#happy ending(?)

[eyesonstars-feetonground]

Closet Conversations

Wrote my first fic in 4 years for these two after last week's episode. What would happen if 9-1-1 let Evan Buckley explore what it means to be bisexual (and not by way of hooking up a bunch)

Hope you enjoy!

Six months is a long time to stick around if he thought you’d dump him. OR After his boyfriend dumps him, Evan Buckley goes on a date, makes a new friend, has some conversations, and realizes he's queer. Tommy haunts him every step of the way.

***Read on Ao3***

Published: 2024-11-12 Words: 10,599 Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 9-1-1 (TV) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Tommy Kinard Characters: Evan "Buck" Buckley, Tommy Kinard, Original Female Character(s), the rest of the 118 also make cameos! Additional Tags: Fix-It, Making Up, Character Study, Post-Episode: s08e06 Confessions (9-1-1 TV), Episode Fix-It: s08e06 Confessions (9-1-1 TV), Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Dialogue Heavy, Post-Break Up

[typicalopposite]

wip wednesday <3

so I have been tagged by quite a few people (thank you all 🫶 @desert--moonchild @bidisasterevankinard @onthewaytosomewhere @lavenderleahy -- got bamboozled by @sunnywithachanceofbi -- @judymarch15 @marvelousbuckley @tailsbeth-writes @cafe-con-letty & @theotherbuckley ... and that's going back a month) over the span of... a time for different things... lol I have not been keeping up with the games I have been tagged in like I use to... its been a messy life! BUT I'm finally catching up by sharing (quite a bit of) not an already established wip... but a new one! you know, now that we are all collectively in our grieving/fix-it era <3 so consider yourselves -- eyes Chrissy -- tagged back!

take me back - tommy amnesia fic

Tommy cracks his eyes open, fully expecting to be met with that damned water stain on his ceiling he keeps meaning to get looked at — when the spot caves in on him he’s going to regret it — but for the past six months his mind has been on… other things. Regardless, this is not the sight he is met with, and he looks up in confusion at the garage ceiling instead. He blinks a few times before realizing that he’s laying on the cold concrete floor. It takes just a moment longer before he is overcome by a splitting headache and his vision blurs. 

“What the fuck…” he groans, forcing himself to sit up. He reaches for his head, unable to pinpoint where exactly the pain is radiating from; he feels it throughout his entire skull... it’s in his eyes, his temples, all the way down into his neck. He’s not even sure what happened. If he passed out; if he tripped… Why was he even in the garage when he was supposed to be getting ready. The room feels like it’s spinning, and he feels waves of nausea wash over him. He doubts he’ll be able to stand up unassisted, so he crawls over to his workout bench and uses it for support. 

He almost crumples back to the floor from the vertigo he gets from rising to his feet, but he holds tight to the pull bar and takes a few deep breaths until it finally subsides. He opens his eyes again, relieved his vision has cleared, and tries to take a step. His legs are wobbly but he manages to remain stable and upright as he crosses the garage and walks back into his house. 

That’s when he realizes it’s already getting dark. Shit. He was supposed to be getting ready! He goes for his phone but it’s not in his pocket, so he slowly makes his way to his room, except it’s not on the charger either— 

And his bed spread is different… 

His bed spread is—

Tommy squeezes his eyes shut as the headache continues to get worse. “Fuuuck…” he drawls out, once again reaching for his head. He needs to get medicine, to find his phone, and to get out the door or he is going to be late. He can’t be late tonight. Tonight is special.

Another deep breath and he takes another step, towards the bathroom this time. He pulls the medicine cabinet door open, eyes going to the middle shelf where he keeps his ibuprofen… and finds a prescription— two prescriptions actually. He stares at the little orange bottles, both made out to him… one is acetaminophen-- and since he doesn’t have time to figure out why they are there-- he ignores the second and just takes the prescribed dose of the pain medicine and recloses the door. 

All he has to do now is to find his damn phone. 

It’s not in the kitchen, or on the coffee table, or out in his truck, or buried in the couch cushions… The last place he goes is back into the garage; lo and behold it’s there. The problem? It’s shattered. How it got shattered he doesn’t know. Possibly from his fall. 

He tries the side button and the screen lights up. It’s five thirty; he needs to go. He tries to carefully input his passcode: 5724. It doesn’t work. He tries it again. Still nothing. One more time and then another… he assumes the problem is the broken screen, but the phone disables for one minute and he doesn't have time to keep trying. Oh well, he can just leave now, and be there a little early. It’s not like it actually matters if he’s early, anyway. 

He goes back into the bathroom, looks at himself in the mirror— reels at the images looking back because, damn. His eyes are bloodshot with dark circles and his face is puffy and drained of all color as if he’s been crying. Has he been crying? He pushes the thought aside and takes out his eye drops, dropping a couple into each eye and wincing from the pain tilting his head back causes. The medicine will kick in soon, the headache will subside. He will be early… but when is extra time with his boyfriend a bad thing?

*

He parks and climbs out of his truck, the remnants of his headache finally starting to fade away. He takes the stairs two at a time once he’s inside the building, getting that giddy little pep in his step he always gets the moment he reaches Evan’s floor. He strides down the hallway, feeling light on his feet— like he’s floating on air. He reaches the door, lifts his hand and raps against the wood… once, twice, and three times. 

There’s a quiet commotion from inside, accompanied by the sounds of voices— plural, so someone else is here. Tommy tries to think about whether Evan said he had any plans prior to their date… he can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. He bounces on the balls of his feet, feeling his heart pick up in speed as footsteps get closer to the door. The lock turns, the knob twists and the door opens. 

Tommy can feel the tug of his smile spreading high up onto his cheeks. “Hey—”

“Uhm… Hi?” A voice that’s not Evan’s replies— Tommy stares at a face that is not Evan’s… A man he doesn’t recognize; dressed in comfortable clothes-- practically sleep clothes-- with tousled hair and a sated look that instantly has Tommy feeling some type of way. He tilts his head to see the number on the door, thinking maybe he came to the wrong apartment. He didn’t, and so he’s left thoroughly confused at who this stranger is and why he looks so… comfortable in his boyfriend’s home. “Tommy, right?” The guy continues. He lets his eyes travel over Tommy, like he’s studying him, keeping a careful and friendly enough smile on his face. 

“Wha- uh, I’m… sorry. Do I know you?” 

“Doubt it. But I have heard plenty about you…” The voice is suave; his tone is flat but not necessarily cold. Who the fuck even is—

“Dylan?” That is Evan’s voice… Tommy peers around this guy— around Dylan to see his boyfriend come bopping off the stairs. “Who is it— oh… T- Tommy?!” Evan’s face blanks, and his arms stall just as he was starting to slip them around this— this— Dylan’s waist. Tommy thinks he might actually be sick. Evan looks just as debauched, in his gray sweatpants and no shirt— sweat glistening over his bare chest leaves very little to be imagined of what the two were up to before he knocked. He finally truly looks at Dylan and the shirt is Evan’s… his oversized faded Nirvana band tee. Tommy has had to quickly slip it on when they have been disturbed time and time before. “What are you doing here?” Evan asks.

A sarcastic laugh bubbles its way out of Tommy and he has to take a step back from the door— from them. “W- What am I doing here?” He asks.  “What am I doing here…” he repeats. His face is starting to flush and there are tears filling his eyes no amount of blinking speed would be able to push away. He dares a look back at Evan. Wants to see if he even looks guilty; does he even look sorry? He just looks shocked, and that pisses Tommy off more. “I can't believe this...” he mutters under his breath and turns on his heels, willing his feet to get him out of this nightmare as fast as possible. 

“Tommy?” 

Ignore him. 

“T- Tommy!”

Ignore him. Forget him.

The steps are easier to get down than up; he is practically jumping the whole way down each flight. He should have known… he should have prepared better… he should have never given him that second chance… Tommy knew this thing with Evan was only going to be temporary— Evan was figuring himself out, and Tommy was more than willing to be the kind, caring, and supportive hand through the journey. But Tommy knew one day he would reach the end, he wouldn’t need the security of Tommy anymore, and Tommy was prepared to bow out gracefully. He just thought they had more time. 

But this…

This hurts so much more than he had anticipated that that would. 

“Tommy…” 

A hand grabs his shoulder and he realizes he has stopped just outside the apartment building. The cool night air is drying out the tears that have already streaked down his face. His chest feels like it’s caving in… and great, his headache is back. He shrugs Evan’s hand off of him, and starts moving towards his truck again. 

“What— Dammit Tommy! Are you seriously going to be this stubborn right now…”

That stops him. He turns and glares at Evan, taking a step towards him with seemingly enough fury Evan stops in his tracks, keeping distance between them. “Stubborn…?” Tommy chokes out. “Are you really calling me stubborn right now?”

“I- I mean… yeah! That’s how you’re acting right now!” Evan crosses his arms, having the audacity to appear angry. “You come to my apartment, had a stare down with my boyfriend, then just stormed off with no explanation!” 

Tommy feels his heart sink— hell it does more than that… it falls all the way to the floor and shatters. “B- Boyfriend…” he repeats. This has to be some kind of a prank. It has to be. “How can you stand there and look so calm about this… You—” You asshole… You lying, manipulative— “Cheater…” 

The look on Evan’s face at that word almost— not fully, but almost— surprises Tommy. So stunned; his eyes bouncing around from Tommy’s, to the ground, to the cars around them, up to the sky… before finally coming back to Tommy’s. “Ch- Cheater? Tommy.. wh- what are you talking about.” Tommy huffs out another sarcastic laugh and turns to angrily storm the rest of the way to his truck, all the while knowing Evan isn’t going to just let him. Maybe there’s even a part of him hoping Evan stops him with a viable explanation, because this… this can't be how it ends— this is going to do more than just crush him… it’s going to annihilate him. “Oh my god…” Evan groans and as Tommy suspected he would, starts after him again. “Tommy! Can you please— just this once— stop running and talk to me?” 

