; voice strained as she pushed someone back with her climatact and swung it around to hit someone else, unable to spare a moment to really look at him.

Nami was doing the best she could to cover him whilst he recovered but the group were getting frustrated by him and Nami’s resilience, it was clear as day in the way their moves were turning desperate and more vicious by the second. The earlier words of taking him alive seemed to be slipping from their minds, which worried him because so far, their gun use has been severely limited but if that changed…

“As long as you are, I am,” he replied, getting to his feet and at this point it was pure adrenaline keeping him up.

“Then think about what you’re doing!” She barked, smacking someone around the head.

From there on, the fighting had shifted. It’d turned into a free for all and Sanji silently willed Chopper to reappear because he was aware of the ticking clock working against them now. If the rest of the bounty hunters group showed up, they’d be done for.  

Now, Sanji knew the score amongst the seas, he knew pirates, marines, bounty hunters had no honour, it wasn’t something to be expected from others, regardless how he felt about it.

But when he caught a flash of silver glinting at him from the corner of his eye, he felt his blood heat. If he thought he was angry before this, it was nothing compared to the man raising his knife on an unsuspecting Nami and he was flipping onto his hands to get in between them.

It was his sloppiness that put himself in this position. A position where he hadn’t been quick enough to position himself and in a last-ditch attempt, he found himself catching the man’s arms before he could bring the knife down on Nami’s back.

For the first time since Enies Lobby, he’d been forced to fight with his hands.

He’d dealt with enough squirming ingredients in his lifetime to have a firm grip, but the last thing he’d expected was for the man’s arms to slip straight through his hands like butter, along with the knife.

He hissed and recoiled in pain as he felt it slowly slice through the skin, his hand throbbing at him. It felt like it’d happened in slow motion, and he didn’t need to look down to know it was bleeding- he could feel it.

He hadn’t for one second expected a devil fruit and that was on him.

The man smirked nastily, proud of getting the better of him and what he wouldn’t do to plant his foot in the man’s face, but Nami’s voice behind interrupted, “Sanji, duck.”

He did so without hesitation, dropping to the ground and watched as Nami’s climatact stabbed the man in the face before twirling it between her hands to knock down anyone close enough.

He felt proud watching the damage she did until she turned her gaze on him and that vanished because of the look on her face. For the first time, he couldn’t read it. She looked pale and for a split second he was worried she was hurt until he watched her eyes flick from his face to focus on his hands.

He’d only caught a quick look at his hands but that was bad enough.

He flipped onto his hands, burying his bloodied palm into the dirt, to kick the man trying to sneak up behind Nami. If he thought his arm hurt, it was nothing compared to the heat flaring angrily from his palm. Grit burying itself in all the cuts on his palms, large or small, but he ignored that in favour of flipping and throwing himself back into the fray.

He couldn’t let up for even a second.

Although he didn’t want to entertain the thought, he was tired, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he was going to last. Everything was working against him, his head still throbbed, his arm and hands both competing for which would burn stronger, and he couldn’t remember how it happened, but his ribs had begun to protest.

But he wouldn’t give until Nami was safe, that was why he wouldn’t entertain any thoughts of stopping. He couldn’t and wouldn’t until he could ensure her safety and that’s what kept him going.  

It could have been a minute or an hour but the distant sound of ‘oni giri’ had relief flooding through him, for once happy to hear Marimo’s voice and his body gave up, right then and there. He slumped to the floor against his will; he was tired, his head was killing him, and his hands burned. From the cut to the dirt in the cut and everything in-between that’d made itself at home in the skin of his palms.

“Sanji-kun!” Nami’s distressed voice called out to him.

The last thing he saw was the stunning, unharmed, face of Nami, crouched over him, calling his name.

That was a good way to go down, in his opinion.

“Sanji!”

.

.

.

His head throbbed as he came to, and he groaned when he touched his forehead. Everything hurt. His head, hand, and arm. His hands. He tried to sit up, but his ribs protested, and he mentally added his body to the list.

