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somegirlontheinternet135 · 2 years ago

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☆Anything And Everything, All Of The Time☆

~Chapter 1~

*Huff* *Huff* *Huff*

"Cmon-cmon! We gotta hurry, WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG?!"

Running through the seemly endless night, a band of cookies rush for their escape. Sounds of their footsteps being blurred out by the blaring of sirens and shouting from the distance. Their group of 5 members, with their leader, a souly cloaked figure, racing in front of them, clutching a satchel of unnamed content, presumably stolen.

"STOP! IN THE NAMED TBD, WE DEMAND YOU TO STOP AT ONCE!!!" A voice yelled, the voices from behind them getting louder and louder with step they took. The group kept in till they were at a safer distance; one of them, a cookie with white and mint colored hair, pulls out a strange device, resembling that of a pocket watch. "Toothpaste Cookie, NOW!!" Their leader yelled; desperately, he begins to alter the tiny clocks' hands to another time. "Timejumper, do your thing!" He yelped as presses the face of the clock. As if automatic, bright yellow volts begin to fly out of the watch. whilst its hands start to rapidly spin

The electric bolts swirl around the group, the voices and sirens only increase in volume. But just when they were close enough to catch them, all they could see was a yellow light, then nothing, the group they were after had vanished. . .

*Voom* *Poof*

Entering a forested area, the same yellow light and volts that sent the group of bandits away, was visible once again. Using the timejumper, they were able to teleport to another location. Safe for now, they all relapsed, taking heavy breathing and slouching after their intense chase. A cookie with a red hoodie begins to speak, "*Phew* Great. . . now where are we? . ." She said, still shaken up. "Looks like we're in the middle of the woods*Ugh* just perfect . . ." Toothpaste Cookie said annoyed, getting up from his crouching position to cross his arm and sigh.

"Exactly. . ." Their leader, and only one of them who decided to conceal their identity, undoes her cloak, reveling her long, twisted ponytail, underneath. "We'll set up camp here for the night. Toothpaste Cookie, help me collect wood for a fire," she said, sternly. "*Sigh* Aright boss." With the time spent, the group of bandits set up a small campsite for themselves, crafting a fire for staying warm during the cold night. They sit around the fire, protected by a castor of trees; two members of the group, Half-Avocado and Redberry Cookie were already sound asleep, resting their heads on a nearby log. Whilst the other three, Toothpaste Cookie, Peeled Carrot Cookie, and the leader, Twizzly Gummy Cookie, stayed awake. Everything from their past heist felt. . . off, their crew had been on the run for the longest time, so it was like weren't used to it by now, it was just that time felt more. . . tense

Like what they were doing would end the world. It didn't help that their leader, Twizzly Gummy Cookie, had a change in state. Normally their boss would be bursting with energy, fueled by chaos; then, out of nowhere, something just. . . clicked, and she became strict, more controlled. She was still the same person, but sometimes it was like taking orders from a complete stranger. The three of them sat from opposite ends, the other two sitting together whilst Twizzly sat alone; still clutching onto her satchel, as if it someone were to snatch it from her at any moment. "I'm just saying, TBD been after us for who knows long, one day they'll give up eventually." Toothpaste Cookie exclaimed, polishing his instrument with a silk cloth. "Bro, you've seen what those guys can do! Plus, bet they're even more angry from last, you can never be too careful!!" Peeled Carrot replied to counter

"*Tsk* Really?"

"Yeah really!! I could tell, it was all in the eyes!!!"

"*Haha* Whatever you say Mom. . ." Toothpaste laughed, seeing his friends' caution as being 'overprotective'. "*Ugh* Boss, what do you think about all this?" She asked Twizzly Gummy Cookie, who was still tightly holding her satchel whilst looking at the ground. It takes her minute to response. "Doesn't matter. . ." She announced, not even getting from the ground. "Wha-?" Peeled Carrot gasped confused; "Our reputation, TBD, all of it doesn't matter, at least not anymore," Twizzly Gummy Cookie said nonchalantly. The two cookies across from her glimpse at each other before looking back at her; the boss who had a flare for the dramatic, who held her reputation as the 'most wanted criminal in the galaxy' stopped caring for her own reputation. They could get behind for her not caring the rest of her crew, but her own?

"You're kidding right? . ." Toothpaste Cookie said, a sweat forming on his brow. Twizzly Gummy didn't move, scaring the awaken two even more. "B-Boss, you can't be serious, you hold the title of the most-" Peel Carrot Cookie said before being cut off, "I said. . . it doesn't matter! . . " She said, "Let me tell you something, stealing, the crimes, we were getting nowhere. . . But as long as we have this. . . we serve a purpose. . ." She replied as she displayed the satchel to them before quickly pulling it away. What made it worse was that she said it all nonchalantly, they couldn't believe what they were hearing, yet disappointingly had to go along with it, not even knowing the true content in her possession

As noted before, the rest of the team was never given a proper introduction of object stolen from the TBD, so the more she spoke about it, the more out of mind and enthralled she sounded. "This. . . will be the answer all of our problems! . . our prayers. . . our desires," she rambled, now graded onto the base of the bag, holding onto it tighter. Both Peeled Carrot and Toothpaste Cookie start to back away from the firepit, already terrified of the boss's behaviors. Yet they were curious, what could be causing their boss to act so erratically

It took them what felt like hours to ask, the two of them waiting for the other to respond. "B-Boss, 'this' is really a good description. . ." Peeled Carrot Cookie finally spoken. "Yeah boss," Toothpaste expressed coming after her, "d-don't think you ever. . . 'showed us' what you stole. . ." Toothpaste said cautiously yet curious. Like it were instinct, Twizzly held the bag close to enough to her face, tighter than before, whilst growling and froing at the mouth like a ravenous animal, staring directly at the two who'd dared to even ask the question. It made the two of them flinch, sweating forming on the faces whilst backing away even more

Seeing her minions' rather horrified expressions, made Twizzly Gummy Cookie calm down after a few moments. Processing to unlatch her grip from the satchel, claw marks being left on the material as a result; going back to sitting normally as it she wasn't just giving her workers death glares, she huffs. "*Sigh* Know what? . . fine, if it'll get you off my back. . ." She said, now pulling the satchel onto her lap, the awake gang members already coming out of their defensive states; "Well? get over here. . . but no touching." As she began undoing the zipper that kept the object inside, Peeled Carrot and Toothpaste Cookie got up from where they sat and crept forward, still feeling unsure being near the boss but willing to see whatever was making her act the way she did. By the time the zipping was undone, the two had already came to her at reasonable distance, not too close yet not too far either

"Toothpaste Cookie, Peeled Carrot Cookie, behold in all its glory. . . The Time Capsule!" She said with a godly tone in her voice. Finally revealing the valuable to her worker, the item resembling that snowglobe, and at its base, was a winding key. Twizzly Gummy expected better reactions from her crew, instead met with a mix of shock and confusion. Peeled Carrot clearly had something in mind but were too afraid to say it aloud, all the while their leader is impatiently waiting for response. However, Toothpaste was not too convinced nor the happier. "Boss, you're not telling me we risk being caught over some old antique, are ya?!" He asked, still confused and rather angered at the fact she nearly got them trouble.

Somehow, he forgot what he happened a few minutes ago. Twizzly immediately directly Toothpaste Cookie's way, whilst Peeled Carrot gave him what could be described as a "Why would you say that?!" look. "Just. . . An antique. . ." Twizzly Gummy said, staring souly at Toothpaste Cookie and getting up from the log, causing the two in front of her to back away out of fear. "You think. . . this?! Is just a antique?!?!" She yelled in her rage, now marching in Toothpaste Cookie's direction, still holding the capsule. Him, already regretting what he said before, starts to frantically fix his mistakes; "W-w-wait boss! I didn't actually me-" It was too late, Twizzly had already gotten so close to his face their noses were touching

Proceeding to grab onto his shirt and pull him even closer, she begins growling in his face, exposing all of her teeth. "THE TIME CAPSULE CAN BEND REALITIES, DESTROY TIMELINES, AND YOU THINK IT'S JUST ANTIQUE?!?!? YOU-" She roared into her minion's face, before being cut off. As she did, a yellow glow became to shone from the irises of her eyes, abruptly letting go of Toothpaste Cookie's shirt and backing away. She huffs, like a angry dragon blowing smoke through its nose. "We had a long; You two, get some rest. . ." She said sternly, acting as if her past actions never happened. Twizzly Gummy Cookie walks away whilst the other two are left to stare at her, already shoken to the core after the event. Especially Peeled Carrot Cookie, who was terrified just by watching

With not many other options offered to them, they both walk back to their log, finding places on the grass to rest. Later into the night, the misfitted gang had fallen asleep, each member using the logs they were previously sitting on as pillow, whilst their leader slept against tree, holding the stolen time capsule like a stuffed animal. Even as she slept, she still couldn't like it go. What is the time capsule? What was its purpose? And why did leave Twizzly Gummy Cookie is such as state?. .

Just then, the key of the snowglobe became to whine almost automatically. A beautiful yet haunting song played from the capsule, just when an ominous, yellow tinted, glow shone from its glass coverings. Enchanting Twizzly Gummy Cookie with its strange spell. . .

*Inside The Cookie's Mind*

Normally, Twizzly's dreams would be filled with havoc, battlefields of explosives, fire, and other dangerous things. This time, it was entirely different, she was placed in what seemed to be the center of a black void. Already sitting down, she gets up to explore her surroundings. For whatever reason, her area felt familiar to her the more she wandered, she couldn't put it on what made her feel this, or how it did. . . All she knew was that she was definitely here before. . . Walking and seemingly getting nowhere, Twizzly could finally find noise within the maddening silence, fainting giggling. . . "What the- who's there?!" Twizzly Gummy yelled into the darkness, picking up her composure as soon as dropping it. "Cmon bring it. . . I SAID BRING IT!!!" She said, holding her fists up, ready for a fight. The giggling quickly stopped, turning into the repeating of her name, over and over again, trying to loll her in. At that point, from the setting to the voice saying her name, it was all disturbingly familiar. . .

"Twizzly. . ."

It said, in an almost amused and teasing manner. The cookie unclutched her fisted as the voice sounded as if it were getting closer. Twizzly could recognize the voice for what it really is, only one being would this eager to mess with her head. "Hi Twizzly!" The voice greeted cheerfully, appearing behind her, giving Twizzly Gummy Cookie a quite the spook. "Ahh-!" She yelped, arching her back; frantically turning herself around to reveal the glowing yellow mass in the back of her. What was behind her was that of a large silhouette resembling a cookie, showing no features but on the right of their face, a black device that covered their eye, sort of modified eyepatch. Seeing the entity now in front of her, quickly backs away, sweating bullets as her speech became shaken. "M-m-my kepper! I'm so sorry, I-I didn't mean to-!"

She yelped frantic before being cut off, for once, she seemed to be afraid. But the creature didn't seem to care for Twizzly's emotional state. "Oh no, not a problem hon!~" they said cheerfully, the mass beginning to float off the ground. Twizzly Gummy did nothing but stare nervously as they floated just above her head, looming over her almost ominously. "Cmon, don't be such stranger! How's you and your crew? Have ya done anything I told ya to do hmm?" They asked curiously, tilting their head. "Oh- yeah, that!" Twizzly said somewhat panicked, falling to ground to get into a strange kneeling bow. "We're fine, Timekeeper. . . And even better news, we were able to grab the time capsule from the TBD. " She said with euphuism but trying to sound obedient. Due to only being a silhouette, it wasn't exactly easy to tell what they're feel, but their visible eye prosthetic made less hard; looking at the Timekeeper's face, she could've sworn it widen a bit.

"Oh really?. ." They said, interested and definitely excited; Twizzly Gummy Cookie gets up from her kneel before nodding her head, "Yeah. . . really!" she said hopeful, looking up at her god and holding her hands together. "Well, that's amazing Twizzly!!" Quickly as they did, the timekeeper grabbed Twizzly by both hands and starts spinning her around, lifting her as if she were lighter than air. Ever since Timekeeper found Twizzly it was like a spark was made, like that they meant to be; every mound of worship or praise that was given to them, and yet somehow she felt adored. This was her purpose, her higher calling, or aleast that's she been told. . .

After a few moments of celebration, Timekeeper had fully swung Twizzly to their side, an arm draped over her shoulder, cheerful to the fact everything was coming to their side. Twizzly Gummy smiled, seeing them happy just made her all the happier; just then, they grab pull her close to her face, to a point their faces were touching, flustering the cookie a bit. "Now we enter phase two of my plan!" Timekeeper said, creating a symbol with their hand, you could hear glass spatter in the background, her mood went from happy to shocked and terrified. "P-phase two? . ." Twizzly said, starting to sweat, tasks from the timekeeper were always difficult, orginally she thought the so called 'phase one' was hard, but a phase two. . . "Yeah, two phase! I never told ya that?" Timekeeper asked, disregarding her follower's state. All Twizzly did was shake her head 'no'. . .

"Huh. . . guess the writer left some stuff out. . ." Timekeeper shrugged their shoulders, then, snapping their fingers, disappears in a tick a of yellow light. Causing Twizzly to fall down a bit before regaining her balance; she looks to her left and right, trying to find out where her god had teleported to this time. "Twizzly. . ." Timekeeper said calmly, finally, the cookie looked behind her, of course. . .

Not only had they somehow manifested two chairs, but a coffee table complete with two coffee mugs, all within a second. It made sense, this was a dream after all, "Cmon, sit with me. . ." They calmly encouraged, sitting comfort in the chair they created. Obeying her master, Twizzly walks to the empty chair kindly provided to her, sitting just the opposite side her god

Timekeeper runs a finger on the rim of their cup and begins to speak of their plan. "Phase two of my plan is simple, you know the time capsule right?. ." They kick a leg atop the other, "weeell. . . I need ya get rid of it." To think it couldn't get worse; somehow, she was slapped into the position her workers when she said her career didn't matter, how the tables had turned. "W-w-what?. ." Twizzly squeaked out nervously, the god who sat across just stared at her, lightly swinging a foot. "Do I needa to repeat myself?" They said sternly, yet keeping their cheerful tone. "I. Need ya. To. Get rid of it." Timekeeper said, punctuating each sentence by leading closer, landing their hands on the table between the two of them

Clearly, they noticed Twizzly's shock and confusion with her facial expressions alone, they knew all to well. Leaning back into their chair, they pick up the mug beside them, sipping the liquid inside. "*Sigh* look kid. . ." Timekeeper sighs, holding their mug by the handle. "When I'm free, it can't be just you and I knowing, I'm not about that sorta stuff; seriously what's is this? Weirdmageddon?" They exclaimed, taking another sip from their mug. "If you wanna make someone stand out, to shine compared to anyone else, they gotta make an entrance, that's the key to every good show. . ." They put their feet up onto the chair, crossing their legs together. "And that's where you come in!" Timekeeper places the coffee mug back on the table. "You know where you and your are camping out? There's museum just a few meters away, leave the capsule by the doorstep, and everything else should fall into place! Does sound good?" They asked

Out of anything and everything that came out her god mouth, this was possibly the most revaluating. Twizzly took her sweet time, sorting through her thoughts and thinking what she should say next. A part of her wanted to agree with the Timekeeper, she had to. . . On the other hand, she wasn't ready to part ways with the time capsule, through that object she was able connect with her muse. She worked so hard for it, giving it away just felt wrong. The timekeeper, growing inpatient begins to leaning closer to their follower. "Uh, Earthbread to Twizzly, ya still there?" Timekeeper asked, snapping their fingers in the cookie's face to 'wake her up'. Quickly shaking their head, Twizzly came back from her mind little trip, picked out what wanted to say but was still nervous of letting it out. "Hmmm, do you needa explain again?" Timekeeper asked, once again resting a leg a top the other

Taking a breathe, she took her lap. "No, no need, I understood fine, better yet. . ." She continued, picking the coffee mug and looking at her reflection through the liquid. "Your plan is amazing! I feel like we're getting just one step closer to freeing you, but. . . There has to be another way, right? . ." She places the mug back on the table before looking back up at the timekeeper, still sitting in their original posture. Weird, considering Twizzly was expected a larger reaction of them. . . "Now don't get me wrong!- Your plan amazing! It just that. . . we have such a strong bond, wouldn't it but better if-"

"*Zip!-*"

Not even minute, before any more tragic convincing, the timekeeper had shushed their follower, placing a finger onto her lips. "Haha, think it'd be better for you to stop talking. . ." Timekeeper giggled then pulling their finger away, no matter how many times they heard it, they knew exactly where Twizzly's idea was going. Of course, it spooked her, a lot actually, but willing to say something, anything to change their mind. "I-I'm sorry Timekeeper. . . I was only suggesting-" "You worship me, right?" Timekeeper asked, once cutting her words in half. Even though she saw coming, Twizzly never meant anger her god, all because she couldn't part with the very thing that brought the two of them together. . . "Do anything for me?" They continued, ridding their follower with questions, at that point it was too late, Twizzly gotten herself into this mess and there was nothing to than listen, she nods her head 'yes'. "Then why can't you do this simple request? Huh!?" Timekeeper yelled, leaning forward while smiling. Despite their demeanor changing, they never changed tone of their voice, making them just as cheerful as before, they were quite good at acting. . .

"Listen here kid, I'm one for remembering things and last I checked, you made oath approximately 262800 minutes ago, swearing your loyalty to me and me alone!" They proclaimed passively, getting so into it they got off their chair, climbed onto the coffee table, knocking over those two mugs in the process. Looming over the cookie once more, they place hand on her cheek, Twizzly leans back in her chair, now terrified of what was to happen next. "So," they said, lifting her chin, "are you gonna obey this simple task? Or does that oath worth nothing to you?. . " Everything that the timekeeper said, made it as if sound as if she was rebelling against them, and Twizzly is far too smart to push it any further, doesn't that sound familiar? "N-n-n-o my timekeeper- m-my soul purpose is follow you in till the end!- I *sigh* shouldn't deny that. . ." Twizzly exclaimed, "I am a terribly sorry for earlier, and for that I'll stop at nothing to make sure your plan succeeds" She slowly goes back to sitting upright in her chair

"Aww. . . that's a good girl~" Timekeeper said, talking down to the cookie whilst petting her on the head. Out of all the gods and overloads in their universe, the timekeeper was one of the few considered "layback," and Twizzly couldn't be more thankful. "Like I said," they confided, climbing off the table and back into their chair, "there's a museum near ya campsite, leave it on the doorstep and let the cookies do their thing! Does that sound like plan?" They exclaimed before asking one last time. "*Sigh* Yes my keeper. . ." Twizzly Gummy sighed, getting back into her stern nature from hours before. "Great! Guess I'll be sending you off then!" Snapping their finger, a rumbling could be heard from Twizzly's half of their setup; not even a second later, visual white cracks could be seen from the ground, a sign that dream was coming to an end. Out of fear, Twizzly quickly gets up from her chair, but it was too late. . . a large hole had consumed her ground and her entire half. "AAAHH-!" She screamed as lost her footing

But just before she could fall in, the timekeeper had teleported in front of her at the nick of time, snatching onto her jacket. Pulling her close, they let out one last, ominous message. . . "And remember, I hate, disappointment. . ." With those words said, they let go the cookie, allowing her fall out of the dream and into the real world. Wide-eyed, Twizzly watched her god from above, waving and wearing their signature smile, it was weirdly beautiful. As her sight became blurry and everything faded to white, she could've heard a "good luck!" Guess she'll never know. . .