“Talk about what, Evan…” Tommy all but screams and, oddly enough, that seems to stop Evan in his tracks. “What do you want me to say? That I should have seen this coming… That I should have known it was too good to be true. Or maybe admit that I always knew I wouldn't be your forever, no matter how bad I wanted to be… but I sure as hell didn’t see this—” he gestures frantically at Evan then up at the apartment building. “—being how it ended.” The more he let the words spill out, the more confused Evan looked. “Or should I just come out and address the elephant in the room— the man up in your apartment you’re cheating on your boyfriend with.” 

Evan’s brows pull together, hardening his stare into something Tommy has never been on the receiving end of; it hurts to see, instead of angering him like it probably should. “I don’t know if you’re drunk… or if this is some kind of joke… but it’s not funny— it’s not fair! You— You don’t get to barge back into my life unannounced— today of all days. Then— then you accuse me of— That man up in my apartment is my boyfriend, Tommy… he has been for eight months now.” 

Tommy feels like a bomb was shoved down his throat and detonated. His entire body trembles and goes through after shocks of what Evan said. Partially from the unexpected sting of jealousy at the thought of someone being with Evan longer than he has… but mostly because of the absurdity of it all; does Evan really expect him to buy into the nonsense he’s spewing; claiming he has been in this other relationship for this long— and on their anniversary. Except Evan looks serious. 

Tommy tries to find his voice; he tries to string some words together in his head to say something back. “W- What?” is all he manages to come up with; his voice betrays him, coming out small and broken. 

Evan steps closer to him, cracks clearly forming in the cold and serious look he was just giving Tommy, making way for looks of concern, or confusion… or maybe even of sadness. “Tommy,” he says the name for the upteenth time, and Tommy feels himself flinching at his own name like it assaulted him. “Are you— Are you okay? What’s going on? Why— why are you here?” He steps closer, Tommy steps back. 

Just like that the medicine’s effect dissipates and his headache comes rushing back with a vengeance. Tommy’s vision blurs and he gasps at the return of the pain, now with a spot to single the bulk of it to. He brings his hand up to the back of his head, fingers instantly touching something wet. 

“Will you stop— dammit Tommy, stop running away from me,” Evan continues, almost in front of him now, although his voice sounds muffled and far away. Tommy stops backing up and lets his hand fall down from his head, revealing bright red blood coating his fingers. “Oh my god…” Evan gasps just as a wave of dizziness sways Tommy backwards. Two strong arms grab him, steady him… but don’t exactly hold him, and that hurts as bad as this headache. Evan is so close Tommy wouldn’t have to lean in far to capture his lips… but he can’t. Not like this. Not while everything feels so off and confusing. 

He allows Evan to help him over to his truck, but shies away from his touch the moment he is able to lean on its bed for stability. Evan pulls out his phone and dials 9-1-1. “What are you doing?” Tommy asks when his jaw is grabbed, gently but firmly, and Evan is guiding him to turn his head. He is ignored as Evan talks to the dispatcher, giving the location and a short gist of what happened, before he stops talking abruptly.

“T- Tommy… were— were you in an accident?” 

Tommy can’t help the sarcasm heavy laugh at the ridiculous question. “Don’t you think you would know if I had been,” he says coolly. 

Evan sighs. “He has a pretty big wound on the back of his head,” he tells the dispatcher, and Tommy stares at him in shock. “There are staples but it’s been reopened.” Tommy feels his skin prickling. He feels this strong sense of unease, like the floors about to fall out from under him. “Hey… look at me,” Evan says, resting his hand on Tommy’s shoulder and looking in his eyes, he turns his phone’s flashlight on and scans it over each eye. “His pupils are receptive. Do— Do you know what day it is?” 

Of course that’s a logical question but given everything it is like a stab into his already ripped open chest. “It’s… November 7.” 

“Okay, good. And the year?”

“2024…”

“Okay— wait. Wh- What did you say?” Once again Evan is staring at him confused. “You said it’s 2024?” Tommy breaks his eyes away; Evan is getting that kicked puppy look and he doesn’t get to do that. He doesn’t get to make Tommy feel bad right now. “Tommy…” Evan pries. “You— You said 2024?” 

“Yes Evan, yes! It’s November 7, 2024! It’s our six month anniversary! But I guess that means nothing to—” His voice cracks. He covers his trembling lip with the back of his hand and tries to calm himself down. 

Sirens break through the deafening silence, and an Ambulance turns into the parking lot. Evan flags it over and it comes to a stop behind Tommy’s truck. Thankfully it’s not the 118, and Tommy doesn’t recognize the paramedics that get out to help him. They check over the apparent wound on the back of his head, and start asking him questions. Questions he mostly ignores because he is focused on Evan talking to the one of them off to the side. “He— he thinks it’s 2024…” he whispers but Tommy catches it anyway. 

“What do you mean ‘I think’,” he asks past the mountain of questions the paramedic accessing him is still piling on. Evan’s mouth clamps shut and he looks over at Tommy. “You said I think it’s 2024… what the hell does that mean Evan.” 

“I- I don’t— uhm…” Evan looks helplessly at the paramedics, avoiding looking at Tommy. 

“Sir, please, just calm down. Take a deep breath. We can get everything figured out at the hospital.”

“To hell with that,” Tommy snaps— which surprises even himself, because he is usually compliant with first responders, being that he is one. “I want everything figured out now. What do you mean?” 

“Tommy…” Evan begins, takes a deep breath and sighs it out. “It’s 2025.” 

“What?”

