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fanaticsnail · 1 month ago

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Age Gap: Garp

Birthday Celebration Masterlist

Word count: 1,800

Themes: Garp x f!reader, gendered terms used, smut, mdni, 18+, NSFW, mirror sex, age gap, overstimulation, porn with minor plot, old-man endurance.

Notes: birthday celebration fic! Love Garp and all the fun that comes with him.

Back pressed against the bare chest of the man behind you, knees drawn up over his thighs, he braced you fully against his body with his large forearm. In front of the both of you was a large, rectangular, floor-length mirror: granting you no choice but to witness the actions the man behind you was enacting against your body.

His cock was pressed against your ass, leaking tip smearing precum on your spine while he disappeared his index and middle finger inside your slick pussy. His lips were on your neck, the scratch of his bristle-like facial hair adding to the experience of having someone so much your senior bringing forth this much pleasure to you.

Vice-Admiral Garp was always kind to you in the office. Never once an untoward comment uttered between you, truly the perfect gentleman. Now sprawled on his lap and watching his fingers hook up into your pussy while he whispered into your neck and ear, you had never felt so desired in your life.

Bumping into him after another poorly matched blind date had ended badly was truly serendipitous. You had just finished talking down this overeager match from venturing into a large tirade of how attractive he found himself, which was a large disappointment on your behalf. The younger man that matched you on the marine Den-Den dating frequency just didn’t click with you. He made no effort to learn who you were or what you did for work, and simply assumed the evening would end with him using you like his personal sheathe and disregarding your own needs for pleasure.

Concluding the evening with a firm handshake and your portion of the bill paid for your uneaten food, you stood and left the restaurant without further word as to why. He didn’t even ask you how you were, or paid you compliments on your attire. Sure, you didn’t need any of those things, but watching the man boost his own ego was simply too much for you to give your free evening over to.

When you found the Vice-Admiral laughing with a street-food vendor, you felt a little more at ease. Put of his decorated uniform, in a patterned shirt and cargo shorts with far too many pockets, he just seemed at ease and filled with joy.

As soon as he turned his attention towards you and away from the vendor, he extended out his arm with a broad smile twinkling up at the creases in his eyes.

“My, my, officer, don't you scrub up nice?” he chuckled, gesturing to your attire, “Not saying you don't normally make my office brighter with your radiance, just not accustomed to seeing you outside your uniform.”

“Thank you, Vice Admiral,” you shook your head to chastise him a little, chuckling alongside him, “Had a date.”

“Oh?” he asked you with a small hint of intrigue, “And how did it go?”

Rolling your eyes, you brush past him and gently begin ordering from the street vendor one of their hot specialties, paired with a sweet pastry to follow it. Garp couldn't help but bark a laugh, gently clapping a hand on your shoulder and shaking his head.

“That good, was it?”

“Speaking freely, considering we're both out of uniform and the office is far,” you turned to him while fishing out your Berry, “No. No, it wasn't good. It was, in fact, shit.”

This did nothing to quell Garp’s laughter, only involving the street vendor to chuckle along with the both of you. Sitting in a comfortable air and laughing along at your own misery, you couldn't help but to take Garp in.

Each of his features had this air of charm about him. Smile lines littering his face, creases and crevices that each told a tale of adventure throughout the years. He was far too many years your senior for you to ever consider romantically-.

“-I'll walk you home, love,” Garp suggested, offering out the crook of his elbow and indicating for you to take it. “It's far too late for a pretty woman such as yourself to wander through the trenches. Especially when you're dressed so fine.”

You quirked your brows up, almost scoffing at the suggestion while interlacing your elbow with his own. Taking the street food from the vendor, you held the brown, paper bag in one hand while the other gave his forearm a gentle squeeze.

“Sounds to me like either you don't trust in my abilities to take care of myself, or you don't trust your subordinates and civilians to act appropriately,” you comment slyly. Garp rolled his eyes, a smirk tugging up his whiskered lip.

“On the contrary, I'm actually thinking quite selfishly.” Finally making it to your door, you take a moment to study the man escorting you to your residence.

“Oh?” You asked in response, cocking your head down and seeking out his eyes. “How so, Vice Admiral?”

“It's not every day I have a beautiful woman hanging off my arm and allowing me to lead her home. Reminds me of my youth.” Leaning down, he playfully pursed his lips and enjoyed drinking in your radiance for a moment longer. You felt you had no choice but to laugh and enjoy his attention.

For once, out of these long and drawn out evenings with the large number of singles you had attempted to couple with in the past, you actually felt like you were desired. Not as a body to warm the bed of for a few minutes, not a marine to help rise another in the ranks, but truly desired.

You were not sure of the next few moments: who leaned in first, who removed your dress, who's lips found the others while the door closed behind you, or where you placed the food down while you jumped up and hooked your legs over Garp's hips. None of it mattered.

All that mattered now was how close you were to your impending climax while you watched him bring it on in your glossy reflection. Thick, leathery fingers disappearing into your pussy, crude squelching ricocheting from the corners of your quarters while Garp uttered huskily into your neck.

“How about another one?” he whispered against your skin, “You can give me another, can't you? How many is that now, hm?”

“F-... F-...” you could barely find the words, feeling him brace you against his torso and chuckle in your ear. Gently cooing at you, he pressed his lips to your shoulder and traced the up to your neck.

“My count’s four,” he drew his eyes up to meet yours in the reflection, “See if we can make it five before I give you my cock again, hm?”

“Garp-!” you cried out, feeling your legs shudder and flutter as the coil in your belly wound tightly shut. Your cunt began greedily sucking in his fingers, holding him within you while your high was right within your grasp.

“Oh, you're gonna climax on this old man’s fingers again, aren't you?” he snickered softly, gently biting at your jaw and holding you on the presipis of your edge, “Tell me. Who's making you feel this good?”

“G-G-... Gonna cum-!” you cried out, attempting to curl in on yourself while your high began to sizzle at the corners.

“Not until you say it, sweetheart,” he smiled. His corners creased at the corners, giving him that boyish edge that you had come to enjoy throughout your evening. “Go on. Say it.”

“G-Garp-!” you cried out, watching as his eyes met yours before you darted them down within your reflection to witness the creamy splashback you left on his fingers with your climax.

“Oh, good girl,” he praised you, grinning at you while he expertly ushered you into your high. “Go on, love. Cum on this old man's fingers.”

You threw your head back onto his shoulder, desperately keening and mewling for him while he shepherded you through your high. While one hand moved in and out of your pussy, ushering out your release with sharpshooting efficiency, the other hand braced you against himself while he felt your soul leave your body and join the chiors in oblivion.

Riding your high while trapped on his lap felt unlike anything you'd experienced in couplings prior. He had had you in ways you had never dreamed of: reaching highs you had only ever fantasized about meeting.

Huffing and panting while coming down from your powerful release, he slowed down his expert ministrations before withdrawing his fingers from your pussy and giving your thigh a gentle pat.

“Now, dear,” he unlocked his legs from your own and cradled you into his chest. You limply peered up at him, lulling your head against his collar while he hoisted you easily into his arms. “Remind me how many poor dates you had in the past few months?”

He tossed you back onto the mattress and fluttered his eyelashes down at you with the innocence of a newborn deer walking on stumble legs.

“Eleven,” you panted, a warmth dampening your cheeks and flooding your ears. “Eleven shit dates.”

He gently rose your thighs over his hips, drawing his cock between your folds and lining his tip at your entrance. With a slow chuckle, he began languidly rocking his cock once again into your pussy with an easy rhythm.

“By my numbers, seems we have six to go.” He drew his hips flush with your own, bottoming out with his mushroomed tip kissing at your cervix, “Whatever we can't do tonight, we'll pick up in the morning, yes?”

He gently slotted his arms beneath your shoulders, rocking his cock into your core and drawing out needy gasps from your parted lips.

“Yes,” you gasped in response, your head flinging back to mold your pillow to the shape of your hair while he drew out your ecstasy by his deep thrusts.

“That's my girl,” he uttered softly, continueing to staple you against the mattress with the stamina of a wild beast in rut. With every in-thrust, he let out a soft shuddered call of your name on his breath.

Although he would never admit it he was obsessed with the soft, little, overstimulated sobs you'd let out the closer you'd come to your release. He would give anything to be buried in your radiance, night and day, drawing out more of your ecstasy every time you called on him.

He would have you remember him, know that he could draw this much out of you in a single night without fail. Although he was not as spritely as he was in his youth, he could last much longer than he could back in his hay day.

But you mad him feel so young, so spritely, and so full of energy, he had no choice but to keep going until he deemed you fully satisfied by his hands, tongue, and cock. Anything more would have to wait for negotiations between you and he on the morrow.

Tag list: @mfreedomstuff @daydreamer-in-training @since-im-already-here @gingernut1314 @writingmysanity @i-am-vita @indydonuts @feral-artistry @the-light-of-star @empirenowmp3 @racfoam @sunflowersatori @carrotsunshine @skullfacedlady @jintaka-hane @thenotsofantasticlifestory @jadeddangel

🎶Happy Birthday to Me🎶

If you would like to celebrate by indulging my caffeine and bubble tea addiction, my Kofi link is here.

#one piece #x reader #2024 birthday event #garp #monkey d garp #garp x reader #one piece smut #x f!reader #one piece x reader #one piece garp #op garp

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kithtaehyung · 4 months ago

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minted (m) (snippet) | myg

title: minted (m) pairing: street king!yoongi x street cart vendor!reader rating/genre: m (18+) ; angst , smut ; haegeum au , gang au summary: all you do is wake up, sell your fruit on the dusty streets below your flat, and go to sleep. but everything changes when a customer you always look forward to seeing turns out to be dangerous. really, really dangerous. note: again, this wasn't on the docket for 2024 until i saw one (1) mint yoongi edit on my pinterest feed💀 anyways, this is dedicated to hali @sailoryooons for ur belated bday, nary @joonary for being a cutie pie and letting me adopt the tangerine cart girl idea in general, and luce @minttangerines for ur url and for being a wonderful friend. love you all! warnings: language, violence, weapons (guns/knives/chopsticks/etc.), blood/wounds mentions, drugs, alcohol, murder, gang activity, poor reader is just trying to get through the day, mint!yoongi, haegeum!yoongi, tatted!yoongi, his eyebrow is pierced, knife held to the throat, tension, reader suffers from “my cabbages” levels of disaster, orange!jimin, fight scenes, both versions of yoongi have their own red warning labels smut warnings: to be dropped on drop day but lmfaoooo est. drop date: july 2024! teaser word count: 486 total word count: projecting 15-20k✌️

With a head full of thoughts, you stare into nothing, stirring your noodles and waiting for the heat to die down.

