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workersolidarity · 2 months

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[ 📹 A number of children are brought in to a hospital in Gaza after an Israeli drone bombed the children on the roof of their home in the Al-Bureij Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday. 📈 The current death toll in the Gaza genocide now exceeds 38'919 Palestinians killed, while another 89'622 others have been wounded since October 7th. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

GAZA GENOCIDE DAY 288: ISRAELI OCCUPATION PRIME MINISTER BLOCKING NEGOTIATIONS WITH HAMAS, WHITE HOUSE CONSIDERING SANCTIONS AGAINST BEN-GVIR AND SMOTRICH AS ICJ ACCUSES ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF VIOLATING INTERNATIONAL LAW, GENOCIDE CONTINUES UNABATED AS MASSACRES OF CIVILIANS ESCALATE

On 288th day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 4 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 37 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 54 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or whose bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

The Zionist Prime Minister of the Israeli occupation, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuses to authorize his negotiating team's return to Doha, Qatar, to resume negotiations with the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, in order to finalize a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal that could lead to an end to the genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Reporting also stated that Netanyahu is hesitant to ratify any deal prior to his planned trip to the United States, where the Prime Minister is scheduled to give a speech on July 24th to the American Congress, and will meet with US President Joe Biden.

This comes as pressure builds on Netanyahu to sign a deal with the Hamas resistance movement, which has resulted from increasing diplomatic isolation for the Zionist entity, while dozens of families of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza continue to demand the Prime Minister ink a deal to return their family members as quickly as possible.

The families, along with other groups of Israeli activists, have organized regular popular protests in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, demanding the Netanyahu regime reach an agreement for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, while Netanyahu has accused the Israeli security establishment of imposing the US President's proposal on his government.

In a meeting Netanyahu called on Friday, the IOF Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, demanded that he sign an agreement for a hostage exchange deal, after which, the Prime Minister ended the meeting.

Earlier last week, the Israeli Prime Minister said in a press conference that "for months there has been no progress (in hammering out an agreement in Gaza), because the military pressure was not strong enough."

In response, Halevi demanded Netanyahu apologize for his comments during a security conference attended by the heads of the Shin Bet security services and the Mossad intelligence agency, telling the Prime Minister that "These statements are serious. I demand that the prime minister issue an apology."

In other news on Saturday, US President Joe Biden's White House are considering issueing sanctions against National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, two openly fascist Israeli cabinet ministers, during a meeting of the National Security Council on Wednesday covering how to respond to Israeli attacks on the occupied West Bank of Palestine, and the deteriorating situation there.

Israeli colonial settlers have regularly attacked Palestinian communities in the West Bank, largely sanctioned by the Israeli government and backed by the Israeli occupation army, while the government has continued a policy of expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, while holding up the tax revenues belonging to the Palestinian Authority.

According to reporting in the American media outlet Axios, the Biden administration is "deeply frustrated" with the Netanyahu regime's continued policy of settlement expansion and the weakening of the Palestinian Authority, noting that the more extremist members of Netanyahu's coalition have openly allied themselves with fascist colonial settler groups and militias.

Axios says the meeting was called after yet another surge in violence by Zionist colonial settlers against Palestinian communities, while the Netanyahu government has announced plans to build another 5'000 housing units for Zionist settlers and to legalize five illegal outposts.

On Friday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague determined the Israeli occupation's practices and policies "violate International law" and that the occupation is violating Palestinians right to self-determination in the occupied West Bank, and further accused the occupation of violating the Geneva Conventions.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation has continued its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, while decimating the few remaining housing units, facilities and infrastructure of Gaza.

On Saturday, sources with Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, reported that doctors with the facility succeeded in saving the fetus of a pregnant woman who was killed after the Israeli occupation forces bombed her home in the camp during the early morning hours.

The woman was immediately transferred to the hospital, where doctors in the Operating room managed to remove the fetus, which was born alive, before being transported to the Nursery at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah.

According to Palestinian sources, Zionist warplanes bombed several residential homes and a gathering of civilians in the Nuseirat Camp, killing at least 6 Palestinians and wounding several others.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it's rescue crews recovered the bodies of 4 Palestinians killed in the occupation's strikes, after Israeli warplanes bombed the home of the Al-Tawil family in the Nuseirat Camp, before recovering two more dead bodies after a bombing that targeted a group of civilians on Al-Rashid Street, a coastal road west of the camp, transferring the dead and wounded to Al-Awda Hospital.

In another atrocity, occupation artillery detatchments shelled the vicinity of the community college in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City, after which, PRCS paramedic crews transported the bodies of 6 martyrs to Al-Ahili Baptist Hospital in the city.

The war crimes of the Israeli occupation continued when Israeli fighter jets bombed a residential apartment belonging to the Ayyad family in the Mari' Abu al-Amin area of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, killing 6 Palestinians and wounding more than 10 others.

Zionist warplanes also bombed the Al-Sharahi family home in the New Camp area of the Nuseirat Camp, killing 4 civilians, including citizen Yassin Al-Sharahi, his wife and his children, and wounding a number of others.

The Israeli occupation army then went on to bomb a residential house belonging to the Abu Sidra family in Camp-2 of the Nuseirat Camp, near the Al-Talaa Mosque in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several Palestinians.

The occupation's atrocities and war crimes continued when Zionist fighter jets bombed the Abu Jasser family home in the Al-Alami area of the Jabalia Refugee Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, resulting in the martyredom of 4 Palestinians and wounding a number of others who were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital in the camp.

Occupation warplanes later bombed a residential home belonging to the Al-Batran family in the Al-Bureij Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of 3 civilians and wounding several others, while another bombing destroyed a populated house near the Martyr's roundabout in the camp.

The crimes of the Zionist Army continued with an occupation drone strike that targeted a civilian riding a bicycle on Street-5, north of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing the Palestinian resident who was taken to Nasser Hospital in the city.

Reports also state that the occupation army continues to bomb and shell neighborhoods west of the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, in conjunction with artillery shelling of residential neighborhoods east of Khan Yunis.

In yet another violation of International humanitarian law, IOF fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to journalist Mohammad Jasser, killing the journalist, his wife and two children, all of whom were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The Israeli occupation army followed up their horrific crimes by bombing the home of the Al-Sabbagh family in the Al-Zarqa area, north of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of two Palestinians and wounding several others.

Occupation artillery and airstrikes also continue pummeling the Al-Da'wa neighborhood, north of the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, while near non-stop airstrikes and shelling have also been targeting various neighborhoods of Gaza City, as well as northern and southern Gaza, killing more than 25 civilians since dawn on Saturday, with the majority of victims being children.

The attacks continued into the evening, when Zionist army fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to the Siam family, west of the Yassin station, in the Saftawi area north of Gaza City, while victims of the bombing were transported to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the city.

Another occupation bombing targeted a residential building in the Nuseirat Camp, resulting in the martyredom of 3 civilians and wounding a number of others who were transferred to Al-Awda Hospital in the camp.

Later on Saturday evening, an Israeli occupation drone targeted the Araba area, north of Rafah City, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinians and wounding others, while four Palestinian children were wounded by an occupation drone strike that targeted the children on the roof of their home in the Al-Bureij Camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, the death toll now exceeds 38'919 Palestinians killed, including more than 10'000 women and well over 15'000 children, while another 89'622 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

This brings the official total number of casualties to 128'541, or the equivalent of 5.58% of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinian residents.

July 20th, 2024.

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munson-blurbs · 8 months

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Living After Midnight (Failed Rockstar!Eddie x Motel Worker!Reader)

♫ Summary: Being a perpetual people-pleaser meant that you were constantly putting others before yourself--particularly your parents and the eccentric guests who stayed at their motel. But when a surly and mysterious musician checked in indefinitely, he flipped your whole world on its head. (3.1k words)

♫ CW: slowburn, strangers-to-lovers, angst, drug use, parental conflict, poverty, eventual smut (18+ only, minors DNI)

♫ A/N: Thank you to my numerous beta readers, including but not limited to @the-unforgivenn, @lofaewrites, @lokis-army-77, and @corroded-hellfire, and to @hellfire--cult for the divider. I am forever indebted to y'all.

chapter one: room for one more

It was always the quiet nights, wasn't it? The ones where the only sounds came from cars barreling down Queens Boulevard and splashing through puddles left by an earlier rainstorm, or from the clock ticking on the wall.

The ones where your mind wandered until you’d thought yourself in circles, overanalyzing every last decision you had ever made.

The ones where you allowed your guard just down enough that the slightest oddity threw you off-balance—something or someone out of place.

It was during the quiet nights like that night where you should have expected the unexpected, because New York City never stayed still for long.

The evening’s sluggishness was normal; tourism always slowed in the springtime. The newest shows on Broadway were already months old, not to mention the warmer weather brought both an uptick in crime and pollen count. If out-of-towners were going to schlep to the East Coast, they’d prefer to see the cherry blossoms hours south in Washington, DC than to get mugged on the 1 train.

Business picked up in the winter months when people flocked from around the world to witness the Thanksgiving Day Parade, the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, or Dick Clark’s Rockin’ New Year’s Eve, even though they were several bus and subway transfers away. Outsiders to the tri-state area struggled to differentiate between boroughs; it was unfortunate for them, but you counted on it to keep business alive.

The only guests who consistently frequented your family’s motel were junkies looking for a place to shoot up away from the NYPD’s watchful gaze or affair-havers who were considerate enough not to sully their marriage beds—just their vows. You were in no position to judge; their money was what kept the lights on, but it was impossible not to compare your clientele to the suits who stayed at the Marriott down the street. They wouldn‘t even allow homeless folks to sit within twenty-five feet of the building, let alone stay under their roof.

You leaned on the desk, wood grain pinching your elbows. You tapped your pencil against your textbook as you read, its margins cluttered with notes about different types of parent-child attachment styles.

Sleep prickled at the corners of your eyes, blurring the words on the page in front of you. Focus.

Secure attachment occurs when—no, you’d already read this line. Twice.

“Dammit,” you muttered under your breath, gently slapping your cheeks in a futile attempt to stay awake. Taking a full course load instead of your usual part-time was your academic advisor’s ill-conceived idea, bolstered by the prospect of an earlier graduation. In your haste, you’d neglected to consider two important factors: all of your studying now had to be done during your night shifts, and graduating meant telling your parents a truth they were unready to hear.

They were so proud of the motel, regardless of its reputation. It might as well have been The Plaza from the way your dad boasted about it. The three of you shared an unspoken understanding that you worked the front desk because paying an actual employee would put them under. Maybe if finances weren’t so tight, you could have freely admitted that your future plans didn’t involve taking over the business.

Your eyelids fluttered shut as your head rested on your book, a small puddle of drool pooling atop Bowlby’s theories.

Ping ping ping ping!

Time slowly stretched out before you, your conscious brain clawing its way out of its hazy fog. It took a beat for you to recognize that the incessant noise came from someone repeatedly smacking the tiny bell that sat on the desk.

“Hey, hello?” an impatient voice called out, jolting you from your impromptu nap. You blinked away the residual sleepiness and took in the sight in front of you: a curly-haired man, likely not much older than you were, a cigarette that had been nearly smoked down to the filter tucked between his lips. He had a patched guitar case strapped to his back and clutched a black garbage bag filled with what you hoped was clothing.

“Sorry,” you grumbled, wiping the moisture from your chin. “Need a room?”

“Mhm.” You could practically hear his eye roll: no, I just stopped by in the middle of the night for a quick chat. Fancy a cup of tea and a scone?

He plopped the garbage bag on the ground; its soft landing and the way it wrinkled told you that whatever was inside was, thankfully, not a body.

You nodded and turned around to the wall of keys behind you. There was no shortage of rooms; the only occupied one was being rented by Phyllis, a sixty-year-old self-described ‘entertainer of gentleman’ who paid double her bill in exchange for your silence.

He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on the countertop, grinding it into the base for good measure. “How much per night?” he asked, digging into his pants pocket and pulling out a wallet held together with duct tape.

“Fifteen.”

The man breathed out, his bangs fanning over his forehead. “Jesus.” He fished two twenties and a five from the billfold and placed them in front of you. “This should cover me until Friday, yeah?”

Nodding, you folded the bills and tucked them into the register kept under the desk, only accessible by key because of a series of break-ins during the late ‘70s.

The man lit another cigarette as you pulled out the ledger and a pen. “Name and date here,” you said, pointing to the ‘check in’ column. He took a drag before scrawling his name on the line: Eddie Munson, 5-4-93.

“All right, you’ll be in…” you scanned the assortment of keys dangling from their hooks. The walls were thin, and this guy seemed decent enough, so you decided to spare him the theatrical sound effects of Phyllis’s room 10 endeavors. “…room 4. Make a right down the hallway, and it’ll be the second door. Can’t miss it if you try.”

Your attempt at humor fell flat, both of you too exhausted to laugh. You strode past it, clearing your throat as if dispelling the tension. When you placed the key in his calloused palm, you couldn’t help but notice that the base of each fingertip is a half-shade paler than the rest of his skin.

“Thanks.” Eddie mumbled. He tapped the cigarette above the ashtray, the gray flakes falling into a neat pile. His right bicep flexed underneath his denim jacket as he heaved the garbage bag over his shoulder, careful not to bang it against the guitar.

He scuttled out of the tiny room masquerading as a lobby, shoulders hunched from the weight of the bag and of the burdens he inevitably carried. No one shows up to a motel in the middle of the night without a story or two.

After years of greeting guests at the front desk, you liked to think you had a decent read on them. Eddie was quiet, maybe even introspective, but not necessarily shy. He was tired; no, more than that: he was worn down, like so many other people who had come through these doors.

Most importantly, Eddie didn’t seem like he'd be much trouble. He didn’t stumble in wasted and reeking of booze or fidgeting as he awaited a fix. He wasn’t shouting or poorly concealing a wandering eye or making lewd comments. He’d made pretty much no impression at all besides being a bit gruff, which was just fine with you. Your personality wasn't composed of rainbows and sunshine at this hour either.

