#doing this shit vignette style

[blueish-bird]

wrote 570 words today wahoo

[abibliophobiaa]

Begin Again: Chapter 4/4

Summary: The year is 1988. After the loss of a beloved family member, you find yourself inheriting an old coffee shop. The quiet bartender at the Hideout across the street just so happens to catch your eye.

(20k words; eddie munson x afab!reader; sunshine!reader x grumpy!eddie vibes)

Note: Tumblr ate my formatting, so AO3 is probably best. 🙃

Warnings: Vignette style (sorta); Eddie’s post S4 trauma; panic attacks; nightmares; family member loss; grief; alcohol use; nightmares; suicidal ideation; smut 18+ only.

AO3 | MASTERLIST | PREVIOUS CH

*

Winter 1988/1989

*

He leaves you alone in the coffee shop.

The smell of the coffee brewing grows sour, your stomach churning with the dread seeping into your veins with every throb of your heart.

Your four walls, your space, now empty without him there to fill it.

You never realized how much sound he’s brought into your life, how much color, how much of his light.

And in a moment, Chance had thrown a shade over it. Squashed it just as it had really started to grow.

Chance’s words roll around in your head.

Chrissy. Fred. Patrick. Jason.

Chrissy. Fred. Patrick. Jason.

Names without faces, people you’ve never met, people you’ll never meet.

Because they’re dead.

All of them.

Gone.

He says it’s Eddie.

It’s not Eddie.

There’s no reality you could ever find yourself in where you believe the lie that Eddie’s done something like this.

Not this man, not the one who consumes fantasy literature like it’s a lifeblood, who talks DnD with his youngest friends animatedly and conjures up new ideas for sprawling campaigns full of high stakes and grandeur, who flips Max upside down in his arms when he greets her until her laughter shakes deep within her bones and a smile lights up her whole face, the man who drinks out of a Garfield mug when he visits his Uncle, who listens to ABBA and Blondie with you and his friends even when he claims to hate it.

Not this man.

Never this man.

But now you need to find Eddie, tell him everything’s okay, that you don’t think he did it.

You know he thinks you do.

Could see it in the way he looked at you, in the way he flinched from your touch.

The title of murderer.

The weight of it.

You can only imagine how crushing that is, how hard it’s been to keep those accusations to himself all this time, to carry it on his back each and every day.

To live near to those who might whisper behind your back, question how you’re free, ponder your innocence.

You decide to close up early, dismissing your customers as nicely as possible, feigning issues with your machines. A patron grumbles that they were working moments ago, but you only offer them free coffees for their next visit and wave as they all bustle down the street.

It’s likely not the most professional thing you’ve done, but it’s necessary, your fingers removing your apron from around your hips before moving to go snatch your keys from behind the counter.

The front door locks with a click behind you, eyes flashing across the parking lot to find Eddie’s van missing. He’s likely skipped work, and you understand why he would, but all it does is curl the guilt further in your gut.

That you hadn’t done more, said more, chased after him—something.

You run upstairs to your apartment, grabbing your things and rummaging about, trying to make it look some semblance of normal before you grab your pocketbook in hand and rush over to your wall phone, dialing one of the first numbers in your phone book.

Max picks up on ring number two.

Your breath shudders out as you ask, “Is Eddie there?”

“He was, but not anymore,” she says honestly. You can hear her shuffle around on the other end, a huff filling the line. “He looked upset. Did something happen?

“He heard Chance and I talking.”

“Okay, and? Chance is a dick, we all know this, so what did he do?”

“He told me about March. Of eighty six.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” you tell her, quickly adding, “but I don’t believe him.”

You hear her huff once more, followed by the rustle of something in the distance. “Good, because whatever he told you isn’t true. He doesn’t know half of what really happened, and I doubt he ever looked into it. Which, you’d think we would have since the idiot works for the police.”

“So you know where Eddie might be?”

“He’s at Steve’s,” she says simply, like she knows, and of course she does.

He’s her brother. Minus the blood and title, of course, but her brother all the same. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

“For what?”

“You’re picking me up,” she states plainly, and you almost laugh.

Almost.

But she sounds serious, and you’ve seen Maxine angry and you don’t want to be in the line of fire on the receiving end if she ever explodes.

“I’m picking you up,” you agree, swallowing thickly. “Hey, Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Just…I know you’re my boss, but don’t hurt him, okay?”

“Gosh, Max—no. I…I lo—really care about him.”

“So I’ll see you in fifteen?” She says, as if she knows the exact distance between yours and the Munson’s.

And you suppose she does after all this time.

You nod, even though she can’t see you, and say, “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

You’re there in twelve, the roads zooming on by as you turn and weave through the pathways that are almost second nature now. Muscle memory, because of all the time you’ve spent with them. With his family, who has, in a way, sort of become yours as well.

She’s there as she said she would be, sitting on the front step to the little home, hair billowing around her in the wind.

She drops down into your passenger seat without a word. The sound of her buckle sliding into place greets your ears, her dirty shoes kicking out before her, that delicate profile of hers set into a firm look.

“I heard what you said, you know?” She says after some time.

It’s quiet, a little lilting, her lips curling a bit at the edges. You know that look. It’s the same look she’s given Eddie after catching him in a state of disarray after a night spent making out with you like the two of you are teenagers all over again, and not twenty-three year olds with careers and rent to pay.

“What do you mean?” It’s a trap. You know it is, but you’ll give in just this once.

“I heard you start to say you love him,” she teases, tongue sticking out slightly.

It’s the truth.

It’s not a hard thing to do—falling for Eddie Munson, that is.

And still, your heart thunders away at the thought of it. For years you’ve spent trying to never form lasting connections with others. You’re in and out of places quicker than you can, never getting too close, never making those lasting ties.

And now you’ve gone and tied yourself to him, a single strand, an invisible string that tethers you to him.

It’s terrifying, and still there’s this sense of peace that fills your blood. Cool it before it can sizzle and burn.

“You definitely said it,” she says once more, as if you didn’t hear her the first time.

But you did. You said the words and you heard her, but she’s not the first person you want to say them to.

The person who deserves them the most is currently hiding out at Steve Harrington’s home, likely reliving the pain of the events of two years ago, exposed like a nerve by someone who only wants the worst for you.

You suppose you can’t fault Chance, either. You saw the pain in his eyes. The grief over the loss of his friends.

Three.

Three in a lifetime is already too much, but three in one week is a tragedy.

There’s no denying that fact.

‘He doesn’t know half of it…’

Max’s words swirl in your mind. Over and over again on an endless loop.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, but there’s a slow smirk sliding across your lips, fingers curling around the steering wheel as you peel out of the Munson’s driveway, heading in the direction of Steve Harrington’s family home.

It’s on the way that Max starts to talk, warning you in a sense, of what you’re about to hear.

“It’s…a lot to take in,” she says, and there’s a seriousness in her tone unfamiliar to you.

She’s usually always meddling with the kids, the rowdier and more hot headed one of the bunch. You’ve seen her interact with her friends, always just as fiery and explosive as her friends. You’ve seen her get angry with Eddie till her face turns red. But there’s always this sense of ease that accompanies it.

A laugh at the end of a snide remark, a smirk, a gentle tilt of the lips.

It’s not present this time, and an uneasiness settles into your blood.

“Just…when they tell you, promise me you’ll keep an open mind. You’re going to hear things that sound impossible, and that’s because honestly even we thought they were, but it’s…the truth. It’s the truth that the media swallowed up, the truth the government hid. But it doesn’t make it not real—it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And it’s crap because the world moved on, and yet we were left to deal with it.”

She means your friends.

You know that.

The fact that this ‘they’ she speaks of telling you this tale is the same group of kids that you’ve grown to know, your friends you’ve flourished with all these months, the man you’re falling in love with.

“Max, I just want to know the truth. So whatever you all say, I’m here to listen. I want to know. It’s important that I know,” you tell her seriously, pulling into the driveway to the sprawling home.

Your head slams against the headrest of your driver’s seat, hands coming up to cup over your eyes. Your breath draws right in your lungs, eyes burning from the prick of tears. A new fear dawns, unwanted and unbidden.

You voice it, a quiet strain of your voice that comes out as a broken sob. A fearful questioning of, “What if he doesn’t want to see me? What if he hates me?”

“He couldn’t,” she tells you, voice stern.

“What if he does, though? You didn’t see the way he looked at me. He was there, but he wasn’t. It’s like he went away in his mind and he didn’t want me there.”

She chuckles. “Have you seen the way that idiot looks at you? It’s honestly disgusting. All puppy dog eyes and goo.” You break out into a watery laugh and, satisfied, she continues, “Look—Chance’s friends…well, not Chrissy, but Chance’s friends are assholes. I’m not saying they got what they deserved, because no one deserves to die. But they were terrible to him. He probably saw Chance and saw you and thought he’d turned you against him. Just like they turned the whole town against him in eighty six.”

There are no words that come to mind after what she says. After the truth she reveals. You’re not sure of what it even means, and yet you think of your customers in your early days or the shop opening. The way some, however rarely, would look at him and mutter amongst themselves when he happened to stop by. You remember the woman at the supermarket with her blonde hair and haunting eyes. The depth of her warning as she stood beside you on line at the register, telling you Eddie wasn’t a good man, telling him he should have never come back.

You think of the fact Eddie moved out of his own childhood home to make room for Max. But you also recall how much freer he is when he’s out of town. His smiles come easier, he seems lighter…brighter, without the weight of the world resting on his shoulders.

The pieces start to slide into place, a push here, a click there. You think of your puzzle he’d brought you both for your first date, now finished and tucked away. How the image became clearer and clearer with each passing moment.

It’s the same now.

That clarity that takes shape.

The reasons why Eddie’s open in some regards, and keeps others very close to his chest. The evasions he’s had to create in his backstory with you, to protect you from the truth of it all.

To protect you from the danger of it, if what Max claims is true.

“Are you ready?” Max’s voice stirs you from your silent reverie. A quiet beckon. A soft lilt that drags you from your thoughts.

You’re not.

There’s nothing that can ever prepare you for what you are about to hear, and yet you twist the key in the ignition all the same. You tug your keys free and toss them into your pocketbook, opening your car door without another word. Max tips her head over the roof of your vehicle, looking to you for reassurance…or merely to see how you’re doing—you’re not really sure. But you dip your head all the same, shutting the door into place, fingers trailing along metal and window, heart racing in your chest at what you are about to enter into.

The walk to the front door is harrowing. You don’t really know what to expect. Max gives you a warning, sure, but nothing compares to reality. Especially not as you knock on the front door and Robin is there to greet you. She offers a kind smile and a hug, her voice quiet as she mutters she’s happy you’re both there. Max glances over her shoulder as you enter the home, your eyes trailing the insides. You’ve been here multiple times, but it feels different now. There’s a whole world you’re not privy to—a world that Eddie’s been a part of, Max and Robin, Steve and the others. The world that those who warned you of this town only spoke of as if they were conspiracies. The gates of hell, satanic cults, gruesome deaths. The fact there are some truths there weighs heavily on your mind, hands shaking a bit as you enter the kitchen and Steve is there to greet you with a warm hug.

You wonder briefly if Charlotte knows. If she’s privy to the world outside of your own that your friends have dealt with. This unshakeable strength they all seem to hold. But you hug him all the same, heart hammering away against his as your arms come to wrap around his neck, his breath a comforting puff against your ear. He steps back momentarily to look at you, all long dark hair, wrinkles high against his forehead. He’s too young for those, but they linger all the same, written into his features alongside the pain you see so clearly there now. The pain of the unknown swirling in your gut, the unknown that has Max reaching across the space between you to curl her hand in your own, squeezing tight.

You squeeze her hand back and look at both your friends as they stand before you, merely basking in silence, all your minds a swirling mass of chaos. Robin speaks first, voice wobbly, words fast and disconcerting in your ears. “He’s…he’s not doing well, babe. He came here a wreck. He never intended for you to find out this way.”

You know that. You do.

It’s why you’ve always been respectful. It’s why you’ve always been weary of what Eddie wants, why you’ve made it a mission to always have an open heart and open mind toward him. And in a few moments Chance had thrown it all into the wind. Obliterated the safety net you were forging, the space you wanted Eddie to live in—to thrive in.

“Max…she warned you, right?” It’s Steve who asks next. The boy with the loud and boisterous personality, always a little piqued, and yet he’s serious now. Guarded toward his best friend. Your heart swells because Eddie has people like these; people who will defend him tooth and nail, even from you.

Even from the woman who has spent nearly every day with him for the past few months.

And still, you nod all the same, your hand still entwined with Max’s. “Max…she warned me.”

Steve and Robin pass one another a look, and you’re brought into the living room. It’s dark there, the lights dimmer than you remember, your friends settling down in different areas about the room. Steve and Robin to the couch. Max on the floor. There are two seats brought out into the living area, set there like they were expected to be there all along. Separated by a few inches sure, but placed there with intent. You glance down at the one, wondering if it’s meant for you, and catch the stiff nod from Steve as you eye the wood carefully.

You drop down into it and hear the slow slide of a door in the distance, the tall form of Eddie catching your eye.

He’s as beautiful as you saw him last. A picture of black, red and white before your eyes. His eyes dark, his shoulders hard, body lithe and lean. You think of those moments from early this morning, his arms around your waist, chest against your back. Lips at your ear as he whispered what you meant to him, as he kissed you like you were the most precious thing in his life. Unbreakable, like he meant to keep you. Like he meant to hold you safe for the rest of his days. You know he means it now, can see it in the way his eyes flicker as they meet yours, as water clouds those swirling depths of chocolate brown.

There’s love there.

It’s not lost on you as he scans the room and lands on yours, holding for a moment, whispering those unspoken words into the space between you.

Unmistakable and yours alone.

You will the same into your eyes as he settles down beside you, legs spread wide, cup of whatever he’s drinking poised at the ready in his hand.

He says nothing. Remains stoic as Steve and Robin straighten in their seats, cushions of the couch forgotten as their elbows lean onto thighs, ready to regale their tales of this world outside their own.

The part of you that’s grown to love him over these months wishes to reach out to him. You want to stretch your hand into the space between you and curl your fingers within his own. To comfort him in the way you know only you can—body, mind and soul. But he remains in the gap between you, separated by inches that feel like miles. There’s a moment, however brief, when his fingers twitch against his thigh and you wonder if he intends to reach across and touch you.

But he never does.

He never does, and you suppose you cannot be upset with him for that.

He’s hard lines, harsh beauty, and adamant walls.

Impenetrable.

Fierce.

You pray they don’t remain that way—that your months of progress don't reverse in a moment's time.

Steve glances about the room, between his best friend Robin beside him, down to where Max sits staring at Eddie on the floor, Eddie with his grim expression as his eyes meet hers, and then lastly on you when he exhales and says, “What we’re about to tell you, you can’t tell anyone. It stays a secret, it stays within the group.”

“It stays within the party,” Max adds, shifting away from Eddie’s stare enough to look at you. “It’ll mean you’re part of it.”

“One of the family.” Robin laughs weakly, passing you a sympathetic smile. “Part of our dysfunctional family.”

Your eyes shift amongst them with a swallow, and then slide briefly to Eddie’s. There’s…there's something there. A softness, a quiet whisper behind his gaze, but you don’t know what it means. Can’t decipher the meaning behind how he looks at you; you just know it curls deep within the pit of your belly, makes you warm, reminds you it’ll be okay.

Everything will be okay.

“I’ll take it with me to the grave,” you tell Steve.

His hand cards through those long strands of dark hair and he stands up from the couch, walking across the room to tend to the fire churning in the fireplace. Once he’s happy with the flames sparking and dancing within, his hand comes to rest on the ledge, his other hand resting on his hip as he glances down at a dirty spot on the carpet.

“I guess we’ll start from the beginning then…”

And it begins.

*

They start from the beginning. With the missing boy Will. With Will, who you know and works at your shop. Kind, sweet Will with the world on his shoulders and nothing but love inside his heart.

Steve recounts the loss of Barbara Holland, a friend of Nancy’s. You learn about the gate that opened in Hawkins to another world. This Upside Down that sounds as harrowing as it truly is.

You learn early on that El has superpowers. She has psionic capabilities, can lift things with her mind, step into alternate dimensions when she goes away in her mind.

El, with her dark hair and bright soul. That innocence that always seems to burn bright behind her gaze.

El, who you learn has fought monsters bigger than her.

Steve walks you through that first encounter with the Upside Down, the demogorgon he faced, his words careful as he explains the appearance to you. A standing, hulking monster, with endless rows of teeth, intent to bring death to those that encounter it.

You’re told about their next encounters.

Max moves to town with her family. Her crappy step-father, her late step-brother, and her late mother move in and immediately she’s thrown into this world she’s never planned for. Apparently Dustin finds some sort of tadpole creature that eventually grows into a demodog. Another monster like the one Steve explained earlier, but this time there are multiple, and they move in what seem to be packs. You learn about Will’s possession by the Mind Flayer, the loss of their friend Bob, their first experience with the ‘hive mind.’

“It all sort of…works in tandem,” Max clarifies. “All tied to one power source.”

El closes the gate this time, they tell you, and for a while it seems everything is okay again. They start to heal, the kids begin to go back to their normal lives, Steve and Robin start working at the Starcourt Mall.

“That parking lot that’s still empty?” It’s your first question in a while, you’ve simply been taking in everything they have to say, trying to be respectful of their experience.

“Yes,” Robin says, frowning as Max glances down at her shoelaces.

Eddie watches the younger girl like a hawk. His face is tight and drawn as Max says, “My brother didn’t die in a fire.”

It’s July and the kids are on summer break. All is well in Hawkins. They’re having fun, being kids, living for the first time in a long time. And then there’s the issue of Billy. Billy, who has always been rough around the edges. Not a good person at all, from what you’ve been told, but he had been alive and had been well one day, and then the next it was like he was different.

Max recalls him being a lot of blank stares in his room, a lot more standoffish. But there becomes this issue around Hawkins, of people becoming aggressive, something to do with kitchen chemicals? And a girl at the pool Billy worked at had gone missing.

Heather, Max explains.

As this is all going on, Steve and Robin explain their encounters with Russian code and their involvement with a secret organization taking place quite literally inside the belly of the mall.

There’s a Mind Flayer building an army, some gigantic beast of a thing, that towers over the building. The same thing that had put itself inside of Will, the same thing that also puts itself inside of Billy.

Your head spins with it all, from the explanation of how Robin and Steve were tortured for information inside the Russian base, to Max and the other kids fighting this monster inside of their friend Hopper’s home. There’s the battle at the Starcourt Mall, when they’re all later reunited, where Max watched her brother die after laying his life down to protect her and her friends.

It’s overwhelming.

Your chest aches, and you’re grateful when Eddie calls the meeting to a halt, catching the glittery tears on Max’s cheeks that she tries to swipe away when no one is looking.

Eddie slips out of the room with the younger girl in tow. There’s a brief moment he makes eye contact with you, his mouth working slowly like he anticipates saying something before thinking better of it.

It’s been only hours and yet you feel like he’s been gone longer, the sting of the emotional distance between you two burning deep in your chest.

*

“Babe, don’t take it personally, okay?” Robin runs a hand up and down your arm, pouring you a glass of something strong and full of ice.

Your face pinches as you take a sip, throat burning from the harsh bite of whatever she’s put into the concoction. “What is this? Battery acid?”

