#he had a friend finally and people were shitty to him (joking or not)

[hiraeth-nostalgic]

SO (sorry i was gone i'm back to YAPPING)

who the FUCK is out here thinking reki had absolutely NO growth through the first season of sk8??? I saw a post talking about how even though he is the main character we "never see any development" regarding him and i just need to tell people who believe that: you are wrong.

Listen, reki is the main character™ so let me recount some things for us all.

first thing that comes to mind: when he is experiencing the jealousy that comes from the insecurity of being left behind, but he still shows up to see Langa race Joe. He still calls out to langa, and we see that even though he was insecure and feeling left behind he STILL came to support someone. he then sees that video talking about the guy who created the track shoes that were being worn and thinks it's stupid. that if he can't be at the top of skating, he shouldn't even skate anymore. he should just give up his dream bc a couple people are better than him. He has the talk with his manager that even if you aren't the MOST talented that doesn't mean you can't be involved and Reki still isn't quite there yet. I believe it was Joe who reminded reki that they are all on different levels and reki gets pulled into the beef with Adam. NOW the beef with Adam we see Reki trying to bridge the gap. He wants it so bad. it's not that he's not a great skater, because he is, but i think it comes from the general lack of self-love/self-confidence that held him back for a couple of things. HOWEVER he avoids Adam's moves, he literally JUMPS off the side and FLIPS (something he had never done before!) reki NEARLY wins and he would've if his board hadn't snapped!!! He embarrassed Adam!! something no one else had done!!!

the second thing: We see Reki become okay with not being the absolute best of the best and how he is a great skater, in his own way. (this starts to show in the race with Adam and then at the end we see it REALLY show) sure it may take him a little longer to learn a trick or something but he still learns it. he still loves skating. he redefines his LOVE of the sport not because he's the best of the best but because he actually has a support system in skating instead of before when he had no friends who shared the interest (you know, aside from a previous friend who could no longer skate) and its the story of even if you aren't as great as someone else you know, its still okay to do things for FUN and hanging out.

like this idea haunts all of us. for example: singing? most people are fine singers!!! but because they don't sing like Beyonce or Billie Eilish, suddenly they shouldn't sing for fun bc "they can't make a job out of it" like, the same for reki. Joe, Cherry, and Shadow are all adults who have lives outside of skating but for a CHILD it's the only thing for them at this point in their life, they are still trying to figure out who they are. its crucial to teens. Reki's not getting on a national team, he can't build a career out of actually skating so does that mean he shouldn't enjoy it? no!!! he works at the skate shop, he's really talented at building the boards, designing them, and understanding what will help individual people the best!! that's more than anyone else in the S community that we see actively skating.

Anyway, reki has so much growth in not only his skating but in his mental health but because it's not as flashy as Langa's or Adam's, people overlook it and downplay it.

[tremendouscreationperson]

Logan x Reader pt.1

Again spoilers for Deadpool and Wolverine

Many of y'all liked my little DP/W idea so here is more, I tried to keep it GN so there isn't smut but it does sorta allude to it

Part 2 >> Masterlist

Wade has just woke up, he yet again sees Logan drinking and asks 'where they are and how they got here'. Logan vaguely points to the door and three people walk through. It's Elektra, Blade and Gambit. There are some not-so-pleasantries and eventually Laura makes herself known.

"We're missing Johnny and Y/N." Gambit drawls.

Wade makes a joke and turns back to Logan who looks like he's shat himself. "Peanut?"

"You said Y/N?" Logan settles his drink onto the first available surface and runs a hand through his hair. "We saw Johnny but not Y/N."

~~

Later on he had slumped down and made a fire. He didn't want to be part of the heroics, he couldn't be. He wasn't worth it. Laura had tried to convince him in her unique way. He could see himself in her, see why he'd fight for her.

Logan took another swig and stared off into the treeline. It was unclear how long he just sat but eventually he noticed movement.

Wolverine stood, ready to protect the others. Why was he ready to protect the others?

Then he saw you.

You were wide eyed. Your suit was practically undamaged except for a little cut on your thigh. Not a hair out of place. There was dirt on your face and body but you were beautiful.

"Y/N." He involuntarily took a step towards you.

You stayed completely still. Wary. Why were you wary of him? “Logan.” Your voice was barely above a whisper but he heard it. Would always hear you. You were the main voice rattling around his adamantium skull.

“Y/N.” He took another step forward and tried to erase his frown, tried to ease his expression into something you wouldn't be wary of. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

Your eyes scanned him and the trees behind before you gave a nod and slowly approached, favouring your right leg.

“It's been a while.” The fire light bounced gloriously off your skin, illuminating your very being as though you were an angel. Well you were. You were perfect. Are perfect.

“For me as well.” He nodded too enthusiastically, too eager to be speaking to you. He didn't deserve this.

You lowered yourself onto a patch of grass, crossing your legs to the best of your ability, pupils glued to the flames. They danced along and lit up your eyes. Surely, you couldn't be more beautiful. Logan hadn't even realised but he had sat himself back down on his perch across from you. “I’m sorry.”

He couldn't help it, his frown was back in full force. What could you possibly have to apologise for? “I don-”

“You're not the first Wolverine to come sniffing me out.” You explained. “There's been others and they've- they've not all been friendly.”

What the fuck had he done? “I swear, I am not here to hurt you.” He placed a hand over his heart. “I promise.”

“I know. I just- it's not often you see your husband's-” Husband? “- face and he doesn't know you or is feral or-” You took a deep breath, finally meeting his gaze. “You at least recognise me.”

“Of course I do.”

“Okay, that's good.” You nod mostly to yourself before asking, “what happened in your world?”

“My world?”

You nod again.

“We're X-Men. I'm shitty. You're perfect. Scott nags me. Storm married a king and moved away, visits every so often. Jean was in the process of taking over from Charles…” If he didn't tell you they all died, maybe they didn't. Maybe they could live in your head. Maybe he wasn't a monster. “Yours?”

“Much the same really.” One shoulder lifted in a half shrug. “‘cept you weren't shitty. You were just you. Sabertooth was the shitty Howlett.”

Logan chuckled at that.

“Did you have a Laura? Or a Gabby?”

He shook his head. “Uh, no. But I've met Laura. She's nice. Fierce.”

“She's your DNA spliced with some poor unfortunate ladies. Essentially your offspring.” You informed. “Gabby is a clone of a clone. She's lovely though. Friends with Wa-Deadpool.”

“He's here.” Logan scratched his chin. “He's the reason I am.”

“Oh, you're friends as well?”

“God, no.” He shook his head. “Kinda just thrust together.”

“He always wanted to hang with you but usually just ended up with Spidey.”

Logan had heard of Spidey -Spiderman- but he hadn't met the guy, yet. If he hung out with Wade he was probably just as mad.

You both fell into a fairly comfortable silence but he didn't like that. You were here. He could actually talk to you. Actually be around you. “What happened to your leg?” He motioned to it as you carefully repositioned yourself.

“Angel.” You whispered darkly.

“Warren?”

“Yeah. Sometimes your friends aren't your friends. He had metal wings and weird tattoos. I called out to him and he just attacked. He was so quick I couldn't put up a forcefield in time.”

“I'm sorry.” It was a lame response but he had nothing else. You merely sat there, watching him, scanning his reactions. “I don't know how to convince you I am your friend. But I am. I won't harm you.”

You gave him a small lopsided smile. And he remembered.

“Wait. I do know how.” Logan rummaged around his very tiny suit pockets. He knew it was somewhere. He made sure it was always on him. Hidden away where no one would find it. Tucked into a sleeve that he kept safe by his ankle, usually people hit his torso, they don't always go for feet so he felt secure in it's position. Well, he did until he fought Wade in that fucking Honda.

Logan found it. It was scrappy and definitely worse for wear but the picture was clear. He stood and slowly walked around the fire to your side. You didn't back away but he caught your involuntary shoulder flinch.

“Here.”

You delicately took the piece of paper from his hands. It felt glossy, like magazine print. It was folded and on the visible side was a photo of you smiling wide, proud, in front of the X mansion. You unfolded it to see Logan standing next to you with a barely-there smirk. He looked almost bored but you knew him. Knew he was smiling, it was in his eyes, the softness in his face.

You were confused because he was smiling yet it was clear that he folded it to hide himself.

“Why have you folded it like that?”

Because I look awful. Because you are perfect and happy and brilliant and I pretended I didn't want the photo. Because it's the only faculty photo of me they ever took. Because they all knew I was sweet on you when you stopped me for a photo and I agreed. Because I had to take this from a yearbook after the school was raided. Because it's the only photo of us that I have and I hate that I'm in it. “Easier to fit the little pocket.”

“I have a similar one.” You confessed, knowing he was lying but that's okay. You all had secrets. “It's with my other bits, in the base.”

He felt his cheeks warm so looked away to the base. “Speaking of, it's late and you're hurt. They were planning on leaving at sun up, but I'm not sure that's still happening.”

“Why are we leaving?”

“We're storming Cassandra Nova’s lair.”

You let out a full body laugh. The noise was heavenly. “Fuck off, you come here and suddenly talk them into a full frontal assault? Brilliant.”

He rolled his eyes at you but extended a hand. “Come on, bub, let's get you updated and checked out.”

It wasn't much really, not to a bystander, but you actually accepting his hand meant the world to him and you. Both for similar and completely different reasons.

He definitely didn't need to but insisted on helping you to the base. It was hardly worth it but being back in his arms was lovely. It felt like home. He was maybe a few inches taller and definitely a little older looking than you recalled but he was your Logan. And a helpful one. He wasn't chasing you like a wild dog because you smelt nice. He was helping you limp back.

“Y/N.” Elektra spoke as soon as you entered the threshold.

“El.” You smiled widely.

She gave you a subtle look - raising her eyebrows a fraction and flickering her eyes at Logan - before taking your hand and leading you out of his arms. “We were worried.”

“You shouldn't have worried.” Rolling your eyes. “You know me.”

“That is why I was worried.”

She gave you a quick hug and assessed your leg. You had known her for five years. She had been here longer than you, travelling with Blade, and quickly intervened when she saw a Ghost Rider trying to lasso you. You three had met Johnny, who had been here a while too, and eventually met Laura. She was the only familiar face to you, it was a breath of fresh air to see her. It was a shame she didn't know you but you explained who you were and where she was and she slowly came around to trusting you. Gambit was the newest addition to your ragtag gang. He, bless him, tried to be as useful as possible and you're sure he was but there were times when you had no idea what went on in his mind. He was his own enigma.

The cut wasn't awful, a fact you had said multiple times, but Elektra still insisted on using alcohol to clean and one of the rags you recycled from an old duvet to wrap it, explaining the idiotic plan that you were all taking part of as she went.

“Oh!” Wade loudly exclaimed as Elektra tightened the makeshift bandage. “The self insert! I can't believe it, the movie’s been out like three days!”

You exchanged a glance with El and gave him an odd look as you greeted the man. “Hiya Wade.”

“Y/N.” He bowed. “I'm a little star struck.”

“Why?” Elektra stood to her full height and quickly made an exit, this wasn't the first Deadpool she had seen but this was one of the high energy ones.

“Well, you're Logan's thing.” The man behind perked up, his shoulders tense. He had been watching you the whole time and clearly wasn't a fan of DP rambling. “You're his reason to keep on. One of the reasons my Logan saved Laura. To keep his promise to you or something like that, I don't know the writing is a bit clunky.”

“Right.” You nodded, not quite understanding. But it was funny to see the mortified expression Logan was wearing. “So I'm Logan's ‘thing’.”

“Well, duh-”

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Logan ordered.

“Gosh, was he always this snappy?” Wade chirped.

“I dunno, Lo always had a soft spot for me so..”

“Awwwww.” He clasped his hands and held them at his heart. “Did you hear that she said ‘Lo’?” Wade had just turned to see the man in question but Wolverine was behind him and quickly dragging the Merc away, not quite whispering another ‘shut your fucking mouth’.

Blade, who was one to skulk hidden in corners before making himself known, had watched the interaction and gave you a fright as he stepped from the shadows. “So that's him, huh?”

“Jesus!” You whisper-yelled. “How many times have I asked you to not do that?”

“Daywalker, can't help it.” He shrugged and sat next to you on the sofa. It was old and ugly but so so comfortable.

You gave a sigh, holding your hammering heart. “Yes. He's Logan. A version of him. That actually doesn't wanna kill me.”

“Maybe you should let it play out.”

“And maybe I shouldn't.” You counter. “We'll all be dead tomorrow anyway.”

“All the more reason to."

He was correct of course. You had missed Logan so much and this one clearly had missed you. It would be folly to not spend the last night you may be alive together. In whatever way you were both comfortable with. But you didnt want to give him the satisfaction of being right, so merely huffed in response.

"Elektra told you the plan?”

“Well, Laura hardly speaks and I can't understand Gambit.”

Blade let out a low laugh. He was one of the coolest people you'd ever met, even his chuckle was cool. You were so envious.

Logan came back with red cheeks and quickly apologised. “I'm sorry, he talks so much and I don't think he actually hears himself.”

You waved him off. “It's fine.”

“No, he embarrassed you.” Logan sighed, his jaw set like he was biting the inside of his cheek.

“Logan, really. Don't worry.” You could see that he wasn't going to 'not worry' so decided to just remove yourself from the situation. Clapping Blade’s leg you stood. “Right, bed time. Big day tomorrow.”

“You aren't coming.” Logan replied immediately.

“Uhm. Pretty sure I am.”

“No, you're injured.” He stated as though that was obvious.

“This is literally the smallest injury I've had out here.”

“But you are hurt.”

“Logan.”

“Y/N.”

Blade watched the back and forth with a smirk, you were both clearly a married couple.

“I think you two should take this to Y/N’s room.” Your eyes widened dramatically. “You can argue all night when the door is shut and no one else can hear you.” The sly bastard.

“Okay.” Logan agreed. “I'll convince you to stay, where's your room?”

You let out a few noises, dying arguments, and then the biggest sigh. “Fuck my life. This way.”

The base was an old temple. You had wondered who it belonged to. The statues of her were beautiful. You had yet to see a variant of whoever this was, maybe that was a good thing. She might not take lightly to you guys using her sacred temple as a hotel. There were a few corridors you had to walk down to get to your room. You'd dragged an old mattress into it and made sure to keep the room dust free. There weren't a lot of luxuries in this world but you had an orb that when touched lit up delicately. There were a few sets of clothes you'd scavenged so you kept yourself clean and had a set of ‘pjs’. Your room was covered in marks where you had flung a knife or practised a forcefield. He assumed there weren't that many guns here, or if there were ammo was rare.

“You can't fight.” Logan started.

Oh. You were actually going to argue. “Logan, I could fight you right now.”

“Go on then.” He called your bluff.

You gave him a playful smirk. “You really wanna fight? It could be our last day alive and you wanna spend it fighting?”

“I know you can't fight with that leg.” He was so sure of himself. You couldn't wait to prove him wrong.

With a twitch of your hand you flung him towards you with a forcefield, side stepping out of his way. It took him by surprise how strong you had gotten and he had to catch himself before he hit the wall.

Logan twisted around to find you at his throat with a small blade in your hand. Your chest pressed into his, causing his back to hit the wall. “That was over pretty quick, Lo.”

Logan was in awe of your swift moves. You were tenfold who he knew. God could you get more attractive? He felt himself get warm and not from embarrassment. You were making him hot, you holding a knife to his throat was making him horny. What did that say about him?

Your eyebrows pinched minutely as you observed him swallow. “You like this, don't you?”

Was there a point in lying? “Maybe.”

“Well... Maybe I do, too.”

God he was ruined.

You were literally amazing.

How could he be so lucky? He really didn't deserve this.

Logan glanced down to your lips and you smirked. "Go on." He didn't need any other invitations. He captured your lips and kissed you with the full force of his years of loneliness.

He loved you, by god, he did.

Logan's left hand found your nape whilst his right landed on your ass. He growled as you pushed into him a fraction more.

Your leg moved by itself, wrapping around his waist as you took advantage of his growl. Kissing the exposed areas of his neck. You'd missed this. You'd missed him.

Logan hoisted you the rest of the way up and gazed into your eyes. You were looking down at him, lips plump and cheeks hot, you panted a little and fuck. He was going to fuck you. He wasn't sure he could actually pull himself away from you. You both should be sleeping, preparing for the fight tomorrow. No, you shouldn't be fighting. You should be safe. Somewhere safe and warm, waiting for him to return.

"Come with me." He begged.

"I'm sure I will." You winked.

"No, tomorrow, after the fight. Come with me, wherever I end up." He didn't want to go back but he would if you followed. If you came with him he could do it. Go anywhere. Be anyone.

"So you agree I'm fighting fit." You pecked his nose, playfully.

He huffed but found your lips again, leading you both to the mattress you called a bed.

He'd buy you a bed, a grand one. One worthy of you. He hated that you only had this. He needed to provide for you. Keep you warm, safe, loved, full. Keep you.

Logan was going to keep you and he didn't care how.

.

.

Part 2

[melancholyhigh]

CRUSH CULTURE.

ft. college au!leon x reader

synopsis. you fuck up at being leon’s wingman, ruining his chances of getting a valentine’s day fuck. he’s frustrated and takes his anger out on you.

tags. 2.8k words. smut. mean!leon, lowk angsty, reader is kinda pathetic, angry fuck, dry humping, cunnilingus, dom!leon, rough sex, unprotected p in v, degradation, name calling (bitch, whore etc.), happy ending (?).

note. i’m sorry for being so inactive and rarely being online. school sucks so bad. i hope you guys can accept this as a formal apology. (let’s ignore that this is 2 days late.)

masterlist. reblogs & comments are highly welcomed :3

You aren’t the biggest fan of Valentine’s Day. You're sick of seeing everyone fall in love, watching lovers exchange cheesy gifts and bashful smiles. You’re sick of people pretending they love each other more than they actually do. No, you’re sick of being left out.

You were a hopeless romantic, chasing love only for it to fall flat. You were obsessed with finding your other half, the person who would cherish you as much as you treasured them. You didn’t know if you loved love or just the idea of it, but it wouldn’t matter.

You’re only hopeless as you help the man you liked hook up with someone at a shitty college party.

It’s pathetic, truly, chatting up some sorority girls and putting a good name out for Leon while he stood beside you. You didn’t get why he couldn’t do it himself. He was handsome, albeit a bit awkward, but so were you. It’s why you two got along anyway. Leon was watching as you tried to get the drunk girl’s attention on him. Throughout the night, your wingman skills had only failed. They either did not pay attention to you or paid too much attention to you.

You were sick of it. You would have preferred staying in your dorm room and rewatching one of your favourite rom-coms. But you were only a fool, trying to help your friend out. It hurt more being there with him as he lamely tried to pick up girls in front of you. You didn’t know what was more pathetic, his terrible jokes or the state you were, absolutely heartbroken that he wouldn’t give you the time of day he’d give to random girls.

Maybe it’s faith’s cruel way of commentating on your desire for love by making you play cupid for the only person you seem to care about more than yourself.

You and Leon had something special, or you had hoped so. You met in your first year of college. You were both fucking awkward that you had to initiate the first conversation. Majoring in similar subjects, you both had gotten along well. You would even say you were best friends, but you knew deep down you always wanted more.

Ever since you first met, you found him enthralling. It only got worse as you got closer. Learning more about him seemed to solidify your pining for him. You were the only person he talked to, and vice versa. You confided in each other, maybe more than what close friends should, so it was only inevitable that he would share with you that he wanted to lose his virginity.

You had looked at him perplexed. Leon was pretty attractive, and maybe you were biased, but how had no one fucked him? You’ve seen the way girls look at him, blushing when he even glances at them for a second.

That is when Leon told you he planned on trying to hook up with some girl at the party, and he wanted your help because he knew he would fuck up somehow. You had humoured him. Nothing more romantic than taking a random girl home on Valentine’s Day and fucking her brains out.

–-

“It’s not that serious, Leon,” you groaned for the umpteenth time. You were both walking back to his apartment after unsuccessfully trying to hook him up with some sorority girl. He was grumbling behind you, pissed and sexually frustrated.

“It was your fault.” You roll your eyes at his statement. When you reach the door of his flat, you observe as he clumsily takes his keys out, trying to open the door. He finally manages to open the door, and you enter, taking your shoes off before settling on his couch.

You watch him beyond amused at his predicament as he paces back and forth in front of you.

“Why did you have to mention that? They were so into me before you fucked it up,” he huffs, stilling his movement to glare at you.

“C’mon, Leon. I’m sure they couldn’t give a fuck that you’re a nerd,” you said, repeating the same word you had let slip when you were praising your beloved best friend. You peered back up at him, acting casual as if his icy gaze didn’t have your heart beating wildly against your chest. You rarely saw him angry, and when he was, he never directed it to you.

“You ruined my chances at finally getting laid. I don’t know how to talk to these girls. You’re the only person I have.” He’s frustrated with you for fucking up whatever chance he finally had at popping his cherry. Even though logically it’s not your fault nor your duty to get his dick wet, he didn’t want to take responsibility right now.

“I think you’re overreacting,” you sighed, standing up and moving towards him. You try to put a comforting hand on Leon’s shoulder, and he shrugs your touch off him. You don’t take it to heart. He’s a few inches taller than you, head slightly tilted as he looks down at you.

“Yeah? Well, now I have no one to fuck tonight.”

“I can change that,” you quip, and you instantly freeze at your own statement. You part your lips lightly in shock as you observe Leon’s reaction. It was a freudian slip, and it seemed to be happening more often than you’d like.

He continues looking down at you with furrowed brows as he tries to comprehend what you said. He thinks this might affect your friendship if you even mean what you said. He was horny, being teased all night by pretty girls in skimpy dresses, only to be denied, fucking furious too.

“Really?” He responds, somehow stepping closer to you. His eyes flicker down to your lips, and you try to back up, only to be pushed against the wall by him. His stare is still cold, piercing through you. He’s still pissed at you.

“Are you still mad?” You mumbled, your back flat against the wall of his living room. You knew the answer. You just wanted him to say it. Maybe you found his mean side more attractive than you’d like to admit. It was so rare to see him like this — a usually composed man so broken.

“Yes, I’m still fucking angry. Do you want me or not?” He seethes. You squeeze your thighs together at the tone he uses. You were so pathetic, getting wet at him berating you, but any attention was good attention.

He notices your reaction, grinning to himself. “You backing down?”

You shake your head no in response.

“Beg for it then. Beg for me to fuck you. That’s what you want, right?” He says, mocking you. It’s as if he knows how deep your desire burns for him, how badly you’d do anything for him if it meant he noticed you. His hands grasp your face, his fingers squishing your cheeks together as he forces your head back against the wall so you look up at him.

“Please, Leon. Fuck me. ‘M all yours.” You plead through pursed lips. Your eyes are glossy, and he’s laughing at your desperate nature. He would have never expected his best friend to be a whiny mess within his grasp.

He lets go of your face before leaning down, capturing your lips into his for a needy kiss. Your eyes flutter shut, and a surprised gasp escapes you. Teeth clashing, you’re whimpering desperately against his lips as you entangle your fingers into his soft golden locks. His hands trail down to your hips, gripping them as he moves his body against yours.

You let out a soft moan, and he pulled apart from the passionate kiss. Both your lips are swollen and covered with your shared saliva. He continues to grope your body eagerly as he pushes you further into the wall. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear you.”

Biting your lip, you try not to let any moans slip free while he toys with your sensitive body through your clothes. He hooks one of your legs over his hip while he explores your body. He grinds his hardening cock against your crotch, and the action does little to quell the ache inside you.

Your back arches off the wall, your head tipping back as you try to buck your hips to his. Digging your nails into his shirt, he hisses slightly, but your movements don’t get past him.

“So fucking desperate,” he moans loudly.

He continues to rock his clothed erection against your cunt. The rough fabric of your pants provides enough friction through your damp underwear to your clit. Your hand clamps around your mouth shut, suppressing your whines as you near your climax.

Leon’s eyes close while he groans lowly at the pleasure coursing through him as he ruts against you. He wants so badly to feel your dripping cunt against his throbbing length. Just as you’re about to finish, he pulls away, panting, and the feeling in your core dissipates.

“I want to fuck you properly.” You’re unsure if he knew what he had just done, but with the smug look he’s giving you, you’re positive it’s on purpose.

You push yourself off the wall of his living room, and with trembling legs, you follow him to his bedroom. You were familiar with the area and used to the messy appearance while you two were either doing work or binging shows. But it’s different now, he’s going to fuck you dumb in it.

You both begin to rid yourself of your clothes once you’re inside. You’re fully nude, lying flat on Leon’s mattress, and your skin feels tacky with sweat as it clings to his soft sheets. Leon is only in his boxers, precum staining the fabric, as his strong palms spread your bent legs apart to admire your bare pussy.

You realise that this is most likely his first time seeing one other than in porn videos he jerks himself off to. He marvels at how wet you are, your folds glistening with your slick. Leaning down, he buries his face between your thighs, lapping at you.

His tongue teases your entrance before slowly moving to your clit. He alternates between sucking on your sensitive nub and lapping at it slowly. He looks like he’s concentrated as he focuses on pleasing your cunt, his brows furrowed and his nails digging into the flesh of your thighs.

You can’t help the moans and sighs that slip past your lips while he eats you out. The pleasure is nearly dizzying as you grip the sheets. Your hips are bucking against his tongue, and Leon groans as you use his face. He’s not so subtly grinding against the sheets, his cock painfully hard as he fails to relieve the sensation.

Tentatively, he slurps at you, drinking in your essence. The wet, sloppy noises your cunt makes are embarrassing, but he’s obsessed with it and your taste. It’s addictive. He sucks at your clit roughly, adoring the reaction you give him. Your tummy clenches as he pays attention to your throbbing bud. Your sounds are getting more frequent as your orgasm quickly approaches you.

When you finally come undone, your thighs are quivering around his head as he revels in your release. He parts from your cunt, his lips coated in your cum like lip gloss as he licks them clean. Trying to collect yourself, your chest heaves as you pant heavily.

Leon slips his boxers down, revealing his hard-on. His cock was flushed red and dripping with precum as he stroked it. It was average in length but quite thick and prettier than you had imagined. But you shouldn’t act surprised.