You looked at the clock and sighed when it only read 2:17. It’s already tomorrow, you thought grimly. Just under four hours until you could walk ten feet to your room, curl up in your bed, and sleep until it was time for your afternoon class. After years of balancing school and work, you were in the last two weeks of your final semester, and then…what? You casually inform your parents that you were leaving the family business–essentially forcing them to close it–to pursue a career in social work?

That was sure to go over well.

To their knowledge, you were studying hotel management and hospitality in order to “improve the business.” That was why they’d relented when you’d asked to start taking classes, switching you over to the night shift to avoid having to hire a new employee.

What they didn’t know is that your school didn’t even offer that as a major. Nor were they aware of the acceptance letter into NYU’s Masters of Social Work program that was stashed inside your dresser drawer, hidden from sight. That was a conversation for another day when you found the strength to face their disappointment.

Chaos waited to strike until the end of your shift.

Just as you packed your book back into your bag, a familiar, skunky odor wafted past your nostrils.

Ignore it, you thought. Let it be Dad’s problem when he takes over in five minutes. But if you could smell it, so could any of the cops patrolling the boulevard. One more citation and the motel was in jeopardy of being permanently shut down, and you couldn’t take that risk.

With a frustrated sigh, you yanked open the desk drawer and reached in for a pen, instead pulling out an unopened box of crayons. A twenty-four pack of Crayola—the good kind. You plucked a waxy cornflower blue from its spot and scribbled Be back soon on a Post-It note, sticking it on the front of the desk. Grabbing the pepper spray canister from its spot next to the register, just in case, you started down the hall. Marijuana wasn’t Phyllis’s drug of choice, though it might have been one of her various gentleman suitors’, but the scent was too strong to be coming all the way from room 10.

Maybe this Eddie Munson was trouble, afterall.

You knocked on his door, firmly but without aggression. It certainly wasn’t the first time you interrupted someone’s buzz, and it wouldn’t be the last. You knew better than to go in guns a-blazing; it’s easier to catch flies with sugar than vinegar.

Eddie opened it after a moment, cracking it halfway and revealing a lit joint pinched between his plush lips. One forearm was perched on the doorframe, showing off faded ink of a litter of flying bats and a dragon-esque creature. He was clad in only navy blue boxer briefs, but his lack of attire was no surprise. Many guests were shameless, not bothering to cover the holes in their Fruit of the Loom tighty-whities and showcasing faded yellow stains on the crotch. What confused you was the elastic waistband proudly proclaiming ‘Calvin Klein’ that cut off the soft hair trailing from his belly button. It seemed absurd that he would have been lugging around any designer clothes in that trash bag, but there was no other possibility.

“Can I help you?” he asked, shaking his curly bangs out of his face. Half-lidded brown eyes scanned your form, trying to determine whether you were a narc or trying to bum some bud off of him. His window was cracked open enough to let in fresh air, which also meant that the acrid smell could easily be let out.

“You can’t smoke that here,” you reported matter-of-factly, just as you had a million times before. When he cocked a challenging brow, you continued. “Cigarettes are fine, but no weed. The police will come after us and you.”

He looked around the room, unbothered, and absentmindedly scratched at his bare chest. A demon’s head was sketched just above a sparse patch of hair. Under different circumstances, or maybe in another life altogether, you would’ve asked him about his tattoos; if they had some philosophical meaning or were the products of spur-of-the-moment decisions. You could have blathered on about the ideas you had for your own future tattoos, if you ever worked up the nerve to actually get one.

“You mean to tell me that with all of the skeevy shit that goes on around here, the cops are gonna waste their time on a little pot?” He scoffed and took another defiant pull, holding it for a few seconds before exhaling away from you.

I guess chivalry isn’t dead, you mused, stifling an eye roll. “No, but they’re always looking for an excuse to ‘investigate,’’' you threw air-quotes around the last word, “so they can bust us for more serious things, and that is the perfect one.” You gestured to the joint only to be met with an eye roll. “Look, you can either put it out, smoke it somewhere else, or you can leave. Full refund, but you can’t stay here.”

His stare locked onto your steely eyes and clenched jaw, only breaking when you’d straightened your posture to stand your ground. “Whatever,” he huffed, but he snuffed it out. A glimmer of a smile danced on his lips, disappearing nearly as quickly as it arrived. Despite its fleeting nature, it managed to thaw you enough so that your arms weren’t held quite so tight to your body, your expression less rigid. “Just trying to relax and get some sleep, like you were while you were supposed to be ‘working.’” It’s his turn to supply the air-quotes, both in mockery and as a gotcha. A teasing lilt elevated his voice, smoothing out the edge he’d greeted you with earlier.

“I wasn’t sleeping, just…resting my eyes,” you volleyed back, your smirk betraying any semblance of the tough façade you’d worn.

Eddie crossed his arms and walked over to the garbage bag of clothes. He rummaged through it for a moment before procuring a pair of gray sweatpants, stepping into them hurriedly as though he just remembered his minimal attire.

“Maybe if you chose more interesting reading material, you wouldn’t be sl—resting your eyes on the job,” he amended, gesturing to the textbook in your canvas tote bag. “Ever heard of Stephen King?”

“I live in a motel, not under a rock.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You live here?”

Shit. That wasn’t information you regularly divulged. Sure, this guy seemed harmless, but looks can be deceiving. Prime example: wearing designer underwear while using a trash bag in lieu of a suitcase.

It was too late to double back, so you nodded. “Yeah,” you admitted reluctantly. The sole of your sneaker dug into the old carpet.

Eddie looked like he wanted to say more, lips parted and eyes wide like there was a follow-up question sitting on the tip of his tongue. Before he could ask it, your gaze landed on the clock radio: six AM on the dot.

“I need to go,” you said hurriedly. Shame at your sudden shyness burned a hole in your belly. Eddie Munson was a guest; for all intents and purposes, he was a total stranger. There was no reason to be intimidated by him. “Good luck falling asleep,” you added with a weak smile.

The easy banter that had been building between you dissipated in an instant, taking his good mood with it. His goodbye was a sardonic salute, the mattress springs creaking wearily as soon as you closed the door behind you.

Sure enough, your dad was in the tiny lobby, assessing some peeling wallpaper. “Gotta fix that,” he mumbled to himself, thumbnail picking at it aimlessly. He turned around when he heard the door open and smiled when he saw you.

“Sorry, I was helping out a guest,” you rushed to explain, hoping he wasn't too anxious to find the desk left unattended.

The wrinkles in your dad’s forehead became more pronounced. “Is everything alright?” The phrase ‘helping out a guest’ could range from unclogging a toilet to calling the police for a domestic dispute.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” you reassured him quickly, flashing an exaggerated thumbs-up. “No law enforcement necessary. Didn’t even need to use the pepper spray.” You waved the canister in your palm before placing it back.

He beamed, leaning in and pressing a kiss to your scalp. “It’s times like this where I just know I’ll be leaving this place in good hands.”

You swallowed the bile that crept up your throat and feigned a smile when he pulled you in for a tight hug. The mingled scents of Irish Spring soap and drugstore aftershave tickled your nose, and tears stung along your lash line.

If only you knew, you thought, giving him one last squeeze before you headed to your room. Disappointed wouldn’t even begin to cover it.

Your parents would never say the word aloud; they’d look at each other and heave identical weighted sighs. Their lifelong goal of a long-standing family business would vanish in the blink of an eye. Dad would pretend there was a chance that they could afford a new hire, even going so far as to fumble through the years of financial statements before inevitably throwing in the towel; Mom would force a pained smile and hoarsely encourage you to follow your dreams, even at the expense of theirs.

You shook the thought away as you trudged towards your room, sneakered feet like sandbags below you. Dwelling on this scenario had you teetering on the brink of insanity, so you’d willed yourself to focus on something else. Anything else.

Like the motel’s newest guest and his smile. The way it softened the hard lines on his face, offering you a glimpse of how he wore happiness. Something about it made you want to see him happy again.

You can’t even figure out how to make yourself happy, you thought, peeling back the starchy sheets and finally crawling into bed, much less a stranger. For all you knew, he was just relaxed because his high was starting to kick in, and not from some warming presence you’d supplied.

The sun cracked pink through the sky, visible through the paper-thin curtains hanging on the window. You had become accustomed to this backwards routine, able to fall asleep while daylight broke. It took a few extra moments this time; you were anticipating marijuana-tinged fumes to float through the vents when Eddie ignored your instructions.

It was that flicker of a smile that had you almost certain he would spark up once you’d left. The smile of someone who so naturally flouted authority that he no longer bragged about it. Yet time ticked by without a hint of evidence that he was smoking again.

Which begged the question: if the smile didn’t signify defiance, what did it mean?

Eddie Munson is definitely trouble, you surmised just before you drifted off, but nothing you can’t handle.

taglist:

@theintimatewriter @mandyjo8719 @storiesbyrhi @lady-munson @moonmark98 @squidscottjeans @therealbaberuthless @emxxblog @chrissymjstan @loves0phelia @kthomps914 @aysheashea @reidsbtch @mmunson86 @b-irock @ginasellsbooks @erinekc @the-unforgivenn @dashingdeb16 @micheledawn1975 @yujyujj @eddies-acousticguitar @daisy-munson @kellsck @bewitchedmunson @foreveranexpatsposts @mykuup @chatteringfox @feelinglikeineedlotsofnaps @sapphire4082 @katethetank @sidthedollface2 @eddies-stinky-battle-jacket @mysteris-things @mrsjellymunson @josephquinnsfreckles @the-disaster-in-waiting @eddielowe @hugdealer @rip-quizilla @munson-girl @fishwithtitz @costellation-hunter @cloudroomblog @emsgoodthinkin

#eddie munson #eddie stranger things #eddie x reader #eddie x you #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson x f!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #eddie munson angst #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfic #stranger things fanfic #fanfic #eddie munson stranger things #stranger things #lam

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cleanroo · 1 month

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Top Financing Options for Your New Roof: A Complete Guide | Clean Roofing

Your roof is a vital component of your home, safeguarding you and your family from the elements. Unfortunately, roofs don’t last forever, and when the time comes for a replacement, the cost can be significant. This is whereroof financing comes in – a strategic option that can help you address your roofing needs without straining your budget.

Read More info:- Financing for a new roof

#financing for a new roof #smart choice roofers #roofing upgrade financing #heloc for new roof #loan for new roof #home equity loan for roof replacement

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seat-safety-switch · 5 months

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The Property Brothers are on the radio telling me it's too dangerous to do my own electrical, roofing, or structure. I'm done listening to those boys, these children. I'm going to drive this fucking 1996 Dodge Dakota right through my living room.

Home renovation used to be a thing that was only accomplished by your drunkest uncle, at the absolute peak of his powers. Folks would move into a house and they'd just be fine with things. New wallpaper, new paint, maybe re-do the bathroom when one of the kids leaves the tap on over the weekend. You'd have the occasional eager beaver who would really go nuts and put a shonky extension on the place, but in general houses stayed the way they were.

Then, reality TV started. It turns out one of the things all people want to do – all people – is to knock down a wall and really "open up" a living area. Throw a sledgehammer into that tile you hate in the kitchen. Rip out the bathtub and put in a soaker. Make the neighbours watch as you slowly fill up an orange rental dumpster over the course of two years with the former interior of your home. Slap in some new stuff, and repeat in ten years.

This just happened to coincide with wage deflation, and a massive increase in the popularity of financing your home reno. It's cool, just put it on the charge card. You're worth the $2500 countertops that don't match your appliances. You can throw those in the trash, too. Really rock and roll. Dream home, baby.

Now, I'm not one of those prudes who says to never do things yourself. In fact, I am doing something right now. I am picking some surprisingly sharp chunks of a once-perfectly-good Chesterfield out of the air-conditioning condenser of my Dakota. It is essential, however, that you understand my renovation was started from a place of rage, and not any kind of misplaced urge to "keep up with the Joneses." The Joneses are probably who did this to me in the first place. And now I've got lots more covered parking for motor vehicles.

Probably improve the property value too, come to think of it. I really opened up the space.

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ghostboneswrites2 · 7 months

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A Mess || Reader Walsh X Daryl || Part 1

New account! @ghostbones was banned! Transferring everything here, beginning with this series since it was the most popular!

Summary: You grow tired of sneaking suspicions of Lori and your husband sneaking off together. When you finally catch them in the act, a grumpy redneck happens to be the one to help you through it in his own, unconventional way.

18+ MDNI || WARNINGS: profanity, nongraphic depictions of sex, TWD typical violence

You were so sick of him. The way he stood with his hands on his hip, squinting in the Georgia sun as he watched over the camp -- or, more specifically -- watched over Lori.

You respected it at first, when Rick didn't wake up and he told you, "We gotta go get Lori and Carol, (Y/N). We just got to. I gotta do right by him."

You didn't say anything when you were all stopped on the highway, watching the planes drop bombs on the city that was supposed to welcome you into safe refugee centers, and his first instinct was to hold Lori instead of you. You thought she had to be terrified, to lose her man and have to keep their son safe in such trying, unpredictable times. She probably needed that hug more than you, his own wife.

You were young when you married Shane. A drunken night led to one thing, one thing led to a baby, a baby led to another thing; a ring. But, you had a miscarriage after the wedding, and as we all know that doesn't nullify a marriage. Regardless, it wasn't a bad marriage. The relationship was mostly solid. You had suspicions, like when he'd come home from a night out with the other guys on the force with what you could have sworn were faded lipstick stains that he couldn't wipe off well enough, or smelling faintly of perfume and cigarettes. Still, he took good care of you, and you had a fair bit of freedom. He financed your art supplies, bought you records, helped you get back into school.

Your parents never had a good marriage so in comparison, you were doing well for yourself. Better than your mom, who lived on wine and Xanax, or your dad, who worked his fingers to the bone in that office, hunched over a computer, addicted to porn and cigars.