Maybe you should’ve just walked a shorter distance and checked the shops you originally wanted to browse. If things went to plan, you could’ve been back home by now, freshly showered and curling up on your worn bed.

But instead, your feet are sore, your head is anything but washed, and you have to trek home empty-handed—on the first day off you’ve had in months.

Defeated, you sigh, going back to your bowl and watching diced vegetables swirl in aromatic broth.

At least the food in this area seems good. And the fading decor really adds to the…

Ambiance.

Wait.

You can’t pull your eyes away from the group walking in, bringing heat from the sweltering sun on their clothes and in their eyes.

But you can only kid yourself for so long because the one that has your gaze tethered is the man in front. The one you haven’t seen in weeks. The one looking right back at you with a visage so shadowed you feel like moving tables to let him pass.

…Yoongi?

As he gets closer, you swallow hard, not expecting to see him and having no earthly idea what to do.

But from the slight confusion pinching his forehead, he didn’t expect to see you, either. Which makes it even weirder when he slowly takes your chopsticks right from your fingers.

Hold on, what—

“What are you—”

A lone, long digit over lips is the only response you get, silencing you immediately before you whip your head around to watch him rush past.

All of them waste no time rushing up the stairs, a myriad of blues blending in with gritty paint and smoke.

And just like that, your reunion is over.

Home. You need to go home. Leave, leave, leave, because something is bound to be going down upstai—

A thud faintly shoots out into the staircase, and you spin around again in your chair, eyes snapping to the ceiling.

Shit.

Even though you’re on high alert, you realize with a quick sweep that no one else is noticing. Or moving. Or even paying attention to anything else but their own company.

Does no one else care about the commotion? Do hits happen in this area that often?

Mind running, you can’t decide what to do. Because even though Yoongi’s guys have plenty of weapons, he clearly had nothing since he needed to borrow your damn eating utensils.

Another crash rains dust on conversations around your shoulders, causing you to look up one last time.

Go home, go home, go home. In what universe would Yoongi himself ever need your help here?

With one more look at your noodles, you curl your lips before biting a side.

Already yelling at yourself for choosing to book it towards the back staircase.

tbc :)))

⟶ what do we feel! | 🥢 join the taglist 🥢 | masterlist

a/n: LETS GOOOO WHO IS HYPED BCCC..

#let's gooooo #minted #bts fic #bts fanfic #*ryenfictalk #ryenwrites #*latest #yoongi fic #yoongi angst #yoongi smut #bts angst #bts smut #bts imagines #bts reactions #yoongi x you

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headspace-hotel · 2 years ago

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against the logic of the lawn

Imagine a box.

This box is sealed with tape or adhesive, which shows you that it has never been opened or re-used. It is in pristine condition. Apart from that, the box could hold anything. It could contain a Star Wars Funko Pop, a printer, a shirt ordered from some sketchy online vendor, a knockoff store-brand cereal, six individually wrapped protein bars.

As a Consumer ("the" Consumer) this is your fundamental right: To purchase a box that is, presumably, identical to every other box like it.

When you Buy Product, it arrives in a box, entire of itself and without context. It has not changed since its creation. If and when Product does change—whether it is broken, spoiled, used up, or eaten—you can Buy Product that is identical in every meaningful way to the original.

It's okay if this doesn't make sense yet. (You can stop imagining the box now.)

Imagine instead a suburban housing development, somewhere in the USA.

Imagine row on row of pristine, newly built houses, each constructed with small, meaningless variations in their aesthetic, all with beige or white vinyl siding and perhaps some decorative brick, all situated on identical rectangles of land covered with freshly unrolled sod. This is the Product that every consumer aspires to Buy.

I am not exactly—qualified, or entitled, to speak on the politics of land ownership in this country. My ancestors benefited directly from the genocide of Native Americans, which allowed Europeans to steal the land they lived on, which is where a lot of wealth comes from in the end, even today. However, I have eyes in my head to see that the act of colonizing a continent, and an economic system that formed as a supporting infrastructure to colonization, have embedded something almost irreparably dysfunctional into the dominant American culture's relationship to land.

This dysfunctional Thing, this Sickness, leads us to consider land to be a Product, and to consider a human upon the land to be a Consumer.

From this point of view, land is either locked into this relationship of control and "use" to varying extents, or it is free of human influence. People trying to reason about how to preserve Earth's biosphere, working within this framework without realizing, decide that we must "set aside" large areas of land for "nature."

This is a naive and, I would reckon, probably itself colonialist way of seeing things. It appears to be well-validated by evidence. Where human population is largest, there is less biodiversity.

But I find the broad conclusions to be strikingly unscientific. The plan of "setting aside part of Earth for nature" displays little curiosity about the mechanisms by which human presence impacts biodiversity. Otherwise intelligent people, perhaps caught up in the "bargaining" phase of climate grief, seem taken in by the idea that the human species gives off a magical anti-biodiversity force field, as if feeling guiltier will fix the problems.

(Never mind that lands managed by indigenous folk actually have MORE biodiversity...almost like our species' relationship to the planet isn't inherently exploitative, but rather, the capitalist and colonialist powers destroying everything.......)

Let's go back to the image of the new housing development. This image could be just about anywhere in the USA, because the American suburban home is made for universal interchangeability, where each little house and yard is static and replaceable with any other.

Others have written about the generic-ification of the interiors of homes, how houses are decorated with the most soul-killing, colorless furnishings to make them into Products more effectively. (I think @mcmansionhell wrote about it.)

This, likewise, is the Earth turned into a Product—razed down into something with no pre-existing context, history, or responsibility. Identical parcels of land, identical houses, where once there was a unique and diverse distribution of life. The American lawn, the American garden, the industry that promotes these aesthetics, is the environmental version of that ghastly, ugly "minimalism" infecting the interiors of homes.

The extremely neat, sparse, manicured look that is so totally inescapable in American yards originated from the estates of European aristocracy, which displayed the owner's wealth by flaunting an abundance of land that was both heavily managed and useless. People defend the lawn on the basis that grass tolerates being walked upon and is good for children to play, but to say this is *the* purpose of a lawn is bullshit—children are far more interested in trees, creeks, sticks, weeds, flowers, and mud than Grass Surface, many people with lawns do not have children, and most people spend more time mowing their lawn than they do doing literally anything else outside. How often do you see Americans outside in their yards doing anything except mowing?

What is there to do, anyway? Why would you want to go outside with nothing but the sun beating down on you and the noise of your neighbors' lawn mowers? American culture tries to make mowing "manly" and emphasizes that it is somehow fulfilling in of itself. Mowing the lawn is something Men enjoy doing—almost a sort of leisure activity.

I don't have something against wanting a usable outdoor area that is good for outdoor activities, I do, however, have something against the idea that a lawn is good for outdoor activities. Parents have been bitching for decades about how impossible it is to drag kids outdoors, and there have been a million PSAs about how children need to be outside playing instead of spending their lives on video games. Meanwhile, at the place I work, every kid is ECSTATIC and vibrating with enthusiasm to be in the woods surrounded by trees, sticks, leaves, and mud.

The literal, straightforward historical answer to the lawn is that the American lawn exists to get Americans to spend money on chemicals. The modern lawn ideal was invented to sell a surplus of fertilizer created after WW2 chemical plants that had been used to make explosives were repurposed to produce fertilizer. Now you know! The more analytical, sociological answer is that the purpose of the lawn is to distance you from the lower class. A less strictly maintained space lowers property values, it looks shabby and unkempt, it reflects badly on the neighborhood, it makes you look like a "redneck." And so on. The largest, most lavish McMansions in my area all have the emptiest, most desolate yards, and the lush gardens all belong to tiny, run-down houses.

But the answer that really cuts to the core of it, I think, is that lawns are a technology for making land into a Product for consumers. (This coexists with the above answers.) Turfgrass is a perfectly generic blank slate onto which anything can be projected. It is emptiness. It is stasis.

I worry about the flattening of our imaginations. Illustrations in books generally cover the ground outdoors in a uniform layer of green, sometimes with strokes suggesting individual blades of grass if they want to get fancy. Video games do this. Animated shows and movies do this.

Short, carpet-like turfgrass as the Universal Outdoor Surface is so ubiquitous and intuitive that any alternative is bizarre, socially unacceptable, and for many, completely unimaginable. When I am a passenger in a car, what horrifies me the most to see out the window is not only the turfgrass lawns of individuals, but rather, the turfgrass Surface that the entire inhabited landscape has been rendered into—vacant stretches of land surrounding businesses and churches, separating parking lots, bordering Wal-Marts, apartment complexes, and roadsides.

These spaces are not used, they are almost never walked upon. They do nothing. They are maintained, ceaselessly, by gas-powered machines that are far, far more carbon-emitting than cars per hour of use, emitting in one hour the same amount of pollution as a 500-mile drive. It is an endless effort to keep the land in the same state, never mind that it's a shitty, useless state.

Nature is dynamic. Biodiversity is dynamic. From a business point of view, the lawn care industry has found a brilliant scheme to milk limitless money from people, since trying to put a stop to the dynamism and constant change of nature is a Sisyphean situation, and nature responds with increasingly aggressive and rapid change as disturbance gets more intense.

On r/lawncare, a man posted despairingly that he had spent over $1500 tearing out every inch of sod in his yard, only for the exact same weeds to return. That subreddit strikes horror in my heart that I cannot describe, and the more I learn about ecology, the more terrible it gets. It was common practice for people in r/lawncare to advise others to soak their entire yard in Roundup to kill all plant life and start over from a "blank slate."