“Very likely,” Steve muses from the doorway, coming to loop an arm around your shoulders. You lean into his side, seeking out the comfort of a friend in the moment. His fingers curl around your skin, giving you a squeeze. “They went for a walk. Eddie said they’ll be back in five. The next part…it’s Eddie’s bit. It’s what happened back in March and…it’s a lot. He’s never really shared it outside of the group. He wanted to tell you before…you know, before Chance. He told me he wanted to. He was finally ready.”

Your heart clenches at the thought. Here Eddie was, ready to open up to you fully and bare his soul to you, and Chance came along to throw a wrench into the whole thing. Robbed Eddie of the opportunity that was meant for him all along.

“I just…a whole world underneath Hawkins?” Your throat swells around the words, around the reality of what you’ve been told the past few hours.

Before you came here, you heard all these ludicrous rumors about the happenings of the small town you were running to. To know they’re fact, to know they’ve been hidden behind lies and government workings—it’s a crazy reality to swallow. A world where monsters exist and walk the earth, a world where gates to new dimensions exist.

It’s your world now.

“And El—having powers?”

Robin comes forward to join you on your other side, sliding a hand into the center of your back. “I felt the same when I found out.”

You feel the need to sit. To really soak in the words swirling around in your brain like little specks of confetti twirling to the ground. Dozens of strands of thoughts in an endless funnel of wind and disarray. But you lean into the warmth of your friends instead, relishing in their closeness, when the glass door to the outside slides open and Eddie and Max reappear.

She’s a little red in the face. Bitten and kissed by the wind, but the rims around her eyes catch your attention next. The telltale sign she’s been crying, paired with that of her sleeve dragging along the bottom of her nose, bumping her glasses that always sit a little too loosely on her face.

Eddie’s dark eyes scan your face, like he’s shocked you’re still there, and you pass him a weak smile. There’s the barest of twitches in his face, and most would miss it, but he offers you that.

A slight smile.

You’ll take it.

“Are we good to keep going?” Robin asks, glancing about the room.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Eddie says, and it’s the first time you’ve heard him speak in hours. It jolts you, drawing a wince out of him.

Robin turns back to you, eying your drink in your hand as the others head back into the living area. “You might want to keep that close.”

She’s not wrong.

Eddie’s fingers toy with the silver of his rings, twirling them round and round low against his knuckles. “So, uh, it’s March…of eighty six and, you know, I’m still the Freak around town. So you can imagine I’m just a tad confused when Chrissy Cunningham, the Queen of Hawkins High, comes to me for a deal.” His eyes flash to yours, a grimace pulling at his mouth. “Used to deal. Don’t anymore, but—I, ah, yeah, sorry sweetheart. But Chrissy is not herself. I didn’t really know her much, but she’s just perpetually happy. I mean, I guess she had to be. Cheerleading captain, about to be valedictorian, friends with everyone. So I meet her in the woods behind the school and she looks scared as shit. Like—maybe I should have paid more attention to it, maybe that was my mistake, but…she asks me for ketamine.”

You train your eyes on Eddie as he speaks. He’s a shadow before you, hollows of his features glowing from the orange hue spilling from the mouth of the fireplace. He’s all long limbs spread out, legs before him, slender and spidery, bent as his back rests against the wooden chair. His hands rest against his thighs, where he continues to twirl the metal around his digits, head bent low and mind seemingly back in the forest that day in eighty six.

“I…brought her back to my trailer that night and I couldn't find the ketamine. So I leave her in the damn living room and when I come back she’s just standing there. Blank face, nothing behind her eyes, just gone. And I’m yelling at her over and over and over again, but whatever this thing is that’s pulling at her just…she never hears me. I wonder if she did, even now. Like if she knew I was trying to save her and—” He pauses as your hand curls around his kneecap, and you worry for a moment he’s going to push you away, to reject this comfort, but his hand slides over your own and squeezes lightly.

He doesn’t let go.

What he explains next has your throat closing around the truth of it. Chance’s words swirl in your ears. The fact Jason Carver, fueled by jealousy over being cuckolded by Eddie Munson, killed his girlfriend. But the reality is that much more horrifying. Because Eddie recounts the moments with ultra clarity, the memory of them burned into his retinas for the rest of his life, of the girl levitating above the ground. The way her body stretched across the ceiling as her bones snapped one by one in her body, before she died right before his eyes.

“We all met…that next day,” Max says with a bitter laugh, gesturing between Eddie and the rest of the group, including herself.

So they were bound by the untimely death of Chrissy, Steve explains, recalling how they all went looking for Eddie with Dustin’s help, because Max had seen flickering lights coming from Eddie’s trailer and disrupting her own, just before he had run.

A sign of the Upside Down. Their first sign that Eddie had been innocent in all of it.

“Held a glass bottle to my throat,” Steve laughs as he explains those tense few moments of their ‘friendship.’

“You kind of deserved it. Jabbed me right in the ribs with that oar,” Eddie says, but there’s a lightness to his tone reserved for his loved ones. “His name was Vecna. This…thing, this person, responsible for cursing Chrissy. And…Fred, Patrick, and Max.”

Your eyes flicker up to Max at Eddie’s admission, blue eyes flashing with your own. “Max.”

“The asshole cursed me,” she says simply. “So what happened to Chrissy, what happened to Fred, we knew was likely coming my way. And it did—but we found a solution.”

“Thank goodness for that Walkman,” Robin exhales. “We found that music could bring people out of Vecna’s…soupy mind trance. Happy memories, favorite moments, your favorite song.”

“The song you could listen to over and over again on repeat…” You mutter the words out, feeling your eyes burn at the memory of Eddie asking you for yours so many weeks ago in your apartment.

“What’s your favorite song? If you had to pick one, what would it be? The one you can play over and over again and never get bored of?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says softly, the words meant only for you. Your stomach twists painfully. “That one.”

Proof he cared, even then.

It’s a race against a clock.

It’s not long before Eddie’s a suspect in the murders he never committed, and it’s paired with the looming threat over Max’s life. One night in particular, Robin tells you, Jason Carver and his friends find Eddie at the boathouse and come with weapons in hand. You know their intention, from the way Eddie’s breath catches, was never to merely talk about the situation.

Hunt the Freak, he tells you bitterly, recalling those moments out on Lover’s Lake, just before Patrick suffered the same fate as Chrissy.

Two.

Eddie watches two people die that week.

You shudder out a breath as they tell you about the Upside Down. As Steve tugs the neck of his sweater down enough to show you the lines around his throat, and then slips up the side of his sweater enough to show you the scarring on his side that looks like a splash of sun against his skin. It reminds you of the ones that litter Eddie’s arms, the smaller ones on his face and neck, the ridges of his abdomen you barely felt before he pulled away from you.

“We’re, like, the most screwed up blood brothers to exist,” Steve says bitterly, his shirt dropping down into place. “Matching scars and all.”

“Demobats,” Robin explains, shuddering at the end. “Scary little shitheads.”

It paints a picture for you—clearer now than ever before.

Fills the gaps in your understanding over these nine months.

Yet another memory flashing behind your eyes of Eddie in your kitchen. Of wings and claws and the sound of skittering against your window. The choked breath from Eddie’s lungs that suddenly stopped working. The panic attack he suffers in your kitchen.

You think you start to grasp an understanding as they talk about how a plan began to form. They gathered a bunch of weapons with the intention of using Max and Eddie and Dustin to create distractions for Vecna. To give enough time for the others to try and kill him. But even the best laid plans go to hell—and it’s proven correct in both aspects.

Eddie and Max, to make things simpler, both die that night.

Max, with her limbs broken and mangled, blood dripping from her eyes. And Eddie, with his flesh torn into over and over again, countless rows of teeth sinking into skin, taking pieces of him, ripping him into ribbons, robbing him of life.

It chokes you. Chokes Eddie as Steve explains the parts of the story Eddie’s mouth can’t work around. The gaps are still too raw to fill in by himself. You don’t blame him.

You press the heel of your palm into your eyes, feeling Eddie’s fingers tighten around your own, the severity in his gaze making the room come crashing around you.

“Eddie never…he never murdered any of those people,” Max says, but you know that.

You’ve known that.

In the end, Eddie spends a few weeks in the hospital.

Max spends months there.

His name is cleared relatively swiftly. Steve is a bit cagey as to how they manage to get Eddie’s name pulled from any further headlines, but you know it’s because there was nothing to hold together a case against him.

Jason is suddenly the blame for the events that occurred, and laid to rest on that March day.

It’s a lot to process.

The room feels heavy with it, thick in a way that reminds you of honey. Sticky, yet missing all that sweetness.

Steve suggests you all stay for the night. Get some rest. Recount the stories in the morning.

It’s been hours and every inch of your body aches from work and your eyes feel tired, burning with the unshed tears lingering on your lash line.

Steve lets you borrow some of his things, an oversized sweatshirt, some pants you need to roll up multiple times, and leads you and Eddie down the hall of the second story to the home, pausing in front of a bedroom.

“It’s a guest room,” he says, gesturing inside. “We’ll talk more in the morning. Goodnight, you two.”

It’s normal for you to expect mirth or a deeper scheme behind Steve’s eyes. The sense of teasing there that you’ve grown to know and love, and yet standing before that bedroom in the lonely hall has you unsure of where to look, Steve only whistles and shifts awkwardly before leaving you to your solitude. Neither of you speaks for a time, bodies shifting in the darkness, not touching and awkward.

This morning you had been curled as tight as two could be, your spine to his chest, your thighs to his, those strong arms of his wrapped around your waist, his chin over your shoulder, lips to your ear.

“I’ve never felt this way about anyone before,” he whispered.

Your heart stuttered. Faltered from the weight of what he was saying. Your fingers slid up to curl into his hair, his face leaning into your touch. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before either, Eddie.”

It was the truth then, it’s still the truth now, and yet there’s a chasm that grows wider by the second in that hallway, and for fear of watching it grow anymore, you take the initiative and push past the man to slip inside the guest room.

Neither of you speaks as you move about the room and take in your surroundings. There’s a simple dresser in one corner, a lamp on a stand that sits in another, and there’s only one bed.

One.

It’s a thought that might have thrilled you some other time, and now it only fills you with a maelstrom of emotions. In the past few hours your conversations have been reduced to sparing words, your touches to brushes of fingers. And now there’s a silence that screams between you, those murky depths curling and lapping at your ankles.

You drop your borrowed clothes onto the bed, glancing over your shoulder to where Eddie stands awkwardly in the doorway. The fullness of his form is outlined in golden light emanating from the hall, those dark eyes of his searching.

“You can take the bathroom,” you tell him, “I’ll tell you when I’m done and you can come out.”

He’s seen you in nothing but a pair of jeans before, yet somehow changing around him feels more intimate. Especially with the disquiet between you two. So there’s no protests on his part as he reaches into the side dresser, as if he’s done this before, and snatches a pair of pants and a shirt from within. He opens his mouth to speak and you feel your soul soar for a moment, before he’s snapping it shut again and slipping inside.

When the door clicks shut, you let out a shaky breath and change in silence.

*

Eddie knocks on the bathroom door moments later, your voice beckoning him out when you’re finally and fully dressed again. You’re moving about and folding your original clothes up onto the dresser when he moves to go sit down on the bed and you maneuver around him to get ready for sleep.

He watches you in silence as you wash your face and brush your teeth, wiping down the countertops after, a habit from working at Sunshine Coffee for so long now. You know why you’re really doing it, though. It’s a temporary distraction from the deeper issue at hand: the rift between the two of you.

Sighing, you slip back into the bedroom and walk around to the opposite side of the bed closest to the lamp and slide underneath the covers. Eddie watches, still upright, as you turn onto your side and reach over, asking if you can shut the light.

“Uh…yeah, yeah that’s fine,” he says softly from behind you, and the room drowns in darkness.

You pinch your eyes shut to try and get some rest, chest aching, heart clanging like a damn cymbal, but your mind only spins. You’re certain you’ll find no rest tonight, only the dizzying free fall of your wandering thoughts.

That is, until the bed dips beside you and you feel Eddie pull back the covers, sliding down against the mattress to rest a head on the pillow beside you. You feel his hand accidentally brush your hip and from behind you a following, “Sorry,” that spills through his lips.

You laugh, because it just feels so silly.

You’re not mad at him, but there’s still this disturbance hanging in the air. The worry to push him beyond his boundaries, beyond what he feels comfortable with now after sharing his past with you. If he wants to remain in silence, you want him to remain in silence. You want whatever he wants—whatever he needs at the moment.

“What’s that?” Eddie asks, his voice tight.

“Nothing…I just—nothing.”

He doesn’t speak for a bit. Only settles down far enough on the other side of the bed you can feel the heat radiating from him, but not even the ghost of touch from his form.

A beat of silence passes.

And then—

“Sweetheart, I hate this.”

Your head nuzzles further into your pillow, voice a little shaky as you whisper back, “What do you mean?”

“I left earlier because I thought the worst. I thought—I thought you believed him. Wouldn’t be the first time someone was turned against me,” he says a little breathlessly. Jason. Jason did that. And the ramifications of it are still present to this day; you’ve seen it first hand. “That was dumb as shit for me to think. I…I wanted to tell you. I was going to, he just beat me to it first. Should have come from me, should have been sooner, should have—”

“Eddie, it’s okay.”

“It’s not, though.”

“Seriously it’s—”

“I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry,” he says, and you shatter.

Eyes flush against your cheeks, lashes dancing along the topmost points of your cheekbones, you mutter, “There’s nothing for you to apologize for. At all. I need you to understand that.”

“Then why aren’t you talking to me? You’re all the way on the other side of the bed. You won’t even look at me.”

“Because I know how hard tonight was and I didnt want to push you. Eddie, what you told me tonight…it’s important and it’s huge and the fact you’ve trusted me with it means everything to me. But I also want you to take the time you need. Process what you’re feeling and all of that.”

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Where you’re too nice,” he says. “I just want to hold you.”

“Then hold me, Eddie. You never need permission to hold me,” you whisper back, sighing as his arm comes to loop around your waist and tug you flush against his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

Your fingers drag slowly around his bare forearm, feeling gooseflesh pimple the surface of his skin. “For what happened. For what Chance did. For eighty six. For all the people who have been unkind to you. I wish they could all see what I see.”

You roll over then, seeking his face in the dark. His eyes are molten honey, soft in a way that has your fingers seeking the warmth of his chest over his tee shirt, feeling the divots and lines of his abdomen against fingertips. He’s lean and lithe and perfectly yours, with a heart that melts yours.

He just never sees it that way. But you suppose that’s what loving someone means. It's choosing them, even when they don’t choose themselves. It’s the good and bad days, not just the ones that are bright shades of orange, pinks and reds behind rose-colored glasses. It’s standing by them no matter the circumstances, supporting them fully. It’s the whole hearted acceptance that resides in your heart for him.

For who he was, who he is now, and who he will be.

“I’m happy you know now,” he says, rubbing a thumb along the bump of your chin affectionately. “I’m tired of being nervous. I’m tired of the constant looking over my shoulder and running. It’s been almost three years.”

“It takes time, Eddie.”

Your fingers reach up to cup the curve of his jaw, dancing along the scarring there. It still kills you to know he’d been broken and on the brink of death in the middle of this other world that resides beneath your own.

That he had been inches from death and still held on, only to find the world outside just as cruel as the one that nearly killed him.

“What you’ve been through—what you’ve all been through,” you start, exhaling as his forehead drops closer to your own, pressing there to linger. “It changes you. There’s no way it couldn’t. And yet you’re all still living, you’re all still loving and showing your past that it can’t rule you. You’re so brave. I don’t think you’re running anymore.”

“I don’t want to,” his fingers slide down along the slope of your face, the line of your throat, skipping along your collarbone. “You’re the first person I’ve opened up to in a long time. I’m afraid I’m going to fuck it up.”

“You’re the first person I’ve opened up to in a long time.” His hand slides down the slope of your shoulder, along your bicep. “We’re bound to make mistakes. But we get to make them together. It’s a learning process.”

“I’ve never been good at that,” he teases, chuckling lightly.

“It might be a steep learning curve, but I think we’ve got it.”

His fingers trail down your forearm, before tangling in the space between the two of you on the mattress. He lifts your hand and brings the center of your palm to his lips, presses a kiss to the center there, eyes lingering on your face.

“We’re good?” He asks against your skin, his eyes practically molten in the night.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

He sighs in relief, biting softly at the skin at the heel of your palm, earning a laugh from you. You’re about to protest when his face pushes into your collar bone and he practically drapes himself over you, his long limbs tangling with your own.

“What would your friends think knowing you’re basically a koala bear in bed?”

“I’ll deny it,” he mumbles against your skin, the outline of his smile making your stomach tumble.

Your fingers come to curl in the tangle of his dark mass of hair at the back of his head and hold him as close as he can possibly be to your frame. “I’m glad you stopped running, Eddie. I don’t think we’d have met if you didn’t. And I’m really glad we met. Really, really glad.”

His head lifts at your words, those dark eyes of his searching your face in the barely lit room. He brushes the bump of your chin again with his thumb, resting it in the dip below your lip. His eyes flicker southward, and you lean forward a bit, just as he presses his mouth to yours, silencing all other thoughts from your mind.

There’s only this moment, this bedroom sequestered away from the world, these hands holding you, this boy kissing you, whispering how much he cares for you, and your hearts full to the brim because the world lies ahead and it’s yours for the taking.

There is no more running.

*

The next morning dawns bright for a winter day.

The first official day, really.

It’s all pearlescent skies, overcast, pale clouds stretched in what looks like a blanket across it. It looks like it’ll snow, the news forecasting a foot of it just before the holidays.

It’s how you wake up beside Eddie that next morning. His arms slung low about your hips, his breath at your ear, the curtains parted enough to allow you the view of the backyard.

Your fingers dance along the tops of his hands, along the hair along his forearm.

Today feels different somehow.

Your relationship has taken a new turn. A hurdle overcome. Now there’s only a blank canvas—open spaces to fill with new memories.

Eddie also sleeps easily. The few times you’ve slept beside him he’s either not slept at all and waited for the sun to rise and you to head off to work to finally allow himself rest once the night bled into day, or has fallen asleep and woken up in the throes of a nightmare or tossed and turned in his restlessness.

Now his chest rises and falls steadily at your back, his mind quieting enough for him to do so. You shift slowly, gently enough so as to not wake him, onto your side to look up at him. He’s all smooth edges now. The wrinkle between his brows is gone, face unmarked by any thoughts warring in his mind, those pillowy lips of his parted slightly. He looks younger than his twenty three years. Your fingers trail up to touch his cheek, fingertips running along smooth pale skin, earning a sigh from the man.

A hand at your back presses you closer to him, a little ‘oof’ spilling from your lips as your face meets his chest and his head comes to rest at the top of yours.

“What day is it?” He mumbles against your head.

“Saturday. We’re both off.”

“Oh,” he hums thoughtfully. “So we have the day to do nothing.”

“No, we have the day to go shopping. You haven’t gotten any Christmas presents and we have four days until the big day,” you remind him. “We’re spending it at the Wheeler’s, remember?”

You’d anticipated spending the holidays with Eddie at the very least. Your own family was traveling to Florida to seek out warmer weather instead of the bitter cold of Hawkins. Had brushed off your invitation with a simple, “Next time, honey.”

Nancy’s invitation came later. She’d cornered you at a get together over at Steve’s and said she’d really like you to come. That her house was more than large enough and that her parents were looking to have everyone get together. The more the merrier.

You were over the moon about it. Your first real “family” holiday season.

He only groans.

“It’ll be fun. We’ll spend the whole day together wrapping gifts and watching movies.”

