#i was like...i GOTTA. i cannot pass up this opportunity

[josephtrohman]

finally investing in a real setup for vinyl records like a real vinyl owner. we are so back...but also it's so OVER bc i fear im slipping into real Insane collector brain it's all i think about right now

[thelaststarfalling]

get work done while at home on break (impossible challenge)

[randomyuu]

the way it follows you home, the stories i never told

My guy Vox once again graced us with lovely Goyuu fanfics, and the way it follows you home, the stories i never told, made me go FERAL.

Time travel? Two Gojou Satorus? Double affection for our sunshine Yuuji? Yuuji sandwich? What feels like possible continuation of (you'll whisper, serpent tongue) what you fear you have become???

FUCK.

I need to stop indulging my imagination too much. I should’ve been content with writing long-ass comments but noooooo, my brain goes “you gotta draw it”. DAMMIT VOX, YOU AND YOUR DELICIOUS WRITINGS HHHHHH

So… usually I should’ve picked a favourite scene that is within my drawing capability, but I just… love all three chapters??? So I made a questionable time investment? I can’t stop??? Help???

This is probably the most ambitious fanart project I’ve ever done so far. Fair enough, considering I might combust if I keep these welled-up emotions inside from reading Vox’s Goyuu fics. Fuck.

Fic info:

Title: the way it follows you home, the stories i never told

Author: @voxofthevoid

Pairing: YuuGoGo. Future!Yuuji, Future!Gojou, Teen!Gojou

(idk why I laugh writing YuuGoGo. I’m beyond help)

Currently, it is 3 chapters out of 8. And it’s gonna be NSFW chapter 4 onwards, so don’t forget to read the tags first, folks!

The drawings are under Read More, because I have lots of thoughts surrounding each chapter and drawings. It’ll be hella long if I didn’t hide it here. It was a mess down there. A combination of hours before, during, and after I read said fic. I’d say good luck finding the art among the sea of jumbled words but… you’ll find them easily. Don’t worry about it haha

SPOILERS FOR ALL 3 CHAPTERS! I highly recommend reading those first before diving into these drawings!

Also for the comics, read from right to left please!

From here on, I will be referring to the Future!Gojou as Gojou and the teenage one as Satoru.

Overall, drawing all these is fun! Really fun! This project pushed me quite hard, forcing me to test my limit (because I rarely draw this much back to back). Since this is a combination of drawings and comics, the coloring style will not be consistent. In a way, I want to try some brushes I never get to use, as well as try out my new graphic tablet. Drawing these got me giggling because I was finally able to let loose during line art. It's much easier to do so, and sometimes I just get to reread the fic and giggle to myself for the nth time.

CHAPTER 1:

Whooo. Whooooooooo—

Ok, ok, the premise is just that good. It intrigued me, fascinated me, and I just… oomph. I cannot refuse a Time Travel Yuuji Sandwich. Sign me up.

Honestly, there are two scenes that are just… a bit too clear in my mind when reading this chapter. That would be the one I drew above, and the other is when Yaga called Gojou to come outside of the class. I love, loooove how Vox wrote Satoru’s POV. And when Yuuji fucking giggles?

I lost it.

Can you imagine, drawing Yuuji grins, with shiny stuff, maybe some sunlight, just purely happy and indulging Gojou?

Help me, for I am drowning in my love and adoration for Yuuji.

Page 2 is an experiment on using harsh black as shading (kind of?). I really enjoyed colouring Yuuji, and drawing those buffalo skulls! I wish I can grasp the concept of contrast a bit better tho :v

CHAPTER 2:

This is probably the only chapter where I picture still images instead of comic panels. A bit like those cool chapter covers in mangas. The one I really, really want to draw is the scene with Satoru on the table. Can’t pass the opportunity to highlight Satoru being a brat, albeit a really cool brat.

Cool idea drawing always proves to be a challenge, because of course my artistic skill just so happens to be below the requirement. Thank you, Sketchfab, for the chair and desk’s perspective otherwise I’m screwed lmao

The second scene that I want to draw the most is this:

Gojou is one step away from climbing Yuuji. Also, I have a bit of a problem picturing a man pouting that makes him look crazy instead, so please have Gojou pouting adorably instead. Because, as Yuuji said (with love), Gojou is (also) a brat.

This is possibly my favorite art in this project, after Yuuji's in Chapter 1 page 2. It's clean because I don't have to draw background, and I was having a fun time drawing Yuuji. And Gojou's squishy cheek as well.

Oh, actually, there is a “manga” scene in this chapter. It’s when Yuuji said, “I love Satoru.”

I just—

AAAAAHHHHH YUUJIIIIIII YOU AND VOX ARE GONNA BE THE DEATH OF ME. That secure relationship between Yuuji and Gojou? Satoru’s description of how Yuuji’s smile could blot out the sun??? Not me screaming 💀 I also see bits of hints of possible co-dependency, though I could be reading those wrong, but either way I’m good. Secure and possessive relationships are fun to consume hhhhhh

But yeah. There are too many wholesome Yuuji smiles in this fic, and I… I am not confident enough to draw genuine happiness. It’s too much for me ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

For this chapter, another reason why I chose these two scenes is just because I want to try and draw cover-worthy pictures of Yuuji and Satoru, and Yuuji and Gojou (cough)

CHAPTER 3:

We start the chapter with Nanamin. Ah, Nanamin. I forgot what his teen self looked like and was surprised to see his design again lmao

I want to draw Yuuji and Nanami scene because… I just want to, I guess. I have never drawn him before (Yaga as well) so that's an interesting challenge. I got two ideas on how I want to draw it. One is a bit painting-esque, and the other one is like another chapter cover. In the end, I chose the cover one because I want to emphasise the difference between teen!Nanami and the Nanami from Yuuji’s original timeline, and how the watch feels like a connection between the same (yet not) person. It’s a bittersweet feeling? In a way?

I’m not really good at explaining my intention ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

I love Yuuji’s answer to Nanami's question.

AND FINALLY.

A Yuuji SandwichTM scene.

And oh B O I do I love it. Have I told you I like every chapter? I probably have. But this one? Satoru’s curiosity, Yuuji’s on-brand self-deprecation, and Gojou come strolling down to show more of Yuuji to his mini-self. I want to draw this whole scene, from Gojou finding them, feeding Yuuji snacks, bitch-slapping Satoru into the backroom, to Yuuji growling. Them trying to hide a boner from Yuuji’s growl got me cackling so hard I LOVE IT 😭

I love it all. Please love Yuuji in my stead, Satoru and Satonyan :3

Oh! Also! 40-finger Yuuji sounds really, really cool! I’ll be happy with whatever Vox will give us in future chapters, but 40-finger Yuuji… possible scene with this timeline’s Sukuna… my god. The action! The drama! The bloodshed! One can only hope.

However, as much as I love that whole scene, it’s still too much for me :”) I’m still not yet confident in delivering the humour and action. Also my already-long drawing plan had my brain groaning in protest so I can’t push my luck :'D

When Gojou said "He looks sweet, but he's a bit of a beast", I kept picturing Yuuji staring innocently, but there was an edge to his look. As if the moment Satoru looks away, he will pounce. But in the end I just stick with innocent-looking Yuuji because I accidentally drew his eyes that way and I want to keep it in lol

Since Satoru points out how soft and cuddly Yuuji is, I also want to draw soft Yuuji :v

And the last one… is the last scene. For some reason, I read that both Gojou and Satoru share Yuuji’s lap and was having a frustrating yet fun time figuring out how it’s… physically possible, without having their butts on the ground because they both are not small at all. As I lined the art, I reread it again and… perhaps I read it wrong? Satoru is beside Yuuji, and not on his lap? So yeah, this one might be the least accurate, but hey, at least you can view it as a crack drawing or something :v

AAAANNNDDD I HAVE EXCEEDED TODAY’S BRAIN CAPACITY OF FORMING WORDS

Have I told you I love this fic?

…I probably have.

Have an amazing week (❁´▽`❁)*✲ﾟ*

[powderblueblood]

HELLFIRE & ICE — eddie munson x f!oc as enemies to star-crossed lovers

CHAPTER NINE — EDDIE the OBVIOUS and the LADY SPHINX

PREVIOUS | MASTERLIST | NEXT

summary: a tense dinner at rick lipton's place reveals some part of al munson's reason for returning to hawkins. your saturday morning detention is tense, and you and eddie both get more than you bargained for when you crash hellfire club to profile them for the school newspaper. content warnings: MINORS DNI AS ALWAYS warnings for smut, cunnilingus, dick-fondling, p in v, reference to drug usage, slight perv!eddie, silly teenagers having silly teenage fights that actually aren't so silly (kinda antagonistic ronance version!), reference to childhood physical abuse, al munson jumpscare, lacy's dad jumpscare, both lacy's real first name and surname is used in this chapter. no description of body type. just descriptions of a good time eye emoji eye emoji word count: 16.4k

Dear Lord, 

Grant me the serenity to accept the shit I cannot change, the courage to change the shit I can, and the wisdom to seize a damn fine opportunity when I see one. 

Amen. 

When Al Munson cooks a spaghetti dinner, you know he means business. 

Once a line cook with aspirations higher than diner fumes, always a line cook with aspirations higher than diner fumes.

He learned to cook on the grill, but perfected it in the joint. During one of his stints, a homecoming tour of the state of Kentucky, he fell in with this web of wiseguys who made him stagiaire in their makeshift kitchen, slicing ghostly slivers of garlic with a razorblade. 

Al’s insisted on the method ever since. Even now, hunkered over in Rick Lipton’s kitchen, preparing a meal for which Eddie’s already lost his appetite. 

Eddie had already given up on the whole there are a bunch of knives right there suggestion, knowing his father loves few things like he loves performing his whole Kiss the Cook bit. He plays it to the hilt, an exercise in tart, rich, floral smarm that beats out the complex flavoring of his tomato gravy by a country fucking mile. Down to that bullshit Serenity Prayer. 

“Courage to change the shit you can? Man, you can barely change your underwear!” Rick heartily chuckles, heaping pasta onto his plate. The way the noodles slide against each other, thick and glistening like worms full of nefarious promise, makes Eddie want to ralph. 

He hadn’t had much of an appetite for anything since he’d visited the nurse’s office. 

He felt weird. Strung out. Guilty. And angry. Guilty like, what got into me, why’d I do that and angry like, why’d I leave you just standing there like that, and why’d you let me.

“C’mon, kid, you look famished,” Al pulls that anger-inducing Cheshire Cat face, placing a solely ornamental leaf of basil on top of the dish Rick passes. This fucking asshole. These fucking assholes. In cahoots together. “Wayne’s Hungry Man dinners ain’t hittin’ the way they used to, huh?”

Al’s smile doesn’t slice through the tension of the room nearly as clean as he wants it to. Eddie feels Wayne stiffen at his right elbow, sees Rick divert his eyes from across the table.

“Well, Dad,” Eddie says, forcibly stabbing and winding his fork through the spaghetti, “You know what coulda solved that?”

“What’s that, huh?”

“You staying out of lockup for longer than the duration of an MC5 song.”

Al doesn’t falter. Eddie bets he could open-palm slap him and that shiteater of a grin wouldn’t slide from his face. 

“I’m here now, ain’t I?” his father clicks his tongue, digging right into his own dish, “You really gotta learn to live in the moment, kid.” 

Eddie’s spaghetti-filled mouth starts to form around the indignant words, I’m not a kid! but Al beats him to the punch. Quite literally. 

“Though, judgin’ by those scuffs on your knuckles, looks like you did somethin’ without thinkin’ it the whole way through first. Huh?” Al slurps his pasta noisily, and Eddie feels Wayne tense even more, if that’s possible. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

The sense memory of silver flashes colliding with Billy Hargrove’s face in the parking lot, the sense memory of you and your vicelike grip trying to pull him off before he killed him. The sense memory of bile blowing through his veins, stumbling upon those lowlifes talk to you like that. Rage blackout. Yadda yadda.

According to rumor, Hargrove was lucky that Eddie didn’t cave his entire cheek in. He still couldn’t totally see out of his right eye, the swelling was that gathered and insistent. 

Eddie lets the question droop in the air, before eventually mumbling, “S’nothing. Just– shit at school.”

Wayne had been the first one to ask him, obviously, catching sight of his bandaged hand when he came upon Eddie staring a hole into–you guessed it–yet another Murder, She Wrote rerun, following your encounter on the examination table. 

Eddie had given it the brush off so Wayne had given it the brush off. He was no stranger to his nephew bearing busted knuckles, even if it did make the old man’s blood chill every time he saw it. Those interactions always reeked of you poor kid, like Eddie was the perpetual victim. Got under Eddie’s skin a little.

But Al asks him like he knows something. And Rick won’t look at Eddie. 

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with your lovely new neighbor, would it?” Other shoe, meet short, hard drop. 

Eddie’s grip tightens around his fork, and in the back of his mind, he summons the spirit of the sharpest tongue he knows.

“Who?” He’s this close to prank calling people using his Lacy impression, that’s how good it’s gotten. 

Al cradles his cheek against his palm. His eyes, the eyes that might as well have been scooped out and shoved into Eddie’s skull, they’re such iris perfect replicas, search his son for cracks in his composure. Al stabs, stabs, stabs aimlessly into his dinner. 

“You’re a lot of things, Eddie Munson,” he says, “but you ain’t dumb.”

“Truly do not know what you’re yakkin’ about. Can I eat?” 

“Come on, Eddie boy! You out there getting into scuffles over that little gold-plated piece’ah something?”

“Can I eat?”

“A little forbidden flame, maybe, two’ah you?”

“Can I eat?”

“Can’t say I blame ya. If I were… twenty years younger.... Or maybe she likes ‘em a little more mature. Think I got a shot?” Al’s teeth are starting to grit, spittle starting to fly. Frenzied in the way he’s trying to eek a reaction out of his kid. “Huh? Eddie?”

Al’s lecherous suggestion of you toed the line of too much for the Munson men, it seems. Eddie and Wayne’s voices overlap. 

“Maybe we leave that girl out of this, Al–” “–can I eat, or what?”

SLAM! Al’s fist comes into direct contact with the hardwood of Rick’s dining room table, plates and cutlery and glasses clattering nervously. Rick jumps a little, groaning under his breath. Wayne drags a hand over his eyes. 

“You can answer the goddamn question! Shit!” 

Eddie, for his part, should probably feel a little scared, his dad raring up on him like that. Instead, he just lets his wound-up fork sag in a pile of spaghetti and leans back in his seat. The thing with Al Munson is this– his bark has always been way bigger than his bite. Especially when he’s as coked up as he is right now. 

Ever since he’d roared into Rick’s driveway in that eyesore of a muscle car (alright, it was a little cool– but in, like, a lame Dukes of Hazzard kinda way), Al had been operating in sharp angles and backed-up nostrils. 

Shit, Eddie would be shocked if there wasn’t residue on that razor blade he used to slice the garlic. That stupid, reckless, peacocking-as-a-father motherfucker. 

He folds his arms, waiting for Al’s tone to pitch on down, for the tremor in his hand to act up, for him to say–

“Sorry. Sorry,” pressed through a line of grit teeth, “I just… Hmm.” It’s like Al is actively trying to plaster the mask of his charming grin back on his face but it keeps slipping out of his fingers. “She’s a real dime. Smart as hell too, huh? Shame about–”

“Al, what’re you gettin’ at with all this?” Wayne asks, and thank god he does. Eddie doesn’t know how much more dancing around the subject he can take, but he won’t be the one to bend first. “What did you bring us up here for? And don’t–” the eldest of all Munson holds a hand up, “--say you just wanted to get together. I don’t buy it. Eddie sure doesn’t buy it. And if Lipton here buys it, he’s a fool.”

Al shrinks, a snot-nosed kid under the magnifying glass his big brother holds to him. “Wayne–”

“You bring us up here to make us part of that goddamn stupid high school feud with that girl’s father? You really spin out that far?”

It’s not often that Wayne speaks up, but when he does, boy. Can that man dress a situation down. 

Al falters. Wayne has that ability to knock him out at the knees, and Eddie makes a mental note to ask him how he does that. 

“Listen. Alright. It’s not– alright,” Al clenches his hands in fists, a flex in and a flex out. A gesture Eddie notices, because he does it too. As if he’s trying to grasp the last threads of trust from them. “With that girl’s old man permanently benched so to speak, there’s an opportunity for another batter to step up. Okay? Jail sentences get doled out like Halloween candy–who knows that better than me, right?--but life goes on. There is… an opportunity here. Work still needs to get done. Work that I could’ve– that I can do.”

Eddie knows that his dad doesn’t realize he’s saying a lot of nothing, because Al’s always saying a lot of nothing. Vague promises with no real end to them. What catches him this time around is the glint in his eye, hidden behind the drug-induced one, and the glint of a gaudy ring on his finger. A green gem stamped in the middle, like a cat’s harvested eyeball. Huh. 

“... let me make good on this, boys. For once. Let me take care of y’all.” Al huffs a faux-humble breath, glancing toward Rick for some kind of illustrative reassurance. “Y’know, seeing how it screwed up that little girl, seeing her big, upstanding daddy go to jail and all, I really–,” a swallow, for dramatic measure. Gunning for Best Actor here. “--felt it. Made me think, Eddie, of all the times when you were just a squirt… Made me wanna do right by you, is all.” 

“How much of that doin’ right have you got up your nose, Dad?” Eddie sneers, putting two and two together. Of course this is what he’s back for; not to sell, couldn’t possibly be that simple in the convoluted world of Al Munson, but to supply. To get a suit fitted, pretend to be the big man. “Try before you buy isn’t exactly the most cost-effective policy.” 

“Jesus, why, why have you got to make this so hard on me, kid?” Al is just about wringing his hands right now, scaling the apex of his desperation. “You have an in! You have the in!” 

The in, of course, being Eddie’s connection to you, and by proxy, your dad. Al’s like a bloodhound that way, sniffing out the few good things that Eddie has going for him from miles off and tearing them right from his hands and acting like he’s doing Eddie a favor by making him his man on the inside.

“This whole town could be ours if you would just–”

That does it. Eddie leaps from the table, chair clattering to Rick’s warped wooden floor.

“I don’t want this whole town, are you fucking crazy?!” he yells, spittle flying, “And–and I certainly don’t want it if it’s anything to do with you!”

What the hell would make Al think that Eddie would hitch his wagon (which, granted, ain’t in too great a shape–he’s barely passing any classes, thanks to a pickup in business he guesses he can thank his dad for) to the living sunk cost fallacy that his father is? What the hell does Al Munson want with that kind of fantasy, one where he’s king bastard of the Hawkins cockwalk when he can’t even stick within county limits for more than a couple of weeks?

Well, Eddie actually has a pretty good idea, one that occurs to him like a lightning strike as Al struggles to keep his temper level. Let Eddie look like the tantrum-throwing brat.

Yeah. Exactly. 

He’d wind Eddie into whatever scheme he was cooking up and ditch it, half-baked, leaving Eddie in a kitchen with all the smoke alarms going off. Elbow deep in an unsalvageable mess, because Al could never follow through on anything. 

He’d have Eddie exploit your relationship for a couple of instances of, “That’s my boy.” Because Al still thought that trick worked; making him believe he’s loved, valuable, wringing every last drop of loyalty out of him because a boy needs his father… and a father needs his boy, y’know!

Fuck that. 

“We should split.” It’s Wayne who says it, batting away the apologetic glance both the Munson men get from Rick– like he’s Al’s keeper or something, managing his moods. Like he isn’t raking in a cash cow from Al’s great Ray Doevski replacement theory. 

“No, c’mon–” Al half-heartedly protests, like he could still save the evening but can’t really be bothered. 

Wayne follows Eddie’s furious stalk out the door, tearing a cigarette from a soft pack as he hauls into the passenger side of the van. 

Eddie, a tightening ball of rage, whacks the steering wheel with one good thump. He’d been stupid enough to entertain Al these past couple of days– out of confusion more than anything else. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it were.

“The in,” Eddie mockingly mumbles as the van roars to life and he peels out against scattering gravel. 

Wayne has his cigarette pinched between his thumb and index and lets that settle for a beat or two. 

“You wanna talk about it?”

Fists flexing around the wheel, Eddie knows very well he’s been caught red-handed. There’s no way Wayne had gone this long without suspecting anything, even after he’d specifically warned him. More of a suggestion, actually; Wayne knows that Eddie will do whatever he wants, regardless. 

Unfortunately, he’s like his father that way. 

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Eddie says, a shoulder shrug, a mirthless lilt in his tone. “She…”

Again, Wayne stays silent. Waiting for Eddie to tell on himself, like he always does. 

“She doesn’t deserve to be in the middle of this,” Eddie arrives at, voice a little choked. “Whatever Dad’s planning on doing–”

“Neither do you,” Wayne reminds him. This is where Wayne and his stoicism pulls Eddie up short. Neither do you, and the only way you avoid the blowback is if you two avoid each other. But at that same time, Wayne always knows where Eddie’s heart is at. Knows that his heart is too big not to follow. 

Even if Wayne hasn’t seen you two together, laughing ‘til you’re stupid like the kids that you are, can’t he see…

“Why can’t this be easy?” Eddie asks, his voice small. Echoes of a littler him, one that Wayne would pick up in the truck after school. Head hanging, backpack trailing, kicking pebbles and cursing the world. 

