#he is trying to say something important i guess but i see him and i just want to kiss him all over his face and tell him he's so cute

[sunvylovebug]

A bath together

↬Warnings: There are mentions of nudity but this is NOT NSFW, Y/N is a killer, mentions of murdering …⁠ᘛ⁠⁐̤⁠ᕐ⁠ᐷ

↬ Gender Neutral!Reader, they/them pronouns and third person narration (⁠*⁠˘⁠︶⁠˘⁠*⁠)⁠.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡

↬Author Note: He's such a green flag, such a sweet boy, I want to give Me. Crawling a big hug. Btw finally posting something that has warnings lmao.

↬Summary: Y/N teaching Mr. Crawling about something basic in the daily routine; a warm bath.

↬ Word Count: 1,435 Words

Masterlist

"Mr. Crawling please. I promise you it'll be fun! Fun? You like fun?"

Y/N's question was answered with a vigorous shake of the head. "No... Me no like. No like there. Not going."

"Please? Would you do it for me?" Of course they were gonna try to convince him that way, Mr. Crawling couldn't say no to that look after all.

It's been some days since they left that mysterious world. She went back to her usual activities like going to school and killing people, just the usual stuff for a human their age, right? They have been teaching Mr. Crawling about the human world and the routines that generally develop over time, a very important part of the daily routine is cleaning the body but Mr. Crawling was so hesitant to enter the tub, it was filled with warm water and soap, of course it looked comfy but then why was he acting that way?

Mr. Crawling stood firm in his decision. "Not going."

They sighed. "Would you enter if we did it together? Would you agree that way? You, me, together?"

He smiled and nodded, so he was throwing that whole tantrum so he could be with them. They weren't surprised really, he was a clingy being.

They took off their clothes with some hesitation, how would Mr. Crawling react? Would it be a good reaction? Now they were the one hesitating. And he noticed. "You okay?"

"I'm okay, it's just..." They shook their head. "Nothing."

Once the two were without clothes they shivered a little. "I already took a shower today, taking a bath is not necessary for me..." Y/N said to themselves as they stepped into the tub. "Your turn. Come here"

This time Mr. Crawling stepped into the tub without protest, a happy smile on his face. After feeling the temperature, he giggled, he looked happy. "Fun fun." He said, splashing a little of water.

"See? Told you it was fun... But you usually take a shower first, then get in the tub to relax, you know? The problem is that my shower is too small for someone so tall like you... I mean, this tub is also pretty small but I guess it works, not that bad hopefully. I hope you'll enjoy it." Indeed, it wasn't that big of a bathtub so they were pretty close, his cold back pressing against their chest.

He was happily listening to their yapping, not understanding a lot of course, but Mr. Crawling just liked the way they voice sounds when they're speaking to him, it was a sound that made him feel nice and warm inside.

"I'm gonna wash your hair, okay?" Y/N grabbed the bottle of shampoo, Mr. Crawling didn't understand what they meant with that but he was happy to let them take care of him. It made him feel special.

They started to gently massage his scalp, Mr. Crawling tried to eat the foam and bubbles that the shampoo produced but after they told him it wasn't food he felt somewhat disappointed, it smelled so good, how is it not something he cannot eat? "No food?"

"No, it's not food. It doesn't taste as good as it smells."

Mr. Crawling didn't get what Y/N said but he understood that he can't eat that and he was a well behaved boy so he didn't try to eat it again.

They spent a lot of time just washing his hair, making sure the tips and roots were clean, his hair got dirty when he crawled around and they wanted to take care of it for him. "Your hair is so pretty." They whisper softly.

He giggles. "Me pretty?"

"Your hair. Your hair pretty. But you're right Mr. Crawling, you pretty too."

He smiled and giggled, wanting to hug and headpat them but not being able cause of their position, Instead, he just rubbed his head happily against her neck. They took care of cleaning his body as much as possible while teaching him the basics of how to do it himself as well. He was very cheerful, as usual, always giggling and smiling, enjoying the experience, the attention he received and the gentle touches, the nice words and all the spoiling and pampering they gave him. They made him happy.

They started talking after starting to scrub his legs. "Next time I'll try to kill someone with money... Maybe we could put soft carpet on the floors or something... Your knees get bruised cause of your crawling and... I'm sure you don't feel it that much and you heal pretty fast... but I don't like seeing you like that." They gently kisses his temple, Mr. Crawling smiled and giggled happily.

Mr. Crawling He was having the best day of his life, the warmth of the water, Y/N's body heat, the pleasant aromas of the soaps and shampoo, listening to them humming while they took care of him... It was perfect.

But eventually the water turned cold and soon they got out of the tub, they wrapped a towel around their body to help Mr. Crawling dry himself with another towel. He liked that, it was soft and it smelled good. Everything in that room smelled good, it was different from what he was used to in his world.

"So? Did you liked it?" Y/N asked.

"Yes. Me like this." He nodded his head, smiled happily. "Me like you."

"Thank you. I like you too"

It was time for a new lesson; getting dressed. Mr. Crawling wasn't used to clothes and how humans dress, so they got him a new robe and some underwear. He protested a little at first, something so restrictive felt weird at first but once he got used to it he even liked it. His new robe looked a lot like the old one he had, that made him happy cause he really liked that robe.

"Me pretty, me pretty." He repeated over and over again when he saw himself in the mirror.

"Yes, you're pretty. Very very pretty."

He loved their praises, now that they were dressed and out of the tub he could hug them and give them the headpats he wanted. That made them happy too. He was so clingy. It was new to have someone so in awe of even the smallest detail about them, Mr. Crawling was a faithful devotee and Y/N a deity that he would worship for life.

"Let's dry your hair okay? We're done here."

They went back to the room, having Mr. Crawling sitting down on the edge of the bed, they were behind him, dryer in hand ready to take care of that beautiful and silky hair that Mr. Crawling had.

"This is a little loud but it's okay. It won't hurt." They wanted to make sure Mr. Crawling wouldn't freak out cause of the noise the air dryer made. He nodded and Y/N started doing their thing. The hot air felt nice, it took a good amount of time to dry all of his hair but they did it happily, Mr. Crawling felt excited and that was enough of a reason to do it.

"I'm done, what do you think?"

Mr. Crawling grabbed the air dryer and held it in front of his face, the air was moving his hair back, making him giggle. "Fun fun! Me like fun!"

"I know you like fun." They looked at him tenderly, Mr. Crawling was easy to impress, even the smallest detail could make him very excited, it was refreshing to have him by their side. "You know, I wanna braid your hair... Want me to show you something? You'll look pretty, I promise."

He tilted his head to the side but nodded gently, giving them the hair dryer back. They braided his hair gently, once it was done they made him look at the mirror.

They smiled, he was so excited. "You look pretty."

"Me pretty!" He looks at them with a big smile. "Me pretty... Thank you..."

They looked at the clock, it was almost midnight. "I should sleep now, it's getting late."

Mr. Crawling nodded, understanding their need of rest. They lay down together in bed after turning off the lights. He was hugging Y/N as if they were a delicate piece of art made of glass, something he had to protect. "You pretty... Thank you." He said against their neck.

"This could be a part of our routine... I like it, I wanna do it again."

"Again?" He asks happily.

"Yes. Not now! But tomorrow... Again"

He giggles. "Again! Again! Tomorrow again!"

They kiss his forehead. "It's time to sleep for now, okay? Goodnight Mr. Crawling."

"Night night... Pretty."

[arsenicflame]

It's a time-honoured tradition- every time Sam comes across Izzy (and Ed) in their travels, he asks Izzy to marry him. And every time, Izzy turns him down.

At this point, Sam is asking more for the sake of it than any belief Izzy will ever say yes, a remnant of childhood dedication touched with 30 years of heartbreak and regret- though even now, a small part of him still holds out hope. Sam's promises have only got more extravagant over the years, from a job as his first mate, to a captaincy, a fleet at his command, a whole fucking island if that's what Izzy wants- but he knows it isn't though, not really. If Izzy was ever going to agree to marry him, to leave his life and go with Sam, it wouldn't be for anything Sam could offer him. Izzy never did care for flashy shows of wealth, for a ship or to be captain. The only thing that ever mattered to him was loyalty given, and loyalty shown in return. 

It all comes to a head after Stede left and came back, after Izzy lost a toe, lost his leg. Sam hasn't seen him since before things with Ed started to really slide off the rails, before stress permanently set into the lines of Izzy’s face. So, when he sees a dishevelled man with a hoof for a leg in a no-name port, he doesn't even consider the idea that he might know him. It's only when he turns towards him, and Sam catches a glance at those oh too familiar tattoos, he realises this is Izzy, his Izzy, that stands before him.

Knowing Izzy's discomfort with pity, he doesn't treat him any differently than he would in years gone by, positioning himself in Izzy's line of sight before approaching and sweeping him up into a bone crushing hug. 

“Israel-goddamn-Hands!” he exclaims, as Izzy grumbles back a begrudging “Samuel-fucking-Bellamy”, a tradition almost as old as their friendship itself. Izzy might not hug him back, but he can’t keep the corner of his mouth from twitching, just for a second.

(If Sam holds Izzy a little tighter and a little longer than usual, well. That's his business)

By the time Sam lets go, most of the crew has appeared in the town square, drawn in by the commotion. They may have given Izzy his leg and welcomed him as one of them, but still there’s an underlying tension, with nobody quite ready to set aside everything that happened before the Kraken. Seeing him cosying up to an unknown man sets everyone on edge, unsure whether to come to their first mate’s aid, or to assume that they've been betrayed once again.

When Ed sees that the yelling was Sam, his hand goes tense where it's held in Stede's. He knows the routine, has seen it more times than he can count, but as he watches them part he realises that this is the first time in a long time he's unsure of what Izzy's response will be.

Knowing that something’s different, knowing that Izzy's feeling vulnerable already, Sam doesn't go for the same flashy proposal he’s been giving for years. He doesn't promise Izzy the world, he doesn't cause a scene (or, any more of a scene than he already has, anyway). He looks at the fractured man in front of him, takes his face in his hands, and says the exact same thing to him he said when they were little more than boys. “Israel, I have to ask you. I know what you'll say, but I have to try. Come with me. Marry me and sail away with me. I'll keep you safe”

And Izzy… hesitates. He glances over at Ed, at Stede, and says to Sam “...We’re staying in port for a week. Ask me again then”

That's the moment Sam knows there is something deeply, horribly, wrong. He's not just looking at an Izzy who got seriously injured in a fight and is struggling to cope, this is something so much bigger than that- and that Ed has something to do with it. Izzy wouldn't even be considering leaving if he didn't. Whether it was negligence or something more sinister, Sam doesn't yet know, but he intends to find out.

[gothamite-rambler]

"Ma, I am in the middle of a job!"

Context: Stephanie you're mom is buying groceries for you with her money and you're in your 20s. Let this happen!

Spoiler and Red Robin interrogated a couple of goons who might have a lead on Killer Moth's hiding place. Just as the conversation was starting to yield some promising information, Spoiler’s phone rang. She frowned as she recognized the familiar ringtone she had assigned to her mother.

Red Robin sighed, exasperated at the interruption.

Red Robin: I told you to put the phone on airplane mode.

Spoiler (pulling her phone out of her pocket): I told you to pound sand for suggesting that. I have to take this. Keep talking to the lackeys.

Goon 1 (offended): Lackeys? Rude.

Red Robin (annoyed): Spoiler, just ignore the call.

Spoiler (ignoring him): I’ll be back in like a minute.

Red Robin shook his head, fully aware that these calls were never quick or quiet, but they were usually too entertaining to veto. So he decided to wait it out.

Goon 1: Um, should we wait?

Red Robin nodded.

Red Robin: You’ll want to hear this.

Spoiler swiped to answer the call, fully knowing her mother wouldn’t relent until they had a conversation. As soon as she picked up, she regretted it.

Crystal (Irish accent): Stephanie, darlin’, I’m so glad you could answer! I’m at Stop and Shop for a big shop, and since I’m staying with ya while my apartments' bein' fumigated, do you need me to pick up anythin'?

Spoiler groaned and clenched her fist, her anger boiling over. She remained silent for a few seconds, trying to keep her rage in check.

Crystal: I'm usin' my own money and ya don't got to pay me back. What you need? ... Hello? Are you too busy to talk?

Spoiler (with a hint of an Irish accent): Ma, yes! I am on a feckin’ mission! You knew this and you’re callin' me for feckin' snacks?!

Crystal (slightly shocked): Who do ya think yer talkin’ to? I knew bein’ around that rat bastard would influence ya the wrong way. I’m tryin’ to do the motherly thing and buy ya groceries, and this is how ya react?

Spoiler stared at the wall, debating whether to end the call. After a sigh of regret, she pressed on.

Spoiler: My boss isn’t why I’m responding this way. Ma, you rarely did this when I was a kid! So excuse me if I'm a little miffed that you’re calling me during a mission to ask what I want from your big shop!

Crystal: Aye, I’m well aware of my failings as a mum when ya were a wee child. But to correct my sins, I’m doin’ what mothers would do. I’m workin’ on betterin’ myself since findin’ the Lord, and that means buyin’ ya food. Guess that’s not good enough for ya.

Spoiler: Oh jeez, do not guilt trip me!

She turned around to see Red Robin and the goons looking over at her curiously.

Spoiler: I'll be back in a minute.

Red Robin (arms crossed): No problem. This is clearly an important phone call.

Spoiler (turning away from the group): Oh, shut up!

Crystal: Baby girl, don’t yell at ya friend.

Spoiler: This is worse than the times I dealt with Kite-Man! Ma, it’s grand that you found the Lord and all, but could you maybe send a text or something?

Crystal (indifferent): I walked in on ya with your first boyfriend. Callin’ ya at work ain’t an oddity. Now, back to the list—

Spoiler audibly groaned while pinching the bridge of her nose. The goon leader leaned towards Red Robin.

Goon leader: Is her mom not from America?

Red Robin: I will say yes to that, but not going to detail anything else.

Goon leader: Mm-hm, just wondering because my parents aren't from America and acted like that.

Spoiler (slight hiss in her raised voice): I heard that!

Crystal (overly focused on shopping): Darlin' do ya need eggs or any meats, or are ya vegan like that wee son of that rat bastard?

Spoiler (knocking her fist against her forehead, frustrated): Get the eggs, almond milk, bacon, and all the Shin Ramen they’ve got! Can I go now?

Crystal (focused on shopping): Ramen? Not while I'm stayin’ with ya. I’ll get the other items though. Oh, and some tampons, right?

Spoiler felt the eyes of Red Robin and the goons on her, refusing to look over at them, which only added to her stress.

Spoiler (rubbing her forehead): Aye. Aye. Aye! Can I hang up your priestess?!

Crystal: You may, but remember, ma loves ya. Say it before you hang up, or I will call ya back.

Spoiler (seething): Yeah, loves ya bunch, Ma!

Spoiler ended the call, hearing Oracle laugh in her earpiece. She spun around to face the group, all pretending they hadn’t been eavesdropping.

Spoiler (embarrassed and trying to sound threatening): Any of you say a single mocking word, and you'll feel me steel toed shoes in your groin!

[velvet-vox]

Why King Candy has been so underrated and misunderstood for a long time (Still is, but to a lesser extent)

(All the images in this post come from the video linked below)

Hi everyone; so, usually, I'm not a trend chaser, in fact, I completely missed out on the hype of the Murder Drones finale by not releasing something for the occasion, as I have been very busy this past couple of months, and still am, but I've decided to make a special, out of program post just for my new current hyper fixation, that being King Candy from Wreck-It Ralph, who, for the past couple of weeks, has slowly risen up to become my third favourite Disney movie villain of all time.

And all of that, as some of you might have guessed, happened because I watched @king-crawler 's two hour long video essay on the character and the movie that he comes from.

Needless to say, just like many others before, it inspired me to add my own two cents to the conversation, and talk about some points that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere else.

This is probably the only Wreck-It Ralph related analysis that I'm ever going to make.

I even thought about scrapping this whole analysis, because midway through development I thought that I was just spewing out nonsense, but I kept going because some of my points may give food for thought to someone who understood this character way better than me.

I may reblog some analysis/art posts of this character, but I'm not going to turn WIR into a staple of my blog; however, if I see a lot of people in the comments or the reblogs adding stuff or points to my arguments, I could always make a sequel post to this one.

But first, I need to get something out of the way immediately.

Spoilers below the cut if you never saw this movie, kind of important, as it is the movie's major plot twist:

King Candy is Turbo.

Who's Turbo? Watch the movie.

With all that said, enjoy the read, I'll now elaborate on the meaning of my title, also, here's the video in question; I highly encourage everyone to check it out, as it is a way better sequel to Wreck-It Ralph than the one who was lost in the depths of Lake Laogai:

Clarifications:

Wreck-It Ralph is an amazing movie, but one for which I've never had much to think about.

Don't get me wrong, I always considered it to be the smartest Disney movie ever made since my first watch, but I saw it for the first time relatively late, after I had consumed other Disney movies as childhood classics and other crossover movies featuring video game characters, so it never had neither a nostalgia nor hyper fixation factor as reasons as to why I should have put the story under a microscope after that.

Also, as Rando says at the beginning of their video, it is not a movie that blew me away after my first watch. Or the second. Or the third.

Why is this section important? It is important because these are my subjective opinions of the movie, which are unfortunately going to subtly influence what I'm about to say in one way or another, regardless of me trying to speak from a place of supposed "objectivity".

I'm really passionate about this world now thanks to Randomalistic, but you won't get the same vibe from this post as you would get from one made by long time fans of this movie.

Ok?

Good.

Next:

King Candy/Turbo has always been... in a weird spot for me.

Just like the movie where he comes from, I never really cared about Turbo until a month ago, despite always feeling like I should have loved him a lot more, especially since Deltarune chapter 2 released a while ago, and the character of Spamton G Spamton is someone for whom I have very strong feelings about; and Turbo, in a technical sense, is literally the spiritual predecessor of that guy (actually, Turbo is the spiritual predecessor of a lot of similar characters, he kinda was ahead of his time).

If I had made a Disney tier list for their movie villains, a completely subjective one for that matter, I would have put him in A tier, but thinking that he should have gone in B tier... while also feeling like neither were appropriate placements for him.

Randomalistic's video finally helped me fall in love with the character; so much in fact, that it got me thinking:

"Damn, if Turbo is actually this amazing of a villain, why was(is) he so underrated and overlooked by general audiences, when he admittedly is, in my opinion, one of the best Disney villains of all time? Frollo is by and large considered the best villain out of any Disney movie, and the HOND was nowhere near as successful as Wreck-It Ralph when it first released, so it can't just be a matter of first impressions (?). Maybe there are other factors, that stop audiences from recognizing Turbo as the Magnum Opus of villainy that he truly is..."

... And that's exactly what I'm going to discuss!

Let's get right into it.

The minor stuff.

First things first:

He's ugly. I'm sorry to all of the people who ironically and unironically simp for him, but that's a design only a mother could love.

On a serious note, KC and Turbo's designs always felt... not very eye-catching to me? (The bug form is excluded from this conversation)

I'm not saying these are bad designs, far from it; but each form has on them a certain amount of design decisions that, by the authors own decisions, make them unappealing to a viewer like me (I'm using myself as reference point because the topic that I'm talking about is inherently subjective).

Starting off with King Candy, is design has to balance a lot of different aspects simultaneously: it has to be eyecatching, so that the viewer can pay attention to him as an antagonist, and believable enough so that the watchers buy the fact that he is the King of Sugar Rush and not someone else, but it also has to be generic and fake enough so that it can later on add up to the fact this is just a performance, a facade, a ruse, a costume, and not the real character, it also needs to be friendly enough so that the audience can be manipulated together with Ralph into believing that he actually is a good guy;

I could go on and on listing off all the amazing things, that the King Candy facade pulls off simultaneously, but exactly because the design has to feel real and fake at the same time, it also, by proxy, ends up feeling weird, and that inexplicable sentiment can end up alienating the viewers who are watching the movie and the ones who have finished consuming it without thinking too deeply about what the meaning of the KC's facade actually was.

In the case of Turbo's design, all the people working behind the movie did such an amazing job making him look as scary, ugly, alien, and deranged as possible, all the while keeping him relatively PG friendly; the result clearly paid off, but Turbo's ugliness is not as slick as the likes of Ratigan's, nor is it as nightmarishly horrifying as the Other Mother's.

The most nightmare fuel qualities of Turbo's design are hidden out of plain sight, which is basically a recurring theme with his character.

To put it in a funny way, his looks neither end up in the conventionally attractive territory that most other Disney villains fall into, nor do they grab the attention of the Monster Fu###rs crowd.

I have zero things to say about the Cy-bug form, but I do have a section later on where I talk about that entire scene in and of itself.

All in all, it might just be me, but the first impressions of this character's design don't really do him any favours when it comes to his popularity.

I now love both designs, but before, they just didn't click with me, and I think some other people might understand what I'm talking about.

Admittedly, I could have explained this section better, but these were mostly my personal opinions and they are not really important in the grand scheme of things, unless somebody else agrees with me, in that case I'd have to take a closer look at the situation.

Second of all:

The marketing.

To be honest, I feel like what really elevated all of the most iconic Disney villains into pop culture status was a joint push from the company and the artists to include these characters into more stories and products.

Like, sorry to all of the Oogie Boogie fans, but that character is barely in his movie and doesn't do a lot, and he wouldn't be nearly as iconic as he is if Disney didn't use him again multiple times after his first debut.

And the same can honestly be said for all of Disney's most popular villains; they got used multiple times in multiple different projects, that either kept them mostly the same, changed them with some unique twists (that change in quality, but that's up to you), expanded on their preestablished characters, or put them into unique situations that showcased just how versatile they are.

Kingdom Hearts, The House Of Mouse and Descendants are very obvious examples of what I'm talking about, but even appearances in lesser known stories like Lady Tremaine in Cinderella 3, Captain Hook in Jake and the Neverland pirates, or the entirety of Disney Twisted Wonderland help solidify these characters as pop culture icons;

All except Frollo.