Before giving up, I tried to explain over and over that it was 100% impossible to get a "blank slate." Weeds typically spread by wind and their seeds can persist for DECADES in the soil seed bank, waiting for a disastrous event to trigger them to sprout. They will always come back. It's their job.

It was impossible for those guys to understand that they were inherently not just constructing a lawn from scratch, and were contending with another power or entity (Nature) with its own interests.

The logic of the lawn also extends into our gardens. We are encouraged to see the dynamism of nature as something that acts against our interests (and thus requires Buy Product) so much, that we think any unexpected change in our yard is bad. People are sometimes baffled when I see a random plant popping up among my flowers as potentially a good thing.

"That's a weed!" Maybe! Nonetheless, it has a purpose. I don't know who this stranger is, so I would be a fool to kill it!

A good caretaker knows that the place they care for will change on its own, and that this is GOOD and brings blessings or at least messages. I didn't have to buy goldenrod plants—they came by themselves! Several of our trees arrived on their own. The logic that sees all "weeds" as an enemy to be destroyed without even identifying ignores the wisdom of nature's processes.

The other day at work, the ecologist took me to see pink lady's slipper orchids. The forest there was razed and logged about a hundred years ago, and it got into my head to ask how the orchids returned. He only shrugged. "Who knows?"

Garden centers put plants out for sale when they are blooming. People buy trees from Fast Growing Trees dot com. The quick, final results that are standard with Buy Product, which are so completely opposite the constant slow chaos of nature, have become so standard in the gardening world that the hideous black mulch sold at garden centers is severed from the very purpose of mulch, and instead serves to visually emphasize small, lonely plants against its dark background. (For the record, once your plants mature, you should not be able to SEE the mulch.)

Landscapers regularly place shrubs, bushes, trees and flowers in places where they have no room to reach maturity. It's standard—landscapers seem to plan with the expectation that everything will be ripped out within 5-10 years. The average person has no clue how big trees and bushes get because their entire surroundings, which are made of living things (which do in fact feel and communicate) are treated as disposable.

Because in ten years, this building won't be an orthodontists' office, in ten years, this old lady will be dead, in ten years, the kids will have grown, and capitalism is incapable of preparing for a future, only for the next buyer.

The logic of the lawn is that gardens and ecosystems that take time to build are not to be valued, because a lush, biodiverse garden is not easily sold, easily bought, easily maintained, easily owned, or easily treated with indifference. An ecosystem requires wisdom from the caretaker. That runs contrary to the Consumer identity.

And it's this disposable-ness, this indifference, that I am ultimately so strongly against, not grass, or low turf that you can step on.

What if we saw buying land as implying a responsibility to be its caretaker? To respect the inhabitants, whether or not we are personally pleased by them or think they look pretty? What creature could deserve to be killed just because it didn't make a person happy?

But the Consumer identity gives you something else...a sense of entitlement. "This is MY yard, and that possum doesn't get to live there." "This is MY yard, and I don't want bugs in it." "This is MY yard, and I can kill the spiders if I want to."

Meanwhile there is no responsibility to build the soil up for the next gardener. No responsibility to plant oaks that will grow mighty and life-giving. No responsibility to plant fruit-producing trees, brambles, and bushes. None of these things, any of which could have fulfilled a responsibility to the future. Rather, just to do whatever you damn well please, and leave those that come after with depleted, compacted soil and the aftermath of years of constant damage. It took my Meadow ten years to recover from being the garden patch of the guy that lived here before us. Who knows what he did to it.

The loss of topsoil in all our farmland is a bigger example, and explains how this is directly connected to colonialism. The Dust Bowl, the unsustainable farming practices that followed, the disappearance of the lush fertile prairie topsoil because of greed and colonizer mindset, and simple refusal to learn from what could be observed in nature. The colonizing peoples envisioned the continent as an "Empty" place, a Blank Slate that could be used and exploited however.

THAT is what's killing the planet, this idea that the planet is to be used and abused and bought and sold, that the power given by wealth gives you entitlement to do whatever you want. That "Land" is just another Product, and our strategies for taking care of Earth should be whatever causes the most Buy Product.

It's like I always write..."You are not a consumer! You are a caretaker!"

#plants #native plants #no lawns #kill your lawn #anti lawn #consumerism #capitalism #colonialism #genocide tw

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rebelfell · 9 months ago

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bells will be ringing

crush!steve harrington x fem!reader x fwb!eddie munson

The annual Harrington Christmas Party is an elegant affair, complete with decorations, fancy food and flowing libations. But when your friend-slash-fuck buddy Eddie tires of you and Steve dancing around your burgeoning feelings for one another…he offers a creative solution.

Part One│Part Two

18+, MDNI 8k

cw: MMF, allusions to poverty and implied family strife, light alcohol and weed use, kinda mean/crass Eddie, semi-public fingering/oral (f receiving), r’s hair gets pulled once.

The Harrington’s were white light people.

There wasn’t a single inch of their stately home not adorned in festive finery for their annual Christmas party. It was all silver candlesticks with cream-colored tapers, deep red ribbons tied into bows and hung at perfectly spaced intervals, long garlands of rich greenery draped along the banisters—real as shit and smelling like a goddamn pine forest.

It was a far cry from what you and Eddie knew growing up next door to one another way on the other side of town. For you two, it was scrawny and half-dead trees purchased at a discount as close to Christmas as possible when their vendors were just trying to unload them, covered in a hodgepodge of homemade ornaments and faded multicolored lights, only about half of which worked half the time. When your families could afford a tree, that was.

The Harringtons’ own stood at the far end of the house, glowing bright as a nuclear reactor with seemingly endless strands of bright white lights wound around its branches. It was methodically decorated with matching red, silver and gold baubles, each one hung precisely in place and polished to gleaming perfection.

Elegant. Proper. Pristine.

The party was already well underway by the time you arrived, Steve nowhere to be found in the sea of people. They all stood together in clumps, exchanging jovial smiles that pushed up rosy cheeks, the women cooing over each other's outfits and jewelry while the men swapped stories about their quarterly earnings. Weaving through the throngs, cater waiters floated past carrying trays loaded with hors d’oeuvres and tall glasses of shimmery, bubbly liquid.

It made you and Eddie glance around, furtive and unsure as you skulked into the foyer. The two of you might as well have been invisible for all the attention anyone paid you.

“See Steve anywhere?” you asked, peering deeper inside the house.

The former stud of Hawkins High had always been easy to spot in the hallways of his former domain, seemingly towering over everyone even after he stopped sporting that gravity-defying bouffant hairstyle. Those days were long gone now, but an occasional glimmer of his old self would still shine through, reminding you of when King Steve reigned supreme.

“Nope, nowhere,” Eddie grumbled. “I told you this was a mistake.”

His warm breath on your ear as he leaned in to whisper in it had your head snapping to the side. Some of the snow that had just started to fall outside dusted his dark, unruly curls and he still had his hands stuffed in the pockets of his leather jacket, as though he wanted to be ready to turn heel and run at the first opportunity. You’d seen him look more relaxed about to shoplift.

“What do you mean?”

“Look around, sweetheart. See if you can spot what doesn’t belong.”

It was kind of irritating how right he was. Everyone else in attendance tonight looked perfectly at home in this pretty picture. It was all business partners and their wives, clients who probably made more in a year than you or Eddie would hope to see in your entire lifetime, other miscellaneous friends and fellow members of the Hawkins upper echelon.

To call you fish out of water would be putting it lightly. You were like fish on a space station.

“What were we supposed to do?” you whispered back. “We had to come.”

That was debatable. Steve had invited you, yes, but he also practically tripped over himself to assure you it was totally fine if you couldn’t make it. He’d sat on the edge of Eddie’s sofa running through all his most blatant tells—hands pushing through his hair, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his nose, foot jiggling non-stop—as he told you about the party.

“It’s all my parents' friends, so it might be kind of lame. But I’m allowed to invite people if you guys want to come. It’d be really great to see you.”

He’d worked himself up into such a state, it almost felt cruel to say no. You weren’t sure what it was—something about the earnestness with which he asked, and the way his eyes shone so hopefully when you smiled and told him you thought it sounded like fun.

Eddie’s gruff voice sounded in your ear again.

“Think we’re just here to piss off daddy?”

You followed his eyeline to the living room, gaze promptly drawn to the imposing frame of John Harrington as he reached out to grip the hand of someone important. Or at least someone who seemed to think they were. Even never having seen or met him before, he was easy to pick out as Steve’s father. They had the same square jaw, the same perfectly angled nose and rich, light brown hair. Although, John’s was cut shorter and tamed into a much more manageable style than his son’s long locks that lived in a near-constant state of tousled messiness.

“Steve wouldn’t do that,” you said firmly. “He asked us to come because we’re his friends.”

The words still felt strange to say. It made you wonder, yet again, if it would ever stop feeling so surreal that you now hung out with Steve “The Hair” Harrington on an almost daily basis.

When you were in school together, you never even landed on his radar. Eddie had some notoriety as the town’s supposed demon summoner, but you were just…around. A plain face that blended into the crowd; a background extra with no lines in the scene; wallpaper and set dressing for the popular kids who were living out their exemplary lives.

If this was only a few years prior, he probably would be spending this evening sneaking drinks with Tommy H. and Carol, or parading around with Nancy Wheeler on his arm to show her off to all his dad’s colleagues and brag about her getting into Emerson. Instead, his falling out with all of them and his subsequent fall from his high-school throne had led him here—to an unlikely friendship with The Freak and The Invisible Girl.

Whenever he came over to Eddie’s to smoke, or you three piled into his car to go to the movies or drive the winding back roads that snaked along the edge of town, it almost felt natural. And the more time you spent with him, the harder and harder it became to remember why he’d always seemed so…untouchable.

“So, what should we do?” You wondered aloud as you glanced around again, still hoping Steve might materialize somehow. Behind you, Eddie’s head shook and his shoulders shrugged.