You let out a whimper when he slid the tip of his cock through your folds stained with your cum and his saliva. Your pussy was overstimulated, spasming as he teased your entrance with his head.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he groans, gripping your hip to steady himself. The heat of your cunt was welcoming as it tried to suck him inside you. His tip touches your overly sensitive clit. He was quickly losing his composure, desperate to fuck you open.

You both moan simultaneously when he fully enters his length inside of you. Your walls were sucking his cock deeping into you, filling you up to the brim with nothing but him.

You had not imagined your first time with Leon like this. You daydreamed of him taking you out on a cute date before undressing you and then fucking you slowly on a bed littered with rose petals. You did not anticipate that he’d split you open on his cock as a last resort taking his sexual frustration out on you. You can’t complain with how good he’s fucking you, even if it’s out of spite.

He begins thrusting his cock in and out of tight pussy, groaning. You feel each ridge and vein of his cock as he fucks the shape into you. You sometimes forget how well-built he is, usually concealed by his clothes, sweat dripping down his muscular frame.

“Your cock feels so fuckin’ good, Leon,” you gasped out loud, your nails digging into his biceps as he stretched you out of his fat cock.

“This was your plan, huh? You wanted me to fuck you, whore.” He says as he punctuates each word with a thrust.

Your eyes roll to the back of your head as the tip of his cock presses against you deliciously. You did want him all to yourself, but you wouldn’t go as far as to sabotage him. You’re unable to answer him, too drunk on his cock bullying into that one spot inside of you.

“Answer me, bitch.” He huffs, gripping your jaw and positioning your face to his. He looks into your eyes only to note how they can barely stay open. His hips stutter at your fucked out expression. He was so fucking close, his abs flexing, only holding out so you can cum first.

“Y- Yeah, Leon. Want to you all for myself,” you stammer incoherently, tears collecting at your waterline as he pounds into your oversensitive cunt. Your walls grip around his cock sporadically as you near your climax.

“You like me too, then?” he mocks through clenched teeth. Your pussy hugs him tightly, and he thinks he might never want to leave your warm embrace.

“I’m so close,” you cry out, your body squirming in his hold. Your peak was rapidly approaching as he continued his assault on your pussy.

“Answer the question then you can come,” he whines, his fingers digging into the flesh of your hips, leaving marks as he nears his peak.

“Mhm! Yes, I’ve always fucking liked you, Leon.” You cried out, eager to expose all your secrets to him if it meant you came. As you climax, your pussy milks Leon’s cock as it gushes around him.

“Oh fuck. I’m gonna cum,” Leon moans, his voice breathy as his orgasm crashes after yours. He doesn’t know if it’s the weight of your confession or the whimpers that escape your throat that send butterflies in him as he spills into you. He kisses you one last time, moaning into you as he rides his high.

Pulling out, he collapses right next to you. You’re both panting, covered in cum and sweat. A wave of exhaustion overcomes you, and you hope he doesn’t bring up what you said amidst fucking. You’re content pretending it didn’t happen if it meant you wouldn’t get to face your fears.

“Thank you for uh,” Leon trails off, and it's like a switch flipped. He’s bashful at mentioning that he had just lost his virginity as if he wasn’t calling you a whore a few minutes ago. Turning to his side, you come nearly face-to-face with him once again.

“Mhm, you’re welcome, I think.” You’re still unsure how you feel about the situation. Finally, you had fucked him, but what significance did it hold to him? Your eyes flutter shut, sleep finally overcoming your wrecked body. You expected the same would happen to Leon, but you were wrong. Leon was in deep thought.

Leon calls your name, cutting your sleep short. You snap your eyes open, sitting up, you await his question with your arms crossed. He looked uneasy, but you’re too drained to question why.

“Did you mean what you said? That you liked me.” His voice is quiet as he gazes at your form.

“Uh, yeah,” you mumbled in response. What was even the point of lying anymore? His cum was dripping between your thighs. What is the worst he can do? You think you can already guess his response. Guilt was eating at you. He wouldn’t be in this position if you did what he wanted. You added, “Sorry for fucking up your night.”

It’s quiet, and you’re nervously trying to gauge his reaction until he breaks the silence.

“I think I found someone better,” he responds. You laugh at the mere absurdity of the entire situation.

“It took fucking me to find that out?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

[cherry-pop-elf]

Break Him Back

Anya x Reader

SUM: YOU were who Anya confided in…

Warnings: Sexual Assault, Rape, Rape After math, unwanted pregnancy, Jimmy, violence, written by someone who’s a victim of sexual assault

“Anya? What’s the matter? It’s the middle of the night. I think…It’s in the middle of sleeping hours.” You tried to joke lightly, in the hopes to calm whatever nerves she had, but it seemed to not get a laugh out of her. Not this time.

“I….Can….Do you….I need to tell you something. I need to tell someone, but I don’t know who. I think you. You will believe me and understand. Right?”

This was making you confused. What’s she going on about? Did she have a nightmare? You sure knew a thing or two about those. Nightmares can feel so real sometimes. Probably just shaken up from it.

“Come on in my room. Come on Doc.” You would user her in, and she was quick to follow. Quick to just sit on your bed. Sit and pretty much curl up on herself. As if she had the world’s worst stomach ache. You figured it’s the nerves from the nightmare.

You would sit down next to her, as she just stared into no real direction. It was towards the floor but her eyes just didn’t really seem to look there. Was like her soul was somewhere else while her body remained. Like she was looking from above, like some third person view.

She just wasn’t really there.

“Anya? What’s up? Nightmare?” You asked, as you would rub her back. The way she flinched away from your touch seemed to be what made her finally have the ability to see through her eyes again. See, and have tears trickle down.

“I wish it was.” She whispered to you, as she squeezed at her stomach more. Was like she was trying to crush her own organs. Was making you more scared. The hell has her so damn rattled? She’s a Nurse. Isn’t it hard to rattle people like that?

“I’m…..I….Oh what do I even say?” She just couldn’t raise her voice. Was like she was terrified of someone overhearing them. That someone would hurt her.

“Hey hey. Deep breathes. I’m right here. You can tell me anything. We’ve been friends for ages. Whatever happened I’m here to listen.” You would do your best to comfort. You didn’t want to attempt to touch her again so you were trying your best to use words.

Was a long silence now. You didn’t rush her. She needed to get a chance to collect herself. Figure out how to speak whatever is needed. You were willing to wait forever for her. You loved her after all.

“I….Would this count as cheating?”

You blinked at that. Made your heart drop to.

Was she saying she cheated on you?

No no. That’s not your Anya. You weren’t going to jump the gun. Something clearly has her shaken. Maybe she was just struggling with words. You were going to let her speak before doing anything rash.

“I…..I’m pregnant.”

The bombshell made you feel dizzy. What does she mean she was pregnant? That was impossible. There was no way. At least not between you to at least. That was what you knew for as a fact. No way.

That meant it was someone else.

Daisuke? No way. Definitely not him. He’s genuinely a wonderful kid. He was so kind and sweet, and had so many other things to think about. Not to mention he was a shitty liar. If he and Anya had something going on there was zero chance no one wouldn’t know. Especially Swansea. They spent to much time together.

Speaking of him you tried to think about Big Swan next.

That was also impossible. Why? Well he got a vasectomy. Was even in his medical reports. Sure they weren’t 100% but like 99.99% is still impossibly small. Not to mention you lowkey doubt he could get it up anymore anyway. But you were keeping that to yourself. He may be sober but you recall that he and his wife struggled to have kids for a while.

Could it be the Captain? Captain Curly? He and her were close, but you also just couldn’t imagine it. Why? Well his ass was gay. Unless Anya suddenly had a transition you weren’t aware of you were certain he wouldn’t be remotely attracted to her.

Last was….

Jimmy.

Jimmy had been a massive creep to Anya the moment the ship took off. Always finding excuses to be alone with her, making unwarranted comments about her body, touching her at any chance he could, and just over all being a major creep. Had gotten to the point where Curly out right ordered him to knock it off. You even overheard him telling Swansea to keep an eye on Jimmy. To find his own reason to be in the room if he isolated himself with her.

That’s when your soul left your body.

Would this count as cheating?

Oh god.

Oh god.

Oh god no.

“When did this happen?” You weren’t sure how your voice came out. You were holding back anger. Not to Anya. No. Never. She did nothing wrong. It was Jimmy and Jimmy alone.

“About a month ago. At first I thought it was a rather real nightmare. That I was just dreaming. That what happened was just me being afraid of him. During it I had blacked out and I just assumed that meant I fell back asleep with in the dream. Then I started having symptoms. Symptoms that were too coincidental to be ignored. I took a test and…..Here I am.”

She sniffled, and that was the only thing to make your rage subside. For now anyway. You had to be there for her right now. She needed you. You would control your emotions for her. She needed someone. She needed you.

“Whatever happens next happens next. Alright? You want to get rid of it we will find a way. If you wanna keep it we will find a way to take care of them until we can get back home. Alright? This doesn’t make me love you any less. This doesn’t make me see you as broken or damaged goods. You aren’t any less my girlfriend as the day I asked you to be mine. We will get through this.”

She would keep sniffling into your shoulder, as you laid down with her. Holding her as tightly as you could, while your eyes remained glued to your door. Just as much expecting Jimmy to break in as she did.

“Does he know?”

She nodded.

“He said it was my problem, not his.” She hiccuped, as she just squeezed you tighter. The only thing to calm her down was you. You were who she trusted. You were who she loved. You were what kept her going.

You didn’t get any sleep that night, and you didn’t care.

You didn’t care.

You were too busy thinking over what to do next.

As the hours went on you tried to think.

The ship wasn’t exactly built to house prisoners. There was still a year left to the journey. Murder couldn’t just be the answer. Well you were certainly planning murder but you were doubtful Curly was gonna allow murder on his ship. Justified or not.

The hell were you going to do?

Teach him a lesson that’s what.

Beat him until he was unable to ever lay hands on anyone again.

With that made up you would suddenly hear your alarm go off. Anya would rub at her eyes, as you realized you really didn’t get sleep at all. Just kept her close and safe. Least you knew no one was touching her.

You two would get dressed for the day, since you two were a couple there was a spare jumpsuit for her in your closet of course, and make the journey to the kitchen. Determination was on your face, as Anya just meekly held your arm for support.

There the rest of the crew was. There like nothing had happened at all. Curly was working on making coffee for everyone, Swansea was fighting to wake up, Daisuke was sitting on the counter with his feet swinging, and there was Jimmy. There ever at Curly’s side. Like some tumor.

“Morning guys!” Daisuke would wave happily, as Anya gave a meek one in return. Swansea would give a ‘huh wha-?��� Like the dad he was, while Curly turned and flashed his brilliant smile. Jimmy? Didn’t even acknowledge you two.

Oh that made you burn with anger.

Wasn’t even so much as a thought about her.

She was nothing.

“Curly, I’ll handle coffee for us. You go and sit down. Rest. I know you’ve been working to hard.” You tried to keep calm, and plastered a fake smile.

“Oh aren’t you kind. Thank you.” He would step away from where he had been, and soon joined Swansea at the table. The voice to keep him awake as Daisuke joined with Anya. Everyone away, while Jimmy remained in the kitchen nook. Curious as to why you had offered.

You would keep your fists clenched at your side, as you now stood next to him. Eyes glued to the coffee maker in-front of you both. A painful silence was shared between you both. Was like the voices at the table didn’t even exist. Was just the two of you.

He would side eye you, and you side eyed him back.

For a brief moment, you swore he knew that you knew. That you knew what he did.

But as quickly as he showed it, that vanished from his eyes.

As if it was nothing more than just accidentally bumping into her in the hallway.

That’s when you snapped.

“I hope this hurts-“

You grabbed the handle of the coffee pot and SMASHED it against his face. Boiling hot coffee splashed everywhere. Including on yourself. You could hardly notice, as you were pinning him to the ground.

“THE HELL YOU DOING?!”

Not often Curly swore, as if Hell even was one but if anything that showed how hard it was to get him rilled up. Guess seeing your best friends face be full of glass, skin suffering second to third degree burns, and screaming bloody murder is gonna set everyone on edge.

You didn’t really care. All you saw was red. Pretty sure you didn’t even blink. You just were wailing on him. Adrenalin was pumping through your veins. Made any pain you felt not compute. You just needed to beat Jimmy into a pulp.

“KID GET OFF OF HIM-!” Swansea would pull you off him, while Curly pulled Jimmy away from you. Meanwhile Daisuke was standing infront of Anya. Willing to use himself as a shield to protect her before himself. Even so young he knew where he stood.

“THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” The two men shouted, while Jimmy was sobbing into Curly. Using him as some kind of shield. Like he would be saved by his Captain.

“What’s wrong with me?! WHATS WRONG WITH HIM?!” You snapped back, as you tried to pull away from Swansea. To try and keep beating him over and over. Curse him for having that mechanic strength.

“All he was doing was standing there and doing nothing!” Curly would shout at you, as he tried to look over the wounds. To see what he could do.

“Anya please hurry over here-!”

But she refused.

She refused.

“Anya?! Anya come over here! Please! Don’t make me order you!” He shouted, but she just stepped further away.

Curly was so confused.

That’s when you fixed that.

“That man you are holding there RAPED ANYA! Not only that, he got her PREGNANT! AND HE TOLD HER IT WAS HER PROBLEM NOT HIS.”

That’s when everyone went silent. All except Jimmy and Daisuke.

Jimmy kept hissing and crying in pain, while Daisuke was throwing up. Poor kid. So much was running through everyone’s head now. That they had been talking to, being friends with, living with a monster.

That’s when Swansea let you go.

Did he do it because he was in shock? Maybe his way of saying to keep beating Jimmy? You didn’t know. You just knew Curly looked more sick than even Anya.

“There….There has to be a misunderstanding….”

You wanted to smack Curly for saying that, but at the same time you couldn’t help but sympathize.

Would you believe someone if they told you your best friend raped someone?

Would you not beg to hear the full story? To get the full picture?

Wouldn’t you want to fight for their innocents?

Wouldn’t you have a moment of denial?

Wouldn’t you?

“It’s true…I have the test results to prove it. Prove he….Prove he did what he did.” Anya would do her best to speak for herself. It was so hard, but she knew she had to. She had to so that maybe others could be saved.

Saved from him.

“I…Maybe the test came back wrong. Did you take a second test?” The more Curly talked the more you wanted to beat him next. Luckily Swansea grabbed you again. How he grabbed you wasn’t to keep you from beating people. Just held you close. Like a father to a daughter who came home crying.

“Yes. I wanted to be sure of course. Of course. Even a third time. It was positive. He hurt me.” Anya would nod, as Curly looked down to Jimmy. To see him looking so pathetic in his arms. Face scorched, bleeding, full of tears, and looking like shit.

The captain would look to everyone. Scanned each face carefully. How Swansea was looking down at Jimmy with disgust, the way Daisuke was unable to even look towards the kitchen but still fought his stomach to hold Anya in a comforting hug. When his eyes landed on hers. To see them so glassy…He just knew.

“What have you done, Jimmy?”

If it was hypothetical or not, you’ll never know.

You just knew that right now you were sitting in the co-pilot seat. Helping monitor the asteroid belt the Tulpar was traveling through.

Anya was busy with patching up Swansea after he got a nasty cut on his arm from working in a vent.

Daisuke himself was currently bringing a tray to what was once Anya’s room. With the help of the skills of a mechanic, and the curious mind of someone who has played quite the handful of secret passage way games, they were able to turn a once bedroom into a makeshift prison cell.

A place to insert food, a gap to look inside, all the works. Thank goodness each bedroom had its own bathroom.

“Here’s lunch…” Daisuke would push the tray in, and didn’t even stay a second longer.

Even he couldn’t give him a passing smile.

He would just return back to the med-bay. A smile for Anya plastered on him, as that made her beam in return.

A smile she deserved.

A smile that Jimmy will only see again when he’s in handcuffs, and behind real bars.

A smile that said…

Rot. In. Hell.

[vroomingrussell]

Yeah she’s pretty, she’s my wife…

Lance Stroll x Reader

Note: During the Canadian GP 2024

Y/N stepped out of the car; her phone tucked between her shoulder and ear as she tried to open the umbrella. The rain still had not let up.

“I promise, I don’t need you to come out to get me, I can find the garage” She tried to calm the worrying of her husband.

Husband, the word still felt strange seeing as they had only been married for a week, it was a small intimate wedding just your two families and a few friends in the backyard of your childhood home. It had not been planned out the way you wanted. Lance was home from Monaco, you were finally done with your studies. He’s proposed the year before, and you had promised once you earned your degree you’d take time off to plan the wedding; however, what you truly wanted was to be married, no lavish party, nothing but being surrounded by the people you love with the man you love before he was jetting off to race around the world again. Your relationship with Lance was not a secret but you two did your best not to bring any media attention to you; it was the one thing you had asked of him when you started dating.

“Okay” he says “but come find me or dad as soon as you get to Aston”

“Promise, love you” you smile and hung up before swiping your pass to get into the paddock.

You quickly made your way in; happy that no one paid no mind to you, probably thinking you were another fan. However, the happiness quickly disappeared as a heavy gust of wind blew the umbrella from your hand; plus your lack of knowledge as to where the Aston Martin hospitality; you hadn’t realized how hard it would be to make your way around; usually you were with Lawrence or Chloe or friends when you came to races, this time you were on your own and now soaking wet.

“Damn it” you mumbled as you took shelter into the closet building; McLaren.

“Hello there” A British voice called out to you, one you recognize from the radio messages and interviews, Lando Norris.

“Hi” you swiped the damp hair from your eyes and looked up at him “sorry I’m just waiting out the rain” you offered a smile.

“Come in then, I’ll get you something warm to wear and some coffee” you’ve heard a lot about Lando, many rumors of how flirtatious and a player he was, but online chatter didn’t matter to you, Lance had said that Lando is nice, they weren’t friends but friendly enough; he was a good guy that people love to give a shitty reputation to. So following your gut and your husbands approval of Lando, you wondered further into the building.

“Nando fan?” He made small talk as he handed you a towel he’d gotta from a bench near by, with the down pour it made sense for the hospitality buildings to have towels ready for those soaked to the bones.

“Lance” you answered, clearly Lando was not one of the few drivers on the grid that knew you, Este, Mick and Fernando being the only 3 that were at your wedding.

“Stroll has really pretty fans, I’ll have to ask him how” Lando joked as you tried to dry your hair.

You chuckled, not wanting to say much more “thanks for this”

“Coffee?”

“I would love some but don’t you have a race to get ready for? I don’t want to keep you”

“It’s all good we have some time plus the rain is holding up the start”

“Coffee then” Y/N answered after taking a peak outside where the rain still hasn’t let up.

“You should let me get you a change of hoodie too, I think papaya if more you color”

“I’m sure Lance would not be happy if I showed up in uh papaya; he did invite me today after all” Y/N smiled, kindly declining Landos offer and hoping he’d take the hint without her having to confirm anything.

But he stayed clueless “I’m sure he’d be fine, plus you could stay and be my good luck charm for the race” oh boy.

Quickly you sent a text to Lawrence not wanting to bother Lance to send someone to pick you up from McLaren.

Y/N continued to talk to Lando, steering the conversation to a safer topic, racing in the wet conditions. She listened as he went on, politely asking questions at the right time, nodding along. Thankfully it didn’t take long for her recuse to arrive.

“Y/N, kid there you are” Lawrence Stroll himself called out.

“Mr Stroll” Lando stood to shake the older man’s hand “how are you”

“Good good, just here to safely deliver my daughter to Lance, he’s being to stress the entire garage out” Lawrence had always fondly referred to Y/N as his second daughter.

“Thanks for the towel and coffee Lando, good luck with you race today” Y/N bid farewell to the driver, leaving him with one mission in mind, talk to Lance, get her number.

-

The drivers parade was, well wet and cold; Lance was dreading it: hoping that it could end as quickly as possible. He didn’t get to spend as much time with you as he’d like before he was being ushered away from pre race briefings, meeting with their celebrity guests and the usual.

Standing on the back of the open air van he huddled to one corner waving to fans in the grandstands as they drove by.

“Hey man” Lance looked up skeptically as Lando Norris approached him. Usually it was Esteban or Fernando that took the space by his side so seeing Lando left him a little confused.

“So your sister is she single?” Lando did not beat around the bush, he kept a smile on his face as he waved to fans as well.

“You know Chloe is married?”

“No not Chloe, your other sister, Y/N she’s really gorgeous and we had a nice chat today, but I I couldn’t tell if she was interested”

“Y/N?” Lance questioned again, looking at Este who was listening in for some help. Este shrugged.

“Yeah, I know it’s probably weird and all if you don’t want to give me her number but she’s really pretty dude and I would love to get to know her”

“Yeah dude I agree, Y/N is really pretty” Lance smirked, oh this would be fun.

“…yeah”

“But she’s not my sister, she’s my wife” Lance grinned.

“Whoa Lance what was that” Will Buxton stopped his interview with Fernando to cut in “Mr stroll care to elaborate?”

Normally, Lance would have shut it down, not wanting to put you on blast, but he couldn’t help himself. “Oh I was just telling Lando here about my gorgeous new bride, married one week today, she’s in the garage right now, and I’m just happy to have her here for our home race” Lance smiled to the camera.

Once the cameras had panned away, lando looked at Lance apologetically. “I had no idea”

“It’s okay, she is very pretty and probably super pissed at me”

-

Back at the garage Y/N couldn’t help but smile. She loved her husband so much her heart could burst from her chest, she could not be happier.

[louloulemons-posts]

Metal Head Cuddles

Eddie Munson X Fem!Reader

Word Count : 1.7k

Warnings : not proofread, swears, shitty parents(reader), vecna stuff did happen, petnames, it’s just a load of fluff.

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

Meeting-hug :

Being Robins Buckleys cousin was great, moving in with her and her dad was also great. Your family wasn’t fantastic, but Robin and your uncle were.

“Are you sure it was okay for me to tag along? I could always go back and chill with Uncle Rich.”

“Come on Y/N, i know you wanna get out of it, but everyone will love you”.

“Only if you’re sure.”

“I’m 100% sure, now come on let’s go in.” You were at Robins friends, Steve, house, apparently they’d become best friends a couple years back.

Working at an ice cream shop together, you’d had a job of your own when you lived in Chicago, it had allowed you to move to Hawkins and not look back. An old music shop that was getting more and more popular by the day.

Harringtons house was nice, Robin said his parents had a good job, but weren’t around a lot. There was music and laughter as you walked into the house.

“Don’t be nervous, they’ll love you.” Robin linked your arms and you walked into the garden. “Buckley!” A voice called out as you left the house. “Harrington.”

A boy jogged up to you, floppy hair bouncing as he came. “Ah you must be Y/N, Robins said a lot about you. I’m Steve.”

“Hey, it’s nice to meet you.” He gave you a welcoming hug.

“I’ll get you guys a drink, beer?” he asked.

“Y/Ns driving,” Robin spoke.

“Lemonade?”

“Lemonades great thanks.”

“Come on let’s meet the others.” Your cousin waved over at some younger people. “Y/N, this is Dustin, Will, Mike, El, Lucas and Max.”

“It’s nice to meet you all.”

“Ahh so you’re Robins mystery cousin,” the curly haired boy said.

“The one and only,” you shrugged.

“It’s good to meet you anyways,” A red haired girl spoke, her eyes were glazed and you spotted a white cane, along with the hold she had on the boys arm beside her.

“And you guys.”

“Come on let’s meet the lovebirds.” Robin led you away to two teens who looked your age. “This is Nancy and Jonathan, guys this is my cousin Y/N.”

“Hey it’s great to meet you,” the girl spoke, standing to give you a squeeze.

“And you.”

“Where’s Munson?” Robin asked.

“Late as always,” Jonathan joked. On that note loud metal music was heard. “Speak of the devil,” Jonathan chuckled.

A few moments later a man with unruly hair came wandering in, his footsteps heavy and loud. He wore a large grin, dancing across his mouth as he took the younger curly haired boy hugged him.

The hug of a brother, Steve walked past, handing him a beer like it was a breath. He made his way over to us, handing me a cup full of lemonade and Robin her own bottle of booze.

“You been introduced to everyone?” Steve asked. “Pretty much, just not,” I motioned over to the man who was not letting out a cackle.

“Oh, hang on,” Steve paused for a second, because calling out the man’s name, “Eddie, come here man.” You heard him mutter something like, ‘Oh no already in trouble,’ to the younger kids, making them laugh.

He jogged over to us, taking a swig of his drink. “Hey guys,” he smiled, taking in everyone’s face when he finally landed on mine. His chocolate eyes met my gaze.

“Eddie this is Y/N, Robins cousin from Chicago,” Steve explained.

“Oh cool, nice to meet you,” he said, pulling you into a half hug.

You hand landed on his lower back in greeting as his kept his, respectfully on the middle of yours. “And you, Robins told me all about you guys,” I said to the group.

“Oh no, what’s she said?” Steve groaned.

“Nothing that isn’t true Dingus.”

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

Random-Encounter Hug :

Pushing the cart through the aisle, I grabbed a couple veggies here and there, planning on making, yet another, thank you meal for Robin and my uncle.

After placing the tomato’s and peppers in the cart I looked back up, spotting a newly familiar figure. Grabbing the last few things I needed from this section I sped up, “Hey Eddie.”

The boy whirled round to look at me, “Y/N, hey, how are you?” He asked, instantly pulling me into a large hug, giving me a gentle squeeze.

“I’m good, just getting bits and pieces.”

“Same here, I’m want to make my uncle a nice meal for his birthday, but don’t tell anyone,” he leant down so he was closer to your ear, “I can’t really cook.”

Letting out a laugh, I smiled at the boy, “If you want I can help you?”

“You cook?”

“I do indeed, give me your number and we can figure out a recipe, go through everything step by step.”

“Really?”

“Sure, what does he like to eat?”

“Anything we eat out of cans a lot.”

“Does he like steak?”

“Sure.”

I motioned for him to follow me, pushing the cart and coming to a halt by the steaks and other various meat. Getting a small, cheap, but still a beautiful cut, I handed it to Eddie.

“Does he like mash potatoes?”

“Yeah.” I quickly grabbed some of them, and then some green beans. Eddie pulled a face at that, “Does he not like them?