~Back in the Real World~

Twizzly Gummy Cookie wakes up in the cold, taking a few moments to check herself and her surroundings; it's the mist of sunrise, and her gang was fast asleep. Taking some fully deserve breathes, she notices the time capsule still tight within her arms. She knew what to do. . . getting up off tree she was sleeping on and dashes in a forward direction, the time capsule still in her grasp. Running through the woods, Twizzly hadn't had the smallest idea of where the museum, "near your campsite" was all she heard; but running for a roughly a few minutes and getting some cardio in, Twizzly reach what she thought was the edge of the forest. Pushing through bushes and branches however, and there it was, the museum. Guess being an all seeing being had its perks. . . The museum was surrounded by a large crater, and rather fancy exterior, none of which interested her, she had mission to complete. Sliding down the small slope, she rushes to the museum's entrance, climbing its steps and arriving at its doorstep. At the door of the museum, and the valuable in her hands, it was too perfect, her goal almost complete. . .

But, actually going to place on the ground, there was a part of her, that stupid part of her that wanted to keep it. . . It was clear she didn't fully agree nor was happy with the timekeeper's plan, getting rid of the time capsule, was like destroying a friendship bracelet. There had to another way out of it, but she knew that keeping it would be disobeying the timekeeper's wishes, and she was so close. Her two ideas start a war in her mind, inserting dominance of which she should execute, 'obeying her god' was winning. . .

She was left frozen for what felt like weeks, till she was abruptly woken by the sound of feet steps a few feet away, someone was coming. With the timekeeper's plan raining victorious in her head, Twizzly places the time capsule on the ground, dashing back into the forest and cuddling with the bushes. Walking up the path was the museum's owner, he wore a black coat and a monocle, but had long, blond hair, easily can be mistaken for a woman from afar. He carries a few bags and holds several paper, possible potential for new exhibits, it was clear as day that this museum was his pride and joy. "Hello, old friend~" He said proudly, looking up at the building, climbing up the steps and arriving at the doors. "Though I've been gone for some time," he exclaimed, pulling a key out of his coat pocket, "your doors will be ready to reopen once more!" At that moment, he didn't notice the time capsule sitting by the door, Twizzly watched with intensity. She didn't care about the owner, nor the fact he was talking to a building, all she cared about at that time was if he'd acknowledged it or not

And maybe if he didn't notice, she could. . . "Oh, hello there-" He said, finally looking down on ground, catching a glimpse of the time capsule. Twizzly stared wide-eyed, as well as taking slight breathe of relief, almost thinking that she was caught. Curious, he crouches to the ground and picks up the valuable before him, feeling it in his hands. "You look to be some sort of antique," He said, adjusting his monocle, "but such smooth design. . ." He admires the object in his hands, enthralled and riddled with questions. Watching it all play out, Twizzly is stricked by several emotions, more notably jealousy, she should one holding the time capsule, and only her. "Where did you even?-" He questioned before being cut off, the time capsule had once more began to whined automatically, playing its lulling melody and hypothesizing the museum's owner. If it isn't enough, that same yellow glow shone from his eyes as it did Twizzly's

"Yes. . . I suppose we have room for, one more exhibit. . ." He said calmly, under some sort of spell. Getting up from the ground, the owner unlocks and opens the door to the museum, entering and closing the doors behind him. Twizzly watches with sadness as the time capsule get tooken away from her, one second in her hands, another, gone forever. . . Walking back to her camp, she's once more invaded with thoughts, she didn't get it, 'why get rid of the thing that brought so much?' and 'you should've kept it. . .' all swarming her head like flies going after moldy trash. But the worse was having to explain to her crew that she got rid of the things she was pervious screaming at them about, perhaps she could lie. . . There had to some sort of meaning to the timekeeper's plan, there had to be. . .

Cause there isn't, she's purposely placed on thin ice. . .

#cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cookie run kingdom au #anything and everything all of the time #twizzly gummy cookie #timekeeper cookie #first ever fic

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mayasdeluca · 1 year ago

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I know the adoption of that baby seems pausible but I still think they just throw it to create drama/expectation. Zoanne wrote 6x18 and i'm pretty sure she could've just avoided the IVF talk and made sure to get people to start forgetting about it.

And as I have said before, both shows CRAVE dynamic and are going with showrunners who probably will need some sort of timejump (with flashbacks) so they can move on with their own storylines.

The adoption of that baby will also require a certain and kinda hard timeline because they would need to make credible that Maya and Carina: wanted the baby, talked about it and got paperwork, that also asks for a timejump.

I might be wrong but if they can have a pregnancy + all the dramatic plots that came from one they are going with that...

That's true, that's what makes me feel better about the fact that they will probably go the IVF/pregnancy route, based on what was done in the finale and that they actually discussed that for a reason. Plus we know that they most definitely are going to have to do some kind of time jump, even if they were to pick things up right where the finale left off because of the Jack/Teddy cliffhangers, they are going to have to skip time at some point in the episode, maybe like how they did the Season 5 premiere and showed flashbacks when necessary if they go with the time jump right from the start. Either way, I think it's more logical for them to do a pregnancy with a time jump because I could totally see them doing an opening scene and Carina is already like 3 or 4 months pregnant and then hopefully we would get a flashback or two with some of the important stuff like how/when she became pregnant, especially with a shorter season because they obviously won't be able to show everything but then they could easily have her give birth by the finale of a 12/13 episode season.

And you're right that they could definitely do more drama with a pregnancy (again, would be a great finale plot with her giving birth and making that dramatic) as opposed to them just randomly having this woman's baby when the show came back and then what?

#asks #anon

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twilight-resonance · 3 months ago

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Sea Sickness

Good gods, I'm tired. All the usual things, of course - maybe a better tired than usual, though. Yesterday was long, and preceded by a lot of work to prepare for it (Location Day, yo), and I took today for myself. Because I knew I was going to have a migraine today - and I did - and because I knew it would serve my ability to function later in the week to just take the time and the breathing room. Just a quiet, gentle kind of day babying my head and my body; adding some calories after I more or less didn't eat yesterday; and consciously working on not feeling guilty for not working. Or rather, I did work - but only when I really wanted to, not when I felt obligated to. We're doing what we can, when we can.

Dude, I am terrified of the upcoming year. I feel like I'm white-knuckling it on the prow of a ship, braced for the waves and the drop. I'm not sure what's up, exactly - there are parts of me that know, but those parts are the ones that move underneath like tectonic plates. In part, it's that I'm aware of the patterns this time and know how to read the signs - this year is set to be a year of letting go and losing some things and taking ground on new ones, in one of those bigger cycles, and I don't yet know what or why. That's the part that terrifies me. That, and it never goes easy. It's not meant for that.

Today, at least, was replenishing in some way - felt like a wound with neosporin on it as opposed to just the band-aid slapped on. There's a part of me trying to feel guilty for not answering emails or approving characters yet, and the rest of me is trying to prevent it. Mostly, like I said, I'm just surprised it's working. It usually doesn't.

Had a fun moment last night. Location Day means cooking, and in recent years that's meant cooking for 20-30 people. Players help, of course, as many as can fit in the kitchen; this year we had access to a bigger kitchen, so there were 6-8 people working it at any given time. I was doing all of the coordinating - telling people what tasks to do, how to do them, grabbing them things they needed, managing the timing of various dishes, testing things for doneness etc - and it was fun. Mostly because it was in my ZPD, I think, which few things are. It went so much more smoothly than it has before, and it was a thing of glory to ride it. It felt like being the Head Chef, which is a job I very much do not want, but it was fun to play pretend for a while.

Dude, it sucks so hard to have worked so hard to prepare all the things I did leading up to Location Day, though, and to have had so many of them fallen so flat. Activities were not what I wanted them to be; the hike was good, and that was the important point - hearing everyone's awe going into the cave, it even being not-quite a proper one - but it could have been so much better. I'll adopt one for our first workshop, I think - the important one that we didn't et to - but, sigh. I wish that the timejump had been finished rather than just drafted, I wish I had more location info ready and more to go on for character creation, and so on. It feels like it just... fell so short to everyone else, who has no idea how much goddamn work it all took to even get it that far. I wish people could see the process more. ...Maybe I should make it more visible for them. More goals for this year, I think, as well as unlearning some of my patience. And finding more spaces of creativity and fun and less responsibility. Learning to find joy, not just suffering.

(My new year is coming up soon, is part of it - winter is of course ours by calendar, but my internal year always turns over sometime in autumn. So, coming on soon.)

The more I contemplate my own existence, the more Catholic I feel. Never mind that I wasn't raised that way (nor Christian at all other than culturally), and that I don't believe in any of the actual content of that religion. But the guilt is truly Catholic levels of all-encompassing, as is the eternal feeling of suffering as if it's something deserved and intrinsic to existing in the world. I don't know where I picked that shit up from, but hoo boy, is it ever deeply ingrained and intense as the heat at high noon. Gotta get rid of that shit, somehow. It's weighing me down something fierce, and boats need their buoyancy.

Anyway, as I ever aught, I ought to go to bed. Goodnight, for now. Tomorrow, back to the sea-sickness.

#blog #journal #suffering #sea sickness #rest #location day #cooking #working #tenderness

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gayspock · 6 months ago

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ok ep 2. i looked into it more and im confused cuz again like... i swear ive seen no advertising for any of this? it looks like it dropped in aus in NOVEMBER. now its dropped in the uk all in one go.... this past week?? and it apparently drops in the us all in one next month. so im like confused as fuck as to why they would release something like that

one thing i will say is theyre insanely good with the casting still arent they

another thing what was i to say

oh im sorry im watching this and every time i think to myself hmmm i wonder where cosima or sarah or hel- i cut myself off and i think about tatiana maslany in godawful cgi

this kid (jules as the episode title would lead me to believe) is soooo fun i love the hair

WHY THE FUCK IS FELIX HERE

FELIX ARENT YOU MEANT TO BE DEADBY NOW

HOW OLD ARE YOU SIR

HOW OLD IS KIRA

GOOGLE SAYS SHES 47 NOW AND SO FELIX IS LIKE WHAT. GRANDPAAAA GO TO BEDDDDDD

HELP

HWELP

CRAIG CAN YOU JUST BE CHILL FOR FUCKING ONCE AND HELP US TORTURE THIS 16 YEAR OLD

FELIX WHAT IS THIS FUCKING VIBE YOU'RE PUTTING DOWN RIGHT NOW WHATS HAPPENED WHERES YOU GRITTINESS HELP I FEEL LIKE IM GOING INSANE

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN SHES WORKING AT A SHELTER

I SORT OF DONT AGREE WITH THAT OUTCOME FOR SARAH NOT TO BE A DICKHEAD I feel like its like.... squints.how do i fucking describe this. it does not feel like her to me and it feels likeughghh the word escapes me you know what i mean

can this dialogue be any

felix drag her

YOU TOOK HER TO HOME DEPOT. CLASSIC.

i love how lucy is a cunt. i do like that about her i will admit.

We were made in a printer.

NOW who the fuck is He.

sorry also to backtrack a bit im bewilderedand unsure how i feel about them bringing in the old guard at all because hello like look i said what i said i dont want them to have a show called orphan black echoes with like no reason for it to actually be related to orphan black but also what the fuck

if harry potter is still culturally relevant in 2052 i swear to god

come on charlie girl. its gonna be ok. everyone shoots someone in the head once.

beck from victorious i need you to be all in on this ok

so who the fuck is thissssssssss

SO FUCKING WHAT? SO WHAT? LUCY IS NOT ALLOWED TO KIDNAP KIDS? WHY NOT? LOSERS.

JULESSSSS YOU SLAYEDDD THEREEEE YOU SLAYEDDD I WONT EVEN LIEEEEEEEE HELP TOILET SHANKKK

he is kind of so funny . i love you beck from victorious.

im also ok going back to like this relating to people from before like... this charcterisation os kira feels so odd

"lord this place is like neolution without the tails" wow did you get that guys ! a callback

AND YET SOMEHOW LIKE I THINK THE CLUBS FROM LAST TIME WERE SO MUCH MORE REAL THAN WHATEVER THAT IS

james youre tickling me

CHRIST WHATS GOING ON HERE

SORRY I THINK ITS SO FUCKING CORNY WHEN THEY TRY TO LIKE DO FUTURE THINGS DO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN THE FUCKING FULL SIZED MIRROR TIKTOK LIVE IS INSANE.

this fucking acting and general fucking reaction is also crazy to me wes im sorry youre adorable but please

JULES YOUREEEEE SO FUNNYYYYYY

FUCK LUCY CAN WE STAY WITH JULES

okay theres just something so off putting about felxi im like help me what is going on

also i feel like kira is like sending me so much i feel like this happens all the time when kids who initially .... no offence.... lacked a lot of character ... now have to be an adult version cuz what are you going off. i dont know who this woman is but she isnt kira to me because who the fuck was kira in the first place but a kid that said ominous stuff and was a plot device for most of the show

also i think theres again something so insanely off i cant tell what it is. i think its still in that space of being so stupid high budget fo rwhat it is and yet itr feels so weird looking. the whole futuristic thing is strange to look at. like this being orphan black which ootherwise like. sci fi but still very grounded. it feels weird to now go to this

and i feel like i'd have preferred a smaller timejump. if they prove me wrong with that then fine but thus far i dont see the benefit of it being in 2052. i'd have preferred them to go less crazy with the like aesthetics cuz theyre just kinda weird and take away from everything for me.

and again i dont like the general approach to all of this. i think they needed to start slower and build stuff up more over time . everything here with jack for example like... i would have preferred if we sat with lucy and lucy alone and we didnt keep cutting to kira . like let us build this up and have it be one long continuous thing and maybe hold out this reveal a little longer. this feels like its rushing. and again the strongest part of orphan black, to me, before was like the slow build of increasingly complex fucking dire situations and being able to layer that shit

hi lucas

kira being a shit mam is so funny to me

FELIX'S ENTIRE PERFORMANCE STILL FEELS SO FUCKINH INSANE TO ME. cuz i get what youre going for but the delivery is jsut so fucking choked by the actor trying to keep it up. i swear he was not that stilted before even when he WAS putting something on. like is it trying to mask his voice age as well or something?

jules is so much more compelling to me again i think it is cuz her storyline IS the slowburn one here . and also shes got all the things i mentioned kind of lack with Lucy

like sorry i hate it when theyre like "haha. she's so spunky." (the actual chatracters are telling us this to the camera) like ok i get it i literally could have GOTTEN that watching

AND AGAIN WHY IS EVERYONE ... i dont know it feels like the exposition in the dialogue is crazy. like theyre shoehorning stuff in. you dont have to have them say everything so literallly and explicitly . help

KIRA PUT THE CYOKEEE DOWNNNNNNNN

ok im pausing for tonight hang on

#egg.txt #orphan black liveblog

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missingmunson · 2 years ago

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Luna!!! You should be SO PROUD of yourself for completing such an incredible, innovative series. You showed us how much can change in one year, including how people can grow, love, and overcome adversity. More importantly, you’ve depicted a love that will extend far beyond four seasons.

Winter was the perfect closing of this story.

I absolutely loved how the entire party rallied around Eddie to help him tell reader the truth about Hawkins. It shows how much they value Eddie and his happiness. I especially appreciated seeing Max and Eddie’s bond in that scene. Max encouraged reader to keep an open mind and listen to Eddie. Later, we see Eddie comforting Max when she shares her own trauma. These two have both been deeply scarred (physically and mentally) by the past events, and they act as a source of strength for each other. You described it so well during the Christmas scene: “You understand Max and Eddie are a family now, bound by unexplainable trauma, and yet they are family all the same.” You made their bond so beautiful.

CHEWBACCA MUNSON!!!!!!!!!!!! Seeing them immediately consider this kitten their child made me smile so hard. I giggled when Eddie said, “Chewy, stay in your room. Your parents are busy!” It felt so authentically Eddie.

Speaking of that scene… they shared I love yous. It was so sweet!! And then they were so vulnerable with one another during their first time. It felt like such a huge moment for them to let down their walls – especially Eddie

You treated us to a timejump!!! The baby shower scene was so funny. “Also kind of weird because it’s sort of like a ‘congratulations, your dick works’ celebration.” I mean… is he wrong though?

The failed proposals were so precious, and I’m glad he kept trying. It was so worth it to see these two become husband and wife. And of course, you had to make my heart feel all fuzzy with that fun fact. It was such a perfect way to end the story for them. Fun facts opened the door for their love to flourish. Luna, you never cease to amaze me.

Begin Again: Chapter 4/4

Summary: The year is 1988. After the loss of a beloved family member, you find yourself inheriting an old coffee shop. The quiet bartender at the Hideout across the street just so happens to catch your eye.

(20k words; eddie munson x afab!reader; sunshine!reader x grumpy!eddie vibes)

Note: Tumblr ate my formatting, so AO3 is probably best. 🙃

Warnings: Vignette style (sorta); Eddie’s post S4 trauma; panic attacks; nightmares; family member loss; grief; alcohol use; nightmares; suicidal ideation; smut 18+ only.

AO3 | MASTERLIST | PREVIOUS CH

Winter 1988/1989

He leaves you alone in the coffee shop.

The smell of the coffee brewing grows sour, your stomach churning with the dread seeping into your veins with every throb of your heart.

Your four walls, your space, now empty without him there to fill it.

You never realized how much sound he’s brought into your life, how much color, how much of his light.

And in a moment, Chance had thrown a shade over it. Squashed it just as it had really started to grow.

Chance’s words roll around in your head.

Chrissy. Fred. Patrick. Jason.

Names without faces, people you’ve never met, people you’ll never meet.

Because they’re dead.

All of them.

Gone.

He says it’s Eddie.

It’s not Eddie.

There’s no reality you could ever find yourself in where you believe the lie that Eddie’s done something like this.

Not this man, not the one who consumes fantasy literature like it’s a lifeblood, who talks DnD with his youngest friends animatedly and conjures up new ideas for sprawling campaigns full of high stakes and grandeur, who flips Max upside down in his arms when he greets her until her laughter shakes deep within her bones and a smile lights up her whole face, the man who drinks out of a Garfield mug when he visits his Uncle, who listens to ABBA and Blondie with you and his friends even when he claims to hate it.

Not this man.

Never this man.

But now you need to find Eddie, tell him everything’s okay, that you don’t think he did it.

You know he thinks you do.

Could see it in the way he looked at you, in the way he flinched from your touch.

The title of murderer.

The weight of it.

You can only imagine how crushing that is, how hard it’s been to keep those accusations to himself all this time, to carry it on his back each and every day.

To live near to those who might whisper behind your back, question how you’re free, ponder your innocence.

You decide to close up early, dismissing your customers as nicely as possible, feigning issues with your machines. A patron grumbles that they were working moments ago, but you only offer them free coffees for their next visit and wave as they all bustle down the street.

It’s likely not the most professional thing you’ve done, but it’s necessary, your fingers removing your apron from around your hips before moving to go snatch your keys from behind the counter.

The front door locks with a click behind you, eyes flashing across the parking lot to find Eddie’s van missing. He’s likely skipped work, and you understand why he would, but all it does is curl the guilt further in your gut.

That you hadn’t done more, said more, chased after him—something.

You run upstairs to your apartment, grabbing your things and rummaging about, trying to make it look some semblance of normal before you grab your pocketbook in hand and rush over to your wall phone, dialing one of the first numbers in your phone book.

Max picks up on ring number two.

Your breath shudders out as you ask, “Is Eddie there?”

“He was, but not anymore,” she says honestly. You can hear her shuffle around on the other end, a huff filling the line. “He looked upset. Did something happen?

“He heard Chance and I talking.”

“Okay, and? Chance is a dick, we all know this, so what did he do?”

“He told me about March. Of eighty six.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” you tell her, quickly adding, “but I don’t believe him.”

You hear her huff once more, followed by the rustle of something in the distance. “Good, because whatever he told you isn’t true. He doesn’t know half of what really happened, and I doubt he ever looked into it. Which, you’d think we would have since the idiot works for the police.”

“So you know where Eddie might be?”

“He’s at Steve’s,” she says simply, like she knows, and of course she does.

He’s her brother. Minus the blood and title, of course, but her brother all the same. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

“For what?”

“You’re picking me up,” she states plainly, and you almost laugh.

Almost.

But she sounds serious, and you’ve seen Maxine angry and you don’t want to be in the line of fire on the receiving end if she ever explodes.