Instead, through a sage swirl of smoke, Wayne’s hard stare seems to peel back some. He’s always known where Eddie’s heart is at. Eddie’s starting to think he wishes he knew less. 

—

Jesus Christ, are you ever sick of learning your lesson. Of reflecting on what you’ve done. 

It’s exhausting, and more to the point, pointless, and even more than that, boring. 

Truth is, you’re beginning to second-guess your adoration of brilliant thinkers. Those motherfuckers knew too much, and in the past week, you’ve found yourself yearning for the days where you got by on knowing nothing but the good stuff! The juicy gossip, where the best parties were at, what lipstick could not stand up to what nail polish! When intellectualism was a bedtime story you’d read to yourself under the fucking covers and you didn’t have to decode the labyrinth of your own stupid feelings! 

Sure, you felt like a husk most of the time, but you’d take that over this graceless stumbling shit!

You should be allowed to smash the windows out of Billy Hargrove’s car and no one should be able to say boo about it! God!

Instead, however, you’ve been caught up in an as-yet-unprecedented display of seething and sulking. People are still whispering about you, natch, glancing at your belly like you would’ve if that heinous spawnous prank was played on anyone else. At the very least, they still have the good sense to flinch when you match their stare.

Billy Hargrove’s two week suspension means you don’t have to worry about seeing his ugly face, but it also comes with the two week guarantee of not seeing Eddie. 

And the probable delay of your Hellfire article. Which is paramount. Obviously.

Speaking of Eddie, there’s too much speaking of Eddie to do. 

You keep replaying the sneak attack from Al Munson in your head, him sliding his aviators down his nose to get a look at you. 

“What are you doing here?” 

“Payin’ my respects. Your father, shit. Shame what happened to him. He was– well. I was gonna say he was a ‘good man’, but that sounds kinda funny, don’t it?”

It wasn’t about Eddie, except it was about Eddie, because every stupid thing is about Eddie.

Especially the fact that you’re sitting in your college-going beau’s chariot, about to slink into Saturday detention. If it weren’t for him…

“Lacy?” a voice calls from the driver’s seat. “You alright?”

You snap to, rearranging your face into something definitive and sharp and pleasing to the eye. Because you’re fine! You’d said as much when he snuck you into the basement of his parent’s house–why wasn’t he back in school yet–and said as much when he squirmed against you, asking you if you were okay in that weighted way that really meant can I put it in yet. 

You’d gotten on all fours because it allowed you to roll your eyes when he was all, oh, woah! sliding it in from the back. 

You’d reached around and teased your clit to attempt a climax. Trying to imitate that clumsy rhythm from the nurse’s office. It didn’t quite stick–paled in comparison, like a Simon and Garfunkel tribute act made up of people that didn’t secretly want to fuck each other. 

And then he gave you a ride this morning. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to bore yourself out of misbehavior– but you’d told him that you had newspaper business to attend to. 

“I’m fine,” you brightly declare for the fourth and final time, reaching over to squeeze his shoulder. It was a weird gesture, but the shine had buffed off. He’s cute and all, but you two had gone to see Paris, Texas at the Hawk and he didn’t get it.

He didn’t get how much you clowned on him for not getting it afterwards either. You hadn’t been able to get it out of your head, the way he shrugged away from you at the diner as you ribbed him for his plodding misunderstanding of Harry Dean Stanton.

Coldly, you thought of the trade-off that you and Eddie had agreed on. Repo Man for Paris, Texas once it came out. You had to pretend you liked Repo Man a lot less than you actually did to swing that one, because Eddie wasn’t keen to lock in to some movie about a dude crying in the desert or whatever unless you angled in the fact that you owe me for making me sit through all that machismo. 

“You love machismo. You wanted to nail that sweaty little punker, I saw you squeezin’ your knees together.”

“For Emilio Estevez? Please. I had my eye on the old guy. ‘Ordinary fuckin’ people, I hate ‘em’--that kind of shit really does it for me, Munson, you know that.”

“That why you’ve been entertaining the pleasure of my company for so long?”

“Down, dog.”

Anyway. Fuck. 

“Listen, Lacy, I gotta tell you s–”

“Can’t right now! I’m already late and Fred is gonna have my head,” you chime, all saccharine, climbing out of the car. “Call me!” You pray that he doesn’t. 

Slam. What an extraordinary waste of time. 

As instructed, you make your way to the gym, which you think is a little weird. Detention usually denotes writing pointless, go-nowhere laments on how sorry you are for being such a bad kid, right? Think on your sins, yadda yadda yadda. 

Typically enough, no one’s here on time. Everyone’s late. You’re perched on the bleachers like an asshole, sitting alone like an asshole. That’s the goddamn ticket, isn’t it? You’re alone in all of this. You always have been. 

Like, for example. The Al Munson walk-on role into the surrealist tragi-comedy that is your fucking life. You can’t tell that to anybody. Not Eddie, naturally, not your mom, not Nancy because then you’d have to explain the continued and complicated Eddie of it all, not Ronnie because just because. And the ickiness of it hangs off your every move, and you can’t shake it, and no one can share it. 

You’re beginning to wonder if that’s true of all the parts of you. The ickiness. It’s all a little heavy, isn’t it? 

As if on cue, hearing ickiness called by name on the wind, Mr Kaminsky pushes open the gym’s double doors. 

“Oh, what the fuck.”

“Had to see it for myself.” Your loathed History teacher says, full of glee.

“Sir, if this is some kind of elaborate courting ritual, I have to say, you’re not my type.”

“Careful up there, Doevski. There’s more detentions where this came from.”

“Freak accident. I can’t be caged.”

“Well, let me enjoy the exception to the rule!” Kaminsky claps, and you jerk at the echo. 

You sigh so hard you almost unlatch something. “What elaborate torture have you got planned for me today? Want me to run laps or something? Because these shoes aren’t built for that.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Lacy,” the teacher digs, “We’re still waiting on your comrades.”

“I’m late, I’m late, I know I’m late!” a familiar voice comes skidding right up behind Kaminsky, baseball hat askew, mud stains on the knees of her overalls. “Some goddamn lunatic tried to run me and my bike off the road–”

“Ronnie?”

“Hey, Lacy!” she calls brightly and breathlessly, slamming herself down on the bleachers beside you.

“Ron, what’re you–”

An unmistakable heel-click rounds its way into the gym, and in walks Nancy Wheeler with her face all pinched like a porcelain doll. She receives your big ol’ center-piece-missing jigsaw puzzle of a look with a knowingly arched eyebrow.

“You’re late, Wheeler,” Kaminsky tries, but Nancy’s already consulting her wristwatch. 

“Detention starts at nine sharp, right?” she says, impenetrable as always. “It’s 8:58.”

“Then can I have my admission of lateness struck from the record, actually?” Ronnie asks and Kaminsky shoots her a withering one, consulting his clipboard. 

“Alright, we got one more. Give it the goddamn two minutes, but then I’m bumping her to suspension. You wanna count it, Wheeler?” he scoffs. Wow, so he’s like a round the clock douchebag. To everybody. 

At what you only can assume is 8:59, the mismatched gangle of Robin Buckley comes slinking over the waxed floor, looking half-awake and pissed off–more pissed off, you might argue, now that she registers her company. She perches on the furthest end of the bleachers, pointedly away from the loose gaggle of you, Ronnie and Nancy. 

You shoot Ronnie a look like, what’s the sitch there? Thought you two were getting all bosomy. 

Ronnie just shrugs. 

“Alright!” Kaminsky claps the clipboard again, “So, this is a fun group. Bunch of smart girls who got caught doing idiot stuff. We’re gonna make you pay for that today. Sound good?”

The whole bad bunch of you just stare at him, slit-eyed. 

Your collective punishment, as it turns out, comes in the form of scraping old, disgusting, errant gum and other mystery sticky bullshit from the bottom of the bleachers. 

“Stupid is as stupid does,” Kaminsky sagely says, handing you each a tiny chisel from the art room, “And I understand that some of you are violent offenders,” that’s a pointed look at you and Ronnie, by the way, “but please. Don’t use this opportunity to take another girl’s eye out. Your community college acceptance is riding on it.” 

Motherfucker. Everyone knows Ronnie Ecker is in the running for valedictorian.

He leaves the four of you to your own devices, promising to check up on you all in a solid forty-five. 

“How many times you think he can beat off in forty-five minutes?” Ronnie immediately asks as the teacher disappears through the door. 

“Depends. Is he doing it in the shameful privacy of his three-door rust bucket or the clandestine confines of the AV room?” you question. 

Nancy makes a gagging sound but adds, “And is he using his imagination or Ms Kelley’s yearbook picture?” 

Nasty Wheeler! That girl has truly endeared herself to you.

Robin, however, doesn’t weigh in at all. She just sort of glares and angles herself onto the nearest bleacher rung to start scraping the age-old mastication from the wood. Tension in the air.

“Buckley’s got the right idea,” you say, twirling the chisel in your fingers, “Sooner we get started, sooner we get the grossness over with…”

Ronnie sticks close by you, which is nice. You always like having her in proximity. Nancy, who’s nothing but work ethic in everything she does, starts furiously working on a corner a little ways away from you both– and Robin. 

It doesn’t take long, maybe fifteen minutes of silent, resigned scraping, for you to get bored. And disgusted. 

“At what point do we get to do the whole prison thing of what are you in for?” you say, sitting up and letting the blood rush back to your head. 

“Well, yours goes without saying,” Ronnie chuckles, “going all batter on Hargrove’s car like that. Did you actually bust a window?”

“Just swung it around,” you say, driving your heel into the bench, “I may have inherited the felony misdemeanor gene, but I didn’t inherit getting caught. What about you?”

Ronnie flicks another gum wad off with her chisel, “Actually, you might wanna ask Wheeler about that.”

Your brow furrows. “Nance?” your voice rings down to the lower rungs, “Ronnie here says you were implicated in her detention-getting.”

“Yeah, um. Well, I heard about everything when you went–”

“--totally awesome psycho–”

“--in the parking lot and… I just. I wanted to clean up all that shit. From your locker. And then Nicole came by, smacking her stupid gum, and it kind of got ugly.”

Nicole. The irony of it, Nicole, gnashing out shittalk about you and Eddie in order to impress whatever unfortunate member of the wrestling squad she’d dug her press-ons into this week. Nicole, who’d already invaded Eddie’s territory, much to her apparent shame. 

What a majorette of a bitch.

You would’ve given anything to be ringside for this, her versus Nancy.

“You toed up to Nicole Summers?” a little pause, your voice goes smaller, “For me?”

Nancy sits up, her perm clouding around her. She points her chisel Ecker-ward.

“Ronnie was the one who smacked all her books out of her hand.”

Ronnie pffts. “Like she hasn’t done that to me a million times. Eye for an eye.” 

“Nicole wouldn’t even go near her on account of that one time she bit that one kid for catcalling her.”

“Oh, stop,” Ronnie’s gathering a blush, batting her hand all coquettish. 

“Wait, that was real?” you say, eyes darting between them, “I thought that was just some freak rumor we came up with.”

Rabid Ecker was one of the less clever nicknames your group of crown ghouls had come up with, so it obviously didn’t stick too long. 

“We?” Nancy scoffs, not mean.

“The royal ‘we’,” Robin Buckley drawls from her prostrate position on the bleachers. That sounds mean, the bite in her voice. 

Your hackles can’t help but rise at that cold snap in her tone. Does she have a fucking problem, or something? 

“And why are you here, Robin?” you call, hands knitting in your lap.

“I was with these bozos,” she says, a note-faithful mockery of your pointed voice, “For some godforsaken reason… and now I really wish I wasn’t.”

“Why’s that?” you press.

Nancy’s whole upper half tenses. “Robin–”

Robin’s chisel clatters on the bench, a toss made out of frustration. She looks to the three of you with pursed lips before letting loose. 

“Steve found out,” Robin says, “About the pregnancy test thing. In like, the worst way he could possibly find out, which is so goddamn unfair, unfair in the first place because of Nancy not telling him–like, I get it, your choice or whatever but you guys have been together for, like, a really significant period of time and you know how he feels about you–”

You and Ronnie can’t even get a breath in before Nancy rises from her seat, fingernails digging into tiny little fists at her side. She’s all spit and fury, she’s on Robin.

“Oh yeah, the worst way he could find out, Robin, the worst way which is that you blabbed to him!” Nancy yells, ricocheting around the gym, “‘Oh, I couldn’t help it, he asked me what was wrong and it all just came out–’ Give me a break! I mean, are you really that co-dependent that no one can tell you anything in confidence without you running to tell Steve?”

Robin’s face seizes in a snarl. “Are you really that stupid that you forgot to use protection with your long term boyfriend?”

“What is your problem?” Nancy’s voice whistles through her teeth, sheer exasperation, “How is this any of your business?”

“Should we stop this?” Ronnie whispers, with no intention of moving.

You shake your head in tiny, tiny increments, gossip monger past getting the best of you. “I kinda wanna see where this goes.”

“He is my friend, Nancy! And you broke his heart, dumping him right after– after–!”

Both your and Ronnie’s mouths drop into an ‘o’. You’re kind of disappointed–a big Wheeler-Harrington bust up and you weren’t first on the call list?! 

“Jesus, Robin!” Nancy spits, perm flying, stomping towards Robin, “Get a personality! Sublimating yourself onto Steve Harrington isn’t doing you any favors!”

“Why, Nancy? I thought you loved him.” What confusing wording.

“I–”

Okay, these two girls are walking right into shit you can’t take back territory. You and Ronnie rush the bleachers, breaking the negative space between them both. 

“Ladies! Break it up!” 

“You heard Kaminsky! We’re all holding chisels, this could get ugly fast!” 

You look to Nancy and her eyes are glistening. Reddening with the heat of anger and frustration. Robin’s jaw has hardened into a tough clinch, arms bound around her chest. Ronnie, she just lingers awkwardly, not quite knowing where to look. Your hand goes out to Nancy’s elbow, and she jerks away from you at first. 

“Let’s go. Come on.”

“We’re supposed to be chiseling,” Nancy seethes. Your eyes roll, no patience for this go-nowhere brat routine, and you lead her to the other end of the bleachers anyway. Saying something like, we’ll take one end, Ronnie and Robin take the other, we’ll get this shit cleared in no time.

Nancy starts working furiously, but that’s kind of not what you had in mind here.

“You broke up with Steve?” you ask, point blank. Like she’d ask you. 

She keeps chiseling for a few heavy, angry seconds. “I wasn’t gonna tell him, you know. I wasn’t gonna tell him, and we were gonna be fine. He could have lived without knowing. And then–fucking Buckley– and he had all these questions.”

“Like what?”

“Like why didn’t I tell him. And why was I so put out by the idea. Like, why didn’t I want to have his hypothetical baby at age seventeen… stupid shit like that.”

“He’s sensitive.”

“He’s a moron.”

“Don’t say things you don’t mean,” as if you didn’t have irrefutable proof in her favor. But that was the old Steve Harrington, wasn’t it? He’s meant to be some soft-hearted do-gooder dream boy now, right? 

“No, Lacy, he’s a moron,” Nancy hisses, spit flying again; you’ve never seen her like this. Blue eyes bold and frightening with conviction. “Why should I have to tell Steve about something like that if it’s just a big nothing? If I was never even actually pregnant or whatever? Why can’t I just have that to forget about myself? Why do I owe him part of every single goddamn decision I make about my life?” 

This is a bigger conversation, isn’t it? What you’d once regarded as poor Nancy and her perfect boyfriend, boo-fucking-hoo is now poor Nancy and her perfect boyfriend, stifled by his redemption.

“At least if he was still an asshole, I wouldn’t feel bad about breaking up with him. After all this.”

“Now it’s just like you’ve kicked a puppy.”

“Exactly.”

“What total bullshit.”

Nancy shoots the tiniest smile up at you, a stiff little nod bobbing her neck forward.

There’s a long beat as your focus reframes around Nancy. All the two of you wanted were lives of your own. Existences not indebted to anybody, good or bad. Shit.

“I’m the sublimator, by the way. I know that,” Nancy whispers, great big eyeballs glittering at you, “It’s easy to… fold into someone like Steve when, y’know… you’re not exactly likeable on your own. I just. I wanted to hurt her. She doesn’t deserve it. But I wanted to.” 

Her chisel gestures towards Robin, working alongside Ronnie in relative silence that Ronnie awkwardly tries to puncture.

You understand that. Wanting to hurt people after you feel like they’ve breached your trust. Even accidentally. And doing it. And the ugliness of the shame after, you’re familiar with that too.

You reach forward and brush a little lint off her collar. “Thanks for getting in trouble for me, by the way. With that stupid prank and everything.”

“What are you talking about?” she scoffs softly, “You covered for me. And you didn’t have to.”

“Hey,” you hold out your pinkie finger. It’s the least you can do. “Promise is a promise, right?”

—

The members of Hellfire Club gather in an awkward row, standing under the odd, warm glow of the drama room lights like a police lineup of suspects least likely to score a date to homecoming. Sorry, Ronnie. 

“What do you think,” you say, swiveling your focus to Jonathan, who’s standing there twice as awkwardly with his camera slung around his neck, “Should we take ‘em outside, make ‘em do Abbey Road?”

In the middle of it all sits the man who can’t help but be of the hour, what with the throne and the glowering and the gravitational pull. Eddie, slumped into that wild set piece left over from god knows what drama club production of, like, Henry VI or Pirates of Penzance or whatever, is so beyond unhappy with what’s unfolding in front of him. 

Good. 

Ronnie clearly hadn’t even fluffed him into the idea. Which she offered to do, when you’d hitched a ride home on the back of her bike after the tension of Saturday detention dissipated. You’d firmly nixed the idea, the sneak attack being the whole point of this thing. 

You’d also learned that a two week suspension was no way no how going to keep Eddie from sneaking in and running this Hellfire session, which meant your article wouldn’t be delayed after all.

So, nah. Good ol’ Ronnie, she just let you stalk in there with your notebook and your pen and your glasses and your Pentax-wielding Jonathan Byers, ready to entirely fuck up Eddie’s day, which gave him no opportunity to protest or call for embargo. Because if he did, it’d raise eyebrows of suspicion and everyone would be like, I thought you two were weird trailer park friends? Is something going on? Something emotionally incoherent and ambiguously erotic? Should we tell everyone? Should we call the Mayor?

“Capital idea,” Eddie says, not exactly to you, but to those in general attendance like he’s playing to the cheap seats, “Maybe I can mow them down in my van and save them from this torture.”

Your smile tightens and Eddie matches your expression, both your mouths straining against your skulls. Wisecracks will not save him. He should know that by now. 

“Let’s get a couple of the maestro while I excavate the disciples’ brains,” come the instructions and a swift pat to Jonathan’s shoulder. He flashes you a bewildered kind of look.

“Wh– how do you… want him?” 

Incredible phrasing. You glance at Eddie, but not really at him–not enough that he can register and sucker your gaze in. Bathed under the dramatic glow like he was born to sprawl all cock-kneed on a throne like that.

“Exsanguinated and hung on a meat hook, preferably,” you say to Jonathan, “But, I trust you. Do whatever.”

As you gather the rest of the Hellfire denizens at the end of the table to interview them talking head style, Jonathan Byers slinks towards Eddie. 

Eddie shifts uncomfortably, less equipped to keep up that fuck you stormcloud persona when he’s at the other end of a focusing lens. Plus, Byers always kind of gave him the creeps. Not to be a dick, but. Here we are. 

Byers, to Eddie’s complete and utter horror, clears his throat and attempts to scrounge up some semblance of conversation. But, of course, it’s Jonathan Byers so it’s not fucking small talk. Any other day of the week, Eddie could get behind the notion of eschewing such how about this weather we’ve been having type social norms but Byers decides to jump in with–

“So you guys are…” he trails, leading the witness. Snap goes his little aperture. That’s unfair. Means he caught Eddie’s immediate facial reaction which, hands up, he has never been good at hiding. 

“Neighbors,” Eddie supplies in a rush, twisting on his throne again. “She can… hear me yelling about DnD from my trailer. S’why she’s here. To shut me up, I guess.”

Byers adjusts his stance, capturing Eddie from a lower angle– a little more badass looking, he hopes. Frame the fucking curls, for god’s sake.

“Gotcha journalism,” Byers quips. Byers quips. 

Eddie’s mouth relaxes and he huffs out a little, “Exactly.”

Byers shifts yet again, clearly covering all wondrous angles with his dinky little thirty-five millimetre whatever the fuck. 

It’s not that this whole sneak attack article for the Streak thing is getting under Eddie’s skin– Eddie didn’t even have a chance to acknowledge it getting under his skin. You just breezed in here and started sticking bamboo spikes under his fingernails, like the little warmongtrix you are. 

And now you’re sitting at the end of the game table, ruby red end of your fountain pen pointing at Gareth, noting down everything he says without even the slightest hint of condescension. These dorks are looking at you in awe and fear, save for Ronnie who just looks smug, and you’re listening to them. Really listening to them. Your face fixed with that hard little glare that tells him you’re recording the minutiae of their answers. 

Eddie digs the pad of his thumb into his lip. Why would you want to do this? Why aren’t you avoiding him at all human cost? What is your angle here?