“How should I know? You were the one begging to come tonight.”

“I wasn’t begging.”

“Oh, really?” He scoffed as he leaned in close again, raising the pitch of his voice in an overly breathy imitation of you. “Please, Eddie? Please, can we go to the party? I’ll let you eat me out from the back if you—”

“Stifle,” you hissed, jamming your elbow into his stomach.

He grunted at the sharp jab, but his lips remained curled in a sly smirk. “What’s wrong? Worried your little crush will find out what I’ve been doing to you after he goes home?”

“I don’t care if he knows,” you sniped. It’s almost convincing, but the flash of alarm in your eyes told a different story. Not that it mattered, Eddie didn’t buy it for a second anyway.

“Well, that’s good,” he tutted. “Because he already knows we’ve fucked.”

“Wait, what?” You whirled around fully now. “How?”

“He, ahh…” Eddie fought to contain his grin as he scratched at the short stubble on his cheek. “He saw that picture you let me take.”

Your eyes went wide, both horrified and enraged as you shoved his shoulder—hard.

“You showed it to him?”

“No, he found it,” Eddie hissed. “We were looking around for some weed I had stashed and he happened to open the drawer it was in.”

Your whole body—your very being—surged with white hot shame. If it wouldn’t have given Eddie so much satisfaction, you might have run straight out of the party right then and there. The thought of Steve seeing you like that…

It was almost unbearable.

The details of you and Eddie’s attachment had always been strictly under wraps. You weren’t exactly keeping it a secret, per se, but most people weren’t super accepting of the idea and you’d learned to play it close to the vest. And with how much time the two of you had started spending with Steve, you didn’t want to risk making him uncomfortable.

It had been going on for ages. Pausing, albeit briefly, if one of you found yourself in a relationship, and picking right back up when said relationship inevitably fizzled or if it tipped into the dangerous territory of getting too serious. He was one of the few people in your life you trusted intrinsically, and it wasn’t like guys were banging down your door as it was.

The picture was a one-time thing—a polaroid you’d let Eddie snap as a belated birthday present because you’d been too busy to find him something real. You had made him swear upon pain of death it was for his eyes only. And now he’d shown it to the last person on earth you wanted to see it? Oh, you were going to garrotte him with tinsel in his sleep.

Also, Steve wasn’t your crush. He was…a preoccupation. A distraction. A vague interest.

You couldn’t even say for sure when it had begun. All you knew was just last spring, there was a month of Friday evenings where you found yourself back in the Hawkins High parking lot pulled in alongside Steve’s distinctive maroon beemer. He was leaning on the hood, waiting for Hellfire to let out so he could drive home his little horde of nuggets, and you had shown up acting as Eddie’s ride while his van was out of commission.

And that night, for the first time ever, you had a real conversation with Steve Harrington.

A fairly illuminating one, at that.

There was a sweetness to him you never would have guessed was there. And a dorkiness that brought light to his eyes when he did his elaborate handshake with Dustin Henderson, or the way he exalted along with the kids when the group burst through the double doors leading out of the school, whooping and cheering from a successful campaign. It warmed your whole body from the inside out, the feeling only growing stronger the more time you shared.

And now he’d seen your bare tits covered in Eddies cum. Perfect, just perfect.

“You’re such an asshole,” you muttered through gritted teeth. “That’s so humiliating.”

“I don’t know,” Eddie said, his eyes glinting with mischief. “I think he kinda liked it.”

“He…he did?”

“I mean, he was staring at it pretty hard. I think he needed some alone time with it.”

You rolled your eyes and gave his shoulder another shove for good measure, muttering a you're disgusting at him under your breath, hoping it would hide the nerves creeping across your face. Unfortunately, it only seemed to add fuel to Eddie’s fire. He leaned in one last time, his voice a gritty rasp in your ear that made shivers run down your spine.

“So you don’t wanna know what he said, then?”

Tension seized your shoulders as you glared at him, jaw clenched, ready to spit back a vicious comment—or maybe just spit—only to stop short at the sound of a familiar voice.

“Hey, guys! I’m so glad you made it!”

Steve was beaming as he came over, his bright hazel eyes shining, the golden flecks in them brought out by the color of his sweater. He drew you into his embrace, his strong arms curling securely around your body and his gourmand scent filling your nose as you breathed him in.

Your hands smoothed over the planes of his back, relishing in the softness of the knit he wore and the solidity of his broad chest pressed against yours. Your pulse quickened, blood pounding in your ears as you did your level best to force what Eddie had just told you out of your head.

“I’m the coat check tonight,” Steve explained, tipping an imaginary cap. “There’s a guest room upstairs we can put them in.”

“I gotta take a leak,” Eddie said, already shrugging off his leather jacket and pushing it into your arms. “Take care of that for me, will you sweetheart?”

You narrowed your eyes at him, but Eddie just grinned back at you with a suggestive bounce of his brows behind his curled bangs. Steve pointed him in the direction of the bathroom and then turned straight back to you as he tilted his head upstairs.

“Shall we?” he asked.

The sounds of the party became distant and muffled as Steve led you upstairs to the designated dumping ground for all the furs and wraps of the numerous guests. It was dark inside, lit only by the moonlight that streamed through the window and the warm glow of the lights strung on the outside of the house that cast across the heap of coats on the bed.

You laid Eddie’s jacket down on a chair in the corner before you began to undo the belt of your own tied around your waist. As the thick, gray poly-blend slid off your shoulders, you shivered at the cool air hitting your heated skin for the first time that night.

When you turned back around, Steve was much closer than you remembered.

His eyes studied you with a kind of reverence that made your body tingle with excitement in a way you didn’t dare to name. The way he looked at you sometimes…whether it through a haze of pot smoke in Eddie’s trailer, or in the flickering light of a screen at the multiplex, or beneath the harsh amber wash of a single streetlight in an empty parking lot…

It made you wonder.

“You look really nice,” he finally said, his voice as soft as his eyes.

The dress you’d worn was fairly simple, made of maroon velour with a burnout pattern of leaves you thought looked a bit like holly. It was loose and flowy, but had laces in the back you had pulled tight so it cinched in your waist and pushed up your chest, not unlike a corset. The neckline was just low enough to flirt with impropriety and it nicely complimented the length of the pendant that sat in the center of your clavicle.

A dainty (fake) gold snowflake you thought was festive.

“Thanks,” you replied, your voice even softer than his as you folded your arms in front of your stomach. “I hope it’s okay. I don’t have a lot of nice outfits.”

Steve shook his head, captivated eyes still scanning over you. They landed briefly on your legs, the black stockings you’d worn in an attempt to stave off the cold now prickling warm on your skin as if it was his hands running over them instead of just his gaze.

“You always look perfect,” he said.

It’s not just the words that made you falter, but the plainness with which he states them. As if it’s something obvious. As though he thinks it all the time and he just happened to say it this time. It makes your stomach twirl and all at once, you feel like an empty-headed teenager standing at her locker, dizzy from being complimented by the cutest boy in school.

“So, this is quite a spectacle,” you chuckled, glad for the dimness of the room that somewhat hid your reaction to him. “Are there any poinsettias left in Hawkins?”

Steve smirked and took a careful step forward. There was only about a foot of space between you now, if that. “I think if there were, my mom would already have a guy on it,” he said.

Your eyes met his and you shared a soft laugh. “Well, it’s really beautiful,” you sighed. “It must have taken her ages to do all this.”

“Not really,” Steve chuckled. “She has, like, a whole team that comes in and puts it all together.”

“Oh, right. Of course.” Your gaze dropped and you gave a regretful shake of your head. Rich people stuff, you thought a bit bitterly. No wonder that hadn’t occurred to you. “But…you must decorate the tree together, at least. Right?”

“No, they do that too. I’ve, uh…I’ve never actually never decorated a tree for Christmas. I kind of thought that was just something they did in movies.”

He huffed out a laugh, trying to hide the sadness that had started to pollute his smile, and rubbed the back of his head, tugging at the hair there that curled along the nape of his neck.

All you could do was stare.

You thought about that gleaming, twelve-foot behemoth downstairs with its dazzling lights and ornaments all spaced and hung so perfectly. It was stunning—looked like something straight out of a magazine. But now it was tinged with something hollow and unsatisfactory.

Cold. Fake. Empty.

It was you who stepped closer this time, the muscles in your arm tensing as if fighting against your brain’s instructions to reach out and touch him. He was close enough now you could feel the warmth coming off his body and smell the spice of his cologne and the clove cigarette he must have smoked. Your lips trembled, parted slightly, still searching for what to say.

But words refused to come.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Steve soothed, flashing you that easy and charming smile you’d grown to love and loathe in equal measure. “I just meant, like, Christmas really isn’t a big deal to me. And neither is this party, honestly, but…”

He fell silent as his hand reached out to squeeze your elbow, the soft pad of his thumb rubbing gently across your forearm. You stared mutely at his hand where it rested, already dreading how cold it would feel there when he let go of you. Except he didn’t.

“I’m really happy you’re here, though,” he said.

Steve’s chest rose with a sharp inhale and the tip of his tongue swiped along his bottom lip to wet it. His head tilted towards you, a few stray pieces of hair falling into his eyes that were bright and shiny with the string lights around the window reflecting in them.

It made your own breath catch, praying you weren’t imagining it as he started to lean in.

“Sorry to interrupt.”

You and Steve flew apart like shrapnel, both of you too wrapped up in the steady draw of your bodies together to notice the heavy thump of Eddie’s footsteps in the hall. Steve’s hand came up automatically to run through his hair, dragging up the bottom of his sweater and flashing the briefest glimpse of torso as his arm lifted. It made your mouth dry as a bone.

“I just realized I forgot about my hostess gift,” Eddie said.

His brow cocked at you and yet another little smirk curved along his lips as he brushed past, nudging you ever so subtly back in Steve’s direction. He then started to rifle through the inside pockets of his leather jacket until he exhumed a plastic bag with a few joints inside.

“Got it!” he chimed, holding it up triumphantly. “Merry Christmas, Stevie.”