“With Max.” He says it like he doesn’t enjoy her company, but you know he doesn’t mean it.

“Yes, with Max. She has shopping to do as well.”

He huffs out a laugh that warms your skin. “We have vastly different ideas of fun.” He pushes back just enough to drop a kiss to your forehead, before shifting up onto his elbows. “We should probably head downstairs soon. I hear them moving around in the kitchen. They’ll be looking for us.” He leans down to press his lips into the curve of your neck, sighing. “Just wanna stay here instead.”

For emphasis, he drops back down and hugs you tight, resting his head against your collar bone.

In the end, you win out, managing to extricate Eddie long enough to dress and ready for the new day. In the kitchen, Steve stands over the stove, working up some breakfast, while Max and Robin sit at the kitchen table, faces impassive as the two of you slip back into the room. When they notice the way his hand brushes your back as he slides a chair out and you move to take a seat, the mild discomfort fizzles and conversation resumes.

“Did you two sleep well last night?” Steve asks, waving his spatula like a sword for emphasis. “It’s almost ten.”

“Like a baby, Harrington.”

You snort at Eddie’s words, thanking Max as she hands you and Eddie steaming cups of coffee just as she knows you like them. You thank her, smiling warmly.

“You two kiss and make up? Because I’m not about to spend the day with you two pouring at each other non stop,” Max asks, nonplussed.

You choke a little on your coffee.

Eddie’s face hardens.

“Red.”

“What?”

She shrugs, biting into a strawberry as Steve starts shoveling breakfast onto everyone’s plates.

Your chest warms.

*

In the end you manage to get all the shopping you need to do finished.

It’s not without its struggles, however.

Max and Eddie separate are two different storms.

Max with her fiery, sometimes explosive energy. Not to mention that deadpan that endears you to her, her open opinions, the brashness in which she lives her life.

And then there’s Eddie. Charismatic and explosive like her, all frenetic energy as he moves in and out of stores, looking for the perfect gifts for those he cares about most.

She urges him to hurry up, he barks back at her to let him think.

It’s a constant back and forth that has you both amused and frightened, because you’re never quite sure if they’re seconds away from fighting in the mall. Onlookers question if the two of them are okay, to which you mutter back “siblings” and they nod in understanding, like they know exactly what that implies.

And later, as the three of you return to his dimly lit apartment, illuminated only by the Christmas tree the two of you lovingly decorated together, you bask in the warmth of their familial bond. The way the two of them curl up together on the couch watching The Grinch Who Stole Christmas as you work on putting together something to eat for dinner. Every so often you glance over your shoulder, catching the way Eddie’s arm curls around the younger teen, how she seeks out his warmth.

It dawns on you—the depth of this moment. These two souls are so willingly open to allow you into their lives. Into their hearts. It’s taken time, months really, and the fact they trust you wholeheartedly now is not lost on you. You’ve never had a close family. Always absent, leaving you to your own devices.

You understand Max and Eddie are a family now, bound by unexplainable trauma, and yet they are family all the same. And in a way, though you wouldn’t voice it to them right now, watching them from afar like this…them allowing you into the safety of this moment…it almost feels like family for you, too.

This overwhelming sense of belonging that curls around your insides, makes them warm, brings a wave of tears to your eyes. Eddie catches the glitter on your lashes, untangling himself from Max just as you dip your head into your shoulder, ladle spinning through your freshly made sauce, trying to hide yourself from his sight.

“Hey, hey. Don’t you hide from me,” he urges, tapping at your cheek, earning a watery laugh from you.

“‘M fine,” you mumble, sniffling noisily. The tears recede and lift your gaze to his to prove it to him, but Eddie remains at your side, curling an arm around your hip to drag you close. “Really, I promise.”

He presses his forehead into your cheek. “Let me see that smile.” You snort as his lips smack a kiss there, loud enough to draw Max’s attention.

You hear her scoff, her drawl of distaste, but there’s a smile on her face all the same.

“Just feeling really happy is all,” you reassure him, a smile sliding onto your face.

He slides a hand down your arm and curls his fingers into your own, squeezing your tangled digits. “I know what you mean.”

The three of you eat your chicken parmigiana in comfortable silence, Eddie only groaning every so often in enthusiasm over the fact he’s being fed. You snort, knowing very early on in your friendship that the best way to Eddie Munson’s heart was through his stomach.

Later, it’s Max and you sitting at the kitchen table wrapping gifts as you walk Eddie through baking a tray of cookies. You’ve already successfully wrapped the gifts you all got for Wayne, as well as the smaller gifts for the kids and your friends. Eddie had told you he’s terrible at wrapping gifts, at which you had told him it’s not about the wrapping but the fact love was put into the package. But he reassures you all the same he’ll be better put to use doing something else. So you’d set him up with some baking supplies in his small kitchen, and gathered things for you and Max to get started with.

“Small round circles,” you tell him, watching his fingers hesitantly roll dough within his palms, now bare from their usual rings.

“He’s really got the easier job,” Max grumbles.

She’s been…struggling, to say the least. Every so often she curses under her breath when a tab of tape gets stuck to her fingers instead of the package, or she doesn’t have enough paper to cover a box because she underestimated. You try to assist her as much as she’ll allow, but she reassures you over and over again she’s fine (she’s not) and that she doesn’t need help (she does).

“Why is that, Red?” Eddie asks, the line of flour on his cheek a slash of white against his face.

And there on the table, in a mess of crinkly red paper and endless tabs of tape keeping things positioned in place, lies one of Lucas’ gifts.

She holds it up with an uneasy laugh and Eddie tries to hide his own chuckles into the lip of his coffee cup.

It’s not perfect, no, but this moment is.

*

The Wheeler’s truly go all out for the holidays. Upon entering their home, Eddie’s palm in your own, your eyes are drawn to the endless holiday decorations. Their tree is dressed to the nines, all wide and fluffy branches, glowing lights, endless ornaments that twinkle against green branches.

There are lights twined around all the railways and banisters, illuminating the room in a pale glow. There are centerpieces on all their tables, little candles with tiny wreaths around the bases, the smell of pine filling your nostrils as you take a turn about the place.

Karen Wheeler is there in a flurry, ready to take your jackets. “I hope the drive wasn’t too bad, sweetie,” she says to Eddie, brushing the snow from his shoulders.

It’s been snowing all afternoon. A few inches now blanket the streets of Hawkins, and though it did provide for a harder drive, you find that it only adds to your experience in town with the people you love. A true white holiday season.

Last year you’d been somewhere tropical, in a bathing suit on the beach, sipping a margarita funded by your parents. Now Karen moves about you and helps you slip out of your jacket, coming around front to look at you, a giant smile blooming across her face.

“You’re a doll! Eddie, she’s so beautiful.” She turns to him, then glances your way. “Come on in. Be a dear and help me with the table, would you? Nancy, your friend is here!”

It’s not long before you’re put to work, setting up table placements, smiling and waving every time another arrival comes through the front door.

Dinner is warm and bright. Full of laughter, full of quiet conversation and guests asking to pass the pasta, a roll, the chicken. It’s memories told about the kids through the years, Hopper regaling you with moments that make El flush deep scarlet in embarrassment. It’s Max leaning into Eddie when she grows a little morose, and him curling an arm around her shoulder to whisper against her ear because he knows what she’s feeling. It’s Wayne crying later when Eddie gives him a new mug that says “World’s Best Dad” and Max rushing over to tackle you and Eddie when you give her the tickets to a concert she’d been talking about taking Lucas to.

All around the room people pass around gifts, room full, hearts fuller.

Charlotte and Steve slip away after a while to go kiss beneath the mistletoe, Nancy and Jonathan hold one another close on the couch, Robin and Vickie glance lovingly at one another as Vickie holds a new sweater up to her chest.

The kids thank Karen for their new socks, knitted hats, and warm mittens.

You smile as Eddie slides your new necklace around your neck, a locket with a picture of the two of you on one side, and a picture of him on the other, just so you’ll always have him close.

He kisses you and tells you his thanks over the new cassette tapes and guitar strings you'd gotten him, the new fantasy books he’s been meaning to read, and a couple of things for his new campaigns he’s been dreaming up.

“Hey, Eddie,” you tell him, as people retreat to the dessert table and dining area, leaving the living room mostly unattended.

He brushes your hair back into place and trails his finger over the locket. “Yeah, sweetheart.”

“I have another gift for you—and before you get upset, it’s little. It’s…well, here.” You slide the little pouch into his hand, the drawstrings pulled tight.

Tentative fingers move to open the little bag, dropping the item inside into his open palm. His head tilts to the side, shifting the key with a fingertip. “What’s this?”

“It’s a key. To my apartment. So you always know you’re welcome. And also because…all my life I’ve been running from reality. Bouncing between place to place so I don’t have to really get to know people. Trying to protect my heart because I didn’t want to get hurt. Never really allowing anyone to get all that close. Until I came here…and met you.”

“I’m not understanding.”

You shift closer to him where you sit on the floor, your knee brushing his own as you lift the key and dangle it in the air between you two. “I thought about it. About the shop, about the friends I’ve made here, and how I feel about you and I want to stay. I’m going to stay in Hawkins.”

Home.

You’re finally home.

And the slow smile that starts to spread across Eddie’s lips as he finally understands is all you need to see to know you’ve made the right choice.

His eyes shine with the reflection of Christmas tree lights, and swim with affection for you.

Home.

You’re staying here in Hawkins, staying with him, choosing this.

So if his voice wobbles a little, you say nothing of it, because he’s glowing. “That’s…that’s the best gift you could have given me.”

You curl the key into both your hands and squeeze tight, the imprint of it cool against your skin.

But it’s the easiest decision you’ve made in a long time.

“Merry Christmas, Eddie.”

*

Hawkins feels even more like home the next afternoon.

It comes unexpectedly, as most things do, with the door blowing open from the cold winter air, bringing Eddie along with it. His head is bent down, looking at something within his jacket. You’re worried he’s hurt from the way he’s cradling his side, but what you find instead makes you pause.

Hidden within the side of his jacket is a silvery ball of fur, with a tiny button nose, two dark eyes, and a set of ears that look funny on its small head.

“Eddie, what is that?” You ask, already knowing your answer, but wanting to hear your boyfriend fess up all the same.

He tucks it closer to his side and mutters, “Nothing.” The kitten gives a tiny meow and Eddie melts, his dark eyes growing softer by the moment as one of those ringed fingers comes to rub along the furry head.

You take a step closer, glancing into his jacket to see the little one. It peers out curiously, leaning into Eddie’s side as if it knows that he’s his protector already. “It’s not nothing because it looks like a kitten. A living, breathing kitten.”

Eddie rubs the tiny head again. “That’s because itisakitten.”

“What was that?”

“It is a kitten,” he says simply, pulling the jacket away to hold the baby in front of him.

“Why is there a kitten in my apartment?” You step closer, stroking a finger along one of the too-big ears. The kitten purrs and leans into the touch.

He rubs a thumb along the tiny little spine and says, “Well, you see, I was walking over here from work and I heard this tiny little thing meowing by the dumpster. And I had to pick it up. It was calling my name.”

You pause in your gentle stroking, and the kitten's eyes pop open. “It was saying Eddie?”

He nods, and you move to rub underneath its chin. “Yes, so clearly, you should have heard it.”

“Eddie…” you warn, just as a tiny, sandpaper tongue drags along your fingertip.

You melt a little bit, and Eddie takes note.

“My apartment doesn’t allow pets. But this apartment is yours. Fully and completely yours.”

“Eddie no.” And as much as your mind screams no, the kitten stares at you and your resolve crumbles all the more.

“Look at it. How can you deny this face?” He holds the kitten up beside his face.

And you know he’s talking about denying the kitten, but the look on Eddie’s face is just as hard to say no to. All pouty lips, bit doe eyes, lashes batting at you obnoxiously.

So it really should come as no surprise to you when the two of you spend the next day at the vet with the kitten (a boy, they tell you) and then the pet store after (Eddie tells you he needs toys, though you tell him food is more important) with a very giddy Eddie who spends way more money than he really needs to to spoil his new “son.”

Later that evening, after you’ve all eaten (kitten included) you sit around on the floor as Eddie rolls a ball toward the little one and grins widely as it pats a tiny little paw against the surface until the bell inside jingles.

You’ve been like this for hours, taking turns showing the little one new things, figuring out which toys he likes best, getting him used to the two of you and his new home.

“It is really cute,” you say as it comes to curl up in Eddie’s lap, sound asleep.

“He’s really cute,” Eddie agrees, running a gentle hand along its back.

“What do we name him?”

“He was chewing on my buttons in the car. How about Chewbacca? Get it?”

You laugh, incredulous. “Chewbacca? Eddie, this is our son.”

He snorts at that. But you suppose this is your fur-child now. Both of yours.

“Yes, I understand that, and I happen to think Chewbacca is a wonderful name,” he says plainly, not quite getting the issue here.

“He doesn’t even look like Chewbacca. He’s silver.” You rub at the little head, leaning over to kiss the tiny nose.

“How about Chewy for short? Chewbacca is his full government name, though. Chewbacca Munson.”

“What if I wanted him to have my last name?”

“We can hyphen.”

“Wow, I’m surprised you compromised that quickly.”

He shrugs, leaning over to kiss you on the temple. “It doesn’t slip my mind you’re keeping him here. Thank you for indulging a childhood wish of mine to have a pet.”

You snort, but your grin is megawatt. “You’re lucky I l—like you so much.”

*

Your friends are inside, the sound of music and chatter drifting from the opened patio door. The countdown to the new year is set to start soon, but you’re staring up at the sky, Eddie’s arms low around your waist, his chin against your shoulder as the two of you stargaze. He reminds you of the constellations he’s already shown you, then starts to point out the newer ones you’re not familiar with.

You’ve been like this for a while now. Him holding you close, keeping you warm, your breaths curling in the winter air. There’s a whole party happening just feet away, and yet you’re exactly where you want to be the most.

“They’re going to be looking for us soon,” you whisper, though you find you don’t really care.

A particularly loud laugh echoes from inside, the outline of Steve and Charlotte’s forms illuminated across from you as Robin tells them a story with a wide smile on her pretty features.

She waves and you wave back, returning your eyes to the stars, to the boy who you’d believe hung them if he told you so.

“Hey, sweetheart?” His voice is quiet. Timid.

You turn around in his arms to face him, his lips a little chapped from the cold, that too-big jacket of his becoming your blanket as he cradles you in the circle of his arms.

“Yeah?”

“There was something I wanted to talk to you about. Something kind of serious,” he says, and you feel your lips tug southward. At the furrow of your brows, he shakes his head, cupping the side of your cheek with his hand. “Wait—maybe not the best wording. I, uh, it’s serious in a good way.”

“In a good way…” you repeat slowly, chewing idly at your bottom lip.

Now his brow furrows, one hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m not…I’m messing this up. Okay, I’m going to just come out and say it…”

“You’re worrying me,” you mutter, a little breathless, hand coming to rest over his hand comfortingly.

“I…”

“Hey lovebirds, wanna stop sucking face? The countdown starts in five minutes!” Steve shouts outside, Charlotte shushing him with a hand on his shoulder. Her giggly apology reaches your ears and the two of you turn to find them staring your way.

“Can we get some privacy?” Eddie calls back, face pinching in his frustration.

“Come on, Stevie. Leave them alone,” Charlotte agrees, tugging at his arm. “We’ll catch up later. Sorry, guys.”

The patio door slides shut once more and you’re left alone with your favorite boy. He huffs out a sigh, sliding his arms back around your form, breathing a cloud between the two of you.

You’re not expecting him to just blurt out his next sentence. Not expecting the words at all, and yet they’re the same words you’ve been holding to yourself for safe keeping, for that perfect moment like this one. The moment where it’s the two of you, overwhelmed in one another, hidden away in a stolen moment captured in time.

Because it’s New Years Eve and Eddie’s just said, “I’m in love with you.”

Because it’s New Year’s Eve and your tears prick, voice a broken sob as you whisper back, “I’m in love with you, too.”

It’s New Year’s Eve and you’re spending it with the person you want to go make countless memories with in the next three hundred and sixty five days. You want all his days, good and bad. To brave the storms should they come, to chase away his nightmares, to rejoice in the happy times. You want to wake to him in the morning and kiss him goodnight before bed. You want to dance in the kitchen as you cook together, to taste his sugar sweet lips on those days you try something new to bake. You want those new adventures, dinners with Wayne and Max, play time with Chewbacca. You want the game nights with your friends, to listen to him play Dungeons and Dragons with the kids, to go on that camping trip Steve, Robin and the others talked about come summer time.

You wanted it all, want it all, with the boy standing before you with all the love in the world behind his eyes.

“I’m in love with you,” you repeat, just as the sound of the countdown spills from inside.

Ten…

He curls a hand around your face once more.

Nine…

You brush at the hair near his shoulders, feeling him warm beneath your skin.

Eight…

He tugs you closer, always closer.

Seven…

You slide your hands into his jacket, hands resting against his back.

Six…

He tells you he’s in love with you once more.

Five…

You press your forehead to his, smiling up at him.

Four…

He glances down at you through those dark lashes.

Three…

You feel his breath dance along your bottom lip.

Two…

You wish him a Happy New Year.

One…

He kisses you as party poppers explode showers of confetti inside. Kisses you as shouts fill your ears. Kisses you until butterflies dance to life in your belly, until fireworks dance behind your eyes, and the rest of the world falls away.

It all dissolves around you, and you’re just standing there in the arms of the man you love.

Nothing else matters.

All that matters is this moment, this boy, this love.

*

It starts, you suppose, in the car ride. The atmosphere has a new heaviness, a thrill that boils in the cabin. Your fingers slide through Eddie’s, toying with the rings resting cool from the winter air against your thigh. You’re not sure what possesses you. Not sure if it’s the happiness from the evening, the weight of his confession, the way your heart feels full to burst—but it has you feeling bolder, has you slowly trailing your fingers along your opposite thigh. A slow path, a gentle up and down, over and over again.

His eyes flash to yours, linger briefly on your exposed flesh, the warmth of your skin. You catch the way his tongue dips to his lip, the pinch of his teeth against skin, before flashing back to the road. You’re almost home, only minutes now, but you’re itching for touch. For his touch in particular, warm against your skin, along the outline of your leg muscle, inside your thigh, at your center where you want him most.

You feel the first little brush of his fingers as they slip free from yours, the tantalizing trail of them, along the thigh nearest to him. A gentle drag of skin against skin, venturing higher every time. His fingertips tease the hem of your ruched satin dress, now bunched near your hip, leaving only inches between where he lingers now and your clothed center. There is a question in his eyes, a pass of chocolate brown eyes in the night as he looks your way, and you dip your head, understanding his meaning.

His fingers start a new exploration, a curious slide along your inner thigh, a gentle sweep that leaves gooseflesh in its wake. It’s unfamiliar to him and you, and yet it elicits a soft sigh from your lips, head falling back against the headrest. Taking this as all the coaxing he needs, he pushes up higher, halting at the edge of your panties. There is a brief moment where he pauses, and you wonder if he’s about to freeze up and end this before you’ve even had a chance to begin the night, but he dissuades those fears when he shifts and presses his middle finger against the spot of slick already forming against the gray material.

He curses, his eyes sliding up to the ceiling in a silent prayer, hand tightening in a white knuckle grip against the steering wheel. “Wanna touch you.”

“Then touch me, Eddie,” you breathe out, shuddering as he pushes the material to the side and slides a finger through your folds, dragging in a curious line.