Frollo is the only one whose hype and cultural recognizability wasn't built up by the company or the media in which he was featured, but by the fans of the original movie.

And despite Disney almost never used that character ever again after his debut, he, his movie, and Hellfire still get a lot of prise and are talked about classics to this very day.

Because Frollo is just that freaking awesome.

Turbo, on the other hand... is barely in anything.

Let's get the most obvious stuff out of the way first: King Candy is a relatively new character, released in an era where Disney was slowly starting to integrate the new, corporate ideals that we see today.

All of the villains that I've mentioned previously already became tried and true successes by that point, so even if the company doesn't care about having good villains anymore they still use their likeability because it has already shown in the past to bring in audiences.

It's also the main reason as to why Mother Gothel is used so rarely: King Candy, as the last truly great Disney movie villain (excluding Tamatoa, who's barely used anyway, and movies not produced by their main animation studio), arrived at a point in time when the company wasn't pushing for their villains anymore, and instead actively sanitized some of them in their new stories (you know what I'm talking about); therefore, Turbo, being actually incredibly dark on second look, and with no actual intention of tuning him down like Jafar because he hadn't already reached the iconic status by that point, had no reason to make any big appearance ever again or be paraded around as much.

There are some more reasons as to why Turbo likely doesn't have more stuff dedicated to him, like the fact that he is technically 3 characters at the same time, but I don't want to prolong this section too much.

So instead, how about we take a look at some of his other appearances outside of Wreck-It Ralph?

Let's see...

He has various cards in Lorcana, which is his most recent appearance, mind you;

He became a playable character in the 7th season of Disney Speedstorm, a game where I was hoping he would be the main villain, due to a variety of reasons, but hey, that's perfectly fine;

And he was mentioned multiple times in Disney Heroes Battle Mode, a game where he hopefully is the secret main villain, as it would pay off a large amount of story and design decisions chosen for that game, but it's probably just wishful thinking and unless the game's plug is pulled, I doubt we'll see him anytime soon.

Ok, it's more than nothing, but it's also not that special if you ask me.

But hey! At least he got a boss fight in a Kingdom Hearts game! That's more than Randall can say! He was a major boss in Union Cross... the mobile game... that you can't play anymore... and since KH adheres strictly to its own canon most of the time, it also probably means that we'll never get to play through the storyline of the first WIR in any future mainline game, and we're more likely to see a world based around the second movie instead.......

Yeah.

That seems to be it, unless I'm missing something huge (feel free to let me know).

This section is important because Cruella De Vil became one of my favourite Disney villains of all time not after seeing her in the original movie, but after I saw her in 101 Dalmatian Street, a niche show that almost nobody knows; so other medium appearances are important to these characters popularity, especially when not all of these villains are Frollo.

ALSO, PLUS 1+, I was originally going to cut this point, but I decided to add it anyway: the Italian voice actor.

After recently rewatching this movie in English, (I'm Italian, we in Italy translate the movies to our language because it's easier than learning an entirely different language for them), I have to really admit that Alan Tudik's voice performance really does a lot of heavy lifting for the character's memorability.

This is not to say that the Italian voice dub sucks or that King Candy's Italian voice actor does a bad job, in fact, the voices are actually quite similar to each other, it's just that Alan's performance has that small edge of hidden bitterness that really brings the character together; though I do prefer Turbo's Italian voice for its twist reveal: the more raspy, heavy tone of the actor really highlights the vicious, alien nature of his character, as well as the sense of dread that Vanellope is feeling in this moment; I encourage you to give it a watch.

Again, this is extremely minor, and it really only affects me specifically, but don't worry, it's not going to have influence over the rest of this post.

These were just additional points and not the actual meat of my argument, so now I'll start discussing what I actually wanted to talk about from the very beginning:

Who is he?

I think that one of the main reasons as to why Turbo is so underrated is because we spend way less time than with most other Disney villains (before him) to know him as a person.

Think about it:

Most other Disney villains, or at least the most popular ones, all have moments where they are doing nothing to progress the plot, that are dedicated solely to get us to know them better.

Hades has several moments with his minions to show off his personality and anger, Jafar has silly little moments with Iago that show off his depravity, Maleficent has talks with her crow that make her more dynamic, Ursula has her introduction scene where she spies on Ariel and does nothing but talking, and Captain Hook... has 30% of his screen time dedicated to just that.

Heck, Hellfire, one of the most iconic sequences in all of Disney, is just a character set piece for Frollo, and it's arguably completely disposable, as it doesn't really do anything to progress the story, it just explores Frollo's character in deeper depth and that happens to make the big difference when it comes to him.

King Candy doesn't really have an obvious character centric moment, something easy for the audience to quickly latch onto: every time we see him, he is always doing something to push the plot forward.

Yeah, there's that small character interaction with the Donut cops when he gets glasses, and other small moments here and there, like the would you hit a guy with glasses joke, but nothing truly character-defying.

I also don't count King Candy's first scene as a character centric moment, as that's more of an introduction rather than an elaboration, but it is technically valid, even if it ultimately is just a facade that he puts up to serve his needs.

Speaking of which: the fact that most of what we see of Turbo throughout the story could be entirely fake is definitely something that I could use to make the argument in this section stronger, but I'd rather save it up for later.

Also, side note:

I think that the moment most dedicated to him only, to show off a different, "true" aspect of his personality, is when he is walking back and forth in the castle waiting for his cops to show up again.

This moment is so interesting on rewatch, as it is one of the few moments in the entire movie where I can safely say that Turbo is being 100% genuine and isn't putting up any facade whatsoever, as there really is no benefit to him appearing distressed in this situation.

In general, it's funny to think that Turbo's most genuine reactions are of fear.

Back to point one, do you wanna know why Maleficent was given a crow in Sleeping Beauty? The reason as to why was for her to have someone to bounce off, a way for the writers to showcase more facets of her character, and while Candy has Sour Bill, the movie never uses the relationship between the two to show off a different aspect of his character.

To be clear, I'm not saying that Turbo is a worse character than these other Disney villains, or that without these moments of calmness he doesn't work, one great example

Do you know that Calhoun in early development had a camouflage ability, meant to highlight how she hides her feelings but was scrapped because it made her harder to relate to? Well, let's just say that Turbo's entire character is a What If scenario where that idea actually went through.

It's a double edged sword: King Candy is so interesting because he is so mysterious and surprising all throughout the movie, but exactly because he has to be so mysterious, he is not a character as easy to understand as some of the other villains from the company; it's incredibly easy to miss out on just how cruel he is and the full scale of all the damage that he has done.

I, AM, .......the twist villain.

There's also something to be said about how popular to the conversation the twist that King Candy is Turbo became.

Everyone loves this reveal, am I right?

It may not be the best moment in the movie, but my god if it isn't hype, all thanks to the music, the lighting, the setup, yada yada yada....

But the identity reveal scene is to Candy what the Genocide Boss Fight is to Sans: it's the most impactful moment about his character, to the point where it becomes the entire baseline where most discussions are built around, which, more often than not, lead a lot of people to overlook other things about Turbo.

Let me explain: how many analysis videos have you seen where the person making it talks more about the setup and subtle hints present in King Candy's earlier scenes that slowly build up to the twist and less about the events happening in it?

The reveal is amazing, don't get me wrong, but if Rando's video didn't come along to dive deep into King Candy's earlier scenes with the twist already in mind, the true impact of what Candy had been doing throughout the entire movie up to this point would have been lost on me, and I can imagine someone else feeling the same, as me, casual enjoyer of WIR, have been conditioned to think of Candy more for his well planned out surprise, rather than for how that surprise makes the character more engaging (I hope this makes sense).

I also want to mention this video ranking all the different twist villains from Disney and Pixar where CellSpex says that the Turbo twist is useless, since the movie doesn't do much with it afterwards.

Now, aside from the fact that CellSpex is clearly in the wrong and she's missing the point, I think this lack of reconsideration highlights that casual viewers care more about the Turbo plot twist than they care about Turbo himself.

But honestly, I don't believe people focusing too much on the twist is that big of a problem, more so, the problem stems when you want to use the twist... to discuss something else.

Now, I think it's perfectly fine if you want to use Turbo to explain why other Disney twist villains don't work, but when the villains that King Candy is compared to the most are Hans, Yokai, and Bellwether, you kind of start to think that he is only the best of the worst, and not an actual amazing antagonist in his own right.

It may not be a message that was intended to be sent, but it is something that may subconsciously cling to someone's brain, especially when you consider that there might be a huge audience of people who watch these videos because they saw Hans in the title (wishing for the video to bash him), and have seen Frozen, Zootopia and Big Hero 6, but have never seen Wreck-It Ralph in their lives, and they get all their knowledge of Turbo from them.

It's exasperating, especially when King Candy has way more in common with renaissance Disney villains than contemporary ones.

Yes, through technicality, he is a twist villain, but he's more so a hybrid antagonist to be honest.

And even worse than people just grouping up Candy with a bunch of morons, as I've just discovered by reading a comment from this Turbo Tribute, is that some people apparently despise him for starting the Disney Twist villain trend: even if he's leagues better than his competition, the simple fact that you can attribute some of the blame for the fall of villainy onto him, is enough for someone to despise him.

King of the Cy-bugs (feat Rockotar):

Very recently, I've rewatched Rockotar's video analysis of the first Wreck-It Ralph, and when he arrived at the "Welcome, to the Boss Level!" scene, I decided to analyse all the possible reasons as to why he (and possibly many others, such as, admittedly, myself) wasn't as entranced by it as basically any other scene from the movie, who he had been praising non-stop up until this point.

And I think I understood why: aside from the fact that this scene is only a setup for Ralph's sacrifice (and I wished the actual boss fight to be longer and more creative), the Boss Fight is less of a climax for Ralph's journey and more so a character study for who Turbo/King Candy is.

In my opinion, this is the closest we ever get to a "villain at rest" moment with Turbo because in every other scene of the movie, King Candy is always doing something, he's always active and we never see him doing anything that doesn't coincide with his role.

And, paradoxically to what I've just said about this being a "villain at rest" moment, in this scene, he is still doing something and being active in the plot, only that this time, instead of advancing the story, he's holding it back from its conclusion.

This scene simplifies Turbo's character to his most bare bone essentials: he's a short-tempered jerk, a power hungry murderer, a virus; it's all pretty interesting stuff once you take a sweet moment to break it down.

However, there's a point that I briefly mentioned before that I want to bring up; this creature that we are laying your eyes upon, is now three different people all at once, King Candy (anxious, quiet and manipulative), Turbo (short-tempered, competitive and spiteful), and now this Cy-bug hybrid.

To reiterate what I've said before, if you don't think about it for long enough, you aren't going to understand who either character is exactly.

Because that's the big thing: all of his facades, implied development off screen and reactions are so well constructed that at certain points, it feels like we're following two different characters simultaneously, which fits perfectly with the narrative that so called "real" Turbo died and now he's no longer himself, but...

I'm scratching the bottom of the barrel to bring up other possible points as to why this character is so underrated, and the lack of a clear identity seems like a pretty obvious thing to me.

But that's only two out of the three characters I mentioned; we need to take a second look at the Cy-bug form, who, in many ways, is simultaneously the thesis and antithesis of his character.

In particular, there's one thing I want to consider:

There's this theory made by somebody else that says Turbo, upon getting eaten by the Cy-bug, didn't take over the animal's conscience and control his body, instead, upon eating King Candy, the Cy-bug took upon himself his mannerisms, meaning that, according to this theory, neither King Candy nor Turbo technically survived the encounter.

If we accept this theory as true, then that means that even during what is supposed to be a character study, the character that the movie is highlighting may also be just as fake as the act that was put up until this point, meaning that, in a sense, we never saw the real Turbo in the movie.

He was three people at once.

(Yes, I've been spamming this image everywhere, and I'll keep doing so because I can)

In Conclusion:

Turbo is, ironically and unironically, an incredibly subtle character, and that makes it extremely easy for a lot of people to overlook and miss out on the most subtle details and characteristics that make him truly exceptional;

Him being so deceptive and mysterious helps and hinders his popularity, as some either love the mystery surrounding him, others fail to get a good grasp on who he truly is and become disinterested.

He is, by design, a building block, a puzzle to be solved, a character to piece together, that makes him so much fun!

But also, if you aren't interested in putting the pieces together, then he may not be up everyone's alley.

I definitely feel like the best thing that Randomalistic did in her/their video on Wreck-It Ralph was create an easy jumping point for new fans/casual watchers of the movie to get insanely invested over the story and characters;

I'm sure it was incredibly easy for many other people like me to focus only on the most talked about aspect of Turbo, aka the plot twist, and overlook all the other things that were not as much in your face as that; I was blinded by the spotlight, and it made it hard to see the genius that was put everything else;

Now, thanks to Random highlighting King Candy's cruelty and repulsive behaviour, my favourite thing about Turbo is how he weaponized the "disability" of a child to marginalise and persecute her, discriminating her for it all of her life WHEN HE'S THE ONE WHO MADE HER "DISABLED" IN THE FIRST PLACE.

This man, is so HORRIBLE, and he deserves to be publicly exposed for all the heinous s##t that he did, not just for being the best of a bunch of villains who frankly he shouldn't even be attempted to be compared to.

Anyway, I hope someone had fun reading this. I definitely felt like I started to write this with some really good ideas that I wanted to share, but in the end, I feel like they weren't all that interesting to begin with.

Feel free to share your own opinions, and have a great day!

[girljeremystrong]

big 6 feet tall hockey player trying to get a serious point across only manages to look so so cute

[longagoitwastuesday]

I actually like the last chapter. I think the ideas are very good. I have my qualms on how some things were managed, as I always do, but I think shonen authors get tangled in the expectations of a shonen to the point it jeopardises their writing, often even when they're not lacking in skills

[todayisafridaynight]

any hopes for kiwami 3? like things u wanna see added or changed stuff like that

if they dont keep kiryu's goofy walk stance and the hoof-like walk sounds i dont wanna play it

[lem-argentum]

i once saw someone contrast miko.fuu by claiming that f.uuta’s individualistic while mi.koto is not, but i would argue that miko is the one who puts himself first in his mind in most situations…….??? ?

[yourheartinyourmouth]

I keep dreaming about him. It hurts.

[poppyseed799]

My favorite pastime: roleplaying characters and just making them soso weird and then pulling up the DSM-5 to try to diagnose them

[mostly-imagines]

So This Is Love

jason todd x fem!reader

aka you show each other what love is supposed to be like

4 in 1 blurbs

warnings: section 1: close-call panic attack for j, mentions of ptsd for j // section 2: implied sexual activity // section 3: mild angst w comfort // section 4: implied ptsd for j

He feels like his heart might burst through his chest.

The nightmare wasn’t anything unusual for him, but it did feel particularly vivid tonight. It was more of a memory than anything, though. That same one that plays on a loop in his head throughout the night the more he tries to push it away during the day. It was the last thwack of the crowbar that had him jolt awake in bed.

You shift in your spot next to him, opening your eyes to see his rattled state. If he’d been in a clearer frame of mind he would’ve lied to you. He would’ve expertly leveled his breathing and told you everything was fine and to go back to sleep.

But instead, he looks over at you with wide eyes, chest heaving and shaking like he might start hyperventilating at any moment.

You shoot up from the bed, instantly on alert. This isn’t the first time he’s had one of these nightmares around you, so it’s not hard for you to guess where this is coming from.

“Jay? What’s—what do you need?” You know better than to try and touch him unprompted right now, you’ve panicked enough yourself to know that sudden contact only makes it worse.

“I—I can’t, I—” Now he really looks like he’s about to lose all control of his breathing.

You sit up further, moving onto your knees. “Here, let me—can I see your hand?” you ask gently, holding your own out.

He extends it to you without question, a tiny act of vulnerability that he couldn’t have dreamed of doing in this state before he met you.

You flip his hand over, palm-up and start tracing lines over it in the moonlight. You’re looking at his hand quite intently like there’s something very important on it. It’s enough to make him question what the hell you’re doing. 

“I can read palms.” You tell him, simply. 

“What?” His voice almost breaks, like he’s right at the edge of tears. 

“Yeah, my friend taught me. I can tell the future and everything.” You look up at him, fingers not stopping their trailing. “Do you wanna hear yours?”

All he can do is nod.

You smile and start to inspect his hand carefully, tracing over calluses and a few tiny scars. You draw your finger across the short, deep line parallel to his fingers.

“This one…see the way it curves upwards right there?” He nods. “That means you’re very resourceful and ambitious. Like a leader.” His breathing starts to slow as he watches you, trying to focus on what you’re showing him in the dim light from the window.

“And this one,” you trace the line that curves downwards in the middle, “This one says that you’re strong and stubborn, which I can confirm,” he huffs out a laugh. It’s little but it’s genuine. “But it also means that you’re resilient. You’re built to overcome things and bounce back even stronger because of them. Which I can also confirm.”

He leans forward, resting his forehead against yours. He takes in a deep breath, watching you draw patterns across the base of his palm.

The sensation soothes him in a way that he frankly didn’t know he could be soothed. He figures he usually can’t, except when it’s you. He tries to match your breathing, syncing up with you. If anyone else tried to get this close to him when he was on the verge of a panic attack they’d get punched, at best.

But you…you always know how to help him. He’s considered in the past that he did something really right somewhere down the line and you were sent to him as reward. He’d racked his mind for hours of every good thing he’d ever done, trying to find one that could explain your presence in his life. For anything that could explain why he deserved you. He poured and poured over every memory he could dig up but couldn’t find any good he’d ever done that surmounted to a single piece of the good in your heart.

There was a time when he would’ve thought—when he did think that you were only in his life to be taken away as soon as he felt safe. That would certainly be in line with previous experiences. But you showed him quickly that you have this way about you…it makes those loud thoughts in the back of his head shut up and just listen. Listen to your words, your breathing, your footsteps, your laugh…anything he could. Because it turns out, when he listens, he feels safe. 

He’s quiet for a long time, contentedly watching you work. He notices that at some point you’d stopped tracing the lines and began drawing designs instead. 

He breaks the silence after several minutes, softly commenting, “You don’t know how to read palms.”

“No, I do not.” 

But you continued to leave your invisible art on the palm of his hand just the same, both of you taking comfort in the sound of the other's breathing and the soothing feeling of each other’s skin.

The radio plays lightly in the background, surrounding your night with soft ambience. You’re working at the cutting board with tomatoes as Jason leans against the counter next to you, having just finished getting the pasta set up on the stove.

His hands find your hips, resting them there as he watches you work over your shoulder.

“Watch your thumb.” He comments when the knife gets a little too close for his liking.

You shrug him off, “I know how to do it.”

He eyes the way the knife stutters as you cut through the tomato, slicing through not very cleanly at all. “Doesn’t look like it.”

You ignore him, elbowing him gently in the abdomen. He’s joking, but he’s not. The skill level you’re displaying is only above Bruce and slightly below Tim, which is not great.

“Will you let me do it?” he asks you when he realizes there’s going to be no improvement. 

“Fine.” You relent with faux annoyance. 

You switch over to the stovetop, keeping a careful eye on the pasta as it cooks. It’s quiet for a moment as he works, chopping with much more efficiency than you had.  

“You didn’t have to stay here tonight, you know.” You say quietly, still intently watching the stove.

In spite of the music, your low volume does nothing to faze him as he continues his actions, “Why wouldn’t I?”

You stir the contents of the saucepan around. “Well, I know Roy wanted you to go out…”

“Not missing much.” He mumbles, opening up the above cabinet to get out plates.

You lull your head to the side, “Come on, he’s your best friend.”

Jason frowns. “He’s not my best friend.”

You turn your head towards him, “No?”

He meets your gaze, frown consistent. “No. You are.” He says it like he’s confused that you don’t know that. 

“Oh.” You smile, “You’re my best friend too.”

His eyes soften at that, a light smile gracing his lips. He knew that, and he knew you’d say it, but hearing it out loud just…does something to him.

You flick the stove top off, prompting him to on instinct reach for the Marinara jar and crack it open for you. He hands it to you and you accept with a smile, twisting it open the rest of the way as you turn back to the stove. The jar sputters as you open, spitting out sauce.    

“Oh, shit.” You hiss, when the splatter hits your shirt.

He takes one glance at the mess on your shirt and pulls his own shirt off his back. He’s tugging yours off just as fast, replacing it with his. You’ve barely processed what happened as he scans your body, eyes lingering on where his shirt stops at your thighs. “Can you wear this to bed tonight?” He asks, hands running over your waist.

You laugh, “Really?”

He meets your eyes, face serious. “Yes.” He squeezes your hip, “You look good.”

“In your shirt.” You say with a knowing smile.

“In my shirt.” He confirms.

You turn back to the stove to dish out the salsa, his hands skimming around your thighs as you do. He watches you as you work, though rather than watching your hands he’s fixated on the size of his shirt over you and how fucking good you look right now. 

“Or…” He sweeps his eyes over your legs before looking back up at you again. “Did’ya turn the stove off?”

You tilt your head at him, “I did…?”

He grins at you, lifting you up by your thighs til you’re a head above him. “Good.” He maneuvers you over to the counter, setting you on top. He brings your wrist up to his mouth to press a delicate kiss before dropping to his knees.

You’ve been laying in bed for at least three hours, bordering on sleep but never quite falling in. You and Jason had a little spat, though nothing insurmountable, it was still the biggest fight you’ve had to date. You’d tried going out (at night) to see your friend that was having a hard time, and yeah, you should’ve told Jason you were going. It was only five blocks, give or take, but in Gotham at eleven o’clock at night, it’s a risk to say the least.

You should’ve told Jason, you know. But he wouldn’t have let you go or would’ve insisted on putting hold on patrolling to accompany you. You always feel bad when he does that—people could be getting hurt somewhere because you needed your boyfriend to walk you down the street. Unfortunately, it didn’t matter in the end because he caught you red handed before you’d even made it a full block away. Of all the nights for him to come home early, it had to be this one.