The little baggie sailed through the air, crinkling when it hit Steve in the center of his chest.

“Oh! Thanks, man,” he chuckled, fumbling to catch it. “That’s great.”

Turning it over in his hands, he paused, mulling in silence as he stared down at the joints and glanced over his shoulder at the open doorway. From downstairs, you could now hear the faint tinkling of a piano being played and Eddie noticeably winced at the first few warbled notes of an unrecognizable carol being sung by a particularly drunk chorus.

“You know,” Steve said slowly. “We could bail on the party. Take this out to the pool house?”

As soon as he asked, his eyes darted up to meet yours—interrupting your intense study of the side of his face. Round and hopeful, they shone with his earnestness and you felt dizzy all over again. It made your brain scramble, trying to act like you weren’t just consumed by thoughts of what might or might not have been about to happen. You smiled.

“What are we waiting for?”

Steve left the lights off in the pool house, not wanting to draw too much attention if someone wandered onto the patio for some fresh air. The three of you made your way out in shifts—you with a plate of decadent treats you’d filled from the long table of desserts, Eddie with one loaded with food he’d swiped from the circulating trays, and Steve with a bottle of champagne he’d snuck out of the kitchen while the caterers were distracted.

The satisfying pop of its opening bounced off the walls that were mostly windows, sounding all the more illicit and clandestine in the darkness. The contents of the bottle fizzed as he held it out, offering you the first swig, and you took it with a nimble grasp.

Bubbly liquid splashed on your tongue and the dry, almost acidic, taste of it surely would have impressed someone with a more refined palette. But it made you wrinkle your nose as you squinted to read the French name scrawled in a loopy script on the shield shaped label.

“Gross, right?” Steve chuckled as you handed the bottle back. “But it gets the job done.”

He took a deep swig, head tipping back and giving you a long, long moment to study his neck as the muscles flexed with his swallow. You stared shamelessly, transfixed by the pairs of moles that sat along the line of his strong jaw, head empty of thoughts except how much better thechampagne would taste if you were licking it from his lips.

Eddie coughed, all loud and fake, drawing both of your eyes to him where he sat on a rattan sofa in the center of the room. He stared at you expectantly as he slouched down further in his seat, his knees spread wide and his arms draped across the back. He’d wasted no time making himself more comfortable, loosening the evergreen tie you’d made him wear and rolling up the sleeves of the dress shirt he normally only broke out for funerals or the odd court appearance.

“Don’t I get some of that?” he asked with a wry smirk.

Steve hurried to offer him the champagne, wiping away a little dribble of it that had started to trickle down his chin. You followed behind and slotted into a chair adjacent to Eddie’s as Steve handed off the bottle, making your brain short circuit when you saw the way his wide grasp nearly engulfed the entire bottom. It didn’t restart until he settled in the seat next to you.

After taking his sip, Eddie sparked up one of the joints and started it in a rotation along with the champagne. After only a few pulls from each you started to feel the effects, your head getting all light and floaty, your body warming from the blood pumping through you, your skin buzzing from the way your fingers kept brushing Steve’s whenever you passed him the joint or the bottle.

Or maybe it was from the way his eyes lingered on yours when you did.

Eventually, you dropped out of the rotation and sank back in your chair to gaze up at the house. The whole thing seemed to glow with the warmth of the party within, its windows bright yellow, the lights twinkling on the eaves. And the snowfall had remained soft and steady, dusting everything with a fine layer of white like powdered sugar.

The picture was immaculate, like a life-size snow globe. If Steve’s mother had somehow managed to pay Mother Nature as a decorator, it wouldn’t surprise you in the slightest.

“Seriously, Harrington,” Eddie snorted, evidently sharing in your bewilderment. “If all this is just the weekend before, I’m scared to ask what your family does for the main event.”

A deep chuckle bubbled out of his chest as he took a long swig of the rapidly draining bottle. He’d said it mostly as a joke, but Steve’s reaction revealed a nerve had been struck. He began to cough, sputtering out his words as he pulled the smoldering joint from between his lips.

“Oh no, it’s not—they aren’t, uh…they won’t be here.”

His eyes darted to the floor as he shook his head and stammered out his non-answer, wearing that same look on his face you’d seen in the guest room. Half-sad and trying to hide it.

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked. Steve just shrugged.

“They always go away for Christmas. I think it’s St. Barts this year. Maybe Turks and Caicos? Their flight is sometime tomorrow night.”

“Wait, so…they just leave you here?” you asked. “By yourself?”

Steve shrugged and shook his head again, the move almost reflexive, like flinching away from the sting of alcohol cleaning a fresh wound. “A nanny would stay with me when I was little. But from the time I was old enough…yeah, pretty much.”

You and Eddie’s eyes met, the same unthinkable thought seemingly crossing your minds. You actually felt bad—not just bad, but sad—for Steve Harrington.

“It’s not so bad, seriously,” he said, all flustered trying to salvage the mood. “I just hang out and watch movies and eat pizza. It’s fun. Honest.”

Despite his attempts, you can’t help but frown as you think what Steve’s Christmas will look like. His big house that was bursting at the seams with people right now being cold and desolate; him sitting all alone at a long dining room table eating leftover appetizers for every meal.

The thought tugged at something buried deep inside you. Something you’d packed away long ago and shoved into the furthest recesses of your mind. A box wrapped and taped and stapled and tied shut and then shoved behind a closet door. It made you turn to look at Eddie and he nodded knowingly, needing no words to know what you wanted him to say.

“You should come over,” he said, speaking so suddenly it came out loud in the tense quiet.

Steve’s head lifted. “What?”

“To me and Wayne’s,” Eddie supplied. “For Christmas Eve. We have dinner together and watch old movies and play games and shit. With this one.”

He jerked his thumb at you and you smiled as Steve’s eyes flitted over to meet your gaze.

“Only because they can’t cook to save their lives,” you said, shooting him a wink that made the corners of his mouth curl upwards.

“It’s not gonna be like this,” Eddie assured. “But it’s something, you know?”

“That, um…” Steve looked down at his lap, his long lashes fluttering as he tried to blink back the beginnings of tears. “That sounds really nice.”

Your hand moved without permission, reaching out to close around his wrist and squeeze. Steve’s head turned, staring at it like he thought he was dreaming. And as your brain suddenly caught up with the action and your body flooded with embarrassment, you started to pull it back only to feel the warmth of his palm covering your hand to hold it in place.

The only sound in the room was yours and Steve’s soft breathing and you swore you could feel the way both of your pulses were racing in time. His eyes lifted to meet yours and you became entranced all over again by his handsome face, the freckles that dotted his tanned skin, hazel eyes that shimmered as he scanned your expression, the deepness of his cupid's bow.

“I, um…I should check in with my mom real quick. You guys, uh…sit tight.”

Steve sputtered out his words as he rose to his feet, leaving your skin cold as he pulled his hands from yours. He looked around, his eyes searching to land on anything besides you or Eddie as he turned and stumbled towards the door. Eddie watched you watch Steve leave, an expression on his face as bemused as it was mocking.

“Jesus Christ, you two are exhausting.”

He shook his head, laughing to himself as he stuffed the last of the appetizers in his mouth. You glared back at him as he chewed and tried not to think about how your hand still burned where the ghost of Steve’s warmth remained.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on. If I knew I was gonna have to watch you make googly-eyes at each other all night, I could have stayed home. I get enough of that as it is.”

“We’re not—”

“Don’t even finish that sentence,” Eddie scoffed. “You are. He is. Just make a move, already.”

It was actually painful rolling your eyes as hard as you did. “Right. Sure. And what kind of move am I supposed to make? Considering how he ran out of here just because I touched his arm?”

“You’re not serious, are you? You’re pulling my dick, right?”

Eddie hunched forward as you deadpanned him, answering with a slow blink of your eyes and humorless expression until he threw his head back in a loud laugh.

“He had a fucking boner, smartass!” he cackled.

It’s not only your cheeks that warm now, but your whole body igniting like a bonfire. The feeling grips your shoulders, it’s talons digging into your flesh, threatening to pierce it to the bone.

“Bullshit,” you whispered, your mind reeling.

“You think I don’t know Steve well enough to know when he goes from six to midnight? It happens literally any time you touch him.”

Eddie was still snickering to himself as he took a final puff of the joint that had been smoked down to a nub. You stared at your hands in your lap, thoughts going into overdrive. Because this wasn’t just some random guy at the Hideout or an ex-classmate hitting on you at a house party. This wouldn’t be just a fumbled touch, grabby hands groping blindly in a dark closet that you would recount to Eddie before he gave you the orgasm you’d sorely been denied.

This was Steve. This would be something. Wouldn’t it?

“Only one way to find out,” Eddie said, as though he could hear the question you were asking yourself. “Anything’s gotta be better than this.”

“But what if he—”

The rattle of the doorknob cut you off, your eyes darted to the door just as Steve pushed it open to slip back inside. Eddie’s dark curls fell forward, sliding off his shoulders as he leaned in.

“Just follow my lead,” he whispered.

Your eyes bulged in your skull, but before you could retort or argue, Steve had plopped back down in the chair next to you and your lips were effectively sealed.

“So the singing is still going on,” he chuckled. “But I think everyone will head home soon. We aren’t missing much.”

“That’s okay.” Eddie groaned softly into a stretch as he settled back into his reclined position. “I’m sure we can think of something to do.”

Heat flooded your core at his insinuating tone and you sat up a little straighter. He let his head loll to the side, his eyes finding yours automatically, dark irises glinting in the scant light.

“Hey…c’mere, doll.”

Eddie shifted down in his seat, rubbing his ringed hand across his thigh as an invitation. Maybe it was the weed. Maybe it was the fancy, and surely expensive, champagne you’d been sipping all night. Maybe it was the way Steve’s gaze followed you so intently as you stood and walked over to where Eddie sat on the wicker sofa. Whatever it was, it was working.

You laid your hands on his shoulders to steady yourself as you kneeled on the cushion next to him and went to straddle his lap. But his hands came up to grip your waist and stopped you.

