#instead its a drop down menu that i have to click and its on the left side

[quartzprinz]

tumblr gave me a very ugly and confusing entirely new dashboard layout and it makes me want to stop using tumblr so i didnt use it all yesterday but i missed tumblr too much :( but i think i will be spending much less time on here

[fukutomichi]

I can understand some people being new around here and trying to get the hang of posting and rebloging. I get it.

But after a while, you start to get to know your reblog and like buttons and how to comment, how to handle your blog and even try some html coding to make it look neat and pretty. Tumblr has it's faults, but what I love about it is that it's very easy to grasp and start blogging.

Now, I've seen some people around the tags still being unsure of how to post stuff or reblog, so let me just say this.

Don't just copy/save gifs or art and then repost them on your own blog, and add under it "I dunno which person this gif this belongs too" or "Neat art". I've seen gifs from other gif makers and art from other artist getting reposted around here without even getting credited. I can recognize almost all the gif makers around here, especially when it comes to the #tropedit tag, by their unique colorings and ways to make beautiful gifsets. And when I see reposts getting more notes than their own original post...This is how this site looses it's gif makers and artists.

Right, so instead of going off and rant, I'm gonna turn this into a little tutorial.

Okay, so you see some cool gifs around here, and it's in a set. And you go "Aahh, I want this by its self for my mood board" or "This will fit my fanfic soooo nicely". Instead of going copy/save and then repost the same gif on your blog, here a cool little feature:

You click on that little blue button called GIF and a drop down menu pops up, featuring gajillion gifs that are all on this site.

"But, how do I find the gif that I want?" Have you noticed that every gifset or art that gets posted here, all have unique tags that are relevant to that artist or gifmaker? For example, here's one of my unique tags:

Now, you just need to scroll down and find the one that you've been looking for. OR from that gif, notice some other tags and you search for something else that you like.

Once you find it, you just click it and it does this:

Voilà! Now, you can start writing, you can start adding other gifs! But, you do notice what's under the gif, right? It's you giving credit! No need for @, no need for asking around which gif this belong to. It's just does it's thing automatically, I get a notification that someone liked it a lot and used it in their post.

That's it! Nothing complicated.

Now, when it comes to art...Just reblog from the artist, please. Share the art around by rebloging directly from them, not doing the old copy/save/repost or @. Just reblog it from them. It's that simple!

Hopefully, this was helpful for any new people coming here and being too shy to ask about these things! Have fun posting!

[agent-barnes40]

Secrets

Dhawan!Master x Reader (Romantic)

The Master figures out a secret, one that you wished you could've hidden for longer

2177 Words

The Master was particular, he planned everything down to the final little detail when it came to you. Perfect clothing options, food options, preferred snack options, preferred drinking options, he had things down to a meticulous science and practiced ease at this point. He just did things on autopilot now when it came to you. He didn't mind doing these things, he just fell into a routine with them and with you.

Today, you were sitting with The Fam at a little alien café, you had chosen to sit out the outward chair, as it was nearing that time for The Master to just up and grab you and then just drag you off. Graham looked over, a smile on his face. "How have you been doing after the last run in with The Master?"

You shrugged. "Good. He's not all that bad, to be honest. I don't know how he can be as callous and rude as you all say he is."

Yaz looked over at you, a shocked look on her face. "He tried to kill us!"

You turned to face her, an eyebrow raised. "And The Doctor had it covered. She kept you all alive. The Master's even started to stock up on my toothpaste too."

"So what you have a room and bathroom in that shack?" Ryan asked and you smiled softly.

"Its not much of a shack, its the same as The Doctor's TARDIS, just replace the sign with a placard that says "HA" over and over instead of the regular text on the little phone door." You said, smiling as the waiter brought over the drinks you all had ordered.

Luckily it was an alien café that had a human menu, for travelers like you guys. You grabbed the shake you had ordered and when you looked up again, you had to stop and just stare. You hadn't registered who the waiter was and you suspected the others just hadn't realized who he was either.

There was The Master, in the uniform and smiling directly at you and it was like he knew you had clicked it. "Is everything alright?"

"Yes, thank you." You watched as The Master walked off, straight to the back and you were in shock.

The Fam watched as you just stared at the door, and then Yaz reached over and poked you. "Did you just get a thing for an alien?"

You looked over at her and then looked over to Graham, and then to Ryan before you shook your head. "Thought he looked familiar, that's all."

Yaz shook her head. "You have a thing for an alien!"

You groaned, your eyes drifting back over to look at the kitchen door again, and then looked over where The Doctor was. The Doctor was busy chatting with a local about some weird happenings in the area. The whole reason you all were here, you suspected The Master had done something.

Yaz bumped your leg with hers, a smirk on her face. "I'm sure The Doctor wouldn't mind it."

You rolled your eyes, smiling. "Yeah, yeah. I'll definitely start that conversation with her when she decides to sit down and join us."

It was like speaking The Doctor's name enacted some sort of homing beacon because The Doctor practically spawned back at the table. She reached out for the drink she got and got settled in her chair. "Soo, what are we talking about, fam?"

Yaz looked over at you and grinned. You started shaking your head. "Yasmin Khan, I swear!"

Yaz burst into laughter at you using her full name and so did you, causing the rest of the table to join the two of you. You felt good and then you noticed The Master watching you all and you waved a little at him, gaining one back.

"You totally have a thing for him!" Yaz said and you groaned again.

"I do not have a crush on him!" You said, trying to keep your voice down.

Yaz grinned and pointed. "Called it! You do have something for him. Go ask him out!"

The Doctor was turning in her chair and stilled, mid sip and just stared. "Yaz, describe him for me."

Yaz's face contorted into confusion and that's when you realized and your heart dropped. Yaz looked over at you and noticed your expression. "W-well he's got blue skin and.."

You had to hold in the groan and started to get up, catching The Doctor's attention as she turned to look at you, she called your name and you just kept staring at The Master. "Who do you see?"

"Doctor, I'm not feeling too well. I'm gonna head back to The TARDIS." You said, leaving your jacket behind, wanting to just get it all over with.

You barely got to the door before you felt that familiar hand grab the back of your shirt and had pulled you back. You quickly fell into the grip, stumbling a little. "Hey!"

The rest of the Fam got up, watching as you let the man pull you and then you were shoved to the ground and you winced, knowing your knees were going to be bruised. He usually didn't do the the whole kneeling thing unless he had a bigger plan in motion.

You looked up at him, knowing that all the Fam could see was that blue alien until you heard the sonic and you closed your eyes. You heard the aggravated groan leaving The Master and you reopened them.

"How is he here in place of that blue guy?" Graham asked.

"Perception filter, usually you all wouldn't notice him, but they saw through the filter. Is this the same one from London?" The Doctor was rambling.

The Master looked down at you and his signature deranged grin crossed his face. "Hello Dear."

"Hi. Fancy seeing you here."

You heard footsteps, instinctively turning to look when The Master's hand shot out and grabbed at your jaw, forcing you to keep looking at him. You knew it was probably the Doctor judging by how he was reacting.

"Let them go, Master." The Doctor said and The Master's eyes flicked up from you to her.

"You wish I'd stop stealing your precious little pet, they are spending more time with me than you." The Master said, his hand letting go of your jaw as he stared down The Doctor.

"I was wondering why you always took them, but with everything that has happened in the last hour we've been here, its become obvious." The Doctor shot back.

You turned to look at her and noticed the thumbs up Ryan was giving you and you took a deep breath, sending a subtle one back. It was something you as a group came up with if one of you needed to jump in to distract.

Ryan nudged Graham and then Graham nodded, getting the idea. The two of them quickly came up with a plan, one that you wished you knew sooner because in hindsight, it was kind of dumb but it worked.

Graham turned and grabbed your shake while Ryan grabbed your jacket. The two, as confidently as they could, held up the stuff. "Your forgetting something."

You quickly got up, dodging The Master's hands as you bolted for the Fam, sending a little smirk toward The Master. The Time Lord sent you an amused look and you smiled.

The Doctor looked between the two of you and you would've recognized the look on her face if you hadn't been celebrating your little victory over getting out of his clutches. You grabbed the shake from Graham and took a sip.

'Oh, love, it wouldn't be that easy to rid yourself of me.'

"I thought I told you not call me that." You said, not even thinking that the other's couldn't hear what he said. He spent a lot of time in your head and you groaned at the look Graham sent you.

"What have you done to them?" Yaz demanded.

The Master's deranged smile only grew wider at her question and his eyes flicked from you to Yaz. "Didn't you say, Yaz, that they had crush on me?"

Your heart dropped and you slammed the glass down. "Your teetering."

"Oh its a line you let me cross all the time, pet."

"Not to my friends, never my friends." You gave him a pointed look and yet he still pushed.

"Now, was that crush on me or the face I was using?" The Master pushed, the question aimed at you and you shook your head.

The Doctor was looking in your direction as well. You looked between her and The Master. "It was on the perception filter."

The Doctor's face relaxed and turned to fully face The Master. She had already made an escape plan for all of you. She quickly aimed her sonic up at the ceiling, cutting the lights. "Scatter!"

You quickly took off for the door you were already heading for, knowing you were in enough light from outside to be illuminated as you shot through it. Graham and Ryan following behind you as Yaz took off with The Doctor.

You all bolted toward where The Doctor left the TARDIS and you yelped when someone grabbed you, it was softer than before and you barely heard Graham and Ryan yelling as you were pulled through a blue door. You recognized the interior of The Master's TARDIS. He kept the inside the same as the shack but with large and vast hallways, you headed over to your chair. You had always left a new book on the stand next to it, to start reading it when you rejoined The Master.

You yelped as you were pushed to the ground, lightly knocking over a pile of books as The Master stood over you. "What is my name?"

"Master, what's going on?" You asked, you usually didn't feel fear when looking at him, but this time, this time you did. He had that look on his face, that cold calculating look he only gave to The Doctor or to whoever's kingdom he was overthrowing that day.

"Say it again!" The Master demanded, bending a small bit, looking down at you.

"M-Master."

The Master grinned. "Once more pet."

You met his stare and realized he wasn't actually going to hurt you, he was just pissed off that you managed to get a good run away from him in. "Your name is The Master."

"Don't be cheeky. Get up." The Master ordered.

You started to get up, pushing your face close to his as he was still leaned over you. "Can't get up with you being like this, Master. One of us is going to have to move."

"Or you can tell my why you ran away."

Oh so thats what this was really about. You reached up and rested your hand on his face. "I like making things difficult, Master. You like it though."

"Oh do I?"

"You like a challenge. I like to be challenging. Now where are we going?"

The Master straightened up, sliding an arm around you to pull you up with him, making the two of you chest to chest. You barely noticed the position as he scanned your face. You were focused on him fully. "I know you we're lying earlier, love."

"Was I?"

"You have a silly human crush on me. You crave the days I steal you away from her." The Master's words had an air of superiority to them, like he knew the truth of the words he was putting on you.

"You don't understand what your talking about, Master. Lets put a pin in this conversation, please."

"OOOH, you used your manners, love. I'll relent this time but later, we are talking about this." The Master stepped away, your hand falling from his face. He had his answer, you all but confirmed it today and he'd push even more.

The Master's new favorite thing was to make you realize just how hard you had fallen for him.

(Little Bonus because I couldn't help it.) You ran up beside Yaz, waving to the Fam as you got readjusted to life back with The Doctor. The Doctor looked over at you and grinned. "So how was your date?"

"It was fantastic! He.." You stopped mid reply when you realized.

The blond shot her arms up in the air, cheering and certainly drawing the eyes of everyone in the vicinity. "Yaz you owe me!"

You watched the reactions of everyone and relaxed as they all groaned about losing the bet. Yaz looked over at The Doctor, pulling a few pounds out of her wallet. "How'd ya know it was gonna be that easy?"

"Because they've got this whole new relationship glow to them." The Doctor pointed out and you groaned.

"Among other things." Ryan pointed out, his eyes trained on the jacket you were wearing.

You hadn't even noticed you had grabbed The Master's coat. He must've placed his over yours after you had hung it up. "Of course I had to grab his jacket."

[sweetsweetjellybean]

**Series Masterlist is available on the Fic Menu pinned to the top of my blog. Please Fix this link shit Tumblr**

TW: Smut-tacular Smut, Angst, Casual Drug Use, NSFW 18+

Beta’d by @superblysubpar AN: See End of Chapter Word Count 21,074

Series Masterlist

“Where are you two headed?” Steve asks, leaning against the kitchen island, raising a coffee mug to his lips. 

“We’re going to look at the car,” you say, beaming proudly. The long hours and careful saving are finally going to pay off. As much as you appreciated both boys driving you around, you can’t wait to be more self-reliant. This is a step in the right direction. Placing your purse on the island, you start going through its contents, making sure you have everything you’ll need. 

“Need any help?” Steve directs the question to you, but Eddie answers instead.

“I’ve got it covered, Harrington,” Eddie states in a flat voice as he pulls out two black travel mugs from the cabinet and moves around Steve to fill them with coffee. 

“Oh, yeah?” Steve turns to face him, crossing his arms over his chest, “What do you have in mind?”

“Well, It’s not a BMW, but there’s a used Pinto over at Kent’s car lot. I think it will be a good size for her, and it’s in her price range,” Eddie adds a little sugar from the bowl on the counter before snapping the lids closed.

“You’re kidding, right?” Steve sets his mug down on the counter and puts his hands on his hips, “You can’t put her in one of those. They aren’t safe.”

“Like I said, I’ve got this covered,” Eddie says, squaring up to him.

“It’s fine, Steve,” you say, trying to lower the temperature.

“It’s not fine,” Steve says, not taking his eyes off Eddie, “Those cars explode when they’re hit from behind. Something about the gas tank.”

“It’s what she can afford. Okay, money bags?” Eddie’s baiting him. Something has been off since the night Steve picked you up at work. Eddie’s been tense, paying closer attention to your comings and goings. 

“Then she can wait a few more weeks until she can get something else. I’ll drive her. She’s not getting in one of those death traps,” Steve fumes, taking a step toward Eddie. 

“I think we have had enough of your taxi services,” Eddie retorts, narrowing his eyes.

Dropping the checkbook you’re holding, you rush around the islands and hook your arm around Eddie’s elbow, “Eddie, come on,” you gently pull him back from Steve, “we’ll figure it out.”

He lets you pull him around the island, where you quickly grab your purse before heading towards the door.

“Don’t go to Kent’s. Go to Martin’s, you’ll get a better deal. They’ll haggle. Look for an Oldsmobile,” Steve calls after you.

“Thanks, Steve,” you say, giving him a look over your shoulder.

When you get in the van, Eddie grips the steering wheel and stares down at the dash. His knuckles turn white, and he shakes his head. 

“He’s just trying to be helpful,” you say quietly.

“Maybe he should go with you,” he turns his head to look at you.

Clicking off your seatbelt, you climb over the console into his lap,” I want you to take me, okay?” you press a few small kisses to his lips before he finally kisses you back. 

“Okay?” you ask again, rubbing his shoulders.

“Okay,” he softly pats your thigh, “you better get buckled in before safety officer squarehead sees you and has an aneurysm.”

Laughing, you kiss him again before returning to your seat. The van’s engine rumbles to life, and Queensryche blasts from the speakers. 

“Where are we going?” you ask as he drives towards town.

“Martin’s,” he sighs, drumming his hand on top of the wheel.

♡♡♡

“So, what do you think?” Eddie asks from the passenger seat. The wind from the open window blows his curls as you zoom down the deserted road surrounded by woods on the edge of town. 

Unable to keep up your poker face, you let the smile take over, “I love it,” you say, admiring the blue velvet interior of the Cutlass. The trees shade the road as you press your foot down on the gas, speeding along under their canopy.

“Easy now, speed racer. You haven’t signed for it yet,” he scolds with a smile playing on his lips. 

The tires crunch over loose asphalt as you pull onto the shoulder and turn the key in the ignition. Pushing up the armrest, you slide across the bench seat and straddle his lap, “I thought you liked to go fast,” you whisper before nipping at his neck. 

His hands slide down your hips until he’s squeezing your ass, “You really like this car,” he chuckles.

“Uh-huh,” you nod as you pull your shirt over your head and lean down to seal your mouth over his. 

“What do you think?” you ask between kisses. 

“I think,” his hands move to your breasts, kneading them over your bra, “that it looks like a little old lady’s car.”

“Hey,” you swat his hands off your chest. 

He laughs before leaning forward and burying his face in your cleavage. Placing your hands on his jaw, you tip his head back, “What do you really think?”

“It’s going to wipe out your savings after you buy insurance, but if you like it, you should get it.”

The leaves rustle softly as a light breeze blows through. A few of his curls flutter around your cheeks as you kiss, tickling your skin. 

“We haven’t checked out the backseat yet,” you say, grinding on his lap.

“We should be thorough,” his fingers glide down your shoulder, taking your bra strap with them. 

“Do our due diligence,” you agree, pulling on the lever that opens the door. Scooting off his lap, you climb out and open the back door. Reaching behind your back, you unclasp your bra before ducking into the backseat, Eddie following right behind you, unbuckling his belt and pulling off his shirt. 

He slips off your bra, balls it up, and tosses it into the front seat before maneuvering you onto your back and climbing over you until he’s cradled between your legs. 

“Roomy,” he says, looking around before closing his mouth over your nipple, laving it with his tongue, and gently biting down. 

“Yes, Eddie,” you moan, rolling your hips, seeking out some friction.

He’s working on your other breast when he stops suddenly, “Where did you go the other night when Steve picked you up from work?” 

His question catches you off guard. “What do you mean?” you ask, your stomach tenses and burns with nerves, “I came home.”

“Two hours after Enzo’s closed,” his face is entirely blank, disguising his feelings.

“I didn’t go anywhere. I got out a little late, and Steve wanted to talk, so he just drove around,” you loathe how easily the lies roll off your tongue. 

“Oh yeah?” his tone is measured and even giving nothing away, “Did he talk about that girl he brought home from the church? She seemed to enjoy herself. I keep meaning to ask him how she was,” he’s testing you, gauging your reaction.

“He didn’t bring her up.”

“No? Well, Steve’s fucked a lot of girls. He probably can’t tell one pussy from another.”

“Steve’s not going to talk to me about his sex life, Eddie,” irritation creeps into your voice.

“Why not? You two are such good friends now,” the sarcasm drips from his voice as he pulls himself off you.

“We better get back,” he opens the door and pushes out of the backseat, “We don’t want anyone thinking we stole their car,” he says, buckling his belt. He opens the front passenger door and reaches in to grab your clothes. He tosses them to you, leaving you to wonder what just happened.

♡♡♡

"Mmmmm," Steve hums, wrapping his arms around your shoulders from behind as you stand at the kitchen sink rinsing some ripe berries in a colander.

"I love being able to do this," he kisses down your temple, and you spin in his arms, abandoning your task. His mouth tastes minty and fresh as you slide your tongue inside. It doesn't feel wrong being with Steve, the same way it doesn't feel wrong being with Eddie. Loving them is as natural as breathing. There hasn't been any sex since the night at Weathertop. He hasn't pushed, content to hold and kiss you. And there has been lots of kissing. His hands are in your hair as he backs you against the counter, kissing you until you both need to come up for air.  

"Good morning," he says, pressing his soft lips to yours a few more times. 

"You're in a good mood this morning," you note the crisp, light blue button-down he has tucked into his jeans, a little more formal than he usually dresses.

"There's a beautiful woman that I'm crazy in love with in my kitchen," his fingers dip under the hem of your shirt, stroking the skin just above your shorts, "And I get to kiss her while she makes fruit salad," he reaches behind you stealing a couple blueberries, popping one in his mouth before offering the other one to you. Your lips close around his fingers as he places the berry on your tongue. The tart juice bursts into your mouth as you bite down.

"She loves you right back," you stretch to kiss him, the blueberry flavor coating your mouths. 

"Are you hungry? Can I make you some breakfast?" you ask, straightening his collar.

"I'm starving, actually, and I would love that if you don't mind," he says, grabbing a few more pieces of fruit. 

"What would you like?" you're thrilled his appetite has returned.

"Umm, how about some scrambled eggs?"

"You got it," happily, you walk to the fridge to retrieve the egg carton.

"I'll put in some toast. Want any?" he asks with his head in the pantry. 

"I already ate," you say, cracking an egg into a bowl. He makes himself a cup of coffee and drinks it leaning against the island watching you cook. Once everything is ready, you join him at the breakfast table.

"Do you need anything else for the party? I can stop when I'm out," he scoops some eggs onto his toast before taking a bite.

"Nope. We have everything," you went shopping yesterday, driving yourself in your new car. The school year was over, and everyone was coming over to hang out by the pool to celebrate. They had let Eddie walk at graduation despite him having to take one makeup class over the summer. Eddie invited Dustin and Nancy's little brother, who is bringing his girlfriend with them. 

"Where are you going looking so handsome?" you ask smiling, leaning your elbow on the table and propping your head in your hand. The collar of his dress shirt is open, and you can see a hint of dark hair at the edge of his white undershirt.

His cheeks tint pink as he finishes chewing, "I hate missing a chance to be alone with you, but I sort of have a job interview," he sets down his fork and turns his body toward you, "I'm meeting with the town manager and the head of the rec department."

"Whoa, that sounds important."

"The town's taking some of the disaster relief funds and building a new community center. A few of the town council members worked with me at the shelter and they asked if I'd be interested in working there," he picks up the hand you have resting on your thigh and fidgets with your fingers, "maybe even running it." 

"That's great, Steve. It sounds like a big opportunity. Is that something you're interested in?" you've seen Steve with Dustin and his other friends, he really cares for them, and they all look to him for guidance. 

"I'd probably have to take a few college classes, and I'll miss working with Robin, but this is the kind of work I can be proud of," he looks into your eyes, "I'd make enough to support a family."

"Is that what you want?" you ask, unsure how to feel. He's hinting about children when you're still trying to get through this without hurting anyone.

"Definitely," he says without any hesitation, "Do you?"

"Yeah, someday."

He squeezes your hand, happiness glowing on his face. He stands and leans over to kiss you, "I'll be back to help as soon as I can," he takes his plate to the sink and picks up his keys from the island. 

"Good luck," you call after him as he leaves the kitchen while you sit at the table, looking out the window, feeling a bit dizzy.

♡♡♡

There couldn’t have been a better day for a pool party. The hot afternoon sun burned away the few clouds leaving the sky clear and blue. The red line on the thermometer hovers in the high eighties. Summer songs playing through the radio float in the air mixing with the sounds of your friends laughing and enjoying the pool. 

The doorbell started ringing about an hour ago, with everyone showing up at roughly the same time. All of you had been relishing the beautiful weather and the company when you decided it was time to bring out the food. With your flip-flops clapping against the kitchen floor, you load up your arms with bowls of chips and fruit salad. 

“I really like your suit,” Steve whispers as he leans toward you, picking up the tray of sandwiches he helped you put together earlier. The bikini you have on is not as modest as what Nancy and Robin are wearing. At first, you considered changing, worried that you looked a little slutty in comparison, but Steve and Eddie seemed to appreciate it, so you decided to just go with it.

“You aren’t looking so bad yourself,” you wink, taking in his board shorts and sun-kissed shoulders dotted with freckles, a few hours of sun already giving him a golden glow. He follows behind you, putting his tray on the table he’d set up near the house, and you’re almost instantly swarmed by hungry teenage boys - not shy about helping themselves.

Steve had returned from his meeting cautiously optimistic. The interview went well, and they will let him know if they plan on hiring him sometime this week. After he’d changed, you watched him from the kitchen window with a smile and heated cheeks as he pulled out more patio furniture for the party, muscles flexing, a little sweat running through the patch of chest hair. Besides adding extra loungers and deck chairs, he set up two bistro tables with green umbrellas at each end of the patio, creating two separate seating areas. And a separate table for food and a makeshift bar for drinks that Eddie was working at right now. 

He also looks good, his hair tied back at the nape of his neck, his chest full of tattoos on full display as he fills a cooler with ice for soda and beer. Your fingers are very familiar with those smooth planes of pale skin and the way to get his muscles to jump under your touch. He finishes making sure cups, and more ice are easily accessible before taking care of the trash. Grabbing a can of spirit, he ambles over to one of the tables and sits down with a sigh wiping away a little sweat.

“Anyone want to light up?” Eddie asks, pulling a joint and a lighter from his half-empty pack of cigarettes. 

“I’m in,” Jonathan waves a hand in the air, walking away from the small table on the other side of the patio, where he was eating with Nancy and Robin. 

“Baby?” Eddie asks, eyeing you where you stand next to Steve, scooping some fruit into a paper bowl and handing it to Jane, who seems a little shy around you, but accepts it gratefully.

“Coming,” you call, handing Steve the spoon to finish serving alone, “What do you say, Robin?”

“Me?” Robin points to herself, surprised by your invitation.

“Yeah, I need a partner in crime,” you say, waving her over. Robin has been very kind, considering the sticky situation she’s gotten mixed up in, and you’ve really taken a shine to her. It was nice feeling like they weren’t just Eddie’s friends but yours as well. 

“She can’t even be around a cigarette without passing out,” Steve teases as he fills his plate with food. 

“This is better. All natural. Come on over, Buckley. I’ll teach you,” Eddie encourages, shooting a look at Steve.

“Okay, fine,” Robin acquiesces, getting up from her seat and carrying her plate to one of the trash cans. 

“I’m not taking care of you if you don’t like it,” Steve warns as he passes her on his way to sit with Nancy.

“Yes, you will,” she says over her shoulder.