“Oh he loves them, I do not,” his face scrunched.

“They’re not that bad I promise, cook them

in butter and seasoning.” The boy hummed, instantly trusting your words.

He stayed to help you with your own shopping, helping you take the bags to your car, holding his own. “Thank you for the help,” he said, “It was nice to see you again.”

“And you. Remember call me when you’re cooking, I’ll talk you through it all.” The boy gave you a smile, and pulled you into a sweet hug. Arms enclosing around your body, holding you close.

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

Exhaustion Hug :

You’d gone out for the day with Robin, Nancy, Steve, Jonathan and Eddie. Not sleeping well the night before after a screaming phone call from your mother, you were so tired.

“You okay?” Robin whispered.

“Oh yeah, just a bit sleepy. I’ll be fine.” You’d be on a long walk, wondering around shops, just having fun doing what people would consider mundane.

Eddie walked in front chatting away with Steve, Robin jumped into conversation with them, whilst Jonathan and Nancy led the group hand in hand.

Staying a few steps behind, you rubbed your eyes again. Not realising the group had stopped you bumped into Eddies back. “Shit sorry Eds.”

Turning to look at you, he smiled softly at your sleepy state. “It’s okay, you good?”

“Yeah just tired.” He nodded, humming, “Well we can’t have that can we.”

He turned back around and got low, “Hop on,” he said simply.

“What?”

“Get on my back.”

“Eddie no-“

“Y/N,” he said turning his face to you, “Please.” Well you couldn’t say no to that.

Wrapping your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck, Eddie stood, holding underneath your thighs. “Comfy?”

“Mhm.” My face rested on his shoulder.

“Come on then, let go,” he walked with ease, as if he wasn’t carrying an extra weight. I felt so comfortable there, with him holding me, that my face nuzzled into his neck, breathing him in.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Anything for you.”

…

“Oh he’s so into her,” Steve said, watching the boy carry the sleepy girl. “Him into her? You don’t understand how much she talks about him. I swear Eddie coming today is the only reason she’s here,” Robin laughed.

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

Recharging Cuddles :

You don’t really know how it happened, but it was natural as anything. You and Eddie started dating, much to his Uncle Wayne’s joy.

Stood in the small kitchen in their new trailer, you were cooking a breakfast for Eddie and yourself, Wayne had already headed out for the day.

Feeling arms come around your waist and a face nuzzle into your neck, his curls tickled in their sleepy state. “Where did you go?” He said, voice laced with sleep.

“Making us breakfast Eds.”

“You weren’t there when I woke up.”

“Sorry baby, I just wanted to make you something.”

“You’re too sweet,” he spoke, placing a sweet kiss under your ear. “It’s almost ready, why don’t you sit at the table?”

He whined, “Wanna stay with you.”

“Okay sleepy boy,” With a free hand you rubbed his own that connected around your waist.

“Thank you.”

“Never have to thank me baby.” The boy remained attached to you the rest of the time you cooked, sliding you onto his lap as you ate.

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

Reunion hugs :

It had been two whole weeks since you’d seen Eddie, yourself, Robin and your uncle had been on vacation. Not even thinking about unpacking you jumped in your car and drove over to Eddies.

The trailer park was hit with sun, bright days becoming more common, the people of Hawkins soaking in the rays.

That was including your favourite boy, of course wearing jeans, black and ripped and a tank top. Some of his scars were on display but the large ones that covered his torso were hidden by the material.

Parking up, you climbed out of the car with ease. “Hey you,” you called as you walked over to him. “Oh my god”, he laughed, pushing off the stairs of the trailer and running to you.

Without a second thought your feet were off the ground, arms around his neck, he lifted you up and held you close. “I missed you so fucking much.” Hands going to his hair, you giggled, “I missed you too baby.”

“Never go away again,” he mumbled into your neck.

“Where’s my hug miss?” you heard another voice speak. “Wayne,” I smiled Eddie let me hop down from his hold and walk over to the older man. He took he in his arms and gave me a squeeze.

“Thank goodness you’re back, I couldn’t deal with anymore moping from this boy,” he motioned to Eddie. “Wayne,” he whined, wrapping his arm around your shoulder, pulling your back to his chest.

“But seriously never leave me again.”

“Don’t plan on it.” He kissed the top of your head, holding you tighter.

~ / / / * \ \ \ ~

A/N : well hello it’s been a while, life’s been kinda crazy lately, so writings been the last thing on my mind. Hopefully I’ll be back to it soon, but I’m not gonna push myself, hope you guys understand.

All the love 🤍

- Lou

[ronearoundblindly]

a kiss out of envy + ari 🤭

As promised, love, I give you...

frat boy!Ari Levinson x reader, one of my Valentine's Fics of 2024 (yes, you read that correctly, and no, I don't want to talk about it. 🥲 It's been a rough year lol.)

Summary: You and Ari want each other for all the wrong reasons.

Warnings (regarding both parts of the story) for drinking and partying, language, shitty behavior from...yeah everyone is a bit of a mess in this ngl (it's college), vaguely taboo mutual pining, and not-really cheating/implied cheating (applies to multiple people). This is an angsty weird fluffy sorta romance with an ambiguous ending because no one can communicate to save their f**king lives...BUT HEY! KISSES. MINORS DNI. There's plenty for younger readers on my Light Masterlist, but not here! WC 3.9k

A/N: This is the first half from Reader's perspective.

College is…predictable.

You spent the first weeks of your freshman year faking self-assurance you didn’t actually feel because confidence is sexy—or whatever the saying is,—and if you had to start from scratch, you might as well start from a place you’re proud of.

You made friends. You went out with your roommate. You stayed out late with lots of people you don’t know, and you smiled. Holy shit, did you smile…

The attempt to ‘get out there’ brought constant stress; you wanted to define your social life right off the bat, but good people are hard to find.

You officially decided you were looking in the wrong place for any good people while at the Lawn Party three-quarters of the way through your first semester.

Finally, you’d tried. You pulled out all the stops. You wore the nicer, trendier clothes that you splurged on for events just like this. You put on extra makeup, brought some with you in your little purse to touch it up, and when you smiled in the mirror seconds before running out of the dorm with your roomie, you really were self-assured. You felt sexy.

Though the party was outdoors, you stuck with just the one layer of a light-colored, flowy top, something whimsical and fun, something less useful and more useless, but that’s the idea of fashion, you suppose.

When the breeze caught the fabric, you imagined you were in a movie, one of those scenes where the heroine is about to get noticed by the man of her dreams.

That is exactly the opposite of what happened.

You’d been there all of half an hour, your roommate off to get drinks (after you whined and waited and stalled, hoping to strike up some conversation without partaking in the shared, bad decisions of the swath of 18-22 year olds meandering across a grass field behind the sports complex), when you heard a really loud, shrill laugh behind you and turned.

A red Solo cup crumpled against your boob and beer exploded across your chest, drenching your shirt and dripping grossly down your stomach.

“Wooooah,” the big guy still gripping shredded plastic drawled, eyes glued to your see-through blouse as it clung to your front. “Sorry.”

The girl who laughed with him put her hand up to her mouth. “Oh. My god.” Yet she just laughed more.

That was it. That was the sum total acknowledgment of your destroyed outfit and evaporated dignity.

“Ari,” someone called, startling your assailant to look away with his unresponsive, blown pupils.

You noticed a few drops of beer on his letterman jacket, so, sure, in comparison to your entire front half being soaked, that seemed a fair-and-equal trade for your embarrassment.

Then he was gone, the laughing girl following the asshole, Ari, and his idiot friends as they recapped the football game from…whenever.

You left the party once the waistband of your jeans felt soggy.

You spent longer washing your beer-sponge bra in the dorm sink than you did on the lawn.

Now you know college is a fucking joke. That party became a defining moment in your social life. You realized men—no, boys—like Ari will never care about you as you really are, and finally, you’ve accepted that you don’t want them to.

They don’t deserve to know you.

Sophomore year. Women’s Studies. Of all the fucking classes…

On day one Ari plopped down in the desk next to you.

He plopped because his whole left leg was strapped into a thick brace that kept it straight and jutted out, unable to fit in the tiny seat. He’s so tall his thonged foot tapped at yours beneath your own chair.

In your utter frustration and irritation (since the professor had already started talking), you automatically muttered an apology—to Ari, like some pushover—and moved your legs.

“Not your fault,” the footballer softly chuckled, taking another long moment to settle his crutches on the floor.

Were there no other seats?

You sighed and knew, you just knew down in your bones, that this would be a long damn semester. You also had every faith, however, that this fuck-boy classmate would do just about anything to stay in the course dedicated to his favorite pastime: women.

Though that was an assumption, Ari proved you right, and it sucked.

It took all your innate kindness and compassion not to spit on him. Honestly, the guy is just…dumb. When your eyes wandered every so often, you always found him looking confused, but he wouldn’t ask questions. Several times you caught him sneaking peeks at your notes. You just couldn’t take it.

He fell asleep in one class!

With the course final mere weeks away, the OCD part of your brain kicked in and shoved several sheets of important points you’d written down into his lap before he fully woke up.

His brace was off by then, but Ari still moved slowly.

Again, he looked so confused.

“I expect them back on Wednesday,” you said with a tight jaw, barely restraining the choice names you’d wanted to call him.

You’d been conditioned so heavily to be nice that you smiled at him. A small smile, yeah, but you smiled at the coddled asshole who did not deserve to pass the class. You should have let him fail. You should have let him lean harder on that damn scholarship.

Football held his dead-weight up this long; what’s a few more years?

Nearly the end of your Senior year. Off-campus. You’ve tried.

Socializing is a hit-and-miss game, and you’re learning that sometimes the miss happens slowly, without failed plays, with all the effort you could muster.

“Look, if we’re not doing anything here, then I’m going to the party. You coming? The house is two blocks away.”

Your boyfriend, Billy, stands with his apartment door open and his roommates calling to him from down the hall. He’s frustrated, you know that, but his frustration doesn’t negate the uneasy twist in your gut you get whenever he tries to take things further than making out.

Billy is perfect on paper. He studies hard, has a job already lined up for summer, is driven to achieve…and desperately wants to get laid.

He’s cute, totally adequate in that department, yet still, you can’t force yourself to let him touch you any more than absolutely necessary. You two have excellent conversations, multiple shared interests, and you have no words to describe your lack of…want. It eats you up right along with that twisting aversion to fuck him—because it is specific to him.

You don’t lack for interest in men, even if these are still boys around you. You’re attracted. Kinda. You thought attraction could grow from affection, too, but it hasn’t in months with Billy. It doesn’t make you think he lacks in some way; you feel lacking.

Maybe you lack sympathy. Maybe you lack understanding. Maybe you are just as superficial as those slutty girls you hate, the ones sure to be at this party. Maybe Billy thinks those girls will rub off on you if you’re surrounded.

There’s no one thing, no quantifiable logic; he just doesn’t do it for you. That won’t change.

Your relationship has an expiration date, and you feel it approaching.

Unsurprisingly, you can’t bring yourself to be mean and tell him an outright ‘no.’ It’s rude to say ‘I’m not attracted to you,’ right? You’re a nice person, and it’s not nice to hurt someone who hasn’t done anything wrong.

The heavy pain in your belly grows dense, but still, nothing changes.

The compulsion to be kind and quiet continues as you follow him out, tucking your hands under your arms so Billy won’t try to touch you, but it doesn’t matter. He walks a few feet ahead to keep up with his friends on the walk down the road to the Kappa house.

The two-story, plantation-style home is packed to the gills, making it hard to maneuver past the front door, and of course, the first person you recognize is a brother of the fraternity living there.

Ari Levinson stands halfway up the staircase overlooking the crowd like a king surveying his domain, hair grown long and a beard worthy of his fifth-year undergrad status. He’s wearing a button-up linen shirt as if he just walked in from the beach, perpetually sun-kissed skin glowing, the carefree blue fabric matching his eyes.

Asshole.

He probably showed up to his own damn house, cocked his head, and smirked.

“Y’all having a party?” he probably asked, chill as fuck.

Idiot…probably. You don’t know what happened to him after Women’s Studies, but you can’t imagine he got better. Nothing changes.

His queen-for-the-day leans into his ear, her chest covered only by a red bandana and not much below that hidden by a miniskirt.

What sluts. Both of them. They deserve each other.

He’s so sexy though.

His smile is bright while he doesn’t spill the contents of his red Solo cup on anyone beneath him on the stairs. Seems his drunk coordination has improved at the very least.

“Babe,” you hear yelled close to your ear, “take it!”

Billy shoves one of two cups he’s carrying into your hands and shouts to follow him. He wants to play beer pong in one of back rooms downstairs, a room with no space to stand and watch. There are no chairs, but Billy asks if want to play with him. In no reality would he think you’d answer ‘yes’ in this chaos, but then again, he hasn’t noticed you won’t take a sip of the drink you didn’t see poured either. That’s not even a trusting him problem; for all you someone else made the drinks for Billy, and then you absolutely don’t trust it.

If he can’t manage to notice your reticence, why should Billy care if you’re comfortable?

You yell back that you’re going to find a seat somewhere. Billy gets whisked away for the next partnered game, and relief washes over you.

The only open spot that isn’t a squeeze beside couples going at it in public is a bench underneath the cutout of the staircase. You take a detour to dump your cup in the crowded kitchen’s sink and sit alone for a while, people-watching, wondering vaguely about the king and queen above you on the steps.

Parties…are not all that fun when you don’t feel safe, welcome, or seen. College is predictable this way.

You’re not sure how much time passes before a light blue linen shirt invades your view.

Looking to your right, you don’t see anyone paying attention, and looking to your left you see a sloped wall.

He’s looking directly at you.

“Thirsty?” Ari asks casually, offering the only cup he carries.

You wave it off with a polite ‘no, thank you,’ even though that should be sketchier than your boyfriend getting you a drink.

Ari takes a huge gulp and shuffles his broad body onto the too-short edge of the bench beside you. He seems careful not to touch you or invade your space, the barest graze of a short-sleeve cuff brushing the skin of your upper arm.

Again, Ari tilts the cup toward you. “Jack and Coke,” he shrugs, lifting his eyebrows, “mostly Coke though. I’ve been here a while. You’re basically late.”

You can’t help but blurt, “you live here.”

“That is an astute observation, smartie pants,” he adds with a proud smile. Those, you imagine, might be the biggest words the guy knows.

You also imagine he wouldn’t drug himself with anything,, and worst case, Ari’s already much drunker than you.

You pluck the half-full Solo from his hand, your pinky running the length of his forefinger in the process, knuckles hard beneath callused skin, and take a small sip. He’s right about one thing; you can’t smell or taste any alcohol.

His smile softens. Your pinky tingles even after you return his drink.

“Where’s whats-his-face?” Ari scans the hall. “Probably getting you something better, huh?”

You can’t help but frown and sigh as he takes another swig of soda, pink lips nearly hidden beneath the hair of his beard, but you remember they are quite plump. He only had stubble in class two years ago. You shouldn’t be thinking about what those lips might feel like. Hell, you shouldn’t be sharing a drink with anyone because that’s more intimate than anything you’ve enjoyed doing with Billy recently.

Billy is pushy and inexperienced. Every time he goes to touch you, it reminds you that he’s desperate for it, but…not in a flattering way. It’s difficult to describe.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” you throw out loudly, keeping your guess silent. Perhaps hugging the toilet bowl?

Though a simple question, Ari looks somewhere between giddy and chided while contemplating his answer. He’s so dumb, poor thing. “Flying with the pigs,” he settles on.

“What?”

He repeats himself, and then, seeing your confusion, he leans closer to clarify, “she doesn’t exist. I don’t have a girlfriend.”

Ow, rough gig bandana girl. That’s a little harsh: being fobbed off mid-party. Although, you aren’t exactly replacing her. Ari is just talking to you. It doesn’t mean anything. He’s sitting beside you, only a little closer than Women’s Studies, sharing a sip of soda. That’s all.

“So, genius—”Ari elbows you gently, taking advantage to stay arm-to-arm this time “—how you been?”

You notice you’ve been shrinking against the wall and straighten as best you can without looking as if you’re pushing your boobs out.

“Fine. Just…busy with school work.”

Internally, you groan, hating to sound so boring and feeding into this idea you are nothing but a bookworm.

Ari swallows the last of his drink, and you watch as his adam’s apple bobs lewdly—at least, it should be considered lewd with how the motion leads your eye down to the matching dark chest hair peeking behind the shirt collar. He scrunches his nose when the bubbles hit the back of his palate.

“Good. You always seemed happy. Bet you’re top of our class.” He emphasizes the year because he should have graduated already. Originally, he was a year ahead, but then he took a red-shirt year while injured. Ari doesn’t appear to mind that’s something else you share.

You bite your lip and wonder if he’s baiting you. If there’s one thing you’ve heard consistently in your whole young adult life, it’s that you ‘look angry’ and could ‘benefit’ from smiling more.

“I’m…somewhere up there, yeah,” you allow.

He points over his other shoulder and shimmies the empty cup in front of him. “You want one? What’s your favorite?”

For the first time all night, what you want has been considered. Not only if you want a drink, but which one do you want. Such a small thing, and yet the twist in your stomach unfurls a little. The drink itself doesn’t matter; the thought does. That, and being comfortable near him.

“Whatever you’re having.”

Ari flashes that megawatt smile of his and says he’ll be back in a jiffy.

The true value of a beautiful idiot is you don’t have to be on edge. Your basic knowledge of any subject (save sports) would read as genius to a guy like him…which is also why it feels so unbelievable Ari’s choosing to hang in this corner with you. He’s friends with everyone. He could get anything from anybody here. It’s nice to be wanted, not needed.

He returns with two cups, one with a couple shots worth of Jack Daniels, the other full of CocaCola. He looks at you for approval, hesitating in case you want just plain soda, and then makes a huge show of his ‘mixing’ skills.

Absolute moron did not consider the carbonation exploding with every pour back and forth.

It’s a horrible mess of foam and splashing liquid. Both his hands are dripping and sticky, but you laugh freely by the end. You never thought you’d see the day Ari Levinson spilling a drink wouldn’t be triggering.

Not even a fleeting image of that ruined blouse crosses your mind while you weakly clinkthe plastic cups together. It’s the epitome of the college experience in your eyes. For once, you aren’t upset by that fact.

You keep smiling, wrinkling your nose at the fizz bursting on the back of your tongue. You can’t help it.

Ari is a happy drunk, and he starts talking, joking with you, tucked away in your own little bubble.

It’s the most you’ve ever heard him speak.

He’s self-deprecating about the same, drunken party behavior that you have watched him participate in for years, and yet you dismiss that as nothing, normal even, and unconsciously nudge closer to Ari, your side flush with his as you bend to see the person he’s bad-mouthing now.

He seems to like the irony in that and chuckles as he says someone over there is getting sloppy, lifting his Solo to his mouth with a dainty pinky raised in defiance. He’s a goofball. You haven’t been so relaxed with someone in…months.

Both drinks are finished quickly, and Ari offers to grab more.

The warm buzz humming beneath your skin tells you ‘yes,’ but your higher brain function steadfastly puts a foot down.

“I shouldn’t,” you mutter, sounding undecided.

He shrugs. For whatever reason, you appreciate that Ari isn’t pushing for anything from you, but that’s exactly what makes you want more from him. He stacks the empty cups and mentions walking you home. He could use some fresh air, he says.

“I should find Billy…”

Ari rolls his shoulders and thinks, his eyes follow suit, scraping his peripheral vision for an alternative that never presents. He stands up, arms akimbo, dramatically squinting to ‘think’ harder.

“He was wearing that red ball cap, right?”

“What?” You’ve never seen your boyfriend don a hat once but suddenly remember the pong partner who pulled him over. “No, that’s Leo,” you scream over the noise now that Ari is standing a few paces away. “Billy’s in, like, a neutral t-shirt.”

Ari smirks, scanning. “One beige Billy, coming up!”

Off he darts into the crowd, much faster than you’ve ever seen a drunk man move, and you skitter behind, realizing Ari stops at the kitchen only when you slam into his back.

He throws the empty cups into the trash and turns to the sink, washing his hands with dish soap, drying them on his shirt, leaving darker streaks of blue.

“Okay, not sticky,” Ari beams, “so now we go.”

Easily, naturally, his hand scoops up yours, and Ari leads you deftly through the throng.

He’s holding your hand. It’s damp and rough and cool and warm all at once. And you grasp it. You’re holding his hand back.

Though tall enough to see over most heads, Ari takes a good long while to notice everyone because they keep moving about. 

Pointing with your still-joined hands, you shout to check the beer pong room, but no Billy.

You two amble through the entire lower floor, stopped several times by people greeting Ari, and he introduces you automatically. You hope none of these other drunk frat boys remembers seeing you hold his hand while asking where your damn boyfriend is.

Without fail, each friend asks if you two are together, and to his credit, Ari quickly changes to “have you seen a guy…” and describes Billy.

“Dunno, man. Check upstairs?”

Ari thanks them and glances at you, a look of defeat creasing his forehead.

He drums his free fingers on the banister. He hesitates.

“Wait here?” he offers but drops your hand and doesn’t pause for your reply.

Using a football drill tactic, Ari bolts expertly up the stairs while you get waylaid by some girls holding up a selfie-stick to make a video. They bitch at the angle, ignoring you, and have to reshoot. You can’t get past.

Yelling.

Suddenly, there’s lots of yelling coming from the packed second floor and a door slams. Half the people in the stairway and hall look up.

More crashing and thudding noises ring out.

With everyone frozen, you shove your way through.

“What the fuck,” you hear just as some guy backs away, almost knocking you down. “Who the hell do you think you are, man?”

Your legs take you inside though your heart lodges in your throat.

Ari’s got Billy pinned over a wrecked desk on the other side of the room while the girl with the bandana top stands by a bed, pulling down her mini skirt. She snaps for Ari to mind his own business, and Ari immediately shoots a glare at her over his shoulder, keeping Billy pinned beneath him.

“Beks, for fuck’s sake,” Ari starts, but quickly, the guy who pushed you in the hall cusses her out louder than anyone else.

“Serves you right for getting back with Erin,” Bandana Girl snaps.

“Eat shit, Rebekah. You don’t actually care!”

What…is going on? These people are nuts.

At least four more bodies squeeze through the door, all looking blazing-mad while you get pushed farther into the suffocating room. You’re bewildered and overwhelmed.

Blocker Guy lunges forward and shoves Ari off of Billy.

Your hands are up, claiming space to breathe, but there’s way too much going on. No one—not even you—can hear your voice crying to be let out.

Funny thing is, you aren’t crying for Billy to help you. Only after you yell for Ari does your brain process that your boyfriend’s fly is down, his jeans unbuttoned, too.

A large, rough hand grabs your wrist and yanks you to the door, barreling you both through the crowd to another room down the hall. It’s surreal to see the group descend on the fight like moths to a flame, drawn to watch what horrible thing these students will do next.

Ari man-handles you inside without hitting a light switch. It’s pitch black, but the closed door at your back muffles only a fraction of the commotion.

From the other side, you hear Billy calling your name, but Ari’s soft, panting breath steals your focus as it gusts across your neck.

His lips shift close to your ear.

“Don’t do it, smartie,” he whispers. “Leave him.”

The stale smell of beer wafts forward when you lean farther into that letterman jacket Ari keeps prominently hung. You feel the ribs of the cuffs against your bare arms until, suddenly, it’s the ridges of Ari’s rough fingers ghosting over your skin.

If Billy’s still screaming, you can’t tell. Your heart thunders in your chest as the hot breath rolling over you moves up your neck and over your jaw.

He’s right there.

He’s right there. He’s drunk. He’s stupid. He doesn’t matter. You don’t matter to him. It’ll never work and it doesn’t have to. This could be so simple.

You envy how easy this is for him, always another girl around the corner, in the next room, who will want him, but you can’t bring yourself to feel bad about wanting to use him. He’s right there, willingly, single or not, sober or not, and so you grip the soft linen of his shirt collar and tug him straight to you.

It doesn’t matter how sloppy you are, how shy or how forceful you get, because you live like him in this moment.

Ari doesn’t care about anything. Self-assured. Confident. Sexy. Popular. He doesn’t have to care.

Now, neither do you.

[Next Part]

⬅️ Steve Rogers and a kiss where it hurts

[Main Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[hxney-lemcn]

Not so Long Distance — Idia Shroud x gn! reader

summery: with the seconds ticking down, everyone has a certain amount of time before they meet their soulmate, you just hope yours is your online crush.

tw: awkward encounters, reader isn't Yuu.

a/n: I'm in my Idia phase, help. Also, my first soulmate fic I'm proud of.

wc: 2.6k

Master List

The countdown on your wrist that had once been a beacon of hope and excitement slowly turned into one of doom. The idea of meeting your soulmate was terrifying yet exciting. Meeting someone that you fit perfectly with was mystifying, and the underlying fear of rejection scared you, but overall you would accept your soulmates wishes. But now? Something you never even thought of happened. 

You’re falling for someone you met online, but your timer is still ticking. 

With the internet still being new, and research into how it could affect the soulmate mark is still going on, you’re not sure if you should lose hope yet. For all you knew, the mark didn’t register when two people meet from separate distances…but you felt like you were coping with that explanation. You had met him online months ago, and every bad joke or insult towards a shitty player made you laugh, everytime he laughed at your bad jokes your stomach fluttered. It was embarrassing in a sense, you were falling for someone you hadn’t even seen yet. What if he was tricking you and he was some old man? But you doubted it, he sounded young and the way he talked was even outdoing modern slang. In fact, you even brought up this train of thought one day while you were on a call playing separate games. 

“Y’know, for all I know you’re some fifty year old guy,” You said in a joking tone, farming your crops in game.

“Hah?” Gloomuri, or Gloom as you’ve dubbed him, let out a noise of confusion. “Are you really that dumb?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean!” You huffed, accidentally hitting a plant that still needed to grow mature causing you a slight profit loss on your farm. “I just mean that I’ve never seen your face. Even though I know you, if I saw you on the street I’d never realize.”