“She’s cool, y’know.” Click, goes Byer’s camera again. “Lacy.”

Eddie’s voice comes out distant, his focus tugging away from you super, super slowly. 

“I heard you blew it with her.” 

Byers, caught off guard, lowers his lens. “She told you about that?”

Eddie shrugs, like it’s nothing. It’d be easier to pretend like the idea of you and Byers hanging out was nothing if Byers and Eddie weren’t both classified outsiders. 

“Well, uh,” Byers fiddles with something on his camera, shrugging in turn, “It was weird, talking to Lacy back then. You know. She was kind of–”

“She’s different now.” Eddie answers too fast, springing to a defense that didn’t call for him. He sits up a little bit straighter, spine iron-rodding, and tries to recover.  “I mean. She’s retired the whole icy Swatch rat bit. She’s not, like– pretending to be something.”

Jonathan gets this look on his face. One last click of the camera. 

“I wouldn’t know. I blew it, remember?” But you didn’t, man.

Little does he know. 

“Are we done?” Eddie says, launching himself from his chair and slapping palms on the table. His DM screen shakes. Byers steps back with a flared little danger zone! look tossed your way. “We’ve already lost–”

“--fifteen minutes of glorious game time?” you drawl, crossing a final ‘t’ in your notes. “Of course. My apologies. Tight schedule?” 

Your eyebrow arches as you flash your eyes up at him. His jaw flares. You– you’re good. You’re vicious and you’re good.

“Theee tightest,” Eddie grits through the falsest of grins and jerks his head, waves flying and the rest of his little Hellfire sheepies following in motion to take their seats. 

Ronnie takes her time, mumbling under her breath, “You sure this is a good idea?”

And she was right, with what she’d said before. You are using this as an excuse to get in his face–bolstered only by the fact that he had now gotten in your pants, and you weren’t letting him slink off that easy. Especially with the workplace cameo appearance from Al Munson that you had just been forced to live through. 

You’d been looking over your shoulder ever since, expecting to see him leering at you over those sickening aviator sunglasses. 

“Oh, I’m positive,” you assure her, turning to Jonathan. “I need, like, one or two shots of them playing then you can take off.” 

“Waiwaiwaiwaiwaiwaiwait,” Eddie interrupts, an arm raising over his head to signal halt, “Okay, so first, you storm the castle with your little camera boy without my approval, now you think you’re going to stay for the game?” His ire is genuine. “It’s Hellfire Club, Lacy. Members only. We don’t need bleacher bunnies.”

“Oh, come on, Munson!” you lilt, situating yourself on an abandoned desk, away from the game table. “The people want to know how the Satanic sausage is made.”

“The people being?” 

“Your critics and fans. What is this all for, if not to piss off Hawkins’ Presbyterian and garner a whole new legion of Hellfire acolytes, huh?”

“We don’t need any help from the press on that front.”

“Really?” You drag out your single-word answer, using the seconds to count the minimal amount of players in the room. Not even Ronnie could boast 100% attendance, with her marching band obligations clashing with Hellfire sessions. Eddie glares at you. Yeah, yeah. 

“A–actually, Eddie… I think it’d be… pretty cool,” Gareth says, waver slowly fading out of his voice. “I mean, if we’re in the school paper, my Mom’ll be less suspicious that we’re like–”

“--doing k-bombs in the drama room…” you mutter, loud enough that only Jonathan can hear. 

“--and stuff.”

Eddie exhales so hard his nostrils flare, his shoulders tense, he’s about to shit. 

“And who else would like to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Gareth the Treacherous here?” he snarls, looking pointedly around the table, “Jeff? Dougie? Cyrus? Ecker?”

The dorks erupt in yapping agreement, totally swinging for Gareth’s angle. 

“Shut up!” Eddie barks, throwing himself back onto his throne. Ringed fingers pinch the bridge of his nose. “Fine. But this, in the business, is what they call a mutiny. Don’t come cryin’ to me when you’re all gettin�� swirlies with half of the Weekly Streak stuffed in your goddamn mouths.”

That’s creative. He really could have had a fruitful career as a bully if he wasn’t so gooey in the middle. 

“Munson, I promise you can ride circles around me on a motorbike on live TV if this all goes to shit.” 

You make a fluttering hand motion that reads proceed, which he, naturally, hates. He stares at you, like white light white heat searing through stares at you. And then his eyes shut. He takes a deep breath.

What follows is… exactly what you should have expected, actually.

Eddie Munson transports the present-and-correct party of adventurers back into the eye of their campaign. Their mission? Infiltrate a cult of royal knights that have been bewitched by a high priest who is forcing them to sacrifice the kingdom’s innocents in order to fuel his dastardly arcane magic. The plot is… involved. You’d done a light touch of research on how exactly the dragons and the dungeons all worked, so to speak, but it didn’t really seep into the membrane. It’s something you could only really engage with if you saw it in action– you’d have to rely on Eddie and company to fill in the blanks that the extensive lore left. Like, how exactly did these mythical dice come into play? How does a character sheet set you up for success, or failure? What the fuck is a skill check and why does it read so complicated? 

And fill in they… kind of did. 

Aside from the technical aspects, you find yourself suckered into the story. Quite literally, gripping your seat as Ronnie’s character–a highly capable bard, from what you understand–attempts to escape the hateful royal sect and find her way back to her party. They’d taken her hostage, and she’s managed to escape her chains but they’re ruthless, on her like dogs. Eddie illustrates every sweaty, panicky movement as they close in on her, and your fine, painted fingernails are dug into every word.

Eddie weaves these stories like gossamer– both in the sense of delicate intricacy and destructive nature of that big red monster thing from Looney Tunes. Each plot twist is created to elicit a sense of true foreboding, embellishing how effective his storytelling is. It forces each and every person at the table to face fear head on, dig deep and use what they were given in order to prevail, even if they’re shaking in their boots while doing it– shit, this is good, you should be writing this down.

Blindly, you sketch the word gossamer into your journal, not tearing your eyes away from the table. You barely notice the flash going off to your immediate right– Jonathan Byers’ lens pointed right at you. 

“Uh–” you start, Jonathan reaching to grab his jacket from behind you as the game goes on. 

“I’m headin’ out– gotta pick Will up from…” he trails off, but you fill in the blank. Nancy had mentioned that Mike was hosting his friends for a DnD session tonight too, and the party naturally included the most junior Byers. You nod, checking the time– Jesus, where had the last three hours gone?

“Tell Nancy I said hey, if you see her,” you say, “and thank you.”

Jonathan shrinks into himself, bashful. “Don’t worry about it.” A beat. “I still want that Echo & the Bunnymen, though.”

Your face peels into a grin that says don’t worry, I”m good for it! and you wave him off. The Hellfire party don’t even notice his leaving, except for Eddie who, being judge, jury and executioner, notices everything. 

“...and on that sweltering note, germies and Eckermen, we must bid each other good eventide. Until next time.” 

An operatic groan of disapproval goes up from the players, and you realize this must be a regular thing. Eddie always leaving them wanting more. Tease. 

“I know, I know, if you had it your way, you’d be locked in here, pissing in buckets and the show would go on all night,” Eddie jeers, rising from his seat to start collecting his stuff, “but I wouldn’t inflict that on the janitorial staff. ‘kay? Scat. Outta my sight.”

With great indignation that swiftly turns into backslaps of appreciation, the Hellfire Club moves out of the drama room one by one. You stay put, and Eddie avoids your eyes completely.

Folding shit back into that madly overstuffed DM folder, he throws a strained-casual, “Need a ride?” to Ronnie, the last straggler. 

She shakes her head, smile barely contained. “Uh-uh! Two wheeled my way here and I’ll two wheel my way back– you, uh, have fun though.”

“Bye, Ronnie,” you call after her, voice properly piercing through the air for the first time in hours. Eddie reacts like he’d completely forgotten you were there. Which, impossible. It’s also impossible for him to keep up the whole punk-ass overlord act when it’s just the two of you. As it is now.

Alone, together. Again. 

There’s a charge between you, as if that even needs pointing out. Like the electric fences surrounding McCorkle’s farm. 

You and the wagonful of your one-time buddies, Carol and Tommy and Tina et al, used to drive out there more than a little under the influence. Your favorite trespassing activity was reaching out for the electric fence, hooking your fingers around it to feel the darting shock permeating your skin. 

“What the fuck are you doing? Can’t that, like, fry your brain?” Carol’d ask you, slugging back the last of her beer as Tommy and Steve Harrington attempted to tip a cow in the background somewhere. 

“Try it, Care,” you’d giggled, half drunk and half coursing with adrenaline, half alive and half dead, “It feels weird. It feels good!” 

You’d woken up the next morning in your plush bedroom in Loch Nora, two little blisters on your fingers, smarting from all that pleasure seeking. Did you regret it? Or did it just make you want to do it again?

Eddie still doesn’t look at you as he speaks from the opposite end of the table. 

“Get everything you need?”  

“No,” you answer, short. “Missing my key interview.”

Now he looks. Now he has the nerve to. And irises lock on irises, Eddie frozen in place. He knows he’s not getting out of this. 

What’s more, you don’t think he really wants to.

“Pretty controversial subject matter,” he says, tone a whole shade softer than the commanding voice of God he’d used through the duration of the session. A little higher. Nervous. “What with the panic, and all.”

“Me and controversy are bedfellows,” your shoulder darts up, “I’m the big spoon.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” you nod; your tone is as marble-solid as ever, eyes trained and undarting, “Like when I implied the Tigers were straddling a generation-defining line of bold faced failure. I got in a lot of trouble for that.”

The corners of Eddie’s mouth twitch a little. “Define ‘a lot of trouble’ by your standards.”

“They made me print a retraction!” You’re genuinely incensed by the memory, hitching forward in your seat, “I mean, how insane? ‘Bad for school spirit,’ they said. Like I’m some kind of pep exorcist.”

Eddie tongue folds in between his teeth and he turns his head a split second too late. You can see him biting back a snicker, or something, and point to Lacy and yadda yadda yadda—but you smile, and the tension feels like it’s waning. Thank god, because it is suffocating you. You take your in and up you get, moving to the seat closest to his right-hand side.

“Can we get started?” The fountain pen is uncapped, the notebook cracked, your legs crossing. Eddie sinks back into the throne, his face warming up under the yellow stage lights.

“Okay. Hit me with your best shot.” Fire away.

You’re quick with it. “Why this?”

“Really? That’s your first question?” Eddie looks bemused.

“It’s the least rudimentary of all the Ws,” you explain nice and plainly, plucking up fingers to illustrate your points, “People know who you are–against their will, mostly. People can glean what the game is–or will, once I put a fine point on the… everything that just happened there. What people don’t get is why. Why indulge yourself in this?”

His fingers knit together in his lap, nearly shy.

“Because it’s fun.”

“Nope, too vague.”

“Vague?”

You physically knock the notion with a waving hand, leaning closer over the table, errant miniatures and spare pencils still scattered there.

“Basketball is fun. Chess club is fun. Throwing rocks into a rusted can of SpaghettiOs is fun if you can make a case for it. Too vague. Didn’t come here for the everyman answer.”

“What did you come here for?” That’s loaded. The way he’s daring himself to look at you is loaded. How soft his voice turns is loaded.

“The Munson answer.” It hangs in the air like someone dropped off the gallows. “Dig for me.”

A long, metastasizing beat. Resistance is futile, as it is and ever will be with you. Eddie hitches his arms across his chest, hiding a smile in the heel of his palm. Flattery works with him. Even if you'd never call this flattery. 

“Escape,” he eventually tells you.

“Go on,” you press.

“There is this… insatiability when it comes to fantasy. To stories like this, the kind with big, thriving worldscapes. Reading ‘em, even writing ‘em– it’s good, but it isn’t enough sometimes. Sometimes you want to wrap yourself up in the reality of elsewhere. Travel to a world where things are different.”

“But not idyllic.”

Eddie’s eyebrows pull together. 

“No. If these campaigns were just… the bad guys are defeated by a mighty sword that you and you alone always happen to have on you, that’s not a campaign. That’s a circle jerk.”

“The idea is to be challenged. To fight for something.”

“Right. To adventure. Beat the odds.”

“And you can’t do that alone.”

“Well, you can. I think that’s called, like, writing a book.” 

“Ohh-kay, Eddie…”

“No, no, no, I mean,” Eddie shakes his head, planting his elbows on the table top, “Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the thrill of the unknown? Of not knowing what the other characters are gonna do, or what sick twist the dastardly, brilliant DM is gonna pull out next?”

He’s on one now, so you don’t stop him. Eddie’s eye takes on that mercurial shine, the same one he had while he was cruise directing the campaign. You wonder when he got like this—got bit by the God complex bug. Here, he could dare people to defy him when he’d been the defiant one his whole life. 

You think about a littler him, yearning for escape. 

“It also doesn’t work if everyone wants to be a hero. Too many heroes spoil the stew, okay, so you need to find other, y’know, likeminded weirdos who fall into different alignments. Those alignments only work when they’re played off other characters. Your merry band of outlaws or pirates or underdogs or whoever. You work together, or you betray each other, or you come back together because of some mighty sworn oath and you see your mission through. It’s not about winning or losing, y’know? Whatever happens out there,” he gestures to beyond the barricade of the drama room doors, “doesn’t matter. Whether life’s beating the shit out of them or not, my little acolytes, as you call ‘em, sit at this table and they’re part of something bigger. Something thrilling. Magical. Alchemic. They’re part of–”

“--a team.” You think about a littler him, yearning for people to escape with.

Eddie flaps his ever-animated hands. “Not my phrasing. But.”

“That thread runs through it all,” you say, drawing a line down the center of your notes with the inactive end of your pen, “Teamwork. Belonging. Victory– an escape from the mundane to victory, especially when you can’t find it elsewhere.”

Eddie’s chin rests on the back of his hand as he squints at you. “Sounding a little sportsmanlike there, Lacy.”

“And?”

“Thought you weren’t pulling for the everyman answer.”

“A hook’s a hook’s a hook,” you quirk your eyebrows, “–and, when you put it that way—” 

“When you put it that way.”

“—what really makes you any different from, say, the Tigers?”

“Besides the cult of personality surrounding all jocks–”

“As if you don’t court your own little cult of personality—“

“—we actually win our campaigns.”

You start to retort, then stop. Letting that sink in.

“Oh. Oh, that’s good,” you say, sketching it down. 

“I foresee letters to the editor in your future,” Eddie says, and he’s smug about it. Anything to aggregate the status quo, no matter what the blowback might be. 

No one in their right mind here behaves like him. He just… does whatever he wants.

You find yourself wanting to touch the fence. 

And maybe it’s that you stare at him a beat or so too long, but Eddie shifts his gaze down to the wood grain, flexing his hand. Scabs still marring his knuckles and all. 

“It wasn’t broken or anything, then?” you ask, gesturing to his hand. 

Eddie looks back up with a drag. You can feel what’s coming.

“Oh no, it was shattered,” he tells you, eyes-wide earnest and lying through his teeth, “My bones just heal super fast. My mom, she ate a shit ton of canned spinach when I was in ute.”

“Right, the calcium—”

“Nah. Rare botulism side effect,” he shrugs like, whaddaya gonna do!

Dumbass. 

“Rare Botulism Side Effect is a good album title.”

“I’ll tell the guys.”

Silence falls again, and if you reach around, there’s something close to normalcy in there. Among the spikes and confusion. 

“Um,” Eddie’s face contorts into a tiny cringe, “I found out what the… what the prank was, by the way. I obviously wasn’t here to witness the whole masterpiece theater of it all but– but Ronnie told me.”

A tight and ugly feeling constricts your chest. You look away, nodding through a grimace. You’d opened your locker with the practiced caution of someone diffusing a bomb since that whole incident, which sucks as someone who derives real joy from slamming metal doors. 

“Pretty creative bit, huh?” is all you offer. 

“Almost too creative for Hargrove,” Eddie counters, uprighting a fallen miniature with one finger. 

“Are you trying to say I was being hysteric, jumping on his car?” It sounds like you’re offended, but. 

“No,” Eddie meets you right where you’re at with this sparkle framing his stare, “I’m saying it was probably a collaborative effort. You could go seek even more batshit revenge, if you wanted to.”

“And would you be there to stop me before I cut Carol Perkins’ breaks?” 

You can see Eddie biting his tongue between his teeth oh-so-lightly… Saliva catching in the low light. It’s warm in here. Stuffy. 

“Prob–” 

“I miss you.” 

You cut him off in such a harsh, unforgiving way that Eddie feels his words rammed back down his throat. He blinks a couple of times, tempted to shake his head to make sure he heard you right. But there you are, your sight line running clean through him. You couldn’t be talking to anybody else. 

“You do?” His voice is so small that his lips barely move. His lips, teased by his tongue, wetting them. 

“Don’t act brand new. Everything’s harder without you. You have to know that.” 

He gets snagged on the angles in your voice. By without you, he can only imagine you mean since he started giving you the cold shoulder and you started hitching rides in that college dork’s Ford Cortina. And by everything, he can only imagine…

“Lace…”

This is hard. This is horrible. This is uncomfortable and risky and as exposed as you have ever been, but it’s necessary.

“I can’t stand the tension of not being around you,” you say, breath feeling harsher as it speeds past your molars, “And I can’t stand the tension when I’m with you either, with you and wanting to–... so what do I do, Eddie?”

You focus on him, adjusting as if you were looking through the viewfinder of Jonathan’s Pentax. Eddie’s face, bewildered and angelic, with his parted mouth and his honorific glow of the stage lights haloing the frizz in his hair. He looks like something you want to commit to memory, as if to say see?! How could you deny this? 

You rise from your seat, ever the investigator, and bear over him with hands on the table. Cards on the table, too. A genuine question smarts in your mouth, too sour candy you have to spit out. 

“What do I do, Eddie?”

Eddie inhales with a sharp touch as you stand up, inspecting, demanding. He goes to tell you I don’t know… in the meekest of tones but the arch in your eyebrows says don’t you goddamn dare. You terrify him, and you make him dig. 

“Forget it. Forget about all of it,” he breathes, almost tasting your perfume, “We can reset. Blank slate. Pretend like we don’t know each other. Pretend like none of this ever happened. It’d be better. Safer. Easy. Right? We could totally do that. We’ve fooled everybody so far. Even ourselves, into thinking this was… we could...” 

“Fuck you,” you say in a soft rush. 

Eddie only realizes that you’re both smiling when you kiss him. It’s clumsy at first, teeth knocking and everything, your hands winding around his collar and your frigid fingertips finding his neck. The shock of your skin on his, the matchstick crack of your mouth on his propels Eddie onto his motherfucking feet. He leans over you, knocking you into the table as your tongue works its way deep into his mouth. 

You give him an, “Mm,” and if feels like an ascent to heaven.

Sparkles in the static makes the stuffiness evaporate, makes the room come alive. Your legs part to invite him closer to you, your hands faster and more insistent than his are. You pull at the hem of his Hellfire shirt and yank your head back, a string of saliva married between your mouths. 

Fingers are more bold than they were in the nurse’s office, weaving the leather out of Eddie’s belt buckle. A deep ridge etches between Eddie’s eyebrows and his hands are propped in a mid-air surrender. Your eyes, your everything fucking eyes, are weighted with want. And challenge. Because you always do have to get one up on him. 

“Reset this.” You tug at his zipper. “Tell me to stop.” 

“Lacy…” Eddie whispers, watching you pull at the waistband of his boxers with his mouth agape. He’d dreamt about this. Thought about this. His cock about jumps into your hand like you’re Snow White and it’s a goddamned hummingbird. Pen marks on your fingers. “Jesus, y–...”

Eddie’s arms angle up behind his head, like a strung-up marionette, fabric of his shirt ghosting against his nipples in the stretch. This only makes him angle his hips further into you, eyelids flickering and his blood breaking the speed limit on its descent. Fuck, and then you fucking touch him– fingertips along the length of him, featherlight and goading. 

Eddie’s groan is broken, half-caught in his nose. You’re looking at him like he’s a bad puppy, like you’re teaching him a lesson in scolding masking adoration. You’re beautiful and he wants to tell you so, but it all comes out in a whimper. Your hand closes around his cock, thumb brushing rii-iii-iight along the ridge of his head.

“Tell me to stop,” you echo yourself, and you’re fascinated that it comes out sounding like you know what you’re doing. You don’t. You’ve never been thrust into a net of feeling like this, never had anyone look at you the way Eddie is now– like he’d throw himself on a bed of open flames for you, so long as you kept touching him. It’s drunkard-making. It’s a full headrush. The gradual glisten of his reddening head looks delicious to you. 

“Tell me to s–”

Grip tightens around him and Eddie moans from right in his sternum, his arms dropping to cradle around your head. He can’t believe he’s doing this, he can’t believe he’s fucking doing this but–

“Stop,” he gasps, fingers winding in your hair. His entire spinal cord is begging him to buck into your hand, your mouth, your anything, but he steels himself. “Stopstopstop, Lacy. Fuck– fuck.” 

Your eyes widen, cheek in his palm. “Really?” Said in the most painful, the most misread did I do something? lilted tone. Your hand doesn’t exactly go slack right away. 

“Yeah. Yes,” Eddie murmurs, eyes screwing closed and opening again, the most manual effort ever put behind a blink. “I c–I didn’t do this right, the first time. This is stupid. This is so stupid.”