It's a wonky, unpracticed pattern that he tries once…then twice, and pulls back.

“Show me. Show me what you like.”

It sounds choked.

A little gasp, a soft plea.

Understanding what he means, you reach down to join him, dragging a line down your center, swirling in the pool of slick at your entrance before circling the bead of your clit. His eyes dart from the road to where your finger starts to move in small circles, toes already curling within your heels.

He watches like that for a few moments. Captures the way your chest rises and falls with each sweep of your finger, the heaviness of your breath, the shudder of each pass of air through lungs. And it doesn’t take long before he’s replacing your fingers with his own, following the same path you’d taken. Dragging those thicker digits from your entrance up to your clit, starting the slow slide of his fingers along hot flesh, murmuring, “You look so pretty. So fuckin’ pretty, baby.”

Your answer is a hum, a broken whisper of, “Right there, Eddie. Just like that.”

You’re already close.

You feel the beginnings of your orgasm beckoning, dragged closer by your own ministrations, and swifter now with Eddie’s fuller fingers, your hand coming out to grab at his thigh. You can’t help the whine that spills from you as that heat coils higher in your belly, the rubber band pulling taut, ready to snap as he moves faster under your guidance.

Your fingers dig down where they rest against his flesh. His eyes sweep back over to you, molten and dark in the moonlight, stuttering along where he’s touching you in a way he’s never done so before. He looks at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, mesmerized by the way you look in this moment. It’s terrifying and exciting, eyes shut against the feeling. Flames lick at you as he pulls into the back of your coffee shop and parks the van. You barely register the click of his key pulling from the ignition before his mouth is on yours, face crashing into you from over the center console. You’re immediately moaning into his mouth and driving your hips up further into his hand to seek more friction as the rubber band snaps and sweet release spills into your system.

“Oh shit,” he breathes against your lips, brushing kiss after kiss along your face as your hips fall back against the seat, your eyes heavy as you try to catch your breath, looking up at him with a little laugh. “Was that good? I—”

You silence him with a kiss, whispering, “Inside,” against his skin.

He barely has a moment to lock the door before you’re grasping his hand and rushing him up the stairs, humming as the door locks close behind the two of you and you’re finally and blessedly alone. You both toe off your shoes as you maneuver your way over to the bed, connected at the mouth, hands reaching to grab at clothes, a clash of lips, tongues and teeth.

“Chewy, stay in your room. Your parents are busy!” Eddie scolds, the kitten in question already sound asleep in his little makeshift bed.

You giggle airily as the backs of your thighs hit your mattress, back falling into plush comforters as he crawls over you, walking you backward up the bed until your head rests upon your mountain of pillows.

“Say it again?” He asks, marking a path down your cheek, along your neck, pulling a whimper from you as he sucks a hickey into your collarbone.

“I’m in love with you, Eddie.”

He’s kissing you again, your head swimming with the ecstasy of the moment. It’s slower this time. Not like in the car where it’s a frantic, wild thing. There’s all the time now in the world to taste, tease and explore. His tongue sweeping low against your lip, sliding along yours, licking into your mouth with slow, languid kisses.

He moans into your mouth, a sweet thing you swallow as his body slides closer to yours, the beat of his heart a tattoo against your sternum. A frantic flutter you slide your palm up between the two of you to feel, tethering yourself to this moment—to this man.

His guitar string callused fingers drag a familiar path along your thigh, sliding your dress up higher over your hips, baring you to him once more. His fingers come to slide between your folds, still puffy from your orgasm, making you shudder and mewl against his skin. Hips move upward at the sensation, seeking friction, seeking him.

In your impatience, you fist both sides of your dress in your hands, Eddie’s hands falling away from you long enough to let you sit up and pull the material up and over your body. You feel bared to him, already nearly naked against your mattress because the dress had called for no bra lines, and a forearm moves to drape across your chest.

“Hey, hey,” Eddie coos, cupping the side of your cheek. “You’re so beautiful. There’s no need to hide with me. I love you. I love you so much, sweetheart.”

Your arm drops away and he replaces it with his lips.

This part he knows.

This part he’s practiced on you already.

One hand comes up to knead one breast, while he pastes wet kiss after wet kiss to the other, tongue laving over your flesh, sucking into supple skin until you’re bucking up against his clothed thigh, rubbing your center against the fullness of it—seeking something, anything, to satisfy the need swirling in your gut.

“Come here,” you nearly beg, curling your fingers in the hair at the back of his head, tugging him back upward to your lips. You kiss him soundly, mewling as his thigh shifts and his hips roll forward, the hardness of him rubbing just right against your core, robbing you of all air. “Missed you.”

“I’m right here,” he chuckles, fingers dancing along your thigh. “Not going anywhere.”

“Want to touch you, Eds. But only if you’re ready.”

He leans back onto his haunches above you, hair a wild mess, chest rising and falling swiftly. He looks beautiful like this, just as he always does, all dark eyes and swirling heat living in them. They’re blown out now in his desire, in a way you’ve not seen him before. Heat flares at the thought it’s meant only for you, reserved only for you at this moment, just as his fingers reach for the hem of his shirt and hesitate.

“I can shut the light,” you whisper, hand coming to smooth up and down his thigh.

You want him to be comfortable. Fully at ease in a moment you know is already nerve wracking for him. It’s his first time with you, but it’s also his first time baring himself fully to another human after what transpired two years ago. His eyes shift to the left, to a faraway spot on the wall, like he’s mulling it over.

You stretch your arm out toward your lamp when a hand curls around your wrist like a bracelet. Eddie’s voice breaks into the silence with a soft, “No, leave it.”

He reaches behind his back and tugs the shirt up and over himself, slipping it off to toss it into the far corner somewhere. He waits. Waits for you to scream and run, to push him away you’re sure, what with the way his mouth settles into a firm line, his hands shaking where they rest at his thighs.

You’re familiar with his scars. At least the ones on his face, his neck, the spattering of them along his arms. The ones that litter his torso break your heart all over again for the boy on the floor of the Upside Down. The boy who had been close to death, and lived to tell the tale. The boy with the biggest heart you’ve ever known.

You lift yourself up to sit, hand coming up to hover over his abdomen, gaze flashing up to his momentarily. “Can I?”

He dips his head once, releasing a shaky exhale as your fingers trail along the first scar along his abdominal muscles, then further up along the two smaller ones to your left.

“Do they hurt?” You feel his stomach jolt as you drift back southward again, the softness of his abdomen dancing beneath your fingertips. “Don’t wanna hurt you.”

“No, not anymore. Not for a while now,” he manages to get out, watching your fingers where they linger against him, one of his hands sliding along the crown of your head comfortingly.

His left side, just over his heart, is the worst. A ridge of patchwork done by the plastic surgeons at the hospital, all puckered flesh, hills, bumps and divots. The demobats had tried to take him from you, tried to rob you of ever knowing this man, and your eyes water as you curl your palm over his ribcage, catching the soft shudder of his breath as his eyes fall closed.

You love him.

You love him fully and completely. Even in this body he resents, because it houses his soul. And it’s his soul you long for, want to entwine yourself to, want to cherish for as long as he’ll allow you. Even in this body that he rejects because it no longer looks as it used to, because it’s this body that has held you, has loved you, respected you.

It’s him.

You’ve never loved another person like this before, this feeling of fullness that makes your head swim. It drives you to lean forward, brushing a kiss over his heart, feeling him warm beneath your touch. His hand comes up to curl against the back of your head, your head turning so your ear rests over his sternum, arms looping around his back.

“You’re beautiful,” you whisper, as those ringed fingers curl around your chin and tip your head enough for him to kiss you sweetly.

When you pull away, you hear the first whimper fall from him. A choked garble that threatens to cleave you in two. Tears slide down his cheeks, along the bump of his cheek, salty tracks you brush away with your hands.

“I’m crying during sex and we haven’t even had sex yet,” he says pitifully, sniffling loudly.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, thumbing at his scarred cheek. “It’s okay. If you want to stop, we stop. We don’t have to do this now.”

“I want to. I really want to.”

After that it’s a swirl of movement. You slide your underwear down and kick them off as he moves to clamber off the bed, fumbling with his belt buckle and struggling in the process. You jump up to help him, his hands falling to his sides, as you unhook the belt and tug it free from his jeans, letting it fall to the floor with a clatter. You toy with the button on his jeans next, earning a sharp hiss from him as the zipper slides down and you accidentally brush him beneath his boxers, heart thudding when you find him hot and hard already. Swallowing, you watch as he wiggles the jeans down his thighs and stands there in nothing more than a pair of boxers, leaning across the space to kiss you once more.

You can feel the way he trembles, nervousness bubbling as he lowers you back against the mattress, elbows on either side of your head so he can cradle you. Your fingers trail along the hem of his boxers, eliciting a sigh from him, before they slip further within and wrap around silky hot flesh. He’s thick, thicker than anyone you’ve been with. You wonder for a moment if he’ll fit as you drag your thumb along his slit, collecting the bead of precum there. The curse he lets out has you slowly moving your palm up and down his length, watching him pinch his bottom lip between his teeth, shuddering above you.

His eyes flash open then, head shaking as he reaches to grip your hand where it rests against the base of him. “Wait, wait, wait. I’m gonna blow if you do that. I’m already scared I’m only going to last ten seconds. That’ll have me tapped out in five, baby.”

You snort as he leans forward to brush a kiss against your breast, your hand falling away from him to curl instead in the comforter beneath you. Emboldened, Eddie reaches down and slides his boxers off, kicking them into one of the various piles strewn about your floor now. He pops out stiff and ready, your eyes barely having time to take in the sight of him before he’s kneeling back down onto the bed, stealing a soft kiss that has you feeling warm like honey, all sticky sweet and languid.

“Do you have a condom? I didn’t think to bring one. I wasn’t…I didn’t know we’d be doing this, not that I’m sad about it. I’m actually really happy and—”

“I’m on the pill,” you explain, and the furrow between his brows softens, head slowly nodding. “But I have some right here.”

You reach over into your bedside table and he reaches over to pull a foil from the box. You watch him open it with shaky hands, chuckling to himself as it almost falls out of the packaging.

You reach out to see if he needs assistance sliding it on, muttering as you watch him roll the condom down himself. “I got them at the store the other day.”

“Oh—well that’s good. Safety first and all of that,” he says, chuckling nervously. You shift a bit beneath him, moving up further, making room for both your bodies, as his hand marks a slow path along your ribcage. “This is where my experience stops.”

“It’s okay,” you reassure him. “I’ve got you. Just remember we have nothing but time.”

“Okay,” he says, voice a little wobbly as he lowers himself against you, grabbing himself in hand. “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready since we were in the car,” you laugh, making him smile as he slowly drags himself up and down through your slick, bumping your clit in a way that has your eyes clamping shut, voice hitching in a whine. “Eddie.”

He understands your breathy plea, sliding lower until his tip rests at your entrance, full and warm as he presses in slowly. You both shudder out a moan, your fingers coming up to grip his shoulder at the slight burn of the unexpected fullness of him.

He’s babbling your name into your throat, gasping at the feel of you fluttering around him, muttering how much he loves you into your neck. And you’re rolling your hips up further into him, wanting to be full of him, wanting to be as close as you’ve ever been until he’s cursing against your skin and burying himself to the hilt.

“Oh, hell. Okay. I’m inside of you.”

You snort, shoving playfully at his side as you adjust to him. “That’s typically how this works.”

He swallows thickly, hips rocking shallowly against yours. “Can I move?”

“Yeah, hon. Please.”

He starts off uneasily. Moving a little too swiftly against you as his human instinct takes its time to kick in. You grip at his shoulder, trying to steady him, gasping into his neck at the still delicious drag of him along your walls.

“Hey, Eddie,” you whimper, and his eyes pop open to look down at you.

“Oh no. Baby, I’m not hurting you, am I?” He stills inside you, hands coming to rest on either side of your face, those dark eyes round with fear.

“No…no. I just wanted to say go slow,” you whisper, mewling into his mouth as he does exactly that. Pulls back gently and rolls his hips forward in a way that has your eyes rolling back a bit, shuddering out a breath. “Y-yeah. Like that—just like that.”

“Is this good? Want it to be good for you, because—” He groans into your shoulder as your hips rise up from the bed to meet him, hands sliding up and over his back, thigh curling around his hip to keep him closer. “Shit. You feel so good. Like you were…like you were made for me.”

“You are.” You whine as he palms your breast, kissing the corner of your mouth, rocking against you in a way that has you seeing stars. If he kept going, if he kept hitting that spot over and over again—“Doing so good, Eddie. Making me feel so good, so full of you—mmmm—”

But it’s all over soon after your praises fill the room. You clamp your nails down as his shoulder as his hips move more erratically, sweat on his forehead pooling, his teeth pinching at his lip as his eyes slam shut.

“I’m close. I’m so close, I’m sorry baby—”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Just let go, I got you.”

His thrusting grows erratic as his chest falls forward and presses you down into the mattress. You feel him give one more final snap of his hips before he comes to a halt, trembling against your form with a curse. He’s gasping as he spasms inside, riding out the aftershocks of his orgasm.

He remains against you like that for a moment, panting heavily against your skin, pasting kiss after kiss into your sternum before he finally pulls out of you with a low whine.

You gasp out a breath and slide a palm over your racing heart, watching him walk over to your bathroom to discard the condom. When he returns, he loops an arm over your waist, fingers wandering against your belly, the curve of your hip, the tops of your thighs.

You shudder out a breath as he grazes your center, asking, “What are you doing?”

“You didn’t…finish, right?”

He leans down to press the softest of kisses to your lips, the answering shake of your head all he needs before he runs a finger along your slit, a gentle drag from your entrance before following the pattern against your sensitive clit you showed him in the car.

“Eddie…” Your heel shifts to press against the mattress, thigh falling open, baring yourself fully to him. “It’s okay. Really.”

“Wanna kiss you there, sweetheart.”

You chuckle heartily at his brazenness as he starts dropping kiss after kiss along your breasts, down the line of your sternum, across your belly where he sucks a little hickey into the skin below your belly button until your chuckling against his smiling mouth, his hand coming up to curl with yours resting by your hip. He gives you a little squeeze and laces your fingers with his as he starts kissing along the tops of your hip bones, the span of skin between them that makes you gasp against your pillow, head rolling back.

He doesn’t stop the slow torture there. You’re not sure where he’s learned this, but you’re silently thanking them with a plea as his lips mark a scorching path along the insides of your thighs, his other hand curling around the meat of your leg to open you further to him, nose tickling your sensitive flesh until you’re shifting your hips against the mattress, earning a nip against the inside of your thigh.

“Eddie, please,” you whimper, breath robbed from your lungs as he finally slides the flat of his tongue from your center up to your clit, drawing a tentative circle there.

“Tell me what to do. What you like. Wanna make it good.”

“To the left. And just like that, keep doing that.”

You’re a shaking mess as his ringed hand leaves yours and joins his tongue, prodding where you want him most, and you practically cry out your “yes” as he slips a finger inside.

“Like that, like that,” you babble, hand dropping down to rest at his full head of curls. When his second finger eases in, you feel your walls clamp down around him, his answering chuckle vibrating against your sensitive flesh. “If you curl your fingers like that—ah, yeah, just like that—”

You break off into a sob as he mimics your ‘come hither’ motion, his fingers moving in tandem with his tongue in a way that has your legs shaking on either side of his head, fingers twisting tight into his curls. You’re afraid you’ve hurt him at first, whipping your hand back, but he reaches up and slides it back into place, pressing your open palm against his hair so you can tug as you teeter closer and closer toward the edge.

“I’m so close, Eddie. You’re doing so good,” you pant, white flashing behind your eyes as he crooks those fingers against the part of you that has the flame flickering in your gut burning brighter and brighter, coil growing tighter as his tongue works you, his own sighs after a particularly hard tug of his hair against your center vibrating down to the tips of your toes.

The flames dance higher.

Burn brighter.

Become all consuming as tears prick in the corner of your eyes.

Because it’s Eddie.

Eddie Munson, the man who walked into your coffee shop all those months ago. The man with the quiet soul and loud mind. The man who cracked into a smile at your silly factoids and your ridiculous jokes. The man who had first been your friend and became so much more. Who tended to you when you were sick, helped make your house a home, created a little family with you by adding Chewy into the mix.

The man who became a safe place to land. A shoulder to rest your head. A door to walk into at the end of the day, to seek shelter from a storm with, to love endlessly and be loved in return.

It’s him, and in a way you think it’s always been him.

You snap with a low keen, trembling as your orgasm rushes over you, Eddie’s head peeking up just enough to watch it roll over you as his fingers continue their gentle slide.

You writhe beneath him as pleasure hits a peak and settles back into a low simmer, his head coming up to kiss you on the lips when he finally pulls out and joins you near your pillow. Your hand comes up to rest at the back of his neck, holding him to you, your mouths moving slowly over one another, tongues licking into mouths, neither one of you wanting to part from the other.

You’re not sure how long you lay like that in the circle of his embrace, his arm around your waist, your bare chests pressed to one another, ankles tangled beneath bedsheets. All you know is you hate to see him go as he slips out from the bed once more, sliding on his discarded boxers, into your bathroom. You hear the water run momentarily before shutting off, his frame reappearing with a washcloth in hand.

He helps you clean in silence. His fingers gentle along your still sensitive flesh, punctuating each slide of damp cloth with a kiss against your temple, before tossing it into the heap of clothing strewn about your floor. After that is a slide of hands as he helps you up and off of your bed, slipping his sweater over your head and letting it fall into place at your thighs. Your fingers skirt his side, along his bare chest, as he leads you into your bathroom and the two of you get ready for bed in silence.

He’s just been inside you, wholly and fully, but all you can think of is how these moments are your favorites. The ones only you’re privy to. The way Eddie slides lotion over his scars to maintain the elasticity of his skin, the care he takes in washing his face thanks to Steve’s incessant urging, the snap of his hair tie as he pulls his hair away from his face.

You stand before him as you brush, his larger form swallowing yours, fingers coming to toy with the hairs at the nape of your neck, thumb brushing lightly against skin. And as you spit into the sink and flush water down the drain, he spins you in his arms and presses your backside against the counter, drawing you to your tippy toes as he kisses you soundly, swallowing your sigh of happiness.

“Ready for bed?” You ask, running your hands down his chest, curling along his sides.

And he is. You find as much as the two of you slip back into your blankets, him drawing you close to his chest, pressing a kiss to the slope of your shoulder. You barely have a chance to whisper goodnight before he’s shutting his eyes and slipping off into a deep sleep.

You bury yourself closer to him and follow him into rest.

*

Eddie’s sure he’s dead.

Has to be.

It’s the only explanation for the way he wakes with you resting against his chest, your mouth slightly parted, little sighs filling the air.

He has to be dead, because last night Eddie Munson was Hawkin’s resident twenty-three year old virgin, and now he’s no longer a virgin and in bed with the love of his life.

Only he’s not dead. He feels the throb of his heart in his ribcage, the sound of it rattling in his ears thanks to your otherwise silent apartment.

Last night feels like a wispy dream he made up in his mind. Your hands in his hair, your body closer than ever before to his, the way you gasped and moaned in his ear. The feeling of you wrapped around him, hips rising to meet him, driving him further and further over the edge. He pictures the look on your face in utter bliss, watching you writhe for him, bringing you to that peak and watching it rush over you, leaving you shaking in his arms with him as your anchor.