You often wondered if they had survived the initial outbreak, or if they were stumbling around King County somewhere with no heartbeat.

You shook the thought away, eyeing Shane from atop the RV where you were supposed to be watching for walkers. His skin was shiny with sweat. You wondered how long it'd be before he disappeared into the wood again. Funny how Lori always seemed to disappear at the same time, no doubt leaving Dale or Carol to keep an eye on Carl. Funny how since you'd all set up camp there by the quarry, Lori hadn't been able to make eye contact with you. Funny how he had been short with you, yet somehow managed to remain controlling as ever. You weren't allowed out of his sight unless he was already out of yours. You couldn't talk to men like Ed or Merle and his brother. You couldn't touch the guns, not until he showed you how to use one properly. You couldn't go wash up in the quarry unless he was there to escort you at night, which he conveniently never was. You couldn't--

"You alright up here?" Dale asked.

"Oh. Yeah." You shook your head clean of the whirlwind of suspicion.

"Don't seem too focused." He observed.

"Yeah, you're right. Sorry." You said, holding the binoculars to your eyes and turning your attention to the trees.

"Why don't you go on and take a break. I'll keep an eye out for now." He offered.

"Actually, you know what? That would be really great. Thanks Dale." You smiled and passed his binoculars to him. You wanted to protest. Watch duty was your favorite, and just about the only thing you could do to make yourself useful aside from washing other people's dirty underwear.

You climbed down from the roof, expecting to walk over to your husband, but he wasn't where he stood just moments prior.

You turned to Amy, who was sitting on the steps of the RV, fanning herself. It was a particularly hot day.

"Hey. Did you see where Shane went? I just saw him over there." You asked, her pointing to where he once stood.

"I think he went to check the perimeter." She said, holding her hand over her eyes to look up at you without being blinded. It was probably just about noon now with the sun high in the sky.

"Right." You nodded. You scanned the campers around you. "What about Lori?"

She shook her head.

"No, haven't seen her in a while. Carl's over there with Carol. She might know."

You sighed, thanking Amy as you made your way to Carol.

"Hey. Seen Lori?"

"Yeah. She asked me to watch Carl for a bit. Not sure where she went, though."

You felt a heat in your chest. Exactly as you suspected.

You jogged back to Amy. "Hey, which way did Shane go?"

She pointed over to the tree line on your left.

"Thanks, again." You smiled in a thin line as you marched to the woods. You were determined to put an end to this shit, one way or another.

You knew they couldn't have gone far. You had just seen him not five minutes ago. You were sure you could catch up. If the Dixons were around, you'd be half tempted to approach one and ask them to track for you. Probably the younger one. That Merle would probably ask you what you were willing to give in return, and you had a feeling he wouldn't be looking for payment in the material sense. You heard quiet rustling and heavy breaths. You ducked down and made slow, quiet steps, glancing down at the ground periodically to avoid any snapping twigs or overly crunchy leaves. You came to some thicker bushes and brush, crooning you neck to peer over the leaves and thorns.

Your stomach dropped. There it was. His sweat stained white tee, panting over her navy blue tank top that fit rather loosely with all the weight loss. Her jeans and underwear in a little pile off to the side, his gun set right on top. You clenched your jaw. You wanted to storm over and yell obscenities, to kick them both into the dirt. You were stuck, though. You couldn't move. You were so angry that you were cemented in place. Most of all, you were hurt. You were younger than Shane, and younger than Rick and Lori, but somehow, some way you thought Lori was a friend to you. You watched Carl when she and Rick took date nights from time to time, you two grabbed coffee together, went back to school shopping for Carl just to get you out of the house.

It would have been one thing had she not known you, had she been a complete stranger, but she was supposed to be a friend, and Shane, he was your husband. Tears stung at your eyes as your pulse became noticeable under your skin.

That's when you saw something else, a human shape walking up behind them. Could it be? A walker coming to exact your revenge for you? No, you could never be so lucky. It was the Dixon, the young one. His boots were heavy against the forest floor, drawing the attention of Shane and Lori. They both scrambled, Shane standing and buttoning his pants back up as Lori sat and pulled her jeans over her lap to cover herself.

"Hey, man -- I -- We can explain --" Shane stuttered, Lori looking mortified.

"Ain't me ya gotta explain to." Daryl shrugged, glancing over Shane's shoulder at you as you slowly stood to your feet from behind the bushes.

"Look, man. You say anything --" Shane hissed, no doubt gearing up for some halfhearted threat, but Daryl cut him off again.

"Won't have to." He told Shane, throwing another look at you, this time prolonging eye contact.

Shane and Lori followed his gaze and landed on you.

"(Y/N)" Lori breathed.

You tore your eyes from the huntsman, shooting visual daggers at your unfaithful husband and his backstabbing mistress.

Shane took a deep breath, rubbing his hand over his face. You said nothing. There was nothing to say. You just looked at Daryl one more time before you turned around.

"(Y/N), come on!" Shane called after you. "Let's talk about this."

You didn't want to. You just stomped your way back to camp, ignoring the curious eyes as you pulled all your things from your shared tent with Shane. You really only had your backpack and a blanket. The two of you shared the sleeping bag and a single pillow, but you didn't want that. It would smell of Shane, and at that moment the thought of him made you nauseous. You took your bag and your blanket, and made your way down to the quarry. Surely that would be the most peaceful place to sleep, by the water, under the stars, away from everyone else.

"(Y/N.)" Shane said from behind you after he likely followed you back. "What the hell are you doin'?" He asked, referring to your backpack and blanket in arms.

"Fuck you." You grumbled.

"C'mon, what are you doin'?" He asked again. You spun on your heel, seething.

"No, Shane. What the hell are you doing?!" You shouted, drawing eyes from all around. You didn't care. In fact, you saw it as an opportunity. "Sneaking off?! Getting your dick wet?!"

"Don't do this here." He said quietly, glancing over his shoulder to where Carol sat with Carl and Sophia. They were all staring in shock, the whole camp. He reached his hands out to grab your shoulders but you stepped back, chest heaving with rage.

"Oh, why? So your girlfriend's kid doesn't know she's getting down and dirty with you in the leaves out there?" You spat back, only loud enough for him to hear. "You haven't touched me in weeks. Not since the night we left home, but you can't keep it in your pants around your dead best friend's wife?"

You shoved his chest with both hands, dropping the blanket to the ground in the process. His eyes grew dark, that pleading expression turning cold.

"I don't give a fuck how sorry you are or aren't. I don't give a good god damn how guilty she feels. I hate you, and I hate her." You added, just to drive the knife in deeper. If they could stab you in the back, you'd stab them in the chest.

"Don't be stupid." He growled.

"Stupid is having unprotected sex in the middle of the woods when your wife is sitting on top of an RV with binoculars. Stupid is fucking your best friend's wife. Stupid is--"

He grabbed your arm with force, dragging you far away from the others. He lened in close to your face, eyes wide with fury.

"You need to stop." He warned.

"I am stopping. I'm stopping all of it. Congratulations, Shane. You don't have to hide your affair anymore. Because you no longer have a wife to cheat on. Oh, and by the way, you suck at hiding it. You both do. The whole fucking camp can see you two disappearing at the same time, every single day. We all see how you look at her, how you play house with her and Carl like your wife isn't sitting ten feet away. Is that what it is? You like making me look like a fool?"

"I'm only gonna tell you once." He hissed, scowling down at you like you were the one who betrayed him. "Keep your mouth shut."

"No problem." You sneered. "I'll keep my mouth shut, and you'll keep your distance."

----

It was dark out. Despite the blazing heat in the daytime, the nights could get pretty chilly, especially down by the water. You didn't mind. You set against the cliff, back rested against your bag, blanket wrapped over you nice and snug. You enjoyed all the stars above. They were hard to see back home, but now, without all the light pollution, they were beautiful.

"Shouldn't be out here alone." A husky voice rasped. You looked down past your feet to see the shadow of an archer, the very one who happened to catch Shane and Lori when you did.

"Nah. If any of those freaks stumble through here, they'll be drawn to the fire and the lanterns. I'm safer than ever over here in the dark."

"Mm." He hummed. "Y'alright? After--"

"After I caught my husband fucking another woman? Yeah. All things considered, I'm better than ever." You scoffed.

"Bein' mad don't mean ya gotta be stupid. Can't stay out here." He insisted.

"Well, my tent is Shane's tent, and the RV is full." You sighed.

"Jus' take mine." He offered.

"Yours." You repeated. "And you're gonna sleep where?"

"Outside. Prefer it that way anyway." He shrugged.

"Yeah, no. I'm not kicking you out of your own tent."

"Ain't kickin' me out if I offer."

"Well, thanks, but I'll be declining that offer."

"Suit yourself." He said as he walked back to camp. Daryl wasn't the type to go out of his way for someone else. In fact, it was rather annoying that you couldn't accept his kindness when he felt obliged to offer it. He saw how you looked when you caught them, the sickening blend of grief and rage. You hadn't done anything to deserve that, at least to his knowledge, yet you were the one with nowhere to sleep. It didn't sit right with him.

He remembered something, though. A bottle of whiskey he had stashed away in his tent. If he couldn't convince you to sleep somewhere warmer and safer than on the bed of red clay by the water, maybe you'd accept something to take your mind off it all.

He ducked into his tent and grabbed his bottle, paying no mind to his fellow survivors all huddled around the fire making small talk. Lori and Shane sat near each other, Carl in between them talking to Shane about his favorite heroes, Shane telling him stories about his dad.

Shane's eye caught Daryl as he made his way down the quarry with a bottle of liquor, no doubt on his way to you. He felt a heat in his chest, the same kind you felt when you found him rolling in the dirt with Lori. She noticed his sudden tension and followed his gaze. She looked back to Shane with worry, attempting to calm him with her eyes.

Daryl found you laying on your side, backpack under your cheek like a pillow.

"Ya sleep?" He asked.

"No." You said, monotone and irritable.

"Ya like whiskey?"

You sat up. Of course you liked whiskey, this is the south.

"You have some?" You inquired. He held the bottle out to you and you took it, twisting off the cap and taking a large swig. "Thanks."

"Ain't a gift." He clarified. "But ya look like you could use a drink."

He sat down a foot away from you, facing the water. You passed the bottle back to him.

"Well, thanks for sharing."

"Mhm."

"What would you do?" You asked him.

"Huh?"

"I mean if you had a wife out here and you caught her fucking someone else."

"Kick her outta my tent." He said.

"And if it was her tent?"

"Too bad. Shouldn't've been sleepin' around." He shrugged, swigging the bottle and passing it to you.

"Uhuh." You nodded, sipping. "What else?"

"You askin' me for advice or somethin'?"

"Something like that." You guessed.

"Well I'd probably kick his ass for fuckin' my wife knowin' I was right there."

"Mm. I'd love to but I can't exactly whoop someone who still has to look out for a kid."

"Guess ya just gotta ignore 'em." He suggested, taking the bottle as you handed it over.

"How? I live with them."

"Want me to kill 'em?" He joked. You chuckled.

"Kinda." You admitted.

"Mm. Too easy. I'd tie 'em up outside the city and leave 'em to the walkers."

"Oh, you've put thought into this?" You asked. He tipped the bottle bac and took a gulp.

"Nah. If I did I'd have somethin' more creative."

"The hell's this?" Shane asked, suddenly looming over the two of you.

Daryl stood up. "Just havin' a drink." He said, eyeing Shane.

"With my wife?" Shane stepped forward, so Daryl did too.

"Looks single to me." Daryl shrugged. He didn't come over with the intentions of making a move on you. Really he hadn't noticed you around at all. He, however, also wasn't one to back down from a fight, and he already had a distaste for the ex-fed, self proclaimed leader.

"What?" Shane asked through gritted teeth, swaying as he grew more antsy to take a swing.

"You're a real piece of work, you know that Shane?" You sighed, standing up. You weren't phased by his sudden intrusion, you knew him too well to be surprised.

"Yeah, why don't ya go back to sleepin' with the widow?" Daryl added. That was enough for Shane. He threw the first punch, but Daryl recovered quickly, getting a good knock to the ribs in before you inserted yourself between them, one hand to each man's chest.

"Can we chill with the dick-measuring contest? He brought me a drink because he felt bad for me. Nothing else, because unlike you," you said to Shane, "some men are capable of keeping their willies tucked away."

"Yeah, right, like he wasn't just waitin' for you to get drunk and start feelin' vengeful." Shane spat.

"I don't fuck drunk girls, asshole." Daryl spoke up. "That's for cops and losers."

"Man, you think you can take me? You want a piece of this?" Shane started to raise his voice now.

"Yeah, c'mon then, prick." Daryl said, throwing his arms up. The two men stepped in circles around you as you tried to keep a barrier between them.

"Yeah, come on then, pussy!" Shane shouted.

"Pussy? Nah, man. You're the coward, slidin' your dick in some vulnerable window when ya had a tight piece o' ass right here waitin' for ya every night!" Daryl yelled back.

"What is goin' on here?" Lori came in, eyes blazing between the three of you.

"Wha'd'ya waitin' for, man? There's your side piece, go on and get her!" Daryl said.

Shane lunged forward and you gripped around his torso tight, banking on the hope that he wouldn't hurt you to get past you, at least nit in front of her.

"Don't fuckin' talk about here like that!" Shane seethed.

"Yeah well ya sure didn't care 'bout me callin' your wife a tight piece of ass! I see where your priorities lie!"

You couldn't afford to get distracted with the details as you put all your focus and strength into holding on to Shane to prevent anyone from getting hurt. However, the Dixon made some valid points.

"Stop it, you two!" Lori begged.

"Hate to say it," you strained against Shane's strength, digging your feet into the dirt as his strong frame fought against you. "But I'm with Lori."

"Y'all need to calm down before--"

"Is everything okay?" Dale's voice sounded from behind Lori, cutting her off. Amy, Andrea, and Morales stood with him. Lori sighed and put her hand over her forehead.