He dropped down from the rooftop behind you and scared the absolute hell out of you, and you didn’t even have time to be relieved that it was just him because he was on you in a flash. 

“What the hell are you doing out here?” His voice was hard through the modulator, a rare tone for him to use with you.

“I just—my friend—” he sounded tired and angry, sure signs that he’d really not had a good night so far which was probably all the more reason that you shouldn’t have been out by yourself in the middle of the night.

“What are you—no! Go home. Now.” You would’ve, you really would’ve, but your friend called you crying about her boyfriend cheating on her again and she needed the in person support. 

“Ja—” You’d cut yourself off, “It’s down the street, it’s fine—” He dropped his shoulders in a huff and faced you dead-on. You didn’t need him to take his helmet off to know exactly how he was looking at you.

He dropped down and hooked his arm around the back of your legs, lifting you off the ground with no discernible effort. “Wha—”

He started walking before you were even fully planted on his shoulder, arm wrapping around your legs to hold you in place. 

“Hood! I am so fucking serious, put me down!” You swatted at his back and struggled in his grip, though in the back of your mind you knew it was a pointless effort. Even if you were a match in size, whatever mood he’d been pushed in was enough to guarantee that you had no chance. 

He ignored you, not even pretending that you were giving him any difficulty with your squirming. He marched you back down the block to your apartment, not stopping until you’re outside your door. He set you down in between him and the entrance, digging into his pocket for his key.

He kicked the door shut behind him, finally letting you go. He wordlessly grabbed one of his spare guns and two cartridges of ammo from inside the closet by the door and turned back to you with a firm stance. “Stay here.”

You immediately tried to push past him again, at that point more angry about him dragging you back here than about having to duck out on your friend. He stopped you, holding you by the arms, which led you to respond by raising your voice at him, “Jason!” 

But he didn’t waste any time letting you know how it is, “I will lock you in this fucking apartment. Stay. Here.” Him cursing at you like that was very rare and not a particularly good sign, so through your anger you’d made the decision that it was better to relent, for now. Your posture dropped and you frowned at him resentfully, a visible cue that you were giving in without you having to say it. 

He stayed true to his word and locked the door on his way out, though knowing you could easily unlock it from the inside. You’d trudged into your bedroom, slamming the door behind you.   

Now you lay on Jason’s usual side of the bed, partially because you do miss him, partially because the bed feels a little less empty when you can’t see all the empty space. You know he was just trying to keep you safe after what was probably a rough start to the night, so you feel less than great that you’d yelled at him.

Your dwelling over the memory is interrupted by a quiet creak of the bedroom door. You blink up at him blearily, “Jay?” You sit up, furrowing your brow. You didn’t even hear him come home. “What’s wrong?” You figure he must be hurt to come in here—it’s not unknown for him to sleep on the couch if he feels like he did something wrong or upset you.   

Your eyes attempt to adjust to the darkness, scanning over him for any injuries. He’s out of his armor and in his regular clothes which means he must have showered already. And you know from dozens of nights patching him up that he always tends to his injuries before showering.

This leaves you confused, as you look up at him, waiting for an answer. “I can’t…I don’t want to sleep without you.” He whispers, eyes on the floor. 

You shuffle back into your usual spot near the wall and hold your hand out to him expectantly. You’re still a bit cross with him, but you miss him too much to care right now.

It takes him a second to move, but he eventually lingers away from the door and makes his way to the bed. He takes your hand as he climbs onto the bed, letting go only when you lay down after him, staring up at the ceiling next to him. 

You weren’t entirely expecting him to wrap his arms around you and tug you into his chest. Somewhere in the back of your mind you’d assumed he would lay on his side and you on yours and that would be enough for him to fall asleep with. Instead, he tightens his arms and buries his face into the crook of your neck. You lay there in silence for a couple minutes, both thinking.

“You’re mad.” He mumbles into your shoulder after a while. You know he feels badly about the dispute, you knew it while it was still happening. As hard as he tries, he’s not very good at hiding his emotions. Not with you, anyways.

You shrug slightly. “Barely. I’ll get over it. This is more important.”

He picks his head up to look at you, “I love you. You know that?”

You wiggle out of his grip a bit, making him frown. You use the new space to flip over to face him, before placing his arm back around your waist. You peek up at him, looking him in the eyes, “I do. You know I love you. Even when we fight.”

He looks at you like he’s a bit thrown off by your words. “I’m sorry. It was just…it was a rough night…I—I’m sorry.” He tells you dolefully.  

You shake your head, frowning. “Don’t be. I should’ve texted you.”

“It—yeah. Please. I just worry about you.” He looks so sad and it makes you feel somehow worse.

“I know,” you whisper, “I’m sorry.”  

“Don’t be.” He kisses your forehead, not moving away after.

You feel like you can finally relax and your tense body doesn’t take long to slacken in his hold. Soon after, he does the same, both of you closing your eyes. You feel your heart slow and your mind starts to find a space of peace.    

Jason didn’t get it at first.

Honestly, he didn’t really realize that you noticed things about him that even he didn’t see.

Your neighbor was having their place remodeled and you knew there would be construction going on near your apartment all day.

Jason didn’t really care, planning to bury his head under the pillow and trying to sleep through it. You however, seemed very adamant about getting out of the apartment that day. You’d left hours before the construction crew had even gotten there, telling him it was a nice day out.

It was an alright day, but he let you have your way.

You held his hand as you walked down the street, looking into shop windows and commenting on things you think he’d like.

You led him into a book store excitedly, telling him about how the author he’d been binging had just published something new. He didn’t even know that.

You were browsing the sections, flipping through books as you went. You peered across the shop at a kid holding an absolutely massive pile of books, who was clearly struggling to keep them in his arms.

His mother tried to help him but he shook his head and strided away independently, albeit very slowly. The weight of the books though, did get the best of him, and you could tell by the quivering in his arms that he was going to drop them.

“Loud noise.” You said quickly, seemingly out of the blue. Jason turned to you, confused, before seeing the stack the books splat flat onto the ground. It was indeed a loud noise.

He tilts his head at you, though you’re still busy watching the little boy as he throws his head back in frustration.

“What was that?”

You look at him, “He dropped his books.”

“Yeah, I saw. But why—”

His question gets cut off by the kid bursting into tears, wailing. You turn back to look at him, your gaze getting caught by the new book you’d been telling him about. “Ooh!”

You grab his hand and pull him over with you, smiling widely when you have the book in your hands. The sight of you makes him feel so warm so fast that he forgets about the odd interaction all together.

A couple hours later, you sit outside a cafe and eat lunch together, his back to the road, you sitting diagnal to him.

He’s telling you about the shit Damian got in trouble for at school last week, holding your hand with his right hand and eating with his left.

“He thinks he’s not going to get expelled for pulling shit like that every other week, it’s ridiculous.” He says, tossing his napkin down on the table.

Your smile is wavers as your eyes move past his shoulder looking down the block before widening, “Car—”

The sudden noise startles him enough to make him visibly jump, hand flying to where his holster would be. He looks over at the fender bender, shoulders relaxing.

He turns back to you to find your eyes looking far more worried than they should. You seem to be scanning his face, looking for something and he’s about to ask you what’s wrong when it sinks in.

He does get scared by unexpected loud sounds, doesn’t he? He never really thinks of it until it happens, but his mind is trained to expect gunshots or crowbars making impact.

It doesn’t happen often, but it noticeably takes a little piece out of him when it does.

“You…” he tries, but falters. He’s not even sure he’s processing this right.

He’s never seriously tried to fathom that you love him half as much as he loves you, though love doesn’t feel like a strong enough word. He lives and breathes for you, you’ve become a lifeline he’d been stranded without for most of his life. But now you're here and you’re everything, you’re in his head all the time, in every emotion he feels.

He thinks he’s here for you, that he was brought back from the dead because of you. You can’t possibly understand how much his heart is full of you, he doesn’t understand it himself.

He knows you love him, he’s gotten that through his head. But he can’t get a grasp on the idea that he’s equally matched in the who loves who the most battle.

Do you really care that much about him to go out of your way to keep track of things that might startle him? He knows there’s a million things about you that are in the back of his mind at any given time, but surely you don’t operate that same way with him?

Do you?

There’s this burning in his heart that aches and it only gets stronger when he sees you looking at him like that. So genuine. With care, with love.

He squeezes your hand, “I love you. More than anything.”

The look on your face sinks back into that sweet, adorable look that he’s so used to and it makes him want to scream.

You smile that bright smile and it sends his heart rocketing into oblivion. “I love you.” You squeeze his hand back, “More than everything.”

He feels like his heart might burst through his chest.

[sugume]

LESSONS IN CORRUPTION w/Gojo Satoru

IN WHICH: Your teacher finally has his way with you at the end of senior year

( TW ): fem!Reader, dark & explicit content, mean and manipulative teacher!Gojo, Porn w/ no plot, corruption kink, power dynamics, virgin!reader, unprotected sex, cream pie, size difference, breeding kink, blood, fingering, age gap (reader is 19, Gojo late 20's), Gojo secretly records, half edited

Word count - › 1.6K

“You know I love you right?” Satoru asks, cupping your face. 

“I love you too.” You smile up at him as he fingers your pussy. 

“Loved you ever since I laid eyes on you—ever since you walked in my class with that short skirt and those white knee-high socks. My innocent schoolgirl.” He leans down to kiss you on the rose-covered hotel bed.  

It was your graduation party last week, but he said couldn’t make it to your party at your parent’s house, said he had an important meeting, and RSVP no to your parents’ invitation but when you asked them, they looked at you incredulously and asked why they’d send invitations to your teachers. When you went to school for your last week and told this to Gojo he said he did get an invitation and your parents told you that so you wouldn’t get upset that he couldn’t make it. 

—

“Gotta surprise for you though.” Gojo smiles up at you from his chair. You’re sitting on his desk, feet resting on the armrest of your teacher’s chair. Gojo can see your panty-clad pussy from his position under you, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows you’d be embarrassed if you knew he could see your Hello Kitty panties.  

“Really? What is it is!” You set your salad down so he could have your full attention, you know he doesn’t like it when you focus on anything else--even if it’s something as simple as food. You think it’s romantic how much he needs your full attention. 

“Well since I couldn’t come to your party, I figured I should throw you another party, this time just us. It could be our special party.” 

“Oh my god, really?” You throw yourself in his lap, wrapping your arms around his neck. His cologne engulfs you. 

“Mhm, and guess what? It’s gonna be a sleepover party at that new fancy hotel that just opened downtown. You excited Princess?” Gojo wraps his arms around your waist, discreetly rubbing his semi on your pussy. 

“Super-duper excited! When is it? Please say soon!” You cheer, innocently bouncing in his lap. Your pussy clenching when you feel his cock rub down the length of your damped cunt. You hope he doesn’t notice. 

“This weekend schoolgirl, your parents approved n’ everything.” He informs you, holding you down on his now rock-solid cock.  

He couldn’t wait for this weekend.  

“Really?” 

“Really, but they told me they want you to tell them you’re staying at your best friend’s house,” you open your mouth to question why but his grip on your waist tightens and he looks down at you angrily. “Don’t question us y/n, you know your parents and I know what we’re doing. Were the adults, you’re just a child, understand?” 

“Yes, Sir.” You nod, not wanting to upset him when he’s always so good to you.  

“Good girl, now finish your lunch sweetheart—no stay on my lap I make sure you eat it right.” 

—

Gojo glances at the nightstand, ensuring his phone is set up before he looks back at you. Rose petals underneath, nipples puckered, and eyes crossed you look like an angel. His angel. 

“Sir! I-it feels weird down there—I think I gotta pee.” Your pussy clenches around his fingers. 

“Just let it happen, princess,” He curls his fingers into your g-spot, his other hand going to rub your clit. Your legs start to shake, and you try to clamp them shut but Satoru’s thighs keep them in place. “Don't—That’s it, let go, let it happen.” 

You never knew what it was like to orgasm, Satoru has only told you what it would be like, but this—this—you could get used to the way your pussy contracts on your teacher’s fingers and your mind goes blank. 

Your hands fly down to his wrists once it’s over, suddenly overwhelmed. 

“S’too much ‘Toru, please no more!” You cry out, another mini orgasm washing over you.  

“Gotta prep you—get you wet enough for my cock sweet girl,” he takes his fingers out of your cunt, and your juices following in suit. “Think you’re ready?” 

“Mhm.” You look up at him like he hung the moon and stars. Right now, if he told you he did—you’d believe him. 

He brings his wet fingers to your mouth, and instinctively you open your mouth. He shoves them in. 

“Can’t wait to see this small pussy take a dick too big, too old for ‘er.” He groans at the thought, pulling his now clean fingers out of your mouth to pull his boxers off.  

You gasp when you see it jump out. It’s huge, the tip is an angry shade of red, and his balls look ready to explode any second. You don’t think with all the prep in the world you could take it. 

“It’s too big, Sir.” you whimper, shyly backing away from him.  

“Don’t run away from me y/n, how many lessons does it take for you to get ‘Don’t question your elders’ through that little brain of yours,” he pulls you back, slapping your pussy. “C’mon now, didn’t you say you loved me?” He pouts, looking down at you with puppy eyes. Your heart clenches. 

“Course I love you—I can take it. I promise.” You grab his face, the one you’ve spent the last semester admiring from afar, and kiss him the way he taught you. 

“Yea?” 

“Mhm.” You lay back down and wrap your legs around his hips. 

He grabs his cock, the head soaked with your juices, and slowly pushes it in. You gasp from the sudden intrusion. His fingers did nothing to prepare you for his girthy cock. He pulls out again before pushing in, this time a few more inches. He repeats this movement until you're filled to the brim. He looks down and chuckles. Only two-thirds of his cock is in your too-small pussy. Blood trickles out the side of your pussy. 

“Hurts.” You cry. He looks up to see thick tears flowing down your cheeks. 

He thinks about comforting you, but he can’t get his mind off your tight pussy. He’s too worried about not cumming prematurely than comforting you.  

“Shh, it’ll feel better soon honey, just lay there and take it.” He starts to move in and out of your cunt. Using your blood as extra lube. 

You claw at his back from the overwhelming feeling of your pussy being stretched. Satoru grunts above you, sucking hickeys all over your breast. After the ninth thrust, you start to moan, the pain quickly turning into pleasure. 

“Sir! Feels s’good.” You moan.  

“Your cunt feels surreal princess, never felt anything like this, think I might need to fuck my students more.” He says into your neck, speeding up when his balls start to clench and ache with the need to release. 

Suddenly, you’re overcome with a surge of jealousy, the thought of him fucking the other girls when you leave for college, teaching them how to kiss, and letting them sit on his lap and eat lunch every day makes you want to cry and scream and the same time. He’s yours! He doesn’t get to fuck anyone else, nobody else should be bleeding on his cock and cumming on his fingers.  

“S’not fair! You’re mine, only mine!” You wrap your legs around his hips, pulling him impossibly closer to you, in you. 

“Then prove it little girl, show me that I belong to you.” He shoves his lips on your pouting ones. 

You throw your arms around his neck and buck into his hips, determined to show him that he only needs you. That you’re enough to satisfy all his needs. 

“Fuck, ‘m gonna cum deep in this cunny. Gonna fill you up—watch you get full with my baby and have to drop out of college before you even finish the first semester!” His thrusts turn sloppy, bruising your swollen cunt. 

“Yes, give me your baby Sir, please!” You moan, suddenly thinking about a life with him and a baby you two 've created. You’ve never felt so empty. 

“Please, please, need ‘ur baby s’bad!” You slur, legs tightening around his waist. 

“‘M cummin’ schoolgirl, ‘m fucking my baby into your too-small cunt.” Satoru groans, his balls contracting as he shoots his load into your womb. 

The sensation of being filled causes you to orgasm again, the world going blank for a few seconds.  

“Shit!” Satoru lays over top of you, the weight of him making you wheeze. You lay there silently for a few minutes, unable to form a coherent thought. 

“W-was that good?” you question when your mind clears, thinking back to what he said about fucking other girls. 

“Of course it was princess, best I’ve ever had.” He reassures all the while his mind is racing, thinking ‘bout the new girl that just transferred to your school. He kisses you as he places a bet with himself ‘How long would it take to get her breed full of his child too.’ 

[kiwi-bitchez]

The Girlfriend Experience

Eddie Munson x Reader

Summary: Eddie doesn’t think he’s cut out for dating. Self-resigned to a life of one and done hookups, you’re determined to make him see that he has the capacity to be a worthy companion… for when the right girl comes around. Fake Dating AU, classic corny fic for a fav corny troupe, Stranger Things canon divergent ofc, 18+ smut (see warnings below), big dick energy but also slightly emotionally unavailable!Eddie, yada yada yada, you know the drill. 

Content warnings: AFAB reader with she/her pronouns, use of y/n, alcohol, smoking the devil’s lettuce, mention of panty stealing, food consumption, semi-public sex, fingering, PIV, Dom-ish!Eddie, oral (m and f receiving), pierced dick Eddie because I said so!, unprotected PIV sex, hair pulling, mild angst but nothing too angsty just like one heated conversation and Eddie feeling a little worthless but happy ending I promise

Word Count: 20k ahhhhhh!!!

A/N: Thanks to all those who comment and reblog! Your feedback and engagement makes my heart soar and keeps me motivated to write this filth! Sorry for the gargantuan length, in very-me fashion I always ending up writing one behemoth fic every so often rather than just separating it out into chapters. Also, realizing after the fact that I use the brand name ‘Goodwill’ a lot in this fic, which maybe not everyone might know is a thrift store, not sure if that’s just an American thing or not but figured it was worth noting. 

“I guess I’m just not boyfriend material, ya know?” Eddie shrugs.

“Don’t say that, Eds,” your eyebrows pinched together, “different qualities are important to different people. Not everyone is looking to date a Steve, or a Brian, or a whoever. I’m sure someone is out there looking for an Eddie.”

“It’s not that,” he shot a look towards Steve, who, despite your analogy, was unfortunately everyone’s type and the textbook definition of boyfriend material.

“I just don’t think I’d be very good at gooey romance stuff, or even like, passable boyfriend behavior. I mean, look at me, I hardly take care of myself, I’m loud, I have no money, I’m basically every dad’s worst nightmare, do I need to keep going?”

“The nightmare thing can actually be a bonus,” Steve chimes in, “the whole bad boy persona can be a huge draw for most girls.”

“Sure Steve,” Eddie’s voice grows exasperated, “I’m the mysterious bad boy until they realize I’m a huge loser who runs not one but two dungeons and dragons groups. Real fuckin’ attractive I’m sure that is.”

“Shows you’re committed to something…” you trail off when his eyes tell you to stop coming up with a positive spin for every excuse he gives. 

This whole discussion had started because of something that happened at the bar last night. A small group of you decided to meet up for drinks, your usual group of pals. It was a Thursday, so the bar wasn’t too busy. Your friends all squished into a booth in the corner, chatting and catching up over a plate of shared nachos, when Robin started making frantic gesture at you and Steve.

“Please just say what you’re trying to say instead of this elaborate charade,” Steve makes a few mocking hand signals back at her.

“Okay, one at a time, and keep it subtle,” her voice lowered to a whisper, for some reason, “over at the bar, some girl is totally flirting with Eddie.”

You and Steve both turn around. “I said not at the same time!” She whisper yells. 

There was, in fact, a pretty girl with shiny hair and glossy lips doing a half fake laugh and pressing her manicured hand to Eddie’s bicep. You whip back around to find Robin with her mouth hanging open in a “can you believe this is happening” way. 

“Good for him,” Steve swivels back around too, “She’s pretty hot.”

You return to your nachos, pretending there wasn’t a ping of jealousy in you. Eddie was your friend, that had been made abundantly clear.

When Robin introduced you to all her friends from high school, you had easily gotten along with all of them. You especially got along with Eddie. He was funny, authentic, abrasive at times, but a truly good person at his core, creative, protective, you could go on.

After getting to know him a bit, and developing a budding crush, you had made a few passes at him. Nothing too forward, just small compliments here and there, open ended offers to hang out that never lead anywhere.

It’s not like he flat out rejected you, but any feelers you were putting out to see if there was potential there were met with him looking past your flirtatious intent and just being his goofy, friendly self. He treated you exactly the same way he treated everyone else, which was awesome, except for when it wasn’t. 

“Oh no,” Robin’s gaze was not subtly fixed on the unfolding scene at the bar, you and Steve watched her face drastically shift from confused, to a cringe, to an eye roll.

Still half whispering, as if Eddie could even hear your corner of the bar, “He’s totally blowing it. DON’T both turn around at the same time again.” 

“Okay, so,” she starts before either of you can even confirm that you want to know, “she was totally laying it on thick, like you could see it from all the way back here. And he must have said something off putting, cuz all of a sudden she like went cold on him and pranced away. Shhhhh, okay okay, he’s coming back.”

She was acting as if she wasn’t the only one gossiping. You and Steve were innocent bystanders in all this. 

“WHAT was that?” She immediately blurts out when Eddie returns to his seat, fresh drink in hand. 

You and Steve share a side glance to sigh at Robin’s inability to be subtle, god bless her. Eddie shifts around awkwardly and lets out a forced dry laugh, taking a long sip from his drink before facing the wrath of a curious Robin. 

“Oh, that,” he gestures to the bar as if she could be asking about anything else, “some girl. Not sure.”

“Not sure? Eddie she was FLIRTING with you,” Robin all but yelled, causing Steve to scan the bar to see if the girl in question had landed somewhere within earshot. 

“I know that,” he hisses, “She just… wasn’t my type…”

“Okay sure, hot girl in a tube top and no bra isn’t your type, riiiiight,” Steve rolls his eyes.

“It’s just,” Eddie was so over this inquisition, “she asked if I wanted to get coffee.”

You, Steve, and Robin all give him a blank stare, trying to decipher what he could possibly have against getting coffee with a hot girl. 

“That’s like,” he gets defensive, detecting the wall of confusion facing him, “something people do on a date. Coffee is serious, and I’m not a very serious guy.”