All his life he’d thought himself unworthy of love. His father hadn’t been around much—always in and out of jail, and when he was around his way of showing love was teaching him how to shotgun a beer and hot wire a car. His mother, god he loved his mother, but when his father fell deeper and deeper into his poor habits, she retreated to other things to fill her heart.

Wayne had been the one to give him a home, to give him shelter, to let him know what a family looked like. A real family, at least. And then there was Max. The rough and tumble girl from across the street, with a personality that matched the fiery hue of her hair. She showed him what it was like to love someone like your own kin. Like blood. To want to cover them, protect them from the world, keep them safe.

And then there was you. The girl who had walked into his life and changed the course of it. For two years he retreated into his shadows. Craved the darkness they provided, the safety of drawing away from others. Hiding, because it seemed easier than facing the world. For a while, he was content with his core group; the same kids who had been with him during the worst week of his life, stood by him when he needed it the most, loved him when he lay broken and battered in the hospital. When the town turned on him, even after he’d been exonerated, they were there to protect his name. To try and fight back the rumors that threatened to swallow him whole. They never saw him as a murderer, never saw him as anything but Eddie Munson, loved him beyond the whispers of those who wanted to see him fall.

Loved him beyond those who wanted to run him out of town, wanted to believe the lie that he had the heart to kill all those kids, wanted to put a blame on the fact half of Hawkins had been ripped apart and sunk into the hell that lingered beneath.

You walked in and changed all of that.

Loved him despite his shadows, coaxed him out of them, wanted to see the parts of him he desired to keep hidden. You called to him, a gentle whisper, those small gestures that slowly broke away at the walls he erected to keep others out. You were patient, a constant beam of light in his world, a gentle smile on the days where he hated himself more than words could ever say.

You loved him in the light.

Loved him proudly in public, despite the way people might have looked onward in stores. Loved him even after knowing what he had gone through in eighty six, loved him despite the scar ravaged body that lingered beneath his clothes.

You’d given him a home to place his heart within. A roof to keep it covered. Your hands are there to cradle it and hold it close. And he trusts you. Whole heartedly trusts you.

Smiles against the crown of your head as he recalls telling you he loved you the night before, the way tears like stars glittered on your lower lashes, the choked hiccup of your breath as you whispered back in a broken voice you loved him, too.

“Are you awake?” You mumble beside him, humming softly as your arms come to stretch above you. He aches at the feel of your chest pressing further into his, cock stirring to life at your hip when you lean over and kiss him soundly. “Oh, good morning to you too.”

“Shut up,” he laughs, feeling his cheeks warm. Only you’re pressing further into him, hips flush against him, making him shudder. “Too early.”

“Is it?” You practically simper the words and his chest tightens further, gasping at the feel of your fingers along his chest, down his abdomen, dancing along the thatch of hair at the base of him before curling your palm around him fully. “We have no plans, it’s just us…”

He reaches down to grab your hand, already missing the heat of you around him, and presses a kiss to the inside of your wrist. Sighing, he leans up onto his elbows and stares down at your face. Beautiful, even freshly washed for bed, you’re so beautiful it stirs an ache deep within his chest.

“I love you,” he whispers. “I love you so much.”

You lean up and brush your lips against his. Tentative at first, and then coaxing as you slip your tongue along his, breaking apart long enough to rasp out, “I love you, too.”

Soon it’s a flurry of movement. He slips out of his boxers, kicks them down around his ankles, and moves to shift between your thighs. He remembers you’re on the pill and grabs himself in hand, feeling you beckon him forward with a swivel of your hips as he dips himself to the slick already pooling at your center. This time, as he sheathes himself fully, he languishes in the mutual gasp that fills the spaces between the two of you. Nearly chokes on a sob as he rolls his hips forward and back and feels you shifting to meet him thrust for thrust. You chase your end together, a slow ebb and flow, a quiet that wraps around your hearts save for your mingling breaths and moans.

You mewl into his skin that you love him.

To keep going.

Right there, you gasp out, when he hits that spot that has your eyes rolling back in your skull. Hits it over and over again as you start to shake beneath him, your impending orgasm drawing closer and closer.

It’s not like last night. The nervous, awkward feeling of exploring new lovers for the first time. Today he relishes the feeling of you around him, of rocking his hips into yours, of drawing out your pleasure, watching your face pinch, listening to your sounds. He wants to memorize every one. Every look that passes along your features as he moves against you, pushing your head further and further into your pillow.

With every movement he tries to show you his love. Tries to kiss you in a way that pours every bit of him into you.

He wants you to know that you’re it, this is it, this moment and this girl.

He’s done running.

He’s found home.

He’s found you.

Today feels like making love. Up until this moment he thought it was a cheesy thing people said about sex. But now he knows it’s real, feels the severity of it as he holds you in his arms, safe and sound from the rest of the world.

“Fuck, I don’t think I’ll ever get over how beautiful you are.”

You only gasp his name in reply. Hands come to slide up along his back as he picks up his pace. Rolls his hips down into yours, hitting that spongy part of you that has your thighs trembling where they curl around his hips.

His forehead drops against yours, your eyes coming up to meet him as he tells you he loves you over and over again, hand curling tight with yours against the pillow beneath your head.

Forever.

For the first time, he wants that.

You shatter around him. Walls clamping down as you practically sob his name.

He’s not long after, moaning low and heavy into your skin, heart pounding in his ears. You whimper and writhe against him, as he slows in you, coming down from his own high.

He flops down onto his back and feels you shift beside him in the bed, coming to rest along his chest, hand trailing along his abdomen.

“Better?” He laughs, curling his arm beneath your head.

“Last night was perfect. Stop that.”

“Yes…yes it was. But this was better, no?”

You level him with a stare and he bursts out into laughter, waking Chewy who scampers over to hop in the bed with the two of you.

Your little family.

“Happy New Year, Eddie,” you whisper, reaching across to lace your fingers with his. “I have a feeling it’ll be a good one.”

“Happy New Year, sweetheart.”

*

Spring, 1991

*

“Baby showers are so weird,” Steve mutters, bringing the lip of his beer bottle to his mouth to take a sip.

The two of them stand near the door leading to the patio, glancing out to where Steve’s wife, Charlotte, sits in a circle of her closest friends who are all ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ over the dozens of new little girl outfits she’s received.

Steve continues, “Bunch of girls sitting around opening gifts for someone who isn’t even here yet.”

“Also kind of weird because it’s sort of like a ‘congratulations, your dick works’ celebration.”

“You two are disgusting,” Robin says. “Neanderthals. Babe, you live with this man?”

You’re at Robin’s side, wearing that dress that flutters around your thighs when you walk, looking pretty as ever. You still rob him of his breath even after the past two years.

“That I do,” you laugh, kissing him as you brush by to go grab more desserts from the countertop. “Have fun, boys!”

The two of you slip back out from where you came, Steve waiting until the door slides shut fully when he asks, “So when are you going to ask her? That ring has been burning a hole in your closet for weeks now.”

“Soon…” he says, watching as you walk around with a tray filled with cookies in your arms, passing them out to greedy guests. “I’m just waiting for the perfect moment.”

*

His first attempt has him sweating. Literal sweat dripping from his pores as the two of you sit at that too-ritzy restaurant Steve suggested you try. It’s not his scene, and it’s not yours. You prefer eating indoors, within the comfort of your now shared apartment, with Chewy always nearby to beg for table scraps (you always yell at him not to give him people food, but he’s quick to remind you he’s a growing boy).

This—the candles on the table, the multiple forks and spoons he’s not sure what to do with, the intricately folded napkins. He feels so out of place.

But the plan is as follows for the evening: the music will change to something soft and romantic just as the waiter walks out with your glasses of champagne and dessert. He’s requested a little note to be written in scrawling letters, set to read “will you marry me?” As you’re reading (and hopefully crying) he plans on dropping onto one knee and popping the ring box open.

It’s foolproof, Steve and Robin have reassured him only about fifty times now.

He just knows it needs to be perfect.

You deserve nothing less.

However, nothing ever goes quite as planned. You’re holding his hand, talking about the shop, when a table near you starts to shift. A trio of men start singing, actually singing, to the woman staring up wide-eyed at them, clearly enjoying a moment she’s been dreaming about. She’s a hysterical crying mess, Eddie’s horrified, and you look ready to sink into the ground from second hand embarrassment as one of the men steps forward and asks her to marry him in front of the whole room.

“Shit,” Eddie curses, and you pry your attention away long enough from the now frantically kissing couple to look over to him.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing, sweetheart,” he says, glancing up to where the waiter is standing with a tray holding your dessert and glasses.

He’s waiting for him, he realizes, to give the go ahead.

But now his head is spinning, because he’s definitely not singing to you, he’s not prepared any fancy speeches or grand gestures, and definitely won’t be topping that display.

He just wanted to get down on one knee and let the words pour out of him in the moment.

The plan comes to a halt even further when you huff out, “I understand the whole public engagement idea, but I don’t think that’s for me. I feel like…I don’t know, I’d want it to be more intimate. Just you and me. Us.”

It’s like a record scratch in his ears, lungs relieved of all air as he tugs on his collar because he’s choking now too.

Is the room getting hotter?

The waiter glances over and Eddie shakes his head stiffly, reassuring you he’s fine when your hand reaches out to cup his forearm.

“Check,” Eddie mouths to the man when you’re not looking.

So no, it didn't happen that day.

*

The second attempt fares worse than the first. You’re cooking beside him in the kitchen and he’s about to get down on one knee when the phone blares from the far wall.

The two of you stand close to the receiver when the familiar voice of Dustin fills Eddie’s ears, grating and frantic, like he’s recently run a marathon or something.

“Dustin Henderson, resident butthead, what do you want?” Eddie drawls, earning a soft shove from you where you stand beside him.

“Aren’t you twenty-five?”

“Some things never change,” he says, and he can practically hear the kids' eyes rolling in his skull on the other end. “Is someone dying, because I was kind of in the middle of something.”

“That’s disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself,” Dustin groans.

“Not that kind of thing, you perv.”

“Look, I need help not being single and miserable…”

“That doesn’t sound like someone dying.”

“It might be soon if I don’t fix things with Suzie.”

“Okay, so how do you suppose—”

“Not from you! You’re not romantic,” Dustin continues, leaving Eddie a spluttering mess because he was, in fact, about to be romantic. Probably the most romantic he’s ever been in his life. So fuck him, he thinks. “I need your girlfriend.”

It didn't happen that day either.

*

The third attempt has you in the hospital, Eddie nearly wearing a hole into the ground as he asks the doctors a million and one questions. Is she going to be okay? What kind of medicine can she take? How long will she need to be on crutches for? Do they have to amputate? (He knows that one is a little dramatic, and he’s only asking because his brain is practically shaking in his skull, but he has to know).

You were taking a walk through your favorite park, following along a trail you’ve walked many times now, his sights set on the little lake in the middle of it that is viewable from a small bridge that sits beneath a canopy of leaves.

The only different thing about that day was the way you stepped funny and rolled your ankle, falling to the ground clutching at the offended limb with tears in your eyes. He’d been a mess, an absolute mess even though you told him over and over again you were okay, that it’s likely nothing serious, even though you were the one hurt in the first place.

But he drives like a bat out of hell to the hospital, only to sit in a waiting room for hours, before you’re taken for x-rays.

You have a broken ankle, and his heart aches when they cover your limb in a cast.

That afternoon it’s all dinner in bed and cuddling with Chewy and him as he props your foot up on a mountain of pillows, refusing to let you lift a finger for anything.

Not even the remote, he tells you when you grumble that you’re fine.

Definitely not the right time to propose, he decides, and shelves it for another.

*

He finds you a few days later sitting on the floor with your injured ankle resting in front of you and your palm upturned. He catches the sight of the velvet box next, the way your eyes behold the box like you’ve never seen anything like it before in your life.

“Oh no,” he cries out, rushing over to where you sit on the ground. “No, no, no. I had it all planned out. Well not planned out; I’ve had to change the plans a few times now, actually. But I wanted to make it special, take you somewhere or do something we like to do and ask you—”

“Eddie.”

It’s ruined.

The whole thing is ruined. He presses the heel of his palm to his forehead and groans.

“Eddie,” you try again, and he lifts his head to see you turning to look at him.

There are tears in your eyes, but you don’t seem sad. He’s just ruined your proposal and you’re not upset?

“Eddie, ask me now.”

He feels himself stumble a bit. Stutters out, “W-what?”

“Ask me now.”

You swallow thickly, handing him the ring box as he settles down on the ground in front of you. Chewy pokes his head up from the top of the couch, tail swishing at his two humans.

“A few years ago a new girl moved to town. There’s this idiot that works across the street from her shop at the bar, and he’s kind of a dick to her at first. You can laugh, it’s true. But it’s funny because she’s never deterred by it. She starts writing these little facts on his cups, and these corny little jokes that make her laugh and make it really hard for him not to laugh too because she’s just so pretty. They become friends…sort of. You see, he doesn’t really like to let many people in, and here she is with this big personality. Everyone falls in love with her, I mean—how wouldn’t they. Except for him. Or so he thinks.”

You’ve moved closer, your knees against his, one of his hands in your lap, curled in your own.

“He starts helping out with her apartment and realizes the more he hangs out with her, the more he likes her. He starts to feel less like a monster, and more like someone capable of love. She peels back those little layers and is so patient with it, never pushes him, always puts his feelings first. And then, he realizes he’d be a complete dingus to not tell her he likes her. And then the most surprising thing happens.”

You’re laughing through your tears, but laughing all the same and asking, “What is that?”

“They fall in love. Him for the first time ever, and he realizes…he wants that person every day for the rest of his life.”

He pops the box open and watches your hand come up to press against your lips, taking in the single diamond on a slender gold band.

“I love you so much, sweetheart. Every day more than the one that came before it. And I want that, I want this…us, for the rest of my life,” he says thickly, trying to hold back his own tears. “If you say yes, of course.”

“Yes, Eddie, yes,” you whisper, holding out your hand so he can slide it onto your ring finger.

It’s a perfect fit.

Then again, you’ve always been.

*

Eddie Munson marries the girl of his dreams six months later.

It’s a small ceremony, surrounded by your closest friends in the Wheeler’s backyard. You share personal vows with one another, words that encompass the years you’ve known one another, the love you share, the dreams for the future.

He promises to love you for the rest of his life as Steve—newly officiated for this occasion—instructs him to slide your wedding band onto your finger. And you do the same, standing there in a pretty white dress, your own words falling around him and filling his heart as you push the solid gold ring onto his own hand.

You dance under twinkling lights the kids have twined around the trees, hearts full to burst.

Wayne tells him he’s proud to call him son and wishes you well as you part for the night, Max joining soon after to hug the two of you and remind you she’ll be by the apartment often to check up on Chewy (her favorite and only nephew).

You slip into your hotel room in a flurry of kisses, a sea of white tulle around you, your hands in his suit and his working on undoing the line of buttons down your back.

You fall into one another as you always do, his lips against yours, bodies burning, sighs mingling into one as he slides home for the first time with his new wife.

He holds you close, one arm low around your back, the backs of his knuckles against your cheek. Tells you he loves you as the two of you creep closer and closer to mutual bliss.

Later, after you’re both cleaned up and spent, he tucks you close to his chest and hums the song you danced to at your wedding.

He’s happy.

Happier than he’s ever been in his life.

“Fun fact: Becoming your husband made this the best day of my life.”

You press your head further into his chest, finger toying with the new ring on his finger. “Fun fact: Becoming your wife is mine.”

*

Tag List: @clinicallyonline17, @sidthedollface2, @lazywillow6748, @idkidknemore, @blue-eyed-lion , @emma77645 , @bambipowerblueaddition , @aysheashea , @lezzy-bennet @yeehawbitchs

[andypantsx3]

Andie send help. I'm a Nanami stan through and through (Or so I thought...) but with the new jjk season and everyone talking about him, I fear my weak heart can't resist Gojo anymore... OTL

So defeated and ashamed I come to you: do you by any chance have any Gojo x reader fic recs?

Thank you ❤️

Lmfaoooo Gojo is inevitable!! I do have a couple Gojo recs off the top of my head although I am certain I am forgetting some. I will try to come back and add more as I remember them!!

First of all I recommend anything by the ult Gojo simp @stellamancer. Niku has several really good ones, some ongoing, and they are all super different premises but all of them perfectly capture Gojo's annoying enigmatic-ness. Niku also has this really heartfelt style of storytelling; you will eat her fics up with a spoon.

For me, @petrichorium's usurper!Gojo series was like the gateway into Gojo simpery. This is one of my fave series ever, and again Pluvi captures his character so well, he's so dangerous and cocky and yet so soft and careful with the things he really cares about. I want to lick his boots. :/ (Total perfection.)

I recently reblogged @lorelune's fic dawn instinct and I cannot recommend enough. It's purportedly smut but Lore does like insane levels of character work throughout and it's so completely, masterfully executed. I haven't read all their other stuff yet but I added like everything to my TBR, they're so good.

I also recently reblogged @mintmatcha's vignettes in cerulean and hoooly shit. It's short but it's so impactful. Mint's writing is somehow very focused and cerebral and I found myself thinking about this one for days and days after. I think it will stick with you too.

I also have to recommend @yeowchies' whet your appetite fic too. This one literally gave me butterflies. Gojo is so fucking sexy and obnoxious here and I wanted to climb into the fic and beat his ass!! You will love love love his characterization here.

And no Gojo list would be complete without @hawnks's first law of motion!! Mint is one of the most reliable writers in our niche and one thing I love about her fics is how the love interest usually falls fast, and soooo hard! If you want to feel loved and cared for, read this. This one is lengthier too so you will have plenty to simp over!!

Also I haven't read it yet but @seoafin's rip 2 my youth is on my TBR!! It's a Gojo x Reader x Getou fic, and it looks so fucking good. I have seen multiple people dissolving into puddles over this fic, so you know it has to be good. I'm so excited!!

I also haven't read this one yet but I have @shibaraki's the white rabbit on my TBR too!! Monty has the most creative concepts in this entire niche and this one features courtesan Gojo and I am certain it is gonna be both nuanced and sexy as hell hehehe.

Lastly, this isn't an x Reader, but if you are willing to read Gojo x canon characters, I'm absolutely obsessed with this gojohime writer on ao3 called unpetitlapin. Her Gojo is unbearably obnoxious but so good and flawed and so multidimensional kjsfjshdkfjshdkgl. I love it.

Anyway that's what I can think of for now, although I am certain there are ones from earlier in 2022-2021 that I will need to track down and add here. But in the meantime, happy reading!!

[pixies-and-poets]

In which I dare to rant about Paper Mario

So there's this discourse going around twitter right now about Paper Mario being an AU and Paper Mario not being the "real" Mario and if ANY of the PM games happened in "the real Mario world" or have parallels, do the characters exist outside of the Paper World, etc etc

And all I can think is like, damn, how unfortunate is it that Intelligent Systems deciding to use a charming and timeless art style back on the N64 led to this. The idea to use 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds to create a storybook feel eventually spiraled into the series' ENTIRE IDENTITY. Gameplay does not unite the whole Paper Mario series, depth of story does not, shared characters do not, only the art style and the idea of 2D vs 3D.

And it's a shame because the first PM was a lovely fairy tale that clearly followed in the footsteps of SMRPG as an extrapolation of what the Mushroom Kingdom could be, and how Mario's world works. It was also my first Mario RPG and had tremendous influence on me. Friendly Koopas and Goombas, the Star Spirits, wishes. It was called Mario Story in Japan and the paper aspect mattered nothing to the actual narrative. And then TTYD got a little cheekier with the paper abilities (with them being a fourth-wall-wobbling joke tacked on to what was clearly supposed to still be a Mario Story). And then SPM, much as I love it, bases its entire hook around 2D/3D in a way that's hard to reconcile with Mario's "normal" existence. And by Sticker Star they just said screw it, reboot it, everyone is 100% aware they are made of paper and that's like the series' whole deal now. And it has stayed there ever since.