Shane finally relented and you gratefully let go of him, turning to face the crowd of onlookers.

"What happened here?" Dale inquired.

"He was makin' a move on my wife." Shane panted, still coming down from the surge of adrenaline and rage.

You scoffed, gawking at his audacity. You glared at Lori for a moment, running your tongue over your teeth before you shook your head and chuckled.

"No, he brought me a drink because he felt bad for me, sleeping out here alone." You corrected.

"Why are you sleeping all the way out here?" Andrea asked, shaking her head with confusion.

"Yeah, it's really not safe. You should be up there with us." Amy added.

"Yeah, Shane, Lori." You cocked your head to the side, crossing your arms as you looked between the two of them. "Why am I sleeping all the way out here? Hm?"

Lori looked at you with wide, anxious eyes as Shane just shot daggers at you and Daryl. Lori looked back to everyone else, who seemed to be confused, except for Dale who had a knack for picking up on things.

"Maybe we should head back to camp. It's getting late." Dale suggested.

"I'm good." You rolled your eyes. "Thanks for ruining yet another peaceful moment." You said to Shane.

"I'm confused." Andrea spoke up.

"Oh, allow me to clarify." You smiled, sickeningly sweet. Lori shook her head at you, but you ignored her. "Shane, my husband, and Lori, have been keeping a secret from us. Care to share with the class?"

"(Y/N), man, come on. Why you gotta start problems?" Shane let out an exasperated sigh.

"No? Okay, allow me to speak on your behalf, then. My husband has been fucking Lori, who, if you guys weren't aware, is married to Shane's best friend, who he claims is dead." You said.

God, did that feel good.

Everyone looked stunned, save for Lori who just looked humiliated and mortified, and Shane, who was more pissed than anything else.

"Some leader, huh? A real honest guy." You added, just to add insult to injury. Salt in the open wound, if you will.

"Oh...kay... Why don't we just.." Dale was at a loss for words.

"Maybe (Y/N) can stay in the RV with us." Amy suggested.

"Yeah, I think that'd be just fine." Dale agreed.

"No need." You looked to Shane, smirking. "Daryl here has offered his tent."

Daryl shot you a look. He had no intentions of being your pawn in some twisted revenge scheme.

"You did?" Andrea asked.

Daryl nodded. "Yeah, told her she could have it 'til she figures somethin' else out."

"And you're gonna sleep... Where?" She wondered.

"Outside." He shrugged.

Shane scoffed and shook his head, hands rested on his hips in that police stance you had grown to hate. Your nostrils flared at him in disgust.

----

"Why'd ya do that?" Daryl asked. You were all back at camp now. He was grabbing some essentials from his tent to make room for you. "Make it like it was somethin' it ain't?"

"What do you mean? I told the truth. You offered your tent."

"Nah, you wanted to get under his skin." He shook his head at you as you stood with your bag over your shoulder and your dusty blanket balled up in your arms.

"I mean, yeah, but--"

"But nothin'. I ain't gon' be part of your revenge and I damn sure ain't gonna be no rebound dick to ride 'til ya feel better." He cut you off before he stormed away.

Taglist || Masterlist

#daryl x reader #twd daryl dixon #twd daryl #daryl dixon fanfic #the walking dead daryl #daryl dixon #daryl fanfiction #daryl twd #daryl x female reader

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rustingcat · 1 year

Text

The moment Kara heard Sam was coming to town she knew there would be trouble.

Not that she had anything against the woman, quite the opposite, she absolutely adored Sam. But her visits tend to be a bit… chaotic.

It started not long after Ruby turned old enough to babysit Esme by herself. Sam would fly to National city for a weekend, leaving Ruby at the Danvers-Olsen house for a paid sleepover with Esme, and dragged the superfriends to the nearest Bar to get them all shitfaced drunk.

Kara would not easily forget waking up on the roof of a ferris wheel once, wearing a clown outfit and hugging a pogo stick. She did forget the events leading up to that point due to the large amount of alcohol she consumed the night before.

Kara briefly toyed with the idea to visit her parents on Argo for the duration of Sam's visit, or at the very least her first night. But she hasn't seen her in so long, and with Kara's very busy schedule she decided it's a good opportunity as any to take some time off and enjoy a night out with her friends. She just hoped there would be no stumbling drunkenly into any more theme parks.

That's why she was very surprised to learn that Sam's new adventurous plan was a simple game night at Kara’s apartment.

With alcohol, of course.

Kara kept her drinking at a minimum, just enough to get some nice buzz out of it, but a far cry from a complete black out. She wasn't the only one, most participants had seemingly decided to avoid a similar fate. Much to Sam's disappointment, Kara assumed, since she kept asking them to do shots.

After a few tame games of Settlers of Catan and a round of pictionary, Sam decided to spice things up a bit. They started with a game of 'would you rather' that slowly evolved into an open question format where everyone answered the same questions.

"Favourite… type of apple?" It was Nia's turn to ask, she spent almost 5 minutes struggling to find a question before settling on one.

"Really? That's the best you got?" Sam asked disappointed.

"I was panicking! That's the only thing I could think of!" Nia said defensively, her arms raising in the air in surrender. "Do you have anything better?"

"You know it," Sam said with a sly smile.

"Go ahead then."

"Alright," Sam clapped her hands, moving her gaze from one person to the next slowly before she continued. "Not including your actual partner, who would you marry out of the people in this room?"

"And I can't choose Nia?" Brainy asked, his hands deep in Nia's hair, drunkenly caressing her hair between his fingers. He may have gotten slightly drunker than most by trying to be nice and accepting most of Sam's shots.

"That would be against the rules." Sam smiled and twisted the wine glass in her hand.

"That's preposterous!" He exclaimed. Nia's head recoiled with a small groan of pain as Brainy accidentally hit her head. "There is no possibility in the multiverse I would pick anyone but her!" He announced, Nia remembered to move her head in time to avoid the second hit.

"You're no fun," Sam rolled her eyes. "Nia?" She smirked.

"Only Brainy, of course." She proclaimed loudly. Brainy rewarded her with a kiss on the forehead while she mouthed 'Kelly' under her breath.

Sam winked to her in return, while the rest tried to hide their chuckle.

"Kelly, you're next for no particular reason," Sam turned to her with a smile.

"Nia," Kelly replied with a matching smile. "For no particular reason."

"Alex?" Sam changed the topic before Brainy could interject.

"You know, I think we could've worked out," she weaved her hand towards Sam's direction.

"Yeah, we could've had some fun," Sam smirked back at her. "Alright, Kara, what about you?" She turned to face her.

"Lena," Kara answered without much thinking.

"Well, she is rich, it makes sense," Sam said under the rim of her glass.

"Rich wife is very convenient," Alex nodded in agreement.

"I'm not choosing her because of her money." The idea of reducing Lena to her finance, a walking wallet if you will, infuriated her. She was so much more than that. Kara put down her empty glass and stood up a bit faster than she intended.

"Then why her?" Sam challenged with a raised eyebrow.

Kara blinked in surprise, was it not obvious? "Because she is amazing! She's brilliant, smart, kind and… pretty," she added with a small blush creeping up her neck. "Also a great listener and problem solver, which is important in a relationship. And-"

"Yeah okay, we got it," Alex cut her off.

Kara gave her a mocking look in response, eyebrows squinted and tongue sticking out as she walked up to the kitchen to refill her glass.

"Lena, who is your pick?" Sam continued with the game.

"Kara, of course." The way she said it, as if there were no other options, filled Kara with warmth she was not expecting. She also wasn't sure why it made her smile so much, but it did. Then again they were best friends, it would be awkward if they were not to pick each other, right?

"Hey Kara, can you get me a beer?" Alex called out.

Kara studied her for a second. "No, you were being annoying."

"Wha- Kara!" Alex whined.

"Get one yourself," Kara shrugged, and poured herself a glass of white wine.

"Kara, can you give me a glass of red, please?" Lena asked. Her voice was so soft, it sent shivers down her spine.

"Of course," Kara quickly pulled another wine glass from the upper cupboard and placed it on her kitchen island.

"Hey, I asked you first," Alex shouted in retaliation, as she finished filling the second glass. "So you're getting Lena's drink and not mine?"

"Yes," Kara answered with a smile, walking back to the living room while maintaining eye contact with her sister, knowing it would annoy her more.

"Why?" Alex challenged, squinting her eyes while maintaining the eye contact.

"Wife privileges," Kara shrugged and took her place next to Lena, shifting a bit closer to her this time before she placed her glass on the table.

Kara almost forgot about the whole thing, until a week later when Lena brought it up. They were sitting in Lena's new office, talking about her new conjoined plan for both her foundation and the newly reformed L-Corp for a new source of green energy. A top secret plan, but Lena was talking about it with so much enthusiasm that Kara couldn't help herself, asking more and more questions, eager to learn more about it. Soon after, Kara found herself in the halls of the foundation's labs, Lena excitedly telling her about the project in detail.

"This sounds amazing, Lena! But I thought this was top secret, not that I'm complaining. I love seeing you this enthusiastic, but how come I get to hear about it?" Kara asked eventually.

Lena was quiet for a moment, before she answered "wife privileges," with a shrug, her cheeks slightly pink.

Kara brought it up next, when she forced Lena to leave the office at a reasonable time. Claiming 'wife privileges' as the reason Lena has to follow her home and relax for a bit.

Lena later used it as an excuse to steal a fry off of Kara’s plate, even though she insisted she only wanted a salad. When she met Kara raised brow she simply shrugged and claimed “wife privileges.”

It quickly became an inside joke for them, a reason for them to do a nice thing for each other or an excuse to get away with stuff; like buying lunch, stealing clothes or bringing surprise pastries. Things they were already doing anyway, they just had a better excuse to do it more often.

"Hey, it's been a month since that game night," Kara said, raising her very fancy wine glass to her lips. Lena invited her to a fancy Italian place that opened recently. It was right after Kara mentioned a craving for pasta the day before.

"Are you suggesting it's our anniversary?" Lena smirked, leaning back on her chair. She didn't need to be specific, she knew Lena knew what she was talking about.

"Happy anniversary." Kara raised her wine glass and smiled. She loved how quick Lena could understand her.

"Happy anniversary." Lena raised her own glass to toss it with hers, smiling her wide smile with the dimples that made Kara all warm inside. She was so captivated by the smile that it took Kara a few moments to realise the waiter was standing right beside them.

The meal was, of course, amazing, not only because of the quality Italian cuisine, but her fantastic company. Kara always felt most like herself when she was with Lena, she wasn't sure why but she made her feel at peace.

They finished their meal, still deep in conversation, sipping the remaining of their wine when the waiter appeared. Presenting them with a complementary tiramisu with a candle and two spoons, wishing them a happy anniversary.

Kara was about to correct him when Lena thanked him with a nod and gestured for Kara to dig in. She couldn't help the goofy smile that spread on her face. Out of all the inside jokes so far, she had the feeling that that was their best one yet.

Read the rest in AO3

#so excited to publish this little fic #been sitting on that one for a while #kara danvers #lena luthor #supergirl #supercorp #supercorp fic #my art #my fic

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reve-de-sang · 24 days

Text

i love this a lot. i wanted to do a series of oneshots with lestat v florence. i wanted shade that would darken the earth. it was going to be fucking hilarious.

but first my brain forced me to get him in the house somehow.

getting this man in the door again, let alone living there? for my brain it takes Paul making a different choice and Lestat going all in. and Louis, with no tragedy to torch his life, facing his own misery. and a little more sex.

“You still doing business with that man Lestat?”

“Nah. Didn’t work out.”

“That’s good. ‘Cause he the devil.”

“You think everyone’s the devil.”

“He’s here to take souls. He told me so. He spoke to me without moving his lips.”

“He got tricks is all.”

“Mortal sins must be confessed, Louis.”

“Ain’t never gonna see him again, Paul.”

Paul nodded thoughtfully.

“You think Levi loves her enough? You know, Grace needs a lot of love.”

“I do.”

“Do you think he’s givin’ her everything he’s got inside him?”

Louis nodded. “Mm-hmm.”

Paul sighed, and stood up from his perch on the rooftop adjacent to Louis. “Mother made a good party for Grace.”

“Mm-hmm. Yeah, they gon’ talk about this one for years,” Louis grinned.

Paul considered Louis. Louis’s face was bathed in the gold of the rising sun as he studied the sky.

“I love you, Louis.”

“And I love you too, baby brother.”

Paul made his way over and sat down on the peak of the roof next to Louis. “I ate too much chocolate cake,” Paul sighed.

They watched the sunrise blossom from pink to lemon.

—

“I don’t take kindly to being avoided,” a voice at his elbow growled.

Louis tipped back the last of his sazerac and met Lestat’s eyes in the mirror behind the bar. “Most people would pick up on the message in that. You all more direct in France? Tell each other to fuck off?”

Louis had perhaps had too much to drink tonight. He felt worn thin. Things were supposed to have gotten back to normal after Grace’s wedding. He was back to being the dutiful son, the flawless executor of his family’s estate, the benevolent brother and caretaker, the generous parishioner, the upstanding community member, the ruthless proprietor, the deferential fellow businessman to the white power players who kept him in the orbit of their social circle—but never any closer. Every hour was accounted for, every movement beyond reproach.

But “normal” didn’t work anymore. It was like having his head shoved back under water. He hadn’t had a breath in weeks, and Lestat looked like the surface of the ocean above him.

Even now he felt his heart pound at Lestat’s mere proximity. Damn him.

Lestat waited for the bartender to pass them by. They had a miraculous bubble around them from the crowd at the moment, but nowhere would’ve been private enough for the conversation Louis was trying to avoid.

“You send mixed messages,” Lestat said, looking away from the mirror to address Louis’s profile. “Before your absence you made an excellent case for our…continued business dealings.”