“What do you mean ‘coffee is serious,’ coffee is like, as casual as you can possibly be?” Steve’s tone now emulated Robin’s from earlier, half whispering, half yelling, all scolding towards his friend. 

“That’s just not really my speed. Coffee dates and flowers and hand holding and all that,” he was avoiding eye contact with all three of you, “Yeah, she was hot, sure, and maybe if she had been like ‘hey lets go fool around in the bathroom’ then I wouldn’t be here having this lame ass conversation with you three. But I don’t do coffee dates, so I’m not gonna waste her time and pretend like I’m that sort of guy when I’m just not.” 

“Well good on you for not leading her on, cuz I’m sure you could have agreed to the coffee date and still gotten lucky in the bathroom,” Steve mumbles, and you smack the back of his head lightly to scold him. 

“So you only date girls who’ll fuck you in a bar bathroom the first time you meet?” You redirect your now equally scolding energy to Eddie.

“No!” He runs his hands through his hair, “I don’t date. Anyone, really. At all. Ever.”

“Oh,” you think for a minute, realizing in your few years of friendship you never had seen him with anyone, or heard him mention a romantic interest of any sort. 

Leading you to your present conversation, you and Steve continuing to question Eddie on his decision to reject the hot tube-top girl at the bar and why he felt like coffee was such a scary commitment. 

“You guys know me,” he continued to defend his stance, “If I took that girl out for coffee she probably would have picked some fancy hoity toity place and I wouldn’t know what anything on the menu meant, I’d probably spill something or like, get crumbs everywhere, and the bill would be way more than two coffees should be. It would have been a waste of both our time.”

He was staunchly refusing eye contact with the two of you, knowing he’d be met with something along the lines of pity. 

“Fine, we’ll drop the subject,” you shoot a look to Steve, “but I just need to make sure you understand that not every girl likes expensive coffee, or flowers and handholding, or whatever your expectation of girls and dating is. There’s plenty of girls who have similar interests to you, who feel the same way about PDA and mushy romance stuff that you do. You do know that, right?”

“Of course I do, y/n,” you could practically feel his eyes rolling at you, “but girls like that sure as fuck aren’t here in Nowhere, Indiana. Even if she was, I’m sure I’d still find a way to fuck it up given that I’ve had exactly zero serious girlfriends and the closest thing to a date I’ve ever been on is when you me and Steve pooled our ski ball tickets to win that ugly stuffed turtle.”

The memory of what you had all agreed to be the world’s ugliest stuffed animal caused all of you to crack a smile. Steve had silently agreed to change the subject, not wanting to dig Eddie any deeper into his pit of self despair. 

Steve’s mouth was half open, about to suggest that the three of you have a smoke and watch one of the rental movies he brought over, the words just about to escape him when you harshly cut off any chance at ending the pity-party.

“Date me!” You exclaim, without much thought. The shocked look from both boys caused you to rapidly back pedal , “You can date me, as practice!” You said it as if it was the simplest concept in the world. 

When met with gaping mouths and confused stares you continue on, “You and I can be fake boyfriend-girlfriend for like, a month, and I’ll tell you everything you do wrong, and like generic do’s and don’t’s, so that way the next time some hot girl hits on you, you can be all like ‘Coffee isn’t really my thing pretty lady, but I’d be down to get drinks sometime’,” you did a silly impression of Eddie’s voice, and then switched to a high pitched one to impersonate what you assumed the girl at the bar sounded like, “and then she’d be all like, ‘Oh yeah that sounds greaaaaat, getting coffee is just like, a generic catch-all thing that most people say when they want to get to know someone better, but you can buy me a drink’ and then the two of you will ride off into the sunset and it’ll be great.”

Still no reply.

“It won’t be all romantic and gooey, I promise I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to. It’d be a way for you to get some honest feedback and catch up with the stuff most people have to learn the hard way.” 

“I suppose you are the most brutally honest person I know,” Eddie doesn’t sound convinced. 

Steve just looked between the two of you with eyebrows raised, not knowing if giving his opinion on the matter would be appreciated or not. “I guess I would’ve appreciated someone telling me that most girls don’t want to be asked out with a pickup line from a John Hughes movie, would have saved me a few dozen rejections.”

“I’m pretty sure Robin did tell you that…”

“I don’t know y/n,” Eddie scratches his head. 

“It’ll be easy. Ask me out.”

“Huh?”

“Ask me out, for practice, ask me out on a date like I’m a pretty girl you met at some metal show or a DnD convention or something like that,” you stand in front of him with your hands out as if to prompt him to say something. 

“Will you go out with me?” He sounds more like he’s asking himself if he even wants to be asking the question.

“No.”

“What the hell!” He throws his hands up.

“I said no because that wasn’t a very good effort. Go out where? To do what? You’re asking me, a pretend stranger, out on a date Eddie, not if I want to go have a smoke with you.”

“Ughhhh,” he spun around and tried to get some sympathy for Steve, who unfortunately was on your side with this one. 

“A compliment or two doesn’t hurt as well,” Steve added, deepening Eddie’s groan. 

“Hey pretty stranger lady,” his voice was laced with sarcasm, but at least it wasn’t disdain, “you seem really…” he hesitated to find his words, “cool? Would you like to come see my band play this weekend at The Hideout? We-“

“No,” you cut him off.

“WHA-“

“Eddie, you can’t ask a girl to watch Corroded Coffin play for your first date with her, that’s like date four or five material, no girl wants to go sit by herself at a bar to watch some guy she just met play an hour of heavy metal. She would have to know you a little bit more for that to feel organic. Pick something more generic, like coffee.”

“I think you seem cool, would you like to get coffee with me?” it all came out as one monotone mumble from him. 

“Sure,” you wait for him to lift his head up to make eye contact with you, “But coffee isn’t really my thing, maybe we can go out for drinks?”

“Oh fuck off,” he flopped back onto the couch next to Steve. 

“See, now we have our first fake date, and then you can ask me to be your fake girlfriend, and then you’ll be so comfortable with emotional vulnerability that you can find a real girlfriend to take on real dates.”

“Yeah, I suppose it could be beneficial,” Eddie was slowly coming around to the idea. He knew that he was oddly charismatic at times, but he was just always too self conscious to follow through with the whole romance thing.

This maybe wasn’t a bad idea, because he knew you weren’t the kind of person who would make fun of his hobbies, or put him down if he slipped up, the sorts of things he was always afraid of girls doing. Sure, he’ll agree to the girlfriend experience. 

After a night of movies and pizza with Steve fake-third-wheeling, you made sure Eddie knew that the fake-date was actually happening, that the two of you would go out for drinks this weekend as your first official practice date. 

After giving it a bit of thought, you realized that you and Eddie had never hung out alone. In your feeble attempts at flirting with him all those months ago you had invited him to have movie nights or grab a bite to eat, but he always showed up with Steve and or Robin in tow.

As the night of the fake-date rolled around, you’d be embarrassed to admit it to him, or Steve, who didn’t care to hide how skeptical he was about this whole idea, that you went through your normal pre-date routine. You took some extra time on your hair and makeup, exfoliated in the shower, chose an outfit you felt confident in, added a few spritz of perfume for good measure too. 

Eddie rolled up in his van, only a few minutes late, but a few minutes was very impressive compared to his typical chronic tardiness. The two of you agreed to just grab some food and drinks at your usual spot, considering you and Steve openly agreed that it would be a good first date spot in theory. 

“Hey,” he reaches across the center console to pop the door open for you, “you look nice.”

It took you a second to register as you settled into the passenger seat, and then whip around with your arm outstretched to give him a high five. He scrunches his face at you.

“High five me Eddie, that was really good! I know you usually open the door for me anyways, but the compliment right away, A+,” you flop your hand down to gently slap his, still gripping the steering wheel. 

“Don’t patronize me, y/n,” deep down he knew you weren’t trying to talk down to him, and deep down he hadn’t even given complimenting you a second thought, he really did think you looked great in your date get-up. 

On the ride over to the bar, the two of you discuss some logistics. Considering all of this is just practice dating, you don’t expect Eddie to pay for you, but you explain that in theory if he had been the one to ask you out then he should be the one to pay for the first date. 

“To me it’s less of a gender thing and more of a who asked out who thing, but I know some people would abide to the stereotypical ‘the man always pays’ standard, which is why you’d just have to be honest on date like two or three about what you enjoy doing and what sorts of things are in your budget. You can still have fun and be thoughtful without spending a lot of money.”

He asked a few questions, like if he should have gotten you flowers for a first date, or what he should do if someone asks to go to a fancy restaurant that he surely couldn’t afford. You tried your best to give solid advice, but always reminded him that every person is different and every relationship is different, so all he can do is be honest. 

You take up a spot at the bar and both order for yourselves, splitting some fries and slipping into some easy conversation. 

“Am I supposed to, like, beat someone up if a guy tries hitting on you in front of me or something like that?” you nearly choke on your drink at his question. 

“Eddie, no,” you answer, also questioning, “why the hell would you ask me that?”

“I don’t know,” he shrugged, “My buddy Jeff was with his girlfriend at this punk show before they were even together, and some guy made a creepy comment to Amanda and Jeff just decked the guy in the face. He say’s that’s what made her want to date him, cuz he defended her honor or whatever.”

“I guess that’s sort of circumstantial, but I prefer my dates to not engage in any sort of violence,” you sip your drink, “even if it’s for my honor. I’d like your face a lot less if you were all bruised up.”

“Well I never said I would get hit,” the two of you were laughing a bit now.

Over a few cocktails you went over some first date etiquette with him. PDA and being touchy, how to follow her lead and gauge if she’s the type who wants everyone at the bar to know you’re together, or keep it strictly platonic to start. How far of a grip on the leg is too far up, that sort of thing.  

“So if she does something like this,” you fake laugh a bit too loud and, lean into his personal space, and then run your hand from his slender down his arm, “that doesn’t necessarily mean she wants to fuck you, but it’s pretty close. You’ve at least got a green flag to get a little closer to her, tell her she looks nice, maybe offer to buy her a drink.”

“I know how to tell if someone finds me attractive, y/n, I’m not stupid,” he said casually, “obviously that girl the other night was hitting on me, I’m not blind. I wasn’t going to ask to buy her a drink or try and get lucky in the bathroom because I was out with my friends. I can find a quick fuck in a bar on my own time. I was having fun with you guys, I wasn’t going to abandon all of you to talk to some stranger, even if she was hot.”  

“Oh,” you processed his comment, “Steve would be happy to know he ranks above tube-top girl.”

“Steve would be happy to be above tube-top girl in any context,” he jokes. 

“You really just find random girls in bars to fuck?” You question, not in any sort of judgmental way, just curious. 

“Not specifically, I guess I did make myself sound like some serial bar-bathroom type of guy. I never really had girls interested in me when I was in high school, at least the first four years of it. Then when we started playing regular gigs at The Hideout it was a little easier to find girls who were interested, but it was always that they were more into fucking some guy who could play guitar and was in a band, so it usually just always happened on-site, probably cuz they had an actual boyfriend or husband to go home to. Girls think I’m fun. Which isn’t untrue, I do enjoy a romp in the Hideout bathroom, or the back of my van, or wherever we end up.”

“So that’s what all those blankets are back there for,” you say with a fake scowl, referring to his van set-up. 

“Not exclusively! They make a cozy nest for smoking blunts and listening to tapes too!” 

You return to your drink, trying not to think too hard about the girls that Eddie brings to bar bathrooms or his van or wherever. 

“I just find the energy of those situations very different from like, talking and getting to know someone. Fucking is easy. I’m not interested in ruining that by adding emotions and the looming feeling like sex is contingent on me acting a certain way or checking a certain number of boxes for someone.” 

He shrugged, and you could understand where he was coming from, sometimes a quick fuck or hookup could be cathartic and easy. But it also saddened you to think that Eddie believed he had to get in and out before the person on the other end got the chance to know him. 

Moving away from the subject of his inability to be emotionally vulnerable, the two of you practice some cheesy ‘first date’ questions as you had called them. As your drinks started to settle into your system you were having more fun being silly with him, pretending to be a stranger on a first date. 

“When’s your birthday?” You ask, twirling your drink straw with your finger and making some fake flirty eyes at him to accentuate the facade of asking him a bunch of questions you mostly knew the answers to. 

“August 9th,” he flips his hair over his shoulder, joining in on your fake ostentatious flirting. 

“Oh my gosh, a Leo! This will never work out, cuz I’m an asparagus…”

The two of you nearly fall out of your bar stools laughing, realizing you meant to say Sagittarius. 

“Okay, let’s get you home Asparagus,” he helped you up, having kept his drinking to a minimum so he could drive you home. 

“Wait, wait,” you grabbed his arm as the two of you exited the bar, “can we go back to your trailer?”

He raised an eyebrow at you, “that’s a little presumptuous for a first date missy.”

“No, no, this isn’t girlfriend y/n asking, just regular friend y/n, who thinks it would be a lot of fun to smoke and watch a movie without Steve there spewing all his annoying fun facts, like, we get it, you read the little insert inside the tape while you were bored at work!”

Eddie did agree that the idea of packing a bowl and watching a few movies with you didn’t sound too different from what his plans would have been otherwise, so he agreed, as long as you promised not to give him any dating advice while hanging out as friend y/n and not girlfriend y/n. 

Although you promised to try your best, you immediately started lecturing him on t-shirt borrowing and the potential weight that could hold in a relationship when he offered to give you some more comfy clothes to change into. 

“It’s important to know!” You emerged from the bathroom in one of his oversized shirts and a pair of boxers, “Some girls are very touchy about it. Any shirt you lend her to sleep in, you have to be willing to sacrifice for life.”

“For life?!” Eddie finishes making a bowl of popcorn for the two of you, swallowing his words when he sees you in his clothes, an unidentifiable emotion rising in him at the sight of you so cozy and integrated into his space. 

“Well maybe not life,” you plop down onto the couch, “but do NOT ask for it back. Most girls will give it back once it stops smelling like you.”

“If she gets my shirt, can I have her underwear?” He asked without thinking, the weed he had just smoked with you hitting him a bit too hard in that moment. 

“Oh my god,” you squeal and bury your face into a pillow, “la la la la, pretending like I didn’t hear that!”

“I’m just saying!” He laughs at you, now curled up into a ball, “fair is fair, right?”

“I guess it depends on the girl,” you mumble. 

“So I’m guessing not you, by your reaction.”

“Eddie!” You smack him with a pillow, “I don’t know, no one’s ever asked!”

“If my girlfriend isn’t going to ask before stealing my shirt for an indefinite amount of time, I think that gives me panty privilege.”

“Wow Eddie, if I had known you were such a perv I would’ve reconsidered being your fake girlfriend,” you say sarcastically, with no real judgement behind it. The idea of him wanting to steal your underwear dampens them ever so slightly. 

“Don’t worry babe, I won’t do anything pervy to you unless you ask nicely,” he shoots a wink at you, which you meet with an eye roll and a turn away to hopefully hide the heat rising in your cheeks. 

The two of you carry out your platonic movie night as planned. You suppressed any urge to note on his actions from a romantic lens, and he ignored the itching desire to sling his arm around your shoulder or pull your legs into his lap to get more comfy on the couch. 

“Can I sleep here Eddie,” you ask after movie two, “too sleepy to move.”

“Sure, I can take the couch and you can have my bed. It’s been a minute since I washed the sheets but it shouldn’t be too bad…”

“Nonono,” you mumble, “Your legs will totally hang right off the end of this thing. I’m conked out anyways, I can crash right here I promise.”

“Ignoring that you’re my fake girlfriend, I’m not letting you sleep out here on this lumpy thing. You’re taking the bed, no arguments.”

He helps you up from the couch, letting you keep the blanket that’s wrapped around you, snaking his arm underneath it and pulling you from the couch by your lower back. You were slightly taken aback by his assistance, body still limp from your relaxed state, your torso easily arching into his. Your arms fly up to grab his shoulders, steadying yourself with an awkward giggle. 

“In the real world, a time like this would be good for a first kiss,” you make note of your closeness, the way he swept you up off the couch and held you steadily as you made your way to your feet. 

“I know that, y/n,” his face was closer to yours than it had ever been, making your words hitch in your throat. 

“Well, I’m just saying,” you turn your head to avoid the tension, “I’m sure the way you kiss your bar-hookups isn’t the way most girls who’re looking to date you long term want to be kissed for the first time.”

‘Oh yeah? And how do you presume that goes?” He kept his hand planted on your lower back.

You pretend to act wildly drunk, throwing yourself at him and letting your limbs go a bit heavier than they already were. “Ohmygod guitar man, I’ve had like, six dirty Shirleys, please finger bang me in the bathroom,” you slur your words and let your tongue loll out the side of your mouth as if to lean in for the world’s sloppiest and most uncoordinated kiss.

“First of all,” his voice was very serious, “I don’t hook up with girls who are too inebriated to stand, let’s get that straight. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t even have our first fake kiss like this on account of the drinking and smoking, gotta make sure you’re in the right headspace. Secondly,” 

He spins you around and quickly backs you up against the wall that stood a few feet behind the couch. His hand sliding up in between your shoulder blades, blanket now slumped around your waist, his other hand suavely cupping the side of your cheek, His hips angled into yours, pinning you back against the vinyl, almost collapsing back into it. 

He pressed against you, not aggressively, but enough to let you know that if you were to try and squirm away he had the capacity to keep you right where he wanted you. He accomplished this all in one elegant motion, leaving you a bit dazed.

As you started to snap into reality, he moves his hand from your cheek down to grab your chin in between his thumb and the knuckle of his pointer, angling your face directly up at him. 

“If you were some girl in a bar, it would be like this.”

The moment before your brain turned to absolute mush, you silently cringed at the thought of what you must look like, mouth hanging open, eyes glassed over, body instinctively sinking into his touch. Pathetic, you were sure of it. 

Sure, Eddie did think you looked a little helpless, but he also thought you looked perfect. Exactly as he had imagined you to in this situation. Of course he had thought about you before, like that.

Of course he had felt an immediate spark with you when you had first met. But he never flirted back, or lead you on, because as much as he was attracted to you and enjoyed your company, he knew that it wouldn’t work out. He wasn’t relationship material, and you were the picture perfect girlfriend that he didn’t deserve. 

He spoke directly into your parted lips, mouth hovering just far enough away to toe the line of ‘holy shit, is he going to?’ But no, as he made very clear, he wouldn’t kiss you under these conditions. He had made his point, and slowly backed off and let you find your footing. 

As soon as he was sure that you were steady, he backed away and started down the hallway. 

“I might have an extra toothbrush stashed away somewhere, let me look…” he ducked into the bathroom, leaving you stunned in the kitchen, head swimming and your stomach traveled up into your throat. 

He was teasing you, he must be. That was his little way of getting back at you for thinking you could give him dating advice. If he was unsure about his capacity for romance, he was going to make sure you knew he was more than capable in other ways. Understood. 

You shook your head, weeding through your inner monologue of how he could possibly look at you like that and then just walk away. Your shock gave him just long enough for you to to not notice him splashing cold water on his face in the bathroom while he “looked for a toothbrush.” 

The two of you decided to ignore the lingering tension from the events in the kitchen, not a peep of fake-girlfriend talk from you for the rest of the night. He did find you that toothbrush, and the two of you moved through a too-easy domestic routine of getting ready for bed. 

You told him that you wouldn’t be able to sleep if you knew he was cramped on that couch, and that you were fine with sharing a bed. You mumbled something about  getting around to bed sharing etiquette at some point anyways, and sleepily pulled him into being your little spoon. 

Eddie lay there, trying not to twitch or fidget, relaxed as best he could into your cuddled form thinking about how horrible of an idea all of this was. He was convinced all it would take is roughly ten more minutes of you burying your face into his hair and making cute little sleepy noises for him to fall irreversibly in love with you. 

But what was he supposed to do? Move and wake you up? Never. 

You rolled around enough in the night to wake up in a less intimate position than when you had fallen asleep. You knew Eddie was a deep sleeper, and took it upon yourself to creep out of bed and back into your day clothes, make a pot of coffee, and watc a bit of TV before he roused and joined you in the living room. 

“Why didn’t you wake me?” He rubbed the crust from his eyes and was pleasantly surprised to see you had brewed a whole pot of coffee to share. 

“You looked so peaceful and cozy,” he shook his head at you, as if that was no excuse for letting him sleep an extra forty minutes.  

After a slow morning, he agrees to drive you home. 

“So this is the part where I say ‘Eddie, I had such a wonderful time on our date. I’d love to do it again sometime.’ And then you agree and tell me when you’re free. It’s best to be super direct and make plans to get together again soon, cuz then it’s not an awkward who’s-gonna-call-who-first sort of thing.”

“Uh-huh…” he stares at you blankly. 

“But for our sake, let’s just agree that I’m in charge of planning our next date. Okay? I’ll do it from the perspective of what I think most girls would enjoy, so you can steal it for the future. I’ll call you later.” 

You hop out of his van before he can agree, and leave him with a “Thanks for letting me stay over!” As you bound away from his view. 

He squeezed his eyes shut the moment he caught himself checking your ass out as you walked away, and let his head rest down on the steering wheel. He was fucked. How the hell was he supposed to tell you that you needed to stop being his fake girlfriend without disrupting the homeostasis of your friendship?

On one hand he could lie and say he doesn’t want your advice, making you think he didn’t enjoy your company, which was entirely untrue. On the other hand he could tell you the truth, and you would never be friends the same way again. 

He drove home with the music too loud, and patiently awaited your call later that evening to iron out the details of your second fake-date. 

Per your instructions, he let you pick him up this time with the argument that you were the one taking him out this time. He didn’t know what you had planned, but let himself fall to the mercy of whatever you had decided was an exemplary date fore him to ‘steal in the future’. 

You picked up two coffees and rolled up to the trailer park, popping a mix-tape he had made you ages ago. 

“Hey, I thought we said no paying for each other with fake-dating,” he objects to the coffee sat in the passenger cupholder, some abomination of mostly cream and sugar, the way you know he likes it. 

