#i have a customer service job where i talk to people all day every day

[problematicsashawaybright]

Btw I haven't really been checking my inbox/messages/replies because wrapping up my first semester of my bachelor's degree while working close to full time has been insane and taking up all of my time and physical/mental/emotional energy. So if you see me active via posting and reblogging, but not responding to asks or messages or tags, please don't take it personally!!!! I promise I'm not ignoring anyone /gen. I occasionally answer asks if I see them in my notifs, but most of the time I'm so overwhelmed and exhausted from irl stuff that I go to work and school, be silly and insane on tumblr dot com over blorbos, and then either do more work & school or pass out and sleep. After this week, I should be more available because my semester will end!!! I miss talking about blorbos & answering questions! I'm sorry for being so absent and not responding to any contact recently. Thank you for understanding <3

[seravphs]

ੈ♡˳·˖✶ — MIYA OSAMU x FEM READER

On a bad day, Onigiri Miya becomes your new comfort restaurant. Not only is the food good, but the man who takes your orders is always kind. You think the Miya you’ve been venting to on the phone is the same Miya who shows up at your door to deliver all of your orders.

It’s too bad you don’t know there’s two of them.

wc — 2k

tags — fluff, romcom, miscommunication, miserable corporate girl x small business owner who teaches her joy

The email doesn’t even do you the courtesy of being short. They make you read through two whole paragraphs before you get to the point of it all in the final sentence. 

Your termination is effectively immediately. 

You sit back in your chair to allow yourself a moment to take it in. It’s…not terrible, all things considered. 

You get to leave this job that you hate. They’ll pay you severance. You have enough savings to be comfortable for the next few months. 

It might even a blessing.

But it still doesn’t feel good. You worked hard to land this, and now you’ll have to start all over again. Change is always hard, especially when you haven’t asked for it. 

You look at the clock. It’s currently 8:30 in the morning. You’re giving yourself exactly twenty four hours to wallow, and then it’s back to business. 

First things first - a good meal. Food always make everything better, and you really deserve something special today. For a moment, you entertain the idea of calling your friends over to get breakfast somewhere fancy, but then you remember - 

They’re all at work. 

Where you would be, if you hadn’t just been let go. 

That does sting a little, so maybe you’re not as okay as you thought you were. Hurriedly pushing those thoughts to the side in favor of scrolling through your options, a plain blue banner catches your eye. 

Onigiri Miya, it reads. 

Japanese comfort food. Family owned. 

When you click on the link, it takes you to a page that’s as simple as it’s name. It’s just a menu and a series of pictures, but it’s what you need right now. Your head hurts. You don’t have the capacity to deal with anything more. 

You want something straightforward and easy to digest. Onigiri Miya it is, then. 

“‘Miya speakin’. What can I get ya?” 

It’s a pleasantly accented voice. When you rattle off your order, you suddenly find it a little less pleasant after he says, “Er. Ya sure?”

This is some shoddy customer service. 

“I’m placing the order, aren’t I?”

“Those two don’t normally go together,” he says. “I’d suggest number nine and number thirteen instead. Trust me.” 

You don’t trust him, actually. This is probably just an upselling tactic he tries on every customer, but you’re not in the mood to argue. You had thought when you called a family owned restaurant, you’d be speaking to some kindly old grandma who might let you cry and vent into the receiver for just a little while, not whoever this is. 

At least the delivery is quick. 

A series of sharp raps on your door alerts you to the arrival. You pull it open to a man in a baseball cap and a uniform with onigiris on both. Their merch is cute. You’d wear it unironically. 

Underneath the cap, yellow blonde hair peeks out. On his shirt, a name tag reads Miya. 

Instantly, you feel a little worse for thinking poorly of him. Your bad attitude from work is no reason to take it out on this hardworking entrepreneur who’s running a one man show by himself. 

“Here ya go,” he says, thrusting a paper bag at you. “Eat it while it’s hot!” 

And then he’s off, scampering back down the stairs instead of taking the elevator even though you’re several floors up. You suppose there’s a reason he has those thighs. 

That the food is good is an understatement. 

Your former coworker Aiko used to work in food advertising before she pivoted. She loved to talk about how fake the industry was during lunch, both in terms of people and actual product. It’s through her that you know that half of the food in commercials aren’t actually food, but styrofoam and plastic painted to look appetizing. 

Onigiri Miya, in contrast, doesn’t look perfect. Appetizing, certainly, but not like a work of art. It just looks like what it is - a ball of rice with special ingredients for flavor.

So why are you crying as you finish your first onigiri and reach for the next? 

It’s been so long since you had a home cooked meal. You’re trying not to be maudlin, but you can almost taste the love that went into everything you’re eating. Imagining Miya carefully packing each triangular ball of rice by hand with a smile has you reaching for another, then another, until eventually the entire order is gone before you know it. 

Exhausted from crying and eating, you sink into your couch with a satisfied sigh and fall asleep. 

It’s 1:30 P.M. by the time you rise again, feeling a little better. Sleep really was the cure to all evils. Now you have 20 hours left to indulge yourself as much as possible. 

You’re not in the mood to turn off your brain by binge watching a show. You want to do something. You want to use your hands to craft something from scratch. 

Learning how to make onigiri could be a start. A quick run to the grocery store and the first recipe that popped up on Google later, you have a half formed, crumbling mound of rice with pickled radish shoved inside. If you squint, it looks almost like what you got from Onigiri Miya this morning. 

Who are you kidding?

That’s an insult to Miya’s craft. He put so much care into each dish - you can hardly compare your shoddy workmanship to his. There’s only one thing to do. You have to taste the real thing again to see where you went wrong. 

“Miya. What d'ya want to order?” 

“I’d like-“

“Hold up. Didn’t ya call this morning?” 

Flustered, you nearly fumble your phone. You’re breathless as you clutch is tighter and bring it back to your ear. “Yeah,” you admit sheepishly. “Is that bad?” 

“I mean, yeah, a little,” Miya says. “I appreciate the business but ya shouldn’t be eatin’ onigiri for two meals a day. Yer going to make yerself sick.” 

“It’s a special day,” you tell him. “I got laid off.” 

In the resounding silence that follows, you have ample time to berate yourself for sharing that. What is wrong with you? Why would you say that? He’s a stranger that you’ve randomly dumped your misery onto and you’re sure he’s -

“Ouch,” he says. “‘Kay, I’ll make an exception just for today. What’s yer order?” 

Miya shows up at your door promptly. He’s ditched the cap so his yellow hair is on full display. It looks like he’s run his hands through it. It sticks up at odd angles. 

“Here ya go,” he says, almost distractedly as he hands you your bag. “Enjoy.” 

You bring the bag inside and start rummaging through it immediately, excited to try new flavors you hadn’t gotten the first time around. Out comes the four onigiri you had ordered, a cup of miso soup, and…

A little takeout container of sushi with a cat’s face drawn on it. A speech bubble next to its head reads, “You can do it, meow!” 

Laughter echoes around your apartment. To your surprise, the world feels less daunting already. You hadn’t realized how quiet you had been the entire morning. Miya’s the only person you’ve spoken to the entire day, and even that was a quick and whispered thank you. Your throat almost hurts with the force of your giggles after disuse all morning, but it’s a good kind of pain. 

Onigiri Miya, family owned. You can almost feel the warmth of an embrace around you as you bite into your steaming onigiri, still a little too hot. 

All too soon, it becomes a tradition for you to order Onigiri Miya as your comfort meal. It doesn’t even have to be a bad day - you actively try to avoid associating things you like with painful feelings by using them as treats for hard days. Instead, Onigiri Miya is anything from a reward for getting to the second round of interviews or a celebration for successfully starting a new hobby. 

Onigiri has become your favorite food, and the person on the other line who takes your orders and even spares a few minutes to chat with you when it’s not too busy has quickly become someone irreplaceable in your life. 

You think you might need to redownload Tinder if you’re this attached to the man who fulfills your onigiri orders. 

Even though you know it’s strange, you can’t bring yourself to sever your connection. Miya is warm and kind, and you’ve quickly come to think of him as a friend. It’s a culmination of lots of little moments piling up over time. 

When you had forced yourself to go on your first date after a while, determined to get back out there, it had crashed and burned catastrophically. Onigiri Miya had been there to pick you back up. Miya had even recognized the sniffles in your voice that you were fighting and drawn you another little cat. 

The next time you had ordered, before you could even tell him what onigiri you wanted, Miya had asked you what happened last week. Maybe that’s just how family owned businesses are. They actually care about their customers. Enough so to play therapist to the girl that orders from you every week. 

Then there was the time you had gotten your first call back for a job application, and you had called Miya to celebrate. 

Well, not Miya. You didn’t have his personal number, but you had called Onigiri Miya, which is more or less the same thing at the moment. This time, he had been the one to be interrupted as you blurred out your good news. 

You can almost hear the smile in his voice when he says, “What’d I tell ya? I knew ya could do it.” 

There’s no container of sushi with a hand drawn cat this time, but there is a little note written on a napkin. It’s accompanied by an origami star. 

You don’t cry, exactly, but your eyes water up as you read the note. He’s proud of you. The star is to wish you luck on your continued journey. The knowledge that he’s proud - his own words - fuels you as you keep applying and interviewing, never letting rejection stop you. 

He’s just the guy that takes your onigiri order, but at some point, he’s become someone special to you. 

He cares. He spends an extra two minutes on the phone with you to ask about your day even when you can hear the sounds of a busy environment in the background. He remembers your accomplishments and failures. Whether you fall or rise, he’s there with you every step of the way. 

Sometimes, you get a fluttery feeling in your stomach when he laughs at you, calling you silly for whatever mistake you’re relying to him. You miss his voice when you don’t have an occasion to call, and when something happens, your first thought is always to tell him about it. 

Maybe he feels the same way, because the next time he comes to deliver your order, he tells you, “We’ve known each other long enough, ya order every week. I don’t like being called Miya. My name’s Atsumu.” 

Or maybe not, because he never treats you in person the way he does on the phone. There’s no spark of connection, no bright laughter, no willingness to linger, to stay, to listen. 

Perhaps he’s just shy. In that case, you’re willing to take what he’s offered you and make the first move.

The next time you order, you end the call with, “Thanks, Atsumu. I’ll talk to-“ 

There’s an abrupt interruption from the other end immediately. 

“What’d ya call me?” His voice sounds funny. 

“…Atsumu?”

Even when you’re confused, the sound of his belly deep laughter makes you feel all shivery from your toes to your head. It makes your joints feel weak, like they can’t support you, and you ease into the dining chair as you wait patiently for whatever laughing fit that’s gripped him to pass. 

“Atsumu,” he repeats, with another snort of laughter. “Atsumu, really?”

“What?”

“Ya know Onigiri Miya’s a five minute walk from yer place, right?” 

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Come here,” he says, and hangs up. 

When you enter Onigiri Miya, you get instant whiplash. There’s two of them! 

You’re just wondering if you should get your eyes checked when you start seeing the subtle differences. They have different hair colors, and their eyes are just the subtlest shades apart. 

The most discerning difference is the way the one with grey hair is looking at you. 

“There’s the girl of the hour,” Atsumu says. “I’ll leave ya to it.” 

When Atsumu leaves, Miya gestures for you to sit at the bar in front of him. He’s still packing onigiri. 

“I’m a little hurt, ya know. Can’t believe ya mistook me for my twin.” 

“It was an accident!” You protest. “How was I supposed to know?” 

“I’m teasin’ ya,” he says, laughing. “Yer so easy to rile up. Remember this, okay? I’m Osamu. The nicer brother.” 

“I heard that,” Atsumu yells from the back. 

“Atsumu’s just the delivery guy,” he says. There’s a twinkle in his eye. You don’t think it’s that funny, but you like seeing him mirthful. “I’d rather make the food than deal with the people, so he does it.”

“Am I part of the people?” 

He gives you a look. 

“Stop fishing for compliments,” he says, and your cheeks grow warm with delight. “Ya know ya aren’t.” 

“Here,” he says, sliding you a napkin with a series of numbers and a hand drawn picture of a cat. “I’ve been meaning to do this for a while.” 

By the cat’s head, the speech bubble reads, “Miya Osamu’s personal number.” The cat is winking at you. 

“Is this…?” 

He smiles at you. “Stop clogging up the line cause ya miss me-“

“I don’t-“

He ignores you. “I got a business to run, ya know? Just call me next time.”

Then, he leans over the bar. He’s too close. Your cheeks feel warm under his attention as he whispers to you, “I’ll make something just for ya, compliments of the chef.” 

Trying to recover, you swallow to bring moisture to your dry mouth. You’re trying to be playful when you say, “It’s a date, then?”

He looks at you with a hint of a smile. “It is.” 

[dreamwatch]

Written for @corrodedcoffinfest

Prompt: Envy | Word Count: 1313 | Rating: T | CW: None | POV: Eddie | Pairing: Steddie | Tags: Eddie Munson, Corroded Coffin, Steve Harrington, Corroded Coffin are ruthless, Eddie's going through it but it gets better, healing

(I didn't add any warnings for this, but if you think I've missed anything plese let me know)

At least Eddie can say they were nice about telling him his services were no longer required.

He turns up for practice with a little pep in his wobbly step; he’s getting some strength back in his hands and he has some chords nailed down now and it’s coming along. Slowly. But Steve says it’s like sport, marginal gains, every win is still a win no matter how small. 

The vibe is off the moment he walks into the garage; the guys look at each other in silent conversation until Gareth says “We need to talk.”

Jeff and Matt look at him all sad-eyed and it all feels a little as if Eddie is a dog about to go for his last car ride.

“Look, Eddie, truth is, it doesn’t feel like things are really getting any better, you know? And we have this opportunity.”