“My schedule is full, Lestat. I don’t have time for what you’re proposing. Or interest, either, for that matter.” Louis signaled the bartender for another drink.

“A drowning man pouring even more fluids down his throat,” Lestat mused.

“What do you know about it.” He needed to tell him to fuck off. He was going to find the strength any moment now.

“Quite a lot, actually. By my own experiences.”

A tipsy man and woman bumped gently against Louis’s elbow as they settled at the bar, and apologized. Louis ignored them, and also tried to ignore the weight of Lestat’s gaze on him.

“Before I came to America, I, too, ran my family’s estate. A town of people looked to me to fulfill a role. There was no escaping it, despite my attempts. It became my identity. I know what it means to suffocate, Louis.”

Louis scoffed. “Yet here you are.” The bartender slid his new glass to him, removed the empty.

“I met someone. We fell in love. My mother financed our escape.”

Louis rolled his eyes over to Lestat with sharp scorn. “So you abandoned your family.”

“Yes. Save for my mother, I despised them. And this person I loved showed me what it was to live.” Lestat laid his hand on the bar near Louis’s elbow, conversationally, not touching, but tantalizingly close. “However, you do not need to abandon your family, or your beautiful city, to live, Louis.”

“I’m doing just fine.”

<<You are several fathoms deep, I wonder that you have endured so long. Perhaps it is practice. But now that you have had a taste of air, you will not survive like this. You know what it is to breathe, now.>>

Louis was humiliated to find sudden tears burning at his eyes and looked away, trying furiously to stifle them. Knocking most of his drink back. “Cut it out.”

<<Oh, Louis.>>

The woman next to him bumped Louis again as she burst into a gale of laughter, and Lestat steadied Louis’s elbow as he stumbled. Startled at the electric contact, they locked eyes.

“It is too crowded in here, and hot,” Lestat said. “Let’s get a breath of fresh air.”

—

Louis leaned into his intoxication on the walk back to Lestat’s place, inevitably Lestat’s place. He was too drunk to do the right thing, too drunk to remember his obligations, too drunk not to sin.

He wasn’t drunk enough.

He was far too lucid as he pounced on Lestat the second the front door clicked closed, and was the one to drag them, guide them up the stairs as they feverishly slipped their tongues and lips together, pushing each others’ clothes away from their bodies. If it was inevitable tonight, Louis didn’t want to fuck around with music boxes and glass tumblers of expensive whiskey and talk.

Lestat took him apart in his bed once more, yet Louis felt power in being the one to cause Lestat’s hands to tremble, to inspire Lestat’s worshipful kisses down his body, settling between Louis’s legs like a supplicant.

Louis couldn’t deny his own hand in this, how powerfully he needed it to happen. As they merged together, Lestat at his throat and buried in his body, Louis coaxed Lestat to greater heights—harder thrusts, stronger pulls from his neck—chasing the exquisite joining and obliteration of isolation in his own body.

Louis’s lungs were heaving like a racehorse as he came down in the aftermath. Like before, Louis had the sensation they were of one mind as they stared, dazed, into each others’ eyes. Louis’s skin was a continuation of Lestat’s, and Lestat trailed a palm over his hip, an extension of himself. Lestat’s still-hard cock was Louis’s, sheathed deep within him; they shivered in unison as Louis squeezed down to stoke the pleasure again.

<<We should live like this forever,>> someone thought, and they agreed.

—

And then it was morning.

The windows glowed lilac before sunrise. Louis stirred; he’d maybe had an hour of sleep, but he felt more alive than he had in years.

Reality hit him like a blow.

He needed to learn how to cut all of this out of himself all over again.

“No,” Lestat rasped, coming awake with Louis's thoughts. <<Louis. Choose us. Choose us,>> he pleaded.

Louis curled away. They both groaned in pain, and Louis dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

“Can’t.”

Lestat shifted to press his forehead to Louis’s shoulder blade. <<Then take me into your world. Don’t leave me here.>>

Louis froze. “What?”

“Louis. My dowry would eclipse your family’s fortune several times over.” He pressed a kiss to Louis’s spine, skated his knuckles down Louis’s ribs. “Give your mother one more son to keep her in the life to which she is accustomed. A stronger safety net for Paul. And you…the companion heart you have been longing for.”

Louis reached back to still Lestat’s hand, clasp it. “That’s not going to work here. I don’t know what you get up to in France? But you have to know that’s insane.”

Something about the sunrise felt urgent to Louis, but he pushed it from his mind. He turned in the bedsheets to face Lestat. He forgot what he was going to say as they cupped each other’s faces.

“Say yes.”

“I— I don’t— The world doesn’t work like that.”

“You make me want to try.”

“What?”

“Louis,” Lestat murmured. “You know that money opens most doors. And you must know the things I can do—” a frisson of power washed over them, “—has depths unfamiliar to you. But more than those things, if we are for each other, we can have a life we neither of us could have dreamed of.

“I want to tell you a story, Louis. I was sworn to secrecy, and the man who demanded my oath would kill you if he learned of this. But I swear to protect you with my life. You see—I have witnessed the kind of life we want. It was on an island, far from here. I will tell you how we can have something like it and make a home.” He stroked his thumb over Louis’s cheekbone. “There is danger in this knowledge. The choice is yours.” Lestat hesitated, looking uncertain, hopeful. Desperate. “Do you want to know?”

“Lestat. I— What the fuck is wrong with your head.”

—

Louis’s distantly related cousin was overjoyed to find a family relation in New Orleans. They regaled their usual fellow card players at the Fair Play of their chance discussion of their ancestors, and their excitement at discovering kin in front of them all along.

“To have a likeminded ancestor travel from Auvergne to the new world—no wonder the journey called to me,” Lestat reflected as he lost a round of poker lavishly. Tom knew he was being buttered up with the winnings, but was off-balance as to how to treat the burgeoning union before him.

Tom didn’t care what kind of money this ridiculous fucking foreigner threw around, there wasn’t room at the societal table for du Lac to move up in the ranks. Fenwick, when he sobered up, was going to throw a shitfit, but for now he seemly dimly ambivalent.

<<I would rather have your support than your ambivalence, Tom,>> Lestat’s voice rang in his head. Tom felt a sense of vertigo as he noticed the sudden stillness of the other players, frozen in their movements. Du Lac and Lioncourt alone were animated, smoking their respective cigar and cigarette, regarding Tom the way he himself was used to appraising those who worked for him. How drunk was he?

<<We’re so glad that you know a good opportunity when you see it. And that you’ve decided to take us under your wing as we expand our interests in the city,>> Lestat’s voice continued, everywhere and nowhere at once. He ashed his cigarette and studied Tom with his eerie cold eyes. <<Your generous offer to sell us the Fair Play at such a bargain—well. It feels like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.>>

“Uh, yes,” Tom stuttered, knuckling an eye. He felt like he was in a dream. He’d always liked Lioncourt, and du Lac was a decent fellow. Seemed a shame not to cultivate a strong relationship there. “Happy to, happy to. I know a good opportunity when I see it. I’ve decided to take y’all under my wing as you expand your interests in the city.” Tom sniffed, absently felt for his tumbler of whiskey.

“Feels like—well. To the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Tom said, giving them a jaunty toast and draining his glass.

—

Louis absolutely refused for Lestat to use his tricks on his family. Anyone outside the house: fine. But not on his family.

“You’re doing what?” Florence’s polite voice could have frozen over hell.

“Lestat will be moving in with us, Mama.” Louis perched on the edge of the sofa in the parlor. Lestat’s posture next to him was more relaxed, but Louis sensed his tension. Florence sat across from them. In Louis and Lestat’s planning for this, Lestat had insisted Louis was not truly asking for permission, and Louis agreed. They both knew they were lying to themselves.

“We’re going to be working closely on a large business proposition over the next several years. Developments in the city,” Louis continued. He glanced to Lestat. “Lestat will be merging his fortune into ours.”

“Madam,” Lestat began, plucking an envelope from his inside suit pocket. “I have had my attorney make an accounting of my assets that will soon be at the du Lac family’s disposal. However, we would like your blessing.” Lestat offered her the envelope. “Does this meet with your approval?”

Florence received the envelope as if she had been handed someone’s soiled handkerchief. And it smelled.

She delicately lifted up the flap and extracted the fine parchment. Florence tucked the envelope behind the document as she unfolded it and regarded the accounts.

Louis cut his eyes to Lestat. Narrowed them. No tricks, he willed Lestat to understand. Lestat gave him a tense smile in return. No tricks.

The silence was very long. Florence’s face was stone. Lestat imagined he saw a journey in her eyes as she made massive shifts to her priorities and sensibilities and tolerances. It was a breathtaking fortune after all.

“Well, then,” Florence intoned in her melodic voice as she returned the document to its envelope. “I’m sure Louis will make adequate accommodations for you in the carriage house. It’s been recently remodeled.” She tilted the envelope back to Lestat, and he took it. “Welcome to our home.”

“Oh, he won’t need the carriage house, Mama,” Louis smiled firmly. “We’ll be sharing my quarters. We’ll be working on a lot of business propositions. Wouldn’t want to disturb the household.”

Florence’s tight smile could have frozen over hell.

Paul glared at them from the hallway as if they’d just dipped communion wafers in dogshit. Louis gave him a hopeful smile. Lestat gave him a wink.

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #louis de pointe du lac #lestat de lioncourt #loustat #florence de pointe du lac #cw blasphemy sex sin sazerac and money #grace is overseas and missing all of this but i bet she's going to get an amazing letter or two

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rsfive · 1 year

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trashmouth-richie · 9 months

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𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞: 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐢 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: eddie takes a drive down memory lane, a situationship is revealed, clove finds herself in some harrowing situations in a feeble attempt to cope with eddie’s return.

𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: dark! fic, dark themes, ddlg type of relationship but not what you would think, controlling behavior in a relationship, controlling finances type of abuse, narcissist behavior, emotional abuse, hint at sex trafficking/ trading sex for business 18+. drug use/addiction etc.

𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

That night Eddie didn’t sleep.

He watched your figure bounce to what he assumed was the dressing room as he sat in solemn silence for what felt like a decade, your eyes engraved into his.

Jeff understood, or rather wasn’t too upset when Eddie called it a night, dropping off the beers you had poured. He was preoccupied with one of the girls, twirling her pigtails as she sat in his lap, crimson lip stains on his deep cheeks.

The sweet dew of spring night air met him as he pushed the door to the club open, letting the night’s darkness swallow him as he crunched through the gravel to his motorcycle.

Turning the opposite direction from where he should have been heading, Eddie cranks the handlebars to head downtown. The lonely hotel mattress could wait another hour before he slipped his body into the pilling worn sheets.

The steady rap of his bike hammered into his chest as he drove down the broken unwelcoming streets of Hawkins. Down town was desolate, the Radio shack was boarded up and closed, graffiti tagged and windows shattered. Melvald’s windows showed handwritten posters for heavily discounted items. Newspapers tumbled along and caught on light poles, Hawkins resembled a town post apocalypse.

He couldn’t remember what it used to look like.

Back then his biggest worry was leaving and taking you with him. For all he knew, Hawkins could have always looked like this. Getting you away from here, that was the only thing on his mind.

Pushing the thoughts away he cranked the throttle and sped through the streets, unconsciously driving further, his memory taking over.

He drove past Hawkins High, vague memories formed like wisps of smoke around the parking lot. A younger version of him and you sitting in his van listening to his new Motörhead cassette before Higgins would eventually stroll the parking lot and hand out each of you detentions.

Hawkins Middle School where he doodled in the margins of his composition book and passed you notes about Mr. Walter’s toupee. Your giggle hidden behind chipped fingernails and a fresh tattoo, eyes squeezed tight to stop from laughing. The memory burned a hole in his heart.

The familiarity drove him on, leading the path down to where you and him used to call home.

The dust kicked up when his tires wove around the gaping holes of the driveway to Forest Hills Trailer Park. His chest was tight, all air punched from his lungs at what lay before him.

The trailer he once called home was standing like a decrepit omen. The tires it rested on were flat, wires bulging from the rotting rubber. The entire trailer had sunk into the soft earth beneath it, creating a funhouse effect to the back side, putting it on a tilt.

The windows that weren’t busted out by rocks were covered with foil, a cheap attempt to keep the sun out.

What was left of the aluminum siding glistened in the moonlight, taunting him.

From the way the door stood wide open, and the accumulation of last falls foliage littering the entryway, he guessed that no one lived here anymore—save for the fat mice that kept the trailer cats fed.

Years of decay and neglect replaced any sort of nostalgia he would have felt being back here. The bad memories came easy, it was the happy ones that he had to dig for.

Glancing behind him he didn’t notice it at first. The frail frame of a burnt trailer. The roof was swallowed in on itself, charred and soot surrounding the dead grass. Whatever caused this fire had taken the trailer fast, engulfing its matchbox body like kindling.

His one tiny flicker of hope that maybe you still lived here, maybe he could catch you when you weren’t working, was put out like this fire surely wasn’t.

Ghost flames danced in his eyes as he blinked back tears. The agony of years away filled him with grief. He didn’t grieve for his loss. He had no reason to. Al Munson was the last person he needed closure from. He hoped for his death. Wished for it. Hoping that some inner dimensional being would crush him like a coke can. But he’d never get that lucky.

People like his dad, and yours, seemed to live forever. Cockroach luck with bodies that were pickled by alcoholism— they’d roam until they saw ninety, tainting everyone they got close to, poisoning their veins and stealing their dreams.

As he rode away, tears spilled down his face, not for him and his misfortunes. But for you. A little girl lost. A girl he had failed.

—

1974

ping, clink

You could hear the radio through his bedroom window, the new * tape he had bought crooning out in muffled tones.

clink, ping, clink

“c’mon!” you muttered under your breath. The rough cinder block you were balancing on was starting to dig into your bare feet, jagged rocks and concrete stuck out every which way.

She hadn’t come back.