“Yes, that’s true, but you smoked me up the other night, and this coffee was like a dollar fifty, so don’t worry about it,” you give him a look that tells him to drink the damn coffee and not sass back, to which he complies, even though he smokes you up expecting nothing in return about every other weekend. 

The two of you sip away and listen to Eddies ‘must-know-to-be-my-friend’ mixtape and arrive shortly at the strip mall across town. This was a regular weekly stop for both of you, the strip of connected stores containing the Goodwill, a pet store, the pharmacy, and grocery. A pretty mundane collection. 

“Okay, what are we doing at Greg’s?” Eddie gestures to the grocery store, the back of his mind running through the grocery list he’s been making for this week anyways.

“What’s the perfect date?” You ask, and answer for him, “a romantic picnic. But gathering supplies is half the fun. Picnic food supplies at Greg’s, some pills to get fucked up at the pharm, some turtles or something to let loose into the wild from the pet store, and then hats, cups, blanket, etcetera from the Goodwill.”

He turns to you with the most bewildered stare, which sends you into a fit of giggles.

“Okay, I’m joking about the pills and the turtles,” you nudge his arm, “but won’t it be sweet to get together some picnic supplies and then drive out to lookout point? We can still swing by the pet store to check out the ferrets though.”

To Eddie, the idea of a date involved him doing something he didn’t want to do, some awkward small talk, and spending money on shit he truly thought was useless. This didn’t sound half bad. You would “work backwards so the food purchases come last” according  to your reasoning, and he followed you in tow without any arguments into the Goodwill.

“So I’m thinking…” you start to wander into the aisles of used clothes and knick knacks, “maybe a blanket? A basket would be sort of corny, but if we find one for cheap I don’t see why not. Surely two glasses for drinking, and maybe some sun hats?”

Swiveling back around to see a half stunned Eddie, who was still processing how in the hell this was your idea of a romantic date, you grab his hand and pull him to the bric-a-brac section. 

After it got through his thick skull that the same place he had uncomfortably tried on new pants throughout his growth spurt, and picked up his daily-worn leather jacket, had the same potential to provide some silly, cheap, used items to add some flair to this picnic. 

Silly and cheap was right up Eddie’s alley. The two of you picked out mismatched champagne glasses, one with the engraved name of a couple who got married in 1943 and the other a flashy rose color with baby angel carvings dancing around the sides. 

You luckily find an on sale beach blanket, and the two of you pick out some very goofy sun hats. A floppy farmers hat for you, and a bedazzled trucker hat spelling ‘hot mama’ for Eddie.

Through the midst of your giggles and debate on whether you should buy a wooden bench to bring out to your picnic destination, Eddie found himself having a really good time with you. 

As promised, you visited the pet store and checked out the ferrets and fish and geckos. 

“If you could have any pet, what would you want?” You asked him, noses pressed against the chinchilla enclosure. 

“Jaguar,” he said, a little too quickly.

“For real, dummy,” you knock your hip into his.

“I don’t know, we never had enough space or extra money for pets growing up, so maybe someday if I had enough room for it to run around I’d like a dog or something,” he tells. Eyes still transfixed on the chinchilla behind the glass. 

“I can see that,” you imagine Eddie with some mutt from the shelter, wrestling around and giving it lots of scratches behind the ears. 

Skipping the pharmacy, you pop into the grocery store and assemble what may be the world’s most eclectic picnic. 

“That’s the definition of a picnic, I’m pretty sure,” you explain after Eddie insinuated that the gingersnap cookies you grabbed, along with grapes and a block of cheese, wasn’t exactly a meal, “you know, just a smorgasbord of whatever we want!”

Admittedly, Eddie had considered a handful of pretzels and a beer to be dinner on more than one occasion, so he couldn’t argue with you. Quickly catching your drift, the two of you picked out an assortment of snacks and some ingredients for pb&j sandwiches. 

“I thought picnics were supposed to be classy?” Eddie holds up the Wonder bread and bag of potato chips with a look that suggested his question was rhetorical.

Your response was simply to raise the, admittedly cheap, bottle of champagne you grabbed to accompany with your meal, more for the irony of drinking the bubbly liquid out of your new used glasses with your sticky sandwiches than anything else. 

You pack your supplies into a tote bag, not having found a suitable basket at the thrift store, and drive across town to a dirt paved road that leads to a nice lookout point with a view of the lake. 

“Let’s walk down the path a little bit, but not too far,” you grab the blanket and tote bag from your trunk, motioning for Eddie to put on his ‘hot mama’ hat and carry your other auxiliary supplies, “I do not fuck with bugs.”

“I’ll protect you,” Eddie puffs out his chest, making you both giggle.

“From bugs?”

“Yeah, I’ll punch a mosquito right in the face, to defend your honor and all that.”

“I know I told you not to do that, but a mosquito might be the exception to the rule.”

You found a nice little clearing not far from the car, a spot that still had a nice view but was a bit more secluded. Eddie sat pressed right up next to you, making your sandwich ‘to be a proper gentleman’ but simultaneously spilling a glob of jelly onto your leg.

“Shit,” he doesn’t think twice before leaning down and slurping the grape flavored blob off of your bare knee, tongue poking out and licking the spilt jelly from your skin.

“Eddie!” You squirm away, barking out a surprised laugh. 

“What! Your knee is clean, wouldn’t want to waste perfectly good preserves, or a napkin.”

You feel your skin tingle where his lips had touched you, for only a moment, but you still felt it. He was so confident and casual in his movements, not having any hesitation to grab your hand or brush your hair out of your face. It wasn’t under the guise of fake romance, he had always been like that. Not touchy, per se, just sure of himself. You’d never seen Eddie do anything half assed, that’s for certain.

After the conversation you shared the other night, you were unable to stop your mind from wandering to thoughts of what Eddie does with those girls in bars, if he touched him with the same confidence and sureness he put into everything else he did. 

It was wrong to let your mind go to such dirty places about someone you considered a friend, but you couldn’t manage to feel any guilt. He had offered that information freely, so who were you to punish yourself for staring a little longer at his fingers, conjuring up the context in which he’d bury them inside you against some grimy bar bathroom. 

The date was all peanut butter smiles and bubbly laughter that floated up into the trees. Silly, yes, but neither of you could deny there was something sweet, maybe even romantic about it. A cheap meal in the woods shared between two friends in ill-fitting fifty cent hats, but an undeniable touch of romance lingered nonetheless. 

Eddie started to realize that maybe the whole dating thing wasn’t as uptight and scary as he had initially thought. It could be easy and fun, with the right person. And fuck, if he could even imagine doing this with anyone but you. 

Like most things Eddie did, he did not consider any potential consequences before acting. You looked so pretty sitting there in the sunshine, sipping from your cheap ‘Martha & Dave ’43’ glass, a few sandwich crumbs dotting the corner of your mouth.

What else was he supposed to do other than lean over and wipe them away with his thumb, stroking your soft cheek and feel the warmth of your skin beneath his palm. 

“You had some,” he uses his other hand to motion at his own mouth, “and I suppose this is the sort of moment where I’d ask if I can kiss you.” 

You find yourself a bit dumbfounded, his big stupid hand on your cheek and those big stupid puppy dog eyes unrelenting in making everything he says seem so genuine.

“Are you?” You find your voice, only half embarrassed at how shy it comes out.

“Am I what?”

“Are you asking me?”

“Yeah,” his answer comes out in a way that insinuates that he never meant anything other than that, that he was always asking to kiss you, he wasn’t asking in theory, in another universe, in the context of advice. 

“Okay,” you found yourself behaving like Eddie, not really thinking of consequences before your words and actions spoke on behalf of your instincts.

Everything so far had been so easy. Your fake first date at the bar, curling up next to him in a haze, making up stories about what sort of people donated the fake palm tree or the Garfield mug at the Goodwill, imagining Eddie running around a yard with a puppy, lounging in the grass and eating your assorted picnic snacks. It was all effortless.

Suddenly, being kissed by Eddie sucked the ease from your lungs and sent your mind spiraling into a cacophony of bells and whistles and giant swirling red flags. If this is how he kissed you, casually across some half eaten peanut butter sandwiches, you’d spend the rest of your days yearning to know how he kissed someone with true intention. 

Of course, his intentions were all there, but the lingering knowledge that all of this was happening under the umbrella of “you giving him advice” or “helping practice for the next girl” poisoned any true feeling he poured into it. He cupped your cheek, soft, let his lips press into yours delicately for a moment before he felt your breath hitch, opening his mouth just enough to deepen the kiss and capture your lower lip fully. 

He was more careful, gentle, methodic with his movements and so receptive to every little signal your body gave him, it was unlike any first-kiss, heat-of-the-moment-kiss, in-the-throws-of-passion-kiss, any of it. Like hell you’d ever tell him that, inflate that big ego that fuels his snippy comebacks at you, but Jesus, was it remarkable. 

While at war with yourself internally, your heart was on the precipice of exploding in your chest from the way he snaked his hand into your hair and pressed his forehead against yours to catch a breath. You suck in a sharp breath and feel that stupid cocky smirk creep up onto that pretty mouth of his.

“’S that sufficient for a first kiss?”

“Fuck offfff,” you were still a little out of breath, smacking his chest and flopping back down onto the picnic blanket, throwing your arms up and rolling your eyes at him, “if you’re so damn confident, maybe we just should fake break up, cuz you don’t seem like you need my advice.”

“Nooooo,”he slumps down next to you, burrowing his head under your arm so he can pop up right next to your face, “I’m learning a lot, I promise! This date was so fun, and cheap! I would have never thought any of this could be remotely romantic. I’m hopeless, y/n, look at me.”

He wriggles around and gives you a big fake pout, “If left to my own devices I would probably do something horribly embarrassing or off-putting, like…” he digs his head into the crook of your neck and blew a fat, wet raspberry right into your skin, making you yelp and squeal, but his position half on top of you pins you down. 

“See!” He pulls up for air, you were in a fit of screaming giggles, “I’d go right in for a kiss and just,” and he does it again, leaving you gasping for air, trying your best to tickle his ribs to get him off of you, but not minding the close contact by any means. 

“Now I’m not so sure,” he pulls back to give you a minute to catch your breath, “it seems like you enjoyed that, so maybe survey says I should pull that move on the ladies.”

Your airy laughter subsided, but he stays half pinning you down to the blanket and the lumpy grass underneath.

“I didn’t mean to give you the impression that I’m not grateful for your help,” he says earnestly, catching your gaze, “it’s just… this isn’t what I need help with.”

As his statement is processing, you find his lips back on yours, his torso pressed flushed with yours and his wild mane of hair coming down to curtain around your head. He doesn’t take it too far, but kisses you as earnestly as he had before, giving your lip a slight drag with his teeth and running his hand up from your hip up the side of your ribcage, leaving you arching slightly into him by pure instinct.

Before your head got too dizzy again, before you could really throw yourself into it and say fuck it and kiss him back the way you secretly wanted to, he pulled back.

“That.” his voice was even, you hated how needy you felt and how even keeled he could be milliseconds after stealing the air from your lungs, “It’s the rest of it,” he threw his hands up and gestured to all the food and knock knacks around you, “it’s this stuff that you make seem so easy, so forgive me if I lay it on a little thick when we get to the parts I’m actually good at.”

“Just,” you sat up a bit, grounding yourself and formulating a response despite your brain looping the past twenty seconds back infinitely, “don’t do that again.”

“Okay,” he sat back and popped a grape into his mouth, “sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” you knocked his knee with yours, struggling to articulate how you felt without showing too much of your hand, deciding to just be candid, “I just- I liked that a little too much if you know what I mean. And this is strictly business, or education, maybe?”

“You liked it when I pinned you against the wall the other night,” he said matter of factly, “I think you liked that a little too much too, and you still took me on this fake educational business date.”

“Yeah, well, you caught me,” you threw your hands up in defense.

“Which one is it though?” He asks and you don’t quite understand, “are you a sweet kiss on the picnic kind of girl, or an up against the wall kind of girl?”

“That’s none of your business, as far as fake-dating is concerned,” you say a little too quickly, “and no you can’t have my panties.”

You say it with a smirk, but he doesn’t press any further. He turns and does that Eddie-thing he’s so good at, just changing the subject and shifting the vibe completely away from what might have been a stale moment or awkward pause. He starts asking if you like green or purple grapes better, going off about how he used to put them in the freezer as a kid. 

The remainder of your date went without a hitch, of course. You picked away at your picnic until the sun started to set, and once the sky started turning purple you made your way back to the car. The drive home consisted only of easy conversation and no further mention of the kiss, well, kisses that had transpired. He hopped out of the passenger seat with a ‘thank you’ and a ‘see ya later alligator.’ 

A scalding hot shower, a restless night of sleep, and too many cups of herbal tea the next morning did nothing to quell the noise in your head that blasted those moments over and over. You couldn’t stop picking apart whether he had thought about it for even a millisecond, and felt embarrassed that you could think of nothing else. 

It was simply an amplified version of what your whole friendship had been up until this point. You silently admiring him and wishing he would look at you the way you looked at him, and settling for friendship over heartbreak. 

Pushing it aside to the best of your ability allowed you to get through your week, but you had the lingering feeling that the next time you saw him would strike you with warm cheeks and a scrambled mental state.

Guilt had started to seep in at the corners of your mind, but you reminded yourself that you shouldn’t punish yourself for having romantic or sexual thoughts about someone you simply found attractive and compelling, it was your actions that would determine the validity of your guilt. 

“Long time no see, loser,” Robin hollered from the pool table across the bar, where she was likely kicking Steve’s ass. 

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” you shrug off your coat and plop down at their regular booth, knowing her jabs were entirely empty. You notice Eddie’s leather jacket hung up by the wall, and scan the bar to find him ordering a drink. 

There was a silent mutual understanding that you’d keep the fake dating thing to a bare minimum when out with your friends like this. Even though Steve was well aware, and therefore Robin was too, you figured tainting your social time with the performance of romance is the exact reason Eddie turned down the girl at the bar in the first place. 

“For the lady,” Eddie waltzes over and hands you a drink.

“Oh, thanks,” you take it with a confused smile, “you didn’t have to do that.”

“You bought me coffee last weekend,” he sat across the booth from you, “plus I’m trying to get better at buying drinks for pretty girls, right?”

You remind him that he doesn’t have to keep tabs on things like coffee, but you appreciate the gesture regardless. As per the past few times you’d been out with your friends, you expected him to put a pause on the flirting, but it seems to be bubbling over tonight. You weren’t complaining, but admittedly the arm around your shoulder or the noticeable way he checked you out when you got up to refill your drink took you by slight surprise. 

Sneaking in to claim the always occupied dart board for a challenge against Eddie while he uses the restroom, you keep your eyes on the corner of the bar to signal him over once he returns.

“You need a partner?” A man suddenly appears behind you, a little closer than you’d like but the bar was crowded, so you’ll let it slide. 

“Oh, I was just waiting for-“

“Let me fill in until your friend gets here, we can get you warmed up, yeah?” His tone wasn’t too pushy, but you didn’t love the look he gave you when making that comment.

Awkwardly staggering for a second, unsure weather to just agree or tell him to fuck off, “He really should be just a minute-“

“Or maybe less,” Eddie comes up right behind you and pulls you possessively into his side.

Your head whips up to see him with a devilish smile, his hand on your waist and the fire behind his eyes telling his guy to get lost.

“Oh, sorry man,” the guy starts backing away with an apologetic look.

“Yeah, better luck next time, pal,” Eddie snakes around to take the guy’s spot in front of the dart board.

He had his darts in hand and took his stance to start the match, gesturing for you to do the same. 

“What was that,” you ask with a slight joking tone, but seriously curious.

“What?” He doesn’t make eye contact and instead throws the first dart, “I’m not allowed to get fake jealous?”

“You’re allowed to feel any fake emotion you want, I guess,” your tone is somewhere in between a joke and a question. 

“You’d feel fake jealous if I was getting blown in the bathroom by some chick rather than playing darts with you, I bet.”

“Okay,” your tone shifts to defensive, “getting blown is very different than some guy asking to play darts with me.”

“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you,” Eddie turns to face you, having thrown all his darts, “for real.”

A moment lapsed where you didn’t register that your mouth was hanging open in disbelief, the look in your eyes Eddie immediately clocked as lust and bottled up to store away for a later time. 

“I knew the scary dog thing would work,” his ‘i-told-you-so’ tone rubbed you the wrong way, but he wasn’t wrong, “you said girls weren’t into that, but you totally looooove that I defended your honor.”

“Don’t give yourself too much credit, I said girls wouldn’t be into it if you punched him,” you rolled your eyes.

“I don’t know, babe, I think you liked the whole ‘back off of my woman’ act.”

You mumble out a ‘whatever’ and let him have this win, which he was clearly reveling in, trying to focus instead at beating him at darts. 

“Just don’t pull shit like that on a first date, acting too possessive off the bat is a huge red flag for a lot of women.”

“I thought we weren’t doing dating advice tonight?” You don’t even have to look at him to know he’s got that stupid sarcastic smile.

“Yeah I thought so too,” you fail at your attempt to beat him in darts, as well as your attempt to not flirt back with him. 

He insists on collecting all the darts, picking up the ones haphazardly strews across the floor from failed attempts to hit the board. 

“I’m no pro or anything, but I think you’d hit the board a lot more if you fixed your stance.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you flip him the bird and take back your red tipped darts. 

As you steady your arm to aim your first shot he comes up behind you and grabs your hips, causing you to let out an unexpected squeak. He adjusts your stance, not aggressively, but with some force, twisting your hips and using his big combat boot to sweep your foot around so you stood more sideways. 

“You’re standing straight on,” he backs up, allowing you to secretly catch your breath, “and all your shots are veering to the right. If you plant your feet more angled you’ll hit the board.”

You wanted to roll your eyes at him, miss on purpose to show him he’s full of shit. You flippantly toss the dart, not trying particularly hard, and it hits. Not a bulls-eye or anything like that, but a lot closer than your previous attempts had been. 

“Good girl,” he comments, leaning in to breech your personal space just enough to make your blood boil.

You drop the remainder of the darts in your opposite hand onto the floor and whip around to face him, half jokingly smacking him on the shoulder. 

“Oh my god, fuck off!”

You’re met with his trademark shit-eating grin.

Truthfully, Eddie hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off you all night. He’d spent the night after your picnic date with his hand in bis boxers, squeezing his eyes shut and remembering the little gasp you had made when he grabbed your waist, the hum in your throat that bubbled up when he kissed you pinned against the blanket, that night and every night since. 

“Oh, you don’t like that?” that joking tone he uses to cover up what he actually wants to say. 

“Shut up, you know I do,” you didn’t even try to stifle your reaction, knowing it was his intent to get under your skin.

“How would I possibly know that,” he playfully looks up at the ceiling and around the bar, hands clasped behind his back now, rocking back and forth on his heels.

“You better cut that shit out, unless you plan on doing something about it,” you manage the most assertive tone your wobbly insides could muster, a little shocked at yourself for actually saying what you were thinking. 

“I’m not much of a planner,” he gracefully takes a stance next to you and rips all three darts, not great shots, but all hitting the board, “I’m more of a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy, you know that.”

“Well your pants better make up their mind if you’re playing boyfriend tonight or not,” your insinuation was heavy but you had fumbled your hand, and he had already seen all your cards at this point, so there was no reason to bluff.

“The real question is,” he leans in, his imposing figure crowding your space in a way that made your head spin, “do you want me to play boyfriend? Or do you want me to play guy who fucks your brains out in the bar bathroom?”

Your eyebrows pinched together for a millisecond, and before he could decipher your expression you grabbed his hand and started storming through the crowds hoarded by the bar. Why the hell a seedy downtown bar has a single stall family bathroom with a changing table is beyond you, but you drag him inside and slam the lock down behind you. 

“You’re not allowed to treat me any differently after this,” you start to fall into the sinkhole of oh my god what the hell is about to happen, but are cut off by him pressing you against the closed door the exact way he had handled you against his kitchen wall that night weeks ago. 

“Not unless you want me to,” he doesn’t hesitate to get his mouth on yours, immediately pulling your mind from wondering what the vague sticky substance on the door pressing into your back could be. 

“I mean, you’re not allowed to fuck me and then never talk to me again,” you say in between moving lips and tongues, giving him a moment to bury his face in your neck, "Promise me."

“Oh don’t worry about that,” he pulls back, “we can go get coffee tomorrow and you can give me a full performance review. Promise.”

Your annoyed eye roll quickly turns into them fluttering shut as he licks a stripe up to the junction behind your ear that has you melted into a boneless puddle between his pressing hips and the door. He drags his teeth across your lobe while leaning into you with a black denim clad thigh.

“Why don’t we make a deal,” you let out, voice breathy and unfocused. Before he can even pull back to reply you continue, “if you’re half as good at this as you claim to be, and can make me cum in this dingy bathroom, I’ll let you take me back to your trailer and you can do whatever the fuck you want to me.”

He was leaning in to seal the deal with a kiss before he could even process your request, because yes of course, a million times yes he’s taking this deal. Despite the rouse of you playing bar hookup for the night, and despite the idea of bringing you back to his place and finally doing what he’s wanted since the day he met you absolutely terrifying him, he nods and kisses you. 

It’s electrifying. His confidence only spurs you on to kiss him harder, grip his hair a little tighter, say the things you would only imagine in the deepest parts of your mind. The feeling of his grin against your lower lip and his fingers quickly unbuttoning your jeans fuels your fire. 

“You sure you know what you’re getting into,” he mumbles playfully, pulling you away from the wall with a gasp and leading you over to the tiny built in counter against a mirror by the sink. 

“Well I’m certainly not letting you fuck me against any of these sticky surfaces,” you note as you’re lifted onto the counter covered in mystery substance, “and I think you need to earn it.”

Of course it was no surprise to you that Eddie was good with his fingers. You probably could have told anyone that long before this impromptu bathroom hookup. Egging him on and challenging him in a way you were sure he wasn’t used to was well worth abandoning your assumptions. 