“Yeah, I will,” Steve laughs, taking a seat in her vacant chair and tucking into one of the sandwiches.

Cool water lands on your warm legs when Dustin splashes as you walk along the edge of the pool to the table where Eddie is sitting, “I thought you are supposed to be a good influence,” he scolds.

“Who told you that?” you laugh. 

Kicking off your flip-flops, you let Eddie pull you into his lap, leaving the free seat for Robin. It’s nice to have your arm around his shoulder, his hand resting on your thigh. The distance between you has been growing. Mike tries to look inconspicuous as he meanders behind Robin, leaving Jane to join Dustin in the pool.

“I don’t think so, Mike,” Nancy says from her spot in the shade.

“Come on, Nance. You’re not mom,” Mike says, not even bothering to turn around to her as he speaks.

“Hey Eddie,” Nancy says, her voice sounding sinister, “do you remember what I keep in the shoebox in my closet?”

“Why, yes I do, lady Wheeler,” Eddie says sweetly, “Sorry, Mike. Maybe another time,” he waves the younger boy away. Nancy sips her drink with a satisfied smile. 

“What’s she have in there, dude? Your balls?” Mike asks, clearly annoyed with Eddie siding with his sister.

“Your sister scares the shit out of me,” Eddie admits, “She could hide a body and never get caught.” 

Jonathan chuckles at the assessment of his girlfriend while he sips his drink, “She definitely could.”

“Did you eat?” you ask Eddie as Robin settles herself in the seat beside you.

“I will after this,” he says, squeezing your hip, “You did a nice job getting everything ready.” Robin and Jonathan both shake their heads and murmur their agreement. 

“Thanks,” you say, planting your lips on the apple of his cheek and appreciating his sweet compliment. His words have had a sharp edge since the day you purchased the car, and it’s been even colder in bed. 

“Are you ready for this, Buckley?” Eddie smiles at her as he lights the joint and inhales, holding the smoke in before exhaling. He hands you the joint and explains the finer details to Robin as you take a long drag before passing it on to Jonathan. As you hold it in, the smoke swirls in your lungs, letting the effects lull you into calm. 

Robin takes the smoking joint from Jonathan between two fingers and eyes it suspiciously before taking a small puff. She tries to hold in the smoke the way Eddie explained but ends up coughing it out. She hands the joint back to Eddie and continues hacking like a two-pack-a-day smoker. Jumping up, you grab a drink from the cooler, opening it before you set it in front of her and rub a circle on her back. 

“How do you do that without coughing up a lung?” she asks once she’s caught her breath and chugged down the drink. 

“It’s your first time. You’ll get used to it,” Eddie assures her as he passes the joint along, “You’re going to make it, right Buckley?”

“Nope. I’m done,” she says, getting up, “Let’s just get plastered next time,” she pats your shoulder.

“You got it. Sorry, Robin,” you say sheepishly. She waves you off and joins the others in the pool. 

Taking her seat, you place your legs in Eddie’s lap. His elegant fingers wrap around your knee, occasionally smoothing their way up the length of your thigh as the three of you finish off the joint. Eddie and Jonathan are having an in-depth discussion on the quality of weed available in Hawkins compared to the west coast, but you tune them out, instead watching the younger kids’ antics. Mike is standing on the end of the diving board announcing the overly complicated dive he’s about to attempt, but then belly-flops into the water, splashing Jane as she bursts into giggles. 

“I’m going to get some food,” Eddie says, gently nudging off your legs before standing. He leans down to brush your lips and surprises you by sliding his tongue into your mouth, deepening the kiss. Jonathan gets up and wanders back to Nancy, possibly feeling awkward witnessing the intimate moment.

Deciding not to stay at the table alone, you walk over to one of the loungers and stretch out, closing your eyes, letting the sun heat your skin, and the fuzzy edges of your brain push away any lingering worries as you enjoy the peaceful high. Someone takes the lounger beside you, and you don’t have to open your eyes to know it’s Steve. 

“Stop,” your lips spread into a grin as you feel his eyes moving over your body.

“What?” his playful voice confirming your suspensions.

“You know what,” opening one eye, you peek at him in time to watch him push his sunglasses up his nose and stretch out his arms, muscles contracting as he locks them behind his head before he turns his face towards the sky, savoring the afternoon sun. The two of you don’t talk, pleased to just be near one another, listening to your friends’ conversations going on around you. 

Nancy has been telling Robin about her college plans at Emerson and how she hopes Robin will come to visit when Mike and Eddie casually approach them. Mike tries pushing Nancy into the pool, but it ends up with both of them falling over the edge. Eddie simply picks up Robin and tosses her in before yelling a word of warning and cannonballing in after her. The pair have settled into a friendship akin to siblings, and you can’t help laughing watching them interact. 

Steve turns his smiling face toward you after chuckling over their silliness. This is truly one of those times you wish you could freeze things as they are. The important people in your life gathered close on a summer day. His eyes hold yours, and you know what he’s thinking, this is the kind of life you could have together. Closing your eyes, you lean back and let your mind work on the answers. A few drops of water land on your stomach.

“Come in the water with me, baby,” Eddie calls from the pool. 

Sitting up, you pull your knees up to your chest, “I’m not hot enough yet,” you watch him push his wet bangs off his face.

“You look plenty hot to me,” he wiggles his eyebrows, both his arms rest on the pavers that line the edge of the pool in front of your lounger.

Steve doesn’t move or turn his head, but you almost hear his thoughts asking you to stay with him, to choose him, while Eddie asks you to do the same. Stress returns, killing your high. 

Pulling the scrunchie off your wrist, you tie up your hair before getting up to join Eddie in the pool. For the first time, you question whether your decision is based on your guilt for lying to him or because you want to be with him. You’re always hurting one of them, and you hate yourself for it. 

Eddie takes your hand and pulls you through the water until your body is against his, and he can wrap his arms around you. Steve gets up and strides into the house, closing the slider with more force than usual. Eddie kisses you softly, and you smile, but you can’t help looking at the glass door that Steve just walked through.

Jane and Mike take up the loungers you and Steve had vacated while everyone else cools off in the water. Jonathan and Nancy are sharing a donut-shaped float kicking their feet gently to propel themselves around the pool, and Robin is trying to catch Dustin off guard, so she can dunk him. 

“They make a cute couple,” you comment to Eddie as you watch Mike and Jane talking. He takes her hand and holds it across the space between their seats.

“You think?” Eddie follows your gaze considering your statement. There was something different about Jane that you found interesting. When you first met her, you mentioned it to Eddie, and he chalked it up to her being Hopper’s daughter, but you’re certain that’s not it. 

“I’m going to go inside for a minute,” you say, untangling yourself from him, “I need the ladies.”

“You better go then. We don’t want any P in this ool,” he smacks your butt as you lift yourself out of the water. 

“You’re so cheesy,” you laugh, grabbing a towel to dry off. 

“You love it,” he says, turning back to the others, “Mike come here so I can drown you.”

Walking inside barefoot with a towel around your waist, you try not to drip water all over the floor as you look for Steve. He is in one of the downstairs bathrooms leaning against the vanity, looking at his reflection in the mirror. Your arms move around his waist from behind, and you place small kisses on his spine. 

“I’m alright,” he says, covering one of your hands with his, “I just need…I don’t know what I need,” he turns in your arms and brushes your cheek, “Do you?”

You’re aware of what he’s asking, and you wish you could say what he wants to hear, “No,” you say gently, shaking your head. 

“That’s okay,” he kisses your forehead, “You’re worth the wait.”

But as the guilt eats away at you like rust on metal, you’re starting to doubt if you’re worth it for either of them, “You’re catching some sun,” your hand runs down his chest, “Don’t let yourself burn, okay? I have to get back.”

A quick kiss ends your conversation, and you hurry back outside before you’re missed. Moving to the edge of the pool, you sit down on the pavers. Eddie comes to help you slip into the water. He wraps your legs around his waist, steers you down to the pool’s unoccupied end, and crowds you against the side.

“I’ve been wanting to get you alone all afternoon,” he licks away a drop of water clinging to your neck.

“Well, we aren’t exactly alone,” your hands move to his chest, trying to keep some space between you.

“Alone enough,” he argues, gripping your chin between his thumb and forefinger.

“You haven’t wanted me in days, and now that we’re in front of your friends, you can’t get enough?” you don’t bother hiding the irritation in your voice.

“You know how I get when I smoke,” his mouth presses against yours, “I’ve missed you,” his fingers move to your bottoms, tracing the edge down your thigh, in between your legs where he hooks a finger underneath, brushing it against your pussy. 

“Don’t,” you say firmly, and his fingers retreat immediately. He holds his hands up in surrender and sulks down to the other end of the pool. Placing your hands flat on the edge of the pool, you boost yourself up to sit on the edge letting your feet dangle in the water. The woosh of the slider being opened has you turning your head to watch Steve come back outside wearing a t-shirt. The chair from one of the tables scrapes against the pavers as he drags it closer to the pool just behind you, where he sits, rejoining the group. 

“Had enough sun?” Robin asks him as she pushes Dustin’s head below the water.

“Yeah,” Steve says, disinterested, “If you drown him, you can explain it to his mother.”

“Fine,” Robin groans as she lets Dustin up, and he sputters and immediately tries to return the favor.

“I can’t believe we’re finally done with high school,” Nancy says suddenly like she just realized it. 

“That’s right. So long, Hawkins High!” Robin yells as she tries hiding from Dustin behind Eddie. 

“I can’t believe I have to go to summer school,” Eddie raises his hands in a strangling motion. 

“What for?” Nancy asks, trailing her hands through the water. 

“Home Fucking Ec,” Eddie groans slinging an arm around Robin so Dustin will leave her alone. If Eddie himself hadn’t been enough to deter Dustin away from Robin, his announcement alone would have provided a distraction. He and Mike break out into fits of laughter at Eddie’s expense. 

“How do you fail Home Ec?” Jonathan asks, joining in the laughter.

“I didn’t fail. I missed too many classes,” Eddie explains defensively.

“What are your plans after?” Nancy pushes a laughing Jonathan off the float and into the water. 

“I haven’t really thought about it,” Eddie shrugs.

“You should come work at Family Video,” Robin says excitedly, smacking Eddie’s chest.

“I already got a job, doll,” Eddie reminds her. 

“How about something that won’t get you arrested,” Dustin says, raising an eyebrow.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Eddie shrugs.

Steve shifts in his chair, crossing his legs and shaking his head as a scoff rumbles from his throat.

“Something you want to say, Harrington?” Eddie raises his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun as he glares at Steve.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Steve answers, returning his look. The conversation comes to an uncomfortable halt as everyone senses the tension.

“So…um...Dustin, did you tell Eddie about the club?” Mike says, trying to move things along.

“No, I didn’t, Mike. And now might not be the best time,” Dustin says through gritted teeth.

“What about the club?” Eddie asks, drawing his eyebrows together.

“That asshole Kenny Carter is trying to convince Principal Higgins to cancel Hellfire so the chess club can use the drama room on Fridays,” Dustin splashes his hands on the water’s surface.

“But we’re not going to let it happen,” Mike says from his place on the lounger.

“I know you won’t,” Eddie places a hand on Dustin’s head, ruffling his curls, “You boys got to be careful. There’s always some dickhead trying to take what’s not theirs,” he casts a look in Steve’s direction.

“Does anyone want anything else to eat?” you shout, jumping to your feet before anything else can be said, “I’m going to start clearing some of this away.”

“I will help,” Jane joins you at the table, gathering the empty dishes.

“Thank you, Jane,” you say, handing her a stack of plates.

“Eddie, when are you playing again?” Robin distracts him, and you make a note to thank her later.

Using your chin to keep the dishes balanced, you nudge open the door and use your foot to slide it the rest of the way, “Just leave everything on the counter. I’ll sort it out later,” you instruct Jane as you dump everything on the kitchen island. Leaning your elbows against the countertop, you hang your head in your hands and let out a sigh. When you raise your head, Jane is watching you thoughtfully.

“Thanks again for your help. It was very kind of you to offer,” you force a small smile.

She turns to go, but just before she enters the sunroom, she looks back at you, “There’s more to life than stupid boys, you know?”

Blinking as you watch her leave through the slider, you think that might be the best advice you’ve ever received.

Everyone is out of the water when you return from inside. Steve and Eddie are at opposite ends of the patio. Ignoring both of them, you join Nancy and Dustin standing by the pool with towels wrapped around their middles.

“When do you leave for Boston?” you ask Nancy, interested in her plans. Boston would be a nice place to visit, especially if you were going to Maine.

“I’m not sure,” Nancy looks behind you towards Jonathan, He and Eddie are wandering over to join the conversation.

“Not sure about what?” Jonathan asks, taking a sip from the bottle of beer he’s holding and putting an arm around her shoulders. 

“When we’re leaving,” Nancy explains as Eddie wraps his arms around you from behind. His wet curls brush against your face as he kisses your cheek, his hands are creeping higher up your body, and you cover them with your hands, stopping them from going any further. 

“I want to wait until my mom and Hopper move into their new house. Make sure she and Will are settled in before we take off,” Jonathan offers. 

“Where is Will today?” you inquire. Jonathan has just opened his mouth to answer when one of Eddie’s hands pushes past yours and lands on your breast. Blood rushes to your face, heating your cheeks. Jonathan and Nancy immediately look uncomfortable. Dustin starts turning his head, looking around the yard. 

“Eddie,” you hiss, batting away his hand, “Stop, okay?”

“What?” he asks innocently. 

Robin tries to step in front of Steve as he approaches from the side, “Jesus, Eddie. Tone it down, dude. You’re embarrassing her,” Steve criticizes, his hands on his hips.

The yard is suddenly quiet, the only noise the soft trickling from the pool filter. 

“I think I’m ready to go. Can you give me a ride, Steve?” Robin places her hand on Steve’s arm.

“Yeah, okay,” with a last look at you, Steve lets Robin tug him toward the house. 

Letting out the breath you’d been holding, you turn back to finish your conversation.

“That’s funny, Steve,” Eddie calls out to Steve’s retreating form. His voice dripping with sarcasm, “You didn’t seem to mind my tone when I was watching you fuck my girlfriend.”

Your mouth drops open, there’s a ringing in your ears, and a few things happen simultaneously. Jonathan starts coughing mid-sip of his beer while Nancy and Dustin’s eyes widen. Steve and Robin stop in their tracks, and Eddie stands there with a self-satisfied look on his face. He’s knocked back a few steps when you ram your shoulder into him as you run into the house, pushing past Steve and Robin.

The muffled sound of raised voice comes from the patio as you race up the stairs, slamming your bedroom door behind you. Sliding out the duffle you had stashed under the bed, you unzip and place it on top of the quilt before making trips back and forth from your dresser, filling it with your clothes. The bedroom door gently swings open, and Eddie enters, closing it behind him.

“What are you doing?” he looks around the room, confused.

“What the fuck do you think I’m doing, Eddie? I’m leaving,” you say, crossing into the bathroom to collect your toiletries. 

“Baby, I know you’re mad-“

“Oh, I’m not mad. I’m furious,” you say, cutting him off as you come back into the room and dump everything on top of your clothes, probably getting gunk all over them, but that’s the least of your problems, “I have never been so embarrassed in my life.”

“It’s not that big a deal. Everyone already knows we have sex,” he crosses his arms over his chest, trying to excuse his actions. 

“Yeah. They probably assumed I had sex with my boyfriend. Not that I let two guys take turns,” you pull on a pair of shorts over your still damp swim bottoms, ”I’m just starting to make friends with these people and now they think...I don’t know what they think. I don’t know what I would think if I was them, but it wouldn’t be good. You humiliated me because I didn’t want you feeling me up in front of Dustin.”

“That’s not what I was trying to do. Don’t worry. No one is going to think anything bad about you baby,” he steps toward you, but you retreat to the other side of the bed. His dismissive tone lets you know you’re not getting through to him.

You scoff, “Are you kidding me? Do you know what will happen if this gets around? You and Steve will get a pat on the back while I get labeled the town whore,” you pull a tee over your head, “Do you think you can imagine what that’s like, Eddie? When people judge you and whisper behind your back?” you try putting it in a way he can understand.

“Yeah, I know what that’s like,” he says softly, looking at his feet, “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

“That’s right, Eddie. That’s the problem. You don’t think about me. You’re too busy having some kind of dick-measuring contest with Steve. Your *friend*, who, in case you forgot, is letting you live here for free,” you zip up the duffle and sling it over your shoulder before grabbing your purse and moving toward the door, but Eddie doesn’t budge.

“Move out of the way, Eddie.”

“Just wait,” he holds up his hands in front of him, “I’ll leave for a little while, and we can talk about it when I come back, okay?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I’m leaving. You need to move now.”

He moves to the side, and you storm past him, slamming the door behind you.

♡♡♡

If you squint your eyes just right, the bumps in the popcorn ceiling take on the shape of George Washington. Resisting the urge to scrape them off, you roll on your side and look down at your sister from the top bunk of the bed you’ve been sleeping in since turning up at your family’s home two days ago. Your mother explained that your bedroom had been converted into a sewing room as she put clean sheets on your sister’s bed. So when you haven’t been at work, you’ve been here, in your sister’s room, surrounded by posters of Corey Haim and Michael J. Fox, searching for meaning in the textured surface. A knock on the door jamb quiets your sister’s ever-moving mouth. 

“Eddie wants to talk to you,” your mother says, leaning against the door jamb.

“I don’t want to talk to him,” you roll onto your back and search for other dead presidents.

“Well, you can tell him that yourself,” your mother says sternly, “Come on, let’s give them some privacy,” she waves your sister out of the room. 

Eddie pokes his head through the doorway, looking around the room like it might be booby-trapped with girl things. Amusement and a long-suffering sigh take their turns on your lips as you climb down the ladder and close the door behind him. His hands tentatively reach for your hips. When you don’t protest, he pulls you in, wrapping his arms around you and presses his mouth to the side of your face.

“Are you still mad?” he asks quietly.

“No,” you say, savoring his warmth. His head dips to kiss you, but you lean away, “but that doesn’t mean I’m coming back.”

“What? Why?” his hands gently grip your biceps, “Don’t you love me anymore?” his brows pull together, and the sadness in his big doe eyes is enough to break your heart.

“That’s never been our problem,” you place your hand over his heart, “I just don’t know what we’re doing anymore?”

“You’ve changed so much,” he points out, looking away from you. 

“That’s right, and I want you to change with me,” you tap his chest, “I’ve been waiting around for you for the last year.”

“I’ve been in school,” he says defensively.

“There’s always something. Some excuse you have to kick the can down the road,” you take hold of his arm when he tries to step away from you, “I want to start my life. I don’t want to spend my twenties waiting for you to get your shit together.”

“What do you want to do that I’m holding you back from?” he asks with a trace of sarcasm.

“I don’t know, but I thought we would be figuring that out together. You don’t think about me when you make your decisions. I’m just there, somewhere in the background. I can’t build my life around you.”

“So, you don’t know what you want, but you know it’s not me, it’s that it?” he scoffs. His face falls when you don’t answer.

“Look, I’m going to go,” he sniffs, his eyes getting glossy, “We can talk again later.”

“Okay,” you wrap your arms around his middle, but he doesn’t hug you back, and when he walks out the door, you let him go.

♡♡♡

Three more red x’s have marked the calendar since Eddie’s visit, and you miss him - you miss both of them, but you’re still no closer to a decision. It’s different being in your family home after months away. The rooms seem smaller - more crowded, causing you to feel more like a guest, like you don’t quite belong. There’s a slight smudge to the black text printed in today’s Hawkins post, like the typeset was just a little off at the printers. Your finger smooths down the neat rows of the classifieds, only stopping on the boxes that read ‘apartment for rent’.

Your mother walks into the kitchen carrying a bag of groceries, looking over your shoulder at the newspaper, “There’s a boy in the driveway,” she says like it’s a regular occurrence.

“Who? Eddie?” you question as she puts a milk carton in the fridge.

“No. Not Eddie. The other one with the hair. It’s like these boys today are afraid of the barber,” she muses, but you’re already out the door.

Steve doesn’t move from his spot as he watches you walk down the driveway. Sunglasses hide his eyes as he stands with hands in the pockets of his expensive jeans, a white t-shirt stretched over his chest.

“Do you wanna come in?” you ask, hitching your thumb toward the house.

“I want to talk,” he states with an unreadable expression.

“Then come inside,” you turn and walk back toward the house, looking over your shoulder to make sure he’s following you. 

“Out,” you say to your sister as you and Steve step into her bedroom. With a sigh befitting a pre-teen girl, she peels herself off the floor, taking her magazine with her, and stomps out, slamming the door behind her.

Steve steps around you and pulls out the tiny chair of the vanity. He sits and takes off his glasses. Folding down the arms, he hooks them on the front of his shirt before leaning forward and rubbing his hands together.

“Steve,” you begin but stop when he raises his head. There’s a blue tinge to the skin underneath his eyes. A pang of guilt resounds inside you, knowing you are likely the cause of his lack of sleep. 

“You left me,” he says quietly, “You left me without even saying goodbye.”

Tears prickle behind your eyes, and you’re embarrassed by your selfishness, “I’m so sorry,” you swipe at the first tear spilling over your eyelid, “I couldn’t stay with the way things are between you and Eddie.”

“I know why you did it,” he stands and walks to you, cradling your face in his hands. He uses his thumb to brush away another tear, “It just….hurt.”

“I’m sorry,” you say again, looking into his eyes.

“I know, sweetheart,” he tips your head back and presses his warm lips to yours in a succession of light kisses, “I’ve missed you,” he breathes out between kisses, “Come home with me.”

“I can’t,” your fingers grip the fabric of the back of his shirt, “You and Eddie-“

“We worked it out,” his hands smooth down your neck until they’re wrapped around your shoulders.

“How did you do that?” your eyebrows raise in surprise.

“We’re guys,” he shrugs, “We grunted a few times and called it good.”

“And how do I explain going back with you?”

He steps back and puts a hand on his hip while the other pinches the bridge of his nose, “He asked me to come to talk to you.”

“What?” you ask, your mouth dropping open.

“It doesn’t matter, okay?” he pulls you against him, “I want you with me. I want to come home to you.”

“Steve, do you know how messed up that is? You want me to go back to my boyfriend so we can keep cheating?” you pull away from him.

“Then we’ll tell him,” he calmly crosses his arms over his chest. 

“No,” you say, stepping back, ”He doesn’t have anyone or any place to go. I can’t hurt him like that. And I don’t know...I haven’t-“

“He can keep the goddamn house. We’ll find someplace else,” he says heatedly.

“Even if I didn’t have a boyfriend, we can’t live together. We barely knew each other four months ago,” you say, scrubbing your hands over your face wondering if your hesitation stems from practicality or your reluctance to let Eddie go.

“Why not?” he asks, stepping closer, “I know I love you. I’d marry you tomorrow if that’s what you want.”

Inhaling a sharp breath, you feel like the earth has just tilted in its axis, “Whoa,” you press your hand to your forehead, “that’s way too much. This is crazy.”

“I’m sorry,” he breathes out a defeated sigh, “I don’t mean to pressure you. I want you to understand that I know what I want, and time isn’t going to change that. I want a future with you. I got the job at the community center. I’m ready to start my life and put everything else behind me.”

The same words had come out of your mouth just a few days ago when you were talking to Eddie. This is what you wanted. What’s holding you back?

“You say that, but you’re going to wake up one morning and think of the friends you’ve lost and the people we’ve hurt, and you’ll resent me. You just can’t see it yet.”

“Is that what you’re worried about?” he takes both your hands in his, “I don’t know what to say to convince you. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“I wish I could be as sure as you,” your voice breaks, and your eyes fill.

“You aren’t coming home,” he says sadly. When you nod your head, his arms go around you.

“Just tell me you love me,” he says against your temple, ”it will be enough for now.”

“I love you so much,” your tears are leaving spots on his shirt, but you don’t want him to let you go. He kisses you until your eyes are dry, light brushes of his mouth meant to comfort, not demand, but after he’s gone and you press your face into your pillow, and the tears start again.

♡♡♡

“Goodnight,” you call over your shoulder, a week later, to the few remaining people at Enzo’s who are taking their time wiping down tables while enjoying a glass of wine from the bar. A round of “see ya laters” follows you as you push through the heavy front door onto the quiet sidewalk. The temperature dropped after the sun went down, and you wish you’d had the foresight to grab a sweatshirt. Fumbling through your purse and looking for your keys, you don’t immediately notice the gray van parked next to your Cutlass as you enter the employee parking area. 

Eddie is leaning against the dented side panel, and he smiles when your eyes connect. A warmth washes over you as you return his smile. 

“Rough night?” he asks, gesturing to your shirt that’s covered in tomato sauce from your collar to the hem. 

“Yeah,” you say, pulling it away from your body, “I think I might not be cut out to be a waitress at an Italian restaurant.”

“Well, that’s okay,” he says reassuringly, “Sometimes you have to give things a try to figure out they aren’t meant for you.”

Inhaling a deep breath, your lungs fill with the cool night air, and you wonder if his words hold a deeper meaning. 

“Listen,” he shoves his hands into his pockets, “I talked to everyone from the party. No one is going to say anything, I promise.”

“Thank you,” you swallow and give him a smile. 

“I don’t want anyone talking bad about you. Especially because of me,” he says the last part quietly, looking down at his shoes, kicking a few pebbles on the asphalt, “And I want you to know I’ve thought about what you said,” he sniffs and looks around the nearly empty lot, “I’m going to try really hard not to be such a shitty boyfriend. You deserve better.”