Hours had passed and she said she was going to the store with the baby, getting some milk and cigarettes. You watched as the short hand on the clock moved from 3 then 4, 5 to 6, and now it was at 11, moving closer to 12 with each tick that went by.

Dad wasn’t home, spending the night with friends in Indianapolis looking for “fresh meat” whatever that meant.

You were left home alone. Not a first time occurrence, but definitely not on a night when the wind was howling like a wolf.

The trailer groaned, shadows appeared in all shapes over your shared empty room. Scary faces with pointy teeth. Long witch-like arms that scratched against the aluminum siding, the air vent whistling against the tin roof had you yelping, hiding beneath your covers.

When the power went out, it took the tiny brightness from the shell nightlight with it, leaving you in an eerie darkness, and you had enough for one night.

Eddie’s trailer was one down from yours, a quick 15 second run through the tall weeds would get you there in no time. Tucking the oversized shirt you wore as pajamas into the waistband of a pair of cotton shorts, you opened the trailer door, your blankie tucked safe into the crook of your arm.

The screen door was ripped from your hand by a large gust of wind, but you couldn’t be bothered with that upon realizing that the entire trailer park was cast into darkness, not a single stitch of light to be seen.

Your feet found the familiar path from Eddie’s trailer to yours with ease as you raced past the Peterson’s chained up rottweiler. His bark loud enough to scare a grown man into hiding.

Racing up the front steps you knocked quietly, not wanting to wake up Eddie’s dad and deal with his wrath, his fuse shorter than your own fathers. Wiggling the handle you realized it was locked, which was strange considering that the Munson’s didn’t even own a house key.

And that was what led you here, knocking on Eddie’s window at 11 o’clock at night, standing on tiptoes on the cinder block used as a step ladder.

“Eddie!” you whisper yelled into the night, your voice traveling away with the wind, “Eddie! P-please, it’s me!”

Giving up on silent little knocks of your knuckles against the glass, you hit the window hard with a fist and an open palm, tears flowing down your cheeks in desperation.

The sheet covering his window that served as a curtain, moved back quickly the same time a round orb of light shined in your eyes.

His hair was a god awful mess, smushed to his head from sleep, curls limp and frizzy. He mouths your name in a question, tucking the flashlight under his chin, his fingers work to lift the window up the broken track.

“Aren’t you supposed to be asleep, like I was…hey are you okay?”

The tears slip down your face faster than you could stop them, and you wipe them away hastily with the corner of your blankie.

Eddie moves stuff from his dresser, sliding books into a milk crate and plastic army guys to the floor.

“Put your foot there,” he instructed, pointing to the siding of the trailer, “like if you were climbing a tree or something.”

You do as your told, and Eddie leans through the window, grabbing your hands and hoisting you into his room.

When your feet are on the warm carpet you take a shuddering breath, “thanks, the wind is—”

“Scary, I know, that’s why I have the stereo on… makes it hard to hear it.”

You stand there for a few seconds, fingers fiddling around the hem of your blankie, embarrassed, not sure what your plans were after making it inside. “Your door’s locked.”

“Oh, my uncle Wayne is here, he must’ve done it, I dunno.”

Your face stays puzzled, “your uncle?”

“Yeah,” Eddie chirps almost gleefully, “Took me to supper and then we went bowling! I’ve met him once or twice, seems cool.”

“Cool.”

Eddie whispers loud, “Hey! I know some good ghost stories if you wanna have a sleepover?”

“Um sure, okay.”

You help Eddie arrange his room, placing the flash light on his bed and angling it towards the closet so he can find an afghan he swore was in there.

When all was said and done his bed held a thin sheet and a frumpy couch pillow. A smile on his face as you sat side by side, backs pressed into the thin walls.

Your voice was small when Eddie placed the flashlight under his chin, illuminating his face and casting shadows against the walls, your blankie tucked beneath your nose.

“Eddie, I—I changed my mind, don’t wanna hear any scary stories tonight.”

“Yeah, ’course,” the flashlight falls between you to shine lazily on his dresser, and he hesitates a question that had been burning since you crawled through his window.

“Clove, where's your mom? Didn’t see her car when we left, or when we got back.”

Tears squish against your eyelashes as you try to stop them from falling, and your chin quivers. “Th—the store.”

His voice is soft, “Is your dad home?”

You shake your head, pressing your face into the worn comfort of the thread bared blankie. A hand lays consciously on your back rubbing in a little circle between your shoulder blades.

Eddie hadn’t had to comfort someone before he wasn’t even sure he was doing it right but he just kept trying. Hoping whatever he was doing would make it better.

After a few minutes you perked your head up, wiping the wet from your eyes and looking at your friend with swollen eyelids.

“Do you know any happy stories?”

Eddie’s lips stretched into a small smile as he leaned partly off his bed to find a cream paperback from his nightstand, “The Fellowship Of The Ring” written on the cover.

He holds it towards you, “Wayne gave me this… I haven’t read it yet but he said it was good.”

You nod your head, “okay.”

He wiggles his hips down into the blanket, and hands you the flashlight, clearing his throat he begins.

“When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton…..”

—

1989

“…wake up..”

Bilbo was very rich and very peculiar, and had been the wonder of the Shire for sixty years, ever since his remarkable disappearance and unexpected return.

“fuck, did you hear me?”

…The riches he had brought back from his travels had now become a local legend, and it was popularly believed, whatever the old folk might say…

The young boy’s reassuring voice morphs into a woman's panicked squeak. The warm arm that was buddied next to yours, the soft lumpy texture of your blankie, the Pert shampoo smell of the percale pillowcase drifted away like smoke from a fire. Traveling higher and higher into the sky until it blended with the atmosphere, weaving and connecting until it was nothing more than a euphoric elevated induced memory.

You close your eyes to try to find your way back to Eddie. To hear him, see him, feel his voice booming in theatrics as he changed characters. The solace he brought you just by being him.

A splash of something cold and wet hits your face causing you to gasp, sputtering from the passed out dream land you were in.

“Oh my God! Shit, Clove! I almost called 9-1-1!”

Veronica was standing before you with a glass in her hand, water dripping from the mouth of it, falling in unison with the ones from your chin, your hair.

Her eyes were larger than the moon, staring down at you like she was looking at a ghost, a hand pressed to her chest in relief.

“Cold,” you muttered, wrapping your fingers around your arms, teeth chattering. Looking out from the confined corner of the cooler, sheltered by cases of beer and an empty keg.

“What are you even doing in here, thought you left already.” Veronica asked, lending a hand down to help you up.

“Inventory,” you say motioning around you as if it was the most obvious thing in the world and she was being ridiculous for even asking.

“Oh..” Veronica’s voice goes small, “you looked… dead.”

You chuckle to hide the shake in your voice, straightening your wet shirt.

“Never heard of throwing water on the dead, but you’re into that weird voodoo shit so it makes sense.”

Your joke falls flat.

Her green emerald eyes let on that she's not stupid enough to think that you had just fallen asleep. Her eyes stare back at you and you roll yours, “swear I just got a little tired and sat down for only a minute, haven’t been sleeping much lately.”

Veronica knew better than to challenge you. She was your friend, and like Jolene had done with you, you’d taken Veronica in like a school pet, teaching her the do’s and dont’s of the industry.

“Okay.” she says in defeat, and you lower your shoulders a bit to look relaxed. “I thought you’d left already, Rick’s looking for you, he’s called twice.”

Shit.

—

Hawkins was quiet this late. And the drive to Rick’s house gave you just enough time to get your shit together.

Eddie always came to you in your dreams but never that vividly before. It was almost as if it were real. Just two kids, finding solace in one another.

God you’d give anything to go back to those simple days.

When the solution to being scared was just a few steps from your trailer found between the pages of a paperback book and the heart of a best friend who knew you better than you knew yourself.

Books were a luxury, an easy way to escape reality when things were worse than they’d ever been. Outside of a car magazine in the bathroom and the black book that held numbers, dates and dollar amounts, your parents didn’t keep anything like that around, not even a cookbook.

But the fantasies kept you company, kept you safe, and Eddie’s voice was like a lullaby, always keeping you grounded.

It was simple when your demons weren’t fought alone. The armor Eddie wore then was scuffed and scarred by countless swords, its job of keeping you safe accomplished.

But the armor was tossed aside and you had to put it on yourself—finding it heavy, digging at your shoulders, metal pinching your skin, bruising your body in places. The armor wasn’t made for you, it was made for him, the gaps between you bared yourself to the danger, and before long— the strength of the armor was challenged, broken down.

Did he know? That you were defenseless? That the armor didn’t fit you?

Rick’s house was dark when your headlights shone against the cedar plank siding. Steering wheel cranking to straighten your tires, rocks crushing against the concrete.

Grabbing the nightly ledger and the tin lock box from the passenger seat, your door swings open with a grinding thud, and clanks back into place when you slam it shut.

A single table lamp was glowing when you knocked with a tight grip on the front door. A cleared throat and the burning end of a cigar meet you on the porch, lounging in a wicker chaise.

“I don’t like tardiness young lady.” leaning forward into the moonlight, Rick finally showed his face.

The breath you were holding goes out in a shudder, but you plant one of your famous smiles on your lips and twist your body towards him, landing softly between his legs on the corner of the lounge chair.

“I’m hardly younger than you are,” you tease, offering up the deposits like you’re bestowing him a gift. “b’sides, I’m not that late anyway.”

“Tardiness and back talk?” He questions bitterly, “surely this won’t be a habit for you?”

Grabbing the tin from you, his cologne burns your nose, a minty scent you’ve always hated. “You have enough little habits the way it is, niñita.”

His thick fingers rattle a pill bottle out from his pocket, but keep it just out of your reach, as he counts the intake from the night. You waited silently as he thumbed through the large stack of money, looking over the ledger and ensuring that everything was all there and accounted for.

The girls were allowed to keep their tips from the stage, but anything more than that.. other services that kept the laundromat in business with bedsheets, went to Rick.

He leans back against the lounger when he’s satisfied, setting the tin box down and carding fingers through his short brown hair. “Tommy stopped by tonight, had a lot to say about your little attitude problem.”

fuck, Tommy has had it out for you since high school… but that’s a story for another day.

“I guess I’m confused on who you think you are, Clove.”

Cocking an eyebrow you shift your shoulders, “I know who I am.”

“You’re late, mouthing off, do you not remember the things I’ve done for you?”

Of course you remembered, it wasn’t that long ago when you were made into his. Traded like a baseball card. One good for another.

“Such a shy little thing when you came to me, but I taught you well bunny..”

In all the time you had known him, Rick never raised his voice, and he didn’t now. His tone was almost formal, and he spoke with sophistication licked with malice that made your blood run cold.

“…I-I know.”

His head cocks, and he leans forward, peering down at you. “You forget so easily how your life was before me…” he coos, running a finger along your jaw. “Would you like to go back to that?”

Not answering, Rick continues, “sharing a room with whatever loose pussy your daddy was fuckin’?”

You shake your head, remembering countless times how your stuff would be ransacked with each new “talent” that had the misfortune of crossing paths with your old man.

“Fending for yourself and your sister for weeks on end?”

His fingers dig into the skin on your neck, pressing harder with each reminder, and you suck a breath through your teeth.

“Crying yourself to sleep hoping your whore mama would come back home…” his voice drops an octave and he whispers into your ear, the heat of his words itching your skin, “..or maybe you’re still waiting for that Munson loser to show up?”

“Quit it,” the tears were welling in your eyes now.

“Aww, did I strike a nerve?” he holds your cheek, “that deal was the best thing to ever happen to you, but I'm afraid you’re starting to forget who you belong to.”

“I’m not,” you blink, “I promise.”

Rick’s eyes watch as the tear travels down your cheek.

“Maybe you have too much freedom, living in the apartment complex with the other girls?… Do you need to come back here? Have me treat you like you’re insubordinate and reckless?”

“N-no, plea—”

“Then why do I have to listen to that inbred spit complaints about you? Do you think I want people coming to my home?”

You shake your head, fingers working the hem of your skirt. He hooks a finger under your chin, making you look up at him.

“I thought my expectations were clear… or am I deceived?”

Rick liked power, he got off on the idea of submissive relationships. Dominating weak and frail women was his main job, drug smuggling was a hobby. You’d been playing his game for years now, and you knew what he wanted to hear.

Your hand skirts up his thigh and rests daintily, “I’m sorry, I understand my place…always have.”

Like any other dick driven man, Rick was easy to please.

“Good,” his lips close around yours and your stomach rolls, the sickly sweet cigar he was smoking lingered and surrounded you in a clutch you couldn’t get away from.

“Stay tonight,” a command not a question, “my flight leaves in the morning.”

Looking in the window you notice his house is still dark, “what about Karen?”

Rick places his hand on your lower back, guiding you towards the front door, “she's with her husband tonight, graduation party.”

The pills rattle in his robe pocket, and the sound of them sets your teeth on edge, aching for the high. Rick’s hand engulfs the knob and he swings the door handle open, holding up a baggie filled with white powder, “what do you think little rabbit?”

—

The highway was anything but quiet behind the rickety bricks of the motel walls. Semi engines braked loudly adjusting to the sudden speed limit change, teenagers squealing their tires out of town to impress their girlfriends.

It was a mistake going to Forest Hills, what did he expect would come from it? You haunted him wherever he went, but being back home was a deeper kind of pain he hadn’t felt in years.

A cricket played a lonely song in the corner of the outdated room, teasing him by being just out of reach, hidden away.

Watermarked ceiling tiles and a countless number of sheep later, the clock still hadn’t seemed to move. His eyelids showed him your face, the horror of realization when you recognized who he was.

Pillow pressed into his eyes he couldn’t see anything else, and maybe he didn’t want to.

He laid there motionless, bare chested in the chilled room, air conditioner broken on the coolest setting. Regret looming around him.

Back then it was life or death. He didn’t have a choice, he wondered if you ever figured that out. He couldn’t tell you that then… probably not even now.