“Oh yeah? I think, if you’re lucky, I’ll earn it more times than you can count before the night’s over,” he positioned himself in between your legs, pressing your torso into the mirror behind you as he leaned in for another heated kiss. 

He pulled your ass to the edge of the counter, and looped his thumbs into the waistband of your unbuttoned pants. You were quick to assume that he’d yank the fabric right off your legs, preparing to lift your ass from the counter to assist.

Eddie paused, pulled back and gave you a look that asked ‘you’re sure about this?’ and when a dreamy smile spread across your cheeks he melted into you with a kiss that turned your stomach inside out and made your pussy flutter.

He snakes a hand from its grip on your torso down into your unbuttoned pants. You arched up into his touch, wanting to urge him to get on with it and get your pants and underwear out of the way, but appreciating how much he seemed to be reveling in feeling you for the first time. 

“So fuckin wet,” he mumbled against your lips, his fingers only feeling up your cunt from outside your underwear. He pressed the fabric into your slick center, following the path up to your clit and then teasingly back down to where your panties were soaked through.

“You weren’t lying when you said you liked this a little too much,” he’s rolling his hips ever so slightly against your spread thigh as he rubs your clothed pussy, his teeth sinking into your lower lip as he moves the material aside and sinks two fingers right into your wet cunt with ease.

You were sure that you’d retrospectively have a million quippy compacks that come to mind, but in this moment it was impossible to come up with words when his fingers were buried inside you, still, just letting you squeeze around them, and his hard cock straining against his jeans nestled against the inside of your thigh.

He slowly drags his finger’s up from your hole to your clit, and you let out a whine of desperation as he fully removes his hand from your damp underwear. 

Before you can manage the breath to tell him to please, for the love of god, get on with it, he brings his fingers up to his lips and gives them a long suck, never breaking eye contact with you. 

“Yeah,” he sighs out and presses his forehead against yours, “I might like that a little too much too.”

Protests and urging words catch in your throat as he yanks down your pants and underwear with one quick pull, not even needing you to lift your ass off the counter more than it already was. He was methodical and moved with intention, folding up your pants neatly and shoving your soaked panties into his back pocket, shooting you a wink. 

“Eddie, please,” your overdue complaints are finally bubbling over. You hardly finish your plea before his face is buried in your neck, and his fingers are sliding right back into your needy hole. 

The top of your head rests against the mirror behind you, exposing your neck and arching your back into his touch. He sucks and nips at the soft skin between your collar bone and ear, all while letting his two middle fingers pump slowly into you.

“Mmmm,” he mumbles into the crook of your jaw, “such a good girl for me, perfect pussy squeezing my fingers so tight, can’t fuckin wait to feel you soak my cock.”

Nearly orgasming at his words alone, your eyes flutter shut and you let out a moan of his name as he lets his thumb drag circles across your clit. “Eddie, please, just like that, I-”

“Oh, suddenly she’s not questioning my abilities?” he says with a biting smirk, “What was that about me not being half as good as I think I am?”

“Fuck,” you want to raise an eyebrow and shoot something back, hold out and make him work for it, but after hardly two minutes of his fingers rolling inside you, hooked up to drag along that perfect fucking spot, you had no choice but to feed his ego and let him win. 

“You wanted to make your little deal,” he pumps a little faster, making your head loll to the side and mouth hang half open, “I’ll sweeten it for you, babe. I say we can get this pretty pussy to come twice all over my fingers before anyone even knocks on this door.”

“Yes,” is all you can squeak out, “yes, please.”

If Eddie was being honest, he was a few half-thrusts into your thigh short of coming in his own pants from how hot you looked. Your eyes glassed over, pretty lips parted and gasping his name, perfect cunt sucking his fingers in. 

The hand not occupied by your gushing cunt slid up to cup the side of your cheek, forcing you to look into his fiery eyes. “Feel’s good?” he questions, knowing the answer and not expecting a verbal response.

He drags the pad of his thumb up to your parted lips, running it along your plush bottom lip and dragging it down a bit, relishing in how under his spell you were. His thumb slips into your mouth and you immediately wrap your lips around it and suck. 

“Good girl,” his thumb on your clit is rubbing more focused circles, “suck on that and keep your voice down, don’t want the whole bar knowing what a good little slut you are for me.”

Jackpot. 

A muffled moan around his thumb and the spasming of your inner walls signaled that you were hitting your peak. He drags the spit slicked digit from your lips and quickly replaces it with his lips and tongue, kissing you with fervor as he feels you ride out your orgasm on his hand. 

“Mmmmmmm” you moan, somewhere between a pleading whine and a sigh of satisfaction into his lips as his fingers don’t let up. 

Under different circumstances you would tell him to slow down, give you a minute to catch your breath. Eddie was stubborn, this you knew, and he had already made it abundantly clear that one orgasm wasn’t going to be enough. 

He pulls back from your lips, loving the sharp intake of breath you swallow as your cheeks continue to flush and eyelids keep fluttering. 

“So fucking good, came all over my fingers,” his gaze locks in on where his hand was buried into your cunt. “Gonna give me one more?”

Of course you would, whether it was up to you or not. He did slow up for a second, just enough for you to regain your grip on reality before he started curling them up again. 

“Eddie,” you whine out, eyes nearly crossed and unable to focus your attention on his face, hands, anything other than his boner poking into your inner thigh, “wanna feel you.”

The hand formerly gripped tight onto the edge of the counter snakes forward and pulls his hip into you, a permanent indentation of his stiff cock molding against your skin. 

“Not yet baby,” he rolls his hips forward, giving you a delicious feel of how it would be if he was inside you, but instead pushing his fingers a touch deeper and then pulling his hips away, “one more and then I’ll take you home. You’re gonna let me ruin that perfect little cunt, right? That was the deal?”

“Yes,” you gasp out, his other hand moving from your hair down to rub fast tight circles on your clit, the other hand still pumping steadily inside you.

“That’s right, I know this pussy is gonna take me so well. You’re already drooling for my cock, so fucking perfect.”

You feel it building up again, that sacred double orgasm that only ever came during your alone time in the shower or when you were so desperate for release that your hand didn’t stop after the first, but never with another person, never like this. 

His smile nearly touched his ears at this point, pulling back to take in all of you as your eyes screwed shut and thighs threatened to break his wrist at how fast they snapped together. 

Hitting you like a punch to the gut, your abdomen tightened and released rapidly, air sucked from your lungs and his hand working you through it between your clenched thighs. 

Yeah, maybe this was a bad idea. 

If you were in a cartoon, stars and chirping birds would be swirling around your head as you slowly came back to reality. He gave you some space, and begrudgingly gave you pack your panties after you hand out your hand and gave him a stern look.

“I’m gonna go tell the others that you aren’t feeling great and I’m taking you home,” he makes sure you’ve pulled your pants back up before unlocking the door, “Take your time, and I’ll meet you at the van, okay? I’ll grab your stuff.”

“Yeah,” you still feel a little flustered, looking back into the mirror and smoothing down your hair, “thanks.”

He shoots you a wink before slipping out, giving you a moment to collect yourself and splash some cold water on your face. Okay, so you’re doing this. 

Any nagging feelings that this might ruin things or that he’s only teasing you because of your arrangement are quickly squished down into a deeper compartment of your brain, overtaken by the post orgasm bliss and wandering thoughts of what might happen next. 

You peek your head out of the bathroom door, and slink your way to the back door without passing your group table or a stray Steve or Robin. The fresh air equalizes your buzzing thoughts, and you spot Eddie, already in the driver’s seat of his van. 

“You good?” He asks as you hop into the passenger seat. You won’t let him have the upper hand, just because he made you come twice in under ten minutes. 

“Yeah,” you gather as much assertion as your voice will project, “You good?”

“F’course,” he starts backing up, you internally roll your eyes at the way his outstretched arm muscles and curved neck make your stomach flutter, “Just wanted to make sure I passed the test.”

You sit in silence, not wanting to give into the cocky game he clearly wants to play, yet know that he’s entirely correct in his assumption that he’s driven you completely crazy. Once he’s on the main stretch of road, finally rolling to a stop at a red light you let your hand migrate across the center console, dancing its way into his lap. 

As you hoped, his cock was still half hard and apparent underneath his jeans. You let your hand draw circles next to it, loving the little twitch you get when you run your nails against his thigh. 

“Easy there, tiger,” he lets out a huffed laugh, with just an edge to his tone that suggested you were getting yourself into something you’d soon regret. 

“C’mon Eds,” you let your head fall on the corner of the headrest, gaze angled over at his tight grip on the steering wheel while your hand dancing around the bulge in his pants, “you’ve been pushing this thing against my thigh for the past twenty minutes, forgive me for wanting a better feel.”

You put on a pretend pouty face and flash him your best puppy dog eyes to ward off any incoming snippy comments from him. He rolls his pretty eyes at you and silently bites the inside of his cheek as you feel up and down his lap, grazing his growing cock with each pass. 

“Forgiven,” through gritted teeth, he squeezes his eyes shut as your fingers circle around his head, now taking visible form beneath his black jeans. He internally reprimands himself for losing focus on the road, and zeroes his concentration on getting back to his trailer as fast as this van can take him. 

You have your fun watching him wiggle in his seat, feeling his thigh muscles clench under your palm every so often. You weren’t full on jerking him off over his pants, but you were certainly relishing in the feeling of his dick getting harder and harder with each occasional pass of your hand.

He parks diagonally across the lawn in front of his trailer, not giving a shit where the van ends up as long as it’s stopped. He wanted to dash around the vehicle and scoop you out of your seat, throw you over his shoulder and take you inside to continue with whatever this evening had in store for you.

The second his hand stalled on the clutch, shifting the van into park and taking a moment to let his mind wander to what would happen once he got you inside, you were already halfway out the van and skipping up the steps to his front door. 

Entering his trailer, you start taking off your coat and shoes, trying to act as normal as possible. Your facade of keeping it cool entirely shatters when he enters behind you, calmly clicking the door shut and patiently waiting for you to finish unlacing your boots.

You remain crouched down, darting your eyes up at him, deciding against being a brat and undoing your laces as slowly as possible to keep him waiting. Any caution you had was long swept away by the wind, and he’d taken control in your little bathroom tryst, so it was your turn to say fuck it and just do what felt right. 

And in this moment, there was only a few quick movements and about six inches of space between you and Eddie’s semi-hard dick. One shoe was only half off, haphazardly kicked behind you as you pivoted onto your knees and had your hands moving eagerly up his tensing thighs.

“Can I?” Your question was half formed and he was already nodding. 

You’d teased him enough on the ride over, you wanted him, now. Pants quickly unbuttoned and blue checkered boxers pushed down to his knees, and you were about to go feral and just go for it when a silver glimmer adorning his thick cock caught your eye.

Your mouth was already half open, but your jaw nearly unhinged and hit the floor when the pierced head of his dick falls out of his boxers and lands at your eye level. 

Unmoving, mouth agape, you look up to make eye contact, ripping your eyes away from the shock of two silver balls on his cockhead. He knew it was nice, he wouldn’t have bedazzled it if it wasn’t, but the look you were giving him sucked all the unwavering confidence from his body for a split second, suddenly feeling weak in the knees at the sight of you slowly sicking your tongue out, not making any contact but waiting. 

He took the base of his dick in his hand and gave it a few precautionary strokes before angling it down and slapping your wet tongue with the tip a few times. 

You were two and a half seconds away from being entirely fucked out. If he pulled away and asked you to crawl on all fours to him, you’d do it without a second thought.

You let him slide his cock gently against your outstretched tongue a few times before coming to your senses and wrapping your lips around him, moving your hand to replace his and move against the length that your mouth couldn’t yet reach. 

All it took was a few steady bobs of your head, hand twisting and eyes still focused upwards on his face, to have him biting his knuckle and looking up at the ceiling to ground himself to try and not bust on the spot. You love this, of course, seeing him visibly spiral paired with the salty taste of precum already leaking from him. 

The hand not jerking him off comes up to the back of his hip, gently pushing against him in tandem with the movements of your head, encouraging him to shallowly thrust into your mouth.

“Jesus fu-“ he grunts out, not wanting to overestimate your encouragement, but unable to keep his hips from rolling forward slightly with the push of your hands and the bob of your lips. 

After an unexpected snap of his hips that sent his cock sliding into the back of your throat, making you gag slightly, a pang of guilt struck through him for pushing too hard. That was, until you let your head pull back a touch to catch your breath, but a long string of spit connected your lips to his cock, and a wild smile broke across your face that nearly sent him to the moon. 

You dove back in and pushed his cock all the way into the back of your throat, going so far that your nose pressed into the patch of dark curls that sat above his perfect dick. Focusing your breathing through your nose, you make a point to constrict your throat a few times until you feel him twitch inside you.

Pulling off with a gasp for air, you notice his eyebrows pinched together and gaze locked on you. 

“I like how these feel,” you comment, letting your pointed tongue dance around the metal balls on his tip.

He shudders and you clench your thighs at the sight of his stomach muscles tensing up when your tongue makes contact with the underside of his head, right where it meets the shaft. 

“If I let you fuck my mouth until you come, are you still going to be able to give it to me in a bit, or are you a one and done kind of guy?” You ask with a playfully teasing tone, but genuinely want to know if you suck him off to completion if the night will be over or not. 

“Fuck,” he spits out, more blood rushing to his cock at the idea of coming down your throat, “I’d fuck you all night if you’d let me babe.”

Half a second doesn’t pass before his cock is back in your mouth, hips shakily moving forward with your movements, gaining confidence as you flicker your eyes up at him through your lashes, the glimmer in them telling him he can take what he wants. 

“Fuckin’ look at you,” he comments to himself, “takin’ it all.” 

“Mhmmm,” you hum around him letting your tongue roll around his tip each time before he pushes his cock back down your throat. 

“You think you can get away with teasing me like that? That shit you pulled in the van back there, you think it’s cute to try and get me all riled up?”

You nod, tongue out and saliva coating your lips and chin. You could tell he was close by the way his words came out staggered, and his hips started snapping towards you in a new tempo, like his body was chasing it. 

Grunts and moans pulled from his chest fill the space mixed with the hums of satisfaction you let out while you take him deeper and faster. Moving in for the kill, you carefully slip your hand up in between his legs, cupping his balls, trying your best not to startle him. 

“Oh fuck,” it was a pitch of his voice you’d never heard before, a new tone especially reserved for the moments before orgasm, “you’re gonna make me fuckin come, y/n, y/n, I’m…”

The feeling of his balls constricting in your hands cues the warm wash of come sputtering down into your throat.

Getting the feeling he’d appreciate a bit of a show, you continue to jerk him off and pull off his cock slightly, letting the tip balance onto the tip of your tongue and the rest of his load spills out into your open mouth, some landing around the corners and onto your lips. 

“Christ, y/n,” his chest is heaving, his eyes finally pulling from you to squeeze shut for a moment. 

Once you’re sure he’s looking at you again you swallow down the salty white substance and lick the excess off your lips. You take his head back into your mouth, sucking just enough to clean off the tip and lap up any stray drops. He’s sensitive, you can tell, so you stop torturing him and place a final kiss right in between the two metal balls. 

You thought of asking him if the piercing hurt, or maybe make a comment about the two matching tattoos on his hipbones, ink of his you’d never seen until now. Before your brain can jump from swallowing his come to making post-nut chit chat, he’s yanking you up off your feet and wrapping you in a searingly passionate kiss. 

In your past experience most guys wanted you to drink some water or brush your teeth after they came in your mouth, at least before kissing you. Not Eddie. The way his tongue immediately slipped into your mouth, you almost believed he was trying to get a taste for himself. 

“C’mon,” he whispers in between slotting his lips with your, “Bedroom. Now.” 

He takes your hips in his hands and spins you around, causing a surprised yelp to bubble up from you, making him chuckle behind you as he walks you down the hall, keeping his hands on your sides. 

You knew where you were going, there were only so many doors in his tiny trailer, and you’d been here plenty of times before, but you liked the feeling of his hands pushing you forward, guiding your movements and steering you down the hallway into his room. 

Before your knees can hit the bed he spins you back around and captures your lips in another heated kiss. His hands trail up your sides, letting his fingertips slide beneath the hem of your shirt and push it upwards until your ribs were exposed. He pulls away from your face, leaving you leaning back into him, not wanting the kiss to end. 

“Up,” he pinches the sides of your shirt in his hands, and signals with his chin that he wants you to lift your arms, which you comply. 

It slides up and off of you, his hands quickly darting back to unclasp your bra, seemingly without even trying. This makes you roll your eyes, but the realization that you’re bare before him eclipses the thought of making a snippy remark about what a man whore he is. 

Flat palms caress your sides and move up to cup your breasts, his tongue pressing into the side of your neck. 

“These too,” his thumbs dip into your pants, managing to wiggle under the waistband of your panties as well. You’re going to do it yourself, but he gently pushes you back onto the bed, letting you flip back into the unmade blankets. 

“I wanna see you,” he pops your pants button and waits for a nod before sliding your pants and underwear down your legs. 

In between the blowjob and now, he’d tucked himself back into his pants, pulling his boxers and jeans back up, still unbuttoned, but covering him back up as his cock returned to a half hard state, unlikely to stay that way for very long considering how things were going. 

The scene of you now sprawled out onto his bed, naked and needy for him, and him standing above you, basically fully clothed, had a flood of lust traveling south between your thighs.

“So fuckin’ gorgeous,” you burned under his intense gaze, raking down your body and soaking in the image of your skin laid out against his flannel plaid sheets. 

He crawls over you, letting his body melt into yours, the center seam of his jeans pressing against your soaking core, just as it had when he had you pressed up against the door of the bar bathroom.

Rocking gently against you, you feel his cock already starting to harden again. His tongue moves against your neck, hands roaming freely against your skin, arching into his touch. 

His breath was heavy against your lips, he was already starting to lose himself, and he knew he wanted to make you come with his tongue at least once before his dick came back out, but it was already pulsing between his legs, growing rock solid with every little whimper that came past your lips. 

Your fingers intertwined themselves into the tresses of his long, messy hair. You use your new grip to pull his face as close into yours as your bodies will allow, smushing his nose up against your cheek and foreheads plastered together. The weight of his body on yours, and the lovely rocking motion of his hips against yours stopped as he pulled away and hooked his arms under your knees. 

He slides off the side of the bed, feet returning to the carpeted ground and yanking your body to the edge of the mattress. You let out an unexpected giggle, body limp like a rag doll, moving wherever he wanted you. 

He leans back over to give you another deep kiss, teeth dragging against your lower lip and tongue sliding gracefully against yours, before he slides his mouth down, stopping to lap up at your nipples for a moment, not letting any part of your skin go untouched as he takes his time moving down to where you want him most. 

Wiggling around on his mattress, your body is begging him to get on with it, but he loves to make you squirm. He takes his time licking up your hip bones, kissing from the innermost part of your thigh all the way down to your knee, and then back up the other side. He even takes a long moment to suck a dark purple bruise into the meat of your thigh, biting down on the flesh and licking over the skin to soothe it, noticing how your back arched a little when he bit down harder. 

“Please Eddie,” your voice is hardly above a whisper, whimpering and whiny.

“All you had to do was ask nicely,” he has that too-cocky tone again, but it’s long forgotten once his tongue is buried in between your thighs, lapping up the excess of wetness already pooled there.

“Ohhh,” you let out a moan, sucking in a sharp breath and allowing your body to relax under his focused touch. 

His hands push up from your ass to the crooks of your knees, moving your legs back to either side of you, strong palms finding their resting place on the backs of your thighs, keeping your legs spread wide open for him while he buries his face deep in your cunt. 

“You-“ the start of a compliment, or maybe a request, escapes your lips but the sudden harsh suck of your clit into his mouth has you speechless and moaning, “Mhmmmmm, uhhhhhhh.”

The sloppy wet sounds of him making out with your pussy are enough to drive you wild, your hands originally balling his sheets in your fists quickly move to the top of his head, resting atop his mop of messy curls. 

“Y’can give it a tug,” the first half of his statement spoken directly into your pussy, “I don’t mind a little pain.” He shoots you a wink and keeps his eyes locked on you as he lets his tongue lap a fat long lick up your slit, and then leaning back down to encourage you to tangle your hands into his hair. 

Coming to either side of his head you grab two points of purchase, locking your fingers in at the roots and feeling him hum into your cunt when you grabbed it a little tighter. 

Your hips start to quiver, so he brings one hand from your thigh up to your lower stomach, pinning you against the bed, and still keeping you spread open with the other. 

Working a steady rhythm against your slick center with his lips and tongue, he can tell he’s found the spot you like most by your open mouth and tight eyebrows.

“Ohmygod,” your chest starts moving with heavy breaths, you can’t bear to keep yourself up any longer and flop back down flat onto the mattress, eyes screwing shut in pleasure. He lets go of his anchor on your tummy and returns his hands to your thighs, allowing your hips to wiggle and wriggle against his face to chase after your own pleasure. 

“Pleasepleaseplease,” one glimpse of his big brown eyes looking up at you and his nose pressing deliciously into the spot above your clit has your head reeling, “please don’t stop, fuck.”

Rather than reply, he just continues to devour you at that steady pace, your thighs almost snapping shut around his head . 

“Uh huh, right there, oh fuck Eddie I’m gonna-“ 

A strangled moan rips from your throat and your back arches off the mattress, his hands quickly come to wrap around your thighs and keep your center held closely against his face. He’s pulling your hips flush with his face, despite your spasming torso and gushing core. 

As your orgasm peaks, your hips angle themselves to push up deeper into his face, and he uses his leverage against the backs of your thighs to lift your ass, the entire lower half of your body now off the mattress and sliding backwards as he keeps his moving tongue glued to your clit. 

He climbs up onto the mattress as you slide back, the grip he had on your legs was sure to leave a sore memory of him unwilling to let your coming pussy away from his face. 