“Uh-uh,” he said, motioning his index finger in a circle. “Other way.”

You hesitated, glancing from your crouched position over at Steve. His eyes smoldered in the darkness as he watched you—leaning forward in his seat, elbows resting on his knees, his long fingers laced in front of him. With a hard swallow, you stood and turned.

Eddie jerked you back against him, roughly pulling you flush with his chest. His knees pushed between your own and he spread them wide so your legs were held open, draped over the tops of his thighs. It made the skirt of your dress glide upwards, hem skimming the tops of your stockings, threatening to reveal the strips of bare skin between them and your panties.

His words from earlier still rang in your head. Follow my lead.

Well-worn hands splayed wide across your stomach, squeezing at the softness of your waist. Beneath you, his hips began to shift and the beginnings of his hard-on pressed insistently into the fat of your ass. It made you shiver all over, a gasp falling from your lips.

“So well behaved,” Eddie hummed, tracing the line of your jaw with his fingertips, suddenly gripping your chin in his hand to turn your face towards him. “She’s such a good girl, Stevie…. and we have so much fun together…”

The words and the deep timbre of his voice sent more shivers down your spine as he bumped the tip of your nose with his own. He pecked lightly at your lips until they opened up for him, his tongue probing the warm cavern of your mouth until you were moaning into his kiss.

It was lazy, but punishing. He nipped gently at your top lip, his own feathering with a tiny snarl as he revered back to his conversation with Steve.

“Why don’t you tell her about that photo you found?” he asked, hot breath fanning across your cheek. “Tell her what you thought about it.”

Your gaze flashed to Steve’s and you wondered if there was more light in here whether you’d be able to see a rush of scarlet covering his cheeks. His eyes had gone round with nervous energy, but they remained locked onto yours as he spoke.

“I haven’t stopped thinking about it,” he rasped, his voice almost cracking his throat was so tight. “I wish I could see it again, I…I wish it was me she’d done that for.”

The pit of your belly burned at his words, a breathy sigh fluttering in your chest and an exquisite ache now radiating between your legs. Eddie’s fingers trailed along the center of your body, over your sternum, tracing the dip of your navel through your dress until it quivered under his touch.

Slowly, he drew up the bottom of your dress like a curtain to reveal your core and the black lace your arousal had begun to seep through. The tips of his fingers stroked your entrance, mercilessly teasing your second set of lips.

“You wouldn’t believe how good she feels, Steve,” Eddie husked, his fingers holding their pace, making you grind into his lap. “Way better than that prissy cheerleader pussy you’re used to.”

The room filled with the sound of your breath and the wet schlick of Eddie’s fingers in your folds.

“Oh, sorry,” Eddie snickered. “I should say honor society pussy.”

Steve’s nostrils suddenly flared, his gaze tearing away from you and your body as if coming out of a trance. You looked back over your shoulder with a horrified look.

“Eddie—”

“Shush,” he snapped, cutting you off by plunging his fingers inside of you. They hooked upwards and your back bowed at the sudden stretch, a broken moan slipping past your lips. Steve’s eyes were drawn to your face at the sound, Eddie’s mention of his ex flying right out of his head.

“You want a taste, Harrington?” he asked, all dark and leading.

A little whimper escaped you at the thought and Eddie grinned wickedly. He smiled as he kissed the back of your neck, his teeth flashing as he nipped at your racing pulse.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart? You’d like his tongue?”

“Y-yes,” you gasped, your eyes darting to find Steve’s. “Please.”

At your plaintive mewl, the very moment you asked, Steve instantly rose to his feet and hurried to kneel between yours and Eddie’s spread legs. His long fingers wrapped around the gusset of your underwear and he wrenched them to the side to reveal your dripping core.

He licked his lips as he stared at it, practically salivating. Your own lips trembled, fighting back the urge to cry out for him as you let your head fall back to rest on Eddie’s shoulder.

The wet heat of his tongue met your pussy in long, languid swipes. He nodded his head with each motion, dragging it through your folds as he inhaled deep and needy breaths of your scent like you were his air. His eyes burned with lust as he looked up from between your thighs, gauging your every reaction in the way you fluttered around his tongue.

With a trembling hand, you reached out and brushed your fingertips along his brow, skimming the stray pieces of hair that had fallen forward into his eyes. The intensity of his stare, the depth of his gaze, made you glow brighter even than that behemoth of a tree inside.

He sped up his movements, working you up, the tip of his tongue pointed to swirl in a pattern as magical as it was maddening, flicking it teasingly over your clit and making you clench with each too-quick pass. At the same time, you felt Eddie’s hand creep up between your shoulder blades, fingers weaving into your hair to grasp it at the root. He gave it a firm tug and pulled your head back, bringing his lips to your ear so he could whisper to you—deep and rough and just loud enough for Steve to hear.

“Why don’t you tell him how long you’ve wanted this, huh?”

Another pitiful whimper left your lips as Eddie’s other hand squeezed a little more intensely at your chest, tweaking your nipple through your dress, loving how it made you tremble.

“Si-since Junior year,” you panted. “When he w-won the state swim meet…”

Just the thought of that day nearly has you flooding Eddie’s lap and Steve’s mouth. Your mind filled with the memories of it—visions of him in a Speedo that confirmed just about every rumor you’d ever overheard in the girl’s locker room; his arm and back muscles rippling as he pushed himself out of the pool; water spilling over freckled skin, droplets collecting on his shoulders and running down, down, down to where the small of his back met the fullness of his ass.

You had sat in the stands, thighs pressing together, feeling almost perverted staring while he celebrated with his teammates and whipped off his swim cap, his wild hair exploding out of it and making you wonder how he’d even managed to fit it all underneath in the first place.

The mere mention of his glory days seemed to have a similar effect on Steve. The movements of his tongue and lips turned more fervent, more determined to unspool you as he moaned like he’d never tasted anything as good as you.

Tremors began to roll through your body, making your thighs twitch and spasm.

“Tell him how good it feels,” Eddie husked, hips now punching up to create some friction against his own cock as it strained inside his dress pants. “Tell him how much you like it.”

“Yes, Steve, fuck—I love it so much,” you whined. “Keep going, I need it.”

The pretty lilt and waver of your voice had Steve unraveling before your very eyes. Another low groan rumbled from deep in his chest and he buried his face further, more eagerly, in your heat.

“God, you taste so fucking good, honey,” he moaned. “I could do this all night.”

The thought of having his mouth on you all night is enthralling, but there was no way you would last. You were barely going to make it another minute as it was. Steve was too good.

Every flick, every swipe, every swirl of his tongue you could feel in your entire body. Pleasure rushed across you in waves, a torturous winding upwards, that burning feeling deep in your gut coiling tighter, tighter. Your breaths grew shallow and your pulse raced until you were shaking in Eddie’s lap, fighting so hard to keep your legs spread apart that they shook from the effort.

Steve’s hands came up to grasp at your thighs, his fingers squeezing at the meat of them as he kept you pried open for him to ravish. Like a man possessed, he lapped and sucked and kissed at your entrance, his whole body seeming to move along with the motions of his tongue and lips. Beneath you, the wicker couch suddenly slid backwards and you realized it was because he had tried to grind against it—desperate to feel something, anything, against his cock.

Wishing it was you.

“C-close, close, I’m so close. Steve, I’m co—oohhh—”

Your orgasm rushed in, plowing through your body, making you lose all sense. You squirmed wildly in Eddie’s lap, almost having forgotten he was there until he reached around to give both of your nipples one last pinch—knowing how it always pushed you further over the edge.

Steve’s lips never left your clit and his eyes never left your face as he ushered you into your climax. He stared up at you, his eyes all glassy and round, searching for your reassurance as he rose from between your legs. His face hovered in front of yours and he lifted a hand to cup your jaw, his massive palm warm on your flushed skin as you panted to regain your breath.

“Good?” he asked. Hushed, like a prayer.

“So good,” you exhaled, chest still heaving. Your voice wobbled as you spoke, so overwhelmed with all your buried feelings being dredged to the surface. “Steve, that was—”

“Steven? Are you out here?”

Every hair on Steve’s head went flying as he whipped his head around hearing his mother’s voice. Through the sheer curtains, he could see her as she stepped outside onto the porch, peering into the darkness, wrapping a fur stole tighter around her elegant cocktail attire.

Panic struck his face like lightning, his mouth hanging open, his lips and chin still shiny with your spend. He looked back at you, his cheeks nearly as deep red as the velvet ribbons hung all over his house. You scrambled off Eddie’s lap to stand, frantically straightening your dress and hair, nervously wiping at your lips that were swollen from biting down when you came.

“I, um…the party’s probably over,” Steve said. “I just have to say goodbye to some people.”

He ran his hands through his hair a few more times as he strode towards the door, even though any damage you’d done grabbing it must have been righted by now. You looked over at Eddie, your own eyes swirling with questions you were terrified to hear the answers to.

His shoulders bounced, standing to tuck his shirttail back into his dress pants.

“Well, that’s one way to do it.”.

Steve was waiting in the foyer with you and Eddie’s coats when you snuck in from outside. His parents, thankfully, were too occupied giving the caterers instructions for clean-up to exchange any pleasantries at the door. You could only imagine how that would go…

Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Harrington. I’m the girl your son made come all over his face in your pool house. What a lovely party, thank you so much for inviting us.

There was still a smile on Steve’s face, though it felt almost pasted on now compared to his expression when you first arrived, sort of forced in an attempt to look more normal than he felt. He handed off Eddie’s leather jacket and then held yours open, his eyes remaining glued to you as you turned and pushed your arms through the sleeves. His fingertips trailed along the nape of your neck as he helped straighten the coat on your shoulders, his index tracing its curve all the way to your hairline in a way that felt so intentional it made your skin buzz.

With your ears pounding from your heartbeat thundering in them, you spun around to face him, your lips parted to speak only for no words to come. Because what was there for you to say? Or for him to do? Kiss you? He hadn’t even done that during, would he do it now to say goodbye?