“I’m picking you up,” you agree, swallowing thickly. “Hey, Max?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“Just…I know you’re my boss, but don’t hurt him, okay?”

“Gosh, Max—no. I…I lo—really care about him.”

“So I’ll see you in fifteen?” She says, as if she knows the exact distance between yours and the Munson’s.

And you suppose she does after all this time.

You nod, even though she can’t see you, and say, “I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

You’re there in twelve, the roads zooming on by as you turn and weave through the pathways that are almost second nature now. Muscle memory, because of all the time you’ve spent with them. With his family, who has, in a way, sort of become yours as well.

She’s there as she said she would be, sitting on the front step to the little home, hair billowing around her in the wind.

She drops down into your passenger seat without a word. The sound of her buckle sliding into place greets your ears, her dirty shoes kicking out before her, that delicate profile of hers set into a firm look.

“I heard what you said, you know?” She says after some time.

It’s quiet, a little lilting, her lips curling a bit at the edges. You know that look. It’s the same look she’s given Eddie after catching him in a state of disarray after a night spent making out with you like the two of you are teenagers all over again, and not twenty-three year olds with careers and rent to pay.

“What do you mean?” It’s a trap. You know it is, but you’ll give in just this once.

“I heard you start to say you love him,” she teases, tongue sticking out slightly.

It’s the truth.

It’s not a hard thing to do—falling for Eddie Munson, that is.

And still, your heart thunders away at the thought of it. For years you’ve spent trying to never form lasting connections with others. You’re in and out of places quicker than you can, never getting too close, never making those lasting ties.

And now you’ve gone and tied yourself to him, a single strand, an invisible string that tethers you to him.

It’s terrifying, and still there’s this sense of peace that fills your blood. Cool it before it can sizzle and burn.

“You definitely said it,” she says once more, as if you didn’t hear her the first time.

But you did. You said the words and you heard her, but she’s not the first person you want to say them to.

The person who deserves them the most is currently hiding out at Steve Harrington’s home, likely reliving the pain of the events of two years ago, exposed like a nerve by someone who only wants the worst for you.

You suppose you can’t fault Chance, either. You saw the pain in his eyes. The grief over the loss of his friends.

Three.

Three in a lifetime is already too much, but three in one week is a tragedy.

There’s no denying that fact.

‘He doesn’t know half of it…’

Max’s words swirl in your mind. Over and over again on an endless loop.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say, but there’s a slow smirk sliding across your lips, fingers curling around the steering wheel as you peel out of the Munson’s driveway, heading in the direction of Steve Harrington’s family home.

It’s on the way that Max starts to talk, warning you in a sense, of what you’re about to hear.

“It’s…a lot to take in,” she says, and there’s a seriousness in her tone unfamiliar to you.

She’s usually always meddling with the kids, the rowdier and more hot headed one of the bunch. You’ve seen her interact with her friends, always just as fiery and explosive as her friends. You’ve seen her get angry with Eddie till her face turns red. But there’s always this sense of ease that accompanies it.

A laugh at the end of a snide remark, a smirk, a gentle tilt of the lips.

It’s not present this time, and an uneasiness settles into your blood.

“Just…when they tell you, promise me you’ll keep an open mind. You’re going to hear things that sound impossible, and that’s because honestly even we thought they were, but it’s…the truth. It’s the truth that the media swallowed up, the truth the government hid. But it doesn’t make it not real—it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. And it’s crap because the world moved on, and yet we were left to deal with it.”

She means your friends.

You know that.

The fact that this ‘they’ she speaks of telling you this tale is the same group of kids that you’ve grown to know, your friends you’ve flourished with all these months, the man you’re falling in love with.

“Max, I just want to know the truth. So whatever you all say, I’m here to listen. I want to know. It’s important that I know,” you tell her seriously, pulling into the driveway to the sprawling home.

Your head slams against the headrest of your driver’s seat, hands coming up to cup over your eyes. Your breath draws right in your lungs, eyes burning from the prick of tears. A new fear dawns, unwanted and unbidden.

You voice it, a quiet strain of your voice that comes out as a broken sob. A fearful questioning of, “What if he doesn’t want to see me? What if he hates me?”

“He couldn’t,” she tells you, voice stern.

“What if he does, though? You didn’t see the way he looked at me. He was there, but he wasn’t. It’s like he went away in his mind and he didn’t want me there.”

She chuckles. “Have you seen the way that idiot looks at you? It’s honestly disgusting. All puppy dog eyes and goo.” You break out into a watery laugh and, satisfied, she continues, “Look—Chance’s friends…well, not Chrissy, but Chance’s friends are assholes. I’m not saying they got what they deserved, because no one deserves to die. But they were terrible to him. He probably saw Chance and saw you and thought he’d turned you against him. Just like they turned the whole town against him in eighty six.”

There are no words that come to mind after what she says. After the truth she reveals. You’re not sure of what it even means, and yet you think of your customers in your early days or the shop opening. The way some, however rarely, would look at him and mutter amongst themselves when he happened to stop by. You remember the woman at the supermarket with her blonde hair and haunting eyes. The depth of her warning as she stood beside you on line at the register, telling you Eddie wasn’t a good man, telling him he should have never come back.

You think of the fact Eddie moved out of his own childhood home to make room for Max. But you also recall how much freer he is when he’s out of town. His smiles come easier, he seems lighter…brighter, without the weight of the world resting on his shoulders.

The pieces start to slide into place, a push here, a click there. You think of your puzzle he’d brought you both for your first date, now finished and tucked away. How the image became clearer and clearer with each passing moment.

It’s the same now.

That clarity that takes shape.

The reasons why Eddie’s open in some regards, and keeps others very close to his chest. The evasions he’s had to create in his backstory with you, to protect you from the truth of it all.

To protect you from the danger of it, if what Max claims is true.

“Are you ready?” Max’s voice stirs you from your silent reverie. A quiet beckon. A soft lilt that drags you from your thoughts.

You’re not.

There’s nothing that can ever prepare you for what you are about to hear, and yet you twist the key in the ignition all the same. You tug your keys free and toss them into your pocketbook, opening your car door without another word. Max tips her head over the roof of your vehicle, looking to you for reassurance…or merely to see how you’re doing—you’re not really sure. But you dip your head all the same, shutting the door into place, fingers trailing along metal and window, heart racing in your chest at what you are about to enter into.

The walk to the front door is harrowing. You don’t really know what to expect. Max gives you a warning, sure, but nothing compares to reality. Especially not as you knock on the front door and Robin is there to greet you. She offers a kind smile and a hug, her voice quiet as she mutters she’s happy you’re both there. Max glances over her shoulder as you enter the home, your eyes trailing the insides. You’ve been here multiple times, but it feels different now. There’s a whole world you’re not privy to—a world that Eddie’s been a part of, Max and Robin, Steve and the others. The world that those who warned you of this town only spoke of as if they were conspiracies. The gates of hell, satanic cults, gruesome deaths. The fact there are some truths there weighs heavily on your mind, hands shaking a bit as you enter the kitchen and Steve is there to greet you with a warm hug.

You wonder briefly if Charlotte knows. If she’s privy to the world outside of your own that your friends have dealt with. This unshakeable strength they all seem to hold. But you hug him all the same, heart hammering away against his as your arms come to wrap around his neck, his breath a comforting puff against your ear. He steps back momentarily to look at you, all long dark hair, wrinkles high against his forehead. He’s too young for those, but they linger all the same, written into his features alongside the pain you see so clearly there now. The pain of the unknown swirling in your gut, the unknown that has Max reaching across the space between you to curl her hand in your own, squeezing tight.

You squeeze her hand back and look at both your friends as they stand before you, merely basking in silence, all your minds a swirling mass of chaos. Robin speaks first, voice wobbly, words fast and disconcerting in your ears. “He’s…he’s not doing well, babe. He came here a wreck. He never intended for you to find out this way.”

You know that. You do.

It’s why you’ve always been respectful. It’s why you’ve always been weary of what Eddie wants, why you’ve made it a mission to always have an open heart and open mind toward him. And in a few moments Chance had thrown it all into the wind. Obliterated the safety net you were forging, the space you wanted Eddie to live in—to thrive in.

“Max…she warned you, right?” It’s Steve who asks next. The boy with the loud and boisterous personality, always a little piqued, and yet he’s serious now. Guarded toward his best friend. Your heart swells because Eddie has people like these; people who will defend him tooth and nail, even from you.

Even from the woman who has spent nearly every day with him for the past few months.

And still, you nod all the same, your hand still entwined with Max’s. “Max…she warned me.”

Steve and Robin pass one another a look, and you’re brought into the living room. It’s dark there, the lights dimmer than you remember, your friends settling down in different areas about the room. Steve and Robin to the couch. Max on the floor. There are two seats brought out into the living area, set there like they were expected to be there all along. Separated by a few inches sure, but placed there with intent. You glance down at the one, wondering if it’s meant for you, and catch the stiff nod from Steve as you eye the wood carefully.

You drop down into it and hear the slow slide of a door in the distance, the tall form of Eddie catching your eye.

He’s as beautiful as you saw him last. A picture of black, red and white before your eyes. His eyes dark, his shoulders hard, body lithe and lean. You think of those moments from early this morning, his arms around your waist, chest against your back. Lips at your ear as he whispered what you meant to him, as he kissed you like you were the most precious thing in his life. Unbreakable, like he meant to keep you. Like he meant to hold you safe for the rest of his days. You know he means it now, can see it in the way his eyes flicker as they meet yours, as water clouds those swirling depths of chocolate brown.

There’s love there.

It’s not lost on you as he scans the room and lands on yours, holding for a moment, whispering those unspoken words into the space between you.

Unmistakable and yours alone.

You will the same into your eyes as he settles down beside you, legs spread wide, cup of whatever he’s drinking poised at the ready in his hand.

He says nothing. Remains stoic as Steve and Robin straighten in their seats, cushions of the couch forgotten as their elbows lean onto thighs, ready to regale their tales of this world outside their own.

The part of you that’s grown to love him over these months wishes to reach out to him. You want to stretch your hand into the space between you and curl your fingers within his own. To comfort him in the way you know only you can—body, mind and soul. But he remains in the gap between you, separated by inches that feel like miles. There’s a moment, however brief, when his fingers twitch against his thigh and you wonder if he intends to reach across and touch you.

But he never does.

He never does, and you suppose you cannot be upset with him for that.

He’s hard lines, harsh beauty, and adamant walls.

Impenetrable.

Fierce.

You pray they don’t remain that way—that your months of progress don't reverse in a moment's time.

Steve glances about the room, between his best friend Robin beside him, down to where Max sits staring at Eddie on the floor, Eddie with his grim expression as his eyes meet hers, and then lastly on you when he exhales and says, “What we’re about to tell you, you can’t tell anyone. It stays a secret, it stays within the group.”

“It stays within the party,” Max adds, shifting away from Eddie’s stare enough to look at you. “It’ll mean you’re part of it.”

“One of the family.” Robin laughs weakly, passing you a sympathetic smile. “Part of our dysfunctional family.”

Your eyes shift amongst them with a swallow, and then slide briefly to Eddie’s. There’s…there's something there. A softness, a quiet whisper behind his gaze, but you don’t know what it means. Can’t decipher the meaning behind how he looks at you; you just know it curls deep within the pit of your belly, makes you warm, reminds you it’ll be okay.

Everything will be okay.

“I’ll take it with me to the grave,” you tell Steve.

His hand cards through those long strands of dark hair and he stands up from the couch, walking across the room to tend to the fire churning in the fireplace. Once he’s happy with the flames sparking and dancing within, his hand comes to rest on the ledge, his other hand resting on his hip as he glances down at a dirty spot on the carpet.

“I guess we’ll start from the beginning then…”

And it begins.

They start from the beginning. With the missing boy Will. With Will, who you know and works at your shop. Kind, sweet Will with the world on his shoulders and nothing but love inside his heart.

Steve recounts the loss of Barbara Holland, a friend of Nancy’s. You learn about the gate that opened in Hawkins to another world. This Upside Down that sounds as harrowing as it truly is.

You learn early on that El has superpowers. She has psionic capabilities, can lift things with her mind, step into alternate dimensions when she goes away in her mind.

El, with her dark hair and bright soul. That innocence that always seems to burn bright behind her gaze.

El, who you learn has fought monsters bigger than her.

Steve walks you through that first encounter with the Upside Down, the demogorgon he faced, his words careful as he explains the appearance to you. A standing, hulking monster, with endless rows of teeth, intent to bring death to those that encounter it.

You’re told about their next encounters.

Max moves to town with her family. Her crappy step-father, her late step-brother, and her late mother move in and immediately she’s thrown into this world she’s never planned for. Apparently Dustin finds some sort of tadpole creature that eventually grows into a demodog. Another monster like the one Steve explained earlier, but this time there are multiple, and they move in what seem to be packs. You learn about Will’s possession by the Mind Flayer, the loss of their friend Bob, their first experience with the ‘hive mind.’

“It all sort of…works in tandem,” Max clarifies. “All tied to one power source.”

El closes the gate this time, they tell you, and for a while it seems everything is okay again. They start to heal, the kids begin to go back to their normal lives, Steve and Robin start working at the Starcourt Mall.

“That parking lot that’s still empty?” It’s your first question in a while, you’ve simply been taking in everything they have to say, trying to be respectful of their experience.

“Yes,” Robin says, frowning as Max glances down at her shoelaces.

Eddie watches the younger girl like a hawk. His face is tight and drawn as Max says, “My brother didn’t die in a fire.”

It’s July and the kids are on summer break. All is well in Hawkins. They’re having fun, being kids, living for the first time in a long time. And then there’s the issue of Billy. Billy, who has always been rough around the edges. Not a good person at all, from what you’ve been told, but he had been alive and had been well one day, and then the next it was like he was different.

Max recalls him being a lot of blank stares in his room, a lot more standoffish. But there becomes this issue around Hawkins, of people becoming aggressive, something to do with kitchen chemicals? And a girl at the pool Billy worked at had gone missing.

Heather, Max explains.

As this is all going on, Steve and Robin explain their encounters with Russian code and their involvement with a secret organization taking place quite literally inside the belly of the mall.

There’s a Mind Flayer building an army, some gigantic beast of a thing, that towers over the building. The same thing that had put itself inside of Will, the same thing that also puts itself inside of Billy.

Your head spins with it all, from the explanation of how Robin and Steve were tortured for information inside the Russian base, to Max and the other kids fighting this monster inside of their friend Hopper’s home. There’s the battle at the Starcourt Mall, when they’re all later reunited, where Max watched her brother die after laying his life down to protect her and her friends.

It’s overwhelming.

Your chest aches, and you’re grateful when Eddie calls the meeting to a halt, catching the glittery tears on Max’s cheeks that she tries to swipe away when no one is looking.

Eddie slips out of the room with the younger girl in tow. There’s a brief moment he makes eye contact with you, his mouth working slowly like he anticipates saying something before thinking better of it.

It’s been only hours and yet you feel like he’s been gone longer, the sting of the emotional distance between you two burning deep in your chest.

“Babe, don’t take it personally, okay?” Robin runs a hand up and down your arm, pouring you a glass of something strong and full of ice.

Your face pinches as you take a sip, throat burning from the harsh bite of whatever she’s put into the concoction. “What is this? Battery acid?”

“Very likely,” Steve muses from the doorway, coming to loop an arm around your shoulders. You lean into his side, seeking out the comfort of a friend in the moment. His fingers curl around your skin, giving you a squeeze. “They went for a walk. Eddie said they’ll be back in five. The next part…it’s Eddie’s bit. It’s what happened back in March and…it’s a lot. He’s never really shared it outside of the group. He wanted to tell you before…you know, before Chance. He told me he wanted to. He was finally ready.”

Your heart clenches at the thought. Here Eddie was, ready to open up to you fully and bare his soul to you, and Chance came along to throw a wrench into the whole thing. Robbed Eddie of the opportunity that was meant for him all along.

“I just…a whole world underneath Hawkins?” Your throat swells around the words, around the reality of what you’ve been told the past few hours.

Before you came here, you heard all these ludicrous rumors about the happenings of the small town you were running to. To know they’re fact, to know they’ve been hidden behind lies and government workings—it’s a crazy reality to swallow. A world where monsters exist and walk the earth, a world where gates to new dimensions exist.

It’s your world now.

“And El—having powers?”

Robin comes forward to join you on your other side, sliding a hand into the center of your back. “I felt the same when I found out.”

You feel the need to sit. To really soak in the words swirling around in your brain like little specks of confetti twirling to the ground. Dozens of strands of thoughts in an endless funnel of wind and disarray. But you lean into the warmth of your friends instead, relishing in their closeness, when the glass door to the outside slides open and Eddie and Max reappear.

She’s a little red in the face. Bitten and kissed by the wind, but the rims around her eyes catch your attention next. The telltale sign she’s been crying, paired with that of her sleeve dragging along the bottom of her nose, bumping her glasses that always sit a little too loosely on her face.

Eddie’s dark eyes scan your face, like he’s shocked you’re still there, and you pass him a weak smile. There’s the barest of twitches in his face, and most would miss it, but he offers you that.

A slight smile.

You’ll take it.

“Are we good to keep going?” Robin asks, glancing about the room.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Eddie says, and it’s the first time you’ve heard him speak in hours. It jolts you, drawing a wince out of him.

Robin turns back to you, eying your drink in your hand as the others head back into the living area. “You might want to keep that close.”

She’s not wrong.

Eddie’s fingers toy with the silver of his rings, twirling them round and round low against his knuckles. “So, uh, it’s March…of eighty six and, you know, I’m still the Freak around town. So you can imagine I’m just a tad confused when Chrissy Cunningham, the Queen of Hawkins High, comes to me for a deal.” His eyes flash to yours, a grimace pulling at his mouth. “Used to deal. Don’t anymore, but—I, ah, yeah, sorry sweetheart. But Chrissy is not herself. I didn’t really know her much, but she’s just perpetually happy. I mean, I guess she had to be. Cheerleading captain, about to be valedictorian, friends with everyone. So I meet her in the woods behind the school and she looks scared as shit. Like—maybe I should have paid more attention to it, maybe that was my mistake, but…she asks me for ketamine.”

You train your eyes on Eddie as he speaks. He’s a shadow before you, hollows of his features glowing from the orange hue spilling from the mouth of the fireplace. He’s all long limbs spread out, legs before him, slender and spidery, bent as his back rests against the wooden chair. His hands rest against his thighs, where he continues to twirl the metal around his digits, head bent low and mind seemingly back in the forest that day in eighty six.

“I…brought her back to my trailer that night and I couldn't find the ketamine. So I leave her in the damn living room and when I come back she’s just standing there. Blank face, nothing behind her eyes, just gone. And I’m yelling at her over and over and over again, but whatever this thing is that’s pulling at her just…she never hears me. I wonder if she did, even now. Like if she knew I was trying to save her and—” He pauses as your hand curls around his kneecap, and you worry for a moment he’s going to push you away, to reject this comfort, but his hand slides over your own and squeezes lightly.

He doesn’t let go.

What he explains next has your throat closing around the truth of it. Chance’s words swirl in your ears. The fact Jason Carver, fueled by jealousy over being cuckolded by Eddie Munson, killed his girlfriend. But the reality is that much more horrifying. Because Eddie recounts the moments with ultra clarity, the memory of them burned into his retinas for the rest of his life, of the girl levitating above the ground. The way her body stretched across the ceiling as her bones snapped one by one in her body, before she died right before his eyes.

“We all met…that next day,” Max says with a bitter laugh, gesturing between Eddie and the rest of the group, including herself.

So they were bound by the untimely death of Chrissy, Steve explains, recalling how they all went looking for Eddie with Dustin’s help, because Max had seen flickering lights coming from Eddie’s trailer and disrupting her own, just before he had run.

A sign of the Upside Down. Their first sign that Eddie had been innocent in all of it.