The call fell silent for a few seconds, but to you it felt like minutes. You were propositioning something that felt like crossing a small boundary that was set. A video call. Something you were nervous about as well since that meant showing your own face. But IGloom had snuck his way into becoming one of your top, if not closest friend over the past few months. He’d drone on about some game drama you had almost no idea about, while he’d listen to your ‘normie’ drama (as he dubbed it) about school or friends. Although you’d say the best moments were when you’d both geek out over games or anime together, fighting on who the best character is and what your favorite part was. 

“Y-you wanna do a…video call?” Gloom hesitantly asked, you could hear the nerves in his tone which caused you to backtrack.

“We don’t have to if you don’t wanna, I’m not trying to pressure you,” You assured. “I’m just a bit curious. 

A few more seconds passed before he spoke up, voice even shakier than before, “Y-you’d show your f-face too…right?”

You fidgeted with your computer mouse, his nerves starting to get to you, “It’s only fair I suppose…” When you clicked on the call, unsure where this was going, you were surprised to see his camera on, but covered. “Wait, you mean right now?” You asked. 

“D-did you not mean right now?” He replied back, his voice an octave higher. 

“I-I just don’t…I’m not the most presentable,” You muttered back, looking at your reflection in the black of your phone screen. You pushed some of your hair back into place, fixing the collar of your sweater. Oh gosh, you were going to finally see what your crush looks like! 

“I don’t either,” Gloom mumbled, continuing to mumble something under his breath that you couldn’t make out. “N-never mind, never doing this-”

“W-wait!” You called out, turning your camera on as soon as you were out of sight. “I’ll do it, just don’t judge me too hard, okay?” Another few seconds before he meekly replied a small ‘ok’. “On the count of three. One…two…three.” 

Just like that, your breath got taken away. On the other side of the camera was a pale guy with blue flaming hair and…wait a minute…didn’t someone exactly like him go to your campus? You blinked at him with wide eyes, snapping out of your daze when he shied away from your gaze.

“Do I know you?” You asked dumbly, snapping Gloom out of his own daze. It was his turn to blink at you before he tilted his head. 

If he moved his hand away from the bottom of his face you’d notice a sharp smirk overtake his handsome features, “I’d hope so, we’ve been talking for how long?”

“That’s not what I meant,” You huffed once more that night. “You look like a guy that goes to my campus.”

“Really?” Gloom asked, unbelievably skeptical. “‘Cus not many people have blue flaming hair.”

You rolled your eyes, glad that convo was back to your playful banter, “I’ve never actually seen him. Only heard about him once from my irl friends. And yes, he was described as having fiery hair.”

“...Where do you go to school?” He asked, suddenly serious.

You gave him a skeptical look, “And why should I give you my current location? So you can stalk me?”

“I could find out in one click if I wanted,” He shrugged, amber eyes showing he was completely serious. 

“Thanks for not doxxing me I guess…” You grumbled, a bit put off. “I go to Night Raven College.” The silence was loud after that revolution before he broke it.

“I guess you do know me irl.”

That call had changed something in your friendship. The space between y’all had seemed to get smaller as you both grew more comfortable with one another, nearly having calls everyday. Now that you knew what eachother looked like, you’d have some video calls sprinkled in, and your raging crush seemed to only grow stronger. Now you had a pretty face to put to his lovely deep voice, and you wanted to strangle him for how attractive he was.

You now found yourself counting down the days till school started, and as you looked down at that damned timer on your wrist you found yourself hopeful again. You had fifteen days till school, and your soulmate timer was down to twenty days. You had been barely getting any sleep due to that, hoping that once you met Gloomuri, who you’ve come to know as Idia, the timer would hit zero. You both just clicked so well in a way you’ve never felt before, you just hoped he had the same numbers lining his own wrist. 

…

With how excited you were with meeting Idia, you found yourself getting quickly overwhelmed with school work. The professors didn’t hold back when it came to work, and contact between you and Idia had devolved from video calls into texts. It wasn’t until you woke up the first Saturday of the school year, looked down at your wrist and noticing the time had changed from days to hours. You nearly had a heart attack seeing it, all your anxiety mashing together at one moment. What if you just stayed in your dorm all day? But then that would mean your soulmate was someone in your dorm. But if you went out there was a high chance it wasn’t Idia. 

Before the dilemma could get to your head too much, your roommate asked if you wanted to tag along with them to Sam’s shop. Wanting to clear your mind a bit, you agreed, hoping to just ignore your problem instead of overthinking. You both ended up talking about classes, what you predicted you’d struggle in and do okay, who was in your classes and such. 

You had to hold yourself back from buying something, though you do have to give Sam props for having almost everything you could think of. All was good once more…until someone with a head of fiery blue hair walked in. It wasn’t Idia though, no, but someone who looked eerily similar if not quite a bit younger. Your friend noticed your attention left them, falling onto the young technomatic humanoid and decided to speak up.

“Hey Ortho,” They greeted him with a smile. “How’s it going?”

“Hello!” He replied back quickly, “My morning is going well. How about you?”

“It’s been good,” They smiled. “This is my friend.” They introduced you, saying your name. To your surprise Ortho lit up, seemingly recognizing your name. 

“Really?” He asked. You hummed while nodding in agreement, heart skipping a beat. Peaking at your wrist you noticed the time was cut down to minutes. Was this it? Was Idia actually your soulmate? Your hope was reignited tenfold.

“My brother talks about you all the time!” Ortho exclaimed excitedly.

“Wait, you know Idia?” Your friend asks, astonished. “The shut-in who uses a tablet to attend class?”

“M-maybe,” You murmured bashfully, crossing your arms as a nervous habit.

“Are you free after this?” Ortho asked, nearly jumping up and down.

“Yeah,” Your friend spoke up before you could. “We just finished actually.”

“That’s great!” Ortho exclaimed, his eyes shining. You were sure if he didn’t have the bottom half of his face covered he’d be smiling widely. “You should come over to Ignihyde, I’m sure Idia would love it if you came to visit.”

“Okay.” 

It was out before you knew it, and like a whirlwind, you were suddenly swept to the front door of Idia’s dorm room, his little brother by your side. Before you could lift your hand up to knock, the door automatically slid open after Ortho’s face was scanned. You knew Ignihyde was known for its technical prowess…but this seemed like overkill. You stood outside awkwardly, unsure if you were allowed to step in yet, but you weren’t left to flounder for long as Ortho pulled you in by your hand. You glanced once more at your wrist and you nearly burst into tears. Only a few seconds left. A few seconds left until Idia was your confirmed soulmate and you suddenly didn’t feel as excited. Fear grasped your heart, unsure if he would be willing to be tied to you for the rest of your lives. You didn’t have much time to think of every terrible scenario as you faced the guy you had been fawning over. 

As Idia turned to greet Ortho (and grab some snacks), he found himself having a heart attack when he saw your face. He knew you both went to the same school, but he wasn’t prepared to see you face to face…not irl at least. He barely comprehended Ortho’s rambling, too busy trying to hide his visage from your sight. He wasn’t prepared for someone to visit, not to mention you. Everywhere he looked he saw a different mess that would surely disappoint you, dirty clothes that scattered the floor, empty ramen cups that lined his desk, and empty cans of energy drinks that filled his trash can…yeah not the best first impression. 

You, on the other hand, anxiously straighten your shirt while trying to not seem like you cared about your appearance too much. You were the first one to speak up after Ortho took his leave (seemingly ignorant of the tense atmosphere). 

“Hey,” You greeted, an awkward smile on your lips. Instead of replying, Idia merely gave a weak whimper as he pulled his hood as far as it would go over his head. “I-I’m sorry, Ortho invited me, and I have been wanting to meet you in person, I hope I’m not overstepping too much…” Then, he let out a sudden shriek, causing you to nearly fall over from how loud it was.

“What’s wrong?” You asked, scared he might’ve hurt himself somehow. 

“Th-the…y-your…I’m in a dream, this has to be. There’s no way this is real,” He muttered, holding his face in some sort of desperation. 

“Not a bad dream I hope…” You chuckled awkwardly, not sure what was going on. Not the cute meeting with your soulmate like you wished, you just hoped this wasn’t him violently rejecting you. Instead of replying, he let out another whimper, and you felt like you’re intruding in something you shouldn’t be. Your awkwardness meter being at its max, you decided you should take your exit and hope he calms down soon so you both can talk the situation out. 

“I’ll just…it was nice seeing you,” You stumbled over your words a bit. “I’ll let you uh…I’ll leave you to it…”

“W-wait!” Idia jolts up, eyes erratic. “You…w-we’re…” “Soulmates?” You supplemented. 

“Y-yeah…how are you so calm about it?”

“Would…would it be weird if I said I was hoping for you to be my soulmate?” You asked in a whisper, eyes darting around his room instead of meeting his own. Not like he’d be able to make eye contact with you either. 

Idia let out a squeak at your reply, his heart beating erratically. He found you too good to be true. You both liked similar games and anime, and when you didn’t play the same game you’d both play your own game while being on call. He found himself looking forward to your calls, something he would have never thought possible (he avoids calls like the plague). He found himself looking forward to something for once, finding solace in something that wasn’t fictional for once, and he wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was scary, but manageable when you were just pixels like everything else he loved (Ortho wasn’t technically pixels, but he wasn’t human (anymore) either). But now you were face to face in person, and you were so much more attractive when he could see you fully, and gosh he’s not sure how much more he could handle this. Especially not with such bold remarks like that. 

Idia never really cared about soulmates. If anything, he loathed the ink that marked his skin. Wished for the digits to just go away. His entire life was a curse, so cursed that he was forced to drag someone down with him. He didn’t deserve it, and no one else deserved his fate. And now, seeing you, a person outside of his family that he managed to grow close to…he felt conflicted. He too was happy you were his soulmate. You were so sweet, but not overly so. Not afraid to snap back at him with your quick wit. His heart would skip a beat when he heard the smile in your voice, or when you’d laugh at his lame joke. He would dream of a future with you when he closed his eyes, allowing him to envision a life with you and Ortho, living happily somewhere like normal people would. He was also guilty, you didn’t deserve a secluded life away from others.

“Yes,” He ended up answering. “That’s like…super weird.”

“Oh,” You felt disheartened. This was totally a rejection. 

“You shouldn’t like me,” Idia continued. “Someone like me doesn’t get that ending…”

“Hmm,” You hummed, an idea forming in your mind. Perhaps you just needed to speak his language. “I guess you got the secret good ending then.”

“B-but-”

“No buts,” You tutted. “Now, last time we talked you mentioned that game, why don’t we play it?”

It’ll take a lot of time for Idia to fully warm up to the idea of having a soulmate, truly. Not just some numbers, but an actual person who smiled at him so warmly, like he was worth something. It’ll take even more time for him to warm up to you, your love, your affection…but he found something small burning within him. Like a small spark being lit deep in his heart…hope. Hope for the future, something he’s never felt before.

[winterrrnight]

always? always.

PAIRING: frat!rafe cameron x gn!ex bsf!reader

SUMMARY: you and rafe were best friends, but you parted ways in high school for reasons unknown. but what happens when you get a text from him, asking you to come over?

WARNINGS: abuse, ward being a shitty dad, swearing, bruises, cuts, blood, hurt/comfort. it talks explicitly about physical and emotional abuse!

EDITH SPEAKS: so. this is actually one of my works for my 300 followers celly and it was requested by @bejeweledreverie, but I accidentally posted their request without any actual content in it 🥲 so anyways, Annie, I hope you enjoy reading! <3

I got a little carried away, and usually I don't write themes like this, I think it turned out pretty good! Let me know any thoughts you may have 💞 this is set right in the beginning of S1!

PROMPT REQUESTED: "you came." "you called."

300 followers celebration (now closed) || navigation

This is strange. This is never supposed to happen. Rafe Cameron, out of all the people, has texted you if you can come over if you aren’t busy.

Where is this coming from?

You stare at the text for minutes, trying to figure out maybe there’s something which will show you this is all just a bluff. But it seems genuine. Really genuine.

And that’s what is concerning you.

You have known Rafe since basically forever, and you were close when you were little. But something happened in high school, something which you still haven’t figured out exactly what it is, that he basically refuses to do anything but detest you. You’ve tried to understand what it is; tried your level best to separate each strand of the situation to figure what exactly did you do that made him act this way. But you returned with no luck, and the best thing you could do was accept it, and move on from it.

As you think more and more about the text, the more it bothers you. It tugs on your heartstrings and you start to feel concerned for him. Fuck it, you whisper to yourself and get up from your bed to go to him.

As you’re driving to his place, you turn the situation over and over in your head. Maybe it is a prank, maybe it’s just some practical joke.

Or maybe, just maybe, he actually does need your help.

Even though the last one seems the one which has the least probability to happen, yet you’re on your way, as if you’re still his best friend.

You park your car right outside Tannyhill and make your way to its porch. You take a deep breath, trying your level best to calm down your nerves, and then you ring the bell.

The moment swells as you wait for someone to open the door for you, the only thing audible in your ears being your own heartbeat. Finally the door opens, and Rafe is standing right opposite you, in a condition that makes you gasp.

His nose is bloody and there’s a deep cut on his right cheek. Sweat and sticky tears shine on his face, and he’s almost trembling when he’s standing, holding the door open for you.

“Rafe?” You mumble softly, your breathing erratic and your eyes wide as you try to comprehend the situation at hand. Rafe Cameron texted you to come over, and when you do, you see he’s beat up.

Rafe isn’t one to back up from a fight and you know that. If a fight breaks out at school, you know, no matter what, the other person is going to be the one left with bruises all over them. Not Rafe.

It’s never Rafe.

But right now, he’s almost on the verge of breaking down, all covered in blood, and you know exactly who’s the cause of it.

Ward.

It’s been happening since you’ve known him. Ward has never been satisfied with him. He has always had a sense of control over Rafe that gives him a superiority complex and makes him think he can do whatever his heart desires.

And that’s what made Rafe so cold.

So cold from love, and touch.

But with you, he used to be relaxed. You were just kids, but you’d be comforting him, letting him know he’s okay.

But when your separation happened, you never knew how he’s been doing, but never also asked him, because Rafe never really responded well to you.

But now that he’s asked you to come, after not being close for years, you know this is something huge.

Rafe is avoiding all sorts of eye contact with you, his gaze drifting to his shoes. You are still standing at the porch, your eyes desperately trying to find his.

“You came,” he softly mumbles, his gaze fixated at the floor.

“You called,” you breathe out.

His eyes train up to yours, blue eyes – which aren’t icy how you usually see them, but soft and full of hurt. Your heart almost breaks seeing him in this condition.

He silently steps aside to make way for you. You enter inside Tannyhill, and you realize you haven't been in here in the last few years except for occasionally at a party Rafe has thrown which your friend has dragged you to. You had almost forgotten the hugeness of the mansion, and how silent it feels when there’s not many people in it.

Rafe walks ahead of you and climbs up his stairs and up to his room. You silently follow him, even though your mind remembers all the paths like the back of your hand.

Rafe reaches his room and he grips onto the door knob, and you notice his knuckles are bloody too; definitely from punching something a little too hard. You peel your gaze away from him, the blood and the bruises making you a little uncomfortable.

Rafe opens the door and you both walk inside. The room is completely disheveled; the pillows thrown around, the duvet all wrinkly and messed up, a cluttered desk, and the worst: a hole in the wall. You’re quick to connect the dots when you realize the hole and his bleeding knuckles are connected.

Rafe is now sitting on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands and his fingers are pulling on his hair strands. You sigh at the sight and sit next to him, a small distance between you two. Rafe has never been one to like physical touch, so you’re careful to not touch him in any way, when your heart is breaking at the sight and all you want to do is softly caress his back.

He looks up from his hand towards you. “I’m sorry for calling you at such a short notice,” he mumbles. “I- I didn’t have anyone else to call,”

You shake your head at him, a sympathetic look in your eyes. “It’s okay Rafe. What happened?”

He breaks your eye contact and looks at the floor, his gaze not wavering. His forehead is creased from stress, and you can see his chest heaving as he’s taking deep breaths.

“It’s getting worse,” he whispers so faintly, the words get lost in the air around you. “So much worse,”

“Where is he right now?” you softly ask.

“Cameron Development,” he sniffs. “It’s just, I can’t fight back. When it's him, I can never fight back. I feel like a little boy, completely lost and vulnerable. He plays with my feelings. One day he’s telling me he’s proud of me, and the next? Hitting me like I’m some toy,” he whispers. “I’m, I’m done with this shit.” He looks up at you, his eyes boring into yours. “And you’re the only one who knows about it,”

You intake a sharp breath at his words, them striking a chord in you. You have never known what to exactly do in these situations, all you do is help him calm down, listen to what he has to say, clean up his wounds, and ask him to just hope for it all to end. But it's been years. It hasn’t ended yet. Why will it ever end any time soon?

You feel your own eyes pricked by tears, but you try your best to not let them fall. Rafe is so good at hiding his true feelings behind a carefully curated façade, no one ever suspects him to be going through so much shit.

“Apparently I need to get my shit together,” he chuckles dryly, when you both know there is nothing humorous about this situation. “Because if I don’t, I’ll be a shitty heir to the family business. I won’t deserve it,”

“Rafe, I know for a fact you won’t be a shitty heir. You’ll be good, heck, you’ll be great,” you say. “I have so much faith in you. That’s just how Ward is. I don’t want you listening to him, okay? He’s fucked in the head. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.” You get up from his bed and stand in front of him, letting out your hand for him. “Come on, I’ll clean you up, yeah? All that blood and stuff,”

He only nods at your words and takes your hand, and he gets up. You walk to his bathroom where he has a first aid kit kept. Rafe sits on the sink and you stand in front of him, the first aid kit in your hand.

You firstly take a wet towel to clean the dried up blood from his face. You rub it gently over his face, cleaning all the blood and sweat off him.

His breathing starts to slow, and his muscles start to visibly relax as he’s letting you carefully patch him up. You can see his eyes are fluttered close, the creases in his forehead now completely absent, and he looks relaxed.

“Listen…” You mumble softly, as you're preparing a cotton pad with some antiseptic on top of it. “You don’t have long left before you can move out, yeah? It’s all almost done. You’re almost done with it.” You smile gently, as you very carefully start to dab the cotton pad on his bruises. “You’ve been so strong all your life, and now, it’s almost done. You’ll live far away from Ward, where he can’t say anything to you, yeah?”

He winces a little as the antiseptic burns him, but he doesn’t push you away. He stays fixed in his seat, his eyes closed, as he hears your words and lets you treat him.

A silence falls around you both as you start to put the band aids where they are needed. You take a step back to look if you’ve covered him okay, and it looks like you have.

“All done,” You smile, screwing the cap of the antiseptic back and keeping it in the box. Rafe opens his eyes, a soft look taking over his features as he watches you clean everything up and set it all aside.

“I’m, I’m sorry…” he whispers quietly. You look at him with a confused expression on your face.

“What for?” You mutter, not really knowing where he’s coming from.

“For pushing you away, I didn’t want to do that. It was the shittiest thing I’ve ever done. You’re the only one who understands me, who listens to me. Everyone just thinks I’m this privileged boy with a shit ton of money,” he shakes his head. “But you, you’ve seen it all through it. And I don’t think I can ever be this way with anyone else.”

You sigh at him, his words starting to sink in me. “I just want to know why you pushed me away.” You whisper. “We were best friends, Rafe,”

“I- I hated seeing you hanging out with the Pogues,” he mutters quietly. “I didn’t like losing you to them.”

You think hard about what he’s saying, and you realize he’s right. When you started at a new high school, it was overwhelming to say the very least. Pope was one of your study buddies in your class, and through him you met the rest of his friend group. To say they were living their life to the fullest is an understatement. They were enjoying every single moment of it.

“I know they live on the edge, they like doing adventurous things, and you’ve always seeked adventure just like that,” he continues, “it just hurts so much seeing you get with them. We parted ways, and the only thing I thought I could’ve done was to hate you. And, now that I think about it, I was just being petty, I know. I just, I just wish to have you back,”

The tears start to roll down your cheeks, your eyes red and your heart loud. You instantly wrap your arms around Rafe, clutching him tightly to you.

“I’m sorry,” You whisper, my head in the crook of his neck. “I’m really sorry I did that. It’s my fault we separated. It’s all my fault and I’m really sorry about that,”

Rafe’s hands reach for your back as he gently rubs it, the motion soothing and relaxing. “It’s okay, it really is. I was being a little child,” he softly chuckles. He holds onto your shoulders and gently pulls you back, looking into your eyes. “Just, don’t leave me again, yeah? I can’t do this life thing without you,”

You nod your head at his words, a soft smile taking over you as you feel your tears coming to a stop. “I promise to be by your side.” you say, your words firm.

“Always?” He asks, a hopeful glint in his eyes.

You sigh at his words, your smile still tugging on the corners of your lips.

“Always.”

↶ೃ✧˚. ❃ ↷ ˊˎ-

TAGLIST: @runningfrom2am @saccharinesammie @maybankslover @totalswag @madelynie @chenslucy @ietss @elle-mp3 @viawritesstuff @wallsdreams @tahliac11 @sadfury @newsies-pape-girl @jamesbuckybarneswify @xxxlaura @thatsthewaythechrissycrumbles @callsignwidow @starkowswife @drewstarkeyswifehoe @jjchaer @f4ll-for-you @wearemadeofstardust0 @drewsmusee @rafegirly @addriaenne @leighbronk @rafesdrew @bejeweledreverie @raf3sgff @aerangi @drewstarkey1bae

[f1amour]

✧˚ · . 𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐘 𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓 — 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎

pairing: daniel ricciardo x reader

warnings: angst (but happy ending <3), miscommunication , age gap (reader is 26 daniel is 35), jealous!daniel

authors note: very short and sweet part two of dirty little secret sorry it took me awhile to put it out, i was getting some writers block so it was a very rushed plot but it’s a happy ending hopefully that makes it up <3 i may write some small blurbs to this series since i really enjoyed writing this request but writing a full fic can take me some time and i hate keeping people waiting

part one

─────────────────────────

MARCH 2025

It's been a year since you had last spoken to Daniel and while you see him around the paddock it wasn't the same. Despite being heartbroken from that night on the balcony and his words that cut into your heart you still sent him a congratulatory text when it was announced he would be racing for Red Bull along Max once again in the 2025 season.

It had been something he talked to you about hoping he could prove himself once again to a team he regrets ever leaving. The text was left on read for days until you received a one word response from him, "Thanks."

His response and behavior for the rest of the 2024 season was killing you and you decided you would never speak to him again. He didn't seem phased by that when you had seen him with a new girl at your brother's engagement party.

You wanted to hate him. Your mind hated him but your heart…oh your silly heart would always belong to him.

"I…I don't understand. You worked with us for two years now and you said working here was your dream after leaving Mclaren. Why are you going to Ferrari?" Max asks disappointed while you sit with him in your office.

You stare at Max and give him a smile with tears in your eyes, "I can't be around him, Max. I'll have to be around him 24/7 for social media duties and my heart can't take the pain seeing him act like I didn't even matter to him as a friend."

And I can't bear to see him with her.

Max can see this wasn't just an argument about Daniel being a shitty friend, no he knew something more had happened even though Daniel refused to tell him he knew deep down something more had happened between the two of you.

"I'm gonna miss you." He says truthfully, you had actually made his days where he would have to film and post things for social media fun. Max saw your passion for the job and knew it was better to do it in an environment where both drivers would make her feel appreciated.

─────────────────────────

Going into the 2025 season was a breath of fresh air you hadn't felt in awhile and you were doing well on the Scuderia Ferrari team, getting close to both Charles and Lewis had helped heal the sadness you had carried over you.

You were finally moving on despite still being in love with someone who would never love you.

Your brother was at the first race of the season to support Daniel at his home race and back with Red Bull. You hadn't seen him in months so despite knowing Daniel would be at the restaurant Luka had reserved you went to finally catch up with your brother.

"Seriously, you look glowing. You sure there isn't a man in your life being that reason for the smile on your face?" Luka's fiance, Amelia asks you while you take another sip of your second glass of wine.

Daniel's expression falls when he hears her question towards you and your brother focuses on the now interesting topic regarding your love life, "Oh do tell dear sister? Finally got yourself a man?"He jokes with you, only for you to slap his head.

"No you dingus. The only men in my life are Charles and Lewis." You tell them with a straight face until you say Lewis's name and you break out in a smile.

"No fucking way! You and Hamilton?! Danny why didn't you tell me about this?" Your brother questions Daniel.

Daniel stares at you for a moment but you look away not seeing the sadness in his eyes, "Uh I didn't know they were together." He says flatly.

You roll your eyes and glare at the Australian, "No one said we were together."”

"Well the way you fucking smile over hearing his name seems like there is something there." He spits back. The table now grows silent tension obviously between the two of you.

"What's going on with the both of you? You used to be so close. I was shocked to see you leave Red Bull even though Daniel would be back on the team. Remember in 2019 when they offered you–."

"Fuck off Luka! People change and grow up. I did what was best for my career not to follow your boyfriend around.” You cut your brother off from revealing something you had kept from Daniel for years now.

"Please you're the one who's been in love with him for five years." He scoffs, his face drops after saying those words realizing the mistake he had made.

Daniel looks over at you, "What…what did he just say?"

You stand up from the table and throw the glass of wine you hsd left on your brother, "Best big brother ever!" You walk away from the dinner table and avoid the stares from other people.

"Y/n! Y/n wait up! We need to talk what he said back there–."

"Now you want to talk? After a year of ignoring me, you want to talk now? Well sorry but I don't have time for you anymore." You send Lewis a quick text asking to pick you up with an immediate reply saying he would be there in five minutes.

"He said you love me…was it the truth?"”

"Fuck danny I mean everyone could fucking tell but you! Yes…I loved you. Loved. I don't love you now, I don't love the Daniel in front of me. The Daniel I love would have never done what you did to me. What did you call me again? Oh, a dirty little secret? That's all I would ever be."

Daniel shakes his head holding back tears, “That’s…look my wording for that was fucking terrible. But I promise what you feel I feel as well. Fuck I lo—.”

“Don’t. Please don’t say it, Daniel. I’ve loved you for so long that I would forgive everything that has happened if you tell me you love me. But that isn’t fair to me. You have been terrible to me since that night. You’ve ignored me like i meant nothing. As if we weren’t friends before that night. I’m sorry but please don’t tell me you love me when your actions have shown the opposite. Good luck this weekend.” Your heart was hurting as you said the words but it was needed. If Daniel said he loved you then you would forgive everything and you can’t do that to yourself.