A gig up in Chicago, a friend of his cousin got them in the door. There’s going to be A&R people there, and Eddie just isn’t good enough anymore.

“We’re really sorry, Eddie.”

Eddie and Wayne got t-boned in the truck once and he’ll never forget the force of it, hurtling sideways, the crunch of buckling metal, the sickening screech. And afterwards, once everything had come to a stop, the shrill ringing in his ears.

This feels kind of like being t-boned.

“So,” he says to Jeff, his voice more ragged than he expected, “how are you playing my solos?”

Suddenly they find the garage floor very interesting.

Oh god.

“You’ve already replaced me. Right?” He dips to catch their eyes. “Right?”

It’s Gareth that grows a pair and confirms what he already knew.

He stumbles back to the van and speeds out of the driveway, no idea of where he’s going, only knowing he’s not going home. His bedroom is a shrine to music, to metal, to things he loves and has now lost. He can’t bear the fucking thought of it.

He winds up at the lake, can hear birds and the rustle of trees over the sound of his breathing. He’s not much of a crier, not since he worked out that crying wouldn’t bring his mother back but would earn the occasional backhander from his father. So he sits in the back of his beaten up van and does his best to block out the buzz, block-out the voice that tells him he’s a failure, block out the voice that says it would have been better for everyone if he’d died in the Upside Down.

But the voice is loud.

The band leave but the world still turns, it’s just slower and darker than it was before. There are bright spots; he and Steve rent a two bedroom apartment together. After a while they don’t need that second bedroom.

He gets a job at the newly re-opened Radio Shack. Customers still side eye him, and his attempts at jovial conversation are met with blank stares more often than not, so he stops bothering after a while. He has Wayne and Steve, and the kids that aren’t kids anymore, and some days that’s more than enough. Some days.

Steve takes him to Indy to celebrate his birthday.

“We’re hitting up every record and comic book store in the city,” Steve says excitedly and Eddie has to smile back, it’s impossible not to. He gets to come home to this man every night, to climb into bed with him and fall asleep in his arms. It’s nice to have a good thing. Eddie holds onto that on the days that hurt.

They wander the aisles of Tower Records, Steve flashing him the ocassional top forty CD and Eddie flipping him off, and they have fun throwing mock abuse back and forth. He flicks through the metal section, flipping CDs with a practiced finger, pausing on the odd rare Japanese import or limited edition coloured case. Tower has all the fancy shit.

He gets to C and his heart stops.

His picks up the CD with a shaking hand; the logo is more polished but it’s still theirs. He turns it over and three familiar faces stare back at him, looking mean and moody for the camera. And one face he doesn’t recognise, the one that replaced him. He drops the CD into the Jazz section, before telling Steve he wants to go home.

They made it. They actually fucking made it. Maybe it’s only one album, maybe there were more, doesn’t matter, point is they got to have their dream and they kept Eddie from his.

Sweetheart hangs on the wall, covered in dust. There’s a kid out there somewhere that was like him once, had the passion and the talent but didn’t have the money.

It hurts too much to play. It hurts so much not too.

 Eddie puts her in the van with his amps and pedals and drops them off at a thrift store. 

They’re everywhere after that. A group of kids come into Radio Shack wearing their t-shirts. The Hawkins Post runs an article about them, small town boys made good. There’s no mention of Eddie; it’s the first time that it dawns on him there might have been other reasons they wanted to cut ties with him. Wouldn’t have been a good look to have an accused serial killer in the band, afterall.

Dustin admits that he and Mike have been to see them live a few times, they have the backstage passes and autographs to prove it. The absolute audacity of that band to be dolling out autographs to their friends like they’re fucking rock stars—

Right. 

Dustin and Mike never mention them again, and Eddie has a sneaking suspicion that Steve may have said something. Which sucks, because they’re his friends and they shouldn’t have to hide those things from him.

Then he hears them on the radio. 

He pulls the van over, and drops his head onto the steering wheel as he listens to them thunder from his speakers. They sound good. He would buy this record, he would see them live, if it were just anyone else. 

He starts to cry, because they’re better than they ever were with him, and it hurts that they did the right thing leaving him behind. 

Steve and Wayne worry that it’s going to swallow him whole. Eddie’s worried it already has.

He comes home one day to find a computer in their living room, and Dustin on his hands and knees. Apparently they’re connected to the internet now. He has no idea why. But on nights where Steve is working and there’s nothing on TV he starts to use it. His favourite bands have web pages and it’s a fucking revelation. He finds himself talking to people on the other side of the world, arguing with some asshole in England about Iron Maiden’s latest album being their worst (it is), or sending this sweet kid in Australia a list of NWOBHM records he’s got to check out. A whole new world opens up.

He’s three beers deep when he goes looking for Corroded Coffin’s site. His throat tightens as he clicks around the page, looking at their discography, at the tour photos. They played Madison Square Garden in 1997, same year he got promoted to manager at the store. His eyes swim but he can’t help but smile. Good for them. 

He clicks on the band history link and is shocked to see they mentioned him. There’s a photo too.

We miss Eddie every day.

Fuckers. He hates them. He misses them.

Maybe it’s time. He’s doing okay. He’s been in a happy relationship for over a decade, he earns enough to live, his health is okay. Is that so bad, really?

He scrubs at his eyes and hits up the message board and types:

Greetings from Eddie the Banished

@the-unforgivenn ❤️

[blushsturns]

bad boy! matt and librarian! reader 𝜗𝜚

part one ⭑ pushy

description: you meet matt while working at your job at the public library and he can’t help but try and make a move on you.

w/c: 2526

warnings: mentions of weed, cussing, nothing too crazy (yet)

mood board found here!

he probably shouldn’t be staring as long as he has been, but he just couldn’t help it. you were so fucking pretty he literally couldn’t take his eyes off you. the way your hair flows with one simple movement, the twinkle in your eye when you’re helping patrons, the smile on your face when you’re giving your best customer service. god, your personality seemed absolutely addicting. you were also really fucking pretty. maybe that’s why he was standing here like a fucking stalker, but he just couldn’t help it. he couldn’t take his eyes off you.

he tried to look busy, his fingers drumming along the spines of the books, but he hadn’t read a book since high school and that wasn’t by choice. it was because from where he was standing, he had a great view of you sitting at the service desk, a strand of your hair falling from your high ponytail.

why was he here anyway? oh yeah, that’s right. he’s been waiting 45 minutes for his weed guy to fucking show up, but so far the guy was late, really late. it wasn’t like him to be late, but matt got tired of waiting around and decided to try and occupy his time somehow. he was getting restless waiting in his car and sitting in the parking lot of the library was making him feel like an actual stalker. at least he’d feel like one looking at a pretty librarian like you in the cozy, quiet building.

it’s not that he’s nervous to talk to you. he had decent luck with woman. he’d either take them home, or hook up with one at the parties he’d throw at his house. none of those girls mattered though. he didn’t care for relationships at all. love and all that cheesy bullshit was not something matt cared for. it’s not that he didn’t have time for it; he sure did. he just didn’t really believe in falling in love and the romantic shit. maybe it’s because nobody had been worth his time.

once an elderly woman walked away from the desk and you were available again, he made his way over to the service desk. you were typing something onto your computer, not really paying attention to matt standing in front of you until he cleared his throat to get your attention.

your eyes immediately shot up at him and your face turned apologetic. “i’m so sorry, sir. i was caught up in something. how can i help you?”

god, you were even prettier up close. your cheeks were rosy pink with the lightest makeup applied to your face. your hair was in a tight ponytail with the strands falling onto the sides of your face. you wore a pretty floral dress with a jean jacket, your glasses perched onto your nose. matt had your full attention now and matt had completely forgot what excuse he was going to use to come up here and ask you about.

he was probably lost in a trance at your beauty and staring a little too hard at you and checking you out because she asked again. “sir? can i help you?”

matt wasn’t one to get embarrassed or shy. hell, he made others feel that way. luckily, you seemed oblivious to him checking you out. you had a busy day today, despite the weather being quite shitty outside. every time the weather is awful, you assume people will stay home and not come in, but you were wrong every single time. it was always the complete opposite. luckily, things seemed to die down now.

“oh, yeah. sorry. uh, hey, do you guys have wifi here?” fuck, what a stupid ass question. he ran his fingers through his tousled brunette locks, his eyes staying locked onto yours the whole time.

luckily, you didn’t seem bothered by the question. you were used to people asking you questions that were common sense like ‘what are your hours?’ and ‘do you have books here?’ so the question didn’t annoy you at all. “of course we do. if you pull up your phone, you’ll be able to find our wifi in the settings. no password needed.”

matt nodded his head, understanding your words fully. he licked over his lips before pulling out his phone, which had no notifications from his weed guy. he opened up his settings, noticing there were two network names. one was public, and the other needed a password. he furrowed his eyebrow in confusion and pointed his phone at you. “what’s this about? why do you staff workers get your own wifi? better wifi for the privileged or some shit?”

you laughed at his comment and immediately shook your head. you had to admit, the boy in front of you was very attractive. he wore all black, baggy jeans, a chain around his neck and earrings dangling from his ears. he had a mysterious aura about him that made you slightly intrigued. of course you’d keep it professional. you loved your job and were going to school for library science. everyone at the library were like family and you couldn’t be more proud of your job and the work you’ve done there. also, nobody really comes into the library but the elderly, and children with their parents for story times and fun events.

“no, sir. it’s just easier and more convenient for us staff workers to work on the staff only wifi instead. each individual wifi should work the same.” your cheeks were slightly flushed the more you looked at him. he was really fucking attractive and you couldn’t help but check him out. you’ve only had one boyfriend back in high school, but he cheated on you and you’ve learned to guard your heart since then. it’s been a couple years though and your friends always tried to set you up on dates, but you didn’t care enough for any of them. they weren’t worth your time.

he let out a scoff, shaking his head in disbelief. “that’s not really fair. this wifi is shit.” his phone was not loading properly as he tried to connect to it. maybe his phone was shit, but this was the only excuse he could think of to talk to the pretty girl. he leaned forward with both of his palms rested onto the service desk, his eyes solely focused on you. “ what’s a guy like me gotta do to get on the better working wifi, huh?”

you suddenly felt nervous as he leaned in closer, placing the loose strands of hair over your ear. you placed your glasses down next to you, since you only wear them to read anyway. you couldn’t help but stare at him more intently, feeling your cheeks heat up as his body was leaned in more towards you. you’ve never seen this guy before in the 5 years that you’ve worked there. where did he even come?

“well, i wouldn’t be able to do that.” your cheeks flushed even more. you hated telling him no, but the wifi network was staff only and you always made sure to imply by the rules. “sometimes the signal is a little spotty on the public wifi depending on how much its being used.”

truth is, you didn’t know much about wifi or technology in general besides what you were taught at your job. he didn’t seem to buy anything you were saying. he kept his palms firmly on the desk, titling his head slightly to get a better look at you. “i think you would be able to. you’re just afraid to. am i right?”

he flashed you a small smirk, not being able to take his eyes off you. he could sense you were slightly flustered the way your facial expressions changed. you bit onto your bottom lip, not being able to take your eyes away from him. his blue eyes gazed into yours and you felt your breath hitch in your throat. fuck, he was so pretty. you could tell he was the kind of person who didn’t take no for an answer.

“i’m not afraid. it’s just my job.” you spoke very professional, but he could tell you were getting slightly agitated and didn’t want to have to say no to him.

he wouldn’t stop, leaning in closer now, his palms still pressed against the desk and his eyes locked onto yours. “what if i give you something in return?”

you furrowed your eyebrow up at him in confusion, trying your best to keep your cool. sure, this boy was fucking attractive and intriguing, but this was your job. you tried to be professional, but he was making it hard. “what could you possibly give me?”

he let out a soft chuckle, a sly smirk appearing onto his lips. “how about i give you my number? and if that’s not enough, you can text me when you get off work and we can discuss it further.”

matt didn’t even care about the fucking wifi. he just wanted to show off his charm and possibly get to know the pretty librarian. he was pretty used to getting his way and damn he wanted his way with you.

you let out a soft sigh, but eventually give in. you really didn’t want to keep this up and he probably wouldn’t let you say no anyway. “fine.” you said with another sigh leaving your lips.”but only to get you off my back. not because i want your number.”

you look up at matt who’s grinning ear to ear, getting his way once again. “you say that now, just wait, pretty girl. you’ll be really fucking glad you had this conversation with me today to get my number in the end.” his palms still rested onto the desk, now flashing you a sly smirk. “i promise.”

“don’t make promises you can’t keep.” you said dryly, pulling out a small piece of paper and pen off the desk and scribbling down the wifi password to him. before you hand it to him, you look around the area to make sure nobody has spotted your interaction with him. you didn’t wanna get in trouble. luckily, there was nobody around, thank goodness. you had to admit, this entire interaction excited you, but you had your walls up and made sure not to show that you were easy to get. you were strong and smart. you knew not to mess with bad boys and this boy? you could tell he was trouble.

you slid the piece of paper to him and he glances down at it for a second before slipping it in his pocket. he didn’t seem that interested in the piece of paper with the wifi password on it. that’s not even what he cared about. he just wanted to get to know you.

you hand him another piece of paper and he takes it from you, your hands brushing against each other for a moment which causes a spark of electricity to run throughout your veins. you let out a soft gasp, looking up at him immediately to see if he noticed the same sensation. he did feel it, his smirk widening as he takes the piece of paper and pen. he leans down to scribble his name and phone number on the piece of paper before handing it back to you.

he was smirking the entire time, seeming very pleased at the fact that he gave you his phone number. your heart was beating out of your chest as you grab the piece of paper from him and this time, you made sure not to have any contact with his hand. last thing you want is to have this guy invade your brain and make you excited to talk to him or maybe see him again.

you look down at the piece of paper that he handed you, seeing that his name is “matt” and his phone number underneath it. “thanks, i guess? if i even decide to text you.” you flashed him an innocent smile, placing the piece of paper close next to you.