Steve’s handsome face was as conflicted and contorted as your own. A faint blush still dusted along his cheeks and his eyes shone bright from the candlelight coming off the tapers that had burned almost all the way out. At last he drew a breath, and you felt your heart stutter.

“Thank you for coming,” he said softly.

Eddie could barely contain the snort that burst out of him, even as he slapped a hand over his crooked smile and your eyes shot daggers straight into his chest.

You couldn’t get out the door fast enough.

There was only silence as the pair of you trudged along the driveway to the street where Eddie had parked his van, the snow on the ground having melted into slush mottled with gray where it mixed with excess oil on the road. Without the glow of the Christmas lights coming off the rest of the houses in the neighborhood, the darkness of Steve’s street now felt oppressive.

It made you walk a little quicker to the van, your hand curled tight around the passenger side door handle waiting for Eddie to unlock it. As the two of you climbed inside the cab, he cranked the engine and flipped open the air vents for the heat to blast, finally breaking his silence as you yanked your door shut behind you with a sharp tug.

“Look, I’m sorry. Okay? I thought I was helping,” Eddie muttered, his hands gripping tight around the steering wheel. “You were being so fucking obvious, I thought you needed a push.”

His chunky rings glinted in the street light as he busied himself messing with the radio, static scratching in your ears as he searched for something besides Christmas music.

“Are you really mad?” he asked, still fiddling with the dial, barely able to look at you.

You shook your head.

“I just…I don’t know, I feel like it’s weird now.” You let your face fall into your hands and shook your head furiously. “I mean, was that totally fucked up? To do that?”

“Nah, that wasn’t fucked up,” Eddie said assuredly.

He sounded confident enough that you let your shoulders actually relax and finally expelled the breath you were holding. The relief was short-lived though, when Eddie piped up again.

“I’ll tell you what might be, though.”

With a heavy sigh, you looked over at him warily. “What?” you asked.

Eddie sighed as he slumped back against the seat. His foot rested on the gas pedal and he pressed it down lightly, barely revving the engine to get some hot air flowing from the vents.

“When he comes over for Christmas Eve.”

Thank you so much for reading, I appreciate any time taken to read/comment endlessly ♥️

Started on this last year in December so that should tell you everything you need to know about my writing process. Enjoy some Christmas in whatever-month-you’re-reading-this. 😉

#steve harrington #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington smut #steve harrington one shot #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve stranger things #eddie munson #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson smut #eddie munson one shot #eddie stranger things #eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson fanfic

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frantic-fiction · 8 months ago

Note

May I request some Jealous!Fem!Reader x Astarion? Maybe one where someone from Astarion’s past makes an appearance and while Astarion sees this woman as just a friend, reader can see the woman blatantly flirting with her vampire spawn and she doesn’t like it one bit. ESPECIALLY if Astarion’s oblivious to the woman’s advances and innocently engages (because let’s face it, our boy loves being praised & complimented 24/7). Reader decides it’s her turn to stake her claim on our little sassy vampire and remind everyone who he belongs to ;)

Yes! Yes! Thank you for the request!

Jealous

Astarion x gn!reader

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1.5k

Masterlist

It was nice being back in the city. Yes, there was still the ever-looming threat of the Absolute, but most of the party was back home, and for once, it felt like, for a moment, everyone could breathe. You had a fluffy bed to sleep on instead of a lumpy bedroll. And while Gale always made whatever perversions the party scavenged taste good, the warm, hearty tavern meals you've been treated to as of late were too good to beat.

But the best part of being back was taking any moment to drag Astarion out into the city to wherever he fancies so he can explore Baldur's Gate in the daylight without the darkness of Cazador. He wanted to visit the farmers market today, so you wandered the vendors' stalls, stopping to take moments and smell flowers and sample wares.

Astarion politely conversed with a tailor about the fabric quality used for a shirt he wanted. Frankly, they had been talking longer than your attention span could handle, so when your eyes wandered to a stall full of beaded jewelry, you wasted no time giving Astarion a quick peck on the cheek and telling him where you'd be.

The pieces were beautiful and skillfully crafted—brightly colored beads and gold inlays, gems of various minerals, all catching your eyes. The older halfling woman propped highly on the stool, greets you politely, and gives little details and facts about each one you set aside for closer inspection. Maybe you should get something for Shadowheart and Karlach? Probably not Lae—

"Astarion!"

A feminine voice has you snapping your head back to your partner. A frown instantly settles over your features when you see a tall, elven woman pull Astarion's hug. Her brown hair is intricately braided into a top knot decorated in sparkly chains. Her dress hugs her curves, framing her body perfectly.

Why are they still hugging?

"Oh Gods, it's been too long. You're looking amazing." Her nasal voice filters down the markets. "How are you, love?"

Astarion finally manages to break the hug, giving the woman an automatic flirtatious smile, the tailor long forgotten. "Eleanor, I've been well. I do hope the same can be said for you."

Dropping the beads with little care, you leave the stall, ignoring the halfling. You don't like this woman. You don't like how her hand still lingers on Astarion's forearm or how she leans ever so slightly closer as if daring him to kiss her.

"I've been fine, though I'm upset you haven't visited in quite a while. It's been rather dull without you." She runs her hand up his arm.

Astarion laughs, flicking his hand in the air and clearly enjoying the woman's words. "I could only imagine, my dear. Those brutes are fowl at their best. Who wouldn't miss me."

Your jaw clenches when her obnoxious laughter rings in the air. Pushing past a family of four throwing a half-ass apology, not paying mind, too pissed off. Who does this woman think she is putting her hands on Astarion as if he's hers?

"Astarion, you always knew how to make me laugh." Elenor ducks her head, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "If I'm being honest, I was always jealous of the ones you took home. But now that we're here, maybe…"

Oh, hell no! You practically jump the rest of the way and run into Astarion's arm. He lets out a breathy oof, arms tightening around your waist to keep you from tumbling to the ground. Pretending you weren't aware of the woman, you capture Astarion into a chaste kiss before beaming up at him.

"I hope you found what you were looking for, my love." Your voice is sickly sweet as you trail your thumb across his cheekbone. Then you turn your head and feign innocence, looking at the elf. "Oh, I'm sorry, Star. Who is this?"

Astarion gives you a look but recovers quickly. Clearing his throat, he speaks, "Darling, this is Eleanor. She owns a tavern I frequented. One of the only decent companies I've had before we met."

Moving away from Astarion's side, you reach your hand out in greeting, giving her your name, "It's a pleasure to meet a friend of my Star,"

Eleanor looks a bit taken aback, staring blankly at the two of you, clearly not expecting this change in her plans. You're internally preening. She takes your hand in a limp shake before dropping it and stepping back. Eleanor quickly wipes her hand on her dress slyly and chuckles.

"That explains why I haven't seen you in a while."

You sneer at her, wanting nothing more than to punch her. Instead, you drop your hand onto Astarion's chest, nuzzling warmly into his side. "Yes, sorry about that. I've been a bit selfish. Sometimes it hard to get out of bed."

"Right…" Eleanor says. Astarion, I never took you as one to settle down, especially someone as… unique as them."

"What is that supposed to mean?" The venom drips from your words, and Astarion has to keep you in place.

Eleanor smirks. "Oh, I meant nothing bad." The mocking tone alone reinforces that she meant this to be as insulting as possible. "I'm just stating you're rougher around the edges."

Astarion's hold on your waist tightens as you move to step forward, hand reaching for the dagger discreetly hidden against your thigh. There is no possible way this woman values Astarion in any way more than as a body to conquer. That thought alone has you practically baring your teeth.

"What the fuck does that mean!"

Astarion steps in before you can do anything extreme, "Eleanor, it was lovely seeing you again. We'll have to come and visit sometime for a drink, but I'm afraid my love and I must make our leave."

"Oh yes, of course!" Elenor says, her voice a bit too filled with fake cheer. Her smile is strained, and her eyes stare daggers into your skull. "I hope I can see you at the tavern sometime soon."

"Yes, we'll come down for a visit sometime soon. " Astarion calls over his shoulder, practically dragging you down the cobblestone. You think about ripping your arm out of his hold and turning back, but you let him pull you along with only a death glare sent toward Eleanor.

As soon as the two of you are in a secluded place, Astarion drops your hand and turns on you. "Darling, what was that?"

Picking at your nails, you shrug your shoulders. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Astarion takes your hand and, with a finger, tilts your chin to force you to meet his eyes. He has a shit-eating grin, and his fangs are even more prominent in his smile. "You were jealous."

Swatting his hands away, you step back. "I was not!" You lie and storm down the alleyway. You didn't get far before Astarion caught your wrist and spun you into his chest.

"You were jealous." He repeats. "But you really shouldn't be."

"She was all over you."

"It was a hug, my dear, from probably the closest normal friendship I had before the tadpole."

"Friendship? She was practically begging you to fuck her." You huff, fiddling with the lapels of Astarion's shirt.

Astarion chuckles deeply and presses a kiss to your forehead. "Gods, you're cute when you're jealous."

"Don't make fun of me, Astarion."

Ignoring you, he continues. "For argument's sake, if she was begging me to fuck her, as you so eloquently put it, who cares? I certainly don't, not when I have this beautiful, strong, incredibly understanding partner who knows all the darkest parts of me and still stands by my side?"

"Well, I am pretty noble for putting up with you when you're hungry." You smile, looping your arms around his neck, all jealousy draining from you like water from a colander.

"How could another soul handle me in that horrid state." Astarion runs his nose against yours. "I love you and don't plan on stopping soon."

You beam and kiss him breathlessly before mumbling, "I love you too," against his lips. "I think we should head back to our room."

Astarion chuckles under his breath, running his hands down the curve of your spine. "Oh, what for my sweet?"

"Well," Crawling your fingers up his chest, you press your lips to his ear and whisper. "If you'll let me, I want to mark every inch of your neck." "Mark me as yours, darling?" Astarion hums.

"Mhmm, we could go further, but" you continue. "Tonight, I want you to show me this tavern Eleanor owns. I think we deserve a date night."

"You are jealous."