─────────────────────────

It was media day for the Australian GP and Daniel hadn’t been able to sleep ever since you told him you loved him two days ago. He fucked up and he knew that but he also knew that he does love you.

His actions so far may not be proving that but he now has it set in his mind that he will prove to you how much he loves you.

“So I’m gonna ride in the car while Lewis drives and I ask questions?” You ask Charles who nods placing the helmet on you.

“Why aren’t you doing that? It would make more sense and I could get better content with both of you.” You tell Charles but he just shakes his head.

“No it’ll be fun just trust me. Now go!” He smiles widely shoving you into the car with Lewis already in the car.

You sigh and grab your planner going to the Noah where you had questions ready, “Alright Lewis, you better drive safe I wanna get back in one piece. So where do we—.”

The car takes off quickly and your planner falls to the floor, “Lewis slow down!” You yell at the Brit but when you look over you realize it’s not Lewis driving the car but Daniel.

“Daniel! I…what are—.”

“I love you! I’ve been in love with you for quite some time now. I met you in the Redbull headquarters looking lost on your first day and I knew you would mean something to me. I…I don’t believe in love at first sight but when I first saw you I felt a pull and an instant connection I never felt with anyone else. Our conversation flowed so well and god your smile…your fucking smile made my entire day. It makes me happy every single day of my life seeing that precious smile on your beautiful face. So when I realized I was the reason for the frown on your face and not seeing that smile on your face because of me for a year…I was a fucking idiot. An idiot who has been scared to love because of their own insecurities. I wanted to tell you for so long how I felt, sunshine. But when we were at McLaren I was living a fucking nightmare. A nightmare you helped me survive despite all the trauma they’ve left me and so I thought that confessing my feelings you’d leave me and I don’t know if I could survive not having you in my life.”

His eyes filed with tears still driving at a safe pace knowing you were in the car. His breath shaking at the mention of the team who crushed his confidence, your hand reaches over to his thigh and you give it a squeeze encouraging him to continue.

“But I was also conflicted with being your brother’s best friend. I thought it was could lose our friendship but that’s when I realized if he was my friend he would support us. Which he does…I asked him after dinner the other day what he would think and he says I’m an idiot for ever holding these feelings back. Because I met you first you were my best friend way before he was. You are the love of my life. You…I have to look you in the eyes. Fuck this.” He stops the car and gets out quickly running to your side and helping you out of the car and taking your helmet off along with his.

His hands cup your face, “Danny, there’s people that could be watching.” You whisper softly looking into his brown eyes.

“I don’t care. I’m in love with you. I love you. I love the way your eyes light up when someone is telling you some good news. I love the way your nose scrunches when you laugh. I love the way you cry every time we watch a romcom and the characters admit they’re in love with each other. I love how passionate you are for your friends and family. I love how you marched down into the Mcalren office and gave Zak a piece of your mind after they ended my contract. I love that you love me so deeply you denied working for Red Bull as the social media manager in 2019 because I would be gone the following year. Your eyes. Your smile. Your lips. Your hands. I’m in love with every part of you and more. I want you in my life forever. I want to come home with you and tell you how my day went. I want to share my highs and lows with you. I’m going to love you for the rest of my life whether you choose to have me in your life or not. As long as I’m alive you’ll always be loved by me.” Daniel lets out a deep breath finishing his confession and looking down at you waiting for a response. His heart beating 10 times more than if’s usual rate.

“I…I love you, Daniel. I love you so much it hurts me. I was such an idiot for not saying it sooner. So many wasted years we could have been together. You’re my life, baby. I breathe for you. I live for you. I could stay in your arms forever. You’ve showed me unconditional love as a friend but now I want more. Your smile brings sunshine in my darkest days. I want to love you for the rest of my life as well. Together and forever.” You ignore the cheers from half of the drivers that had all ran down the track to see why the car had stopped but seeing Daniel pulling you closer to him gave them an indication it was all good news.

“Let’s give them a show, sunshine.” Daniel whispers against your lips before pulling you into a deep kiss. Missing his lips after a year you pull him closer if that’s even possible, your hands tugging on his hair.

“If you tug on my hair some more I’m gonna get a boner in front of everyone.” He says against yours lips.

“Danny!” You slap his chest, pulling away from him only for him to lift you up and wrap your legs around him.

“Fucking hell mate took you guys long enough to finally admit your feelings.” Max says walking up to the two of you.

“Shut it, Maximilian.” You glare at him before smiling over at Charles and Lewis who were walking over to you with the biggest grins on their faces.

“Oh I’m going to give you guys do the most annoying challenges for the socials next week. How dare you set me up?” You get off Daniel to walk over to them, Daniel stays attached to you though.

The two Ferrari drivers shrug, “He called me last night to find out what our relationship was before he told me the plan he had to confess his feelings. I had to laugh when he thought we were dating.” Lewis chuckles.

You join him and look at Daniel, “Come on baby, you really thought me and Lewis were together? I smiled at his name the other night because the same night he had called me before dinner saying he got stuck in the car…turns out Charles had his keys and kept locking the door on him so he couldn’t get out. But it’s cute you were jealous.” You pinch his cheeks.

“I’m so getting you back for that.” Lewis glares at Charles who decides this was his best chance to run off.

Daniel smiles down at you, “I love you.”

You kiss him softly, “I love you, always.”

─────────────────────────

[sashaforthewin]

[on Ao3] Rated M, sex mention, Steddie

ATM Boy

The song started as a joke. Eddie wrote it to see Steve's reaction. 

It had a catchy tune and the lyrics began as a love song of sorts. Steve sat on the couch in Gareth's garage tapping his foot along to the heavy beat and smiling at Eddie as he sang. Until he got to the chorus, of course. 

"He's my ATM boy, my ATM boooooooyyyyy"

Steve rolled his eyes, assuming this was some dumb jab at his being rich. He was upper middle class, at best.

"I can tell he loves me / I can tell he's true / cause when we're in bed there's a thing that he lets me doooOOO!"

Steve was already frowning as soon as Eddie mentioned them in bed but Eddie kept singing, holding eye contact the whole time.

"He let's me go ass to mouth, ass to-"

"EDDIE! EDWARD J MUNSON, ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

The song cut off as various members of the band, Eddie most of all, lost their collective shit at Steve's reaction, laughing at his outburst.

Steve strode over to where Eddie was cackling into the mic, hands on hips, and when Eddie didn't stop, Steve just smacked the mic to the floor.

"Hey, that's expensive!"

"Then you better make sure not to sing about our sex life with the rest of your band present after you buy a replacement, huh?"

Everyone except Eddie agreed that Eddie had sort of deserved it and should replace the mic. Steve forgave him fairly quickly, though, since it was just some harmless joking among friends that would laugh it off. 

That was, until the gig. 

Corroded Coffin got booked to open for the metal band Devastator that were out of Indy. They had three times the fan base of Corroded Coffin, so probably upwards of twenty people were at the show. Sure, those people were also local musicians that were friends of the main band, but a fan is a fan, shut up.

Since the gig was at a shitty dive bar in the city, the kids couldn't come; but Robin, Jonathan, and Argyle decided to come along, as well as Murray, for some reason. Nancy had flat out said she didn't want to have to ride all that way to stand in a smoky bar and hear music she hated, so nobody tried to talk her into it.

Steve was up front in one of Eddie's home-made Corroded Coffin tee shirts. He was still wearing his light wash jeans and a pair of bright orange earplugs, though, so he didn't entirely fit in, but he wasn't as out of place as he thought he would be. There was a guy in a yellow disco suit in the crowd, after all. 

The gang were having a great time. Murray along with yellow disco suit dude were both at the center of the moshpit, slamming and being slammed, Jonathan and Argyle stood around Steve, helping block the worst of the crowd while Steve's hearing was muffled and he wasn't paying attention to anything but his boyfriend, and Robin was alternating hanging with Steve and going to hang against the wall where it was safest. 

Eddie and the boys seemed so happy and were doing great, aside from a few minor difficulties. One of Eddie's strings broke during their second song, but the guitarist from Devastator was quick to loan Eddie his own guitar for the rest of the set. 

The  rest of the Corroded Coffin set was going smoothly after the guitar swap. The crowd was really into the music, and Eddie looked like a natural up there. He introduced the band members and thanked the audience and Devastator for having them, and then announced that this next song would be their last. 

As the opening notes rang out, Eddie risked a glance at Steve and cringed. He was furious and Eddie would definitely be sleeping on the couch tonight. 

But the thing was, the song ATM Boy really was very catchy. It was daring, it was sexual, it was devious and queer, but above all, it was a bit of an earworm. The audience went nuts for it, they were screaming when the chorus hit and by the final chorus, a bunch of people were singing along. It went over better than they ever even thought it would. 

Which made it all the worse that Steve continued to stare at Eddie as if he had been betrayed in the worst possible way. He just stood there. Eddie had to force himself to concentrate on the crowd, not on Steve. As soon as the set was done, Corroded Coffin grabbed their shit and made way for Devastator while the party surrounded Steve and tried to pretend they hadn't just heard a very intimate fact about their friend, discussing the crowd energy and how good the boys had done and literally anything that wasn't the elephant in the room. Steve did not participate in the conversation at all, he was quietly seething. 

He refused to talk to or be touched by Eddie the entire rest of the night, making sure to put his arm around Robin so that only their party would know he was the so-called ATM boy. The ride home was awkward and a bit tense, but the fight was saved until they were at home, alone in Steve's house. Steve pulled off his Corroded Coffin shirt and threw it at Eddie's face before storming off up the stairs. 

"Baby, I'm sorry! Baby, come on, it was funny!"

"You asshole, you just told all our friends and Murray that I let you… that I… it was a one time thing! Do not think I am ever letting you do that again after you did this!"

"Yeah, that's fair. But baby, it's just shock value! And it's a surprisingly catchy tune, I don't know why it came out that way but it did! I swear I wrote it to make you laugh, but the guys all wanted to play it at the show. I voted not to but was overruled! Come on, please forgive me. Baby? Please? Baby?"

"Ugh... Fine, okay, fine. I forgive you for humiliating me in front of our friends. At least the kids weren't there and only about thirty people heard it. I guess. And now it's over and I won't see most of those people ever again. So, I guess, yeah, it's kinda funny."

"You know I love you and I respect you so much. I'd let you go ATM on me as an apology."

Steve just huffed a laugh and rolled his eyes, but he allowed Eddie to kiss him and wrap him in a hug. He was just glad this was the end of it.

Months went by and Steve had nearly forgotten about the whole thing. 

Until Eddie and the Coffin boys recorded their first demo. It wasn't anything professional, it was recorded in a large truckstop bathroom with decent acoustics and it was recorded with a portable cassette recorder, but it was recorded nonetheless. 

They had made a bunch of copies, sent them off to a few radio stations, and sold a bunch to indie record stores, handed them out to friends and sold them at their weekly gig. In the second week, a few new people showed up specifically to buy their tape because they had heard their friend's copy.

Eddie was so excited for the growing buzz that he wasn't thinking when he popped the tape into Steve's stereo to celebrate. He had been very careful to only play Steve Side B, never Side A, up until now. 

As soon as ATM Boy came on, Steve slammed on the brakes so hard Eddie nearly broke his face on the dashboard. When he saw Steve's expression, Eddie thought maybe breaking his face would've been preferable. 

Eddie slept on the couch for a week after that, but Steve eventually forgave him. 

Steve had nearly gone back to a completely normal life free of mortifying embarrassment, having convinced himself only subculture dwelling weirdos had heard the song.

But then a local radio station played ATM Boy. Not just once, they put it into their evening rotation. And then another station farther away picked it up. And then another. And then things spiraled from there. 

The only saving grace was that the radio had censored it. The lyrics were now "he lets me go ah- - t'mouth" though Steve suspected people probably still got the gist of it from the rest of the song. 

Corroded Coffin got signed to a record label and they recorded their first album in an actual studio. On the studio release, it was decided for the lyrics to become "he lets me go A T M" even though "to mouth" did not strictly speaking need censoring, it flowed better. 

ATM Boy, meanwhile, was starting to spread. It reached the billboard Top 100 list and started climbing. The band started touring for real, not just road trips to Indy and Chicago. They started selling out mid-sized venues and meeting other bands and forming friendships with fellow creatives. 

Eddie was finally the rock star he had dreamed of. 

And Steve was struggling to be supportive while also wishing he was invisible and unknown to anyone. He was living in constant fear of being found out. Not just because he wasn’t publicly out, but because Steve did not want to be known as the ATM boy and he felt even being seen in Eddie’s presence would damn him. 

At first he refused to tour with Eddie and the band, but after not seeing his boyfriend for months, Steve was both lonely and worried Eddie would cheat or leave him for someone else. It took Eddie a while to notice how badly Steve was handling everything but once he did, he hired Steve as his hairdresser so that he would be able to drag Steve around and have an on-the-books excuse for his constant presence. He groveled and doted on Steve and tried everything in his power to atone for the embarrassment, paranoia, and distress he had caused the man he loved.

There were many rocky years but they managed to stay together through it all. Caring for Steve and focusing on him was actually what helped Eddie avoid the pitfalls of fame that so many bands fell victim to. Who has time to do drugs when they have so many beautiful moles to kiss and a gorgeous toned back to massage?

And on a talk show, nearly forty years after the song ATM Boy was written, Eddie Munson told the audience about his wonderful husband and about the real ATM boy.

“It wasn't my husband, just some other guy I slept with.” 

Unfortunately, two minutes later in the interview he off-handedly mentioned Steve is the only guy he's ever slept with or dated.

[lvscoups]

just friends ; choi seungcheol x reader

summary choi seungcheol's been your best friend since elementary school, and now you're both eighteen, about to leave for university. the last thing that you want is to go to university as a virgin, so he offers to take your virginity. surely this won't make either of you question your feelings for each other, right? wc 5k tags slow burn, childhood best friends to lovers (somewhat), barb seungcheol, underage drinking/smoking, pwp, virgin!reader, loss of virginity, afab!reader, 18+ MINORS DNI

eighteen. what an age- when you were thirteen, you thought that by now you’d have a hot, popular boyfriend, have gone to hundreds of parties, have a huge friend group who would all go to the mall and travel together, and maybe even have a scholarship to harvard. but you started university in three months and you had nothing to show for it. it would keep you up at night, all the dreams you had when you were younger, and how few came true. you only had a couple of friends, a shitty job at a convenience store, and the last party you’d gone to was for your niece’s 8th birthday. what weighed on your mind the most, though, was that you still didn’t have a boyfriend- and you were still a virgin. university was your last shot to really live out those dreams, to go to parties, hook up with strangers, go clubbing.. but, god, the last thing you wanted was to lose your virginity to some random person you’d meet at a house party. but high school was over, and, really, what relationship could you establish with a man in a couple of months that would make him someone you’d want to lose your virginity to?

“seungcheol’s here for you!” your mom yelled from the kitchen. you came running to the front door with a smile on your face- he’s back from his vacation, fucking finally. “so we’re going to the beach?” you asked as soon as you saw him. “yeah, i think miles and his girl are coming, rosie is bringing some people too.” he smiled. “are you ready or are you gonna make me wait an hour again?” “the latter, i didn’t think you’d be coming so early.” he follows you to your room, sitting on the side of your bed as you pack. oh, choi seungcheol. your best friend since… sixth grade? you’ve watched him come and go through different relationships- he was someone you envied, living the guy version of the life you wanted for yourself. out of the handful of house parties you’d been to, he’d dragged you to almost all of them. you didn’t know what you’d do without him, he was always there for you, the one who introduced you to almost all of your friends, who would help you cheat on tests. without him, you’d be regretting your high school experience even more. “let’s go?” you pull your duffel bag over your shoulder, looking at him. “finally,”

he was one of the only people you knew who had his own car- his father got it for him for his seventeenth birthday. it wasn’t the best, but it was really nice. you were pretty sure it was a ford or something similar because it had one of those big open trunks people use to put wood and furniture in. no idea why he needed one of those, because he was always showing off how he was strong enough to carry anything by himself, but it was still cool. the two of you would put pillows and blankets in it and lay down, talking and drinking together, listening to music on your cheap bluetooth speaker. you got into his car, leaving your duffle bag at your feet, setting up your playlist and the aux while he started up the car. “i can’t believe you didn’t take me with you to the bahamas, you bitch.” you joked. “luggage costs are crazy, i already spend so much money on you,” he teased back. “it’s an hour drive to the beach, by the way.” “no problem,” after your playlist started up, the two of you drove in silence, partially. there was some small talk about the bahamas and a lot of you singing along to nicki minaj, who seungcheol always managed to sneak into the queue. “me and kim broke up,” seungcheol said during a particularly quiet song, his eyes still on the road. “and you didn’t tell me?” you replied, looking over at him with a shocked expression on your face. “yeah, i dunno. it just didn’t…” he trailed off. “it wasn’t a big deal to me.” “i liked her! remember when she gave you all those leftover cookies from… was it her church’s bake sale?” “yeah, i guess.” he stared off. “she was nice, i dunno why it didn’t affect me.” “god, remember when you broke up with sierra? that was fucking crazy.” you turned back, looking at the road, too. “sorry. why’d you…?” “it was her.” “shit, sorry.” “no, no, it’s fine, really. i lost interest and stopped talking to her as much and we called about it and decided to break it off.” “just like that?” “well not just like that. it wasn’t like i stopped talking to her all of a sudden.” he turned to you, smiling. “use your brain, dumbass.” “school is over, i don’t need to do that anymore.” you laughed. “but really, that’s crazy. i’m glad it’s not… bad, but, like, you two dated for a while.” “i wouldn’t say three months is that long,” he replied. “at least i’ll have a hot boy summer, or something. ewww, sorry. that was so bad.” “it was. but you’re right, have fun! emma’s single now, too. maybe you two can get together.” “i think i’m fine. i don’t know if i even want a girlfriend right now. maybe i’ll meet some hot twenty year old at uni. who knows.” he paused. “is emma really single?”

he turned onto a more bumpy, dirt road, and soon the sounds of the waves and music came closer and closer until the beach came into view. “parking’s gonna be a fucking nightmare.” he sighed, looking at the hundreds of cars parked throughout the parking lot. you picked up your phone, unplugging the aux cord to call rosie. “where is everybody?” you asked, putting the phone on speaker. “we’re near the playground and this barbeque thing. leia, where are we?” you could hear some people talking in the background. “leia’s sending a photo to you right now. bye!” “bye,” you hung up. “here, there’s a photo of the map… we’re at the entrance, right? we need to take a left until we see a washroom. can we stop at the washroom? i really need to pee.” “okay, be quick, though.”

after another half hour, you finally parked. “what did we bring?” you asked seungcheol as you both stepped out of the car. “just drinks and our swim stuff. don’t worry, just go ahead- i’ll carry everything.” you took your duffle bag and trudged through the sand- your cheap dollar store flip flops felt like they would break at any moment during the long journey, your heels burning every time they would touch even a bit of sand. “hey!” you called out, waving to everybody once you finally found them. “y/n!!” rosie replied, getting up and running to hug you, making you both fall on the ground. “ow, shit!” you exclaimed, getting up and laughing off the burning pain of the sand hitting your back. “sorry we took so long- cheol is on his way with everything. parking was crazy.” “can’t relate, we’ve all been here since six,” leia laughed. “miles and the other guys are in the water, we were gonna get lunch soon if you wanna come, though.” “i dunno, i think i might just settle in first. get comfy.” “totally fair, we can wait for you.” leia looked over to the water, where you could make out a bunch of guys swimming and splashing each other with water. “i don’t think the guys are getting out anytime soon, so don’t worry at all.” “thanks,” and then you heard seungcheol’s voice- well, his whine. “the sand…” he groaned, trudging towards you. when he finally reached you, he dropped the blue cooler and other bags down on the ground. “shit! that was torture…” “your fault for not asking for help.” you said, opening one of the bags and taking out a beach towel, laying it on the ground. “come on, sit down. tell the girls the news!” “what news?” rosie asked excitedly. “yeah what- oh,” seungcheol said. “it’s really not a big deal, y/n. me and kim broke up, that’s all.” “WHAT?” leia shouted. “tell me everything!” you got comfortable, sitting cross-legged under an umbrella while you listened to seungcheol recount everything.

“can someone help me with my sunscreen?” you asked. “rosie?” you turned onto your back and wiggled your shoulders. “no, you perv!” she laughed. you pouted jokingly before seungcheol approached you. “you can’t do anything by yourself, huh?” he teased, taking the bottle of sunscreen and opening it, putting some on your back and rubbing it in. “nevermind, seungcheol’s definitely the perv,” rosie replied. he laughed, and you closed your eyes, your head resting in your hands as you let the sun warm your body, waiting for seungcheol to finish. after a while, he hit your back gently a couple of times. “you’re welcome.” “thanks?” you replied, getting up. “let’s swim?” you asked the rest of the group. rosie and leia got up, taking off their sandals and flip-flops, agreeing immediately. “i’ll watch everybody’s stuff, since nobody else will.” seungcheol replied, sighing and crossing his arms dramatically. “thank you!!” you all called out to him as you ran off to the water.

the sun had set, and the air had gotten cooler. it was dark outside as you all laid together on the beach towels, the big, blue cooler seungcheol had brought now half empty. of course, seungcheol hadn’t drank a thing, despite his seemingly endless whining about just how bad he wanted to drink, how jealous he was of everyone who was drinking, how he wished you could drive.. it just went on and on. you hadn’t drunk, either, in forced solidarity with him. neither had miles’ girlfriend, bea, who was everyone else’s designated driver. you and seungcheol were lying down together, both wide awake from the chocolate starbucks doubleshot you’d shared an hour before. you both stared up at the sky. “it’s, like, two months until you leave.” seungcheol remarked. “a little less, right?” “yeah, but same thing. i can’t process it.” “i wish you’d been accepted. we could have gone together, rent a studio apartment. it’d look so cool. you’d have one side and it’d be, like, red or something, and mine would be… i dunno. it’d be cool.” “we should. maybe i’ll go online and move with you.” “that’d be so cool.” “i can’t imagine what it’ll be like without you.” “you can still call me. it’s not like i’m dying, stupid.” “yeah, but… you know.” “yeah,” silence. you shifted your attention somewhat to the conversation the rest of the people were having- something about how prom went, but you couldn’t really focus on it. “i’m leaving high school as a virgin.” you said, breaking the silence. “oh my god, you are. holy shit, that’s hilarious.” he started laughing. “i have no idea what i’m gonna do.” “what do you mean? you’re not gonna be the forty-year-old virgin or something. you’ll just lose your virginity to some college guy.” “i don’t really want that.” “don’t you wanna have fun in college? you mentioned that a lot.” “yeah, duh. but i don’t wanna lose my virginity to some random man.” “too late for you to not do that. you shoulda tried to get a boyfriend before high school ended.” “ugh, you don’t get it.” “what don’t i get?” “i dunno. this is weird.” more silence, but from the corner of your eye you saw him nod.

“what did you mean, about all of that stuff you were talking about earlier?” he asked on your way to the car. “what stuff?” “me not getting you wanting to lose your virginity or something. or not wanting to lose your virginity.” “oh.” you paused. “like, i dunno. i kinda wish i had a boyfriend or something. like i had had more of a life in high school. and now i have to just settle for losing my virginity to some guy i’ll probably never talk to again.” “isn’t that what you want?” “no, that’s what you don’t get. like i wanna have fun and, like, hook up with people or whatever. but i don’t wanna lose my virginity to a random person. that’s different.” “yeah, i get that.” “but, like, in a month and a half, you can’t really get a boyfriend. even if i did, i don’t wanna lose my virginity to someone i’ve known for less than two months.” “yeah.” you got in the car and waited as he started the engine. in the meantime, you set up the aux again. after a while, he broke the silence. “i can do it.” he said. “what?” “i’ll do it. if you want me to,” he added. “there’s so many weirdos out there. if they find out you’re a virgin they might, like, take advantage of you or something. we can do it, get it over with, you know?” you paused. it wasn’t a comfortable silence. “sorry. i don’t wanna overstep a boundary or anything.” he added, again. “no, no you didn’t. well you did but not in a weird way or anything. it’s just…” “yeah, i get it. i’m sorry.” “no, no, no. seriously, you’re fine. i’m not opposed to that idea or anything.” “yeah?” “yeah.. i mean, it’s better than what you said- losing my virginity to a weirdo or something.” “so then…?” “it’ll be weird, but let’s do it. i might change my mind but for now, let’s do it. yeah.”

you’d never thought of seungcheol in that way. maybe in your darkest, most desperate hours, but that was it. it wasn’t like you didn’t take notice to how huge his biceps were, or his fucking crazy jawline, or how perfectly everything on his face complimented each other, but.. you did that platonically. it would just be weird to do that. but now that the two of you had agreed to have sex together, you assumed nothing could be weirder than that. so you tried to will yourself to like him, or that’s what you told yourself. it wasn’t gonna be an enjoyable first time if you didn’t at least have some attraction to him, you thought. so you’d find yourself thinking about him a lot. at night, your mind would wander to his hands, his arms, and sometimes your fingers would brush against your clothed pussy, playing with it, imagining it was him. of course, it was all a part of your effort to have your ideal first time, at least, as ideal as it could be, considering it was with your best friend and not your imaginary boyfriend, and after high school had ended. you assumed sex was better when you were attracted to the person it was with, so it only made sense to create some attraction to him.