“oh you will. that’s a promise.” he pulled his hands away from the desk, now placing them in his hoodie pockets.

“don’t make any promises you can’t keep, matt.” you said his name out loud for the first time, now knowing it and being able to match a name to a face.

he could see your name on your lanyard that you wear to work. he stared at it for a moment which made your cheeks feel warm knowing in order to look at the lanyard, he would have to look at your chest. his eyes averted from your chest and back up into your eyes, a gleam of excitement passing through his expressions. “i look forward to getting to know you, pretty librarian.”

even though he knew your name, he still called you that nickname that made your cheeks flush even more. you silently wished in your head that you had wore makeup today so that it would cover some of the warmth on your cheeks, but it was no use. he could tell you were affected by him and he was loving every single second of it.

before you could reply back to him, your eye caught the attention of another patron behind him who was waiting to be helped. he noticed your eyes had averted behind him and he turned around to see that you two weren’t alone anymore. at that same moment, his phone buzzed, signaling his weed guy was finally there and asking where the hell he was.

“text me later, pretty.” he flashed you a playful wink before giving you one more glance and turning on his heel to walk away from the desk.

this entire interaction left you warm, confused, and a little intrigued. the piece of paper already felt like it was burning a hole in your pocket, but you couldn’t let it. you were strong. there was no way you’d be able to fall for a bad boy, or anyone for that matter.

you tried to pay attention the rest of your shift, but you couldn’t. all you could think about was matt and how he leaned against the desk with his pretty blue eyes on you, practically persuading you to give him your number. he consumed your brain, making you lose focus and stutter on your words to patrons that came through. should you text him? or was it even worth the risk? when you had a moment alone without helping anyone, your fingers ghosted over the piece of paper. would you even see him again?

matt walked outside to meet his weed guy, feeling like he was floating on air. success: he had given the pretty librarian his phone number. now all he needed was for her to text him.

he was intrigued by you, wanting to continue the conversation and get to know you. even if you were rough around the edges and a little sassy, he didn’t care.

you were special. he could tell and he would make damn sure he didn’t fuck it up.

taglist-

@sturnshood @strangelife122 @jessie-essie @giveheavensomehell @rina3476 @chrissturnioloslvt @sturnslutz @forgottxen @matthewsturnsgf @christmastreecake @rinahasspots @222wall876 @chris-hallelujah @izzylovesmatt @strniloslvts @oopsiedaisydeer

a/n- thank you so much for reading! i had fun writing this and will be continuing it when i have the time and when the ideas come to me. if you have any ideas, wanna talk about bad boy! matt x librarian! reader, or just wanna talk in general, don’t hesitate to send me a message!

- nessa ღ

[callmemaeverick]

Golden Hour - The Spy Next Door Part II [Peter Sutherland x fem!Reader]

A/N: OMG, I didn’t realize how much you guys would like this... Hahaha. I’m so grateful to those who commented and reblogged with really funny tags... I read them all, I swear so, as promised. Part 2 of The Spy Next Door. WC: 800

Part 1

It was about 5 am when you clicked off and shut down your work console that day. Sighing, you wiped your face to rid of any drowsiness. Your shift for the month had been brutal, starting from 8pm spanning all through the night. The grave yard shift, they called it.

Working as a customer service agent was not easy and it just so happened that it was one of those days where nothing went right. The worst thing was that you understood where your customers were coming from. The issues you handled on a daily basis ranged from system errors to human errors and sometimes they are just not fixable the way the customers wants it fixed. And that's when the verbal assault comes.

All through your tenure, you have been yelled at in almost every language spoke in the United States. And that's a lot. Unfortunately, you were not someone who could just brush it off immediately afterwards, though you tried to be. When this kind of shifts happened, you would make yourself a cup of coffee and climbed out onto your fire escape, sitting against the wall with your knees to your chest while you wait for the sun to rise.

Only that day, you found someone had beat you to it.

"Hey," You greeted your new favorite neighbor.

It had been about a month since he moved in and he had been nothing but the sweetest guy you've ever met. He is considerate and polite, especially around ladies and children. Once, you were returning from a jog, you and caught him leading Mrs. Fitzgerald out of the building, her arm in his as they talked softly.

It was such a small thing to do, but it warmed your heart to see such a well-raised man. The world was always lacking them.

Peter looked up at you from his perch on the stairs. He was wearing his suit still, but his tie was loosed. At that time, it was hard for you to wrap your head around the fact that he is an FBI agent working in the White House.

"Hey," He eyed you for a moment and then added. "You okay?"

You knew instantly that he overheard you working, heard your stuttering speech as you tried to calm your last customer down. Taking a seat next to him, you took a deep breath and exhaled it loudly. "Gimme a few hours."

The both of you didn't speak much and you were glad Peter didn't feel like he had to. In silence, you watched as the the sky changed from blue to purple to orange and yellow together, accompanied by the smell of the coffee from your cup. You closed your eyes for a beat and let the everything that happened during the shift go, never to bother you again.

Slowly, you felt the tension in your shoulders drift away, like sand shifting in the wind. Your thoughts went blank as the stresses of the shift disappeared into the back of your mind, allowing you a clean slate for your next one. Truth be told, aside from the high-intensity stress during your shifts, you enjoyed your job as a customer service agent. You liked helping people and it was enough that you kept going despite days like this.

The call of your name pulled you slowly back, but a part of your subconscious resisted.

"Hey, come on. Let's get you inside first." Peter's voice was very low but very close to your ear. Blinking, you realized you had begun to drift off, tilting to the side. To his side, to be specific.

When exactly you had became comfortable enough to fall asleep in his presence, you didn't know. But you had, and you hadn't regretted it.

Peter's soft laugh washed over you as he gently pushed you upright. "Hey, I can't carry you through the window. Unless you want me to drag you in."

"Just a few more minutes. I swear."

There was that laugh again, but Peter stayed put. His shoulder was comfortable, just perfect for you to rest your head on. And you did.

You didn't know exactly how long you stayed on those steps. All you know was that when you opened your eyes, the sun was bright and Peter was still beside you.

TBC

Tagging: @strnqer @thefictionalgemini​ 

[seat-safety-switch]

For a couple years, I worked in a video store in a small town. In many ways, this was the culmination of a childhood dream: routine, unchallenging labour. If you were a particularly annoying labour analyst, all I actually ever “did” was ring up rentals, restock returns in the morning, and clean the windows. Customer service has its own way of filling the space left by the actual work, though.

People who have worked retail are a sort of elite corps. For one thing, you’re never rude to another retail employee for the entire rest of your life. You’ve been in the trenches, too, and even if you somehow managed to escape, you’d still have had that shared trauma to know how bad that shift could get for that shelf-stocker at Maybe’s Drugs off I-40.

I have all the usual complaints, but there’s something else, too. My unique problem is this: I had this one customer who came in every Monday morning, asking for the same movie. We never had that movie, which is the crux of our conflict. He – and I can’t remember his name anymore, even if the electroshock therapy had been effective – never took “no” for an answer, and would come back the next week. He’d ask for the same thing, by title. No other details: no barcode, no publisher, no actors. Not even a description of the plot (he hadn’t seen it yet, obviously.) Now, this was before broadband internet was widely available, so I’d have to dial up after hours to America Online, and see if the movie had been added to their database. It never did, except one night I saw some folks talking about it in a video store chat room.

Their customers, too, were asking for this film. Insistently. After talking about it that night, we decided that we would form a bit of a trade union group. If any of us heard anything on this mysterious VHS, we would share the knowledge with the rest of the group. That retail-worker camaraderie at work again, you see. Nothing ever came of it, but I did end up becoming good friends with a manager at a Hobart’s Movies in Ames, Iowa, and we were even roommates for awhile before he got a new job at Seaworld. I moved on, too, making my slow, but inevitably in retrospect, drift towards the coast. Still, the whole thing bothered me. For years afterward, I would turn on my computer every Monday night, long after I had left the job, and search for any clue as to the existence of this film.

Once, on a day off, I called a librarian, who got pissy at me for even asking about it, and demanded to know who had put me up to calling her as a prank. I hung up in a panic, but she called back for hours. Obviously, she was also undergoing the same situation, and I felt shame at having brought a momentary pain to another proud Retail-American.

Now, video rental stores are a thing of the past. Even in small towns, they have been reduced to just a fond memory and an abandoned corner of a strip mall. Maybe my customer’s quest doesn’t matter anymore. The aggregation of the world’s knowledge into one hissing, unseen beast at the centre of our collective technological hallucination is complete. If they don’t have it, pick a different one. All I know is that, one day, someone will find a copy of this movie, and I’ll be able to go back to that town and shove it in the ground where the video store once stood. On that day, I can finally rest, freed from the slavedriver that is Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol.

[transzilla]

You met me over grindr while I was in the city for a one night stand and for some reason we kept in touch, some glow around me that you really liked. Your living situation is a little crowded so we figured we would hook up in an empty bulldozer at a construction site at night. I work at a fire tower in the mountains and I really like other trans men but due to the geography haven't found anybody to stick around, so I tend to get around quite a bit when in the city.

Your living situation is tough. You've tried to go on hormones, or blockers, but keep being shamed and rejected and getting pressured out of it by distant family members or chaser-y roommates. You have no room to grow. You're fucking miserable. You contemplate offing yourself, guiltily, but quickly shoo the thought away considering you have a roof over your head and no real reason to be sad.

We text obsessively. I'm lonely out there, stealth trans in the middle of nowhere, and whenever I have service we text, call, vent, joke, bust balls, tell each other all our deepest, darkest secrets. They're looking to hire another lookout, my coworker retired. It requires you to live onsite and they provide housing without taking it out of your paycheck. I sympathize with your situation, I tell you you'd do well in this position, I'll put in a good word for you with the forest service, you should apply. Get you out of that glorified pig sty and somewhere with fresh air where you can finally breathe.

You get the job, make a fucking decision and leave everything behind to come work with me. We reunite, get drunk, get you accustomed to your new life. You talk to very few people and nobody seems to clock you as trans anyway. Your daily work is hard and manual but refreshing compared to customer service. You let me rail you every night, your food is taken care of, you're reading and working out and getting your back blown out on the clock.

Sometimes it feels like I make you do everything I'm supposed to do, I seem to enjoy watching you sweat and lift heavy things and slack on my work. I have a ton of testosterone that I share a little too excitedly with you and it doesnt look prescription, in small brown vials with blue caps, some of them are labelled cypionate but also proprionate, enthonate, undecanoate, demonic incantations you've never seen before in your life. And I'm real weird about always doing your injection for you. I stab it in so fast and it looks violent but it doesn't feel as bad when you do it, but the way I make eye contact and hold the needle in my teeth while I do my own injection is a little off putting. I'm constantly pushing you, nothing you ever do is good enough for me, all of my fetishes while we're fucking seem to entail you doing push ups naked, squats, bending over and letting me examine you, your legs getting so sore after im making you ride it, letting me squeeze your tits and feeling your pec underneath the breast. I smoke a pack a day and pressure you into joining me, complimenting you on how raspy and fucked up your voice sounds.

You have doubts. You aren't able to call your friends as often as you thought you would. When you talk to people you've been isolated so long you talk over them garishly, talk all about yourself, make too many dirty jokes and swear too much the way we talk to each other, awkward and unfit for civilized society. All you have is me and you have no choice but to trust that I have your best intentions in mind.

You let me teach you how to use a shotgun the salty perfume of the gunpowder staining your hands as your aim gets better and better, your guard lowering the more I've been praising you for doing what I want. We went hunting and you shot your first deer. I was so excited and you were so validated by how proud I was, it felt like a big hug from the inside out. You send a picture of the field dressed deer to your old city friends, guts steaming in the morning sun. they're absolutely disgusted by the fact that you would do such a thing and show them. You're a fucking machine of a man now and you're able to tame the wilderness everywhere except for in yourself.

After months you plain don't recognize yourself in the mirror. Your hair is wild, your facial hair not just a few long pubes jealously untouched on your chin but a uniform patchy stubble shaved haphazardly when you were tired of it being singed when you did fight fires. Knuckles scarred, shoulders broad, the gross muscle you feared you would develop rippling like a tiger under your skin and the extra weight you've gained. You talk like I do, you act like I do, you think like I do, you can't tell where you stop and I start. Your reflection looks sleepless, disordered, lost, a thuggish stranger. Heartless man.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

Am I the Asshole for reporting my coworker a second time? (TW// Sexual Harassment, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of Self Harm)

(🍫💵 so I can find it later.)

I work a job where I (22 F/NB) am a cashier at a local supermarket. I have a few coworkers close to my age, but most are either in their late thirties/early fourties' or are kids who go to the local high schools in the area.

Around the beginning of this year, we'll call him Abe (17~ M) attempted to ask out my coworker who we'll call May (16~ F). They'd hang out semi-regularly along with the other kids still in high school, and while they never caused trouble, they did tend to goof off and joke around a lot.

May refused him, saying she wasn't interested. For WHATEVER reason, he did not accept this rejection and continued to ask. This was an issue, as not only is it sexual harassment, but Abe is a cart-pusher and May is a cashier. He was already a pretty lazy employee (management was always upset at him because he'd get caught playing on his phone instead of working), but now he'd purposefully go through her lane at the supermarket just to ask her out repeatedly and beg to be with her. Every time he found her alone, he'd go right up to her and keep pestering her about it. She felt so uncomfortable and unsafe about it that she told our team lead, who agreed to stay by her side. This was spread to our management, who make sure she isn't alone so that he can't corner her about going out with her.