And so your hands go, and you feel the anchor of your heart slowly dropping… But Eddie drops his face right down to yours. 

“You deserve… so much more than giving me a handy on school property,” he tells you, and feels almost coherent about it. “Hot as it is. Right out of my… nastiest dreams as it is.” 

Oh. Oh. The corners of your mouth pick up as Eddie presses his forehead to yours, just about evening out his breathing. 

“Had a premonition about this, didja?” The pressure of his face on yours, his breath on yours, his skin on yours. It’s nice.

“Came to me in a vision,” he grins, crooked. Slides his thumbs along your cheeks and kisses you, slowly and noisily. “I’m a prognosticator.” Tongue half in, half out your mouth. Your heartbeat sinks between your legs. In a good way. “Been known to prognosticate.” 

“Five dollar vocab word,” you mumble into his mouth, can’t help but push your body against him like a cat begging for attention. Eddie’s lips latch to the space right below your ear, a place where his mouth makes you feel like cymbals are clashing in your stomach.

“Come home with me,” he says, the note of pleading in his voice making your legs go numb. His nose and his lips dragging against the side of your neck, begging you to focus on the details and not the bigger picture. “Please.” A swallow. A beat. A ragged whisper. “... I missed you. Too. Y’know?”

“I do…” you sigh into his curls, readjusting his boxers, “actually need a ride… so.”

—

The van ride back to Forest Hills is tight with a tension that makes you both laugh, your mouth still buzzing from the kiss Eddie’d laid on you right before he’d helped you into the passenger seat. Even after he’d insisted you not touch him from the drama room to the parking lot, insisted because, “This thing,” he’d gestured to his crotch, his hard-on painfully zipped into submission, “this thing is gonna get me hauled over by the cops!”

“Don’t laugh!” you scold, mouth straining around the gleaming smile you’re suppressing, body all giddy. Voice ringing clear and high even over the cranked radio. Sabbath, naturally, Vol. 4. Wheels of Confusion sounds like treacle to you, mixed in with his laugh.

“I’m no-oo-oht!” Eddie says, syllables punctuated with chuckles, “I just– I am expressly escorting you back to my place! To, like, have sex with me!” His hands beat against the wheel, teeth sunk into that pretty bottom lip, giddy-upping so hard he actually does swerve the van a little.

“Woah!” you yelp, “Eddie, the road! You should’ve let me drive, you’re feral!” 

Eddie moon eyes at you, reaching over to pinch your chin. “Lace, please don’t get all sore about this, but I will never trust you behind the wheel of this van. She’s a delicate piece of machinery and you would drive her like it’s the demolition derby.”

Narrowed eyes and all, you kind of have to concede. You’ve never been the best behind the wheel, a road rageaholic, and if you were to add feeling as frisky as you do now on top of that sundae… you press Eddie’s DM binder into your lap a little harder. Down, girl. He doesn’t help, thumb stroking your chin and everything. 

“This is suh-rreal.”

“Stop zooming out so hard or I’m not gonna have sex with you!” You’re kidding. You’re so completely kidding. If he doesn’t touch you someplace lower than your neck soon, you’re going to disintegrate. 

But Eddie pauses. “Like, you don’t. Have to.” Panicky, freezy. Hastily pulling on his good guy hat. “You don’t– by the way. It’s whatever you want. Call timeout at any time. I know I’ve been kinda–”

“Eddie.” 

“...you still want to though, right?”

The giggling dies down as you edge closer and closer to your respective trailers, darkness washed over them like a swathe of dark blue paint. The lights in both trailers are out. Nobody home. Wayne, something about the weekend, something about overtime. Your mom… who knew. She’d been moving around in shadows more so than usual lately.

Everything out there is dimmed, except you two. Eddie doesn’t waste a second once the motor shuts off and the radio is silenced; he slams the driver door shut but the teensiest knot of hesitation tightens in your stomach before he reaches the passenger door. 

And then he reaches the passenger door, gathering you out of it and pushing you up against the side of the van. Snapping you out of it instantaneously using the bare force of his mouth against yours. 

“Eddie…” mumbled, your lips barely unstuck.

“Sorry. Shit, sorry. I just really like kissing you.” 

Something pops in your chest; he’s… Jesus, he’s so sweet. Coal-eyed and excitable and lovely, kissing you with nothing left to spare.

“Hey. Redirect,” you shiver, his fingertips pressing into your waist. “Come to my place.”

Eddie casts a wide glance back toward your double-wide. The forbidden castle. “Your… y–are you sure?”

“Sure that my bedsheets are cleaner than yours, yes.”  

He murmurs, “Bedsheets,” with a darkened gaze and a grunt. Bedsheets. You wanted him in your bedsheets. “Get your key. Get your key. Get your key before me and my dick have a shared brain hemorrhage.” 

That new lock doesn’t stick at all, thank god. 

Eddie, ordinarily, would nosily register all of his surroundings– he had an extremely barebones idea of your place, cast mostly in darkness like this, from that first night he’d driven you back from the fallout at Harrington’s. But he’s too busy nosily exploring your throat with his tongue, recording and archiving every breathy sound you make as you tug him toward your bedroom. 

Cardboard boxes still trip you up a couple times. Did you ever unpack, or what?

You break from his heady kiss, vision doubling, taking in a lungful of air as you push Eddie through the door. Spine flattens against it as it shuts, the noise drawing a little bit of sobriety into the room. You reach to hit the floor lamp on and your bedroom is illuminated in a soft, orange glow, a scarf thrown over the bulb to diffuse light. A half-effort to make you forget where you were sometimes. It works; the edges of everything softens, which is such a contrast to the definitive presence that he is.

Eddie’s chest is heaving. He attempts to get his bearings but he can barely get his eyes off of you, squirming ever-so-slightly, ever-so-sexily against the door. Like you’d captured him.

Lips swollen, watching you watch him from the door, he turns a little shy and turns to look at the ephemera around him instead. 

He’s standing in your bedroom.

You’re far more cluttered than he expected you to be. 

He expected pressed sheets and a pristine dressing table, like a prison cell designed by a set dresser from Dynasty. 

Well, that’s wrong, actually. He expected that of the Lacy people thought you were.

On the walls are a couple of tear-outs from the Rolling Stones he’d helped you liberate from your porch in Loch Nora, a mission you’d bought him breakfast for but didn’t have to. But mostly, every surface in the room is covered in piles. Piles of books, records, tapes, pens, jewelry, nail polish. And the clothes. They hung from everywhere, bursting out of your tiny closet space like bodies trying to escape. 

It’s confused in here; feels like someone who has unearthed parts of herself that she hasn’t been able to organize yet. Eddie wants to comb through it like a collector at a rarities market, he thinks, running a finger along the spine of a porcelain cat that sits on your dresser. 

“Place is filthy, cheerleader.”

“You’d know about mess, freak.”

The only really neat, clear space is, fortunate for tonight’s entertainment purposes, the bed. 

As he’s sliding his jacket (jackets, plural) off, Eddie’s eye travels to the window. 

“Did you fix your blinds?” he asks, pivoting back and forth on his heel. 

“My blinds?” you parrot. The blinds that had been broken when you moved in. The ones that sure were shuttered now. You’d made a point to fix them with whatever was left out of your first paycheck from the Bookstore. “How’d you know about my blinds?”

He could’ve lied, if he caught himself quicker. If he didn’t straighten up his back like someone had snapped him to attention. “Uuh.” 

It dawns on you like a flashlight in the eyeballs. “Were you… watching me, Munson?”

Not spying, mind. Not peeping. Watching. Eddie sinks down to sit on the edge of your bed, because whether or not he’s ever going to get to be here again kind of hangs in the balance right now. 

“That. Dep…ends. What do you,” Please don’t kick him out. Please don’t kick him out. Look at the line of your fucking body as you round on him, staring him down like you want him for dinner. Christ, he hopes you want him for dinner.

Eddie swallows roughly, tone bumpy, face a dime store Halloween mask of nonchalance. Paper thin. “What do you think about that?”

Fact is, he’d subsisted on a couple of very guilty glimpses of you. Catching sight of the lines of your bare back and taught shoulders would keep him in jerk-off material for a week, just thinking about kneading out your knots and undoing your bra clasp with his teeth. 

Eddie felt positively Victorian about it. Maybe you’d flash an ankle at him next and he’d be institutionalized for hysterics. 

You look at him with the same pinpoint as you did earlier. Like you’re studying him. And then you edge closer, closer, nudging his knees apart. Echoes of the nurse’s office. 

But this isn’t the goddamn nurse’s office. You’re not straining to adapt to the element of surprise. You know that the breath Eddie takes, shuddering and wondrous as you tilt his chin up to look at you, is a sound you want on repeat for as long as you can bear to hear sounds. 

“They’ve blinded men for that, y’know? Before.”

Eddie can’t answer. Just let out a huh! as your fingers trace his jaw, thumb brushes his lip. His hands squeeze the curve of your ass, fingers beg into your thighs as he watches you, dumbstruck. His tongue unconsciously presses to the tip of your thumb and he hears your breath hitch.

A sustained shock travels up your neck.

“I mean, was it worth it?”

“Was it w… Lacy.” Eddie’s hands have breached the hem of your skirt and with a groan, his face burrows into the silken fabric of your shirt, like he’s trying to nudge it off with his nose or his mouth. Fingers are working mindlessly to loosen some article of clothing from your body and it makes you feel buzzy and trancelike. “Don’t ask stupid questions. I might have fuckin’ carpal tunnel because of you.”

Jesus. He makes you feel so…

Desired. Needed. You’ve never felt that way before, and you don’t quite know how to navigate it. So your buttons start coming undone with the work of one hand, the other shoving Eddie by the shoulder to lean back on your bed. 

Eddie, here, among all your things. Disparate in your shabby little dollhouse, looking at you like you just swallowed the sun. 

Your shirt comes off, and Eddie, in a game of match point, tugs his off too. Pause comes over the both of you. You’d seen him shirtless before; shower-bare in his trailer when the first security breach happened, a crack in the containment whatever you were pretending your relationship to each other was–affable enemies, irritated acquaintances. He’d looked at you like an animal cornered, tendons tense under his tattooed skin and you’d wanted to drag a finger or two down the center of his chest. 

You didn’t, though. You’d sniped, asked where the cigarettes were. 

This is all one big case of making up for lost time.

You’ve been looking at him so long, bra strap slipping off your shoulder, that Eddie leans forward. As if to come get you. 

Remember me? I’m real. You can touch me. Touch me, please.

His warm arms pull you to him, pull you onto the bed, pull you against his lips. It’s gentler there; not as furtive. It says, hi, I’m here. Your arms, tugging him closer as he eases you beneath him say, good, I’ve been waiting. Eddie brushes his nose against yours, you laid down with your hair fanned out on the plush comforter. 

Both your pulses must have stuttered at the same time.

His smile is serene but you can feel his forearms trembling. “I feel like I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

“Don’t,” you tell him, very quietly while his hand nervously tries to find the zipper on your skirt, “I just got you back.”

Your hips lift to help him and you’re wiggling the thing off and you’re wiggling your tights off and he’s thrashing his jeans off only to land back between your parted legs with bouncing recoil from the mattress. Laughter biting in one another’s mouths. The nerves are teeming off him in waves and it makes you want to kiss him all over. 

The feeling housed in your body is different; not jittery, but struck somehow. This doesn’t feel like the way it usually feels, the way it does when you disappear into spare rooms at parties or the shadow of Skull Rock or hitch your leg up against the center console of someone’s shitty car. It doesn’t feel rote, like you’re doing it to stack up experience points– that is a Dungeons and Dragons term you found particularly interesting. How many bad tongue kisses had you accepted just to feel like you’re progressing, instead of waiting for someone who wants to taste you like Eddie does? 

Your bodies caged together, you feel the eager, hard, tragically clothed line of him rub against your center. Eddie manages to free your bra clasp on the first try, which you almost goadingly applaud him for–but he cuts you short with a bewitched stare, his lovely, hot mouth laving over your nipple as he slips the fabric away. It tears the first real moan from you, your back arching into his kneading fingers as his tongue curves over your tightening bud. 

Eddie can’t believe what he’s hearing. He can barely see straight, but he’s trying to commit every second of this to a glorious Technicolor memory, sound and image capturing working overtime. The sound that comes from your beautiful, balmy mouth sounds fresh out the packet–like you’d never made it for anyone before. The look of suppressed surprise on your face confirms as much and Eddie feels like he might explode. 

He, too, has no idea what he’s doing but he can’t help his hips from jerking into you as he plays on. Playing with your nipples, remembering that making them glisten with his spit will make you whimper, and so will kissing the center of your sternum. He’s watching wide-eyed and fascinated as your brow furrows and your legs tighten around him. He’s a wonderful student, when he wants to be.

Eddie is throbbing, and there’s too much cotton and lace between you. 

There’s also this other thing, and it comes out of him like word upchuck as you try to tease his boxers down around his hips using only your feet. 

“I oughta tell you,” Eddie whispers, voice all raspy, all boyish with his hair tickling your collarbone, “I’m, uh. I’m not good at this.”

“At what?” He’s got one hand roaming over your chest, the other making indents in the meat of your thigh. It feels like he’s holding your breath right in his hands.

A new shade of pink rises high in Eddie’s already straining cheeks. He really doesn’t want to have to use his words to spell it out. “Thiii-iiss.”

Oh. A rivulet of cold realization runs through you. Nicole. Cass. Girls daring themselves to get near to him. Experience points. The great freak experiment project. 

“This isn’t that.” Your hands hold his chin, perhaps a little roughly, to make sure he’s listening. And Eddie is, breath baited. You press your forehead to his like he pressed his forehead to yours. “It’s not.”

He’s really about to ask you, what is it, then? but that feels like something you can work out later. Eddie lets you tug at his lips and you let him tug at your panties, arching up so you can wiggle them down your legs. His eyes cast to the downy hair at your mound, and it’d usually occur to you to apologize for your unshaven legs, as if it mattered. 

But the way he regards you doesn’t call for that; it calls for you to open up for him. Spread.

A rough pad of a finger runs along your slit, feeling the generous drip that’s gathered, and Eddie moans as your breath hitches into an animalistic, “hahh!”-- he’s edging down your body to bury his face there. He wants to feel you, smell you, taste you. You tense at the sudden contact of his palms pressing your thighs open, his nose against your clit and he feels it. A jolt of worry passes through him. Did you not want that? “Sorry–”

“Don’t– no, Eddie, don’t stop,” you strain, laugh a little, “You just… surprised me. Keep– keep surprising me. Please.” 

Shockwaves break through you as he gingerly offers his tongue. And more, and more, until he’s lapping at you with a vigor and no real direction. You dig against him, made speechless by the building ache in your core.

In your fantasies, you hadn’t anticipated him being so giving–so eager to please and explore. Like all things, this moment projected itself in your head with the hard edges of some imagined cockiness, Eddie telling you to spread your legs and you, nymphlike and fluid and still somehow holding all the indiscriminate ‘power’, doing so. 

But this? This is soft and messy and spitty and real. Eddie is drooling and babbling into your pussy with the uncalculated effect of someone who has improvised his whole life and it’s tearing you at the seams. A satisfying little rip, every keen movement he makes.

You know when you’re close to climax, that familiar feeling of your cunt suckling at nothing, but it doesn’t feel as jagged as the first time he brought you there. Urgently, you tug at his hair, claw at his shoulders, begging for his attention. 

“Eddie,” you gasp and his hands flex around your thighs at the sound of his name in your mouth. It’s yours, he wants to tell you, rutting heedlessly into the mattress from his position between your legs, keep it! Please! “Eddie, Eddie– come here, come to me.” 

Your velveteen voice summons him, his face glistening from the exploration of you. Embarrassment threatens to ping at you, but it flames into want, seeing how wet and obscene he looks. That’s all from you? 

Eddie does as he’s told, heart pounding– and the sensation of fabric dragging against the raw tip of his cock nearly makes him pass out. 

“Fuck! Fuck, you–” he stammers as your hand pulls his heavy length free, balls tightening under your firm touch, “N-not fuck you, obvi-ously, but–hunh–okay, kinda fuck you…”

Eddie’s lips fold against yours as he attempts, with shuddering arms, to brace himself over you. He whines at your dexterity, swiping his head against your entrance. The wetness from him, the wetness from you– the sheer impact of sensation slices clean through him. It’s not a tactic, you’re not teasing; you’re angling to get him inside you. You need to get him inside you, your entire body is begging for it. 

“Baby, please, please, I’m not gonna last–”

“Who said you had to?” you ask, voice a drop of dark syrup. Just for him. “Who said you had to?”

The earnestness in your eyes gives Eddie pause– for all of a pulsating second. 

“I want you… inside. Don’t you want to feel me?” you ask with real conviction, thumb swiping over his moistened head in a way that makes his vision go galactic. 

Eddie yanks your hand away, kissing roughly it, nailing it beside your head as he tries to ease into you. 

“Want? It’s all I want–fuck, it’s all I fucking think about, Lacy–huhh–”

His first attempt results in a gasp of pain– the sting, the stretch, it’s a little much a little fast. The sharpness has you wincing and has Eddie searching your face with an arrested kind of guilt.

“Y–shit, baby, are you–”

“I’m okay,” you recover, hand steadying on his flushed cheek. “Just–slower. Ease it in. You’re– you’re pretty remarkable, Eddie.” 

“Remarkable?” he mumbles against your cheek, focused and slowly lining his head against your entrance. “Really?”

“Prodigiou—ss, uhh–fuck!” Whispered swears come streaming from you as he sinks right into the velvety constraints of your cunt. 

Your eyes roll right back, mouth tipping open and the grip of you arresting around him makes him cry out into your chest. 

Eddie’s cock is long and heavy and thick, constricted to the point where you can nearly feel every ridge of him. It hurts, the stretch of him aches, but it’s delicious–pinned and sweetly painful.

“Prodigious–is a five dollar–fuckin’--vocab word–” he strains, lifting his hips ever so slightly– you’re clutched onto him so tight that you move with him. Eddie open-mouth groans against your neck. “Lacy, Jesus, you’re so tight–you feel so good–how the fuck do you feel so good? Who invented you?!” 

There’s a tinge of a giggle in your moaning, which doesn’t let up. Eddie’s voice rings out like a church bell, making one slow stroke inside you, then another. Then another, then another, picking up speed, groans chorusing into the hollow of your neck around the lewd sound of his flesh slapping against yours. The sound alone brings you close to cumming. “Oh, pleasepleaseplease, fuck, Lace, I’m g– fuck, I’m–”

The way Eddie’s hands are carving permanent marks into your hips, the way his movements are halting, you get the idea that… “You holding out on me?” you ask him, short of breath around your panting but demanding still, “Don’t you dare–don’t you dare.” 

“Lacy, uhh– please, ’mgonnafucking–”

“Cum for me? Are you?”

Your fingers tug at his curls so you can look at him as his face tenses. Eddie’s hair is flattened across his head, face glimmering with exertion. You drag your lips against his forehead, the salty flavor of sweat breaking across your tastebuds.

“For you, for you, shit, only for you–only for you, only fucking ever–fuck–”

His dark eyes have been blown out since he pulled you to the mattress, eyelids flickering over his irises as he pistons into you with speed that hurts but you love it. 

You barely hear yourself beginning a prayer of dirty little succors, but there it is, easing him through his orgasm as he shudders a load between your legs. “You feel like nothing on this fucking earth, you know that, you’re so good for me...” The tension breaks with one final rasping cry, his expression dissolving into a softness as he exhales a lungful, neck stretching to lean into your touch. 

A couple of half-cracked dry sobs escape him. 

Looking up at you, cradled against your shoulder, Eddie’s cursing himself for every second he’s wasted not doing this with you. 

And you, looking down, are stroking his damp curls from his forehead and cursing yourself. You’re going to burn the world down for this boy.

“Lacy. You–”

And then, y’know, the fucking front door of the trailer clicks. 

Little too much deja vu for your liking these days! 

Immediately, you seize upwards, jolting a confused Eddie with you– which breaks your heart, in a way, seeing him darty-eyed and shocked out of his bliss so fast. 

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck.” These are not like your prior ‘fucks’, he can register through the haze of his post-nut state. These are bad fucks. So he responds in turn, “Fuck?”

“My mom!” You hiss, naked and scrambling. Panic crests on you like a wave, a wave that should have been an orgasm mind fucking you, and your fingernails tear at the comforter beneath you. 

“Under, under, gogogo!”

Because if there’s one thing your mother, in all her former-center-of-attention glory, loves to do? It’s enter a room uninvited. 

Case in fucking point–

“Lacy?” A perfunctory knuckle rap from the other side of the door, just as you manage to hide Eddie by shoving him behind you and tenting the comforter around you both. You’re praying to anything with a little more gusto than God that it works. And then, enter your mother and her cloud of Shalimar. 

Soon as she opens the door, you can tell something is terribly off. 

She’s smiling, face as serene as the Virgin Mary. Usually she’s got a sharpened dagger of a glare, just for you. Two of you haven’t been spending much quality time lately, see. 

“Lacy! What–” your mom’s brow knits, but it’s a look of amusement. Which freaks you out. She’s looking at your just-fucked-by-Eddie-Munson hair, isn’t she? The mascara that’s surely streaking down your face? Does she know? Can she sense he’s in this very room? “--what are you doing?”