“It— It’s 2025,” Evan reiterates.

~~~~~~~~

Sooooo 😀 trying to actually get this fix rolling because I am not going to post the whole first chapter until it’s done! Fingers crossed I don’t lose inspiration before then 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

Throwing out a couple more tags just incase you wanna share something fixing this mess thrown on our poor sad boys or just to heal yourself, or something entirely new! 🫶

@nine-one-wanton @herrmannhalsteadproduction @30somethingautisticteacher @bangpop91 @racerchix21 @rdng1230

@somethingaboutfirefly @kinardsevan @bucksxkinard @unhingedangstaddict and anyone else who wants to share their stuff or just follow along 🫶

[vani-ash]

I ripped the audio from the Happy Ending pilot live stream cause I couldn't stop thinking about it

its been sitting on my computer for months and I kept forgetting to convert it lmao

im so glad i screen recorded the live (cause i didnt know if it would stay up at the time) if you check the pilot live stream now theres only like a few seconds of the instrumental at the start 😔

[hbyrde36]

Steddie | R: Explicit (for eventual smut) | WC:4225 | Ch 2/8 | AO3

Ch 1 <-

Chapter 2: This Haunted House Is Not A Home

Eddie slumped in the corner, watching for longer than he’d ever be willing to admit to another soul, while Steve slept. 

It was fitful at first, and for a while every twitch under the sheets was accompanied by soft groans and whimpers. Steve never roused fully, but it was clear he was in a lot of pain even at rest. Eventually though, he fell still, his breath coming deep and even as the wrinkles in his forehead smoothed out.

The sun was beginning to rise by the time Eddie wandered out into the hall, finally growing bored of snooping around the plaid nightmare Steve called a bedroom, appalled to have found absolutely nothing incriminating—granted, he hadn’t tried to get into the closet—and he was left itching to explore the rest of the house. 

It was… depressing, to say the least. 

Eddie hadn’t really noticed before, being a little distracted with his own situation on their jaunt up the stairs a few hours ago, but there was nothing on the walls anywhere in the Harrington home, save for a few tasteful—read: boring—works of art. 

Using the term art loosely, of course. 

Not a single baby picture, school photo, or family portrait was displayed anywhere. Though Eddie did at one point come across a small album with Steve’s name written in blue across the spine, tucked high on a shelf in what must be his parents bedroom. 

The entire house was painfully staged. Except for the things that clearly belonged to Steve and stuff the rest of the party left behind scattered around the living room, it was as if the whole thing was a lifeless showpiece. A floor model, like those fake kitchens and shit set up in fancy furniture stores

To think Steve had grown up in this place with no warmth, no substance, no feeling. 

It made Eddie sad to imagine. 

He may have hopped from house to house for a while before landing with Wayne, but his uncle had made sure he felt at home, welcome and comfortable from day one. Their trailer was full of mementos… or, it had been. Eddie supposed it was all rubble or less by now, but nothing could take away his memories of those crowded walls, adorned with everything from embarrassing snapshots of his own sixth grade graduation, to Wayne’s extensive coffee mug collection. Not to mention all the hats, and tiny commemorative spoons from every State and truck stop they’d ever gassed up at during their summer road trips to his uncle’s favorite fishing hole.

Love housed in many forms, everywhere you looked. 

When late morning hit, Eddie was still wandering around, going from one window to the next to watch the horribly bland suburban world go by, and tried desperately not to consider the fact that this might be his life now. 

Steve still hadn’t come down, and there hadn’t been so much as a peep or a footstep from that part of the house. It made sense that Steve might sleep in, needing more rest than normal while he was healing, but there was a gnawing feeling in the back of Eddie’s mind telling him that this wasn’t good.

After warring with himself over it for a moment he returned to Steve’s room, quietly tip-toeing over to the bed to check on him.

“Steve?” Eddie said tentatively as he got close.

Steve’s face was as white as a sheet. His hair was stuck to his brow, soaked through with sweat. The covers had slipped down a bit since last night, showing his shirt similarly drenched too, and though his chest rose and fell in rhythm, his breaths were weak and shallow.

When Steve didn’t so much as twitch in response, Eddie climbed up onto the bed, noting that while he could in fact do that, the mattress didn’t dip at all under his weight.

“Steve?” He called again, a little louder and more insistent this time as he hovered over the other boy's frame. “Come on, big boy, you gotta wake up.”

With rapidly growing panic, Eddie reached down to grasp Steve's shoulders. For a split second he actually made contact, but as he tried to shake the other boy awake he lost it, hands slipping right through to the mattress below. 

For better or worse, that momentary touch had told him enough. 

Steve was burning up.

It wasn’t that otherworldly fluttering heat from the night before either. That buzz that had shot through him and had made his whole body break out in goosebumps when he’d last held Steve’s body.

No, he was raging with fever.

“Wake up, Steve!” Eddie shouted frantically, his throat growing tighter and tighter as Steve continued to be unresponsive. “Please—please don’t do this. I need you. We all need you–”

He sat back on his heels at the foot of the bed, running a hand through his hair. 

He felt solid to himself, damnit. He could feel his hands in his hair right now. It was part of what made the whole ghost thing so hard to believe. Wouldn’t he know if he was dead? Wouldn’t he feel dead?

Or maybe it was all just wishful thinking.

That was a problem for another day. He needed to get Steve help, somehow, and he needed to do it now. 

Eddie jumped off the bed and raced downstairs, making a beeline for the kitchen. If he could just dial 911—

But, naturally, the one time he really, really needed to make it happen, he couldn’t manage to touch the stupid phone. Maybe if he concentrated really hard on it?

Before he could bring himself to try a second time, the phone started to ring. 

Eddie prayed it was Robin or one of the kids calling to check in. Even knowing it was futile, he reached for the handset, stomping his feet angrily when he failed yet again. 

Goddamnit!

Think, Munson, think! 

What had been different last night when he’d managed to touch Steve for almost a full minute? 

Well, he’d been annoyed at first, then a little turned on if he was honest. Obviously his concern for Steve’s well-being had taken center stage once he’d gotten a look at how badly hurt he still was, but wounded or not, a shirtless Steve Harrington was a fucking sight to see. Eddie would challenge anyone—gay, straight, or otherwise—to stand in his presence and be unaffected.

But surely horny ghost magic could not possibly be a thing.

No, he’d been worried. Like, really fucking worried. The same way he felt just now when he couldn’t get Steve to wake. He hadn’t thought about what he was doing, he’d just acted.  

This time Eddie tried to clear his mind, no thoughts, no doubts, no anything, instead of attempting to force it. Which… trying to actively clear your mind was fucking impossible, it turned out, but he did his best before reaching out again.

His hand met nothing but air.

“Motherfucker!” He shouted, kicking out violently at the wall. 

His foot hit sheetrock hard, sending shockwaves up his leg and spine. The wall shook, knocking the phone off the hook to hang upside down by its cord. 

Eddie threw his head back and laughed, a burst of hope sparking in his chest, before squatting down to yell into the receiver. “Hello! Hello?!” 

He could hear Robin doing the same on the other end of the line. 

Right. 

The only person who could hear him was lying unconscious upstairs. 

“Steve, are you there? Steve?!” Robin’s voice cried out, tinny through the earpiece.

Eddie let his ass plop down on the floor, leaving him mouth level with the receiver as he dropped his head into his hands. “He’s in bad shape, Buckley,” he said, softly this time since it didn’t matter anyway. “And I can’t do anything about it. I feel so helpless.”

“I don’t like this,” Robin said over the line again after a long moment of silence. “Steve, If you can hear me just–just hang in there, okay? I’m coming over.”

Eddie heaved a sigh of relief, rubbing hard at his eyes. “Thank fuck.”

From his vigil at Steve’s bedside, Eddie heard the sound of the front door creaking open and slamming closed, as Robin—at least he hoped it was Robin—let herself into the house.

“Steve?” Her familiar voice called from downstairs.

Relief flooded him again in an overwhelming wave that made him want to both cheer and sob. His body went lax with it, everything but his gaze. That remained fixed on the bed in front of him, unblinking where it was set on Steve’s face, as if Eddie’s eyes on him could keep him safe until real help arrived. 

“We’re up here!” Eddie shouted out in a choked voice, forgetting again for a moment that she couldn’t hear him.

Whatever. 

“Cavalry’s here,” he murmured softly to the still form below. “You’re gonna be okay now, Steve.” 

In seconds Robin was pounding up the stairs and flying through the open bedroom door. “Oh my god—Steve?!” She cried, lunging for the bed. Eddie lurched out of the way on instinct just before she threw herself at Steve’s comatose figure.

She shook his arm, shouted his name, and at one point Eddie thought she was about to slap him across the face before thinking better of it, scrambling down off the bed to run into the attached bathroom. 

Curious, he followed, watching her grab a towel and fill a cup with cold water from the sink.

Yes! Genius girl!

She marched back out, whispering half-hearted apologies before dumping the entire thing right in Steve’s face.

It worked, though not quite as Eddie expected. Rather than gasping awake, sputtering and maybe yelling about getting water all over his bed, Steve whined, high and pitiful and heartbreaking.  

Eddie would have much preferred the first option.

Steve’s head lolled from side to side, lips parting to reveal chattering teeth, before one eye and then the next slowly cracked open. 

“Eddie?” 

“What? No, i-it’s me,” Robin said, her voice shaking a little along with her hand as it reached up to feel Steve’s forehead. “God—you’re really burning up.”

“I’m here, Steve.” Eddie answered after a beat, moving around to kneel down on the other side of the bed. His name being the first word out of Steve’s mouth on waking was more than a little unexpected, and something he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with, but hearing Steve’s voice, no matter what he said, felt like winning the fucking lottery just then.

“Did you—“ Steve cut himself off, coughing. “Call Robin?”

“Yes, dingus! I called and you weren’t saying anything. You scared me half to death.”

At the same time Robin was replying, having no idea the question wasn’t meant for her, Eddie spoke too. “No, but she called and I… I was able to knock the phone off the wall.”

“S’good,” Steve forced out, swallowing thickly. “I’m not feelin’ so hot today.”

“I’d imagine not—” Robin sighed, leaning in to push the damp hair out of Steve’s eyes. “You idiot. Why didn’t you tell me how bad you were, huh? I knew you should have gone to the hospital.”

“No, no hospital. I-I can't," Steve protested. 

“You have an infection!” Robin shrieked. 

“I don’t… can’t…” Steve did his best to shake his head, wincing with even that small movement. “Be ‘lone.”

“I know you hate doctors but I'll be with you the whole time,” Robin insisted.

Eddie leaned in to add his own two cents in Steve’s ear. “Trust me, big boy, you’ll be surrounded by nurses. They’ll probably fight over who gets to give you a sponge bath. You won’t be alone.”

“No—” Steve groaned. Until that moment he’d been mostly staring up at the ceiling, but for the first time since he woke, Steve purposely turned his head, looking straight into Eddie’s eyes. “You ‘lone.”

“Oh,” Eddie breathed, a little dumbstruck. He huffed a breathy laugh, trying to ignore the flutter in his belly. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart, I'm coming along. You can’t get rid of me that easily. Let her take you to the hospital, man.”