I have witnessed him doing it many times, enough that I reported it to HR when May refused to do it herself. They told me to get her into contact with them and report it to them, and finally I convinced her to do it.

There was a sort of peace period after that, where they weren't scheduled at the same time. But recently he's taken it a step further and has decided to come in on ANY day she is scheduled (even if he isn't) to keep trying to ask her out. Most of the cashiers are aware of the situation and got upset with him. One of the few who is around my age (and recently pregnant) even cussed his ears off for harassing her so much because it didn't look like management was doing anything. Abe declared that the pregnant coworker broke his heart, and now his behavior had gotten WORSE.

Abe would look at those who he'd "hang out" with at work and either try to guilt them into helping him win over May's heart, complain about her not living him, and talk about how "white people suck"/"white people are so shitty" despite BEING white (to my knowledge, please don't go after me in the notes about this) himself. He'd also stalk her work bestie around and trash-talked the pregnant co-worker, all while NOT DOING HIS JOB, by the way.

One of the habits he has picked up however is miming actions to his fellow minors. The one I heard him use mostly was of him pretending to shoot himself in the head.

But one day I was working as the customer service rep for the night (no one else could do it), and I gave him a polite nod when he walked past. He smiled at me and then mimed cutting himself.

This was not something I had heard of him doing before, but when I talked to my coworkers they said "yeah he was doing this too".

In the moment I had given him a very firm No, because it was not work appropriate. Abe insisted, and pretended to cut his wrists again.

I'm on anon so none of you know me, but I used to severely struggle with suicide and self harm from a young age. However I have gotten better since becoming an adult and have made MASSIVELY impressive strides to a happier life. From this, I understand joking about suicide, because if you joke about it with someone you are not only in a safe place to bring it up BUT are coming around to the idea of telling people that you need help.

Joking about self harm, however? I've never heard of it. It's an entirely different ball park. You don't joke about those things.

In the moment, I was in disbelief, and I felt sick. I even started mentally shutting down, to the point where I couldn't even do my usual tasks properly without being specifically told to start them. Everyone noticed. I even cried once I was in my car while my sister was picking me up and safe, because I was trying so fucking hard not to think about that time in my life when I had moved myself so far past it.

Right at the beginning of shutting down, I did tell a manager. I told the manager who worked the next day as well, just so that I'd be SURE something happened about it. Abe visited that day on his day off because May was working again, and I panicked so much at seeing him that I hid behind customer service until one of my work friends told me he had left- instead of staying at May's side like I usually would. (I put my mental health first- it was a tough lesson that I managed to learn last year to the point that I do it in my day-to-day. She wasn't left alone with him though, don't worry.)

It genuinely sickened me that he has been miming cutting himself to other minors, when I know that if I had been May's age and had seen that amidst recovery, I would have spiraled and started all over again. Abe's lucky none of them are like that (at least openly) and that I was uniquely affected whereas the others were just "creeped out".

I ended up reporting his actions towards me about a week after I convinced May to personally report his harassment, and then I found out that the first manager I talked to (who has a soft spot for him, he does use this to his advantage to get out of trouble at work) asked him what was wrong and his response was "I'm having a bad day".

Considering that he does this every day he comes into work, whether he's actually working or not, on top of everything else (and how it effected me)- I am very hurt and genuinely hate him after all of this when I hadn't hated him before (despite the fact that I have only hated 2 people in my life before that point). However, I don't know if he was joking about how bad he feels about the fact that she does not want him at all or if he's genuinely hurting himself, and I feel sick at the thought of my actions if it's the second scenario.

Even if he's sexually harassing my coworker, no one should ever feel like they deserve to be hurt or that they don't deserve life. That's what I believe. And I'm worried that, should Abe find out I reported him twice over this, that he'll yell at me and say that I'm an asshole for doing that (and I know it would happen, because that was his response with my pregnant coworker). I know I'm doing the right thing by reporting the continuous harassment, but my heart is genuinely conflicted now. He needs to stop, but what if my actions are causing this response? I could never live with myself knowing that I was the reason someone hurt themselves. My anxiety won't let it rest.

And so, Tumblr, I must know...

Am I the Asshole?

What are these acronyms?

[ladyiristheenchantress]

Magic for the working witch

Hello friends! I recognize this is a break from my current content series, however I have been working like a dog recently balancing university, work, social life, and medical problems so I felt inspired to talk a bit about the magic I do while working!!

To preface: I work 3 jobs total! one of them requires me to travel, One is a remote desk job, and the final one is a waitress! While I don't recommend this lifestyle, it is the one that I and many others have fallen into as life has unfolded. First of all, to all my hard working witches, you freaking matter dude. Your boss may not see how hard you work, but trust me you guys are hustlers! Its hard to balance a spiritual life with everything else going on but today lets tackle that!

How can I cultivate magic, even with work/school/etc?

First, we have to find where the magic is within us and this is easier said than done. In previous post I talk about magical frameworks and theories and this would be a good time to put this to use! I believe that magic is all around and within us, we can harness it at any time, enjoy it! Even simply reflecting on the magic in your heart can be enough to feel spiritually fufilled. We as humans like acknowledgement, and when we just simply reflect on the magic around us then we tend to feel more fufilled but that gets lost on us sometimes.

Got it! What ideas do you have for me?

Lets think about jobs for a second! We have all sorts of jobs out there, desk jobs, standing jobs, hard labor, etc. I believe there is magic for every profession, type, etc, but that is a looot of jobs. so lets narrow it down to the three types I have experience with!

Travel + Speaking

these jobs include teaching, public speaking, management, and more. These jobs often are a form of public service but require an element of writing, desk work, etc. It also is somewhat a form of authority in the aspects of people looking up to you for information, conflict resolution, and more. Usually this job has a commute, a level of strong responsibility, and traits like leadership and confidence are seen heavily.

Witchy ideas:

As you wake up, get ready, and commute, give yourself a pep talk as a form of glamour magic. Bonus points if you make it a chant

Enchant your toothpaste to help your words carry

Keep crystals like angelite, Rose Quarts, and Pyrite close

Create a weekly spread to give you insight into the week so you can prepare as needed

Wear bright colors for confidence

Wash your hair with the intention of unblocking flow of words, and making things run smoother

Public Service

Public service are jobs like waiter, bank clerk, and floor salesman. These jobs require you to be informational, polite, and taking on a lot of side work in the process. Your job is to get someone to purchase something and help facilitate that, resolve minor conflicts, and honestly team work with both your coworkers and customers.

Witchy Ideas:

When you can: Don't wear socks with your shoes. A lot of dress shoes and work shoes can have hygienic insoles, and this can help facilitate grounding!

Create an oil out of a carrier oil, basil, thyme, and rosemary and you get a general 'workplace luck' oil!

If you work for commissions: Eat a mint, tic-tac, or sugar packet before work to sweeten your words to customers and get more sales

If you don't work for commissions: Place Vaseline or lotion on your elbows and knees to facilitate swift work and smooth customer interactions

Carry obsidian, super seven, bismuth, or chrysocolla with you

Keep a 'talisman card' in your pocket, pick a tarot card that resonates with your goal for work. My go-to's are the queen of swords, king of cups, the emperor, and the magician

Remote Work

Remote jobs are any jobs that can be done at home, and after the pandemic these jobs became a staple so many companies kept the position. These jobs could be done day or night, internationally or locally, and so much more. The best traits to have would be organization, punctuality, and perseverance.

Witchy Ideas:

Maintain a home altar where you do work to induce specific energies

Before a virtual meeting discussing important personal goals, set up an online vision board of what you want

Have a prayer or chant ready during a project to help it move along

Create digital sigils to deflect crappy co-workers

Use Tigers eye, ulexite, and yellow calcite to help the work day

Leave a tarot card on your desk as a talisman.

If you guys need any tips, tricks, or questions feel free to leave them in an AMA or in the comments below! Thank You! Tip Jar

[skinks]

JOE. first of all: a reminder that i love you and think you are simply one of the coolest people i know. i hope you're doing well. SECOND: can you talk to me some more about Becoming a Tradeswoman? i have a SERIOUS lack of confidence in my intelligence/brainworthiness/ability, and have always done white(ish) collar work, but. idk. the idea of working at something more practical (idek what it would be) has always kind of hung around the edges of my brain. no idea where i'd start, how i'd even find out whether i'm GOOD at practical work, whether i could hack it...how did you get started?? i remember your farming days, of course - did you just do it as a summer thing to start? how'd you get into it? anyway. whatever you'd like to talk about would be wonderful. you're amazing. OKAY BYE<3

SARAH HELLO!! First of all may I say ilu too and I think you’re rad, I hope you’re doing well also. I’m just working/exercising/watching movies mostly and have begun the process of buying my first flat, so I’m pretty tired but busy and happier for it.

Sorry it took me a minute to reply to this message, I’ve been thinking it over all week as it’s a wide-ranging topic. People’s routes into any type of work will be as varied as the people themselves, but I can share a little of my own experience for sure.

I live in a rural-ish area with a ton of agriculture, so I got into practical work at 16 when my first ever job was helping out on a farm nearby. My parents went to school with the guy who owned the farm, so soon I was earning money for bottle-feeding calves and mucking stalls. Then I moved to a different farm where I got to help with calving and a bunch of other work, including when I first got to operate forklifts and other heavy machinery.

My friends were all either waitressing or babysitting in town , and I was earning nearly double what they were and having a blast doing it without any of the horror stories of customer service. Most of the time I was on my own, left with the meagre responsibility of a lot of heavy lifting, but it made me feel accomplished. I realised I got such a rush from picking up how to operate a piece of machinery and making myself useful, being trusted to complete a task with a definitive outcome I could SEE. So much schoolwork seemed abstract and arbitrary outside of maths/science - even though I loved reading and was great at writing English papers, it frustrated me that success was graded on subjectivity. Maths is definite. Moving haybales from one barn to another until you’re done is definite. I responded to the constant sense of achievement you get from completing practical tasks and seeing your work make a direct impact on the job. It made me feel more powerful and confident, which was a lifesaver as a miserable teenager getting the self-esteem bullied out of me every day.

From there I quit university (once again couldn’t stand the arbitrary un-structured mess that was research and essays) and went back home to work on another farm. Learned how to drive ATVs, hitch horses into carriages, hitch trailers onto cars, cultivate a garden, build fences, wrangle and lamb sheep, etc etc. In my spare time I chased that high of learning a new practical skill through sports; tried archery, skeet shooting, weightlifting, crossfit, etc. I think having a propensity for sport since childhood does help your confidence in practical work, because you’ve already developed your sense of physicality and proprioception. You’re better coordinated, in a nutshell, but it’s not a dealbreaker for someone who’s not sporty.

Basically, every tiny skill I picked up in all my jobs has just built my confidence in my ability to learn a new one, it’s as simple as that. I could drive a car and muck out a stall, so with good teachers I was able to drive a forklift and lay turf, so I was able to then hitch a tractor trailer, so I could then build and fix an electric fence, so I could prune fruit trees, trim hedges, milk cows, dig ditches, build drystone walls, and rig up a mobile generator in the back of a pick-up so I could sand down logs all day.

Your confidence in your ability to learn is the only thing that matters, but you have to give yourself the chance to START learning. Knowing I had learned how to do all those things meant I had enough confidence to apply to an engineering training course at the local trade college. I yearned to learn more skills, to have the access to equipment and training I hadn’t before, honestly, because of that feeling of power. It makes me feel powerful to learn how to weld, how to use all the machines we have at work in order to be a functioning, useful part of a team.

For a long ass time though I felt the way you’ve described; totally lacking in the confidence to do this type of work. I get that, I really do, and I’m gonna tell you I SERIOUSLY doubt you lack the intelligence or ability to do trade work. I know that sounds like platitudes when you haven’t had the chance to even try it yet, but I’m telling you as someone who’s been there and has gotten over that self-doubt hill. You do not lack the ability, you only need the opportunity to try this work and good teachers to help you. If someone belittles you for asking questions when trying to learn something new, they’re a shitlord bastard who doesn’t deserve to be teaching you, and aren’t worth your time.

Can you think of any skill you’ve picked up and now don’t have to think about to complete? Can you drive, or bake, or follow a craft tutorial? Play a videogame? These types of activities require the type of hand-eye coordination, attention to detail, and subconscious adjustment of technique that are the basic building blocks of practical work imo. A forklift control panel or a metalworking lathe look intimidating, until you’ve been shown what to do and are carefully allowed to try it out for yourself a few times to build your confidence.

After that it’s just practice. I find it far, far easier to weld pipes than to… brainstorm initiatives, or whatever it is people do in offices. That’s a question you need to ask yourself with respect to all of this too, like I said before, what type of work brings you the most satisfaction? Do you like the idea of the precision inherently necessary to tool work, or does the black and white nature of it stress you out? Do you like the idea of focusing solely on a task that is literally at your fingertips, that YOUR skill has a direct effect on? If nothing else, the very fact that you wanna try is a great sign!

In terms of where to get experience, I’d say volunteering is your best bet initially.

- national parks or environmental nonprofits. Look for practical volunteering opportunities! my rangering organisation always has path building/invasive species removal/habitat maintenance sessions available to the public, maybe there’s something similar nearby to you that you could try. It’s so fun and rewarding!

- local farms or animal shelters. Ask around, see if anyone is looking for an extra pair of hands. I travelled in NZ Aotearoa using WWOOF, and there are wwoofing farms literally all over the world. the majority of them are geared towards people just looking to help out, you really don’t need to have any practical experience to go wwoofing

- local trade cooperatives. This is a long shot but it is something I’ve seen crop up in bigger cities here. people will set up community workshops where you can go along and make use of the tools and equipment in a more amateur and inclusive environment, and they’ll often run classes. maybe there’s something similar near to you, and it’s a way to try different things to see if something clicks!