“Napping. Crying. What does it look like?” you snap, hiking the comforter up a little further and begging that she doesn’t notice Eddie’s incriminating clothes strewn across the floor. 

Eddie, for his part, is not breathing. He’s crouched behind your bare ass, a position he’s in no rush to get out of, arms caged around your thighs like a petrified child. This is almost funny–or would be, if he wasn’t scared shitless of everything your mom would definitely do to him if she discovered him buck ass naked in your bed.

Dreamily, Eddie reminds himself that he’s buck ass naked, in your bed. He smiles into one of your cheeks and considers how biteable it is.  

“Well. Wrap it up,” your mom says, tone still light, and you twinge at the irony. At least you’re on the pill. “I have a surprise.”

Slam. Door shuts. Your lamp wobbles with the force of it and Eddie emerges from behind you, like a freshly-fucked groundhog. 

“She sounds happy,” he mumbles, arms sliding up around your waist. 

You want to kiss the mirth out his mouth but you have to shove him back behind you first– cue your mom, doubling back through the door. Jesus!

“What was that?”  

“Nothing!” you say, shortly and breathily because Eddie nips at your fucking ass cheek back there. “Just–you sound happy, mom!”

She shakes her head at you, a smile curving her tulip colored lips, like a mom from a detergent commercial. Y’know, were it not for the whole Italian widow getup she’s alway sporting. 

“Get on with it already.”

You count to a full five before you even let out a breath, snapping your attention back to reality and the fact that Eddie Munson is very naked in your very bed. 

“You gotta get out of here,” you tell him, and you want to kill yourself about it. 

The both of you balance on your knees. Eddie tugs you into him with shining, begging eyes. Standing almost at full attention again, already.

“Jesus, that thing’s impressive.”

Eddie’s fingers wind around the hair at the nape of your neck. Despite the brief jolt of fear from your little interruption just now, he’s all romance–totally suckered, rose-colored glasses, the whole bit. Thoughts not exactly creating a straight line just yet, but he doesn’t care. He’s had his hands all over you for the better part of an evening now, and he doesn’t want to let up just yet. It might kill him. It might kill him. 

There’s no unringing this bell between the two of you, and he knows that. 

And you knew it first, because you know everything first. 

“You sure?” he hums into your sweet lips, “You absolutely positive? Because I could be real, real quiet…”

Eddie’s also thrilled by the fact that he seems to know instinctively what to do to turn you on. 

“What if I don’t want you to be real, real quiet?”

You kiss him back, sighing and sliding a single finger down the length of his cock. 

“Lace…” he whimpers to you, his commandant fantasy of being dominant in the bedroom officially, officially escorted out back and shot. He wants to please you too badly. Be the jester in your court that makes you cackle and makes you cum.

“Lacy!” a shrill yell comes from the hall. Your eyes snap open, Eddie’s dancing with amusement and yours heaving with alarm. 

“Fuck, okay, go! Window!”

Another scramble, you tossing jeans and socks and the rest of Eddie’s uniform at him while you clean yourself off, try to pull a robe around yourself. A stray thought occurs to you as you watch him trip over himself, ripping the hole in his jeans a little further–you hate what he wears, but you love it on him. And off him. And…

You yank up those blinds and unlatch the window with a faint smile. Nothing about you two makes any conceivable sense–

Eddie starts out the window, shirt barely pulled down his torso and his shoes in his hands, then turns to hook you to him by the elbow. Smiling with the full blush of his mouth, he kisses you. Firm and knowing and whole. 

–except that. That makes sense.

The pad of his finger clears a lock of rumpled hair from your forehead. 

“To be continued?” Eddie searches your face, with those crazy dark brimming universes of eyes. 

Your heart is leaping in your ribcage. You nod sharply, gleaming back at him. 

“I’m comin’ back for you, Lacy Doevksi,” he tells you with all the brazen confidence he can muster. “And I am gonna go down on you until I drown. On pain of death, I swear it.”

“Go!” you command, and regret it as soon as he drops out of your bedroom window. Eddie starts a cant toward his trailer across the way. 

“Faster!” you hiss, just as an excuse to watch him. 

He pivots mid-jog, hair swinging wildly, his hand grabbing at his crotch. 

“You try runnin’ with a hard on! Witch!” 

It’s far, far, far too quiet once he’s escaped through the front door of his trailer.

It's not fair, you think. You should be basking in some kind of afterglow, sharing a stupid cliché cigarette, you feel like you should be... celebrating this.

You shouldn't have to keep running away from each other.

The warmth the two of you had created, through mere physical friction or just how much you… you like each other, rapidly dissipated into a chill as you advance through your bedroom door, to deal with the other thing.

Surprise, you thought, What kind of goddamn surprise could mother o'mine have for me? Did she boost a bank? Did she win the Indiana Sweepstakes? I don’t want to know about any g–

“Lorelei.”

The universe has a way of shoving you back in place when you get ahead of yourself.

You don’t just stop in your tracks, you’re repelled a half-step backwards. The centrifugal force urging you away, telling you there’s an immediate threat in the heart of your home. 

No one uses that name anymore. Not even him. Not since you were fourteen.

“Daddy.”

Your father sits at the shabby dinette that you and your mother don’t even share meals at, sits there in the suit he was sentenced in. A rich navy pinstripe, chosen because gray would have been too flashy and black would admit defeat. “Of course!” your mother had said, marveling at his ingenuity. But the pantomime of his defense was wearing real thin on you; whispering at school had started growing louder and louder and you were finding more and more chips in the porcelain of your father’s worldly facade. 

“Why not compromise. Wear charcoal,” you’d said, leaning against the kitchen counter in Loch Nora, drinking orange juice from your parents’ wedding crystal as the movers taped up your boxes, “You can plead guilty and still look smug about it.”

Your father had smacked the flute from your hand and it shattered in forty thousand pieces on the ground. You didn’t move, didn’t breathe, because you knew if you did, you’d be next. 

Navy it was. And navy it is. He sits at that dinette like he’s expecting white jacket service. You swear even more gray has started glimmering through his hair. Flashy. 

“Should I ask how you’re here?” you say, stiff and scared. Your mother, standing at your father’s shoulder, tuts and sighs. Can’t you just enjoy this? she silently bemoans.

“Good behavior,” Ray smiles, “Can’t say the same for you. Can I, Lorelei?”

“Principal Higgins called,” your mom chimes in, “Or rather, that odious little secretary called. You think you could get a Saturday detention and they just wouldn’t tell us?”

“That’s why he’s here?” You laugh a little, inwardly. “With all due respect, Daddy, that’s a terrible reason to break out of prison.”

To your surprise, your father chuckles too. Makes your blood run cold, obviously. 

“Y’know, I really didn’t anticipate this for my homecoming, I gotta tell you,” he says, shifting in his seat and plucking a cigarillo from his jacket pocket. “I mean, honestly. I thought, a nice bottle of Beaujolais–”

“We’re fresh out,” you gesture to your cringing mother.

“--a dinner at, Christ, Enzo’s, since that’s where our budget is at now,” his lighter flicks and ignites the end, “But no. I have to sit here and cross-examine my daughter about… fraternizing with the lowest of criminal elements.”

The lack of self awareness here is off the fucking charts. It makes your blood pressure spike.

“Take a seat, Lacy,” your father so gallantly gestures to the vinyl backed kitchen chair in front of him, “and tell me all about Eddie Munson.”

Chair drags aggressively against the linoleum. You sit, and swear that the next time you’re caught off guard by anyone’s father, it’d better be God himself. 

This bit is getting old.

author's notes: so i'm not fucking around when i say i need to hear everyone's thoughts on what just happened immediately. i really do think that happenings-wise, this was my favourite chapter to write thus far. felt cathartic, from the al munson to the hellfire article of it all. anyway. onto the good stuff - like i feel like everyone who reads this series will have clocked this but of course i lifted the garlic slicing right out of goodfellas. i just think it's a perfect al munson attribute to have - al munson kicking out the jams instead of picking up his kid i know that's right - our dukes of hazzard ref is a tribute to my own personal al munson fancast - not that paris, texas but this paris, texas. (and you know when lacy eventually gets eddie to watch it he CRIES. they both cry) - i should probably put the repo man trailer in here as well - speaking of another fancast! the manager of forest hills trailer park is, of course, to me, in my heart, carl rodd. - the best song off of abbey road by the beatles, fight with the wall - SHOULD WE CALL THE MAYOR - lacy promising eddie that he can ride circles around her on a motor bike is a reference to hunter s thompson being ambushed on canadian television by one of the hells angels he wrote about in his book. dude rolls onto set on his hog. it's crazy. - eddie is kinda gossamer coded - cow tipping? at mccorkle's? anybody? our love is god - god wheels of confusion is kinda horny sounding huh i think that this might be the shortest references recap so far in the series?? one of them anyway. probably because i wrote 4k words of FILTH. anyway, thank you all so much for continuing to read this fucking thing. we're almost at the end of this part of the story which is wild to me. now let me get on your ass and remind you that REBLOGGING FICS IS ESSENTIAL TO YOUR FIC WRITERS HEALTH. SO ARE COMMENTS AND SO ARE ASKS so send those pls :) love you hellcats. be well, cats

[memescomicswriting]

It's Nice To Have A Friend

Chapter 4: You Weren't Mine To Lose

Summary: Fate is cruel on how it goes about obtaining its desires. It must be fate, because there is no other explanation for how perfectly molded Y/N and Helaena are to one another. They complement one another like opposite sides of a coin. Where Helaena is shy, Y/N is outgoing. Helaena has a photographic memory. Y/N has emotional inteligence. They have the right temperament to be the missing piece in one another’s lives. Ying and Yang. Then there are the boys. Love them or hate them, they’re there. Even the adults cannot escape the Targaryen chaos, and the fallout doesn’t spare the minors simply because they’re adolescents. Follow how Y/N and those around her carve out lives for themselves amongst the weight of the Targaryen legacy in a modern Westeros.

Word Count: 6.2k

Pairings: Aegon x Y/N, Aemond xY/N, hints of Jace x Y/N, Platonic! Helaena x Y/N, Father Figure! Harwin x Y/N, Mother Figure! Rhaneyra x Y/N, Mother Figure! Alicent x Y/N

Warnings: 18+ you’ve been warned

Lots of profanity, sexual innuendos, drug and alcohol use, boys being stupid jerks, infidelity, divorce, eventual smut

A/N 1: Chapters drop on Thursdays. Please, please, please, please share your thoughts. I wanna hear them. I don't bite, promise! Also, I lied about this chapter being signifigantly shorter. I reodered some parts for the story to flow better. Oops, sorry! This is for my Aemond girlies. My Aegon girlies, you'll have your turn soon.

Sereies Masterlist

Aegon pulled Y/N along by her mitten covered hand. It was winter, a harsh one. They were walking down a secluded trail, as the sun set, and old browning snow blanketed the ground. It was scenic. It was freezing.

“I swear to the gods, Aegon Targaryan, if you dragged me out here for some dumb prank or to try and make a pass at me then I’m going to-” She could see her breath as she huffed at him.

“Do what?” He was giddily mischievous today. Her annoyance only fueled his fun. She’d quit her whining once he revealed their reason for being out in the cold. Until then, he enjoyed her frustration.

“I’ll post that video of your Risky Business impersonation on my throwback Thursday.” It was a smug, looming threat- one she only brought out when she couldn’t think of anything he’d done recently. It was a video of him at thirteen practicing for a costume party. He thought the outfit made him appear cool and mature. That was, until he slid a little too far, lost his footing, and face planted. Y/N was recording for him to review his performance. She saved the video to five different locations before he could fight her for her phone.

Aegon shot her a dirty glare. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.” She tilted her head in that annoying, dareful way that made his skin itch.

“Fine.” He dropped her hand. He continued walking, but backwards so he could face her. “No high for you.” He turned and sped up his pace which forced her into a light jog to follow.

“High?” She questioned. Smoking Ashai root, or Shairo as it was called, was something Y/N brought up to Aegon months ago. As a freshman in high school, she felt mature and wanted to partake in the fun, just like how she now attended the parties. Of course Aegon of all people had a connection. She smelled the bottles of body spray he used to cover the scent.

“Yup.” He popped the word to accentuate his nonchalant persona. “Snitches don’t get prizes.”

“It’s technically not snitching.” Y/N mumbled under her breath. She’d caught up to Aegon by this point and tugged on his arm. “Why do we have to go out this far though? Why couldn’t we have just gone in the backyard.”

“And give Aemond the opportunity to snitch, huh!” He shook his head at her naivety.

“Ugh, fine, but isn’t this far enough?” “Gotta get to the clearing.”

“The clearing?” “You’re a green little girl. What if you crash out after your first hit? Gotta place you somewhere stationary.”

“Fuck you!”

“If that’s how you’d like to repay this kind gesture, I won’t complain.”

They’d stopped at a rather decrepitated set of tree stumps. It was one of the smaller clearings. In a fit of dramatics, Y/N crossed her arms and took a seat like he so rudely suggested.

“Good girl.” This made Y/N roll her eyes. She watched as Aegon took out a long, skinny roll, of what looked like wax paper from his pocket. He held it between his lips as he sparked the lighter, cupping it to secure the flame from the wind. Y/N watched intently. She wanted to know what to do so she wouldn’t look inexperienced when asked at a party. There was something about the way Aegon’s brows knit or his low grumble in annoyance. Y/N’s lips curved into a lazy crescent smile. He was almost endearing. Aegon’s eyes flicked from their half lidded concentration and landed on her. The roll was lit and he was emitting puffs of smoke.

“Have I ever told you how hot you look when you’re speechless, looking up at me with those dopey eyes.” And the moment was gone. Aegon was in a fit of giggles, dodging Y/N’s ire. He waved the roll above her head until she calmed down. Then he handed it over, showing what part to hold to her lips, and directed her to sit.

Y/N inhaled in as he instructed. The smoke burned her throat and lungs as she suckled on the roll. She coughed in little spouts as she tried to hold it down. Smoke poured out her nose by the end.

“Well, you’re definitely part Valyrian.” Aegon settled. “You didn’t choke nearly as bad as I’ve seen and the smoke pouring out your nose made you look like a dragon.”

“I get the purpose.” Y/N was struggling with her release of the second inhale. “But how do you enjoy this part?”

Aegon shrugged. “You just get used to it I guess. It becomes familiar and then kinda comforting.” He took the shairo from her so he could partake as well.

“And then we do what?”

“Relax, enjoy, hangout…”

“In the middle of the woods, when it’s freezing?”

“I’ll admit, it isn’t the most ideal place this time of year, but where would we go? I don’t have a car yet.”

“What about those gummy things I’ve seen people take?”

“Nah, you’re going about it the old school way like the best of us. I would be a poor bad influence if I didn’t give you the full experience.”

Y/N rolled her eyes. That was Aegon’s new thing. Yeah, he was popular in his class. How could he not be? He had all the right clothes, and socials, and the Targaryen status. It was just for his class though. To appear cooler to anyone older and to attract admiration from those younger, Aegon adopted the bad boy moniker. It wasn’t successful with Y/N. She’d seen him cry over animals in movies. He couldn’t appear aloof after that.

“So we just hang out.” She accepted.

“You’re stuck with me.” He mulled it over. “Till we get hungry. Then we rejoin society to raid a fridge.”

Y/N nodded. “Uh, my place. ‘Cause I don’t fancy Alicent’s bird food.”

“Ditto.” Aegon quickly replied.

After that, getting high became their thing. Before that, it was passively scrolling on their phones, but Y/N did that with Helaena as well. No, for the first time Aegon had something only he could do with Y/N. He’d often save up allowance and lunch money for these purchases. His excuse to have her all to himself. He wasn’t sure why he did it. Half the time he didn’t realize he was doing it.

The weather was warmer now and swimming in the lake was a possibility. Y/N was with Helaena for the weekend, but Helaena was indisposed for the moment. One of her insects, or maybe it was an arachnid, was acting strangely. Y/N couldn’t tell the difference, but she’d mumble agreements every now and then to Helena. Really, she was left to lay idle until her friend was done. 

Aegon knocked on the doorframe of Helaena’s room. Helaena glanced at the disturbance but did not acknowledge him. Y/N, however, silently addressed him. Aegon held two fingers up to his lips, their signal. Y/N nodded and hopped off Helena’s bed. She began putting on her sneakers in preparation for the walk ahead.

“I’m gonna go on a quick walk while you finish up.” Y/N spoke to her best friend who waved her off. She figured Helaena had to know what they were going to do, but she really didn’t care so long as it didn’t interfere with her plans.

The pair walked down the stairs as warily relaxed as they could be. They still had that teenage anxiety of being busted by a parent. Much like a drunk person trying to prove they aren’t intoxicated, they were a bit off.

They made it out the door, but not down the driveway. Alicent and Aemond had arrived home from tourney practice. Y/N and Aegon exchanged a look- proceed with caution. Alicent paid little mind to the two cagey teenagers seemingly going on walk. Nothing a teenager should care about was nearby. Yes the lake, but a lake day without proper accouterments wasn’t something society born Alicent could comprehend. Aemond though, he knew better.

He wasn’t oblivious. The thick, weighted smell was easily remembered. No matter the amount of perfume or cologne sprayed, the oder remained pungent. Yes, they could slip past the adults to change, but they almost always encountered Aemond. He didn’t hate the idea of getting high. He wasn’t a prude. It was the intentional exclusion from Aegon and Y/N’s compliance that drew his contempt. He was too young, wouldn’t understand, couldn’t handle it. Well, he was as mature as the rest of them. In some ways, more than Aegon. So it rubbed the wrong nerve. Aegon had something with Y/N that he couldn’t, whether he actively knew it or not. Of course Aemond would never snitch on Y/N. Aegon alone, absolutely. So rather than alerting his mother, he played her to his advantage in a subtler way.

“Mother, since tonight is the live premiere, can we order pizza for supper? I’m sure Heleana and Y/N would appreciate it as well as I.” Aemond’s tone had become rather haughty lately. He always had an advanced grasp on his language skills, but the older he became his readings increased in intensity. Often, it reflected in his superior attitude.

He caught Y/N’s attention with the use of her name. Yes, she’d come over to watch a new Valaryian documentary with Helena and Aemond, but the release was scheduled for tomorrow.

Y/N and Aegon exchanged their confusion. “I thought that was tomorrow night.”

“Oh it is,” Aemond quickly elaborated. “However, the exclusive live exploration of the archeological site is tonight. Father agreed to purchase the viewing rights.”

Smug, that’s how Aegon would describe his brother’s countenance in perceived triumph. Aegon’s eyes narrowed, making it clear that he knew what his brother was up to. Aemond held his own, showing he knew his brother knew and didn’t care.

Before more words were exchanged, Alicent sighed her approval without looking up from her phone. The entire practice she’d sat on the sidelines scrolling reviews for exercise classes and personal trainers. “Whatever you like dear, but I expect you all to eat a healthy bit of salad along with it.”

“Of course, mother.” Aemond held a delightful innocent grin as his mother passed by to enter the house. Once she slipped inside, the facade dropped. Ignoring his brother’s seething, he addressed Y/N directly. “I’ll make myself presentable and then we can set up.” 

“You go make yourself presentable, pretty boy.” Aegon didn’t hide the condensation he felt from his tone. “You can primp all you like while we walk, then you can watch whatever you like.”

Aegon went to take Y/N’s hand and pull her along. The stand off looked rather familiar. Similar to the battles they had as little children over a favored dragon stuffie. This time, Y/N was the toy being tugged from both ends. Much like the stuffend dragon, she felt little say in the battle of wills.

“Oh, but it starts in thirty minutes. Will your walk be that quick?”

“Record it.”

Aemond scoffed. “What’s the point of a live premier if you wait to watch the recording.”

Aegon pulled his free hand down his face in annoyance. “Forty-five minutes of delay and it’ll still be as insufferable as it was forty-five minutes before.”

“Then you miss out on the opportunity to submit inquiries in real time.”

“Oh no, whatever will you do if you can’t be one of thousands to submit the same stupid question about the same stupid rock?”

“It would be nice to participate.” Y/N slowly reclaimed her hand. Lately, she’d become inconsistent with the brothers. One moment she asserted her wants and left it up to them to follow. Another, she was demure and allowed them to go through their tense exchange. Maybe it depended on her reluctance to referee. Maybe she was caught between wanting to satisfy them both. Maybe it was something else.

“We can walk after.” Y/N offered as she gravitated towards Aemond.

Though it was reasonable, Aegon couldn’t allow his brother to be the top choice. “It’s now or never. I’ve got to meet up with Tarbeck and Redwyne later.” It was a lie, he had no plans, but if Y/N wouldn’t comply then he could always summon them and lick his wounds while shit-talking his family.

Aemond now acquired Y/N’s hand. Again, she was the toy being tugged. This time, Aemond was winning the competition by slowly escorting his prize up the front steps. “We’ll walk another time then.”

Y/N gave that apologetic grimace of sympathy that Aegon hated to be on the receiving end of. When he was the one it was directed at, it meant he’d lost. He hated losing, especially to his pompous prick of a brother. He gritted his teeth and groaned through them. He shoved his closed fists into his pockets and refrained from kicking at the grass. He didn’t want Aemonf to have the satisfaction of his temper. “Fine, fine, nerd out with the geeks. When you wanna have fun, maybe I’ll be around.”