An ambush. Just him and Nami. Someone trying to shoot her.

It all came flooding back and headache be damned, he opened his eyes to scan his surroundings. He instantly recognised Chopper’s medical room, so he could relax a bit but then his eyes caught the flash of orange beside him.

Nami.

She was facing away from him but from what he could glean she looked okay, and he breathed a sigh of relief.

The movement caught her attention and she turned to face him. She still looked fine, but he had to ask, “Are you hurt?”

“You’re seriously asking me that right now?” Her voice filled with disbelief.

He didn’t respond, continuing to stare up at her, waiting for her answer.

She shook her head. “I’m fine. How are you feeling?”

“As long as you’re fine, then I’m fine,” he parroted his earlier words, and it was true. The ache in his head worth it all to see her well. She didn’t look like she believed him and snorted, turning back around to grab more things.

As happy as he was that she was there, he’d been expecting Chopper flitting around him instead. “Where’s Chopper?”

“He’s dealing with the other idiots,” she said, sitting on the chair next to the bed.

“Chopper checked you over before going. You’ve got a minor concussion, we haven’t scrambled your brain yet.” Her lips curved up and she added, “Well, no more than normal.”

“Being around you scrambles my brain.”

“Which is normal,” she teased, grinning at him.

He laughed lightly but his ribs still protested angrily. He didn’t manage to smother the grimace in time and the smile slipped off her face as she turned to the side, gathering the supplies she’d need.

“We can deal with that later,” he said frowning, slowly sitting up and building momentum to get off the bed. “They put themselves out, the least I can do is make sure they’re fed.”

“You’re not leaving this bed!” Nami snapped, hand on his shoulder pushing him down.

He’d wanted to hear that from her mouth for as long as he’d known her, and he’d store that sentence away for later, but it was hard to be happy about it when her words were paired with the firm set of her mouth and furrowed eyebrows.

She was upset.

He’d upset her.

He laid back without any further resistance and the stiffness from her shoulders relaxed. He didn’t say anything else as she sat down on the chair next to the bed, her hands reaching for his.

“I haven’t seen you spin on your hands in ages,” Nami said, her thumb brushing over the pulse at his wrist to avoid any of the small injuries to his hand. “I can see why now.”

There were two bowels on the bed, and it wasn’t rocket science to realise what they were for. One was filled with water and the other empty bar a pair of tweezers.

She moved one of the bowels closer to them and cupped his hands. “Deep breath,” she told him and then dunked his hands into the bowel filled with water.

It stung, the water working its way into all of the cuts, but he didn’t complain. He wouldn’t, because she was safe, and this was the most she’d ever touched him, and it was so gentle. She held his hands in the water a second longer before lifting them out and onto a towel.

The, now murky, water filled bowel was moved onto the bedside table and the other bowel moved closer. She picked up the pair of tweezers with one hand and cupped one of his hands with the other. Her touch was delicate, and his hand went limp under her touch, letting her move it into the position she wanted.

With his palm facing the ceiling, she worked on getting all the various pieces lodged into his skin out. She was clinical in her movements, methodical as she moved over the skin, but she was gentle about it. She tried her best to do so without having to dig, but some of it was unavoidable.

For all her professionalism, once she’d pried a piece out the thumb from her free hand would rub a little circle into the side of his hand. He wasn’t sure if she was soothing herself or him, but it made him smile and goosebumps erupted over his arms.

With Nami focused on his hands, he had the luxury of looking over her face. Her face the picture of concentration, from the pinched lips to her furrowed eyebrows. Beneath the focus, she looked tired, but there wasn’t a single scratch on her face, and he was proud of that. Come tomorrow, she’d be back to her smiling self.

She moved onto the second hand, placing the first down onto the towel, and although she’d been doing it a while now, she was still just as doting and attentive to the other hand.

Brown eyes met his, finally acknowledging his staring and her hands stilled their work. “What?”

“My own personal nurse,” he joked, hoping to make her smile.