He was a coward then.

Sitting up he tossed the pillow across the room, folding his knees up to rest his forearms against them. Sleep wouldn’t come, not when your eyes were playing in his head whether he was awake or asleep.

Your face.

Something else was written between your brow when you saw him tonight, just a small flicker, a ripple to your eyes, but it was there— plain as day.

Fear.

—-

Rick had passed out next to you, his naked body slung over yours in some lame attempt of cuddling. You didn’t know how many lines you had done, or the number of shots you took, before stumbling in here.

Didn’t remember the lick of his tongue in your mouth, the feel of his hands on your curves, your was body numb from the drugs and to him. All you remember is right now, waking in a puddle of tears, the taste of blood on your lips, your nose full of it.

Peeling Rick’s limp form from you, you make for the bathroom connected to his master bedroom. Your reflection was horrific. blood dripped from your nostrils and coated your teeth, eyeliner dragged down your face like a halloween mask gone wrong. Your body, stark naked except for a purpling hickey on your collar bone, and white residue between your cleavage.

You look away in disgust, hatred for the eyes that stared back from the mirror.

It wasn’t uncommon for you to wake up like this. Having spent the better half of every night for the last seven years the same way. Reaching for his hand, watching him slip through your fingers. Voice hoarse from crying, yelling, screaming his name.

Reaching for the plush hand towel Karen kept, you plop it into the sink and turn the faucet to hot, wetting it completely.

“So I'm a stranger now huh?”

Eddie’s words from early stuck with you long after you had left. Eddie fucking Munson. Seven years…No high or amount of time could ever make you forget his face.

The pain was always there. You were only able to paint over it with each new high you could conjure. But no matter the number of brush strokes, no matter the opaqueness of the paint color, Eddie always showed through. Like a ghost in the background of a photo.

The sink was nearly overflowing before you pulled the towel covering the drain, wringing the scalding water from it as you sat on the toilet lid and draped it over your face. The heated temperature having your skin raw and burning, a welcomed kind of pain.

Seven years and here he was, waltzing back into town like he hadn’t left you in shambles. Although him being back brought forth memories you wished would stop, seeing him alive and in the flesh settled a sore in your soul.

It also dug up anger. And under the wet towel you saw red.

Answers. That’s what you needed from him. You were just a kid then, you couldn’t understand, and maybe you still didn’t want to know why. But you craved to know, your mind gnawing at your skull to make sense of why he would decide to leave.

You had adapted to your surroundings, learned how to survive. He couldn’t. He was weak and spineless, that’s what everyone had said, and after a while you believed it too.

Stronger than Eddie Munson had ever been, you kept going. Living this god forsaken life because you didn’t have a choice.

You had your own place, a cute little two bedroom apartment. One you decorated to your liking. You had a job that paid your bills. You had someone that loved…someone that took care of you in ways you didn’t know were possible.

You were different, and so was he. What did he have? Nothing. No one.

The towel dripped water onto your bare thighs, and you concentrated on that little tick rhythm until it picked up, sending water down in almost a wave.

Maybe that’s how he wanted his life to be, maybe that was why he left in the first place. Maybe you were standing in his way the whole time like a roadblock.

You didn’t realize the heave of your chest, how your breathing was uneven and shallow, choking off.

Then you heard it. The gut wrenching sobs coming from yourself.

It didn’t work anymore. Quite frankly you wondered if it ever had.

Pretending Eddie was an asshole and that you were better without him was the only way for you to deal with him leaving in ‘82.

The lies you continued to tell yourself about Eddie were falling flat. Your brain could be fooled, but the space he lived in your chest couldn’t be coerced that easily. He was inescapable, nightmares or not, you yearned for the hours when he would visit you.

In your dreams he was real. Still in Hawkins.

Your sobs turned hysteric. Lungs burning with no reprieve as you felt the same loss and emptiness that burrowed in your chest seven years ago.

Why? How could he leave without you?

The towel fell with a slap to the floor. Your body slinked alongside it like a doll falling from a child’s fist. Hugging your naked body, you wept on the cold tile for an unknown amount of time. It wasn’t until dawn broke through the window and Rick’s alarm clock went off that your cheeks were finally dry.

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riaki · 9 months

Text

knitted hearts | kento nanami x reader

pt.3 of christmas event! i wrote this for u genie ily 🤍 cw: established relationship, he (over)works at that financing company from before, two (2) petnames

the lights are still on.

that's the first thing kento immediately notices when he gets back; the office clocked him overtime, and so he's late. regrettably, again.

in the past, whenever that's happened, he'd have sent you a text beforehand and came home to a dark apartment; eaten something quick before getting into bed and slipping beneath the soft covers where your resting warmth melts away the stress of the day between his shoulders and his eyebrows.

tonight is different, it seems. the city buzzes with a quiet hum, light snowfall blanketing the roofs and muffling the sound. the holiday season is in full swing; normally, he wouldn't care to know. or remember. if not for the lame decorations around his workplace and the chocolate advent calendar you've been diligently (force) feeding him every night, he wouldn't've noticed at all.

he closes the door quietly behind him, careful not to make excess noise in case you're asleep as he slips his shoes off and hangs his jacket up. after all, you might've just been absentminded or tired, and forgot to switch the lights off. and you blame him for being lost to time.

it's quiet in the house; not dead silent, though. there's soft, ambient winter jazz flowing from somewhere in the house, and the faint sound of the fridge humming, paired with something that's baking in the oven. the scent of soft vanilla and orange settles gently over his shoulders, as if to welcome him home. his half finished coffee sits in a porcelain mug on the stained counter; you'd accidentally made too much for him, leaving you with a puddle of bitter caffeine that couldn't even be finished with your combined efforts. you'd promised him you would chug it over text, but clearly that didn't happen.

he's ready to go through the motions of a quiet night spent unwinding alone when he hears your voice— after endless hours of aching at a desk, clacking away on a mechanical keyboard in the dreariest environment imaginable, it soothes him like no vacation fantasy he's ever known.

"nami? is that you?" you called. your voice is coming from the shared bedroom; you sound tired, and kento can just imagine the sleepy look on your face. he's never been inclined to use the words 'cute' or 'pretty' to describe someone before, but if he had to choose, then he'd use them for you.

he walks down the length of the hallway, undoing his tie and gently tugging it off his neck as he reaches the threshold to your room. the air is warm and soft; it seems so much easier to breathe the closer you are. like the crushing weight of work he puts on his lungs dissipates into a cloud of melting frost.

"i'm home, sweetheart." he's surprised at how rough his own voice sounds; it's almost unfamiliar. he needs your rejuvenating touch; at least, that's what he decides the instant he sees you. you're sitting right in the middle of the mattress, something lumpy, tacky, red and green bundled up in your lap. with something between a sinking realization and a fluttering in his chest he recognizes it as the sweater you've been making for him. you're finishing it up, it seems, from the formerly-wide bundle of soft thread that's been reduced to a meek little crimson string on the white sheets.

it's one of your new interests. you seem to be taking up a lot of those, lately; kento feels as though it's his fault, for never having the time to take you out. yet you're always so patient despite his busy schedule, adjusting to portion out a chunk of time from your own just to accommodate for him. it's unfair, and so one night he vowed to do more for you over a glass of red wine and a fancy white table cloth, freshly cleaned and pressed. that was one of the rare times he'd been able to take you out like you really deserved. "and don't call me by my last name. you're allowed to use my given," he sighs, rather exasperated, but you both know there's only affection behind it.

you perk up, a bright look in your eyes that melts the last of the frost buried in his chest and beneath his eyes. he crosses the room to stand at the foot of the bed, unbuttoning his shirt a few to let himself breathe. and he doesn't miss the way your eyes linger, so he clears his throat, and you spring to action.

"i finished your sweater, ken. can you put it on?" you ask eagerly, and he's briefly reminded of a young boy with pink hair like raspberry chocolate and a golden retriever demeanor. a soft feeling pushes at the back of his heart, sending mushy gushiness through his veins at the sight.

you scoot close, holding it up for him to examine. in all honesty, it's not terrible; you get an A for effort, at the very least. the five reindeer look more like those urban folklore creatures, and the tree looks as though it could use seven more centuries under the sun-- but other than that, it's a perfect first try.

"i'd love to, darling, but i..." he doesn't get to finish, because you seem to wilt a little, and it already feels like that crushing burden over his diaphragm is back, but this time it's exceedingly and guiltily unpleasant, so he retracts his words.

"alright." he succumbs with a tired sigh, letting his eyes flutter shut and removing his glasses to rub the spot where the frame has been digging into his skin; normally you'd do it for him, but you're busy adjusting the fluffy pom poms (he didn't see those before) on the sweater's cuffs, so he does it himself.

he hears the tell tale shift of the soft bedding and he opens his eyes again, only to be met with a very expectant look on your face.

"put your hands up."

"...pardon?" a small amount of resistance to your antics is always present, at first. by now he knows you expect it. but this time, it may be much worse.

"you heard me! arms to the sky." he likes your laugh, a lot. it jingles like a gentle wind chime.

"i can put it on myself. i'm not a child," he says, a little cross, but you're undeterred. as per usual. not like he minds.

"please?"

kento doesn't particularly view himself as a man with a great many ambitious, or zealous ideals. still, he isn't a pushover and has a strong resolve. unfortunately for him (fortunately for you), when it comes to you, it doesn't take much for him to crumble. if you willed it, he'd get down at your feet.

with resignation, he kneels down on one leg, as if you're about to knight him. he waits patiently, holding his arms up, and he can practically feel your giddy smile.

soon enough, you're slipping it over his tangled blonde hair— with a little bit of effort and a lot of scratchy fabric. it's too big here and too tight there, hanging off his shoulders oddly and the sleeves are uneven. but it's cute, too-- in the way that a toddler's crayon doodles are endearing, so are your amateur efforts. what matters to him the most, is that you've handmade it for him.

nothing an industry company factory could achieve.

"so? how do you like it?" you prompt as you start to mess with the collar, pinching and pulling the fabric so that it suits his form appropriately. he doesn't ever remember you asking for his size, but you seem to know it anyway.

"it's warm," is his only input. he knows you'll complain— but it's fun to hear you whine.

you frown. "is that all?" there it is— a small, sweet little pout; the minute down tilt of your lips. your fingers dance over his collarbone as you pull the collar of his button up over the rim, and his breath hitches in his throat. kento wonders if you can feel his heartbeat or notice the way his adam's apple bobs when he swallows.

before you— or he— knows it, he's pulling you down to sit on the knee that's still propped up, catching you by the rest and meeting you halfway to press a gentle kiss to your lips. he's met with a muffled sound of surprise that quickly melts into a laugh; he can feel you smile against his lips and he wants to devour it.

"so i take it you like it?" you whispered as you lean in, hands leaving the unwieldy sweater to thread through his hair, messing it up to your heart's content after he slicked it to the side. you taste sweet, like chocolate and caramel-- he must've missed the advent sweet for today.

his only response is a small hum— you can feel the vibration, so you chuckle again and wrap your arms around his neck, pulling away breathless from the kiss to knock your forehead against his, gazing into his eyes. there's an undeniable well of warmth behind your gorgeous irises; if he had the time, he'd get himself lost in them.

"good, because i have socks on the backburner and you'll be getting a scarf next."

whenever the lights are off, kento knows you've gone to bed already, without him. but he thinks he could get used to scratchy, hand-knit clothing if it means they'll always be on and waiting for him after a long day of dreaming in front of a desk, all about your smile.

not proofread my (riaki) stuff. don't repost and/or plagiarize !

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god-has-entered-my-body · 5 months

Text

Caught up in Fashion - Matty Healy

A/N: something that isnt smut???? applaud me. Also #unedited if there are any errors no there arent

wc: 3.5k

content warnings: bit suggestive, mpind typical cursing, drugs (weed), kissing, matty gets handsy?, he's done way worse

The British public transport system has been an ongoing source of disappointment since the day you learned how to spell the word. Busses that acted like they didn't have places to be, coming too late or just not coming at all, leaving you stranded on the highway in the middle of some city you didn't know the name of, Matty at your side, whining and complaining and being totally unhelpful in general.

This time, however, you had struck gold. Both your buses had arrived on time, making you actually catch the next one and not forcing you to wait around for another, or god forbid, try your luck hitchhiking.

It was a bit loud, the sounds of families on their way to day trips or lunches filling the bus with noise, the occasional baby crying out for its parents. You were sitting at the window seat, your back to the glass as your legs draped across Matty’s, the soles of your shoes slightly blocking the way for other people, but seeing as the two of you were in the second to last row, it didn't actually bother anyone.

It was nearing summertime, the blazing sun making clothes stick to your skin and makeup melt off, no brand of setting spray managing to set it. Matty, instead of being a normal fucking person and wearing short, was clad in his signature black skinny jeans, the only flow of air coming from the giant hole on his left knee.

The two of you had finally found the time (and finances) to go shopping at a mall that had recently opened across the city. You were determined to get there, even if it did take you an hour and two bus connections, Matty insisted that he needed new clothes.

“I need some tops, seeing as you steal all of mine.” you comment, earning yourself a piercing look from Matty, an insult forming behind his lips.

“Fuck off, give me my joggers back and then we’ll talk” he gestures to the pants you were wearing which were, in fact, his. They sat perfectly on your hips, hanging low enough so even your longest tops looked cropped.

“I dare you to try and take them, fucking watch what happens” you threaten him, clutching your pants like he was going to rip them off your legs right then and there out of pure spite. “I look better in them anyway” adding that little comment only made him huff in reply, deliberately turning his head away when you try to give him an apology kiss.

“Fuck you do! I rock everything, especially when it's mine.” you roll your eyes at him, successfully planting a kiss onto his lips. The smile that spreads onto his face is impossible to hide, even if he denies it.

The bus finally comes to a screeching halt, the breaks to sound it makes you cover your ears at the high pitched noise. Matty giggles, his eyes creasing up as he laughs at your misfortune.