For the last three games, you can say maybe there's a "real" Bobby out there or a "real" Captain T. Ode but it's impossible for their plots to take place in a world divorced from the craft universe unless we substitute in a lot of body horror and viscera (and even then, what of the Things? Etc). And that's ok for these games, they work within their own context and can be fun for what they are. But it's now got people thinking the first three games fold into this same AU. And you can blame Paper Jam for this but the PM series did it to itself. PJ just clearly spelled out the dual reality that Sticker Star and its follow-ups obviously necessitated. And now the whole series has retroactively been wrapped up into this Paper Universe.

Look, I know "Mario lore" doesn't actually matter, and most RPG characters never show up again even in their own series, and as long as you enjoy each game in a vacuum that's what matters. But it's frustrating that we've reached a point where PM characters have to be the odd ones out who may or may not "actually exist" or have actually met the "real Mario". Mallow is definitely real, Cackletta is definitely real but Chuck Quizmo- WHOA SLAM THE BRAKES, IDK ABOUT THAT ONE CHIEF. Thankfully most people don't give a shit about this drudgery and it won't stop people from drawing Vivian and Geno interacting, because it's just fun and good.

But my point is, I don't think the people working on the first PM (and TTYD) really could have foreseen the series evolving into what it is today, and it's unfair to wipe out their lovely narratives and relegate them to some kind of side universe not worthy of The Real Super Mario(tm) [especially because, taken in sum total of characters and vignettes, TTYD is the greatest Mario narrative there has ever been IMO]. SPM, so strange in both its style and its entire concept, is in some kind of weird limbo where I don't even really care what people think of it anymore, just let me enjoy my game that makes me cry every time in peace lmao

I can't think of another example of a series where an arbitrary stylistic gimmick (not a gameplay or story gimmick but a STYLISTIC gimmick) consumes it and becomes its entire thematic identity. Can you? It's Flanderization on the scale of a franchise, not just a character. Closest is perhaps the Yoshi series, where Yoshi's Island had a childlike crayon look to stand out on the SNES and fit the theme of Baby Mario, which got expanded to Yoshi's Story being a storybook and now we have craft themed Yoshi games. But it's still not entirely the same thing because the gameplay has remained somewhat consistent, if getting rather easier.

Anyway peace and love I just want Johnny Jones and Cortez to hang out

[thecryptidzenith]

For the fic title, "All The Wrong Places" (it's from a song but I tried to mimic your usual title style)

Ah yes. My style. As seen in all two (2) of my FH fics. Look at me, pretending I'll ever write anything besides Midnight Oil.

The easy thought here is something Aelwyn-centric. Vignettes of searching for approval/love/means of living from her parents, Kalina, Penelope, & Kipperlily. Which. That's a 5+1 right there, make the +1 Adaine & Aelwyn sharing some gorgonfern/commiserating in Mordred Manor's laundry room and bada bing bada boom. The other ones could be, like, Arainwen praising Aelwyn for her spellcasting, Angwyn showing her off at some sort of official function, Kalina ensuring she casts the spell to sink the Harpy/Cerulean, Penelope taking her to a Durden/Peppercorn party, and one of her meetings with Kipperlily.

I do also like this as a title for a class swap fic, or otherwise doing something terms of 'actors' in different 'roles.' Ratgrinders/Bad Kids swap, maybe. You could even get do some Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead shit & get meta with it. Kristen & Gorgug die, but the world seems a little bit flatter than it used to. They see/feel/hear dice rolls and narration & otherwise perceive both states of Schrodinger's Cat before the box opens and one of them becomes realized. Everyone seems more like actors playing roles in fixed positions than real people. (actually, I think I like Thistlespring and Applebees are Dead more for that one, but it's all orbiting around the same concept.) What's the thing where a character wakes up in a 'perfect world' and has to realize it's all fake and has to find a way out? There's definitely something like that that's a parasite or something in DC stuff, at least. That would be fun to do with. Literally any of the Bad Kids.

[pouralaura]

writer interview game

tagged by @pricemarshfield, thank you as always for giving me the opportunity to talk about myself

When did you start writing?

pretty much as soon as I could hold a pencil tbh - I was always the kid who had notebooks full of stories featuring my friends as characters; said friends would always be eager to read my latest updates. I started trying my hand at fanfiction around age 11 or 12, always written in a shitty wide-ruled notebook.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

themes/genres? not really. I write what I want to read. I'd say the biggest difference between what I write and what I read is length - I don't write plot well for more than a couple of chapters. I can do vignettes, shorts, or a few chapters up to 20k words or so and that's as far as the plot part of my brain gets, oops

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

here's a link to my favorite fic of all time. be warned; it's Mad Men stepdad/stepdaughter (very distant, everyone is of age). I've read it a thousand times and it's influenced my writing style so fuckin much. this author writes a lot of stupidly good shit too if you like this one

I don't really get compared to anyone (at least, not to my face) which is fine. I don't know if I want to be.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

it's wherever I am, but mostly at my office desk in our spare bedroom with my rainbow glowy mechanical keyboard and a nice-smelling candle. sometimes I listen to nine inch nails

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

read something else, by someone else. look at somebody else's art. find something that speaks to you in something you didn't do. search for that point of connection, that thing that you feel too, and let it make you think differently about something you've been looking at the same way for a while

also watch a horny tv show or movie that helps too

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

indecision, reluctance, stubbornness, hot old men. this is not surprising to me

What is your reason for writing?

to entertain myself, first and foremost. like I said, I write the stuff I wanna read. and I don't think I had a good reason for writing until I started doing that. I always used to write what I thought I was supposed to write, or what would make my friends ooooh and ahhhh. I guess I still do that to some extent but it's sickos only baby

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

I love when someone points out a favorite line. it's usually one that I had in my head for a super long time; one that I wrote first, before anything else. makes me feel Understood

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

as just some guy! because I am! I've made such good friends on the internet from writing my dumb bullshit, please feel free to be one of them! love to chat and share opinions and invent scenarios and what-ifs. I'm also just a thirty-year-old woman sitting in my little house doing my silly little job and it's really fun to meet people who are also doing Exactly That but make time to create in a similar way.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I've been very kindly complimented on this numerous times and I think it's fairly accurate - if I write a character, I take Great Pains to ensure that their voice is accurate. I exploit their flaws for views. (raphael I am talking about you) I make it funnier and sadder until it feels real - or, as real as I can make it in a fantasy setting.

How do you feel about your own writing?

it's better than it's ever been because, again, I am finally writing what I want to read. it's visceral and silly and fun and horny in a way that makes me really proud of myself!

I think all my writer buddies on here have been tagged already, but if I missed you or you wanna participate please feel free!

[sneakydraws]

i wanna see fifty five goldfinch pieces 💔💔

OKAY!! So I have this little series I like to call the great decompartmentalisation of Theo decker... Let me walk you through it. I promise there's art after the massive paragraph of meandering analysis alright

You know how Theo's life is segmented into these distinct episodes? And how he himself is split into multiple different identities, and how much shame and fear there is associated with the idea of those identities mixing? For example: the straight a student living a completely, delusionally idyllic life with his adoring mother and the vanilla teenage troublemaker breaking into people's summer homes with his shady homoerotic bestie. When the two identities come into contact via his suspension, it leads to the most traumatic event in Theo's life, and honestly I suspect that might be the origin of this tendency towards compartmentalisation... I could go through the whole book here but the most prominent examples are Theo panicking at the thought of Mrs Barbour or his therapist finding out about Hobie, his cutting himself off from New York when in Vegas with his other shady homoerotic bestie (the amount of times Vegas is compared to an alien planet...) and his dual post timeskip identifies of charming antiques salesman/fraudulent art stealing junkie. And this often manifests in Theo's reluctance to let people from his different periods interact - see him rushing to stop Boris from talking to Pippa, and him keeping Hobie in the dark about the blackmail, and isn't it kind of weird that the barbours - Theo's soon to be legal family - don't really interact with Hobie and Pippa? Anyway. Basically I thought it would be cool to make a series of little vignettes of theo allowing the people and places and things that represent various versions of Him to interact and thus symbolically healing the disconnected parts of himself... Or something. I have more ideas scribbled down but somehow the only ones I ended up with proper art for is the various holidays (which, holidays are also a weirdly prevalent theme in tgf? Idk whats up with that but it's a good tool for this purpose) so we have:

Christmas Eve at Boris's, featuring Pippa and Hobie - I feel kinda bad for only ever portraying Boris with polish customs but let's be real I'm just using him to show off my own heritage lol. In Poland the main Xmas celebrations happen on Xmas Eve, traditionally with the appearance of the first star in the sky. You eat the mostly inoffensive barszcz as well some truly vile shit, such as mushroom and cabbage dumplings, mushroom and cabbage salad, other items made of mushrooms and cabbage, and finally the most disgusting dish of my life: Jewish style carp. No, it's not quite the same thing as gefiltefish, although that's the Wikipedia page you might use to get to the actual dish. All washed down with compote which I hate. You also break and eat communion wafers while wishing each other stuff, which Pippa is doing with popchyk here hehe

Christmas breakfast as a little bonus despite it not having much of a tradition - I associate it with lots of hams/cured meats, gherkins and maybe Tatar sauce (yum). Much superior to the Xmas dinner imho. Really I just wanted Theo and Boris to have a moment to themselves haha

Christmas proper at the barbours, featuring Boris and Tom cable! I could talk about all the tension and who's diffusing it but honestly I think y'all can draw your own conclusions lol. I just think it would be really funny for the infamous dis-engaged couple to each bring their delinquent boytoys and for Boris the drug dealer to actually come out looking superior

Vegetarian friendly Thanksgiving at Hobie's, as tradition requires! I think he'd love to throw one of his big Thanksgiving parties purely for all of Theo's families to get to know each other... you know, kind of an elaboration on that Thanksgiving illustration I drew a while back! This would be before all the Christmases I think. Boris is winning Mrs Barbour over with his roguish charm lol I think old ladies would like him... Theo in the corner freaking the hell out as per this project's mission statement lmao

And on a slightly different note I wanted Theo Pippa and Hobie to all visit weltys grave. I'm borrowing slightly from the polish tradition of all saint's day, when you clean, decorate and light candles on the graves of loved ones.

[clatoera]

Picket Fence is Sharp as Knives: Chapter 1 At Dinner Parties, I Call You Out (ARWBFB sequel)

Heeey besties. We're back. We're back. Thus begins the sequel to Always Remember We're Burned for Better. Fucking wild right.

So. This is chapter one of the sequel. The title of the sequel comes from High Infidelity, not because they're experiencing that, but because I liked the line being about picket fences. This fic is structured much different than ARWBFB. It's going to be more vignette day in the life style fics. It's not high intensity. It's not high drama. ARWBFB has all of that. This is the life after the war and that is this.

This concept of this fucking chicken...this is entirely what I wanted to write the sequel for. The mental imagery of spatchcocking a chicken. I'm not lying as you are about to see.

Thats what this whole sequel is to be. Just..moments of life. Fun moments of life. You are welcome to send requests. I will do my best to honor and address them.

So yeah! Fic title from High Infidelity (t swift)

Chapter title from gold rush (t swift).

AO3 Link

masterpost

So! Yeah!

Here we go again. Thank you all for being here and rejoining me.

Life moves blessedly slow in a world without the Hunger Games. 

A life without training to run, a life without interviews to attend. A life with morning runs as a leisure and not a warm up, a life with meals with seasoning and flavor, a life with friends a forty minute train ride away.

It is a peaceful life, albeit somewhat boring for two twenty something kids who spent their life learning to kill. 

It is unbelievably peaceful, actually.

 Cato and Clove sit nearly on top of each other on their living room couch, her little legs tucked in his lap, her feet in his hands. Their luggage sits unpacked by the door from a ten day trip to District Four, having been discarded immediately upon their return in long awaited exchange for their own cool bed sheets on their sun warmed skin. If you ask Cato the best part of the trip, he will tell you it was watching more freckles appear on the skin of his wife every passing day. If you ask Clove she will tell you it was watching Cato’s hair lighten and his skin take on that golden hue she hadn’t seen since he won his games what seemed like a lifetime ago. 

They don’t need to talk, not when she’s lounging in his lap like this, reading aloud the new curriculum designs Enobaria had dropped off for their input. It was more difficult than any of them had anticipated, adapting their training plans to regular recreation activities. Every once in a while Cato gives a hum of approval or digs his thumb into the arch of her foot in a way that makes her lose her place in a sentence. 

“Do you think they’ll let us come teach?” Cato wonders out loud, before kicking his own feet up and pushing his side of the couch back in a reclining position. “Feels like it could be fun, it’s something to do..”

“I think after reading this shit they better let us do whatever we want, I don’t even think i’m pronouncing the word Calisthenics right.” Clove latches her knees over his thighs and pulls herself closer, the warm thrum of his hand on her knee keeping in cadence with her reading. She writes something in the margins of the paper that Cato cannot see, but it’s almost certainly something about the meaning of a word that she will look up later to save herself the embarrassment of asking Enobaria. “Do you think they’re going to keep teaching kids to read after they turn twelve? I feel like thats a skill we should prioritize.”

“I’m not even sure I learned to read well enough before them.”

A frantic rapping at the door interrupts their commentary, and they share a suspicious look though neither move from their position intertwined on the couch. 

“Who knocks?” Cato raises an eyebrow, his hand stilling from where it strokes at her knee. “Doesn’t half the country have a key to our house?”

“We really should change those locks.” Clove muses lightly, making no move to answer the door or even see who it was. Cato had a point. Whoever it was..either they’d let themselves in or they’d leave. 

“What, tired of Enobaria letting herself in for breakfast?” Cato taunts, but there's no real malice there. If the worst that happened to them for the rest of their lives were their family members inviting themselves over at eight in the morning then they are better off than they were with all the victor glory in the world. 

“I just want to know when I became responsible for feeding the world,” 

As if on cue the front door creaks open, and shuts incredibly softly within the same second. There is only one person, one frame, that could slip in like a ghost and as silent as a wisp. 

They hear her soft voice and the ruffling of what sounds like bags before they see her. 

“Clove? Clove I need help.” Glimmer turns the corner from the entryway, two large white canvas totes on her arm. Whatever panic she was in pauses as she sees them for the first time in nearly two weeks, as if they were separated across a war torn nation again. “It’s been so long since i’ve seen you- oh! Don’t you two just look so cute and in love.” She raises a hand to her cheek dramatically, pursing her lips out in a plush. “How was the honeymoon?”

“So long? We got married twelve days ago, and it was you who disappeared without a goodbye-“‘Cato starts to debate, but a firm kick to his thigh shuts him up. “I mean, it was great, Glimmer.”

“I was going to ask if you even enjoyed the beach but from the looks of it you did go outside!! I’m very proud.” The woman sits herself down on the other side of Clove, still holding a canvas bag on each shoulder. “I’m still just so happy for you!” 

“I’m assuming you did not bring gifts?” Clove closes the portfolio of ideas, placing it on the arm of the couch on the other side of Cato. “The wedding’s over, what kind of emergency could you possibly be having now? The dresses fit, they were perfect, what do you need help with, Glim?”

Glimmer lets out a sigh of clear distress, finally letting the bags fall to the floor and relieving her shoulders of the weight. “I may have overcommitted.” She begins, and the repetitive way she starts to twist at her fingers betrays the anxiety that’s been building. “My mom used to make this chicken when I was little. She didn't make it a lot, but it was for special days. It was just so warm and comforting, Clove. And for the last few days it has been all I have wanted. It keeps me up at night. I think about it all day and I want it so bad and I don’t have a mom to make it so I told Cash and Gloss to come to dinner because I was going to try and I did try and it was terrible and pink and Marvel definitely hated it but lied not to hurt my feelings and I don’t want to kill my brother and my sister and my- Marvel, and I really really want this chicken I don’t even like Chicken with bones but it’s all I want and-“ Glimmer ceases her ramble to takes a deep breath  and squeezes her eyes shut, willing away the tears she is on the verge of releasing over this chicken she desperately craves. It isn’t even that remarkable- she just wants the comfort that her mother cannot give her. “And long story short they’ll be here in two hours for dinner.”

Clove sits up far straighter than her lounging position in Cato’s lap, and his chuckle in the background would have earned him a glare had it not been for the shock filling Clove’s face. In fact, Clove is sure if she had not literally returned from vacation last night, she would have choked her. 

“You invited your family to dinner at my house. That I have to make?” 

“Well…Cash was bringing Enobaria! So! I told her to invite Brutus too!” Glimmer buries her head in the heel of her hands, physically forcing the tears back into her head. “I’m sorry! I just want this so bad and I almost killed Marvel with it earlier, and I’m lonely, and all I want is this chicken.” 

Cato and Clove share what can only be described as a what the fuck look, and Cato puts his hands up in defeat. There had been an unspoken agreement amongst all of them, that knowing Glimmer’s precarious history with food, that they’d never tell her no if she wanted something to eat. This, unfortunately, fell into that category. 

Of course there was the question of are we actually crying over chicken or is this something bigger, but that was simply not something they were willing to address right now. 

“….as long as Brutus doesn’t bring those fucking dogs.” Cato concedes, and can’t help but shiver in distaste. Something about those three giant puppies made him feel incredibly unsettled, despite the significant size advantages he had on the literal dogs. “I sure as hell won’t complain about anything you make.”

Clove shoots him a look of disbelief, eyes wide and eyebrows raised, as he merely shrugs. “You should make those really good potatoes with it too, Clovey. ”

Glimmer look’s up with glistening eyes, and nods enthusiastically. “I promised there’d be salad too.”

“Am I your personal chef, Glimmer?” Clove mumbles, but pushes herself from Cato’s lap to a standing position. “I need to start now. If you only gave me two hours, come on, you’re helping.”

“But I can’t cook!” Glimmer tries, but Clove is grabbing her by the wrists and pulling her along regardless. 

“You’re going to learn SOMETHING today.”

Clove drags Glimmer, who shuffles her feet in hesitation, all the way to her kitchen island before beginning to dig around her kitchen drawers. “I’ve seen Cato eat an entire chicken for breakfast when we were younger, you better have at least two between him, marvel, and Enobaria.”

She’s fluttering around the kitchen, sliding a cutting board in front of Glimmer along with an impeccably sharpened chef's knife. Directly beside Glimmer she places one for herself, but instead pulls out something that not long ago Glimmer would have seen her throwing at a target in the capitol training center before their conjoined games. She must make a face at the realization, because Clove’s soft laugh grounds her back in reality.”

“It makes me feel like I'm still doing something cool.” Clove explains, running her finger over the sharp edge of the knife. “Not much use for them other than this, anymore.”

Glimmer shakes her head rapidly, eyes wide as Clove pulls the two little chickens out and plops them directly in the large, steel sink behind them. “This is so cool, Clove. So cool.”

“What? Cooking? It’s a basic survival skill when you’re seven and no one likes you, Glimmer.” Clove comments, before bringing the cleaned chicken over to Glimmer. “Okay. You’re going to learn how to do this, today. What’s your mother put on them?”

“...I don’t know. It was just good.” Glimmer shrugs, and takes the most minute step back away from the raw bird carcass, hands flush against her abdomen so she doesn’t have to touch it by accident. 