“Don’t imagine me as a nurse! We don’t need to add blood loss to the list of problems!” She scolded, lips pulling slightly at his antics but not what he’d been aiming for as they lapsed back into silence, and she continued with his other hand.

He hadn’t let himself look down at his hands before now, mainly because he didn’t need the distraction at the time but because it wouldn’t really make a difference how they looked. They looked like they’d been through the ringer though. Far worse than when he’d first learned to cook, where his fingers had been constantly burned or cuts had littered his fingers and palms from inexperience. Stains of dirt still remained in patches where it had resisted the first wash, and it clung to all the little openings from where anything sharp had been buried. All those openings were angry and red, some bleeding a little from where they’d been pulled about to get the bits of debris out.

Then there was the large cut spanning his left palm.

If the small cuts were angry, then that was furious, from the raw skin to the dried blood on his skin that would need a few more persuasive washes before coming out clean. It was long and deep, but he didn’t dare flex his hand to see just how deep it went into his palm. Thankfully it’d stopped bleeding but, in its place, it oozed instead.

That wouldn’t heal quickly.

But as he looked at his hands, he didn’t feel any strong emotion. He felt neutral. He wasn’t happy of course, but there wasn’t an ounce of regret. He’d do it again a million times over just to see Nami unharmed.

And he realised right then, if it was between his hands or Nami, it would be her every time. No questions asked, no hesitation.

It felt like it should be a huge earth-shattering moment, where the axis suddenly shifted, and all the pieces aligned into a moment of pure epiphany, because he’d said all his life how important and sacred his hands were. Yet it felt very matter of fact, like it just made sense and had never been any different. Sanji supposed, it never had been any different. Not for a long time at least.

“Look at your hands,” Nami mourned, face drawn and thumb focusing on cautiously tracing alongside the wound.

She’d said it so quietly he wondered if it was meant to be said to herself only. She was beautiful no matter what, but he hated that look on her face and he hated that he was the cause of it.

His uncut hand lightly gripped her hand. “I’d do it again.” He would, in a heartbeat. His gut flaring the exact same way it had just this morning.

“Don’t.” She looked at him sharply. “I don’t want you to.”

He knew what she wanted him to say, what she expected him to say because she’d known him for so long. But on this occasion-

“No.”

He’d never refused her before in all the time of knowing her. He’d always catered to her whims or discussed anything they’d disagreed on, coming to a mutual agreement before moving on. He’d never refused her so outright, so firmly and he would not budge on it. He refused to.

But as adamant as he felt about it, she looked just as equally defiant based on the tight expression she was giving him.

“Look at your hands,” she said sternly and held his hands up as if he’d see them clearer that way, “These are your dreams, your life, your everything. Don’t expect me to sit here and agree as you recklessly throw it away.”

Although he wasn’t shocked about his new revelation regarding his hands, it was still a revelation all the same and he found himself disagreeing with what she’d said. She was worth it all, it wasn’t reckless when it concerned her.

The next thought was at the tip of his tongue, threatening to bubble over past his lips but he hesitated. He knew what he was about to say would spook her, make her skittish and knew that his feelings for her weren’t returned- and that was okay, he just wanted to be around her, in whatever way he could.

Ultimately, he threw caution to the wind because when did he ever not give his all to everything he did?

“A life without you in it isn’t worth living.” And he meant it, with every fibre of his being. It’d be hollow without her smile, her laugh, her everything, brightening up his day. His dream of all blue was grey without the smart, caring and sassy navigator at his side, regardless of whether she returned his feelings.

“You’re being dramatic.” She didn’t sound sure; she didn’t look sure. He’d surprised her, he realised after a second, with such a sweeping statement. And it was warring with her anger over his refusal just seconds before.

“I’m not,” he said firmly, trying to get the message across.

“Don’t pretend you wouldn’t do it for anyone else in this crew.” She was deflecting.

She had him there though. The same gut instinct flared up. “You’re right.”