When he finally pulls away, your hand pushing at his forehead to prevent overstimulation, both of you gasping for air, his knees are propped under your thighs, and your hips are propped up right at perfect level with the bulge in his pants. 

“Fuck me,” you say through catching your breath, not as an expletive but rather a demand, “Eddie, I need you to fuck me,” your voice was whiny and desperate. 

“This okay?” he starts pulling his dick from its constraints in his unbuttoned jeans, not even shoving them halfway down his thighs before he had that pretty pierced dip dragging through your open and ready folds. 

“Yes, inside, please,” you were chasing after his length, while he tossed his shirt off. He teasingly ran it up and down your slit before sinking into you, collapsing down to press your lips into a kiss to swallow your moans as he slid the whole thing in slowly, making sure to take his time and fuck you right. 

He grabbed the back of your neck and pressed his forehead to yours, finally sheathed all the way inside you and stilling for a moment to relish in the feeling. Pulling back so he can watch your face as he pumps his first few thrusts, he knows he’s beyond fucked. 

“So fucking good,” you slur out, eyes almost crossing from how deep his cock was hitting your insides.

“Yeah? This pussy’s god damn perfect, fucking made for me,” he articulates each thought with a snap of his hips, “suckin’ me right in.” 

“Wait, can we,” your voice had a little more weight behind it unlike the airy moans he’d grown obsessed with in the past forty minutes.

He pulls back, and rather than finish your thought you slip him out of you and roll over, shuffling up the bed and positioning yourself face down ass up, knees spread and back arched. 

“You think you can handle it?” he asks jokingly, swatting your ass playfully and then landing a second, harder smack on the flesh when he notices you pussy clench around nothing at the sensation of him spanking you. 

“Want you to fuck me hard,” you mumble into his pillow, wiggling your hips a little bit to jiggle the fat of your ass, “I know your cock is gonna feel so fucking good in me this way, wanna feel that fucking piercing back in my throat from the other direction.”

“Jesus Christ, y/n,” he was genuinely a little shocked at your words, slowly learning that your freak side might match his. 

You expected to feel his cock slam into you once his hands came to spread your ass apart, but instead the mattress dipped and he was licking another fat stripe from your clit all the way up past your second hole, running this back a few times until you were moaning into the pillow and thighs were tensed up from the attention he was giving you.

“Sorry babe, just needed another taste,” he pushed the head of his dick into you, and moved the first few inches agonizingly slow into your soaked hole. 

“Eddie please, need it, need you,” he loved that his sheets were balled up in your fists, using the tension of the material to bounce yourself back onto him. You only manage to slide back down about three quarters before he’s tightly gripping your hip and pulling out half way again. 

“Tsk tsk tsk, you need to learn to be patient, pretty girl,” he’d thrust it an inch of so, and then slowly pull back, making you whine and start to feel tears bubble up in the corners of your eyes. 

“Want it so bad,” your cheek laid flat against his pillow, and you could catch a glimpse of him behind you out of the corner of your eye if you craned your neck a bit. You sounded so desperate, but you knew he liked it, liked hearing how badly you craved him. 

He starts moving in and out of you, firm grip on your ass never wavering. Restrained grunts left his mouth as he fucked into you, causing your eyes to practically roll into the back of your head. He leans down to place a soft kiss on your shoulder blade, despite how viciously he's pounding into you. His head cranes down to your shoulder, his hand coming up to brush your hair out of your face. 

As his long fingers move your hair away from your eyes, you push your head back into his hand, not wanting to lose contact. He tentatively runs his hands up into your hair, taking a soft grip on your roots.

“Is this what you want?” he whispers, “you like it rough?”

“Yes,” you manage to squeak out, “fuck, pull my hair, spank me, do whatever the fuck you want to me, please.”

His vision practically goes black with this new unrestricted passion, allowing himself to thrust into you as hard and as deep as his hips would propel him, twisting your hair in his grip and pulling you up from your laid position, quickly letting your hands jump to his headboard to support you as your head was pulled back. 

You tried to bounce back onto his cock, wanting to feel him as deeply and wholly as your bodies would allow, but you could hardly keep up with the pace he had set. 

Your ass bouncing against him and the occasional glance he caught at your fucked out expression spurred him on to fuck you even harder. He had your hair pulled back so tight that your back was pressing flush up with his chest every so often, and he took the opportunity to snake an arm around you and hold your chest up flat, his other hand moving down to rub frantic circles on your clit.

“You’re gonna make me come like this,” you manage to croak out, voice hoarse from the harsh bend in your neck. 

“Nuh uhh, no,” his voice was gruff and commanding, right into your ear and sent a shiver down your spine. 

He pulled out of you fully, and had you flipped around flat on your back again before you could even open your mouth to complain. 

“Need to see that pretty face when you come on my cock,” he lines himself up with you again, pushing into you and making a mental note of how the bulge of his cock looked pressing up from the inner part of your lower stomach. 

And of course, your face screwed up in pleasure, puffy lips and sweaty brow, slack jawed and panting his name would be something Eddie wouldn’t be able to forget even if he tried.

His thumb found its way to your clit to pick up where he had last left you, steadily building to an earth shattering orgasm. Talking you through it, knowing you were close by the vice grip your walls had on his dick, in between grunts he spilled out some “good girl”’s and “right fuckin there, that’s it.” 

When he felt your thighs tense up, and the muscles in your neck strain against the soft skin he’d previously had his lips all over, he knew you were nearing the finish line. 

“So fucking perfect, feel so good wrapped around me,” he managed to sweet talk you without altering the pace of his hips, “That’s it, come on my cock, give it to me.”

With that, your body can’t help but throw itself over the edge of pleasure. A deep grunt rattles in your chest, and you lose all sensation other than the wild pulsing in between your legs. You can’t be bothered to worry about what your face looks like, or if your thighs are squeezing him too hard, you only feel the riptide of an orgasm shattering through you. 

The animalistic noise that Eddie grunts out, his wild gaze locked on your face only makes your body shake with pleasure even harder. He had that instinct that most men lacked, to keep the exact pace and motion when your orgasm hit rather than speed up or slow down, it was a gift, a talent. 

Of course he wasn’t going to change a thing about what he was doing, look at you. You were so fucking perfect, shaking and coming all over him, those sweet noises and the beautiful squelching between your thighs. He’d rather die than change a single thing about this moment. 

He stilled only when you paused to catch your breath, and within seconds was flipped over by the power of your thighs onto his back.

Unexpectedly, you began to ride him, trying to match the pace he had earlier set. The aftershocks of your orgasm still washed through you, but you seized the moment to get him right where you wanted him. This angle was different, deeper and more connected. You roll your hips and bring your hands up to his hair, foreheads pressing together once again. 

“You’re making me feel so fucking good,” you manage to breathe out into his lips, he quickly comes to the realization of what’s happened and shifts the angle of his hips to hit you even deeper. 

“I’d give you everything, if you’d let me,” he doesn’t let a single thought pass in his mind before the words slip out, “always.”

Your lips capture his in a kiss that has far more emotion behind it than two friends play-dating and fucking for fun. His hands come up to grasp your cheeks, your hips continue to roll down into his with purpose. 

“I’m- Where-“ his words are hardly intelligible in between breathless kisses, but you know what he means. 

“Inside, please, need all of you inside me,” you try to keep your voice steady so he hears you loud and clear, wanting to give him the exact attention he had paid to you, “Please Eddie, come inside me.”

His hands travel down and guide your hips to fuck down onto him one, two, three times before he’s groaning in your ear and letting out the prettiest and most vulnerable sounds you’ve ever heard form him. 

The swell of his cock inside you makes you drape your head into his neck, focusing on riding out his orgasm and making sure he was twitching in the aftershocks of his orgasm before you let up. 

When you felt his grip on your hips tighten, signaling that he’d had too much, you sink all the way down one final time and let your body lay limp on his, pulsing cock still filling you up. 

His chest rose and fell harshly with his recovering breaths. You could feel his heartbeat pulsing up through the spot on his neck where your ear laid on his sweaty skin.

Silently awaiting the inevitable tap on the shoulder, the slow pull out and post-sex cleanup process, you try to savor every passing moment. But it doesn’t come. Eddie wraps his arms around your midsection and holds your limp body close to his, letting his cock start to soften inside you. 

You nearly fall asleep like that, all wrapped up in him, until you recognize that you should pee and clean up to avoid a UTI. You slip off of him, and hear a disappointed groan from him. He makes cute grabby hands at you as you cross the room, making you roll your eyes, but something deep inside you flip flops with how sweet he’s being, so caring, so unlike the picture of himself that he had painted for you. 

You give him a wet hand towel to clean up the remnants of your activities, and slip back into bed with him per his insistence. You doze off for a while, until the rising sun peeking through his blinds catches your eye, striking you with the sudden decision to stay and face the music or leave and let it settle. 

You’d already regretted it, but weren’t ready to have the “hey, so I know we had fake boyfriend-girlfriend sex, but I actually really like you so what should we do about that?” conversion with him, so instead you take the cowardly path and tiptoe out of his room in the early morning hours, leaving behind your underwear on his nightside table with a scribbled note saying to call you. Hopefully that was enough of a signal. 

Apparently not,

Days pass, and no call. 

It was all starting to get to your head. While you had gone through the stages of being nervous that you had done something wrong, that he was avoiding you to spare you the rejection, thinking he regretted what had happened and didn’t want to face you, who was so obviously into him it was painful, you’d just now turned a new leaf. Fuck that. If he was too much of a coward to call you, you'd hope he'd at least give you the decency as a friend to tell you the truth, you deserved to be angry, and you deserved a response. 

After stewing in your feelings for longer than felt healthy, you just get in your car and start driving to his trailer. If this all blew up in your face at least you wouldn’t have to keep biting your nails and waiting for the phone to ring. 

Three deep breaths, and a quick moment to gather your thoughts, and suddenly your body acted on instinct, putting the car in park and walking up to pound three concise knocks on his trailer door. 

“Just a second,” he hollered from inside, giving you a few seconds to be stricken with regret for showing up unannounced without a plan on what exactly to say. 

“What do you- oh, y/n,” he was in a pair of plaid pajama pants that hung low on his hips, shirtless and hair still damp from a recent shower, “uh, hey?”

“Oh, hey,” your tone was laced with annoyance, “I left something here last week and I’m here to get it back. If you don’t mind.”

“What- oh,” he’s a second too slow to realize you mean the underwear you had purposefully left behind with that note. The note telling him to call you. Which he never did. 

You were left standing on his porch steps, arms crossed and shooting daggers out of your eyes while he stood there in the doorway, an apparent guilty expression plastered on his face while he rocked back on his heels to buy some time to figure out what to say. 

“You don’t have to invite me inside, if you can just grab them and give them to me, and I’ll be out of your hair,” you say flatly, recognizing if he does as asked then this might be the last time you speak to Eddie Munson. 

“No, no, uh, you should come in,” he steps aside to let you in, “we probably shouldn’t have this conversation on my front steps.”

Avoiding eye contact, feeling an overwhelming mix of anger, confusion, and betrayal, you step inside and don’t make any effort to move into the space. You just stand by the door and give him an expectant look. Either he could go get the underwear, or he could grow a pair and say something to you. 

“I, uh-“ he looked so defeated you started to feel bad for using such a pointed tone, but then you remembered the days and days that passed without hearing from him, “I’m sorry, that I, y’know…”

“Yeah, well I don’t really care if you’re not looking for any post sex recap conversations, because you’re obviously pretty sure of yourself in that department,” the words flew out before your mind could even conjure them up, “but you fucking promised me that you wouldn’t do this, so can I please just have my underwear back and I won’t bother you again.”

He runs a hand through his hair letting out a deep exhale and searching the ceiling for words, “I know, I-“

You cut him off, your thoughts were ripping through you now and you were going to say your piece whether he asked for it or not, “You said you wouldn’t pull this shit with me, but I guess our friendship isn’t substantial enough for you to see me any differently than you do every other girl you throw away after you’ve gotten what you want. You clearly don’t want any more advice and you clearly don’t want to be my friend, so please, just give me my shit so I can go.”

“That’s the fucking thing y/n, of course I don’t want to be your friend,” his gaze still fixed on the ceiling.

At this point you were seconds away from just storming out, letting him keep your underwear as some twisted little trophy for breaking your heart. 

“Yeah, crystal clear Eddie.”

“Being your friend is already hard enough, and I knew this shit was a bad idea, the whole trial-girlfriend thing. But how the fuck was I supposed to say no to that? The girl of my dreams offers to do all this no-strings-attached romantic shit, I’d be the dumbest man alive to turn that down.”

You just give him a blank stare, your scalding anger twisting into a more confused frenzy of bees swarming in the pit of your stomach. Eyebrows pinched together, you just stare at him until he finally makes eye contact with you. 

“And yeah,” he goes on, letting all his words out like a big exhale in the same cadence that you had just hurled all your angry words at his, but his tone was filled with guilt as opposed to rage, “maybe we let it go a little too far, but I would never say no to you, I couldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t know what the fuck to say to you after, but that’s exactly the reason I’m not good enough for you. The more we kept that fake dating shit up the worse it was gonna get, so I’m sorry, but I can’t keep spending time with you like that, because it’s starting to fucking hurt.”

“Hurt,” you say with a dry laugh, which almost scares him, “YOU’RE hurt? Give me a fucking break Eddie. I know you don’t see me that way. So what, you’re too scared to hurt my feelings? You’re doing a wonderful job, keep it up.”

“What the fuck do you mean, not see you like what?”

“Don’t pretend to be dumb Eddie. When we first met I tried so hard to get your attention, asking you to hang out, and you always blew me off. It’s fine that you don’t want to date me or whatever, but at least just tell me that, don’t fuck me like I’m special or something and then toss me aside. I deserve better than that.”

“Yeah, y/n, you do,” his voice was no longer guilt stricken, and was on the same straightforward plane as your last responses, “you deserve so much fucking better than me, that’s why I could never let anything between us happen. I don’t call girls back. I’m rude. I don’t take care of myself, let alone others. I like to smoke, and drink, and get head from girls in bar bathrooms and never learn their names, and that’s not the kind of person that a girl like you dates. I’m a fun quick fuck. You’re the kind of girl that after three dates he’ll already have a ring picked out. You’re everything, and I’m nothing, so forgive me for sparing you of that.”

Your bones are frozen and the beat of silence gives him the opportunity to spin on his heel and start down the hallway, presumably to get your panties. 

Snapping back into it, you let out a louder than expected, “Hey,” and you start following him, not taking long to catch up to him in his bedroom. 

“You,” you point a finger at him, and start to feel the rage bubble up again, “don’t get to decide that you’re unloveable. And you don’t get to tell me what kind of girl I am. Have you ever considered that maybe the reason you’re so lonely and miserable is because you choose to be? You don’t get to decide what I deserve, I do. And I really fucking like you Eddie, so forgive me for acting like it.” 

You snatch your underwear off his bedside table, and give him a look, not fueled by anger or resentment, but empathy. 

“I’m going to leave. And if you don’t want to see me again, that’s fine, but if you do, you can call me. Goodbye Eddie.”

You feel out of your own body, floating above it all and rewinding the conversation over and over, body on autopilot taking you home while your soul stayed behind and relived his words over and over, unsure if you feel better or worse than when you showed up. 

Days pass by again, and you take his silence as more of a response than anything he had said to you during that conversation. You try not to wallow, but you feel scattered and distraught, at both the prospect of losing Eddie and having to deal with your shared friends, would they allow you to dance around each other, or would they flat out choose him and shut you out? Would group nights out bowling suddenly just turn into the occasional one-on-one coffee with Robin? 

Until suddenly, on a random Tuesday afternoon when you've gotten home from work and are relaxing on the couch in your pajamas, three knocks are at your door.

At this point you figured it was over. He hadn't called and he'd made no effort to continue the dialogue. So a thought of Eddie doesn't even cross your mind in between the couch and opening the door.

And there he is.

In a suit, slightly descheveld in Eddie fashion, and holding a slightly wilting bouquet of flowers. Posture straight and brave face, but expecting your brutal edge upon answering the door nonetheless.

"Hey?" you're somewhat at a loss for words answering.

"Hi," he seems like he's running lines of a play in his mind, "I was hoping we could talk."

You reluctantly let him in, and he hands the flowers to you, as if it was a normal occurrence for him to bring you such a gift.

"First off," he starts, hardly breaching your living room entrance before starting his apology, "I regret the way we last left things, and I'm sorry for leaving you waiting for a response."

He flicks those big brown eyes at you and you can't help but give him the benefit of the doubt, he always was so sincere with his words.

"You're amazing. And although I'll remain adamant that I don't deserve someone like you in my life, I've been thinking a lot about what you said, and I'm sorry that tried to tell you how to feel."

You remain stoic at your seat on the couch, watching him shift his weight and bare his soul to you.

"You're perfect. Nice, funny, sexy, brave, all of it. And if you're willing to give me a chance, I don't know why the fuck you would, but if you are, I want to put aside all my bullshit and try this out, if you'll have me."

He stood there for a moment, letting you take in his request, bouquet in hand and suit adorned.

"And I owe you a few dates, for real."

As hard as you want your exterior to be, a smile cracks through.

"Okay, but know I don't fuck until the third date, at best," you jab, breaking his nervous exterior and visibly relieving the tension from his shoulders.

"I'm somewhat of a refined gentleman myself, so that won't be an issue," he bows and extends a hand to you.

You pull him down by the hand onto the couch with you, wrapping him up in a deep kiss. He was worth it, and you both knew it was worth the shot to try.

[eff-plays]

Ok so I watched the interview with Stephen Rooney, Astarion's writer, and here are some highlights. (I'm an aspiring writer and current game design student who wants to write for games so I'm sorry if some of these insights aren't as interesting to you as they are to me <3)

He calls Astarion his "horrible little vampire boy"

He loves seeing the fandom around Astarion<3

He did write other characters in the game, but mostly NPCs surrounding Astarion or his storyline, so it mostly revolved around Astarion

Astarion is not as connected to other companions/Origins as, for example, Lae'zel and Shadowheart, or Wyll and Karlach are to each other, but he is still reactive to their stories, even if it's just to stand off to the side and laugh when something terrible happens

He had a clear sense of where Astarion's story would start and end, but it got "muddy in the middle", but those are also moments where the best ideas come from

They write from the general idea that every character has one "good" and one "evil" ending, in order to give the player choice. RIP Ascendant apologists :(

According to Stephen, two of the most important aspects of Astarion's character (to keep consistent when bringing him to Idle Champions, at least) is that he enjoys violence, but is also fun about it

"He has a certain appreciation for violence, I guess? A bit of a murdery streak. [...] He's a vampire, he's all about blood, and he's all about, kind of, those darker sides of humanity. [..] But at the same time, he is ... He is really fun, he's really fun to write, he's really fun to have in your party, and it's very important for me that that is also represented."

"He's gonna stab you, but will have a smile on his face as he does it? I mean, I dunno. That's kind of him in a nutshell."

Larian would not have allowed for Astarion to be a typical brooding Dracula type, and there were scenes that were shot down for not being original enough

The main thing about Astarion was trying to get a "sense of fun." It would be easy to write a character that was very unlikable, and they absolutely did not want to do that

Rooney says Astarion is consistently terrible throughout the game and awful in a whole lot of ways, but he also needed to be charming enough that you could tolerate his presence and wanted him around

Rooney also had a lot of input on Astarion's stats (meaning the 10 Charisma is probalby 100% intentional)

He also had input on how certain lines should be delivered, even though the writers didn't directly work with voice actors

The way Astarion moves and poses is "all Neil"

Apparently, Neil Newbon worked on the character for years and Rooney did not speak to him once, though his voice work did influence how Astarion's lines were written and it became a "feedback loop" (Possible context for "ONLY SLIGHTLY, NEIL")

There were no points where a line delivery drastically changed Astarion's writing; rather it was a constant, slow evolution

However, there was one very spoilery moment where Neil gave such emotion to some "basic" lines that it fundamentally changed the scene (WHAT IS IT OMG)

It's difficult to balance approval, as you don't want to straight up write a monster. Every character needs to have some humanity in them. So if it comes to leaving the party, it needed to be the result of something central to said character. They wanted to be mindful of situations that would cause actual rifts between characters. (I assume this is why most generic disapprovals/approvals are +/- 1 or 2, while character-related ones give +/-5 or more)

However, as they don't write straight up horrible people/monsters, it doesn't come up as often as one might think.

The interviewer makes a point about how characters like Astarion and Lae'zel are good examples of how to play "evil" characters, as they are maybe not the best people but are still eager and willing to stick around the other party members

They worked to make sure the characters would work as a group, no matter the configuration of the group. The characters needed to be on the same path, even if they don't always agree or walk that path the same way.

Stephen Rooney is very proud of the "climactic" scene of Astarion's story. (AS HE SHOULD BE.) He even had to step away from the computer and have an emotional moment. Me too, man.

He's also "extremely pleased" that there's a point where you can punch Astarion in the face. "Actually, that one might be my favorite part" A MAN OF THE PEOPLE!!

Stephen Rooney's tip on what specific thing you should try out with Astarion: When he's trying to get a "sneaky nibble" at night, you should "probably" let him bite you. Way ahead of you there, sir.

No discussion about Astarion's romance unfortunately, but that's that!

[hello-eden]

 Surprise Reflection

Red robin feels like he has been hit by a truck. He has no idea why he feels like this. He knows for a fact he was drugged and not hit over the head but there are more important things to worry about.

He wakes up tied to a chair with both rope and handcuffs. it's going to take a minute to get out. He looks around at his captors who make it very obvious that his initial guess of cult is correct.

There's a summoning Circle in the middle of the room that they're working on. He has no idea what there's summoning. No one's turned around to look at him and started villain monologuing to tell him. He sees two other people tied up and he recognizes them. 

Red hood and spoiler in gear, which is an unexpected surprise he thought they were off tonight. Hood is still conked out but spoiler is awake and gagged. He wonders if she bit one of the cultists or if she tried Nightwings favorite tactic to be as annoying as possible. 