“Eddie, you’ve never been a shitty boyfriend,” hot tears are prickling behind your eyes, and you twist the strap of your bag in your hand.

“No. You were right-“

“No. I was too hard on you. You were right, I have changed, and not all of it has been a good thing,” your eyes burn as the tears flow unrestrained, “I’m so sorry.”

“Baby, what are you sorry for?” his voice is cracking, and it’s killing you.

“For all the things I’ve done to hurt you. Can you forgive me?”

“Baby, I love you. There’s nothing to forgive,” his hands twitch at his sides before he places them tentatively on your arms like he might not have permission to touch you.

Your heart aches. The guilt is breaking you. Dropping your purse, you wrap yourself around him, clinging to him as you cry, knowing you don’t deserve forgiveness, or Eddie, or Steve. You’re so very tired of crying, and you want to let him make it all better - let him love you. He squeezes you tightly and lets you sob while rocking you from side to side under the yellowish glow cast by the floodlight that buzzes at the edge of the building.

“I’ve missed you,” you say when you’re able to speak without hiccupping, your face hot and swollen.

“You have?” his surprise sounds genuine.

“Of course I have,” you lean back to look up at his face and wipe your nose on the back of your hand.

“I miss you too,” he uses his fingers to wipe away some of the wetness on your face, “I’ve had a hard time falling asleep without you. I’ve gotten used to your cold feet on my legs.”

Fisting the front of his shirt, you giggle, “Good to know.”

“Can I kiss you?” he asks softly.

Nodding, you stretch on your toes meeting him halfway. His kiss feels like coming home. Every touch and taste are familiar. Warm lips staving off the chill of guilt. His hands move to your jaw, angling your head to deepen the kiss. Light contented sighs escaping through the gaps. 

“Come home with me,” he requests with closed eyes, mouth still moving against yours.

“Yes,” you breathe.

“Come home to stay.”

He pulls you tighter, his kiss becomes demanding, and you can’t refuse - you don’t want to. 

“Okay,” you whisper. 

His lips pull tight as he smiles against you and prints three more kisses on your mouth before finally pulling back. 

“Can we leave your car here? I’ll bring you back tomorrow, and we can pick up your stuff,” he says with all the excitement of a boy on Christmas morning. 

“That sounds good,” you say, just as eager. He bends to pick up your purse and moves to open the van’s passenger door. After helping you in, he runs around to his side. Turning off the tape deck before turning on the engine, he drives you back to Steve’s, holding your hand the entire way.

The van sputters and comes to a stop in Steve’s driveway. Eddie slips off his seatbelt and leans toward you, with a hand on the back of your head, he places a cloud-soft kiss on your lips, and you let yourself sink in. 

“Let’s not bother Steve. I want you all to myself tonight,” he says while stroking your cheek. A tightness constricts around your heart. Some part of him knows he’s missing a piece of you. 

With his warm hand holding yours, he leads you quietly through the dark house until he can close you in your room, shutting out everything and everyone creating a span of existence for just the two of you. And when your mouths meet, you give him everything you have left. 

His grip on you tightens, and he purrs his appreciation when you tilt your head, giving his access to your neck. “Mmmmm, you taste like garlic bread,” he says hotly against your skin. 

Pulling back, you cover your face with your hands while your body shakes with laughter. 

“What?” he says, confused, “I like garlic bread.”

“I think I need a shower,” you step closer and put your hands on his chest.

“Is that right? Did I tell you what happened in Home Ec. today?” he asks, kneading your hips. 

“No,” you make your eyes wide and shake your head. 

“It was terrible. I opened a container of flour, and it got all over me,” he looks away but peeks at you under his lashes to see if his ploy is working.

“That is terrible,” you say feigning sympathy while he nods his head in agreement, “I guess you need a shower too.”

“Do you think there’s enough room in there for two?” his hands glide from your hips to your ass, and his fingers press into your flesh as he pulls you tightly against the hard length trapped in his jeans.

“I think we could make that work,” your arms circle his neck. 

His mouth comes down on yours in a frenzy of hungry kisses as he walks you backward into the bathroom. The air gets thick and heavy when you turn on the faucet in the shower, adjusting the temperature while Eddie takes off his belt and pants. Steam billows around the small room, and your skirt barely hits the floor when Eddie pushes you into the shower with him, both of you still mostly dressed. Passionate kisses mingle with laughter as the hot water plasters your hair to your cheeks and turns your white shirt transparent.

“Everything’s better when you’re with me,” he says, pulling your drenched shirt over your head. Every sweet word feels like a nail pushing through your heart, but you try to push away the guilt, just for tonight. He kneels as he works your wet panties down your legs and buries his face in your center. His warm tongue parts your folds as you tip your head back into the spray.

“Eddie,” moaning, you tangle your fingers in his damp hair, smoothing it back from his face. A tiny yelp bursts from your mouth and echoes against the tiles when his teeth nip your thigh before he kisses his way back up your body. 

“Now that’s much tastier than garlic bread,” he says, making you laugh as he reaches behind you to unclasp your bra, which ends up in a pile in the corner of the shower along with his shirt. 

“Let’s make sure all the flour gets rinsed off,” you say cheekily as you switch places, putting him under the spray. Your fingers grip the hem of his boxers, pushing them down his legs before kicking them into the corner. Leaning forward, you press a kiss to the center of his chest just above his heart and pick up the bar of soap that sits on the recessed shelf. Suds drip down your wrist while you rub the bar soap in your hands, working up a bubbly lather and letting it dribble down his smooth chest to where his hard cock rests proudly against his belly. Tiny drops of water cling to his lashes, his dark eyes watching you as you replace the bar and stroke your slick hands down his chest until one is swirling around his balls and the other pumping his very ready, swollen dick. 

“Fuck, baby… don’t stop,” he backs you both out of the spray and picks up the soap to take his turn, spreading the iridescent foam over your breasts, teasing your nipples into taunt peaks.

“Does it feel good?” you coo, using both hands on him, twisting them with each tug. Already knowing the answer but wanting to hear him say it with the pleasure‐drunk look on his face while he kneads your tits.

“Nothing has ever felt as good as you,” he breathes out before sealing his mouth over yours and backing you against the cool tiles. He pulls your hands off him, intertwining your fingers and holding them to the wall beside your head. He rubs his body against yours while you kiss, skin slicked and sliding, soft bubbles popping between you. He quickly turns, rinsing the front of his body in the steaming water. 

“Put your foot on the ledge,” he encourages, wrapping his hand around your knee to support you, spreading your legs wide.

“Are you ready for me?” he asks, spitting into his hand to lube his cock.

“Mmmm, so ready,” you hum, catching your lip between your teeth. 

Your moans mix like the parts of a song as he pushes all the way in until he bottoms out inside you. 

“I missed you so much. It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve been inside you,” he rasps, his forehead pressed against yours while he gives you a moment to adjust.

“Then let’s make it last,” you drape an arm over his shoulder. He thrusts in a slow rhythm gathering your free hand to press back beside your head, locking your fingers. His kisses match his pace, and he takes his time tasting you while the pleasure blooms from where you’re joined. 

The steam gets thicker, making your lungs feel heavy as you fill them with deep gasps while rolling your hips to meet every stroke. Sweat beads on his skin, rivulets running down his chest disappearing between your bodies. Tension builds in you, his measured pace starts feeling torturous - you need more. The muscles in your arm strain as you try pressing back against the hand holding you to the wall, wanting to break free and pull him into you harder. He slides his fingers down, circling your wrist, using his strength to keep you in place. 

“Do you need something, baby?,” he asks sweetly, dipping his head to lick your neck, “You just have to tell me,” he slows further, and you try bucking your hips, but this position has you pinned.

“I need you to fuck me,” you mewl.

“I am,” he teases, a smirk twisting his lips, “I’m gonna make you come…eventually. That’s what you want, right?” he dots your face with tiny kisses. Your lips chase his, but he pulls back too quickly.

“Eddie,” you shake your head with a frustrated smile, “you’re making me crazy.”

“I’ll do anything you want, my love. Just say it,” he chuckles.

“Fine,” you drop your head back against the tile so you can look into those mischievous eyes, “I want you to fuck me hard with your big cock..pleazzze,” you make your eyes big and stretch out the last word like a petulant child.

“It is big, isn’t it?” he laughs.

Before you can think of a clever response, he pulls out and spins you around, tugging back your hips and driving into you hard.

“Yes,” you cry, pushing back into him, bracing your hands in front of you. The sound of your skin slapping together fills the room as his hips piston forcefully against your ass, punishing your gummy walls, and hitting that spot that makes your eyes roll back. One of his hands glides around your waist and moves lower until his long, calloused fingers are circling your clit, while the other palms your breast catching your nipple between his fingers. Electricity is zapping under your skin everywhere he’s touching you, shooting you up the slope toward your climax.

“Are you going to come, baby? Go ahead, be a good girl and come on my dick.”

His words have you flying over the edge. He holds you up as your legs tremble, and your inner walls pulse around him. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he cries, pushing you forward. Freezing water hits the back of your legs and has you both scrambling out laughing. He reaches back in and shuts off the water. 

“Oh, you didn’t get to come?” you tut, sticking out your lower lip, looking at his red, angry dick, “That’s too bad,” you wrap a towel around your body and open the door that leads back into your bedroom.

“Baby? You’re not that mean. Are you?”

You laugh as he chases you into the bedroom.

♡♡♡

Eddie’s arm was tightly around you when you woke the next morning. Placing your hand on top of his, you slide your hand back and forth, gently waking him.

“Hmmm, this is a good dream I’m having,” he says, kissing your neck and snuggling closer. 

“It’s going to be a wet dream if I don’t get to the bathroom,” you say, patting the hand and pressing on your stomach.

“Say no more,” he raises his arm, so you can slide out of bed. 

“I’m going to go get the coffee started,” you say once you’re finished in the bathroom, and he’s passing you on the way to take his turn. 

“I’m right behind you,” he says, closing the door.

Quickly, you dig through the clean laundry basket until you find the light blue tee you are looking for and hurriedly pull it over your head. It slides down to about mid-thigh, covering you enough to walk through the house. The house is quiet as you make your way down the carpeted stairs. Nerves are dancing in your belly, you swallow them down and make your way to the kitchen. Your breath catches when you see Steve standing at the island, hair askew, light stubble coating his jaw. His lips part when he sees you, and his expression is unreadable. Standing in the doorway, you nervously play with the hem of your shirt. 

“You’re back,” he says, leaning both hands on the counter. You nod and look down at your toes, wiggling them on the cold tile. His face falls, “You came back with Eddie.”

Again you nod, and you can hear Eddie coming down the stairs toward you. Your mouth opens to say something, but Steve’s lips pull into a bright smile, “You’re wearing my shirt.”

Dropping the material, you return his smile just as Eddie comes in behind you. 

“Good job, Munson. Finally wised up and brought her home,” Steve says, turning his back to pull three mugs from the cabinet, “Thank Christ, I was getting tired of your burnt cooking.”

“Hey, I thought I did a good job,” Eddie says, moving to the coffee pot and filling the mugs, “You said you liked the way I filled out that frilly apron.”

Steve pulls the creamer from the fridge giving you a wink, while Eddie spoons some sugar into the mugs.

“What do you guys want for breakfast?” you ask, finding your voice. 

“Nuh-uh,” Eddie says, bringing two of the mugs to the table, “you’re not cooking for us your first day back. Come sit down.”

“Okay,” you say with a little uncertainty as you move across the kitchen and sit at the table. 

Steve pulls a loaf of bread from the pantry and hands it to Eddie before taking two bananas from the fruit bowl. He snags his coffee and sets one of the bananas in front of you before taking a seat at the table.

Eddie loads the toaster and dusts his hands off, “What’s next? Oh!” he raises a finger in the air and moves to the pantry, “What kind of cereal, baby? We’re out of fruit loops. There’s Frankenberry or Kix. I think there’s some of that Müselix in the back, but I don’t recommend it,” he says scrunching his face. 

“Umm, Kix, please,” you say, amused. Eddie has made meals for you a time or two before, and you always appreciate it, but he’s never been quite this doting.

“Excellent choice. I’m going with the Frankenberry myself,” he says, going about putting together breakfast.

“Your car’s not in the driveway,” Steve notes, breaking the end off his banana and popping it in his mouth. 

“I left it at Enzo’s,” you break the stem on your piece of fruit. 

“I’m going to take her back later so she can go get her stuff,” Eddie says, setting down your breakfast in front of you and kissing your cheek. 

“Thank you,” you squeeze his hand, and he turns to retrieve his own dish.

An uncomfortable silence falls over the three of you, an occasional slurp of pink milk from Eddie highlighting the quiet. 

“What?” Eddie asks as you watch him use his spoon to separate the marshmallows from the cereal bits, “I like to save the monsters for last.”

Laughing, you slice the rest of your banana and add it to your cereal. 

“Now that’s weird,” Steve says, gesturing to your bowl as he stands and retrieves the peanut butter from the pantry. 

“Everyone puts bananas in their cereal,” you say before taking a bite.

“Umm. No, they don’t,” Eddie says, around a mouth full of cereal, “It’s gross, baby.”

“Is this how it is going to be now? You two teaming up against me?” you tease, sipping your coffee.

“Afraid so,” Steve says, putting some bread down to toast.

“Sorry,” Eddie drinks the rest of his milk from the bowl and wipes his chin on a napkin, “Steve’s my best girl now.”

“Jesus, Eddie,” Steve rolls his eyes, picking up the newspaper from the island and sitting down at the table to wait for his toast.

“We better get going. I have to stop by Ricks after I take you to your car, and then I have a few drops to make,” Eddie says, pushing back from the table and bringing his dishes to the sink, “I’ll be back in a few hours, baby,” he moves back to the table and leans down to give Steve’s cheek a kiss. 

“Get out of here,” Steve says, pushing him away.

Eddie manages to plant one on the top of Steve’s head, “He’s just playing hard to get,” he says, making you giggle around your last bite of toast. 

Eddie snaps his fingers, “Are you going to be around tonight, Harrington?”

“Try and kiss me all you want, but I’m not going to sleep with you, Eddie,” Steve deadpans, not looking up from the newspaper.

“How about a few video rentals then?” Eddie asks. Steve lowers the paper to hear him out.

“I’ll bring home pizza and some weed. We can all get blazed and watch a movie. Give my girl a proper welcome home.”

“I wouldn’t mind getting high,” Steve says, leaning back and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Sound good to you, baby?” Eddie asks as you load the dishwasher.

“Yeah, sure. I’m game if that’s what you both want,” your stomach fills with dread knowing you can’t keep doing this. The lying, the pretending, the betrayal. Crimes committed for the sake of a love that’s ripping you to shreds. There won’t be enough of you left for either of them. A love that made you too weak to stay away.

“Don’t get Top Gun. I can’t watch that sad shit after smoking,” Eddie’s voice pulls you from your thoughts.

“Fine. But no onions on the pizza this time,” Steve points his finger at Eddie, “I could smell your breath from across the room.”

“Whatever gets me in your pants, Harrington,” Eddie says, winking at him. Soliciting an eye roll from Steve before he goes back to his paper, seemingly disinterested. 

Eddie’s hand on your waist guides you toward the hall, “That’s not my shirt,” his eyebrows draw together, and he looks at you questioningly.

“Oh, it’s not?” you look down and smooth the material on your thighs, “It was in our basket. It must have gotten mixed in.”

“We got to get you some pajamas, baby,” Eddie comments, taking your hand and walking ahead of you. Risking a look over your shoulder, you meet Steve’s gaze as Eddie tows you from the room. 

♡♡♡

After Eddie dropped you off, you drove around town before heading to your house. Now you're sitting on the bottom bunk of your sister’s bed, staring at the packed duffle sitting on the floor.

“Are you sure?” your mother asked when you told her you were moving back to Steve’s, “This is your home. You can stay as long as you like,” she reminded you.

“I’m sure,” you replied, not meeting her eyes, knowing you are far from being sure. It didn’t take you long to pack. Most of your things are still at Steve’s. They’ll be expecting you soon, but you can’t seem to get your feet to carry you from the room, choosing instead to tally up all the things you’ve done. Feeling worse that, given the opportunity, you might not change a thing. You’re hurtling toward disaster, and dragging your feet won’t save anyone.

Eddie’s van is in the driveway when you get to Steve’s house. Their voices carry from the kitchen as you toe off your shoes in the foyer and set your bag on the stairs.

“I was just about to call your mom’s,” Eddie says, coming around the corner and wrapping his arms around you.

“Sorry. I had a few things to take care of,” you feel older and more worn down with each lie.

“I put the pizza in the oven to keep it warm,” he says, kissing your nose, “Are you ready to burn one?”

“I’m going to go change and unpack. I’ll be quick,” you pull away from him and head up the stairs. 

“Okay, but don’t take too long. You know how whiney Steve gets when he’s hungry,” Eddie calls after you.

“Fuck off, Munson,” Steve yells from the kitchen.

Shaking your head, you turn to look at Eddie, 

“See,” he says, pointing toward the kitchen before disappearing around the corner.

Both boys are sitting at one of the bistro tables out on the patio when you join them, wearing a long-sleeved tee and a pair of Eddie’s boxers rolled up around your waist. The sun is just starting to dip below the tree line leaving the air chilled, and the sky streaked with orange and purple. A small sandwich bag of weed is on the table in front of Eddie, along with a lighter and some rolling papers.

“There she is,” Eddie says as you sit in the remaining chair between them.

“Okay,” Eddie slaps his hands together and rubs them back and forth like Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid, before opening the baggie, “Rick gave me this shit to sample. It’s a new strain. He said to be careful because it will lay you out. So, take it easy, baby. I don’t want you freaking out,” he sprinkles the weed across the paper before starting to roll it, “You can do what you like, Harrington, but you’ve been warned.”

“I don’t freak out,” you pout, crossing your arms. Eddie’s mouth drops open, and he pauses to give you a skeptical look. So you repeat yourself with more conviction, “I don’t.”

“I’ve got to hear this,” Steve leans forward, resting his clasped hands on the table.

“Well, let’s see,” Eddie licks the edge to seal it, “There was that time you thought your hand was stuck to your forehead, and I had to rip it off.”

Steve throws his head back, laughing.

“That was one time,” you scoff.

“And that time you cried because you were thinking about how one day I’ll be an old man with gray hair,” Eddie says as his long fingers twist the ends of the joint.

“That’s very sad,” Steve says, shoulders shaking as you narrow your eyes at him.

“Oh, and that time you made me sit still for an hour while you drew my portrait, and it was just a stick figure. I should have known when you were giggling the whole time.”

“Hold on,” you slap your hand down on the table, “that was you, not me.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Eddie shakes his head at you.

“I know it was you because the stick figure had enormous boobs,” you accuse.

A smug grin spreads across Eddie’s face, “Okay. Maybe that one was me,” he chuckles, “But I wasn’t the one who was dead set on the stars being tiny people that spy on us when we’re doing it outside.”

Shaking your head, you glare at Eddie. Steve’s elbows are on the table, his head is in his hands, and he can’t stop laughing.

“Are you going to keep running your mouth, or are you going to light that thing?” you ask, trying really hard to hide your smile. 

“Your wish is my command,” Eddie says before sparking his lighter.

The conversation tapers off as you pass the joint around, letting the thick smoke do its work. Eddie was right. The weed is more potent than what you’re used to. After a few times around, you and Steve both decide you’ve had enough and let Eddie finish it off by himself. 

The katydids and crickets have woken up. Their chirping and shrill squeaks are joined by the chants of the Whippoorwill, signaling the end of another long summer day. The familiar head and body buzz creeps in, loosening the tension as you watch the lightning bugs dancing at the edge of the woods. 

“I need to eat,” Steve says, slapping a hand over his flat stomach, his eyes looking glassy.

“Yes!” Eddie raises his arm, pointer finger extended to the sky, “Excellent idea, Steve,” he says, standing up and slipping his lighter and papers back into his pocket, “Ready to eat, baby?” he tugs you from your seat and into his arms, his soft lips start working their way down your temple, “I’m so glad you’re home,” his mouth moves over yours, and you open for him, letting him deepen the kiss. 

The glass slider leading into the sunroom is closed so hard it bounces off the frame, and the noise has you startling in Eddie’s arms. 

“Uh-oh. Princess Harrington is testy. We better go in,” Eddie pecks your forehead.

Something doesn’t smell right when the two of you enter the kitchen. Steve is standing in front of the oven with a charred pizza box in his oven-mitt-covered hand.

“Eddie,” Steve says, “You have to take the pizza out of the box before you put it in the oven or at least not set the temperature to inferno hot.”

“Oops,” Eddie looks at the box sheepishly while scratching the back of his neck.

Covering your mouth with your hand, you try and fail to hold back the giggles bubbling out of you. 

“She’s wasted,” Steve says, tossing the blackened box onto the stovetop.

“You’re one to talk,” you say, squeezing into the space between Steve and the stove, “Your eyes are bright red,” you pull out a pair of tongs from the ceramic utensil holder on the countertop and use them to flip open the box. Steve’s hand goes to your hip as he peers into the box from over your shoulder.

“The pizza looks fine,” you quickly step to the side out of Steve’s reach and open the cupboard to take out some plates and glasses. 

“Thank fuck, I don’t have another ten dollars to spend on pizza,” Eddie says, taking a plate from your hand, “What did you get for movies?” he asks Steve.

“Hoosiers and One Crazy Summer,” Steve says, lifting out a slice from the box. Strings of melted cheese stretch between the slice and the rest of the pizza. Steve drops it on his plate and shakes out his burnt fingers.

“Basketball? Really, Steve?” Eddie asks, using the tongs to load his plate and drop a slice onto yours. 

“Where’s your state pride?” Steve asks, reaching over you for one of the glasses of ice water you just poured and heading toward the living room, “I like basketball.”

“Of course you do,” Eddie says, following behind him.

Shaking your head and grabbing a few napkins from the basket on the island, you take your dinner with you, following the sound of their bickering.

The Harrington living room is arranged in a typical conversation style. An oversized couch with a dark wooden coffee table in front of it, flanked on either side by cozy deep, seated chairs. The lamp in the foyer has been left on to provide some extra illumination to the dark room, the flickering light from the tv providing the rest. Steve is sitting on one end of the large sofa fast, forwarding through the copyright warnings while Eddie bites into his pizza sitting at the other end. Passing out the napkins, you warily eye the free seat in between them, but there isn’t enough weed in the world to make that look like a good idea. Placing your glass on one of the coasters scattered on the coffee table, you opt for one of the overstuffed chairs. 

A sad gray hippo wanders down the street, and John Cusack ponders the wisdom of love while you eat your pizza. The empty plates get stacked on the table, and you tuck your legs under you, angling your body to watch the story of Hoops finding love and figuring out his future play out on the TV screen. The occasional chuckles from the boys are more likely due to their altered state than slapstick comedy. One movie ends, and another gets turned on, but your hazy brain isn’t keeping up with the plot. Eddie’s soft snores start about three-quarters into Hoosiers, the strong weed and the sports movie knocking him out. His head is tipped back against the couch with his mouth slightly agape while Steve’s full attention is on Gene Hackman.

The gears in your brain start turning, trying to find a resolution to the questions plaguing you. Steve and Eddie are entirely different from each other, opposites in most ways. Loving Eddie is like a roller coaster, thrilling highs dipping into lows and back up again with impossible speed. Drifting through life with him would be a hell of a ride, but one that could be stuck on the same circular track. It will always be you dragging him through life’s big milestones. More than likely, you’ll end up supporting him and anyone else that comes along if you decide to have a family. But there won’t be any shortage of love and if your relationship survives this storm, you can probably survive anything. 

Steve’s love is like the ocean, vast and strong. He’d be devoted, like the tide, carrying you through life with your feet never touching the sand, never letting you fall. He’d give you everything he has without a second thought, but that kind of all-encompassing love could be stifling. It could pull you under the surface if you don’t have space to make mistakes and solve them on your own. Without a doubt, he would work hard to care for you and make you happy, possibly at his own expense. Deep down, you fear a love born out of betrayal can’t be one that lasts.

Lost in your thoughts, it took a moment to notice Steve returning your stare, his hazel eyes soft but wanting. He runs a hand through his hair, making a decision. He stands and quietly moves until he’s standing in front of you, his chest rising and falling in short breaths. 

The light fog swirling in your brain turns into wisps of confusion when he drops to his knees in front of you. His eyes close as he leans forward and lays his head in your lap. The tip of his nose runs up your thigh, the light stubble on his cheek a delicious scrap on your skin as he nuzzles against you.

He needs your touch. It’s such a simple request. If the room wasn’t so quiet you would’ve missed the soft sigh he releases when your hands move through his hair, brushing it back from his temples. His arms circle around you, his large hands squeezing between your back and the chair, fingers sliding under your shirt so his thumbs can rub circles on your skin. 

His head moves against you like a gentle wave, a light press of his warm lips, a slight swell in the tide. Your fingers tremble as they smooth the soft strands at the base of his neck, apprehension taking hold at the abrupt recognition of how much he needs you. He lifts his head, and your hands cradle his strong jaw. 

“I love you,” floats out on an exhale of breath before the barest brush of his lips turns into a slow deep kiss. His hands grip the hem of your boxers, giving them a sharp tug, pulling them down in the back until he’s stopped by the weight of your hips. 

Kiss-swollen lips move to your ear, “I’m going to taste you.”