The corner of Steve’s mouth twitched as he gave a weak nod. “Okay.”

“See?” Robin bent her body sideways trying to catch Steve's eye. “You're delirious!” She shouted, throwing her hands up. “Come on, I borrowed my mom’s car.”

With an agonizing slowness and pained expression, Steve turned away from Eddie and back to give her a wary glare. “B-but you can’t drive.”

She looked down at him with a raised eyebrow. “I made it here, didn’t I? I’ve been practicing.”

“You been holding out on me, Robs?” Steve teased, weakly.

“Oh shut it, you know you love being my personal chauffeur.”

Somehow Robin managed to get Steve’s shoes on and help him down the stairs and out to the driveway. She had to have been supporting nearly half his body weight, and though she never once let on to Steve that she was struggling, Eddie could see it on her face. 

For his part, Eddie hovered, that same feeling of helplessness making him want to rant and rage. 

Instead, he kept up a constant stream of encouragement, contributing the only way he could, even if all his words managed to do were keep Steve awake long enough to make it into the back seat of the ugliest station wagon he’d ever seen.

Robin secured Steve with a seatbelt, and Eddie managed to slip into the car past him before she closed the car door. He was pretty sure he could have gone through it if need be, but better safe than sorry since he was still completely fucking lost on how the physics of this shit worked.

Up front, Robin spoke under her breath, babbling to herself about switching gears and keeping her hands at ten and two as the car jerked backwards out of the driveway, and pulled it slowly out onto the road.

Steve sagged in his seat, the belt seemingly the only thing keeping him from sliding to the floorboard, but still he spared what little energy he must have had to give Eddie a strained smile, his hand twitching where it rested on the bench seat as if he wanted to reach out. Eddie slid his hand along the vinyl upholstery, closing the distance until their pinkies would have brushed. 

They didn’t, because of course they didn’t, but Eddie was filled again with that pleasant, tingling heat. Steve let out a contented hum, his eyes slipping closed as he relaxed further into the cushion, and Eddie wondered if it felt good for him too. If Steve felt anything at all when Eddie’s form passed through his. 

Maybe sometime later he’d be brave enough to ask. 

For the second time that day Eddie found himself watching the world go by through glass while Steve slept, this new view even worse than the mundanity of Loch Nora.

Hawkins was a mess. 

Some streets and houses were nearly untouched, as if Hell itself hadn’t almost escaped to wreak havoc from beneath their carefully manicured lawns. Others were unrecognizable, homes utterly ruined, the path of destruction marked by deep cracks in the ground. The fissures were partially closed now but the devastation surrounding them told a story, as clear as any other, about how harrowing that terrible night had been, in and out of the Upside Down. 

Before long they were pulling up to the sliding doors of the emergency room at Hawkins General, where Robin thankfully remembered to throw the car into park before shouldering her door open and rushing inside, returning a second later with two nurses and a stretcher.

“Hey, man! Watch his head!” Eddie shouted as he climbed out, after the burlier of the two hauled Steve from the backseat too fast and with too little care, in his humble opinion.

His outburst fell on deaf ears, as was usual now, and for someone whose life and passions revolved around his inability to ever shut the fuck up, this not being able to be heard thing was a fate worse than… 

Well.

Robin took off after the nurses when they began to roll Steve away. Eddie followed at her heels, only for her to be stopped short by a small woman just outside a large set of double doors as Steve and his entourage continued on.

“I’m sorry, honey. You can’t go back with him,” the new nurse said, holding her hand up to block Robin, who was trying to weave around her. “Go check in with reception. We’ll update you when we can.”

Robin fumed but kept her mouth shut for once, only huffing in frustration before turning on her heel to march away.

“I’ll keep an eye on him, Buckley. Don’t worry,” Eddie murmured. 

He didn’t let himself hesitate for even a second, though he did shut his eyes, and walked straight through those closed doors like they were nothing, opening his eyes again on the other side, jogging to catch up to the stretcher carrying his friend.

For the first time since he’d come to in Steve’s living room, he was actually grateful for the whole ghost thing, or whatever this was.

After what felt like an eternity, after a team of doctors and nurses poked and prodded and assessed, and said horrible things like, “thank god he got here when he did,” and “narrowly avoided sepsis,” Steve’s hospital room was finally quiet, save for the electrical hum of fluorescent lights and a monitor.

Eddie sat at his bedside, watching every breath run in and out of his sleeping body, a position he’d become far too familiar with in such a short time.

He heard Robin coming before she’d even reached the door, talking some poor nurse's ear off at a mile a minute all the way down the corridor. 

“Sorry I’m late,” she whispered to the room as she stepped inside. She approached the bed opposite Eddie, resting a hip against it as she took Steve’s limp hand in her own. 

Eddie tried not to be jealous of the way she could touch so freely. 

“Can you believe they wouldn’t let me in till now?” Robin went on, with a light scoff. “Sometimes I forget other people can’t see that we’re a matched set. Maybe when this is all over we should get tattoos that say do not separate.” she paused, letting out a quiet, wet laugh. “I told them you got hurt in the earthquake saving Max and tried to treat yourself at home. I think if she wasn’t here herself they might have asked more questions, but—”

Eddie stepped away at that, moving through the room’s door with the same ease he had earlier, and out into the hallway to give them some privacy. Not that Robin knew he was there, but it seemed like the polite thing to do. 

He couldn’t help wondering about Max now anyway, feeling terrible suddenly for not thinking to ask if she and everyone else had made it out okay. Little red must have been hurt pretty bad if she was still here after almost a week. 

With Robin watching over Steve, Eddie took a moment to search for the younger girl, and found her only a few rooms away.

Every surface of her suite was covered in drawings and get well cards, fluffy pink teddy bears and floating balloons. He could practically hear Max bitching up a storm about it all, while being secretly pleased at the evidence of so many people caring for her.

Though it was early in the evening, she was already asleep, arm sticking out at her side in a massive cast and one of her legs lifted in traction. It felt wrong to see someone so fierce look so small and vulnerable, her thin frame swallowed up by the enormous bed. But a glance at her chart on the wall showed her vitals were good, and there was a healthy flush to her cheeks. 

If anyone could overcome this, it was Max

“Sorry, hun, but visiting hours are over,” a voice called out in the distance, trickling in from the direction of Steve’s room down the hall. “You can come back and see your boyfriend tomorrow.”

Eddie would have paid money to see the look Robin’s face at that.

“See you around, Red,” he whispered, slipping back out just in time to pass Robin on her way to the exit, her cheeks shiny with tears still flowing freely from red, puffy eyes. 

It was just the two of them again when Eddie returned to Steve’s room, and this time when he took up his post in the chair next to the bed, he gave in to the urge to hold Steve’s hand, as much as he could at least.

One minute Eddie was laying his head down on the side of Steve’s bed, only intending to ‘rest his eyes’ for a bit—if such a thing was even possible—and the next everything faded to black. 

He floated in calm nothingness for seconds or days, completely at peace with the undulating dark, until slowly, gradually something else came into focus. 

Something awful and unfortunately familiar.

The dark gray skies and falling ash of the Upside Down loomed overhead, the only color the occasional flash of blood red lightning in the distance. Eddie felt strangely detached from his surroundings, wandering the cold barren wasteland in a daze, barely aware of putting one foot in front of the other. 

Not long after it appeared around him the vision of the Upside Down vanished again, and with a strange pulling sensation from behind his belly button, he was yanked away, returned to the inky nothing.

Eddie jerked awake with a gasp, stumbling forward, only just managing to avoid face planting into the carpet of Steve’s living room.

Could ghosts sleep? Could they dream? What the hell had just happened? And how did he get back here?

He had too many questions and exactly zero answers.

After searching the house and finding it as empty as he’d expected, Eddie considered walking back to the hospital, but he had no way of knowing how much time had passed since he’d left Steve’s bedside. It was probably better to just sit tight and wait for him to come home.

Easier said than done.

Another night and day passed, and Eddie was ready to rip his hair out when the headlights of Robin’s borrowed station wagon cut through the dark of early evening to pull into the driveway.

He’d been watching the street from Steve’s bedroom window and quickly made his way down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

“Eddie?” Steve's worried voice called out after the creak of the door. He already sounded a hell of a lot stronger than the last time Eddie had heard him speak. 

“Y’know, you're really starting to worry me. It was just a fever dream. I'm telling you you can’t see ghosts!”

“I’m here,” Eddie said, rounding the corner of the living room, skidding to stop right in front of Steve. He wanted desperately to hug him or something, and maybe it was more of that good ole wishful thinking but it sort of looked like Steve wanted to hug him too.

Instead Eddie cleared his throat, glancing at Robin, who stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, then back to Steve. “Cat out of the bag?”

“Sort of,” Steve sighed, shuffling closer to the couch. “She doesn't believe me.”

Eddie followed, snorting. “I thought you two shared a brain cell?” 

Robin threw her hands up “Of course I don’t believe you, Mr. I've-Had-Multiple-Concussions! Who would believe that?!”

“What do you want to do?” Eddie asked, both of them ignoring her for the time being.

“Can you try to touch her, maybe?” Steve suggested. “Do you know how you did it yet?”

“Not really. I think I have to be under a certain amount of like, stress or something?”

“I mean, you are a ghost, that's gotta be pretty stressful already.”

“Oh, ha–ha,” Eddie rolled his eyes. “Good one, Harrington.”

“Why don’t you just—” Steve quieted abruptly with a low groan, wobbling on suddenly unstable, shaking legs. Robin surged forward as if she could catch him from across the room, but Eddie was right there. He practically swept Steve off his feet in his effort to keep him from falling, setting him gently but swiftly down on the couch before the ability escaped him again.

Steve beamed.

“What the—” Robin gasped, blinking rapidly at the scene in front of her with her mouth agape.

Eddie narrowed his eyes, leveling a finger in Steve’s face. “You did that on purpose.”

The insufferable ass had the nerve to wink, grinning up at him. “Maybe.”

“You’re already hurt, couldn’t we have found some other way to test it?!” Eddie hissed. “What if it hadn’t worked?”

Steve lifted his shoulder in a half shrug. “It did, didn’t it?”

“Eddie?” Robin asked, a little breathy. She looked nervously around the space as she moved to sit down next to Steve. “Is it really him?”

Steve turned to her, and mirroring him, Eddie did the same as they both spoke at once.

“Yeah, Rob. It’s him.” 

“Yeah, Buckley. It’s me. 

Thanks as always to @penny00dreadful for being the best beta and an absolutely amazing cheerleader!

Permanent taglist(open): @penny00dreadful @pearynice @hitlikehammers @bookworm0690 @wonderland-girl143-blog 

@goodolefashionedloverboi @themagicalari @awkwardgravity1 @rocknrollsalad

Fic taglist (open): @sidekick-hero @geekymagicalpotato

[fuck-customers]

So I was doing this training module that goes over the employee handbook and got walloped by this sentence:

I'm pretty sure there's a set order to these things.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

The Fool Dies

Summary: You are a villain known for telling the future. When a Hero kills your right hand, you’ll let the future burn to get her back.

Hero Cowboy kills your henchman after you’ve already surrendered.

Gunshot silence, the scent of iron heavy in your nose, the crippling cold that floods your chest. All familiar sensations, companions you’ve carried with you since you even became a villain, but this time—

This time it’s…different.

You’re on your knees, the rock salt on the road digging into your kneecaps, with your hands above your head, the ghost of your signature smirk fading fast. The street isn’t empty. There are witnesses. The Hero pulls his punches when there are cameras and citizens and teammates. That’s what your plan says. He pulls his punches.

She asked if you were willing to bet her life on that and you said yes.

Your henchman’s body is stuck in the crumpled side of a car. You see her out of your peripheral, the pale oval of her face unencumbered by the mask you’d lovingly bestowed upon her six years ago. Cowboy backhanded it off of her as she was falling to her knees beside you. There is wet and red and twisted metal dancing foggily around her. The air is harsh and cold to breathe. The world is wavering as tears flood your eyes. You can’t blink them away. If you do, you won’t be able to see her just at the corner of your vision, you won’t be able to watch for a breath you already know won’t come, you’re afraid she’ll disappear—

“Clever to pretend to surrender,” the Hero says. He’s like a swan, spreading his arms out so the leather tassels lining the underside of his sleeves look like wings. He tips his head back so that the news cameras rushing in can catch the strength of his jaw under his wide-brimmed hat. She’d managed to singe it in the fight and the light catches in his blue eyes through the resulting hole. “Was it worth it, Prophetess? Was your attempt on my life worth the life of your sidekick?”

Snow falls, a few flakes here and there. The street is lit like the middle of the day thanks to the news cameras swarming out of the side streets now that the fight is over. The fire is being put out and thick curls of smoke rise from just beyond the gathering crowd of onlookers.

Your spellbook is lying a hundred feet away at the bottom of the lake. That’s why the Hero is flaunting himself in front of the cameras, trying to minimize her death at his hand. He did what he had to do. They were wrong, not him. Unfortunate but expected. The Hero always wins.

She’s gone.

The Fool. She always wanted a different name. But you were adamant she wouldn’t receive one until she earned one outside of her service to you. Until then, her name was a reflection of your journey. Your first step, foolish and unknowing, young and ignorant of the consequences. The name felt right when you called it and you never thought to question why. Only now can you taste your own cruel power in the decision. The power of prophecy spelled her fate out in front of you and, like always, you didn’t listen.

Your tattered cloak ripples in the breeze coming off the water. The vibrant purple is stained with soot and worse, the once smooth velvet charred and eaten away at by the Fire Cowboy’s flames.

They don’t remember that you surrendered before he struck. He’s dismissed your uncharacteristic action as an act, and so the world will too. The Prophetess always lies. Isn’t that the first line in your Hero Force file? The Prophetess has no powers of divination; she lies.

The world is magic. You believe it like the sun, like the earth, like the ocean—

--like her—

--and there is magic even here. The spell of your grief rises over your head like a shroud and, for a moment, you are drowning in the dark as the world heaves. You can taste the last cup of coffee she ever gave you going sour at the back of your mouth, the small daily comfort washing away under the metallic scent of her blood. There is a purple current around your thoughts, painful and biting. You will always be in this moment with her jester’s mask – cruel, you are so cruel – leering up at you, closer to your hands than her. How did you let her get so far out of reach?

Why didn’t you hold her close?

“I asked,” Cowboy says from directly in front of you, “if it was worth it?”

The world pulses back into purple focus. Cowboy is looming over you and the smoke of your battle rises into the night behind him. The media jockeys closer the longer you are silent and they’re inching around the car she’s lying against.

“Tell them to get away from her,” you say. Normal, your voice is so normal. Your arms are burning from holding your hands over your head and your neck aches from forcing yourself not to look. You are afraid your tears will fall if you blink so you stare at the gaudy belt buckle in front of your face. Your eyes are purple in the reflection and your face is as pale as hers. “P-please.”

Cowboy must kill all the time. He has no problem glancing towards the slowly gathering swarm and you can feel his eyes on her body as if they were on your own. “They’re trying to help her.”

“She’s beyond helping,” you say. Why would they even try? You can’t even look at her and you can tell that. “I don’t want anyone touching her.”

“They’re not monsters,” Cowboy says. There’s a scoff and then he’s crouching in front of you. He smells like singed leather. “Not like you.”

You’ve never seen the Hero this close. He’s older than you thought, only a few years shy of your age. His stubble is darkened with soot and his nose bears scars of past battles. His eyes—they’re not blue. You can see the edge of brown behind his contacts, the same deep brown as his mask.

“You killed her,” you say.

“No, you did.” He answers you so quickly it’s like he was waiting for those exact words. He tilts his head so the brim of his hat hides his lips in shadow. “She wouldn’t have died if it weren’t for you.”

He’s so confident that you nearly believe him. Your hands ache with phantom bruises from the blows and the weight of your sin falls onto your shoulders like the sky itself coming to rest there.

--------------.

 You see the trajectory of her life lined in gold. Her first day at your firm, her finding out your identity, her wavering in front of the window overlooking the Charlotte skyline as she admitted to knowing exactly who you are and how you’d been hiding more than your fair share of power all along.

That moment shines. She wasn’t the Fool then. She ripped her pencil skirt up the side as you debated her fate. When you asked her why, she said in case she needed to run.

“You would run from me?” you asked, eyebrow raised, conveying with expression alone how ridiculous you found the idea of her getting away was.

“I would,” she said. She grinned unhappily. “You can kill me, but you’ll break a sweat doing it.”

You laughed and held out your hand. When she took it, the outline of her life changed. No longer edged in gold. All black. A night sky all around her.

“You’re a fool for this,” you told her.

“The biggest one around,” she said, chagrined. Then she laughed with you.

You’ll never hear her laugh again.

----------.

There is a protocol for arresting a villain. Cowboy is already so outside of Hero Force code that it takes a while for things to be ready. He stands over you for the better part of an hour, smiling at the cameras, glaring you into submission, waving to the officers that eventually come to secure the scene.

An ambulance comes to take her body away. Only when they load her into it do you move. You watch the side of the vehicle like you can see through it. Cowboy tenses when it starts to drive away, but you don’t twitch. Her body isn’t her. If you start clinging to it now, you will never let her go.

“I know they call you Cowboy,” a woman drawls, “but you aren’t supposed to act like one.”

The reporters leap out of Strongwoman’s way. Barely five feet, Strongwoman is a super hero. Nobody is willing to get too close, regardless of how good and moral she is. The dark-haired woman is one of the few heroes who don’t wear a mask. No villain is stupid enough to think that makes her weak. Her dark eyes catalogue the scene quickly and efficiently. The ground rumbles as she approaches.

“Heat of battle,” Cowboy dismisses. His shoulders relax with another hero to support him and he shakes out his leather vest. Soot and snow falls from him. “Literally.”

“Hm.” Strongwoman finally turns the weight of her attention towards you. “Where’s her spellbook?”

“Bottom of the lake.”

“She hasn’t tried to summon it?”

“Her minion was in charge of that.”

Strongwoman’s voice whips. “We don’t call them minions.”

“Sorry.”

“You should be,” Strongwoman says. She folds her arms across her chest. She always gives the impression of being wrapped in armor and it takes you a moment to realize she’s wearing a tank top despite the cold. The muscles in her arms twitch. “That’s your third body this year.”

Cowboy hisses, eyes flying over her head towards the reporters. “Don’t—” A coalition of people in dark suits are already herding the media away. Cowboy’s lips thin. “Not in public.”

Strongwoman raises an eyebrow. She reaches down with one hand and hauls you up by the collar of your robes. “Fine. The car then.” She frowns at the way your hands hang by your sides. “You didn’t cuff her?”

“She doesn’t have her spellbook.”

“Protocol, Cow.”

“It’s Cowboy.”

“…”

“Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Strongwoman cuffs your hands behind your back. The familiar sting of power suppressors races up your arms. The last time someone managed to get them on you, the Fool had to break them off once you escaped. You feel her breath against the shell of your ear and her voice whispers, Now who will do it for you?

Her memory is another spell on you. The edges of your life – dark and violently violet – cover your eyes so that you’re blind and deaf to the world around you. Once this new incantation runs its course, you’re sitting in the back of a Hero Force car. The grate between you and the front seat is closed. Beyond it, you can see Strongwoman at the wheel, shoulders vibrating with tension. Cowboy is sitting in the passenger seat like a petulant child.

You read their lips in the rearview mirror.

--review, Strongwoman says. Three. Three deaths on your hands.

This one was just a villain—

Tell that to Foresight. I beg you. See how he likes that excuse.

Cowboy changes tactics. You know the Prophetess is basically an S-Class—

Without her spellbook?

She had it for most of the fight.

Did she?

You lean your head back and close your eyes. Cowboy’s been operating alone for too long. They’ll likely stick him in probation and then transfer him to a hero team with an established leader. Maybe Atlas’ team in San Francisco or Light’s team in LA. Hell, if they really want to punish him, they’ll assign him to Omit’s team in Chicago. The guy’s the most righteous and the most powerless leader out there. Cowboy might actually become a villain if he’s forced to follow that guy’s lead.

“He’ll suffer,” you say in your prophecy voice.

A speaker crackles to life overhead. “No divination,” Cowboy snaps.

“I wasn’t talking about you,” you say.

“Prophetess lies,” Strongwoman says to Cowboy. “Remember, she always lies.”

“It’s still a threat—”

“Prophetess,” Strongwoman says. “Let’s go over next steps. When we get to Charlotte HQ, you’ll be taken to a secure floor where you’ll be asked to remove your mask. It’s important that you understand your identity will remain confidential until your loved ones can be secured—”

“He killed her,” you interrupt. You watch the ceiling of the car. “I can tell you my identity now if you’d like.”

There’s a pause. “That won’t be necessary,” Strongwoman says. Is it just you, or is her voice a little softer? “There is a proper course to this investigation.”

The way she says it makes it sound like she’s promising you something.

It’s like your mind is scrambling for connection to her. There is nothing in what Strongwoman says that reminds you of the Fool. And yet, as the car falls back into weighted silence, one word rings. Proper.

There is a proper way, the Fool whispers. You could fight this spell, but don’t. You sink into the car seat the best you can with your hands behind your back. Hear me out.

Please, you think. By all means.

------.

The first time you ask her to dinner, you’re too hasty. There’s blood on the hem of your robes (possibly a tooth) and the city is still screaming the sirens of your escape. The Fool isn’t shivering like the rest of your henchman; she is standing next to you. Her Jester’s mask is carefully secured with three exact ties despite the haste with which she put it on.