Aegon’s angered surrender was enough satisfaction for Aemond. He and Y/N were in the house, so close to the finish line, Aemond allowed the glee to fill his stomach with butterflies. The celebration came too soon.

“Wait,” Aegon slyly feigned his acceptance. “Before I go, let me grab Helaena for you.” Both knew Helaena usually fed her pets around this time. That girl never broke her routines if she could help it.

Aemond hadn’t anticipated his brother having enough composure in his frustration to sabotage his plans. Underestimating Aegon would be his downfall. Helaena was feeding her pets which would take longer than Aemond needed. He also never told Helaena about the live premier, so she’d probably go straight into her drawing until dinner time. That would’ve left him and Y/N alone for over an hour. Aemond couldn’t help the strangled hum he let out. If he stopped Aegon, then it would raise questions he’d rather not answer. The arrogant little scholar couldn’t think of an escape from his own web.

“I’ll feed her little creepy crawlies since asking questions seems so important.” Aegon’s grin was a little too grandiose to avoid Y/N noticing something was up. Though she’d let it slide if nothing else came of it. Aemond recluded into his default lack of expression, signaling on the inside, all he wanted was murder.

“How generous of you, brother.” Aemond swiftly turned on his heel, retreating in the direction of his room. Gratified with his actions, Aegon added a bounce to his step on his way to retrieve Helaena. The lack of escalation allowed Y/N to convince herself it was all nothing.

…

The last party of the summer was as big of a blowout as the first. Maybe more so, because it was the final time a batch of overly privileged teens, who thought themselves invincible, let loose before parting for separate colleges. Y/N’s celebration into adulthood was no different. Helaena attended, though she spent more of her time enjoying the fire than the drinking or drugs. Or maybe she took the drugs and that’s why she enjoyed the fire so much. Aegon was off impressing soon to be freshman college girls with his seasoned university knowledge. Or whatever made it easier to get laid.

Aemond was the only challenge. Yes, he’d gone to parties countless times before. He even drank enough to be enjoyable during the first party of the summer. Somehow, at some point, his attitude towards their parties soured. He was grumpy and giving Y/N a hard time. She’d gotten him out of the house at least.

“If I need to be inebriated to enjoy their company, then I shouldn’t be expected to suffer their presence at all.” Aemond argued, but loyalty followed Y/N as they walked.

“You say that, but maybe it’s you who needs the alcohol to behave.” She quipped back, but he stopped and gave her a look that would intimidate many others. Not her. “Come on, Aemond, please? It’s the last time we can party together before I leave for school.”

Aemond crossed his arms and haughtily smirked. “You’ll be back.”

Y/N groaned. “Please, I’ll owe you a favor for your last party.”

Appearing reluctant, Aemond accepted her terms. Gaining his obedience always pleased Y/N. They made their way down the trail to the designated party spot. Everything was up and running. Hard liquor flowed from stolen and or purchased bottles. Many were over eighteen now; the legal age in Westeros. Someone even managed to drag a keg out. 

Y/N made a drink for herself and Aemond. For a while, they managed to stay together. Everything was just right for Aemond. Aegon was out of sight, out of mind. Jace found himself a Haroway or Hillden to entertain himself. Helaena was somewhat occupied. He had Y/N all to himself. She never contemplated how his arm draped over her shoulder or when he tugged on her waist. It was just Aemond, the boy who used to drag her by her hand to show whatever new book or poster he bought. Aemond, the boy who often fell asleep on her shoulder during long car rides. Aemond, her best friend's little brother. His touch meant little to her, but her touch meant everything to him.

Eventually, she slipped out of his grasp. She’d gone to refill her drink and stayed away; not intentionally. Aemond didn’t notice at first. He wasn’t irritated when he did. He had others he didn’t loathe talking to, but after a while he found himself longing to be near her again.

Y/N was a social butterfly. Like Aegon, she was at ease conversing with her targets. She’d gone group to group and addressed those she wanted to, but landed on Alana Rogar and Lance Tyrell. Both looked so tasty, she could eat them then and there for all to watch. She hadn’t a preference for either. If so lucky, she’d take both. Her flirting wasn’t subtle, but neither was theirs. When Alana leaned in and melted her mouth to Y/N’s, she felt like a lightning struck wildfire. Alana parted and did the same with Lance. Finally, Y/N and Lance greedily devoured each other. They only hummed in agreement when Alana announced she’d bring her off road dragonback to pick them up. Then they could have some real fun.

Y/N and Lance had no shame. Each groped at the other over and under clothing. Both had a need they wanted filled, and both were more than willing to help the other. Hands under shirts, red patches forming on collar bones, and the two walked in tandem towards the trail where Alana would pick them up. Lance pushed Y/N up against a tree. She preened at his roughness and returned the favor by grinding herself against his tented pants. Just as she was losing herself in the satisfying rock of their hips, she lost the feeling.

Lance stumbled steps back. Y/N opened her eyes to see Aemond be the force that pulled him. Somehow the angles of his face were sharper, casting deeper shadows, and appearing menacing.

“What the fuck man?” Lance tossed Aemond’s commanding hand off his shoulder. Aemond retaliated by pushing Lance further and standing between him and Y/N like a platinum haired wall.

“Think you're some caveman tough guy here to snatch up the girl.” Lance’s fists balled as he dared to be face to face with Aemond. The adrenaline from the carnal encounter was shifting to something lethally primal.

Aemond laughed maniacally for being disturbingly restrained. It further enraged Lance. “No, but I know a perverted bastard when I see one.”

Lance took a swing on Aemond. They were practically blended into the trees. Y/N couldn’t expect back up when separating the two. Aemond dodged and threw his own punch. Less intoxicated and more grounded, Aemond’s swing was faster, harder, and it connected. Lance didn’t stand a chance. He fell backwards onto his ass and rolled further back from the momentum of the fall. Aemond was very pleased with himself.

Y/N snapped out of her shock and went to help Lance up, to Aemond’s disapproval. She tried reassuring Lance by suggesting they just walk away, but he wasn’t interested anymore.

“No, this shit isn’t worth it.” He shrugged Y/N off. “Alana’s getting her four wheeler and I don’t have to joust some douche for her pleasure.” Y/N protested, but Lance stormed off to hide his wounded pride.

Y/N watched him leave. Enraged tears welled in her eyes. Like an electric current, the fury pulsed through her body, and in a quick pivot she slammed Aemond’s chest. It was his turn to be sent stumbling. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you.” Y/N roared. Aemond allowed her to push him again. “What in the seven hells is wrong with you!” She punctuated each of her last words with a shove.

Aemond caught her fists the final time and ended her physical tirade. “Lance Tyrell is a dickhead and you would have regretted going off with him.”

“Who gave you the right to make that call?” Y/N struggled against him.

“Don’t be stupid, you know I’m right.” Aemond faintly sneered and refused to let go.

Y/N roared. “Aemond.”

“I’m right!” He snapped, matching her volume and intensity. “You shouldn’t be entertaining guys like that.”

Y/N slipped her hands free by tugging downwards in one sharp motion. Her strength surprised Aemond. Her tone lessened in rage but grew in disgust. “That’s not for you to decide.”

Aemond grumbled under his breath. He refused to acknowledge that he indeed had no right to make that decision on her behalf. He wasn’t her father, brother, or boyfriend. Unfortunately, all he was, was Helaena’s younger brother.

Y/N was unsatisfied with his silence. “Why did you do that?” She was exasperated but refused his answer before he could give it. “No piss ass excuse. Why, Aemond?”

Aemond was pushed to his edge. First she dragged him here when he didn’t want to come to begin with, then she abandoned him, finally he finds her dry humping that ass wipe Lance Tyrell. It was more than Aemond could take. He was boiling over and she was at the fuel of his madness.

“I thought you were better than slutting yourself out to any guy who gave you a moment’s attention.” He sneered. “My mistake.” “Fuck. You.” Y/N slapped him. Aemond didn’t reject the hit. It reverberated in the night air. She was going to leave him, but her thoughts were too sharp not to let cut. “You give me your attention and yet I find sleeping with you repulsive. Must not be that much of a slut after all.”

She did her best to keep her head held high and suppress her tears. She didn’t want anyone at the party to make a fuss and ruin their fun. Aemond in turn let his frustrations out by screaming and kicking the dirt.

“You’re going to regret that.” Was all he could sputter out. Or maybe that was all she heard.

…

Time didn’t heal the wound. Yule was… icy. When Y/N and Aemond were forced in close proximity, a chill settled over the space. Eyes shot daggers made of icicles. Everyone noticed the obvious animosity between the two. Few addressed it.

Aegon, Jace, and Luke found humor in it when they could. Always away from Y/N. If she caught their remarks, she’d roast them alive over the Yule log. However, it was open season on Aemond. Sure he’d retaliate, but he’d never let it get out of hand and peak the curiosity of the elder adults. He wanted to continue the facade of the rift being a simple teenage squabble.

Aegon initiated the teasing. He was privy to the depth of the feud. Jace and Luke, sensing an opportunity to taunt the prick, joined in. Y/N would normally disperse the teasing before it got out of hand, but there was a void where Aemond’s best ally used to stand.

Aegon would ask, “Aemond, have you seen Y/N today?” Aemond would stiffen his posture and attempt a withering glare.

His response was always something like “No I haven’t,” or “You know I haven’t.”

Like sharks, Jace and Luke sensed the blood in the water. Aemond was uneasy about Y/N? Keep her around as often as possible. Invite her to partake in things Aemond enjoys. You’re going horseback riding? Let’s round everyone up and ride together.

Little jabs like, “You know who’s good at this? Lance Tyrell.”

“The Tyrell estate has great Yule lights. We should go check them out.”

“Guess who I saw today?”

Another favorite was, “You’ll regret that.” Though it was said in a jovial tone.

All hell broke loose, and the Targaryen estate turned into Thunderdome every time Aemond found a How to Talk to Girls pamphlet amongst his things. The hit list included: under his pillow, on top of his bed, inside the books he was reading, his car, and Vagar’s terrarium. Whichever boy was nearest received his tirade. The adults shrugged it off as boys pulling childish pranks.

…

Come summer break, Y/N, Helaena, and Aegon were due to return from university. Their college set up resided in storage units as their living arrangements differed in the fall. Out of brotherly love and duty- or Alicent’s behest, Aemond volunteered to help Helaena sort her belongings. He assumed Y/N wouldn’t turn down the free help, but gods she was as stubborn as him. Maybe she was prettier than stubborn. She had several well built members of the jousting league assist in moving her boxes. She made a display out of her sugar sweet compliments and feather light touches of gratitude. Aemond wanted to take a flamethrower and torch the world.

He tried to talk to her. She came back to the dorm for one final walk through and Aemond followed her out to her car. There wasn’t anyone or anything to buffer their interaction.

“You can’t stay mad at me forever.” Aemond hollered in her direction. He’d followed her out, but his footsteps hadn’t captured Y/N’s attention. She was unprepared for this. 

Y/N stood at the driver’s door of her car. Her keys tightened in her hands but she refused to face him or climb in the car to drive away. Aemond took the lack of fight as an invitation to approach. He got as far as a hand brushing her shoulder before Y/N became a tempest of withheld rage. “You haven’t given me a reason to forgive you. So I can and I will.”

Aemond scoffed, she was being immature. Or, she was the immature one, to him. “I’ve already apologized. It’s been nine months.”

Y/N’s scowl was one of disbelief. “No!”  He couldn’t be serious. “No you didn’t Aemond. An apology isn’t some ridiculously expensive Yule gift or a mumble in passing about how it wasn’t your best night.” She pushed his chest as she entered his space. Her temper radiated and forced him to take steps back. This was all too familiar. “An apology is an “I’m sorry. I fucked up. I let my jealousy blind me to my actions.” And then you make changes to your behavior that reflect your remorse. Ugh!”

She turned away once more. She couldn’t stand him. She wanted to return to their exile. The best she could do is withhold her gaze. Aemond was frozen, feet away on the asphalt as she made her final remark. “So no, you haven’t apologized.”

Aemond liked to think of himself as an unwavering, incorruptible pillar, but Y/N was a force of nature. She couldn’t always move him, but she could leave him battered and bruised. She was one of the few who could leave him uncomfortably still. She made him want to move, but somehow also pinned him in his place.

Helaena and Aegon returned to their childhood rooms. All Hightower-Targaryen children were together again. This go round, their parents were serene by comparison. It was agreed upon that until their youngest graduated college and was fully independent, they’d both reside on the estate but in separate wings. After that, Alicent would move out and move on. She’d always be welcome for family gatherings, obviously.

Y/N, true to her determination, claimed the pool house. Not much changed, just bed sheets and decor. The younger Targaryens and Velaryons gravitated to Y/N’s new set up. For one, there was the summer activity of the pool. The adults rarely made appearances in the pool house. It was unsupervised territory and there were snacks. It was a perfect impromptu clubhouse. When Y/N was over it, she’d kick them out till the next day- save Helaena.

That’s who she presumed was knocking on her door. The sun was setting and the sky turned all shades of pastel. Helaena was an unexpected delight. Y/N’d show her how far along she was in redoing the pool house. Helaena’d pick out a movie. Y/N would order something to be delivered. But it wasn’t Helaena at her door. It was Aemond.

Expensive wooden blinds covered the glass doors for privacy. Y/N couldn’t see Aemond lying in wait. When she swung the door open, ready with an open smile and a remark, everything faltered. Y/N’s mouth remained open, hung in surprise. Aemond dared turn up to her sanctuary, sneaking past the residents of the primary household, and stood as if he was an invited guest. In his hands rested a pizza box, a stack of favorite snacks, and the mini projector they used to use to watch vintage movies. 

For someone who strived to be Aegon’s opposite, he certainly shared the presumptuous smirk. They started using it as boys when they knew their mother wouldn’t follow through on whatever punishment she promised. Grown, it was reserved for when they pulled one over on the other, or they were certain they secured a girl’s attention. Y/N went to slam the door in his face. That smirk was gasoline to her fire. Aemond stopped her by nudging himself against the frame, preventing her momentum from gaining traction. 

His smirk faded into a gentle smile. “I know I fucked up and I know I should’ve made amends long ago. I couldn’t move past my pride and I see how ridiculous it- I was.”

Y/N remained mute but she stood aside to let him in. His eyes sparkled with hope. He looked around at the new set up. His heart panged in regret. He would’ve been here with her the last few days, setting up, but he missed the opportunity. Though different in appearance, the layout remained the same. He made his way to the kitchen and placed the peace offering on the counter. Y/N leaned against the archway that connected the kitchen to the living room. She was barefoot, in her pajama shorts, and an oversized university sweatshirt. Her usual sleeping attire.

She remained in place, arms folded and on guard. “If you haven’t noticed, your opinion means a lot to me. So those insults you freely discarded really took a dig at my self esteem.”

Something caught in Aemond’s throat. There was a deep seated urgency that drove his thoughts in quick succession. She valued his opinion. That was something he had yet to consciously think of, or maybe he did and his subconscious couldn’t believe it. It clouded his mind with unpinnable anxiety. She never required him to earn her consideration. She gave it freely and he dashed it’s worth against the rocks. She hadn’t clung to her anger. She clung to her hurt. Everything fell into place, he never needed to wait out or cool her fury. He had to bandage the wounds he blindly made. 

“Y/N,” He pleaded earnestly. “I never wanted to make you feel that way. I was just, ugh!” There was a deep rumble from within his chest, directed at himself. “I was angry and frustrated-”

“And you let the green eyed monster take over.” She cut him off with the obvious. If she didn’t, he’d dance around it.

Meekly, he confirmed her observation. “Maybe.”

“Aemond.” Y/N took a step into the kitchen. Her moves were tentative to prevent any reflexive bolt on Aemond’s end. “Be honest with me, because if you aren’t you won’t like the result.”

“What?” He immediately shot back in nervous suspicion.

Y/N was blunt. Her voice was flat, giving no indications. “Do you have feelings for me?” She stunned him. Her words were the headlights and he was the deer in the roadway. There was a long silence, hoping for an interjection. There wasn’t one. Aemond was forced to speak, stuttering, “What?” Y/N again swept closer. Her tone remained without any indication. “Do you have feelings for me?”

“I,” Aemond tried to gather composure, but the anxiety already made its way to his very blood and pumped through his veins. “I don’t know. Yes? Maybe.”

Y/N held her breath till she was forced to exhale. The release broke their eye contact. Her hands became very interesting. Her fingers rocked back and forth over smooth palms. She swallowed to hold back the intensity of her unease. The bubble of plausible ignorance had burst.

“I… I know. I knew for a while now. I see it in the way you look at me.” She huffed. “Like I hung the moon or something. You treat me differently. You’re not as… gentle with anyone else.” Crystalized eyes looked up through damp lashes. “You shouldn’t. I thought that by playing ignorant it would fade with time. I didn’t want anything to change, and I failed to realize it already had.”

Feeling emboldened by the honesty that settled over the conversation, Aemond spoke up. His voice was freshly assured. “We’re not kids anymore.”

Y/N fluttered her eyes clear, melancholy at the acceptance. “No, we’re not.”

Aemond grew bolder, he took a step forward and tucked her hand in his. She allowed him to run his thumb over the dainty skin of her knuckles. It sent a shiver down her spine and to try hiding her gasp, she turned her head away. Aemond refused the escape. He took her chin between his thumb and index finger, directing her focus back to him. “I’m not Helaena’s nerdy little brother anymore.”

Y/N nodded ever so slightly in his grasp. He held her attention captive. The roles reversed. She was now the deer. “No, you’re not.”

It was then and there or never at all. Without the veil of naivety or shaky denials, Aemond took action. He cupped her cheek, tunnel visioned her lips, and went in.

His attempt broke the hypnosis that settled over Y/N. The deer made its dash. She slipped out of his hold and held herself. Before Aemond could fully feel the impact of rejection, Y/N surpassed his chance to speak. “I don’t know what I feel for you, but whatever it is, isn’t the same as what you feel for me.”

She dressed in a warm, sorrowful smile. A smile nonetheless. Though weary, her eyes hinted at a spark of hope. It was enough for Aemond, for now. He did not buck or bolt.

“I can wait.” It was as solemn as any vow he’d take. “I’ve waited for you for eight years already. You’re worth a thousand more.”

Y/N’s lip quivered. “What if I never feel the same?” It was a defiant, whisper of a question.

Aemond felt a familiar warmth spread from his heart. There was a sense of nostalgia which acted as the source of heat. Gods she was insufferable, but that’s why he fell in love with her. His eyes held the twinkle now. Like the sun reflecting off the water. Certain. “You will. I know you will because we’re meant to be together.” He brightened ever so slightly. “I’ve known it since the day we first met.”

Unironically, Y/N mumbled, “I’m sure shoving Aegon’s face into the dirt had something to do with it.”

He felt at ease enough to chuckle. Still, so certain. “Possibly.”

Worry reclaimed Y/N. He was too assured. “What if I develop feelings for someone else while you’re waiting? I don’t want you to be compelled to the sidelines forever. It wouldn’t be fair.”

Aemond’s breath faltered into rigidness. “I promise I will no longer interfere. It’s my choice to wait, and you’d be a hypocrite to interfere with that.”

Y/N nodded as her mind wandered off to the infinite possibilities. They made her dizzy. She steadied herself by collapsing onto a kitchen stool. Her head rested against her crossed arms, the counter barring her weight. As it just so happened, she’d tucked in  right in front of the pizza box. She could smell the contents and they pulled her out of her plummet.

She raised her head, to Aemond’s surprise and delight, with a friendly smirk. “All this seriousness is making me hungry, and we have an apology pie to eat.”

A/N 2: Let me know your thoughts! I'll soon add post chapter discussions and share mine.

Next Chapter

[decepti-thots]

Ultra Magnus for the headcanon asks, please!

Headcanon A: realistic

I think that while the existence of the Magnus armour stuff is officially only known by a very tiny number of people in Autobot high command, it's not nearly as unknown in an unofficial sense as one might assume, and a not insignificant number of people with some amount of security clearance and/or regular interaction with Magnus know about it and gossip. Obviously we have two concrete canon bits of proof for this (Bumblebee shouldn't know, but was told by at least one Magnus armour wearer, and Ratchet guessed despite never being told), but I think it's gotta be something that over the years has spread enough that it's a little bit of an open secret tbqh. The guy keeps dying and then popping back up with a noticeably different personality. Any medic treating him has the same opportunities as Ratchet to notice. They're robots where the concept of a loadbearer is a clearly known possibility and the propaganda possibility is not that hard to infer! I feel like the number of people who guessed that something was up cannot be anything close to zero, or even just a couple higher ups. Like. It's been gossiped about. You know.

Headcanon B: while it may not be realistic it is hilarious

Due to spending two years in direct collaboration with Verity, he has a baffling knowledge of the very specific segment of Earth pop culture that appeals to a teenage girl from the USA in like the late 00s/early 10s. Specifically a rebellious nerdy one. He legitimately knows more about it than he ever knew about Cybertronian popular culture. This never comes up until he offhandedly mentions some random thing within earshot of Swerve that is so incongruous it causes him to mentally bluescreen. How the fuck do you know about that Magnus. What the hell.