“have you ever.. thought about what you wanted?” the two of you were relaxing in the back of his car, where he’d put up pillows and blankets again. you’d brought some chips, and the two of you were drinking and eating, talking about whatever. “like, sexually?” you replied. “i guess. i mean for your first time.” “i don’t know. something romantic, in a bed, at night. i don’t wanna eat food first- i think that’s kinda gross. kissing someone after eating? ew..” “is that really it?” “yeah, i guess. i don’t really mind the rest.” “okay, okay.” he nodded. “i don’t wanna ask too many questions, it’s just… i wanna make sure that it’s special.” you blushed. “thank you,”

you’d arranged a date- the twelfth of august. you were leaving by the twentieth, so it seemed like a good time. it was the last day of july when you made the decision, and you found time flying by. seungcheol came over a lot more than he usually did, which was already a lot- he was your best friend, after all. as the twelfth grew closer and closer, you began to notice smaller things, like the way his eyes would linger on your chest and the flush that would appear on his face when you two were especially close. you pretended like you didn’t see it, the same way you assumed he pretended he didn’t see you looking at his arms a little too long when he crossed them. it was all a part of your shared, unspoken effort to make your first time more enjoyable, of course. the two of you were friends. just friends.

he’d invited you to the birthday party his family was having, but you didn’t feel like intruding on something like that, so instead you went to the party miles was throwing for him that night. bea picked you up in her car- you were nervous about the ride if you were being honest. it was the first time you’d ever driven in her car and you’d heard that she’d had to pay for the entire repair fee for her mom’s car after she got into a car accident. she swore that she’d learned her lesson but you would be lying if you said you weren’t scared out of your mind every time she took a turn. the party was small, with just your friend group and then some other friends, and then friends of friends. you stuck with leia, sitting beside her and listening to her talk about the date she’d gone on the day before. eventually, leia ran off with another guy, and you went to the front porch. two girls were sitting on the front chairs, and you took a cigarette they offered you. you weren’t a smoker, but you didn’t have anything else to do. you recognized the one who offered you the cig as bea’s sister- it was crazy how similar they looked. same hair, same nose, same lips, except she was at least five inches shorter than bea. after a while, seungcheol came out to the porch, too. you began to sing happy birthday to him, and the other girls joined in, too. after clapping, he asked you, “what’s up?” “huh?” “i was looking for you, i haven’t seen you this whole time. where were you?” “oh,” you paused, stubbing out your cigarette on the ashtray in between the two girls. “i was hanging out with leia, then i came here. i didn’t wanna be in your way, it’s your party.” “we’ve been friends six years, come on. you can’t be serious.” he moved away to another corner, out of earshot from the other girls. “come on,” he whispered. you followed him. “you’re friends with everyone else here, too. it’s kinda weird to just stick to your side the whole time. i don’t wanna seem like that kinda person.” “okay, fair, but i don’t think the people here think you’re like that. they all know you.” “okay, okay.” you said, holding his hand. “let’s go back, then.”

it was on the ninth, while you were at his house, eating leftover pizza and watching youtube, when he put his hand on your thigh. he was talking to you about a game he’d started playing, putting his pizza down so he could really tell you about it, and when the conversation drifted off into something else, his hand was still there. you knew if you did anything even slightly implying you were uncomfortable, he’d move it- seungcheol was always looking out for you. you let his hand rest there for a while until he had to get up to grab something. while he was gone, you thought to yourself about it. by the time he was back, you’d made up an excuse for everything- including an excuse for why you gently moved his hand back to the same spot it was before.

august eleventh, he came over. he was sitting on your floor, head resting against your bed, which you were lying down on. “you’re sure about tomorrow?” he asked. looking up at you. “yeah. why wouldn’t i be?” “i just wanna make sure.” he smiled. “no pressure at all.”

and then it was nine p.m., august twelfth. your parents were conveniently gone for the night, to a family friend’s house to celebrate something or other. you didn’t know and, honestly, you were so nervous that you didn’t really care. he knocked at your door and you nearly fell on your way there. “hi,” “hi.” he leaned against the doorframe slightly, smiling. “you’re sure?” “yeah.” you both made your way to your room, your face hot. “i’m sorry, i have no idea what to do… i thought we could watch a movie or something?” “yeah, of course.” he sat down on your bed. “don’t worry about it, really.” you sat down beside him, grabbing your laptop and opening up netflix. after you settled on a movie to watch, you both got comfortable and you hesitantly rest your head on his shoulder. to say it was awkward would be an understatement. it was petrifying. your palms were sweaty and your heart was racing and this was all before he even touched you. it was an hour into the movie when he put his hand on your thigh again. it was summer, so you were in shorts, which made the sensation all the more incredible, you felt his hand move up slowly until he was toying with the hem of your shorts. “can i take them off?” he whispered in your ear. “yeah,” you put the laptop down on the far edge of your bed, and he slid your shorts off, holding up your legs just slightly. you turned to look at him, and there was his face. maybe it was the adrenaline rush or maybe it was something more, but you closed your eyes and soon found your lips on his. you’d had your first kiss already, but this time it was different. you found yourself melting into the kiss, your hands in his hair his hands cupping your face, before you felt his hands moving and you shifted on top of him. he pulled away. “is this okay?” he asked. “yes,” you whispered, pulling him back into the kiss and letting him put his hands under your shirt. the sensation of his hands on your breasts left you feeling even more horny, grinding down onto his crotch. eventually, you pulled away, standing up on your knees and slowly sliding his jeans off of him. he took the opportunity to gently push you onto your back, getting on top of you. he kissed you one more time before slowly leaving kisses all over your body, moving from your face to behind your ear to your neck, sucking on your breast. “you’re gorgeous,” he whispered, his voice deeper than usual. he moved back to kissing you, and you felt his hands go under your underwear hem. you found yourself moaning into his kisses as he rubbed your clit, then slowly put one finger into you, his palm still on your clit as he inserted another. “you’re… really good,” you moaned, after a little while, he took his fingers out, and you still found your walls closing around nothing, “is it okay if i put it in?” he asked, his voice still low and husky. “mhm,” you looked up at him. maybe you were caught up in the moment, maybe it was the moonlight peeking from the sheer curtains on your bedroom window, or maybe it was something else entirely, something that wouldn’t go away when the sun came back up, but just the sight of him in the darkness, his long black hair just slightly obscuring his face as he looked up at you through his long lashes, made your eyes almost water. at that moment, all that you could think about was how lucky you were, how grateful you were to be in this situation, and how happy you were. “are you okay?” he breathed, snapping you back to reality. his brows furrowed, the lust in his eyes being replaced with concern. “y-yeah, i’m great.” you smiled, looking up at him. “just making sure.” he reached into the pockets of his now discarded pants, closing your laptop before grabbing a condom out of the pocket, opening the packaging, and putting it on. he held your hand as he positioned himself in between your legs, slowly sliding into you. “let me know if you’re uncomfortable.” he whispered. you closed your eyes, and the stretch of your walls hurt at first- but soon the pain turned into pleasure, the most pleasure you'd ever experienced.

you moaned as you leaned up to kiss him, using your free hand to bring him closer to you. he shifted a bit, suddenly thrusting into you at the perfect angle and leaving you a mess, moaning his name and when you weren’t, you could hear him moaning yours. it was such an intimate moment and the way he was fucking you was so perfect that you found yourself forgetting that he was your best friend. you were whispering praises to him, telling him how good he was and how big his cock was and all these things you would never have expected you’d be saying to choi seungcheol, but here you were. his thrusts got more sloppy and his kisses became more messy and passionate and you knew he was about to come. soon, you did too, and the sensation left your head blank. you felt him pull out of you and lay down beside you. “you want me to run you a bath?” he asked. “yeah,” you looked over at him. “thank you, cheol. that was…” “amazing? life-changing?” he joked. “mhm,” you kissed him. “i’m really glad we did that.” “yeah. come on, let’s get you cleaned up.”

he left after making sure you were all good, kissing you one more time before going. you didn’t think much of anything that night, but when you woke up your mind was racing- that was after you were able to confirm that the night you just had wasn’t a dream. you assumed seungcheol’s mind was racing, too, because aside from sending you some tiktoks and occasionally talking to you about something or other, it was radio silence from him. you were torn about it- on one hand, you were massively grateful. you knew it’d be awkward to talk to him after everything. but on the other hand, you were almost hurt. it was definitely irrational, and you knew that, but you almost felt like he didn’t talk to you because he didn’t like you after the two of you had sex or, worse, he had just been using you. then he called you, three days after everything. “hello?” “hey,” he said. “sorry for not talking to you for a while.” “yeah,” “i needed some time to think about things. it’s not like you did anything wrong though. i still need time, i’m calling to tell you that this has nothing to do with you,” he paused. “really, you were incredible, and that was one of the best moments of my life. and i don’t want to stop talking to you. i just need some time to myself for a bit.” “thank you,” you blushed. “but… yeah, that’s fine. don’t worry about it. but don’t take all the time you need. i leave in, like, five days.” you laughed, though there wasn’t anything funny. “yeah,” he replied, his voice somewhat… sad? you couldn’t really pinpoint what it was. “you gotta promise me that we’ll hang out at least once before then, ‘kay?” “okay,” he paused. “i gotta go, though.” “bye,” “see you,” he said before hanging up.

the phone call left you frustrated for the next few days, which only worsened how sad you felt to be leaving your home and your town. rosie and leia were constantly coming over, but, as much as you loved them, it wasn't the same as hanging out with seungcheol.

you'd been invited to leia's house on the nineteenth, to watch a movie or something. she drove you there, suspiciously giddy with excitement, and once you arrived at her house, you realized there was something more going on. she opened the door for you, and instead of being greeted by her parents and nobody else, you were greeted by a whole crowd of people. somehow, leia and rosie had managed to gather everybody for a surprise going-away party- even your cousin was there. you made your way through the crowd, talking to everybody, so happy from seeing all these people you loved and had spent your teenage years with that you forgot about everything with seungcheol entirely. in fact, you forgot about everything with him throughout most of the night. but then you found him, sitting alone and playing some game on his phone, and he looked up and saw you, and you immediately knew something was up. "can i talk to you?"

he took you to a bedroom and closed the door behind you. "i wanted to tell you something." he said. the two of you sat side by side on the edge of the bed. "i know it's really late to tell you this, but i figured because you're leaving tomorrow this is… my last chance to tell you." he paused. "i don't think it was just because of that night and i don't want you to think that, either. it's also not because of kim, even though the timing would make you think that… i was really thinking about this, and i think… i don't know how to say this, but…" you looked at him and he looked at you and suddenly it all clicked in your head. every little thing you made some stupid excuse for, like how you could only think about him when you touched yourself, or how you couldn't pull your eyes away from his crazy huge arms, or how your heart fluttered when you both made eye contact. it all made sense to you know. "i love you too, cheol."

[demigod-shenanigans]

The choiceless hope in grief

Summary: Leo Valdez has lived and died for the gods. Their war has shaped his life since he was a baby. With Gaia defeated, he sort of hopes he can finally rest. He has friends and some semblance of home to return to for the first time since he was eight years old. Just this once, he allows himself to hope the good things might stick.

But the gods aren’t done with them just yet, by the time Leo finds his way back, Jason is gone.

This time, Leo decides he’s done just taking the Fates’ bullshit lying down. If getting his best friend back means striking a deal with the gods and venturing into the Underworld… well, it’s probably not even the most reckless thing he’s ever done.

The caveat of said deal? He has to trust Jason will follow him, or his self-doubt will doom them both.

And after the life he’s lived, Leo is so intricately familiar with self-doubt that he could probably trademark the word.

Or: The only possible way for Orpheus to succeed is if he learns to think of himself as a person worth loving.

Word Count for chapter 1: ~5k

Rating: Teen and Up

So! *claps hands together* I’ve been threatening you guys with my Orpheus Eurydice valgrace fic for a while! Technically I wanted to wait to post this until I’m completely done writing the fic, and I mostly intend to stick to that! I’m only posting this now because I have a minor surgery tomorrow and I’d rather be anxious about fic related things than about the surgery in question. So, take this chapter as a preview of sorts, more to come soon-ish but probably not immediately!

A couple of important notes before we start:

-TW for suicidal ideation. It’s less Leo actually wanting to die and more his canon behavior of “I’m doing something extremely reckless that might succeed but if it doesn’t, my death is an acceptable consequence”, paired with general grief related self-loathing, but if you think you’re not in the right headspace to read about that, come back when you are or at least tread carefully. This fic pics up at the end of The Burning Maze, so especially the beginning is pretty heavy on the grief stuff.

-Since ToA is vaguely canon to this fic, Leo and Calypso are technically dating in the beginning, but they don’t really interact positively as a couple (honestly they don’t interact that much in general) and break up pretty early on. Just be aware in advance that they’re still together for a little bit.

-Fic title is from Talk by Hozier which is maybe a painfully obvious pick but it was too perfect for me not to use it.

Chapter 1: Leo and Piper have an extended sleepover

It wasn’t a discussion between Leo and Piper whether or not to go to Jason’s funeral. They came to the decision that they wouldn’t silently—or as silently as one could come to an agreement when all parties involved were sobbing.

Maybe it should have been a discussion. There was a part of Leo that worried he’d regret this later—his refusal to take this chance to say goodbye and let himself grieve.

But Leo remembered his mother’s funeral. Remembered the way his aunt Rosa had looked at him like she knew his mother’s death had been his fault. Leo couldn’t stand the thought of people looking at him like that again.

He also didn’t remember his mother’s funeral bringing him any sense of closure or comfort. He’d stood at her grave, afterwards, just as desperate and afraid and utterly inconsolable as he’d been before the funeral, except it had suddenly felt sickeningly final. The wound it had torn in his soul had kept bleeding for years, and the scars would stay forever. He didn’t need any of Apollo’s shitty oracles to know Jason’s death would be exactly the same.

At this point, Leo was pretty sure his sanity was being held together by a combination of jokes and a truly questionable amount of duct tape.

Beyond all that, though, Camp Jupiter was a battlefield right now. It would continue to be a battlefield for the foreseeable future.

Leo wasn’t a coward. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go back and help. But one of his best friends was already in a box, and there was no way in hell he’d risk the other.

With how tightly Piper was clinging to him, maybe she was thinking the same thing. 

For all his big talk about dragon escorts, Festus did most of the actual escorting on his own, occasionally torching what Leo hoped were monsters and not random public monuments. Leo, for his part, spent most of the journey crammed into the backseat of the car next to Piper, sandwiched between her and a bunch of moving boxes that seemed determined to flatten him into a Leo-shaped pancake whenever they took a sharp turn.

He’d spent so long thinking about seeing her and Jason again. 

He’d talked Calypso’s ear off about them the whole journey, to the point where it had clearly started to annoy her. He’d thought about various ridiculous entrances he could make, and the fact that he’d probably get yelled at, but he’d also thought about sitting together by the campfire, sharing nachos. He’d thought about Jason hugging him so fiercely that he couldn’t breathe, and Piper cussing him out while she held him, making him promise never to do anything that reckless again.

Now Piper was actually holding him, and Leo couldn’t feel anything. There was a numbness in his chest. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to ever feel happiness again. Hell, even if he did, what was the fucking point? Every time anything even remotely good happened in his life, it got ripped away from him again.

They didn’t talk a whole lot for most of the drive. They cried until it felt like they couldn’t anymore, clinging to each other like desperate children.

Even if they’d wanted to talk about what had happened, Piper’s dad was right there, and despite the Mist usually working overtime for them, having him overhear seemed like a gamble. Or, well, maybe that was what Leo told himself. Maybe he just wasn't sure he was ready to hear it all. He still felt like he couldn’t think. He was overwhelmed to hell and couldn’t stop fidgeting.

Several hours into the trip, his stomach started grumbling. Piper dug through the bag at her feet and offered him one of her PB&J sandwiches, but Leo couldn’t eat. He hadn’t skipped a meal in forever—he’d been homeless and unsure when he’d even get access to the next meal enough times that it had been all but tattooed into his skull that he couldn’t afford to—but he couldn’t even think about eating without feeling sick. He thought about Jason. He thought about the state he’d left Camp Jupiter in and the fact that they hadn’t even been able to give the dead their proper funeral rites.

Had Leo’s help made any difference at all? Had anything he’d done in his life changed things even slightly?

Leo knew the Fates had intended for it to be fire that fell—for him to burn in a bright, hot blaze and turn himself to charcoal. But he’d refused to stay dead like a good little pawn, and now Jason was gone, and it was all his fault.

He wasn’t sure how Piper could even look at him right now, but he was beyond grateful that she was holding onto him as tightly as she did. It was the only reason he didn’t fall to pieces completely. The cog at the heart of Leo’s machine had broken in a way that made it utterly beyond repair, and now it felt like a matter of time before the whole thing came apart. Piper holding him was the only reason his remaining pieces were still functioning. 

It should have been impossible for Leo to fall asleep under these circumstances, but he’d been traveling for hours and fighting before then and he’d cried out his remaining energy, so eventually, the world started to fade around him, reduced to just the sound of Piper’s breaths, until finally, those went, too.

~~~~

It would have been kinder, maybe, if Leo had dreamed up some shitty visions promising violent death and/or the end of the world. That would have been business as usual. 

Instead, he dreamed of his time on the Argo II—of one of those early nights when the different groups were still getting to know each other, having a brief moment to breathe between their ridiculous tasks and saving the world. 

It had seemed reasonable to catch each other up on what had happened on their end. Percy, Hazel and Frank had talked about rescuing Thanatos, and Piper, Jason and Leo had told them what had happened with Hera in turn. 

This would have been a boring intel conversation at best, seeing as Leo had been there for all of their part, but they’d grabbed snacks and sat on cushions on the floor and made it a whole bonding activity. Jason had been wedged between Piper and Leo, and they’d taken turns storytelling. 

And Jason had bragged. So much. But he hadn’t even had the decency to brag about himself like a normal human being. Instead, he’d talked about how capable Piper and Leo had been, somehow managing to make Leo sound like the coolest person he’d ever met. Which was ridiculous, considering he’d met everyone else on their team.

And sure, Leo made it sound like he thought he was amazing all the time, but he was exaggerating, which everyone, himself included, knew. 

Jason didn’t seem to have gotten the memo, though. He had one arm wrapped around Leo the whole evening, and he got all starry-eyed when he talked. 

“Leo took on three Cyclopes by himself. Three!”

“Dude, stop!” Leo had laughed, shaking his head. “I know I’m incredible and you’re blessed to be friends with me and stuff, but you weren’t even conscious for that part.”

“Still happened, though.” Jason had beamed at him. “You’re amazing, dude. I would have died about fifteen times on that mission if it hadn’t been for you. You guys should’ve seen him.”

It would have been easier if Leo had thought Jason was just trying to talk him up to the others to make them more willing to trust him after how badly he’d messed up in New Rome, but Jason wasn’t the type. He’d looked like he honestly believed every single word he was saying.

So, of course, Leo had refused to seriously deal with any of the things that made him feel.

“Sorry, Pipes, but I’m pretty sure your boyfriend is in love with me. It’s the fire powers, I’m afraid. I’m just too hot to resist,” Leo had joked instead, and Piper had untangled herself from Jason’s other side to throw Doritos at Leo, and everything had been right in the universe.

~~~~

Waking up from that, blearily blinking himself awake in the car full of moving boxes and remembering… that was a worse punch in the gut than waking up from most nightmares had been. And Leo should know. He’d had so many of those over the years that he was basically a certified nightmare expert at this point.

Leo wanted to go back in time and spend forever in that one evening, living it over and over and over again until the Fates or a temporal paradox or something eventually killed him. He wanted to hold on to what they’d been back then—the three of them together and happy and whole,back before they’d realized what the prophecy really meant. 

He wanted to stay wrapped in Jason’s arm and hear him laugh at whatever stupid joke Leo came up with while he and Piper threw snacks at each other like ten year olds. He wanted to believe he could actually be the person Jason was bragging about—this invincible hero that could do just about anything and saved people’s lives.

But Leo had never been that hero. Even his sacrifice had been the selfish decision of a coward who wasn’t ready to die just yet. Jason had been their Superman. The guy who could fly and threw lightning and saved people from falling to their deaths. Jason had been the hero. And ultimately, that had been what killed him.

Leo wasn’t exactly sure what he planned to do once they got to Oklahoma. He should have been heading back to the Waystation, to give Calypso the normal life he’d promised. But he wasn’t thinking about Calypso, or the Waystation, and the thought of a normal life had gone out of the window the second he’d seen the coffin. Besides, the Waystation would mean people asking questions, wanting to know about his mission and asking him to talk about his feelings, and he didn’t want that.

The only thing Leo really wanted to do right now was not think. 

By the time they got to the house, it was so late that cross-country dragon flight seemed inadvisable for visibility reasons alone, so Leo agreed to stay the night. Festus nuzzled him for a bit, got a fuel snack from the canister Leo had brought and then folded down into his million pound suitcase form for the night.

It took a little under two hours to carry all the boxes inside, which was an annoying amount of time to be carrying boxes but seemed like an absurdly short amount to move the contents of an entire life.

They spent some time in search of the necessities that needed to be unpacked, but the house was still furnished and also had running water and electricity as of a few days ago, so it wasn’t that bad.

While Piper went in search of some ancient camping gear so Leo wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor—this seemed silly to him, the floor was far from the worst place he’d ever slept—Leo asked Piper’s dad if he could help with dinner. 

Tristan looked relieved at his offer, actually. He’d been staring at the assorted vegetables with a slightly lost expression, trying to hack at one of the zucchinis with a butter knife. It seemed like he was trying to remember how cooking worked and had just discovered he had absolutely no idea. 

Considering how long he’d been an insanely rich guy with a personal cook, Leo guessed that actually might have been a pretty accurate read on the situation. 

“You might want to try a sharper knife,” Leo suggested, which made Piper’s dad look absolutely mortified. “Try not to chop off any of your fingers, though. I think Piper’s been traumatized enough for one week.”

The words were out of his mouth before Leo could think to stop them. Tristan didn’t laugh, but at least it didn’t seem like he’d be tossing Leo out of the house over this. Maybe he realized people sometimes said stupid shit when they were grieving. Maybe Piper had just warned him in advance that Leo was like this sometimes.

Tristan just went to find a different knife, which would have maybe been concerning if he hadn’t gone back to hacking at the vegetables a moment later.

“Well, at least this one is actually cutting through the zucchinis. That’s already an improvement.”

“Yeah, I’m basically a cooking expert,” Leo said with a grin, only half-joking. He went to peel and chop up the carrots, and was done with those and about half the mushrooms by the time the poor zucchini had been hacked to bits.

“You and Piper went to school together, right?” Tristan asked after a while of them quietly chopping vegetables for the casserole, trying to make sense of things with information he didn’t have and that, judging from past evidence, probably would have made his skull crack. “You and her and Jason.”

“Yeah. We went to Wilderness school together.” Leo winced, trying not to think too hard of Jason while also trying to remember the lies they’d already told Piper’s dad. At this rate, he was pretty worried his own skull would crack, too. “Then all three of us switched to a different school. Then I was gone for a while.”

Tristan nodded like this made perfect sense, though he mostly seemed lost in thought. That was a little rude, in Leo’s opinion. If he went through all that effort to remember their elaborate setup of lies, the least Piper’s dad could do was appreciate it!

“I’m glad you’re here now, with everything that’s happened. Piper was really upset when you left,” Tristan said, still with that faraway look in his eyes. “The last few months were hard for her. Between the move and the breakup, she really could have used a friend.”

Leo promptly lost all rights to make fun of Piper’s dad and his vegetable chopping skills because at the word ‘breakup’, the knife slipped and he nearly sliced off two of his fingers.

“Fuck! Ow!” he said eloquently, trying to avoid bleeding all over the cutting board in his attempt to get to the sink. “Jason and Piper broke up?”

The question sounded absurd even to his own ears. Why would Jason and Piper break up? They’d been happy together.

Surely, Piper’s dad had to be talking about something else.

To Leo’s shock, Tristan nodded.

“A while ago, yes,” he said, but he didn’t go into details—possibly because Leo was bleeding all over the sink. “We should bandage that. Do you think you need stitches?”

“No, the cuts aren’t that deep,” Leo decided, turning on the faucet and holding his bleeding hand under the stream of cold water. Maybe he should have been more concerned about the injury, but his mind was still whirring at the thought of his best friends breaking up. Unfortunately, the cold water stung like hell. He hissed with pain. “Sorry for making your kitchen look like a crime scene right after moving in. Usually, I at least have the decency to wait a day or two.”

Because the house was a small, cozy place and Leo had not had the decency to curse quietly, Piper appeared in the doorway a moment later, an alarmed expression on her face.

“What happened?”

“I’ve been bested by a stupid potato,” Leo cursed, holding up his bleeding hand and wiggling his fingers for emphasis. He figured out immediately that this was a mistake. “Ow.”

“Stop that, dumbass!” Piper cursed, moving to stand beside him. “Sink was the right call, but you need to use soap or the cuts could get infected. Dad, any chance we have gauze lying around somewhere?”

Tristan didn’t seem to question why his daughter had immediately jumped into emergency medical treatment mode. He just abandoned the cutting board and headed for the front door.

“Not exactly sure what box our regular medical supplies are in, but I’ll get the first aid kit from the car. I’ll be right back.”

“Do we have to do the soap?” Leo whined, because fuck, that stung, but Piper nodded with a scary expression on her face, so he complied. “How do you even know this stuff? Are we sure you’re not secretly an Apollo kid?”

“I know this stuff because I’m friends with a bunch of morons who have zero sense of self-preservation,” Piper cursed, gritting her teeth. “You shouldn’t be around knives when you’re this distracted.”

“I can usually cook just fine when I’m distracted. Your dad was the one who told me you and Jason broke up in the middle of this stupid potato,” Leo said defensively. “Is that the Mist messing with him?”

That was the only explanation his mind had supplied so far that made any sense to him.

Piper shook her head. “We really did break up. That was a few months ago.”

Leo felt his jaw hit the floor. 

“What the hell happened? You were together for ages. I thought- you always seemed so happy.”

“I know, but-” Piper broke off abruptly when her dad came back inside with the first aid kit. Demigod stuff, then?

Leo’s mind was racing. The breakup was a completely stupid thing to focus on, considering everything that had happened in the last few days. He knew that.

But it was easier to try and make sense of this than it was to try and make sense of the fact that Jason was gone and he’d never get to see him again.

“Is it alright if we do this somewhere else?” Piper asked her dad, taking the first aid kit from him.

“Of course. It might be easier to patch him up when you’re both sitting down, anyway.” He turned towards Leo. “Thank you for your help, but I think I can take it from here.”