“I can never wear this skirt again,” she says. She is standing on the very edge of the building, the toes of her sensible work shoes a bare inch away from nothing. “This was my best work skirt.”

The city sparks with the purple of your magic, violet vines climbing the buildings and blocking your view of the street below. Your magic is mostly illusion, but all power leaves behind a mark. Where your spell has started to fade remains a charred outline of leaves and flowers against the concrete and stone of the buildings.

While the rest of your minions look a bit like chimney sweeps, the Fool remains untouched. It’s an obvious sign of favoritism; you had room for one other person underneath your cloak and you chose her.

Somehow the memory of her pressed against your side as she used her power to lift you both up to the rooftop makes you blush.

“You don’t have any residue on you,” you say. “You can stitch it up.”

She scoffs. At you. “It’s recognizable, Prophetess.”

It’s really not. The black pencil skirt is the same kind she wore when you first met. How many does she go through? You find yourself smiling at her bare thigh.  Since she first told you she knew who you were, you’ve seen her rip at least three.

“Something amuse you?” she asks. Her voice is short and snappish, the tone she uses when one of the other paralegals aren’t as thorough as they need to be with the briefs. She turns to face you so that the setting sun lights her outline in orange and pink and gold.

“Have dinner with me,” you say.

And for a moment, the hope of her saying yes is as blinding as the sun behind her. Her lips part and you imagine that her eyes widen behind her jester’s mask. A wind picks at the long strands of her hair, sending them fluttering around her like a halo, and you’re standing so close that one brushes your cheek.

“There is a proper way,” she says and then stops. Her right hand twitches at her side. “There is—” is she stuttering? “This isn’t—Prophetess.”

You’re fascinated. She’s always so precise with her words. Even when you threatened her all those months ago she never once floundered like she’s doing now. “Hmm?”

“Hear me out,” she says.

You nod. “Of course.” You lean forward so that you’re only inches away from her. “I’m listening.”

“This…is not the time,” she says. You feel her attention slide to the others and then back to you. She hisses when she finds you even closer. “Prophetess.”

You don’t want to push too hard.

You lean back onto your good leg. “You let me know when it is time,” you say. Your lips quirk. “My little Fool.”

“Oh my god,” she mutters. She turns sharply on her heel. “Get yourself off the roof. I’m going home.”

You watch as she steps off the roof without hesitation. Her telekinetic powers are unique in that they can work on people too. You usually rely on her to get you home.

Maybe you should have asked her afterwards…

You turn to your other minions. Low-level villains without the drive or power to execute their own heists who all owe you the same favor. You raise your brow. “So how are you lot getting me off this roof?”

“You’ve got legs,” the Ace of Swords says.

“I broke my left one,” you say. And, to prove you aren’t lying, you draw away your cape to show that your pant leg is soaked in red.

The Ace of Swords stares. “This is why she said no.”

“Was that what it sounded like to you?” you ask. His surety makes you frown. “For that, you get to carry me down.”

The Ace of Swords groans as the other Swords flee.

-----------.

Your Swords are not always Swords. Sometimes they are Pentacles or Wands or Cups. There’s meaning to the costuming you put your people through, a meaning that escapes Hero Force.

“Where are the others?” Cowboy growls at you over the interrogation table. He keeps aggressively tapping the photos he flung in front of you. Grainy shots of your Wands storming through the Christmas Parade you used as a cover to kidnap the Mayor, blurry screen grabs from security footage of them as Pentacles in the art museum, a delightful brochure featuring them as Cups in a reproduction of Macbeth you used to do some light money laundering. “If you tell us, we might cut you a deal. Six of your people are being prepared for interrogation right now. Want to bet who breaks first?”

The ghost of you smiles behind your dead eyes, leans forward, and sneers in Cowboy’s face. That version of you is delighted by Cowboy mistaking six people for twenty-four and wants to play the interrogation game he’s offering. But the real you feels as heavy as lead and it takes all your strength to watch as Cowboy slowly works his way into a frenzy.

“For too long you’ve been tormenting this city,” he says. He shakes a finger in your face. “I told Headquarters, I said you were a problem when you first showed up in Raleigh. I said, ‘This one is going to come to Charlotte and she’s going to show up with an army.’ I did. I said that and now you’ve got the largest crew in America.”

“Quite the fortune teller, aren’t you?” you murmur. The Fool is at the front of the brochure, all done up as Macbeth. You’d tried to get her to be Lady Macbeth, but she’d insisted she be the main character for once.

You don’t understand Macbeth, you’d said.

His name is the play, she argued.

Lady Macbeth is the mastermind.

Did you read the play?

Did you?

Neither of you had.

Cowboy slams his hand on the table. “Look, Prophetess, I’m the only chance you’ve got at a deal. As soon as those DC heroes get in here, it’s off the table.”

Ha.

“It would be convenient for you if there were no witnesses,” you observe. “More convenient if you get to them before the DC crowd.”

“Witnesses to what?” Cowboy blusters. But he draws back and his gaze is colder than the Hero Force air conditioning that’s already making this room glacial. “To justice?”

How dare he lie to you? Her pale face haunts your peripheral vision. You can see her in the window of the interrogation room.

“To murder,” you say. Your glares clash when you finally look up at him. The soot is still in his stubble and you imagine you can smell her blood coming from his singed leather vest. “She surrendered. We all saw it.”

“She was an A-rank villain with telekinetic powers strong enough to crush my skull,” Cowboy bites back. “I acted in self-defense.”

“With us both on our knees—”

Cowboy whips his arm across the table, scattering the photos of your people into the air. He slams his hand again. “Last chance. Tell me where the rest of your minions are!”

In your holding cells, you stupid—

“You’re a pathetic worm of a man,” you say. You clear your throat. “Sorry. Let me say it in a way you’ll understand.” You adopt your prophecy voice. “The dust Cowboy leaves behind is red, red as the blood on his hands. His golden star is stained—”

You see the blow coming. Not a prophecy, of course.

You just know what heroes do when their buttons are pushed.

-----.

The second time you ask her to dinner, you’re too stupid for her to say yes. It’s not your fault though. How could you have known the Mayor had superpowers? He didn’t do anything besides embezzle taxpayer money!

“Maybe,” she says tightly, dragging your leaden and paralyzed body through the grand halls of the mayoral house, “you could have done a single iota of research instead of sewing all those costumes.”

Feeling is coming back into your hands. They still ache from finishing the elf-themed Wand costumes you’d made for your employees. You think the group costume of Five of Wands came out particularly well. All those little elves holding giant candy cane wands…a perfect symbol for the tumultuous election Season. You flex your fingers and then wince when the Fool’s nails dig into the soft undersides of your arms. “Ouch. Could you—”

“I am not slowing down,” she says. She grunts as she slings you around another corner. “We need to get to the backyard. Ace is meeting us there with the chopper.”

“Such a waste of money,” you bemoan. The chopper had been Two’s idea and all she does is maintain it. She won’t let you fly it until you get your license. “We should’ve got a boat.”

“Great idea,” the Fool snarls. She adjusts her grip so her nails are now digging into your shoulders rather than your arms. “A giant vehicle we have to keep in the harbor. The heroes would never find that.”

“Okay, you have me there,” you say. Your words are crisper now and you can even push a little with your legs as she pulls you into the empty kitchen. “But consider this. I could take you to dinner on a yacht. I can’t take you to dinner on a helicopter.” She stops in her tracks, head whipping down to look at you. Your noses nearly touch. You grin dopily. “Hi.”

“Are you asking me to dinner right now,” she asks in a tone that tells you you’d better be careful with your answer.

She’s so pretty. That’s why you aren’t careful when you slur, “Yes.”

She drags you through the doorway into the backyard. “I sure hope it’s the drugs making you this stupid.”

“Hey—”

“Hey!”

Both of you look back towards the house to where the Mayor has just appeared. He’s wearing the smoking jacket he’d monologued in and the handkerchief he’d used to drug you is hanging limply in his grip.

He points at you. “You. You should be unconscious! Nobody escapes my venom!”

“Oh gross,” the Fool says. “Does he make the sedatives from his body?”

“From his sweat,” you affirm. Then, raising your voice over the growing sound of the chopper and her gagging, “Maybe you should sweat better drugs, huh?”

The Fool coughs and wheezes. You recognize a laugh in the sound. “Don’t antagonize—”

The Mayor bellows and sweat begins to drip from his forehead. He mops at it with his handkerchief and then advances across the grass. “Get back here!”

“Hahaha,” you say, “He was definitely a hero. I know how to push their buttons.”

It becomes a race to who gets to you first; the chopper or the Mayor.

As usual, the Fool wins.

-----.

Cowboy isn’t allowed in your room after hitting you in the face. You can feel him lurking in the hall outside when Strongwoman takes the seat across from you.

“That…wasn’t supposed to happen,” she says and pinches the bridge of her nose. She’s sitting on a special crate they brought in for her. It creaks when she leans forward. “Are you sure you don’t need medical attention?”

The Fool is the only one you let tend to your wounds. Blood stings your eye. Cowboy was wearing his rings when he hit you. “I’m fine.”

Strongwoman sighs through her nose. She’s short and stocky, dark hair and wide nose. There’s a beauty to her when she’s still and quiet. When she moves? She moves like a threat. “We need to know where your base is,” she says.

“Home is where the heart is,” you say. And you killed mine.

Strongwoman’s lips thin. “Look, if you want the guys who speak riddles, we can wait for them. Or you can answer my questions and maybe we can come to some sort of understanding.”

“Interesting offer.” You lean back and contemplate her. “You have my spell book.”

“Except that,” Strongwoman says immediately. She winces. “Sorry. You’re in custody. The spell book isn’t even on-site anymore.”

“Then you can take these off,” you say, nodding to your cuffs. Their faint glow is making you sick. “As a sign of good faith.”

“Tell me everything about your operation,” Strongwoman retorts. She shakes her head. “Nobody believes you’re harmless without your spellbook.”

“Cowboy does.”

“Cowboy is operating under a lot of false assumptions,” Strongwoman says. She leans forward to match you. “Like the one where you have over 30 lower-level villains working for you.”

“Oh?”

“We have six,” Strongwoman says. “Tell me where the rest are and we can negotiate.”

Ha. She doesn’t know either. You are so good at costuming. It’s not like your henchmen can multiply. There are always just six with you and it’s through your costumes that they transform. You’ll have to tell the Fool—

Your mood sours. Tell the Fool. Who’s the Fool now? You’re not in the mood to play games. “I tell you everything, you let me talk to those you have.”

“No—”

“I don’t know everything about them,” you snap. “You’re asking me to betray my people. Fine, I’ll do that. You lot will pry and pull and claw until you find out anyway. But allow me to give them the chance to tell you about whatever family or loved one they haven’t told me about. If I must take them down with me, at least let them beg Hero Force for leniency for their loved ones.”

Strongwoman considers you. “And what do you want in exchange?”

“Let,” you clear your throat. Your eyes are hot and itchy. “Let me have a moment with them. To mourn one of our own passing. To—” you clear your throat “-to lay the Fool to rest.”