- practical toys. Like, model building kits or even construction toys. It’s a small start, but maybe a good one for you to see how you feel about following plans and building something!

- classes, again. I know you said you’re not sure what you’d even wanna try, but if you have the time and the money, could it be worthwhile taking a class or two, just to try something? leather or wood working? blacksmithing? do you like the thought of being inside or outside? Making things or fixing things? heavy lifting or small precision work? All of it?!

I’m not the best at giving advice, but I do believe in the human ability to learn tool usage with proper instruction. Our ancestors could build their own homes and start fires to make clay pots, and they didn’t even have youtube to tell them how to do it. All it really comes down to then is confidence, and you DESERVE confidence.

Why the fuck shouldn’t you learn how to work a trade, or at least try something practical! That’s what life is about, learning new things. Especially since you’ll meet all sorts of cool new people doing it. You’re a kind and intelligent person, and so long as you’re fine with making a mistake or two, owning up to it, and asking for help when you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll be fine and dandy. I swear it!!!!

[temptingfatetakingnames]

The Last Steve Harrington Part 15

AO3 Part 1 Part 14

Steve woke up Friday morning feeling fully recovered. He had spent the last few days with aching muscles so it was a huge relief to get out of bed without pain. He was glad because they were having a barbecue tonight to send off Johnathan, Argyle and Nancy who were heading back to the city tomorrow. Nancy was out of school for the summer but Johnathan needed to get back to his business and Argyle only had so much time off from his job.

He and Johnathan hadn’t got too close while he was home. Steve was hesitant to reach out and the feeling seemed mutual. They talked a bit about his photography business and Steve told him about Family Video. Mostly they talked about how much customer service sucked and how crazy people’s demands were. Steve didn’t mind that they hadn’t managed to bridge the distance between them. He was still overwhelmed with the kids, Robin, Eddie, Hopper and Joyce. Him and Nancy were… okay – parting on good terms at the very least. They would have time to get to know each other better.  

Inhaling deep, he let the breath out slowly.

He had time.  

Joyce was already busy in the kitchen when Steve walked downstairs. Johnathan and Argyle were probably still sleeping and he figured Hopper had already left for work. Will and Eleven were eating cereal like little zombies at the table. They both looked up, cheeks full, and smiled as he sat down. He had been really excited to tell everyone about Stephanie and the parallel universe he had learned about but had promised Robin he wouldn’t say anything without her, so he had been waiting. Patiently. Very patiently waiting. He couldn’t wait to see Dustin and Eddie’s faces.

“Morning, Steve,” Joyce said as she turned around, wiping her hands on a towel. “How are you feeling?”

“Really good actually. All better.”

She came over and settled a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I’m glad! But take it easy still, hmm?”

Steve nodded and looked away from her kind eyes, reaching for the cereal box. She patted his shoulder and moved back to the kitchen counter where various vegetables were waiting to be chopped.

“What’re you two up to today?” Steve asked the kids.

“Shopping with Max. I want a new dress for the party tonight.”

“I’m helping Dustin with Cerebro.”

“Sounds fun,” he said and smiled at them.

They both nodded and went back to shoveling cereal into their faces as fast possible.

“Bye!” Eleven shouted as soon as she finished drinking the sweetened milk from her bowl.

“See ya later!” Will said as he scraped his chair back from the table and ran out.

Then it was just him and Joyce. He looked over at her furiously chopping vegetables and could tell that she was stressed. There was going to be a lot of people coming over and she probably had a lot she needed to get done before they arrived.

“I’m gunna shower and then I’ll help you get ready.”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Oh, I’m fine! You should rest.”

“I’ve rested enough. Let me help, Joyce. Please.”

She set her knife down and turned fully towards him. Her hair was a little wild and her eyes were tired. She worked too hard. He didn’t know what she saw on his face that made her relent but she softened and said, “that would be great. Thank you.”  

He nodded and noticed a small smile on her face as she turned back to her vegetables.  

On his way to the bathroom, he grabbed a towel out of the linen closet. He hung it up and turned on the water before he looked at himself in the mirror, his good mood disappearing in a flash. He hated his reflection. It was difficult to meet his eyes, but he forced himself, bringing his face closer and closer to the glass until he could see every detail. He never knew how much people saw Steve or saw him. He hated it.

“Fuck you, Steve.”

Stepping back, he removed his clothes and took in the ruin of his chest next. His wounds had healed but it still hurt to look at them. He ran his fingers lightly over the raised and jagged marks on his side. Most of them looked better, whatever the doctors had done to clean them up had worked but… Not these. There had been nothing they could do for these. Too much had been bitten away… and too much time had passed.

A reminder that not everything could be made better or wiped clean. That some things just stayed…jagged. Broken. Ugly.

Turning away from the mirror, he quickly stepped into the shower, hoping the hot water would soothe away the awful pit in his stomach.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon were spent cooking with Joyce. He was quiet at first, still stewing in ugly thoughts, but she was slowly able to coax him out of it. She was just so damn happy, despite everything they had to get done and he found it hard to maintain his brooding in the face of her joy.

The kitchen was warm from the oven’s heat so they opened the windows to let in a lovely cross breeze. They talked a lot and laughed a little and moved around each other with a comfort that Steve had never experienced before. He and Max used to cook together sometimes, but her energy had been chaotic in the kitchen. She didn’t like to listen to instructions and Steve always had to clean up her messes, not that he had minded…much. He had missed cooking with someone else. He had missed cooking.

Johnathan and Argyle came down and had breakfast before they left as well, off to enjoy their last day in Hawkins.  

When they were finished making all the food that Joyce had planned Steve asked if it would be alright if he made chocolate chip cookies. He had perfected his recipe over the years and they were his favourite thing to bake.  

“Of course!” Joyce replied enthusiastically. “How did you learn to cook like this?”

As he gathered the necessary ingredients Steve explained, “my parents were gone a lot so I learned how when I was pretty young. Simple things at first, but I got better over the years.”

“What did you make?”

“So much pasta! Boil noodles and heat up some sauce? It was the easiest thing I could think of. It was a real game changer when I figured out the barbecue in high school.” Steve chuckled a little to himself. “I think I made burgers or hot dogs every meal for two weeks.”

Joyce didn’t laugh. “You were alone that much?” she asked instead.

He shrugged. “My dad was always gone on business trips and my mom went with him. I was fine, they always left plenty of money.”

As he started to whisk the dry ingredients together, he felt Joyce’s gentle touch on his shoulder.

“They shouldn’t have done that, Steve. I’m sorry you were alone.”

He blinked down at his bowl. It felt like such a long time ago now, living in that big empty house. He remembered the first time his parents left for a week at a time. He was thirteen and scared, but just like anything else – it got easier with time. And he wasn’t always alone. Freshman year, he met Nancy, Johnathan and Barb. Then the kids and Eddie and Wayne and Steve spent less and less time in that big empty house.

But… even with how full his life became with the family he chose there was still a hole in his heart from his parents. He didn’t think they were malicious or bad people… they just didn’t care. Too busy living their own lives to worry about his.

“No,” Steve agreed. “They shouldn’t have.”

Joyce gripped his shoulder tighter and he reached up to pat her hand.

After a moment, she slipped away and started tidying up the kitchen as Steve made his cookies, feeling that hole fill up a tiny bit more.

---

Max and Eleven came back first, but they disappeared upstairs with their bags after both exclaiming how delicious the house smelled. He and Joyce smiled at each other, nibbling on still warm cookies. Johnathan and Argyle arrived next, Nancy in tow. Joyce quickly put them to work setting up the tables and chairs outside. Hopper walked in the door with a loud exclamation of how long and tiring his day had been, leaving to shower just as Will called to say he was getting a ride with Dustin in a bit.

All of the cooking was done so Steve went back to his room to change. Opening the middle drawer on his dresser, he stared at the options. Joyce had taken him shopping the first week he moved in, getting him everything he could possibly need. Most days he didn’t give a shit about what he looked like… but today felt different. He wanted to look good.

He grabbed out a pair of jeans and the collared button up shirt that Joyce had insisted she get for him. It was dark blue and made of a light material that felt amazing on his skin when he slipped it on over his head. He tucked it into his jeans and cinched his belt as he moved into the bathroom. His hair looked good and healthy but he hadn’t tried to style it since –

Well, since everything.

He grabbed the hairspray Dustin gave him and got to work, trying to remember just how he used to make it look so effortless. It took longer than he would like to admit and it wasn’t exactly how it used to be, but it was close enough. Taking a deep breath, he stepped back and couldn’t quite believe his eyes.

He looked like –

Himself.

His skin was tanned from spending more time outside. The shirt showed off his arms, and the jeans hugged him in all the right places, and his hair fell perfectly, curling just a little onto his forehead. He looked…good. For a brief moment he considered ruining it – messing up his hair and taking off the nice clothes.

“Hello, Steve,” he said instead.

Joyce was back in the kitchen, wearing a red sundress, when he went downstairs. She was mixing cut up fruit and sprite into a large pitcher.

“Would you get the ice trays out of the freezer?” she asked as she looked over her shoulder. Her eyes widened when she saw him and she froze.

Steve clenched his jaw as she walked over to him, emotion filling her eyes as she racked her gaze over every inch of him. Her hands patted his shoulders, smoothing the fabric of his shirt.

“Oh, Steve,” she said with a watery smile. “You look great.”

The doorbell ringing saved him from having to respond, and he ducked out from beneath her hands and went to answer it.

Standing on the stoop was Robin and Eddie. He must have caught them having some kind of argument because Robin had her arm around Eddie’s neck and was in the process of hitting him in the stomach. They both froze as Steve opened the door and he fought back a sigh, taking in the two of them. Robin was wearing jean shorts, a nice summer blouse with a vest over top of it covered in buttons and a weird hat that was tilted sideways on her head. Eddie was decked in his usual attire of black jeans and a faded band t-shirt. Judas Priest, Steve could barely make out. They looked back at him, eyes wide and he hoped with his entire being that they wouldn’t comment on his appearance. He didn’t think he would survive the day if everyone looked at him like they had seen a ghost.

“Your hat looks funny.”

“It’s a beret, Steve.”

He blinked at her. “Your beret looks funny, Robs.”

She stuck her tongue out at him and released Eddie from her headlock.

“No Wayne?” Steve asked as they moved inside.

“He’ll be by in a bit. Wanted to drive himself so he didn’t have to wait for me and Robin.”

Steve nodded and they walked through the house to the back door. Johnathan, Nancy and Argyle had done a good job getting everything set up outside. Tables were lined up against the house, covered in the food that he and Joyce had spent the day cooking. A few umbrellas were scattered around with lawn chairs under them, offering a place to sit and hide from the sun and a stereo played music at a reasonable level.

Eleven came out of the back door in a light blue dress that ended just above her knees and had a white bow around the waist. It wasn’t what she usually wore, going for comfort and utility most days to keep up with the boys. Her hair was still short but she had curled it so it framed her face nicely and Steve could see a hint of makeup on her cheeks and lips. She was holding the pitcher of fruit punch, with Max just behind her holding the cups. She was wearing baggy shorts with a striped tank top. Her hair was long and wavy down her back and she had the same hint of makeup on as Eleven.

Everyone trickled in slowly over the next hour and the yard filled with the people who had been brought together by The Upside Down. There were a few awkward moments when he said hello and they took in his appearance for the first time, but they moved on quickly, probably noticing his discomfort. The gremlins fell on the food like ravenous little beasts, and conversations broke out in small groups. Hopper and Wayne were busy at the barbeque, talking about sports. Murray was with Joyce and Nancy, discussing his latest conspiracy theory. Eddie was trying (and failing) to convince Johnathan to change the music station. He was sitting with Robin under one of the umbrellas when Argyle came over.

“How are your feet, my dude?” he asked.

Robin quirked an eyebrow as a smile took over Steve’s face at the secret question.

“Still uncomfortable, but a little better every day.”

Argyle nodded and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Better every day is the best we could hope for.”

“You should get new shoes if they bother you that much,” Robin said looking at his very normal sneakers.

He and Argyle traded a glance before they burst out laughing.  

“You’re right, Robs,” Steve said, still smiling. “But they’re really not that bad.”

She pursed her lips at him but her eyes were soft. A large gust of wind blew through the backyard, causing laughter as paper plates were torn from unsuspecting hands, hair was whipped into faces and mouths, and hats were tossed off heads. Steve smiled, watching the pure chaos as everyone ran around trying to catch everything and put it back where it belonged.  

“That came out of nowhere! There hasn’t been any wind all day,” Robin said with a bit of laughter in her voice as she went to find her hat.

Sorry. Her beret.

Every time she got close, the wind would pick it up again and move it just beyond her reach. Steve watched her struggle for a moment before he went to help. The wind was still tossing things around and it proved especially difficult to pin down. After a few minutes, they were breathless and laughing as it continued to escape them. Robin had her hands on her knees, taking a rest as Steve ran half bent over so he could scoop it off the ground.

It came to a rest at Eddie’s feet and Steve skidded to a halt, falling back on his ass in an attempt not to tackle the other man. He looked up from his position on the ground to see Eddie haloed in sunlight and beaming a dimpled smile down at him, holding out a hand to help him up.

Pretty, Steve thought and felt his cheeks warm. He shook his head quickly and grabbed Eddie’s hand, letting him haul him back to his feet. Once he was up, Eddie bent back down to grab Robin’s beret and Steve rubbed at the back of his neck in embarrassment. Hoping Eddie didn’t notice the redness in his cheeks.