Headcanon C: heart-crushing and awful, but fun to inflict on friends

Magnus is going to carry the guilt of dismissing Rewind's insistence Dominus was somehow alive the whole time with him for the rest of his life. The realization that Rewind was right but they confirmed it too late for him to do anything about it until the very second it was too late, in a time and place where Magnus was present and might have been able to make a split second decision that helped if only he was there, must be such a fucking thing for him. Let alone that as Ultra Magnus, if he had believed like Rewind did, he'd have possibly had the resources to get answers much, much earlier, if he'd tried.

Realistically, he had every reason to assume Dominus was dead. Rewind was being unreasonably optimistic, especially when the comic implies that Minimus was cut off from the literal sparkbond they had in a way that in any other situation would be definitive proof Dominus was dead. But he wasn't! And he missed every chance to intervene by like, the tiniest margin. You have to assume that on some level he's got some fucked up feelings about that.

Headcanon D: unrealistic, but I will disregard canon about it because I reject canon reality and substitute my own

I know Roberts said he thinks that Megatron becoming an Autobot without all the code-test stuff that Tailgate went through wasn't an issue because realistically, Megatron would know it back to front. I don't even disagree with him, I absolutely believe that he would, it makes sense. But it's objectively too fucking funny to imagine Magnus putting Megatron through the 'you WILL listen to my three hour lecture on the syntax of this one sentence being Extremely Legally Important' gauntlet and I simply choose to believe this did happen but off-panel and Magnus absolutely kicked his ass about it in terms of sheer Knowing His Shit about it. Way too funny to pass up tbh. Megatron thought he knew and understood it very well (and to be fair: he did, compared to every not-Magnus person), but he got grilled. Magnus quite enjoyed rebutting every single interpretation Megatron had by way of ludicrous pedantry.

[catsushinyakajima]

I’m sitting by a trash can at the bus stop waiting for the bus for the past TWENTY minutes and I am also late to class (my own fault for going to the gym instead of heading to class early :/) SO ANYWAYS-

Voltron headcanons (realistic and college AU, also inspired by my own college misery):

- they’re all stem nerds. All of them. I know a lot of people HC them as liberal arts major which is great! but they are canonically astronauts (one part of canon that I like)

- Lance would be the kind of guy to be like “WE GOTTA HIT THE GYM EVERYDAY THIS SEMESTER RAHHHH” and then dip the second midterms start. Every single semester. Without fail.

- Keith found lectures useless since he could just “read the textbook”. He never showed up to a single class except for exams and somehow passed. He only stopped the habit when multiple friends scolded him for it.

- Coran would be in twenty different clubs. Correction: he would be PRESIDENT of twenty different clubs. No one knows when he joined them. The clubs range from archery to competitive coding to mental health awareness. (“Hey Coran are u free tonight?” “No sorry, the Roleplaying Ancient Romans club is having a bake sale tonight” “the what-)

- hunk would do a LOT of volunteering. He’s probably cook for shelters but I can also see him tutoring underprivileged kids in engineering :)

- Pidge would have a surprising amount of school spirit. Not bc she likes the college or the sport. She just wants to hate on the other teams. Also if her tuition is going to the football coach’s salary, she might as well be passionate about it.

- Allura is a triple major. Maybe even a quadruple major?? She’s the girl you see constantly stressing about their schedule. “Okay so should I take this class…that makes me have eight classes total all back to back” “WHAT” “what if I did a minor in psychology?” “Allura how tf are you going to fit that in there”

- Shiro is a TA (teaching assistant) for calculus or physics or something. Because the world hates him it’s an eight am class where the professor teaches wrong content and then dumps twenty hours of grading on him. “So you find the derivative under the curve” “Professor that’s not-“ You will never see him without a coffee.

- Hunk has beef with the Dining halls. They don’t season their food and they don’t even have much to begin with. On the other hand, Lance practically lives there. He’s making the most of the meal plans he paid for.

- At least he sticks to tastier things. Keith, who also practically lives at the dining hall, will eat salt and pepper chicken four times a day (“it’s protein”)

- it’s how Keith and Lance have had most of their meals together. Notably, also alone.

- aside from living at the dining hall, Keith also lives at the gym. This explains why he’s never at class.

- pidge has a car on campus. It’s Matt’s car or whatever. Not only can she not park for her life, she also can’t stop getting parking tickets. She uses the tickets as wall decor for her dorm.

- Lance skateboards. He’s pretty good at it. He’s only fallen twice, and both times had been in extremely public settings. Once was in front of a bus stop with fifty people. He tried teaching Coran how to skate and Coran accidentally slipped and launched the board towards the main road.

- Pidge plays clash royale in class. Shiro roasts her for it but then secretly also plays word games in class

- on top of having four majors, Allura also has four internships??? Everytime she posts about something that seems relaxing, it’s misleading. She’ll post herself getting drinks and SIKE it’s a networking event. She’ll be going hiking SIKE it’s a colleague bonding trip. Girl cannot take a break.

- Keith hates frats. Even educational ones with job opportunities. Even if he knows all frat boys aren’t shitty, he refuses to budge on his stance

- Shiro is the kind of guy you’d be talking to and ten people come up to him to say hi. Everyone knows him. Even if he doesn’t know them.

[papermint-airplane]

List 5 facts about a favorite sim of yours, and send this to 10 simblrs whose sims you adore ♥♥♥

Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe 😈

I picked Uriah this time and I had to wait to answer this because I wanted to do a whole photoshoot for it. I had to be extra. He demands it.

🖤 Uriah Voss 💜

I cannot pronounce his name correctly in my accent. 🤣 Instead of Yoo-rye-uh, it comes out sounding like Yoo-rah. It's funny because I was originally going to name him a different super old-fashioned old man name (Ira, if you're curious, which I also can't pronounce correctly in my accent) but when the game randomly generated Uriah, it was too perfect to pass up. I don't think anyone has been named Uriah since like the 1800s but it suits him so well somehow. Voss was also randomly generated by the game which I kept because I just thought it was kind of pretty sounding and fit nicely with his wack-ass first name.

2. Uriah is an only child...at least for now. He likes to say that's because when the Watcher saw how perfect he was, she broke the mold so he could never be duplicated. While it's true that he is perfect, I've cloned him in two different save files and saved him to the bin, so technically speaking there are three of this lil gremlin boy. Lord help us all. I haven't made him any siblings or other family members and I don't know if I ever will but if a story opportunity presents itself in the future, there's no telling what kind of relatives he'll suddenly spawn! 😈

3. If it wasn't immediately obvious, Uriah loves fashion. He craves attention and if his clothes aren't constantly screaming "look at me," he might actually shrivel up and die. He's constantly experimenting with his look, sometimes to ridiculous extremes, and he likes to push the envelope as far as gender norms are concerned. While he likes the looks he gets, he actually doesn't really care much what people think of him. If he wants to wear a dress and heels, he will. If he wants to wear a bat kigurumi, he will. If he wants to wear nothing at all...well...that one might actually get me in trouble, but I wouldn't put it past him.

4. Uriah's sexuality is complicated. You could say he's bi, you could say he's pan, you could say he's a lot of things. Honestly, he's just attracted to pretty Sims with nice clothes, regardless of their gender. He's not totally shallow and he does want to find his soul mate and have a loving relationship, blah blah blah, but you gotta look good if you're going to be his partner! Casual dressers need not apply.

5. Uriah might not be entirely...human. 👉👈 What do I mean by that? Who's to say? 😇

[mrsstan21]

Attention to Detail

GIF credit: @angel060563

Summary: Men rarely pay attention to the things women say, but that's not the case with Officer Tom Hanson.

Tom Hanson x Reader 

A/N: Just a quick Drabble!

Warnings: None! fluff!

Word Count: 958 :)

For the past three weeks me and Penhall were at a local high school making a bust on drug dealing. 

It was always fun when me and Doug were put on a case together, he always knew how to make these cases interesting.

After I got a gun pointed to my head by one of the suspects we made an arrest. 

I asked Jenko if I could have the day off and work at my desk. 

“Hey how you doing” Penhall asked pulling a chair next to me. 

“I’m fine…isn’t the first time I got a gun placed to my head”.  

“Hanson, Penhall, Y/L/N in my office” Jenko spoke. 

I took a seat next to Penhall on the couch while Hanson stood up.

“We got a new case apparently somebody is trying to relocate SouthCentral High School one room at a time. Last night was the fourth BE in the same amount of months. No forced entry, no busted windows”. Jenko informed.

“Doesn’t sound like much of a break in” I added. 

“Burglary says to smacks of an inside gig. Like one kid gets a set of master keys, the next thing, half the school’s drinking free sodas, and on top of that, some teachers getting free roses from so secret admirer” Jenko continued.

“Got any suspects?” Hanson asked. 

“Got a couple. My best bet is a guy named Jeffery Stone. Sells everything from hot records to tickets to the Boss’s concerts, third row”. 

“Sounds like a real sales man” I spoke. 

“well Hanson your on this case. Penhall will be your backup in case things go south. Y/N I want you here going over this Stone guys profile see if you can get anything off him” Jenko informed us.

“Not a problem I gotta help Ayoki study for his test anyway”.

The three of us group outside by Hansons desk. 

“So aside from the kid selling merchandise we also got a stalker creeping on a teacher and leaving her flowers” Penhall spoke grabbing a cup of coffee.

“At least she’s getting flowers” I mumbled sitting on Hanson’s desk. 

“Aw come on Y/N I bet you get flowers all the time” Penhall teased. 

I rolled my eyes. 

“What no one’s given you a bouquet of roses?” Hanson asked. 

I look at him. 

“I don’t even remember the last time I got a single flower let alone a whole bouquet. Besides roses are so clique every girl loves red roses. I on the other hand am very different...Would make my day if a guy got me a single white lily my favorite flower”.   

***

It was getting late, Ayoki and I had been doing practice questions for I don’t know how many hours. 

We decided to break for a while and I took it as an opportunity to rest my head on my desk. 

But ended up knocking out instead. 

The sound of a loud book hitting my desk made me shot up. 

“A felon cannot be issued a drivers license” I spoke still half asleep. 

I rubbed my eyes to see a smiling Hanson sitting on top of my desk. 

“Oh it’s just you Hanson” I yawed stretching. 

“What are you still doing here this late” he broke into a smirk.

“it’s not that late it’s only…midnight” I looked over at my watch.

“She was helping me study that is until she fell asleep two hours ago” Ayoki smiled passing by.

“God I am tiered” I rubbed my eyes again. 

“Why don’t you let me give you a ride I’m about to head out anyways” Hanson said. 

I took him up on his offer, and he drove me home. 

“Can I ask you something” he asked staring at the road in front of him.

“Shoot.”

“You know so much about cars yet you don’t own one?” He smirked.

I let out a small chuckle. 

“Yeah well I live about a twenty min walk from the chapel. 

And if I ever wanted a ride somewhere I don’t live that far away from Penhall so I could always ask him for a lift”. 

“From the time I’ve been here not once have I seen you and Penhall come in together”.

“Ok if I’m honest I prefer walking it helps clear my mind”.

“Sounds like a fair game” he glances over at me. 

When we arrived to the front of my apartment complex I thanked him for the ride. 

He stayed and made sure I got inside before taking off. 

Hanson was starting to rub off on me. 

***

The following day Hanson closed the case, and made an arrest turns out the janitor was the one setting up Stone. 

I was at my desk cleaning out my file drawer when I notice someone sit on my desk. 

Looking up I saw a smiling Hanson again.

“Hey Hanson congrats not screwing up your case” I smiled. 

“Thanks…hey I got something for you” he spoke nervously. 

I gave him a confused look before he pulled his hand from behind his back. 

There in my sight was a single white lily. 

“What’s this” I smiled. 

“Well you said  you didn’t remember the last time you got a flower so I took it upon myself to get you one” he smiled. 

“And you got me a white lily” I took the flower from him smelling it.

“What you didn’t think I was paying attention?”.

“Well Hanson no offense but most guys don’t usually pay attention to what comes out of my mouth. But in fact are paying more attention to…well you get the idea” I laughed. 

“Well I just thought you could use something nice to start your day” he smiled.

I got up and kissed him on his cheek. 

“Thank you Hanson” I whispered to him. 

He blushes.

[egirling]

one direction.

i think i’m still grieving what happened; ever since liam has passed there’s not been a single day where i haven’t thought about the 5 boys that overtook my life when i was 12. i was a diehard fan, still am. if it wasn’t for them; i wouldn’t of met my closest friend. they had such an impact on my life and i genuinely cannot process what happened.

i never thought that i would be this sad at a member passing; but i also think that i never ever thought to fully understand that it’ll happen one day. i handle death well but for some reason this death has struck me.

as a 24 year old, i feel for the 12 year old girl who started liking them. who had her walls covered in posters, wrote fanfiction, ran a 1D fan page on facebook and twitter, the one who cried when zayn left and when they all unfortunately split away from the band. i remember the little girl who would get salty when people typed ‘1d’ instead of of ‘1D’, the girl who stayed up late to watch songs be released, the girl who truly thought these 5 guys were the best thing to happen to her.

i remember listening to up all night and getting sad when stole my heart came on; because i knew the album was ending. but luckily i was fortune enough to own the physical album so i could just rewind it. i did that for years since i never owned another album on cd.

i also feel for that little girl; i remember being sad when i saw people attending 1D concerts knowing i never got the opportunity to as a child. as an adult; sure but… a reunion is unspoken for currently. i get sad when i realize that i’ll never see 5/5 live, but i saw a tiktok comment saying that i at least experienced the fandom at its prime and that i lived during it, and that’s enough for me to feel a connection to them. it makes me feel better.

i know that death is natural and happens to everyone, but i was not expecting to handle the loss of someone i worshiped as a child. i know he’s just a celebrity, would never know i existed and all of that but genuinely this has struck me in a way i never expected. it’s like part of my childhood has been torn away from me; like my younger self is heartbroken by liam and what happened. (maybe this has to do with the trauma ive dealt with in my life? but that’s something i gotta discuss with my psychiatrist.)

1D and all the members will always have a spot in my heart and soul for the chapter of my life that they were in, i’m genuinely so grateful for them in multiple ways. i remember when little things came out and that was in my peak of my self harming, and hearing them sing about things i hated about myself struck me when i was younger. obviously, when i was a child it felt more personal compared to being an adult, but it still helped. i don’t think i self harmed for awhile after that song.

i love the fact that i got to experience them as a band, and the fact that im living in a life with their solo careers as well. i’m ever so proud of them and how they’ve grown.

as for liam, i do miss him as weird as it might be. i never knew him, never would but he was … almost a positive influence on me and my younger self. i didn’t have much direction growing up, but i knew listening to their songs or watching videos of them that i would feel content. an escape maybe.

i don’t know. i can’t sleep and it’s almost midnight and i needed to get this off my chest. i think i just needed to vent and say my peace and words to accept what’s happened.

this blog started as a 1D blog 💀

i know there’s millions of fans who are deeply affected by this as well, and if anyone even reads this i just want you to know your feelings and thoughts are completely valid, grief affects everyone differently. he was a huge part of life for MANY people out there. take care of yourself. listen to some songs and cry; everything will be okay.

(i don’t think i can do this 4 more times)

there’s a day i’ll be older than him and that’s weird… i don’t like that thought. it was never supposed to be that.

i would like to believe that liam is content wherever he is right now.

all the love, sarah / egirling

[killerbananas]

Calm

Double drabbles about lazy soft sex with Connie turned a little rough.

🔞 mdni | masterlist | 772 wc | afab!reader x Connie

Warnings: smut; soft turned rougher sex, dubcon/somnophilia/inebriation, creampie, frottage, cockwarming, come play/eating, objectification/slight humiliation, Dom/sub tones, thumb in the bum

AN: Repost from my old account.

Connie’s curled around your body, air the perfect temperature to get away with being entirely naked and just under a smooth sheet. His inhale catches the edge of your ear and stirs you along with his gentle caress of your soft breast. He smiles into your neck and you get a jutting motion from his hips that press his erection against the curve of your ass. He only manages to work himself between your thighs before he’s drifting again, but still rocking his cock between. You’re wet enough to lubricate him each time and eventually get up enough momentum to lean forward and let him pop in your pussy. It’s a lot of effort, encouraging you to drift off with him.

He stays and fucks you awake on his sensitive member until he’s begging to come inside as a good morning creampie. You tell him it better be a promise or he’s gonna owe you a lot more orgasms before lunch as you let him use your pussy. He holds you close, biting your neck, hands pressing flat at your hip bones to keep you within fucking distance. His bite only tightens when you do, but it’s his own doing because his hand rubs sporadically rhythmed motions across your clit that has you milking him of each spurting white rope.

You were almost passed out on the plush carpet in front of the TV. You’d relaxed waiting for Connie to come over and after a glass or two of wine, decided you didn’t need the confinement of pants and deserved to just hang out doing something mindless. Or at least enough glasses to forget Connie had a key and miss your phone vibrating his corroborating explanation. He nearly drops the to-go boxes in the doorway when he does finally greet your groggy ass. He gets the most perfect view of your backside dressed in his favorite cheeky panties. He sets everything down before he slowly, quietly disrobes on his way over.

His hands feel like they’re everywhere as he joins you on the carpet in his boxers. He massages muscles and begins to pay close attention to your lower back and thighs, straddling your legs as he sharpens his focus. He even encourages you to finish the level you were on and let him make you feel good. Of course, you agree. It sounds heavenly and his hands, oh fuck his hands…

They’re absolutely glued to your ass and he cannot hide the raging boner it gives him, but he does his best to be a gentleman and actually work your muscles before he chooses to be a brat. His touch drifts closer and closer to your labia and under the panties quickly. He’s pulling them to the side, reaching down for his dripping cock, and nudging his way through your arousal to get his head in immediately.

“Ah-ngh-woah, a warning, babe?!”

“Said I was gonna make you feel good. Let me take care of your pussy too. I’ll-ngh, gotta make sure I don’t miss an opportunity to help you relieve some stress.”

“I guess, if you put it that way. I’ll let you get back to work then while I beat this level. You don’t mind, do you, sweet boy?”

His rhythm falters with the subtlety of shattering porcelain, overwhelmed in how he feels to use your body to get off while you ignore him until he can distract you… His only reply is to keep lapping away languorously with his hips, using just enough force to barely push you forward along the carpet. Connie’s gaze is centered on where he can see his cream-coated cock entering and leaving your grasping cunt. He withdraws fully to stimulate your entrance and his head a few times, then rubbing it through your lips and across your clit before abruptly shoving the entirety of his member back in your welcoming hole. Your face is blushing neon heat that has you forgetting the controller exists, almost biting the carpet to stay anchored.

Time slows drastically when you feel his spit-slicked thumb breach your tight back bud, but, as he’d massaged elsewhere, so had he here. The painful burn is quickly replaced with gently simulating fullness when he passes the muscle. Paired with your own fingers travelling down to aid your struggle, Connie finesses your body into convulsing release that leaves you both boneless on the floor.

His hand traipses down to touch the come weeping from your womb, then brings it back up to suckle your shared flavor into his mouth. You both light up in rose tones of arousal, then intimate giggles.

Taglist: @aotwarriorsimp @alexpro-nwn @animediplomat @antoxsmith @armoredpotato @aviinnit @beffjurky @blondeboyfriend @casuallyck @cherrxs @dearbaji @erwinsbaby @eyesucket @fairypiku @fandomficsobsession @fujoneshi @holographicceo @hinasakuino @interfectio-mortales @kenryug @koulakoukoula2003 @kxkyuu-main @lavenderdaisyhoney   @mybadluckshouldmakemefamous @chaotic-nick @nathalunalune @notgoodforlife @arsonszn @pockcock @poursomesunaonme @scouts-stuff @seychellse @shigarakiapologist @downbadpie @soaringmirror @sparklekitteh @stigandr-the-cat @syrma-sensei @reiners-milkbiddies @tiffanyy-21 @theinariakuma @tonaken @torapologist @touyyes @we-are-so-close @witchycamisado

[littlemisssquiggles]

Oscar's Undisclosed Birthday

So…m’good friend @jealouscartoonist just shared with me this new cameo from Miles talking about Oscar’s birthday and this squiggly Pinehead is just all smiles now.

Listening to Miles describe with such pure joy an ideal birthday for Oscar was the big kick of serotonin that I didn’t know I needed until I listened to the whole thing. Shoutout to whoever this Sarah person who sent in this cameo is. Thank you for doing the Pinehead community another solid.

This just makes me more salty that Oscar was NEVER EVER added to RWBY Chibi since Miles’ description of “Oscar’s Undisclosed Birthday” is just perfect for as a concept for another wholesome episode of the series that’s Oscar-worthy. Even calling the episode “Oscar’s Undisclosed Birthday” seems perfect as an appropriate title.

Miles made my night with this cameo. It’s everything I wanted for how Oscar would spent his special day (minus actually GIVING US HIS CANON birthday) and I love how Miles dropped more cute tidbits about Oscar as a character too.

Oscar’s favourite breakfast is waffles (and how his big sis Nora would actually make a big pile for him).