“Held a glass bottle to my throat,” Steve laughs as he explains those tense few moments of their ‘friendship.’

“You kind of deserved it. Jabbed me right in the ribs with that oar,” Eddie says, but there’s a lightness to his tone reserved for his loved ones. “His name was Vecna. This…thing, this person, responsible for cursing Chrissy. And…Fred, Patrick, and Max.”

Your eyes flicker up to Max at Eddie’s admission, blue eyes flashing with your own. “Max.”

“The asshole cursed me,” she says simply. “So what happened to Chrissy, what happened to Fred, we knew was likely coming my way. And it did—but we found a solution.”

“Thank goodness for that Walkman,” Robin exhales. “We found that music could bring people out of Vecna’s…soupy mind trance. Happy memories, favorite moments, your favorite song.”

“The song you could listen to over and over again on repeat…” You mutter the words out, feeling your eyes burn at the memory of Eddie asking you for yours so many weeks ago in your apartment.

“What’s your favorite song? If you had to pick one, what would it be? The one you can play over and over again and never get bored of?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says softly, the words meant only for you. Your stomach twists painfully. “That one.”

Proof he cared, even then.

It’s a race against a clock.

It’s not long before Eddie’s a suspect in the murders he never committed, and it’s paired with the looming threat over Max’s life. One night in particular, Robin tells you, Jason Carver and his friends find Eddie at the boathouse and come with weapons in hand. You know their intention, from the way Eddie’s breath catches, was never to merely talk about the situation.

Hunt the Freak, he tells you bitterly, recalling those moments out on Lover’s Lake, just before Patrick suffered the same fate as Chrissy.

Two.

Eddie watches two people die that week.

You shudder out a breath as they tell you about the Upside Down. As Steve tugs the neck of his sweater down enough to show you the lines around his throat, and then slips up the side of his sweater enough to show you the scarring on his side that looks like a splash of sun against his skin. It reminds you of the ones that litter Eddie’s arms, the smaller ones on his face and neck, the ridges of his abdomen you barely felt before he pulled away from you.

“We’re, like, the most screwed up blood brothers to exist,” Steve says bitterly, his shirt dropping down into place. “Matching scars and all.”

“Demobats,” Robin explains, shuddering at the end. “Scary little shitheads.”

It paints a picture for you—clearer now than ever before.

Fills the gaps in your understanding over these nine months.

Yet another memory flashing behind your eyes of Eddie in your kitchen. Of wings and claws and the sound of skittering against your window. The choked breath from Eddie’s lungs that suddenly stopped working. The panic attack he suffers in your kitchen.

You think you start to grasp an understanding as they talk about how a plan began to form. They gathered a bunch of weapons with the intention of using Max and Eddie and Dustin to create distractions for Vecna. To give enough time for the others to try and kill him. But even the best laid plans go to hell—and it’s proven correct in both aspects.

Eddie and Max, to make things simpler, both die that night.

Max, with her limbs broken and mangled, blood dripping from her eyes. And Eddie, with his flesh torn into over and over again, countless rows of teeth sinking into skin, taking pieces of him, ripping him into ribbons, robbing him of life.

It chokes you. Chokes Eddie as Steve explains the parts of the story Eddie’s mouth can’t work around. The gaps are still too raw to fill in by himself. You don’t blame him.

You press the heel of your palm into your eyes, feeling Eddie’s fingers tighten around your own, the severity in his gaze making the room come crashing around you.

“Eddie never…he never murdered any of those people,” Max says, but you know that.

You’ve known that.

In the end, Eddie spends a few weeks in the hospital.

Max spends months there.

His name is cleared relatively swiftly. Steve is a bit cagey as to how they manage to get Eddie’s name pulled from any further headlines, but you know it’s because there was nothing to hold together a case against him.

Jason is suddenly the blame for the events that occurred, and laid to rest on that March day.

It’s a lot to process.

The room feels heavy with it, thick in a way that reminds you of honey. Sticky, yet missing all that sweetness.

Steve suggests you all stay for the night. Get some rest. Recount the stories in the morning.

It’s been hours and every inch of your body aches from work and your eyes feel tired, burning with the unshed tears lingering on your lash line.

Steve lets you borrow some of his things, an oversized sweatshirt, some pants you need to roll up multiple times, and leads you and Eddie down the hall of the second story to the home, pausing in front of a bedroom.

“It’s a guest room,” he says, gesturing inside. “We’ll talk more in the morning. Goodnight, you two.”

It’s normal for you to expect mirth or a deeper scheme behind Steve’s eyes. The sense of teasing there that you’ve grown to know and love, and yet standing before that bedroom in the lonely hall has you unsure of where to look, Steve only whistles and shifts awkwardly before leaving you to your solitude. Neither of you speaks for a time, bodies shifting in the darkness, not touching and awkward.

This morning you had been curled as tight as two could be, your spine to his chest, your thighs to his, those strong arms of his wrapped around your waist, his chin over your shoulder, lips to your ear.

“I’ve never felt this way about anyone before,” he whispered.

Your heart stuttered. Faltered from the weight of what he was saying. Your fingers slid up to curl into his hair, his face leaning into your touch. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone before either, Eddie.”

It was the truth then, it’s still the truth now, and yet there’s a chasm that grows wider by the second in that hallway, and for fear of watching it grow anymore, you take the initiative and push past the man to slip inside the guest room.

Neither of you speaks as you move about the room and take in your surroundings. There’s a simple dresser in one corner, a lamp on a stand that sits in another, and there’s only one bed.

One.

It’s a thought that might have thrilled you some other time, and now it only fills you with a maelstrom of emotions. In the past few hours your conversations have been reduced to sparing words, your touches to brushes of fingers. And now there’s a silence that screams between you, those murky depths curling and lapping at your ankles.

You drop your borrowed clothes onto the bed, glancing over your shoulder to where Eddie stands awkwardly in the doorway. The fullness of his form is outlined in golden light emanating from the hall, those dark eyes of his searching.

“You can take the bathroom,” you tell him, “I’ll tell you when I’m done and you can come out.”

He’s seen you in nothing but a pair of jeans before, yet somehow changing around him feels more intimate. Especially with the disquiet between you two. So there’s no protests on his part as he reaches into the side dresser, as if he’s done this before, and snatches a pair of pants and a shirt from within. He opens his mouth to speak and you feel your soul soar for a moment, before he’s snapping it shut again and slipping inside.

When the door clicks shut, you let out a shaky breath and change in silence.

Eddie knocks on the bathroom door moments later, your voice beckoning him out when you’re finally and fully dressed again. You’re moving about and folding your original clothes up onto the dresser when he moves to go sit down on the bed and you maneuver around him to get ready for sleep.

He watches you in silence as you wash your face and brush your teeth, wiping down the countertops after, a habit from working at Sunshine Coffee for so long now. You know why you’re really doing it, though. It’s a temporary distraction from the deeper issue at hand: the rift between the two of you.

Sighing, you slip back into the bedroom and walk around to the opposite side of the bed closest to the lamp and slide underneath the covers. Eddie watches, still upright, as you turn onto your side and reach over, asking if you can shut the light.

“Uh…yeah, yeah that’s fine,” he says softly from behind you, and the room drowns in darkness.

You pinch your eyes shut to try and get some rest, chest aching, heart clanging like a damn cymbal, but your mind only spins. You’re certain you’ll find no rest tonight, only the dizzying free fall of your wandering thoughts.

That is, until the bed dips beside you and you feel Eddie pull back the covers, sliding down against the mattress to rest a head on the pillow beside you. You feel his hand accidentally brush your hip and from behind you a following, “Sorry,” that spills through his lips.

You laugh, because it just feels so silly.

You’re not mad at him, but there’s still this disturbance hanging in the air. The worry to push him beyond his boundaries, beyond what he feels comfortable with now after sharing his past with you. If he wants to remain in silence, you want him to remain in silence. You want whatever he wants—whatever he needs at the moment.

“What’s that?” Eddie asks, his voice tight.

“Nothing…I just—nothing.”

He doesn’t speak for a bit. Only settles down far enough on the other side of the bed you can feel the heat radiating from him, but not even the ghost of touch from his form.

A beat of silence passes.

And then—

“Sweetheart, I hate this.”

Your head nuzzles further into your pillow, voice a little shaky as you whisper back, “What do you mean?”

“I left earlier because I thought the worst. I thought—I thought you believed him. Wouldn’t be the first time someone was turned against me,” he says a little breathlessly. Jason. Jason did that. And the ramifications of it are still present to this day; you’ve seen it first hand. “That was dumb as shit for me to think. I…I wanted to tell you. I was going to, he just beat me to it first. Should have come from me, should have been sooner, should have—”

“Eddie, it’s okay.”

“It’s not, though.”

“Seriously it’s—”

“I’m sorry. I’m really really sorry,” he says, and you shatter.

Eyes flush against your cheeks, lashes dancing along the topmost points of your cheekbones, you mutter, “There’s nothing for you to apologize for. At all. I need you to understand that.”

“Then why aren’t you talking to me? You’re all the way on the other side of the bed. You won’t even look at me.”

“Because I know how hard tonight was and I didnt want to push you. Eddie, what you told me tonight…it’s important and it’s huge and the fact you’ve trusted me with it means everything to me. But I also want you to take the time you need. Process what you’re feeling and all of that.”

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Where you’re too nice,” he says. “I just want to hold you.”

“Then hold me, Eddie. You never need permission to hold me,” you whisper back, sighing as his arm comes to loop around your waist and tug you flush against his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?”

Your fingers drag slowly around his bare forearm, feeling gooseflesh pimple the surface of his skin. “For what happened. For what Chance did. For eighty six. For all the people who have been unkind to you. I wish they could all see what I see.”

You roll over then, seeking his face in the dark. His eyes are molten honey, soft in a way that has your fingers seeking the warmth of his chest over his tee shirt, feeling the divots and lines of his abdomen against fingertips. He’s lean and lithe and perfectly yours, with a heart that melts yours.

He just never sees it that way. But you suppose that’s what loving someone means. It's choosing them, even when they don’t choose themselves. It’s the good and bad days, not just the ones that are bright shades of orange, pinks and reds behind rose-colored glasses. It’s standing by them no matter the circumstances, supporting them fully. It’s the whole hearted acceptance that resides in your heart for him.

For who he was, who he is now, and who he will be.

“I’m happy you know now,” he says, rubbing a thumb along the bump of your chin affectionately. “I’m tired of being nervous. I’m tired of the constant looking over my shoulder and running. It’s been almost three years.”

“It takes time, Eddie.”

Your fingers reach up to cup the curve of his jaw, dancing along the scarring there. It still kills you to know he’d been broken and on the brink of death in the middle of this other world that resides beneath your own.

That he had been inches from death and still held on, only to find the world outside just as cruel as the one that nearly killed him.

“What you’ve been through—what you’ve all been through,” you start, exhaling as his forehead drops closer to your own, pressing there to linger. “It changes you. There’s no way it couldn’t. And yet you’re all still living, you’re all still loving and showing your past that it can’t rule you. You’re so brave. I don’t think you’re running anymore.”

“I don’t want to,” his fingers slide down along the slope of your face, the line of your throat, skipping along your collarbone. “You’re the first person I’ve opened up to in a long time. I’m afraid I’m going to fuck it up.”

“You’re the first person I’ve opened up to in a long time.” His hand slides down the slope of your shoulder, along your bicep. “We’re bound to make mistakes. But we get to make them together. It’s a learning process.”

“I’ve never been good at that,” he teases, chuckling lightly.

“It might be a steep learning curve, but I think we’ve got it.”

His fingers trail down your forearm, before tangling in the space between the two of you on the mattress. He lifts your hand and brings the center of your palm to his lips, presses a kiss to the center there, eyes lingering on your face.

“We’re good?” He asks against your skin, his eyes practically molten in the night.

“Yeah, we’re good.”

He sighs in relief, biting softly at the skin at the heel of your palm, earning a laugh from you. You’re about to protest when his face pushes into your collar bone and he practically drapes himself over you, his long limbs tangling with your own.

“What would your friends think knowing you’re basically a koala bear in bed?”

“I’ll deny it,” he mumbles against your skin, the outline of his smile making your stomach tumble.

Your fingers come to curl in the tangle of his dark mass of hair at the back of his head and hold him as close as he can possibly be to your frame. “I’m glad you stopped running, Eddie. I don’t think we’d have met if you didn’t. And I’m really glad we met. Really, really glad.”

His head lifts at your words, those dark eyes of his searching your face in the barely lit room. He brushes the bump of your chin again with his thumb, resting it in the dip below your lip. His eyes flicker southward, and you lean forward a bit, just as he presses his mouth to yours, silencing all other thoughts from your mind.

There’s only this moment, this bedroom sequestered away from the world, these hands holding you, this boy kissing you, whispering how much he cares for you, and your hearts full to the brim because the world lies ahead and it’s yours for the taking.

There is no more running.

The next morning dawns bright for a winter day.

The first official day, really.

It’s all pearlescent skies, overcast, pale clouds stretched in what looks like a blanket across it. It looks like it’ll snow, the news forecasting a foot of it just before the holidays.

It’s how you wake up beside Eddie that next morning. His arms slung low about your hips, his breath at your ear, the curtains parted enough to allow you the view of the backyard.

Your fingers dance along the tops of his hands, along the hair along his forearm.

Today feels different somehow.

Your relationship has taken a new turn. A hurdle overcome. Now there’s only a blank canvas—open spaces to fill with new memories.

Eddie also sleeps easily. The few times you’ve slept beside him he’s either not slept at all and waited for the sun to rise and you to head off to work to finally allow himself rest once the night bled into day, or has fallen asleep and woken up in the throes of a nightmare or tossed and turned in his restlessness.

Now his chest rises and falls steadily at your back, his mind quieting enough for him to do so. You shift slowly, gently enough so as to not wake him, onto your side to look up at him. He’s all smooth edges now. The wrinkle between his brows is gone, face unmarked by any thoughts warring in his mind, those pillowy lips of his parted slightly. He looks younger than his twenty three years. Your fingers trail up to touch his cheek, fingertips running along smooth pale skin, earning a sigh from the man.

A hand at your back presses you closer to him, a little ‘oof’ spilling from your lips as your face meets his chest and his head comes to rest at the top of yours.

“What day is it?” He mumbles against your head.

“Saturday. We’re both off.”

“Oh,” he hums thoughtfully. “So we have the day to do nothing.”

“No, we have the day to go shopping. You haven’t gotten any Christmas presents and we have four days until the big day,” you remind him. “We’re spending it at the Wheeler’s, remember?”

You’d anticipated spending the holidays with Eddie at the very least. Your own family was traveling to Florida to seek out warmer weather instead of the bitter cold of Hawkins. Had brushed off your invitation with a simple, “Next time, honey.”

Nancy’s invitation came later. She’d cornered you at a get together over at Steve’s and said she’d really like you to come. That her house was more than large enough and that her parents were looking to have everyone get together. The more the merrier.

You were over the moon about it. Your first real “family” holiday season.

He only groans.

“It’ll be fun. We’ll spend the whole day together wrapping gifts and watching movies.”

“With Max.” He says it like he doesn’t enjoy her company, but you know he doesn’t mean it.

“Yes, with Max. She has shopping to do as well.”

He huffs out a laugh that warms your skin. “We have vastly different ideas of fun.” He pushes back just enough to drop a kiss to your forehead, before shifting up onto his elbows. “We should probably head downstairs soon. I hear them moving around in the kitchen. They’ll be looking for us.” He leans down to press his lips into the curve of your neck, sighing. “Just wanna stay here instead.”

For emphasis, he drops back down and hugs you tight, resting his head against your collar bone.

In the end, you win out, managing to extricate Eddie long enough to dress and ready for the new day. In the kitchen, Steve stands over the stove, working up some breakfast, while Max and Robin sit at the kitchen table, faces impassive as the two of you slip back into the room. When they notice the way his hand brushes your back as he slides a chair out and you move to take a seat, the mild discomfort fizzles and conversation resumes.

“Did you two sleep well last night?” Steve asks, waving his spatula like a sword for emphasis. “It’s almost ten.”

“Like a baby, Harrington.”

You snort at Eddie’s words, thanking Max as she hands you and Eddie steaming cups of coffee just as she knows you like them. You thank her, smiling warmly.

“You two kiss and make up? Because I’m not about to spend the day with you two pouring at each other non stop,” Max asks, nonplussed.

You choke a little on your coffee.

Eddie’s face hardens.

“Red.”

“What?”

She shrugs, biting into a strawberry as Steve starts shoveling breakfast onto everyone’s plates.

Your chest warms.

In the end you manage to get all the shopping you need to do finished.

It’s not without its struggles, however.

Max and Eddie separate are two different storms.

Max with her fiery, sometimes explosive energy. Not to mention that deadpan that endears you to her, her open opinions, the brashness in which she lives her life.

And then there’s Eddie. Charismatic and explosive like her, all frenetic energy as he moves in and out of stores, looking for the perfect gifts for those he cares about most.

She urges him to hurry up, he barks back at her to let him think.

It’s a constant back and forth that has you both amused and frightened, because you’re never quite sure if they’re seconds away from fighting in the mall. Onlookers question if the two of them are okay, to which you mutter back “siblings” and they nod in understanding, like they know exactly what that implies.

And later, as the three of you return to his dimly lit apartment, illuminated only by the Christmas tree the two of you lovingly decorated together, you bask in the warmth of their familial bond. The way the two of them curl up together on the couch watching The Grinch Who Stole Christmas as you work on putting together something to eat for dinner. Every so often you glance over your shoulder, catching the way Eddie’s arm curls around the younger teen, how she seeks out his warmth.

It dawns on you—the depth of this moment. These two souls are so willingly open to allow you into their lives. Into their hearts. It’s taken time, months really, and the fact they trust you wholeheartedly now is not lost on you. You’ve never had a close family. Always absent, leaving you to your own devices.

You understand Max and Eddie are a family now, bound by unexplainable trauma, and yet they are family all the same. And in a way, though you wouldn’t voice it to them right now, watching them from afar like this…them allowing you into the safety of this moment…it almost feels like family for you, too.

This overwhelming sense of belonging that curls around your insides, makes them warm, brings a wave of tears to your eyes. Eddie catches the glitter on your lashes, untangling himself from Max just as you dip your head into your shoulder, ladle spinning through your freshly made sauce, trying to hide yourself from his sight.

“Hey, hey. Don’t you hide from me,” he urges, tapping at your cheek, earning a watery laugh from you.

“‘M fine,” you mumble, sniffling noisily. The tears recede and lift your gaze to his to prove it to him, but Eddie remains at your side, curling an arm around your hip to drag you close. “Really, I promise.”

He presses his forehead into your cheek. “Let me see that smile.” You snort as his lips smack a kiss there, loud enough to draw Max’s attention.

You hear her scoff, her drawl of distaste, but there’s a smile on her face all the same.

“Just feeling really happy is all,” you reassure him, a smile sliding onto your face.

He slides a hand down your arm and curls his fingers into your own, squeezing your tangled digits. “I know what you mean.”

The three of you eat your chicken parmigiana in comfortable silence, Eddie only groaning every so often in enthusiasm over the fact he’s being fed. You snort, knowing very early on in your friendship that the best way to Eddie Munson’s heart was through his stomach.

Later, it’s Max and you sitting at the kitchen table wrapping gifts as you walk Eddie through baking a tray of cookies. You’ve already successfully wrapped the gifts you all got for Wayne, as well as the smaller gifts for the kids and your friends. Eddie had told you he’s terrible at wrapping gifts, at which you had told him it’s not about the wrapping but the fact love was put into the package. But he reassures you all the same he’ll be better put to use doing something else. So you’d set him up with some baking supplies in his small kitchen, and gathered things for you and Max to get started with.

“Small round circles,” you tell him, watching his fingers hesitantly roll dough within his palms, now bare from their usual rings.

“He’s really got the easier job,” Max grumbles.