“What the hell do you mean that you don’t know, I can’t just magically recreate it? Didn’t you want it specifically?” Clove whips her head to look at Glimmer in sheer disbelief, taking the opportunity to pull her long hair to the center of her head, securing it back and out of the way of her work before reaching out and flicking the ends of Glimmer’s ever increasing long blonde hair. “I’d pull this back, unless you want raw meat fluid in your hair.”

Glimmer gags. Audibly gags. So loud in fact that Cato peaks into the Kitchen with a bewildered, but smug expression before he pulls a chair over to the island across from them. “I have to watch this.”

“God you’re such a dick.” Glimmer mumbles, but composes herself in time to loosely tie her hair at the nape of her neck. “I’m fine, I’m fine, let's just..do this.”

“You’re the one who wanted it.” Clove rolls her eyes, but hands Glimmer a pair of kitchen shears. “Okay. Pull out the insides, and then you’re going to cut out the spine. It cooks faster that way.”

What little color Glimmer had in her face drains immediately, leaving her a sickly shade of translucent white. She drops the scissors instantly, and braces herself on the marble countertop. “T-the insides? We’re going to cut out the what?”

Clove tries, oh she tries, to hide the amused smirk dancing along the corners of her lips, and notices Cato does not even bother to hide his own laugh. “Yes the insides, there's a bag of organs in there– Glimmer didn’t you say you already tried this? What did you even do?”

“I just..I unwrapped it and put it in the oven for a while, I don’t know!” Glimmer defends, but anxiously wrings at her hands. “They don’t come with directions.”

“Damn, I get it now, I wouldn’t want to stick around if I were Marvel either-” Cato starts, but the look Clove throws his way is as sharp as the knives she once did.  “I mean..totally understandable mistake…you know what, I value my life and I enjoy being married so I'm going back to the couch if you need me.”

“Smart move.” Clove remarks, shaking her head as he walks away. “Smart fucking move.”

“I don’t think I can do this.” Glimmer decides, pushing herself away from the cutting board and the knives. “These look like babies.”

“They’re featherless, dead, headless chickens, Glimmer.” Clove reminds her firmly, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her in again. “They aren’t babies.”

“They look like the size of new babies. I can't cut them up.” Glimmer insists, pulling away until her back hits the countertop behind her. “I can’t.”

“Glimmer! YOU have killed people’s babies, now get over here and cut out the spine of this fucking chicken.” Clove snaps, grabbing the pair of scissors. “It’s going to make it cook evenly and faster and it’s called spatch-cocking–”

“You’re doing what to a chicken?” Comes from the living room, the disembodied laugh of Cato following behind. “Say that word again!”

“I married a fucking child.” Clove murmurs, and once again drags Glimmer closer. “Just wait until you have to put butter under the skin.” 

“Oh my fucking god.” Glimmer whines, but stands dutifully beside Clove. She does not reach for the scissors, as she isn’t sure she’s capable of steadily holding anything in this immediate moment. “I just feel so so sick.”

When Clove digs a knife through the back of one of the chickens, the grinding sound of ribs and bones separating from the spine push Glimmer over the edge. “I think I need to lay down.”

“Wait, listen to this. Cato always wants to do this part but it’s my favorite.” Clove climbs on top of the counter, and flips the raw chicken over. She kneels over the cutting board, and puts both her hands on top of the chicken. Quickly and efficiently she presses her weight forward, and the sound of ribs shattering and cracking echoes through the kitchen. 

Glimmer hits the floor within seconds.

“Oh for fucks sake…Cato! Glimmer’s down.” Clove hops off the countertop, and steps over her friend. She switches the cutting board to work on Glimmer’s untouched task. She doesn’t bother to move Glimmer as she begins to work on that one as well, cutting through skin and tissue as if for a moment she is back in the games. 

“Hey that's the best part,” Cato pouts as he appears behind Clove, leaning down to kiss her cheek briefly, before leaning down to scoop Glimmer’s unconscious body into his arms. “What do you want me to do with her?”

“I dunno. Put her in one of the extra rooms.” Clove shrugs, but cocks her head as she looks at Glimmer’s uncharacteristically pale skin. “She seems sick, Cato.”

“What’s new?” Cato grumbles, but does as he is instructed to carry their friend out of the warzone that is Clove’s kitchen. 

Marvel arrives within the hour.

He lets himself in directly through the back kitchen door, a goofy, warm smile on his face. “There’s my favorite ex-bride, how was your little trip!” He announces himself, setting various bottles of wine and other alcohol on the island as a peace offering for Glimmer’s otherwise frantic arrival. “I burn if I even think about the beach too long, but it sounds fun.” He glances around the kitchen, where various arrays of trays full of food cooling or waiting to go in the oven are spread. “Where’s Glim?”

“That's a great segway. I think I should be asking you about your last two weeks.” Clove teases, narrowing her eyes at the man. “Are you two like..back together? Are you just fucking, what’s going on over there?”

“Great question Clove, great question. Things are good, really, they’re great. I’ve been staying there for like two weeks but I don’t know, Clove. I don’t know how I'd explain it.” He reaches for one of the still sizzling roasted potatoes, but drops it both from the burn on his fingertips and the sharp whack on the back of fingers with Clove’s rubber spatula. “I’m just taste testing! Seriously, where is she?”

“I cut the spine out and she passed out. The whole thing really freaked her out, I don’t know. She’s upstairs sleeping.” Clove waves off, focused instead on the slicing and peeling of pomegranate for the salad in front of her. “I thought she said she tried to do it herself.”

“Clove. She did. I threw up for forty five minutes after she left, it was raw. And cold. All she talked about for three days was this chicken, I couldn’t just say no.” Marvel admits with a low whisper, as if the sound would travel all the way upstairs and wake her up with fresh betrayal. 

“Look who it is! I think we need to start calling you loverboy.” Cato surprises Marvel, grabbing him by the top of the shoulders and squeezing. He leans in from behind him and whispers “I have videos of you drunk, crying over her, at eight in the morning. I will never delete them.” 

“It was an emotional day, Cato.” He defends himself, but can’t help the silly little smile that he cannot wipe away from his face. “I was just feeling the love.”

“You were feeling something alright, and that something is five-seven and blonde-” 

“Okaaay, who wants a drink.” Marvel jumps up from the island chair, scurrying over to let himself into the cabinet that contains all the various glassware. “Glimmer made this cranberry thing the other day that was so good, well.. I thought it was good. It made her do that gaggy thing.” 

Clove slowly turns her head to watch him shuffle around the kitchen, narrowing her eyes at him. “Do we need to be concerned that everything is making her do that, because the chicken did too. Is this some new ploy to not eat?”

“Nah, she wants to try things, maybe she’s just getting sick. She’s the one who wanted this dinner so badly.” Marvel insists, stealing a handful of Clove’s pomegranate seeds to sprinkle in the coup glasses. “I guess if she’s sick we’re all going to get it so. Enjoy it before it hits us.”  He slides a glass in Clove’s general direction, before sliding a matching one to Cato. 

It’s Clove’s turn to choke, when the burn of the liquid hits her tongue. “Uh yeah, Marvel, this is straight up vodka.”

Cato seems unphased, and instead takes the entire thing like a shot. “I don’t think it’s half bad.”

“Ah. Right. I’m supposed to add the juice to it. Sorry!” Marvel helps himself to the refrigerator, searching for whatever he simply assumes Clove will have on hand. On his way past a tray of croutons, he nabs a handful to shove in his mouth before he continues speaking.  “I was thinking, you could use the leftover chicken to make chicken soup, that could be REALLY good.” Marvel suggests, words barely comprehensible around the crunch of toasted bread. 

The look Clove responds with is a blend of disdain, disgust, and amusement as the blade of her knife does not stop rocking to slice through the salad vegetables in front of her, a skill to cut and look away from training days past. “...do I look like your mother, Marvel?”

“Well, no, my mother’s dead and you’re not.” Marvel says so easily, so casually, it’s almost possible to ignore the ache in his voice,

Clove can’t help but drop her knife, bringing her head to rest in her hands as her shoulders shake with laughter, “Hey, so is mine!”

Joining in with borderline giggles, Cato adds; “Hey, Clove, tell Marvel what you had to do to the chicken.”

“...I cut out the spine and broke the ribs?” Clove plays with an innocent intonation in her voice, knowing full well what Cato’s trying to get her to say again. “What’s so funny about that?”

“Noooo, Clove say it. Say the word.” Cato pleads, sticking his bottom lip out in a little pout. “Say it.”

Clove audibly sighs as she rolls her eyes, but gently places her hands on the counter, and looks to Cato with a serious expression. Without flinching, smirking, or letting her expression betray her, Clove looks him dead in the eye as she says, “it’s called spatchcocking.”

Cato and Marvel both erupt into childish laughter, Marvel even more so than Cato, as he has to place the glass in his hand back down so he doesn't drop it. Marvel continues to laugh, nearly bent in half with his forehead resting on the countertop as his entire body shakes with his laughter. “Say it again, say it again.” Marvel begs, resting his face on the cool marble countertops. 

“You’re also a fucking child.” Clove reminds, going back to her task at hand of trying to rapidly finish dinner before the rest of their friends (family?) arrives.  “Leave my kitchen. Both of you.”

“But Clovey-” Cato starts, reaching to wrap his arms around her waist before she slaps his hands away. 

“Out.”

Marvel wipes the tears out of his eyes as he grabs one of his wine bottles and heads towards any room but this. “Hey, do you have any wedding cake left I didn’t get to have any-”

“Out.” 

 By the point Glimmer is awake, she remains curled up on the couch looking rather green. 

“Glimmer do you want to come try the chicken, see if it’s how you like it?” Clove offers, holding out a tiny plate to her. 

As soon as Glimmer reaches for it, the smell hits her and leaves her maybe even more nauseous than before. She gags before she can even skewer it with a fork, and Clove walks away with fury all over her face. 

The audacity to come all this way, beg for dinner, and then outright gag at it. 

Fuck you, Glimmer. 

All four of their older counterparts arrive at once, exactly on time, as if they were waiting across the street for the clock to strike dinnertime.

“At least you didn’t bring the dogs.” Cato greets Brutus, who otherwise would in fact be tormenting him with three pitbulls running through his yard. 

“Clove won’t let them around the food. I had to prioritize.”

Gloss follows close behind, and immediately is confused by the way Glimmer is curled up on the couch rather than playing her favorite role of hostess (even at someone else's house.)

“She had the audacity to gag at my chicken. She better get used to fending for herself. What a bitch.” Clove explains, standing to the side as Cashmere leads Enobaria in by her hand.

“She’s not herself, Clove, don’t take it out on her. She tried to cook. You know something’s up with her.” Cashmere gently reminds her, tugging in Enobaria behind her. 

“Cooking is Clove’s love language these days, Glimmer just broke her heart.” Enobaria teases, but pulls out a bottle of the good District One wine to have with Dinner. “I knew there was no way in hell we were eating in one.”

“I thought you were in One this weekend at Cashmere’s?” 

“Oh, yeah. Whenever Glimmer said dinner at six everyone came to two. We’ve been patiently waiting by the door.” Enobaria explains, looping her arm over Clove’s shoulders. “Look at you. A little housewife making family dinner.” 

“Do NOT call me that-” Clove warns, but any further commentary is interrupted by Marvel, who runs into the living room with that stupid, goofy grin on his face. 

“Clove! Tell everyone what you did to the chicken!”

[bathroomtrapped]

ur art is so, so amazing, is there anyway u could do a tutorial bc I wanna draw like u so badly

i can try but idrk how to explain myself or make tutorials lol

i think my style is just a product of my brush and what im trying to get out of my art, which is trying to portray the characters as accurately as possible. i rly just want it to look like it could be a stylized redraw of a deleted scene or something

my process is kinda everywhere bc i just move on to whatever step will probably make me hate the piece less when im done with it. i draw with a more square brush (blurring marker 1 on ibis) which i def recommend. its great for focusing on shapes in ur art and it helps me not overblend/forces me to think of more interesting lines/shapes. my sketch is a thicker size of the same pen, focusing on the major shapes and proportions and i just make as many additional layers overtop of it, lowering the size of the pen and adding details as i go

once im at the lineart i usually use a site that creates color palettes based off images (usually just steal some from old catholic art) and i steal my base colors from that. it doesnt matter how terrible ur base colors look as long as they make sense and r what ur generally going for.

these were my original base, i use colored line art and shade the basic shadows using the line art mixed with the base color, highlights r whatever is the lightest color in the palette. after that i duplicate and throw it through this filter

i play w the colors and use it as a color/hue/luminosity layer on top of the original version, lower opacity and render now that theres more colors on the canvas (the filter creates more contrast between the lame base colors i mix, then i can add bounce shadows and shit).

i use a shit ton of digital cheats. single color overlay layers at the end of a piece, pizza face overlay glow, using vignettes around the border to draw the eye towards the subjects at the center, filters, color palette generators, etc. they make things sm easier so u can worry abt experimenting with other things.

i dont rly know how to explain how i do clothes or hair other than focusing on the shadows and worrying abt lights later. this is honestly the best tutorial i can think of bc in my head im just drawing what i see as best as i can with the pen i use. use a fuck ton of reference, do actor face studies, and try to experiment with ur style everytime u draw. ur never gonna learn how to use ur programs or expand if ur bogged down by trying to achieve a specific look. sometimes that thing u were nervous abt bc thats not how ur style usually works is the best thing on the piece at the end.

actually draw only what u want to draw in that very moment and use that as an opportunity to experiment however u can. i just draw chainshipping and find ways to trick myself into learning 👍🏻 sorry this is so bad if u have any specific questions i can try to answer those better

edit: this is what i mean when i say just draw with whatever base colors and use the lineart to add value. i thoroughly hated this piece at this stage but once i adjusted the pallet it felt much more cohesive and i could continue on with the drawing. the best thing i can say is to have absolutely no process past the same few first steps and resign urself to a cycle of self hatred and throwing random bs at the wall to see what sticks

[sam-loves-seb]

larry fucking seaver sounds like a hillarious fic to read and mama's boy gives off angsty vibes...at least for me

anyway I'd love to know more about them! I'm literally addicted to ur fics🤭

omg hi hello thank u for asking about my worksinthedocs post 💙 you're so sweet, i'm so glad you like my silly little stories

i'll tell you more about them under the cut

larry fucking seaver:

this one is a vignette style fic where it's just little scenes of mickey having to explain his life to larry and/or larry trying to help him in any way he can and mickey begrudgingly accepting it. like, it starts with larry driving mickey to the gallagher house after he gets released, and mickey has to explain to him that it's his boyfriend's house

(i'll give u a longer snippet of this one since i don't have much for the next one)

“So,” Larry pipes up just as some pop song on the car radio fades into a commercial. “It says here that…” He taps on the screen of his phone, reading something from where it sits in its little air vent clip on holder. “1955 South Trumbull is your address on file.” Larry glances over at Mickey. “Is that where we’re going today?” Larry fucking Seaver—of course he gets stuck with a goodie two shoes parole officer. Nothing could ever be easy, right? Mickey’s had parole officers before, most of them assholes, so he knows how to deal with the jerks, and the hard asses, and the fake tough guy routine he was expecting to get. Instead, he gets—whatever the fuck this guy is, and he doesn’t really know what to do with that. But that’s a thought for another time, because right now they’re passing under the L and turning into his old neighborhood, and the thought of going back to the house he was raised in makes his fucking skin crawl. “No. I don’t…” he trails off, the words dying on his tongue. He doesn’t want to go back, doesn’t want to face anyone or anything that might still be lingering between those walls, but he can’t say that. Not out loud, and definitely not to this walking pep talk of a parole officer he just met five minutes ago. “I don’t live there anymore.” “Not a problem, Mr. Milkovich—not a problem at all,” Larry reassures him, tapping his phone screen again after he comes to a stop at a red light. “I’ll just make a note in your file here… Okay! So—where to then?” Mickey hesitates. “North Wallace,” he says. “Take a left up here.” Larry lifts his hands from his phone with a small shrug, nodding to himself as he follows Mickey’s directions. “Okay.” They drive past Trumbull and Mickey doesn’t so much as turn his head to look down it. “Is this your house we’re heading to?” Larry asks, not skeptical, but… curious. Mickey sighs through his nose. “No.” “A relative?” Larry prompts, putting his blinker on and glancing over at Mickey again. “Or a friend, maybe?” And honestly, Mickey kind of hates this question, because this short answer would be yes—friend, lover, family, Ian’s been all of that to him and more for as long as Mickey can remember—but that’s not really the sort of answer Larry’s looking for, and Mickey doubts he could try and explain all that even if it was. He knows he never actually lived in the Gallagher house, not officially, not even technically, all those years ago, but right now that’s the only place Mickey wants to be. He doesn’t give two shits about the house, only cares about what’s inside—specifically, the tall redhead that still sleeps in the same twin-size bed he’s had since the fourth grade. Because the first thing most parolees do when they get out is go home, and, well—Ian Gallagher is the only real home that Mickey’s ever known. That’s a lot to reveal to a parole officer within the first hour of knowing him, Mickey thinks, but he figures he’s going to be seeing a lot of this guy, so he might as well be honest. Might as well get it all out in the open now. Mickey bites at the dry skin on his lip for a second before he finally says, “Boyfriend.” Larry doesn’t say anything. He blinks, then looks over at Mickey for a second too long. “It’s my boyfriend’s place,” Mickey says again, nails pressing into his palms as his hands curl into loose fists. “Well, his family’s. I guess.” For a moment it’s quiet, the only sounds coming from the steady flow of the air conditioning and some boyband singing on the radio. Mickey swallows. Larry taps his fingers against the steering wheel. “Huh,” Larry says mostly to himself. Then, a little louder, “Okay.” Mickey’s jaw visibly relaxes, and his shoulders drop a few inches as they pull onto North Wallace. The corner of Larry’s mouth quirks up into a grin. Mickey notices.

there's lots of other little scenes too (some i've written, some i haven't yet), like larry getting mickey the job at old army, mickey telling larry he and ian broke up--then telling him they're engaged, larry wanting to see pictures from the wedding, mickey and ian starting the weed security business and how that works with their parole, etc. etc.

but yeah. that's larry fucking seaver.

mama's boy:

this one is newer and still in an outline phase but it's not super angsty?? like it is, but it has a happy ending

it's basically a what if story, like what if: mickey's mom didn't die, she just left when they were kids. what if she's still out there somewhere, and sometime post-canon she's finally clean and sober and wondering about the kids she left behind all those years ago so she's slowly tracking them down one by one, and she shows up at apartment 218 one day to find a tall redhead answering the door that allegedly belongs to her son.

and mickey looks like he's seen a ghost, because he just assumed she fucked off and died somewhere outside of chicago, and that's why she never came back. but now she's here. in their apartment.

and she's telling him that his roommate seems nice and mickey's brain is still trying to process the fact that his mom is alive and sitting on his goddamn couch and she knows absolutely nothing about him.

so he tells her.

and it takes a while for mickey to loosen up around her, but ian is so excited for him, for both of them, because he knows what it's like to lose a mother--one that leaves--and as much as he hated monica, he loved her too, and he misses her more than he cares to admit

so he's not going to let his husband throw away a chance to have his mom in his life. not until he knows her a little bit first.

idk i just thought it was a neat idea, so. we'll see where i go with that one.

thanks for the ask! if anyone wants to know more about any of the fics in my worksinthedocs list, feel free to send me an ask 💙

[canmom]

brief comints on some comics

need to find energy to write some more Comics Comints but here are some very brief ones on some comics I read of late...