But the feeling was different. They were his family; he’d do anything for them but her. Her. Nami. The sun rose and set with her. She was the first thing he thought about and the last at the end of the day. Her happiness was his happiness.

“But it’s different with you,” he continued, adamant.  

This was the last thing he’d expected when he’d woken up and perhaps now wasn’t the best time to be doing this. He still had a concussion, and they were currently mid disagreement (he wouldn’t call it an argument) but he didn’t want the moment to pass. He didn’t want to try again later, to try and regain the moment they were currently in.

“Don’t change the subject.” She wouldn’t make eye contact, but she was still holding his hands.

“I’m not, it’s all relevant,” he insisted, and it was. He needed her to see that. This wasn’t something he just did on a whim.

It was silent as they stared each other down, willing the other to give. Well, Nami was actually glaring at him, which he could understand but he wasn’t giving in on this. He just couldn’t, it went against everything he felt so strongly about, but it still made his stomach twist uncomfortably.

The door to the med bay creaked open, breaking the stalemate as Chopper poked his head through. He hesitated at the door when he picked up on the odd tension. Sanji was just about to ask for ten more minutes because they were nowhere near done but Nami stood, his hands falling from her grasp onto the bed.

“Nami-san,” Sanji called after her, a battered hand feebly stretched out.

“He’s all yours,” she said to Chopper as she passed him.

She didn’t look back as she left, the door closing behind her.

.

.

.

Nami wasn’t speaking to him.

She was also actively avoiding him since the med bay and that had been yesterday. He wasn’t sure if it was because of their disagreement (not argument) or because in a roundabout way he’d confessed and made her uncomfortable.

He may regret the timing of the confession, no matter how right it had felt, but he didn’t regret their disagreement, not then and not now, even as Nami quickly left the kitchen without looking at him.

It stung a bit though.

Her reaction confused him though, he was expected to be yelled at or hit instead of silence, but he’d give her the space she clearly wanted for the rest of the day and then smooth it over tomorrow. Who knows, maybe he’d get that reaction tomorrow. He just hated the tension between them and the confused looks he kept receiving from the rest of the crew.

For now, he was looking down at a bowel of hot water and a pile of dishes that needed washing up. Chopper hadn’t mentioned about getting his stiches wet, but he figured he could always get the dressing covering his stiches wrapped again afterwards. Someone else in the crew would do the dishes, he knew that, but they’d already bailed him out once and the stiches would be in for at least a week, he should be able to do this himself. Dinner hadn’t been too bad, the hand with stitches twinged slightly and his arm where a bullet had skimmed had protested when he lifted it above his head, but he was no whiner.

So he cracked on, picking up the first plate and sponge to wash it with.

“Put down the plate,” a steely voice said from behind him.

Nami stood in the doorway, a vision of loveliness as she glowered at him with her hands on her hips.

She strode in, pushing the door closed behind her. “I saw everyone come out of the kitchen and I knew what you were doing, you big idiot.”

She snatched the towel of his shoulder and threw it onto the counter next to them when she reached him, eyes fiery and although he was taller than her, he’d never felt smaller in front of her.

Shit, he wasn’t ready for this, he thought as his palms started to sweat. Sure, he’d planned on talking to her tomorrow, but that was tomorrow, he would have had time to think it through before then.  

“Did you mean it?” She asked, her tone neutral now and that only made him feel more on edge, that any wrong answer would have him toppling off the deep end.  

He didn’t know what part of their conversation yesterday she was referring to, but there was no part he’d take back, even if it did make her angrier.

“Every word,” he said with surety, jaw set and staring into her eyes, trying to match his words so she understood.

She sighed deeply and he was bracing himself because that couldn’t be good.  

“I’m still upset about this.” Her fingers tentatively grazed his bandaged hand and if they didn’t break plates as quickly as he knew they did, he would have dropped it then and there just to take her hand.

Instead, he put the plate down on the side, resting the sponge on top and he was going to gather her in his arms to hug her because he hated that he’d upset her, but she took his hands, stopping him in his tracks.