She’s been…struggling, to say the least. Every so often she curses under her breath when a tab of tape gets stuck to her fingers instead of the package, or she doesn’t have enough paper to cover a box because she underestimated. You try to assist her as much as she’ll allow, but she reassures you over and over again she’s fine (she’s not) and that she doesn’t need help (she does).

“Why is that, Red?” Eddie asks, the line of flour on his cheek a slash of white against his face.

And there on the table, in a mess of crinkly red paper and endless tabs of tape keeping things positioned in place, lies one of Lucas’ gifts.

She holds it up with an uneasy laugh and Eddie tries to hide his own chuckles into the lip of his coffee cup.

It’s not perfect, no, but this moment is.

The Wheeler’s truly go all out for the holidays. Upon entering their home, Eddie’s palm in your own, your eyes are drawn to the endless holiday decorations. Their tree is dressed to the nines, all wide and fluffy branches, glowing lights, endless ornaments that twinkle against green branches.

There are lights twined around all the railways and banisters, illuminating the room in a pale glow. There are centerpieces on all their tables, little candles with tiny wreaths around the bases, the smell of pine filling your nostrils as you take a turn about the place.

Karen Wheeler is there in a flurry, ready to take your jackets. “I hope the drive wasn’t too bad, sweetie,” she says to Eddie, brushing the snow from his shoulders.

It’s been snowing all afternoon. A few inches now blanket the streets of Hawkins, and though it did provide for a harder drive, you find that it only adds to your experience in town with the people you love. A true white holiday season.

Last year you’d been somewhere tropical, in a bathing suit on the beach, sipping a margarita funded by your parents. Now Karen moves about you and helps you slip out of your jacket, coming around front to look at you, a giant smile blooming across her face.

“You’re a doll! Eddie, she’s so beautiful.” She turns to him, then glances your way. “Come on in. Be a dear and help me with the table, would you? Nancy, your friend is here!”

It’s not long before you’re put to work, setting up table placements, smiling and waving every time another arrival comes through the front door.

Dinner is warm and bright. Full of laughter, full of quiet conversation and guests asking to pass the pasta, a roll, the chicken. It’s memories told about the kids through the years, Hopper regaling you with moments that make El flush deep scarlet in embarrassment. It’s Max leaning into Eddie when she grows a little morose, and him curling an arm around her shoulder to whisper against her ear because he knows what she’s feeling. It’s Wayne crying later when Eddie gives him a new mug that says “World’s Best Dad” and Max rushing over to tackle you and Eddie when you give her the tickets to a concert she’d been talking about taking Lucas to.

All around the room people pass around gifts, room full, hearts fuller.

Charlotte and Steve slip away after a while to go kiss beneath the mistletoe, Nancy and Jonathan hold one another close on the couch, Robin and Vickie glance lovingly at one another as Vickie holds a new sweater up to her chest.

The kids thank Karen for their new socks, knitted hats, and warm mittens.

You smile as Eddie slides your new necklace around your neck, a locket with a picture of the two of you on one side, and a picture of him on the other, just so you’ll always have him close.

He kisses you and tells you his thanks over the new cassette tapes and guitar strings you'd gotten him, the new fantasy books he’s been meaning to read, and a couple of things for his new campaigns he’s been dreaming up.

“Hey, Eddie,” you tell him, as people retreat to the dessert table and dining area, leaving the living room mostly unattended.

He brushes your hair back into place and trails his finger over the locket. “Yeah, sweetheart.”

“I have another gift for you—and before you get upset, it’s little. It’s…well, here.” You slide the little pouch into his hand, the drawstrings pulled tight.

Tentative fingers move to open the little bag, dropping the item inside into his open palm. His head tilts to the side, shifting the key with a fingertip. “What’s this?”

“It’s a key. To my apartment. So you always know you’re welcome. And also because…all my life I’ve been running from reality. Bouncing between place to place so I don’t have to really get to know people. Trying to protect my heart because I didn’t want to get hurt. Never really allowing anyone to get all that close. Until I came here…and met you.”

“I’m not understanding.”

You shift closer to him where you sit on the floor, your knee brushing his own as you lift the key and dangle it in the air between you two. “I thought about it. About the shop, about the friends I’ve made here, and how I feel about you and I want to stay. I’m going to stay in Hawkins.”

Home.

You’re finally home.

And the slow smile that starts to spread across Eddie’s lips as he finally understands is all you need to see to know you’ve made the right choice.

His eyes shine with the reflection of Christmas tree lights, and swim with affection for you.

Home.

You’re staying here in Hawkins, staying with him, choosing this.

So if his voice wobbles a little, you say nothing of it, because he’s glowing. “That’s…that’s the best gift you could have given me.”

You curl the key into both your hands and squeeze tight, the imprint of it cool against your skin.

But it’s the easiest decision you’ve made in a long time.

“Merry Christmas, Eddie.”

Hawkins feels even more like home the next afternoon.

It comes unexpectedly, as most things do, with the door blowing open from the cold winter air, bringing Eddie along with it. His head is bent down, looking at something within his jacket. You’re worried he’s hurt from the way he’s cradling his side, but what you find instead makes you pause.

Hidden within the side of his jacket is a silvery ball of fur, with a tiny button nose, two dark eyes, and a set of ears that look funny on its small head.

“Eddie, what is that?” You ask, already knowing your answer, but wanting to hear your boyfriend fess up all the same.

He tucks it closer to his side and mutters, “Nothing.” The kitten gives a tiny meow and Eddie melts, his dark eyes growing softer by the moment as one of those ringed fingers comes to rub along the furry head.

You take a step closer, glancing into his jacket to see the little one. It peers out curiously, leaning into Eddie’s side as if it knows that he’s his protector already. “It’s not nothing because it looks like a kitten. A living, breathing kitten.”

Eddie rubs the tiny head again. “That’s because itisakitten.”

“What was that?”

“It is a kitten,” he says simply, pulling the jacket away to hold the baby in front of him.

“Why is there a kitten in my apartment?” You step closer, stroking a finger along one of the too-big ears. The kitten purrs and leans into the touch.

He rubs a thumb along the tiny little spine and says, “Well, you see, I was walking over here from work and I heard this tiny little thing meowing by the dumpster. And I had to pick it up. It was calling my name.”

You pause in your gentle stroking, and the kitten's eyes pop open. “It was saying Eddie?”

He nods, and you move to rub underneath its chin. “Yes, so clearly, you should have heard it.”

“Eddie…” you warn, just as a tiny, sandpaper tongue drags along your fingertip.

You melt a little bit, and Eddie takes note.

“My apartment doesn’t allow pets. But this apartment is yours. Fully and completely yours.”

“Eddie no.” And as much as your mind screams no, the kitten stares at you and your resolve crumbles all the more.

“Look at it. How can you deny this face?” He holds the kitten up beside his face.

And you know he’s talking about denying the kitten, but the look on Eddie’s face is just as hard to say no to. All pouty lips, bit doe eyes, lashes batting at you obnoxiously.

So it really should come as no surprise to you when the two of you spend the next day at the vet with the kitten (a boy, they tell you) and then the pet store after (Eddie tells you he needs toys, though you tell him food is more important) with a very giddy Eddie who spends way more money than he really needs to to spoil his new “son.”

Later that evening, after you’ve all eaten (kitten included) you sit around on the floor as Eddie rolls a ball toward the little one and grins widely as it pats a tiny little paw against the surface until the bell inside jingles.

You’ve been like this for hours, taking turns showing the little one new things, figuring out which toys he likes best, getting him used to the two of you and his new home.

“It is really cute,” you say as it comes to curl up in Eddie’s lap, sound asleep.

“He’s really cute,” Eddie agrees, running a gentle hand along its back.

“What do we name him?”

“He was chewing on my buttons in the car. How about Chewbacca? Get it?”

You laugh, incredulous. “Chewbacca? Eddie, this is our son.”

He snorts at that. But you suppose this is your fur-child now. Both of yours.

“Yes, I understand that, and I happen to think Chewbacca is a wonderful name,” he says plainly, not quite getting the issue here.

“He doesn’t even look like Chewbacca. He’s silver.” You rub at the little head, leaning over to kiss the tiny nose.

“How about Chewy for short? Chewbacca is his full government name, though. Chewbacca Munson.”

“What if I wanted him to have my last name?”

“We can hyphen.”

“Wow, I’m surprised you compromised that quickly.”

He shrugs, leaning over to kiss you on the temple. “It doesn’t slip my mind you’re keeping him here. Thank you for indulging a childhood wish of mine to have a pet.”

You snort, but your grin is megawatt. “You’re lucky I l—like you so much.”

Your friends are inside, the sound of music and chatter drifting from the opened patio door. The countdown to the new year is set to start soon, but you’re staring up at the sky, Eddie’s arms low around your waist, his chin against your shoulder as the two of you stargaze. He reminds you of the constellations he’s already shown you, then starts to point out the newer ones you’re not familiar with.

You’ve been like this for a while now. Him holding you close, keeping you warm, your breaths curling in the winter air. There’s a whole party happening just feet away, and yet you’re exactly where you want to be the most.

“They’re going to be looking for us soon,” you whisper, though you find you don’t really care.

A particularly loud laugh echoes from inside, the outline of Steve and Charlotte’s forms illuminated across from you as Robin tells them a story with a wide smile on her pretty features.

She waves and you wave back, returning your eyes to the stars, to the boy who you’d believe hung them if he told you so.

“Hey, sweetheart?” His voice is quiet. Timid.

You turn around in his arms to face him, his lips a little chapped from the cold, that too-big jacket of his becoming your blanket as he cradles you in the circle of his arms.

“Yeah?”

“There was something I wanted to talk to you about. Something kind of serious,” he says, and you feel your lips tug southward. At the furrow of your brows, he shakes his head, cupping the side of your cheek with his hand. “Wait—maybe not the best wording. I, uh, it’s serious in a good way.”

“In a good way…” you repeat slowly, chewing idly at your bottom lip.

Now his brow furrows, one hand coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I’m not…I’m messing this up. Okay, I’m going to just come out and say it…”

“You’re worrying me,” you mutter, a little breathless, hand coming to rest over his hand comfortingly.

“I…”

“Hey lovebirds, wanna stop sucking face? The countdown starts in five minutes!” Steve shouts outside, Charlotte shushing him with a hand on his shoulder. Her giggly apology reaches your ears and the two of you turn to find them staring your way.

“Can we get some privacy?” Eddie calls back, face pinching in his frustration.

“Come on, Stevie. Leave them alone,” Charlotte agrees, tugging at his arm. “We’ll catch up later. Sorry, guys.”

The patio door slides shut once more and you’re left alone with your favorite boy. He huffs out a sigh, sliding his arms back around your form, breathing a cloud between the two of you.

You’re not expecting him to just blurt out his next sentence. Not expecting the words at all, and yet they’re the same words you’ve been holding to yourself for safe keeping, for that perfect moment like this one. The moment where it’s the two of you, overwhelmed in one another, hidden away in a stolen moment captured in time.

Because it’s New Years Eve and Eddie’s just said, “I’m in love with you.”

Because it’s New Year’s Eve and your tears prick, voice a broken sob as you whisper back, “I’m in love with you, too.”

It’s New Year’s Eve and you’re spending it with the person you want to go make countless memories with in the next three hundred and sixty five days. You want all his days, good and bad. To brave the storms should they come, to chase away his nightmares, to rejoice in the happy times. You want to wake to him in the morning and kiss him goodnight before bed. You want to dance in the kitchen as you cook together, to taste his sugar sweet lips on those days you try something new to bake. You want those new adventures, dinners with Wayne and Max, play time with Chewbacca. You want the game nights with your friends, to listen to him play Dungeons and Dragons with the kids, to go on that camping trip Steve, Robin and the others talked about come summer time.

You wanted it all, want it all, with the boy standing before you with all the love in the world behind his eyes.

“I’m in love with you,” you repeat, just as the sound of the countdown spills from inside.

Ten…

He curls a hand around your face once more.

Nine…

You brush at the hair near his shoulders, feeling him warm beneath your skin.

Eight…

He tugs you closer, always closer.

Seven…

You slide your hands into his jacket, hands resting against his back.

Six…

He tells you he’s in love with you once more.

Five…

You press your forehead to his, smiling up at him.

Four…

He glances down at you through those dark lashes.

Three…

You feel his breath dance along your bottom lip.

Two…

You wish him a Happy New Year.

One…

He kisses you as party poppers explode showers of confetti inside. Kisses you as shouts fill your ears. Kisses you until butterflies dance to life in your belly, until fireworks dance behind your eyes, and the rest of the world falls away.

It all dissolves around you, and you’re just standing there in the arms of the man you love.

Nothing else matters.

All that matters is this moment, this boy, this love.

It starts, you suppose, in the car ride. The atmosphere has a new heaviness, a thrill that boils in the cabin. Your fingers slide through Eddie’s, toying with the rings resting cool from the winter air against your thigh. You’re not sure what possesses you. Not sure if it’s the happiness from the evening, the weight of his confession, the way your heart feels full to burst—but it has you feeling bolder, has you slowly trailing your fingers along your opposite thigh. A slow path, a gentle up and down, over and over again.

His eyes flash to yours, linger briefly on your exposed flesh, the warmth of your skin. You catch the way his tongue dips to his lip, the pinch of his teeth against skin, before flashing back to the road. You’re almost home, only minutes now, but you’re itching for touch. For his touch in particular, warm against your skin, along the outline of your leg muscle, inside your thigh, at your center where you want him most.

You feel the first little brush of his fingers as they slip free from yours, the tantalizing trail of them, along the thigh nearest to him. A gentle drag of skin against skin, venturing higher every time. His fingertips tease the hem of your ruched satin dress, now bunched near your hip, leaving only inches between where he lingers now and your clothed center. There is a question in his eyes, a pass of chocolate brown eyes in the night as he looks your way, and you dip your head, understanding his meaning.

His fingers start a new exploration, a curious slide along your inner thigh, a gentle sweep that leaves gooseflesh in its wake. It’s unfamiliar to him and you, and yet it elicits a soft sigh from your lips, head falling back against the headrest. Taking this as all the coaxing he needs, he pushes up higher, halting at the edge of your panties. There is a brief moment where he pauses, and you wonder if he’s about to freeze up and end this before you’ve even had a chance to begin the night, but he dissuades those fears when he shifts and presses his middle finger against the spot of slick already forming against the gray material.

He curses, his eyes sliding up to the ceiling in a silent prayer, hand tightening in a white knuckle grip against the steering wheel. “Wanna touch you.”

“Then touch me, Eddie,” you breathe out, shuddering as he pushes the material to the side and slides a finger through your folds, dragging in a curious line.

It's a wonky, unpracticed pattern that he tries once…then twice, and pulls back.

“Show me. Show me what you like.”

It sounds choked.

A little gasp, a soft plea.

Understanding what he means, you reach down to join him, dragging a line down your center, swirling in the pool of slick at your entrance before circling the bead of your clit. His eyes dart from the road to where your finger starts to move in small circles, toes already curling within your heels.

He watches like that for a few moments. Captures the way your chest rises and falls with each sweep of your finger, the heaviness of your breath, the shudder of each pass of air through lungs. And it doesn’t take long before he’s replacing your fingers with his own, following the same path you’d taken. Dragging those thicker digits from your entrance up to your clit, starting the slow slide of his fingers along hot flesh, murmuring, “You look so pretty. So fuckin’ pretty, baby.”

Your answer is a hum, a broken whisper of, “Right there, Eddie. Just like that.”

You’re already close.

You feel the beginnings of your orgasm beckoning, dragged closer by your own ministrations, and swifter now with Eddie’s fuller fingers, your hand coming out to grab at his thigh. You can’t help the whine that spills from you as that heat coils higher in your belly, the rubber band pulling taut, ready to snap as he moves faster under your guidance.

Your fingers dig down where they rest against his flesh. His eyes sweep back over to you, molten and dark in the moonlight, stuttering along where he’s touching you in a way he’s never done so before. He looks at you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, mesmerized by the way you look in this moment. It’s terrifying and exciting, eyes shut against the feeling. Flames lick at you as he pulls into the back of your coffee shop and parks the van. You barely register the click of his key pulling from the ignition before his mouth is on yours, face crashing into you from over the center console. You’re immediately moaning into his mouth and driving your hips up further into his hand to seek more friction as the rubber band snaps and sweet release spills into your system.

“Oh shit,” he breathes against your lips, brushing kiss after kiss along your face as your hips fall back against the seat, your eyes heavy as you try to catch your breath, looking up at him with a little laugh. “Was that good? I—”

You silence him with a kiss, whispering, “Inside,” against his skin.

He barely has a moment to lock the door before you’re grasping his hand and rushing him up the stairs, humming as the door locks close behind the two of you and you’re finally and blessedly alone. You both toe off your shoes as you maneuver your way over to the bed, connected at the mouth, hands reaching to grab at clothes, a clash of lips, tongues and teeth.

“Chewy, stay in your room. Your parents are busy!” Eddie scolds, the kitten in question already sound asleep in his little makeshift bed.

You giggle airily as the backs of your thighs hit your mattress, back falling into plush comforters as he crawls over you, walking you backward up the bed until your head rests upon your mountain of pillows.

“Say it again?” He asks, marking a path down your cheek, along your neck, pulling a whimper from you as he sucks a hickey into your collarbone.

“I’m in love with you, Eddie.”

He’s kissing you again, your head swimming with the ecstasy of the moment. It’s slower this time. Not like in the car where it’s a frantic, wild thing. There’s all the time now in the world to taste, tease and explore. His tongue sweeping low against your lip, sliding along yours, licking into your mouth with slow, languid kisses.

He moans into your mouth, a sweet thing you swallow as his body slides closer to yours, the beat of his heart a tattoo against your sternum. A frantic flutter you slide your palm up between the two of you to feel, tethering yourself to this moment—to this man.

His guitar string callused fingers drag a familiar path along your thigh, sliding your dress up higher over your hips, baring you to him once more. His fingers come to slide between your folds, still puffy from your orgasm, making you shudder and mewl against his skin. Hips move upward at the sensation, seeking friction, seeking him.

In your impatience, you fist both sides of your dress in your hands, Eddie’s hands falling away from you long enough to let you sit up and pull the material up and over your body. You feel bared to him, already nearly naked against your mattress because the dress had called for no bra lines, and a forearm moves to drape across your chest.

“Hey, hey,” Eddie coos, cupping the side of your cheek. “You’re so beautiful. There’s no need to hide with me. I love you. I love you so much, sweetheart.”

Your arm drops away and he replaces it with his lips.

This part he knows.

This part he’s practiced on you already.

One hand comes up to knead one breast, while he pastes wet kiss after wet kiss to the other, tongue laving over your flesh, sucking into supple skin until you’re bucking up against his clothed thigh, rubbing your center against the fullness of it—seeking something, anything, to satisfy the need swirling in your gut.

“Come here,” you nearly beg, curling your fingers in the hair at the back of his head, tugging him back upward to your lips. You kiss him soundly, mewling as his thigh shifts and his hips roll forward, the hardness of him rubbing just right against your core, robbing you of all air. “Missed you.”

“I’m right here,” he chuckles, fingers dancing along your thigh. “Not going anywhere.”

“Want to touch you, Eds. But only if you’re ready.”

He leans back onto his haunches above you, hair a wild mess, chest rising and falling swiftly. He looks beautiful like this, just as he always does, all dark eyes and swirling heat living in them. They’re blown out now in his desire, in a way you’ve not seen him before. Heat flares at the thought it’s meant only for you, reserved only for you at this moment, just as his fingers reach for the hem of his shirt and hesitate.

“I can shut the light,” you whisper, hand coming to smooth up and down his thigh.

You want him to be comfortable. Fully at ease in a moment you know is already nerve wracking for him. It’s his first time with you, but it’s also his first time baring himself fully to another human after what transpired two years ago. His eyes shift to the left, to a faraway spot on the wall, like he’s mulling it over.