The silence sticks to the walls and builds. It presses into you on all sides until you feel like you’re in a coffin. You once told her you would die with her.

Not allowed, ma’am. I don’t think we’d go to the same place.

You swallow hard and stare at your hands.

“Deal,” Strongwoman says finally.

“Thank you,” you say. Your head bows until your forehead presses against your shaking hands. “Thank you.”

“Cuffs will stay on,” Strongwoman says gruffly. She pulls out a pen and pad. The pen looks like it’s made of metal. “Start talking.”

You do.

-----------------.

The third time you ask her to dinner, she stares at you for a long time. It makes you nervous in a way you haven’t been before, her unrelenting stare. Is it because she’s usually so quick? Or could it be because you can feel her eyes on your bare face for the first time since she stood in your office and called you a villain?

The same office you’re currently standing in now as the sun sets behind her?

“I have concerns,” she says at last.

Oh thank god. You’re smiling too widely. “I can work with concerns.”

“Can you?” Her eyes flash gold with the sun. “You keep asking me out while we’re working,” she says.

You blink. “Do I?”

“You do.”

You consider her words, leaning back against your desk. You’re wearing your pinstriped suit today and it’s getting a little tight. She feeds you before and after every meeting you have and you have a lot of meetings. “I’m always working.”

“That’s true,” she says. She turns on her heel. “And that’s the concern.”

You stand up. “Wait, how is that—”

She stops at the door and turns to look at you in a way that steals your breath. “I am not work,” she says. Her lip twitches. “Nor am I a fool.”

“I know, you’re—”

“Ace says they’re already at the meeting place. According to your schedule, we’re running late.”

“We haven’t finished talking.” You try to sound firm, like you used to. Instead, the words come out as almost a plea. “We can be late.”

“You’re never late. Besides, I hear it’s going to be a regular rodeo.”

“Cowboy? Ha! When did he blow back into town?”

“His probation period is up.”

“Lucky us.”

-----.

Lucky us.

You Fool.

--------.

You look over the bowed heads of your employees. Ace, Two, Five, Eight, Ten, and Page. The room Strongwoman led you to looks like the cockpit of a spaceship. Noxious blue light undulates up the concave walls. There are no chairs in here, no pulpit for you to stand behind.

So your employees kneel when you walk between them all to stand in the very center.

“Prophetess,” Ace says. Her voice is thin and high. “We—I’m so sorry.”

Two looks up. Her face is drawn and there’s a deep bruise along the side of it. “We know how it is to lose.”

“You do,” you murmur. You’re aware of the eyes on you here. You saw Cowboy sneering in the observation room on the other side of this one. There are cameras scattered like black stars across the ceiling. “I know you do. But there is a renewal in Death. If—” you swallow hard “-if you allow it.”

You expect fear. What you’re asking of them has happened exactly six times. The favor they owe is not only to you, but to each other. Death is the complete annihilation of everything you know. It can be the end. Or it can be the beginning.

But it takes people to begin.

And you have asked them too many times before.

“Anything,” they say as one.

Your head shoots up. “What?”

Six of your employees – your friends – return your gaze unflinching.

“If I have to redo everything again, I will,” Ace says. She presses a hand over her heart. You know a picture of her son lies there. “Time doesn’t matter. We won’t lose anything but time.”

“We know we can rebuild,” Two says. Her eyes are fierce. “We can do it better.”

“You taught us how to do it better,” Five says.

“I thought you would’ve already done it,” Page says. He scratches the back of his head. “I didn’t eat lunch thinking you woulda done it by now.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Eight tells him. Then, to you, “You did it for us. Again and again and again—”

“—and again and again and again—”

Eight punches Page. “Shut up.” She breathes in through her nose. “Prophetess. It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“The memories you have made will only remain with you,” you remind them. Your hands are shaking. This—you have asked this favor for the sake of others. Did they feel this vulnerable asking? So hopeful and so full of dread. “It will be different. Time changes all and you who have experienced it—”

“—will be like fortune tellers in a strange new land,” Ace says. “We know.”

“We’re okay with it.”

“Are you?”

The time is approaching. You can hear voices outside the room. Ten minutes. She’d promised you thirty, but you figured they’d interrupt sooner. Especially considering what you’re saying.

You breathe in deeply through your nose. You think of her pencil skirt and her flashing eyes and her warm smile. The ghost of her pale face is fading into blackness as this curtain closes.

Your resolve firms. It was a bad ending. As a villain, you’re allowed to rewrite those.

“Tonight,” you say in your whispering voice, “we rebalance the deck.”

The blue in the room flickers. The voices in the corridor gain urgency. The cuffs around your wrist flare and then go dormant.

“I see my son a babe again,” Ace sings. Her eyes burn with your purple power as she brings her hands up towards you. The memory of the favor you granted her rises with her words. “I hold his hand.”

The blue flickers purple and electricity arcs. The Hero Force suppressors are to stop superpowers.

There is very little they can do against fate.

“I see the bus that takes them away,” Page says. He doesn’t sing. His voice is as dry as the desert and he salutes you. His hand glows against his temple. “They get on it.”

“I see my friend at the crossroads,” Two says. She holds her hands palm up and tilts her head to the sky. Tears of neon violet fall down her face. “I follow them.”

“The power I have falls into my hands like rain,” Eight says. She cups her hands in front of her and they fill with your power until it spills over onto the ground. “I drink from it.”

“The harm I caused erased,” Five says. He crosses his arms over his chest and bows his head. A halo the color of lilac blooms over his head. “I atone.”

“I do better,” Ten says simply.  They stand with their hands by their sides. Their eyes burn with your power and they do not flinch. “I don’t bury them.”

Your power crawls along the walls. There are no more blue arcs of power. There are purple flowers and thorns that leave shadows in their wake. They seal the door shut and you are distantly aware that Strongwoman is trying to smash her way inside and can’t.

Fate takes a different type of strength to overpower.

“I see her again,” you say. The tides of the world pull at your long hair. You are drowning in light. The ground shakes under your feet. You think of her life outlined in gold, yourself outlined in gold. Is it possible you can see it glittering there in the unrelenting ocean flooding into you? “I see her again.”

Thunder crashes and everything becomes nothing.

-----------.

You are at your desk. You blink at the pages lying before you. A brief. A case. From four years ago.

You release a trembling breath. You never doubted it would work but it’s a relief to see not so much time has passed. Ace will still share some memories with her son. Page will not have to sit by his brothers’ bedsides again. Ten won’t be trapped in her father’s house.

The rest…the rest will not expect your help. You didn’t help them the last three times. Cruel, maybe. Fate often is.

You think Two is in Charlotte at this point. She mentioned something about a halfway house…

You freeze grabbing your coat as familiar footsteps echo from the hall outside your door. The skyline is twinkling with city lights, but it’s nearly midnight. Nobody should be here, you don’t remember anyone being here at this time—

The door opens without a knock. Her hair is chopped beneath her ears and she has a lip piercing and there isn’t a pencil skirt to be found. But it’s her. It’s her.

“Anika,” you breathe.

Her gold eyes flick to you, to your desk, to your coat in your hand. “You working?”

“N-no,” you say. Your words pile up behind your teeth. Do you remember? Of course you do, otherwise how would you be here. But how? Did I infect you? Did the outline of my life really drag you into my power enough--

Anika waits. When you continue to stare at her, she prods, “I’m not your paralegal.”

“You don’t look like you’ve even finished your degree,” you blurt out. You point. “A lip piercing?”

Anika rubs her piercing. “I’m not the Fool,” Anika says patiently.

A light bulb goes off. “Oh,” you say. “Oh!” You get down on one knee. “Anika, will you marry me—” Anika throws her purse at you. It misses by about three feet. You stand and try again. “I mean, will you go to dinner with me?”

“Yes, I’ll go to dinner with you.” Anika rubs a hand over her face. “Everytime I give you an inch, you take a mile—"

“For the rest of our lives,” you promise.

Anika shakes a finger at you. “Dinner.”

“It’s a beginning,” you say cheerfully.

The best one you’ve ever had.

-------.

Thanks for reading! I do love my supervillain stories and appreciate you for making it through this one! Sometimes I wonder if I can even write flash fiction anymore haha

Next week's story is already up on my Patreon (X)! I'm super excited to share it as it made me laugh writing it. It's an AITA style post from a woman who used to be a Cryptid professionally and feels like she's made a misstep with her Slasher boyfriend.

See y'all next time!

[aeplern]

YOUR BOYFRIEND SIMON RILEY

olderboyfriend!simon who waits for you in the parking lot of your campus, waiting for your last university class to end. a wide grin on his face as you enter his car, he leans in and kisses your forehead. “you alright, kid?”

olderboyfriend!simon who drives you back to his place, his large hand on your thigh as he listens to you explain about your day. “and then my friend dylan was like-“ he cut you off almost immediately, “wait, so is dylan a girl…or?” - “dylan is a guy, obviously. back to what i was saying.”

olderboyfriend!simon who seems to tune out the sound of your voice, his mind wandering elsewhere…thinking about this dylan guy. ‘pfft, i shouldn’t get myself worked up over this guy.’ he thought.

olderboyfriend!simon who heads up to his apartment with you, your hand in his as he unlocks the door. “so... tell me about this dylan guy, you've never mentioned him before.” — “oh— well, he's just a friend from class, nothing much.”

olderboyfriend!simon “hopefully.” he would mumble, a slightly stern expression on his face as he looked down at you, wrapping his arms around your waist. “tell me about your day, without dylan!” you smirked, looking up at your boyfriend who was getting himself worked up over a younger boy. you then wrapped your arms around his neck, kissing him softly on the lips. “i can't believe you're jealous of dylan.” — “who said i was jealous hm?” he smirked.

[br43lyn]

[unhappy-sometimes]

Sleeping Beauty

in collaboration with the wonderful, the amazing, the talented @whateversawesome

And a very cute bonus scene written completely by my good friend!

This was a collaboration with whateversawesome as a gift for @buf309 !! We were given the prompt “sleeping beauty” by buf, then we both came up with a story, combined some elements, and created our respective versions!!

Be sure to check out whateversawesome’s fanfic version on her blog! She’s an amazing writer :D

This was also my contribution to @twiyorbase Twilight week for “happy ending!!”

[guzhufuren]

upcoming thai ql prayer circle 🤝🤝🤝

[metalmiez]

Ineffable Husbands, happy together 🖤🤍

„C‘mere, silly angel!“ Crowley grumbled and pulled Aziraphale in a hug that included arms and legs fully wrapped around Aziraphale‘s body, so there was no chance of escape. The joy over the tiny squealing noise the angel gave off should be illegal. No one, especially not a vicious demon like Crowley, should be so pleased with a noise like this. But he was. He indulged it. As his face snuggled into the soft curve of the angel‘s neck, he heard a sigh of defeat and he grinned devilishly.

Oh, what a good demon he was.

„Are you gonna hold on like this for long, my dearest?“

‚My dearest‘. It still felt off to be adressed like this. It shouldn’t feel so good, but it did. The demon hummed in satisfaction as the angel gave in into the touch and leaned his head against Crowley's temple.

"That's quite nice of you to-"