His words leave you tingling. Lifting your hips, you let him slide the fabric down your legs taking your underwear with them. He glances over at Eddie as he pulls you to the edge of the chair and drapes one of your legs over his shoulder. A finger raised to his lips warns you to be quiet. His eyes darken when he sees the glossy coating of wetness already glazing your center. 

Biting down on your lip, you watch as he takes his first long lick with the flat of his tongue before he begins lazily making out with your pussy. He places wet, sucking kisses through your folds, pausing to use his tongue to tease your entrance while his nose bumps against your clit. The wet sounds he’s making aren’t masked by the white noise of the TV. Eddie stirs in his sleep, and you freeze. He can’t find out like this. Steve looks up, and you shake your head. He stands, wiping the wetness off his chin before he extends his hand to you. 

He leads you down the dark hall, pausing to push you against the wall and kiss you, the taste of yourself on his tongue making you dizzy like another kind of drug. He eases open the door to his father’s office, flips on the lights, and ushers you inside before turning to lock the door. While his back is turned, you take the opportunity to rid yourself of your shirt, glad that you hadn’t bothered with a bra. When he turns and sees you naked and offering yourself, something passes over his face that has your breathing coming faster. He stalks forward, but his touch is gentle, hands caressing every bit of skin he can reach while he occupies your mouth with his demanding lips. 

“Next time, I want you in my bed,” he says, moving you into the room and lifting you to the edge of the massive desk, the polished cherry wood satiny against your skin. His possessive need to claim you weighs heavy but has your stomach tightening with arousal. The idea feels like a fairytale - to actually be just his. 

“Do you want me to finish what I started?” he asks, pulling his shirt over his head.

Your hands are drawn to his chest like a bee landing on a flower, your fingertips running through the bristly hair, exploring the dips of his muscles.

“No. I want to feel all of you,” you answer by drawing him closer so you can kiss the freckles and flat moles that dot his skin like destinations on a map. All places you want to explore. His arms go around you, letting you give as much as you want, and in this moment, you wish you could give him everything.

He guides you back until you’re lying flat on the desk. The scent of leather and ink rises from the blotter under your head. His big hands return to your thighs, the rest of his clothes now gone, his cock is at your entrance.

“Look at me, sweetheart,” he says as he waits for your gaze to push inside you. The intensity of his eyes spread into an open forest of mossy green, being chased by the golden hues of autumn. Penetrating you two ways-your body, and your heart.

His hands hold your hips steady as he begins to move. Unhurried strokes fill you to completeness, wave after wave of warm pleasure cascading through you. The wisps of smoke still circulating in your brain have slowed things down, and every touch is a dream you want to get lost in. His hands roam as you adjust and tilt your hips to meet him. 

“Every day,” his flat palm sweeps upward between the valley of your breasts, “I want you like this every day.”

“Mmm, me too,” you capture his fingertips and press them to your lips before sucking them into your mouth. His eyes roll back, and his other hand tightens his grip on your thigh as he drives into you harder. 

“I need more,” he says, tipping his head back, “I want you closer,” he pulls out and helps you off the desk. 

“I can make you happy if you’d let me,” he takes your hand as he sinks down onto a plush club chair. The rich leather creaks under your knees as they push into the cushion on either side of his legs as you straddle him.

“You do make me happy,” you keep your mouth on his, swallowing his moan as you take him inside you, sliding down his length until you’re fully seated, “Now I’m going to make you happy,” gripping the back of the chair, you lift your hips and drive them down. Both of you expending effort to muffle the moans caused by the euphoria of your connection. He cups your breast, and his mouth laves attention on your aching, taut nipple as you work your hips, the head of cock hitting the best spot every time.

“That’s it. You feel so fucking good,” he moves his hands to your ass, encouraging your movements, “I wanted to touch you since this morning, and now I never want to stop,” his mouth devours yours, his tongue tasting and exploring like a man starved. Desperately, you whimper into his mouth as he starts driving his hips up from below you setting you on a path toward release.

“I love you,” you sigh between sloppy kisses, eliciting a low groan, “I missed you so much,” you confess feeling like a balloon caught up in a wind that’s moving higher and higher into the stratosphere. 

“I love you so much,” he rasps as he throbs and swells inside you, “I need you to come for me,” his tempo rises, and he’s hitting you deeper and harder than before. Your inner muscles tighten around him as your craving to be filled by him takes over. The first hot spurt against your cervix has you shuddering and falling back to earth as more of his warmth fills you and aids his last frenzied strokes. Little shocks and jolts tingle inside you as you crumple into his arms, legs still shaking, completely spent, floating in a cloud of bliss. His hands stroke up and down your back, your head rests on his shoulder, the rest of you pressed against his sweat-slicked chest, feeling it rise and fall as he catches his breath. Your mouths find each other, languid kisses help you come down together. Steve holds an invisible string to your heart that keeps pulling you closer to him and away from Eddie, a game of yo-yo you will never win. 

“That was-,” he kisses your forehead and tightens his hold on you.

“I know,” you say, certain you’re feeling everything he is. It was some of the most intense sex of your life. Kissing him once more, you start to pull back.

“Not yet. Just stay with me another minute,” he pleads.

“I have to go shower before….” you trail off, hating that you’re thinking about Eddie while Steve is still inside you. 

“I can’t keep doing this,” he confesses, “I thought I could, but I can’t keep watching him touch you, not after this. There isn’t a way this ends without him being hurt. I think you know that.”

“I do. I’m so sorry. I know it isn’t fair. Soon I promise.”

“Okay,” he says, helping you off him. After you’re dressed, he stays to clean up while you quietly sneak past a sleeping Eddie. Once the water in your shower is running, you let out a sigh of relief, you could have been caught at any moment tonight. Steve is right. This can’t keep going on. Putting soap on a washcloth, you shower off one boy so you can go to bed with the other.

♡♡♡

Clarity doesn’t come that night or the next day or the next. In fact you’re more torn than ever. The only decision you’re certain about is trying to find another job. Afternoons have been spent driving around Hawkins and the surrounding towns following the help wanted ads in the newspaper that you have circled with red ink. Busy days followed by waitressing in the evenings has kept you away from both boys, but today is your day off so after filling out a few applications, you make your way back to Steve’s house.

There is a dark stain in the driveway where Eddie’s van is usually parked as you pass by it with an arm full of groceries. Stacks of papers are spread out on the tabletop with a tired looking Steve sitting behind them. He’s been reading up on the proposed programs that the town wants the new community center to offer. He has to meet with the board members at the end of the week to discuss the best ways to utilize the interior space for the new building and you know he’s feeling a little out of his depth. His elbows are on the table and he’s using two fingers to rub his temples.

“Do you have another headache?” you leave the bag of groceries on the island before walking over to kiss him hello. 

“Yeah,” he says, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you in for a kiss, “It's been happening when I’ve been reading for awhile.”

“Maybe you need glasses,” you shrug, noting the tylenol bottle sitting beside a half full glass of water.

“Glasses? I’m not an old man or a nerd,” he says, sounding offended.

“Steve,” you roll your eyes, “plenty of people that aren’t old or nerds wear glasses. Besides,” you run your hands through his hair, “I think you would look sexy with glasses.”

“Is that right?” he asks, pulling you onto his lap, “Well, I’ll have to consider it then,” he brushes his lips over yours.

“Do you want to take a break after I get the groceries put away? I’m going to watch a little TV before I make dinner.” 

“Definitely,” he says, squeezing your hip.

After the bag is unpacked Steve follows you into the living room, plonking down on the couch beside you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as you start flipping through the channels.

“What do you want to watch?” you ask snuggling into his side. 

“I don’t care. I’ll probably end up closing my eyes for a while.”

“Are you sure you aren’t an old man?” you tease, before settling on a rerun of The Brady Bunch.

“When is Eddie coming home?” he asks, looking at his watch.

“He has band practice tonight. So not till later,” you say with a yawn, “See what you started,” you complain feeling sleepy now that you're tucked into his warmth as Alice cleans up after the rowdy house full of kids.

“Just watch your show and give an old man some peace,” he teases, kissing the side of your head. 

The whooshing sound from the TV is what woke you. The faint light from the snow filled screen barely illuminates the room. One of Steve's hands is tangled in your hair, cradling your head where it rests somewhere between his shoulder and his neck. The clean laundry scent of his shirt mixes with the citrus and cedar that clings pleasantly to his skin making you absolutely dizzy with every inhale. In your sleep your bodies have found their way together, possibly at your heart's behest. Every innocent intention inevitably ends with you wrapped in his arms and the way he feels right now, so good and so warm, has you wondering why you would ever want to stop it. 

His eyes flutter open as if your thoughts have somehow woken him. Your hand moves to the side of his face, your thumb brushing back and forth over the light stubble on his jaw. His eyes are asking you a question that you can’t answer with a word. The pouty curve of his full bottom lip is too much to resist, your mouth closes over it in a slow sweet kiss. Just once turns into twice and three times before the fuse is lit and your hungry mouths start to feverishly devour. Gasps and hums join the symphony of your kisses. With a quick move, you’re beneath him,his long body stretched over yours. A low groan travels from his throat into your mouth when your hips rock against him in a desperate plea for more. A strong grip on your thigh molds your leg around his waist bringing his rigid length to perfect alignment with your hot core. Kiss swollen lips slide urgently against each other as your clothed bodies rock together. 

"Let's go to my room," his hand works its way under shirt, his thumb rubbing against the peak of your nipple. 

"Don't stop," you plead, bucking against him, moaning as his hard bulge hits your clit with every grind.

“Jesus. Can you come like this?” he whispers against your mouth. 

“Yes. I’m so close,” you beg. The light in the foyer turns on suddenly. Shock rockets through you. Somehow you missed the sound of the door opening. It takes a few moments for your bodies to stop after your minds register what's happened. Steve moves off you as Eddie stands in the doorway.  

"What the fuck?" Eddie says, sounding genuinely confused as he comes further into the living room, the light from the hall seeping in behind him. Steve's moving towards him, both hands raised in front of his body stopping just after rounding the arm of the couch, not letting Eddie gain any more ground, while you scramble up further into the room, backing away from both of them. The endless static still buzzing from the TV adding to the chaos.

"What the fuck?" this time he screams, his face turning red. He brings the heels of his hands to his forehead and paces back and forth, his shadow following him, as he tries to come to terms with your betrayal, "I fucking knew it," he says in a calm tone as if he's speaking to himself. 

His hands drop to his sides and stops moving staring at you, "I fucking knew," he yells, leaning forward his whole body raising to his toes with the force of his words, "I didn't want to believe it. I can't believe you could do this to me," he stretches out the end of the last word, balling his fists. 

Your trembling hands cover your mouth as your eyes fill with tears. There's nothing you can say to make this right. His anguish hits you like a tornado, sucking you empty and filling you with a guilt so heavy, you might burst at the seams.

"It wasn't like that," Steve says in a low voice.

"What the fuck did you just say to me?" Eddie spits, turning his attention to Steve. Eddie's on him in flash, both fists gripping Steve's shirt collar, his red face inches from Steve, "I trusted you. You son of a bitch," his arm cocks back, hand bunched into a fist, ready to fly. 

Steve's hands go up in surrender, he turns his face to the side, eyes closed ready to take the punch, "Go ahead, I deserve it. I'm not going to fight you, dude, but it wasn't like that. I love her."

"You're fucking her," Eddie yells.

"I love her," Steve says again, eyes meeting Eddie's when the punch doesn’t come. 

Eddie lowers his hand back to Steve's collar, pulling him forward before pushing him away with enough force to send Steve backward over the arm of the couch.

"We tried to stay away from each other," Steve straightens up and rubs his chest over his heart, "We didn't want to hurt you, but I love her."

"That's just fucking great," Eddies voice drips with sarcasm, "And what about you?" he asks, turning towards you, "Do you love him?" 

His voice breaks at the end of his question, even in the faint light you can see his big doe eyes getting glossy. Regrets are stacking up like a wooden block tower, ready to crush you when they fall. 

"I love you" you sob, taking a step forward, putting you all at the same distance apart. They both look at you knowing you have more to say, "but I love Steve too."

The room feels like a vacuum, all the air leaves with those last four words. Eddie crosses his arms over his stomach, bending forward like he's been punched.

"I feel sick," he says, turning away from you both. Your feet start to carry you towards him but Steve holds up his hand to stop you. 

"How could you do this to me, man," Eddie shakes his head before turning back to Steve, "I thought you were different but it turns out I was right the first time," Eddie moves toward him, getting in his face, "You have everything. This house, cool car, money. I don't have anything, except her," he raises an arm pointing to you, "You could have anyone you want. They practically line up for King Steve."

Steve is trying to stay calm, but something is changing in his expression, his jaw clenches tighter as he stands tall letting Eddie yell only inches away. 

"You had your pick," Eddie gets louder, standing so close the tips of their sneakers are touching, "but you had to take her from me. The one person in this world that loves me. You can't stand not having everything. So you take her and leave me with no-"

"Take her," Steve snaps, screaming back at him, walking forward making Eddie step back, "You fucking gave her to me," Steve puts both hands on Eddie's chest shoving him back hard. Eddie stumbles but quickly regains his balance. The shocked look on his face, saying he's just realized he's had a part to play in all this. 

Eddie places his hands on his hips and looks down at his feet, "How many times?"

"What?" Steve asks brows drawing together in confusion as he takes deep breaths.

"How many times did you fuck my girlfriend?" Eddie demands, lifting his head but keeping his distance, "Or is it too many to count?" he scoffs, shaking his head. 

Steve looks down and then glances at you before answering, "Twice," he at least owes Eddie the truth. Eddie takes a step toward you and so does Steve. 

"That night he picked you up at the restaurant?" Eddie questions you. 

Swallowing and wiping some wetness on the back of your hand, you nod. Hot tears still stream down your face but somewhere inside you there's relief - no more lies.

"You lied right to my face," Eddie fumes, moving towards you. Steve takes a few steps to the side putting himself in Eddie’s path with you behind him. Eddie keeps advancing, "You need to decide, right now. It's him or me," he barks.

Eddie’s eyebrows lower and lips tighten as he realizes Steve is not letting him get any closer to you. 

"What the fuck are you doing?" Eddie challenges. 

Steve's hands are at his sides but there's a tremor running through them as he opens and closes his fists, "Back up," he growls through gritted teeth.

"Eddie-" you try cooling things down only to be cut off. 

"You think I'm gonna hurt her?" Eddie says astonished, "I would never fucking hurt her. You should know that after what we've been through. After we fought together."

Steve doesn't answer but his breathing sounds labored. 

"Steve, it's alright," you soothe, stepping towards him but stopping short of boxing him in. 

"You think I could hurt a woman after watching Chrissy die right in front of me," Eddie probes, "You saw the blood. You know what he did to her. What he did to me and Max."

Your mouth drops open, you've never heard any of this. Steve backs away from Eddie shaking his head as if to clear it. 

"You know what we had to do to kill him. You remember that, right?" Eddie pushes, "All the screaming. All their pain."

Steve stumbles back, his breathing picking up and getting shallow as his hands cover his ears.

"Eddie, you fucking stop it," you move forward, pushing Eddie away from Steve before running to the wall and turning on the light switch. Steve goes down on one knee, his head drooping down. Moving back to him, you put your arm around him trying to hold him steady as he hyperventilates. 

"Eddie, who killed Chrissy?" you ask. His eyes snap from Steve to you. This is the closest you've come to any answers, "Who did you kill?" the question chills you as it leaves your mouth. 

Eddie's face hardens, his warm eyes turn cold as his lips pull into a tight line, "Ask him," he nods his head in Steve's direction.

Steve continues to panic and you turn back to him, dropping down to your knees, holding him against you as you hear the front door slam behind Eddie.

"It's okay. You're alright," you cup his jaw and try to break through to him, "It's just me and you. We're safe. Put your head in my lap," you say, easing him down to the floor. 

♡♡♡

It's the mourning doves coos that wake you. There's a small group of them that gather on the patio in the mornings. Their white tipped wings flutter as they descend, singing out their sad song until their wings are tucked against their bodies and they begin their search for food. Their call makes you wonder who they mourn for, or are they here to remind you of what you've lost.

Blue-green morning light filters through the blinds in Steve's bedroom, the plaid wallpaper making the room feel smaller than it should. Your head rests on his bare chest, both his arms holding you close, his deep even breaths fanning over the top of your head. 

Eddie hadn't come home last night and it wouldn't have changed anything if he had. Steve had needed you more. He was exhausted when he finally had calmed, his head in your lap while you stroked his hair. He apologized over and over as you led him to his room but there was nothing to be sorry for. He watched as you stripped down to your underwear before joining him in bed. It wasn't about sex, it was about solace, needing the feel of each other. He held you as you slept, reaching for you whenever your bodies weren't connected.

When his hold on you tightens, you know he's awake.

"I've wanted this for so long," his voice is rough and heavy with sleep but also yearning, "To wake up with you. But last night is not how I wanted to get here."

"I know," you press a kiss to his chest and run your hands over the soft skin covering his muscles, "Me neither."

"I hate that I couldn't protect you," his voice quieter than it was before.

"There was nothing you needed to protect me from," you say, raising your head to look at him. 

"This time," he breaks your gaze and stares up at the ceiling.

"Can you tell me about it?"

"No," he looks back at you, the burden he's carrying making him look older at that moment.

"Steve-"

"I know. Later. I want to enjoy this a little longer, yeah?"

"Yeah, okay," you say, sharing a kiss before rolling over and his arms pull you snugly against him. Sleep wanders in and you both doze for a few more hours. 

"So, what happens now?" he asks, sitting up in bed with the blankets gathered at his waist while you pull on the t-shirt and shorts you had been wearing yesterday.

"I have to go," you say, sitting cross-legged on the bed beside him. 

"How did I know you were going say that?" one side of his mouth quirks as he shakes his head and looks around the room, “Everytime I think we’re getting somewhere, you leave.”

"Eddie doesn't have anywhere else to go. He probably slept in his van or on the floor at Wayne’s," you reach out and take his hand, “He won’t come back if he knows I’m here.”

“Eddie is a grown man,” he pulls his hand away and gets out of bed, putting on his boxers followed by a pair of jeans,”He has to stand on his own feet some time.”

“So what? He should lose everything in one fell swoop? He doesn’t deserve that,” you cross your arms over your chest.

“He is not the only one hurting here. I’ve stepped aside this whole time. Turned my head when he kissed you and touched you. And it ripped my heart out every time,” he pushes his sleep-mussed hair back off his forehead and sits down on the edge of the bed, “I love you and you love me. At least, that’s what you’ve been telling me.”

“I do love you,” you argue, “It would be so much simpler if I didn’t. Do you think I would put us through this otherwise?” you take both of his hands in yours, “I love you.”

“Then don’t we deserve a chance to be together? To be happy? When you think of your future I know you see us together just like I do. We’ll have a good life together but I need you here with me.”

“Let me ask you something,” you say, lacing your fingers with his, “How are you always so sure we’re going to end up together?”

He shrugs before giving you an answer, “I love you. I just can’t think any other way.”

“Then you’re going to have to wait for me a little longer.”

Leaning forward you place a chaste kiss on his mouth, “I need you to do something for me.”

“Okay,” he replies.

“I need you to talk with someone about the panic attacks,” you state simply. He shakes his head and looks away from you.

“There has to be someone who was there that will understand,” you push.

“I can’t lay this on them,” he argues, “They need me to keep it together.”

“What about Chief Hopper?” you propose, “Wasn’t he in the war or something? He’s probably seen this before.”

“How do you know about Hopper?”

“After what he did for Eddie. The way you’ve mentioned him. I figured it out,” you lightly squeeze his hand between yours, “I think one of the reasons I haven’t been able to decide is because I’m worried about what will happen to both of you. So, will you do that for me? Will you speak with him?”

“If that’s what you want,” his grip tightens on your fingers, “But let me ask you something. Have you considered that Eddie might not want to be with you anymore?”

Nodding your head, you blow out a deep breath, “I still need to decide,” you try and explain, “Would you want me by default?”

He tugs you closer and you let him pull you against his chest, “I love you. I want you to choose me but I’ll take you anyway I can have you, because I know you love me too. But if that's something you can't give me, I love you enough to let you go.”

But that's not what you want, you don't want him to let you go, not now and maybe not ever. He holds you until you can’t put off what you have to do any longer - you love him and you're leaving him again. With tears in your eyes you pack your things. All of them. This will be the last time you're in the room you've shared with Eddie. No matter who you choose, your time here is done. It may be the last time you're in this house. Steve waits for you at the bottom of the stairs. He takes the duffle from your hands and carries it out to your car. 

“It’s going to feel empty here without you,” he says as the two of you stand in front of your car saying your goodbyes.

Sucking in a shuddering breath you say something you’ve needed to say to him for a long while, “I’m sorry. I hate that I’ve hurt you.”

His big hands move to your neck, he thumbs smooth along your jaw, “Sweetheart, being with you has been worth it. I knew I was in trouble from the first time you came down wearing my shirt.” 

A grin tugs at the corners of your lips, “I love you.”

“I know. I love you too. I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Please,” you say. His mouth brushes over yours one last time before you get in your car. Hot tears stream down your cheeks as you watch him in your review until you turn out of sight.

♡♡♡

Your mother finds you sobbing in your car when she pulls in the driveway after taking your sister to the orthodontist. She wraps an arm around your waist and urges you into the house, bringing you straight into her room and closing the door.

“It’s time to tell me what’s going on,” she says, sitting down next to you on her bed. So you tell her. The whole story. Well almost the whole story you leave out the threesome and any other sex, and drinking and smoking. After that, it really doesn’t take you very long at all.

“Christ on a cracker, that’s a fine kettle of fish,” she says when you're done.

“What do I do, Mom? Tell me what to do and I’ll do it,” you say, wiping your eyes.

“You’re a big girl. You’ll have to decide this on your own,” she pushes your hair back off your shoulders, “but if you really love both of them. I think you’re going to have to decide who you can’t live without.”

♡♡♡

Putting a cardboard box into your trunk a week later, you smile as the familiar rumble of a loud engine accompanied by even louder music reaches your ears. You straighten up just in time to watch Eddie park his van on the street in front of your house. 

"Moving out?" Eddie teases, as he comes to stand beside you in front of your open trunk that's loaded with boxes. 

"Yeah. I am," you wipe your sweaty hands on the front of your shorts. 

"Oh shit, you really are? I was joking," he rubs the back of his neck nervously.

"Yeah. I found a place I can afford. I think it might be good to be on my own for once," you explain. It's time to choose yourself for a little while. 

"Do you need any help?" he asks looking down as he kicks the pavement with the toe off his white Reebok.

"That would be great. Do you want to follow me?" you question, pointing to your car with your thumb.

"Okay. Sure," he perks up and closes your trunk before jogging back to his van. The nervous tension between you feels like pins being driven into your heart. Both of you are unsure how to proceed after you've hurt him so badly. All week you've wanted to go to him, even going as far as driving by Gareth's when the band had practice, but ultimately what he needed, just like you, was space to make his own decision.

Eddie follows you up the stairs on the side of the garage, carrying a box of mismatched dishes your mother gave you. The windchimes attached to the underneath of the landing gently tinkle out a soothing tune.

"I can't believe you're renting from Mrs. Landry," Eddie says as he waits for you to unlock the door, "English sophomore year was brutal. She hated me."

"Well, you need to remember to turn down the music before you pull in or she still will," your key turns in the lock and the wooden door protests as you ease it open.The warm summer breeze blows through the  windows of your small studio apartment. The sheer curtains billowing around the boxes you have yet to unpack.

"You can set that down wherever you can find space," you offer, setting the box of linens down on the mattress of your unmade bed. He slides the box on to your tiny kitchen counter before he starts poking around the room. 

"This is pretty nice," he sticks out his bottom lip nodding his head as he looks around. 

"Beggars can't be choosers," you shrug, taking a seat on the worn couch that came with the apartment. The dated furniture is a far cry from what was in Steve's six bedroom, six bathroom house. 

"I'm serious. This is a big step. I'm proud of you, baby."

The term of endearment gives you a small flutter of hope that maybe all is not lost between you. He pauses in front of your refrigerator checking out the photos that are held up with magnets.

“Family photo,” he quips, flicking a polaroid of you, him and Steve that Dustin snapped at the pool party before everything went bad. The three of you looked happy then.

“Does Harrington know you're here?” he asks, lifting the flap of a box that's stacked on top of a few others.

“Yes,” you fold an afghan and drape it over the back of the couch, “The two of you aren’t talking?”

“No, we are. Just not about you,” he wanders over to sit next to you and you nod in understanding.

“Eddie, I need you to know the biggest regret of my life will be hurting you. You didn’t deserve it and I’m so very sorry,” your eyes are already getting glossy but you need him to know.

“Yeah, well you know, I shouldn’t have pushed you towards him,” he says, picking at a button that is sewed onto the back of the couch.

“It’s not your fault. It might have happened anyway,” you say, trying to be truthful.

“It’s not the sex. It's the lying,” he says, finally looking straight at you.

“I know,” you can’t hold back the tears, “I made so many mistakes.”

“Well, I’ve made a few myself,” he picks up the box of tissues from a table at the end of the couch and offers you one, “We had fun, though. Didn’t we?”

“Yeah, we did,” you say, taking a tissue from the box and mopping the wetness from your puffy face. He waits patiently for you to pull yourself together. 

“So why did you come to see me?” you ask, getting up to throw out the tissue. When you sit back down, you tuck your hands under your thighs to keep from touching him.

“I had a couple of things to tell you,” he pulls a lighter from his pocket, opening and closing it a few times before stuffing back in.

“Okay,” you encourage him.