“At least I haven't gone deaf from having my music at 100 you knobhead.” he holds his hands up in defeat, pushing your legs off of him to get up, exiting the bus. You latch onto him from behind, letting him lead you over the gap between the door and the floor, catching you in his arms when you pretend to trip, performatively falling in slow motion. His hands grip onto your waist, setting you down onto the hot pavement.

“Smoke?” you nod, walking over to the bench under the bus stop’s roof, the plastic of the seat warm against the back of your thighs as you sit down, leaning against the Fanta advertisement behind you.

Matty pulls out his packet of cigarettes, taking out two and handing one of them to you. A smile spreads onto your face when you see him lighter, your initials decorating the side. He catches your look, running his fingertips over the slightly faded rhinestones and lighting your cigarette first.

You take out your ipod and headphones, gesturing for Matty to take one. Without asking, you put on ‘The Masterplan’ by oasis, quietly singing along to the lyrics as he nudges you in the arm.

“Your music taste is not a shit as it used to be.” he comments, looking almost proud of you. You click your tongue, leaning your head against his shoulder and taking a drag of the cigarette between your fingers. “Seems like you’ve terrorized me so much I finally gave in.” The smoke leaves your mouth as you speak, cheekily smiling up at his deadpan expression, obviously hoping for a different answer.

“Dramatic much?” you kiss his shoulder, playfully biting his arm making him jump at the feeling of your teeth digging into his skin.

“Ow??” you just laugh, collecting your hair and brushing it over your right shoulder, making your position a bit more comfortable.

The inside of the mall is air conditioned, a groan of relief leaving Matty’s lips as the cool air kisses his skin. You take a look around, eyes landing on a store down the giant hallway. Hollister. Matty turns to you and nods, booking it down the corridor in its direction. You hurry after him, his hand dragging you faster than you could keep up.

“It’s fucking massive.” he breaths, stopping right infront of the entrance. Racks filled with piles upon piles of clothes makes the little shopping addict in Matty twirl, completely forgetting the amount of money he had left the house with.

The two of you part ways, going into different sections and rifling through clothes, groaning when your eyes fall on the price tag. You see Matty coming towards you in the corner of your eye, holding something in his hands.

“You like?” he asks, holding a black, floor length floral skirt to his lower half, spinning around in a small circle. It flows around him, the multicolored flowers standing out against the jet black fabric nicely.

“It's cute, it makes you look a bit taller.” you admire him, obviously giddy from finding something he really liked that didn't have a two digit price tag. And it's true, it did make him look taller.

“Not that I need it.” he states, gesturing at his body, standing at a totally average 5’11 (6’ in boots). You decide to tease him a bit, loving watching his grin disappear as you speak.

“Oh you definitely do, you're like an oompa loompa who's managed to escape the chocolate factory.” his jaw drops in disbelief, almost looking genuinely offended.

“Fucking oompa loompa, maybe fix your contour before you come at me.” he shoots back, making a point to wipe at you face, some of the product coming off.

Your hands go to cover your face and you rush to a mirror, absolutely mortified. Upon taking a look at your reflection, you realize he was taking the piss out of you, and that your makeup looked perfectly fine, apart from your eyeliner being a tad smudged. It looked good, nonetheless

“I fucking hate you.” you spit at him, attempting to shove past him, his hands gripping your shoulders stopping you.

“But you believed me, didnt you?”

“Fuck off and die, I hope your scrote falls off.” you can't help but giggle at your own words, biting your lip between your teeth.

“Awwee, but who would keep you happy and satisfied then? Can't make you cum without my precious little friend.” he winks, wrangling his eyebrows at you. You cringe, your nose scrunching up in disgust.

“Don't ever refer to your dick as ‘precious little friend’ again, or I will leave you for George.” George would at least have the decency to not name his dick.

“He’d be a shite shag.” Matty says, matter of factly, like it helped his case. Deciding to try and rile him up in retaliation, you twirl your hair around your fingers, speaking in a dreamy voice.

“But look at the size of him, you know he’s packing at least twelve-” Matty cuts you off with a harsh kiss, both his hands cupping your cheeks. You let out a surprised noise, it getting swallowed up as he slips his tongue into your mouth, running it across your bottom lip.

“I do not want to speculate on the size of my best mate's cock, thanks.” you nod, slightly breathless from the kiss, too dazed to debate him further. You go back to the rack of clothes behind you and Matty walks over to a display of skimpy going-out tops.

“D'you like this on me?” you press a black and pink tube top to your chest, getting Matty’s attention. He takes his eyes over you, smirking as he notices the bottom of the shirt is completely sheer, only a black strip of fabric keeping you from flashing everyone.

“It's hot. You should try it on, give me a preview.” his fingers touch the bottom of the top, running his fingers over the pink mesh. It looks tight, too tight for a bra seeing as it could cling to your body if you decided to wear it.

“You’re such a boy.” you snigger, adding the top to your pile of yes’s.

“Can you blame me?” his arm wraps around your waist, fingers hovering over the curve of your arse, giving it a quick squeeze. You smack his hands away, cursing at him for basically groping you in a Hollister.

He smirks against your ear, attemüting to whisper into it before you shove him off, changing the subject by asking what he had decided to buy.

Matty holds up the skirt from earlier, bragging about how it was “Only nine quid, can you believe that??”

The second item he had picked out was a thin, long sleeved top in none other than leopard print. You giggle at him as he proudly shows it off to you, boasting about how sexy and delicious he would look in it, deliberately having taken a size or two too small.

You pay at the till, and Matty legs it to the changing stall, peeling off this shirt and putting on his new top, letting it ride up to show the low rise of his jeans. He actually looks quite good, even if he gives off ‘old hollywood hooker’ vibes with the top.

His hand intertwined with yours as you walk into a children's store for shits and giggles, looking through the vast catalog of toys and fake makeup.

Your eyes land on a matching pair of kids friendship bracelets, one pink, one blue. Matty asks you what you have, and you show it to him, begging him to wear them with you

“Its cute!” you argue, trusting the cheap pieces of plastic into his hands.

“Its tacky, does not fit my vibe at all.'' He tries to deny you, but the look on your face is too endearing to say no.

“You are the embodiment of the word, look at what you're wearing!” you point at his top, bursting out into a fit of laughter when he pops out a hip, standing with one hand resting on his waist.

“It's fashion.”

“That's one word for it.” you snigger as he reluctantly pays the 1.99 the bracelets cost. He slips his on first, the pink a stark contrast to the otherwise sandy and dark colors of his outfit. The blue bracelet fits perfectly around your own wrist, half of a heart connecting with the half on Matty’s via a cheap magnet.

“Look at us, defying gender roles.” Matty smirks at you, admiring both of your pieces of jewelry.

“Fighting the patriarchy! You did pay for me though, so not completely feminist." His laughter makes a fuzzy feeling spread through the body, an intense feeling of adoration making your heart pound in your chest. Fucking idiot.

The two of you wander around, stopping to window shop in a store you could dream of actually going in, knowing you’d be thrown out in under a minute. His eyes gleam as he sees a proper jewelry store, acting like a child on christmas morning as he flips through the piles of discount earrings at the back of the shop.

“You don't even have pierced ears mate, how’re you gonna wear them?” you snap him out of his little adventure, reminding him of his inability to actually wear the hoops he so desperately wanted to buy.

“I'll go get them pierced then, have Rome do it for me.” Rome was now working on opening an actual shop, finally graduating from piercing people on the beat up sofa in his living room.

“There's a piercing parlor literally there, and it's like five quid.” you gesture to the neon sign next to the till, pointing to a back room labeled ‘Sasha’s piercings’, which was a really shit name if she wanted to attract actual customers.

“Will you hold my hand?” he juts out his lip, pouting at you in a childish manner. Sasha, the only employee (surprise surprise), greets you with a warm smile, asking what you wanted to get done. Matty tells her he wants to get his ears pierced and coughs up the five quid, sitting down onto a red leather chair. It was when she pulled out a piercing gun that he started to look a bit nervous.

“Fuck no, that is not touching my ear.” he squirms away from the lady, a confused look on her face. Matty was a grown man, after all, even if he did act like a behaviorally stunted 8-year old.

“You're so pathetic it's actually quite sad.” you say, urging him to just get it over with, and that he was being a wanker making the employee wait.

“Usually I'd appreciate you calling me that, but genuine degradation isn't really my kink.”

The piercer looks mortified, asking you if you needed a bit of time before the piercing, and you nod, watching her step to the side.

“Its fucking gun.” he mutters under his breath, eyeing the device that set onto a steriel tray on the table next to where he was sitting

“A piercing gun.”

“It has the word gun in it.'' Obviously normal, adult reasoning isn't cutting it, so you went with the next best thing.

“Do it and I'll give you a blowjob.” Matty’s eyes light up at your proposition, a filthy smirk spreading onto his face.

“Fucking sold, go on then.” you're surprised it actually worked, scoffing in disbelief.

“Men are so simple.”

“Says the one who let me finger her in the bathroom of a club.” he shoots back, watching the blush creep onto your face as that night flashes behind your eyes. The smell of that bathroom is ingrained into your mind, no amount of wishing letting it leave your memory.

“Don’t fucking speak about that,” you huff, fucked off that he brought it up. It was genuinely embarrassing, the way you humped him on the dance floor and then dragged him off into a stall. “We were both so off our tits, I died for about 72 hours after.” you shudder at the monster hangover that left you immobile for the days following, having to get Matty to bring you all three meals for a concerning period of time.

“Sureee, just deny deny deny you loved it.” you finally call the poor girl over, hoping she didn't accidentally overhear your crude conversation. Matty whimpers slightly as she brings the gun to his ear, pressing down. Squeezing your hand so hard you were sure your blood flow was cut off, he winced before relaxing, realizing that he was, in fact, losing his mind over absolutely nothing.

The second ear takes a fraction of the amount of time the first ear did, Matty grinning like a maniac at the lack of pain apart from a small sting in his earlobe. You shake your head apologetically at the lady, knowing she was probably rethinking her place of employment.

“And you call me dramatic.” you snigger as she puts in two silver hoops, matty blatantly ignoring her recommendation to start with studs, saying they looked boring. He admires his new accessory in a small hand held mirror, flicking the earring back and forth before answering you. “It did actually hurt! Of course, I took it like the legend I am.” an exasperated sigh leaves your lips.

“Tosser, more like.” he smacks the side of your arm, laughing right along with you.

You had spent almost the entire day there, running around stores, trying on piles of clothes just for the fun of it, feeling like teenagers in an American film. But even you had your limits, and your stomach started to growl as the sky began welcoming traces of night, the sun slowly setting over the horizon.

Matty had spotted a chippy right across the road from the mall, draggin you there to get you something to eat. Both your wallets are almost empty, but you manage to find an old, crumple up fiver behind your expired school I.D. It was just enough to get one large portion of chips, the guy behind the counter generously adding a little extra when he noticed you’d be sharing it.

Your hand clasps his as you trudge up a small hill off the side of the highway, hoping there would be a nice spot to sit down somewhere, away from all the noise. Matty’s inner compass somehow always knew where to go, his intuition sensing it or something. It was weird, but you’d learned to just follow him, knowing it your be worth it in the end

And fuck, was it worth it this time. The hill slowly ended, the top of it nearing as you saw a pile of giant rocks, covered in graffiti. The sun was beautiful, hues of orange and purple painting the sky, clouds looking unreal in the light. He plopped down onto one of the rocks, facing west as you sat next to him, the box of chips on the ground between you.

Matty feels around in his pockets and you raise your eyebrows at him, wondering what he was doing. He grins as he pulls out a spliff from his jean pocket, presenting it proudly like it wasn't the most beat up joint you've ever seen in your life. Still, you were thankful, plucking it from between his fingers and lighting it for him.

“I think I might actually love you, mate.” you place the lit spliff between his lips, thanking his past self for remembering to bring weed, knowing you'll be craving it at the end of the day.

“Of course you do, and for the love of god, stop calling me mate. You’ve quite literally fucked me multiple times, maybe its time to drop it?” he huffs, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs. His expression changes when he hands it back to you, visibly more relaxed.

“What else would I call you?” Matty scoffs at your question, listing weird, couple pet names off the top of his head.

“Baby, darling, the love of my life. Fucking anything that doesn’t make me feel like im talking to Ross.”

you take a drag, listening to his little rant, nodding along as he rambles. You cough a bit when the smoke hits your lungs the wrong way, your eyes watering.

“Fine, love it is.” you choose at random, only to make Matty stop ruining your high. Groaning, he pushes you, almost making you lose your balance on the rock you were sitting on.

“Love of my life.” he insists, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Sure Matty, whatever shuts you up.”

“I know plenty of ways you can shut me up.” he coos, grinning wildly as his fingers trail up your bare arm.

“God, I forgot you have the sex drive of a fucking bonobo.” you roll your eyes, putting on a display of faux annoyance. Matty giggles at your response, smacking his knee as his laughter grows louder.

“I meant kiss me, but if you wanna-” oh god, he knew you would interpret it as something inherently sexual, especially if it came out of his mouth. You had fallen right into his little trap, his infectious laughter making it hard to even oretend to be fucked off at him.

“Fuck off, giz a kiss.” you mutter, crashing your lips against his. His tongue licks into your mouth, biting down on your lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Matty moans into the kiss, his hand gripping the base of your neck as you make out in the orange glow of the sunset, only pulling away to take drags of the spliff, even attempting to shotgun one.

You fail miserably, too high to think straight, let alone get your mouths that close together without one of you kissing the other out of pure instinct. At some point, you move to the ground, laying flat on your back as the warm summer air kisses your skin.

Matty’s shoulder is against yours, your fingers interlocked between your bodies. Neither of you speaks, silently admiring the stars that littered the night sky, glimmering against the darkness of it. Crickets chirp in the distance as the cars become less and less noticeable, a veil of calm draping over the two of you.

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