Leo sent a silent prayer to whichever deity was responsible for protecting vegetables—Demeter, probably?—and gave what he hoped was an encouraging thumbs up with his uninjured hand before he followed Piper into the hallway to presumably be reprimanded some more.

~~~~ They ended up sitting on an old bed that looked like it had lived a long, miserable life and was excited for retirement, but the wooden frame thankfully didn’t break down under the weight of the new mattress or the additional weight of them sitting on said mattress. Piper explained that this had been her dad’s room when he’d lived here as a child, and that it would probably become her room now. Then she went very quiet and focused on bandaging his hand, clearly avoiding looking at him.

“It wasn’t because of me, was it?” Leo asked. The thought made him feel ill. “Please tell me it wasn’t something like, I don’t know, you two being unable to stand being around each other after what happened to me. I think I’d actually have to blow myself up again if it was.”

He tried to make it sound like a joke, but it didn’t feel like one at all. The thought that he'd managed to ruin his best friends’ relationship on top of everything else made it hard to breathe.

When Piper shook her head, it felt like a whole boulder was lifted off his shoulders.

“I actually think we would have broken up sooner if you hadn’t gone missing. We leaned on each other a lot after you disappeared. It wasn’t until we realized we wouldn’t find you and things started to settle down a little that I had time to think. And when I did…” Her voice went very quiet, and she still didn’t look up at him. “I realized I wasn’t happy in the relationship. I don’t think I ever was.”

“How did I not know that?” Leo wondered quietly. “I just… you two seemed happy to me. What kind of garbage best friend am I?”

Piper shook her head. “It isn’t your fault. I was telling myself I was happy for a long time. It’s almost- sometimes I wonder if I was charmspeaking myself. That maybe I kept saying I was in love with Jason until I convinced myself I actually was. And with Hera and my mom setting it up… I love-” her voice caught in her throat, and Leo felt like maybe he needed to throw up, “-loved Jason, but not like that.”

“Pipes, I’m really sorry.” Leo squeezed her shoulder. “That sounds like it was super hard for both of you.” Leo felt awful about the fact that he hadn’t even been around to comfort either of them, but it wasn’t like he could fix it now. It was just another item on Leo’s unending list of epic screwups he’d never be able to make up for.

“Jason was… well, he took it exactly like I expected him to. He was surprised, but he didn’t get angry or anything. He mostly seemed okay. Part of me wonders if maybe…” But whatever Piper had been thinking about, she seemed to decide it wasn’t important. “It was hard to get a proper read on him, and as nice as he was about it, things were still super awkward after. I'm terrified he died thinking I didn’t care about him.”

And then she was tearing up again, and Leo thought he would shatter if she cried. 

“He knew you cared,” he said as earnestly as he could manage, pulling Piper to his chest again. “You love way too annoyingly for him not to have known. Hell, even I know you love me, and we both know I’m a fucking nightmare when it comes to this stuff.”

“I missed you so much,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his back like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Oh, I’m about to make you regret saying that,” Leo said, forcing himself to smile. “I’ll bring it up each and every time you say you find something I do annoying.”

“You’re annoying as hell, but you’re still my best friend.” He could feel her tears dripping onto his shoulder, and he knew that would make him start up again too. “I don’t know how I’d do this without you.”

And well, passing away from dehydration after crying too much would be a really lame way to die the second time, but everything was just too much right now, so if that was how he went, Leo wasn’t sure anyone could blame him.

~~~~

For the next couple of weeks, Leo stayed.

Helping Piper and her dad unpack was the perfect way to keep himself occupied and not have to think. Usually, a mundane task like this probably would have driven Leo nuts. But right now, it was a bit of a godsend—if not literally, at least figuratively. Being productive was always so much easier when it was done in order to avoid something you wanted to do even less. There was a reason his spaces in the foster homes had only ever been tidy when he had exams coming up.

He helped cook, too, and Piper’s dad became increasingly less garbage at it the longer this went on—like muscle memory was finally kicking in after years of disuse.

It was mostly good—listening to Piper reminisce about trips she’d taken with her dad and where she’d gotten the weird variety of items she kept in her room. When they weren’t unpacking, Leo and Piper played video games or watched movies or explored the area. Twice, during the night, they took Festus on a little flight to a nearby fast food place. Finding a parking spot was a bit of a nightmare, unfortunately. Leo would submit a complaint about their inability to accommodate celestial bronze dragons the first chance he got.

The first time they tried hiking—Leo didn’t even like hiking, he’d spent enough time outside for several lifetimes, why did he do this to himself—they got hopelessly lost in the woods, and of course, due to demigod bullshit, neither of them had brought a phone, so Google Maps wasn’t an option. It was probably for the better. The last thing that situation needed on top of them being lost was a monster attack. 

They were already jokingly planning out their new life in the woods when, thankfully, a girl their age came to their rescue.

“A human being! Thank the gods. The squirrels weren’t talking to us,” Leo greeted her, which had Piper shout “Please ignore Leo!” loudly from the branches of the tree she’d been climbing.

The girl lifted her head, spotted Piper and promptly burst out laughing.

“What in the world are you doing up there?” 

“Trying to get a better vantage point,” Piper sighed, making her way back down the tree. “We’re hopelessly lost.”

“Well, nice to meet you, hopelessly lost. I’m Shel,” the girl said, still grinning. Leo decided immediately that he liked her.

Piper had almost made it back down when she somehow missed a branch and fell the rest of the way. In comedic movie fashion, Shel moved before Leo had the chance to and caught her mid-tumble. “That was a bit of a dramatic way to get my attention, but you’re cute, so I’ll allow it.”

“Oh yeah, Piper’s got a bit of a thing with falling for people that way,” Leo commented, and Piper gave him her most murderous look while she got back on her feet.

“You guys need help getting back?”

“Please, yes,” Piper said immediately. “It turns out we’re both garbage with maps.”

“Maybe you just need a tour guide next time,” Shel suggested, winking at Piper, whose face turned scarlet. Leo wasn’t even mad about being the third wheel for once. He’d give her so much shit about this later.

And he did. And then Piper properly came out to him—no label or anything, mostly as extremely confused but sure she liked girls, which also made a few additional pieces click into place regarding her breakup with Jason. She ended her anxiety-riddled explanation by thanking Leo for being so normal and annoying about all this. 

Which was how Leo realized he’d apparently never told Piper he was bi.

Or maybe he had, and it had gotten lost along with their other memories of Wilderness. Stupid memory-stealing babysitters.