"If I agree, will you take me out?" You lean in for a kiss.

Astarion presses forward, brushing his lips against yours. "As long as I have a necklace of your pretty love bites."

"Then yes, my love, I am very much jealous."

I've been struggling with inspiration lately. Moving was super stressful and I had to leave a hostile work environment very quickly so life's been a bit messy. But I've got my kitty cat and don't have to deal with a shitty boss so hopefully things will go up from here.

I'm kinda iffy on how I feel on this one but that might just be my current mindset. I hope you all enjoy it regardless, and stay tune because I plan on have something spicier posted soonish...possibly Astarion discovering his breeding kink 🫣❤️

Taglist: @heartfully10@ayselluna@marina-and-the-memes@anixson@canonicalchaoticneutral @toadsbitch @meulinkitten-blog @ambr4armr @lotusandcrystals @venussakura @synapticjive @skittleabyss@asterordinary@lariatbunny @whispering-depths@butchboi-chihuahua-slumlord@darkest-part-of-the-forest@queenofcarrotflowers-s@sessils @d20bunny@cherifrog@ophelia-ophelian@bgthree@darlingxdragon@mothynyx @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf@babyqnn @mmendez0124@kokoyu-art@lilah-asteria

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mystic-writings · 6 months ago

Text

selfishly, i love you | eleventh doctor

PAIRING — eleventh doctor x fem!reader

SUMMARY — after two years of being burdened with love for the doctor, you make the choice to leave him behind.

WARNINGS — angst

WORD COUNT — 1,818

NOTES — matt smith i will always love you

masterlist | navigation

You weren’t sure what hurt more — your utterly unrequited love for the Doctor, or the fact that you were leaving him behind.

After years of waiting, of being his companion and seeing every corner of time and space with him, you were finally choosing to leave his impossibly addicting lifestyle behind.

Oddly enough, it was such a trivial thing that brought you to the decision.

Visiting the future was always a tricky thing; rarely did the Doctor get the timing correct. This was one of the few times that he had, on a trip that was just for you and him. No Rory, River, or Amy. Just the pair of you, exploring New New London in all of its intergalactic, interspecies glory.

It was a treasure, seeing glimpses of a world that would only come to fruition after you’d be long gone. You think that’s why you loved travelling with the Doctor as much as you did. To know that despite everything, the world wouldn’t end when you eventually died. That no matter how bad the trivial things seemed in the smaller picture of your life, the world would keep on going.

You’d been wandering a food market together when it happened, taking in the bustle of people as vendors displayed all sorts of things — clothes, food, anything your heart wanted.

“Doctor, look!” You pointed excitedly at one of the market stalls. “They’ve got those candies! The three berry ones that I’ve been looking for!”

The Doctor shared a smile with you as you dragged him by the sleeve of his tweed coat over to the market stall.

Excitedly, you pointed at the bag of candies. “How much?”

“Four credits a bag, or two bags for seven credits,” the older man said, rather gruffly, despite the smile on his face.

The Doctor transferred enough credits for you to take four bags of candies, and you thanked both him and the vendor profusely as you pocketed your bags.

“You know,” the vendor grunted, “you two remind me of myself, when I was young. With my wife.”

Before you had a chance to open your mouth, the Doctor scoffed in disbelief. “Wh- us?” He nearly laughed. “We’re not- no, sir! We’re just friends, that’s all. Yes, friends.”

You could feel your heart cracking in your chest, as it usually did. You were surprised there was anything left of it now, considering how many times the Doctor had unknowingly shot you down.

“Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.” You muttered, voice cracking as the Doctor moved on promptly. Your chest ached at the pitiful nod the vendor gave you, delivering another blow to your battered heart.

That was all it was. A comment from an unsuspecting street vendor, and the well-intended, panicked response from the Doctor.

Upon returning to the TARDIS later that evening, you walked past the control panel and toward your room without a word.

“Wha- Y/n!” The Doctor called out, likely in the middle of a one-sided conversation with you. “Where are you going?! We still have to decide where to go next!”

“To my room, Doctor.” You shouted back, climbing the stairs. “I want to go home.”

You paid the Doctor no mind as he made a noise of protest, but didn’t follow you as you headed into one of the hallways. The TARDIS materialised the door to your room, decorated with stickers and polaroids of yourself, the Doctor, and your other friends, from travels over the past two years.

With a shaking sigh, you pulled the pictures down and walked into your room with them in hand, tossing them onto the bedside table.

You dropped onto the side of the bed, shoulders rounded and sagging with the weight of your own mind. Replaying the moment with the vendor caused you nothing but pain, but your mind seemed to make the decision for you, displaying it on a cinema screen for you to pick apart and torture yourself with.

It felt like hours of you doing only that; letting your mind wander, overthink the scenario and digging up long forgotten ones that all pointed to the same conclusion — you loved the Doctor, more than you could bear handling. And he didn’t love you at all.

Of course, that wasn’t entirely true. He did love you, he’d said it himself. But he always followed up the word ‘love’ with ‘family’ or ‘friend’. He loved you the same way he loved Rory and Amy, as a member of his makeshift little family.

Even though the Doctor had given you his love, it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t the right kind of love.

Selfishly, you wanted more. You wanted him, in a way many companions had before, and in a way none of them had ever achieved. At some point, even Amy had wanted him that way. How could she not? The Doctor was entirely irresistible.

But you knew you could never have him. If today was any marker of how he felt, then your paths ahead were simple: either stay and live with the pain that slowly chipped away at your heart, or leave the Doctor and his radiance behind in the hopes that one day, you’d be able to move on and live a life that resembled everyone else’s.

Surprisingly, the Doctor had left you alone during your time of contemplation. Typically, if he was alone for too long, he’d grow restless and come knocking on your door (or, more commonly, walking into your room unannounced) to talk to you about anything that was occupying his mind.

Once you’d decided, it didn’t take you long to pack up your room.

The polaroids were tucked neatly into an old leather suitcase, one that was probably stolen from the 1950s. Your clothes and trinkets — all of which were souvenirs from past travels — fit neatly into the main compartment, and suddenly, within fifteen minutes, your entire life was packed neatly into a single leather case, ready to be carried away to God knows where.

Your heart ached at the thought. At the reality that, for your own good, this life would be no more. No more hot cocoa and tea with the Doctor, no more karaoke with Rory. No more exploring alien planets with Amy, disregarding the Doctor’s cautious instructions. No more admiring River’s bravery.

No more adventure. Just the trials of an average life on an average planet as an average human. And while you lived for the days you spent with the Doctor, you weren’t sure you’d be able to go on living with him.

With the love you carried for him.

Taking a deep breath, you held the suitcase with one hand, and opened the door of your room with the other.

It seemed, as you stepped into the corridor, that the TARDIS had put your room further back than it had materialised it in the first place. You were forced to walk the halls, footsteps echoing in your ears as you soaked in your surroundings for a final time.

When you entered the control room, the Doctor was flipping switches frantically, talking to you without looking.

“Finally! You’ve come out of your room!” He exclaimed. “Look, I was thinking I’d take you to that planet I was talking to you about, with the cats and talking cars and two-headed people. Sounds like it’d make for an interesting visit, no?”

“Doctor,” you called out from the top of the steps, quietly.

“Or!” He shouted again, moving about the console. “I could take you to see the Roman Empire! You’ve talked a lot about that one before-” the Doctor looked up from the console to find you with your bag in hand. He pointed to it, eyes gleaming. “What’s that for?”

“I want to go home, Doctor.” You said, chest bubbling with emotion. “Please, just take me home.”

“Why?” He asked, wringing his hands.

You exhaled a sigh, dropping your head. There was no way for you to be able to explain it. “Because, Doctor. I’m tired.”

“But there’s a bed in your room, you can sleep in there, can’t you?” The Doctor asked.

Descending the steps, you shook your head. “It’s not that kind of tired. I can’t just sleep it off. It’s been wearing me down inside for a long time, and it won’t go away if I stay.”

“What d’you mean?” Worry pooled in the Doctor’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be fine, Doctor.” You gave him a tight-lipped smile, one you knew he would see right through. But you didn’t have the energy to try convincing him any further. “I just need to go home.”

The Doctor nodded, solemnly, before pressing a few buttons on the console beside you, eyes barely leaving yours. The TARDIS whirred, bringing you back to your home.

Within minutes, you were there. In your small backyard, leading up to the back porch door of your small townhouse. Where you’d be alone.

You opened the door, and stepped outside. The Doctor followed you, catching your wrist and turning you to face him.

“Doctor, please,” you pleaded. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what, Y/n?” He asked. “I’m going to come back ‘round later, okay? Maybe when you’re feeling better we can go see that planet I was talking about.”

Tears swelled in your eyes, blurring your view of the Doctor. Misty rain coated your hair and clothes, because of course it had to be raining. You shook your head solemnly, a shaking breath wracking your body.

“I’m not coming back, Doctor. I can’t.” You told him, voice cracking and wavering. “It’ll hurt too much.”

“What are you talking about, Y/n?” The Doctor’s voice cracked with worry. “What’s going on?”

You gingerly put your suitcase down, stepping closer to the Doctor and cupping his jaw with your hands as the rain began to set in. “You are the most brilliant person I’ve ever known, Doctor. You’ve shown me so much, more than I ever thought I’d see in my lifetime. But I can’t continue being with you. Because I love you, more than life itself. Wholly and selfishly, I love you, Doctor. And I know you don’t love me, so I have to leave. If I don’t leave, It’ll destroy me.”

“But I-I do, Y/n,” the Doctor shook his head. “I do love you.”

“As a friend, Doctor.” You reminded him. “And I’m sorry, truly, but it’s just not enough.”

Your tears fell freely as you let go of the Doctor’s face, stepping back and picking your suitcase back up. Solemnly, you smiled and said, “See you later, Doctor. Don’t do anything stupid.”

The Doctor only nodded, watching you disappear back into your home.

If only he could bring himself to chase after you and find some sort of way to get you back. But even he knew it wouldn’t work. It had been your choice, after all. And who was he to ignore that?

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