He's busy trying to unravel the rope silently all the sudden he hears chanting. That is the worst thing to happen at this moment. He has basically zero backup as hood is incapacitated and spoiler is just as tied up as him.

Red robin tries to is yelling at the cultist trying to figure out what's going on or at least distracting them with the fact he's awake but they don't seem to hear him.

A being appeared in a blinding flash of white light. There is an unsettling feeling in the air that seemed to emerge with them.

Their eyes glowing such a bright green that you could barely make out the shapes of their face. Their hair seems to come down to their hips alternating from black to white. Their body forming itself right in front of their eyes turning into something not quite human but trying to be. the being turned to survey the room from the cultist to the heroes trying to stop whatever ritual this was.

“ WHO DARES” the being said, sounding as if they've been insulted.

“ Oh great being of chaos and Power, we have come before you to ask for a boon ” one of the cult members came forward to say.

“what is this boon you wish for” The being asks clearly not wanting to be here.

 “if the mighty one would will it we would be most grateful to have the ones known as the Justice League destroyed”

 The Being stopped for a moment as if trying to figure out what the cult leader had just said.

“Is this a fu*king cult”

That stopped everyone in their tracks. 

“I would not call it a cult, I would call it a group created to promote your greatness.” the cult member says trying to save the situation.  

“ That's a cult,“ The Beings seem to start laughing as they realize who had summoned them. ”is this seriously what's going on. who the hell even is this Justice League that you've decided they need to be destroyed.”

“ They are people who promote the destruction of ourselves and have been working too stop the spread of your greatness.”

“ Your majesty,”  Red Robin says, hoping to swing this one there way as it's obvious whatever this thing it is not exactly fond of Cults. “We are Protectors of the place that these people have been trying to destroy.”

 “Are you trying to make me go against Heroes” The Being said, even without a clear look at their face you could tell they're in disbelief.

“You Dare,” The anger in their voice makes it very clear they are dangerous ”I am created from one of Realm's Greatest protectors. you dare try and make me destroy Heroes. I will enjoy giving you to the nightmare dimension”

Another bright light appeared though this time instead of just being inside the circle it covered the entire room. This time the light was a ombre of green and blue. Once the light dispersed all of the cult members seemed to have disappeared.

In the center of the room where the summoning Circle originally was stands a girl. her eyes are the same bright green with white hair but this time with a human face. A familiar face. She's wearing jeans with a constellation hoodie and matching Converse.

“apologies for the inconvenience I do quite hate when I'm summoned” The girl disappears just as she finishes speaking. 

It took Red Robin a while to realize what was confusing him but the second she left he realized. She had Damian's face. From the shape of his nose and the resemblance to Bruce even down to the bright Lazarus green eyes. She was a mirror image and he had no idea what that meant for them.

[fireinmoonshot]

the hard way | tyler owens x fem!reader

Pairing: Tyler Owens x Fem!Reader Summary: You and Tyler Owens have a bad habit of butting heads, but all it takes is one hint of jealousy and things change in the blink of an eye. Warnings: Tyler is lowkey an asshole, but reader can be too, there is a creepy guy that tries to come onto reader and puts his hands on her. Word Count: 4.2k A/N: I rewatched the original Twister movie today and got this idea while watching it and then it all just came out of my head onto the page and here we have it! I had so much fun writing this, it's honestly one of my favourite Tyler fics I've done so far. I hope you all enjoy it. Thanks for all the love on my Twisters fics so far!

“Oh, here we go again,” Boone says, crossing his arms over his chest as he watches you walking towards Tyler, your laptop in your hands. Judging by the look on your face, you have something fairly important to show Tyler – and Boone knows Tyler won’t be happy about it.

Dani sighs beside him, her legs kicked up on their cooler from their spot at the motel. It’s late at night and none of the storms had turned into anything today, leading to a very long day for all of you. You’d driven hundreds of miles only to end up with no new footage.

“How long do you think it’ll take him to get mad?” Dani asks.

“He’s just spotted her and he already looks annoyed, so I’d guess straight away.”

They watch on from a distance as you finally reach Tyler. You move to stand beside him so he can see the screen of your laptop. “I was right after all,” you glance up at him. “See this? That storm was never going to amount to anything and even the radar showed it dying out. We could have saved ourselves half a tank of gas and a few hours if you’d listened to me.”

Tyler rolls his eyes and looks away from your laptop, trying to focus on not burning the dinner he’s been cooking the team on the barbecue that the motel has. “Okay, I get it. But I can’t go back in time and listen to you, so will you just drop it? I’ve had to listen to this all day. You’re drivin’ me insane, sunshine’.”

“Well, if you had listened to me, I wouldn’t have kept bugging you about it, T.”

It’s never been smooth sailing between you and Tyler. You get along most of the time, sure – you have to when you’re working together. But you also tend to butt heads more often than not. With both of you having studied meteorology, you’re the only two members of the team with formal training, which means you often have differing opinions on your interpretations of the weather and the forecasts. 

You disagree with Tyler, he disagrees with you and the rest of the Wranglers watch on, both amused and irritated at the fact that the two of you just can’t seem to work together sometimes. There are, of course, times when you can deal with it. But today… well, Boone had been glad to get out of the car at the end of the day and distance himself from the two of you.

He swears he’s not riding with you both tomorrow.

“If I listen to you now, will you stop bugging me still?” Tyler looks at you.

With a scowl, you slam your laptop shut and hold it under your arm. “If you listen to me tomorrow, then I might stop bugging you. I am not having another failed day chasing because of your inability to choose which storms to follow.”

Tyler sighs. “Why do you always have to do things the hard way?”

You huff and walk away, heading back over to the rest of the team. You grab a drink out of the cooler and sit down on the tailgate of Tyler’s truck, sitting your laptop beside you. The other members of the team watch you cautiously, like you’re a brewing storm that could become a tornado at any moment.

“Anyone wanna take my spot in the truck tomorrow? I’ll ride elsewhere,” you offer.

Boone stares at you for a moment. “You promise?”

You make a face at Boone and take a sip of your drink. “Yes, I promise,” you say. “I’m sorry you had to listen to all that today. God, he just drives me up the wall sometimes. I don’t know how he expects us to continue running this damn Youtube channel or get the research we need if we don’t get the right storms to chase.”

“Hey, no Tyler talk while you’re over here,” Dani pipes up. “This is a safe zone.”

“Sorry, sorry,” you mutter, lapsing into silence just as Dexter, Lily and Kate re-join the group, having headed upstairs to their rooms to refresh themselves before coming back down for dinner. You watch as Kate heads over to help Tyler out.

By the time the two of them bring dinner over to you, you’ve managed to cool off a fair amount and are now discussing the forecast for tomorrow with Dexter, who is leant up against the truck, looking at your laptop over your shoulder. 

“Burgers are ready,” Kate announces as they place the tray of them on the small camp table that someone had set up earlier in the evening. “We worked real hard on them.”

You’re surprised when Tyler picks up two paper plates, puts a burger on each of them and then walks over to you, handing one of them to you before taking the seat beside you on the tailgate. 

“Truce?” He says, looking across at you. “I’m sorry ‘bout today, I mean it.”

Your lips quirk up into a smile. “You promise you didn’t poison my burger?”

Tyler chuckles. “No, not unless Kate put something in there that I didn’t see.”

“Okay, then. Truce,” you nod. “But I’m not riding with you tomorrow.”

He raises his eyebrows just as he takes a bite of his burger. It takes him a few moments to reply, refusing to speak with a mouth full of food – something his mother had instilled in him from a very young age. “What? Why? You’re not still that mad at me, are you?”

“No, I just need a change of scenery or I’m worried I’ll run you off the road. I saw the way you got today when you got distracted cause I was arguing with you. It’ll be good for us to cool off and get a break from each other.”

From across the group, Boone adds “I think you just want to argue over the radio, actually. That’s what you mean by a change of scenery, isn’t it?” His voice is teasing.

“Funny,” you narrow your eyes at him.

“You can ride with me and Lily tomorrow,” Kate changes the subject ever so slightly. “Boone can ride with Tyler. Just like old times, right?”

You look at Tyler, expecting him to be happy with the idea of you riding with the others tomorrow so you don’t bother him all day, but instead he looks concerned. His eyebrows are knotted together and the look on his face shows he’s displeased. 

“Ty?”

He blinks and the look disappears off of his face. “Yeah, go for it. Boone and I’ll be right, hey buddy?” He raises his beer in a cheers to Boone, who does the same thing. “Don’t miss me too much from the other car though.”

“Me, missing you? I think you should try not to miss me, T.”

Tyler grins. “Easier said than done, sunshine.”

The following morning it feels strange to be getting into a car that’s not Tyler’s red truck. It’s your usual mode of transport. Your seat is the passenger seat and it has been for most of the chases in the past, except for ones where footage was the primary purpose of the chase and not research. 

You’re just lifting your bag up into the trunk of Lily’s car when Tyler swoops in behind you and helps you lift it – as if it weighed more than it actually did, as if you were actually having trouble with it. You turn around, eyebrows raised. 

“Mornin’, sunshine,” Tyler grins. “Haven’t had a sudden change of heart, I see?”

“Not happening,” you smile in return. “You’ll be fine without me. You and Boone will be able to catch up like old times. And don’t worry, if we disagree on something, I’ll be sure to let you know about it over the radio anyway. I have Kate on my side today.”

Tyler laughs. “Oh, double whammy. I’m in danger today, aren’t I?”

Kate appears from the other side of the car, putting her own bag in beside yours. She wraps an arm around your shoulders and shoots a smile at Tyler. “You’re gonna regret letting her ride in a car other than yours today, Tyler. A day driving with Lily and I… she’s gonna be a changed woman by the time she gets back in your truck tomorrow.”

“That’s if I even want to get back in his truck, Kate.”

He stares at the two of you and then shakes his head and laughs to himself. “Okay, I’m getting Boone and getting out of here before Lily shows up and you guys gang up on me even more,” he turns and heads for his truck. “Drive safe, all right?”

You and Kate both laugh, watching him as he walks towards his truck, Boone joining him on the way there. Dani and Dexter aren’t far behind him, hopping into the van, and Lily comes bounding down the steps after them, her bag over her own shoulder. 

“We ready for today, ladies!?” She calls loudly from across the lot. 

“Let’s do this!” Kate matches her energy.

You take the back seat, feeling incredibly out of place in the car as Lily starts the engine and follows the other two cars out of the parking lot, leaving the motel behind. It’s smaller in this car compared to Tyler’s, and as you pull your laptop out of your bag and get the radar up on it to get another look at the storm you’d all chosen earlier in the morning, you wonder if you made the right choice.

You’ve been on the road for two hours, heading for a storm north of you when you look down at the radar again and see that it’s gotten smaller – not becoming the larger storm you were all hoping for and certainly not likely to produce a tornado. It’s your job to reach up and grab the radio from between Lily and Kate in the front seats to inform the others. 

“The storm’s shrinking, I think we should pull into a gas station and regroup,” you tell the others through the radio, already preparing yourself for the response.

It comes through almost instantly. Tyler, laughing, then his voice: “What was that you were saying to me last night about listening to you? Guess you’re off your game, darlin’.”

Kate grabs the radio off of you before you can say anything else. “Okay, we all chose this storm together, Tyler. Let’s not throw accusations around and not over the radio.” 

You’re unaware that in the truck, Boone is telling Tyler off for the exact same thing. 

“Thanks, Kate,” you reach forward and squeeze her shoulder as she hands the radio back to you. “Next gas station, let’s pull in and we can all look at the radar together. I don’t think we’re gonna get anything massive in the time it takes us to regroup.” 

“You sure about that, sunshine?” Tyler’s voice comes through the radio again. “I don’t know if we can trust your ability to forecast the weather anym–” His voice cuts off abruptly.

“Sorry ‘bout him,” You hear Boone say shortly after. “We’ll see you at the gas station.”

You give the radio back to Kate and lean back in your seat, sighing as you look out the window at the blue sky and the clouds scattered around it. How could he have been perfectly tolerable last night during dinner, help you with your bag this morning and yet be so irritating? You hadn’t even said anything to spur him on. 

It’s about an hour later by the time you reach the next gas station and you’re grateful when you can get out and stretch your legs. Lily and Kate both head for the bathroom while you head inside to order some drinks and food for the three of you. You don’t bother to wait for Tyler when you see him hop out of his truck. 

He makes his way up to you once you’re inside, waiting for your drinks to be made.

“How’s the other car goin’?” Tyler asks, nudging your shoulder gently.

You look at him, arms crossed over your chest, and look away, choosing to say nothing.

“Come on, sunshine. You’re seriously ignoring me? Where’s that fiery attitude of yours? Just cause you’re in another car doesn’t mean you can’t give me shit right back when I give it to you,” he tries. 

But you’re not interested in the slightest. His words had been uncalled for – especially when you’d moved to another car in an attempt to diffuse the tension between the two of you, and he’d just brought it right back up.

The waitress slides the drinks over the counter and calls your name just as Lily and Kate exit the bathroom, heading straight for you. 

“Can you guys watch my drink? I need to go grab my phone from the car,” you tell them.

Lily and Kate happily take your drink, moving to stand beside Tyler and make conversation with him as you head back outside to grab your phone. You don’t really need it that badly, it’d be perfectly fine to leave in the car till you headed back outside anyway, but it was your way of getting out of a conversation with Tyler. Not that it really was much of a conversation anyway.

When your phone is in hand, you make no hurry to walk back inside the gas station. You make note of several other storm chasers in the parking lot and filling up their cars with gas. It’s a popular stretch of road for chasers and you assume several of them had been chasing the same storm as you and had realised it was going to be a bust.

You almost bump into one of them as you’re heading back inside. You recognise him instantly. He’s in one of the more well known teams, one of the Wranglers rivals and one of the many other groups of chasers that think you guys are just in it for the money you get from the Youtube videos rather than a genuine love of weather and chasing.

“Well, if it isn’t my favourite Tornado Wrangler,” Xavier flashes a smile at you and holds the door open for you to enter, following in after you. “Bit of tension in the group, I hear.”

You frown, unsure about his words meaning, when he continues.

“One of my guys was switching frequencies in the van and got yours on accident. We, uh, we heard your little… disagreement with Owens,” he admits. “I promise we weren’t listening in on purpose. That’s the last thing I’d wanna do. But y’know… open channels and all.”

You can’t help but cringe at his words and let out an awkward laugh. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Xavier. It’s nothing a little time and a successful storm won’t fix, anyway. I think everyone in the chasing community knows Tyler and I butt heads nearly every day.” 

“Butt heads? Honey, that sounded a lot more like an intentional insult to me.”

“No,” you shake your head. “No, Tyler wouldn’t do that.”

Hearing that Xavier thought Tyler’s words were an insult is the kick you need to make you realise that they weren’t. Tyler was the type to get on your nerves, that was true. But the type to intentionally insult you in an attempt to hurt your feelings? He would never do that.

Xavier gives you an unimpressed look. “Listen, honey – we have a spot available in our team and it’s yours if you want it,” He reaches out and places a hand on your waist, almost making you flinch at the action. You resist the urge to hit his hand off. “You have the degree to prove you know what you’re doing and I think we both know you’re wasting your time with the Wranglers. Especially proven that their leader seems to treat you like something on the bottom of his shoe… me, on the other hand, well… I’d treat you better.”

You try your hardest to control your expression, not wanting to come across the wrong way or to make a scene in front of everyone in the gas station – your team, his team and the several other teams and general patrons all milling about and eating their mid-day feed. Even though you feel uncomfortable as all hell and would love nothing more than to deliver a swift punch to his nose and book it straight back out the door. 

“Listen, Xavier,” you take a step closer to him and almost cringe at the way his lips move up into a smile at your closer proximity. “I wouldn’t join your team if it was the last storm chasing team on earth. If you think I’m wasting my time with my team, I hate to think how much time I’d waste on yours. I’ve seen how much time you spend looking in your car mirrors. If you didn’t know, the tornadoes don’t actually care how your hair looks.” You reach up and pat his chest condescendingly. “And if I hear you say one more bad word about Tyler Owens, I’ll make sure the whole chasing community knows about what happened here today, how you tried to come onto me just to get me to join your team. Trust me, it won’t end well for you.”

You don’t waste anymore time in removing his hand from your waist and leaving him standing alone as you head back over to your group. Kate and Lily are watching you from right where you left them, though Tyler isn’t with them anymore. 

Kate hands you your drink. “You all right? What the hell was that?”

“Just Xavier being an asshole,” you mutter, risking a look over your shoulder to see that he’s gone to join the rest of his group. You hope he’s seething and embarrassed by your words. “I dealt with him though.” 

You can’t shake the uncomfortable feeling still running through your body, though. You try and take a sip of your coffee to calm yourself down. It doesn’t work, really only making you feel more jittery and strange. 

“I’m gonna go wait out at the car, when you guys are all done we can check the radar together and decide where to go from here, all right? You guys can tell the others?” You ask.

Kate nods. “Yeah, course. You sure you’re okay, though?”

You look between her and Lily, noticing the worried looks on their faces, and try and put a smile on your own face to stop them from worrying so much. “Yeah, I promise. It’s just packed to the brim in here and I wanna get some fresh air after all the driving.”

You can feel Kate and Lily’s eyes on you as you leave, coming out the door you’d only just come inside through. You make a beeline straight to the car, taking a deep breath, grateful for the cool breeze on your skin and the warmth of the sun above you. The uncomfortable feeling starts to fade as you open the door to the car and climb up, putting your coffee in the cup holder and leaving your feet hanging out the door as you start to scroll on your phone to distract yourself. 

It’s only a few minutes later when someone stands in the way of the sun and casts a shadow over you. You blink up to meet Tyler’s eyes. He stands in the doorway of the truck, a hand on his hip.

“Already scouting a new group to join cause of me, are you?” He starts, and it takes everything in you not to roll your eyes. “I go to the bathroom for two minutes and come out to see you and freakin’ Xavier all close? When the hell did that happen?”

You let out a huff and squeeze your eyes shut. “Seriously, T, can you not do this right now?”

Tyler shakes his head. “I wasn’t trying to insult you over the radio, sunshine. Usually, you give it right back to me, so that’s what I was expecting, and I know I took it too far – Boone said as much after we put the radio down. I really am sorry about it.”

You open your mouth to tell him it’s all right, that you accept his apology, but he continues speaking, cutting you off and making you glad you never got a chance to actually speak.

“But out of everyone, I see you flirting with Xavier? I mean, come on.”

“I wasn’t flirting–”

“Sure as hell looked that way to me,” he huffs. “You two were all touchy. I saw it.”

You take a deep breath and move to stand up, forcing him to move out of your way. You close the car door behind you and turn to face him, crossing your arms over your chest. You are not going to have this argument like this. 

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous, Tyler.”

Tyler doesn’t hesitate before he replies. “Well, that’s cause I am.”

For the first time since you’ve known Tyler Owens, you’re lost for words. You open your mouth once, twice, unable to come up with anything to say to him. It seems Tyler is the same, just staring at you, his eyes ever so slightly wide. 

“Then… then you’re jealous for all the wrong reasons,” you manage.

You should be saying something else – teasing him, getting on his nerves, but your short response is all you can get out and it’s nothing like your usual tone when you talk to Tyler.

He frowns. “Why is that?”

You clear your throat. “Cause he was the one coming onto me, telling me to join his team and talking shit about you, and I was the one telling him not to talk shit about you and not to put his hands on me, like he thought he could clearly do without consent.”

As soon as you finish speaking, you regret your words only because of the look that crosses over Tyler’s face. He glances over your shoulder towards the gas station where you assume Xavier and his team still are. 

“That piece of shit,” Tyler mutters, and then he’s moving.

You’re quick to react, hurrying after him and reaching out to grab his arm and attempt to tug him to a stop. It doesn’t work the first time, but the second time it does. “Tyler, stop. You going in there is not going to help anything, it’s just going to make things worse.”

Tyler turns to look at you and you’ve never seen him look so mad before. 

“You’re telling me that guy put his hands on you and tried to come onto you and you don’t want me to go and give him a piece of my mind? Sunshine, he deserves worse than what I can do to him, but I’ll do my best,” he says.

You don’t miss the fact that Tyler manoeuvres your grip on his arm to take your hand in his instead, weaving his fingers in-between yours and giving your hand a squeeze.   

“I’m saying that I already gave him a piece of my mind, T, and I threatened that I’d tell everyone about what he did if he said anything bad about you again,” you explain. 

“I don’t care if he says anything about me, but the fact that he did that to you… everyone already deserves to know what a piece of shit he is,” Tyler seethes. 

You squeeze his hand, then. “I’m sure they’ll find out one of these days, but not today, T, please. I just wanted to come out here and get some fresh air and try and forget what happened.”

Tyler takes a breath and then takes a step towards you, away from the gas station. “Do you want company or do you want me to go back inside and tell the others to hang back inside a while?”

“You’d do that?”

He laughs softly. “Have the last few minutes not shown you that I’d do pretty much anything for you, sunshine? And last night? The last thing I wanted was for you to ride with someone else other than me, but I could tell it’s what you wanted, so I didn’t fight you on it.”

“And what you said over the radio this morning?”

“I missed you and the way you always disagree with me. I just acted on it the wrong way.”

“Yeah,” you nod your head. “You were a real asshole.”

Tyler’s face breaks out into a grin. “Not gonna disagree with you on that one.”

You stare up at him for a moment, honestly surprised at how quickly things had changed between you. Only minutes ago, Tyler was mad at you, then he was mad at Xavier and now he was standing here, smiling at you like you were as bright as the sun. His nickname was fitting for you, you suppose.

“Will you just come and stay with me for a bit? Till whenever the others come out?” You ask, nodding your head back towards the car where you’d been sitting before.

Tyler nods. “I have one condition, though.”

“Name it.”

“You sit in my truck instead, and you come back and ride with me in it again.”

You can’t keep the smile off your face. “That’s two conditions, actually, T.”

“And you didn’t say no to either of them,” Tyler smiles. “Come on, sunshine.”