You stretch your arm out toward your lamp when a hand curls around your wrist like a bracelet. Eddie’s voice breaks into the silence with a soft, “No, leave it.”

He reaches behind his back and tugs the shirt up and over himself, slipping it off to toss it into the far corner somewhere. He waits. Waits for you to scream and run, to push him away you’re sure, what with the way his mouth settles into a firm line, his hands shaking where they rest at his thighs.

You’re familiar with his scars. At least the ones on his face, his neck, the spattering of them along his arms. The ones that litter his torso break your heart all over again for the boy on the floor of the Upside Down. The boy who had been close to death, and lived to tell the tale. The boy with the biggest heart you’ve ever known.

You lift yourself up to sit, hand coming up to hover over his abdomen, gaze flashing up to his momentarily. “Can I?”

He dips his head once, releasing a shaky exhale as your fingers trail along the first scar along his abdominal muscles, then further up along the two smaller ones to your left.

“Do they hurt?” You feel his stomach jolt as you drift back southward again, the softness of his abdomen dancing beneath your fingertips. “Don’t wanna hurt you.”

“No, not anymore. Not for a while now,” he manages to get out, watching your fingers where they linger against him, one of his hands sliding along the crown of your head comfortingly.

His left side, just over his heart, is the worst. A ridge of patchwork done by the plastic surgeons at the hospital, all puckered flesh, hills, bumps and divots. The demobats had tried to take him from you, tried to rob you of ever knowing this man, and your eyes water as you curl your palm over his ribcage, catching the soft shudder of his breath as his eyes fall closed.

You love him.

You love him fully and completely. Even in this body he resents, because it houses his soul. And it’s his soul you long for, want to entwine yourself to, want to cherish for as long as he’ll allow you. Even in this body that he rejects because it no longer looks as it used to, because it’s this body that has held you, has loved you, respected you.

It’s him.

You’ve never loved another person like this before, this feeling of fullness that makes your head swim. It drives you to lean forward, brushing a kiss over his heart, feeling him warm beneath your touch. His hand comes up to curl against the back of your head, your head turning so your ear rests over his sternum, arms looping around his back.

“You’re beautiful,” you whisper, as those ringed fingers curl around your chin and tip your head enough for him to kiss you sweetly.

When you pull away, you hear the first whimper fall from him. A choked garble that threatens to cleave you in two. Tears slide down his cheeks, along the bump of his cheek, salty tracks you brush away with your hands.

“I’m crying during sex and we haven’t even had sex yet,” he says pitifully, sniffling loudly.

“It’s okay,” you whisper, thumbing at his scarred cheek. “It’s okay. If you want to stop, we stop. We don’t have to do this now.”

“I want to. I really want to.”

After that it’s a swirl of movement. You slide your underwear down and kick them off as he moves to clamber off the bed, fumbling with his belt buckle and struggling in the process. You jump up to help him, his hands falling to his sides, as you unhook the belt and tug it free from his jeans, letting it fall to the floor with a clatter. You toy with the button on his jeans next, earning a sharp hiss from him as the zipper slides down and you accidentally brush him beneath his boxers, heart thudding when you find him hot and hard already. Swallowing, you watch as he wiggles the jeans down his thighs and stands there in nothing more than a pair of boxers, leaning across the space to kiss you once more.

You can feel the way he trembles, nervousness bubbling as he lowers you back against the mattress, elbows on either side of your head so he can cradle you. Your fingers trail along the hem of his boxers, eliciting a sigh from him, before they slip further within and wrap around silky hot flesh. He’s thick, thicker than anyone you’ve been with. You wonder for a moment if he’ll fit as you drag your thumb along his slit, collecting the bead of precum there. The curse he lets out has you slowly moving your palm up and down his length, watching him pinch his bottom lip between his teeth, shuddering above you.

His eyes flash open then, head shaking as he reaches to grip your hand where it rests against the base of him. “Wait, wait, wait. I’m gonna blow if you do that. I’m already scared I’m only going to last ten seconds. That’ll have me tapped out in five, baby.”

You snort as he leans forward to brush a kiss against your breast, your hand falling away from him to curl instead in the comforter beneath you. Emboldened, Eddie reaches down and slides his boxers off, kicking them into one of the various piles strewn about your floor now. He pops out stiff and ready, your eyes barely having time to take in the sight of him before he’s kneeling back down onto the bed, stealing a soft kiss that has you feeling warm like honey, all sticky sweet and languid.

“Do you have a condom? I didn’t think to bring one. I wasn’t…I didn’t know we’d be doing this, not that I’m sad about it. I’m actually really happy and—”

“I’m on the pill,” you explain, and the furrow between his brows softens, head slowly nodding. “But I have some right here.”

You reach over into your bedside table and he reaches over to pull a foil from the box. You watch him open it with shaky hands, chuckling to himself as it almost falls out of the packaging.

You reach out to see if he needs assistance sliding it on, muttering as you watch him roll the condom down himself. “I got them at the store the other day.”

“Oh—well that’s good. Safety first and all of that,” he says, chuckling nervously. You shift a bit beneath him, moving up further, making room for both your bodies, as his hand marks a slow path along your ribcage. “This is where my experience stops.”

“It’s okay,” you reassure him. “I’ve got you. Just remember we have nothing but time.”

“Okay,” he says, voice a little wobbly as he lowers himself against you, grabbing himself in hand. “Are you ready?”

“I’ve been ready since we were in the car,” you laugh, making him smile as he slowly drags himself up and down through your slick, bumping your clit in a way that has your eyes clamping shut, voice hitching in a whine. “Eddie.”

He understands your breathy plea, sliding lower until his tip rests at your entrance, full and warm as he presses in slowly. You both shudder out a moan, your fingers coming up to grip his shoulder at the slight burn of the unexpected fullness of him.

He’s babbling your name into your throat, gasping at the feel of you fluttering around him, muttering how much he loves you into your neck. And you’re rolling your hips up further into him, wanting to be full of him, wanting to be as close as you’ve ever been until he’s cursing against your skin and burying himself to the hilt.

“Oh, hell. Okay. I’m inside of you.”

You snort, shoving playfully at his side as you adjust to him. “That’s typically how this works.”

He swallows thickly, hips rocking shallowly against yours. “Can I move?”

“Yeah, hon. Please.”

He starts off uneasily. Moving a little too swiftly against you as his human instinct takes its time to kick in. You grip at his shoulder, trying to steady him, gasping into his neck at the still delicious drag of him along your walls.

“Hey, Eddie,” you whimper, and his eyes pop open to look down at you.

“Oh no. Baby, I’m not hurting you, am I?” He stills inside you, hands coming to rest on either side of your face, those dark eyes round with fear.

“No…no. I just wanted to say go slow,” you whisper, mewling into his mouth as he does exactly that. Pulls back gently and rolls his hips forward in a way that has your eyes rolling back a bit, shuddering out a breath. “Y-yeah. Like that—just like that.”

“Is this good? Want it to be good for you, because—” He groans into your shoulder as your hips rise up from the bed to meet him, hands sliding up and over his back, thigh curling around his hip to keep him closer. “Shit. You feel so good. Like you were…like you were made for me.”

“You are.” You whine as he palms your breast, kissing the corner of your mouth, rocking against you in a way that has you seeing stars. If he kept going, if he kept hitting that spot over and over again—“Doing so good, Eddie. Making me feel so good, so full of you—mmmm—”

But it’s all over soon after your praises fill the room. You clamp your nails down as his shoulder as his hips move more erratically, sweat on his forehead pooling, his teeth pinching at his lip as his eyes slam shut.

“I’m close. I’m so close, I’m sorry baby—”

“It’s okay. It’s okay. Just let go, I got you.”

His thrusting grows erratic as his chest falls forward and presses you down into the mattress. You feel him give one more final snap of his hips before he comes to a halt, trembling against your form with a curse. He’s gasping as he spasms inside, riding out the aftershocks of his orgasm.

He remains against you like that for a moment, panting heavily against your skin, pasting kiss after kiss into your sternum before he finally pulls out of you with a low whine.

You gasp out a breath and slide a palm over your racing heart, watching him walk over to your bathroom to discard the condom. When he returns, he loops an arm over your waist, fingers wandering against your belly, the curve of your hip, the tops of your thighs.

You shudder out a breath as he grazes your center, asking, “What are you doing?”

“You didn’t…finish, right?”

He leans down to press the softest of kisses to your lips, the answering shake of your head all he needs before he runs a finger along your slit, a gentle drag from your entrance before following the pattern against your sensitive clit you showed him in the car.

“Eddie…” Your heel shifts to press against the mattress, thigh falling open, baring yourself fully to him. “It’s okay. Really.”

“Wanna kiss you there, sweetheart.”

You chuckle heartily at his brazenness as he starts dropping kiss after kiss along your breasts, down the line of your sternum, across your belly where he sucks a little hickey into the skin below your belly button until your chuckling against his smiling mouth, his hand coming up to curl with yours resting by your hip. He gives you a little squeeze and laces your fingers with his as he starts kissing along the tops of your hip bones, the span of skin between them that makes you gasp against your pillow, head rolling back.

He doesn’t stop the slow torture there. You’re not sure where he’s learned this, but you’re silently thanking them with a plea as his lips mark a scorching path along the insides of your thighs, his other hand curling around the meat of your leg to open you further to him, nose tickling your sensitive flesh until you’re shifting your hips against the mattress, earning a nip against the inside of your thigh.

“Eddie, please,” you whimper, breath robbed from your lungs as he finally slides the flat of his tongue from your center up to your clit, drawing a tentative circle there.

“Tell me what to do. What you like. Wanna make it good.”

“To the left. And just like that, keep doing that.”

You’re a shaking mess as his ringed hand leaves yours and joins his tongue, prodding where you want him most, and you practically cry out your “yes” as he slips a finger inside.

“Like that, like that,” you babble, hand dropping down to rest at his full head of curls. When his second finger eases in, you feel your walls clamp down around him, his answering chuckle vibrating against your sensitive flesh. “If you curl your fingers like that—ah, yeah, just like that—”

You break off into a sob as he mimics your ‘come hither’ motion, his fingers moving in tandem with his tongue in a way that has your legs shaking on either side of his head, fingers twisting tight into his curls. You’re afraid you’ve hurt him at first, whipping your hand back, but he reaches up and slides it back into place, pressing your open palm against his hair so you can tug as you teeter closer and closer toward the edge.

“I’m so close, Eddie. You’re doing so good,” you pant, white flashing behind your eyes as he crooks those fingers against the part of you that has the flame flickering in your gut burning brighter and brighter, coil growing tighter as his tongue works you, his own sighs after a particularly hard tug of his hair against your center vibrating down to the tips of your toes.

The flames dance higher.

Burn brighter.

Become all consuming as tears prick in the corner of your eyes.

Because it’s Eddie.

Eddie Munson, the man who walked into your coffee shop all those months ago. The man with the quiet soul and loud mind. The man who cracked into a smile at your silly factoids and your ridiculous jokes. The man who had first been your friend and became so much more. Who tended to you when you were sick, helped make your house a home, created a little family with you by adding Chewy into the mix.

The man who became a safe place to land. A shoulder to rest your head. A door to walk into at the end of the day, to seek shelter from a storm with, to love endlessly and be loved in return.

It’s him, and in a way you think it’s always been him.

You snap with a low keen, trembling as your orgasm rushes over you, Eddie’s head peeking up just enough to watch it roll over you as his fingers continue their gentle slide.

You writhe beneath him as pleasure hits a peak and settles back into a low simmer, his head coming up to kiss you on the lips when he finally pulls out and joins you near your pillow. Your hand comes up to rest at the back of his neck, holding him to you, your mouths moving slowly over one another, tongues licking into mouths, neither one of you wanting to part from the other.

You’re not sure how long you lay like that in the circle of his embrace, his arm around your waist, your bare chests pressed to one another, ankles tangled beneath bedsheets. All you know is you hate to see him go as he slips out from the bed once more, sliding on his discarded boxers, into your bathroom. You hear the water run momentarily before shutting off, his frame reappearing with a washcloth in hand.

He helps you clean in silence. His fingers gentle along your still sensitive flesh, punctuating each slide of damp cloth with a kiss against your temple, before tossing it into the heap of clothing strewn about your floor. After that is a slide of hands as he helps you up and off of your bed, slipping his sweater over your head and letting it fall into place at your thighs. Your fingers skirt his side, along his bare chest, as he leads you into your bathroom and the two of you get ready for bed in silence.

He’s just been inside you, wholly and fully, but all you can think of is how these moments are your favorites. The ones only you’re privy to. The way Eddie slides lotion over his scars to maintain the elasticity of his skin, the care he takes in washing his face thanks to Steve’s incessant urging, the snap of his hair tie as he pulls his hair away from his face.

You stand before him as you brush, his larger form swallowing yours, fingers coming to toy with the hairs at the nape of your neck, thumb brushing lightly against skin. And as you spit into the sink and flush water down the drain, he spins you in his arms and presses your backside against the counter, drawing you to your tippy toes as he kisses you soundly, swallowing your sigh of happiness.

“Ready for bed?” You ask, running your hands down his chest, curling along his sides.

And he is. You find as much as the two of you slip back into your blankets, him drawing you close to his chest, pressing a kiss to the slope of your shoulder. You barely have a chance to whisper goodnight before he’s shutting his eyes and slipping off into a deep sleep.

You bury yourself closer to him and follow him into rest.

Eddie’s sure he’s dead.

Has to be.

It’s the only explanation for the way he wakes with you resting against his chest, your mouth slightly parted, little sighs filling the air.

He has to be dead, because last night Eddie Munson was Hawkin’s resident twenty-three year old virgin, and now he’s no longer a virgin and in bed with the love of his life.

Only he’s not dead. He feels the throb of his heart in his ribcage, the sound of it rattling in his ears thanks to your otherwise silent apartment.

Last night feels like a wispy dream he made up in his mind. Your hands in his hair, your body closer than ever before to his, the way you gasped and moaned in his ear. The feeling of you wrapped around him, hips rising to meet him, driving him further and further over the edge. He pictures the look on your face in utter bliss, watching you writhe for him, bringing you to that peak and watching it rush over you, leaving you shaking in his arms with him as your anchor.

All his life he’d thought himself unworthy of love. His father hadn’t been around much—always in and out of jail, and when he was around his way of showing love was teaching him how to shotgun a beer and hot wire a car. His mother, god he loved his mother, but when his father fell deeper and deeper into his poor habits, she retreated to other things to fill her heart.

Wayne had been the one to give him a home, to give him shelter, to let him know what a family looked like. A real family, at least. And then there was Max. The rough and tumble girl from across the street, with a personality that matched the fiery hue of her hair. She showed him what it was like to love someone like your own kin. Like blood. To want to cover them, protect them from the world, keep them safe.

And then there was you. The girl who had walked into his life and changed the course of it. For two years he retreated into his shadows. Craved the darkness they provided, the safety of drawing away from others. Hiding, because it seemed easier than facing the world. For a while, he was content with his core group; the same kids who had been with him during the worst week of his life, stood by him when he needed it the most, loved him when he lay broken and battered in the hospital. When the town turned on him, even after he’d been exonerated, they were there to protect his name. To try and fight back the rumors that threatened to swallow him whole. They never saw him as a murderer, never saw him as anything but Eddie Munson, loved him beyond the whispers of those who wanted to see him fall.

Loved him beyond those who wanted to run him out of town, wanted to believe the lie that he had the heart to kill all those kids, wanted to put a blame on the fact half of Hawkins had been ripped apart and sunk into the hell that lingered beneath.

You walked in and changed all of that.

Loved him despite his shadows, coaxed him out of them, wanted to see the parts of him he desired to keep hidden. You called to him, a gentle whisper, those small gestures that slowly broke away at the walls he erected to keep others out. You were patient, a constant beam of light in his world, a gentle smile on the days where he hated himself more than words could ever say.

You loved him in the light.

Loved him proudly in public, despite the way people might have looked onward in stores. Loved him even after knowing what he had gone through in eighty six, loved him despite the scar ravaged body that lingered beneath his clothes.

You’d given him a home to place his heart within. A roof to keep it covered. Your hands are there to cradle it and hold it close. And he trusts you. Whole heartedly trusts you.

Smiles against the crown of your head as he recalls telling you he loved you the night before, the way tears like stars glittered on your lower lashes, the choked hiccup of your breath as you whispered back in a broken voice you loved him, too.

“Are you awake?” You mumble beside him, humming softly as your arms come to stretch above you. He aches at the feel of your chest pressing further into his, cock stirring to life at your hip when you lean over and kiss him soundly. “Oh, good morning to you too.”

“Shut up,” he laughs, feeling his cheeks warm. Only you’re pressing further into him, hips flush against him, making him shudder. “Too early.”

“Is it?” You practically simper the words and his chest tightens further, gasping at the feel of your fingers along his chest, down his abdomen, dancing along the thatch of hair at the base of him before curling your palm around him fully. “We have no plans, it’s just us…”

He reaches down to grab your hand, already missing the heat of you around him, and presses a kiss to the inside of your wrist. Sighing, he leans up onto his elbows and stares down at your face. Beautiful, even freshly washed for bed, you’re so beautiful it stirs an ache deep within his chest.

“I love you,” he whispers. “I love you so much.”

You lean up and brush your lips against his. Tentative at first, and then coaxing as you slip your tongue along his, breaking apart long enough to rasp out, “I love you, too.”

Soon it’s a flurry of movement. He slips out of his boxers, kicks them down around his ankles, and moves to shift between your thighs. He remembers you’re on the pill and grabs himself in hand, feeling you beckon him forward with a swivel of your hips as he dips himself to the slick already pooling at your center. This time, as he sheathes himself fully, he languishes in the mutual gasp that fills the spaces between the two of you. Nearly chokes on a sob as he rolls his hips forward and back and feels you shifting to meet him thrust for thrust. You chase your end together, a slow ebb and flow, a quiet that wraps around your hearts save for your mingling breaths and moans.

You mewl into his skin that you love him.

To keep going.

Right there, you gasp out, when he hits that spot that has your eyes rolling back in your skull. Hits it over and over again as you start to shake beneath him, your impending orgasm drawing closer and closer.

It’s not like last night. The nervous, awkward feeling of exploring new lovers for the first time. Today he relishes the feeling of you around him, of rocking his hips into yours, of drawing out your pleasure, watching your face pinch, listening to your sounds. He wants to memorize every one. Every look that passes along your features as he moves against you, pushing your head further and further into your pillow.

With every movement he tries to show you his love. Tries to kiss you in a way that pours every bit of him into you.

He wants you to know that you’re it, this is it, this moment and this girl.

He’s done running.

He’s found home.

He’s found you.

Today feels like making love. Up until this moment he thought it was a cheesy thing people said about sex. But now he knows it’s real, feels the severity of it as he holds you in his arms, safe and sound from the rest of the world.

“Fuck, I don’t think I’ll ever get over how beautiful you are.”

You only gasp his name in reply. Hands come to slide up along his back as he picks up his pace. Rolls his hips down into yours, hitting that spongy part of you that has your thighs trembling where they curl around his hips.

His forehead drops against yours, your eyes coming up to meet him as he tells you he loves you over and over again, hand curling tight with yours against the pillow beneath your head.

Forever.

For the first time, he wants that.

You shatter around him. Walls clamping down as you practically sob his name.

He’s not long after, moaning low and heavy into your skin, heart pounding in his ears. You whimper and writhe against him, as he slows in you, coming down from his own high.

He flops down onto his back and feels you shift beside him in the bed, coming to rest along his chest, hand trailing along his abdomen.

“Better?” He laughs, curling his arm beneath your head.

“Last night was perfect. Stop that.”

“Yes…yes it was. But this was better, no?”

You level him with a stare and he bursts out into laughter, waking Chewy who scampers over to hop in the bed with the two of you.

Your little family.