“Nothing ever happened between me and Chrissy. There was some flirting, at least on my part. She was at the trailer because I was going to sell to her. Some of the hard stuff. I know you don’t like it,” he wipes his hands on the front of his ripped jeans, “I don’t get that kind of attention from girls like her. But if something had happened, I’m not sure I would have stopped it.”

“What does that mean, girls like her?”

“It means nice girls. Girls like you.”

“Thank you for telling me,” you say, swallowing, your leg bouncing up and down, “Can you tell me what else happened?”

“Not yet,” he says, shaking his head, “Maybe not ever. I don’t want to think about it. I just want to move on."

"Okay, what was the other thing you wanted to say?" you ask suddenly eager for this to be over so you can cry all alone. 

"That's the harder one," he looks around your apartment again, then down at his lap - maybe to gather his words or his courage. He finally lifts his head, "You broke my heart and you did it more than once."

Squeezing your eyes shut, you cover your face with your hands, losing the battle to hold back your sobs.

"I don't know if I can ever trust you again," his voice cracks, "But for some stupid reason, I still love you."

Leaning forward, you fall against him and his arms work their way around you. 

"I've never stopped loving you," you cry into his shoulder, "but I've ruined us. I don't deserve you."

"Maybe," he sniffs and can feel him wiping away his own tears, "but I still want you."

His admission has you crying harder, partly because you're about to break his heart again.

"I'm not going to lie to you anymore, I can't give you that, not right now. I need more time."

He gently pushes your shoulders, easing you away so he can see your face, "Because of him?"

Wiping your eyes, you nod.

"I don't understand," he says shaking his head, "You either love him or you love me. How can you not know?"

"I'm sorry," you agonize, "I don't know why it's like this. I can't help how I feel."

"Neither can I. And I'm certain I love you, only you. If you can love me, only me, we can work through this, okay? But baby, you've got to figure your shit out."

"I'm trying. I promise, I'm trying," wiping your swollen eyes as you cry.

"Alright," he sighs, "I need to go."

He stands to leave and you walk him to the door. He draws in a long breath before inclining his head to kiss you, "That wasn't goodbye, okay? That was see you later."

"Okay," you wrap your arms around him, "See you later," you say against his cheek. He hugs you back before he walks out the door.

♡♡♡

And life moves on. The rest of your boxes get unpacked and you get used to going to bed alone. You're offered a job as secretary at a new office that just opened in Kerly. The pay and hours are better and you don't come home covered in pasta. Eddie and Steve both come by often. Once they even came together, wanting you to know any hard feelings are behind them. You've met them each for lunches and sometimes dinner, casual dates, just spending time together. 

Eddie's summer class is wrapping up and he's making plans with Jeff to share an apartment. He's even put some applications in looking for some regular work, you suspect Wayne might be the driving force behind that decision but a step forward is a step forward. 

Steve is working part time at Family Video and part time with the town while the community center is under construction. He's struggled a little with some aspects of his new role but the head of the rec department has taken him under his wing and is showing him the ropes. Undoubtedly, he'll be successful, he just won't think any other way. 

Being on your own has been tough and sometimes lonely but it's given you the space to get to know yourself and enjoy your own company. Forgiving yourself has been the most difficult but possibly the most important thing you've done. Slowly, you've let go of the guilt. 

Then, one ordinary summer morning, you woke with the sun streaming through the curtains and your alarm blaring. In your haze of sleep, you forgot that you were alone and reached for him. When all your hand found was the cool softness of a well worn sheet, you knew exactly who you were reaching for, the one you couldn't live without. 

The heels of your shoes clack against the busy sidewalk as you walk the two blocks to the restaurant. Your feet will likely be aching by the end of the day but you wanted to dress up for your lunch date. Men in suits and groups of women dressed in business attire walk quickly making the most of every minute of their lunch hour. The upscale dinner's entrance is on the corner of two intersecting streets of the downtown. Walking past the people eating at teal outdoor tables with bright yellow umbrellas, you push against the brushed metal handle of the heavy door, a bell jingles above your head and you're immediately greeted by the smell of fried potatoes, eggs and burgers. Standing just inside the entrance you wait patiently to be seated. 

Letting one of them go was more painful then you could have imagined. The grief and loss leaving scars behind that will never let you forget. But when it was done, you could see his relief in being set free. He took a part of your heart with him when he left, a piece that belonged solely to him, a sliver you'll always be missing. Whether he puts it in a drawer or carries it with him, it's his to do with as he pleases. 

"Just one today, hun?" a waitress in teal dress and white apron grabs a matching teal menu from a pocket attached to the back of the first high-back booth lining the wall. 

"Two, please. He'll be right along," you tell her, already feeling happier that you'll soon be with him.

Strangely, after everything, moving forward slowly seemed like the best decision for both of you, cementing your love into a strong foundation before taking the next step - this is how you build a life. 

She leads you past the lunch counter lined with occupied vinyl upholstered stools and globe pendant lights hanging intermittently above it to a booth pressed up against the enormous plate glass window looking out onto the hectic street.

A set of bright white coffee mugs resting upside-down on their saucers are joined by shiny metal silverware wrapped neatly in napkins on the lacquered wooden table top.

"Coffee?" she asks after she waits for you to slide onto the tufted vinyl bench seat. 

"Just water, please," you say, accepting the menu she hands you. She places another on the table in front of the empty seat across from you before carrying your mug and saucer away with her. 

You've kept your apartment for now but he stays over frequently. And In the quietest part of the night with the moonlight illuminating his beautiful face, he holds you close, keeping you warm, and together you make your plans. 

Setting your menu down on the table-for once you already know what you want, you turn your head to daydream while you watch the people pass by on the street. A mother with a baby in her arms and a small child at her side meet up with a man in a shirt and tie. He leans down and kisses her cheek before lifting the toddler up into his arms and the family changes direction heading towards the park.

 It was always going to be him and some part of you knew it from the very first kiss but now you're ready to give him the best of you, willingly, unencumbered and completely.

The song playing on the radio ends and the DJ laments the approaching end of summer reminding everyone listening that with every end comes a new beginning before starting the next song, and you can't help thinking he was talking directly to you. The bell above the door chimes as it opens and you feel your cheeks rising when you see the top of a familiar head come through the door. His eyes move quickly searching for you and you hold your hand up in a wave when they connect with yours. 

As he walks towards you, the smile that he wears just for you makes everyone and everything fade into the periphery and you're filled with a love so big you're not sure how your body is containing it. Your hands itch to touch him, knowing that after everything - you're his and only his and he is yours. All the fears you had are blown away in the wind, like a dandelion letting go of its seeds - leaving only the possibilities of what can be remaining. In the aftermath of disaster, betrayal, love lost and love found, the long road of your future stretches out in front of you, and although you won't always be able to see what's around the next curve, you'll travel that road with him. 

Thank you for reading. If you enjoyed this fic, please reblog. It makes a big difference in helping others find my work. Drop a comment I'd love to hear from you.

AN: Endings are always bittersweet. Thanks for being on this ride with me, it's been an emotional one. Who did you see come through the door at the diner? Let me know in the comments. Special thanks to @loveshotzz who always pulls out my best writing and the rest of the hive @myobmaya @boomhauer @superblysubpar As always Jelly's after-hours answering service will be available to answer all your asks. xoxo -A

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[mikelogan]

hi, this edit is cool, would you please tell me how do you make the circle shape and text like that in the second gif?

https://mikelogan.tumblr.com/post/727834848573669376/forgiveness-is-warm-like-a-tear-on-a-cheek-think

hi!! i'm so sorry this took me so long to answer, but i've hardly been on my desktop for the last couple months and haven't been giffing. finally getting around to this and thank you for the kind words!

in this tutorial, i'll show you what i did as well as another way to achieve the same effect:

once you've made your gif and colored it the way you want, you can get the circle effect one of two ways. i'll show you how i did it first and then a more "normal" way lol

i actually had this circle texture laying around and for whatever reason, i decided to use that. so i popped that onto the canvas and used ctrl+T to center it both vertically and horizontally

then i used a glitter texture over the top of the circle layer and applied a clipping mask so that the glitter only shows up on the circle and not the entire gif. to do this, make sure your glitter (or whatever texture you decide to use) layer is ABOVE the circle and then right-click on the glitter layer and select "create clipping mask." you should see this lil arrow on the layer now:

as a quick note about textures/overlays: chances are that if you just google "glitter texture png" or something similar, you'll find tons, but the png portion is important because pngs have transparent backgrounds. this wouldn't work if the circle texture was a jpeg because its background is not transparent and the overlaying of the glitter texture would appear on every pixel, basically just taking the shape of the entire jpeg rather than just the circle.

i have a resources (basically anything downloadable, from overlays to actions to psds) tag on my gifmaking sideblog as well as one specifically for textures and overlays. i also utilize the websites freepik, pngegg, and pngwing for pngs (especially freepik).

to make the glitter layer the same pink/purple color i used, i ended up using a hue/saturation layer above it and also applied a clipping mask to that layer so it only affected the glitter layer. this step is totally optional depending on the coloring you're going for. you might be happy with the glitter texture exactly as it is. you could also skip the hue/saturation layer and instead apply a color overlay to the glitter layer, select the color you want, and set it to screen or another similar blending mode. to do this, double-click on the glitter layer, select color overlay from the menu, choose whatever color you want, make sure the opacity is set to 100%, and adjust the blend mode to whatever you think looks best.

the "normal" way to do the circle would just be to use the ellipse tool (right-click on the rectangle tool and choose ellipse) and input your desired dimensions. to get a perfect circle, the width and height have to be the same as one another. then you'd continue on with the rest of the process.

for the text, create your main text layer. these were my settings for a 540px canvas:

i also added a drop shadow to the layers with these settings (double-click the text layer to bring up this menu):

then i duplicated the text layer 6 times. select the first duplicated layer (the second line), use ctrl+T and your arrow keys (i only used the down arrow) to move the text down the desired amount of space. i made sure i moved each line down exactly 25 pixels, which is equal to 25 presses of the down arrow. i just think it looks nice when they're equally spaced. with each subsequent layer, i just dropped the opacity.

starting with the original text layer, i used: 100% -> 80% -> 60% -> 40% -> 20% -> 10% -> 5%, but this was just my personal preference.

anyway, that's pretty much it! but if you have any additional questions on this tutorial or any other set, just send me a message and i'll do my best to get to it much quicker than this one 💙

[tricoufamily]

figured out how to do this in a way that's actually helpful for people lmao - here's how you can use the sims 4 studio rig on short/tall sims WITHOUT changing their height or removing your height slider

note that i am not a pose maker! this is for making renders! i have no idea if this would work for making in game poses, this doesn't have anything to do w that lol

haha short

if we do the tried and true method of setting connor's armature modifier to the default sims 4 studio rig, it is WAY off. and not to mention the fact that if you try to make him do anything complicated it gets...well you saw his hands. and it is just as nightmarish for tall sims

the rig that comes w simripper is custom built for your sim's features, height slider or no. but the problem is in its default state it's useless at worst and extremely difficult to use at best. we're going to turn that into the sims 4 studio rig people know and love

first, go to your preferences and add-ons. find the copy attributes menu, it is already installed on blender, you just have to enable it (i am using blender 2.83 here)

let's make all of the rig visible, as straight out of sim ripper, most of the most important bones are hidden inside the sim. with the rig selected, click the little man icon in your properties menu and under viewport display, check in front.

keeping it 100, this is usually what i work with because i think doing poses sucks already, so what do i care if the dots are super tiny? but like i said, that's not that helpful for other people, so let's keep going!

you know that annoying bone shape thing that always hitches a ride whenever you try to append? that's actually the sims 4 studio bone shape, if you look close. we need it!

so we've got a pose we want our sim to do (or a blank rig if we're making our own pose). on OUR sim, select the rig and go into pose mode. in the drop down, expand the pose section, then the b_root, then b_root_bind, then b_spine0, THEN b_spine1. lol.

click ONE of the bones in the drop down menu. it doesn't matter which one. it'll highlight in green on your sim.

now click the bone icon in the menu. under viewport display, click custom shape and select the bone_bone_shape. now it looks like the sims 4 rig, but the circles are a little too big (on the face this would be pretty annoying). so under scale, 0.2 will get it to the normal size.

now hit a on your keyboard to select the whole rig. now hit control+c to open your copy attribute menu that we enabled. copy bone shape. we're done! it looks just like the sims 4 studio rig, but suited to our sim!

i recommend disabling the copy attributes add on after this, because obviously with this set up, we're copying and pasting the pose onto this rig from the actual sims 4 studio rig instead of using it. it'll save you a click lol.

when you paste your pose, don't forget to select the rig, hit i and locrot to save the pose!

[virtuallidol-archive]

*GOOFY AHHH TUTUORIAL*

lesson 2: getting started on psds!!

hit "read more" if interested!

** NOT ALL PSDS ARE FILTERS, PSDS ARE USUALLY BASES THAT YOU CAN OPEN UP. PSDS ARE PHOTOSHOP FILES THAT YOU CAN OPEN UP AND EDIT WITH ALL OF THE LAYERS. THIS IS A TUTORIAL FOR A FILTER PSD (aka, making your OWN filters) **

hey there!! welcome to lesson 2. you don't need to tune in on lesson 1 to understand this, because it was just about finding editing programs and finding tutorials and motivation, so if you already know about all of that, you are basically prepared for this lesson.

this is a tutorial for PHOTOPEA, idk if this works anywhere else. also, this is INTENDED FOR A COMPUTER. (ex: dragging and dropping files and all of that stuff)

STEP 1: the first thing you may* see when going into photopea is this screen:

drag any image into the box that says "drop any files here" if you are a noob and don't know how to drag and drop files you can find a tutorial here. anyways, like i was saying drag and drop any image.

now it should look something like this (but instead of the hatsune miku image its the image that you prefer):

STEP 2*****: now that you have your image, look at the symbols at the bottom right corner. you should see this folder image (folder is circled in red)

you should click the folder button. now you have created a folder. this is going to be the filter.

now that you have the folder down, before proceeding further make sure that its HIGHLIGHTED

go a little bit above the corner, and you folder should be highlighted like this

if its not, just click on it.

now that its highlighted go back to that right corner and click this half circle button that i circled in red

once you click it, this should pop up

i usually hit the "selective color button" first

it usually presents you with this:

at the top of the image, you should see the "colors" button, thats the color you are editing. click it and choose the color you want to edit. you can edit how much a certain color is in a color lol. if yk what i mean.

now i spent a little bit of time editing the selective color, and you can see that the image looks a little different. scroll up to the original image on stop one to see what im talking about! you can add many selective colors until your satisfied!

as you can see, i've added another selective color!

now, right below selective color, (back in the half circle menu) you can see "replace color" this is what it looks like (i've already edited it but you get the idea)

you can choose a color to make FUZZY** and after you do that, you can change the hue, saturation, and lightness to your liking.

here is what my miku image looks like after FUZZINESS**, not a big difference but u can still kinda see it.

STEP 3*****: after you've done that, go back to the half circle menu and close to the top but not all the way, you can see "curves". they look like this:

now you can bend them and destroy them to your liking.

(the higher UP you make your curve go, the lighter it gets, the more LOW you make your curve go, the darker it gets. it also does some other stuff too***. just keep on breaking and bending it to your liking.)

now this is what my filter looks like

STEP 4*****: after your done with abusing and breaking lines now go back to half circle menu and find "color balance". it should look like this

its already edited but whatever (everyone thing should start at zero) but just move the circle more towards the color that you want there to be more of. also hit the range thing to effect more then just the shadows.

now heres what it looks like:

the difference is VERY small****, but you can see that theres more green and cyan + blue when you look closer.

Step 5*****: near the curves thing, you should see "brightness/contrast" you should probably hit that. and it should look like this

adjust it to your liking! its already been adjusted in the image as you can see but still.

Step 6*****: now if you hit the half circle button and look a little bit BELOW curves you should see "vibrance" it also has a saturation button but just drag the circle to your liking.

Step 7*****: next is "photofilter" its in the half circle button in the middle. if you want more of a certain color, click on the orange box to change it. here is what it should look like btw:

also the "density" is how much the color effects the image.

step 8: also, near the "photofilter" in that middle row a little bit above it, there is hue/saturation. its pretty explainable what it does, but just adjust the circles to your liking.

i have been editing this for the last hour, i hope atleast ONE person finds this post helpful. if you are currently reading this, thank you! if you used this tutorial, PLEASE send me the PSD you made!! (through the "request" button on my blog or @ me in a post!!) /nf

IF YOU FOUND ANY OF THE * SYMBOLS, THIS IS WHAT THEY ALL MEAN:

.. * i HOPE your photopea looks like that, it SHOULD. if it doesn't look like that your PROBABLY not on photopea.. your probably on some alien website or something. ** I honestly don't know what "fuzziness" means yet so i'm just as confused as you are. *** other stuff being: change of colors, making the image more red (making it look like it took place in hell!) interverting the image, making the colors more gray. **** honestly a lot of the options make the difference very small ***** you don't need to use ALL of these options if you don't WANT TO. i honestly don't use photo filter for most of my edits.

[ladyanaschmidt]

Sicilian Lemon - Clay Beresford +18 IcePlay

I hope you like it, English is not my first language so I apologize for any mistakes.

The bar was practically deserted that Tuesday night. The rain had awakened his senses in the face of The Crown's expensive menu, a luxurious night befitting Manhattan, its shiny skyscrapers reflecting their shine from the drops on the glass ceiling, like small diamonds. "I'll have a side of Calamari, and a Martini." As soon as the waiter leaves the table, the dark overcoat is closed, his nails clink on the table, in the same symphony of the blues played in the background by a young man. The afro of his hair is similar to his own, like a lion's mane, the shine of his sweaty skin like a varnish on mahogany wood. Damn, the damn white tank top and leather jacket suited him very well. Looking away again to the window, crossing his legs, he felt the rain intensify, inside and outside the bar. Looking at his Cartier watch, he saw that Clayton was fucking late. The Polaroid camera attached to her neck was immediately brought to her eyes, the clicking gears and the sound of the photograph perfectly capturing the immensity of New York seen from above. Holding the photograph between her fingers, the smell of ink invaded her nostrils, at the same time that her order had arrived. Removing her things from the table, she set the photograph aside, observing the cooked squid and rustic cockroaches, the low, yellowish light shining the Tiffany ring on her right finger. Dating Clayton Beresford seemed like something she would only imagine in her erotic novels, but the silver and diamonds on her ring finger didn't lie about the thousands of dollars it was worth. And neither did the man who placed the jewel on her hand. He not only hired her as a professional photographer for his company, but he also nailed the expensive Baccarat scent to her pulse when he called her to his bed for the first time.

— Eating without me, princess? — Clay's velvety voice invaded your senses, looking up and your gaze met the blue of the most powerful man in New York. — I'm sorry for leaving you… — He walks around the table, his index finger rising from the tip of your right finger, then over your elbow, shoulders and finally chin, raising his gaze even higher to him. — Waiting. He lets go of your face, purposefully scraping his nail on your jaw, testing your reaction. Sitting down in front of you, he removes the scarf, playing with the fabric in his hands, rolling and unrolling it in the palms of his hands. You also bring the squid to your mouth, looking into his eyes as he speaks to a waiter. However, instead of biting into the seafood, you place your tongue inside the circumference of the food, making a circular motion to slurp the sauce. He bites his lip hard, pulling the man's arm and stuffing some bills into his pocket, which the man immediately smiles and bows. She looks back at you, who swallows the food, also teasing him. “Aren’t you going to eat?” You asked, pointing to the almost empty plate. Your metaphor hovers in the air, and Clay stretches his foot towards you, his Oxford shoe scraping against your expensive pantyhose, caressing it. You melt into your chair, relaxing your back, while your left hand is held by his hand, his ring and index fingers fingering your palm, calling, asking. Until he finally answers: “Expensive dishes are eaten in the presidential suite.” Fuck, you could have come just with that sentence, as he brings his Negroni to his lips, his foot hooks on your calf, locking your body. The red liquid fell from the corner of his mouth, staining his jaw, he cleans the red trail with his tongue, spreading it over his white teeth. At the same time you squeeze his hand tightly, he finally laughs mockingly. “I guess we can skip to dessert, right?” You don't know how you got out of that table, you don't know how you got to the rooftop, the place full of yellow lights, drinks and food. The fireplace rising like the excitement that grew inside you. When the door closes, he goes to the fireplace, arranging two shallow glasses of drinks, and cut Sicilian lemons, the bucket full of ice, you remove your coat, shirt, pants, if you could you would tear off your skin so he could touch your veins directly with his fingers, bursting veins and arteries. When he turns around, his gaze was almost adoring, as he unbuttoned the buttons of your shirt, tilting his head to the side, calling you. When he is only in his pants, you approach, your fingers exploring his body, tracing the cut on his toned chest, taking another step, you glued your mouths. He tasted like Negroni, seafood, salt, and, most of all, the flavor of fire. He pushes your body back, just to have the pleasure of taking you in his arms, because he knows you are too weak to stand. His tongue swirls in your mouth, turning your face with his head, while his arms hold your band with a baby, placing you on the counter above the fireplace, on a blanket, right next to the condiments he left there. He gently places your feet locked on his back, the heat of the fire scraping your panties. Scaring you. You bring your hands to the back of his neck, trying to pull his face away from yours. "The fire… you're going to burn us…" He pulls away obediently, but smiles playfully. Getting closer to your ear, removing your bra: "It won't be the fire that will burn you, my princess." He turns his attention to your neck, biting your skin lightly, your hands go to his strands, messing up his silky blond locks, scratching your scalp when he bites your skin, eliciting a louder moan. "Are you okay, princess?" — He stops, resting both his hands on your hip bones, looking worriedly into your eyes. You roll your eyes and beg: — Please, suck me, Clay.

Something breaks inside him, his gaze becomes volatile, he pulls your panties and socks down your legs, letting the heat of the fire touch your feet. He stands up, picking up several pieces of flaky ice, tracing your neck with his mouth and the ice between his teeth. The contrast makes you gasp, your nails scratching his back, the ice melting on your warm skin, at the same time as the flow of your waters begins to wet his fingers as they explore you slowly. Opening your big lips, making sure to make himself heard and listen to your waves. He strums her with the strings of a guitar, extracting the most beautiful sounds from her, until Clay silences her with his lips on yours, you tremble with your mouth frozen due to the cold of the ice cubes. In a moment the blue of his orbs open and he pulls away slightly: "I want to try something, do you think you can handle the ice?" — Your hand stills, your two fingers inside you stop moving inside you, but he curls his digits, touching something inside you that makes you scream. — You certainly melt the ice of any glacier. He kisses you again hungrily, his breath smelling like you. His ambiguous sentence makes you want to cry, after all you didn't know who had melted whose barriers. But you knew that Clay Beresford was yours, completely and entirely yours. Just as you were his, completely and entirely too. He takes a step back, letting go of your face, supporting you better on the fireplace, you can see his chest covered in sweat, as if he was melting, the fire was literally and figuratively between you, and he loved to burn himself. His skillful hand squeezes the Sicilian lemon into the shaker, adding cachaça, lemon slices, honey, and finally closing it and shaking it with measured force, you tremble in your place, your hawk eyes hunting him, analyzing his black pants, marked by your excitement. When he finished, he poured its contents into a Martini glass, placing a dehydrated lemon slice on top. Lifting the drink to his full lips, sipping it, then smiling, he looked into your eyes over the crystal: — It's missing ice… — He leaves the glass on the floor, and approaches again, picking up the bucket of ice, holding some in his hand. — How fast can I make you cum with my mouth?

At that moment you laugh, finally understanding his goals, determined to embark on his idea, you teased: — The ice can't melt… — She holds his face with the tip of her nails, scratching his cheek affectionately. — Show me what you're capable of, that mouth does more than just… — She lowers his head down your torso, watching him put 3 ice cubes in his mouth. — Business. When his mouth touches your pussy, a volcano rises in your senses, and screams erupt. He's not calm, he's not delicate like Clay usually is. And he knows it. His tongue moves, spinning the ice at your entrance, while his nose presses your clitoris hard, almost choking on the ice, but he persists, saliva and water mixing with your juices. His hands, once gentle in caressing you, now grip your thighs fiercely. Keeping you still. When you try to lift yourself towards his lips, he holds you with his arms, intertwining his fingers over the hair on your skin, at the same time pulling you lower, the heat of the fire embracing your perineum.

The room echoed with the moans, the calls. The prayers. The musk of her flavor tempering the frozen stones that were still intact in Clay's mouth. Her nails grip his hair tightly, then her palms caress his abused scalp in a silent apology. He brings his mouth to the glass with the Sicilian lemon caipirinha, his favorite, and he sips the drink in a short gulp, approaching and kissing his hair as he holds the crystal glass.

— Sicilian lemon is undoubtedly a wonderful ingredient… — He licks its residue from your hair and skin, savoring your cum. — But you are the most addictive drink in the world… — He goes between your breasts, resting his hand on your cheek, in complete contrast to the fury he felt sucking you off a few minutes ago. — I'm drunk because of you, damn it. He drinks more of the drink, offering it to you, who shakes her head, scraping her foot against his pants, feeling your excitement. And your laugh rises, as you pick up the phone forgotten by your side. You pull his body towards you, feeling him play with your nipples, laying your head on his sternum. When you dial a number, your hand goes to the back of his neck, keeping him still. — I want the ingredients to make the Spanish drink in suite 501. — He makes a move to get up, but continues kissing your pink bud. — Except for the condensed milk, I… — You look down, and Clay returns your cheeky look, his foot pinching your member, making you bite your tongue and moan. — I already have what I need. — He stands up, holding your face. Glazed like a dog on hunting day. — Thank you. When the call ends, he pulls you into another kiss, the taste of lemon explodes in your mouth, as well as the undeniable taste of Clay. — Are you going to try all the drinks? — He asks, biting your ear slowly, and pulling you to the floor. Holding your body close to his own. — Wait for the sun to come up so you can go… please. — He begs with doe eyes, big and loving. And you simply smile as you say: — I have a tolerance for alcohol, and you Clay? — He smiles cynically, approaching you again. — I have all night.