“I can understand Robin having a hard time catching this, but not you,” Eddie said to him with a smirk. “That was painful to watch.”

“I heard that!” Robin said as she came up on Steve’s side, reaching out to grab her beret out of Eddie’s hand and angrily positioning it back on her head.

“That was crazy, it felt like the wind was out to get us.”  

Eddie snorted and a targeted gust whipped his hair wildly into his face and he spluttered as a bunch of it went into his eyes and mouth. Steve and Robin laughed maniacally as he attempted to get it under control again.

“Told you!” Steve said, still chuckling.

Eddie squinted at them, holding all his hair in his hands. As suddenly as it came, the wind disappeared, creating a moment of stillness and silence. Johnathan, Nancy, and Argyle came over to chat about their trip back to the city and Steve settled back a little to listen. He could tell that they were all going to miss each other and that it had been a long time since they had all got together like this. Like a family.

He couldn’t help but wonder about the parallel universes out there – If they were all having a backyard good-bye party too – and if they were… how different it felt because he wasn’t there. Which brought his thoughts to the Eleven’s he had met and if they were just then telling everyone about him – passing on his message.

He couldn’t wait anymore. Robin was beside him and he gave her a little nudge and raised his eyebrow in question when she turned to look at him. She caught on to what he was asking and nodded excitedly.

“I had another Eleven visit,” he began, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Who told me about a very different universe from ours.” Conversations drifted off as they all came closer to listen.

“Most of the Eleven’s I’ve met have all been pretty similar, but this one – ” he trailed off, letting the suspense build.  “Well, he showed up at Family Video when me and Robin were working.”

“He?” Hopper asked with surprise.

Steve and Robin nodded and everyone’s eyes widened.

“And he wasn’t the only one who was different. Their Robin is a boy named Rob and their Steve was a girl named Stephanie.”

“Wait… so, we were all – ?” Dustin started and then coughed. “Opposite genders?”

“Yup!” Robin replied with a pop.

Their minds were as blown as Steve was expecting. They all started talking at once, asking about their alternate selves and their names. He and Robin made them guess, just like Eleven had. Most were easy – Max, Mike and Erica figured theirs out right away. Some took longer than others and by the end there were only three names they couldn’t figure out – Dustin, Wayne, and Eddie, as predicted.

“There is no female equivalent to Dustin! It has to be an entirely different name,” Dustin reasoned.

“Almost every name we’ve figured out has followed the same pattern. There must be a girl’s name starting with a D that we haven’t tried yet,” Will replied firmly.

“Argyle was Gayle though,” Nancy said. “Maybe there isn’t a pattern.”

“Daisy!” Joyce suddenly guessed.

“My alternate mom, or dad I guess, better not have named me Daisy…” Dustin muttered.

“Winnie!” Murray suddenly called out from the side, pointing at Wayne.

“Correct!” Robin yelled like they were playing a game show.

“Oh, Aunt Winnie!” Eddie said and draped himself across Wayne in a dramatic fall as his uncle rolled his eyes.

They all continued to guess girls’ names that started with D and E, but they were quickly running out of ideas.

“Dus-tin, Dus-tin,” Erica was quietly repeating to herself. “Tin. Tina. Tina?”

“Yes!” Steve exclaimed with a smile, only a little surprised that she had managed to figure it out.

“Tina!?” Dustin spluttered.

Lucas nudged him in the shoulder playfully and Mike bellowed out a laugh.

“Shut it, Michelle.”

“You shut it, Tina!”

Steve immediately regretted giving the kids this ammunition to use against each other. He knew that Michelle, Tina, Willa, and Laura were going to be hurled around as insults for the foreseeable future. They all quickly turned back to trying to guess Eddie’s name, going through all the same options as Steve and Robin had tried a week ago.

Robin looked over at him and he nodded, they weren’t going to get it. Even though Gayle and Tina didn’t follow the letter pattern, those names still had some connection to the originals. Lucy Munson just had to be different, just like Eddie Munson, Steve thought.

“It’s Lucy!” Robin exclaimed.

“Lucy!?” Dustin repeated. “That doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“That’s what we said,” Robin and Steve said at the same time.

Eddie had gone eerily quiet beside them. Steve hoped he wasn’t self-conscious about the name, Steve thought it was pretty.

“Who doesn’t love Lucy?” Eddie said with a sudden grin.

“Better than Tina,” Dustin muttered and everyone laughed.

---

The whole day had been so good.

The sun had shone brightly and there was delicious food and laughter and Steve joined in like he would have before and it was… good. Easy. He felt like himself again. When he finally went to bed that night, it was with a lingering smile on his face.

But –

He really should have known better.

Part 16

@just-a-tiny-void @mx-jinxous @child-of-cthulhu @awholedamnmesstbh @phoenix0bird @bookworm0690 @estrellami-1 @a-gae-af-racoon @nailbatandfreak @novelnovella @meela86 @lenathegay @vampireinthesun @penny00dreadful @questionablequeeries @espressopatronum454 @r0binscript @seths-rogens @fruity-nerd @sani-86 @n0-1-important @swimmingbirdrunningrock @ellietheasexylibrarian @manda-panda-monium @paintsplatteredandimperfect @viridianphtalo @goodolefashionedloverboi @13catastrophic-blues @newtstabber @queenie-ofthe-void @tinytalkingtina @hbyrde36 @whole-moods

- So sorry for the delay on this one! -Bit of cliffhanger here, I hope the next chapter wont take me as long - I do have a good portion of it written up already and HOOO BOY. -As always, please tell me your thoughts and feelings! I love hearing from you all!

[thunderon]

alright more pre-crash yellowjackets thoughts! this time: shitty high school jobs they had! (i worked 5 different shitty minimum wage jobs between the ages of 15-18 and have thought about the concept with more gravity than it deserves sorry)

shauna: was a tutor during the school year for literally every subject. she was the only reason jeff and randy passed their junior year. even though she could use the money, shauna never charged any of her teammates if they needed some help. when school was out during the summers, she had a seasonal job at the concession stand at the local concert venue. pretty easy money and she liked listening to the bands play

jackie: unemployed. being the coolest girl in school is a full time job, after all! note: tried to get a job with shauna at the concession stand. it was a complete and utter disaster. she lasted a week, and only made it that long because of how much shauna covered for her. after that didn’t pan out, when shauna worked weekends, jackie would always buy a concert ticket… just to hang out by the concession stand and talk with shauna for the whole show

nat: her first job was working at the local pizza parlor. was employed there for 6 months until it got shut down because, as it turns out, the whole thing was a money laundering front for the mob (which explains why nat never got fired despite being actually kinda bad at making pizzas). after that, she goes to work the 6pm-midnight shift at the grimiest gas station in wiskayok. except for the occasional stick up, it was a quiet job where no one bothered her and she could buy her own cigarettes. however she was constantly sleep-deprived having to get up for school in the mornings. definitely created energy drink concoctions that would send most people into cardiac arrest. van and the other yellowjackets would always stop by to see her on shifts and nat always gives them free slurpees

van: started working at the movie theater in the mall when she was 14 (the owner needed the help and did not ask enough questions). van is the rare sort of person that is absolutely beloved by both customers and her fellow employees and no one was surprised when she became a manager. she has the best customer service and will help out all the other employees with whatever they need. to this day she still holds the record for most Employee of the Month awards. also i just know van was the ultimate hookup and snuck her friends into shows and definitely took home the leftover popcorn after her shift. if she knew nat was on shift at the gas station, she’d stop by on her way home and give her some

taissa: never worked during the school year because she took way too many classes and extracurriculars (she was a 3-sport athlete: cross country in the fall, basketball in the winter, soccer in the spring. also did debate team AND student gov). her parents actually tried to talk her out of getting a summer job, but taissa has never relaxed a day in her life. she took a job at a clothing store in the mall and claimed she chose it for the employee discounts. the fact the store was located in the same mall as the movie theater was unrelated to anything whatsoever (tho taissa and van’s break schedules coincidentally always lined up and they’d hang out and go to the arcade where they’d have competitions… loser had to buy the winner food from the food court afterwards).

anyways tai would have been a perfect employee… if she didn’t have the world’s worst customer service (“for the fifth and final time, i am not going to give you a goddamned refund if you don’t have the RECEIPT and if you try putting that ugly ass blouse in my face again i will shove it up your-”) …had to have routine talks with HR throughout her tenure there. her manager gently suggested therapy, once.

lottie: didn’t need the money but definitely got a job out of boredom. decided to lifeguard as a summer job. it was basically getting paid to tan and tell kids to stop running. she had a sixth sense for when it’s about to start storming. her coworkers stopped questioning it after a few months and now when lottie says to get everyone out of the pool, they get everyone out of the pool. from lifeguarding lottie actually learned enough about pool maintenance to do the work and check the chemical balances on the pool at her own house. her father thinks the whole thing is ridiculous, her mother thinks it’s nice she has a hobby

laura lee: didn’t work a paid job but volunteered. she played piano for the local church services and on weekdays she worked evenings at the local food bank. if she sees anyone from school show up, it stays between her and God. she has managed to rope each of the yellowjackets into volunteering with her at least once

mari: worked at a local restaurant. tried to be a waitress, but on her very first day she got three different customer complaints about her attitude and so the owner put her in the kitchen where she became a linecook. she had more healthcode violations in her 1.5 years of working there than every other employee combined. the manager fired her on a weekly basis but she always just showed up to work the next day like nothing happened and the boss always took her back because mari is the best damn linecook he ever had

akilah: she’s a baby and was too young to work an actual job but definitely did babysitting (mostly for family). definitely was the kid-whisperer. had plans to work at library once she turned 16

misty: volunteered at the local retirement home and developed a love-hate relationship with an 85yo named Ethel (and by love-hate i mean: misty loved ethel, ethel hated misty)

[littledollll]

Hi hi!

1. I miss you you, I hope you are doing well

2. I have a Larissa x reader request

I’m thinking angst and emotional hurt reader and needing comfort and fluff because it’s 100% self indulgent.

Reader can have a side job on the weekends working good service and deals with dirty looks and yelling customers because they are doing their job correctly and it takes an emotional toll on them. Larissa idk stands up for them maybe and/or comforts them because she sees the toll it’s taking on the reader.

Hi yeah so this is what I’ve been dealing with as of late except I don’t have a Larissa Weems coming to comfort me afterwards. If you don’t want to write it, I understand.

Recharge

Larissa Weems x reader

A/n: hello my darling! I’m sorry this took so long I lowkey just quit writing for a whole week-, I’m not sure if it’s exactly what you were looking for so I really hope you like it.

Warnings: little bit of people being mean, the rest is all fluffy goodness.

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

“I understand your frustration, really. But there’s no way I can help you while you’re screaming so please-“ it was useless, like words came in one ear and left out the other.

Today was simply not your day. Sure, there was always one or two customers who decided to be assholes for no reason every day, but today you couldn’t catch a damn break.

Larissa knew the moment you walked through the front door that there was something wrong. The exhausted look on your face made it clear enough and immediately she wanted nothing more than to somehow make you feel better.

You didn’t say anything, and neither did Larissa for a moment. Letting you settle home for a second before trying to get you to talk to her about it.

After you showered and dressed you practically jumped into Larissa’s waiting arms with a drawn out sigh. Her hand coming up to play with your hair, and her voice was soft when she spoke. “Long day?”

“Exhausting.”

“I know it’s not easy to not let them get to you.. but you work hard my love, and you’re a great employee. I know that much, so whatever it is they say, or do, just know you’re not deserving of that harsh treatment. Some people really have nothing better to do.”

You didn’t really have to say anything for her to know, of course it wasn’t the first time and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

“I’ll never understand why people resort to being so unbelievably rude at any situation possible where they don’t get their way. It’s not in my control, sometimes not even in theirs! But they’ll find something to yell at me about, trust.” Larissa would take it to her grave but she found it incredibly adorable whenever you were upset. You just became so expressive, you’d change your voice and talk with your hands, sometimes imitate expressions or mock them and she couldn’t help but adore you more.

“How the hell are some adults worse than teenagers.” you sighed and hid into her chest with a hum as you finished your rant. “Oh comfortable, are you?” Larissa glared playfully down at you and raised a brow, to which you glared back and nodded. “I’m very comfortable and I deserve it so deal with it!” Larissa chuckled at your antics, wrapping her arms around you.

You sat in comfortable silence then, enjoying the warmth Larissa was providing as she let you rest curled up to her chest.

Sure, work could be absolute hell, but you always had her to rant and recharge your energies. What more could you ask for?

[ay-miphae]

I like hearing peoples' life stories, so it might be cool to hear some of your life story (as much as you are willing to tell)

*this is in response to that reblog about asks and rants and such

Hell yea thank you for such a loaded ask, this took me awhile to think about but I have not forgotten but now that Inktober madness is over I’ll go for it.

Hmm. Life story is interesting, I don’t know if there’s much of a tangible story there yet. I’ve come to realize I don’t have a very strong sense of identity or self, rather basing my identity off my hyperfixations so that’s often the closest I get to describing myself. But I have this whole blog for that purpose lmao, and also for my interests in music and drawing. But a significant constant in my life (that I don’t talk a whole lot about here) is coffee.

It’s a little silly I know. I am a little too dependent on my beloved bean water and you guys are free to tease me about that lmao. But it’s always been here.

It was there in my childhood years, the smell of fresh brewed coffee from the kitchen every morning. My dad still drinks black coffee (almost) every morning, and I think I must have been 4 when I insisted on trying it the first time. “Yea I like it!” (I did not. It was very bitter.)