“Happy New Year, Eddie,” you whisper, reaching across to lace your fingers with his. “I have a feeling it’ll be a good one.”

“Happy New Year, sweetheart.”

Spring, 1991

“Baby showers are so weird,” Steve mutters, bringing the lip of his beer bottle to his mouth to take a sip.

The two of them stand near the door leading to the patio, glancing out to where Steve’s wife, Charlotte, sits in a circle of her closest friends who are all ‘oohing’ and ‘ahhing’ over the dozens of new little girl outfits she’s received.

Steve continues, “Bunch of girls sitting around opening gifts for someone who isn’t even here yet.”

“Also kind of weird because it’s sort of like a ‘congratulations, your dick works’ celebration.”

“You two are disgusting,” Robin says. “Neanderthals. Babe, you live with this man?”

You’re at Robin’s side, wearing that dress that flutters around your thighs when you walk, looking pretty as ever. You still rob him of his breath even after the past two years.

“That I do,” you laugh, kissing him as you brush by to go grab more desserts from the countertop. “Have fun, boys!”

The two of you slip back out from where you came, Steve waiting until the door slides shut fully when he asks, “So when are you going to ask her? That ring has been burning a hole in your closet for weeks now.”

“Soon…” he says, watching as you walk around with a tray filled with cookies in your arms, passing them out to greedy guests. “I’m just waiting for the perfect moment.”

His first attempt has him sweating. Literal sweat dripping from his pores as the two of you sit at that too-ritzy restaurant Steve suggested you try. It’s not his scene, and it’s not yours. You prefer eating indoors, within the comfort of your now shared apartment, with Chewy always nearby to beg for table scraps (you always yell at him not to give him people food, but he’s quick to remind you he’s a growing boy).

This—the candles on the table, the multiple forks and spoons he’s not sure what to do with, the intricately folded napkins. He feels so out of place.

But the plan is as follows for the evening: the music will change to something soft and romantic just as the waiter walks out with your glasses of champagne and dessert. He’s requested a little note to be written in scrawling letters, set to read “will you marry me?” As you’re reading (and hopefully crying) he plans on dropping onto one knee and popping the ring box open.

It’s foolproof, Steve and Robin have reassured him only about fifty times now.

He just knows it needs to be perfect.

You deserve nothing less.

However, nothing ever goes quite as planned. You’re holding his hand, talking about the shop, when a table near you starts to shift. A trio of men start singing, actually singing, to the woman staring up wide-eyed at them, clearly enjoying a moment she’s been dreaming about. She’s a hysterical crying mess, Eddie’s horrified, and you look ready to sink into the ground from second hand embarrassment as one of the men steps forward and asks her to marry him in front of the whole room.

“Shit,” Eddie curses, and you pry your attention away long enough from the now frantically kissing couple to look over to him.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing, sweetheart,” he says, glancing up to where the waiter is standing with a tray holding your dessert and glasses.

He’s waiting for him, he realizes, to give the go ahead.

But now his head is spinning, because he’s definitely not singing to you, he’s not prepared any fancy speeches or grand gestures, and definitely won’t be topping that display.

He just wanted to get down on one knee and let the words pour out of him in the moment.

The plan comes to a halt even further when you huff out, “I understand the whole public engagement idea, but I don’t think that’s for me. I feel like…I don’t know, I’d want it to be more intimate. Just you and me. Us.”

It’s like a record scratch in his ears, lungs relieved of all air as he tugs on his collar because he’s choking now too.

Is the room getting hotter?

The waiter glances over and Eddie shakes his head stiffly, reassuring you he’s fine when your hand reaches out to cup his forearm.

“Check,” Eddie mouths to the man when you’re not looking.

So no, it didn't happen that day.

The second attempt fares worse than the first. You’re cooking beside him in the kitchen and he’s about to get down on one knee when the phone blares from the far wall.

The two of you stand close to the receiver when the familiar voice of Dustin fills Eddie’s ears, grating and frantic, like he’s recently run a marathon or something.

“Dustin Henderson, resident butthead, what do you want?” Eddie drawls, earning a soft shove from you where you stand beside him.

“Aren’t you twenty-five?”

“Some things never change,” he says, and he can practically hear the kids' eyes rolling in his skull on the other end. “Is someone dying, because I was kind of in the middle of something.”

“That’s disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself,” Dustin groans.

“Not that kind of thing, you perv.”

“Look, I need help not being single and miserable…”

“That doesn’t sound like someone dying.”

“It might be soon if I don’t fix things with Suzie.”

“Okay, so how do you suppose—”

“Not from you! You’re not romantic,” Dustin continues, leaving Eddie a spluttering mess because he was, in fact, about to be romantic. Probably the most romantic he’s ever been in his life. So fuck him, he thinks. “I need your girlfriend.”

It didn't happen that day either.

The third attempt has you in the hospital, Eddie nearly wearing a hole into the ground as he asks the doctors a million and one questions. Is she going to be okay? What kind of medicine can she take? How long will she need to be on crutches for? Do they have to amputate? (He knows that one is a little dramatic, and he’s only asking because his brain is practically shaking in his skull, but he has to know).

You were taking a walk through your favorite park, following along a trail you’ve walked many times now, his sights set on the little lake in the middle of it that is viewable from a small bridge that sits beneath a canopy of leaves.

The only different thing about that day was the way you stepped funny and rolled your ankle, falling to the ground clutching at the offended limb with tears in your eyes. He’d been a mess, an absolute mess even though you told him over and over again you were okay, that it’s likely nothing serious, even though you were the one hurt in the first place.

But he drives like a bat out of hell to the hospital, only to sit in a waiting room for hours, before you’re taken for x-rays.

You have a broken ankle, and his heart aches when they cover your limb in a cast.

That afternoon it’s all dinner in bed and cuddling with Chewy and him as he props your foot up on a mountain of pillows, refusing to let you lift a finger for anything.

Not even the remote, he tells you when you grumble that you’re fine.

Definitely not the right time to propose, he decides, and shelves it for another.

He finds you a few days later sitting on the floor with your injured ankle resting in front of you and your palm upturned. He catches the sight of the velvet box next, the way your eyes behold the box like you’ve never seen anything like it before in your life.

“Oh no,” he cries out, rushing over to where you sit on the ground. “No, no, no. I had it all planned out. Well not planned out; I’ve had to change the plans a few times now, actually. But I wanted to make it special, take you somewhere or do something we like to do and ask you—”

“Eddie.”

It’s ruined.

The whole thing is ruined. He presses the heel of his palm to his forehead and groans.

��Eddie,” you try again, and he lifts his head to see you turning to look at him.

There are tears in your eyes, but you don’t seem sad. He’s just ruined your proposal and you’re not upset?

“Eddie, ask me now.”

He feels himself stumble a bit. Stutters out, “W-what?”

“Ask me now.”

You swallow thickly, handing him the ring box as he settles down on the ground in front of you. Chewy pokes his head up from the top of the couch, tail swishing at his two humans.

“A few years ago a new girl moved to town. There’s this idiot that works across the street from her shop at the bar, and he’s kind of a dick to her at first. You can laugh, it’s true. But it’s funny because she’s never deterred by it. She starts writing these little facts on his cups, and these corny little jokes that make her laugh and make it really hard for him not to laugh too because she’s just so pretty. They become friends…sort of. You see, he doesn’t really like to let many people in, and here she is with this big personality. Everyone falls in love with her, I mean—how wouldn’t they. Except for him. Or so he thinks.”

You’ve moved closer, your knees against his, one of his hands in your lap, curled in your own.

“He starts helping out with her apartment and realizes the more he hangs out with her, the more he likes her. He starts to feel less like a monster, and more like someone capable of love. She peels back those little layers and is so patient with it, never pushes him, always puts his feelings first. And then, he realizes he’d be a complete dingus to not tell her he likes her. And then the most surprising thing happens.”

You’re laughing through your tears, but laughing all the same and asking, “What is that?”

“They fall in love. Him for the first time ever, and he realizes…he wants that person every day for the rest of his life.”

He pops the box open and watches your hand come up to press against your lips, taking in the single diamond on a slender gold band.

“I love you so much, sweetheart. Every day more than the one that came before it. And I want that, I want this…us, for the rest of my life,” he says thickly, trying to hold back his own tears. “If you say yes, of course.”

“Yes, Eddie, yes,” you whisper, holding out your hand so he can slide it onto your ring finger.

It’s a perfect fit.

Then again, you’ve always been.

Eddie Munson marries the girl of his dreams six months later.

It’s a small ceremony, surrounded by your closest friends in the Wheeler’s backyard. You share personal vows with one another, words that encompass the years you’ve known one another, the love you share, the dreams for the future.

He promises to love you for the rest of his life as Steve—newly officiated for this occasion—instructs him to slide your wedding band onto your finger. And you do the same, standing there in a pretty white dress, your own words falling around him and filling his heart as you push the solid gold ring onto his own hand.

You dance under twinkling lights the kids have twined around the trees, hearts full to burst.

Wayne tells him he’s proud to call him son and wishes you well as you part for the night, Max joining soon after to hug the two of you and remind you she’ll be by the apartment often to check up on Chewy (her favorite and only nephew).

You slip into your hotel room in a flurry of kisses, a sea of white tulle around you, your hands in his suit and his working on undoing the line of buttons down your back.

You fall into one another as you always do, his lips against yours, bodies burning, sighs mingling into one as he slides home for the first time with his new wife.

He holds you close, one arm low around your back, the backs of his knuckles against your cheek. Tells you he loves you as the two of you creep closer and closer to mutual bliss.

Later, after you’re both cleaned up and spent, he tucks you close to his chest and hums the song you danced to at your wedding.

He’s happy.

Happier than he’s ever been in his life.

“Fun fact: Becoming your husband made this the best day of my life.”

You press your head further into his chest, finger toying with the new ring on his finger. “Fun fact: Becoming your wife is mine.”

Tag List: @clinicallyonline17, @sidthedollface2, @lazywillow6748, @idkidknemore, @blue-eyed-lion , @emma77645 , @bambipowerblueaddition , @aysheashea , @lezzy-bennet @yeehawbitchs

#eddie munson x reader #Luna’s brain is so beautiful #one of my favorite series

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bylrlvr · 2 years ago

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unpopular opinion kind of but I want the painting reveal to be after the time jump. I still think midleven would break up pre-timejump, but the painting wouldn´t be neccesearly mentioned. obviously the break up would be initiated by el, mike wouldn´t really have the neurons to bring up the painting, his brain too full of mini identity crisis. plus I think it would be funny how the painting reveal would be the ultimate domino piece to make mike gets his shit together, but yk, no thanks. I need mike to get absolutely confused and stressed for two years, if will had to do it for a decade, then it´s his turn. then, what after those two years? I imagine elmike being besties is in, but mike´s not really bringing up the painting yet bc, even though they´re friends, how do you tell your ex that the painting her brother (who youhave some complex feelings for) gave you two years ago is the reason why you think of yourself as not a completely useless person? kind of an awkward conversation. so, I kind of have a personal headcanon on how this scene should go. first of all, parallels. what parallel am I referring to? not other than robin´s coming out scene. takes place after the time jump, so apocalyptic vibes are in, and what else to do in a apocalyptic moment than let it all out? both el and mike sitting at hopper´s cabin bathroom floor, maybe they´re on a mission or maybe just talking shit. it´s a nice moment, a heart to heart. probably their most genuine conversation, something they never really had while they were a couple. between laughts and sharing memories, mike thinks he should finally share his thoughts on the painting, I mean, it´s a pretty wholesome moment, they´re friends, it shouldn´t be awkward now. can I tell you something? just don´t make fun of me or, think I wanna make it awkward or anything, I mean, since we´re broken up and all- el just tells him it´s fine, we´re friends now, that was a long time ago, and it´s kind of the end of the world, you can get it off your chest. mike´s kind of nervous, but also kind of relieved, so he just says it. yk, two years ago I couldn´t tell you, because yk, the start of the apocalypse and all, and well, it would have been pretty awkard cause we had jus broken up- but, whatever. I guess I just, never really thanked you. el gets silent. yk for, the painting.el laughs. what painting. mike just blinks at her and laughs nervously. well, I guess you forgot, I knew it would be awkard. but, um, yeah, the painting you gave me? well, more like will. but it was technically you. el´s confused, but let´s him finish. I mean, it was a cool painting, but I guess the best thing tha came out of it was what you said avout me. you probably meant it platonicaly, but I really, um, I really liked it, I loved it! I was being a complete douche and you still manage to say those words about me. I was pretty confused though, it didn´t really seem like you but, it meant a lot to me. el thinks she must test the waters, now she´s as confused as mike was. what words excatly meant a lot to you exactly?. mike´s flustered now. well, about me being the heart, important yk? again, I was being a prick and yet, you saying those things about me, that you needed me, it was, probably the nicest thing someone has said about me. it caught me off guard, but it´s also the thing that has made me believe I´m not compeltly useless so. thanks. it´s nice to know you´re needed. el´s still staring at him, confused, but with a smile in her face. that´s really sweet. mike looks up to her. yeah. he let´s it slip as he smiles. I mean- no hard feelings. we´re friends now so- he gets cut off. but I never said that. el adds. what? and that´s when it hits them. both of them. you could say el´s being robin on this situation, she´s hearing mike´s (just like rob with steve) confession, but it´s mike who´s actually coming out with his feelings. there´s a breeze of an unspoken scret in the air, and then-

i- wow. i have nothing to add on to this, just one question: what is your ao3 (for scientific purposes)

#byler #vi’s askbox

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thetaoofbetty · 3 years ago

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I totally get the bro vibe from ba as well. It's a shame that the first time we actually see them as friends is when they date. If they had put scenes like that in previous seasons I might've understood why they would even want to try and date. But all the new couples seem kinda bored or settled for people who are just dating for a few days. Like, where is the passion, the excitment of the newness. It feels like relationships that you would see after a timejump, already developed

it's actually sort of wild. i feel like we've seen betty drink more while hanging out with archie than we have...ever? it's like they finally figured out how to write them as friends and just added kissing and alcohol before they said, "there. that works."

and you're not wrong, if they had been hanging out and talking at all in any other given season, i could see the arguments of them being lifelong friends. but yeah, there's no newness or passion. it's like we walked into stuff 6 months in when the shine wears off and the issues start to show. there is an awful lot of convenience being written into these relationships.

what was it toni said? that she and fangs had been friends their whole lives and they had a baby together? ahh yes, the height of romance.

someplace to live, girl next door, business partner, etc, aren't really selling me on any passion or desire past comfort tbh.

#besos!#anonymous #anti b*rchie

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taexual · 4 years ago

Text

i’d love you to stay but that’s simply insane // JJK (22)

jungkook is an uncontrollable lead vocalist of the campus band, and you’re a goal-oriented top student that’s known his rich and complicated family since childhood. you don’t want anything to do with each other, until each other is exactly what you want to do.

pairing: jeon jungkook x reader

genre: college au

warnings: there is a timejump!!

words: 5.2k

chapter twenty-two (final)

You had just left your house, already running late, when your phone lit up with an incoming call from Inna. Smiling with a good-natured roll of your eyes, you answered the phone. You already knew what she was going to say.

“Are you there yet?” you spoke into the phone, pressing it against your head with your shoulder while you put gloves on. It was chilly today.

“I’m by the entrance to the restaurant,” Inna replied, her voice manic. “I’m still in my car. I can’t leave. You might have to come and drag me in there by my hair.”

“Breathe,” you said, picking up your phone with a gloved hand before you looked around the empty street so you could safely cross it. “You can do this. It’s just dinner.”

“It’s dinner with his parents,” she shot back, still just as panicked. “I know you’ve known Jungkook’s parents as long as you’ve known your own, but it’s different for me. These people don’t know me. What if they hate me?”

You heard a beep on the line that indicated a new text message and pulled your phone back to check. It was Jungkook, sending you an exceeding amount of question marks and exclamation points; he had clearly noticed your absence.

“Well,” you started to say to Inna while you quickly typed back, OMW, and sent it to Jungkook, “they will definitely hate you if you ditch the dinner.”

Inna whined at this. “I called you for help.”

“How can I help you,” you couldn’t help teasing, “if your situation is different?”

Recognizing her own condescending tone in your words, she sighed heavily but made no attempt to correct herself as she pleaded, “please.”

“Alright, listen, it’ll be fine,” you said and almost stopped walking, too focused on the conversation. It was too cold to stand around on this late autumn evening, however, so you kept going as you spoke, “it’s the first time you’re meeting them, so you will most likely only talk about superficial things, like your education, your job, how you two met, how—”

“Most likely?” Inna repeated, distressed. “And what if they tell me, straight to my face, that they can’t stand the sight of me?

You couldn’t help but smile as Inna’s worries echoed your own when you and Jungkook were just starting to talk again. She’d found ways to convince you to be bold and give him a chance, so you owed it to her to be as encouraging as you could – even if it meant abandoning all plans and going over there to literally drag her into the restaurant by her hair as she’d said.

“They will not,” you told her firmly.

“But how do you know?” Inna demanded right back.

“Because you’re impossible to hate.”

“But what if they do?”

“Then, they won’t say anything,” you replied patiently, “because that’s a very rude thing to say to someone you’re meeting for the first time.”

Inna still found a loophole. “What if they’re extremely honest?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said. “It’s still rude.”

“But what if—”

“Inna—just listen,” you cut her off as you stopped by another crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, “the only honest conversation I’ve had with Jungkook’s mother,” you spoke, “was two years ago, after she came to see me on campus. Remember that? Before then, we were on friendly terms but we never talked about our feelings, or anything deep at all. She could have despised me deep down in her heart, I wouldn’t have known.”

Inna considered this for a second – while you crossed the street – and then you heard her sigh in defeat.

“Right,” she said, hesitating. She must have been running out of excuses. “Well, that—I’m not sure if that makes it better, actually.”

“Just go in there. Okay?” you said, your voice soft. You had experienced the fright that comes with being in a relationship firsthand, so you tried to find a balance between tough love and caring support as you told her, “open the door of your car, step outside, lock the damn car – so we wouldn’t have history repeat itself – and then walk into the restaurant. You can do that, can’t you?”

You couldn’t see, her but you could feel her roll her eyes when you brought up the “Someone Broke Into My Car, Please Help, There’s No Way I Could Have Left It Unlocked” incident that she refused to talk about again after the police officers laughed her out of the station.

“Sure,” Inna said, “I can do that. If I walk in and then immediately turn back around.”

“No,” you said. “You walk in, you go meet your boyfriend and his parents, and then you send me an invitation to your wedding as soon as the dinner ends.”

She laughed at this in what was supposed to be a sarcastic way, but, instead, she just sounded hopeful.

“You’re very funny,” she said.

“And you’re very late,” you tossed back as you checked your own watch and then sped up. “Go.”

“Okay,” she said with a deep exhale. You heard the door of her car open. “I’m going. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” you replied, pleased to hear that she was really moving. “And if I find out you didn’t actually go in there, we will have a serious conversation the next time I see you. It might get physical.”

“I shall therefore avoid you,” she replied with grandiose dedication and then added playfully, “which shouldn’t be hard, considering that you’ve switched me for Jungkook.”

Gasping dramatically to emphasize your offense at this accusation, you defended, “hey, you were the one who moved out as soon as we graduated. I was going to suggest we continued to live together off-campus.”

“Your boyfriend would have hired a squad of assassins to kill me if I’d agreed,” Inna said, her voice light. Her car beeped twice in the background of the call, proving that she really locked it this time. “Moving in with you has been his dream come true.”

“Well, I’m running late to his show,” you said, already breathless as you were near-sprinting towards the venue that was still at least two minutes away, “so we’ll see if he still wants to live with me after tonight.”

“Oh! Sorry, you should have told me you were busy.”

“It’s fine,” you replied. “I’m never busy to scold you like you’ve scolded me every day for the four years that we lived together.”

Inna laughed. “It wasn’t every day.”

“It was,” you countered, feeling a smile spread on your face at the memory. “I sort of miss that sometimes.”