"'m not nice. Don't even know what this word means"

Aziraphale huffed in amusement, wriggled on of his arms free and put his hand on the side of Crowley's face, directly over the tiny snake tattoo that started to tickle in excitement.

"As you say so, darling"

Another pet name. If he had less control over his body, he'd probably blush.

"Grm"

"If you don't mind, I put some water on the boil for a nice cup of tea. So if you let go, this would be very demonic of you", the angel squirmed after some moments of embracing in silence. A little grumble escaped the demon's throat as he lifted his head. Oh, the smug idiot. Aziraphale looked at him like the hundreds of times he tried to politely send the demon away if he got one of 'the really good ones'-book he wanted to read.

Instead of letting go, Crowley rolled his eyes and pressed his lips against the angels soft cheek, lingered in the motion as long as possible, listening to his angel’s silly giggle about the sudden affection. He was happy. He really was.

Everything was like it always had to be.

🌈Happy Pride Month, my fellow Queerdos 🌈

To celebrate this occasion, I had to draw our ineffable Idiots, obviously 😂

They need all the love in S3 ❤️

[procrastiel]

Yo, another kiss in s3 would be great, but have you considered Aziraphale and Crowley laughing while kissing

[namtan]

HAPPY ENDING (2025)

[pedroshotwifey]

Do you think you could write a nervous Joel fic... like he's older and a single dad and hasn't dated in a REALLY REALLY long time...but he's still really sweet, maybe he has to stop and eat reader cos he's about to cum too soon or something 🤷‍♀️😭

Hey, babe!! So I hope this is what you were hoping for! It's super tender and I did end up listening to Hozier for a good portion of it, so do with that information what you will 😅

Also, I kind of did something a bit different and wrote it more from Joel's perspective, but it's still in 2nd person (pronouns = you)! Pls lmk how you feel about it ❤

Pairing: Older Joel Miller x afab!reader

Tags/warnings: Age gap (not specified), piv sex, oral sex (f), vaginal fingering, multiple orgasms, established relationship, (almost) premature ejaculation, accidental love confessions 🤭, self deprecating Joel™, big dick Joel™, kissing, stuff I'm probably forgetting

W/C: 1.9k

Summary: Your and Joel's first time together turns into so much more.

What Matters

“Are you sure, baby?” 

Joel watches as your eyes flick up to him, only kindness and patience in them. Even as you smile warmly and wrap your arms around his neck to pull him to you, he still has a sense of cautiousness in his movements. You’ve probably lost track of how many times he’s asked you if you’re sure. 

“Yes, Joel, I’m sure,” you laugh breathily. 

You’re both lying in his bed, completely bare. There’s a soft summer breeze coming in through the window and rustling the sheer curtains. The sun’s going down, but just barely, causing a perfect golden hue to coat the room. He can’t help but think that you look even more gorgeous than usual in this lighting.

Joel tries to ignore the nervousness in his stomach as he softly kisses your jaw and nuzzles up to you. He’s not stupid, he knows that you know he’s just trying to waste time, but you let him. You’re so fucking sweet like that. Always making him feel so wanted and appreciated. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be with you in this way, but that he’s worried he won’t be perfect for you. He wants to be able to show you affection in the same way that you show him. 

But what if he can’t?

You’re younger, after all, and he’s not been with a woman in so long. Maybe not since Sarah’s mom. If that’s the case, it’s been about fifteen, sixteen years. Point in case, you’re probably used to boys who can last longer and can make you come every time. What if he can’t? What if it’s been so long now, that he only lasts a couple of minutes? 

It terrifies him, the prospect that you may be disappointed in his performance. What if you decide to leave him because he’s not enough to get you off? No, he realizes, you would never do that. You’re so good, so thoughtful and generous and patient. You’d wait for him, help him get back to the point where he used to be. 

But that’s not what he wants. He wants to be good for you now. 

“Joel?” 

His name falling from your lips has his head raising back up. You look into his eyes with a desperation that he simply can’t ignore. 

“Please,” you whisper before planting a feather-light kiss to his lips. He nods slowly before he can think about it. 

“Alright, sweetheart. I’ve got you.” 

And he does, he knows it. He just hopes he can do it right. 

You’re already prepped. He spent probably half an hour fingering you to orgasm even though you had begged for the real thing each time you fell apart on his hand. It’s another thing he was worried about—being so big. Joel’s not a super cocky man by any means, but he is aware of his…attributes. 

He watches you carefully as he grasps his cock and guides it to your slippery entrance. Your eyes flutter shut as he pushes in, giving you about an inch each time he thrusts. His jaw goes slack once he’s about halfway in. You’re so fucking warm and wet and inviting. He keeps going, trying to keep his breathy whines at bay. He’s again reminded of just how long it’s been since he’s felt something other than the palm of his hand around himself. 

“Shit, baby,” he breathes as he bottoms out. He closes his eyes in concentration and lets his head hang next to yours. He already feels like he might blow his load at any second. You bring a hand up to cup his head and thread his curls through your fingers, holding him close. His breathing is heavy when he lifts himself back up to look into your eyes. 

His heart seems to skip a beat when he sees the adoration you’re looking at him with. It kills him every time. And no matter how many times you tell him that he deserves all your affection, he knows he’ll still find a lingering doubt in the back of his mind. There’s a reason the two of you have only been “together” for about four months even though you’ve been shamelessly flirting for about a year. 

It was just too good to be true. For such a sweet, gentle thing like you to want a rough old man like him. He was never the one to initiate anything, but he knows you’ve been aware that he had his sore eyes set on you since you met. How could he not? He’s never met anyone so kind and considerate. It was impossible to deny you of him any longer when it was one of the only things you’ve ever wanted for yourself. 

“You okay?” Your honeyed voice reaches his ears—or his good ear, rather—and he smiles at you. 

“‘Course, baby. Jus’ gotta give me a second, alright?” He can feel his cheeks getting a bit rosy at the confession. “It’s been a minute.” 

You nod, still no hesitation or any sign of regret. God, what did he do to deserve you? 

Once he collects himself, he pulls out just barely, and a groan tumbles from his mouth to mingle with your soft moan. He’s already starting to sweat from the effort of not coming too soon as he starts to push into you at a slow but rhythmic pace. You wrap your arms around his broad shoulders and tuck your head into his chest as you whimper with his thrusts. 

“You feel so good,” you whine. 

“Fuck, sweetheart, so d’ you. “Like goddamn heaven.” And you do; overwhelmingly so.

He cradles your head and lowers the two of you even more to deepen his thrusts. He knows he’s found your spot when your breath catches and you start to tighten around him every time he pumps his hips. Unfortunately, this makes it a lot harder for him to keep his composure. 

“H-honey, I have to pull out,” he grits out. He’s so embarrassed, it hasn’t even been five minutes. He won’t last long enough for you to come before him.

But you just nod into him, even though you must be devastated by the loss of your orgasm. “It’s okay, Joel,” you breathily assure him. 

He pulls out and squeezes the base of his cock, out of breath. He doesn’t meet your gaze as he starts to apologize.

“I’m sorry, baby, I—” 

“Joel,” You stop him by carefully grabbing his chin and forcing him to look at you. “It’s okay.” You nod, waiting for him to do the same before you continue. “Take as much time as you need. I love you no matter what. This does not determine—” 

You both realize what you said at the same time. Joel’s eyes widen and his chest feels like it caved into itself. Your lips stay still, parted in the middle of your sentence. Joel doesn’t realize tears have gathered in his eyes until his vision starts to blur and a smile spreads across his face. 

You love him. You said it. And he believes you. 

“I love you too, baby,” he whispers and lets his forehead rest against yours. “So damn much.” Fuck his age and whoever might see a problem with you being together. He wants this, and you want this, and that’s all that matters. 

Then you’re both laughing shakily, pressing kisses to each other’s lips. He only stops to start trailing them down your body instead, watching you writhe as his mustache tickles your bare skin. 

“Joel, p-please,” you beg quietly. Joel just huffs a small laugh through his nose as he lays himself between your legs, ignoring his protesting knees as he admires the entirety of you laying out just for him. You look fucking beautiful covered in a thin sheen of sweat atop his sheets, needy and panting all for him. 

He doesn’t waste too much time before putting his mouth on your sweet pussy, his tongue dragging up your slit to flick at your clit. Joel moans at your taste, sending vibrations racing toward your swollen bud. Your hips buck as your hands fly to grasp at his hair, tugging lightly and making his eyes roll back. 

He feasts on you like his life depends on it, worshiping you with all he has. He takes turns in running his tongue up you, fucking you with it the best he can, and suckling on your clit. He looks like a damn mess as he does so, his eyes not leaving your cunt unless he’s watching your face contort with pleasure. When you make eye contact with him, he knows he must look fucked out and desperate just based on the way you groan and lay your head back. 

It doesn’t take much for you to get to the edge, and it takes even less for him to push you over. You let out sharp, whiny sounds as he sucks on your clit and slips a couple of fingers inside of you to grip on to. Your entire body goes tense, and Joel has to resist the urge to smirk against you as you shake with the force of your orgasm. 

By the time you’re coming down, he’s back over you and slipping his tongue inside your mouth to share your taste. You moan into the kiss and pull him closer as he once again glides his tip into your cunt. Just as he had hoped, the distraction calmed him down enough to hopefully give him some more time. 

You both melt into each other as he bottoms out, the tip of his swollen cock hitting your cervix and making your thighs squeeze his torso. He starts at a faster pace than last time, too deep in his lust-filled haze to even try to slow down now. 

You pull away from his mouth to start leaving love bites on his neck, making his cock twitch inside of you with each pinch. He can feel you smile against his skin, and knows that you’ve found his secret. He does like a little pain with his pleasure. You keep going, sucking and biting marks before licking soothingly over them and moving to the next spot. You taste him like you’re addicted, like you could never possibly get enough.

It still doesn’t take him as long as he would like to before he starts to feel his balls drawing up and his thighs start to shake. His head goes foggy as he tries to hold on for you, but it’s too fucking much. He can’t hold it off when you feel so good around him. It’s like torture to stave off his orgasm when he’s thrusting into your soft heat. 

“Where d’ you want me, honey?” Joel asks you, his voice strained. 

“Inside,” you whisper against his neck without a second thought.

And it throws him over. He groans your name as his body stutters and his balls empty, coating your walls with his milky spend. It seems to go on forever. Each time he thinks he’s almost done, there’s another spurt and another wave of pleasure that tugs him deeper into euphoria. 

When it does end, he lets himself half-collapse on top of you. You embrace him with welcoming arms and the two of you catch your breath together in the now dark bedroom. He only pulls out once sleep threatens to take the both of you. A shower, snack, and a glass of water later, you both snuggle up together and fall asleep with content smiles and full hearts. 

*****

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[munchymunchkin]