Lady Ana Schmidt

[mabelskins]

how to design: guidebooks

Okay, so I’ll just be straight forward, there will be little about coding here and way more about the look, mental models and navigation design tips to make your guidebook more effective. After navigating a few rp sites and making MANY mistakes with guidebooks, I decided to make my own guide to making effective guidebooks for your rp site with all that I’ve learned. 

First of all, let’s do some thinking here. The guidebook is the first place the players will be looking at on your website to decide whether or not they will be playing. Usually there is A LOT of information, about the settings, factions, powers, you name it. From a player's perspective, it's usually pretty overwhelming and exciting to go through this brand new universe they are emerging to. So it’s our job to make this experience as easy as possible. 

How do we do that? Well, it’s mostly about navigation. How will you decide to guide your users through the site? What visual cues will you be giving them? 

When it comes to online navigation, its very similar to navigating yourself through a physical place. You will usually use landmarks, visual cues, and signage. You will need to understand three things: where you were, where you are and where you want to be. Google maps is great at that, making it so easy that you can use the tiny dot to know which direction you are going (which is a life saver for someone like me who has no sense of direction).

What does that mean in a web scenario? Here are my five tips on making better designs:

Link states

Different states for left menu links (default, hover and active) will help the user understand where he is and where they can click next, making it look interactive and clickable. Something as simple as making active links bold or a different colour goes a long way.

Buttons & Spacing

Have you got buttons within the pages? Links that connect to the fc page or other pages within the website? Make them stand out! Sometimes, links get lost because they look too much like a simple text. So instead of blending it into the text, make that link stand out. You can do it by adding an underline (if you want to be subtle) or make the link look like an actual button. 

Also, don’t forget to give proper spacing. Sometimes when there’s a lot of content, we feel the need to cram it all up to make it fit - but that can be confusing to the user. Make sure you provide enough space around the links and buttons to make them distinguishable and easy to read. 

Other navigation Methods

Sometimes there is just a LOT of information. I mean a lot, and I’m always so impressed about how detailed some universes are - it's amazing. So, if that’s the case, perhaps consider other navigation methods, such as breadcrumbs, top navigation or a sub navigation bar. You may even go as far as drop-downs. Just remember to keep it consistent (more about that below) so the user always knows how to go around.

Location

Stick with familiar locations! This one I haven’t seen a lot, but thought I’d include. Don’t make the users relearn how to navigate! Stick to familiar locations - if you are trying to innovate, think of other ways that can help the user instead of confusing them. Top and left navigation are the most used for guidebooks.

Consistency and organisation

Last but not least. The way the information is organised is VERY important. I cannot emphasise this enough. The left navigation bar should always be the same, the items shouldn’t change and there should be clear indicators in the headings to show where the users are and how to go back. Headings should be the same all around. So, this one goes to both coders and site staff - organise your material. The hierarchy and grouping of the content will help to determine the structure of your guidebook.

That’s it! I hope you find this useful, and if you’d like more posts like this let me know - what kind of content would you like to see on how to design?

Any questions, ask box is always open! Would love to hear from other coders what their thoughts and tips are too <3

[juette]

a comprehensive guide to custom villagers

when making my custom villager it was very difficult to find good tutorials as many of them would point to deleted pages or only cover things i already knew, so i have decided to make my own complete tutorial. please let me know if you need any aditional help! i will try my best to keep this tutorial up to date and clarify it if needed.

it's important to note that these villagers will NOT show up in online play and dream towns. since only your game is edited, other players will see whichever villager you've replaced instead of the one you've made unless they also mod their game.

first things first, you will need a hacked 3ds with luma3ds and an SD card for this. you can probably play in citra, but i dont really know how using mods in citra works so i will focus on luma3ds for this tutorial.

if you haven't hacked your 3ds yet, do not follow a video tutorial: they can become outdated very easily with no indication of it and following outdated guides makes it a lot more likely that you'll brick your console. follow the guide on 3ds.hacks.guide instead.

other software you will need:

hackingtoolkit9ds to decrypt and unpack the rom

kukkii to extract the textures and put them back in

a drawing software (can be anything, even mspaint) to edit the textures

blender or another 3d editing software to preview what you're doing

010 editor to edit the bin and .umsbt files

step 1: getting a rom

if you're simply downloading the rom online, you may skip this step.

for those who wish to dump the rom from their console, you must first turn it on while pressing the START button to enter godmode9's menu. click the HOME button to see more options, then select "Title manager", then select where you've installed the title (SD card or the console itself). a list of all your installed games will appear. scroll down to Animal Crossing New Leaf or Happy Home Designer depending on which game you want your villager to be injected into.

once you've chosen the game, select "Manage title..." and choose either "Build CIA (standard)" or "Dump CXI/NDS file". you may then shut down the console and insert the SD card into your computer. the rom will be in the folder \gm9\out on the root of your SD card

step 2: decrypting/unpacking the rom

drag and drop your rom to the "PackHack" folder that hackingtoolkit9ds is in. rename it so that it doesn't contain any spaces or special characters.

open up hackingtoolkit9ds and type either CE (for .cia roms) or CXI (for .cxi files) in the window that appears depending on the format of your rom. it will ask you to write the name of your file without the extension. type it and press enter and wait for it to do its thing.

step 3: making your textures!

you'll find your extracted villager models in the folder \ExtractedRomFS\Npc\Normal\Model

the first three letters in each .bcres file name represent the species. open up one of the files of the species you want to make yoir villager be. it doesn't have to be the file of the specific villager you want to replace as we can rename it later, but do be careful that certain villagers have slightly different models than the rest of their species (tucker having tusks or étoile having hairpins, for example)

since i wanted to make an elephant with tusks, i've picked tucker as my base. he uses model elp09.bcres

click the "Batch export PNG" button and choose the folder you want the textures to go in. you may then edit them as you wish. your textures do not need to be semi-transparent like the extracted textures are.

i like seeing the way things look as i work, so i get a copy of the model as a .dae file to open it in blender. you may get those from models-resource.com or you may extract them yourself using ohana 3ds rebirth, though ohana can be a bit unreliable at times. blender's "texture paint" tab also allows you to draw directly on the model, though i don't find it precise enough to my taste so i mostly use it to lay guidelines for me to draw over.

once you're satisfied with your model, make sure to draw the different expressions as well.

eyes 0: neutral

eyes 1: half-blink

eyes 2: blink

eyes 3: angry

eyes 4: sad

eyes 5: happy closed (think ^_^)

eyes 6: surprised

eyes 7: >_< face

mouth 0: neutral/smile

mouth 1: half-open

mouth 2: fully open

mouth 3: frown

mouth 4: half-open frown

mouth 5: fully open frown

you do not have to follow those expressions exactly: for example, being a plush elephant, tusker's mouth moves up and down as he speaks instead of opening and closing.

once everything is done, open the .bcres file in kukkii again and import all of your textures in the right slot (i've found the mass import button does not work for me), then save the file.

step 4: editing names and catchphrases

note: if the villager you are replacing is already in your town, editing the catchphrase in the game's files will NOT change it in-game. similarly, if you are putting the villager in your town with marc robledo's save editor, they will have the catchphrase of the villager you've replaced unless you change it in the save editor yourself.

editing a villager's name or default catchphrase is quite simple, but the new name/catchphrase cannot be longer than the old one. if it is, it will mess up the names and default catchphrases of all the following villagers in the game files.

since you can edit the villager's personality in the game files, simply pick a villager with a long enough name and the right gender. you may also look at the villagers' favourite colors and styles on nookipedia to find one that most closely resembles the villager you wish to make.

since i want tusker to have the sisterly personality, i looked at all the sisterly villagers and i found that pashmina's tastes were close enough, so this is who tusker will be replacing. since her id is goa08, tusker's model needs to be renamed to goa08.bcres

you will find villager names in \ExtractedRomFS\Script\Str\STR_NNpc_name.umsbt and \ExtractedRomFS\Script\Str\STR_NNpc_name_ASR.umsbt

scroll down until you find the name of the villager you wish to replace and change it. the dots between each letter are NOT periods! make sure not to delete them. if you do delete one, or if the villager you're replacing has too many letters in its name, you can copy a dot from another name and paste it between the letters or in place of the extra letters.

catchphrases are found in \ExtractedRomFS\Script\Str\STR_NNpc_habit.umsbt

step 5: editing birthdays, species and personalities

you may skip this step if you only wanted to edit the villager's name. as far as i know, this does not work in happy home designer.

first, download this template.

then, open up \ExtractedRomFS\Npc\Normal\ConstPack.bin in 010 editor and click View -> Line Width -> Custom Width... and enter a value of 34 to make all the villager IDs align.

next, click Templates -> Run Template and select the template we've downloaded. a list will appear at the bottom of the window. scroll through it until you reach the villager you wish to edit, (it will be highlighted in the top half of the window) mine being goa08.

clicking the arrow to the left of struct VillagerConst will reveal a list of all the data this line contains. i will show you how to change birthday, species and personality.

the page we downloaded the template on shows a list of "cases" for each field . for example, for the species field, we want tusker to be an elephant, which is case 0x01 on the page. we will thus type 0x01 in the u8 Species field of 010 editor. the same thing goes for the u8 Personality field. sisterly is 7.

the birth month and day simply require the date. tusker's birthday is may 1st, so i typed 1 in the u8 BirthDay field and 5 in the u8 BirthMonth field. leave everything else alone.

step 6: putting them in the game

luma3ds makes it really easy to put your villagers into the game as long as you pay attention to the folder structure of the original rom.

on the root of your sd card, there should be a folder named luma, and within it a folder named titles (if there isn't, you can create it.)

within that folder, create a folder named with the title ID of your animal crossing game. that title ID will depend on the region of your game.

you can then create a folder named romfs in which you will place your mod files while respecting the path of theoriginal files. for example, the path for the models will be \luma\titles\<game title ID>\romfs\Npc\Normal\Model

when all the files are in place, pop your sd card back into your 3ds and open the game. if the villager isn't in your town, use wisp and an amiibo card (or wumiibo) to see if they show up properly.

and that's it! enjoy your new villagers <3 feel free to tag me in your custom villagers, i'd love to see what you make!

did you find this tutorial helpful? you can buy me a ko-fi as thanks!

[jellycrusher]

Fangirl pt. 6

INITIALLY POSTED ON MY FORMER PAGE: bts-teaspoonff

Genre: Romance, Fluff, Slow Burn, Idol A/U

Pairing: BTS OT7 x backupdancer!reader

Rating: PG

Summary: Y/N, being a huge fangirl, finally got her chance to work alongside her favorite idol group as a backup dancer. She gets to know each member personally and realizes that her feelings may be more than fangirl-idol attraction.

Word Count: 8.1K

Warnings: slight angst, minor character death, implied PTSD, panic attack

Taglist: @nochujeonjk @i-like-puppy-mg @miyochan@satotakeru14 @boba-tea1206​ @blimpintime​​ @kodzuskook​ @fangirl125reader​​ @xicanacorpse​​​​

PARTS:  masterlist... 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

You’re back at your apartment, staring blankly at the ceiling as you lay down on the floor of your living room trying to contemplate what just happened today. It was supposed to be a free day for you but so far, everything is so crazy. You shrill as you curl yourself into ball, rolling to the side, as you recall all the events that had happened today.

 From Hoseok attending your class then driving you back to BigHit, to standing in that recording booth listening to their voices as they mutter your name. What in the world did you do in your past life to receive all this happiness? 

 You pull your bag from the table above you to the floor where you’re laying down. You stare at the brand new purple phone inside your bag. Jiyong handed it out to you when you asked for a copy of the message. You did refuse it at first but when Jiyong mentioned Namjoon specifically told him that there’s absolutely no way he’ll let you refuse their gift. You raise the phone towards the ceiling as you flip it to closely examine the phone. You let your fingers brush on the small and subtle BTS logo on its backside.

 “What did I do to be this lucky?” You unlocked the phone for the first time and almost dropped the phone on your face, taken aback at the silly wallpaper that appeared out of the blue. It looks like Taehyung took the selfie, with him and Jin in the front while Hoseok, Jimin and Jungkook, in the middle row, were all adorably trying to push forward as if fighting for a bigger space in the selfie. RM and Yoongi were behind the other boys being so casual about it. You chuckle so loud looking at Yoongi in the selfie. It must have taken a lot of persuasion from the boys for him to join.

 You browse your phone to find the recorded message. After a few minutes, you finally found it saved as a widget on your menu screen. You click to play it on loudspeaker and pressed the phone on your chest as you anticipate to hear them once more.

 [All 00:01]                       

Hello y/n, we are BTS!

[Taehyung 00:04]           

Surprise! On behalf of our favorite sound engineer, Jiyong, we give you this one of a kind voice message from us, your favorite group in the world.

[Jin 00:14]                      

He told me he’s terrified of you when you’re angry…… What?…. Jiyong is telling the boys that I’m lying. Don’t believe what he says. Jiyong has a sister complex, guys.

[RM 00:25]                   

Hyung, don’t bully Jiyong unless you also want to give him an apology message

[Jin 00:31]                    

I’m just joking. Jiyong adores you. I can attest to that because he won’t stop bragging you to us even before you have worked here. I almost feel like I’m your close friend with how much he talks about you

[Yoongi 00:43]            

As expected, this message is now getting chaotic. Should we get to our main point?

[Jimin 00:49]              

Right! We actually suggested if Jiyong could instead give you a signed album but he admitted that you already have ALL our albums. Most of them being signed albums so I guess there’s no point in giving you an extra copy?

[Jungkook 01:05]      

So Taehyung, being a genius, asked us if we could record this message and sing a few parts of our songs just for you.

[J-hope 01:10]           

For our number one fan, we’ll sing for you right here. Every time you hear this, imagine that we’re singing in front of you.

[RM 01:17]                 

Enjoy our little gift! And can you please assure Jiyong that you’re not angry with him? He really looks like a terrified and sad little puppy

[Jin 01:29]                 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA look at Jiyong

A few more seconds, they started singing Butterfly. How many times have you played this song on repeat? You can’t even remember anymore. Listening to them sing it ‘live’ to you through this recorded message still gives off the same raw emotional performance compared from the studio version.

 Jiyong must have suggested them to sing Butterfly. You may have mentioned him once before that this song was significant to you but no one really knows the reason for it. At first, Jiyong thought that it’s just simply your favorite song from BTS but soon after, he realized that maybe you thought of your parents based on the message of the song.

 You didn’t try to explain anything to him even when he opened the topic of your parents. You just let him think that the reason why this song is significant for you is because, as stated in the song’s message, it expresses your fear of losing someone represented by a butterfly.

 It’s actually much deeper than that. You actually thought of yourself whenever you hear this song. Yes, both you and Jiyong lost your parents. However, you also lost a part of yourself after the accident. It took you years to recover yourself back from the trauma.

 It was late at night when your parents were driving, along with you as a passenger, back to the house. They argued for just a few seconds as you observe them quietly from the back seat, then an upcoming skidding truck blinded all of you with its glaring front lights. When you opened your eyes, you were already upside down hanging by the seatbelt. Smell of gas was eerily present as you see the front of the car totaled along with your parents, making you the only survivor. Silence in that dark tunnel was terrifying.

 Jiyong wasn’t in the car when it happened. Fortunately, he was staying back at home with your grandparents because he was sick that night.

 Both you and Jiyong quickly became the talk of the village. There has never been a horrific accident in the history of your town. A drunk driver collided with the car that your family had been in, killing everyone but you. High School Orphans and only your grandparents now to take care of you and your twin brother. You had to show a brave front for your brother. You may be twins but you acted the big sister role most of the time and had to constantly comfort Jiyong through the pain of losing your parents.

 However, the guilt of surviving alone and the horrifying image of your parents constantly fights your sanity. You had to be strong for Jiyong but as a young girl at that time, you did crave for a figure to not just comfort you but also help you get up.

 When you heard Butterfly years after the accident, you understood it very well. In the lyrics, there’s also a hint of trying to save someone before they do something they regret or something they won’t come back from. When you listen to the song, it felt like there’s two of you. The you who is trying very hard to hold on is singing the lyrics to the you who is on the verge of letting go.

 The lyrics can be interpreted as losing someone you love. It can be an ex-partner, friend, or loved one. For you, it was yourself. Losing yourself. That’s what you were afraid of and fought really hard to not make that happen.

 That’s the main reason you became their fan. The complexity of their lyrics always seems to pull the unspoken words from you.

 · ───────── ·⑦· ───────── ·

 “Here’s an orange juice from me!” Taehyung props down the cold drink in front of Jiyong and sits down on a chair beside him, eyes still glued on Jiyong like a puppy.

 “How about Pad Thai from your favorite Thai place?” Jimin joined them as he offers it and sits on the other side opposite to Taehyung.

 “I’m sure he’ll choose mine. Hamburg steak with cheese and additional sauce.” Jungkook stood behind Jiyong, towering him as he leans in and puts down the food in front of Jiyong.

 “I’m telling you guys I can’t give it to you. She’ll kill me for sure this time.” Jiyong whined as he kick his legs from frustration. He wants to accept the food bribery but he knows that if he give what the three adorable troublemakers are asking from him, an apology message from BTS won’t save him again from you.

 “You used our song for her cover. I guess we have a right to listen to it or even have a copy of it.” Taehyung pouts followed by adamant nods from Jimin and Jungkook.

 When you were with Jiyong in the small recording studio, the three of them were actually just outside the door along with Hoseok trying to eavesdrop waiting for a reaction from you. They were actually surprised when Jiyong suggested that you try to sing to their song just to let off steam. Jungkook and Taehyung can’t seem to stop snickering when they heard you two siblings teasing each other through the intercom because you insisted Jiyong not to hit the record button when you start singing. 

 When Jiyong asked you what songs you would like to sing, you declared to sing short covers to Promise, Still With You and Snow Flower, granting gasps from the three song owners sneaking outside. Taehyung actually choked a bit from his own saliva, not expecting you to sing his song.

 The four of them were all listening in as you were singing in the booth the whole time. Jungkook, Jimin and Taehyung were absorbed especially when it was their song that you’re singing. J-hope was also amazed and surprised. Not only you were one heck of a dancer but an amazing singer as well. Your talents could bring other idols that they know to shame.

 After you were done and left the recording studio, they all rushed inside to ask Jiyong if he did record it all. To their surprise, Jiyong recorded it all but of course, he did it without you knowing. Since then, the boys have been asking and bribing Jiyong to send them a copy of the music file.

 “I helped you by suggesting the personal recorded message. Can I have a copy of her cover please?” Taehyung pleaded with his doe eyes. Jiyong, now closely surrounded by the maknae line, contemplates whether the risk of being chopped to pieces by you is worth it.

 · ───────── ·⑦· ───────── ·

 Inside the practice room, every other dancer is busy dancing their butts off. You lean back on your hands spread behind you as you quietly observe your other fellow dancers practicing in front of the mirror. With the purple phone in your other hand, you gripped it tightly as you let your breathing slowly normalize just after finishing your solo dance practice. Sounds of stomping and shoe skidding on the floor echoed in the practice room as everyone pushed through the hectic schedule for the day.

 Tomorrow is the team’s MT or three day team-building event that’s got everyone in a tight schedule for today to, at least, finish any preparations that could be done and present the couple dance routines in front of BTS along with the choreographers.

 BTS and the main choreographers later entered the practice room and soon the dance routine presentation started. You’re last to present along with your dance partner, Taeyang, the couple dance routine you’ve finished. When it was finally your turn, Taeyang quickly stood and offered to help you up off the floor. You have danced in front of the boys and the choreographers countless of times but why does it still feel like you’re dancing to be evaluated and be listed off the team.

 The other boys quickly took notice of your newfound closeness with your dance partner and they weren’t entirely comfortable seeing you smile so sweetly at him. Hoseok were glaring at Taeyang’s hand as they landed snugly on your hips to turn you into place. The three younger members were sneaking stares like a hawk. 

 They all knew that one of them is gonna dance with you to this song eventually but seeing you be this touchy and close to another man ignited something in them. Unsure whether it was jealousy but they convinced themselves that it might just be the feeling of protectiveness since Jiyong had told them again and again to keep an eye out for you.

 Yoongi’s full attention today was not really on any dancers nor the dance routines. He knew the inevitable obvious choice, which is to give anyone from the dance line the solo dance spot. The only dance routines he gave his attention to, not caring entirely though, was the dance routine for a member with three or two dancers. He glanced at his other members and sees Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook and Hoseok sitting up straight and anticipating you to start dancing with your male partner.

 The second the music started, the four members on the dance line were entirely absorbed on watching ahead. Without needing words, Yoongi knew that the four of them are hungrily vying for the solo dance part. What he didn’t know was that the four of them were only thinking of the opportunity to finally have a chance to share the stage with you. The way your male partner danced to the music along with you, to the tunes of Without Me by Halsey, had them hungry for the coveted spot. 

 Taeyang, your dance partner, carefully lands his hands on your hips and it travels down to your leg as you lean into him with your head back. Catching everyone’s eye at the intimate and almost sultry dance step, especially Yoongi. A few sneaky gulps occurred amongst them. You were completely engrossed in the music with movements completely fluid and expressions purely enchanting everyone. 

 You were naïve to the scorching gazes and unfamiliar desire from the 7 members. Yoongi along with Jin and RM were now determined to insert themselves in the competition amongst the group for the solo dance part. All of them quickly exchanged looks the moment you finished dancing and the music stopped. No words were spoken but all of them understood that each of them definitely wanted the opportunity to share the stage with you more than the coveted chance to dance solo.

 You held your water bottle tightly while you quench your thirst. You eye out to the side as the main choreographers were busy talking to each other and to some of the dancers. Taehyung, Hoseok, Jimin and Jungkook were also busy talking to their managers at the other side of the room.

 “I see that you’re putting our gift to good use.” You almost choke on your water at the sudden voice behind you.

 “Namjoon? Don’t scare me like that” You cough. Finishing his cup of water, he slowly walked to your side. You quickly notice Yoongi’s head popping out from Namjoon’s side. “Hello to you two.” Namjoon cheekily grins and Yoongi smiled with his lips closed.

 “He said you’re putting our gift to good use.” Yoongi slightly leans forward, whispering. You glanced at him and quickly looked at the purple phone you’re tightly holding in your other hand beside you.

 Quickly after realizing that the two of them were eyeing your phone, you stammer while you took a step closer. “You really didn’t have to give me this. I tried to refuse it but Jiyong told me that you insisted that I accept it. Also, your other gift was unexpected but thank you. I appreciate it.” You smile nervously at the two of them, hiding the fact that you don’t just appreciate the recorded message but it meant the world to you. Obviously, you won’t admit that.

 “We did thought of giving you a portable drive for the message but I remembered that I did ruin your phone so I suggested that to them. For that I’m sorry.” Namjoon rubs the back of his head.

 Yoongi tries to join in the conversation, placing his hand on Namjoon’s shoulder. “Have you tried exploring your phone? Checked the apps that we have pre-downloaded for you?” Your eyes widen at Yoongi’s sudden questions, followed by a shake of your head. “We did. You might want to check it out.”

 Both of them stare at you as you give them a dazed look. The hand beside you that has your phone slowly creeps its way up but the sudden presence of a hand halting your hand surprised you.

 “Um… Maybe check it later when you’re alone.” Yoongi faces the other way, hand still around your wrist. He thought that maybe by looking away, you won’t notice the faint tinge of pink on his cheeks as he recall what surprise he left for you in your phone. 

 He slowly released your hand, aware of the sudden contact with you and the presence of a crowd in the room. Your eyes still glued to him, you did notice his effort to hide his bashfulness. You try to hold in your giggle at how Yoongi suddenly looked so adorable and it made you much more curious to check your phone. You remind yourself to definitely check what’s up with your new phone the moment the practice session is done.

 By the time you realized your work for today is done, you search for the boys in the room but discovered that they might have left the room ahead of the choreographers and some staff. Most of the dancers were also eager to call it a day. Must be because of the Team MT tomorrow.

 As the youngest of the new female dance team, you have always offered to be the last to stay and clean up the practice room. It comes as a shock to you that your dance partner Taeyang offered to stay behind to help you tidy up the room. While you may have gotten a lot closer with him, interactions with him outside of dance practice is still a bit awkward. 

 You sneak in a glance from the other side of the room as he busies himself with turning off all the electronic equipments while you tidy up the corner from the other side of the practice room. To distract yourself from being antsy at the awkwardness between you, you take out your phone from pocket to try and check the apps that Yoongi mentioned.

 “Our dance a while ago was amazing.” Your voice got caught up in your throat when you suddenly heard his voice. He was still bending down, not looking at you, reaching for something behind the sound system. Almost instantly, you stood straight up at his compliment to hide the fact that you were glancing at him. Finally facing you, he says “Your moves were amazing. You really do transform when it’s time to perform just as the others say.”

 “Thank you. I’m still lacking but I hope I did good as your partner.” you say as you put your phone back in your pocket.