“Me too,” she admitted. “Lunch tomorrow?”

“Oh, you’re making an appointment to get your ass kicked?”

“There’ll be no need for that,” she promised. “I’ve already left my car.”

“Okay, that’s good,” you said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at one, then. Be brave, soldier.”

You chuckled at your own joke but Inna only hummed in appreciation.

“Thanks,” she said again. “Have fun tonight.”

“You, too,” you said, catching your breath as you slowed down after spotting the crowd of people, queuing by the entrance to the venue – the concert, clearly, hadn’t started yet. “Text me when you’re home.”

“I will if I’m not dead,” Inna replied.

Ignoring that, you reminded her one more time, “love you!”

“Love you, too,” she replied before hanging up just as she opened the door to the restaurant – and just as you reached the back entrance of the venue.

Namjoon was already waiting for you there. He greeted you with a quick hug and, even though he had a smile on his face, he still couldn’t help but chastise you.

“You’re late,” he said as the two of you entered the building, “he’s pretending to be fine with it but, really, he hasn’t let go of his phone for the past fifteen minutes.”

“It’s my bad,” you replied, “I should have left the house early but I had to make some last minute changes on my project. Are his parents here?”

“They’re here,” Namjoon replied and then back-tracked, “is everything okay with your project?”

“Yeah, it’s all done, I’ll present it tomorrow,” you replied. “Is the band ready?”

The two of you were on the move to see Parental Advisory, so you had no time to stop and properly discuss everything you wanted to ask each other, but that wasn’t new to either of you. Ever since Namjoon joined the team as Assistant Manager – per Jungkook’s request, much to everyone’s disbelief – you two had learned to talk about several different topics at the same time without getting confused.

“They’re ready,” Namjoon nodded, grabbing your arm when you took a turn towards the stairs leading up to the private viewing room upstairs, instead of walking down the hall towards the changing rooms, “they’re still backstage. He’s expecting you.”

“Oh, of course,” you nodded, allowing him to guide you down the hall; you could already hear the excited shrieks of the band members as they warmed up for the performance. “Are you sure I won’t interrupt—?”

“Namjoon!” a voice screeched, forcing you both to flinch in surprise. “Jesus, you’re still here?”

Both of you turned to see the frustrated publicist half-jogging to catch up with you. She gave you a nod of acknowledgement and turned back to Namjoon with a look that demanded an explanation.

“Yeah, Jungkook asked me to wait for—” he started to say but the publicist turned around, indicating for him to follow after.

“Don’t ever do anything Jungkook asks you to do, I thought you knew that,” she said, turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s move! The manager is not doing his job because one of the sound guys keeps flirting with him, and he’s distracted. I need you to be his right hand.”

Giving you an apologetic smile, Namjoon caught up with her and you could still hear him mumble, “that’s what I am anyway.”

“Alright, then I need you to be his right and left hand now,” she said curtly and then stopped, giving you one more look. “You’ll find the changing room okay, love? He’s been waiting for you.”

“Yeah, I’m going there now, thanks,” you replied, turning around towards the animalistic growls that would have sounded threatening if you hadn’t heard them so many times before.

You felt yourself smile as you knocked on the door gently and then turned the handle to enter. You’ve seen Parental Advisory in so many changing rooms over the past two years, there was virtually nothing they could do to surprise you, – which was why you merely sighed in content when you saw the boys jumping around the room and banging on their chests like gorillas infected with rabies.

Jungkook was the first one who turned around when he heard the door open and, not having expected you to finally be here – just like every previous time you were late to see him, he had assumed you were dead in a ditch – he did a double take before he finally leaped across the room towards you.

“Where were you?” he asked in a frenzy as he wrapped his arms around you as if the last time he’d seen you was months ago and not just this morning over breakfast, “I thought I asked Namjoon to walk you here.”

“Sorry, I’m here,” you replied, your chest cavity always turning into mush whenever he hugged you like that. “Namjoon did walk me, but your publicist—hey, you’re dressed already, aren’t you supposed to go up on stage?”

“We are. Soon,” he said and then, not intending to make you sound guilty, he added, “I was just waiting for you.”

Your eyes widening, you scolded, “Go! You’d perform just as well without me.”

Not letting you push him away from you, he kissed you instead – just quickly enough so the other members of the group wouldn’t notice, but long enough so you’d get to taste the familiar mint and strawberry on his lips.

“I know,” he said when he pulled away.

The confident grin on his lips surprised you even though it shouldn’t have.

“Oh, you do, then?” you asked.

“I do,” he replied, still smirking. “But I still need you with me all the time.”

“Hmm, right,” you spoke. “And having me around that often is not exhausting at all?”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said and, this time, he had every intention to make you feel guilty, “you keep leaving me by myself.”

Laughing because he was exaggerating and he knew it, you nodded your head in the direction of the other boys in the room – they were finished with their warm-up and were now busy making stupid expressions in the vanity mirror.

“You have your whole group with you,” you told Jungkook.

“They don’t count,” he replied dismissively.

Walking by at the right moment, Yoongi patted Jungkook’s shoulder, surprising him, “thanks a lot, friend. We’re going in five.”

He walked away before Jungkook could reply, throwing the younger boy a look over his shoulder to confirm that he’s not actually angry, but they really do need to head out now.

“Go,” you said, forcing Jungkook to return his attention to you. “Break a leg. Actually, break them both.”

He laughed, kissing you once more and not pulling away this time – not until he heard Taehyung groan dramatically as he walked past you two.

Awarding his bandmate with a roll of his eyes, Jungkook smiled at you. “I’ll see you after?”

“Of course,” you nodded.

“Promise?” he asked because this had become a ritual between you two.

“Promise,” you answered just like you’d done before every other Parental Advisory show for the past two years.

For the first time in their careers, Parental Advisory performed at one of the biggest venues in town – it took them years to get here but they always knew they would.

And yet, as they reached the middle of their set-list and paused for a ment, they still couldn’t take it all in – it felt surreal how the dozens of people who came to hear them perform had gradually turned into hundreds, making them legends on campus. And then hundreds turned into thousands, and made them into a viral sensation that virtually no one could resist singing along to.

You couldn’t help but give in to the intoxicating atmosphere as well.

The Parental Advisory performances – and the after-parties that followed; even if, nowadays, they were hosted at night clubs with the biggest capacity available in a particular town – were still an unforgettable experience, even more so when lighting and special effects were added into the mix.

Dancing along to the songs you’d heard a million times now, you cherished every second of this night as if you were never going to see it again.

But you knew you would.

The band had two more performances scheduled at this venue. And they had forty more left on the tour across the country.

Granted, they would have probably had far less if it weren’t for Namjoon.

Ever since you graduated and Jungkook managed to find a way to see eye-to-eye with Namjoon, he became one of the main reasons why Parental Advisory started to advance so quickly, releasing new songs that took the musical charts by storm and performing shows that prompted international magazines to question how it was possible for the band to fly under their radar for so long.

Namjoon never imagined himself working for a group he’d never particularly liked before, but this was precisely what he’d studied for: he knew the steps to success and he knew the people who’d help them climb those steps, too. And, as it turned out, he loved being a part of this ride as well.

The sudden mainstream popularity had come quickly but the members were ready for it.

Even Jungkook who found himself in a new sort of relationship with his father – one where they weren’t talking to each other unless it was absolutely necessary. This arrangement pleased them both but Jungkook knew it couldn’t be permanent. His father didn’t simply decide to quit talking to him; he just didn’t know how else to express his disappointment that his son had chosen his band instead of the family company.

Miraculously, Jungkook had found a way to make sure his father didn’t kick him out of the house he grew up in – the house he had just returned to – and that was when he announced that you and him were moving in together one Sunday night dinner.

His mother was overjoyed. His father – startled by the way she leaped from her seat in uncontrollable excitement – was forced to quit simmering in silent disappointment, and express his support as well. Even though it wasn’t what he was hoping for, Jungkook’s father got exactly what he wanted – his son had grown up.

As it turned out, when you agreed to help Jungkook get himself together, you weren’t doing it so he could take over the family company, but rather, so he would be able to show his father what he really wanted to achieve in life.

And he’d done that.

He’d done that so well, in fact, that both of his parents were now clapping along to the rhythm as they sat behind you, by the bar of the VIP booth. They both waved at you when you turned to look.

When you looked back at the stalls, you saw what you’d seen many times before – the people sang and danced along, their eyes burning with fires so big, it was like they were asleep before they came here, and this music was what made them finally wake up and realize that they were alive.

You would never grow tired of watching the venue come to life as soon as the band played the first few notes.

You would never grow tired of the way the members of Parental Advisory lost themselves in their audience, and the audience lost themselves in them.

And you would certainly never grow tired of that fact that every time, right before they started the encore, Jungkook would find you, wherever you were in the audience.

“I love you,” he would mouth soundlessly, and you’d hear him loud and clear, past the noisy ambiance of the venue, no matter how far away from him you were.

While the rest of the Parental Advisory members left to prepare for a long night of partying ahead, you and Jungkook left the venue on foot, purposefully choosing to take the long way home.

“Are you sure you didn’t want to go to the club?” you asked again as you walked through an empty park, holding hands and enjoying each other’s warmth on an otherwise cold night. “It’s the first performance out of three, the members will miss you.”

“They’ll be too drunk to notice I’m gone,” he replied, smirking as he added, “besides, tonight gives them an occasion to break out another bottle of absinthe and we both know how much you love that.”

Scrunching your nose, you reminded him, “I could have waited for you at home. Just because I can’t go to the party doesn’t mean you shouldn’t—”

“I need you with me at all times,” he replied, “remember?”

“I am with you at all times,” you said.

“Except when you’re off breaking records at work,” Jungkook teased.

You lowered your eyes and did not get to see the way his face beamed with pride. You’d become the youngest Team Manager the company’s ever had, and you’d done that on your own, choosing to find a workplace where you could try to build your career from the ground up, instead of getting an—unfair—advantage of working for Jungkook’s father.

Your promotion came several months ago now, but Jungkook was still proud.

“I’ve only broken one,” you replied humbly, “and it hardly counts. Soon enough, there will come someone who’ll become Team Manager at an even younger age than me.”

“Still,” Jungkook shrugged, gently rocking your intertwined hands back and forth as you walked down the deserted park. “I don’t get to see you as often as I’d like because you’re working all of the time. I’m not even sure if you eat at all when you’re away from home.”

“We always have dinner together,” you reminded him with a smile – because coming home to him has been the favorite part of your day – and then added as an afterthought, “hasn’t it been two years that we’ve been together?”

“You counted?” he asked, a teasing grin on his lips. “How sick of me are you?”

“A little,” you joked, and then had to run after him as Jungkook dramatically dropped your hand and broke into a run, putting more distance between you.

Catching up with him, you grabbed his arm with both of yours and forced him to slow down. “Hey, come on! You know I’m joking!”

Your voice was full of humor and so was his when he replied, “your jokes were always terrible.”

It was your turn to let go of him as you took a step back and demanded, “you take that back!”

Laughing, Jungkook walked towards you so he could envelope you in a hug, all while you watched him with mock-offence. He pulled away from the hug a second later to wipe the expression off your face by pressing his lips to yours.

“It has been two years,” he said then, keeping his arms comfortably wrapped around your waist, “and somehow I’m still not used to the fact that we can just… do whatever we want together. Stand here like this. Jump into that pile of old leaves if we feel like it.”

Laughing, you shook your head.

“Maybe let’s do the leaves some other time,” you said, leaning into him by resting your head against his shoulder. “Unless we’re much more used to each other in a few years and we don’t want to roll around in leaves anymore.”

“Hmm, I don’t think so,” he replied, closing his eyes for a moment when the smell of your hair reached his senses. He hadn’t gotten used to that, either. “I think this is something that I’ll always have a hard time believing to be real.”

You could feel the way your heart rate slowed down when you leaned against him. It suddenly seemed impossible that, just a few years ago, enjoying each other’s company in an empty park in the middle of the night, would have been merely a dream – something you woke up from when morning came.

“Maybe it’s because there are no people around,” you suggested, “and that’s why this feels surreal.”

“No, it’s like this all the time,” Jungkook disagreed, exhaling as he put one of his hands on the back of your head, holding you against him. “It makes sense, though, doesn’t it?”

Distracted by the feeling of him so close, you mumbled, “what does?”

“The disbelief,” he said. “I mean, two years ago, would you have thought we’d be here? Standing like this, under this leafless willow tree, probably looking sort of creepy to anyone who might walk by?”

Chuckling when he turned something that could have been romantic into a potential to get arrested, you shook your head against his shoulder. “No. I definitely didn’t. But I’m glad we are. Even if we look creepy.”

“Hmm,” caressing your hair, he hummed with a satisfied smile, “I’m glad, too.”

“Do you think we’ll still be here another two years later?” you asked. “Looking creepy to anyone who might walk by?”

It was Jungkook who couldn’t resist laughing this time as he replied, “I hope so.”

He wasn’t certain – he didn’t promise you that you would definitely still be here – and perhaps that made sense, too. He said he’d never lie to you and you couldn’t expect him to start now, not even if a promise of forever would have been the appropriate thing to give in a situation like this.

“I’d like that, though,” he added after a moment. “I’d like to think you’d have enough patience to deal with me for another two years.”

You were about to smile at the on-going joke about how you were “putting up” with him, but then stopped yourself because, truth be told, it wasn’t funny. Not in this context and, actually, not in any context at all.

“You’re not a nuisance to me,” you told him--as you have a dozen times before--but your voice was too quiet to make it sound as impactful as you’d hoped, so you added, louder, “I love you.”

“I know,” he replied and continued, in an almost defensive manner, “but, because we’d already been apart from each other before, it’s hard to just start believing that we have a happily ever after ahead of us. You know what I mean?”

You pulled your head away from his shoulder and looked at him. “That’s—”

“But,” he cut you off after catching the terror in your eyes, “at the same time, if we’d never separated before, it’s possible that we wouldn’t be here at all right now. So, maybe it was all meant to be.”

“Do you really believe that?” you asked, not concealing your skepticism and the fear that was still present in your chest after he’d revealed that he didn’t believe in your happy ending. “Do you think it was necessary for us to spend some time apart so we could find ourselves here?”

Jungkook shrugged. “I’d like to think that everything happens for a reason and that every action leads to something else. Sort of like a Butterfly Effect. So, maybe suffering for seven years was worth it because it prepared us for a lifetime of happiness ahead.”

He could see the way your face contorted painfully for just a second – you were always sensitive when it came to cliché lines – and it brought a smile to his face. He was happy, and even more so when he realized that, two years later, you had learned how to talk about your seven-year break without suffocating.

Two years later, it became one of the obstacles you had overcome. One of many, maybe, but if you’d survived that, there was little you couldn’t survive.

“I don’t think suffering of any kind should be worth it in the end. I think it’d be better if we didn’t suffer at all,” you argued but then settled, a moment later, “I do agree that unhappiness makes you appreciate happiness more, though.”

“See?” he grinned, choosing to consider this as a compromise. “Meant to be.”

“Well, since it sounds like the universe loves kicking us where it hurts the most,” you spoke, the smile on his face easing the anxiety that his previous uncertainty about your future had brought, “why don’t we go for those additional two years, too? Or more if we’re lucky. Even if we aren’t really meant to be. Especially if we aren’t. Just to spit the universe in the face.”

Laughing, Jungkook hugged you tighter until you were pressed against him and could no longer see his face.

“We are lucky,” he said, cherishing every moment with you because he never knew how many more of them he’d get, and that was okay, because he stood here, holding you tightly in his arms, and nothing else existed to him but this moment. He finished, “but only because we decide to be.”

“Yeah?” you played along, hugging him back with an equal amount of love and force. You’d unintentionally started a war of Who Could Squeeze The Other One Tighter. He was winning as you asked breathlessly, “so, there’s no such thing as destiny, then?”

“No, there is,” he replied, letting go of you when he realized that his grip on you might have really done some serious damage to your lungs. You were smiling when you pulled away from the hug, however. He added, “I’m the one who gets to decide what my destiny is, though.”

“And what’s that?” you asked.

“Yo��”

“If you say ‘you’,” you gave him a warning look, “I will smack you.”

He laughed, puffing his chest in preparation for a punch that he knew might come; you weren’t really kidding about these things.

“That’s mean,” he said then, and, as a ploy to extract pity – but also because it was the truth – he added, “I love you.”

Naturally, you replied, “I love you more.”

Naturally, he protested, “no, you don’t.”

It annoyed you that he always did this but, at the same time, it was such a familiar trait of this, that right here, right now, you couldn’t help but feel the warmth in your chest spread to your face as you smiled, despite yourself.

“I do,” you argued, still grinning.

“You don’t,” Jungkook insisted.

“I do.”

“You d—”

Knowing what was coming – and how long it’d be before you’d reach the end of this argument – you leaned in and pressed your lips to his, promptly shutting him up.

When you heard him inhale in surprise, his lips moving against yours to respond to the kiss, you pulled away.

Breathless, even though his lungs were full of oxygen, Jungkook nodded, impressed.

“Nice,” he commented.

“Yeah?” you snickered. “Maybe I’ll use that to win all arguments against you.”

“Cool,” he agreed. “Maybe I’ll use that to start more arguments with you.”

Thrilled to feel that excited jump of your heart each time you naturally slipped back into flirting – even two years after you started to date – you bit back, “more than you do now? Impossible.”

Raising his eyebrows, he returned to his College Frat Boy roots as he inquired, “is that a challenge?”

Laughing, you pulled away from him far enough so he couldn’t reach you, only to end up right by his side again when he took both of your hands into his, not letting you stray too far from him.

“Is everything a challenge with you?” you countered, the feeling of his warm hands against your cold ones comforting.

“It is,” he said, serious. “And I’m winning.”

“How so?” you asked.

“I have you.”

You looked ready to punch him again so Jungkook took both of your wrists into one of his hands and covered his face with his free hand, blocking his view of your defeated expression as you groaned and rolled your eyes.

“I wasn’t a challenge,” you replied, choosing to avoid violence when you knew he was strong – and dedicated – enough to lift you up and throw you over his shoulder if he felt like it.

“You were,” he disagreed, dropping his hand to his side. “Admit it, you thought you’d be insane to let me back into your life.”

“I still think so sometimes.”

You were joking and he couldn’t lose the cheerful tone of his voice, either, as he asked, “do you regret it?”

“Abandoning my sanity to be with you?” you clarified.

Snorting, Jungkook nodded.

“No,” you answered without a second thought. “Even though I probably should.”

Laughing – because he didn’t think he was ever happier than he was in that moment; although, to be fair, he felt so about every moment with you – Jungkook hugged you tighter, spinning you around in a half-circle so unexpectedly, you squealed at the feeling of your feet leaving the ground for a full second.

“I love you,” he said once he put you down and pressed his forehead against yours. “My destiny isn’t just a few more years with you. It’s a few more decades. And now that I’ve said it out loud, it has to come true.”

Closing your eyes, you tried to catch your breath and felt yourself smile even though your stomach contracted unpleasantly when Jungkook purposefully chose to voice his thoughts in the cheesiest way he could manage.

“I love you more,” you told him and then, realizing your recklessness, rushed to add, “and don’t you dare—”

“No, you don’t.”

He was provoking you and you knew it but, honest to all that was holy, you didn’t mind it one bit.

Pressing a kiss to his lips to distract him and change the topic, you felt Jungkook hold onto you tighter as he smiled into the kiss, thus confirming that this was precisely what he was hoping would happen.

“I’ll take it I win, then,” he said after you pulled away to take a breath and felt the cold breeze on your face.

“Let’s talk about that home,” you replied. “I’m cold.”

“Yeah?” he let go of you so he could zip your jacket up to the very top and then unfold your collar so it would cover up more of your neck. Then, once he was content with the amount of warmth your jacket could provide, he took your hand again. “Let’s go home.”

fin.

masterlist

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