Sometimes the grocery store would have coffee samples, where I had a field day trying them all and somehow growing to like the taste. And then I realized I could add milks and flavors and be creative with it. Enjoying coffee of any kind became a source of comfort and something I looked forward to and cherished through my early teenage years. Maybe a cafe run with a friend that was just so special and unique to me, or the time it iced over all the streets and my dad and I brewed a particular brand of coffee that gives me nostalgia every time I taste it, or making myself a bit of something to tide me over a long night of studying.

When I was old enough to get a job, that’s naturally where I gravitated. Don’t get me wrong - customer service takes a lot out of you - but it was something I genuinely enjoyed for awhile. Like - wow, I get to make a coffee for this person? That’s so cool! I mean the magic certainly gets lost after countless afternoon rushes and unpleasant customer interactions. I don’t know though. I guess it’s still a special thing I get to do, and it feels nice to put artistic craft and care into something that would have meant the world to me a few years back.

I’ve never been that close with my parents. But somehow the bean water still works wonders. Buying a Chemex coffeemaker for my dad for Christmas, deciding that we wanted an espresso machine at home, talking over getting some coffee to go. A little outside my comfort zone, but I guess little steps count. Not to mention the times my closest IRL friend (@samevanssatscores hi) and I have yoinked ourselves to the local coffee + records shop to bond over going absolutely feral over iced lattes and records neither of us have ever heard of. And meeting both of my online best friends in person and being so excited that hey! we’re having coffee (or boba) together! in person this time!

So I guess this is my long-winded ode to bean water, which, sure, is a universal drink that keeps millions of people awake each day. But it’s not just function, it’s about the experience of enjoying it and connecting via it, and that’s something that’s only gotten more and more true in my life.

[toxicanonymity]

Corey C. from the call center (one shot)

Words: 4.5k | Corey Cunningham 🥹 x Fem!Reader

Sub!Corey,kinda. Shy, brooding, meowmeow!Corey, post-accident, pre-Michael.

Summary: You start talking to Corey when he's working at the call center and you call in. You invite him over for Halloween 💕. [In Halloween Ends, Corey's mother threatens to send him back to work at the call center when she thinks he was injured at Prevo]

You take Corey’s jacket and for the first time see his strong, expansive chest.  He notices you noticing, and he assumes he has something on his shirt.  He looks down at himself and brushes nothing off his chest then smiles shyly and tucks a wild curl behind his ear.  You welcome him to sit on the couch with you.  He sits upright, awkwardly.  You can tell he's going to need some encouragement. 

18+ EXPLICIT

mdni

You recently moved into your own little house.  It’s the first time you’ve lived on your own, and you’re far from where home used to be.  Right after college, you lived with a partner who would call the landline every day after you got off work to make sure you came straight home.  When that ended, you stayed with family for a while, then moved to Haddonfield for a fresh start.  The weather felt cold and bleak at first, compared to the deep South, but the town seemed to have a real sense of community, almost like perfect strangers were trauma-bonded.  

Still, you haven’t been fast to make friends, and sometimes you’re lonely.  You initially moved in with a roommate, but she moved in with a boyfriend and you hadn’t been able to find a new one.  Instead, you move into a little duplex you can afford on your own.  

Your internet hasn’t exactly been reliable, and you’re still getting used to managing your own utilities.  You haven’t called for help yet because the prospect of it overwhelms you, but you get tired of rebooting the router and finally call your internet service provider to troubleshoot your connection.   

You reach a polite young man named Corey C.  Corey has a deep, sexy voice and a Northern accent.  Northern accents are super hot to you the same way a foreign accent might be hot to someone else.   

“Can I get your phone number in case we get disconnected?”  You give it to him. 

“Tell me about why you’re calling today.” He follows the script, you give him the answers. 

“I lost the internet.”

“Are you near your router? Can you tell me which lights are blinking?” You tell him you don’t know what the lights are and he guides you through light by light.  You aren’t really listening, you just savor the sound of his voice. You could listen to Corey C. talk forever. 

“Ma’am?  Ma’am are you there?” 

“Yes, sorry.  The top one is blinking orange.” 

“Okay, I can reset the connection from here, it’ll just take a minute to reboot, okay?” 

“Sure.”  It’s refreshing how sweet and patient he is.  You were nervous to call for help, and he’s made it easy and even enjoyable.  

“I’ll stay on the line to make sure it works, okay?” You already want to hug him.  Sometimes you still feel so alone, and even though he;s just helping you through this tiny problem in the big scheme of things, it feels good to have someone sound like they’re actually there for you.  

“Sounds good,” you say.  “How’s your day going?”

He sighs.  “You know, it’s just another day.” Something sounds so sad in his voice. 

“Awww” 

“Actually, you’re the first nice customer I’ve had all day.” 

“Sorry to hear that.” 

“That’s alright, it’s just the job.  How’s your day?” 

“Oh, fine, not too interesting. I was just streaming Euphoria when I lost connection.”

“Sorry about that.  How is that, by the way?”

“Oh it’s awesome, you should watch it.” 

“I don’t have Showtime, but it looks really good.” 

“You have an amazing voice, by the way, sorry if that’s weird, I just had to tell you.” 

“Uh, heh, well, thanks.” You can practically hear him blushing

“Do you get that a lot?”

“Um, no, not really, most people are just annoyed.  Their internet is out or their bill is too high.” 

“That doesn’t sound very fun, sorry.” 

“Well, it’s a job, my mom got it for me, so I could save for college.” 

“Oh, are you still in high school?”  He doesn’t sound young, but you feel like you have to ask.  

“Oh, no, no, I go to community college, I’m just saving up for engineering school.” 

“Well, you’re good at your job, Corey C. You’re patient and kind, and hey, it looks like you already fixed my issue.”

“Oh, heh, you can just call me Corey.”

“Okay Corey,” you smile.   

“Is there anything else I can help you with today?” 

“No, I think that’s all for today.  I hope your day gets better.” 

“Thanks.  You’re nice.  Give us a call back if you need anything else, okay?” 

You wish you could talk to him longer, but you let him go and give him five stars on the customer service survey.   

For the rest of the day, you can’t get his hot voice out of your head.  He’s earnest and sad and that just makes you feel more connected to him.  The whole time you’ve lived in Haddonfield, you’ve felt like an outsider.  It’s almost like people wonder why anyone would move to Haddonfield after 2018, and they never quite let you in.  You hear something similar in Corey’s voice.  You hate the thought of him getting yelled at all day.  

A few days later, you have the same issue and get Corey C. again when you call.  He remembers you.  You make conversation again, and at the end he says “It was nice talking to you, really.”  

The day after that, you call back just because, and you ask for Corey C. by name. He’s about to go eat his lunch. You talk about your favorite foods and drinks.  

Each time you call, you pretend there's an issue and give him five stars.  Corey tells you he's switching to a later shift and gives you his extension.  The late shift is pretty dead sometimes, so if you're ever bored you could give him a call.  Now you have his extension. 

-

You're listening to WURG in the car, and Willie the Kid is on about how Corey Cunningham is a killer. Corey Cunningham.  You always felt bad for him, but hadn't thought about him since you started talking to Corey C. on the phone.  

You go on YouTube to try to find old CourtTV footage, and there it is, that deep sexy voice.  You didn't know Corey Cunningham was hot.  You had a feeling Corey C. was though.  

Corey's hot voice paired with his sweet curly hair and glasses and the way he can barely make eye contact really pulls at your heart.  You also can't help but notice the way his prison garb hugs his body, and his thick neck, and his Adam's apple when he gulpsl. 

He's a gruff, sexy hunk of man wrapped around the sweetest saddest package and you just want to squeeze him.  

-

You call Corey on the late shift. can talk until he has another customer.  You talk about your favorite holidays.  Yours is Halloween but he doesn't like it.  You ask him his story and he tells you his full name and says you probably already know it.  “It’s cool if you have to go,” he adds, sadly.  You don’t, of course.  

You come clean about hearing his name on the radio and looking him up.  He doesn't mind.  He’s just relieved you still want to talk to him.  You tell him your full name and story, too. You tell him things you hadn't ever told anyone else before. He tells you about his home life.  You tell him how you came from a similar situation - in terms of feeling controlled and unable to live your life.  You talk for hours.  He only has one customer and calls you  back after.  

You call back the next night. 

"I wasn't sure you'd ever call back again," he says.  “After getting to know me more, I mean.” 

Your heart hurts.  "I called back especially after getting to know you. I wanna get to know you even more, now."

"Yeah? What do you want to know?"

"Do you have friends? A girlfriend?"

"Not really" 

"No girlfriend, really?"

"No.  The past couple years have been - it’s been tough. I wouldn’t want anyone to deal with this.  Plus, you know, I still live with my Mom.”

"Well.  You're sweet. And cute, you know that, right?" Secretly, you suspect he doesn't.  

"Heh. You don't have to say that.” 

"Really.  Very huggable, too.  I just want to squeeze you"

"You do?"  You wonder if he was even hugged as a child. 

"Yeah, is that weird?"

"No, not at all. Just unusual.  I mean, I can't remember my last hug. Is that messed up?”

He has another customer, but you tell him to text you later.  You know he already has your phone number from your file.  

You text throughout the week, and sometimes you talk on the phone because you like to hear his voice, still.  As Halloween approaches you worry about him, especially because it sounds like Joan has been acting even crazier now that he’s working a later shift.   Everything you learn about him intrigues you more.  He doesn’t drive.  He rides a bike.  He trespasses and hangs out at abandoned, bleak locations a lot.  He never really had a dad, but his stepfather is cool. 

Even pathetic things – like his mom still doing his laundry – only make you feel closer to him.  

Knowing how traumatic Halloween must be for him, you invite him over to spend the evening with you.  The whole night, if he wants.  

-

Halloween 

You watch your niece while her parents go to a Halloween dinner party and your sister picks her up right before Corey's shift ends.  The flow of trick-or-treaters tapers off.  When the doorbell rings, your heart races.

You answer the door and almost don't recognize Corey.  He looks so much bigger in person.  His hair is darker, too.   He's wearing a brown corduroy jacket, black and green flannel shirt, and black jeans that are too big. His glasses are different. Round, wire rim.  He's wearing old white sneakers. His bike is on a kick-stand behind him.  His curly hair is wild from the wind.  He’s even more unassuming and huggable than you imagined.  “Hiiii Corey,” you say.  You can’t believe he’s really here.  Your heart is fluttering.  “You can park your bike on the porch.” You get the bowl of candy and set it out on the porch for any late trick-or-treaters as he parks his bike.

“Hey, thanks for inviting me,” he says.  His voice is even nicer in person. 

You hold your arms out  for a hug before he's even in the door.  He walks into you with his arms hesitantly outstretched and you curl your arms under his.   His big corduroy arms wrap around you like a blanket, loosely at first, then you squeeze him around the waist and inhale, and he gives you the bear hug you really wanted.  His shirt smells like a wood shop.  His jacket has a faint hint of smoke.    And his skin - his thick, masculine neck, smells freshly showered, minty. 

You invite him in and lock the door behind him.  You have a big leather sofa with an oversized plush ottoman. Your TV is mounted on the opposite wall.  You’re going to watch Black Christmas and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. 

You take Corey’s jacket and for the first time see his strong, expansive chest.  He notices you noticing, and he assumes he has something on his shirt.  He looks down at himself and brushes nothing off his chest then smiles shyly and tucks a wild curl behind his ear.  You welcome him to sit on the couch with you.  He sits upright, awkwardly.  You can tell he's going to need some encouragement. 

He faces the tv and you face him with your feet up on the couch.  You tuck your feet under his muscular thigh.  He puts his large hand on your foot and stretches his big feet out onto the ottoman. After twenty minutes like this, you say “Can I have another hug? The first one’s wearing off” and smile

"Come here,"  he says, smiling shyly and extending his arm.  He's finally relaxing.  

You settle in next to him, hugging him from the side, inhaling his masculine, minty woodshop smell.  He strokes your arm.  

Your skin is hungry for his.  You can't get close enough to him.  The closer you are, the closer you need to be.  You already have your arms wrapped all the way around him, and his arms over yours, and you still don't feel close enough. It's like your body has a magnetic need to be all the way around his.  Like an affectionate, emotional horniness. 

"Wanna lie down?" you ask?  "On your back." You wonder if that was too direct, but he takes off his glasses, then does it.  

He lies there, watching you curiously.  You climb on top of him, straddling his sturdy hips with your legs, and you slip your hands under his large arms.  You hug and squeeze him like a koala.  "Can I stay like this?" You ask.  “Like forever?”

He laughs softly at you. "Yeah, you can stay like that," he says softly. You love feeling his voice through his chest.  “I like it. Do you want to watch the movie like this?"

"Yeah," you say.  You haven’t been this close to anyone the whole time you’ve lived in Haddonfield.  

He’s very strong and solidly built, but not overly cut, which you love.  He’s unassuming and comfortable to lie on.  He’s perfect.  Your head is against his soft flannel chest, rising and falling with his breaths, listening to his heart pound.  Your knees are to either side of his hips.  You're straddling his meaty thighs and it's a stretch.  Your crotch is just below his, but they would be aligned if you got out of your koala posture.  You scoot your knees back a little.   You’re very comfortable.  His hand comes to your head and strokes your hair.  Your eyelids are heavy. 

"You're really pretty, you know," he says as your breathing grows steady and falls in rhythm with his against his chest. Your heart swells.  

His belt buckle digs into you. You pull your head up for a second and touch his belt buckle and say "can I?" He blushes and nods. You feel his cock twitch under your arm as you unfasten it and slide out the leather.  

As hot as he is, your awareness of his cock doesn’t distract you from your primary desire at the moment, which is just to be close to him.  You're so overwhelmed with affection for him that your number one priority is to hug him forever and never let him go and never let anyone hurt him again.  You pull a thick blanket over both of you and doze off top of him.  