It was quiet as she looked down at his hands, palms facing upward so his cuts and bandage was on full display. It was a much better sight than yesterday; the rawness had faded, and the gruesome display of his wound hidden behind white cloth.

He was jarred from his observations when she let go of one of his hands and instead used it to trace along the bandage, fingers light as it travelled along his hand, retracing the length of the cut and although it may be hidden by a bandage, it might as well have not been by how accurately her fingers moved along it.  

“I’m angry that you’d throw this all away,” she said lightly, voice even and it didn’t match her words. Her fingers stopped their journey to cup his hand as if to make her point and he didn’t need her to explain what she meant.

He didn’t want to argue but the way he felt still hadn’t changed. “Nami-”

“I’m not finished talking!” She snapped and his mouth shut without another word.

“I’m angry that you don’t trust me.”

Oh God, no. That was never what this was about, and he hadn’t even contemplated how she might think that. He didn’t care whether she was done talking or not, he was ready to shut that down but then her next words stole the breath from his lungs.

“But mostly, I’m angry that after all this time you don’t value yourself. Everything we’ve been through, and you still throw yourself in as if it means nothing.” Her eyes seared into his and like a coward he turned to the floor, unable to bear the brunt of that look.

His previous life might be well behind him now, but he couldn’t just switch off all the things that’d been said to him in his youth. It made it hard to believe that someone could care about him, care about his life to that extent. But it wasn’t an excuse; he knew that, and he knew the people on this ship felt very differently about him but that didn’t stop the thoughts in his head sometimes.

Another reason came to mind, but it made his chest constrict painfully, like he couldn’t breathe, and he always desperately tried not to think about it for too long for that very reason. It was the death of his mother. It hurt, it ached, and it haunted him in the quiet moments when it was just him and his memories. How he’d been helpless, unable to do anything as he lost her, and he wouldn’t see it happen again. Didn’t want to see it happen again, not if he could help it. The thought of losing someone precious whilst he lived on would be unbearable to live through again.

Both tied so deeply into one another, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to pry them apart and let them go.  

She gripped his hand, trying to get his attention from his thoughts and staring match with the floor but the best he could do was look at their joined hands.

“I don’t want to lose you,” she said it softly, but it was so loud in the quiet kitchen.

“And I don’t want to lose you,” he said earnestly, his free hand coming to rest on top of hers, to feel the warmth on her skin because his chest tightened at the thought of her not being around.

She considered him for a second and he wondered if this was the start of another disagreement before she delivered, “The way you feel about me getting hurt, why do you think it’s any different when it’s you?”

The way he felt about her…

Oh.

And just like that, the tables had turned. He looked at her face, scanning, searching for the answer to a question he hadn’t yet verbalised whereas she wouldn’t look at him, resolutely looking down at their joined hands.

Her bashfulness gave him the courage to ask.

“You mean…?”

He was met with silence but that didn’t dishearten him, his heart felt as if it was going to burst through his chest at any moment, as hope foolishly blossomed in his lungs because surely, she didn’t feel the exact same way as he did. Surely not. Not for him.

“You’re an idiot,” she said, frowning and his heart sunk.

“But I’m the idiot that wants you.”

He’d imagined this moment so many times, played this over and over in his daydreams but it didn’t hold a candle to the actual moment. He was speechless and his heart was doing summersaults from the roll coaster ride it had been on in the last minute. He still wondered if he was asleep, if he would wake up any second to the cruel reality it was in his imagination again.

“I expected more enthusiasm,” Nami said dryly, smirking and she was back to looking him in the eye.

“I just…” ‘didn’t expect it. Ever.’ Is what he wanted to say but she had, and he didn’t want to tar the moment with his insecurities. Although someone would need to pinch him later.

“I know you’re not going to give on your recklessness, it’s partially why I was so angry, but just so you know Black Leg Sanji this is a two-way street-” she leaned in, eyes alight with confidence- “and I’ll be fighting just as hard for you.