Apparently Oscar has trouble sleeping sometimes because of Oz being in his head so Ren gifting him a pair of headphones to drown out the voice of the old headmaster would be useful. Miles basically admitted that Oz is a chatterbox. Makes me think of that “Brain Before Sleep” meme only replace the brain with Oz XD  That’s the first thing that popped into my head. Thanks for that imagery Miles.

Oscar loves going to the movies especially Spruce Lee (LOL) films which he shares in common with Jaune and that’s how they bond.

Yang would take Oscar on a fun day at the amusement park where they’d ride all the rides that he’s now tall enough to ride (another LOL from me because they always gotta poke fun that my little prince is a short king)---that would be a thing Yang would do and I cannot picture Oscar turning that down since, in the words of Ruby, Oscar is braver than he thinks and we have seen moments of Oscar being more daring than he looks so he totally would not pass up an opportunity to ride all the rides especially if Yang is the one pushing him to do it.

So the “Girl Who Fell Through the World” is confirmed to be Oscar’s favourite childhood fairytale---and Blake getting him a second edition of it is cute being the book-worm that she is.

I also love the bit with Weiss panicking about not knowing what to get Oscar so she just gives him a lumpsome of money and Oscar being floored by it since he’s never had that amount of money in his life---that fits beautifully.

And of course, gotta love how Miles saved the best gift for last. Ruby gifting Oscar a new co-op videogame that they both end up spending the rest of his birthday playing til they both crash the morning after (Oscar first) is more than a perfect way to conclude Oscar’s birthday in my Rosegarden-shipping books.

*chef’s kiss*

Didn’t even realize that Oscar liked playing videogames. Didn’t know he had them back on the farm. This just makes me think back to his reaction to Ruby’s videogame comment back in V6. Puts the whole moment in a new context for me XD

All in all, Miles made me a happy Pinehead tonight.

~LMS (2023)

[sonnetsoncanvas]

Mess it up : pt 2

Summary: Years ago he had let you go for your own good. But this time, he isn’t sure he can

Part of the Mess it up series

Pairing: brother’s best friend rock star Bucky x fem reader (Steve’s sister) (dual pov)

Warnings: modern AU, angst, second chance, eventual smut, brothers best friend trope, implied cheating, self-deprecation, happy ending?

Inspired by: Mess it up by Gracie Abrams

Notes: This is the first time a fic has made its way from my laptop to the internet. So please be kind and do leave your feedback. Happy reading! 

Chapter 2: Every time I get too close, I just go mess it up.

Reader POV

Stepping outside the airport gates, you were hit with an array of smells.

Hot bagels and car exhaust and manhole steams and people shouting and cars honking

Sounds you grew up listening to.

Sounds that used to remind you of home.

But you haven’t considered New York City as your home for a while now. You’ve been living in Boston for the past four years completing law school at Harvard, and chose to stay back during breaks.

The small crammed apartment that you grew up in has been abandoned for years, ever since your mom passed away, and you have no emotional connect whatsoever with the fancy new penthouse your brother had bought to live with his girlfriend in.

To be completely honest however, you stopped considering New York as your home ever since that fateful night when a certain blue eyed man shattered your heart……..

“Peanut!”

You’re snapped out of your reverie by a familiar, over enthusiastic voice. Your brother’s voice.

The world knew him as Steven Grant Rogers, lead guitarist and vocalist of the “Avengers”, one of the most sought-after music producers in the industry and the doting boyfriend of supermodel Natasha Romanoff.

You knew him as Stevie, the elder brother who practically raised you when your single mother had to work two jobs in order to raise her kids, the man who proudly shouts “that’s my baby sister” every time you made an accomplishment, no matter how small, and refused to call you anything but peanut even though you’re a grown woman with a summa cum laude in criminal law from Harvard.

You let him engulf you in a big bear hug until you cannot breathe anymore. he steps back and it never ceases to amaze you how much he’s changed. Gone was the skinny blonde boy of Brooklyn, replaced by more than six feet of muscle and an intimidating beard. Even though the change was gradual, it was massive.

“who are you and where is my human sized brother?” you asked, the same joke you’d cracked ever since he started bulking up. but it still cracks him up.

“That scraggly idiot?  show business ate him up.” Came the reply

“More like he couldn’t handle the pressure of having such a hot girlfriend.” Natasha answered from behind him, an amused smirk on her face and her eyebrows raised in challenge.

“hey what can I say, a man’s gotta do what he’s gotta do” your brother drawled, playfully winking at his girl. That was their thing, teasing and taunting and bantering, and yet being equally besotted with each other.

“Nat!” you exclaimed, dropping your bags to hug her, “you didn’t have to come to airport!”

She hugged you with the tenderness and love of an older sister “don’t be ridiculous. I already had to miss your graduation for work. There’s no way in hell I’m missing an opportunity to see you again.”

“I here for an entire week Nat.” you replied fondly as Steve steered you both towards the car. In spite of what you said, you were glad to see Natasha. You’d known her for as long as Steve’s been dating her and immediately liked her and her quick wit. the fact that she genuinely loved and cared about your brother and was supportive of his love for his family and friends made you love her even more.

                 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

All throughout the ride from the airport your brother kept rambling about all that he’d planned for you while you were in the city, a sure tell of how excited he was to have you here. You turned around to see Nat, grinning at his childlike eagerness and you realised you had missed this, the easy comfort of being home. Of being coddled and pampered by your brother.

It isn’t like you haven’t met Steve since you left home. He tried his best to squeeze a few visits in every other month, but in between your studies and his work, it was a huge task in itself. And even then, it would be for a few hours, an overnight stay tops.

You liked this. This was reason why you were seriously considering moving back to New York, even though the San Francisco job offered you a few more amenities. So that you can see Steve more often. Especially now that your mom is gone and all that you both have left is each other.

“And it’s not just me who’s all excited to have you back Peanut. Bucky has been cleaning the entire damn apartment like a crime scene ever since he heard you’re coming over. He washed the curtains for god’s sake. WHO WASHES CURTAINS?!”

The mention of his name jerked you back to reality. It took you a second to fully understand what Steve was saying, and when you did completely get what he’d said, you were suddenly terrified.

“Wait a sec, why is Bucky cleaning your place?” you ask, hoping that none of your hysteria seeped into your words.

“Cause I already cook and do the dishes, and that sloth hadn’t cleaned in months, it’s like living with an animal. I swear Mrs Barnes would kill us both if she saw how we live…..”

“Hold on Steve, do you and Bucky Live together?”

Steve immediately sensed something was off by the way you addressed him, “Bucky and I have been sharing a place for years Y/N. is something wrong?”

“Why would anything be wrong.” You laughed to cover your nervousness and took a moment to collect yourself, a tactic you learnt in law school, and replied calmly, “it’s just that you told me months ago that you and Nat are moving in together and I just assumed you would be living with her.”

“We would have been if the genius here had not objected to the closet in our room. The poor designer has to redo the entire room just to fit in extra space for his beloved sneakers.” Nat interjected with mock annoyance. “If you ask me, I think he’s fibbing intentionally because he isn’t ready to leave his house husband just yet.”

“Well forgive me for thinking that my shoes deserve the same respect as yours. At least they’re comfortable, not some bejewelled instrument of torture…”

You tuned out the rest of the banter, focussing on the chaos in your mind instead. You knew you might see Bucky one time or another during your visit. He’s Steve’s best friend after all, along with his band mate. And even though you weren’t completely ready for that, an evening around him was infinitely more comfortable than sharing a goddamn apartment with him.

All of a sudden, the air in the car wasn’t enough and your head started clouding with thoughts. Thoughts you had kept locked away in some abyss of your brain for far too long. Thoughts that asked questions you couldn’t bring yourself to answer, thoughts that reminded you of moments you couldn’t bear to relive.

You cannot see him again.

It will ruin you, or whatever parts of you you’d salvaged and rebuilt over the years.

You try to convince Steve to let you stay at a hotel, reasoning that you’d already been offered accommodation by the firm at five-star hotel, so why waste that and trouble them, to which you brother gave you his trademark sad puppy eyes. They were fool proof and the bastard knew it. He’d been using it to get his way since childhood.

So here you were, being driven by your obviously oblivious brother to your Ex’s house, who also happened to be his closest friend.

And you have to spend the rest of the week pretending that he wasn’t the only man you had ever loved. That he wasn’t the one who stole all your firsts from you and in return gifted you an eternal heartache.

Like he wasn’t the one who discarded you like a used tissue the minute he hit stardom.

Fuck this is going to be a long week.

Bucky POV

For the life of him, he couldn’t sit still. Which was funny because James Buchanan Barnes, raised in the upper echelons of New York social scene, was taught from his childhood to sit still, to be calm and composed no matter.

But how on Earth was he to retain his composure when his heart was beating faster than Verstappen’s red bull, when his head was buzzing so much he stupidly wondered if was drugged. His stomach was in knots, his anxiety worse than his first sold out concert.

“If it freaks you out so much, just leave man. Tell Steve that you had some shoot, hell, tell him anything. But get your shit together before he figures out.” Sam, another one of his bandmates and his closest friend after Steve, offered his sage advice. “More importantly,” he sipped his beer, “Before she figures out.”

Sam was probably the only person whom Bucky had told about your relationship. He would’ve hid it from him as well if he had a choice, but Samuel Thomas Wilson was no fool. He had already noticed the lingering glances, the prolonged touches, the swapped sweatshirts. It was a good thing though because younger Bucky had felt relieved to let at least someone in on his secret, some one who could cover for him.

It was a good thing because older Bucky had someone to confide in and talk about you.

“Do you take Steve for an idiot? He knows my schedule; we share the same manager for god’s sake. He would smell my bullshit from miles away.” Bucky countered.

“Still better than him suspecting that the awkwardness between Y/N and you is because, well I don’t know, maybe the fact that you dumped her ? ” Sam chuckled.

“I’m glad you find my pain amusing you son of a bitch.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be awkward.” Bucky said after a while, hopefully. “I mean it’s been so long, too long even. We’ve both dated other people. It would be fine, if not like the old times.”

“Correction, YOU have dated other people. She, from what I know, hasn’t dated anyone after you.” Sam said, rummaging through the fridge for something to eat.

Even though the thought of you dating someone else, to give them your smile, your love, your body, filled bucky with dread, he still asked, “ And you know this how ?”

“Cause she told me.”

“You talk to her?!” He couldn’t believe it.

“Yeah, now and again. You weren’t the only guy who fancied her shithead.” Sam said, merely to get a rise out of him

And he got what he wanted, a low growl and a threatening look from his best friend. Still he continued, unbothered and unafraid, “See, THIS is what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. You still have feelings for her. Do you seriously think you can live in the same place as her without doing something stupid? without Steve noticing? “

Just then the front door opened, killing Bucky’s scathing reply in his throat. Steve entered first, lugging a couple of bags, his head turned backwards, saying something to Nat, who entered next.

And then his heart stopped.

And it started beating again.

Faster. Crazier.

His eyes fell on the one person they’d craved for years, drinking in every detail, in all its glory. And your eyes found his.

And in that moment Bucky learnt what it was to be killed and reborn.

[artigas]

in many respects, these past few weeks in my phd program have been some of the most miserable in my entire life. institutions, academia included, cannot love you back and i am learning that in very personal, difficult, and tangible ways. there have been so many moments where i've completely and utterly understood why people give up on doctorate programs. ever since passing comps, i feel like i've had one moment of thinking i can't possibly be more stressed or anxious or uncomfortable until i'm confronted with the next. but here are some small joys:

i won an award for that dracula paper i wrote about blood transfusions. second place in the entire graduate program! hurray!

i published an essay last winter and now i'm in conversation with the person that essay is about, who not only read and loved the paper, but might want to commission me to write more. i have his number in my phone. i might have a really stunning professional opportunity on the other end of our scheduled phone conversation!

i got invited to a conference that is in a totally different field than what i studied. this could be because the conference is that desperate for papers (a real possibility) but maybe this also means that my Poe paper wasn't all that bad if my first attempt at writing something in the medieval field was good enough to warrant being invited to present it. i submitted my paper and haven't yet gotten the confirmation that it got accepted, but the prospect of going to my first conference -- and being personally invited to do so no less! -- is really nice

last, i applied to my first conference (in which i wasn't directly invited to attend), too!! there's a horror conference in new mexico that i'd kill to go to (no pun intended, i'm writing about a slasher film for this one lol) and well .. who knows if they'll accept but i'm so proud of myself for applying in the first place!

UPDATE: I JUST GOT AN EMAIL TELLING ME THAT MY HORROR PAPER GOT ACCEPTED THE SAME FUCKIN DAY I APPLIED. AHH!!

this is all to say ... i have to remember what a good friend said today: just because i'm having a horrible time doesn't mean i'm horrible at this. i gotta muscle through. i can do hard things. it won't be this difficult forever.

[hostilecandle]

🍏 and 🍈 for the writer asks pls!

God I'm so sorry for this ramble 🙏😅

🍏 Is there something you overuse, whether it’s a certain phrase, trope, or piece of punctuation-

Religious Imagery 😅 lmaoooo. I overuse that shit SOOO much. It's in every single fic I've ever written. Doesn't matter fluff or smut or what fandom, I always find a way to work it into the main themes. Literally writing a long af Price x Reader and its title is taken from Psalms 😅😅 I grew up a gay man in a Catholic military family in the Midwest of the United States. Gotta funnel that experience somewhere, so fics it is :D

🍈 Who’s your blorbo and what are some of your favorite headcanons/ideas about them that repeatedly show up in your fics-

Okay this said free pass to ramble about blorbo so I will be taking that opportunity here lol, so my apologies i have many thoughts about this man. I'll use CoD bc it's the fandom I'm in rn so I gotta say John Price (Both the og and reboot though I'm just gonna refer to the reboot Price for this). This man does things to my brain that need to be studied under a microscope I swear 😵‍💫😵‍💫 I have a whole ass character study of him written that's several pages long and I'm still not done.

Headcannons for him (some I've written, some just vibes):

-This man SCREAMS a good ol future midwestern dad type in the making to me. He loves to hunt and fish. He loves the solitude and quiet of both activities, even if he doesn't get anything. Its just peaceful. There is always a beer in the fridge for when the game is on. When he's got a family/partner/retired (whatever you'd prefer), he's a yard guy (yall know the type). I just feel like he cannot sit still when he's home. He's gotta be doing something with himself after years of keeping busy. He's got all the fun toys like a riding mower that is so unnecessary for the yard size but makes him happy. He's always outside in the spring/summer doing something to the yard and god forbid the grass get too tall. He's also not big on socializing with neighbors, a very much a keep to himself and/or his family kinda guy, but he's always SO polite and the ladies in his neighborhood love him.

-From my own homelife experience but it just feels so Price, when he's home he's AWFUL about just leaving his firearm on the counter or coffee table or bed side. Just wherever he remembered to take it off and set down and it's just another thing to forget where he set it like his phone and wallet. Speaking of, he's terrible about losing his phone/keys/wallet/etc. He has a little dish by the entry that he swears he puts it all into but they're never there when he goes to leave and he has to scramble to find them every time

-He's a coffee drinker (black with just a little sugar) and unironically loves to read the paper whenever he gets the chance. He's a small talker and enjoys it, he talks about the weather, gas prices, taxes, and match scores. He gets bored easily when just waiting around and will chat with just about anyone

-He has horrific night terrors and carries a lot of guilt for things he's done in his job. He firmly believes it was all necessary and worth it for the greater good but he wrestles with himself a lot. I personally like to think when Gaz pushes him on it after the interrogation in MW, it actually rattled him a bit. Not because he felt any guilt necessarily for what had just happened (I don't think he felt any in that instance), but because that's one of the first times someone else has pressed him on his moral convictions. "You draw the line where you need it" is not a belief that comes from nowhere or from a man who hasn't wrestled with himself and asked himself the very same questions Gaz was throwing at him. He meant every word he said though and while I feel guilt will catch up to him in the late hours of the night some nights after years of living like this, he fully believes he's justified in everything he does and it's integral to his character and who John Price is as a person

-He's a staunch atheist. Baptized but never believed in a God really anyways but after the things he's seen, he can't find it in himself to even entertain the thought. That being said, in the bottom of his desk is one of those old fashioned crosses that's hollow that holds holy water and one's last will and testament. Obviously being in the military there's already the records of his will but keeps that in his desk regardless because on the off chance he's wrong about there not being a God, it doesn't hurt to be safe.

He's SUCH a Girl Dad™ in the making. He would THRIVE with having a daughter. I'm talking the tea parties, tiaras, letting her put makeup on him, his nails, all of it. He'd support her in any endeavors growing up and would do his damndest to be in the crowd any chance he can get. He'd be her biggest fan. Pictures of her on his desk, in his wallet. Always bragging about his daughter when he gets the chance because he'd be so proud of her

He's a salt of the earth kinda guy. Just has very classic masculinity. Like he's a Man™ and takes pride in it. But its in the, "I'm gonna take care of everything because this is how I care for what's important to me" way. He enjoys being the handyman around the house and who people come to because they respect him. He has a Project Car in the garage that he swears he'll get to and the back is littered with power tools and lumber

(Okay this parts not headcannon because he not old, he's only 37!!) He's actually very tech savvy and likes things to be as up to date as he can get so everything runs smooth.

He feels personally responsible for the wellbeing of the other main 3 of 141 but not in a fatherly way like people think, but these men are his brothers and he hand picked them, he has so much faith in their abilities. (However he unwittingly becomes a mentor figure to Soap very much against his knowledge and will lol)

He had to shave once for an Op and the boys ragged him so hard he refuses to ever shave again. Genuinely fucked him up a bit lol

He has a temper. He's got a good lid on it 99% of the time but its always simmering underneath

Has a wicked sense of humor. Most people don't know or recognize it but he's actually the funniest person in the 141. He's always cracking jokes to break the tension but he says it with such a straight face before breaking into smile to let you know he's joking.

[bloody-wonder]

Until now, have you found any couple (canon or non canon) from any media (books, tv series, movies, anime/manga, etc) that the dynamics remind you of Neil/Andrew and Damen/Laurent?

if you're looking for dynamics specifically (as opposed to a full romance arc) the lymond chronicles, the queen's thief and empire of the vampire will scratch that damen/laurent itch.

it's common knowledge, at least in my niche circles, that cs pacat is a big fan of dorothy dunnett's work, that laurent is based on lymond and that his relationship with damen (down to specific scenes) was inspired by lymond's numerous boytoys. so reading the lymond chronicles after captive prince is constantly going aha! *leonardo dicaprio pointing meme*. what these books however don't have is a full romance arc with any of those men which is why you could say capri is, in a sense, a slash fic of the lymond chronicles. it's my favorite series of all time and i can't recommend it enough but it's also rather inaccessible in the beginning and has a steep learning curve - quite a commintment of your time and brain energy but so SO worth it!

the queen's thief is another series heavily inspired by the lymond chronicles and it has multiple ships that reminded me of damen/laurent: gen's love interest is very much a cast iron bitch and they do engage in an intense enemies to lovers romance, with some casualties. costis and kamet's story in thick as thieves is basically if the side quests laurent and damen went on were a whole separate book. and while not a canon romance like the previous two, whatever gen and costis have going on in the king of attolia is very reminiscent of the laurent/damen dynamic in book one (minus the slavery). two things to keep in mind if you decide to pick up the queen's thief: it's sort of ya (??) so the brutality and sexiness, while present, will not be on the same level as capri. and book one doesn't feature any of the above ships so, again, you gotta commit to the whole thing :)

now, while these two recs seem like no-brainers to me, i'm very excited to take this opportunity to yell about empire of the vampire from the rooftops AGAIN!! eotv is basically a story about epic quests and valiant deeds told by a jaded captive vampire hunter to his cunty vampire captor (who is blonde bc yes). jean françois is definitely inspired by anne rice's lestat (as the narrative format as a whole is inspired by interview with the vampire) but his dynamic with gabriel is just Peak Laurent/Damen Banter. "i speak your language better than you speak mine, sweetheart" and "hello, lover" galore! in fact, after i found out that pacat and jay kristoff know each other personally i became convinced that he had either read capri and borrowed the vibe OR *starts rambling about her conspiracy theory about how all australian fantasy authors drink secret australian magic juice that makes them write fun depraved sff, gets smacked on the head, passes out* where was i... ah yes, nasty gay vampires. eotv is very fun and very tropey, also very queer and sexy (esp book two) and it had my toxic yaoi needs covered however comma. jean françois/gabriel is basically them sitting in a room in the frame narrative and exchanging homoerotic barbs, while the story itself is about gabriel's past adventures (also very interesting but less homoerotic). it's unlikely that they're gonna have any sort of romance arc - unless someone reads the books and writes a fic of them. please.

alas, i still can't rec anything that comes close to what nora achieved with andreil. to me, the defining characteristics of their dynamic are two feral cats circling and sniffing each other, intricate rituals, overdramatic dialogue, aspec attraction (on neil's part). while one can attempt to find some of these elements in other stories, you cannot find all of them at once (aspec pov on relationships being particularly rare in fiction). there's just no other couple that manages to strike a perfect balance between the anime levels of drama and chaos on the one hand and the serious themes of trauma, acceptance, consent etc on the other hand. sorry, anon, ig we'll have to keep re-reading aftg until one of the aspiring authors i bet this fandom has a lot of writes their own book inspired by andreil🤷‍♀️