***

When the movie ends, you wake up in the same position.  You look up at Corey and he's asleep.  You stretch out so you’re more parallel to him and lie on top of him with one of your legs falling between his.  Your hunger for affection is actively being satisfied, and now a different hunger stirs in your core. 

He looks so peaceful.  He stirs and you kiss him on the cheek, then the neck, then you lock eyes and kiss him on the mouth.  His soft lips embrace yours.  As he kisses you tenderly, you begin to unbutton his flannel shirt.  You feel him harden against your thigh and your clit is screaming for you to grind against him but you don't want to make any sudden moves.   You can take the lead if you have to, but want to savor every moment and resist the urge to rush things. You kiss affectionately as you finish unbuttoning his shirt. Meanwhile, you’re twitching with need for him.  

You spread your hands out, fingers wide, and trace his pecs through his tight, thin undershirt. His breathing changes when your palms graze his nipples and you feel him twitch against your thigh. He sits up on his elbows and you back off to give him room.  He takes his arms out of the flannel sleeves, revealing how his thick arms fill his thin undershirt.  

Corey looks like he’s trying to read your face like a book as he drops the flannel shirt to the floor.  He begins to wrap his arms around you again, but you slide your hands under his white cotton shirt.  His skin is smooth and warm under your fingers.  You meet his eyes with a hopeful look.  He helps you remove the shirt, then he lies back down and opens his arms for you. 

You take off your own sweater, and before laying back down on him, you take a moment to appreciate his bare chest.  His skin is pale and smooth and warm.  You hug him again like you were, with your cheek now resting on his bare, warm chest.  One hand strokes your hair while the other caresses your back.  His large fingers graze over your bra strap repeatedly, and you take that as his way of asking you to remove it, so you do.  His face flushes and you smile.  His eyes look back and forth between your nipples as you bring your chest to his.  There’s a magnetism between your bare torsos as they meet and your breasts flatten against him.  He rests his arms on top of you and strokes your skin.  You kiss his neck, then his cheek, then his mouth, and you’re making out again.  

You take in the feeling of his lips against yours, his skin against yours.  Your chests and arms together feel like they should never come apart.  You could stay like this for hours, do nothing else, and still consider it a good night, but you want all of him against all of you.  When you look him in the eyes, you’re certain he wants the same. 

“Your skin feels so good,” he whispers.  

“Yours too.  I want to feel all of it.” 

He slips a hand in between the two of you and you lift yourself up to give him some room.  Large knuckles graze your skin as he unbuttons, then unzips his pants.  You scoot yourself down toward his feet and begin to slowly remove his jeans, pulling from the ankles.  His briefs start to come with them, revealing some red pubic hair.  He doesn’t pull the briefs back up.  He’s breathing slowly, deliberately.  His thighs are muscular and fade from white to tan.  His legs have soft, auburn hair and a few scars lighter than his skin.  His feet are huge.  You leave his socks on.  You almost can’t believe how lucky you are to have him here in your house.  

You lie down again, cradled by a large arm, slowly squirm out of your joggers - you weren’t wearing any underwear to take off.  He watches you while you’re nestled against him.  Your entire naked body now lies against him.   He takes his free hand and nudges his briefs down a little more and you help him slowly pull them off with your hand, then your toes, not wanting to leave his side again.  He raises his knees one at a time to help.  You don’t look directly at his cock but you see enough to know it’s thick and getting thicker. 

You’re both nude. The room is just chilly enough that your body heat together will be enough.   You pull the blanket up so only your heads peek outside it.  You’re cuddled up so close you’re like one body with two heads.   You hook your bare leg over one of his and nestle comfortably against him.  You reach down and remove one of your socks, then use the toes of that foot to remove your other sock. You slip your big toe into the hem of his sock and he lets you remove them one by one and he giggles when it tickles. 

As you play footsie, you feel his cock harden against your leg, and you feel yourself moistening against his strong, hairy thigh. The contiguity of your bodies is intoxicating - the magnetism of his warm skin against yours.  

He kisses you softly on the forehead, then on the lips.  You close your eyes and inhale through your nose as you kiss, feeling his arms around you.  You’re cosmically absorbing him into yourself and at the same time transmitting yourself into him.  You want all his feelings and his fears and his trauma and his problems. You want both of you to carry them and yours together as one. 

His cock swells against you and his pelvis pushes into your leg and he whispers "sorry."

It stirs you from your affectionate stupor and you whisper back, "don't be.  It's natural."  You bend your knee and spread your legs, shifting yourself so his hardness is nestled against your warmth.  "And I like it," you add.  “I want more,” you purr.  He takes a deep breath.    

Corey’s expansive hands glide over your arms and his thick arms wrap around you tighter.  His hot, stiff, member rubs against your warmth.  You grind against him, bury your nose in his armpit, and inhale slowly. Your nipples harden as his musk fills your nostrils. 

He kisses the top of your head.  You look and he bows his head, a wild curl falling in his forehead, and his lips meet yours.  He pushes his rock-hard length against you harder as you kiss, and you feel pre-cum.  You tilt your hips, slickening his shaft.  He softly moans and pulses rhythmically there.  You badly want to be filled by him.  Your body inches upward on his.  Your legs spread for more direct contact and you grind your clit hard against his shaft.  You drag your warm, wet cunt against him.  Your hips tilt, offering your entrance if he wants to take it.  

The wet, swollen head of his cock slides against your folds and nuzzles at your soaking wet entrance.  You truly ache for him. You feel the pain not only in your throbbing cunt but in your head and in your chest.  

His cockhead nudges your entrance and you whisper “yes.”  

His hips rotate upward and the head of his cock pushes into you, unleashing a swarm of butterflies in your core.  He sighs.   He inches further into you, pleasantly stretching  your cunt.  Time stands still.  You feel his cock pulse and your hips start to move on their own.  As you roll into him, his hips jolt up, plunging his whole length into you.  

It takes your breath away.  You’ve never felt happier than this moment.  He sighs and you gasp as pleasure shoots through your spine and spreads to your nipples, your thighs, all your skin against his.  Your eyes feel weak like you might cry.  

Corey is still for a moment, both of you savoring the first moment his length was sheathed entirely in your warm, wet cunt.  You breathe with him, feeling your skin against his, your cunt around his cock.  You feel him pulse inside you, then he pulls back a few inches before thrusting into you harder.  He shudders as he fills you again.  Your chest is hot against his.  Your arms curl under his and his thick fingers dig into the smooth skin of your back.  

You bring your knees up and hug him like a koala again, rolling your hips into his, your throbbing clit rubbing against his pelvis, savoring the perfect feeling of his length inside you.  Your body has a mind of its own now.  Your hips let his shaft halfway out, then lower yourself back down hard, and repeat.  You drag your breasts down his chest a few inches then sit up.  He marvels at your body and his hands come to your  hips as you ride him.  He reaches for a breast and your nipple hardens against his wide palm.  Your pace quickens.  

Corey’s face is flushed and his eyes are dark.   His dark eyes sparkle as they gaze into yours.  His lips are slightly parted. “You’re so beautiful,” he says in a low, gruff voice.  “I love being inside you.” 

“I love it too,” you say as you keep riding him.  He closes his eyes and you watch his hot Adam’s apple as he swallows.  His breathing gets heavier.  His hands go from your breasts to your sides then beg you closer against him.  You kiss him deeply as you lower your breasts to his chest.  His lips are soft and plush but they kiss you hard this time, invading your mouth with his strong tongue, sucking you into him, consuming you as you ride him. 

Your hard nipple grazes against his and he softly moans into your mouth.  His hips rise and you slowly stop riding him, hovering half-on his cock, begging his hips upward into yours.  He thrusts upward into you and begins fucking you from the bottom and your cunt clenches around him.  You both breathe heavily against each other’s mouths, breathing each other’s breath.  

He starts to say something, “I–” but his own moan cuts him off.  You sense he’s about to come and as much as you want his hot seed to fill you up, you want to swallow it even more.  You want your body to digest him, millions of little versions of him, take little bits of him and turn them into you and you into him.

Your cunt is clenched around him but you beg it to release.  You lift your hips and slowly let his swollen cock slide out.  It’s ready to burst.  You grab it in your soft hand and scoot quickly down his legs, then bring your lips to the head of his cock.  You suck the head of his salty cock then open your jaw to slide your lips down his girth. Your strong tongue massages him and you suck from the back of your throat.  He strokes your hair and groans and says he’s going to come.  

His hips tense as his cock releases a huge salty load into your throat in waves.  You seal your lips around his shaft, not wanting to waste any of it at all.  You swallow after every pump, still sealed round his shaft.  Then, once he’s empty, you gently slide your lips off and replace them with your gentle hand, wanting to protect him from the cold as he deflates.  

He sits up and kisses you frantically, pushing you down onto the opposite end of the couch so you’re on the bottom.  His huge hand engulfs your cunt and his lips come to your nipple, then your neck.  His middle three fingers massage your aching clit and your hips roll up into his huge hand.  You can tell he’s desperate to make you come.  It won’t take much.  He begins to move his hand to your thighs, and you sense he’s getting ready to bury his head between your legs, but you’re too close to let him break contact.  You grab his wrist and force him to stay. 

His lips come back to your neck and he sucks you hard, biting you lightly, as his soaking wet hand pleasures you rhythmically. You feel the blood in your neck rising to the surface of your delicate skin.  Just a few more seconds and your back arches as pleasure shoots through your core, seizing your entire body, and through your final waves, you moan “Corey, Oh, Corey,” and your eyes well up, and his eyes water too as he kisses your lips again.  You collapse and hug him into you, on top of you.  

Corey nuzzles his curls into your neck and the skin of your chest tingles against his.  Your insides buzz with his cum inside you.   You would be content to stay like this all night.  Preferably every night.  

-

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Get To Know Me Tag Game

Thank you for the tag @nerdieforpedro 😚 for anyone who cares, here's a bit about me! 🥹

General rule: I may overshare in dms and authors notes sometimes but Im generally a private person 🤣 to the point Ive lost friends over it. ive been working with my coworkers for 3 years and they dont know shit about me 🤣 I juss really love yall and feel safe with yall so here we go!

1. Were you named after anyone?

No. My mom didnt want our names to announce who we were on applications so we all got regular smegular names. My name is of Irish origin so my yt folks customer service voice got ppl thinkin I have red hair. I mean....technically yes but its buried under my braids 🤣

2. When was the last time you cried?

At the end of The Marvels. The first end credit had me in real, actual tears. On a more serious note, I last cried before my grandma died. Yall, its fn hard being a caretaker. I was not built Ford Tuff.

3. Do you have kids?

*ahem* 🗣🗣 fuck no! 🤣🤣🤣 I dont even have nieces or nephews. Kids make me nervous and Im pretty sure they can smell the fear on me. 🤣

4. What sports do you play/ have you played?

I played basketball and softball in HS. I love and miss softball all the time even though my big behind HATES running.

5. Do you use sarcasm?

Sarcasm is one of my love languages. I put that shit on everything 🤣 Physical Touch is my main one since we sharing.

6. What is the first thing you notice about people?

Ooof, tough. Depends. Some quirk like glasses, lisp, moles. How they walk/talk, the way they laugh. I am a lurker by trade. Overly shy kid and writer by nature will do that to ya.

7. What is your eye color?

Dark brown. When that sun hits 🫠🫠🫦

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

I am a HUGE scaredy cat. I dont do scary movies nothin! Happy endings over here! 🤸🏽‍♀️ I will enjoy a thriller but only behind my hands and mostly starring Matthew Lillard.

9. Any talents?

.....no? I have a bunch of useless knowledge or trivia that no one asked for but ya gonna get 🤣 . Juss realized writing is considered a talent 😭 so that too 🤣

10. Where were you born?

US, West Coast baybeee

11. What are your hobbies?

Obvs, writing. Reading, sewing, cons, tarot, tv, listening to music, video games (xbox, switch, PC girlie) , Marvel. Marvel is a hobby. I will talk your ear off. That is both a threat and a promise 😚

12. Do you have any pets?

I have two gorgeous Boston Terriers who run me into the ground every day. Idk why my mom thought two was okay 🫠🫠 my Black ass tide 🥲 👏🏽

13. How tall are you?

Fun sized 5'3 and a half 👏🏽👏🏽🤣 pear shaped. I got ass for days but in the itty bitty titty committee. 😭😭😭😭😭

14. Favorite subject in high school?

Definitely English. My English teacher was so fine 🥲🥲 thats not WHY it was my fave but can ya blame me 😩 I loved reading the books but I hated the themes they shoved down our throats. What if that wasnt MY interpretation of the book??? Hmmm? Some faves include: Their Eyes Were Watching God (Teacake 🥵🥵🥵), Brave New World, Bright Lights Big City (probably where my love of second person is from) , Bronx Masquerade, and The Outsiders. And FUCK the Great Gatsby. If I hear about that damn green light one 👏🏽 mo 👏🏽 fn 👏🏽 time 👏🏽😩😡 and FUCK Of Mice and Men, he aint have to do all that in the end. And DOUBLE FUCK I Know Why the Caged Bird sings. Turned my stomach when she described the SA. Lemme stop 🥴

15. Dream Job?

Writer. I will publish, I will be successful, and I will live the life I want. I claim it 😩 on my Octavia Butler, NK Jemisin, Danielle Allen shit 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

Whew! That was fun 😭🤣

No pressure tags: @mybonafidefeelings @bratzmaraj @braverthanthenewworld @multiversefanfics @chaos-4baby @westside-rot @saturn-rings-writes @notapradagurl7 @wide-nose-and-wonderful @blowmymbackout @blackerthings @harmshake @targaryenvampireslayer and who wants to do one. I love learning bout my moots.