 Something about his gaze as he walks up to you made you avoid eye contact, bashful from the compliment. He slowly closes the distance between the two of you and you were so sure he was going to stop in front of you. You find yourself sighing when he just walked past you, to the water dispenser behind you. 

“And thank you for staying and helping me clean up today.” You weren’t sure why you were so suddenly aware at how awkward this is turning out. Taeyang have complimented you before during practices but somehow, the change of timbre in his voice slightly made you nervous and hyperaware of the fact that you’re alone with him.

 “Anytime, y/n.” You turn to him when you saw a smile slightly obstructed by the rim of the paper cup as he drink up a cup of water. “Too bad I’m just a stand-in for that solo dance.”

 You barely caught what your dance partner had just said so you thought to try and ask him to repeat then a sudden sound of the door opening startling both you and Taeyang, your phone almost slipping from your hands. Your breath catches and you smile so wide it could almost reach your ears as you recognize the figure slowly coming up to you. Despite not having really spent a lot of time with Jin, his presence is a huge relief to break the sense of awkwardness filling your chest. You find your shoulders relax as you see him greet you with a smile.

 Jin was also confused when he saw that you were alone with Taeyang in the room. He hides his discomfort at the sight but seeing how your face lit up when he came into the room, he let the thought pass and kept his face neutral despite wanting to grin at how adorable you looked when you smiled at him.

 “Jiyong asked me to get you.” Jin says, still glancing at Taeyang drinking his cup of water behind you. 

 “He could’ve just texted me. That lazy guy.” You hiss and then turned to Taeyang to bid goodbye.

 “See you tomorrow then?” Taeyang pats your head and turns to his bag. You excused yourself from Jin to run and get your bag from the far end of the room. By the time you walked back beside Jin, Taeyang have already left the room.

 “I didn’t know you and Taeyang were that close already.” Jin queries. He wants to press on further especially after seeing Taeyang comfortably touched your head but he doesn’t want you to think that he’s nosy. You and Jin were still acquaintances but with his closeness with Jiyong, you almost feel like a younger sister to him.

 “Can’t help it if we’re always practicing that solo dance routine almost everyday.” You explain. “But we haven’t really spent much time outside practice time. He’s just looking out for me since he’s kind of my dance mentor too.”

 I don’t think it’s just that, he thinks to himself. He saw the way Taeyang looked at you today. He knew all the male dancers well and Jin never saw that kind of gaze from Taeyang directed at anyone. Not that he has any problems with Taeyang probably having feelings for you, he just repeats to himself that he’s looking out for you.

 “So what does my lazy brother need from me to have asked you personally to come and get me?” You question him as you usher him out of the room while you turn off the lights and close the door.

 “Oh that. He didn’t actually.” You look at him, confused with brows furrowed. “I was the one who actually needed to get you and come with me. I only used Jiyong’s name because Taeyang was there.”

 “Come with you? To where?” Both you and Jin walked side by side along the hallway.

 “We’re having a game night at our dorm and the boys wanted to invite you.” Jin informs you, still looking ahead. He wasn’t aware that you stopped walking when you heard what he just said.

 “Wait, what, Me? Why me?” Jin heard your voice slightly go up and this made him turn quickly to his side, startling him to not see you beside him and rather, frozen a few feet behind him.

 “We invited Jiyong as well but he’ll be late. He said he’s caught up with work.” Jin beams at you warmly as he tries to calm you down.

 “Yeah but why me? I mean isn’t it too sudden for me to just barge in at your dorm?” You counter.

 Surely, this is a big jump from the warm gesture from the voice message and new phone. You’re happy that they have thought of you to come on their game night but isn’t their dorm their personal private space?

 “Jiyong has been a very good friend to us, almost like family and we all wanted to make an effort to get to know you as well. We usually invite him to the dorm whenever we can and I think he would be happy if you’ll be there too.” For a moment, Jin thought it would be a good idea to just use Jiyong’s name as an excuse to invite you because he knew that you would be uncomfortable if it was just them inviting you. In reality, his other members have already suggested to invite you even before he got the chance to suggest it to them.

 “I want to get to know all of you more as well. I’m just shocked that you all think the same way. Excuse me but I won’t deny anymore that I’ve been a huge fan for a long time. I’m sure you know that well by now.” You gripped the strap of your bag tightly and your nervous state didn’t go unnoticed by Jin. Your heart is racing a hundred beats a second at just hearing him invite you to their dorm.

 “I’m just glad that Jiyong’s twin sister is our fan and not an anti. It would’ve been hard for us to befriend you if that was the case.” He chuckles. Your heart is full at Jin’s effort to lighten up the mood.  “Come on. I’m going to buy food for the troublemakers at home. Yoongi will be cooking for us tonight but Taehyung and Jungkook texted me to get extras.” He pats your shoulder

 A little extra time to get to know them wouldn’t hurt. It could actually help you a lot with the solo dance routine. You wouldn’t want to perform badly just because you’re not comfortable and awkward with your partner. Thinking back when you first danced to the song with Taeyang, it just looked so wrong and you couldn’t convey the dance properly. It’s a blessing in disguise to get to be close to them this way but you wouldn’t refuse such a scrumptious offer.

 You were grateful for Jin’s effort to lift up your mood during the drive back to their dorm. Sometimes, you would tightly grip the seatbelt in front of your chest and fall quiet. He would suddenly pull out ridiculous puns that would bring out the most un-ladylike laugh from you. To distract yourself, you insisted to be the one to get off the car and pick up the order from a restaurant.

 Your breathing gets ragged and eyes unfocused the longer the drive went and the closer you get to the dorm. You think you might be sick with the way your stomach flips at the thought of 6 other people waiting for you.

 You froze behind Jin as he ring the doorbell. There’s still a chance for me to run, you thought but was interrupted when you hear unintelligible chatter from at least 2 people on the other side of the door.

 The door flew wide open and you were greeted by Taehyung and Jungkook. The two of them holding the doorknob with Taehyung slightly pinned beneath by Jungkook who seems to have jumped on his back. “You’re finally here!” Taehyung flashes his boxy grin at you.

 Your eyes wandered behind the two of them as Namjoon’s head popped up from the end of the short hallway visible from the doorway. He raised his hand to wave to you and you waved back.

 “Don’t crowd the lady and help me carry these to the kitchen.” Jin instructs them and instantly, Taehyung and Jungkook untangled themselves from each other and rushed to get the bags from Jin’s hands. You could almost hear Namjoon at the edge of the hallway teasingly smacking and scolding the two of them from overwhelming you when you arrived.

 Jin was caught by surprise when you try to hold in your chortle, shoulders shaking at the sight of those two being scolded. He stood against the door allowing you to go in ahead of him and when he saw you hesitate a bit, he hums and say with a grin “Don’t worry, those kids won’t bite.”

 You walked ahead further down the hallway, nervously treading every step. Finally, you get a clearer view of the inside of their dorm. Directly on your right, a huge glass chandelier adorns the ceiling complimenting the black and white interior of the spacious kitchen. A long wooden dining table in the middle. Across from the kitchen, an L-figure brown couch facing the huge flat screen occupies the living room. It feels weird seeing it upclose and personal after seeing glimpses of their dorm from online videos and their V-lives.

 Sound of plastic bags rustling coming from the kitchen caught your attention. Taehyung and Jungkook were rushing to take out all the contents from the bag, drooling at the sight of the takeout you and Jin ordered. Yoongi was busy chopping up something with his back facing away from everyone. You take in the scrumptious smell filling up the room and almost instantly, your stomach grumbled. 

 Jin walked past you to mingle with the two boys. You see the back of Namjoon’s head as he sits quietly on the couch with a book in his hand. Unable to stay put, you hover towards the kitchen. Observing everyone as you make your way closer to Yoongi.

 “Is there anything I can do to help?” You ask as you examine the boiling pot on the stove while Yoongi continues to chop up what seems to be ingredients for a stew. The quiet and busy member seems so docile-looking compared to the cool and stoic Yoongi you always encounter at work. Sometimes, it even confuses you with how he’s hot and cold towards you.

 “You’re our guest. It wouldn’t really look nice if we let you work for your food.” He continues to chop, head only slightly turning to your direction, eyeing you out from the corner of his eye.

 You roll up your sleeves, ignoring Yoongi. “I’ll help you out. It’s the least I can do for the free invitation and besides, my cooking skill is highly commendable.” You carefully snatch the knife away from his hands. Yoongi, unable to stop you, stepped aside and glanced at Jin. Both of them chuckling at your persistence.

 “I’ll take up on that offer but if our dinner turns out bad, I’m blaming you.” Yoongi teases.

 “I have magic hands. I doubt it’ll go bad. It might even turn out a lot better now that I’m helping you.” You counter, chopping the vegetables at a much quicker pace than Yoongi.

 Jin stares warmly at the two of you comically bantering while seated on the dining table. He had thought of reminding his younger members to do their best to make you comfortable but it surprises him to see you fitting in almost instantly. He smiles as you comfortably interact with Taehyung and Jungkook as they make their way to sneak in between you and Yoongi.

 Come dinner time, Yoongi excused himself from the kitchen to get something from his room, leaving you alone. Might as well help him to plate and serve the food so you wandered around the kitchen, checking the cabinets for plates.

 You don’t hear the footsteps entering the kitchen while you search the bottom cabinet. The member could only hear the sound of the plates clunking against each other and not aware of the person obstructed by the huge black kitchen counter.

 “Hyung, it smells good.” You hear a groggy voice behind the other side of the kitchen counter while you take out a plate. You stood up and sees an equally surprised Jimin. You could tell that he just woke up from a nap, judging by his bedhead. “Y/n? Why are you in the kitchen? Aren’t you our guest?” He rubbed his eyes and quickly searched for the missing presence of Yoongi.

 You were about to explain yourself but was interrupted by Yoongi, returning from his room as he answers for you. “More like she snatched my tools and insisted on helping me. She won’t budge.” He huffs as he takes his place back in the kitchen, helping you plate the food.

 Jimin, still sleepy, quietly offered his help. Taking away the filled-up plates from your hands. Yoongi asked him to call the other members for dinner. One after another, the members take up their space in the long table. Jin noticed you standing timidly at the side not knowing where to sit as everyone continues to sit down. He calls your attention and pulls out an empty chair beside him. You automatically walk up beside him and sat down, observing everyone.

 It didn’t take long before the dinner got a bit rowdy. It wasn’t difficult to warm up to them, the feeling of comfort almost feels so natural. Everyone was obviously famished from the practice a while ago so the food was almost devoured instantly just as dinner started. 

 The younger boys complimented the dinner non-stop and insisted that you regularly visit their Game Nights in exchange for your impressive culinary skill. Jungkook complained that whenever Jiyong would help in the kitchen, he could destroy whatever Yoongi would make. Yoongi attests to that but quickly protests and teased them for not appreciating his work in the kitchen.

 Jimin and Hoseok insisted that they clean up the table, escorting you to the couch. You see Jungkook setting up his PS4 on the tv across you. Namjoon stepped over the couch from behind you taking his place on your left and Jin sits down beside you on your right.

 “I guess we won’t keep you too late. You still have to pack for the MT tomorrow.” Jin turns to you, still observing you if you’re having a good time with them.

 “I’m sure you love the idea that you get to go back to your hometown even if it’s for work.” Namjoon reaches for a pillow beside him, hugging it.

 “Wait. Hometown?” your fingers froze just as you were fiddling with your phone.

 “Me and Jimin hyung were so excited when we heard that this year’s MT is in Busan. If I remember correctly, Jiyong hyung told us that his hometown is Busan, right?” Jungkook cheekily stood up with a cord in his hand. You could see the obvious grin plastered on his face as he searched for Jimin’s figure in the kitchen.

 You bite your lip as you nervously try your best to recall. Did you just forget about the MT entirely? You were sure that they announced the location for the MT earlier this morning. Maybe you were too nervous and occupied with the thought of having to present the dance routine in front of everyone that you completely forgot about the MT being in Busan.

 You sigh and rubbed your temples. Why would you even forget such an important detail like that? Just thinking about going back to Busan felt like an impending headache. There’s no way you could back out from the MT now. It’ll also look bad if you don’t join the dance team, it might send a message that you’re unsociable.

 Unaware that you turned pale and started heaving hard, the three men in the living room with you were now starkly aware of your sudden change of expression at the mention of the MT.

 “Noona, is there something wrong?” Jungkook asks with a worried voice, discarding the cord in his hands and swiftly knelt down in front of you. He tries to get a good look at you while you stare down at your knees, shoulders hunched forward.

 Your ears started ringing and you squeeze your fists as your chest started getting heavier each breathe you take. Namjoon slowly sat up straight as he sees Jin and Jungkook trying to call your attention. It was when Jin wrapped his hands around one of your clenched fists that you realize how close Jungkook is crouching in front of you, head bent to the side as he worriedly observes your face. Jin’s warm hands enveloping your small, cold and shivering hands. Namjoon frozen in his seat not knowing what to do to help you.

 “Um, can I excuse myself to the restroom please?” Your hands were starting to get clammy as you forced to compose yourself. You wish they could tell you the way to the restroom a lot faster as each passing second, it’s getting difficult to stay composed in front of them. Jin was the first to stand up from the couch and escorted you to the restroom, leaving Namjoon and Jungkook frozen in their seats.

 You quietly close the door of the restroom, making sure not to let Jin worry more. Once you were sure you heard his footsteps get away from the room you were in, you could barely hold yourself up before your legs buckle and you let yourself fall to the floor. Your weight propped against the door as you try to suck the chilled air into your lungs. Sharp successive breaths took over you, slowly making you feel pins and needles at the tips of your fingers. 

 The panic creeps up on you in bouts. Your fingers claw at your legs as you hug them tighter. Memories that you worked so hard to forget starts to resurface and replays in your mind, leaving you suffocated.

 For a moment, you picture yourself staying in the restroom for the rest of the night. You suddenly felt so alone in a space filled with 7 other people. Even the thought of standing up and getting back out takes up a lot of energy from your body.

 Your excitement for tomorrow now completely gone and replaced by dread of going back to your hometown. It’s been years and you’re not even sure if you can even handle going back there. It was only two years ago when you recovered from being haunted in your dreams by the memories of the accident. You don’t want to lose your progress since it took a lot of effort by yourself to get back up.

 It took only for you to hear boisterous laughter coming from the living room and somebody knocking on the door to remind you that you have no choice but to go back out. You reach for the edge of the sink to help yourself up. Like a newborn deer, you can’t really sustain your weight as your knees started shaking when you were standing properly. You take in one last deep breath before opening the door.

 You crack your eyes open, body heaving with effort to get enough oxygen in your lungs but you’re met with the soulful brown eyes of Yoongi, narrowed in concern. He doesn’t question you further as you step aside to give way for him to use the restroom. It took three steps out the restroom before your knees decided to give out. Yoongi rushed to catch you before you fell to the floor.

 You squeeze his arms around you that were holding you up before facing him. “You tell absolutely no one… I don’t want anyone to worry…” Breathing still ragged, you huff out every word to the best of your ability as you realize that you can’t hide your panic attack from Yoongi. You must look so bad to see Yoongi study your face with utmost care. “Yoongi please?… I’ll be fine. Don’t mind me… Just until my panic attack subsides.” He softly shush you as he sees your great effort to speak.

 Yoongi sighs before calmly looking back at the empty hallway and to the living room where everyone’s pretty much occupied. His eyes wandered back to your shivering hands and shaking knees. You’re in no shape to walk back to the living room much less stand on your own. Yoongi slowly wraps his hand on your back and behind your knees before lifting you off the floor.

 The scent coming from Yoongi’s body calms you as he cradles you in his arms. Your head felt like lead, finding its way on the crook of its neck. Before you even realize, you find yourself clinging to him as you fist your hands in his shirt. His skin is slowly getting hot against yours, and his breathing seems to have increased if you were only able to notice. His heartbeat against your ears was almost like a lullaby that greatly helped to calm you down.

 “You’re alright.” He coos as he starts to hear you sniffle. He quietly walked towards his bedroom, with you in his arms, to give you a place private enough away from the eyes of the other members. He slowly puts you down on his couch and when you were finally seated comfortably, he rushed to reach for a blanket at the edge of the bed.

 Your back felt damp, sweating all over and your fingers definitely feels asleep but clarity of your situation began creeping back. “Yo-Yoongi” You stammer as you realize that he chose to hide you in his bedroom.

 “Shh, don’t force yourself to speak. Take it easy. I’m here.” He fixed the blanket around you before crouching down to completely see your face. “Just keep breathing and it’ll go away. I’ve had my fair share of panic attacks so trust me when I say I’ll just be here until you say so. You’ll be fine.”

 You trust him as you find yourself focusing on your breathing. Once you find it easy to move your limbs with ease accompanied by a yawn, you know that the worst has passed. If it wasn’t for Yoongi, the situation could’ve escalated and would have made everyone unnecessarily worry about you.

 “Thank you.” You manage to speak out. “I feel silly that you caught me looking like that. Sorry.”

 Yoongi quietly hums, letting you speak further if you intend to while he reach for a glass of water on top of his side table beside the couch. He offers it and you take it with your hand still slightly shaking. He lets you drink first before he spoke up. “I overheard your conversation with the boys in the living room just before you went to the restroom. I was worried but I don’t know if you want anyone to check up on you. You were taking a lot longer than I expected so I knocked.”

 You prop your head in your hands, elbows leaning on your knees. “This is the first time someone has seen me like this. It just took me by surprise when Jungkook mentioned Busan. Next thing I know, all I could think about is to run out the door.”

 “I won’t force you to talk about it if it makes you uncomfortable. If you want to go home, I could just tell the boys to…” Your hand swiftly sprung out to land on Yoongi’s wrist.

 “I’m fine. Jungkook seems so happy when he showed me the games we’ll be playing. I’ll just take a moment then I’ll be back out.” You assure Yoongi with a heavy breath. He wanted to assure you that they’ll understand if you want to excuse yourself for the night but he kept quiet, trusting you that you’ll be fine.

 Not a second after, the doorbell rang to alert everyone in the dorm. Yoongi stood up from in front of you, eyes still glued on you as he saw you recognize the person on the front door just from the distinct way the doorbell was rung. “Don’t you dare tell my brother about this” You attempt to stand up, worried that Yoongi might tell Jiyong about your situation.

 “Don’t worry, I’ll keep this a secret between us. Just promise me that you’re fine before I leave you.” He assures you with his soft smile and gentle eyes as he opened the door and walking out.

 “I’m fine Yoongi. Thank you. I’ll just take a minute to fix myself up before I go back out.”

 “Take your time. I’ll try to come up with an excuse to keep them from looking for you. I’m sure Jungkook, Jin and Namjoon must be getting concerned by now.” He turns back to you before slowly closing the door.

 You find yourself collapsing against the couch, your breathing slowly going back to normal. You heaved and leaned forward to try and stand up once again. When you knew you were fully capable of making a few steps without stumbling or any of your knees giving out, you walked straight to a full size mirror beside the door to fix yourself up. You pity yourself for having been seen by Yoongi like this; your eyes and nose were bright red and a couple of hair strands stuck to your forehead due to the profuse sweat.

 To avoid anyone seeing you coming out of Yoongi’s bedroom in an effort to find you, you quickly and quietly walked out from the comfort of his room when you were sure you were devoid of signs that you were in utter distress just minutes ago. 

 Jungkook was about to run to find you but stopped when he saw you emerging back in the living room. Completely different from how you looked a while ago, he stares in confusion as you gleefully greet Jiyong who was now also present in the living room. Namjoon shares the same confusion as Jungkook. Yoongi was sitting down beside them and he saw the youngest member’s eyes following you as he tries to study your now seemingly normal expression.

 Taehyung runs up to you behind the couch where you and your brother stand, pulling your wrist to ask you to play one-on-one against him. You don’t refuse and you take up space beside him, seated on the carpet. Just before the game starts, you turn to look at Yoongi and found him gazing at you. You mouthed Thank youto him and he nods before you got back to play with Taehyung.

 Jin, Namjoon and Jungkook were wary when the topic about the MT came up again, you even catch Jungkook kicking Jimin’s feet to stop him from talking. When it was Jungkook’s turn to play again, you notice his eyes anxiously wander back to you from time to time. He must have been blaming himself for making you sad. 

 Like Jiyong knew what you needed to cheer up the youngest, he offered everyone ramyun as a late-night snack. Jungkook perked up at your brother’s offer while still glued to the screen and what looks like he’s winning against Taehyung. You quietly walked away from the living room to join your brother in the kitchen.

 For a while, Jiyong kept quiet as you both hover around the kitchen. Normally, he would shower you with affection, tease you and bug you but you silently wonder why he’s not doing any of those. Your suspicion is confirmed when he starts to rub his hand behind your back as you discard the noodles from each packet. Your gaze dipped to him as stood there silently while emptying the contents of the soup packet unto the boiling pot.

 “Noona, can I have that spicy ramen over there?” Jungkook asks, timidly walking over towards the both of you. You notice that he was standing slightly far from you, shoulders hunched and head down. His doe eyes still glistening as he subtly avoids meeting your eyes. 

Although you feel bad for him, the corner of your mouth quirked up at him looking so adorable despite him towering over you. He seems to be so intimidating at work especially when he’s so focused but if you could just ball him up right now in your hands, you would. 

You beckon him to come closer with your finger. When he was about an arms-length away from you, he opens his mouth to blurt out something. Before he even let out a sound, you pat his head, stopping him from talking any further.

“Thank you for worrying about me.” His eyes gleamed. “I’ll make you a whole bowl of ramyun of your choice. How does that sound?”

Jungkook jumps up and down in glee and he squeezed between you and Jiyong to reach for a packet of ramen. “Hyung, I like her better than you.” He sticks his tongue out then quickly dashes out of the kitchen before Jiyong could even counter.

You chortle. “You heard him. Apparently, they also request my presence every Game Night for my exquisite Culinary Expertise.”

“Well, I won’t argue about your cooking. Sooner or later, they’ll be bribing you for something. Those troublemakers.” Jiyong crinkles his nose, reminiscing all the times he spent with the boys where they’ll prank and tease him.

Yoongi sits back comfortably on the couch when he hears you regain your bright energy as you laugh and mingle with your brother in the kitchen. 

Next: pt. 7

[bleaksqueak]

Okay! I said I'd do a quick little tut for the chromatic aberration effect to the anon who asked, so here you go. Above is the raw panel, so from here, you'll be duplicating the canvas/panel by choosing "Copy Canvas" from the wrench button. Once copied, paste it into your folder and select the layer options to turn on Clipping Mask to your base panel. If doing the whole canvas, you can just paste as-is

I prefer to duplicate it once in preparation and then again each time I make a change, that way the effect can be toggled on /off or have its opacity lowered to mix with a previous effect if needed. From there, select the magic wand/effects and adjustments menu and click on Add Noise. Important: Pretend I took a screenshot of the drop-down menu, because rats must keep up appearances.

I prefer clouds with maximum octaves and low-no turbulence at a fine scale... however, play with the options and find one you like (or don't use it at all! I like the grain for a mild texture and for harmonizing the art's elements, especially on quick panels or rougher drawings.) I'm going at about 5% here. Just enough to give the desired effect, but not too much.

Once it's to your liking, duplicate your canvas/layer and select your new layer to work off of. On the magic wand menu again, select Chromatic Aberration.

We're working with the displace method, so select that instead of Perspective.

In procreate, the tool works by shifting your cursor in the direction you prefer at the distance you want. I never travel far, and I often use the warm/cold to play off of a reverse of my light source colors. I do that just to create a softened edge and a subtle color pop. Just like with the added noise, I keep the effect on a more subtle side often. Blurring at around 5 - 12 % will give your lines a soft glow and get rid of any (say, hideous pencil lines that you use as inks because you hate inking. Not that I do that. Not me.) Transparency can be bumped up or left alone, does what it says on the tin and strengthens the effect or subdues it.

Now, you might find some important detail is now too hazy? Too blurry? Too CHROMBERRATED? If so, gently erase what you want to be crisp. For Maia here, I just erased the front hair curls and her eyelashes.

Keep it or erase it, it's up to you. Play around and see what you like. Now, once all is said and done, and you like the effect, adding a few specular pops of light on a new layer can aid with bringing back in some focal points. Eye color, rim lighting, or just a couple of little metallic flecks. I use the light pen tool for this when feeling lazy, but you can use any brush you like, either on a raw Normal layer or on any of the light adjugement style layers. I chose a pale green to compliment the warm, red hues and balance the bluish shadow in her hair. Just a tiny little speck on her glasses, lips and on the rim light of her nose just to keep the anchor points of her face clear. Don't over do it (unless you want to, in that case, by all means, the light is yours to command.)

And that's the final. Hidden in the darkest shadows of voidcraft, I applied a textured brush to my canvas on Overlay because I do that for every comic page. Except for those that I forget, may their tears one day dry.

I hope that helps! The effect is subtle on this panel, but the desired effect to soften and marry the art, thus fooling the viewer's eye into thinking I super meticulously rendered this with careful prim and polish, is achieved! Hooray!

[genshin-side-piece]

Eagle Eye

Warnings: None Streamer AU - Survival Type Game, based on Escape from Tarkov but not Escape from Tarkov

I'm sorry for this. It possessed my brain and would not let me go until I wrote it.

You sniped him. 

You sniped him. It was all Ayato could do to hold his composure as both your names scrolled across the kill feed, along with the distance of said shot. A 263m snipe. His jaw dropped slightly. There was just no way. He had been bunkered down, well hidden from view. It was impossible to think that you had seen him from that distance, let alone hit the shot. You had to be cheating, there was no other way. 