Well, at least they got to hug about it now. 

~~~~

It was strange how normal some days felt when nothing would ever truly be normal again. When in every moment Leo and Piper spent together, the gaping hole that had been ripped into their trio was so blatantly obvious.

The benefit and problem of this friendship was that Leo and Piper were both experts at not talking about things they were struggling with. 

This wasn’t exactly news. From what little Leo did remember of Wilderness School, they’d spent months not talking about his mom, or about the fact that Piper’s dad kept canceling their weekend plans. They’d both known there were things left unsaid, but as long as they’d been able to cheer each other up, that hadn’t really mattered. It made sense, honestly. Put two people who hadn’t had a shoulder to cry on for ages in a room together and see what happens!

Right now, this meant they were expertly ignoring the box of belongings Piper had picked up from Jason’s school. It had been pushed so far under the bed during that first night that it was no longer visible, and neither of them made any effort to move it out of its new home since. They ignored the topic of Jason, period, until it inevitably hit them in the face again. 

It was mostly dumb shit that set them off. Piper automatically reaching for vanilla ice cream at the grocery store because it was Jason’s favorite—seriously, who in their right mind even liked vanilla ice cream?

Sometimes, Leo would make a joke and burst into tears instead of laughing because he knew it would have cracked Jason up. They found old photos unpacking. One time, Piper’s dad suggested they make tacos and they started simultaneously bawling their eyes out.

Leo had spent a long time exactly like this—pretending everything was normal and okay when it wasn’t either of those things until he inevitably broke down. Then he’d started to actually feel sort of okay whenever he was with Jason and Piper. Now, he was sure he would spend the rest of his life pretending.

His appetite was too used to being stuck in survival mode for him to bow to nausea for long, so he went back to eating properly after a few days. He still cried himself to sleep most nights. He kept dreaming about Jason. The memories wrapped themselves around him like a safety blanket that he knew would get ripped away again in the morning. He always woke up feeling empty. Sometimes, he wished he could just go to sleep and never wake up again.

But other than that, it was mostly good.

Then demigod communications went back up, and everything went to hell.

———

Chapter notes:

Fun fact! I originally planned for this chapter (as well as the next few chapters) to just be backstory in my head and for me to maybe do a flashback or two. Unfortunately for me, Piper McLean waltzed into the room and refused to leave.

I do actually think the fic works better this way, but it will take a second to get to the plot! Hopefully you’ll enjoy the whole journey :)

I may not be able to have Leo and Piper go to Jason’s funeral without seriously messing with the plot of Tyrant’s Tomb, but I could at least pick the most evil reason possible for them not to go!

Side note: I sort of forgot that Hedge and Mellie were supposed to be here according to TBM, but by the time I remembered I already had this chapter written out and, as someone who cannot be bothered to figure out how to write them, I decided to just leave it. ToA is vaguely canon to this universe, but only for the most part. Some details are inaccurate, and I think that’s okay.

Anyway, thank you so much for reading! Comments and reblogs super, super appreciated as always!!

List of people that at some point asked to be tagged when I post this: @poppitron360 @ginnyluna @keefessketchbook (feel free to comment if you want to get taken off or be put on the tag list for future chapters!)

[shadesslut]

quick rec if you have time ☺️

richie inviting his friends over to his appartement for a get together but spends most of the evening embarrassing and humiliating ethan (he's such a shitty brother).

so ethan takes y/n (whom richie is infatuated with) to his room and fucks her to make her moan so hard, all the guests hear her. he does everything to make her scream and embarrass richie in return ;)

Thank you! I hope you like it<3

brotherly love

MINORS DNI

Pairing: (Ethan Landry x Fem!Reader)

Content Includes: (Smut, light humiliation)

Summary: After being made fun of by his older brother, Ethan finds a way to make sure he will never be made fun of again.

Masterlist

part 2

✮

✮

✮

Ethan always had a complicated relationship with his brother. Since they were little, Richie would always try to scare the younger brunet. He would make elaborate pranks on how Ethan would die or get hurt, and they always worked on him. Ethan grew sensitive over time, never letting his guard down either. Especially around Richie.

When Richie moved out and bought his own apartment, Ethan jumped for joy on the inside. Since the older brother no longer lived with Ethan, he could finally relax. He could walk into the kitchen without having to stay quiet, and he could invite people over.

Unfortunately, all of this stopped once Richie came home for Christmas, bringing some friends along with him. Ethan panicked once his father said Richie arrived back; he already felt his anxiety rise.

The visit was alright. The only good thing about Richie visiting was his friends that he brought. Ethan had taken a liking to one of them; a girl with y/h/c hair and a bright smile. Her name was Y/N, and Ethan was already imagining his last name with hers.

That had been two months ago.

Ethan was now sitting on a green sofa in his brother’s new apartment. Him and his sister, Quinn, were invited to Richie’s apartment warming party. Ethan didn’t really have the urge to go, but he desperately wanted to see Y/N again.

She was across from him on the other couch, chatting with another girl. He had been watching her ever since she came in, gazing at every inch of her body.

Richie snapped Ethan out of his gaze as he plopped down next to him. He wrapped his arm around Ethan’s shoulders, slightly shaking him.

“Ethan,” he drew out. “Whatcha looking at?”

Ethan’s shoulders tensed at his older brother’s question. Richie knew about Ethan’s not so little crush, and he planned to make sure everyone else knew.

“Nothing.” Ethan mumbled, shrugging Richie’s hand off. Richie looked at Ethan with a sinister look painted across his face. He looked over Ethan’s head at Quinn, who shook her head at him.

“Hey Y/N,” Richie yelled, still looking at Ethan. Y/N’s head turned to Richie, smiling.

Richie stood up and walked towards her, sitting next to her. “You met Ethan, right?” He asked, pointing towards the curly-haired boy.

She nodded as she looked at Ethan smiling. “Yeah, I have.”

“You know any girls that’d be into him? And into the whole ‘pathetic guy’ look?” He laughed as others chuckled at his joke. Ethan’s fists tightened at his brother’s taunts. Y/N looked at him awkwardly and slightly smiled uncomfortably.

“You know he took a video game design class last semester? You’re such a geek aren’t you little bro?” Richie quipped again.

“Enough, Richie.” Quinn warned, yet was trying to hold back a laugh.

Ethan’s face reddened as he looked around the room, seeing how everyone was looking at him. “Shut up.” He muttered.

Richie leaned his head towards him, “What did you say? I can barely hear you.”

Ethan looked over at Y/N before glancing back at Richie. Richie’s eyes brightened as he noticed, and Ethan immediately regretted it.

“You better stay near me, Y/N, or else he’ll start creeping on you.” Richie told her, leaning his elbow on her shoulder. Y/N looked at Richie, and then at Ethan.

Some people laughed while others looked at Ethan judgmentally. Ethan cursed under his breath and stood up, stomping to Richie’s room. He could hear Richie and others laugh as he walked away.

A few minutes of Ethan’s knee bouncing up and down and him breathing slowly in and out, allowed Ethan’s anger to sizzle away. He sat on the edge of Richie’s bed, glaring at a picture of him and Y/N on his desk.

“Fuck you, Richie.”

He turned his head towards the door that slightly opened, Y/N’s head peeking through. “H-Hey,”

“Hi?” Ethan responded.

She stepped in and closed the door. “Richie’s an ass.” She said as she sat down next to him. She looked away, guiltily and sighed. “I’m sorry about earlier, I should have said something.”

He shrugged and played with his fingers. “It’s okay.” He said softly.

“It’s not, but, I know how we can make him mad.” She suggested, leaning towards Ethan.

Ethan raised his eyebrows at her. Is she…suggesting what he’s thinking?

“How so?” Ethan asked, setting his hands on the mattress.

She swiftly got up and straddled Ethan’s lap. Ethan gasped and shifted under her body. “Something like this,” she whispered in his ear.

He looked down at their hips, then looked up at her. “If you’re gonna let me do this, I’m not gonna hold back.” He spoke, his voice deep and his eyes dark. His hands reached for her hips, holding her harshly.

“Fuck, okay.” She moaned as she ran her hands through his curls.

He picked her up and kissed her roughly, throwing her on the bed. Oh he was so, going to gloat to Richie about fucking Y/N in his bed. She gasped as she landed, and looked up at Ethan.

He licked his lips and started undoing his belt, causing her to slide her shorts down quickly. He stepped out of his jeans and raised his arms as he allowed her to take off his shirt.

“You’re so hot,” She breathed against his neck, thrusting her hips upwards. He whimpered and grinder against her. His dick was already hard, and he could feel the wetness that grew between her legs. He kissed her until he couldn’t breathe; it was the best feeling in the world.

They were pawing at each other, both fully nude now. Ethan stared at her tits, they were so perfect, and all he wanted to do was suck on them.

He lowered his head and licked her nipple, which started to peak shortly after. He covered her nipple with his whole mouth as he sucked on it. She threw head back in ecstasy from the pressure.

“Ethan, I need you to be inside of me right now.” She moaned, tugging at his curls. He groaned and looked around the room.

“I don’t have a condom.”

She smiled at him and pulled his head back down as she kissed him. “I’m on the pill.”

He had a devilish smile on him now. As he lined himself up with her entrance, he looked in her eyes for approval; to which she nodded. He thrusted his hips slowly, halfway inside of her.

“Oh,” he moaned, slowly. He shut his eyes closed to focus on the feeling of her around him. She caressed his chest, and he pushed all the way in.

“You feel so good,” she cooed at him, arching her back.

He started moving his hips at a slow pace, in and out. He was a whining mess, while she tried to keep quiet. He wasn’t going to let that continue.

Ethan looked at Richie’s nightstand and saw a picture of Richie, which made him furrow his brows in anger. He was going to make sure Richie knew who was making Y/N feel so good.

He thrusted at a harsher and faster pace; pulling all the way out and pushing all the way back in. Now, she was moaning louder.

“Oh fuck!” She sobbed. She had tears in her eyes from the mix of pain and pleasure. Ethan dropped his head to lick the tears off. He reached his hands down and picked up her legs to put over his shoulders.

Her eyes rolled back at the position. The tip of his dick hit her sweet spot, which drove her crazy.

“Yell my name, yell my fucking name,” he growled in her ear, still thrusting deep inside her.

She whined softly and scratched his back. “Fuck, Ethan,”

He rolled his eyes back and quickened his pace. He reached his hand down and rolled his thumb over her clit harshly. The noises in the room made Ethan’s ears redden; wet and slapping noises filling their ears.

“Ah! Ethan!” She yelped at the new sensation. “Fuck me, fuck me!”

Ethan smiled to himself as she screamed his name, hoping to God that Richie could hear. He heard footsteps approaching the room and a faint “What the fuck is that noise?”

He saw the door crack open, meeting eyes with Richie. He glared at him with a menacing stare as he continued to thrust inside of her. Richie’s eyes widened as he glanced between Y/N and Ethan. He stood still at the doorway as Ethan continued to fuck her.

Ethan had heard a few of Richie’s friends laugh at him, and they pulled him away from the door.

Ethan smiled to himself, looking back at Y/N. He thought about Richie, and how he would never let him make him feel worse again. He knew Richie wouldn’t be able to, he wouldn’t be able to after tonight.

The two of them moaned and kissed each other as they slowly reached their high. Ethan thrusting in faster than ever. She moaned his name one more time, filling the entire apartment. He kissed her neck as he stuttered his hips a few more times as he came inside her. He dropped his weight on top of her, sighing with pleasure.

“Fuck Ethan, didn’t know you had that in you.” She moaned, breathing heavily.

“Me neither.”

She wiped the sweaty strands off his forehead, and then kissed the top of his head. “We should film next time for Richie.” She laughed.

“Oh, you know we are.”

[silverskye13]

Angst prompt courtesy of: @theunderscorwolph

[Part 1 of 2]

[Part 2 Found Here]

Helsknight waited... Probably too long to check in on Tanguish. In his defense, the last time he spoke to Tanguish, he was heading to Hermitcraft, and while Hermitcraft was far from safe, it was, in its own ways, safer than hels. There were fewer people, fewer hazards in general, and there was Tango. Tango wasn't a fighter. As far as Helsknight could tell, he was mostly just squirrelly, and a bit cowardly. But he was fiercely loyal. That went a long way. He had even, misguidedly, attempted to save Tanguish from Helsknight once. Helsknight, who recognized he was a big, scary, angry-looking, armed and armored knight, could respect that. And Tango and Tanguish were friends, and they got wrapped up in each other sometimes, and this was far from the first time Tanguish was gone all day talking to his other half about some project.

It was, however, the first time he'd been gone for two days in a row.

Helsknight didn't really consider himself to be a worrier. Tanguish was an adult. He could take care of himself. And even if he couldn't take care of himself, Helsknight could recognize that everyone had some level of pride. Butting in on someone else's business uninvited was a great way to be a nuisance at best, and a problem at worst. So, Tanguish didn't come back by the evening? If there was a problem, Helsknight would respectfully let him handle it. Tanguish knew to come get him for help. And while Helsknight would feel truly guilty if his dithering caused Tanguish to respawn, he could take some solace in knowing he would wreak holy vengeance on whoever did it.

[That was one of the perks of being a knight: when you pointed at someone and said something along the lines of "Through hels or high water I will smite thee" or some such dramatic nonsense, people tended to get out of your way and let you get to business.]

Day two of no Tanguish, and Helsknight went from being passively concerned, to something closer to open nervousness. He asked, as subtly as he could, around the Colosseum if anyone had seen him. No one had, though Martyn did make a joke about Tanguish finally getting wise and finding a real knight to squire to.

[EB really needed to stop getting between them when Martyn said things like that. The power of a bloody nose on shitty humor was astounding.]

Eventually, Helsknight had given up and decided the best thing to do was go to Hermitcraft and track the little pest down himself. He suited up for what he thought might be a mild amount of trouble -- it was always possible he would run into Wels when he was on Hermitcraft, and if he planned on searching for someone, he wanted to minimize the time he was fighting his double. He donned his chainmail, and the netherite gauntlets and grieves. He made sure the clasps on his boots were pulled tight. He cinched on his netherite sword, and made sure it pulled easily from the sheath.

He picked up his cloak last, and gave it a contemplative frown. In hels, the cloak was a distinctive and somewhat necessary piece of costuming. It was the visual shorthand he needed to inform everyone that he was a knight, and therefore probably knew his way around a sword [and wasn't worth mugging]. For those who knew knights, it told them what Order he was a part of. Useful. On Hermitcraft, however... Being able to tell at a glance that he was a red-themed knight in dark armor, who looked suspiciously like but not quite enough like one of the other server members...

While Helsknight weighed the pros and cons of stealth and subtly, two things he was famously very bad at, the shield hanging on his wall shuddered and kicked, and someone tumbled out of the reflection with a shriek. Helsknight sighed and rolled his eyes up towards the ceiling. He did a slow count to ten in his head, and tried not to be very, very annoyed he'd just spent twenty minutes putting on armor for no good gods-damned reason.

"Tanguish," Helsknight hummed, when he thought he could keep his voice relatively neutral, "for no reason in particular, I think we should make some ground rules about when you should check in with people--"

Helsknight turned, looked down, and anything else he was going to say vanished out of his head with such abruptness, it made his ears ring. Laying prone on the floor of Helsknight's cell, staring with wide, somewhat terrified eyes and the kind of grin that screamed about recently realized mistakes, was Tango. The Hermit blinked up at him. Helsknight blinked down at him. Somewhere down the hall, somebody laughed at something, which was their only indication that the whole world hadn't frozen with them when they made eye contact.

Helsknight could say, with honesty, he never expected to be put in a situation where a Hermit stumbled into hels, much less into his cell in the Colosseum, surrounded by all the biggest, scariest, most dangerous people in hels. At a complete loss on what to do, he fell back on what he thought was safest: namely, making sure no one got killed over it. Helsknight leaped over Tango -- who screeched ingloriously -- crossed to the door of his cell and slammed it shut. There was no lock -- he'd never needed one until now -- so he settled on turning his back to the door and bracing against it, content in the knowledge that, should someone come inside, he would be the first one to know.

It did not hearten him to see that Tango was still on his floor. He had apparently, when Helsknight stepped over him, curled up as small as he could, anticipating some kind of attack. He'd thrown his arms up over his face, and now peered at Helsknight through his fingers, humming tuneless, horrified syllables.

"Tangotek," Helsknight said, concentrating on keeping his voice very calm and very quiet, "you aren't welcome in my home."

"I didn't know I was going to end up here," Tango whispered back, his voice high and tense as a violin string.

"Go home."

Something flickered in Tango's eyes, something like determination. Helsknight hated that look.

"Uhm. N-no can do. Sorry."

"Can't." Helsknight said, barring his teeth at the Hermit. "Or won't."

Tango made a face at him, tight-lipped and tense. He propped himself up on his elbows. "Uhm. If. If I say won't, will you kill me?"

"Possibly."

"Then I can't. Definitely, definitely, physically can't." Tango looked around, scrambled to his feet, and dashed to Helsknight's bed. He, admirably, only winced a little when he set his spawn -- probably worried hels worked like the nether, and the bed would manage to explode somehow. With a bit more confidence this time, Tango stated again: "Can't."

"I can break that." Helsknight seethed quietly, and tried very hard not to grind his teeth. "It would piss me off. I like being able to sleep here. But I can break that, and send you back to Hermitcraft."

"But you don't want to do that," Tango said nervously. "Because-- uh-- you'd have to kill me, and Tanguish would be really, really upset about that."

"Tanguish isn't here. So either run home, or I will... escort you there." Helsknight put on his most wicked grin, and placed his hand on his sword meaningfully.

Tango staggered a step back away from Helsknight, somehow managing to go paler than he already was. The redstone freckles adorning his face sparked, and the flame of his hair took on a slightly green cast. The idiot Hermit was apparently made of very stern stuff, though, because he didn't flee for the nearest reflection. He took a few seconds to breathe. He had his own sword, a fact that Helsknight only noticed because his hand twitched towards the hilt uncertainly. Helsknight wasn't alarmed. Tango didn't move like someone who knew how to use a sword well, and he was fairly sure the Hermit's hands were shaking so much he would drop it if he tried to draw it.

Tango swallowed hard, darted a tongue across his lips, and asked with only a minimal tremor in his voice, "Uh, T-Tanguish isn't here? Like, not here here, or like... Not in hels, here?"

Helsknight narrowed his eyes. "Is he supposed to be?"

"He left my place yesterday, and said he would be back in a few hours," Tango explained quickly. "I thought-- like, you know, maybe he decided to wait until morning? But. He didn't come back. And I got worried. He. You know. He tells me if he can't make it. It's-- all it takes is a reflection to talk. You know? And I did look in my reflection, but I couldn't see anything, which normally means he's not by one. It was just dark."

Tango crossed his arms. It was a gesture that somehow made him look smaller.

"I thought-- I hoped-- you know. Hopping through the reflection. I could just check on him. Make sure he was okay. I think. I think maybe it just took me to his spawn point."

Tango thought that statement over, then flashed Helsknight an incredulous, almost horrified look, "Why is his spawn point your bed?"

"Tanguish was supposed to be with you," Helsknight frowned.

"You haven't seen him?"

"No." Helsknight rested his hand on his sword hilt, mostly just so he wouldn't fidget. "Could he have gone back to Hermitcraft and you just missed each other?"

"I checked," Tango said, shaking his head. "I have... X gave a few of us console access. I did a few scans... Is there. Anyone you know with that kind of access for hels?"

"Hels and Hermitcraft are different places." Helsknight wrinkled his nose. "Maybe Evil X?"

"Cool! We'll talk to him then!"

"Oh sure," Helsknight spat derisively, "I'll just go knock on the front door to Evil X's tower and ask politely for admin access, will I?"

Tango grimaced. "Will he not... Like that kind of thing?"

"Oh he'd just love it. One more thing to hold over my head." Helsknight snorted. "It wouldn't work anyway. I have a pact that says I can't directly oppose him. If he, for the gods know what reason, has Tanguish, and I knew--" Helsknight made a parrying motion with his hand. "It's better if I don't know. Keeps my hands from being tied."

"Huh," Tango leaned back against the wall, slightly more at ease. Helsknight wasn't sure if he liked the fact that the Hermit was getting comfortable. "I kind of figured you and X-- uh, Evil X, would be friends."

"Why in hels would we be friends?"

"Well, I'm friends with Wels. And. You know. X. I just kind of figured..."

Helsknight decided the best thing to do with this statement was ignore it.

"I will check the house," Helsknight said. "You go back to your server. When I find him, I'll tell you."

Tango shook his head vehemently. "No! Nuh-uh. This is my rescue mission."

"While I appreciate your tenacity," Helsknight bared his teeth at the Hermit, causing him to shrink back a step, "hels is for helsmets. You wouldn't last ten minutes here. And I'm not wasting time keeping you safe."

"You protect Tanguish just fine."

"Tanguish can outrun everything that chases, and out-clever anything else."

"And he came from me," Tango said, crossing his arms petulantly. "I'm plenty smart! And I can be speedy in a pinch!" He sniffed. "We'll just give your house a look-around, easy-peasy."

Helsknight made to argue, and then a thought occurred to him.

"This isn't my house."

Tango blinked. His eyes shifted around the small, relatively bare room. The single desk, shield mounted on the wall, and bed.

"Is it... An outpost or something? You put this up while you were exploring?"

"This is my Colosseum cell," Helsknight said. When Tango only stared at him blankly, "Surely Tanguish has told you about the Colosseum."

"I mean... He did."

"I have a room here. For when I don't want to walk across hels to sleep."

"There's a bunch of fighters out there."

"There is."

"Fighters who... Dislike... Hermits."

Helsknight snorted.

"W-well!!" Tango sputtered, noticeably more nervous, but doing his best to ignore it. "I'm! Still not leaving! So! We'll just have to be quick. And once we get outside--"

"We'll have to walk across hels. Hels, the city, is very big, and has a lot of people in it."

Tango put his face in his hands and let out a keening whine of dismay through his fingers. It was the kind of noise that suggested he didn't know how to growl in exasperation, so he howled instead. Helsknight, begrudgingly, admitted to himself he was being [a little] harsh. He decided, against his better judgement, to have a little mercy.

"You really want to find Tanguish."

"Yes! Yes I do!" Tango snapped, looking up at him beseechingly. "I mean, is it really that hard to believe you're not the only one who wants him to be safe?"

Helsknight's skepticism must've shown on his face, because Tango let out another of his exasperated, half-syllable noises and ran his hands back through his hair.

"Look, I promise I won't get in your way. And I'll go home the second we find him. I just... I'm worried."

Helsknight sighed and tried his best not to roll his eyes. He crossed the room to where he'd left his cloak, and motioned for Tango to join him. Hesitantly, nervously, Tango stood and waited as Helsknight flung the cloak over his shoulders. It would have been far too long, but he gathered some of the length to turn into a makeshift hood, bunching it awkwardly around Tango's shoulders. It took some folding and some pinning, but after a few minutes, Helsknight stepped back and nodded. It was passable anyway.

"Keep this on while we're in the Colosseum," Helsknight informed him, pulling the hood down low over Tango's face. "With any luck, people will assume you're Tanguish. Or at least that you're supposed to be with me."

"And, uh, if that doesn't work?" Tango asked, his voice pitching the barest bit higher in nervousness.

"We'll burn that bridge when we cross it," Helsknight snorted. He checked one last time to make sure his gear was all in place, and, squaring his shoulders, led the way out and into the cells.

Nobody noticed them leave the cells. Or, at the very least, nobody noticed who Tango was. A few people stopped Helsknight to try and talk, but when he made it clear he had places to be, they let him pass. Helsknight's patience was not a thing anyone wanted to shorten, even those few dangerous people who could probably weather the aftermath.

Soon enough they were walking down the streets of hels, Tango hovering so close to Helsknight's side they occasionally walked into each other. Helsknight wanted to be annoyed. He wanted to be even more annoyed by all of Tango's jabbering. The Hermit would make observations as they walked, pointing at buildings and asking questions that Helsknight rarely deigned to answer.

They weren't here to sight-see. They were here to find Tanguish. So when Tango asked him his twentieth question of the morning [You guys have a working water fountain? How do you have water in hels? Is it an update suppression thing, or does hels have different rules than a standard nether hub?] Helsknight scowled and started walking so quickly, Tango had to jog to keep up with his long strides. Panting, and focused on putting one foot in front of the other without tripping over cobblestones, he couldn't ask any more questions.

[Praise every god and saint in hels.]

Eventually they turned onto the street Helsknight's house was on, and immediately he knew something was wrong. Even from the end of the street, Helsknight could see the front door was open. A cold fist of dread clenched itself in his stomach, and Helsknight ran up the street, Tango protesting as he tried to keep pace.

The house had been ransacked. The door wasn't just open, it had been halfway knocked off its hinges, and the window at the front of the building had been smashed. He hadn't yet stepped inside, but from the red light streaming into the open doorway, Helsknight could see his little dining table and chairs had been knocked over. There was broken glass on the floor, and the pale gleam of metal -- Tanguish's dagger, dropped in a scuffle. There was no blood that Helsknight could see, but that was cold comfort.

"Oh... Shoot." Tango panted, standing beside him. "This is your house?"

Helsknight found himself swallowing past a growing lump in his throat. "Yes."

"Did you... Not go home yesterday?"

"No."

"Shoot." Tango said again, tugging on the edges of Helsknight's cloak nervously. "He left Hermitcraft in the afternoon. Would he-- would he have gone straight to the Colosseum if--"

"Probably."

"So. So this probably happened when he got here," Tango glanced up at Helsknight, gauging the knight's hesitation, and then picked his way cautiously to the door. "Does your house get broken into often?"

"If it did, there would be a lot fewer thieves in this city."

"I'll uh... Take that as a no." Tango stepped gingerly inside, the broken glass crunching beneath his boots. His tail, a liquid, fiery thing like his hair, swept around the floor, glinting off the glass shards like a field of sparks. He picked up Tanguish's knife and flipped it over in his hands, studying it before slipping it onto his belt. "No blood. Obvious signs of a struggle. I mean, he had to have been ambushed right? Otherwise he would've run for it. And they took him alive because, well, I mean, he would've just respawned right?"

The lump in Helsknight's throat got tighter. It was suddenly very hard to breathe.

"Right?" Tango prompted again.

"How much do you know about helsmets? How our respawns work?" Helsknight asked quietly.

"I know respawn is rough for you guys." Tango raised an eyebrow at him. "Or, I assume, I guess. Tanguish seems pretty scared of dying, anyway. And I know you take deaths in the Colosseum very seriously. A lot of warrior culture weirdness stuff."

Helsknight swallowed. The fear of speaking his thoughts out loud grabbed him by the throat and pinned him still. Adrenaline, cold and sourceless, sent ice through his veins. His fist clenched around the hilt of his sword, his instincts as a knight searching for a source for his alarm to fight and dispatch, even when his logical mind knew there was none.

[He didn't want to say it out loud.]

"Sometimes."

Helsknight cleared his throat uncomfortably. He didn't look at Tango. His eyes wandered around the broken glass at the Hermit's feet, watching the flame of his tail glint off the brittle, jagged edges.

"Sometimes."

He swallowed again. He adjusted the buckle on his gauntlet. It suddenly felt too loose around his wrist. He was too vulnerable to talk about this. He needed plate mail, or a helmet. Hels, he needed castle walls and a full garrison.

"Sometimes we... When the universe... We are. Uhm. We're different than--"

He could feel Tango's gaze heavy on him. His skin prickled with the weight of his stare and his own growing, frigid alarm. Something like panic, a rare and terrible beast, was crawling awake in Helsknight's stomach. It gnashed its teeth against his insides, and he felt the desire to laugh, or shout, or throw something, or maybe just throw up in general.

[Don't say it out loud.]

"Tango, sometimes we dont--"

"Well it's about gods-damned time!"

The amount of relief Helsknight felt at the sound of that hostile voice was profound and dissonant, and incredibly welcome. Mostly though, it was an excuse to focus all his pent up fear on something physical he could kill, and he praised every god and saint in hels as he turned to face the newcomers.

A group of four vaguely thug-like helsmets stood in the street less than twenty paces away from him. Helsknight's gaze swept across them, noting their mix-match of leather and gold armor. Two had swords -- gold and iron. One was twirling an axe in her hand in a flourish that was probably supposed to be threatening, but mostly just told Helsknight she'd been practicing axe-flourishes instead of axe-throws. The person who'd spoken, a rather weasely looking thug with a knife on his belt, grinned with glad maliciousness.

"We've been waiting for you to show up, tin can."

Helsknight didn't rise to the [insult?]. It wasn't worth his time. He cast a quick glance in Tango's direction, catching the fading flicker as the Hermit hid somewhere in the house. Good. Helsknight would prefer he not be under foot.

"Who are you?" Helsknight asked coolly, not really expecting a response. He flexed the fingers of his sword hand restlessly, itching to draw his blade. "And what have you done with Tanguish?"

"Come quietly and maybe we'll tell you," the ringleader said, motioning broadly with one hand for his thugs to fan out around him.

The three fighters moved to circle Helsknight, one stopping just in front of the ringleader, while the other two began stalking further up the street. Helsknight did the mental math of four against one, while he was surrounded, and decided he didn't like the odds.

Helsknight attacked before the first swordsman, the one with the golden sword, could pass him. He turned and drew his sword in the same motion, and the strength behind his cleaving overhead strike shattered the softer metal of their blade neatly. His second swing, lightning quick, took them in the throat. He pointed his bloodied sword at the second swordsman, who froze in shock, blade up in a shaking guard position, as they watched their ally fade into twitching death throws.

"Will you make me ask twice?" Helsknight hummed, his voice as level as the point of his sword.

The swordsman's eyes darted over his shoulder. Helsknight frowned, felt more than he heard the approach of something. He ducked and spun, sword arching over his head to catch a weapon strike that instinct told him was coming. There was the loud clash of metal on metal, and when Helsknight straightened, he found two more thugs had joined from... Somewhere. The roof perhaps. Helsknight backed up several steps, trying to keep the entire group in his sight line, and his back to his home. At least with his back to a wall, no one could get behind him. The four with weapons drawn advanced on him slowly, wary of his speed, and the efficiency of his strikes.

"Throw down your weapon, gladiator," the ringleader called to him. "If all you want is to see your friend again, we'll take you right to him." He flashed a wicked grin. "Though we might rough you up a little first."

At that, the axe-weilder leaped forward -- some uncanny sense of Helsknight's, honed for danger, demanded he duck as a whisper of noise hissed by his ear -- and she fell back shrieking, a bloody hole punched in her shoulder. It was only when the arrow cracked against a far wall that Helsknight realized she'd been shot at close range with a very high power bow. Tango leaned through the broken window, a terrified grin on his face, another arrow already knocked.

"Fight fair why don't ya!" He crowed and loosed his second shaft. This one grazed the thug closest to Helsknight, and he used the distraction to ram his sword through their chest.

What followed was a frenzy of breath and movement, seconds that ticked by as ages that he measured in the studied arc of his blade. One thug, then two, then three, scythed down like wheat in a field, crude skill and cruder weaponry breaking against his fortress of an onslaught. It was only when the last one fell that he realized the ringleader was making a run for it. Silent as a breath, Helsknight yanked his knife from his belt, aimed and threw. It hilted itself in the back of the ringleader's left knee, and he fell to the cobblestones howling.

"Holy-- nice shot!" Tango laughed, the high piping sound of the traumatized and terrified. "What are you--? Wait! Helsknight! Wait a tick--!"

Helsknight wasn't listening. He was angry, and the implication that Tanguish was captured somewhere goaded him on like a burning brand between his shoulder blades. There was a very mean little animal of panic in his chest again, warring with the adrenaline of the fight, and he thought, if he had the mind to, he might tear the ringleader in half with his bare hands.

[It would be easy. One hand on the back of the neck, one at the base of the spine. His boots were heavy, and if he planted a few strong kicks at the knuckles of a vertebrae he was pretty sure he could--]

It was a mountain of restraint that made him stoop instead to pick the ringleader up by the collar and slam him into the nearest wall. His head bounced against the bricks behind him and his breath whooshed out of his lungs, leaving him dazed and gasping while Helsknight leaned his full weight into him to pin him still. Not that he was going anywhere fast with a bad knee anyway.

"Talk," Helsknight growled, nearly nose to nose with the thug. "My friend. Where is he."

The thug whined, eyes screwed shut and teeth gritted in pain. "I'm not-- I'm not telling you anything. Y-you're not that scary."

For a very brief moment, Helsknight was so angry he actually did see red. He pulled his gauntleted fist back, fully intent on putting a dent between the thugs eyes -- when Tango leaped up and grabbed his forearm in both hands, dragging it down again.

"Hey! Hermitcraft to Punchy McMurderface!" Tango shouted frantically, clinging to Helsknight's arm for dear life. "Don't do that!"

"Why shouldn't I?" Helsknight snarled, grinding his teeth.

"Because if he's concussed unconscious he can't answer your questions, skippy!" Tango snapped fearfully, flinching back as though he expected Helsknight to punch him instead.

Helsknight, who had been expecting a much more stupid excuse [Something like, "Oh no Helsknight, don't punch the bandit that's mean and icky!" maybe] was momentarily caught off guard by the logical answer. He stood there, glaring down at Tango, panting as the red tinge the world had taken on faded back a bit.

"I'm st-still not answering your stupid questions," the thug sputtered bravely. "If you th-think I'm going to betray my guild--"

Helsknight hissed a breath out through his teeth. He reached for his dagger at his hip-- and remembered he'd already thrown it.

"Besides!" The thug gasped fearfully, realizing, probably, what Helsknight was looking for. "Y-you're a knight right? You've gotta be! No run-of-the-mill gladiator swings a sword like that! Knights don't torture people! It's against your religion or some shit."

Helsknight, whose anger was boiling up his throat again, considered the implications of renouncing his knighthood for one afternoon. Less than an afternoon. Surely it wouldn't take more than an hour to break a few bones. His Saint could only damn him to a lesser ring of hell. Maybe if he explained it was for something very important when he went to confession--

Tango spoke first. "Yeah but, knights are the law, too, aren't they?"

The thug briefly stopped breathing.

"I mean, they're deputized, technically." Tango continued, shoving his hands in his pockets. Helsknight suspected it was so no one could see them shaking. "At least, that's how knights in my world work. And I haven't seen any cops around. So. He's the law right now. And I don't know a lot about hels law, but I know you cut people's hands off around here for stealing things."

Tango looked up at Helsknight. "What do you think, Killer? I mean, technically they stole a person, right?"

Helsknight, despite his current fury and desperation, and despite his fearsome reputation, and despite, even, his ugly thoughts of a few moments ago, was not a torturer. He had inflicted some terrible wounds on people before, some to the point of what he would call cruelty, but never had he drawn a weapon with the explicit aim of causing pain and suffering. It was a line he had never really dared to cross, barring a few very harrowing fights with Wels, when he had flirted with the idea of that danger and eventually stayed his hand. There were some things a man could not do without carving out pieces of his soul in the process, where the gap between thought and action was a chasm, and to cross it was to never return to safety again.

Helsknight searched the darkest parts of himself for the will to remove someone's hand to get information. He searched the darkest parts of himself for the will to torture someone to find out where Tanguish was. A very sick, cold, empty feeling opened up in the pit of Helsknight's stomach. When he looked to the thug again, he had scrubbed himself of anger, and adrenaline, and, he hoped, fear. His expression must have been truly grim, because he watched the thug's face pale fearfully, his pupils pinpricks in too-wide eyes.

Helsknight threw the thug to the ground, forcing Tango to stumble back a few steps to get out of the way. His boot came down on the thug's shoulder, pinning him against the cobblestones. Panicked hands scrabbled at his ankle, nails sliding off the metal of his grieve. Helsknight was reminded of a rat trying desperately to climb out of a well, drowning.

"Hold your arm out, and hold it still," Helsknight said, his voice deathly calm. He leaned more weight into his heel, eliciting a long whine of pain from his captive. "I would hate to miss your wrist, and take your arm off at the elbow instead."

The thug was clearly panicked. Helsknight honestly couldn't blame him. He was very close to panicking himself. He kept shoving his feelings down into that cold empty place in his stomach, and replacing them with the mask he wore when he played the villain in the Colosseum. He quietly, forcefully, informed himself that this was a role he was playing, and like every role, he would play it very well. And then the performance would be over, and he could feel feelings about it then. After the screaming had stopped, and the blood had dried.

Tango had turned his back to him, his hands clasped over his ears. He did not run away. He did not leave. It was a show of solidarity Helsknight neither wanted nor expected, but found himself grateful for anyway.

"Last chance," Helsknight said. He lifted his sword, ready to plunge it down into the outstretched arm. He thought, in the detached way of the horrified, that if he could catch the tip of his sword between the bones of the wrist, that might be the fastest way to... To...

The thug closed his eyes and turned his face away.

Helsknight let out a long, slow breath. He drove the sword down. The thug screamed. The blade cracked against the cobblestones.

There was no blood. There was no dismemberment. The thug had pulled his arm away at the last moment, and clung to Helsknight's boot with both hands, shrieking. Helsknight's ears were buzzing. He couldn't hear what the thug was saying. His heart was racing, and his mind was so terribly, terribly empty. He felt... Numb. It was very hard to keep his sword in his hands.

A hand tapped gently on his arm. Helsknight blinked down at Tango, feeling vaguely like someone was waking him from a nightmare.

"Let me go!" The thug was yelling, scrabbling with renewed vigor against Helsknight's boot. "I told you what you wanted! Let me go!"

"Did you... Catch all that?" Helsknight asked, trying desperately to pluck coherent thoughts from the droning emptiness in his head.

"Sure thing."

[Ah... Good.]

Tango kicked his boot against the thug's side, more a nudge than anything. "Alright. We're going to let you go. Tell your guild boss or whatever that we'll be outside his place tomorrow at noon. Be ready to negotiate or -- uh -- be ready to get dead, I guess."

It was not a threat that would go down in the annuls of history as a great villain monologue, but the thug, shaking and terrified and in pain, took it deadly serious. Helsknight released him, and he hobbled away down the road as fast as he could on a bad leg. They watched him in silence until he disappeared down a side alley, leaving them in an empty street scattered in left over items from the other fallen thugs.

"Tomorrow?" Helsknight asked, his voice sounding very far away in his own ears.

"Today," Tango answered. "Telling them tomorrow makes them think they have time to prepare, and if they're preparing, they're not, you know, hurting Tanguish."

"Ah."

"You alright?" Tango squinted up at him. "You look like you're in shock."

"Mh." Helsknight dropped his gaze to the ground. His dagger had been left behind. He took a step forward... and sank to the ground.

"Woah! Hey, hey! Easy big guy--"

Helsknight found himself on his hands and knees, shaking, smothering under the weight of guilt and his own potential for horror. His head was buzzing again, a nauseating sound like the static of the void. His eyes found his dagger again, and he lunged for it. Moving on something between impulse and habit, driven by guilt and self-disgust, he ripped the blade across his wrist, spilling blood across the ground. With shaking hands he grabbed up his sword and set the tip against the cobblestones, his forehead pressed against the hilt, eyes screwed shut.

"Saint of Blood and Steel," Helsknight breathed, with all the desperation of a sinner crawling to an altar, "forgive me for what I would have done." He pressed his forehead so hard against the cold netherite of the hilt, it hurt. "Please, please, forgive me for what I would have done."

His nose stung with the smell of blood and metal and salt and sealing wax. His mouth tasted like bile, and he could feel every fluttering heartbeat in the cut on his wrist. The buzzing in his head, slowly, slowly, alongside the speed of his racing heart, ebbed. The animal panic curled up in his chest and grumbled as it started to ease itself to sleep. He realized someone was rubbing circles into his back, and whispering at him, and tugging at his hands.

Tango was not trying to be reassuring. At least, he wasn't trying to be reassuring so that Helsknight would be calm. He muttered things under his breath like, "Okay, easy now, no big deal, it's fine," and "Let it go. Nice and easy. Good knight. Scary knight..." The circles he rubbed into Helsknight's back were shaky and awkward, and very clearly a distraction for his other hand, which worked on uncurling Helsknight's fingers from the knife. Helsknight, his exhausted wits finally returning, had mercy on him and released it. Tango snatched up the knife like it were a snake he feared would bite someone. He grimaced at the blood on the blade, and, not knowing what else to do, wiped it off on Helsknight's cloak, before shoving the knife beside Tanguish's in his belt.

"So, just for establishing the rest of this afternoon," Tango said, when he realized Helsknight had come crawling out of his stupor. "Should I be worried about you hurting yourself randomly? Like, does this happen on a regular basis? Do you have triggers I should be making safe words for or--?"

"No." Helsknight said, trying not to feel ridiculous.

"Right. So that was just a one time thing? Because if it's not a one time thing, I'm not judging or anything. But, like, I might recommend seeing a hels therapist or something."

"No I--" Helsknight had no desire to explain that he had a Saint, and that Saint had tenets he'd sworn to, and he had been preparing to go smashing through them like a sledgehammer, mostly because she didn't want to admit it to himself either. He didn't want to admit that he had been on the verge of turning his back on everything that made him himself, because he was desperate and scared, and he didn't want to admit that if he wasn't a knight, he had no idea what he even was at all. Instead he fell back on what the thug had said, because it wasn't wholly true, but it also wasn't a lie. "Knight. Torture. Against my religion. Or. Whatever."

Helsknight leaned on his sword like it was his last hope of salvation.

"Very, very against my religion."

"R-right." Tango put on a complicated expression. The kind of expression one gives when they're realize they're walking on a minefield. "But. You know. You didn't actually torture anyone. Right? So. God can't be mad. So you don't have to slash your wrists for god, right?"

"I would have." Helsknight's eyes found a chipped cobblestone. "If he hadn't moved... I... Would have."

That feeling of frigid dread spidered it's way down his ribs again to pool in his stomach.

"Well. But. But. You didn't." Tango swallowed audibly. "You didn't. And that's what god cares about, right? And, even if god does care, you were following the letter of the law. And if god cares about that too. Uh. God. God can. Take it up? With me."

Helsknight barked a half-hearted laugh. "You going to defend my honor from god, Hermit?"

"Yes," Tango said uncomfortably. "Because I was the one who told you to do it. So. Double damn both of us, right?"

They looked at each other. They looked away from each other.

"Tanguish is going to kill us when he finds out what we did to find him," Helsknight said.

"I won't tell if you don't."

They looked at each other. Tango offered a hand to help Helsknight stand. When Helsknight took it, they grabbed each other's forearms, and it felt uncannily like a pact, or a promise.

"I won't tell if you don't," Helsknight murmured.

Helsknight sheathed his sword, and ran a hand through his hair, trying, with some success, to pull himself back together.

"We should... Get moving." Tango observed, looking up the street.

"I didn't hear a word he said."

"I've got it all up here buddy," Tango said, tapping the side of his head and offering a half-smile that didn't quite make it to his eyes. "So uh... You know anything about a Thief Guild?"

[sugawarassoulmate]

More of shitty boyfriend daishou?????

tbh i didn't think anyone cared about him!! i never get requests for daishou 😅

words: 725

cw: fem!reader, cheating, unprotected sex, minors dni

he's still around, being the world's worst boyfriend. and honestly, reader's probably getting fed up of it at this point. he's never breaking up with mika, no matter what he whispers in your ear when the two of you are together.

you start to pull away a bit. you brush off his advances, laughing them off a simple joke, and you're making sure you're never alone with him for too long. he tries to put the moves on you but you're out the door before he can fully sink his teeth in. he tries to walk you to your dorm one night but you tell him you're meeting a friend instead.

after a while, daishou stops trying and you think he's gotten the hint. you wondered if the two of you could ever become friends once the awkwardness died down but the guilt of seeing mika's sweet face whenever she kissed her boyfriend killed that thought for you.

everything seemed fine. no more late night phone calls or sending nudes through snapchat. you and daishou could stand to be in the same room without palpable tension. his words to you were brief and while it hurt at first, you figured it was best than to continue the mess you were in before.

so when daishou approached you at a party — a get together between some of his teammates and other friends from campus, really — you didn’t think he had ulterior motives. his girlfriend was here and gave you a big hug. "it's been so long! we should hang out," she said, giving your hands a firm, loving squeeze.

you accept when daishou asks to talk somewhere quieter, thinking that he deserves some closure too.

"fuck, i need you to be quiet," he breathes, clamping his free hand over your mouth while the other keeps you pinned to the wall of the upstairs bathroom. you hadn't slept with anyone since giving daishou some distance all those months ago. the feeling of his long cock bruising your cunt had you shaking with pleasure.

you wanted to shout, to cry about how good he was fucking you but it all came out as a babble under his palm. it's probably for the best, you can only hope mika isn't getting suspicious downstairs wondering where her boyfriend ran off to.

"you can't deny of me of this like that again," a cocky grin slithers across daishou's face as he latches as the skin of your neck. "went fucking crazy not being in this pussy."

it's hard to ignore the tight feeling in your stomach when you hear those words, trying not to put so much weight into them but you've missed him too.

you didn't give much thought to date someone else — not like you and daishou were dating anyways — but you had given him so much of your attention, you didn't even know if you could flirt with another person.

there was no one else that caught your interest, just him. and it felt pathetic to admit it, having feelings for some guy that would rather juggle between two people than commit. but you can enjoy being a selfish person at least for now if it meant getting to enjoy the feeling on him.

knowing that time isn't on either of your sides, daishou fucks you harder. his hand drops from your mouth to lightly squeeze your neck, the dizziness only adding to your euphoria.

with your fingers in daishou's dark hair, you cum around his cock. any feelings of guilt you had wash away as you're overcome with the thought of "just daishou" over and over again.

"that's my girl, you're gonna take my cum, yeah?" he coos. "don't let a single drop go to waste."

even after he cums, daishou doesn't stop his pace, fucking his seed deep inside you. "ahh sugu, it's so much," you whine, feeling his cum running down your thigh when he finally pulls out.

daishou does his best to clean you up with toilet paper, flushing away the evidence.

when the two of you finally make it back downstairs, mika seems blissfully unaware that daishou had been gone for so long. she pulls you into a conversation about her classes and you try to follow along, ignoring the feeling of her boyfriend's cum pooling in your underwear.

©sugawarassoulmate 2024 all rights reserved - please do not repost/translate my work on other platforms!