She wouldn’t need to, he’d make sure he was more than enough for the both of them, but her words made him smile, made him feel delirious and the nasty thoughts at the back of his mind were quiet for once.

But there was something he had to clear up first.

“Nami-san, I’ve never thought you were weak. Never thought you weren’t capable. You’ve proven time and time again you can protect yourself, but if I can prevent you getting hurt, I’m going to.”

She breathed heavily through her nose but smiled softly. “All I ask, is that you at least consider your hands when doing stupid things.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She laughed, short and sharp. “That’s the most I’m going to get from you, so stop messing around and kiss me already.”

He gaped at her like a fool, he’d expected so much more than this, more arguing, more talking, more back and forth. That internal dialogue came to a screeching halt when Nami, bored of his staring, grabbed the lapels of his jacket and brought him into a searing kiss.

Fireworks, sirens, alarms were all going off in his head as he scrambled to catch up, but she was persistent, lips coaxing and hands tightening on the lapels, urging him along. All of those noises faded away into bliss when he reciprocated in kind, seizing the moment he’d waited so long for.

For the first time since it’d been wrapped on his hand, he cursed the bandage that was denying him feeling the soft skin of her arm. That was pushed to the back of his mind when she pulled on his jacket, pressing them closer together and his hands moved to her back to diminish any space left between them. At least his fingers could enjoy the delicate skin of her back exposed from the halter top she wore.

They pulled apart, breathing heavily and he was trying his best to take in her face.

“What a poorly timed confession,” she teased, lips brushing against his as she spoke.

“I know.” He cringed, she deserved so much more than this.

“I expect you to make it up to me.” Her lips curved upward.

“For as long as you’ll let me.”

Her eyes crinkled and the teasing expression was gone, replaced with softness. “Good answer.”

The next kiss was slow, and he was ready for it this time as he put his all into it. Lips caressing, heads tilting to find the right angle and they soon found their rhythm. Daringly he brushed his tongue along the seam of her lips and their tongues brushed when she parted her lips. As much as he liked their first kiss, the second was his favourite as he got to take his time as he tasted her and listened to the little breathy noises she made.

He looked forward to having more favourites with her.

“Seeing as I can’t get my stitches wet, maybe you’ll help me in the shower,” he muttered when they pulled apart briefly.

She leaned up on her toes and he had expected her to kiss him again, she was so close he could almost taste her on his lips when she whispered, “Ask Zoro to wash your back.”

That threw cold water on the mood and the image that popped into his head was enough to make a nasty shiver slither down his spine. “That’s not funny, Nami-san.”

Nami laughed, eyes crinkling and face lighting up at the displeased look on his face and as horrified as he was with her suggestion, it was the look on her face he adored seeing.

“I’m sure something can be arranged,” she said once her giggling had resided.

He leaned down to kiss her again, but she took a step away, swiftly dodging arms that tried to drag her back in. When he went to follow her, his world went black as she threw the tea towel on his head.

“Come on, I’ll wash, you dry.”

Yeah, he regretted nothing. He’d do it a hundred times over again now and in the future, just so he could have this with her.

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

Listen, I just love the way Sanji feels about Nami, and I channelled all of that into this. He adores her, she’s the one for him, he’s her number one cheerleader. I HAVE SO MANY FEELS.

I have a head canon that Sanji stopped doing those kicking handstands because he’d get scratches and splinters in his hands afterwards and that defeated the purpose of fighting with his legs (even if I think they do look super cool!). I’m sure the manga will prove me wrong, but I can’t recall him doing it since pre time skip.

Just in case you didn’t read my other (filth) fic, Ray started a SaNami discord group, it’s a chill place to chat and share your love for this pairing. If you’d like to join, message me on here or Twitter and I’ll send you the link (Please make sure I can message you back!). Feel free to join, the more the merrier!

As always, please excuse any errors.

Thank you to Ray for this lovely trade and to everyone for reading.