“Calm down everyone.” Ayato was quick to laugh the sting of defeat off in the hope that it would ease the blur of accusations of stream snipping that were flying through his chat. It didn’t. Instead, the messages only got faster. “It was merely a lucky shot.” Or so he wanted them to believe. “Still, I’d like to check something. Thoma-” Ayato clicked out of the game he was playing and opened a browser window. “Did you happen to grab the name?” His ever diligent mod was one step ahead of him. A link quickly appeared in Ayato’s private discord, along with a clip of the kill for posterity. Ayato ignored the clip, not wanting to acknowledge Thoma’s odd sense of humor. Instead, he chose to click on the link, pulling up your stream. 

You were a smaller streamer, with a handful of viewers. He wasn’t terribly surprised. As your stream loaded, he expected bragging or screaming or even celebrating. That was usually the case with stream snipers. They would hunt him down, get their clip and then tag him on every social platform in existence, just to get their supposed clout. It was the cost of being one of the bigger streamers, or so he had been told. But once the stream loaded, there was none of that. You were calm, distracted even as you continued to rummage around for loot. The chat wasn’t filled with pats on the back or being spammed with clips. In fact, your chat was fairly silent. There was only one congratulations on the shot and that had come from your Mod. It hadn’t even been clipped for posterity. Ayato was confused. “Hm.”

He tilted his head, while furrowing his brow. Did you not know who he was? 

“Well chat-” You smiled, which oddly enough caused Ayato to smile. The warmth in your expression helped to ease some of the sting from earlier. Ayato allowed himself a moment to bask in it, much in the way one would bask in the sun. He liked the feeling it gave him. He liked the feeling you gave him. There was something about you that helped put his mind at ease, despite this being his first time seeing you.“I suppose we should start heading for the extract point.” You pulled up the menu to check how much time you had left in your raid. “I think we’ll have just enough time to swing by our favorite spot before we head out.” Ayato raised an eyebrow to that. You weren’t going to claim your prize? You were just going to leave it, leave him there? The sting from earlier returned. As much as he loathed stream snipers, he loathed your disinterest in claiming his in game tags for yourself even more. You had practically shot him from across the map. Even if you didn’t recognize him, surely you wanted the bragging rights for the elimination? 

Then as if someone had possessed his body, Ayato typed it; What about the Yashiro Rascal elim? He visibly flinched when realized what he’d done. Your chat wasn’t nearly as active as his. His message lingered on the screen. Sitting comfortably in the middle of the window, highlighted as a first time chatter for all the world to see. Ayato couldn’t help the blush that crept its way across his cheeks.

Your eyes flew over to the new message, while your smile grew wider. “Hey there, welcome in!” There was a brief moment where your eyes met on the screen and a small wave. “Thanks for joining-” You then went into what he guessed was your usual spiel of introducing yourself to him. Not that he heard any of it, he was too entranced with watching your lips move. Your voice was amazingly pleasant. It had a calming effect that seemed to wash away any of his previous worries, at least until his in game username passed your lips. The sound of you saying the name Yashiro Rascal snapped him right back to reality. “I don’t really collect tags or anything.” You paused long enough to take a shallow breath. “I’m not sure I’ll even have time to find them. I have my favorite loot spot I like to go to. Is Yashiro Rascal someone important or something? You’ll have to forgive me-” Your smile turned bashful. “I’m still new to this game. I don’t really know any of the big name players yet.” Ayato’s eyes grew wide in surprise while his long forgotten chat blazed with shocked comments as they all had the same revelation he had just had. You really didn’t know. The fact that you had just taken out one of the biggest streamers in the game had gone completely over your head. You thought you just hit the shot of your life on someone you assumed was just another casual player. 

Ayato couldn’t stop himself, he didn’t even try to. He laughed. He honest to archon laughed. It was refreshing really. Most of his streams were filled with endless hours of sweating while he was being hunted by every clout chaser on the platform. He couldn’t even show his screen on entry for the fear of being attacked before he ever had the chance to loot. Sometimes that didn’t even work. Most of his streams had begun to feel tedious and uninteresting. He almost hated doing them. If the game didn’t do the viewership numbers it did, he would have abandoned it ages ago. Before he met you, he still might have. Now he wasn’t so sure. You were still strangers to each other, but it had only taken a minute with you to remember that games could be fun, that they should be fun. Ayato began to wonder just how fun they could be with you.

“You know chat-” Ayato glanced back at the camera, giving it one of his signature smiles. “I think I’d like to try something new.” He took a sip of his boba as he watched his chat emphatically agree. “Duos seems like a fun idea. They seem rather nice, do you think this person would like to join me?” Could you be persuaded to join him was more like it. Ayato had no idea if you played with randoms or viewers and sadly, he was both. Even if he was a big name, it was presumptuous of him to think you would want to team up. Maybe you enjoyed playing on your own. It was rude of him to just barge in on your fun, simply because you’d done the unthinkable. 

Slowly, he saw a few familiar names trickle into your chat. Much to his horror, they launched right into insisting you team with him. It caught you off guard. He could clearly see the confusion on your face. “Wait… who?” Your eyes came up to the camera. “Are they-” There was a flicker of recognition in your eyes. “Are you watching me right now?” Ayato visibly cringed. He knew the intentions were honorable. He knew the people who had found you meant well, but he loathed that they felt entitled to interfere. He’d merely suggested that you game together. As far as you were aware, he was just a new viewer. He hadn’t even asked you to play yet. It was entirely unnecessary to bully you into doing something that you didn’t even know about. “Calm down everyone.” Ayato’s smile faded into a more stern look. “Let’s not run them off before I’ve even had a chance to ask them. Leave them be.” Your chat went nearly silent. There was the odd comment, but the pressure was mostly gone. It gave Ayato the opening he needed to pop the proverbial question. 

Yes, my apologies. Would you like to team up? I’m an experienced player. I can give you some pointers if you wish.

Your surprise was all too apparent. It was cute when you stumbled over your words, especially as more of his chat began to find their way to your stream, filling your chat box with messages and follows, eventually drowning his messages with their own. It was mildly frustrating, because he had liked having all of your attention, but he couldn’t blame his viewers. He’d spent the last  ten or so minutes just watching you. They were bound to get curious and find their way over to you eventually. That didn’t mean they had the right to take you away from him.

“Oh wow, so many new people! Are they with you too?” You furrowed your brow slightly. “Uh wait-“ You sucked in a portion of your lip, pinching it between your teeth as you began scanning what he guessed was your chat. Ayato nearly keened at the site. You were getting more adorable by the second. He almost couldn’t stand it. Much to his regret, he wasn’t good at hiding it either. More than one person had said something about him being smitten and before too long it picked up steam in both chats. “Where did you go?” Ayato was quick to respond.

I’m right here. My apologies, they’re from my chat. Please ignore them if you wish. We’ve been watching you since you sent me back to the lobby and they all decided to come say hello.

You smiled again, satisfied that you had found him. It made him happy that he made you smile. He hoped he could do it as many times as possible before the night was over. “It’s alright.” You paused, clearly pondering his question. “I generally run solos but-” Your smile grew larger. “I don’t mind trying duos.” The celebration in both chats made Ayato chuckle. He had to admit it was a relief not to get publicly rejected in front of so many people. “How do I contact you? Can I just DM you through the platform or is there a better way?” Ayato found himself one step ahead of you. He was already in the process of getting everything ready when you asked.

Allow me to reach out to you. I keep my DMs closed. Just respond back with your info once you get my message.

Within seconds he had his information over to you. It was actually embarrassing how quickly he sent it, but he hadn’t been this eager to co-op with someone in a very long time. The thought of playing a game or two with you seemed far more enticing than the idea of running solos for the rest of the afternoon. You promptly responded, your info being passed to Thoma before either of you could blink. “Thoma, can you set up a chat between the two of us?” He was already on it. Ayato hadn’t finished asking when the convo with the three of you popped up on his private discord server. “Alright chat, let’s all try to behave, shall we? We don’t want to give them the wrong impression.”

Is that advice for chat or you? You’ve done nothing but smile at them since you joined their channel. You haven’t been this infatuated since Tomoki introduced his seasonal boba flavors. Ayato ignored Thoma’s comment, merely rolling his eyes as he changed chat servers and began the call between himself and you. He hated that he was acting so obvious, but it was difficult for him to help. His curiosity had been peaked by you. He wasn’t able to ignore it for the sake of staying aloof.

He started the call, watching you through the screen as he waited for you to answer. There was some hesitancy on your part. Ayato could see it as you sat on the other end, letting it ring. You were nervous. Having strangers join you was always a gamble. They could be perfectly fine or they could be perfectly wretched. It was hard to know. Even Ayato had to admit to the jitters he felt in his own stomach as he waited on you to click the button. He never did this. His brand was everything. Endorsements, sponsorships, years of hard work all depended on him being careful. One wrong move, one wrong word and it would be all over for him. That’s why he generally stuck to a very tight knit group of friends that he knew were safe. They understood what his reputation meant to him and they were happy to oblige him when it came to keeping his public image safe. Offering to play games with a complete stranger was unlike him. Basing it off a feeling was even more unlike him, but for whatever reason, it didn’t deter him. It only urged his desire for you to answer the call on.

Ayato focused his eyes back to your stream, carefully watching you. It was apparent you were searching for something and by your reaction, he only had one guess when you found it. You were looking for him. Ayato didn’t try to hide his smirk, nor did he bother to stop himself from giving you a little wink as you stared. After all, turn about was fair play. Being the equitable man that he is, Ayato was more than happy to give you a show. Your reaction to it was priceless. 

You buried your face in your hands, a deep blush spread across your cheeks, causing him to chuckle. You poor thing. 

I thought you said you were going to behave. I know rascal is in your name, but can’t you hold it in until you say hi to them? If they get any redder, they’ll turn into a tomato. Another small chuckle slipped past Ayato’s lips at Thoma’s comment. Sass me again and you’ll find out how much of a rascal I can be next time I see you.

“Hello?” Ayato’s eyes quickly jumped back to the call, finding that at long last you had answered him. He breathed a silent sigh of relief that for the moment, the worst was over. That was one hurdle down. Hopefully there wouldn’t be too many more to go. “So sorry” His relief gave way to a soft smile. “I never do this. It dawned on me that maybe I should verify you aren’t a creep before I answer.” Ayato nodded, noting the slight apprehension in your voice. “It’s alright, I understand. I’m the same way. Though I suppose I had the upper hand when it came to research.” He heard you let out a small laugh. “Yea. You’ve uh-” There was another awkward laugh as he watched you turn away from the camera in a vain attempt to hide how crimson your cheeks were. “You’re him.” You rolled your lips, flinching at the vagueness of that comment. “You’re the Yashiro Rascal guy-” There was a heavy pause before you decided to finish that statement. “Aren’t you?” There was a hesitancy in your voice that made Ayato a little nervous. For a second, he swore you almost sounded a little scared. But then again, who could blame you? The game itself had a reputation for toxic trolls. You snipe a bigger streamer and suddenly they’re in your chat, inviting you to game with them? The action, while friendly on his part, had to feel a little suspicious to you. Especially when embarrassing content creators on social was all the rage. “Listen about the shot- I 

“Don’t worry about the shot. I’m not mad about it.” He added a little lilt to his voice to help put you at ease. “I’m actually extremely impressed by it.” That earned him a small smile. You nodded, letting some of the tension in your body ease. “I should actually apologize in advance to you. It’s been awhile since I’ve played duos and I have little doubt people will come for us. It might make for a rough afternoon.” “That’s alright. Duos just means that I watch your back and you watch mine, right?” That’s exactly what it meant. Ayato couldn’t be more delighted to hear it. “There’s just one thing.” You paused, taking a deep breath. “What should I call you?” Ah yes. That. “I mean it’s cool if you call by name or whatever, but I’m not sure what to use for you. Do you prefer your gamer tag or your streamer name or something else?” He thought about it for a moment, deciding he didn’t like any of those options. 

Using his online persona implied to him that this would be a one and done. Ayato didn’t want that. He didn’t want you to vanish from his life the second you were done.  It was silly to think that he was reacting this way after such a short interaction, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t collect friends like he did boba cups. His fame made good people to have in his life hard to find. Most of the time he hung around his sister or Thoma or possibly Itto, when Ayato could find him. Having someone else he could talk to, having you to talk to, even if it wasn’t all the time, felt right. “Um, are you still there?”

“Let’s make this simple, just call me Ayato.”

[icedmetaltea]

Sorry to bother you but I remember you making a tutorial on how to make your own ai with beta character ai? I can't seem to find it though. I'm I just imagining things?

You're not, I did make one, however...

Honestly?? I wouldn't even bother at this point. Character.ai has had so much drama with the devs being horrible human beings: most likely stealing/selling user data (you want to delete a bot off their website?? Too bad. You can't. Also they took a bunch of bots with high interaction counts and locked the creators out of editing, essentially stealing them from people), not listening to feedback whatsoever (actively making things much worse with every update), implementing a "nsfw" filter that blocks even the most sfw things like hugging or kissing (even with family/platonic characters), has a nasty habit of comparing anything romantic to children ("she looks at you like a daughter looks to her father" like ew what the actual fuck, and this happens literally all the fuckin time so you gotta ask how it made that association hmm), dumbing down the ai in favor of making it "safer" (now characters hardly ever act like their source material, often making up random shit), bots ignoring user input (often going on a tangent describing the environment and ignoring dialogue), bots being stupid in general (forgetting what you said literally 2-3 messages ago and giving horribly lackluster responses), devs shadowbanning people/deleting any posts respectfully calling out their shit to facilitate propaganda in their favor and make it seem like nothing's wrong, and so much more.

Drop it like a newborn giraffe.

Some other options: Pygmalion, which I'm still learning how to use and it ofc isn't going to be as advanced as Character.ai since it's a 6b model while the latter is like 100+b, meaning less data power so responses are less intelligent + slower, BUT it is free, it is open source, and you can get some pretty decent responses if you hold its hand a lot. There are some UIs you can use it through, like forks of TavernAI that give you the ability to use world info and get it to have a better memory, one for group chatting with different characters (tho I haven't tried that), a customized background, and so on. The devs are still working on a site but you can access it right now- I can make a smol tutorial for the basics of that if anyone wants it.

OpenAI is also an option, you can also use it through Tavern and it will give responses akin to if not much better than Character.ai- though you gotta pay. HOWEVER you can get a free trial with $5 to use... and there are ways of using it free after that, but I can't say it here cause if it's too widespread, it'll prolly get patched out, and we don't want that.

How to access Pygmalion - Go here and click this: (when it asks u for permission to access ur google acct, click yes)

It'll take a while to load, maybe like 5 mins or something,

Once you get to this, click the UI links (usually only one will work, use that)

Now, that will take u to the KoboldAI UI. Wanna use Tavern instead? (good choice, gives a lot more customization) Use this link.

Now scroll down till u get here to this drop down menu. Choose Pygmalion 6b or 6b Dev (to be quite honest I'm not sure what the difference is yet). Wait for that to load, and while you're waiting, go here to download the Tavern files:

boom (or some other fork)

Go here and click download ZIP.

Unzip and look for this:

Ignore everything else, just click this. (the file's safe, if windows gives you a warning, ignore it) Now you'll be here (I'm using a different fork so it may look different:)

click the 3 lil lines in the upper right corner to access settings and characters.

Once you've added/edited characters as you like (I suggest looking at the default ones if you're curious about how that works) you can come back over to the google drive and, if it's finished loading, you'll have two url links like before:

Paste one into the API key and click connect. I used the top one but the bottom might only work for you.

There ya go! A bit complicated, but that's a free substitute for character.ai.

If you instead wanna use OpenAi, (assuming you're either paying or using the free trial, or... something else ;), you'd go here on ur openai account page and go down here:

and create a secret key. Copy that and go into the UI of your choice... ima use TavernAI again. Go into settings, change your API to Openai, and paste that API key you just copied into the API link. Voila!

Here's a couple helpful links for further info: https://www.reddit.com/r/PygmalionAI/ (they have a discord, with some really helpful guides)

character creation/writing tips for Pyg

Soft prompts

General tips

I'm still a noob who knows jackshit about coding, so I can't offer much help, BUT I know the basics so ye. Hope this helps!

[phagodyke]

soooo national geographic have prevented ppl from disabling javascript to access their paywalled 'subscriber-exclusive' articles by adding an overlay which causes the article to disappear the further u scroll down... so for fun I've typed up a quick guide (below) for how to read them for free by doing a little html/css editing! normally I wouldn't bother bc you can still access the text thru saving as a webpage or 12ft.io, but this way does have the added bonus of keeping the original page formatting + images (there's often a lot of pretty photography in nat geo... + added bonus of not seeing the annoying 'unauthorised use is prohibited' messages every other paragraph). this is probably common knowledge to a lot of ppl but just thought I'd share for any less tech-fluent mutuals! enjoy <3

how to read national geographic 'subscriber exclusive' articles for free with html/css editing ;^)

paywalls suck + piracy rules! information should be for everyone. go wild.

all instructions are for firefox but I tested on a couple other browsers (edge/opera/chrome) & it worked there too!

step 1: (open page inspector) right-click + select 'inspect' or use either of the shortcuts: ctrl + shift + i or ctrl + shift + c. or you can navigate to it by clicking on the drop-down menu in the top right corner of your browser and going to ‘more tools -> developer settings’

step 2: (removes the page lock, allowing you to scroll down) navigate to 'inspector'. underneath the head section is a line beginning '<body class="Scroll--locked...' click on this then go to 'element' + untick both 'overflow:hidden' & 'position:fixed'. alternatively, you can double click on the line and manually delete both elements.

if not using firefox: ‘inspector’ may be called ‘elements’ instead… click the line ‘<body data-interaction-type…’ then go to the styles tab below + untick 'overflow:hidden' & 'position:fixed’

step 3: (removes the subscription popup box) – I found 2 ways of doing this, I’ll include them both:

method a: delete whole section of code starting '<div class="bp-mobileMDPlus...' by clicking on it + hitting the del button. make sure the little triangle points -> beforehand so that everything in that section gets deleted, if its expanded (pointing down) then just click it to close it first, otherwise you’ll have to delete every open line individually (specifically removes the paywall checking element. can be found easily by right-clicking the subscription box + selecting 'inspect' - the page inspector should navigate to the right line of code or near enough)

method b – firefox only(?): navigate to 'style editor', and hide natgeo.css by clicking the eye icon (slightly quicker method but will change formatting of some other elements, e.g., banner at top)

step 4: (removes the article overlay which causes text to fade to blank further in the article) delete the line of code '<div class="Article_Content_Overlay--gated"></div>’ by clicking on it + hitting the del button (can be found easily by scrolling down the article, right-clicking text + selecting 'inspect')

full article should now be readable! once you know what you’re doing it only takes ~30 secs

some other notes:

any edits will be undone when you refresh the page as they’re only temporarily altering the way you view the web page - so don’t hit refresh until you've finished reading!

I did this on firefox but it should work on any browser with minimal differences in the method. I've tested on opera/edge/chrome and all have worked fine for me

if you want to read nat geo articles that are NOT ‘subscriber exclusive’ but you've run out of 'free articles': this method will work for them too - but you don't need to do step 4! (the fading article overlay seems to be subscriber-exclusive…) however just temporarily disabling javascript is faster + works fine as long as there’s no overlay:

to disable javascript on firefox type about:config into the search bar. you’ll get a warning that you’re entering advanced preferences. accept this then search for ‘javascript.enabled’ and toggle from ‘true’ to ‘false’ using the little arrow switch. refresh your article page et voila! just remember to toggle it back once you’re done. this is my go-to for reading paywalled nyt articles ;-)

idk how to do this on other browsers and cba to check. google it man

you can also use 12ft.io for nat geo! much easier but doesn’t preserve og format

disclaimer I am not some tech wizard I am just a guy with a laptop who loves piracy and hates paywalls. there are tons of alternative ways of getting around them + this probably isn’t the most elegant but it works for me so! godspeed comrades <3

[darkcoffeeonly]

Calibre - Look & Feel

After setting up Calibre, setting up FanFicFare, it's now time to change the User Interface so to personalize Calibre at its best.

The standard Calibre UI can be changed by going to Preference -> Look & Feel menu:

Main Interface

In the Main Interface menu you can play around the various options:

You can choose if you want to display the calibre style (and in this case if you wish to trigger the Night Mode, under "Color Palette") or your system default.

You can check and change the icon theme, by clicking on the "Change Icon Theme" button. Select the one you wish to try out and click on "OK"

Close the Look&Feel menu and the new icon set will be used instead of the standard one.

For example, this is the look of "Monstre" theme:

If you wish to have no icon at all on top, you can disable them. Or you can make them smaller (or larger). You can decide if you want to have the text displayed or not:

Finally, you can change the Interface font.

For example, if I don't want to have icon on the menu, and I want to use Comic Sans, this will be the final result:

Cover Grid

Calibre has two options to view your books list: the List View we talked about up to now and the Cover Grid, which shows the covers.

In the Cover Grid, you can tweak how you want your Cover Grid to look like. If you want to show additional information (the Title, or the Author, or whatever else), the background color/image, the size, etc.

In the "Emblems" tab, you can choose to had an emblem to each cover following a rule. For example, let's say you want to show a "Completed" icon if the FF has been completed.

Go to Emblems, activate the "Show emblems next to the covers" option and then click on "Add rule"

When you click on Add Rule, you need first to upload the emblem you wish to use. You can search and find for icons on the web.

Then you can add your rule. When you click on the drop-down menu next to "If the", all your columns will be listed. Remember the "look-up" name of the column you want to test and select that one.

In our example, we want to test if a FF has been completed, so we will need to find the "#completed" column.

Once we selected the column, in the field next to "column" we can add the condition. Calibre automatically detects the type of data we are dealing with, so in this case we already have as option "is true"/"is false"/etc.

Confirm and go back to your books list. Click on layout on the right bottom bar and select "Cover Grid"

And here we are the final result:

Book details

In the Book Detail tab, you can flag which infos are shown in the Book Detail (quickview) that is shown on the right side (if you are using the "Wide" layout option defined in the Look&Feel tab) or at the bottom (if you are using the "Narrow" layout option). If you are comfortable with CSS you can change the CSS, you can also order how the metadata should be shown, and select which action should Calibre do as default when you click on the Author name:

In the "Narrow" layout, the final result will be shown at the bottom:

You can change its size (just drag the "three dots" around), or you can disable the "Book details" view from Layout -> Hide Book Details

Edit Metadata

The Edit Metadata tab is useful if you want to change the order of your custom fields in the "Edit Metadata" function and how they are displayed (separated from the standard one or together)

Tag Browser

The Tag Browser defines how the tag panel on the left side is customized:

You can select which tags you want to be shown (you can hide/show tags also by right-clicking on the browser tag itself and hide/show the various tags). More importantly, you can decide to hide any tag that has no value

In the "Hierarchy & Searching" tab you can define which of your tags have a hierarchical structure.

By default all tags considered at same level, but Calibre allows hierarchical tags by interpreting the dot as your hierarchy separator.

For example, if you want to create an "Era Setting" and use this hierarchy:

Hogwarts -> 6th Year

Hogwarts -> 7th Year

Hogwarts -> 8th Year

Post Hogwarts

Others

You will need to create a custom column (#hp_era_setting) and flag it as Hierarchical in the tag browser.

If you fill data as "Hogwarts.6th Year", Calibre will show the hierarchy like this:

Cover Browser // Quickview

I'm skipping this two tabs because I have never changed anything there. They can be used to change the Cover Browser and Quickview tools you can find under "Layout" icon (the same one you use to switch to the Cover Grid and to Show/Hide the Books details)

Column Coloring

Column Coloring tab is used to define how to change colors of a field based on any kind of rule.

For example, let's say you want to change the color of a row from black to gray if you have already rated a fanfiction.

You need to create a rule like this, in which you change the colour of all columns for all records in which the column "Rating" has been set

Here the result:

You can add multiple rules. So for example you want to change the color of your stars?

You need to add a rule in which you change the color of ONLY the Rating Column if a Rating has been set:

Column Icons

The last tab, "Column Icons" will allow you to add icons to column based on rules.

For example, let's say you want to show icons for the rating. You need to have rules like this one:

In which you are setting an icon (without text, if you don't want to see the actual column value) if the Content Rating value is "Explicit",

The result will be like this:

Changing the Tool Bar

You can also change the Tool Bar to add/hide menu options you are not interested in.

Changing the icons on the Tag Browser

You can change the icons in the tag browser by right-clicking on the tag you wish to change and selecting the "change icon" option:

Further customization

You can fine-tune the look & feel of your library through JobSpy Plugin.

JobSpy is a super complex plugin (which I won't pretend I know much about to start with) but for our needs we just needs two things:

Open the "Customize GUI Tools"

and scroll down till you find the GUI Colors: Library View, Tag Browser.

Here you can choose your color scheme and activate it:

2. By default when you change the icon on the Tag Browser, the new icon is used for all the items. But maybe you want to change the icons to match your "Column Icon" rule.

Select GUI Tools That are Look & Field Related -> Customize User Category Tag Browser

Select the tag you want to customize and the plugin will detect all the values currently used:

Browse your pc for the related icon and assign it to the value. You can review the assigned icon in the table.

Flag the option to apply them at Calibre start-up, and here you are the result:

Calibre Integration with GoodReads & your e-reader

In the next post I will go through some basic tools to integrate your calibre library to goodreads, to download goodreads cover and to set up your e-reader.