I read a bunch of Shintaro Kago stuff (The Princess of the Neverending Castle, Dementia 21). truly one of the best to ever do it, and I really need to do some kinda deep dive into what makes his stuff kick so much ass. but Kago's stuff has this absolutely ingenious playfulness to it - obvs it's got the 'fucked up body stuff' ero-guro aspect as a central pillar in which Shintaro Kago is uniquely inventive, but it's also constantly playing around with form in a way that like, you see the ideas getting developed from page to page from 'oh here's a fucked up thing' to the basis of an incredibly abstruse storyline that somehow feels fully coherent in its internal logic, even as the entire panel structure disintegrates into castle noodles.

he's also just both plain very funny and an absolute drawing monster. the two Neverending Castle books (Princess and Twelve Sisters - narratively disconnected but playing off the same ideas) are a special treat, gorgeous huge printings that really let you see all the crazy intricate little details, and the high concept is incredibly productive. Dementia 21 is bit more directly like... not so much commentary so much as using existing social tensions (in this case, caring for old people) as a jumping off point for darkly funny vignettes. also the interview at the back is great for Kago just completely no-selling most of the interviewer's attempts to pry.

started in on Oyasumi Punpun by Inio Asano. and guys. the expressions in this manga! honestly, the level of storytelling confidence is off the charts. I think I'm starting to get some idea of what it's doing and what the recurring interests are, but also damn, there is so much going on here. the manner of stylisation is really fascinating - it's like a great example of a sort of effect you can achieve if you understand realism forwards and backwards and then push it.

the eponymous punpun is heavily minimised in his own story - which is part of the premise, that he is so powerless and so completely failed by the adults who are too caught up in their own shit that he might as well be a cartoon bird. we have recurring invocations of the futility of human connection, it's doing a lot of stuff with religion-as-imaginary-friend and mixing sort of deliberately crude 2D graphical elements or really abstract compositions with the hyper detailed style. it's somehow like... moment to moment it looks super melodramatic but it's sort of processed through this dissociative haze which means the actual story ends up quite low-key.

I can see why people rate this one so highly, can't wait to get my hands on more.

I read some of the Sláine series - the Celtic barbarian character written by Pat Mills. in this case I had the Sláine the King arc, and some of the earlier comics, so I got a taste for the druid airships and stuff. Glenn Fabry's art is astonishing, it's as solid as an Otomo drawing but it doesn't feel sterile, it's got this incredibly expressive aspect, like it does so much to sell our sword-and-sorcery protagonist Sláine as a guy.

I'm someone who tends to read a lot more manga than Western comics in general, which is both a different approach to line and tone and also you tend to have the same artist drawing the whole series - in contrast, with 2000AD comic like this it's really striking seeing both how much value can be achieved with pure monotone, no greys, and also getting to see multiple artists tackle the same character in roughly the same idiom to highly varying results. there are approximately ten billion of these, but I haven't yet been able to track down the Horned God arc which is the one that was recced to me. hopefully soon.

comics are great

[fanficfanattic]

💙: How do they show love when they’re busy, drained, or otherwise unable to show it to the degree they usually do?

?? Regale us with your wisdom please!!

OMG. THIS WAS NOT MEANT TO GO TO THIS LMAO. IT’S FINE. I’M FINE. Lolol.

Roy Was Never Loaned Out (and what that means for season one)

Ask

So I have been kicking this around for ages in absolutely self-indulgent terrible Call Out Post style conversational vignettes. But the missing piece to that puzzle just occurred to me.

Ted knows so little about Football that I am fairly sure that he doesn’t actually know what On Loan means. Let alone what that means for Jamie. And we obviously have no idea the background history for most of the players. But we know that there is no way in hell that Roy was ever loaned out.

So feasibly there is no one there who really gets what it means. Probably Cartwright did for how little that’s worth. But the general idea is that Richmond is not Jamie’s club. He might actually still be getting paid through them rather than Richmond. Man City is his home club. If he’d still been at Richmond, he wouldn’t have been able to play the relegation match.

Ted doesn’t seem to fully grasp the specifics of Jamie’s loan contract. Rebecca certainly wouldn’t have gone out of her way to get Ted up to speed on HR shit. So he was pulling from his existing coaching experience which was at the collegiate level. With students.

He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know about the dynamics of it all. And he does not give much evidence to indicate he sought that out before barbecue-saucing his way in. Like jfc Ted. What the fuck?

Was Jamie a prick and a little shit? Yes, absolutely. (I love him, your honor).

But was he probably confused as fuck about why Ted kept trying to integrate him into a team he wouldn’t be with a few months later? YES! Absolutely!

And this fits into the greater Mind Games concept. Like obviously Jamie’s dad gave him the strongest foundation for that trauma issue. But I’d put money down that he didn’t think Pep was doing that with him. And Roy was straightforward so he didn’t have anything from that end.

Just mysterious Beard. And mental Lasso. And score the goals but pass so others score the goals. Like his contract wouldn’t say Score X Amount of Goals. But the Man City reason behind the loan would suggest scoring goals is the quickest way to moving up the ladder at his home club.

Anyway I have a lot of thoughts, thanks!

Some snippets of the self-indulgent nonsense under the cut.

Multiple Snippets from the cleverly titled Mind Games

“I know how to physically pass a ball. It’s how we get to the box. But I don’t just magically find meself standing there! I put meself in position to take the shot. You know, on purpose! If I’m where I’m supposed to be, with the ball, why am I passing? For fun? To manipulate someone else’s stats? To risk possession switching?”

“No! I’m not done yet, Roy, cause you don’t fucking see it yet, do you?

Not passing to me is more important to you than scoring goals. And you have the gall to act surprised that I don’t rely on you to get me the ball? That I take it from midfield to the box all on me own?

I’m doing everything I can to put points on the table so y’all don’t get regulated! A team I’m not even really on! Why do I care more about that than you? The captain!

Where you stand at the end of this season shouldn’t matter to me because at the end of it, I go back to me actual club. Man City. You might be familiar with them? You play against them in a couple of weeks. Which I am contractually not allowed to play during. Since Man City is me actual club! Remember that?

And I don’t tell anyone where they should be for me to pass to. That’s what you’re supposed to do instead of pretending there are only 10 people on the pitch.

You won’t visualize and tell us where to be. So we have to do that ourselves. And if I am the one telling me where to go, I’ll always choose to go do me fucking job. Which is score!”

It’s frustrating as fuck and Roy’s the only other person who can tell how messed up this is. And you aren’t listening to him any more than me, cause he keeps telling you to stop making me your playmaker! Do you know how fucked it is that the two players who hate each other most are the only two actually in sync?

[ryuichirou]

I saw the spice 🌶🌶🌶 stuff on Twitter and lemme just say I love your art style.

I was wondering if there is a place to read the AU's you have?

And also what kind of Twst AU have you created?

Ahhh thank you so much! Extremely happy to hear that!

I post everything there is to know about our AUs here and on twitter, but there isn’t much: these AUs aren’t as thought out as, for example, our shingeki AUs; this is why we don’t even tag them. It’s more like having concepts we play around with, with the stories still being vague and pliable in our heads, even though we do have rough directions for them. That’s why we don’t really write long posts and descriptions for our twst AUs. I guess, just dropping random scenes based on our discussions of these AUs with little to no context is too much fun lol

We’ll probably have more AUs, we really love creating them, but for now we’re too focused on consuming all the canon stuff (vignettes, events, etc). But still, these are the AUs that we have for now:

AzuIde Marriage AU. This is the one we post the most.

Azul and Idia get married for convenience, and this marriage is indeed very convenient for both of them: Azul gets all the legal perks + a personal genius inventor who can easily bring him lots of profit; Idia gets to play videogames all day and not to do much else. He also doesn’t have to socialize at all: Azul does all the socializing for him, making presentations, networking, getting investors and such.

They’re amazed by how perfect their marriage turned out to be: both of them are very happy. Idia’s life is stress-free for once; he has all the time in the world for himself and indulges in games heavily, not worrying about having to communicate with anyone other than Ortho and his gaming buddy. Azul is doing his own thing, spending all days working, talking to rich people, doing shady stuff, expanding, expanding and expanding his business franchises. But the thing is, by enabling each other to live in this self-indulgent comfort zone and giving each other “that one thing that he craves”, they make each other the worst version of themselves. Idia becomes even more of a hermit; Azul becomes even more obsessive and unhinged.  This is why it’s a perfect marriage, but also a horrible one. It kind of depends on how you look at it, thus they are very happy in the funny strips, but the bad ending is still a thing that could happen. Actually, there could be more than one bad ending, some of them involve these two staying together lol

2. Prison AU. Pretty self-explanatory: some characters are the inmates, some characters are the guards. This AU kind of has multiple universes inside of it at this point lol, just because swapping characters’ roles is fun. The main “route” is inmate!Floyd/guard!Riddle though.

3. Catherine AU? Kind of. The one in which Idia takes the role of the main character of the said game (Vincent); Azul is his long-term boyfriend (Katherine) who wants him to get his shit together, find a better job, marry him and live together already; and Lilia is a mysterious cute-looking guy who seemingly just wants to be with Idia and have fun with him (Catherine). Hilarity ensues. I would’ve drawn more stuff for this AU if we remembered the game better, but still.

[aviculor]

V/H/S/Beyond

The wraparound is a mockumentary about vhs tapes containing proof of alien activity that an anonymous Redditor came across, the footage of which has been digitized and is now being shown to us. I was honestly concerned about how they were going to handle the "sci-fi" theme because some part of me in the back of my mind is always afraid of a repeat of V/H/S: Viral.

I'm not in love with straying from the found footage roots and how crisp and clean the first vignette looks with obvious cinematic cuts, but I'm willing to hear it out. A rash of babynapping has led to a team of cops infiltrating a dilapidated manor infested with zombies.

Well, this is a better Resident Evil than the actual Resident Evil films.

That baby is obviously a dummy, which would have been obscured a little better if this "body cam footage" wasn't quite so 4K high-definition. To be fair though, Dead Meat's new video on V/H/S/94 let it slip that Shudder has guidelines for the look and feel of original content. So that's a pill that just needs to be swallowed.

BIG BIRD!?

So the wraparound is giving lore about the home in the first vignette, interesting. I wonder if that means all of the segments are about...nope, now we're following Indian paparazzi as they hound a movie star with a mysterious past.

Oh, that went from 0 to 100.

This actually has some moments of found footage style, which I was hoping to see. In general, I liked this one more than I thought I would. When we actually got a clear look at Tara's face, it was a lot less mechanical than I expected. I figured we were doing a full T-1000.

Now we got a group of skydivers celebrating their friend's birthday, and this is definitely doing a better job at the notion of being amateur footage by someone fucking around with a camera. Even if the quality is still too "clean".

Oh shit, oh fuck.

Well, once again, the cinematographic vibe got "better" once shit hit the fan.

Oh dear god, I thought he just pulled his cord too late. I didn't know his friend saved him and...oh, god. I don't know what James A. Janisse will think, but that's my pick for Golden Chainsaw right now.

Oh, this is the most gruesome vignette by far, and all of it is completely realistic so far. Besides a UFO causing the plane to crash, I mean.

Now THIS reminds me of the franchise's roots. We did it, chat. We got a slam dunk with this V/H/S film.

Laser beam face and electric wrist needles does seem like a bit of an overkill tbh. I would have been fine with the alien just using its bare hands. You don't need to put in more work to win me over, I promise.

DUDE USE THE FINGERS YOU HAVE LEFT

Oh. now they're getting meta with the commentary.

Next up, we have a group of animal rights extremists infiltrating a doggy day care because they consider the owner's taxidermies to be "mutilated corpses".

Where'd the third one go?

Oh, something "extra special", huh?

Yeah, all the dogs being boarded in a creepy basement that includes her taxidermy station definitely doesn't raise a red flag or two.

Good lord, Tusk wishes it was this.

I'm not sure if I loved how the...umm..."fur babies" looked, especially in the shots where it was obviously just a person since the shots using a puppet made the limb proportions look way different. But the concept behind this entire vignette was horrific in the best way. I was not expecting this film to go the places it has gone. However, I'm not sure "reconstructive surgery to turn people into dogs" actually counts as sci-fi. I was expecting the woman to be an alien in disguise.

Now an intrepid independent reporter is interviewing people who saw lights in the Mojave desert.

I don't know what I'm looking at here, some sort of string instrument-based operating system for a UFO? Nanomachines that heal injuries?

Oh no, if the aliens and animals were put in stasis for the space journey and she's just rawdogging it, what's going to happen?

Getting maimed on the strings and being reconstructed by the nanites that don't have a genetic template for humans so they're filling in the gaps with lizard, octopus, and tarantula. Good lord, I knew they wouldn't go out on a weak note.

Wait, the vignettes weren't the tapes? Then what were we watching this whole time? What are they about to show us??

Whew. Alright. Well, as I said earlier, Live and Let Dive was my favorite segment even thought it did get a little "too much" towards the end.

FUR BABIES WAS MADE BY JUSTIN LONG!? IT ACTUALLY WAS A TUSK REFERENCE!?

[m34gs]

You asked me earlier and now I want to aks you! What are your top five favourite scenes (main plot, event, etc) from Twisted Wonderland?

Hi friend! Thank you so much for this ask, I'm happy to share my answers as well 🥰💜 Sorry I took so long, I was waiting for my day off and then I had to think about it quite a bit because there's some really really good scenes that I love in a lot of the game! But I think I have it narrowed down! (for the sake of simplicity, I did NOT include vignettes, and I haven't played all that is available for Book 7 yet so I didn't include it either)

Let's count it down!!!

5: Book 6, when Crewel is helping manage the infirmary after STYX attacks the campus. For obvious reasons, you know. (And for those who don't know, it's because I'm crushing on Crewel real hard and I find a man taking care of others, especially when he's taking care of kids, incredibly hot)

4: Book 3, when Jade and Floyd go to comfort Azul after his overblot. I just love those three so much. Book 3 is my second-favourite (current fave being book 6 because IDIA MY SON) and their friendship just makes my heart melt so much. Also, one of the major scenes that cemented me shipping Jade and Azul together, because of the level of concern that seemed to come across from Jade in that scene. I just loved it.

3: Glorious Masquerade event, when Idia confronts Rollo Flamme. Ugh, it hurt my heart so much. And I could feel Idia reliving his own pain while he was talking to Rollo. I just about started crying. It was so emotional. Also, I just adored that entire event because, as you know friend, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is one of my absolute favourite Disney films. The art and the music are amazing. I really think this event did justice to both the animation and the soundtrack of the original film. I truly loved it so much.

2: Book 4, when Yuu and Grim fall into the Octavinelle dorm while running from Scarabia. Listen, I absolutely *love* when a character goes to someone they helped in the past, desperate and scared, and that person reacts like "who scared you :) I just wanna *talk*". And that is *exactly* what happened in that scene. You cannot convince me otherwise. It was so beautiful. I was giggling so much.

Honourable mentions: Book 5 Malleus reveal for Yuu (and the reveal to the other cast of Yuu's nickname for him); Book 6 Rook, Epel, and Yuu finding the Island of Woe and confusing the shit out of Idia; Book 3 finding out Yuu and Grim stayed up all night to scream outside Leona's door until he caved in and agreed to help them; Book 3 reveal of the twins' eel forms; Phantom Bride event Idia getting fucking kidnapped; Book 6 Rook and Vil revealing how they met and sounding exactly like a married couple telling their children how they fell in love; Wish Upon a Star event Idia showing up because he wants Ortho to be happy.

1: And the number one spot goes to: BOOK 6 IDIA'S OVERBLOT. Ok, I know, this scene isn't happy. And his overblot extends for more than just a scene, it's a pretty significant chunk of the story in Book 6, but still. If it isn't fucking cathartic. I live for that shit. I could feel his heartache. I find I identify a lot with Idia's desire to protect and care for his younger brother. Finding out what happened to him, and finding out where his brother was tugged at my heart so much. Seeing him basically descend into madness for the sake of his brother? Relatable. 10/10 I would do the same for either of my siblings. If they were trapped in basically hell and wanted to unleash destruction on the world? Who am I to say no??? So I get it. Plus, I really enjoy the overblot designs. I think they're so pretty, and I love Idia's. Also, I just love the imagery of him opening Tartarus. Of him falling into it. This is my personal bias but I think the inky overblot style looks the best on his colour palette 💜

Hope my answers satisfied your curiousity, my friend!

[bookloure]

Books finished in May| May has been a good month, but I'm also ripe for another social media break! When I took a month break last March, I decided I will do it periodically—quarterly, in fact. So I'll be gone again for a bit in June, from the third week (because I still have a book to review) up to the second week of July. Sana afford ko mag sabbatical chz.

Now let's talk about books—the highlight is I discovered that I loooove body horror because of a random eARC I got. The cheka part is that I gave my first 1star of the year. Anyway, here are the 10 books I finished this month, ranked:

4.5⭐

📱 Kindred by Octavia E. Butler - It has been forever since I stayed up late because I can't put a book down. This totally did it. Of course I felt shit the next day, but damn it's so worth it!

4⭐

📖 It's A Mens World by Bebang Siy - It's a collection of the author's personal stories chronicling her girlhood in Manila. Funny, relatable and quite charming, but also dark in places.

📱 Welcome To Your Body: Lessons in Evisceration, edited by Ryan Marie Ketterer - Before this book I already had an inkling that I like body horror—Grease by Junji Ito and Earthlings by Sayaka Murata are two of my favorites, but this book gave me different flavors of body horror and I enjoyed sampling every story. Of course, I like some stories more than the others, but as a collection I honestly will give this 5 stars. It reminded me of Deesha Philyaw's "The Secret Lives of Church Ladies" in the sense that it feels very much like a cohesive collection. Top tier!

📖 Tao Sa Prowa: Mga Tala, Mga Taon by Allan Popa - Another stunning collection. It's a series of seemingly random vignettes on different aspects and phases of life, that is, until I came to the titular piece—then it morphed into a rounded collection. And the theme is revealed. I would say it's similar to Saglit: Mga Ala-ala't Muni by Rofel Brion, but (10x) better.

📱 Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End Volumes 7&8 by Kanehito Yamada and Tsukasa Abe - I adore this series so much!!! It's starts in the end and shows the reader how we carry the people we meet to the future even though our time together is over. I tear up a lot reading this manga lol.

📖 Asintada: Mga Tula by Lilia Quindoza Santiago - Simple. Pero pag tinamaan ka bubukol for sure.

3⭐

📱 Giraffe and a Half by Shel Silverstein - Minsan trip ko lang bumasa ng children's book. Solid naman ito hehe.

📱 Sheets by Brenna Thummler - Loved the art style, the story, not so much.

1.5⭐

📱 🎧 Bel Canto by Ann Patchett - So disappointed with this because it's a highly anticipated read. I guess I'll just put my Goodreads review here: The writing is gorgeous because it's Ann Patchett, but I did not connect with this for some reason, so I was already planning to give it 3 stars... but then I found out what Peruvian historical event this book takes inspiration from and it just left a bad taste in my mouth the erasure and co-opting of POC stories and histories. I wouldn't have learned about the Lima Hostage Crisis if not for other Goodreads reviews. You'd hope that the telling of these stories would help shed light, but the author swept the Peruvians under the rug instead. In their own story. Very British Museum behavior.

And that's a wrap! 🌯 I already cried to LOTR: The Return of the King, so June is already going so well lol.